fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Photo Essay: These Countries Are Making Sanitation Gains with USAID’s Help
By: Usaid Water Team
Tags: Sanitation, Public Health, Africa, Asia, Sustainable Development

INDONESIA

Home to more than half of the country’s 260 million residents, Indonesia’s cities have grown in population by more than four percent annually — the fastest urban growth rate in Asia. By 2025, more than two out of every three Indonesians will live in an urban area, meaning that municipal authorities will have to think creatively about how to best deploy technology and financing to get sanitation services and infrastructure to the crowded urban areas that need it.

Thanks to the efforts of sanitation advocates at all levels of government and within local communities, Indonesia appears well-positioned to further build the capacity of its sanitation sector. According to the most recent available data, the country ranked eighth in the world in 2017 for annual rate of change in expanding access to basic sanitation (1.88 percent) while simultaneously reducing its annual rate of change for open defecation by 1.34 percent. Nevertheless, unregulated wastewater disposal and underfunded sanitation services are still prevalent in many cities, putting families and communities at constant risk of contracting waterborne diseases. These challenges also stand in the way of Indonesia realizing its vision for self-reliance in providing universal access to safe water and sanitation for its citizens.

To improve the country’s sanitation outlook, the USAID Indonesia Urban Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Penyehatan Lingkungan untuk Semua (IUWASH PLUS) project has expanded the reach of sanitation services, strengthened wastewater utilities’ financial footing, and implemented public awareness initiatives and behavior change campaigns by working with the private sector, donors, non-governmental organizations, utilities, and 35 local governments in eight provinces since 2016. Growing Indonesia’s urban sanitation market has been a primary focus of these efforts. To that end, IUWASH PLUS engages the private sector to facilitate microfinance loans, assists the government to target subsidies for the poor so that more families and neighborhoods can stay healthy, and promotes community savings arrangements so that interested residents can construct more toilets and septic tanks. Local private sector firms contribute corporate social responsibility funds so that sanitation improvements are even more affordable. This heightened private sector engagement enhances quality of life for urban neighborhoods by allowing families to spend savings on their childrens’ education and other essential needs, while improving the financial bottom line of firms and utilities in the sanitation sector.

Today, nearly three out of four Indonesians can access basic and safely managed sanitation services. Keeping its focus on meeting the needs of the country’s most vulnerable communities, IUWASH PLUS aims to increase access to safely managed sanitation to more than 500,000 Indonesians by 2021.

Follow @airsanitasi on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for the latest IUWASH PLUS updates.
Collaborate on Debugging with Asayer
By: Laurena Dehlouz
Tags: DevOps, Software Engineering, Collaboration, Debugging, Silos

Collaborate on Debugging with Asayer

Silos within engineering team are a common organizational problem. They exist when members within a same team are separated by task or expertise, which means that they do not all work together.

In order to remedy this problem, it is important for teams to have a common platform through which they can get a common idea of their software, and where they can work together to make it better.

Debugging Collaboration

Debugging is everybody’s business. Yet, nobody wants to do it. We get it, it’s a time consuming and often-times frustrating job, but it is necessary.

It’s what determines the quality of the software you are releasing into the world. A good debugging strategy makes the difference between satisfied users and a bad software experience. In the digital world, that means money.

At Asayer, we believe that if engineers have a common platform through which they can uncover and fix issues together, then debugging and resolving issues becomes much easier and friction-free.

In the above example, one of our users is experiencing a performance issue, his session is slow. After identifying the problem, I can share the session through Slack or Jira, so that my co-workers can act on it immediately. That way, I can inform them of the problem, without leaving my desk, or even the application.

On that note

The benefits of friction-less collaboration cannot be overstated, especially when it comes down to breaking down silos.

To add collaboration tools to your Asayer Dashboard, simply head to your ‘Integrations’ page and follow the integrations. We are slowly adding more integration for more collaboration tools, so don’t hesitate to give us some feedback on what you would like to see on Asayer.
Matt’s Tidbits #51 — Easy stack traces
By: Matthew Groves
Tags: Android Studio, Tidbittuesday, Mattstidbits, Debugging, Android

Last time I wrote about a strange behavior that can happen when you use Mockito incorrectly in Kotlin. This week, have a quick tidbit on a helpful Android Studio debugger feature.

On Friday I found myself trying to track down a difficult problem where some code would sometimes crash. At first glance, it appeared that a service was running after having been stopped. It turned out this was partially true. Instead, this service was being started multiple times. This code used some Rx observables, but re-initialized the CompositeDisposable each time start was called. This meant that when this service was later stopped, only the observables that were added after the second time start() was called would get cleaned up later.

The easy fix for this would have been to change the code so that the CompositeDisposable was not overwritten, but I was concerned about additional side-effects (and the root cause of why start() was being called multiple times), so I kept digging.

It soon became clear that start() was being called from multiple places, and I needed an easy way to identify what order this was happening from — and comparing this against an older working version of the app. I could have put print statements at each call site, but this would have been cumbersome (and messy — I would have to remove them later).

Additionally, adding a breakpoint and pausing execution was not a good option either because some of the Rx observables would time out after a few seconds, making it very difficult to absorb the information in the stack trace without affecting the behavior of the program.

Then, I remembered that Android Studio has a fantastic feature for just this purpose — non-suspending breakpoint stack traces!

To use these yourself, add a breakpoint to your code like you normally would by clicking in the left gutter area of a code window.

Then, right-click on that breakpoint and un-check the “Suspend” checkbox (so the program will keep executing when it reaches this breakpoint):

This will open up a larger version of the dialog. Then all you need to do is check the “Stack trace” box:

Now, just run your app in debug mode, and stack traces will be printed to the Debug window any time this line of code is executed! Using this, I was able to track down all of the places my code was being called from and eventually figure out why this was happening. And, I didn’t have any print statements or other stack trace-producing code to clean up after the fact.

I hope you learned something useful that will help make your own debugging easier in the future! Let me know in the comments what other debugging tools you like to use. And, please follow me on Medium if you’re interested in being notified of future tidbits.

Interested in joining the awesome team here at Intrepid? We’re hiring!

This tidbit was discovered on January 10, 2020.
Debugging mischiefs — A newline. I ended up tidying up both of these two…
By: Mr Anderson
Tags: Programming, Error Handling, Django, Debugging, Python

This coffee image has been downloaded from Unsplash. So I forgot to copy the creator's name.

I have spent pretty much the great amount of the last couple of days thinking or debugging on two URLs that were crashing on the development server. I have put them up for the beta and I have tested them, they worked perfectly. Even when I debug, the code works perfectly on my laptop but the moment I tried to test my project on the dev server, it returns 404 URL not found!

I write backends in python, so the project is in Django. URL configuration seemed good because otherwise, the project would not even run locally. I tried changing the Nginx config on the server but dang! it did not work out. I ended up changing the entire class structure for one URL and changing both URL configuration from re_path to path just for the peace of my mind! And after going through all of this fiasco, I finally figured what is wrong! When I was creating the Postman env for beta (dev) server, I accidentally put a newline (hit the enter key!) on an env variable which was going on both of these URLs. Since there was an extra newline on the URL, the server can’t match its existing URLs and my local Postman does not have a newline on any env variables, so there’s no issue there! Since the frontend engineer also uses the environment I provided them with the documentation, they did not even check the newline issue because the server is throwing 404 — Not found at them.

I ended up tidying up both of these two classes and another class function in this process, so it’s a win-win situation for me. It was freakishly funny though!
Learning to Rank using XGBoost. sci-kit learn and Pandas
By: Simon Lind
Tags: Data Science, Pandas, Scikit Learn, Machine Learning, Xgboost

When ranking, the aim is not to accurately predict the final order. Instead you are essentially trying to find what data points are relevant in the current query, and which are not. The target for Learning to Rank is a relevance score, which tells you how relevant the data point is in the current group.

In the case of horse racing the only relevant horse is the winner, the runner up can be somewhat relevant, depending on the margin to the winner. The horse which places 10:th is just as irrelevant as the one who places 11:th.

Modelling

Now that we have our training and test data, we need to pass it to the model. When performing Learning to Rank we must pass another key word argument to the model, our group. This arguments takes an array of the sizes of the groups in the training data.

If you have two groups in your training data, one with 10 instances and one with 7, the groups array should simply be [10, 7]. It is imperative that the training data is still sorted on the query id.

Lets add the code to get the group array for training.

Now we are ready to fit our model, to build a ranking model, we use the XGBRanker module of the xgboost package.

Model fit using XGBRanker

Predicting

With the model trained using the training data, we are ready to make predictions on the test set. Usually we would use the models predict function on the entire test set, but the predict method does not take a group argument. So we need to do our predictions once per group.

This snippet is how I solved this issue

And we have our prediction. I’ve written a small function which decorates the prediction with the horses start number. Here is a set of lists with each horses start number, in descending order according to the predicted rank. Each list corresponds to a race for V64 at Solvalla 2021–02–23. Here I am only showing the top 50%.

1 [1, 6, 9, 8, 4]

2 [3, 8, 2, 4, 11, 10]

3 [2, 6, 8, 5]

4 [10, 11, 8, 6]

5 [6, 10, 4, 2]

6 [3, 4, 5, 11]

And the actual results:

V64 at Solvalla 2021–02–23

1 [1*, 6, 9, 8, 4]

2 [3*, 8, 2, 4, 11, 10]

3 [2, 6*, 8, 5]

4 [10, 11, 8, 6*]

5 [6, 10*, 4, 2]

6 [3*, 4, 5, 11]

The model is able to pick the top horse in 3/6 races and top two in 5/6!
How to Find People on Clubhouse
By: Jan Tegze
Tags: Recruiting, Recruitment, Osint, Social Media, Sourcing Candidates

What Is the Clubhouse App?

If you never heard about Clubhouse and you’re wondering what it is, it’s a new social media app — currently an invite-only app — that everyone’s talking about. It’s already attracted several celebrities who’ve started using it. And this new social network is becoming very popular, especially in business and marketing circles.

The company describes itself and their Clubhouse app as “a new type of social product based on voice. It allows people everywhere to talk, tell stories, develop ideas, deepen friendships, and meet interesting new people around the world.” It is an invite-only audio-based social media app where participants can move around virtual rooms discussing various topics.

The Clubhouse is an audio-based app so you are talking to others in virtual chat rooms. You can join the discussion or leave to talk to another group. And if you want to talk you just raise your hand, and the speakers can choose to invite you up. You have also an option to create your own room on any topic you want.

At this moment there are no options for images or video.
The Art of Accepting — Is it too difficult?
By: Manish Bhatia
Tags: Train Your Mind, Acceptance, Mindfulness, Meditation, Letting Go

Acceptance , whether you have to accept someone else or your own self, this is difficult. Yes, it certainly is difficult to learn the art of accepting.

Theory of art of Accepting

Let me tell you it’s a two way traffic , more like a give & take relationship because to develop or learn the art of accepting, you have to first learn to let go & the one thing that should be abandoned in the process is your EGO

If you realize, acceptance is not difficult but to shed your ego is difficult, and that makes the entire process look high hill. Fortunately, it is possible to learn to accept.

Personal Experience

Allow me to share a small incident that happened with me recently. I was in talks with a prospective client to schedule an appointment to meet & discuss. After a few back & forth email exchanges, we decided on time, venue , agenda etc.

I reached the client’s place at scheduled time & was waiting at the reception. Barely 5 minutes later, their spokesperson was in front of me informing that meeting has been cancelled.

Why? The person I was meeting got busy in something that needed urgent attention — (read my article on Paid Reality). I left the place.

To cut the story short, I met the client today & had a wonderful meeting. During our conversation, I did mention about the meeting that got cancelled at the last minute, while being present at the venue last week. I categorically mentioned that had this cancellation happened a few years ago, I wouldn’t have come back & moved on to another prospective client.

Conclusion or Takeaway

But today, it’s different because now I had put myself in your shoes to understand your perspective. And surprisingly, she mentioned that she was unsure if I would ever come back. This all was possible because Mindfulness practice helps you reach that level.

A level, where you are developing the art of having a non-judgmental attention or simply put the art of acceptance .

Beginning of a new chapter

This is the beginning of art of accepting (a difficult task) things , people & above all your own self. Take a deep breath & respond to situations like this & don’t react. In most cases, reaction brings an adverse effect on your relationship with prospective clients, family, friends & with yourself too.

Hope you not only enjoy reading but are learning new perspectives as well. You can connect with me on Linkedin, if you wish to.
The art of acceptance!
By: Pulkit Arora
Tags: Acceptance, Life, Life Lessons, Experience, Love

“Understanding is the first step to acceptance and only with acceptance can there be recovery” — J.K. Rowling.

All of us come across several instances in our life when we feel disturbed, hurt by something or a person or any situation. In this situation, we all try to introspect and try to come up with a root cause. It often happens with everyone of us when we know the reason behind the problem but we are unable to accept it. We want someone else to tell us the same reason and which we find it really difficult to accept it.

A simple word with a very deep meaning. It means to accept a thing, a person, a situation or be it anything. But have you ever asked yourself, why it becomes so hard for us to accept some things. Yes, the root cause of all our problems is this mere word, feeling of acceptance.

In today’s scenario, nothing is right or wrong because everyone of us have set our rights and wrongs. There maybe a situation where something is right according to a person and wrong in regards to some other person’s perspective or his view point. We often hurt ourselves by thinking too much, as we assume that other person has hurt us in a way that we think is not right.

Let me help you with the art of acceptance. Whenever you face a problem, situation or any kind of circumstance where your inner soul is unable to accept; try to follow the below steps:

Ask yourself why? Your inner soul can never be wrong and it’ll always tell you the right answer. It is just that you do not want to accept it.

Write the reason or say it loud. Listen to the answer and say it loud enough that your conscious mind can hear it or write it on some piece of paper and read it loudly.

Say to yourself, “Whatever happens, happens for a reason”. There’s no point thinking too much and making it a reason for your sadness.

The art of self-acceptance is as difficult as losing a sprint race. Deep down, everyone of us hate the feeling of loosing. We all want to win and be a hero in our own eyes, our loved ones, relatives and friends. We choose not to accept somethings because we have a fight on-going between our ego’s or the solution and the problem; and we don’t want to loose the fight in any case.

But sometimes, we have no options left. We have to accept the situation in the way it is. Just try accepting it once, you’ll feel the sense of satisfaction, happiness. A happy soul is the one who accepts the situation and moves on. Even though it is difficult, but not impossible.
On Acceptance
By: Sean Cardinalli
Tags: Acceptance, Recovery, Addiction, Sex Addiction, Self Improvement

On Acceptance

Photo by Saad Chaudhry on Unsplash

March 1, 2010

Today, I’m working on acceptance. There’s a famous passage in the AA “Big Book” which reads:

“And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. I need not concentrate so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.”

Acceptance is a hugely important aspect of recovery I’m really trying to nurture right now. I have over a year’s sobriety. But I’m divorcing, and what’s more, I’m not able to communicate with my family of origin about the challenges I’m currently facing. I’d appreciate some sort of Little House on the Prairie moment where my family and I can hear each other out. But when answers about my life’s challenges don’t quite jive with their expectations, they lash out at me. When that happens, I have to quickly remove myself from their dissonance before losing my cool too badly. One day recently, I removed myself from my family’s toxicity and worked the hell out of my program. I was so agitated, I wrote an email, copied my sponsor, therapist, and others on it, made plenty of calls, and let all these caring, nonjudgmental people in my life know that I was having a very painful moment.

I’m grateful for these people. I’m thankful the program has taught me to go to them instead of going back to porn, instead of isolating. I didn’t act out. That’s a pretty big victory, considering the circumstances. I didn’t go for that “hit” to blur away my pain. And that’s a big part of acceptance. Another part of acceptance is acknowledging that my family of origin isn’t going to be there for me in the way I might have once idealized them to be. But my aforementioned sponsor, therapist, and friends can be. They can be who I rely on during these trying times. These positive people in my life can be my new family.

Acceptance isn’t always easy because being in the moment isn’t always easy. It’s going to be damn painful sometimes. And right now, there’s plenty for me to be pained by, and there are plenty of reasons to act out. But there is a more important reason not to: my sanity. My health and sanity flourish via my spiritual program of recovery. A friend in the program with over 10 years of sobriety recently said to me, “You don’t have to like where you are, that’s not a requirement. You just have to try to sit with it, let the moment come and go, and acknowledge that it’s where you’re supposed to be for now.” That’s acceptance.
Metamorphosis
Tags: Fiction, Short Fiction, Short Story, Short Read, Horror

Original Image by Matthew Staviki

It was in the dead of night that I awoke in a bed not my own, next to a man I did not know.

I was at once afraid, but not for this alone. It was the shadow that stood hunched in the corner of the room that stole my attention, reducing me to a bed of tears and instilling in me the fear of my apparent mortality. Each passing moment brought with it a new stage of metamorphosis as the shadow gradually took form, presenting before my eyes a stature for which the room could hardly contain, yet this appeared to be a mere trifle. These walls would accommodate it, its presence was thus; a solid mass which, simultaneously, filled the room like smoke.

A moment passed, and it’s trunk like arms hung from the ceiling to the floor. Another, and it’s perfectly round head seemed close to falling, surely to be followed by the rest of it. Then, in the blink of an eye, jutting forth from its head were two crimson marbles that glistened amidst the darkness. They defied logic — a singularity for which I had no explanation. But I suppose we were well past that stage, for there was no sense to be made about the figure that stood before me.

All transformations ceased as I feared for what was to come next, yet nothing happened. It simply stood there — watching; waiting. For what, I wondered, but was too afraid to pose such questions on it. I closed my eyes and thought of you, of how I wished you would save me from this terrible nightmare. A small voice inside me called out to you, to which my tormentor answered with encroaching steps. It stood motionless at the foot of the bed. My eyes refused to open, but I knew — I could feel it.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” it said, in a husky voice that sounded strangely familiar. Curious, I opened my eyes to see your brother standing there. Resting naturally atop his head was a wig that did not fit his image: A pearlescent bowl-cut on the head of a tall, stocky black male. This had to be a dream, this could not possibly be real. I found it amusing; this was just the sort of thing my subconscious would conjure up.

I asked him what he was doing here, but he would not answer. I asked if he recognised the man beside me; he responded with continued silence.

“Why should I be ashamed of myself?” I asked

“What was that baby?” said the man laying beside me, as he awoke.

It was then that I realised it was happening again. As if leaving him wasn’t enough, he continued to haunt me in my dreams. I attempted to leap from the bed, but found that I could not.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said your brother, with added scorn in his voice. I pleaded for his help, but the words would not reach my lips. He looked at me with unfeeling eyes and shrugged before descending through the wooden floorboards, to be seen no more. He left me paralysed in this strange room, bedraggled in sweat, and marred by a guilty conscience. Alone, with only the man from whom I have long since tried to escape from to comfort me; promising that I would be safe.

My tormentor had taken its final form — its metamorphosis was complete.
From Zero to $1000 MRR in 4 Months — How I Created a Shopify App MicroSaaS
By: Erikas Mališauskas
Tags: Growth Hacking, Shopify Apps, Shopify, Microsaas, Growth

Launch & Growth

Finally, we were ready to launch our app. I planned to launch it totally free for everyone so I could gather as much feedback as possible. That worked great. When we launched, I posted about our app in few Facebook groups and told them that we’re offering exclusive free membership to our app in exchange for feedback/reviews.

Note that capturing positive reviews is the key if you want to appear at the top of the list in search. So after every comment that it’s useful etc. I replied that it would be very helpful if they could leave our app a review.

Almost 500 merchants installed our app in their shops in the first week after the launch. We made it to the #1 of the top trending apps in the whole Shopify app store which boosted the growth even more. We gathered a lot of feedback and many feature requests. We were improving the app on a daily basis which helped us to gather lots of positive reviews as people who asked for the specific feature were getting it in a couple of days.

After a couple of weeks, we were the #1 app when searching for all these relative keywords: icons, guarantees, features, highlights, etc. That meant that we will continue to grow organically and we’re ready to introduce monetization and start earning.

4 months of merchant growth since the launch

Monetization

Even before launching an app, I was pretty much clear about how it will be monetized. I think that freemium is the best model in terms of growth and revenue for such an app. I analyzed other popular apps’ pricing/upgrading to premium experience and decided to have 4 plans: Free limited plan, Monthly premium at 5.99$, Yearly premium at 2.99$ (35.88$/year) and a Lifetime premium for 59.99$. We also left everyone with premium features if they installed the app before introducing the monetization. Around 1200 merchants were using our app for free at the time.

The same day after introducing premium to our app we started getting subscriptions. Growth slowed down a little bit but we finally started generating revenue. Now it’s exactly 2 months after our monetization started and we earned more than 2500$ with current monthly recurring revenue of $1051 (+88% growth last month). There are more than 1800 merchants currently using our app.
24 Major Businesses Accepting Bitcoin & Crypto Payments
By: Bitgo Editor
Tags: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Payments, Industry

Though we are only several months into the year, Bitcoin has already had a groundbreaking 2021. Endorsements from prominent figures in the financial world, increased institutional investment, and Tesla investing $1.5 billion into Bitcoin have all enhanced the digital asset’s legitimacy. Bitcoin’s adoption as a means of exchange has also made exponential progress over the last few years. This increasing mainstream adoption is apparent in the evolution of consumers having the option to use Bitcoin to buy household items on Overstock.com in 2014 to today’s announcement that one can buy a Tesla using Bitcoin.

Below is a list of 24 companies representing the most forward thinking, crypto-friendly and globally-recognized businesses; all accepting cryptocurrency payments in some form.

Retail & Entertainment

Services

Travel

Not all of these merchants are receiving Bitcoin directly yet they serve as strong evidence of digital assets’ growing mainstream adoption. These companies are evidence of the infinite potential Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology have to offer for enterprise corporations.

Digital assets are changing everything about the way business is done globally. With unexpected stimuli changing the economy on a daily basis, it is important to remember there are trusted partners to guide the way. BitGo has a long history of securing assets for some of the largest companies, investors, and liquidity providers in the world. Find out how to safely and securely buy, hold, and trade Bitcoin or other digital assets for your business.

Disclaimer: Data cited above current as of publication date. BitGo is not affiliated with any of the entities listed above, and the information provided is not a testimonial in support of any entity or recommendation for any services. No legal, tax, investment, or other advice is provided by any BitGo entity.
11/14/19
By: Tia Jones
Tags: Copperline, Familyplanning, Coffee, Rving, Diary

Ah, titles are so hard aren’t they? sometimes the title of an article can be the most fun, other times its the hardest part. That is my favorite part of letting each of these titles just be the date. More effective, I’m sure.

Copperline Coffee is a place you will be hearing about often so let me introduce you to it as best as I can without bringing you here to taste the coffee. Firstly this is their second location and this location has its own separate personality while still being recognizable brand wise. Its has deep blue/grey maybe green(?) walls that make this place seem to shift and change with the weather and time of day. It makes it so whenever you walk in you feel as if you have been magically transported to the exact place you need in that moment in time. Think the room of requirement, or maybe even heaven. This location has some uniformity in its furniture and chairs. The fabric chairs are sapphire, emerald, or a deep slate grey. The metal chairs have wood grain seats, and they are a deep dark chocolate brown. These seats are inviting, as if they beckon one to stay a while. The seats bring a level of elegance that the first location doesn’t need or want to have. The counter is distressed multicolored wood that echos the lightness of the first location and also celebrates that which makes this beach town unique and beautiful .When you open the door you have the cafe sounds and always a cool mellow playlist. The smells of coffee and espresso fill the air and envelope promising a coffee experience you never knew you so desperately wanted and needed.

Anyways, That is where I am writing this. This is the place i will reference.

Fitting because I wanted to mention how some days I feel like hot cocoa, or maybe a hot vanilla latte. Warm, sweet, comforting! Other days I feel like black cold brew, Bitter, Cold, nothing to temper me. Yesterday I was a latte, today I was cold brew, and tomorrow who knows maybe I will be something new entirely. I know not what to do with this yet, but I hope to someday use it to my advantage. Use it as inspiration maybe. I could use a new muse anyways.

My brother is heading to my house, road trip for him. It is a reminder to me about the main concern i have about leaving here. Will I regret not spending time with my family while they are here and around? I don’t really know which would cause the most regret. Does it matter? I try to remind myself often that ultimately if I play my cards right I don’t have to want for anything. One of the big pushes for life in an rv is a constant reminder that quality matters 100 times over quantity.

It’s closing time and copperline, so its closing time on this writing too.
15
Tags: Life, Journal, Personal, Diary

Why is it still so hard to forget everything that’s happened? Why is it still stuck in my mind? I’m trying everything that I can to get it out of my mind but it’s just not working…

I’ve talked to someone about it for the first time ever and I admit it did make me feel a little lighter but at the same time, I don’t think anyone can understand how it made me feel and how it continues to affect me ’til this day. As much as possible I do try to shrug it off whenever the thought enters my mind but, it’s just at the back always lurking and I’m tired! I’m tired of working so hard to get the thought out of my mind.

I’ve been busy, so I’ve been trying not to think about things that I know won’t make my life any easier. It just would be nice for someone to understand me; to say that everything that I feel is valid and there’s nothing wrong for being down sometimes because of it. I just want that but, unfortunately, there’s no one in my life right now that can say that to me.

I guess I should stop sulking now. I just wanted to get my frustrations out rather than keeping it all in and exploding, because to be honest, I don’t have the time to do that at this moment in my life.

I’ll keep trying to be as positive as I can.
Exercise in Empathy #3
By: Black Cane Diary
Tags: Visual Impairment, Diary

[In this short series, five friends imagine themselves in my shoes and write an entry for the diary]

One night in Bogotá, in Colombia, years ago, before I’d started using the cane. I must have been 24 or 25 or maybe even 23. One night on my way home I heard music from a courtyard beyond my field of vision. The music was Latino music or rock or reggaeton, it doesn’t matter, I can’t remember. What I can remember is I heard the music as if I was both myself, far from it, and another self that was near it, another person who was in the music, in the party. My body felt far from the music but my mind was near it, within it, even, as if I was imagining it, as if I was, in fact, turning the music into an image. And what was the image like, what was the music like? It was the sound of images I’d already seen, sounds and images of women and speakers and cans of beer and amputated hands tracing circles of meaning in the air, images of fully stocked fridges and sounds of lighters in the brick-like silence of the city, images and sounds I recalled from those times when I’d been in the music, when I’d been at a party with that kind music — Latino or rock or reggaeton, it makes no difference really — it was the image of music as a displaced, intangible waterfall, it was the promise of other images too, images of doors closing behind me and the naked body of a woman in my bed, never a body in its full glory, always a part of it, always a metonym, a sign in whose shape I could divine the shape of the whole, a shape that would instruct my desire to divine the whole, but the image wasn’t just that, it was also a tunnel and a corrosion and a dust storm and a slow eruption of light where I saw a face I loved, a face which was, perhaps, my face.
Why plants destroy a key immune protein
Tags: Plants, Genes, Science, Biology, Immune System

Plant diseases cause devastating crop losses around the world and threaten the food supply of millions of people. Over time, plants have developed various mechanisms for fighting off infections caused by pests and other pathogens such as viruses and bacteria. When plants become infected they kick their immune system into action by rapidly switching on and off certain genes. They do this by activating the protein NPR1 which regulates the plant’s immune genes. NPR1 is essential for fighting off infections and plants that do not have this protein are highly susceptible to disease.

Peculiarly, once the plant has detected an infection it builds resistance by destroying the NPR1 protein. A previous study suggested that plants do this to replace old ‘inactive’ NPR1 with newer versions that can activate the genes needed to stop the disease developing. This process, however, requires a lot of energy that could be re-directed to other aspects of the immune response. Now, Skelly et al. — including one of the researchers involved in the previous study — have explored whether there may be other reasons for why plants destroy the NPR1 protein.

Plant cells target NPR1 for destruction by repeatedly tagging it with molecules called ubiquitin to form ubiquitin chains. The length of these chains determines whether a protein is stable and ready for action, or whether it is ready to be destroyed. In experiments with a commonly studied plant known as Arabidopsis thaliana, Skelly et al. found that the length of ubiquitin chains attached to the NPR1 protein could fine-tune its level of activity: short ubiquitin chains activate NPR1, while longer chains lead to its destruction and shut down the protein. This suggests that the steps leading to the destruction of NPR1 regulate the immune genes needed to fight off disease.

This work has uncovered important new components of how plants defend themselves from infection. If these findings translate to crop plants they could inform future agricultural strategies for enhancing the plant’s own defences to increase crop yields, which would provide more food for a rapidly growing population.
The Easiest Way to keep mind out of anger.
By: Leonardo Lemos
Tags: Life, Life Lessons, Anger, Depression

What makes people angry? A relationship, the lack of one? Fights and struggles? Perhaps, no matter what your motive is, here’s what may help you out.

from Unsplash; by Benjamin Balázs

According to to Science, those who feel angrier than the others might practice the anger as a habit, not as an emotion or a temporarily feeling.

When you shift your focus, putting it into a TV or in a good song which you are listening to, your anger may suffer modifications, such as the own removal from you.

Those who get angry more frequently are more able to end up, as many might think, having a unhappy day, week, month, year, etcetera.

Whilst you’re writing, you could focus on your anger. Persons who have mainteined a diary may, more easily, write these bad feelings out, just as those who have lost a close one may do as well. By the way, Psychiatrists do recommend writing bad feeling out in moments of anxiety, depression or even anger. Either are feeling which a pen and a sheet may destroy, not like a hit and run but as a Burkian feeling, gradually, slowly but continuously.

I know, this might be ridiculous if you are reading this in a moment of anger and searched Google for a solution to your problem, but believe me, I’ve spent some minutes at websites looking for the same solution that you are doing, and I’ve found only this way. You write it out, not in.

As anxiety, this fly still seeks you, as distant as you proceed from that, but if you keep, the fly will get exhausted, and when it becomes exhausted, it does not bother you like once, or now, it is.

Well, if you are reading this, you are at Medium, what you need to do is simply to open your profile at left upside, roll downward “New Story” and make it happen on your own, no one else besides you has your mind.
The Fatigue of Resilience
By: Emily Ferrell
Tags: Resilience, Anger, Fatigue, Soul, Assault

My anger: I covet it, cradling it close to my body like a fragile, flighty thing. It’s the feeling of lightheadedness when I stand up too suddenly, brain and surrounding fluid scrambling to catch up with gravity, or when I stop walking after too much coffee only to find my head a half step behind my body in space. My heart pounds. It’s akin to excitement, but moderately more painful — a persistent heavy-handed jackhammer to the upper left of my thoracic cavity.

It’s a mild intoxication flooding my veins with the ferocity of back-to-back-to-back tequila shots. I am compelled. It is a driving force, if there ever was such a thing. I feel as if my heart will literally take off sprinting to explode out of my chest, a comic relief of the comic relief of the Space Balls alien. But instead of a top hat and cane, this alien heart breathes fire.

And you. How can one take offence at another’s trauma? Though I have rage to spare, I can’t spend my precious energy being angry with you. I’ve tried. Oh, how I’ve tried. I’ve seen you as worthy of my love: once, you made me feel so SEEN, even though I have been struggling for space ever since. At the beginning, I told you my favourite quality in a person is empathy, but both my heart and my eyes are too tired to seek this anymore. You have had every opportunity to show up, to stand up for me and with me, though time and again I am left floundering in the shallow end of your attention. And now… well, now you are just a story I tell to my friends when they ask what’s new.
Announcing Beam’s First Grant Recipient: Ampaire!
By: Beam Project
Tags: Airlines, Electric Vehicles, Clean Energy, Crowdfunding, Climate Change

Image credit: Ampaire, Inc.

Air travel is a big deal when it comes to climate change. Each year, aircraft contribute 800 million tons of carbon emissions to our total greenhouse gas load. They are a source of particulates and condensation trails (contrails) that contribute to atmospheric pollution and are a secondary source of warming. Often, air travel is the biggest slice of the average person’s carbon footprint, and has become a huge cause of climate angst. But airplanes, like other technological advances, have connected society and improved our quality of life substantially. It has become a crucial piece of our modern life. We need to spend less time figuring out how to swear off flying, and more time on technology innovation that can make air travel clean, as soon as possible.

That’s why Beam Project is beyond excited to announce that Beam will be giving it’s first grant to Ampaire, Inc., a California-based startup that is developing hybrid electric aircraft. Co-founders Cory Combs and Kevin Noertker are serious about building airplanes using design and technology that is implementable now, and that can be used to help every person, in every community, travel by air — without the baggage of tailpipe emissions.

Ampaire is already doing some amazing things to achieve this vision. In June 2019, they flew their first hybrid electric aircraft in Camarillo, California (you can check out the video here). Now they are beginning a feasibility study to apply their concept to a 19–passenger plane, with NASA support.

Ampaire’s retrofit strategy is what makes us most excited about their concept for electrifying and decarbonizing air travel. In Kevin’s words, “It’s a low-risk, achievable path to a hybrid/electric, and ultimately a fully electric, future.” Their strategy is also a practical approach that helps keep their costs lower than they would be if they were building new planes. If Ampaire is successful, it will have addressed one of the more difficult challenges we must face to decarbonize society, and will let us stay connected to one another without the guilt.

For our first grant, Beam Project is aiming to give Ampaire $25,000 to help carry their development forward more quickly. You can ask any startup: every dollar helps, and it couldn’t be more crucial for a startup like Ampaire to achieve their vision without being delayed by funding needs. Every donation that you make to Beam, whether it is a one-time donation or through Beam’s round-up tool, will go towards making this grant to Ampaire, and that means you have an opportunity to make a HUGE impact on the status quo of the airline industry.

We can’t do this without you. Help Ampaire make a huge impact on carbon emissions by helping us meet our grant goal!

And make sure to sign up for our newsletter to keep up with our progress meeting our first goal and to stay up to date on the progress of the startups we’re supporting.
Meet the Data Scientist who just cannot stop winning on Kaggle
By: Parul Pandey
Tags: Data Science, Grandmaster, Kaggle, Machine Learning, Competitve Programming

In these series of interviews, I present the stories of established Data Scientists and Kaggle Grandmasters at H2O.ai, who share their journey, inspirations, and accomplishments. These interviews are intended to motivate and encourage others who want to understand what it takes to be a Kaggle Grandmaster.

In this interview, I shall be sharing my interaction with Philipp Singer, better known as Psi in Kaggle world. He is a Kaggle Double Grandmaster and a Senior Data Scientist at H2O.ai. Philipp obtained his Ph.D. in computer science with honors at the Technical University of Graz, where he also finished his Master's studies in Software Development and Business Management.

Philipp has several accomplishments, including multiple winning and top placements on Kaggle and several scientific honors, such as the best paper award at the renowned World Wide Web Conference. He is a former number 1 and currently ranked 2nd in the Kaggle competitions tier, globally, which is both pretty impressive and inspiring at the same time.

One of Philipp's most notable achievements has been winning the NFL’s second annual Big Data Bowl competition by teaming together with a fellow H2O.ai Data Scientist -Dmitry Gordeev. More than 2,000 data scientists from all over the world competed on Kaggle to predict rushing play outcomes. Philipp Singer and Dmitry Gordeev captured the top prize of $50,000 with their approach.
You Are Underutilizing SHAP Values — Feature Groups and Correlations
By: Estevão Uyrá Pardillos Vieira
Tags: Explainable Ai, Data Science, Data Visualization, Kaggle, Machine Learning

The groups give different lenses to look into the data. It is very clear that 3pm is more important than 9am (and it makes sense right? It is later on, so it is closer to the day that we want to predict). Also, it is easy to see that variables related directly to rain or humidity are more important than those related to wind, pressure, and especially temperature.

Things get really more interesting when we deal with more variables. In the UK accidents dataset, there seems to be really much more than we can take at a first glance into the summary plot, and we can start questioning our data by grouping the features.

It makes a lot of sense that the features related to the accident itself are the most impactful for our question (“was the accident fatal”). But It seems that there are an awful lot of different things on the accident group, and it would be nice to have a more detailed view. I have separated the accident variables into three groups: before, during, and after. For example Vehicle_Manoeuvre is before, 1st_Point_of_Impact is during and Did_Police_Officer_Attend_Scene_of_Accident is after.

It makes a lot of sense that the accidents_after variables have so much information, since police is probably only going to attend the scene if the accident is really bad. But there is information available before the accident, such as which kind of manoeuvre the driver or if the vehicle is leaving the carriageway, and this is potentially predictive stuff that could help prevent accidents in the future (“don’t manoeuver here”, “reduce speed when leaving the carriageway”). This has to be done with caution, since it is not a causal model, but I do not want to enter too deep into the data itself, since my purpose is just to give some ideas into different shap analysis. You can do this for specific insights, or like I am doing here just as a model-based exploration of the dataset.

Shap correlations

If you are looking into advanced shap analysis you probably already know a lot about correlations, and know how ungrateful it can be to analyze correlations when the features have completely different distributions, or worse to compare categorical and numerical features. The shap correlation analysis has the very useful property of being undisturbed by such differences. Whether the feature is categorical, ordinal or continuous, its shap value is continuous. You can get some insights about the distribution of the features themselves from the shap correlation plot, but you also understand how their impact is related in the model. You can use this inspection to drive further analysis such as dependency plots between specific pairs of variables with unexpected dependencies. Here I am plotting the absolute value of the spearman correlation. You can possibly be interested in looking at the correlation itself, but sometimes you just want to know that the variables are related, and then the absolute correlation gives a better visualization overall.