fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Notes from the field of visual health mapping
By: Katie Mccurdy
Tags: Health, Healthcare, Patient Experience, Healthcare Innovations, Design

Helping doctors get to know patients and make them memorable

As I start to work directly with more doctors through this process — namely Sunjya Schweig of the California Center for Functional Medicine and some local VA doctors I’m currently collaborating with — I’m learning more about how this process helps them. Aside from the obvious (things like making appointments more efficient and saving them time digging through the medical record), I’ve recently heard that the visuals make patients’ stories more tangible and memorable:

“It makes my intake easier, and even more interesting to me is the way the patient’s case is much better retained in my memory. For the two cases who came in during the last couple weeks with visualizations, I can still remember the story in detail. This is not the case for my normal patients where everything blends together and I don’t retain the details as well when not looking at the chart.”

–Dr. Schweig

This makes sense. The visuals provide an additional modality that helps doctors commit to memory what they’ve learned about the patient. I’ll quote this article from Psychology Today:

“A large body of research indicates that visual cues help us to better retrieve and remember information. The research outcomes on visual learning make complete sense when you consider that our brain is mainly an image processor (much of our sensory cortex is devoted to vision), not a word processor. In fact, the part of the brain used to process words is quite small in comparison to the part that processes visual images.”

In addition to helping doctors remember their patients better, it also helps them better understand their patients ‘as people’:

“I’m finding these really helpful for getting to know patients better, especially with regard to work and social history.”

–VA Psychiatrist

For the three veterans I’ve worked with so far, it’s been helpful to map out their work history. I don’t do this with most people, but it felt significant to their story. Two of them had long-term work-related chemical exposures that seemed potentially related to their cognitive and memory loss symptoms.

Two also had impressive careers that involved building and making things; they love working with their hands and solving problems, and have continued to do so into retirement. For both of them, their health has interfered with their ability to do this work, which has left them feeling depressed and unfulfilled. I made sure to articulate this in their story and pass this along to their doctors. As doctors try to help mitigate the pain of illness, it’s helpful for them to understand not only physical sensations but psychological impacts and losses; that way, they can hopefully be more effective in helping to improve patients’ quality of life.

It is always a pleasure to learn from the people who have entrusted me with their health histories. Thanks to them, and also to you for reading. I’d love to know what you think — feel free to leave me a comment below or learn more at pictalhealth.com.
Don’t Miss Out! A Biologist Explains Antibodies through Rap Music
By: Dr Jeff Livingston
Tags: Science, STEM, Education, Health, Immune System

Don’t Miss Out! A Biologist Explains Antibodies through Rap Music

A scientist shows us how to make science fun

Antibodies are all the rage these days. As Covid-19 vaccines come to market, many want to understand how immunity works. Scientists and health writers struggle to find ways to make these topics accessible and exciting.

This morning my Twitter feed blessed me with an outstanding video from Raven Baxter AKA Raven the Science Maven. Her video provides a fantastic explanation of immunology. The best part is she teaches us through rap music.

She walks us through the various types of antibodies and explains B cells as “B cells know the haters when they see them, so it’s fight night.” And how can you not love a lyric like “NK natural killers makin’ haters going night night”?

Baxter is an American molecular biologist and science communicator. She is a doctoral student at the University of Buffalo and the founder of STEMbassy, an organization dedicated to high-level science and technology discussions in politics, culture, and social issues. She is also the founder of Black In Science Communication.

We need more scientific leaders using social media tools and creative approaches to educate the public.

Science is fun!

Thank you for reminding us Raven the Maven.
Welcoming Dash 1.0.0
Tags: Python, Plotly, Data Science, Data Visualization, Dash

It’s hard to believe that just two years ago, we released Dash. The last two years have been a whirlwind—we’ve made over 100 releases containing bug fixes and new features, we’ve introduced 10 brand new chart types, we’ve published 5 new first class component libraries, and I’ve personally spent over 130 hours helping folks out on the Dash community forum.

Dash’s active community forum with 19 active discussions over the last 24 hours. To everyone in the community, thank you. Thanks for keeping the community productive, friendly, and accessible. Thank your feedback and candor and patience. We couldn’t have gotten to 1.0.0 with you ❤️

Why 1.0.0?

At Plotly, most of our projects adhere to semver which means that in the 1.x.x. series we won’t be making any breaking changes to Dash. In this sense, it’s a big release. 1.0.0 commits us to a promise that the library is stable and continues to be production-ready, and that no breaking changes will be added to Dash for the near future. In another sense, it’s not a big release — Dash has been production ready since day one. With the community and commercial uptake, we’ve been very careful about breaking changes for the past two years.

With 1.0.0, we’re taking the opportunity to make this commitment official and to streamline the interface with a few breaking changes for the days ahead.

While 1.0.0 is significant symbolically, we haven’t changed anything at the core of Dash. We’re proud of this — Dash’s architectural foundations are solid. As we continually refined Dash over the past 2 years, talking and working with Dash users, we developed new features that outdated old ones, discovered which settings were awkward or confusing to new users, and overall accumulated a lot of ideas for how to improve the experience of building Dash apps. With 1.0.0, we’re resolving some of the friction that users experienced with Dash by streamlining Dash Core Components and changing some parameter names and configuration settings to be friendlier and more semantic. Essentially we’re taking all that we’ve learned from our community and making Dash more intuitive and powerful for years to come. For a full list of what’s changed, and what breaking changes you’ll need to reconcile in order to upgrade, see the Dash 1.0.0 Migration Guide.
After You Drop Your Balls
By: Zach J. Payne
Tags: Life, Life Lessons, Productivity, Self, Creativity

Is it finally happening? I can hear you asking after reading that headline. Is Zach finally going to join the league of excellent Medium writers who write about their sex lives?

No. I don’t have a sex life, and the title is a metaphor. Moving on.

Over the years, I’ve become a master of pushing through — being tired, being exhausted, not feeling particularly well, but still getting up and doing whatever I have to do.

And there are some days where that just doesn’t happen.

I get so used to feeling my usually vaguely crappy, that it’s easy to forget what it’s like to be well and truly sick. Like all-out fever and chills sick, complete with a giant anthropomorphic frog telling me that I should drink more water.

At least, that’s what I think was going on. The details are kind of fuzzy.
We need 2 things to be great at what we do.
By: Aldric Chen
Tags: Productivity, Business, Writing, Short Story, Technology

We need 2 things to be great at what we do.

From a writer’s perspective, we need to learn daily. Eating a slice of the humble pie goes a long way.

Next, we need working tools. We are not perfect. With working tools, we can get better.

Right?
I Hope That You Learn How To Gently Start Over
By: Brianna Wiest
Tags: Spirituality, Life Lessons, Inspiration, Motivation, Creativity

I hope that you learn how to gently start over.

I hope that you learn how to look at yourself and know that you aren’t quite the person you want to be, without condemning the person you currently are. I hope you learn how to see your evolution not as a linear ascent into perfection, but an unpacking of why you might want to perfect yourself in the first place. What feels so broken? And who taught you it was that way?

I hope that you learn success is less about vision than it is consistency, because ideas are easy, and everyone has them. It is what you act on consistently that you truly see the viability of. It is what you do all of the time that you learn to grow around and through. You are not supposed to get it all right the first time, you’re just supposed to keep trying until you do.

I hope you learn that loving is much like life — it takes everything and gives everything back. And merging your life with someone else’s is the greatest honor you’ll ever get, so I hope that you learn how to bend, not break, how to compromise, not take, and how to appreciate, not assume.

I hope you learn that you are also your own project, your own muse, your own love affair.

I hope you learn you belong to yourself.

I hope you learn that you are not meant to grow once and never again, but to fall in love with the process of building, and pulling apart, and rebuilding again.

Life calls us to shed ourselves at different points in time.

There is nothing we can do to avoid this — no dogma, no religion, no belief, no accumulation of belonging that could possibly remove this requirement from us.

We are not here to be just one person, nor a series of ourselves piled up upon one another, fighting for relevance and dominance and space.

We die and are reborn often.

Instead of gripping tightly to that which gives you place, I hope you learn that growth is really just learning to love what you have while you have it, be where you are while you’re there, and not get too flustered at the fact that you’re still a work in progress.

There is no point at which you are supposed to be completed.

The only finish point is death.

Your life is about gently starting over, every day, every hour, in ways both subtle and disruptive, beautiful and melancholy, startling and expected.

I hope you learn how to gently dust yourself off and begin again because life is too short to stay stagnant, life is too full to only drink a quarter of the glass.

If you enjoyed this piece, check out my new book on self-sabotage, or book a 1:1 mentoring session with me.
Ever Wondered Why O’Reilly Books Have Animals on Their Covers?
By: Juhi Ramzai
Tags: Software Development, Technology, Design, Books, Programming

History of the Design of O’Reilly Book Covers

In the article “A short history of the O’Reilly animals,” it’s mentioned that in the mid-1980s, O’Reilly used to sell short books on Unix topics via mail order. These were held together by staples and had plain brown covers. As time progressed, Tim O’Reilly (born 6 June 1954, and the founder of O’Reilly Media, formerly O’Reilly & Associates) decided to sell books through brick-and-mortar stores. He hired a graphics designer for the first two titles that were sold in the book stores, but he wasn’t satisfied with them.

Then enters a woman named Edie Freedman into the picture. She was neighbors with a woman who was involved with the company’s marketing and technical writing team. Over a friendly chat, the women discussed the two book covers that had been published by then by O’Reilly, and Freedman was asked if she had some better ideas.

Quoting Freedman directly here from the article:

“ I had heard of Unix, but I had a very hazy idea of what it was. I’d never met a Unix programmer or tried to edit a document using vi. Even the terms associated with Unix — vi, sed and awk, uucp, lex, yacc, curses, to name just a few — were weird. They sounded to me like words that might come out of Dungeons and Dragons, a game that was popular with a geeky (mostly male) subculture. Sometimes when designing, things come together effortlessly — everything falls into place as if it were inevitable. It just flows. As I looked for images for the book covers, I came across some odd-looking animal engravings from the 19th century. They seemed to be a good match for all those strange-sounding UNIX terms and were esoteric enough that I figured they’d probably appeal to programmers. And, as I investigated the attributes of the real animals, I quickly discovered that there were intriguing correspondences between specific technologies and specific animals. That resonance grew and expanded as I learned more about both the technologies and the animals. I was so energized and inspired that I spent an entire weekend working on the covers without much sleep. At the end of the weekend, I gave several sketches to my neighbor to take into the office. “Some of the people at O’Reilly were taken aback: they thought the animals were weird, ugly, and a bit scary. But Tim got it immediately — he liked the quirkiness of the animals, thought it would help to make the books stand out from other publishers’ offerings — and it just felt right. And so it began. We’ve published hundreds of Animal books since then, and the brand is well known worldwide.”

And this has surely worked. O’Reilly books can be recognized distinctively, due to the animals on their cover pages, even in the most crowded of the bookstands. This distinction has contributed immensely to the intangible brand recognition and value systems.

This was the history of the design of the cover pages of the O’Reilly books.
How To Write For In Fitness And In Health On Medium
By: Scott Mayer
Tags: Health, Fitness, Nutrition, Mental Health, Running

Welcome to In Fitness And In Health!

Ours is a community dedicated to living happy, healthy lives and inspiring others to do the same. We share stories, anecdotes, tips, tricks, and suggestions on how to do so.

We believe in the power of storytelling. The content that performs best for us comes from firsthand experience in the form of personal lessons, thoughts, ideas, opinions and profound takeaways. We want to provide as much value as possible for the reader.

We’re so excited you’re interested in joining us as an active contributor. As long as your content has a focus on health, fitness or general well-being, we’d be happy to accept it.

Read on for our official submission guidelines.
Exploring Wellness Newsletter
By: Jennifer Geer
Tags: Medium Publications, Health, Newsletter, Wellness, Lifestyle

Exploring Wellness Newsletter

Check out the latest stories from making your own lattes to finding your running motivation.

Photo by Corinne Kutz on Unsplash

Welcome to the first-ever newsletter for Exploring Wellness! I had intended to write a regular newsletter when I began this publication, but life got in the way, and here we are.

I plan to provide periodic updates to you highlighting our feature articles. Although, don’t expect them to come on any sort of regular sort of basis. Until my kid is back in school full time and e-learning is a thing of the past, I’ve been careful not to overdo expectations for myself. We’re all facing stress these days, and we need to remember self-care. Sometimes, self-care means going easy on yourself and your expectations.
Make LinkedIn Part of Your Content Promotion Strategy to Increase Your Reach
By: Esat Artug
Tags: Marketing, Writing, Business, Social Media, Freelancing

3. Distribute Your Content in LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn has a plethora of interest groups that you can join and take part in.

Since these groups are tied to specific interests, industries, and demographics, they contain an already segmented audience to target.

This can help increase your influence within a specific area, as well as establish thought leadership.

Share Your Content in Groups as a Link Post

This one can be a bit tricky, but it can also be rewarding when done correctly. The first part is choosing your groups wisely.

You need to pick groups that aren’t so unmoderated that they are nothing but spam, but not so moderated that they don’t allow you to share your content at all.

Ideally, you want a group that fits your content so well that when you do share your content, it isn’t considered spam. It’s considered helpful.

One way to ensure your content is seen as helpful and not spam is to interact with group members before dropping in content links. Another is to interact with the group members that do like and comment on your content when you do share.

LinkedIn groups will give you what you put into them. Engage with members who have high-quality content like yours, and they will likely do the same when you start to promote your content.

Share Your Content in Groups as a Link in a Comment

For the groups that are so heavily moderated that you can’t actually start a link as a group discussion, try sharing your content as a comment in the group instead.

Once you’re in the LinkedIn group, use the search box to see if there are any questions that relate to your content. If you find any, see if you can create an answer that leads to a link to your content.

At a bare minimum, the person who posted the question will get notified of your answer. If you provided a valuable answer, they might reward you with a thank you and a share of your content outside of the group.
Importance and Value of Cross-Pollination in the Workplace
By: Dr Mehmet Yildiz
Tags: Writing, Business, Entrepreneurship, Culture, Lifestyle

Importance and Value of Cross-Pollination in the Workplace

To build a high-performing team, we need to find creative ways to cross-pollinate in our business organizations. Cross-pollination can be an essential consideration for aspiring entrepreneurs in new ventures and business leaders for transformation.

In this article, my aim is to highlight the value proposition and the importance of cross-pollination for high-performance teams in new ventures and transforming business environments.

I’d like to share a simple example which helped transform a competitive, rigid, and difficult culture to a pleasant learning environment.

Cross-pollination is a metaphor taken from botany. The literal meaning of it is the transfer of pollen from plant flowers with different DNA which enable the creation of new types of plants carrying different attributes.

Cross-pollination is a powerful metaphor to understand the importance of diversity to create fusion in the workplace. Fusion is an enhanced form of collaboration.

Fusion refers to joining different things with different attributes or functions together to co-create or re-create a single new entity or form. Fusion relates to concepts such as integrating, blending, merging, amalgamating, and bonding. These terms are compelling norms for enabling inclusiveness and creating a diverse work culture in business organizations.

The metaphor of cross-pollination refers to sharing and interchanging of ideas, thoughts, information, and tacit knowledge for the enrichment of team capabilities.

One of the critical benefits of cross-pollination in the workplace is to maintain continuous learning. I shared my experience of continuous learning in a story overviewing prominent adult learning theories. I Simplified Prominent Adult Learning Theories For You.

Here is my cross-pollination story for your enjoyment.

You can find more of these stories on my News Break profile.
Turing Test vs Chinese Room Argument
By: Parth Chokhra
Tags: Machine Learning, Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence, AI, Data Science

Albert Einstein once famously remarked that “ The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”

Since the past two centuries, there has been a constant effort to define AI both in Medical and AI community. Two of the most famous attempt to tackle this are Turing Test and The Chinese room argument.

Turing test is a method of measuring AI on whether they are capable of thinking like humans.

The Turing Test is a deceptively simple method of determining whether a machine can demonstrate human intelligence: If a machine can engage in a conversation with a human without being detected as a machine, it has demonstrated human intelligence.

In simple words even if you are not a human but act like one you are human.

On the other hand, according to American philosopher John Searle said that the Turing test was inadequate. The argument and thought-experiment are now generally known as the Chinese Room Argument.

Imagine youself in a closed room. Now suppose a girl passed a chinese letter to you. You don’t know anything about chinese but you have chinese to english(and vice-versa) computer program. With the help of that you decode and converse with the girl. The narrow conclusion of the argument is that programming a digital computer may make it appear to understand language but could not produce real understanding.

Searle argues that the thought experiment underscores the fact that computers merely use syntactic rules to manipulate symbol strings, but have no understanding of meaning or semantics. Computers at best can simulate what we can understand.

Which one is more appealing to you? I think most people will go will Searle because that just makes us think that we are much more interesting and complex to decode.😯

Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

Well, both theory might intrigue you on giving you thought on which is better I would also like to put a few cons of each theory.

Turing did not explicitly state that the Turing test could be used as a measure of intelligence or any other human quality. He wanted to provide a clear and understandable alternative to the word “think”, which he could then use to reply to criticisms of the possibility of “thinking machines” and to suggest ways that research might move forward.

One of the most commonly raised objection is that even though the person in the Chinese Room does not understand Chinese, the system as a whole does — the room with all its constituents, including the person.

So here I conclude my thoughts on this. What's your take on both? Do you think anyone can be standalone used as metric of measuring intelligence?

Here are a few of my other blogs.
Best Ph.D. Programs in Machine Learning (ML) for 2021
By: Towards Ai Team
Tags: News, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Future, Education

Source: Derivative from original on Pixabay, created with photoshop.

Best Ph.D. Programs in Machine Learning (ML) for 2021

These are the best universities to pursue a Ph.D. in machine learning, with research rankings in AI and machine learning research.

Last updated, December 19, 2020

Considering various factors such as the research areas, research focus, courses offered, duration of the program, location of the university, honors, awards, and job prospects, we came up with the best universities to help prospective students choose. This article is most suited for individuals who would like to pursue a Ph.D. with a focus on machine learning and need some guidance on their decision making.

📚 Check out our simple linear regression for machine learning tutorial. 📚

For the list of the universities, please jump at the end of the article.

Note: The universities mentioned below are in no particular order.
FrankMocap — New SOTA for Fast 3D Pose Estimation
By: Mikhail Raevskiy
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, AI

FrankMocap is a new state-of-the-art neural network for 3D body and hand movement recognition that was recently developed and published by researchers at Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR).

Egocentric Hand Motion Capture. Source: FAIR Github

The model accepts video footage from one RGB camera as input. At the output, the model gives the predicted body and arm poses. FrankMocap's main goal is to make it easier to access 3D posture estimation techniques. FrankMocap processes predictions at 9.5 frames per second on inference. At the same time, the system bypasses analogs in the accuracy of predictions.
Stories on ILLUMINATION-Curated — All Volumes
Tags: Business, Technology, Self Improvement, Science, Writing

Archives of Collections — Volumes

Stories on ILLUMINATION-Curated — All Volumes

Easy access to curated and outstanding stories

Photo by Syed Hussaini on Unsplash

ILLUMINATION-Curated is a unique collection, consists of edited and high-quality stories. Our unique publication hosts outstanding and curated stories from experienced and accomplished writers of Medium.

We compile and distribute stories submitted to ILLUMINATION-Curated daily. Our top writers make a great effort to create outstanding stories, and we help them develop visibility for their high-quality content.

The purpose of this story is to keep volumes in a single link for easy access. As a reference material, we also provide a link to all editorial resources of ILLUMINATION-Curated in this post.

Our readers appreciate the distribution lists covering stories submitted to ILLUMINATION-Curated daily. The daily volumes make it easy to access the articles and discover our writers. Some readers are closely following specific writers that they found in these circulated lists.

This archive version can be a useful resource for researchers and those who are studying specific genres. We cover over 100 topics.

This story allows our new writers to explore stories of our experienced writers and connect with them quickly and meaningfully. ILLUMINATION-Curated strives for cross-pollination. Writers learn from each other by collaborating. Our writers do not compete; instead, they enhance and extend each other’s messages.

Customised Image courtesy of Dew Langrial

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Editorial Resources About ILLUMINATION Curated
3 Books to Improve Your Coding Skills
By: Dmytro Khmelenko
Tags: Professional Growth, Software Development, Books, Software Engineering, Programming

Code Complete by Steve McConnell

When I finished this book, I was surprised by why nobody had explained such basic but crucial things to me until now. You might be asking, “What are they?” Let me bring to you a few examples.

For instance, declaring and initializing a variable only in a place where it is going to be used. There is no need to declare a variable and only assign it somewhere in the code. The variable should have the least visible scope possible. The benefit of this is that code readability improves a lot and your teammates will be thankful for that.

Another example is how to use if conditions efficiently. They are simple, but they can reduce code readability dramatically. Check the following example:

The example above has too many nested if conditions, making it hard to follow and test the logic. While learning programming, we focus on how the if condition works and when to use it. But nobody tells us how it could be misused. The book gives some advice for this case: Avoid too many nested blocks, consider splitting the code into functions, and check if the switch..case statement is suitable (if the language supports it).

Those and many other examples are covered in this book.
Freelance Writer? How to Know When It’s Time to Fire a Client
By: George J. Ziogas
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Business, Writing, Work, Freelancing

1.) If a freelance writing client tries to tell you how to run your business, they might not be a good fit for your writing services. Some clients think you should adjust your rates based on their needs. This isn’t a smart way to run your writing business.

Your rates are what they are based upon your expertise, writing talent, and demand for your services. If a client doesn’t want to pay your rates or thinks you should adjust your business’ modus operandi to suit the state of their business, it might be time to cut them loose as a client.

2.) If one of your freelance writing clients thinks it’s okay to talk down to you or berate you in discussions about their content creation needs/requirements, this is a clear sign it’s time to fire them as a client. You’re running a business. How you run your business isn’t up for discussion or debate. If a client doesn’t respect you enough to speak to you as a fellow businessperson, they’re not worthy of having access to your writing services.

There are plenty of other business owners around the world who would be thrilled to have an experienced freelance writer at their disposal. Terminate your business relationship with a client who belittles you and focus your efforts on replacing them with more profitable writing clients.

3.) If a freelance writing client thinks you should drop all your other work just to attend to their last-minute request for content, and then wants you to offer a reduced rate because they’re a regular client, you might want to think twice about whether they’re adding to your business’ bottom line. You started your writing business to turn a profit, not to be held hostage to the whims of penny-pinching clients who think you’re at their beck-and-call.

Focus on connecting with clients who appreciate your talents, are willing to pay top rates to have access to your services, and who understand they need to pay extra if they want a last-minute piece of content. You might even want to consider offering access to your services on a retainer business model to ensure your regular clients have easy access to your services, yet still allowing you to turn a profit.
The Danger of Humanizing Algorithms
By: The Unlikely Techie
Tags: Machine Learning, Programming, Data Science, AI, Artificial Intelligence

The Danger of Humanizing Algorithms

Misleading terminology can be dangerous. Machines are actually not learning

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash.

To many, 2016 marked the year when artificial intelligence (AI) came of age. AlphaGo triumphed against the world’s best human Go players, demonstrating the almost inexhaustible potential of artificial intelligence. Programs playing board games with superhuman skills like AlphaGo or AlphaZero have created unparalleled hype surrounding AI, and this has only been fueled by big data availability.

In this context, it is not surprising that the public, business, and scientific interest in machine learning are unchecked. These programs can go further than beating a human player, going so far as to invent new and ingenious gameplay. They learn from data, identify patterns, and make decisions based on these patterns. Depending on the application, decision-making occurs without or with only minimal human intervention. Since data production is a continuous process, machine learning solutions adapt autonomously, learning from new information and previous operations. In 2016, AlphaGo used a total of 300,000 games as training data to achieve its excellent results.

Every guide out there about how to implement machine learning applications will tell you that you need a clear vision of the problem it has to solve.

In many cases, the machine learning applications are faster, more accurate, and time-saving, therefore — among other benefits — shortening time-to-market. However, it will only address this specific problem with the data given.

But is this learning in correspondence to the way humans learn? No, it is not. Not even remotely.
How Boredom Can Help You Be More Productive and Creative
By: Binit Acharya
Tags: Personal Development, Self Improvement, Life, Creativity, Productivity

How Boredom Can Help You Be More Productive and Creative

We need to understand the importance of boredom

Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva on Pexels

In a study, participants were told to sit in a room doing nothing for 15 minutes. In that room, there was also a button which would electrically shock them. They could choose to click that button at their own will. 67% of men and 25% of women pressed that button. It goes to show how much we hate boredom. We hate it so much that we can choose pain over boredom.

So, we try to avoid it as much as we can. Avoiding boredom has never been easier because we’ve got so many things to do. We try to keep doing something in our free time, whether it is scrolling through social media, watching a badass movie, or binge-watching shows on Netflix. That makes sense because boredom is boring.
Weekly Prompt: 28-31.12
By: 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊.
Tags: Short Story, Writing, Energy, Newsletterandprompts, Creativity

Ahoy!!!

2020 is coming to an end…Oh no!!! Let’s all panic over the fact that we feel like we didn’t achieve much this year. Let’s publish content about how terrible these 12 months have been…Let’s complain and be negative, because that’s what we’re expected to do around this time, right?

Well, not us, folks, not us. We will use these last few days of 2020 we have left to reflect on our internal world. To hell with everything that happens externally…There’s only so much we can do about it, there’s only so much we can control! I am more concerned about what goes on within. What we’re focusing on. What we’re repeating in our heads. You know, the good stuff.

I know I’ve been living in my head a lot lately and so I want to ground myself through the following prompts. I hope you’re onboard with the idea of some more self reflection! It will be rewarding in the end (and you know it!):

Monday: Tell me about a “wow” or “oh yeah” moment in your life. When you came to a realization and something made complete sense. What happened? Where were you? What did you realize/learn?

Tuesday: What do you wish you were bold or brave enough to do?

Wednesday: What does having purpose mean to you?

Thursday (poetry challenge): In detail, write a poem about how you would like people to feel after interacting with you.

That’s it for now, dear friends! Hope you have enjoyed the ride KTHT took you on in 2020 and are excited for new projects and exciting challenges in 2021 :)

Thank you for your time, as always. A big, fat NAMAS’CRAY!
Why You Should Care About Joe Rogan’s Bowel Habits
By: Antony Pinol
Tags: Diet, Wellness, Health, Self Improvement, Self

Unless you’re a protein guzzling gym monkey, the thought of your entire diet consisting of this one food group - which national guidelines tell us should only make up ten to thirty-five percent of our diet - probably seems like a recipe made for gastric disaster. And if Joe Rogan’s experience of the diet so far is anything to go by, then you wouldn’t be far wrong. On a recent Instagram post Rogan gave us all the sordid details in typically comedic fashion:

“Carnivore diet update; the good and the bad. Let’s start with the bad. There’s really only one “bad” thing, and that thing is diarrhoea.

I’m not sure diarrhoea is an accurate word for it, like I don’t think a shark is technically a fish. It’s a different thing, and with regular diarrhoea I would compare it to a fire you see coming a block or two away and you have the time to make an escape, whereas this carnivore diet is like out of nowhere the fire is coming through the cracks, your doorknob is red hot, and all hope is lost. I haven’t shit my pants yet, but I’ve come to accept that if I keep going with this diet it’s just a matter of time before we lose a battle, and I fill my undies like a rainforest mudslide overtaking a mountain road.

It’s that bad. It seems to be getting a little better every day, so there’s that to look forward to, but as of today I trust my butthole about as much as I trust a shifty neighbour with a heavy Russian accent that asks a lot of personal questions.”

As funny as this post might seem (does toilet humour ever get old?), if we look past the punchlines we can see that Rogan is describing some relatively serious bowel related side effects to the carnivore diet. Side effects that anyone who is considering trying out this latest exclusionary diet should take note of if they want to avoid a prolonged period of solitary confinement to their lavatory.

Not all of us have a cushy enough lifestyle whereupon frequent toilet trips would only be a minor grievance. I imagine that running your own podcast, as Rogan does, in your own studio, on your own timetable, gives you a certain amount of freedom when it comes to your toilet trips. The same couldn’t be said for your average nine to five office worker, or a worker in any other amount of relatively run of the mill jobs.

I worked part-time as a shop assistant in a high street clothing store to get a bit of extra money while I was at university and I can distinctly remember the painful squirming of having to hold in a number one for longer than was comfortable, due to my boss not wanting the staff to have more than one toilet trip while they were on the cash register. I can’t begin to imagine what kind of pain I would have gone through if I’d been doing the carnivore diet whilst I worked there and I started getting some Rogan-esque bowel trouble whilst I was confined to that shop floor.
A Great Feeling
By: Mark Malekela
Tags: Cousins, Life Lessons, People, Candid Chat, Storytelling

And today, we will start with my dear cousin.

Call her Jubilate Mashauri.

I call her cousin. Simply because we have a lineage relationship that brings us closer.

I met her when I was 11 years old and she was 12 years old. Just a one year difference. (But she still wants a ‘shkamoo’ from me!) She was in class six, I was in class five.

A beautiful, charming and open creature. I was playing football when she just popped in grandma’s gate with her younger sister tightly held on her left hand.

Seeing her for the first moment left me heading for a quick shower. Ha h! Silly me. She seemed interested with my character, and I got interested to know her.

Soon enough did I learn how related we were. In her course of stay at grandma’s place, we became close and loving relatives — playing, having fun and getting close to one another.

We spent much time learning of our characters and personalities in a nutshell, kiddish way I can say. Most especially, the ‘what’ and ‘why’ we wanted to become in the near future.

I don’t quite remember if she mentioned any of her plans to me, but I know what I always mentioned to her!

“I want to be a Lawyer! Yes, a lawyer.”

I cannot forget that. It was deep in my bloodline.

Now, I bet you know what happens when ka-boy child and a girl child get so close ha? Words start to develop. Fashionable silly words and jokes of love arise! (Chuckles) Spare me Jubilate, ha ha!

Let’s forget about that, anyways. [ It was foolish age. Not that important. ]

So, the holidays passed, I got back home, she kept schooling and life went on. But one thing had attached us in common.

The dream to attend Agape Lutheran Junior Seminary.

You a’ll know how these ambitions develop with kids.

Passion.

A connected passion embolden in character.
Why Startups Need Affordable Help
By: Joe Procopio
Tags: Careers, Entrepreneurship, Business, Startup, Education

Why Startups Need Affordable Help

Teaching Startup is trying to reach both near and far away places

It’s the worst kept secret in business, but entrepreneurs generally don’t have a lot of disposable cash.

This is not a blanket personal assessment, just a business rule. It doesn’t matter if the founder is a kid with a few hundred dollars of saved-up birthday cash or a multi-millionaire who can fund a new enterprise with pocket money. When a business starts, it starts with capital, and that capital is finite and has to pay for everything.

Sometimes including rent and meals for the founder.

The vast majority of new business founders don’t come into the business with a blank check. Most founders don’t struggle over how much equity they’re willing to part with for that $500K Shark Tank investment.

So it kills me when I see founders spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need — things that aren’t going to be immediately helpful in furthering their progress.

I founded Teaching Startup — a newsletter and app with answers for entrepreneurs — to provide help to every founder. But I know every founder isn’t made of money, so I made it affordable, $10 a month. And I know it takes time for that help to be realized, so I threw in a free trial. I also know it’s not for everyone, so I made it a cancel anytime, no commitment deal.

Some of my favorite feedback is the feedback I get from founders in Africa, India, South America, and other far-away (to me) corners of the world where the money doesn’t flow like it does in Silicon Valley or New York.

What they’re spending is worth so much more than $10 a month, so if they find value in the product, I know the product is valuable here in the US. Or in the UK, or Australia, or all those other places Teaching Startup members come from.

So if you’re in one of those far away places, let me offer to cut the cost for you. If you’re in one of those places where the startup money doesn’t flow, here, there, or anywhere, use invite code FARAWAY before the end of 2020 and we’ll lower the price of Teaching Startup to $6.99 a month for all of 2021.

Even if you aren’t in one of those places, use invite code NEAR and I’ll give you your first month for $5.

If Teaching Startup winds up not being right for you, no worries. In both cases, you get up to 30 days free to figure that out.

And if that still doesn’t fit your budget, talk to us, and we’ll see what we can do.

Good advice and the right answers don’t have to cost $300 an hour. We’re here to prove that.
How I Got Out Of My Head And Into The World
By: Tiffany Kee
Tags: Mental Health, Happiness, Grief, Health, Self

The truth will set you free

I found this the hardest. I didn’t lie, instead, I actively avoided any situation where I might have to come clean about losing my dad.

I didn’t want anyone to pity me, so I alienated myself from everyone.

It took me far too long to realise that most importantly, being honest with others about your situation will help you to come to terms with it.

The first time I told someone how I felt, it cascaded from my lips as a jumbled string of letters. It didn’t sound right.

They had existed as disconnected and painful words tumbling around in my mind like dirty laundry for so long.

I repeated it until it became a simple sentence and my mind began to feel clearer as a result.

Take a deep breath

It took me a few attempts using apps like Headspace. At first, I used it to help me sleep when my insomnia was bad.

The first few times I tried, I got so frustrated with the narrator telling me to focus on my breath when I couldn’t do it, that I’d end up in a fit of tears and give up. I was desperate to sleep.

I came back to it again and again. I gave up every time.

Then one day, something clicked.

I made it through a 5-minute session and ended up feeling enveloped in a warm, fuzzy feeling.

I was relaxed and for the first time in months, my mind was quiet.

The best things are wild and free

I used to stay inside for fear that I might cry if someone asked how I was, I can’t bear to be emotional in front of people, let alone in public. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you should hide indoors when you’re feeling low.

Take yourself for a walk, find a beautiful park, forest or trail. Get in between the trees and walk through fields. The fresh air and the open space will make you feel at ease and the movement will help clear the fuzzy cloud in your head. You’ll go home feeling brighter than you did before.

Progress not perfection

When I first started going to the gym, I had no idea what in the world I was trying to achieve.

I used whatever machines I felt like using and picked up any weight. I would work-out until I could barely walk and left feeling high on life. I had dabbled in strength training, Muay-Thai and dance but never actually stuck to one particular thing to see any improvement.

When I was depressed I had no concept of time.

I could sink hours focusing on negative thoughts of the past or the future but was never firmly in the present.

When I trained for a specific deadlifting goal or some other target, I was immersed in the present moment while trying to hit every rep and set.

Strength training brought me firmly back to the present moment, no matter where my head was at the time.

I had a sense of focus.

I use the concepts of strength training which centre around progress not perfection and I apply them to my daily life. I now accept that things take time and that’s okay.

A small achievement every day. That’s all it takes.