fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Wow, I Reached 7,000 Followers on Medium!
By: Brian Rowe
Tags: Medium, Success, Followers, Entrepreneurship, Writing

One thing I don’t often pay much attention to on Medium is my number of followers.

Because there’s something kind of strange about the number of followers you have on Medium: at the end of the day… it doesn’t matter a whole lot.

When you have a few thousand followers on Twitter, theoretically up to a few thousand people who follow you might see your latest tweet you send into the universe. Sure, most of them won’t, but at least the thought is there. I mean, if you have a couple million followers and you tweet something, people are definitely going to see it!

Medium works a little differently. If you create a publication and people follow it, then yes, that makes a difference because you can e-mail Newsletters to those followers and keep them up to date about your latest Medium stories.

A follower to your publication is a huge deal. Lots more important, I think, than a follower of just you. A follower of just you is basically a nod saying you’re doing good work, I like what you’re writing, you have been helpful to me, keep it up!

When I follow another writer, it’s for no other reason than to say, I like what you’re doing here on Medium.
A Visual Approach to Scientific Communication
By: Chen Ye
Tags: Biology, Visualization, Design

Process

On the technical side, my workflow can be broken down into four main components—narrative building, scene construction (in Illustrator), animation (in After Effects), packaging (in PowerPoint).

A brief summary of each follows:
How to upload my own notebook to Kaggle
By: Ankit Kumar Rajpoot
Tags: Python, Dataset, Kaggle, Notebook

Kaggle, a subsidiary of Google LLC, is an online community of data scientists and machine learning practitioners. Kaggle allows users to find and publish data sets, explore and build models in a web-based data-science environment, work with other data scientists and machine learning engineers, and enter competitions to solve data science challenges.

This article let we know how to uploads our own notebook and dataset on Kaggle. There are some basic steps that all are given below with screenshot representation.

Step 1:- Login your account

Step 2:- Click on “Notebooks”

Step 3:- Click on “New Notebook”

Step 4:- Click on “Create” after selecting the relevant options

Step 5:- Click on “File”, below the title of the notebook

Step 6:- Click on “Upload Notebook”

The notebook has been uploaded. If you want, you can save your notebook without data set otherwise you can upload the data set that is related to this Notebook.

Step 7:- Click on “Add data”

Step 8:- Click on “Upload a Dataset”

Step 9:- Click on “Select Files to Upload”

Step 10:- Click on “Skip duplicate”

This is the success popup of the dataset that has been uploaded.

Step 11:- Click on “Save Version”

Save the notebook version with details.

Adding collaborators is easy: just go to the Options page and search for another user by name. You can even choose who gets View or Edit permissions using the dropdown.
Leave Stress Behind Home is for Relaxation
By: Saliba Faddoul
Tags: Wellbeing, Productivity, Life Lessons, Wellness, Lifestyle

Leave Stress Behind Home is for Relaxation

Three tips on how you can relax while at home.

Going home should be a calming time, but the simple truth is that you’re most likely going to get more stressed out when you finally arrive. Dishes to do, a home to clean, kids to worry about, and a spouse that may just want to sit with you. It’s hard to do everything and it is not always a fun thing to do, going home, but we can relax a little while we are doing everything.

Listen to something. If you ever find yourself doing a task that doesn’t require your full attention you should be listening to something. Dishes, laundry, cleaning, or anything of this nature requires only a little percent of your attention span. Don’t waste that time, instead destress your mind and travel to another world. Put on a book, a song, or something that will challenge your mind to think of something new instead of just, “does this shirt needing ironing?” It’s called parent time. Ok this idea is one that can work if done right. Here’s how it works you tell you kids that they have 30 mins to do something, they can’t talk to you about it, and have to focus on getting it done for 30 mins. If you are able to get it to work you train your child to be productive and learn to focus, and you get 30 minutes of peace. Otherwise, put on an educational app and say play, you have about 22–32 minutes before they get bored or have a question. Don’t bring work home with you. This is a tough idea for a lot of people to understand. Work happens when you are at work, and just because you have your work on the go now does not mean you need to get it done at home. If you can’t get what you need to get done at work either you aren’t being productive and selective with your time, you have to much work being given to you, or you need to ask for a raise. That being said though find ways to block out your time, and remember that work should not intrude on your life. Turn your home office into a gym, into a play room for the kids, or a home theater, and don’t spend all your free time at home doing your work.

Okay, these things are obviously a little easier said than done, but if you devote some time to not taking your work home with you, to teaching your kids to focus, and invest in your well being than you are going to live a much less stressed out life.
I used Instagram captions to earn $10,000 a month as a writer
By: Emilina Lomas
Tags: Marketing, Digital Marketing, Writing, Instagram, Social Media

Two years ago, I quit my job at a Fortune 100 company to pursue my passion as a nutritionist. I went back to school to do a master's degree and very quickly went from being a financially stable, got-my-life-together 24-year-old to just another directionless, penniless millennial.

I now earn $10,000+ a month as a full-time freelancer writer because of Instagram (no, I’m not Instagram famous). I used Instagram to market myself to work with some of the biggest brands in the health and fitness industry, and here’s how.

It all started with a lil vanity.

I’ll be totally transparent: This whole journey started with a lil vanity.

I went to Thailand just before I quit my job (a classic tale), and I met a photographer. We became friends and she took some pictures of me. Prior to Thailand, I had been painfully insecure in front of a camera, but the Thai air just really brought it out of me (see below). I posted the pictures on Instagram and I started to gain a little baby following.

Photo by author

I worked hard at the gym and was physically fit, which led to me receiving some messages regarding my workout routine and diet, which to me was wild, why would anyone care, right? But I was an avid gym junkie and prospective nutritionist, plus I had a bachelor’s in science — I knew what I was talking about, so I decided to answer the questions in my Instagram captions.

Lesson 1: Add value — By posting free, useful, and well-thought out information on social media — without asking for anything in return or advertising any paid service — you add value in a distinct and trustworthy way. If you start your social media journey with advertising your service BEFORE adding value, how will your audience know that you’re legitimate? Many marketers traditionally add value via customer service, inspirational visual content, blog posts, infographics, video content, etc., but Instagram captions are widely underutilized as a way to effectively add value for writers. In the beginning, no one wants to read your 2,000 word blog post. Prospective clients want snippets of your writing skills, like a quick 300 word Instagram caption.

Photo by Georgia de Lotz on Unsplash

After quitting my job, going back to university, and qualifying as a fitness coach, I continued snapping selfies and posting captions about my fitness and diet hacks. I never had more than around 10,000 followers, and in the grand scheme of Instagram, that is miniscule.

However, as per Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 true fans theory, all you really need to be a successful creator is 1,000 true fans. Or, in my case, Instagram followers.

I was approached online by a popular boxing gym who explained that they had read my Instagram captions and wondered if I would write a full-length article for them. Of course, I obliged and was paid £25 to write a 500-word article — which to me was awesome because I had been writing 350 words (roughly the limit for Instagram) for free, just for fun.
PandasGUI: Analyzing Pandas dataframes with a Graphical User Interface
By: Parul Pandey
Tags: Pandas Dataframe, Pandas, GUI, Python, Exploratory Data Analysis

Today the pandas library has become the defacto tool for doing any exploratory data analysis in Python. Its versatility, flexibility, and ease of use makes it the library of choice for many data scientists today. The pandas' library also enjoys excellent community support and thus is always under active development and improvement. Due to this indispensable nature of pandas, various tools have been created from time to time to enhance its effectiveness or improve upon it. There are two specific sets of tools that I have encountered when it comes to pandas:

Tools that can perform basic EDA in two or three lines of code. These libraries essentially use pandas’ functions under the hood. Examples are SweetViz and Pandas profiling library.

GUI-based alternatives to pandas, for example, Bamboolib.

Recently, I came across another GUI based alternative to pandas called PandasGUI. One thing that struck was that it offered capabilities of plotting as well as reframing the dataframe. Also, the user has the freedom to perform custom operations too. This article will try and explain its various features and functionalities and how you could use it for your data.
There Used to be Music
By: Juliette Roanoke
Tags: Self, Mental Health, Schizophrenia, This Happened To Me, Psychology

My life is filled with music.

To me, it’s essentially synonymous with silence because I never truly experience the latter due to all the music.

One particular night was no different. The windows were open while I cooked dinner. The music was loud but distant. It was coming from an amphitheater nearby I think. It had a Dave Matthews Band sort of vibe to it.

I imagined what it must be like to be there tonight instead of at home with my daughter. I’d love to trade one of these stale nights for one painted with livelier shades. The last time I was there I danced the night away.

Later, I was folding laundry while sitting on the bed in my room. My neighbors loved to play music every Sunday. I liked to listen but another neighbor likes to compete by drowning out their music with Jazz and soul music while he gives his truck its weekly wax.

This makes for a weird combination — classic rock mixed with Jazz. I grew used to it, even came to expect it on Sundays, but I never really mentioned it to anyone because it had such an insidious entry into my life.

A weirder combination though, and one worth mentioning? Barney’s classic “I love you” played simultaneously with Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight.” This time, the source of the music seemed closer, just outside my window even. And actually, for a split second, I thought I saw Barney in my room.

What can I say? I live in an eclectic neighborhood with lots of children. I hadn’t slept. I was tired. The brain fog was probably building; I was an unreliable source.

If the neighbors weren’t Playing live music and nothing was going on at the amphitheater, I could hear opera music. I’ve always been within earshot of it. I’m never sure who’s playing it, but I can hear it in the distance— My friends all say I have the best hearing.

And that day, just like any other day, I could hear my boyfriend’s television playing from the other room. The door was shut and he said he hadn’t left anything on but I didn’t believe him; he did it all the time.

I nagged at him to remember to turn his tv off.

I questioned why children were playing outside at midnight on a school night.

I asked everyone if they could hear that girl calling for help.

I insisted fireworks were exploding outside.

…I ended up with a psychiatrist.

A diagnosis didn’t take long and it lead to many answers. It may seem as though these auditory hallucinations should have been obvious to me. Wasn’t it easy to figure out no one else was hearing these things? Well, I never knew anything else, so to me, it was normal.

Schizophrenia has made many parts of my life confusing. I’m medicated now and much healthier (I can definitely do without the voices). But when silence comes around, I can’t help but miss those thirty years of music.
The 10 Commandments of Social Media Marketing
By: Shannon Ashley
Tags: Freelancing, Social Media, Marketing, Success, Writing

5. Be Generous With the Information You Give to Followers

In the past, I have had clients that were way too worried about losing business by giving too much away. I’ve had catering clients refuse to use brilliant wedding tips articles all because one comment suggested having a pot luck wedding reception.

Restaurants have also refused to share stories which suggest a person might do anything other than eat... there. This is a narrow and shortsighted strategy. Who are we kidding? Restaurants and caterers know that their customers could be foodies who often cook for themselves.

Don’t fight reality! Your social media strategy will make a much bigger and better impact by actively engaging with your clients.

If your client is a piemaker, they can’t just sell their followers pies all the damn time. They need to sell the image and feel of homemade pies. The comfort and fun.

In that vein, show customers how to make the pies. Show them how your client makes them better. Share fun pie trivia, and talk about all of the occasions for indulging in pie. Followers love businesses that don’t take themselves so seriously.
Some People Won’t Like It When You Market Your Work
By: Shannon Ashley
Tags: Marketing, Writing, Work, Blogging, Life

Some People Won’t Like It When You Market Your Work

But don’t let that stop you

Photo by Jukebox Print on Unsplash

I got chewed out the other day for sending out a publication letter with a link to the trending stories on that pub. The criticism seemed to be that I’m greedy and selfish for wanting more people to read more of my work. Apparently.

And so it goes. Because I make my living by writing online, marketing my work is something that some folks don’t think I should do. They seem to think it somehow suggests that I don’t appreciate what I have, or that I’m trying to steal business from other writers.

You know, writing for a living is already a tough gig, but this attitude among writers only makes it harder. I have to wonder if my fellow writer who told me to “give it a rest” is just as outraged by billboards and television commercials.

Are they sick of marketing from conglomerate corporations, or just indie writers like me?
Design is storytelling: a model
By: Arushi Singh
Tags: Storytelling, Design Process, Design, Design Storytelling, Design Thinking

The best resources for designers starting in Design, UX, and UI. Bootcamp is a new product publication from the team behind the UX Collective (http://uxdesign.cc). To submit your story: hello@uxdesign.cc

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How to create dashboard for free with Google Sheets and Chart.js
By: Rafał Rybnik
Tags: Data Science, Charts, Dashboard, Web Development, Visualization

Dashboards are a convenient method for quickly present data. For data scientists and analysts, it’s the tool of choice for showing results of their work to the non-technical recipients. Of course, there are many services for making online dashboards with no or little code. Using ready-made solutions such as Tableau, Qlikview or Google Data Studio, quick production of decent looking charts and dashboards is not a problem.

However, most of them are too expensive. We also often encounter situations where the possibilities for adapting views to exceptional data are limited. On the other hand, tailored, self-hosted solutions cause other difficulties. You need hosting and you are unlikely to want to play with the administration of a large system just to collect and present the necessary data.

However, it is possible to serve web applications directly from Google Apps Script.

In this article, I show you how to create a simple dashboard using data from Google Sheet and Chart.js. First, we will set up templated HTML in Google Apps Script. Next, we will with Chart.js. Then, you will learn how to fetch data from Google Sheets (e.g. when updating information visible in the dashboard) and insert it to the template. Once you set up the dataflow, you can use it in many projects.
Hand Stimming Can Be a Life Saver
By: Kelsey Jean Marie
Tags: Mental Health, Advice, Autism, Life Lessons, Psychology

Misunderstanding

My suspicion is that most people find stimming disruptive because they are very forcefully ignoring, neglecting, and repressing their own intense cravings to stim.

I am not saying people are consciously choosing to neglect, but that we’ve been socially trained in the direction of bypassing this common need.

The body being is so sensitive by nature, in all people, that a lack of physical stimming means less energetic flow through the system. Makes sense, right?

Less energetic flow means more stagnancy. Stagnancy equates to stress. Stagnancy equates to blockages in the circuitry of our body being system where stress starts to pile up and go moldy — causing disorder and disease.

I want to suggest that repressing stimming is actually disruptive behavior.

Some people work out once a day or once a week and feel that’s what they need. Awesome. As a super-sensitive person, I am pretty acutely aware of the external stimulation my body being is continuously absorbing through the day, and so stimming throughout the day feels like my genuine need.

If I allow myself an active practice, I can keep my energy flowing in a healthful fluidity with small but very regular doses of “stimming” behavior.
I Published over 150 Stories on Medium — Here’s What I Learned
By: Jazz Parks
Tags: Self, Life Lessons, Blog, Entrepreneurship, Writing

If you’re new to Medium; write, a lot.

As I said, I’ve managed to push out around 2–3 articles per day since September. However, I took a break these last few weeks, where I noticed something utterly heartbreaking.

I’d normally average around a few hundred views per day. Yet, I almost dwindled to a measly 5–10 views per day without publishing anything new over the last few weeks. Heartbreaking.

Daily Views/ October

Daily Views/ November

As you can see, due to my lack of writing — even with over 80 curated articles — my daily views started to dwindle.

Last week, I committed to getting back into the habit of publishing at least 1–2 articles per day, and you know what? Immediately, my daily views rebounded back to an average of 200–300 views per day.

Now, to many of you, it may not seem like much, but the point is there to prove. Your old posts will get lost in a sea of desperate writers.

To make it on Medium, you have to write consistently — at least in the beginning. Maybe, one day, when I have thousands of followers, then I’ll be able to relax — slow down. Until then, I make it a habit to write a lot.
Here’s a short-form post about my experiment with short-form posts. I’ll keep this one short.
By: August Birch
Tags: Medim, Marketing, Money, Life Lessons, Writing

Here’s a short-form post about my experiment with short-form posts. I’ll keep this one short.

Real. Short.

If you want to know the results of my little experiment, here you go:
Kaggle #1 Winning Approach for Image Classification Challenge
By: Kumar Shridhar
Tags: Machine Learning, Kaggle, Artificial Intelligence, Convolutional Network, Deep Learning

The task of classifying the images into respective classes, the task has been divided into 5 steps:

STEP 1:

The first and the most important task in Machine Learning is to analyze the dataset before proceeding with any algorithms. This is important in order to understand the complexity of the dataset which will eventually help in designing the algorithm.

The distribution of images and the classes are as follows:

As already mentioned before, there are 12 classes and a total of 4750 images. However, as seen from the above, the distribution is not even and the class distribution varies from maximum of 654 images to a minimum of 221 images. This clearly demonstrates the data is imbalanced and the data need to be balanced in order to get the best results. We will come to that in STEP 3.

Image distribution per class

Now it is important to visualize the images in order to understand the data even better. So, some sample images from each class is displayed in order to see how the images differ from each other.

There is nothing much that can be understood from the images above as all the images looked pretty much same. So, I decided to see the distribution of the images using a visulaization techninque called t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE).

t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) is a technique for dimensionality reduction that is particularly well suited for the visualization of high-dimensional datasets. The technique can be implemented via Barnes-Hut approximations, allowing it to be applied on large real-world datasets.[14]

t-SNE visualization of the dataset

Now after looking closely, we can hardly see the difference in the classes. So it is important to understand if the data is very difficult to distinguish only for humans or it is difficult for the machine learning model too. So, we will do a basic benchmark for it.

Training and Validation Set

Before starting with the model benchmark, we need to divide the data into training and validation dataset. Validation set plays the role of the test dataset before the model is tested on the original test set. So, basically a model is trained on the training dataset and is tested on the validation set and then the model can be improved over the validation set over time. Once we are satisfied with the results of validation set, we can apply the model on our real test dataset. This way, we can see the whether the model is overfitting or underfitting on our validation set which can help us in better fitting the model.

So we divide our dataset of 4750 images by keeping 80 percent images as training dataset and 20 percent as validation set.
This Is What Loneliness Feels Like (And What It Does To Us)
By: Rosie L
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Writing, Loneliness, Mental Health

‘Eventually most of us come to see that our feelings of unbelonging are unexceptional, and that the truly heroic act is to carry on trying to connect with others, even if it can be dispiriting to keep doing something you are not very good at.’ — Joe Moran, Shrinking Violets

For a long time, I avoided writing about loneliness despite its pervasive influence on my life.

The reasons for that are manifold. Firstly, it took me a long time to even notice I was experiencing it. I am introverted by nature and I both like and need solitude. I’d lived alone with virtually no social contact for nearly six months before I recognised it. And it would take another six months for me to realise it was impacting me.

Second, it felt like a dirty secret, like I would taint myself by writing about it. They say that everything we do online is part of our resumes and admitting that I spend more time talking to my cat than to humans is not the kind of qualification I want to display. It is the fear of judgement that makes so many of us hide our loneliness. Yet I do not believe there has ever been anything wrong with me. I simply chose to focus on work and learning and that led me away from people, at a time when my old social circles collapses.

At the same time, I think this is one of the topics that those of us who can and want to share our experiences with, have a responsibility to do so. Ironically, it does help others to feel less alone.

I’ve spent 3/4 of my working life as a remote freelancer, working alone. I lived alone for a year in an area where I barely knew anyone. I once spent a month alone in a barn in the countryside. I’ve travelled alone for months. I go out to eat alone or to concerts, to museums and galleries. I’ve spent New Years alone, Christmas alone, birthdays alone, any holiday you can name alone. It is my default state.

Earlier this year, I met up with someone I know from college. In passing, I mentioned how alone I’d felt for months before moving to the city. She said that wasn’t true, that she’d felt lonely but was always surrounded by people. I described how, on several occasions, I’d taken the SIM out of my phone for two, three weeks and put it in a cupboard, and the only person to contact me during that time was my mother. She looked uncomfortable, surprised, got the point, and I realised how abnormal the way I lived at that time was. That the loneliness I felt was not the kind experienced by those with housemates and social circles and partners. The difference between perceiving yourself to be isolated and actually being isolated is that, in the latter case, you sense the lack of a safety net. You know there’s no one to stop you falling.

She wrote it off as my own fault. I didn’t bother to argue.
10 Tips for Writing a Query That Will Impress Literary Agents
By: Greg Aunapu
Tags: Literature, Publishing, Books, Fiction, Writing

9. Don’t Claim Your Book Will Be a Bestseller

Being positive and confident is one thing, but boasting that your book will become a bestseller that interests millions of readers around the world, especially everyone who “has a mother,” is another. These statements are just too broad to wrap your head around.

While agents need to pay the bills, and love to put money in the bank, most prefer to do so by discovering books they think readers will fall in love with, rather than taking on something conceived and written for one purpose only — to make money. For instance, I love a great thriller, and can tell when one was written by an author who’s an adrenaline junkie having fun trying to keep me up all night worrying about how this great cast characters will overcome some terrible predicament. I can also tell when one was written by someone who’s just making a power-grab for the reader’s wallet with cardboard characters driving down a well-traveled and familiar road.

So, instead of a worldwide bestseller, focus on a smaller demographic. For nonfiction, for instance, a particular subject might interest “the million members of XYZ organization which hosts 400 groups in all 50 states.” But it might be a must-read for a certain subgroup of just 10,000 headhunters or project managers, for instance, who must keep up some yearly accreditation.

Or for fiction, try to narrow it down to a subgenre. Instead of saying the book will “interest millions of people who love thrillers,” consider something more like “this book will interest readers of legal thrillers or medical thrillers, or international espionage.” Or maybe “Chocolate to Die For is humor, set in a village bistro, that will be of special interest to bakers as it includes twelve original mouth-watering cupcake and cookie recipes.” It should be obvious that each of these are separate categories and not something that blends all of them together!

And while I’m on that subject: blending categories can be very problematic, as it can make focusing on a particular market more difficult. Where is the bookseller supposed to shelf the epic-fantasy, time-traveling, vampire-romance space-opera?

Also, while you might be tempted to compare your work to some wild bestsellers in the market, be careful with that. While it’s usually fine to say your thriller should interest readers of Dan Brown or Gillian Flynn, avoid saying your book is the next Da Vinci Code or Gone Girl.
What Does a Psychopath Do When They Are Found Out?
By: Samantha Clarke
Tags: Mental Health, Personality, Relationships, Psychology, Domestic Violence

Photo by Fabien Bazanegue on Unsplash

They will divert the conversation, redirecting your attention elsewhere through distraction.

You might end up asking about where they were at for the past five hours when they were supposed to meet you for lunch, but instead, you’ll end up talking about the cute puppy they saw on the drive home.

This tactic might surprisingly include bringing the conversation back to you as the subject — to make you feel important and satisfied as a result of positive attention. If you have a personal relationship with this person, you will understand just how “rare” this positive attention is, and will see it as a “treasure,” making it a psychological, emotional reward. You might have felt grumpy or upset before, but suddenly you feel better now, right?

Before you know it, you’ll forget all about what you were initially going to talk about — and you might even feel a bit guilty for even considering bringing it up.
Scaling a marketplace: Samaipata & Idinvest Paris event
By: Aurore Falque-Pierrotin
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Startup, Marketplaces

Together with Idinvest, we hosted an event last week in Paris on how to successfully scale a marketplace.

Although we were born and are headquartered in Madrid, we are a multi-local European fund, with offices in Paris and London. And Paris is one of our fastest growing geographies, and a key focus for the fund moving forward.

Beyond location, as a founders’ fund specialised in marketplaces & platform models, the topic of the event was obvious! We strive to help entrepreneurs scale their marketplaces from 0 to 1, only investing in what we know best.

Thus, Matthieu, Idinvest’s managing partner, and José, Samaipata’s founding partner, reflected on 13 key success factors proper to marketplace models. Obviously, the list they went through is not exhaustive but we chose not to bore the audience to death.

They were joined by 3 great entrepreneurs: Vincent, CEO & Co-founder of Malt, Thomas, CEO & Co-founder of Meero and Alex, General Manager France for Glovo — who provided real-life illustrations of the theoretical concepts developed by the two VCs.

A lot of people asked for the slides, so we decided with Jonathan Userovici to make them available below! Hope you enjoy it and that they can prove useful for entrepreneurs building a marketplace.

And if you’re an early stage marketplace founder, do not hesitate to contact us ! We focus on pre-seed & seed rounds.
Laura Manipura
By: Laura Manipura
Tags: Books, Writing, Writers On Writing, Ftl Bio, Writers On Medium

Laura Manipura

About the Author

Canva

Laura Manipura is a former librarian, currently trying to bust through the myth of the starving artist through her work on the blogging platform, Medium. As she is deeply analytical and detail-oriented, she is often called upon for editing projects. She has a gift for clarity and imagines that she would be good at writing technical manuals.

Her writing journey began with reading as a young child. Her mother has this to say, “You were always a voracious reader. When you were at the Day School, your class was often taken to the bookmobile. The other kids were amazed at the huge pile of books you checked out. You had so many that the boys had to help you carry them.”

She submitted her first story to a publisher at the age of 12 and was rewarded with a kind rejection letter. She would go on to win yearly English awards in high school. She had wanted to major in Creative Writing & English but then decided psychology would be more practical. When she graduated, she took a job as a waitress.

A few years later, she returned to school and received a master’s in Library Science. It was a good fit in many ways. To start with, there were books everywhere! Books to classify, organize, weed, and serve up vital information. Contrary to popular belief, Laura would like you to know that librarians do not sit around reading all day. Well, not why they are on the clock anyway!

Laura enjoyed teaching the students how to use the library databases and how to research and write papers. She got quite excited teaching the intricacies of keyword searching and so, was teaching SEO before SEO was a thing.

After a long dry spell, she took up writing poetry when introduced to the works of Hafiz and Rumi while attending “Praise Jam.” At praise jam, people would come together to perform music and read poetry out loud. Here, she found a voice. The shy librarian spoke. And, she found she had a knack for it. She could see how others were touched by her reading and her ego was deliciously fed. She would go home late at night and stay up late writing poetry that spoke of love, pain, and yearning.

She is currently working on a series of essays about the work of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. Always a creatrix, she is also starting a new publication to celebrate books and writers; titled From the Library.
They solve the Schrödinger equation with the help of Artificial Intelligence
By: Andrey Chi De Robles
Tags: Machine Learning, Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Science, Deep Learning

This is a review of some artificial intelligence news that happened throughout the week

Quantum chemistry aims to predict the chemical and physical properties of molecules based on the arrangement of their atoms in space, without time-consuming and resource-intensive laboratory experiments. This can be achieved by solving the Schrödinger equation, but in practice this is too difficult. A team of scientists from Freie Universität Berlin has developed a deep learning algorithm that can achieve a combination of precision and computational efficiency. The professor leading the research believes the approach may have a significant impact on the future of quantum chemistry.
Apple’s Master Sales Strategy: Upselling
By: Jakov Zauzolkov
Tags: Marketing, Apple, Economy, Web Design, Marketing Strategies

1.Marketing Strategies, Exposed: Apple’s way to generate enormous profits Definition of Upselling

Upselling is a special sales technique used by companies like Apple that invites us, the customers, to buy expensive items or upgrades for the product you want to purchase. Simple said the sellers try to sell you more than you actually want. This is exactly what Apple does on their website. Let me give you an example:

You’ve decided to buy yourself a new phone, an iPhone 12 Pro, to be exact. So, you go on their website, click on the iPhone 12 Pro, scroll a bit down, and find yourself forced to decide on a model: iPhone 12 Pro or iPhone 12 Pro Max? You may think “oh look, the iPhone Pro Max costs just $100 more than the iPhone Pro, so why not”. This is exactly the moment you got a victim of Upselling. Apple puts you multiple times before choices, where you can choose between a handful of options. This first decision you made, was only the first. Further, you’ll be forced to decide on the battery capacity of your phone and if you’d like to add AppleCare+ coverage. Especially the batteries create Apple enormous amounts of profit: Let’s take a look, why.
The Literally Literary Weekly Update #1
By: Jonathan Greene
Tags: Poetry, Nonfiction, Writing, Ll Letters, Fiction

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

We have something new for you. Every Wednesday we will be going back and highlighting some of the top works of the week in Literally Literary. We want you to know we are always paying attention to everything we publish.

Top works do not mean best works as that is a wholly subjective concept. Top works will be segmented below into random categories and highlights of stories or poems we think you might enjoy.

We will also be highlighting some editor’s notes each week at the bottom to help you publish your best work.

Welcome and thank you for being one of our 27,306 followers. We appreciate you every day.

(All links below are friend links to the stories on Medium.)
5 Questions That Will Push You Through Your Fear of Rejection
By: Itxy Lopez
Tags: Self-awareness, Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Advice, Entrepreneurship

I submitted an article to Forge on Tuesday, but it took me some time to gather the courage to do so. I was afraid of being rejected and feeling like I wasn’t good enough.

I wasn’t just scared of their rejection, though. What if Forge accepts the article, but no one reads or likes it? I’m not only afraid of being told no, but of being ignored.

I don’t know why rejection is as terrifying as it is — because if you think about it, it’s not really a big deal — but it is. What’s pivotal, however, is that you never let it stop you.

I don’t care how deep my fear is. I don’t let it stop me because I know if I don’t take the chance, either I (probably) won’t get the opportunity again, or I’ll regret it in the long run.

That’s why every time I’m in this position, I ask myself five questions that help me push through the fear of rejection no matter how tight its grip on me.
You Want a Successful Side Hustle — Get a Boring Job
By: Younes Henni
Tags: Startup, Life Lessons, Entrepreneurship, Success, Side Hustle

The day is June 30, 1905.

Annalen der Physik, one of the biggest scientific publishers in Europe, receives a letter from a 26 years man. The letter contains four articles.

The editor is bemused. The author claims that he can curve time, expand space, and turn matter into energy.

His theories — blowing up 300 years of common sense about the laws of the universe — sound more like magic than science. The author doesn’t even have any affiliation with a university or a research lab. He’s just an office patent examiner!

Unknown to the editor, this side hustler will radically transform the way we understand the world. And 1905 will go in history as Annus Mirabilis: The Miracle Year.

On December 31, 1999, Time magazine named Albert Einstein, the author of these four articles, the most influential person of the 20th century, outranking Gandhi, Churchill, and Roosevelt!

Walter Isaacson, who penned the biography of Einstein, argue that Einstein’s day job as a patent office clerk was a blessing in disguise: “The work was very easy for him. He quickly went through each patent application and checked the math. He would finish his daily duties in about four hours.”

Bored and with ample mental energy to keep going, the physicist used his leftover focus to build his side hustle, i.e., developing groundbreaking theories in physics.
How Having A Job Can Fuel Your Side Hustle
By: Gracia Kleijnen
Tags: Jobs, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Side Project, Side Hustle

Many jobs I’ve had served me well for a while, but didn’t feel as fulfilling as I hoped they would. I’ve never made it anywhere past the 2-year mark in one position, for many different reasons. I also always thought that I’d be best off not having a full time job to have all the time to work on my various side projects and work harder on them so that these would provide me the income I need.

This previous year, I had a go at that, and it didn’t work out that well. Through working full time I had saved up enough money to last for a full year without needing any job, providing I’d live on a budget.

I planned to finish a YouTube project I had started two years before. Even though I did publish several videos, the pace was laughable. During that whole year my output was: 19 videos. Mental health issues surfaced and slowed down the pace further. I did not finish the project and most certainly did not turn that into a living of any kind.
Prevent What Makes You Unhappy
By: Jordan Gross
Tags: Life, Mental Health, Motivation, Life Lessons, Inspiration

Prevent What Makes You Unhappy

You don’t always have to do what makes you happy.

Photo by The Creative Exchange on Unsplash

I took the drink away from my lips, and I picked up the cap on the counter with my left hand. I flipped it over and was pleasantly surprised to see words on the underside. Being that it was a Snapple bottle, I should have remembered, but I hadn’t had a Snapple in so long. Each Snapple Cap comes with a Snapple Fact. On this bottle the fact read: “Cherophobia is the fear of happiness.”

Who could possibly be scared of being happy? I thought to myself. But then I remembered a time in college when I was volunteering at an Alzheimer’s center. I was having a conversation with the daughter of one of the Alzheimer’s patients. Her name was Jessica. Jessica’s dad was deteriorating mentally and physically quickly, and each day it took more of a toll on Jessica. I remember having an intense, dark, yet eye-opening conversation with her during her father’s final days. She told me,

“I’ll be happy when he’s finally at peace. But I’m just so scared for that day to come.”

While I ruminated on this powerful statement, I couldn’t help but try to come up with ways for Jessica to be happy now. Why must she wait for the inevitable? Why couldn’t she have some semblance of happiness each day until that day ultimately occurred? Sadly however, I didn’t have much time to consider this. Jessica’s father passed only a few days later.

When I checked back in with Jessica after a few weeks, I was eager to see a brighter, happier person. However, this was not the case. She mentioned how her fear of happiness, her fear that she’d be happy when her father passed, had washed away when her dad finally left her. She was ready to be happy. She honestly just thought she would be knowing her dad was at peace. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t happy because she didn’t know what made her happy anymore.

While Jessica no longer suffered from cherophobia, she suffered from something even more dangerous. It’s one of the most dangerous phrases in the English language.
Motivational Monday — 12/28/2020. About Me Stories — New Updates and New…
By: Quy Ma
Tags: About Me, Community, Motivation, Bio, Writing

Motivational Monday — 12/28/2020

About Me Stories — New Updates and New Writers

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

Hey everyone!

We’re officially entering the last week of 2020! What are your New Year’s resolutions when it pertains to Medium? What about your personal life? What goals are you seeking to achieve there? I’d love to hear them! Leave responses below.

Big Milestone

3 months ago, I didn’t even know what a Medium publication was. But fast forward to now and this publication, About Me Stories, has reached more than 1,000 followers! This has been the best Christmas gift ever for me!

I’ve been incredibly humbled by the amount of excitement, support, and eagerness in the Medium community to contribute to this publication. I had started this publication with no expectations and no direction. I simply wanted a publication to host my lonely self-published “About Me” introduction I had pinned in my profile.

But a few weeks passed and I noticed more and more Medium writers were self-publishing “About Me” introductions, both new and veteran writers alike. I wanted to create an inclusive and equal place where readers could read about the best part about Medium — the writers themselves!

Even though 2020 has been hard on the world, I’ve been going through some tough personal times. I started writing on Medium as a form of therapy to cope with my personal issues. Starting this publication and reading about Medium writers from all over the globe has been the highlight of my year.

So thank you from the bottom of my heart to each and every one of you for being here!

Cheers to 2021!
I’m No Longer Broken
By: Jennifer M. Wilson
Tags: Mental Health, Depression, Relationships, Psychology, Self Improvement

Like any broken human, I was the queen of self-help books. Over two decades of thinking each book will be The One to solve all that ailed me. That’s a tall order for any single book given my (perceived) pile of flaws and trauma. Truthfully, most self-help books can distill down to a few sentences. The rest of the book is full of reiterated fluff so the author can meet page counts and seem like an expert in their field.

At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, I read “Girl, Wash Your Face” by Rachel Hollis. While reading it, I made the realization: I was sick of waiting for permission to live my life. Homegirl could churn out content for her books because she wasn’t sitting on a couch with a bag of Doritos reading about how to live.

I don’t remember even finishing the book. With resolve, I decided I was done being held back by my anxiety. Not that I was cured of my anxiety and psychological issues; I was going to move forward whether I had my issues or not. Life doesn’t stop just because you have anxiety attacks. I vowed to better function with generalized anxiety rather than fixate on how to cure it.

It’s worth noting that I still had issues. I was still plagued with insecurity and feeling worthless. I just didn’t let that stop me from doing the things I wanted to do. Given quarantine and social distancing, the list of what I wanted to do was limited. I splurged on a bike (that took four months to arrive because everyone else had the same idea). I exercised with goals beyond “lose weight and stop looking like trash”. I wrote for fun on Medium and shockingly made $5k in three months. I re-opened my Etsy shop I folded years ago. At the end of summer, I had surgery to fix a crummy tummy tuck I had done years ago.

The biggest change was telling my husband I no longer wanted our marriage. The future stopped looking scary when I decided that being in limbo made me more miserable than the unknown.
5 Useful Image Manipulation Techniques Using Python OpenCV
By: Yong Cui
Tags: Machine Learning, Python3, Artificial Intelligence, Python, Programming

Introduction

Although many programmers don’t need to worry about processing images in their daily jobs, chances are that we may have to deal with images for small jobs. For instance, we may need to resize thousands of images to a particular size, or we may add a common background to all the images in a particular directory. Without a programmatic solution, these tasks are very tedious and time-consuming.

In this article, I want to introduce five basic image manipulation techniques using the OpenCV library that are to address some of these needs. If you haven’t installed OpenCV on your computer, you can install it very conveniently with the pip tool: pip install opencv-python . Please note that we use this library using import cv2 , which is just to extend the convention of importing the old version of OpenCV with import cv .

Once you’re able to import the library without any issues, you’re good to try some functionalities in this brief tutorial. For the sake of demonstration purposes, the present article will be using the image that is shown at the beginning of the article.

Before we can manipulate images, the first thing is to read the image, which can be done conveniently with the imread function, as shown below.

Read image

The generated data is a numpy array. Using a numpy array allows us to manipulate the data just as manipulating the numeric values of the array.

array. Using a array allows us to manipulate the data just as manipulating the numeric values of the array. The shape of the image can be accessed by its shape attribute. It tells us how large the image is, and it also tells us its composition of BGR scales (i.e., blue, green, and red). Each color constitutes a matrix of the 3D array. For instance, if we need to get the blue scale, we can use indexing original[:, :, 0] .

attribute. It tells us how large the image is, and it also tells us its composition of BGR scales (i.e., blue, green, and red). Each color constitutes a matrix of the 3D array. For instance, if we need to get the blue scale, we can use indexing . The total number of pixels can be accessed by the image’s size attribute.

attribute. It’s also important to know the data type of the numpy array. In many other applications, numpy arrays use the floating-point data type. However, in processing the images, the default data type is uint8 . If you take another look at examining the range of the values, you’ll find the following, which is what you can expect with a color expressed by the RGB values in integers.