fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Finally, an intuitive explanation of why ReLU works
By: Andre Ye
Tags: Machine Learning, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Towards Data Science

One may be inclined to point out that ReLUs cannot extrapolate; that is, a series of ReLUs fitted to resemble a sine wave from -4 < x < 4 will not be able to continue the sine wave for values of x outside of those bounds. It’s important to remember, however, that it’s not the goal of a neural network to extrapolate, the goal is to generalize. Consider, for instance, a model fitted to predict house price based on number of bathrooms and number of bedrooms. It doesn’t matter if the model struggles to carry the pattern to negative values of number of bathrooms or values of number of bedrooms exceeding five hundred, because it’s not the objective of the model. (You can read more about generalization vs extrapolation here.)

The strength of the ReLU function lies not in itself, but in an entire army of ReLUs. This is why using a few ReLUs in a neural network does not yield satisfactory results; instead, there must be an abundance of ReLU activations to allow the network to construct an entire map of points. In multi-dimensional space, rectified linear units combine to form complex polyhedra along the class boundaries.

Here lies the reason why ReLU works so well: when there are enough of them, they can approximate any function just as well as other activation functions like sigmoid or tanh, much like stacking hundreds of Legos, without the downsides. There are several issues with smooth-curve functions that do not occur with ReLU — one being that computing the derivative, or the rate of change, the driving force behind gradient descent, is much cheaper with ReLU than with any other smooth-curve function.

Another is that sigmoid and other curves have an issue with the vanishing gradient problem; because the derivative of the sigmoid function gradually slopes off for larger absolute values of x. Because the distributions of inputs may shift around heavily earlier during training away from 0, the derivative will be so small that no useful information can be backpropagated to update the weights. This is often a major problem in neural network training.

Graphed in Desmos.

On the other hand, the derivative of the ReLU function is simple; it’s the slope of whatever line the input is on. It will reliably return a useful gradient, and while the fact that x = 0 {x < 0} may sometimes lead to a ‘dead neuron problem’, ReLU has still shown to be, in general, more powerful than not only curved functions (sigmoid, tanh) but also ReLU variants attempting to solve the dead neuron problem, like Leaky ReLU.

ReLU is designed to work in abundance; with heavy volume it approximates well, and with good approximation it performs just as well as any other activation function, without the downsides.
Google’s New Accessibility Projects
By: Russ Ewell
Tags: Russ Ewell, Disability, Artificial Intelligence, Google, Technology

Google has recently unveiled 3 separate efforts to bring technology to those with disabilities to help make their daily lives easier and more accessible. The three projects are Project Euphonia, which aims to help those with speech impairments; Live Relay, which assists anyone who is hard of hearing; and Project Diva, which aims to give autonomy and independence to people with the help of Google Assist.

More than 15% of people in the United States live with a disability, and that number is only expected to grow in the years ahead as we grow older and start living longer. There has never been a better time to try to harness the power of our technology to help make the lives of the disabled more comfortable and fulfilling.

Project Euphonia

Project Euphonia aims to help those with speech difficulties caused by cerebral palsy, autism, and other developmental disorders, as well as neurologic conditions like ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), stroke, MS (multiple sclerosis), Parkinson’s Disease, or traumatic brain injuries. Google’s aim with Project Euphonia is to use the power of AI to help computers understand speech that is impaired with improved accuracy, and then, in turn, use those computers to make sure everyone using the service can be understood.

Google has partnered with the ALS Residence Initiative and the ALS Therapy Development Institute to record voices of men and women with ALS, and have worked on optimizing algorithms that can help to transcribe and recognize their words more reliably.

Live Relay

Live Relay was set up with the goal of bringing voice calls to those who are deaf or hard of hearing. By using a phone’s own speech recognition and text-to-speech software, users will be able to let the phone listen and speak on their behalf, making it possible to speak to someone who is deaf or hard of hearing.

Google also plans to integrate real-time translation into their Live Relay software, allowing anyone in the world to speak to one another regardless of any language barrier.

Project Diva

Project Diva helps those who are nonverbal or suffer from limited mobility to give Google Assistant commands without needing to use their voice, but instead by using an external switch device.

The device is a small box into which an assistive button is plugged. The signal coming from the button is then converted by the box into a command sent to the Google Assistant.

For now, Project Diva is limited to single-purpose buttons, but they are currently devising a system that makes use of RFID tags which they can then associate with certain specific commands.

This article was originally published on RussEwell.co
7 Food-Related Hacks That You Must Implement to Lose Weight Easily
By: Shruti
Tags: Food, Health, Self, Fitness, Psychology

7 Food-Related Hacks That You Must Implement to Lose Weight Easily

These hacks are based on psychology, biology and hormonal science.

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Food is one of the most powerful natural stimulants out there — seeing, smelling or even thinking about which is enough to activate a craving and feeling of hunger in human bodies.

It has been proven that any time a person sees food, particularly unhealthy, junk and calorie-rich food, the reward centres in his or her brain light up making them feel hungrier.

A hunger that is always accompanied by an increase in your heart rate and sometimes even makes you drool a little. This happens usually because your body is priming you to eat, whether you are planning to do so or not.

In a 2006 study, jars of Hershey’s kisses were placed on the desks of some secretaries in an organisation. Half of the secretaries received them in a transparent jar while the other half in an opaque one. The ones who could see the chocolates staring them in the face all day ate 71% more than those who couldn’t see them.

The phenomenon associated with this study is called food cue reactivity. According to which, if you see the food your body would crave to eat it.

This happening doesn’t only apply to food, but it also implies to anything that we have learnt to associate with food in the past. Therefore, certain smells, sights, images and locations can trigger food cravings depending on our learned associations with them as well.

Think about how this is already happening in your own life on almost a daily basis, for example, you decided to eat clean and healthy today but your coworker or friend brought burgers or you were casually watching tv and a pizza hut commercial came on.

You would immediately crave the food, your will power would go down and your mouth will be like - damn, I haven't had pizza in ages and next thing we know you have already ordered it.

Unless we are aware of how food cues influence our decision, we on a daily basis can end up consuming calories we had no intention of eating without even paying much attention to them.
[DeNA TechCon 2020 ライブ配信] DeNA データプラットフォームにおける自由と統制のバランス
Tags: Bigquery, Analytics, Kubernetes, Data Engineering, Technology

in In Fitness And In Health
How we built the CyberSift Attack Map
By: David Vassallo
Tags: JavaScript, Web Apps, Python

Recently we launched a small site called the “CyberSift Attack Map”hosted athttp://attack-map.cybersift.io.Any one involved in the InfoSec industry will be instantly familiar with the site:

It’s basically a map of attacks which either trip some rule in a signature based IPS such as SNORT, or land in a honeypot. In this article we’ll list some of the libraries and techniques we used to build the site for any devs out there who are interested.

Backend

We used the pythonFlask microframework, work … Read more at David’s Blog
Predicting Heart Disease With a Neural Network
By: Tommaso De Ponti
Tags: Programming, AI, Neural Networks, Python, Machine Learning

Predicting Heart Disease With a Neural Network

Predict the probability of getting heart disease with a Python neural network

Photo by Kendal on Unsplash

In these times of coronavirus, many hospitals are short-staffed and in dire straits. A lack of staff causes many problems. Not all patients can be treated, doctors are excessively tired and risk not taking appropriate precautions. Once a doctor gets sick, staff reductions accelerate, and so on.

This leads us to consider the importance of technology in the medical field. One of the most promising branches of technology today is artificial intelligence (AI). Today, we’re going to talk about implementing artificial neural networks in the field of medicine. More specifically, we will create a neural network that predicts the probability of having heart disease.

Disclaimer: If you look at my previous work, you will see that this not the first time I have written about AI for medical purposes. I want to be clear that this is not a scientifically rigorous study — it’s just a way of implementing AI to solve real-world problems.

Having said that, let’s start!
My Life Without Bread
By: Erin King
Tags: Diet, Food, Health, Self, Books

The changes have been so profound, I feel like a completely different person. It makes me wonder if most of the modern problems that people suffer from aren’t caused by our diets. Mine certainly was.

For three years now, I’ve eaten like this and here’s what’s happened:

I’ve lost weight.

In total, I’ve lost about 40 lbs. I could probably lose a little more, but even if I don’t, I’m still way better off than I was.

I’ve maintained it.

It’s been maintainable because, after a while, my cravings for these foods disappeared.

It’s the norm for me now. It’s not something I’m “sticking to,” it’s just how I eat.

Photo by Author: You can see how my face was bloated and puffy.

My joints no longer hurt.

The joint of my right middle finger used to be enlarged. I thought it was the onset of arthritis. At night my right hand would stiffen into a painful claw that I’d have to work to loosen every morning. I couldn’t wear my wedding ring, not because my finger was too fat, but because it wouldn’t go over my knuckle.

I also had pain in my shoulders that made taking a sweater off over my head difficult and my knees ached, just walking up the stairs.

I took Advil daily, to combat the pain.

All of that pain and inflammation has disappeared and only returns when I eat sugar.

I can run up the stairs.

Now I can easily pop up and down the stairs instead of lumbering, huffing, and puffing. Which is great considering that I make my living running after toddlers.

My mood swings have disappeared.

I used to get quite irritated over small things.

Now my moods are stable. I’m more easygoing. I am calmer and more approachable. I’m sure everyone is thankful for that.

I look healthier and younger and I’m starting to like the way I look for the first time in my life.

In the last three years, since I’ve become genuinely healthier, I’ve finally begun to like the way I look. I’m not perfect, but when I look in the mirror, I like what I see.

I feel like I’m 35-years-old.

I definitely don’t feel “my age.”

When I think about how old I am, from the inside out, I feel about the same as I did when I was 35. Possibly better, because I had an undiagnosed heart condition and I was always fatigued back then.

I have mental energy.

I have the mental energy to get everything done in my day. I can concentrate better, remember things easier and I don’t need a nap every afternoon.
Minds In Their Prime
By: Aarish Shah
Tags: Inspiration, Writing, Poetry, Creativity, Photography

I fall in love with minds that are better than mine

The kind of minds that in this world are hard to find

And when you find them you better take the time

To revel in their imagery the bridges they build, so hard to define

And were those minds to all fall into line

And cogitate at their utmost prime

Imagine the world we could create, the states sublime

Immaculate wonder, the universe refined
Reporters: Big Tech is Slowly Killing Journalism
By: Save Journalism
Tags: Local News, Advertising, Journalism, Google, Big Tech

A movement is growing to try to save the news business by reining in the power of tech giants Google and Facebook, which together control 60% of digital advertising. Watchdog groups accuse the companies of profiting off the work of journalists while undercutting the ad revenue that pays their salaries.

The Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on the subject of big data and privacy. Laura Bassett, a freelance journalist formerly with the Huffington Post, testified at that hearing. She said Google and Facebook should be broken up — or at least, heavily regulated.

“They’re basically a country, they’re that powerful. Not only do they have the power to tip elections and control what kind of news they’re putting at the top of their feeds, but they’re also killing journalists, financially,” Bassett said. “So, it’s just creating a real problem when one or two companies has the power to cripple the free press as we know it.”

More than 2,500 reporters have been laid off so far this year. A study from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill last year found about 1,800 local newspapers have gone out of business since 2004–20% of the total industry. The decline began many years ago when sites like Craigslist reduced newspaper revenues by about 40% by rendering classified ads obsolete.

Freelance reporter John Stanton, formerly of Buzzfeed, also submitted testimony at the hearing. He said he sees the widespread layoffs of reporters as a threat to communities and democracy — leaving “news deserts” with little-to-no reporting on government corruption and a host of local issues, positive and negative.

He urged Facebook and Google to be better corporate citizens and devise a way to ensure content providers get paid.

“While they’re not governmental entities, they do have a responsibility — given that they now kind-of control the way that people consume news — to not put profits above the ability to have a vibrant, thriving news culture,” Stanton said.

Brian O’Kelley, a tech entrepreneur who invented the system that underpins digital advertising, also testified at the hearing. He said big news sites should band together and stop allowing digital firms to handle their ad sales — thus forcing advertisers off Facebook and Google, and back to the news sites themselves.

“They can just click the box and turn it off and stop working with all these programmatic advertising companies,” O’Kelley said. “And because it is funding some of their business right now, turning it off and switching to something else feels scary — even if it is the right decision in the medium term.”

O’Kelley said part of the solution may be a federal law patterned after one in California, giving consumers the power to limit the ways websites collect their personal data and browser history.
Which framework is better: Angular.js, React.js, or Vue.js?
By: Samer Buna
Tags: React, Programming, JavaScript, Angularjs, Vuejs

Before I answer, if you‘re reading this article to pick a framework “to learn”, don’t. Read this article instead.

If you want to pick a framework to use (in an actual project), you may proceed :)
The Inspirational Fiction Books that Changed Me More Than Self-Help
By: Jordan Gross
Tags: Life Lessons, Inspiration, Self Improvement, Creativity, Books

The Inspirational Fiction Books that Changed Me More Than Self-Help

The last book changed me for a reason you wouldn’t expect.

Photo by Justin on Unsplash

Escapism helped me cope with a year plagued by its bitter reality. I escaped the fear of being stuck inside by exercising outdoors. I escaped the fear of negative thoughts by minimizing my news intake. I escaped the fear of the world’s certain uncertainty by diving into the undemanding world of inspirational fiction.

Inspirational fiction allowed me to live in a world where hope and prosperity run rampant. They introduced me to characters with which I could empathize, characters with which I could grow for the entirety of the 200-or-so pages. These stories built up my faith muscles and reminded me that there is still positivity; still good; still happiness circulating around the world.

The books below can do the same for you. They can pluck you out of the four walls you’ve been staring at for the last year and introduce you to a world of potential. By reading them, you will feel an unmatched delight near impossible to gain by simply reading self-help books. Inspirational fiction allows you to feel the help in action, not just be told it.

(Note: These are not affiliate links. I just wanted to make it easy for you to go and purchase some darn good reading material that has the possibility of uplifting your day)
A Look Behind the Mask
By: Samantha Clarke
Tags: Mental Health, Wellness, Domestic Violence, Abuse, Narcissism

Not all of these characteristics need be present to constitute an abusive relationship, and there are certainly others that were likely not mentioned. Although abuse follows a similar pattern, it is important to note they can manifest in certain individualized behaviors. Understanding our personal experience is key to moving forward and planning a safe exit.

As victims, we can use our knowledge and awareness of our partners’ behavior patterns during our unique cycle of violence. From this, we can determine indicators of upcoming episodes and plan suitable responses to keep us safe. In this way, we learn to adapt in order to survive. But eventually as time goes on, the cycle of violence becomes shorter, faster, and more intense.

Breaking the cycle of abuse means breaking the denial that something is wrong. It means that we must forfeit the illusion of what we have accepted our lives to be. It means we have to gain a conscious awareness that we are actually being abused. It means we have to finally let go of the fairytale that turned into a nightmare.

No one wants to face that pain, no one. Healing takes time, and it hurts, especially at the beginning. If you are considering that now is the time for you to leave, more than likely you have been depressed, felt trapped, or even felt like death was your only way out. I am here today as living proof that you can survive this. You are brave and strong. Look what you have already endured. We must accept this disillusionment. It is only when we are at the end of the road that we can truly begin to heal.

If you feel your life is in eminent danger or you are being threatened or physically harmed, call local law enforcement for immediate assistance. Please reach out to your local domestic violence shelter or call the national hotline at 1–800–799–7233 to begin safety planning and to obtain information on domestic violence restraining and protective orders.
Is Technology Destabilizing Reality?
By: Ilexa Yardley
Tags: Society, Quantum Computing, Culture, Digital Transformation, Books

Yes and no. Nature is destabilizing reality.

Nature (Conservation of a Circle) (NASA)

Is technology destabilizing reality? Yes and no. Nature is destabilizing reality, for sure.

How do we know this? The constant (re) circulation in Nature destabilizes everything.

It looks like (has to look like) (can only look like) this:

Nature

Reality

Technology

Where, reality is stabilized, and, also destabilized, by the conservation of a circle.

Conservation of a circle.

Explaining the genesis of technology (the basis for, both, and-or, either, zero, and-or, one).

Zero and-or One (Both and-or Either)

Eliminating (exposing) the redundancy present in any ‘gate’ (and-or) (if-then).

If-then.

And-or.

Corrupting our ‘understanding’ of a circuit. And, therefore, then, eventually, disrupting, everything we ‘know’ about (are relying on in) technology

Circuit.

And there it is. Technology. Reality. Nature stabilizing, and, also, destabilizing, both.

Conservation of the circle is the core (only) dynamic in Nature (reality included).
How to Maintain a State of Creative ‘Flow’
By: Corey Mccomb
Tags: Life Lessons, Inspiration, Personal Development, Creativity, Productivity

Josh Waitzkin, chess prodigy and author of The Art Of Learning, once described a conversation he had with skiing legend Billy Kidd, in which he asked Kidd about the three most important turns on a ski run:

… the three most important turns of the ski run are the last three before you get on the lift. And it’s a subtle point. That’s when the slope is leveled off, there’s less challenge. Most people are very sloppy. They’re taking the weight off the muscles they’ve been using. They have bad form. The problem with that is that on the lift ride up, they’re unconsciously internalizing bad body mechanics. As Billy points out, if your last three turns are precise, you’re internalizing precision on the lift ride up.

And so it goes with flow. When we walk away from our work drained, dazed, and confused, we internalize those feelings. That all-nighter where you worked until you literally couldn’t anymore? It may have yielded production, but the brain drain you felt when you walked away followed you back to your desk the next day.

The bitter gambler will always tell you the same story, “If it wasn’t for that last hand, I’d be rich!” But the gambler who laughs all the way home after doubling her money knows it’s because she walked away before her luck ran out.

Hemingway knew that flow wasn’t a ghost to be strangled to death on every chance encounter. He walked away from his typewriter while he still had gas in the tank and inspiration on his side.

Many artists and entrepreneurs think of beating their head against the wall in search of inspiration as a rite of passage. But Hemingway never allowed those feelings to enter his workspace. He walked away long before those feelings of brain drain could be internalized. This helped him return to his work knowing exactly where to start again.

I always worked until I had something done, and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. —Ernest Hemingway

There is still a strong undercurrent in our society, particularly amongst entrepreneurs, that continues to celebrate and glamorize the grind. Just like with conversations around how much sleep is best to have each night, there is an unspoken competition around who can stay in the pressure cooker, working the longest and the hardest.

But anyone can learn how to outlast the others. The real discipline comes from walking away before you’re cooked. It takes a cool, Hemingway-like confidence to tell the muses, “We’ve worked enough today. I’m sure I’ll see you around tomorrow.”

So the question remains, for athletes, creatives, writers, producers, and thinkers alike: When you find your flow today, will you have the discipline to walk away before it’s all gone?
GAN — CycleGAN (Playing magic with pictures)
By: Jonathan Hui
Tags: Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Data Science, Machine Learning

In addition, the set of images are not paired, i.e. we do not have the real images corresponding to the same locations where Monet painted the pictures. CycleGAN learns the style of his images as a whole and applies it to other types of images.

CycleGAN

The concept of applying GAN to an existing design is very simple. We can treat the original problem as a simple image reconstruction. We use a deep network G to convert image x to y. We reverse the process with another deep network F to reconstruct the image. Then, we use a mean square error MSE to guide the training of G and F.

However, we are not interested in reconstructing images. We want to create y resembling certain styles. In GAN, a discriminator D is added to an existing design to guide the generator network to perform better. D acts as a critic between the training samples and the generated images. Through this criticism, we use backpropagation to modify the generator to produce images that address the shortcoming identified by the discriminator. In this problem, we introduce a discriminator D to make sure Y resemble Van Gogh paintings.

Network design

CycleGAN transfers pictures from one domain to another. To transform pictures between real images and Van Gogh paintings. We build three networks.

A generator G to convert a real image to a Van Gogh style picture.

to convert a real image to a Van Gogh style picture. A generator F to convert a Van Gogh style picture to a real image.

to convert a Van Gogh style picture to a real image. A discriminator D to identify real or generated Van Gogh pictures.

For the reverse direction, we just reverse the data flow and build an additional discriminator Dx to identify real images.
React and MobX — Lessons Learned. Get started with MobX as your state…
By: Caio Vaccaro
Tags: Mobx, React, Programming, JavaScript, Development

Observables

What allows that to happen is the use of observables. Quite simply, an observable adds to an existing data structure the possibility of being “observed” by someone. It is similar to the pattern design of Pub/Sub or Mediator, where part A asks to be notified when something happens in part B, but here, in addition to all of this happening automatically (without the necessity of “subscribing”), what is observed is the value in itself, rather than callbacks created by you.

The use of decorators in MobX is optional: It is just a way to write a little less code and maintain the current structure. Every decorator has a corresponding function. To enable decorators, you may need to change the Babel settings.

An example of that is the use of decorators @observable and @observer :

Please note that without having to write anything specific, the observer will react alone when the observable name changes its value. Even though you have a lot of complex observables, MobX internally only records what is being used by you in the render method.

Cool, right? Very easy and straightforward.

Previous example without the decorator:

You can find more examples of proceedings with or without the decorator in the documentation.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: Let’s Start a School for A.I.
By: Nick Kolakowski
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Google, Eric Schmidt, Education, Machine Learning

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: Let’s Start a School for A.I.

Uncle Sam might want you… to code.

If you’re interested in becoming a technologist for the federal government, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt wants to teach you how to code.

According to OneZero, Schmidt has partnered up with former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work to create a school for folks who want to become government coders. This U.S. Digital Service Academy would operate like a regular school, offering coursework and degree tracks, and focus on cutting-edge technology subjects such as cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (A.I.).

As OneZero points out, the federal government is very interested in technologists who can craft new innovations in A.I. “We are engaged in an epic race for A.I. supremacy,” the publication quotes Rick Perry, secretary of the Department of Energy, as telling an NSCAI conference in 2019. “As I speak, China and Russia are striving to overtake us. Neither of these nations shares our values or our freedoms.”

Despite that urging, however, the U.S. government has “fallen short” when it comes to actually funding artificial intelligence research, according to a report issued by NSCAI: “AI is only as good as the infrastructure behind it. Within DoD in particular this infrastructure is severely underdeveloped.”

But the U.S. Digital Service Academy isn’t a done deal; first, Congress must approve NSCAI’s recommendation that the university be created. Then, it would actually need to be built, staffed, accredited, and launched. In order to fulfill the vision presented by Schmidt, the school would also need to forge partnerships with a variety of private companies and public institutions, in order to give students the necessary internships and other opportunities.

And even if all those goals are met, the U.S. Digital Service Academy would need to persuade young technologists to opt for it over other schools that are specializing in A.I. instruction, including Stanford and MIT.

Over the past several years, Eric Schmidt has shaped himself as an expert and advisor on U.S. technology policy. Last year, for example, he suggested that the U.S. government’s attempts to restrict hiring from China wouldn’t do this country’s technology industry any good.

“I think the China problem is solvable with the following insight: we need access to their top scientists,” he told the audience, according to Bloomberg. He also added that “common frameworks” such as Google’s TensorFlow benefit from input from scientists and researchers in other countries.

The U.S. Digital Service Academy is clearly his latest attempt to try to guide policy and discussion. If he can actually get it off the ground, though, it could provide yet another venue for technologists to learn intensely valuable A.I. and machine learning skills.
TikTok’s Most Recent Viral Trend Is Headed To Broadway
By: Zo Sajjad
Tags: Pop Culture, Broadway, Tik Tok, Startup, Music

The so- called Ratatouille musical is based on the the 2007 Disney-Pixar film that tells the story of Remy, a talented French rat with an impressive palate, who learns to cook from old TV shows and cookbooks made by a famous human chef, Auguste Gusteau, whose motto is that “anyone can cook”.

It all started when an audio from Tiktok User @e_jaccs started to make rounds on TikTok. The now viral audio is of user @e_jaccs singing about how Remy, the rodent protagonist of the film, was the rat of our dreams. The Audio soon started to gain traction and now has over 18.5 thousand videos using it.

The Musical, organised by production company Seaview, will supposedly star credited Broadway performers. Proceeds from ticket sales to the digital event will raise money for the Actors Fund.

The musicals origination and creation, however is not accredited to one individual.Unlike traditional broadway shows, the composition of the Ratatouille musical is one that relies on the collaboration of strangers over the internet to create canonical music and lyrics.

The power and populariy of tiktok as a free creagtive space has birthed a collaborative enivromnet like no other. Hundreds of fans of the pixar movie along with musicl theatre lovers have built off eachother’s songs and ideas to create professional running orders and song instrumentation.

Tiktok being the home to creatives from evry relm and genre has allowed there to be collaboriom regarding every step of the process including the set and playbill designs.

The cast of the Broadway version has not yet been announced and it is still unclear whether it will be staged inside a physical Broadway theatre or from the homes of the actors chosen.

Disney has historically used many of its tales such as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King for musical adaptations but has clarified that it will not be doing the same for ratatouille saying,

“ Disney does not have development plans for the title”.

While that still may be true, Disney hasnot caused any trouble with the fan made adaptation of the film In fact the company has even given its blessing to the production saying,

“we love when our fans engage with Disney stories” and “we thank all of the online theater makers for helping to benefit the Actors Fund in this unprecedented time of need”.

It has also been confirmed that the creators of songs to be used in the musical will be credited and “compensated”. You can buy Tickets to the musical at Today Tix !
Kesamaan Perilaku antara React dan Vue
By: Alif Irfan Anshory
Tags: React, JavaScript, Front End Development, Web Development, Vuejs

Easy read, easy understanding. A good writing is a writing that can be understood in easy ways

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4 Ways To Help Your Employees Build Their Confidence
By: Melissa Schwartz
Tags: Leadership, Mental Health, Culture, Mindfulness, Creativity

Do you have a high achieving performer on your team that is talented, hard-working, and intelligent; but remains silent in group meetings and freezes in crucial calls? Freezing happens, but for some, freezing is a frequent obstacle to professional well-being. Every employee wants to feel seen, heard, and celebrated in the workplace, but for some, sharing ideas, thoughts, and accomplishments creates a total body and mind shut down.

They could be experiencing “destructive perfectionism.” Brené Brown defined this kind of perfectionism in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, as ‘a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought:

‘If I look perfect, live perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment and blame.’

While that keeps them safe, it prevents them from showing up with vulnerability and courage to step into feeling confident and connected in the workplace. Here are four suggestions to create a supportive and connected environment for employees to thrive:

1. Improv Exercises to Get Out of the Head & Into the Body

Curio specializes in creating expert-led interactive virtual experiences to help employees get out of their heads and into their bodies through creative, low-pressure improv exercises. These moments give employees permission to relax and show up unrehearsed.

2.Quieting the Loud Inner Dialogue

A relaxed mind feels at ease to connect authentically in a casual conversation or a board room. Some inner dialogues are so critical and loud, it leads to constant overdrive for the mind, and it drowns out all other thoughts. Mindfulness is not about clearing the mind. Mindfulness techniques slow down and quiet the chatter, leaving room for present connection with the self and others. Choose a breath awareness meditation, shifting awareness from the stream of thoughts to the breath.

3.Body-based Relaxation Techniques

The body goes into fight, flight, freeze mode when it feels that a situation is a high risk. For someone with ‘destructive perfectionism’, the body sees many moments (like meetings, calls, interviews, presentations) as another risk to be seen as imperfect. The threat feels high, so they shut down. Choose a body scan meditation, shifting awareness to the physical body.

4.Rewiring Through Journaling

Popular Psychologist Dr. Nicole LePera @The.Holistic.Psychologist has an incredible free resource called the Future Self Journal that takes you through a daily writing practice of rewiring thought patterns and creating new pathways to help achieve new habits and mindset.

Try sharing these techniques with your team or adding a new well-being activity to your employee health programs. Creating a supportive and open environment builds more creative and collaborative teams.
Let Us In
By: America Zed
Tags: Poetry, Writing, Poetry On Medium, Blue Insights, Creativity

Let Us In

A micro poem

*

Let us in,

We shall not judge,

Your words and things you say.

And things you wont,

You are a poet,

In one unique artistic space.

***

© America Zed. Other Poetry by America Zed.
The Biggest Change in React 17 That No One Is Talking About
By: Dr. Derek Austin
Tags: Software Engineering, JavaScript, React, Programming, Web Development

The Biggest Change in React 17 That No One Is Talking About

Even though React 17 has “no new features,” there was actually a pretty big change if you’re a fan of function components. And who isn’t? 😁

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

I love function components and React Hooks. My first article on Medium used the useState hook, and I still think useState is fantastic.

I don’t even mind wrapping my brain around useEffect for loading data. (Of course, we now have React Query version 3 as a fantastic alternative to useEffect for data fetching.)

While there are reasons you might want to keep writing class components and using lifecycle methods in 2021, I don’t plan to.

Since I’m all-in on function components and React Hooks, I was surprised when I found out about a major change in React 17 that is going to affect every new component I write.

You may have missed the change, too, since the headline for React 17 was, and I’m quoting: “No New Features.”

“The React 17 release is unusual because it doesn’t add any new developer-facing features. Instead, this release is primarily focused on making it easier to upgrade React itself.” — React 17 Announcement by Dan Abramov and Rachel Nabors

I’m not even one to read release notes usually. I prefer writing new tutorials to stay “up-to-date” with dozens of technologies that are constantly changing. Writing keeps me focused on problems and use cases instead of feeling overwhelmed by the paradox of choice.
Our True Colors Always Show
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Communication, Writing, Self, Creativity, Social Media

Our True Colors Always Show

No matter what words we use

What would happen if we shunned the constant urge to curate our lives and let it all hang out?

To some extent, this is a question the personal essay seeks to answer by documenting our own experience of being a human in the world.

Thanks to the internet, we all can do so on our own terms and in our own words.

Ostensibly, many of us undertake this kind of intensive emotional labor so we might understand one another better. Anyone who has ever had to defend their humanness in the eyes of peers who view them as unworthy often goes on to become an advocate for equality across a wide range of issues.

To try and shield others from what we went through, we revisit intimate and often painful parts of our lives in print. Because information presented in an accessible and relatable way can go a long way toward humanizing complex issues. Academic literature, meanwhile, is often too abstract.

In this sense, writing is service, a way to turn harrowing life lessons into a contribution toward making the world a more tolerant place. On a personal level, this kind of work can be hugely rewarding: We’re flipping the script and using what was done to us for the common good.

This is how many of us reclaim agency, control over our limiting circumstances, and freedom.

Because words are a powerful tool.
My First Book After 10 Years of Blogging — Grokking Java Interviews
Tags: Coding, Books, Java, Careers, Programming

My First Book After 10 Years of Blogging — Grokking Java Interviews javinpaul Follow Nov 28 · 2 min read

Hello All,

I am super excited to announce the release of my first book after 10 years of writing Java articles and Java interview questions which have been read by millions of developers.

While I have been blogging for the last 10 years, I have never really sold anything, didn’t have any book, course, or any digital product.

Finally, now I have my first book and it’s going to help Java developer cracking interview — Grokking the Java interview. You can now buy the book on GumRoad for a special launch price of $10.99.

Here is the link — Grokking the Java interview.

This was my long desire to have my content in a structured and organized way to provide more value and this book does that. It provides a structured way to prepare for Java interviews and learn essential core Java concepts.

I am offering a special discount offer to all my Javareivsited members and you can buy the course for just $9.9 on Amazon

here is the link to buy the Kindle version — Grokking the Java Interview on Amazon

Thx to your support, its’ reached the #1 New Release in the Java Programming category.

If you buy the book and if you think it provides value, please consider leaving a review, this would help me and other readers a lot. If you have any questions or feedback or any other idea to further improve the book, feel free to reply to me back.

Once again, thank you all for being a JAvarevisitd follower and supporting our community.

Happy Thanksgiving

Javin
The question is has Trump been hacked?
By: Mike Meyer
Tags: Blockchain, Economics, Artificial Intelligence, Future, Security

The question is has Trump been hacked?

Yes, openness equals vulnerability. There are ways to handle this in systems. Depending on which of my things you have read, and this is getting to be a problem as I’m working this out as an open process. I see blockchain as the answer for many of these things but the security part is necessarily later in the process because blockchain, first and foremost, eliminates much of the need for government. By that I mean the guarantor of contracts. From a process perspective government has resulted from the need for records of ownership and obligations. An economy is a record of value systems, once fixed but now dynamic. That’s why blockchain was used first for currencies such as bitcoin, for instance, started from zero and then was tracked. But that can be used for anything. The security comes from locked, replicated records of all transactions. Basically anyone or any closed group can become part of a blockchain and gets a copy of all past transactions and all future transaction including theirs. The system is self auditing as all transactions that are completed are registered and replicated to all existing copies held by all users. I’m being a bit simplistic with the technology.

The link is that any decision that results in action is a transaction and must be recorded as legitimate. Once done it is replicated to all existing copies and is verified against all existing copies at each action. We can secure a transaction record under this system. That is not the same as securing a data set of random information, however. But maybe it can. Blockchain has scaling issues because of this that are being worked on.

From another perspective we are working against a low standard. We can’t trust people. To put it in data security terms right now the big concern is whether Trump has been hacked. Is he functioning under our rules for our ends or under Putin’s rules for Russian ends. Until we find direct evidence of an intrusion and illegal changes to Trump we don’t know. But actions that he takes that don’t make sense for the US and do for Russia are being watched closely now. But with algorithms in an AI systems just as with people you need constant surveillance of the audit trail of decisions and actions. And if someone who gains access can make small changes that produce very small actions these can escape notice over time, they win. It always comes back to multiple audit programs watching for any change in pattern, etc. etc. We are already way beyond human capabilities anyway.
We Hold the World in Our Hands
By: Susannah Mackinnie
Tags: Climate Change, Environment, Poetry, Storytelling, Hope

“He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” is a traditional African American spiritual, first published in 1927……

The song was first published in the paperbound hymnal Spirituals Triumphant, Old and New in 1927. In 1933, it was collected by Frank Warner from the singing of Sue Thomas in North Carolina. It was also recorded by other collectors such as Robert Sonkin of the Library of Congress, who recorded it in Gee’s Bend, Alabama in 1941. That version is still available at the Library’s American Folklife Center.

Frank Warner performed the song during the 1940s and 1950s, and introduced it to the American folk scene. Warner recorded it on the Elektra album American Folk Songs and Ballads in 1952. It was quickly picked up by both American gospel singers and British skiffle and pop musicians… Wikipedia
Don’t Get Stuck In The Achievement Trap
By: Nate Rutan
Tags: Growth, Self Improvement, Personal Development, Psychology, Neuroscience

But what’s the deal with the negative and positive errors? Aren’t all errors bad?

That’s a good question, grasshopper. You will find the answers you seek at the end of the journey.

Actually, I’m just going to tell them to you right now.

Because, that’s kinda the point of all this, the fact that you shouldn’t be waiting until the end to get all your feels.

Because, if you do that, sometimes you’ll be wrong, and that might send you into a place where it’s not healthy to hang out.

And if you’re right, you’ll probably try to do the same things again, and then, in a cruel twist of irony, your brain will not be satisfied the next time.

You’ll need to give it more, make the goal bigger, and generally do something to impress your own brain, which will be sitting there with its arms crossed, tapping its feet impatiently while you dance faster.

This is not the kind of situation you want to be locked into, because, as you may have already noticed, it’s basically the same mechanism as addiction.

Many in the software industry have been concerned with what’s called “humane software” because our phones and devices can be used to hijack this system so that we all keep pressing buttons looking for something novel.

This is why we’re less than happy when we get addicted to things, and we end up missing the fact that this same mechanism is at work when we are doing that couch-to-whatever-K, or launching our next venture, the hotdog stand shaped like a car, with giant cheese wheels for, well, the wheels.

Because cheese for wheels is a thing.
Writing Belongs to Everyone
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Communication, Writing, Self, Creativity, Social Media

Writing Belongs to Everyone

So why let anyone deter you from bringing your ideas to life?

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

How helpful are those listicles outlining why you don’t have what it takes to make it as a writer and why do you even read them?

Why hand over your hard-earned cash to those feeding our collective impostor syndrome and discouraging us?

Look, writing isn’t rocket science and few are those of us who don’t already do it on a daily basis. Do you have a smartphone? Do you use social media? Do you communicate by email? If so, you already have a writing habit, one you keep honing and developing without exerting any particular effort.

Because print is still the leading way our society communicates. Even TED talks have transcripts, don’t they?

If writing is something you feel strongly about, there’s no reason why you too can’t start bringing your ideas to life online. Millions of humans are doing it; seeking to understand one another better is how we build a more tolerant and tolerable world to live in.

Or at least that was Tim Berners-Lee’s idea.
Creating awesome (and ethical) experiences with big data
By: Jack Strachan
Tags: Design, Data Science, Creativity, Visual Design, UX

First things first. Products and services centred around data promise a future of personalised, groundbreaking innovations — not tick box, opt-in privacy forms. And, as big data continues to promise these innovations in the form of sophisticated, contextually aware digital services, how we influence a users relationship with their data is becoming more important. But because data is complex (and life is never easy) companies are finding it increasingly hard to strike a meaningful and balanced relationship between users and their data.

The tensions that come from data ethics and data privacy have forced the majority of today’s digital services to be defined by un-educating and uninspiring tick box, opt-in privacy experiences (we all remember the GDPR fiasco right?). Understandably, companies are very reluctant to change these UX patterns and start reframing any relationships users have with their data because these UX patterns are proven to keep their nose clean.

The reasons for this are multifaceted and complex. I’m not arguing that data privacy isn’t essential, it is. But for products and services to offer slick, possibly even “futuristic” experiences, ethical and sophisticated use of user data is essential. Scratch that; ethical and sophisticated use of user data is inevitable, and the way we reframe user relationships with data will be our first step.