fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
SPACs are the Future of AV Startups
By: Murto Hilali
Tags: Finance, Technology, Business, Startup, Lidar

LIDAR is a core technology that powers self-driving cars.

It’s also what I’m naming my new cover band where we do 90’s themed remixes of Lionel Richie songs.

LIDAR systems are usually (not always) mounted on top of self-driving cars/other autonomous vehicles (AVs):

Besides being a very fashionable top hat for you car, LIDAR systems are core to helping an AV “see”.

A LIDAR system is like a group of TIE fighters strapped to your car roof — they’re constantly shooting out lasers. Most used to spin, but modern ones are smaller and will still provide a 360° view.

“Pew pew pew”

Thousands of laser pulses are sent out every second. Every SECOND. When they hit an object and bounce back to the LIDAR, the reflection points are recorded to build a 3D point cloud. This can be done because we know how fast light is and how far it travels.

That cloud can then be turned into a 3D representation of the car’s surroundings. Here’s a look at how Uber tackles the problem:

Velodyne is a huge player in the LIDAR market. They’re one of the OGs in the space and they’ve kept up with industry innovations via sexy, smaller lidars.

As you can see, LIDAR is pretty great at telling the car how far away things are, but not really great at telling the car what they are. Because of this, most current AV approaches combine LIDAR data with camera + visual recognition data.
Unlock a GitHub Secret: Profile Bio Readme
Tags: JavaScript, Python, Github, Programming, Git

So What’s the Secret?

If you create a repository with your own GitHub username, it automatically turns into a special repository:

Isn’t that cool?

Once you initialize this repo with a Readme.MD , whatever you write in the Readme file will turn into a Readme for your whole GitHub profile. Make sure you create a public repository for this to work.

So when someone visits your GitHub account, they will see a bio-like description. This means that you can simply turn your GitHub account into a resume:

You can give an overview of your projects, talk about your work/education, boast about your achievements, mention your social media accounts, or write literally anything you want!

Do you know about any other GitHub secrets that are still waiting to be discovered? Let me know in the comments below.
IBM’s Watson joins doctors in fighting lung cancer with cloud-based medical app
By: Patients Loremipsum
Tags: IBM, Healthcare, Watson, AI, Tech

IBM’s AI super computer, Watson, is now being used to help doctors treat patients with lung cancer. IBM has partnered with Wellpoint and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center to “teach” Watson how to understand and interpret complex clinical information. This includes “more than 600,000 pieces of medical evidence, two million pages of text from 42 medical journals and clinical trials in the area of oncology research. “ The goal is to not replace the doctor, but to arm them with the information they need to make the best decisions possible.

Read more at theverge.com

or watch this video:
Understanding Git under the hood
By: Udara Bibile
Tags: Development, Github, Git, Programming, Coding

Adding Sequential Commits, & Nested Directories / Files

This just had one file, and no directories. Lets add more blobs & trees to give clearly understanding of how files & directories are stored in object database.

$ mkdir files

$ echo "aaa" >> files/aaa.txt

$ echo "bbb" >> files/bbb.txt

$ git add .

$ git commit -m "Add files"

$ git log

It is intentional that aaa content is also added for the new file. Lets check upon commit content by reading that git object → git cat-file 5c45ebb -p .

tree 21e6981939eae6277ad2128753e2984b552868cf

parent 239d1a0f75b596d7d67e23721f11066abf144982

Important changes include parent attribute that refers to parent commit. and then observe that tree has changed since files and directories changed. Lets go one by one and check content of trees & blobs to build files & directories.

100644 blob 72943a16fb2c8f38f9dde202b7a70ccc19c52f34 a.txt

040000 tree 75d27669a0c4e9dd702c71c6ac3307d533493ba5 files

Git object for a.txt remains same as content remains same. But within the parent tree object, there is another tree which represents that its a directory. When checking content of this nested tree: git cat-file 75d2766 -p

100644 blob 72943a16fb2c8f38f9dde202b7a70ccc19c52f34 aaa.txt

100644 blob f761ec192d9f0dca3329044b96ebdb12839dbff6 bbb.txt

If blobs are checked it will have expected content. Note that here aaa.txt will have same object of a.txt cause the content of the files are same containing aaa . However file name change didn’t effect this as it was not stored in blob itself but rather it was stored in its containing tree.

Git Object Model

It can been seen how git reused common blob containing aaa between two commits. Only 7 objects

.git/objects/

├── 21

│ └── e6981939eae6277ad2128753e2984b552868cf

├── 23

│ └── 9d1a0f75b596d7d67e23721f11066abf144982

├── 37

│ └── 057b2e8a9041ef88b805a5b7c4e0e668a03be4

├── 5c

│ └── 45ebb2052428ce037e2fbf760cb0ec9a18f6e2

├── 72

│ └── 943a16fb2c8f38f9dde202b7a70ccc19c52f34

├── 75

│ └── d27669a0c4e9dd702c71c6ac3307d533493ba5

├── f7

│ └── 61ec192d9f0dca3329044b96ebdb12839dbff6

Interpret working directory from commit

This currently have two commits, and user can checkout to either of these commits. For either of the commits, its perspective of files and directories might differ. For a commit it will ignore connected commits, and build up files and directories using trees and blobs it is connected to Here it will show how its seen by two commits
Excel to Python
By: James Briggs
Tags: Data Analysis, Excel, Python, Data Science, Programming

Excel to Python

Building front-end Excel workbooks for Python tools

During the Build 2016 conference, Microsoft announced that 1.2 billion people around the globe were using Excel [1]. That same year, the estimated population of Earth was 7.4 billion [2].

That is 16.2% of all people on Earth.

Python comparatively boasts a mere 8.2 million active developers according to a 2019 report [3] — which is 0.001% of the Earth’s population.

With those numbers in mind, it may benefit us to encourage more interactivity between Excel and Python — opening up the floodgates to a swarm of new users for Python-built tools.

The opportunity for Excel front-end’s for Python is huge. In this article, we will take a look at how to do this, and implement a ‘typical’ finance Excel setup sheet.
Zynga is Presenting at Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019!
By: Zynga Engineering
Tags: Machine Learning, Game Development, Game Design, Artificial Intelligence, Software Development

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is one of the biggest events in the game development industry and this year it’s taking place in San Francisco between March 18–22, 2019. At GDC, there are presentations and panels about the fun and challenging aspects of game development as well as how different game development teams work and implement new ideas.

Zynga GDC Presentations

This year at GDC, there are six speakers from Zynga’s studios with presentations covering topics from how to drive engagement for VIPs in games, to AI and Machine Learning applications, to massive database scaling.

If you’re going to GDC this year, check out the speaking sessions and presentations from Zynga:
On the other side
By: Ngang God'Swill N.
Tags: Poetry, Healing, Music, Heartbreak, Love

I didn’t fall to break,

rip your beating heart

with lies and excuses;

with selfish cravings

like beasts of the wild.

I fell to heal, to

taste of wholeness’ bliss

bound to you in happiness;

a primal connection

like finger and nail.

I fell too hard,

broke love’s fountain

of mesmerizing purity;

now to the pieces, I grovel

to mend in repentance.
The Problem with Polarizing Content
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Philosophy, Social Media, Tech, Future, Media

The Problem with Polarizing Content

Society always pays the price

Photo by Nihal Demirci on Unsplash

As a content creator, if you want to get thousands of eyeballs on your work, make sure you offend. Prime your audience for a fight by goading them into clicking and slap their outrage awake one cliché at a time.

On platforms that carry advertising, it isn’t quality or ethics that matter but how long a user stays on the site. Engagement is advertising revenue and the more controversy a platform hosts, the more successful it and those who provide it with the content of discontent get.

But simple maths often cause non-tech folks to overlook the human aspect of the internet. Most of us in the West carry it in our pocket and we rely on it for every aspect of our daily life, including but not limited to information, education, and entertainment.

We don’t just live on the internet together, we are it.
Mission of Mercy — the Name Says it All
By: Special Olympics
Tags: Wisconsin, Healthcare, Nonprofit, Health

The sentiments below were written by Jeanne Hrovat, a staff member from Special Olympics Wisconsin, after she helped transport athletes to a Special Olympics-Mission of Mercy event in Wausau, Wisconsin on June 24. Mission of Mercy is a nation-wide organization that provides free dental care to people in need, and is currently working with Special Olympics Healthy Athletes on a pilot program in 4 states to provide dental follow-up to Special Olympics athletes.

Sometimes a name is simply that — a name. But sometimes, it says it all. What I witnessed in Wausau was truly a “Mission of Mercy.”

The Mission

My role was to find five athletes between Madison and Wausau, whom I could pick up on my way to the event so they could get their teeth checked. When I left at 6 am that morning, I was feeling a bit sorry for myself having to get up so early. I missed my exit on the highway and became even more self-absorbed. I picked up the athletes who were all cheery and upbeat despite the fact that I was 15 minutes late and was driving them to a dentist two hours away. Their parents sat in their trucks and watched their children leave with a stranger who didn’t know when she’d be back.

This was my first wake-up call to the need.

We arrived in Wausau at 11:00 am and were promptly checked in at the separate registration with no waiting. Before I could get my head around what was happening, the first athlete, James, was sitting in the chair. James had been anxious on the car ride because he knew just enough about the dentist to be nervous. His coach suggested he come because his gums would start to bleed when he talked. Within 30 minutes, his teeth were clean and he had a new filling. He was all smiles.

Each athlete took their turn. Darlene got a filling and one tooth pulled. Ashley — no cavities — yah! DJ, fourteen-years-old hadn’t been to a dentist since he was seven. He was completely enamored with the numbing in his cheeks until he realized he had to have five teeth filled. It was Ashley’s hand he squeezed until it was blue. Anna, the most severe case, needed all four wisdom teeth pulled and two cavities filled.

I looked around and saw hundreds more. The need was widespread despite age, ethnicity, gender and even economic circumstances. The common thread: No insurance. No dentist.

The Mercy

The sea of purple-coated, capable, generous volunteers, hygienists, dentists, and surgeons. Dentist chairs ready and waiting for our Special Olympics athletes. The organization, efficiency and system. The kindness. The tears. The smiles.

People with the eyes to see the need, the head to pull it off and the heart filled with mercy.

The Thanks

What can I say?

Forever changed,

Jeanne Hrovat

Senior Director of Field Services and Initiatives

Special Olympics Wisconsin
26 problems with being a product manager
By: Robert Drury
Tags: Startup, Software Development, Product Manager, Product Owner, Product Management

26 problems with being a product manager

And it’s not moaning, it’s just reality

There are too many ideas to keep track of, but you’re expected to keep them all safe for when you need them There aren’t enough good ideas to hit the goal you need to hit, only ideas for things that won’t affect the KPI you need to affect There isn’t enough time in the current sprint to finish all the work, every sprint There isn’t enough time to plan the next sprint, because you’re too busy with the current sprint One stakeholder wants it to work likes this but another wants it to work like that and you’re expected to make them both happy Stakeholders have never thought about the return on investment of the feature they’re requesting Stakeholders always think that their request is easy to build Stakeholders always think their request is more important than any other stakeholder’s request Stakeholders think that PMs just ask too many questions Engineers think that PMs don’t ask enough questions Engineers think that the feature requests are too hard to build You need to think tiny detail one minute and then long term strategy the next As soon as you nail the roadmap, something changes As soon as you brief the engineering team, something changes As soon as the designer designs the feature, something changes As soon as you release a feature, something changes When an engineer asks you a question about a feature, you feel bad that you haven’t already considered it or written it in the story When a customer tells you a great new idea, you immediately get frustrated at all the other work you need to get done first When your product has a bug, you take it personally Some people in your organisation don’t have a clue what you do Most of what you do is behind the scenes and no-one ever sees it You have to sit through lots of meetings where you gain absolutely no value and give absolutely no value Some meetings will provide you with great insight that you can really do something with and some you can show your value equivalent to your weight in gold You need to learn everything about how your organisation works You need to know everyone in your organisation You need to know everything about what your organisation wants to achieve

Get product management resources direct to your inbox

If you’d like to receive more product management focused resources like this then you can head over to Getting Started in Product and subscribe and it will get delivered straight to your inbox.

Clicking the image will take you to Getting Started In Product where you can sign up to receive regular product management resources

About Me

I’ve been looking after products and hiring product teams for 20+ years. I’m currently product owner at luxury watch retailer Watchfinder and I write about how those who want to get into product can go about doing so, as well as how to do the job when they get there.
Shells
By: J.D. Harms
Tags: Brokenness, Creativity, Mortality, Poetry, Frailty

Still wounded into this corner

surviving

by the sound of the throat

where I used to put the good pen

Paper fortresses burn so easily

but I can make them

fairly quickly

So you stand in your shade

the image you create

by babbling into the time

you were thinking to stay wordless

But the design

you are trying to etch into your shell

keeps disappearing

On the appearance side of things

there could be a wisdom

lacking/ breaking into the vault

of the superimposed expectation that storms

the strike as you wonder

how not to fall

& the letters you left

the great negative spaces you had hold of

on your walls

now bare, more bare than your thigh at night

Struggled to get through

to this opening

& timing has scorned the bereft

the strong fingers of fate

like someone holding Atalanta just a little

back

enough to form a crack
There are a dozen ways to order a coffee. Why do dumb bots only allow one?
By: Shane Mac
Tags: Machine Learning, Chatbots, AI, Messaging, Bots

This is why bots get a bad rap. The bot didn’t expect another input, didn’t know the intent, and didn’t replace almond milk with soy milk. Start over. Fail.

This is why Mikhail’s article is right, unless we think about it completely differently.

We need to detect that almond milk is a parameter for milk, and replace the soy milk with almond milk.

If we are just building a text version of Interactive Voice Response (IVR), we should just pack up and go home today. This is about applying NLP, machine learning and a new way to think about messaging that truly will make people’s lives simpler and better and save people time.

Introducing Random Access Navigation. (R.A.N.)

This is how we believe the future of bots can truly deliver an experience people love. Give people the ability to navigate without a defined path, while also being able to change their mind at any time.

People should be able to interact with technology the same way they act in real life. We believe R.A.N. offers more than one solution for the most common bot criticism: fixed decision trees. It’s the ability to complete more complex tasks with 100% automation while also increasing customer satisfaction, reducing friction and not making people wait on hold.

The idea of R.A.N. has four aspects to it:

It detects all parameters required to perform an intent (with context) It allows the user to change their mind without going back It works seamlessly with web views It requires writing copy in a completely different way

1. It detects all parameters required to perform an intent

Let’s look at our partner Sephora. We need three parameters to complete the intent for booking a makeup appointment. We should be able to understand anything the customer types.

With a combination of intent and context.

We use R.A.N. to know what is missing or what we need to change and then navigate there. The more parameters (context) we detect (or can infer), the less steps for the customer.
Data Visualization with React & ECharts
By: Muhammad Usman
Tags: React, Graph, E Charts, Front End Development, Data Visualization

With the innovation of technologies in the field of Data Engineering, the term Data visualization has significant importance as it is an one of the essential components of Industry 4.0 and 5.0.

Data visualization is about representing data or information in a graph, chart, or other visual format which helps to communicate relationships of complex data with images. The main goals are:

quick understanding of the information

identify emerging trends/clusters and act quickly based on what we see

identify relationships and patterns within digital assets

can share our story (results) with others

analysis at various levels of detail

Image from ig.com : Represent the importance of visualization in various areas with different perspectives

This article helps you to plot & understand some basic visualization of the dummy data with React and ECharts.

React is an open-source JavaScript library, maintained by Facebook for building user interfaces or UI components.

ECharts is a powerful library of JavaScript for visualization, based on zrender offering an easy way of adding intuitive, interactive, and highly customizable charts.
Are Bubonic Remedies Right for You?
By: Judy Millar
Tags: Humor, Health, History, Medicine, Satire

Are Bubonic Remedies Right for You?

Try these plague and pestilence cures today

Drinking bleach has been ruled out as a remedy for our modern plague. But quack cures have been around forever. Could these once-touted Bubonic plague ‘cures’ have been ahead of their time? Maybe NOW is the time to re-try them. Are you game?

Cure #1: Eat more emeralds

Yes, they’re pretty, but an emerald diet costs way more than the Keto. Unless you’re Bill Gates, you may have to skip cure #1. Guys like Bill can afford gastrointestinal tract repairs after those sharp green shards pass through.

Cure #2: Drink your own urine, twice daily

Well, that’s better than drinking someone else’s, though not by much. At least the price is right. Bonus: It’s much less scratchy than swallowing an emerald smoothie. So, a contender?

Cure #3: Apply a feces poultice

Another easily accessible antidote. Simply spread a paste of you-know-what onto a warm, moist cloth and apply to your congested chest or other inflamed area. Although if cure # 2 wasn’t for you, it’s pretty sure #3 will be a non-starter.

Cure #4: The fig and onion cure

Low cost. Less icky. But tricky. You’ll be applying a “boiling onion” directly to your body. Specifically, you must “take a greate onion, hollow it, put into it a fig cut small and a dram of Venice treacle (you won’t find that at Trader Joe’s), put it close stopt in wet paper, roast it in embers, and apply it HOT.” Ouch.

Cure #5: Self-flagellation

This one’s going to hurt worse than that hot onion. For best results, self-flagellants are encouraged to whip themselves while wandering naked through city streets. Check your local bylaws before investing in a costly cat o’ nine tails.

Cure #6: The exploding-frog cure

Definitely not okay with the SPCA. But if you’re still prepared to give it a go (you awful human, you), get yourself a fleshy frog. Place it — belly down — on your own belly. In theory, it will absorb your bodily poisons, swell up, and finally explode. Which sounds bad (not to mention, messy). Still, you WANT your frog to explode. If it doesn’t draw out your poisons, cure #6 says you will die. Which is worse (for you, but better for your frog).

Public Domain, Wiki Commons

Cure #7: The pouty pigeon cure

If you can’t find a viable frog, try to snag a live pigeon. Prepping your bird will take time — frogs are faster. First you must “plucke the feathers off her taile,” then apply your bird’s shaved posterior to your congested breast or bubonic booboo “until the venome be drawne out.”

Sadly, your pigeon will perish. Should she (sensibly) fly the coop, you may substitute a chicken or even a hen. Although there’s a bigger backside to pluck. And more squawking to endure for your poultry cure.
Text Summarization using a Wordcloud & Deployed on Streamlit
By: Boadzie Daniel
Tags: AI, Apps, Datascience, Streamlit, Deployment

Word clouds are the easiest way to quickly summarize customer sentiment. In this tutorial, we will create a text summarizer using word cloud and deploy it on Streamlit with their awesome new one-click-deploy.

Let’s begin by creating a virtual environment and activating it.

python3 -m venv env

an then activate it

source env/bin/activate # if you are running on Linux or Mac env\Scripts\activate # for windows users

and now install the packages with…

pip install wordcloud pip install streamlit

We will create two functions for our app. One function will hold the word cloud logic and the other one will be our Streamlit UI. Let’s create an app.py file in the root of our project and add the following code.

the cloud function

We first imported our libraries at the top of the file and then created the first function. This function takes five parameters that we will feed to our word cloud. The image in the parameter will be used as the shape of the word cloud. We will also add colors to the word cloud and finally plot it with Matplotlib.

Now that we have our logic let’s focus on the UI with Streamlit; an awesome library for building data apps.

the main function

In the code above, we are using the alias ‘st’ that we created to represent Streamlit. Then we call the ‘write’ method to enable the writing of Markdown; a variant of Markup Language like HTML. This is an easy alternative to HTML. ‘st.write’ is generic and so can handle the output of many formats including Markdown , images, plots, and many others.

Finally, we call our function and supply the right argument to it. These are from inputs that the user will give. The slider inputs will be in the sidebar.

Now, let’s add a line that will recognize our app.py as a Python module.

If all goes well, then we can run the app with the following command and navigate to `http:localhost:8501` and see the app live.
100 Days to Amazon. 100 of the Most Commonly Asked…
By: House Of Codes
Tags: Technology, Coding, Java, Careers, Programming

Day 1

100 Days to Amazon

Unique Triplets

Hey Guys, From today. I am challenging myself to solve 1 problem each day for 100 days. Used up your free stories Here is my Friend Link.

I am naming this series as 100 Days to Amazon.

All these problems are taken from the following e-book. 🎓

This is completely free 🆓 if you have an amazon kindle subscription.

Begin Your ascent to greatness🚀

Keep reading and you can find out the companies that have actually asked these questions in real interviews.

Day 1– 3 Sum 🏁

AIM:🏹

Given an array nums of n integers, are there elements a, b, c in nums such that a + b + c = 0?

Find all unique triplets in the array which gives the sum of zero

Code👇

Algorithm👨‍🎓

Create two Lists and one TreeSet. Sort the given input array. using Arrays.sort() function. Create a for loop that iterates from 0 to n-2. Create two variables l and r. l is to iterate from the left and r is to iterate from the end. The logic behind this approach is after we have sorted that data. At any moment of time if the triplet sum is greater than the target value. Then we should search for the triplet before the given indices. Similarly, if the sum value is lesser than the target we should increase the iterator from the left. Now if the triplet equals the sum. Add the elements in a list (row).📃 Add that particular row into the tree set. When we save it in tree set. if we use contains function it results in O(1). So that retrieval it is more efficient. After looping ➰for all each iteration. Return the Result.🔚

Conclusion:

Don’t forget to hit the follow button✅to receive updates when we post new coding challenges. Tell us how you solved this problem in the comments section below. 🔥 We would be thrilled to read them. ❤

I have published an ebook. A compilation of 100 Java(Interview) Programming problems which have been solved. (HackerRank) 🐱‍💻

This is completely free 🆓 if you have amazon kindle subscription.

Companies

Other Data Structure Articles you may like:
Highest Paid Careers
By: Aliyan Shaikh
Tags: Careers, Business, Career Development, Career Advice, Entrepreneurship

Highest Paid Careers

Choose your career wisely.

If you want to make a lot of money in your career, then you have to be passionate about your career. You will have to give 100% to it. Evaluate different careers to determine which profession is best for you. In this article, I share 5 different highest paid careers,

1. BUSINESS OWNER:

A business owner earns unlimited money because they are their own boss. Everyone works under him. There is not any specific limit, but he has to apply strategies to grow his business. The more he grows his business, the more he can generate money. While owning a business, you have to be very careful, because business risk may stop you from achieving the goals you set.

Photo by travnikovstudio on freepik

2. HEALTH CARE JOBS:

The healthcare sector is booming, due to the growing population that will require increasing care with age. A job in healthcare can come with a healthy living. The median annual wage for healthcare workers is about $65,000. Some of the highest paying healthcare jobs are:

· Physical Therapist’s annual wage: $88,000.

· Nurse Anesthetist’s annual wage: $110,000.

· Pharmacist’s annual wage: $127,000.

· Optometrist’s annual wage: $110,000.

· Dentist’s annual wage: $158,000.

· Physician and surgeon’s annual wage: $208,000.

Photo by freepik on freepik

3. PETROLEUM ENGINEER:

A petroleum engineer helps find oil and gas for the country’s energy needs.

One of the reasons petroleum engineers are paid so well is because it’s a highly specialized field. Only about 1,500 students graduate with a petroleum engineering degree each year. He makes an average of $175,000 per year.

Photo by jcomp on freepik

4. IT MANAGER:

IT managers are information technology professionals who direct, plan, and oversee activities dealing with a company’s computer and information systems.

Payscale says a mid-career IT manager with between five and nine years of experience earns an average of $50,000 a year. An experienced IT manager with up to 19 years of experience can expect to earn upwards of $55,000.

Photo by ArthurHidden on freepik

5. MARKETING MANAGER:

A marketing manager is responsible for managing the promotion and positioning of a brand or the products and services that a company sells.

The average salary for a marketing manager, a generalist title for someone who plans and oversees a variety of marketing activities, can range from $55,000 to more than $150,000 annually.
The holy grail of the private moment
By: Iskander Smit
Tags: Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram

Since half a year now or so I’m using Taptalk. This Dutch/German app grew out of DingDong app and is unleashing a bunch of new apps that are a kind of retake more or less literally. Instagram introduced an app named Bolt just yesterday and earlier this week Mirage was launched, made by the people behind Yo. Both had done a shameless copy of the interaction principle of tap-to-share ultra short interaction model.

One of the makers of Taptalk did react on this fact by stating that they don’t really care because of their steps advantage in thinking and roadmap they have. And I believe him, not specifically for that roadmap, but because there is an angle in the Taptalk app that Bolt and Mirage are missing because they just focus on the quick share. The crux of the new movement of apps, that are originated by Snapchat, is the private character. We go from moment sharing — the field Instagram has conquered — to private moment sharing. This requires a different approach to master.

With Taptalk there are clear and hidden elements that create an extra private feeling. The clear thing is the location sharing. By adding the location of the moment it becomes way more private in perception. It seems simple but is so important for the feel of it. Also the way that only the one that shares reveals it location, something that was different from DingDong. I think this works better.

And there are also more hidden ways the app is more private I think. It lies in the obscurity of things. In the awkwardness of the sudden sharing, the puzzling interaction. Something that becomes of course less the case for regular users, but remains an important feel. The fact that there is no history, that there is a weird indicator in the avatar pics. The app is constructed around obscurity. Obscurity in an engaging way. That is different from the irritation factor Slingshot is generating with it’s forced communication chain.

The attention for Taptalk by Instagram is logical. They have no stake in the private message domain that is becoming more and more important. Like Whatsapp is replacing the function of Facebook and Twitter because we are rather sharing in our known groups. Instagram has introduced the messaging function but probably sees not many use (speculative). Mother Facebook is separating the Messaging app, Instagram is now doing the same with Bolt. Breaking up apps to their different functions is a trend on its own.

Unless I think that Instagram did not really get the essence of this new private moment sharing, they have a chance in succeeding as they find a way to embed their unique value of manipulating reality (filtering) and adding that to the private moment. Apart from that we will see that the new tap-to-direct-share interaction paradigm will dominate apps from now on. And so will private communication.
Blockchain for Dummies
By: Telmo Subira Rodriguez
Tags: Technology, Learning, Innovation, Blockchain, Future

If you thought that Blockchain corresponds to one of the previous ideas, do not worry. You will soon understand why you were wrong.

2. THE BLOCKCHAIN: WHAT IS IT?

Blockchain is the name of a whole new technology. As the name states, it is a sequence of blocks or groups of transactions that are chained together and distributed among the users.

“The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.”

– Don & Alex Tapscott.

In the end, it works as an immutable record of transactions that do not require to rely on an external authority to validate the authenticity and integrity of the data. Transactions are typically economic, but we can store any kind of information in the blocks.

Even when we call it ‘new technology’, its origins are accepted to date from 1991 when Scott and Stornetta published “How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document” in the Journal of Cryptography. However, it is now when its popularity has increased thanks to the success of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

“Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” was published by Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2009, and the value of the currency reached its highest historic maximum of $19,783.21 on Dec. 17, 2017. Since that moment, Blockchain has been in the scope of everybody.

3. THE BLOCKCHAIN: HOW DOES IT WORK?

The value of the Blockchain technology comes from the distributed security of the system. For this reason, there are several characteristics that are completely necessary for developing or using a Blockchain.

We describe the 5 key concepts that are the basis of the Blockchain technology as we know it up to the date, based on the SuperDataScience course for Blockchain:
Straightforward
By: Patrick M. Ohana
Tags: AI, Haiku, Poetry, Truce, Blue Insights

Medical writer who prefers to read and write fiction and some nonfiction, though the latter may appear at times as the former. patrickmohana.wordpress.com

Follow
Visualising music — 21 Notations
Tags: Music, Visualisation, Avant Garde, Book

Notations 21 by Theresa Sauer, from Mark Batty Publisher.

I was really excited to get this in the mail, I’d seen a few blog posts and it looked great. I’m lucky enough to have a couple of issues of Source Magazine which first sparked an interest in these innovative approaches to music notation, so I new this wasn’t a book to miss out on.

It’s even better in person. It’s lovingly produced on a great mat stock that makes the ‘notations’ and scores look and feel wonderful. There’s a diverse mix of styles and techniques with great insight into why the composer took their particular approach.

Anyone looking at the current trends in data visualisation should definitely take the time to peruse this book, full of inspiration at tackling one of the oldest and most difficult visualisation tasks.

There’s a website and the blog also looks good.

Get it from Amazon UK here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0979554640
Configure Basic Authentication for CloudFront Using Lambda@Edge
By: Istiaque Islam
Tags: Lamda, Cloudfront, AWS, Basic Authentication

Configure Basic Authentication for CloudFront Using Lambda@Edge

For web servers, you must know the basic authentication settings for LAMP configuration. What if you are using AWS Cloudfront for hosting your frontend part? How will you add basic authentication for CloudFront? The answer is AWS Lambda function.

This article will lead you to step by step procedures for configuring basic authentication with Lambda@Edge. S3 bucket representing contents through CloudFront may be blocked due to basic authentication requirement. Sometimes, browsers (chrome, safari) may not load png or jpg files. In this article, certain issues are kept under consideration and tried to provide a solution for that.

Step 1: Select AWS Region

At first, you need to select the AWS Region. My suggestion is to use region N.Virginia. Why? Even if you can’t configure it yourself, you can get help from the Lambda blueprint. Blueprint has a template to create basic authentication using a Lambda function. You can type the CloudFront and the list narrowed down like below picture. Then you can use CloudFront response generation. We shall discuss this in another article.

lambda function with Cloudfront keyword

Step 2: Create Function on Lamda

Open AWS Lambda service in N. Virginia Region and click on Create Function. Then you need to Select Author from scratch. Provide your Desired Function Name and keep runtime as Node.js 10.x. Lastly type Create.

Create a Lambda Function from Scratch

Step 3: Code in index.js

Once you are done creating the Lambda function you will get a window like this one:

Lambda Function Window

In the index.js file remove the existing code and type the following as below:

This code is modified one, the following site of hackernoon

Then click on ‘Save’ on the top right corner. Click on ‘Actions’. And from the drop-down list select “Publish New Version” and provide a name for the version.

Step 4: Configure Trigger Option

Select “Add trigger”.

Window Details of Trigger

Do the following in the trigger configuration.

Cloudfront from the drop-down list. From Distribution Dropdown list Select the CloudFront you wish to use for basic authentication. Keep Cache Behavior with ‘*’. Select ‘Viewer Request’ From ‘CloudFront event’. Tick the Acknowledgement Windows.

Step 5: Configure ‘Trust Relation’ in IAM Role

Then open another Tab of AWS and Open IAM. Click on Roles and select the role you have created. Then click on the ‘Trust Relation’ Tab and edit with the following:

After this, click on update trust policy.

Final Step: Activate AWS Lamda@Edge for Basic Authentication

For the last step, go back to Lambda Page and create ‘Add’. You are done and good to go.

Browse your URL of CloudFront or the domain associated with it. You will find it with basic authentication available. You need to test with all our browsers.

If you have anything more to discuss, feel free to ping me at istiaque.islam@monstar-lab.com.bd.

Visit our website to learn more about us:

www.monstar-lab.co.bd
The Vanishing/Exploding Gradient Problem in Deep Neural Networks
By: Kurtis Pykes
Tags: Machine Learning, AI, Data Science, Neural Networks, Deep Learning

What is the Problem?

When training a deep neural network with gradient based learning and backpropagation, we find the partial derivatives by traversing the network from the the final layer (y_hat) to the initial layer. Using the chain rule, layers that are deeper into the network go through continuous matrix multiplications in order to compute their derivatives.

In a network of n hidden layers, n derivatives will be multiplied together. If the derivatives are large then the gradient will increase exponentially as we propagate down the model until they eventually explode, and this is what we call the problem of exploding gradient. Alternatively, if the derivatives are small then the gradient will decrease exponentially as we propagate through the model until it eventually vanishes, and this is the vanishing gradient problem.

In the case of exploding gradients, the accumulation of large derivatives results in the model being very unstable and incapable of effective learning, The large changes in the models weights creates a very unstable network, which at extreme values the weights become so large that is causes overflow resulting in NaN weight values of which can no longer be updated. On the other hand, the accumulation of small gradients results in a model that is incapable of learning meaningful insights since the weights and biases of the initial layers, which tends to learn the core features from the input data (X), will not be updated effectively. In the worst case scenario the gradient will be 0 which in turn will stop the network will stop further training.
Build Simple Nodejs API for Microservice
By: Taufan Fadhilah Iskandar
Tags: Microservices, Nodejs, Backend, Rest Api, Expressjs

Create API

For me, foldering is an important thing. With good folder management its help us to easy to maintain and scale up as well. Here is how i set the folders.

Folder Management for API Nodejs

Inside handler folder we create folder as their focus. In example for user folder, its mean that folder will manage everything about user. Next we will write files inside user folder.

Login.js

This file is for create a login API only, we will check the email and password from request body with data in database. Will return success or failed depends the credential.

login.js

Index.js

This file is like a parent file to import all files inside user folder, so when we call the file it will be easier.

index.js

Now we will create a route file for users. The file is users.js inside routes.
(no subject)
By: Orion Nebula
Tags: Tribute, Music

in In Fitness And In Health
How I, a Millennial, Killed All the Industries
By: Lisa Martens
Tags: Millennials, Economy, Humor, Parody, Society

How I, a Millennial, Killed All the Industries

Time to set the record straight: it was me.

I jumped out, started this fire, and ran back while looking calm. Photo by Aaron Thomas on Unsplash

It has long been assumed that because of rapidly-changing technology and a recession, the business landscape of the United States has changed. Capitalism, the philosophy whose dick we all suck, dictates that as situations change, companies must keep up or perish.

So you could say that the dead malls, failed chains, and focus on services over products are just a logical result of these shifts in attitude, finances, and technology.

But you are wrong.

It was because of me.

I single-handedly killed the doorbell business. I lick my teeth the way a lioness licks blood every time I text “here” instead of going up to the door and ringing the bell.

I intentionally trick people into thinking I’m Middle Eastern, Italian, Indian…when I’m actually white and Latina. I have been sent to make racists feel awkward. That’s the only reason I exist…when I am not making people feel the pangs of their latent racism, I cease to exist. I become vapor in the wind until I detect a new form of racism, then I appear.

I cackle like a hyena eating a kitten while its mother whimpers in a cage every time an Applebee’s or a Sears closes.

I grow stronger every time someone laments about the good ol’ days.

I use my secret millions to fully fund Planned Parenthood, and I’m trying to turn aborted fetuses into my own personal army.

I have been playing the victim my entire life, because it’s just so much fun, and so I can be right in internet arguments about sexism and racism.

You got me.

I personally have been using social media to turn blonde, long-haired, big-breasted angels into raging feminists with bad teeth, short hair, belly rolls, and tattoos. And I have been doing so with all the glee of a vulture picking at roadkill.

It’s not that the internet has allowed people from marginalized groups to connect and share their experiences. It’s actually me. All me. I’m responsible for every change, every shift, every bad date, and every large chain gone under.

I’m responsible for people refusing to buy diamonds.

I’m why people take classes online and deliver pizzas on their time off.

I whisper “ghost him” to every heterosexual woman on dating apps.

You may have thought that it was a rational cultural shift that happened rapidly in pace with expanding technology, but no.

I did it. I did it all. In-between college, graduate school, working full time for the park service and two large tech companies, when I wasn’t in therapy or working on my trauma, when I wasn’t traveling the world, I was going out of my way to sabotage these business chains with the sole intent of getting WaPo to write articles about my evil supergenius.

It was me.
Aaron Kelly
By: Arin Segal
Tags: Idol, Aaron, Music, Kelly, American

in In Fitness And In Health
I Intend To Pick The Path of Long-Term Survivability
By: Emma Holiday
Tags: Humanity, LGBTQ, Life, Society, Transgender

I Intend To Pick The Path of Long-Term Survivability

There are some things that occur in life that are simply monumental. Discovering that I’m transgender was mine.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Let me start by saying I do not have all the transgender answers. I am constantly humbled by my ignorance, but I do recognize a few things that I’ve learned along the way as I have come to grips with my gender dysphoria, and the realization that I have been transgender all my life.

The hardest lesson I’ve learned is how incredibly difficult making a significant life decision is. I thought I knew, but, in the scale of my life experiences, gender dysphoria has forced me to make the most brutal one, one that I could never have conceived of only a few years ago: permanently changing my gender.

Just five years ago, my life was as perfect as I could have made it. Sure, I had lots of life issues, some of which I could not control, but I accepted it all as the package called “LIFE.”

There are some things that occur in life that are simply monumental. They change the entire direction of your life. Discovering that I’m transgender was mine.

I’ve learned from so many others that this transgender road has been well travelled. Along the way each of us have had unique diversions but the path always seems to join back up to the main road. Gender dysphoria has a way of herding us along that road no matter how hard we try to divert or stall the journey.

It has taken me a painfully long time to realize that, for me, there really hasn’t been any real choice. It was pre-determined by my gender wiring before I was born. My lifetime battle of resisting my reality has to end sometime. The futility of fighting it becomes clearer every day.

Regardless of my decision, there will be pain. That’s life. I refuse the suicide option and I know I’m not a martyr who can suffer a lifetime. I intend to pick a path of long-term survivability then improve it as I go along. Those in my life who want to be a part of it will be a part of all the joy I can bring.

I just hope they remember to buckle up.

Emma Holiday
Why Energy Efficiency Is A Big Deal
By: Priya Aggarwal
Tags: Climate Change, Environment, Energy Efficiency, Climate Action, Carbon Emissions

CLIMATE CHANGE

Why Energy Efficiency Is A Big Deal

This less glamorous form of saving the planet is a low hanging fruit and is an activity where everyone can, and should, contribute.

There are multiple ways of reducing one's carbon footprint, but energy efficiency is not the one we normally talk about. Perhaps, it is not as fun as buying a Tesla or putting solar panels on the roof. In a world where we like to flaunt our allegiance and show our actions, being energy efficient is like being a silent hero, working for one's own sake, and for the planet's.

Let's see what makes energy efficiency an important tool in our toolkit to fight climate change.

Source Of Global Warming

Let’s start with some numbers.

25% of all emissions come from the electricity sector and 6% from direct energy generation in buildings (Image by Jonathan Foley)

It is no surprise that the electricity sector is the largest contributor of greenhouse gases on the planet. The burning of coal, natural gas, or oil for power and heat generates carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), among other gases in smaller concentrations. CO2 with its atmospheric concentration of more than 80%, is the biggest contributor to global warming. In this article, let’s just focus on CO2.

Fossil fuels make up about 2/3rd of the energy mix and ~100% of the CO2 emissions (Chart by the author; 2019 generation and emission data from EIA)

A kWh is a standard unit used to measure energy. Since energy is power multiplied by time, whether you use 1kW power in 1 hour or 100 watts in 10 hours, your total energy consumption will be 1 kWh. Every gram of fossil fuel burnt to produce energy emits CO2 which is about ~2 pounds/kWh when using coal and ~1 pound/kWh when using natural gas.

That means, each time you let a 100W bulb run for 10 hours, two out of three times at least a pound of CO2 gas cloud is released in the air.

The average daily consumption of an American house is 30kWh. If 23% of this comes from coal and 39% comes from natural gas, then that’s 25 pounds of CO2 cloud released per household per day. Now multiply that by the number of homes in USA — 128 million. I won’t do the math here, as it has been shown that because it is hard to imagine big numbers, people often fail to realize their intensity.

Imagine that for every unit of energy your house consumes, you emit a black cloud of CO2 which will stay over your house forever.

But surely you can imagine a black cloud above your house every day weighing about 25 pounds? And imagine that cloud getting bigger each day and reaching up to 9000 pounds in a year? CO2 also has a long life, so this large black cloud will stay over your house for your whole life. And since gas occupies a very large space, I guarantee you this looks ugly.

Then imagine the same thing on every neighbor’s house?