fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Side Hustles That Pay A LOT
By: Piyush Kumar
Tags: Side Hustle, Money, High Income Skill, Money Maker, Financial Freedom

Hi, how’s it going? Here to make some money? Well I am gonna help you make A LOT.

Today jobs aren’t as much for enjoyment and security as they used to be. They’re just for paying bills.

But you can make a lot of side income if you do any of these side Hustles.

These Are My Top 3 Side Hustles That Pay A Lot

Social Media Managing

Blogging/Writing

Videography

Lemme define them

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGING-

All of us use Instagram, Twitter and Facebook but have you ever thought you can earn money using these platforms?

Now this is not a get rich quick or a gimmick. These are legit ways to make money on social media. I am saying that from experience because I’ve earned some on these platform

First of all, start producing quality content on one of these platforms, build an audience, gain their trust and sell to them.

This may sound simple, but you must have some basic graphic designing skills and some knowledge about the area you are writing in.

BLOGGING/WRITING

Now, this is an alternative to social media managing, if you don’t like producing content, or you would rather write something, then this is for you.

You can start your own blog, or write articles on LinkedIn or Facebook. You don’t need to spend a lot on building a website, just go to Medium or some other free websites to publish your articles

The benefit of this is that so many people want to hire blog writers, and if you have already written many articles, then they will definitely want to hire you.

VIDEOGRAPHY —

If you are not into writing, you can also make videos. Now I am not talking about funny TikTok videos, I am talking about entertaining or informative videos

Videos that will help others or solve some of their problems

You can post these on Youtube and grow a youtube channel, or you can also make videos for others, give voice over on others’ videos or do a lot more if you master this side hustle.

That’s all for this article, but if you are already fond of me, you can check out my Youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFw8YTRt8aNpRurOItlkgig
How To Achieve $1k A Day Quick With This Special System
By: Syed Ibrahim
Tags: Quick Money Making Ideas, Fast Money, Financial Freedom

Hello guys, welcome to my blog. Just like my previous blogs, I want to assure you that it will as concise as I can about my feedback about the program I want to share with you. I am not a professional blogger. Today, I want to write to you a little bit about my view about this program I am about to show you. It is a very good and well-developed program that helps people to make money online well as anyone can do. It should be to your real advantage over the people who do not do it. It can be fast and easy if you do it the right way. Let me show you how the program is constructed.

How does the program work?

This program works on the Email marketing principle and methods. You need to build a targeted list of email subscribers and offer products and services that they are likely to purchase. You need to send emails to the targeted audience.

There are a few steps that you should need to follow to get the exact benefit;

1: Find out what people are already buying.

2: Find out how they are selling the product.

3: Write down a striking headline that works.

4: Turn the headline into a curious question.

5: Use the creator’s list building poll template to bring in email addresses with ease.

6: This is where you need to capture an email address using your new poll page.

7: Instantly offer your new subscriber, the product they are interested in.

8: Earn Instant Commission at the same time you build your list.

Ok now, it is time for you to know the benefits and drawbacks of the program.

Pros

I’ll be blunt here. If you are serious about earning serious money online then this is the course for you. Here’s why:

There are no negatives that I can see yet

In my opinion the best method I’ve seen in 16 years

It should work for everyone from beginners on up

Little chance of saturation using the traffic sources recommended

The price of $997 is far too low in my opinion and is bound to go up (don’t wait)

Cons

Some course modules were originally delayed — not a problem for new members

$997 is a lot of money. Don’t purchase this unless you will take action

Alright, I know by now you cannot wait to see the program. Ladies and gentlemen, let me present the most exciting program ever in money-making online history. Here we go!!!

I want to make money fast TODAY!!!!!
How I Got out of Debt Being a Taxi Driver in Singapore
By: Dino Kf Wong
Tags: Beyourself, Taxi Driver, Work Life Balance, Singapore, Financial Freedom

It was 2014, laden with bank debts, relationship issues and pretty much at the brink of depression. I quit my insurance job and took a long five months break hiding away from everything. I did not want to face reality, I was reluctant to let go of what’s lost, I was 100% defeated yet refused to admit it.

During that five months, I led a simple lifestyle. I did not hang out with any of my friends and I did not go work. All I did was staying at home, glued to my computer and trying to finish writing the novel I started. It was only after completing the novel that I realized five months just passed!

Although I did not spend much during the five months, I actually took additional bank loans to pay off my monthly bank dues. Yep, this isn’t good news at all. I started thinking six months ahead and figured out I would be financially unsound if I continued the same state I’m in.

Well, I did not want to get back into the corporate world, I wanted to try something else. I’m not cut out to be an entrepreneur as I lack the finances and proper knowledge. I cannot earn much as a freelance writer, considering the fact I’m an Asian and we are classified as non native English people (Ya sucks). I did get more than 50,000 views for one of my posts about relationship in my now defunct blog. However, that wasn’t an option for me either because leisure writing does not generate decent income.

So what else could I do? I started driving a regular taxi.

I can assure you folks this is not a glamorous job that pays very well. In contrary, it’s not a bad job either. With a daily income of $100 to $150 on a 9 to 10 hours shift, I managed to reduce my $40,000 bank debts to $10,000 after 3 years.

For some reasons, I was able to discipline myself to spend only on necessary things. I didn’t need to spend on fancy work clothes, I didn’t need to spend on public transportation, and I didn’t need to spend on socializing much. I was also able to use the savings to start a small business and the business broke even after six months.

Fast forward to 2019, I took a short break from taxi driving due to a nagging lower back pain. However, I’m itching to go back to work as a taxi driver because I simply enjoy the freedom. I don’t need to answer to any managers, don’t need to spend unnecessarily, I can continue my side hustles without guilt, and I can take unlimited off days.

Nah, Grab is out of the question.
5 Signs You’re Making Progress in Your Creative Journey
Tags: Writing, Improvement, Progress, Entrepreneurship, Self

5 Signs You’re Making Progress in Your Creative Journey

Photo by Clemens van Lay on Unsplash

It has been three years since I started exploring other ways to make money and seek creative fulfilment alongside my day job.

It began with an intention to create a self-servicing online business that might churn out passive income for me. I invested in some training, attended a few seminars, and got fired up about the riches that seemed certain to be mine.

I created online training courses, built my email list, held webinars and tried to sell online coaching programmes. You can learn more about what I did, and how badly I did it, should you be interested.

While successes were few and far between, the experience helped me realise that my greatest hope was to spend more time writing. Through doing that I hoped to build a following, extend my reach, and connect with people who might benefit from what I have to share.

My focus now is to develop as a writer, sharing my thoughts and experiences with others who are going through challenges that I’m weathering or that I’ve successfully overcome. So far these have related to divorce, parenting, and various aspects of personal development. I also write about the lessons I’ve learned through this venture and about entrepreneurship generally.

It’s been hard work and has demanded a lot of time, energy, and attention alongside my day job and the usual rigours of daily life. Fun and a sense of accomplishment have been elusive, and at various times I’ve had to resist the urge to quit.

In the last few months though, I’ve started to enjoy a few minor glimpses of success and growth.

Most of us set out on an endeavour, hopeful of some very specific results that will determine progress. We join a gym to get fitter. We diet to lose weight. We use a dating app to find a mate. We study to learn something new.

I started out in this project motivated by the pursuit of time and money.

I wanted to spend more time with those I love, free from having to work in a job that I found mundane and lacking in meaning. I wanted to replace—or ideally exceed—my income from that job.

None of this has manifested as yet, at least not on the scale that I crave. What I’m starting to see though are other signs that my work is gaining traction and that I’m making progress.

When we focus only on measures such as money, it’s likely that we’ll feel disheartened even if we are making progress. Results won’t seem to come as quickly as we might have hoped.

Instead, it can be helpful to look in other places to see how far we’ve come.
A life without love
By: Desmond Jefferson
Tags: Progress, Complacency, Love, Short Story

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

What kind of life is a life without love? A plethora of endless nights with pointless pussy. A plethora of sleepless nights in a field that brings finance and agony. A plethora of days with superficial fulfillment.

Days best spent in the center of society, aiding the machine. Crushing dreams and crowning fake kings. Falsifying what greatness, success, and happiness may be. Failing to realize those terms are defined by the very people looking up towards someone else for the answer.

How we have failed the meritocracy we aimed to build. Gentrifying creativity and amplifying passivity. Manufacturing drones and laying-off the unique & original. How far are we? Is there room to recover?

The world of academia promising hopes, but following through like a dead-beat father. Mother nature trying her best to live on and produce something worthy of witnessing. Her children laying waste to her majestic beauty. How awful and disrespectful. But how could we do better?

Taught no good by those before us, learned behaviors we lean on. Habitually doing the minimum, displaying selfishness and carelessness. The very few crying for better execution of the reservation of our earth, overwhelmed and ignored.

A life without love is a life not worth living. No stories to tell, no adventures so dire you couldn’t see success with a telescope. No stories filled with passion and fire. The passion and fire that makes the people listening wish they could have been there. The days have blended together, your last year was a twin of the year before.

No exploration, no risks, no chances taken. No girls in the bar approached, no dreams followed. Comfort and passivity were the two defining words of your new years plan in retrospect. Little growth, even smaller depth. Doing what you love has become an after thought, and for the very few who do, complacency has replaced the hunger for constant growth & progress. The smallest majority know the love of our lives come in many forms and categories.

The person who brings the brightest light to our days, replacing the sun. The thing that lights a fire in our souls. The activity that takes us to a state of no thought, just reaction, as if we were born to do it. Love will take you far away, to a place of utter depth. Within yourself, your soul, your heart, your mind.

A beautiful thing to see, a life with love.
Doubt doesn’t hinder progress
By: Trevor - Digital Alchemist
Tags: Progress, Procrastination, Fear, Doubt

Is doubt holding you back?

Doubt doesn’t hinder progress; fear is the master at doing that.

Doubt may rear it’s head when faced with a choice of doing X or Y. Should I do X or Y? Doubt stops you from jumping to conclusions and just doing something for the sake of it. It brings you a healthy dose of uncertainty. It lets you catch your breath and contemplate.

Y looks exciting, however, X may get better short term results . . . . doubt has brought you through to the phase of evaluating options.

Progress is being made.

Contemplation and giving consideration to problem-solving thoughts will aid the X — Y decision-making process. There are pros and cons but all can be considered to let the best solution rise to the top.

But, what if X doesn’t work out? Now we are into fear.

The initial positive phases of doubting, contemplating, evaluating have flipped, the negativity of fear has shown its face.

Doubt and uncertainty may carry you through to the process of contemplation and consideration, whereas fear stops you in your tracks and won’t let you pass go, do not collect £200.

Is it time you stopped confusing doubt with fear?
30 – How could you even imagine
By: Learning To Startup
Tags: World, Humanity, Awe, Humans, Progress

Thoughts on the mind boggling progress of the human species

That can’t Be done

This morning I had a thought… I want you to think back to the caveman and his simple life. Gathering food in the day, hunting occasionally and communal eating at night (perhaps). Fighting off threats. Possibly crafting spears and starting fires. Nowadays, this sounds quite therapeutic!

Try to think from the mind of a caveman. In his/her world, there is nothing but sticks, stones, plants, trees, animals and other cavemen. Not even metal exists…

Now… you’re In the mind of a caveman and thinking like a caveman.

I want you to then imagine communicating through an invisible signal to your caveman friend on the other side of a big rock (Uluru maybe) 😂 Impossible, you might say. How can he even imagine that… it’s invisible after all.

And that’s Exactly my thought!

Enter the future

It’s Amazing to think that once upon a time, we could not have even imagined such a device as the telephone. Yet now it is so common it would be considered ‘normal’.

Huh… that’s Interesting.

If something so impossible and so inconceivable is now true in this world. I wonder what else is possible?

I wonder what the world will look like in 1000 years… I’d guess that it’s currently inconceivable.
That Old, Familiar Pain
By: Sterl Paramore
Tags: Aging Well, Business, Progress, Growth, Spirituality

Some things come to pass, and some come to stay. Though even vivid reminders fade, they are there, and waking memory goads wandering thoughts. I recently heard the story of a man with such memory dysfunction as to never be able to forget. He bore this burden for many years until, burdened by grief, he took his life. Such is the power of remorse and the weight of years.

Memories also bring the sweet ache. We wonder what might have been if only. Such reminiscences are treasured thoughts and akin to wistful longings. They contain unrequited wish-fulfillment rather than regret. They hurt, but also warm the heart. We long to return to a time and place which desire can never be. Occasionally, someone will attempt to replicate the past only to be disheartened in the failed attempt.

Each of us carries an array of hurts and haunting memories that frequently arise and give pause. Some of these are hard to explain and misunderstood when told, so what’s the use? We can’t outrun the past, and familiar phantoms remain, not far from present reality. Our minds wander the back roads by the river of memory, and we discover wealth and wisdom on the journey.

Our pasts are to be as committed to Christ as our futures. Whether the thoughts of yesterday bring joy or pain, they are in the hands of the Father. Hurts from the past can be instructive, and the burned hand teaches best. If we could do away with painful memories, would we? Those things went a long way toward making us. Great good can come from great grief.

Dealing with hurts requires more than bumper-sticker wisdom, and it’s not easy despite the sayings of songs and friends. It’s hard to commit things to Christ when they (and we) keep getting up from the altar. A continual process of contrition is needed to address recurrent themes. Though it sounds daunting, it’s not as bad as all that if we approach it the right way. We must take a firm stance before we address the ball.

Victory for the Christian is only possible when life for Christ is the sole objective. Only when we live in Christ are we able to confront the shifting sands of life. He is able to do everything He claims He can do, but we must do what we can do, as well. And, each day, we are making memories to treasure or regret. While we cannot escape the past, we don’t have to live in it.

Jeremiah said that God plans for us to have hope and a future. Memories may bring sadness and sorrow. While there is value in reflection, God wants us to look ahead. We run out of plans, but God never does. He knows what happened, and He knows what will happen.

Weep in secret, but do much more. Wipe the tears from your eyes and take the hand of God. You’ve got places to go and people to see. A future just for you.

Sterl
Slow Progress is Better Than No Progress
By: Kyle Richey
Tags: Goal Setting, Productivity, Personal Development, Progress, Personal Growth

Think of one of your goals, and imagine achieving it…right now. It’d feel great, right? For a bit, yeah, but the feeling would likely wear off pretty quickly. It usually does.

Why is that? It’s because of a trait we all share, a term coined “Hedonic Adaptation”. To sum it up, we love the thrill of the chase, but the satisfaction we get from catching the thing we were chasing only lasts a little while. Soon after, we find something else to chase, and the cycle continues, which is why it’s also known as the hedonic treadmill.

It can sound ungrateful or pessimistic if we look at it through the never-satisfied lens, or it can be accepted and used as a powerful tool for increasing motivation.

Sure, we don’t get lasting satisfaction from catching something, but we love the chase the entire time…no matter how long it lasts.

We love the chase so much that the moment we catch one thing — achieve a goal — we immediately start looking for the next thing to run after.

So, while it’s awesome to grow exponentially and crush your goals as fast as possible…

…you’ll likely be more happy overall if you take your time getting there, because you’ll have more time to enjoy the progress you’re making. Plus, the exponential growth can only last for so long before it levels off — to stick with the running on a treadmill analogy, you’ll eventually get tired and slow down — and that can be very demotivating. There are countless businesses that have made bad decisions trying to grow as fast as they did during an exponential growth period.

Don’t make that mistake. Slow and steady wins the race. If you move forward by just 1% per day for a year, you’ll be almost 4x better than when you started! It all adds up.

If you happen to improve at a faster pace for a while, fantastic! Enjoy it. But when things are humming along as fast as possible, just enjoy the process. Look back at how far you’ve come, not just today, but over the past few weeks, months or years.

Remember, regardless of how fast you’re moving, it’s better than not making progress at all.

All of this isn’t to say that reaching the destination and achieving goals isn’t awesome. It definitely is. The point is to consider whether you care more about one moment in time — the moment you catch what you’re chasing — or all of the moments that lead to it, combined.

Running around aimlessly is nowhere near as thrilling as a chase, so always have a goal in sight, but remember that it’s the progress itself that gives you consistent, lasting joy.

So, don’t worry if it’s taking longer than you thought it would. Just keep making progress.
Comparison is The Thief of Joy
Tags: Comparison, Progress, Joy, Self, Self Improvement

As I reflect on my life, I’m starting to think I’ve got this really wrong for a lot of years.

I’m not particularly prone to to comparing myself, my life and what I have with others. Instead, I’ve driven many of my choices, decisions and actions through comparing myself today with the version of me that I want to be in the future.

That has served to be as unhealthy as comparing myself with other people.

In many moments day-to-day I’ve been guided in how I think, feel and act through comparing myself with how a future version of me would think, feel or act.

Such comparison has often been the trigger for uncomfortable and unpleasant emotional responses, which tend to manifest in thoughts like these:

Someone who does as much as I do for others should be appreciated and treated with more respect than I get — I’ll tell myself this when feeling taken for granted by my kids or anyone else. The version of me that I picture in the future is respected and revered by his kids. They understand that he speaks with wisdom and acts with selflessness and they appreciate him for that. I resent those around me for not treating me the same way here and now as I imagine that future-me gets treated.

Someone as confident, relaxed, likeable and generous as me should have more friends and a more fulfilling social-life than I do. — I picture the man that I want to be, who is popular, well-liked and widely appreciated by those around him. A fatalistic assessment of my life right now seems inferior to that of future-me.

Someone who meditates daily and has done so for years should be a lot better at it by now, and should feel a lot calmer than I do. — When I was starting out in meditating I envisaged that having clocked-up 11,000 minutes of meditation I’d have achieved a new level of zen-like calm. It doesn’t feel that way now — I’m not as good as future-me must be. I’m not as relaxed as I imagine him to be.

Someone who has been working for 20 years, mostly earning good money throughout, should be more financially stable than I am. — I berate myself for not achieving the level of wealth and success that I thought would be mine after 20-years of work. Future-me would have it all sorted out by now, sitting pretty on a pile of cash instead of being mildly worried at all times about the arrival of an unexpected bill or a sudden loss of income.

Someone who works as hard as I do, who persists in their efforts, is as diligent and disciplined as me should be making better progress than I am. — I feel empty and disappointed when I then evaluate my progress compared to future-me who would have it all figured out by now.
You Will Never Forget Your “Worst”
By: Asif Ali
Tags: Progress, Hurt, Pain, Memories, Self Improvement

Photo by Katherine McCormack on Unsplash

Breakup, divorce, parent’s death, bankruptcy, or anything else…

No matter what’s the “worst” you have experienced in life — and no matter whether it happened yesterday or a year back — YOU WILL NEVER FORGET IT.

It won’t just “fade” away from your conscious and subconscious.

Sure, with time, it will get easier and easier to shun away from those overwhelming thoughts and focus on the present.

But it will never go away.

It will always stay right around the corner in your head, ready to jump at the moment you decide to even momentarily re-visit those hours and days.

It would still feel like it happened only yesterday.

It would still trigger the same emotional ache.

Contrary to what so many say, you will never forget it.

In fact, you won’t exactly learn to live with it — because every time you would think back, it would still cause you the same massive hurt.

And it sucks.

It sucks not getting over those feelings. It sucks reminiscing the memories and leaving a wishful breath for them to happen again one more time.

Make Progress 👈

It’s true: you will never forget your worst.

The only thing that helps is progress. Time helps. But if you’re in the same position today where you were a month back — while time may have done its work, you’ve failed to progress. You’re still in the same rut.

Progress. Change your lifestyle. Change your physique. Change your looks. Change your habits. Change your house. Heck, even change your friend if they don’t bring value in your life.

Make all the changes that can to bring about a positive progress in your life.

A ship that leaves the shore does return back. But when on the sea, it has its own moments of fun.

Similarly, you will return back to your worst. Always. Even on your deathbed. But when you’re making progress — when you’re on the sea, away from the shore — you will have your own share of fun and happiness. And that’s what we all want, do we?

So, if it hurts, don’t wish you could forget it. Because you just can’t. Make progress. It’s the ONLY way.
Feeling a bit demotivated?. Well, don’t be too hard on yourself…
By: Kabelo Botlhe Dikobe
Tags: Laziness, Life, Motivation, Progress, Changes In Life

Well, don’t be too hard on yourself, “slow progress is still progress”

Some days I just feel so restless and long just to sleep all day. Time passes by so quickly and by midday, you soon realize that your day has completely gone to waste having done anything.

I remember sharing with my friend how i feel my schedule is muddled up and I can’t seem to “ do it all.” She shared her sentiments on setting up a schedule but one thing that struck a chord and always rings to me is, “Slow progress is still progress.”

That to me is what I needed to hear. Between the daily hustling and trying to write up my thesis as well as communicating with loved ones, I realized that it shouldn’t be a constant cry. Just making sure that at least one task has been/ or is halfway through is enough, and quite frankly that gets me motivated some days.

I remember those days back home when my mother would share with me her life lessons and she would emphasize on “laziness being a disease.”

Looking back, it is quite true. Whenever you feel lazy to do something, that feeling of being unmotivated seeps in as well. It just becomes a cycle and your body gets used to that feeling. All it takes, and so I’ve realized, is that small intent to do something that would at least motivate you a little. I was feeling a bit unmotivated as thoughts of “what should I do with so much going on in my life right now” resurfaced. Writing this piece, kind of helped me ease the anxiety.

I guess, in a nutshell, sometimes you just got to do it. Don’t think too much on the “what ifs,”! Just put your mind to it and do it.
by Faraz Ali
By: Faraz Ali
Tags: Career Planning, Tips For Progress, Goals, Careers, Progress

Amal TOTKAY is talking about Developing a growth mindset. Basically, These Amal Totkay are the 5 tips. One can use these tips to develop a growth mindset.

The following are the Amal TOTKAY (tips)

Self Talk Get Out of Comfort Zone Create New Habits Fake it till you make it

Self Talk

We always talk with our own self. This can affect us negatively as well as positively. For Example: If you are thinking that you cannot do something. Probably, You will not do that. It is our mind which makes us or breaks us. If one has full control over his mind, he can do impossible things. You have to believe in yourself. Yes, You will do it in the long run.

Get Out of the Comfort Zone

One can grow his/her mindset by taking her/himself out of their comfort zone. One has to sacrifice his leisure for the achievements in life. Hard work always pays back. We have to do hard work. For Example, You want to do CSS. You have to give yourself a tough time in order to become a CSS officer. You have to go out of the comfort zone for fruitful results.

Create New Habits

There is also the role of habits in our development of a growth mindset. One has to manage itself. Management plays an important role. When you will have a habit to do things on time, schedule things, and writing day-to-day activities. YOu will have a good mindset.

Ask People Help

Use this tool positively. Do not harm other values and take benefits. If you want to learn something. You will need others' help. When you will take others' guide, you will learn. You have to adopt the habit of listening to others. You can only think from your own perspective. Sometimes you have to see the things from other glasses. When you need help, without any hesitation do ask the help from your friends, family, and teachers. It will not harm your grace, but you will learn from their experiences.

Fake it till you make it

Without practice, you can not do anything in your life. If you want to learn something or adopt the habit. You can fake it. By practicing daily, It will be absorbed inside you and one day you will get that habit or anything.
Week 9: Don’t Compare Your Middle With Someone Else’s End
By: Vanessa T
Tags: Progress, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration

It’s always important to know that being work-in-progress is alright. There is little sense being frustrated that a start-up is still “starting up” in its development stages. Not just the company, but as people, we are also work-in-progress. We are progressing and it always will be.

That, I think, is the start up spirit.

Just do it.

Don’t give up.

Work-in-progress: WORK

We made significant progress with our project with our meeting with SJ. We narrowed down the application that we would like to focus on, and also incorporating this into our new product line. I am glad we managed to think of this without compromising either of the products.

BBT treat after our meeting, with the mask team

Work-in-progress: ME

Having gone through the emergenetics course, I realised that I am lacking in analytical thinking. So to work on that, I am working on an argumentative course to understand arguments.

Taking a course to sharpen my analytical skills

Being obsessed with communicating well, I believe that knowing how to phrase your arguments should be crucial to allowing others to understand your point of view.

Also, I completed the Google Analytics for my marketing class. It’s great to learn skills that are required for the latest digital marketing practices. However, my friend who has been using Google Analytics platform for work has noted that these tutorials are slightly outdated since they were recorded in 2015. Nonetheless, the concepts are still important to learn. For example, the utm? tags on a website helps to track the analytics.

Week 10 is a busy week with workshops and pitching. Looking forward to it!

Till next week x
Weekly Update: Feb 1－Feb 7
Tags: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Crypto, Progress

Weekly Update: Feb 1－Feb 7

OKEx Jumpstart #10 — HyperDAO

Welcoming HyperDAO to OKEx as our 10th token sale project. It will be launched on Feb 25, 2020 (UTC) and we’re happy to have this project devoted to developing DeFi with us!

HDAO token sale details:

MakerDAO (DAI) VIP Exclusive Bonus — Up to 20% Annualized Yield

During the promotion period, you can become a DAI VIP and enjoy 20% annualized yield by depositing and staking a minimum of 10,000 DAI in your Mining Account. You are entitled to the special annualized yield for the days staking over 10,000 DAI.

Details:

New Feature on OKEx API: Tick By Tick

We just launched ‘Tick By Tick’, a push notification that allows you to trade with faster and more accurate real-time data. To stay on top of real-time price movements in all crypto markets, check it out on OKEx API now!

OKEx Savings: SAVE MORE, EARN MORE

The USDT limit for our well-loved Savings service is now up to 100,000 USDT! Enjoy more profit every day with Savings.

Details:

Event:

The State of Bitcoin Mining & Gaming on Lightning (Feb 11)

Come meet our VP of Financial Markets — Quentin Issele on 11th Feb at Coinscrum where he will be introducing our product suite!

RSVP:
How to create R custom visual (html) in PowerBI
By: Konstantinos Ioannou
Tags: Ggplot2, Power Bi, Rstats, Power Bi Desktop

PowerBI offers some great native and custom visuals that integrate and interact almost perfect together.

But many times we need a visual that either doesn’t exist or doesn’t offer the functionality we want. There are great examples of R visuals with code online ( R community is also great ). If you are like me and you think the R script visual doesn’t look that polished ( resolution is not good ) or you need to interact with the R visual, then read below.

Also overcomes the limitation of “Publish to web’. The R custom html visual can be published to web!!

Disclaimer: I am not a developer and certainly an R coder, just happen to play around with ggplot2 and experiment with it ( a lot of googling ). Definitely are better ways to write both code.

If you are in above position and you know a bit of R and ggplot2 ( we are not going to discuss R code ) please welcome!!

Let’s build this R custom visual..

We will create a simple scatter plot on dummy entered data. Below is the table with data we are going to use.

DummyData table

Step1: Prerequisites

a) You need to install some packages and other stuff to be able to design custom visuals for PowerBI. Please refer to this page for instructions.

b) You need an R version installed on your local machine. An R IDE is useful but not necessary. I use RStudio for IDE and the Microsoft R open

***Make sure you have installed in R ggplot2 and plotly packages

c) It is easier to actually develop,debug and finalise the visual design in Rstudio and then create the R custom html visual.

Step 2: Design you visual in R ggplot2

On PowerBI desktop select the R visual (1) and drop the relevant columns (2). *Select ‘Don’t summarize’ as default aggregation of columns or use/ drop another column for grouping if you use measures. You can first create a table graph to inspect the results

Since this will be a simple scatter plot we drop ‘Price’ and ‘Quantity’. Automatically the relevant dataset will be created in R script editor. I use Rstudio to design & test the code as I found it easier. Click the arrow (3) to open Rstudio with dataset loaded. ( you will have to select your preferred R IDE on PowerBI desktop options )
DirectQuery with Postgres from PowerBI Desktop
By: Scott Goley
Tags: Direct Query, Power Bi, Postgres

** Safety Briefing, this being a PowerBI custom connector, this is entirely focused on a Windows centric walkthrough as I’m not currently working with either a Linux or Mac OS environment. Not discriminating, just not available to me at this time. **

TLDR

I was recently put in the situation of finding a way to reduce refresh time on a PowerBi embedded instance. My first approach was to try and use a PowerApps dataset refresh which you can read more about here: PowerApps Refresh Attempt

After that failure I was surprised to come across a semi-functional perhaps early attempt at a connector on github! PowerBI Dataset Refresh from Report

While it would not work with my particular database (missing SSL mode handling) or on our enterprise gateway (no test method), a little reading made me confident enough to give fixing those issues an attempt. How little I was prepared for the next week of trial and error which has produced the following MVP.

Postgres DSN

First steps: This being an ODBC data source, you will need to build a compatible data source in your ODBC Data Source Administrator.

To do that, please ensure that you have the latest Postgres provided driver installed. Available here: Postgresql.org! I would generally recommend using the 64 bit version as well.

Then, create a new System DSN using your Postgres Unicode Driver:

Driver Select

Next, enrich with all the relevant details:

Source Select

Finishing with a test to ensure connectivity. Once that has been saved and is complete, we’re ready to jump into the connector setup.

Custom Connector for ODBC DirectQuery

This walkthrough focusing on the Postgres distro, you will still utilize the most recent version of the connector distribution — currently available as part of the repo here: DirectQuery for ODBC in PowerBI and download, then unzip the repo.

Of primary interest to you is the .mez connector file located at within the repo at “ODBCPostgresDirect\bin\Debug”. This is the current build of the custom connector file.

In case you are needing to use one of the other branches (SQL Server or MySQL) just follow those directory trees instead. Example: “ODBCMySQLDirect\bin\Debug”.

This will need to be placed into your PowerBI Custom Connector directory for local development. If you used the default powerbi installation values, this would be:

cd "C:\Users\<yourusername>\Documents\Power BI Desktop\Custom Connectors"

From here, you can launch or relaunch PowerBI if you already had it open and accept the permissions screen that will notify you that third party connectors are not endorsed by Microsoft and you use at your own risk.

You’re now ready to go!

Unfortunately, there is no way to convert Import based tables to DirectQuery so any tables in that format will have to be recreated. Also, there are a number of transformations that will be unavailable in the query editor if you

Using with an Enterprise Gateway

If you are interested in using this with the PowerBI Gateway, I’ll be covering this in an additional post so please, leave a comment and let me know you’re interested!
Power BI vs Qlik Sense
By: K Rohit Rao
Tags: Business Intelligence, Power Bi, Qlik Sense, Bi

More and more organizations are realizing the importance of data and investing millions and billions to take the journey from data to information. Extracting insights and taking actionable and quick decisions from the data has become one of the prime levers to compete in the market. This journey is being enabled by the Business Intelligence Tools offered by a number of vendors. All the BI tools offer some common features but also offer some unique and distinctive functionalities which make them standout from the rest.

Microsoft Power BI and Qlik Sense are 2 such tools which fall in Leaders Quadrant in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for BI tools. Choosing a BI tool for an organization is a critical decision which involves assessing the pros and cons of the BI tool and putting the organizational reporting and dashboarding needs on the table.

This is an attempt to compare 2 of the market leaders — Power BI and Qlik Sense.

One of the biggest deciders is Pricing (excluded above). But pricing depends a lot on the organizational needs and strategies.

The comparison clearly places Power BI better than Qlik Sense. But final selection depends on a number of factors and often pricing becomes the deciding factor.

Do comment below, if the comparison helps you or if I have missed any point.
#DataBlogSpp4: C’mon, Why should I use ClosingBalanceYear() when I have EndOfYear().
By: Soorya Prakash Parthiban
Tags: AI, Power Bi, Microsoft, Data Science, Machine Learning

Hi all, happy to meet you on another blog.

In this blog, CBY() refers to ClosingBalanceYear() and EOY() refers to EndOfYear().

As I say in my blogs, both time-intelligence and date&time DAX functions from Microsoft are designed to return a date value, but that’s not going to help us because we’re data scientists.

If CBY() equals EOY(), why are they designed to be two different functions?

Case 1: Used EOY() to calculate the end of the year’s profit. (There’s an option to specify the date on which the profit should be calculated in both of the functions. If we didn’t mention it, it’ll go with the default date which is the 31st of December of the last year in your dataset. If 31st of December doesn’t exist, the last record’s date value will be taken as the last date.)

Case 2: Used CBY() to calculate the end of the year’s profit.

There’s no surprise that we ended up getting the same values. Now, let’s decode the difference between them.

Our boss mails us to find the total profit of the year-end and the product which has more profit during the same year-end. Can EOY() help us? Nope, because Microsoft says so.

As you see the above screenshot, there’s no term called the filter, that’s where we filter out things. In our scenario. the boss asked us to filter the product which generated the highest profit of all.

If you would’ve read my blog on closingbalancemonth(), you can remember that I explained the term called filter where we filtered out Canada from other countries.

In my dataset, a product named “Paseo” has contributed more to the company’s profit. Let’s see how we are going to calculate the total profit as well as the profit of the paseo using the two different DAX functions.

Using EOY():

To calculate the total profit of the company on the 1st of December, 2014 because that’s the last date on my dataset. The reason for mentioning the date is to let you know that you can change it to “01/12/2013” if you have the year 2013 in your dataset.

Using CBY():

To calculate profit earned from the paseo product.

Conclusion:

Both the functions work similarly if you’re assigned to calculate just the total profit or total sales. In case if you’re assigned to find the total sales or total profit from a particular product then you have to use any of these three functions (ClosingBalance M/Q/Y).

The report for our boss:

Thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

Feel free to give your suggestions to improve the quality of my blogs.

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Should companies use AI to access job candidates
By: Abhinav Sultania
Tags: Power Bi, Artificial Intelligence, Ai Development Services, Ai Development Company, Azure

Should companies use AI to access job candidates?

One of the main struggles any organization face now a days is “Talent identification” which is why most of them complain that they unable to find the right person for that particular key position, and why most people end up in jobs that are far from inspiring. And, if you want to make talent identification more effective- it’s important to continue to look beyond existing methods, particularly enables us to predict, understand & match people at scale.

Artificial Intelligence — How humans & machine will work together?

One of the major problems with the way we currently interview job candidates is that the process is highly unstructured & that leads to biased decision-making. Digital interviews can remove the limitation almost entirely. Using technology to create highly structure & standardised interview process so that every candidate has same opportunity to express their talent.

Artificial Intelligence can mine a candidate’s facial expressions & body language alongside both what they say and how they say. Mining all this data can reveal a lot about the candidate’s talent, and can indicate how they might perform on the job. Although scientific research in this area is still in its infancy, there are already some interesting and promising findings. Further the mined similar signals to predict behaviour & qualities that are critical for performance like: communication skills, leadership quality, stress tolerance level & so on. AI has the potential to significantly improve the way we identify talent as it can reduce the cost of making accurate predictions about one’s potential, while at the same time removing the bias and heuristics that so often human judgement.

The fact that AI algorithms can detect and measure latent or seemingly intangible human qualities may lead some to be skeptical of the aforementioned findings, but it is worth noting that there are plenty of scientific studies that demonstrate that humans can accurately identify personality and intellect from just thin slices of verbal and non-verbal behaviour.
ETL through multiple pages of a website in Power BI
By: Surya Prakash Garg
Tags: Data Science, Analytics, Power Bi, Data Visualization

In this article, we are going to go through an example of performing ETL (Extraction, Transformation, Load) function by looping through multiple pages on a website.

For this we are going to use a website called planecrashinfo.com, which has historical data of all the plane crashes from 1920 onwards.

To start, we are going to open one of the pages randomly and extract the data of that web page in Power BI, in this example, I select 1922

Next step would be to open Power BI Desktop and load this (see below GIF)

Get Data in Power BI Desktop

In the next step, we are going to transform this data a bit,

Split the Location/Operator by line breaks [#(cr)] to make two columns, Location, and Operator.

Split the Aircraft Type/Registration by line breaks [#(cr)] to make two columns, Location, and Operator.

Split the fatalities column by / and ( into three columns i.e. Air Fatalities, Aborad, Ground Fatalities.

The next step is to define a Parameter, we can define a parameter using the Manage Parameters option in the Query editor, however, here we would use Advanced Editor and use M Code to define our parameter.

Using Advanced Editor to pass on a Parameter

To test this we can trigger the AircraftEvents function and enter some years manually, and this will create a table in the Query Editor with the data from that specific year

Now since, we want data for all the Years from this website, we would import the list of years from this website, remove the unwanted column and unpivot multiple columns into one column, rename it as “year”

Extracting year list from the website

Now since we have two queries, first one AircraftEvents, which is a functional query and second one list of all the years from the website. We need to find a way to pass this list of years to the AircraftEvents function.

To do this we will add a custom column in the Year_List query and invoke the function AircraftEvents with the argument [Year], where [Year] is the name of the column in the Year_List table.

= AircraftEvents([Year])

This will give us a custom column with many tables, one table for each year, once we expand the table we get a consolidated data table with Plane crash data of all the years.

Calling AircraftEvents table in Year_List table

Your dataset is ready for you to do cool visualizations. In the next article, I will share my PowerBI dashboard visuals.
Boosting the Performance and Daily Reporting of a Fuel Management Company Using Power BI
By: Abhinav Sultania
Tags: Power Bi, Power Bi Tutorials, Data Visualization Tools, Power Bi Development, Data Visualization

Fuel-Pro systems is a Premium Total Fluid Management (TFM) Company providing Comprehensive Lubrication Services to various Industries, Fleets & Utility Organizations in association with Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) to Hindalco Ind. (Aditya Birla Group). They help clients in reducing their cost of lubrication and achieving Benchmark Practices.

The company was struggling to provide their employees with insight into both individual and company performance using their enterprise level tool and excel. Data was not trusted, meaning that any KPIs that were available did not truly drive behaviour. The business knew that accurate, available data was essential to drive their digital transformation program. They wanted some better solution in terms of visualization, data integration, mobility, cost effective & security.

Techstern helped the client to implement an accelerated data warehouse using SQL , high-performance tabular models and visually appealing on-premise Power BI dashboards. Data was consolidated quickly from the sources and the company now had a ‘single version of the truth’, that was trusted by the whole business. KPIs were standardized and were instantly available via Power BI.

To start with, we did a small POC, where we fetched the data from the excel sheets & showed them a visualization which plotted — the sum of accidents by Weekday & Time Range. This gave them the answer to some of their very simple questions. The best part was, they could compare this year on year, quarter on quarter & month on month. Then started the flow of reports, where we developed the following different kinds of reports: