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2,200 | Make a Resolution and Read These 5 Books in 2021 | Make a Resolution and Read These 5 Books in 2021
5 Books to Read to Become a Pro-Reader Instantly
Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash
A year filled with unwanted circumstances, and fear has come to an end. Still, I find this year special for me because this year I have truly achieved what I could not in the past years.
Like me, there are many outs there who have achieved so many great things and pursued their passion or explored their creativity this year.
2020 is a year of blessing in disguise.
I have read over 21 books in the year 2020 so far. And there 5 books which I would like to recommend to others who are or want to take a resolution of reading books in the coming year 2021.
I got you, my friends. These five books are thought-provoking, which will nourish your mind and will help you find your better self.
Atomic Habits by James Clear
This book has truly changed my perspective of doing things. It is one of the best books which I’ve read this year.
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Here, the author James Clear has explored and described some practical ways to build your habits, which eventually turned into a system that will help you achieve your goals quickly.
He focuses on topics like;
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behaviour. If you want better results like your idol has achieved, try to focus on their system instead of focusing on their success. Four Laws of Behaviour Change are a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are making it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying.
There are some visual representations in the book which I adored.
Atomic Habits is a life-changing practical guide that you can implement easily into your life to see some changes. James Clear has also explained some prominent examples which are convincing and smart.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
I was totally unaware of this book before reading it, but by the time I crossed the Steve Jobs example of why there are several factors behind his success.
I was completely into it. It took me 3 days to complete this book and I have also listened to the audible version, which is also outstanding.
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Outliers is based on the stories of successful people and it explores the un-explored way which tells us that there are not only passion, hard-work, and goodwill involved behind all these successful billionaires.
But many other things helped them to become who they are today.
I truly liked the 10K hour rule concept, which describes that if you want to be a master in any kind of work. You need to have at least 10,000 hours under your belt to attain that position.
Malcolm is a phenomenal story-teller and his examples are pretty well researched. It keeps you hooked till the end.
There so many insightful research and theories which you have never heard of or even tried to think of. Totally out of the box!
Outliers: The Story of Success, go give it a shot. It’s worth it.
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
If I have summarised my experience with this book, I would say it is a hell of a fun ride, filled with laughter and learning moments.
It is a love letter to life.
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It is a memoir filled with remembering life experiences from the life of Matthew McConaughey, written by Matthew McConaughey and also narrated by Matthew McConaughey (if you are listening to the audiobook version).
I started off with a book and later shifted to an audiobook version because listening to the enchanting voice of Matthew feels so much energy. It feels like I’m in the moment experiencing those things in front of my eyes.
I love his accent, the way he tells ‘Notes to self’ sections, and all the minute details about his life during Australia and how he landed on the audition of Dazed & Confused, and many more.
“Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice every time.” — Greenlights, Matthew McConaughey
One thing which I learned from this memoir is to appreciate life as it is. To find greenlights instead of red and yellow.
Highly Recommended.
The Trial by Franz Kafka
It is sad knowing Kafka left this world so early without knowing how talented he is which we all consider now years later. He is the prime example of innate talent.
I have read ‘The Castle’ and recently the first fiction I read this year is ‘The Trial’ which literally blew my mind because it is so complex that I had to see the movie by the same name directed by Orson Welles in 1962 starring Anthony Perkins.
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In its uncomfortable portrayal of a society where people are watched by the secret police and unexpectedly detained, the trial is profoundly thought-provoking, representing the social unrest in Europe during 1914.
I do not want to explain anything in detail because it is worth reading and to know how Kafka raises some questions which are noteworthy.
Reading fiction like this always plays with your mind because it is boring yet challenging to grasp at the start, but it awakens that spark in your mind to learn and explore themes you haven’t discovered.
The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud.
The discovery by Freud that the dream is the medium by which the unconscious can be investigated is arguably the most revolutionary move forward in psychology’s entire history.
This book caught my attention because ‘Dreams’, the word itself, is fascinating and worth exploring.
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Freud discusses some dreaming-thinking literature and his principles are entirely drawn from his own research, but they also draw on other people’s experiences and works in the field which would be unsurprising in itself.
There are also some sections of the book which illogical for our period to believe in. But if you want to understand the psychology of dreaming, Freud’s work is absolutely worth reading.
It is fascinating to look into Freud’s research about dreams and the psychology behind dreaming.
“Dreams are never concerned with trivia.” — Sigmund Freud
So these are my 5 book recommendation, which I want you to read and make a resolution for 2021 to read these five books next year.
I am damn sure that all these books are excellent and will not disappoint in any aspect. Still, everyone has their own taste, but still.
If you got any great recommendations for me please comment down your response below. I am eager to explore more books for the next year.
Keep Reading. | https://medium.com/illumination/make-a-resolution-and-read-these-5-books-in-2021-7d9201cedaf6 | ['Neil S.'] | 2020-12-18 12:21:15.449000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Books', 'Habits', 'Novel', 'Writing'] | Title Make Resolution Read 5 Books 2021Content Make Resolution Read 5 Books 2021 5 Books Read Become ProReader Instantly Photo Zac Durant Unsplash year filled unwanted circumstance fear come end Still find year special year truly achieved could past year Like many out achieved many great thing pursued passion explored creativity year 2020 year blessing disguise read 21 book year 2020 far 5 book would like recommend others want take resolution reading book coming year 2021 got friend five book thoughtprovoking nourish mind help find better self Atomic Habits James Clear book truly changed perspective thing one best book I’ve read year Created Author using Canva Pro author James Clear explored described practical way build habit eventually turned system help achieve goal quickly focus topic like Habits compound interest selfimprovement environment invisible hand shape human behaviour want better result like idol achieved try focus system instead focusing success Four Laws Behaviour Change simple set rule use build better habit making obvious make attractive make easy make satisfying visual representation book adored Atomic Habits lifechanging practical guide implement easily life see change James Clear also explained prominent example convincing smart Outliers Malcolm Gladwell totally unaware book reading time crossed Steve Jobs example several factor behind success completely took 3 day complete book also listened audible version also outstanding Created Author using Canva Pro Outliers based story successful people explores unexplored way tell u passion hardwork goodwill involved behind successful billionaire many thing helped become today truly liked 10K hour rule concept describes want master kind work need least 10000 hour belt attain position Malcolm phenomenal storyteller example pretty well researched keep hooked till end many insightful research theory never heard even tried think Totally box Outliers Story Success go give shot It’s worth Greenlights Matthew McConaughey summarised experience book would say hell fun ride filled laughter learning moment love letter life Created Author using Canva Pro memoir filled remembering life experience life Matthew McConaughey written Matthew McConaughey also narrated Matthew McConaughey listening audiobook version started book later shifted audiobook version listening enchanting voice Matthew feel much energy feel like I’m moment experiencing thing front eye love accent way tell ‘Notes self’ section minute detail life Australia landed audition Dazed Confused many “Persist pivot concede It’s u choice every time” — Greenlights Matthew McConaughey One thing learned memoir appreciate life find greenlights instead red yellow Highly Recommended Trial Franz Kafka sad knowing Kafka left world early without knowing talented consider year later prime example innate talent read ‘The Castle’ recently first fiction read year ‘The Trial’ literally blew mind complex see movie name directed Orson Welles 1962 starring Anthony Perkins Created Author using Canva Pro uncomfortable portrayal society people watched secret police unexpectedly detained trial profoundly thoughtprovoking representing social unrest Europe 1914 want explain anything detail worth reading know Kafka raise question noteworthy Reading fiction like always play mind boring yet challenging grasp start awakens spark mind learn explore theme haven’t discovered Interpretation Dreams Sigmund Freud discovery Freud dream medium unconscious investigated arguably revolutionary move forward psychology’s entire history book caught attention ‘Dreams’ word fascinating worth exploring Created Author using Canva Pro Freud discus dreamingthinking literature principle entirely drawn research also draw people’s experience work field would unsurprising also section book illogical period believe want understand psychology dreaming Freud’s work absolutely worth reading fascinating look Freud’s research dream psychology behind dreaming “Dreams never concerned trivia” — Sigmund Freud 5 book recommendation want read make resolution 2021 read five book next year damn sure book excellent disappoint aspect Still everyone taste still got great recommendation please comment response eager explore book next year Keep ReadingTags Mindfulness Books Habits Novel Writing |
2,201 | Do you need an Amazon advertising strategy? | E-marketer recently reported that Amazon, is the number 3 Digital Ad platform in the US. Right after Google (37.1%) and Facebook (20.6%). With its 4.1% market share, Amazon has now passed mighty Oath, and Microsoft.
There are many reasons for this, one of which is an accounting change at Amazon. Nonetheless, here’s the reality that should get your attention — Amazon is sitting on a massive amount of data that they will be looking to monetize through advertising.
As a strategist, they should be on your radar if they weren’t already. Next question: Do you need an Amazon ad strategy right now?
What problem can Amazon ads solve for you?
Let’s start with the nature of the Amazon marketplace, and what sets it apart from Google and Facebook. Once you have a grip on those two things, you can answer the question of whether Amazon needs to be in your advertising mix.
Direct to consumers
Amazon is, of course, primarily an online marketplace for consumers and brands to sell product. To help your product rank high in Amazon search results and get the attention of your prospects, the company provides a number of paid solutions — sponsored postings, video formats, and more.
But Amazon doesn’t just own the Amazon domains, it also has other major websites such as IMDB.com. So naturally you can advertise your products there, too.
What does that mean for you?
Simple. If your business has a direct-to-consumer relationship, i.e. you sell products directly to consumers, Amazon ads are something to take note of. And if you don’t you have to ask yourself if your product should have a direct to consumer relationship. Typically, this applies for CPG type brand who want to bypass or augment the retail distribution model. It allows them to supplement sales without investment in e-commerce and to avoid costly shelf-space wars.
What that looks like in terms of Amazon strategy and how that works with your Google and Facebook strategy is to be figured out by your marketing team. A little more on that below.
Target markets
But Amazon’s true advertising strength comes from its data. “Today over 54% of product searches that occur on the entire internet occur on Amazon,” says Bloomberg Technology. To put it another way, Amazon has a massive, ever-growing treasure chest of detailed data on online purchase behaviour. Combine that with the data garnered from its hosting arm over the years- AWS and you can get an idea for Amazon’s scale.
Their established position and their data are the true power of their advertising platform. If you believe that you can find your target market by extrapolating from their actual purchases or purchase-intent behaviours, you’ll have the right fit with Amazon.
For example, for one of our clients we knew that people who are interested in musical instruments and accessories would align well with our target market. So we picked up Amazon as an advertising channel.
That doesn’t mean that your ads will be on Amazon directly. It means you’ll be using Amazon insights to serve advertising throughout their owned platforms.
How does it compare?
Following, the framework we take my clients through to help with decision-making on Amazon advertising.
Google primarily has data about the next moment:
What is one person looking to do a moment from now?
Where are they going to go?
What are they looking for?
Of course, Google has more, but this is a good place to start from a mental model perspective. The question to ask is: Do you want to catch your consumer in the very moment when they want or need your services? A classic example is a person shopping for a new car. Your ads need to be present when a prospect is doing research and moving through the buying process. No surprise, search advertising is a stable pillar in the automotive marketing mix.
By contrast, Facebook’s strength come from data about habits, interests, and their connections. What does one person read? What do they like? What do they enjoy? Who are they connected to?
To understand the appropriateness of this channel for your service/product, ask yourself: Do I know precisely who my target market is? What do I actually know about them demographically and psychographically?
By contrast, Amazon has data about purchase intent — what do people want to buy and what have they bought. Now you have to decide whether past purchases and purchase searches are a stronger predictor for your brand or, for instance, online searches. The answer is likely a combination of both.
And that’s just the beginning
With Alexa, WholeFoods, and Go Stores, Amazon now offers access to voice search data, retail shopping habits, and food consumption behaviour — all in one space. And make no mistake, all that data will be eventually monetized.
So. Will you have an Amazon ad strategy?
Update: Amazon Tests Search-Based Retargeting, The First Time Its Search Data Leaves Its Walls | https://medium.com/empathyinc/do-you-need-an-amazon-advertising-strategy-258e04219ae5 | ['Mo Dezyanian'] | 2018-10-29 15:06:02.045000+00:00 | ['Advertising', 'Marketing', 'Amazon'] | Title need Amazon advertising strategyContent Emarketer recently reported Amazon number 3 Digital Ad platform US Right Google 371 Facebook 206 41 market share Amazon passed mighty Oath Microsoft many reason one accounting change Amazon Nonetheless here’s reality get attention — Amazon sitting massive amount data looking monetize advertising strategist radar weren’t already Next question need Amazon ad strategy right problem Amazon ad solve Let’s start nature Amazon marketplace set apart Google Facebook grip two thing answer question whether Amazon need advertising mix Direct consumer Amazon course primarily online marketplace consumer brand sell product help product rank high Amazon search result get attention prospect company provides number paid solution — sponsored posting video format Amazon doesn’t Amazon domain also major website IMDBcom naturally advertise product mean Simple business directtoconsumer relationship ie sell product directly consumer Amazon ad something take note don’t ask product direct consumer relationship Typically applies CPG type brand want bypass augment retail distribution model allows supplement sale without investment ecommerce avoid costly shelfspace war look like term Amazon strategy work Google Facebook strategy figured marketing team little Target market Amazon’s true advertising strength come data “Today 54 product search occur entire internet occur Amazon” say Bloomberg Technology put another way Amazon massive evergrowing treasure chest detailed data online purchase behaviour Combine data garnered hosting arm year AWS get idea Amazon’s scale established position data true power advertising platform believe find target market extrapolating actual purchase purchaseintent behaviour you’ll right fit Amazon example one client knew people interested musical instrument accessory would align well target market picked Amazon advertising channel doesn’t mean ad Amazon directly mean you’ll using Amazon insight serve advertising throughout owned platform compare Following framework take client help decisionmaking Amazon advertising Google primarily data next moment one person looking moment going go looking course Google good place start mental model perspective question ask want catch consumer moment want need service classic example person shopping new car ad need present prospect research moving buying process surprise search advertising stable pillar automotive marketing mix contrast Facebook’s strength come data habit interest connection one person read like enjoy connected understand appropriateness channel serviceproduct ask know precisely target market actually know demographically psychographically contrast Amazon data purchase intent — people want buy bought decide whether past purchase purchase search stronger predictor brand instance online search answer likely combination that’s beginning Alexa WholeFoods Go Stores Amazon offer access voice search data retail shopping habit food consumption behaviour — one space make mistake data eventually monetized Amazon ad strategy Update Amazon Tests SearchBased Retargeting First Time Search Data Leaves WallsTags Advertising Marketing Amazon |
2,202 | CatBoost: Cross-Validated Bayesian Hyperparameter Tuning | We know that, in order to train a model that generalizes well to unseen data, that we cannot overfit the model to the data. Given a real-life data set, there is no way to tell how well a model will generalize, just because you never know what kind of real life data might be thrown at the model in the future. New data might not conform well to the distributions of existing data.
So you use cross-validation — divide the data into folds (let’s say 5, for now), and train on all but one of the folds (4 of them) and then test your model on the 5th — in other words, always leave one out as the validation data. So you’re actually training 5 models, each of which have different performance scores on their respective validation sets. Since these models might have different weights, in order to consolidate you have to find some “average” of the three models, something that would do well no matter what validation data it’s facing.
Of course, before you do that you have to have some loss function to train the model with, and then evaluate the model using some other error measure. Let’s say we have a binary classification problem, so that the target class is {0,1}, and we decide to use the Matthews Correlation Coefficient, which is a balanced measure of classifier performance. It takes into account all 4 “quadrants” of the confusion matrix — true and false positives and negatives.
CatBoost, like most decision-tree based learners, needs some hyperparameter tuning. There are plenty of hyperparameter optimization libraries in Python, but for this I am using bayesian-optimization. From their documentation is this explanation of how the whole thing works:
Bayesian optimization works by constructing a posterior distribution of functions (gaussian process) that best describes the function you want to optimize. As the number of observations grows, the posterior distribution improves, and the algorithm becomes more certain of which regions in parameter space are worth exploring and which are not, as seen in the picture below.
For the Matthews Correlation Coefficient, you can just use the implementation from matthews_corrcoef from sklearn.metrics.
Take a gander at the code first. In this case X1 is the data matrix of features, and Y1 is the binary class targets:
You’re probably familiar with the StratifiedKFold from sklearn, which divides the data into folds, while trying to keep the ratio of classes about the same in each fold. You can see here we have 5 folds, and, importantly, that we are appending the Matthews score into a list (so there will be 5 scores) and then finding the mean (np.mean(), where np is numpy). Therefore, the idea is that we are finding values of the hyperparameters that, in theory, guarantee a certain level of generalizability. In addition, we can use l2_leaf_reg, and model_size_reg, num_bins, num_leaves and other such hyperparameters to reduce overfitting. The pbounds (parameter bounds) dictionary you see in the code above contains ranges for the hyperparameters, and of course, YMMV, but I have found that these ranged are a good place to start. Sometimes, you have to run the algorithm a few times, first with wider ranges, and then narrowing it down. This is because too large a band and the algorithm might not converge in the number of iterations you’ve allotted.
You can see that I did int(depth) and int(num_leaves), for example, because the BHO process will come up with floats, which then have to converted into integers, because you can’t have 2.33 leaves or 44.55 estimators (trees). I want to use the best model, so the use_best_model parameter is set to True, which means that when you call .fit, you have to add the eval_set = (valx1, valy1) bit at the end.
Just to reiterate, the point of this that I wanted to create a model that is, to the best of our knowledge, generalizable — but generalizable specifically in terms of its performance on the Matthews Correlation Coefficient. You’ll find that using the ROC-AUC, F1, accuracy, or other such metrics will result in different hyperparameter values. | https://medium.com/ai-in-plain-english/catboost-cross-validated-bayesian-hyperparameter-tuning-91f1804b71dd | ['Peijin Chen'] | 2020-09-25 14:01:30.856000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Python', 'Machine Learning', 'Bayesian Optimization'] | Title CatBoost CrossValidated Bayesian Hyperparameter TuningContent know order train model generalizes well unseen data cannot overfit model data Given reallife data set way tell well model generalize never know kind real life data might thrown model future New data might conform well distribution existing data use crossvalidation — divide data fold let’s say 5 train one fold 4 test model 5th — word always leave one validation data you’re actually training 5 model different performance score respective validation set Since model might different weight order consolidate find “average” three model something would well matter validation data it’s facing course loss function train model evaluate model using error measure Let’s say binary classification problem target class 01 decide use Matthews Correlation Coefficient balanced measure classifier performance take account 4 “quadrants” confusion matrix — true false positive negative CatBoost like decisiontree based learner need hyperparameter tuning plenty hyperparameter optimization library Python using bayesianoptimization documentation explanation whole thing work Bayesian optimization work constructing posterior distribution function gaussian process best describes function want optimize number observation grows posterior distribution improves algorithm becomes certain region parameter space worth exploring seen picture Matthews Correlation Coefficient use implementation matthewscorrcoef sklearnmetrics Take gander code first case X1 data matrix feature Y1 binary class target You’re probably familiar StratifiedKFold sklearn divide data fold trying keep ratio class fold see 5 fold importantly appending Matthews score list 5 score finding mean npmean np numpy Therefore idea finding value hyperparameters theory guarantee certain level generalizability addition use l2leafreg modelsizereg numbins numleaves hyperparameters reduce overfitting pbounds parameter bound dictionary see code contains range hyperparameters course YMMV found ranged good place start Sometimes run algorithm time first wider range narrowing large band algorithm might converge number iteration you’ve allotted see intdepth intnumleaves example BHO process come float converted integer can’t 233 leaf 4455 estimator tree want use best model usebestmodel parameter set True mean call fit add evalset valx1 valy1 bit end reiterate point wanted create model best knowledge generalizable — generalizable specifically term performance Matthews Correlation Coefficient You’ll find using ROCAUC F1 accuracy metric result different hyperparameter valuesTags Data Science Artificial Intelligence Python Machine Learning Bayesian Optimization |
2,203 | The Sharp Startup: When PayPal Found Product-Market Fit | Reflections on the 20th anniversary of a $100+ billion product
Twenty years ago this month, PayPal found product-market fit. I remember the moment vividly because it’s a dramatic example of a strategy that still works today. I call it “going Sharp.”
Whereas the average startup launches a bunch of features for a bunch of use cases to appeal to many possible users, the Sharp Startup focuses on a few killer features for the most desperate customer segment. In short, it finds a wedge into the market.
The Sharp Startup focuses on the most desperate customer segment. It finds a wedge into the market.
While it’s important to have a larger vision, the Sharp Startup remains opportunistic and agile enough that when it spots this kind of opening in the market, it drops everything else and drives all of its troops through it.
I recall the moment that happened at PayPal. I was sharing an office with Luke Nosek at the legendary 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto. Luke ran marketing while I was in charge of product. It was a contrast in styles as Luke was terrific at brainstorming new ideas whereas I was obsessed with getting the product to work. Crammed into a tiny office, our impromptu jam sessions resulted in some great collaborations.
In November 1999, our customer service rep forwarded me an email from an eBay power seller. The eBay seller had turned the PayPal logo into a nice-looking button for her auctions and was asking our permission to use it.
Ironically I was forwarded the message not for product reasons but because I was temporarily handling the company’s legal affairs, owing to a law degree I’ve hardly ever used. It was a potential trademark infringement question.
At the time, we were vaguely aware of the auction use case but it was discussed along with splitting dinner tabs, student allowances, and a bunch of other nebulous value props. The truth is that we thought “emailing money” was a terrific product idea but we had no idea who would actually use it or what the market would be.
Luke had come up with PayPal’s now-famous $10 signup and referral bonuses to encourage the product to spread. But without a clear picture of the ideal user, we didn’t know who to target, and adoption had been tepid.
I brought up the email with Luke. It seemed extraordinary that an eBay seller had taken the time to create her own PayPal auction button. If she cared that much, how many others did too?
It seemed extraordinary that an eBay seller had taken the time to create her own PayPal auction button. If she cared that much, how many others did too?
We went to the eBay website and searched for ‘paypal’. Hundreds of auctions appeared in the search results because PayPal was mentioned in the item description as a possible method of payment. Our minds were blown!
eBay sellers were desperate for a solution because their alternative was to wait a week for a check to arrive in the mail and then wait for it to clear. Some of them had already found PayPal on their own. One of them cared enough to make an auction button and ask our permission to use it.
We were giddy. We knew we had just found signs of initial product-market fit. Now how could we accelerate it?
First of all, you can use our logo, we told the auction seller. Better yet, we’re going to give you an even nicer one. We pulled in our web designer, who was none other than Chad Hurley, the future founder of YouTube.
PayPal’s famous Buy Now buttons were inspired by a customer service email.
Chad quickly created a pay-me-with-PayPal button that eBay sellers could embed in their auctions. They just had to copy & paste the HTML. To reduce friction further, we allowed sellers to enter their eBay credentials and we would automatically insert the button into all their auctions. In other words, we productized the idea.
Fueled by the powerful incentive of the referral bonus, the program spread like wildfire in the tight-knit eBay community. Soon, most auctions were advertising PayPal. We rolled out other features for auction sellers that made it even more convenient to use PayPal. We dropped other plans and went all-in on the eBay use case.
We dropped other plans and went all-in on the eBay use case.
Results were immediate. At the end of 1999, PayPal had less than 10,000 users. By the end of January 2000, we hit 100,000 users. A few months after that, 1 million. By the summer of 2000, 5 million. It felt like the servers were melting. The growth curve looked like a perfect hockey stick.
It was a classic Sharp strategy: we identified the most desperate customer segment, went all-in on their use case, and found ways to turbo-charge the adoption. Notably, many of the key features were distribution tricks, not just product enhancements. As a result, we captured the key beachhead market of the nascent online payments space, ahead of our many competitors.
Admittedly, we were very lucky. After casting a wide net, we stumbled onto the break-out use case. But at least when fortune smiled on us in the form of a customer service email, we didn’t send it to the spam folder. | https://medium.com/craft-ventures/the-sharp-startup-when-paypal-found-product-market-fit-5ba47ad35d0b | ['David Sacks'] | 2019-11-11 19:01:53.936000+00:00 | ['Startup Lessons', 'Marketing Strategies', 'Marketing', 'Venture Capital', 'Startup'] | Title Sharp Startup PayPal Found ProductMarket FitContent Reflections 20th anniversary 100 billion product Twenty year ago month PayPal found productmarket fit remember moment vividly it’s dramatic example strategy still work today call “going Sharp” Whereas average startup launch bunch feature bunch use case appeal many possible user Sharp Startup focus killer feature desperate customer segment short find wedge market Sharp Startup focus desperate customer segment find wedge market it’s important larger vision Sharp Startup remains opportunistic agile enough spot kind opening market drop everything else drive troop recall moment happened PayPal sharing office Luke Nosek legendary 165 University Avenue Palo Alto Luke ran marketing charge product contrast style Luke terrific brainstorming new idea whereas obsessed getting product work Crammed tiny office impromptu jam session resulted great collaboration November 1999 customer service rep forwarded email eBay power seller eBay seller turned PayPal logo nicelooking button auction asking permission use Ironically forwarded message product reason temporarily handling company’s legal affair owing law degree I’ve hardly ever used potential trademark infringement question time vaguely aware auction use case discussed along splitting dinner tab student allowance bunch nebulous value prop truth thought “emailing money” terrific product idea idea would actually use market would Luke come PayPal’s nowfamous 10 signup referral bonus encourage product spread without clear picture ideal user didn’t know target adoption tepid brought email Luke seemed extraordinary eBay seller taken time create PayPal auction button cared much many others seemed extraordinary eBay seller taken time create PayPal auction button cared much many others went eBay website searched ‘paypal’ Hundreds auction appeared search result PayPal mentioned item description possible method payment mind blown eBay seller desperate solution alternative wait week check arrive mail wait clear already found PayPal One cared enough make auction button ask permission use giddy knew found sign initial productmarket fit could accelerate First use logo told auction seller Better yet we’re going give even nicer one pulled web designer none Chad Hurley future founder YouTube PayPal’s famous Buy button inspired customer service email Chad quickly created paymewithPayPal button eBay seller could embed auction copy paste HTML reduce friction allowed seller enter eBay credential would automatically insert button auction word productized idea Fueled powerful incentive referral bonus program spread like wildfire tightknit eBay community Soon auction advertising PayPal rolled feature auction seller made even convenient use PayPal dropped plan went allin eBay use case dropped plan went allin eBay use case Results immediate end 1999 PayPal le 10000 user end January 2000 hit 100000 user month 1 million summer 2000 5 million felt like server melting growth curve looked like perfect hockey stick classic Sharp strategy identified desperate customer segment went allin use case found way turbocharge adoption Notably many key feature distribution trick product enhancement result captured key beachhead market nascent online payment space ahead many competitor Admittedly lucky casting wide net stumbled onto breakout use case least fortune smiled u form customer service email didn’t send spam folderTags Startup Lessons Marketing Strategies Marketing Venture Capital Startup |
2,204 | How I Quadruple my Productivity by Working at The Café | We all hit walls along the path to productivity, and although it’s not easy to overcome them, we all have ways of at least trying to do so. One of my favourite ways is to hit the café.
Getting there becomes an obstacle on its own if I start thinking about the fact that I have to put on my jacket, my shoes, pack up my stuff, and ride my bike for literally 5 minutes. But one of the amazing things with creative work is that the more you output, the easier it gets.
You can start completely uninspired, with no idea where you’re going. If you convince yourself to start working for 5 minutes, you could be on a 3-hour productivity rush before you even realize it. This is why I still put my jacket and my shoes on, pack up my stuff, and ride my bike for 5 minutes. Because I know it will get easier.
The order
The order is really important. I consider it a very small investment in myself. Whatever I order, be it a coffee, a cookie, or both, I have now spent money to be here, to get to work. I have to get a return, even on this tiny little investment.
A habit is a redundant set of automatic and unconscious thoughts, behaviours, and emotions, acquired through repetition. When you’ve done something so many times that your body knows how to do it better than your mind, you’ve successfully created a habit.
I like to think that I have gotten to this point with my coffeeshop routine. Once I have made the order, my brain (and body) switches to work mode.
I don’t consider this coffee (or cookie) a reward, because I haven’t started working yet. The coffee is the cue that will initiate the work habit loop. The reward is the output I will have at the end of my session.
josephmavericks.com (coffee icon by joe pictos from the Noun Project)
If you’re interested in learning more about the habit loop, I recommend Charles Duhigg’s excellent book The Power of Habit.
The place
The café I go to is usually not crowded, therefore pretty quiet. The music is ok, the atmosphere is chill, and the chairs are somewhat comfy.
The environment is important when working. The occasional environment switch is just as much. The reason I go to a café is because sometimes, I just can’t get to work at home.
I walk around the house
I’m distracted by everything
I go have a bite in the kitchen
I watch useless videos
I lie in bed staring at the ceiling in a starfish position
An environmental switch is one the best ways for me to change that. So I get out, and once I’m at the café, I know I’m here to work.
The work
I follow a very strict set of rules to make sure I maximise my return on the investment I made in myself.
I do not allow myself any distraction whatsoever
When I work at home, I might a have break, go for a walk, eat a snack, get distracted by a notification. Not at the coffeeshop.
I barely ever use and/or need the wifi network there. I write.
I disable notifications on my laptop (“do not disturb mode” on Mac)
I don’t bring my phone with me unless I need it, which is almost never
I don’t have breaks, because I’m sitting in a café. I can’t really go for a walk.
Disable notifications on Mac
Nicolas Cole didn’t have an internet connection at his place from the ages of 22 to 26. Why? Because he was working on his book, and he didn’t wan’t any sort of distraction to get in the way of his goal: finishing his book. By being so strict with himself, he drastically increased his productivity and his commitment to his target.
I work in 1 or 2-hour sessions
Because I force myself to not get distracted and I made a tiny financial investment in myself, I usually stay at the coffee shop for a while. I can catch up on a whole day made of constant interruptions and occasional procrastination in one coffeeshop session. I sometimes stay for more than 2 hours, and I’m always surprised by the amount of stuff I get done.
Regardless of my motivation and my creative output, I don’t allow myself to leave before an hour has passed. I always end up getting to work and staying longer.
I follow an agenda
The first thing I do when I sit down at my table and pull out my laptop is this: I open up Textedit, and I write all the things I intend on doing during my work session. Sometimes it’s a lot, sometimes it’s little, and I don’t always get to the end of it. But what gets done is done for good, and I don’t need to think about it anymore. It doesn’t matter if I’m over ambitious. Ambition drive results.
Again, I do not allow myself to get off track. If I’m getting stuck on a task, I pick another one from my list. But I don’t think of something else I could do if it’s not on the list.
The reward
My greatest reward is the work I get done over my session. It makes me really happy, it pushes me to keep going forward with my project. It also makes me confident that it’s all worth it. If I’m on a roll and I feel like working even more, I might re-order something, usually a coffee.
In conclusion, here are the steps of the Café Action Plan I use to overcome a wall on my productivity path: | https://medium.com/mavericks-thoughts/how-i-quadruple-my-productivity-by-going-to-the-caf%C3%A9-73cdbc526459 | ['Joseph Mavericks'] | 2019-12-14 16:48:47.625000+00:00 | ['Habit Building', 'Productivity', 'Motivation', 'Habits', 'Work'] | Title Quadruple Productivity Working CaféContent hit wall along path productivity although it’s easy overcome way least trying One favourite way hit café Getting becomes obstacle start thinking fact put jacket shoe pack stuff ride bike literally 5 minute one amazing thing creative work output easier get start completely uninspired idea you’re going convince start working 5 minute could 3hour productivity rush even realize still put jacket shoe pack stuff ride bike 5 minute know get easier order order really important consider small investment Whatever order coffee cookie spent money get work get return even tiny little investment habit redundant set automatic unconscious thought behaviour emotion acquired repetition you’ve done something many time body know better mind you’ve successfully created habit like think gotten point coffeeshop routine made order brain body switch work mode don’t consider coffee cookie reward haven’t started working yet coffee cue initiate work habit loop reward output end session josephmaverickscom coffee icon joe pictos Noun Project you’re interested learning habit loop recommend Charles Duhigg’s excellent book Power Habit place café go usually crowded therefore pretty quiet music ok atmosphere chill chair somewhat comfy environment important working occasional environment switch much reason go café sometimes can’t get work home walk around house I’m distracted everything go bite kitchen watch useless video lie bed staring ceiling starfish position environmental switch one best way change get I’m café know I’m work work follow strict set rule make sure maximise return investment made allow distraction whatsoever work home might break go walk eat snack get distracted notification coffeeshop barely ever use andor need wifi network write disable notification laptop “do disturb mode” Mac don’t bring phone unless need almost never don’t break I’m sitting café can’t really go walk Disable notification Mac Nicolas Cole didn’t internet connection place age 22 26 working book didn’t wan’t sort distraction get way goal finishing book strict drastically increased productivity commitment target work 1 2hour session force get distracted made tiny financial investment usually stay coffee shop catch whole day made constant interruption occasional procrastination one coffeeshop session sometimes stay 2 hour I’m always surprised amount stuff get done Regardless motivation creative output don’t allow leave hour passed always end getting work staying longer follow agenda first thing sit table pull laptop open Textedit write thing intend work session Sometimes it’s lot sometimes it’s little don’t always get end get done done good don’t need think anymore doesn’t matter I’m ambitious Ambition drive result allow get track I’m getting stuck task pick another one list don’t think something else could it’s list reward greatest reward work get done session make really happy push keep going forward project also make confident it’s worth I’m roll feel like working even might reorder something usually coffee conclusion step Café Action Plan use overcome wall productivity pathTags Habit Building Productivity Motivation Habits Work |
2,205 | How To Succeed Without Being A Workaholic: Twitter Co-founder Shares His Secret | Stone proves you can have your cake and eat it, too.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
To succeed, you must eat, sleep and breathe your work. You should put your blinders on, block out all distractions and keep your eyes on the prize.
For most of us, this is our mantra. I certainly believed it until I interviewed one of today’s greatest entrepreneurs, Isaac “Biz” Stone. As the cofounder of Twitter and Blogger, his success speaks for itself.
But what’s his secret? Growing up, did he solely focus on startups until he reached 10,000 hours?
To understand Stone’s success, let’s rewind to his years at Wellesley High School. Back then, his friends were drama nerds, his favorite movie was The Princess Bride and he directed and starred in the school’s production of Robin Hood (posters around town read, “Isaac Stone presents: Robin Hood, Starring Biz Stone!”). He even found a way to put together the play after the school unexpectedly cut its budget.
“We were scrappy. I remember going door-to-door in January collecting old Christmas trees for the backdrop of Sherwood Forest,” Stone recalled. “Come show time, we drew a full house. We did matinees, evening shows, and more. It was so successful that we even took the show on the road for a little while.”
It’s easy to assume that Stone’s devotion to theater put him behind peers who spent that time hacking away in computer labs. However, University of Michigan Psychologists Mary Gick and Keith Holyoak say the opposite. In 1980, they conducted a fascinating experiment that explains why Stone’s “irrelevant” experiences actually boosted his creativity, problem-solving, and entrepreneurial abilities.
To illustrate, consider this brainteaser:
Suppose you’re a doctor faced with a patient who has a malignant tumor in his stomach. It’s impossible to operate on the patient, but unless the tumor is destroyed, the patient will die. There is a kind of ray that can destroy the tumor. If the rays reach the tumor all at once at a sufficiently high intensity, the tumor will be destroyed. Unfortunately, at this intensity, the healthy tissue that the rays pass through on the way to the tumor will also be destroyed. At lower intensities, the rays are harmless to healthy tissue but will not affect the tumor either. What type of procedure might be used to destroy the tumor with the rays, and at the same time avoid destroying the healthy tissue?
If you can’t solve it, you’re not alone. Only 3% of Gick and Holyoak’s subjects could. Now, read this unrelated passage and see if anything changes.
A fortress was located in the center of the country. Many roads radiated out from the fortress. A general wanted to capture the fortress with his army. But he also wanted to prevent mines on the roads from destroying his army and neighboring villages. As a result, the entire army could not all go down one road to attack the fortress. However, the entire army was needed to capture the fortress; an attack by one small group could not succeed. The general therefore divided his army into several small groups. He positioned the small groups at the heads of the different roads. The small groups simultaneously converged on the fortress. In this way, the army captured the fortress.
When this military story preceded the medical problem, subjects were 67% more likely to find the solution! If you’re still stumped, you kill the tumor the same way the army conquered the fortress (blast low intensity rays from different sides of the tumor and have them converge in the middle. That way, the collective ray will have a high intensity to destroy the tumor without harming the healthy tissue around it).
Drawing powerful analogies between two unrelated worlds is called conceptual blending. This process has sparked countless breakthroughs, including Henry Ford’s famous idea for automobile assembly lines, which came after he saw slaughterhouses process pigs the same way.
Stone changed my perspective on working hard vs. working smart.
For Stone, conceptual blending between theater and startups was his X-factor. It gave him unique insights beyond others in the tech industry. His knack for understanding a customer’s pain points derives from his acting years, when he learned to empathize and put himself in other peoples’ shoes. His charisma on stage later translated to the boardroom, where he won over investors instead of audience members.
“If you want to be good at what you do, you have to have new, varied experiences as much as possible,” Stone explained. “I’ve always thought that creativity and problem-solving comes from lateral thinking. In other words, the ability to connect dots you otherwise couldn’t connect if you didn’t have a robust set of experiences to draw from.”
Today, Stone still adds to his robust set of experiences. Recently, he produced a short movie for Project Imagit10n with legendary director Ron Howard. Just like high school, Stone did it all: he spent many late nights writing storylines, casting actors and directing on set. The result was Evermore, a moving film about a girl who reunites her mother and grandfather using motifs from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven.
“I feared the ‘go back to your day job’ comment,” he said. “But it’s always worth getting new experiences when you can. The more things you do outside your comfort zone, the more you’ll make leaps and jumps when you return to your ‘normal work life.’ The more you’ll be able to see further ahead than others.”
Stone’s story shows the importance of exploring the unimportant. His outlet was theater but for you it may be improv comedy, photography, or painting.
For me, it’s creating cartoons. Stone helped me realize it’s beneficial to pursue interests outside work. Before, I felt downright guilty. I thought the time I spent doodling took away from my job as a product marketer. But the opposite is true. Creating the Every Vowel cartoon series has made me a clearer thinker, better designer and stronger copywriter.
Looking beyond our industry helps us succeed within it. Next time you find yourself eating, sleeping, and breathing your work, just remember: taking your blinders off doesn’t mean taking your eyes off the prize. | https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-to-succeed-without-being-a-workaholic-twitter-co-founder-shares-his-secret-7dfd3d1a260a | ['Jon Youshaei'] | 2016-10-26 22:21:33.986000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Storytelling', 'Tech', 'Twitter', 'Entrepreneurship'] | Title Succeed Without Workaholic Twitter Cofounder Shares SecretContent Stone prof cake eat Stop you’ve heard succeed must eat sleep breathe work put blinder block distraction keep eye prize u mantra certainly believed interviewed one today’s greatest entrepreneur Isaac “Biz” Stone cofounder Twitter Blogger success speaks what’s secret Growing solely focus startup reached 10000 hour understand Stone’s success let’s rewind year Wellesley High School Back friend drama nerd favorite movie Princess Bride directed starred school’s production Robin Hood poster around town read “Isaac Stone present Robin Hood Starring Biz Stone” even found way put together play school unexpectedly cut budget “We scrappy remember going doortodoor January collecting old Christmas tree backdrop Sherwood Forest” Stone recalled “Come show time drew full house matinee evening show successful even took show road little while” It’s easy assume Stone’s devotion theater put behind peer spent time hacking away computer lab However University Michigan Psychologists Mary Gick Keith Holyoak say opposite 1980 conducted fascinating experiment explains Stone’s “irrelevant” experience actually boosted creativity problemsolving entrepreneurial ability illustrate consider brainteaser Suppose you’re doctor faced patient malignant tumor stomach It’s impossible operate patient unless tumor destroyed patient die kind ray destroy tumor ray reach tumor sufficiently high intensity tumor destroyed Unfortunately intensity healthy tissue ray pas way tumor also destroyed lower intensity ray harmless healthy tissue affect tumor either type procedure might used destroy tumor ray time avoid destroying healthy tissue can’t solve you’re alone 3 Gick Holyoak’s subject could read unrelated passage see anything change fortress located center country Many road radiated fortress general wanted capture fortress army also wanted prevent mine road destroying army neighboring village result entire army could go one road attack fortress However entire army needed capture fortress attack one small group could succeed general therefore divided army several small group positioned small group head different road small group simultaneously converged fortress way army captured fortress military story preceded medical problem subject 67 likely find solution you’re still stumped kill tumor way army conquered fortress blast low intensity ray different side tumor converge middle way collective ray high intensity destroy tumor without harming healthy tissue around Drawing powerful analogy two unrelated world called conceptual blending process sparked countless breakthrough including Henry Ford’s famous idea automobile assembly line came saw slaughterhouse process pig way Stone changed perspective working hard v working smart Stone conceptual blending theater startup Xfactor gave unique insight beyond others tech industry knack understanding customer’s pain point derives acting year learned empathize put peoples’ shoe charisma stage later translated boardroom investor instead audience member “If want good new varied experience much possible” Stone explained “I’ve always thought creativity problemsolving come lateral thinking word ability connect dot otherwise couldn’t connect didn’t robust set experience draw from” Today Stone still add robust set experience Recently produced short movie Project Imagit10n legendary director Ron Howard like high school Stone spent many late night writing storyline casting actor directing set result Evermore moving film girl reunites mother grandfather using motif Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven “I feared ‘go back day job’ comment” said “But it’s always worth getting new experience thing outside comfort zone you’ll make leap jump return ‘normal work life’ you’ll able see ahead others” Stone’s story show importance exploring unimportant outlet theater may improv comedy photography painting it’s creating cartoon Stone helped realize it’s beneficial pursue interest outside work felt downright guilty thought time spent doodling took away job product marketer opposite true Creating Every Vowel cartoon series made clearer thinker better designer stronger copywriter Looking beyond industry help u succeed within Next time find eating sleeping breathing work remember taking blinder doesn’t mean taking eye prizeTags Life Lessons Storytelling Tech Twitter Entrepreneurship |
2,206 | Halloween in New York | Cartoonist for the New Yorker among other places. I love my mom and white wine. My graphic memoir MURDER BOOK out in 2021. Follow on Insta @CartoonsbyHilary!
Follow | https://medium.com/spiralbound/halloween-in-new-york-28f3ea7dcf87 | ['Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell'] | 2018-10-19 13:01:01.837000+00:00 | ['Hilary Campbell', 'Nonfiction', 'Comics', 'Halloween', 'New York'] | Title Halloween New YorkContent Cartoonist New Yorker among place love mom white wine graphic memoir MURDER BOOK 2021 Follow Insta CartoonsbyHilary FollowTags Hilary Campbell Nonfiction Comics Halloween New York |
2,207 | Resampling Methods for Inference Analysis | 1. Bootstrapping
Bootstrapping is a method to create samples with replacement from the original sample. Since it is done with replacement each data point has an equal probability of being picked subsequently. We can bootstrap n times (say 1000), calculate and record the desired estimate (i.e. mean) for each of these n samples. In the end, we can find the distribution for the desired estimate.
Image by author
📢General use cases of bootstrapping are finding robust estimates of confidence intervals, standard errors of population parameters such as mean, median, correlation coefficient, regression coefficient, etc.
To illustrate Bootstrapping in Python, I will be using Fish market dataset from Kaggle. The dataset consists of 7 common different fish species in fish market sales and I will be focusing on the “Roach” fish. I will also be selecting “Length1” as attribute.
data = pd.read_csv('./Fish.csv')
data = data.loc[data["Species"] == "Roach"]["Length1"] pd.DataFrame({'values': data.describe()}).reset_index()
As above we can calculate the sample mean with data.mean(), 95% confidence intervals with np.percentile(data, [2.5,97.5]).
However, by going from sample distribution to the population distribution, we are making several hidden assumptions such as: distribution of the “Length1” values are normally distributed and confidence intervals are symmetric. In most cases, these assumptions might not be correct.
mean = data.mean()
confidence_int = np.percentile(data, [2.5, 97.5])
Sample Mean= 20.65, 95% Confidence Interval = [14.61, 27.36]
Distribution of Length1 Values with the 95% Confidence Intervals
For this reason, we should bootstrap to find mean and confidence intervals.👇
mean_lengths, n = [], 1000 for i in range(n):
sample = np.random.choice(data["Length1"],
replace=True,
size=len(data))
sample_mean = sample.mean()
mean_lengths.append(sample_mean)
boot_mean = np.mean(mean_lengths)
boot_ci = np.percentile(mean_lengths, [2.5, 97.5])
Bootstrapped Mean= 20.60, 95% Confidence Interval = [19.22 22.07]
Distribution of Bootstrapped Sample Mean Values with the 95% Confidence Intervals
2. Jackknife Resampling
Jackknife resampling technique is based on creating samples by systematically leaving one observation out in the original dataset. We should calculate the desired value for each sample and then find the distribution of all values.
As an example, if we are given a sample with size n, then the Jackknife estimate is found by aggregating the estimated statistic of each (n-1) samples.
Image by author
📢General use cases of Jackknife resampling is finding variance and bias.
mean_lengths, n = [], len(data)
index = np.arange(n) for i in range(n):
jk_sample = data[index != i]
mean_lengths.append(jk_sample.mean()) mean_lengths_jk = np.mean(np.array(mean_lengths))
jk_variance = (n-1)*np.var(mean_lengths)
Jackknife estimate of the mean = 20.64
Jackknife estimate of the variance = 0.59
3. Permutation Test
Permutation test is a type of statistical significance test, which tries to obtain the distribution of the test statistic (under the null hypothesis) without making strong assumptions about data.
Imagine that we are given 2 samples and we would like to test whether if these 2 samples have different characteristics (i.e. mean). We could calculate the mean of the 2 samples and decide whether they are different or not. But analyzing in this way wouldn’t be statistically significant since we do not have the data of entire population, but only subsets from it.
Instead, we can perform permutation test, which works as follows:
Combine two samples into a single dataset. Shuffle the combined dataset and randomly resample it into 2 datasets (sized same as prior samples). Calculate the test statistics (i.e. the difference between means) and record the value. Repeat the steps above n times (say 10000 times). Compare the original test statistic with the recorded values, if the original test statistic lies well with the permuted records then test statistics are indeed not different and the difference between sample means is only due to chance. If the original statistic lies outside of the most permuted records than it means that there is a significant difference between the two samples.
To illustrate Permutation test in Python, I will be using again the Fish market dataset from Kaggle. This time I will be focusing on the “Roach” fish by selecting “Length1” & “Length2” attributes.
💬I will be investigating if the mean values of these two values differ significantly or due to chance.
First 5 rows from the dataset
data["Length1"].mean()
data["Length2"].mean()
Mean of Length1: 20.65
Mean of Length2: 22.27
We are investigating whether the difference between two sample means (-1.62) is by chance or statistically significant.
--> Step 1: Combine datasets
sample1 = data["Length1"]
sample2 = data["Length2"]
data = np.concatenate([sample1, sample2]) --> Step 2: Shuffle and randomly resample into 2 datasets
perm = np.array([np.random.permutation(len(sample1) + len(sample2)) for i in range(10000)])
permuted_1_db = data[perm[:, :len(sample1)]]
permuted_2_db = data[perm[:, len(sample1):]] --> Step 3: Calculate the test statistics
samples = np.mean(permuted_1_db, axis=1) - np.mean(permuted_2_db, axis=1) --> Step 4: Repeat it n times
Done in step 2 with for loop --> Step 5: Compare the original test stat with the recorded values
test_stat = np.mean(sample1) - np.mean(sample2)
p_val = 2*np.sum(samples >= np.abs(test_stat))/10000
print("p-value = {}".format(p_val))
test_statistic = -1.62
p-value = 0.15
The p-value tells us 15% of the time, we should expect to reach the similar mean difference between the 2 samples.
If you want to learn more about permutation tests and hypothesis testing, you can also read my article A guide to A/B testing (attached below)⚡ | https://towardsdatascience.com/resampling-methods-for-inference-analysis-e75fecfefcb2 | ['Idil Ismiguzel'] | 2020-11-25 13:39:11.932000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Statistics', 'Python', 'Education', 'Exploratory Data Analysis'] | Title Resampling Methods Inference AnalysisContent 1 Bootstrapping Bootstrapping method create sample replacement original sample Since done replacement data point equal probability picked subsequently bootstrap n time say 1000 calculate record desired estimate ie mean n sample end find distribution desired estimate Image author 📢General use case bootstrapping finding robust estimate confidence interval standard error population parameter mean median correlation coefficient regression coefficient etc illustrate Bootstrapping Python using Fish market dataset Kaggle dataset consists 7 common different fish specie fish market sale focusing “Roach” fish also selecting “Length1” attribute data pdreadcsvFishcsv data datalocdataSpecies RoachLength1 pdDataFramevalues datadescriberesetindex calculate sample mean datamean 95 confidence interval nppercentiledata 25975 However going sample distribution population distribution making several hidden assumption distribution “Length1” value normally distributed confidence interval symmetric case assumption might correct mean datamean confidenceint nppercentiledata 25 975 Sample Mean 2065 95 Confidence Interval 1461 2736 Distribution Length1 Values 95 Confidence Intervals reason bootstrap find mean confidence intervals👇 meanlengths n 1000 rangen sample nprandomchoicedataLength1 replaceTrue sizelendata samplemean samplemean meanlengthsappendsamplemean bootmean npmeanmeanlengths bootci nppercentilemeanlengths 25 975 Bootstrapped Mean 2060 95 Confidence Interval 1922 2207 Distribution Bootstrapped Sample Mean Values 95 Confidence Intervals 2 Jackknife Resampling Jackknife resampling technique based creating sample systematically leaving one observation original dataset calculate desired value sample find distribution value example given sample size n Jackknife estimate found aggregating estimated statistic n1 sample Image author 📢General use case Jackknife resampling finding variance bias meanlengths n lendata index nparangen rangen jksample dataindex meanlengthsappendjksamplemean meanlengthsjk npmeannparraymeanlengths jkvariance n1npvarmeanlengths Jackknife estimate mean 2064 Jackknife estimate variance 059 3 Permutation Test Permutation test type statistical significance test try obtain distribution test statistic null hypothesis without making strong assumption data Imagine given 2 sample would like test whether 2 sample different characteristic ie mean could calculate mean 2 sample decide whether different analyzing way wouldn’t statistically significant since data entire population subset Instead perform permutation test work follows Combine two sample single dataset Shuffle combined dataset randomly resample 2 datasets sized prior sample Calculate test statistic ie difference mean record value Repeat step n time say 10000 time Compare original test statistic recorded value original test statistic lie well permuted record test statistic indeed different difference sample mean due chance original statistic lie outside permuted record mean significant difference two sample illustrate Permutation test Python using Fish market dataset Kaggle time focusing “Roach” fish selecting “Length1” “Length2” attribute 💬I investigating mean value two value differ significantly due chance First 5 row dataset dataLength1mean dataLength2mean Mean Length1 2065 Mean Length2 2227 investigating whether difference two sample mean 162 chance statistically significant Step 1 Combine datasets sample1 dataLength1 sample2 dataLength2 data npconcatenatesample1 sample2 Step 2 Shuffle randomly resample 2 datasets perm nparraynprandompermutationlensample1 lensample2 range10000 permuted1db dataperm lensample1 permuted2db dataperm lensample1 Step 3 Calculate test statistic sample npmeanpermuted1db axis1 npmeanpermuted2db axis1 Step 4 Repeat n time Done step 2 loop Step 5 Compare original test stat recorded value teststat npmeansample1 npmeansample2 pval 2npsumsamples npabsteststat10000 printpvalue formatpval teststatistic 162 pvalue 015 pvalue tell u 15 time expect reach similar mean difference 2 sample want learn permutation test hypothesis testing also read article guide AB testing attached below⚡Tags Data Science Statistics Python Education Exploratory Data Analysis |
2,208 | I Only Wanted to Love My Body.. A Story about Sex, Shame and Survival | My journey to understand my own sexuality took a detour early in my life. I was abused when I was younger, between the ages of four to seven. My brain stored those memories so when my hormones kicked during puberty there was a possibility things might go awry.
What was natural and normal got tangled in a love affair with the trauma part of my brain. I have PTSD, so there were hormones and memories mingling with my fantasies and arousal hormones in a way that created intense turmoil and disruption.
My relationship with sex has evolved, curiously and wildly over the last 28 years of my life since I decided to make sex a part of it, or even before when I was curious and too embarrassed to ask my friends. The disruption happened early when feelings of arousal became clouded in shame and guilt. What was normal and natural felt like it should be contained or only felt under the microscope of personal torture.
Survival meant dissociating from the feelings of guilt and shame. These feelings were tremendously powerful and responded quite dramatically in my body. The Feelings of shame always started in my head. There, a painful sensation dripped down my brain, and suffocated my throat. Nausea then came up strong and deliberate. It echoed through my intestines as it trolled through my blood. The emotions overcame and paralyzed me physically and emotionally. My brain turned black, my body frozen. It felt like being sexually abused all over again.
My body and brain felt like they were going to atrophy and die. A subtle touch to my skin from someone else was painful.
The only way for my body to survive was to dissociate when shameful feelings started in my body, which meant a dissociation from sex entirely, and avoiding intimacy and connection from my sexual partners.
I was not able to feel vulnerable in any way. Vulnerability was frightening. Vulnerability created pain.
My abuser threatened to set me on fire if I told anyone. I grew more afraid of fire than sex, then more afraid of sex than fire. I grew up in a family that didn’t discuss, talk, or pretend sex was happening. I stayed silent about my abuse.
Compounding my confusion was my attraction to both men and women, or boys and girls as it may be in high school. My mother was into making me as feminine a woman as she could control. I don’t think this was out of fear, but her own narcissism and selfishness that my outward personality be as hetero normal as possible.
There was disruption in understanding my own sexuality. During puberty I became a horny teenager who couldn’t control my desires, couldn’t control my attractions, and couldn’t control my negative feelings about my desires and attractions. I was also expected to choose to live my adult life in a hetero normal nuclear family. Growing up there were very few alternative options made available to me.
So, my sex life got a little weird. At least, my sexual behavior got weird.
Read more about this topic:
I decided that I needed to lose my virginity to a man as a sort of ritual to move forward in my life. I was not interested in connection or intimacy. It was an emotionless decision. I was an introverted, shy, but incredibly as sure a thing as any high school boy could find. Except I wasn’t announcing it to the world. The boys needed to find me. Of course, my mother would freak if I announced it. I had to keep my horniness under control.
I almost had sex with a woman first, another girl in my grade. We were completely different outwardly, but we made the implied connection. She chickened out. I continued with my plan to finally see a penis in person.
I was apparently not giving out the right vibe, and I wasn’t the most pretty. At least I didn’t think I was pretty. I was a short and mousy brunette. I had a lazy eye which I felt kept potential suitors away. Still, I was motivated.
At home I had a hidden collection of erotica and porn. I really did. It would be another 10 years until I learned that most girls did, but I was too ashamed to say. I was trying to avoid shame.
I was readily available. I was also pretty matter of fact about it, if anybody asked me. No one asked me. For years. Then someone did. It was almost a business transaction, each of us using each other for our own personal ends. He asked me while news of the fall of the Soviet Union blared from the television behind him.
I was hoping it was going to happen right then, but he set up a time later in the week.
Everything went as planned, except I cried a steady three hours into my sweatshirt afterwards. I wasn’t expecting it. There I was all hiccups and snot and tears. I had a red face and scratchy throat for hours. I really thought I hadn’t felt anything. I really tried to push every ounce of feeling aside during the sexual experience, but I learned feelings have to go somewhere when they’re ignored.
Someone asked me again months later. A matter of fact offer for my vagina, no strings attached. No connection. The poor boy looked surprised when I casually replied, “Yeah, sure, when,” without any emotion. I agreed because the first time was clearly a fluke, but then it wasn’t. I cried harder and longer in an uncontrollable flop on the floor. It was even more confusing.
I went to college shortly after this experience and quickly became quite promiscuous with men. I wanted to rid myself of the sad and pitiful crying, and thought I could control my thwarted and weird sexual thinking by having a lot of sex with men. I didn’t have much self worth, and it’s easy to predict how I felt about myself might lead to promiscuous behavior. I wasn’t seeking out fulfillment of my worth, and I certainly never felt self assured by my behavior. I was seeking control and manipulation of my feelings, but my path led me to feel more guilty and embarrassed.
I became sort of a joke, in part, and that didn’t feel good.
I also started to put myself into dangerous situations that left me vulnerable to violence and abuse. The act of dissociation can be effective only in the short term. The “feelings had to go somewhere” analogy meant I was seeking some other feeling as compensation for the way I disconnected. I wanted to feel alive. The feeling of danger gave me more of a false sense of control.
I also wanted people to visually see how traumatized I had become, and how much help I needed to be whole. I didn’t know how to ask, and I didn’t really want it. I just wanted to wear my damage like a flag.
I was raped, multiple times. Stalked, abused, and treated with the violence I sought. That realization of vulnerability regardless just because I was physically small was earth shattering. I sought to be less vulnerable by pretending violence didn’t bother me.
All in an attempt to feel normal, I became more broken.
I wanted to love and respect my body, but I just couldn’t make it possible.
When I was twenty, I fell in love with a woman. I mean, I fell in love so ridiculously hard. It was more than lust as we became friends. She had amazing blonde hair. It was this intense love I couldn’t control. A feeling my body didn’t know how to handle. It wasn’t reciprocated, and I fell harder. Guilt, shame, love, desire, attraction, lust, disappointment, sadness, and longing in a dust bowl of intensity I could not handle. I felt all the emotions I was trying to avoid. I started cutting myself for relief, and tried to commit suicide.
I still think about her often.
Yeah, I did that… May I remind you that my personal sexuality is disrupted and traumatized. My brain is broken in the ways I think about and process difficult emotions.
I flew harder into unchained, intense and crazy relationships with both men and women. I needed to feel alive, but also detached. A delicate balance manipulated by choosing sexual partners that fulfilled that destiny. I started drinking heavily to try and manage the feelings I did experience. I used people and let myself be used. I had surreal experiences.
Mostly, I had experiences that deeply embarrassed me. A self fulfilling prophecy of shame and guilt, by trying to avoid shame and guilt.
You don’t have to physically cut yourself with a razor blade to deeply wound your body and soul in irreparable ways. You can’t cry because you’ll never stop crying.
My trauma was never going to magically disappear, and it was keeping me from loving myself, and loving my life.
I was in quicksand, barely hanging on. I denied real sexual pleasure and connection for the high and lows of addiction to avoid real feelings and connection.
Two things happened that shaped the end of this cycle. I was violently raped. I did not think I was in a dangerous situation, but it happened. It left me feeling tremendously hollow inside for about a year. Then, filled with so much emotion I couldn’t move my body. It was a culmination of shame and guilt finding its way to the surface of my skin from deep inside. I thought my sex life was over, but it was just beginning.
Then, I got married. Yeah, I did that… I really didn’t think that was going to happen.
My partner expected me to engage in sex in an intimate and connected way. I had to be vulnerable, and loving, and tender, and kind. Shame and guilt just spilled out of me instead. Out of every pore of my skin, unwillingly, uncontrollably and unstoppable.
He was blindsided.
My solution was to stop having sex. I hid my body in clothes meant for him to find me unattractive. I considered divorce. I just could not have sex anymore. That is all. The end.
“Seriously, not going to have any more sex,” I said. I thought it was the end of my sex life.
Except, eventually, I got horny.
It was only the beginning.
I discovered that my sexuality is the version of confidence and self love that I project to the world. It’s about love, connection and vulnerability. None of which I knew how to bring into the narrative of sex. I only could tell the story with guilt and shame.
I felt vulnerable when people stared at my 32G chest, but I would look at that, too. They’re kind of distracting.
I mistook the idea of male gaze as something to avoid. Rather, it’s something to own. Guilt and shame just also happened to be a part of my sexuality, but they don’t have to be the only parts. I can choose to invite positive feelings into the narrative.
My feelings can’t kill me- even the negative ones. They’ve tried unsuccessfully to ruin a perfectly badass body for the world by suggesting I hide it.
So, to new beginnings!
I haven’t dried up, yet, and when that happens they make lube.
Joy Ellen Sauter is a full time writer currently living in Seattle, Washington, with her partner, two teenage boys, and two dogs. She studied American History at Shippensburg Univeristy, and Penn State. She writes about Mental Health, Sexuality, Parenting a Special Needs Child, and Popular Culture/History. She fully adults, but is always trying to get a nap. She misses Philadelphia soft pretzels and her dad more than sunshine. She is writing her first novel. | https://joyellensauter.medium.com/i-only-want-to-love-my-body-4d77b481e825 | ['Joy Ellen Sauter'] | 2020-08-17 16:54:30.247000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Sexuality', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Sex'] | Title Wanted Love Body Story Sex Shame SurvivalContent journey understand sexuality took detour early life abused younger age four seven brain stored memory hormone kicked puberty possibility thing might go awry natural normal got tangled love affair trauma part brain PTSD hormone memory mingling fantasy arousal hormone way created intense turmoil disruption relationship sex evolved curiously wildly last 28 year life since decided make sex part even curious embarrassed ask friend disruption happened early feeling arousal became clouded shame guilt normal natural felt like contained felt microscope personal torture Survival meant dissociating feeling guilt shame feeling tremendously powerful responded quite dramatically body Feelings shame always started head painful sensation dripped brain suffocated throat Nausea came strong deliberate echoed intestine trolled blood emotion overcame paralyzed physically emotionally brain turned black body frozen felt like sexually abused body brain felt like going atrophy die subtle touch skin someone else painful way body survive dissociate shameful feeling started body meant dissociation sex entirely avoiding intimacy connection sexual partner able feel vulnerable way Vulnerability frightening Vulnerability created pain abuser threatened set fire told anyone grew afraid fire sex afraid sex fire grew family didn’t discus talk pretend sex happening stayed silent abuse Compounding confusion attraction men woman boy girl may high school mother making feminine woman could control don’t think fear narcissism selfishness outward personality hetero normal possible disruption understanding sexuality puberty became horny teenager couldn’t control desire couldn’t control attraction couldn’t control negative feeling desire attraction also expected choose live adult life hetero normal nuclear family Growing alternative option made available sex life got little weird least sexual behavior got weird Read topic decided needed lose virginity man sort ritual move forward life interested connection intimacy emotionless decision introverted shy incredibly sure thing high school boy could find Except wasn’t announcing world boy needed find course mother would freak announced keep horniness control almost sex woman first another girl grade completely different outwardly made implied connection chickened continued plan finally see penis person apparently giving right vibe wasn’t pretty least didn’t think pretty short mousy brunette lazy eye felt kept potential suitor away Still motivated home hidden collection erotica porn really would another 10 year learned girl ashamed say trying avoid shame readily available also pretty matter fact anybody asked one asked year someone almost business transaction u using personal end asked news fall Soviet Union blared television behind hoping going happen right set time later week Everything went planned except cried steady three hour sweatshirt afterwards wasn’t expecting hiccup snot tear red face scratchy throat hour really thought hadn’t felt anything really tried push every ounce feeling aside sexual experience learned feeling go somewhere they’re ignored Someone asked month later matter fact offer vagina string attached connection poor boy looked surprised casually replied “Yeah sure when” without emotion agreed first time clearly fluke wasn’t cried harder longer uncontrollable flop floor even confusing went college shortly experience quickly became quite promiscuous men wanted rid sad pitiful cry thought could control thwarted weird sexual thinking lot sex men didn’t much self worth it’s easy predict felt might lead promiscuous behavior wasn’t seeking fulfillment worth certainly never felt self assured behavior seeking control manipulation feeling path led feel guilty embarrassed became sort joke part didn’t feel good also started put dangerous situation left vulnerable violence abuse act dissociation effective short term “feelings go somewhere” analogy meant seeking feeling compensation way disconnected wanted feel alive feeling danger gave false sense control also wanted people visually see traumatized become much help needed whole didn’t know ask didn’t really want wanted wear damage like flag raped multiple time Stalked abused treated violence sought realization vulnerability regardless physically small earth shattering sought le vulnerable pretending violence didn’t bother attempt feel normal became broken wanted love respect body couldn’t make possible twenty fell love woman mean fell love ridiculously hard lust became friend amazing blonde hair intense love couldn’t control feeling body didn’t know handle wasn’t reciprocated fell harder Guilt shame love desire attraction lust disappointment sadness longing dust bowl intensity could handle felt emotion trying avoid started cutting relief tried commit suicide still think often Yeah that… May remind personal sexuality disrupted traumatized brain broken way think process difficult emotion flew harder unchained intense crazy relationship men woman needed feel alive also detached delicate balance manipulated choosing sexual partner fulfilled destiny started drinking heavily try manage feeling experience used people let used surreal experience Mostly experience deeply embarrassed self fulfilling prophecy shame guilt trying avoid shame guilt don’t physically cut razor blade deeply wound body soul irreparable way can’t cry you’ll never stop cry trauma never going magically disappear keeping loving loving life quicksand barely hanging denied real sexual pleasure connection high low addiction avoid real feeling connection Two thing happened shaped end cycle violently raped think dangerous situation happened left feeling tremendously hollow inside year filled much emotion couldn’t move body culmination shame guilt finding way surface skin deep inside thought sex life beginning got married Yeah that… really didn’t think going happen partner expected engage sex intimate connected way vulnerable loving tender kind Shame guilt spilled instead every pore skin unwillingly uncontrollably unstoppable blindsided solution stop sex hid body clothes meant find unattractive considered divorce could sex anymore end “Seriously going sex” said thought end sex life Except eventually got horny beginning discovered sexuality version confidence self love project world It’s love connection vulnerability None knew bring narrative sex could tell story guilt shame felt vulnerable people stared 32G chest would look They’re kind distracting mistook idea male gaze something avoid Rather it’s something Guilt shame also happened part sexuality don’t part choose invite positive feeling narrative feeling can’t kill even negative one They’ve tried unsuccessfully ruin perfectly badass body world suggesting hide new beginning haven’t dried yet happens make lube Joy Ellen Sauter full time writer currently living Seattle Washington partner two teenage boy two dog studied American History Shippensburg Univeristy Penn State writes Mental Health Sexuality Parenting Special Needs Child Popular CultureHistory fully adult always trying get nap miss Philadelphia soft pretzel dad sunshine writing first novelTags Life Lessons Sexuality Mental Health Psychology Sex |
2,209 | Make Your Unconscious Conscious To Win | Make Your Unconscious Conscious To Win Mission Follow Mar 17 · 3 min read
“When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate.” –Carl Jung
So now that we’re on a path to empathize and heal our intergenerational traumas, let’s take a look at the “Core Language Approach.”
This is an approach developed by the It Didn’t Start With You author, Mark Wolynn, and can help us verbalize (make conscious) and then attack these challenges. The four steps:
The Core Compliant
The Core Descriptors
The Core Sentence
The Core Trauma
Let’s start with “The Core Compliant.”
This is the foundation of getting at our central mind and body block.
What is your deepest fear? It could be a feeling or situation. What do you find yourself worrying about again and again?
Write it out on paper. Try writing it again and again if you find yourself not being completely honest. Remember, you can throw away the paper later!
Once you see the words, read them out loud. Mark recommends analyzing them and asking questions like:
“What words… have an urgent quality to them?”
“What words may not fit entirely in the context of your life experience?” (i.e. might these be the fears of your parents or grandparents?)
And the most shocking:
“See if you can listen to what you’ve written as though you were listening to someone else. Perhaps the words do in fact belong to someone else, and you have merely been giving them a voice. Perhaps the words belong to someone in your family who was traumatized and couldn’t speak them out loud. Maybe through your complaints, you are telling this person’s story…”
Does this terror campaign you’re waging against yourself belong to you?
Chances are some of it is, but not all of it. Consider looking back and seeing where this came from and how to release it back into the past. Fears from the past will never serve you in the present.
Tomorrow we’ll look at “The Core Descriptors.”
– Chad Grills, Mission Founder and CEO | https://medium.com/the-mission/make-your-unconscious-conscious-to-win-3ddbf07c0fd2 | [] | 2020-03-17 22:32:41.700000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Mental Health', 'News', 'Podcast', 'Science'] | Title Make Unconscious Conscious WinContent Make Unconscious Conscious Win Mission Follow Mar 17 · 3 min read “When inner situation made conscious happens outside fate” –Carl Jung we’re path empathize heal intergenerational trauma let’s take look “Core Language Approach” approach developed Didn’t Start author Mark Wolynn help u verbalize make conscious attack challenge four step Core Compliant Core Descriptors Core Sentence Core Trauma Let’s start “The Core Compliant” foundation getting central mind body block deepest fear could feeling situation find worrying Write paper Try writing find completely honest Remember throw away paper later see word read loud Mark recommends analyzing asking question like “What words… urgent quality them” “What word may fit entirely context life experience” ie might fear parent grandparent shocking “See listen you’ve written though listening someone else Perhaps word fact belong someone else merely giving voice Perhaps word belong someone family traumatized couldn’t speak loud Maybe complaint telling person’s story…” terror campaign you’re waging belong Chances Consider looking back seeing came release back past Fears past never serve present Tomorrow we’ll look “The Core Descriptors” – Chad Grills Mission Founder CEOTags Life Lessons Mental Health News Podcast Science |
2,210 | “Don’t think of it as a conference. Think of it as binge-watching powerpoints for 10 hours straight, 4 days in a row.” | Sign up for The UX Collective Newsletter
By UX Collective
A weekly, ad-free newsletter that helps designers stay in the know, be productive, and think more critically about their work. Take a look | https://uxdesign.cc/dont-think-of-it-as-a-conference-72c9be56df69 | ['Fabricio Teixeira'] | 2020-11-17 00:08:44.739000+00:00 | ['Tweet', 'Prooductivity', 'Product Design', 'Design', 'Startup'] | Title “Don’t think conference Think bingewatching powerpoints 10 hour straight 4 day row”Content Sign UX Collective Newsletter UX Collective weekly adfree newsletter help designer stay know productive think critically work Take lookTags Tweet Prooductivity Product Design Design Startup |
2,211 | 10 Programming Languages You Can Learn in 2021 to become a Software Developer | 10 Programming Languages You Can Learn in 2021 to become a Software Developer
These are the best programming languages for software development, future, and get a job in Technology with relevant links to learn them online.
A couple of months ago, I was reading an interesting article on HackerNews, which argued that you should learn numerous programming languages even if you don’t need them now, and I have to say that I agreed.
Since each programming language is good for something specific but not so great for others, it makes sense for Programmers and senior developers to know more than one language so that you can choose the right tool for the job.
But which programming languages should you learn? As there are many programming languages ranging from big three like Java, JavaScript, and Python to lesser-known like Julia, Rust or R.
The big question is which languages will give you the biggest bang for your buck?
It all depends upon what do you want? For example, if you are looking for a job at big Investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley or Citi then Java is the best programming language to learn followed by C++ and C#.
But, if you want to get a Job at tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft than Python and JavaScript is probably a better choice than Java.
Even though Java is my favorite language, and I know a bit of C and C++, I am striving to expand beyond this year. I am particularly interested in Python and JavaScript, but you might be interested in something else.
Note: Even though it can be tempting, don’t try to learn too many programming languages at once; choose one first, master it, and then move on to next one.
10 Most in-demand Programming Languages You Can Learn in 2021
Here is the list of the top 10 programming languages — — compiled with help from Stack Overflow’s annual developer survey as well as my own experience— should help give you some ideas.
Particularly if you are looking for a job in big investment banks like Goldman, Citi, Morgan, JP Morgan, Barclays, etc, or on service sector companies like Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, Luxsoft, etc, which mainly work for these big financial organization.
1. Java
Java is the most widely used language in Investment banks. Go to any job search websites like Monster.com or eFinancialCareer.com and you will find most of the job listings for banks like Goldman, Morgan, Citi, and others require Java Skill. Java is used everywhere and across different parts of the bank, but mostly for creating server-side applications running on Linux.
One of the major reasons why Investment banks prefer Java is its concurrency features. Java has in-built support for multithreading which is needed for performance-intensive, mission-critical applications on banks. So, make sure you spend a good amount of time mastering Concurrency in Java.
If you are serious about getting a job on wall street firms, Java should be the first language to master, and if you need a good resource to start with then check out The Complete Java MasterClassfrom Udemy.
If you don’t mind learning from free resources, then you can also check out this list of free Java programming courses.
2. C-Sharp
C# and .NET are also popular on Investment banks, particularly for creating client-side GUI. Earlier it was Java Swing but C# and .NET is now preferred for any windows based GUI application. If you are thinking about GUI development for PC and Web, C# is a great option. It’s also the programming language for the .NET framework, not to mention used heavily in game development for both PC and consoles.
If you’re interested in any of the above areas, check out the Learn to Code by Making Games — — Complete C# Unity Developer from Udemy. I see more than 200K students have enrolled in this course, which speaks for its popularity.
And again, if you don’t mind learning from free courses, here is a list of some free C# programming courses for beginners.
3. C/C++
C++ is another major language that is used on Investment banks and other buy-side firms. It’s used heavily on creating low latency trading applications where performance is critical.
Both C and C++ are evergreen languages, and many of you probably know them from school. But if you are doing some serious work in C++, I can guarantee you that your academic experience will not be enough.
You will need to join a comprehensive online course like C++: From Beginner to Expert to become industry-ready.
And for my friends who want some free courses to learn C++, here is a list list of free C++ Programming courses for beginners.
4. Javascript
Whether you believe it or not, JavaScript is the number one language of the web. The rise of frameworks like jQuery, Angular, and React JS has made JavaScript even more popular. Since you just cannot stay away from the web, it’s better to learn JavaScript sooner than later.
It’s also the number one language for client-side validation, which really does make it work learning JavaScript.
Convinced? Then this JavaScript Masterclass is a good place to start. For cheaper alternatives, check out this list of free JavaScript courses.
5. Python
Python has now toppled Java to become the most taught programming language in universities and academia.
It’s a very powerful language and great to generate scripts. You will find a python module for everything you can think of.
For example, I was looking for a command to listen to UDP traffic in Linux but couldn’t find anything. So, I wrote a Python script in 10 minutes to do the same.
If you want to learn Python, the Python Fundamentals from [Pluralsight] is one of the best online courses to start with. You will need a Pluralsight membership to get access to the course, which costs around $29 per month or $299 annually. You can also access it using their free trial.
And, if you need one more choice, then The Complete Python Bootcamp: Go from zero to hero in Python 3 on Udemy is another awesome course for beginners.
And if you are looking for some free alternatives, you can find a list here.
6. Kotlin
If you are thinking seriously about Android App development, then Kotlin is the programming language to learn this year. It is definitely the next big thing happening in the Android world.
Even though Java is my preferred language, Kotlin has got native support, and many IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA and Android Studio are supporting Kotlin for Android development.
And if you want to learn Kotlin this year then The Complete Android Kotlin Developer Course is probably the best online course to start with.
7. Golang
This is another programming language you may want to learn this year. I know it’s not currently very popular and at the same time can be hard to learn, but I feel its usage is going to increase in 2019.
There are also not that many Go developers right now, so you really may want to go ahead and bite the bullet, especially if you want to create frameworks and things like that. If you can invest some time and become an expert in Go, you’re going to be in high demand.
And, if you want to learn Golang this year then Go: The Complete Developer’s Guide from Udemy is the online course is probably the best place to start with
8. Swift
If you are thinking about iOS development like making apps for the iPhone and iPad, then you should seriously consider learning Swift in 2019.
It replaces Objective C as the preferred language to develop iOS apps. Since I am the Android guy, I have no goal with respect to Swift, but if you do, you can start with the iOS 13 and Swift 5 — The Complete iOS App Development Bootcamp.
If you don’t mind learning from free resources then you can also check out this list of free iOS courses for more choices. There’s also this nifty tutorial.
9. Rust
To be honest, I don’t know much about Rust since I’ve never used it, but it did take home the prize for ‘most loved programming language’ in the Stack Overflow developer survey, so there’s clearly something worth learning here.
There aren’t many free Rust courses out there, but Rust For Undergrads is a good one to start with.
10. PHP
If you thought that PHP is dead, then you are dead wrong. It’s still very much alive and kicking. Fifty percent (50%) of internet websites are built using PHP, and even though it’s not on my personal list of languages to learn this year, it’s still a great choice if you don’t already know it.
And, if you want to learn from scratch, PHP for Beginners — Become a PHP Master — — CMS Project on Udemy is a great course.
And, if you love free stuff to learn PHP, check out this list of free PHP and MySQL courses on [Hackernoon]
Conclusion
These are some of the best programming languages to get a Software developer job on big Investment banks like Goldman, Morgan, Barclays or HSBC. Yes, it has those usual suspects but Java and C++ are the top 2 languages to get a developer job in these big financial giants.
Even if you learn just one programming language apart from the one you use on a daily basis, you will be in good shape for your career growth. The most important thing right now is to make your goal and do your best to stick with it. Happy learning!
If you enjoy this article here are a few more of my write-ups you may like :
Good luck with your Programming t journey! It’s certainly not going to be easy, but by following this list, you are one step closer to becoming the Software Developer, you always wanted to be
If you like this article then please consider following me on twitter (javinpaul). if you’d like to be notified for every new post and don’t forget to follow javarevisited on Twitter! | https://medium.com/javarevisited/top-10-programming-languages-you-can-learn-for-jobs-and-career-in-technology-491e611c22bc | [] | 2020-12-11 08:21:37.125000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Java', 'Python', 'Jobs', 'Careers'] | Title 10 Programming Languages Learn 2021 become Software DeveloperContent 10 Programming Languages Learn 2021 become Software Developer best programming language software development future get job Technology relevant link learn online couple month ago reading interesting article HackerNews argued learn numerous programming language even don’t need say agreed Since programming language good something specific great others make sense Programmers senior developer know one language choose right tool job programming language learn many programming language ranging big three like Java JavaScript Python lesserknown like Julia Rust R big question language give biggest bang buck depends upon want example looking job big Investment bank like Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley Citi Java best programming language learn followed C C want get Job tech company like Google Facebook Microsoft Python JavaScript probably better choice Java Even though Java favorite language know bit C C striving expand beyond year particularly interested Python JavaScript might interested something else Note Even though tempting don’t try learn many programming language choose one first master move next one 10 indemand Programming Languages Learn 2021 list top 10 programming language — — compiled help Stack Overflow’s annual developer survey well experience— help give idea Particularly looking job big investment bank like Goldman Citi Morgan JP Morgan Barclays etc service sector company like Infosys Wipro Cognizant Luxsoft etc mainly work big financial organization 1 Java Java widely used language Investment bank Go job search website like Monstercom eFinancialCareercom find job listing bank like Goldman Morgan Citi others require Java Skill Java used everywhere across different part bank mostly creating serverside application running Linux One major reason Investment bank prefer Java concurrency feature Java inbuilt support multithreading needed performanceintensive missioncritical application bank make sure spend good amount time mastering Concurrency Java serious getting job wall street firm Java first language master need good resource start check Complete Java MasterClassfrom Udemy don’t mind learning free resource also check list free Java programming course 2 CSharp C NET also popular Investment bank particularly creating clientside GUI Earlier Java Swing C NET preferred window based GUI application thinking GUI development PC Web C great option It’s also programming language NET framework mention used heavily game development PC console you’re interested area check Learn Code Making Games — — Complete C Unity Developer Udemy see 200K student enrolled course speaks popularity don’t mind learning free course list free C programming course beginner 3 CC C another major language used Investment bank buyside firm It’s used heavily creating low latency trading application performance critical C C evergreen language many probably know school serious work C guarantee academic experience enough need join comprehensive online course like C Beginner Expert become industryready friend want free course learn C list list free C Programming course beginner 4 Javascript Whether believe JavaScript number one language web rise framework like jQuery Angular React JS made JavaScript even popular Since cannot stay away web it’s better learn JavaScript sooner later It’s also number one language clientside validation really make work learning JavaScript Convinced JavaScript Masterclass good place start cheaper alternative check list free JavaScript course 5 Python Python toppled Java become taught programming language university academia It’s powerful language great generate script find python module everything think example looking command listen UDP traffic Linux couldn’t find anything wrote Python script 10 minute want learn Python Python Fundamentals Pluralsight one best online course start need Pluralsight membership get access course cost around 29 per month 299 annually also access using free trial need one choice Complete Python Bootcamp Go zero hero Python 3 Udemy another awesome course beginner looking free alternative find list 6 Kotlin thinking seriously Android App development Kotlin programming language learn year definitely next big thing happening Android world Even though Java preferred language Kotlin got native support many IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA Android Studio supporting Kotlin Android development want learn Kotlin year Complete Android Kotlin Developer Course probably best online course start 7 Golang another programming language may want learn year know it’s currently popular time hard learn feel usage going increase 2019 also many Go developer right really may want go ahead bite bullet especially want create framework thing like invest time become expert Go you’re going high demand want learn Golang year Go Complete Developer’s Guide Udemy online course probably best place start 8 Swift thinking iOS development like making apps iPhone iPad seriously consider learning Swift 2019 replaces Objective C preferred language develop iOS apps Since Android guy goal respect Swift start iOS 13 Swift 5 — Complete iOS App Development Bootcamp don’t mind learning free resource also check list free iOS course choice There’s also nifty tutorial 9 Rust honest don’t know much Rust since I’ve never used take home prize ‘most loved programming language’ Stack Overflow developer survey there’s clearly something worth learning aren’t many free Rust course Rust Undergrads good one start 10 PHP thought PHP dead dead wrong It’s still much alive kicking Fifty percent 50 internet website built using PHP even though it’s personal list language learn year it’s still great choice don’t already know want learn scratch PHP Beginners — Become PHP Master — — CMS Project Udemy great course love free stuff learn PHP check list free PHP MySQL course Hackernoon Conclusion best programming language get Software developer job big Investment bank like Goldman Morgan Barclays HSBC Yes usual suspect Java C top 2 language get developer job big financial giant Even learn one programming language apart one use daily basis good shape career growth important thing right make goal best stick Happy learning enjoy article writeups may like Good luck Programming journey It’s certainly going easy following list one step closer becoming Software Developer always wanted like article please consider following twitter javinpaul you’d like notified every new post don’t forget follow javarevisited TwitterTags Programming Java Python Jobs Careers |
2,212 | 6 Signs You Have A Wounded Inner Child | 1. You have a deep fear of abandonment
This fear can come in the form of being clingy, codependent, overly insecure, or even as depression and anxiety.
If you fear abandonment, you’re constantly afraid people in your life will leave, and it can be almost impossible to maintain healthy relationships.
“Although it is not an official phobia, the fear of abandonment is arguably one of the most common and most damaging fears of all. People with the fear of abandonment may tend to display behaviors and thought patterns that affect their relationships” Lisa Fritscher, in Understanding Fear of Abandonment
2. Your boundaries are either too weak or too rigid
For instance, during my childhood and teenage years, I always felt suffocated in the sense that I couldn’t express myself freely and safely. My space, identity, and self-expression were not respected.
I thought it was normal — now I know it was the result of living with an authoritarian father who was constantly trying to control my behavior.
This led me to fear speaking up for myself, as I’d always get punished for doing it. I have a really hard time saying no to people or expressing my truth.
Besides, I realized I have been overcompensating this difficulty of mine with super rigid, inflexible boundaries that nobody can cross. One of them is my space. When I feel overwhelmed, instead of openly telling people they’ve been disrespecting my need for personal space, I simply cut them off.
I know this is not healthy, but it has been my coping mechanism to protect me from my lack of boundaries. I’m working on it.
3. You’re ashamed of expressing emotions like sadness or anger
Shame creates feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, or regret, and it’s a particularly toxic emotion in children:
“Shame can be experienced as such a negative, intense emotion of self-loathing that it can lead one to disown it, and, in the case of one who acts like a bully, give it away by evoking that emotion in others (…) When children are emotionally or physically abandoned, abused, or neglected they often take on the shame that belongs to the adult who left or hurt them by assuming that it’s because they themselves are the “bad” one. Some children behave in ways that make them culpable for the shame that belongs to their parents.” Mary C. Lamia, in Shame: A Concealed, Contagious, and Dangerous Emotion
4. You distrust everyone, including yourself
Trust issues are a defense mechanism to try to avoid experiencing the same anxiety and heartache again, and they often stem from a wounded inner child that learned the hard way that people can’t be trusted.
Things get even more complicated when you’re also filled with self-doubt. When, as a child, you were neglected, invalidated, gaslighted, or emotionally abused, it’s difficult to build your self-esteem and self-confidence.
Even the smallest words have an impact. For instance, if your parents constantly told you “your grades should be better” or “don’t be so sensitive”, you absorb the message that something’s wrong with you and that you’ll never be good enough.
5. You’re a people-pleaser and you avoid conflict at all costs
You’re afraid of disappointing and frustrating other people because you unconsciously associate your worth with external validation.
The root of people-pleasing behavior is usually a childhood that forced you to silence your needs, thoughts, and emotions, to the point where you weaken your sense of self:
“As a child, I liked nothing more than feeling indispensable and being told I was a good and nice girl. This praise was incredibly important to me, as was making others happy. My own happiness did not come into the equation; I was happy because they were happy. I felt loved, safe, and appreciated, in the short term at least. As I got older my people-pleasing went into overdrive. I continually tried to gain people’s approval, make them happy, and help them whenever needed” KJ Hutchings, in 4 Fears That Create People-Pleasers and How to Ease Them
6. You’re prone to addiction
Addiction is often a symptom of underlying trauma that hasn’t been processed. Rather than confronting our issues and letting ourselves feel pain, we numb our emotions to avoid feeling at all costs.
The truth is, you’re not really addicted to the substance itself; you’re addicted to the relief and escapism it provides you (I have a whole article on this topic).
Ask yourself these questions: | https://medium.com/be-unique/6-signs-you-have-a-wounded-inner-child-319166feec06 | ['Patrícia S. Williams'] | 2020-12-18 20:25:17.499000+00:00 | ['Parenting', 'Psychology', 'Mental Health', 'Love', 'Relationships'] | Title 6 Signs Wounded Inner ChildContent 1 deep fear abandonment fear come form clingy codependent overly insecure even depression anxiety fear abandonment you’re constantly afraid people life leave almost impossible maintain healthy relationship “Although official phobia fear abandonment arguably one common damaging fear People fear abandonment may tend display behavior thought pattern affect relationships” Lisa Fritscher Understanding Fear Abandonment 2 boundary either weak rigid instance childhood teenage year always felt suffocated sense couldn’t express freely safely space identity selfexpression respected thought normal — know result living authoritarian father constantly trying control behavior led fear speaking I’d always get punished really hard time saying people expressing truth Besides realized overcompensating difficulty mine super rigid inflexible boundary nobody cross One space feel overwhelmed instead openly telling people they’ve disrespecting need personal space simply cut know healthy coping mechanism protect lack boundary I’m working 3 You’re ashamed expressing emotion like sadness anger Shame creates feeling inadequacy unworthiness regret it’s particularly toxic emotion child “Shame experienced negative intense emotion selfloathing lead one disown case one act like bully give away evoking emotion others … child emotionally physically abandoned abused neglected often take shame belongs adult left hurt assuming it’s “bad” one child behave way make culpable shame belongs parents” Mary C Lamia Shame Concealed Contagious Dangerous Emotion 4 distrust everyone including Trust issue defense mechanism try avoid experiencing anxiety heartache often stem wounded inner child learned hard way people can’t trusted Things get even complicated you’re also filled selfdoubt child neglected invalidated gaslighted emotionally abused it’s difficult build selfesteem selfconfidence Even smallest word impact instance parent constantly told “your grade better” “don’t sensitive” absorb message something’s wrong you’ll never good enough 5 You’re peoplepleaser avoid conflict cost You’re afraid disappointing frustrating people unconsciously associate worth external validation root peoplepleasing behavior usually childhood forced silence need thought emotion point weaken sense self “As child liked nothing feeling indispensable told good nice girl praise incredibly important making others happy happiness come equation happy happy felt loved safe appreciated short term least got older peoplepleasing went overdrive continually tried gain people’s approval make happy help whenever needed” KJ Hutchings 4 Fears Create PeoplePleasers Ease 6 You’re prone addiction Addiction often symptom underlying trauma hasn’t processed Rather confronting issue letting feel pain numb emotion avoid feeling cost truth you’re really addicted substance you’re addicted relief escapism provides whole article topic Ask questionsTags Parenting Psychology Mental Health Love Relationships |
2,213 | Why Data Science might just not be worth it | Note from the author: This is an opinion piece, so it’s probably biased to a degree. Jobs in your country and with your skillset may vary. We don’t see the world through the same eyes. Please leave your thoughts and experiences in the comment section.
If you’re doing anything software related you’ve probably considered the option of switching to the field of data science. And why shouldn’t you, the jobs are supposedly everywhere, salaries are generally higher than in software development, and having the word “scientist” in your job title would make your mother proud.
Well, maybe not the last one, but you get the point.
After being in the field for a while now, exploring a good bit of libraries and other cool stuff, writing around 80 data science-related article, whilst in the same time exploring other options (like web and mobile development) on the side, I find my self to be qualified enough to break down the good and bad things about the field.
The focus today will primarily be on the bad things because the Internet is full of “why you should become a data scientist” and “learn data science in a month” type of articles.
With that being said, the ideal reader is someone who knows what will be the benefits from enrolling in the field but would also want to know what are the possible drawback. Also, someone who’s already in the field for a while might also find these points useful too.
Okay, without further ado, let’s begin with the first one! | https://towardsdatascience.com/why-data-science-might-just-not-be-worth-it-c7f3daee7d8d | ['Dario Radečić'] | 2020-05-16 21:21:42.691000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Data Science', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Python'] | Title Data Science might worth itContent Note author opinion piece it’s probably biased degree Jobs country skillset may vary don’t see world eye Please leave thought experience comment section you’re anything software related you’ve probably considered option switching field data science shouldn’t job supposedly everywhere salary generally higher software development word “scientist” job title would make mother proud Well maybe last one get point field exploring good bit library cool stuff writing around 80 data sciencerelated article whilst time exploring option like web mobile development side find self qualified enough break good bad thing field focus today primarily bad thing Internet full “why become data scientist” “learn data science month” type article said ideal reader someone know benefit enrolling field would also want know possible drawback Also someone who’s already field might also find point useful Okay without ado let’s begin first oneTags Programming Data Science Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Python |
2,214 | UX Read-A-Long #2 | UX Read-A-Long #2
Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries
Heya Bookclubers — It is high time for another UX “read-a-long”.
Cover of “Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries”
This time we will be reading Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories by Steve Portigal. The book offers “personal accounts of the challenges researchers encounter out in the field, where mishaps are inevitable, yet incredibly instructive.” You can also read a sample chapter of the book on UX Matters.
The Discount
The lovely people at Rosenfeld Media have provided us with a discount code to give our followers and read-a-long participants.
Discount code:TheUXBookClub
This code will get you 20% off your order at Rosenfeld Media. Feel free to use it for any of their books that you’d like to read. (We suggest adding The User Experience Team of One and Validating Product Ideas to your shopping cart.) | https://medium.com/the-ux-book-club/ux-read-a-long-2-1fb0c491df3d | ['Meg D-K'] | 2017-02-22 15:39:01.392000+00:00 | ['User Research', 'UX', 'Books', 'Design', 'Ethnography'] | Title UX ReadALong 2Content UX ReadALong 2 Doorbells Danger Dead Batteries Heya Bookclubers — high time another UX “readalong” Cover “Doorbells Danger Dead Batteries” time reading Doorbells Danger Dead Batteries User Research War Stories Steve Portigal book offer “personal account challenge researcher encounter field mishap inevitable yet incredibly instructive” also read sample chapter book UX Matters Discount lovely people Rosenfeld Media provided u discount code give follower readalong participant Discount codeTheUXBookClub code get 20 order Rosenfeld Media Feel free use book you’d like read suggest adding User Experience Team One Validating Product Ideas shopping cartTags User Research UX Books Design Ethnography |
2,215 | What happened when I predicted on the Titanic dataset with a made from scratch Logistic Regression function | What happened when I predicted on the Titanic dataset with a made from scratch Logistic Regression function Tracyrenee Follow Dec 19 · 7 min read
Because there are so many libraries in Python, the programming language I am studying, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that these libraries are comprised of functions that somebody has written. Sklearn, the library I research a lot, is completely full of supervised and unsupervised learning functions that someone has written and would like to be given credit for. In fact, the sklearn website states that if anyone uses their work to please cite this, which I endeavour to do.
Not only are functions made by individuals, they are also put together by teams and even businesses. CatBoost, a competitor of the award winning XGBoost, was actually made by Yandex Technologies, who made the algorithms associated with this library open source so everybody can use them.
Whilst studying data science I have entered several competitions and experimented with many models. Through my own empirical investigations, I have come to the conclusion that winners of data science competitions need to be able to perform programming above and beyond merely using a function from one of the numerous python libraries because most people with enough training can do that.
It is therefore important that anyone serious about advancing in the field of data science learn how to program their own functions. I was therefore inspired to have a stab at using a made from scratch logistic regression function and found several articles where individuals have displayed their own made from scratch logistic regression functions. I was inspired to use a logistic regression function on one website, but I would like to say that the person who wrote the function used simulated data instead of real datasets, which made his predictions much easier to achieve. In addition, he did not split the dataset up for training and testing, which invalidated the accuracy recorded. Despite this, I nevertheless decided to modify and use this made from scratch logistic regression function, the link being found here:- Logistic Regression from Scratch in Python — nick becker (beckernick.github.io)
I prefer to use existing datasets for my experimentation, so decided to use Kaggle’s Titanic dataset for this purpose. I find the Titanic dataset a good dataset to carry out experimentation on because I have been unable to achieve any accuracy above 78% because of the way the data is presented in the dataset. I keep trying, though, and maybe one day my persistence will pay off. Kaggle’s Titanic dataset can be found at this link:- Titanic — Machine Learning from Disaster | Kaggle
The problem statement of the Titanic dataset reads as follows:-
“The sinking of the Titanic is one of the most infamous shipwrecks in history.
On April 15, 1912, during her maiden voyage, the widely considered “unsinkable” RMS Titanic sank after colliding with an iceberg. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough lifeboats for everyone onboard, resulting in the death of 1502 out of 2224 passengers and crew.
While there was some element of luck involved in surviving, it seems some groups of people were more likely to survive than others.
In this challenge, we ask you to build a predictive model that answers the question: “what sorts of people were more likely to survive?” using passenger data (ie name, age, gender, socio-economic class, etc).”
The first thing I did was to create an .ipynb file in Google Colab, a free online Jupyter Notebook that has several of the more common libraries already installed on it. As a result, I only needed to import the pre-installed libraries of pandas, numpy, matplotlib.pyplot and seaborn.
I then loaded and read the train and test datasets, which I had downloaded from the Kaggle website and then saved to my own personal GitHub account. In this post I am only going to focus on the train dataset because I made the decision not to submit the predictions from the test dataset to Kaggle. At some point I may decide to submit the predictions to Kaggle, so never say never:-
I checked for any null values and found three columns in the train dataset have missing values, being “Age”, “Cabin” and “Embarked”.
I imputed the missing cells in the categorical columns by replacing them with the most frequently used value, or “mode”. I replaced the missing values in the “Age” column with the median value:-
I used seaborn’s displot() function to plot the target column, being train.Survived:-
Once the missing values had been imputed, I used sklearn’s OrdinalEncoder() to convert the columns with categorical data to numeric data, which is what most models want to see when they are performing computations. The only model I am aware of that will make predictions on categorical data is CatBoost and I will not be using it in this post:-
Once all of the columns were comprised of numeric data, I defined the X and y variables, The dependant variable is train.Survived and the label “y” has been assigned this value. The independent values in train are assigned to the variable of X once train.Survived and train.ID have been dropped:-
Once X and y had been defined, I used sklearn’s train_test_split() function to split the X dataset up for training and validation.
I then used sklearn’s StandardScaler() to scale the data down to an acceptable level for use in the model when it trains, fits and predicts.
I put the validation set on a counter and found that 55 people perished and 35 people survived.
I then defined the variable, “class_weights”, which can be used by the model to balance the classes in the label:-
Once all of the preprocessing had been accomplished, I set about using the logistic regression function that had been made from scratch.
I started by creating a link function, which provides the relationship between the linear predictor and the mean of the distribution function, sigmoid().
I then created the function, log_likelihood(), which is viewed as a sum over all the training data. This function also contains a line of code that calculates the gradient of the log_likelihood.
The logistic_regression() function is built and it will integrate the work of the two previous functions to be able to formulate predictions on input data.
The weights were set, using the logistic_regression() function to train the model.
I predicted on the training data only to obtain an accuracy, which is 80.27%.
I then predicted on the validation dataset and attained an accuracy of 75.56%. When I put the prediction on a counter I found that the model predicted 63 people would perish and 27 people would survive:-
I then decided to use sklearn’s LogisticRegression() and achieved an accuracy of 79.40% when I trained and fitted the data.
When I predicted on the validation dataset I achieved an accuracy of 72.22%, being 3% less than the made from scratch logistic_regression() function. The reason for this is because sklearn has very tight parameters, which ultimately affects its accuracy. When I put the prediction on the counter, it revealed that 60 people were believed to have perished while 30 people were believed to have survived:-
I also decided to compare the made from scratch logistic_regression() to statsmodels’ Logot(). When I predicted on the validation set, an accuracy of 75.56% was achieved, which means logistic_regression() and Logit() both record the same rate of accuracy.
When I placed the prediction on a counter, the model predicted that 57 perished and 33 people survived:-
To summarise, all three of the above models need to be used when endeavouring to find the best accuracy. I do feel that any person who wishes to excel at data science and win competitions needs to improve his programming skills. Performing code reviews on other programmers’ codes is always a good start in honing one’s skills to the point where he can win a competition.
I have seen a few programs where logistic regression was used to score a very high accuracy, so perhaps made from scratch functions are a good starting point because they can be more easily modified than an off the shelf function provided by one of Python’s libraries, such as sklearn or statsmodels.
The code for this post can be found in its entirety in my personal GitHub account, the link being found here:- Titanic-Datasets/Kaggle_Titanic_Log_Reg_Homemade_vs_SKL_vs_SM.ipynb at master · TracyRenee61/Titanic-Datasets (github.com) | https://medium.com/ai-in-plain-english/what-happened-when-i-predicted-on-the-titanic-dataset-with-a-made-from-scratch-logistic-regression-928d6a1d1984 | [] | 2020-12-20 09:52:25.792000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Logistic Regression'] | Title happened predicted Titanic dataset made scratch Logistic Regression functionContent happened predicted Titanic dataset made scratch Logistic Regression function Tracyrenee Follow Dec 19 · 7 min read many library Python programming language studying easy lose sight fact library comprised function somebody written Sklearn library research lot completely full supervised unsupervised learning function someone written would like given credit fact sklearn website state anyone us work please cite endeavour function made individual also put together team even business CatBoost competitor award winning XGBoost actually made Yandex Technologies made algorithm associated library open source everybody use Whilst studying data science entered several competition experimented many model empirical investigation come conclusion winner data science competition need able perform programming beyond merely using function one numerous python library people enough training therefore important anyone serious advancing field data science learn program function therefore inspired stab using made scratch logistic regression function found several article individual displayed made scratch logistic regression function inspired use logistic regression function one website would like say person wrote function used simulated data instead real datasets made prediction much easier achieve addition split dataset training testing invalidated accuracy recorded Despite nevertheless decided modify use made scratch logistic regression function link found Logistic Regression Scratch Python — nick becker beckernickgithubio prefer use existing datasets experimentation decided use Kaggle’s Titanic dataset purpose find Titanic dataset good dataset carry experimentation unable achieve accuracy 78 way data presented dataset keep trying though maybe one day persistence pay Kaggle’s Titanic dataset found link Titanic — Machine Learning Disaster Kaggle problem statement Titanic dataset read follows “The sinking Titanic one infamous shipwreck history April 15 1912 maiden voyage widely considered “unsinkable” RMS Titanic sank colliding iceberg Unfortunately weren’t enough lifeboat everyone onboard resulting death 1502 2224 passenger crew element luck involved surviving seems group people likely survive others challenge ask build predictive model answer question “what sort people likely survive” using passenger data ie name age gender socioeconomic class etc” first thing create ipynb file Google Colab free online Jupyter Notebook several common library already installed result needed import preinstalled library panda numpy matplotlibpyplot seaborn loaded read train test datasets downloaded Kaggle website saved personal GitHub account post going focus train dataset made decision submit prediction test dataset Kaggle point may decide submit prediction Kaggle never say never checked null value found three column train dataset missing value “Age” “Cabin” “Embarked” imputed missing cell categorical column replacing frequently used value “mode” replaced missing value “Age” column median value used seaborn’s displot function plot target column trainSurvived missing value imputed used sklearn’s OrdinalEncoder convert column categorical data numeric data model want see performing computation model aware make prediction categorical data CatBoost using post column comprised numeric data defined X variable dependant variable trainSurvived label “y” assigned value independent value train assigned variable X trainSurvived trainID dropped X defined used sklearn’s traintestsplit function split X dataset training validation used sklearn’s StandardScaler scale data acceptable level use model train fit predicts put validation set counter found 55 people perished 35 people survived defined variable “classweights” used model balance class label preprocessing accomplished set using logistic regression function made scratch started creating link function provides relationship linear predictor mean distribution function sigmoid created function loglikelihood viewed sum training data function also contains line code calculates gradient loglikelihood logisticregression function built integrate work two previous function able formulate prediction input data weight set using logisticregression function train model predicted training data obtain accuracy 8027 predicted validation dataset attained accuracy 7556 put prediction counter found model predicted 63 people would perish 27 people would survive decided use sklearn’s LogisticRegression achieved accuracy 7940 trained fitted data predicted validation dataset achieved accuracy 7222 3 le made scratch logisticregression function reason sklearn tight parameter ultimately affect accuracy put prediction counter revealed 60 people believed perished 30 people believed survived also decided compare made scratch logisticregression statsmodels’ Logot predicted validation set accuracy 7556 achieved mean logisticregression Logit record rate accuracy placed prediction counter model predicted 57 perished 33 people survived summarise three model need used endeavouring find best accuracy feel person wish excel data science win competition need improve programming skill Performing code review programmers’ code always good start honing one’s skill point win competition seen program logistic regression used score high accuracy perhaps made scratch function good starting point easily modified shelf function provided one Python’s library sklearn statsmodels code post found entirety personal GitHub account link found TitanicDatasetsKaggleTitanicLogRegHomemadevsSKLvsSMipynb master · TracyRenee61TitanicDatasets githubcomTags Data Science Python Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Logistic Regression |
2,216 | Pangeo 2.0 | This period has led to some major technological innovations that will have long-lasting impacts on climate data science (and beyond), including:
Despite the diversity of these activities, an increasing amount of energy from Pangeo core contributors has recently been devoted to operating cloud-based Jupyter infrastructure, the JupyterHubs on Google Cloud and AWS that now support hundreds of active users. The project has become victim of the unexpected success of these services, which we originally developed as experimental prototypes. Pangeo as currently constituted is simply not well suited to continue to operate production-grade Jupyter-in-the-cloud services. The reason is that the project is very informally organized, lacking any formal legal identity, HR department, etc. We cannot, for example, staff a helpdesk or provide a service-level agreement.
So going forward, we are going to try to wind down our current mode of operating JupyterHubs, seeking a transition to a more sustainable path! If you currently use our cloud Jupyter services, don’t worry! — they are not going away. Below we enumerate some options for those who want to keep using Pangeo in the cloud.
New Infrastructure Providers
A Pangeo-style cloud environment is more than just a vanilla JupyterHub — it also means access to Dask clusters on demand, plus a specialized software environment. When we started operating JupyterHubs in the cloud three years ago, there were few commercial options available for purchasing these services, and we had to roll our own. Now the situation has changed. Some exciting new companies have recently launched to provide Jupyter together with scalable Dask clusters in the cloud. These include
Coiled: Founded by the Dask creators, Coiled provides Dask as a service to both individuals and enterprise.
Saturn Cloud: one of the first to offer Jupyter + Dask as a service.
Both of these are venture-backed companies, and both have current / former Pangeo collaborators on staff. The cloud providers themselves are also showing signs of providing similar services. The UK Met Office informatics lab has been working closely with the Microsoft Azure team to streamline the Pangeo experience there. Microsoft’s newly announced Planetary Computer project team includes long-time Pangeo contributor Tom Augspurger, and we’re excited to see what they build!
Another new player in the space, aimed more at the academic research and education space, is the International Interactive Computing Collaboration (2i2c). A non-profit, 2i2c was founded by core members of Jupyter and Pangeo. 2i2c’s mission is “to accelerate research and discovery, and to empower education to be more accessible, intuitive, and enjoyable.” Its main activities are as follows:
2i2c provides managed hubs for data science in research and engineering communities. They are tailored for the communities they serve and 💯 open source. 2i2c develops, supports, leads, and advocates for open source tools in interactive computing that are created, used, and controlled by the community.
Going forward, 2i2c will eventually assume operational responsibility for Pangeo current cloud JupyterHub and Binders services. These services will remain free to users, thanks to ongoing support from the NSF EarthCube program. 2i2c is hiring an Open Source Infrastructure Engineer to work on this! If you’re interested in shaping the future of interactive cloud computing, please apply!!
Finally, for those who wish to deploy and operate their own Pangeo-style cloud infrastructure, Quansight recently launched the excellent Qhub project, which massively eases the pains of deployment and management. With Qhub, Groups can set up their own JupyterHubs with Dask Gateway in minutes using cloud-agnostic open-source code and then modify environments, users, groups and more by committing changes to a single YAML file on GitHub. In a similar vein, we have migrated the Pangeo helm chart to the Dask org which means its maintenance benefits from the larger Dask community.
Shifting away from infrastructure operation will allow Pangeo to refocus on our core mission: cultivating the development of innovative open-source tools for solving challenging scientific problems.
New Pangeo Funding and Initiatives
Pangeo will continue to evolve, supported by several major new grants to collaborating institutions.
Project Pythia: Education and Training
Pangeo has driven forward the capabilities of Python tools for geosciences massively in the past years. But these tools will only realize their potential impact if scientists have access to high-quality training for learning to use them!
A new NSF EarthCube grant, awarded to NCAR and the University at Albany, will fund the development of Project Pythia: a community educational resource. The Project Pythia portal aims to provide geoscientists at any point in their career with the educational content and real-world examples needed to learn how to navigate and integrate the myriad packages within the burgeoning Scientific Python Ecosystem. Pythia will cover a range of topics from beginning Python programming to advanced subjects such as developing scalable workflows. A particular emphasis will be placed on migrating workflows to the cloud. Educational content in the Pythia portal will be developed and vetted in part through integration with graduate and undergraduate-level coursework at the University at Albany. More on Project Pythia can be found here.
Pangeo Forge: A Cloud Native Data Repository
Pangeo has blazed a trail towards a “cloud native” way of working with geoscience data. This vision is laid out in the following blog post:
The cloud native approach means avoiding data downloads and instead working directly with massive cloud-based datasets using on-demand scalable computing. We believe that cloud-native has the potential to transform scientific research, making scientists more productive, creative, and flexible.
However, cloud native science requires cloud-based data. Currently, the process of producing analysis-ready, cloud-optimized (ARCO) data is rather painstaking and manual. Our existing Pangeo cloud data catalog is difficult to update.
One option is to wait for data providers such as NASA and NOAA to begin providing their data in ARCO format. However, with Pangeo, we are taking a more proactive approach, by developing a platform for “crowdsourcing” of ARGO data. This project is called Pangeo Forge.
The idea of Pangeo Forge is to copy the very successful pattern of Conda Forge for crowdsourcing the curation of an analysis-ready data library. In Conda Forge, a maintainer contributes a recipe which is used to generate a conda package from a source code tarball. Behind the scenes, CI downloads the source code, builds the package, and uploads it to a repository. In Pangeo Forge, a maintainer contributes a recipe which is used to generate an analysis-ready cloud-based copy of a dataset in a cloud-optimized format like Zarr. Behind the scenes, CI downloads the original files from their source (e.g. FTP, HTTP, or OpenDAP), combines them using xarray, writes out the Zarr file, and uploads to cloud storage.
The Pangeo Forge project is just getting off the ground, but we are very excited by the possibilities. Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory recently received a major award from the NSF EarthCube project to build out Pangeo Forge, in partnership with several high-profile data providers. Stay tuned for an announcement with more detail!
Pangeo for Earth System Machine Learning
For over a year now, Pangeo’s Machine Learning Working Group has held an open, monthly meeting to discuss challenges and solutions around big data geoscientific machine learning. The conversations in this meeting have often centered around how to utilize Pangeo’s ecosystem of software and infrastructure to accelerate machine learning with the high-dimensional datasets often found in the geosciences.
Out of those conversations grew the Pangeo-ML project and a now-funded proposal to the NASA ACCESS program. As a collaborative effort led by Joe Hamman between CarbonPlan, Columbia University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Anaconda, the Pangeo-ML project aims to make it easier to use the same software tools for interactive data exploration and ML model development. To achieve this, the project team will improve the integration of data manipulation libraries (e.g. Xarray and Pyresample) — targeting known pain points found in ML applications, and will develop new high-level interfaces between Xarray and deep-learning libraries such as TensorFlow and PyTorch. The Xbatcher project is an early example of an interface tool that helps bridge the gap between Xarray and ML libraries.
Hypothetical research workflow for a scientist using Pangeo-ML. Data hosted on the cloud is integrated into a familiar ecosystem that can provide extract-transform-load functionality as well as exploratory data analysis and visualization. Using the same tool sets, scientists will be able to quickly iterate on model design, and training and validation.
A Fresh Approach to our Weekly Telecons
As a consequence of our drift towards operating cloud infrastructure, our weekly Pangeo meetings have sometimes been dominated by highly technical discussions of Kubernetes Taints and Tolerations (those are real terms, I promise), rather than geoscience software and its applications. As we shift our operational capacity to 2i2c, we also look forward to refreshing the structure of our weekly meeting.
Going forward, this meeting will operate as a virtual seminar, showcasing a cool new tool, dataset, or scientific problem in need of a software / infrastructure solution. Each meeting will feature a 15 minute presentation, which will be recorded and shared on our website. We are currently planning the schedule for Spring 2021, so please don’t hesitate to sign up if you’re interested in presenting!
Full form available at https://forms.gle/hJyhsFvueMXPgqGr6
Through this transition, Pangeo will remain an open, inclusive community. Anyone interested in engaging with the project is encouraged to check out our Discourse forum, which has become the primary forum for discussion and project communication.
Stay tuned for more detailed blog posts about these various new initiatives, and Happy New Year from the Pangeo community! | https://medium.com/pangeo/pangeo-2-0-2bedf099582d | ['Ryan Abernathey'] | 2020-12-22 15:30:23.739000+00:00 | ['Science', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Pangeo'] | Title Pangeo 20Content period led major technological innovation longlasting impact climate data science beyond including Despite diversity activity increasing amount energy Pangeo core contributor recently devoted operating cloudbased Jupyter infrastructure JupyterHubs Google Cloud AWS support hundred active user project become victim unexpected success service originally developed experimental prototype Pangeo currently constituted simply well suited continue operate productiongrade Jupyterinthecloud service reason project informally organized lacking formal legal identity HR department etc cannot example staff helpdesk provide servicelevel agreement going forward going try wind current mode operating JupyterHubs seeking transition sustainable path currently use cloud Jupyter service don’t worry — going away enumerate option want keep using Pangeo cloud New Infrastructure Providers Pangeostyle cloud environment vanilla JupyterHub — also mean access Dask cluster demand plus specialized software environment started operating JupyterHubs cloud three year ago commercial option available purchasing service roll situation changed exciting new company recently launched provide Jupyter together scalable Dask cluster cloud include Coiled Founded Dask creator Coiled provides Dask service individual enterprise Saturn Cloud one first offer Jupyter Dask service venturebacked company current former Pangeo collaborator staff cloud provider also showing sign providing similar service UK Met Office informatics lab working closely Microsoft Azure team streamline Pangeo experience Microsoft’s newly announced Planetary Computer project team includes longtime Pangeo contributor Tom Augspurger we’re excited see build Another new player space aimed academic research education space International Interactive Computing Collaboration 2i2c nonprofit 2i2c founded core member Jupyter Pangeo 2i2c’s mission “to accelerate research discovery empower education accessible intuitive enjoyable” main activity follows 2i2c provides managed hub data science research engineering community tailored community serve 💯 open source 2i2c develops support lead advocate open source tool interactive computing created used controlled community Going forward 2i2c eventually assume operational responsibility Pangeo current cloud JupyterHub Binders service service remain free user thanks ongoing support NSF EarthCube program 2i2c hiring Open Source Infrastructure Engineer work you’re interested shaping future interactive cloud computing please apply Finally wish deploy operate Pangeostyle cloud infrastructure Quansight recently launched excellent Qhub project massively eas pain deployment management Qhub Groups set JupyterHubs Dask Gateway minute using cloudagnostic opensource code modify environment user group committing change single YAML file GitHub similar vein migrated Pangeo helm chart Dask org mean maintenance benefit larger Dask community Shifting away infrastructure operation allow Pangeo refocus core mission cultivating development innovative opensource tool solving challenging scientific problem New Pangeo Funding Initiatives Pangeo continue evolve supported several major new grant collaborating institution Project Pythia Education Training Pangeo driven forward capability Python tool geosciences massively past year tool realize potential impact scientist access highquality training learning use new NSF EarthCube grant awarded NCAR University Albany fund development Project Pythia community educational resource Project Pythia portal aim provide geoscientists point career educational content realworld example needed learn navigate integrate myriad package within burgeoning Scientific Python Ecosystem Pythia cover range topic beginning Python programming advanced subject developing scalable workflow particular emphasis placed migrating workflow cloud Educational content Pythia portal developed vetted part integration graduate undergraduatelevel coursework University Albany Project Pythia found Pangeo Forge Cloud Native Data Repository Pangeo blazed trail towards “cloud native” way working geoscience data vision laid following blog post cloud native approach mean avoiding data downloads instead working directly massive cloudbased datasets using ondemand scalable computing believe cloudnative potential transform scientific research making scientist productive creative flexible However cloud native science requires cloudbased data Currently process producing analysisready cloudoptimized ARCO data rather painstaking manual existing Pangeo cloud data catalog difficult update One option wait data provider NASA NOAA begin providing data ARCO format However Pangeo taking proactive approach developing platform “crowdsourcing” ARGO data project called Pangeo Forge idea Pangeo Forge copy successful pattern Conda Forge crowdsourcing curation analysisready data library Conda Forge maintainer contributes recipe used generate conda package source code tarball Behind scene CI downloads source code build package uploads repository Pangeo Forge maintainer contributes recipe used generate analysisready cloudbased copy dataset cloudoptimized format like Zarr Behind scene CI downloads original file source eg FTP HTTP OpenDAP combine using xarray writes Zarr file uploads cloud storage Pangeo Forge project getting ground excited possibility Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory recently received major award NSF EarthCube project build Pangeo Forge partnership several highprofile data provider Stay tuned announcement detail Pangeo Earth System Machine Learning year Pangeo’s Machine Learning Working Group held open monthly meeting discus challenge solution around big data geoscientific machine learning conversation meeting often centered around utilize Pangeo’s ecosystem software infrastructure accelerate machine learning highdimensional datasets often found geosciences conversation grew PangeoML project nowfunded proposal NASA ACCESS program collaborative effort led Joe Hamman CarbonPlan Columbia University University WisconsinMadison Anaconda PangeoML project aim make easier use software tool interactive data exploration ML model development achieve project team improve integration data manipulation library eg Xarray Pyresample — targeting known pain point found ML application develop new highlevel interface Xarray deeplearning library TensorFlow PyTorch Xbatcher project early example interface tool help bridge gap Xarray ML library Hypothetical research workflow scientist using PangeoML Data hosted cloud integrated familiar ecosystem provide extracttransformload functionality well exploratory data analysis visualization Using tool set scientist able quickly iterate model design training validation Fresh Approach Weekly Telecons consequence drift towards operating cloud infrastructure weekly Pangeo meeting sometimes dominated highly technical discussion Kubernetes Taints Tolerations real term promise rather geoscience software application shift operational capacity 2i2c also look forward refreshing structure weekly meeting Going forward meeting operate virtual seminar showcasing cool new tool dataset scientific problem need software infrastructure solution meeting feature 15 minute presentation recorded shared website currently planning schedule Spring 2021 please don’t hesitate sign you’re interested presenting Full form available httpsformsglehJyhsFvueMXPgqGr6 transition Pangeo remain open inclusive community Anyone interested engaging project encouraged check Discourse forum become primary forum discussion project communication Stay tuned detailed blog post various new initiative Happy New Year Pangeo communityTags Science Data Science Python Pangeo |
2,217 | Keep it Simple: Make Bullet Journaling Work for You | Keep it Simple: Make Bullet Journaling Work for You
Most people skip the basics, like rapid logging in your bullet journal.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
I have ADD and memory issues. I’ve tried many tools over the years to help me remember my life. Bullet journaling was one of the first tools that really ‘clicked’ for me and I’ve been using it for around four years.
For the uninitiated: bullet journaling is a simple method of organizing your life, a productivity system, and a journal all-in-one. You can start with just a notebook and a pen. Because it is so adaptable, some people go overboard trying all the pieces of the system without mastering the basics. Rapid logging is one of those basic things.
It’s just a way of writing notes as you go through your day — part to-do list and part a running stream of consciousness.
Rapid Logging will help you efficiently capture your life as it happens so that you may begin to study it. Ryder Carroll, Creator of the Bullet Journal, Author of The Bullet Journal Method
Rapid logging really is the key.
Rapid logging bypasses the effort of most endless to-do lists. By taking short, fast notes throughout your day. You can get all the things out of your head and in one place, instead of lots of different places. As you become familiar with the way it works, you’ll add items as they come to you, any time of day.
It’s ‘rapid’ for a reason: you’re removing emotion from any event, impression, note and everything else you rapid log. Stripping these items down to concise phrases helps you move quickly while writing them down.
Don’t worry if you have trouble with this. I am still terrible at writing things down and stripping all the extra words. But then again, I’m a talkative person. It’s part of my charm.
The mechanics of rapid logging.
Rapid logging is writing notes throughout your day, doing it quickly, and organizing what you’ve written. There are four key parts of rapid logging: page numbers, topics, bullets (what you write), and signifiers (if you use them.)
Page numbers are important because this is a system, not a random notebook, and you might want to refer back to notes or collections you’ve done before.
You can buy notebooks with page numbers, or just hand-number the pages of a notebook you already own.
Before I became a notebook snob, I regularly spent a few minutes numbering pages on my cheap notebook. It worked just as well for me.
Topics are how you label your pages, sometimes just the date or sometimes the name of an event or a collection of ideas.
Your bullets (tasks, events, and/or notes) have set symbols so you can tell the difference between them at a glance. These are the symbols initially shared by the creator of bullet journaling, Ryder Carroll.
Image by author: A page in my bullet journal; notes for this article!
Remember, be concise with the bullets you write. You’re trying to take emotion out of this part of your bullet journal. This helps objectively log it as something you want or need to do or something that’s already happened.
Task Bullets
I use the default dot and include a few words about the task — pick up laundry, finish service report, etc. When you have completed a task, you can “X” it off, if you need to do a task another day (called migrating), you can use a right “>” carrot.
Sometimes you need to write more about a task, so you can jot more notes right there underneath it, or you can write up more detailed notes on the next open page.
I’ve tried several iterations on the task bullet and have found nothing as easy to use (and quick to use) as the little dot.
Event Bullets
Events usually use an open circle. Events are just date-related things, either scheduled appointments or parties, or events that happened through the day you want to note — signed a contract, etc.
Again, you are jotting down a few words, not a diary entry. You can write more details on another page (or after your daily log).
Note Bullets
Notes highlight things you might want to remember and can include facts, ideas, thoughts, etc. When I get phone calls throughout the day, I use notes to jot a quick reminder about them. When one of my kids has a seizure, I write the time, what type, and any details I need to remember for the doctor.
While these work well for quick notes throughout the day, if I want to create notes for a lesson or meeting, I usually do those on a separate page.
Signifiers emphasize important bullets.
Use signifiers on the lefthand side of your bullets to draw attention to important notes and things you want to act on. You can use a “*” to give a task priority or an exclamation point “!” for things you want to act on — mantras, ideas, insights, etc. I use an eye or lightbulb sometimes to mark things I want to research more.
Use it sparingly. If everything is a priority, nothing is. Ryder Carroll, Bullet Journal Website
Daily Logs and Monthly Logs
There have been months when I didn’t worry about any kind of additional logging; I just did my rapid logging every day and it suited me just fine. Essentially, my rapid logging became my daily log.
Sometimes I need more structure — and you might, too. I have a simple daily log that adds a bit of structure to my rapid logging.
My current daily logs start with all my known appointments, meetings, and most important to-dos, then I draw a line under them and start rapid logging for the day.
Dress it Up? Experiment if You Want.
In the past, I’ve tracked many items: weather, glasses of water, food eaten. If you will remember to do them every day, go for it. I rarely remember to do them more than a few days in a row, so I don’t do them.
Some particularly organized people have habit trackers and other artistic stuff to track all these ‘trackable’ items. I tried them. They didn’t work for me. I work best with a very simple Bullet Journal. Every time I try to dress it up and do more with it, I end up getting frustrated and going back to the basics. Even though I have some artistic leanings, it doesn’t work when I try to combine my artistic side with my productive one.
Some people create their daily logs ahead of time. I don’t do that because I don’t know how much space each day will take. Sometimes I only log a few things for a day, other days I use a few pages.
Monthly Logs
Monthly logs are one ‘collection’ I create most months so I can see all my appointments and meetings at a glance.
On his site, Ryder Carroll suggests having a spread of two pages — a calendar page and a task page. I love the way the calendar page is organized and I use it extensively. I want to use the task page, but I rarely do.
Here’s a screenshot from his site. My own calendar pages look just like his; I’ve used them like this for years now.
From https://bulletjournal.com/pages/learn of the Monthly Log. Screenshot by author.
Collections
Collections in your bullet journal are useful. Any collection of information on one page or across several pages counts. So your daily logs, monthly logs (and future logs, if you do those) count as collections.
But collections also include arbitrary information or lists you want to have in one spot. For instance, I have a “Books I want to read” collection and an “Important Odds and Ends” collection. My catch-all collection is that last one, and is where I put phone numbers, addresses, code snippets, and all kinds of other odds and ends I don’t want to lose track of, even if I don’t have a different (or better) spot to put them.
It’s easy to create a collection and then forget about it (ask me how I know!), so go slow and create the ones you will use consistently.
Indexes are Collections Too
Remember those page numbers? You can highlight special events, important tasks, associated notes, etc., in an index in the front of your notebook by jotting down the page number and a short description of the thing you want to index.
Don’t feel bad if you forget to add them to your index; I still forget. Thankfully, it’s a matter of a couple of minutes to add items to the index by flipping through the pages.
Modules
Carroll called different sections in the bullet journal ‘modules.’ They are how to organize the things you’re writing, and to keep track of things you want to remember, etc. Your daily log (with rapid logging!) is one of the modules.
Some people use all of these types of modules, and some people only use one or two.
These modules include
The index — http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/#index
The Future Log — http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/#index
The Monthly Log — http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/#monthlylog
The Daily Log — http://bulletjournal.com/get-started/#dailylog
I urge you to explore the site further if you are interested in bullet journaling. Each of the modules can be used as you need them, then added to the index so you can easily refer back to them. Or don’t use any of them aside from the daily log.
Are you making bullet journaling too hard?
Start simple and add elements to your daily practice a little at a time so that you consistently use your bullet journal. Don’t get bogged down in the details or the pretty pages you see all over social media.
Start with a daily log, whether you just use rapid logging or add a bit more structure to it. Then add in the modules and collections as you need and use them. If you find something doesn’t work for you, no problem! Just don’t do it next time around.
No matter what your needs are, bullet journaling is flexible and simple enough to help you. | https://medium.com/ninja-writers/keep-it-simple-make-bullet-journaling-work-for-you-64ed29057dd4 | ['Kat Moody'] | 2020-10-13 15:49:40.387000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Productivity', 'Notebook', 'Journaling', 'Bullet Journaling'] | Title Keep Simple Make Bullet Journaling Work YouContent Keep Simple Make Bullet Journaling Work people skip basic like rapid logging bullet journal Photo Aaron Burden Unsplash ADD memory issue I’ve tried many tool year help remember life Bullet journaling one first tool really ‘clicked’ I’ve using around four year uninitiated bullet journaling simple method organizing life productivity system journal allinone start notebook pen adaptable people go overboard trying piece system without mastering basic Rapid logging one basic thing It’s way writing note go day — part todo list part running stream consciousness Rapid Logging help efficiently capture life happens may begin study Ryder Carroll Creator Bullet Journal Author Bullet Journal Method Rapid logging really key Rapid logging bypass effort endless todo list taking short fast note throughout day get thing head one place instead lot different place become familiar way work you’ll add item come time day It’s ‘rapid’ reason you’re removing emotion event impression note everything else rapid log Stripping item concise phrase help move quickly writing Don’t worry trouble still terrible writing thing stripping extra word I’m talkative person It’s part charm mechanic rapid logging Rapid logging writing note throughout day quickly organizing you’ve written four key part rapid logging page number topic bullet write signifier use Page number important system random notebook might want refer back note collection you’ve done buy notebook page number handnumber page notebook already became notebook snob regularly spent minute numbering page cheap notebook worked well Topics label page sometimes date sometimes name event collection idea bullet task event andor note set symbol tell difference glance symbol initially shared creator bullet journaling Ryder Carroll Image author page bullet journal note article Remember concise bullet write You’re trying take emotion part bullet journal help objectively log something want need something that’s already happened Task Bullets use default dot include word task — pick laundry finish service report etc completed task “X” need task another day called migrating use right “” carrot Sometimes need write task jot note right underneath write detailed note next open page I’ve tried several iteration task bullet found nothing easy use quick use little dot Event Bullets Events usually use open circle Events daterelated thing either scheduled appointment party event happened day want note — signed contract etc jotting word diary entry write detail another page daily log Note Bullets Notes highlight thing might want remember include fact idea thought etc get phone call throughout day use note jot quick reminder one kid seizure write time type detail need remember doctor work well quick note throughout day want create note lesson meeting usually separate page Signifiers emphasize important bullet Use signifier lefthand side bullet draw attention important note thing want act use “” give task priority exclamation point “” thing want act — mantra idea insight etc use eye lightbulb sometimes mark thing want research Use sparingly everything priority nothing Ryder Carroll Bullet Journal Website Daily Logs Monthly Logs month didn’t worry kind additional logging rapid logging every day suited fine Essentially rapid logging became daily log Sometimes need structure — might simple daily log add bit structure rapid logging current daily log start known appointment meeting important todos draw line start rapid logging day Dress Experiment Want past I’ve tracked many item weather glass water food eaten remember every day go rarely remember day row don’t particularly organized people habit tracker artistic stuff track ‘trackable’ item tried didn’t work work best simple Bullet Journal Every time try dress end getting frustrated going back basic Even though artistic leaning doesn’t work try combine artistic side productive one people create daily log ahead time don’t don’t know much space day take Sometimes log thing day day use page Monthly Logs Monthly log one ‘collection’ create month see appointment meeting glance site Ryder Carroll suggests spread two page — calendar page task page love way calendar page organized use extensively want use task page rarely Here’s screenshot site calendar page look like I’ve used like year httpsbulletjournalcompageslearn Monthly Log Screenshot author Collections Collections bullet journal useful collection information one page across several page count daily log monthly log future log count collection collection also include arbitrary information list want one spot instance “Books want read” collection “Important Odds Ends” collection catchall collection last one put phone number address code snippet kind odds end don’t want lose track even don’t different better spot put It’s easy create collection forget ask know go slow create one use consistently Indexes Collections Remember page number highlight special event important task associated note etc index front notebook jotting page number short description thing want index Don’t feel bad forget add index still forget Thankfully it’s matter couple minute add item index flipping page Modules Carroll called different section bullet journal ‘modules’ organize thing you’re writing keep track thing want remember etc daily log rapid logging one module people use type module people use one two module include index — httpbulletjournalcomgetstartedindex Future Log — httpbulletjournalcomgetstartedindex Monthly Log — httpbulletjournalcomgetstartedmonthlylog Daily Log — httpbulletjournalcomgetstarteddailylog urge explore site interested bullet journaling module used need added index easily refer back don’t use aside daily log making bullet journaling hard Start simple add element daily practice little time consistently use bullet journal Don’t get bogged detail pretty page see social medium Start daily log whether use rapid logging add bit structure add module collection need use find something doesn’t work problem don’t next time around matter need bullet journaling flexible simple enough help youTags Writing Productivity Notebook Journaling Bullet Journaling |
2,218 | I Miss The Lighted Apple Logo | Every time I see an older MacBook with the bright white lighted Apple logo…I get envious.
I imagine that was exactly the point of the logo light in the first place.
In an era where Apple has killed MagSafe, the Startup Sound, Skeuomorphic design, and the iPhone’s headphone jack, among other things…I realize that it’s weird to focus on the silly little white light that used to be on the back of their laptops. A light that you can’t even see while you’re using the computer.
But it was fun and cool. Sometimes that’s enough.
The MacBook Air was the last holdout, and now that it’s been 12-inch-MacBooked, the light is effectively dead.
I do a lot of writing in coffee shops, and over the last four years I’ve watched the screen landscape transform. It used to be a field of soft glowing white Apple logos, which stood in stark contrast to the occasional black PC monolith.
Now, one by one, the lights are vanishing as the laptops are upgraded, replaced by cold metallic mirrors of aluminum.
I never had the pleasure of personally owning a MacBook with the lighted Apple logo. My first MacBook was a 2016 12-inch model, which I still use from time to time in spite of Apple’s increasing attempts to squeeze it out of its own product line.
The aluminum Apple logo is fine. It has a nice premium smooth feel to it, with materials that would be at home on a yacht, or an airplane, or a stereo system, or whatever.
But those glowing white lights felt like they were from the future. Not the awkward 90's-but-with-smartphones-and-broadband future we’re actually living in, but the sleek future that science fiction continually promised me as a kid.
There’s something magical about the way those logos glow, and how perfectly bright and natural they look even in a sunlit room.
It’s a brilliantly simple design too, though its brilliance also means you can never turn the light off without turning off the machine. Perhaps Apple was so confident in its cool glowing they just figured that no one would ever want to turn it off?
Unlike bespoke LED case lighting solutions, the Apple logo is simply a partially transparent window into the innards of the display, which allows the backlight to shine through.
A clever trick, indeed.
Photo by Dmitry Chernyshov on Unsplash
I get that removing the light/magical window helps make the laptop thinner, makes the casing more robust, and helps cut down the costs of producing and repairing the display. I’m sure that piece of shiny aluminum is much easier to produce and easier to not break during production than whatever mystical semi-transparent acrylic they used for the old logos. And I know there are plenty of RGB-enabled PC’s out there if I want to get my lighting fix on.
But none of them have the soft, audacious glow of the old MacBook logo. It announces itself with the firm authority of the sun, and you cannot turn it off.
While I was writing this in my local coffee shop, two different dudes sat down, each of them using previous generation MacBook Airs, complete with those soft glowing logos. There’s one both to my left and my right. It’s like the Apple universe is calling out to me, thanking me for paying one final homage to their old lights.
I’m not joking. Here are some bad quality photos taken with my cell phone. I have cropped both of these to stupidly small sizes because these men are far away, and I want to protect their anonymity.
The second man is wearing an Atari shirt. I’m not sure what to make of this.
If I were running Apple, in spite of being completely unqualified since I care more about lights and trackpads than anything else, I would have added lights to the backs of every Apple product.
The iPhone. The iPad. The EarPods, even. How cool would it be if the EarPod case had a tiny glowing Apple logo on it for the charge light?
At 35, I’m officially old enough now to “not know what’s cool,” but I think Apple really blew it by taking the last bits of whimsy out of the MacBook. I don’t care if it’s trying to be a fancy “productivity” machine, part of what I’ve always liked about Apple is their nod towards fun.
I worry that as they push into a bigger audience and focus more and more on sleek efficient luxury, the fun will be lost forever. | https://xander51.medium.com/i-miss-the-lighted-apple-logo-a2262d6ba580 | ['Alex Rowe'] | 2019-05-21 22:20:51.269000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'Tech', 'Apple', 'Mac', 'Design'] | Title Miss Lighted Apple LogoContent Every time see older MacBook bright white lighted Apple logo…I get envious imagine exactly point logo light first place era Apple killed MagSafe Startup Sound Skeuomorphic design iPhone’s headphone jack among things…I realize it’s weird focus silly little white light used back laptop light can’t even see you’re using computer fun cool Sometimes that’s enough MacBook Air last holdout it’s 12inchMacBooked light effectively dead lot writing coffee shop last four year I’ve watched screen landscape transform used field soft glowing white Apple logo stood stark contrast occasional black PC monolith one one light vanishing laptop upgraded replaced cold metallic mirror aluminum never pleasure personally owning MacBook lighted Apple logo first MacBook 2016 12inch model still use time time spite Apple’s increasing attempt squeeze product line aluminum Apple logo fine nice premium smooth feel material would home yacht airplane stereo system whatever glowing white light felt like future awkward 90sbutwithsmartphonesandbroadband future we’re actually living sleek future science fiction continually promised kid There’s something magical way logo glow perfectly bright natural look even sunlit room It’s brilliantly simple design though brilliance also mean never turn light without turning machine Perhaps Apple confident cool glowing figured one would ever want turn Unlike bespoke LED case lighting solution Apple logo simply partially transparent window innards display allows backlight shine clever trick indeed Photo Dmitry Chernyshov Unsplash get removing lightmagical window help make laptop thinner make casing robust help cut cost producing repairing display I’m sure piece shiny aluminum much easier produce easier break production whatever mystical semitransparent acrylic used old logo know plenty RGBenabled PC’s want get lighting fix none soft audacious glow old MacBook logo announces firm authority sun cannot turn writing local coffee shop two different dude sat using previous generation MacBook Airs complete soft glowing logo There’s one left right It’s like Apple universe calling thanking paying one final homage old light I’m joking bad quality photo taken cell phone cropped stupidly small size men far away want protect anonymity second man wearing Atari shirt I’m sure make running Apple spite completely unqualified since care light trackpads anything else would added light back every Apple product iPhone iPad EarPods even cool would EarPod case tiny glowing Apple logo charge light 35 I’m officially old enough “not know what’s cool” think Apple really blew taking last bit whimsy MacBook don’t care it’s trying fancy “productivity” machine part I’ve always liked Apple nod towards fun worry push bigger audience focus sleek efficient luxury fun lost foreverTags Technology Tech Apple Mac Design |
2,219 | 9 Paid Technical Writing Programs for Developers | 9 Paid Technical Writing Programs for Developers
Get paid to write tutorials and blogs about frameworks and languages
Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash
As a developer, you’re working on some framework (if you are a JavaScript developer there is a good chance you are working on many!). You encounter a problem. The problem may be related to installation or integration of framework within your project, or it was running on a local machine but when you deployed it on the server it showed an error.
So you Google it. Google throws a bunch of solutions to you. You go to the first solution, you read it, and apply it to the problem. The bugs are not resolved. So you try another solution. Still, the bug is not resolved. You read the documentation of the framework. As soon as you start to read, you realise that the documentation is not properly written. You curse the writer. Then you go to another solution. After repeating this cycle, you finally resolve the problem.
All developers go through this process.
The good news is, you can now monetize this process by writing about it. There are many writing programs that pay you to write how-to tutorials or blog posts for them. | https://medium.com/better-programming/9-paid-technical-writing-programs-for-developers-4e8a305e6eab | ['Yaser Basravi'] | 2020-08-25 15:49:06.071000+00:00 | ['Technical Writing', 'Programming', 'Writing', 'Developer', 'Development'] | Title 9 Paid Technical Writing Programs DevelopersContent 9 Paid Technical Writing Programs Developers Get paid write tutorial blog framework language Photo Kaitlyn Baker Unsplash developer you’re working framework JavaScript developer good chance working many encounter problem problem may related installation integration framework within project running local machine deployed server showed error Google Google throw bunch solution go first solution read apply problem bug resolved try another solution Still bug resolved read documentation framework soon start read realise documentation properly written curse writer go another solution repeating cycle finally resolve problem developer go process good news monetize process writing many writing program pay write howto tutorial blog post themTags Technical Writing Programming Writing Developer Development |
2,220 | Charge Yourself Before You Hit 0% | “Burnout is nature’s way of telling you, you’ve been going through the motions your soul has departed; you’re a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administrating stimulants to an exhausted nervous system.”
― Sam Keen, Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man
I couldn’t tell you the last time my phone went flat. Completely dead, no battery, black screen.
I can recall a few instances. A day trip to the city where none of us remembered a power bank. Dinner at Nanna’s where my cousins and I realized that Nanna lived right next to a Pokestop and promptly drained our batteries. A road trip in a friends old car that had no aux cord and no charger — we actually had to use CDs to listen to music.
I can’t tell you which was the most recent because my phone dying is a rare occurrence. For the most part, I don’t allow it to happen.
I have two chargers, one that lives in my bedroom and another that lives in my handbag, along with a power bank (just in case). At work, there’s a charger at our lunch table. In the living room, we have a veritable HUB of chargers for all kinds of devices. The car, the kitchen, the office — chargers everywhere.
Because a dead phone is useless. So, we avoid letting them die.
Simple. Them’s the rules.
And yet, we struggle to apply that same rule to ourselves. | https://medium.com/swlh/charge-yourself-before-you-hit-0-84b04aefb78a | ['Emma Scoble'] | 2019-09-15 09:36:01.372000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Mental Health', 'Self', 'Work', 'Mindfulness'] | Title Charge Hit 0Content “Burnout nature’s way telling you’ve going motion soul departed you’re zombie member walking dead sleepwalker False optimism like administrating stimulant exhausted nervous system” ― Sam Keen Fire Belly Man couldn’t tell last time phone went flat Completely dead battery black screen recall instance day trip city none u remembered power bank Dinner Nanna’s cousin realized Nanna lived right next Pokestop promptly drained battery road trip friend old car aux cord charger — actually use CDs listen music can’t tell recent phone dying rare occurrence part don’t allow happen two charger one life bedroom another life handbag along power bank case work there’s charger lunch table living room veritable HUB charger kind device car kitchen office — charger everywhere dead phone useless avoid letting die Simple Them’s rule yet struggle apply rule ourselvesTags Productivity Mental Health Self Work Mindfulness |
2,221 | If God Doesn’t Exist … | If God Doesn’t Exist …
When Truth and Agnosticism Clash
Image Credit: Olly
*The following is a passage of writing therapy. The views expressed are an expression of my mood at the time of writing. As such, they don’t represent the entirety of my thought on the matter.
If God doesn’t exist, there can be no objective truth.
With nothing above us, we are all free to make our own morals. Free to choose what is right or wrong. Free to act how we like.
There are no consequences beyond our own creation. No threat of an afterlife of eternal punishment. Nothing but our conscience to guide us.
But what is our conscience, but a product of our environment and genetics? Put me in a different time and place and I would believe vastly different things. Place me in a different education system or with different parents and I would be on a completely different path.
If God doesn’t exist, my truth is based on nothing random environmental factors. And so is yours. And so is everyone’s.
Without something above us to guide our morals we are all free to act how we like. But that freedom is in fact a false freedom. I was not free to choose my parents, nor the time and place of my birth, nor my classmates, my teachers, nor any other factor.
I am limited by my environment. I only have finite options that I could realistically take. Thus if God doesn’t exist and I act ‘immorally’ am I really to blame? Is anyone?
In a Godless world, criminals are only breaking human law. And will only receive human punishments. In that world, the atheist is free to choose what laws they will follow and the moral standards (if any) they will adhere to.
If they feel that human laws are unjust, they are free to break them. There is no objective truth holding them back. No God to guide their actions. Just themselves; which is just what the randomness of their environments created.
But what do I know? I’m just a depressed agnostic.
~ Zachary Phillips
Website: zachary-phillips.com | Social @zacpphillips | https://medium.com/invisible-illness/if-god-doesnt-exist-157fa6e0bbb6 | ['Zachary Phillips'] | 2019-10-17 04:47:27.637000+00:00 | ['Therapy', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Philosophy', 'Religion'] | Title God Doesn’t Exist …Content God Doesn’t Exist … Truth Agnosticism Clash Image Credit Olly following passage writing therapy view expressed expression mood time writing don’t represent entirety thought matter God doesn’t exist objective truth nothing u free make moral Free choose right wrong Free act like consequence beyond creation threat afterlife eternal punishment Nothing conscience guide u conscience product environment genetics Put different time place would believe vastly different thing Place different education system different parent would completely different path God doesn’t exist truth based nothing random environmental factor everyone’s Without something u guide moral free act like freedom fact false freedom free choose parent time place birth classmate teacher factor limited environment finite option could realistically take Thus God doesn’t exist act ‘immorally’ really blame anyone Godless world criminal breaking human law receive human punishment world atheist free choose law follow moral standard adhere feel human law unjust free break objective truth holding back God guide action randomness environment created know I’m depressed agnostic Zachary Phillips Website zacharyphillipscom Social zacpphillipsTags Therapy Mental Health Psychology Philosophy Religion |
2,222 | Watson Tutorial #1: Speech to Text + AlchemyLanguage Sentiment Analysis in Python | Introduction
Speech and emotion are building blocks of how we relate to each other. When a machine understands speech and emotion, its interaction with us becomes more human. For this very reason, speech recognition and sentiment analysis are two of my favorite machine learning capabilities.
Soon after joining IBM Watson, I was excited to find out that Watson Developer Cloud offers both of these services. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity to build something on top of them.
The rest of this post will walk you through how I combined Watson’s Speech to Text and AlchemyLanguage using Python. Since the intended audience for this tutorial is developers, I’ll be showing as much code as possible. With that said, if you still prefer to go straight to the code, it’s here.
For more of a step-by-step tutorial, read on!
Edit: Watson AlchemyLanguage has since been replaced by Natural Language Understanding. The capabilities and usage remain very similar.
Step 0: What You’ll Need
Basic Python programming skills Python (both 2.7 and 3.x will work) development environment IBM Bluemix account for Watson API credentials (Step 1) Watson Speech to Text Service and its credentials (Step 2 and Step 3) Watson AlchemyLanguage and its credentials (Step 4) Watson Developer Cloud Python SDK (Step 5)
Step 1: Create Bluemix Account
Before we start coding, let’s get the credentials squared away. In order to use the the Watson services, you need to create the services and its credentials on IBM Bluemix. Bluemix is IBM’s PaaS offering that let’s you deploy and manage your cloud applications.
If you prefer deploying your applications somewhere else, that’s not a problem. You can use all the Watson services via our RESTful API. However, the Bluemix platform does give you a very easy way to integrate your deployed apps with all your Watson services. Either way, go ahead and sign up for a Bluemix account to get your credentials.
If you’d like to get a quick tutorial on how to get a simple web application running on Bluemix, check this out.
Step 2: Create the Watson Speech to Text Service
Next, you need to create a Speech to Text service on Bluemix. My preferred way of doing this is through the Cloud Foundry CLI. You can find installation instructions at the repository’s download section. In case you’re wondering, the Cloud Foundry CLI is simply a command line interface that lets you talk with Bluemix directly.
Once you have the Cloud Foundry CLI, use it to login to Bluemix.
After logging in, you can create the Speech to Text service from the command line in a single command. Here, I named my service speech-to-text-standard.
Step 3: Create Speech to Text Credentials
Now that we have a service, we need to create the credentials attached to this service. The easiest way to do this is through the Bluemix dashboard. Once you’ve logged into Bluemix, go to your dashboard and scroll to the bottom of the page. You should see the service you just created under the Services section.
Find your Speech to Text service. For me, it’s called speech-to-text-service-standard.
You’ll see that you currently have no credentials, but that’s easily fixed by clicking “Add Credentials”.
Here’s your credentials!
Remember your username and password, you’ll need it later. You now have the ability convert speech to text, whoo!
Step 4: Register for AlchemyLanguage API Key
In order to perform sentiment analysis on text, you’ll need the Watson AlchemyLanguage service. Since you’re already at the dashboard, let’s try another way to create a service.
First find the catalog tab on top of your dashboard. Scroll down to find the Watson services, and then select AlchemyAPI.
This is an alternative to Cloud Foundry CLI to create Watson services. Since this is a prototype, you can put the service in the dev space and leave it unbound. Bluemix gives you the ability to create different spaces once your deployment flow becomes more complex (you might need spaces such as dev, staging, production etc). Leaving the service unbound means this service isn’t tied to a specific application.
Once the service is created, you should be able get your API key by going to Service Credentials on the left.
Step 5: Python Setup
Once you have your credentials, it’s almost time to code. Again, here’s the repository if you’d prefer reading the code over this how-to guide.
If you’re new to Python, I recommend setting up virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper. These tools combined let you easily set up sandboxed Python environments with everything you need including pip. If you’d rather use something else, that’s fine, but make sure you have pip installed properly.
Now, install the Watson Developer Cloud SDK using pip.
Step 6: Code
The Watson SDK makes it very easy to interact with both services. Go ahead and clone the speech-sentiment-python repository.
Quick note: I use python-dotenv to manage my credentials. Here’s what my .env file looks like:
The only change you need to make to the cloned repository is adding a .env file to your folder, similar to the one above. When you do python run.py you should expect a prompt that says “Please say something nice into the microphone”. The script will then listen for your voice and start recording. Say something nice please! :) The recording will stop after a significant pause. After that, you should start seeing results in your terminal similar to this.
Note: The threshold to activate recording and the time delay to stop recording are all variables that are adjustable in recorder.py. If you’re in a noisy environment, you might need to adjust the microphone settings on your computer and the paramaters in recorder.py.
But running a script is boring, let’s actually understand what’s going on in run.py.
First, we import the necessary libraries. Notice dotenv and watson_developer_cloud.
import os
import json
from os.path import join, dirname
from dotenv import load_dotenv
from watson_developer_cloud import SpeechToTextV1 as SpeechToText
from watson_developer_cloud import AlchemyLanguageV1 as AlchemyLanguage
Recorder is a module built on PyAudio that’ll record your voice into a .wav file. I’ll not go into the specific of how it works in this post but the code is very understandable. Feel free to take a look at recorder.py.
from speech_sentiment_python.recorder import Recorder
At this point, we basically need to performs three tasks in this order:
Record the voice and save it into a .wav file Transcribe the audio file into text via Watson Speech to Text service Get the sentiment score of the transcribed text via Watson AlchemyLanguage
record_to_file(), transcribe_audio(), and get_text_sentiment() will accomplish these tasks.
record_to_file(“speech.wav”) saves your voice into speech.wav in the same folder as run.py. Of course you can change “speech.wav” to be a path pointing to wherever you’d like.
recorder = Recorder(“speech.wav”)
recorder.record_to_file()
transcribe_audio() sends the .wav file to your Watson Speech to Text API and gets back the transcribed text. Notice how we can do this with simply one line of code using the Python SDK.
def transcribe_audio(path_to_audio_file):
username = os.environ.get(“BLUEMIX_USERNAME”)
password = os.environ.get(“BLUEMIX_PASSWORD”)
speech_to_text = SpeechToText(username=username,
password=password) with open(join(dirname(__file__), path_to_audio_file), ‘rb’) as
audio_file:
return speech_to_text.recognize(audio_file,
content_type=’audio/wav’)
get_text_sentiment() takes the transcribed text and uses the AlchemyLanguage API to figure out its sentiment score.
def get_text_sentiment(text):
alchemy_api_key = os.environ.get(“ALCHEMY_API_KEY”)
alchemy_language = AlchemyLanguage(api_key=alchemy_api_key)
result = alchemy_language.sentiment(text=text) if result[‘docSentiment’][‘type’] == ‘neutral’:
return ‘netural’, 0
return result[‘docSentiment’][‘type’],
result[‘docSentiment’[‘score’]
And that’s it, you’re done! You can now record your speech and have Watson tell you how he feels about it.
Step 7: What’s Next
So what’s next? As I mentioned in the beginning, I believe these two services combined make for a very engaging interaction. In my upcoming post, I’ll explore ways to combined this module with hardware to create an unique experience. Specifically, I want to build a candy machine that’ll dispense candy depending on the sentiment of your speech. Stay tuned for the Watson Polite Candy Machine!
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any questions feel free to reach out at [email protected] or connect with me on LinkedIn. | https://medium.com/ibm-watson/watson-tutorial-1-speech-to-text-alchemylanguage-sentiment-analysis-in-python-23e1a76965c5 | ['Josh Zheng'] | 2017-06-16 03:27:55.903000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Tutorial', 'Sentiment Analysis', 'Ibm Watson'] | Title Watson Tutorial 1 Speech Text AlchemyLanguage Sentiment Analysis PythonContent Introduction Speech emotion building block relate machine understands speech emotion interaction u becomes human reason speech recognition sentiment analysis two favorite machine learning capability Soon joining IBM Watson excited find Watson Developer Cloud offer service Naturally jumped opportunity build something top rest post walk combined Watson’s Speech Text AlchemyLanguage using Python Since intended audience tutorial developer I’ll showing much code possible said still prefer go straight code it’s stepbystep tutorial read Edit Watson AlchemyLanguage since replaced Natural Language Understanding capability usage remain similar Step 0 You’ll Need Basic Python programming skill Python 27 3x work development environment IBM Bluemix account Watson API credential Step 1 Watson Speech Text Service credential Step 2 Step 3 Watson AlchemyLanguage credential Step 4 Watson Developer Cloud Python SDK Step 5 Step 1 Create Bluemix Account start coding let’s get credential squared away order use Watson service need create service credential IBM Bluemix Bluemix IBM’s PaaS offering let’s deploy manage cloud application prefer deploying application somewhere else that’s problem use Watson service via RESTful API However Bluemix platform give easy way integrate deployed apps Watson service Either way go ahead sign Bluemix account get credential you’d like get quick tutorial get simple web application running Bluemix check Step 2 Create Watson Speech Text Service Next need create Speech Text service Bluemix preferred way Cloud Foundry CLI find installation instruction repository’s download section case you’re wondering Cloud Foundry CLI simply command line interface let talk Bluemix directly Cloud Foundry CLI use login Bluemix logging create Speech Text service command line single command named service speechtotextstandard Step 3 Create Speech Text Credentials service need create credential attached service easiest way Bluemix dashboard you’ve logged Bluemix go dashboard scroll bottom page see service created Services section Find Speech Text service it’s called speechtotextservicestandard You’ll see currently credential that’s easily fixed clicking “Add Credentials” Here’s credential Remember username password you’ll need later ability convert speech text whoo Step 4 Register AlchemyLanguage API Key order perform sentiment analysis text you’ll need Watson AlchemyLanguage service Since you’re already dashboard let’s try another way create service First find catalog tab top dashboard Scroll find Watson service select AlchemyAPI alternative Cloud Foundry CLI create Watson service Since prototype put service dev space leave unbound Bluemix give ability create different space deployment flow becomes complex might need space dev staging production etc Leaving service unbound mean service isn’t tied specific application service created able get API key going Service Credentials left Step 5 Python Setup credential it’s almost time code here’s repository you’d prefer reading code howto guide you’re new Python recommend setting virtualenv virtualenvwrapper tool combined let easily set sandboxed Python environment everything need including pip you’d rather use something else that’s fine make sure pip installed properly install Watson Developer Cloud SDK using pip Step 6 Code Watson SDK make easy interact service Go ahead clone speechsentimentpython repository Quick note use pythondotenv manage credential Here’s env file look like change need make cloned repository adding env file folder similar one python runpy expect prompt say “Please say something nice microphone” script listen voice start recording Say something nice please recording stop significant pause start seeing result terminal similar Note threshold activate recording time delay stop recording variable adjustable recorderpy you’re noisy environment might need adjust microphone setting computer paramaters recorderpy running script boring let’s actually understand what’s going runpy First import necessary library Notice dotenv watsondevelopercloud import o import json ospath import join dirname dotenv import loaddotenv watsondevelopercloud import SpeechToTextV1 SpeechToText watsondevelopercloud import AlchemyLanguageV1 AlchemyLanguage Recorder module built PyAudio that’ll record voice wav file I’ll go specific work post code understandable Feel free take look recorderpy speechsentimentpythonrecorder import Recorder point basically need performs three task order Record voice save wav file Transcribe audio file text via Watson Speech Text service Get sentiment score transcribed text via Watson AlchemyLanguage recordtofile transcribeaudio gettextsentiment accomplish task recordtofile“speechwav” save voice speechwav folder runpy course change “speechwav” path pointing wherever you’d like recorder Recorder“speechwav” recorderrecordtofile transcribeaudio sends wav file Watson Speech Text API get back transcribed text Notice simply one line code using Python SDK def transcribeaudiopathtoaudiofile username osenvironget“BLUEMIXUSERNAME” password osenvironget“BLUEMIXPASSWORD” speechtotext SpeechToTextusernameusername passwordpassword openjoindirnamefile pathtoaudiofile ‘rb’ audiofile return speechtotextrecognizeaudiofile contenttype’audiowav’ gettextsentiment take transcribed text us AlchemyLanguage API figure sentiment score def gettextsentimenttext alchemyapikey osenvironget“ALCHEMYAPIKEY” alchemylanguage AlchemyLanguageapikeyalchemyapikey result alchemylanguagesentimenttexttext result‘docSentiment’‘type’ ‘neutral’ return ‘netural’ 0 return result‘docSentiment’‘type’ result‘docSentiment’‘score’ that’s you’re done record speech Watson tell feel Step 7 What’s Next what’s next mentioned beginning believe two service combined make engaging interaction upcoming post I’ll explore way combined module hardware create unique experience Specifically want build candy machine that’ll dispense candy depending sentiment speech Stay tuned Watson Polite Candy Machine hope enjoyed tutorial question feel free reach joshzhengusibmcom connect LinkedInTags Python Artificial Intelligence Tutorial Sentiment Analysis Ibm Watson |
2,223 | 4 Habits to Let Go That Help You Beat Anxiety | According to Wikipedia Anxiety is a feeling of uneasiness and worry. Anxiety is your body reacting to stress. Ordinary anxiety is completely normal because each of us copes to some degree.
The problem arises when ordinary anxiety begins to interfere with our daily life.
General anxiety symptoms includes
Thoughts you can’t control.
Increased heart rate.
Having difficulty falling asleep.
You cannot concentrate.
Increased breathing rate.
I have made this list of four habits that helped me reduce anxiety in my life. After you put these habits aside, you can reduce anxiety in your life.
1. Not Appreciating What We Have
Did you ever think that all we have today was once a wish? We always wanted that phone we use today. We always wanted the clothes that we wear today.
All the people we have in our life were once desired by us. Most of the time we don’t appreciate what is in our lives today.
As human beings, we set ourselves goals and once we achieve them, we set other goals to achieve. In the race to pursue goals, humans have forgotten to appreciate what we have in our lives.
If a person has a sports car, he wants a private jet. A person who has a bicycle wants a sports car. So every human being in this universe wants something more in their life.
The clothes we wear today are not appreciated until the day we cannot afford them.
The food we eat today is not appreciated until we have the money to buy it.
Parents who are always supportive of us are not appreciated until one day we lose them.
You never know, what you have in your life today may disappear tomorrow. To release anxiety, we must begin to appreciate what we have in our life.
The more grateful we are, the happier we will be. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/4-habits-to-let-go-that-help-you-beat-anxiety-3e076db23415 | ['Sanjay Priyadarshi'] | 2020-10-20 13:18:00.390000+00:00 | ['Anxiety', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Advice', 'Habits'] | Title 4 Habits Let Go Help Beat AnxietyContent According Wikipedia Anxiety feeling uneasiness worry Anxiety body reacting stress Ordinary anxiety completely normal u cope degree problem arises ordinary anxiety begin interfere daily life General anxiety symptom includes Thoughts can’t control Increased heart rate difficulty falling asleep cannot concentrate Increased breathing rate made list four habit helped reduce anxiety life put habit aside reduce anxiety life 1 Appreciating ever think today wish always wanted phone use today always wanted clothes wear today people life desired u time don’t appreciate life today human being set goal achieve set goal achieve race pursue goal human forgotten appreciate life person sport car want private jet person bicycle want sport car every human universe want something life clothes wear today appreciated day cannot afford food eat today appreciated money buy Parents always supportive u appreciated one day lose never know life today may disappear tomorrow release anxiety must begin appreciate life grateful happier beTags Anxiety Mental Health Psychology Advice Habits |
2,224 | 7 Books That Can Help You Create an Extraordinary Life in 2021 | 7 Books That Can Help You Create an Extraordinary Life in 2021
Books that have changed my life and could do the same for you.
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
For many years, I was just a regular guy. I followed all the “rules.” I went to university. I chased instant gratification and was addicted to video games.
However, after developing a reading habit, everything for me in my life changed. I realized I didn’t have to follow the path everyone else was on. I didn’t have to live just another ordinary life.
Instead, I could design my own rules and create the life I want, and this is a path that’s available for all. If you're wanting to create a life that’s beyond the status quo, then these books can certainly help. Here we go.
1. The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? by Seth Godin
Here is one of Seth’s many bestsellers. This book focuses on the idea that you’ve probably been taught to play life too safe. You’ve been taught to listen to the “experts,” to fit in, to not rock the boat, and simply obey and conform.
However, Seth invites everyone to see the world from a different perspective. One where you’re calling the shots, taking responsibility, and creating a life and work you’re proud of.
If you’re wanting to make a difference in 2021, then I absolutely would be picking up this book.
“Today, in the face of the greatest revolution of our time, we are all artists. Or at least we all have the opportunity to be artists. The only thing holding us back is us.”
2. High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way by Brendon Burchard
Wanna take your life to another level in 2021? This book is going to be your field manual.
Brendon Burchard has jam-packed it with knowledge and practical ideas that’ll immediately change the way you live, the emotions you feel and the results you achieve.
From average to extraordinary is how your life will be after reading this book.
“You can be wildly happy with what you have, and still strive to grow and contribute. So don’t ever let anyone discourage you from your ambition for a better life. Don’t minimize yourself or your dreams for any reason.”
3. The Latte Factor: Why You Don’t Have to Be Rich to Live Rich by David Bach
This is a simple finance book, and it’s absolutely fantastic! The story is written as a parable, which follows a young woman who doesn’t have a healthy relationship with money.
She is living paycheck to paycheck and deprives herself of living the life she really wants as she claims she “can’t afford it.” However, after being introduced to ‘the latte factor,’ her life starts to change very quickly.
She begins ACTING and LIVING rich, which allows her to eventually BECOME rich because she stops clinging on to the fixed mindset she has about her money and her future.
With only a 90 minute read time, there aren’t many reasons you shouldn't read this book.
“Everyone builds wealth. The only question is: For whom?”
4. The Education of Millionaires: Everything You Won’t Learn in College About How to Be Successful by Michael Ellsberg
If you’re in high school, college or a recent graduate, then your biggest regret is going to be not picking up this book earlier.
Personally, I read it in my second year at university, and it drove me to reconsider my previous career choices and go all-in on entrepreneurship.
To make a long story short: there is another career path you’re not being told about, and this book is going to show you how to walk it.
“Though you may learn many wonderful things in college, your success and happiness in life will have little to do with what you study there or the letters after your name once you graduate.”
5. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone
Grant Cardone has a no excuse attitude towards success. In this book, he’s going to tell you bluntly that you’re probably not living up to your full potential.
Instead, you could be living a 10X life, and he’s going to show you the mindsets, attitudes and behaviors to do it.
If you’re willing to and want to hear the brutal truths of what it takes to succeed at the highest levels, then you're going to love this book!
“Most people will admit that their goals are well below their potential — because most of the world has been convinced, persuaded, and even educated to set small, attainable, and realistic goals.”
If you’re currently stuck in a state of thinking, “There must be more to life than this,” then this book is absolutely for you.
Guided by his own story, Chris Guillebeau will show how to live on your own terms, create self-employment and embrace life as a constant adventure.
For anyone who wants to make a bigger impact in their life; pick up this book!
“The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”
7. The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller
This one of the first books I read that really got me into productivity and self-improvement.
It is simple, concise and informative. As the title suggests, it’s ultimately about finding the ONE thing that’s most important to your life and then only doing that thing. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/7-books-that-can-help-you-create-an-extraordinary-life-in-2021-a9bdf6133891 | ['Reece Robertson'] | 2020-12-22 20:32:43.386000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Inspiration', 'Books', 'Life'] | Title 7 Books Help Create Extraordinary Life 2021Content 7 Books Help Create Extraordinary Life 2021 Books changed life could Photo Christin Hume Unsplash many year regular guy followed “rules” went university chased instant gratification addicted video game However developing reading habit everything life changed realized didn’t follow path everyone else didn’t live another ordinary life Instead could design rule create life want path that’s available youre wanting create life that’s beyond status quo book certainly help go 1 Icarus Deception High Fly Seth Godin one Seth’s many bestseller book focus idea you’ve probably taught play life safe You’ve taught listen “experts” fit rock boat simply obey conform However Seth invite everyone see world different perspective One you’re calling shot taking responsibility creating life work you’re proud you’re wanting make difference 2021 absolutely would picking book “Today face greatest revolution time artist least opportunity artist thing holding u back us” 2 High Performance Habits Extraordinary People Become Way Brendon Burchard Wanna take life another level 2021 book going field manual Brendon Burchard jampacked knowledge practical idea that’ll immediately change way live emotion feel result achieve average extraordinary life reading book “You wildly happy still strive grow contribute don’t ever let anyone discourage ambition better life Don’t minimize dream reason” 3 Latte Factor Don’t Rich Live Rich David Bach simple finance book it’s absolutely fantastic story written parable follows young woman doesn’t healthy relationship money living paycheck paycheck deprives living life really want claim “can’t afford it” However introduced ‘the latte factor’ life start change quickly begin ACTING LIVING rich allows eventually BECOME rich stop clinging fixed mindset money future 90 minute read time aren’t many reason shouldnt read book “Everyone build wealth question whom” 4 Education Millionaires Everything Won’t Learn College Successful Michael Ellsberg you’re high school college recent graduate biggest regret going picking book earlier Personally read second year university drove reconsider previous career choice go allin entrepreneurship make long story short another career path you’re told book going show walk “Though may learn many wonderful thing college success happiness life little study letter name graduate” 5 10X Rule Difference Success Failure Grant Cardone Grant Cardone excuse attitude towards success book he’s going tell bluntly you’re probably living full potential Instead could living 10X life he’s going show mindset attitude behavior you’re willing want hear brutal truth take succeed highest level youre going love book “Most people admit goal well potential — world convinced persuaded even educated set small attainable realistic goals” you’re currently stuck state thinking “There must life this” book absolutely Guided story Chris Guillebeau show live term create selfemployment embrace life constant adventure anyone want make bigger impact life pick book “The great pleasure life people say cannot do” 7 ONE Thing Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results Gary Keller one first book read really got productivity selfimprovement simple concise informative title suggests it’s ultimately finding ONE thing that’s important life thingTags Self Improvement Productivity Inspiration Books Life |
2,225 | What This Epidemiologist Wants Americans to Know About Covid-19 Right Now | Epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch. Photo: Kent Dayton
What This Epidemiologist Wants Americans to Know About Covid-19 Right Now
A leading expert on the pandemic cuts through the mixed messages and confusion
One of the first scientists I reached out to in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak was Marc Lipsitch, PhD, a professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Soon after, he became hard to reach. Like other experts in infectious disease and epidemiology — the science of investigating causes, trends, and outcomes of diseases or other health-related events — Lipsitch’s time is in great demand from journalists and policymakers, not to mention the actual ongoing pandemic research.
Since then, much has been learned about the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19, the disease it causes.
During these seven months, Lipsitch and other scientists — just like many other Americans — have become increasingly frustrated over mixed messaging from some health officials, outright falsehoods and misinformation uttered by some politicians and circulating wildly in social media, the lack of governmental leadership in managing the U.S. pandemic response, and the resulting disagreement over basic scientific facts and ensuing political and public polarization over what to do.
So on an Aug. 13 call with reporters covering a range of Covid-19 science details, I asked Lipsitch to step back and consider a broader question:
Amid all the confusion, what would you most like all Americans to know right now?
Here is an edited version of his responses on the call and in a subsequent exchange:
Viruses don’t care
“The first thing is just the very fundamental notion that if you have susceptible people, and if you have human contact, and if you have a virus to which those people are susceptible, it will spread, and the number of cases will increase. “My friend [and fellow epidemiologist] Bill Hanage sometimes says, ‘Viruses don’t read Twitter.’ They don’t care what we think about them. They don’t care what they do to the economy. They don’t care about anything. And we have to be rational in the face of that.”
Wishful thinking doesn’t work
“If a certain level of control measures didn’t bring transmission under control in the summer, unless there’s a lot more herd immunity to help us along, those same control measures still aren’t going to bring transmission under control in the fall and winter. Conversely, as more people start to get together in various ways, and as schools reopen, there will be more opportunities for transmission.” [Several experts have said the pandemic is likely to worsen this fall, raising concerns about the confluence with flu season.]
“Wishful thinking just doesn’t help. And I think that’s been a big part of the issue, a notion in some states in particular, that somehow we can be different from all the other experiences with this virus and other viruses and we can just hope that it won’t spread when we have high levels of contact.” [He cites complacency among U.S. policymakers when the virus was spreading in China and then Europe, and then complacency by some governors during the early outbreaks in New York and other states.]
Masks do work
“I think it would be great if people understood that masks, although they are somewhat disgusting to wear all day, really are a part of the solution, both as a direct protective for yourself and especially for others, but also as a reminder for people, because as they see the mask, they tend to stay away.”
Rampant virus spread is what’s bad for the economy
“I wish there was more sense of national solidarity around the idea that if the virus is spreading fast and at high levels in a community, it’s destructive to the economy, it’s destructive to every aspect of peoples’ lives, and the need to get the virus under control is in fact an investment in the economy and in getting our lives back into a normal state, rather than the sort of opposition between the ‘openers’ and the ‘closers.’ All of us closers want to close so that we get things under control enough so that we can open. No one likes being closed.
“And on the positive side, we know that concerted efforts to slow down transmission by reducing contacts can work. Many countries in Europe or Asia achieved a 10-fold reduction in cases and deaths with about two months of lockdown, and as a result of the pain they endured then, they are in a far stronger position than we are. We can still bring transmission down, but we have to make some sacrifices to do it.”
I also asked Lipsitch: Have scientists and healthcare experts and journalists collectively talked and written too much about all the evolving science and incremental details (and contradictory aspects) of the virus and the disease, to the point people simply tune out?
“I’m really bored of reading about Covid. But for me it’s one experience. For people who care much more about other things, it is, I presume, even more boring to have it be the only news.
“Covid-19 is dominating every aspect of life. It’s changed our economy, it’s changed our educational system, it’s changed our sports, it’s changed our other forms of entertainment and our arts. It really is the story, and I don’t know what to do to stop it being dominant other than stopping the virus itself.
“My overall evaluation of the coverage of this is that it’s been surprisingly good. Generalizing across different media types, almost every reporter I’ve had contact with is trying really hard to get the story right, to understand uncertainty, and to communicate clearly what’s known and what’s not known. I wonder almost if this is kind of a reaction to the fact that — with the key exception of Dr. Fauci — there hasn’t been a clear government voice in the United States that’s been loud enough at the federal level, or able to speak enough at the federal level, to fill that role, which is typically the CDC’s role. So I think journalists and scientists are collaborating quite effectively to bring that kind of information out with all the nuances.
“But of course not that many people want the entire newspaper to be science, or medicine, or even public health, and I think all of us working on this pandemic look forward to being less relevant.” | https://medium.com/luminate/what-this-epidemiologist-wants-americans-to-know-about-covid-19-right-now-9e051a849ddc | ['Robert Roy Britt'] | 2020-08-17 13:09:07.367000+00:00 | ['Epidemiology', 'Covid 19', 'Lipsitch', 'Coronavirus', 'Science'] | Title Epidemiologist Wants Americans Know Covid19 Right NowContent Epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch Photo Kent Dayton Epidemiologist Wants Americans Know Covid19 Right leading expert pandemic cut mixed message confusion One first scientist reached early day coronavirus outbreak Marc Lipsitch PhD professor epidemiology director Center Communicable Disease Dynamics Harvard TH Chan School Public Health Soon became hard reach Like expert infectious disease epidemiology — science investigating cause trend outcome disease healthrelated event — Lipsitch’s time great demand journalist policymakers mention actual ongoing pandemic research Since much learned novel coronavirus SARSCoV2 Covid19 disease cause seven month Lipsitch scientist — like many Americans — become increasingly frustrated mixed messaging health official outright falsehood misinformation uttered politician circulating wildly social medium lack governmental leadership managing US pandemic response resulting disagreement basic scientific fact ensuing political public polarization Aug 13 call reporter covering range Covid19 science detail asked Lipsitch step back consider broader question Amid confusion would like Americans know right edited version response call subsequent exchange Viruses don’t care “The first thing fundamental notion susceptible people human contact virus people susceptible spread number case increase “My friend fellow epidemiologist Bill Hanage sometimes say ‘Viruses don’t read Twitter’ don’t care think don’t care economy don’t care anything rational face that” Wishful thinking doesn’t work “If certain level control measure didn’t bring transmission control summer unless there’s lot herd immunity help u along control measure still aren’t going bring transmission control fall winter Conversely people start get together various way school reopen opportunity transmission” Several expert said pandemic likely worsen fall raising concern confluence flu season “Wishful thinking doesn’t help think that’s big part issue notion state particular somehow different experience virus virus hope won’t spread high level contact” cite complacency among US policymakers virus spreading China Europe complacency governor early outbreak New York state Masks work “I think would great people understood mask although somewhat disgusting wear day really part solution direct protective especially others also reminder people see mask tend stay away” Rampant virus spread what’s bad economy “I wish sense national solidarity around idea virus spreading fast high level community it’s destructive economy it’s destructive every aspect peoples’ life need get virus control fact investment economy getting life back normal state rather sort opposition ‘openers’ ‘closers’ u closer want close get thing control enough open one like closed “And positive side know concerted effort slow transmission reducing contact work Many country Europe Asia achieved 10fold reduction case death two month lockdown result pain endured far stronger position still bring transmission make sacrifice it” also asked Lipsitch scientist healthcare expert journalist collectively talked written much evolving science incremental detail contradictory aspect virus disease point people simply tune “I’m really bored reading Covid it’s one experience people care much thing presume even boring news “Covid19 dominating every aspect life It’s changed economy it’s changed educational system it’s changed sport it’s changed form entertainment art really story don’t know stop dominant stopping virus “My overall evaluation coverage it’s surprisingly good Generalizing across different medium type almost every reporter I’ve contact trying really hard get story right understand uncertainty communicate clearly what’s known what’s known wonder almost kind reaction fact — key exception Dr Fauci — hasn’t clear government voice United States that’s loud enough federal level able speak enough federal level fill role typically CDC’s role think journalist scientist collaborating quite effectively bring kind information nuance “But course many people want entire newspaper science medicine even public health think u working pandemic look forward le relevant”Tags Epidemiology Covid 19 Lipsitch Coronavirus Science |
2,226 | What is ETL? | In our articles related to AI and Big Data in healthcare, we always talk about ETL as the core of the core process. We do not write a lot about ETL itself, though. In this post, we’ll give a short overview of this procedure and its applications in businesses.
ETL is the abbreviation for Extract, Transform, Load that are three database functions:
Extract is the process of reading data that is assumed to be important. The data can be either raw collected from multiple and different types of sources or taken from a source database.
is the process of reading data that is assumed to be important. The data can be either raw collected from multiple and different types of sources or taken from a source database. Transform is the process of converting the extracted data from its previous format into the format required by another database. The transformation occurs by using rules or lookup tables or by combining the data with other data.
is the process of converting the extracted data from its previous format into the format required by another database. The transformation occurs by using rules or lookup tables or by combining the data with other data. Load is the process of writing the data into the target database, data warehouse or another system
ETL in its essence is a type of data integration used to blend data from multiple sources.
ETL vs. ELT
The ETL paradigm is inherent to Data Warehousing, and Big Data has significantly changed the order of the processes. In Big Data, data is “lifted and shifted” wholesale to a repository, such as a Data Lake, and is held there in the original format. It is transformed “on the fly” when needed by Data Scientists, creating the procedure of ELT, or Extract, Load, Transform.
One of the main benefits of ELT is a shorter load time. As we can take advantage of the built-in processing capability of data warehouses, we can reduce the time that data spends in transit. This capability is most useful when processing large data sets required for business intelligence and big data analytics.
In practice, however, things are not so black and white. Many Data Lakes, for example, contain intermediate merged and transformed data structures to ensure that each Data Scientist doesn’t repeat the same work, or carry it out in a different way.
Where are ETL/ELT used?
ETL is not a new technology: businesses have relied on it for many years to get a consolidated view of the data. The most common uses of ETL include:
ETL and traditional uses
Traditionally, ETL is used to consolidate, collect and join data from external suppliers or to migrate data from legacy systems to new systems with different data formats. ETL tools surface data from a data store in a comprehensible for business people format, making it easier to analyze and report on. The key beneficiaries of these applications are retailers and healthcare providers.
ETL and metadata
ETL provides a deep historical context and a consolidated view for the business by surfacing the metadata. As data architectures become more complex, it’s important to track how the different data elements are used and related within one organization. Metadata helps understand the lineage of data and its impact on other data assets in the organization.
ETL and Data Quality
ETL and ELT are extensively used for data cleansing, profiling and auditing ensuring that data is trustworthy. ETL tools can be integrated with data quality tools, such as those used for data profiling, deduplication or validation.
ETL and Self-Service Data Access
Self-service data preparation is a fast-growing field that puts the power of accessing, blending and transforming data into the hands of business users and other nontechnical data professionals. ETL codifies and reuses processes that move data without requiring technical skills to write code or scripts. With this approach integrated into the ETL process, less time is spent on data preparation, improving professionals’ productivity. | https://medium.com/sciforce/what-is-etl-1df5305bb341 | [] | 2019-09-27 12:48:33.283000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Healthcare', 'Big Data', 'Technology', 'Data Science'] | Title ETLContent article related AI Big Data healthcare always talk ETL core core process write lot ETL though post we’ll give short overview procedure application business ETL abbreviation Extract Transform Load three database function Extract process reading data assumed important data either raw collected multiple different type source taken source database process reading data assumed important data either raw collected multiple different type source taken source database Transform process converting extracted data previous format format required another database transformation occurs using rule lookup table combining data data process converting extracted data previous format format required another database transformation occurs using rule lookup table combining data data Load process writing data target database data warehouse another system ETL essence type data integration used blend data multiple source ETL v ELT ETL paradigm inherent Data Warehousing Big Data significantly changed order process Big Data data “lifted shifted” wholesale repository Data Lake held original format transformed “on fly” needed Data Scientists creating procedure ELT Extract Load Transform One main benefit ELT shorter load time take advantage builtin processing capability data warehouse reduce time data spends transit capability useful processing large data set required business intelligence big data analytics practice however thing black white Many Data Lakes example contain intermediate merged transformed data structure ensure Data Scientist doesn’t repeat work carry different way ETLELT used ETL new technology business relied many year get consolidated view data common us ETL include ETL traditional us Traditionally ETL used consolidate collect join data external supplier migrate data legacy system new system different data format ETL tool surface data data store comprehensible business people format making easier analyze report key beneficiary application retailer healthcare provider ETL metadata ETL provides deep historical context consolidated view business surfacing metadata data architecture become complex it’s important track different data element used related within one organization Metadata help understand lineage data impact data asset organization ETL Data Quality ETL ELT extensively used data cleansing profiling auditing ensuring data trustworthy ETL tool integrated data quality tool used data profiling deduplication validation ETL SelfService Data Access Selfservice data preparation fastgrowing field put power accessing blending transforming data hand business user nontechnical data professional ETL codifies reuses process move data without requiring technical skill write code script approach integrated ETL process le time spent data preparation improving professionals’ productivityTags Artificial Intelligence Healthcare Big Data Technology Data Science |
2,227 | How An Unstable Childhood Can Damage Your Love Life as an Adult | How An Unstable Childhood Can Damage Your Love Life as an Adult
How to your break toxic relationship patterns.
I attracted emotionally unavailable people over and over again. I accepted crumbs and took what I could get because I thought it was normal.
I thought being caught in a push and pull dance meant love.
When we don’t know what a secure relationship looks like, we flounder about and get hooked on the emotional highs and lows and mistake it for love.
I was unconsciously addicted to the rush I got when people I liked would push me away, and come back. I truly believed this push-pull behaviour meant love and passion.
When I changed my attachment style to secure, I realised it wasn’t even close to what a healthy relationship was.
And maybe you don’t know what this looks like either. | https://medium.com/candour/how-an-unstable-childhood-can-damage-your-love-life-as-an-adult-2a3c7ee15ed2 | ['Kathrine Meraki'] | 2020-09-21 00:00:51.395000+00:00 | ['Dating', 'Mental Health', 'Self-awareness', 'This Happened To Me', 'Relationships'] | Title Unstable Childhood Damage Love Life AdultContent Unstable Childhood Damage Love Life Adult break toxic relationship pattern attracted emotionally unavailable people accepted crumb took could get thought normal thought caught push pull dance meant love don’t know secure relationship look like flounder get hooked emotional high low mistake love unconsciously addicted rush got people liked would push away come back truly believed pushpull behaviour meant love passion changed attachment style secure realised wasn’t even close healthy relationship maybe don’t know look like eitherTags Dating Mental Health Selfawareness Happened Relationships |
2,228 | 5 Simple Productivity Tools That Helped Me Produce Higher Quality Work | 5 Simple Productivity Tools That Helped Me Produce Higher Quality Work
And helped me earn six-figures in the process with the extra time each tool gave me back.
Photo by Zac Wolff on Unsplash
Producing lots of work and increasing the quality of that work is difficult to accomplish when you are disorganized and can’t keep track of what is next.
I used to do the following:
Have thousands of emails in my inbox
Have posted notes all over my workspace
Have files all over my computer desktop
Have a reminder app that always caused me to forget
Have a calendar full of useless tasks
All of these problems caused me to be disorganized. As a result, my career, writing, and family suffered. It has taken some time, but one by one over the period when I wasn’t working, I made some drastic changes and tried a few new tools.
It turns out the answer to doing more work of a higher quality was easier than I thought. The goal was to do less so that more time could be invested in the areas I wanted to go deep on and produce more results in.
Removing the bad habits
Before exploring a few new tools to help with my productivity, I first looked to delete bad habits that caused the original problem. Here are the changes I made:
Implemented inbox zero for my email
Threw away all posted notes and refused to use them again
Removed everything off the desktop and created folders for documents, pictures, videos and downloads that were stored on an external hard drive, out of the way
Deleted all reminder apps and used the Outlook Calendar as my sole source of truth for where I had to be (it’s synced across all devices — tablet, phone, desktop, and laptop)
Only items that were a must got scheduled in Outlook (no podcast interviews, “write me a free article,” let’s have a call about nothing — you get the message)
Once the bad habits were taken care of, I trialed and shortlisted the following productivity tools:
1. OneTab
For browser abusers like me, OneTab is a dream.
It’s a browser extension that takes all your hundreds of open tabs and puts them on a single page in one tab. You go from lots of windows to one window with one tab, overnight.
What I do is have windows with certain tabs grouped together for later.
For example, I have a set of tabs used for writing inspiration, a set of video tabs for sharing on social media, a set of tabs for sending emails, and a read later or do later set of tabs. Once the task is complete, I file away all the tabs in OneTab and am back to a single browser tab. This is an ongoing experiment for me and there are still some tweaks that need to be made.
Our obsession with hoarding browser tabs is a weird one, and OneTab can help.
2. New Tab Draft
This is a productivity tool that Tiffany Sun recommended. It’s very basic and easy to use. New Tab Draft makes it so every new tab you open by default becomes a beautiful blank page that you can write down thoughts on.
It’s minimalist by design and can be used to scribble ideas or to-do lists on. Every time you open a new tab and see your browser notepad, you’re reminded of what is important.
3. Trello
This tool has made the biggest impact on my life. The problem I was facing started at work. I started out with an Apple Notes App on my laptop and work phone to keep track of meetings, training, action items, and learnings.
One day I logged into my computer and found all my notes had disappeared. My workplace had blocked the Apple Notes App because it used iCloud instead of the company’s own cloud (understandable). I quickly had to find a company approved solution and this led me to think about how ineffective managing tasks via a notepad app was. There were pages and pages of notes and no way to work out where things were at or what was important.
Thinking back to the days working in an innovation lab, I remember this tool we used called Trello.
In a productivity rage of inspiration, I downloaded Trello like a five-year-old who just got given candy for the first time and began playing with it. I then went around the office and asked a few colleagues who also used it.
The approach to Trello was simple: Things to do (not started), in progress (doing), and done.
By seeing everything visually on a Trello Board, I could set due dates and see red for items that were overdue. It was better than any notes app or CRM for making me productive.
I loved the process so much that it became a tool for my personal life too. All my writing tasks, life admin and to-do lists are now done on Trello. Making your priorities organized, with deadlines, as well as visual, is life-changing.
4. ConvertKit
For as long as I’ve lived, I have hated managing email lists. It is one giant pain in the butt and sucks up precious time — with the clunky user interfaces and poorly designed user flows.
When MailChimp banned me for life for no real reason, I was forced to find a new provider to manage email and be productive. ConvertKit is used by many bloggers, including Tim Ferriss — with his wildly popular Five Bullet Friday — and I thought, “if it’s good for Mr. Ferriss Wheel, perhaps, it might work for me.”
It has been a game-changer. It’s easy to use for people who hate sending an email (like me) and it’s straightforward to build email audiences and create some simple funnels.
5. Notes App
All Apple devices come standard with the Notes App (pretty sure Android has its own one). Even with all the tools mentioned above, I’m a writer by trade. This means writing down loads of thoughts and even drafting out stories or writing whole articles on the go.
The brilliance of the Notes App is that it syncs with all of your devices. Now, this may seem stock standard but it’s not.
At work, I changed my notes app to Microsoft OneNote and it’s not even close to the Notes App. The problem? OneNote doesn’t sync seamlessly. You can write a note on your phone and then a minute later attempt to read the same note on your tablet and it’s not there. There are too many screens and it is hard to sort your list of notes.
The simplicity of the Notes App and the speed in which it opens and allows you to quickly write a note is brilliant. The speed is crucial because when you’re dying to take a note, you don’t want syncing or app updates to spoil your day and rob you of a good idea.
Having a Notes App that syncs with all your devices is beautiful.
Side note: I had the Notes App for more than five years and tried syncing my notes to be stored on all devices with one master copy. Call me stupid, but this is huge and has helped me not have to carry my laptop around as much now. | https://medium.com/swlh/5-ludicrously-simple-productivity-tools-that-helped-me-produce-higher-quality-work-1a321c8c8b46 | ['Tim Denning'] | 2019-12-17 21:42:16.580000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Technology', 'Productivity', 'Work', 'Startup'] | Title 5 Simple Productivity Tools Helped Produce Higher Quality WorkContent 5 Simple Productivity Tools Helped Produce Higher Quality Work helped earn sixfigures process extra time tool gave back Photo Zac Wolff Unsplash Producing lot work increasing quality work difficult accomplish disorganized can’t keep track next used following thousand email inbox posted note workspace file computer desktop reminder app always caused forget calendar full useless task problem caused disorganized result career writing family suffered taken time one one period wasn’t working made drastic change tried new tool turn answer work higher quality easier thought goal le time could invested area wanted go deep produce result Removing bad habit exploring new tool help productivity first looked delete bad habit caused original problem change made Implemented inbox zero email Threw away posted note refused use Removed everything desktop created folder document picture video downloads stored external hard drive way Deleted reminder apps used Outlook Calendar sole source truth it’s synced across device — tablet phone desktop laptop item must got scheduled Outlook podcast interview “write free article” let’s call nothing — get message bad habit taken care trialed shortlisted following productivity tool 1 OneTab browser abuser like OneTab dream It’s browser extension take hundred open tab put single page one tab go lot window one window one tab overnight window certain tab grouped together later example set tab used writing inspiration set video tab sharing social medium set tab sending email read later later set tab task complete file away tab OneTab back single browser tab ongoing experiment still tweak need made obsession hoarding browser tab weird one OneTab help 2 New Tab Draft productivity tool Tiffany Sun recommended It’s basic easy use New Tab Draft make every new tab open default becomes beautiful blank page write thought It’s minimalist design used scribble idea todo list Every time open new tab see browser notepad you’re reminded important 3 Trello tool made biggest impact life problem facing started work started Apple Notes App laptop work phone keep track meeting training action item learning One day logged computer found note disappeared workplace blocked Apple Notes App used iCloud instead company’s cloud understandable quickly find company approved solution led think ineffective managing task via notepad app page page note way work thing important Thinking back day working innovation lab remember tool used called Trello productivity rage inspiration downloaded Trello like fiveyearold got given candy first time began playing went around office asked colleague also used approach Trello simple Things started progress done seeing everything visually Trello Board could set due date see red item overdue better note app CRM making productive loved process much became tool personal life writing task life admin todo list done Trello Making priority organized deadline well visual lifechanging 4 ConvertKit long I’ve lived hated managing email list one giant pain butt suck precious time — clunky user interface poorly designed user flow MailChimp banned life real reason forced find new provider manage email productive ConvertKit used many blogger including Tim Ferriss — wildly popular Five Bullet Friday — thought “if it’s good Mr Ferriss Wheel perhaps might work me” gamechanger It’s easy use people hate sending email like it’s straightforward build email audience create simple funnel 5 Notes App Apple device come standard Notes App pretty sure Android one Even tool mentioned I’m writer trade mean writing load thought even drafting story writing whole article go brilliance Notes App syncs device may seem stock standard it’s work changed note app Microsoft OneNote it’s even close Notes App problem OneNote doesn’t sync seamlessly write note phone minute later attempt read note tablet it’s many screen hard sort list note simplicity Notes App speed open allows quickly write note brilliant speed crucial you’re dying take note don’t want syncing app update spoil day rob good idea Notes App syncs device beautiful Side note Notes App five year tried syncing note stored device one master copy Call stupid huge helped carry laptop around much nowTags Life Lessons Technology Productivity Work Startup |
2,229 | The CVE-2018–10299 Vulnerability | For the last few days, the crypto community has been discussing a new vulnerability in the Smart Contracts of tokens based on the ERC-20 standard. We have also studied this case with great interest.
This is not an ERC-20 vulnerability
This error is often called a vulnerability in the ERC-20 standard. This is not the case, and the batch processing block in which the error was detected is not part of the ERC-20. In the examples mentioned in the articles, the batchTransfer is described as an additional functionality designed to transfer the same number of tokens to multiple recipients (for example, in the case of airdrops).
“Production” of Errors
As it usually happens, the error is obvious if you know where to look. In this case, it is even a case of several errors.
The first of them is ignoring the already established de facto Safe Math library in critical cases (no one will argue that balancing verification is a very critical case). In particular, if instead of simple multiplication a function like the one below would be used:
In this case, the vulnerability would not have occurred.
The second error is the absence of restrictions on evoking such packet transfers. Obviously, such a scenario is rarely required and most often should be used by a limited number of users (such as contract owners or founders).
The third common mistake is the thoughtless replication of written code without critical revision. This is what usually makes such vulnerabilities so widespread.
Cheers
^_^ | https://medium.com/karmared/the-cve-2018-10299-vulnerability-aa271ec0f16f | ['Roman Ischenko'] | 2018-04-28 13:16:28.612000+00:00 | ['ICO', 'Blockchain', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Development', 'Startup'] | Title CVE2018–10299 VulnerabilityContent last day crypto community discussing new vulnerability Smart Contracts token based ERC20 standard also studied case great interest ERC20 vulnerability error often called vulnerability ERC20 standard case batch processing block error detected part ERC20 example mentioned article batchTransfer described additional functionality designed transfer number token multiple recipient example case airdrop “Production” Errors usually happens error obvious know look case even case several error first ignoring already established de facto Safe Math library critical case one argue balancing verification critical case particular instead simple multiplication function like one would used case vulnerability would occurred second error absence restriction evoking packet transfer Obviously scenario rarely required often used limited number user contract owner founder third common mistake thoughtless replication written code without critical revision usually make vulnerability widespread Cheers Tags ICO Blockchain Cryptocurrency Development Startup |
2,230 | J.K. Rowling Has Become Professor Umbridge | J.K. Rowling Has Become Professor Umbridge
And how her bigotry is skewing the magical world of Harry Potter.
Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash
J.K. Rowling has become to our world what Dolores Umbridge is to Hogwarts.
For those who may not have joined the phenomenon that is Harry Potter, Dolores Umbridge was arguably more despised than Voldemort.
She was a Ministry of Magic employee who infiltrated Hogwarts as the Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts and taught by theory rather than practice. Aside from trying to downplay and hush-up the return of Voldemort, she became a major player in propagating pureblood status in the wizarding world in the following years at the ministry.
To Umbridge, wizards with muggle — or non-wizard parents — didn’t and shouldn’t exist. To ignore such an existence is akin to how J.K. Rowling is showcasing her transphobia.
Her transphobic comments have recently come under fire again with the plot line of her new book under her Robert Galbraith pen name — where a male serial killer dresses as a woman for murdering — colliding with the announcement of a long-awaited Hogwarts RPG from WB Games.
While Hogwarts Legacy looks amazing and seems to be a dream come true for the majority of Harry Potter fans, Rowling’s recent actions and words have soured the announcement, so much so that the top stories regarding the game speak of boycotting it and the predicted results of said boycott:
Google results captured by author, September 21, 2020
Rowling’s recent actions are a far cry from half a dozen years ago when, asked by a fan about the LGBT youth in Hogwarts, Rowling’s response was to show an image that stated: “If Harry Potter taught us anything, it’s that no one should live in a closet.”
It’s a shame that Rowling did not continue to practice what she taught so many readers throughout Harry Potter’s years at Hogwarts.
Yet, like how Harry Potter and his friends taught themselves how to defend and protect others from the dark arts when Professor Umbridge dismissed them, so too will the fandom protect one another and their love of the Harry Potter community when J.K. Rowling degrades them.
Some folks are indeed boycotting the new game entirely, willing to sever any and all ties with Rowling. Others are still planning on buying it, not willing to let go of the magical world of Hogwarts, and to also support those who worked on the game, even if it will still give Rowling money. Many are planning to match, if not double, the game’s price in donations to transgender and LGBTQIA+ organizations.
The legacy of Hogwarts will not be tarnished by Rowling’s current actions. Rather, it will be preserved by the fans who wholeheartedly believe in the original message of her works. The fandom has always been open, particularly with those of the LGBTQIA+ community, a magical world that accepts them just as wizards are accepted.
Hogwarts was a refuge, an escape, and Rowling’s actions have attempted — whether intentional or not — to rip that safety net away. Yet, the fandom is still strong. If the author of the original works will not continue to harbor the inclusive nature that helped to make her famous, it will be the fandom that casts her away and continue to build upon the stage that Rowling started.
As Hermione Granger once said, “Books and cleverness. There are more important things: friendship and bravery.”
Have the courage to stand up against hatred and remember that love is the most powerful force of all. | https://medium.com/fan-fare/j-k-rowling-has-become-professor-umbridge-325a606f3bc6 | ['Kristen Poli'] | 2020-09-21 13:17:58.365000+00:00 | ['Harry Potter', 'LGBT Rights', 'Gaming', 'Books', 'Writing'] | Title JK Rowling Become Professor UmbridgeContent JK Rowling Become Professor Umbridge bigotry skewing magical world Harry Potter Photo Brian McGowan Unsplash JK Rowling become world Dolores Umbridge Hogwarts may joined phenomenon Harry Potter Dolores Umbridge arguably despised Voldemort Ministry Magic employee infiltrated Hogwarts Professor Defense Dark Arts taught theory rather practice Aside trying downplay hushup return Voldemort became major player propagating pureblood status wizarding world following year ministry Umbridge wizard muggle — nonwizard parent — didn’t shouldn’t exist ignore existence akin JK Rowling showcasing transphobia transphobic comment recently come fire plot line new book Robert Galbraith pen name — male serial killer dress woman murdering — colliding announcement longawaited Hogwarts RPG WB Games Hogwarts Legacy look amazing seems dream come true majority Harry Potter fan Rowling’s recent action word soured announcement much top story regarding game speak boycotting predicted result said boycott Google result captured author September 21 2020 Rowling’s recent action far cry half dozen year ago asked fan LGBT youth Hogwarts Rowling’s response show image stated “If Harry Potter taught u anything it’s one live closet” It’s shame Rowling continue practice taught many reader throughout Harry Potter’s year Hogwarts Yet like Harry Potter friend taught defend protect others dark art Professor Umbridge dismissed fandom protect one another love Harry Potter community JK Rowling degrades folk indeed boycotting new game entirely willing sever tie Rowling Others still planning buying willing let go magical world Hogwarts also support worked game even still give Rowling money Many planning match double game’s price donation transgender LGBTQIA organization legacy Hogwarts tarnished Rowling’s current action Rather preserved fan wholeheartedly believe original message work fandom always open particularly LGBTQIA community magical world accepts wizard accepted Hogwarts refuge escape Rowling’s action attempted — whether intentional — rip safety net away Yet fandom still strong author original work continue harbor inclusive nature helped make famous fandom cast away continue build upon stage Rowling started Hermione Granger said “Books cleverness important thing friendship bravery” courage stand hatred remember love powerful force allTags Harry Potter LGBT Rights Gaming Books Writing |
2,231 | Paralysis by Analysis | Paralysis by Analysis
Why decision-making is tough
Image created by Lorie Kleiner Eckert on Pablo
I recently wrote a blog in which I said, “As a Jew, I often wonder if I would have been smart enough and brave enough to leave Europe before Hitler deemed it too late.”
In discussing the story with my friend, Kathy, she pooh-poohed the smart enough and brave enough issues and got to the core of my personality: I never would have been decisive enough to leave. I would have weighed the pros and cons, talked to other people about it, and researched my options, but I never would have gotten around to doing anything. Paralysis by analysis, that’s me!
Recognizing the truth in her comment, I went home with a desire to practice decisiveness.
The opportunity presented itself with a new Lands’ End catalog I found in the mail. A down jacket I’ve had my eye on was on sale 50% off! I love Lands’ End down coats! Their feathers don’t migrate onto my clothes as do other brands, so there’s no need to carry a lint brush when I wear one! Also, it came in my hard-to-find size: a small tall! And it came in the color I wanted, navy!
I immediately added it to my online shopping cart…and then stalled out before completing the purchase. Why? Well…there’s no longer a Lands’ End store near me, so if I didn’t like it, I would need to ship it back. And speaking of such, why weren’t they offering free shipping with the initial order? And why isn’t Lands’ End like Zappos who pays the shipping in both directions?
Ultimately, the sale ended before I bought the coat. Chalk one up for decision by indecision.
Instead of berating myself over this, I tried to learn from it so, I did an Internet search for “Decision Making 101.” Though I found many great articles from impressive sources, none were applicable. They all started off telling me not to sweat the small stuff, but what could be smaller than a decision to buy a coat for a woman who owns a closetful of them?
And yet, I was clogged up over this issue. Who could help me with that? As it turns out, Barry Schwartz, Ph.D. is just the fellow. He says the crux of the issue for modern-day decision-makers is having too many choices.
Schwartz is a psychologist and professor of social theory at Swarthmore College. He is also the author of The Paradox of Choice, Why More is Less, a book published in 2004 and still pertinent today. According to Schwartz, an abundance of choices is problematic whether we are buying jeans, or making decisions about education, career, friendships, sex, romance, parenting, etc.
To explain his thoughts, the book opens with Schwartz telling us about an insignificant purchase of his own: He bought a pair of jeans. He confesses that he’s the sort of fellow who wears his clothes until they fall apart. When his pants ultimately did, he headed to The Gap for a new pair.
It had been years since he had shopped for jeans and now it seemed that knowing his size wasn’t quite enough information. What kind of fit did he want: slim, easy, relaxed, baggy, or extra baggy? And did he want a button-fly or a zipper fly? And what kind of look did he want, faded, or regular?
He ended up trying on every option. Though he understood there was very little riding on his decision, he felt one of the options must be “right” for him and he was determined to figure it out. He left the store, finally, with a pair of easy fit jeans — and with self-doubt and anxiety.
Clearly, this guy would get my dilemma with the Lands’ End coat. Would my local Dillard’s big sale of the year offer an equally attractive price? Would their coat be a trendier brand? Would it be a better shade of navy? Would its temperature rating be a bit warmer for cold Cincinnati nights? And what about the coats at Macy's or Nordstrom?
This Dr. Schwartz guy would understand that decision-making in a world of myriad options is tough.
Better yet, I now understand it too, so I can forgive myself when I am very actively sweating the small stuff. As for larger decisions in life? For the most part, I’m pretty good at those. Like Decision-Making 101 tells me, I can identify my main objective. I can make a list of pros and cons. I can do research to eliminate bad options. I can seek the advice of someone I trust. And ultimately, I can decide.
But then there’s the issue of being in Europe during the rise of Hitler. To leave or not to leave, that’s still a tough question. It’s in a class of its own. I have no idea what I would have decided. Thank God I didn’t have to.
*****
For those interested, here is the story mentioned in the first paragraph:
*****
I hope you love these stories of my life. If so, try my memoir: Love, Loss, and Moving On. | https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/paralysis-by-analysis-4eba2e04023a | ['Lorie Kleiner Eckert'] | 2020-12-19 15:03:05.151000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Motivation', 'Self Improvement', 'Psychology', 'Life Lesson'] | Title Paralysis AnalysisContent Paralysis Analysis decisionmaking tough Image created Lorie Kleiner Eckert Pablo recently wrote blog said “As Jew often wonder would smart enough brave enough leave Europe Hitler deemed late” discussing story friend Kathy poohpoohed smart enough brave enough issue got core personality never would decisive enough leave would weighed pro con talked people researched option never would gotten around anything Paralysis analysis that’s Recognizing truth comment went home desire practice decisiveness opportunity presented new Lands’ End catalog found mail jacket I’ve eye sale 50 love Lands’ End coat feather don’t migrate onto clothes brand there’s need carry lint brush wear one Also came hardtofind size small tall came color wanted navy immediately added online shopping cart…and stalled completing purchase Well…there’s longer Lands’ End store near didn’t like would need ship back speaking weren’t offering free shipping initial order isn’t Lands’ End like Zappos pay shipping direction Ultimately sale ended bought coat Chalk one decision indecision Instead berating tried learn Internet search “Decision Making 101” Though found many great article impressive source none applicable started telling sweat small stuff could smaller decision buy coat woman owns closetful yet clogged issue could help turn Barry Schwartz PhD fellow say crux issue modernday decisionmakers many choice Schwartz psychologist professor social theory Swarthmore College also author Paradox Choice Less book published 2004 still pertinent today According Schwartz abundance choice problematic whether buying jean making decision education career friendship sex romance parenting etc explain thought book open Schwartz telling u insignificant purchase bought pair jean confesses he’s sort fellow wear clothes fall apart pant ultimately headed Gap new pair year since shopped jean seemed knowing size wasn’t quite enough information kind fit want slim easy relaxed baggy extra baggy want buttonfly zipper fly kind look want faded regular ended trying every option Though understood little riding decision felt one option must “right” determined figure left store finally pair easy fit jean — selfdoubt anxiety Clearly guy would get dilemma Lands’ End coat Would local Dillard’s big sale year offer equally attractive price Would coat trendier brand Would better shade navy Would temperature rating bit warmer cold Cincinnati night coat Macys Nordstrom Dr Schwartz guy would understand decisionmaking world myriad option tough Better yet understand forgive actively sweating small stuff larger decision life part I’m pretty good Like DecisionMaking 101 tell identify main objective make list pro con research eliminate bad option seek advice someone trust ultimately decide there’s issue Europe rise Hitler leave leave that’s still tough question It’s class idea would decided Thank God didn’t interested story mentioned first paragraph hope love story life try memoir Love Loss Moving OnTags Life Motivation Self Improvement Psychology Life Lesson |
2,232 | Visions From the Neobiological Frontier | Was there an aha moment that made you realize humans are on the cusp of a “neobiological revolution”? What trends/examples were you seeing that inspired you to found NEO.LIFE?
The neobiological revolution has been taking shape for the past 15 years, starting with the sequencing of the human genome. But it was really once we started being able to edit and reprogram DNA that things started to get interesting. At the same time, we started to map the brain and develop tools for not only seeing individual neurons, but to interpret brain signals and reprogram them. We can see inside organs and follow pathways we never knew existed before. We can engineer bacteria and viruses, synthesize and reprogram proteins and use Yamanaka factors to rejuvenate cells.
We have massive amounts of data, not only from medical records and DNA sequencing, but also from the inputs we get from the sensors in our watches and rings, in our shirts and our diapers, in our brains and our pills. And thanks to that, we’re training neural networks and creating algorithms to parse big data sets, and finding not just correlations, but causations, and predict which treatments will work. And with our smart phones, we have a massive distribution network for pushing out new apps to monitor, educate, train, predict, prevent, and cure diseases.
My aha moment came at Daniel Kraft’s Exponential Medicine conference in 02015, when I realized that today, people in medicine and life sciences not only have deep knowledge and understanding and extensive training in human biology, but also data and computer skills. Suddenly I realized this is the next stage of the digital revolution, only this time we are engineering life. And amazingly enough, many of the people at the forefront of this revolution don’t have the bandwidth to see beyond the enormous problem they’re solving in the field they’re so deeply entrenched in. I found myself telling a neuroscientist things she didn’t know about genetics. Or a longevity researcher about synthetic biology developments. And no one seemed to be paying enough attention to the role of nutrition.
So that’s why I started NEO.LIFE: to help connect the dots among all these siloed disciplines; to identify the extraordinary scientists and innovators who are pioneering new biological solutions; and to help build a community and create some perspective on where this could and should (or should not) be going.
Is there a particular neobiological-related project you’ve come across lately that has been especially eye-opening in terms of getting you excited about the future?
There are stories every day that excite and inspire me, and choosing just one is impossible. But there are a couple of projects that really blow my mind. There is a company in Pittsburgh called Lygenesis, who are harnessing the liver’s ability to regenerate itself to save patients with end stage liver disease. They do it by using the body’s lymph nodes as mini bioreactors that can convert stem cells into liver cells. So in effect, they can engineer multiple livers within an animal. They’ve done it in mice and larger mammals and are preparing for human clinical trials. Another example is in the field of synthetic biology, where the company Novo Nutrients is using symbiotic bacteria and gas bioreactors to convert carbon dioxide into industrial fish feed at a fraction of the cost, with greater availability and eventually higher nutritional quality.
I’m pretty excited about reengineering longevity, too. And I think we will learn so much about the diseases of aging in the next five years. The work at David Sinclair’s lab at Harvard is particularly exciting, as is the work at a company like BioAge, who are using historical data from blood banks combined with bioinformatics and machine learning to uncover previously unknown pathways of aging and identify the drugs that can impact those pathways.
And that’s not to mention the brain-computer interfaces being developed at a company like Openwater. Or the potential for growing human organs inside pigs for human transplant patients.
The list goes on. We have a lot of work to do at NEO.LIFE!
NEO.LIFE has been publishing a popular newsletter and online articles about the neobiological revolution for a few years now. Why do a book?
Digital media gives us access to all the world’s information. But sometimes the bigger trends and the bigger picture get lost in the torrent. People get stuck in their disciplines. And not a lot of people are doing Google searches on the term “neobiological revolution”!
I have always loved big ideas supported by deep reporting and excellent writing, and wrapped in beautiful design. The work we’re covering is so foundational to our future that we wanted to capture this moment in time, and establish a baseline for what we know today, and where we hope these tools can take us. So we created a beautiful object that can sit on a coffee table or in a waiting room for all kinds of people to discover today or years from now. Think of it as an artifact for future humans, or in Long Now terms, a time capsule. We had to make it something people would pick up out of curiosity and read with a sense of wonder and hope. We hope it sparks conversations all over the world.
Despite its promise, many find this emerging frontier terrifying, and raise questions around ethics, potential misuse, and unintended consequences. I imagine you hear these concerns all the time. What do you say in response?
I’m still untangling the difference between ethics and morals. The science exists and isn’t stopping. The opportunities are vast and we will wonder some day in the future why we would ever have questioned a parent’s right to edit an embryo to prevent a genetically inherited disease. Or why we poured so many resources into raising animals that we then killed to eat and ship all over the world when we could have simply grown our proteins in a bioreactor down the street.
As for misuse, there are lots of people thinking about this all day long. Anything can be misused, from a box cutter to an airplane to a bacterial editing tool. We have to learn responsible use of these technologies and teach our values to the next generation — or perhaps learn new values from the next generation. Evolving a comprehensive set of guidelines and regulations will not be easy, since every nation, every culture, and every genetic propensity will have its own interpretation of what’s right.
What’s important is to have these conversations now and bake as many of our universal values into our technologies as we can, upfront. And then design, test, analyze, and adjust as we go along.
NEO.LIFE: 25 Visions For the Future of Our Species is available for purchase here. | https://medium.com/the-long-now-foundation/visions-from-the-neobiological-frontier-2a786868d523 | ['Ahmed Kabil'] | 2020-04-13 13:12:26.917000+00:00 | ['Genomics', 'Biotechnology', 'Biology', 'Technology', 'Science'] | Title Visions Neobiological FrontierContent aha moment made realize human cusp “neobiological revolution” trendsexamples seeing inspired found NEOLIFE neobiological revolution taking shape past 15 year starting sequencing human genome really started able edit reprogram DNA thing started get interesting time started map brain develop tool seeing individual neuron interpret brain signal reprogram see inside organ follow pathway never knew existed engineer bacteria virus synthesize reprogram protein use Yamanaka factor rejuvenate cell massive amount data medical record DNA sequencing also input get sensor watch ring shirt diaper brain pill thanks we’re training neural network creating algorithm parse big data set finding correlation causation predict treatment work smart phone massive distribution network pushing new apps monitor educate train predict prevent cure disease aha moment came Daniel Kraft’s Exponential Medicine conference 02015 realized today people medicine life science deep knowledge understanding extensive training human biology also data computer skill Suddenly realized next stage digital revolution time engineering life amazingly enough many people forefront revolution don’t bandwidth see beyond enormous problem they’re solving field they’re deeply entrenched found telling neuroscientist thing didn’t know genetics longevity researcher synthetic biology development one seemed paying enough attention role nutrition that’s started NEOLIFE help connect dot among siloed discipline identify extraordinary scientist innovator pioneering new biological solution help build community create perspective could going particular neobiologicalrelated project you’ve come across lately especially eyeopening term getting excited future story every day excite inspire choosing one impossible couple project really blow mind company Pittsburgh called Lygenesis harnessing liver’s ability regenerate save patient end stage liver disease using body’s lymph node mini bioreactors convert stem cell liver cell effect engineer multiple liver within animal They’ve done mouse larger mammal preparing human clinical trial Another example field synthetic biology company Novo Nutrients using symbiotic bacteria gas bioreactors convert carbon dioxide industrial fish feed fraction cost greater availability eventually higher nutritional quality I’m pretty excited reengineering longevity think learn much disease aging next five year work David Sinclair’s lab Harvard particularly exciting work company like BioAge using historical data blood bank combined bioinformatics machine learning uncover previously unknown pathway aging identify drug impact pathway that’s mention braincomputer interface developed company like Openwater potential growing human organ inside pig human transplant patient list go lot work NEOLIFE NEOLIFE publishing popular newsletter online article neobiological revolution year book Digital medium give u access world’s information sometimes bigger trend bigger picture get lost torrent People get stuck discipline lot people Google search term “neobiological revolution” always loved big idea supported deep reporting excellent writing wrapped beautiful design work we’re covering foundational future wanted capture moment time establish baseline know today hope tool take u created beautiful object sit coffee table waiting room kind people discover today year Think artifact future human Long term time capsule make something people would pick curiosity read sense wonder hope hope spark conversation world Despite promise many find emerging frontier terrifying raise question around ethic potential misuse unintended consequence imagine hear concern time say response I’m still untangling difference ethic moral science exists isn’t stopping opportunity vast wonder day future would ever questioned parent’s right edit embryo prevent genetically inherited disease poured many resource raising animal killed eat ship world could simply grown protein bioreactor street misuse lot people thinking day long Anything misused box cutter airplane bacterial editing tool learn responsible use technology teach value next generation — perhaps learn new value next generation Evolving comprehensive set guideline regulation easy since every nation every culture every genetic propensity interpretation what’s right What’s important conversation bake many universal value technology upfront design test analyze adjust go along NEOLIFE 25 Visions Future Species available purchase hereTags Genomics Biotechnology Biology Technology Science |
2,233 | Your “Writing” Advice Makes Me Want to Gouge My Eyes Out | When it comes to writing, nothing sends me into a blind rage like reading articles entitled Why No One is Reading Your Writing, Why No One Cares About Your Writing, or How You Should Write, You Loser, The 5,606 Things You’re Doing Wrong with Your Writing. These articles — and I use that term generously — are merely a subjective collection of one person’s experience with a few Stephen King quotes thrown in for good measure because apparently, every single person in the world has read that Stephen King book and feels the need to quote from it.
PSA: Many other writers have written books on writing. Maybe read them?
My first reaction is: well, who the fuck are you to make sweeping, blanket statements about what works when it comes to writing? Who made you judge, jury, and executioner? Because you’ve made a little coin on this platform you can craft scare tactics? You’ve been writing on Medium for a hot minute, and suddenly you’re positioning yourself as an oracle of the written word? Complete with formatting your articles like they’re a fifth-grade book report?
Come now.
Isn’t the beauty of writing in its sheer diversity? The fact that experimental writers like Amy Hempel, Kelly Link, Jenny Offill, and Ben Marcus can be just as successful in their careers than deft storytellers like Marilynne Robinson, Elena Ferrante, Lauren Groff, Laura van den Berg, Colson Whitehead, and Zadie Smith is proof that there is no single standard. Half the time, I can’t even make sense of what Ben Marcus writes, but it doesn’t make him any less potent or influential to the people who revere his work.
Try convincing Faulkner to punctuate. Try telling Samuel Beckett to follow the rules when he was ridiculed when Waiting for Godot debuted on stage. Try telling Virginia Woolf (a writer who directly influenced Marquez) to not write a whole book from multiple interior points-of-view, which was just not done in the modernist fiction of her time. I can see her telling Leonard, fuck that parade before she set off to write The Waves. Try telling Zadie Smith anything.
People who blindly follow the herd are sheep. People who listen to what their voice is telling them are artists.
There are rules that writers break every day in their own way, and that is what makes literature remarkable. Not every writer formats their paragraphs, chapters, and dialogue in the same way. Some writers add dialogue tags. Other writers blend dialogue into the narrative — deliberately. Some writers completely forgo plot in favor of the rhythm and cadence of a line. Their passion is in the architecture of a story through language, instead of plot or character. Language is the story.
Whenever I read this sanctimonious “rules” nonsense here on Medium — on how one should write, format, and publish their stories lest they are met with crippling failure — I want to gouge out my eyes with an acetylene torch because these people preach a specific format for a specific platform rather than encourage exploration and experimentation. Are novels formatted this way? Are essays in Longreads formatted this way?
Have you ever published anything outside of your sphere on Medium? Have you ever worked with a book editor? If not, your articles should be titled, “The Very Specific Way I Write That Made Me $1,000 On This Very Specific Platform. Maybe, I Dunno, It’ll Work For You Too.” I tried blocking and muting all this nonsense, but it’s a contagion that is intent on sullying my feed.
A quarter million people read this essay I wrote on Medium and it wasn’t formatted in the way the gurus prescribe. People didn’t read it because I spoon-fed them their medicine, they read it because it was honest. My friend Deenie Hartzog-Mislock wrote this raw, beautiful, incisive essay, and do you see her cutting up your meat for you?
The oracles tell you not to use big, difficult words as if adults are feeble children who don’t have access to the internet. I was the kid who grew up dirt poor in Brooklyn, and I often mispronounced words I’d read in books because I hadn’t heard them spoken aloud. I learn new words every single day, and I use Google’s audio tool to make sure I’ve got the pronunciation. Why would I want the command of my primary language to ossify? Why would anyone want to stop learning?
Even when I was getting my MFA at Columbia, there were sanctimonious assholes who bemoaned styles, genres, and formats that weren’t their own. Thankfully, there were a handful of teachers who made it clear that the best way to help someone on their journey is to give them advice that helps them get better at their particular style and voice. The point isn’t to homogenize — what is this, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis? — it’s to stand out.
They tell you not to use “flowery” language or write very simply — that’s cool if that’s the way you naturally write or if you’re writing pop-culture self-help, but it’s a death sentence for line writers where manipulation of language is the objective. Instead, follow this advice from Jenny Offill, a writer who actually wrote a New York Times bestseller:
“But if you’re someone who is trying to move to a more pared-down language, or language that is trying to do things at a couple of different levels at the same time, the workshop environment can be difficult. So I try to teach my students to read at the line level, because I think that’s what’s helpful: to start thinking about what they’re writing line by line, as well as the bigger picture. I’m also always trying to make them read things in different genres: poetry or essays or non-fiction or primary sources from science or anthropology. I want them to get a sense of the strangeness of language. It reminds you that there are all these different ways in which you can create density and give a vital feeling to the words on.”
You’re not going to learn how to write if your diet is filled with Medium articles written by people telling you how to write. You’re going to learn how to write by reading across styles and genres until you find work that speaks to you. Then, you study it. Deconstruct it. Learn from it. Determine how it can inform the words you put to paper (or screen). And then you write and then you don’t stop writing. Ever.
Don’t confuse “growing your audience” [marketing] with getting better at what you live to do [studying others, practicing your craft, refining your work and honing your voice]. But hey, if you started writing five minutes ago and want to make $10,000 a month, my screed isn’t for you.
Language is a crucial weapon in my arsenal. Language gives me the freedom to interpret the world and translate it in new, inventive ways. Language gives me access to libraries of images I can use and manipulate. So, for me, a limited vocabulary is imprisonment. Why must we pander to readers instead of challenging them? Are a few new words in a story really going to alienate them? It’s not like I’m publishing scientific peer review papers on Medium.
Seriously. Are you that afraid?
The oracles tell you that you must join groups, be part of the crowd. If not, then poor you, little newbie, wading out in the dark waters without a life jacket. Read this carefully: you don’t have to join any social media groups to be a successful writer. If you want to, awesome, but it’s not a requirement and it’s certainly not a guarantee. Half the time these communities turn into catty cliques that have a certain think speak. Better to find a handful of readers who can help make you the best writer you can be.
We spend our time devoted to the periphery. As if the periphery was an altar where we’d all gather and worship. We cleave to the shiny objects that are social media, email, Facebook groups, podcasting — we’re told we have to be diversified — at the expense of the one true thing you create. The thing by which you want to be known and remembered. We give equal (if not more) weight and devotion to that which surrounds our thing instead of getting laser-focused and refining our skills, being a student — all to keep getting better at the thing.
Trust me, I want to do ALL THE THINGS. Now, I ask myself what portion of my day have I committed to being a better writer, a better storyteller, and a brand builder? Am I learning something new, regardless of how minor that something is? Or am I zeroing in on the things that are conduits and bridges to and from the work? You’ve created all these points of entry to a thing that isn’t as good as the vehicle that got them there. And I say this as a marketer of 20+ years. And someone who has published professionally for the same amount of time, and has worked at a traditional book publisher (HarperCollins).
Prioritize the writing, not the distribution of it.
The oracles warn you about formatting. You have to have big, bold headers everywhere. Your headers are the coming attractions. Beware of large blocks of text — their eyes, their eyes! Everyone’s reading on their phone, and they CAN’T HANDLE IT. Many single-line paragraphs are the rage.
And then you start to notice that all the writing looks the same. It’s well-packaged, well-spaced — formulaic in form, but not marketed! Oh, no. Marketing is such a smarmy practice. We don’t do that. No one sees the irony that their formatting rules are a form of marketing — focusing on the presentation of the work versus the work itself.
Yes, you want breathing room on the page, but if someone is really pulled into a story are they really going to quit because they’re SUFFERING THE TORTURES OF THE LONG PARAGRAPH DAMNED? You’ve pretty much excluded all literature written before the iPhone. People still remember Faulkner, and that fucker had a real rap battle with the run-on sentence.
I’m wading through a sea of same, and although I have the means to block the writers who flood my homepage, or opt to “see less of this,” etc., it pains me that people think they have to abide by some arbitrary rulebook to write out their heart.
Think about it. Do you read books? Have you read short stories in literary magazines? Essays in print and online periodicals? Do they follow your “rules” format, which is actually best served in non-fiction, pedagogical books with their frameworks, studies, and instructional steps? Do your readers need to be hand-held every step of the way? I’ve been writing the same way for decades, and my audience has only grown.
If you are telling stories that teach, inspire, motivate, and touch people, they’ll cope with a few big words and long paragraphs. Great stories bear the weight of the ephemeral. There are no rules, only the ones you make for yourself that align with your work and how you wish to communicate it. If a certain way of formatting suits you, fine, but don’t run around telling people it’s the standard.
There are so many ways to be a writer. There is an infinite number of ways to tell a story. Why pander to one? Why not experiment with multitudes? Why not play? Isn’t that what we’re here to do? Write, experiment, learn, play, and write some more.
How much freedom is there in a confined box? Quit it with the dogma. Forget the arbitrary rules. Write how you want to write, for long as you want to write it, in a style and format that suits you. Don’t be a copy. Fight to be singular, an original. | https://medium.com/mastering-the-mechanics/your-writing-advice-makes-me-want-to-gouge-my-eyes-out-a6c72d857834 | ['Felicia C. Sullivan'] | 2020-04-24 01:55:08.638000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Authors', 'Medium', 'Work', 'Books'] | Title “Writing” Advice Makes Want Gouge Eyes OutContent come writing nothing sends blind rage like reading article entitled One Reading Writing One Cares Writing Write Loser 5606 Things You’re Wrong Writing article — use term generously — merely subjective collection one person’s experience Stephen King quote thrown good measure apparently every single person world read Stephen King book feel need quote PSA Many writer written book writing Maybe read first reaction well fuck make sweeping blanket statement work come writing made judge jury executioner you’ve made little coin platform craft scare tactic You’ve writing Medium hot minute suddenly you’re positioning oracle written word Complete formatting article like they’re fifthgrade book report Come Isn’t beauty writing sheer diversity fact experimental writer like Amy Hempel Kelly Link Jenny Offill Ben Marcus successful career deft storyteller like Marilynne Robinson Elena Ferrante Lauren Groff Laura van den Berg Colson Whitehead Zadie Smith proof single standard Half time can’t even make sense Ben Marcus writes doesn’t make le potent influential people revere work Try convincing Faulkner punctuate Try telling Samuel Beckett follow rule ridiculed Waiting Godot debuted stage Try telling Virginia Woolf writer directly influenced Marquez write whole book multiple interior pointsofview done modernist fiction time see telling Leonard fuck parade set write Waves Try telling Zadie Smith anything People blindly follow herd sheep People listen voice telling artist rule writer break every day way make literature remarkable every writer format paragraph chapter dialogue way writer add dialogue tag writer blend dialogue narrative — deliberately writer completely forgo plot favor rhythm cadence line passion architecture story language instead plot character Language story Whenever read sanctimonious “rules” nonsense Medium — one write format publish story lest met crippling failure — want gouge eye acetylene torch people preach specific format specific platform rather encourage exploration experimentation novel formatted way essay Longreads formatted way ever published anything outside sphere Medium ever worked book editor article titled “The Specific Way Write Made 1000 Specific Platform Maybe Dunno It’ll Work Too” tried blocking muting nonsense it’s contagion intent sullying feed quarter million people read essay wrote Medium wasn’t formatted way guru prescribe People didn’t read spoonfed medicine read honest friend Deenie HartzogMislock wrote raw beautiful incisive essay see cutting meat oracle tell use big difficult word adult feeble child don’t access internet kid grew dirt poor Brooklyn often mispronounced word I’d read book hadn’t heard spoken aloud learn new word every single day use Google’s audio tool make sure I’ve got pronunciation would want command primary language ossify would anyone want stop learning Even getting MFA Columbia sanctimonious asshole bemoaned style genre format weren’t Thankfully handful teacher made clear best way help someone journey give advice help get better particular style voice point isn’t homogenize — Fritz Lang’s Metropolis — it’s stand tell use “flowery” language write simply — that’s cool that’s way naturally write you’re writing popculture selfhelp it’s death sentence line writer manipulation language objective Instead follow advice Jenny Offill writer actually wrote New York Times bestseller “But you’re someone trying move pareddown language language trying thing couple different level time workshop environment difficult try teach student read line level think that’s what’s helpful start thinking they’re writing line line well bigger picture I’m also always trying make read thing different genre poetry essay nonfiction primary source science anthropology want get sense strangeness language reminds different way create density give vital feeling word on” You’re going learn write diet filled Medium article written people telling write You’re going learn write reading across style genre find work speaks study Deconstruct Learn Determine inform word put paper screen write don’t stop writing Ever Don’t confuse “growing audience” marketing getting better live studying others practicing craft refining work honing voice hey started writing five minute ago want make 10000 month screed isn’t Language crucial weapon arsenal Language give freedom interpret world translate new inventive way Language give access library image use manipulate limited vocabulary imprisonment must pander reader instead challenging new word story really going alienate It’s like I’m publishing scientific peer review paper Medium Seriously afraid oracle tell must join group part crowd poor little newbie wading dark water without life jacket Read carefully don’t join social medium group successful writer want awesome it’s requirement it’s certainly guarantee Half time community turn catty clique certain think speak Better find handful reader help make best writer spend time devoted periphery periphery altar we’d gather worship cleave shiny object social medium email Facebook group podcasting — we’re told diversified — expense one true thing create thing want known remembered give equal weight devotion surround thing instead getting laserfocused refining skill student — keep getting better thing Trust want THINGS ask portion day committed better writer better storyteller brand builder learning something new regardless minor something zeroing thing conduit bridge work You’ve created point entry thing isn’t good vehicle got say marketer 20 year someone published professionally amount time worked traditional book publisher HarperCollins Prioritize writing distribution oracle warn formatting big bold header everywhere header coming attraction Beware large block text — eye eye Everyone’s reading phone CAN’T HANDLE Many singleline paragraph rage start notice writing look It’s wellpackaged wellspaced — formulaic form marketed Oh Marketing smarmy practice don’t one see irony formatting rule form marketing — focusing presentation work versus work Yes want breathing room page someone really pulled story really going quit they’re SUFFERING TORTURES LONG PARAGRAPH DAMNED You’ve pretty much excluded literature written iPhone People still remember Faulkner fucker real rap battle runon sentence I’m wading sea although mean block writer flood homepage opt “see le this” etc pain people think abide arbitrary rulebook write heart Think read book read short story literary magazine Essays print online periodical follow “rules” format actually best served nonfiction pedagogical book framework study instructional step reader need handheld every step way I’ve writing way decade audience grown telling story teach inspire motivate touch people they’ll cope big word long paragraph Great story bear weight ephemeral rule one make align work wish communicate certain way formatting suit fine don’t run around telling people it’s standard many way writer infinite number way tell story pander one experiment multitude play Isn’t we’re Write experiment learn play write much freedom confined box Quit dogma Forget arbitrary rule Write want write long want write style format suit Don’t copy Fight singular originalTags Writing Authors Medium Work Books |
2,234 | Embracing the Sacredness of Your Weekend | The weekend was once a time where I was able to let go of everything from the previous week and enjoy doing something other than work. There wasn’t a pervasive sense of guilt that I carried if I indulged in an all-day movie marathon or stayed up past 1am and didn’t get anything done.
That changed when I started my Master’s degree while working full time. Saturday and Sunday quickly became my main time to work on my courses, and my freedom started to erode.
My intention was always to get back to a place where weekends were a time for sleeping late, mindlessly enjoying a bottle of wine with my husband and spending more time doing creative work.
That didn’t happen. As soon as I was done my degree I filled up that time with a side-hustle. In fact, I was spending even more time now on evenings and weekends doing work than I had been before.
It’s been over the last two years that I’ve come to realize how short-sighted this approach to living has been.
The time we have each weekend is so limited and so precious, that filling it with tasks and activities that are “productive” is something of a fool’s errand. Despite this, we all continue to over-schedule ourselves all in the fear of missing out.
What we give up are the few fleeting moments that we have where life actually happens. Those spontaneous, beautiful moments where you laugh until you cry, engage in deep and meaningful conversation over a long and lazy cup of coffee and connect with those that mean the most to you.
It’s been my goal to reclaim the sacredness of my weekends and get back to a place where I start my new week feeling like I actually took a break. While this might be easier said than done, I’m committed to the process and even more so to the results. | https://medium.com/swlh/embracing-the-sacredness-of-your-weekend-c8dde9ef1da2 | ['Shannon Hennig'] | 2019-09-22 07:26:01.116000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Mental Health', 'Productivity', 'Work Life Balance', 'Life Lessons'] | Title Embracing Sacredness WeekendContent weekend time able let go everything previous week enjoy something work wasn’t pervasive sense guilt carried indulged allday movie marathon stayed past 1am didn’t get anything done changed started Master’s degree working full time Saturday Sunday quickly became main time work course freedom started erode intention always get back place weekend time sleeping late mindlessly enjoying bottle wine husband spending time creative work didn’t happen soon done degree filled time sidehustle fact spending even time evening weekend work It’s last two year I’ve come realize shortsighted approach living time weekend limited precious filling task activity “productive” something fool’s errand Despite continue overschedule fear missing give fleeting moment life actually happens spontaneous beautiful moment laugh cry engage deep meaningful conversation long lazy cup coffee connect mean It’s goal reclaim sacredness weekend get back place start new week feeling like actually took break might easier said done I’m committed process even resultsTags Life Mental Health Productivity Work Life Balance Life Lessons |
2,235 | The Difference Between Positive & Negative Stress | By Daisy Woodward
Illustrated by Assa Ariyoshi
Stress is a word we all use, all of the time, to describe many different scenarios and our physical and mental response to them. “My work’s a bit stressful at the moment” is a phrase most of us say, week in, week out — when a big presentation is looming or that pile of unanswered emails begins to feel insurmountable. In this case, the stress is usually manageable: we use our body’s “fight or flight” response (the release of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, which raise blood pressure and heart rate, and prepare us physically to confront impending threats) to gear ourselves up to tackle the pressurised event and, once it’s over, we return to feeling relaxed. But when the tension and anxiety linger, and don’t go away once hurdles are overcome, there’s a strong risk of more unpleasant, long-term effects on both our bodies and minds.
In whatever circumstance we experience stress, though, we tend to view it as a negative force. Which is why it is surprising to discover that many scientists and psychologists have suggested that stress can in fact have advantages, as well as disadvantages, on our individual wellbeing. A recently published study by Erik Gonzalez-Mulé found that a stressful job can actually be good for your health when combined with high levels of control in decision-making. The paper tracked thousands of workers in their 60s over the course of seven years and found that those in high-stress roles where they felt they had freedom and control were 34% less likely to die than those in less stressful jobs. That said, employees in high-stress roles with low control were at the highest risk of unhealthy habits and early death. So the question is: how do we identify the “good stress” that can be harnessed to live a happier and healthier life, and what are the warning signs that the stress we’re experiencing is exceeding our ability to cope and plunging us into dangerous territory?
“When we’re talking about the notion of stress being good for you, I’m a little bit uncomfortable with the term ‘stress’ because, to me, stress is bad,” responds Dr. Gail Kinman, Professor of Occupational Health Psychology at the University of Bedfordshire. “What you can say is that pressure can be healthy. There is something called the Yerkes-Dodson model which was developed over 100 years ago, and it’s so plausible. Essentially you have to find out the level of pressure that allows you to achieve peak performance.”
“If you have too little pressure, you’re going to be really bored and your performance and your health will suffer,” she explains. “For example, most people at some stage have done jobs that have been way below their abilities and often they end up doing them badly because they just switch off. Equally, if there’s too much pressure, your performance will suffer because it’s just too much; you can’t meet the demand. So the pressure needs to be at this particular type of level — the optimum level, let’s say — and that’s going to be different for different people. It’s finding out where that tipping point is.”
There are various ways of identifying when the level of pressure you find yourself under is shifting from the motivating towards the unhealthy, Dr. Kinman continues. “Try to preempt the signals that your body and mind are giving you; the early-warning triggers that show you’re starting to feel uncomfortable. Like I get really ratty,” she laughs. “And then that is the time to realise that you should be doing something different. Self-knowledge and prioritising your self-care is really important.”
People who are exposed to small but regular amounts of stress can make themselves more immune: this is known as stress inoculation
Professor Stephen Joseph, a registered coaching psychologist with the British Psychology Society and author of Authentic: How to be Yourself and Why it Matters, concurs. “When we’re not leading an authentic life — when we have a niggling sense of anxiety, depression, stress — then it is usually an indication that it’s time to seek a bigger change in our life; to find a life that’s more true to ourselves.” He similarly believes that “good stress” isn’t actually stress at all. “When people are authentic, they will naturally seek out opportunities to push themselves to grow; to learn to develop; to be the best they can be. That may be challenging, it may be difficult, but it’s not stress. Equally, it’s the people who steer clear of this other type of pressure — people who try to avoid ‘stress’ altogether by shying away from a promotion at work, or staying in the same job, for example, to try and minimise those external demands on them — who are in fact experiencing the negative stress of leading an inauthentic life.”
So, having established the line between what constitutes good stress — or “positive pressure” — and “negative stress”, the question that remains is can the negative kind ever be good for you? Interestingly, yes. “People who don’t have any stress in their lives at all are more likely to crumble at the first hurdle,” explains Dr. Kinman, “Whereas it is thought that people who are exposed to small but regular amounts of stress can make themselves more immune: this is known as stress inoculation.” This is particularly effective if you have been exposed to “a number of situations that are mildly stressful in your childhood and have survived those situations well, probably with the help of your parents and your friends,” says Peter Kinderman, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Liverpool. “This is because you will have developed ways of responding to stressful events which will stand you in good stead when you come across stress triggers later on.”
For those of us who haven’t developed the tools to counteract stressful situations — whether that’s down to a lack of previous exposure or simply because the demands we face are beyond our natural coping abilities — there are ways of training yourself to deal with stress more positively, says Dr. Kinman. “Sometimes it can depend on how you label your internal feelings. If you look at the heart rate and blood pressure of a skydiver, they go through the roof just before they jump out of the plane. And of course if somebody is very stressed, their heart rate will be very high as well. But the people jumping out of an aeroplane are doing it because they find it exciting and challenging; they’re labelling this experience in a different type of way. So that’s one way you can try and turn the experience around.”
When this is impossible because the level of pressure simply feels too high, there is also a lot to be said for believing that you have the resources to cope with the problem, she adds. “CBT [cognitive behavioural therapy] can be very useful in spotting thinking errors — I’m a firm believer in interrogating the statements that start with should/shouldn’t, must/mustn’t. It can also help to think what advice you’d give to your closest friend, because often we’re much harder on ourselves than we are on other people. But one of the most important things is trying to be flexible in responding to demands: think, what resources do I have (whether they’re internal or external); what else can I try?” Professor Joseph agrees: “Being flexible in our approach to stress is the key, which again comes down to being honest with ourselves. People who really know themselves have a healthy ability to realistically appraise situations. They don’t get trapped into a rigid mindset, and they can eventually find the right way of coping.” | https://medium.com/refinery29/the-difference-between-positive-negative-stress-80732b0e9154 | [] | 2019-12-19 15:00:47.285000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Self', 'Careers', 'Stress'] | Title Difference Positive Negative StressContent Daisy Woodward Illustrated Assa Ariyoshi Stress word use time describe many different scenario physical mental response “My work’s bit stressful moment” phrase u say week week — big presentation looming pile unanswered email begin feel insurmountable case stress usually manageable use body’s “fight flight” response release hormone adrenaline cortisol raise blood pressure heart rate prepare u physically confront impending threat gear tackle pressurised event it’s return feeling relaxed tension anxiety linger don’t go away hurdle overcome there’s strong risk unpleasant longterm effect body mind whatever circumstance experience stress though tend view negative force surprising discover many scientist psychologist suggested stress fact advantage well disadvantage individual wellbeing recently published study Erik GonzalezMulé found stressful job actually good health combined high level control decisionmaking paper tracked thousand worker 60 course seven year found highstress role felt freedom control 34 le likely die le stressful job said employee highstress role low control highest risk unhealthy habit early death question identify “good stress” harnessed live happier healthier life warning sign stress we’re experiencing exceeding ability cope plunging u dangerous territory “When we’re talking notion stress good I’m little bit uncomfortable term ‘stress’ stress bad” responds Dr Gail Kinman Professor Occupational Health Psychology University Bedfordshire “What say pressure healthy something called YerkesDodson model developed 100 year ago it’s plausible Essentially find level pressure allows achieve peak performance” “If little pressure you’re going really bored performance health suffer” explains “For example people stage done job way ability often end badly switch Equally there’s much pressure performance suffer it’s much can’t meet demand pressure need particular type level — optimum level let’s say — that’s going different different people It’s finding tipping point is” various way identifying level pressure find shifting motivating towards unhealthy Dr Kinman continues “Try preempt signal body mind giving earlywarning trigger show you’re starting feel uncomfortable Like get really ratty” laugh “And time realise something different Selfknowledge prioritising selfcare really important” People exposed small regular amount stress make immune known stress inoculation Professor Stephen Joseph registered coaching psychologist British Psychology Society author Authentic Matters concurs “When we’re leading authentic life — niggling sense anxiety depression stress — usually indication it’s time seek bigger change life find life that’s true ourselves” similarly belief “good stress” isn’t actually stress “When people authentic naturally seek opportunity push grow learn develop best may challenging may difficult it’s stress Equally it’s people steer clear type pressure — people try avoid ‘stress’ altogether shying away promotion work staying job example try minimise external demand — fact experiencing negative stress leading inauthentic life” established line constitutes good stress — “positive pressure” — “negative stress” question remains negative kind ever good Interestingly yes “People don’t stress life likely crumble first hurdle” explains Dr Kinman “Whereas thought people exposed small regular amount stress make immune known stress inoculation” particularly effective exposed “a number situation mildly stressful childhood survived situation well probably help parent friends” say Peter Kinderman Professor Clinical Psychology University Liverpool “This developed way responding stressful event stand good stead come across stress trigger later on” u haven’t developed tool counteract stressful situation — whether that’s lack previous exposure simply demand face beyond natural coping ability — way training deal stress positively say Dr Kinman “Sometimes depend label internal feeling look heart rate blood pressure skydiver go roof jump plane course somebody stressed heart rate high well people jumping aeroplane find exciting challenging they’re labelling experience different type way that’s one way try turn experience around” impossible level pressure simply feel high also lot said believing resource cope problem add “CBT cognitive behavioural therapy useful spotting thinking error — I’m firm believer interrogating statement start shouldshouldn’t mustmustn’t also help think advice you’d give closest friend often we’re much harder people one important thing trying flexible responding demand think resource whether they’re internal external else try” Professor Joseph agrees “Being flexible approach stress key come honest People really know healthy ability realistically appraise situation don’t get trapped rigid mindset eventually find right way coping”Tags Mental Health Psychology Self Careers Stress |
2,236 | The 7-Day Work Week Experiment — And the Wisdom of The Day of Rest | By Joel Gascoigne
Recently, I religiously tried to follow a new routine I created for myself: a 7-day work week routine.
The idea was quite simple: I would work 7 days a week, rest 7 days a week, go to the gym 7 days a week, reflect 7 days a week. This was less about working lots, much more about feeling fulfilled every day, feeling stretched during the day but also rested. I aimed to work less each day, and replace two hours of work with a long break in the middle of the day.
The biggest thing I wanted to do was to satisfy my craving of “why not?” and to challenge the status quo of working 5 days a week and then taking 2 days off. Many of us know that working 9–5 is not the most effective way to work, and I had found this to be true for quite some time. I had a curiosity about whether the 5-day work week might also not be the most effective routine.
Some of the hypotheses I had about my new 7-day work week:
I would be much more successful in building solid habits that became ingrained, since I wouldn’t have two days off and then the struggle to get back into broken habits.
I would be in much better sync with my team who are distributed around the world, and I would have a better handle on my emails and work by having time in the weekends too.
I could work less than 40 hours a week and be more productive, since I would have long breaks between super focused work periods.
The 7-day work week routine
I’ve been an early riser for a couple of years now, and during this experiment I was rising at 4:30am. I aimed to do 5.5 hours of work each day, which is around 38.5 hours a week.
4:30: Rise.
5–6:30: 90 minutes of focused work.
6:30–9: Gym, breakfast, shower, etc.
9–11:30: 2.5hrs of focused work.
11:30–3pm: Lunch, then extended rest period.
3–4:30: 90 minutes of focused work.
Results of the 7-day work week routine
In the end, I have decided that I won’t continue with the 7-day work week routine. Here are two of the things that didn’t work out:
How the world works does affect you
This is one of the things I wanted to avoid believing for the longest time. I don’t think it’s ever healthy to believe things “are the way they are,” and in many cases I think this can be forgotten. After all, as entrepreneurs we are in the business of changing reality by making something out of nothing.
I found that Saturdays and Sundays could never be the same as other days, as much as I wanted them to be and as much as I tried to create a routine that could be exactly the same, every day. There are more people wandering the streets, more noise outside. There is no one in the office. You can’t send certain emails, because they need to hit someone’s inbox in work hours. It’s not the best day to push a new feature or blog post.
You can certainly take advantage of the fact that Saturday and Sunday are different by doing specific tasks. However, the point of my experiment was to have identical days, and in this respect it was a failure. That said, it has been a very interesting experiment and I have kept some aspects of the new routine.
I burned out, even with lots of breaks
I wanted every day to be exactly the same. So I worked each day and rested each day. I went to the gym every day, I adjusted my work out so that this would be sustainable.
I found that even with a gym routine of just a few exercises and different muscle groups, I felt I couldn’t get adequate overall renewal just in a single day period. I worked out for 15 days straight and in the end strained a muscle and had to take almost a week off.
Similarly, I found it interesting to observe how my passion towards the work I was doing adjusted. To begin with, I was excited during the first week and even at the weekend I enjoyed working. The hardest aspect I found was to stop myself working so much during the week, so that I could be fully rested and keep working at the weekend.
Overall, I feel like the 7-day work week failed because of lack of an extended period of renewal. My hypothesis — that a couple of extra hours during the day and fewer overall daily hours working would be enough — was invalidated in my experience.
The wisdom of the day of rest
After trying a 7-day work week, I became quite fascinated by the concept of a “day of rest”. It occurred to me that this is a tradition that has been around for a very long time, and of separate origins. Almost all of the world observes some form of a weekly “day of rest.”
I’m no expert on the Bible, however with a little research I found that the origin of the “seventh day” or Sabbath is Genesis 2:2–3:
“And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.”
Similarly, in Buddhism there is the concept of Uposatha which is the Buddhist day of observance. I find it interesting how Buddhism teaches the purpose of this day:
“The cleansing of the defiled mind.”
I feel a sense of calm and confidence in the knowledge that many thousands of years of wisdom all converges towards the idea of a weekly day of rest. Certainly from my naive experiment I now feel that this is a very good practice.
6 days of work, 1 day of rest
Both from my own experiment and the wisdom of the day of rest, I have become interested in the idea of a single day of rest. However, I have not once come across anything advocating two days of rest. This is one of my biggest takeaways from this experiment, and I plan to continue to work on the basis of 6 days of work and a single day of rest.
Jim Rohn, who I have been very inspired by, also said it well:
Work was so important, here was the original formula for labor. If you have forgotten it, remind yourself. Six days of labor, and one day of rest. Now, it’s important not to get those numbers mixed up. Why not five/two? Maybe one of the reasons for six/one: if you rest too long the weeds take the garden. Not to think so is naive. As soon as you’ve planted, the busy bugs and the noxious weeds are out to take it. So you can’t linger too long in the rest mode, you’ve got to go back to work. Six days of work, then rest.
I think one of my biggest takeaways from trying a 7-day work week is: despite the conclusion that rest is important, a single day is the perfect amount, no more. I am working to consistently live by this method for as many of the weeks as I can during the year. I believe that this will be a key to success.
Have you considered experimenting with your work week? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
Related
P.S. Get all our posts on workplace culture, productivity, transparency and more in your email. Sign up now. | https://medium.com/the-mission/the-7-day-work-week-experiment-and-the-wisdom-of-the-day-of-rest-8e94b12aa2d2 | [] | 2016-06-14 10:21:02.205000+00:00 | ['Work Life Balance', 'Productivity', 'Work', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Careers'] | Title 7Day Work Week Experiment — Wisdom Day RestContent Joel Gascoigne Recently religiously tried follow new routine created 7day work week routine idea quite simple would work 7 day week rest 7 day week go gym 7 day week reflect 7 day week le working lot much feeling fulfilled every day feeling stretched day also rested aimed work le day replace two hour work long break middle day biggest thing wanted satisfy craving “why not” challenge status quo working 5 day week taking 2 day Many u know working 9–5 effective way work found true quite time curiosity whether 5day work week might also effective routine hypothesis new 7day work week would much successful building solid habit became ingrained since wouldn’t two day struggle get back broken habit would much better sync team distributed around world would better handle email work time weekend could work le 40 hour week productive since would long break super focused work period 7day work week routine I’ve early riser couple year experiment rising 430am aimed 55 hour work day around 385 hour week 430 Rise 5–630 90 minute focused work 630–9 Gym breakfast shower etc 9–1130 25hrs focused work 1130–3pm Lunch extended rest period 3–430 90 minute focused work Results 7day work week routine end decided won’t continue 7day work week routine two thing didn’t work world work affect one thing wanted avoid believing longest time don’t think it’s ever healthy believe thing “are way are” many case think forgotten entrepreneur business changing reality making something nothing found Saturdays Sundays could never day much wanted much tried create routine could exactly every day people wandering street noise outside one office can’t send certain email need hit someone’s inbox work hour It’s best day push new feature blog post certainly take advantage fact Saturday Sunday different specific task However point experiment identical day respect failure said interesting experiment kept aspect new routine burned even lot break wanted every day exactly worked day rested day went gym every day adjusted work would sustainable found even gym routine exercise different muscle group felt couldn’t get adequate overall renewal single day period worked 15 day straight end strained muscle take almost week Similarly found interesting observe passion towards work adjusted begin excited first week even weekend enjoyed working hardest aspect found stop working much week could fully rested keep working weekend Overall feel like 7day work week failed lack extended period renewal hypothesis — couple extra hour day fewer overall daily hour working would enough — invalidated experience wisdom day rest trying 7day work week became quite fascinated concept “day rest” occurred tradition around long time separate origin Almost world observes form weekly “day rest” I’m expert Bible however little research found origin “seventh day” Sabbath Genesis 22–3 “And seventh day God ended work made rested seventh day work made” Similarly Buddhism concept Uposatha Buddhist day observance find interesting Buddhism teach purpose day “The cleansing defiled mind” feel sense calm confidence knowledge many thousand year wisdom converges towards idea weekly day rest Certainly naive experiment feel good practice 6 day work 1 day rest experiment wisdom day rest become interested idea single day rest However come across anything advocating two day rest one biggest takeaway experiment plan continue work basis 6 day work single day rest Jim Rohn inspired also said well Work important original formula labor forgotten remind Six day labor one day rest it’s important get number mixed fivetwo Maybe one reason sixone rest long weed take garden think naive soon you’ve planted busy bug noxious weed take can’t linger long rest mode you’ve got go back work Six day work rest think one biggest takeaway trying 7day work week despite conclusion rest important single day perfect amount working consistently live method many week year believe key success considered experimenting work week I’d love hear thought topic Related PS Get post workplace culture productivity transparency email Sign nowTags Work Life Balance Productivity Work Entrepreneurship Careers |
2,237 | ETF Partners Capital, Sustainability through Innovation | We talk with Rob Genieser, a partner at ETF Partners Capital.
PetaCrunch: What’s your investment strategy in a single tweet?
Rob Genieser: Sustainability through innovation — backing great entrepreneurs who want to achieve commercial success and make the world a better place.
PC: How did ETF Partners Capital start?
RG: We wanted to focus on the environmental revolution, that we believed would follow the software, communications and internet revolutions that preceded it. We also thought Europe would be great for these types of “green” entrepreneurs, as Europe leads in many of these areas.
PC: What do you look for in founders and their start-ups?
RG: Great people make great companies. Founders have to possess a tremendous passion, and have the focus and dedication to make it happen.
PC: What’s the most exciting start-up you have funded recently and why?
RG: Our most recent investment was in Eagle Genomics, that is helping large organizations understand the microbiome. Billions of dollars are now spent in this area, and huge datasets are being created…but someone needs to offer the software platform that helps you curate all that information and draw understanding from the data. That is Eagle.
PC: What’s the most common error founders/start-ups make?
RG: The best founders listen well, and leverage the support of others. I think the biggest mistake is to go alone, when others are willing and eager to help. | https://medium.com/petacrunch/etf-partners-capital-sustainability-through-innovation-e055710092c2 | ['Kevin Hart'] | 2019-09-02 12:16:02.917000+00:00 | ['Innovation', 'Startup', 'VC', 'Vc Funding', 'Sustainability'] | Title ETF Partners Capital Sustainability InnovationContent talk Rob Genieser partner ETF Partners Capital PetaCrunch What’s investment strategy single tweet Rob Genieser Sustainability innovation — backing great entrepreneur want achieve commercial success make world better place PC ETF Partners Capital start RG wanted focus environmental revolution believed would follow software communication internet revolution preceded also thought Europe would great type “green” entrepreneur Europe lead many area PC look founder startup RG Great people make great company Founders posse tremendous passion focus dedication make happen PC What’s exciting startup funded recently RG recent investment Eagle Genomics helping large organization understand microbiome Billions dollar spent area huge datasets created…but someone need offer software platform help curate information draw understanding data Eagle PC What’s common error foundersstartups make RG best founder listen well leverage support others think biggest mistake go alone others willing eager helpTags Innovation Startup VC Vc Funding Sustainability |
2,238 | How to Take Full Advantage of Your On Deck Fellowship | Uncertainty
In startups and life, there’s no such thing as a sure thing.
People can go back against their word
Deals fall through
Promises get broken
The only thing that’s guaranteed is that there are no guarantees.
If you’re coming from a more corporate lifestyle, this may not have been the case. But with startups, you’re often operating with limited information and an unfair distribution of resources in a highly competitive (cutthroat) environment where you have a little to no control on … well … anything. It can be unsettling or downright discouraging to work in this state, but there are several things you can do to make it more palatable.
Control your environment
To prepare for uncertainty, it helps to eliminate uncertainty elsewhere in your life so when something unplanned or unforeseeable occurs (and it will), you can focus all of your attention on that rather than everything else.
This means:
Ensure a store of supplies (food, water, toilet paper, exercise equipment)
Ensure you have enough savings (so your bills will always be paid)
Ensure you have access to help, a community, and a marketplace (don’t become isolated)
Ensure you have a safe, secure place to work (no interruptions, no noise, etc.)
Ensure you have a safe, secure place to panic/freak out/cry (get the catharsis out of the way)
Your environment and your needs may be different, so please adjust accordingly.
But the key thing is if you’ve eliminated uncertainty in these areas, you have much fewer things to worry about and deal with in the short- and midterm.
Here are some practical things within my control that I wish I’d done early on when I knew I was planning to start a company:
If you own a home and want to get a HELOC (equity-backed loan), it’s significantly easier to do so while you still have a job rather than after you quit
If you have stock options you need to sell, it’s better to sell early into the next year rather than close to the end to defer taxes. You still have to pay those taxes, but a little padding can ease your stress and feelings of uncertainty.
Take more walks. After taking care of sleep, exercise, and food, I’ve found that walks in nature can resolve any remaining anxiety or issues with mood. YMMV.
Control your assumptions
One of the biggest sources of uncertainty in entrepreneurship, in my experience, is due to invalid assumptions (as well as implicit ones you aren’t consciously aware of). These range from the most obvious to the most subtle, but they all can be extremely deadly if you aren’t careful.
Here’s a list of common startup-related assumptions:
Your customers will find you as soon as you just launch a website
Your customer base is willing to pay
Your customer base will actually read your landing-page copy
Your customer base is large enough that if they do pay, you can profit after costs
Your customer acquisition costs and churn will be low
Your prospective investors will invest in you with nothing but an idea
You only need to reach out to a handful of investors/customers/recruits/etc.
You can do everything by yourself
As a founder, every decision you make is likely based on one or more untested assumptions.
You may rush to get out a landing page to obtain customer signups, but no matter how good your product is, nobody finds or sees the landing page (because you need what’s referred to as distribution).
Some investors you reach out to may sound perfect on paper, but they may actually only invest under certain unspoken conditions based on launch metrics, equity percentages, or founder backgrounds — you won’t know until you test your assumptions.
You may believe strongly you don’t need any help and can do everything on your own. But even if you had all of the prerequisite skills, the practice, and the experience, you’ll eventually find yourself attacked on multiple fronts and can only respond to one at a time due to biology/physiology.
It’s important to be aware of these assumptions, to limit them (and therefore your exposure to their downsides if you’re wrong), and to account for them.
Story time
Back around 2011, two amazing founder friends of mine had built an amazing, profitable startup over the course of about four years.
They had done everything according to plan, one they was assumed to be correct. They raised a friends-and-family round, preseed, seed, series A, etc. They had paying customers, a successful distribution strategy, and decent profit margins (enough to pay themselves more than minimum wage and live a little). By all accounts, they were doing well.
So when a strong and exciting acquisition offer came along (something around $4-5 million), they jumped at the chance. Again, by all accounts, an amazing success. After investors, vendors, costs, etc., each founder owned about 3% equity. Each walked away with about $60,000 over those four years plus roughly minimum wage salaries over the years. They’d have gotten a ton more just working at Google for the same time period (>8.3x more, in fact, pretax).
They had assumed that raising money was the right thing to do for them. They started with nothing — no savings, no runway — so they had to raise early as well. Each additional fundraising round was assumed to be the correct move (it brought press, network connections, and more customers). But each and every assumption had a cost — one they wouldn’t see or realize until much later.
It burned them out and deterred them from wanting to go through the process again. But I can assure you if they do make another go, they won’t make the same mistakes.
Additionally, there are also some implicit, noncompany-oriented assumptions made by founders: | https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-take-full-advantage-of-your-on-deck-fellowship-88361662307c | ['Van Nguyen'] | 2020-10-22 17:01:53.148000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Founders', 'Startup', 'Venture Capital'] | Title Take Full Advantage Deck FellowshipContent Uncertainty startup life there’s thing sure thing People go back word Deals fall Promises get broken thing that’s guaranteed guarantee you’re coming corporate lifestyle may case startup you’re often operating limited information unfair distribution resource highly competitive cutthroat environment little control … well … anything unsettling downright discouraging work state several thing make palatable Control environment prepare uncertainty help eliminate uncertainty elsewhere life something unplanned unforeseeable occurs focus attention rather everything else mean Ensure store supply food water toilet paper exercise equipment Ensure enough saving bill always paid Ensure access help community marketplace don’t become isolated Ensure safe secure place work interruption noise etc Ensure safe secure place panicfreak outcry get catharsis way environment need may different please adjust accordingly key thing you’ve eliminated uncertainty area much fewer thing worry deal short midterm practical thing within control wish I’d done early knew planning start company home want get HELOC equitybacked loan it’s significantly easier still job rather quit stock option need sell it’s better sell early next year rather close end defer tax still pay tax little padding ease stress feeling uncertainty Take walk taking care sleep exercise food I’ve found walk nature resolve remaining anxiety issue mood YMMV Control assumption One biggest source uncertainty entrepreneurship experience due invalid assumption well implicit one aren’t consciously aware range obvious subtle extremely deadly aren’t careful Here’s list common startuprelated assumption customer find soon launch website customer base willing pay customer base actually read landingpage copy customer base large enough pay profit cost customer acquisition cost churn low prospective investor invest nothing idea need reach handful investorscustomersrecruitsetc everything founder every decision make likely based one untested assumption may rush get landing page obtain customer signups matter good product nobody find see landing page need what’s referred distribution investor reach may sound perfect paper may actually invest certain unspoken condition based launch metric equity percentage founder background — won’t know test assumption may believe strongly don’t need help everything even prerequisite skill practice experience you’ll eventually find attacked multiple front respond one time due biologyphysiology It’s important aware assumption limit therefore exposure downside you’re wrong account Story time Back around 2011 two amazing founder friend mine built amazing profitable startup course four year done everything according plan one assumed correct raised friendsandfamily round preseed seed series etc paying customer successful distribution strategy decent profit margin enough pay minimum wage live little account well strong exciting acquisition offer came along something around 45 million jumped chance account amazing success investor vendor cost etc founder owned 3 equity walked away 60000 four year plus roughly minimum wage salary year They’d gotten ton working Google time period 83x fact pretax assumed raising money right thing started nothing — saving runway — raise early well additional fundraising round assumed correct move brought press network connection customer every assumption cost — one wouldn’t see realize much later burned deterred wanting go process assure make another go won’t make mistake Additionally also implicit noncompanyoriented assumption made foundersTags Programming Entrepreneurship Founders Startup Venture Capital |
2,239 | Getting started with Google Maps in Python | Lets get started with google maps in python! We are going to cover making a basic map, adding different layers to the maps, and then creating driving directions!
Before this article, I did a quick tutorial with basemap in python. In this tutorial, I will cover using the google maps api in jupyter notebook. The first step here is to get an api key from google at this link. Once this is done, you may need to run the following command in terminal and restart jupyter:
jupyter nbextension enable --py gmaps
Once this is complete, you are ready to jump right into making beautiful maps!
Initially, we are going to want to read in our api key. To do this I completed the following steps:
Save the API key in a text file Write code to read in the key and save it as a variable
with open('apikey.txt') as f:
api_key = f.readline()
f.close
Once this is complete you are ready to use the google maps api. For reference, all the material in this tutorial comes from the documentation which can be found here.
You may also need to do a pip install gmaps prior to working in jupyter.
Once this is done, you can initialize the session with the command:
import gmaps
gmaps.configure(api_key='Your api key here')
After this, you can create a generic map by just creating a center location and zoom level:
new_york_coordinates = (40.75, -74.00)
gmaps.figure(center=new_york_coordinates, zoom_level=12)
This returns the following figure:
Easy first map using google maps api
Now, lets say that you would like to add earthquake data to your map. There is already a dataset that google provides, and you can use this very easily to add more information to your plot using the heatmap function.
import gmaps
import gmaps.datasets # Use google maps api
gmaps.configure(api_key=api_key) # Fill in with your API key # Get the dataset
earthquake_df = gmaps.datasets.load_dataset_as_df('earthquakes') #Get the locations from the data set
locations = earthquake_df[['latitude', 'longitude']] #Get the magnitude from the data
weights = earthquake_df['magnitude'] #Set up your map
fig = gmaps.figure()
fig.add_layer(gmaps.heatmap_layer(locations, weights=weights))
fig
Heatmap of Earthquake activity
This can also be used in the same way I used in my previous tutorial for fires around CA. Here is how the map looks when you add a layer of current fire activity:
Heatmap of current fire activity
Finally, you can get out driving directions from the api. To do this there are a couple of steps.
To plot route on map:
Define location 1 in coordinates Define location 2 in coordinates Create layer using gmaps.directions.Directions Add layer to the map
Code:
import gmaps
#configure api
gmaps.configure(api_key=api_key) #Define location 1 and 2
Durango = (37.2753,-107.880067)
SF = (37.7749,-122.419416) #Create the map
fig = gmaps.figure() #create the layer
layer = gmaps.directions.Directions(Durango, SF,mode='car') #Add the layer
fig.add_layer(layer)
fig
Driving Directions
And to get more information like the distance and travel time, you can use the gmaps client. The code for this is below:
Shows the duration and distance for the directions
There is a ton more that you can do with the api, and the documentation is awesome. If there is something I did not cover, it is a great resource in general!
https://media.readthedocs.org/pdf/jupyter-gmaps/latest/jupyter-gmaps.pdf | https://medium.com/future-vision/google-maps-in-python-part-2-393f96196eaf | ['Elliott Saslow'] | 2019-08-02 20:47:50.181000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Mapping', 'Web Development'] | Title Getting started Google Maps PythonContent Lets get started google map python going cover making basic map adding different layer map creating driving direction article quick tutorial basemap python tutorial cover using google map api jupyter notebook first step get api key google link done may need run following command terminal restart jupyter jupyter nbextension enable py gmaps complete ready jump right making beautiful map Initially going want read api key completed following step Save API key text file Write code read key save variable openapikeytxt f apikey freadline fclose complete ready use google map api reference material tutorial come documentation found may also need pip install gmaps prior working jupyter done initialize session command import gmaps gmapsconfigureapikeyYour api key create generic map creating center location zoom level newyorkcoordinates 4075 7400 gmapsfigurecenternewyorkcoordinates zoomlevel12 return following figure Easy first map using google map api let say would like add earthquake data map already dataset google provides use easily add information plot using heatmap function import gmaps import gmapsdatasets Use google map api gmapsconfigureapikeyapikey Fill API key Get dataset earthquakedf gmapsdatasetsloaddatasetasdfearthquakes Get location data set location earthquakedflatitude longitude Get magnitude data weight earthquakedfmagnitude Set map fig gmapsfigure figaddlayergmapsheatmaplayerlocations weightsweights fig Heatmap Earthquake activity also used way used previous tutorial fire around CA map look add layer current fire activity Heatmap current fire activity Finally get driving direction api couple step plot route map Define location 1 coordinate Define location 2 coordinate Create layer using gmapsdirectionsDirections Add layer map Code import gmaps configure api gmapsconfigureapikeyapikey Define location 1 2 Durango 372753107880067 SF 377749122419416 Create map fig gmapsfigure create layer layer gmapsdirectionsDirectionsDurango SFmodecar Add layer figaddlayerlayer fig Driving Directions get information like distance travel time use gmaps client code Shows duration distance direction ton api documentation awesome something cover great resource general httpsmediareadthedocsorgpdfjupytergmapslatestjupytergmapspdfTags Programming Data Science Python Mapping Web Development |
2,240 | How to Use Limitations to Boost Productivity | How to Use Limitations to Boost Productivity
Sometimes it’s good to be cornered to be more productive
Image licensed from Canva
I saw a thread on Twitter where people detailed what they miss most from their pre-pandemic lives. Hanging out with friends, hugging parents, going out without a mask were common replies, but stuffing popcorn in movie theatres appeared just as much.
I started to wonder what I miss most and because in my country we are almost back to normal — it left me missing travelling the most. The experience of leaving this everyday life behind to delve into a different city, hearing another language and dip my toes in the sea is on the top of my list.
But surprisingly, right after these, I realised how much I miss my weekly commute to Vienna — which is 200 miles or 3 hours on the train away from where I live. I work as a freelance consultant and my main client’s headquarters are in another city, another country. Before March I commuted to Vienna, every Wednesday — getting up at 5 to catch the 6 am train, arriving there at 9 to work from the office the whole day and then catching the evening train back. It is as exhausting as it sounds, the longest day of the week was always Wednesday and I used to spend my entire Thursday recovering from it. Yet I realized I miss it.
Because even if it was exhausting, I got so much done in one day that I felt okay not doing anything on the following day. The commute left me with 6 hours of a train ride, and those were the most productive hours of my entire week. Sitting in my seat, nowhere to go, nothing else to do but work or write. During an average journey — there and back — I used to write 5,000–8,000 words or to clean my inbox getting everything done for the whole week. I was focused, sharp and without distractions. I managed to use the limitations to my advantage so no wonder I wish I could be travelling there again.
I might not miss the ensuing fatigue but I surely miss the exceptional productivity. It made my day and my whole week.
I started to think about how I could replicate that productivity without the possibility of getting on the train, and I collected a few tips that focus on using restrictions to boost productivity.
Limit the impulses
The beauty of the train ride was that I had nothing else to do but to focus. The wifi is usually up and down, making it near impossible to browse endlessly without being interrupted by a tunnel. There is nothing to look at but the back of someone else’s seat. There is nothing to hear but the music in my ears. Watching out the window is not my thing but the scenery there is not too interesting after having seen it once.
If you limit the impulses you would have normally, if you shut everything out, if you silence your phone and switch off notifications you can become immediately more focused. The idea of multitasking is a myth, when multitasking your brain jumps back and forth between different tasks in a short time, loosening your focus and making you more tired quicker.
When at home or at the office (lucky you!) make sure that during a certain time, there is nothing to bother you. Early mornings work great for that. Stopping phone notifications is superb. Sitting in a boring environment works magic. Limit the impulses that would distract you and be there fully for your tasks.
Limit the space
Working from home sounded great at first until we were forced to do it. Because there are too many things happening. You get up for a coffee. Then to put the dishes away. Then it’s lunchtime. Then the postman arrives. You get up, you leave the desk, you lose focus and it’s hard to get it back.
You can help yourself by limiting the space around you. Make sure you can’t go anywhere or it’s difficult to do it. Make sure that you are comfortable but no one bumps into you. Sometimes working and writing on my phone from the bathtub is the most productive time of my day — because there is nowhere to go, nothing to do. But an ugly corner in a coffee shop, a park bench without a view or a bus stop works just fine.
A more comfortable limitation is when you get comfy in your bed, plugging some music in, surrounding yourself with only the things you need to work — so that unplugging and getting up shouldn’t be worth your while.
Limit the time
I noticed in myself and I heard a same for others too, if I have too much time to complete something I will most probably waste 90% of it with something useless. Thinking, overthinking, second-guessing myself, procrastinating my whole term away.
But when there is a looming deadline, and time is scarce, I seem to be better at focusing. Having a lot to lose helps to stop me procrastinating. And I don’t like missing deadlines, self-imposed or not.
You’ll be surprised what can be done in 10 minutes or 25. The Pomodoro method is a great way of setting deadlines to yourself. Working 25 minutes seems nothing, but if you set slightly impossible chunks of tasks, you will automatically become more focused. After all, it’s only 25 minutes, it can’t hurt. | https://zitafontaine.medium.com/how-to-use-limitations-to-boost-productivity-199a5d97ec93 | ['Zita Fontaine'] | 2020-07-27 14:36:31.652000+00:00 | ['Productivity', 'Advice', 'Work', 'Inspiration', 'Writing'] | Title Use Limitations Boost ProductivityContent Use Limitations Boost Productivity Sometimes it’s good cornered productive Image licensed Canva saw thread Twitter people detailed miss prepandemic life Hanging friend hugging parent going without mask common reply stuffing popcorn movie theatre appeared much started wonder miss country almost back normal — left missing travelling experience leaving everyday life behind delve different city hearing another language dip toe sea top list surprisingly right realised much miss weekly commute Vienna — 200 mile 3 hour train away live work freelance consultant main client’s headquarters another city another country March commuted Vienna every Wednesday — getting 5 catch 6 train arriving 9 work office whole day catching evening train back exhausting sound longest day week always Wednesday used spend entire Thursday recovering Yet realized miss even exhausting got much done one day felt okay anything following day commute left 6 hour train ride productive hour entire week Sitting seat nowhere go nothing else work write average journey — back — used write 5000–8000 word clean inbox getting everything done whole week focused sharp without distraction managed use limitation advantage wonder wish could travelling might miss ensuing fatigue surely miss exceptional productivity made day whole week started think could replicate productivity without possibility getting train collected tip focus using restriction boost productivity Limit impulse beauty train ride nothing else focus wifi usually making near impossible browse endlessly without interrupted tunnel nothing look back someone else’s seat nothing hear music ear Watching window thing scenery interesting seen limit impulse would normally shut everything silence phone switch notification become immediately focused idea multitasking myth multitasking brain jump back forth different task short time loosening focus making tired quicker home office lucky make sure certain time nothing bother Early morning work great Stopping phone notification superb Sitting boring environment work magic Limit impulse would distract fully task Limit space Working home sounded great first forced many thing happening get coffee put dish away it’s lunchtime postman arrives get leave desk lose focus it’s hard get back help limiting space around Make sure can’t go anywhere it’s difficult Make sure comfortable one bump Sometimes working writing phone bathtub productive time day — nowhere go nothing ugly corner coffee shop park bench without view bus stop work fine comfortable limitation get comfy bed plugging music surrounding thing need work — unplugging getting shouldn’t worth Limit time noticed heard others much time complete something probably waste 90 something useless Thinking overthinking secondguessing procrastinating whole term away looming deadline time scarce seem better focusing lot lose help stop procrastinating don’t like missing deadline selfimposed You’ll surprised done 10 minute 25 Pomodoro method great way setting deadline Working 25 minute seems nothing set slightly impossible chunk task automatically become focused it’s 25 minute can’t hurtTags Productivity Advice Work Inspiration Writing |
2,241 | Google Cloud Platform Security Operations Center Data Lake | Data lake components
Google Stackdriver
Stackdriver aggregates metrics, logs, and events from infrastructure, giving developers and operators a rich set of observable signals that speed root-cause analysis and reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR).
It provides native integration with cloud data tools like BigQuery, Cloud Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, Cloud Datalab, and out-of-the-box integration with tools like Splunk Enterprise.
You can filter which logs to exclude by organization, folder, project, and billing id.
You can enable Data Access logs at the organization, folder, or project level (other logs are enabled by default).
You can specify the services whose audit logs you want to receive. For example, you might want audit logs from Compute Engine but not from Cloud SQL.
Google Cloud Security Command Center
Cloud Security Command Center gives enterprises consolidated visibility into their cloud assets across App Engine, Compute Engine, Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Storage, Datastore, Spanner, Cloud DNS, Service accounts and Google Container Registry.
Cloud Security Command Center integrates with Google Cloud Platform security tools like Cloud Security Scanner, and the Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP) API.
It also integrates with third-party security solutions such as Acqua, Cavirin, Cloudflare, CrowdStrike, Dome9, Palo Alto Networks RedLock, Qualys, and Twistlock, and provides an API and schema to integrate additional third party tools.
Google Cloud Dataflow
Cloud Dataflow is a fully-managed service for transforming and enriching data in stream (real time) and batch (historical) modes with equal reliability and expressiveness — no more complex workarounds or compromises needed.
Use Cloud Dataflow as a convenient integration point to bring predictive analytics to security event management by adding TensorFlow-based Cloud Machine Learning models and APIs to your data processing pipelines.
Google BigQuery
BigQuery allows organizations to capture and analyze security data in real time using its powerful streaming ingestion capability so that your insights are always current. It gives you full view of all your data by seamlessly querying data stored in BigQuery’s managed columnar storage, Cloud Storage, Cloud Bigtable, Sheets, and Drive.
It enables you to analyze all your security operations data, build and operationalize machine learning solutions with simple SQL, and easily and securely share insights within your organization and beyond as datasets, queries, spreadsheets, and reports. It…
Integrates with existing ETL tools like Informatica and Talend to enrich the data you already use.
Supports popular BI tools like Tableau, MicroStrategy, Looker, and Data Studio out of the box, so anyone can easily create reports and dashboards.
BigQuery ML (beta) enables users to create and execute machine learning models using standard SQL queries; it also increases development speed by eliminating the need to move data. It supports the following types of models:
Linear regression — These models can be used for predicting a numerical value.
Binary logistic regression — These models can be used for predicting one of two classes (such as identifying whether an event represents a security threat).
Multiclass logistic regression for classification — These models can be used to predict more than two classes such as whether an input represents a low, medium, or high impact threat.
Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Storage allows world-wide storage and retrieval of any amount of data at any time.
Supported data sources include Cloud Pub/Sub, Stackdriver Logging, Dataflow, and BigQuery; BigQuery can also import from Google Cloud Storage.
Object Lifecycle Management provides the ability to set the object storage class (eg. Nearline, Coldline) to a lower-cost class for less frequently accessed objects, as well as delete objects, based on | https://medium.com/google-cloud/google-cloud-platform-security-operations-center-soc-data-lake-4b31e011f622 | ['Ferris Argyle'] | 2019-02-20 17:50:31.754000+00:00 | ['Google Cloud Platform', 'Cloud Computing', 'Security Operation Center', 'Data Lake'] | Title Google Cloud Platform Security Operations Center Data LakeContent Data lake component Google Stackdriver Stackdriver aggregate metric log event infrastructure giving developer operator rich set observable signal speed rootcause analysis reduce mean time resolution MTTR provides native integration cloud data tool like BigQuery Cloud PubSub Cloud Storage Cloud Datalab outofthebox integration tool like Splunk Enterprise filter log exclude organization folder project billing id enable Data Access log organization folder project level log enabled default specify service whose audit log want receive example might want audit log Compute Engine Cloud SQL Google Cloud Security Command Center Cloud Security Command Center give enterprise consolidated visibility cloud asset across App Engine Compute Engine Kubernetes Engine Cloud Storage Datastore Spanner Cloud DNS Service account Google Container Registry Cloud Security Command Center integrates Google Cloud Platform security tool like Cloud Security Scanner Cloud Data Loss Prevention DLP API also integrates thirdparty security solution Acqua Cavirin Cloudflare CrowdStrike Dome9 Palo Alto Networks RedLock Qualys Twistlock provides API schema integrate additional third party tool Google Cloud Dataflow Cloud Dataflow fullymanaged service transforming enriching data stream real time batch historical mode equal reliability expressiveness — complex workarounds compromise needed Use Cloud Dataflow convenient integration point bring predictive analytics security event management adding TensorFlowbased Cloud Machine Learning model APIs data processing pipeline Google BigQuery BigQuery allows organization capture analyze security data real time using powerful streaming ingestion capability insight always current give full view data seamlessly querying data stored BigQuery’s managed columnar storage Cloud Storage Cloud Bigtable Sheets Drive enables analyze security operation data build operationalize machine learning solution simple SQL easily securely share insight within organization beyond datasets query spreadsheet report It… Integrates existing ETL tool like Informatica Talend enrich data already use Supports popular BI tool like Tableau MicroStrategy Looker Data Studio box anyone easily create report dashboard BigQuery ML beta enables user create execute machine learning model using standard SQL query also increase development speed eliminating need move data support following type model Linear regression — model used predicting numerical value Binary logistic regression — model used predicting one two class identifying whether event represents security threat Multiclass logistic regression classification — model used predict two class whether input represents low medium high impact threat Google Cloud Storage Google Cloud Storage allows worldwide storage retrieval amount data time Supported data source include Cloud PubSub Stackdriver Logging Dataflow BigQuery BigQuery also import Google Cloud Storage Object Lifecycle Management provides ability set object storage class eg Nearline Coldline lowercost class le frequently accessed object well delete object based onTags Google Cloud Platform Cloud Computing Security Operation Center Data Lake |
2,242 | Dockerizing React App With NodeJS Backend — Typescript Version | Dockerizing React App With NodeJS Backend — Typescript Version
Learn How to Dockerize and make it a deployable image
Photo by Dylan McLeod on Unsplash
Docker is an enterprise-ready container platform that enables organizations to seamlessly build, share, and run any application, anywhere. Almost every company is containerizing its applications for faster production workloads so that they can deploy anytime and sometimes several times a day. There are so many ways we can build a React App. One way is to dockerize the React app with nodejs backend and create a docker image so that we can deploy that image any time or sometimes several times a day.
In this post, we look at the example project and see the step by step guide on how we can dockerize the React app with nodejs as a server.
Introduction
Example Project
Dockerizing the App
Running The App on Docker
Summary
Conclusion
Introduction
Nowadays, it’s very common to dockerize and deploy the Docker image in the production with the help of container orchestration engines such as Docker Swarn or Kubernetes. We are going to Dockerize the app and create an image and run it on Docker on our local machine. We could also push that Image into Docker hub and pull it whenever and wherever we need it.
Here is the complete guide on how to develop a React app with nodejs as a backend server. If you are not familiar with the process or you want to know before studying this guide, I would recommend you going through it.
Javascript Version
Prerequisite
As a prerequisite, you have to install Docker for Desktop (whatever your OS is). Please follow this link to install Docker on your laptop. Once installed you can check the Docker info or version with the following commands. | https://medium.com/bb-tutorials-and-thoughts/dockerizing-react-app-with-nodejs-backend-typescript-version-55a40389b0ac | ['Bhargav Bachina'] | 2020-08-14 05:01:01.005000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Docker', 'Web Development', 'Typescript', 'React'] | Title Dockerizing React App NodeJS Backend — Typescript VersionContent Dockerizing React App NodeJS Backend — Typescript Version Learn Dockerize make deployable image Photo Dylan McLeod Unsplash Docker enterpriseready container platform enables organization seamlessly build share run application anywhere Almost every company containerizing application faster production workload deploy anytime sometimes several time day many way build React App One way dockerize React app nodejs backend create docker image deploy image time sometimes several time day post look example project see step step guide dockerize React app nodejs server Introduction Example Project Dockerizing App Running App Docker Summary Conclusion Introduction Nowadays it’s common dockerize deploy Docker image production help container orchestration engine Docker Swarn Kubernetes going Dockerize app create image run Docker local machine could also push Image Docker hub pull whenever wherever need complete guide develop React app nodejs backend server familiar process want know studying guide would recommend going Javascript Version Prerequisite prerequisite install Docker Desktop whatever OS Please follow link install Docker laptop installed check Docker info version following commandsTags Programming Docker Web Development Typescript React |
2,243 | How to Develop A Food Recipe App: Cost, Features and Business Model | Are you a hotelier, restaurateur or a passionate cook who wants to share your best food recipes with the food lovers? Turn your well-thought recipes into a business by simply developing a food-recipe app like Tasty, Yummly, SideChef or BigOven.
Cooking is an art that comes from passion and allowing people to turn any ordinary meal into mesmerising and tempting food. Most people out there take this art as their hobby or a profession.
But with the fact that how people, especially foodies are turning towards mobile apps for searching a wide choice of food recipes, now is the time to take the momentum with the launch of your food cooking recipe app.
If you are still confused whether it will be worth developing a food recipe app like Tasty or Yummly, then you need to go through these market insights…
Here is the graph, portraying how frequently people have searched for recipes and how it is kept on rising.
“According to the survey, out of 400 crore people to their home worldwide during Covid-19 pandemic, 130 crores are in India. And with activities outside the home halted, it is found that Food recipe, Netflix, Health and Ludo are the most leisure-related topics during the peak time of lockdown.”
“Apart, a survey has discovered food recipe apps will enjoy the market size of 22,755,800 potential users from the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, India, Pakistan and Philippines have searched through a Facebook and shown interest in cooking.”
“The mobile app industry is soaring, like never before. As of 2019, the total mobile app revenue was $461.7 billion worldwide and projected to generate $935.2 billion in 2023, it is worth considering investing in mobile apps. Moreover, 1 out of each 4 is an iPhone/iPad user of the age of 18 and older, searched for cooking food recipes.”
Gone are those days when only moms used to look for a cookbook to try various cuisines at home. Several foodies are always high on cooking food by using recipe apps on a daily routine or asking google to find the best recipes for the meal.
You must be wondering, while there are so many food delivery applications available to satisfy your food craving, why would one look for the recipes and devote long hours to the preparation?
Well, the fact of the matter is, each recipe involves a whole gamut of ingredients, and when cooking something delectable to our taste palette, then it feels like a greater satisfaction.
There are various traditional cookbooks available that help you find the recipe or do some research online and all the recipes are laid out on Google, Youtube, Facebook and more. Now you can be an expert cook in no time!
But, users can do it far easy by simply installing an app to look for the recipes to cook for different occasions and purposes. Instead of going online to look for the recipes, businesses and mobile app development companies have come up with the excellent app idea that can answer all your questions in seconds.
Right from what should I cook to How should I cook, a recipe app can offer you all the solutions right away.
All thanks to technological advancement that helps people to try different things in a nutshell. People who do not know about cooking and ingredients at all, are cooking expertly.
With the growing boon of digitization in all business verticals, it makes sense to hire a mobile app development company to build a food recipe app like Tasty and Yummly.
However, whether you a startup, passionate cook or an entrepreneur, once you have decided to create a food recipe app, few of the questions will pop up in your mind as below:
What Type of Food Recipe App Can You Develop?
Who Can Earn From This Type Of Application?
Who Will Be The End Users of Recipe App?
What Features Can You Integrate Into a Food Recipe App?
How Can You Make Profit From a Cooking Recipe App?
How Much Does It Cost You To Launch An App?
Once you get the answer to these questions, you have a better idea about the scope of your future app will have in the market and accordingly plan to create a structure of your app. Before you dig deep to find the answer to these questions, it is worth to look over two leading food recipe apps like BigOven and Yummly providing over 350,000 to 1 million recipes to the users. Both of these apps have succeeded in attracting the attention of the users despite being altogether different from each other.
Though, it is crucial to realise that sticking to a single strategy will not help you win the game. So to become the next big hit of the market, you need to give a thought to different scenarios that make your product survive even in the tough competition. So, you must know an app development company that can understand your business goals and provide you with the solution that works best to meet the specific needs of the end-users.
So what’s the idea behind creating a food recipe app?
What Type of Recipe App Can You Develop in 2021 To Make Money?
With the availability of hundreds of cooking food recipe apps, how to make your app idea stand out in the crowd is the biggest challenge for you. So the main idea behind creating the app is to surprise your audience with something exclusive than to develop an app with standard features simply. So here are the few types of app that you can consider to develop:
No matter which app idea you choose to customize, make sure you have a home screen of the app that encourages users to get engaged with it for long hours. Like search bars on the homepage attract users to search for a broad choice of recipes, list the favourites and engage with the app as much as possible. If your app has a lack of content, then users will get bored and not be able to connect with your app.
So here are the few parameters that you can consider while hiring software developer for the project:
Advance level of App Functionality:
While customizing the structure of the app and defining the functionality of the app, make sure to keep in mind the device structure. This is where you need to consider the target audience and device structure also so that the users are able to access the functionality of your app to the fullest.
Multi-Purpose Apps:
Make sure your app is designed to solve the multi-purpose of the users, instead of just providing a bunch of recipes. This is what users expect from the app after downloading it. Thus, your cooking and food recipe app should have different modes to satisfy the needs of the users.
Food Cooking Mode:
People who love to cook, whether it be men or women, professional chefs or beginners- cooking mode is the essential app functionality that users expect from you. Right from exploring new cuisines to experimenting with fresh ingredients, make sure your app has everything to engage users for long hours.
Also, keep in mind to keep the interface simple and it needs to be supported by too many features. You can also choose to hire a software development company that ensures you high-quality content in the form of tutorials, video guides, photo instructions and other essential cooking tips that make the process easier for the users.
Grocery Shopping Mode:
Integrating ecommerce features to your app and allowing users to buy groceries from the listed stores, can be a worthy decision to entice more users to your app. And further, to enhance the functionality of the app, you can choose to incorporate the feature of providing on-demand food-ordering in an app.
Who Will Be Interested in Developing and Using This Type of App?
You have a brilliant app idea to startup the business, but the question is who can leverage this app idea and able to make money in 2021:
Here is such kind of people who can invest in the recipe app:
Professional Chefs
Health Coaches
Startups in the Food Industry
Passionate Cooks
Nutritionist
Hotelier/Restaurateur
But, who will be the potential customer of your application? By knowing your target audience you will be able to create a recipe app that actually helps meet the needs of the end-users. Apart from the foodies who love to browse food recipes on social media or other platforms?
Here are the few other categories of the audience that you can choose to target:
People living alone far away from their home
Medical Patients prescribed to be on a special diet
Fitness lovers who prefer to in-take a balanced diet
People are fond of exploring new cuisines and eating outside.
Amateurs in cooking
Travellers who always roam around cities to cities.
Beside every user has different cooking skills, experience and understanding, so make sure you describe each recipe with an easy to follow guide that is simple to execute. To avoid making it complicated, you can choose for android app development solutions that help you develop an app with all the necessary features.
What Are the Key Features to Create the Best Recipe Book App in the Market?
Features are the most important of your app development as it defines how your app will be taken in the market by the users. The choice of the features will also help you determine the cost to develop a food recipe app in 2021.
So here are the few necessary features that you need to integrate into your app:
User Features of Food Recipe App
Registration: The first thing users will look about your app is the registration process. You can hire mobile app developers to create a comfortable and smooth registration process for users to log in your application without any hassle. To make it far more comfortable, you can also provide the provision to integrate social logins and allow users to log in just with the social pages.
Profile Generation: Allow users to create a profile with the necessary information, including contact related info, their preferences and interest areas for the further recipe suggestions.
Meal Plan Out: By integrating this feature, you allow the app users to plan out the weekly meal in advance so that you don’t need to think about what to bake today.
Recipe List: Choosing from thousands of recipes is quite challenging for users. Therefore, categorize the list of recipes under various sections including healthy eating, salads, recipes for occasions, regular meal recipes and more.
Search and Advanced Search: This feature will help you engage users for long hours and encourage them to try recipes. Also, allow users to use filters to narrow down their searches by categories, occasions, methods, diets and more.
Nutritional Calculators: Nowadays, people are becoming more and more conscious of their health, so they prefer to watch out the calories and nutrients they take in. Make sure your food recipe app has this feature.
Save Recipe: Add an option to save their favourite recipes and access it from anywhere, anytime.
Print Recipe: Integrating this feature will help users to easily access the recipe in the printed form and avoid the inconvenience of holding a smartphone or bear the loss of the internet while cooking.
Personal Note: While watching the tutorial, allow users to add private notes for the special inputs for cooking any particular recipe.
Social Sharing: You can expand the reach of your recipe by allowing users to share their favourite recipe on social media. This will help garner more attention of users and engagement for your app.
Photo Sharing: Allow users to click a picture and share it in an app, to help others know how it will exactly look after cooking.
Review and Rating: Users can rate and review the recipe that they tried cooking. With this, they can give an idea to other app users about the performance of that recipe and how easily it is to execute. Implementing this feature to your app can be time consuming and complicated, therefore, you can choose to hire app developers to eliminate the complexity of the task.
Admin Features for Creating Cooking Mobile App
Manage Recipe and Subscription Packages: Recipes would be the heart of your food app, so allow admin to manage it seamlessly.
Manage User Profile: This feature allows the admin to view, manage and edit the profile of the users.
Manage Payments: The feature allows the admin to manage the payments done by the users for the app subscriptions, groceries, e-book purchase and more.
View Earnings: With the analytics, you can determine how much your app is earning in a month.
View Ratings and Reviews: Admin can view and manage the reviews and ratings given by the users and also their details.
Manage Community: Admin can manage the community where the app users connect. Admin has the facility to view, hide or delete the question and answer if they find across anything inappropriate.
Content Management: Content is the king of your app, so admin is responsible to manage the content published in an app and make sure to continuously update and review it.
Notifications: An option to send a push notification or alerts to the app users related to the offers, coupons, new additions and features in the food recipe mobile app.
So now you have all the details about who can earn from this app, who will be your end-users and what features and functionalities are required to create a food recipe app. But many of you are wondering, what all this makes sense if it is not earning you anything.
Best App Monetization Methods for the Food App
How to make a profit from your app is one of the most frequently asked questions by the app developers. No matter how brilliant the app development company you have deployed to the project, it is ultimately a waste if your app is not earning any money.
So how can you make money from the food recipe app?
These are the few app monetization strategies leveraged by thousands of apps in the app store and play store. So let’s begin with it:
User Subscription: You provide additional features to the users opted for monthly subscriptions like ad-free recipes, diet oriented recipes and more. Your mobile app offers subscriptions for a certain period.
In-app Adds: This is one of the traditional ways to earn money from the apps. The advertisement has become the most powerful tool for the digital market and using this tool to your recipe app will help you earn money. But make sure to advertise your product and service-related ads. If a user clicks or interacts with an ad, then you will get money.
Freemium: To monetise from this strategy, you need to have a second paid version of your app. If users like a free version of your app, then they will probably download the paid app version that has extra features.
Ok, now all set! You have an idea about how to make money from your app. But the only question left is how much it cost to develop a food recipe app in 2021?
Well, there is no straightforward answer to this question, thus let’s find what factors are influencing the final cost of developing a food recipe app…
How Much Does It Cost To Launch A Recipe App in 2021?
While there is no standard cost of developing a food recipe app, but all such features there is a cost attached to it. To create a food recipe app like Yummly, it would cost you around $5000+ depending upon various factors your cost could vary. Factors ranging from designing an application, features, sizes and the platform of the app are the most critical aspects that drive the final cost of the app development.
As you choose to add more and more features and complexity to your app, it is going to be a higher price. App platforms also impact the prices of the application, and developing an iOS application is comparatively more expensive than Android.
In addition, the development cost of the application also varies according to the location of the developers and their skills and expertise.
Make sure you have the best app development team that comprises of:
Project Analyst and manager
Front-end and Backend developer
UX/UI Designer
Quality Assurance
Marketing Team
All-in-all, with the average per hour cost of the developer about $50, it will cost around $5000 to $10,000+ to create an app like Yummply, BigOver, Tasty and more. Further, it can be either higher or lower, depending upon the specific needs of your business.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, developing a recipe app has become a new trend especially in 2020 and expected more and more foodies are kept embracing a different way of cooking food.
So with the changing psychology of the people and their eating habits, developing your own cooking and recipe book app will be a great idea for startups. Hopefully, with this blog, you have a concept and all the information with you as to how to stand out in the market with your app.
But to make your application a great success in the market, you need to choose to partner with a skilled software development company that can turn your idea into a perfect solution. Also, you can leave a comment below if you have any doubts or query!
https://www.twitter.com/FlutterComm | https://medium.com/flutter-community/how-to-develop-a-food-recipe-app-cost-features-and-business-model-9ef5c525edff | ['Sophia Martin'] | 2020-12-29 05:55:26.346000+00:00 | ['Mobile App Development', 'Apps', 'Mobile Apps', 'Technology', 'Startup'] | Title Develop Food Recipe App Cost Features Business ModelContent hotelier restaurateur passionate cook want share best food recipe food lover Turn wellthought recipe business simply developing foodrecipe app like Tasty Yummly SideChef BigOven Cooking art come passion allowing people turn ordinary meal mesmerising tempting food people take art hobby profession fact people especially foodie turning towards mobile apps searching wide choice food recipe time take momentum launch food cooking recipe app still confused whether worth developing food recipe app like Tasty Yummly need go market insights… graph portraying frequently people searched recipe kept rising “According survey 400 crore people home worldwide Covid19 pandemic 130 crore India activity outside home halted found Food recipe Netflix Health Ludo leisurerelated topic peak time lockdown” “Apart survey discovered food recipe apps enjoy market size 22755800 potential user US Canada United Kingdom Australia India Pakistan Philippines searched Facebook shown interest cooking” “The mobile app industry soaring like never 2019 total mobile app revenue 4617 billion worldwide projected generate 9352 billion 2023 worth considering investing mobile apps Moreover 1 4 iPhoneiPad user age 18 older searched cooking food recipes” Gone day mom used look cookbook try various cuisine home Several foodie always high cooking food using recipe apps daily routine asking google find best recipe meal must wondering many food delivery application available satisfy food craving would one look recipe devote long hour preparation Well fact matter recipe involves whole gamut ingredient cooking something delectable taste palette feel like greater satisfaction various traditional cookbook available help find recipe research online recipe laid Google Youtube Facebook expert cook time user far easy simply installing app look recipe cook different occasion purpose Instead going online look recipe business mobile app development company come excellent app idea answer question second Right cook cook recipe app offer solution right away thanks technological advancement help people try different thing nutshell People know cooking ingredient cooking expertly growing boon digitization business vertical make sense hire mobile app development company build food recipe app like Tasty Yummly However whether startup passionate cook entrepreneur decided create food recipe app question pop mind Type Food Recipe App Develop Earn Type Application End Users Recipe App Features Integrate Food Recipe App Make Profit Cooking Recipe App Much Cost Launch App get answer question better idea scope future app market accordingly plan create structure app dig deep find answer question worth look two leading food recipe apps like BigOven Yummly providing 350000 1 million recipe user apps succeeded attracting attention user despite altogether different Though crucial realise sticking single strategy help win game become next big hit market need give thought different scenario make product survive even tough competition must know app development company understand business goal provide solution work best meet specific need endusers what’s idea behind creating food recipe app Type Recipe App Develop 2021 Make Money availability hundred cooking food recipe apps make app idea stand crowd biggest challenge main idea behind creating app surprise audience something exclusive develop app standard feature simply type app consider develop matter app idea choose customize make sure home screen app encourages user get engaged long hour Like search bar homepage attract user search broad choice recipe list favourite engage app much possible app lack content user get bored able connect app parameter consider hiring software developer project Advance level App Functionality customizing structure app defining functionality app make sure keep mind device structure need consider target audience device structure also user able access functionality app fullest MultiPurpose Apps Make sure app designed solve multipurpose user instead providing bunch recipe user expect app downloading Thus cooking food recipe app different mode satisfy need user Food Cooking Mode People love cook whether men woman professional chef beginner cooking mode essential app functionality user expect Right exploring new cuisine experimenting fresh ingredient make sure app everything engage user long hour Also keep mind keep interface simple need supported many feature also choose hire software development company ensures highquality content form tutorial video guide photo instruction essential cooking tip make process easier user Grocery Shopping Mode Integrating ecommerce feature app allowing user buy grocery listed store worthy decision entice user app enhance functionality app choose incorporate feature providing ondemand foodordering app Interested Developing Using Type App brilliant app idea startup business question leverage app idea able make money 2021 kind people invest recipe app Professional Chefs Health Coaches Startups Food Industry Passionate Cooks Nutritionist HotelierRestaurateur potential customer application knowing target audience able create recipe app actually help meet need endusers Apart foodie love browse food recipe social medium platform category audience choose target People living alone far away home Medical Patients prescribed special diet Fitness lover prefer intake balanced diet People fond exploring new cuisine eating outside Amateurs cooking Travellers always roam around city city Beside every user different cooking skill experience understanding make sure describe recipe easy follow guide simple execute avoid making complicated choose android app development solution help develop app necessary feature Key Features Create Best Recipe Book App Market Features important app development defines app taken market user choice feature also help determine cost develop food recipe app 2021 necessary feature need integrate app User Features Food Recipe App Registration first thing user look app registration process hire mobile app developer create comfortable smooth registration process user log application without hassle make far comfortable also provide provision integrate social logins allow user log social page Profile Generation Allow user create profile necessary information including contact related info preference interest area recipe suggestion Meal Plan integrating feature allow app user plan weekly meal advance don’t need think bake today Recipe List Choosing thousand recipe quite challenging user Therefore categorize list recipe various section including healthy eating salad recipe occasion regular meal recipe Search Advanced Search feature help engage user long hour encourage try recipe Also allow user use filter narrow search category occasion method diet Nutritional Calculators Nowadays people becoming conscious health prefer watch calorie nutrient take Make sure food recipe app feature Save Recipe Add option save favourite recipe access anywhere anytime Print Recipe Integrating feature help user easily access recipe printed form avoid inconvenience holding smartphone bear loss internet cooking Personal Note watching tutorial allow user add private note special input cooking particular recipe Social Sharing expand reach recipe allowing user share favourite recipe social medium help garner attention user engagement app Photo Sharing Allow user click picture share app help others know exactly look cooking Review Rating Users rate review recipe tried cooking give idea app user performance recipe easily execute Implementing feature app time consuming complicated therefore choose hire app developer eliminate complexity task Admin Features Creating Cooking Mobile App Manage Recipe Subscription Packages Recipes would heart food app allow admin manage seamlessly Manage User Profile feature allows admin view manage edit profile user Manage Payments feature allows admin manage payment done user app subscription grocery ebook purchase View Earnings analytics determine much app earning month View Ratings Reviews Admin view manage review rating given user also detail Manage Community Admin manage community app user connect Admin facility view hide delete question answer find across anything inappropriate Content Management Content king app admin responsible manage content published app make sure continuously update review Notifications option send push notification alert app user related offer coupon new addition feature food recipe mobile app detail earn app endusers feature functionality required create food recipe app many wondering make sense earning anything Best App Monetization Methods Food App make profit app one frequently asked question app developer matter brilliant app development company deployed project ultimately waste app earning money make money food recipe app app monetization strategy leveraged thousand apps app store play store let’s begin User Subscription provide additional feature user opted monthly subscription like adfree recipe diet oriented recipe mobile app offer subscription certain period Inapp Adds one traditional way earn money apps advertisement become powerful tool digital market using tool recipe app help earn money make sure advertise product servicerelated ad user click interacts ad get money Freemium monetise strategy need second paid version app user like free version app probably download paid app version extra feature Ok set idea make money app question left much cost develop food recipe app 2021 Well straightforward answer question thus let’s find factor influencing final cost developing food recipe app… Much Cost Launch Recipe App 2021 standard cost developing food recipe app feature cost attached create food recipe app like Yummly would cost around 5000 depending upon various factor cost could vary Factors ranging designing application feature size platform app critical aspect drive final cost app development choose add feature complexity app going higher price App platform also impact price application developing iOS application comparatively expensive Android addition development cost application also varies according location developer skill expertise Make sure best app development team comprises Project Analyst manager Frontend Backend developer UXUI Designer Quality Assurance Marketing Team Allinall average per hour cost developer 50 cost around 5000 10000 create app like Yummply BigOver Tasty either higher lower depending upon specific need business Conclusion Undoubtedly developing recipe app become new trend especially 2020 expected foodie kept embracing different way cooking food changing psychology people eating habit developing cooking recipe book app great idea startup Hopefully blog concept information stand market app make application great success market need choose partner skilled software development company turn idea perfect solution Also leave comment doubt query httpswwwtwittercomFlutterCommTags Mobile App Development Apps Mobile Apps Technology Startup |
2,244 | A new startup accelerator program for female founders. | In the world of startups, female founders are underrepresented. Last year, less than 3% of all the venture capital in the US went to companies founded by women. It’s an equity problem that we need to help address.
With this in mind, I’ve designed a new Female Founder program for the 4thly Startup Accelerator, and we’re launching our first cohort in November.
Recently, I told my friend Christina about these plans. She’s one of the most successful women I know, running a fast-growing $60M company and is a passionate advocate for women in business. She listened intently as I describing my plans for a new startup accelerator program focused on women. She slowly took a sip of her wine, looked up at me and said “You are aware that you’re an old white man, right?”.
Excellent point. I’ll never know what it’s like to be a female founder. But my personal superpower is my rolodex. I know a lot of amazingly smart and successful Silicon Valley women who have agreed be guest speakers in my new program. I will lean heavily on them during the program to provide inspiration and guidance to the participants.
My life today is focused on helping entrepreneurs of all stripes succeed and thrive. After a Silicon Valley career of my own, I now teach entrepreneurs at Stanford and coach them at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Over the past ten years, women in my Stanford course have gone from less than 15% to nearly half. I’m very proud of that. I also have five daughters. But I realize that just because I’m a startup guy who believes in women doesn’t automatically mean I can effectively run an accelerator program for women. Which means I’ll need to work extra-hard at it.
“True leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed… Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.” — Sheryl Sandberg
In addition to the great guest speakers, the core of the 4thly Female Founders program will be rooted in the same principles we apply to all our 4thly programs:
Global and diverse. There’s a big wide world of different kinds of interesting startups out there, and we passionately believe that cross-pollination between diverse participants is a key driver for success. As we select entrepreneurs we specifically want to put together cohorts that are global and diverse.
Pure digital, no travel. We use Zoom, Slack, and other tools for real-time remote immersion — no travel required. You fully immerse with the other participants in the program while still taking care of your life and business at home.
“Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the World.”- Hillary Clinton
Meet you where you are. Some entrepreneurs are strong in finance but weak on the technology side. Others are strong engineers but with no marketing background. In the 4thly program we meet you wherever you are and help you to build the skills and knowledge you want, across all dimensions.
Intensity matters. Some accelerator programs last several months. Ours is a 60-day intensive, with full-cohort Zoom meetings every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, plus additional 1:1 calls during the week. Great entrepreneurs embrace intensity.
Equity belongs to entrepreneurs. Most startup accelerators take equity in the startups as a price of admission. I’ve never liked that model much, because entrepreneurs work their asses off to build the equity in their startups and they deserve to keep every percentage point they can. So the 4thly accelerator is strictly fee-based — participants keep 100% of their startup equity.
“What I learn from talking to so many women around the world: If you can empower them with the right things, the right tools, they can lift up their family. And that ultimately lifts up their community and their society” — Melinda Gates
More doing, less talking. When I teach in a university classroom, it’s in a typical lecture format. Many accelerators also have lectures, class time, and curriculum they follow. But the 4thly accelerator is about doing.
Team is everything. Everybody in the cohort is focused on getting everyone else in the cohort to the next level. If someone’s bus gets stuck in the mud, then everyone in the accelerator jumps out and helps get them out of the mud and moving forward again. In the world of entrepreneurship, there is nothing more important than great teams.
These core 4thly Accelerator principles, combined with an all-star lineup of female guest speakers, are designed to make this a transformational experience for the participants in our first Female Founders program.
So yes, Christina, I am an old white man. I can’t change that. But I’m gonna run the most kick-ass Female Founder program, ever. :-) | https://bretwaters.medium.com/a-new-startup-accelerator-program-for-female-founders-8d5f9b5c0497 | ['Bret Waters'] | 2020-09-03 19:18:06.318000+00:00 | ['Women In Startups', 'Women', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship'] | Title new startup accelerator program female foundersContent world startup female founder underrepresented Last year le 3 venture capital US went company founded woman It’s equity problem need help address mind I’ve designed new Female Founder program 4thly Startup Accelerator we’re launching first cohort November Recently told friend Christina plan She’s one successful woman know running fastgrowing 60M company passionate advocate woman business listened intently describing plan new startup accelerator program focused woman slowly took sip wine looked said “You aware you’re old white man right” Excellent point I’ll never know it’s like female founder personal superpower rolodex know lot amazingly smart successful Silicon Valley woman agreed guest speaker new program lean heavily program provide inspiration guidance participant life today focused helping entrepreneur stripe succeed thrive Silicon Valley career teach entrepreneur Stanford coach Miller Center Social Entrepreneurship past ten year woman Stanford course gone le 15 nearly half I’m proud also five daughter realize I’m startup guy belief woman doesn’t automatically mean effectively run accelerator program woman mean I’ll need work extrahard “True leadership stem individuality honestly sometimes imperfectly expressed… Leaders strive authenticity perfection” — Sheryl Sandberg addition great guest speaker core 4thly Female Founders program rooted principle apply 4thly program Global diverse There’s big wide world different kind interesting startup passionately believe crosspollination diverse participant key driver success select entrepreneur specifically want put together cohort global diverse Pure digital travel use Zoom Slack tool realtime remote immersion — travel required fully immerse participant program still taking care life business home “Women largest untapped reservoir talent World” Hillary Clinton Meet entrepreneur strong finance weak technology side Others strong engineer marketing background 4thly program meet wherever help build skill knowledge want across dimension Intensity matter accelerator program last several month 60day intensive fullcohort Zoom meeting every Monday Wednesday Friday plus additional 11 call week Great entrepreneur embrace intensity Equity belongs entrepreneur startup accelerator take equity startup price admission I’ve never liked model much entrepreneur work ass build equity startup deserve keep every percentage point 4thly accelerator strictly feebased — participant keep 100 startup equity “What learn talking many woman around world empower right thing right tool lift family ultimately lift community society” — Melinda Gates le talking teach university classroom it’s typical lecture format Many accelerator also lecture class time curriculum follow 4thly accelerator Team everything Everybody cohort focused getting everyone else cohort next level someone’s bus get stuck mud everyone accelerator jump help get mud moving forward world entrepreneurship nothing important great team core 4thly Accelerator principle combined allstar lineup female guest speaker designed make transformational experience participant first Female Founders program yes Christina old white man can’t change I’m gonna run kickass Female Founder program ever Tags Women Startups Women Startup Entrepreneurship |
2,245 | The Co-op Close-up: Procter & Gamble | SFU’s professional master’s program in computer science trains computational specialists in big data and visual computing. All students complete a paid co-op work placement as part of their degree. In this feature, we examine the co-op experiences of some of our big data students.
Kanksha Masrani completed her bachelor’s degree in information technology at Charotar University of Science & Technology before joining SFU’s professional master’s program in computer science.
Can you tell us about Procter & Gamble? What is it like working there?
Procter & Gamble (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. The company specializes in a wide range of personal care and hygiene products.
During my co-op here, I have been working with an exciting team where I have been given the chance to manage multiple projects at the same time. My work experience here allows me to combine my technical excellence with business and management skills while building a large network of colleagues and professionals that I can turn to when needed.
P&G organizes multiple hackathons to help generate fresh ideas. People of different ages and backgrounds come together and help solve another team’s problem. You can also get involved in multiple activities happening across the organization, be it off-site events for your team or representing your product category in some sport activity. Along with the projects you own, you are encouraged to be a part of these activities to further develop your soft skills outside the workplace.
Can you describe the project(s) that you are working on?
In total, for the course of eight months, I was assigned five projects. In one project, I am developing a business intelligence tool on Power BI which integrates KNIME, an ETL tool used for integrating data from multiple data sources, doing required data manipulation and analysis using Python and R snippets to deliver performance data from the Nielsen database which enables faster and simpler reporting. This business intelligence tool offers insights on shares, KPIs, price, and promotions across multiple retailers and time periods for the blades and razors product category. Using the same tools — Power BI and KNIME — I am also developing an innovation tracker which is currently providing insights on price, promotion, market share, and other sales metrics for new products launched by P&G in the Canadian market. The dashboards I’ve created allow my team to dynamically explore data and derive insights that may not be easily obtained through spreadsheets. For example, the team can easily glean whether performance improved across product categories over time, and if not, which category contributed towards the decline and by how much.
What are the most important skills needed in your co-op position and how has the big data program prepared you for the role?
P&G puts a strong emphasis on using data to make “better, smarter, real-time business decisions.” As a Business Analyst at P&G, you are a business leader. Your role is to mine multiple sources of data, derive actionable insights, and translate complex results or algorithms into simple conclusions that will empower others to take action to win with the consumers. Business knowledge, interpersonal, and communication skills are therefore a must to thrive in this multi-functional leadership team.
Nothing beats hands-on experience when it comes to skills development. At university, I mastered machine learning, big data tools and technologies, data mining, and more. But interning at P&G taught me how to apply those skills in meaningful ways and allowed me to further develop my collaboration, critical thinking, and presentation skills, for example when presenting my recommendations to non-technical executives.
What are you most appreciative of when looking back at your co-op experience thus far?
P&G develops future leaders by giving them meaningful responsibilities from Day One. Only four months in, I was leading a team of twelve. This gave me an opportunity to take my leadership skills from good to great. Every project was a challenge, but with the right kind of people around, it was not difficult to overcome it. The level of autonomy I have been given is very impressive. I have real, business-critical tasks to complete, and, with the support of my colleagues and mentors, I have been able to finish my projects to a high standard while also growing my confidence and knowledge. Here at P&G, if you are flexible, determined, and want to expand your skill set, there are so many opportunities to learn and grow! | https://medium.com/sfu-cspmp/the-co-op-close-up-procter-gamble-f7e2d6a69dfc | ['Kathrin Knorr'] | 2019-11-18 18:41:17.031000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Co Op', 'Procter And Gamble', 'Business Intelligence', 'Marketing'] | Title Coop Closeup Procter GambleContent SFU’s professional master’s program computer science train computational specialist big data visual computing student complete paid coop work placement part degree feature examine coop experience big data student Kanksha Masrani completed bachelor’s degree information technology Charotar University Science Technology joining SFU’s professional master’s program computer science tell u Procter Gamble like working Procter Gamble PG American multinational consumer good company headquartered Cincinnati Ohio founded 1837 William Procter James Gamble company specializes wide range personal care hygiene product coop working exciting team given chance manage multiple project time work experience allows combine technical excellence business management skill building large network colleague professional turn needed PG organizes multiple hackathons help generate fresh idea People different age background come together help solve another team’s problem also get involved multiple activity happening across organization offsite event team representing product category sport activity Along project encouraged part activity develop soft skill outside workplace describe project working total course eight month assigned five project one project developing business intelligence tool Power BI integrates KNIME ETL tool used integrating data multiple data source required data manipulation analysis using Python R snippet deliver performance data Nielsen database enables faster simpler reporting business intelligence tool offer insight share KPIs price promotion across multiple retailer time period blade razor product category Using tool — Power BI KNIME — also developing innovation tracker currently providing insight price promotion market share sale metric new product launched PG Canadian market dashboard I’ve created allow team dynamically explore data derive insight may easily obtained spreadsheet example team easily glean whether performance improved across product category time category contributed towards decline much important skill needed coop position big data program prepared role PG put strong emphasis using data make “better smarter realtime business decisions” Business Analyst PG business leader role mine multiple source data derive actionable insight translate complex result algorithm simple conclusion empower others take action win consumer Business knowledge interpersonal communication skill therefore must thrive multifunctional leadership team Nothing beat handson experience come skill development university mastered machine learning big data tool technology data mining interning PG taught apply skill meaningful way allowed develop collaboration critical thinking presentation skill example presenting recommendation nontechnical executive appreciative looking back coop experience thus far PG develops future leader giving meaningful responsibility Day One four month leading team twelve gave opportunity take leadership skill good great Every project challenge right kind people around difficult overcome level autonomy given impressive real businesscritical task complete support colleague mentor able finish project high standard also growing confidence knowledge PG flexible determined want expand skill set many opportunity learn growTags Data Science Co Op Procter Gamble Business Intelligence Marketing |
2,246 | Those jobs are gone forever. Let’s gear up for what’s next. | And robots aren’t just boosting productivity in rich countries like the US. They’re starting to affect countries like China, too.
Machines building machines
The robots in a Tesla factory move around so fast that they’re encased in glass to protect human workers from them.
Dongguan — a city near Hong Kong that’s basically the manufacturing capital of the world — recently launched their first automated factory.
The Changying Precision Technology Company manufactures parts for mobile phones. It has 60 robot arms that work on 10 production lines that run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Each production line has 3 human workers who monitor the robots.
Before these new robots arrived, the factory needed 650 human workers to be able to operate. Now it just needs 30.
Since this factory laid off 95% of its workers, and handed over the task of manufacturing to the machines, its defect rate has dropped by 400%, and its overall output has nearly tripled.
More production, fewer people.
This is part of a massive automation initiative in China with the twin goals of cutting costs while improving the quality of manufactured goods.
And keep in mind— we’re not talking about the US, where the humans manufacturing workers earn an average of $20 per hour. We’re talking about China, where the average factory worker makes closer to $2 per hour.
This means that if US-based manufacturers took cost cutting as seriously as they are in China, they could afford to spend 10 times as much money automating away each human worker.
In other words, regardless of which country the manufacturing takes place, it’s just a matter of time before most of its physical “building” part of it will be done by robots.
But that physical “building” part of manufacturing has never been all that profitable, anyway.
The text on the back of an iPhone says: “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.” Even though that’s probably an effort to de-emphasize the fact that the phone was “Made in China,” it’s still an important point. Because most of that value of that iPhone was indeed created in California, through the process of designing the hardware and software.
To illustrate this, here’s a quick pop quiz: When Apple sells an iPhone, what percentage of the total proceeds from the sale go toward the Chinese labor it took to build that iPhone?
The answer: less than two percent.
That’s right — for every dollar you spend on an iPhone, about two pennies go to the factories in China that assembled it. The vast majority of that revenue comes right back to the United States.
Whenever some politician talks about “bringing back the good manufacturing jobs” that’s what they’re talking about: trying to bring that 2% back to America, in the form of a few thousand new jobs. Jobs that would only exist with the help of heavy subsidies from the government, and would die off the moment the government quit paying those subsidies.
And this cost doesn’t begin to account for the full side-effects of subsidizing an industry.
Real-life case study: America’s steel industry in 2002
In 2002, American steel was being undercut by cheaper Chinese steel. We tried to keep the American steel industry alive by passing tariffs on foreign steel.
In the end, more than 200,000 people who worked outside of the steel industry lost their jobs due to the macro-economic effects of our artificially inflated steel prices. That means more people lost their non-steel industry jobs than the entire US steel industry employed at the time (187,000 jobs).
In other words, taxpayers spent billions of dollars to destroy jobs, so they could keep even fewer jobs — jobs that were dangerous and low-skill — from inevitably leaving the country. For a few more years, anyway.
The good news to come out of all this misery is that we’ve discovered a better way forward.
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” — Wayne Gretzky
Instead of trying to bring back the manufacturing jobs that are already being automated away by machines, we have an opportunity to fill the hundreds of thousands of vacant American jobs that aren’t being automated. These are the jobs that involve telling those machines what to do. The programming jobs.
And we can fund this opportunity with all that money that the politicians are wasting on trying to bring back those old manufacturing jobs that would otherwise no longer exist.
Teachers, not tariffs
A vast majority of the value that rolls out of factories is not produced in the factories themselves. It’s produced by people sitting in front of computers in their office — and increasingly, in their own homes.
These are the people who tell the machines what to do. And the real problem our country is facing is that there aren’t enough of these people.
Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of job openings for people who know how to code.
Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and thousands of other employers spend $5,000 per year in fees just to bring a single foreign engineer over to the US to fill a six-figure salary developer job. These companies aren’t doing this as a cost-savings measure. They’re doing this because there aren’t enough Americans who have the right skills.
So here’s a simple way we can improve our economy and help people get more jobs: every time a politician mentions “bringing back those good old manufacturing jobs” we should tell that politician, “Hey, why don’t we train people to fill the good engineering jobs that never left our country in the first place?”
Here are some concrete steps that we can pressure politicians to take, which will help us get more qualified Americans into these good engineering jobs:
Help experienced teachers to retrain in new skills by paying for them to earn advanced degrees in computer science and software engineering from public universities. Then sponsor summer internships for these teachers to work at software companies, so they can learn even more in the field. Prioritize technology education in high school, instead of treating it as an afterthought. Require every high school student to take at least one hour of programming each day, just like they take one hour of English each day. What if administrators are unwilling to de-prioritize subjects like French? Well, just make the school day one hour longer. Programming is that important. Offer preferential financial aid to students who major in either computer science or software engineering. Leverage our nation’s massive adult education infrastructure — including community colleges — to help busy adults learn to program on nights and weekends.
All the people and all the infrastructure we need to do this are already in place. We just need to adjust the economic incentives, which is something our government has the full power to do if we convince them that it’s a priority.
This will be much cheaper in the long run than trying to subsidize the kind of outdated, low-value-added domestic manufacturing that politicians keep pitching to us.
So the next time a politician tries to use “jobs” as a justification for handing some corporation a bunch of taxpayer money, tell them you know the score. Tell them that China can keep those low-skilled jobs of yesterday. And instead, let’s train more people for the high-skilled jobs of today.
I only write about programming and technology. If you follow me on Twitter I won’t waste your time. 👍 | https://medium.com/free-code-camp/we-cant-bring-back-the-old-manufacturing-jobs-12214a0ab057 | ['Quincy Larson'] | 2017-12-27 22:12:53.539000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Life Lessons', 'Politics', 'Tech', 'Startup'] | Title job gone forever Let’s gear what’s nextContent robot aren’t boosting productivity rich country like US They’re starting affect country like China Machines building machine robot Tesla factory move around fast they’re encased glass protect human worker Dongguan — city near Hong Kong that’s basically manufacturing capital world — recently launched first automated factory Changying Precision Technology Company manufacture part mobile phone 60 robot arm work 10 production line run 24 hour day 7 day week production line 3 human worker monitor robot new robot arrived factory needed 650 human worker able operate need 30 Since factory laid 95 worker handed task manufacturing machine defect rate dropped 400 overall output nearly tripled production fewer people part massive automation initiative China twin goal cutting cost improving quality manufactured good keep mind— we’re talking US human manufacturing worker earn average 20 per hour We’re talking China average factory worker make closer 2 per hour mean USbased manufacturer took cost cutting seriously China could afford spend 10 time much money automating away human worker word regardless country manufacturing take place it’s matter time physical “building” part done robot physical “building” part manufacturing never profitable anyway text back iPhone say “Designed Apple California Assembled China” Even though that’s probably effort deemphasize fact phone “Made China” it’s still important point value iPhone indeed created California process designing hardware software illustrate here’s quick pop quiz Apple sell iPhone percentage total proceeds sale go toward Chinese labor took build iPhone answer le two percent That’s right — every dollar spend iPhone two penny go factory China assembled vast majority revenue come right back United States Whenever politician talk “bringing back good manufacturing jobs” that’s they’re talking trying bring 2 back America form thousand new job Jobs would exist help heavy subsidy government would die moment government quit paying subsidy cost doesn’t begin account full sideeffects subsidizing industry Reallife case study America’s steel industry 2002 2002 American steel undercut cheaper Chinese steel tried keep American steel industry alive passing tariff foreign steel end 200000 people worked outside steel industry lost job due macroeconomic effect artificially inflated steel price mean people lost nonsteel industry job entire US steel industry employed time 187000 job word taxpayer spent billion dollar destroy job could keep even fewer job — job dangerous lowskill — inevitably leaving country year anyway good news come misery we’ve discovered better way forward “I skate puck going been” — Wayne Gretzky Instead trying bring back manufacturing job already automated away machine opportunity fill hundred thousand vacant American job aren’t automated job involve telling machine programming job fund opportunity money politician wasting trying bring back old manufacturing job would otherwise longer exist Teachers tariff vast majority value roll factory produced factory It’s produced people sitting front computer office — increasingly home people tell machine real problem country facing aren’t enough people Right hundred thousand job opening people know code Apple Facebook Microsoft Google thousand employer spend 5000 per year fee bring single foreign engineer US fill sixfigure salary developer job company aren’t costsavings measure They’re aren’t enough Americans right skill here’s simple way improve economy help people get job every time politician mention “bringing back good old manufacturing jobs” tell politician “Hey don’t train people fill good engineering job never left country first place” concrete step pressure politician take help u get qualified Americans good engineering job Help experienced teacher retrain new skill paying earn advanced degree computer science software engineering public university sponsor summer internship teacher work software company learn even field Prioritize technology education high school instead treating afterthought Require every high school student take least one hour programming day like take one hour English day administrator unwilling deprioritize subject like French Well make school day one hour longer Programming important Offer preferential financial aid student major either computer science software engineering Leverage nation’s massive adult education infrastructure — including community college — help busy adult learn program night weekend people infrastructure need already place need adjust economic incentive something government full power convince it’s priority much cheaper long run trying subsidize kind outdated lowvalueadded domestic manufacturing politician keep pitching u next time politician try use “jobs” justification handing corporation bunch taxpayer money tell know score Tell China keep lowskilled job yesterday instead let’s train people highskilled job today write programming technology follow Twitter won’t waste time 👍Tags Design Life Lessons Politics Tech Startup |
2,247 | iOS Training Log — Drawing striped overlays onto a bubble visualization | Bubble Definition/Background
Strava recently shipped the (previously web & Android only) Training Log to iOS devices, which represents the athlete’s previous activities using bubbles.
A “bubble”, in the context of this post, shows the accumulated volume of some activity dimension (distance, time, etc.) for a given day. This will add up the athlete’s chosen dimension for all activities on a particular day and translate that to a percentage. This percentage is piped into a scaling algorithm to determine the ideal bubble size.
After sizing, athlete-selected filters and activity tags can alter the bubble’s appearance or add a visual adornment on top of the bubble’s view. For the purposes of this post, let’s focus on the “workout” tag that can be applied an activity. This will create a bubble with a striped overlay.
Bubble with a sideways striped overlay
How to Draw a Bubble
This is the simplest part of the bubble view’s drawing since we can heavily lean on UIKit to do most of the heavy lifting. First off, we’ll create a subclass of UIView to be the bubble visualization.
This subclass will override the draw(rect:) method to create a simple circle in the current context. To make our code more readable, let’s create a function in an extension to BubbleView to handle drawing the bubble and call it from the draw(rect:) implementation.
Capture the current context. Set the fill of the context to the provided color ( .orange in this case) which will be used in the next operation. Fill an ellipse (which will end up as a circle if the view has a 1:1 aspect ratio) with the previously set color.
Just a circle.
Easy enough thanks mostly to UIKit . Let’s move on to the striped overlay now.
Draw Stripes Over the Bubble at a 45° Angle
We could calculate the start/end points of all the stripes using various geometry tricks but that’s difficult. Instead, let’s explore an easier way by once again leaning on UIKit for the heavy lifting. To set up the scaffolding, let’s add to the extension to BubbleView that allows an instance to easily draw this overlay and call it from our original draw(rect:) implementation.
Notice the call to drawStripes(in:stripeColor:stripeWidth:) is after the call to drawBubble(in:bubbleColor:) . This is because each context-based drawing operation is stacked on the previous and we’d like the bubble to be beneath the overlay.
Next, we’ll move into the stripe drawing function and fill in some sizing code. This will be explained a bit more later.
This code snippet takes advantage of CGContext.translateBy(x:,y:) and CGContext.rotate(by:) to drastically simplify our drawing code. But first, let’s visualize the context’s current coordinate system. The blue grid represents the context’s theoretical bounds and the darker blue dot represents the context’s origin.
Circle with a reference grid.
By translating the context downward, we can get the origin closer to where we want to begin drawing the stripes.
The resulting coordinate system has now been shifted such that the origin is at the bottom of the previous grid. The shifted coordinate system for the context is represented in the new green grid.
Circle with translated reference grid.
After this translation, we now need to rotate the context so that drawing a straight line on it will be at a 45° angle to our original context position. This is done by rotating the context around the origin (top-left) of the user coordinate system. This takes into account all previous coordinate mutations, which is just a translation in our case.
The resulting coordinate system has been rotated 45° around the previous green origin. The new red user coordinate system has replaced the green coordinate system and is the current drawing coordinate system visualized. The original blue grid still remains as a visual reference for illustration purposes.
Circle with translated + rotated reference grid.
At this point, the red dot on the red grid illustrates position (0,0) or the origin. The x direction extends away from it upward on the 45° line while the y direction extends downward on the opposing 45° line. Before we are able to begin drawing the stripes in our new user coordinate space, we first need to ensure they are styled correctly.
So, to draw the middle strip at this point, we use maxPathLength (our previous calculation for stripe length) for the length and draw it from our origin.
This will stroke a stripe centered on the x-axis of the previously defined width ( stripeWidth ).
Circle with line drawn on top of adjusted reference grid.
This initial stripe has no mirror since it occurs on the x-axis or center of the circle. All the other stripes have stripes mirrored over the x-axis, which is centered beneath the initial stripe above.
We can iterate over the entire width of our bubble drawing these mirrored stripes on each pass until we reach, or exceed, the edge of the bubble.
This results in a series of stripes above and below (in the user coordinate space) our initial center stripe.
Circle with stripes drawn from corner to corner of original reference grid.
To make it easier to grasp what we currently have in our context without the grids, let’s remove them.
Same circle as before with reference grids removed.
This is close to what we are trying to accomplish except for the fact that the stripes extend past the edges of the bubble. To easily solve this problem, we need to use the bubble’s radius to apply a clip to the context before we start drawing any of the stripes and before we mutate the user coordinate space.
This clip path, when applied to the context before the drawing, will clip all of the stripes that extend past the edge of the bubble.
Final circle with stripes now clipped.
And there we have it, an easy way to draw lots of stripes at odd angles without having to do geometry calculations other than converting the degree measurements to radians. :P
Final Code | https://medium.com/strava-engineering/ios-training-log-drawing-striped-overlays-onto-a-bubble-visualization-5711e6549fb6 | ['Matt Robinson'] | 2020-07-02 20:01:01.371000+00:00 | ['Visualization', 'iOS', 'Apple', 'Xcode', 'iOS App Development'] | Title iOS Training Log — Drawing striped overlay onto bubble visualizationContent Bubble DefinitionBackground Strava recently shipped previously web Android Training Log iOS device represents athlete’s previous activity using bubble “bubble” context post show accumulated volume activity dimension distance time etc given day add athlete’s chosen dimension activity particular day translate percentage percentage piped scaling algorithm determine ideal bubble size sizing athleteselected filter activity tag alter bubble’s appearance add visual adornment top bubble’s view purpose post let’s focus “workout” tag applied activity create bubble striped overlay Bubble sideways striped overlay Draw Bubble simplest part bubble view’s drawing since heavily lean UIKit heavy lifting First we’ll create subclass UIView bubble visualization subclass override drawrect method create simple circle current context make code readable let’s create function extension BubbleView handle drawing bubble call drawrect implementation Capture current context Set fill context provided color orange case used next operation Fill ellipse end circle view 11 aspect ratio previously set color circle Easy enough thanks mostly UIKit Let’s move striped overlay Draw Stripes Bubble 45° Angle could calculate startend point stripe using various geometry trick that’s difficult Instead let’s explore easier way leaning UIKit heavy lifting set scaffolding let’s add extension BubbleView allows instance easily draw overlay call original drawrect implementation Notice call drawStripesinstripeColorstripeWidth call drawBubbleinbubbleColor contextbased drawing operation stacked previous we’d like bubble beneath overlay Next we’ll move stripe drawing function fill sizing code explained bit later code snippet take advantage CGContexttranslateByxy CGContextrotateby drastically simplify drawing code first let’s visualize context’s current coordinate system blue grid represents context’s theoretical bound darker blue dot represents context’s origin Circle reference grid translating context downward get origin closer want begin drawing stripe resulting coordinate system shifted origin bottom previous grid shifted coordinate system context represented new green grid Circle translated reference grid translation need rotate context drawing straight line 45° angle original context position done rotating context around origin topleft user coordinate system take account previous coordinate mutation translation case resulting coordinate system rotated 45° around previous green origin new red user coordinate system replaced green coordinate system current drawing coordinate system visualized original blue grid still remains visual reference illustration purpose Circle translated rotated reference grid point red dot red grid illustrates position 00 origin x direction extends away upward 45° line direction extends downward opposing 45° line able begin drawing stripe new user coordinate space first need ensure styled correctly draw middle strip point use maxPathLength previous calculation stripe length length draw origin stroke stripe centered xaxis previously defined width stripeWidth Circle line drawn top adjusted reference grid initial stripe mirror since occurs xaxis center circle stripe stripe mirrored xaxis centered beneath initial stripe iterate entire width bubble drawing mirrored stripe pas reach exceed edge bubble result series stripe user coordinate space initial center stripe Circle stripe drawn corner corner original reference grid make easier grasp currently context without grid let’s remove circle reference grid removed close trying accomplish except fact stripe extend past edge bubble easily solve problem need use bubble’s radius apply clip context start drawing stripe mutate user coordinate space clip path applied context drawing clip stripe extend past edge bubble Final circle stripe clipped easy way draw lot stripe odd angle without geometry calculation converting degree measurement radian P Final CodeTags Visualization iOS Apple Xcode iOS App Development |
2,248 | Use phased projects to help you avoid the RFP process | Request for Proposal (RFP) is a time-tested procurement process that’s consistently worked well for some organizations in purchasing commodities and goods. But in the digital era, using RFPs in the procurement of creative services is an antiquated process that can cost you valuable time and may not lead to the best results.
Think about it this way: an RFP makes sense if your organization is trying to find the best deal on 50 tons of concrete. But if you’re looking for someone to shape that concrete into a work of art, do you really want to start with a process designed to keep all qualified artists at arms length?
Eliminating RFPs from your procurement process for creative and website development services will get you better results and save you the investment of significant time and money.
Not sure how to avoid RFPs?
At this point you may be pointing out the fact that whether you like it or not, your organization has procurement regulations that force you to go to an RFP if the proposed project exceeds a certain dollar figure.
If this is the case let’s frame the problem it in a different way: All projects are made up of phases, which inherently make up a fraction of the total project cost.In fact, many RFPs ask creative service agencies to outline their process and project phases in the proposal response and estimate the cost of each phase. So if a cost can be assigned to each phase, why not make these phases into separate, smaller projects?
This is the route more and more organizations and agencies are going when they begin to understand the downside of RFPs as they relate to creative services. This is a simplistic breakdown for illustrative purposes, but your $50,000 website project can easily become four or five individual projects that each separately fit within the purchasing limits set by your organization. When combined, these five projects equal one awesome website, and operating this way has allowed you to work with the partner of your choice.
And remember how I said avoiding RFPs could actually save you money? Well here’s how: by avoiding the RPF and working directly with your chosen agency, that agency can better anticipate real costs and problems upfront after taking time to understand the project details with you. Otherwise, they are just making a best guess estimate they are locked into once it’s written in the proposal. Most agencies also put an up-charge on RFP work since they’ll only land about 10% of the RFPs they bid for, and time and money is invested into creating each RFP response proposal.
Every project is a little different, so make sure you are working with an expert firm that can help you navigate this process, lay out clear phase projects, and set achievable timelines and goals.
An in-depth example
If you’re now intrigued and want to know more, here is a closer look at how our example $50,000 website project could be divided into smaller, less expensive projects.
Project/Phase 1: Discovery ($5K)
Discovery is the research and strategic planning phase that starts any successful project. Sometimes overlooked by less experienced firms, this is often the most vital part of any project where you work with the partner firm to uncover needs, define scope and timeline, and establish measurable goals for the project.
If you’re unfamiliar with discovery — or want to know more about how it can help you — check out this free, 8-page Discovery Guide.
Project/Phase 2: Branding ($10K)
If you are going to invest the time and money into developing an extensive online tool for client, customer, or donor engagement, you really should make sure your message and brand image are on point before implementing these elements into your new website.
Project/Phase 3: Content Development ($5K)
Content development can include anything from photography, illustrations, video, or written copy that helps to tell your organization’s story.
Project/Phase 4: UI/UX Design ($15K)
This phase includes information architecture, wireframing, and visual design mockups. It may overlap with content development and testing, depending on the schedule and nature of the project.
Project/Phase 5: Development & Testing ($15K)
Developing the website can begin as the design phase approaches completion. A web developer takes the static, designed pages and codes them into a functional website. This phase is typically completed with user testing, bug fixing, and launching the site.
If your organization has even tighter purchasing limits than those described above — or if your project contains more extensive requirements and a more hefty budget — some agencies may even be willing to break the outlined phases into smaller chunks. For example, the development and user testing phase could potentially be broken into two separate phases.
Why your organization will love this new process
My experience has shown that organizations who go to RFPs do so for one of three specific reasons:
The Well-Intentioned Organization: This organization and project leader doesn’t realize there is a better way or isn’t sure of the organization’s policies. This team just wants to do things by the book. The Traditional Organization: This organization goes to RFP on every project regardless of the service or product they are seeking because that’s just the way it’s always been done. They like the familiarity of the RFP process. The Evil Organization: This organization just wants the FREE consulting to think out and scope the project for them so that they can take it in house.
Image Courtesy of Kyla Tom, Madison Ave. Collective
When presented properly, the idea of phased projects appeals to these organizations for the following reasons:
Well-intentioned organizations will appreciate the speed and simplicity with which they can now get the work done and will be excited to follow this new process.
will appreciate the speed and simplicity with which they can now get the work done and will be excited to follow this new process. Traditional organizations also tend to be risk and cost-averse organizations, meaning that phased projects will appeal to them because the step-by-step approach helps to eliminate unknown variables and unnecessary spending.
also tend to be risk and cost-averse organizations, meaning that phased projects will appeal to them because the step-by-step approach helps to eliminate unknown variables and unnecessary spending. Evil Organizations: If this is your organization, please reconsider the moral compass guiding your business practices. While I won’t ever convince you to ditch the RFP process, I’m sure you don’t like being asked to do free work either.
Are you following my logic, but still not convinced that RFPs are a bad business model for contracting creative services? A panel of experts presented on RFPs at SXSW a few years ago and their website, NoRFPs.org contains more useful information.
New Approach = Consistently Better Work
If you begin to engage expert creative firms outside of the RFP process, it will help save you time and money by avoiding the cumbersome RFP timeline and allowing the creative firm of your choice to hone in on the project details with you. Most importantly, you will see the reward in the quality of work produced for your organization.
Do you have an upcoming project and want to test the waters with this new approach? Do a little research and make a few phone calls to agencies that are doing great work for your competitors or in similar industries to find a creative team that fits your needs.
Thoughts or questions? The Madison Ave. Collective would love to hear about your experience with RFPs when contracting creative services. Share in the comments below!
This article was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse. | https://medium.com/madison-ave-collective/use-phased-projects-to-help-you-avoid-the-rfp-process-18c775c3bfbc | ['Logan Hoffman'] | 2017-03-23 19:15:19.288000+00:00 | ['Procurement', 'Design', 'Marketing'] | Title Use phased project help avoid RFP processContent Request Proposal RFP timetested procurement process that’s consistently worked well organization purchasing commodity good digital era using RFPs procurement creative service antiquated process cost valuable time may lead best result Think way RFP make sense organization trying find best deal 50 ton concrete you’re looking someone shape concrete work art really want start process designed keep qualified artist arm length Eliminating RFPs procurement process creative website development service get better result save investment significant time money sure avoid RFPs point may pointing fact whether like organization procurement regulation force go RFP proposed project exceeds certain dollar figure case let’s frame problem different way project made phase inherently make fraction total project costIn fact many RFPs ask creative service agency outline process project phase proposal response estimate cost phase cost assigned phase make phase separate smaller project route organization agency going begin understand downside RFPs relate creative service simplistic breakdown illustrative purpose 50000 website project easily become four five individual project separately fit within purchasing limit set organization combined five project equal one awesome website operating way allowed work partner choice remember said avoiding RFPs could actually save money Well here’s avoiding RPF working directly chosen agency agency better anticipate real cost problem upfront taking time understand project detail Otherwise making best guess estimate locked it’s written proposal agency also put upcharge RFP work since they’ll land 10 RFPs bid time money invested creating RFP response proposal Every project little different make sure working expert firm help navigate process lay clear phase project set achievable timeline goal indepth example you’re intrigued want know closer look example 50000 website project could divided smaller le expensive project ProjectPhase 1 Discovery 5K Discovery research strategic planning phase start successful project Sometimes overlooked le experienced firm often vital part project work partner firm uncover need define scope timeline establish measurable goal project you’re unfamiliar discovery — want know help — check free 8page Discovery Guide ProjectPhase 2 Branding 10K going invest time money developing extensive online tool client customer donor engagement really make sure message brand image point implementing element new website ProjectPhase 3 Content Development 5K Content development include anything photography illustration video written copy help tell organization’s story ProjectPhase 4 UIUX Design 15K phase includes information architecture wireframing visual design mockups may overlap content development testing depending schedule nature project ProjectPhase 5 Development Testing 15K Developing website begin design phase approach completion web developer take static designed page code functional website phase typically completed user testing bug fixing launching site organization even tighter purchasing limit described — project contains extensive requirement hefty budget — agency may even willing break outlined phase smaller chunk example development user testing phase could potentially broken two separate phase organization love new process experience shown organization go RFPs one three specific reason WellIntentioned Organization organization project leader doesn’t realize better way isn’t sure organization’s policy team want thing book Traditional Organization organization go RFP every project regardless service product seeking that’s way it’s always done like familiarity RFP process Evil Organization organization want FREE consulting think scope project take house Image Courtesy Kyla Tom Madison Ave Collective presented properly idea phased project appeal organization following reason Wellintentioned organization appreciate speed simplicity get work done excited follow new process appreciate speed simplicity get work done excited follow new process Traditional organization also tend risk costaverse organization meaning phased project appeal stepbystep approach help eliminate unknown variable unnecessary spending also tend risk costaverse organization meaning phased project appeal stepbystep approach help eliminate unknown variable unnecessary spending Evil Organizations organization please reconsider moral compass guiding business practice won’t ever convince ditch RFP process I’m sure don’t like asked free work either following logic still convinced RFPs bad business model contracting creative service panel expert presented RFPs SXSW year ago website NoRFPsorg contains useful information New Approach Consistently Better Work begin engage expert creative firm outside RFP process help save time money avoiding cumbersome RFP timeline allowing creative firm choice hone project detail importantly see reward quality work produced organization upcoming project want test water new approach little research make phone call agency great work competitor similar industry find creative team fit need Thoughts question Madison Ave Collective would love hear experience RFPs contracting creative service Share comment article originally published LinkedIn PulseTags Procurement Design Marketing |
2,249 | 13 Conda Commands for Data Scientists | Let’s get to it! 🚀
The Need
Whether working locally or on a server in the cloud, you want a virtual environment to isolate your Python version and packages so that you can:
use different package versions for different projects experiment with bleeding edge package versions get the same Python and package versions as your teammates so your shared code works similarly
Do I have to use Conda?
Nope. It’s very common in data analysis and scientific computing, but not so common outside.
There are lots of tools you can use to manage virtual Python environments. conda, Venv, pyenv, pipenv, poetry, Docker, and virtualenv are the most prominent. Trust me, you don’t even want to go down this rabbit hole. 🐇
But if you must, here’s a Hacker News thread for a taste of the fun. And Yufeng G, Developer Advocate for Google Cloud, has a nice video on conda, virtualenv, and pyenv here.
Today we’re exploring conda, so let’s dive in!
Anaconda
Anaconda is both the name of the company behind the software and the name of the fully featured software distribution. The Anaconda company offers consulting and three Anaconda editions: individual, team, and enterprise. Individual is common and powerful. It’s not like there are freeware gotchas. 😉 It’s what I use.
Distributions: Anaconda vs Miniconda
You can choose to download and install one of two distributions: Anaconda or Miniconda.
Similarities
Both Anaconda and Miniconda get you conda, the package manager and virtual environment manager in one.
Both can be installed on Windows, Mac, or Linux systems.
Both come with Python and pip installed.
Differences
The Anaconda distribution installs many Python packages and tools that are common for data science. Miniconda does not. It’s the difference between a big, batteries-included download and a minimal download without many packages installed for you.
Miniconda install ranges between 50 and 90 MiB in mid-2020, depending on your operating system .
The Anaconda distribution requires a “minimum 5 GB disc space to download and install” — according to the docs in mid-2020.
The Anaconda distribution installer also includes options to install a GUI and other popular software such as the VSCode text editor.
If you are getting started with scientific computing using Python and have the space on your computer, I suggest you download the Anaconda distribution. It’s a lot of stuff, but it’s good stuff. 👍
If you’ve worked with conda previously, I suggest you download Miniconda. You can add just the packages you need as you go. 😀
See install instructions for Anaconda here and for Miniconda here.
Source: pixabay.com
Conda commands
If you installed the Anaconda distribution you can use the GUI installer, but I suggest using the command line interface to help you work faster. You are a programmer after all (or becoming one)! 😉
Let’s look at common conda commands to create and manage conda environments. Everything is the same whether you installed Anaconda or Miniconda. It’s all conda at this point. 😀
Create conda environments
conda create -n myenv pandas jupyterlab Create a new conda environment named myenv with the latest version of Python available on the main conda channel. Install pandas and jupyterlab packages into the environment. -n is short for --name .
Conda asks for confirmation with package changes. Press y when asked whether you want to proceed.
conda create -n myclone --clone myenv Duplicate the environment named myenv into the new environment named myclone. All the packages come along for the ride! 🚙
conda create -n myenv python=3.8 Create a new conda environment named myenv with the Python version specified. Pip and about 15 other packages are installed.
Only snake picture in this guide, I promise. Source: pixabay.com
Manage conda environments
conda activate myenv Activate the myenv virtual environment.
You can tell you are in an active virtual environment because your command line prompt will start with the name of your virtual environment in parentheses. Like this:
(base) Jeffs-MBP:~ jeffhale$
The default conda environment is named base.
Conda can be set up to activate an environment whenever you open your terminal. When installing the software the installer will ask you if you want to initialize it “by running conda init". I suggest you say yes so that your shell scripts get modified. Then you’ll start your terminal sessions in a conda environment.
Wherever you navigate in your on CLI, you will be within your activated conda virtual environment. 🎉
conda deactivate — Deactivate the current environment. Now you won’t be in a virtual environment. The conda environment you were in still exists, you just aren’t in it. 👍
conda env list — List conda environments.
conda env remove --name myenv — Remove the myenv conda environment. Delete it forever.
Source: pixabay.com
Manage packages in active environment
Use these commands from within an active conda environment. These are the conda commands I use most frequently. 😀
conda list — List installed packages in the active environment. The output includes the package version and the conda channel the package was installed from. 👍
Conda packages
conda install pandas — Download and install the pandas package from the main conda channel.
conda install -c conda-forge pandas — Download and install the pandas package from the main conda-forge channel.
The conda-forge channel is “A community-led collection of recipes, build infrastructure and distributions for the conda package manager.” Use the conda-forge channel when a package doesn't exist on the main channel or the version on the main channel isn't as new as you would like. Packages often get updated on conda-forge before the main conda channel. ☝️
You can also specify some other channel, but conda-forge is where you will find many packages.
conda update pandas — Download and install the latest pandas package from the main conda channel.
conda update all — Download and install the the latest versions of all installed packages. Can be very slow if you have a lot of outdated packages. ⚠️
conda uninstall pandas — Uninstall the pandas package in your conda environment.
Pip
Pip is the most common package installer. It ships with Python.
When in an active conda environment, pip will install packages into that active conda environment. ⚠️
pip install -U pandas — Install or update the pandas package from PyPI, the Python package index. -U specifies to update all dependent packages.
pip uninstall pandas — Uninstall the pandas package that was installed by pip.
PyPI is the most common place to find Python packages. PyPI often has packages that are not on conda or conda-forge. PyPI often gets the latest version of packages first.
Occasionally conda has packages that aren’t on PyPI, but that is less common.
Conda and PyPI packages generally play together nicely. 🎉
Make sure that if you are installing a version of a package from PyPI you don't already have the same package installed from conda. If you do have it installed, then uninstall the conda version first. Otherwise conda won’t use the new PyPI version. By default, the official conda channel is the highest priority channel and conda will use package versions from higher priority channels first.☝️
The official conda recommendation is to try to install packages from the main conda channel first, then conda-forge as necessary, and then pip. This helps avoid conflicts. In general, installing from any of those sources should work fine.
If things ever go sideways
Sometimes things get messed up. Generally uninstalling packages or creating a new conda environment is all you need to fix the situation.
If that doesn’t work, conda update conda updates the conda software itself.
If that doesn’t work, you can uninstall and reinstall conda. 👍
There are lots of conda users out there and lots of documentation, so as always, the search engine is your friend. 😉
Source: pixabay.com
Wrap
I hope you’ve enjoyed this overview of conda. If you did, please share it on your favorite social media so other folks can find it, too. 😀
I write about Python, SQL, Docker, and other tech topics. If any of that’s of interest to you, sign up for my mailing list of awesome data science resources and checkout out some of my 60+ articles you grow your skills here. 👍 | https://towardsdatascience.com/13-conda-commands-for-data-scientists-e443d275eb89 | ['Jeff Hale'] | 2020-09-26 12:53:28.827000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Technology'] | Title 13 Conda Commands Data ScientistsContent Let’s get 🚀 Need Whether working locally server cloud want virtual environment isolate Python version package use different package version different project experiment bleeding edge package version get Python package version teammate shared code work similarly use Conda Nope It’s common data analysis scientific computing common outside lot tool use manage virtual Python environment conda Venv pyenv pipenv poetry Docker virtualenv prominent Trust don’t even want go rabbit hole 🐇 must here’s Hacker News thread taste fun Yufeng G Developer Advocate Google Cloud nice video conda virtualenv pyenv Today we’re exploring conda let’s dive Anaconda Anaconda name company behind software name fully featured software distribution Anaconda company offer consulting three Anaconda edition individual team enterprise Individual common powerful It’s like freeware gotchas 😉 It’s use Distributions Anaconda v Miniconda choose download install one two distribution Anaconda Miniconda Similarities Anaconda Miniconda get conda package manager virtual environment manager one installed Windows Mac Linux system come Python pip installed Differences Anaconda distribution installs many Python package tool common data science Miniconda It’s difference big batteriesincluded download minimal download without many package installed Miniconda install range 50 90 MiB mid2020 depending operating system Anaconda distribution requires “minimum 5 GB disc space download install” — according doc mid2020 Anaconda distribution installer also includes option install GUI popular software VSCode text editor getting started scientific computing using Python space computer suggest download Anaconda distribution It’s lot stuff it’s good stuff 👍 you’ve worked conda previously suggest download Miniconda add package need go 😀 See install instruction Anaconda Miniconda Source pixabaycom Conda command installed Anaconda distribution use GUI installer suggest using command line interface help work faster programmer becoming one 😉 Let’s look common conda command create manage conda environment Everything whether installed Anaconda Miniconda It’s conda point 😀 Create conda environment conda create n myenv panda jupyterlab Create new conda environment named myenv latest version Python available main conda channel Install panda jupyterlab package environment n short name Conda asks confirmation package change Press asked whether want proceed conda create n myclone clone myenv Duplicate environment named myenv new environment named myclone package come along ride 🚙 conda create n myenv python38 Create new conda environment named myenv Python version specified Pip 15 package installed snake picture guide promise Source pixabaycom Manage conda environment conda activate myenv Activate myenv virtual environment tell active virtual environment command line prompt start name virtual environment parenthesis Like base JeffsMBP jeffhale default conda environment named base Conda set activate environment whenever open terminal installing software installer ask want initialize “by running conda init suggest say yes shell script get modified you’ll start terminal session conda environment Wherever navigate CLI within activated conda virtual environment 🎉 conda deactivate — Deactivate current environment won’t virtual environment conda environment still exists aren’t 👍 conda env list — List conda environment conda env remove name myenv — Remove myenv conda environment Delete forever Source pixabaycom Manage package active environment Use command within active conda environment conda command use frequently 😀 conda list — List installed package active environment output includes package version conda channel package installed 👍 Conda package conda install panda — Download install panda package main conda channel conda install c condaforge panda — Download install panda package main condaforge channel condaforge channel “A communityled collection recipe build infrastructure distribution conda package manager” Use condaforge channel package doesnt exist main channel version main channel isnt new would like Packages often get updated condaforge main conda channel ☝️ also specify channel condaforge find many package conda update panda — Download install latest panda package main conda channel conda update — Download install latest version installed package slow lot outdated package ⚠️ conda uninstall panda — Uninstall panda package conda environment Pip Pip common package installer ship Python active conda environment pip install package active conda environment ⚠️ pip install U panda — Install update panda package PyPI Python package index U specifies update dependent package pip uninstall panda — Uninstall panda package installed pip PyPI common place find Python package PyPI often package conda condaforge PyPI often get latest version package first Occasionally conda package aren’t PyPI le common Conda PyPI package generally play together nicely 🎉 Make sure installing version package PyPI dont already package installed conda installed uninstall conda version first Otherwise conda won’t use new PyPI version default official conda channel highest priority channel conda use package version higher priority channel first☝️ official conda recommendation try install package main conda channel first condaforge necessary pip help avoid conflict general installing source work fine thing ever go sideways Sometimes thing get messed Generally uninstalling package creating new conda environment need fix situation doesn’t work conda update conda update conda software doesn’t work uninstall reinstall conda 👍 lot conda user lot documentation always search engine friend 😉 Source pixabaycom Wrap hope you’ve enjoyed overview conda please share favorite social medium folk find 😀 write Python SQL Docker tech topic that’s interest sign mailing list awesome data science resource checkout 60 article grow skill 👍Tags Machine Learning Data Science Python Artificial Intelligence Technology |
2,250 | What makes strong branding and how does it influence a company’s success? | In its simplest form, branding is the practice of influencing and controlling a set of associations with a company to help the business’s performance. Done successfully, an organization’s identity will be tied to select attributes—promoting its image or popularity.
While absolute control over a brand is not possible, it can be influenced through deliberate design, advertising, and marketing. By these means, companies can clearly communicate the principles they stand for to target audiences. Considering the power of this practice, it’s crucial that an organization masters the pillars of creating a strong brand to get ahead.
What is strong branding?
A strong brand adds value to your product.
It differentiates you from competitors by helping you achieve recognition and clarifies expectations for customers. The key is in highlighting the contrast between what you can offer and what already exists in the market.
Effective branding elevates a product or organization by adding unique character and promise. In crafting an emotional resonance, the brand forms a lasting image in the minds of consumers. | https://uxdesign.cc/what-makes-strong-branding-and-how-does-it-influence-a-companys-success-a046d4471204 | ['Michelle Chiu'] | 2020-08-12 01:51:49.914000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Branding', 'Design', 'UX', 'Tech'] | Title make strong branding influence company’s successContent simplest form branding practice influencing controlling set association company help business’s performance Done successfully organization’s identity tied select attributes—promoting image popularity absolute control brand possible influenced deliberate design advertising marketing mean company clearly communicate principle stand target audience Considering power practice it’s crucial organization master pillar creating strong brand get ahead strong branding strong brand add value product differentiates competitor helping achieve recognition clarifies expectation customer key highlighting contrast offer already exists market Effective branding elevates product organization adding unique character promise crafting emotional resonance brand form lasting image mind consumersTags Marketing Branding Design UX Tech |
2,251 | Plot with Plotly. Its like Matplotlib… But better | Plotly logo from Plotly.com
Regardless of what we are learning or doing, we start with the basics, the foundation, the core. Then we learn more tools and techniques, skills and shortcuts — we learn to do things better and make it more “advanced”.
Today, we will be looking at another tool to “advance” our data visualization skills.
What is plotly? Why should we use it?
Plot is a free and open source graphing library that makes amazing interactive graphs. It does everything that Seaborn and Matplotlib does, but makes it more fun for the viewer.
Data: All the articles and author data are extracted directly from Towards Data Science from 1/1/2020 until 10/31/2020.
How to get started?
In order to visualize with plotly, you need to have a good understanding of Matplotlib and Seaborn.
How to import :
import plotly.graph_objects as go
You will also see: import plotly.express as px . This wrapper allows for simpler syntax but at the cost of control over the graph. plotly.graph_objects has a wider control over what you are creating. Additionally plotly.express is still fairly new with a few bugs.
top_ten_authors = df["author"].value_counts().keys().tolist()[:10] #selecting top 10 number_published = df["author"].value_counts().values.tolist() # num of pub correspoding to the top 10 authors trace = go.Pie(labels = top_ten_authors, #assigning label
values = number_published, #assigning values
marker = {'line': {'color': 'white', 'width': 1}}, # generating the lines
#hoverinfo="value"
) data = [trace] layout = go.Layout(title="Top 10 People With Most Publications in 2020");
pie_fig = go.Figure(data=data, layout = layout);
pie_fig.show()
x = df['author'][:25]
trace = go.Bar(x = x ,
y=df['claps'],
text = df["reading_time"])
data=[trace]
#defining layout
layout = go.Layout(title='Claps Vs Authors Scatter Plot',xaxis=dict(title='Authors'),yaxis=dict(title='Claps'),hovermode='closest')
#defining figure and plotting
bar_fig = go.Figure(data=data,layout=layout) bar_fig.show()
Being able to interact with the graphs is great for the viewer. They get to explore further into the data by zooming in and out and panning across the visualization. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/plot-with-plotly-basics-9ae546dc03ae | ['Dorjey Sherpa'] | 2020-11-18 12:51:26.120000+00:00 | ['Plotly', 'Visualization', 'Beginner'] | Title Plot Plotly like Matplotlib… betterContent Plotly logo Plotlycom Regardless learning start basic foundation core learn tool technique skill shortcut — learn thing better make “advanced” Today looking another tool “advance” data visualization skill plotly use Plot free open source graphing library make amazing interactive graph everything Seaborn Matplotlib make fun viewer Data article author data extracted directly Towards Data Science 112020 10312020 get started order visualize plotly need good understanding Matplotlib Seaborn import import plotlygraphobjects go also see import plotlyexpress px wrapper allows simpler syntax cost control graph plotlygraphobjects wider control creating Additionally plotlyexpress still fairly new bug toptenauthors dfauthorvaluecountskeystolist10 selecting top 10 numberpublished dfauthorvaluecountsvaluestolist num pub correspoding top 10 author trace goPielabels toptenauthors assigning label value numberpublished assigning value marker line color white width 1 generating line hoverinfovalue data trace layout goLayouttitleTop 10 People Publications 2020 piefig goFiguredatadata layout layout piefigshow x dfauthor25 trace goBarx x ydfclaps text dfreadingtime datatrace defining layout layout goLayouttitleClaps Vs Authors Scatter PlotxaxisdicttitleAuthorsyaxisdicttitleClapshovermodeclosest defining figure plotting barfig goFiguredatadatalayoutlayout barfigshow able interact graph great viewer get explore data zooming panning across visualizationTags Plotly Visualization Beginner |
2,252 | The Curious Case of Emma Lee | It was a rainy day, the day that I met her.
I remember the raindrops making their way down the shop windows as I walked along the sidewalk. I clutched my collar, holding it close to keep the precipitation out, and to keep the last vestiges of warmth inside my jacket. The jacket was old and worn, and it was already doing an unsatisfactory job keeping the rain at bay; I refused to carry an umbrella. My shoes splashed in the ever-growing menagerie of puddles, and I had to find some respite from the rain. I put my hand on the next handle I saw and pulled it open.
The air was warm inside and welcoming, and it seemed I had found my way into a small bar, and with some even greater luck, I found that I was the only patron. In it, there was a small, brown-haired woman. She was cleaning glasses and didn’t seem to notice me.
“What do you want?” she said.
“Beer?”
She never looked up from the glass. “That’s alarmingly generic.”
“Do you have a better suggestion?”
“No,” she said. “I just thought that a writer would be more creative.”
“I guess I’m not that good,” I said before the realization hit. “How did you know I was a writer?”
“I know everything about you,” she said.
“You do?”
“No,” she said, and pointed to my dripping tweed jacket, “but the only guy who will wear that is either a writer or wants to be.”
“How do you know I’m not a wannabe?”
“Is there really any difference?” she said.
“I guess not.”
She kept cleaning the glass, letting her long, brown curls hang in her face. I saw an open bottle next to her, and glass filled with something that wasn’t water. “What are are you drinking?” I asked.
“Jameson,” she said.
“What?” My question forced her to look up, and I saw for the first time how beautiful she was. She had these brown eyes that, despite how young she appeared, made her seem older. “You said my name.”
“Oh god, your name is Jameson?” she said. “You wear a tweed coat, and your name is Jameson? You’re lucky you’re a writer”
“As opposed to?”
“You sound like you should be selling unicycles in Brooklyn,” she said. She came to the bar and sat on the bar stool. As she went to sit, she turned and tossed the towel she was holding onto the booth behind us. She forced me to snap my head back to staring at the mirror behind the bar, as she caught me admiring her from behind.
“Like the view?” she asked.
“I’ve seen better,” I said.
“How much better?”
“Not that much.”
That got her to smile. “I can live with that,” she said. “So, Jameson, what brings you in here?”
“The rain,” I said.
“You’re not the most charming writer are you?”
“I never claimed to be charming,” I said. “How come the bartender is drinking on the job?”
“Don’t you drink on the job?” she asked.
“True enough,” I said, “but I’m not liable if I do it.”
“Neither am I,” she said and she pointed to the front window. The mere fact that I was looking at the word “OPEN” told me all I needed to know, with its “Closed” counterpart visible to the sidewalk.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were closed?”
“You seemed in a hurry, and I was bored,” she said, “and you’re cute.”
“Really?”
“I mean I’ve seen better,” she said. She winked. “Most guys would have asked for my name by now.”
“Most guys would have noticed the bar’s closed.”
“Most guys wouldn’t wear that ugly jacket.”
“I like this jacket,” I said.
“I can tell.” She was leaning ever so closer — so close that I realized just how far out of my league she was. “It doesn’t like you, though,” she said, and reached towards me, and pulled the wet tweed jacket from my shoulders. She tossed it on the table next to us. “You have one of those pretentious wool hats too, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t call it pretentious.”
“I knew it,” she said. “Horned rim glasses?”
“Lasik,” I said pointing to my eyes, “before they were popular.”
“I told you I know all about you.”
“So you’ve said,” I said, “but you haven’t mentioned how.”
“I’m psychic,” she said, “or maybe a ghost. You decide. You’re the writer.”
“I wouldn’t really like to know your name if you’re a ghost. I’ve never met a ghost before.”
“Boo.”
“That wasn’t nearly as funny as you thought it would be.”
“I know, but I’m cute so I get away with it.”
“And very modest,” I said.
“The supernatural is not known for being humble.”
“Oh,” I said, “then you should definitely tell me your name.”
“Emma Lee.”
“Emily? I like that.”
“Not Emily. Emma. Space. Lee.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re doing this on purpose?”
“Because I could have included my middle name,” she said. She leaned closer still, this time giving me an uncompromising view down her shirt. I didn’t try to hide my stare.
“What’s your middle name?”
“I don’t have one,” she said laughing. She took my hand and led me to the booth, and slid in next to me.
“Ms. Lee,” I began.
“It’s Mrs. Lee,” she said.
When she said that, I’ll never quite be sure if my mouth fell open, or if it just felt that way. “Really?”
“No,” she said, “I just wanted to see your reaction.” She was sitting close to me now. So close, I should have been able to feel the warmth of her body.
“Sorry.”
“So you’re really a Miss?” I asked.
“Close enough,” she said, “but it’s a long complicated story, and this is getting incredibly close to killing the mood. So what do you write, Jameson?”
“My friends call me James.”
“Do you want to be friends right now?”
“No.”
“Then tell me, Jameson.”
“Mostly detective stories,” I said. “Sometimes noir stuff. Like a modern day Raymond Chandler.”
“I might need a detective.”
“I’m not a detective though,” I said. “Only a writer.”
“Close enough.”
“What for?”
“I told you it’s complicated.”
“It’s the ghost thing, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes. Yes, it is.” | https://medium.com/the-inkwell/the-curious-case-of-emma-lee-4a0e2546bb9b | ['Matthew Donnellon'] | 2019-10-04 20:26:38.237000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Writing', 'Short Story', 'Fiction', 'Creative Writing'] | Title Curious Case Emma LeeContent rainy day day met remember raindrop making way shop window walked along sidewalk clutched collar holding close keep precipitation keep last vestige warmth inside jacket jacket old worn already unsatisfactory job keeping rain bay refused carry umbrella shoe splashed evergrowing menagerie puddle find respite rain put hand next handle saw pulled open air warm inside welcoming seemed found way small bar even greater luck found patron small brownhaired woman cleaning glass didn’t seem notice “What want” said “Beer” never looked glass “That’s alarmingly generic” “Do better suggestion” “No” said “I thought writer would creative” “I guess I’m good” said realization hit “How know writer” “I know everything you” said “You do” “No” said pointed dripping tweed jacket “but guy wear either writer want be” “How know I’m wannabe” “Is really difference” said “I guess not” kept cleaning glass letting long brown curl hang face saw open bottle next glass filled something wasn’t water “What drinking” asked “Jameson” said “What” question forced look saw first time beautiful brown eye despite young appeared made seem older “You said name” “Oh god name Jameson” said “You wear tweed coat name Jameson You’re lucky you’re writer” “As opposed to” “You sound like selling unicycle Brooklyn” said came bar sat bar stool went sit turned tossed towel holding onto booth behind u forced snap head back staring mirror behind bar caught admiring behind “Like view” asked “I’ve seen better” said “How much better” “Not much” got smile “I live that” said “So Jameson brings here” “The rain” said “You’re charming writer you” “I never claimed charming” said “How come bartender drinking job” “Don’t drink job” asked “True enough” said “but I’m liable it” “Neither I” said pointed front window mere fact looking word “OPEN” told needed know “Closed” counterpart visible sidewalk “Why didn’t tell closed” “You seemed hurry bored” said “and you’re cute” “Really” “I mean I’ve seen better” said winked “Most guy would asked name now” “Most guy would noticed bar’s closed” “Most guy wouldn’t wear ugly jacket” “I like jacket” said “I tell” leaning ever closer — close realized far league “It doesn’t like though” said reached towards pulled wet tweed jacket shoulder tossed table next u “You one pretentious wool hat don’t you” “I wouldn’t call pretentious” “I knew it” said “Horned rim glasses” “Lasik” said pointing eye “before popular” “I told know you” “So you’ve said” said “but haven’t mentioned how” “I’m psychic” said “or maybe ghost decide You’re writer” “I wouldn’t really like know name you’re ghost I’ve never met ghost before” “Boo” “That wasn’t nearly funny thought would be” “I know I’m cute get away it” “And modest” said “The supernatural known humble” “Oh” said “then definitely tell name” “Emma Lee” “Emily like that” “Not Emily Emma Space Lee” “Why get feeling you’re purpose” “Because could included middle name” said leaned closer still time giving uncompromising view shirt didn’t try hide stare “What’s middle name” “I don’t one” said laughing took hand led booth slid next “Ms Lee” began “It’s Mrs Lee” said said I’ll never quite sure mouth fell open felt way “Really” “No” said “I wanted see reaction” sitting close close able feel warmth body “Sorry” “So you’re really Miss” asked “Close enough” said “but it’s long complicated story getting incredibly close killing mood write Jameson” “My friend call James” “Do want friend right now” “No” “Then tell Jameson” “Mostly detective stories” said “Sometimes noir stuff Like modern day Raymond Chandler” “I might need detective” “I’m detective though” said “Only writer” “Close enough” “What for” “I told it’s complicated” “It’s ghost thing isn’t it” asked “Yes Yes is”Tags Books Writing Short Story Fiction Creative Writing |
2,253 | Hate Social Media? Here Are Other Ways To Promote Your Writing | Hate Social Media? Here Are Other Ways To Promote Your Writing
Hold off on that Instagram account just a little longer.
Photo by Erik Lucatero on Unsplash: a cellphone displaying an Instagram account
Social media isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It’s time-consuming, challenging to navigate, and sometimes just downright annoying. Personally, if I didn’t rely on Facebook and Instagram to promote my work, I would delete the apps.
Even if you do enjoy using social media, promoting on various platforms is a different ball game. You have to stay on top of algorithm changes, trends, posting schedules, and interacting with others to succeed. When it comes to social media haters, there are two types of people: people who will suck it up for marketing purposes and people who wouldn’t make an Instagram account if their life depended on it.
Whether you are looking to promote your writing or writing services, we often overlook other ways to do so. You can use these strategies separate from social media or pair them with your social media use, depending on which type of hater you are.
Win distinctions and honors
There are plenty of writers who don’t have social media, yet they remain very popular. For example, Tracy K. Smith, the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States, does not have social media accounts or a personal website (that I can find). I would assume that becoming the Poet Laureate of the United States is enough promotion.
As a writer, you can submit to contests or awards to get your name out there. If you’re just starting, try to find local contests or small contests in your niche. You can then branch out to larger ones once you have a few of those under your belt. No matter what you write, it can help to browse Submittable occasionally to check up on opportunities you may qualify for.
Typically, organizations will promote the winners of certain honors and distinctions on their social pages. Depending on the opportunity, the achievement may open doors for even more promo as prominent people learn about your work because of it.
Have other people promo for you
In that vein, having other people promote your work for you is a great way to get around doing it yourself. It’s not a surefire substitute, but it always helps to tap into other people’s followings. Some ways to get others to promote your work include:
Get on the news
If you have an exciting new project coming out or you want to talk about your services, the oldest method in the book is to get on the news. Once you know your target audience, you should figure out the news sources that appeal to them. Create a list of sources, read their requirements for pitching, and send a pitch. Make sure you have an interesting angle that people would want to report on or read about. Instead of just saying, “I’m releasing a new book,” think about what your book offers to the world and what people may gain by reading it.
If you don’t want to pitch, you can position yourself as an expert in your niche by becoming a source for articles already in the works. Websites such as Help a Reporter allow you to sign up and receive information about reporters looking for expert sources on various topics. When you find one that pertains to you, you can submit a quote and potentially get featured in the article. These types of features give you credibility for whatever work you do.
Send your work or offer your services to popular people
This is the “influencer method” that many companies use, and it works. If you’re struggling to get your foot in the door, try finding someone who already has the door wide open. Create a list of people who have popular blogs, YouTube channels, or social media accounts related to your niche, and then reach out to them. For example, if you wrote a self-help book, you can send it to people in the lifestyle and wellness niche with the hopes that they will share it with their audience.
Tell friends to share your work online
If you have friends with social media accounts, get them to help you. What else are friends for but for free promotion? Ask them to post about your work on their various channels or to reshare it from other sources. If your friends don’t use social media either, you can encourage them to read your work and share it with their other friends and family.
Becoming a presenter at a conference, webinar, or festival can also position you as an expert in your field and garner other people’s interest.
Go to events
Events can be a better form of networking than social media and a quick way to put some credentials behind your name (if you’re into that). Becoming a presenter at a conference, webinar, or festival can also position you as an expert in your field and garner other people’s interest. The best part about attending events is that you already know that everyone there has some interest that aligns with yours. Networking at niche events can connect you to like-minded people. From there, look for opportunities for further collaboration with those people and build a supportive community.
Have an email list
Email lists can be a headache in and of themselves. But, if you don’t have social media, email is a great way to allow people to keep up with you and your work. If you have a business, you’ll probably need to take your email list more seriously and have a strategy and a messaging schedule. If you’re a writer who just wants to have somewhere for your audience live, you can have a more leisure email list and only send messages when you have an update.
The hardest part about email is building that audience. The other methods I’ve listed will help you do so, as you can direct all of your connections to your email list. Once you have a solid following, email can be better than social media accounts in some ways because at least you know your audience is already interested in what you have to offer.
Write for major publications
When you get in good with a popular publication, you can allow your work to speak for itself with their audience. I recommend keeping a running list of publications with a large following related to your niche (think of where you like to go for information or entertainment) and noting when they open for submissions. As you well know, a well-written article or story can sometimes make readers want to learn more about the author.
Additionally, most major publications have all their own forms of promotion and marketing. When you publish with them, you get to tap into the structures they have in place to promote your work for you.
Get good at SEO
I find it important for writers of all types to have at least a simple website where they can house all of their work. If you have a website and no social media, taking a couple of courses on search engine optimization (SEO) can’t hurt. SEO allows people to find you directly from search engines such as Google.
It takes time to optimize a website and get organic traffic. Once you do, however, the results are phenomenal. Instead of casting a wide net on social media and hoping that you catch someone interested in what you are doing, SEO allows the interested parties to come directly to you.
For my ghostwriting business, I directed my energy towards building out my website instead of fishing on social media. Now, people searching for ghostwriting services can find me instead of me having to find them. | https://medium.com/the-brave-writer/ways-to-promote-your-writing-fb638373e84b | ['Jae Nichelle'] | 2020-12-18 13:02:27.716000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Freelance', 'Writing Tips', 'Social Media', 'Writing'] | Title Hate Social Media Ways Promote WritingContent Hate Social Media Ways Promote Writing Hold Instagram account little longer Photo Erik Lucatero Unsplash cellphone displaying Instagram account Social medium isn’t everyone’s cup tea It’s timeconsuming challenging navigate sometimes downright annoying Personally didn’t rely Facebook Instagram promote work would delete apps Even enjoy using social medium promoting various platform different ball game stay top algorithm change trend posting schedule interacting others succeed come social medium hater two type people people suck marketing purpose people wouldn’t make Instagram account life depended Whether looking promote writing writing service often overlook way use strategy separate social medium pair social medium use depending type hater Win distinction honor plenty writer don’t social medium yet remain popular example Tracy K Smith 22nd Poet Laureate United States social medium account personal website find would assume becoming Poet Laureate United States enough promotion writer submit contest award get name you’re starting try find local contest small contest niche branch larger one belt matter write help browse Submittable occasionally check opportunity may qualify Typically organization promote winner certain honor distinction social page Depending opportunity achievement may open door even promo prominent people learn work people promo vein people promote work great way get around It’s surefire substitute always help tap people’s following way get others promote work include Get news exciting new project coming want talk service oldest method book get news know target audience figure news source appeal Create list source read requirement pitching send pitch Make sure interesting angle people would want report read Instead saying “I’m releasing new book” think book offer world people may gain reading don’t want pitch position expert niche becoming source article already work Websites Help Reporter allow sign receive information reporter looking expert source various topic find one pertains submit quote potentially get featured article type feature give credibility whatever work Send work offer service popular people “influencer method” many company use work you’re struggling get foot door try finding someone already door wide open Create list people popular blog YouTube channel social medium account related niche reach example wrote selfhelp book send people lifestyle wellness niche hope share audience Tell friend share work online friend social medium account get help else friend free promotion Ask post work various channel reshare source friend don’t use social medium either encourage read work share friend family Becoming presenter conference webinar festival also position expert field garner people’s interest Go event Events better form networking social medium quick way put credential behind name you’re Becoming presenter conference webinar festival also position expert field garner people’s interest best part attending event already know everyone interest aligns Networking niche event connect likeminded people look opportunity collaboration people build supportive community email list Email list headache don’t social medium email great way allow people keep work business you’ll probably need take email list seriously strategy messaging schedule you’re writer want somewhere audience live leisure email list send message update hardest part email building audience method I’ve listed help direct connection email list solid following email better social medium account way least know audience already interested offer Write major publication get good popular publication allow work speak audience recommend keeping running list publication large following related niche think like go information entertainment noting open submission well know wellwritten article story sometimes make reader want learn author Additionally major publication form promotion marketing publish get tap structure place promote work Get good SEO find important writer type least simple website house work website social medium taking couple course search engine optimization SEO can’t hurt SEO allows people find directly search engine Google take time optimize website get organic traffic however result phenomenal Instead casting wide net social medium hoping catch someone interested SEO allows interested party come directly ghostwriting business directed energy towards building website instead fishing social medium people searching ghostwriting service find instead find themTags Marketing Freelance Writing Tips Social Media Writing |
2,254 | Has Digital Technology Shifted Traditional Brand-Consumer Relationship? | [The following article is a collaboration between a fellow team-mate, Suraj Amin and I for a competition we participated.]
In times of the World Wide Web and omnipresent dotcoms, businesses across the globe have aggrandized their prominence with the internet bust. The world has so much information floating around that even if we logged it into a database powered by a super algorithm, it still wouldn’t be able to dichotomise the numbers.
The entire world knows what the Germans counselled. ‘der Kunde ist König’. The Customer is King. But with companies in every nook, corner and domain, this statement has become more than just a good ol’ moniker. The Customer IS King. Be it any industry, business sustainability depends on whether the customer is feeling significant and that’s exactly where the challenge lies. Is your company attracting new business as well as retaining its regular customers? Are your company’s policies and strategies propelling your business northward?
20 years back, answers to these would demand a flip through the log books. However, digitisation has supplanted that measure for good.
The dynamic of the world’s modus operandi has undergone a massive metamorphosis. Here are the key alterations in Customer-Brand behaviour in recent times:
1. Multi-channelling, a TON of options and the shift in loyalty -
Before Digital Technology waved its magic wand, the purchasing routine of a customer was pretty uncomplicated. All that one had to do was go to a marketplace, choose from a couple of options and select the best product according to personal preference. Enter the internet. The same customer now has the power to buy products and brands from across the globe, quite literally. Multi-channeling has exposed customers to a truckload of options with the convenience of doorstep delivery. With tens of companies selling the same product, the main competition boils down to whether the brand can provide value for the customer’s money and continue to do so for as long as they intend to stay associated. Brand loyalty is not a measure of projection of sales anymore. Businesses need to be on the qui vive to attract new customers and retain old ones.
2. Product Reviews-
The availability of options presents indecisiveness on a plate. Customers now have a voice of their own. The Web is replete with review portals and forums handing potential customers access to comments and reviews about a particular product before buying. Customers no longer cling to goodwill for a brand if there are others offering way more value for money.
3. The Social Media effect -
Consumers have been given a plethora of channels to laud as well as criticize brands. What makes brands wary of this internet boom is the rising intolerance among Indian consumers. A recent example would be about ‘Mocambo’, a popular fine dining restaurant in Kolkata, who shut its door on a woman just because she was accompanied with her driver. A story like this would have not reached the limelight a few years back but thanks to social media, it had over a million people talking about it. In 2 days, the restaurant’s ratings on Zomato plummeted to 1.8/5 with 8000+ negative ratings. But, as it turns out, social media is a coin with two different sides. If a brand really caters to its customers, it can be rest assured that Netizens will propel the business to unmatched glory. The mammoth rise in affinity for DBS Group’s Pulse candy is one such success story. The company created a 100 crore business rather rapidly, only through word of mouth and social media publicity advocated by its avid consumers.
4. Data Analytics –
There is good news for businesses as well. Brands are now capable of channeling their marketing plans to the ideal target audience. Tools like AdWords and personalized content often seem less intrusive to customers, thus enhancing its efficacy. An ancillary industry which evaluates consumer data for brands to forecast growth, demand and sales has emerged over the past decade.
5. Brand Collaboration –
Brands have started product placement campaigns with popular content creators which have been instant hits. TVF has collaborated with Tata Tiago on a new show, “TVF Tripling” which centers around 3 siblings going on a road trip in a Tata Tiago. TVF has had similar previous associations with Uber and Kingfisher. These new means of promotion offer brands with high personal connect with audiences improving brand value.
6. Customer Service –
With the power of technology, companies are now equipped to serve customers with year-long immediate customer service. Customers are always looking for the best value for money and improved after sales service has given brands an edge in achieving that demand. 24*7 online support has bridged the gap between customers and the brand.
Has this Digital Era settled for good? Only time shall tell. Because if there’s one thing we can predict about technology it’s that it is unpredictable. After all, our most trusted brand when it comes to grocery-shopping is still the market baniya.
So has digital life deflected conventional Brand-Consumer relationship beyond reproach?
We’ll let you be the judge of that.
- Alchemists | https://medium.com/inboundftw/has-digital-technology-shifted-traditional-brand-consumer-relationship-794eab420558 | ['Rishi Doshi'] | 2016-12-13 12:03:38.910000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Marketing', 'Entrepreneurship'] | Title Digital Technology Shifted Traditional BrandConsumer RelationshipContent following article collaboration fellow teammate Suraj Amin competition participated In time World Wide Web omnipresent dotcoms business across globe aggrandized prominence internet bust world much information floating around even logged database powered super algorithm still wouldn’t able dichotomise number entire world know Germans counselled ‘der Kunde ist König’ Customer King company every nook corner domain statement become good ol’ moniker Customer King industry business sustainability depends whether customer feeling significant that’s exactly challenge lie company attracting new business well retaining regular customer company’s policy strategy propelling business northward 20 year back answer would demand flip log book However digitisation supplanted measure good dynamic world’s modus operandi undergone massive metamorphosis key alteration CustomerBrand behaviour recent time 1 Multichannelling TON option shift loyalty Digital Technology waved magic wand purchasing routine customer pretty uncomplicated one go marketplace choose couple option select best product according personal preference Enter internet customer power buy product brand across globe quite literally Multichanneling exposed customer truckload option convenience doorstep delivery ten company selling product main competition boil whether brand provide value customer’s money continue long intend stay associated Brand loyalty measure projection sale anymore Businesses need qui vive attract new customer retain old one 2 Product Reviews availability option present indecisiveness plate Customers voice Web replete review portal forum handing potential customer access comment review particular product buying Customers longer cling goodwill brand others offering way value money 3 Social Media effect Consumers given plethora channel laud well criticize brand make brand wary internet boom rising intolerance among Indian consumer recent example would ‘Mocambo’ popular fine dining restaurant Kolkata shut door woman accompanied driver story like would reached limelight year back thanks social medium million people talking 2 day restaurant’s rating Zomato plummeted 185 8000 negative rating turn social medium coin two different side brand really caters customer rest assured Netizens propel business unmatched glory mammoth rise affinity DBS Group’s Pulse candy one success story company created 100 crore business rather rapidly word mouth social medium publicity advocated avid consumer 4 Data Analytics – good news business well Brands capable channeling marketing plan ideal target audience Tools like AdWords personalized content often seem le intrusive customer thus enhancing efficacy ancillary industry evaluates consumer data brand forecast growth demand sale emerged past decade 5 Brand Collaboration – Brands started product placement campaign popular content creator instant hit TVF collaborated Tata Tiago new show “TVF Tripling” center around 3 sibling going road trip Tata Tiago TVF similar previous association Uber Kingfisher new mean promotion offer brand high personal connect audience improving brand value 6 Customer Service – power technology company equipped serve customer yearlong immediate customer service Customers always looking best value money improved sale service given brand edge achieving demand 247 online support bridged gap customer brand Digital Era settled good time shall tell there’s one thing predict technology it’s unpredictable trusted brand come groceryshopping still market baniya digital life deflected conventional BrandConsumer relationship beyond reproach We’ll let judge AlchemistsTags Social Media Marketing Entrepreneurship |
2,255 | Hangin’ Up | Hangin’ Up
Working suicide watch at MCC federal prison with Jeffrey Epstein
my certificate and photo
To nobody’s surprise, prison is a place and experience which often propels its inmates on a downward spiral to the depths of anxiety and depression. Well aware of this problem, prison administrators have designated programs to handle inmates who’ve reached rock bottom and want to end it all.
Suicidal inmates were certainly not a rarity where I stayed. Guys threatened to “hang up” (the colloquial expression used for suicide) on a more or less routine basis.
As such, the prison had a mini tier of suicide cells down on the second floor. Four of them in fact. And somebody had to watch those inmates who’d threatened to kill themselves. So who’s gonna watch them?
In a perfect world, the BOP would hire trained psychologists to do the job. But MCC was far from a perfect world. And the BOP doesn’t have money “like that.” So you guessed it. Inmates got the job! But not to worry. We received a whole 3 to 4 hours of training before being set loose on our suicidal brothers.
That exhaustive orientation consisted of a classroom session during which the applicants mostly ogled the female psychologist who taught the class.
In between all those furtive glances, we were trained to fill out entries in a ledger every 15 minutes (to chronicle exactly what the inmate we’d been assigned to watch was doing at that particular moment), given a few statistics about suicide, and directed on what and what not to talk about. To say we were adequately trained for the task at hand would be a joke.
At strategic points in time, officers would come to check on the watchers and the watched. And a prison psych would come in once a day to check on those who would kill themselves. But on balance, the inmates were stowed away with little to nothing with which to kill themselves (at least in theory) so diligent oversight was of the more or less variety.
We watchers were assigned 4-hour shifts. The pay ranged from 12 cents to 40 cents an hour depending on whether the inmate companion was a sentenced or pretrial inmate — and (I believe) on how much education we had.
As a college-educated and sentenced inmate, I got top dollar: 40 cents an hour to do this crucial job.
The manner in which the shrinks convinced inmates to perform this task at such a low rate of compensation hinged on the suggestion that with a certificate (issued by the department) that an inmate companion had completed 100 hours of service on suicide watch, a judge or prospective employer might look favorably on that particular inmate for rendering such a vital service.
Personally, I viewed that claim as somewhat ludicrous, and more of a hustle on the part of the BOP to induce idiots into slave employment than an activity that might actually benefit anybody in the future. I remember when the head of the program claimed that my 100-hour certificate would help me with employment when I got out, I almost laughed in her face at the suggestion.
While suicide watch could truly be a deadly serious proposition, the majority of our “suicidal” inmates weren’t really going to kill themselves. They were just assholes who wanted to meet up with their dealers to score drugs!
Gotta love prison! So how the fuck did they get that accomplished? No problem. An inmate’s ingenuity and creativity know no bounds.
The worst 10% of the prison population ended up in special housing (or the SHU) almost always for disciplinary issues. Getting caught with a phone or using and/or dealing drugs was usually the cause. Insubordination could get you passage to the inner sanctum as well. But the authorities had to pick and choose their reprobates, as there simply were not enough cells in the SHU to handle all the fuck ups.
The SHU is not the place to be. Inmates are stuck in the same 50 square feet with a celly 23 hours a day. They shower three times a week, have no access to commissary, and can’t use the phone. And it’s noisy in the SHU. Guys yell and scream all night (which they often did in general population). But the dysfunction was exponential as again, the SHU housed the worst of the worst.
Some of our suicide watchers had an added incentive (beyond the 12 cents an hour and empty promise from the psych department) to work the suicide beat. These were the aforementioned drug dealers who knew their customers were in the SHU and would be threatening to “hang up” so they could go down to suicide and meet up with their guys. Once the shrinks heard the guy wanted to kill himself, they’d bring him down to a suicide cell where (drum roll) his dealer would inevitably arrive to dispense his wares.
Initially, I couldn’t understand why suicidal inmates were constantly asking me who was working what shift. Finally, a friendly inmate laid it out for me. Observing this guy for an hour or two I wondered out loud “you don’t strike me as suicidal. What are you doing down here?“ after conversing with him and finding the guy completely normal (for prison that is). And that’s when he laid the entire scenario out for my comprehension. He was just down for the weekend to score his deuce. On Sunday night, he’d claim to be fine and would inevitably be returned to the SHU where he could smoke in peace. So much for suicide watch and whatever meaning it supposedly had.
But to be truthful, it wasn’t always like that. There were guys who wanted to kill themselves or were just crazy enough that you understood why they were down there.
The first inmate I remember watching was a kid named Bahnasawy, a young bearded, curly-haired inmate who at first blush didn’t seem all that deranged. We were not briefed on these inmates at all before reporting for work and so I had no idea of their history or anything that might help us shape the coming interaction.
Like the normal human being I may or may not be, I struck up a conversation with this guy asking what he was in for. His answer came in one word: “Terror!” “Terror,” I responded. “What did you do?” “I was going to set off a bomb at a Beyonce concert,” was his response.
I know this sounds strange. But when you’re in prison with all manner of murderers, child molesters and gunslingers, nothing really surprises you.
“So how long did they give you?” I continued. “Forty years. I’m going to Leavenworth soon. Do you know anything about it?” Now I was stunned. Forty years? Ouch! I almost wanted to give the guy a gun and let him kill himself. Forty years in Kansas. Whoa, Dorothy!
I watched Bahnasaway several times over the course of a couple of weeks. And it was only when he turned his orange outerwear inside out, wrapped it around his head, and then stuck his arm inside pretending to brandish a machine gun, did I get the full effect of his terrorist tendencies. A chill ran down my spine. He was no longer a stupid kid. Suddenly, he was a deadly ISIS operative. I realized how he’d managed to get himself 40 years.
And the parade of suicidal inmates went on. We had Galichio, a mobster from Staten Island who introduced me to the word skel (as in “the guy’s a real skel”) came next. What a great word. He was only there for some peace and quiet. His bunky in the SHU never shut up and he was going crazy from lack of sleep.
And there was Gaelen, who was constantly prancing around nude asking “Hey Bill! I could be a porn star, right?” I’d tell him yes, of course. And I’d add that he could be a writer, too, after he penned a semi-literate but heartfelt message to his daughter on toilet paper. I felt sorry for the guy. He really was a friendly individual. But he’d car-jacked a woman and forced her to make an ATM withdrawal. That got him a kidnapping charge. Gaelen might not even be able to raise the flagpole by the time he got out let alone star in a porn flick.
Perez was not unique among inmates. He was a chomo in for disseminating child pornography. While at MDC (in Brooklyn), he’d convinced the other inmates he had a drug offense. But somehow, his reputation preceded him. And when he arrived at MCC, everybody knew he was a fucking sex offender. He hadn’t actually molested anybody. He’d just passed horrible photos back and forth in a dark web group dedicated to passing those images. The fact that he hadn’t actually engaged in sex with a minor mattered not.
It was rare for inmates to confess this kind of stuff. Chomos were right at the bottom of the food chain in prison. Right next to snitches and considerably below murderers and such.
You get the idea. Perez only told me this because he judged me to be civil and understanding — which I was. But when he returned to our unit after his stint in suicide, I was careful not to linger in his presence lest I be judged sympathetic to his plight. Wouldn’t want to do that! To be human is to be weak and preyed upon.
And the procession continued. For me, our most noteworthy suicide tenant was a guy named Nicholas Gibson. This dude was some piece of work. He had already confessed to mutilating an old man with a sword and claimed he had 31 additional bodies notched on his bedpost! (If an inmate had murdered 32 people, it was said “he got 32 bodies.” More prison slang.)
The thing about Gibson was he appeared to be completely normal. With numerous tattoos and piercings, Nick reminded me of all the alt East Village types I’ve known over the years. Not only that, he was finally apprehended just yards away from the front door of my building. And I knew the place he worked during his monthlong stay in New York. It was almost like finding a guy from the neighborhood in prison.
Nick had a lot of crazy stories — most of which were corroborated by the news I found about him on Google. But the main thrust of his deal was quite unique.
At age 21, Nick was committed to an Illinois Mental Hospital for what reason he wouldn’t tell me. (I guess whatever it was, it was worse than his cutting off a lawyer’s head with a sword — a crime to which he confessed without emotion.) While there, he met a 16-year-old high school intern who was in attendance studying crazies for course work.
Somehow they fell in love. And when he was released, Nick went to live with her and the girl’s parents. However it happened, he was busted for statutory rape (being 5 or 6 years older than she) and served 5 years for the offense.
Apparently, they really were in love. And when he was set free, they got married and ended up running a massage parlor in Miami. Nick claimed he was not a pimp and exercised the normal splits with which I’m very familiar in the massage and escort business. But he was very forthcoming about his voyages to Asia (especially Malaysia) where he’d recruit and find underage girls to come to Miami to work for him.
That little deal got them both locked up…he for a longer period than she. When he was set free and went looking for his wife, he came to discover that her lawyer (they had separate representatives) had unbeknownst to Nick offered to allow the US to deport Nick’s wife once she was released. And worse, she’d been sent back to Somalia (where she was apparently from) and had been killed in the streets of a very dangerous country. Nick was beside himself and vowed revenge.
He found this lawyer in a hospital recovering from surgery. Rather than kill him right then and there, Nick befriended the man and actually performed home care on him after the lawyer was released from the hospital. It was only when the man was well on the road to recovery that Nick chopped his head off.
Asked why he would wait so long to kill the guy, Nick’s answer was simple and rational. He wanted that lawyer healthy and looking at the rest of his life before he took that life away. He didn’t want to kill him while he was still in recovery. Ok! (Yikes!)
One night while I was down on suicide watch — but caring for a different individual, all hell broke loose around the corner at another suicide cell. The watcher began screaming bloody murder for what reason I couldn’t imagine (though often, inmates went crazy and started banging on the window, or flinging shit, or flooding the unit for no apparent reason).
As I rounded the corner and peered into Nick’s cell, I saw his throat slashed and blood pouring from the cut. I thought the guy was dead.
Four different CO’s entered to tend to the situation. The inmate I was watching seized the moment to continuously and ceaselessly taunt the officers “You niggers are in trouble now. You let him into the cell with razor blades. You fucked up. You’re gonna get fired.”
And the officers countered accusing the watcher of shirking his duties, assessing him with the blame when I knew Montes had done nothing but his fucking 12 cent an hour job. The truth was (as I found out later when Nick returned), that he’d hidden razor blades in his hair and the officers had missed it. It was all their fault — if there was anybody to be blamed.
Nick bled 3 full liters. But he got carted off to Bellevue where they saved his life so he could serve the rest of it behind bars. Nick’s claim that he’d killed 31 additional people mostly fell upon deaf ears. CO’s thought he was “grandstanding,” just looking to mitigate his conditions if he revealed to the authorities where the additional bodies lay.
Anyway…Nick stuck around for a while until he was finally sent back to Miami to stand trial in the jurisdiction where he’d committed the murder. What became of him and his claim to 31 additional bodies I could not ascertain from Google, though on the BOP site, it says he’s scheduled for release in 2023. Sounds hard to believe. Must be one of the gazillion mistakes federal employees seem hell-bent on making.
If nothing else, Nick illustrated beyond equivocation what a perverse place prison really is. You would think that the guy would be a despised pariah given his crime. But in actuality, it was the exact opposite. The suicide watchers loved the guy. On more than one occasion, I witnessed colleagues fist-bump Gibson through the glass as they either left or arrived for their shifts. And officers constantly questioned me about what was going on with him — and had he told me any interesting stories. Only in a prison could a guy who claimed to have killed 32 people command respect. It was at times like those that I wondered equally how I ended up behind bars and why the government saw fit to put me there in the first place.
As unique and newsworthy as Nick was, the sublime became the ridiculous in short order. Because of its location in NY, NY — and its proximity to New York State court, MCC has had more than its share of high-profile inmates. Bernie Kerik, El Chapo, DMX, Manafort? They all graced our little piece of hell.
And then one day, yet another pedophile arrived at the prison. But this wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill sex offender. It was a billionaire buddy of Donald Trump’s and Bill Clinton’s among many other influential people. I’d vaguely heard of this guy before on some news show and was aware he’d almost skated on a charge that involved his sexing up numerous young teenagers. Suddenly, he’d been arrested at Newark Airport and brought directly to MCC to begin his voyage through the penal system.
The prison was abuzz with our new felon. But I gave him no mind. After all, I was rooming with Paul Manafort. But in short order, Epstein usurped Manafort’s newsworthiness by a country mile, and Manafort became old news in a hurry. Epstein was a billionaire (or so it was said) — and a sex offender. Clearly a much more salacious individual than the likes of a crooked Trump buddy.
Jeffrey was initially brought into general population, a residence he was in no way prepared to handle. Manafort was tough — and had already spent 11 months in prison. But Jeffrey was about as soft as they come. A few days with the boys was enough. He requested protective custody.
The problem with protective custody at MCC is that those who request to be housed away from the general population end up in the SHU with all the baddest boys. And we’ve already reviewed what that meant.
Not surprisingly, a few days in the SHU left Jeffrey ready to “hang up.” And down to a suicide cell he went where (drum roll), I ended up spending multiple hours and shifts watching him.
Round 1 set the tone for our relationship. Epstein was walked in from one of his daily sit-downs with his legal team, and escorted to his cell. I recognized Jeffrey as a contemporary right away. He was my age, my religion, and educated (as am I). He looked like all the guys I went to high school with. Once inside his cell and the guards gone, I introduced myself: “I’m Mersey. I’m here on a tax fraud charge from underreporting income I earned selling ads to New York hookers. I’m not broke. I have money and don’t want anything from you. You don’t have to worry about me.”
I’m sure there was nobody else in MCC who could honestly make that claim. And Jeffrey was instantly put at ease. From there we talked about the hooker business and its accompanying ad-selling infrastructure in equal parts. I related how the entire industry worked from mostly an economic point of view — and discussed the seamy side only secondarily. While he displayed a natural interest in the girls themselves — it wasn’t overly so. And he asked nothing about anybody’s age to whom I sold these ads. You wouldn’t know anything about his crime from the conversation.
After spending maybe an hour and a half on the subject, Epstein segued into how he was going to handle prisoners and prison life. This was a topic we went back to over and over again in the course of my watching him. He confessed to having been bullied throughout his youth by black guys in Coney Island. And he actually asked at one point “Do I need a big schvar?” meaning did he need a big black guy to protect him.
I and everybody privy to these conversations (which would be other watchers and/or suicidal inmates) told Jeffrey the same thing. ”MCC isn’t that threatening a place. This is not a federal penitentiary. All you have to do is stand up straight, look people in the eye, give respect, and you’ll get it in return.” But whatever happened in general population had scared Epstein. And I don’t think he ever got over it. Discussing how to handle prison occupied his mind constantly during his stay at MCC.
During the latter part of Jeffrey’s vacation at the prison, I became inmate companion coordinator, which meant I did the scheduling for all the suicide watchers. And I would schedule myself to watch Jeffrey every day from 7 PM — 11 PM. Each night, I would have a planned subject for discussion, the idea being to keep Jeffrey’s mind occupied so he wouldn’t dwell on his predicament and contemplate hanging up.
During that 4 hour shift, Jeffrey and I would interact for about 2 of those hours. Generally, he’d be with his lawyer until 8 PM, whereupon he’d return and we’d talk. And then somewhere around 10, he’d grow tired and ask if it was ok if he went to sleep. Jeffrey had good manners like that. He also never whined about the conditions to which he was subjected (the suicide cells were spartan, to say the least). And whatever his issues, insomnia wasn’t one of them.
Within minutes of declaring himself tired, Epstein would lie on his back (on a pad that was only an inch thick), place an orange sock over his eyes (we weren’t allowed to turn out the lights in the suicide cells as we had to see our charges), and snore happily almost instantly. And he’d be out for the duration. Maybe he missed his $77 million mansion. But you wouldn’t know it by his actions. The only time I heard him complain about anything had to do with the laxative the prison gave him. Whichever he wanted, he requested it not be docusate. And when that’s what they gave him, he complained. But only to me. Not to anybody that mattered. And he got over it a second later.
Epstein was not one to brag or tell a lot of stories to his suicide watchers either. But one day I managed to elicit a couple of anecdotes after asking a question he couldn’t resist answering.
“So Jeffrey,” said I after sitting down to watch him. “Give me one anecdote that’s emblematic of Donald Trump’s essence.” I don’t know if it was the subject matter, his mood, or how I phrased the question that got him going. But he was off and running immediately.
“I got it,” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “Donald and I are on my private plane…flying from New York to Miami. And I have a French girl with me. Donald suggests we land in Atlantic City so we can show her his casino. I answer ’There’s no way we’re landing in AC. There’s nothing but white trash down there.’ The girl asks in her French accent ‘What is white trash. I don’t understand.’ And Trump chimes in ‘It’s me without money.’”
Unsolicited, Jeffrey went into another anecdote. This one about Bill Clinton. “So Bill and I are walking down the street in Shanghai when a beautiful Chinese girl walks by. Bill turns to me and says ’That woman makes my dick harder than Chinese arithmetic.’”
Upon hearing this I asked if Clinton liked his women young (to my recollection, my only question to Jeffrey that had anything to do with older men liking younger women). He responded, “Clinton liked his women mature.”
“Is Clinton the hound dog many people say he is?” I continued. Jeffrey indicated that Bill’s philandering days are behind him now that he’s had some heart surgery.
In retrospect, maybe I should have interrogated him about Prince Andrew and other “pressing” matters. But I really wasn’t thinking fame and fortune. I was more about doing the job and certainly not bringing up subjects that might cause Jeffrey to kill himself. It was my mission to keep it light and entertaining. On more than one occasion, Epstein asked “Mersey! So you’re coming back tomorrow night, right?” He came to look forward to having me as his nightly watcher. If nothing else, I provided some airy comic relief and entertainment.
During another session with Epstein, I opened our discourse with the statement “So today, Jeffrey…we’re going to talk investments,” figuring this would be right in his wheelhouse. After all, he gained his connections and ensuing fame and fortune via teaching at an elite private school. And he certainly knew money and how to handle it.
I was right. He was more than willing to discuss my financial options and began questioning me as to how old I am, how much money I have, and where I have it right now. All were rational and relevant facts any financial planner would want to ascertain. Then the conversation took an odd turn.
When I indicated I wasn’t really one for buying equities (most of my money was in fixed income vehicles — bonds and such)…but I might dabble after I got out, he drew an odd comparison.
“Stocks are like pussy,” he declared. “How so?” I went along with the train of thought — though incredulous at the suggestion. “Do you have a significant woman in your life?” he continued. “For the sake of argument, let’s say I do,” I bit.
“Stocks are just like that woman. You study what makes her happy…what makes her sad. And after a while, you can predict her moods once you really understand her psyche. If you watch three stocks for six months and observe how they react to international news…and news in their sector, you should be able to predict those stocks’ movements and be ready to trade those equities successfully. And that’s how you win in the stock market.”
I found the comparison a little odd. But I got what he was saying. That conversation was the only one during which I found Jeffrey to be oversexed and obsessed with women. Otherwise, everything about him was totally normal. You would never know his charge — that is — until he compared equities to pussy. Therein lay the only hint.
After maybe a week spent in the suicide unit, Epstein was dispatched back to the SHU. I wasn’t privy to the decision-making process that sent him back. I just knew Epstein was gone from suicide and I wouldn’t be seeing him anymore. Or maybe not.
For some reason only the warden could tell you, the prison placed Jeffrey with a murderous policeman. Why they couldn’t find some drug slinger who’d been smoking deuce and sent to the SHU for that offense rather than a murderer eludes me.
And soon enough (like maybe another week), Epstein was back in suicide with abrasions on his neck. Did Epstein try to hang up — or did his bunky try to kill him? Nobody knew for sure. And Jeffrey wasn’t talking.
Once back down in suicide with me as his watcher, I took no time in asking the obvious. “So Jeffrey! What the fuck happened?” His answer was ridiculous: “I don’t know. I got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water and I don’t remember anything after that.”
I gave him a look like “Get the fuck outta here with that bull shit.” But I let it go in the realization that this was his paid political announcement. Like Manafort on the subject of Russian collusion, Epstein wasn’t about to be forthcoming on whether he’d tried to commit suicide or his bunky attempted to kill him. Pursuing the issue would have been futile. And I didn’t bother.
Once again, Jeffrey was down with the inmate companions for another week during which time prison officials ruminated on what the fuck to do with the guy. It was bordering on ludicrous. Was he really suicidal? Could they put him in general population? A suicide inmate named Lopez reported one day that he overheard a conversation between Jeffrey and one of the shrinks in which Jeffrey asked if he could bunk with Mersey. The psych responded that I was a sentenced inmate. And Jeffrey being pretrial couldn’t be placed in the sentenced unit where I was housed. It was a prison rule that could not be broken.
The very last night I ever saw Jeffrey Epstein was the only time he struck me as depressed and possibly suicidal. I reported for work and found him sitting on the stone floor with his back on his bunk while eating the prison food given him out of a styrofoam plate that was sitting between his legs.
“Jeffrey! What the fuck are you doing? Why are you eating on the floor?” “It’s just easier this way,” was his response. It kind of made sense. But he did strike me as somewhat resolved to his fate that night. He’d recently been denied bail and was facing the reality of spending the rest of his life behind bars — even if he snitched on whoever else was included in his pedophiliac quests.
In an odd moment, Jeffrey asked “Mersey! You need any money?” “Well,” I meditated. “I could always use money from a billionaire.” “Give me your reg number and I’ll put some money on your books,” he offered — and then took my info so he could have somebody hook me up.
As usual, the conversation centered around his adapting to prison life and once again, Jeffrey signed off around 10 PM to hit the hay. I knew he’d be returning to the SHU the next day and while he slept, I penned a note full of platitudes to say goodbye — and left my cousin’s phone number in case he ever wanted to reach out.
For a week, we heard nothing about Epstein. He was back in the SHU and gossip about him had subsided for the moment. There was no million dollars on my books and the Epstein chapter seemed over until on a Saturday morning, we were informed at wake-up we’d be getting breakfast in our cells. We were apparently locked down indefinitely. Jeffrey Epstein had killed himself a few hours before and the building was crawling with government agents.
What I thought might be the end of the Jeffrey Epstein story was in some ways just the beginning. Speculation as to whether Epstein killed himself or was murdered in some sort of conspiracy ran wild. I didn’t see how anybody could get into his SHU cell and kill him without several people being involved. And that conspiracy would unravel quickly under investigation. I assumed he killed himself. That assumption was reinforced when a knucklehead I’ll call inmate White returned from the SHU to contribute his two cents to the debate.
White was a black inmate who befriended me one day in the kitchen (where I also worked a second job) when I read him the paragraph from Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence — a passage which condemned the British for ever bringing slaves to the New World. White decided that was a hip thing for a white boy to be reading and latched onto me as his number one kitchen friend.
But White needed money (or he was greedy) and decided to orchestrate a drug deal on TRULINCS, the monitored email program for inmate use. Monitored being the operative word here, White was apprehended (monitored) and thrown in the SHU for the offense. And there he was housed in the cell next door to (drum roll) Jeffrey Epstein.
When White was released from the SHU and returned to our unit, he reported to me that nobody came in or out of the tier that entire night and that at some point in the wee hours, he’d heard the sound of sheets tearing from Jeffrey’s cell, a cell in which he’d been left all alone after his bunky’d been returned to general population.
His conclusion was that “Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. Nobody killed him.” White was most emphatic in this statement. He had no agenda in saying this and I have no reason not to believe him. And to this day, I believe Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. Of that, I have little doubt.
Just like almost everything else at that Godforsaken prison, the suicide program was a hot mess I decided to discard just after Jeffrey's death. For a few months, I was working two jobs at MCC. At 1 PM, I descended to the kitchen to open cans and mop floors until 6 or 7 PM. Then at 7, I’d re-descend for suicide watch after returning to the unit for just a few minutes.
But one day, a CO who was supposed to be a friend, went nuts on me for no apparent reason, and sent me back to the unit with several choice words all of the four-letter variety. Rod was incredibly rude and I vowed never to work in the kitchen again until he apologized (which he did eventually).
At the time of Rod’s explosion, the suicide pay had elevated to a dollar an hour. And as inmate companion coordinator, I could assign myself any shift I wanted anytime. So I simply put myself on schedule from 11 AM — 3 PM and 7 PM — 11 PM. As in “fuck the kitchen.”
I have a documented bad back from a freak bicycle accident. And somehow, even though I’d been humping 50-pound cases of canned vegetables in the kitchen, my back hadn’t suffered any ill effects. But 8 hours a day in those shitty Unicor chairs down at suicide watch did what the heavy lifting in the kitchen hadn’t. Plaintive cries to the psych staff netted no response. They were completely unsympathetic to my back pain.
But that was just the beginning of my problems with that staff. The inmate companion coordinator job was a clerical nightmare which without a copy machine, induced writers’ cramp for all who undertook the task. And it paid somewhere around 40 cents a day! I only took it to give myself any shift I wanted anytime. That was the only perk!
Thanks to the shitty pay, we were short on employees. And after Epstein killed himself, the suicide cells were constantly filled. The shrinks took every suggestion that an inmate wanted to hang up very seriously. And they put virtually every inmate who even looked suicidal downstairs on watch. So I didn’t have enough guys to fill all the shifts. That meant I began double-shifting companions to fill all the slots.
To ad insult to injury, the psych staff had given me a boatload of misinformation concerning who worked which shift. All their paperwork was wrong. So imagine that you’re the guy who was responsible for having an inmate awakened at 3 AM to work a 40 cent an hour job when 3 AM wasn’t his shift at all. He’s supposed to be working at 3 PM — but the shrinks hadn’t properly entered his work hours on my sheet.
So what does that criminal do? He decides to take it out on the nearest body. And that body would be me. When I heard the gossip from one of the suicidal guys that somebody was getting ready to kick my ass, I told the shrinks they really needed to pull their shit together because I didn’t want to suffer a beating for their incompetence!
So upset were the girls (the psychs) that they immediately terminated the inmate companion coordinator job — and decreed that nobody could work more than one shift a day. Which didn’t matter because once I was off the coordinator job, I wasn’t doing the scheduling anymore and wouldn’t be able to double-shift myself.
Just about that time, Rod from the kitchen approached me to apologize for his outburst — and requested I return to my old job. The timing was perfect. I emailed my resignation to the shrinks. Not only would I not be doing their scheduling anymore, but I signed off on the billing job and watching any more guys who wanted to hang up. I was effectively completely out of their program. And I did suggest they pull their shit together (though not in those exact words).
And so, I finished out my bid working in the kitchen and never descended to suicide watch again. My bunky took my job and within a week complained to the shrinks “I feel Mersey’s pain” when he too discovered the futility of working that beat.
Forevermore, the shrinks looked very uncomfortable in my presence whenever our paths crossed. I thought they were the one competent group of administrators at the prison. But I was mistaken. Just like the rest of their colleagues, the psych staff was a fail — at least when it came to running the inmate companion program.
Even after I left the facility, the Epstein story went on and on like the energizer bunny. On my first day out, I called a friend and matter-of-factly told him I’d roomed with Paul Manafort and suicide-watched Jeffrey Epstein while inside — including many particulars — and he told me “You have to go to the Daily Mail with this story. It’s worth six figures. This is going to change your life!”
To be continued in my book “Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous: My Year At MCC Federal Prison.
More about EPSTEIN and MANAFORT: | https://medium.com/doing-time/hangin-it-up-working-suicide-watch-with-jeffrey-epstein-at-mcc-federal-prison-e7116b2d2f4 | ['William', 'Dollar Bill'] | 2020-12-01 15:48:16.386000+00:00 | ['Jeffrey Epstein', 'Mental Health', 'Suicide', 'Psychology', 'Prison'] | Title Hangin’ UpContent Hangin’ Working suicide watch MCC federal prison Jeffrey Epstein certificate photo nobody’s surprise prison place experience often propels inmate downward spiral depth anxiety depression Well aware problem prison administrator designated program handle inmate who’ve reached rock bottom want end Suicidal inmate certainly rarity stayed Guys threatened “hang up” colloquial expression used suicide le routine basis prison mini tier suicide cell second floor Four fact somebody watch inmate who’d threatened kill who’s gonna watch perfect world BOP would hire trained psychologist job MCC far perfect world BOP doesn’t money “like that” guessed Inmates got job worry received whole 3 4 hour training set loose suicidal brother exhaustive orientation consisted classroom session applicant mostly ogled female psychologist taught class furtive glance trained fill entry ledger every 15 minute chronicle exactly inmate we’d assigned watch particular moment given statistic suicide directed talk say adequately trained task hand would joke strategic point time officer would come check watcher watched prison psych would come day check would kill balance inmate stowed away little nothing kill least theory diligent oversight le variety watcher assigned 4hour shift pay ranged 12 cent 40 cent hour depending whether inmate companion sentenced pretrial inmate — believe much education collegeeducated sentenced inmate got top dollar 40 cent hour crucial job manner shrink convinced inmate perform task low rate compensation hinged suggestion certificate issued department inmate companion completed 100 hour service suicide watch judge prospective employer might look favorably particular inmate rendering vital service Personally viewed claim somewhat ludicrous hustle part BOP induce idiot slave employment activity might actually benefit anybody future remember head program claimed 100hour certificate would help employment got almost laughed face suggestion suicide watch could truly deadly serious proposition majority “suicidal” inmate weren’t really going kill asshole wanted meet dealer score drug Gotta love prison fuck get accomplished problem inmate’s ingenuity creativity know bound worst 10 prison population ended special housing SHU almost always disciplinary issue Getting caught phone using andor dealing drug usually cause Insubordination could get passage inner sanctum well authority pick choose reprobate simply enough cell SHU handle fuck ups SHU place Inmates stuck 50 square foot celly 23 hour day shower three time week access commissary can’t use phone it’s noisy SHU Guys yell scream night often general population dysfunction exponential SHU housed worst worst suicide watcher added incentive beyond 12 cent hour empty promise psych department work suicide beat aforementioned drug dealer knew customer SHU would threatening “hang up” could go suicide meet guy shrink heard guy wanted kill they’d bring suicide cell drum roll dealer would inevitably arrive dispense ware Initially couldn’t understand suicidal inmate constantly asking working shift Finally friendly inmate laid Observing guy hour two wondered loud “you don’t strike suicidal here“ conversing finding guy completely normal prison that’s laid entire scenario comprehension weekend score deuce Sunday night he’d claim fine would inevitably returned SHU could smoke peace much suicide watch whatever meaning supposedly truthful wasn’t always like guy wanted kill crazy enough understood first inmate remember watching kid named Bahnasawy young bearded curlyhaired inmate first blush didn’t seem deranged briefed inmate reporting work idea history anything might help u shape coming interaction Like normal human may may struck conversation guy asking answer came one word “Terror” “Terror” responded “What do” “I going set bomb Beyonce concert” response know sound strange you’re prison manner murderer child molester gunslinger nothing really surprise “So long give you” continued “Forty year I’m going Leavenworth soon know anything it” stunned Forty year Ouch almost wanted give guy gun let kill Forty year Kansas Whoa Dorothy watched Bahnasaway several time course couple week turned orange outerwear inside wrapped around head stuck arm inside pretending brandish machine gun get full effect terrorist tendency chill ran spine longer stupid kid Suddenly deadly ISIS operative realized he’d managed get 40 year parade suicidal inmate went Galichio mobster Staten Island introduced word skel “the guy’s real skel” came next great word peace quiet bunky SHU never shut going crazy lack sleep Gaelen constantly prancing around nude asking “Hey Bill could porn star right” I’d tell yes course I’d add could writer penned semiliterate heartfelt message daughter toilet paper felt sorry guy really friendly individual he’d carjacked woman forced make ATM withdrawal got kidnapping charge Gaelen might even able raise flagpole time got let alone star porn flick Perez unique among inmate chomo disseminating child pornography MDC Brooklyn he’d convinced inmate drug offense somehow reputation preceded arrived MCC everybody knew fucking sex offender hadn’t actually molested anybody He’d passed horrible photo back forth dark web group dedicated passing image fact hadn’t actually engaged sex minor mattered rare inmate confess kind stuff Chomos right bottom food chain prison Right next snitch considerably murderer get idea Perez told judged civil understanding — returned unit stint suicide careful linger presence lest judged sympathetic plight Wouldn’t want human weak preyed upon procession continued noteworthy suicide tenant guy named Nicholas Gibson dude piece work already confessed mutilating old man sword claimed 31 additional body notched bedpost inmate murdered 32 people said “he got 32 bodies” prison slang thing Gibson appeared completely normal numerous tattoo piercings Nick reminded alt East Village type I’ve known year finally apprehended yard away front door building knew place worked monthlong stay New York almost like finding guy neighborhood prison Nick lot crazy story — corroborated news found Google main thrust deal quite unique age 21 Nick committed Illinois Mental Hospital reason wouldn’t tell guess whatever worse cutting lawyer’s head sword — crime confessed without emotion met 16yearold high school intern attendance studying crazy course work Somehow fell love released Nick went live girl’s parent However happened busted statutory rape 5 6 year older served 5 year offense Apparently really love set free got married ended running massage parlor Miami Nick claimed pimp exercised normal split I’m familiar massage escort business forthcoming voyage Asia especially Malaysia he’d recruit find underage girl come Miami work little deal got locked up…he longer period set free went looking wife came discover lawyer separate representative unbeknownst Nick offered allow US deport Nick’s wife released worse she’d sent back Somalia apparently killed street dangerous country Nick beside vowed revenge found lawyer hospital recovering surgery Rather kill right Nick befriended man actually performed home care lawyer released hospital man well road recovery Nick chopped head Asked would wait long kill guy Nick’s answer simple rational wanted lawyer healthy looking rest life took life away didn’t want kill still recovery Ok Yikes One night suicide watch — caring different individual hell broke loose around corner another suicide cell watcher began screaming bloody murder reason couldn’t imagine though often inmate went crazy started banging window flinging shit flooding unit apparent reason rounded corner peered Nick’s cell saw throat slashed blood pouring cut thought guy dead Four different CO’s entered tend situation inmate watching seized moment continuously ceaselessly taunt officer “You nigger trouble let cell razor blade fucked You’re gonna get fired” officer countered accusing watcher shirking duty assessing blame knew Montes done nothing fucking 12 cent hour job truth found later Nick returned he’d hidden razor blade hair officer missed fault — anybody blamed Nick bled 3 full liter got carted Bellevue saved life could serve rest behind bar Nick’s claim he’d killed 31 additional people mostly fell upon deaf ear CO’s thought “grandstanding” looking mitigate condition revealed authority additional body lay Anyway…Nick stuck around finally sent back Miami stand trial jurisdiction he’d committed murder became claim 31 additional body could ascertain Google though BOP site say he’s scheduled release 2023 Sounds hard believe Must one gazillion mistake federal employee seem hellbent making nothing else Nick illustrated beyond equivocation perverse place prison really would think guy would despised pariah given crime actuality exact opposite suicide watcher loved guy one occasion witnessed colleague fistbump Gibson glass either left arrived shift officer constantly questioned going — told interesting story prison could guy claimed killed 32 people command respect time like wondered equally ended behind bar government saw fit put first place unique newsworthy Nick sublime became ridiculous short order location NY NY — proximity New York State court MCC share highprofile inmate Bernie Kerik El Chapo DMX Manafort graced little piece hell one day yet another pedophile arrived prison wasn’t runofthemill sex offender billionaire buddy Donald Trump’s Bill Clinton’s among many influential people I’d vaguely heard guy news show aware he’d almost skated charge involved sexing numerous young teenager Suddenly he’d arrested Newark Airport brought directly MCC begin voyage penal system prison abuzz new felon gave mind rooming Paul Manafort short order Epstein usurped Manafort’s newsworthiness country mile Manafort became old news hurry Epstein billionaire said — sex offender Clearly much salacious individual like crooked Trump buddy Jeffrey initially brought general population residence way prepared handle Manafort tough — already spent 11 month prison Jeffrey soft come day boy enough requested protective custody problem protective custody MCC request housed away general population end SHU baddest boy we’ve already reviewed meant surprisingly day SHU left Jeffrey ready “hang up” suicide cell went drum roll ended spending multiple hour shift watching Round 1 set tone relationship Epstein walked one daily sitdowns legal team escorted cell recognized Jeffrey contemporary right away age religion educated looked like guy went high school inside cell guard gone introduced “I’m Mersey I’m tax fraud charge underreporting income earned selling ad New York hooker I’m broke money don’t want anything don’t worry me” I’m sure nobody else MCC could honestly make claim Jeffrey instantly put ease talked hooker business accompanying adselling infrastructure equal part related entire industry worked mostly economic point view — discussed seamy side secondarily displayed natural interest girl — wasn’t overly asked nothing anybody’s age sold ad wouldn’t know anything crime conversation spending maybe hour half subject Epstein segued going handle prisoner prison life topic went back course watching confessed bullied throughout youth black guy Coney Island actually asked one point “Do need big schvar” meaning need big black guy protect everybody privy conversation would watcher andor suicidal inmate told Jeffrey thing ”MCC isn’t threatening place federal penitentiary stand straight look people eye give respect you’ll get return” whatever happened general population scared Epstein don’t think ever got Discussing handle prison occupied mind constantly stay MCC latter part Jeffrey’s vacation prison became inmate companion coordinator meant scheduling suicide watcher would schedule watch Jeffrey every day 7 PM — 11 PM night would planned subject discussion idea keep Jeffrey’s mind occupied wouldn’t dwell predicament contemplate hanging 4 hour shift Jeffrey would interact 2 hour Generally he’d lawyer 8 PM whereupon he’d return we’d talk somewhere around 10 he’d grow tired ask ok went sleep Jeffrey good manner like also never whined condition subjected suicide cell spartan say least whatever issue insomnia wasn’t one Within minute declaring tired Epstein would lie back pad inch thick place orange sock eye weren’t allowed turn light suicide cell see charge snore happily almost instantly he’d duration Maybe missed 77 million mansion wouldn’t know action time heard complain anything laxative prison gave Whichever wanted requested docusate that’s gave complained anybody mattered got second later Epstein one brag tell lot story suicide watcher either one day managed elicit couple anecdote asking question couldn’t resist answering “So Jeffrey” said sitting watch “Give one anecdote that’s emblematic Donald Trump’s essence” don’t know subject matter mood phrased question got going running immediately “I got it” exclaimed enthusiastically “Donald private plane…flying New York Miami French girl Donald suggests land Atlantic City show casino answer ’There’s way we’re landing AC There’s nothing white trash there’ girl asks French accent ‘What white trash don’t understand’ Trump chime ‘It’s without money’” Unsolicited Jeffrey went another anecdote one Bill Clinton “So Bill walking street Shanghai beautiful Chinese girl walk Bill turn say ’That woman make dick harder Chinese arithmetic’” Upon hearing asked Clinton liked woman young recollection question Jeffrey anything older men liking younger woman responded “Clinton liked woman mature” “Is Clinton hound dog many people say is” continued Jeffrey indicated Bill’s philandering day behind he’s heart surgery retrospect maybe interrogated Prince Andrew “pressing” matter really wasn’t thinking fame fortune job certainly bringing subject might cause Jeffrey kill mission keep light entertaining one occasion Epstein asked “Mersey you’re coming back tomorrow night right” came look forward nightly watcher nothing else provided airy comic relief entertainment another session Epstein opened discourse statement “So today Jeffrey…we’re going talk investments” figuring would right wheelhouse gained connection ensuing fame fortune via teaching elite private school certainly knew money handle right willing discus financial option began questioning old much money right rational relevant fact financial planner would want ascertain conversation took odd turn indicated wasn’t really one buying equity money fixed income vehicle — bond such…but might dabble got drew odd comparison “Stocks like pussy” declared “How so” went along train thought — though incredulous suggestion “Do significant woman life” continued “For sake argument let’s say do” bit “Stocks like woman study make happy…what make sad predict mood really understand psyche watch three stock six month observe react international news…and news sector able predict stocks’ movement ready trade equity successfully that’s win stock market” found comparison little odd got saying conversation one found Jeffrey oversexed obsessed woman Otherwise everything totally normal would never know charge — — compared equity pussy Therein lay hint maybe week spent suicide unit Epstein dispatched back SHU wasn’t privy decisionmaking process sent back knew Epstein gone suicide wouldn’t seeing anymore maybe reason warden could tell prison placed Jeffrey murderous policeman couldn’t find drug slinger who’d smoking deuce sent SHU offense rather murderer eludes soon enough like maybe another week Epstein back suicide abrasion neck Epstein try hang — bunky try kill Nobody knew sure Jeffrey wasn’t talking back suicide watcher took time asking obvious “So Jeffrey fuck happened” answer ridiculous “I don’t know got middle night get drink water don’t remember anything that” gave look like “Get fuck outta bull shit” let go realization paid political announcement Like Manafort subject Russian collusion Epstein wasn’t forthcoming whether he’d tried commit suicide bunky attempted kill Pursuing issue would futile didn’t bother Jeffrey inmate companion another week time prison official ruminated fuck guy bordering ludicrous really suicidal Could put general population suicide inmate named Lopez reported one day overheard conversation Jeffrey one shrink Jeffrey asked could bunk Mersey psych responded sentenced inmate Jeffrey pretrial couldn’t placed sentenced unit housed prison rule could broken last night ever saw Jeffrey Epstein time struck depressed possibly suicidal reported work found sitting stone floor back bunk eating prison food given styrofoam plate sitting leg “Jeffrey fuck eating floor” “It’s easier way” response kind made sense strike somewhat resolved fate night He’d recently denied bail facing reality spending rest life behind bar — even snitched whoever else included pedophiliac quest odd moment Jeffrey asked “Mersey need money” “Well” meditated “I could always use money billionaire” “Give reg number I’ll put money books” offered — took info could somebody hook usual conversation centered around adapting prison life Jeffrey signed around 10 PM hit hay knew he’d returning SHU next day slept penned note full platitude say goodbye — left cousin’s phone number case ever wanted reach week heard nothing Epstein back SHU gossip subsided moment million dollar book Epstein chapter seemed Saturday morning informed wakeup we’d getting breakfast cell apparently locked indefinitely Jeffrey Epstein killed hour building crawling government agent thought might end Jeffrey Epstein story way beginning Speculation whether Epstein killed murdered sort conspiracy ran wild didn’t see anybody could get SHU cell kill without several people involved conspiracy would unravel quickly investigation assumed killed assumption reinforced knucklehead I’ll call inmate White returned SHU contribute two cent debate White black inmate befriended one day kitchen also worked second job read paragraph Thomas Jefferson’s original draft Declaration Independence — passage condemned British ever bringing slave New World White decided hip thing white boy reading latched onto number one kitchen friend White needed money greedy decided orchestrate drug deal TRULINCS monitored email program inmate use Monitored operative word White apprehended monitored thrown SHU offense housed cell next door drum roll Jeffrey Epstein White released SHU returned unit reported nobody came tier entire night point wee hour he’d heard sound sheet tearing Jeffrey’s cell cell he’d left alone bunky’d returned general population conclusion “Jeffrey Epstein killed Nobody killed him” White emphatic statement agenda saying reason believe day believe Jeffrey Epstein killed little doubt like almost everything else Godforsaken prison suicide program hot mess decided discard Jeffreys death month working two job MCC 1 PM descended kitchen open can mop floor 6 7 PM 7 I’d redescend suicide watch returning unit minute one day CO supposed friend went nut apparent reason sent back unit several choice word fourletter variety Rod incredibly rude vowed never work kitchen apologized eventually time Rod’s explosion suicide pay elevated dollar hour inmate companion coordinator could assign shift wanted anytime simply put schedule 11 — 3 PM 7 PM — 11 PM “fuck kitchen” documented bad back freak bicycle accident somehow even though I’d humping 50pound case canned vegetable kitchen back hadn’t suffered ill effect 8 hour day shitty Unicor chair suicide watch heavy lifting kitchen hadn’t Plaintive cry psych staff netted response completely unsympathetic back pain beginning problem staff inmate companion coordinator job clerical nightmare without copy machine induced writers’ cramp undertook task paid somewhere around 40 cent day took give shift wanted anytime perk Thanks shitty pay short employee Epstein killed suicide cell constantly filled shrink took every suggestion inmate wanted hang seriously put virtually every inmate even looked suicidal downstairs watch didn’t enough guy fill shift meant began doubleshifting companion fill slot ad insult injury psych staff given boatload misinformation concerning worked shift paperwork wrong imagine you’re guy responsible inmate awakened 3 work 40 cent hour job 3 wasn’t shift He’s supposed working 3 PM — shrink hadn’t properly entered work hour sheet criminal decides take nearest body body would heard gossip one suicidal guy somebody getting ready kick as told shrink really needed pull shit together didn’t want suffer beating incompetence upset girl psychs immediately terminated inmate companion coordinator job — decreed nobody could work one shift day didn’t matter coordinator job wasn’t scheduling anymore wouldn’t able doubleshift time Rod kitchen approached apologize outburst — requested return old job timing perfect emailed resignation shrink would scheduling anymore signed billing job watching guy wanted hang effectively completely program suggest pull shit together though exact word finished bid working kitchen never descended suicide watch bunky took job within week complained shrink “I feel Mersey’s pain” discovered futility working beat Forevermore shrink looked uncomfortable presence whenever path crossed thought one competent group administrator prison mistaken like rest colleague psych staff fail — least came running inmate companion program Even left facility Epstein story went like energizer bunny first day called friend matteroffactly told I’d roomed Paul Manafort suicidewatched Jeffrey Epstein inside — including many particular — told “You go Daily Mail story It’s worth six figure going change life” continued book “Lifestyles Rich Infamous Year MCC Federal Prison EPSTEIN MANAFORTTags Jeffrey Epstein Mental Health Suicide Psychology Prison |
2,256 | How a beginner should approach Kaggle? | Being a part of Kaggle community for a year now, I am trying to bring out what has kaggle on offer for all young data scientists out like me. Most beginners believe a couple of MOOCs, some interview questions and taddaaaaaa!!!! We will land in Data Science. But as said, practical implementations & theoretical knowledge are ways apart. So, I will walk through the Do’s and Don'ts for a newbie kaggler.
One must remember, Kaggle is just not a competition hosting platform, but a lot more.
To start off, pick up a problem, either Titanic(classification) or House price(regression) as a lot of kernels(scripts/ipython notebooks in both R/python) would be available for them. Instead of jumping straight away to solve it, try to explore some solutions that seem relevant to you by its name having a decent score like — Titanic using Knn, titanic for Beginners — XGBoost, LGBM, etc.(can confuse you in the beginning). Understand how to approach a Data Science problem, what different models can be used for the same.
Don’t try to rank higher by copying others solutions or using a black box trick you don’t know as it is never going to help. Even in interviews, the approach used for the problem is asked rather than the rank. Try to understand every step you take like reason yourself why to fill NaN values? why distribution has to be Normal? why skewness should be avoided? reasoning holds the key.
If any query comes up, Kaggle Discussions can be a great place to get some wonderful solutions you might not expect googling things up!! you might get a medal as well for posting a question or answering one( I have 23!)
can be a great place to get some wonderful solutions you might not expect googling things up!! you might get a medal as well for posting a question or answering one( I have 23!) Kaggle learns can be taken as a summarized version of a Data Science book, but with implementations. Do give a try. It covers python, analysis, ML, basic neural networks and many more topics.
can be taken as a summarized version of a Data Science book, but with implementations. Do give a try. It covers python, analysis, ML, basic neural networks and many more topics. Apart from competitions, you can take up any Kaggle dataset ( Kaggle has a huge pool of datasets or you can also upload), do anything(but worthy) and show you analytical powers. Kaggle does provide cash prizes($2000) for best kernels as well! Cherry on the top.
( Kaggle has a huge pool of datasets or you can also upload), do anything(but worthy) and show you analytical powers. Kaggle does provide cash prizes($2000) for best kernels as well! Cherry on the top. Explore different genres like text data, time series, regression, classification, multi-classification to know about the difficulties with each type of data and don’t stick to only similar sorts of problems.
like text data, time series, regression, classification, multi-classification to know about the difficulties with each type of data and don’t stick to only similar sorts of problems. Spend about 15–20 days with a single problem statement trying out all possible valid models you can think of and compare your prediction for these models. Sometimes following rules don’t give you the best predictions.
statement trying out all possible valid models you can think of and compare your prediction for these models. Sometimes following rules don’t give you the best predictions. Kaggle kernels are very powerful, free GPU with most of the required libraries already installed, it can be the best place to be for Data Science.
with most of the required libraries already installed, it can be the best place to be for Data Science. Follow kagglers you feel with most relevant solutions, best discussion answers, etc., you will get notified whenever they are with some sort of activity.
you feel with most relevant solutions, best discussion answers, etc., you will get notified whenever they are with some sort of activity. Form up teams with fellow kagglers and take up a challenge as more minds mean more ideas.
with fellow kagglers and take up a challenge as more minds mean more ideas. Do mention your kaggle activities in your resume. Its always a plus point.
Kaggle can play a handy role in your exploration of Data Science. The resources provided are just unmatched. Though, most of the aspirants are trying to do things quickly and end up getting no opportunities. Take time, don’t rush to learn everything, but try up learning efficiently.
If Data Science is a marathon then Kaggle is the coach!!
Check out my other articles as well!!
Important Analytical steps for Data Science projects
Best free Data Science Resources online (pdf links available)
Time Series for beginners
Maze with Q Learning (codes available) | https://medium.com/data-science-in-your-pocket/how-a-beginner-should-approach-kaggle-6e7fd0d1bc41 | ['Mehul Gupta'] | 2020-04-20 05:50:08.191000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Kaggle', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Machine Learning', 'Beginner'] | Title beginner approach KaggleContent part Kaggle community year trying bring kaggle offer young data scientist like beginner believe couple MOOCs interview question taddaaaaaa land Data Science said practical implementation theoretical knowledge way apart walk Do’s Donts newbie kaggler One must remember Kaggle competition hosting platform lot start pick problem either Titanicclassification House priceregression lot kernelsscriptsipython notebook Rpython would available Instead jumping straight away solve try explore solution seem relevant name decent score like — Titanic using Knn titanic Beginners — XGBoost LGBM etccan confuse beginning Understand approach Data Science problem different model used Don’t try rank higher copying others solution using black box trick don’t know never going help Even interview approach used problem asked rather rank Try understand every step take like reason fill NaN value distribution Normal skewness avoided reasoning hold key query come Kaggle Discussions great place get wonderful solution might expect googling thing might get medal well posting question answering one 23 great place get wonderful solution might expect googling thing might get medal well posting question answering one 23 Kaggle learns taken summarized version Data Science book implementation give try cover python analysis ML basic neural network many topic taken summarized version Data Science book implementation give try cover python analysis ML basic neural network many topic Apart competition take Kaggle dataset Kaggle huge pool datasets also upload anythingbut worthy show analytical power Kaggle provide cash prizes2000 best kernel well Cherry top Kaggle huge pool datasets also upload anythingbut worthy show analytical power Kaggle provide cash prizes2000 best kernel well Cherry top Explore different genre like text data time series regression classification multiclassification know difficulty type data don’t stick similar sort problem like text data time series regression classification multiclassification know difficulty type data don’t stick similar sort problem Spend 15–20 day single problem statement trying possible valid model think compare prediction model Sometimes following rule don’t give best prediction statement trying possible valid model think compare prediction model Sometimes following rule don’t give best prediction Kaggle kernel powerful free GPU required library already installed best place Data Science required library already installed best place Data Science Follow kagglers feel relevant solution best discussion answer etc get notified whenever sort activity feel relevant solution best discussion answer etc get notified whenever sort activity Form team fellow kagglers take challenge mind mean idea fellow kagglers take challenge mind mean idea mention kaggle activity resume always plus point Kaggle play handy role exploration Data Science resource provided unmatched Though aspirant trying thing quickly end getting opportunity Take time don’t rush learn everything try learning efficiently Data Science marathon Kaggle coach Check article well Important Analytical step Data Science project Best free Data Science Resources online pdf link available Time Series beginner Maze Q Learning code availableTags Data Science Kaggle Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Beginner |
2,257 | 17 Strategies for Dealing with Data, Big Data, and Even Bigger Data | Python is the most popular language for scientific and numerical computing. Pandas is the most popular for cleaning code and exploratory data analysis.
Using pandas with Python allows you to handle much more data than you could with Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
SQL databases are very popular for storing data, but the Python ecosystem has many advantages over SQL when it comes to expressiveness, testing, reproducibility, and the ability to quickly perform data analysis, statistics, and machine learning.
Unfortunately, if you are working locally, the amount of data that pandas can handle is limited by the amount of memory on your machine. And if you’re working in the cloud, more memory costs more money. 💵
Regardless of where you code is running you want operations to happen quickly so you can GSD (Get Stuff Done)! 😀
Things to always do
If you’ve ever heard or seen advice on speeding up code you’ve seen the warning. ⚠️ Don’t prematurely optimize! ⚠️
This is good advice. But it’s also smart to know techniques so you can write clean fast code the first time. 🚀
Getting after it! Source: pixabay.com
The following are three good coding practices for any size dataset.
Avoid nested loops whenever possible. Here’s a brief primer on Big-O notation and algorithm analysis. One for loop nested inside another for loop generally leads to polynomial time calculations. If you have more than a few items to search through, you’ll be waiting for a while. See a nice chart and explanation here. Use list comprehensions (and dict comprehensions) whenever possible in Python. Creating a list on demand is faster than repeatedly loading and appending attributes to a list — hat tip to the Stack Overflow answer here. However, in general, don’t sacrifice clarity for speed, so be careful with nesting list comprehensions. ⚠️ In pandas, use built-in vectorized functions. The principle is same as the one behind list and dict comprehensions. Applying a function to a whole data structure at once is much faster than repeatedly calling a function.
If you find yourself reaching for apply , think about whether you really need to. apply is looping over rows or columns. Vectorized methods are usually faster and less code, so they are a win on multiple fronts. 🚀
Likewise, avoid other pandas Series and DataFrame methods that loop over your data, such as applymap , itterrows , and ittertuples . If it makes sense, use the map or replace methods on a DataFrame instead of any of those other options to save lots of time.
Notice that these suggestions might not hold for very small amounts of data, but in that case, the stakes are low, so who cares. 😉
This brings us to our most important rule
If you can stay in pandas, stay in pandas. 🐼
It’s a happy place. 😀
Don’t worry about these speed and memory issues if you aren’t having problems and you don’t expect your data or memory footprint to balloon.
But at some point storm clouds will gather. ⛈ You’ll encounter a big dataset and then you’ll want to know what to do. Let’s see some tips.
Things to do with pretty big data (roughly millions of rows)
Like millions of grains of sand. Source: pixabay.com
Use a subset of your data to explore, clean, and make a baseline model if you’re doing machine learning. Solve 90% of your problems fast and save time and resources. This technique can help you get a good model so much faster! ⏳ Load only the columns that you need with the usecols argument when reading in your DataFrame. Less data in = win! Use dtypes efficiently. Downcast numeric columns to the smallest dtypes that makes sense with pd.to_numeric() . Convert columns with low cardinality (just a few values) to a categorical dtype. Here’s a pandas guide on efficient dtypes. Parallelize model training in scikit-learn to use more processing cores whenever possible. By default, scikit-learn uses just one of your machine’s cores. Many computers have 4 or more cores. You can use them all for parallelizable tasks by passing the keyword argument n_jobs=-1 . Save pandas DataFrames in feather or pickle formats for faster reading and writing. Hat tip to Martin Skarzynski, who links to evidence and code here. Use pd.eval to speed up pandas operations. Pass the function your usual code in a string. It does the operation much faster. Here’s a chart from tests with a 100 column DataFrame.
Image from this good article on the topic by Tirthajyoti Sarkar
df.query is basically same as pd.eval , but as a DataFrame method instead of a top-level pandas function.
See the docs because there are some gotchas. ⚠️
Pandas is using numexpr under the hood. Numexpr also works with NumPy. Hat tip to Chris Conlan in his book Fast Python for pointing me to @Numexpr. Chris’s book is an excellent read for learning how to speed up your Python code. 👍
Things do with really big data (roughly tens of millions of rows and up)
Even more data! Source: pixabay.com
Use numba. Numba gives you a big speed boost if you’re doing mathematical calcs. Install numba and import it. Then use the @numba.jit decorator function when you need to loop over NumPy arrays and can't use vectorized methods. It only works withNumPy arrays. Use .to_numpy() on a pandas DataFrame to convert it to a NumPy array. Use SciPy sparse matrices when it makes sense. Scikit-learn outputs sparse arrays automatically with some transformers, such as CountVectorizer. When your data is mostly 0s or missing values, you can convert columns to sparse dtypes in pandas. Read more here. Use Dask to parallelize the reading of datasets into pandas in chunks. Dask can also parallelize data operations across multiple machines. It mimics a subset of the pandas and NumPy APIs. Dask-ML is a sister package to parallelize machine learning algorithms across multiple machines. It mimics the scikit-learn API. Dask plays nicely with other popular machine learning libraries such as XGBoost, LightGBM, PyTorch, and TensorFlow. Use PyTorch with or without a GPU. You can get really big speedups by using PyTorch on a GPU, as I found in this article on sorting.
Things to keep an eye on/experiment with for dealing with big data in the future
Keep an eye on them! Source: pixabay.com
The following three packages are bleeding edge as of mid-2020. Expect configuration issues and API changes. If you are working locally on a CPU, these packages are unlikely to fit your needs. But they all look very promising and are worth keeping an eye on. 👀
Do you have access to lots of cpu cores? Does your data have more than 32 columns (necessary as of mid-2020)? Then consider Modin. It mimics a subset of the pandas library to speed up operations on large datasets. It uses Apache Arrow (via Ray) or Dask under the hood. The Dask backend is experimental. Some things weren’t fast in my tests — for example reading in data from NumPy arrays was slow and memory management was an issue. You can use jax in place of NumPy. Jax is an open source google product that’s bleeding edge. It speeds up operations by using five things under the hood: autograd, XLA, JIT, vectorizer, and parallelizer. Jax works on a CPU, GPU, or TPU and might be simpler than using PyTorch or TensorFlow to get speed boosts. Jax is good for deep learning, too. It works withNumPy version but not pandas as of mid-2020. However, you could convert a DataFrame to a TensorFlow or NumPy object and then use jax. Read more here. Rapids cuDF uses Apache Arrow on GPUs with a pandas-like API. It’s an open source Python package from NVIDIA. Rapids plays nicely with Dask, so you could get multiple GPUs processing data in parallel. For the biggest workloads, it should provide a nice boost.
Other stuff to know about code speed and big data
Timing operations
If you want to time an operation in a Jupyter notebook, you can use
%time or %%timeit magic commands. They both work on a single line or an entire code cell.
%time runs once and %%timeit runs the code multiple times (the default is seven). Do check out the docs to see some subtleties.
If you are working in a Python script or notebook you can import the time module, check the time before and after running code, and find the difference.
When testing for time, note that different machines and software versions can cause variation. Also, caching will sometimes mislead if you are doing repeated tests. As with all experimentation, hold everything you can constant. 👍
Storing big data
GitHub’s maximum file size is 100MB. You can use Git Large File Storage extension if you want to version large files with GitHub.
Also, make sure you aren’t auto-uploading files to Dropbox, iCloud, or some other auto-backup service, unless you want to be.
Want to learn more?
The pandas docs have sections on enhancing performance and scaling to large datasets. Some of my ideas are adapted from those sections.
Have other tips? I’d love to hear them over on Twitter. 🎉
Wrap
You’ve seen how to write faster code. You’ve also seen how to deal with big data and really big data. Finally, you saw some new libraries that will likely continue to become more popular for processing big data.
I hope you’ve found this guide to be helpful. If you did, please share it on your favorite social media so other folks can find it, too. 😀
I write about Python, SQL, Docker, and other tech topics. If any of that’s of interest to you, sign up for my mailing list of awesome data science resources and read more to help you grow your skills here. 👍 | https://towardsdatascience.com/17-strategies-for-dealing-with-data-big-data-and-even-bigger-data-283426c7d260 | ['Jeff Hale'] | 2020-10-08 21:26:22.977000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Technology', 'Data Science'] | Title 17 Strategies Dealing Data Big Data Even Bigger DataContent Python popular language scientific numerical computing Pandas popular cleaning code exploratory data analysis Using panda Python allows handle much data could Microsoft Excel Google Sheets SQL database popular storing data Python ecosystem many advantage SQL come expressiveness testing reproducibility ability quickly perform data analysis statistic machine learning Unfortunately working locally amount data panda handle limited amount memory machine you’re working cloud memory cost money 💵 Regardless code running want operation happen quickly GSD Get Stuff Done 😀 Things always you’ve ever heard seen advice speeding code you’ve seen warning ⚠️ Don’t prematurely optimize ⚠️ good advice it’s also smart know technique write clean fast code first time 🚀 Getting Source pixabaycom following three good coding practice size dataset Avoid nested loop whenever possible Here’s brief primer BigO notation algorithm analysis One loop nested inside another loop generally lead polynomial time calculation item search you’ll waiting See nice chart explanation Use list comprehension dict comprehension whenever possible Python Creating list demand faster repeatedly loading appending attribute list — hat tip Stack Overflow answer However general don’t sacrifice clarity speed careful nesting list comprehension ⚠️ panda use builtin vectorized function principle one behind list dict comprehension Applying function whole data structure much faster repeatedly calling function find reaching apply think whether really need apply looping row column Vectorized method usually faster le code win multiple front 🚀 Likewise avoid panda Series DataFrame method loop data applymap itterrows ittertuples make sense use map replace method DataFrame instead option save lot time Notice suggestion might hold small amount data case stake low care 😉 brings u important rule stay panda stay panda 🐼 It’s happy place 😀 Don’t worry speed memory issue aren’t problem don’t expect data memory footprint balloon point storm cloud gather ⛈ You’ll encounter big dataset you’ll want know Let’s see tip Things pretty big data roughly million row Like million grain sand Source pixabaycom Use subset data explore clean make baseline model you’re machine learning Solve 90 problem fast save time resource technique help get good model much faster ⏳ Load column need usecols argument reading DataFrame Less data win Use dtypes efficiently Downcast numeric column smallest dtypes make sense pdtonumeric Convert column low cardinality value categorical dtype Here’s panda guide efficient dtypes Parallelize model training scikitlearn use processing core whenever possible default scikitlearn us one machine’s core Many computer 4 core use parallelizable task passing keyword argument njobs1 Save panda DataFrames feather pickle format faster reading writing Hat tip Martin Skarzynski link evidence code Use pdeval speed panda operation Pass function usual code string operation much faster Here’s chart test 100 column DataFrame Image good article topic Tirthajyoti Sarkar dfquery basically pdeval DataFrame method instead toplevel panda function See doc gotchas ⚠️ Pandas using numexpr hood Numexpr also work NumPy Hat tip Chris Conlan book Fast Python pointing Numexpr Chris’s book excellent read learning speed Python code 👍 Things really big data roughly ten million row Even data Source pixabaycom Use numba Numba give big speed boost you’re mathematical calcs Install numba import use numbajit decorator function need loop NumPy array cant use vectorized method work withNumPy array Use tonumpy panda DataFrame convert NumPy array Use SciPy sparse matrix make sense Scikitlearn output sparse array automatically transformer CountVectorizer data mostly 0 missing value convert column sparse dtypes panda Read Use Dask parallelize reading datasets panda chunk Dask also parallelize data operation across multiple machine mimic subset panda NumPy APIs DaskML sister package parallelize machine learning algorithm across multiple machine mimic scikitlearn API Dask play nicely popular machine learning library XGBoost LightGBM PyTorch TensorFlow Use PyTorch without GPU get really big speedup using PyTorch GPU found article sorting Things keep eye onexperiment dealing big data future Keep eye Source pixabaycom following three package bleeding edge mid2020 Expect configuration issue API change working locally CPU package unlikely fit need look promising worth keeping eye 👀 access lot cpu core data 32 column necessary mid2020 consider Modin mimic subset panda library speed operation large datasets us Apache Arrow via Ray Dask hood Dask backend experimental thing weren’t fast test — example reading data NumPy array slow memory management issue use jax place NumPy Jax open source google product that’s bleeding edge speed operation using five thing hood autograd XLA JIT vectorizer parallelizer Jax work CPU GPU TPU might simpler using PyTorch TensorFlow get speed boost Jax good deep learning work withNumPy version panda mid2020 However could convert DataFrame TensorFlow NumPy object use jax Read Rapids cuDF us Apache Arrow GPUs pandaslike API It’s open source Python package NVIDIA Rapids play nicely Dask could get multiple GPUs processing data parallel biggest workload provide nice boost stuff know code speed big data Timing operation want time operation Jupyter notebook use time timeit magic command work single line entire code cell time run timeit run code multiple time default seven check doc see subtlety working Python script notebook import time module check time running code find difference testing time note different machine software version cause variation Also caching sometimes mislead repeated test experimentation hold everything constant 👍 Storing big data GitHub’s maximum file size 100MB use Git Large File Storage extension want version large file GitHub Also make sure aren’t autouploading file Dropbox iCloud autobackup service unless want Want learn panda doc section enhancing performance scaling large datasets idea adapted section tip I’d love hear Twitter 🎉 Wrap You’ve seen write faster code You’ve also seen deal big data really big data Finally saw new library likely continue become popular processing big data hope you’ve found guide helpful please share favorite social medium folk find 😀 write Python SQL Docker tech topic that’s interest sign mailing list awesome data science resource read help grow skill 👍Tags Machine Learning Python Artificial Intelligence Technology Data Science |
2,258 | How to Turn a Bad Day Around. | If you are reading this, you’ve had a bad day. And that’s not because you are a failure, or because you just can’t figure out how to “adult”. It’s because you are human, (unless you’re an alien, in which case, do you have bad days?) and all humans have bad days. Regardless of how successful you are, and how often you meditate, you’ll have bad days. Here are some tips on how to turn a bad day around.
Forgive yourself
Probably the biggest part of turning your day around is letting go of the fact it has turned or started off bad. This morning, I slept in an hour past when I planned to get up. Then I proceeded to watch TikTok for almost half an hour after breakfast. This is obviously not unprecedented, but with less time to accomplish my list of tasks, it really didn’t help.
Ultimately, I realized what was happening. I was wasting time doing things that were not good for me in any way. Then I had this feeling of failure. “Why did I let this happen?” “Why did I sleep in?” “Why did I eat that full pizza last night which made running harder?” (No joke I did eat an entire pizza last night) But I realized spending time beating myself up is silly. So, I decided… “hey, you’re only human, get over it, and press on.” So, I did just that.
Do what gives you clarity
You will have to try different things and pay attention to how you feel, but find what bring you clarity. For me, it’s running. For others it may be, journaling, playing an instrument, brewing their coffee, going for a walk, drawing, singing, listing to Metalica, whatever it is, find it and recognize the power it has to help you center yourself.
Once you know what centers you, use it to reset yourself when you catch yourself letting your day get ahold of you.
Get small wins
As Friday is winding to an end, I often make a list of things to do on the following day when I’m still in a work mode. This list can often be large, but when I put my mind to it can often be crossed off in a short amount of time. For me, if I’m struggling with a bad start to my day, I aim to check off the easy things on the list. The things that I would do anyway, like trim my beard.
If you don’t like lists, then focus on what you did well that day, and/or focus on how good you felt a time that you did something that was hard. Oftentimes that gives you the push you need to start rolling in the right direction.
Use incentives
One of the only things that got me to do the things on my list, was the fact I was going to dinner with a friend. It was planned earlier in the week, but I had committed to meeting him at a certain time, so knowing that pushed me to get done the other things on my list.
Another way I used incentives this week was when I told myself if I get up at 6 o’clock on the dot, without hitting snooze, I would owe myself a vanilla bean donut from Donut Planet. Let me tell you something, it worked.
Prioritize
Something that is hard to do, especially if you work off of a list like myself, is push something into the next day, or erase it. However, that’s what you need to do sometimes. If that thing is not the most vital, and especially if it will stress you out all day, and you know you can’t get to it, just move it to a different time, or remove it altogether.
Think about the times you’ve done well
I mentioned this in “Get small wins”, but it also deserves its own space. One thing that has really helped me, is to recall the times I succeeded in beating concupiscence (the tendency towards the easy). For example, I think about how great it felt that time I went to bed at 9:30 without watching any TikTok. I remember vividly how great I felt the next day, and I want that feeling again, hence I make it happen, well…I get close to it.
Avoid media
This one has been a huge one for me. Whenever I watch an episode of New Girl or Space Force, or when I spend time scrolling Twitter, I feel terrible. My personal tendency on the weekend is to literally do all kinds of lazy things because my logic says, it’s rewarding yourself for working 50 hours. The reality is, I actually don’t feel good about myself when I do that. If I read a book, wrote a blog post, learned some German, or went for a run, while it would appear to be exhausting, it actually fills me up.
Media can be really dangerous because it’s like a firehose of dopamine rushing into your brain which then becomes addictive to the point where you can’t put it down (TikTok is the best at this IMO). The reality is our subconscious is upset that we didn’t get the things “we” wanted/needed to get done. It’s really incredible how our brains make us dissatisfied when we have not taken care of ourselves, or have not made time for what we have said is important to us.
End the day well
In my estimation, this is the single most important thing you can do. It is in your power at the end of the day to decide which direction you are going to end in. Even if your day went really poorly, it’s up to you to decide how the day ends. Take stock, forgive any ill feelings you have against yourself, and thank God (or whoever you thank) for all the good things of that day. Things like a house, a job, sunshine — the little things. Then end your day well with the determination that tomorrow is already off to a good start. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/how-to-turn-a-bad-day-around-3ee6983806c4 | ['Silas Mahner'] | 2020-07-20 18:10:40.768000+00:00 | ['Meditation', 'Productivity', 'Mental Health', 'Self Care', 'Focus'] | Title Turn Bad Day AroundContent reading you’ve bad day that’s failure can’t figure “adult” It’s human unless you’re alien case bad day human bad day Regardless successful often meditate you’ll bad day tip turn bad day around Forgive Probably biggest part turning day around letting go fact turned started bad morning slept hour past planned get proceeded watch TikTok almost half hour breakfast obviously unprecedented le time accomplish list task really didn’t help Ultimately realized happening wasting time thing good way feeling failure “Why let happen” “Why sleep in” “Why eat full pizza last night made running harder” joke eat entire pizza last night realized spending time beating silly decided… “hey you’re human get press on” give clarity try different thing pay attention feel find bring clarity it’s running others may journaling playing instrument brewing coffee going walk drawing singing listing Metalica whatever find recognize power help center know center use reset catch letting day get ahold Get small win Friday winding end often make list thing following day I’m still work mode list often large put mind often crossed short amount time I’m struggling bad start day aim check easy thing list thing would anyway like trim beard don’t like list focus well day andor focus good felt time something hard Oftentimes give push need start rolling right direction Use incentive One thing got thing list fact going dinner friend planned earlier week committed meeting certain time knowing pushed get done thing list Another way used incentive week told get 6 o’clock dot without hitting snooze would owe vanilla bean donut Donut Planet Let tell something worked Prioritize Something hard especially work list like push something next day erase However that’s need sometimes thing vital especially stress day know can’t get move different time remove altogether Think time you’ve done well mentioned “Get small wins” also deserves space One thing really helped recall time succeeded beating concupiscence tendency towards easy example think great felt time went bed 930 without watching TikTok remember vividly great felt next day want feeling hence make happen well…I get close Avoid medium one huge one Whenever watch episode New Girl Space Force spend time scrolling Twitter feel terrible personal tendency weekend literally kind lazy thing logic say it’s rewarding working 50 hour reality actually don’t feel good read book wrote blog post learned German went run would appear exhausting actually fill Media really dangerous it’s like firehose dopamine rushing brain becomes addictive point can’t put TikTok best IMO reality subconscious upset didn’t get thing “we” wantedneeded get done It’s really incredible brain make u dissatisfied taken care made time said important u End day well estimation single important thing power end day decide direction going end Even day went really poorly it’s decide day end Take stock forgive ill feeling thank God whoever thank good thing day Things like house job sunshine — little thing end day well determination tomorrow already good startTags Meditation Productivity Mental Health Self Care Focus |
2,259 | 5 Pairs of Magic Methods in Python That You Should Know | 4. Context Manager: __enter__ and __exit__
When we deal with file objects in Python, the most frequent syntax you may have come across is probably something like this:
with open('filename.txt') as file:
# Your file operations go here
The use of the with statement is known as the context manager technique. Specifically, in the file operation example above, the with statement will create a context manager for the file object and after the file operations, the context manager will help us close the file object such that the shared resource (i.e., the file) can become available to other processes.
So, in general, context managers are Python objects that manage shared resources, such as open and close, for us. Without them, we have to manage them manually, which can be error-prone.
To implement such behavior with a custom class, our class needs to implement the __enter__ and __exit__ methods. The __enter__ method sets up the context manager that prepares the needed resource for us to operate on, while the __exit__ method is to clean up any used resources that should be released to make them available. Let’s consider the following trivial example with the previous Product class:
Context Manager
As you can see, when the instance object is embedded in a with statement, the __enter__ method is called. When the operation is completed in the with statement, the __exit__ method is called. | https://medium.com/better-programming/5-pairs-of-magic-methods-in-python-you-should-know-f98f0e5356d6 | ['Yong Cui'] | 2020-08-28 10:45:17.641000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Technology', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Artificial Intelligence'] | Title 5 Pairs Magic Methods Python KnowContent 4 Context Manager enter exit deal file object Python frequent syntax may come across probably something like openfilenametxt file file operation go use statement known context manager technique Specifically file operation example statement create context manager file object file operation context manager help u close file object shared resource ie file become available process general context manager Python object manage shared resource open close u Without manage manually errorprone implement behavior custom class class need implement enter exit method enter method set context manager prepares needed resource u operate exit method clean used resource released make available Let’s consider following trivial example previous Product class Context Manager see instance object embedded statement enter method called operation completed statement exit method calledTags Programming Technology Data Science Python Artificial Intelligence |
2,260 | Perfect Circle | Perfect Circle
When falling tears rise
When blue ocean cries
When out is in
When Without is within
And within is without
And every One loud
Forms…the darkest cloud
When right is left
When left is right
When you have no food
And you take a bite
When it is dark
When dark is white
Cease or Exist
When far is near
When time is now
When its all here
Peace and fear
Becomes clear
No stone is the same
No breath is the same
Nothing has a name
Without no’s still the same
Ultimate | https://medium.com/warlockworld/understanding-this-you-are-close-to-your-goal-1c5cd67b3955 | ['Talk To Warlock'] | 2017-10-18 07:23:46.968000+00:00 | ['Sex', 'Psychology', 'Yoga', 'Science', 'Poetry'] | Title Perfect CircleContent Perfect Circle falling tear rise blue ocean cry Without within within without every One loud Forms…the darkest cloud right left left right food take bite dark dark white Cease Exist far near time Peace fear Becomes clear stone breath Nothing name Without no’s still UltimateTags Sex Psychology Yoga Science Poetry |
2,261 | ‘Designing Finnishness’ | From hard to soft
While we can say Finnishness was in a sense designed along with Finland, it is also, at the same time, much older than Finland.
The Finnish language is signifcantly older. And of course the one thing non-Finns know about the Finnish language is that it is impenetrable, legendarily obscure, emblematic of an apparent hardness, or flintiness.
Perhaps as a result, Diego Marani’s idiosyncratic novel ‘New Finnish Grammar’ gives us the best contemporary insight into Finnishness. In Marani’s book, Finnishness is articulated for the reader by a frequently drunk pastor, who filters every aspect of his culture through the prism of the Finnish language as well as through copious amounts of koskenkorva. While Finnishness may be invented, he states that the language itself was not.
“(O)ther languages are merely temporary scaffolding for meaning. Not so for Finnish: Finnish was not invented. The sounds of our language were around us, in nature, in the woods, in the pull of the sea, in the call of the wild, in the sound of the falling snow. All we did was to bring them together and bend them to our needs.” (in Marani, ibid.)
At its core there are a group of ancient words — some think a few words are over 6000 years old. Small, soft words describing the body, the landscape, the weather, the world:
kuu (moon/month), suu (mouth), puu (tree), sää (weather), jää (ice), pää (head), kivi (stone), mäki (hill), joki (river), lahti (bay), järvi (lake), saari (island) …
This emphasis on the physical, the body, objects within a landscape, and their various conditions is an interesting starting point for a culture. Is this why Finnishness also focuses on objects and their material qualities, the body and the landscape? In what Marani describes as “chipped sounds, words eaten away by ice and silence” we might find the origins of a later facility with objects, with architecture, and in particular with a purist form of both, a design oriented around authenticity and the qualities of natural materials. Equally, the emphasis on the body would generate the form of humanist modernism associated with brands like Artek, who aimed to “support and nourish human beings’ physical and psychological wellbeing … blending functionalism with form and sculptural simplicity with the emotional warmth of wood.”
So hard conditions begat a hard language and a facility with hard materials. Yet those soft words also begat softness, through a comfort with the body and the ephemeral conditions of weather, flora and fauna.
Hardness also applies to the environmental conditions Finland enjoys. It is, of course, insanely cold. Yet everything is built to withstand it, from clothing to transport to the urban plan to the buildings — I have been colder in Australian or Italian houses than I ever was in our Helsinki apartment. Equally, the delights of the Finnish summer, which can be perfectly warm, if a little brief, means it is entirely possible to witness a 60-degree centigrade temperature swing across the year. Yet thanks to engineering that swing in conditions is not a problem. Conquering such conditions means that engineering itself has been elevated to exalted status within Finnishness.
Yet the next challenge is beyond engineering, beyond dealing with the hardness and difficulty of Finnish conditions, and instead dealing with soft systems, social systems.
“The idea of Helsinki is radical: a new capital for a new nation; an ideal city built from tabula rasa; an orthogonal grid laid over the topographic granite of an irregular peninsular; a window to the West and the East; a showcase and platform for a political, social, cultural, and architectural experiment on a grand scale.” (Kalliala ibid.)
Tsar Alexander I had designated, and in effect created, Helsinki as a kind of Special Political Zone (just as Shenzhen would be a Special Economic Zone for China almost two centuries later.) He designed it to be an autonomous Grand Duchy, a merging of Russian order with liberal European values picked up during his schooling in Switzerland. It was a prototype for politics.
While hard boundaries changed in largely obvious ways, the soft system of politics draped over what would become the Republic Of Finland suggested a design of decision-making itself.
Scroll forward many decades to the recent years and a practice of “strategic design” — the design of decision-making cultures — would emerge in Finland, partly courtesy of Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund. The concern here is not with the production of objects, services, buildings and cities, but with the conditions that would enable those things, in order to address new kinds of highly complex and interdependent problems. Part of a growing international movement often looking at the design of the public sector, it feels like a different form of design, focused not only on those “hard” outcomes but on the soft systems of culture, management, services, and the organisation that enables them. It is a clear departure from the obvious tangibility of what people recognise as Finnish design.
Is it possible to connect the institutions that have nurtured Finnish design to the nation’s history of designing cultures, which is barely recognised as design at all? How to train a generation capable of articulating the architecture of “wicked problems”, and not simply the architecture of buildings?
This is the first step in evolving Finnishness — dealing with soft systems as well as hard outcomes.
From silent to social
That those Finnish words are “eaten away by silence” is also important. The ‘Finnish silence’ is an essential component of Finnishness, perhaps derived from the solitude that marks much of the Finns’ existence — the giant land mass, the small population, the late urbanisation: all conspire to creating an everyday life that, only a few generations ago, was based on not seeing many other people at all, for days on end.
Daniel Dennett suggests that “talking, and not talking, is what makes us human.” Dennett means “not talking” in order to deliberately conceal or obscure. But in Finnishness it is often simply … not talking. Foreigners are often thrown by the Finn’s ability to deploy a gaping silence into the middle of a conversation — like the old theatre joke when the narrator utters “night falls” being underlined by a sudden curtain drop. This comfort with silence is appealing, in the context of cultures that revel in small-talk instead, in filling each moment with something, anything, essentially with the chaff of shallowness. Yet equally, it can reinforce the idea that Finnishness is socially awkward. Though it should be noted that this taciturn characteristic to Finnish communication is most frequently associated with the male of the species.
Juhani Pallasmaa, who has perhaps written more influentially than any other Finnish architect, recalls of his childhood that:
“Tapio Wirkkala, the legendary designer was an elder brother for me, and he taught me the importance of craft. As I had spent the decisive years of my childhood at my farmer grandfather’s humble farm, I shared a love of nature, solitude and silence with Tapio.”
This is just about the most Finnish paragraph one could imagine. Craft, nature, solitude, silence. | https://medium.com/dark-matter-and-trojan-horses/designing-finnishness-for-out-of-the-blue-the-essence-and-ambition-of-finnish-design-279c40d48bae | ['Dan Hill'] | 2019-05-22 18:45:46.984000+00:00 | ['Finland', 'Culture', 'Architecture', 'Books', 'Design'] | Title ‘Designing Finnishness’Content hard soft say Finnishness sense designed along Finland also time much older Finland Finnish language signifcantly older course one thing nonFinns know Finnish language impenetrable legendarily obscure emblematic apparent hardness flintiness Perhaps result Diego Marani’s idiosyncratic novel ‘New Finnish Grammar’ give u best contemporary insight Finnishness Marani’s book Finnishness articulated reader frequently drunk pastor filter every aspect culture prism Finnish language well copious amount koskenkorva Finnishness may invented state language “Other language merely temporary scaffolding meaning Finnish Finnish invented sound language around u nature wood pull sea call wild sound falling snow bring together bend needs” Marani ibid core group ancient word — think word 6000 year old Small soft word describing body landscape weather world kuu moonmonth suu mouth puu tree sää weather jää ice pää head kivi stone mäki hill joki river lahti bay järvi lake saari island … emphasis physical body object within landscape various condition interesting starting point culture Finnishness also focus object material quality body landscape Marani describes “chipped sound word eaten away ice silence” might find origin later facility object architecture particular purist form design oriented around authenticity quality natural material Equally emphasis body would generate form humanist modernism associated brand like Artek aimed “support nourish human beings’ physical psychological wellbeing … blending functionalism form sculptural simplicity emotional warmth wood” hard condition begat hard language facility hard material Yet soft word also begat softness comfort body ephemeral condition weather flora fauna Hardness also applies environmental condition Finland enjoys course insanely cold Yet everything built withstand clothing transport urban plan building — colder Australian Italian house ever Helsinki apartment Equally delight Finnish summer perfectly warm little brief mean entirely possible witness 60degree centigrade temperature swing across year Yet thanks engineering swing condition problem Conquering condition mean engineering elevated exalted status within Finnishness Yet next challenge beyond engineering beyond dealing hardness difficulty Finnish condition instead dealing soft system social system “The idea Helsinki radical new capital new nation ideal city built tabula rasa orthogonal grid laid topographic granite irregular peninsular window West East showcase platform political social cultural architectural experiment grand scale” Kalliala ibid Tsar Alexander designated effect created Helsinki kind Special Political Zone Shenzhen would Special Economic Zone China almost two century later designed autonomous Grand Duchy merging Russian order liberal European value picked schooling Switzerland prototype politics hard boundary changed largely obvious way soft system politics draped would become Republic Finland suggested design decisionmaking Scroll forward many decade recent year practice “strategic design” — design decisionmaking culture — would emerge Finland partly courtesy Sitra Finnish Innovation Fund concern production object service building city condition would enable thing order address new kind highly complex interdependent problem Part growing international movement often looking design public sector feel like different form design focused “hard” outcome soft system culture management service organisation enables clear departure obvious tangibility people recognise Finnish design possible connect institution nurtured Finnish design nation’s history designing culture barely recognised design train generation capable articulating architecture “wicked problems” simply architecture building first step evolving Finnishness — dealing soft system well hard outcome silent social Finnish word “eaten away silence” also important ‘Finnish silence’ essential component Finnishness perhaps derived solitude mark much Finns’ existence — giant land mass small population late urbanisation conspire creating everyday life generation ago based seeing many people day end Daniel Dennett suggests “talking talking make u human” Dennett mean “not talking” order deliberately conceal obscure Finnishness often simply … talking Foreigners often thrown Finn’s ability deploy gaping silence middle conversation — like old theatre joke narrator utters “night falls” underlined sudden curtain drop comfort silence appealing context culture revel smalltalk instead filling moment something anything essentially chaff shallowness Yet equally reinforce idea Finnishness socially awkward Though noted taciturn characteristic Finnish communication frequently associated male specie Juhani Pallasmaa perhaps written influentially Finnish architect recall childhood “Tapio Wirkkala legendary designer elder brother taught importance craft spent decisive year childhood farmer grandfather’s humble farm shared love nature solitude silence Tapio” Finnish paragraph one could imagine Craft nature solitude silenceTags Finland Culture Architecture Books Design |
2,262 | 10 Life Skills they Don’t Teach in College | 10 Life Skills They Don’t Teach In College And How You Can Do It Now FAQ
How to network with purpose?
No matter how great you start your conversation with, if your ultimate purpose is to networking, then it’s a bleak way of starting a friendship. As much as possible, reach out to people that you know and you know you as well as your classmates, professors,and friends that you think might get interested in your field.
How to manage your bank account?
As much as possible, start an achievable budget for yourself. The 10% of your paycheck should go to your savings for future needs.
What are the easiest money saving tips?
Record your expenses
Make a budget
Plan on saving
Choose what to save
Know your priorities
Have the right tools
How to build a career that’s all your own?
When deciding a career to pursue, you must determine what you are really up to. Think of things creatively and how you can make a living out of it. Also, never forget to pursue your passions and live an extraordinary life.
When to trust your gut?
Be a person who won’t second-guess the choices you made throughout your life, including those small ones. Go for things that “feel right” and pay attention to those that feel “off”.
What are the gut instincts that you should never ignore?
Your Health
When you are in danger
When you want to help
When you know how to do something
When you think that it is truly right
How to avoid burn-out?
Do some meditation for about 10 minutes in a day. There are on-campus counseling also that are of great help. A limit time when using gadgets especially in the mornings and evenings.
How to bounce back or the art of failing with grace?
The people you admire surely have their own biographies. Read and learn from them. Take note of the ways that they did to cope up with their setbacks. Always remember to see the bigger picture and never exert too much effort on the small stuff.
How to be a good partner?
Either friendship or relationship, both teaches how to strike right when it comes to partnership. Think of the qualities that you’re looking for and also focus on yours. You should never be a one-sided person.
What are some tips to become a good partner?
See the best in your partner
Have fun
Be grateful to your partner
Acquire a good relationship towards yourself
How to communicate and negotiate well?
At first, go for small negotiations. Learn to value your worth so by the time you will go out to the real world, you will know how to negotiate the right starting salary.
What are some tips when negotiating?
Don’t get afraid to ask
Listen before you speak
Do your homework
Don’t rush
Aim high
Do not focus on the pressure
How to take care of your home?
House-cleaning applications and food delivery services are not cost-effective. Learn the basics of cooking and cleaning. Anyway, you can learn everything online. There are lots of videos where you can get a reference.
The importance of travel?
Have a scheduled trip once every six months, whether it’s out of the country or just an out of town trip. There are websites that offer affordable deals to suit your budget.
What are some tips when traveling?
Pack essentials inside your carry-on
Take note of your hotel information
Have some old currency with you
Keep your boarding pass
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About the Author
Larry Kim is the CEO of MobileMonkey — provider of the World’s Best Facebook Messenger Marketing Platform. He’s also the founder of WordStream.
You can connect with him on Facebook Messenger, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram.
Originally posted on Mobilemonkey.com | https://medium.com/marketing-and-entrepreneurship/10-life-skills-they-dont-teach-in-college-b577a52d8b3 | ['Larry Kim'] | 2018-08-22 11:41:01.390000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Life Lessons', 'Marketing', 'Life'] | Title 10 Life Skills Don’t Teach CollegeContent 10 Life Skills Don’t Teach College FAQ network purpose matter great start conversation ultimate purpose networking it’s bleak way starting friendship much possible reach people know know well classmate professorsand friend think might get interested field manage bank account much possible start achievable budget 10 paycheck go saving future need easiest money saving tip Record expense Make budget Plan saving Choose save Know priority right tool build career that’s deciding career pursue must determine really Think thing creatively make living Also never forget pursue passion live extraordinary life trust gut person won’t secondguess choice made throughout life including small one Go thing “feel right” pay attention feel “off” gut instinct never ignore Health danger want help know something think truly right avoid burnout meditation 10 minute day oncampus counseling also great help limit time using gadget especially morning evening bounce back art failing grace people admire surely biography Read learn Take note way cope setback Always remember see bigger picture never exert much effort small stuff good partner Either friendship relationship teach strike right come partnership Think quality you’re looking also focus never onesided person tip become good partner See best partner fun grateful partner Acquire good relationship towards communicate negotiate well first go small negotiation Learn value worth time go real world know negotiate right starting salary tip negotiating Don’t get afraid ask Listen speak homework Don’t rush Aim high focus pressure take care home Housecleaning application food delivery service costeffective Learn basic cooking cleaning Anyway learn everything online lot video get reference importance travel scheduled trip every six month whether it’s country town trip website offer affordable deal suit budget tip traveling Pack essential inside carryon Take note hotel information old currency Keep boarding pas Unicorn Sea Donkeys Get best Unicorn marketing entrepreneurship growth hack 2 Sign occasional Facebook Messenger Marketing news tip via Facebook Messenger Author Larry Kim CEO MobileMonkey — provider World’s Best Facebook Messenger Marketing Platform He’s also founder WordStream connect Facebook Messenger Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Originally posted MobilemonkeycomTags Entrepreneurship Life Lessons Marketing Life |
2,263 | Must read books for those aspiring to be UX designers | Must read books for those aspiring to be UX designers
(and for those moving up the ladder)
Where do I start?
So you want to be a UX designer. And have decided that you are willing to invest energy in learning the skills and acquiring the knowledge required to become one. Where do you start? I’d say with books. In this article, I recommend five books that aspiring UX designers must read and internalise, and five more for those who are already UX designers and want to move up their career ladders.
The first five
Dr. Donald Norman’s seminal work and my favourite book on the list. In fact, I think this is a book everyone should read, and should be included in college syllabi. The updated version (2013) provides relevant examples that are needed to communicate with today’s audience. Don Norman wrote the book for many reasons. The initial thought was the frustration that he encountered with ‘everyday things’. His inability to operate simple things was frustrating, and after feeling flustered and confused at his inability to operate things, he realized that much of the problem was due to poorly designed interface. This made him realize that people shouldn’t feel guilty or stupid for their inability to operate devices. The fault was with the unintuitive interface — that shifts the problem space to the design of a good interface. It taught me how to think about design problems. In fact, it taught me how to look at a problem critically, and once you learn to do so, you realize that most problems in the world that pertain to product and services are design problems at one level or the other. It’s worth summarizing the main contents of the book.
Chapter 1 talks about the idea that users shouldn’t need an engineering degree to know to use a product. Don introduces key principles such as visibility, mappings, affordances, signifiers, constraints, conceptual models and feedback. Plenty of fun stuff in there. Chapter 2 talks about psychology behind design what really goes on in a user’s head when they try and do/use something. Chapter 3 is about what Don calls ‘knowledge in the head’ and the ‘knowledge in the world’, which explains how people remember stuff and how design can aid people doing things in a particular manner (to prevent mistakes or frustrations). Chapter 4 is about constraints, which tells you exactly what sort of constraints help prevent errors. It talks about physical, semantic, cultural and logical constraints. Chapter 5 deals with the idea that ‘to err is human’ and therefore a good designer must think about the sort of errors/problems that a user is likely to make while using a product and how to mitigate the frustration arising out of making these errors. Chapter 6 is one of my favorites as it talks about the constant battle between aesthetics and usability. From general truths about the world and people, Chapter 7 dives into the user-centered design process and explains how you can make great products by following a certain way of working. Start with this book when beginning your journey into anything related to UX.
Steve Krugg’s witty book with a wittier title. We live in a world that has changed so dramatically that users are often playing catch up. Every new product works differently. Every new app uses different interaction standards. Every second website tries to define a new information architecture for how things should be organized. Users have unconsciously decided to start rejecting products and services that require them to learn something new, or simply but, that require them to think too much. Designers must understand and empathize with users, because in one single day 1000 + apps alone are added to the App Store and a similar number to the Playstore.
A simple search for a screen recorder in the App Store (something that I recently did) gave me some 300 results. Most of these do the same thing. How do I know which one to download? The first one? The free one? The highest rated one (only 20 of them had ratings, does that mean the rest are bad or simply untried?)? The smallest (lightest) one? There are just too many variables. Users in today’s world expect things to ‘just work’ or to ‘just get it’, and unless your product a path-breaking one with zero competition, be smart or be deleted (or worse ignored). The book contains numerous examples that illustrate several fundamental principles to keep in mind when designing anything; products, websites, apps, or services. Other notable topics include the fact that users don’t read stuff anymore, they merely scan, how to design home pages, how usability arguments are often a waste of time, and how to conduct cheap usability testing.
Another seminal work in the field of UX. Different from Don Norman’s work in that this is more specific for UX designers and starts to introduce UXers to how to go about planning and executing UX work effectively. I’ve deliberately introduced this book after the first two because I recommend reading the other two before this to build empathy for the field, the people involved and the challenges. Jesse James Garrett, is a UX stalwart who authored this book in 2002 and then published the current edition in 2010. He worked for one of the most renowned UX consultancies called Adaptive Path.
Coming to the book, it smartly breaks down the entire UX lifecycle into five phases or skeletons: Surface, Skeleton, Structure, Scope and Strategy. Let’s look at an example, from the book, to better understand these planes. Most people, at one time or another, have purchased a book over the Web. The experience is pretty much the same every time — you go to the site, you find the book you want (maybe by using a search engine or maybe by browsing a catalog), you give the site your credit card number and your address, and the site confirms that the book will be shipped to you. That neat, tidy experience actually results from a whole set of decisions — some small, some large — about how the site looks, how it behaves, and what it allows you to do. These decisions build upon each other, informing and influencing all aspects of the user experience. If we peel away the layers of that experience, we can begin to understand how those decisions are made.The Surface Plane On the surface you see a series of Web pages, made up of images and text. Some of these images are things you can click on, performing some sort of function such as taking you to a shopping cart. Some of these images are just illustrations, such as a photograph of a book cover or the logo of the site itself. The Skeleton Plane Beneath that surface is the skeleton of the site: the placement of buttons, tabs, photos, and blocks of text. The skeleton is designed to optimize the arrangement of these elements for maximum effect and efficiency — so that you remember the logo and can find that shopping cart button when you need it. The Structure Plane The skeleton is a concrete expression of the more abstract structure of the site. The skeleton might define the placement of the interface elements on our checkout page; the structure would define how users got to that page and where they could go when they were finished there. The skeleton might define the arrangement of navigational items allowing the users to browse categories of books; the structure would define what those categories actually were. The Scope Plane The structure defines the way in which the various features and functions of the site fit together. Just what those features and functions are constitutes the scope of the site. Some sites that sell books offer a feature that enables users to save previously used addresses so they can be used again. The question of whether that feature — or any feature — is included on a site is a question of scope. The Strategy Plane The scope is fundamentally determined by the strategy of the site. This strategy incorporates not only what the people running the site want to get out of it but what the users want to get out of the site as well. In the case of our bookstore example, some of the strategic objectives are pretty obvious: Users want to buy books, and we want to sell them. Other objectives might not be so easy to articulate.
This interdisciplinary book, which is also available as a pocket book, is a must for designers. In little more than 200 pages, Universal Principles of Design explains a wide variety of foundational design concepts, including performance load, Occam’s Razor, and the product adoption life-cycle. Superbly illustrated and thoroughly explained, this text provides a detailed summary of over 100 mental models that relate to the design process. Each principle is explained in two pages, complete with visual examples and references to other texts for further study.
In little more than 200 pages, Universal Principles of Design explains a wide variety of foundational design concepts, including performance load, Occam’s Razor, and the product adoption life-cycle. Superbly illustrated and thoroughly explained, this text provides a detailed summary of over 100 mental models that relate to the design process. Each principle is explained in two pages, complete with visual examples and references to other texts for further study. It is obviously hard to remember all these principles, so I recommend reading the book, taking note of the most relevant principles depending on what you are likely to work on, and then using it as a reference for future projects.
The first book is your step forward, in terms of being highly involved and diving into the details of how to gather data and build products in a user-centered manner. It s a slightly older book and therefore not entirely up to date with examples from 2017, but it is superbly researched and presented, and remains relevant in 2017. It touches the key aspect of ‘context’, which is something you’ll hear often in the world of UX. In fact, in UX, context is every thing. To put it simply, not only do you need to understand what users want (in terms of a product or service) but also how they will use that product or service. Will they use their app while in a hurry (think Maps)? Will they use your product in case of an emergency (think fire extinguishers)? Will they use your service during an emotionally charged period (think insurance)? As a designer, you have to learn to understand and take into account these contexts of use, without which, the best product might totally fail.
For example, in 2006, the American telecom giant Verizon introduced a mobile ESPN service + phone, with the idea that sports lovers will pay a premium to have access to their favorite sports on the go. It failed miserably. Was it a bad product? Probably not, but it failed because it did not recognize that watching sports is a social, enthralling activity, which people want to do with friends and family. Think how many people go to banks today vs. how many who do almost everything online? The number of the former has been growing exponentially. But how many people, who previously watched sports in stadiums, watch sports mostly at home given that there is better technology to enjoy them at home? Not many. The stadium occupancy rates for sporting events are similar, if not better than what they were a decade ago.This, slightly lengthy book, is thorough and exceptionally written. It is your go to guide for learning to to create customer-centric systems. It is specific to designing good UX for technology/systems, and doesn’t cover things such as designing services, although many concepts are cross-applicable in reality. | https://uxdesign.cc/must-read-books-for-those-aspiring-to-be-ux-designers-and-those-moving-up-the-ladder-84694766575f | ['Aviram Vijh'] | 2018-12-13 01:35:43.810000+00:00 | ['Hows', 'UX', 'Books', 'Design', 'Aviram'] | Title Must read book aspiring UX designersContent Must read book aspiring UX designer moving ladder start want UX designer decided willing invest energy learning skill acquiring knowledge required become one start I’d say book article recommend five book aspiring UX designer must read internalise five already UX designer want move career ladder first five Dr Donald Norman’s seminal work favourite book list fact think book everyone read included college syllabus updated version 2013 provides relevant example needed communicate today’s audience Norman wrote book many reason initial thought frustration encountered ‘everyday things’ inability operate simple thing frustrating feeling flustered confused inability operate thing realized much problem due poorly designed interface made realize people shouldn’t feel guilty stupid inability operate device fault unintuitive interface — shift problem space design good interface taught think design problem fact taught look problem critically learn realize problem world pertain product service design problem one level It’s worth summarizing main content book Chapter 1 talk idea user shouldn’t need engineering degree know use product introduces key principle visibility mapping affordances signifier constraint conceptual model feedback Plenty fun stuff Chapter 2 talk psychology behind design really go user’s head try douse something Chapter 3 call ‘knowledge head’ ‘knowledge world’ explains people remember stuff design aid people thing particular manner prevent mistake frustration Chapter 4 constraint tell exactly sort constraint help prevent error talk physical semantic cultural logical constraint Chapter 5 deal idea ‘to err human’ therefore good designer must think sort errorsproblems user likely make using product mitigate frustration arising making error Chapter 6 one favorite talk constant battle aesthetic usability general truth world people Chapter 7 dive usercentered design process explains make great product following certain way working Start book beginning journey anything related UX Steve Krugg’s witty book wittier title live world changed dramatically user often playing catch Every new product work differently Every new app us different interaction standard Every second website try define new information architecture thing organized Users unconsciously decided start rejecting product service require learn something new simply require think much Designers must understand empathize user one single day 1000 apps alone added App Store similar number Playstore simple search screen recorder App Store something recently gave 300 result thing know one download first one free one highest rated one 20 rating mean rest bad simply untried smallest lightest one many variable Users today’s world expect thing ‘just work’ ‘just get it’ unless product pathbreaking one zero competition smart deleted worse ignored book contains numerous example illustrate several fundamental principle keep mind designing anything product website apps service notable topic include fact user don’t read stuff anymore merely scan design home page usability argument often waste time conduct cheap usability testing Another seminal work field UX Different Norman’s work specific UX designer start introduce UXers go planning executing UX work effectively I’ve deliberately introduced book first two recommend reading two build empathy field people involved challenge Jesse James Garrett UX stalwart authored book 2002 published current edition 2010 worked one renowned UX consultancy called Adaptive Path Coming book smartly break entire UX lifecycle five phase skeleton Surface Skeleton Structure Scope Strategy Let’s look example book better understand plane people one time another purchased book Web experience pretty much every time — go site find book want maybe using search engine maybe browsing catalog give site credit card number address site confirms book shipped neat tidy experience actually result whole set decision — small large — site look behaves allows decision build upon informing influencing aspect user experience peel away layer experience begin understand decision madeThe Surface Plane surface see series Web page made image text image thing click performing sort function taking shopping cart image illustration photograph book cover logo site Skeleton Plane Beneath surface skeleton site placement button tab photo block text skeleton designed optimize arrangement element maximum effect efficiency — remember logo find shopping cart button need Structure Plane skeleton concrete expression abstract structure site skeleton might define placement interface element checkout page structure would define user got page could go finished skeleton might define arrangement navigational item allowing user browse category book structure would define category actually Scope Plane structure defines way various feature function site fit together feature function constitutes scope site site sell book offer feature enables user save previously used address used question whether feature — feature — included site question scope Strategy Plane scope fundamentally determined strategy site strategy incorporates people running site want get user want get site well case bookstore example strategic objective pretty obvious Users want buy book want sell objective might easy articulate interdisciplinary book also available pocket book must designer little 200 page Universal Principles Design explains wide variety foundational design concept including performance load Occam’s Razor product adoption lifecycle Superbly illustrated thoroughly explained text provides detailed summary 100 mental model relate design process principle explained two page complete visual example reference text study little 200 page Universal Principles Design explains wide variety foundational design concept including performance load Occam’s Razor product adoption lifecycle Superbly illustrated thoroughly explained text provides detailed summary 100 mental model relate design process principle explained two page complete visual example reference text study obviously hard remember principle recommend reading book taking note relevant principle depending likely work using reference future project first book step forward term highly involved diving detail gather data build product usercentered manner slightly older book therefore entirely date example 2017 superbly researched presented remains relevant 2017 touch key aspect ‘context’ something you’ll hear often world UX fact UX context every thing put simply need understand user want term product service also use product service use app hurry think Maps use product case emergency think fire extinguisher use service emotionally charged period think insurance designer learn understand take account context use without best product might totally fail example 2006 American telecom giant Verizon introduced mobile ESPN service phone idea sport lover pay premium access favorite sport go failed miserably bad product Probably failed recognize watching sport social enthralling activity people want friend family Think many people go bank today v many almost everything online number former growing exponentially many people previously watched sport stadium watch sport mostly home given better technology enjoy home many stadium occupancy rate sporting event similar better decade agoThis slightly lengthy book thorough exceptionally written go guide learning create customercentric system specific designing good UX technologysystems doesn’t cover thing designing service although many concept crossapplicable realityTags Hows UX Books Design Aviram |
2,264 | The Every Day Novelist: RESOURCES | I attended AWP 2019 — a writer’s conference. It had an expo that was literally packed full of booths full of small presses seeking submissions for writers, writers programs, and workshops. I thought the best way to share the information I picked up might be to write a little information about each press and collect them here in The Every Day Novelist publication. Each publication or workshop will get its own post and I’ll collect them here.
Broadsided Press is a non-paying market for poetry and prose. They also offer opportunities to become grassroots publishers.
December Magazine is a paying market for poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and visual art. they host annual contests for poetry and prose.
Hippocampus Magazine and Books is a paying market for creative non-fiction. They also host an annual conference for creative non-fiction writers.
Minerva Rising Press is a paying market for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photography, and art. They also host a blog that accepts submissions, and three contests (poetry, fiction, memoir.) They offer book development services for a fee.
Pacifica Literary Review is a non-paying market for poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, visual art, and photography. They also offer contests. | https://medium.com/the-1000-day-mfa/the-every-day-novelist-resources-fb83994ed22b | ['Shaunta Grimes'] | 2019-04-18 18:57:37.234000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Reading', 'Resources', 'Publication', 'Books'] | Title Every Day Novelist RESOURCESContent attended AWP 2019 — writer’s conference expo literally packed full booth full small press seeking submission writer writer program workshop thought best way share information picked might write little information press collect Every Day Novelist publication publication workshop get post I’ll collect Broadsided Press nonpaying market poetry prose also offer opportunity become grassroots publisher December Magazine paying market poetry fiction creative nonfiction visual art host annual contest poetry prose Hippocampus Magazine Books paying market creative nonfiction also host annual conference creative nonfiction writer Minerva Rising Press paying market fiction nonfiction poetry photography art also host blog accepts submission three contest poetry fiction memoir offer book development service fee Pacifica Literary Review nonpaying market poetry fiction creative nonfiction visual art photography also offer contestsTags Writing Reading Resources Publication Books |
2,265 | IBM Design helps Eclipse Codewind win silver in the New York Design Awards | As we see a rise in developer advocacy across the tech industry, the importance of developer experience rises with it. This has created a huge opportunity for design to make an impact. Eclipse Codewind met this challenge head on, and as a result won silver in the New York Design Awards 2020 developer platform/tool/framework category.
The New York Design Awards, run by DrivenxDesign Award Programs, recognizes design that leads the way in technology and innovation. Their developer platform/tool/framework category honors platforms and services that speed up the development lifecycle and power design-driven features and experiences that would have taken years to bring to market.
How does Eclipse Codewind help developers?
Developers can discover Codewind outside of the IBM ecosystem, giving it a more open source look and feel
Designing for developer experiences deserves unique considerations. Building and developing a cloud native, containerized applications is incredibly complex for developers, preventing them from doing the one thing they really want to do: code. They prefer developing within their preferred integrated developer environment (IDE) and avoid ping-ponging between different apps in order to get things done.
Eclipse Codewind is an open source project that makes it easier for developers to create cloud-native applications within their favorite IDE.
The design team at IBM took this opportunity to contribute to open source initiatives. The goal was to apply IBM Enterprise Design Thinking in adapting a browser based application to a plug-in, and converting its complex functionality to fit within some of the most popular IDE’s.
Thorough research led the way
We believe that user research is the secret sauce to any good design. Several user interviews revealed the pain points that application developers often face, and the design team walked away with three key insights.
First, time spent learning and setting up infrastructures often feels tedious, keeping them from focusing on more complex problems. Second, developers part of a larger team struggle to consistently maintain standards and compliance. And lastly, they’re looking for a streamlined and automated process of creating, building, modifying, and testing containerized apps.
As they began implementation, the design team tested Eclipse Codewind’s user experience with developers in order to inform their design roadmap. Through this research, they learned that users struggled with the getting started experience.
An As-is Scenario Map helped the design team align around user pain points
In response, they added project templates and a welcome page so that users won’t have to rely on documentation in order to start their first project.
These changes helped immensely. Before, only 6 out of 8 users knew how to start their first project after installing Codewind. After they improved the experience, every user they tested with immediately knew how to complete the task.
The Quick Start section lets users know they can begin a project with a template
It’s a nice Quick Start screen and I like the big buttons. Usually with any new tools like this, it’s digging through documentation to figure out where to go and what to do. — User interview
The success of this design team reminds us that design must prioritize applied user research in order to stay user-centered. I’m so proud to see their hard work recognized.
Winning team
Design manager: Jay Cagle
Design team: Kim Holmes, Michelle Wang, Guy Loret de Mola, Rachel Chen | https://medium.com/design-ibm/ibm-design-helps-eclipse-codewind-win-silver-in-the-new-york-design-awards-2176c9347f12 | ['Arin Bhowmick'] | 2020-12-16 20:48:54.398000+00:00 | ['UI', 'UX Design', 'UX', 'Development', 'Design'] | Title IBM Design help Eclipse Codewind win silver New York Design AwardsContent see rise developer advocacy across tech industry importance developer experience rise created huge opportunity design make impact Eclipse Codewind met challenge head result silver New York Design Awards 2020 developer platformtoolframework category New York Design Awards run DrivenxDesign Award Programs recognizes design lead way technology innovation developer platformtoolframework category honor platform service speed development lifecycle power designdriven feature experience would taken year bring market Eclipse Codewind help developer Developers discover Codewind outside IBM ecosystem giving open source look feel Designing developer experience deserves unique consideration Building developing cloud native containerized application incredibly complex developer preventing one thing really want code prefer developing within preferred integrated developer environment IDE avoid pingponging different apps order get thing done Eclipse Codewind open source project make easier developer create cloudnative application within favorite IDE design team IBM took opportunity contribute open source initiative goal apply IBM Enterprise Design Thinking adapting browser based application plugin converting complex functionality fit within popular IDE’s Thorough research led way believe user research secret sauce good design Several user interview revealed pain point application developer often face design team walked away three key insight First time spent learning setting infrastructure often feel tedious keeping focusing complex problem Second developer part larger team struggle consistently maintain standard compliance lastly they’re looking streamlined automated process creating building modifying testing containerized apps began implementation design team tested Eclipse Codewind’s user experience developer order inform design roadmap research learned user struggled getting started experience Asis Scenario Map helped design team align around user pain point response added project template welcome page user won’t rely documentation order start first project change helped immensely 6 8 user knew start first project installing Codewind improved experience every user tested immediately knew complete task Quick Start section let user know begin project template It’s nice Quick Start screen like big button Usually new tool like it’s digging documentation figure go — User interview success design team reminds u design must prioritize applied user research order stay usercentered I’m proud see hard work recognized Winning team Design manager Jay Cagle Design team Kim Holmes Michelle Wang Guy Loret de Mola Rachel ChenTags UI UX Design UX Development Design |
2,266 | Pause | Back when it was optional
Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash
July 2017
For the last thirty days or so, I wrote every day. Two days ago I hit the pause button and took a break just to check in with my internal guidance.
You see, I have OCD tendencies. I’m a list maker. The kind of person who will put something on a list after they’ve done it simply for the satisfaction of then crossing it off said list. I wanted to make sure my creative pursuit wasn’t falling into this same trap. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t becoming a compulsion rather than an outlet.
So I paused. It was good timing. I have been interviewing for a real-life career change and it wasn’t as though I had a lot left over to put down in black and white anyway. This past week had left me drained dry and the ability to step away, not think, and completely collapse at the end of My Day was a gift I gave to myself.
Balance is tough. In All. The. Things. Even those you love. Maybe especially those you love. Like eating candy or binge-watching your favorite Netflix show.
Moderation is key.
Rest and recuperation from all aspects of Life can give a fresh perspective. Learning to sit with your own company and listen to your inner wisdom is a skill set.
The moral of this story: balancing My Real Life with my creative life with my spiritual life with my personal life seems to be the path to wholeness.
Thanks for walking awhile with me.
Namaste. | https://medium.com/recycled/pause-ed1640e0a0de | ['Ann Litts'] | 2020-04-24 19:21:22.292000+00:00 | ['Balance', 'Mindfulness', 'Ocd', 'Self-awareness', 'Writing'] | Title PauseContent Back optional Photo Katie Moum Unsplash July 2017 last thirty day wrote every day Two day ago hit pause button took break check internal guidance see OCD tendency I’m list maker kind person put something list they’ve done simply satisfaction crossing said list wanted make sure creative pursuit wasn’t falling trap wanted make sure wasn’t becoming compulsion rather outlet paused good timing interviewing reallife career change wasn’t though lot left put black white anyway past week left drained dry ability step away think completely collapse end Day gift gave Balance tough Things Even love Maybe especially love Like eating candy bingewatching favorite Netflix show Moderation key Rest recuperation aspect Life give fresh perspective Learning sit company listen inner wisdom skill set moral story balancing Real Life creative life spiritual life personal life seems path wholeness Thanks walking awhile NamasteTags Balance Mindfulness Ocd Selfawareness Writing |
2,267 | 35,000 views. 82 cents. When Going Viral Doesn’t Pay. | Sometimes, going viral is a good thing. Especially when all those views drop dollars in the bank like you just hit the jackpot. Because while writing is fun and soothes the savage beast, getting paid to write makes it even more fun.
The reality of writing is that writers often struggle…
We all know that content mills don’t pay. Pretty hard to make a living on sites that pay $10 or $20 for 2500 words. Researched and edited, of course.
But the truth is, it’s not much better here. For every piece that hits $500 or $1000, there’s 20 more that didn’t even make $20. Or $10.
If you did the math, you’d probably find that flipping burgers pays better.
I mean — how long does it take you to write an article? If you take 2 hours to draft, edit, find a photo and publish to earn $20? It’s just math.
Math, and a little bit of random luck.
Often, the pieces that pay are the ones that took off like you breathed some kind of magic while you were typing and you have no idea how or what you did to make the magic happen. You can read all the “how to” tips and they can’t tell you how to replicate the magic, either.
Dumb luck, sometimes.
A lot of writers think more views will pay off…
You see it in the FB groups all the time. People talking about how many views they’re getting while everyone else watches wistfully, imagining that those views must surely translate to dollars.
I’m here to tell you it doesn’t always work that way.
But no. Let me show you.
I messed up so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.
My #1 viewed story — 44K views — $93
If you were to google “story of two wolves” or even just “two wolves” you’d find this piece stapled to the top of page one. That was the problem. 96% of the views are external and we only get paid for internal views.
The only reason it made anything at all was likely that it was curated. The 4% internal views were likely driven by curation. Without curation, it likely would have earned even less.
And honestly, the 4 minute read time didn’t help. If it had been a tad longer, it may have paid a little better for the few internal views it got. See? | https://medium.com/linda-caroll/35-000-views-82-cents-when-going-viral-doesnt-pay-b99ad34e8c9 | ['Linda Caroll'] | 2020-07-24 07:56:23.148000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Advice', 'Inspiration', 'Marketing', 'Ideas'] | Title 35000 view 82 cent Going Viral Doesn’t PayContent Sometimes going viral good thing Especially view drop dollar bank like hit jackpot writing fun soothes savage beast getting paid write make even fun reality writing writer often struggle… know content mill don’t pay Pretty hard make living site pay 10 20 2500 word Researched edited course truth it’s much better every piece hit 500 1000 there’s 20 didn’t even make 20 10 math you’d probably find flipping burger pay better mean — long take write article take 2 hour draft edit find photo publish earn 20 It’s math Math little bit random luck Often piece pay one took like breathed kind magic typing idea make magic happen read “how to” tip can’t tell replicate magic either Dumb luck sometimes lot writer think view pay off… see FB group time People talking many view they’re getting everyone else watch wistfully imagining view must surely translate dollar I’m tell doesn’t always work way Let show messed don’t You’re welcome 1 viewed story — 44K view — 93 google “story two wolves” even “two wolves” you’d find piece stapled top page one problem 96 view external get paid internal view reason made anything likely curated 4 internal view likely driven curation Without curation likely would earned even le honestly 4 minute read time didn’t help tad longer may paid little better internal view got SeeTags Writing Advice Inspiration Marketing Ideas |
2,268 | The Psychological Effects of the Zero-Tolerance Immigration Policy | Effects of separation of children from parents outlined in a special issue on zero-tolerance immigration policy.
By Gavin Crowell-Williamson
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s (AACAP) flagship journal, the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACP), recently released an open-access compilation of articles focusing on family separation and its relationship to toxic stress and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The compilation comes on the heels of President Trump’s Zero-Tolerance Policy, which prosecutes all adults apprehended for crossing the border illegally, irrespective of asylum status or extenuating circumstances such as traveling with a minor.
Over 2,300 children were separated from their parents within just one month (May 5th — June 9th) of the zero-tolerance policy’s implementation. Mad in America has previously reported on studies with a similar focus, and has noted the response of various psychology groups to the policy, but the AACAP’s response takes a more tangible step than a joint public statement.
The AACAP began its engagement with the zero-tolerance policy when it released a statement in June, which reads, in part:
“As child and adolescent psychiatrists, we recognize that parental support is an essential and proven factor for protecting children and helping children recover from the negative impacts of stress and trauma. Maternal support has been shown to strengthen neuroprotective factors in the brain during childhood, when children’s brains are most vulnerable. Separating children from their families in times of stress can place children at heightened and unnecessary risk for developing potentially serious and long lasting traumatic stress reactions, at the very time when they are most in need of care and support.”
The journal Pediatrics released a similar statement in June, including links to a variety of articles from their journal that provided support for keeping parents and children together. The JAACAP then joined their colleagues at Pediatrics in creating their open-access compilation, which contains articles it has published since 2008 focusing on the impact of separation from a variety of different angles. JAACAP announced it will maintain and continue to update the compilation until the zero-tolerance policy is no longer in effect. The compilation includes eight major topics, including Separation, Epidemiology, Epigenetic, Neuroimaging/Neurological, PTSD, Treatment, Longitudinal and Review/Editorial.
The Separation section focuses on articles such as a 2018 piece from Javanbakht and colleagues entitled Mental Health in Syrian Refugee Children Resettling in the United States: War Trauma, Migration, and the Role of Parental Stress. The piece examines anxiety and PTSD risk factors in Syrian refugee children who were recently re-settled in southeast Michigan. More than half of the refugee children had a possible anxiety disorder, while three quarters of the sample showed signs of possible separation anxiety. PTSD symptoms, meanwhile, were found in over 6% of the sample, which is higher than the general prevalence in the US. The authors recommended addressing the distress within the family as a means to avoid the lifelong medical and psychiatric consequences of such disorders.
The Epidemiology section features pieces such as Maternal Early Life Experiences and Parenting: The Mediating Role of Cortisol and Executive Function. In this study, Gonzalez and colleagues investigated whether biological changes to systems such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis mediate the relationship between early-life experiences of mothers and their current parenting behaviors. Results showed an indirect relationship between maternal early life experiences, conceptualized as consistency of care and childhood maltreatment, and maternal sensitivity in parenting. The relationship had two different pathways, one through HPA function and another through HPA function and spatial working memory. The authors suggest this has implications in terms of prioritizing parenting programs to relieve stress and improve executive function to provide more sensitive caregiving.
The Epigenetic section has only one piece, a 2014 article by Weder et al. called Child Abuse, Depression, and Methylation in Genes Involved with Stress, Neural Plasticity, and Brain Circuitry. The study investigated epigenetic markers as a means to predict depression in maltreated children, and found that changes in the ID3, GRIN1 and TPPP genes, in combination with maltreatment, were potentially predictive for depression in children. The genes are all relevant in stress response, neural plasticity and neural circuitry.
The Neuroimaging/Neurological section contains pieces such as McLaughlin et al.’s 2015 article, Child Maltreatment and Neural Systems Underlying Emotion Regulation. The piece investigated the association between child maltreatment and neural response during passive viewing of valenced stimuli and effortful attempts to regulate emotions. The study recruited adolescents, half of whom had experienced physical and/or sexual abuse, and found that maltreatment heightened the salience of negative emotional stimuli via amygdala, putamen and anterior insula activity. The researchers suggested that maltreated adolescents use regions of the brain involved in effortful control to an increased degree when modulating the amygdala, perhaps because greater effort is necessitated in modulating the amygdala.
In the PTSD section, articles such as Russell and colleagues’ 2017 piece The Network Structure of Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in Children and Adolescents Exposed to Disasters are featured. The team evaluated children and adolescents exposed to Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav for PTSD symptoms, hoping to evaluate the underlying network structure of PTSD. Their results showcased how PTSD can be viewed as a malleable web of interactions between symptoms that vary across development, which has important clinical implications in that clinicians may be able to focus more directly on central symptoms that have a cascading effect on symptoms down the road.
The Treatment section focuses dominantly on the cultural adaptation of psychological trauma treatment for children, as well as investigating different contextual factors of disaster and trauma. One such factor was studied by Wolmer and colleagues, who wrote Preventing Children’s Posttraumatic Stress After Disaster with Teacher-Based Intervention: A Controlled Study. The focus of their study was whether a teacher-based preventative intervention could impact trauma symptoms in nearly 1,500 4th and 5th grade Israeli students subject to continuous rocket attacks. The results were overwhelmingly positive, as the control group showed 57% more cases of PTSD than did the intervention group, an effect that was more strongly pronounced in boys than girls.
“Encounters with stress and adversity are unavoidable and stress resistance cannot reasonably reside in the avoidance of risk experiences but, rather, in successful engagement with and mastery of them,” wrote the researchers. “However, even mild stressful events may increase vulnerability to the effects of subsequent stressors if they supersede the developing organism’s ability to cope with them. Therefore, the type, timing, duration, and severity of a given stressor within a given species are likely to be important factors in determining whether early experiences ultimately produce a protective or deleterious outcome.”
The Longitudinal section features a variety of topics, including a 4-year longitudinal study from Henrich and Shahar, Effects of Exposure to Rocket Attacks on Adolescent Distress and Violence: A 4-Year Longitudinal Study. Henrich and Shahar naturalistically explored how exposure to rocket attacks, anxiety, aggression, depression and violence commission were tied together. Their results differed on concurrent and longitudinal levels. Longitudinal results showed a robust effect on violence commission, moderate effects of exposure to rocket attacks on anxiety and depression and no effect on aggression. Concurrent results, meanwhile, showed that Wave 1 exposure associated with anxiety, depression, and aggression. Exposure in Wave 2 predicted violence commission in Wave 3, while exposure to terror attacks before the study were predictive of violence commission at Wave 4.
Lastly, the Review/Editorial section featured a series of more long-form prose, where contributors such as Dr. Balkozar Adam wrote on Treating Refugees from Syria and Beyond: A Moral and Professional Responsibility. Dr. Adam writes:
“The first step and the first principle of the Practice Parameter are to identify possible barriers that can stand in the way of treatment. For example, minorities and refugees alike often wait to access services, in part because they fear the ‘double discrimination’ of being a minority and a person with mental illness… As difficult as it might be for us to admit, we all have our biases. Our cultural biases and stereotypes can interfere with our ability to treat. These tend to be subconscious thoughts that creep into our actions. Don’t shy away from consulting with a colleague who is familiar with the culture or religion of the patient at hand. Awareness of cultural differences in the expression of distress will help us better understand the needs of our diverse patients.”
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The special edition is available to the public at no cost: https://jaacap.org/toxicstress# | https://medium.com/mad-in-america/the-psychological-effects-of-the-zero-tolerance-immigration-policy-40938202ecf1 | ['Mad In America'] | 2018-12-23 11:45:36.652000+00:00 | ['Mental Illness', 'Immigration', 'Psychology', 'Mental Health', 'Donald Trump'] | Title Psychological Effects ZeroTolerance Immigration PolicyContent Effects separation child parent outlined special issue zerotolerance immigration policy Gavin CrowellWilliamson American Academy Child Adolescent Psychiatry’s AACAP flagship journal Journal American Academy Child Adolescent Psychiatry JAACP recently released openaccess compilation article focusing family separation relationship toxic stress adverse childhood experience ACEs compilation come heel President Trump’s ZeroTolerance Policy prosecutes adult apprehended crossing border illegally irrespective asylum status extenuating circumstance traveling minor 2300 child separated parent within one month May 5th — June 9th zerotolerance policy’s implementation Mad America previously reported study similar focus noted response various psychology group policy AACAP’s response take tangible step joint public statement AACAP began engagement zerotolerance policy released statement June read part “As child adolescent psychiatrist recognize parental support essential proven factor protecting child helping child recover negative impact stress trauma Maternal support shown strengthen neuroprotective factor brain childhood children’s brain vulnerable Separating child family time stress place child heightened unnecessary risk developing potentially serious long lasting traumatic stress reaction time need care support” journal Pediatrics released similar statement June including link variety article journal provided support keeping parent child together JAACAP joined colleague Pediatrics creating openaccess compilation contains article published since 2008 focusing impact separation variety different angle JAACAP announced maintain continue update compilation zerotolerance policy longer effect compilation includes eight major topic including Separation Epidemiology Epigenetic NeuroimagingNeurological PTSD Treatment Longitudinal ReviewEditorial Separation section focus article 2018 piece Javanbakht colleague entitled Mental Health Syrian Refugee Children Resettling United States War Trauma Migration Role Parental Stress piece examines anxiety PTSD risk factor Syrian refugee child recently resettled southeast Michigan half refugee child possible anxiety disorder three quarter sample showed sign possible separation anxiety PTSD symptom meanwhile found 6 sample higher general prevalence US author recommended addressing distress within family mean avoid lifelong medical psychiatric consequence disorder Epidemiology section feature piece Maternal Early Life Experiences Parenting Mediating Role Cortisol Executive Function study Gonzalez colleague investigated whether biological change system hypothalamicpituitaryadrenal HPA axis mediate relationship earlylife experience mother current parenting behavior Results showed indirect relationship maternal early life experience conceptualized consistency care childhood maltreatment maternal sensitivity parenting relationship two different pathway one HPA function another HPA function spatial working memory author suggest implication term prioritizing parenting program relieve stress improve executive function provide sensitive caregiving Epigenetic section one piece 2014 article Weder et al called Child Abuse Depression Methylation Genes Involved Stress Neural Plasticity Brain Circuitry study investigated epigenetic marker mean predict depression maltreated child found change ID3 GRIN1 TPPP gene combination maltreatment potentially predictive depression child gene relevant stress response neural plasticity neural circuitry NeuroimagingNeurological section contains piece McLaughlin et al’s 2015 article Child Maltreatment Neural Systems Underlying Emotion Regulation piece investigated association child maltreatment neural response passive viewing valenced stimulus effortful attempt regulate emotion study recruited adolescent half experienced physical andor sexual abuse found maltreatment heightened salience negative emotional stimulus via amygdala putamen anterior insula activity researcher suggested maltreated adolescent use region brain involved effortful control increased degree modulating amygdala perhaps greater effort necessitated modulating amygdala PTSD section article Russell colleagues’ 2017 piece Network Structure Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms Children Adolescents Exposed Disasters featured team evaluated child adolescent exposed Hurricanes Katrina Gustav PTSD symptom hoping evaluate underlying network structure PTSD result showcased PTSD viewed malleable web interaction symptom vary across development important clinical implication clinician may able focus directly central symptom cascading effect symptom road Treatment section focus dominantly cultural adaptation psychological trauma treatment child well investigating different contextual factor disaster trauma One factor studied Wolmer colleague wrote Preventing Children’s Posttraumatic Stress Disaster TeacherBased Intervention Controlled Study focus study whether teacherbased preventative intervention could impact trauma symptom nearly 1500 4th 5th grade Israeli student subject continuous rocket attack result overwhelmingly positive control group showed 57 case PTSD intervention group effect strongly pronounced boy girl “Encounters stress adversity unavoidable stress resistance cannot reasonably reside avoidance risk experience rather successful engagement mastery them” wrote researcher “However even mild stressful event may increase vulnerability effect subsequent stressor supersede developing organism’s ability cope Therefore type timing duration severity given stressor within given specie likely important factor determining whether early experience ultimately produce protective deleterious outcome” Longitudinal section feature variety topic including 4year longitudinal study Henrich Shahar Effects Exposure Rocket Attacks Adolescent Distress Violence 4Year Longitudinal Study Henrich Shahar naturalistically explored exposure rocket attack anxiety aggression depression violence commission tied together result differed concurrent longitudinal level Longitudinal result showed robust effect violence commission moderate effect exposure rocket attack anxiety depression effect aggression Concurrent result meanwhile showed Wave 1 exposure associated anxiety depression aggression Exposure Wave 2 predicted violence commission Wave 3 exposure terror attack study predictive violence commission Wave 4 Lastly ReviewEditorial section featured series longform prose contributor Dr Balkozar Adam wrote Treating Refugees Syria Beyond Moral Professional Responsibility Dr Adam writes “The first step first principle Practice Parameter identify possible barrier stand way treatment example minority refugee alike often wait access service part fear ‘double discrimination’ minority person mental illness… difficult might u admit bias cultural bias stereotype interfere ability treat tend subconscious thought creep action Don’t shy away consulting colleague familiar culture religion patient hand Awareness cultural difference expression distress help u better understand need diverse patients” special edition available public cost httpsjaacaporgtoxicstressTags Mental Illness Immigration Psychology Mental Health Donald Trump |
2,269 | Natural Language Processing with spaCy — Steps and Examples | Reading a String
Text preprocessing is an important part and crucial step in natural language processing. It transforms the raw text into a number where Machine learning algorithms can perform better.
In the below text example,
Code
text = """ The Republican president is being challenged by Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden, who is best known as Barack Obama’s vice-president but has been in US politics since the 1970s.As election day approaches, pollingcompanies will be trying to gauge the mood of the nation by asking voters which candidate they prefer.""" #Passing the text to nlp and initialize an object called 'doc' doc = nlp(text) #Checking the type of doc object type(doc)
Output
When the above text is passing to ‘nlp object, spaCy first tokenizes the text to product ‘doc’ object. Then the ‘doc’ object is then processed into several steps such as tagger, parser, ner,etc.. This is also called a processing pipeline. The type of doc object is tokens. We are going to see the steps involved in the pipeline one by one. | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/natural-language-processing-with-spacy-steps-and-examples-155618e84103 | ['Dhilip Subramanian'] | 2020-09-29 13:27:12.721000+00:00 | ['NLP', 'Data Science', 'Python', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence'] | Title Natural Language Processing spaCy — Steps ExamplesContent Reading String Text preprocessing important part crucial step natural language processing transforms raw text number Machine learning algorithm perform better text example Code text Republican president challenged Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden best known Barack Obama’s vicepresident US politics since 1970sAs election day approach pollingcompanies trying gauge mood nation asking voter candidate prefer Passing text nlp initialize object called doc doc nlptext Checking type doc object typedoc Output text passing ‘nlp object spaCy first tokenizes text product ‘doc’ object ‘doc’ object processed several step tagger parser neretc also called processing pipeline type doc object token going see step involved pipeline one oneTags NLP Data Science Python Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence |
2,270 | 2 Best Practices For React File Structures | There is no by-the-book best practice for your React app’s file structure. Ultimately, these decisions are based on what works best for you and your team. These two tips are what finally helped me make sense of the chaos that is managing React components and assets in my IDE.
Tip 1: Use This Versatile Folder Structure
If you generate a new React app — from create-react-app, for instance — you will see everything that was created is just stuffed into the src folder. That’s fine for your app when it’s first created, but it gives you no insight about how you should ultimately structure your app’s files!
Here is the solution that I use to make React file structures actually make sense:
src
.assets
..images
...image1.png
...image2.png
..styles
...global.css
...package.json
..fonts
...sansSerifExample.woff
...serifExample.woff
.components
..App
...App.css
...App.js
...App.test.js
...package.json
..Login
...Login.css
...Login.js
...Login.test.js
...checkmark.png
...exclamation.png
...package.json
..Button
...Button.css
...Button.js
...Button.test.js
...package.json
.utility
..registerServiceWorker.js
..utilityFunction1.js
..utilityFunction2.js
Depending on the project, you may drift from this general outline, but I’ve found it to be the best solution so far. Here’s why:
First, it’s well-organized and easily understood.
Under the src folder, we have child folders for assets , components , and utility functions.
Under assets , we have child folders for global CSS files, image files, and fonts. The assets folder is for any fixed asset that will be used globally within your project. These may take the form of fonts, branding images, color or pattern swatches, CSS that needs to be applicable across the entire project — whatever non-component assets that you need to have global access to go here. You may find it helpful to store other fixed assets here as well if your project has unique categories that aren’t listed in the example above. Just group them in an appropriate child folder and you’re good to go.
There is also a utility folder, which is used to store utility functions that are used across the project — you might also know these as helper functions. This is a great way to keep track of the additional functional utilities you have created for your app. I often find myself copying these files wholesale from one project to another — I know I will need them eventually, after all. Centralizing them in one location saves me time not only when working on this project, but when working on future projects, too. This folder provides a known location for all of the custom utilities that I might want to duplicate elsewhere.
We also have a folder most devs using React should be very familiar with — a components folder. As the name suggests, this is for components… But not just their individual js files! For each individual Component , we will create a unique child folder under components with the same name as the Component .
Within each named Component folder, we store each file that is associated with the Component :
A js file for the Component ’s code.
file for the ’s code. A test file for any individual testing of the Component .
file for any individual testing of the . A CSS file for the Component ’s custom styles.
file for the ’s custom styles. Any images or other assets that are only used for this particular Component .
or other that are only used for this particular . And a… package.json file? Isn’t there supposed to be an index.js file or something?
Often in these types of React file structures, you will see an index.js file. Sometimes, index.js is simply the Component ’s JavaScript, whose default export is the Component itself. Other times, index.js just import s and return s the Component itself. It’s a bit of connecting things together that serves no real purpose other than allowing you to import your Component using only the folder name. While that’s a nice quality-of-life improvement, using an index.js file has plenty of other issues — most of which seem to center around the future, when you inevitably have to refactor something.
Believe it or not, you’ve had a solution to these issues in front of you this entire time, and you just didn’t know it… That solution is webpack.
Tip 2: Take Advantage Of Webpack For Indexing Files
You’ll notice a package.json file in each Component ’s folder. This is the perfect solution to the index.js problems I just mentioned! All you have to do is create a package.json file for each Component , and list its “main” value as the file that has your primary Component code in it. So in the Button Component folder above, its package.json file has the following JSON:
{
“main”: “Button.js”
}
…and that’s it! That’s all we need to add to the file to make sure we are handling our import properly! Webpack handles the rest for us. It’s a module bundler, and we’re using it for the thing that it does best — directing import statements to the right places! It’s just saying “Hey, guess what? When you import this Button folder, the main thing you will be importing is Button.js!”
So by using a statement like import Button from ‘../Button’; with our package.json solution, the outcome will be the same as if we had used import Button from ‘../Button/Button.js’; or import Button from ‘../Button/index.js’; with our old index.js solution!
It’s a small adjustment, but it helps fix issues with correcting your import s in the future when you rename Components or have conditional import logic. Webpack gives you a nice, standardized import structure, which will definitely save you headaches in the future.
And I didn’t mention this before, but the same can be done for other folders and files, too! In the src/assets/styles folder, there is a package.json whose JSON is:
{
“main”: “global.css”
}
And import ing it in a Component is as easy as typing import ‘../../assets/styles’; !
Thanks For Reading
The above are two best practices I started using a while ago, and since that time, they have made handling React file structures an absolute breeze. The mental model I have of my code is consistent across projects now, and refactoring has been made a little bit easier by utilizing webpack for bundling files within folders properly.
If you have any tips for React file structure best practices, be sure to let me know! Now go out there and fix your folders! | https://medium.com/dev-genius/2-best-practices-for-react-file-structures-b07da6c477aa | ['Dan Brioli'] | 2020-12-17 17:01:49.320000+00:00 | ['Files', 'Front End Development', 'React', 'Web Development', 'Development'] | Title 2 Best Practices React File StructuresContent bythebook best practice React app’s file structure Ultimately decision based work best team two tip finally helped make sense chaos managing React component asset IDE Tip 1 Use Versatile Folder Structure generate new React app — createreactapp instance — see everything created stuffed src folder That’s fine app it’s first created give insight ultimately structure app’s file solution use make React file structure actually make sense src asset image image1png image2png style globalcss packagejson font sansSerifExamplewoff serifExamplewoff component App Appcss Appjs Apptestjs packagejson Login Logincss Loginjs Logintestjs checkmarkpng exclamationpng packagejson Button Buttoncss Buttonjs Buttontestjs packagejson utility registerServiceWorkerjs utilityFunction1js utilityFunction2js Depending project may drift general outline I’ve found best solution far Here’s First it’s wellorganized easily understood src folder child folder asset component utility function asset child folder global CSS file image file font asset folder fixed asset used globally within project may take form font branding image color pattern swatch CSS need applicable across entire project — whatever noncomponent asset need global access go may find helpful store fixed asset well project unique category aren’t listed example group appropriate child folder you’re good go also utility folder used store utility function used across project — might also know helper function great way keep track additional functional utility created app often find copying file wholesale one project another — know need eventually Centralizing one location save time working project working future project folder provides known location custom utility might want duplicate elsewhere also folder devs using React familiar — component folder name suggests components… individual j file individual Component create unique child folder component name Component Within named Component folder store file associated Component j file Component ’s code file ’s code test file individual testing Component file individual testing CSS file Component ’s custom style file ’s custom style image asset used particular Component used particular a… packagejson file Isn’t supposed indexjs file something Often type React file structure see indexjs file Sometimes indexjs simply Component ’s JavaScript whose default export Component time indexjs import return Component It’s bit connecting thing together serf real purpose allowing import Component using folder name that’s nice qualityoflife improvement using indexjs file plenty issue — seem center around future inevitably refactor something Believe you’ve solution issue front entire time didn’t know it… solution webpack Tip 2 Take Advantage Webpack Indexing Files You’ll notice packagejson file Component ’s folder perfect solution indexjs problem mentioned create packagejson file Component list “main” value file primary Component code Button Component folder packagejson file following JSON “main” “Buttonjs” …and that’s That’s need add file make sure handling import properly Webpack handle rest u It’s module bundler we’re using thing best — directing import statement right place It’s saying “Hey guess import Button folder main thing importing Buttonjs” using statement like import Button ‘Button’ packagejson solution outcome used import Button ‘ButtonButtonjs’ import Button ‘Buttonindexjs’ old indexjs solution It’s small adjustment help fix issue correcting import future rename Components conditional import logic Webpack give nice standardized import structure definitely save headache future didn’t mention done folder file srcassetsstyles folder packagejson whose JSON “main” “globalcss” import ing Component easy typing import ‘assetsstyles’ Thanks Reading two best practice started using ago since time made handling React file structure absolute breeze mental model code consistent across project refactoring made little bit easier utilizing webpack bundling file within folder properly tip React file structure best practice sure let know go fix foldersTags Files Front End Development React Web Development Development |
2,271 | 7 Benefits of Waking Up Early (That Have Nothing to Do With Being Rich and Famous) | You’ll Feel Like You’re Better Than Other People
Woah.
This wasn’t supposed to be one of those self-help articles that speak from a pedestal, so why is this my first point?
Confidence matters. Building skills and habits that make you feel better about yourself makes your life better in general. On top of that, human beings are wired to compare themselves to others.
So, instead of pretending like we don’t and stay stuck in negative cycles of comparison, why not find ways to feel like you’re better — not intrinsically, but behaviorally — than other people.
When you’re up at the ass crack of dawn working on your side business, exercising, or planning your day, you feel like you have a head start on the rest of the world.
Once the normal time people wake up rolls around, you feel like you’re on pace to get much more done than the average person. And it feels great.
You’ll Stop Doing This So Much
Do you ever find yourself up late at night?
Are you not getting enough sleep?
One of the biggest benefits of waking up early is the ability to go to sleep early.
If you wake up at 5 a.m. and you’re productive throughout the day, you’ll be more tired by the end of the night, making it easier to sleep. This creates a better sleep cycle. And sleep is important for your health.
Maybe you never get totally used to waking up early, but you’ll experience an overall better sleep cycle because you’re actually ready to go to bed at night.
Compare this with waking up later in the day and consuming caffeine later in the day which keeps you up longer — creating a vicious cycle where you’re stimulated yet fatigued and always feeling like you never have enough rest.
You’ll Appreciate This Much More
Do you have kids?
I have one. A 5-year-old. I love her to death, but let’s just say meditating in silence isn’t one of her favorite activities. When she wakes up, all hell breaks loose. My day has officially started and I can look forward to a ton of noise, distraction, and chaos throughout it.
Waking up early was critical in my 9 to 5 days because I had to deal with the time constraints of my job and the constraints of my child being awake and needing my attention. Combined, dealing with both is stressful. Simply having some moments to myself helped alleviate stress and anxiety.
Part of the routine involves 20 minutes of meditation. I’m not going to write a long treatise about the benefits of meditation. But for me, having just 20 minutes per day where I don’t feel like the world is spinning at ten million hours per hour makes a huge impact on my sanity.
If you’re an adult with kids, especially young ones, you live in the eye of a hurricane. Pile on your job, errands, and the other minutiae you have to deal with, and it’s enough to drive you nuts.
You don’t have to develop a meditation practice, but you can at least get to enjoy a little time with yourself. A little silence. Trust me, you probably need it.
You’ll Have a Better Chance of Accomplishing This
If you’re like 70 percent of Americans, you don’t exactly love your job.
Maybe you want to switch careers. Maybe you want to start a side business or even just a hobby that helps you exercise your creativity.
I don’t know about you, but waking up early to do that kind of work seems easier than trying to do it after work. If you’re a night owl and that routine works, good for you, don’t change.
But if you feel totally wiped out by the time you’re done with your job, getting dinner together, handling the kids, etc, a morning routine might be the only way to escape the rat race.
I never wanted to start a morning routine. In fact, I never got to the point where I loved waking up early. But I did want to get rid of my soul-sucking job and that was enough motivation for me.
You’ll Realize This
A funny thing happened to me when I started waking up early on a regular basis. I noticed how much time there is in a single 24 hour period.
It’s easy to let time slip by and, over a lifetime, you can squander the one commodity that means the most to you.
After squeezing out extra time in my day by getting up earlier, I started noticing other little cracks and crevasses to fit productive time into.
Circling back to the initial point of feeling like you’re ahead of the curve when you wake up early, that sense of pride will inspire you to find even more pockets of time to keep doing activities to increase your chances of reaching your goals.
Your morning routine becomes a keystone habit that reinforces other positive habits. The cycle keeps going up. Every action you take serves as a feedback loop for further action. Imagine starting your day in a way that positively reinforces the rest of your day.
You’ll Hardly Ever Feel Like This
I hate it when I feel like I’ve wasted a day.
If you’re lacking motivation, you might not be at this point yet, but when you start doing more work toward your dreams, you may develop a tendency to beat yourself up if you feel like you squandered a day.
When I honor my morning routine, I can always tell myself that I spent at least an hour working on my dream. That’s reassuring and motivates me to wake up and do it all over again.
You don’t have to carve out an hour + each day like I do. Your morning routine can be 10 minutes. Even that small amount of time can help you feel better about the way you spend your time.
This is because subconsciously, your brain only cares about momentum, not the magnitude of the tasks you’re doing, e.g., six straight days of a solid 10-minute routine benefits you more than a single hour-long session followed by five days where you do nothing.
You’ll Start to Feel This Way (And You’ll Never Want to Go Back)
Some people will tell you that starting a successful morning routine will part the heavens.
You’ll feel amazed and on top of the world every single day.
Nah, probably not.
But you’ll get used to it.
If you can simply get used to waking up early — not even love it — you’ll be well on your way to achieving whatever long-term goal your mornings serve.
You’ll get to reap the benefits of waking up early over and over again and it will become a habit, meaning you won’t have to do it as begrudgingly as you did when you started.
You can extend this way of thinking to a ton of positive habits like diet, exercise, saving money, and more. Over time, you start to develop an identity of someone who follows through with a habit, making it easier and easier to maintain over time.
The Bottom Line
You don’t have to do anything. Sleep in for the rest of your life if you want. I don’t care.
But if you are looking for a habit that can become a game-changer for you, waking up early is definitely one of those habits.
You have a short life and time is ticking.
Might as well get the most out of each and every day, right? | https://medium.com/the-ascent/7-benefits-of-waking-up-early-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-being-rich-and-famous-89d602d3539 | ['Ayodeji Awosika'] | 2020-12-22 13:02:38.642000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Morning Routines', 'Psychology'] | Title 7 Benefits Waking Early Nothing Rich FamousContent You’ll Feel Like You’re Better People Woah wasn’t supposed one selfhelp article speak pedestal first point Confidence matter Building skill habit make feel better make life better general top human being wired compare others instead pretending like don’t stay stuck negative cycle comparison find way feel like you’re better — intrinsically behaviorally — people you’re as crack dawn working side business exercising planning day feel like head start rest world normal time people wake roll around feel like you’re pace get much done average person feel great You’ll Stop Much ever find late night getting enough sleep One biggest benefit waking early ability go sleep early wake 5 you’re productive throughout day you’ll tired end night making easier sleep creates better sleep cycle sleep important health Maybe never get totally used waking early you’ll experience overall better sleep cycle you’re actually ready go bed night Compare waking later day consuming caffeine later day keep longer — creating vicious cycle you’re stimulated yet fatigued always feeling like never enough rest You’ll Appreciate Much kid one 5yearold love death let’s say meditating silence isn’t one favorite activity wake hell break loose day officially started look forward ton noise distraction chaos throughout Waking early critical 9 5 day deal time constraint job constraint child awake needing attention Combined dealing stressful Simply moment helped alleviate stress anxiety Part routine involves 20 minute meditation I’m going write long treatise benefit meditation 20 minute per day don’t feel like world spinning ten million hour per hour make huge impact sanity you’re adult kid especially young one live eye hurricane Pile job errand minutia deal it’s enough drive nut don’t develop meditation practice least get enjoy little time little silence Trust probably need You’ll Better Chance Accomplishing you’re like 70 percent Americans don’t exactly love job Maybe want switch career Maybe want start side business even hobby help exercise creativity don’t know waking early kind work seems easier trying work you’re night owl routine work good don’t change feel totally wiped time you’re done job getting dinner together handling kid etc morning routine might way escape rat race never wanted start morning routine fact never got point loved waking early want get rid soulsucking job enough motivation You’ll Realize funny thing happened started waking early regular basis noticed much time single 24 hour period It’s easy let time slip lifetime squander one commodity mean squeezing extra time day getting earlier started noticing little crack crevasse fit productive time Circling back initial point feeling like you’re ahead curve wake early sense pride inspire find even pocket time keep activity increase chance reaching goal morning routine becomes keystone habit reinforces positive habit cycle keep going Every action take serf feedback loop action Imagine starting day way positively reinforces rest day You’ll Hardly Ever Feel Like hate feel like I’ve wasted day you’re lacking motivation might point yet start work toward dream may develop tendency beat feel like squandered day honor morning routine always tell spent least hour working dream That’s reassuring motivates wake don’t carve hour day like morning routine 10 minute Even small amount time help feel better way spend time subconsciously brain care momentum magnitude task you’re eg six straight day solid 10minute routine benefit single hourlong session followed five day nothing You’ll Start Feel Way You’ll Never Want Go Back people tell starting successful morning routine part heaven You’ll feel amazed top world every single day Nah probably you’ll get used simply get used waking early — even love — you’ll well way achieving whatever longterm goal morning serve You’ll get reap benefit waking early become habit meaning won’t begrudgingly started extend way thinking ton positive habit like diet exercise saving money time start develop identity someone follows habit making easier easier maintain time Bottom Line don’t anything Sleep rest life want don’t care looking habit become gamechanger waking early definitely one habit short life time ticking Might well get every day rightTags Life Lessons Self Improvement Productivity Morning Routines Psychology |
2,272 | Learning, Story telling and the Origin of the Universe | There once was a violent unstable cloud of dust that turned into a planet full of life
Some scientists suggest that what made our species special, and what caused it to explode and dominate the planet is our ability to understand and tell stories. I heard this while watching this lecture on artificial intelligence last week, it did not make immediate sense to me. However now after reflecting on what a story is and what we do when we interpret the world, I think that we are constantly looking for stories out in the world, we want to find the stories and tell other people about them.
Take for example Cosmology, when we try to understand the origin of the universe, we are trying to tell a story about the entire universe, who/what caused it and how did it evolve over the course of it’s history, how important characters like galaxies and black holes started to play a role, and how we came out of a cloud of gas. If you have the answer to these question, you would have the urge to tell everyone about them in story form, and few people would be so uninterested that they wouldn’t want to hear the story of our entire world! (except if their schools made them associate too much pain to hearing things like that).
The key take away point I’m making is that our brains are wired in certain ways: We are social creatures and we understand things in story form, which suggests re-designing some of the things we want to teach in story form to put the learners in a position to understand even the hardest topics, and make a switch in their head that this is an interesting thing and not a boring thing.
It would be a great story for civilization, if more people got together to re-design learning material in more captivating form, If more people started to learn and help each other learn. We will be happier, more reasonable human beings, more capable of advancing civilization, we will understand each other better and more importantly the story of our species will be one were we end up exploring the universe, spreading love and understanding who we are.
That’s the story I wanna be a part of! | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/learning-story-telling-and-the-origin-of-the-universe-642ddd4bee53 | ['The Physics Connection'] | 2016-07-03 01:48:13.366000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Education Reform', 'Lifelong Learning', 'Science', 'Physics'] | Title Learning Story telling Origin UniverseContent violent unstable cloud dust turned planet full life scientist suggest made specie special caused explode dominate planet ability understand tell story heard watching lecture artificial intelligence last week make immediate sense However reflecting story interpret world think constantly looking story world want find story tell people Take example Cosmology try understand origin universe trying tell story entire universe whowhat caused evolve course it’s history important character like galaxy black hole started play role came cloud gas answer question would urge tell everyone story form people would uninterested wouldn’t want hear story entire world except school made associate much pain hearing thing like key take away point I’m making brain wired certain way social creature understand thing story form suggests redesigning thing want teach story form put learner position understand even hardest topic make switch head interesting thing boring thing would great story civilization people got together redesign learning material captivating form people started learn help learn happier reasonable human being capable advancing civilization understand better importantly story specie one end exploring universe spreading love understanding That’s story wanna part ofTags Storytelling Education Reform Lifelong Learning Science Physics |
2,273 | Reasons Why You Make Bad Decisions, According to Science | Our Mind Suffers from Cognitive Fatigue
Our mind works like a muscle. So we are training it with it all the cognitive processes associated with it, such as willpower, decision-making, and even just our way of thinking.
And as happens with the muscles of the body, when we use them over and over again without giving them time for their proper recovery, they tire and end up underperforming.
On a cognitive level, with every decision we make, no matter how minimal, we are consuming a portion of our mental energy.
When our mental energy is almost depleted it is much easier for our brain to go into a “survival” mode in which “no” by default is the easy option. From that cognitive survival mode, it is much easier to start making bad choices that require less effort (even though we know perfectly well what the good choices are).
Let's consider an example. In a research study conducted by Columbia University, a group of research psychologists examined 1,112 trials over a 10-month period.
These trials considered matters of probation, conducted by a specific commission appointed to personally evaluate the case of a convicted criminal and determine whether he was granted parole. Naturally, you would expect the judges of this commission to make their decision based on considerations such as the type of crime committed or what laws had been violated when making a decision.
But what the researchers found was something very different. In fact, they saw that the judges’ decisions had nothing to do with what was happening in the courtroom or with the type of case.
Instead, they were determined by the hours of the day it took for them to make a decision.
Their research indicated that in trials undergone at the beginning of the morning, a criminal had up to a 65% chance of having a favorable judgment. But as the morning progressed and the judge became “worn out” by continual decision making, those odds rapidly decreased to zero.
They found this clear trend after analyzing more than 1,100 cases over a period of 10 months. Regardless of the type of crime committed, it didn’t matter if it was rape, robbery, or embezzlement. A criminal was much more likely to be granted parole if his trial was the first in the morning, or the first after lunch, than at other times of the day. | https://medium.com/the-apeiron-blog/reasons-why-you-make-bad-decisions-according-to-science-e53b061926a8 | ['Desiree Peralta'] | 2020-12-23 11:03:22.975000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Psychology', 'Advice', 'Education', 'Science'] | Title Reasons Make Bad Decisions According ScienceContent Mind Suffers Cognitive Fatigue mind work like muscle training cognitive process associated willpower decisionmaking even way thinking happens muscle body use without giving time proper recovery tire end underperforming cognitive level every decision make matter minimal consuming portion mental energy mental energy almost depleted much easier brain go “survival” mode “no” default easy option cognitive survival mode much easier start making bad choice require le effort even though know perfectly well good choice Lets consider example research study conducted Columbia University group research psychologist examined 1112 trial 10month period trial considered matter probation conducted specific commission appointed personally evaluate case convicted criminal determine whether granted parole Naturally would expect judge commission make decision based consideration type crime committed law violated making decision researcher found something different fact saw judges’ decision nothing happening courtroom type case Instead determined hour day took make decision research indicated trial undergone beginning morning criminal 65 chance favorable judgment morning progressed judge became “worn out” continual decision making odds rapidly decreased zero found clear trend analyzing 1100 case period 10 month Regardless type crime committed didn’t matter rape robbery embezzlement criminal much likely granted parole trial first morning first lunch time dayTags Life Lessons Psychology Advice Education Science |
2,274 | You don’t need to get rich. You need to build wealth. | by: E.B. Johnson
We seem to live our lives in the pursuit of wealth, but so many of us seem to struggle to ever achieve this. Why? Years of hard work and belief in the system should lend itself to rewards, right? Wrong. If we truly want to build wealth that bolsters us, we have to learn to switch up our mindset. It’s not about “getting rich” after all. It’s about establishing a legacy that supports our children and grandchildren for years to come.
Being rich and being wealthy isn’t the same thing.
Believe it or not, there’s a big difference between striking it rich and building true wealth for yourself. When you come from a lack or a sense of scarcity, the idea of getting rich becomes an intoxicating dream. You fantasize about being able to pay the bills you have, and you daydream about a big purchase here and there. These kinds of riches are impermanent, however. If we truly wish to thrive, we have to build wealth.
Building wealth provides everything that “riches” cannot. Getting rich indicates a specific mindset. To get rich is to strike it lucky, or to be granted a one-off piece of largesse which washes over your life in the blink of an eye. Cultivating wealth is an entirely different mindset. When you build wealth, you aren’t looking for a handout or looking for a quick means of gratification.
To build wealth means to build something which is yours. It is long-lasting, and it is sustaining, but beyond that it is also something which we can control. Rather than seeking to get rich quick, we should seek to work hard and create something in this world which is truly ours. By building wealth we give ourselves a guarantee, and our families too. A guarantee we will thrive through thick and thin, and that we will never again settle for less than we deserve.
What it means to get rich.
Someone who is “rich” is very different from someone who is wealthy. Not only is getting rich an impermanent state, it also indicates a need to continue the strive and struggle. Getting rich is quick money and quick goals, and for that reason it can be a quick loss too.
Quick money, quick goals
Think about someone you know who talks a lot about “getting rich”. Are these grand statements usually preceded with a well thought-out plan of action? Probably not. When we imagine ourselves getting rich, it is usually in a quick or miraculous manner. Maybe you imagine winning the lottery, or writing a bestseller overnight. It’s a quick money, quick goal fantasy that rarely ever plays out the way we want it to. It’s mindset that can hold us back.
Short-sightedness
Focusing on getting rich is ultimately a form of shortsightedness. Because of the inherent impermanence of “getting rich” (and the inherent lack of control behind such a strike-it-lucky approach) it doesn’t provide us a lot of stability for the future. You can hit that rich goal by simply getting a better job, but when that job is taken away you find yourself right back at square one. It’s not an aim that carries you into the future, but a wealth mindset can.
Cutting corners
Those who only seek to “get rich” are often those who are willing to cut corners. Maybe they focus on all the wrong opportunities, or they purposefully go out of their way to putting in the work it takes to build financial stability. We can’t cut corners if we want to create something for ourselves that both lasts and provides. There’s only one way to get to the level of wealth that we want, and that is by working both smart and committedly.
Flash in the pan
There’s a sort of flash-in-the-pan mindset that comes with wanting to be rich. Perhaps you think you’ll score it big off a lotto ticket, or get rich off a quick scheme. This wealth eventually goes away, though. It’s impermanent and only provides you with a moment of hope and a moment of stability. Being rich and being wealthy aren’t the same because one provides stability, and the other does not. One is a flash in a pan, and one is choosing to create a new pan entirely.
Meeting the basics
When we settle for the dream of being rich, we actually end up settling for just enough to live comfortably. This may — perhaps — offer temporary entertainment, but it doesn’t allow us to build a legacy of which we can build our lives and the launching boards of our children. Getting rich will allow you to meet the basics and be comfortable for a while, but what of the future? Used the right way and riches can help you build wealth. It takes a lot of luck to get there, though.
What it means to build wealth.
The wealthy live in a world that is very different from ours. The primary difference is control. When you are truly wealthy, you are given greater control of your life and that of your family’s. Wealth gives you all the stability that “getting rich” can’t, and it is built through our own ingenuity and a series of relatively passive incomes which allow us to create a legacy for our children.
Building stability
While getting rich can provide us with a certain level of temporary stability, it still comes with the inherent possibility of loss. That’s something that wealth doesn’t do, though. Once you’re wealthy, you stay that way unless you engage in activities that go beyond the pale of risk and sensibility. When you’re wealthy, you’re able to armor your life and stabilize it with a number of safeguards that keep you afloat no matter what calamity the rest of the world may be in.
Passive incomes
Those with genuine wealth are never those with a simple 9–5 or a single business opportunity on-the-go. Passive incomes are one of the primary ways the wealthy continue to build more wealth for themselves. That is to say, they create multiple channels of income, which come in to them daily, weekly or monthly. They don’t have to exert any real energy. These channels simply get set up and then provide a steady stream of money that continues to buffer the wealthy.
Greater control
Perhaps the greatest gift that wealth gives us is that of control. As humans, we’re always struggling to control the world around us. We want the stability of knowing we can affect our environments, and with wealth we can do that. When you are wealthy, you gain control of your day and the pace and flow of your future. It also gives you the freedom to explore different facets of life, get into politics, and change the way you work. Literally any arena of life you want to enter can be improved by building a base of wealth to work from.
Freedom to explore
Beyond giving you the freedom to get more enjoyably engaged in your life, building true wealth also grants you the freedom to explore your interests and opportunities. When you have wealth, you have money to play with. That is to say that you’re able to take greater risks. You can open up new avenues of business and even create new markets. Losses here and there aren’t life-ruining when you’re intelligently wealthy.
Creating a legacy
When you build actual wealth, you don’t just create a blanket which covers your needs. You also create a legacy which can change the course of life for your loved ones generations down the line. The world is a chaotic and a scary place. It doesn’t appear to be getting any more stable. You can leave your children and their children with a means of stability, and a source of opportunity on which to mount their own lives. You can also change society and your direct environment.
How to switch your money-making mindset.
Are you ready to switch from a “get rich” mindset to a “build wealth” mindset? You can switch the way you see money and the way you actionably make it. Before that can happen, though, you need to establish a self-belief system and learn how to create more opportunities for yourself.
1. Establish a self-belief system
We spend a lot of time in this life trying to figure out our belief systems, but we rarely take any time to form a belief in self. When you lack self-confidence, it makes all the difference in your journey to wealth. It’s hard to create something which provides you with wealth when you don’t even have enough self-esteem to let yourself shine and create. In order to get from a place of scarcity to a place of abundance, you need to believe in your right to it.
Rebuild your confidence from the ground up. It’s time for you to believe in your right to thrive and your right to lead a high-quality life. You deserve a seat at whatever table matters to you, and wealth gives you that ability. When you’re wealthy, you can change the world, but not until you change yourself.
Know your worth. Know the value of your ideas. Don’t sell yourself short and don’t sell out on an idea that could take you all the way. Creativity is one of the few things which makes us exceptional as a species. Don’t allow the brutality of the world to hold you back from creating what you need to create. Believe in yourself. You’re smart enough, skilled enough, and deserving enough to have it all.
2. Create more opportunities yourself
Perhaps the greatest difference between “getting rich” and building wealth is the amount of effort it takes to get where you want to go. Sure, you could win the lottery or come up with the next hot unicorn app. That doesn’t take a lot of effort, though, and it relies on a lot of variables. Therefore, you have a lot less control over the money, or even your likelihood of earning it.
Building wealth is entirely different. To build wealth for yourself is to build a series of foundations which allow you to increase the power you have in your own life. It’s starting a business with the potential to grow. It’s kicking off that online writing hustle you’ve been eyeing since march.
Wealthy people create even more opportunities for themselves. They don’t hit a number goal and then take their foot off the gas. They think to themselves, “I’ve opened one door. How do I open the next?” You must always be looking for the next opportunity, and when it’s not there, you have to figure out how to make one for yourself. You can take control of your life, but you first have to figure out where your channels lie.
3. Reshape your perspective
Reshaping the way you see money and wealth is imperative if you want to stop struggling and looking for the next meal. You need to see money and wealth as a plentiful thing, with more than enough to go around for you and yours. You also need to stop focusing on getting rich fast, and you need to focus on creating something from your skills and interests which you can lean into and build on.
There are literally millions of millionaires in the world. Why shouldn’t you be one of them? If millions of people can find a way to create wealth for themselves and their children — why can’t you? After all, they aren’t any more exceptional or any more capable than you. Not all of them were born with silver spoons in their mouths.
You have to reshape the way you see money. It’s not an exclusive club. It’s a life raft you decide to put yourself in (or not). You not only have a right to build wealth, you have a right to sit at the table which millions of others are already sitting at. You just have to figure out where your channel of opportunities lie. Reshape your perspective and see yourself as a player in the game of wealth, rather than just a spectator.
4. Feel what it’s like to be wealthy
Have you ever felt what it’s like to be wealthy? Believe it or not, there is a certain feeling that comes with knowing you have more than enough, and it’s a powerful thing. It gives you confidence outside of the department store, and motivates you to get more, more, more. Complacent people become ambitious when it comes to building wealth, and so much of that comes down to their inherent belief and the feeling of confidence and security they have.
It’s time for you to do something which makes you feel wealthy. You don’t need to break the bank, or even take out another credit card. You can get close enough to mega-wealth to taste the possibility. Go to a luxury car dealership and walk around. Visit an open house for an exceptional property.
These are not places that are off-limits to the public at large. They want your custom, whatever your wages. Hold your head up high and know that you deserve to be surrounded by nice things. Walk through a Burberry or a Coach store in the nicest clothes you own. Ask questions, feel at home. After all, this is not something foreign to you. This is a practice run for the life you are manifesting through action.
5. Take action each and every day
When it comes to genuine wealth that is controlled by us (therefore allowing us to control our own lives) there is a certain effort that needs to be put in every single day. We have to take action in the name of our vision and put in the work it takes to get from Point A to Point B. Instead of wishing for the right lotto ticket; we have to brainstorm the various ways we can open up the door for ourselves.
Start creating a plan of action which allows you to move closer to your goals each and every day. Sit down and get clear on what kind of wealth you want to build for yourself. What chunk of the pie are you going to claim as your own?
Once you know what you want, you can break your goals down into smaller, more actionable steps. Keep in mind that this action will look very different depending on what stage of action you’re in. At first, we have to sit still, focus, and think of the future. In the next step we may be making phone calls and filling out college applications. It all comes down to making sure we have what we need to thrive. That means sometimes the action we need to take is simply taking a step back to refocus and recharge.
Putting it all together…
There is a massive difference between building wealth and “getting rich”. When we only pursue riches, we put ourselves in a temporary mindset in which we cut corners and look for the quickest fits. There’s no real power in getting rich. When you score big once, you can lose it just as quickly. If we want to give ourselves (and our families) true stability and opportunity, we should seek to build wealth instead of just getting rich.
Establish a self-belief system and start embracing both your right and your ability to build wealth for yourself and your family. You have to believe in yourself in order to create the opportunities you need to thrive. Reshape your perspective. True wealth doesn’t come by cutting corners or get-rich-quick schemes. It comes by wholeheartedly pursuing your goals and opening every door you possibly can. See the difference between riches and wealth, and focus on embracing your right to sit at the table. Feel what it’s like to be wealthy and allow these experiences to motivate and inspire you. We can build a legacy that changes the course of our lives and our happiness. To do that, though, we have to take smart and valuable action each and every day. Are you ready to move from scarcity to a place of abundance? It’s time to invest in yourself. | https://ebjohnson.medium.com/get-rich-build-wealth-b35c074fe465 | ['E.B. Johnson'] | 2020-12-27 13:20:59.055000+00:00 | ['Nonfiction', 'Self', 'Motivation', 'Money', 'Finance'] | Title don’t need get rich need build wealthContent EB Johnson seem live life pursuit wealth many u seem struggle ever achieve Years hard work belief system lend reward right Wrong truly want build wealth bolster u learn switch mindset It’s “getting rich” It’s establishing legacy support child grandchild year come rich wealthy isn’t thing Believe there’s big difference striking rich building true wealth come lack sense scarcity idea getting rich becomes intoxicating dream fantasize able pay bill daydream big purchase kind rich impermanent however truly wish thrive build wealth Building wealth provides everything “riches” cannot Getting rich indicates specific mindset get rich strike lucky granted oneoff piece largesse wash life blink eye Cultivating wealth entirely different mindset build wealth aren’t looking handout looking quick mean gratification build wealth mean build something longlasting sustaining beyond also something control Rather seeking get rich quick seek work hard create something world truly building wealth give guarantee family guarantee thrive thick thin never settle le deserve mean get rich Someone “rich” different someone wealthy getting rich impermanent state also indicates need continue strive struggle Getting rich quick money quick goal reason quick loss Quick money quick goal Think someone know talk lot “getting rich” grand statement usually preceded well thoughtout plan action Probably imagine getting rich usually quick miraculous manner Maybe imagine winning lottery writing bestseller overnight It’s quick money quick goal fantasy rarely ever play way want It’s mindset hold u back Shortsightedness Focusing getting rich ultimately form shortsightedness inherent impermanence “getting rich” inherent lack control behind strikeitlucky approach doesn’t provide u lot stability future hit rich goal simply getting better job job taken away find right back square one It’s aim carry future wealth mindset Cutting corner seek “get rich” often willing cut corner Maybe focus wrong opportunity purposefully go way putting work take build financial stability can’t cut corner want create something last provides There’s one way get level wealth want working smart committedly Flash pan There’s sort flashinthepan mindset come wanting rich Perhaps think you’ll score big lotto ticket get rich quick scheme wealth eventually go away though It’s impermanent provides moment hope moment stability rich wealthy aren’t one provides stability One flash pan one choosing create new pan entirely Meeting basic settle dream rich actually end settling enough live comfortably may — perhaps — offer temporary entertainment doesn’t allow u build legacy build life launching board child Getting rich allow meet basic comfortable future Used right way rich help build wealth take lot luck get though mean build wealth wealthy live world different primary difference control truly wealthy given greater control life family’s Wealth give stability “getting rich” can’t built ingenuity series relatively passive income allow u create legacy child Building stability getting rich provide u certain level temporary stability still come inherent possibility loss That’s something wealth doesn’t though you’re wealthy stay way unless engage activity go beyond pale risk sensibility you’re wealthy you’re able armor life stabilize number safeguard keep afloat matter calamity rest world may Passive income genuine wealth never simple 9–5 single business opportunity onthego Passive income one primary way wealthy continue build wealth say create multiple channel income come daily weekly monthly don’t exert real energy channel simply get set provide steady stream money continues buffer wealthy Greater control Perhaps greatest gift wealth give u control human we’re always struggling control world around u want stability knowing affect environment wealth wealthy gain control day pace flow future also give freedom explore different facet life get politics change way work Literally arena life want enter improved building base wealth work Freedom explore Beyond giving freedom get enjoyably engaged life building true wealth also grant freedom explore interest opportunity wealth money play say you’re able take greater risk open new avenue business even create new market Losses aren’t liferuining you’re intelligently wealthy Creating legacy build actual wealth don’t create blanket cover need also create legacy change course life loved one generation line world chaotic scary place doesn’t appear getting stable leave child child mean stability source opportunity mount life also change society direct environment switch moneymaking mindset ready switch “get rich” mindset “build wealth” mindset switch way see money way actionably make happen though need establish selfbelief system learn create opportunity 1 Establish selfbelief system spend lot time life trying figure belief system rarely take time form belief self lack selfconfidence make difference journey wealth It’s hard create something provides wealth don’t even enough selfesteem let shine create order get place scarcity place abundance need believe right Rebuild confidence ground It’s time believe right thrive right lead highquality life deserve seat whatever table matter wealth give ability you’re wealthy change world change Know worth Know value idea Don’t sell short don’t sell idea could take way Creativity one thing make u exceptional specie Don’t allow brutality world hold back creating need create Believe You’re smart enough skilled enough deserving enough 2 Create opportunity Perhaps greatest difference “getting rich” building wealth amount effort take get want go Sure could win lottery come next hot unicorn app doesn’t take lot effort though relies lot variable Therefore lot le control money even likelihood earning Building wealth entirely different build wealth build series foundation allow increase power life It’s starting business potential grow It’s kicking online writing hustle you’ve eyeing since march Wealthy people create even opportunity don’t hit number goal take foot gas think “I’ve opened one door open next” must always looking next opportunity it’s figure make one take control life first figure channel lie 3 Reshape perspective Reshaping way see money wealth imperative want stop struggling looking next meal need see money wealth plentiful thing enough go around also need stop focusing getting rich fast need focus creating something skill interest lean build literally million millionaire world shouldn’t one million people find way create wealth child — can’t aren’t exceptional capable born silver spoon mouth reshape way see money It’s exclusive club It’s life raft decide put right build wealth right sit table million others already sitting figure channel opportunity lie Reshape perspective see player game wealth rather spectator 4 Feel it’s like wealthy ever felt it’s like wealthy Believe certain feeling come knowing enough it’s powerful thing give confidence outside department store motivates get Complacent people become ambitious come building wealth much come inherent belief feeling confidence security It’s time something make feel wealthy don’t need break bank even take another credit card get close enough megawealth taste possibility Go luxury car dealership walk around Visit open house exceptional property place offlimits public large want custom whatever wage Hold head high know deserve surrounded nice thing Walk Burberry Coach store nicest clothes Ask question feel home something foreign practice run life manifesting action 5 Take action every day come genuine wealth controlled u therefore allowing u control life certain effort need put every single day take action name vision put work take get Point Point B Instead wishing right lotto ticket brainstorm various way open door Start creating plan action allows move closer goal every day Sit get clear kind wealth want build chunk pie going claim know want break goal smaller actionable step Keep mind action look different depending stage action you’re first sit still focus think future next step may making phone call filling college application come making sure need thrive mean sometimes action need take simply taking step back refocus recharge Putting together… massive difference building wealth “getting rich” pursue rich put temporary mindset cut corner look quickest fit There’s real power getting rich score big lose quickly want give family true stability opportunity seek build wealth instead getting rich Establish selfbelief system start embracing right ability build wealth family believe order create opportunity need thrive Reshape perspective True wealth doesn’t come cutting corner getrichquick scheme come wholeheartedly pursuing goal opening every door possibly See difference rich wealth focus embracing right sit table Feel it’s like wealthy allow experience motivate inspire build legacy change course life happiness though take smart valuable action every day ready move scarcity place abundance It’s time invest yourselfTags Nonfiction Self Motivation Money Finance |
2,275 | Oracle Big Data Cloud, Event Hub and Analytics Cloud Data Lake Edition pt.3 : Spark-Powered Data Flows, Automated Machine Learning and Thoughts on Sparkline SNAP | Oracle Big Data Cloud, Event Hub and Analytics Cloud Data Lake Edition pt.3 : Spark-Powered Data Flows, Automated Machine Learning and Thoughts on Sparkline SNAP Mark Rittman Follow Jun 2, 2018 · 1 min read
In this series of three blogs on Oracle Analytics Cloud Data Lake Edition I’ve setup an object store data lake in Oracle Cloud using Oracle Big Data Cloud and Oracle Storage Cloud, and ingested streams of real-time event data from IoT and social media sources into Oracle Cloud’s object storage service using Oracle Event Hub Cloud Service.
Read more at the new home of the MJR Analytics blog. | https://medium.com/mark-rittman/oracle-big-data-cloud-event-hub-and-analytics-cloud-data-lake-edition-pt-3-95d38c9e5148 | ['Mark Rittman'] | 2018-10-16 19:50:05.921000+00:00 | ['Oracle', 'Oracle Cloud', 'Data Lake', 'Analytics', 'Big Data'] | Title Oracle Big Data Cloud Event Hub Analytics Cloud Data Lake Edition pt3 SparkPowered Data Flows Automated Machine Learning Thoughts Sparkline SNAPContent Oracle Big Data Cloud Event Hub Analytics Cloud Data Lake Edition pt3 SparkPowered Data Flows Automated Machine Learning Thoughts Sparkline SNAP Mark Rittman Follow Jun 2 2018 · 1 min read series three blog Oracle Analytics Cloud Data Lake Edition I’ve setup object store data lake Oracle Cloud using Oracle Big Data Cloud Oracle Storage Cloud ingested stream realtime event data IoT social medium source Oracle Cloud’s object storage service using Oracle Event Hub Cloud Service Read new home MJR Analytics blogTags Oracle Oracle Cloud Data Lake Analytics Big Data |
2,276 | Ego: Self-Discovery Oracle Card | Your ego is the roundtable of children within you doing their very best to meet your needs.
You may have been taught you must destroy your ego, but there is no part of you that requires destruction. Yes, your ego makes terrible masters, but they do make fantastic servants.
The children that make up your ego are the parts of you that only ever want to feel loved and helpful. Don’t shame them even more in your attempt to destroy them.
Rather, help them grow up. Treat the children inside of you better than you were treated.
In return, you will co-create a mature ego; one that helps you move with grace and power, always and forever affirming confidence in your worth. | https://medium.com/just-jordin/ego-self-discovery-oracle-card-d2ec2389eda1 | ['Jordin James'] | 2020-11-23 19:45:37.012000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Spirituality', 'Self', 'Inspiration'] | Title Ego SelfDiscovery Oracle CardContent ego roundtable child within best meet need may taught must destroy ego part requires destruction Yes ego make terrible master make fantastic servant child make ego part ever want feel loved helpful Don’t shame even attempt destroy Rather help grow Treat child inside better treated return cocreate mature ego one help move grace power always forever affirming confidence worthTags Mental Health Psychology Spirituality Self Inspiration |
2,277 | Primer — How the industry views the IDFA | This article serves as a means to enumerate the mechanisms by which the Marketing industry leverages the IDFA token.
There are four ways by which developers leverage customer data:
Attribution: Share 1P data with 3P to measure user acquisition campaigns
Share 1P data with 3P to measure user acquisition campaigns Personalization : Deliver contextual messages using 1P data to further engage users within the service. This includes creative optimization.
: Deliver contextual messages using 1P data to further engage users within the service. This includes creative optimization. Re-Targeting: Share data with 3P for re-engagement campaigns
Share data with 3P for re-engagement campaigns Monetization: Share data with entities who will display personalized ads within the application in exchange for money
Glossary of terms used in this article:
MMP : A mobile measurement partner helps businesses measure efficiency of advertising
: A mobile measurement partner helps businesses measure efficiency of advertising Demand Partner : Also know as a DSP (Demand-Side-Platform) helps advertisers match their creatives with the best possible lead
: Also know as a DSP (Demand-Side-Platform) helps advertisers match their creatives with the best possible lead SSP: Supply-Side-Platform helps businesses monetize their products by matching the user with the best possible creative
Here’s an illustration of how the IDFA helps with Attribution:
App-A wants to acquire more customers in the funnel App-A works with Demand Source to deliver ads in exchange for money User-X (on App-B) sees an ad that is interesting, taps and is taken to download/view App-A Demand Source ties the click with the IDFA belonging to User-X passed along from App-B (Via SSP-B) AdNetwork sends the click event (tied to the IDFA) to an MMP-A (Mobile Measurement Partner) App-A registers the launch and subsequent events tied to User-X with the IDFA App-A sends the launch+subsequent conversion events to MMP-A MMP-A uses the click to understand conversions at key milestones — This helps evaluate the quality of the user as well as the channel
Here’s an illustration of how the IDFA helps with Personalization:
App-A wants to re-engage an existing user-X from other apps (eg: A personalized Netflix trailer in your Facebook feed) App-A enlists MMP to deliver segments as targetable assets App-A delivers a cohort of IDFAs to the MMP-A MMP-A passes cohort along to partners including FB, Google and other ad-exchanges The ad gets displayed to user in App-C; If tapped, launches App-A App-A passes additional telemetrics (keyed-off IDFA) over to the MMP MMP delivers attribution+LTV analytics to App-A
Here’s an illustration of how the IDFA helps with Monetization:
App-A wants to provide their users with a freemium alternative to consuming content by displaying ads App-A enlists SSP-A to work with one or more exchanges to sell their ad spots On a per-user basis, App-A delivers user attributes to SSP-A to fill an ad spot with an impression.These attributes are tied to the IDFA. SSP-A passes the word along to DSP/AdNetwork (in real time) to fetch and fill the best possible advert
Finally, here’s an illustration of how the IDFA helps with Re-targeting:
App-A has signed User-X up for a freemium/subscription service User-X attempts the subscription trial, engages with the service to a fair degree User-X finds the service useful but too expensive at the offered price point. User-X churns from service App-A uniquely identifies churners and advertises a special winback deal from within the application In parallel, App-A enlists the help of partners such as Google and FB to retarget users The IDFA is leveraged for the purposes of identifying the user outside the app sandbox
Now that we’ve reviewed the mechanisms by which the advertising/marketing eco-system leverages the IDFA, we will analyze the impact of said practices in Part-II.
Feel free to drop me a note should you find this interesting and have additional questions. | https://abishekashok.medium.com/the-idfa-conundrum-8c32810abf76 | ['Abishek Ashok'] | 2020-12-07 18:18:41.973000+00:00 | ['Gaming', 'Advertising', 'Marketing', 'Idfa', 'Apple'] | Title Primer — industry view IDFAContent article serf mean enumerate mechanism Marketing industry leverage IDFA token four way developer leverage customer data Attribution Share 1P data 3P measure user acquisition campaign Share 1P data 3P measure user acquisition campaign Personalization Deliver contextual message using 1P data engage user within service includes creative optimization Deliver contextual message using 1P data engage user within service includes creative optimization ReTargeting Share data 3P reengagement campaign Share data 3P reengagement campaign Monetization Share data entity display personalized ad within application exchange money Glossary term used article MMP mobile measurement partner help business measure efficiency advertising mobile measurement partner help business measure efficiency advertising Demand Partner Also know DSP DemandSidePlatform help advertiser match creatives best possible lead Also know DSP DemandSidePlatform help advertiser match creatives best possible lead SSP SupplySidePlatform help business monetize product matching user best possible creative Here’s illustration IDFA help Attribution AppA want acquire customer funnel AppA work Demand Source deliver ad exchange money UserX AppB see ad interesting tap taken downloadview AppA Demand Source tie click IDFA belonging UserX passed along AppB Via SSPB AdNetwork sends click event tied IDFA MMPA Mobile Measurement Partner AppA register launch subsequent event tied UserX IDFA AppA sends launchsubsequent conversion event MMPA MMPA us click understand conversion key milestone — help evaluate quality user well channel Here’s illustration IDFA help Personalization AppA want reengage existing userX apps eg personalized Netflix trailer Facebook feed AppA enlists MMP deliver segment targetable asset AppA delivers cohort IDFAs MMPA MMPA pass cohort along partner including FB Google adexchanges ad get displayed user AppC tapped launch AppA AppA pass additional telemetrics keyedoff IDFA MMP MMP delivers attributionLTV analytics AppA Here’s illustration IDFA help Monetization AppA want provide user freemium alternative consuming content displaying ad AppA enlists SSPA work one exchange sell ad spot peruser basis AppA delivers user attribute SSPA fill ad spot impressionThese attribute tied IDFA SSPA pass word along DSPAdNetwork real time fetch fill best possible advert Finally here’s illustration IDFA help Retargeting AppA signed UserX freemiumsubscription service UserX attempt subscription trial engages service fair degree UserX find service useful expensive offered price point UserX churn service AppA uniquely identifies churners advertises special winback deal within application parallel AppA enlists help partner Google FB retarget user IDFA leveraged purpose identifying user outside app sandbox we’ve reviewed mechanism advertisingmarketing ecosystem leverage IDFA analyze impact said practice PartII Feel free drop note find interesting additional questionsTags Gaming Advertising Marketing Idfa Apple |
2,278 | How to deploy your Microservices under Kubernetes with Gravitee and Elassandra | By default, the Gravitee API Manager rely on MongoDB for its configuration and Elasticsearch for log analytics, but deploying many components can by more tricky and more expensive than having a single distributed data store. To simplify the stack, the Gravitee repository for Elassandra can be used to store Gravitee configuration, Rate Limits, Logs and Metrics, along with your application data in Elassandra (aka Elasticsearch + Cassandra), with the following benefits:
Distributed Gravitee configuration on many datacenters through the Cassandra replication (in active/active mode).
Elasticsearch reporting for Gravitee analytics (gravitee logs and metrics).
Scalability by adding Elassandra nodes (without re-indexing) and datacenters (for geo localisation concerns or workload separation)
Reduce the global complexity and TCO by using the same NoSQL datastore for both Gravitee and APIs data storage.
We will now see how to deploy all these components under Kubernetes.
Deploy Traefik
In order to expose the Gravitee components to the internet (gateways and management services), we obviously use Traefik, the modern reverse proxy. Traefik watches for incoming kubernetes ingresses events and automatically deploy routers, services, handlers, etc…
Traefik is deployed using a HELM Chart as follow:
Deploy an Elassandra Cluster
3 Elassandra PODs has been deployed as a Kubernetes StatefulSet using this HELM chart.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Cassandra spread replicas across racks to ensure data remains available if a rack goes down. Deploying Cassandra or Elassandra with one Kubernetes StatefulSet cannot ensure that a pod are always deployed on the right cloud-provider zone or region. In order to meet this constraint, Strapdata will release soon a Kubernetes operator for Elassandra.
Deploy Gravitee
As shown in the main figure, Gravitee has 3 components:
The manager service to manage the gravitee configuration
The user interface (or portal)
The gateways, to manager acces to your API endpoints
In order to deploy Gravitee including the Elassandra repository, we have used the HELM chart available at helm-gravitee. In the HELM values.yaml, the following es and elassandra blocks describe connection to both Elasticsearch (for Gravitee Analytics) and to Elassandra, which is very close to Apache Cassandra. The elassandra.endpoint specifies the Elasticsearch endpoint to be able to create and search across Elasticsearch indices.
Detail about deploying Gravitee under Kubernetes can be found here on Medium.
Deploy your application
We deploy here a sample Micronaut application basketapp allowing to store and search baskets stored as JSON documents through a REST API. The basketapp stores its data into Elassandra, using Cassandra CQL to insert/select rows, and Elasticsearch queries through the CQL driver to search for documents.
This basic application is deployed as a Kubernetes deployment with an HELM chart included in the basketapp code.
When everything is deployed, we have the following pods running in our Kuberenetes cluster:
The 3 Gravitee components (api management, ui, and gateway) are accessible from outside the Kubernetes cluster through Traefik with an external load balancer.
On an Elassandra pod, we can check that the basketapp and the Gravitee Elasticsearch indices are green:
Register your API into Gravitee
As described in the micronaut documentation, we use an annotation in the Micronaut Application.java, where the servers.url points to our application. Be careful, URL context path cannot be null:
The swagger descriptor is generated at compile time by Micronaut, and server URLs may depend on your deployments, so we introduced a controller to dynamically replace the servers.url with the application kuberenetes service name. The swagger descriptor is available from a pod at http://basketapp:8080/basketapp/swagger, the URL used to import the API into Gravitee:
Log into the API Manager portal as the administrator and register your application by providing a swagger descriptor.
2. Start and publish the API
3. Create an API plan. To keep the demo simple, you choose a keyless authentication, but Gravitee provides many ways to secure access to your API.
4. Publish to the API plan and deploy it to the gateways.
You can request then your basket API through the Gravitee gateway service:
Logs and metrics
Thanks to Elassandra, Gravitee analytics works like Elasticsearch. You can check API performances, application load, and enable API logging for a while. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-deploy-your-microservices-under-kubernetes-with-gravitee-and-elassandra-fa533adde64d | ['Vincent Royer'] | 2019-10-16 18:19:36.575000+00:00 | ['Elassandra', 'API', 'Elasticsearch', 'Microservices', 'Kubernetes'] | Title deploy Microservices Kubernetes Gravitee ElassandraContent default Gravitee API Manager rely MongoDB configuration Elasticsearch log analytics deploying many component tricky expensive single distributed data store simplify stack Gravitee repository Elassandra used store Gravitee configuration Rate Limits Logs Metrics along application data Elassandra aka Elasticsearch Cassandra following benefit Distributed Gravitee configuration many datacenters Cassandra replication activeactive mode Elasticsearch reporting Gravitee analytics gravitee log metric Scalability adding Elassandra node without reindexing datacenters geo localisation concern workload separation Reduce global complexity TCO using NoSQL datastore Gravitee APIs data storage see deploy component Kubernetes Deploy Traefik order expose Gravitee component internet gateway management service obviously use Traefik modern reverse proxy Traefik watch incoming kubernetes ingress event automatically deploy router service handler etc… Traefik deployed using HELM Chart follow Deploy Elassandra Cluster 3 Elassandra PODs deployed Kubernetes StatefulSet using HELM chart IMPORTANT NOTE Cassandra spread replica across rack ensure data remains available rack go Deploying Cassandra Elassandra one Kubernetes StatefulSet cannot ensure pod always deployed right cloudprovider zone region order meet constraint Strapdata release soon Kubernetes operator Elassandra Deploy Gravitee shown main figure Gravitee 3 component manager service manage gravitee configuration user interface portal gateway manager acces API endpoint order deploy Gravitee including Elassandra repository used HELM chart available helmgravitee HELM valuesyaml following e elassandra block describe connection Elasticsearch Gravitee Analytics Elassandra close Apache Cassandra elassandraendpoint specifies Elasticsearch endpoint able create search across Elasticsearch index Detail deploying Gravitee Kubernetes found Medium Deploy application deploy sample Micronaut application basketapp allowing store search basket stored JSON document REST API basketapp store data Elassandra using Cassandra CQL insertselect row Elasticsearch query CQL driver search document basic application deployed Kubernetes deployment HELM chart included basketapp code everything deployed following pod running Kuberenetes cluster 3 Gravitee component api management ui gateway accessible outside Kubernetes cluster Traefik external load balancer Elassandra pod check basketapp Gravitee Elasticsearch index green Register API Gravitee described micronaut documentation use annotation Micronaut Applicationjava serversurl point application careful URL context path cannot null swagger descriptor generated compile time Micronaut server URLs may depend deployment introduced controller dynamically replace serversurl application kuberenetes service name swagger descriptor available pod httpbasketapp8080basketappswagger URL used import API Gravitee Log API Manager portal administrator register application providing swagger descriptor 2 Start publish API 3 Create API plan keep demo simple choose keyless authentication Gravitee provides many way secure access API 4 Publish API plan deploy gateway request basket API Gravitee gateway service Logs metric Thanks Elassandra Gravitee analytics work like Elasticsearch check API performance application load enable API logging whileTags Elassandra API Elasticsearch Microservices Kubernetes |
2,279 | Well Architect Framework — Performance Efficiency on the Cloud | Scaling Up or Scaling Out
The architecture’s deployment should consider the right tools and technology which can support to handle the unpredictable load on the application. It encompasses either Scale-up or Scale-out of the cloud resources.
Scale-up or Scale-down is upgrading or degrading the tier for existing cloud resources. For E.g. we can increase a virtual machine from 1 vCPU and 2 GB of RAM to 2 vCPUs and 7 GB of RAM.
is upgrading or degrading the tier for existing cloud resources. For E.g. we can increase a virtual machine from 1 vCPU and 2 GB of RAM to 2 vCPUs and 7 GB of RAM. Scale-out or Scale-in is adding or reducing the resource instances to support the load of your application. For e.g. adding more front-end VMs to the application to level or the amount of load increase.
This unpredictable scaling based on workload is very much possible with having resources in the Cloud. To scale these types of capabilities in an on-premises environment, you typically have to wait for procurement and installation of the necessary hardware before you can start using the new level of scale.
Autoscale
Autoscale is a feature that allows you to scale either on a metric-based event-trigger or at a particular schedule. An example to add the instance of a VM when CPU thresholds breached 80% or before the start of the business at 08:00 AM.
Storage Performance
Another aspect of improving application performance is to reduce the bottleneck at improving the performance of the storage layer. This can be accomplished by considering various aspects by choosing the right storage technology or by architectural considerations. Let’s touch upon a few concepts —
Choice of Disk
The persistent data is stored ultimately in a disk, the way you consider the choice of VM depending on your application workload, similarly the choice of disk plays a vital role. Consider from the choice —
HDD: Spindle disk storage, used where the application is not bound to the consistent throughput, latency. Mainly used for dev/test workloads.
SSD: SSD-backed storage has a low latency of an SSD but with lower levels of throughput. A non-production web server is a good use case for this disk type.
Premium SSD: Suitable for production workloads where it demands for consistent high-throughput, low-latency, and highest reliability.
Caching
Caching is the most common approach to improve application performance. It is achieved by adding a cache-layer between the application and the storage. The most frequently accessed data is stored in-memory with cache components, you have control over the type of data stored, how often it refreshes, and when it expires.
Polyglot Persistence
Polyglot persistence is the use of different data storage technologies to handle your storage requirements. Suppose that you store application assets in a blob store, product reviews and recommendations in a NoSQL store, and user profile or account data in a SQL database. In this particular approach, each business use-case is supported by just-right storage technology and architecture adoption.
Network Performance
The network plays an important aspect in improvising application performance, the ultimate goal is to minimize the overall network latency by incorporating best practices within the architecture.
The concept of network latency plays a vital role in the Cloud than that of traditional data-center because in the former the resources are distributed across racks, data-center, and regions. Thus the latency is directly proportional to the distance between application users and the data-center.
There are various considerations while deciding the network in the overall application’s solution architcture.
Host correlated application resources close to each other. For example — application frontend, backend services, and database persistence should reside in the same Cloud region close to the end-users.
Consider load-balanced front-ends, globally distributed backend services, and database read-replicas for supporting users from multiple geographies.
Consider using the caching layer, application cache, or content CDN, to minimize high-latency calls to remote databases for frequently accessed data.
The dedicated connection between your network and the public Cloud. It gives you guaranteed performance and ensures that your users have the best path to all of your Azure resources. Example — Azure Express Route, AWS Direct Connect, or GCP Interconnect.
Considering the impact of network latency on your architecture is important to ensure the best possible performance for your users
How to identify the performance bottlenecks?
The answer is hidden in identifying optimal tools and processes that can help you to make sure that the application performs well. Let’s help you to understand the performance requirement. One can debate that even if the Cloud gives you an opportunity to keep improving performance and scalability endlessly but this approach eventually can become too expensive to the business.
Therefore, the performance measurement criteria should be influenced by the Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs)desired by the business from the application, by that way the performance goals can be achieved seamlessly with appropriate justification to the business.
Once NFRs are identified you need to plan your monitoring and operations rules. Every public cloud provides tools and processes to track the performance of the applications and other resources.
Azure — Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights.
AWS — Cloud Watch, Cloud Trail.
GCP — Stack Driver
Conclusion
In this post, we discussed some of the key principles of the performance efficiency pillar of the Cloud Well-Architected Framework. I tried to highlight the importance of various options for scaling your application, how to use autoscaling to handle scaling automatically. I also touched upon the proper storage tier has a direct impact on performance, and using caching service, and polyglot database choices. Lastly, ways to identify performance bottlenecks in your application by using the right choice of tools to monitor the applications and other cloud resources. | https://towardsdatascience.com/well-architect-framework-performance-efficiency-on-the-cloud-15cf87c10297 | ['Pankaj Jainani'] | 2020-12-27 17:16:16.822000+00:00 | ['Architecture', 'Azure', 'AWS', 'Google Cloud Platform', 'Cloud Computing'] | Title Well Architect Framework — Performance Efficiency CloudContent Scaling Scaling architecture’s deployment consider right tool technology support handle unpredictable load application encompasses either Scaleup Scaleout cloud resource Scaleup Scaledown upgrading degrading tier existing cloud resource Eg increase virtual machine 1 vCPU 2 GB RAM 2 vCPUs 7 GB RAM upgrading degrading tier existing cloud resource Eg increase virtual machine 1 vCPU 2 GB RAM 2 vCPUs 7 GB RAM Scaleout Scalein adding reducing resource instance support load application eg adding frontend VMs application level amount load increase unpredictable scaling based workload much possible resource Cloud scale type capability onpremises environment typically wait procurement installation necessary hardware start using new level scale Autoscale Autoscale feature allows scale either metricbased eventtrigger particular schedule example add instance VM CPU threshold breached 80 start business 0800 Storage Performance Another aspect improving application performance reduce bottleneck improving performance storage layer accomplished considering various aspect choosing right storage technology architectural consideration Let’s touch upon concept — Choice Disk persistent data stored ultimately disk way consider choice VM depending application workload similarly choice disk play vital role Consider choice — HDD Spindle disk storage used application bound consistent throughput latency Mainly used devtest workload SSD SSDbacked storage low latency SSD lower level throughput nonproduction web server good use case disk type Premium SSD Suitable production workload demand consistent highthroughput lowlatency highest reliability Caching Caching common approach improve application performance achieved adding cachelayer application storage frequently accessed data stored inmemory cache component control type data stored often refreshes expires Polyglot Persistence Polyglot persistence use different data storage technology handle storage requirement Suppose store application asset blob store product review recommendation NoSQL store user profile account data SQL database particular approach business usecase supported justright storage technology architecture adoption Network Performance network play important aspect improvising application performance ultimate goal minimize overall network latency incorporating best practice within architecture concept network latency play vital role Cloud traditional datacenter former resource distributed across rack datacenter region Thus latency directly proportional distance application user datacenter various consideration deciding network overall application’s solution architcture Host correlated application resource close example — application frontend backend service database persistence reside Cloud region close endusers Consider loadbalanced frontends globally distributed backend service database readreplicas supporting user multiple geography Consider using caching layer application cache content CDN minimize highlatency call remote database frequently accessed data dedicated connection network public Cloud give guaranteed performance ensures user best path Azure resource Example — Azure Express Route AWS Direct Connect GCP Interconnect Considering impact network latency architecture important ensure best possible performance user identify performance bottleneck answer hidden identifying optimal tool process help make sure application performs well Let’s help understand performance requirement One debate even Cloud give opportunity keep improving performance scalability endlessly approach eventually become expensive business Therefore performance measurement criterion influenced NonFunctional Requirements NFRsdesired business application way performance goal achieved seamlessly appropriate justification business NFRs identified need plan monitoring operation rule Every public cloud provides tool process track performance application resource Azure — Azure Monitor Log Analytics Application Insights AWS — Cloud Watch Cloud Trail GCP — Stack Driver Conclusion post discussed key principle performance efficiency pillar Cloud WellArchitected Framework tried highlight importance various option scaling application use autoscaling handle scaling automatically also touched upon proper storage tier direct impact performance using caching service polyglot database choice Lastly way identify performance bottleneck application using right choice tool monitor application cloud resourcesTags Architecture Azure AWS Google Cloud Platform Cloud Computing |
2,280 | Understanding Sex Addiction | Understanding Sex Addiction
How self-isolation from coronavirus impacts sex addicts and their partners
Photo by Joe deSousa on Unsplash
Self-isolation is causing partners to spend a considerable amount of time together under the same roof. I’m curious how Sex Addicts (SA’s) and their significant others are coping?
The question led me to have a conversation with a woman I know well. Let’s call her Pam for anonymity. Pam is a former wife of a Sex Addict (SA). For twenty years, she lived through hell and, through time and experience, evolved into a valuable knowledge source, managing an online sexual addiction support system and became an essential lifeline for spouses of Sex Addicts. Pam has either seen or heard it all.
The following interview with Pam delves into what SA’s and significant others may be facing right now during self-isolation. Pam explains how a person becomes addicted to pornography, how the addiction progresses, and what chemical changes occur in the brain. We discuss reprogramming opportunities, available treatment, and resources.
Pam’s former spouse is male; this interview is slanted toward men who are sexual addicts. In our discussion, we also refer to porn and sex addiction as interchangeable.
[Lisa] How do you envision pornography or sex addicts are coping right now in self-isolation?
[Pam] I believe being in self-isolation will exacerbate the problem. Many Sexaholics Anonymous (SA) group meetings are canceled, and no face to face support is available. The coronavirus is a time of uncertainty, fear, and anxiety for many, and Sex Addicts use porn and masturbation as self-soothing activities for their default mechanism.
With people in quarantine, men will be going through withdrawal as their wives are with them regularly, and they can’t watch as often as they want to, given they’ll be under scrutiny. I’m sure there will be more unhappiness than ever. While their partners may wish for more reassurance, more times of closeness, and feelings of being protected and loved. The SA is incapable of providing these emotions so he will do whatever he can to create distance — coldness, fighting, being overly critical, etc. to ensure there is space between them and enabling addictive behavior.
[Lisa] Let’s take a step back for a moment; how do you define a sex addict?
Pam performs a specific search on Google and provides the following research paper. “Sex Addiction, Neuroscience Trauma, and More!” written by Stefanie Carnes, Ph.D., CSAT-S.
[Pam] reads:
A pathological relationship to a mood-altering experience (sex) that the individual continues to engage in despite adverse consequences.
It is very much a physical addiction.
[Lisa] This statement provides a clear understanding of the problem. During quarantine, what signs can spouses look out for?
[Pam] Increased time on the computer or phone. Hiding what he’s looking at. Passwording his devices and not allowing you access. Unexplained time away from home. Excuses not to accompany you on outings and preferring to stay home alone. Loss of interest in sex. Coldness. Continually picking fights to put distance between you. Making excuses not to sleep together.
[Lisa] What happens if the sex addict is not able to get what he or she needs right now due to being in isolation with their partner?
[Pam] When sex addicts can’t get their fix, they go into withdrawal almost with the same symptoms as a drug addict. Symptoms include anxiety, short temper, anger, nausea, and even physical pain.
[Lisa] How do people become addicted to porn?
[Pam] One of the most common reasons is early sexual experience before maturity, often in childhood. It is not uncommon for SA’s to be victims of childhood sexual abuse. The first introduction to pornography may involve magazines, or videos, or online.
Pam is correct. Carnes research paper reports the following reasons:
72% experienced physical abuse
81% experienced sexual abuse
97% experienced emotional abuse
[Lisa] In our previous conversations, you mentioned there’s a slippery slope with porn addiction. Can you describe this process from beginning to advanced stages?
[Pam] In the beginning, curiosity leads people to seek out images. Porn sites offer lots of free drawing cards.
[Lisa] Wait — what’s a drawing card?
[Pam] When you first go on porn sites you can see short videos which are usually soft porn with a short teaser trailer to harder stuff and a place to enter your credit card number.
For some, it whets the appetite for more consumption, like how a long sip of Crown Royal demands the whole bottle for an alcoholic. Soon, porn becomes harder as the neurons in the brain are re-wired and desensitized by tamer acts. To meet demand, watching more disgusting, demeaning, and sometimes violent or sex acts with children are required to stimulate the brain. Soon it can evolve from just watching pornography to performing the actions themselves. And affairs begin. Online dating sites are filled with SA’s looking for no strings attached thrills.
Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash
[Lisa] Tell me more about the term “emotional anorexia.” How does an SA’s personality change over time?
[Pam] Dr. Douglas Weiss coined the phrase. He’s a psychologist and the founder of Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Here he explains what this is between man and wife. When love happens between two people in a ‘normal’ sexual, loving relationship, the man’s brain imprints with his partner’s body and sexual rewards come from that. Her body and looks become associated with sex in his brain, and the look of his wife turns him on sexually. It doesn’t matter if she is fat or thin, ugly or gorgeous; his imprint of her nude body triggers sexual desire and loving emotions.
Once an SA has become strongly addicted, chances are he no longer views sex with his partner as desirable for several reasons. She is human versus online porn women and may complain about things like demanding foreplay, romance, and expect sexual gratification. To most SA’s, this is not desirable. His online girls never whine. They always look perfect and do as they’re told. Of course, they adore him in his fantasy world. Since he lives in a world of make-believe, trying to integrate back into the real world with a partner who makes demands and has expectations is beyond what he is willing to give. Once he’s involved with viewing pornography and masturbates, it doesn’t take long before he can no longer enjoy intimacy.
According to Dr. Weiss’s research, intimacy anorexia is caused by four major sources
[Lisa] What happens on a chemical level to a person’s brain as they evolve more in-depth into the addiction?
Pam pulls up another online research paper from TE Robinson and B. Kolb titled Structural plasticity associated with exposure to drugs of abuse. She starts to read it aloud to me.
Recent research has shown that non-drug addictions such as gambling, binge-eating, and sexual activities affect brain function in ways similar to alcohol and drug addiction. Many addiction studies focus on what is referred to as the pleasure/reward circuitry and their corresponding neurotransmitters — chemicals that are responsible for the communication between neurons.
Pam looks up at me. I nod my head in understanding and ask her to continue reading aloud:
One of the neurotransmitters frequently identified as central to addiction is dopamine. A behavior or drug that produces pleasure induces a rush of dopamine that ultimately “reinforces” that behavior, making it more likely to occur. The amygdala, basal ganglia, and other reward centers play a role in the reinforcement of the activity that produces pleasure.
Changes in the brain’s neural pathways are referred to as “plasticity”; and “synaptic plasticity” refers to changes among neuronal connections.
[Lisa] To recap, research substantiates the idea that porn addiction can alter brain plasticity.
[Pam] Exactly.
Black and white image of a man staring at a fuzzy TV screen
[Lisa] Can the addict ever reprogram their brain back to its original state?
[Pam] With time, and a lot of work, the addict’s brain can return to normal. After all, it is considered plastic and can change and mold. It takes strict refusal to view porn and a program of recovery for both partners. There is a slow, gentle approach to introducing intimacy back into the marriage. In time, if conditions are met, the SA can once again look at his partner with desire and love. He must be forever vigilant not to allow himself to be triggered and may have to avoid places that he once went to fill his needs. Places like the beach, shopping mall, downtown street, and, most importantly, his computer. An accountability program for the computer can be installed, protecting the SA from entering sites that are not safe.
[Lisa] What treatment is available for porn addicts?
There are several treatment centers and resources available for sexual addiction. Some require in house treatment for 30 days or more with extensive programs involved. Others are geared towards the husband and wife. There are 12 step sexual addiction groups in most urban spaces and as well as support groups for partners. Online support groups exist also.
[Lisa] Support resources will be included at the end of this post. My last question to you, Pam — will you be willing to share your personal story with us in Part 2?
[Pam] Yes, absolutely.
In the next post, we continue to speak with Pam to understand what it was like to be a spouse of a sex addict. She reveals how she discovered her husband’s addiction, it’s progression and the evolution of her own feelings. Pam will describe her difficulty in accepting sexual addiction as a disease. Next, we talk about the support she received and how Pam became a voice for spouses of SA’s. The interview will conclude with the outcome of Pam’s marriage and where she is today on her journey.
If this interview resonates with you, know you are not alone. There are resources available to help in your time of need.
Resources
Help Available: United States
Help Available: Canada
Scholarly Journals
Associations
General
More like this: | https://medium.com/beingwell/interview-with-a-spouse-of-a-sex-addict-part-1-732146e1b5f9 | ['Lisa Bradburn'] | 2020-04-10 21:04:05.269000+00:00 | ['Addiction', 'Interview', 'Mental Health', 'Sex', 'Coronavirus'] | Title Understanding Sex AddictionContent Understanding Sex Addiction selfisolation coronavirus impact sex addict partner Photo Joe deSousa Unsplash Selfisolation causing partner spend considerable amount time together roof I’m curious Sex Addicts SA’s significant others coping question led conversation woman know well Let’s call Pam anonymity Pam former wife Sex Addict SA twenty year lived hell time experience evolved valuable knowledge source managing online sexual addiction support system became essential lifeline spouse Sex Addicts Pam either seen heard following interview Pam delf SA’s significant others may facing right selfisolation Pam explains person becomes addicted pornography addiction progress chemical change occur brain discus reprogramming opportunity available treatment resource Pam’s former spouse male interview slanted toward men sexual addict discussion also refer porn sex addiction interchangeable Lisa envision pornography sex addict coping right selfisolation Pam believe selfisolation exacerbate problem Many Sexaholics Anonymous SA group meeting canceled face face support available coronavirus time uncertainty fear anxiety many Sex Addicts use porn masturbation selfsoothing activity default mechanism people quarantine men going withdrawal wife regularly can’t watch often want given they’ll scrutiny I’m sure unhappiness ever partner may wish reassurance time closeness feeling protected loved SA incapable providing emotion whatever create distance — coldness fighting overly critical etc ensure space enabling addictive behavior Lisa Let’s take step back moment define sex addict Pam performs specific search Google provides following research paper “Sex Addiction Neuroscience Trauma More” written Stefanie Carnes PhD CSATS Pam read pathological relationship moodaltering experience sex individual continues engage despite adverse consequence much physical addiction Lisa statement provides clear understanding problem quarantine sign spouse look Pam Increased time computer phone Hiding he’s looking Passwording device allowing access Unexplained time away home Excuses accompany outing preferring stay home alone Loss interest sex Coldness Continually picking fight put distance Making excuse sleep together Lisa happens sex addict able get need right due isolation partner Pam sex addict can’t get fix go withdrawal almost symptom drug addict Symptoms include anxiety short temper anger nausea even physical pain Lisa people become addicted porn Pam One common reason early sexual experience maturity often childhood uncommon SA’s victim childhood sexual abuse first introduction pornography may involve magazine video online Pam correct Carnes research paper report following reason 72 experienced physical abuse 81 experienced sexual abuse 97 experienced emotional abuse Lisa previous conversation mentioned there’s slippery slope porn addiction describe process beginning advanced stage Pam beginning curiosity lead people seek image Porn site offer lot free drawing card Lisa Wait — what’s drawing card Pam first go porn site see short video usually soft porn short teaser trailer harder stuff place enter credit card number whets appetite consumption like long sip Crown Royal demand whole bottle alcoholic Soon porn becomes harder neuron brain rewired desensitized tamer act meet demand watching disgusting demeaning sometimes violent sex act child required stimulate brain Soon evolve watching pornography performing action affair begin Online dating site filled SA’s looking string attached thrill Photo Kristina Flour Unsplash Lisa Tell term “emotional anorexia” SA’s personality change time Pam Dr Douglas Weiss coined phrase He’s psychologist founder Heart Heart Counseling Center Colorado Springs Colorado explains man wife love happens two people ‘normal’ sexual loving relationship man’s brain imprint partner’s body sexual reward come body look become associated sex brain look wife turn sexually doesn’t matter fat thin ugly gorgeous imprint nude body trigger sexual desire loving emotion SA become strongly addicted chance longer view sex partner desirable several reason human versus online porn woman may complain thing like demanding foreplay romance expect sexual gratification SA’s desirable online girl never whine always look perfect they’re told course adore fantasy world Since life world makebelieve trying integrate back real world partner make demand expectation beyond willing give he’s involved viewing pornography masturbates doesn’t take long longer enjoy intimacy According Dr Weiss’s research intimacy anorexia caused four major source Lisa happens chemical level person’s brain evolve indepth addiction Pam pull another online research paper TE Robinson B Kolb titled Structural plasticity associated exposure drug abuse start read aloud Recent research shown nondrug addiction gambling bingeeating sexual activity affect brain function way similar alcohol drug addiction Many addiction study focus referred pleasurereward circuitry corresponding neurotransmitter — chemical responsible communication neuron Pam look nod head understanding ask continue reading aloud One neurotransmitter frequently identified central addiction dopamine behavior drug produce pleasure induces rush dopamine ultimately “reinforces” behavior making likely occur amygdala basal ganglion reward center play role reinforcement activity produce pleasure Changes brain’s neural pathway referred “plasticity” “synaptic plasticity” refers change among neuronal connection Lisa recap research substantiates idea porn addiction alter brain plasticity Pam Exactly Black white image man staring fuzzy TV screen Lisa addict ever reprogram brain back original state Pam time lot work addict’s brain return normal considered plastic change mold take strict refusal view porn program recovery partner slow gentle approach introducing intimacy back marriage time condition met SA look partner desire love must forever vigilant allow triggered may avoid place went fill need Places like beach shopping mall downtown street importantly computer accountability program computer installed protecting SA entering site safe Lisa treatment available porn addict several treatment center resource available sexual addiction require house treatment 30 day extensive program involved Others geared towards husband wife 12 step sexual addiction group urban space well support group partner Online support group exist also Lisa Support resource included end post last question Pam — willing share personal story u Part 2 Pam Yes absolutely next post continue speak Pam understand like spouse sex addict reveals discovered husband’s addiction it’s progression evolution feeling Pam describe difficulty accepting sexual addiction disease Next talk support received Pam became voice spouse SA’s interview conclude outcome Pam’s marriage today journey interview resonates know alone resource available help time need Resources Help Available United States Help Available Canada Scholarly Journals Associations General like thisTags Addiction Interview Mental Health Sex Coronavirus |
2,281 | How to Change the Way You Talk to Yourself | “Just sit still,” Dad would tell one of my brothers.
Everyone knows kids have trouble sitting still for anything, even hair cuts.
The electric shaver he used to cut hair would get too close to their scalps. They’d flinch and cry out, “Ow!”
“Stupid idiot! I told you to sit still,” Dad would say, slapping them.
Some conversations refuse to leave our memories. And sometimes the words we can’t forget are the ones we tell ourselves. But I’ve learned how to change the way I talk to myself.
The negatives
They say it takes 9 positives to combat one negative thing we hear. Nine.
And yet, we replay the negatives, in which case, we need to up our efforts considerably.
But it seems that negatives somehow cling to us, like this poem I wrote.
A Magnet I seem to have a magnet
that’s deep inside my head.
And I repel the positive
and keep what’s bad instead.
Have you ever been on your way somewhere, knowing you should turn left? You’ve done it many times before, your car knows it by heart. But for some odd reason, you turn right. And immediately you hear:
What did you do that for?
What’s the matter with you?
You never do anything right!
So how can we combat those accusations? Because clearly, they will happen. It’s not even a matter of “if,” but rather a matter of when.
Affirmations
I’ve found writing out affirmations is helpful. It was something a counselor suggested, since I struggle with negative self-talk. Affirmations became my friends.
The only rule is that they must be positive. Affirmations are statements that affirm you as a person. If you have also heard negative statements in your own voice, think of things you wish others had said to you.
Things like:
It’s okay, you made a mistake.
You did your best, it’s alright.
You can always try it again.
You can go further by adding positive words to your inner vocabulary. Words that may feel strange at first, but add them just the same.
Words like:
You’re smart.
You’re funny.
People like being with you.
The longer your list, the more you’ll have in store for fighting the negatives.
If we consistently fight the negatives, eventually, we won’t get slaughtered every time we make a mistake.
Once is not enough
With affirmations, what you want to do is write them out by hand about ten times. Writing it out helps you retain it. And the more times you write them during the day, the more effective you will find them. One time for each one is just not enough.
True story: I once had a problem with my older brother. Okay, several. And I made everything worse in my own head because I thought I had to like him, and it was clear I did not. At least, at that time.
One affirmation that freed me up was this:
I have the right to not like my brother.
I have the right to not like my brother.
I have the right to not…
By giving myself the right, I felt less shame when I’d have a negative thought about him. When I gave myself the right, I treated each little thing separately, and that was doable.
I kept a spiral notebook, filled with this affirmation, as well as many others. Running across it, I had to smile. You see, I was so skeptical. But not only did it work, I ended up seeing a lot of great things in my brother, I would have missed. And when that happened, I easily cleaned out the closet of my mind and had a good chance of strengthening my relationship with him.
Years later, when he shared he had Pancreatic cancer, I was there for him completely. Not just because he was family, but because he was someone I loved and liked. I’m so thankful I opened my mind, and my life to him.
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
Make a list
Jot down the negative things you tell yourself, or even those you hear from others. And when you have that list, next to each word, write the opposite word. Write what you would like said to you.
Examples:
stupid — intelligent
ugly — nice looking
insensitive — care about people
Everyone’s list will be different, because we’re all unique, but there will be some words that find themselves on many lists.
Listen to your inner voice. Pay attention to how you feel when you talk to yourself. I have found I’ve even changed the tone of how I talk to me.
While some negative self-talk starts in their family of origin, this is not the case for everyone.
Some people will start off with a great home base. But somewhere along the line, they meet someone who puts them down. Instead of standing up to it, they start believing the negatives.
The good news is, you can build up your self-confidence. You can change your self-talk and actually become your own biggest fan.
P.T.S.D.
I struggle with post traumatic stress disorder. Sometimes buttons get pressed, and while I look like I’m an adult, my inner dialog is shaming the child within.
Affirmations have been helpful to me because I realize buttons will get pressed in life. The experiences we have now will remind us of other ones, sometimes painful.
How we talk to ourselves really matters.
I’ve found some sentences that help those who struggle with anxiety or depression.
When I was in a dark place in my thinking, it felt like I would always be there. Like it was inescapable. These affirmations helped me:
You’re not always going to feel like this.
You’re okay.
It will be alright.
People who struggle with negative self-talk need someone on their side. And who better than the person who’s always with them?
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
“Be nice”
One of my friends struggled with putting herself down. Maybe in a way, she thought she’d beat everyone else to it.
Finally, one day I told her, “Sherry, be nice to my friend.”
And she smiled.
From the time we are little, we’re told, “be nice.” In our homes, we are told to get along with our siblings.
And then we go to Kindergarten, and the teacher tells us, “Be nice.”
And we really try. But it’s towards others, not inwardly. It’s time to realize how we treat ourselves matters much more than we thought.
Even the Bible says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:30–31)
Try it out. Write down some of the negatives you tell yourself. Take a few minutes and they’ll surface.
Think of the last time you got embarrassed, you’ll be able to think of a lot of negatives surrounding that. Jot down others as they happen. You have nothing to lose by trying this out.
There will always be negative
When I was younger and my friends went on to college, I tried to go too, but my mom’s death a few years earlier made it impossible to think.
Thirty years later, I returned to school. First I attended a junior college, and then with an A.A. degree, I transferred to a university and graduated Summa Cum Laude.
And I remember calling my aunt on the phone, “Aunt Jeanette, I did it. I graduated.”
She said, “You graduated?” And then she added, “You could have done this years ago.”
But even her words did not squelch my feelings of accomplishment.
The real victory
When I attended Judson University, in Elgin, it meant I had a 40-minute drive. The drive was unfamiliar. That scared me because I am direction deficient. Don’t bother to look it up, I’ve given myself that title. It simply means when it comes to going anywhere, the probability is high that I will get lost.
My classes were condensed, so I’d get my B.A. in 15 months, but that still meant I would be going to class twice a week and mostly at night.
With a hand-drawn map from my husband, I set off on my first day.
I can do this, I told myself. And true to my form, I got lost.
Sitting on the side of the road in tears, I felt defeated.
How could I do this 88 more times?
Judson University was near an expressway, so I could have saved time by taking that route. But I was too scared.
One day, I was just about at school. I saw the expressway ahead and knew I had made it. But instead of taking the street I needed, I turned too soon. And the next thing I knew, I was ON the expressway.
Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash
I tried to remain calm as tears ran down my face and my heart beat out of my chest. I managed to get off in a couple of exits.
I walked in the gas station for directions. (This was pre-cellphones and G.P.S’s.)
“How can I get to Judson University?” I panted.
“Oh, you’re almost there,” the attendant replied. “All you have to do is get back on the expressway…”
“No!” I interrupted, I don’t want to take the expressway.”
And so he explained the longer, less traveled route. And 40 minutes later, I walked in class, my red face stained with tears of humiliation.
Did I have what it took?
Eventually, I learned the route there and back. Yes, I got lost a couple more times. No, I did not take the expressway again. That lesson in life would come much later.
I did it!
Graduation day, as I waited to receive my diploma, I knew what I had accomplished to get there.
And I heard my own words, “Good job Anne. I knew you could do it.”
Those trips taught me how to talk to myself. I learned how to calm myself down when I got lost.
You can do this.
I know you can do it.
Just breathe.
And you know what? I was right. I did do it.
And whatever it is that you’re facing, you can do it too. For inside of you lives a person who can root for you the loudest.
Give yourself a chance.
Call to Action:
Do you struggle with negative self-talk?
What have you found effective?
I’d love to hear from you. | https://medium.com/thrive-global/how-to-change-the-way-you-talk-to-yourself-c148c5441b69 | ['Anne Peterson'] | 2019-11-05 14:20:50.452000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Mental Health', 'Weekly Prompts', 'Growth', 'Self Improvement'] | Title Change Way Talk YourselfContent “Just sit still” Dad would tell one brother Everyone know kid trouble sitting still anything even hair cut electric shaver used cut hair would get close scalp They’d flinch cry “Ow” “Stupid idiot told sit still” Dad would say slapping conversation refuse leave memory sometimes word can’t forget one tell I’ve learned change way talk negative say take 9 positive combat one negative thing hear Nine yet replay negative case need effort considerably seems negative somehow cling u like poem wrote Magnet seem magnet that’s deep inside head repel positive keep what’s bad instead ever way somewhere knowing turn left You’ve done many time car know heart odd reason turn right immediately hear What’s matter never anything right combat accusation clearly happen It’s even matter “if” rather matter Affirmations I’ve found writing affirmation helpful something counselor suggested since struggle negative selftalk Affirmations became friend rule must positive Affirmations statement affirm person also heard negative statement voice think thing wish others said Things like It’s okay made mistake best it’s alright always try go adding positive word inner vocabulary Words may feel strange first add Words like You’re smart You’re funny People like longer list you’ll store fighting negative consistently fight negative eventually won’t get slaughtered every time make mistake enough affirmation want write hand ten time Writing help retain time write day effective find One time one enough True story problem older brother Okay several made everything worse head thought like clear least time One affirmation freed right like brother right like brother right not… giving right felt le shame I’d negative thought gave right treated little thing separately doable kept spiral notebook filled affirmation well many others Running across smile see skeptical work ended seeing lot great thing brother would missed happened easily cleaned closet mind good chance strengthening relationship Years later shared Pancreatic cancer completely family someone loved liked I’m thankful opened mind life Photo Thought Catalog Unsplash Make list Jot negative thing tell even hear others list next word write opposite word Write would like said Examples stupid — intelligent ugly — nice looking insensitive — care people Everyone’s list different we’re unique word find many list Listen inner voice Pay attention feel talk found I’ve even changed tone talk negative selftalk start family origin case everyone people start great home base somewhere along line meet someone put Instead standing start believing negative good news build selfconfidence change selftalk actually become biggest fan PTSD struggle post traumatic stress disorder Sometimes button get pressed look like I’m adult inner dialog shaming child within Affirmations helpful realize button get pressed life experience remind u one sometimes painful talk really matter I’ve found sentence help struggle anxiety depression dark place thinking felt like would always Like inescapable affirmation helped You’re always going feel like You’re okay alright People struggle negative selftalk need someone side better person who’s always Photo Tim Mossholder Unsplash “Be nice” One friend struggled putting Maybe way thought she’d beat everyone else Finally one day told “Sherry nice friend” smiled time little we’re told “be nice” home told get along sibling go Kindergarten teacher tell u “Be nice” really try it’s towards others inwardly It’s time realize treat matter much thought Even Bible say “Love neighbor yourself” Mark 1230–31 Try Write negative tell Take minute they’ll surface Think last time got embarrassed you’ll able think lot negative surrounding Jot others happen nothing lose trying always negative younger friend went college tried go mom’s death year earlier made impossible think Thirty year later returned school First attended junior college AA degree transferred university graduated Summa Cum Laude remember calling aunt phone “Aunt Jeanette graduated” said “You graduated” added “You could done year ago” even word squelch feeling accomplishment real victory attended Judson University Elgin meant 40minute drive drive unfamiliar scared direction deficient Don’t bother look I’ve given title simply mean come going anywhere probability high get lost class condensed I’d get BA 15 month still meant would going class twice week mostly night handdrawn map husband set first day told true form got lost Sitting side road tear felt defeated could 88 time Judson University near expressway could saved time taking route scared One day school saw expressway ahead knew made instead taking street needed turned soon next thing knew expressway Photo Jamie Street Unsplash tried remain calm tear ran face heart beat chest managed get couple exit walked gas station direction precellphones GPS’s “How get Judson University” panted “Oh you’re almost there” attendant replied “All get back expressway…” “No” interrupted don’t want take expressway” explained longer le traveled route 40 minute later walked class red face stained tear humiliation took Eventually learned route back Yes got lost couple time take expressway lesson life would come much later Graduation day waited receive diploma knew accomplished get heard word “Good job Anne knew could it” trip taught talk learned calm got lost know breathe know right whatever you’re facing inside life person root loudest Give chance Call Action struggle negative selftalk found effective I’d love hear youTags Selfawareness Mental Health Weekly Prompts Growth Self Improvement |
2,282 | In Times of an Unknown Future, Let Synchronicity Be Your Guide! | As Corona Virus demands change, a transforming culture grant us permission to be who we never thought we would be.
photo by Mackenzie Andersen of sculpture by Weston and Brenda Andersen for Andersen Design
I awoke in the morning in an instance that dreaming becomes consciousness, a transition as elusive to detect as that precise moment when night becomes dawn.
I was travelling in my dream on the main road out of town passing through the point where the Harbor becomes Boothbay. On the side of the road, I saw a sign that said “Learn Farm”, crafted on a wooden board painted with weathered white paint, and written in Times New Roman font. A frame around the words lent the sign traditionally old fashioned flair.
In dream word play, the message is its new but its old, Times, New Roman, correlating with to my concept of a twenty-first century cottage industry, a network of businesses in residence, pre-industrial culture resurrected for a world evolving toward smaller, autonomous interactive parts.
At first instance I read “Learn” as the name of a family farm, and on second thought I understood it to be a verb. The sign was on the right side of the road, off the beaten track, only noticed while passing it by. as I made a mental note that it is the right way to go.
Tall Pelican by Andersen Design, Photo by Susan Mackenzie Andersen
Looming ahead is that political conglomeration known as the Boothbay Roundabout. I am on a track to go through it. Too late to turn around, I am traveling too quickly toward the point where the common road makes way for the new main drag connecting centers of concentrated wealth, halting the common traffic in its tracks, or else speeding it along without pause into the conflation of streams going round and round the roundabout, to decorative effect.
In former times the functions served by the roundabout infrastructure, were handled off to the side of the common road, concerning only those whom it needed to concern.
Photo by Mackenzie Andersen
The roundabout is a political construct, one I must deal with as the path I am travelling in my dream offers no other choice than to keep on moving forward into the future.
And so it is in life that one must become a political actor, play or be played.
Large well capitalized businesses negotiate with state policy makers to achieve their own ends. Small businesses must do the same. A vision of a network of independent slip casting studios becomes more viable if business in residence zoning is actualized in law and if financing options are crafted by similar intents as those applied to stand alone housing and business development.
The ideal first step wherein vision becomes actualization is the acquisition of real estate for a center of learning, research, a small production where training can happen and a gallery and someday-social-gathering-space can serve as a center for a community of like minded artisans and entrepreneurs, all the while working on advocating for better laws, ordinances, and public programs to manifest an extended network of independent contractors. Call it “Learn Farm”, for short.
Vintage Creamer in rare yellow ochre glaze both by Weston Neil Andersen, photo by author
Independent contractors are today’s dynamic players in remote working culture. This is their time to make a big social impact.
The goal is to establish a network of independent slip-casting contracting studios. I have contacted many local economic development resources during the past decade receiving no response.
Writing and publishing casts a wider net but the wider net might take one further away from where one needs to be rooted. By going around the roundabout about one can turn around and get back to the right turn in the road.
Perhaps the roundabout I am entering are orbits of my own making, meeting and converging, seemingly through happenstance, or as Jung would say, synchronicity, or meaningful co-incidence. Synchronicity is the guide which navigates through the unfamiliar. When all orbits are synchronized from the center outward they act as one reverberating wave function.
Vintage Creamer and Sugar Set in classic Blue Green Hand Painted Stripes, Photo by Mackenzie Andersen
I began this story with the intention of introducing the new website design which I have been developing during the past six weeks, repurposing our website which markets products as a tool to promote a KickStarter campaign and extended fundraising efforts.
These days every presentation is supposed to be as short as an elevator pitch. Once, the recommended time of a video was three minutes but it is now said to be better done in two.
So my challenge is how does one communicate something so complex as our business in simple form? The complexity can be communicated using a link to our website where the full range of the Andersen Design’s work from mid-century to 21st century is represented. As in a dream, a link is shorthand for an expansive concept.
Most of our standard line is out of stock as we no longer have a studio for production but the line continues to retain its market appeal representing a qualified economic development asset. As a small size production it cannot saturate a global or even a national market. The many variables in our line and processes makes the making of the line an engaging experience involving hands-on physicality. Please check out and sign up in support of our pre-launch efforts.
Sleeping Sandpiper, designed and decorated by Elise, Photo by Mackenzie
As I am working on my new design, I receive an invitation from a venue where I publish, to participate in a newly forming consulting platform. The platform handles the transactions and relationships between parties, crucial as a matter of trust in a globally connected world, and a hedge against fraud. The platform is geographically located in Singapore, an Asian city-state. Lately I have been watching television series from another Asian country, Korea, finding the culture to be more American than the United States is at this present moment, which I find fascinating. The sound track for one Korean love story drama, features a uniquely rendered version of “Stand by Your Man”. The dialogue is Korean but the music is American country.
That was a diversion, or maybe not.
In another recent dream my Dad was standing between my desk and the window and told me to get a new chair. In the material world, the chair I was using was falling apart, until a couple of days ago, when I fixed it. At that time I literally needed a new chair but in dream speak, the message delivered by my father, standing between my seat of work and the window of opportunity, is that I need to get myself better SIT-uated.
This new opportunity offers the potential to become better situated. There is no guidebook, not even sample profiles. The lack of a guide is a situation common to many, facing new situations in the wake of corona virus.
Sheeba in unglazed white stoneware by Weston, Photo by Mackenzie
A company culture that invites one to become what one doesn’t think of becoming oneself, is inspiring and motivational, granting permission to believe in learning as a continual transformative process, which in todays world takes place at a faster and faster rate. Many careers may be outpaced by new technological developments but hand made ceramics is as old as human history. By continuing to exist as an entity, Andersen Design, and other small businesses provide the opportunity for others to discover skills and talents that they might not otherwise know they have, adding variety to available options.
Many decades ago, I read a book by Harold Geneen, in which it was said that Geneen would offer potential employees higher pay than they expected while presenting them with the greatest challenge of their life. That was the Geneen company culture.
Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned. Harold Geneen
As I was formulating the new website, I had been planning to offer services on our website but left it to the last. As it happened The web design was nearing completion when the new consulting opportunity presented itself.
Sheba by Weston, glazed in White and decorated by Christine, Photo by Susan (Mackenzie)
The consulting platform is entirely different than any other I know because it features writers who are also the consultants. The writers come from many different fields and walks of life. The website is called Data Driven Investor, which on the surface is not where I expect to be published but that is relative to on how widely or narrowly one defines data.
Is the definition of data exclusive to what can be gathered in a computer compiler or is it inclusive of a living experience, more subjective than objective? As we move into the area of quantum computing we are entering a domain in which the observer affects the observed. Computer input and out put is artificial intelligence, but human intelligence programs the computer. Can artificial intelligence program AI, intelligently? That is a question on the looming horizon of the new frontier.
In the meantime, the human mind retains its mystery, The many voices of the family of man is how we create our database of living information. The great twentieth century science fiction writer, Philip K Dock coined it as Valis, Vast Active Living Intelligence System, a book he wrote as fiction about a character who perceives ancient Rome at the time of Christ, superimposed on California in 1974. Yes, that’s Times New Roman in short code. Dick said his novel, Valis, is autobiographical but no one would be believe it so he published it as fiction, because truth is stranger than fiction and nature will always be infinitely more than artificial intelligence can know. | https://medium.com/illumination/in-times-of-and-unknown-future-let-synchronicity-be-your-guide-22056043d274 | ['Mackenzie Andersen'] | 2020-12-19 06:03:02.972000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Spirituality', 'Economic Development', 'Dreams', 'Entrepreneurship'] | Title Times Unknown Future Let Synchronicity GuideContent Corona Virus demand change transforming culture grant u permission never thought would photo Mackenzie Andersen sculpture Weston Brenda Andersen Andersen Design awoke morning instance dreaming becomes consciousness transition elusive detect precise moment night becomes dawn travelling dream main road town passing point Harbor becomes Boothbay side road saw sign said “Learn Farm” crafted wooden board painted weathered white paint written Times New Roman font frame around word lent sign traditionally old fashioned flair dream word play message new old Times New Roman correlating concept twentyfirst century cottage industry network business residence preindustrial culture resurrected world evolving toward smaller autonomous interactive part first instance read “Learn” name family farm second thought understood verb sign right side road beaten track noticed passing made mental note right way go Tall Pelican Andersen Design Photo Susan Mackenzie Andersen Looming ahead political conglomeration known Boothbay Roundabout track go late turn around traveling quickly toward point common road make way new main drag connecting center concentrated wealth halting common traffic track else speeding along without pause conflation stream going round round roundabout decorative effect former time function served roundabout infrastructure handled side common road concerning needed concern Photo Mackenzie Andersen roundabout political construct one must deal path travelling dream offer choice keep moving forward future life one must become political actor play played Large well capitalized business negotiate state policy maker achieve end Small business must vision network independent slip casting studio becomes viable business residence zoning actualized law financing option crafted similar intent applied stand alone housing business development ideal first step wherein vision becomes actualization acquisition real estate center learning research small production training happen gallery somedaysocialgatheringspace serve center community like minded artisan entrepreneur working advocating better law ordinance public program manifest extended network independent contractor Call “Learn Farm” short Vintage Creamer rare yellow ochre glaze Weston Neil Andersen photo author Independent contractor today’s dynamic player remote working culture time make big social impact goal establish network independent slipcasting contracting studio contacted many local economic development resource past decade receiving response Writing publishing cast wider net wider net might take one away one need rooted going around roundabout one turn around get back right turn road Perhaps roundabout entering orbit making meeting converging seemingly happenstance Jung would say synchronicity meaningful coincidence Synchronicity guide navigates unfamiliar orbit synchronized center outward act one reverberating wave function Vintage Creamer Sugar Set classic Blue Green Hand Painted Stripes Photo Mackenzie Andersen began story intention introducing new website design developing past six week repurposing website market product tool promote KickStarter campaign extended fundraising effort day every presentation supposed short elevator pitch recommended time video three minute said better done two challenge one communicate something complex business simple form complexity communicated using link website full range Andersen Design’s work midcentury 21st century represented dream link shorthand expansive concept standard line stock longer studio production line continues retain market appeal representing qualified economic development asset small size production cannot saturate global even national market many variable line process make making line engaging experience involving handson physicality Please check sign support prelaunch effort Sleeping Sandpiper designed decorated Elise Photo Mackenzie working new design receive invitation venue publish participate newly forming consulting platform platform handle transaction relationship party crucial matter trust globally connected world hedge fraud platform geographically located Singapore Asian citystate Lately watching television series another Asian country Korea finding culture American United States present moment find fascinating sound track one Korean love story drama feature uniquely rendered version “Stand Man” dialogue Korean music American country diversion maybe another recent dream Dad standing desk window told get new chair material world chair using falling apart couple day ago fixed time literally needed new chair dream speak message delivered father standing seat work window opportunity need get better SITuated new opportunity offer potential become better situated guidebook even sample profile lack guide situation common many facing new situation wake corona virus Sheeba unglazed white stoneware Weston Photo Mackenzie company culture invite one become one doesn’t think becoming oneself inspiring motivational granting permission believe learning continual transformative process today world take place faster faster rate Many career may outpaced new technological development hand made ceramic old human history continuing exist entity Andersen Design small business provide opportunity others discover skill talent might otherwise know adding variety available option Many decade ago read book Harold Geneen said Geneen would offer potential employee higher pay expected presenting greatest challenge life Geneen company culture Leadership cannot really taught learned Harold Geneen formulating new website planning offer service website left last happened web design nearing completion new consulting opportunity presented Sheba Weston glazed White decorated Christine Photo Susan Mackenzie consulting platform entirely different know feature writer also consultant writer come many different field walk life website called Data Driven Investor surface expect published relative widely narrowly one defines data definition data exclusive gathered computer compiler inclusive living experience subjective objective move area quantum computing entering domain observer affect observed Computer input put artificial intelligence human intelligence program computer artificial intelligence program AI intelligently question looming horizon new frontier meantime human mind retains mystery many voice family man create database living information great twentieth century science fiction writer Philip K Dock coined Valis Vast Active Living Intelligence System book wrote fiction character perceives ancient Rome time Christ superimposed California 1974 Yes that’s Times New Roman short code Dick said novel Valis autobiographical one would believe published fiction truth stranger fiction nature always infinitely artificial intelligence knowTags Selfawareness Spirituality Economic Development Dreams Entrepreneurship |
2,283 | How to Attract Top Tech Talent | How to Attract Top Tech Talent
Four suggestions for recruiting talented technology individuals into your new digital startup team (Singapore context)
A few years ago, I joined my first company through a hackathon event that I participated in while studying (and struggling) in university. Hackathons and events are an effective way to recruit tech talents in Singapore.
I enjoyed my time in the company; I started as an intern and converted to full-time subsequently. Looking back, joining the hackathon was the best investment of my time. I later introduced the rest of my friends into the team.
Fast forward a few years later, today, I’m placed in the role to assist with the recruitment of digital talents into a new digital team. Do note that this is not an HR role. I’ll be sharing some suggestions based on my conversations with fellow technologists and what has worked for me.
#1: Focus on building an influential culture and community
The salary for talented technology professionals (at least in Singapore) is generally competitive enough. My technology counterparts (the good ones) are earning quite a decent amount of salary, up to a point where further increments don’t contribute much to their lives.
If you want to reach out to talented tech individuals that are well taken care of, you’ll have to focus on the components at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs; this includes a pleasant environment, community, and culture, etc.
Building a culture that attracts strong talents is no easy task, and it can take a significant amount of time and effort. The foundation is critical, e.g. the first few members of the team would set the stage for the rest of the community. If you’re already in an existing large team with an undesired culture in place, it may be worth considering to start a new team with a clean slate.
While your team is still small and new, it’s essential to invest time and resource in planning the types of benefits and leaders to bring into your organisation. Based on my experience, I’ve seen two successful approaches which may work for you:
Set the desired environment — if you’re looking to create a digital startup culture and environment to facilitate innovation, follow the industry leaders. New hires coming from those environments would not get too much of a culture shock, and you’ll attract similar type people. Recruit the influential leader — although this might incur you quite a sum at the start, it could be beneficial in the long run as the rest of the team is likely to follow a good leader into the new organisation; a leader is a strong ambassador.
Having an influential culture and community creates a positive reinforcing feedback loop, whereby the people in your team become ambassadors to refer people that fits and grows the culture. Now, where can you find these people and the influential leader? I’ll be covering that shortly in the subsequent sections.
#2: Provide meaning and recognition
Apart from having a good culture and community, the work has to be meaningful and rewarding to attract the top tech talent who wants to make a difference. As a tinkerer, one of the most disappointing things to experience is after spending a significant amount of time and effort building something only to see it go to waste; we want to create things that make an impact.
Choose the type of projects you undertake wisely. Eventually, you’ll have to sell the projects to the rest of your team to get their buy-in and commitment to start the journey together with you. Find meaning and purpose in the projects that you and your team choose to undertake — pick up negotiation and sales skills if you have to. The best kinds of project are those with nationwide impact and media publicity upon launch, e.g. apps related to COVID-19 to help citizens.
One of the questions I often hear these days from my talented tech counterparts are: “What kind of interesting projects does the team do?” Meaningful projects are a strong selling point for your team to attract talented tech individuals who are keen to make an impact.
#3: Illustrate prospects for the role
It’s important to illustrate the prospect for the role that you’re recruiting. Explain how you’ll be grooming individuals to become a product owner or architect, etc. While some technologists would prefer to stay as a rockstar developer or technical wizard, many see themselves as future product owners (PO), architects and project managers (PM). By showcasing the road map upfront, it could attract potential hires looking to advance further gradually.
You may want to consider including a short description or detail in the job description indicating the type of prospects that the role could open up to, e.g. progression after two to three years to PO, PM, etc. The potential candidate can then envision their success and progress in your team.
#4: Visit and recruit from tech hangouts, events, and online
I joined my company through a digital hackathon event. I remember during the event, my team had a mentor assigned to my team. The mentor is a project manager from the company that took time off projects to participate in the hackathon to coach teams.
We asked him what’s in it for him being here? It’s simple. He said, “We’re looking to hire strong individuals for our team, and we can usually find them here at competitions.” There’s quite a lot of truth in that. During my university days, the ones who join competitions are either those that can juggle multiple commitments (ambitious), keen learners, are genuinely passionate, or a combination of each. These are the groups of people who make time to hone their craft.
If you want to look for the best talent, you’ll have to visit the places that these groups of people gather. You don’t need to organise a hackathon. There are various options these days:
Tech events, e.g. UX meetups, Hackathons, etc.
University career shows and seminars (as a speaker/contributor: go early and stay later to network with the ones who are interested)
Online micro-communities, e.g. Telegram groups, Slack groups, etc.
LinkedIn
It’d be worthwhile even if you don’t get any potential candidates from these events, because these people may refer their friends to you or reach out to you again someday. | https://medium.com/the-internal-startup/how-to-attract-good-tech-talent-ebd349805cda | ['Jimmy Soh'] | 2020-06-12 15:48:08.892000+00:00 | ['Recruiting', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Talent Acquisition', 'Startup', 'Digital Transformation'] | Title Attract Top Tech TalentContent Attract Top Tech Talent Four suggestion recruiting talented technology individual new digital startup team Singapore context year ago joined first company hackathon event participated studying struggling university Hackathons event effective way recruit tech talent Singapore enjoyed time company started intern converted fulltime subsequently Looking back joining hackathon best investment time later introduced rest friend team Fast forward year later today I’m placed role assist recruitment digital talent new digital team note HR role I’ll sharing suggestion based conversation fellow technologist worked 1 Focus building influential culture community salary talented technology professional least Singapore generally competitive enough technology counterpart good one earning quite decent amount salary point increment don’t contribute much life want reach talented tech individual well taken care you’ll focus component top Maslow’s Hierarchy Needs includes pleasant environment community culture etc Building culture attracts strong talent easy task take significant amount time effort foundation critical eg first member team would set stage rest community you’re already existing large team undesired culture place may worth considering start new team clean slate team still small new it’s essential invest time resource planning type benefit leader bring organisation Based experience I’ve seen two successful approach may work Set desired environment — you’re looking create digital startup culture environment facilitate innovation follow industry leader New hire coming environment would get much culture shock you’ll attract similar type people Recruit influential leader — although might incur quite sum start could beneficial long run rest team likely follow good leader new organisation leader strong ambassador influential culture community creates positive reinforcing feedback loop whereby people team become ambassador refer people fit grows culture find people influential leader I’ll covering shortly subsequent section 2 Provide meaning recognition Apart good culture community work meaningful rewarding attract top tech talent want make difference tinkerer one disappointing thing experience spending significant amount time effort building something see go waste want create thing make impact Choose type project undertake wisely Eventually you’ll sell project rest team get buyin commitment start journey together Find meaning purpose project team choose undertake — pick negotiation sale skill best kind project nationwide impact medium publicity upon launch eg apps related COVID19 help citizen One question often hear day talented tech counterpart “What kind interesting project team do” Meaningful project strong selling point team attract talented tech individual keen make impact 3 Illustrate prospect role It’s important illustrate prospect role you’re recruiting Explain you’ll grooming individual become product owner architect etc technologist would prefer stay rockstar developer technical wizard many see future product owner PO architect project manager PM showcasing road map upfront could attract potential hire looking advance gradually may want consider including short description detail job description indicating type prospect role could open eg progression two three year PO PM etc potential candidate envision success progress team 4 Visit recruit tech hangout event online joined company digital hackathon event remember event team mentor assigned team mentor project manager company took time project participate hackathon coach team asked what’s It’s simple said “We’re looking hire strong individual team usually find competitions” There’s quite lot truth university day one join competition either juggle multiple commitment ambitious keen learner genuinely passionate combination group people make time hone craft want look best talent you’ll visit place group people gather don’t need organise hackathon various option day Tech event eg UX meetups Hackathons etc University career show seminar speakercontributor go early stay later network one interested Online microcommunities eg Telegram group Slack group etc LinkedIn It’d worthwhile even don’t get potential candidate event people may refer friend reach somedayTags Recruiting Entrepreneurship Talent Acquisition Startup Digital Transformation |
2,284 | What makes Python the “Best of the Best?” | Python is an object-oriented, interpreted, and high-level popular programing language with dynamic semantics. It is desirable for rapid application development, combined with dynamic binding and dynamic typing, its high-level built-in data structure, and connecting existing components together used for as a scripting or glue language.
The cost of program maintenance reduces because Python is easy and simple to learn syntax emphasizes readability. Python is a popular and most lovable programming language globally because of the increased productivity it provides. According to Google Trends, let’s have a quick view of Python’s popularity all over the world.
Here in this blog, some most noteworthy Python features make it best of the best tool for professionals of all skill levels are provided:
1. Open-source language
Python is opensource, so to install and use Python, you don’t need to pay charges. That means to the public, the source code of Python is available freely. From Python’s official website, you can easily download it. The Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) supported by the Python so you can distribute and change it. This allowed by the Python community for the improve its features continuously.
2. High-level language:
You do not need to perform memory management and do not need to remember its system architecture since Python is a high-level language. To Python’s user-friendliness, this features contributions.
3. Python = Simplicity
To learn quickly is not enough for any programming language. Right! Here Python is not easy to learn, but it is also easy to learn, but in the use and implementation, that is an excellent point about Python that male developers fall in love with Python. You can master python coding’s nitty-gritty In a few days, with syntax similar to English. Through its readability factor enhancing Python is dynamically typed, so that makes indentation mandatory,
4. Object-oriented and functional:
Python supports object-oriented and functional features. Python helps various inheritances also, unlike Java. An object-oriented programming language can model real-world data while on functions (code that can be reused) a functional language focuses.
5. It’s interpreted:
Related Java and C++, unlike compiled language wherein you need to compile the code and then run it. Python executes it line by line instead of all at once executing the source code. Because you can do it while writing the code, this makes it easier to debug a python code.
6. The vast collection of Libraries:
Python comes with a vast collection of libraries — the extensive collection of Python libraries you can automatically download with it when you download Python. For every single thing, you don’t need to write individual code because these libraries are built-in. For threading, web browsers, regular expressions, unit-testing, email, CGI, database, image manipulation, documentation-generation, and many more Python has packages and libraries.
7. Portable:
Python is highly flexible, meaning, portable, for a Linux machine or window machine, a python code written that also can run on iOS and vise versa- in the code, you don’t need to male any alterations. Different machines need to write different code with Python eliminates (in your python code, just make sure there’s no system-dependent feature).
8. Extensible and embeddable:
To write specific parts of your python code in other programming languages that Python allows you, so it’s an extensible language such as C++. In the source code of other languages, you can also embed your Python code similarly. In another language, this allows you to integrate Python’s scripting functionalities into code written.
Conclusion:
After reading about what makes Python best of the best, it is safe to conclude that Python is the best capable programming language for handling any development requirement. In the field of Data Science and Specifically in Machine Learning, businesses hire Python developers more from a Python development company to make Python applications that gained newfound traction in the last few years. | https://medium.com/devtechtoday/what-makes-python-the-best-of-the-best-55e285adea37 | ['Binal Prajapati'] | 2020-09-29 07:52:13.195000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Technology', 'Development', 'Developer', 'Python Programming'] | Title make Python “Best Best”Content Python objectoriented interpreted highlevel popular programing language dynamic semantics desirable rapid application development combined dynamic binding dynamic typing highlevel builtin data structure connecting existing component together used scripting glue language cost program maintenance reduces Python easy simple learn syntax emphasizes readability Python popular lovable programming language globally increased productivity provides According Google Trends let’s quick view Python’s popularity world blog noteworthy Python feature make best best tool professional skill level provided 1 Opensource language Python opensource install use Python don’t need pay charge mean public source code Python available freely Python’s official website easily download FreeLibre Open Source Software FLOSS supported Python distribute change allowed Python community improve feature continuously 2 Highlevel language need perform memory management need remember system architecture since Python highlevel language Python’s userfriendliness feature contribution 3 Python Simplicity learn quickly enough programming language Right Python easy learn also easy learn use implementation excellent point Python male developer fall love Python master python coding’s nittygritty day syntax similar English readability factor enhancing Python dynamically typed make indentation mandatory 4 Objectoriented functional Python support objectoriented functional feature Python help various inheritance also unlike Java objectoriented programming language model realworld data function code reused functional language focus 5 It’s interpreted Related Java C unlike compiled language wherein need compile code run Python executes line line instead executing source code writing code make easier debug python code 6 vast collection Libraries Python come vast collection library — extensive collection Python library automatically download download Python every single thing don’t need write individual code library builtin threading web browser regular expression unittesting email CGI database image manipulation documentationgeneration many Python package library 7 Portable Python highly flexible meaning portable Linux machine window machine python code written also run iOS vise versa code don’t need male alteration Different machine need write different code Python eliminates python code make sure there’s systemdependent feature 8 Extensible embeddable write specific part python code programming language Python allows it’s extensible language C source code language also embed Python code similarly another language allows integrate Python’s scripting functionality code written Conclusion reading make Python best best safe conclude Python best capable programming language handling development requirement field Data Science Specifically Machine Learning business hire Python developer Python development company make Python application gained newfound traction last yearsTags Python Technology Development Developer Python Programming |
2,285 | The Stones of Taru Village | Taru was destroyed in 1994.
“Our village was already dying by the time the planes came,” Haydar says. “A friend of mine — his parents ventured out one night with a flashlight to visit him on the other side of the village. You see how tiny it is here. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes away, but they were old and it took some time. They passed through a soldier checkpoint without incident. On the way back, an hour or two later, they were shot on approach at the same checkpoint. Murdered just like that. The soldier who pulled the trigger said he thought they were ‘terrorists’ when he saw the light of their flashlight bobbing along the trail, the exact same flashlight he had let through just an hour before. It never became news of course.”
Haydar has a sweeping bush of white hair and an equally bushy moustache that covers his upper lip. When he tells a story, I notice he sometimes holds the tip of his tongue on his bottom lip before he delivers the funny part. His wife is a tall elegant woman, with a long face and eyes that retain a somber light even when she smiles. With the tulip glasses of fresh tea, she serves German ginger cookies and cucumbers from their garden, then sits down at the end of the table where I, the foreign zava (groom), look completely lost. Everyone is speaking a mix of Turkish, which I know, and Kurmanji Kurdish, which I don’t. And somehow the climax of every story comes in Kurmanji.
“And then you wouldn’t believe who I saw coming!” Haydar says. “I swear, you’ll die laughing! It was…” Kurmanji! Everyone but me erupts into guffaws.
“I feel this land in my bones,” Suzan says, giving her husband a quiet smile and then looking back at me. “I’m proud we’ve come back, but I wasn’t born in this village, you know, but in Kumsor — where your wife’s ancestors came from a long long time ago. It means Qızılbaş, the red heads.”
“In Tunceli,” I say.
“In Dersim,” she corrects.
“So you speak Zaza?”
“I speak Dimilli. And also Kurmanji and Turkish.”
She is gentle, but adamant about these corrections. It’s not pride but a simple insistence on the truth. In Turkey there are two main branches of Kurd. One is popularly known as the Zazas, who historically immigrated first, probably before the Byzantines arrived. Taru village once stood and stands again on the border of their territory. To the east is the province of Bingöl, where my wife’s village lies hidden in a deep valley just a few kilometers away. To the west, is the province of Tunceli, the land once called Dersim on the maps and still called that by the people who live here — in private at least. It was here, in 1938, that the army of the new Turkish republic massacred tens of thousands of Zaza Kurds when they resisted assimilation.
Dersim was renamed Tunceli in an effort to obliterate its past, and some of its territory was redistributed to other provinces. The people were moved, too — a monstrous feat of social engineering aimed at diluting those that survived the massacres. The locals speak a variant of Kurdish called Zaza by people who aren’t Zaza, and increasingly by people who are. The name is supposedly pejorative — a mocking of the z sounds that pervade the language. Dersimlis particular about their culture and history call their language Dimili. Their religion is different, too. They are Alevis, not Sunnis Muslims, and don’t celebrate Ramadan or do the namaz or have mosques in their villages. Some don’t even consider themselves Muslims. My wife can remember her grandmother saying prayers to the moon when she was a girl.
Taru village is named for Mt. Taru (the name means “slope” in Dimilli), a rugged, sharp mountain north of my wife’s village. Taru is a volcanic crag of dark red rock which presides like a god over every settlement in the region along with its partner, Mt. Silbüs, which looms to the north of it — slightly higher but less harrowing. According to one of the many local legends, the two peaks were once lovers — a shepherd boy and his girl, Kurdish and Armenian, frozen now in stone for all time by the magic of a witch. The road over the mountain to the village is so treacherous that at one point, where the left half has washed away down into a ravine and the right side is covered in sharp rocks the size of a human head, I had to stop our tiny Chevrolet and tell my wife, “We can’t go on. We’ll destroy the car or fall off the edge.” It took her five minutes of intense argument to persuade me to move forward, each rocky crunch on the chassis making me grind my teeth.
“The road to Taru has always been horrible,” Haydar tells us once we are safe and sound in his dining room. “When I was a kid, I had to walk it all the way down to the town of Xolxol to go to school. Piles of snow and ice, and sometimes bears and wolves. Once I was trudging up the hill and suddenly at the top I noticed a huge wolf watching me approach. I just froze. We regarded each other for a moment — how do you do? — and then I slowly eased backward down the hill. I didn’t make it to school that day. Absent on account of wolves.”
Caves in Taru and Silbüs served as hiding places for Dimilli Kurds fleeing the Dersim massacres in 1938. Fugitives discovered there were bombed to every last man, woman, and child by the Turkish Air Force, led, according to village legend, by Atatürk’s adopted daughter, Sabiha Gökçen herself. This is not ancient history to the people of my wife’s village. A few nights later, at dinner, one of my wife’s cousins relates a story he heard from his grandmother.
“My grandmother remembers the massacres. Her voice still shakes when she tells it. She says that they all knew what was happening. Between the refugees and rumors and the bombings, the whole village figured that their turn was coming. It was September. The army was just on the other side of Silbüs. They heard that they were shooting everyone, so the village met in someone’s house to figure out what to do. They decided not to resist — they’d be caught on the road if they tried to run anyway, and all the hiding places in the mountains had been discovered. They all went home that night and locked up their houses — all the doors and windows were shuttered tightly. They said their goodbyes and waited for whatever was to come. My grandma was just a girl. She remembers clinging to her mother and watching the door all night, expecting at any moment someone to kick it in, drive them all outside, and shoot them. But the bullets never came. The government had called an end to the operations that night. They were saved by a hair’s breadth.”
But then came the 1980 coup and the Turkish war with the PKK. The local Kurds were tired of being told they didn’t exist by the Turkish government. They were tired of being arrested, tired of their culture being illegal, tired of their language being forbidden. All the villages in the area were given Turkish names — mentioning the Kurdish one once would have landed you in prison, charged with “splitting the country.”
In 2010, bowing to a new spirit of openness, all the village signs offered up the original — and true — names of the villages in parenthesis. When you turn onto the road to my wife’s village, a sign says SARITOSUN — (CONAG). The Turkish authorities have a funny way of putting truth in parentheses and quotes — the Armenian ‘genocide’ for example — and leaving lies well enough alone.
My wife remembers these times with great bitterness. “We used to bury our cassette tapes of Kurdish music. It wasn’t even safe to hide them in the house.”
Now, the language has been targeted once more. The Turkish government has declared that it will purge the country of “terrorists and traitors.” Kurdish mayors in eighty-nine Kurdish cities have been forcibly replaced by “trustees” sent from the ruling party. The city halls have been stripped of all signage bearing Kurdish words and festooned with Turkish flags. The images of proud young police and soldiers posing in front of the damage circulate all over Twitter. The bombings in Dersim have resumed as well. Journalists in the region have been detained for filming helicopters dropping explosives on a village. | https://medium.com/little-fiction-big-truths/the-stones-of-taru-village-bcaaeea725d9 | ['Little Fiction'] | 2017-05-03 10:01:04.668000+00:00 | ['Turkey', 'Conflict', 'Nonfiction'] | Title Stones Taru VillageContent Taru destroyed 1994 “Our village already dying time plane came” Haydar say “A friend mine — parent ventured one night flashlight visit side village see tiny couldn’t five minute away old took time passed soldier checkpoint without incident way back hour two later shot approach checkpoint Murdered like soldier pulled trigger said thought ‘terrorists’ saw light flashlight bobbing along trail exact flashlight let hour never became news course” Haydar sweeping bush white hair equally bushy moustache cover upper lip tell story notice sometimes hold tip tongue bottom lip delivers funny part wife tall elegant woman long face eye retain somber light even smile tulip glass fresh tea serf German ginger cooky cucumber garden sits end table foreign zava groom look completely lost Everyone speaking mix Turkish know Kurmanji Kurdish don’t somehow climax every story come Kurmanji “And wouldn’t believe saw coming” Haydar say “I swear you’ll die laughing was…” Kurmanji Everyone erupts guffaw “I feel land bones” Suzan say giving husband quiet smile looking back “I’m proud we’ve come back wasn’t born village know Kumsor — wife’s ancestor came long long time ago mean Qızılbaş red heads” “In Tunceli” say “In Dersim” corrects “So speak Zaza” “I speak Dimilli also Kurmanji Turkish” gentle adamant correction It’s pride simple insistence truth Turkey two main branch Kurd One popularly known Zazas historically immigrated first probably Byzantines arrived Taru village stood stand border territory east province Bingöl wife’s village lie hidden deep valley kilometer away west province Tunceli land called Dersim map still called people live — private least 1938 army new Turkish republic massacred ten thousand Zaza Kurds resisted assimilation Dersim renamed Tunceli effort obliterate past territory redistributed province people moved — monstrous feat social engineering aimed diluting survived massacre local speak variant Kurdish called Zaza people aren’t Zaza increasingly people name supposedly pejorative — mocking z sound pervade language Dersimlis particular culture history call language Dimili religion different Alevis Sunnis Muslims don’t celebrate Ramadan namaz mosque village don’t even consider Muslims wife remember grandmother saying prayer moon girl Taru village named Mt Taru name mean “slope” Dimilli rugged sharp mountain north wife’s village Taru volcanic crag dark red rock presides like god every settlement region along partner Mt Silbüs loom north — slightly higher le harrowing According one many local legend two peak lover — shepherd boy girl Kurdish Armenian frozen stone time magic witch road mountain village treacherous one point left half washed away ravine right side covered sharp rock size human head stop tiny Chevrolet tell wife “We can’t go We’ll destroy car fall edge” took five minute intense argument persuade move forward rocky crunch chassis making grind teeth “The road Taru always horrible” Haydar tell u safe sound dining room “When kid walk way town Xolxol go school Piles snow ice sometimes bear wolf trudging hill suddenly top noticed huge wolf watching approach froze regarded moment — — slowly eased backward hill didn’t make school day Absent account wolves” Caves Taru Silbüs served hiding place Dimilli Kurds fleeing Dersim massacre 1938 Fugitives discovered bombed every last man woman child Turkish Air Force led according village legend Atatürk’s adopted daughter Sabiha Gökçen ancient history people wife’s village night later dinner one wife’s cousin relates story heard grandmother “My grandmother remembers massacre voice still shake tell say knew happening refugee rumor bombing whole village figured turn coming September army side Silbüs heard shooting everyone village met someone’s house figure decided resist — they’d caught road tried run anyway hiding place mountain discovered went home night locked house — door window shuttered tightly said goodbye waited whatever come grandma girl remembers clinging mother watching door night expecting moment someone kick drive outside shoot bullet never came government called end operation night saved hair’s breadth” came 1980 coup Turkish war PKK local Kurds tired told didn’t exist Turkish government tired arrested tired culture illegal tired language forbidden village area given Turkish name — mentioning Kurdish one would landed prison charged “splitting country” 2010 bowing new spirit openness village sign offered original — true — name village parenthesis turn onto road wife’s village sign say SARITOSUN — CONAG Turkish authority funny way putting truth parenthesis quote — Armenian ‘genocide’ example — leaving lie well enough alone wife remembers time great bitterness “We used bury cassette tape Kurdish music wasn’t even safe hide house” language targeted Turkish government declared purge country “terrorists traitors” Kurdish mayor eightynine Kurdish city forcibly replaced “trustees” sent ruling party city hall stripped signage bearing Kurdish word festooned Turkish flag image proud young police soldier posing front damage circulate Twitter bombing Dersim resumed well Journalists region detained filming helicopter dropping explosive villageTags Turkey Conflict Nonfiction |
2,286 | How To Win Your Next Opportunity in a Progressive Organisation. | What makes them a progressive company?
One of the elements that stands out about Oppo is that they take their ingredients seriously. That goes for both their product, which took 24 months to develop, but also the attention they give to creating the right formula for a happy and healthy work environment — free ice cream included. Due to the changing work of work, growing organisation in the 21st century need to look and behave differently to their predecessors in order to thrive. Oppo does this in three ways:
They are mission-led.
Oppo has a vision to eradicate terrible food choices and provide an alternative that isn’t bland or boring. They believe that “food that isn’t healthy and tasty is broken”. Oppo keeps this mission at the heart of their choices, making them an authentic voice in the health food industry. However not only do they seek to improve their product, but they apply the same principles to developing their team. They hold ‘round tables’ where they encourage blue-sky thinking, personal audits and aim to put in place new practices to set their team up for success. A progressive company looks to combine their mission with the success of the individual in order to sustainably achieve growth and employee satisfaction.
They value autonomy.
At Oppo every team member has a turn taking ice cream samples to pitch at retailers which is a huge part of their success. The team member who currently has ownership of this area did so off the back of this test. By discovering that she’s the best at it (and that she enjoys it) now gives her the freedom to succeed in a way that aligns her talents with the company mission. And she is free to run with it however she chooses.
The team is intimate and well balanced; there are no middle-managers. They also have ‘on-boarding co-dating’ where you will grab a drink or a coffee with each team member and get to know them personally before becoming involved professionally.
They are growing responsibly.
With great growth comes great responsibility, and this rings true for the stage Oppo is currently at. They’ve even been known to ‘err on the side of conservative’ when it comes to predicting their sale success rate in-store, which significantly separates them from existing money-hungry-growth-stage counterparts. They care about their culture, their work environment and the quality of their product and are determined to maintain that commitment despite their growth. Authentically demonstrating consideration for people, purpose and profit shows that Oppo is testing out what it means to be a progressive company in a way that is right for them. | https://medium.com/21st-century-career/how-to-win-your-next-opportunity-in-a-progressive-organisation-a1d851ef8549 | ['Escape The City'] | 2016-02-20 14:13:26.700000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Job Hunting', 'Entrepreneurship'] | Title Win Next Opportunity Progressive OrganisationContent make progressive company One element stand Oppo take ingredient seriously go product took 24 month develop also attention give creating right formula happy healthy work environment — free ice cream included Due changing work work growing organisation 21st century need look behave differently predecessor order thrive Oppo three way missionled Oppo vision eradicate terrible food choice provide alternative isn’t bland boring believe “food isn’t healthy tasty broken” Oppo keep mission heart choice making authentic voice health food industry However seek improve product apply principle developing team hold ‘round tables’ encourage bluesky thinking personal audit aim put place new practice set team success progressive company look combine mission success individual order sustainably achieve growth employee satisfaction value autonomy Oppo every team member turn taking ice cream sample pitch retailer huge part success team member currently ownership area back test discovering she’s best enjoys give freedom succeed way aligns talent company mission free run however chooses team intimate well balanced middlemanagers also ‘onboarding codating’ grab drink coffee team member get know personally becoming involved professionally growing responsibly great growth come great responsibility ring true stage Oppo currently They’ve even known ‘err side conservative’ come predicting sale success rate instore significantly separate existing moneyhungrygrowthstage counterpart care culture work environment quality product determined maintain commitment despite growth Authentically demonstrating consideration people purpose profit show Oppo testing mean progressive company way right themTags Startup Job Hunting Entrepreneurship |
2,287 | How I manage my time and a team of 130 employees | Originally published on JOTFORM.COM
Oliver Burkeman is preoccupied with the topic. Obsessed, even.
Recently, the author and Guardian journalist confessed that he’s “unreasonably fascinated by other people’s daily schedules.”
His mental library includes specific details, like how fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld sleeps exactly seven hours a night (regardless of when he goes to bed) or that Out of Africa writer Karen Blixen (pen name Isak Dinesen) subsisted on oysters, champagne and amphetamines.
Burkeman says, like all humans, he’s a natural voyeur. He also admits that he’s looking for tips; ways to boost his own success.
And he’s not alone.
Lately, we’ve seen an explosion of articles, podcasts, blog posts, and books on the topic of daily routines.
So naturally… I’m going to share my own. While I would never consider myself a public figure like Lagerfeld, people often ask how I structure my days at JotForm — and if I can offer a few hints or tricks in the process, I’m happy to reveal what I can.
The morning
7 am
Wake up
8 am
My trainer is waiting for me at the gym. Knowing that I’ll stand him up if I hit “snooze” quickly gets my feet on the floor. We work out together for an hour, with a combination of cardio and weight training.
10 am
Arrive at the office. I grab a fresh cup of coffee (heaven) and open AI Writer on my computer.
10 am-12 pm
Creative time. This is the most important part of my workday. It would be so easy to answer emails and get lost in my inbox, but I protect these hours at all costs.
After the gym, my brain is full of oxygen and I can think clearly. What do I think about? Anything from business problems to product ideas.
First, I write morning pages to get the garbage out, then I see what bubbles up. By the end of those two hours, I try to structure my thoughts into an actionable format, whether that’s an email, a plan, or a presentation.
I don’t always sit at the computer for two full hours, either. Sometimes a conversation fuels creative thought, so I might chat with a colleague or team member
The takeaway
When your business or your work is going well, it’s easy to shift into automatic. That approach works for a while, but eventually, success demands change. And even if change is slow, staying in automatic can mean missed opportunities.
Creative time should also include strategic thinking. When you feel clear and energetic, and you’re flowing in those peak hours, try to dig in and look at what’s going on in your business or your work life: What are the weak points? What’s going well? How can you amplify your current success?
Game-changing ideas won’t happen when you’re on a (metaphorical) treadmill. But if you think deeply and look for solutions, you will eventually find them.
The afternoon
12 pm
Walk to lunch, either with someone from our team or a local colleague.
12:30–1:30 pm
Eat lunch and get to know our employees better. I often learn as much from these conversations as I do during meetings and demo days. From personal goals to product issues, we cover it all. The 30-minute walk each way is equally energizing.
2–5 pm
Meetings and emails. I used to routinely stay at the office until 8 pm or later, but my oldest son just started kindergarten, and I wasn’t seeing him very much. I decided that I would pick him up at 5 pm, at least four days a week (Tuesdays are longer meeting days).
5–11 pm
Now that I’m home earlier, I’m reminded of an obvious truth: young kids are exhausting. I get down on the floor and play with them for an hour, then I need to rest for an hour. Then we play again. This continues until their bedtime.
When I’m not playing, I read or watch a TV show — usually something light, like House, Mars or nature documentaries. Never the news. It makes me crazy. I love having so much time at home now, and I try not to work during the evening. Separating work and family is important to me, and I encourage — and often require — our staff to do the same.
The takeaway
Work creates more work. The more time we spend developing new ideas, the more time we’ll need to spend executing them. That’s not necessarily a problem, but here’s what’s more important: creating work that matters.
Meaningful work requires deep, focused concentration, but it also demands downtime. Stepping away from the office, when possible, allows your mind to reshuffle the deck. Rest can generate more breakthroughs than metaphorically banging your head against the wall for 10+ hours a day.
In the 13 years since I started JotForm, I’ve also learned to hone in on critical problems and ideas. My days at the office aren’t (usually) very long, but I try to make every minute count.
Even leaving my desk and taking employees to lunch keeps me connected to every part of the company. I realize that’s a privilege, but it’s also my job as a leader.
Identify your most meaningful work, and what helps you to produce it. Then, do everything in your power to create a schedule that supports, instead of depletes, your individual genius.
Energy gains and drains
A recent survey of nearly 1,200 U.S. workers found that 76% of participants said they felt tired many days of the week, and at least 15% fell asleep during the day at least once a week.
Poor or inadequate sleep can certainly be a problem, but several other factors can also affect our energy — and how we structure our days. Over the years, I’ve developed a list of what increases, versus decreases, the energy we need to produce work that matters.
Increases energy:
Daily workouts and exercise
Integrated rest — sleep, spending time outside, taking breaks, walking meetings and lunches
Asynchronous communication — instant messaging tools like Slack can waste time and sap energy. It’s easier to consider what you want to say, write a clear email, and then get back to work while the recipient takes the time they need to respond
Having control over your work — if someone is constantly telling us what to do, or tasks repeatedly arrive that require immediate attention, that’s an energy drain
Having a purpose — knowing the reason behind our day-to-day work is energizing. It’s also easier to decide what to do, and what to set aside. When we tackle projects based on that purpose, we feel alive and excited, even when the work is challenging
A room of your own — whether it’s a team room with a door that closes (like we have at JotForm) or a clear, dedicated space for creativity, it’s essential to eliminate distractions and find your flow
Appreciating others — people need to know why their contributions matter. Understanding the impact of our work is invigorating, whether we’re coding, teaching, cleaning, or designing. Say thank-you at every opportunity and recognize outstanding effort
Decreases energy:
Constant communication — the repeated “ping” of instant messages, Slack notes, texts and calls is exhausting. Whenever possible, disable notifications. We all need mental space to focus, whether we operate on a manager’s schedule or a maker’s schedule
Loud places — chatty phone calls, nearby meetings, a colleague’s music, and the proverbial watercooler conversations can be an instant energy drain. Quiet is a valuable currency when we’re trying to go deep
Too much work — when we juggle too many different balls, we rarely keep any of them in the air for long. Something inevitably suffers, and that can lead to more work, frustration, and even some guilt. Focus is almost always more effective
Deadlines — stress can provide an addictive energy hit, but it’s impossible to sustain that feeling for the long run. A rare, short-term deadline — like a major launch — is fine, because we’re usually meeting a need and we typically feel a sense of accomplishment at the finish line. But constant deadlines will quickly lead to burnout
Too many urgent tasks — beyond real deadlines, managing too many daily requests and time-sensitive questions can create anxiety.
Our ritual fascination
It’s tempting to believe other people’s routines hold the key to success — even when the details border on eccentric.
After all, if the 85-year-old Lagerfeld begins his day with Diet Coke and steamed apples, he must be doing something right, right?
But even Burkeman admits that he’s unlikely to become a legendary fashion designer by guzzling cans of pop, or by logging a four-mile run at 5 am, like the former PepsiCo CEO, Indra Nooyi.
“The best defence I can offer,” Burkeman writes, “is that poring over others’ schedules makes me, in a fruitful way, more conscious of my own; experimenting with the tricks I learn is fun, and making daily tasks a little more entertaining surely isn’t a crime.”
Becoming more conscious of our own daily rhythms and routines is the true key to success: Understanding what works, and then building on it. Harnessing and protecting our energy. Having the discipline to prioritize essential activities and bypass the rest.
That’s when our human curiosity, and a little voyeurism, truly pays off. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-i-manage-my-time-and-a-team-of-130-employees-db87d3eb1313 | ['Aytekin Tank'] | 2019-08-26 11:51:26.968000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Inspiration', 'Productivity', 'Culture', 'Writing'] | Title manage time team 130 employeesContent Originally published JOTFORMCOM Oliver Burkeman preoccupied topic Obsessed even Recently author Guardian journalist confessed he’s “unreasonably fascinated people’s daily schedules” mental library includes specific detail like fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld sleep exactly seven hour night regardless go bed Africa writer Karen Blixen pen name Isak Dinesen subsisted oyster champagne amphetamine Burkeman say like human he’s natural voyeur also admits he’s looking tip way boost success he’s alone Lately we’ve seen explosion article podcasts blog post book topic daily routine naturally… I’m going share would never consider public figure like Lagerfeld people often ask structure day JotForm — offer hint trick process I’m happy reveal morning 7 Wake 8 trainer waiting gym Knowing I’ll stand hit “snooze” quickly get foot floor work together hour combination cardio weight training 10 Arrive office grab fresh cup coffee heaven open AI Writer computer 10 am12 pm Creative time important part workday would easy answer email get lost inbox protect hour cost gym brain full oxygen think clearly think Anything business problem product idea First write morning page get garbage see bubble end two hour try structure thought actionable format whether that’s email plan presentation don’t always sit computer two full hour either Sometimes conversation fuel creative thought might chat colleague team member takeaway business work going well it’s easy shift automatic approach work eventually success demand change even change slow staying automatic mean missed opportunity Creative time also include strategic thinking feel clear energetic you’re flowing peak hour try dig look what’s going business work life weak point What’s going well amplify current success Gamechanging idea won’t happen you’re metaphorical treadmill think deeply look solution eventually find afternoon 12 pm Walk lunch either someone team local colleague 1230–130 pm Eat lunch get know employee better often learn much conversation meeting demo day personal goal product issue cover 30minute walk way equally energizing 2–5 pm Meetings email used routinely stay office 8 pm later oldest son started kindergarten wasn’t seeing much decided would pick 5 pm least four day week Tuesdays longer meeting day 5–11 pm I’m home earlier I’m reminded obvious truth young kid exhausting get floor play hour need rest hour play continues bedtime I’m playing read watch TV show — usually something light like House Mars nature documentary Never news make crazy love much time home try work evening Separating work family important encourage — often require — staff takeaway Work creates work time spend developing new idea time we’ll need spend executing That’s necessarily problem here’s what’s important creating work matter Meaningful work requires deep focused concentration also demand downtime Stepping away office possible allows mind reshuffle deck Rest generate breakthrough metaphorically banging head wall 10 hour day 13 year since started JotForm I’ve also learned hone critical problem idea day office aren’t usually long try make every minute count Even leaving desk taking employee lunch keep connected every part company realize that’s privilege it’s also job leader Identify meaningful work help produce everything power create schedule support instead depletes individual genius Energy gain drain recent survey nearly 1200 US worker found 76 participant said felt tired many day week least 15 fell asleep day least week Poor inadequate sleep certainly problem several factor also affect energy — structure day year I’ve developed list increase versus decrease energy need produce work matter Increases energy Daily workout exercise Integrated rest — sleep spending time outside taking break walking meeting lunch Asynchronous communication — instant messaging tool like Slack waste time sap energy It’s easier consider want say write clear email get back work recipient take time need respond control work — someone constantly telling u task repeatedly arrive require immediate attention that’s energy drain purpose — knowing reason behind daytoday work energizing It’s also easier decide set aside tackle project based purpose feel alive excited even work challenging room — whether it’s team room door close like JotForm clear dedicated space creativity it’s essential eliminate distraction find flow Appreciating others — people need know contribution matter Understanding impact work invigorating whether we’re coding teaching cleaning designing Say thankyou every opportunity recognize outstanding effort Decreases energy Constant communication — repeated “ping” instant message Slack note text call exhausting Whenever possible disable notification need mental space focus whether operate manager’s schedule maker’s schedule Loud place — chatty phone call nearby meeting colleague’s music proverbial watercooler conversation instant energy drain Quiet valuable currency we’re trying go deep much work — juggle many different ball rarely keep air long Something inevitably suffers lead work frustration even guilt Focus almost always effective Deadlines — stress provide addictive energy hit it’s impossible sustain feeling long run rare shortterm deadline — like major launch — fine we’re usually meeting need typically feel sense accomplishment finish line constant deadline quickly lead burnout many urgent task — beyond real deadline managing many daily request timesensitive question create anxiety ritual fascination It’s tempting believe people’s routine hold key success — even detail border eccentric 85yearold Lagerfeld begin day Diet Coke steamed apple must something right right even Burkeman admits he’s unlikely become legendary fashion designer guzzling can pop logging fourmile run 5 like former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi “The best defence offer” Burkeman writes “is poring others’ schedule make fruitful way conscious experimenting trick learn fun making daily task little entertaining surely isn’t crime” Becoming conscious daily rhythm routine true key success Understanding work building Harnessing protecting energy discipline prioritize essential activity bypass rest That’s human curiosity little voyeurism truly pay offTags Life Inspiration Productivity Culture Writing |
2,288 | Luke Woodham and the Pearl High School Massacre | Luke Woodham and the Pearl High School Massacre
Filled with rage for most of his life, Luke exploded in 1997, killing three people — including his own mother — and wounding seven others.
Photo by William Isted on Unsplash
Luke Woodham was born on February 5, 1981. As a toddler, Luke was adorable; a blonde-haired, blue-eyed bundle of energy who had an active imagination and loved to read.
By the time he started kindergarten, however, Luke was somewhat overweight and needed thick eyeglasses to see. Mary Ann Woodham dressed him each day in clothes that looked old-fashioned, and she kept his hair so closely cropped that it made him look as if he had a receding hairline. Looking like a little old man, he was an easy target for bullies at school, and he would endure their insults throughout his entire school career.
Luke’s home life was far from ideal. His parents would often fight, and their screaming matches terrified him. They divorced when he was eight, and Luke’s father made no effort to stay in contact with his children. Luke was convinced that he was to blame for the failure of his parents’ marriage, and he sank into a deep depression. It’s not common for a child so young to experience serious depression like this, but Luke’s mother does not appear to have noticed that there was anything wrong with her youngest son.
Luke and his older brother did not get along with each other, adding to his stress at home. His brother was seven years old when Luke was born, and was hostile toward him from the beginning, physically abusing Luke whenever their parents weren’t looking.
This aggression spilled over into their interactions with other children, and they were seldom invited back for a second playdate. After one particularly aggressive fight with his brother, Luke began screaming that he wished he were dead and that he would rather be in hell. It was a disturbing remark coming from a child who was only nine, but it failed to get any kind of reaction from his family.
Luke Woodham (Photo from 1996 Pearl High School Yearbook)
Mary Ann was described as a somewhat overbearing mother, and Luke’s older brother spent as much time away from the home as possible so that he didn’t have to deal with her.
This meant that Luke was responsible for a majority of the household chores; while he would reluctantly obey Mary Ann when he was a child, as he got older his willingness to help out around the house diminished. He claimed that he felt suffocated by his mother, whom he described as being verbally abusive and constantly micro-managing all aspects of his life. Even after he reached his teenage years, Mary Ann continued to control the food he ate, the clothes he wore, and his hairstyle.
Mary Ann was frustrated with the hand life had dealt her, and whether she intended to or not, she passed much of her misery onto her youngest son. Once, when Luke scraped some unfinished food off his plate into the garbage, she picked the food out of the trash and forced Luke to eat it all.
It was a needlessly harsh way of teaching him not to waste food. When she caught Luke sneaking one of her cigarettes, she forced him to smoke two packs. Eventually, he threw up on the floor.
If she felt that his room was not clean enough, she would throw some of his toys and other belongings into the trash and refuse to let him retrieve them. She dropped him off at school each morning, insisting on kissing him goodbye despite the fact that it made him the subject of ridicule at school.
She would often use Luke as a sounding board, telling him intimate details about her life and asking him for advice on what she should do. Although she claimed to be a strong Christian woman, she often left Luke home alone overnight while she went out on various dates. Unsupervised and feeling unloved, Luke would turn to food for comfort.
School continued to be an unhappy place for Luke. Because he was overweight, other students constantly made fun of him and frequently beat him up. If he tried to stand up for himself, the treatment got worse.
After numerous occasions where his lunch was stolen and crushed by bullies, Luke eventually stopped making eye contact, choosing instead to shuffle through the hallways alone. At home, he would shut himself in his bedroom, where he could temporarily escape by reading or playing guitar.
His older brother had been popular in school, and his mother didn’t understand why Luke couldn’t be more like him. As a child, Luke had been a bright boy who got A’s and B’s in all his classes, but this started to change after he began attending Pearl High School.
Although he still spent a lot of time reading and believed he was more intelligent than most of his classmates, his grades plummeted and he had to repeat his freshman year. It was a huge blow to his ego.
Mary Anne Woodham (Photo from Findagrave.com)
Despite all the time that he spent alone in his room, Luke wasn’t completely without companionship. Lee Ann Dew, a senior at Pearl High School who lived close to Luke, would sometimes drive him to school in the morning and even took him to the prom that spring.
He was never accepted by the popular crowd at school, but he was on friendly terms with a few of his male classmates and would occasionally socialize with them outside of school. But inside, he seethed with rage over the fact that he wasn’t popular.
When Luke was 15, he began dating Christina Menefee. A popular, sweet teenager who was extremely outgoing and had lots of friends, Christina was new to the area and not particularly concerned with Luke’s social status. She did well in school; math and biology were her favorite subjects.
She participated in the Junior Naval ROTC, possibly to follow in her father’s footsteps, he had retired from the Navy in 1989. She always had a soft spot for underdogs, and Luke certainly fit that description.
After she saw Luke sitting alone at lunch, she decided to join him and the two soon began to get together outside of school. Christy’s father, who always made sure to check out anyone she dated, approved of Luke.
Although he was somewhat shy and quiet, he had polite manners, always addressing Bob Menefee as “sir” when he visited Christy’s house. The Menefees had a habit of bestowing nicknames on all of Christy’s friends, and they chose “Luke Skywalker” for Luke.
Despite the fact that her friends, as well as almost everyone else at school, tried to dissuade Christy from hanging out with Luke, she felt sorry for him. She encouraged Luke to grow his hair out, a change from the old-fashioned haircut his mother preferred, and his school picture that year shows a boy who bears little resemblance to the one who would be seen all over television the following year.
Unfortunately for Luke, Christy soon grew tired of certain aspects of the relationship. Whenever Luke would come over to her house to visit her, his mother insisted on coming with him.
Although she found it slightly endearing at first, assuming that it was some kind of Southern custom, she soon tired of Luke’s controlling and unstable nature as well as his overbearing mother. When Luke began getting angry with her if she didn’t call him at a certain time each day, Christy decided she didn’t want to see him anymore.
She told Luke of her decision on October 1, 1996. She tried to let him down easy, telling him that they could remain friends, but Luke was inconsolable. The relationship had only lasted for about a month, and Luke blamed his mother for the breakup.
In his journal, Luke wrote a statement swearing that he would never again allow himself to be hurt by a woman. He signed it in his own blood.
Christy Menefee (Photo from Findagrave.com)
Not long after his breakup with Christy, Luke got a part-time job at Domino’s Pizza. It got him out of the house and away from his mother, and also helped him to make some new friends.
A co-worker, Donnie Brooks, introduced Luke to a group of teenage boys who often got together for role-playing games, and soon Luke was considered one of them. Although the group tended to do fairly well in school and were seen as being quite religious — a necessary trait for anyone living in evangelical Pearl — they dabbled in Satanism and idolized Hitler.
Luke grew especially close to Grant Boyette, the unofficial leader of the group. Grant had come up with the name “the Kroth” for the group, and it consisted of about a half dozen teenage boys. Grant’s parents were the founding members of a local Baptist church, and he had carefully cultivated a persona of a pious, God-fearing Christian.
In reality, he believed in Satanism and witchcraft, and convinced Luke that he could cast spells on people. In December 1996, Grant gave Luke a piece of paper that had a pentagram on it.
He told him to use it — by meditating in a dark room while kneeling down with the paper pressed against his forehead — whenever he needed anything. Luke took the paper, but didn’t think much of it.
The following month, Luke attempted to use the paper as a way of getting revenge against a boy named Danny who often bullied him. Nothing happened to Danny, but one of Danny’s friends was hit by a car and killed, and Luke was convinced he had caused the car to hit him.
This event marked a turning point for Luke. In the past, he had simply seen the occult as a mere curiosity, but he now believed in it wholeheartedly and saw Grant as a god-like figure. He began spending all his time with Grant, but it wasn’t a healthy friendship.
Luke had always been violent, and Grant seemed to bring out the worst in him. Together, the pair tortured and killed Luke’s dog, a small Shih Tzu named Sparkle.
The dog had always been a source of unconditional love for Luke, but this no longer mattered to him. He noted in his journal that the dog’s yelps of pain had seemed almost human, and coldly described everything that was done to her.
Sensing a violent change in Luke and Grant, the other boys in their group stopped associating with them. They were undeterred by the loss of friends; they had bigger things to think about. They were planning a rampage shooting at Pearl High School.
On the night of September 28th, Lucas Thomas stopped by Luke’s house. Lucas was one of the only people besides Grant who was still on friendly terms with Luke. The two boys ordered some pizzas, but the dinner conversation soon took a gruesome turn.
Luke told Lucas in detail about his plan to kill his mother, steal her car, and drive it to school so he could go after Christina Menefee. He planned to use one of his brother’s guns, and he fully expected to be killed in a police shootout.
It was a way for him to essentially commit suicide, but also take others down with him. He wanted people to remember his name. Lucas was unsure if Luke was serious. He was.
On the evening of September 30th, Luke asked his mother if he could borrow her car. Her negative answer was to be expected, considering Luke did not yet have a driver’s license, but it gave him a reason to storm off to his room and shut himself inside for the night.
At some point, he called Lucas and told him that he would definitely be going through with his plan the next morning. It’s unclear if Lucas believed him or not, but he made no effort to dissuade Luke, nor did he bother to warn the police or any of the potential victims about the plan.
Luke Woodham after his arrest (Photo from Alchetron.com)
Luke set his alarm for 5:00am on the morning of October 1st. It was exactly one year after Christy had broken up with him, a grim anniversary he planned to celebrate with bloodshed.
It was still twilight, and he expected that his mother would be sound asleep. He got a butcher knife from the kitchen, and then went back to his room to grab a baseball bat and a pillow.
Once he was armed, he crept down the hallway towards his mother’s room. He was shocked to discover that his mother was awake and coming down the hallway.
He had planned on attacking her while she was asleep and unable to fight back, but had neglected to take into account the fact that she often went jogging early in the morning. Instead he attacked her in the hallway, and was most likely surprised by how hard she tried to fight him off. She broke away from him at one point and managed to make it into her bedroom, but Luke was able to force his way inside.
It was as if a volcano inside of him had finally erupted. He repeatedly stabbed her, then bashed her with the baseball bat as she pleaded for her life. Unmoved, Luke continued the assault, eventually smothering her with the pillow.
His rage finally spent, he calmly cleaned himself off, took the time to write out a five page suicide note/last will and testament, and called Grant to tell him what he had done. While he was on the phone with Grant, he received a call from Lucas asking if he had done what he said he was going to do. Once he had briefed both friends on the events that had taken place that morning, he retrieved a rifle that had belonged to his brother and calmly drove to the school.
When he arrived, he went inside and handed a stack of papers to Justin Sledge, another member of the Kroth. He instructed Justin to give the papers to Grant.
Justin could see that the papers appeared to be Luke’s will, and he immediately surmised what was about to take place. Rather than warn any of the teachers and students who were milling around the commons, Justin gathered some of his friends and headed for the library, knowing they would be safe there.
Luke went out to his mother’s car and retrieved the shotgun, then went back into the school and straight to where Christina was standing, chatting with some friends before classes started. He shot her in the chest at point-blank range.
His rage not satisfied, he fired again, this time hitting Lydia Dew. Lydia was described as the sweetest person, always happy and always hugging people, and certainly not someone anyone believed would be targeted for murder.
She had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time that morning, and later not even Luke could explain why he shot her. “I never had anything against Lydia. She was probably the best person in Pearl.”
Ironically, Lydia had also been teased a lot at school for being overweight; she was probably one of the few people in the school that understood the bullying that Luke went through. It was heartbreaking for her older sister, Leah Ann, who had gone to the prom with Luke the previous year and had considered him a friend.
Lydia Dew (Photo from 1996 Pearl High School Yearbook)
Luke continued down the hallway, randomly shooting people. He was described as calm and nonchalant, methodically thumbing new rounds into the side port as the old shells were ejected.
He continued to calmly fire as panic erupted in the hallway. Most students tried to run or hide behind something to stay out of his line of fire. Those students that he hit fell to the floor, unable to fully comprehend what was taking place.
Luke showed no emotion at all. As he surveyed the damage, he noticed Jerry Safley lying in a pool of blood. Jerry had been hit in the leg and foot, and was starting to go into shock.
When Luke saw Jerry, he stopped and apologized to him, telling him that he hadn’t meant to shoot him. He had mistaken Jerry for another student who was on the football team, a student that he hated and wanted to kill.
Luckily, that student had gotten stuck in traffic and hadn’t yet made it to the school. Eventually, the gun ran out of shells and there was a pause in the shooting while Luke attempted to reload.
Taking advantage of the situation, a male student tackled Luke to the ground and attempted to get the gun away from him. Luke was able to get away from the student, but he must have realized that any more attempts at reloading the gun would be futile and he needed to leave.
It was over eleven minutes after it started. Still betraying no emotion, Luke simply turned and exited the school, heading back to his mother’s car. By this time, the principal had heard the gunshots and had already called 911.
As Luke attempted to leave, assistant principal Joel Myrick followed him. Joel was an officer in the Army Reserves, and he knew he had his gun in the glove compartment of his car. Realizing it was the only way he could level the playing field, he grabbed his gun and chased after Luke, yelling for him to stop.
Luke ignored him and tried to take off in his mother’s car, but he wasn’t a skilled driver — he had never driven before that morning — and he almost immediately lost control of the car. He sat there, gripping the steering wheel, as Joel ran up and put his gun to Luke’s neck.
Joel yanked him out of the car and kept him immobilized on the ground until police got there. His only explanation for the bloodshed was that “the world has wronged me.”
When he was taken to the police station, Luke waived his right to an attorney and agreed to talk with the detectives. One of them noticed all the cuts he had on his hands and asked him what they were from.
Still completely calm, Luke matter-of-factly told the detective that he had gotten the cuts while “killing my mom.” It was an answer none of the detectives had expected.
Luke had just shot up a high school and killed his own mother, but it didn’t seem to faze him at all. If anything, he seemed to be proud of what he had done, and even commented to one detective that he was pretty sure his killing spree was going to make him quite famous.
Police were dispatched to the house and confirmed that they had located the body of a woman. Mary Ann hadn’t died easy; she had desperately tried to ward off her deranged son.
An autopsy revealed 11 deep slashes on her arms, most likely inflicted while she was trying to protect herself. She had seven stab wounds on the rest of her body, three of them on her chest.
She had been bludgeoned with a baseball bat and her jaw had been shattered. Despite the horrific injuries she had suffered, the pathologist who performed the autopsy stated that she had remained alive for around 30 minutes or so before bleeding to death.
From the information contained in the note Luke wrote on the morning of the crime, it appears he saw the killings as a way for him to get revenge on a world that had never been kind to him. He complained about how “throughout my life I was ridiculed.
Always beaten, always hated….I have no mercy for humanity, for they created me, they tortured me until I snapped and became what I am today!” He denied that his act was a product of any kind of mental illness.
“I am not insane. I am angry. This world shit on me for the final time. I am not spoiled or lazy, for murder is not weak or slow-witted. Murder is gutsy and daring.” He refused to accept any blame for his actions, claiming that the world — and especially Christina — were responsible his rampage.
“People like me are mistreated every day. I do this to show society “push us and we will push back.” I suffered all my life.” Yet in police interviews, he stated that the entire reason for the massacre was his jealousy over the fact that Christina had broken up with him.
Luke Woodham (Photo from Alchetron.com)
The tiny town of Pearl was still reeling in shock about the murders when police announced that they had arrested five other boys, all members of the Kroth, and charged them with conspiracy to commit murder. It was more than most people in the community could handle.
The entire town was in shock over the allegations of Satanism, and had trouble comprehending how six seemingly normal, suburban teenagers ended up on such a dark path. In the end, Luke was the only person put on trial for the shooting, but those in the community who were hoping to learn why he had shot up the school were disappointed.
The case presented by Luke’s defense team sought to deflect blame away from Luke; they claimed that Grant was the one actually responsible for the shooting. Luke denied culpability for any of his actions.
Although Luke had been adamant in his suicide note that he was not insane, he changed his story during the trial. He claimed that he saw various red-eyed demons, and told police that he was under the control of 100,000 demons conjured by Grant on the morning that he killed his mother.
“They said I was nothing and I would never be anything if I didn’t get to that school and kill those people.” He also stated that he could hear Grant’s voice inside his head while he was killing his mother, but later claimed that he never wanted to hurt his mother and had absolutely no recollection of doing anything to her.
He blamed everything on Grant. “He told me I had to kill my mom. He told me I had to get the gun and the car and go to school and get my revenge on Christy and cause a reign of terror.”
Grant was called to the witness stand, but wisely invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and prevented the defense from being allowed to question him.
Luke was tried twice, once for the murder of his mother and once for the school shooting. In both cases, he entered a plea of not guilty despite the fact that he had confessed his guilt to police.
At each trial, his defense team tried unsuccessfully to paint him as a mentally ill teen easily influenced and manipulated by Grant, but neither jury could be swayed. He was found guilty in both cases, and was sentenced to serve three life sentences plus an additional 140 years.
Charges against the other members of the Kroth were, for the most part, dismissed at the request of the prosecution because they simply didn’t have enough evidence. Grant took a plea deal and would eventually serve six months in jail for his role, and Justin spent four months in a juvenile detention center.
The Pearl High School community struggled to heal after the massacre and questioned if there was anything they could have done differently that would have prevented the shooting from taking place.
There is no doubt that Luke had been bullied in school and had an unstable home life, but there are many other teens in the same situation who do not resort to mass murder. Although Luke tried to place most of the blame on Grant, and it seems clear that Grant egged him on, Luke’s own rage at Christy placed a huge role in his rampage.
His anger was likely capable of sustaining the attack even if Grant hadn’t been in the picture. While Luke and Grant spent a lot of time together outside of school, this was a voluntary choice on Luke’s part.
Grant had graduated from Pearl High School the previous year; if Luke had decided to discontinue the friendship, he could have done so without fear of being bullied by Grant at school. Instead, Luke would often skip class to spend more time with Grant, and the pair got more violent as time went by.
No longer content to simply talk about killing people, they spent a week torturing Luke’s dog before finally killing her. Once he had killed what had been a beloved family pet, it was quite easy for Luke to make the jump to murdering his classmates, many of whom he couldn’t stand.
Like so many other prisoners, once Luke was convicted he became a born again Christian and expressed some remorse for what he had done. He wrote to an evangelist, telling the man he thought that they should work together because he believed that his story could help save others.
In the 18 months following the massacre at Pearl High School, there were four school shootings that made national news. Luke believed that he was responsible for this, claiming that he was the person who had kicked off the school shooting craze.
He may have been giving himself too much credit as there were several notable school shootings in the two years leading up to Luke’s rampage. The cases of Jamie Rouse, Barry Loukaitis, and Evan Ramsey had all received extensive coverage by the national media, though Luke’s case received even more coverage due to the fact that he also killed his mother.
While he may not have influenced the wave of school shooters who came after him, he did influence some of the lawmakers in his home state: in the aftermath of Luke’s massacre, the state of Mississippi made killing anyone on school grounds a capital crime.
Luke remains incarcerated in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. In 2010, he wrote to the Mississippi governor asking for clemency, but his request was denied. Under his current sentence, he will be eligible for parole in 2046 when he is 65-years-old. | https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/luke-woodham-and-the-pearl-high-school-massacre-ccfc254482ad | ['Jenn Baxter'] | 2020-12-27 23:33:19.547000+00:00 | ['True Crime', 'School Shootings', 'Nonfiction', 'Mental Health', 'History'] | Title Luke Woodham Pearl High School MassacreContent Luke Woodham Pearl High School Massacre Filled rage life Luke exploded 1997 killing three people — including mother — wounding seven others Photo William Isted Unsplash Luke Woodham born February 5 1981 toddler Luke adorable blondehaired blueeyed bundle energy active imagination loved read time started kindergarten however Luke somewhat overweight needed thick eyeglass see Mary Ann Woodham dressed day clothes looked oldfashioned kept hair closely cropped made look receding hairline Looking like little old man easy target bully school would endure insult throughout entire school career Luke’s home life far ideal parent would often fight screaming match terrified divorced eight Luke’s father made effort stay contact child Luke convinced blame failure parents’ marriage sank deep depression It’s common child young experience serious depression like Luke’s mother appear noticed anything wrong youngest son Luke older brother get along adding stress home brother seven year old Luke born hostile toward beginning physically abusing Luke whenever parent weren’t looking aggression spilled interaction child seldom invited back second playdate one particularly aggressive fight brother Luke began screaming wished dead would rather hell disturbing remark coming child nine failed get kind reaction family Luke Woodham Photo 1996 Pearl High School Yearbook Mary Ann described somewhat overbearing mother Luke’s older brother spent much time away home possible didn’t deal meant Luke responsible majority household chore would reluctantly obey Mary Ann child got older willingness help around house diminished claimed felt suffocated mother described verbally abusive constantly micromanaging aspect life Even reached teenage year Mary Ann continued control food ate clothes wore hairstyle Mary Ann frustrated hand life dealt whether intended passed much misery onto youngest son Luke scraped unfinished food plate garbage picked food trash forced Luke eat needlessly harsh way teaching waste food caught Luke sneaking one cigarette forced smoke two pack Eventually threw floor felt room clean enough would throw toy belonging trash refuse let retrieve dropped school morning insisting kissing goodbye despite fact made subject ridicule school would often use Luke sounding board telling intimate detail life asking advice Although claimed strong Christian woman often left Luke home alone overnight went various date Unsupervised feeling unloved Luke would turn food comfort School continued unhappy place Luke overweight student constantly made fun frequently beat tried stand treatment got worse numerous occasion lunch stolen crushed bully Luke eventually stopped making eye contact choosing instead shuffle hallway alone home would shut bedroom could temporarily escape reading playing guitar older brother popular school mother didn’t understand Luke couldn’t like child Luke bright boy got A’s B’s class started change began attending Pearl High School Although still spent lot time reading believed intelligent classmate grade plummeted repeat freshman year huge blow ego Mary Anne Woodham Photo Findagravecom Despite time spent alone room Luke wasn’t completely without companionship Lee Ann Dew senior Pearl High School lived close Luke would sometimes drive school morning even took prom spring never accepted popular crowd school friendly term male classmate would occasionally socialize outside school inside seethed rage fact wasn’t popular Luke 15 began dating Christina Menefee popular sweet teenager extremely outgoing lot friend Christina new area particularly concerned Luke’s social status well school math biology favorite subject participated Junior Naval ROTC possibly follow father’s footstep retired Navy 1989 always soft spot underdog Luke certainly fit description saw Luke sitting alone lunch decided join two soon began get together outside school Christy’s father always made sure check anyone dated approved Luke Although somewhat shy quiet polite manner always addressing Bob Menefee “sir” visited Christy’s house Menefees habit bestowing nickname Christy’s friend chose “Luke Skywalker” Luke Despite fact friend well almost everyone else school tried dissuade Christy hanging Luke felt sorry encouraged Luke grow hair change oldfashioned haircut mother preferred school picture year show boy bear little resemblance one would seen television following year Unfortunately Luke Christy soon grew tired certain aspect relationship Whenever Luke would come house visit mother insisted coming Although found slightly endearing first assuming kind Southern custom soon tired Luke’s controlling unstable nature well overbearing mother Luke began getting angry didn’t call certain time day Christy decided didn’t want see anymore told Luke decision October 1 1996 tried let easy telling could remain friend Luke inconsolable relationship lasted month Luke blamed mother breakup journal Luke wrote statement swearing would never allow hurt woman signed blood Christy Menefee Photo Findagravecom long breakup Christy Luke got parttime job Domino’s Pizza got house away mother also helped make new friend coworker Donnie Brooks introduced Luke group teenage boy often got together roleplaying game soon Luke considered one Although group tended fairly well school seen quite religious — necessary trait anyone living evangelical Pearl — dabbled Satanism idolized Hitler Luke grew especially close Grant Boyette unofficial leader group Grant come name “the Kroth” group consisted half dozen teenage boy Grant’s parent founding member local Baptist church carefully cultivated persona pious Godfearing Christian reality believed Satanism witchcraft convinced Luke could cast spell people December 1996 Grant gave Luke piece paper pentagram told use — meditating dark room kneeling paper pressed forehead — whenever needed anything Luke took paper didn’t think much following month Luke attempted use paper way getting revenge boy named Danny often bullied Nothing happened Danny one Danny’s friend hit car killed Luke convinced caused car hit event marked turning point Luke past simply seen occult mere curiosity believed wholeheartedly saw Grant godlike figure began spending time Grant wasn’t healthy friendship Luke always violent Grant seemed bring worst Together pair tortured killed Luke’s dog small Shih Tzu named Sparkle dog always source unconditional love Luke longer mattered noted journal dog’s yelp pain seemed almost human coldly described everything done Sensing violent change Luke Grant boy group stopped associating undeterred loss friend bigger thing think planning rampage shooting Pearl High School night September 28th Lucas Thomas stopped Luke’s house Lucas one people besides Grant still friendly term Luke two boy ordered pizza dinner conversation soon took gruesome turn Luke told Lucas detail plan kill mother steal car drive school could go Christina Menefee planned use one brother’s gun fully expected killed police shootout way essentially commit suicide also take others wanted people remember name Lucas unsure Luke serious evening September 30th Luke asked mother could borrow car negative answer expected considering Luke yet driver’s license gave reason storm room shut inside night point called Lucas told would definitely going plan next morning It’s unclear Lucas believed made effort dissuade Luke bother warn police potential victim plan Luke Woodham arrest Photo Alchetroncom Luke set alarm 500am morning October 1st exactly one year Christy broken grim anniversary planned celebrate bloodshed still twilight expected mother would sound asleep got butcher knife kitchen went back room grab baseball bat pillow armed crept hallway towards mother’s room shocked discover mother awake coming hallway planned attacking asleep unable fight back neglected take account fact often went jogging early morning Instead attacked hallway likely surprised hard tried fight broke away one point managed make bedroom Luke able force way inside volcano inside finally erupted repeatedly stabbed bashed baseball bat pleaded life Unmoved Luke continued assault eventually smothering pillow rage finally spent calmly cleaned took time write five page suicide notelast testament called Grant tell done phone Grant received call Lucas asking done said going briefed friend event taken place morning retrieved rifle belonged brother calmly drove school arrived went inside handed stack paper Justin Sledge another member Kroth instructed Justin give paper Grant Justin could see paper appeared Luke’s immediately surmised take place Rather warn teacher student milling around common Justin gathered friend headed library knowing would safe Luke went mother’s car retrieved shotgun went back school straight Christina standing chatting friend class started shot chest pointblank range rage satisfied fired time hitting Lydia Dew Lydia described sweetest person always happy always hugging people certainly someone anyone believed would targeted murder misfortune wrong place wrong time morning later even Luke could explain shot “I never anything Lydia probably best person Pearl” Ironically Lydia also teased lot school overweight probably one people school understood bullying Luke went heartbreaking older sister Leah Ann gone prom Luke previous year considered friend Lydia Dew Photo 1996 Pearl High School Yearbook Luke continued hallway randomly shooting people described calm nonchalant methodically thumbing new round side port old shell ejected continued calmly fire panic erupted hallway student tried run hide behind something stay line fire student hit fell floor unable fully comprehend taking place Luke showed emotion surveyed damage noticed Jerry Safley lying pool blood Jerry hit leg foot starting go shock Luke saw Jerry stopped apologized telling hadn’t meant shoot mistaken Jerry another student football team student hated wanted kill Luckily student gotten stuck traffic hadn’t yet made school Eventually gun ran shell pause shooting Luke attempted reload Taking advantage situation male student tackled Luke ground attempted get gun away Luke able get away student must realized attempt reloading gun would futile needed leave eleven minute started Still betraying emotion Luke simply turned exited school heading back mother’s car time principal heard gunshot already called 911 Luke attempted leave assistant principal Joel Myrick followed Joel officer Army Reserves knew gun glove compartment car Realizing way could level playing field grabbed gun chased Luke yelling stop Luke ignored tried take mother’s car wasn’t skilled driver — never driven morning — almost immediately lost control car sat gripping steering wheel Joel ran put gun Luke’s neck Joel yanked car kept immobilized ground police got explanation bloodshed “the world wronged me” taken police station Luke waived right attorney agreed talk detective One noticed cut hand asked Still completely calm Luke matteroffactly told detective gotten cut “killing mom” answer none detective expected Luke shot high school killed mother didn’t seem faze anything seemed proud done even commented one detective pretty sure killing spree going make quite famous Police dispatched house confirmed located body woman Mary Ann hadn’t died easy desperately tried ward deranged son autopsy revealed 11 deep slash arm likely inflicted trying protect seven stab wound rest body three chest bludgeoned baseball bat jaw shattered Despite horrific injury suffered pathologist performed autopsy stated remained alive around 30 minute bleeding death information contained note Luke wrote morning crime appears saw killing way get revenge world never kind complained “throughout life ridiculed Always beaten always hated…I mercy humanity created tortured snapped became today” denied act product kind mental illness “I insane angry world shit final time spoiled lazy murder weak slowwitted Murder gutsy daring” refused accept blame action claiming world — especially Christina — responsible rampage “People like mistreated every day show society “push u push back” suffered life” Yet police interview stated entire reason massacre jealousy fact Christina broken Luke Woodham Photo Alchetroncom tiny town Pearl still reeling shock murder police announced arrested five boy member Kroth charged conspiracy commit murder people community could handle entire town shock allegation Satanism trouble comprehending six seemingly normal suburban teenager ended dark path end Luke person put trial shooting community hoping learn shot school disappointed case presented Luke’s defense team sought deflect blame away Luke claimed Grant one actually responsible shooting Luke denied culpability action Although Luke adamant suicide note insane changed story trial claimed saw various redeyed demon told police control 100000 demon conjured Grant morning killed mother “They said nothing would never anything didn’t get school kill people” also stated could hear Grant’s voice inside head killing mother later claimed never wanted hurt mother absolutely recollection anything blamed everything Grant “He told kill mom told get gun car go school get revenge Christy cause reign terror” Grant called witness stand wisely invoked Fifth Amendment right selfincrimination prevented defense allowed question Luke tried twice murder mother school shooting case entered plea guilty despite fact confessed guilt police trial defense team tried unsuccessfully paint mentally ill teen easily influenced manipulated Grant neither jury could swayed found guilty case sentenced serve three life sentence plus additional 140 year Charges member Kroth part dismissed request prosecution simply didn’t enough evidence Grant took plea deal would eventually serve six month jail role Justin spent four month juvenile detention center Pearl High School community struggled heal massacre questioned anything could done differently would prevented shooting taking place doubt Luke bullied school unstable home life many teen situation resort mass murder Although Luke tried place blame Grant seems clear Grant egged Luke’s rage Christy placed huge role rampage anger likely capable sustaining attack even Grant hadn’t picture Luke Grant spent lot time together outside school voluntary choice Luke’s part Grant graduated Pearl High School previous year Luke decided discontinue friendship could done without fear bullied Grant school Instead Luke would often skip class spend time Grant pair got violent time went longer content simply talk killing people spent week torturing Luke’s dog finally killing killed beloved family pet quite easy Luke make jump murdering classmate many couldn’t stand Like many prisoner Luke convicted became born Christian expressed remorse done wrote evangelist telling man thought work together believed story could help save others 18 month following massacre Pearl High School four school shooting made national news Luke believed responsible claiming person kicked school shooting craze may giving much credit several notable school shooting two year leading Luke’s rampage case Jamie Rouse Barry Loukaitis Evan Ramsey received extensive coverage national medium though Luke’s case received even coverage due fact also killed mother may influenced wave school shooter came influence lawmaker home state aftermath Luke’s massacre state Mississippi made killing anyone school ground capital crime Luke remains incarcerated Mississippi State Penitentiary 2010 wrote Mississippi governor asking clemency request denied current sentence eligible parole 2046 65yearsoldTags True Crime School Shootings Nonfiction Mental Health History |
2,289 | Launching a blog post series to showcase our design team talent | Diving into a company’s blog is one of the best ways I learn about an organization. It offers a glimpse into who I could be potentially working with, the projects I could take ownership of, and what the culture is like. In a sense, my first impression can be formed prior to meeting anyone from the teams.
With these thoughts in mind, I conceived the idea of creating a blog post series to highlight our designers at MongoDB. I was certain it’d be a great avenue to educate candidates on who we are, what we do, and what we find important. I envisioned it as a helpful resource for both future intern cohort applicants and design role candidates as our team continues to scale.
The main goals of the initiative were to allow readers to:
Learn more about our core values on the MongoDB design team Understand the responsibilities that a design role at MongoDB entails Educate themselves on the variety of projects MongoDB designers are involved in Grab insights on what MongoDB designers have learned from prior experiences that’ve helped us in our current roles Get a better sense of personalities at MongoDB by learning what the team finds time for outside of the day-to-day job
Ultimately, we wanted readers to fully envision what it would be like to work as a designer at MongoDB. I pitched the idea to my manager and, once it was signed off, I reached out to our team for participants in the series.
On Slack, I sent out a blurb in our #design channel to recruit those wanted to be featured. To enforce fairness and diversity in participants, I had a “sign-up document” that permitted one person from each product team to be included. | https://uxdesign.cc/launching-mongodbs-meet-the-team-blog-post-series-f286de73694e | ['Michelle Chiu'] | 2020-10-20 20:31:04.748000+00:00 | ['Technology', 'User Experience', 'Tech', 'Design', 'Writing'] | Title Launching blog post series showcase design team talentContent Diving company’s blog one best way learn organization offer glimpse could potentially working project could take ownership culture like sense first impression formed prior meeting anyone team thought mind conceived idea creating blog post series highlight designer MongoDB certain it’d great avenue educate candidate find important envisioned helpful resource future intern cohort applicant design role candidate team continues scale main goal initiative allow reader Learn core value MongoDB design team Understand responsibility design role MongoDB entail Educate variety project MongoDB designer involved Grab insight MongoDB designer learned prior experience that’ve helped u current role Get better sense personality MongoDB learning team find time outside daytoday job Ultimately wanted reader fully envision would like work designer MongoDB pitched idea manager signed reached team participant series Slack sent blurb design channel recruit wanted featured enforce fairness diversity participant “signup document” permitted one person product team includedTags Technology User Experience Tech Design Writing |
2,290 | From Insight to Action to Stranger Things — Acrotrend Solutions | In our previous episode of Stranger Things, we looked at how insight drives Netflix’s success. If you missed that post, you can read it here.
As we move through the DATA > INSIGHT > ACTION loop, this blog post deep-dives further into the ACTION aspect of Netflix’s data.
When we arrive at the Insights stage, 50% of the work has been done: Netflix has made an agreement with Stranger Things’ producers, defined the Stranger Things promotion roadmap and has the KPI framework setup. Now it’s time to create and execute the plan.
Netflix already knows who, when, where, what and how to target their subscribers even before spending money on the project. Of course, in reality, it’s a bit more complex than that, but crucially, Netflix is clear on the cost and timelines required to achieve the expected return on their investment.
In theory, there are 3 types of audiences here:
- FANS: Current subscribers who have been identified as perfect candidates to watch Stranger Things. For them, the cost of marketing activities per user will be relatively low as Netflix already knows that they have a high interest in this genre. According to Symphony AdvancedMedia, Stranger Things Season 1 averaged 8.2m viewers among adults aged 18–49 over the first 17 days. We can assume that most of these viewers belong to this audience set.
- CLIENTS: Current subscribers who don’t particularly show interest in Science Fiction-Horror programmes like Stranger Things. Here the marketing effort is higher than for fans, because Netflix has to convince them to watch, whereas the previous segment is already hooked. Using matchmaking and personalising the customer experience, Netflix can drive additional conversions, which also mean higher customer satisfaction and higher retention rates.
- PROSPECTS: Science Fiction-Horror fans who aren’t subscribers of Netflix. Converting this audience type will require a significant investment into marketing activities through social media, newspaper articles, physical and digital advertisement. The conversion will be lower, but every new subscription also means a bigger user base and therefore more revenue.
Conclusion
And there we have it. We hope our Stranger Things mini-series has been an enlightening read and has demonstrated how Netflix makes successful, critical decisions based on data.
Clearly, data cannot make every decision by itself; there are some situations where intuition must be used. This is why we prefer to talk about decision-making ‘tools’ rather than as technology that replaces humans — because it doesn’t, and it shouldn’t.
Using data to make decisions about your organisation’s next investment or to help you build a strategy is not restricted only to movie industry. This process can be mirrored across any type of business that wants to minimise risk and make more profit.
If our series has whet your appetite for more, and you want to become a data-driven organisation, find out more about how Acrotrend can support you on this journey. | https://medium.com/acrotrend-consultancy/from-insight-to-action-to-stranger-things-acrotrend-solutions-c3917fca3c8f | ['Acrotrend Consultancy'] | 2019-08-15 12:55:33.504000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Business Intelligence', 'Netflix', 'Marketing', 'Customer Analytics'] | Title Insight Action Stranger Things — Acrotrend SolutionsContent previous episode Stranger Things looked insight drive Netflix’s success missed post read move DATA INSIGHT ACTION loop blog post deepdives ACTION aspect Netflix’s data arrive Insights stage 50 work done Netflix made agreement Stranger Things’ producer defined Stranger Things promotion roadmap KPI framework setup it’s time create execute plan Netflix already know target subscriber even spending money project course reality it’s bit complex crucially Netflix clear cost timeline required achieve expected return investment theory 3 type audience FANS Current subscriber identified perfect candidate watch Stranger Things cost marketing activity per user relatively low Netflix already know high interest genre According Symphony AdvancedMedia Stranger Things Season 1 averaged 82m viewer among adult aged 18–49 first 17 day assume viewer belong audience set CLIENTS Current subscriber don’t particularly show interest Science FictionHorror programme like Stranger Things marketing effort higher fan Netflix convince watch whereas previous segment already hooked Using matchmaking personalising customer experience Netflix drive additional conversion also mean higher customer satisfaction higher retention rate PROSPECTS Science FictionHorror fan aren’t subscriber Netflix Converting audience type require significant investment marketing activity social medium newspaper article physical digital advertisement conversion lower every new subscription also mean bigger user base therefore revenue Conclusion hope Stranger Things miniseries enlightening read demonstrated Netflix make successful critical decision based data Clearly data cannot make every decision situation intuition must used prefer talk decisionmaking ‘tools’ rather technology replaces human — doesn’t shouldn’t Using data make decision organisation’s next investment help build strategy restricted movie industry process mirrored across type business want minimise risk make profit series whet appetite want become datadriven organisation find Acrotrend support journeyTags Data Science Business Intelligence Netflix Marketing Customer Analytics |
2,291 | Great Characters Leap off the Page | You’ve thought about your characters. You’ve defined them. You’ve written biographies and histories. They’re 3-dimensional, living beings in your head. All that’s left to do is introduce them to your reader by making them jump off the page. How do we do that?
First Impressions
Just like real life, when we meet someone in a movie we instantly form a first impression. As the writer, you get to choose what that impression will be.
As the writer, you want your reader to instantly grasp the defining qualities of your main character. How your character walks into the world of your movie, what they look like and what they say will form the first indelible image of your characters in the mind of your reader.
Everyone in life has a predominant attitude that defines who they are. The same applies to characters in a script. What is their general point of view towards the world? What is their first response to most things? What is their initial attitude?
These traits inform your audience. They tell your reader how to see your main character. To ensure that your character comes across the way you want, define what your character’s main impulse tends toward. Are they generally happy? Or they depressed? Are they judgmental? Open-minded? Cheap? Bitter? Kind?
Whatever you come up with for your character, write it down and remember it. Put it on a card or piece of paper and keep it on your desk:
“My character’s first impulse will be to ___________.”
When you’re trying to define your character’s main quality, think about where you want them to end up at the end of the story. In order for your character’s journey to be significant, their attitudes at the beginning of their arc should be as far away from where they end up as possible.
Write an Introductory Sentence
Before you introduce your main character in your script, know what you want to say about them. Separate from the script, write a precise and specific sentence that describes and defines your character. Analyze the sentence for what information is and isn’t essential. Have you made it as clear and concise and charming as possible? Have you pared it down to only the most essential qualities?
Once you have, craft the description so that your reader sees and experience your character in action as they first enter the movie. Remember, everyone always has an agenda — something they want — even if they’re not aware of it. When you introduce your character, they should be in middle of trying to achieve something.
Show, Don’t Tell
Writers often fall into the trap of using character description to tell the reader information they want the audience to know. This is a mistake.
If an actor portraying a character cannot act out on-screen the information you are describing, then this information is exposition which shouldn’t be there. Save the information to be revealed later by the character’s actions.
Let your characters demonstrate to the reader who they are. If you describe a character a certain way, that character must prove your point through action. If you say your character is smart, they had better do some really intelligent things. If you say they are funny, they had better make us laugh. No matter how much you tell a reader who or what a character is, if the character’s actions don’t bear out that truth, the reader won’t believe it. The reader will form their own opinions based on what they see in the character’s actions and emotions.
Find the Contradictions
People are not logical. They are “psychological.” They have conflicting experiences; and thus, they have conflicting ideas and impulses. Like real people, characters are consistent but often contradictory.
In every great character there is a unique and specific paradox.
A believable and effective character will have one main paradox that makes them intriguing and mysterious. When trying to define that paradox it’s easiest to think of it in juxtaposition to opposing traits. Define it as a “but” phrase that contrasts the two conflicting impulses. If possible, go beyond obvious and find a paradox that surprises the reader by going against what is expected.
Once you’ve found the right paradox, before you start writing, experiment with where and how the paradox is revealed. Try revealing your character’s paradox at different points in your outline.
When done right, this paradox will surprise your audience, inform them about a different side of your character and make the audience feel more connected and empathetic towards them. For that to happen, your reader must already have enough information about a character to think that they know who that person is.
If you reveal the paradox too early, there won’t be enough context to make is a surprise. If you reveal it too late, it will seem like a plot device. The trick — through trial and error — is to find the placement that’s most effective for what you want the reader to think about your character at that specific moment in the character’s journey. | https://medium.com/swlh/great-characters-leap-off-the-page-a63b25bb9a19 | ['P.W. Alex Er'] | 2020-05-03 11:11:07.672000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Writers On Writing', 'Characters', 'Character Development', 'Writing'] | Title Great Characters Leap PageContent You’ve thought character You’ve defined You’ve written biography history They’re 3dimensional living being head that’s left introduce reader making jump page First Impressions like real life meet someone movie instantly form first impression writer get choose impression writer want reader instantly grasp defining quality main character character walk world movie look like say form first indelible image character mind reader Everyone life predominant attitude defines applies character script general point view towards world first response thing initial attitude trait inform audience tell reader see main character ensure character come across way want define character’s main impulse tends toward generally happy depressed judgmental Openminded Cheap Bitter Kind Whatever come character write remember Put card piece paper keep desk “My character’s first impulse ” you’re trying define character’s main quality think want end end story order character’s journey significant attitude beginning arc far away end possible Write Introductory Sentence introduce main character script know want say Separate script write precise specific sentence describes defines character Analyze sentence information isn’t essential made clear concise charming possible pared essential quality craft description reader see experience character action first enter movie Remember everyone always agenda — something want — even they’re aware introduce character middle trying achieve something Show Don’t Tell Writers often fall trap using character description tell reader information want audience know mistake actor portraying character cannot act onscreen information describing information exposition shouldn’t Save information revealed later character’s action Let character demonstrate reader describe character certain way character must prove point action say character smart better really intelligent thing say funny better make u laugh matter much tell reader character character’s action don’t bear truth reader won’t believe reader form opinion based see character’s action emotion Find Contradictions People logical “psychological” conflicting experience thus conflicting idea impulse Like real people character consistent often contradictory every great character unique specific paradox believable effective character one main paradox make intriguing mysterious trying define paradox it’s easiest think juxtaposition opposing trait Define “but” phrase contrast two conflicting impulse possible go beyond obvious find paradox surprise reader going expected you’ve found right paradox start writing experiment paradox revealed Try revealing character’s paradox different point outline done right paradox surprise audience inform different side character make audience feel connected empathetic towards happen reader must already enough information character think know person reveal paradox early won’t enough context make surprise reveal late seem like plot device trick — trial error — find placement that’s effective want reader think character specific moment character’s journeyTags Storytelling Writers Writing Characters Character Development Writing |
2,292 | Give it a SPIN! | Charts are wonderful — they generate information out of myriad little details, unlock insights out of a seemingly unrelated tonnage of data, and to a great extent help uncover the iceberg that’s hidden beneath the cresting water. In my view, data visualization is an interesting blend of art & science that generates engagement and drives further exploration of any given topic.
As a self-professed data visualization geek, charts have always fascinated me as a great tool for communicating insights. The ground level fundamentals are obvious by now — each chart is different, and they are most effective when used in the purpose for which they were intended. But on top of it, I have always found playing with a chart and tweaking an existing graphic could be so much fun. One of such things that I find extremely interesting to do? Spinning a chart. Here’s what I mean.
Spin it by 180 degrees
Below is a line chart that represents number of average footfalls in the local metro stations of one of the major metropolis in the world.
Chart 1: Average daily footfalls trend
You’d be able to easily identify that there’s a significantly large rush on the weekdays during both AM & PM working hours-time. On weekends, the rush is typically more prominent during the middle of the day. Also, notice that the peak weekend rush is only, at most, half of the peak weekday rush.
But now I’ll rotate this same graph by 180 degrees, and with some adjustments on the X-axis, I get the version below:
Chart 2.1: Chart 1 rotated by 180 degrees
As compared to chart 1, the peaks here are either during mid-day or during the night when trains are not operational (in other words, the inverse of the original).
Say I change the y-axis here to “Available Space in the Station” (denoted by Space in the chart). Don’t worry about the actual unit of space; the intent is only to understand the appropriate pattern.
Chart 2.2: Average Daily Available Space Index
The first graph helped us easily visualize when are the busiest times on the Metro. However, for an Operations worker, who’s looking to utilize station space (perhaps as a source of revenue generation) or primarily wants to understand empty capacity, this is a much more direct depiction compared to Chart 1. And this will be true for any attribute that has an inverse relationship with footfalls / busy-ness. For example, it could be measuring “availability of vacant seats in train” (assuming train frequency doesn’t drop significantly during the day). So, for a person traveling with large luggage or an elderly for whom comfort is more important than actual travel time, this graph gives them a far more direct answer as to when are easier times for them to travel.
Chart 1, though, is absolutely the right answer if a decision has to be made for things that are in positive relation with footfall, such as how many ticket counters should be active at what time, what quantity of security personnel need to be deployed & when to better manage oncoming crowds or so on.
This is but one simple example from a specific area, but more generally, for two KPIs or metrics that are opposing in nature, a rotation by 180 degrees on one will almost always help to communicate the inverse message of the other.
Spin it by 90 degrees
Let’s look at this graph below:
Chart 3: Profit % by Products
This is great if we are looking say at a direct metric like Profitability for different products (A1, A2…A6 in the above) for a given period of time (the exact numbers are again hypothetical and not important). Very easily, it becomes clear which product is riding up north vis-à-vis which product is sliding down south. A1 and A6 seem to be driving lots of profit, while A5 may be worth revisiting for this hypothetical business!
But once again, I just can’t help myself rotating this chart. This time, however, I am going to rotate it by only 90 degrees.
Chart 4: Forecast Deviation across Products
The same Chart 3 would now look like lefthand side image in the graphic above, to which I am going to do some adjustments so that it becomes a better presentation as depicted in the righthand size image above.
For Chart 4, rather than representing it as Profit %, consider a new use case — there’s an inventory management system in place, which has a forecast to predict what should be the inventory level for each product. To ensure that the forecast is as close as reality, typically, operations staff would want to monitor the difference between actual and predicted levels on an ongoing basis. The larger the difference, the larger the need to fine-tune the model. And this is such an important function since whether it is under-stocking (Actual Demand greater than Forecast) or over-stocking (Actual Demand less than Forecast), both situations are either significant revenue lost or cost to organization, if the deviation is above a tolerable threshold.
In this case, if Chart 3 (un-rotated version) was used — a positive Y-axis would have indicated over-stock situations while negative Y-axis would have indicated under stock situations. See below:
Typically in a chart like that, cognitively we are so attuned to perceive a negative y-value as bad and positive y-value as good, so there’s a good chance many users may get misled attributing under-stocking to be a problem area but not over-stocking, when in reality, large deviations are most likely equally bad, regardless of direction. Precisely these are such situations when a rotated chart as in Chart 4 will come in handy. Users looking at this chart are more likely to not get biased and would tend to understand the interpretation of the bars for themselves in order to draw an appropriate conclusion.
So while Chart 3 was good for metrics where order of directions matter (i.e. one of a positive/negative axis value is actually an exclusively a good-bad situation), Chart 4 is better for metrics where neither direction is disproportionately important, case in point being bi-directional deviation from the center.
Long story short: what message you’re trying to send with your chart matters. Whenever you are creating a graph from scratch, you need to think about what that chart is going to convey, which type of chart should be selected, what would be the axes, layout, labels, etc. And if you are already following these fundamental best practices, the graphs you create will start speaking clearly to your audience. And while you are doing this, there’s no harm in giving your chart a spin — who knows, something that was confounding your audience may suddenly nail it 90 degrees later! Or you get to see something that you didn’t even think of when you started!
Saurabh Singhal is a Data Visualization & Analytics specialist who takes pride in delivering business value by generating data based insights. He is passionate about data, number crunching & everything around that. In another universe, “Data & Numbers” would have been his most sophisticated & closest ally. It would be a character whose alien musings may get unfathomable at times but would always be engrossing & enriching! | https://medium.com/nightingale/give-it-a-spin-40f2f7574627 | ['Saurabh Singhal'] | 2020-04-29 13:01:01.091000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Insight Data Science', 'Analytics', 'Insights', 'Visualization'] | Title Give SPINContent Charts wonderful — generate information myriad little detail unlock insight seemingly unrelated tonnage data great extent help uncover iceberg that’s hidden beneath cresting water view data visualization interesting blend art science generates engagement drive exploration given topic selfprofessed data visualization geek chart always fascinated great tool communicating insight ground level fundamental obvious — chart different effective used purpose intended top always found playing chart tweaking existing graphic could much fun One thing find extremely interesting Spinning chart Here’s mean Spin 180 degree line chart represents number average footfall local metro station one major metropolis world Chart 1 Average daily footfall trend You’d able easily identify there’s significantly large rush weekday PM working hourstime weekend rush typically prominent middle day Also notice peak weekend rush half peak weekday rush I’ll rotate graph 180 degree adjustment Xaxis get version Chart 21 Chart 1 rotated 180 degree compared chart 1 peak either midday night train operational word inverse original Say change yaxis “Available Space Station” denoted Space chart Don’t worry actual unit space intent understand appropriate pattern Chart 22 Average Daily Available Space Index first graph helped u easily visualize busiest time Metro However Operations worker who’s looking utilize station space perhaps source revenue generation primarily want understand empty capacity much direct depiction compared Chart 1 true attribute inverse relationship footfall busyness example could measuring “availability vacant seat train” assuming train frequency doesn’t drop significantly day person traveling large luggage elderly comfort important actual travel time graph give far direct answer easier time travel Chart 1 though absolutely right answer decision made thing positive relation footfall many ticket counter active time quantity security personnel need deployed better manage oncoming crowd one simple example specific area generally two KPIs metric opposing nature rotation 180 degree one almost always help communicate inverse message Spin 90 degree Let’s look graph Chart 3 Profit Products great looking say direct metric like Profitability different product A1 A2…A6 given period time exact number hypothetical important easily becomes clear product riding north visàvis product sliding south A1 A6 seem driving lot profit A5 may worth revisiting hypothetical business can’t help rotating chart time however going rotate 90 degree Chart 4 Forecast Deviation across Products Chart 3 would look like lefthand side image graphic going adjustment becomes better presentation depicted righthand size image Chart 4 rather representing Profit consider new use case — there’s inventory management system place forecast predict inventory level product ensure forecast close reality typically operation staff would want monitor difference actual predicted level ongoing basis larger difference larger need finetune model important function since whether understocking Actual Demand greater Forecast overstocking Actual Demand le Forecast situation either significant revenue lost cost organization deviation tolerable threshold case Chart 3 unrotated version used — positive Yaxis would indicated overstock situation negative Yaxis would indicated stock situation See Typically chart like cognitively attuned perceive negative yvalue bad positive yvalue good there’s good chance many user may get misled attributing understocking problem area overstocking reality large deviation likely equally bad regardless direction Precisely situation rotated chart Chart 4 come handy Users looking chart likely get biased would tend understand interpretation bar order draw appropriate conclusion Chart 3 good metric order direction matter ie one positivenegative axis value actually exclusively goodbad situation Chart 4 better metric neither direction disproportionately important case point bidirectional deviation center Long story short message you’re trying send chart matter Whenever creating graph scratch need think chart going convey type chart selected would ax layout label etc already following fundamental best practice graph create start speaking clearly audience there’s harm giving chart spin — know something confounding audience may suddenly nail 90 degree later get see something didn’t even think started Saurabh Singhal Data Visualization Analytics specialist take pride delivering business value generating data based insight passionate data number crunching everything around another universe “Data Numbers” would sophisticated closest ally would character whose alien musing may get unfathomable time would always engrossing enrichingTags Storytelling Insight Data Science Analytics Insights Visualization |
2,293 | Influencer Marketing — Influencers, Screws, Reviews | Bernard Goldbach https://www.flickr.com/photos/topgold/
In the 1860’s a prominent machinist named William Sellers set out on a mission to standardise the common screw. Importantly, this was a screw by his own design.
At that time, screws were made individually, by hand, on demand. Sellers saw the opportunity to develop an interchangeable screw, which could be mass-produced and lead to lower prices and speed of delivery. It also meant specialist screw machinists lost their uniqueness and most likely their trade. Much like the scribe, who objected heavily to the printing press, the machinists would do everything in their power to block Sellers. Hand-made screws meant repeat business for machinists and that customers were locked in.
In the 1860’s Sellers set out on an influencer campaign. Connection and influence became his leading tactic.
And so, Sellers targeted influential and heavy users of the screw. He started with the railroad and U.S, navy. This created an air of momentum, much like a snowball starting to roll down a hill. With this momentum, word of mouth played its part, closely followed by (the medium of choice at that time), the newspaper.
As you can guess, Sellers won and today we see the result of his vision. Once standardisation bedded in, so did an eco-system of standardized products around the screw.
Influencers
If you take Sellers tactic and view it as a framework you can see how it is the essence of influencer marketing.
A top PR firm owner once described PR to me as follows:
If I were to tell you my blog is great that is communications. If I told someone to tell other people my blog is great that is marketing. If people tell each other my blog is great, that is PR.
Taking this simple formula and applying it to Influencer Marketing we get a mix of 2 and 3. On this week’s Innovation Show we talk to №1 Global “Digital Marketing Influencer” in 2016 and Forbes “Top 20 Influencer of CMO’s” in 2017, Jeff Bullas. As a recognised influencer Jeff tells us how to engage influencers like him. Jeff describes influencer marketing as follows:
“Influencer marketing is reaching the tribes of influencers, people, who have built credibility and authenticity in their niche and their industry and quite often is doing that through great content.” — Jeff Bullas
There are some conflicts that need to be balanced to achieve this. The influencer will not waver on their credibility and promote a product they do not believe in. Jeff sees co-created or collaboratively created content as the best way to achieve influencer marketing. This content needs to address the pain points or interests of the tribe. Lazy marketers will create a blanket piece of content and expect this to be one size fits all (much like Sellers’ screw above). Content distribution does not work that way.
Jeff sees the influencer as the orchestrator of how to distribute content as well as the co-creator of this content. Distribution is key, as the influencer inherently understands the content consumption habits of their tribe and how each platform plays a different role. When you place content on a non-owned platform you must observe the behavior of the audience of that platform.
Big brands are so used to mass media messaging that they struggle when it comes to influencer marketing. The reality is the advertising landscape has been atomised into much smaller slices of the pie. To compete as a marketer one must embark on a journey of constant education. One must learn the platforms by doing, not reading and thus understand which are relevant for your brand and your audience.
Many measurement metrics need to be reimagined and recalibrated for today’s world of marketing. Many marketers do not convert their marketing effort to sales. The challenge is often that there are very few board members who are aware what is good and what is not and so very few call it as it really is…
A final piece of the pie to consider is the education piece of marketing. Jeff sees marketing as 75% education and 25% sales and feels marketers consistently fail at the last piece, hence the adage that the best marketers are ex-salespeople.
Reviews
On this week’s show we also talk to Gisela Hausmann, author of nine books, including the award-winning “Naked Determination”. Gisela is an email evangelist, and an expert Amazon reviewer and Amazon review coach.
The reason both Jeff and Gisela are on the same show is the common denominator of authenticity. In a world of always on, of suspicion of advertising, of ad blocking and (bad) content marketing authenticity is king. This is no different for the world of reviews. If Amazon or iTunes sniff a false or planted review they will come down very harshly on the culprit.
Why are reviews important?
No-one really believes the highly produced piece to camera any more. Yes, it still has its place, but the savvy marketer needs to consider every customer touch point. Reviews are an aspect so often overlooked, when you think about human behavior, reviews are an essential slice of the marketing pie.
Think for a moment of a purchase decision. A buyer will check user reviews before they read an article in the newspaper or a YouTube video by the brand. This is akin to checking tripadvisor reviews or forum reviews before deciding on a hotel destination.
Gisela gives us some real nuggets such as how it is vital for any brand selling on Amazon to ensure they get reviewed on Amazon US first. Why? Amazon US is a blanket review site where the reviews for the US are also made available in other countries and are placed below the local market reviews. Unbeknownst to most is that when you place a review on Amazon it is only available on that local market’s website.
Gisela also tells us how to approach professional reviewers, for example do not try to impress or woo the reviewer. Reviewers get sent the product to review, but there are strict regulations around what they can do with the product, for example Amazon won’t let them sell a product they review. We discuss an example of one reviewer who reviews Dog products. This reviewer uses the product, reviews it and then donates everything to a local dog shelter.
You can see the correlation between influencers, screws and reviews now. Marketers need to re-educate themselves. The old world is long dead, we are in a world of accelerated innovation and innovation is a form of evolution that often people don’t see until it is too late. Don’t be a stagnant marketer and never take risks. This is a journey with no destination. The destination is the journey. To excel in the new business environment in any respect we must embark on a journey of constant learning, self-improvement and enjoy the journey.
THANKS FOR READING
On this week’s Innovation Show we talk to №1 Global “Digital Marketing Influencer”, 2016 and Forbes “Top 20 Influencers of CMO’s” in 2017, Jeff Bullas. As an influencer Jeff tells us how to engage an influencer to excel at influence marketing. He also lets us know a bit about his mindset and what drives him.
We talk to Gisela Hausmann, author of nine books, including award-winning “Naked Determination” Gisela is an email evangelist, and an expert Amazon reviewer and review coach.
Finally, we talk to Lisa Marie Clinton, founder and CEO of Avail (Assisted Visuals Achieving Independent Living). Avail is a portable, discreet virtual assistant. It works as an e-learning app and web portal for children and adults with intellectual or development disabilities. The app and site deliver smart prompts based on the person’s ability, so it is personalised to the user.
You can subscribe on iTunes here.
Website is here.
TuneIn is here.
Soundcloud is below. | https://medium.com/thethursdaythought/influencer-marketing-influencers-screws-reviews-ce5e037742a6 | ['Aidan Mccullen'] | 2017-02-09 19:19:06.644000+00:00 | ['Influencer Marketing', 'Social Media', 'Amazon', 'Marketing', 'Digital Marketing'] | Title Influencer Marketing — Influencers Screws ReviewsContent Bernard Goldbach httpswwwflickrcomphotostopgold 1860’s prominent machinist named William Sellers set mission standardise common screw Importantly screw design time screw made individually hand demand Sellers saw opportunity develop interchangeable screw could massproduced lead lower price speed delivery also meant specialist screw machinist lost uniqueness likely trade Much like scribe objected heavily printing press machinist would everything power block Sellers Handmade screw meant repeat business machinist customer locked 1860’s Sellers set influencer campaign Connection influence became leading tactic Sellers targeted influential heavy user screw started railroad US navy created air momentum much like snowball starting roll hill momentum word mouth played part closely followed medium choice time newspaper guess Sellers today see result vision standardisation bedded ecosystem standardized product around screw Influencers take Sellers tactic view framework see essence influencer marketing top PR firm owner described PR follows tell blog great communication told someone tell people blog great marketing people tell blog great PR Taking simple formula applying Influencer Marketing get mix 2 3 week’s Innovation Show talk №1 Global “Digital Marketing Influencer” 2016 Forbes “Top 20 Influencer CMO’s” 2017 Jeff Bullas recognised influencer Jeff tell u engage influencers like Jeff describes influencer marketing follows “Influencer marketing reaching tribe influencers people built credibility authenticity niche industry quite often great content” — Jeff Bullas conflict need balanced achieve influencer waver credibility promote product believe Jeff see cocreated collaboratively created content best way achieve influencer marketing content need address pain point interest tribe Lazy marketer create blanket piece content expect one size fit much like Sellers’ screw Content distribution work way Jeff see influencer orchestrator distribute content well cocreator content Distribution key influencer inherently understands content consumption habit tribe platform play different role place content nonowned platform must observe behavior audience platform Big brand used mass medium messaging struggle come influencer marketing reality advertising landscape atomised much smaller slice pie compete marketer one must embark journey constant education One must learn platform reading thus understand relevant brand audience Many measurement metric need reimagined recalibrated today’s world marketing Many marketer convert marketing effort sale challenge often board member aware good call really is… final piece pie consider education piece marketing Jeff see marketing 75 education 25 sale feel marketer consistently fail last piece hence adage best marketer exsalespeople Reviews week’s show also talk Gisela Hausmann author nine book including awardwinning “Naked Determination” Gisela email evangelist expert Amazon reviewer Amazon review coach reason Jeff Gisela show common denominator authenticity world always suspicion advertising ad blocking bad content marketing authenticity king different world review Amazon iTunes sniff false planted review come harshly culprit review important Noone really belief highly produced piece camera Yes still place savvy marketer need consider every customer touch point Reviews aspect often overlooked think human behavior review essential slice marketing pie Think moment purchase decision buyer check user review read article newspaper YouTube video brand akin checking tripadvisor review forum review deciding hotel destination Gisela give u real nugget vital brand selling Amazon ensure get reviewed Amazon US first Amazon US blanket review site review US also made available country placed local market review Unbeknownst place review Amazon available local market’s website Gisela also tell u approach professional reviewer example try impress woo reviewer Reviewers get sent product review strict regulation around product example Amazon won’t let sell product review discus example one reviewer review Dog product reviewer us product review donates everything local dog shelter see correlation influencers screw review Marketers need reeducate old world long dead world accelerated innovation innovation form evolution often people don’t see late Don’t stagnant marketer never take risk journey destination destination journey excel new business environment respect must embark journey constant learning selfimprovement enjoy journey THANKS READING week’s Innovation Show talk №1 Global “Digital Marketing Influencer” 2016 Forbes “Top 20 Influencers CMO’s” 2017 Jeff Bullas influencer Jeff tell u engage influencer excel influence marketing also let u know bit mindset drive talk Gisela Hausmann author nine book including awardwinning “Naked Determination” Gisela email evangelist expert Amazon reviewer review coach Finally talk Lisa Marie Clinton founder CEO Avail Assisted Visuals Achieving Independent Living Avail portable discreet virtual assistant work elearning app web portal child adult intellectual development disability app site deliver smart prompt based person’s ability personalised user subscribe iTunes Website TuneIn Soundcloud belowTags Influencer Marketing Social Media Amazon Marketing Digital Marketing |
2,294 | The Ultimate Guide To Growing Your Audience | The Ultimate Guide To Growing Your Audience
The six elements of an effective audience growth strategy.
Congrats!
If you read this, you’ll already have done more than most people do to grow their audience.
What follows is a breakdown of the keys to audience growth and how to establish the necessary mindset to build your fanbase and further your career.
While every creator’s specific situation is unique, this overview is designed to help you develop a strategy you can adapt to your own particular goals and needs.
If you’d like additional help, there’s information at the bottom of this post about how I can work with you to help you figure it out.
How I Know What I Know
Before I get into the advice, here’s a bit about my background and experience with growing audiences for creative work.
I’ve worked in a combination of content production, social media, and marketing for the past 20 years and learned the basic principles of audience growth are the same — no matter whether you’re a comedian, musician, blogger, author, filmmaker, or the most popular entertainment show on the planet (the Oscars).
Here are a few examples of audiences I’ve grown over the years:
- I oversaw digital media and marketing for The Academy and The Oscars for five years. During that time I grew the Academy’s social following from 400,000 fans to more than 10 million and helped create one of the biggest social media moments in history — the Ellen selfie.
- I created Connected Comedy, which became the largest source of comedy marketing information in the world with an audience of more than 20,000 comedians.
- I created the For The Interested newsletter, a weekly collection of 10 ideas to help people learn, do, and become better at their work, art, and life. It has attracted 15,000 subscribers in its first year.
I’ve also helped clients like New Line Cinema, Focus Features, Participant Media, Warner Bros. Television, and many comedians, writers, musicians, and businesses build audiences and promote their creations.
What An Audience Actually Is
Let’s start with some clarity about what it means to have an audience.
Too often creators think of their “audience” as the number of people who consume their creations. But I disagree.
Your audience isn’t the number of people who consume a particular creation, but rather the number of people you can count on to consume your NEXT creation.
This is a HUGE and important difference that can (and should) shift your entire mindset about audience growth.
If you have a video go viral and get seen by a million people, but none of them subscribe to your YouTube channel or email list, have you really grown your audience?
No.
Because without a CONNECTION to your fans, you have no ability to ensure they will see your NEXT creation — which is ultimately what matters and why it’s a more accurate way to measure your audience.
If 500 people come see your show, love it, and leave without connecting to you in any way that you can reach them next week, then you didn’t grow your audience at all.
Quite the opposite.
All you did was let 500 people who should be in your audience walk out the door without becoming part of your fanbase.
Five hundred people who loved you but didn’t connect with you is nothing more than 500 missed opportunities.
As you read on, keep in mind these audience growth strategies are not just about getting exposure for your work — they’re about building your actual audience.
That’s what matters. That’s what careers are built on.
The 6 Elements Of Audience Growth
Six elements need to come together in order to grow your audience.
If you struggle to grow your audience or are just starting out, it’s important to think through each of these elements and develop a strategy to address each one.
And if you want to improve your rate of existing audience growth, it’s helpful to analyze the current status of each element to figure out where you can improve and what opportunities you may be missing.
Element 1: Audience Identification
You can’t grow your audience until you decide who you want to be in your audience.
Who’s most likely to enjoy what you create? Hone in on a profile of those people.
How old are they? Do they live in cities or suburbs? Are they married or single? Rich or poor? What kind of jobs do they have? What are their interests?
Then, think about what other things those people consume.
Who are their favorite creators? What do they read, watch and listen to? Who do they follow on social media? What do they care about? What do they value? What motivates them?
Another way to think about this is to answer this question:
If I guaranteed you 1,000 people would see your next creation, but those people couldn’t include anybody you know or anybody famous…who would you choose to be in that crowd?
You’d choose the people most likely to enjoy what you do — that’s your target audience.
This doesn’t mean your target audience are the only people who will ultimately become a part of your audience. If your target audience is women, that doesn’t mean you can’t have male fans.
What it means is you’re going to target your content and promotion to reach that ideal audience and grow from there.
Think of it like a dartboard.
Your target audience is the bullseye and you aim for that. But some of your darts will inevitably land outside the bullseye and attract other fans as well.
Element 2: Content Creation
This is the fun part.
Or at least the reason most of us create things in the first place.
Your content is the gas that fuels your audience growth — it’s what attracts people and convinces them to stick around for the long haul.
But there are two truths about content creation you need to understand.
1. Your content has to be good. I repeat, your content has to be good.
If your content’s not good, none of this other stuff matters because it won’t work. You can’t trick somebody into becoming your fan and nobody becomes a fan of things that aren’t good.
(NOTE: Keep in mind that good is subjective and you don’t need everybody to think your work is good — you just need your target audience to think it’s good.)
2. You need to produce content on an ongoing basis.
Because audience growth is fueled by content, it’s important to regularly create stuff and put it into the world. If you only put something out once every few months or once a year, your opportunity for audience growth is significantly diminished.
On the other hand, don’t feel like you need to constantly post a million things a day on social media — quality is as important as quantity. In a perfect world, at least three pieces of content a week works well.
(NOTE: That doesn’t mean if you’re an author you have to publish three books a week or a musician has to release three songs a week. Content can take many forms and be as simple as a compelling and high quality social media update. The point is to create and share valuable content on a consistent basis).
Element 3: Content Optimization
Creating great content is only half the battle.
You also must optimize that content to ensure you get the most out of it.
This includes everything from how the content is posted, to how it’s positioned, to how it’s repurposed. These little things make a big difference in the ultimate performance of the content.
For example, posting a video to Facebook as a YouTube link reduces its reach (because Facebook’s algorithm hates YouTube) while posting your video as a natively uploaded Facebook video increases its reach (because Facebook’s algorithm loves its own video player).
Another example is taking something you wrote that’s great and chopping it up to get multiple pieces of great content out of the work you’ve already done.
One post can be turned into multiple short posts, quotes from it can be turned into compelling images, and more.
Most creators don’t get the maximum value out of their creations and as a result their content reaches fewer people and attracts fewer fans.
Element 4: Content Distribution and Promotion
Once your content’s optimized, it’s ready to be unleashed on the world — this is where your distribution and promotion plan comes in.
Don’t believe the myth that things magically go “viral.” To grow an audience you have to be strategic about how to get your work seen.
For starters, think back to the Audience Identification phase. Your initial efforts should be geared toward getting your content into the places where your target audience is likely to see them — after all, they’re the ones you think are most likely to enjoy it.
That’s why it’s important to figure out what your target audience consumes and where they consume it — it helps you find them.
Whether on blogs, social platforms, influencers, playlists, or anything else you can come up with — you want to get your creations where people are already looking.
The other key to distribution is to recognize there are two ways to get attention for your work: Earned media and Paid media. If possible, use both.
Earned media is anything you can do to get other people with an audience to share your work with their audience. This includes press, PR, influencers, and leveraging anybody else who has the ability to tell more people about your work.
Paid media is advertising — but it’s not the typical commercials and banner ads you likely ignore.
Instead, pay to promote your actual content through things like Facebook ads, which are incredibly powerful because they put your content where people will actually engage with it — in their feeds.
Every creator should use Facebook ads to grow their audience because it allows you to get your content in front of your exact target audience in an incredibly inexpensive way.
A quick example: I recently helped a comedian promote her upcoming show in a city where she didn’t live and had no pre-existing audience.
Using Facebook ads, we were able to reach her exact target audience (in her case it was 20–40 year old gay men and women who enjoy stand up comedy and live within 50 miles of the comedy club).
For just $14, 780 people in that target audience saw a video of her standup and a plug for the upcoming show — 18 of them clicked through to the club’s ticket sales page to buy tickets.
All that for $14.
There’s no excuse for creators not to use Facebook ads to grow their audience and promote their content and shows.
For what you spend on a cup of coffee each day, you can get meaningful results.
Element 5: Audience Conversion
This is the single most overlooked element of audience growth.
Remember how I said your audience isn’t how many people saw your last creation, but rather how many you can count on to see your next one?
That’s why this audience conversion step is so crucial.
Audience conversion is your ability to convert people who are exposed to your content into members of your actual audience. It’s how you take somebody who’s a casual viewer or listener and turn them into a fan you can reach with your future work.
To do this, you must first select a key conversion metric to measure your audience growth.
There are multiple metrics that could work for you depending on your goals.
In most cases, turning somebody into an email subscriber is what provides you the most value. But you could decide instead to have your key conversion metric be podcast or YouTube subscribers, social media followers, or whatever method you choose that enables you to efficiently reach that person with your future creations.
While you may want multiple conversions (it’s great to have people follow you on Twitter AND join your email list for example), you’ll have the most success if you focus on one single metric.
The more asks you make of people, the less likely they are to do any of them.
So pick one key metric and use your content and distribution to drive people to take that single action.
This metric is not only how you will measure your audience growth, but it’s also how you’ll measure the success of your creative work.
If you perform for 100 people and they love the show but none of them join your email list, that show was less valuable for you than the one where only 50 people liked the show, but 40 of them joined your list.
Remember: Audience growth is about a mindset and when you see this conversion metric as your goal, it enables you to make meaningful progress much quicker than you otherwise would.
Element 6: Audience Activation
The final step in the process of audience growth is to activate the audience you’ve acquired.
This means figuring out ways to get your existing audience to consume and share your content as well as developing strategies to get your audience to spread the word about you and your work.
Once you’ve identified your target audience, gotten your content in front of them, and converted them into your fans, the work’s not done. In some ways, it’s just begun.
Your ability to activate your audience is a key to supercharging your growth because it means that each additional new fan brings with them a whole network of other people they can introduce to your creations.
The best audiences are the ones with the most engaged and passionate fans. And the most engaged fans are the ones where creators are committed to serve and connect with them.
Treat your fans like gold and take a personal interest in them — they’re the key to your ultimate success.
5 Common Audience Growth Mistakes
Every creator is different, but here are five of the most common mistakes I see creators make when it comes to audience growth.
1. Don’t choose a target audience that’s too broad or not defined at all.
If you’re a comic, your target audience isn’t just “people who like comedy” and if you’re a hip hop artist your audience isn’t just “people who like hip hop music.”
Think about it — Louis CK has a huge audience, but it’s only made of people who like a certain type of comedy.
The same is true for Jay Z — his work is targeted at people who enjoy a certain type of hip hop.
The more you narrow your target audience, the easier it becomes to find, reach, and connect with those people and the stronger those connections tend to be. Get specific.
2. Don’t ask people to subscribe to your mailing list without explaining its value.
Don’t ask people to subscribe to your mailing list or newsletter without giving them a reason to do so — and that reason should be an offer of something THEY value, not just something YOU value.
Too often creators ask people to subscribe to their list without explaining what’s in it for the subscriber or with promises of things like updates about your future shows which is more valuable to YOU than THEM.
Mailing lists that don’t offer (and deliver) a clear value proposition to potential subscribers, don’t get sign ups.
3. Don’t ask more from your fans than you’re willing to give to your fans.
You have to care more about your fans than they do about you and you have to make that clear to them.
If you take them for granted, if you don’t care about their interests, and if you don’t make attempts to genuinely get to know them, you can’t expect them to care about you.
You will owe your entire career to your fans so treat them that way.
4. Don’t expect results from mediocre content.
Remember how I said your content has to be good or else none of this other stuff will ever work?
Well, I’m going to say it again. Your content has to be good. Real good.
If you’re hustling and following all this advice and still not getting any traction then maybe it’s time to focus on improving your content.
It might just not be good enough — yet.
5. Don’t refuse to invest in audience growth.
Audience growth doesn’t happen overnight and neither do successful careers.
Play the long game and concentrate on making steady progress instead of looking for shortcuts and expecting to be an overnight superstar.
Audience growth is hard — it takes time, effort, patience, and resources.
If you’re not willing to invest in growing your audience, you shouldn’t expect to have one.
Recommended Audience Growth Articles
I’ve written a lot about various audience growth tactics beyond the overview in this post.
Here are a few you may want to check out:
How to grow your audience using Facebook.
How I doubled the reach of my Facebook posts without spending any money.
Why you need to stalk your audience on Facebook.
5 keys to a successful creative career.
How to get more people to subscribe to your newsletter.
How to get over your fear of self-promotion.
How to use a one-action strategy to activate your audience.
You don’t find your “voice” — you develop it.
How you answer these four questions determines your social media success.
Why most social media strategies fail.
Recommended Books
There are tons of great books out there about audience growth, but here are five that I strongly recommend for creators.
Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts
Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us
Contagious: Why Things Catch On
#AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur’s Take On Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness
Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys To Creativity
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Click below to see them. | https://medium.com/an-idea-for-you/the-ultimate-guide-to-growing-your-audience-5a25af3bbcff | ['Josh Spector'] | 2019-10-24 22:16:32.219000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Startup', 'Social Media', 'Digital Marketing', 'Entertainment'] | Title Ultimate Guide Growing AudienceContent Ultimate Guide Growing Audience six element effective audience growth strategy Congrats read you’ll already done people grow audience follows breakdown key audience growth establish necessary mindset build fanbase career every creator’s specific situation unique overview designed help develop strategy adapt particular goal need you’d like additional help there’s information bottom post work help figure Know Know get advice here’s bit background experience growing audience creative work I’ve worked combination content production social medium marketing past 20 year learned basic principle audience growth — matter whether you’re comedian musician blogger author filmmaker popular entertainment show planet Oscars example audience I’ve grown year oversaw digital medium marketing Academy Oscars five year time grew Academy’s social following 400000 fan 10 million helped create one biggest social medium moment history — Ellen selfie created Connected Comedy became largest source comedy marketing information world audience 20000 comedian created Interested newsletter weekly collection 10 idea help people learn become better work art life attracted 15000 subscriber first year I’ve also helped client like New Line Cinema Focus Features Participant Media Warner Bros Television many comedian writer musician business build audience promote creation Audience Actually Let’s start clarity mean audience often creator think “audience” number people consume creation disagree audience isn’t number people consume particular creation rather number people count consume NEXT creation HUGE important difference shift entire mindset audience growth video go viral get seen million people none subscribe YouTube channel email list really grown audience without CONNECTION fan ability ensure see NEXT creation — ultimately matter it’s accurate way measure audience 500 people come see show love leave without connecting way reach next week didn’t grow audience Quite opposite let 500 people audience walk door without becoming part fanbase Five hundred people loved didn’t connect nothing 500 missed opportunity read keep mind audience growth strategy getting exposure work — they’re building actual audience That’s matter That’s career built 6 Elements Audience Growth Six element need come together order grow audience struggle grow audience starting it’s important think element develop strategy address one want improve rate existing audience growth it’s helpful analyze current status element figure improve opportunity may missing Element 1 Audience Identification can’t grow audience decide want audience Who’s likely enjoy create Hone profile people old live city suburb married single Rich poor kind job interest think thing people consume favorite creator read watch listen follow social medium care value motivates Another way think answer question guaranteed 1000 people would see next creation people couldn’t include anybody know anybody famous…who would choose crowd You’d choose people likely enjoy — that’s target audience doesn’t mean target audience people ultimately become part audience target audience woman doesn’t mean can’t male fan mean you’re going target content promotion reach ideal audience grow Think like dartboard target audience bullseye aim dart inevitably land outside bullseye attract fan well Element 2 Content Creation fun part least reason u create thing first place content gas fuel audience growth — it’s attracts people convinces stick around long haul two truth content creation need understand 1 content good repeat content good content’s good none stuff matter won’t work can’t trick somebody becoming fan nobody becomes fan thing aren’t good NOTE Keep mind good subjective don’t need everybody think work good — need target audience think it’s good 2 need produce content ongoing basis audience growth fueled content it’s important regularly create stuff put world put something every month year opportunity audience growth significantly diminished hand don’t feel like need constantly post million thing day social medium — quality important quantity perfect world least three piece content week work well NOTE doesn’t mean you’re author publish three book week musician release three song week Content take many form simple compelling high quality social medium update point create share valuable content consistent basis Element 3 Content Optimization Creating great content half battle also must optimize content ensure get includes everything content posted it’s positioned it’s repurposed little thing make big difference ultimate performance content example posting video Facebook YouTube link reduces reach Facebook’s algorithm hate YouTube posting video natively uploaded Facebook video increase reach Facebook’s algorithm love video player Another example taking something wrote that’s great chopping get multiple piece great content work you’ve already done One post turned multiple short post quote turned compelling image creator don’t get maximum value creation result content reach fewer people attracts fewer fan Element 4 Content Distribution Promotion content’s optimized it’s ready unleashed world — distribution promotion plan come Don’t believe myth thing magically go “viral” grow audience strategic get work seen starter think back Audience Identification phase initial effort geared toward getting content place target audience likely see — they’re one think likely enjoy That’s it’s important figure target audience consumes consume — help find Whether blog social platform influencers playlist anything else come — want get creation people already looking key distribution recognize two way get attention work Earned medium Paid medium possible use Earned medium anything get people audience share work audience includes press PR influencers leveraging anybody else ability tell people work Paid medium advertising — it’s typical commercial banner ad likely ignore Instead pay promote actual content thing like Facebook ad incredibly powerful put content people actually engage — feed Every creator use Facebook ad grow audience allows get content front exact target audience incredibly inexpensive way quick example recently helped comedian promote upcoming show city didn’t live preexisting audience Using Facebook ad able reach exact target audience case 20–40 year old gay men woman enjoy stand comedy live within 50 mile comedy club 14 780 people target audience saw video standup plug upcoming show — 18 clicked club’s ticket sale page buy ticket 14 There’s excuse creator use Facebook ad grow audience promote content show spend cup coffee day get meaningful result Element 5 Audience Conversion single overlooked element audience growth Remember said audience isn’t many people saw last creation rather many count see next one That’s audience conversion step crucial Audience conversion ability convert people exposed content member actual audience It’s take somebody who’s casual viewer listener turn fan reach future work must first select key conversion metric measure audience growth multiple metric could work depending goal case turning somebody email subscriber provides value could decide instead key conversion metric podcast YouTube subscriber social medium follower whatever method choose enables efficiently reach person future creation may want multiple conversion it’s great people follow Twitter join email list example you’ll success focus one single metric asks make people le likely pick one key metric use content distribution drive people take single action metric measure audience growth it’s also you’ll measure success creative work perform 100 people love show none join email list show le valuable one 50 people liked show 40 joined list Remember Audience growth mindset see conversion metric goal enables make meaningful progress much quicker otherwise would Element 6 Audience Activation final step process audience growth activate audience you’ve acquired mean figuring way get existing audience consume share content well developing strategy get audience spread word work you’ve identified target audience gotten content front converted fan work’s done way it’s begun ability activate audience key supercharging growth mean additional new fan brings whole network people introduce creation best audience one engaged passionate fan engaged fan one creator committed serve connect Treat fan like gold take personal interest — they’re key ultimate success 5 Common Audience Growth Mistakes Every creator different five common mistake see creator make come audience growth 1 Don’t choose target audience that’s broad defined you’re comic target audience isn’t “people like comedy” you’re hip hop artist audience isn’t “people like hip hop music” Think — Louis CK huge audience it’s made people like certain type comedy true Jay Z — work targeted people enjoy certain type hip hop narrow target audience easier becomes find reach connect people stronger connection tend Get specific 2 Don’t ask people subscribe mailing list without explaining value Don’t ask people subscribe mailing list newsletter without giving reason — reason offer something value something value often creator ask people subscribe list without explaining what’s subscriber promise thing like update future show valuable Mailing list don’t offer deliver clear value proposition potential subscriber don’t get sign ups 3 Don’t ask fan you’re willing give fan care fan make clear take granted don’t care interest don’t make attempt genuinely get know can’t expect care owe entire career fan treat way 4 Don’t expect result mediocre content Remember said content good else none stuff ever work Well I’m going say content good Real good you’re hustling following advice still getting traction maybe it’s time focus improving content might good enough — yet 5 Don’t refuse invest audience growth Audience growth doesn’t happen overnight neither successful career Play long game concentrate making steady progress instead looking shortcut expecting overnight superstar Audience growth hard — take time effort patience resource you’re willing invest growing audience shouldn’t expect one Recommended Audience Growth Articles I’ve written lot various audience growth tactic beyond overview post may want check grow audience using Facebook doubled reach Facebook post without spending money need stalk audience Facebook 5 key successful creative career get people subscribe newsletter get fear selfpromotion use oneaction strategy activate audience don’t find “voice” — develop answer four question determines social medium success social medium strategy fail Recommended Books ton great book audience growth five strongly recommend creator Perennial Seller Art Making Marketing Work Lasts Tribes Need Lead Us Contagious Things Catch AskGaryVee One Entrepreneur’s Take Leadership Social Media SelfAwareness Ignore Everybody 39 Keys Creativity Want Help consult creator company help grow activate audience you’d like discus help email joshjoshspectorcom Thanks reading hope found info helpful Good luck new improved audience One Interested week share actionable idea improve work art life Interested Click see themTags Marketing Startup Social Media Digital Marketing Entertainment |
2,295 | Boundaries Are Not Walls | Boundaries Are Not Walls
Bringing us together and to better mental well-being
The term ‘boundary’ can sometimes be misleading. We aren’t talking about building walls. We are building a fence — remember, ‘good fences make good neighbors’. Boundaries are necessary to establish better relationships with ourselves and others. Not only are boundaries crucial in establishing your own identity, but also necessary for your mental health and well-being. They can be physical or emotional, loose or rigid. They are what you feel is necessary.
Setting boundaries is hard. I wish it were easy, but I won’t lie to you. It’s hard to say the word ‘no’ especially when you want to help someone out, look good for your boss. We get it, no one wants to let anyone else down. When did saying ‘no’ cast you in a negative light? We continue to work hours upon hours, sending emails and slack messages late into the night to show that we are working in hard, especially in a remote setting. When did exhaustion become a status symbol? You feel the pressure day in and day out. That’s right, you might be heading toward ‘burnout’ — mental exhaustion — because you cannot say ‘no.’ It’s a recipe for disaster.
Photo by Tony Tran on Unsplash
I’ve recently reestablished my own boundaries; especially as they pertain to work during the year of COVID-19. Is there a better year other than 2020 to work on the promotion of self-care or working to help others amongst a tsunami of negativity? Working from home during a pandemic has created varying blurred lines. When does the work day begin? When does it end? One forgets that the drive to and from work may be utilized to decompress, shrug off any negative feelings that might persist after a hard day. Getting up and walking down the hall to the bathroom to get a few extra steps or even taking a moment to walk to the other end of the office to chat with a coworker — those helped!
I certainly utilized my commute to decompress on the ride home, however, I don’t miss it. It allows me to get almost an hour and a half back with work when I am not in the car. Go figure. However, this is dangerous. I found myself working earlier and earlier, but also later and later. I took control. I decided that 5pm was the cutoff…no matter what time I started. This single step — this one boundary that I have established for myself — has single-handedly turned some of my stress and mental exhaustion upside down. It wasn’t easy, there was the anxiety over unanswered emails or unread slack messages; but this is something for me! This is something I needed to do to be okay so that I can be better for everyone else and be there for those in need of support.
We must first understand our own limits. Some of us have deep reservoirs of resiliency, or maybe just a shallow puddle drying up in the midday summer heat. One of the first steps in establishing boundaries for yourself is to understand and identify your specific pain points. Then, outline specifically what that boundary is to whomever needs to hear it. | https://medium.com/narrative/boundaries-are-not-walls-e828dde8b9cf | ['Tara Rose'] | 2020-10-16 12:12:55.277000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Mental Health Awareness', 'Self Improvement'] | Title Boundaries WallsContent Boundaries Walls Bringing u together better mental wellbeing term ‘boundary’ sometimes misleading aren’t talking building wall building fence — remember ‘good fence make good neighbors’ Boundaries necessary establish better relationship others boundary crucial establishing identity also necessary mental health wellbeing physical emotional loose rigid feel necessary Setting boundary hard wish easy won’t lie It’s hard say word ‘no’ especially want help someone look good bos get one want let anyone else saying ‘no’ cast negative light continue work hour upon hour sending email slack message late night show working hard especially remote setting exhaustion become status symbol feel pressure day day That’s right might heading toward ‘burnout’ — mental exhaustion — cannot say ‘no’ It’s recipe disaster Photo Tony Tran Unsplash I’ve recently reestablished boundary especially pertain work year COVID19 better year 2020 work promotion selfcare working help others amongst tsunami negativity Working home pandemic created varying blurred line work day begin end One forgets drive work may utilized decompress shrug negative feeling might persist hard day Getting walking hall bathroom get extra step even taking moment walk end office chat coworker — helped certainly utilized commute decompress ride home however don’t miss allows get almost hour half back work car Go figure However dangerous found working earlier earlier also later later took control decided 5pm cutoff…no matter time started single step — one boundary established — singlehandedly turned stress mental exhaustion upside wasn’t easy anxiety unanswered email unread slack message something something needed okay better everyone else need support must first understand limit u deep reservoir resiliency maybe shallow puddle drying midday summer heat One first step establishing boundary understand identify specific pain point outline specifically boundary whomever need hear itTags Mental Health Psychology Mental Health Awareness Self Improvement |
2,296 | Don’t Try to be Anyone’s Rock if You’re a Pile of Rubble | Christmas is one big bundle of obligation at the best of times. Add 2020 into the mix and we have one magnificent ball of clusterfuckery.
We’re all trying to figure out how to make this holiday season as normal as possible when we know that normal doesn’t exist right now. Let’s not pretend that millions of people haven’t lost jobs, livelihoods, and loved ones this year.
Instead, let’s call it like we see it and admit that nobody’s Christmas will be as merry as it usually is. No one is coming home for the holidays and if they are, they’re probably breaking a law or two in doing so.
The majority of us are struggling in one way or another this year and some of us will be lucky to accomplish getting out of bed for the holidays.
I don’t want to get out of bed on Christmas morning, and I certainly don’t want to pretend to be festive when the most important human in my life became an angel this year.
Yet, there are other important people still with me and the weight of my loss rests on their shoulders too. But I don’t feel like trying to add joy and merriment to anyone’s Christmas. I don’t feel it’s my job to show up, never mind lift up anyone during the holidays.
The fact that this holiday season is upon me only three months after the worst event of my life, and on the tail end of a whole pandemic, is an inconvenience that I resent right now. It weighs heavily on me that I am someone else’s child because it feels as though I’m expected to grace my mother with my presence.
I’m not in a position to be anyone’s rock right now.
I suspect many of us feel the same way. Millions of people worldwide have succumbed to 2020, whether due to Coronavirus or other tragic spinoffs of this shit show.
Some of us aren’t ready to fake it just yet.
I have invested a grand total of ZERO into Christmas shopping and I don’t intend to. There’s only one gift in the whole world that I want and I can’t get it — so I’m opting out of Christmas this year.
Believe me when I say I’m just showing up for the food.
If I had my way I’d choose to spend Christmas day alone, playing in a snow drift with my dog. We got a fantastically large dump of snow this week and it is my sole desire to play in it like a child.
Nobody needs permission to not show up for Christmas this year. If you don’t feel like giving into the obligation, then don’t. I wrote this more for the people who have expectations of others showing up for them.
Some of us don’t have the heart to show up right now so if we don’t, allow us some grace and realize that we’re allowing ourselves to feel what we need to feel. We didn’t all come through this year unscathed and some of us will never, ever know normal again.
Remind yourself that if you came through 2020 with a heartbeat and a pulse you’ll be okay, one step at a time. | https://medium.com/rogues-gallery/dont-try-to-be-anyone-s-rock-if-you-re-a-pile-of-rubble-f858fd93031c | ['Kristi Keller'] | 2020-12-24 18:42:49.015000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Mental Health', 'Self Love', '2020', 'Wellness'] | Title Don’t Try Anyone’s Rock You’re Pile RubbleContent Christmas one big bundle obligation best time Add 2020 mix one magnificent ball clusterfuckery We’re trying figure make holiday season normal possible know normal doesn’t exist right Let’s pretend million people haven’t lost job livelihood loved one year Instead let’s call like see admit nobody’s Christmas merry usually one coming home holiday they’re probably breaking law two majority u struggling one way another year u lucky accomplish getting bed holiday don’t want get bed Christmas morning certainly don’t want pretend festive important human life became angel year Yet important people still weight loss rest shoulder don’t feel like trying add joy merriment anyone’s Christmas don’t feel it’s job show never mind lift anyone holiday fact holiday season upon three month worst event life tail end whole pandemic inconvenience resent right weighs heavily someone else’s child feel though I’m expected grace mother presence I’m position anyone’s rock right suspect many u feel way Millions people worldwide succumbed 2020 whether due Coronavirus tragic spinoffs shit show u aren’t ready fake yet invested grand total ZERO Christmas shopping don’t intend There’s one gift whole world want can’t get — I’m opting Christmas year Believe say I’m showing food way I’d choose spend Christmas day alone playing snow drift dog got fantastically large dump snow week sole desire play like child Nobody need permission show Christmas year don’t feel like giving obligation don’t wrote people expectation others showing u don’t heart show right don’t allow u grace realize we’re allowing feel need feel didn’t come year unscathed u never ever know normal Remind came 2020 heartbeat pulse you’ll okay one step timeTags Mindfulness Mental Health Self Love 2020 Wellness |
2,297 | How To Write A Book Review | Photo by Daria Obymaha from Pexels
Reading. Chances are, for you to have clicked on this blog post, you’re into it (otherwise why are you here, seriously?), and you have some thoughts about some of the stuff you read. You’ve likely found that, to be considering writing a review, you’ve come across a book that was so brilliant or so awful that you just need to shout about it. Or, perhaps, you need to write a report on something you’ve read, but aren’t sure how to go about it. Either way, I’ve got you covered. Without further ado, here’s how you write a book review!
Step 1: To Spoil or Not To Spoil: That is the Question
Before you start writing your review, it’s good to have an idea about whether your review will contain spoilers or not. It might not seem like that big of an issue, but if you want people to read future reviews (and, you know, not leave a flaming pile of angry complaints in your comments section) you need to think about your target audience and what they want from your review. If you’re writing a review for someone who is thinking about reading the book, keeping your review spoiler-free is probably a safe bet. If you’re writing a review for, say, a parent looking to buy a book for their teenager or someone who’s read the book, spoilers won’t be a big issue.
If you decide to write a review that features spoilers, for the love of all that is good and mighty, warn your audience! Maybe you need to have a good rant or praise your favourite book, but make sure your audience goes into your review knowing what to expect so they’re on the same page. (See what I did there?)
Step 2: The Book Is About What Now…?
There’s no point telling the reader about what makes the book so wonderful (or terrible) if they don’t know what it’s about. You don’t have to go into depth about the book (after all, that’s what the rest of the review is about), but it helps to give your audience an idea of what happens in the story so that they can understand the rest of your review. If you’re not sure what to say, focus on the blurb and by mention the critical points of the story. Here’s an example:
In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry (also known as the ‘Boy Who Lived’) learns he is a wizard and goes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn magic. Along the way, he begins to learn about the wizarding world and meet new friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. But when Harry worries that someone is trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone, he and his friends must work together to try and stop the culprit.
Obviously, we know there is a lot more to the story than that, but this is a good starting point before you expand on other aspects of the story in your review. If you decide to include spoilers, you might talk about Professor Snape and Quirrell, Quidditch etc, but make sure to keep your summary as brief as possible. If you explain so much that there’s no point in your audience reading (or re-reading) the book, you’ve taken it too far!
Warning: Don’t talk about the ending at the beginning of your review! You can explain what you did or didn’t like about it (if you have a particularly strong opinion later) or say whether you did or didn’t like it, but don’t go into detail what happens straight off the bat.
Step 3: That. Is. So. Cool!
Think about what the book did well (if anything). In a spoiler-free version, you might be more general and speak about which characters you liked or how it was written. In a spoiler version, you would go into more detail about the plot and events. For example:
Spoiler-free: The story has a few moments that are emotional where Harry thinks about his parents and how he misses them. These moments are really touching and remind the reader that he is a small boy who is vulnerable in a lot of ways.
Spoiler: The Mirror of Erised shows the viewer their heart’s desire, so when Harry sees his parents, you realise just how much he misses them. This bit of the book offers a genuinely touching moment where Harry speaks to Dumbledore about the need to find acceptance and move on.
In a spoiler-free version, you can talk about events that happen early on or which are well-known or promoted. However, avoid plot points or twists later on in the book, which could spoil a reader’s later enjoyment or ruin surprises. For example, it wouldn’t be a big spoiler to say that Harry gets an owl called Hedwig because that doesn’t have a significant impact on the plot, but it would be a big spoiler to explain who was after the Philosopher’s Stone (or Sorcerer’s Stone for any American readers!)
Step 4: *Face Palm*
Now, we’ve established what the book does well, what doesn’t it do well? What bits were disappointing or made you so bitterly angry that you wanted to throw it across the room (and not in the way the author intended)? Unless the book is the best thing you’ve ever read, the chances are that it’s going to have its moments that make you cringe or start counting pages to the end of the chapter. Talk about them!
Once again, think about your audience! If it’s one overarching point, touch on it but avoid going into too much detail if you’re not sharing any spoilers. If you’re talking about specifics, make sure you have your spoiler warning in place. Here’s a quick example:
Spoiler-free: When you learn how Harry ends up with his relatives, it’s hard not to judge Dumbledore harshly or question just what he was thinking.
Spoiler: Can we talk about Dumbledore? Seriously. He left a baby on a doorstep in October! It would have been freezing cold! Couldn’t he have knocked on the door first? Maybe said, oh I don’t know: “Would you mind taking care of your nephew? What’s that? Oh, you hate magic? Well then let me take this child elsewhere. Toodle-pip!”*
*This point is used solely to explain the differences and would not be considered a major spoiler considering it happens in the first chapter. Though seriously, Dumbledore what were you thinking- blood wards or not, that’s just lousy childcare.
Step 5: Does it work?
What is the story trying to achieve and does it do it? Using our Harry Potter example: does the book do a good job of telling a story about a boy wizard who is trying to stop the Philosopher’s Stone from being stolen? If you’ve read fantasy, does it do a good job of world-building and explaining fantasy aspects such as magic systems, history, race etc? Or, if the story is a romance, is the couple worth rooting for and are the characters interesting?
Think about what the story is trying to achieve then explain why you think it does or doesn’t accomplish its goal.
Step 6: And, the verdict is…
Would you recommend the book? What would you rate it overall? After all, this is what those who’ve read your review are trying to find out, so don’t leave them waiting any longer to find out whether the book is worth a read or needs to be avoided at all costs.
You can either say whether you liked the book or not- a simple ‘read it’ or ‘run screaming’ will do here- or you can give it a rating out of five stars. You can even take it a step further by recommending the book to a certain kind of reader (a life-saver for prospective gift-givers) or those who enjoy a certain type of trope. For example:
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is an excellent read for those who enjoy fantasies about magic and ‘chosen ones’. The story (and series) can serve as a great introduction to books for new readers. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-write-a-book-review-b6d3f2fae388 | ['Mary Fletcher'] | 2020-01-21 12:13:34.650000+00:00 | ['Review', 'Books', 'Reading', 'Readers', 'Writing'] | Title Write Book ReviewContent Photo Daria Obymaha Pexels Reading Chances clicked blog post you’re otherwise seriously thought stuff read You’ve likely found considering writing review you’ve come across book brilliant awful need shout perhaps need write report something you’ve read aren’t sure go Either way I’ve got covered Without ado here’s write book review Step 1 Spoil Spoil Question start writing review it’s good idea whether review contain spoiler might seem like big issue want people read future review know leave flaming pile angry complaint comment section need think target audience want review you’re writing review someone thinking reading book keeping review spoilerfree probably safe bet you’re writing review say parent looking buy book teenager someone who’s read book spoiler won’t big issue decide write review feature spoiler love good mighty warn audience Maybe need good rant praise favourite book make sure audience go review knowing expect they’re page See Step 2 Book Now… There’s point telling reader make book wonderful terrible don’t know it’s don’t go depth book that’s rest review help give audience idea happens story understand rest review you’re sure say focus blurb mention critical point story Here’s example Harry Potter Philosopher’s Stone Harry also known ‘Boy Lived’ learns wizard go Hogwarts School Witchcraft Wizardry learn magic Along way begin learn wizarding world meet new friend Ron Weasley Hermione Granger Harry worry someone trying steal Philosopher’s Stone friend must work together try stop culprit Obviously know lot story good starting point expand aspect story review decide include spoiler might talk Professor Snape Quirrell Quidditch etc make sure keep summary brief possible explain much there’s point audience reading rereading book you’ve taken far Warning Don’t talk ending beginning review explain didn’t like particularly strong opinion later say whether didn’t like don’t go detail happens straight bat Step 3 Cool Think book well anything spoilerfree version might general speak character liked written spoiler version would go detail plot event example Spoilerfree story moment emotional Harry think parent miss moment really touching remind reader small boy vulnerable lot way Spoiler Mirror Erised show viewer heart’s desire Harry see parent realise much miss bit book offer genuinely touching moment Harry speaks Dumbledore need find acceptance move spoilerfree version talk event happen early wellknown promoted However avoid plot point twist later book could spoil reader’s later enjoyment ruin surprise example wouldn’t big spoiler say Harry get owl called Hedwig doesn’t significant impact plot would big spoiler explain Philosopher’s Stone Sorcerer’s Stone American reader Step 4 Face Palm we’ve established book well doesn’t well bit disappointing made bitterly angry wanted throw across room way author intended Unless book best thing you’ve ever read chance it’s going moment make cringe start counting page end chapter Talk think audience it’s one overarching point touch avoid going much detail you’re sharing spoiler you’re talking specific make sure spoiler warning place Here’s quick example Spoilerfree learn Harry end relative it’s hard judge Dumbledore harshly question thinking Spoiler talk Dumbledore Seriously left baby doorstep October would freezing cold Couldn’t knocked door first Maybe said oh don’t know “Would mind taking care nephew What’s Oh hate magic Well let take child elsewhere Toodlepip” point used solely explain difference would considered major spoiler considering happens first chapter Though seriously Dumbledore thinking blood ward that’s lousy childcare Step 5 work story trying achieve Using Harry Potter example book good job telling story boy wizard trying stop Philosopher’s Stone stolen you’ve read fantasy good job worldbuilding explaining fantasy aspect magic system history race etc story romance couple worth rooting character interesting Think story trying achieve explain think doesn’t accomplish goal Step 6 verdict is… Would recommend book would rate overall who’ve read review trying find don’t leave waiting longer find whether book worth read need avoided cost either say whether liked book simple ‘read it’ ‘run screaming’ give rating five star even take step recommending book certain kind reader lifesaver prospective giftgivers enjoy certain type trope example Harry Potter Philosopher’s Stone excellent read enjoy fantasy magic ‘chosen ones’ story series serve great introduction book new readersTags Review Books Reading Readers Writing |
2,298 | How to Build Antifragile Organisations | How to Build Antifragile Organisations
Be like viruses and bacteria — embrace stressors and disruption.
Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash
Whenever we try to eliminate viruses and bacteria, it comes back stronger the next time — requiring a stronger antidote to eliminate it.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger. — Freidrich Nietzsche
Things that Gain from Disorder
Certain organisms thrive in disorder and chaotic situations. Nassim Taleb coined the term “Antifragile” to describe this phenomenon.
Antifragile is:
Different from robust and fragile — if fragility means breaking in chaos and robustness being immune to chaos, antifragile means thriving in chaos.
— if fragility means breaking in chaos and robustness being immune to chaos, antifragile means thriving in chaos. Having limited downside and unlimited upside — a state whereby you can potentially gain huge benefits from sudden shocks to the environment with limited losses.
— a state whereby you can potentially gain huge benefits from sudden shocks to the environment with limited losses. Desiring volatility, uncertainty, disorder, and chaos — growth and progress is accelerated in such situations and environments.
Some examples of antifragility include:
Startups — potential to grow into “unicorns” (unlimited upside) and failure is generally limited to the capital invested.
— potential to grow into “unicorns” (unlimited upside) and failure is generally limited to the capital invested. Muscles — hypertrophy occurs when fibres of the muscle sustain damage or injury, after repairing the damaged fibres, the mass and size of muscles grow larger.
— hypertrophy occurs when fibres of the muscle sustain damage or injury, after repairing the damaged fibres, the mass and size of muscles grow larger. Human psychology — through adversity and challenges, i.e. heartbreaks, failures, our minds have the potential to capitalise on adversities and come back stronger than ever.
There are several other examples, i.e. body immune system, bacteria, etc. but I hope you get the idea.
The Antidote to Black Swans
With the advancements in technology and the acceleration of digitalisation today, the environment is transforming at a much faster rate — resulting in higher occurrences of “Black Swans”, i.e. disruptive solutions.
I was in an environment which dealt with the VUCA situation rather well.
Here are three key lessons which I found useful in navigating today’s VUCA environment:
Focus on the things that don’t change (Via negativa): we cannot predict what changes may come, but we know what’s unlikely to change, e.g. consumer’s demand for better experiences and services, and focus on those things. Disrupt internally and externally: constantly seek problems — the bigger, the better — to solve, because that’s where we can find opportunities for change and improvement. Frequent pitch sessions and hackathons were organised throughout the year to cultivate the mindset of embracing problems. Change and reorganise with the times: regardless of whether times are good or bad, the organisation structure is constantly updating to the environment. Company reorganisations were common to adapt.
Considering antifragility is the second-order effect of a disruption at the underlying layer, e.g. our cells killed by bacteria to boost our immune system in the long run, we can induce it by gradually exposing ourselves to disruption for our benefit, i.e. rapid growth.
I realised that these “disruptions” could be viewed as insights that help us to learn, improve and grow. Once we are able to change our perspective on VUCA and create a system that allows us to benefit from it, we’ll be seeking and embracing more of such situations.
An example would be the recent COVID-19 situation which led to major disruptions in various sectors, i.e. transportation, retail, etc. and a drastic change in consumer behaviour. To the Antifragilist, this situation could pose a fantastic opportunity to start an online business where it would address the change in consumer’s demand for goods. In this case, taking a small risk could potentially yield a large reward.
In the above example, the underlying assumption is that consumers are constantly demanding convenience and better experiences (#1: focus on things that don’t change). You may have to disrupt your existing model (#2: disrupt internally) and repivot to the new normal (#3: change with the times) and forge ahead.
Down to the Individual
I apply the same principles to my personal life. Here are some of my approaches:
Experiment often and make bold moves — through the lens of having little to lose and a lot to gain. Although I’ve had several past experiences which almost cost me my life, those are the also the ones that changed me the most — for the better.
— through the lens of having little to lose and a lot to gain. Although I’ve had several past experiences which almost cost me my life, those are the also the ones that changed me the most — for the better. Eliminate the noise and distractions — focus on the core principles rather than the specific details. Principles and mental models are some of the things which stood the test of time and can be applied across industries — a worthwhile investment. Sometimes, it’s more about knowing what is irrelevant and what not to do that’s more important.
— focus on the core principles rather than the specific details. Principles and mental models are some of the things which stood the test of time and can be applied across industries — a worthwhile investment. Sometimes, it’s more about knowing what is irrelevant and what not to do that’s more important. Reinvent oneself often — sometimes, hard choices would have to be made to grow; just like how the caterpillar has to digest itself to grow parts of the butterfly. When I found that I wasn’t growing the way I intended in a particular environment, I had to make hard switches and sacrifices.
All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there. — Charlie Munger
Key takeaways
The hydra is the prime example of antifragility. Slay one head, and two grows in its place. The more significant the disruption, the stronger it gets. | https://medium.com/the-internal-startup/how-to-build-anti-fragile-organisations-372c00689bd2 | ['Jimmy Soh'] | 2020-06-28 15:24:52.321000+00:00 | ['Business Strategy', 'Personal Development', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Technology'] | Title Build Antifragile OrganisationsContent Build Antifragile Organisations like virus bacteria — embrace stressor disruption Photo Viktor Forgacs Unsplash Whenever try eliminate virus bacteria come back stronger next time — requiring stronger antidote eliminate kill u make u stronger — Freidrich Nietzsche Things Gain Disorder Certain organism thrive disorder chaotic situation Nassim Taleb coined term “Antifragile” describe phenomenon Antifragile Different robust fragile — fragility mean breaking chaos robustness immune chaos antifragile mean thriving chaos — fragility mean breaking chaos robustness immune chaos antifragile mean thriving chaos limited downside unlimited upside — state whereby potentially gain huge benefit sudden shock environment limited loss — state whereby potentially gain huge benefit sudden shock environment limited loss Desiring volatility uncertainty disorder chaos — growth progress accelerated situation environment example antifragility include Startups — potential grow “unicorns” unlimited upside failure generally limited capital invested — potential grow “unicorns” unlimited upside failure generally limited capital invested Muscles — hypertrophy occurs fibre muscle sustain damage injury repairing damaged fibre mass size muscle grow larger — hypertrophy occurs fibre muscle sustain damage injury repairing damaged fibre mass size muscle grow larger Human psychology — adversity challenge ie heartbreak failure mind potential capitalise adversity come back stronger ever several example ie body immune system bacteria etc hope get idea Antidote Black Swans advancement technology acceleration digitalisation today environment transforming much faster rate — resulting higher occurrence “Black Swans” ie disruptive solution environment dealt VUCA situation rather well three key lesson found useful navigating today’s VUCA environment Focus thing don’t change Via negativa cannot predict change may come know what’s unlikely change eg consumer’s demand better experience service focus thing Disrupt internally externally constantly seek problem — bigger better — solve that’s find opportunity change improvement Frequent pitch session hackathons organised throughout year cultivate mindset embracing problem Change reorganise time regardless whether time good bad organisation structure constantly updating environment Company reorganisation common adapt Considering antifragility secondorder effect disruption underlying layer eg cell killed bacteria boost immune system long run induce gradually exposing disruption benefit ie rapid growth realised “disruptions” could viewed insight help u learn improve grow able change perspective VUCA create system allows u benefit we’ll seeking embracing situation example would recent COVID19 situation led major disruption various sector ie transportation retail etc drastic change consumer behaviour Antifragilist situation could pose fantastic opportunity start online business would address change consumer’s demand good case taking small risk could potentially yield large reward example underlying assumption consumer constantly demanding convenience better experience 1 focus thing don’t change may disrupt existing model 2 disrupt internally repivot new normal 3 change time forge ahead Individual apply principle personal life approach Experiment often make bold move — lens little lose lot gain Although I’ve several past experience almost cost life also one changed — better — lens little lose lot gain Although I’ve several past experience almost cost life also one changed — better Eliminate noise distraction — focus core principle rather specific detail Principles mental model thing stood test time applied across industry — worthwhile investment Sometimes it’s knowing irrelevant that’s important — focus core principle rather specific detail Principles mental model thing stood test time applied across industry — worthwhile investment Sometimes it’s knowing irrelevant that’s important Reinvent oneself often — sometimes hard choice would made grow like caterpillar digest grow part butterfly found wasn’t growing way intended particular environment make hard switch sacrifice want know I’m going die I’ll never go — Charlie Munger Key takeaway hydra prime example antifragility Slay one head two grows place significant disruption stronger getsTags Business Strategy Personal Development Entrepreneurship Startup Technology |
2,299 | The Future is Quantum | The intelligence community doesn’t have to worry about such threats yet, however. Since quantum physicists began working in earnest to try and create a quantum computer in the late 1990s, they have yet to build anything approaching a working machine, never mind running anything as complex as Grover’s or Shor’s algorithms at scale. That’s due to one simple reason: to create an effective quantum computer, it’s necessary to isolate qubits from the outside environment enough so that interactions with the outside world don’t create errors, a concept known as coherence. At the same time, they have to be sufficiently connected to the environment that they can be manipulated into performing the operations required of them. That combination has proven extremely difficult, especially as engineers have tried to scale up from two qubits to 5 or 10 or 100.
“Even five or six years ago, it wasn’t clear we’d ever be able to make a useable system,” says Robert Schoelkopf, a Yale physicist who has been experimenting to create quantum computers since 1998. “In the beginning, the question was if we would ever be able to make a qubit well enough and isolated from the environment enough that we could have superconductors that we could manipulate with some reasonable fidelity.”
Currently, two leading contenders for quantum computing technology are superconducting circuits and trapped ions, both of which have their benefits and drawbacks. Superconducting circuit qubits, like those in Oliver’s lab at MIT, use the same basic techniques as those used to create modern computer chips, using semiconductor manufacturing tools to deposit, pattern, and etch superconducting aluminum on silicon wafers. For the qubit, two layers of superconducting aluminum are separated by a layer of insulating aluminum oxide; through that, a tiny tunnel called a “Josephson junction” allows millions of electron pairs to flow without resistance, creating quantum states and discrete energy levels just like a giant atom.
By cooling the qubit down to extremely low temperatures, engineers can control the frequencies at which this state resonates to create two phases, which then become the 0 and 1. By hitting the qubit with a microwave pulse, they can drive the transition from one state to another, or leave it in superposition between them. The problem is that, thus far, the circuits can only remain in superposition for relatively small periods of time — currently around 100 microseconds. “We want to make that lifetime as long as possible compared to how long it takes to drive from ground to excited states,” says Oliver. “The question is how many of these gates can I perform before I lose that quantum information.’ Current times are still long enough to perform 1,000 to 10,000 gates depending on the complexity of the operation, a tremendous improvement over the past 15 years, but not yet long enough to do anything useful.
(Left) Peter Johnson, Quantum information scientist, co-founder Zapata Computing (Right) Robert Schoelkopf, Sterling Professor of Applied Physics and Physics, Yale University. Chief Architect & Co-founder, Quantum Circuits
The other leading form of qubits today are trapped ions, which consist of charged particles suspended in vacuum with an electromagnetic field, and hit with pulses from lasers to drive their different states. Compared to superconducting qubits, trapped ions are able to maintain their coherence longer — up to a leisurely second or longer — but they are also much slower to respond from pulses from the outside environment, so the total number of gates possible with both technologies is about the same.
Superconducting qubits and trapped ions have other differences as well. With trapped ions, for example, it’s possible to entangle any qubit with any other in the same trap. With superconducting qubits, however, qubits must each be discretely connected to each other in order to allow entanglement — so in linear architecture, for example, each qubit could only be entangled with its immediate neighbor, while in a square lattice, each could be connected with perpendicularly or diagonally with multiple other qubits. Oliver’s lab has been further experimenting with a three-dimensional architecture that could create connections between qubits that are not immediately adjacent.
Behind those technologies are a number of other techniques for creating qubits that may one day show promise or even exceed the abilities of superconductors and trapped ions. After all, as MIT physicist Seth Lloyd once said, since the natural state of the world is quantum, “Almost anything becomes a quantum computer if you shine the right kind of light on it.” So far, other contenders include: neutral atoms, single atoms suspended in a lattice that can be hit by lasers to excite them to a quantum state without affecting nearby atoms; photons, quanta of light emitted by atoms that can be redirected to interact with themselves with mirrors; quantum dots, consisting of “puddles” of electrons on the nanoscale, each with its own quantum spin; and nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond, which exploit natural imperfections in diamonds that create free-floating spare electrons that can be manipulated into a quantum state.,,, Another dark horse technology are topological qubits, theorized by Alexei Kitaev at CalTech, which depend on a theoretical quasiparticle called a Majorana fermion. The advantage of these qubits is that they are theoretically much more stable than other kinds; the disadvantage is that to date, no one has successfully demonstrated that such particles exist.
Each of these technologies has its own advantages and disadvantages — some are faster, for example, while others are less error-prone, though none of them are so far ideal. “These days, it’s hard to pick a winner,” says Savoie. “You know, which horse do you want? Well, that one’s slow and gimpy, but this one’s got a sore on its heel. They are all kind of bad.” No matter what technology is used, creating a functional quantum computer requires simultaneously making qubits faster and protecting them from the errors that can cause decoherence in order to maintain their superposition states longer. Errors can result from two sources: control errors and decoherence. A control error is analogous to setting the radio dial slightly off from a station, creating a bit of static. With superconducting qubits, for example, each one will be slightly different than the others, and they must be carefully calibrated in order to respond to the microwave pulses that control their gates.
Bristlecone quantum processor. Photo by Erik Lucero, Google.
Decoherence errors are a bit more insidious — the same entanglement that allows qubits to connect with one another can backfire when they become entangled with other atoms in the environment instead. “There is something that’s called the monogamy of entanglement,” says Peter Johnson, a quantum theorist at Harvard who is also part of the founding team of Zapata. “If I am wed to you, I can’t be wed to someone else.” In order to protect against such promiscuity, quantum engineers follow one of two methods. Passive error suppression consists of sending small pulses to dynamically decouple qubits from the environment. Oliver likens it to the way lacrosse players cradle the ball in the stick pocket, moving it rhythmically back and forth as they run down the field. “If you just held the stick, the ball would fall out,” he says. “By making these body motions periodically, it will stay in longer.”
Active error correction, meanwhile, focuses on flooding the zone with so many qubits that they will together compensate for decoherence in any small number of them. “You are kind of hiding the information from the environment,” says Johnson, who poses the following analogy: “Say I wanted to tell you whether the Celtics won last night, and I am going to do this by handing you a penny that is either heads or tails. But there is a 10 percent chance of the coin being flipped.” One way to protect against that problem would be to send three pennies instead of one — so even if one penny came out tails, you could still be relatively sure from the two heads that Boston won the game. Extrapolated out beyond three pennies, it’s easy to see how each additional penny you received would increase your confidence until you got to the point where you absolutely certain of the outcome. Unfortunately, achieving that kind of error correction with a 100-qubit computer would require on the order of 100,000 or a million qubits just to keep errors in check. “That gets costly very quickly,” says Johnson. “A million pennies is $10,000.” Of course, when talking about qubits rather than pennies, that costs gets astronomically larger.
In the short term, most companies working towards creating a quantum computer are focusing just on putting enough qubits together into a single device in order to actually do simple computations. Due to the substantial costs of fabrication, companies have had to choose one technology. By far, the most popular is superconducting qubits, which is the method of choice for IBM, Google, and Intel, who can leverage their existing expertise in lithographic tools for silicon in a new superconducting medium. Several startups are also experimenting with superconducting qubits, including Rigetti Computing, based in Berkeley, California, and Quantum Circuits, spun out of Schoelkopf’s Yale lab. Maryland-based startup IonQ, meanwhile, is pursuing a trapped ion approach, while Microsoft has placed a bet on topological qubits.
As MIT physicist Seth Lloyd once said, since the natural state of the world in quantum, “Almost anything becomes a quantum computer if you shine the right kind of light on it.”
All of these companies are engaged in a race to see who can put the most qubits together into a functioning chip in order to be the first to achieve the quantum supremacy moment that can demonstrate a quantum computer that can best its classical cousins. At the present moment, Google is leading that race with the announcement in March of a 72-qubit processor it dubbed Bristlecone after the prickly distribution of x-shaped qubits in its square array. In its announcement of the technology, Google said that it believed that it could use a processor of this size to demonstrate quantum supremacy.
Of course, that feat requires performing calculations with a low enough degree of errors. “The critical piece is not just the number of qubits, it’s also the fidelity of the system,” says Google researcher Sergio Boixo, a former physics professor at the University of Southern California. While Google hasn’t released the error rates for its current chip, past chips have had rates as low as 0.6 percent for 2-qubit gates, a critical measure of fidelity. Boixo notes that Google has focused its efforts on increasing the number of qubits while maintaining the current rates of fidelity, and eventually even increasing gate fidelity. The company estimates that it will need error rates of less than 0.5 for 2-qubit gates to achieve quantum supremacy, and recently updated its timeline to predict it would achieve that supremacy sometime this year. IBM and Intel are not far behind, unveiling 50-qubit and 49-qubit chips respectively at January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. With a low enough error rate, those chips could also achieve quantum supremacy in the near term.
Rigetti 19Q Processor. Photo by IBM.
The best way for a quantum computer to demonstrate supremacy, of course, would be to model a quantum system. Even the most basic chemical reactions, however, are beyond the scope of the noisy non-error corrected devices any of the companies will be able to produce in the near future. In a paper published in April in Nature Physics, Boixo proposed that the one way to demonstrate quantum supremacy would be to calculate the outcome of a sampling of random quantum circuits — a task notoriously difficult for classical computers to achieve.
Such a task, while certainly a milestone, would be a far cry from a universal quantum computer that could run useful algorithms such as Grover’s and Shor’s algorithms or simulate quantum systems for use in chemistry and biology. For that reason, many quantum researchers have moved away from using the term quantum supremacy as the indicator for achieving success in the field. Even Caltech physicist John Preskill, who first coined the term quantum supremacy in 2011 has tried to downplay the hype, writing in a paper published in January that “quantum supremacy is a worthy goal, notable for entrepreneurs and investors not so much because of its intrinsic importance, but rather as a sign of progress towards more valuable applications further down the road.” In his paper, Preskill proposed a new-term, NISQ or “noisy intermediate stage quantum” to define the stage in which systems with 50 to 100 qubits might still be able to perform useful tasks better than classical computers, even without error correction.
“I want to revolutionize history through computing.” Alán Aspuru-Guzik
That’s been the focus of chemistry professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik, who is currently at Harvard but moving to the University of Toronto this summer. His office is full of Shepard Fairey graphic prints of revolutionaries in red and black. “I like these images of these heroes doing something for humanity,” he says. “I want to revolutionize history though computing.” After watching his postdocs and graduate students leave one by one for the likes of Google and Intel, he decided to start his own quantum computing company last summer, sketching out the company “over a couple of burritos at the Qdoba in Harvard Square.” After casting around for a sufficiently revolutionary name, he settled on Zapata, after Emiliano Zapata, the peasant leader during the Mexican revolution. “He was a good guy, and he had a beautiful moustache,” he says.
Unlike most quantum companies, which have focused on building quantum computing hardware, Zapata has focused on what might be considered software — the algorithms that drive quantum computing calculations. Before creation of a universal error-corrected quantum computer powerful enough to run algorithms like Grover’s and Shor’s, Aspuru-Guzik says, there will be a long period in which they can still run useful programs. “We already know the algorithms for a million qubits,” he says. “My company’s job is to figure out what are the algorithms for these decades of 100, 1,000, and 10,000 qubits.” Zapata is looking past the point of quantum supremacy — which Aspuru-Guzik prefers to call “quantum inflection point — because the word supremacy is loaded politically” to how quantum computing can best classical computing in the NISQ era. “The interesting point is what happens between 200 and a million qubits. What’s the first point that it will do a quantum task that is useful for humanity?”
Sergio Boixo, Research Scientist and Theory Team, Lead of Quantum AI, Google
Ultimately, Zapata aims to focus on chemistry, which Aspuru-Guzik and Peter Love identified more than a decade ago as the ultimate quantum problem, helping to design algorithms that might better identify catalysts for chemical processes or candidate molecules and materials. In the meantime, however, he says quantum algorithms will be able to aid in any problem that will require a more optimal answer, even if it can’t ultimately provide the best answer. Those problems could include machine learning, compression, route optimization, and searching. He calls such algorithms “variational algorithms” and compares them to tuning a guitar string with the help of a tuning fork. “The tuner is what I want the quantum algorithm to do, but I can use the algorithm to get the strings of a chord closer to the notes I want,” he says.
Zapata’s CEO Chris Savoie compares this stage in quantum software development to the early years of classical computing, even before the invention of assembly language, never mind modern computer languages like C. At this point, the company is literally sketching out its algorithms as complex circuits, and sending those to companies it partners with in order to perform certain tasks. “So the program software is a soft piece of paper for now,” he quips. So far, Savoie estimates, Zapata has been involved in a large majority of the near-term algorithms currently being tested on quantum computers, partnering with all of the major companies to run algorithms on their systems. Being flexible on which technology its uses allows Zapata to pick the ideal configuration of qubits able to be entangled with each other in order to pull it off. “We might go to a customer like a pharmaceutical company, and they say, here’s the mathematical problem we’re trying to solve,” he says, “and we take that and draw a bunch of Greek letters on the board, and then convert that into a diagram. Then we might say, oh wow, I need linear connectivity for this thing — or I need a lot of samples, so I need faster gate speeds, and we’ll make that choice.”
In various ways, other companies are developing their own approaches for making quantum computing useful in the near term. Schoelkopf, who created his own company Quantum Circuits out of his lab at Yale, is pursuing a strategy of integrating both hardware and software in one package. “We plan to field the first useful quantum computing systems,” he says. “It’s likely this will be offered as a service, since these things aren’t very portable for now.” His lab has been pursuing a unique modular architecture, which would put qubits on smaller chips that could be networked into a system in different configurations depending on what type of problem a client is trying to solve. “It means you could probably be more efficient in implementing certain algorithms, because you are not stuck to one network of connectivity,” he says.
The real race my not be between quantum and classical computers, after all, but between quantum hardware and quantum software.
In addition to its own success in fabricating quantum chips, IBM has focused efforts on educating the public on the potential of quantum computers, to prepare them for the eventual moment when they will be able to perform useful functions. Recently, it launched the Q Experience, a cloud-based interface in which users can use a quantum composer, which looks like an image of guitar tablature to drag-and-drop gates onto qubits to perform algorithms on real quantum computing hardware. “It allows us to reach a broader community of students, researchers, and just people who are interested in learning about new computing technology,” says Jerry Chow, IBM’s manager of experimental quantum computing. “The idea is to break down barriers, so you are not the only person at the cocktail party who understand what quantum computing is.”
(Left) Chad Rigetti, Founder and CEO, Rigetti Computing (Right) Jerry Chow, Manager of Experimental Quantum Computing, IBM
IBM’s website also features video tutorials by its engineers breaking down quantum computing concepts into bite-sized 3-minute lessons to demystify the field. “We call that getting ‘quantum ready,’” Chow says. Already, the company has gotten a lot of interest from college and even high school students eager to learn about the new technology. For more advanced users, IBM has begun to develop its own programming language for quantum computing called QISKit, an open-source software which uses Python scripts to execute algorithms on quantum hardware. “One of the most important things we can do in the near term is get more people involved,” Chow says. “It’s really tapping into the developer mindset, where we want to cultivate the next generation of quantum developers.”
Berkeley-based start-up Rigetti has been building it own “soup-to-nuts” quantum company from the ground up, including building chips, computer, and software at the same time. The company has focused on speed, building a quantum integrated circuit fabrication lab that can iterate a new design on a 4–6 week timeline, rather than the 12–18 month timeline that might be typical to build a new quantum chip. “Since we first started manufacturing chips in January 2016, we’ve doubled the number of qubits every six months, and we expect to keep doubling every 6 months for a handful of years,” says CEO Chad Rigetti. Currently, Rigetti’s biggest publicly released chip has 19 qubits — though he says they already have a doubling or two beyond that (though the company has not released exactly how many yet).
Rigetti Lab in Berkeley. Photo by Rigetti.
Like IBM, Rigetti has created its own cloud-based programming interface, which is calls Forest, a similarly open-source software using Python scripts. Rather than focus solely on the quantum environment, however, Rigetti’s language allows for the integration of quantum and classical computers in the same program, something the company calls “quantum-classical hybrid computing.” “It uses a quantum computer as part of an optimization loop on a classical machine,” Rigetti explains. Rather than quantum supremacy, he likes to use the term “quantum advantage” to explain how, in the near-term at least, quantum computing can help to improve solutions to problems by providing an answer that is more efficient, or takes less time, or costs less money, than a classical computer can do alone.
Until engineers can truly build a quantum computer that is free enough from errors to perform the advanced calculations, this may be the future — a convergence of increasingly better quantum computers and increasingly better algorithms to perform more and more useful tasks. The real race may not be between quantum and classical computers, after all, but between quantum hardware and quantum software. “Quantum chips are going to continue to improve at an exponential rate, and pretty soon the physical capability is going to outstrip what we know how to take advantage of,” Rigetti says. “There will be huge value in capturing the right algorithms to unlock these possibilities.” | https://the-engine.medium.com/the-future-is-quantum-7be654e359f2 | ['The Engine'] | 2019-01-08 21:35:37.594000+00:00 | ['Physics', 'Computer Science', 'Science', 'Quantum Computing', 'Entrepreneurship'] | Title Future QuantumContent intelligence community doesn’t worry threat yet however Since quantum physicist began working earnest try create quantum computer late 1990s yet build anything approaching working machine never mind running anything complex Grover’s Shor’s algorithm scale That’s due one simple reason create effective quantum computer it’s necessary isolate qubits outside environment enough interaction outside world don’t create error concept known coherence time sufficiently connected environment manipulated performing operation required combination proven extremely difficult especially engineer tried scale two qubits 5 10 100 “Even five six year ago wasn’t clear we’d ever able make useable system” say Robert Schoelkopf Yale physicist experimenting create quantum computer since 1998 “In beginning question would ever able make qubit well enough isolated environment enough could superconductors could manipulate reasonable fidelity” Currently two leading contender quantum computing technology superconducting circuit trapped ion benefit drawback Superconducting circuit qubits like Oliver’s lab MIT use basic technique used create modern computer chip using semiconductor manufacturing tool deposit pattern etch superconducting aluminum silicon wafer qubit two layer superconducting aluminum separated layer insulating aluminum oxide tiny tunnel called “Josephson junction” allows million electron pair flow without resistance creating quantum state discrete energy level like giant atom cooling qubit extremely low temperature engineer control frequency state resonates create two phase become 0 1 hitting qubit microwave pulse drive transition one state another leave superposition problem thus far circuit remain superposition relatively small period time — currently around 100 microsecond “We want make lifetime long possible compared long take drive ground excited states” say Oliver “The question many gate perform lose quantum information’ Current time still long enough perform 1000 10000 gate depending complexity operation tremendous improvement past 15 year yet long enough anything useful Left Peter Johnson Quantum information scientist cofounder Zapata Computing Right Robert Schoelkopf Sterling Professor Applied Physics Physics Yale University Chief Architect Cofounder Quantum Circuits leading form qubits today trapped ion consist charged particle suspended vacuum electromagnetic field hit pulse laser drive different state Compared superconducting qubits trapped ion able maintain coherence longer — leisurely second longer — also much slower respond pulse outside environment total number gate possible technology Superconducting qubits trapped ion difference well trapped ion example it’s possible entangle qubit trap superconducting qubits however qubits must discretely connected order allow entanglement — linear architecture example qubit could entangled immediate neighbor square lattice could connected perpendicularly diagonally multiple qubits Oliver’s lab experimenting threedimensional architecture could create connection qubits immediately adjacent Behind technology number technique creating qubits may one day show promise even exceed ability superconductors trapped ion MIT physicist Seth Lloyd said since natural state world quantum “Almost anything becomes quantum computer shine right kind light it” far contender include neutral atom single atom suspended lattice hit laser excite quantum state without affecting nearby atom photon quantum light emitted atom redirected interact mirror quantum dot consisting “puddles” electron nanoscale quantum spin nitrogenvacancy center diamond exploit natural imperfection diamond create freefloating spare electron manipulated quantum state Another dark horse technology topological qubits theorized Alexei Kitaev CalTech depend theoretical quasiparticle called Majorana fermion advantage qubits theoretically much stable kind disadvantage date one successfully demonstrated particle exist technology advantage disadvantage — faster example others le errorprone though none far ideal “These day it’s hard pick winner” say Savoie “You know horse want Well one’s slow gimpy one’s got sore heel kind bad” matter technology used creating functional quantum computer requires simultaneously making qubits faster protecting error cause decoherence order maintain superposition state longer Errors result two source control error decoherence control error analogous setting radio dial slightly station creating bit static superconducting qubits example one slightly different others must carefully calibrated order respond microwave pulse control gate Bristlecone quantum processor Photo Erik Lucero Google Decoherence error bit insidious — entanglement allows qubits connect one another backfire become entangled atom environment instead “There something that’s called monogamy entanglement” say Peter Johnson quantum theorist Harvard also part founding team Zapata “If wed can’t wed someone else” order protect promiscuity quantum engineer follow one two method Passive error suppression consists sending small pulse dynamically decouple qubits environment Oliver likens way lacrosse player cradle ball stick pocket moving rhythmically back forth run field “If held stick ball would fall out” say “By making body motion periodically stay longer” Active error correction meanwhile focus flooding zone many qubits together compensate decoherence small number “You kind hiding information environment” say Johnson pose following analogy “Say wanted tell whether Celtics last night going handing penny either head tail 10 percent chance coin flipped” One way protect problem would send three penny instead one — even one penny came tail could still relatively sure two head Boston game Extrapolated beyond three penny it’s easy see additional penny received would increase confidence got point absolutely certain outcome Unfortunately achieving kind error correction 100qubit computer would require order 100000 million qubits keep error check “That get costly quickly” say Johnson “A million penny 10000” course talking qubits rather penny cost get astronomically larger short term company working towards creating quantum computer focusing putting enough qubits together single device order actually simple computation Due substantial cost fabrication company choose one technology far popular superconducting qubits method choice IBM Google Intel leverage existing expertise lithographic tool silicon new superconducting medium Several startup also experimenting superconducting qubits including Rigetti Computing based Berkeley California Quantum Circuits spun Schoelkopf’s Yale lab Marylandbased startup IonQ meanwhile pursuing trapped ion approach Microsoft placed bet topological qubits MIT physicist Seth Lloyd said since natural state world quantum “Almost anything becomes quantum computer shine right kind light it” company engaged race see put qubits together functioning chip order first achieve quantum supremacy moment demonstrate quantum computer best classical cousin present moment Google leading race announcement March 72qubit processor dubbed Bristlecone prickly distribution xshaped qubits square array announcement technology Google said believed could use processor size demonstrate quantum supremacy course feat requires performing calculation low enough degree error “The critical piece number qubits it’s also fidelity system” say Google researcher Sergio Boixo former physic professor University Southern California Google hasn’t released error rate current chip past chip rate low 06 percent 2qubit gate critical measure fidelity Boixo note Google focused effort increasing number qubits maintaining current rate fidelity eventually even increasing gate fidelity company estimate need error rate le 05 2qubit gate achieve quantum supremacy recently updated timeline predict would achieve supremacy sometime year IBM Intel far behind unveiling 50qubit 49qubit chip respectively January’s Consumer Electronics Show Las Vegas low enough error rate chip could also achieve quantum supremacy near term Rigetti 19Q Processor Photo IBM best way quantum computer demonstrate supremacy course would model quantum system Even basic chemical reaction however beyond scope noisy nonerror corrected device company able produce near future paper published April Nature Physics Boixo proposed one way demonstrate quantum supremacy would calculate outcome sampling random quantum circuit — task notoriously difficult classical computer achieve task certainly milestone would far cry universal quantum computer could run useful algorithm Grover’s Shor’s algorithm simulate quantum system use chemistry biology reason many quantum researcher moved away using term quantum supremacy indicator achieving success field Even Caltech physicist John Preskill first coined term quantum supremacy 2011 tried downplay hype writing paper published January “quantum supremacy worthy goal notable entrepreneur investor much intrinsic importance rather sign progress towards valuable application road” paper Preskill proposed newterm NISQ “noisy intermediate stage quantum” define stage system 50 100 qubits might still able perform useful task better classical computer even without error correction “I want revolutionize history computing” Alán AspuruGuzik That’s focus chemistry professor Alán AspuruGuzik currently Harvard moving University Toronto summer office full Shepard Fairey graphic print revolutionary red black “I like image hero something humanity” say “I want revolutionize history though computing” watching postdoc graduate student leave one one like Google Intel decided start quantum computing company last summer sketching company “over couple burrito Qdoba Harvard Square” casting around sufficiently revolutionary name settled Zapata Emiliano Zapata peasant leader Mexican revolution “He good guy beautiful moustache” say Unlike quantum company focused building quantum computing hardware Zapata focused might considered software — algorithm drive quantum computing calculation creation universal errorcorrected quantum computer powerful enough run algorithm like Grover’s Shor’s AspuruGuzik say long period still run useful program “We already know algorithm million qubits” say “My company’s job figure algorithm decade 100 1000 10000 qubits” Zapata looking past point quantum supremacy — AspuruGuzik prefers call “quantum inflection point — word supremacy loaded politically” quantum computing best classical computing NISQ era “The interesting point happens 200 million qubits What’s first point quantum task useful humanity” Sergio Boixo Research Scientist Theory Team Lead Quantum AI Google Ultimately Zapata aim focus chemistry AspuruGuzik Peter Love identified decade ago ultimate quantum problem helping design algorithm might better identify catalyst chemical process candidate molecule material meantime however say quantum algorithm able aid problem require optimal answer even can’t ultimately provide best answer problem could include machine learning compression route optimization searching call algorithm “variational algorithms” compare tuning guitar string help tuning fork “The tuner want quantum algorithm use algorithm get string chord closer note want” say Zapata’s CEO Chris Savoie compare stage quantum software development early year classical computing even invention assembly language never mind modern computer language like C point company literally sketching algorithm complex circuit sending company partner order perform certain task “So program software soft piece paper now” quip far Savoie estimate Zapata involved large majority nearterm algorithm currently tested quantum computer partnering major company run algorithm system flexible technology us allows Zapata pick ideal configuration qubits able entangled order pull “We might go customer like pharmaceutical company say here’s mathematical problem we’re trying solve” say “and take draw bunch Greek letter board convert diagram might say oh wow need linear connectivity thing — need lot sample need faster gate speed we’ll make choice” various way company developing approach making quantum computing useful near term Schoelkopf created company Quantum Circuits lab Yale pursuing strategy integrating hardware software one package “We plan field first useful quantum computing systems” say “It’s likely offered service since thing aren’t portable now” lab pursuing unique modular architecture would put qubits smaller chip could networked system different configuration depending type problem client trying solve “It mean could probably efficient implementing certain algorithm stuck one network connectivity” say real race quantum classical computer quantum hardware quantum software addition success fabricating quantum chip IBM focused effort educating public potential quantum computer prepare eventual moment able perform useful function Recently launched Q Experience cloudbased interface user use quantum composer look like image guitar tablature draganddrop gate onto qubits perform algorithm real quantum computing hardware “It allows u reach broader community student researcher people interested learning new computing technology” say Jerry Chow IBM’s manager experimental quantum computing “The idea break barrier person cocktail party understand quantum computing is” Left Chad Rigetti Founder CEO Rigetti Computing Right Jerry Chow Manager Experimental Quantum Computing IBM IBM’s website also feature video tutorial engineer breaking quantum computing concept bitesized 3minute lesson demystify field “We call getting ‘quantum ready’” Chow say Already company gotten lot interest college even high school student eager learn new technology advanced user IBM begun develop programming language quantum computing called QISKit opensource software us Python script execute algorithm quantum hardware “One important thing near term get people involved” Chow say “It’s really tapping developer mindset want cultivate next generation quantum developers” Berkeleybased startup Rigetti building “souptonuts” quantum company ground including building chip computer software time company focused speed building quantum integrated circuit fabrication lab iterate new design 4–6 week timeline rather 12–18 month timeline might typical build new quantum chip “Since first started manufacturing chip January 2016 we’ve doubled number qubits every six month expect keep doubling every 6 month handful years” say CEO Chad Rigetti Currently Rigetti’s biggest publicly released chip 19 qubits — though say already doubling two beyond though company released exactly many yet Rigetti Lab Berkeley Photo Rigetti Like IBM Rigetti created cloudbased programming interface call Forest similarly opensource software using Python script Rather focus solely quantum environment however Rigetti’s language allows integration quantum classical computer program something company call “quantumclassical hybrid computing” “It us quantum computer part optimization loop classical machine” Rigetti explains Rather quantum supremacy like use term “quantum advantage” explain nearterm least quantum computing help improve solution problem providing answer efficient take le time cost le money classical computer alone engineer truly build quantum computer free enough error perform advanced calculation may future — convergence increasingly better quantum computer increasingly better algorithm perform useful task real race may quantum classical computer quantum hardware quantum software “Quantum chip going continue improve exponential rate pretty soon physical capability going outstrip know take advantage of” Rigetti say “There huge value capturing right algorithm unlock possibilities”Tags Physics Computer Science Science Quantum Computing Entrepreneurship |
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