fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Nail the Interview: How to Stand Out
By: Main Street Hub
Tags: Recruiting, Team, Culture, Careers, Company Culture

Nail the Interview: How to Stand Out

Our recruiters give tips on answering tough interview questions

We sat down with Main Street Hub’s recruiters and asked how we can help our candidates stand out in interviews with our team. They provided insights on the questions candidates struggle with most and gave tips for how they can prepare to answer them impressively— and avoid throwing up any red flags.

Don’t miss these tough questions and how to prepare:

Can you tell me about a time when you failed?

“People are sometimes afraid to tell recruiters about a weakness or a failure, when really that’s what shows their personal side during an interview.” — Heena Rehmatullah, Sales Recruiter

How to prepare:

Our recruiters say that candidates should think of a mistake they made and how they learned from it. They want to see that candidates feel comfortable with their mistakes, that they own their shortcomings, and that they’ve worked to overcome them.

If you didn’t find success in this role, what would you do to improve?

“Questions that candidates struggle the most with in an interview have to do with role-playing or putting them into a certain scenario. A question could be, “If you didn’t find success in this role, what would you do to improve?” — Raymond Miller, Senior Recruiter

How to prepare:

Our recruiters have often heard as an answer to this question: “I’m not sure,” or “I would try harder.” But, they say that describing action steps like speaking with their manager or looking to teammates and successful team members for advice and insights would show that they are ready to learn, improve, and develop their skills.

Why do you want this job?

One of our recruiters described an experience in an interview where she asked a candidate why he wanted the job and he was unable to articulate the reasons why he wanted it. She says that she was surprised taht despite all the effort he had put into securing the interview, he was unable to answer what should have been the simplest question, “Why do you want to work here?”

How to prepare:

“The reasons for pursuing a job are different for everyone. I would tell candidates to be aware of what motivates them to help them answer that question, and to help their potential future employer understand the mutual benefit of bringing them onto the team.” — Amanda Townley, Sales Recruiter

Why do you want to leave your current position?

One of our recruiters says that she has seen candidates struggle with communicating why they are looking to leave their current position. However, she points out that it’s important for our team to know about the factors and motivations that led to them applying to the role they’re interviewing for.

How to prepare:

“As a recruiter, what I’m looking for is an understanding of what is causing them to explore other opportunities so that I can better assess them for long-term fit in the role they’re looking to fill.” — Kelsey Parker, Sales Recruiter
Recorded Meditations
By: Kelly Dignan
Tags: Nature, Centered, Meditation, Grounded

Stories about the spiritual journey. For more information visit http://kellydignan.com

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Until You Draw Your Last Breath
By: Kelly R. Winzer
Tags: Life Lessons, Autism, Suicide, Mental Health, Hope

In the bright, jarring light of a hospital emergency room, I listened as my first-born explained to a doctor that he wanted to die. He told her that he had a plan and he couldn’t stop himself from following through.

I held him tightly in my arms and silently cried for hours as we waited for a bed to become available at an inpatient psychiatric hospital for children. The thought of leaving my son behind locked doors and barred windows was almost too much for me to bear. Except a few nights with friends or grandma, my baby had never slept more than a room away from me. I vehemently told the social worker assigned to us that there was absolutely no way I was leaving him anywhere.

There had to be help for him that didn’t involve us being apart.

Once we were alone again, this incredibly strong, amazingly wise boy looked me in the eye (which is not an easy thing for him to do) and said,

“We can’t keep doing what we’ve always done, Mom. If we want different results, we need to do something different. I need to go to the treatment.”

At that moment, I knew everything was going to be okay. My son had the peace of mind to know that he needed help and he had no shame in asking for that help. I have seen many things in my life, known many brave souls. Never have I seen a moment shine so brightly with the light of courage and honesty. For as long as I live, I will never forget how confidently my son faced the terrifying truth of his own brokenness.

In that moment, he was the least broken person I had ever known.
Fluent: Design Behind the Design
By: Joseph Mclaughlin
Tags: Fluent Design, Microsoft, Fluent Design System, User Experience, Design

Purpose and process

This month, we’ve launched an update to our Fluent Design System website. The update represents our approach to helping our designers and developers build and design products for our customers. Fluent Design is a collective, open design system that ensures people, teams, and their products have the fundamental components and processes to build coherent experiences across platforms.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how we’re evolving the Fluent Design System to be “more than a set of outcomes” and how we use it to collectively design and build products.

The evolution of Fluent represents a critical moment for our design system at Microsoft. At Build 2017, we introduced Fluent as the latest Windows design language with a focus on bridging user experiences across multiple devices and 3D environments. Both figuratively and literally, Fluent became defined by its focus on fundamental principles and building blocks: light, depth, motion, materials, and scale.

Today, Fluent is simple in its emphasis on systematizing the fundamentals. It’s an attempt to optimize the process for both designers and developers through a shared foundation. At least in its initial stage, it’s as much about process as it is about pixels and interactions. It’s less about creating something new and more about establishing coherence. Coherence relieves cognitive overload, helping people focus on what they’re trying to accomplish and not on how they’re trying to accomplish it. Essentially, the updated Fluent website is a representation of this evolution to broaden this story of coherent experiences.

Simply put, it’s about designers and developers working better together to create best-in-class experiences that empower our customers.
Casa's Privacy Model
By: Jameson Lopp
Tags: Security, Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Bitcoin, Privacy

At Casa our goal is to make it easy for non-technical crypto asset owners to be their own bank. While we have no intention of providing custodial services to our users, we do wish to provide financial software and services that help facilitate our users in their quest for financial sovereignty. As such, there will be some data that third parties such as Casa may know about your crypto activity. We keep as much of your data private as possible, but here is some detail on what third parties will see and your options for taking steps to strengthen your privacy if you so desire.

We’ve moved our blog! To continue reading this article, visit the link below:

https://blog.keys.casa/casas-privacy-model/
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Selfie, Wednesday, Humor, Cartoon, Comics

First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.

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Finding The Confidence To Close Big Deals: What Works For Edios Media Co-Founder Michael Karsh
By: Tara Mcmullin
Tags: Small Business, Entrepreneurship, Confidence, Business, Podcast

The Nitty-Gritty:

How Edios Media‘s target clients have evolved over their 3 years in business

What happened with co-founder Michael Karsh and Elizabeth Madariaga got the chance to pitch a project for Google

Where Michael sources his confidence while working with giant corporations

What Michael and Elizabeth have focused on operationally to continue leveling up their service and their confidence

Even in today’s digital world, when we think small business, we often think the mom & pop shop on main street.

Or, maybe you think about the lawyer who drew up your will or the accountant who prepares your taxes.

Even online, you probably think about coaches, designers, artists, educators, copywriters, and project managers.

One thing all of these businesses have in common is that they’re person to person kind of businesses. Whether the person is walking through the door of a coffee shop or the person represents a business they founded, each transaction feels really personal.

It’s a business ecosystem we can all be really comfortable with.

But there’s a different business ecosystem that many small business owners and self-employed people deal in.

That ecosystem? Big business.

Did you know that 54 percent of Google’s workforce is temporary workers, contractors, and vendors? I sure didn’t.

Did you know that Facebook has tens of thousands of contract workers? Nope, I didn’t know that either.

Some of these workers are people who choose flexible or temporary work at home over long-term permanent employment.

But plenty are small business owners who are doing business with the big dogs — or… should I say unicorns?

Today, my guest is Michael Karsh. And Michael is the co-founder of a company that does business with the unicorns.

When I first met Michael, he wasn’t a business owner. He was my content producer at CreativeLive. Together, we developed 9 classes and reached tens of thousands of people with high-quality video education. Later, he helped work on this very podcast.

A couple of years ago, Michael and another of my producers, Elizabeth Madariaga, started their own video production company, Edios Media. You can hear more about their first year in business in Episode 101.

I wanted to bring Michael back on the show to take a look at how his and Elizabeth’s mindset and confidence level has evolved as they’ve worked with giant clients like Google, Facebook, Salesforce, and The Sundance Institute.

Michael and I talk about the first big deal they signed, how the clients they serve today are different from what they initially expected, and how the business itself has evolved to serve those clients.
Things to Do Before Your Next Technical Interview
By: Thomas Guibert
Tags: Technology, JavaScript, Software Engineering, Programming, Web Development

Things to Do Before Your Next Technical Interview

Show how prepared and interested you are

Recently, I’ve had the chance to take part in technical interviews, as the recruiter. To be on the other side of the table, analyzing how candidates perform, is a great experience!

My role was to prepare assignments to give to the candidates, perform the selection of those who did a good job, and interview them on-site.

I only have a short experience in interviewing candidates. But, what I can say is that more than the technical knowledge, what I appreciated the most is to see how candidates present themselves, what they know about us, and how motivated they were to join our team.

It is quite easy to see if someone has prepared the interview or just came because the door was open. Being good at coding is cool, that’s of course the main thing that we are testing.

However, if the candidate doesn’t show a bit of interest in what they will be doing, doesn’t make us want to work with them, it makes the interview very boring. Recruiters do a lot of interviews. Candidates need to think about a strategy to stand out from the crowd.

I was more interested in candidates being super enthusiastic about presenting themselves, what they know about the company, and asking questions than the actual technical knowledge. It is still important, of course, but not in the first part of the interview.

That said, here is a collection of things you can do before going to your next job interview…
Dancing The Tango
By: Tre L. Loadholt
Tags: The Scene And Heard, Learning, Dance, Fiction, Photography

Courtesy of Michail Shneider

Alejandra holds up the wall. She observes her partner gliding across the ballroom floor, making tiny circles with his perfect feet.

Javier is the second best male dancer in their class. He is svelte and perfectly built for pirouetting and enticing the room. He has paper thin lips, cobalt blue eyes, and tinted brown hair. He is a straight and narrow straw, breaking Alejandra's back.

"Allie, are you ready now? Have you found the grace needed for the tango?"

Alejandra's instructor is a weeping looking man with a fake French accent. His voice always sounds like it's about to give and another will take over. Mr. Dubois dances to himself, showing Alejandra what her next move will be.

"Now, you will let Javi carry you, let the music become one with your soul. Feel it! Be graceful, Allie. Again!"

Alejandra bolts from the wall and into Javier’s arms. Javier smiles. He whips her into his embrace, spins her around, then snaps her gingerly in a half-pose just below his waist. She can feel her stomach making music of its own. The tango is her least favorite dance. She shakes herself from Javier’s grip and lunges toward the door.

In the hallway, there is a peace that calms her and renews her spirit. Just as she is racing down the hall, she can hear the welcome call from a sultry voice in the room two doors down.

"Welcome to Waltz In Time. I trust that you are where you need to be and if you aren’t, please find your way there. Beginners only. I am not here to teach professionals, perfectionists, or Know-It-Alls. If you’re one of either, the tango class is down the hall."

Alejandra tucks in her pride, takes a deep breath, and dives into the waltz.

Within seconds, she springs to life.

©Tremaine L. Loadholt, 2018. All Rights Reserved
Five minutes that changed my life.
Tags: Mindfulness, Health, Meditation

How do I practice?

I still rise at 5am. I find this to be the optimal time for me to meditate.

No checking of email etc. I like to keep my mind as clear as possible.

I sit in a room with minimal distractions on a folded yoga mat. I have yet invested in a proper Zafu.

I cross my legs and do some light stretching forward and to the sides. This enables me to sit longer and with a straight back. I basically try to reach as far forward I can while cross-legged Then I move my reached out hands to the left and right as far as I can. I repeat this a couple of times to get loose. Should be noted that I’m not in a lotus or half lotus position. Maybe one day.

I put my hands in my lap in a what is called a cosmic mudra. Put the

top of your right hand on the palm of your left hand, overlapping

the fingers. Now make an oval by touching the tips of the thumbs

together at about the height of your navel.

Once I’m in position I start to breath through my nose. Slowly and with purpose.Repeating the words Be (while breathing in) and With (breathing out). Something very zen about those words.

In the beginning I found it useful to set a timer. You will likely find your mind wondering how long you’ve been sitting and having a timer helps with that distraction.

When your mind wanders, and it will. A lot. Don’t fight it. I found it very helpful to smile at my mind wandering and reward myself when I brought it back.

My practice is loosely following the principals behind zazen. I don’t believe that there is just one way to practice. You will find your own way and that’s just the way it should be. :)
Light More Light, UVa — 10110. Try it yourself on UVa. It’s Fun!
By: Abrar Shariar
Tags: Factoring, Number Theory, Algorithms, Code, Uva

Try it yourself on UVa. It’s Fun!

This problem has also been part of the programming challenges on the Algorithm Design Manual’s chapter 2.

The Premise

The premise of the problem can be chalked out like this way:

A guy goes along corridor N times which have N bulbs

Every time he goes along the corridor he toggles the switch of certain bulbs based on certain condition

We have to determine the state of the last bulb i.e. Nth bulb.

The Conditions

The conditions are as follows:

The bulbs have serial numbers starting from 1 to N i.e. the first bulb = 1, second = 2 and Nth bulb’s serial is N

At each iteration, we only consider one go, not the return journey by that guy.

At the ith iteration, he only toggles the switch of the bulb whose serial number is divisible by i. Or in other words, any bulb with serial number N, will be toggled exactly Z number of times , where Z = the number of positive factors of N

iteration, he only toggles the switch of the bulb whose serial number is divisible by Or in other words, any bulb with serial number will be toggled exactly number of times where We have to output, YES => the Nth bulb is ON, NO => the Nth bulb is OFF

Initially, all the bulbs are turned OFF

The Idea

The idea to solve the problem is in grasping the notion that, we are essentially trying to find the number of positive factors of the Nth number.

number. Observe that we ONLY need to know the state of the Nth number. So, we can ignore what happens to the rest of the bulb.

The Naive Approach

The naive approach consists of a loop which runs up to sqrt(N), and finds all the positive factors, and keeps a counter to hold their count.

It works with a small N, but on a significantly large N, this becomes a nightmare!

We have to do better than O(n)

The Trick

Now comes the TRICK!

Notice the pattern when finding the factors of a Number.

4 => 1, 2, 4

6 => 1, 2, 3, 6

5 => 1, 5

9 => 1, 3, 9

Notice that, the factors are ALWAYS in pairs. Cause it takes 2 numbers to multiply and come up with another number.

Observe, the peculiar case of 4 and 9:

these two numbers are perfect square

they have odd number of factors, since we are only considering distinct numbers in our set of factors

Now, let’s recognize the second pattern:

For any number N, if it’s number of factors is even => the last state will be OFF, otherwise => ON

For example,

9 has 3 factors =>

1st toggle -> ON

2nd toggle -> OFF

3rd toggle -> OFF

Similarly, we can find for any other N.

Thus, we can come to the final conclusion that:

When, N == Perfect Square => bulb state = OFF

When, N == NOT perfect square => bulb state = ON

The Code: O(1)
Object Value vs Object Type vs Object Id in Python
By: Indhumathy Chelliah
Tags: Python3, Data Science, Python Programming, Python, DevOps

Object Identity

An object’s identity never changes once it has been created. You may think of it as the object’s address in memory.

id() function

Syntax: id(object)

Returns the identity of an object.

of an object. It is an integer that is unique and constant for this object during its lifetime.

Two objects with non-overlapping lifetimes may have the same id() value.

value. CPython implementation detail: This is the address of the object in memory.

Example: Let’s find the id of python data types strings, list, tuple, dictionary.

a=5

print (id(a))#Output:1441654768



l=[1,2,3]

print (id(l))#Output:12597256



t=(1,2,3)

print (id(t))#Output:44739208



d={'a':1,'b':2}

print (id(d))#Output:12532704



s="python"

print (id(s))#Output:45025152

How to do identity comparisons:

is operator

The is operator is used to compare the identity of two objects.

x is y is True if and only if x and y are the same objects.

id(x)==id(y) is True if and only x and y are the same object.

Example:

x=5

y=5

print (x is y)#Output:True

print (id(x)==id(y))#Output:True

print (id(x))#Output:1441654768

print (id(y))#Output:1441654768

Pictorial Representation

Immutable data types:

For immutable datatype, operations that compute new values may actually return a reference to any existing object with the same type and value.

Ex. a = 1; b = 1 , a and b may or may not refer to the same object with the value one, depending on the implementation

Mutable data types:

For mutable data types, this is not allowed.

c = []; d = [] , c and d are guaranteed to refer to two different, unique, newly created empty lists.

Example:

c=[1,2]

d=[1,2]

print (c is d)#Output:False

print (id(c))#Output:16857096

print (id(d))#Output:47485256



print (id(c[0]))#Output:1441654704

print (id(c[1]))#Output:1441654720

print (id(d[0]))#Output:1441654704

print (id(d[1]))#Output:1441654720

Pictorial Representation

Photo by Author

Containers are some objects which contain references to other objects. Examples of containers are tuples, lists, and dictionaries. The references are part of a container’s value.
#29DaysOfBlackLoveSongs: Day 28
By: Dj Fusion, Fusebox Radio
Tags: Love Songs, Music, Black History Month

Today’s Black Love Song: Bobby Womack & Patti Labelle — Love Has Finally Come At Last

We’re now on Day 28 of the FuseBox Radio’s Black History Month 2016‪ #‎29DaysofBlackLoveSongs‬ online audio celebration, where I select and share various tunes that I feel express all sorts of Black Love — self-love, platonic love, romantic love, love for community, etc. — from various music genres repping the Black Diaspora.

Today’s song in the mix is “Love Has Finally Come At Last” by Bobby Womack and Patti LaBelle.

In life, I think most of us have gotten the feeling of romantic love confused with infatuation, lust, deep admiration, an extremely good friendship, etc. for another person at least a few times.

When you go through that a few times with it’s various ups and downs (depending on your relationship), you get to narrowing down quickly what true love really is with someone else.

In it’s healthiest form, that s**t strikes you deep in your heart and mind with literally just how RIGHT it feels — knowing that someone has your back mentally, spiritually, physically and more at the present and while the both of your are growing together to be the best people y’all can possibly be day by day.

You feel more…relaxed and secure I think, especially since you can finally let go a bit emotionally with another person. You don’t have to constantly be tough/hard/”strong”.

You can be free to really be YOU when things aren’t 100%, have your natural vulnerability not be attacked and know just a bit that someone else really cares enough to help you out and truly WANTS things to be ok for you.

When you have such an inspiring relationship, why NOT sing it from the rooftops, right?

I think this song pretty much breaks down that feeling well.

This is a great 1980s slow jam/”quiet storm” Soul tune that’s rather slept on by both of these classic music artists that deserves more props than it gets. This duet is very sweet and functions cool as a song that is functions nicely as a declaration of love between two people and a sonic announcement of hope for others that such a fantastic thing exists.

Hope that folks enjoy this music selection and the others that will be on deck through the month of February under this hashtag, explore more tunes from these artists we put out there, share the music and more!

About the Author: DJ Fusion is a short, above average looking Black-American female DJ, writer and photographer in her 30s that’s originally from the Prince Georges County, MD and now going back and forth between New Jersey and the DMV (DC/MD/VA). Since 1998, she’s been doing the syndicated radio show, The FuseBox Radio Broadcast, which brings the best of Black Music from all over the world along with news, interviews and commentary.

Check out what’s happening with the syndicated FuseBox Radio Broadcast at our official website, http://www.FuseBoxRadioOnline.com, our official blog site at http://www.BlackRadioIsBack.com and our photography at http://FuseBoxRadio.prosite.com!
How To: Base64 Image Transfer with Swift & Python
By: Frank Jia
Tags: Mobile App Development, Software Development, Swift, iOS App Development, Python

Photo by Charlotte Butcher on Unsplash

I’m currently building an iOS app that requires some image processing functionality — the user would scan a food label, and I would need to parse the nutritional information and return some content back to the user.

In this blog post, I’m going to explore how we can enable image transfers through a REST API — which I built with Python. I’m also going to briefly discuss how I interact with this API with Swift code within the iOS app.

This is going to be part one of a two-part series. In this blog post, I go over my initial implementation of the client and API. In the next post, I’m going to explore another method for sending images through to the API. Let’s get started!

1 Base64 Encoding

Before we dive into a rough overview of the code, we need to think about how exactly we can transfer image data over the internet. You may be familiar with HTTP requests with JSON data — but this data is completely textual. How do we transfer visual content through textual data?

In my first implementation, I POST JSON request data to my server endpoint. The JSON would have an image property - which represents some textual representation of the image that we want to send.

To convert an image into a JSON-friendly format, we can use Base64 encoding. In short, Base64 converts a binary representation (an image file) into an ASCII string that is safe for plain text systems. The downside is that the resulting representation is ~1.3x larger in size than the original file. Keep this in mind when building the system — image file sizes can quickly add up, and that extra 33% of space might add up to be quite a lot over the long run!

2 Basic Python REST Server

To implement a basic server, I used flask together with flask-restful. The docs are pretty self explanatory, so I will focus more on the specific implementation for image transfer.

With flask-restful, endpoints are defined as Python classes. In this example, we parse the image argument from the POST JSON request body.

Simple enough! Now let’s take a look at the client side.

3 Sending Images with Swift (iOS)

Let’s say that we want the user to take an image, then send it to our backend. In iOS, the output from the camera is of type AVCapturePhoto . We can extract a Base64 encoded string like so:

To make requests to our backend server, we can use a library such as Alamofire. We can then create a service with a makeRequest function:

Of course, in an actual app, we would have a callback that executes some action when the response comes back. This is a pretty simple system. I hope that it helps you make your own image transfer app :).
Cum am crescut de la 0 la 6 angajați în mai puțin de un an folosind Growth Hacking Marketing
By: Toma Grozăvescu
Tags: Marketing, Ce Este Growth Hacking, Growth Hacking, Antreprenoriat

Founder & Growth Hacker @SMARTERS Romania, my purpose is to show people that it can be done.

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Wisdom Comes With Age?
By: Mark Starlin
Tags: Life Lessons, Three Line Conversations, Life, Wisdom, Humor

Three Line Conversations were inspired by Haikus. I borrowed the form of three lines, but without the syllable counts. And dialog instead of poetry.
17 Reasons to Start a Podcast
By: Christopher Luxe
Tags: Creativity, Technology, Marketing, Business, Podcast

17 Reasons to Start a Podcast

In-podcast ad revenue is expected to hit $1 billion by 2021.

Photo by Soundtrap on Unsplash

Podcasts are hot now. I’m sure you heard that Joe Rogan got paid more than $100,000,000 by Spotify for the distribution rights of his podcast! I’m not telling you that you’ll get 9 digits for your podcast, but it’s inspiring nonetheless.

Though podcasts are in no way new, in the last two years, streaming platforms have been transferring so much energy and attention into the podcasting space. So much so, that we may be entering a new era of media. In fact, I just got an email from Amazon announcing that they are about to start distributing podcasts!

If you do it correctly and consistently, you can quickly increase your audience for your business. Don’t get it twisted though. Starting and maintaining a podcast will take hard work and planning. You shouldn’t start one unless you have figured out your differentiator. But if you’re ready to commit to the process, then keep reading…this article is for you.

In 2020, digital content has seen a surge in viewership. Growth forecasts predict revenue of $659 million in 2020 for digital content, as a result of employees working from home, being on state-mandated social distancing, and by creators having to transition their content to the digital space. Reach people where they are by launching a podcast of your own.

Here are 17 reasons to start a podcast in 2020. If this list doesn’t inspire you to start your pod, then I don’t know what will.

Don’t know how to start a podcast? No worries. I have you covered. Here’s the why, what, and how to launch your own podcast today.
Code-Split Your React App With Lazy and Suspense
By: Marshal Murphy
Tags: JavaScript, Code, React, Programming

Code-Split Your React App With Lazy and Suspense

Optimize app performance by splitting components, routes, and libraries

Image credit: Author

When you deploy a React application using a tool like webpack, you’re employing a technique called bundling.

Build tools like webpack are, after all, module bundlers.

So when you arrive at a page served by a web application, the page requests a bundle — that is, a file or files that contain all of the code necessary for that page to function.

Often when we build a page, however, we include quite a bit of code that isn’t immediately necessary.

To keep our application lean and fast, we should strive to serve only what’s absolutely necessary for the UI on first paint.

One way to achieve this is by code-splitting.

Code-splitting allows us to defer the loading of various resources until later — when they’re actually needed.

For example, let’s say a user hits a route and arrives at a page in your web application.

Maybe this page has a number of heavy modals.

Maybe this page has a number of routes that load additional content elsewhere.

Maybe it contains a heavy library that is needed later but is being loaded first on the home page.

If our goal is to render the page content as fast as possible, we need to abstract away everything that isn’t immediately required and is acting to slow your load time down.
Strictly Curious Newsletter №38
By: Costas Andriopoulos
Tags: Technology, Startup, Productivity, Finance, Bitcoin

Welcome to the current issue of Strictly Curious. To get the latest issue delivered to your inbox, every Monday, sign up for the newsletter here.

News

Top retail trends for 2018: Grocery eCommerce in the U.S. is primed to take off; Chat and voice will change the way we interact with products and retailers; Crypto currencies will move from being an investment vehicle to a form of payment; The tech enabled store associate will change the in-store experience. Link

Bitcoin broke through major price barriers every few hours last week Link, while at the same time Coinbase CEO emailed its users to…‘invest responsibly’ Link and Craigslist (the famous American classified advertisements website) was adding a new button where sellers can indicate that they’ll take cryptocurrencies as payment. Link

1.55 of jobs are available for every job applicant in Japan. This is the highest since 1973. Automation is a welcome trend in the nation given its shrinking pool of workers. Link

Inside Elliott Management: How Paul Singer’s hedge fund always wins. A Fortune investigation reveals sophisticated — and often controversial — tactics that have made Elliott Management the world’s biggest, most successful activist hedge fund. Link

No CEO needed: These blockchain platforms will let ‘the crowd’ run startups. Link

Do you know which are the best days, times, months, and seasons to be productive? Link

Amazon is filled with sketchy reviews. Here’s how to spot them. Link

Apple launched a heart study using the Apple watch in partnership with Stanford University. Link

Blog Posts

Scientists claim humans have peaked, and will never be taller, stronger, or live longer than we do today. Link

Are smartphones making us less productive? Link

Interesting Numbers

Video will climb to 75% of all mobile traffic by 2023. Link

Consumer spending across app stores worldwide to top $110 billion in 2018. Link

Video: The world is poorly designed. But copying nature helps

Detours

Kids aged 4–6 perform better during boring tasks when dressed as Batman. Link

Giving your children fewer toys will help them develop their imagination and learn new skills, say experts. Link

Retail Therapy

12 elegant gifts for the style maven. For those who approach everything — from making coffee to telling time — with panache. Link

Contemplation

“There is something one should expect not only of a watch but also of oneself: To never stand still”

(Walter Lange)

To get the latest issue delivered to your inbox, every Monday, sign up for the newsletter here.
A Ukrainian politician’s ghost army of mysterious YouTube fans
Tags: YouTube, Government, Ukraine, Social Media

Mysterious accounts potentially exhibiting inauthentic behavior posted supportive comments under the YouTube videos of a Ukrainian pro-Kremlin politician, in a possible attempt to astroturf support for him before upcoming elections. The commenters displayed multiple indicators of inauthentic behavior, such as identical creation dates and similar commenting patterns.

The politician, Victor Medvedchuk, is a U.S.-sanctioned oligarch and veteran Ukrainian MP who served as head of the presidential administration from 2002–2005. Medvedchuk has business connections to Russia, where his family owns oil refineries. Putin is also the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter. Over the years, Medvedchuk has consolidated a powerful media empire in Ukraine that includes several TV channels and promotes certain politicians. He currently faces a significant local election on October 25, where he leads the pro-Russian party Opposition Bloc — For Life. The inauthentic YouTube comments may be an attempt to shore up support for him ahead of the elections.

Victor Medvedchuk, the YouTube channel

The Victor Medvedchuk YouTube channel was created on March 21, 2019 and had more than 71,000 subscribers as of October 15, 2020. The channel does not have a “verified” badge, but there are several details that suggest the channel is connected to Medvedchuk.

First, the channel is featured on ZIK’s ratings of the most popular political YouTube channels in the country. ZIK is a Ukrainian TV channel that Medvedchuk controls through his ally, Taras Kozak. ZIK reprinted the rating from the 1News information agency, which does not disclose its owner. The only difference between the two is the links to YouTube channels from the top list. ZIK used direct links to each channel, whereas 1News used the URL-shortener go.112.ua, which is notably used primarily on content from 112 Ukraine, which Medvedchuk owns, suggesting some connection between these media outlets.
The Problem With Online Business Today
By: Ali Mirza
Tags: Social Media, Growth Hacking, Small Business

You see, with online marketing this crucial element has been forgotten. It’s one that sits behind every sales page, every e-mail and every Facebook post….

Behind all of those is a person.

A daughter or son.

A mother or father.

A human being.

And humans are complex. We are all more than just a checkbox or statistic.

The number of email subscribers, the numbers of likes, clicks per conversion that all means a person is on the other side of it.

Often times big and small businesses forget this. Because they are focused on their conversion ratio or whatever the latest statistic is to track.

Humans want to be heard. They are looking for connection. To trust someone with their struggles.

As businesses, this is what we do. We solve problems. But without the connection it makes it hard to have the loyal customers. The ones that will go out of their way to work with you.

And this connection is what is missing in online marketing.

Businesses will create these emails and broadcast their message on social media but people want more than that. They want connection.

Connection through communication is what I call it “closing the gap”. It’s not just broadcasting and posting on social media. Instead, it’s about reaching out and connecting… it might not be related to your business at all. Let’s say someone needs a plumber and you reach out to them and recommend someone.

A great way to start to make these connections online is through Facebook groups. People are a lot more open in Facebook Groups than they are on their page. When someone posts about a struggle that they are going through in a group, it’s a great way to start the connection. Answer them in the group setting and maybe even follow up through private message a few days later to check up on them.

What do you have to lose? Nothing.

You only have everything to gain.

So I encourage you to reach out and create these connections with your potential clients.

And see what happens. I believe you will be pleasantly surprised.

Leave a comment below with one way you were able to connect with a potential client in a personal way.

This guest post was written by Mariana. She is a business coach that frees moms from the 9–5 struggle (and gives them time to snuggle up with their kiddos!) by helping them beat tech overwhelm, get a marketing strategy in place, and get their first paying clients. She has been featured in various podcasts and blogs including the “Get Happy Now” Podcast. Through working with dozens of moms to build online business, she has been able to empower them to earn an income while working from home. Check out her business tips, advice on balancing it all and ditching the tech overwhelm at www.marianacruiz.com.
All About OraWellness
Tags: Dentistry, Health, Brand Interview, Wellness

All About OraWellness

Worried about your dental health but want a natural solution that dentists won’t present to you? Look no further than OraWellness.

Want to win a complete starter kit to better dental health? Everything that is in the photo above? Enter the OraWellness giveaway.

What follows is a 5 question interview with Will from OraWellness.
Kodak and the Brutal Difficulty of Transformation
Tags: Scott Anthony, Innovation, Disruption, Photography, Jc Events

EV

by Scott Anthony

2012 has not gotten off to a great start for Eastman Kodak. Three of the company’s directors quit near the end of last year, and word recently emerged that the company was on the brink of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The easy narrative is that Kodak is a classic case of a company blind to the disruptive changes in its marketplace. Like many easy narratives, this one is not quite right. (Read the full article)

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Strategic Fiscal Management for a Crisis — and Beyond
By: Harvard Ash Center
Tags: Covid 19, Fiscal Policy, Local Government, Coronavirus

Written by Stephen Goldsmith, originally published on Governing

The coronavirus has greatly amplified local governments’ pre-pandemic financial concerns, leaving them to tackle significant new fiscal challenges while simultaneously facing increased demand for social services. Securing federal and state support is important, but in itself will not provide the financial stability that cities and counties need to operate efficiently and effectively.

While higher taxes and fees will be part of the solution in many jurisdictions, cost reductions will likely be on everyone’s agenda for the foreseeable future. But the current situation, coupled with new technology tools, provides governments with a once-in-a-century opportunity to change many of their outdated procedures permanently — to build strategic fiscal management into their operations and cultures.
How a German DIY Chain Discounted Itself Out of Existence
By: Carine Ru
Tags: Discount, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Failure Stories, Business

In 2003 a hardware chain commercial took Germany by storm. It only contained one simple sentence, dubbed by Bruce Willis’ voice actor.

“20% on everything — except pet food (tr.)”

A sale on everything? Wait, why not pet food? Is that Bruce Willis’ voice? People were instantly intrigued. The commercial fit perfectly into the stingy 2000s era of shopping. If you needed something and there was a place you could get it at a discount, that’s where you went. It became an easy choice. Praktiker’s sales were soaring. Other hardware stores could hardly keep up. They had proven themselves on a market that was lead by much bigger players. But this very commercial got the ball rolling for the company’s imminent end.

“Where the price sets the tone” (tr.), the slogan accompanying their new commercial, further solidified Praktiker’s goal. They wanted to be the place where people went to save on supplies.

At first, this seemed to work in their favor. Which became apparent when other chains decided to try and lure in people with discounted prices and sales as well. Just a few years later, in 2005, the hardware and DIY market was extremely saturated. Business consultants from Ernst & Young predicted that in 2015 only three of the 15 leading hardware store chains at the time would still exist. None of them wanted to be it, so the rivalry grew.

Sale prices began sinking so low, one of Praktiker’s employees got caught buying screwdrivers in a rival store because they were cheaper than in wholesale. A lot of the chains realized pretty quickly long-term profits on sales were too low to be worth the hassle, so they started to withdraw while Praktiker was still betting on those to help them persist.
Write Better, More Expressive Code With Configurations
By: Thiyagaraj T
Tags: JavaScript, Programming Tips, Programming, Typescript, React

What is a Configuration?

A configuration can be as simple as a JSON object with a bunch of key values or as complex as a configuration object managed by a full-blown configuration management system. There’s no right or wrong way to define or store a configuration — it’s just a representation of metadata.

Who’s a Consumer ? Anyone

A configuration consumer can be anything. It can be simple function, a component, or an application. There can even be multiple consumers for a single configuration. It’s just that the power lies in the consumer and not the configuration. The configuration doesn't dictate anything to the consumer — the consumer can decide what to infer. The configuration alone is just metadata.

What Does Configuration Mean to the Consumer?

The configuration means two things to the consumer.

One: It can be treated like an execution context. The configuration can hold data which can be used by the consumer to produce results based on it.

Two: It can be treated as behaviour. The configuration can be used to determine the behaviour of the consumer. Both of these sound similar don’t they? Parameters and interfaces?

Parameters passed to a function allows something to be set in the execution context. It allows the caller to pass on data to the consumer.

Interfaces determine the behaviour of the implementor. The implementor is in contract with the interface to implement a set of behaviour (functions).

A configuration can definitely be passed to a function to trickle down data to its execution data. But also it can serve an entirely different purpose to another consumer.

There is a big tradeoff for flexibility, you may notice. The author must take the responsibility of honouring the configuration — the configuration cannot alone dictate the rules to the consumer. Thus, the configuration just describes the “what” — the consumer describes the “how”. By now you should have realised that configuration allows you to practice separation of concern in your code.
Control Startup And Shutdown Order of Containers In Docker Compose
By: İbrahim Gündüz
Tags: Docker Compose, Docker

You may have an application that depends on one or more services that start slowly. So, you must put some extra controls before starting the application, in order to prevent startup errors and run the application smoothly.

Let’s take the following example:

We have an application that directly dependent on RabbitMQ and MySQL services and it connects to both services in application startup. However, the worker container constantly fails because it starts before the other services.

Let’s start first by defining the dependencies between the services in the docker-compose.yaml to start the worker container after RabbitMQ and MySQL containers.

As you see here, we just let docker-compose know worker service is dependent on both of mariadb and rabbitmq services by depends_on keyword. Thus docker-compose would start worker service after RabbitMQ and MariaDB services started and also stop it after them.

However, neither RabbitMQ nor MariaDB would be reachable immediately although their containers are started. So we need to ensure the services are ready before starting the worker.

In this case, Docker Compose helps us with the healthcheck feature that allows starting a service container by the health status of another service.

Let’s make a little bit improvement on the docker-compose.yaml

Now, docker-compose would wait until other services become a healthy condition before starting the worker service by the following change:

worker:

image: my-app-image:latest

depends_on:

rabbitmq:

condition: service_healthy

mariadb:

condition: service_healthy

volumes:

- ../:/var/www/app

command: /var/www/app/bin/worker --queue=images

restart: always

Health checking operation would be performed by calling the command defined in the test property. It retries the command 15 times by 2 seconds intervals in 30 seconds until getting zero-exit-code.

rabbitmq:

image: rabbitmq:3.7.17-management

ports:

- 15672:15672

healthcheck:

test: "/opt/rabbitmq/sbin/rabbitmqctl status"

interval: 2s

timeout: 30s

retries: 15 mariadb:

image: mariadb:latest

environment:

MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root

healthcheck:

test: "/usr/bin/mysql --user=root --password=root --execute \"SHOW DATABASES;\""

interval: 2s

timeout: 30s

retries: 15

This is how the status of the services looks like after we called docker-compose up

RabbitMQ and MySQL servers are starting

RabbitMQ is still starting, MySQL is ready

Both RabbitMQ and MySQL are ready and the worker service is started.

Credits:

Cover photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MITO_Orchestra_Sinfonica_RAI.jpg
The Key To Finding Post-Grad Employment May Be As Simple As Studying Abroad
By: Diamond Brown
Tags: Education, Travel, World, Work, Study Abroad

The Key To Finding Post-Grad Employment May Be As Simple As Studying Abroad

Who needs at least 2 years of experience when you’ve been to Australia?

Are you the type of person who enjoys seeing the world and being exposed to different cultures, foods and ideas? If so, you’re part of an elite group that makes you more desirable to employers than your non-traveling counterparts.

According to a study published by Kaplan, Inc., if you studied abroad while in college, you have a higher chance of being hired within six months of graduating school than your counterparts who chose not to leave the country.

Stephen Lewis/Unsplash

If you think about it, this makes total sense. Traveling and living abroad makes you grow up super quickly. In a foreign culture, you’re learning to navigate a new place and overcome language barriers on your own. You’re continuously learning, which is an excellent quality to have—and one that ultimately may make you more marketable to employers.

‘What a Girl Wants’

This quality is what we call a “growth mindset.” Besides looking at technical skills, employers look for employees who have that growth mindset because it assures them the candidate isn’t just a one-trick pony. Growth-minded employees constantly work to improve their talents instead of just staying content with the skills they already know. The attitude of challenging yourself to reach new goals is a quality bosses look for, especially in long-term employees.

Start packing your bags and let your future employer know you’re DTG (down to grow)!