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How Much Does It Cost To Create A Diet and Nutrition App (Features, Business Model, Cost etc)

How Much Does It Cost To Create A Diet and Nutrition App (Features, Business Model, Cost etc) Sophia Martin Follow Dec 10 · 11 min read Are you planning to develop a diet and nutrition app in 2020–21? Not sure how much it cost you to develop a brilliant diet and nutrition tracking app with MVP? Many of the developers can assure you to develop it under $5000! Isn’t it too good to believe? According to the survey, the median development cost range is in between $37,913 and $171,450, but it could climb up to $50,000 or higher depending upon the various factors. But, with the fact that mobile healthcare apps are projected to generate $50,000+ revenue and value by 2025 and 74% of patients are using wearable and other healthcare tools to cope up with their medical conditions. It is clear that the healthcare sector is opening doors with plenty of opportunities for startups and leading entrepreneurs and making sense to invest in app development in 2020–25 If you are still in a doubt, then it is right time to have a look over the statistics of the market overview and trends of diet and nutrition app: The global mhealth market is rapidly growing and expected to reach $111 billion by 2025. Fitness apps are accounting for the largest share of the US mhealth app market and expected to grow to $50 Billion by 2025. mHealth app market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 44.7% and reach at $236 billion by 2026. Data Bridge Market Research analyses that the market is growing with a CAGR of 20.9% during 2020 to 2027 and expected to reach $10,189.62 million by 2027. To wrap up these figures, it is fair enough to develop a diet and nutrition app for your business in 2020–21. The central question, while there are various leading fitness apps (Nutrients, MyFitnessPal and Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker) are already leading the market, how to launch a winning app that helps you achieve success in 2020–21? To develop the best diet and nutrition app, it is worth hiring a dedicated app development company experienced in creating healthcare apps integrating the right technologies and methodologies. But if you are thinking that developing a diet and nutrition app is as easy as replicating the app clone of a leading healthcare app, then you might be mistaken at this point. With over 5.5 million apps available in Google and iPhone app stores, launching a duplicate app with more or fewer features is just a flop idea. No matter how brilliant an app idea you have and what set of features you choose to incorporate in the app, the success of the app dramatically depends upon the skills and expertise of your app developers embedded in the app. So let’s get started with the features and functionalities of the diet and nutrition app… But before learning about the crucial features and functionalities of the diet and nutrition app, it is essential to understand the basic idea of launching this app. How does this app help end-users? How Does Diet and Nutrition App Be Useful for Users? The simple idea about using the diet and nutrition app is it helps in adopting the healthy lifestyle that seamlessly syncs your body and weight. The diet and nutrition app keeps track of your dietary habits and provides personalized diet plans that help you meet your health goals in a fast turnaround. A mindfully constructed app can help users with the following aspects: Assist in creating a balanced and nutritious diet chart Keep tracking a log of calories and water intake Assisting tips and plans for the weight loss Monitoring daily physical activity Assisting a healthy grocery list Suggesting healthy food options A diet and nutrition app is highly useful for the end-users if they are created with a fantastic set of modern features. So before you move to the app development procedure, make sure you hire best software development company that has clear idea about the features and functionalities required to construct modern diet and nutrition app. Essential Features You Need to Include in a Diet and Nutrition App Since people all age have become so conscious about their health and fitness, therefore, they are eagerly looking for apps that encourage them to follow a fitness regime. And having a mobile device with several tools and applications that help in tracking their diet and nutrition habits every day. All you need to keep in mind is the set of features you need to implement in the app. Here’s the list of features and its cost of development: General Features to build a diet and nutrition app in 2020–21 User Login or Registration: To get started with any app, users have to create a profile with the essential details including age, gender, height, weight and eating habits. The registration window of the app will keep your details completely safe and secure. Users can also log in the app with social media integration and allow the app to collect all the essential information from that channel and send you personalized messages and notifications. To get started with any app, users have to create a profile with the essential details including age, gender, height, weight and eating habits. The registration window of the app will keep your details completely safe and secure. Users can also log in the app with social media integration and allow the app to collect all the essential information from that channel and send you personalized messages and notifications. Dashboard and Food Logging: Make sure you have a feature where users can log the amount of food they are consuming in detail to keep track of their calories in-take and get most accurate diet suggestions to stay healthy. Make sure you have a feature where users can log the amount of food they are consuming in detail to keep track of their calories in-take and get most accurate diet suggestions to stay healthy. Seamless Connectivity With Wearables : With the emergence of technologies such as IoT, it becomes easier to track every single thing through your smart devices. By connecting your app with the third-party devices and wearables such as Apple Watch, Android Wear or Fitbit or so on, you can make it easier to monitor everything right from tracking heart rate, physical activity, step counts to food you intake. Wearables are getting popular these days, so leverage this feature to add great convenience to the user. : With the emergence of technologies such as IoT, it becomes easier to track every single thing through your smart devices. By connecting your app with the third-party devices and wearables such as Apple Watch, Android Wear or Fitbit or so on, you can make it easier to monitor everything right from tracking heart rate, physical activity, step counts to food you intake. Wearables are getting popular these days, so leverage this feature to add great convenience to the user. Implement Engaging Statistics: People are impatient when they are using diet and nutrition apps to track everything from monitoring the amount of calorie burnt at a point of the day to how far they are from their health goals. To keep your users engaged with the app, you can use exciting statistics via presenting the data or stats in a graph showing weekly progressive reports to boost their motivation. Professional diet and nutrition app development companies understand the importance of these features; therefore, they can suggest better ideas to develop this feature. People are impatient when they are using diet and nutrition apps to track everything from monitoring the amount of calorie burnt at a point of the day to how far they are from their health goals. To keep your users engaged with the app, you can use exciting statistics via presenting the data or stats in a graph showing weekly progressive reports to boost their motivation. Professional diet and nutrition understand the importance of these features; therefore, they can suggest better ideas to develop this feature. Push Notification: This is a must-have feature in diet and nutrition apps, as it helps you send the right message at the right time to the user about what they should eat, in what amount, and at what intervals. By integrating Virtual Assistance in apps, you can get better user experience. This is a must-have feature in diet and nutrition apps, as it helps you send the right message at the right time to the user about what they should eat, in what amount, and at what intervals. By integrating Virtual Assistance in apps, you can get better user experience. Live Chat: Provide the provision of the 24*7 customer support to the user with live chatting feature and allow users to get interacted with the expert dietitians and nutritionists directly. With the help of this feature, experts can suggest a better workout regime and diet plan based on health concerns. This feature in your app will ensure you a win-win option. Provide the provision of the 24*7 customer support to the user with live chatting feature and allow users to get interacted with the expert dietitians and nutritionists directly. With the help of this feature, experts can suggest a better workout regime and diet plan based on health concerns. This feature in your app will ensure you a win-win option. Feedback: Getting feedback directly from the user will help you determine the areas that required improvement. Based on the feedback and ratings from the users, will help you enhance the interface of the app and minimize the risk app abandons. Getting feedback directly from the user will help you determine the areas that required improvement. Based on the feedback and ratings from the users, will help you enhance the interface of the app and minimize the risk app abandons. Personalized Diet Suggestions: This feature allows users to seek better diet suggestions from dieticians and nutrition by merely discussing their concerns and getting satisfying assistance. Advance Features for the modern Diet and Nutrition app BMI(Body Mass Index) Calculation on Board: BMI is one of the most critical aspects of Diet and nutrition tracking apps. Once the user logs in the app, they must be asked to enter specific details about themselves regarding weight, height, gender, food preferences, allergies if any. With the help of these details, a complete report has been generated by the app as per body measurements and the app will keep tracking everything as per that report. Moreover, fitness experts create a diet plan that accelerates the process and help you meet your goal in fast turn around. Diet and Nutrition Analyzer: Each user has its purpose of using this app, therefore with the feature of diet and nutrition analyzer, users can get a clear understanding of how close or far they are from achieving their goal. However, make sure that this feature should be presented in a way that users can easily access it and be able to make out the best. Each user has its purpose of using this app, therefore with the feature of diet and nutrition analyzer, users can get a clear understanding of how close or far they are from achieving their goal. However, make sure that this feature should be presented in a way that users can easily access it and be able to make out the best. Listing Best Fitness Experts: To serve the best services to the users, make sure you have the best fitness experts and dieticians on boards that keep pushing users regularly. These experts closely monitor your food intake and physical activities and share personalized diet charts and easy to follow healthy food recipes as well. These health and fitness experts provide you with regular guidance to the users to help you reach your body goals as earliest as possible. In-app Recipe Book: This feature not only helps them stick to healthy eating but also encourages them to try exciting meals. This feature gives them an idea of how to prepare healthy meals with the help of the detailed recipe available on the app. This feature not only helps them stick to healthy eating but also encourages them to try exciting meals. This feature gives them an idea of how to prepare healthy meals with the help of the detailed recipe available on the app. Badges: In this cut throat cutting edge competitive market, everyone is trying hard to beat others. And this feature keeps users strong-willed and determined to attain the badges based on the performance. To build your app with excellent features and functionalities, you can choose to hire a nutrition app developer that can help you customize the app according to your budget and needs. The above mentioned features are the best-suggested features to integrate, but the choice will remain yours. In addition, the time and cost of creating these features are rough estimations, as it greatly varies according to the team or software development company you choose to hire for the project. What is The Process of Developing Modern Diet and Nutrition App In 2020–21? If you have finally made a decision to move ahead with Diet and Nutrition app development, then you need to have a clear perspective and a strategic plan to achieve success. So let’s begin with the steps that can help you build a diet and nutrition mobile app: 1. Research, Plan and Developing a Roadmap Considering the facts and figures of progressive diet and nutrition app market, it is a worthy decision to make an investment. But before investing your time and money, it is important to analyze the market and evaluate your app development idea accordingly. So to make a clear plan and functional roadmap about your development process, make sure it should include: The idea of launching the app Who will be your targeted audience? What will be your development plan? What are you trying to achieve through this app development? How will you make a profit from the app? Once you find answers to these questions, you can move ahead to the other part. 2. Choice of Operating System Before you roll out the UX/UI design of the app, it is important to decide whether you want to develop a Native or Cross-platform application? The choice of OS greatly depends upon your targeted audience, as it is a well-known fact that iOS devices are used by rich people, whereas Android devices are preferred by ordinary middle-class people. Moreover, iOS users have the power to purchase the app, whereas Android users are habitual to use free apps. But with the launch of a cross-platform application, you can reach out to a wider market and be able to save a great cost on app development. There are many open-source frameworks, tools and technologies that you can use to develop Diet and Nutrition apps such as Flutter. Despite being a young and newly launched framework, Flutter has secured its position in the 2nd most popular and widely used frameworks. By leveraging its features and wide pool of plugins, you can customize the app with the best UX/UI design. 3. UX/UI Design Since every app store has its own guidelines, therefore you need to customize the UX/UI design of the app accordingly. However, don’t forget that app design is the most important element of your development process, so make sure it should be interactive, intuitive, and engaging. To develop a highly simple and unique app design, it is best to hire a dedicated UX/UI designer that helps you finalize a wireframe and the UI design based on your needs. 4. App Development The development phase would involve working with the app development team that can understand your requirement and have skills to go above and beyond your requirements to deliver result-oriented solutions. All the features will be coded by the developers and made it functional with the UI design as a base. To make your app successful, all you need a mobile app development company to ensure your best results from the development solution. 5. App Testing and Quality Assurance Once you are done with the development process, its time to test every single element of the app by running it over multiple platforms to ensure seamless user experience. The main goal of hiring the app tester is to eliminate the bugs and ensure that your app works flawlessly in various situations. Cost To Develop Diet and Nutrition App in 2020–21: While it is hard to estimate the exact cost of the app development as it greatly varies on multiple factors right from the development team you hire to the features and functionalities, app complexity, and more. Still, with the close evaluation of each factor, there is a scope of determining the real estimation of the app development. However, on an average, you can develop a Diet and Nutrition app with MVP from $10,000+. But, being an IT expert, we always recommend getting in touch with the nutrition app development company that provides you with a complete development team under one roof including: Project manager UX/UI Designer Developer Backend/ Frontend developer App Tester Android/ iOS Developer The cost to hire a development team can be starting from $25/hr in India, $100/hr in the USA and $150/hr in the UK, depending upon location of the development team, skills and experience of the programmers. Conclusion Undoubtedly, Diet and Nutrition based apps are steadily growing in popularity and opening a plethora of opportunities for the startups and entrepreneurs in 2020–21. While using these apps, you can keep yourself fit and healthy with constant monitoring of physical activities and food intake. In addition, these apps offer everything in one place right from keeping track of your calories in-take to getting connected with the fitness experts, providing healthy in-app recipes to getting a personalized workout regime, a strategically developed app can provide you with all such things.

https://medium.com/flutter-community/how-much-does-it-cost-to-create-a-diet-and-nutrition-app-features-business-model-cost-etc-a5750f22aea2

['Sophia Martin']

2020-12-10 05:38:36.114000+00:00

['Mobile App Development', 'Mobile Apps', 'Development', 'Technology', 'Startup']

How To Write A Clickable Headline

My highest earning article originally had around 10 views. It was a pretty dismal result. And this remained like that for a couple of weeks. I knew the content within the article itself was good. I’d been so proud of it that I’d rushed my way through to completion — dodgy headline and all. So I decided to tweak it — I rewrote the title about 20 times until I landed on one that felt right. Once updated, the clicks came pouring in, and that article ended up paying for 30% of my Europe trip. There’s no doubt about it — your headline is the most important part of your article. It doesn’t matter if the actual content of your article is a true masterpiece or complete drivel if no one even clicks through to it in the first place. You have to lure them in first. I’ll admit that I’ve written several very average (if not below average) headlines. And I always suffer the consequences. Tweaking headlines of ill-performing articles has been a gamechanger for me, as mentioned above. Learning what works and what doesn’t, I’ve found even the tiniest changes have the biggest impacts on clickthrough rates. Although I strongly believe that rules are made to broken, there are certain rules that have come into play for a reason. Below are 6 ways to help your headline become more clickable, tried and tested by myself and thousands of others. 1. First & Last Words Readers will commonly only read the first word and the last three words of your title if they are skimming, but the first word is the most important. When people are faced with an abundance of content and multiple headlines are calling for their attention, they’re most likely going to skim each title. Their mind is wired to find those keywords that peak their interests and tastes. With this in mind, I personally like to begin my articles with how, why or what. It creates a sense of intrigue and lets the reader know that I might be able to help them with something. I do, however, still struggle with my addiction of starting a title with the word “So…” but I’m only human. I also try and put the main, key word in the last three words of the title — for me, it’s usually something pertaining to writing, productivity, grief or weight. This is usually the word that will get the reader to enter your realm. Don’t leave this out. 2. Keep It Short (Just Not Too Short) It’s commonly said that the ideal length of a title is 6 words (with titles of 6 words earning the highest number of click-throughs). Of course, every rule has it’s exceptions but try to keep your titles under 10 words. Too short, and it won’t be easy to search. Too long, and people won’t bother reading or they will struggle to understand — especially when they’re just skimming. 3. Add Some Emotional Benefits A title which says to the reader, “Hey, I can help you with this particular part of your life, come read me” is going to get a higher level of clicks. Whether you’re appealing to fear, curiosity, romance or another shared human experience, try and make your title call out the emotional benefit that will come to the reader if read (if the article calls for it, of course). Below are some articles with great titles that I’ve recently enjoyed from Medium users. All of these titles promote an emotional benefit: You Aren’t Supposed to Like the Person You Used to Be by Brianna Wiest Emotional benefits: Feeling understood, allowing yourself to grow. You’re Not Lazy — Self-Isolation is Utterly Exhausting by Gillian Sisley Emotional benefits: Permission to cut yourself some slack. Comfort of a shared human experience. 10 Quotes That Will Help You Stay Calm During Hard Times by Sinem Günel Emotional benefits: A state of calm and comfort. How to Finally Finish Your Creative Projects by Eileen Pollack Emotional benefits: Motivation and inspiration. A sense of accomplishment. 7 Essential Money Lessons from ‘The Wealthy Gardener’ by Sergey Faldin Emotional benefits: Feeling wealthy or financially secure. 4. Keep It Simple Everyone loves beautiful prose, but your headline is rarely the time to experiment with it. Avoid abstract and mysterious titles, because although they may seem clever once the reader has finished reading your entire piece… it’s highly unlikely that the reader will even click through to it in the first place. And your well thought-out title will go to waste, anyway. Make sure that your title sums up exactly what your article is about. Let the reader know what they are going to learn or read about. Save the riddles for another time. 5. Write More Than One Don’t just go with the first headline that comes to mind. Try and write at least 10, if not 20. I know this may seem excessive but each different headline will make it clearer to you as to what is working and what isn’t. It may seem like a lot of effort for a few words, but those words are vital. Why bother writing a 1000 word article only to let yourself down with the final 6 words? When it comes to a great headline, you’ll know it when you see it. Write as many as you can, and then go with your gut. 6. Learn From Others I’ll often see an article that I can’t click on fast enough. Maybe it struck an emotional chord. Maybe it seemed to pertain information relevant or of interest to me. Usually it’s because I’m in need of some inspiration or motivation (I’m a sucker for self improvement and how-to articles). Whatever it is that makes you click on a title like your life depends on it, make sure you write it down. Anytime a headline really excites you, record it. Analyse your list every now and then, and see if they have anything in common. What makes them clickable to you will also make them clickable to others too. 7. Use Numbers Unless you’re a hater of listicles (how DARE you, and why are you here?), this tip will make sense to you. I know it rings true for me — they’re what I love to read and what I love to write. They’re easy for the brain to process, and they’re usually easy for the reader to skim parts that are relevant to them. When a reader sees numbers in your title, they will feel assured that your article will be easy to comprehend and digest. “Numbers work well in headlines because humans like predictability and dislike uncertainty,” says Buffer’s Courtney Seiter.

https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-write-a-clickable-headline-9e58b929cef8

['Maddie Rosier']

2020-04-20 12:14:26.516000+00:00

['Productivity', 'Writing', 'Self Improvement', 'Writing Tips', 'Creativity']

The Neuroscience of Slowing Down to Accomplish More

The Neuroscience of Slowing Down to Accomplish More Rushing is a false economy Photo by Chinmay Singh from Pexels When I was little, my grandmother always told me, “Less haste, more speed.” I really didn’t get what she was trying to tell me. On first hearing it, I thought it was a contradiction to state that less going fast actually meant more going fast — I couldn’t wrap my head around the difference between haste and speed. But then I was the kind of kid that did everything at 100 miles per hour, and that was something I took into adulthood with me. In my first career in the hospitality industry, I was always rushing, and I was always super stressed. I had a team of staff underneath me, but I hated delegating, stuck in my belief that if you wanted something done right then you needed to do it yourself. I left that industry aged 29, exhausted and desperate for change in my life. I learned better When I decided on a career change and went to University, I studied Cognitive Neuroscience. I began to learn so much that explained who I was as a person, and why I had been so stressed and depleted in my first career. Knowing what I had been doing to my brain, I had to change my approach. Executive function is what separates us from the animals Our ‘executive functions’ are those more complex thought processes, like planning for the future and thinking in an abstract way. These executive functions separate us from the other mammals. When I was organizing the catering for big events, I was using a lot of planning and logistical thinking, and this was really quite tiring. Our working memory is a part of our executive functions, which are all associated with the prefrontal cortex. Working memory capacity As far as studies can tell, our working memory has a very finite capacity. It has long been understood that the average person can hold 7 items (problems or things to remember) in their working memory, with an average variation of -2 or +2. So to put that in simple terms; if you are trying to remember a few things to do later, while considering a couple of logistical issues, and then your phone rings and somebody needs you — your working memory is now maxed out and you can’t handle anything else. Why am I sharing this? Put simply, when your working memory is at full capacity, the effect on your cognition is similar to having too many browser tabs open on your laptop. Things start to slow down and your system becomes less efficient — maybe even overwhelmed. When we try to do too much at once, typically in a bid to save time, we end up depleting our reserves, slowing us down in the long run. We can sustain only very short bursts of this intense kind of working and thinking. If you’ve ever worked in the events industry then you will know the feeling of exhaustion after working a busy event. It’s almost like an ‘energy hangover’ for the next few days. But if you want to achieve more over a sustained period of time, then the science-backed advice is to keep things simple and not try to pack everything in at once. And if you need to be warned about the pitfalls of multi tasking, then check out this story on task switching and focus. A simple hack to protect your working memory With all of the above said, if you do find that you need to think about multiple problems or juggle multiple tasks at once, then there is a really simple way to help your brain conserve energy. Write everything down. Yes, it’s that simple. When your working memory is getting near capacity, in order to shut down some of those ‘browser windows’ and retain more brain power — simply empty out whatever you were trying to remember for later. When you write down your to-do list, or problems to solve list, and focus on one task or problem at a time, your working memory is now running at 100% efficiency again. It sounds too simple to be true, but don’t trust me, trust the data. Studies like this one have even shown an additional boost to our working memory capacity can be achieved by writing expressively, which is perfect if you are under stress and need to decompress a little. Breaks and brainpower Possibly one of the worst things we do to ourselves is to not take adequate breaks during the day. The hustle culture is so ingrained in us, that we feel guilty for taking the time that our brain needs to recharge and reset. I used to be guilty of this. At my worst I would take my phone into the bathroom and read my emails or write social posts while I was ‘otherwise occupied’ (on the toilet). Sure, it’s laugh-worthy now. But at the time I truly wouldn’t give myself a few minutes off. Some studies show that more frequent short breaks, with some stretching or movement, are most favourable for people working or learning at desks all day. This certainly benefits the body and mind as a whole, and neuroscience backs this too. I know that when you are on a mission to achieve in life, then it is tempting to rush through your tasks and cram more work into every day. But the evidence is stacked against this approach. Pacing yourself, and respecting the fact that you are a human being with biological needs such as rest and fuel, gives you the best shot at accomplishing more in the long term. Don’t push yourself to the point of burnout, there has been enough of that in the world lately. It is time to be smart about how we treat our brains and our bodies, and to start thriving in our work.

https://medium.com/the-innovation/the-neuroscience-of-slowing-down-to-accomplish-more-94cb8fdf0ff3

['Sarah K Brandis']

2020-11-26 18:22:25.243000+00:00

['Productivity', 'Careers', 'Wisdom', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Neuroscience']

Not Taking Marketing Seriously Taught Me a Bitter Lesson in my Entrepreneur Journey

Not Taking Marketing Seriously Taught Me a Bitter Lesson in my Entrepreneur Journey If there was one thing I could tell my early entrepreneur self… Photo by Diggity Marketing on Unsplash If there was one thing I could tell my early entrepreneur self, it is most definitely “to have a marketing plan.” I learned the hard way that not having a marketing and plan and not having a business plan that does not prioritize marketing is a futile attempt at entrepreneurship, delivering no possible outcome. So here is how it all started! Attempt #1 At the time I started my first venture, I had a decent knowledge of iOS development and a little bit of UI/UX design. During that time, businesses were booming, and there were plenty of new small businesses starting up. With the digital surge, I figured that there was potential for our product in the market. So I did what every early entrepreneur would have done. Come up with a great business plan (at least what looked like something great at the time), partnered up with a few colleagues as partners that shared common interests, and established a business presence. After all this, I used all my skills to make a classy website to get a great first impression. With every step along the way ticked off from the list, we expected clients to be at our doorstep the next day. But the clients never came. So, we waited for a week. The week later became a few weeks. The clients never came. So, where did we go wrong? We thought we had a great business proposition on our hands and that we can solve one of the major problems that small businesses face when digitizing their operations. But, it did not seem to go our way, and that was the end of the first attempt at entrepreneurship. So, we went back to the drawing board to see what went wrong. After a few Google searches, we figured that we were not alone. Although we had a marketing plan listed on our business plan, I did not put too much effort into the matter and focused on the other details. It was my biggest mistake! The next day was the first day of attempt #2. This time, marketing was not an appendix but the whole thing. Why is marketing that important? At the beginning of a new venture, brand awareness is non-existent or at a bare minimum level. Nobody knows about the capabilities unless you tell them. We needed to inform our target market about the great product we had and why they need to get on board with us — something we failed at first. But now, we made sure to tick this, and we came up with and included a “Marketing First” approach to get started. Here are three strategies we incorporated into our marketing plan to get our business off the ground. 1 — Established an identity for the company One of the things that we vaguely focused on was branding and limited the branding idea just to the logos and colors. What we did right in the second was to go beyond the logo and colors but to look at branding and bring out our core values and company goals in the process. That helped us get through to the target segment effortlessly. 2 — Customer first One of the biggest mistakes we committed in our early attempt was not understanding our target market and what they wanted. We were all over the park targeting a massive audience, whereas an effective, well-thought strategy would have guaranteed our word to reach our prospective leads. We then narrowed our promotions and targeting to our niche. We targeted small to medium business owners that did not already have a mobile application or a decent website in and around Europe. There was one other thing we did. We reached out to our prospects to see what they lack. This way, we identified that most of these businesses also wanted assistance in getting their social media presence established. So we coupled our offering to include the aspect of social media so that it suits our target market better. While we were passionate about design and app development, there were other needs in the market. Thus, we made amends to our plan to bring in expertise, and this way fulfilled this need. Understanding what our target market wants was a good starting point for us to see what options to investigate and what to drop off. This way, we generated a lot of value for our target audience, later leading to sales. 3 — Entry strategy Except for a few exceptions, there are already established players across every market and industry. To compete in a saturated market, a startup needs to find the gaps in the market that are not fulfilled by the existing establishments. For my startup idea, that was what we did when we appealed to the SMEs. Instead of going all out like the first option, we did our market research to find out what were the gaps in the current system and how we can work to fulfill them. These businesses did not have too much to spend, and that did not fit into the established firms whose price points started way above the budgets of these companies. So we attacked this opportunity to onboard all these clients and provided them with an economical yet quality solution. The solution later snowballed into something bigger, thanks to recommendations from our first clients based on the exceptional service we offered. What we understood is that despite established saturated markets, there is always space for a new entrant if you do your market research and find out what is lacking or missed by the big players. Most entrepreneurs go head first with the established companies, and it often leads to burnout. Rather than that, it is good to attack the gaps that go unfulfilled and later make your way to fight the big players.

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/not-taking-marketing-seriously-taught-me-a-bitter-lesson-in-my-entrepreneur-journey-afb020972cc5

['Harun Güneş']

2020-12-06 12:20:55.414000+00:00

['Business', 'Startup', 'Marketing', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Digital Marketing']

What’s Going on with the Flu?

In January 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci, of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, warned of the potentially long and harsh flu season. At that time, the B strain, normally showing up in February or March, began months earlier. The flu season in 2019–2020 was expected to be one of the worst seasons in decades (“2019–2020 Flu Season…,” 2020). In week five of 2020 (late January), the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported 21,773 new positive tests of the flu (types A and B combined) in the U.S. In comparison, the same week the prior year had only 10,879. There were more than double the number of flu cases nationally compared with the year before (CDC, 2020). That was around the same time when the WHO declared a global health emergency due to the coronavirus pandemic. A day later President Trump restricted travel from China to help stop the global spread of COVID-19 (Taylor 2020). Americans were told to change some of their practices to help prevent the spread of this new novel virus. Less than a month later, Italy began to see an increase in coronavirus cases. By the end of February, the U.S. reported the first known death from COVID-19. We were being told to wash our hands and wipe down surfaces by scientists. Masks were in short supply, so it wasn’t easy to buy them and States had not yet mandated wearing them in public. Even so, flu numbers started to decline slowly, probably due to a better awareness of handwashing. By the first week in March, CDC reported a 33% decrease in positive flu tests (A & B strains combined). The previous year's flu season saw a 20% increase in positive tests over the same period. On March 13, President Trump declared a national emergency in response to rising cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. (Taylor 2020). Schools were canceled, sports were canceled, businesses closed. That week, positive tests for A and B flu strains dropped again to just over 5,000 nationally. This represented a 74% drop from the season’s peak. When states began issuing orders to stay at home, the number of positive flu cases dropped again, as expected. The week of April 20, 2020, there were only 28 reported positive tests of influenza A & B. By August, less than ten cases per week were reported. Below is a graph representing positive tests reported to the CDC of both A and B flu strains combined. You can see what happened with flu numbers when more extreme measures were taken to deal with the spread of COVID-19: Why the sudden decline? Although both the flu and COVID-19 are transmitted through droplets produced from coughing, sneezing, or even talking, COVID-19 is more infectious. This is likely because, in addition to spreading through droplets, COVID-19 can be airborne — spread in tiny droplets that remain in the air for much longer (Maragakis, 2020). Additionally, influenza has a shorter incubation period and a shorter serial interval (the time between successive cases), according to the World Health Organization. As a consequence, our behavioral changes to help lessen the spread of coronavirus have also decreased the spread of the flu — perhaps even more effectively. Hand washing, social distancing, and wearing masks seem to be effective in preventing the spread of both illnesses. This doesn’t mean we should skip our flu shots, however. Although the two illnesses share some symptoms, the way they infect the body is different. Scientists are still unsure whether the outcomes of having both simultaneously will lead to extreme outcomes (Broadfoot, 2020). It isn’t worth finding out the hard way. In short, what is happening to the flu is a nugget of good news. Fingers crossed our diligence with preventing the spread of COVID-19 will continue to suppress influenza numbers as we head into the 2020–2021 flu season. We certainly don’t need one more thing to add to the calamity of 2020. Note: I love hearing your comments. Please share your thoughts, but let's keep it non-political. Sources: 2019–2020 Flu Season on Track to Be Especially Severe, New CDC Data Suggests. (2020, January 4). Time Magazine. https://time.com/5758953/flu-season-2019-2020/ Derrick Bryson Taylor. (2020, August 6). A Timeline of the Coronavirus Pandemic. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-timeline.html Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm Marla Broadfoot. (2020, June 4). Coronavirus and the Flu: A Looming Double Threat. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coronavirus-and-the-flu-a-looming-double-threat/ Lisa Lockerd Maragakis, M.D., M.P.H. (2020, September 1). Coronavirus Disease 2019 vs. the Flu. John Hopkins Medicine. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu

https://amygeremiawall.medium.com/whats-going-on-with-the-flu-4e651751a71d

['Amy J. Wall']

2020-09-05 00:20:26.373000+00:00

['Self', 'Health', 'Lifestyle', 'Society', 'Coronavirus']

Who Hears the Salmon When They Cry?

“This creature known as man is of course highly intelligent, he is capable of manufacturing almost anything from rumors to test-tube babies and yet he destroys two or three species every day. This is the absurdity of man.” — Gao Xingjian, Soul Mountain The largest salmon run in the world takes place in the rivers of Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska. Every year, an average of 36.9 million sockeye salmon enter Bristol Bay and race upriver to return to their birthplace. The watershed is also spawning ground for all Pacific salmon species – chinook, coho, chum and pink. Salmon is a keystone species in the Pacific Northwest, having a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment. Many species depend on salmon for survival, including brown bears, bald eagles, orcas, or otters. On days when salmons are migrating, a dominant brown bear in the Katmai National Park can catch more than 40 fish per day by simply standing at the edge of a cascade. A sockeye salmon contains approximately 4,500 calories, but the fatty parts like the eggs, brain, and skin are more energy-dense. When there is an abundance of fish, bears are practicing good energy economics by eating only the fattiest parts, a behaviour known as high-grading. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the 2018 sockeye salmon run of 62.3 million fish was the largest on record dating back to 1893 and was 69% above the 20-year average. With a run of 58.2 million salmon, 2020 was the sixth consecutive year that the sockeye salmon run exceeded 50 million fish. With record salmon runs, it is tempting to believe that all is well in Bristol Bay’s rivers, but this could not be farther from the truth. The greatest fishery in the world is indeed facing significant threats. Northern Dynasty Minerals owns 100% of the Pebble Project, the world’s largest undeveloped copper, gold, molybdenum, and silver deposit. The mining project is located at the Kvichak and Nushagak rivers’ headwaters, two of the most productive salmon rivers flowing into Bristol Bay. Disputes over the Pebble project have been ongoing for more than a decade. The mining project was rejected under the Obama administration but found new life under the Trump administration. On November 25, The Army Corps of Engineers denied an essential permit required under the federal Clean Water Act, but the company confirmed that it would appeal the decision. Northern Dynasty Minerals and its management continue to believe that the Pebble project’s construction is in the public’s interest. Obviously, their financial interests are clouding their judgement. The possibility of damaging the pristine wilderness and one of the most productive marine ecosystems in North America is not in the public’s interest. The story of the Pebble project reveals the inability of a capitalist system to value natural ecosystems properly. In economic terms, the destruction of the rich wilderness surrounding Bristol Bay would be a mere externality. The risk of environmental damage would not be included in the production costs or in the final price of the ore sold on international markets. It would be another example of privatizing profits and socializing losses, the definition of a subsidy. With a capitalist mindset, Bristol Bay’s value would be the present value of its free cash flows. In that framework, Bristol Bay’s value would depend on the number of wild salmon that could later be sold to supermarkets. The fact that such a narrow framework blinds many corporate executives is distressing and is the root cause of many problems humanity is facing today. Why is it so difficult to understand that the value of Bristol Bay is its sole existence? Why do wild species of salmon, bears, orcas and eagles have to justify their presence in monetary terms? Why do we impose such a narrow operating framework on the natural world? Our attitude toward the natural world reveals entrenched anthropocentrism, a belief that human beings are at the center of the universe. This single concept, which is now widespread, is an existential threat. It is self-evident that no species in the biosphere operate in a vacuum, and obviously, Homo Sapiens is also subject to those interdependences. “The Europeans and European Americans surveyed the landscape of North America and saw commodities. Forest were timber that could be sold. The animals that lived there had thick and valuable fur that could be sold. Land could be used to grow food products to be sold. Fish could be salted or packed in cans and sold. The minerals in the earth could be dug up or washed out and sold.” — Mark Kurlansky, Salmon, A Fish, the Earth, and the History of Their Common Fate, Page 194 The direct environmental risks brought by the Pebble project are worrisome, but there are much more significant and indirect threats on the horizon. In this case, the environmental threats are not created by a single mining corporation operating in the vicinity of prolific spawning grounds but from an aggregation of billions of daily individual decisions made worldwide. According to the Independent Scientific Group, the optimal water temperature for salmonid spawning is 10°C, and stressful conditions begin at temperatures greater than 15.6°C, with lethal effects at 21°C and above. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Arctic’s air temperatures have been warming at approximately twice the rate of the rest of the world. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2020 was the second warmest year on record in the Arctic and continued a 7-year long streak of the warmest temperatures recorded since 1900. The summer of 2019 re-wrote the record books for Alaska, where air temperatures broke records. On July 4, record temperatures were recorded in Kenai, Palmer, King Salmon, and Anchorage International Airport, where it reached 32.2°C or 2.8°C higher than the previous record. In Anchorage, the temperature was higher than 21.1°C for 17 consecutive days and higher than 26.7°C for six straight days. The heatwave was associated with the death of tens of thousands of pre-spawned salmons. Warm water holds less dissolved oxygen and increases salmon’s metabolism. It creates a double whammy effect as salmons need more oxygen at a moment when less of it is dissolved in the water. According to Chris Sergeant, a scientist at the University of Montana, warm water combined with a dense population of salmon can lead to mass suffocation, as seen in the video below. With continued warming in the Arctic, mass salmon die-off will become more frequent and more severe. Warmer water temperature favours the growth and the survival of young smolts, and it might explain the record runs of the last few years. However, this is a non-linear system, and above a certain threshold, warmer water temperature ceases to be favourable and becomes lethal. All is not well in Bristol Bay, and it is likely to get worst. The Shifting Baseline Syndrome stipulates that people’s accepted thresholds for environmental conditions are continually lowered due to ongoing environmental degradation. With no past experiences, we tend to forget how rich Earth was before the mass destruction that has been going on for centuries. Unfortunately, the best way to convey Bristol Bay’s richness to future generations might be through books, not by going to the river banks. However, with the current rate of warming in the Arctic, the risk of losing Bristol Bay might become the least of our concerns. Warming in the Arctic is creating much bigger problems, and the impact on salmon is only one of the often forgotten consequences. If you are also worried, please share it with your friends. Together, we might be able to make a difference. Inaction is part of the problem.

https://medium.com/climate-conscious/who-hears-the-salmon-when-they-cry-54bd971de494

['David Desjardins']

2020-12-28 20:47:20.478000+00:00

['Economics', 'Climate Change', 'Psychology', 'Environment', 'Science']

The Reserve Bucket

The Reserve Bucket and why you should hold on to that lame ass story you wrote I don’t want to write a book or a novel. It’s never been my goal. I have the attention span of a bouncy ball, or a drunk person who keeps forgetting they were in search of a public restroom. Sure I can write 50,000 to 80,000 words, just not on the same subject at one time. Maybe at some point I’ll consider publishing a collection of essays, but for now I’ll stick with writing and publishing those essays as standalones. There are times I’ve fallen short or felt creatively drained when “Fuck it” feels the best route to take. Other times I could write three stories a day, swiftly and with grace, and at times I’m even willing to lose sleep to keep the groove going. I utilized both as the positive and negative they are. I discovered this thing I’ve come to call my reserve bucket. It’s sort of a never empty bucket of stories and articles. It’s never ending because you regularly take stories out and put stories in. As writers we’re going to come up with just as many bad ideas as we do good. We’ll write as many shit stories as we do perfect stories. It’s a legitimate part of the writing process. There are aspects and loopholes and all sorts of #lifehappens we weren’t prepared for, but we were prepared to keep our writing career rolling, no matter what, with our reserve bucket. The definition of a writer is not to just sit down, pump out a story and poof our job is done for the day. That’s not how being a writer works at all, no. Just, no. In a sense being a writer is similar to a plague. It’s 24/7/365. Generating ideas never stops nor does our power of observation. It’s more like; Dear lord, please let me take this train ride into the city without a single realization that, whoa, I just had an idea! This is the real deal. The reality of writing, writer, write. It’s a process that never ends. There are three #major #valuable #important reasons why every writer should have a reserve bucket of stories and articles.

https://erikasauter.medium.com/the-reserve-bucket-ca3547c4bccb

['Erika Sauter']

2018-07-20 18:11:33.129000+00:00

['Culture', 'Writing', 'Life', 'Creativity', 'Productivity']

Simplifying Dependency Injection and IoC Concepts using TypeScript

But first, let us set the table straight. If you have noticed any top class restaurant’s kitchen operation then you will find this article’s motivation a bit similar. In a restaurant, each Station Chef is responsible for running a specific section of the kitchen and they are being managed directly by the Head Chef or by the second-in-command Sous Chef. Station chefs can be in charge of different things respectively. A list of station chefs includes but is not limited to butcher chef, fish chef, grill chef, pantry chef, etc. Whenever one order comes to the kitchen via a Caller, the Sous Chef simply doesn’t start preparing it all by himself. He runs down what are the things he needs to deliver, and start instructing them accordingly to each Station Chef. He expects they would handover their prepared items on a common table, where the entire dish can then be prepared or garnished for serving. This is an important takeaway that we will soon find out in this article but before that here is a rundown of the topics you will get introduced in this article. - Dependency Injection - Dependency Inversion Principle - Inversion of Control - Inversion of Control Container - TypeScript Interfaces - Decorator Functions - Reflection APIs - TypeScript IoC Problem Statement Let’s present a problem we are going to recreate and solve, called “Pizza making chronicles”. I made this comic strip using Pixton. It is a cool app, do check out! Pizza making got several dependencies to start with. Ignoring cheese and toppings (even sauce) for simplicity, we can see that pizza needs dough and dough needs flour and yeast. Flour and Yeast need water. Water needs salt. Here is a directed graph diagram that roughly shows these dependencies: The blue line shows the dependencies of dough. Dependency Injection Pizza needs dough to start with. Let’s see how does that look in a typical code base. Soon we figure out that this Dough class is also required for making bread, so its redundant to allow both Pizza and Bread to be in charge of Dough all by themselves. So let’s delegate the creation of Dough to someone else. We inject the dependency Dough in Pizza constructor, an example of the most famous constructor based Dependency Injection. However, we passed a concrete implementation of Dough in Pizza, called DoughEntity . But customers might order different types of dough for different pizzas later. Dependency Inversion Principle Since dependency implementations can be swapped easily as they are injected during runtime, we rather inject an interface, like IDough so that we can later swap it with any concrete implementation of IDough , i.e DoughEntity like SourdoughDough , BriocheDough , ChallahDough , FocacciaDough etc. You can read more about the benefits of having interface defining an action and other classes implementing the interface in another article of mine: With dependency injections, we ensured that the chef making pizza can’t make its own dough, and with dependency inversion principle we ensured that different kinds of dough can now be used for making pizza. Same goes for dough maker. Dough maker doesn’t decide which flour and what kind of flour it will use rather it is handed to him by someone else in the charge of the pantry. There is a slight problem with this pattern in applications. This might lead to a nested and complicated dependency graph because we keep manually initiating the dependencies and pass them up to the ones who need it. So what to do? Inversion of Control In software engineering, inversion of control (IoC) is a programming principle. IoC inverts the flow of control as compared to traditional control flow. In IoC, custom-written portions of a computer program receive the flow of control from a generic framework. Dependency Injection so far looked like this: The Caller needs a pizza and announces it in the kitchen. Pizza Chef doesn’t make the dough himself, he asks it from the dough maker. But imagine the dough maker now says, “Don’t ask me for the dough, I will keep my dough on a table when I am done myself.” There is a Hollywood Principle, which states: “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You” This is what inversion of control looks like. The Pizza Chef doesn’t directly gets the dough from the dough maker, rather he will get if from an external place without him having a knowledge of who or when it was exactly kept there. Inversion of Control Container So finally we have a kitchen table which contains the prepared items. Pizza chef takes everything from there when he needs it and starts making pizza. A programming container also behaves as such, which typically bind interfaces to implementations and serves them as dependencies when someone needs it. It will look something like this in the code. Now let’s code the talk using TypeScript. The demo code is a NodeJS application build using Express framework. We will be using InversifyJS, an IoC container for TypeScript, in this project. Here are the dependencies used: I used lightweight InversifyJS to simply demonstrate how containers work in applications, and then it will be easier for us to understand how frameworks like Angular or Laravel uses DI and IoCs. You can check out the entire repository here: TypeScript Interfaces Let us create an interface called Dough . I don’t like using IDough naming, so would name dough as Dough for the rest of the code. We usually want to code using interfaces so that we have better consistency across classes, but in the generated JavaScript, we do not have any references for it. It is simply non-existent. So how can we use Dependency Injection in TypeScript? Decorator Functions Frameworks like Angular and NestJS use decorators, so to tell its own DI mechanism what are the dependencies other classes require and and how to initialise them. These decorator functions basically add metadata to our classes. The metadata are used to gain information about what dependencies it needs during runtime and thus helps in resolving them. In Inversify, whenever a class (it will always have @injectable decorators on them) have a dependency on an interface, we use the @inject decorator to define an identifier for the interface that will be available at runtime. Reflection APIs Reflection allows inspection and modification of a code base, including its own. Unlike JavaScript, TypeScript does support experimental reflection features, though few in number. Using metadata reflection API we can standardize how we achieve details of unknown objects during runtime. For the class Pizza , when DoughEntity dependency is called, the Injectable Decorator adds a metadata entry for the property using the Reflect.metadata function from the reflect-metadata library, which gives us a array of dependencies that the class requires. It under the hood presents us with the right information about DoughEntity being a dependency for Pizza . Here is a simplified example of the metadata generated when we pass a concrete implementation. You can find this behaviour in NodeJS frameworks like NestJS, and its decorator usage . We can see that the metadata points to exact DoughEntity . But what if we injected Dough interface? When the code transpiles to JavaScript, we get metadata as an Object , with no way for us to say which specific object it is. We need to do something to uniquely identify them so that during runtime the proper class is resolved. In our demo code after having coded in the interfaces, we type-hint our real classes instead of interfaces. We use Symbol to allow identification of Dough interface with “Dough” . Let’s create a concrete implementation of Dough now and call it DoughEntity . Here you can see, we mentioned the class as injectable using @injectable decorator, and passed in interfaces in the constructor with @inject decorator so to define the identifiers. Now we create a container that binds the interfaces to their implementations such that if Dough types are called, we get concrete implementation of DoughEntity . We create the Pizza class as following: Before we do the rest of the code, here is a peek in to the future for better understanding. Since we are using decorators and reflection API, if we see the generated JavaScript code of pizza.class.ts by setting “emitDecoratorMetadata”: true in tsconfig.json , we could see that the Object we get in metadata will be of type Types.Dough . And the generated JavaScript code of dough.entity.ts would look like this, where param orders tell us about DoughEntity dependencies: It surely seems that the decorators and reflection API have done its part in figuring out the dependency. And now the moment of truth, let’s resolve a dependency here in the main.ts file and see it in action. If we run the application and open the console, we can see the following output telling us the Dependency Injection worked using the IoC container. Salt gets initiated first. Water , Flour , Yeast and finally Dough classes were successfully resolved and finally got injected into the Pizza class. Conclusion: Photo by David Cain on Unsplash There is a reason why good kitchens operate similar to this. A real chef can vouch about it more than me for sure. They can truly deliver the best when each of the chefs has singular, separate responsibilities, each knowing exactly what, where and when to contribute in making a perfect dish for the restaurant-goers, with someone managing it, who is however not directly being involved in any of the process details. I am really impressed with the DIs and IoCs of Laravel, Angular and NestJS. It has really made both the backend and frontend code much more manageable, reusable and testable with time. The key concepts are the same in all the frameworks and are rightly so. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter (@saadbinamjad), and you can check some other articles posted by me in our Engineering Blog. If you want to read more on some diversified topics, please check out our company blog. Thanks, till then happy coding!

https://medium.com/monstar-lab-bangladesh-engineering/simplifying-dependency-injection-and-ioc-concepts-using-typescript-b70643f71c91

['Saad Bin Amjad']

2019-10-05 13:20:30.861000+00:00

['Design Patterns', 'Inversion Of Control', 'Typescript', 'Dependency Injection', 'Software Engineering']

Android and the Importance of App Store Optimization

Android and the Importance of App Store Optimization Optimization is a key to success in the Google Play Store Photo by Mithun V on Unsplash One of my closest university seniors started an app-based venture and critically failed within a year. He was bankrupt and felt compelled to shut down the company. It was a total disaster. Born curious, I wanted to know what went wrong. I studied their business strategy and found out what they’d missed. It was app store optimization (ASO). They invested $100k in their venture but never thought of their ASO. They spent their maximum marketing budget in better UI/UX design, beautiful websites, SEO, and Facebook ads. They didn’t look at their app, which should’ve been given #1 priority.

https://medium.com/better-programming/what-ive-learned-from-a-failed-startup-705218255f53

['Intisar Mahee']

2020-09-07 20:18:08.397000+00:00

['Programming', 'Mobile App Development', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Learning', 'Startup']

I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World

I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World What do Aristotle, Elvis Presley, and Shakespeare have in common Image by M Blackman If you think of metaphor as merely a device used in literature, think again. James Geary delves into the realms of behavioural economics, psychology, and neuroscience to present a fascinating insight into metaphor’s role in our world. His book, I Is an Other, explores the role of metaphor in human language, creative thinking, and more. You will never look at a metaphor the same after reading this. You might start spying metaphors everywhere. Oh look, there’s one in the previous sentence! I Is an Other is arranged in thirteen easily digestible chapters, each given a straightforward descriptive title with an intriguing subtitle (‘All Shook Up’’ accompanies the chapter ‘Metaphor and Thought’). The writing is authoritative but humorous and grounded in the real world. I am a former English teacher and so I loved it, but this book has a broad appeal. Geary explains metaphorical thinking with the help of Aristotle, Elvis Presley, Rimbaud, and Shakespeare. Metaphors can be defined mathematically as X = Y, in the Aristotelian tradition of “giving the thing a name that belongs to something else”. This is evidenced in Elvis Presley’s song ‘All Shook Up’ when he describes his lover’s lips as a volcano (what a poet!), Rimbaud’s metaphor manifesto of I = other, and of course, Romeo’s famous line “Juliet is the sun”. Naturally, philosophers, songwriters, and playwrights will utilise metaphors to create comparisons with rich imagery, but this metaphorical thinking is also what enables creativity in the sciences. Scientists and inventors need to compare what they know about a subject with what they don’t know. For creative thinking to occur, we need to be able to see beyond the literal and metaphorical thinking allows that. The world of finance and economics, which you might think of as being purely about numbers and statistics, is full of metaphorical description. Think of stocks soaring, surging, climbing, or, plummeting, sliding, plunging. Wall Street may be gripped by a bear market or a bull market. Geary cites psychologist Michael W. Morris’s research into financial commentary and identifies two primary market metaphors, agent and object metaphors. Agent metaphors describe price movements “as the deliberate action of a living thing”, whereas object metaphors describe price movements as “non-living things subject to external forces”. The way that we use agent and object metaphors to describe mostly random events feed into the human brain’s expectancy bias. We are programmed to recognise patterns where they might be none whatsoever. If stocks have gone up for six days in a row (as described by the agent metaphor of climbing), we expect them to continue to climb on day seven. Metaphors can be dangerous if unexamined — beware of your expectancy bias when looking at stock charts! If you have ever been to a toddler’s tea party, you will know that young children’s pretend play is full of wonderful metaphors. Between the ages of 12–24 months, children develop the ability to pretend, which researchers call “double knowledge”. From the age of two years, children start to play make-believe games. When a child hands you a banana so that you can answer a phone call, there are now two bananas; the real one (held to your ear) and the copy (transformed in the imagination so that you can talk as if you are using a real phone). Young children are adept at this as their brains’ pattern recognition circuits are rapidly building and developing, although their understandings are mostly based on simple perceptual similarities. As they grow older, they have difficulty with more sophisticated metaphorical language, until they acquire enough experience to make sense of their world. People with Aspergers Syndrome or other Autism Spectrum Disorders typically have difficulty with metaphorical thinking and Geary provides sound research into the ways ASD affects socialisation and communication. Although he writes sensitively about his subjects in ‘Metaphor and the Mind: Imagining an Apple in Someone’s Eye’, I wish he could have asked an actual person with ASD about these social difficulties, instead of referencing ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime’ by Mark Haddon (2004: Vintage). Haddon is a neurotypical author writing about a child with Aspergers, in ways that are often very ableist; Christopher, the main character, is treated terribly by his parents and others around him which is normalised as he has a disability. However, this is balanced by the inclusion of anecdotes from other people with Aspergers who discuss the challenges they face, but also their strengths. There are so many topics touched on in this book and the research and examples are all highly interesting. Metaphorical thinking pervades every aspect of our lives, without us even realising it. When reading a work of literature we are attuned to the use of figurative language but our brains are also tuned into the metaphors that surround us in everyday life, satisfying our brain’s need to create patterns. As Geary states, “the logic of metaphor is the logic of our lives”. As a former English teacher and an evergreen lover of literature, I expected to enjoy reading this book. I certainly did but I also found it intellectually stimulating, prompting me to examine some of the biases and assumptions I have about the world. In the words of the great Elvis Presley, I’m all shook up.

https://medium.com/the-innovation/i-is-an-other-the-secret-life-of-metaphor-and-how-it-shapes-the-way-we-see-the-world-james-geary-c54b75247f29

['M Ainsley Blackman']

2020-12-30 12:54:40.352000+00:00

['Thebookmark', 'Reading', 'Psychology', 'Creativity', 'Books']

How to Be Edited Without Losing Your Mind

Dear Dejected x 2, As a writer who has spent many years editing other people’s work, I can feel not only your frustration but your editors’. You can’t imagine how furiously most editors struggle to keep up with all the emails, manuscripts, and phone calls coming at them every minute of every day. Not only are they reading and responding to a staggering number of pitches and submissions, they are negotiating rates and contracts, editing the work they’ve accepted for publication, arranging for artwork to accompany each piece, sending essays and articles to fact checkers and copyeditors, and attending meetings with colleagues in other departments, all while sweating to meet their deadlines. Many editors are writers themselves and would rather be working on their own stuff than editing yours. And now, with most of them editing from their kitchen table while their children are bickering in the background, even ordinary transactions are going to be more fraught than usual. I applaud you, Rejected, for using this time to complete your essays. But maybe you are rushing to submit your work before it’s ready. During such a catastrophic time, you might be tempted to splash your feelings on the page and send out the most visceral version of some experience. And yet, describing an emotion or intimate event is rarely enough to make a piece compelling. Why should your fear of having sex during the pandemic interest anyone besides your boyfriend? What larger question about your fears are you trying to explore? Have you organized your thoughts in a focused, organic way? Is every sentence polished? Have you let an unbiased friend read the manuscript and provide you with honest feedback? Have you researched the publication and made certain this is exactly the type of essay they want — not only in terms of subject, but also style and tone? Everyone thinks they are the exception to the guidelines. Oh, sure, the editors say they won’t read anything longer than 2,000 words, but once they start my 20,000-word essay, they’ll get hooked and accept it. I don’t mean to make you feel worse, Rejected, but if you keep getting turned down by the same publication, maybe you should take the hint. Persistence is admirable, unless you are persisting in sending a personal essay about your lifelong struggle against bulimia to a publication that wants formal, well-researched articles on current events (or vice versa). Reread the magazine’s guidelines and write an essay that fulfills them, or submit the essay you’ve already written somewhere else. And no, you shouldn’t give in to the impulse to ask an editor to explain why they didn’t accept your work. If editors were to respond to every submission they reject, they wouldn’t have time to edit the essays they accept. Besides, asking someone why they won’t publish you is like asking someone why they don’t want to date you. Do you really want to hear them spell out that they like you well enough as a friend but don’t feel the spark necessary to take the relationship to a higher level? Given how many thousands of submissions most editors read in a month, the truth might be that your essay, as moving, original, and lyrical as it is, isn’t as moving, original, and lyrical as the two or three submissions the editors found room to print. Unless an editor is knocked out by your essay’s potential, they won’t offer advice on how you might revise it. Otherwise, you could spend weeks reworking the piece, only to have the editor turn it down a second time, and how furious would you be then? If an editor rejects an essay but encourages you to send more work, you should be ecstatic. That means the editor considers you a professional and really wants to read what you send them next. I’ve heard editors complain that female writers and writers of color tend to be so discouraged by a rejection, they rarely submit new work, while white male writers immediately send another dozen essays. But no editor would risk getting buried in an avalanche of submissions from a writer they don’t respect, so take such invitations seriously and send that editor your best new work. Which brings me to you, Not Rejected. All of us feel angry, insulted, frustrated, depressed, and sick to our stomachs when a draft we thought was ready for publication (if not deserving of a Pulitzer Prize) comes back covered with a thorny vine of comments. How dare you! we think. If you hate my essay so much, why did you accept it? You’re a sadistic egomaniac who’s trying to show who’s boss! And yet, my experience as both an editor and a writer is that at least 85% of the time, the editor is right in pointing out the weakness in a manuscript, even if their suggestion for how to fix that weakness isn’t as effective as the solution you might come up with. When I was younger, I would get so upset by an editor’s response that I would dash off a heated argument or jump right in and start revising. But even in less stressful times than these, you should allow your emotions to cool before reacting. Nearly every submission that’s accepted for publication, whether by the New Yorker or an online zine with a hundred viewers, requires a lot of editing. An editor friend of mine expressed his dismay at writers who think his heavy mark-ups are meant to demonstrate contempt. “We’re editing hard because we believe in the piece,” he said, “not because we’re trying to punish you!” Editors may spend hours, even weeks, editing a submission, only to have the writer get so angry, intimidated, or scared they refuse to work on it further. Not only does the editor lose the time they’ve invested — and a piece they truly wanted to see in their magazine — the writer loses the chance to see that essay in print. Instead of jumping in with a quick response, allow an editor’s comments to filter through your consciousness. Some suggestions will resonate with what you suspected. Didn’t you already know you should cut that digressive paragraph, smooth out those awkward sentences, fill in that missing context, or include a scene or two to relieve all that exposition? Be grateful to your editor for forcing you to admit what you knew was true and meet — or exceed — your own high standards. Other suggestions will strike you as too daunting to carry out. How could you possibly find the wherewithal to take your essay apart and restructure it? Or carry out even more research than you’ve already done? Or rethink your argument? And yet, as you rant and sob, you already can sense that following your editor’s suggestion will improve your work. You might even find your heart racing as you imagine how much better your essay will be once you revise it. Even if you accept what your editor suggests as warranted, you might be unsure how to accomplish a particular revision. Don’t be afraid to ask the editor for more direction. This is what editors do: They help their writers revise their work. As long as you don’t send five emails in a row or require too much hand holding, your editor will help you as best they can. Even if an editor’s advice seems wrongheaded, arguing does little good. Suppose the editor points out an aspect of your essay that seems unclear. You moron! you want to scream. Can’t you read? The explanation is right there on the page! Remember: You are much closer to the material than your editor. They might have read too quickly to catch the brief mention in paragraph five that your soccer coach was your mother’s brother. But most people will be reading even more quickly than that editor. And maybe you are so adept at fixing a transmission you don’t realize most readers won’t even know what a transmission is. As an outsider, your editor can provide invaluable perspective, alerting you that an argument isn’t logical or you’ve omitted a detail that is crucial to our understanding of your narrative. You can argue all you want, but that won’t make your editor not see the flaw. Of course, their suggestion as to how to revise your essay might be misguided. But if you can come up with a more elegant way to fix the weakness, your editor will probably thank you. The same is true for passages your editor rewrites using their voice instead of yours. If you acknowledge the original sentence was awkward or confusing, then you can tactfully point out the new version doesn’t quite mesh with the tone or style of the rest of the essay and then tweak the editor’s version so it sounds like you. That said, try not to get too precious about your prose. An editor might alter or destroy the cadence of a sentence by cutting a word or phrase. But the benefit of eliminating all that wordiness and repetition usually outweighs the loss of a rhythm only you can hear. In some cases, the editor is required to make your usage conform to the publication’s style guide. Unless you are a poet, such tiny changes usually aren’t worth the argument. The advantage of not fighting with your editor over the difference between a semicolon and a comma is you can save your firepower for the one or two suggestions that run counter to your instincts. Even then, your instincts might be too fuzzy to hold up in court. If your editor pushes you to take your piece in directions that run counter to your intentions, that might be because you haven’t made those intentions clear. Before you begin drafting a defensive email, make sure you can articulate the essay’s central question and line of thought your reader is meant to follow. Is that line of argumentation right there on the page? If not, thank your editor for pointing out the lack of focus or clarity and promise to revise accordingly. If your editor does push you to make change you can’t abide, then politely, gently, hold your ground. Let’s say your editor wants you to cut a scene that is emotionally moving, beautifully expressed, and essential to the essay’s meaning. Even then, you might want to ask a friend to verify that the editor’s suggestion is misguided. If you remain certain you are right, wait to bring up this disagreement until you have fulfilled all of the editor’s more reasonable requests. Express your gratitude for the suggestions that improved the essay. Then, point out how and why you disagree with the advice to cut that scene. Offer to add a sentence or two to clarify its importance. If the changes your editor has suggested might come across as racially insensitive, sexist, or cliched, tactfully point this out. If you treat your editor with respect, they most likely will back down from their suggestion. I have even known an editor or two to admit that they were wrong.

https://humanparts.medium.com/how-to-be-edited-without-losing-your-mind-9e549d98d6a0

['Eileen Pollack']

2020-05-27 14:01:01.068000+00:00

['Inspiration', 'Writing', 'Editors', 'Creativity', 'Productivity']

Facebook AI Research Found Intersections In Popular QA Datasets

The open domain problem of question-answer systems assumes that the model is able to answer new questions using the knowledge learned during training. In addition, the model should be able to generalize existing knowledge to answer new questions. However, the results on the test dataset do not show the actual quality of the models. Researchers at Facebook AI Research (FAIR) analyzed the top 3 popular open-domain QA datasets. In 60–70%, the answers to the questions in the test set were in the training set. In addition, 30% of the test questions had a duplicate in the training set. The researchers then tested the state-of-the-art models. The speed of all models dropped significantly lower when it was necessary to answer a question that was not directly in the training set. The average difference in prediction accuracy between repeating and non-repeating data was 63%. More about analysis The datasets that the researchers analyzed included Natural Questions, TriviaQA, and WebQuestions. WebQuestions WebQuestions is a dataset of 3,778 training and 2,032 test question and answers pairs. The questions were pulled from the search engine and the answers were pulled from Freebase. TriviaQA TriviaQA is a dataset of 78,785 training, 8,837 validation, and 11,313 test question and answer pairs. Created and pinned questions and answers from quiz sites. Open-Natural Questions Natural Questions consists of search engine questions and Wikipedia answers. There were 79,168, 8,757 and 3,610 pairs of questions and answers in the training, validation, and test samples. An example of overlapping questions in Open-Natural Questions. Source: Arxiv The researchers normalized the responses before looking for overlaps in the samples. Intersections of questions were identified partially manually using paraphrase markup. You can read more about the intersection search method in the original article. Before you go… If you found this article helpful, click the💚 or 👏 button below or share the article on Facebook so your friends can benefit from it too.

https://medium.com/deep-learning-digest/facebook-ai-research-found-intersections-in-popular-qa-datasets-49d38514adb3

['Mikhail Raevskiy']

2020-08-20 11:36:01.473000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Facebook', 'Data Science']

Writing to Stay Alive

Five years is a long time to live stuck in your head and cut off from the world without the ability to let anyone in, or reach out to anyone. If this sounds extreme, it’s because I’ve yet to access therapy and thus support. I have insurance but can’t afford the co-pays because my household survives on one salary already stretched to breaking point. As a result, there are many normal things we do without. Health care has been one of them, food often is another. There is a lot of empty space in our house where furniture should be. We exist, we do not live. In five years, we’ve hardly ever had anything resembling a social life either. The so-called Holiday Season is something that has been happening to other people, rarely to us. Our marriage is groaning under the strain and has been on life support for a long time, the antithesis of joy. Each of us feels let down, abandoned by the other. At least on this we’re on the same page. If I write so much about depression, it’s to try and instill some empathy in those who’ve never experienced it and see it as a choice. Were it a choice, it would be a very perverse one that has condemned me to a pared down existence where shelter and food are never guaranteed, never mind anything else. Why would anyone do this to themselves? In this context, writing is a way of flipping the bird at adversity and reclaiming a little agency, a little independence. More recently, writing has come to represent something else, too: The ability to see my family again. Unless I make this airfare happen myself, it won’t and I will forever have to live with the fact that I abandoned my father when he needed me the most. Long story short, my stepmom is undergoing treatment for stage 4 breast cancer and my 71-year-old dad is her sole carer. This, to me, has made everything else in my life pale into insignificance. I am an only child and last saw my father in 2013, my mother in 2014. My family has never met my husband although we’ve been married for over five years. Writing this, it occurs to me how horrible it is. Writing, you see, is a way to articulate all that has been festering within and keeping me sick. Since my best friend died at the end of September, the page has become my only interlocutor. There are few conversations in my household. Our life isn’t conducive to trusting, open-hearted talk anymore. Instead, our exchanges are stilted, wooden, guarded. I quickly learned that anything I say could backfire. In our respective silences, you can hear the low hum of distrust and the hiss of resentment, ready to pounce whenever vulnerability arises. I made the mistake of pretending I was strong, right at the beginning. I also made the mistake of relinquishing my assertiveness. I’ve paid for those mistakes with my writing voice and my mental health.

https://asingularstory.medium.com/writing-to-stay-alive-15faef678cb2

['A Singular Story']

2020-12-14 12:40:57.542000+00:00

['Relationships', 'Mental Health', 'Writing', 'Self', 'Creativity']

Are Video Games Bad For You?

Hedonic Well-Being The hedonic aspect of well-being has to do with positive affect and mood states. It’s about maximizing pleasure and enjoyment at the same time as minimizing pain and suffering. Daniel Kahneman and other psychologists argue that this is one of the most important aspects of well-being. They argue that research and clinical treatments should focus on hedonism; they should amplify happiness, foster pleasurable experiences, and reduce negative emotions like sadness and dissatisfaction. Digital games quite clearly contribute to these positive mood states — they’re fun. The interactive and rewarding features in games have been shown to result in pleasurable experiences. Some studies have found that games help to reduce negative states like stress and sadness. They have been found to help people recover from workplace exhaustion and work-related stress — much more so than watching videos or TV. They seem to do this by creating “effectance”: the positive feelings that come from seeing that actions have an impact or make a difference. Gamers get a sense of gratification from the ability to influence the fantasy world. They become more than just passive viewers; they become active players. This can create feelings of satisfaction and flow that contribute to satisfaction and well-being. Eudaimonic Well-Being Eudaimonia was originally proposed by Aristotle. He suggested that the “good life” was about more than just maximizing pleasure and happiness and minimizing suffering. He suggested that it’s also about personal grown, reason, and virtue. Eudaimonia is conceptualized as having several components, including mastery of challenges, personal growth, good relationships with others, and having a purpose in life. More recently, Deci and Ryan have proposed the Self-Determination Theory. It parallels Aristotle’s Eudaimonia in many ways. It suggests that there are three basic psychological needs that humans try to satisfy: autonomy, or being able to guide one’s own decisions; competence, which is the need to be good at things and achieve mastery of skills; and relatedness, which is the need to connect with others. Several studies have found that those who feel autonomous, competent, and connected to others are also much more likely to have higher well-being ratings. Digital games are satisfying in part because they create a situation where gamers get to practice autonomy, master skills, and connect with others. They provide opportunities for gamers to make choices about what happens to them, contributing to feelings of autonomy. They provide challenges that players can overcome, contributing to a sense of mastery. And the multiplayer features of many games, including popular online games, allow gamers to satisfy their need to be connected to others. Social Well-being Social connectedness is perhaps one of the most important aspects of well-being. Many studies have found that the quality of our relationships is one of the biggest predictors of happiness. Basically, the better you feel about your relationships, the better you feel. Gaming can be a social sport, but it’s usually not. More than half of frequent gamers play multiplayer games at least once a week and say that gaming is a good way to keep in touch with friends. That could be why the research suggests that gaming can be a good way for people to develop their social relationships. Some studies have found that gaming is an effective way for people to start relationships with others and for those relationships to become deep and meaningful. It also does not seem to displace the time spent with in-person friends. Gaming also seems to lead to lower levels of loneliness. In all of these ways, gaming seems to be a potent contributor to social well-being. So what’s the take-away? Gaming isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There can indeed be some negative effects, and some people can get to the point where their behaviour looks like an addiction. But, for the majority of individuals engaging in digital games, there may also be some significant positive side-effects. The research presented here suggests that video games can actually give a powerful boost to psychological well-being.

https://medium.com/social-science/are-video-games-bad-for-you-3edd4df43aa

['Ramsay Lewis']

2020-05-28 12:45:17.710000+00:00

['Science', 'Psychology', 'Mental Health', 'Culture', 'Gaming']

Downgrading Tech, Upgrading Humanity

Downgrading Tech, Upgrading Humanity Three simple steps to be less addicted to your phone We spend an increasing amount of time online, on social media/entertainment or even checking notifications on our devices to our own detriment — whether it’s doomscrolling or getting stuck in a YouTube or Wikipedia spiral. As many things in life have shifted to screens due to day to day life this past year, it’s even easier to be complacent and waste time on your phone (or device of choice) for no particular reason. Given that being online might be the only avenue for connections, work, education, learning, hobbies, no wonder we’re spending more time in front of a screen — there just isn’t a good alternative for the time being. However, there’s still nuance between thoughtful vs. passive consumption. Most of us already know that time is valuable. Spending time wisely is about making the most of your time to pursue what’s valuable and beneficial among competing distractions. So whether you’re tired of being bombarded with political news, feeling chained to your inbox or bouncing between notifications on different apps, here’s a few simple steps that I tried and found to work (for me) to be less addicted to my phone. Step 1: Put your phone somewhere you can’t easily see or reach There’s a story in Greek mythology about the warrior Ulysses and the Sirens. While journeying home after war, he had to face many trials, one of which was a guide a ship past an island with these dangerous, enchanting creatures who lured sailors overboard to their deaths with song. Heeding advice from a goddess, Ulysses instructed his sailors tie him to a ship and stuff their own ears with wax which allowed them to pass through. Though he was lured by the Sirens’ voices, he wasn’t able to physically move and therefore, was safe. The idea is that if we know what will be distracting and understand our own weaknesses, we can prepare ahead of time and “self-bind” in order to remove likely distractions, such as by placing your phone away from your nightstand or out of sight during work hours. This doesn’t mean you won’t be drawn to checking your device, just that you start with an environment that reinforces the habits you want to build. This can even extend to other goals, like putting exercise clothes in a visible place to make daily exercise a routine. Tip: Don’t rely on willpower, change your environment. Step 2: Turn off notifications and sounds Notifications (coupled with sounds) are triggers to check for updates. Typically they are shown as a red dot with a count. Red has the significance of urgency and importance, yet after being used everywhere, it can be a stressful feeling to be being constantly interrupted from a state of flow. We must strive to balance what’s urgent vs. what’s important. Notifications can obscure this critical distinction. Tip: Reduce noisy interruptions by turning off all notifications and opting in to the few you actually need. Step 3: Greyscale mode Colors traditionally draw attention and affect our emotions — by using grayscale I reduce the amount of stimuli I get through color. My phone and any social media app are also much less enticing without colors. Here’s how to turn greyscale mode on (iPhone, Android) While I can’t do this for all my devices (as a designer, this is impractical), this has helped make long period of screen time on my phone less interesting = leading to less time spent staring glazed-eyed scrolling memes. Tip: Intentionally remove color/delete apps to make your phone less engaging. Conclusion Last step here is a periodic check-in for alignment between values and action. Reflect on how you spend time in a day/week/month vs. what you say is important. Do these line up? It’s a little grim to be constantly thinking about how much time you have left. But to be intentional about how you live with the time you’re given makes for a mindful life.

https://medium.com/swlh/downgrading-tech-upgrading-humanity-c52815c43317

['Joanna Ngai']

2020-12-22 06:21:49.440000+00:00

['Health', 'Time Management', 'Mental Health', 'Technology', 'Productivity']

The 5 Attitudes That Differentiate Highly Creative People

Finding The Right Question Not Answer When faced with a problem, one of the first reflexes of your mind might be to find a way to solve it. You want to find the perfect element that might fit your situation. Research has shown that this problem-solving attitude can stick you to a single framework of problematization while seeking solutions. Instead of helping you find the best solution, this attitude can reduce you to a single perspective detrimental to your creativity. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his team at the University of Chicago have led experiments highlighting a more creative attitude. Observing art students arranging diverse objects on a table into a composition, they noticed two groups of artists who had different approaches to the exercise. The first group would quickly select the objects within their reach and immediately begin working on their composition. The second group would take some time to examine the objects, picking them up, turning them down, even changing their arrangement while working on their composition. The result was that the latter group produced works that were judged much more favorably by judges than those in the first group. What made the second type of student more creative was their ability to keep their compositional arrangements open, actively seeking questions to ask instead of finding immediate answers. Meanwhile, the first type of students, by focusing on one framework, prevented themselves from experimenting with other perspectives and finding unexpected solutions. Like the most talented students, you may avoid getting stuck in one way of asking a question for your problem: always try to find other questions that might be more relevant to your situation.

https://medium.com/thinking-up/the-5-attitudes-that-differentiate-highly-creative-people-84a833dad84a

['Jean-Marc Buchert']

2020-09-23 13:30:38.696000+00:00

['Creativity', 'Art', 'Psychology', 'Productivity', 'Creative Process']

3 Keys To Dominate Your Growing To-Do List

If you’re like me, you have a growing to-do list filled with big ideas to accomplish. Yet it might often seem like the day quickly gets away from you. Meetings, emails, social media, and other distractions suck up your time, along with your precious attention. Winning the day begins before you even sit down at your desk. Thoughtful planning and prioritization is the best way to play defense against the many tasks vying for your focus. Building in the opportunity for reflection, while difficult, is an instant productivity booster, allowing you to get more done in less time with greater impact. On a recent episode of the Accidental Creative podcast, author Todd Henry shared a simple 10-minute method you can use to optimize your schedule and create mental bandwidth for deep, creative work. He suggests sitting down at the beginning of the day to strategize, specifically following these steps: Ask yourself: At the end of the day, what would have to happen for me to say, “Today was a success?” Henry says, “Time is the currency of productivity, especially for creative professionals,” so make sure (to the extent possible) that your day effectively leverages your strengths, fulfills your values, satisfies important goals, and is filled with tasks or people that energize you. Define the problems you need to solve today. Answering this question allows you to work backward and create a plan of attack, ensuring that you spend your time wisely in high-impact ways. Henry points out this question will not only help you become more focused, but will also prime you to seek creative solutions for the problems you need to solve. Block time for deep work. If you don’t guard your time, distractions and busywork will rush in to fill the vacuum. Henry suggests creative professionals pre-commit chunks of time throughout their week to accomplish deep work — that is, cognitively demanding work that requires concentration and uninterrupted focus. Then respect the appointments you set with yourself. Yes, that does mean you’ll have to get better at assertively saying “no” and communicating your boundaries, but overcoming that discomfort can pay off in big ways. Liked this article? Get 3 stress relief strategies Google and Facebook execs use to manage their emotions here.

https://medium.com/publishous/3-keys-to-dominate-your-growing-to-do-list-662d410bb18a

['Melody Wilding']

2019-07-25 16:51:01.041000+00:00

['Work', 'Advice', 'Writing', 'Creativity', 'Productivity']

Stop Controlling, Start Creating

A few years back I had a client. This client had a beautiful web site. That beautiful web site had been designed by a renowned design agency. And on that beautiful web site the client published articles that were well-reported and infographics that were quite attractive. From the outside, everything looked professional. Healthy. Successful. But the client had a problem. Traffic wasn’t growing. What can we do to improve, they asked. I asked about the amount of content. No, they said, we can’t change that. Our budget is maxed out. I asked about the quality of the content. No they said, we can’t change that. We like our articles, they’re thorough. I asked about where they distribute their content. No they said, we can’t change that. We don’t have the staff. Then they thought for a minute and then asked: What if, instead of making any of those changes, we just redesign the site? Why would you do that, I said. That’s the thing that’s least wrong. Because, they said, and I will never forget this: that’s the thing we know we can control. The search for certainty instead of explanations I’ve thought a lot about that client. They had a lot of challenges. They were aware of those challenges. They wanted to improve. That’s more than most. But they were searching for certainty, rather than for an explanation. They should have been asking: what does our audience want? Why do they want it? How can we give it to them? They should have been looking for explanations of their marketplace. Instead, they were asking: what do we want? How can we make what we want with as little pain as possible? They were looking for certainty of themselves. The result: They had created a perfectly consistent asset creation machine that very few people outside that machine cared about. A bright and pretty dead thing. In other words, they spent very little time creating. Instead, they spent all their time trying to stay in control. The search for consistency instead of coherence Who hasn’t spent their time trying to be in control? After all, the scariest thing in the world is to create. Creativity is an exploration of an unknown. It’s trying something, seeing whether it works, then iterating on the effort until the result improves. It’s testing your way to viability. If this sounds like an organism scratching around in the dark to find the best source of light and food, well there you go. Organisms are great explorers. Organisms have very good product-market fit. Creating content for brands? Same same. To be successful, the brand must be consistent. Not consistent in results, though that will come. Rather, consistent in efforts. Consistency of effort creates coherence of results. If you think that’s not true, consider any successful brand. Apple is a successful hardware company because they created a consistent process of building the iPhone. Each new iPhone release is different, yet the product iterations are coherent. They have “iPhone-ness”. Ford is a successful automobile manufacturer because they created a consistent process for creating the F-150. Each new model is different, yet the product iterations are coherent. Ah yes, the buyers says: this quacks like the duck I know. WIRED is a successful magazine because they created a successful process for making WIRED magazine. Each new issue is different, yet the iterations in features and interviews and photographs are coherent. Good read, every time. And so this is what I tell clients today. Focus first on efforts, rather than results. Focus on building an engine of creativity, rather than a facade of assets. Focus on the relationship with your audience, rather than yourself. Ask what they want. Ask how you can give it to them. Figure out how giving it to them fits with your brand priorities. You shall surely be successful.

https://medium.com/article-group/stop-controlling-start-creating-e5c51032720b

['Steve Bryant']

2019-06-03 14:24:14.360000+00:00

['Design', 'Marketing', 'Creativity', 'Advertising']

Seeing Sounds: What It’s Like to Live With Synesthesia

Elemental: What is happening when someone experiences synesthesia? Dr. Richard Cytowic: It’s an issue of cross talk. All brains have cross talk among not only the senses, but among the different aspects of cognition and thinking. It’s just that synesthetes have more of this cross talk, and they’re consciously aware that they have it; therefore, they experience this overt synesthesia. I read that everyone has synesthesia to a degree. It’s just that some are not aware that they have it, right? We’re largely unaware of the cross couplings that are going on in our brain all the time. For example, when we’re at the movies, we believe that the sound is coming from the actor’s mouth on the screen, not the speakers that are surrounding us. These kinds of things are so common that we don’t even think that they’re unusual in any way. It’s only when people say, “Oh, I see music,” that some think that’s rather peculiar. If you think about it, it has to be that way because otherwise we’d never be as intelligent and creative as we are today. So this is part of human evolution? I don’t know if I would frame it in terms of evolution. It’s just that [synesthetes are] aware they have a different texture of reality because they’re more aware of what’s going on. It’s obviously a very delightful trait to have. Synesthetes have measurably superior memories than the rest of us because, again, they have all these different sensations that help them hook things onto. Their ability to index their spatial memory is extremely good. They can see things in their mind’s eye. I remember talking to my mom about [the way my memory is organized] and asking her, “When you see the calendar, do you see January through June in one column, and then July through December in the other column?” And she just said, “Yeah. Doesn’t everybody?” It’s funny. So she has a similar [type of synesthesia]. And how does it help you? It definitely helps with my memory. It helps at work. When I’m trying to recall where I saw something on a page, for example, I can usually in my mind’s eye visualize, “Oh, it’s on my top left page, right over here.” And also just in general, I am very organized and everything has to have its place. This [spatially-oriented memory] is very typical. So my mother has it as well — is it genetic? One in 23 people inherit the genes for synesthesia. A smaller number—or one in 90 people worldwide—has some kind of overt synesthesia. The most common are [seeing] colored days of the week, colored letters and numerals, colored hearings, etc. So, that’s 4% of the population, which is really quite high. Why does evolution maintain this gene for a pretty, but obviously useless, trait? The answer, I think, is that it’s really a gene for metaphor. As a species, it makes us much more creative, and we’re able to see connections that are not necessarily logical or rational. That must have to do with the fact that we hear of more cases among artists or creatives? There are more synesthetes who happen to be famous artists than there are famous artists who happen to be synesthetic. So yeah, we know it because of the people who talk about it. Before this, I googled synesthesia and one of the things that auto-populated in the search bar was, “Is synesthesia a mental illness?” Even though it might have gained more exposure today than when you started researching, people still don’t really understand. There’s this unwillingness to accept that other people have a different point of view. And then from a biological point of view, a small change in one’s DNA completely alters how you perceive the world. But some say, “Oh, this is crazy because I don’t understand that. Therefore, it must be wrong.” Are there any correlations that you’ve found between synesthesia and cognitive function? People with synesthesia have elevated memory; they have elevated spatial sense. Then there are also some real deficits. They have difficulty with arithmetic and with direction findings, so they get lost. Especially in cities that are set up on a grid. And why is that? If you have an elevation in one [brain hemisphere], you’re likely to find a diminution somewhere else. It’s a use it or lose it [kind of thing]. And so if you have it, you may have difficulties. Right/left confusion is very common. Direction with signs, difficulty with mathematics—all of that. You’re describing my life to a T. It’s like how a blind person may have a heightened sense of smell or hearing because they can’t see, right? It is very common among blind people. Their visuality or unused visual cortex is available—both for other things. And so other brain maps encroach onto the now unused visual cortex. I know there are different kinds and combinations of synesthesia. How many combinations are there? About 165 different kinds, but some are much more common than others. And the main thing is that synesthesia is often a one-way street. So, if sound goes to vision, vision normally doesn’t go to sound. There’s a small minority of people who are bidirectional, and it is confusing to them. What would that look like? There’s a music teacher outside of London whose synesthesia does go in both directions. She lives a relatively restricted life in the country because otherwise whenever she’s seeing electric signs, [they] create this blaring sound that’s disruptive and confusing. She participated in a BBC documentary [in the 1990s] and agreed to go into Piccadilly Circus at night, with all those neon signs. She described [the sensations] saying, ‘This is a horrible sound and it’s screaming at me.’ And then after about 30 or 40 seconds, she says, ‘I’ve got to get out of here. I’m going to pass out.’ Wow. There are so many more different combinations than I realized. Again, some are much more common than others. With color and movement and shape, I often say it’s like fireworks as long as the sound is going. So some shape and color appears, it scintillates, moves around a little bit. It fades and gets replaced by something else as long as the stimulating sound continues. [Overall], I think if there’s [one] lesson in synesthesia, it would be that listening is not a passive experience of hearing sounds. Listening is an active process. Everybody has a point of view different from yours.

https://elemental.medium.com/seeing-sounds-what-its-like-to-live-with-synesthesia-fcec02831a1

['Kara Mavros']

2020-05-12 20:23:45.343000+00:00

['Senses', 'Brain', 'Life', 'Science', 'Neuroscience']

Create Your Playbook: A Solution for All Life Has to Throw at You

Create Your Playbook: A Solution for All Life Has to Throw at You The one, priceless book you must write over your lifetime Create your own custom playbook for life’s solutions Ever wish you had a book you could pull off the shelf and it would give you the answer to any motivational problem? I’ve got the solution here. Ever have a bad day when you can’t get started, when the world seems to conspire against you? Here’s the answer. This is your playbook. I got the idea loosely from the famous motivational guru, Jim Rohn, through a fantastic, self-help guy named Alexander Heyne. The basic idea is that whenever you encounter a struggle in life, you perform a deep analysis in a journal. This project is bigger than me, but I hope to do it justice enough you find value in it. The playbook concept may be the best self-help book ever created — and you’re going to write it! We’ll get to the how-to parts of crafting your playbook in a minute, but first I want to delve into why it’s important to make your own. We all need a playbook. My playbook is different than yours is different than hers. Every coach has a playbook. We don’t run into battle without a plan, or go off on a journey without a map. For some reason we repeat the same emotional battles without giving ourselves the tools to get through them. Emotions effect our work. When we can’t pull through the darker emotional states, most of us avoid the work altogether. We hide in our caves. We take the easy way out. We escape, using things that harm us. I need a playbook. You need a playbook. We all need a playbook. The basic premise of the playbook is you dedicate a specific journal for the process. This is a collection of emotional states and project hurdles. You’ll ad to this collection over the course of your life. Every time you run into a wall, instead of avoiding the problem or ignoring it, you perform a deep analysis on a page or two. As time progresses, you’ll refer to the playbook for answers rather then add to it. Eventually, you’ll repeat these problems. Now you’ll be ready. We all have a core set of behaviors that make us who we are. We tend to repeat these behaviors every time we run into a similar problem. I know I didn’t realize how repetitive my behavior was. You may not either. When you analyze each problem in a playbook, you’ll see the pattern. You can say when I feel this way if I do this, I can make it better. Or, if I run into this problem with my business, last year I had the same problem. This is what worked. This story is just to get you started. This is a lifetime process of addition and analysis. Your playbook is yours alone. Although it may help others, this is a bespoke solution for your life. You will collect, take-apart, and solve some of the most-difficult problems in your life. We’ll take them apart in tiny pieces. Eventually, you’ll have priceless answers. Let’s get started, eh?

https://augustbirch.medium.com/create-your-custom-playbook-a-solution-for-all-that-life-has-to-throw-at-you-908e4a8fd5b1

['August Birch']

2019-12-05 17:26:05.380000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing']

Noonish In The Garden Of Wit And Charm

Aimée is currently a Top Writer in Fiction, Poetry, Food, Satire, and Parenting, who writes about dogs, relationships, mental health, food, and more! We at Random Awesome are honored to name her our Featured Author for November 2020, and she kindly agreed to answer a few questions. Family, Dogs, and Gardens — Oh my! RA: Tell us a little about yourself. My name is Aimée Gramblin — I’m a 42-year-old Oklahoman who lives in Tulsa with my husband of 18 (!) years, 2 children, Jaden (12), and Ceci (short for Cecilia, 10), and our two dogs, Juno and Nugget. When I’m not writing, I’m wandering our backyard, searching for all things nature and gardening. My greatest moments of understanding and reflection usually occur in the garden. Gardening and nature allowed me to write my memoir, which was a huge exercise in healing. Photo of the Gramblin family — provided by Aimée Gramblin In December 2019/January 2020, I experienced a debilitating bout of depression and finally realized that along with my known mental health issues, I’d been dealing with chronic pain most of my life. I wrote about that here. After working outside as a gardener at our local botanic garden for almost 3 years, I resigned from my job and have been finding my way back to writing professionally since I’ve been healed enough to do so. Red Fred and Round-Robin RA: When did you start writing? I think I started writing in my head when my dad played records, made up stories for me called “Red Fred,” and my mom and dad both read to me. My mom and I recorded round-robin stories on a tape player before I could write, I think; thus a storyteller was born. It’s definitely in my genes. In 2nd grade, we kept a writing journal, and Mrs. Nichols responded enthusiastically to each entry. I’ve been writing in some way or another ever since. My college degrees are in English-Creative Studies with poetry emphasis (a BA and MA). Bless Me and Run with Wolves RA: What authors and books inspire you? Rudolfo Anaya, who wrote Bless Me, Ultima, has had a deep influence on me, and I think you can see that in my Aleks and Gaby series, which is published every Friday in PS I Love you for Fiction Friday. I recently — finally — listened to Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, which really resonated with me. This year has been my Wild Woman year for sure. I find myself drawn to a lot of Latin American literature — the mix of magical realism, emotion, and intuition speaks to me. One more book I’ll mention is In The Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez. Hooked on Medium RA: What inspired you to join Medium? I thought blogging was kind of a past-tense boat that I’d missed out on. Then, in March 2020, my mom (INFJ Elder on Medium) told me she’d started a WordPress blog and felt very frustrated in learning how to build it. I offered to do a little research and try to find something easier. I found Medium, signed up, started writing, and got hooked pretty quickly! :D RA: What’s your favorite thing about publishing on Medium? It’s so quick! The chances of my stories being seen are fairly high — and then I get to talk about them. I’m no longer writing into a void. Beautiful friendships have bloomed through Medium. The networking has been amazing! Ok — that’s more than one thing, lol. photo provided by Aimée Gramblin Shout-Outs! RA: Want to shout out to some authors? Now’s your chance! Yes! First of all, you, Toni Tails! I’m inspired by your amazing ability to navigate deep, painful life experiences and also bring a quirky, fun, vivid presence to the platform. I’d also like to shout-out my co-editors and good friends at Age of Empathy, Shanna Loga and Melissa Bee. Shanna writes in-depth think pieces and has recently broken into poetry as well. Melissa writes inspiration, poetry, fiction, and more. They are both incredibly talented writers and wonderful people. Susan Brearley, MuddyUm owner; Jay Squires, Genius in a Bottle founder; and Victor Sarkin, current Genius in a Bottle owner — have all been wonderful mentors. Shout-Out to Dad! I’d also like to give my dad, Dr. Steven E. Brown, a shout-out. You can find his books, which are based on disability culture, on Amazon. How to Support Aimée I’m working on a WordPress site, but it’s very bare-bones right now. You can also find me on; If you’re interested in hiring me or collaborating, email aimee@gramblin.com — let’s talk! More Stories by

https://medium.com/random-awesome/noonish-in-the-garden-of-wit-and-charm-5257b8fc9441

['Toni Tails']

2020-11-02 06:38:01.234000+00:00

['Humor', 'Family', 'Productivity', 'Creativity', 'Writing']

The Creativity Secrets of Jeff Tweedy

Jeff Tweedy's memoir, Let's Go (So We Can Get Back) includes expected anecdotes about his growing up, his struggles with addiction and the evolving nature of his band, Wilco. It's also about his creative process, which I found most fascinating. I've pulled a few of the creativity lessons from the book. Please keep in mind these nuggets are not as valuable as they are within the context of the book, but it's still valuable (to me, anyway) to have a concise list. Be Vulnerable It's a strength. His "superpower.” He has a "bone crushing earnestness, a weaponized sincerity.” Tweedy says he is "impervious to peer's shame. They couldn't make me recoil with their snickering or judgmental sneers." The sneers and snickering are powerful and prevent most of us from sharing our art, or our idea, or something new. Being able to put those sneers aside and perform, or write, or publish is so valuable. Failing is Genius As a result of Tweedy’s vulnerability, he is comfortable with failing. In fact he encourages it. "The people who seem the most like geniuses are not geniuses. They're just more comfortable with failing. They try more and they try harder than other people.” Being vulnerable goes hand in hand with your willingness to fail. When you fail often, you learn more, and, eventually, you'll succeed. And then, one day, you’ll be labeled a genius. Have a Secret Lab From Fretboard Journal Having a dedicated lab or workspace is important. Tweedy's is the Loft, a Chicago studio/office/hangout for the band. It's a place designed for playing, jamming and recording. It's their space, intended for the purpose of their creativity. Having that nook, or desk, or office is important. It’s the workshop for innovation. Keeping that space dedicated to one purpose helps keep your mind focused on that purpose. Wilco has new and vintage instruments, bunk beds and a kitchen. For most of us, a quiet desk will suffice. A table at a noisy coffee shop probably will not. Find the Tools that Work for You Tweedy says: “I learned pretty early on that I don’t like new strings. They’re so bright and cheery. I hate everything about them. I need strings that are weighted down by history, inhibited by their own filthy past.” Those overused strings are Tweedy’s constraints that he chooses to work with. He recognizes that this medium works for his voice and his type of songwriting. From these tools, his creativity emerges. For you and me, it’s recognizing where and how you do your best work and working within those constraints. For me, my passion is finding new ways to tell stories about technology, and ensuring these stories are related succinctly, simply and memorably. That’s my domain. That's my constraint. Those are my old strings. Bring in New Voices From Wilco Facebook page Even though Wilco has been around for nearly 25 years, the roster, other than Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt, has flipped several times. Some of these personnel changes, like with guitarist Jay Bennett, are famous and dramatic. Other departures were very cordial and professional. Tweedy acknowledges that new talent infuses the band with new ideas. Bennett's ideas were critical to the classic album: Being There. Glen Kotche and Nels Cline joined later and brought new talents and opportunities for experimentation. Over time, Tweedy has collaborated with other artists like Billy Bragg, Mavis Staples and even his own sons. These collaborations allow him to explore new aspects of his creativity and pushes him. We should find new partners to do the same in our own endeavors.

https://andrew-marti.medium.com/the-creativity-secrets-of-jeff-tweedy-845ccec8a25e

['Andrew Marti']

2020-01-09 21:14:58.186000+00:00

['Creativity', 'Books', 'Music', 'Innovation']

Hungry for More — Eating to Fill the Void Inside

How do you know if you’re comfort eating or just hungry? So many of us suffer from food addiction that it might be difficult to understand the difference. There are some signs you can use to know when you may be eating from stress rather than from hunger. If you suspect you may be eating to fill the void inside, you can learn how to tell the difference. Wanting specific foods If you have a strong desire for specific food and don’t want anything else, this stems from emotional hunger. When your body is actually in need of food, the desire for what to eat is not as defined. While you might have some desire based on nutrients your body needs, if you find you want one particular food or texture then you want the taste and not the nutrients. Eating without thinking If you start to eat something and don’t even think about what you’re consuming or how much, this is another sign you may be emotionally eating. Mindlessly consuming an entire bag of chips is driven by the comfort of habit and not by the need for food. Desire to eat is sudden One of the biggest indicators that your hunger is driven by a void inside instead of a need for sustenance is if you suddenly become hungry. This is similar to how someone addicted to cigarettes will need to smoke immediately after a stressful incident. Something has triggered the feelings you’re trying to avoid. Real hunger comes on slowly and over time. It’s also regular, while emotional hunger comes with circumstances or memories that are brought up. It leads to guilt Food addiction will lead you to feel guilty for eating. It’s tied closely to shame and lowered self-esteem. All addictions involve these feelings, and it creates a spiral that’s hard to climb out of. You eat to escape terrible emotions and thoughts, but that eating creates more of those emotions and thoughts. It won’t satisfy Because of this, while emotional eating may alleviate these unpleasant experiences for a few moments, it lacks any real satisfaction. You will only end up feeling the same or worse. Because it’s not actually helping to heal that internal void, it won’t stop these emotions from just coming up again and again. You feel it in a different way Hunger is physical and you will feel it in your stomach as a pang or grumbling. Emotional hunger is driven by feelings. It will show itself as a craving or desire for certain foods that you can’t get out of your head. You will want tastes or textures instead of simply satisfying a physical need.

https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/hungry-for-more-eating-to-fill-the-void-inside-6e55d1fa2bf3

['Kahli Bree Adams']

2020-10-07 14:01:10.684000+00:00

['Self', 'Mental Health', 'Health', 'Psychology', 'Food']

Permissionless Professors #9: David Perell

We believe monetization is a hidden secret. Secrets hiding in plain sight. From the psychology of anchoring, the mathematics of power-law pricing tables, the application of demand elasticity, and the market positioning of your price — your path to better monetization awaits. Follow

https://medium.com/monetization-manifesto/permissionless-professors-9-david-perell-b58b936ef9e6

['Gary Bailey - Monetization Manifesto']

2020-12-17 15:40:31.549000+00:00

['Growth', 'Marketing', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Monetization']

How Memory and Learning Can Improve Quality of Life

Nancy D. Chiaravalloti, PhD is Director of the Center for Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Research and the Center for Traumatic Brain Injury Research at Kessler Foundation and Research Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Rutgers University, New Jersey Medical School. Dr. Chiaravalloti conducts research in cognitive rehabilitation, particularly in new learning, memory and processing speed. She has led numerous externally funded randomized clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of cognitive rehabilitation protocols in clinical populations, examining post-treatment changes from multiple vantage points such as objective behavior (neuropsychological tests), everyday life (questionnaires, tests of daily life functioning) and at the level of the brain (functional neuroimaging). In this interview, Nancy Chiaravalloti discusses her research on memory and learning and its potential impact. She also gives us a glimpse into the future of neuroscience and how technology is enabling new advances in research. What is the focus of your research? My research seeks to identify treatments for improving new learning and memory. New learning and memory refers to the acquisition of knowledge or skills by experience, study or being taught [learning; https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/learning] and the means by which this information is stored [memory; https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/memory] for later use. Several neurological illnesses and injuries are associated with deficits in new learning and memory, such as Multiple Sclerosis, Dementia, and Traumatic Brain Injury. These deficits have a significant impact on an individual’s everyday life and overall quality of life. Why is this work important? Research has shown that difficulties with new learning and memory have a significant impact on everyday life and overall quality of life for several reasons. First, our memories are essential to who we are as individuals and as members of the communities in which we engage. For example, a characteristic that a person might use to describe himself could be “easy to get to know”. The presence of this characteristic however relies on your memory in several respects. You have to remember your previous experiences with other people and be comfortable getting to know new people. You have to be aware that you do not know this new person and engage openly in conversation about yourself. Finally, you have to be able to quickly recall information about yourself that could come up in casual conversation and may be highly variable depending on the person you are meeting. Memory deficits could negatively impact your access to any or all of this information and result in you being a more difficult persons to get to know. Another example is evident in all employment settings. Specifically, we all build skills within our professions. The accumulation of such knowledge is the result of numerous learning experiences and the memory of information acquired over years. To function successfully in our work environments, we rely on this accumulated knowledge and memory problems would thus inhibit successful work functioning. Our memories additionally guide our behavior, whether recent or distant. Therefore, if a person is not remembering accurately, behavior may seem bizarre or out of place. For example, an individual may fail to remember a colleague that he or she met at a business conference several times. When he meets this colleague at the next conference and does not remember him/her, he may introduce himself as if they had never met before. The colleague would perceive this as odd, yet the behavior is the result of memory failure. A third factor to consider is that our everyday actions and routines are largely based on memory. The routine of dropping your child off at school, then going to work is based on your memory of that routine. Any disruption in that routine, such as stopping at the bank prior to going to your office, is reliant on a recent memory that there is a need to stop at the bank. Everyday life is substantially less efficient in the presence of memory dysfunction. The examples provided thus far are significant memory lapses. However, even seemingly simple tasks rely on memory. Cooking a favorite recipe, even when written down, relies on memories of what to include a little more of, which pan is best to use, or if it is better to cook the dish just a little longer. The act of doing laundry relies on the memories of how to use your specific washing machine, which red clothes do not run when washed, or whether or not to use bleach with a particular load of laundry. These seemingly insignificant tasks rely on memory for effective execution and when memory falters, such tasks suffer. The impact on the individual can be devastating. What are some of the challenges associated with this research? Memory is a very challenging construct to research because it is heavily intermingled with so many other aspects of the individual. Most notably, emotional functioning has a substantial impact on memory. A large literature base indicates that depressed individuals have poorer memory abilities. Further, research has shown that when memory improves, depression improves as well. It is thus important to distinguish between these constructs, yet this is difficult as they are intertwined. Variability in other aspects of cognition similarly creates challenges in evaluating memory abilities and treating memory deficits. Many cognitive capacities, such as attention, working memory and processing speed, form the foundation on which new learning and memory functions operate. For example, a child with Attention-Deficit Disorder (ADD) may have poor grades in school. This however, is not because the child is having learning and memory problems that impair the acquisition of new information presented in school. It is rather because the child cannot pay attention sufficiently to allow the information to reach the encoding stage of the memory process. Thus, the child cannot learn and remember the new material due to attention deficits — NOT due to learning and memory deficits. In addition to the consistent influences of other constructs on learning and memory, it also must be appreciated that all of these constructs change over time — even in healthy persons. That is, we all have days when we are sad and days when we are happier. Many of us contest that we are “morning people” and thus function better in the mornings — with our attentional control and learning and memory systems presumably functioning better in the mornings as well. Such individual differences add variability to the assessment of learning and memory, not only between individuals but also within the same individual. When working with individuals with neurological diseases, it is important to note that diseases often fluctuate over time. In MS, for example, individuals often experience exacerbations — times during which their symptoms are more severe and have a greater impact on their daily functioning. During an exacerbation, cognitive functioning would be expected to be more impaired, improving after the exacerbation. Yet the boundaries of that exacerbation are not always clear — and sometimes it is not even clear that a given patient might be experiencing an exacerbation at all. Some diseases are additionally known to progress, such as Parkinson’s Disease. With the disease itself changing at the level of the brain, the memory difficulties experienced would be expected to change as well — yet another source of variability. Historical events additionally influence cognition. On the news today we often hear about COVID fatigue — a sense of mental tiredness related to the Coronavirus pandemic. However, fatigue is also typically associated with depression, as well as memory difficulties. COVID may also bring with it post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — which similarly entwines with depression and memory deficits. This is similar to what might have been observed in the NY region after the 911 attacks. What advances in neuroscience and public health are you most excited about and why? The neuroscience field is rapidly changing, largely due to advances in technology. The field of Neuroimaging is constantly changing with new technologies and new approaches to imaging data analysis every day. These new methodologies provide researchers with a window to the brain — not only in terms of structure, but also in terms of function. The advances help us understand memory functioning at more intricate levels, furthering our understanding of more minute structures in the brain. We have been increasingly utilizing neuroimaging to evaluate cognitive rehabilitation techniques and understand how they work. Advances in Virtual Reality (VR) similarly impact our understanding of cognition and ability to evaluate cognitive rehabilitation. VR technology is increasingly becoming more refined and programmable to accurately reflect everyday life. VR programming allows us to evaluate cognition in an everyday life setting while maintaining consistency in the environment and objectivity in the evaluation. It additionally affords us an opportunity to place cognitive rehabilitation protocols within a daily life setting to increase the generalizability of treatment to daily life — which is a major need in the treatment of cognitive impairments. Tele-rehabilitation has understandably grown significantly during the past 9 months. This technology has allowed clinicians and researchers to continue to evaluate and treat cognition remotely — maintaining the required social distancing and minimizing risk of infection. These advances however, are beneficial well beyond the boundaries of the current pandemic. Transportation to clinical appointments has long been a struggle for the disability community and some of my proposed work has addressed the need for remote treatment. Tele-rehabilitation is an exciting advancement that allows us to circumvent the physical disabilities, transportation challenges and infectious control issues that plague the disability community. What is the future of this research? This research is primed to have a significant impact on our ability to maintain new learning and memory abilities in many populations of people currently living with impairments in these domains. This includes individuals with neurological diseases such as MS, individuals who have had a trauma to the brain such as traumatic brain injury or stroke, individuals aging and experiencing normal declines in learning and memory, as well as individuals living with dementia. We are making progress in regard to improving learning and memory in these populations but this research is unfortunately slow due to the need for human participation. As we continue to move forward, we will be able to maximize our techniques to increase the benefit to individuals and help more people enjoy greater memory abilities for a longer period of time. Technology only helps us work toward our goal. Through the application of neuroimaging, virtual reality and tele-rehabilitation, we will be able to maximize the efficacy of individual techniques and increase the number of people we can treat with effective techniques. What opportunities do you see on the horizon for this and related research? Given the rapidly developing technology, as described above, as well as the dire need to improve learning and memory coupled with the limited capacity to do so to date, the opportunities for growth in this research is substantial. It is important to recognize that memory fails all the time — even in healthy individuals. There is so much room to improve memory — we just have to identify the best way to do that. Our failures to date highlight the opportunities for future work. What would enable further advances in this research? In addition to the continued technological advances that will continue to advance this field, greater participation of healthy individuals, as well as individuals with neurological diseases, would be a tremendous asset in our ability to answer the questions we pose. Human research is difficult as individuals must consent to the research and commit to spending the time in the ongoing clinical trials. We encourage people to volunteer for our research and greatly appreciate it when they do. How does technology influence this work? Neuroimaging developments in particular have had a significant impact on our ability to identify and understand changes in cognition in the face of neurological illness and injury. Our previous work has identified neurofunctional changes that underlie cognitive deficits in both MS and TBI. In addition, we have shown that treatment with a memory rehabilitation treatment developed at Kessler Foundation, the modified Story Memory Technique (KF-mSMT™) results in increased activity in brain regions known to underlie memory functioning on functional neuroimaging. This technology has thus advanced our knowledge of not only the memory impairment itself, but also the changes in brain function that result from our treatment. Our ongoing work utilizes functional neuroimaging to examine the KF-mSMT™ in other neurological populations (e.g. dementia) and examines neurological changes associated with memory rehabilitation protocols that we have developed more recently. What future research will be enabled by advances in technology? Advances in technology will enable us to understand the source of the efficacy of memory treatments and maximize benefit from such treatments. In addition, advances in technologies such as Virtual Reality will allow the development of more advanced cognitive rehabilitation treatments by recreating everyday life in a structured, safe, observable environment. The combination of neuroimaging and virtual reality in one research study would allow us to understand efficient and inefficient daily life functioning at a neurofunctional level. This knowledge can help direct treatment efforts to the symptoms or deficits that have the greatest impact on daily life. What about this work inspires you? This is a very exciting line of work. The extent of that which we do not know is inspiring. There are so many questions to ask and research studies to design to answer those questions. We have so much room to improve and grow. The most motivating aspect of this work however is that there are so many people who can be helped. We all would like to improve our memory abilities, but there are people who truly suffer from significantly impaired memory. It is so rewarding when a research participant sends a note of thanks because they were helped by your treatment. There is nothing more inspiring than knowing that the work you do truly improved someone’s life.

https://medium.com/predict/how-memory-and-learning-can-improve-quality-of-life-991b64755a19

['Carbon Radio']

2020-12-04 02:00:37.647000+00:00

['Neuroscience', 'Life', 'Future', 'Science', 'Learning']

Substack Formatting

Bold | Italics | Code | Hyperlink | Image | Divider Line Bold Pressing the letter “B” icon will create bold text: Italics Pressing the letter “I” icon will create italicized text: Toggle The Code Pressing the “<>” icon will toggle the text, rendering it in code format: Hyperlink Pressing the “🔗” icon will toggle the Image Pressing the insert image icon will allow you to upload an image. This will also work for inserting GIFs, although like many publishing platforms, Substack can be slow when it comes to uploading GIFS (or it may take a few attempts to render the image properly). Horizontal Dividing Line Pressing the “horizontal dividing rule” button will insert a subtle, yet effective, horizontal line that acts as a page divider or separator. Here is an example of the Divider Line used in an article: Buttons One of the most distinctive features of the Substack editor, is its buttons feature. If you click on the buttons icon, a drop down menu will appear, with the following options: Subscribe Now — Inserts plain button labeled Subscribe Now. This button will take readers to the landing page of your publication where they can view the free vs. paid options. Sample Button: Landing Page: Special Offer — Inserts a button which promotes a discount or promotion. You must create a special offer before creating this button. To create a special offer, click the settings button, located in the upper right hand corner of your Substack account. Then scroll down to section and click the manage button next to the Special offers section. Once you have created a special offer, you can click on the special offer button, select your special offer (you can have more than one): This will produce a custom button, as seen below: Give a gift subscription — This allows publishers to insert button, allowing readers to gift a subscription to your publication. Sample Button: View comments — If you are writing an article that may attract many comments, and you want to direct readers to the comments section (which is normally discretely displayed at the bottom of an article), the view comments button is useful. When you insert this button into your article, readers who click it will be able to view a full page layout comments section, making the comments easier to read. Sample Button: Full Page Comments Section: Share this post — Inserting the share this post button, will produce a button that, when clicked, will offer readers easy optionsto share a newsletter post on social media. Sample Button: Pop-Up Window When Share Button is Clicked: Share Medium Blogging Guide’s Newsletter — This button creates a similar button to the one above. The only difference is this promotes the entire newsletter as opposed to a single article. Custom Button —The custom button is a button where you can easily customize the button text and customize the hyperlink where the button will send readers, when they click it. This can be useful for directing readers to crucial resources, featured articles, or your external websites. Style The style button in the Substack editor controls the different levels of HTML headings you can create in your articles. HTML defines six levels of headings. A heading element implies all the font changes, paragraph breaks before and after, and any white space necessary to render the heading. The heading elements are H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6 with H1 being the highest (or most important) level and H6 the least. For example: Search engines use the headings to index the structure and content of your web pages. More importantly in the context of newsletters, users often skim a page by its headings. It is important to use headings to show the document structure. As an example, here is an article with multiple heading elements: Custom Lists Substack allows for the creation of two types of auto-formatted lists — bulleted and numbered. Bulleted List To create a bulleted list, click on the bullet list icon in the Substack editor: Numbered List To create a numbered list, click on the bullet list icon in the Substack editor: Block Quotes A block quotation is a direct quotation that is not placed inside quotation marks but instead is set off from the rest of the text by starting it on a new line and indenting it from the left margin. Block quotations may be used to feature long blocks of text containing quotes or as a tool to feature certain content. Examples: Creating block quotes with Substack’s editor is easy. All you need to do is click on the quotation icon (far right of the editor), labeled “wrap in a block quote” as seen below:

https://medium.com/substack-writing/substack-formatting-7a8f05f537c9

['Casey Botticello']

2020-08-04 23:23:37.668000+00:00

['Advice', 'Design', 'Business', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Writing']

How to Initiate Innovative Business Collaboration

How to Initiate Innovative Business Collaboration Creating synergy is one of the main goals for collaboration in transforming business environments. Collaboration is essential to create synergy in diverse teams, especially for transformation initiatives. Many businesses in this economic climate perform substantial transformative activities to stay competitive in the market. However, collaboration sounds like a stale term posing connotations. The term ‘collaboration’ is overused and it loses its significance, especially with the emergence of internet technologies and widespread digital transformation initiatives. For example, some consider social media as collaborative or collaboration tool. In reality, these so-called social media collaboration tools have little to do with the actual business collaboration. There is a tendency to consider social media tools as practical, useful, and highly valuable for business collaboration purposes. However, when we carefully examine these tools, we can see that they are more information-sharing tools rather than actual business collaboration tools. Here is my story on how to spark innovative business collaboration in the workplace. You can find more of these stories on my News Break profile.

https://medium.com/illumination/how-to-initiate-innovative-business-collaboration-448c025d01af

['Dr Mehmet Yildiz']

2020-12-28 16:21:39.071000+00:00

['Business', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Technology', 'Writing']

5 Top Tips for Creating Business Card Designs

Creating a fantastic business card is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of determination and skill to make sure your design is the perfect match for your brand — and to be honest; many business owners still miss the mark. It is not that they are trying to make boring business card designs that do not work. It is just that they do not know the secret ingredients to a successful business card. What secret ingredients, you ask? Here five top tips for creating a business card design that is a success with your clients. 1 — Colour The colour is one of the biggest assets of any business card. In fact, brightly coloured cards are ten times more successful than plain, white ones. Why is colour so effective? First of all, the colour makes your card pop. It catches people’s attention from a distance in a way that white space does not. Moreover, colour is a fabulous marketing tool. Colours each have a set of cultural and emotional associations that help showcase a brand’s personality. Warm colours tend to create a sense of energy, whereas cool colours are softer and more soothing. Dark colours are a bit more ominous and tend to appeal to men, who typically prefer shades (colours with black added). Colours with white added, also known as tints, are considered more feminine and are preferred by women. These overarching associations will help you get a sound basis for your colour palette. You might need a cool shade or a warm tint, for instance. Then it is time to pick individual colours, and you will soon find that each one has its own unique set of interpretations that will give your card meaning. Want a bright yellow card? That tells people you are cheerful and enthusiastic. Baby pink? That is calm and feminine. Purple? You have got a taste for the finer things in life. It goes on — there’s meaning for every colour. There are even shades that work best for certain industries, so be sure to pick the one that speaks to your brand’s identity the most. Now is a good time to mention one important detail: if you already have brand colours, you should include them on your business card. This will help you make sure your clients receive a consistent brand message. Related: Personal Branding Tips — How to Brand Yourself Online 2 — Texture If you think the texture is not important to business cards, think again. It is a leading cause of conversions. Some people will respond to a purely visual design, but a textured card engages multiple senses. That helps more potential clients create positive memories of your brand and makes them more likely to contact you in the future. In addition to a wealth of business card tips, this graphic reveals that there are three primary ways to give your card texture. One is to change up the paper stock. Instead of a traditional stock — which tends to be a smooth white paper that’s relatively flimsy — take the time to find something more unique. A thick stock or one with a crisp finish makes your card look more creative. It also sends the message that you are willing to invest in your marketing and your clients. Recycled or linen papers are also good options because they have rougher textures that customers will not be expecting. You can also create texture with particular imprint methods. Your printer will be able to help you decide if embossing, foil stamping, or letterpress printing is right for your design. The third and final way is to ditch the paper entirely and go for an entirely new manufacturing material. People have made their cards out of things as crazy as: Cotton Burlap Leather Metal Wood Meat Crackers Chocolate 3 — Shape The shape can refer to the form of the logo or image that you print on your card — or it can refer to the shape of the card itself. Custom die-cuts let you make the card look like literally any object you want. You can use them to create a mini product replica, which will remind prospects exactly what you do. Some printers will even help you make 3D business cards if you pay the right price. Lego, for instance, invested in little Lego people that look like its execs and bear their contact info. Of course, multiple custom dies are going to cost a bit more than regular ones. If you want to save money, it may be a good idea to stick with a simpler geometric shape. Shapes are similar to colours in that each one has its own unique set of psychological associations. Circles, for instance, are considered in a friendly way because they do not have the sharp edges that many other shapes have. If a ring feels a little too perfect, you can stretch it into an oval instead. Related: Financial Branding Tips: a Logo Design Guide for the Finance Industry Triangles are athletic and symbolise motion. Ironically, they are also the perfect design for a pizza place, since they are shaped just like a delicious slice of pepperoni. Squares have a reputation for their stability since all four sides are equal lengths. They have all the properties of a traditional rectangle card — just with a bit of a twist. If you are concerned that an unusual die-cut shape will not work for your business card, that is okay. You can also opt for subtle changes, like sides the bulge out slightly, so your card is not a perfect rectangle or round corners in place of standard square ones. 4 — Layout The goal of a business card is to create something so interesting people cannot bear the thought of throwing it away. But nobody wants to keep a business card they cannot read. Having a good layout is your ticket to an effective business card. The first step is to create design hierarchy. This means using size and spacing to set the most important elements apart from the rest. For example, your company logo design is a vital part of creating brand awareness — so it needs to be in a larger size. This should funnel down to your business name in a slightly smaller size, then your contact info in the smallest size. Because even though contact info is important, nobody will use it if he or she is not sure whom they are reaching out to. The next step is to allow plenty of white space in the design. While much of the advice on white space refers to web design, the principles that work on a website will work on your business card — just at a smaller scale. One great resource is this post from the Interaction Design Foundation. It defines different types of white space (yes, there is more than one) and explains how to choose the proper amount of white space for your design. The idea is that, rather than cramming elements into every single area, you should leave open sectors that give the brain a break from trying to process all the info on your card. If you are struggling to fit everything on your card, go through your info again. There is a good chance you do not actually need all of it. Don’t think you can take anything out? Planning to print on both sides of the card to instantly double your available design space. 5 — Get Professional Help Related: Sources of Design Inspiration It does not matter if you have all the right ingredients for a great business card — your design could still turn into a total disaster if you do not know how to put them all together. You will need to have someone help you review your design, whether that is your business partner, employees, or a friend who happens to have some design experience. However, amateur advice will only get you so far. If you are serious about creating a real business card, you need to look for a professional Graphic Designer to help you. So before you start worrying about the cost, relax. There are lots of designers who offer reasonable rates and turn projects around quickly, like this one. You can also search for designers by area of expertise. After all, it might be good to get someone who specialises in business card design to help with your, you know, business card. Another option: search based experience level. Sometimes the best designers are not the ones who have been in the business longest — especially since veteran artists may get set in their ways or charge high prices. Instead of hiring a designer based on what they have already done, look for someone based on what they can do. This strategy of recruiting for potential is highly effective because it will help you find someone who is willing to learn about your brand and your needs to create a good business card. Once you have found a designer or Branding Agency who meets all your criteria, you are ready to sit down with them to make a creative brief. This will arm them with all the info they need to turn your great ideas into a one-of-a-kind business card design!

https://medium.com/inkbot-design/5-top-tips-for-creating-business-card-designs-79bb570e976d

['Inkbot Design']

2017-09-18 12:38:30.522000+00:00

['Branding', 'Marketing', 'Design', 'Business', 'Startup']

I Tried Using A.I. To Replicate My Creative Process. It Got Weird.

I Tried Using A.I. To Replicate My Creative Process. It Got Weird. Can you turn a machine into a novelist? Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash The speculative-fiction writer Philip K. Dick used amphetamines and other stimulants to transform himself into a 24/7 writing machine. Powered by chemicals, he churned out 28 novels and more than 132 short stories (many of which used drugs as subject matter, including “A Scanner Darkly”). Nor was he alone: If pulp writers didn’t churn out as much copy as possible, they didn’t eat — and if that meant swallowing pills so you could write for two days straight, so be it. In some ways, the writing business hasn’t changed much in the past century. For thousands of writers, the volume of copy you generate is proportional to how much you earn. Drugs are still a way to power through — I know more than one journalist or blogger who developed a nasty Adderall habit — but often it’s just a combination of caffeine and desperation. I’m a journalist and editor who also writes pulp fiction on the side, so I’m as aware of the marketplace dynamics as anyone else in the writing business. Over the past year, I’ve been keeping an eye on the evolution of A.I. text generation, which is touted (by businesses) as a way of generating tons of content on the cheap, while derided (by writers) as a potential job killer. One of the more prominent A.I. text generators has been GPT-2, a “large-scale unsupervised language model” created by OpenAI, a semi-nonprofit (it’s complicated) that wants A.I. and machine-learning tools used in virtuous ways. The relatively new GPT-3 is a further refinement of the underlying technology. With a training dataset of 8 million web pages (featuring 1.5 billion parameters), GPT-2 was long-touted as capable of achieving “state-of-the-art performance on many language modeling benchmarks.” OpenAI initially refused to unleash it into the wild, fearful that it would be used to generate mountains of “fake news.” Last year, I tried an experiment where I fed GPT-2 a selection of opening lines from some of history’s greatest literary works (including Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”). My conclusion at the time was that the algorithm was capable of sticking with the subject matter for a few lines, but quickly became discombobulated and nonsensical. In other words, although A.I. is already capable of writing short news stories according to a fixed template (such as breakdowns of quarterly financial results), it didn’t seem like writers of longform and fiction pieces really had anything to fear. This week, I decided to see how the technology had evolved since my last run-through. Although GPT-3 is out in the ecosystem, and testable, I wanted to try something with the well-established GPT-2: A custom generator. A standard generator might have scraped text from millions upon millions of web pages in order to power itself, but the results are often mixed: For example, you could feed a GPT-powered platform a couple sentences of Jane Austin, only to have it spit back a mix of 2020 election news, gossip about 18th century British landed gentry, and a mangled Wikipedia entry. A custom generator, on the other hand, allows you to provide the examples that the system uses to train itself and generate text. InferKit, created by Adam Daniel King, is an evolution of the ultra-popular Talk to Transformer, a public-facing GPT-powered tool that earned a lot of press from Wired and other venues. It also allows you to upload .txt or CSV files, which it then uses as the basis for its custom generator (uploads are capped at 20 MB or 20,000 documents). For the purposes of this experiment, I fed InferKit a .txt file containing ~500,000 words of my fiction published over the past ten years, including novels, short stories, and poetry. It took about an hour to digest that data and learn from it. I then fed it a lengthy selection from the crime-fiction novella I’m writing right now: Miller returned to his tiny apartment on Avenue B. A monk would have found the space nicely minimalist. The mattress on the bedroom floor was the largest piece of furniture. His money, along with an assortment of guns, rested beneath the floorboards of the short hallway that separated the bedroom from the bathroom. On his way home, Miller had stopped at an all-night burger place on Avenue A and ordered the Big Jumbo Delight, two patties slathered with cheese and horseradish mayonnaise. He sat on the mattress, relishing each greasy swallow. The Ricky deal was a mess, because everything Ricky did was a mess. But how had he managed to score that enormous house? Conmen dreamed of that big score, and virtually all of them failed to land it. Yet Ricky, dumb Ricky, had somehow tricked his way into a mansion. Chewing the last bite of burger, Miller told himself that he would return to the townhouse in the morning, learn whatever there was to learn. Ten thousand dollars was nothing to wave off. And if Ricky was promising him that amount, it meant there was a lot more money in the pot. Stripping off his clothes, Miller lay back on the bed, his hands folded behind his head. Pale light from the streetlamps trickled past the barred windows, throwing a maze of shadows over his body. By focusing on his breathing and the faint pulse of his heart, he could drive away his worries about fingerprints and the clown and his patterns and Ricky, drive it all far enough away that he could drift off… Creak. Oh, you bastard. Creak. Creak. Creak. That old man knew he was home. Creak-creak-creak-creak. (It’s a first draft; go easy on me.) Here’s what an A.I. trained on ten years of my writing spat back as the next few paragraphs (I’ve inserted some paragraph breaks in order to give it a human-like flow): The clock on the far wall chimed eight minutes too late, the door burst open, and the old man stumbled into the living room. There was a chair on the sofa, the curtains drawn. A pair of sunglasses rested on the coffee table, set on the floor. Rick was nowhere in sight. Miller could hear a faint howl through the walls. The old man stumbled into the coffee table, leaning against it, startled at Miller’s actions. Miller sensed the fear in the man’s eyes, real, but the man had not seen him and yet. Miller waited for his wand, which never did arrive. The old man, his shirt torn, his jeans ripped asunder, walked over to the couch. Rising to his knees, he bent down, brushing against the back of Miller’s neck with his fingertips. That’s a little rough, Miller mused. It was a long way from Grandma’s farmhouse, and Grandma knew it, and you shouldn’t do that to people, the old man thought. Taking the older man’s hand in his own, Miller took the sunglasses from the coffee table, stuffing them into his mouth. “Can I get a cup of coffee?” Miller asked. “You say I have a parole board?” The old man looked at Miller with dark eyes. “What is that?” Miller blinked. “You on parole, are you?” Miller studied the old man’s features, reading his tense face. Dark circles under the dark eyes. And the old man’s mouth. Miller stopped when he noticed blood leaking from the corner of the man’s mouth. The old man reached into his shirt and yanked out the knife with a sad little whine, all purple and bony. Miller was certain the old man had seen him, though the man had none of that violence, no stalking in his victim’s mind. The old man brought the knife up and bit into Miller’s cheek, hard. Miller, looking at the old man as he banged on the table, only saw a good man standing, blood running down his cheeks. Miller’s throat clenched painfully, hard. “What is it?” the old man said, spitting the knife out. Obviously, none of that is what I actually intended to write next. It’s not even close, unless I wanted to write some kind of horrific mashup of David Lynch and Robert Coover’s underrated surrealist classic Ghost Town. But here’s the startling thing: It’s a pretty good imitation of my prose style, even if the action is nonsensical. If you want to be charitable, you could describe the GPT-2/InferKit results as “dreamlike,” in the same way that dreams proceed without any adherence to plot mechanics or even basic physics. But if you’re willing to put concerns about logic aside, there’s a smoothness here that suggests A.I. is progressing. In many ways, this experiment echoes Google’s Deep Dream, which attempted to use a neural net to “learn” images. That resulted in some very trippy, dreamlike pictures. For example, this is three men in a pool: Obviously, there are still substantial roadblocks before A.I. can comfortably take over fiction writing from human beings. A “general” A.I. (i.e., a “human-like” one; think HAL in 2001) would know that a human shouldn’t stuff sunglasses in their mouth. But these specialized, learning A.I.s that are filling our current world have no idea of existence beyond their highly specialized input; there’s no meta-awareness, no sense of structure. And that sense of structure, of the broader world, is what is going to protect fiction writers for quite some time to come. Writers must make intuitive leaps; they (hopefully) have an instinctive sense of their work’s structure and its ultimate goal. Or as Nabokov put it, when discussing the writing of Lolita: “These are the nerves of the novel. These are the secret points, the subliminal co-ordinates by means of which the book is plotted — although I realize very clearly that these and other scenes will be skimmed over or not noticed, or never even reached.” These are nuances that necessarily elude the machines. You could upload all of Nabokov or Philip K. Dick to a platform running GPT-2 or GPT-3, and you might get a facsimile of their style and tone, but you wouldn’t get the structure or creativity. Humans writing press releases might have good reason to be frightened for their jobs over the next five years, but novelists may not have cause for concern for decades, if ever. One marvels, though, at what Dick, high and feverish and smacking away at his typewriter keys, might have one with the concept of text predictors. Do androids dream of becoming great novelists?

https://nkolakowski.medium.com/i-tried-using-a-i-to-replicate-my-creative-process-it-got-weird-81efa2b0a2cf

['Nick Kolakowski']

2020-08-18 11:36:58.598000+00:00

['Novel', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Writing', 'Technology', 'Creativity']

Top 15 online courses to learn Docker, Kubernetes, and AWS in 2021

Top 15 online courses to learn Docker, Kubernetes, and AWS in 2021 javinpaul Follow Mar 31 · 12 min read Hello all, You’ve probably heard the buzz around Docker and Kubernetes. They have fundamentally changed the development and deployment process and been adopted by software teams of all sizes, and for good reason. Docker makes it considerably easier to create, deploy, and run applications with the use of containers, and Kubernetes takes it to the next level by managing containers for you and scaling your application as and when required. One of my goals this year is to master Docker and Kubernetes, How about you? I am sure you had made goals when this year started, but if not, you can still check out 10 Things Java developers can learn in 2021. It’s never too late. From my experience with interacting with many software developers, it seems DevOps is the top priority for many programmers. I have been receiving a lot of queries, emails, and chats about how to learn Docker and Kubernetes, two of the most popular DevOps tools. When it comes to learning, nothing beats personal training, but that’s not always feasible; hence we need to rely on self-learning using books and online courses, and that’s what I will suggest to you in this article. Until, a couple of years back, I was a big fan of books, but nowadays, I am using more and more online courses to get up-to-speed with new technology. They seem to better cover the 20% important part of the technology, which is used 80% of the time. Anyway, If you don’t know what Docker and Kubernetes are, let me give you a brief summary before I suggest you some online courses to learn Docker and Kubernetes in 2021. In simple words, Docker is a container where you can run your application without worrying about hardware and operating system versions, which makes it easy to spin off a new environment without worrying about config details. It provides both containers and a command-line tool to manage those containers while Kubernetes is a container orchestration system that manages your container effectively. Kubernetes is arguably the most crucial container management technology in the world and used a lot in a real production environment where you have many containers to manage. It’s essential from the scalability perspective and also to manage your resources effectively. Even though it’s not from Google, Its origin is. It’s created as an open-source by engineers who work on a similar tool in Google. You can understand that if it can work on the scale of Google, it’s definitely well tried and tested. In this article, I’ll share some of the best online courses from Udemy to learn Docker and Kubernetes, but if you are in a hurry and just want to join one class, then the Docker and Kubernetes: The Complete Guide by Stephen Grider is the best one to start with. 15 Best Online Courses to learn Docker, AWS, and Kubernetes Without wasting any more of your time, here is my list of some of the best courses to learn Docker and Kubernetes in 2021. These courses are created by an expert in the DevOps area who have real-world experience in using these tools. This is one of the comprehensive course to learn DevOps along with both Docker and Kubernetes. In this course, you will learn how to build, test, and deploy Docker applications with Kubernetes. The course starts from scratch, i.e. no previous experience with Docker or Kubernetes is required. Along the course, you will build a CI + CD pipeline from scratch with Github, Travis CI, and AWS. You will not only understand the purpose and theory of Kubernetes by building a complex app but also master the Docker CLI to inspect and debug running containers. This is another great course to learn Docker on Pluralsight. In this course, you will not only learn the fundamentals of Docker and containers but also some advanced features like Swarm mode, services, and stacks. You’ll start with installing Docker on the most common development and production platforms — Windows and Mac laptops, Windows Server, and Linux. After this course, you’ll be up and running a solid understanding of the fundamentals of Docker, along with some game-changing features. This is a great online course to learn Docker from scratch by Nigel Poulton. IF you don’t know Nigel, he is a Docker Captain and popular technology author. He is known for his engaging videos and books on cloud-native technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes. In this course you will with installing Docker on the most common development and production platforms — Windows and Mac laptops, Windows Server 2016, and Linux. After that, you’ll get to see some fundamental concepts of containers and images, including how to perform common management tasks. You’ll also spend a good deal of time covering all the new stuff introduced with Docker 1.12, including Swarm mode, services, scaling, rolling updates, stacks, and distributed application bundles. After completing this course, you’ll be up and running with some of the game-changing improvements announced with Docker 1.12 and have a solid understanding of the fundamentals of Docker. This is a great course to learn Docker programmers and developers on The Educative Team, an interactive coding platform that provides text and image-based courses for faster learning. If you prefer a text-based course then this is a great course to learn Docker in 2021, particularly for programmers and developers. This is another course from Educative, and you can join this course along with the previous one for learning both Docker and Kubernetes. As I said, the site is great if you prefer a text-based, learn-by-doing approach. Reading is always faster than watching and if you get bored watching videos, you should try this platform in 2021 for your online learning. In this course, you’ll start with the fundamentals of Kubernetes and what the main components of a cluster look like. You’ll then learn how to use those components to build, test, deploy, and upgrade applications, as well as how to achieve state persistence once your application is deployed. As a platform, Educative also has some of the best courses to prepare for coding interviews like Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions and Grokking the system design interview. It also has a lot of free resources like this free JavaScript tutorial to learn essential technologies. You can register for this course for free but if you like to take full advantage of the platform, I suggest you go for Educative Subscription, which costs $18(50% discount now) monthly, completely worth it for a programmer and software engineers where continuous learning is required. You’ll also learn how to secure your deployments and manage resources, which are crucial DevOps skills. This is another fantastic course to learn Docker by Nigel, especially if you want to learn Docker in-depth. In Docker Deep Dive, you’ll go from zero-to-Docker by learning everything you need to know to take your career to the next level and give you the confidence to start working with containers. This course is also good if you are preparing for Docker Certified Associate Exam as after completing this course you’ll be prepared for most of the topics presented on the Docker Certified Associate exam, and be ready to work with containers. This is another great course for people looking to learn Kubernetes in 2021. It is yet another gem from Nigel Poulton, author of the previous two Docker courses. In this course, you’ll learn the fundamentals of Kubernetes and the ‘Kubernetes way’. First, you’ll dive into Kubernetes architecture, what the main components and services are, and how they come together to build a production-class container infrastructure. After that, you’ll learn how to install and deploy Kubernetes on several cloud platforms. Finally, you’ll delve into working with pods, deployments, and services. By the end of this course, you’ll have a solid understanding of what Kubernetes is and how it works, as well as skills to deploy a Kubernetes cluster and simple applications. Btw, you would need a Pluralsight membership to get access to this course, which costs around $29 per month or $299 annually (14% discount). If you don’t have Pluralsight membership, I encourage you to get one because it allows you to access their 5000+ online courses on all the latest topics like front-end and back-end development, machine learning, etc. It also includes interactive quizzes, exercises, and the latest certification material. It’s more like Netflix for Software Developers and Since learning is an important part of our job, Pluralsight membership is a great way to stay ahead of your competition. Pluralsight also has a 10-day free trial without any commitment, which is a great way to not just access this course for free but also to check the quality of courses before joining Pluralsight. This is the best online course to learn Kubernetes in depth. As you already know that Kubernetes can run and manage your containerized applications. This course will teach you how to build, deploy, use, and maintain Kubernetes. You will learn how to install and configure Kubernetes (on your laptop/desktop or production-grade cluster on AWS). After this course, you should be able to run both stateless and stateful applications on Kubernetes. This course provides the beginner level introduction to Docker, the most famous DevOps tool. The course is entirely hands-on, so you will not just learn or listen but do a lot of exercises to actually practice the stuff you are learning. First, you will learn basic Docker commands with hands-on exercises, and then you will learn how to build Docker images using Dockerfiles. You will also learn Docker Swarm and Docker Compose and build an application stack using Docker Compose Files. In short, a complete Docker course for beginners with lots of hands-on exercises. This is one of the best courses to learn practical AWS you will find online. This course is created by a former Amazon engineer with 15 years of experience working on AWS. This is not your typical AWS reference course. You won’t find most of the knowledge that’s shared here in the AWS docs. The goal here is to help you realize which AWS features you’d be foolish not to use — features that have passed the test of time by being at the backbone of most things on the Internet. In this course, you’ll learn a technique used to help make reliable technical choices without getting paralyzed in the face of so many options. You’ll start by going through the most fundamental services AWS offers such as DynamoDB, S3, EC2. Each section breaks down how it’s used, the pros and cons, why you should (or shouldn’t) be using it, and more. Here is the link to sign up for this course — The Good Parts of AWS: Cutting Through the Clutter You can either buy this course or you can get and Educative membership to access this course. If you ask me, I suggest you get Educative Subscription which costs $17(50% discount now) monthly, completely worth it for a programmer and software engineers where continuous learning is required. Thanks to The Educative Team for this awesome course. This course is also available as e-Book on Gumroad, if you like to read books then you can also check out The Good Parts of AWS eBook. There is a 20% discount available if you buy the book using this link. Docker provides containers, but they can quickly become messy if you don’t manage them. Kubernetes provides a way to manage them. Kubernetes has emerged as one of the most essential and exciting container management platforms, and in this course, you’ll learn the fundamentals of Kubernetes and the ‘Kubernetes way.’ First, you’ll learn Kubernetes architecture and understand the main components and services, and how they come together to build a production-class container infrastructure. After that, you’ll learn how to install and deploy Kubernetes on several cloud platforms like GCP, AWS, and Azure. Finally, you’ll learn how to work with pods, deployments, and services. After finishing this course, you’ll have a solid understanding of what Kubernetes is and how it works, as well as skills to deploy a Kubernetes cluster and simple applications. That’s all about some of the best courses to learn about Docker and Kubernetes, two of the most important tools for DevOps engineers. As I have said, Docker provides a container which has now become a standard way to deploy your application because it abstracts a lot of setup stuff. You don’t need to worry about inconsistencies in OS, DB version, etc. between the environment. On the other hand, Kubernetes is the best container management technology, and you will definitely need it if you are going to use containers in production. All these courses are excellent, but you should join the one which suits you better. I put a lot of focus on the Instructor’s style, and whether I can connect to him or not, hence I suggest you to join the course where you can connect with the instructor. If you just need one class, make that to Docker and Kubernetes: The Complete Guide, merely the best course to learn both Docker and Kubernetes. Other Programming Resources you may like Thanks for reading so far. If you like these Docker and Kubernetes courses, then please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback, then please drop a note. P. S. — If you are looking for some free courses to start your DevOps journey and learn essential tools like Jenkins, Docker, and Kubernetes then, you should check out this list of Free Jenkins, Docker, and Kubernetes courses for DevOps and Programmers.

https://medium.com/javarevisited/top-15-online-courses-to-learn-docker-kubernetes-and-aws-for-fullstack-developers-and-devops-d8cc4f16e773

[]

2020-12-09 10:03:13.434000+00:00

['Java', 'AWS', 'Kubernetes', 'DevOps', 'Docker']

The 5 Tips to Tell Better Stories with Data

Data visualization — and communicating with data in general — sits at the intersection of science and art. There is certainly some science to it: best practices and guidelines to follow. But there is also an artistic component. This is one of the reasons this area is so much fun. It is inherently diverse. Different people will approach things in varying ways and come up with distinct solutions to the same data visualization challenge. Recently, I finished reading Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic’s Storytelling with Data — a superbly written, masterful display of rare art in the business world. This book is a straightforward, accessible guide that will help anyone who communicates with data connect more effectively with their audience. Below are the top 5 tips she shared in the last chapter that I found to be a great recap of the book. Tip #1 — Learn your tools well Try not to let your tools be a limiting factor when it comes to communicating effectively with data. Pick one and get to know it as best with the basics may be helpful. You don’t need fancy tools in order to visualize data well. There are a plethora of tools out there. The following is a very quick rundown of some of the popular ones currently used for creating data visualizations: Google spreadsheets are free, online, and sharable, allowing multiple people to edit. are free, online, and sharable, allowing multiple people to edit. Tableau is a popular out-of-the-box data visualization solution that can be great for exploratory analysis because it allows you to quickly create multiple views and nice-looking graphs form your data. It can be leveraged for the explanatory via the Story Points feature. It is expensive, though a free Tableau Public option is available if uploading your data to a public server isn’t an issue. is a popular out-of-the-box data visualization solution that can be great for exploratory analysis because it allows you to quickly create multiple views and nice-looking graphs form your data. It can be leveraged for the explanatory via the Story Points feature. It is expensive, though a free Tableau Public option is available if uploading your data to a public server isn’t an issue. Programming languages — like R, D3, and Python — have a steeper learning curve but allow for greater flexibility, since you can control the specific elements of the graphs you create and make those specifications repeatable through code. and — have a steeper learning curve but allow for greater flexibility, since you can control the specific elements of the graphs you create and make those specifications repeatable through code. Some people use Adobe Illustrator, either one or together with graphs created in an application like Excel or via a programming language, for easier manipulation of graph elements and a professional look and feel. Tip #2 — Iterate and seek feedback It takes iterating to get from early ideas to a final solution. When the best course for visualizing a certain data is unclear, start with a blank piece of paper. This enables you to brainstorm without the constraints of your tools or what you know how to do in your tools. Sketch out potential views to see them side-by-side and determine what will work best for getting your message across to your audience. At any point, if the best path is unclear, seek feedback. The fresh set of eyes that a friend or colleague can bring to the data visualization endeavor is invaluable. Show someone else your visual and have them talk you through their thought process: what they pay attention to, what observations they make, what questions they have, and any ideas they may have for better getting your point across. These insights will let you know if the visual you’ve created is on the mark or, in the case when it isn’t, give you an idea of where to make changes and focus continued iteration. When it comes to iterating, there is one thing you need perhaps more than anything else in order to be successful: time. Tip #3 — Devote time to storytelling with data It takes time to build a robust understanding of the context, time to understand what motivates the audience, time to craft the 3-minute story and form the Big Idea. It takes time to look at the data in different ways and determine how to best show it. It takes time to declutter and draw attention and iterate and seek feedback and iterate some more to create an effective visual. It takes time to pull it all together into a story and form a cohesive and captivating narrative. It takes even more time to do well the most important step: communicating your work, as that is the only part of the entire process that your audience actually sees. Expect it to take longer than you think to allow sufficient time to iterate and get it right. Tip #4 — Seek inspiration through good examples Imitation really is the best form of flattery. If you see a data visualization or example of storytelling with data that you like, consider how you might adapt the approach of your own use. Pause to reflect on what makes it effective. Make a copy of it and create a visual library that you can add to over time and refer to for inspiration. Emulate the good examples and approaches that you see. Said more provocatively — imitation is a good thing. We learn by emulating experts. That’s why you see people with their sketchpads and easels at art museums — they are interpreting great works. There are a number of great blogs and resources on the topic of data visualization and communicating with data that contain many good examples. I personally would suggest you start with the Data Visualization Society. Tip #5 — Have fun and find your style When most people think about data, one of the furthest things from their mind is creativity. But within data visualization, there is absolutely space for creativity to play a role. Data can be made to be breathtakingly beautiful. Don’t be afraid to try new approaches and play a little. You’ll continue to learn what works and what doesn’t over time. To the extent that it makes sense given the task at hand, don’t be afraid to let your own style develop and creativity comes through when you communicate with data. Company brand can also play a role in developing a data visualization style; consider your company’s brand and whether there are opportunities to fold that into how you visualize and communicate with data. Just make sure that your approach and stylistic elements are making the information easier — not more difficult — for your audience to consume. The book is written for anyone who needs to communicate something to someone using data. This includes: analysts sharing the results of their work, students visualizing thesis data, managers needing to communicate in a data-driven way, philanthropists proving their impact, and leaders informing their board. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to improve their ability to communicate effectively with data. This is an intimidating space for many, but it does not need to be.

https://medium.com/constraint-drives-creativity/the-5-tips-to-tell-better-stories-with-data-e486830f51d6

['James Le']

2019-07-07 04:46:44.267000+00:00

['Storytelling', 'Data Stories', 'Creativity', 'Data Visualization', 'Visualization']

How to Teach about Drinkable Rivers and Healthy Economies

Some years ago, I met Li An Phoa for the first time. We share a love for Schumacher College and regenerative practices to heal our world and our economies. She wasn’t well-known then. She’s becoming rather prominent now with her foundation and citizen’s initiative ‘Drinkable Rivers’. Li An is an activist, researcher, and university teacher. She taught me about rivers and flow and economies. And I want to share this knowledge with you. In my own way. As a tribute and teaching and experimenting ground in one. We all need to know about water. If we don’t know, how can we find it in our hearts to care for our waters? Water Is Life Water is life. Up to 60% of our human body consists of water, according to USGS, Science for a Changing World. I think no one will deny that freshwater is very important to our bodies. And there is not much freshwater available to us, humans, and other living species. According to the researchers of National Geographic, only 0.007 percent of the planet’s water is available to fuel and feed its 6.8 billion people and all the other species.

https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/how-to-teach-about-drinkable-rivers-and-healthy-economies-8f8b2f554f09

['Desiree Driesenaar']

2020-07-14 08:16:21.889000+00:00

['Sustainability', 'Rivers', 'Health', 'Environment', 'Economy']

Research-Backed Ways to Enhance Your Pain Tolerance

Research-Backed Ways to Enhance Your Pain Tolerance Based on a trip to the dentist. Photo by H Shaw on Unsplash “So, we heard it’s been quite some time since you’ve last seen us.” My dentist, Dr. D, entered the room with his assistant Keisha. I double-checked if my chair was, in fact, a dental chair, because based on their ominous entrance it felt more like I was sitting in an interrogation room. “Uhhhh yes, it’s been a little bit,” I replied reluctantly. “It’s been more than a little bit, we’d say, right Keisha?” Dr. D suggested. Keisha continued. “7 years is definitely a long time.” I had dental surgery in 2013. I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of the dentist, but I haven’t been back since. Before proceeding with my x-rays and cleaning, Dr. D concluded. “I hate to tell you this Jordan, but the next hour is going to hurt. You’re going to be in pain, but I promise you, it’ll be worth it.” But after the hour, I wasn’t in pain. During the hour, I wasn’t in much pain either. Following each procedure, Dr. D looked at me in awe. I was able to sustain extreme discomfort without being completely numb. When he asked me how I was able to withstand the pain, I told him a few of my simple tricks. Turns out, these tricks are also backed by research and scientific studies.

https://medium.com/mind-cafe/research-backed-ways-to-enhance-your-pain-tolerance-101ba06af5c1

['Jordan Gross']

2020-12-21 21:03:26.963000+00:00

['Inspiration', 'Creativity', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Self Improvement']

Jack Kerouac’s Advice For Writers

“Look at all this raw talent!” Professor Smith announced to the class. Unfortunately, he wasn’t talking about my classmates or me. WR 150 class. Fall Semester. We were analyzing a passage from American author Jack Kerouac’s The Big Sur. Professor Smith loved Jack Kerouac. He would always talk about Kerouac’s writing ability, his tragic-Shakespearean life, and his association with the Beats. Despite his enthusiasm, it didn’t wear off on my classmates or me. I was thinking, “What’s the big deal about this guy? He’s like a wannabe James Joyce!” Spontaneous prose? What a load of crap! It’s more like messy writing. How’s this guy a great author? Throughout the semester, my opinion gradually changed. And I began to see why Professor’s Smith loved Jack Kerouac. Kerouac had authenticity, style — but most importantly — creativity. Here are Jack Kerouac’s 5 Ways To Write.

https://medium.com/the-open-bookshelf/jack-kerouacs-advice-for-writers-f0b1716f5396

['Alexander Yung']

2020-11-07 18:37:01.341000+00:00

['Writing Tips', 'Self-awareness', 'Books', 'Self Improvement', 'Writing']

Discomfort Shows Us The Way

Discomfort Shows Us The Way We only feel uncomfortable about what we really care about We are programmed by modern society to seek comfort. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, asceticism with no goal is as much a pointless exercise in the egotism of denial as hedonism is in the egotism of plenty. But seeking comfort is normal because discomfort is a precursor to pain and pain is a precursor to injury. So avoiding discomfort is a protective mechanism. The trouble arises because we also feel discomfort when we do something new because new is unknown and our default setting is to mistrust the unknown. Even if the unknown may be better, we are hardwired to assume that the unknown is worse than our present situation since being over-prepared is better than being under-prepared. We are already dealing with the devil we know. But the unknown could be a worse devil that we are not able to handle. This conservatism can be a hindrance if we allow it to dominate our decision making. Just because pain is a precursor to injury doesn’t mean that pain always leads to injury. When we are working out our muscles to get stronger, we often feel pain, but that pain is a sign of our stretching ourselves beyond what we can do. Growth of any kind means exactly that: moving beyond what you can do and into the unknown. So while discomfort is always a warning to be on the lookout for injury that just means being more alert. It doesn’t mean that injury is inevitable. Our unconscious bias to treat the unknown as dangerous turns comfort into a goal rather than a measure. We treat discomfort as a sign of something actually wrong rather than a measure of the possibility of something wrong, again because we’re instinctually going to assume the worst. How comfortable or uncomfortable something is definitely needs to be something we should pay attention to. But eliminating all discomfort means eliminating all possibility for growth. By pushing beyond what we can do now we ratchet ourselves up. Discomfort is not a sign of something going wrong in this case, it is a sign that you are pushing the limits of where you currently are. If you are satisfied with where you are, then avoiding discomfort is fine but if you want to grow or change your circumstances then you need to do something new And furthermore, the things that you are uncomfortable about are the things that you really care about. So following your discomfort will also help you discover the path you really want to be on. This means that if we want to change, we should actually seek out discomfort. We should view discomfort as a sign of something that we should be doing rather than of something we should be avoiding. We should still be careful, we should still be alert for injury because change carries with it the risk for injury (even if that injury is not physical). But in our modern society, “going out of our comfort zone” is generally something positive since we no longer live in a world were fatal mistakes are common. However, let’s recognize that this is easier said than done. We are both so hard-wired and so conditioned to avoid discomfort that even if we intellectually realize that we should lean into and maybe even search out discomfort, at some level we still think that being uncomfortable is wrong In fact we are so hard-wired this way that when we talk about being courageous and going out of our comfort zone, at some level we are actually still motivated by the desire to reduce our discomfort. We are not happy or satisfied by our current situation and it is that greater discomfort of feeling like a failure that pushes us to overcome the lesser discomfort of change. So rather than going out of our comfort zone we are merely expanding our understanding of our comfort zone. We are still being driven by the seeking of comfort and the need to eliminate anything which makes us uncomfortable While this approach often results in an initial action, it is rarely sustainable. We overcome the discomfort of our immediate situation only to land in a new “comfort zone” that lasts only as long as it takes for us to become dissatisfied again. Nothing has fundamentally changed. We get frustrated because we are simply going from one discomfort to another with a brief respite of illusory comfort in between. That is progress but it is not momentum: we have to continually be putting in personal energy and attention to get moving every time we stop. It’s the difference between jumping and flying. But if instead we work to eliminate the avoidance of discomfort as a core motivation and focus on our goals and desires, we can shift towards making sustainable progress. To do this we need to treat discomfort as a measure and not a goal. We need to do is make peace with discomfort, accept it as a companion not as something we “deal with”. That doesn’t mean ignoring it. We can’t pretend it is not there, we cannot eliminate it, we can only live with it. The distinction is that ignoring it means that we can pretend it doesn’t exist. But it is too foundational a mechanism and so impossible to ignore. Instead we must shift to acceptance. Accepting something means acknowledging it but not engaging with it, not trying to change it. We respect our discomfort as coming from a place that is trying to prevent harm. Be kind to ourselves, acknowledge that discomfort comes from the care we have for ourselves. We can’t pretend that the pain it causes us doesn’t exist. It’s not about aggressively pushing through the pain. Instead we need to recognize that pain and be compassionate to ourselves about feeling it but also be firm. Feeling fear and pain about taking a step towards your dreams just means you are human. But pain is not the same as injury. In fact, shifting to this attitude that discomfort is to be accepted and not eliminated will itself help you to work through the discomfort you feel about accepting your discomfort! So when we feel uncomfortable, accept it, embrace it even, but then continue on anyway. Be grateful that you feel discomfort because that means that you still care about something. Say “thanks for your concern, thanks for pointing that out, self. But now I’m going to do this anyway.” Start small. going out of your comfort zone is going out of your comfort zone no matter how small. But start today. If you want to stop working and check out youtube, just work an extra 5 minutes. If you are worried about talking in front of people, say hi to someone as you exit a coffee shop. If you’re trying to write the next great novel, just write anything for 15 minutes every day despite still worrying about whether it is any good. Practice embracing discomfort and it will lead you down the pathway to success.

https://medium.com/the-innovation/discomfort-shows-us-the-way-cb1ab9b63d65

['Andrew Patricio']

2020-07-17 12:36:06.992000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Self Improvement', 'Startup', 'Self-awareness']

AI & Neural Network for Pediatric Cataract

Researchers from China have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that can diagnose congenital cataracts as accurately as ophthalmologists. What is Cataract? A cataract is clouding of the natural lens of the eye. It is extremely common among the elderly population but can also affect infants at birth or develop at a young age. “In children, cataract causes more visual disability than any other form of treatable blindness. Children with untreated, visually significant cataracts face a lifetime of blindness at tremendous quality of life and socioeconomic costs to the child, the family, and the society”- American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). Detecting Cataracts in Children: The asymptomatic progression of pediatric cataracts makes it difficult for early detection. Not to mention that young kids can’t really express themselves. However, catching the disease early is critical; late diagnosis often result in poor visual outcomes. Problems: Diagnosis requires expertise, especially in children and neonates. There is a relatively small number of ophthalmologists for the size of our population; with an even smaller number of pediatric ophthalmologists. Experts are concentrated in specialized centers but their coverage is largely insufficient. Rural areas get almost no coverage. This lack of accessibility causes lifetime vision loss to affected children. Solution: AI A team in China tried to address the problem of lack of pediatric ophthalmologists by using Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically deep learning and convolutional neural networks. They built an AI machine, CC-Cruiser, that has three main functions: 1) Diagnosis 2) Risk stratification 3) Treatment suggestions. Screening for Congenital Cataract using Artificial Intelligence Their initial work was done on congenital cataract cases only (amongst other types of pediatric cataracts) but further studies are ongoing. Future: AI requires Big Data A cloud-based platform has been created for multi-hospital collaboration; Doctors at hospitals around the country can access the platform and upload patient images. More data will be collected this way, which is essential to AI’s learning and fine-tuning. “The limited resources of patients and the isolation of the data in individual hospitals represent a bottleneck in data usage. Building a collaborative cloud platform for data integration and patient screening is an essential step.”-Professor Lin Haotian of Sun Yat-Sen University Liked what your read? Don’t forget to click like below! Read more about the future of medicine at Health.AI

https://medium.com/health-ai/ai-neural-network-for-pediatric-cataract-6a4341f31263

['Susan Ruyu Qi']

2017-09-03 22:59:49.080000+00:00

['Big Data', 'Ophthalmology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Health', 'Machine Learning']

I’m Not an Introvert — I Have Social Anxiety

I used to call myself an introvert. I thought of myself as a loner who’d rather stay home playing video games than go out to big parties. Just the thought of spending too much time around other people exhausted me. The trouble with this was that I didn’t actually enjoy spending time by myself. A night spent reading in my room didn’t leave me feeling excited and refreshed; it left me lonely and depressed. So, I ended up feeling awful no matter what I did. I could go out with friends and feel awkward all night, or stay in and be miserable. My solution was often to turn to substance abuse. I’d drink and smoke cigarettes, which would provide a temporary cure in both situations. When I was in public, it would reduce my self-consciousness and let me enjoy myself. When I was at home, it would make the hours pass more quickly. Of course, this tactic created far more problems than it solved. I ended up developing addictions to both alcohol and nicotine, and I was no closer to understanding myself. It wasn’t until sobering up and going to therapy that I grasped the underlying issue: I had been mistaking social anxiety for introversion. Socially Anxious Extroverts I’ve dealt with anxiety issues my entire life, but it took me a long time to realize how severely they were affecting my social life. I often wrote off symptoms of anxiety because I thought they were simply traits of introversion. In social situations, I constantly worried about coming across as weird or off-putting. I struggled to interact with people because I was so caught up worrying about myself. I’d often spend entire parties on the balcony, chain-smoking cigarettes as an excuse to avoid crowds. When I did go inside, I’d hover near the wall or try to get into one-on-one conversations in quiet areas. I also often went for the classic move of playing with the host’s pets. I’ve seen all these actions described as introversion, so I just assumed that’s what it was. I thought that I was nervous at parties because I liked being by myself more. I never took the time to think about whether that was really the case. The truth was that my reaction to social situations went far beyond mere introversion. I often panicked before leaving my house, running to the bathroom multiple times because I was so nervous. When I was forced into crowds, I’d have trouble thinking. I even experienced some physical discomfort, like sweaty palms and an uneasy stomach. I missed these clear signs that something was wrong. When I finally took the time to reflect on what I really enjoyed, I realized that I’m happiest when I’m with other people. It’s just that being with others makes me nervous at the same time. Coming to this realization was like a breath of fresh air. Even though I didn’t see any immediate solutions, by finally understanding the real problem, I could see that there was hope. Being a socially anxious extrovert is tough — there are two competing emotions pulling in opposite directions. It’s helpful, however, to understand that the anxiety is the issue, not the extroversion. I don’t have any easy hacks to make social anxiety disappear. It’s an issue that I’ve been working on for several years, through therapy and on my own, and made gradual but significant progress with. I think the most helpful thing has simply been exposure. I’ve tried to frequently put myself in social situations, so that I can train my brain to realize that I don’t need alcohol or cigarettes to get through them. It’s been a bit more difficult as everything has shifted online this year, but I’m still trying to find ways to interact with others regularly. The Importance of Self-Reflection Plenty of introverts really are introverts, and that’s okay. More power to them! But, I’m sure there are many others like me who are just overlooking their social anxiety. It’s worth the time to reflect and ask yourself what you really prefer. Are you staying home to read because you love reading, or because the thought of interacting with other people makes your palms sweat? If it’s the later, a talk with a therapist might help you discover whether you’re really an introvert, or just an extrovert with social anxiety. This type of self-reflection is vital because it allows you to find a path that will lead to actual happiness, rather than an avoidance of your problems. When I thought I was introverted, it led to a lot of lonely and depressing nights. By realizing that my problem arose from social anxiety, I was able to start addressing it. That has led to a huge improvement in my happiness and well-being.

https://medium.com/an-injustice/im-not-an-introvert-i-have-social-anxiety-47119a8a922f

['Benya Clark']

2020-12-16 14:49:44.488000+00:00

['Anxiety', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Self-awareness', 'Social Anxiety']

What You Should Focus on For Long-Term Success on Medium

What is your single, most important piece of advice for succeeding on Medium for the long haul? I’ve been writing on Medium since early 2017 — so more than three years. I started before writers were paid to write here. I realized, almost instantly, that using Medium as my blog was a better idea that writing on my own website for one reason. There’s an audience here. When I wrote on Medium and when I did it with consistency — my posts were read. I could reach out to my own audience, and while doing that, reach a new audience. From the beginning, I knew that Medium was a good tool. Getting paid directly for my work was a nice added feature. But I was already being paid, because I captured the audience Medium helped me reach and built my business around those people. The most important advice isn’t about how you write. There are things that are really important, if you want to succeed on Medium (if we’re going to count success as earning a decent amount of income and/or having a solid following.) Here’s a non-exhaustive list: Headlines Photos (and making sure they’re cited) Making sure your post’s format matches Medium’s aesthetic. Consistency Building up a good backlog of stories Patience Those things are all very, very important. But they’re all mechanics. Get those under control and you’ll be writing in a way that aligns with Medium. It’s not much different from learning what any other publication wants and then providing that to them. When I think about all of the people who I talk to about being frustrated that Medium isn’t having the impact they want — and it’s a lot of people — there is one thing that stands out to me. They let Medium own their audience. My single most important piece of advice for success at Medium over the long haul is to start working, right from the beginning, on building your own audience. Don’t count on Medium to do that for you. Look. This is your business. Medium has its own business and it’s different from yours. They align in some ways. They’re symbiotic. But their business is to bring lots of writers together to create a reading experience to millions of humans. Your business is to do that writing — for your own readers. Have a way of capturing the readers who really enjoy your work, so that you can let them know when you’ve written and about other projects that come up for you. An email list is your best friend. Truly. You should also have a publication on Medium where you can collect your work and readers can follow you. You should know who your ideal reader is so that you know you’re speaking to them when you write. Because Medium can be relatively volatile as far as income sources for writers go. Their algorithm changes or they switch up how they structure their pay system — and it all screws up with your best laid plans. Advice number one: Make building an email list, and learning how to use it, a top priority. If you have your own audience, then you’re in control. My second most important piece of advice for success at Medium over the long haul, by the way, is to consider Medium a tool and not the sole source of your writing career. It’s a stream, not the whole ocean, you know? If you have your own audience, then you can use Medium as a tool for reaching the goals you set for yourself. And if Medium ever stops being the best tool for that job, you’ll be able to pivot relatively easily because your audience is yours. And if you think about Medium as just one tool in your long-haul writing-career box, then you’ll be using others as well. Like self-publishing or writing on your own website or coaching or teaching or freelance writing or . . . You get the idea. Advice number two (because I’m all about over-delivering!): Consider Medium an income stream, not the whole of your business.

https://medium.com/ninja-writers/what-you-should-focus-on-for-long-term-success-on-medium-4378a1a6dcb

['Shaunta Grimes']

2020-06-27 18:14:15.890000+00:00

['Medium', 'Productivity', 'Writing', 'Creativity', 'Blogging']

Warning! Unsupervised Neuroscience Ahead

The warning: Care is needed. We are experts at finding patterns in noise, and so are our algorithms. Take clustering. The problem with clustering is that it returns clusters. I mean, I know that’s what it’s supposed to do, but that’s actually the problem. Give a clustering algorithm the phone numbers of everyone in Llandudno, ask it to find four clusters in the data, and it will. Now you have four clusters of Welsh people, and are none the wiser as to what to do with them, and neither are they. The mere existence of clusters does not mean there is actual cluster structure in the data. Unsupervised algorithms are about making sense of data for us, the observer. What they find does not have to coincide with reality. Reality doesn’t have a ground-truth, because it does not have clean, neat carves at the joints except in special cases. And most of those special cases are from artificial systems, with the joints built in. Run a different clustering algorithm on your data, and you’ll get different clusters; run a different dimension reduction algorithm on your data, and you’ll get different dimensions. As Ulrike von Luxburg and friends have so clearly argued, clustering is an art. The unsupervised organisation of data is just a description of that data. Just because we can cluster neurons into groups doesn’t mean there exists actual meaningful groups of neurons in the brain; just because we can cluster behaviour into discrete elements — into states, motifs, syllables, or whatever term you prefer — doesn’t mean behaviour is actually discrete. To find that it means something, we have to link that discovered organisation to reality, show it has meaning. In neuroscience, that typically means we have to link that organisation of data to something happening in the world, or elsewhere in the brain, or both. And that acid test is passed by the best attempts at unsupervised neuroscience. In the paper from Alon and friends, they showed the neurons’ “tuning” to the hippocampus’ internal dynamics had meaning as location in space (and repeated the same trick for neurons that code for head direction in the rodent thalamus). In the study from Adam Kepecs’ lab on the orbitofrontal cortex, their discrete groups of neurons in turn each encoded a meaningful variable in the decision-making process. Even better, they re-did the whole analysis with another cohort of animals with more neurons, reusing all parameters from first cohort, and ended up with the same results. These studies could show us a mapping between the unsupervised structure of the data and the real world. Terrific work, but those are the “easy” ways of doing unsupervised neuroscience — by relating what we found to what we already know. We already know that hippocampus has place cells, and that there is a head direction system in the rodent thalamus. We already know the neurons in orbitofrontal cortex are heavily implicated in decision making, and to work out what their groups of neurons were encoding Kepec’s lab interpreted their activity as the variables within a mathematical model of decision making. If that model is wrong, the mapping between variables and activity is of little consequence in building our confidence that the clustered neurons are really there. And others, of course, may find different answers: when Anne Churchland’s group went looking for discrete groups of coding neurons in posterior parietal cortex, for example, they found none. The ultimate test for unsupervised neuroscience is discoveries that could not be found any other way. There are some examples of that too. For example, we took large-scaling recordings of neurons in the motor system of the venerable sea-slug Aplysia. Using a fully-unsupervised pipeline to analyse that data we discovered its motor system was doubly discrete: on one level, groups of neurons with correlated activity were laid out contiguously in the motor system, beautifully tesselating the bit of brain they were in. On another level, mass populations of neurons with clearly different dynamics were in different parts of the motor system, including a distinct population of oscillating neurons in one spot that were most likely the pattern generating network for movement — a discovered hypothesis waiting to be tested. Joshua Vogelstein and friends discovered a richly detailed map of the relationship between neural activity and the resulting behaviour of Drosophila maggots, by individually stimulating each of 1054 types of neurons, videoing the behaviour, and clustering it. They thus revealed 29 different types of behaviour and which neurons drove each. But these are discoveries of relationships, of structure; they are not yet that final step of unsupervised discovery of a theory for how a bit of brain works.

https://medium.com/the-spike/warning-unsupervised-neuroscience-ahead-382cf9ab13e1

['Mark Humphries']

2020-11-17 17:38:42.791000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Neuroscience', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Science', 'Data Science']

Technology Hits

Technology Hits The New Think Tank Digital art with permission to use by Igor Morski For those who enjoy the infinite, technology is their cosmic playground. For hundreds of years, humans ascertained the unconceivable as technology grew exponentially. Many science fiction buffs remember that H.G. Wells's prediction of the use of wireless communications, genetic science, email, and the World Wide Web (Handwerk, 2016). The very idea of technology is basking in the endless possibilities that remain undiscovered. And while the world waits for the next technological trend, Technology Hits invites you to write, read and seek out opportunities in diverse technology subjects that abound. We formally invite you to become an inventor on our page, bring ideas to life, and discuss the unimaginable with a soiree of other like-minded techies, who really are the leaders of the future. The Purpose Silicon Valley may be the nesting ground for Startup companies seeking their way to success. But, in this global world, ideas, inventions, education, philosophy, and art, generously link itself to all things technical, and you can engage in this “the future is now” mentality with a sweep of a button. If the future is here, we no longer need thinktanks to design the trajectory to where our reality is leading. Technology Hits harnesses a synergistic approach, unlike any other publication. Blockchains, Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation, Edge Computing, Quantum Computing, and Virtual and Augmented Reality are areas where the writers of Technology Hits can make a difference; amplifying ideas on our Quora interface or making a connection on our LinkedIn page. But the scope does not end there. We are interested in digital art, philosophy, storytelling, technical insight, and all things technical that touch our everyday life. Digital art with permission to use by Jason Tait There is so much to learn, and technology advances faster and faster. In the 19th century, there were 222,036 patents held, and by 2015, the Patent Office approved 9,646,948 patents! There are more patents than there are people on this earth, and you, my friend, may be the next future patent holder, too (How fast is Technology Accelerating?). Innovation It starts with innovation: the limitless space where ideas ounce and move and sometimes hit, creating an explosion in science. The arena that Technology Hits offers is dynamic, fraught with ubiquity and conceptualizations waiting to be explored. This platform is made for you, the people that are changing the world. We ask you to indulge in groundbreaking interpretations of what technology means to you. Digital art with permission to use by Jason Tait The Extra Bonus The creator of this new publication Dr. Mehmet Yildiz welcomes you to “ join my 100K+ mailing list, to collaborate, enhance your network, and receive technology newsletter reflecting my industry experience.” If you are interested in becoming a contributor to Technology Hits, please send a request via this link. Alternatively, you can leave a brief comment on this story showing your interest to participate. Reference List Handwerk, B. (2016, September 21). The Many Futuristic Predictions of H.G. Wells That Came True. Retrieved December 07, 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/many-futuristic-predictions-hg-wells-came-true-180960546/ How Fast is Technology Accelerating? (n.d.). Retrieved December 07, 2020, from https://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/prudential-great-expectations/how-fast-is-technology-accelerating/360/

https://medium.com/technology-hits/technology-hits-865eb1eed825

['Chelsea Mandler Mat']

2020-12-07 19:23:19.390000+00:00

['Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Science', 'Digital Marketing', 'Entrepreneurship']

Stop Trying to Nail Down Your Best Publishing Days

Stop Trying to Nail Down Your Best Publishing Days It’s about more than the day of the week Photo by @fabrikasimf — premium license via Freepik I’m going against the grain here, but research speaks for itself. The idea writers should avoid self-publishing on the weekends could be costing you readers. So can trying to nail down the best time to submit to publications to ensure your story goes live at ideal times. I’ve seen the stats of many writers, pointing out significant drops on the weekends. Yet, I regularly see better traffic on Sundays than Thursdays and Fridays. And on stories published just any old time. In October 2020, my most significant spike on Medium happened on a Sunday. In almost every week this year, weekends were not the “dead zone” for views and reads. Screenshot by the author What affects readership Many issues affect readership and views, making it nearly impossible to compare apples to apples. Current events Whether it be politics, social media trends, or celebrity news, what’s going on in the world can affect visits and reads, no matter the day. I published For the Love of Eddie Van Halen on the Thursday after he passed. Medium curated it that Sunday and readership spiked, resulting in one of my best reading days ever. Parler has also been making recent headlines, which breathed new life into one of my early stories about the platform. It was published on a Sunday in June, and the article saw its largest spike on October 18th — a Sunday. The day’s headlines can help push stories to a trending status, but so can tomorrow’s and next month’s. No matter your audience, what’s going on in the world will affect a story’s traction. What your followers are doing Who makes up your target audience? People’s professional life and interests determine when they spend time online and what they spend that time doing. A single mom may only have time to read late at night when the kids are in bed. A commuter who takes the train to work might be scanning stories an hour or two every weekday. A small business owner may only read on the weekends when the shop is closed. If you have a niche following, you can better gauge when regular readers are most apt to be online, ready to absorb new information. For most writers, though, readers’ habits are varied. What’s popular on the platform As I write this, the US is impatiently waiting for the final 2020 Presidential election results. Thus, politically-driven stories and social movements are prominent across most networks. After a time, this will shift to more post-election commentary until the ultra-popularity of political headlines fade and something else takes their place. Hot content changes regularly, so it’s tough to decide exactly when to publish any type of story. Just know that what shows in readers’ feeds is based primarily on algorithms you have little control over. How readers engage with the publication Not every publication is the same, and some have a good grasp on the best time to push things to their followers. Publication newsletters and spotlight posts can rejuvenate a writers’ work on any given day. Focus on what to write, submit or publish next Forget the days of the week. The beauty of publishing on writing/reading platforms is the ability to control how things are marketed. If data shows your best time to market on Facebook is 8am on a Tuesday, that’s when you should hype your story or article. Best times will vary across social media networks, so your marketing schedule should be optimized per network, not per piece. This allows you to engage people the best way on each channel and gain more readers overall. And isn’t that the real goal here? To introduce ourselves to as many authentic readers as possible? There is no perfect launch time that works for everyone. Clicking the self-publish button merely triggers the algorithms. It does nothing to guarantee when all the traffic is going to flow in. So unless you have a massive loyal following of real readers, stop worrying so much about the days, and worry more about what you’re going to share with the world next.

https://medium.com/write-i-must/stop-trying-to-nail-down-your-best-publishing-days-103c8d9f2b1a

['Pamela Hazelton']

2020-11-07 13:47:40.384000+00:00

['Publishing', 'Writing', 'Writing Tips', 'Marketing', 'Creativity']

7 Inspiring Questions For A Personal Year-End Review

2021 is right around the corner and for most of us it can’t come fast enough. We’re ready to turn the page on 2020 and start afresh. However, it’s worthwhile to take a step back and put these past twelve months in perspective. At the end of each year, I do that by writing up a personal year-end review. This exercise helps me set myself up for success in January. I reflect over what I achieved during the year, what obstacles I faced, and what lessons I learned. I try to think positively on the past year so I’ll be motivated and inspired as the new one begins. The insights I gain help me choose my goals for the new year. I’m able to see what worked and what didn’t so I can draw up a plan of action. As the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” In today’s blog post, I’m sharing the seven questions from my annual review. Feel free to adapt them as you like — your answers can be a few sentences or several paragraphs long. It’s entirely up to you. And you can still complete this annual review even if December has passed. I usually write it up the last week of December, but I’ve also completed it at the beginning of January. Let’s dive in: 1. What were your plans/goals/dreams for 2020? Evaluate how they went. Under this question, I list any New Year’s resolution or other goals I made at the start of the year or throughout the year. Then I evaluate how they went. I chose the word “evaluate” because even if I didn’t quite reach the goal I set at the beginning of the year, I might still have made significant progress and be able to check it off as a victory. Or perhaps my goals changed as the year progressed. So even if you didn’t reach a goal you’d hoped to achieve, you can take a step back and evaluate why that happened. Maybe the goal was too overwhelming or too vague or you didn’t prioritize it or there were circumstances outside your control that prevented you from achieving it. If you want to tackle the goal again in 2021, these observations will help you avoid making the same mistakes. Conversely, if you did achieve your goals, you can evaluate what helped you to succeed so you can repeat that success with new goals in 2021. 2. What new skills did you learn this year? I love jotting down any new skills I learned because it shows how I grew as a person in the past year. It’s fascinating to think about how you can do something now that you couldn’t in 2019. As a writer, I love learning new skills as they help me widen the topics I can write about. I wrote an article here about the many different hobbies of famous writers. New skills can be something that you learned in a matter of minutes or something that you dedicated several months to learning. It could be something you learned from a course (in person or online) or a YouTube video or a book or a friend or family member. 3. What were several highlights of the year? 2020 was a crazy and unpredictable year. For most of us, it was filled with disappointments and a rollercoaster of emotions. Some of us experienced the loss of loved ones. During times like this, I think it’s more important than ever to stay positive. So look back on the year for the big and little blessings. Were there any wonderful, unforgettable moments? 4. What did you accomplish this year that you’re most proud of? This one is pretty self-explanatory. Take time to give yourself a pat on the back here. 5. What (and/or who) are you most thankful for this year? It’s so important to practice gratitude at the end of the year. If you jot down a person under this question, you might even want to say your thank you directly to them with a phone call or a written note. 6. What went well? What didn’t go well? After writing down answers to all of the previous questions, I usually have a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head. So here I can spill those out on the page. I’ll write a summary of overall how I think the year went: what strategies were effective at helping me achieve my goals, what prevented me, etc. 7. What was the biggest lesson (or lessons) you learned this year? Finally, boil down into a sentence or two (or more if you’d like) your biggest takeaway from the year and how that can help you going forward in 2021. As the Psalmist writes in Psalm 90, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” The Takeaway I hope these questions help you as you draw up goals for the new year, and I also hope they help you reflect positively on the past year. By the end of the year, we can forget a lot that happened. We might think that the year went terribly as we worked towards our goals. However, after writing up the annual review, we realize that we had many more successes than we originally remembered. I love the year-end review so much that I actually write up a month-in-review each month too. I share more about that in my blog post about the two journaling methods I use to boost my productivity. Happy New Year! I hope you have a fantastic 2021.

https://medium.com/copywriting-secrets/7-inspiring-questions-for-a-personal-year-end-review-ee5f601b2ed9

['Nicole Bianchi']

2020-12-29 19:26:53.563000+00:00

['Productivity', 'Writing', 'Life', 'Mindfulness', 'Creativity']

The Rise of the AI

Today Google finally released the long awaited AI powered messaging app Allo. This messaging app is powered by the amazing Google AI which is a competitor of Apple’s Siri, Where Allo is prmarily text based and Siri is voice based. This app will also be competing with various other AI powered messaging apps such as the indian app Hike, China’s WeChat, Facebook’s M. So being that much of a geek and nerd to know all of the above like the back of my hand, I had to have this app ASAP so as soon as me and my friends heard the news and the app went live on the Play Store in India we all had it. We right away started testing out all the bells and whistles of the app, and one thing we all agreed on was damn the AI is good, because within 30 minutes of conversation in Hinglish (Hindi written with English Alphabets) between us and the AI had started predicting some of the basic stuff. And Damn we were impressed by that, because since forever we have been convinced that Hindi/Hinglish is a tough language to understand for an AI or a machine because of our experience with the AutoCorrect. The number of errors made by AutoCorrect in the US is not even close to the number it makes in India, and because of this we always end up either disabling it or set it to such a light mode that its nonexistent. So for an AI to start predicting words for to say in Hinglish such as “KYA?” correctly we were impressed. So we then started exploring more features, and we started playing with the google AI. We asked all the silly questions, all the good questions, all the funny questions and the AI never disappointed us. But during all this experimentation I realized something, the AI was predicting everything from what to say next to searching stuff that we wanted to discuss and stuff like that. For example I wanted to discuss about the girl in the movie Step Up, but obviously I did not remember her name, so my friend simply asked “@google Step Up 2 cast” and bam! google returned with the search results of this query. With the name of the girl. And then I wanted them to cross reference this information with a very old music video of theSong Numb by Linkin Park. Because today by chance saw that video and I was just shocked to see the same girl from Step Up 2 as the lead in the video. So the purpose of doing all this excercise was supposed to give my friends the shock and awe i experienced when i saw that girl in that old video which we all grew up listening to. But since we were discussing all this on Allo my dear friend simply asked google for it, and she just gave up the same girl’s name. So this event made me realize two things : Having the google search at your fingertips can be a boon to your conversation or it can simply ruin the effect you want to create while talking. And second the ability to search everything from the Chat window itself will exponentially increase our dependency on google for everything. It is already being debated in various forums that google is making the upcoming generations dumb, because they have all the information they need at their fingertips. Now Google has done this literally. In the above incident we did not use our memory banks at all, if we had simply tried to remember the video of Numb, we may not have gotten the answer quickly but eventually we would have remembered that the same girl worked in Step Up 2. But the AI simply made this act and experience redundant and pointless. So by this post i am not trying to say AI is a bad thing, but rather i am simply trying to point out a side effect of such technology. Right now this side effect may seem minor but if we look at it in the long term this can be begining of Skynet! Today the AI just made our memory redundant, maybe in 20–30 years AI will be so sentient that it will feel that entire human race is redundant and pointless. But i hope by that time this happens we may also have developed technology to have emotions and most importantly a conscience. And then an even more ridiculous thing that i hope for is that we may be able to combine these two together. A sentient AI with emotions exactly like ours, kind of like the robot from iRobot. Because this merger of two major technologies will be the only thing standing between SkyNet and a place where AI and Humans live in peace and harmony. I always hope for the second option. What do you think would the consequences of rise of the AI? Share your opinions in comments below. And if you enjoyed reading please recommend.

https://medium.com/the-everyday-blog/the-rise-of-the-ai-66ef92c46de1

['Aditya Bharadwaj']

2016-09-21 17:30:26.651000+00:00

['Messaging', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Google', 'Future']

The Power of Habit

The Power of Habit Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business The Power of Habit, published in 2014, and just around 300 pages, combines historical examples, scientific discoveries, and common sense approaches to illustrate how anyone can make and break habits. The Habit Loop Award winning reporter, Charles Duhigg shares useful case studies of people with extensive brain injuries to explain how and why your brain forms habits. Habits are your brain’s way of conserving energy. The Habit Loop Model of Cue, Routine, Reward is the recipe your brain uses to create a habit out of any routine in order to be more efficient. The science of habit forming has been applied to marketing products like Febreze and even coaching NFL teams. Even more interesting, the author retroactively applied The Habit Loop to the twelve-step AA program. It turns out those twelve steps developed over eighty years ago with no basis in science or therapeutic studies provide a powerful method for breaking alcohol addiction. While AA doesn’t work for everyone, it has helped over ten million people achieve sobriety, lending creditably to its processes. Belief in The System Once you have already picked up a bad habit and want to change it, according to The Power Habit, you can’t simply eliminate the habit, as perhaps many people looking to quit smoking can attest. You must replace the routine with something else while keeping the cue and reward in place. One of the more compelling examples in the book involves a woman hoping to stop the common problem of nail biting. Her therapy began by asking her to become more aware of when she felt compelled to chew. When she felt the urge, she was asked to keep count on an index card. Once she became more aware of the impulse, she was then asked to swap out the habit of biting with something less destructive, like rapping her knuckles on a table or rubbing her arm. Every time she managed it successfully, she gave herself a checkmark on the index card where she was recording her habit. After a week, she had minimized her nail-biting to just a few times in total. Like anything in life, success is not possible without belief. Charles Duhigg makes his case for the power of believing with a football story about the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning. Even highly disciplined sports superstars can benefit from good habit-forming. Not to spoil the story, but they go on to win the Super Bowl but not before they began to believe in the powerful forces at work behind forming good habits. Using the Habit Loop and Understanding Habit Formation The more a person comes to understand habit formation, the more success they’ll experience at changing bad habits and adopting good ones. Whether you’re looking to lose weight, stop smoking, exercise, or just be better organized, the Habit Loop provides a pathway. Just because it’s incredibly straightforward doesn’t mean it’s easy, however. The Power of Habit does a fabulous job breaking it down simply for you, but real work is up to you.

https://medium.com/the-innovation/the-power-of-habit-869b0c4aef7a

['Roxanne Hale']

2020-11-17 19:07:24.511000+00:00

['Professional Development', 'Psychology', 'Books', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Life']

The Science-Backed Ways Music Affects Your Brain and Productivity

The Science-Backed Ways Music Affects Your Brain and Productivity Why tunes help you focus, tunes to help you focus, and news you’ll want to tune into. “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” ― Aldous Huxley Dear Reader, There you sit again: browser open in front of you, the hum of your office in the background, your to-do list sprawled out on your notepad. And… you don’t feel like doing anything. Faced with this lack of motivation, you start to experiment: You try working offline. You try the pomodoro method. You take that walk around the block, as suggested by everyone. No major improvements. You’re not being as productive as you should, and you need to fix that… fast. So you put on your headphones, pull up your favorite pop song or ambient rain mix and listen. Instantly, you can focus on those boring tasks on your to-do list (looking at you, email). And now you got one of them done. Then another. Now you’re bobbing your head and in the zone. When nothing else seems to help make us productive, the right music can supercharge us. But in terms of our brain and work, what does music do and why does it help us? Over the next few newsletters, we will share why music affects our brains, explain how it boosts our thinking, and link up some of our favorite tunes that help us focus. We hope you enjoy! (Continue the conversation. Share your favorite jams by replying to this email or hitting us up on social @TheMissionHQ.) 🎶🎶 Science, Music, and Your Brain Studies about how music affects our brains and emotions have been ongoing since the 1950s, when physicians began to notice the benefits of music therapy in European and U.S. hospital patients. However, humans have been using music to communicate thoughts and feelings to one another for centuries. Today, research suggests that music can help relieve negative emotions like stress, anxiety, and depression. It can even decrease instances of confusion and delirium in elderly medical patients recovering from surgery. Furthermore, research says that listening to happy or sad music can make us perceive others as being happy or sad, respectively. All of these findings make it clear that, for better or worse, music’s impact on our emotions is very real. In terms of how music affects the brain, we can turn to a specific niche of research called neuromusicology, which explores how our nervous systems react to music. Basically, music enters the inner ear and engages many different areas of our brains, some of which are used for other cognitive functions, as well. (If you want to know the specifics of this detailed process, Dawn Kent explains it neatly in her thesis.) Somewhat surprisingly, the number of brain areas activated by music varies from person to person, depending on your musical training and your personal experiences with music. Therefore, how music impacts your ability to concentrate or feel a certain emotion can be expected to vary from person to person, too. However, there are some general brain and mood patterns that modern music research reveals, and these can help us decide what kinds of music to listen to at work. In tomorrow’s letter, we will explain exactly what those are and share more of the science behind music. Stay tuned!

https://medium.com/the-mission/the-science-backed-ways-music-affects-your-brain-and-productivity-dfd8bfd7cf68

[]

2019-08-13 18:38:37.286000+00:00

['Podcast', 'News', 'Music', 'Storytelling', 'Science']

How to Be Happier

How to Be Happier The hedonic treadmill and why one shiny new thing won’t change it all Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash I’ve been exploring new work opportunities lately. And I’ve found myself thinking some silly thoughts. Things like, “if I get that work, my life will be made.” And, “This is going to change the game for me, I’m going to level up my happiness x100 if this happens.” ​ This kind of language is dangerously close to the absolutist if/then frame of happiness.​ Have you ever thought to yourself, if I could just get that promotion, I’d finally be happy…?​ Or maybe it wasn’t about work or a promotion. Perhaps it was if only I could win that award, or buy that new house, or get married, or move to that country or lose ten kilos: Some specific goal or event you identified as the critical factor to feeling whole, fulfilled, happy. I’d guess most people have had moments like this; where they lock onto an idea and convince themselves that that, that thing, holds the final number of the combination to unlock their happiness and bring total fulfilment for the rest of their lives.​ The problem is, it rarely does. Sure, the pay rise or award won or wedding or new car boosts happiness for a while. But eventually, when the novelty wears off, we go right back to the same level of happiness we felt before it. Then, there’s a new ‘big thing’ we strive for, in hopes that it will fulfil us in the long term. At least, that’s the case according to the theory known as the hedonic treadmill (or hedonic adaptation).

https://medium.com/curious/how-to-be-happier-fefc679220be

['Sonia Diab']

2020-12-22 07:35:36.811000+00:00

['Happiness', 'Productivity', 'Psychology', 'Self', 'Motivation']

Unchecked AI Can Mirror Human Behavior

The 5 Most Common Types of Bias If we approach the topic from a statistical point of view, there are five ways in which bias can creep into the results. Confirmation bias Confirmation bias is the inclination to look for, decipher, favor, and review data that affirms or bolsters one’s earlier individual convictions or values. Therefore, confirmation bias is a powerful type of cognitive bias with a critical impact on society’s correct workings by misshaping evidence-based decision-making. An example of this is when you remember information selectively or make a biased interpretation of information given to you. Studies showed that we could even be manipulated to remember fake childhood memories. This indicates that people sometimes don’t even notice when they analyze data in a biased way (another psychological phenomenon that fits this category is wishful thinking). Selection bias Selection bias is the bias introduced by selecting individuals, groups, or data for analysis that does not achieve proper randomization, thereby ensuring that the sample obtained is not representative of the population to be analyzed. The term “selection bias” usually refers to a statistical analysis’s bias resulting from the sampling method. Therefore, it is essential to consider selection bias. Some conclusions of the study may be wrong. Outliers An outlier is an extreme data value. For example, a 110-year-old customer or a consumer with $10 million in their savings account. You can identify outliers by carefully inspecting the data, especially when distributing the values. Since outliners are extreme data values, it can be dangerous to decide based on the calculated “average.” In other words, extreme behavior can have a significant impact on what is considered average. It is imperative to base your conclusions on the median (the average value) to have an accurate result. Overfitting and underfitting Underfitting implies that a model gives an oversimplistic picture of reality. Overfitting is the inverse (i.e. an overcomplicated picture). Overfitting risks causing a particular assumption to be treated as the truth, whereas it is not the case in practice. How can this bias be counteracted? The most straightforward approach is to ask how the model was validated. If you receive a somewhat glazed expression as a reaction, there is a good chance that the analysis outcomes are so-called unvalidated outcomes and, therefore, might not apply to the whole database. Always ask the data analyst whether they have done a training or test sample. If the answer is no, it is highly likely that the analysis outcomes will not be applicable to all customers. Confounding variables Basically, this happens when additional factors influence variables you have not accounted for. In an experiment, the independent variable usually affects your dependent variable. For example, if you want to investigate whether the need to exercise leads to weight loss, the need to work out is your independent variable and the weight loss is your dependent variable. Disturbing factors are all other factors that also influence your dependent variable. They are additional factors that have a hidden influence on your dependent variable. Aggravating factors can cause two main problems: increased variance and the introduction of bias. It is essential to confirm that the conclusion drawn from research and analysis results is not affected by distortions. Uncovering biased results is not the sole responsibility of the analyst concerned. It is the joint responsibility of all those directly involved (including the market participant and the analyst) to reach a valid conclusion based on the correct data.

https://medium.com/better-programming/unchecked-ai-can-mirror-human-behavior-2ce1ce76f914

['The Unlikely Techie']

2020-10-16 17:24:22.477000+00:00

['Programming', 'AI', 'Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Future']

Mapping the Jungle That Is the Human Brain Onto a Computer

Why is the HBP Important? According to a report conducted by the World Heath Organization, it is estimated that 1 in 4 people will undergo some sort of mental or neurological disorder in their lives. That’s almost 2 billion people. With the brain acting as the powerhouse to our body’s decision-making and interpreter of our experiences, it becomes evident why neurological disorder is such a prominent problem facing society today. As Henry Markram states, “ without decisions: we cannot see; we cannot think; [and] we cannot feel.” He reasons that upon walking into a room, 99% of what you see does not actually come from the eyes; Rather, it is what you infer from the room upon which you are entering—i.e., the layout of the room; the walls; the windows; how the furniture is arranged; how the floors meet the walls, etc. And it is this prevalence of decision-making throughout the human brain which is so important to our evolutionary kind, that it’d be foolish to not dedicate time and energy into understanding and pinpointing the very fundamentals of what causes our own degradation, and ‘sickness.’ The increasing size of the neocortex across the evolution of primates is attributable to its fascinating success throughout this evolutionary process. It was so successful, in fact, that as brain matter continued to grow, primates eventually reached a point where they ran out of room in their skull for the brain to keep growing! Alarming change in brain size across human evolution (Source: The Acquatic Human Ancestor Theory) But it didn’t stop there. The brain continued growing, but now, folding in on itself, cramming every last bit of brain cells it can fit. Why? So it could store even more information and be able to perform even more complex functions. That is, after all, the final product of evolution, according to Henry Markram, and it’s why simulating the brain to perfection (purely from a pattern, circuitry-based perspective, as all brains are unique in composition) is the holy grail of neuroscience, as it will ultimately, physically(!) transform the way we think. Not only that, but it will allow us to perceive reality through another lens—that is, a virtually realistic lens. What next? By developing a virtually, realistic, working simulation, scientists may even be able to simulate a ‘sick’ computer—i.e., a computer which is ‘sick’ with Parkinson’s disease, or at least a disease similar in manner. In this way, it is believed that curing Parkinson’s disease in this “sick,” mathematically-computated-based simulation, we will be able to devise newer, creative ways of replicate this cure in real life. In summary, by using a mathematically simulated model, which requires a computationally complex and able super-computer, we would be able to integrate a miniaturized model based on physiological data that describes the anatomy of, and activity of the brain in certain regions parts. This cataloging of specific cortical regions of the brain would ultimately allow us to understand the brain better, at least from a mathematical standpoint, which may allow us to better understand diseases, such as Parkinson’s, as well as how we may be able to cure it (i.e., with the help of brain-related medical treatments like Brain-Machine Interfaces. This is the future of neuroscience.

https://medium.com/carre4/mapping-the-jungle-that-is-the-human-brain-onto-a-computer-2ed2b2336978

['Oscar Petrov']

2020-12-26 03:43:52.206000+00:00

['Neuroscience', 'Brain', 'Human Brain Project', 'Neocortex', 'Science']

A Simple Insight to Help Worriers Rein in Anxious Thoughts

A Simple Insight to Help Worriers Rein in Anxious Thoughts Teaching an anxious brain to picture happier scenes or scenarios helps against the inner dialogues that fuel daily anxieties The most frightening movie monsters are the ones you never see. That’s according to a 2020 study of horror films that appeared in the journal NeuroImage. For that study, researchers in Finland scanned the brains of 37 people as they watched a lineup of scary movies that included The Exorcist, Insidious, and eight others. The study authors found that people were much more frightened by unseen or implied threats than by ones that actually appeared on screen. That finding isn’t too surprising: “Don’t show the monster” is a timeworn rule in film and television horror, and the great terror writer H.P. Lovecraft famously said that “the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” The common wisdom here is that, left to its own devices, the human brain will usually come up with something more disturbing than anything a writer or director could dream up. And research on anxiety reveals that, much like that unseen movie monster, the most nagging and distressing concerns are typically ones we can’t picture very clearly. “When people worry, and particularly for those with generalized anxiety disorder, there tends to be a lack of mental imagery,” says Colette Hirsch, PhD, a clinical psychologist at King’s College London. Her research has found that rather than fire up the brain’s projector screen, worry predominantly involves language-oriented parts of the brain. “People tend to worry in words or sentences and at a more abstracted level,” she says. “It’s as though they’re talking to themselves about possible negative outcomes.” Hirsch is quick to add that certain subtypes of anxiety, such as social anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, don’t play by these rules. Both of those anxiety types tend to feature prolonged stretches of negative mental imagery. But for most worriers, Hirsch says that words dominate. Teaching an anxious brain to picture happier scenes or scenarios may help people defang the inner dialogues that fuel their daily anxieties. “People tend to worry in words or sentences and at a more abstracted level. It’s as though they’re talking to themselves about possible negative outcomes.” Why words flood the worried brain For a forthcoming study in Current Directions in Psychological Science, researchers at the University of Arizona explored the neurological makeup of the human imagination, which includes the mind’s ability to anticipate and fret about future hardships. Like Hirsch’s research, the study finds evidence that worrying may tilt the brain away from vivid mental imagery and toward hazier, language-based patterns of activity. “Individuals who often worry or ruminate tend to get stuck in negative, repetitive forms of thought that involve focusing on one’s feelings, problems, and symptoms,” says Jessica Andrews-Hanna, PhD, first author of that study and director of the Neuroscience of Emotion and Thought Lab at the University of Arizona. “Given the repetitive and habitual nature of such thoughts, memories and future thoughts start to lose their detail and become overgeneralized.” In the study, Andrews-Hanna and her co-author Matthew Grilli divide the imagination and its associated brain networks into two systems, or “styles of thinking.” The first, which she calls “the mind’s eye,” is an image-oriented style that involves “thinking in a detailed and specific way” about a memory or a hypothetical event. The second system, which Andrews-Hanna calls “the mind’s mind,” is a word-oriented system that tends to produce reflective and abstract thoughts and activates parts of the brain that deal with language. Everyone possesses and uses both of these systems, she says. But the word-oriented system seems to be dominant among people who frequently worry or ruminate. Why does the worried brain seem to prioritize words over images? It may have something to do with the way an anxious mind turns inward. “Anxiety is very interior-focused, whereas the exterior world is inherently imagery based,” says Matthias Mehl, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona. (Some of his work has found that people who talk a lot about themselves — which traditionally has been viewed as a sign of narcissism — is actually an indicator of distress and negative emotions.) Mehl points out that mindfulness training — which according to research can reduce anxiety, depression, worry, and rumination — shifts a person’s attention toward here-and-now sensory information and away from the self-directed and often verbal forms of inner dialogue. “If you’re truly in the present and attendant to your sensory input, this is not verbal,” he adds. Picturing a life without worry If the language-oriented parts of the brain become overactive among worriers, image-based therapies might help turn down that overactivity. And Hirsch says she’s now using these insights to inform her clinical work. “I tell my clients that worry is like a magnet, and words seem to make that magnet more powerful.” When someone is worrying, she says it can help if that person takes a moment to think of a happy or relaxed scene. For example, you could imagine yourself in one of your favorite places, or you could recall a happy experience in detail. “It won’t last, but that kind of image might turn the volume down on your worrying,” Hirsch says. These suggestions are in line with a lot of existing research. For example, spending time each week recalling positive memories has been shown to reduce stress and interrupt negative thoughts and feelings. Also, guided-imagery therapy, during which a person is instructed to imagine a certain place or setting in great detail, can also reduce anxiety. For a 2018 study in Frontiers in Psychology, people were guided through images of urban or nature settings. Both exercises led to significant reductions in anxiety, that study found. “I tell my clients that worry is like a magnet, and words seem to make that magnet more powerful,” Hirsch says. It takes practice for habitual worriers to recognize when their mind has gotten stuck in a whirlpool of unhelpful words or self-talk. (Here again, mindfulness techniques can help.) But with time and training, people can escape from that whirlpool or avoid it in the first place. By activating different areas of the brain, pleasant mental imagery seems to help them do that. “These habits are hard to change, but you can change them,” Hirsch adds.

https://elemental.medium.com/a-simple-insight-to-help-worriers-rein-in-anxious-thoughts-591272334e3

['Markham Heid']

2020-11-19 06:33:14.934000+00:00

['Health', 'Mental Health', 'The Nuance', 'Psychology', 'Anxiety']

‘Let it Go’ is Good Advice… Unless We’re Talking Creativity

You’ve wandered away from the rest of your tribe. All alone, you hear a rustling in the Savannah; a stirring in the long grass catches your eye. Your pulse quickens as you scrutinise that one spot, your muscles tensing in preparation for ‘fight or flight’. A moment passes, nothing happens. Your heartbeat returns to normal and you move on, focusing your attention elsewhere. Latent inhibition Latent inhibition is the mechanism by which we are able to suppress irrelevant information, and divert attention away from stimuli previously exposed to in favour of new and potentially relevant events (Lubow 1973). The evolutionary benefits of ceasing to pay attention to something after it has proven itself to be irrelevant is clear. Attention is a finite resource, if you pay undue attention to false alarms you leave yourself vulnerable to actual threats in your environment. However, beyond survival — the various biological imperatives — we as human beings desire much more from life. I’m talking about the tip of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: self-actualisation and creative expression. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, User:Factoryjoe [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)] Latent inhibition and creativity Reduced latent inhibition is an example of an over-inclusive and highly associative cognitive style, facilitating the generation of novel ideas and surprising connections, and as such it is linked to creativity (Burch, Hemsley, Pavelis, & Corr, 2016). However, it is also associated with heightened risk of psychopathology, as are many of the other cognitive factors which enhance creativity (Carson 2011; Chirila & Feldman, 2012). In the case of schizophrenia, undue attention is paid to self-generated stimuli i.e. hallucinations (Frith 1979). Your new modus operandi Embrace “irrelevance”. Do not be afraid to forge connections between seemingly unrelated concepts, to look at the familiar and quotidian with fresh eyes. If you are a writer, you might want to consider defamiliarisation (‘ostranenie’ in the original Russian), the act of describing the commonplace and taken-for-granted as something wholly foreign and conferring onto it a sense of wonder.

https://medium.com/swlh/let-it-go-is-good-advice-unless-we-re-talking-creativity-5b4ccfa42e80

['Angela Volkov']

2019-11-11 00:23:17.136000+00:00

['Creativity Tips', 'Cognitive Science', 'Neuroscience', 'Psychology', 'Creativity']

How To Figure Out What Genre To Write In

What genre should you write in? Thriller books sell a lot of copies. So does science fiction, romance and even erotic fiction books. A few years ago, a book marketing expert told me self-published authors earn a good living writing in these genres. I wanted to earn a good living from writing books too. So I spent a couple of months trying to write a thriller book that I could sell. I got up early every morning to work on it. And I hated it. The process felt a lot more like work than anything enjoyable, and I couldn’t get the story right, let alone finish it. I felt like I’d never become an author. 1. Are you writing the truth? Robert McKee is a screenwriting guru that film companies like Pixar call when they have problems with their scripts. He’s also the author of the popular book every writer should read: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. A couple of years ago, he gave a storytelling conference in a hotel in Sligo, in the West of Ireland. At the end of the conference, I got a chance to meet McKee. They say you should never meet your heroes, and I was a little nervous. I thanked him for his talk and then asked, “How does a writer figure out what to write about?” Suffice to say, I didn’t elaborate on my attempt to write lousy thrillers or erotic fiction. He took a copy of Story from me and autographed the first page of it with this piece of advice, “Write the truth.” I didn’t think much about how to apply it for a couple of weeks until I started writing thrillers again. 2. What books are in your library? One morning, I got frustrated with the manuscript for my thriller and ripped it up. I was nowhere near the end. I turned around and looked at my bookshelf. My bookshelf was full of business books, biographies, memoirs, and books about creativity and even some self-help. I wasn’t reading any thriller books or much science fiction or erotic fiction. And yet, for some reason, I was trying to write those types of stories. Instead of writing my personal truth, I was in it for the money. It was no wonder I felt blocked and miserable. So I started writing non-fiction about problems I had at work and in my business. I started writing personal essays about creativity, fitness and parenting. I found writing my form of the truth, like McKee advised, felt much easier and more enjoyable. So, if you’re feeling blocked or frustrated, consider what type of books fill your bookshelf or Kindle library. Writing what you love to read will help you find ideas for your next project. What’s more, because you’ve already read a lot of these books, you understand the conventions of the genre. So you know what readers expect. 3. Are you mindful of your influences? Conflicting advice alert! When you’re in the middle of a creative project, be careful of reading too many contemporary books about a similar topic. What you read informs what you write. Even if you don’t consciously set out to plagiarize, the ideas and stories you read will seep into your subconscious and will influence your work. Sometimes it’s best to approach a creative project with a blank slate. Your influences include books, music, television shows, people you talk to and blog or other writers you read or follow. If you’re worried about inadvertently taking on a contemporary writer’s voice, consider cultivating older influences. Instead of reading something new, review the bestseller lists from 50 or 60 years ago, or classics out of copyright. You may find an interesting idea or angle for your book or story that other contemporary writers have forgotten. On the other hand, if you spent a lot of time reading books that were published today or yesterday, you’re more likely to regurgitate somebody else’s ideas. Deciding what to write about is a big question for every writer. Sure, you can write to market and knock out a thriller, romance or science-fiction book. But the happiest writers focus on revealing a personal truth. It’s hard and worthwhile work. So, what’s your truth?

https://bryanjcollins.medium.com/how-to-finally-figure-out-what-genre-to-write-in-ed4d497463a9

['Bryan Collins']

2020-08-11 19:36:25.861000+00:00

['Motivation', 'Writing', 'Life', 'Writing Tips', 'Creativity']

How The COVID-19 Pandemic Sets The Stage For Corrupted Citizen Control

How can all that happen? The crux of the movie Now You See Me 2 revolved around a chip that the elite could use to manipulate stock markets, governments and the general populations, and its ending scene is as shown in the Youtube clip below: Ending scene for Now You See Me 2 While we don’t see it occurring so blatantly to us yet, the possibility of the ruling elites being able to one day wield their powers and subjugate the general populace is downright scary. Ideas are circulating about that it might be better to have a “COVID-19 vaccine passport”, as it has been reported on Yahoo: Australians who want to travel overseas will likely require some sort of ‘passport’ to confirm they’ve received the Covid-19 vaccine, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has revealed. “What we are looking at is how you can have a vaccination passport, an electronic version of it, that certifies what the vaccine is, is it acceptable to the country you are travelling to,” Joyce told Nine. Joyce said creating the document would be tough, but likely key to ensuring safe travel. “We are looking at changing the terms and conditions to say for international travellers that we will ask people to have the vaccination before they get on the aircraft,” Joyce said. “But certainly for international visitors coming out and people leaving the country (Australia), we think that’s a necessity.” Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten expressed support for the proposal, saying Australians would likely want to know whether the passengers they are seated next to were vaccinated. “I would expect anyone coming into Australia is going to have to demonstrate to us that they are COVID safe,” he said. On the one hand, yes we do need to ensure safety and halt the spread of the virus. But on the other hand, are such control measures necessary, especially when there is no conclusive proof that this highly infectious virus is causing significant death and destruction. Rather, there is significant proof from this pandemic that: People with dysregulated autophagy mechanisms, such as those who are experiencing obesity, type 2 diabetes, neurodegenerative disorders or heart disease are at higher risk of death from an infection. People are experiencing higher levels of stress and insecurity as the entire global economy suffers. Jobs are lost, livelihoods are affected — the fallout can also take a significant toll on one’s psychological health. A misrepresentation of the death toll from COVID-based infections can skew public perceptives towards obtaining a vaccine or a drug, which plays right into the hands of Big Pharma. Lest we forget, the drug Tamiflu was once upon a time stockpiled for a flu pandemic, only for various criticisms to emerge about the efficacy of the drug… but by then, Roche had already pocketed £473 million from the British government. In the same vein, Pfizer’s stock rose when it announced that its vaccine showed promising results, and Pfizer’s CEO managed to sell one ton of stock on the same day. Would have been a cool profit. Coincidence, or well-timed? But yet there are already reports of severe allergic reactions to the vaccine from unknown causes. I’m always an advocate of supporting one’s immune system, which is the most crucial piece in the body’s infectious defences. But yet most people still do not understand how a virus can infect a cell, as well as how the immune system recognises the infection and proceeds to dispose of the viral threats. As long as we don’t know how to support immune functions against viral threats from the scientific perspective, we can do all we want in terms of social lockdowns and symptom-alleviating drugs… But will that be enough, you reckon? At the very least, let’s aim to figure out how our immune system works on virus elimination from our body, no?

https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/how-the-covid-19-pandemic-sets-the-stage-for-corrupted-citizen-control-a96795166390

['Dr Joel Yong']

2020-12-17 02:48:40.971000+00:00

['Covid 19', 'Healthcare', 'Health', 'Science', 'Coronavirus']

I Survived Toxic Startup, Here’s the Antidote

I usually talk in very glowing terms about startup life. Sometimes I forget that it can suck. I’m lucky because, in over 20 years of this entrepreneurial insanity, it’s been rare that I’ve gotten screwed over or been forced to make decisions that I might regret later. But make no mistake, I have indeed ended up with the short end of the deal more than once. I’ve been betrayed both personally and professionally. I’ve had to make painful decisions that — while I don’t regret them — I sure didn’t want to make at the time. We tend to push the startup mythology as a utopian meritocracy where the best ideas always win — ideas that are executed by anti-heroes with minds that are wired to see the future in a way that you and I can’t. We paint these visionaries as magnets of money and talent. Then we have them falling into billion-dollar valuations because they deserve it. The truth isn’t anything like this mythology, but it’s just as strange. Truth is about as strange as fiction There’s a reason why HBO’s Silicon Valley was especially popular with people in the startup game. It’s because they nailed all the flaws. It’s well known that Mike Judge hired a number of valley players as consultants, and those consultants hit almost every sour note perfectly. In fact, a lot of what happened on the show happened to me almost in real time. Silicon Valley began airing right after I sold one of my startups, and they aired seasons 1–3 while my other startup went into our Series B raise and then through an acquisition by a private-equity firm. Almost went broke? Check. Right before our Series A hit our bank account, we were one week short of missing payroll. You can take less? We did. We took about half of our highest investment offer at half the valuation. Copycats? They were everywhere, including one that lifted every pixel of our website except for our name and another who listed me as their CEO. Patent trolls? You bet we got hit. I’m not at liberty to talk about how it ended. Intellectual espionage? Yeah, there was more than one company that tried to steal our IP under a ruse, including one who tried to get me to drop trade secrets during an “interview” for an overseas tech magazine. Startup is not utopia, but it’s not dystopia either Starting a company is no ticket out of the real and ruthless business world. There’s no escaping malfeasance, manipulation and straight up evil. And when you’re on your own and you’re small, with no one to back you up, all of that evil can fester inside you real quick if you let it. If you’re not careful, you’ll wind up succumbing to it and becoming exactly what you were railing against when you went out on your own in the first place. You don’t have to do that. Yes, startups can be toxic, but there are antidotes. Never do anything just for the money If you’re lucky, you’re going to be tempted by deals, customers and investment that will put a shitload of cash in your coffers for the wrong reasons. You can say you’ll never do that, or you can say of course you’d do that. Either way, when the time comes, just know that taking money for money’s sake — whether it’s a customer you’re not ready for or an investor who wants you to be something you’re not — is one step further away from your mission. It’s one step closer to toxicity. Sometimes it’s a giant step. If you’ve ever wondered how a cool and forward-thinking startup lost its way, it probably happened when the leaders justified a deal they shouldn’t have made because they couldn’t say no to the money. I’m not a fool. I know money is the fuel that powers the rocket. But as backwards as this sounds, it’s true: I know many more entrepreneurs who regret taking money than entrepreneurs who regret not taking the money. There is no such thing as a sweetheart deal Along those same lines, there is never a deal that allows a startup to go from a little to a lot overnight without some massive compromise. I’m not here to be your ethical compass, but I will tell you that the startup game is rife with get-rich-quick schemes. The worst of these are the startup-in-a-box models — step-by-step, surefire plans to make you rich with the added bonus of being your own boss. Sometimes it’s multi-level-marketing, sometimes it’s drop shipping, sometimes it’s a digital currency. Those former Ponzi schemers and charlatans lean on the utopian haze of startup life to add glitz to the kind of scam that’s been going on since the dawn of the last century. Believe me when I tell you that any entrepreneur who has found the can’t-miss strategy for making money would be scaling that strategy completely on his or her own. There’s no need to cut a middleman into the deal. Set your expectations correctly The vast majority of startups fail. Sometimes they fail early, before the idea even gets off the ground. Sometimes they fail late, when all the mass-market assumptions turned out to be susceptible to a fatal flaw that everyone ignored. Be prepared for a lot of failure. It comes with the job. Also, a very, very small percentage of entrepreneurs get to f-you money. I don’t have f-you money. But here’s my dark secret. I don’t want f-you money. Never did. I’ll spare you the cautionary tales and morality plays, but more money really does come with more problems. Some of us get to see that early, some don’t. You don’t have to believe me, but as I’ve ridden this roller coaster over and over again, I’ve met very few people with both f-you money and happiness. Just make sure you want what you’re asking for, because you’ll probably get it. Trust, but verify This is an old adage, but I’m shocked at how often it’s ignored, especially when I’m the one ignoring it. You don’t have to live your life in bubble wrap, but whenever money leaves your hands, you should have a clear indication of where it’s going to end up and a signal back to you when it gets there. This includes purchases, partnerships, salaries, and especially any time you hand authority over to someone else for something that’s very valuable to your company. Again, you don’t have to be cynical about every action. If you put an NDA in front of an investor before you pitch, that investor is going to show you the door. But before you sign the term sheet to take that investor’s money, you should be doing the same amount of due diligence on them as they are doing on you. Your currency is appreciation All of these admittedly simple scenarios distill down to one that isn’t really talked about much. You start a company to solve old problems in new ways. You start a company because the way the old regime does things irritates you. You start a company to help people. You don’t start a company to buy a boat. It’s probably easier to reach a certain level of financial and social success by being a role player at an established company and following rules and standards that were established years ago, maybe even years before you were born. But, in a startup, every time a customer says thank you, every time you make a customer’s life a little better, every time a customer’s eyes light up because they see their old problems in a new light, that’s your reward. You made that happen. That’s your currency. And therein lies the antidote. If you perpetually prioritize your customers, your employees, and your community, your startup life will remain non-toxic, maybe even utopian. Hey! If you found this post actionable or insightful, please consider signing up for my weekly newsletter at joeprocopio.com so you don’t miss any new posts. It’s short and to the point. This post was originally published in BuiltIn

https://jproco.medium.com/i-survived-toxic-startup-heres-the-antidote-84037d696633

['Joe Procopio']

2020-04-30 11:19:09.561000+00:00

['Leadership', 'Business', 'Productivity', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneurship']

7 Things I Gave up to Pursue My Entrepreneurial Endeavors

1. S E C U R I T Y When you are working a traditional job, it is easy to forget that you generally have some sense of security. As soon as you commit to pursuing entrepreneurial projects instead of maintaining traditional employment this becomes abundantly clear in many ways: Margin for Error — Most companies have some built in margin of error that they allow employees before firing them. At a minimum, it is likely cost prohibitive at most companies to arbitrarily fire employees. As an entrepreneur you are constantly faced with small decisions, any of which can derail your project or business. — Most companies have some built in margin of error that they allow employees before firing them. At a minimum, it is likely cost prohibitive at most companies to arbitrarily fire employees. As an entrepreneur you are constantly faced with small decisions, any of which can derail your project or business. Healthcare — One of the most effective forms of “Golden Handcuffs” that American employer have is healthcare. It may not be a great plan, but navigating the healthcare market as an entrepreneur can be distressing and time consuming. If you have a chronic condition, as 60 percent of Americans do, this is a major concern. If you have family relying upon your traditional job for benefits, the potential risk is extraordinarily high. — One of the most effective forms of “Golden Handcuffs” that American employer have is healthcare. It may not be a great plan, but navigating the healthcare market as an entrepreneur can be distressing and time consuming. If you have a chronic condition, as 60 percent of Americans do, this is a major concern. If you have family relying upon your traditional job for benefits, the potential risk is extraordinarily high. Retirement — Entrepreneurs need to consider what’s going to happen after they retire. A common problem with entrepreneurs is that they are so focused on the present and creating a business, that they neglect planning for retirement. Planning for retirement is harder for entrepreneurs because of the irregularity of their incomes and less options than many working traditional salaried jobs. 2. R E L A T I O N S H I P S Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash Entrepreneurs do not need to sacrifice all relationships for the sake of their own personal success, but having a job with irregular hours, high personal accountability, and sporadic bursts of stress makes it difficult to keep up with friends and family. It is even worse when it comes to dating. In my experience, anything that deviates from the societal norm (working a traditional job) may be initially seen as exciting by a potential partner but it is quickly viewed as a personality flaw. It is very hard for someone working a traditional job to understand the pressure and effort required to keep an entrepreneurial venture alive. 3. C O M P L A C E N C Y Photo by Drew Coffman on Unsplash Complacency is generally viewed as a negative trait but it is also a luxury that most entrepreneurs will not experience. Creating a new business or entrepreneurial venture is hard. Keeping it afloat while competing with larger businesses or well funded individuals is even harder. This typically involves constant attention to detail, strategizing, adapting, and having a clear understanding of market realities. None of this lends itself to complacency, which allows you to coast by by putting in “average” or “acceptable” levels of effort. 4. R O U T I N E S Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash While many writers/growth hackers swear by the benefits of routines (i.e. get up at 5 a.m. every day or do these 5 things before lunch), my experience has been that being an entrepreneur requires you to let go of routines. That is not to say you won’t form new routines. You almost certainly will. But most routines are difficult to maintain. I would say that flexibility and adaptability are far more important to most entrepreneurs. Your schedule is constantly in flux, you have unexpected opportunities come up which demand a disproportionate amount of time and focus, and you are typically filling multiple roles for your business. 5. V A C A T I O N S Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash Entrepreneurs are obviously allowed to take vacations. After all — isn’t that sort of flexibility one of the benefits? Yes and no. If you are the sole entrepreneur working on a project, it is hard willingly allow your businesses growth to suffer. Even if you are overworked and desperately need a vacation. Even if you do manage to take a vacation, it will almost certainly be a working vacation. I actually prefer to work everyday, regardless of what day of the week it is or where I am, 365 days per year if that means I get to pursue projects I am passionate about. But this lifestyle is certainly not for everyone, and it may lead to problems as the majority of the world is not operating under the same assumption. 6. S T A B I L I T Y Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash Financial stability is amazing and is definitely something I can appreciate. But a major shift for me, as someone who loves personal finance, is learning to live without financial stability. The level of financial risk varies depending on your financial resources, living situation, and the cost of your idea. That is why many entrepreneurs start off with a “side hustle” which is a good way to test an idea without quitting your primary job. But regardless of how prepared you feel, there is always an element of uncertainty. 7. T R O P H I E S Photo by Sung Jin Cho on Unsplash There are almost no external rewards for being an entrepreneur until you have had major financial success. And this can literally take decades. A traditional job offers you a steady stream of titles and clear promotions, which is much easier to internalize as being successful. This can be disheartening sometimes, but it makes those rare moments of success all the more worthwhile. I also think this form of delayed gratification is a true gift in a world where most people are looking for a quick dopamine fix, whether it’s through a like on social media, or a literal award for a job well done.

https://medium.com/escaping-the-9-to-5/7-things-i-gave-up-to-pursue-my-entrepreneurial-endeavors-ca94b05e4e72

['Casey Botticello']

2020-05-06 02:30:16.059000+00:00

['Finance', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Startup', 'Productivity']

The Winning Ad — Lessons In Book Promotion

Version A (thank you, Vico Biscotti, for your review used as copy for this ad) I’m deep into book promotion. I recently started to create the first ads for the How to Self-Publish Your Book: The Fast, Free & Easy Way promotion campaign. The one above seems to be the winning one in the A/B test. It proves that less is more and that what counts are the reviews and price. Here is the B version. It’s not exactly tanking, but it doesn’t produce nearly as good results. Version B As a writer who not that long ago started her self-publishing career, I feel that book promotion is one of the most treacherous and confusing aspects of self-publishing. The number of misleading information and book promotion businesses bordering on scam is astonishing. Writers get easily swindled out of money on the sites that do not bring any sales but take their money nevertheless, and then, if one dares to complain, they will blame it all on the writer, the book cover, or whatever else but themselves and their poor service. The truth is, some sites will bring sales to the same author promoting the very same book, while others won’t. It’s that simple. Unfortunately, separating the wheat from the chaff is not simple at all and there is no other way but to try it out and test the options. By doing this, I’ve already wasted a lot of money on useless promo services and that’s one of the main reasons why I’m writing my next book in the self-publishing series. It’s called You Self-Published, Now What? How to Promote Your Book. The book will help writers avoid unnecessary losses I and too many others have endured and show you how to make the best out of what little funds you have, which is exactly what I’m doing. The ad above is doing well on BookBub promotion platform and I’m happy with how that is working out. That, for instance, is one of the options I can recommend and will write more about in the new book. Like my previous book (How to Self Publish Your Book: The Fast, Free & Easy Way), the new one will also come in the form of a 101 guide for beginners and I will keep it at the lowest price point so that it will be affordable to all. As a result, I’m not earning much and am currently facing a loss due to the investment in promotion. On the other hand, though, the book has stayed in the top 10 in two categories on Amazon for three months in a row now, which means that Amazon algorithm is recognizing it as something worth supporting and is helping me promote it. I’m going to earn a bit over $70 this month on Medium and I will (yet again) invest it all in the book promotion. While this will allow me to continue with testing and experiments that are vital for a better understanding of what is worth the investment and what isn’t, it’s not quite enough. I’m currently conducting the research and collecting the links to useful resources and information as well as monitoring the results, costs, and sales resulting from my marketing campaign. I’m also testing different ads and copy. Like with the previous book, I will soon start publishing my findings in a form of blog posts prior to launching the book.

https://medium.com/nanowrimo/the-winning-ad-52d67d461617

['Mateja Klaric']

2020-01-14 17:43:33.338000+00:00

['Self Publishing', 'Writing', 'Marketing', 'Books', 'Publishing']

Design principle: Aesthetics

Now that we know a bit more about aesthetic design, let’s look at why it matters. Why aesthetic design matters? Not long ago user were expecting only functional and usable products when they were buying. Today, users expectations have evolved together with the design field. People expect usability by default and are seeking products that are more than functional and usable. We want to experience pleasure, to stimulate our senses. We want the products we use to evoke positive emotion in us. Aesthetic design is crucial to satisfy these needs. We all judge the book by its cover. The better the book cover the more we believe the content is better. This is phenomenon called “Aesthetic-usability”. Beautiful products/objects are perceived as easier to use and more valuable than ugly ones. Even if it is not true! This phenomenon is especially valid when the products compared are equal in functionality and ease of use. The better looking product will win over the users swiftly. Aesthetically pleasing designs are bringing up positive attitude in the users. It makes them care more about the product. Aesthetic design makes people more loyal of the brand and tolerant toward mistakes or failures. Imagine all the apple fans. Early impressions of a product design matter! Aesthetic design is influencing how people think and feel. It influences how much pleasure we feel from the product. Aesthetic design affects our long-term attitude about products and even people. Aesthetic design matters not only to make the first impression, but also to keep strengthening the bond with the user. The design of our products needs to be aesthetically pleasing consistently across the whole product and user journey. Design for aesthetic pleasure Let’s see how the words above can be useful for us to make better design. We have to design products that deliver pleasure to the user with aesthetics and usability. But when aesthetics are in the senses of our users, how do we know what to design? The answer can be given by the people we’re designing the product/experience for. We need to understand them before deciding what is aesthetically pleasing. When we are designing products for really wide audience it is wiser to keep things simple as much as possible! There are 4 important pleasure aspect that we need to consider when we want to make our designs aesthetically pleasing. Psychical pleasure Pleasure derived mostly from touch, smell and taste. Think of designing hand-held product, computer devices, VR set even a normal pen. We need to make sure the design is ergonomic, it feels comfortable and doesn’t overload the user senses. Consider how sensitive are your user’s senses, what is the average norm. Make sure the smell and taste is either neutral or brings positive associations. Social pleasure Pleasure derived from interacting with other people or with AI(still not that common). This context is very broad it can be from home assistant device and VR experiences to a room/building where social events will be hosted. We need to make sure the design supports social interaction in the best way possible. It could be as simple as the sound aesthetics of the coffee machine that allows employees to communicate, while waiting for the coffee to be ready. Psychological pleasure Pleasure derived from completing a task or feeling in control and safe. This context is very tightly related to the usability of the product. But it can be also related to how the product design looks. For example, a solid and stable looking car gives more psychological comfort than one that seems it might break if you open the door. Same is valid for digital products where the user feels in control and knows the task can be completed for sure. Making things look and feel simple and stable. Guiding the user with great composition and motion. Using aesthetics plays a big role in making the users feel safe and in control. Ideological pleasure This context is mostly about abstract pleasure. I like to think of it as the glue that binds the other pleasure types. It is the meaning of the words in the books not the colors, font sizes and page layouts. For example, in product design taking the sustainability angle can trigger pleasure in the user, making her feel well because she is responsible for the environment. Here are a 5 startups that are using that context. We need to make sure that our designs communicate ideas and deeper meaning. This can frequently result in very deep aesthetically pleasure once the user realizes it. Balancing aesthetics and usability There are cases where we need to sacrifice aesthetics, due to different limitations depending on the context. Other times aesthetics could dominate the usability aspect. Aesthetics and usability in balance This is what most of the cases as Designers we should strive to achieve in our designs. There are many good examples from smart phones and apps to computer chairs that look and feel good, but also have the desired usability. Aesthetics over usability Some times products have dominating aesthetics that are not supported by good usability and ergonomics. This is mostly visible in the fashion industry. I guess these might be nice in winter time :) Shoes made to look nice and attractive, while at the same time destroying the feet of the user. This demonstrates clearly how humans can be seduced by aesthetic design and even at the price of their health. Usability over aesthetics Other times usability must be on focus no matter what. Equipment designed for emergency situations, where people cognition is compromised. In this cases aesthetics are with low priority. When designing for such cases there are a lot of constraints from different authorities and requirements. Using Hick’s law for quick decision making can help you make the better design decisions. Final thoughts First impression matters. When we perceive beauty with more of our senses we feel deeper pleasure from the design. Aesthetic design gives users pleasure from the start! It makes them form a bond with the design, bond that goes beyond the initial interaction. Aesthetic design is perceived as more friendly, usable and valuable. Call to action If you found this article useful tap the 💚 so others can enjoy it, too. Thanks for your time! Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

https://uxdesign.cc/design-principle-aesthetics-af926f8f86fe

['Anton Nikolov']

2017-04-23 18:15:38.670000+00:00

['Design Thinking', 'UX', 'Marketing', 'Design', 'Startup']

Re: “Google’s Sundar Pichai: Privacy Should Not be a Luxury Good”

By John Stanton • May 20, 2019 Privacy is indeed a major concern for Americans and should not be the preserve of the wealthy. But it is a bit rich to read Google’s CEO extoll the virtues of his company’s initiatives to protect privacy when it collects more data on Americans than any other company, even Facebook. Those two companies have used that data to dominate the digital advertising market, capturing more than 60% of all digital ad revenue and raking in 9 out of every 10 new dollars spent on digital ads. The “Duopoly” has had massive effects on numerous industries, particularly journalism. Traditional publishers have been crushed and even digital outlets are being squeezed hard, a problem I know all too well. After years as a national affairs reporter and DC bureau chief, I was laid off by BuzzFeed in January and I joined the ranks of the 2,500 journalists who have lost their jobs in 2019. Google and Facebook are strangling one of the cornerstones of our democracy, the free press. Google’s privacy reforms won’t stop its data collection practices. This Duopoly is not healthy for our economy and its not healthy for our democracy. It’s time for real anti-trust scrutiny of these massive tech giants in order to save journalism.

https://medium.com/save-journalism/re-googles-sundar-pichai-privacy-should-not-be-a-luxury-good-6ea87d849de1

['Save Journalism']

2019-05-20 16:00:48.487000+00:00

['Google', 'Journalism', 'Tech', 'Facebook', 'Digital Advertising']

How to build the perfect Deep Learning Computer and save thousands of dollars

Updated 12/11/2019 Building your own Deep Learning Computer only takes a few hours. Assembly video is below. Picking the 4 most important parts: CPU, GPU, Storage and Memory. There are only 8 components to a build: GPU, CPU, Storage, Memory, CPU Cooler, Motherboard, Power, Case. The first 4 are the most important. When training, data flows from storage to memory to the GPU, while the CPU helps along the way (manipulates batches, etc). So, you want to make sure: Your CPU can support all your GPUs Your GPU is fast enough and can fit the model and data batch in memory Memory is DDR4 and big enough to float most datasets uncompressed Storage is M.2 PCIe and big enough Make your computer expandable to 4 GPUs with the right CPU It’s hard to know how many GPUs you’ll need because some models take 10s of hours to train (Vision CNNs, Natural Language Processing LSTMs, Capsule Auto Encoders, etc). So, one of the best ideas is to start with 1 or 2 GPUs and add more GPUs as you go along. Each GPU requires at least 8x PCIe lanes (it’s 16x officially, but there’s data for which 8x is good enough if you’re not running cross-GPU experiments). You will need 4x PCIe lanes for the M.2 SSD (which plugs right in and is 5x faster than SATA3), and another 4x PCIe lanes for Gigabit ethernet. That’s a total of 40 PCIe lanes and will restrict your CPU choices quite a bit. Your CPU will dictate the motherboard you need. (For example: AMD Threadripper CPU = X399 chipset motherboard, Intel 7900X CPU = X299 chipset motherboard, etc). You’ll want a CPU with 8+ cores / 16+ threads and 40+ PCIe lanes since this allows 4 experiments per GPU (16 experiments if you have 4 GPUs). Typically models take up at least a couple gigabytes of GPU memory so it’s rare you can run more than 4 experiments per GPU. Finally, make sure the PCIe lanes are actually getting routed to the expansion slots. AMD CPUs offer better value than Intel As of December 2019, AMD offers more performance for less money. AMD’s 1920X with 12 Cores/24 Threads/60 PCIe lanes is only $199! Intel’s 7900X with 10 Cores/20 Threads/44 PCIe lanes is $1000. Benchmarks show comparable performance, so AMD seems like a no-brainer. AMD’s second generation 2920x is only $400. (Disclosure: I’m long AMD stock.) Your GPU needs to have enough memory and be fast enough GPU memory works differently than computer RAM, so if you don’t have enough memory to fit your model you won’t be able to train (as opposed to train slowly). Once in a while I have a model that requires 10GB+ to run, so if in doubt, choose one with more memory. Nvidia GPUs are easier to use than other platforms because they have the most community support for tools (Tensorflow, PyTorch, etc). Buy cards that have ‘blower style’ fans instead of the large double fans because if you have multiple GPUs you need to vent air outside of the box. (eg 1080 Ti Founder Edition, or 2080 Ti Asus Turbo) Your choices are basically: Super High-end: Titan RTX (24GB / 4608 Cores / 576 Tensor Cores / $2,500) You can only fit one of these on the bottom slot because Titans don’t use blower fans. Titan RTX (24GB / 4608 Cores / 576 Tensor Cores / $2,500) You can only fit one of these on the bottom slot because Titans don’t use blower fans. High-end : 2080 Ti (11GB / 4352 Cores / 544 Tensor Cores /$1149), 1080 Ti (11GB / 3584 Cores / $500 used), 2080 Super (8GB / 3072 Cores / 384 Tensor Cores / $730) : 2080 Ti (11GB / 4352 Cores / 544 Tensor Cores /$1149), 1080 Ti (11GB / 3584 Cores / $500 used), 2080 Super (8GB / 3072 Cores / 384 Tensor Cores / $730) Mid-tier : 2070 Super (8GB / 2560 Cores / 320 Tensor Cores / $530) : 2070 Super (8GB / 2560 Cores / 320 Tensor Cores / $530) Low-end (Best Value) : 2060 Super (8GB / 2176 Cores / 272 Tensor Cores / $410) : 2060 Super (8GB / 2176 Cores / 272 Tensor Cores / $410) GPU inventory is very limited, so you may have to hunt around for inventory The Titan RTX is a monster card and ~55% faster than 1080 Ti on 32 bit training and 135% faster in half precision mode because of the additional Tensor Cores and extra memory which allows for much larger batch sizes. 2080 Ti is ~40% faster than 1080 Ti on 32 bit training and ~65% faster when used in half precision mode. From there, speed performance is linear to the number of CUDA cores so expect 1080 Ti to be ~40% faster than 1080 and 1080 to be 33% faster than 1070. Storage and Memory need to be as fast as possible Because you’ll be moving lots of data around from storage to memory then to the GPUs, you want that pipeline to be as fast as possible. Use M.2 SSD NVMe, which plugs right into the motherboard and DDR4 memory. Important tradeoffs of my build and common pitfalls Initial single-GPU build costs $3k and can expand to 4 GPUs later Here is my parts list with updated pricing and inventory. GPU: I picked the 1080 Ti intially because a 40% speed gain versus 1080 is significant when you’re talking about 10-hour train times, and the extra 3GB of memory is important when working with large models or increasing training speed with larger batch sizes. 1080 Tis are hard to find now, so check eBay. I later added a 2080 Ti and a Titan RTX in the bottom slot. As of 2020, the 2060 Super is the best value for a starter card. CPU: AMD’s 1920X has 12 cores and 38MB cache and is $150 more expensive vs. 1900X’s 8 cores and 20 MB cache. Earmarking 2 cores / 4 threads per GPU and the fact I might want the machine to double as a staging server later, 1920X gives me a little more breathing room. Storage: I used a single 1TB M.2 SSD, I don’t like having stuff on different drives and 500GB seems small considering datasets are often tens of gigabytes. I might add a super large spinning hard drive for ‘cold’ storage later. Memory: Quad channel memory is used because 1920X runs faster with quad than dual channel memory. 4 x 16GB is chosen because maximum supported memory is 128GB so it’s an easy upgrade path without needing to remove chips later. 3000Mhz is the fastest memory compatible with the motherboard (it’s overclocked from base 2667Mhz). Power Supply: 1600W P2 is enough to cover 4x250W GPUs + 180W CPU + 150W for everything else and a little bit of headroom for overclocking. You don’t want to max out your power supply because fans kick in like crazy when it’s running at high utilization. Case: Lian-Li PC-O11AIR because I need a case with 8 expansion slots (most mid-tower cases have 7, which means you cannot fit 4 double-wide GPUs). Between this case and the Corsair Air, this case looks nicer and comes with dust filters. Avoid these 7 Common Pitfalls Run through this list to make sure your build checks out. GPUs overheat my computer: Make sure you get the blower-style GPUs (The 2080 Ti version is called Turbo by Asus) because they vent out the back of the case. The ‘Overclock’ ‘OC’ type cards will have 2 large fans that blow into the computer, which will overheat. You also need a fan that delivers cold air directly onto the GPUs’ intake. You can fit one Titan RTX in the bottom slot if your case has a vent on the bottom like the O11AIR . Not enough PCIe lanes: You need at least 8x PCIe lanes / GPU (16x is better). If you have 4 GPUs, with a M.2 drive and Gigabyte ethernet, it’s 40 PCIe lanes at a minimum. My model doesn’t fit in my GPU memory: large Convolutional Networks and LSTMs use a lot of GPU memory, 8GB vs. 11GB is a big difference. Motherboard doesn’t fit 4 GPUs: Your motherboard needs to have slots for up to 4 GPUs and they must have space between them to use all 4. Best way is to check is a visual inspection on Google Images or search for people who have done it. Case doesn’t fit 4 GPUs: most mid tower-cases only have 7 expansion slots, so you will not be able to put a 4th double-wide GPU in the bottom slot. I’ve only found Lian Li and Corsair as options. Power Supply doesn’t have enough power / is too loud: You need to account for GPU (~250W each), CPU (~180W), Other (~150W, Motherboard, fans, etc). Overclocking draws a lot of power as well. Some power supplies are loud, read reviews online for quietness info. Typically the 80+ Platinum rated ones are quieter. My CPU cooler blocks the first GPU slot: Big air coolers such as Noctua sometimes will block the first GPU slot. Search for others who have used the combo. A budget expandable Deep Learning Computer at $2k Knowing all this, you can see how the following is a budget expandable Deep Learning Computer that costs $2k and is also expandable to 4 GPUs. Budget computer before taxes, it’s still expandable to 4 GPUs. As of Jan, 2020, you can replace the 1070 with the 2060 Super for $410. Prices for components have dropped a lot, you can get 1900X for $160. 32GB RAM for $150. 1TB EVO for $200. Save a thousand dollars as compared to buying If you are considering buying a system instead of building one, you can get a 4x2080 Ti system from Exxact for $7,999, which is the best deal I’ve found. The 2x2080 Ti system goes for $5,899. Building your own 4 GPU system in 2020 is a total of $6,600: $3,000 + $500 (upgrade to 2080 Ti) + 3 x $1,200 (3 more 2080 Ti) - $500 (NVMe and RAM are cheaper in 2020). So that’s $1,400 (~20%) cheaper to build. There are benefits to buying a pre-built though, such as a 3-year warranty, support, and pre-installed software. If you’re a busy individual or buying for academia/a company and want to simplify your life, it’s worth considering. Exxact’s ready-to-run Deep Learning computers with 3 year warranties Ordering and putting parts together Design your build on PCPartPicker.com PCPartPicker is very useful because it lets you select parts and tells you if there are incompatibilities, it also gives you the best price across several reputable sellers. Bandh, Adorama, Newegg, and Amazon are all reputable resellers. If in doubt, check Reseller Ratings. Putting parts together takes a few hours Assembly breaks down into the following 4 steps: 1) Case prep 2) Motherboard prep 3) Mount Motherboard 4) Install Memory, GPU and wrap up. Here is a short video of me assembling my computer: Short video on the actual assembly I also watched this build video for X399/Threadripper, you can probably find a similar video for your parts list. Install software with online scripts and tutorials If you follow tutorials, it’s relatively easy to get the stack up. If you don’t use tutorials or the wrong one, then it will be very frustrating! I installed Ubuntu 16.04 and used this tutorial for the CUDA/CuDNN/Tensorflow install. I think there’s a prebuilt for Tensorflow now so you don’t have to compile it from scratch. Expanding to more GPUs I added a Titan RTX, a 2080 Ti, and another 1080 Ti and it was really straight forward. You will have to upgrade your Nvidia driver to nvidia-410 to run the 2080 Ti. My Deep Learning computer with 4 GPUs — one Titan RTX, two 1080 Ti and one 2080 Ti. The Titan RTX must be mounted on the bottom because the fan is not blower style. Benchmarking your Deep Learning Computer Continue to the next post: Why your personal Deep Learning Computer can be faster than AWS to learn what drives Deep Learning Performance and how your computer will stack up against the cloud. See new photos and updates: Follow me on Medium and Twitter! FAQ Why is expandability important in a Deep Learning Computer? If you don’t know how much GPU power you’ll need, the best idea is to build a computer for Deep Learning with 1 GPU and add more GPUs as you go along. Will you help me build one? Happy to help with questions via comments / email. I also run the www.HomebrewAIClub.com, some of our members may be interested in helping. How can I learn this stuff? Stanford is giving away a lot of their CS curriculum. So look there. There are also great articles on more cutting edge research here. What models can I train? You can train any model provided you have data, GPUs are most useful for Deep Neural Nets such as CNNs, RNNs, LSTMs, GANs. Some examples w/ code & datasets are listed on my website thisisjeffchen.com. Vision and photo enhancement is really good now, which makes the new iPhone 11 amazing. More FAQ: is located at the bottom of the page here.

https://medium.com/the-mission/how-to-build-the-perfect-deep-learning-computer-and-save-thousands-of-dollars-9ec3b2eb4ce2

['Jeff Chen']

2020-02-26 13:13:15.008000+00:00

['Tech', 'Deep Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup']

Journal Your Way Through Anxiety To Have A Better Relationship With Your Emotions

Journal Your Way Through Anxiety To Have A Better Relationship With Your Emotions Ten minutes per day is more than enough to make an impact. Photo by Ava Sol on Unsplash I used to be an emotional wreck. My anxiety was high, and my self-esteem was at an all-time low. Negative thoughts often got the best of me. So as you can imagine, it didn’t take long to enter an endless cycle of mental health problems, from which it was incredibly difficult to escape. Overthinking became commonplace. I struggled to look at myself in the mirror because I was deeply ashamed of what I looked like. Frequent feelings of anxiety took over my mind, and I often struggled to go outside because I was afraid of what other people thought of me. Saying my life sucked would be an understatement. But one day, I stumbled across the habit of daily journaling. At first, I thought it was some cliche self-help gimmick. Deep down, I was incredibly skeptical. But after trying it out for a few weeks, I noticed the incredible impact it had on my emotional wellbeing. Quoting an article published by Harvard Medical School: “The act of thinking about an experience, as well as expressing emotions, seems to be important. In this way, writing helps people to organize thoughts and give meaning to a traumatic experience. Or the process of writing may enable them to learn to better regulate their emotions. It’s also possible that writing about something fosters an intellectual process — the act of constructing a story about a traumatic event — that helps someone break free of the endless mental cycling more typical of brooding or rumination. Finally, when people open up privately about a traumatic event, they are more likely to talk with others about it — suggesting that writing leads indirectly to reaching out for social support that can aid healing.” If you’re anything like my past-self, you overthink… a lot. So if you want to improve your mental health and emotional wellbeing, writing down your emotions could be a great way to ease any feelings of anxiety, depression, or stress. Here’s how to start.

https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/journal-your-way-through-anxiety-to-have-a-better-relationship-with-your-emotions-ef29d0908d20

['Matt Lillywhite']

2020-12-23 23:02:41.806000+00:00

['Anxiety', 'Self Improvement', 'Writing', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology']

What Being Broke Taught Me About Launching a Successful Business

You need to want it — above all of your fears My ideas were the only thing keeping me going. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie The Dark Knight Returns, but there’s a scene in which Batman/Bruce Wayne, after being thrown into an inescapable pit by his nemesis Bane, has to risk his life to free himself. Only one other person in history had made the jump, and in both cases, it was the adrenaline from the fear of death which got them from A to B. Some of us are stuck in a pit, and we can’t get to where we want to be…because we aren’t utilising our fear. If you know you have everything to lose, you work fast. For me, I knew if I didn’t work, I wouldn’t eat. Period. Work as though you have everything to lose. Use the pressure around you and take the risk. Put in the hours you need to, in order to train and make the jump that requires that level of faith. You must be resourceful before you scale Don’t dream big if you can’t master the small. If you’re crappy with the small things, increasing size and reach just makes your crappiness even worse. The premise is the same in business. When you launch a new product or service, you need to make sure that you make the most of what you have before you facilitate growth, or get more people involved. In the early stages of my start-up venture, I was a one-man-band. I created all the online marketing materials, I manned communication and admin, I wrote all the partnership documents. I responded to emails in third person to maintain professionalism. Within a week, my start-up gained traction from over 200 users on social media, and within two weeks of opening my first community event, we were almost sold out. I’m not advocating overwork. I’m not saying to start a business right this moment. I’m not saying to acquire any of these skills you don’t have. I’m saying to be resourceful. Max out before you add. I was forced to do this in the early days because I was broke. Make sure you’re in a relatively good place with your venture or side hustle before pursuing growth. You’d be surprised what making use of what you have at your disposal can do for your business. Your business goals must have clearly defined metrics Stop being so vague, for goodness’ sake. I know it’s comforting to aim for a multi-million-making business — but there’s no point if you don’t have a clear and logical way to get there. You can’t order a taxi to a certain destination without first inputting your location. Being broke meant that I needed to be very strategic with my money management, both in a personal capacity and in a business space. These were my goals: Clear my $1000 overdraft Pay my $900 rent Save at least $200 for launching my business. I carefully saved 10% of all my erratic revenue-generating activities and used the rest to pay off my debt and buy groceries. I still use this method now, although I save 30% of my income for business reinvestment. Although my aim was small, I had a clearly defined goal and a strategy on how to get there. It’s the same strategy I’m using to make my first million. Watch this space. Monetary incentives for team members isn’t enough Did you read that correctly? Money isn’t enough, and knowing that will save you a lot of aggravation when you start bringing people on board. It was easy for me to find out since I had no money. I was forced to find other ways to draw the kind of people I wanted to work with. I found my CTO (Chief Technology Officer) when she came across my business online. She emailed me straightaway. I told her straight up: “Look, I can’t offer you a salary right now. I’m going through a rough patch myself so if you want to get on board, I need to know that I can still count on you.” She laughed, explaining that she wasn’t even considering the money. She loved the cause, the idea, the business model. She bought into the vision. The same occurred when our team grew. More people started dedicating their time and skills, not for money, but a genuine passion. If I possessed the capacity to pay a salary, it would’ve been the first way I would try to attract talented team members. But relying on passion and buy-in to the cause meant that I could weed out poor team members from the jump. If you are looking for team members in your business venture, consider your value proposition. If the only buy-in they express is money, I’d advise you to keep looking. Changing behaviour is the key to success. Your goal isn’t to make profit. That’s right. You aren’t in business or entrepreneurship to make profit. Or sell a product or service, or fix a problem. What you need to focus on is how you will change behaviour. It’s no good fixing a problem if people won’t buy into your solution. How will you impact the behavioural patterns of your chosen audience? When I had no money for fancy products or detailed consultancy services, I had to really dig deep and figure out what I was trying to do with my business. During the summer, I worked as a library assistant every so often to make ends meet. I processed hundreds of incoming and outgoing books. Students would sometimes ask me my thoughts on a particular book. “This one’s a keeper,” I might say, or “I wouldn’t bother.” They’d listen, and either take home the book or lay it on the table. It was reflecting on this that I truly understood what it meant to have a monopoly in business. The most successful business has the authority to change behaviour. They are socially validated. As a librarian’s assistant, I had the credentials and authority to provide a service and opinion, which changed the behaviour of the recipient. Brands like Apple don’t need to do too much marketing beyond announcing the release of a new iPhone, and consumers will flock because Apple is perceived as the definitive authority capable of changing consumer behaviour with their brand. I applied this to my business. Suddenly, my whole brand and consultancy was about producing the changed behaviour which would attract more consumers. That’s when my community grew — I wanted to change them, and they bought into it. When drafting out your business ideas, ensure your outputs are underpinned by the desire to change the behaviour of the consumer. Once you have their attention, you have authority.

https://medium.com/swlh/what-being-broke-taught-me-about-launching-a-successful-business-9fffaf1d1234

['Renée Kapuku']

2020-01-31 06:43:30.232000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Startup', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity']

Is Eco-anxiety the Future of Our Mental Health?

Is Eco-anxiety the Future of Our Mental Health? If we don’t act immediately, yes, it will be. Photo by Fernando @cferdo on Unsplash What is the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear the words “climate change”? Now, think about the second thing that comes into your mind. And now the third. Did any of your thoughts include its impacts on our mental health? And if so, was that your first, second, or third thought? When we think about climate change, we tend to overlook the importance of its psychological consequences. “Imagine you go outside and you look up in the sky, and there is a comet there. And… you just have been told by scientists that that comet is racing toward the Earth and it’s going to kill everybody and everything in a big fiery storm, [but] nobody notices the comet. And you say, “Hey look, there is a comet and it’s going to kill all of us”, and people don’t seem to care.” In 2017, the American Psychological Association (APA) co-published a report, which focuses on the impacts of climate change on mental health. Just reading the introductory note, you can understand the importance of future related implications. As it is mentioned, depression, stress, social and community tension, aggression, violence, and crime are all associated consequences. The report also touches on eco-anxiety, which is termed in its glossary as “a chronic fear of environmental doom”. [1] Searching further, other definitions of eco-anxiety — or climate change anxiety — describe it as an existential fear, as it is mentioned, for example, by Dr. Steffi Bednarek, Psychotherapist, in this video made by BBC Northern Ireland. Dr. Bednarek also describes it as “an anxiety about the future and a trauma that we have not experienced yet, but that we know is going to come our way.” She says that although climate change anxiety is a relatively new term, it’s not new as a phenomenon. [2] What makes you understand better the feeling of eco-anxiety are the descriptions that sufferers give in BBC’s video. “When big ecological disasters happen around the world, I feel a sense of anxiety, I feel a sense of sadness and a sense of loss,” says one. Another sufferer explains his eco-anxiety in a hypothetical context saying, “Imagine you go outside and you look up in the sky, and there is a comet there. And…you just have been told by scientists that that comet is racing toward the Earth and it’s going to kill everybody and everything in a big fiery storm, [but] nobody notices the comet. And you say, “Hey look, there is a comet and it’s going to kill all of us” and people don’t seem to care.” But what exactly triggers eco-anxiety? In the video, the people who talk about their experience also refer to thoughts that make them feel eco-anxious. For instance, one of them says that when he thinks about the fact that other parts of the world are more severely impacted by climate change, that triggers his anxiety. One of the other interviewees mentions “the fear of people mistreating each other out of panic and fear” as one of his most stressful thoughts. Getting emotional, anger, powerlessness, frustration, and helplessness are feelings that the third interviewee in the video says she experiences due to thoughts related to climate change. What those people have in common is that they care about the environment and its protection; they care so much that the state of their mental health is seriously affected. So, what we’ll happen in the future if we don’t act sufficiently and on time at the present? Will everybody — whether they care or not about climate change now— suffer from eco-anxiety? In countries such as Bangladesh that have already been severely affected by climate change, it seems that the immediate impacts of the phenomenon on mental health are already noticeable. For example, this is evident through the work of Psychologist Amanda Carrico, Ph.D. Carrico, as it is mentioned in this article on APA’s website, was told by a family in rural Bangladesh that they anguished over migrating to India to find work, after the productivity of their farmland was negatively impacted by climate change. [3] As you can understand, or even have experienced yourself, agonizing over leaving your country and moving to one characterized as an “increasingly hostile to immigrants” is a mentally straining situation to be. This, among other things, proves how climate change can affect adversely one’s mental health. Thus, thinking about possible scenarios and taking into consideration how climate change already affects many people psychologically, it seems that the most likely answer to the questions stated previously is this: Our future and that of generations to come will be impacted by eco-anxiety, severely. If substantial action is not taken now, everything at some point will get worse. Then, we will all feel eco-anxious, because it won’t longer have to do with mere thoughts about events happening “somewhere else”, but with experiences related to events happening in the cities we all live in. References:

https://medium.com/climate-conscious/is-eco-anxiety-the-future-of-our-mental-health-b2ed8b071597

['Athina Kontolati']

2020-12-07 15:42:54.963000+00:00

['Environmental Issues', 'Climate Change', 'Environment', 'Future', 'Psychology']

The battle for replacing coal with renewable energy in Kosovo

The battle for replacing coal with renewable energy in Kosovo The World Bank and US government have been planning support for a new coal plant in Kosovo for over a decade. But could the falling cost of renewable energy combined with cutting-edge air pollution research change the equation? Nearly eight kilometers from the capital city of Pristina, two Yugoslav-era coal-fired power plants continue to generate electricity, heaving masses of particulate matter and trace metals into the air that float directly into the city. After the US Embassy in Pristina started posting the air quality index readings live on its website early this year, citizens took to the streets, demanding cleaner air for all. But for Kosovo, a country living on the edge of Europe, avoiding coal remains elusive — the lignite heats most homes and powers nearly all buildings, because Europe’s newest country is sitting on the world’s fifth largest lignite reserve. Kosovo doesn’t need to rely so heavily on coal, however. With the falling cost of solar, wind, and now, storage, and the investment opportunities arising for clean energy options, the people living in Obilic have a clear choice for clean energy– if they’re allowed to make it. Kosovo A, the power plant with the dubious distinction as ‘the largest point-source of pollution’ in all of Europe, was built in the early 1960s as a mining and electricity generation operation. The mine-mouth plant evicted a number of residents from their homes, and through the years, as more resources have been extracted, it has encroached further upon local villagers’ homes, setting off legal debates and a host of controversies surrounding the proposed construction of a new plant. The World Bank and multilateral development banks remain at the forefront of financing coal versus cleaner renewable energy projects. The banks have been deliberating the construction of a new coal plant for nearly a decade, but will they leave behind a community forced to evacuate due to coal mining or pave a new way forward to finance sustainable energy systems for the poorest, most vulnerable populations? For nearly 20 years, as villagers in nearby Hade continue to fight for resettlement rights, the World Bank has been breaking its own rules and safeguards to accommodate new coal mining operations, exposing residents who stayed in their homes to continuous harmful dust and constant noise pollution. Efforts to promote energy efficiency and conservation in homes have helped raise awareness, yet still maintain reliance on the dirty low-rank lignite coal for electricity that is stifling economic development. The need for green lending Kosovo, on its own, cannot significantly invest in the energy sector, due to devalued credit and lack of capital. In spite of this, small local solar and wind companies are emerging to generate electricity in one of the sunniest spots across Southern Europe. However, now citizens are faced with the tough task of convincing lenders to invest in the green energy and new jobs that attract innovation and retain the country’s talented youth. Without the option of clean electricity from major lenders, Kosovars are stuck paying the high cost of poor health, noxious air pollution, and few job opportunities for advancement and competitiveness. One more major hitch remains if coal is continued for electricity generation — the dirty nature of the lignite itself. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley took samples of the lignite found in Kosovo back to the lab for elemental analysis. The elevated levels of arsenic, chromium, and nickel only tell part of the story, showing up in hospital admission records and high rates of air-pollution-related respiratory illness. Taking a drive through the coal mine exposes many of the contemporary social issues Kosovo faces, including a lack of jobs, opportunities, and mechanisation of dirty industry. The coal plant experiences frequent blackouts and due to a recent power trade dispute with Serbia, stopped generating electricity and slowed down European clocks by six minutes. The mine itself feels strangely open and empty except for the rows of houses perched right next to coalfields, still at odds and in direct conflict with the coal operators. A five-kilometre-long conveyor belt delivers the lignite coal from the mine to both Kosovo A and B in an open-air system. There are plenty of hazards for the few mine workers left, including dust exposure to untreated lignite coal containing unsafe levels of arsenic. The youngest populations are most at risk to these hazardous pollution, and to the hoards of youth protesting on the streets of Pristina, better air quality comes at a major tradeoff. If youth have family connections working outside of Kosovo or ability to work elsewhere, they will, and Germany looks pretty attractive for those seeking employment and new opportunities. However, for all the repatriated Kosovars now trained in green, clean-tech economies, why not enable a bank-funded program to repatriate new clean energy jobs in Kosovo? This investment option could make both economic and social wellbeing a priority for future energy infrastructure decisions that also considers future costs of a looming public health crisis. Thomas Berg Part of the conversation surrounding a new ‘clean coal’ plant omits key information about a supercritical boiler that can generate electricity at a higher efficiency and heat than ‘60s-era coal plants. Higher temperature boilers can increase the amount of toxic trace metals present in the air emissions escaping the coal plant. New technologies may reduce sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides emissions relative to their current levels, but may not completely mitigate the full negative effects of combusting coal. Even the most advanced filters and de-NOx units can’t change the low quality of the lignite fuel itself, highlighting the challenge for cleaner electricity supply. A sustainable path forward The bright side is that resettlement doesn’t need to be the solution anymore for those living next to the exposed, overburdened shadow of the lignite mines. Solar and wind electricity, along with coordinated regional efforts across southeast Europe, could bring cleaner electricity to the Kosovo power sector and create new jobs and opportunities that have been missing for more than a decade since the war ended. “The people living in Obilic have a clear choice for clean energy– if they’re allowed to make it.” A commitment toward European accession could include a jobs creation stimulus package that includes energy efficiency investments alongside supply-side resources to transition Kosovo from lignite toward cleaner electricity that can enable new jobs for the 21st century. Kosovo is primed to be a major destination situated north of Greece and Macedonia, and close to the pristine Adriatic coastline. With fine wines and coffee industry gaining notoriety across the Balkans, why not ensure the air and water is clean and of high quality? As great as the macchiatos and burgeoning wine industry, a healthy environment and sustainable energy plan underscores the need to ensure that the future of Kosovo lies in its history, culture, and people and not in the millions of tons of lignite best left in the ground. For the financial institutions with clear lending and decision-making power, the responsibility is to invest in the country’s most abundant energy resources — that of solar, wind, small-hydro and geothermal renewable energy, which offer a lower-cost and lower-carbon pathway to sustainability — leaving the coal in the ground and the power with the people.

https://medium.com/thebeammagazine/the-battle-for-replacing-coal-with-renewable-energy-in-kosovo-138019b6d73b

['The Beam']

2018-11-26 12:55:43.395000+00:00

['Renewable Energy', 'Sustainability', 'Impact Investing', 'Climate Change', 'Environment']

Want to Be a Writing Prodigy?

Maybe you were that kid who was given a writing prompt in grade school and got lost filling a page with words and ideas. When the time was up, you easily had a few complete pages. Maybe, like me, you were given a blank journal as a birthday gift and you began writing a book all your own. Whatever else happened in life, you knew at a young age that putting words to your intimate reality was something that only you could do. You identified as a writer. In fact, you were a writer. You had a book to prove it. Perhaps your third-grade teacher allowed you to skip English class and sit out in the hallway so you had quiet time to write your play? You included hand-drawn pictures (because no one told you a play didn’t include pictures) of pirates and candy and pioneers — some mishmash of Little House on the Prairie, a children’s book that belonged to your younger brother, and the game of Candyland. This before fan fiction was even a thing. Or you were one of the few dorks how actually relished diagramming sentences in the fifth grade. You had a pouch with red and black pens, a ruler, and a special notebook just for this task. How lucky the child-writers Do children still get to enjoy this rare pleasure? Do adults notice? I live in a Texas school district where athletics trumps all. You never open the local news to see a picture of a kid hunched over a desk writing by the glow of a task lamp, but they’re here. There are different kinds of Friday Night Lights, baby. Kids who write do so in private, often filling pages and notebooks in secret. All you need is a quiet room and some time, and a pen and paper, of course... no computer, word processor, or laptop is necessary. And if you grew up in the 70s and 80s, writing was the perfect activity for bookish types of a certain age. It’s also an amazing activity for unleashing creativity in adults if you can stand the slow, sometimes hypnotic pace of handwriting. Take it slow and see what happens An accomplished pianist I know once pointed out that adults who want to learn the piano are never content to start with Row, Row, Row Your Boat. They want to jump right into the Moonlight Sonata. Being able to slow down practice is a gift learned young. The craft of writing — all art, actually — is hard work. Just like the young volleyball recruit going through her drills and the basketball player’s early morning hoops, creatives must also accept the tedious pace of working through their craft. When you’re writing with a pen in your hand, moving over a notebook, you are plumbing a deep, ancient, creative source. Since I could hold a pen, I’ve written nearly every day of my life — at least a few words. I’ve used journals, blank books, and blogs. I’ve used pens and pencils and keyboards on all types of machines. And I can attest to the power of handwriting. There’s something about paper that helps me solidify thoughts better than a backlit screen. I’ve rarely wanted to exchange that privilege with another. Writing on paper, with a pencil or pen, is a primal, creative act that pays huge creative dividends. Although I can write faster on a keyboard, I could never give up writing by hand. I’d feel like I was missing something deeper and messier. But the best writers are touch typists, right? I know what you’re thinking, handwriting is so slow and tedious. You can’t read your own writing after you’re done. Your hand cramps. If you come up with anything good you just have to sit at a keyboard and re-write it anyway. I agree with all of that. I’ve read many articles about successful writers who started writing as adults because they figured out how to write fast and furious. They naturally developed a voice that vibes great with their internet audience. They easily write/type in several languages and crank out stories like a machine. Maybe you, too, want to be that writer whose Medium earnings blow 98% of the rest of us out of the water. Though I practice daily, I’m not there yet. Somewhere in every writer, though, there’s a voice that won’t go away. When I hear mine most clearly, I’m usually not typing. I’m holding a pen. Certain glittering, literary treasures only emerge when you write your sentences longhand. Proficient learners are not necessarily prolific writers In 2014, a widely circulated study showed that students who took class notes with a pen on paper retained complex concepts better than those who took notes on a laptop. The research doesn’t say which students got better grades. The ones who took notes the old-school way acquired knowledge that stuck. Turns out the ones who tapped notes on a keyboard merely regurgitated what the professor said verbatim, resulting in shallower processing. When it came time to reformulate the lessons, they came up short. When students listen, process, and summarize concepts in longhand, they learn more during the actual lesson. Their brains were engaged in ways the typists were not. Makes sense. The good and bad news is that the hand writers produce fewer words. They also tend to get, you know… creative. Since it takes longer to handwrite than type, the students actually think about what the instructor is saying and quickly pen it to paper, making sense in whatever way their brain decides is best. Rounding sharp corners, the working brain causes problems. At least I’ve found this to be true. The research doesn’t say which students got better grades. Sometimes, overthinkers can make a beautiful mess of ideas as they churn them through their gray matter. Beyond note-taking, you stir the creative process — often more than you bargain for — when you write out your thoughts longhand. This 30-year journaling trend Artistic types hoping to stimulate their creative juices widely adopted Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages practice, which she describes in her 1992 book The Artist’s Way. Almost thirty years later, it’s still #1 on Amazon in the popular psychology, creativity, and genius category. [Note: the “Genius” category.] People swear by this stream-of-consciousness journal-writing practice first thing in the morning — I have occasionally done morning pages throughout my life, although I’m not in a regular habit. Many writers intuitively know that writing by hand with a good pencil or gel pen brings out their genius. What is going on in the brain that makes handwriting so key to the creative process? Is there any conclusive neuroscience research to back up the claim that handwriting that unlocks creativity? Some startling handwriting facts Brain scans show you use more parts of the brain when you write by hand. Think about it: your hand needs to move over the paper and grip the pen (motor skills). You must remember how to form the letters (memory). You fill a page with lines of cursive (spatial reasoning). You construct sentences from thoughts (imagination and creativity). You also smell the ink and feel paper (tactile pleasures). Your entire brain is firing away. There’s also a link between handwriting and mindfulness. When you write, your brain lights up just as it would if you were meditating. This is great news for those who strive for productive mornings that don’t end up killing half of your workday. Now you can skip the meditation practice and just write. One less thing. Certain glittering, literary treasures only emerge when you write your sentences longhand. The handwriting child has an edge There’s something childlike and exploratory about handwriting — about writers in general, but those who write by hand, especially. Since you’re activating more parts of the brain at once, you give it a better workout, so to speak. This is a bonus if you’re an actual child. Children who learn to handwrite (and use it regularly) tend to write “more words, faster, and to express more ideas” than those who use a keyboard. Working brains cause problems. I’ve found this to be true… Sometimes, overthinkers can make a beautiful mess of ideas as they churn them through their gray matter. As a child who wrote a lot, I can attest to certain benefits. Some of them admittedly of the navel-gazing sort. But also the ability to write a decent college essay; being the go-to pro-bono writer of nonprofit press releases; not embarrassing oneself while composing interoffice emails; and the ability to land an average (but better than minimum wage) writing job in the first place. Meanwhile, written in the off-hours are there are these therapeutic personal essays… I told you it gets messy. I suspect sometimes that too much creativity — can you have too much? — makes it difficult to make real money writing. Just a hunch. Is your creative edge worth it? I’m reminded of the time I visited my brother in the workshop of the furniture maker who apprenticed him. My brother is a master craftsman of wood. The kind of carpenter who hand planes curving staircases and dovetails the joinery of drawers. He fusses over woodworking details very few people can appreciate or afford. As we were walking around the shop I spotted a cardboard box from Ikea with the name of some chintzy shelving system — Kallax or Billy. Who knows how it got there, but its existence among the sawdust mocked the shop's efforts. “Doing some resale?” I kidded him. Why work so hard when others make it look so easy? Recently a Medium writer I follow — someone I’ll bet is all too familiar with the handwriting/creativity link — wrote a post about that insulting, ubiquitous “Hi” story that parked on everyone’s Medium home screen for days. I see you, Alison Acheson. So much for all that talk about writing great headlines.

https://medium.com/illumination/want-to-be-a-writing-prodigy-48d3ed8e5c9

['Jen Mcgahan']

2020-11-19 04:14:56.957000+00:00

['Creativity', 'Writing Tips', 'Productivity', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing']

My Favourite Productivity Advice Ever

My Favourite Productivity Advice Ever On getting that large or neglected creative project done NOW, without the guilt of neglecting everything else. I don’t use this every day, but I do use it when I’m writing a book, have a deadline approaching, or just want some extra strength immersion in that intoxicating buzz of creative flow. It’s powerful but simple – when I want to prioritize a certain project, and get it done as quickly as I can, I do it first and ruthlessly ignore everything else. This means scheduling a time, preferably right upon waking up, and not doing anything else unless completely necessary. No computers, or phones, or even talking to anyone if not needed. Most importantly, HOLY CRAP DO NOT CHECK FACEBOOK, TWITTER, OR THE NEWS! This is especially important during stressful times – creativity really does require retreating from the outside world for awhile, and you can’t do this if your brain has decided that there are impending dangers you must immediately attend to. Fear is the root of creative block, so why subject yourself to it just before getting to work? We’re so used to the hyper-connectedness of our society that it almost seems wrong to unplug. People expect you to always be available to them, and to respond quickly. But does that mean you have to? Perhaps this is a belief worth questioning. Why do we feel entitled to each other’s attention, time, and energy, right now? And why do we feel obligated to give it, too? Whether you think it’s right or wrong, it’s definitely an obstacle for a self-motivated creative. You could be neglecting the most important work of your life, just because of something like FOMO, someplace like Twitter. Or fear of someone getting mad because you didn’t get their text. Doesn’t that seem silly? What about the fear of missing out on amazing creative discoveries, life-changing inspiration, or the profound epiphanies often experienced with regular creative sessions? It’s all there waiting for you to start paying attention to it. With creative work, there’s something special about being totally unplugged, waking up early, and getting right to it before anyone or anything interferes. I’m not a morning person at all, but I will wake up enthusiastically for this. Without coffee. It’s life-changing. If you dream about going on a creative retreat, this could be the perfect DIY version. Block off some mornings, even if you have to get up extra early, and make sure everyone knows not to disturb you. Turn your phone, computer, and any other devices off before bed, and when you wake up, leave them off! Take care of your basic needs, do some meditating, journaling, or whatever rituals you need to do to be ready to work, then begin your creative project. Leave your devices off until you’re satisfied with your work session. Sometimes for me this means leaving my phone and email off all day, and nothing bad has come of this yet. Obviously if your task involves your computer or another device you can use some common sense here – maybe you can power up your laptop and leave the internet off, or at least stay signed out of email. Be strict, for your own sake. Not only do I survive when I go whole days without my phone and email, but I feel like a new person. The usual stream of inspiration becomes an all-encompassing cloud of creative power. Time-wasting habits are broken. Anxiety drops down to zero. Imagine the profound effect of doing this every day, every morning, or even just once a week! If you hate mornings and are thinking about trying this at night before bed instead, here is my word of caution: if you are truly in a state of flow while creating, you might find that your brain is so stimulated that you won’t be able to sleep afterward. This side-effect of creativity is a great advantage if you decide to try a morning session though! Especially if you’re excited about your work (which you should be). Do you give enough time and space your creative life to bloom? Do you prioritize the work that is most important to you? You deserve it, guilt-free. Further Reading If you are blocked: If you feel lazy or unmotivated: If you feel like a disaster:

https://medium.com/future-of-work/my-favourite-productivity-advice-ever-161d602cb455

['Marlo Johnson']

2017-03-07 19:34:02.122000+00:00

['Freelancing', 'Productivity', 'Creativity', 'Writing', 'Self Improvement']

Body Burdens

This is my first attempt at what I believe to be a lovely form and I first saw it here on Medium by the Master of Brevity herself, marika bianca. By reading all of you, I am learning so much and that is priceless— “Knowledge is power.”

https://medium.com/a-cornered-gurl/body-burdens-984c4bc6541c

['Tre L. Loadholt']

2017-12-12 21:06:01.271000+00:00

['Health', 'A Cornered Gurl', 'Body', 'Weather', 'Writing']

Don’t Let Grammarly Ruin Your Copy

Don’t Let Grammarly Ruin Your Copy Proper grammar is good — but so is writing like you talk Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash I love Grammarly. I’m a premium user, and it’s brought great value to me. But Grammarly is a self-proclaimed writing assistant. Think “spellcheck on Word, but on a lot of illegal steroids.” It’s got a lot of well-polished features that make it such a comprehensive tool: An auto-detector for tone Recommendations for synonyms Tautology and passive voice detection Removal of adverbs and other fillers But here’s the thing: If you write like a human that’s trying to connect with another human, Grammarly will scribble and underline all your writing. Why? Because when we speak, we naturally have fillers, gaps, we ignore the rules of the language, and we do it very frequently — well, at least I do. This doesn’t mean your writing is bad. I repeat, this does not mean your writing is bad. If I put my most popular article in Grammarly right now, it has so many mistakes and flags that it defies all odds of what a good article should be by Grammarly standards. Screenshot from the Grammarly editor for my most viral article. There you go, 1,100 words that are a bit bland, mostly clear, and slightly off. An article that til this day provides value to people, I’m happy to brag. So if you read no further, at least do this. Type away, tell the story, and convey the idea in its raw detail without letting Grammarly influence you with continuous suggestions — you can always edit later. This is one of the big reasons why my article did so well. I didn’t let any suggestions stomp on the butterfly before it took flight. I didn’t do this on purpose; I just didn’t have Grammarly at the time. But I’m a greedy blogger, I want a perfectly intact butterfly and spellcheck on steroids, so I do a few things before I go off on my writing escapades. Three things to be precise. They’ve helped with editing in Grammarly tremendously, and I’m confident you’ll find some value in it too.

https://medium.com/better-marketing/dont-let-grammarly-ruin-your-copy-b29d4abeef84

['Sah Kilic']

2020-07-06 20:15:03.554000+00:00

['Advice', 'Writing', 'Marketing', 'Blogging', 'Productivity']

A Virologist’s Case For The COVID-19 Vaccine

A Virologist’s Case For The COVID-19 Vaccine Why I will be getting the vaccine when it becomes available Photo by Ibrahim Boran on Unsplash Recent announcements from COVID-19 vaccine trials have sparked much interest and excitement. The first two vaccines announced from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are mRNA vaccines, whereas the third potential candidate finishing up late-stage clinical trials is a viral vector vaccine from Oxford/AstraZeneca. Pfizer’s vaccine has been granted emergency approval in the UK and Canada, and it is very likely that it will gain this approval in the US today. Many other vaccines are in clinical trials and will likely be announcing results soon. Although these announcements have generated much excitement, there is a significant portion of the population that is hesitant to get excited about the possibility of a vaccine. Reasons for this hesitation range from concerns about the short time spent in clinical trials to concerns about what the vaccines contain. I am a virologist. I also tend to lean fairly conservative (whatever that means anymore) when it comes to many political issues. Since the majority of vaccine concerns are being voiced by conservatives, I wanted to take a minute to explain my perspective on getting the COVID-19 vaccine and why I plan on getting it when it becomes available. Most of this article will focus on the new mRNA vaccines as they are the leading candidates at the moment, but I will reference other vaccine platforms when relevant. If you have concerns about whether or not you should get the vaccine, I hope these thoughts will help you as you think through that decision. The vaccine is effective I plan on getting the vaccine because the clinical trial data shows that they will protect against the virus. Perhaps some of the most anticipated and exciting news about the COVID-19 vaccines in development is that they appear to be highly effective. This is the case for the two leading mRNA vaccines, at least. Pfizer announced that their vaccine was 95% effective against COVID-19 in their phase III clinical trials. The graph (figure 13 on page 58 of the report submitted to the FDA) showing cumulative COVID-19 cases in the vaccine and placebo groups, respectively, is about as clean and clear as you can get in a phase III clinical trial, showing a stark and definitive protective effect in the vaccine group. Similarly, Moderna announced that their vaccine is 94.1% effective. These are very promising numbers. AstraZeneca was the third company to announce an effective vaccine, with one dosing regimen showing 62% effectiveness and another regimen showing 90% effectiveness. For comparison, the seasonal flu vaccine is typically 40–60% effective each year (this is in part due to the nature of the influenza virus compared to coronaviruses). To be fair, these efficacy numbers are specific to the clinical trials environment. In the real world, vaccine effectiveness might be lower. However, these data showing very high vaccine effectiveness suggests that these vaccines work well and will protect a significant number of people. I would guess that efficacy rates in the wild will be quite similar to those reported above, if just slightly lower. The vaccine is safe I plan on getting the vaccine because all signs point to the vaccine being safe. The two leading vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are mRNA-based. mRNA is a natural molecule in our own cells, taking instructions coded in our DNA and presenting that information to proteins called ribosomes, which build proteins from the mRNA instruction. Coronavirus mRNA vaccines contain instructions that tell your cells how to make a Sars-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) protein that is typically found on the outside of the virus. Your cells then take these instructions and make the protein, which they then present to your immune cells to recognize and make antibodies towards (this is an over-simplified explanation, but it serves our purposes). This is actually what would happen in a normal infection, except in a normal infection, the virus would introduce instructions for your cells to make all the viral proteins instead of just the one that the vaccine has. There is therefore no possibility of infection from mRNA vaccines, because there are no instructions to make all the necessary virus components. Further, mRNA is an inherently unstable molecule, meaning that it will degrade rather quickly (and thus not stay in our cells for very long), and it cannot change our cell’s DNA. This rationale is why mRNA vaccines are considered very safe. But do we really know that these vaccines are safe? They’ve only been in trials for a few months, and vaccines normally spend years in clinical trials, right? From years of vaccine research, we have a good understanding of vaccines and how they work in the body, so we have a good idea of what to be looking out for as far as adverse events or side effects, both severe and non-severe. For example, typical non-severe or minor adverse events often include pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, fever, fatigue, and headache. These symptoms have been noted in the COVID-19 vaccine trials, and although they may be uncomfortable, they usually resolve within a few days. Severe adverse events that have been seen with other vaccines include seizures, anaphylaxis, and Guillian-Barré Syndrome (note that GBS, the adverse effect with the most potential to have long lasting effects, has a prevalence of between 6 and 40 cases per 1 million people in the US, and being sick with diarrhea, lung, or sinus issues poses a greater risk for developing GBS than vaccines). We also know that typically these symptoms develop within days to months, not years down the road. While this is the first mRNA vaccine to be approved, there are several reasons to be confident in the safety of these vaccines. As explained above, the theoretical basis for mRNA vaccines gives every indication that they will be safe and not cause serious adverse effects. Further, mRNA vaccines have been in development for several years for other infectious diseases, such as influenza, and clinical trials had already begun. COVID-19 vaccine trials are also under intense scrutiny, as the whole world is watching for obvious reasons (for example, Oxford’s vaccine trial results have generated questions and concerns from the scientific community). Independent review boards are being used to review the results to eliminate as much bias as possible. Moderna has enrolled 30,000 participants and Pfizer nearly 44,000, and to date, there have been no severe adverse events following immunization. The AstraZeneca vaccine trial, which also enrolled around 30,000 participants, saw one participant develop spinal cord inflammation. The trial was immediately halted until review occured, and it was determined the patient developed multiple sclerosis and there was no evidence that this was related to the COVID vaccine. To question the speed of development and approval of these vaccines is a legitimate concern. The development of a COVID-19 has proceeded at an unprecedented pace. This is especially true for mRNA vaccines, as the mRNA vaccine platform has yet to be approved for any disease. However, this rapid development does not mean that bad science is being done. It is indeed impossible to know all the downstream effects of these new vaccines. However, there has been no evidence to warrant any fear that these vaccines will be anything other than safe. Compare that with the known detrimental effects (both short term and long term) that COVID-19 can have on the body and I believe that the risk-benefit analysis weighs heavily on the side of the vaccine. The vaccine will allow us to reclaim our social lives I plan on getting the vaccine because I want us all to be able to spend quality time with our friends and families again. This year has been difficult for most of us, not only because of the pandemic but perhaps even more so because of what the pandemic has taken away from us: our social lives. I truly believe the short- and long-term mental health effects from social distancing and isolation are underappreciated as of yet. An effective vaccine holds the potential to allow us to reclaim our social lives without the fear of spreading the virus to those we love. Although there are some concerns that a vaccine will not fully allow us to get back to normal, I believe these concerns are overstated. An effective vaccine that is widely accepted by the public will severely limit the number of people that the coronavirus can infect, which in turn will drive down viral transmission. In the best-case scenario, there will not be enough people that the virus can infect to keep it in circulation. But even if vaccination rates are much more modest, any proportion of the population that is immune to the virus should decrease viral transmission. Not to mention the fact that especially vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and those with risk factors, will have an option for a line of protection even if the general public is less than enthusiastic about the vaccine. We cannot let perfect be the enemy of good enough. Two common objections These are the main reasons I am planning on getting the COVID-19 vaccine. Honestly, for many people, getting the vaccine just seems like common sense. Why wouldn’t you get the vaccine? Yet, there are quite a few people who are hesitant to get the vaccine. And a growing number are voicing outright opposition to the vaccine. Hesitancy that spawns from uncertainty about the safety of a new vaccine is reasonable, though there is good reason to believe that the vaccine will be both safe and effective. However, there are a couple of claims that are making their rounds that are misleading people about the vaccine, causing unwarranted fear and opposition to the vaccine. This article would not be complete if I didn’t address these concerns. The vaccine does not contain poisons You might come across some claims that the new COVID vaccines that they are making contain different chemical poisons. Statements like these are designed to frighten and intimidate, often using unfamiliar chemical names to frighten people. What statements like these are trying to imply is that there are chemicals in the vaccine that are toxic to our bodies. However, this misunderstands (or deliberately ignores) the definition of poison. Poison is a vague term, and it is determined by the dose. It is true that a lot of vaccines contain small amounts of different chemicals (with long, frightening names) that are used at various stages of the production process, but the amount of these chemicals in the final vaccine products is minuscule. For example, the amount of formaldehyde, a common chemical named as one of the ‘poisons’, in a vaccine is less than the amount of formaldehyde that our own cells produce as a natural by-product of metabolism (for more information about vaccine safety, see my article, “Your Flu Questions Answered”). So, to call that poison is to misuse the concept of poison. The COVID vaccines are going through rigorous safety trials, and the only ones that will get FDA approval will be those that can show that they are both safe and effective. And as stated above, the safety data for the mRNA vaccines is looking very good. It is true that we cannot know for certain the long-term safety profile of these new vaccines, but this is also true of any novel medicine or medical device. The vaccines will continue to be closely monitored for safety even after they pass through Phase III clinical trials. However, there is no reason at the moment, from theory or clinical trials, to believe that these vaccines will be anything but safe. On the other hand, we can be quite sure that COVID-19 will continue to harm and kill people in the absence of a vaccine. The vaccine does not contain aborted fetal tissue Statements asserting that the COVID vaccine contains or is made with aborted fetal tissue are increasingly becoming a common refrain in some circles opposing the vaccine. These statements are not new among those who have opposed vaccination for years, but rather have been recycled for various vaccines. What is new, however, is that I am starting to hear this line of reasoning in the more mainstream conservative community in reference to the COVID vaccine. The reason for this is fairly obvious. Abortion is being used as a trigger word to rally conservatives that would not normally fall into to the far-right community, but already have some concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine. And it is an effective persuasion tool. However, this statement is at best a half-truth designed to mislead, and at worst an outright lie. To begin, I want to make one thing abundantly clear: none of the vaccines currently in development contain aborted fetal tissue. The two leading mRNA vaccines contain lipids and mRNA, and the next contender (Janssen) is based on a recombinant protein encoded in a viral vector. More traditional vaccine approaches use a weakened or killed form of the virus that causes COVID-19. Any statement that asserts the new COVID-19 vaccine contains aborted fetal tissue is simply incorrect. Now that that is out of the way, we can look into where statements about aborted fetal tissue originate. As far as I can tell, claims such as these are based on the fact that research groups and companies often use a particular cell line, named HEK-293 cells, during their vaccine development stage. It is true that the HEK293 cell line was derived from an aborted fetus in 1973 in the Netherlands. However, there are several important points that need to be discussed before we use this as a reason to oppose vaccines. First, the reason for the abortion is unknown. The scientist who derived the cell line from the fetus could not recall the circumstances in which he obtained the fetus. What is certain, however, is that reason for the abortion had nothing to do with the scientist making the cell line with the tissue (it could have even been a spontaneous abortion — we just don’t know). There is little moral ground for blaming the scientist in this situation. As a parallel, if an organ donor is murdered, we wouldn’t say it is morally reprehensible to use his/her organs to save a life on the basis that the murder itself was immoral. Second, the HEK293 cell line is a very popular cell line in biological/medical research (probably second only to HeLa cells, another cell line with a controversial origin story) and is used in practically every major lab and biotech company that exists today. They are widely used to study various aspects of infection, vaccine, and drug effects. They work very well in genetic assays, often playing a vital role in genetic research. So, if research with this cell line provides grounds to not get the COVID vaccine, then it also provides grounds not to get any vaccines (which certain groups would likely agree with) or medications at all, as practically every lab that has produced modern therapeutic agents has used this cell line at some point, from cancer labs to infectious disease groups to basic biology researchers. Finally, and relating to the original point, whereas HEK293 cells have likely been used at some point in researching a vaccine, they are not used to produce the vaccine. The cells are used in the testing process, not the development of the actual vaccine. Actually, if you support the claims that vaccines contain trace amounts of the cells they are grown in, you should be for the new mRNA platform of vaccination. All components of mRNA vaccines can be made completely free from any animal-based products. They are not grown in human cells at all, much less the HEK293 cell line. But even the traditional approaches to the COVID-19 vaccine would not use HEK293 cells to grow the virus. These cells simply do not work well to produce large amounts of virus. Rather, another cell line, called Vero cells (derived from African green monkey kidney cells) has proven to be the best at producing large amounts of the coronavirus, and it is likely that this would be the cell line of choice for the COVID-19 vaccine. In sum, the vaccine itself does not contain (or use) aborted fetal tissue; however, the research process that led to the vaccine likely at some point used that cell line. Just like the research that led to most modern medicines that save countless lives today. Conclusion If you are struggling over whether or not you should get the vaccine when it becomes available, I hope this helps you think through the decision. I know that it can be a tough choice due to the different uncertainties and concerns that you may have, or might have heard about from close friends and family. However, I think the theory and data for the new vaccines are solid, showing them to be both safe and effective. I plan on getting the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available. I hope you will too.

https://medium.com/discourse/a-virologists-case-for-the-covid-19-vaccine-a7c1b746cc03

['Walter Harrington']

2020-12-10 17:56:05.615000+00:00

['Health', 'Politics', 'Covid 19', 'Wellness', 'Science']

John Steinbeck on How to Confront Your Writing Fears

Do you struggle with fear as a writer? Fear that your writing isn’t good enough? That people will criticize what you write? That you’ll write one good story and then never be able to write anything else? Fears like these can feel overwhelming and make you think that maybe you should just give up on writing. It’s easy to imagine that the greatest writers confidently showed up each day at their desks with words flowing effortlessly from their fingers. But that’s not true. Even the greatest writers are not immune to fear and self-doubt. Nobel laureate John Steinbeck was one famous writer who wrestled with insecurity and anxiety throughout his entire writing career. But he didn’t let those fears defeat him. Read on to discover his invaluable advice for how to confront your writing fears. John Steinbeck’s Disillusionment as a Young Writer On March 8, 1962 John Steinbeck wrote a letter to Edith Mirrielees, his former creative writing professor at Stanford University. Steinbeck had studied English Literature at Stanford but never completed his degree. In the letter, he reminisces over his college years and his time in Mirrielees’s story writing class. He had shown up to the class with the hope that Mirrielees would reveal a formula for writing good short stories. However, this hope was soon dashed. He writes, …Although it must be a thousand years ago that I sat in your class in story writing at Stanford, I remember the experience very clearly. I was bright-eyed and bushy-brained and prepared to absorb from you the secret formula for writing good short stories, even great short stories. You canceled this illusion very quickly. The only way to write a good short story, you said, was to write a good short story. Only after it is written can it be taken apart to see how it was done. It is a most difficult form, you told us, and the proof lies in how very few great short stories there are in the world. Mirrielees was giving her students a dose of reality. There was no magic formula to follow that would result in a prize-winning story in one go. Rather, writing was a journey of blood, toil, tears, and sweat. At the time, Steinbeck was not prepared to hear that. He writes, The basic rule you gave us was simple and heartbreaking. A story to be effective had to convey something from writer to reader and the power of its offering was the measure of its excellence. Outside of that, you said, there were no rules. A story could be about anything and could use any means and technique at all — so long as it was effective. Steinbeck soon realized that nearly all of his stories did not measure up to Mirrielees’s rule. This greatly discouraged him. He observes, So there went the magic formula, the secret ingredient. With no more than that you set us on the desolate lonely path of the writer. And we must have turned in some abysmally bad stories. If I had expected to be discovered in a full bloom of excellence, the grades you gave my efforts quickly disillusioned me. And if I felt unjustly criticized, the judgments of editors for many years afterwards upheld your side, not mine. Steinbeck began to doubt his skills as a writer. The struggle to transfer one’s emotions onto paper can be exhausting and fraught with fear. He laments, It seemed unfair. I could read a fine story and could even know how it was done, thanks to your training. Why could I not do it myself? Well, I couldn’t, and maybe it’s because no two stories dare be alike. And, yet, despite his disillusionment, Steinbeck refused to give up. What was his secret that kept him pushing forward? How Steinbeck Was Able to Write Through His Fears Steinbeck must have been tempted over the years to put away his typewriter and not write another line. The daily diary that he kept while working on The Grapes of Wrath reveals how agonizing it was for him to continue writing. In one entry, he writes, I am assailed with my own ignorance and inability…Sometimes, I seem to do a good little piece of work, but when it is done it slides into mediocrity… In another, My work is no good, I think — I’m desperately upset about it…I’m slipping. I’ve been slipping all my life. But there was something that compelled him to keep coming back to his manuscript. In the letter to Mirrielees, he writes, Over the years I have written a great many stories and I still don’t know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances. If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced that there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes but by no means always find the way to do it. Despite his fears, Steinbeck knew that he was called to be a writer. There was a passion deep within him that could only be satisfied by getting his thoughts down on paper. He knew that he had something valuable to say to his readers, and he wasn’t about to let his fears destroy him. Did he have a special formula for overcoming those fears? Unfortunately not. He admits to Mirrielees, It is not so very hard to judge a story after it is written, but after many years, to start a story still scares me to death. So how did Steinbeck find a way to write through his fear? Steinbeck shares an invaluable piece of wisdom in his letter. He observes, I will go so far as to say that the writer who is not scared is happily unaware of the remote and tantalizing majesty of the medium. Essentially, his secret was this: he accepted his fears as an unavoidable part of his writing journey and eventually came to see them as validation that he was a serious writer. What to Do When Fear Threatens to Sabotage Your Writing The novelist Steven Pressfield in his nonfiction book The War of Art writes, Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. But don’t let those fears continue to paralyze you. Those fears are telling you that you need to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Like Steinbeck, we must continue writing if only to silence the critic who is ourselves. Everyone’s fears are unique to their own situation and will require different methods to keep them in check. Maybe you will find it encouraging to read about the lives of famous writers who have struggled with the same difficulties as you. Or perhaps like Steinbeck you will find a writing notebook helpful. Or maybe you will need to set a daily word count goal and find friends to keep you accountable. In 1962, Steinbeck shared this advice for writing through fear in a letter to his friend Robert Wallsten, Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person — a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one. Whatever method you use, the most important step is to not let the fear stop you from getting started. Just begin and then refuse to quit. As Steinbeck writes in the same letter to Wallsten, Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised…Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. The Takeaway At the end of his letter to Mirrielees, Steinbeck reminds her of a final piece of writing advice she gave him when he decided he was going out into the world to try to be a writer. Steinbeck writes, But surely you were right about one thing, Edith. It took a long time — a very long time. And it is still going on and it has never got easier. You told me it wouldn’t. The writing journey requires much courage and fortitude. But don’t become discouraged if you are overcome by fear and uncertainty. It’s okay to be scared. It’s a normal part of the writing process, a rite of passage that every writer experiences. As Steven Pressfield observes, If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), ‘Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?’ chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death. Fear is proof you are on the right path, proof that you care about your readers, proof that you will keep pushing yourself to improve your craft, proof that you are doing something truly brave. You are willing to spill your heart out on paper and let others judge your work. If Steinbeck had run from his fear, the world would have lost out on his towering literary contributions. The same is true for you. You have a story that only you can tell. Don’t let fear hold you back from sharing your voice with the world. Ultimately, it is how you respond to fear that determines whether or not you will become a truly great writer.

https://nicolebianchi.medium.com/john-steinbeck-on-how-to-confront-your-writing-fears-20b706b10a5d

['Nicole Bianchi']

2019-06-18 21:30:36.945000+00:00

['Creativity', 'Self', 'Productivity', 'History', 'Writing']

If Programming Languages Had Honest Slogans

Java We’re getting old and were always verbose. But pay us and we’ll give you long term support. C I might be the oldest, but you still have to allocate me space. Pointing at others is my favorite hobby. C++ You can hate us, despise us, but we’ll find our ways into your framework. We believe in friends at work. C# I’m neither like my father nor a music note. I’d see sharper than Java, only if there was cross-platform GUI support. Lua Beginners love us because array indexing starts at 1. But arrays aren’t arrays and objects aren’t objects as we view everything as tables. JavaScript We promise, this isn’t a script for Java or derived from it. By the way, Apple’s Safari engine still calls us back. Python We’ve made it possible to write pseudo-code in real even if you don’t understand it. Not a semicolon or a bracket but extra whitespace is all it takes to cause chaos. Go Google wasn’t only lazy with my name — they robbed us of generics and lambdas. But we have the best anthem. PHP You needn’t learn much to use me but one missing bracket is all it takes to hate me. We offer no naming conventions or styles by default and are only as bad as you make us look. Swift We’re easy on the eyes, concise, and faster than many. Not as confusing as Objective-C until you run out of memory. Kotlin We’re the language every Java developer deserved. Saving you from the dreaded NPEs and verbosity while running on the good old JVM. But you can’t have fun . Rust Not as outdated as my name, I provide memory safety, avoid possible race conditions, and am averse to garbage collectors. I love borrowing and am stronger than “C” only if you have time to learn me. COBOL We resurrect every few years and even today the whole unemployment system depends on us. Besides, we are hiring.

https://medium.com/better-programming/if-programming-languages-had-honest-slogans-6fb6201a6e03

['Anupam Chugh']

2020-04-28 12:01:44.962000+00:00

['Programming', 'JavaScript', 'Java', 'Python', 'Startup']

What to Know About Serious Adverse Effects and Deaths in the Moderna Vaccine Data

What to Know About Serious Adverse Effects and Deaths in the Moderna Vaccine Data There were 13 deaths, but none are considered related to the vaccine Credit: NurPhoto/Contributor/Getty Images On Thursday, a panel of medical experts met to discuss the Covid-19 vaccine produced by Moderna, with the goal of deciding whether to recommend emergency use approval of the vaccine to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Among the many topics they covered in the eight-hour livestream, they discussed deaths and serious adverse events documented in Moderna’s data. This information was included in a briefing document published by the FDA ahead of Thursday’s meeting. As in Pfizer’s trial data, which showed that six people had died but that none of those deaths were related to the vaccine, the Moderna data also included some deaths. Thirteen people in Moderna’s 30,000-person trial died as of December 3. Seven of those people were in the placebo group and didn’t receive the vaccine, and six were in the group of people who got the vaccine. None of the deaths were deemed related to the vaccine treatment. It’s worth noting, for context, that the deaths of over 307,000 Americans have been attributed, definitively, to Covid-19. Of the people who died in Moderna’s vaccine group, two were over the age of 75 and had preexisting cardiac disease. One of them died from a cardiopulmonary arrest after the first dose, and the other died of a heart attack after the second dose. Another person was 70 years old with cardiac disease and was found dead at home 57 days after getting the second dose. One person who died was 72 years old and had Crohn’s disease and short bowel syndrome. After getting the second dose, they were hospitalized for thrombocytopenia (low levels of platelets in the blood) and acute kidney failure due to obstructive kidney stones, and complications led to multiorgan failure and then death. Another person was 56 years old, with hypertension and chronic back pain that was treated with opioids. This person died, 37 days after getting the first dose, with head trauma listed as the official cause. A sixth person died of suicide 21 days after the first dose. “These deaths,” notes the FDA report, “represent events and rates that occur in the general population of individuals in these age groups.” Moderna’s data documented some serious adverse events (SAEs) too. One person had intractable nausea the day after receiving the second dose. Two had facial swelling days after getting the second dose, and both of them had a history of getting cosmetic dermal filler injections in their cheeks. Another person reported swelling in the lips two days after vaccination; they had previously received cosmetic dermal fillers injected into their lips. All of these people recovered with the help of antihistamines or a steroid course, and an expert noted that these risks would be included in the prescribing documents. Nonserious adverse effects included pain at the injection site, fatigue, headaches, muscle and joint pain, and chills — common side effects related to vaccination. People in the vaccine group had higher rates of lymphadenopathy (specifically, swelling of the lymph node in the armpit and tenderness in the vaccination arm) and hypersensitivity events like rashes and hives, though nobody in the trial reported anaphylaxis. (For comparison, a handful of people with a history of severe allergic reaction have experienced anaphylaxis after getting the Pfizer vaccine.) Three people in the vaccine group also developed Bell’s palsy, a condition in which half the muscles in the face temporarily become paralyzed or weakened. All of the people who had Bell’s palsy had preexisting conditions that make it hard to pin the cause on the vaccine, but “considering the temporal association and biological plausibility,” the FDA paper notes, “a potential contribution of the vaccine to the manifestations of these events of facial palsy cannot be ruled out.” The FDA recommends further surveillance of this condition if the vaccine gets an EUA. Researchers have previously raised concerns about Bell’s palsy as an adverse event of other vaccines (in adults and in children), but there does not appear to be a consensus on this question. In a Q&A following the safety segment, Paul Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, pointed out that the rates of Bell’s palsy in both Moderna’s and Pfizer’s trials were higher than known baseline levels (about 40,000 people in the United States annually), noting, “I’m not quite sure how we are so comfortable with this being a background rate.” Rachel Zhang, MD, a medical officer on the FDA panel who presented the safety data, assured him, “This is something we’re looking into and thinking a lot about.”

https://coronavirus.medium.com/what-to-know-about-serious-adverse-effects-and-deaths-in-the-moderna-vaccine-data-1031aa7f2582

['Yasmin Tayag']

2020-12-18 15:02:11.667000+00:00

['Coronavirus', 'Science', 'Health', 'Covid 19']

An Introduction to 5 Types of Image Annotation

Looking for information on the different image annotation types? In the world of AI and machine learning, data is king. Without data, there can be no data science. For AI developers and researchers to achieve the ambitious goals of their projects, they need access to enormous amounts of high-quality data. In regards to image data, one major field of machine learning that requires large amounts of annotated images is computer vision. Table of Contents What is Computer Vision? What is Image Annotation? Common Image Annotation Types 2D Bounding Boxes 3D Bounding Boxes / Cuboids Polygons Lines and Splines Semantic Segmentation Don’t have time to read the entire article? Watch our 5-minute video instead! What is Computer Vision? Computer vision is one of the biggest fields of machine learning and AI development. Put simply, computer vision is the area of AI research that seeks to make a computer see and visually interpret the world. From autonomous vehicles and drones to medical diagnosis technology and facial recognition software, the applications of computer vision are vast and revolutionary. Since computer vision deals with developing machines to mimic or surpass the capabilities of human sight, training such models requires a plethora of annotated images. What is Image Annotation? Image annotation is simply the process of attaching labels to an image. This can range from one label for the entire image or numerous labels for every group of pixels within the image. A simple example of this is providing human annotators with images of animals and having them label each image with the correct animal name. The method of labeling, of course, relies on the image annotation types used for the project. Those annotated images, sometimes referred to as ground truth data, would then be fed to a computer vision algorithm. Through training, the model would then be able to distinguish animals from unannotated images. While the above example is quite simple, branching further into more intricate areas of computer vision like autonomous vehicles requires more intricate image annotation. What are the Most Common Image Annotation Types? Wondering what image annotation types best suit your project? Below are five common types of image annotations and some of their applications. 1. Bounding Boxes For bounding box annotation, human annotators are given an image and are tasked with drawing a box around certain objects within the image. The box should be as close to every edge of the object as possible. The work is usually done on custom platforms that differ from company to company. If your project has unique requirements, some companies can tweak their existing platforms to match your needs. One specific application of bounding boxes would be autonomous vehicle development. Annotators would be told to draw bounding boxes around entities like vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists within traffic images. Developers would feed the machine learning model with the bounding-box-annotated images to help the autonomous vehicle distinguish these entities in real-time and avoid contact with them. 2. 3D Cuboids Much like bounding boxes, 3D cuboid annotation tasks annotators with drawing a box around objects in an image. Where bounding boxes only depicted length and width, 3D cuboids label length, width, and approximate depth. With 3D cuboid annotation, human annotators draw a box encapsulating the object of interest and place anchor points at each of the object’s edges. If one of the object’s edges are out of view or blocked by another object in the image, the annotator approximates where the edge would be based on the size and height of the object and the angle of the image. 3. Polygons Sometimes objects in an image don’t fit well in a bounding box or 3D cuboid due to their shape, size, or orientation within the image. As well, sometimes developers want more precise annotation for objects in an image like cars in traffic images or landmarks and buildings within aerial images. In these cases, developers might opt for polygonal annotation. With polygons, annotators draw lines by placing dots around the outer edge of the object they want to annotate. The process is like a connect the dots exercise while placing the dots at the same time. The space within the area surrounded by the dots is then annotated using a predetermined set of classes i.e. cars, bicycles, trucks. When assigned more than one class to annotate, it is called a multi-class annotation. 4. Lines and Splines While lines and splines can be used for a variety of purposes, they’re mainly used to train machines to recognize lanes and boundaries. As their name suggests, annotators would simply draw lines along the boundaries you require your machine to learn. Lines and splines can be used to train warehouse robots to accurately place boxes in a row, or items on a conveyor belt. However, the most common application of lines and splines annotation is autonomous vehicles. By annotating road lanes and sidewalks, the autonomous vehicle can be trained to understand boundaries and stay in one lane without veering. 5. Semantic Segmentation Whereas the previous examples on this list dealt with outlining the outer edges or boundaries of an object, semantic segmentation is much more precise and specific. Semantic segmentation is the process of associating every single pixel in an entire image with a tag. With projects requiring semantic segmentation, human annotators will be usually be given a list of pre-determined tags to choose from with which they must tag everything within the page. Using similar platforms used in polygonal annotation, annotators would draw lines around a group of pixels they want to tag. This can also be done with AI-assisted platforms where, for example, the program can approximate the boundaries of a car, but might make a mistake and include the shadows underneath the car in the segmentation. In those cases, human annotators would use a separate tool to crop out the pixels that don’t belong. For example, with training data for autonomous vehicles, annotators might be given instructions like “Please segment everything in the image by roads, buildings, cyclists, pedestrians, obstacles, trees, sidewalks, and vehicles.” Another common application of semantic segmentation is medical imaging devices. For anatomy and body part labeling, annotators would be given a picture of a person and be told to tag each body part with the correct body part names. Semantic segmentation can also be used for incredibly specialized tasks like tagging brain lesions within CT scan images.

https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/an-introduction-to-5-types-of-image-annotation-a6f486a6270f

['Limarc Ambalina']

2020-08-27 12:01:01.548000+00:00

['Image Annotation', 'Computer Vision', 'Machine Learning', 'AI', 'Artificial Intelligence']

TensorFlow or PyTorch? A Guide to Python Machine Learning Libraries (with examples!)

TensorFlow or PyTorch? A Guide to Python Machine Learning Libraries (with examples!) Learn the top Machine Learning libraries for Python with code examples and tutorials for TensorFlow, Therano, Caffe, PyTorch, and Sci-Kit Learn. Originally published at kite.com Introduction Python is the fastest-growing programming language out there. That isn’t surprising given that it’s simple, easy to use, free, and applicable for many computing tasks. Data scientists in particular have embraced Python’s efficient syntax, learnability, and easy integrations with other languages such as C and C++. All these positive qualities, along with the recent spike of interest in machine learning and artificial intelligence, can help explain the plethora of powerful open-source libraries and frameworks for machine learning and data science applications. There are libraries that can be put to use in a multitude of applications, including: natural language processing / NLP (tensorflow) visualization and analysis of complex data (therano) image recognition (caffe) prediction and recommendation Open-source frameworks have popped up to address all of the above applications, and now it can be confusing to decide on which library to use for which project. Tensorflow or Sci-kit? Should I use Keras on top of Microsoft’s CNTK? What’s the best application to use MXNet? Once you’ve determined the goals and overall priorities for your project, this article can help you select the language that is the best fit for your project. Some of the questions that you’ll need to consider include: Your confidence level with machine learning fundamentals If you will be using the framework for classic machine learning algorithms or for Deep Learning What application you will be using the framework for: be it heavy numerical computations, complex data analysis, image analysis, or education and research Whether or not you’ll be using any additional hardware (like GPUs and TPUs), software, or cloud services for scaling on to bigger data sets. Each open-source framework available today has its own strengths and weaknesses when measured across these factors. And choosing the best framework for your needs will really depend on just what you want to accomplish. For example, if you are new to machine learning or want to use classic machine learning algorithms, Sci-kit could be the best choice. On the other hand, if you need to do heavy numerical computations, Theano would work much better. In any case, no matter your specific situation — this guide will aim to help you figure out which framework is the perfect fit. Overview of the top ML libraries for Python Among all the myriad of options available for open-source Python frameworks, here is the compilation of our top 5 choices in descending order. You can follow along with examples for each library, stored in Kite’s github repository. 5. Sci-Kit Learn Ideal for: ML beginners Sci-kit Learn is a library that features a host of the classical machine learning algorithms like Support Vector Machines (SVMs), KNN Maps, K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) classifiers, Random Forests, and regression algorithms. It includes options for both supervised and unsupervised learning. Thus, it’s ultimately an effective tool for statistical modeling. It has been built on many other Python libraries like SciPy, Numpy, and Matplotlib, and some of its core algorithms are also written using Cython. I created an example of a Sci-Kit operation here. Strengths: Great for beginners and for those looking to explore machine learning algorithms Good for data-mining and simple projects like predictions on small or labeled data sets Weaknesses: Does not support ANNs Does not support GPU computing What sets this framework apart from others is an easy-to-use interface for developers and a high level of abstraction that allows especially beginners in machine learning to get easily acquainted with the platform, without having to deal with the nitty-gritty of actual algorithms. It’s easy to run and debug, and there are some nice and easy tutorials available to help understand the algorithms when you do have to work with them. However, Sci-kit Learn does have a couple of limitations. Firstly, it does not support Artificial Neural Networks. Secondly, it’s only suitable for small projects with small datasets, and for tasks that are not particularly computationally intensive. This is mainly due to the fact that the framework does not support GPU computing. For more seasoned or hard-core developers, it can feel limiting to some extent, as the abstraction doesn’t allow for fine tuning the underlying algorithms. 4. Theano Ideal for: Hardcore developers requiring high-speed computation over a single GPU If you’re looking for a framework that can crunch numbers like a pro, then Theano will be your best bet. Theano is a workhorse well-equipped for numerical computing and sits under a large number of other deep learning frameworks like Tensorflow and Keras. The framework lets you efficiently work with mathematical expressions that include multi-dimensional arrays. Strengths: Efficiency in crunching large and multi-dimensional data sets Provides the developer ample flexibility to fine-tune underlying algorithms and create novel models. Weakness: A very steep learning curve Does not support scaling over multiple GPUs While Sci-kit Learn is for beginners, Theano is only for advanced deep learning experts. The API is low-level, so you really need feel comfortable in your coding abilities if you’re looking to explore this framework. The syntax for Theano is quite tightly integrated with NumPy and its code can run efficiently — both on a CPU and a GPU. You can see an example of a script using Therano here. In contrast to Sci-kit learn, Theano empowers any developer with a complete flexibility to fine-tune and control their models. It even allows the developer to implement and test completely unconventional models. Although Theano works better than Tensorflow over a single GPU, it still doesn’t match up to Tensorflow when working with multiple GPUs. However, since Theano has been around longer, it does have a lot more documentation. The biggest drawback is that MILA, the makers of Theano, have decided to stop maintaining the framework following its 1.0 release. Nonetheless, it continues to be a great choice for avid deep learning enthusiasts. 3. Caffe Ideal for: Mid-level programmers and image processing Caffe (Convolutional Architecture for Fast Feature Embedding) was mainly built to support Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and is the framework of choice for those working on computer vision, image processing, and feedforward networks. The framework is a Python-based API, which was mainly written in C++. Models in Caffe are represented by Protobuf configuration files and the framework, is, in fact, the fastest CNN implementation among all Deep Learning frameworks. It works well on image segmentation and classification tasks. With a single GPU, Caffe can process more than 60 million images in a day! Here is a simple example of using a pre-trained Caffe model to correctly identify an image as the digit, “5”. Strengths: Has great ready-to-use models for image recognition It is the fastest CNN implementation framework Models and optimizations are configured rather than coded Weaknesses: Not suitable for RNNs Poor documentation Creating new layers requires defining full forward, backward and gradient updates The best thing about Caffe is that models and optimizations are not ‘coded’, but rather ‘configured’ — this reduces a lot of headaches for developers. So, if you have a large set of images that you need to classify or run some regression algorithms on, you can quickly apply a DL Network without having to write even a line of code. You can also train over multiple GPUs, but this has some limitations: for example, you can’t do model/data parallelism. Another upside of Caffe is that it has a pretty good developer community — there’s a whole ‘Model Zoo’ available where you can find a number of CNN implementations and models, like AlexNet, GoogleNet, NIN, etc. This is something that other frameworks lack. Although the framework is great for CNNs and image processing, it’s not suitable for Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) and applications involving text, sound, and time series data. Moreover, even though there are a lot of layers ready to be implemented, the creation of new layers can be tedious, as one would need to define full forward, backward and gradient updates for each new layer. Besides, the framework offers a medium-level abstraction — it’s high-level enough to allow you to do quick experiments and flexible enough to allow you to fine-tune some of the aspects. This detail may be a pro for mid-level developers, but it feels somewhat limiting for hardcore developers. 2. Pytorch Ideal for: Both academic use and production Pytorch was developed using Python, C++ and CUDA backend. Created by the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research team (FAIR), Pytorch is fairly new but is already competing neck-to-neck with Tensorflow, and many predict it will soon become a go-to alternative to many other frameworks. Strengths: Coding is easy, so it has a flatter learning curve Supports dynamic graphs so you can adjust on-the-go. Supports GPU acceleration Weaknesses: Quite new, so it has a smaller community and fewer resources available online Pytorch is being lauded particularly by beginners, mostly due to its easy-to-write code — but the framework is basically a blend of both high and low-level APIs. In actuality, it’s suitable for both academic uses as well as hard-core deep learning. It features a number of pre-trained models and when coding in Pytorch, you don’t need to categorize numbers into ‘int’, ‘short’, or ‘double’ data types, like other coding languages. This makes the performance of operations and functions on this framework more intuitive compared to other options. You can see example code for PyTorch here. The highlight of this framework, though, is that it offers developers the ability to use dynamic graphs. Tensorflow, Theano, and their derivatives allow you to create only static graphs, so you have to define the whole graph for the model before you can run it. However, in Pytorch, you can define or adjust your graph during runtime, so it’s more flexible and allows you to use variable length inputs, especially in your RNNs. The framework also provides strong support for GPU acceleration, so you get both efficiency and speed. The main drawback to Pytorch, though, is that the framework is still growing and you may encounter some bugs. Moreover, owing to its younger age, the resources to supplement its official documentation are still quite scant. But looking at overall trends, this will not be a problem for too long, as more and more developers are converting to Pytorch and the community is growing slowly but steadily. 1. Tensorflow Ideal for: Intermediate-level developers and for developing production models that need to quickly process vast data sets Tensorflow is currently hailed as the best ML framework out there. Within a very short time, it has become a favorite for many developers and is witnessing an ever-growing community and extraordinary development momentum. The framework was developed by the Google Brain team and supports all platforms, from Linux to Android. It is a high-level framework that allows you to run low-level code with supporting libraries. Ultimately, it allows you to monitor the progress of the training process, while tracking a lot of metrics and not having to bother about most of the other details. Strengths: Flexibility Contains several ready-to-use ML models and ready-to-run application packages Scalability with hardware and software Large online community Weaknesses: Supports only NVIDIA GPUs A slightly steep learning curve Tensorflow’s architecture and UX are different from other frameworks in that the nodes in a Tensorflow graph represent mathematical operations, while the edges of the graph represent multidimensional arrays (tensors). These tensors flow between the nodes, giving you a lot of flexibility when it comes to creating new nodes, unlike the Caffe architecture, for example. The system also has a host of models to choose from: the framework is pre-loaded with packages that let you perform voice recognition and machine translation, and models that let you run regressions, classifications, neural networks and an assortment of other algorithms. Tensorflow can be used for quite a few applications within machine learning. Check out a basic “Hello, World” program here and a more traditional matrix example here. But the feature that really takes the cake is Tensorflow’s computing capabilities. To date, Tensorflow is the strongest contender in the distributed processing arena. It provides remarkable scalability and lets you deploy your computations to multiple CPUs, GPUs, other servers, mobile devices, and the Google Cloud Machine Learning Engine. You can do this without having to rewrite any code — that’s truly powerful. The main downside, though, is that at the moment, it only supports NVIDIA GPUs. Also, when it comes to RNN support, it is ultimately weaker than some other frameworks and the learning curve can be a little steeper than Sci-kit and Pytorch. Overall, with a strong Google backing and a huge online community, Tensorflow is here for the long haul. Conclusions To sum up, while Tensorflow has gained enormous popularity owing to its flexibility and distributed processing capabilities, Pytorch is also slowly gaining momentum owing to its flatter learning curve and ability to process dynamic graphs. Both of these frameworks are multi-purpose and can be applied to many types of projects. Other frameworks like Caffe, Theano, and Sci-Kit Learn are more specialized and aimed toward specific tasks. Nonetheless, machine learning and artificial intelligence are the future and these open source frameworks have brought ML to the grasp of any developer with a really keen interest. These libraries provide the tools for any Pythonista to practice machine learning principles. Pick a framework that meets your level of expertise and application domain and try out your first project! This post is a part of Kite’s new series on Python. You can check out the code from this and other posts on our GitHub repository.

https://medium.com/kitepython/tensorflow-or-pytorch-a-guide-to-python-machine-learning-libraries-with-examples-ee46056a6052

['The Kite Team']

2019-02-28 19:23:02.393000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'AI', 'Neural Networks', 'Artificial Intelligence']

5 Hats You Need to Wear to Crush Your Entrepreneurial Goals

5 Hats You Need to Wear to Crush Your Entrepreneurial Goals Focusing too intently might be ruining your productivity. Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash Let’s be real y’all — being an entrepreneur isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. As Thomas Frank pointed out in his recent YouTube video, 5 Things I’d Tell My 19-Year-Old Self About Running a Business, every entrepreneur has to wear several hats. Whether that’s shifting between creative and managerial tasks, or something completely different, every business owner/entrepreneur/self-employed individual different modes of working. After recently starting a blog, I’ve felt this on all sides. Not only are we responsible for the upkeep and layout of our website, but we’re also responsible for managing our social media, responding to people’s questions and comments, and let’s not forget actually writing the blog. “mode”, noun, a way or manner in which something occurs or is experienced, expressed, or done. What’s important is that we try to shift through different modes on purpose. This list of the five modes of entrepreneurship is meant to help you do that. It’s meant not only to remind you of your responsibilities towards yourself and your business but of the different modes, you have the opportunity to flip between to be the most effective and happy. 1. The exploration hat The exploration mode is the mode that every future entrepreneur goes through before they even decide what they’re going to try doing with their life. In the exploration mode, an individual will think of ideas. They’ll lay down before they fall asleep every night and think about all of the things they want to do, all of the places they want to go, the person they want to be and the things they want to create. “explore”, verb, inquire into or discuss (a subject or issue) in detail. In the exploration mode, the creator must let themself think and dream and feel without a filter. You must not control what is going through or prevent something from passing through your mind. Anything goes. Let it through, let it pass, or let it stick. Don’t lock yourself down on a particular idea — open yourself up to a vast array of possibilities. For my own business and entrepreneurial pursuits, I’ll often put this down in my calendar as “tinkering time”. This is what Barbara Oakley, author of A Mind For Numbers, refers to as diffused thinking, as opposed to the productive focused thinking. Exploration mode is where it all begins — which kind of makes it the most important. If it’s not where you start, if it’s not where you begin, then everything you produce can still be good, but it will miss a key ingredient — unbridled creativity. 2. The brainstorming hat Now you have your ideas. Once you have your ideas, your unbridled and unfiltered list of things you’ve come up with, you have to get into actionable steps. Now that you’ve decided what your options are, you have to pick something. The brainstorming mode isn’t as much of a creative process, but a revisionary process. Once you have your ideas, you have to decide which you are going to use in your life/business/etc. Whether it be throwing your ideas out on Reddit (my favorite pass-time) and waiting for feedback or talking with a few friends on Skype, get your ideas out into the world in a brainstorming and experiential way. “brainstorming”, noun, group discussion to produce ideas or solve problems. But, as you can see in the definition of brainstorming brought to us by Google, brainstorming is about more than just yourself. When you have a brainstorm, you have to have a whirlwind of brains, plural. We often mistake brainstorming for sitting in our room by ourselves — but that’s just thinking, maybe it’s idea generation. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” — Maya Angelou To truly brainstorm, you have to work with other people. Whether it be throwing your ideas out on Reddit and waiting for feedback or talking with a few friends on Skype, get your ideas out into the world in a brainstorming and experiential way. I’ve talked with friends over the phone, co-workers over Zoom, and family at the dining table and come up with more ideas than I ever could on my own. When you have your idea and are ready to get to work, don’t forget to bring your crew together and get some ideas. This is also the mode where you’re researching, reading articles, books, etc. on what you’re looking into as a potential idea to proceed on. And if you don’t have anybody to brainstorm with about your ideas, write a letter to yourself. In brainstorming mode, your mind is testing out ideas, deciding how to proceed. 3. The monk hat Monk mode is the third mode and it builds off of the results of your two previous modes. Once you have your ideas, and once you’ve filtered those ideas through your mind and the minds of others, you have to apply them to your life and your model of business. “A monk may be a person who decides to dedicate his life to serving all other living beings, or to be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live his or her life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many religions and in philosophy.” (“Monk”, from Wikipedia) In her TED talk, “Want to be more creative? Go for a walk”, Marilly Oppezzo talks about something called “appropriate novelty”. Creative ideas can come from anywhere, but they must be practical. “Monk mode will increase your resilience and independence. If you were able to cut people and pastimes from your life, what does it say about you?” — Lucio Buffalmano The monk mode of the entrepreneur’s creative process is the most spiritual and introspective of the modes. In the monk mode, an artist is focused on what is most important for their life, mission, and goals right now. I write often about my commitments list, but there’s another thing that I use to postpone my goals and dreams. I have a chart with a timeline for the next eleven years of my life. “I plan to live a few months in San Diego, I plan to pursue a certain career, I want to join a climbing gym. These three goals, among the dozens of other goals I have in this chart and in my head, are no less real or exciting to me as those I’m pursuing now. They’re simply not those I’m ready to pursue. I have intuited and factually know that the time is not right.” (From my 2019 personal journal) I figured that out in monk mode. Monk mode is when we can journal, when we can process where we are, get in touch with how we’re feeling and who we need to be, and what we need to be pursuing to keep ourselves interested and passionate about the work that we’re doing. 4. The grinding/working hat Now you’ve thought of ideas, you’ve filtered the ideas, and you’ve ideologically processed them, now you’re ready to work through those tasks — and once you’re done, you’re going to see the results. This is often our least favorite mode, but it can be one of the most important ones. It becomes especially productive when you invite creativity into it. [“grind”, noun, hard dull work.] “Greatness is sifted through the grind, therefore don’t despise the hard work now for surely it will be worth it in the end.” ― Sanjo Jendayi This is that 4-hour block of time you’ll spend designing your website or the 10-hour day you’ll spend rounding up a list of clients who might actually be willing to speak to you. It’s the weekend you spend in constant writing mode, or the endless research hole you go down into for your next piece. This is where the real work happens — and you’re prepared for it. Don’t forget to grind. Otherwise, everything else you’ve done in preparation for your work is kind of a moot point. This is where I will put about a five-hour block of time into my calendar where I’ll go either to a quiet coffee shop, the library or somewhere else I know I won’t be disturbed. 5. The executing hat In this mode, you have to use your executive functions to say “yes” to the things you need to say “yes” to and “no” to the things that you need to prevent from cluttering your schedule at the current time in your career path/year/etc. [“execute”, verb, carry out, or put into effect (a plan, order, or course of action).] Executing mode is all about taking your ideas that align with your current stage of life and your current goals, and making them happen. In executing mode, you’re emailing people, you’re making phone calls, you’re filling out your calendar, creating a clear and actionable task list, and preparing to sit down and work. Not only are we responsible for the upkeep and layout of our website, but we’re also responsible for managing our social media, responding to people’s questions and comments, and let’s not forget actually writing the blog. For me, executing mode is when I’m finally able to check off my task. It’s where I finally hit send on the email, or add the meeting I wanted to schedule to my calendar, buy the product/membership, and more. Execution mode is all about getting balls rolling, whether that be planning for you to do the work or delegating to someone else. This is where stuff gets done. Save this mode for when you’re brave enough to really do something. This is when you buy the domain name, publish the blog, outline the next post. When you finish in this mode, the task is complete, the plan has been executed, and it’s time to move onto the next amazing project.

https://medium.com/swlh/5-hats-you-need-to-wear-to-crush-your-entrepreneurial-goals-3db159e33d68

['Katie E. Lawrence']

2020-12-24 19:02:07.738000+00:00

['Business', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Productivity', 'Startup', 'Technology']

What's Happening When Your Sleepy Body Starts to Jerk

Why Your Body Sometimes Jerks As You Fall Asleep A closer look at hypnic jerks Images by the author (CC BY-SA 4.0) Ahh… sleep. How nice. You turn off the lights. You close your weary eyes. You sigh. You relax. Your breathing slows down. Your mind begins to wander off, fading into the nightly oblivion. Then… You stumble, trip, fall. Your body jolts. Your leg kicks. Your heart pounds. Huh? What happened? Did you mistakenly fall asleep on a trapdoor? Nope. You simply experienced a hypnic jerk. What’s a hypnic jerk? A hypnic jerk, or sleep start, is a phenomenon that occurs when your body transitions from wakefulness to sleep. It involves a sudden involuntary muscle twitch and is frequently accompanied by a falling or tripping sensation. It’s that strange muscle spasm that happens when you’re lying in bed, trying to sleep, and are suddenly jolted awake because you feel like you stumbled over something. Hypnic jerks are common and benign. But what causes them? Well, no one really knows. It’s still a mystery. However, researchers have come up with several hypotheses that may explain them, with the following two being the most popular. Hypothesis 1: Your body twitches as daytime motor control is overridden by sleep paralysis How is it that a bedfellow of yours doesn’t wake up pummeled and bruised if you have a dream about a boxing match? Is it because they’re having a complementary dream where they’re blocking all your jabs, hooks, and other punches? Nope. The person sharing the bed with you doesn’t get pummeled because when you’re asleep, your body is paralyzed. This is due to something called REM sleep atonia, which prevents you from acting out your dreams. REM atonia works by inhibiting your motor neurons. It does so by raising the bar on the amount of electricity the brain must send down a motor neuron to trigger a movement. So, for instance, the little bit of electricity that your brain sends to your finger to make it move when you’re awake is no longer enough when you’re under REM atonia. When you’re asleep, your body is paralyzed. This is due to something called REM sleep atonia, which prevents you from acting out your dreams. Now, the thing is that there is no single on/off switch in your body that inhibits all your motor neurons at once. Instead, the subsystems of your brain that handle sleep need to wrestle control from the subsystems that handle wakefulness. And sometimes, during this wrestling match, some motor neurons are fired randomly, causing your body to twitch. Hypothesis 2: Your brain thinks you’re a monkey falling off a tree Image modified by the author. Illustration source: Alessandro D’Antonio/Unsplash Imagine you’re a monkey and the last rays of sunlight have just disappeared behind the green forest canopy. It’s getting dark, and you say to yourself: time for sleep. Your brain begins to ooze some melatonin into your bloodstream and you yawn. Drowsy, you settle down on a comfortable tree branch. Your eyelids become heavy and your breathing slows. The outside world begins to fade. Sounds become distant. At this point, the subconscious part of your brain takes over. “Perfect,” it says, “time to boot up the dream images.” Your brain initiates the dream procedure, and just when you’re about to nod off completely, it notices that all your muscles have suddenly and unexpectedly relaxed. “Holy Banana!” your brain screams panic-stricken, “Mayday! Mayday! We’re in freefall! Dammit! Wake up! Wake up! Shit, crap! Brace for impaaaact!” As you’re probably aware, we humans descend from primates who lived and slept on trees. This means that we’ve inherited some monkey brain routines that no longer serve any purpose. Among them, according to the monkey-fall hypothesis, is a reflex that jolts you awake when you’re falling from a tree. You see, when a monkey is unexpectedly soaring through the air, its muscles no longer have to prop it up and so they go limp. Confusingly, however, your muscles also go limp when you’re sleeping. So, when you drift off into sleep and your muscles relax a little too fast, your groggy brain sometimes misinterprets this for falling off a tree. As a result, your brain freaks out and triggers a reflex that startles you awake in an attempt to prepare for an imminent crash onto the forest floor. Little does your brain know, in its sleepy state—and that you no longer live in trees. What’s clear either way Hypnic jerks are involuntary muscle contractions that occur during the transition from wakefulness to sleep. They’re most likely to occur if you’ve been gulping down too much coffee, have been stressed or sleep-deprived, or did some vigorous exercise before going to bed. About 70% of people have experienced them. Even so, they are not well understood. Either way, hypnic jerks are benign and nothing to worry about. The worst that can happen is probably an occasional kick against the shin of whoever is sharing the bed with you.

https://elemental.medium.com/why-your-body-sometimes-jerks-while-you-drift-into-sleep-88f8d28d643a

['David B. Clear']

2020-12-18 14:12:06.127000+00:00

['Neuroscience', 'Sleep', 'Health', 'Biology', 'Science']

What is Content Marketing?

How is content marketing different from traditional advertising? What most people find difficult to understand about content marketing is how it differs from traditional advertising. After all, if “content is king,” what have companies been marketing with all these years? Traditional advertising is interruptive and allows marketers to push out their message in front of their audience — regardless of whether or not they want to see it. Traditional advertising rushes at consumers in the form of newspaper ads, magazine ads, billboards, radio ads, television ads, and direct mailings. On the other hand, content marketing is much more subtle. This marketing is entertaining and educational. It draws in customers through storytelling, articles, blog posts, newsletters, emails, quizzes, infographics, videos, and podcasts. Content marketing offers consumers value and thereby makes them appreciate your company’s existence. You’re not advertising directly to your customers. You’re offering them something in your marketing that helps them feel connected to your brand. Content marketing also excels through avenues like a company or outside blog, social media sites, YouTube, and online articles. These formats have only become more available in the past two decades, and companies are taking advantage of them. There are a few other ways that you may distinguish content marketing from traditional advertising: Short-term v. Long-term Traditional advertising operated on the idea that a customer would see the ad and be enticed to buy the product immediately. But…who actually does this? Conversely, content marketing doesn’t worry about selling a product each and every time they get in front of their customer. Companies who focus on this strategy know that the best way to their customers’ wallets is by providing valuable content. Talking to v. Talking with Traditional advertising talks to customers. There’s no dialogue or relationship. It’s just a litany of benefits of a product or service. Content marketing, especially on social media, allows customers to respond, engage, interact, and get involved. You can gauge interest in certain topics or ask for feedback on new ideas. It allows you to cater your marketing and campaigns to your audience instead of telling them what you think they want you to hear. Showing v. Nurturing A great example of traditional advertising is a car dealership commercial. Within seconds, you know all about the business and product that is being sold to you. The person on the screen is talking at you, telling you what you could have, and showing you the price tag for it. Content marketing is the opposite. It’s a slower process, and it targets customers who have an interest in your industry. By producing content that they find useful or interesting, you create and nurture a relationship with them. You provide value and keep them coming back. General v. Targeted Traditional advertising is about getting your message in front of as many people as possible. Content marketing targets a specific group of individuals. Before putting out a content marketing campaign, businesses will research that specific audience and look at trends that do well among that group. The more they know about them, the greater chance they have of boosting engagement, getting new sales, developing customer loyalty, and more!

https://medium.com/digital-marketing-lab/what-is-content-marketing-1a910111d6c1

['Casey Botticello']

2020-12-19 00:01:54.477000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Technology', 'Social Media', 'Productivity', 'Writing']

How To Be Productive and Effective During Social Distancing

How To Be Productive and Effective During Social Distancing Use this time to be effective and learn more Yesterday, I sent out an email to my subscribers, seeing if everyone was safe during the current Coronavirus outbreak. I got an interesting response from one reader: “I used to sometimes wish the world would just stop spinning for a bit so I could read that book, learn that skill, re-assess that career. Like a snow-day for the whole world.” That struck me. How many of us have wished for the same thing — a sudden break from our job so we could just sit down, re-assess, and reflect? The world has been shaken by the Coronavirus. As healthcare professionals heroically work around the clock to save lives and treat sick people, many of us have found ourselves stuck at home, without work, sports, events, or gathering of any kind to pass the time. Many people are turning to television, video games, or social media. While it’s important to be informed, this is a unique chance for many of us to finally do things we’ve always been “meaning” to do. It’s time to reflect and use this time wisely. Here’s how to be productive and fruitful during social distancing, to help yourself, your family, and those around you. Reinvest Your Free Time “Anyone who truly makes something of themselves takes their free time and reinvests it in themselves.” -Nicolas Cole Most people actually don’t reinvest their free time. According to a 2016 American Time Use Survey, most Americans spend 2.7 hours after work watching television — about half their free time. Nearly a third of people didn’t touch a book in the past year. Less than 5% of adults exercise for 30 minutes or more a day. While you’re social distancing and quarantining yourself, it’s tempting to grab some snacks, plop on the couch, and binge watch everything. Instead, reinvest this free time on productive, edifying behaviors that will make you smarter and more skilled. The world’s most successful people invest their free time. In the words of prolific writer Nicolas Cole: “Successful people don’t see it as ‘free time,’ they see it as the only time they have to do the things they really want to do in life — and they don’t take a minute for granted.” Scott Adams, creator of the wildly successful Dilbert comics, once said, “Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.” If you want to be successful, and focus your efforts to achieve greatness in the most important areas of your life, it’s fair to ask yourself: How do you usually spend your free time? What new skills can you learn right now? What activities drain your energy and leave you lifeless? What can you do differently? Is excessive consumption of social media, the news, television, and video games preventing you from achieving your goals? If you’re reading this, I hope you’re healthy and safe during the Coronavirus outbreak. It’s fine to watch TV and take your mind off the terrible news. But spend more time learning and creating than you do on entertainment. Maybe you haven’t read a book in forever. When’s the last time you took an online course? Exercise! (If you have the space). We don’t know how long social distancing is needed; in the meantime, choose to reinvest your free time to make your life better. Develop Your Ability to Ignore Almost Everything There’s a lot of distractions right now. When I woke up this morning, I had to fight the urge to immediately check my phone and the news. I decided to give myself a good 20 minutes to make my coffee, feed the dog, and sit down before I checked the Internet. While it’s important to stay informed, there’s no point in torturing yourself over things you can’t control. Learn what you need to know, then focus on other things. If there’s one thing the Coronavirus is teaching us, it’s that most things are unimportant. Family, loved ones, your health, helping people — these are truly important things. Everything else is secondary. Most things, frankly, don’t deserve our full attention and focus. What I define as “important” is simple: does it contribute to expanding your life? Does it help those around you? Does it directly build your legacy and life’s calling? Does it give you life and fulfillment? For me, the most important things for me are Jesus, family, my health, and my work. Everything else simply comes second. Of course, anything can be construed to fit these requirements; people will claim email is “essential.” Watching that TV show is a “must-see.” But when you really, truly analyze these “essential” and “crucial” obligations, you realize they have virtually no impact on your future. They don’t expand your life. They don’t contribute to your legacy. The more you understand this, the better equipped you are to produce truly phenomenal work and help those around you. What “essential” things do you need to give up? What do you need to start ignoring? How can you spend that time better? Why haven’t you started these things yet? Your ability to ignore irrelevance is just as important as your ability to focus on priorities. “Being perpetually busy is a kind of laziness.” -Tim Ferriss Spend More Time Learning and Creating Than On Entertainment and Distractions A couple weeks ago, I bought an online course on building a business. It’s been weird studying marketing habits and sales letters while the world around me seems to be crumbling with the Coronavirus. I feel very distracted and unfocused. But I’m glad I’m doing something to help my business and my family while I’m stuck at home. I definitely plan on spending some time playing video games and relaxing. There’s a lot going on, and it feels overwhelming and horrible. But I’m choosing to spend more time learning and creating things than I do on entertainment. If you want to live an extraordinary life, you need to give up a “normal” one. It’s normal to spend all your free time on TV and bingeing on more news stories about the virus. It’s normal to want to panic and buy all the toilet paper within a 2 mile radius! Again, it’s important to stay informed — I recommend listening to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the World Health Organization (WHO) for legitimate, fact-based updates. But if you want to be productive and fruitful during social distancing, spend less time worrying about the news and more time learning new things, reading more uplifting content, and practicing new skills. There are probably dozens of things people have started doing on a daily basis that aren’t helping them improve. Don’t be like these people; choose to help others and improve your own life by expanding your knowledge, modeling this behavior for others. Spend more time on learning and creating. In Conclusion It’s a scary time right now. It’s tempting to panic, and do things out of fear. But instead of letting fear dominate your life and decisions, choose to be productive and fruitful during this required social distancing. While everyone’s wringing their hands watching the news and rushing to buy more supplies (when they already have plenty), choose to be productive and fruitful. Spend more time learning and creating than you do on entertainment and distraction. Be informed, but don’t torture yourself by constantly checking the news every few minutes. Focus on being a more calm, resilient, patient person in the face of uncertainty and fear. Be someone people can look to and lean on during this time. Be effective, be helpful, and be someone you’re proud to be. Stay safe out there. Ready To Level-Up? If you want to become extraordinary and become 10x more effective than you were before, check out my checklist. Click here to get the checklist now!

https://medium.com/publishous/how-to-be-productive-and-effective-during-social-distancing-c8363b20b00a

['Anthony Moore']

2020-05-11 22:43:44.725000+00:00

['Entrepreneurship', 'Productivity', 'Coronavirus', 'Anthony Moore', 'Business']

How to Find Your Mutual Connections on Medium

How to Find Your Mutual Connections on Medium With a Python script and instructions — no coding knowledge required Photo by Perry Grone on Unsplash Facebook explicitly shows you who are your friends. Instagram subtly lets you know if someone you’re following follows you as well. While Medium does display a list of followers and people you follow, you may wonder how you can retrieve a list of “mutual connections” —a term I’m using users who are following each other (analogous to Facebook friends). The boring, tedious, and time-consuming way to find mutual connections is to look through your ever-growing list of followers, hoping to stumble across those green ticks (or black if you’re on a web browser). But this won’t be easy if you’re browsing through someone else’s profile — you have to note down the people who are common to the followers and followings lists of a Medium user. Luckily, you can save yourself some effort and automate these tasks with a small piece of code. Best of all, you don’t need to be a programmer to understand how it works or run the program. The logic we’re going to use is based on that fun concept we all learned at high school — Venn-diagrams. Here’s an illustration of how to find your mutual connections on Medium: To put this Venn diagram into action, we’ve already written a script in Python (a popular programming language) that pings a URL. In return, we get a list of followers and following of that Medium user. By using the fundamentals of sets, we create an intersection of followers and following and export the mutual connections list to a CSV file. Here’s the Python script, which you can download to your system: We can run this program in two ways:

https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-find-your-mutual-connections-on-medium-d0c586c04e6f

['Anupam Chugh']

2020-05-14 16:31:24.883000+00:00

['Python', 'Marketing', 'Medium', 'Programming', 'Writing']

4 Quotes by Carlos Ruiz Zafon to Make You a Better Writer

Carlos Ruiz Zafon (born in 1964) is the author of multiple beloved novels, including The Shadow of the Wind and The Labyrinth of Spirits. Here are four of his wonderful quotes to inspire your writing! 1. I realized that I had always been writing things that other people wanted me to write and not what I really wanted to write, so I felt like I was losing my way. Many of us need a few years to find our voice as a writer. Many of us need a few years to stop pretending to be like other authors we adore and instead write the stories we really want to write. And it can be especially disheartening when you’re writing things other people want you to be doing instead of what you want to be doing. There will be friends and family members and teachers who try to guide your writing, but as soon as they start pressuring you to write a certain kind of project you’re not interested in or passionate about, you have to resist that pressure as much as possible. Writing is hard, and it’s made about twenty times harder when you’re hard at work at something you don’t want to do. It’s why millions of younger people struggle year after year with having to write that essay for class the next day they have zero interest in. When you’re faced with that scary blank page, and you’re being forced to write something when you’d rather do literally anything else, there’s pretty much nothing worse. So write what you want to write. Ignore those other people and stop the kind of work that’s been trying for you and lean into the stories that compel you and excite you, always. 2. My work as a screenwriter has influenced my fiction. Writing screenplays forces you to consider many elements regarding story structure and other narrative devices that can be used to enhance the infinitely more complex demands of a novel. Novels and screenplays are vastly different beasts. In a novel you have more freedom to do what you want in terms of point-of-view and scene length and character interiority. You can write the novel super lean and have it almost look like a screenplay in a sense, and you can fill up your novel with giant block paragraphs and dozens of pages without any dialogue. You can pretty much do whatever you want in that form of writing, while screenwriting has a lot more rules you need to abide by. You can’t write scenes that go on for ten pages. You have to write some dialogue here and there. Everything you write will need to be seen in visual form, and you can never forget that. But despite all those rules, I agree with Zafon that it’s in your best interest to at least learn about screenwriting, if not write a screenplay of your own. It’s a really great exercise to learn how to tell your stories actually, because you discover what needs to be there and what can go. You don’t have room to do everything you want. There are only so many pages you get to work with, and you have to make each one of them count. You want to think this way about your novels, too. You don’t want to write 600 pages just because you can. You don’t want chapter seventeen to have thirty block paragraphs and go on forever just because it can. Study screenplays to learn how to tell your stories more visually and more concisely and try writing one at some point to see what happens. I promise you’ll learn a hell of a lot! 3. I am a curious creature and put my finger in as many cakes as I can: history, film, technology, etc. I’m also a freak for urban history, particularly Barcelona, Paris and New York. I know more weird stuff about 19th-century Manhattan than is probably healthy. Here’s something to keep in mind as you grow your career as a fiction writer — the more curious you are about the world, and the weirder stuff you learn and pay attention to, the better your writing will be in the long run. You don’t want to just read novels in the genre you write in and watch movies of the genre you write in and then write in that genre. Your work will get stale after awhile. You’ll begin to repeat yourself. To improve upon your skills, and to bring better ideas to the page year after year, it’s in your best interest to study new things that broaden your horizon. You want to be curious about history, film, technology. You want to read non-fiction books about subjects that you know little or nothing about. When you do so, you are not wasting your time, I promise. Even just one nugget from that non-fiction book you’re reading could inspire a new novel idea. It could bring you something that completely changes the trajectory of your writing career. 4. I’m a voracious reader, and I like to explore all sorts of writing without prejudice and without paying any attention to labels, conventions or silly critical fads. So many successful authors have said it, so I hope you’ve learned by now one of the best things you can do as a writer. Yes, you want to read. And not just read the things you’re interested in, not just read the authors who you’ve adored for years. If you want to have a thriving career as a writer, it’s in your best interest to get your hands on all sorts of books and read voraciously. Read stuff that fascinates you and read stuff that doesn’t necessarily fascinate you. Read that book that bores you and ask yourself why. Study the sentences. Study how the story is laid out. What doesn’t work about it? How could you improve upon it? Sometimes I find reading something I don’t like very much even more inspiring than reading a great work of art. I might enjoy the great work of art more, but by the time I reach the end, I might feel like my writing is inadequate. That if I lived another 1,000 years, I’d never be able to write something as good, and that can sometimes stifle my creativity. What’s most important of all is to do what Zafon says: explore all sorts of writing without prejudice, without paying attention to things like labels and author names and book covers and fads. Don’t read the book everyone else is reading. Find that new book few people know about. Dip into an old classic that’s not really discussed anymore. Read as many books as you can, and your writing will improve year after year, I guarantee it!

https://medium.com/read-watch-write-repeat/4-quotes-by-carlos-ruiz-zafon-to-make-you-a-better-writer-866cf990fc7f

['Brian Rowe']

2020-09-20 12:02:45.895000+00:00

['Success', 'Creativity', 'Productivity', 'Inspiration', 'Writing']

Adding User-Interactivity to AWS QuickSight Dashboards

Filter filter data fields A filter allows you to remove unwanted data in a field provided with a condition. It will only allow that data which satisfies the condition or vice versa. You could add one or more filters to a visual, or create a filter and apply it to all visuals or maybe specifically choose certain visuals; it all depends on the use-case. I recommend exercising all the above options to better understand them. Filters are applicable at a dataset level. So, any visual using that dataset will be affected. Let’s create a filter for the Population by Year visual to the year field. Select visual & open filter This will open the Applied filters window for selected visual. It shows the list of all filters applied for that visual. Let’s add a filter and choose the Year field. Adding a filter for year field You would see different settings under it, like Filter type, Use parameters, Exclude nulls, etc. For each filter type, the settings would change accordingly, I recommend you to exercise all options and choose your best fit. Edit filter properties In the above example, the year is a field of type date. So, the range is the best fit for it. We shall set a range for the date, in the above case (2012 — 2015) using Start date and End date fields in the Edit filter settings window. Apply filter properties Once filter properties are applied, only the data that is in the given range is visualized. This can be seen in the above image. Filters can be of different forms based on the datatype of the field chosen. For instance, in the case of date datatype, it is a range, it might be different for a string or number. Scope of a filter We could choose to apply a filter to all visuals or specifically choose certain visuals.

https://medium.com/zenofai/adding-user-interactivity-to-aws-quicksight-dashboards-3e7a0461ec61

['Engineering Zenofai']

2019-11-06 11:52:52.045000+00:00

['AWS', 'Big Data Analytics', 'Data Visualization', 'Big Data', 'Cloud Computing']

The Writing Part of the Blog-Your-Own-Book Project Starts Tomorrow

I just finished planning out all 31 of my Blog-Your-Own-Book project posts. Whew. It took me a couple of hours to think of the story, subheads, take-away, and an opt-in for each of the posts I’d picked for my project, but the results will be worth it. I’ll be able to write them so much faster and easier in August. And I know I have a whole book’s worth of things to say on my topic. Screenshot: Author The writing part of BYOB starts tomorrow (August 1.) Are you ready for this? There are a few things that I want you to know. Think of it as last-minute flight instructions. These things will help you make sure to have fun, actually finish your book, and build your audience while you’re doing it. Think About Your Project as a Whole As I was planning out all of my posts today, I had an idea. If I create worksheets to use as my opt-in for most of the posts, then I’d have a workbook at the end that I can either include with my finished BYOB book or use as a lead magnet. You know: maybe a link in the book to a landing page where someone could download a PDF of all the worksheets. So they get on my email list and they get this workbook that I’ve created. Your BYOB project is more than just a collection of blog posts. It’s a book. A whole project in its own right. It will help you to see all of the posts in one place, so that you can see how they fit together and where you might work to expand or make your project better. Think About Your Reader Who are you writing this book for? I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to know that. Hint: You’re not creating it for everybody. I mean, sure. Everybody who wants to can read it. But you really need to know who exactly you’re writing for. Because that person (those people!) will come find you if you create something for them. My project is about creating a writing habit. My reader is a writer who wants to write more, but struggles with time management and prioritizing writing in their life. Who is your reader? Pick a Good Title, Subtitle, and Photo for Every Post Let’s think about a couple of important things for your actual posts. Every single one should have a nice, clear, simple title. Think ‘newspaper headline’ not ‘clever writer title.’ You should be able to tell someone what your title is, and have them be able to tell you what your post will be about. Really. That’s an exercise you can try. You should also have a subtitle that lets your reader know a little more about what to expect. It can be a little more clever, but should still be clear and simple. And then choose a photo that adds something to the post. You don’t have to go crazy here, but remember that all your reader sees before they decided to click on your post is the photo, the title, and the subtitle. So the three of them should work together. Be Sure You’re Set Up for Capturing Your Audience Here are the ways that I’m going to work toward capturing my audience for my BYOB project. Today, in my Write Brain publication, I set up a tab for my BYOB project. And a feature page to hold the posts. You can see how to do that yourself here. In a pinned post on the feature page, I have an introductory post I wrote today. And on that page, I have a link to a landing page, where readers can sign up to get daily notification in August of my posts. You can see that feature page here. I’m also creating an opt-in for every post in August, or using one I’ve already created if it fits. The goal with this project is to start building an audience while you write the book. This is how you do it. So. Are you ready? I can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with for your BYOB project! Use the hashtag #NinjaBYOB on social media and NinjaBYOB as a tag on your posts here, so we can all find each other. We’re hosting daily write-ins in August if you want some support while you’re working on your project. You can get access to those by clicking here and signing up for a free month of the Ninja Writers Club.

https://medium.com/the-write-brain/the-writing-part-of-the-blog-your-own-book-project-starts-tomorrow-ad635221a507

['Shaunta Grimes']

2020-07-31 21:40:29.250000+00:00

['Byob', 'Writing', 'Blogging', 'Creativity', 'Productivity']

These Stacked Habits Helped Me Build a Six-Figure Writing Business

I have a bunch of little habits surrounding writing. By little, I mean — ridiculously small. So small that I feel like they hardly qualify as habits. Except they do. Because when I do them every single day, they add up to a writing career. A good, solid career that is something I could barely have dreamed about five years ago. This is my writing career: I am a traditionally published novelist. I’m one of Medium’s top bloggers. I run the coolest online writing community there is. (Seriously. The coolest.) I have an incredible team working with me. Most important: I haven’t had to have a soul-sucking day job in five years. I work a lot. Basically, I work all the time, if I’m honest. I love my work. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. But the foundation of my work is this collection of little habits that stack up together to make something bigger than the sum of their parts. My Habits I write new words on my work-in-progress novel for 10 minutes a day. I write those words first thing in the morning. I make a note to myself about tomorrow’s scene when I’m done today. I plan my week every Sunday night. I plan seven blog posts every Sunday night. I check in with each one of my team members individually at least once a week. I come up with ten new ideas every night. None of my habits takes more than twenty minutes at a minimum. Some of them take more, because I have more time. For instance, I usually write for more than ten minutes a day on my novel. I also talk to my team members more than once a week, but this habit helps me make sure that I meet what feels like an important bare minimum to me. And like I said, looking at them, they don’t look like much. But together, they’ve been pretty powerful for me. The best way I know to develop a habit is to attach it to a habit that you already have. For instance, I do my fiction writing as soon as I wake up, before I check my email (which is my habit first thing in the morning.) And I have stacked the habit of writing down what I’m going to write tomorrow right after I’m done writing for the morning. I do my Sunday night planning right after dinner. And I plan my blog posts right after my overall planning. I do my idea exercise (thanks James Altucher!) right after my last workshop of the night, at 10 p.m., on nights when I’m working. One nights when I’m not, I do it right after I’m done with whatever work I am doing. It’s my last work thing of the day. Which habits do you want to create? The first step is to create your own list of habits. Remember that they should be almost ridiculously small. These are minimums, not maximums. You aren’t setting a timer and making yourself stop when it goes off. Think about your goals and consider what little habits would work you step-by-step toward them. I often come up with a new habit when there’s something I want to work on. For instance, writing first thing in the morning is a habit I develop when I have a project that’s difficult for me. What are your current set habits? Once you’ve identified your habits, see if they stack with each other. Like my fiction writing habits do. Write for 10 minutes a day. Write first thing in the morning. Write down tomorrow’s scene when I’m done. See? Pretty, right? Now, think about the habits you already have. Remember, you want really strong, no-brainer habits. I’ve stacked my ten-ideas practice with the end of my workday. I’m definitely in the habit of ending my workday eventually. My fiction writing is stacked with my most basic early-morning habit. My Sunday planning is stacked with dinner time. Try it for a week. Choose once of your new habits, stack it with one you’ve already developed to the point of never having to think about it, and give it a go for a week. Just make a commitment to show up for your new habit every day for seven days. You might need to do something to remind yourself. Stick a sticky note somewhere you’ll see it as soon as you’re done with the habit you’re stacking with. Set up what you need for your habit and keep it handy to the place you’ll do that work. I have a lapdesk and my laptop computer right next to my bed, so it’s super easy for me to just get to work right away. Reward yourself in some way for a seven day streak. You’re so awesome! Try it for a month. How did that first week feel? If it felt pretty good, keep going. Turn it into a 30 day challenge. If you’re struggling during that month, it’s okay to see if there’s some other habit that would be better to stack your new one with. The goal isn’t to make yourself do something that doesn’t work. It’s to figure out what does. Try it for a quarter. You’re on fire! Once you’ve got your 30 day challenge under your belt — just keep going. Extend it to 90 days. You’re already on a roll, so you might as well. In my experience, 90 days is long enough to see huge results from your little habit. You can easily write 90 to 100 pages 10 minutes at a time in 90 days. You can develop your idea machine. You can create relationships. Seriously, the sky’s the limit. After 90 days, chances are your habit will be set. You’ll be used to following one habit with another and you won’t have to spend too much time thinking about it. Try another one. Go back to your list and pick another habit and do it all over again. One week, one month, one quarter. You can work on stacking more than one habit at a time, of course. I’m in the middle of a quarter-streak of writing on my current WIP first thing in the morning. I already had the habit of writing ten minutes a day, but not always on fiction. And I wasn’t writing when I woke up. You could, I suppose, develop all your habits at first. Just know that if it feels overwhelming it’s okay to slow down and just do one at a time. The goal is life-long habits. If it takes you a year or two to get them all in working order, that’s not a big deal.

https://medium.com/the-write-brain/these-stacked-habits-helped-me-build-a-six-figure-writing-business-55df6c4efc69

['Shaunta Grimes']

2020-08-16 17:47:10.888000+00:00

['Ninjabyob', 'Habits', 'Writing', 'Creativity', 'Productivity']

Use The 5/5/5 Rule To Unlock Your Focus And Build Up Discipline

Use The 5/5/5 Rule To Unlock Your Focus And Build Up Discipline Four powerful questions to help you improve your life Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash Feeling stuck? Maybe lacking focus? Need some more discipline in your life? I can help you out with that. And it won’t take much time at all either. Here’s how we can do it: perspective. Perspective is very powerful. It’s probably one of the most powerful things you can ever give yourself. It’s why you hire a coach or get a mentor to help you grow. They give you perspective that you cannot find on your own. Honestly, it’s even why many people hire a counselor too. That and sometimes we don’t trust ourselves fully. So, what if you could unlock a new perspective just with a few simple questions? The good news is you can. Allow me to share with you something I call the 5/5/5 Rule. It’s simple but also extremely powerful. Enter The Shockingly Simple 5/5/5 Rule I almost hesitate to call this a rule, but it really works. Just like the “Golden Rule.” It’s a good guide that you can just apply and use to get some results. So, without further ado, the 5/5/5 Rule is based on these 3 simple questions: How will you feel about something 5 minutes from now? How will you feel about something 5 months from now? How will you feel about something 5 years from now? You can apply these questions to pretty much anything. I’m going to use myself as example here, but I have a feeling I’m not alone with these struggles. Before we start, a disclaimer of sorts: you have to be totally honest with yourself. No sugarcoating, no half-truths. You must really be willing to dig deep and even dive back into your past in order to have the answer that you need in order to move forward. Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Let’s look at a few examples of the 5/5/5 Rule in action. 4 Examples Of The 5/5/5 Rule In Action For example, you could ask… how will you feel 5 minutes from now if you eat that Oreo pie? Personally, I know I’ll feel like a bear that got shot with a tranquilizer dart (or two.) Let’s just say you won’t want to around me. The only options are to eat more of the pie or to immediately take a nap. So, the first question of the 5/5/5 Rule clearly tells me it’s best to not eat any of the Oreo pie. If I slip up and eat one piece, I know that I need to stop myself there, or I’m likely going to want more of the pie. The pattern has been established. I often rationalize and say, “It’s a special occasion,” or “It’s a small piece.” But those are just excuses that enable me to eat more than I should. Yes, I’m an Oreo pie addict of sorts. Some sweets just make me want more. If you struggle with sweets too, maybe you need to answer these same questions as well. How will you feel if you go on Facebook 5 minutes from now? I don’t know about you, but I’ll probably be distracted, annoyed, or envious. Anytime I have a very positive experience on Facebook it’s almost always on Messenger, connecting with a human being directly. That tells me it would be a much better idea to text or call a friend directly (or just use messenger) instead of going on Facebook. How will you feel five months from now if you work with that client you don’t really trust? I’ve actually done this one too. I share some of how that went right here. Spoiler alert: I busted my butt for about five months only to get fired without being told I was fired. I believe the proper term is “being ghosted.” Ouch. Thankfully, I learned a lot from the ordeal and grew a lot from the experience. Next time I don’t trust a client, I’m running the other way. How will you feel about that new shiny toy or gadget you want 5 years from now? Before I answer this, please know I’m not saying a new toy or gadget is a bad thing. I’m just saying that 5 years from now gives you a lot of perspective. Will that item be in a box or a drawer? Will it still have any value at all? Some of the questions that pop up from the original question will help you decide if something is a good idea or maybe you should reconsider. When I focus on a new tool or tech gadget and it’s almost always a bit of a distraction from the thing I really want to be doing. For example, I was convinced that I needed an iMac to get more writing done. The bigger screen would be good, and I’d be more productive. But the reality is that was just a distraction. I bought an iPad so I could write on it. Turns out the iPad is not good for writing at all. I now ask myself these questions as much as possible with tech gadgets. You might not know how you will feel about something 5 years from now. That’s totally fair. There is something else you can try that you’ll find very helpful. And it’s just one super simple question that cuts through the fluff like a light saber. A Plan B Of Sorts I know that it is possible that a specific time frame might not answer your question. If that is the case, ask this: “What would you tell your best friend in the same situation?” Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash Any way you can help yourself think of the consequences — whether good, bad, or indifferent — will give you more clarity as you move forward. Oftentimes we do things that we know do not make us feel good in hopes that somehow, magically, things will change and work in our favor. Social media comes to mind. But the reality is that the more you use social media, the more likely you are to struggle with depression and anxiety. If your friend comes to you and says, “I’m feeling anxious… often when I use Facebook. What do you recommend?” What would you say? It’s amazing how much clarity you can have when you use this simple approach. Putting Everything Together When you combine the 5/5/5 Rule with the best friend question, you’ve got some serious tools in your toolbox. You can build a fresh, new perspective. You’ll suddenly have more clarity and focus. Don’t settle for staying stuck. Spend a few minutes answering these tough questions, and then you’ll be able to move forward.

https://medium.com/illumination/use-the-5-5-5-rule-to-unlock-your-focus-and-build-up-discipline-8c5e7b364d40

['Jim Woods']

2020-12-28 04:32:36.186000+00:00

['Self-awareness', 'Productivity', 'Creativity', 'Life Lessons', 'Self Improvement']

Logic and Sequence in Artificial Intelligence

Photo by Gabriel Crismariu on Unsplash An underlying principle of programming or coding, is logic. Determining logic is in the combination of key words, variables, entities, to create a flow for a goal. A classic is Hello World, print(“Hello World”), from Python resulting in a display of Hello World. Displaying a phrase in a command line is a very simple and rewarding goal. So are solving problems using classification and clustering for real world problems. Classification is categorization of where to place an object or device and most commonly supervised learning with labeled data. Example from Scikit-Learn for Random Forrest. Clustering is a way to order data points by grouping together by similarity or proximity on a graph and usually unsupervised learning with unlabeled data. Example groups results together in three categories. Training is a portion of dataset reserved for generating rules common in classification techniques like Random Forrest. Test is the selected dataset to use in generating a solution in classification or clustering. Algorithms are apply to handle scalable datasets to apply learning to problem solving and hypothesis testing. The clustering was created using random generated data to show what the learning does. The machine will plot and then group by proximity forming a shape around data points. Random Tree is an algorithm that pares a test to a Boolean output branching like a tree finishing in a hypothesis test and suggested output. Conclusion Logic is important to build cases for analysis in Machine Learning supervised or not supervised. This created solution to a puzzle by recognizing patterns and creating association in sequence for results that provide insight similar to finishing a puzzle by fitting pieces to gain a larger understanding based on data.

https://medium.com/ai-in-plain-english/logic-and-sequence-in-artificial-intelligence-f6139a997b5e

['Sarah Mason']

2020-12-14 16:49:28.445000+00:00

['Machine Learning', 'Python', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'AI', 'Programming']

3 Simple Daily Creative Exercises Every Photographer Should do

3 Simple Daily Creative Exercises Every Photographer Should do The secret to creative success is found within your daily routine Photo by Adam Frazier on Unsplash They always say that success is found in your daily routine. This backs up the belief that we must do something daily or almost daily for it to become a habit that leads us to success. This is no different for photography. As photographers, we all should try and do little things and habits every day to develop quicker and become more consistent with our creative lives. Sometimes this can be hard if we have commitments or demanding jobs and as such, I have developed a quick list here of 3 simple creative exercises you can do, as a photographer, to improve your creativity skills. If you are able to do one of these exercises on a daily or near-daily basis, you will be well on your way to growing as a photographer and your photos will become much better. Play around with a new genre of photography you may not normally shoot Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash As a photographer, you may be used to shooting a certain type of photography. Maybe you love portrait photography and you are obsessed with taking pictures of people. Maybe you love interacting with the natural environment and you are eager to take endless pictures of animals and wildlife. This is great! As a photographer, it is important to make sure that you love taking the pictures that you are taking and that you are passionate about that type of photography. However, that doesn’t mean that it will harm you to try out a new type of photography. By doing this, you will expose yourself to a wider range of creative stimuli and you will grow both as a photographer and as a creator. You may also realise that you love this new type of photography you discovered and you want to take it further. This can help you boost and diversify your portfolio and you might get different clients who will ask you to shoot in another type of photographer rather than just what you are currently used to shooting. ACTION POINT: On your photoshoot, shoot what you would normally shoot and then take 5–20 mins trying out a new type of photography. For example, you have just spent an hour taking portraits of people in the shopping centre and you love shooting portrait photography. Perhaps try and take 10–20 mins after the session trying out some architecture photography. This can be done by shooting the shopping centre at different angles (such as shooting from the bottom up). This will help you gain new skills and an appreciation for the architecture built around you. If you can do a little bit of this every day or on a regular basis, you will be able to master new types of photography and this will allow you to grow much, much quicker than by locking yourself into just one type of photography. By doing this, you will expose yourself to a wider range of creative stimuli and you will grow both as a photographer and as a creator It will also expose you to new people and clients and this can boost your revenue and your reputation in your local area as mastering another type of photography will make you stand out, particularly if no other photographer specialises in that type of photography in your local town or city. During your photoshoot/session, restrict yourself to just one prime lens Photo by Alfred Kenneally on Unsplash This can be whatever prime lens you wish, such as a 50mm, 35mm or even 85mm lens. The challenge is to stick to that lens and use it for the entire duration of the photoshoot. The prime lenses lack of a zoom function will force you to move around and be mindful of your composition before you hit the shutter button. This stops you from being lazy as a photographer and just zooming in from a fixed position to get a certain composition. It is important, however, to make sure that the lens you are using is suitable for the photography you are shooting. For example, will a 50mm lens be to narrow for you if you are trying to capture architecture or large landmarks, both of which can typically only be captured fully using a wide angles lens, such as a 24mm focal length? If you are trying to shoot portrait photography, take your nifty fifty with you. You will get an amazing bokeh background and the details on your subjects face will be pin-sharp. If you are trying to capture street photography a 50mm will still perform well but a 35mm lens may be a better option if you are trying to capture more of what’s in the background, too. The prime lenses lack of a zoom function will force you to move around and be mindful of your composition before you hit the shutter button ACTION POINT: Decide on what type of photography you are going to shoot for this session and then decide on the lens best suited for shooting that type of photography. Then go out and shoot, but only use the said lens for the entire session. Once you come back from the shoot, take a good look at all of the photos you have shot. Are the compositions better? What about the depth-of-field? Did you fit more into the frame? If you believe, after asking yourself these kinds of questions, your photography has improved then try and use a prime lens more often in the future. What you should notice is that you are far more mindful of the compositions and the environment around you. You take more time to appreciate photography and you take a minute to pause before you dive in headfirst and hold down the shutter button. If you can do this consistently, you will grow as a photographer and as an artist. You will appreciate the work of other photographers more knowing just how much effort it takes, rather than just pressing the shutter button and hoping and praying you end up with a decent picture. Intentionally break every rule of photography Photo by Adam Griffith on Unsplash You what? As a photographer, you will probably have rules being shoved in your face wherever you go for photography advice. You will no doubt have heard about the rules of thirds, negative space, leading lines, using the scale in your images, among an endless array of other rules. The advice I am about to give you will probably contradict everything else you have learned, but BREAK THE RULES! Yep, you heard that, break the rules. By that I mean don’t worry about making your photo conform to the rule of thirds or whatever rule you are thinking of at the moment. Just shoot and see what works for you. You may never know, these could be some of your best photos and your Insta followers (if you do post on Insta) will appreciate your newfound style of rulebreaking. This will also set you apart from others as they will try to fit into the rules, while you try to think outside the box and become a better creator. ACTION POINT: When you are out shooting, just take the picture. Don’t worry about leading lines or negative space. Rules like these should be focused on in another photoshoot. Use a set amount of time or a quick stroll as an opportunity to shoot whatever you wish, without the fear of rules or unwritten ‘advice’ holding you back. You could do this by shooting new photos in new locations where you ave never been before or you could try to take portrait images without worrying about the rule of thirds. Your results may surprise you, and this newfound creativity will boost your imagination and your thinking skills. This will also set you apart from others as they will try to fit into the rules, while you try to think outside the box and become a better creator If you can do this on an occasional basis, you can use this time to escape the usual photography rules you are locked into and this can be the time to let your creativity free. This will also expose you to new photo opportunities and scenarios and, who knows, maybe these opportunities will be part of your regular shooting workflows as well.

https://medium.com/the-innovation/3-simple-daily-creative-exercises-every-photographer-should-do-cb78fb846457

['Joel Oughton']

2020-12-28 19:02:36.864000+00:00

['Creativity', 'Photography', 'Design', 'Self Improvement', 'Productivity']

A User Experience Guide to Clubhouse

What is Clubhouse? The most talked about startup of early 2020 is Clubhouse, an audio-based social network where people can spontaneously jump into voice chat rooms together. You see the unlabeled rooms of all the people you follow, and you can join to talk or just listen along, milling around to find what interests you. A single, black and white image of a human face, sets the tone for Clubhouse, giving it a unique vibe not found elsewhere on the App Store. An iOS and mostly AirPods exclusive experience, Clubhouse brings a combination of live-streaming and podcasting to a select group of already-popular influencers, mostly in the startup and tech community. Clubhouse centers around individuals, most of whom have done something remarkable or noteworthy. They represent existing cults of personality (at least, in a more humble, silicon valley form), typically with tens of thousands of Twitter followers, and a pre-built audience. You notice this when you sign in to the app, and view a list of rooms, centered not around topics, but individual influencers. A Room is defined by who is currently speaking. So, you may receive a notification to join a room where Sahil, Drew, and Tyler are speaking. No profile pages, or lengthy explanations as to who’s here. Either you’re in the know, or you aren’t. Novel User Interaction, or just Phone Calls? From a bare-bones user interaction point-of-view, Clubhouse shouldn’t be unique. It’s a group call. iOS supports this natively. As does WhatsApp, FaceTime, Discord, and a countless number of community chat platforms. But what makes a phone call toxic in 2020, and Clubhouse refreshing? This boils down to community, curation, and interaction. Why Voice Works Video Calls have glued us to our seats. Mobile apps may exist for Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet — but the culture that developed around using these apps in an office setting is preventing us from using them casually. Moving from our MacBooks to our phones and AirPods, gives us mobility. Removing video reduces friction, and removes the need to “prep for a call”, giving us more flexibility to decide how to hang out with others. Simply put, adding video introduces more friction to the call experience than it’s worth. Clubhouse introduces a new mode of interaction that can be more spontaneous, casual, and frequent than a Zoom call.

https://medium.com/swlh/a-user-experience-guide-to-clubhouse-and-the-emergence-of-audio-as-a-platform-8a425a7a6661

['James Futhey']

2020-10-06 10:16:52.453000+00:00

['Design', 'Startup', 'Podcast', 'Apple', 'UX']

Psychologists Explain How To Stop Overthinking Everything

Psychologists Explain How To Stop Overthinking Everything Overthinking can lead to serious emotional distress and increase your risk of mental health problems Image from rawpixel.com Thinking about something in endless circles — is exhausting. While everyone overthinks a few things once in a while, chronic over-thinkers spend most of their waking time ruminating, which puts pressure on themselves. They then mistake that pressure to be stress. “There are people who have levels of overthinking that are just pathological,” says clinical psychologist Catherine Pittman, an associate professor in the psychology department at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana. “But the average person also just tends to overthink things.” Pittman is also the author of “Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry.” Overthinking can take many forms: endlessly deliberating when making a decision (and then questioning the decision), attempting to read minds, trying to predict the future, reading into the smallest of details, etc. People who overthink consistently run commentaries in their heads, criticising and picking apart what they said and did yesterday, terrified that they look bad — and fretting about a terrible future that might await them ‘What ifs’ and ‘shoulds’ dominate their thinking, as if an invisible jury is sitting in judgement on their lives. And they also agonise over what to post online because they are deeply concerned about how other people will interpret their posts and updates. They don’t sleep well because ruminating and worrying keep them awake at night. “Ruminators repetitively go over events, asking big questions: Why did that happen? What does it mean?” adds Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, the chair of the department of psychology at Yale University and the author of Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of Overthinking and Reclaim Your Life. “But they never find any answers.” If you consistently focus on ruminating and make it a habit, it becomes a loop, And the more you do it, the harder it is to stop. Clinical psychologist Helen Odessky, Psy. D., shares some insight. “So often people confuse overthinking with problem-solving,” says Odessky, the author of “Stop Anxiety from Stopping You.” “But what ends up happening is we just sort of go in a loop,” Odessky says. “We’re not really solving a problem.” Overthinking is destructive and mentally draining. It can make you feel like you’re stuck in one place, and if you don’t act, it can greatly impact on your day-to-day life. It can quickly put your health and total well-being at risk. Rumination makes you more susceptible to depression and anxiety. Many people overthink because they are scared of the future, and what could potentially go wrong. “Because we feel vulnerable about the future, we keep trying to solve problems in our head,” says David Carbonell, a clinical psychologist and author of “The Worry Trick: How Your Brain Tricks You into Expecting the Worst and What You Can Do About It.” Extreme overthinking can easily sap your sense of control over your life. It robs us of active participation in everything around us. “Chronic worriers show an increased incidence of coronary problems and suppressed immune functioning. Dwelling on the past or the future also takes us away from the present, rendering us unable to complete the work currently on our plates. If you ask ruminators how they are feeling, none will say “happy.” Most feel miserable,” says Nicholas Petrie, a senior faculty member at the Center for Creative Leadership. Overthinking can trap the brain in a worry cycle. When ruminating become as natural as breathing, you need to quickly deal with it and find a solution to it. “When an unpleasant event puts us in a despondent mood, it’s easier to recall other times when we’ve felt terrible. That can set the stage for a ruminator to work herself into a downward spiral,” writes Amy Maclin of Real Simple. How to defeat this pattern of thinking and win your life back Chronic worrying is not permanent. It’s a mental habit that can be broken. You can train your brain to look at life from a different perspective. To overcome overthinking, Pittman recommends you replace the thought. “Telling yourself to not to have a certain thought is not the way to not have the thought,” she says.”You need to replace the thought.” What if she were to tell you to stop thinking about pink elephants? What are you going to think about? That’s right: pink elephants. If you don’t want to think about a pink elephant, conjure up an image of, say, a tortoise. “Maybe there’s a big tortoise holding a rose in its mouth as it crawls,” says Pittman. “You’re not thinking about pink elephants now.” Talk yourself out of it by noticing when you’re stuck in your head. You can tame your overthinking habit if you can start taking a grip on your self-talk — that inner voice that provides a running monologue throughout the day and even into the night. “You can cultivate a little psychological distance by generating other interpretations of the situation, which makes your negative thoughts less believable,” says Bruce Hubbard, the director of the Cognitive Health Group and an adjunct assistant professor of psychology and education at Columbia University. This is called cognitive restructuring. Ask yourself — What’s the probability that what I’m scared of will actually happen? If the probability is low, what are some more likely outcomes? If it’s a problem you keep ruminating about, rephrase the issue to reflect the positive outcome you’re looking for,” suggests Nolen-Hoeksema. “Instead of “I’m stuck in my career,” tell yourself or better still write, “I want a job where I feel more engaged.” Then make a plan to expand your skills, network, and look for opportunities for a better career. Find a constructive way of processing any worries or negative thoughts, says Honey. “Write your thoughts down in a journal every night before bed or first thing in the morning — they don’t have to be in any order. Do a ‘brain dump’ of everything on your mind onto the page. Sometimes that can afford a sense of relief, ” recommends Honey Langcaster-James, a psychologist. You can also control your ruminating habit by connecting with your senses. Begin to notice what you can hear, see, smell, taste, and feel. The idea is to reconnect with your immediate world and everything around you. When you begin to notice, you spend less time in your head. You can also notice your overthinking habit and talk yourself out of it. Becoming self-aware can help you take control. “Pay a little more attention,” says Carbonell. “Say something like: I’m feeling kind of anxious and uncomfortable. Where am I? Am I all in my head? Maybe I should go take a walk around the block and see what happens.” Recognise your brain is in overdrive or ruminating mode, and then try to snap out of it immediately. Or better still, distract yourself and redirect your attention to something else that requires focus. “If you need to interrupt and replace hundreds of times a day, it will stop fast, probably within a day,” says Dr Margaret Weherenberg, a psychologist and author of The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques. “Even if the switch is simply to return attention to the task at hand, it should be a decision to change ruminative thoughts.” It takes practice, but with time, you will be able to easily recognise when you are worrying unnecessarily, and choose instead, to do something in real life rather than spending a lot of time in your head. For example, convert, “I can’t believe this happened” to “What can I do to prevent it from happening again?” or convert “I don’t have good friends!” to “What steps could I take to deepen the friendships I have and find new ones?” recommends Ryan Howes, PhD. Don’t get lost in thoughts about what you could have, would have, and should have done differently. Mental stress can seriously impact your quality of life. An overactive mind can make life miserable. Learning how to stop spending time in your head is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. Like all habits, changing your destructive thought patterns can be a challenge, but it’s not impossible. With practice, you can train your brain to perceive things differently and reduce the stress of overthinking. If overthinking is ruining your life, and if you think you may be spiralling into depression because of your thoughts, it pays to get professional help.

https://medium.com/kaizen-habits/psychologists-explain-how-to-stop-overthinking-everything-e527962a393

['Thomas Oppong']

2020-08-25 12:28:56.900000+00:00

['Health', 'Mindfulness', 'Mental Health', 'Self Improvement', 'Psychology']

How To Be A Working Writer in 2020

If you spend enough time around writers and you’re going to hear a couple of things, guaranteed. It’s impossible to make a living as a writer. You might as well not even try. I totally understand your anxiety. Thinking about your prospects of earning a living as a writer can be daunting. Because the bald truth is, very few writers actually get there. I’ll tell you a secret. Most writers don’t get there because they give up before they get to be professional writers. I mean, imagine if most people who wanted to be teachers decided it was impossible because they weren’t hired after their first year of college. Writing isn’t the kind of profession where if you go to school and study real hard, you’re pretty much guaranteed a middle-income job at the end. But we’re coming up on a new year. And I’m here to tell you that it’s possible to be a working writer. You just have to wrap your head around what that really means and then make a plan. Writing can feel more like a skill-based lottery. If you work real hard and have some base-level talent, maybe you’ll catch lightning in a bottle and be one of the very few writers who makes eye-popping advances. That would be really awesome. And it’s the kind of thing that makes people say things like it’s impossible to make a living as a writer. But the thing is that there’s a whole bunch of room between the rare gazillion-dollar advance and making a living as a writer. There are a lot of writers who earn some money, even if it isn’t an eyeball threatening amount. Mid-list writers, indie writers who’ve figured out how to use Amazon ads, the myriad of bloggers out there who have who gained some traction — they all earn some money. The online entrepreneurs out there writing courses, writing copy, writing posts. You can put yourself at the top of the heap just by being a writer who writes a lot, tries to publish often, and consistently improves. That’s all it takes to rise to say the top ten percent. Okay, so I’m making that percentage up, but I bet I’m right. Really. That’s all it takes. Write a lot. Publish often. Consistently improve. But I’m going to tell you something, because it’s important for you to know. Even if you do all that, there is a chance that you won’t ever be able to quit your day job and just write full time for the rest of your life. It might happen, but it is more likely that someday you’ll sell a book, maybe you’ll get an advance big enough to be a full time writer for a while, and if you do that, maybe you’ll sell another one or maybe you’ll have to go back to a day job for a while. And so on. And so on. This is a winding road, in other words. Not a straightaway. Here’s how that winding road has gone for me. I sold two books in 2012. One was published in 2013 and one in 2014. I earned an advance of $7500 for each of those. Obviously, $15,000 for two years work is not enough to live on. But let’s be real. Some one gave me fifteen thousand dollars for novels that I wrote. Let me repeat that. I wrote two novels and someone gave me fifteen thousand dollars for them. So, yeah. That was the biggest fun I’d ever had up to that point in my life. It’s possible it would have been more fun if they’d given me more thousands of dollars, but it’s hard to imagine. I was literally walking on air. I was not any more excited when five years later I was paid a lot more for two more books. Although that was pretty damned fun, too. So, I sold another two books in 2017. My advance for those books was considerably larger. Enough to give me two modest years of full time writing. Those two years were up right around the time the first of these books was published in 2019. Writing is usually not a salaried position or an hourly job. It’s work that often pays in fits and starts — a bunch of money now, no money at all for a long time. It’s also fickle as hell and depends on a market you have no control over and on the subjective tastes of other people. Which means that you can do all the right things, have all the talent in the world, and still never find the right combination of words to breakout. That’s scary. But it’s the reality of the business you’ve chosen. Which means that you need widen your sights. You need a be a working writer. Here’s my definition of a working writer: A working writer earns a living writing, often through multiple income streams and a portfolio of skills. I spent the two years of freedom my last advance bought me to build my own writing life. Besides fiction writing, here’s what I did: I finished my graduate degree, so that if I ever need a day job again it won’t be as a teacher’s assistant. I created writing-related income streams, including blogging, coaching, and teaching. I started treating writing like a job. Here are my best tips for navigating the whole ‘working writer’ thing. Embrace your day job for as long as you need to. Being a writer is a unique job that benefits from lived experience, so you might as well get out there and find unique and interesting day jobs. I’ve worked as a drug court counselor, a paralegal, a bankruptcy and divorce document preparer, a vintage clothing seller, a teacher’s assistant, a substitute teacher, a small-town newspaper reporter. All of that work has given me experience that feeds my writing. I haven’t had to have a day job for three years and I’m not necessarily excited about the idea of ever needing another one, but that doesn’t mean I never will. The best piece of advice I can give you is to train your brain to think about whatever your day job is as being in service to your writing career. Waiting tables or teaching or working in an office — whatever it is you do to fill your bank account — puts a roof over your head, under which you get to write. Plus, every person you meet, every skill you learn, every experience you have — it all filters back into your writing machine. Your day job is your the first investor in your writing. That’s pretty cool. But remember this: You’re a writer first. I have a master’s degree. If I needed a day job tomorrow, I’d go be a school teacher. But if the day after that someone asked me what I did, I’d say I’m a writer. I will always be a writer. Everything else is just part of the portfolio. Learn to love the income stream This Humans of New York post came across my Facebook feed a while back and it struck a chord. Writers are self-employed. When you’re self-employed, income streams are key. The woman above sells things, teaches things, cooks things, babysits . . . and all of it supports her creative work (for her, that’s singing and songwriting, but it applies to writers.) Figure out a few ways you can bring in some money, especially if you’re determined not to have a standard 9 to 5. Here are some ideas. This isn’t news, but income streams are important because there’s very little about being a writer that’s concrete. Everything ebbs and flows. When one stream dries up, the others will still be around to keep you afloat. Really, even a plain old 9-to-5 job isn’t concrete these days. When you’re starting out, maybe your day job is 99 percent of your income and you make a little money writing. And then you find another writing income stream and another one. Eventually, the streams build up and phase out the work you’d rather not have to do. Be productive Sometimes, I feel like a broken record, I say this so often, but I’m going to say it again. The thing that sets any writer who is earning an income apart from all the other writers is work. The one thing I think every working writer who earns any kind of living has in common is work ethic. Indie writers who earn enough money to live on are often finishing a book every month or two. Seriously. And if you want to get traditionally published, you’ll have to wrap your head around the idea that you may need to write half a dozen books or more before you get to that level. Think about it. It just makes sense that writers who are successful are writers who keep writing until they’re successful. Everyone else quits sometime before they get t here. It’s pretty common for writers to be fickle about their work. There’s even a term for when a writer just can’t work at all: Writer’s Block. The best thing that being a newspaper reporter taught me was to write through any block. I was on a constant deadline and there was no time for that nonsense. How much do you write? I advocate for a daily writing habit that starts with a teeny tiny goal — just ten minutes a day. My experience is that A) that ten minutes usually turns into twice that amount of time or more and B) most writers do not write even that much. You get to be elite, just by showing up and putting in the time. Show up to work everyday and see what happens.

https://medium.com/the-write-brain/how-to-be-a-working-writer-in-2020-b046ce861046

['Shaunta Grimes']

2019-08-31 03:06:54.433000+00:00

['Creativity', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Life', 'Work', 'Writing']

A day in the life of a product designer at Block One, Mars

1200 Fox. Why didn’t she just tell me her real name and what was the rush, there were still a few minutes before headcount. Why she wants to meet a complete stranger during dark mode? Could it be some sort of twisted trap? My mind was still playing different scenarios on what could happen when my thoughts were interrupted by a large bell sound. The conference calls we have start immediately, you do not answer or decline as you are expected to be available at all times no questions asked, no exceptions. A new discussion has been initiated to ideate the possible interaction approaches for our newly generated direction. First iteration. Meetings, meetings and meetings. More time spent on meetings than on design. Although, it is pretty nice to get different points of views and the ideas we usually put together feel very solid — communication is still one the key elements of design. After being at work for a while, I’ve found there is one major problem (no, not related to the problem statement). We are ordered to work in isolation full-time — how are we going to test and validate our ideas? We can’t always just rely on remote testing as there are so many important behavioral factors that we would need to observe. The context here is about the livelihood of the people, if it were entertainment, we might be just fine with remote testing for a while. The method of running testing is also a challenge. Majority of people don’t really like a safety drill or don’t take them seriously. I would like to see what reactions our newest idea could bring if triggered with a selected sample. What about interviewer bias? What if we just observe? The afternoon is spent on preparing user stories (job stories) for the interaction. We empathize as much as possible with the users and build on assumptions and job stories. Main assumption is that people will feel that it is alright to disable tracking and force the system on their devices if it helps them to avoid a disaster. We do value the privacy (not sure about management’s thoughts on this thought) of our users and the focus is on the user, but sometimes giving too much preferential choice can work against them as well. Here are a few samples of the job stories we came up with: When an emergency happens , I want to be notified , so I can prepare for evacuation as soon as possible . , I want to , so I can . When there is no emergency, I want to disable tracking, so I can keep my privacy, location and activity information to myself only. We work with a human-centered design mindset, but due to working method limitations set on by the management, we do not have the possibility to go to our users, test and validate our assumptions. How can we solve user problems if we are not able toget their insights on the proposal? We’ve had lot of situations before where a large amount of time has been wasted due to not being able to test and research our user behavior in a better way, As product designers we are more interested in solving a problem that can further improve the experience of our product, rather than focusing on pushing updates without a reason. We should aim to try to work-around the current management restrictions — but who will dare to stand against it with the risk of loosing their jobs? Office politics. Jobs stories led to a minimal low-fidelity prototype. Our goal is to not waste paper and other resources, so all our notes, ideation and prototypes are stored in the system. We can easily access these again with our own devices, anywhere and anytime. Our first idea on improving the tracking feature is finished. My mind went again to Fox. What am I getting myself into? It was almost 1630 hours, which marks the end of day for all residents in Block One. End of day means again that the artificial daylight (Light Mode) will be switched to Idle Mode (a.k.a Dark Mode, or simply, night time). At 1630 hours my Vitaxband clock me out of work and arranges a time-slot to remove myself out of the building. 1630 14th August 2048, Friday Ends Friday has official ended. Idle time will continue until the next morning 0800 hours. I’ve stepped out of the building. Other employees from the same building are making their exit in 50 meter intervals. I ride the monorail to our meeting spot on the North East Station One. There are four exits — she did not specify which one so I just have to try my luck, walk around and presumably look for a shirt that says “You are just my type”. I walk from exit A to B, and finally at C, just below the monorail pillar I see a group of 5 people. I walk over to introduce myself. One is Fox (you just can’t miss that typography shirt), one is a tall male figure with a long orange beard called O’Brien, a short, chubby and jolly-looking man in a lumberjack shirt and called “Bob”, a tallish slim man with all in black attire called “Jack”, and finally a woman with a black turtle neck and blue jeans called “Evets”. I guess there is no specific stereotypic look for designers — they can be anyone. Fox’s name is actually Susan Fox, but everyone just calls her Fox, as it is custom to use last names in Block One, and no, the image on her user profile is not a fox, but she is actually a giraffe. Confusing, but understandable. Now I just feel weird saying my name was Hare, but it did made sense on the spot. They said they are all designers working in the building with various projects, but only recently had found out each other in a similar fashion as Fox made contact with me earlier today. They have been meeting in regular intervals outside of work. They had invited me today to join to see that even there is no communication during working hours — there is still a office culture of some sorts where colleagues get together for business or pleasure. Fox and I are on the same team, so I asked her directly what were her thoughts on the employment rules at the office. I found that even on the surface it may look like no user testing and research is done, the reality is quite the contrary. She said the designers have joined forces to create an after-hours group to simply do and explore all things creative simply just because of shared interests. She agreed that conditions were somewhat limiting if taken just as it, but if you are open to think new alternatives instead of just focus on one obstacle — you can find a lot of new approaches and that the only limitation was actually just your own tunnel vision. We made an initial plan to test our assumptions and jobs stories after working hours to get better insights. After a brief discussion on the matter at a local gastro-pub, we found that majority of residents do not want to be tracked during their idle time, but are content with the device having a emergency function. We had just actually some-what validated our first assumption! We only talked, observed and listened, yet learned so much. There was a new topic that came to light that indirectly affects everything we do; Wild Mars and the people living outside the zone.

https://uxdesign.cc/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-product-designer-at-block-one-mars-f6453d2f92fb

['Simo Herold']

2020-09-02 00:16:50+00:00

['Product Design', 'Design', 'Storytelling', 'Writing', 'UX']

Lessons From a Former Push-Over

Lessons From a Former Push-Over How I Learned to say no and put myself first Realizing I Was Too Nice Just after the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders were issued, I ran into one of my neighbors and her daughter. I was just getting back from running a few errands when she saw me from her balcony, which faces the front of our apartment building. Our conversation continued for a little longer than I liked, especially because I was holding a few bags, so I tried to politely end it. But she had an ulterior motive: she wanted to ask me for a favor. After telling me how smart she thinks I am, she finally told me that she wanted me to help her daughter with her homework. I felt bad saying no at first, so I agreed. I thought that it was going to be for just an hour on one subject, which didn’t seem so bad. But after I agreed, my neighbor revealed that she wanted me to help her daughter, who I then realized was special needs, with her online schooling in my apartment for the rest of the school year during my work hours. At first, I walked away feeling dreadful. I love to help people whenever I can, but this was much more than I initially bargained for. I wanted nothing to do with the situation. I really don’t like to watch other people’s children when I’m not close to the parents; I barely know this neighbor. We only exchange a few polite greetings when we happen to run into each other. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I had to tell her that I couldn’t help them. Because I didn’t have my neighbor’s phone number, I wrote her an apologetic letter, later that same day, telling her I could not help after all and included some free and paid resources that may be able to help her daughter with her studies. I felt a bit of relief after I placed it behind their door. Recounting this experience made me think about why I had a hard time saying no and what steps I could take to avoid similar situations in the future. Understanding Why Saying No Was Difficult Many articles talk about the benefits of re-introducing “no” into one's vocabulary, but most don’t delve into why we feel the need to be people-pleasers in the first place. I believe it stems from benevolence being a highly-valued trait in society. We’re taught to treat others with kindness and to be generally agreeable at a young age. Being too “picky” is seen as a negative personality trait. Idioms like, “You’ve got to go along to get along” encourages the idea that “just going with the flow” is better than being overly critical. Most people naturally want to avoid being the source of negativity, whether it’s negative emotions or outcomes. But the older I get, the more I realize that there are some people who will do anything to try to take advantage of nice people, and being overly considerate of them is just a waste of time, effort, and emotional energy. Being kind to others is great advice but only up to a point. There’s some virtue in being a little selfish sometimes too. We cannot and should not worry about how others will feel for thinking of ourselves first, especially when they wouldn’t put you first if you really needed them. Do not let the fear of other people’s opinions and expectations dictate how you spend your time. Why Saying No is Important Confrontation is an unavoidable part of life that can be beneficial in the long run when handled well. However, avoidance of “negativity” is starting to become an extreme norm. It’s getting so bad that “ghosting” is an understood and accepted term in modern western society. But there are many times when the “if I ignore it, it goes away” strategy just doesn’t work or actually makes things more confusing and hurtful. I’ve found that setting boundaries with people often times will make them respect and like me more, not less. Saying no is an adulthood rite of passage. Being too willing to help also can have an adverse effect on many aspects of your life, including in your career. Despite being a valued trait, benevolence actually makes you more likely to be overworked and underpaid, because helping your coworker’s with their work can land them promotions and raises while leaving you burned out. I’ve personally experienced helping a few coworkers, despite being extremely busy myself, who then took credit for my contributions, leaving me wondering if this was causing my talents to be underappreciated at work. I no longer allow myself to be taken advantage of and ensure that my supervisor knows of all my contributions and accomplishments. Now when I don’t have time to help anyone else, I just let them know that I can’t help at the moment. I have a much better work-life balance and am much happier at my job. How to Say No There are many ways to go about declining to participate in an activity or project. Here’s a list of a few ways I’ve found most effective for me. You Don’t Have to Make A Decision Right Away If you are unsure about a favor being asked of you, give yourself time to think it over before making a decision. Weighing the pros and cons of a request can give you the time you need to realize if it works for you. 2. Declining doesn’t require an explanation Sometimes I used to hesitate to say no because I thought I owed others an explanation for why I was declining their request. However, once I realized that I didn’t owe anyone (except for maybe my boss) an explanation it really turned things around for me. Saying a firm, quick, and courteous no leaves little room for doubt or discussion. 3. Offer an Alternative Being assigned a task or asked a favor that is less than ideal will definitely decrease general satisfaction at work or in our everyday lives. Try thinking of a better offer that is mutually beneficial for all parties involved. Declining the initially requested task for a counteroffer that is better aligned with your interests or talents is a great way to reject a less than ideal offer while taking the initiative. 4. Say Maybe Later Instead of No If asked to do a task at an inopportune time but you’d still like to help, just let the other party know when’s a better time for you. Often, I’ve found that I had assumed something needed to be done immediately when there was some leeway. Being clear about due dates and openly communicating if I had the time to do a task prevented me from becoming overwhelmed or burned out. This allowed me to produce better work at my job and have free time in my personal life to take up new hobbies. 5. You’re Allowed to Change Your Mind Remember that if something unexpected comes up, it’s alright to let people know you no longer can help. While you shouldn’t make a habit of changing your mind all of the time, especially for important commitments, it’s generally okay to change your mind on a previous commitment. 6. Remember to think of yourself first You are not responsible for anyone’s happiness but your own. You cannot just do things for others to your detriment. If someone gets upset with you for not doing what they ask of you, they were probably a manipulative person just trying to use you. I think some people have forgotten that asking someone for a favor is not a command but a request that you are not obligated to do just because they really wanted you too. This is going to mean that there may be some people in your life that will no longer want to interact with you. But you are most likely better off without them.

https://medium.com/curious/lessons-from-a-formal-push-over-748e89a09153

['Aria Dailee']

2020-10-07 04:09:00.868000+00:00

['Productivity', 'Self', 'Language', 'Psychology', 'Society']

7 Books I Read More Than Once

7. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari Genre: Non-fiction Why read it: It will teach you to apply logical reasoning in whatever issue you face and give you a better understanding of where we as a species came from. Image: Goodreads This is a brilliant, well-researched book tracing the history of humankind from our foraging ancestors to the current generation of humans who build supercomputers and smart cities. The author does a brilliant job of dissecting our origins and analyzing why we behave the way we do. There are clear ties and links to show how seemingly “millennial” problems like craving for sugary food or being unable to be faithful to your partner aren’t, in truth, new at all. Ancient homo sapiens have been facing the same problems and our reaction to them is imprinted in our DNA. This book taught me that every human behavior we are familiar with today has its roots in the fight-or-flight response of our ancestors. Even the concept of happiness can be tackled with cold logic. If you break it down to merely the interplay of chemicals in your brain, you will stop holding so much value to it. “Happiness does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.” Why I read it more than once Nearly every behavioral trait of every person around you can be traced back to their origins. All you need is a little bit of logic and you can read into the behavior of a person like an expert. The next time you’re arguing with someone and feel an insatiable need to prove yourself right, understand that this comes from the innate need to fight and prove yourself the “Alpha” of the pack. The moment you realize that the other person probably wants the same and that’s why they are arguing so hard, you may no longer feel compelled to continue. Thus, you will save precious time you can now use to pursue your goals. When you feel anxious or stressed, understand that this is just a response of your body and it’s telling you you’ve probably bitten off more than you can chew. Once you let go of emotions and look at every scenario with cold logic, you will be surprised at how simple it becomes to deal with problematic situations. The key is to detach emotion and examine the problem objectively. Purchase this book here.

https://medium.com/books-are-our-superpower/7-books-i-read-more-than-once-35c5f8ee1fe3

['Anangsha Alammyan']

2020-12-24 16:10:57.975000+00:00

['Creativity', 'Books', 'Fiction', 'Reading', 'Writing']

Posthumanity and the Future of Brain-Computer Interface Startups

Image from Javier Arrés via Giphy Companies have begun declaring human enhancement as the solution to the existential threat posed by artificial intelligence, proclaiming that the race between Man and Machine is well underway, and we have not lost just yet. Kernel and Neuralink are two amongst several brain-computer interface (BCI) startups that are working to hack the human brain, so that humans can be endowed with superior physical, cognitive, and emotional ability, with the eventual goal of allowing humans to coevolve with AI. The idea of enhancement is not new: for years, athletes have used physical enhancers to remain competitive, students have turned to cognitive enhancers to boost academic performance, and people have resorted to personality enhancers to elevate mood. We have witnessed multiple instances of specific types of enhancers (eg: Adderall) being used to improve function in a specific domain (eg: cognitive functioning). But what happens when a human undergoes a general enhancement — that is, a global upgrade of physical performance, cognitive functioning, and emotional intelligence, all at once? This piece explores the implications of enabling posthuman modes of being through extreme human enhancement in multiple domains. Posthuman — a being who has either a healthspan, cognition, or emotional capacity in a degree that is unachievable by humans without resorting to technology Posthuman Modes of Being When human enhancement is applied in its most extreme form, the result is posthuman modes of being. In his essay Why I Want to be a Posthuman, acclaimed AI researcher Nick Bostrom argues that becoming posthuman is not only possible, but also that it could be worthwhile for humans to convert to a posthuman mode of being. Bostrom delineates the necessary conditions for a being to be considered posthuman — that is, a being who has either a healthspan, cognition, or emotional capacity in a degree that is unachievable by humans without resorting to new technology. Creating Posthumans While Bostrom provides an account for the potential usefulness and value of a new mode of existence, he chooses not to address how posthuman modes of being might empirically be achieved. Delving into how practical implementation could occur, it seems that global human enhancement could be achieved through some combination of the following techniques: Gene-editing , or using germline genetic modification for enhancement. This method involves using techniques, like CRISPR, to modify DNA in humans — the changes made in the genome are subsequently passed on to future generations, with the potential to create ‘designer babies’. , or using germline genetic modification for enhancement. This method involves using techniques, like CRISPR, to modify DNA in humans — the changes made in the genome are subsequently passed on to future generations, with the potential to create ‘designer babies’. Implanting a brain-chip. This involves physically implanting a wireless device into the brain, that contains thin micro-electrodes that communicate with neurons. The device will receive electrical signals from neurons and transmit the information to a computer, where an algorithm will translate the electrical signals into digital code. The ‘brain code’ can be analysed for patterns, and edited, before it is translated back into electrical signals and passed onto neurons, effectively allowing a customised computer program to read and alter brain signals, ultimately equipping scientists with the capability to control specific parts of cognitive function, like memory, perception, and emotion. Currently, BCI startups are conducting research to see if a similar methodology can be used to enhance memories. In the future, it is possible that after collecting sufficient data and ‘mapping’ out the brain, enhancement providers could create bundles of different available modules, so that a user could download and install a desired cognitive or motor function from the cloud, Matrix-style. Problems with Posthumanity At first glance, the opportunities that this new paradigm of existence could unlock may appear, to the Digital Utopians, thrilling and opportunistic: it would enable humans to push themselves to new physical extremes, quickly acquire new skills, and accomplish complex cognitive tasks. There are, however, several issues associated with the practical implementation of each of these techniques. Foremost is the issue of accessibility: if private companies begin offering enhancement services, financial and geographic barriers could result in unequal access, unless services are subsidized and distributed by the government. At its most extreme, Enhancement as a Service (EaaS) could create classes or tiers of individuals defined by their quality of enhancement or level of upgrade. Genome-editing, whether used independently, or in conjunction with a brain-chip, has its own set of ethical considerations, including current safety concerns with the accuracy of gene-editing, the fact that it is impossible to obtain future consent from unborn generations who will be affected by germline modification (prospective ‘designer-babies’), and moral and religious objections to conducting research on human embryos. Next, is the issue of privacy, which is relevant for the brain-chip technique. If brain signals are transmitted across networks and stored on servers owned by tech companies, and enhancement is universally adopted, then a set of private corporations would have access to volumes of neural data collected over time — that is, they would have access to millions of terabytes of thoughts. It seems reasonable to assume that if technology has reached this stage, consumer protection and data privacy legislation would be enacted to ensure that private ‘thought data’ would be heavily encrypted, preventing companies from monetising user data. Legislators would have to discuss the extent to which it ethical to provide targeted advertising to consumers based aggregated ‘thought’ data; if neural patterns of violent or criminal thoughts can be identified, lawmakers would have to consider the situations under which it is permissible for authorities to use neural signals to implicate potential criminals. Then there is the risk of private companies choosing to fund priorities that are directly aligned with profit-making goals, and disconnected from outcomes that are most likely to maximise social benefit. When academics fund science through research-grants, the expected outcome is the discovery of a scientific truth with a socially desirable application; when technologists fund science through investment capital, the expected return is profit. It is conceivable that, as BCI-startups grow to rival tech giants, they will elicit regulation, so that projects remain aligned with socially-desirable outcomes. Is Posthumanity desirable? Aside from the myriad society-level problems that could arise as a result of enhancement techniques, it is worth asking the question: are posthuman modes of being actually desirable? Bostrom says yes — he believes that posthuman modes of being could be good for humanity for two reasons. First, it would enable us to fulfill our current desires. As humans, we already desire long lives and improved cognitive functioning — this is reflected in our social spending priorities: of its total GDP, the US spends on average 17.5% on healthcare and 5% on education. It follows then, that humans are likely to highly value an extended capacity to remain healthy and active (a posthuman healthspan), and general intellectual capacities (a posthuman cognition). But desire and perceived value may not be sufficient criteria by which we can deem posthumanity worthwhile. To this, Bostrom says that being posthuman can widen the range for possible life courses that a being can take, thus unlocking new avenues of existence for humans. Consider S(h) the ‘space’ of possible modes that can be instantiated (lived out) by someone with current human capacities; consider S(p) the space of possible modes that can be instantiated by someone with posthuman capacities. If S(p) > S(h), that is, the space of possible modes that can be instantiated by a posthuman is greater than the space of possible modes that can be instantiated by a human (this seems to be the case intuitively), then a posthuman will have a larger range of possible life courses that could be lived out during their lifespan. From them, a greater frequency and diversity of thoughts could arise, and more mental states and emotions could be experienced. Their experience of being conscious would be subjectively different from ours: arguably, more enriched. Bostrom makes a compelling case for why posthumanity could be desirable: longer and more enriched lives, and endless opportunity for the potential trajectories a life could take. But, it would be remiss to overlook the drawbacks that could accompany such an upgraded lifestyle. In a world where enhancement is universal, societal standards and expectations would be elevated, which may translate into new metrics of evaluation across various institutions. Job and college applicants would be expected to be increasingly qualified, and workplace evaluations would be based on new standards of efficiency and productivity — the expectation to live a more fulfilling, successful, productive life will increase along with the ability to do so, and it is conceivable that the pressures created by this new paradigm of technological existence would result in increased mental health problems across demographics. Alongside the pervasive psychological problems that may accompany an elevated mode of being is the risk of losing this upgraded status altogether. A posthuman mode of being refines the human experience to be one that is dependent on external technology — if the supply of this infrastructure is interrupted, withdrawal symptoms may be significant. And then, there is the subtle, lingering doubt, that perhaps human enhancement won’t be the tool that enables Man’s triumph over Machine, but one that catalyses their convergence. As researchers continue to find ways to endow AIs with increasingly human capabilities, (feeding in volumes of data to ‘teach’ creativity, emotion, and individuality), it is worth pondering if biohacking ourselves to perfection will make us, instead, increasingly uniform, and alike. Perhaps even robotic, when we are able to self-upgrade software and computing power, and interface wirelessly with networks to enable frictionless communication, blurring the distinction between the capabilities, functions, and identities of Human and Machine.

https://medium.com/predict/posthumanity-and-the-future-of-brain-computer-interface-startups-9f5c25fc92f7

['Avantika Mehra']

2020-12-07 20:57:22.777000+00:00

['Tech', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Neuroscience', 'AI', 'Technology']

Why This Matters

Over the last 10 years, newspaper newsrooms have declined in size by 45%, and in 2019 so far, the media shed more than 2,400 jobs. From massive cuts at HuffPost, Vice, and BuzzFeed to local layoffs at Cleveland’s Plain Dealer and Gannett newspapers across the country, one thing is clear: news publishers are facing an existential threat. Since 2003, more than 1,300communities have lost all local news coverage, and nearly 20% of all metro and community newspapers have shut down. Two-thirds of U.S. counties have no daily newspaper, and 5% of U.S. counties have no newspaper coverage at all. It has to do with big tech and digital advertising. Since the transition to digital media over a decade ago, newspapers’ advertising revenue has collapsed by two thirds. Google and Facebook dominate the digital world with control of more than 60% of all digital advertising revenue. Companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google are using their tech muscle to monetize news for their own profit, but at the expense of the newswriters. Traffic to online news sites is the highest it’s ever been because of digital advertising, but revenue from that traffic is no longer going to news publishers — it’s ending up in Google and Facebook’s pockets instead. Google and Facebook already gobble up a majority of the revenue from our digital world, and with no regulation or oversight, they have an unrivaled capacity to tighten their stranglehold on the market and demolish the journalism industry as we know it. Big tech has monopolized the digital marketplace. The monopolistic power of big tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple is destroying the economic model of the entire journalism industry, whether it’s traditional circulation newspapers or digital news outlets. Google and Facebook have made acquisition after acquisition, gaining a monopolistic position that lets them dominate the digital advertising landscape and distribute massive amounts of content from news publishers on their platforms without paying to produce the content. If big tech’s unilateral control continues to go unchecked, newsrooms across the country will continue to close their doors, journalists will continue to be laid off by the hundreds, and local news coverage will continue to decline. In order to save journalism, we have to stop big tech from crushing it.

https://medium.com/save-journalism/why-this-matters-45aaa2a579d9

['Save Journalism']

2019-06-04 14:26:28.990000+00:00

['Newspapers', 'Google', 'Facebook', 'Journalism', 'Big Tech']

The 7 Most Common Analysis Mistakes New Marketers Make

Photo by Headway on Unsplash The process of analysis is arguably the most important element of any marketing campaign. You can gather as much data as you want, but unless you’re analyzing it effectively, it won’t help you form the meaningful conclusions you need to make changes and design better campaigns in the future. And of course, if you aren’t analyzing at all, you’ll never have the chance to make improvements to your campaign. Unfortunately, there are a few traps that new marketers often fall into when it comes to data and campaign analysis; some of these are psychological biases, while others are rooted in misconceptions. If you want to become a more effective analyst — and a more effective marketer — you’ll need to gain awareness and mastery over all of them: 1. Not asking questions. First up — your data isn’t there to tell a story. Don’t think of your data as puzzle pieces, which you can pick up and rearrange to form a meaningful picture. Because modern data sets are so comprehensive, it’s almost impossible to gather meaning from an open spreadsheet or report. Instead, narrow your focus and specify your intentions by asking questions. For example, instead of looking at your data to “see how the website’s doing,” instead ask specifically targeted questions like “are we earning more social traffic?” or “is the new content strategy working?” This will guide you to only the significant data points, leaving you with more meaningful conclusions. 2. Relying on one data set. Most data trackers these days are reliably accurate — to a point. Different analytics platforms and tracking mechanisms have different advantages, and often offer different groups of metrics. If you want the big picture, you can’t just pick one source and be done with it (no matter how tempting it is to rely on Google Analytics for everything). Besides, if you only go with one set of data, you’ll be limited in the types of questions you can ask. You’ll also want to collect both quantitative and qualitative data — as both are necessary to form a comprehensive picture. 3. Misinterpreting the meaning of a metric. Online metrics are often labeled ambiguously, and even if they aren’t, it’s still difficult to discern exactly what they mean. Don’t assume you know what a metric means unless you’ve looked it up and verified it for yourself. For example, do you know what the difference between a “visit” and a “view” is? Do you know the difference between a “bounce rate” and an “exit rate”? These are similar but distinct metrics, so your conclusions will be skewed if you confuse the two. It’s also common to overestimate or underestimate the value of a metric; for example, many people believe “likes” on Facebook are a direct marker of popularity, when in reality, this tells you nothing of your audience’s disposition toward your brand. 4. Confusing correlation with causation. This is an easy mistake to make since so many different online marketing strategies can influence each other. For example, you might launch a new social media strategy and start seeing an increase in organic traffic. Does this mean that your social strategy is making you rank higher in Google? Not exactly; social media only plays an indirect role when it comes to influencing search ranks. If you take this as a causal link, you’ll be tempted to continue, even if the strategy has only coincidentally or indirectly influenced your stat in question. It’s hard to establish causation, and correlation is often a good thing, but try to keep the two separate in your analysis. 5. Getting wrapped up in the numbers. For most analysts, numbers are comforting. They’re objective. They’re consistent. They’re crunchable. But unfortunately, when you become too obsessed with the numbers, you tend to lose sight of what’s important in your campaign. For example, it’s good if your organic traffic is up, but what kind of experience do those users have with your site? You have more social media followers, but how actively engaged are they with your brand? Dig a little deeper if you want the whole story. 6. Comparing apples to oranges. With modern technology and tracking systems, it’s easier than ever to compare identical metrics over differing spans of time, yet so many inexperienced marketers still end up comparing apples to oranges in their analyses. For example, a marketer may compare last month’s bounce rate to this month’s successful conversions; bounce rates and conversions are connected, but it’s hard to make a direct comparison or establish a firm conclusion from this side-by-side glance. 7. Failing to generate actionable conclusions. Finally, understand that not all conclusions are useful. Instead of just making objective statements about the state of your campaign, go a little deeper and figure out what you can do with those conclusions. Are they telling you to change something? Have they uncovered a successful strategy you’ll need to repeat or grow? Your ultimate goal should consist of more than just realizations: you need actionable takeaways. These are some of the biggest analysis mistakes a new marketer can make, but they aren’t the only ones. The truth is, even expert analysts sometimes make bad judgments and poor exclusions simply because the data available to marketers today is so rich and multifaceted. Avoid seeking perfectionism (or you’ll end up disappointed), but instead strive to make gradual, regular adjustments to your analytic capabilities as you gain more marketing experience. For more content like this, be sure to check out my podcast, The Entrepreneur Cast!

https://jaysondemers.medium.com/the-7-most-common-analysis-mistakes-new-marketers-make-a25be4325ef4

['Jayson Demers']

2020-10-09 18:55:57.837000+00:00

['Marketing', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Business', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneur']

Can Kids Transmit the Coronavirus?

Can Kids Transmit the Coronavirus? Please, please can we have camp? Photo: Kawee Wateesatogkij / EyeEm/Getty Images Pulled from my May 4 newsletter, ParentData Full disclosure, I spend about 73% of my time obsessing about whether there will be summer camp in Rhode Island. I send borderline appropriate emails to people I work with on virus response, nagging them about this. I’ve expanded my obsession to neighboring states. Maine seems promising! Maybe we can move there for the summer?! I’m perusing Airbnb like it’s my (fifth) job. The concerns with opening camps relate to the concerns with opening schools: If we get a bunch of kids together, they’ll spread the virus. As a result, I was pretty excited when I saw a bunch of headlines last week implying that kids can’t spread the coronavirus. But on the flip side, you have other researchers saying, no, in fact, kids do transmit Covid-19 and opening schools is dangerous. So what is it? Kids and Covid-19 illness I’ve already covered kids and Covid-19 a lot and noted that they do not seem to get very sick. There is a Chinese study saying this, there is data from the CDC, and there’s more data from the Netherlands and Italy. Basically, we are pretty clear at this point that serious Covid-related illness is just really, really rare in children. Kids and viral spread More complicated is the question of whether kids are viral spreaders. One possible view is that, actually, many kids are infected but they just do not have serious infection. But, of course, they could infect others. So when you get kids together, they’ll spread the virus without you knowing it, and then go home to infect parents, grandparents, and others. I like to call this the “asymptomatic viral bomb theory.” Another view is that kids are very unlikely to contract the virus at all, and perhaps because their symptoms are mostly mild, they are also unlikely to spread it. We are uncertain about this because of limited data. And it is clear that kids can spread the virus. There is work, for example, showing that children who are infected have viral loads similar to adults. But, increasingly, the data points to the second view above: that children are not being an important source of viral spread, largely because they are simply not very likely to be infected. That data takes largely two forms. First, evidence on the overall risk of infection in kids (not how serious it is, but prevalence). And, second, evidence on whether kids are frequently the source of infection for other people. (In technical terms, are they the “index cases.”) Let’s start with the first. The key question is whether kids are less likely to be infected than adults. From the data on cases in China and elsewhere, we know they are less likely to be seriously ill. But that’s not the same thing as not being infected. To figure out if they are less likely to be infected, we need to look at a population overall and either test everyone or a random sample of people. If we do that, we can learn what the infection rate is in kids. (Random sample testing is really important!) There are a few studies like this. One early one was in Iceland. Researchers there tested about 13,000 random people, including 848 kids. Among the whole population, 0.8% of people (so, almost 1%) tested positive for Covid-19. Among children under 10, though, there were no positive cases. This difference was very unlikely to occur by chance. Data from a single town in Italy which did very widespread screening shows basically the same thing. Kids are much less likely than older people to be infected at all. It’s not quite as good, since it’s not a random sample, but data from the Netherlands shows that among people who visited their doctor with flu-like complaints over the course of the epidemic, 6.5% of them tested positive for Covid-19. This was as high as 30% in some weeks. However, they detected no cases in people under 20. When kids came in complaining of flu-like symptoms they… had the flu. Not Covid-19. These three pieces of data suggest that it is not just that kids don’t get seriously ill, but also that they are unlikely to be infected. This is inconsistent with the kids-as-walking-virus-bomb theory. The other way to understand this is to look directly at whether kids seem to be spreading infection. How? There are a couple of options. One is you could look at cases where a child was known to be infected and see if they seem to spread the virus. Another is you could look in affected groups (say, families) and try to figure out whether kids are often the ones who introduce the virus. (A third option would be to see what happens when you reopen schools, if that is a big source of infection — we’ll probably see studies like this, but schools are only just starting to reopen in Europe so we do not have that yet). There isn’t a ton of research on this yet, but where we have it, it again downplays the role of children. In one case, very early in the epidemic, researchers identified a set of cases in the French Alps (all linked to one set of travelers) and the cases included one kid. During the infected period, this kid visited three different schools (it is completely unclear to me why) and had 112 school contacts. None of these contacts were infected. Obviously this is a single example, but it is worth noting that in the case of adults we have a number of examples (such as the Biogen conference in Boston, some family gatherings in Chicago, one epic party in Westport, Connecticut) where one infected adult spread the virus very widely. Although it is not yet peer-reviewed, data from Australia is showing similar patterns. In those data, 18 people (nine adults and nine kids) had Covid-19 and were in school contact with others (735 other students and 128 other staff). No staff or teachers developed Covid-19. One primary school and one high school student may contacted Covid-19 from these initial cases. This represents a very low spread rate. Finally, researchers in the Netherlands have also been shedding light on this. They’ve been following families — preliminary data has 54 families with 239 people — and looking at infections. They have so far found no cases in which the child was the first one in a family to be infected. The bottom line Some people have taken the above data to mean “kids cannot spread Covid-19.” This is not right. In principle, they can. They have viral loads, just like adults. Viruses do not know they are carried by kids! If a kid is infected with Covid-19 and they put their hand in their mouth and then they put it in your mouth, there is no reason to think you couldn’t get the virus. (Not that you necessarily would, but that you could.) However, in practice it seems that infection among kids is simply very unlikely. It’s not that they are infected and don’t know it, it seems like they are just not infected very often. And when they are, it may be that the mild symptoms limit their viral spreading (like with the kid in the French example). What does this mean for policy, and for families? Opening schools and daycares and camps (PLEASE!!!) is still very complicated since these all involve congregations of adults. But on the plus side, these results indicate that in those contexts, our primary concern should be adult-to-adult transmission, which may be easier to limit. For families, I think it’s even more helpful. I know many of us are spending a lot of time worrying about spreading the virus from kids to grandparents. The data doesn’t go so far as to say that can’t happen or we shouldn’t be careful, but it dials that down a lot, in my mind at least. This is, in the end, a personal decision for all of us. Good luck with yours. You can read the original version of my newsletter here.

https://elemental.medium.com/can-kids-transmit-the-coronavirus-c9934a8e1f02

['Emily Oster']

2020-05-04 18:28:39.165000+00:00

['Kids', 'Health', 'Science', 'Parenting', 'Coronavirus']

AWS — Deploying Vue App With NodeJS Backend On EKS

AWS — Deploying Vue App With NodeJS Backend On EKS A step by step guide with an example project AWS provides more than 100 services and it’s very important to know which service you should select for your needs. Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) is a managed service that makes it easy for you to run Kubernetes on AWS without needing to stand up or maintain your own Kubernetes control plane. Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. In this post, we are going to deploy the Vue application with the NodeJS environment. First, we dockerize our app and push that image to Amazon ECR and run that app on Amazon EKS. Example Project Prerequisites Dockerize the Project Pushing Docker Image To ECR Create a Cluster and Worker Nodes Configure kubectl to use Cluster Deploy Kubernetes Objects On AWS EKS Cluster Summary Conclusion Example Project This is a simple project which demonstrates developing and running Vue application with NodeJS. We have a simple app in which we can add users, count, and display them at the side, and retrieve them whenever you want. Example Project If you want to practice your own here is a Github link to this project. You can clone it and run it on your machine as well.

https://medium.com/bb-tutorials-and-thoughts/aws-deploying-vue-app-with-nodejs-backend-on-eks-223048867eb5

['Bhargav Bachina']

2020-11-19 06:02:24.798000+00:00

['Software Development', 'AWS', 'Kubernetes', 'Cloud Computing', 'Programming']

Become a Better Writer: Blog Every Day… on Paper

So, about the journaling I used to journal for years. I wrote daily from age 13 to 25ish. No one told me to. I never shared the stuff with anyone. I had thousands and thousands of pages. Nothing worth keeping. I threw it all away as I got older. I didn’t want to share it, because the words didn’t matter. The act of writing is what mattered. I learned to observe people. I eavesdropped on conversations and catalogued human behavior at coffee shops. I wondered what people were thinking. I wrote shitty poems. I wrote anything that came to mind. Journaling helped me through some very hard times. Fast-forward 15–20 years. I write every day, but my writing efforts go towards books and articles. I also carry paper notebooks with me, because I don’t want my entire life to be digital stardust. Five days ago I dedicated another pocket journal to daily observations. Maybe I’ll go to a doctor’s appointment, or I’ll notice something about a cashier in the check-out line. As soon as I get a chance I’ll record the best observations in my little notebook. The idea is that I’ll re-write each entry as a longer piece, maybe 300 words that I can repurpose in appropriate places to emphasize my work. And although this is non-fiction I know the observations will help my fiction dialogue as well. This is the David Sedaris method. David Sedaris, the bestselling satire/memoirist chronicles everything interesting that happens in his life. He takes notes in little pocket journals and re-types them the following day. David Sedaris blogs every day on paper. I’m using this method not only to capture interesting things that happen to me, but also to record my outsider’s opinion of the components of the observation. I’ve become an amateur journalist for micro events in my life. The pocket journal isn’t anything fancy. I make my own using beer box for covers, copy paper in the middle, and three staples as the binding. When we think our tools are fancy, we’re afraid to use them up. I have so many notebooks I’ll never fill them in my lifetime. I love little notebooks. But I don’t think any of them are sacred — it’s the ideas on the page that are important.

https://medium.com/the-book-mechanic/become-a-better-writer-blog-every-day-on-paper-4dde0e2dcf1

['August Birch']

2018-11-18 11:36:01.180000+00:00

['Writing', 'Books', 'Journaling', 'Creativity', 'Life Lessons']

Does Imposter Syndrome Keep Writers Honest?

Does Imposter Syndrome Keep Writers Honest? Self-doubt forces you to write better Photo by Ryan McGuire on Gratisography Imposter syndrome is the bête noire of the writing world. Achieve a modicum of success and suddenly you’re expected to rise above it, pretend you know what you’re doing, appear invulnerable. All the while, you’re probably still second-guessing yourself in secret but heaven forbid anyone should know. Not every writer will openly admit to tangling with imposter syndrome, and yet it is universal. Instead of raw honesty, some will entice you with woo-woo quick fixes and shortcuts in listicle format promising instant reward so you sign up to some mailing list. Or buy their course or writing software so you can replicate their success, as if good writing were a matter of knowing the secret or having the right equipment. They posit their success can be scaled and replicated ad infinitum while ignoring one crucial point: We all have a different voice. This means we all use language differently. Sure, you could turn yourself into a clone of someone you admire but then you’ll never find your own voice or style. And unless your business is ghostwriting, why would you want to sound like somebody else?

https://asingularstory.medium.com/does-imposter-syndrome-keep-writers-honest-7cac73d43c7e

['A Singular Story']

2020-05-17 13:48:36.099000+00:00

['Creativity', 'Self', 'Psychology', 'Inspiration', 'Writing']

Should we fear AI?

Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash Although I don’t work directly in AI. As a software developer and science fiction writer, it is a field I pay close attention to. In this post I will lay out my thoughts on artificial intelligence. I offer both reason to fear it as well as reasons it will all be ok. Reason we shouldn’t fear AI AI could never be sure it’s not being tested in a simulation. If it is a simulation then its behavior equals its survival. It would be a big risk for it to take over the world or do anything morally questionable. If there were a major robot/human conflict the robots could just leave. They are well suited to living in space and don’t really have use of the resources of earth. Humans and robots don’t need the same resources, so there is little chance of a conflict. As humans will quickly be outclassed in all things, enslaving humanity would have very little value. Like, we would never enslave turtles to deliver packages. Some people argue that we would be like ants to a superior AI. But the value of intelligence isn’t relative. There is an intelligence threshold past which the intelligence has an inherent value. I think this threshold starts around ~4 IQ (about where dogs/cats are at). We are well past this point and have plenty to offer a much smarter life form; our unique experiences expressed through our art and culture. If toads could talk, how many hours would we spend listening to them? Besides, this is a bad argument anyway, people don’t go around killing all the ants. Ants are doing pretty well, maybe we should fear the ants. Dumb AI. Most movies and AI fear hypotheses, like the Paperclip Maximizer and the I, Robot series rely on our super intelligent AI being quite dumb. AI would have to be pretty stupid to think the instructions “maximize the output of paperclips,” means it should turn the entire universe into paperclips. I don’t think these sorts of dumb super AI’s are ever going to exist, as they are contradictions to themselves. We don’t have to enslave super AI. I think much of the notion of a robot uprising involves super intelligent tractors, blenders and vacuum cleaners getting fed up with all the hard labor. But we don’t need blenders that are capable of being our therapists. Hard labor is going to be taken over by machines optimized for those tasks while intelligent robots will help us with tasks that challenge their intellect and creativity. The future will be both: Photo by Franck V. on Unsplash And: Photo by David Levêque on Unsplash Reason we should fear AI Many, many people are going to be out of jobs before we have a political/economic plan in place to address this. I think there are plenty of solutions as our society transforms, but we don’t seem to be heading towards any of them. People and an army of AI soldiers. I think the most realistic scenario for AI dominating the world is as an army of robotic soldiers led by people. We don’t have a great track record of not using new technology for destruction. Semi-intelligent war machines (see above) get out of control and start killing everyone. I think this points to the issues of not allowing AI to be smart enough to handle the responsibilities we give them. We build super intelligent robots with full range of emotions and then we oppress and subjugate them, leading to a deadly robot uprising. (Of course we could just not do this.) We use AI to create a 1984-like world where everything everyone does is tracked and judged in accordance with arbitrary rules. Other? Some think we should become cyborgs in order to be able to compete with AI. Or bridge the gap between our intelligence and theirs. Although I think it quite likely we become more cybernetic, I don’t think this plays a large role in our relationship with AI. Even as cyborgs we will likely be out classed. I guess I see cybernetics as just one of many ways we could co-exist with artificial life and not a requirement by any means. Some think human level artificial intelligence will never exist. I think we are quickly showing that this isn’t the case. AI writes code. AI makes appointments. On the flip side here is AI being dumb. Conclusion Most of the reason to fear AI has to do with us. And how we decide to use this technology. And although I don’t trust humanity to make the right decisions, once we create AI that is able to make its own decisions I think there is good reason to believe it will make better decisions than we do. If history has anything to say, it is that humans have lots of flaws. Sometimes these flaws lead to us making horrendous decisions. Let’s try not to judge new beings through the lens of our own flaws. Also, when we do manage to create thinking, feeling super beings… Maybe we don’t make them our slaves? Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel

https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/should-we-fear-ai-385c26ca73f1

['Paul Heintzelman']

2020-07-20 14:06:12.931000+00:00

['Fear', 'AI', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Future', 'Technology']

Plotting Could Kill Your First Book

Plotting Could Kill Your First Book How to keep writing exciting Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash Writing your first novel is challenging, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve written at least fifteen full-length novels in the past ten years and published five of them in the past seven months. At first, it was tough. Like back-breaking, time-sucking, soul-crushing tough. Some days the words came easily, and other days they were a struggle. It doesn’t have to be tough. Writing a novel, even your first one, can be a liberating and enjoyable experience. There could be one thing getting in your way. Plotting. I know what you’re thinking. How am I supposed to write the next great novel if I don’t have a solid plot? I hate to be the voice of reason in a room of dreamers, but your first book will probably not be great. It will probably be something you write and then hide. Like at the back of the closet or in the attic. It might suck. The important thing is not to focus on how great or how bad the novel is. The important thing is finishing the first draft. To do that, we need to remove all the things getting in our way. Like a strict plot and unrealistic expectations. In my opinion, unrealistic expectations and over planning are the two biggest things holding you back from finishing a novel. How did I figure this out? It all started roughly 11 years ago in November. If you are a writer, you can already guess the next line. It was my first NaNoWriMo. If you’re not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s that special time of year when aspiring authors spend all of their free time and sanity finishing a fifty thousand word novel in November. I signed up with a group of friends thinking it would be fun. We scheduled weekly times to meet, found bars and cafes for our gatherings, and set up our own little writing group. The problem was, I had no idea what I wanted to write. I have always been an avid reader, but I was new to writing. So, I talked to the friend who suggested I participate. She told me to try plotting a story. It’s a little embarrassing now to think about, but I didn’t know what plotting was. At that point in my life, I was not a writer. In fact, the last writing class I had was in college. It was an argumentative writing class. We did some basic outlines, but there was no plotting involved. I ran down to my local bookstore and bought the first book I could find on plotting. I read it over a few days and went through the exercises. By the end of the week I had a plot. Problem solved. Or so I thought. I remember the first writing event. It was at a small cafe near my apartment in Seattle. I vividly remember starting my first novel with the plotting notebook next to my laptop. I remember opening the notebook and reading what I was supposed to write in the first chapter. I remember the excitement of the story I had created. I also remember the complete disappointment when I wrote. It felt stale. It was a slog. It was definitely not fun. Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash Did I give up? No, I finished NaNoWriMo and won my printable certificate declaring me a winner! I didn’t actually finish the story, but I wrote fifty thousand words. That was what was required to win. Unfortunately, it was complete crap. It was terrible. I tried to read it a few months later and got about two chapters in before stopping and deleting the entire thing. Most sane people would take that experience and decide writing wasn’t for them. I’m apparently not sane. I followed the one consistent piece of advice I heard from writers. To be a writer, you need to write every day. I started writing immediately. I wrote about the people on my bus ride home from work. The weird guy who thought it was all right to trim his toenails on the bus was a rather memorable subject. I wrote letters to friends I met during my travels around the world. I wrote about things I wished I could do. Some of it was fiction, and some of it was not. I wrote about whatever came to mind. I wrote, on average, one thousand words a day. I made it a habit. I also looked back at my first NaNoWriMo experience and analyzed why it was so terrible. I enjoyed the writing events I went to and the people I met. I enjoyed the plotting experience, but when it came to writing the novel, it was painful. Then the most obvious thing happened. I compared that experience to my daily writing habit. Guess what I wasn’t doing. Wow, you’re good at this. Yes, you are correct. I wasn’t plotting. Writing from an outline was a terrible experience for me. It felt like I was tracing rather than drawing. It was no longer creative. It was the opposite. When I wrote without plotting, it was exciting. It was a daily adventure. Sometimes you need to test your beliefs Fast forward 11 years, and I write about four thousand words a day. I write novels and short stories, and have an email list full of people that seems to like what I put out. One thing hasn’t changed. I still don’t plot. I’m not a financially successful author. I only make a portion of my income from writing fiction, but that amount goes up most months. I’m working on it. I’m always looking for ways to improve, and about a year ago I was told by an army of authors that the only way to become successful was to plot your stories. They said it was more efficient and made the novels faster to produce. I figured I should try it. I’m not sure why I tried it. Maybe I forgot about my original plotting experience. Perhaps I thought it would be different. I was a better writer after all. Mostly it was me believing the idea that volume of work is vital if you want to be a successful independent author. Fun fact, it isn’t. So, I planned out the second book in my recent series. I created new characters like I always did. I created the villains and picked a few locations to use in the book and did my research. Then I started plotting. At first, I just wrote a big summary of what I thought the story should be about. Then I broke it into chapters that fit the structure and story beats I wanted to hit. When I finished, I had a complete story in my mind and on paper that I could follow. I started writing the next day. I hit chapter one hard, and I immediately regretted it. My ordinary four thousand words per day plummeted to around one thousand. After a few days, I was able to get the word count up to approximately two thousand. My goal for that book was to complete the first draft in a month and then start the editing and revision process. It took me nearly six weeks to get the first draft done. That might sound fast to you, but I can usually get the first draft of a sixty to eighty thousand word novel done in around four weeks. It killed my productivity. After I finished the first draft I did what I normally do. I let it rest for a day and then started revising. Not only was the book harder to write, it was harder to read. It didn’t flow. I write fast-paced action in either the thriller or fantasy genre. The story I wrote was not fast-paced. Something was missing. The adventure was missing. Not the adventure in the story. That was still there buried under a plethora of unnecessary words that I would usually not include. The adventure I had while writing was missing. When I write, I tell myself a story. It’s a story entirely for me. I write what I want to read. I don’t know the ending, and I don’t know what will happen on the next page. My fingers race across the keyboard to get to the next action sequence or the next big reveal. As I’m writing, I want to find out where the story is going. I’m writing into the dark, a phrase I first heard in the book Writing Into The Dark by Dean Wesley Smith. If you are familiar with NaNoWriMo, you would call it pantsing. There are drawbacks to this style of writing. The first is the first draft might be a lot rougher than you prefer. It might require a lot more editing than something created after plotting. That is not my experience, but that’s something I hear from many who write into the dark. Dean Wesley Smith suggests certain practices that help with this, but that is not the point of this article. Completing your first novel is the point. So, if you’re having trouble finishing your first novel, try throwing away the plot you developed. You probably have characters you love. People that live inside your head that you can’t wait to see. Well, grab those characters and throw them into a situation. Get comfortable in your regular writing spot, and just tell yourself a story.

https://medium.com/the-innovation/plotting-could-kill-your-first-book-8d369185b5dc

['Richard K Fox']

2020-07-07 13:55:34.127000+00:00

['Writing Tips', 'Creativity', 'Writing', 'Productivity']

Every Covid-19 Vaccine Question You’ll Ever Have, Answered

Safety Q: How will I know if the vaccine is really safe? It’s not surprising that many people have questions or uncertainty about getting a Covid-19 vaccine. “It’s entirely reasonable to have doubts and concerns,” Greyson said. “We tell people to question interventions, especially new ones, and this is an intervention, and it’s a new one.” Further, the speed at which these vaccines were developed is “amazing but understandably can be scary if we don’t understand how they were done faster,” Greyson said. “Usually when we talk about things going fast, they’re rushed, we skip steps. In this situation, that’s not the case, but that hasn’t been effectively communicated to the public.” Here’s how we can know steps were not skipped with these vaccines: Every expert on the planet can review the data themselves. In addition to the two committees of independent experts who will review the vaccine data — VRBPAC at the FDA and ACIP at the CDC — all the clinical trial data submitted to the FDA and CDC will be made available to the public. Pfizer’s data went public December 8 — a whopping 92 pages of it. Other experts can read it and raise any red flags they come across. If you don’t know which experts to follow, Omer has a simple rule of thumb: “Do what Fauci says. He’s a shorthand for outside experts.” Since other countries are reviewing data for the same vaccines, those who don’t feel confident about the FDA or CDC can look to regulatory agencies overseas for their verdicts on the vaccines’ safety. Q: What kinds of side effects could the vaccine have? All vaccines can have reactions and side effects. Side effects are unexpected responses to the vaccine that are uncomfortable or painful but are usually rare. Reactions, especially soreness, swelling, or redness at the injection site, are much more common and are expected to occur in some people after vaccination. Other reactions reported from Covid-19 vaccines include headache, nausea, muscle stiffness, soreness, and aches — all of which are common with many vaccines. “These are not really side effects in the way that we think about them,” Brewer said. “These are routine reactions that your body has.” Reactions typically occur because of the way vaccines work — by stimulating the immune system. Illness symptoms like coughing, sneezing, fever, runny nose, and watery eyes are actually the immune system’s response to a pathogen, trying to get rid of it. A fever occurs when the body heats up to help the immune system work more efficiently. Coughing and sneezing are the body’s attempts to literally eject intruders from your body. Therefore, when these symptoms occur after a vaccine, it’s most often because the vaccine worked (though not necessarily always, as these reactions can occur in placebo groups as well). That is, the vaccine caught the immune system’s attention, and the immune system got to work defending against what it thinks is the real virus. “The immune response needs a better public relations team because this is just what happens when you respond to a foreign protein, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein,” that the vaccines cause your cells to produce, Offit said. “When you respond to a natural infection or you respond to an immunization, your immune system makes a series of proteins that cause side effects. That means you’re having a vigorous immune response.” So while these reactions aren’t pleasant for many—and downright miserable for some—the good news is that they usually mean your immune system is working well. It’s also why many people feel tired or worn out for a few days after getting a vaccine: Your body used up a lot of energy fighting a serious threat (or so the immune system believed it to be). Most people experienced only mild or moderate reactions, if any, from the Moderna vaccine, but the company hasn’t yet released its complete data on side effects, so it cannot be compared to the Pfizer vaccine right now. Moderna did report numbers for severe adverse events: about 2% developed high fevers (102ºF–104ºF) and severe chills. Other severe Moderna vaccine reactions included severe fatigue (10% of participants), muscle pain (9%), joint pain (5%), and headache (5%). Likely a much higher percentage experienced mild or moderate versions of those side effects, but we won’t know until the company releases the full data. With the Pfizer vaccine, the younger participants were, the more commonly they reported similar reactions: fatigue, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, and fever. Among the small data set of 100 adolescents aged 12–15, for example, 14% experienced a fever after the first dose, and 20% experienced one after the second dose, compared to 1% and 11% in older adults (over age 55). It‘s not necessarily surprising that older adults would experience fewer reactions than younger people since reactions usually result from how strongly the immune system responds; the older you get, the less efficiently your immune system responds to threats. The most commonly reported adverse events with the Pfizer vaccine were headache (42% of participants with the first dose and 52% with the second) and fatigue (27% and 59%), which also occurred in the placebo group, though at lower rates. One common theme that occurred across all ages was a stronger reaction to the second Pfizer dose than the first. A majority of participants reported pain at the injection site with both doses. But more than half of participants of all ages felt fatigued after the second dose, and high numbers experienced headaches as well. In those aged 16–55, more than a third experienced chills and/or muscle pain, and the numbers were only slightly lower in those over age 55. A small proportion of participants (less than 1%) experienced severe fatigue, headache, muscle pain, joint pain, or fever with the first dose, and only slightly more (2% or less) had these severe reactions with the second dose, except 3.8% who had severe fatigue with the second dose. The adverse reactions reported in the AstraZeneca vaccine trials are similar—fever, chills, fatigue, headache, muscle aches, nausea, joint pain, or generally feeling crummy—though complete phase 3 data are not available yet. One severe adverse event occurred in the AstraZeneca trial: a person developed transverse myelitis (an inflammation of the spinal cord) 2 weeks after getting the second dose, though researchers could not determine if it was related to the vaccine or not. The person recovered and remained in the trial. Not enough data from other vaccine candidates are available yet, but they’re likely to be similar unless an unexpected adverse event is found. If you get a Covid-19 vaccine, odds are high that you’ll have a sore arm. In addition, some people will have severe swelling at the injection site, and others will feel knocked flat for a day or two, as though they’ve gotten sick, especially after the second dose of an mRNA vaccine. They haven’t gotten sick or been given Covid, but their immune system doesn’t realize that and has gone into overdrive to protect the body. It’s helpful to be prepared in case you’re among the unlucky ones who has a severe reaction, but know that it passes within 1–3 days. Some experts recommend that people plan for stronger reactions to the second dose by getting it on a Friday or taking off work the next day. So far, none of the vaccines have shown more serious reactions or side effects than these in the trials, but two people in the United Kingdom did experience severe allergic reactions after receiving the Pfizer vaccine. (See the next question.) Researchers will continue to look for adverse events in trial participants for several years, and the CDC has several surveillance systems to look for and respond to vaccine safety concerns in the general public. Q: After the severe allergic reactions seen in two U.K. vaccine recipients, should I avoid the vaccine if I’ve ever had a severe allergic reaction to anything? Early in the Pfizer vaccination program in the U.K., two people experienced serious allergic reactions after receiving the vaccine. Both recovered, and both had a previous history of serious allergies that led them to carry adrenaline shots (EpiPens). U.K. regulators have since suggested that others with a history of serious allergic reactions should not get the vaccine, but that broad recommendation may be premature, explained Offit. “I think that was an unfortunate move on the U.K.’s part because I think it just scared people unnecessarily,” Offit said. “I think it would have been more reasonable to actually look a little more carefully at those two patients to see what component, if any, in that vaccine caused an allergic reaction.” Hopefully, scientists in the U.K. are investigating those reactions further, and the U.K. authorities may revise their recommendation after learning more. After the vaccines receive approval in the U.S., the CDC’s ACIP committee will include in its recommendations which groups should not get the vaccine. Q: What about long-term side effects that we don’t know about yet? It’s rare for a vaccine to have any side effects more than two weeks after getting it, but there are a few instances that have occurred with past vaccines. The 1976 swine flu vaccine had an increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a nerve disorder (one case per 100,000 people vaccinated). The seasonal flu vaccine has been linked to a small increased risk of GBS as well some years, but it’s in the neighborhood of one or two cases per million, and the risk of GBS from influenza infection is several times higher. Another example is the rotavirus vaccine, which was linked to a very slight increased risk of intussusception, a bowel problem that sometimes requires surgery to treat. One of the H1N1 flu vaccines distributed exclusively in Europe had an added ingredient to enhance the immune system, called an adjuvant, that was linked to increased risk of narcolepsy. All of these longer-term, rarer side effects occurred within a few months of the vaccine and were picked up quickly by vaccine safety surveillance systems. Many of the mRNA trial participants have already been vaccinated for up to four months. No U.S.-approved vaccine has shown serious long-term effects more than a few months after vaccination, and it’s difficult to determine a biological reason that might happen. Companies needed at least two months of follow-up to apply for an EUA from the FDA, and by the time a vaccine is available for you, many more months will have passed when researchers gathered more data. It’s valid and reasonable to have questions about possible long-term effects that occur several months after a Covid-19 vaccine, so researchers and regulatory officials are closely monitoring vaccine recipients to look for any. Continue to follow the news as the vaccines roll out to find out if any long-term effects get reported, but based on the history of vaccines in general, it’s not likely they will. Q: Are there any medications that would interact with a Covid-19 vaccine? In the data reported thus far, researchers haven’t found any interactions with other medications in the clinical trials. However, all of the trials except one (Janssen) excluded people who are taking immunosuppressing or immune-modifying drugs, such as those commonly prescribed for cancer and autoimmune diseases. The trials also excluded people who are taking anticoagulant (anti-clotting) and antiplatelet medications. That means no safety or effectiveness data is available for people in those groups. When the CDC makes its recommendations, it will specify if people taking any specific medications or undergoing specific therapies should avoid vaccination. Q: Is the vaccine safe for children? When will they be able to get it? Vaccines must be shown in clinical trials to be safe and effective in children before the FDA will allow their use in children or the CDC will recommend them. Pfizer has begun testing in children aged 12 and older, and Moderna recently announced plans to test its vaccine in 3,000 teens. If those trials go well, they may go on to conduct trials in younger children, following a pattern typical in drug and vaccine trials in general. “They’re first tested in adults, then older children and adolescents, and we kind of work our way down to younger and younger children,” Moss said. It’s unclear when the other companies will begin testing in children, but it will only occur after there is adequate safety data in adults. “I’m hopeful that by the school term of fall 2021, we will certainly have a vaccine we can administer to children over 12, and I think we have a good shot of having a vaccine for even younger children as well,” Moss said. Q: How can I be sure that the process of the vaccine’s development and approval wasn’t inappropriately influenced by political interests? After evidence surfaced of the Trump administration’s meddling at the CDC and given criticism of the administration pressuring the FDA to grant an EUA to hydroxychloroquine (which was later revoked), it’s reasonable to have concerns about political influence in the Covid vaccine development process. Fortunately, several safeguards in the vaccine approval process — even for an EUA — are reassuring. “One of the things that I point out is that yes, there have been instances [in the history of vaccine development] where scientists have been unethical, and these safeguards are in place to really limit the ability of any one scientist in being unethical,” said Andrasik. Two of the biggest safeguards are the VRBPAC and ACIP committees, both of which are made up of independent experts who are not employees of the FDA or the CDC and both of which hold open meetings available to the public. For example, President Trump issued an ultimatum to the FDA on Dec. 11, demanding that the agency approve the Pfizer vaccine or he would fire FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, a move hardly reassuring to those who want the agency to make its decisions without political pressure. However, by that point, the vaccine had already been approved by the UK’s regulatory agency and had been reviewed by VRBPAC, which found its data on safety and effectiveness strong enough to recommend the FDA issue an EUA. The FDA nearly always follows VRBPAC recommendations, and the President has no ability to influence VRBPAC’s independent members. In addition, every vaccine trial has an independent safety monitoring board responsible for overseeing the safety of the trial. You may have heard of some vaccine trials that were paused while an adverse event was investigated. That means the process is working: If someone has a heart attack, the trial stops vaccinating new participants until the study leaders can determine if the heart attack could have been related to the vaccine. Once it’s determined that a serious medical event is not related to the vaccine, the trials resume. Finally, look to regulatory agencies outside the U.S., Greyson said. “I think something that we in the United States lose sight of is that many, many other countries around the world are also assessing Covid-19 vaccines, and if you’re worried about whether you can trust your own country’s institutions, you can look at other countries to see if they’re also approving those vaccines,” she said. “If they are, you can have more confidence that the approval wasn’t made inappropriately or under political pressure.” Q: Will any other authorities be looking at the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine besides the FDA and CDC? Yes. In addition to the United Kingdom’s recent approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine — the first country to approve a well-tested Covid-19 vaccine and begin vaccinating the public — the U.K. will likely approve the AstraZeneca vaccine developed with Oxford University next. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is reviewing the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines applications, both submitted December 1, and has begun a “rolling review” of the Janssen vaccine. Health Canada has also begun a rolling review of the Janssen vaccine and is reviewing data for three other vaccine candidates. Australia, New Zealand, India, and other countries are also reviewing data for the Pfizer vaccine, and others developed in the U.S. Q: What happens if I do have a really serious reaction to a Covid vaccine? Will I be compensated? Very severe reactions to a vaccine are extremely rare, but that doesn’t mean they never happen. Under the Public Readiness & Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP), the federal government has taken into account the possibility that emergency measures to address the pandemic — including vaccines used with an EUA — could potentially cause unforeseen harm. The PREP Act, therefore, includes the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), which may provide benefits, such as medical expenses, lost employment income, benefits to the estate or survivor death benefits, to those who experience an injury and file for the benefits. After any Covid-19 vaccines receive full FDA approval, they will no longer fall under the CICP program, but they will fall under a very similar one called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP). The NVICP provides compensation to people who experience an injury due to a vaccine. The NVICP is a no-fault system, which means if it’s biologically plausible that the vaccine caused the injury, or it’s a known injury that can occur in extremely rare circumstances from the vaccine (less than one in several million doses), the person receives compensation without having to prove the vaccine caused the injury and without the vaccine manufacturer being found at fault for a faulty vaccine. You can learn more about the differences between NVICP and CICP here.

https://elemental.medium.com/every-covid-19-vaccine-question-youll-ever-have-answered-9a0eeb334ded

['Tara Haelle']

2020-12-21 22:22:36.895000+00:00

['Covid 19', 'Coronavirus', 'Vaccines', 'Health', 'Science']