fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
One Nation United in Opposition
By: Russ W
Tags: Anger, Society, Hate, Incivility, Politics

The age of anger

Anywhere you look today, there seems to be another reason for resentment.

It would be easy for me to become enraged watching the narcissistic antics of a little orange man in a big white house, as he mismanaged the national response to a pandemic. It’s equally as infuriating to watch ignorant citizens refuse to support public health efforts and rebel against wearing masks to signal their loyalty to his cause.

The deployment of federal agents to squash protestors is yet another reason to rebel in anger. When exactly did it become a bad thing to be against fascism? Oh right, when the little orange man needed a scapegoat to stoke fear and distract from racism.

To be sure, these are all reason enough to get furious and all riled up. I don’t believe that’s worth it. That’s exactly what the other side wants. If you get angry, lose your composure, and lash out in rage, then they’ve thrown you off your game — they’ve proven their power over your emotions. Furthermore, fury from the left only strengthens the resolve of those on the right. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle, an unvirtuous circle propelled forward by hate and disdain.

This cycle itself is what bothers me. America’s system of government, our way of life, our personal freedom and values have all been oversimplified into some crusade for righteousness. In the swirl of vitriol, everyone is forced to pick a side and self-identify in performance politics.

You’re told to get in line and signal your affiliation. You’re either an ignorant, money-hungry pro-Trump fascist or you’re a bleeding-heart liberal who wants to crack open the piggy bank an offer free handouts for all.

Don’t like your options? Too bad. That’s all that’s on the table.
If You Want to Be Published, Turn On Notifications
By: Pamela Hazelton
Tags: Communication, Writing, Professional Development, Productivity, Writing Tips

If You Want to Be Published, Turn On Notifications

Don’t miss the final step toward being published

Photo by georgejmclittle — licensed via Freepik premium

Beyond following publication guidelines, style guides, and writing rules, creators need to be responsive to an editor’s needs. Most writing platforms send updates based on many activities, including requests for fixes.

As much as writers get antsy over lengthy acceptance or rejection notices, editors don’t like holding almost-there submissions in the queue. That’s no bueno when you want your work to reach the masses.

Turn on platform and email notifications

I get it. Spam and marketing emails get in the way. But ignoring notices from editors can cost you readers and money. You can use a designated email address for your submissions and profiles or set up rules and filters in the email client.

Note that email is not foolproof, so set up a time each day to check in-app notifications or browser-based alerts.

Respond in a timely fashion

To avoid rejection due to lack of response, acknowledge receipt of the request. Then, address issues thoroughly and promptly. Little irritates editors more than receiving an update void of expected changes.

Don’t miss an opportunity because you don’t listen for the knock

Across the publications for which I edit, about 34% of submissions are sent a request for changes. Nearly a fifth of those go unanswered, resulting in an unnecessary rejection. And about half are addressed too quickly, meaning the writer doesn’t address all the issues reported.

A writer’s work doesn’t end when clicking the submission button. Change requests are common. Watch for such requests to strengthen the writer-editor relationship and gain more exposure.
Are you a Fan of Sci-fi and Fantasy Concept Art?
By: Martin Rezny
Tags: Instagram, Graphic Design, Drawing, Art, Concept Art

A shameless plug for my new Instagram account

By MARTIN REZNY

Being a writer doesn’t necessarily include a lot of interesting travel or food options, which is a big part of why I avoided Instagram for the longest time. In my life, most of the, shall we say, action is happening inside of my mind. Sadly, our imaging technology is not that advanced. Yet.

But then, when I was forced to create an Instagram account to view what my friends are posting, it occurred to me that I may have done the second best thing to having my mind scanned. I used to draw, a lot. So, I may have photographed all of my doodles and decided to dedicate the account to their gradual unveiling.

Right out the gate, let’s make one thing clear, I know that I’m not a great graphic artist. I do have an overactive imagination, which is a plus, it even helped me win a drawing competition once, but I have never developed my technique to a truly professional level.

I may try to do so in the future, so that I can create usable designs for a sci-fi game that I intend to start developing soon with my friends. So any feedback is definitely welcome, like which of my concept art (which is what I guess you could call my stuff) can be developed into something that really works.

But that’s enough talking, here is the first batch of my concept art, representing the general categories of what I enjoy drawing:

So, that’s basically it — arcane diagrams, fantasy weapons (mainly swords), monsters (mainly dragons), alien communications, space battles involving ships, bases, and portals, and the occasional abstract piece of art, all drawn using multicolored pens and markers. On Instagram, each image also has a bit of commentary.

Like I said, I welcome any feedback, though more helpful would be feedback regarding the ideas, as I am well aware of most of my shortcomings in terms of technique, which I intend to eventually rectify. But who knows, maybe you know something really cool that I don’t.

I’m planning to post one picture a day, at least until I run out of my old drawings, which should take at least a couple of months. If this looks and sounds like something you might enjoy, I invite anyone to follow my Instagram channel under the name of Nartimean.
Shameless Promotion, Self- and Otherwise!
By: Matthew David Brozik
Tags: Humor, Satire, Self Promotion, Recipe, Fiction

The Belladonna

From the editors of this awesome new publication:

“The Belladonna is a place that features funny writing by women, for everyone. The four editors started the site because we believe that women (we welcome and include non-cis women) writers need a publication that focuses on comedy and satire that doesn’t alter their voice in an unrecognizable way. We’re going to give feedback to every piece we don’t accept, and tons of promotion to the ones we do. Basically, we’re all going to kick ass together.

Even their logo is awesome.

“We want to see hilarious inappropriateness! Alarming weirdness! High concept craziness! Find more about what we’re looking for here, and please please please follow us on Medium as we get up and going. You’ll get imaginary Belladonna points that can be traded in for imaginary Belladonna dollars that we all spend together at the imaginary Belladonna store if you do!”
Implement the Command Design Pattern in Swift 5
By: Zafar Ivaev
Tags: Swift, Xcode, Programming, iOS, Mobile

Implement the Command Design Pattern in Swift 5

Encapsulate and execute actions over time

Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash

In this article, we will learn about the Command design pattern and implement it in an Xcode Playground.

In short, the Command is a behavioral design pattern that helps us encapsulate actions (commands) and execute them at a later point in time.

It involves the following components:

Invoker — an object that executes its commands

Command — an action that needs to be performed

Receiver — an object that is being acted upon.

Let’s Start

Consider an example of a moderator who reviews an app. The moderation process may have different states: inReview , approved , and rejected . We want to set specific commands for the moderator and execute them one-by-one with some delay. So let’s start creating the required components.

Receiver

Our receiver is an App class that has a dependency on the ModerationState . Its initial state is submittedForReview :

Next, let’s create a Command.

Command

We start with a base class that each specific command with inherit from:

The command depends on the single App object that we will mutate accordingly in subclasses. Now let’s create these subclasses:

As we can see, each command changes the moderationState property of the App object inside the execute() method.

With commands done, now we need to create an Invoker.

Invoker

We create the Moderator class that will act an invoker of the aforementioned commands. It has a [ModerationCommand] array and an App object. Once its commands property is set, it starts reviewing the App by executing each command with some delay. Using a DispatchSemaphore we allow only one command to be executed at a time:

Now we can test what we have created. Let’s initialize the Moderator and provide it with four moderation commands as follows:

As expected, the following messages are printed in the console, each after a specific delay:

We have implemented the Command design pattern.
Cast
By: Alicia Mejia
Tags: Shadow, Poetry, Roses, Flow, Love

Shadows and light.

Light and fog.

Fog and roses.

Where does love go, when it has no plan. No place.

When everywhere is home.

Yet it steps out of the room.

Simply to make room.

Where does love go, when it no plan. No space.

To follow through.

The golden spiral.

Sacred with math.

Where to add is to divide.

To divide to multiply.

Where does love go, when it has no plans. No grace.

To be taken from you.

For how can it,

When it’s not your to give.

Into.

It is simply what one.

Is.

Alone.

Together.

In flow.
Letter #12: What’s the future of…?
By: Clayton D'Arnault
Tags: Medicine, Future, Sex

Dear reader,

Arguably, the future is in a constant state of motion. Everyday, with each technological advancement, we get a little closer to the future. Yet, at the same rate, ideals evolve and the future gets further away. But progress is progress, right?

In this letter, I’ll take you to the near future of death, medicine, and sex.

Great Scott!

Something we can’t avoid.

Death is something we can’t avoid. But since the 1960’s we’ve been dreaming of doing just that. Cryonics, the technique of deep-freezing a dead body or brain in liquid nitrogen so that one day the deceased can be brought back to life, is our answer to that dilemma. But right now, nothing about this technique is convincing. There’s only a few people practicing cryonics in the world, and aside from the obvious skepticism of the process actually working, these places charge patients up to $200,000 to bet on the future. And if we find that the method does in fact work, making it a social norm will be a bit of a challenge, because of moral backlash. But, if there’s one thing to be sure about, the process is fascinating. Follow along with a genuine cryonics specialist as he describes the process from start to finish, and the industry as a whole in this interview from Hopes&fears.

Go deeper:

➔ Wait But Why makes the case for why cryonics makes sense.

Something medicinal.

Virtual Reality (VR for short) is considered the next big thing in entertainment and education by many tech publications and journalists. But others, medical professionals in specific, have bigger plans for the next big thing — medicinal VR. For instance, Argentine psychologist Fernando Tarnogol is using VR to treat phobias, while neurosurgeons at UCLA are using it to build in depth, virtual maps of a patient’s brain before they operate. Though it might not be the most popular, or expected use for virtual reality, it’s looking to be the most beneficial.

Something sexual.

Inevitably, sex, our most primal instinct, is becoming more advanced thanks to technology and our innate obsession with sexuality. If the future brings anything that will be accepted into society quicker than the highest speed of the most impressive vibrator, it’ll be high-tech sex. We’re already using our advanced modes of communication for sexual means, why not kick it up a notch? Experts say that future couples, no matter the distance apart, will be using a variety of products to do the deed including VR, holograms, stimulation suits, and robots. But where do you draw the line? Will the future of sex improve our sex life, or utterly destroy it? How long until some people start associating love with Artificial Intelligence? (see: HER). The future looks a little weird from that perspective.

Go further:

➔ Flash Forward goes to 2086 to explore a future with sex robots.

Best,

Clayton d’Arnault

The Internet Traveler

P.S. — Found something interesting on the Internet recently? I’d love to include it in a future letter. Reply to this email or tweet @cjdarnault to submit your links.
Hesap Güvenliği için 2-faktörlü doğrulama
By: Evren Yildiz
Tags: Google, Benden, Apple, Akıllı Telefon, Teknoloji

in Both Sides of the Table
Deploying a Flask App With NGINX Unit
By: Srujan Deshpande
Tags: Flask, Servers, Nginx, Nginx Unit, DevOps

There are many different ways of installing Unit and they can be seen here. The docker method is one of the most convienient as it only installs what is needed for the application and is easily portable. Unit only supports Unix based operating systems so using Docker ensures your server works everywhere.

Make sure you’ve got docker installed. You can install the docker engine here.

Create a new file named config.json . This will contain the configuration we provide to Unit.

Unit configuration file

Here, we specify the port as 8080, the type of application as python_app, the location of the module in the www folder and the module name as app.

Create a new file named Dockerfile . We place the commands used to interact with the NGINX Unit image in this.

To begin with, we start with the Unit image for Python 3.7. By pulling only this image, the overall container size stays low.

Then we expose the port 8080. This is the port we declared earlier on which the server will run. After that we copy over the requirements.txt file, and then install pip and the requirements.

Next, the configuration file is copied into the docker-entrypoint.d directory. The files in this directory are used when starting up the application server.
How I Published a New eBook by Accident and Started Selling It Right Away
By: N.A. Turner
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Writing, Short Story, Publishing

Last February I started a series on ‘How to Write a Short Story’. I thought I’d share everything I learned about writing them in the last 2,5 years. Not only about my own experience and growth, but I also shared what I picked up from others. I’ve read dozens of books on writing, followed a few courses here and there and I’m figuring it all out as I’m going.

I started the series to help writers who are starting out and want to give short story writing a go. It’s everything I would’ve liked to know before I started out.

Little did I expect that the first few posts gained thousands of views on Medium and my own site. And then I had an idea.

I came up with titles that reflected often Googled questions people have. I did a slight bit of SEO writing and generally packed the articles with actionable steps.

After 18 posts, they attracted an audience of about 80,000 people on my website and Medium combined. Hundreds are still added to that daily. That’s crazy, and I’m really happy these articles have found an audience.

And then I had another idea, why not bundle these article into an eBook in order to see what happens and in all honesty earn a bit of side income?
Happy Independence Day
Tags: Decentralization, Synereo, Attention Economy, Independence Day, Content Economy

This 4th of July, as you bbq and watch fireworks with the “Star Spangled Banner” anthem in the background, ask yourself: are we really free?

Two hundred forty two years ago, on July 4, 1776, with the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress declared that the thirteen American colonies were no longer part of the British Empire and regarded themselves as a new nation. With this liberation, the United States of America was born.

America is all about freedom. Personal, individual freedom. The struggle then was for liberation from the oppression and exploitation of their then-rulers — much like the struggle in our day and age for freedom online, in the Attention and Content Economy.

In our day and age, our rulers are not kings and queens, but rather media corporations.

In our day and age, we are not enslaved in our bodies, but rather enslaved in our minds. We’ve been hacked, we’ve been robbed of our time, attention and identity. We’ve been commoditized.

When it comes to the Attention Economy, users in the content community — Creators, Curators, and all who add value — should be able to control their profiles, privacy, and content, as well as have the freedom to earn a profit from their creations and reward others for their efforts.

To paraphrase over the effective words of the Trump campaign: Let’s Make the Internet Great Again! The Internet was intended for individuals with equality and opportunity for all, not for the existing, centralized content-hub paradigm, where the conglomerates merely provide platforms, and earn billions of dollars in profits on the backs of the individuals that create and share their passions with the world.

What we need is a decentralized social environment, one that levels the playing field, lowers the barriers of entry, remedies monopolies, and compensates all individuals based on their contributions.

WildSpark is the first step on our path to liberating the Attention and Content Economy, and the Synereo roadmap still has a long and interesting way to go. So, this 4th of July, let’s celebrate the progress we’ve made, but also not lose sight of what’s important — together, we can to make the Internet great again.

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The Bible in Word Clouds
By: Nathan Timothy Handoko
Tags: Dashboard, Bible, Bible Study, Word Cloud, Statistics

The Bible is the most read book ever in the world. It is thick and would require a lot of time to finish reading. Even many Christians I know have never finished reading the whole Bible.

But what if you can get an interactive overview of the Bible in a few clicks?

I wanted to use some of the skills I had recently learnt to give a broad picture of what the Bible is talking about. I am not a pastor nor a priest, and I am simply applying a simple statistical approach here.

To this end, I have created a dynamic interactive word cloud. It will display the top 50 words (bigger font size and darker shade signify more frequency) based on the filters you apply. The filters include Testament (Old or New), the Book Genre (e.g. Epistles, Gospel, etc), the Book itself, and the Chapters.

It enables us to quickly grasp the topic of a given chapter, book, the whole testament, or even the whole Bible itself. This might be useful when we want to study a book, as we can navigate through the chapters and get a grasp of the topics being talked about.

I am using the KJV Bible here.

New Testament vs Old Testament

We can easily get an overview of the topic based on our own filters. For example, we can see the difference between Old and New Testament in the snapshot below.

H ere, we can see that Old Testament talks a lot about Lord and Israel, while New Testament talks a lot about Jesus, God, Man, and Christ.

New Testament vs Old Testament | Image by Author

Getting an overview of a book

Do you ever wonder what a book of the Bible talks about? For example, I’ve kept a snapshot of the word cloud for the book of James.

We can easily see that it talks mainly about God, brethren, works, faith and man.

Word Cloud of the book of James | Image by Author

Navigating through the chapters of a book

Not only can we get an overview of the book, but we can also look at the chapters and see how the topics progress.

Here is a peek of the dashboard, demo for the book of James:

Word Cloud Dashboard | GIF by Author

Chapter 1: man, God, perfect, word Chapter 2: works, man, without, faith Chapter 3: tongue, fire, man, wisdom, body Chapter 4: God, law, evil Chapter 5: Lord, earth, brethren, patience, pray, one another

Dashboard — Try it yourself!

You may access the online dashboard here.

Feel free to access it, download, and explore it. Do share your interesting insights by commenting below!

Codes

For those who wants to take a closer look at the dataset and the codes, please proceed here.

Bonus: Material for Trivia Games

The dashboard also include some descriptive statistics based on number of words. Here, we can see the longest and shortest books, as well as the average number of words per chapter. As always, this is also filterable by Genre and Testament.

Statistics of the Bible | Image by Author

Finally, I hope this little project will be useful or at least provide some interesting insights. Feel free to comment, suggest or share interesting insights below!
3 to read: Bottomless Pinocchio | Good Google? Gone | Congress misses its chance
By: Matt Carroll
Tags: Matt Carroll, Media Criticism, Media, Journalism

By Matt Carroll <@MattCData>

Dec. 15, 2018: Cool stuff about journalism, once a week. Get notified via email? Subscribe: 3toread (at) gmail. Originally published on 3toread.co

The WaPo’s ‘Bottomless Pinocchio’: A new rating for a false claim repeated over and over again: Love this. You have to give the WaPo credit for their aggressive coverage of Trump. For instance, not so long ago, a politician caught lying would be embarrassed enough to stop repeating the lie. Not Trump. So the WaPo has upped its game w this interesting new system for ranking repeat liars. Kudos to Glenn Kessler.

What happened to the good Google?: Google’s Dragonfly will intensify surveillance of journalists in China: Many Google watchers and company employees were shocked when they found out the search company was working hand-in-hand with the Chinese gov’t to create a censorship-compliant search engine. When word leaked out, it caused protests within the company. Well, apparently they weren’t enough to derail the project. Money talks, and the Chinese market is too big to give up over the principles of democracy, apparently. Mia Shuang Li for CJR.

The missed point of Google’s Congressional hearing: Congress had a chance to dig deep into Google’s business practices and how they can hurt consumers across the country, notes Charlie Warzel of BuzzFeed. So did pols look at how people are tracked? Or how their personal data is sold? No. Instead pols focused on perceived political bias, asking shallow questions. And not surprisingly, the Google CEO gave evasive answers. All in all, a chance to shine a little light on the internal workings of one of the most influential corporations in the world was flubbed.
15 Internet Explorer Jokes You Can All Relate To
By: Josef Cruz
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, JavaScript, Programming, Technology, Internet

15 Internet Explorer Jokes You Can All Relate To

Let’s make fun of this browser relentlessly.

Credit: mybroadband.co.za

We’ve all been screwed over by Internet Explorer somehow, and a lot of developers and Internet users have come to see it as the worst.

On the bright side, here are clever internet explorer memes image-macros, comics, and generally funny points made about the most popular, most hated browser on the web.

1. Not responding everywhere

Credit: reddit.com/r/memes/

2. When you’ve had enough of Internet Explorer

Credit: Somethingofthatilk.com

3. Testing web pages on different browsers

Credit: 9gag.com

4. Delayed response

Credit: me.me

5. The real reason you need Internet Explorer

6. Let’s go for lunch browsers!

Credit: techindustan

7. Web browser war (Google vs. Internet Explorer)

Credit: gfycat.com

8. When Internet Explorer is asking you to make it your default browser

9. When you hate Internet Explorer too much

Credit: Pinterest.com

10. Are you sure you want to delete Internet Explorer

11. The number one brwoser for downloading a better browser

Credit: twitter.com/mariofusco

12. Only Internet Explorer can do this

Credit: wanna-joke.com

13. Internet explorer life purpose

Credit: 9gag.com

14. When web browsers talk to each other

Credit: ranker.com

15. Your browser has been upgraded but suddenly stopped working

Credit: Pinterest.com

Microsoft 365 apps say farewell to internet explorer 11 and windows 10 sunsets Microsoft edge legacy. — Source

Internet Explorer, I will always remember the good times, like the familiar reminder that “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage.”

I would also like to thank you for always telling me you were “sorry for the inconvenience” because is it really your fault you had to shut down a program after you encountered a problem?

Maybe we’re to blame. When asked if we wanted to notify Microsoft with an error report, we always did click “Don’t Send.”

More places to discover memes and jokes about Internet Explorer:
My sister stopped talking to me because I’m getting married before her.
By: Jamie Alexis
Tags: Sisters, Psychology, Weddings, Pregnancy, Relationships

My sister stopped talking to me because I’m getting married before her.

My best friend and only sibling, thinks I’m a bitch

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

It all began when I spotted a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt in Forever 21. Every year my sister and I do some matching character sweaters for Christmas so I gave her a call.

It was like any other ordinary sister phone call. I joked about how much weight I had put on being 5 months pregnant and she said, “Do you weigh more than me yet?” “Of course,” I said. And we laughed. She was looking forward to her weekend getaway in Georgia with her fiance, which included a stay in a secluded cabin complete with a hot tub.

We had both been busy and just lucky enough to catch one another for fifteen minutes every now and then. As a branch manager, my sister pulls ten-hour days most of the workweek. It was the slow part of her workday so I decided to slip in my big news. I couldn’t wait any longer to tell her.

“He said we would get married before our baby is born!”

And just like that, a natural disaster was born.
mTLS Istio connection using self-signed cert for testing [Part 3] Istio in GKE [Basic]
By: Johanes Glenn
Tags: Ssl, Gke, Istio, Encryption, Openssl

Hi all a short story in between Istio themed stories which I want to focus how to setup the SSL encryption configuration within Istio.

These are my previous story around istio:

To test the tls concept, on this particular story I will add tls self-signed cert to the istio-ingress-gateway and allow https connectivity from cloud-shell into the hello-go service (for both virtualService).

Note: this is a continuation from the previous two story above, for more details on the deployments and other component you may visit earlier stories (or more details info on the part-2 story). Note: this is not a guide, but more of an overview to test the concept.

To do:

[One] Lets create the certificate through OpenSSL. In here I am creating cert for a domain just for a test (no domain validation — and using curl’s resolve option to direct the traffic).
Outward Bound
By: Trivikram Prasad
Tags: Poetry, Fiction, Writing Prompts, Creative Writing, Poem

Outward Bound

Poetry

Photo by Diego Jock on Unsplash

A delicious warmth flows through

Sensations unfelt tingle unfettered

My sister and I are a homebrew

Never considering we are shuttered

The confines of our abode never stifle

Nor cramp nor unduly crowd

Food aplenty and no real trifle

Peaceful, calm and never loud

We joyfully share our reducing space

On our own but yet together

At times in each other’s face

Bound in solitude with a tender tether

A commotion outside says it is time

To depart from the safety of the long night

We kick and scream in the blood and grime

Entering the world doesn’t seem right

Do we have to leave, our unseeing eyes say

Nine months went by in a glorious flash

Our mother’s embrace soothes nerves in fray

And thus we are born with an indelible splash
Welcoming Lou Shipley, General Catalyst’s Newest XIR
By: General Catalyst
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital, Technology, Leadership, Startup

Welcoming Lou Shipley, General Catalyst’s Newest XIR

Today, we are pleased to announce that Lou Shipley has joined General Catalyst’s XIR (Executive-in-Residence) program.

Lou has led three of Boston’s high-profile software startups through significant growth (and in some cases, acquisition), including Reflectent (acquired by Citrix), Turbonomic (FKA: VMTurbo) and most recently, GC-backed Black Duck Software (acquired by Synopsys). He was VP of Sales at Avid, WebLine (acquired by Cisco), and FairMarket (acquired by Ebay).

With Black Duck, he joined an existing mid-stage compliance company and led three crucial initiatives — he refocused the company on open source security management, shipped a new product which leveraged the cloud, and implemented a sophisticated high velocity sales model — that took Black Duck through an important growth phase to acquisition.

Lou is also a lecturer at both MIT Sloan School of Management and the Harvard Business School, where he instructs, mentors, and coaches the next-generation of tech entrepreneurs and executives on technology sales and sales management, including the course, “Technology Sales & Sales Management.”

The XIR program is an important component of General Catalyst’s growth investment strategy.

Through the program, General Catalyst invests in XIRs — accomplished entrepreneurs and executives with deep domain expertise in key technology sectors — and their ability to accelerate the growth of an existing business through leadership, operational guidance, and strategic support.

Like Lou, a number of GC’s XIRs have built and grown companies to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues and beyond. GC’s XIRs seek to help tech companies realize their full potential by sharing their expertise and supporting businesses through recruiting efforts, mentorship, and helping founders navigate the successes and challenges that come with rapid growth. This collaboration is the X-factor that is designed to accelerate the trajectory and improve the eventual outcome of a business.

As an XIR, Lou will look to share his experience with B2B tech companies, and actively help growth-stage businesses within his areas of focus scale to the next level.

Welcome, Lou!
LNG projects must control costs to stay competitive
By: Anna Smith
Tags: Lng, Lng Market Analysis, Lng Featured News, Nigeria, Energy

Reuters are reporting that Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG) could unlock three times as much gas as the country’s proven reserves and create hundreds of thousands of jobs if it goes ahead with a proposed expansion plan.

NLNG is a venture between state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Eni to produce LNG for export.

Read the full article here:

https://www.lngindustry.com/liquefaction/09032017/nigeria-banks-on-nlng-expansion/
Help! What is my role as a Data Scientist?
By: Margaret Karaba
Tags: Machine Learning Engineer, Data Analyst, Data Engineer, Data Science, Data

The greatest conundrum for data science prospects and even hiring entities is the big question, “What role do they play?” We have all this data, where do data scientists come in? This confusion is exacerbated by the ludicrous job descriptions being put out there.

Well, have no fear, some insight is here. Data scientists have different job roles let’s dive into them.

The Data Analyst

I like to call them “gatherers”.

Data analysts pull data out of SQL databases. They are the Excel or Tableau Master gurus. In essence, they pull/gather data, interpret the patterns and trends from the data, and produce data visualizations and reporting dashboards. They make sense of the numbers and make the numbers make sense to us!! All hail the Data Analyst.

The Data Engineer

I like to call them “builders” .

Data engineers develop, construct, test and maintain architectures, such as databases and large-scale processing systems. They set up the data infrastructure. Moreover, they are tasked with developing data set processes for data modeling, mining, and processing.

The Machine Learning Engineer

I like to call them “automators”

A machine learning (ML) engineer uses data to train models. The models are then used to automate processes like image classification, speech recognition, and market forecasting.

They heavily study and process the data and come up with the best algorithms for automation. Wow!

Now that we have solved the data science role puzzle, go forth and conquer your desired data science job role.
New writing guide for you
By: Nicole Bianchi
Tags: Inspiration, Writing, Productivity, Creativity, Books

Hey there,

Hope all of your writing projects are going well. I just wanted to let you know about the latest article:

5 Powerful Writing Tips from Award-Winning Editor Jack Hart: Hart’s book Storycraft shows how to take your writing to the next level

Hope you find this guide helpful. Have a wonderful week!

Cheers,

Nicole
Information Architecture สายนักพัฒนาต้องรู้จัก
By: Hru Vetsutee
Tags: UX, Product Design, Define, Information Architecture

product management learner, working with organizations to change the way they think and work

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The State Of AI
By: Anushka Sharma
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, The Social Dilemma, Technology, Data Science

Join us this Thursday, 24 September 2020 for episode 2 of the Inspired AI series with Deep Dive Tech Talks on the State of AI.

Naaut’s founder Anushka Sharma is delighted to be chairing the virtual session. Will you join us? The team has curated an excellent array of leaders with expert knowledge across artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, and more. Scroll down for more information.
The Curse of Perfect
By: Julie Zhuo
Tags: Meaning Of Life, Personal Development, Perfectionism, Personal Growth, Growth

My husband has a saying that if you’re satisfied with your life today, then every decision you’ve made in the past is a good one.

I disagree. We’ve had this conversation dozens of times. You can always learn something from your past mistakes, I say. And knowing what I know now, I’d do so many things differently.

Like what? he asks.

I would have had a completely different college experience. Taken more classes I was genuinely interested in instead of optimizing for my resume.

He grins. But we met in college. And if you’d been taking calligraphy or underwater basket weaving, maybe wouldn’t have the relationship we have now.

It’s hard to argue with that. And I know what he means — I wouldn’t change any part of the past even if I had the opportunity to. I’ve watched enough time travel movies to know that if you help more butterflies flap their wings, you might start a tsunami on the side of the world.

But I find an opening anyway. It’s not about changing the past. It’s about doing it differently the next time.

He rolls his eyes. The next time you do college?

He knows what I mean.

Looking back, even college felt structured and formulaic against the real world. After all, we still had the sturdy drumbeats of midterms and finals, the steady climb towards “graduation,” the finite set of classes and clubs.

But working over a decade in Silicon Valley has taught us that formulas are unreliable.

How can anything be perfect when the assumptions of the past are so often wrong in predicting the future?

How can you believe you have control when, depending on whether you were at the right place at the right time, fortune smiles and bestows upon you green light after green light to wealth, prestige and power?

Every day, there are examples. This investment went to zero. This other one multiplied like bunnies. These four years of blood, sweat and tears crumpled into nothing. This idea took two years to change an industry. This asshole guy you knew is suddenly the keynote speaker at every conference. This brilliant friend is struggling to get momentum for her next new idea.

But really, what does perfect even mean? Is it impact, is it wealth, is it having the right manners or the right clothes? Is it the adoration of your children or your parents or your spouse? Is it being liked or talked about in the right circles? Is it the number of followers or retweets? Is it the lack of suffering, or the overcoming of suffering, or the act of suffering nobly? Is it your capacity to savor the luxury of individual moments? Is it simply the feeling that you are going up instead of down?

On every metric, there are those above and below you. Examples are a dime a dozen.

I look back at my parents’ American Dream. Security and comfort. I have reached it, and more.

But what is mine?
Why Do Machine Learning Projects Fail?
By: Rahul Agarwal
Tags: Business, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Startup

1. Establish a Baseline at The outset

I hate how machine learning projects start in most companies. Tell me if you’ve ever heard something like this: “We will create a state-of-the-art model that will function with greater than 95 percent accuracy.” What about this: “Let’s build a time series model which will give an RMSE that’s close to zero.” Such an expectation from a model is absurd because the world we live in is indeterministic. For example, think about trying to create a model to predict whether or not it will rain tomorrow or if a customer would like a product. The answer to these questions may depend on a lot of features we don’t have access to. This strategy also hurts the business because a model that is unable to meet such lofty expectations usually gets binned. To avoid this kind of failure, you need to create a baseline at the start of a project.

Establish a Baseline by looking at business metrics or current model performance. Source: Pixabay

So what is a baseline? It’s a simple metric that helps us to understand a business’s current performance on a particular task. If the models beat or at least match that metric, we are in the realm of profit. If the task is currently done manually, beating the metric means we can automate it.

And you can get the baseline results before you even start creating models. For example, let’s imagine that we’ll be using RMSE as an evaluation metric for our time series model and the result came out to be X. Is X a good RMSE? Right now, it’s just a number. To figure that out, we need a baseline RMSE to see if we are doing better or worse than the previous model or some other heuristic.

The baseline could come from a model that is currently employed on the same task. You could also use a simple heuristic as a baseline. For instance, in a time series model, a good baseline to aim to defeat is last day prediction, i.e., just predicting the number on the previous day and calculating a baseline RMSE. If your model is not able to beat even this naive criteria, then we know for sure your model is not adding any value.

Or how about an image classification task? You could take 1,000 labeled samples, have humans classify them, and then human accuracy can be your baseline. If a human is not able to get a 70 percent prediction accuracy since the task is highly complex (perhaps there are numerous classes in which to classify) or the task is pretty subjective (as in predicting emotion based on a person’s face), you can always automate the process once your models reach a similar level of performance as a human.

Try to be aware of the performance you’re going to get even before you create your models. Setting some pie-in-the-sky, out-of-this-world expectations is only going to disappoint you and your client and stop your project from going to production.
26 Easy Steps To Making Friends In A New City
By: Emily Clouse
Tags: Humor, Friends, Illustration, Moving, Comics

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Are we Turning the Internet Against Ourselves?
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Future, Society, Philosophy, Politics, Internet

Are we Turning the Internet Against Ourselves?

We’re creating a digital culture of alienation

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

The social contract is dead and it’s going to take a messiah to resurrect it. More than likely, they will strive for results over marketing, causing vast cognitive dissonance among many. Personal enrichment as a consequence of striving for the common good isn’t a new concept for most of the world but America struggles to grasp it.

Look, here’s a socialist secret: it’s a shortcut.

When we all join forces, change happens faster so everyone enjoys greater ease at the same time. When we share the work, it only takes a fraction of the time to complete the task, see. And because what feels good for us tends to feel good for others why wouldn’t we support social mobility for all if there’s a way to conjure it up?

Yes, but we’re Americans and we like to have a choice, we reply.

Fair enough. Equal opportunities doesn’t mean we have to take them, it means they’re available to anyone who wants them whenever they do so we can ditch the scarcity mindset once and for all.
A Love Letter To The Writers I Follow
By: Mark Starlin
Tags: Writing, Thankfulness, Love, Publishing, Reading

Dearest Writer;

I remember clearly the early days of my writing journey here. The excitement of receiving those first few claps on a story I wrote. And even better, the occasional positive responses. How unexpected and uplifting those were.

The joy of gaining a new follower. I knew them all by name back then. [I don’t think there were as many follower hackers at the time. Or maybe my “writing” was too obscure or unusual to bother with.]

The delight of finding a new writer to follow. Reading my first Roy story stands out clearly in my memory. Discovering there were uniquely funny people on Medium was a great moment for me.

How I looked forward to every new story by the writers I followed.

Then there was the thrill of having my first story published in a publication. Thank you, DiAmaya Dawn, for taking a chance on a raw, clueless amateur.

And I will never forget the kind encouragement and occasional teasing of A Maguire, who made me feel like I could actually do this.

I am so grateful to you all.

As time passed, I followed more and more wonderful writers. A few of them are very prolific. It became harder and harder to keep up with the output of those I followed.

On top of that, I impetuously started a publication that required daily attention. And being the knuckle-headed slow learner that I am, I recently started another publication. Although I haven’t opened it up (yet?) realizing I don’t have time to read many submissions.

Finally, I had to face the fact that I simply couldn’t keep up with reading everything I wanted to read.

I hope you know it already, but if not, I just want to say, although I may not read everything you write, I still value you greatly as a writer and a Medium friend. I just have to be more selective about reading now. Actually, it’s more like the luck of the draw.

I wish I could read everything you write, but it is a mountain too high to climb. Especially without oxygen. Please don’t take it personally if you don’t see me clap for your stories for a time. I am simply muddling along reading what I can, when I can. Trust me, it is very random, not personal.

Well, that is really all I wanted to say.

Much love.

Mark
Huobi Pro launches Tron (TRX) on January 29
By: Huobi Global
Tags: Huobi, Blockchain, Tron, Announcements

Dear users,

Tron (TRX) will be launched on Huobi Pro on January 29, 2018(GMT+8). Deposits will be available from 15:30, January 29, 2018(GMT+8). TRX/BTC and TRX/ETH trading will be available at New Zone from 16:00, January 30, 2018(GMT+8). Withdrawals will be available from 15:30, January 31, 2018 (GMT+8).

What is Tron? Click here: https://www.huobipro.com/en-us/assetintro/#trx

Risk Reminder:

Investing in digital assets comes with high risks due to huge price fluctuations. Before investing, please have a full understanding of all the risks of investing in digital assets and be prudent of your own investment decisions.

Huobi.pro-Official (Telegram Group): https://t.me/huobiproofficial

Enjoy your trading on Huobi Pro!

Huobi Pro

January 29, 2018
Ransomware Groups Now Threatening to Release Stolen Data If Businesses Don’t Pay
Tags: Tech, Security, Malware, ransomware, Ransomware

by Ryan Whitwam

Getting hit with ransomware can be devastating to a company, but malware operators are trying to make it even worse. Not only are they holding potentially vital data hostage, but they’re also threatening to shame companies that don’t quietly pay the ransom. The cybercriminals behind the Maze Ransomware have set up a website where they have pledged to reveal which companies don’t “work with [them]” to recover data.

We all benefit from encryption when it keeps our files and communications private, but the same technology makes ransomware possible. Ransomware can target individuals, but the criminals behind these operations have increasingly targeted companies with deeper pockets than your average computer user. Upon infecting a computer, ransomware encrypts important files and deletes the originals. To retrieve the files, the victim has to pay a ransom (usually in Bitcoin) in exchange for the decryption key.

The Maze site, which is hosted on the open internet (and we won’t be linking), lists eight companies that have refused to pay the company’s ransom. The group lists the date of the attack, a selection of stolen files, and the total volume of data collected. Yes, Maze has gone to the added effort of stealing data from infected systems as extra leverage.

This is something ransomware authors have threatened in the past, but Maze is the first known to have done it. The makers of the Sodinokibi/rEvil ransomware have posted recently on dark web forums that they are finalizing plans to do something very similar. They hope that threatening companies with those stolen files with increase the number willing to pay up. Of course, you’d have to trust these groups to delete the stolen data after being paid, which seems far from certain.

Maze frames this as a public service that will reveal companies that are attempting to hide the unauthorized attack on their systems. However, it’s a rather transparent threat that could cause more companies to pay for fear of having private data released. The end result is that companies need to start treating malware attacks like data breaches. If customer data is included in encrypted volumes after the attack, it’s entirely possible that data is in the hands of criminals. Companies will need to do all the usual data breach things: notify customers, reset passwords, and issue carefully crafted but ultimately hollow apologies.

Now read:
Tarantino’s Message of Grace
By: Paul Kist
Tags: Pulp Fiction, Tarantino, Grace, Movies, Spirituality

Currently Playing: De La Guarda By De La Guarda

Photo Source: imcdb.org

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee” — Ezekiel 25:17

At home, very sick, so naturally I decided to put on Pulp Fiction. What better movie to watch when you’re coughing up brown phlegm? The only thing that competes with the vileness that i’m expelling from my lungs, are the brain and skull remains stuck to Samuel Jackson’s blood soaked hair.

But this movie is more about guts, and violence, and wit: it’s about grace. Even the most powerful of us need grace, and no one is exempt from needing it, and no one is beyond receiving it. It seems that grace is necessary for survival, for all of us.

Something to think about.