fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
My New BFF
By: Ann Litts
Tags: Self-awareness, Self Love, Yoga, Life Lessons, Life

Photo by Evan Kirby on Unsplash

For all of my life, there were two of me. How to explain this? I was ‘me’ inside my head and then there was the ‘other’. My body. The ‘me’ inside my head had a whole lot of awful things to say about the ‘other’.

She was too fat, too short, her butt was too big, her boobs were too small, she had ugly brown hair, and green eyes (GOD who has GREEN eyes?!). She had a round soft belly from where all the muscles in her abdomen had been cut in her more or less emergency appendectomy. She was allergic to damn near everything. Her lungs really let us down big time. And so it went. For decades the relentless tirade of all the reasons this body was ‘not working out’, as if somehow I could simply trade it in for a new one.

Seventeen years ago, I started doing yoga. The stress in my life was bubbling over to critical mass. My panic attacks were escalating and my job made every muscle ache. Yoga, they told me, was magic. I needed it. So I tried several classes until I found the style which worked for me.

In yoga, I discovered my body. My poor abused body. The one I had dragged out of bed for years, the one which I had denied rest and fluids to in the name of my career, the one which stood dutifully next to surgeons day after day and hour after hour — finally collapsing in cramping spasms and horrific joint pain. The body which screamed at me now on a daily basis for some small iota of self-care and affection. Yes, that body.

At some point in time during my adolescence, I had gone to war with her, deciding she was not cool enough to give a crap about and I had proceeded to bully her for the next twenty-five some odd years. At age forty, yoga reintroduced me to the woman I was meant to be in body and spirit. Suddenly realization hit and my mind was appalled by the way the rest of me had been tortured all those decades.

I began to drink water in earnest. I got massages. I did yoga. I danced. I took a long hard look at all the relationships in my life and started therapy. I made friends with the vessel which had contained my soul for lo these many years.

Its a work in progress, this relationship we have, me & my body. Some days, I’m not a good friend to her. She deserves better. But I’m proud of her. She’s dealt with a lot of tough stuff over time and she’s strong as hell. For whatever reason — she’s put up with me and all my crap for fifty-seven years.

I think we might just last.

Namaste.
Why Python Written in Python Is Faster Than Regular Python
By: Michael Krasnov
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, Python, Programming, Python3

Different Approaches

You probably know that Python is what we call an interpreted language. CPython reads in source code line by line and executes it as it goes. Interpreted languages (JavaScript included) have a variety of advantages:

Interpreters are incredibly easy to write.

Powerful metaprogramming capabilities.

No compile-time fails.

Of course, there are a couple of downsides:

The severe performance overhead of parsing source code at runtime.

No compile-time fails.

You can see I included “No compile-time fails” in both the advantages and disadvantages. There may be times when you need different behaviour (e.g. when you are prototyping vs. production), but I am still inclined to treat it as a disadvantage.

PyPy does things a bit differently. This is not a pure interpreter but rather it implements a tracing Just-in-time (JIT) compilation.
Autoencoders for Dimensionality Reduction
By: George Pipis
Tags: Autoencoder, Dimensionality Reduction, Data Visualization, Data Science, TensorFlow

Autoencoders for Dimensionality Reduction

A practical example of how you can reduce the dimensions with Auto-Encoders

In the previous post, we explained how we can reduce the dimensions by applying PCA and t-SNE and how we can apply Non-Negative Matrix Factorization for the same scope. In this post, we will provide a concrete example of how we can apply Autoeconders for Dimensionality Reduction. We will work with Python and TensorFlow 2.x.

Autoencoders on MNIST Dataset

We will use the MNIST dataset of TensorFlow, where the images are 28 x 28 dimensions, in other words, if we flatten the dimensions, we are dealing with 784 dimensions. Our goal is to reduce the dimensions, from 784 to 2, by including as much information as possible.

Let’s get our hands dirty!

from tensorflow.keras.models import Sequential

from tensorflow.keras.layers import Dense,Flatten,Reshape

from tensorflow.keras.optimizers import SGD

from tensorflow.keras.datasets import mnist

(X_train, y_train), (X_test, y_test) = mnist.load_data()

X_train = X_train/255.0 X_test = X_test/255.0 ### Encoder

encoder = Sequential()

encoder.add(Flatten(input_shape=[28,28])) encoder.add(Dense(400,activation="relu")) encoder.add(Dense(200,activation="relu")) encoder.add(Dense(100,activation="relu")) encoder.add(Dense(50,activation="relu")) encoder.add(Dense(2,activation="relu")) ### Decoder

decoder = Sequential()

decoder.add(Dense(50,input_shape=[2],activation='relu')) decoder.add(Dense(100,activation='relu')) decoder.add(Dense(200,activation='relu')) decoder.add(Dense(400,activation='relu'))

decoder.add(Dense(28 * 28, activation="relu")) decoder.add(Reshape([28, 28])) ### Autoencoder

autoencoder = Sequential([encoder,decoder]) autoencoder.compile(loss="mse") autoencoder.fit(X_train,X_train,epochs=50)

encoded_2dim = encoder.predict(X_train) # The 2D

AE = pd.DataFrame(encoded_2dim, columns = ['X1', 'X2'])

AE['target'] = y_train sns.lmplot(x='X1', y='X2', data=AE, hue='target', fit_reg=False, size=10)

Example of MNSIT Dataset

Every image in the MNSIT Dataset is a “gray scale” image of 28 x 28 dimensions. Let’s have a look at the first image.

plt.imshow(X_train[0], cmap='gray')

This is one example of the number 5 and the corresponding 28 x 28 array is the:

X_train[0].shape

And we get (28, 28) . Our goal is to reduce the dimensions of MNIST images from 784 to 2 and to represent them in a scatter plot!

Results of Autoencoders

We ended up with two dimensions and we can see the corresponding scatterplot below, using as labels the digits.

import numpy as np

import pandas as pd

import seaborn as sns

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.figure(figsize=(10,8))

sns.lmplot(x='X1', y='X2', data=AE, hue='target', fit_reg=False, size=10)



As we can see from the plot above, only by taking into account 2 dimensions out of 784, we were able somehow to distinguish between the different images (digits). Hence, keep in mind, that apart from PCA and t-SNE, we can also apply AutoEncoders for Dimensionality Reduction
The Gen Z Pyramid Scheme Sweeping Instagram
By: Julia Onken
Tags: Millennials, Social Media, Startup, Gen Z, Venmo

It happens fast and creates a huge sense of urgency, especially considering the announcements are posted ephemerally. The credibility of Venmo adds a sense of legitimacy to confused teens, which makes it dangerous for kids who might ordinarily think they’re aware of scams and how to avoid them.

The app is instantaneous and public by default (though you can make any of your transactions private, and the actual monetary value is always private), so anyone scrolling through their Venmo feed will see a bunch of exciting looking payments back and forth, which may prompt some to jump in on the action for fear of missing out.

It’s also essentially proving to kids that the process “works” because they’re seeing all their friends getting paid. Pyramid schemes are sketchy, but guys omg, this thing actually works, see?

The trend has been picking up speed over the last few weeks. My colleague, Danielle and I, could only find examples on Instagram stories but it’s entirely possible that it’s spreading on Snapchat too and we just don’t have the right friends.

So what’s the problem?

Well, it’s illegal. And when the hype dies down, there will be a lot of disappointed buyers (in multiples of eight, lol) who collectively can’t find enough people to push them to the top of the pyramid. It also asks the question whether the thrill of playing the game will outweigh any losses to some players, which is scary in itself.
TLDR: What is npx? How does it differ from npm?
By: James Brightman
Tags: JavaScript, Nodejs, React, Web Development

If you’re reading this article you’re probably already familiar already with what npm is. For those that are not, npm is simply a package manager — a CLI tool that allows us to install and use various packages of code from the Node library. Npm can do much more than this but, for simplicity's sake, we can just think of it as allowing us to download and run packages locally within our projects.

Npx is very similar to npm, but differs in a fundamental way -

Npm is a tool used to install Node packages. Npx is a tool used to execute Node packages.

It really is as simple as that. Npm is used to locally download packages, which can execute (again locally) when we desire. Npx is used to execute packages without having to install and run them locally. Npx is extremely useful for reducing package pollution — we don’t want to locally install packages that we may only need to execute once.
The Building of London
By: Dan Hill
Tags: History, Books, London, Urban Planning, Architecture

As is the usual London narrative, The Building of London covers the development of the city, then the largest in the world, from the Romans onwards. It notes that there was no doubt some London before Roman, but “we have not dug up many remains to tell us anything about it,” and as is also usual, it describes how the Romans “knew what they were about” when it came to urban development. (Indeed, as previously discussed, the Roman urban model could be extraordinarily effective, even sustainable.)

It then rattles through a couple of thousand years of history, pausing for the Normans (“great builders”), noting how the gilds (sic) and their mercantile sensibilities would set the pattern for virtually all of London’s governance since, the emergence of what would become empire via its trade routes, then plague and fire and rebuilding (“though (Wren’s) original plan was not used entirely”) and the development of building regulations (“They hit on the idea of a standard house”), before parks and squares and railways and industry and finally cars.

Intriguingly, the last four pages are as key now as they were then, describing the modern expansion and new building types of the immediate pre-war buildings (Highpoint, where I’m writing these words, included), and then the desperate need to carefully yet ambitiously re-plan and re-build after a war so recent as to not be a memory yet.
Why Is It Necessary To Introspect?
By: Anupama A Prakash
Tags: Mindfulness, Life Hacking, Productivity, Life Lessons, Self Improvement

Why Is It Necessary To Introspect?

Connecting your own mental and emotional state.

Photo by madison lavern on Unsplash

Learning to live life to its fullest is a self-reflection which many people acquire very late in their lives. I would like to mention the rest of the others. Yes, a few people who are truly committed to their lives and others and are grateful in life will attain the ability to how to move forward and succeed in life through introspection at a very young age.

Introspection is a mechanism to scrutinize your deep feelings by exploring yourself which helps you to connect dots that were not connected previously, giving meaning to your life. Introspection helps you to find solutions to your problems and also help you in making risky decisions. Creating a positive environment that is rich in creativity will eventually turn you into a noble person. This can be achieved through introspection.

Self-realization, exploration, and imagination are necessary for a person to reach great heights. Highly successful people, entrepreneurs, and various other people introspect themselves daily to lead a peaceful life. The reason behind such people’s success is also due to consistent introspection.

Connecting your own mental and emotional state for a meaningful life is the key to peace, creativity, and innovation. Start asking questions to yourself, about how you want your life to be, and tell the answers to yourself, and finally introspect it. Compose yourself a positive, fruitful, innovative, insightful, and motivating you. Start introspecting.

Please note the secret: consistency is the key.
How I Boost My Productivity as a Programmer
Tags: Efficiency, Boost Productivity, Productivity, Work Life Balance, Programming

Keep Balance

There should always be a middle ground in your productivity, as everywhere. It’s important to keep your eagerness to learn but still prevent yourself from burning out.

To do so, remember to have rest and balance between your work and life. A fresh mind always remembers better.

This habit was very important to me. When I started learning to program, without any knowledge of it at all, I spent almost ten hours a day practicing and studying. Of course, I was focused on finding my first job, but I made a rule for myself: Once a week I would toggle programming off and do whatever I wanted that wasn’t related to coding.

It helped me avoid burnout, continue learning in that tempo during the next couple of months, and get my first job in IT.

I now work full time as a front-end developer, but I’ve continued practicing that habit. Usually, I switch the toggle for the whole weekend. However, during the week, I usually spend an extra hour or two studying and practicing new things.
Horny, Lonely, Crippled
By: Victoria Ponte
Tags: Relationships, Sex, This Happened To Me, Disability, Writing

Dainis Graveris for Unsplash

Horny, Lonely, Crippled

Different Reasons For Having Casual Sex

Many believe sex is better with someone you know and/or love. Despite this, there are still lots of casual hooking up going on. People have various reasons for engaging in this behavior that can lead to hurt feelings, depression, shame, unwanted pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases.

Some are simply horny and don’t want to be in a committed relationship. Loneliness can also lead people to casual hookups which may bring temporary relief from their sense of isolation. Perhaps oddly, I occasionally hook up with someone not because I’m horny or lonely, but because I am crippled and doing so makes me feel alive and grateful I can still do it.

I was left totally paralyzed on my left side from a stroke during pregnancy when I was 35. I didn’t have sex for the next five years until my husband recovered enough from the trauma and my depression lifted enough for me to become interested again. I thought having sex was life-affirming and having survived a life-threatening ordeal I thought I should be having lots of it.

Unfortunately, my husband didn’t share my enthusiasm. We drifted.

When he thought opening our marriage might help, I reluctantly went along with it because I was willing to do whatever it took to keep the marriage intact. We each started dating other people.

I was not interested in hooking up with anyone just to have sex. I wanted a relationship, too. I met a nice man right away and we had a great time, including lots of sex. He was polyamorous and lived with his girlfriend. So I continued dating new people, too.

Since we weren’t monogamous, it occurred to me that I could have sex with anyone I wanted. It looked like an adventure worth trying. Since the stroke, I was about living life all out. I mostly dated around, and only had sex with a few people.

After about two years, I was connecting with someone online who was extremely hot to trot. I realized there was no real reason why I shouldn’t just meet him at a hotel near me and try this casual sex thing.

Sure, it was a safety gamble. It was also a thrill to feel the freedom and empowerment. Unfortunately, there was some nonconsensual activity with that hookup so I cut ties with the guy.

Being 52 and disabled gave me a sense of being less than desirable sometimes. But I found out this wasn’t always the case.

When my boyfriend moved away I connected with a handsome man I had dated a year before just for sex. There wasn’t much connection between us otherwise, but the sex was pretty good.

I kept in touch with him even after I met someone else I’ve been in a relationship with. We have not defined our relationship as exclusive, so occasionally I go to his house for sex just because I can.

I’m not particularly lonely or horny since my boyfriend is great at fulfilling my needs for companionship and sex, but it’s important to me to know that another hot guy still wants me and I am able to do this.

I’m here to live life to its fullest while I can. Life is uncertain.
Coordinating ECS Tasks in Python
By: Adrian Macal
Tags: Python, Programming, Containers

The Wikipedia binary pipeline I am experimenting with works quite good on EC2 or ECS, but requires 9 CPUs to work smoothly (XML to JSON conversion). What if I distribute it and run each worker process on ECS?

Goal

I want to reduce the total execution time from 47 minutes (ECS 4vCPUs) and 19 minutes (c5.2xlarge 8vCPUs) to below 10 minutes. I guess I need to scale horizontally to benefit from many running concurrently ECS tasks.

Master / Worker

Instead of running all files at once, I will define worker responsibility to download and process just one FTP file. The master responsibility is to loop over all available files and coordinate their execution using as previously multiprocessing and token system.

Where the ECS Task in my binary pipeline is defined as follows:

1st Execution

The execution took around 13 minutes and used as expected 27 containers. Master I run locally because it does not bound to heavy resources. The entire code is here.

Changes

The good thing I found is that the bottleneck is no longer CPU, but are FTP servers. Theoretically I could increase number of connections to each FTP server (because of the different public addresses of ECS containers), but it would be considered as non-ethical. I would rather split FTP download from its further processing.

Master

The master code was adjusted to call sequentially two containers. Each call is throttled by dedicated throttlers.

Workers

Workers were split into two functions and each function is independent call from ECS container.

2nd Execution

According to following dashboard the execution took around 10 minutes and used 54 containers. The FTP download still occupied most of the time, but processing could be done faster. The master script needs to run 15 child processes which adds a bit memory overhead to the driver. Additionally spinning containers adds extra time to my experiment.

The code is here.
Make your Angular App Accessible: Skip to Main Content
Tags: Typescript, Web Development, Front End Development, Accessibility, Angular

Make your Angular App Accessible: Skip to Main Content

Angular Accessibility Part 2

Accessibility plays a vital role in any Single Page Applications. As Angular growing by leaps and bounds, supporting the accessibility in Angular Application becomes quite complex until we know all accessibility concepts.

Here I am coming with the different guidelines to implement accessibility in Angular Applications.

One of the main concepts to support accessibility is Skip to Main Content. When we are dealing with multiple pages it is better to have one place where we can maintain the whole reusable accessibility feature.

Before starting the implementation techniques, Let’s check common rules to follow while implementing accessibility.

You can also checkout how to create reusable functions to implement accessibility in Angular Application.

Let’s move to our main discussion

One of the main features of accessibility is to skip to the main content. Let’s check out how we can implement Skip to Main Content in Angular.

When keyboard-only users interact with the website they use the tab key to jump from one link to another link. If we have a lot of content in our application and user want to move to the main content available on the page, instead of clicking so many tabs it is better to give them access to reach the main content. Providing the skip to the main content solves this purpose.

Here is a demonstration of what keyboard-only users must do to navigate a page without a skip to the main content link. The below approach worked really well for me to implement skip to main content in Angular Applications.

Step 1. Create header HTML and skip to main content link

Step 2. Add CSS and make that link visible only on focus

Step 3. Create a header component and add reusable methods

Step 4. Create common accessibility service and add common methods

Step 5. We are now ready to use our reusable methods

As we can see we added the ngAfterViewInit life cycle to get the currentValue. Once we get the current value unique to the page we are setting focus to a main-content class of the HTML We can access the accessibility service in HTML and can call sendelementId to update our currentValue. When we redirect to another component we can exactly use the same method on the ngAfterViewInit life cycle of the sample component to subscribe to the current message and focus the ‘Main-Content’ Id which we added in HTML.

We will meet again with one more reusable component to support the accessibility in Angular.

Are you preparing for interviews? Here are frequently asked interview questions in Angular. It covers the Latest interview questions for Angular and Frontend development. Let’s check how many of these questions you can answer?
How to Set Up a Spring Boot Project in VS Code
By: Ryan Gleason
Tags: Android, Spring Boot, Programming, Vscode, Java

Hello World

Once this Extension Pack has been successfully installed, you will be brought to a screen that looks like this:

We are going to follow the directions and create a new file. Inside this file, we are going to put the following code:

class HelloWorld {

public static void main(String[] args) {

System.out.println("Hello, World.");

}

}

When you click the “Run” button (or hit F5), you should see this output in the console:

Note: If you have a space anywhere in your path (ex. C:\Users\Ryan Gleason\Documents\… ), a quick solution is to switch your default terminal to Powershell.

Type Ctrl + Shift + P to open up your command palette, enter Terminal: Select Default Shell , and choose the Powershell option.

And that’s it. You are now ready to build something amazing using Java in VSCode!

Now that we have Java and VSCode working, we are going to create a new project using the Spring Initializr.
The ISW: W5 2019 NFL Odds & Data
By: John Culver
Tags: Sports, Sports Betting, Value Investing, Startup, Hedge Funds

W5 Initial Value Plays

Each week, the ISW identifies weekly value plays. These plays should not be misconstrued as official picks, plays, or wagers as we believe long-term wagering ROI is more a function of bankroll management and allocation than of win rates.

We define value as instances where the odds of covering are at least >52.4%, and when spreads between our win probabilities and the market are substantial — yielding positive long-term expected values (EV). The last thing we ever want to be confused with is as a tout. We’re long-term-probability-minded here — remember 52.4% is almost the same as a coin toss, but the margins is where the value lies. In the long-term, the EV will deliver alpha.

The ISW’s W2-4 Initial Value Play Scorecard
Tyrion
By: Sarah E Sturgis
Tags: Perspective, Cats, Beauty, Poetry, Writing

Eyes of gold

To me behold

Your decisive gaze

Upon me,

Your wayward glance

Like in a trance

Follows mine eye

Forward,

A sprig of hair

And whiskers there

Dance upon nose

In motion,

All shades of brown

Speckled ‘round

A face lit with

Emotion.
5 “Experimental” Books That Show What the Novel Can Do
By: Sebastian S
Tags: Experimental Literature, Books, Literature, Book Recommendations, Book Review

5 “Experimental” Books That Show What the Novel Can Do

Because nothing is more exciting than a book that breaks the rules

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Walter Benjamin once said, “All great works of literature either invent or dissolve a genre.” This is as true today as it was when he said it.

Too often books are divided into useless, sometimes even harmful, categories that discourage readers from exploring literature that will change their lives. One of the more useless, and harmful, labels a book can have is “experimental,” which excites and interests some readers (who would have likely found those books anyway) and scares away other readers who think of “experimental” as difficult.

“Experimental” books have value because they broaden what the novel can do. It’d be no fun, or at least a lot less fun, if the books we read today were the same as the books written in the eighteenth century (Any Henry Fielding fans here?). We have “experimental” books to thank for the broadness of the literature we’re reading today. Authors like Dickens, Twain, Hemingway, and Woolf pushed boundaries and created new literature that is often considered normal now but wasn’t for the times.

These five “experimental” show just how beautiful and fun today’s genre-dissolving writers can be. Hopefully, you’ll find something here worth trying.
A Quick Introduction On Granger Causality Testing For Time Series Analysis
By: Susan Li
Tags: Stationarity, Statistical Modeling, Time Series Analysis, Time Series Forecasting, Python

A Quick Introduction On Granger Causality Testing For Time Series Analysis

Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test, Kwiatkowski–Phillips–Schmidt–Shin (KPSS) tests, Vector Autoregressions (VA), Durbin–Watson statistic, Cointegration test

The Granger causality test is a statistical hypothesis test for determining whether one time series is a factor and offer useful information in forecasting another time series.

For example, given a question: Could we use today’s Apple’s stock price to predict tomorrow’s Tesla’s stock price? If this is true, our statement will be Apple’s stock price Granger causes Tesla’s stock price. If this is not true, we say Apple’s stock price does not Granger cause Tesla’s stock price.

The Data

So, let’s go to Yahoo Finance to fetch the adjusted close stock price data for Apple, Walmart and Tesla, start from 2010–06–30 to 2020–12–18.

stock_price_data.py

Table 1

Visualize the Time Series

Time series can be represented using either line chart or area chart.

viz_line.py

Figure 1

viz_area.py

Figure 2

Apple and Walmart time series have a fairly similar trend patterns over the years, where Tesla Stock IPOed just over 10 years ago and it has surprised everyone with over 700% rise year-to-date in 2020.

ADF Test for Stationarity

The ADF test is one of the most popular statistical tests. It can be used to help us understand whether the time series is stationary or not.

Null hypothesis: If failed to be rejected, it suggests the time series is not stationarity.

Alternative hypothesis: The null hypothesis is rejected, it suggests the time series is stationary.

adf_test1.py

Figure 3

The p-values are all well above the 0.05 alpha level, we cannot reject the null hypothesis. So the three time series are not stationary.

KPSS Test for Stationary

The KPSS test figures out if a time series is stationary around a mean or linear trend, or is non-stationary due to a unit root.

Null hypothesis: The time series is stationary

Alternative hypothesis: The time series is not stationary

kpss_test1.py

Figure 4

The p-value are all less than 0.05 alpha level, therefore, we can reject the null hypothesis and derive that the three time series are not stationary.

After cross-check ADF test and KPSS test. We can conclude that the three time series data we have here are not stationary. We will transform the time series to be stationary by difference method.

Difference Method

difference.py

Figure 5

ADF Test Again

adf_test2.py

Figure 6

After transforming the data, the p-values are all well below the 0.05 alpha level, therefore, we reject the null hypothesis. So the current data is stationary.

KPSS Test Again

kpss_test2.py

Figure 7

Some of the KPSS Null Hypothesis could not be rejected.

VAR Model

The VAR class assumes that the passed time series are stationary. Non-stationary or trending data can often be transformed to be stationary by first-differencing or some other method.
3 Ideas For Writing To Focus On For 2021 in A FEW WORDS.
By: Aldric Chen
Tags: Trends, Self Improvement, Writing On Writing, Thinking, Writing

3 Ideas For Writing To Focus On For 2021 in A FEW WORDS.

Ideas for writing comes from the trends we see. There are dying trends and rising trends. These are the rising trends I have spotted as a content contributor.

Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash

Interpreting trends as a content contributor is important. That is where we get eyeballs for our work.

I have 3 trends to share with you.

Technology

Embracing technology is inevitable. This is the best hedge against lockdowns and stay-home policies.

The internet is our portal to the World when we are stuck at home.

Social media allows us to reach out where millions of people are. Zoom allows us to have webinars and virtual conferences at home.

Teach people to use the necessary software tools and watch our readership explode.

Mental Health.

An extreme sociopath will deny this.

The husband of my college friend recently got diagnosed with suicidal intent.

The clue was in his journal. He showed my friend.

My friend rushed him to the psychiatrist. He has been under tremendous pressure to release people from his team. It broke him.

He cannot deal with the necessary business evil.

If you can identify tell-tale signs of people in distress — Share them.

I will be thankful.

Starting A Business.

Many people will start to strike out on their own.

I see that within my inner circle.

Many people have brilliant ideas and not exposure to business realities.

Are you able to impart accounting fundamentals through your writing? If you can, you help your readers save thousands of MBA spend.

Give to receive. That is the mantra.

Happy Writing!

Aldric
Star Wars Symbology: Where There’s Fire, There’s Snoke
By: Brian Deines
Tags: Star Wars, Self Improvement, Psychology, Film, Parenting

This article takes another dive into The Visual and Psychological Proof that Luke Skywalker is Snoke.

“Snoke influenced Ben Solo in the womb long before his eventual fall to the Dark Side, which was due to Snoke’s influence — not Luke’s.”

“[Han] had trouble believing what he was hearing. “So Snoke was watching our son.”

“Always,” [Leia}told him. “From the shadows, in the beginning, even before I realized what was happening, he was manipulating everything, pulling our son toward the dark side.”” — Empire’s End, Canonical Novel

Luke’s unconscious darkside (aka Snoke) was always part of Luke. And Uncle Luke was always in Ben’s life.

Consider the proximity issue.

If Snoke turned Ben and not Luke (as Snoke), you’re telling me that a pre-First Order Snoke sensed Leia’s pregnancy, then beamed his powerful dark-influence from the Unknown Regions, across the Galaxy (past Luke’s detection) into Leia’s belly?

Alternately, Luke (and his darkside Snoke) was physically at Leia’s side during her pregnancy with Ben. Luke probably even laid a hand on her pregnant belly, like family members do.

And then there is this double entendre from The Last Jedi.

This double entendre can be read as an admission by Luke that he is Snoke.
Taking a Data Dive
By: Daniel Morales
Tags: Bookcademy, Hacking Growth, Daily Challenge, Startup

Taking a Data Dive

Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown

Solve challenge here: https://www.bookcademy.com/home/show_daily_challenges/taking-a-data-dive

There is more data available to growth team than ever before, but all this data is essentially useless without the ability to parse it for useful insights. What that means is that it’s not about simple reviewing data provided by the various tools and dashboards out there; to uncover what makes (or will make) your product must-have, you need to collect the right data for your business, and build the connective tissue between various sources, such as your email marketing database and your point of sale system, so you can create a complete data picture.

Then you need a data analyst who can mine those sources of data for patterns and rich insights that can lead to growth ideas to experiment with. These days most companies, even the most nascent, shoestring start-ups, are keeping close track of basic analytics for their websites and products, such as those captured by Google Analytics.

But while metrics like page views, visits, and bounce rates are important to collect, they barely begin to tell the whole story about how customers interact with your product. That’s because these are very surface level metrics that don’t tend to reveal deeper insight into what customers truly value about what you are selling and whether you have achieved product/market fit.

It’s essential that your team have data on each piece of the customer experience, well beyond just how often they visit your website and how long they stay there, so that it can be analyzed at a granular level to identify how people are actually using your product versus how planned for them to use it.
Using Popily to Find and Present the Story
By: Erin Richey
Tags: Journalism, Data, Data Visualization

In the newsroom, getting the go-ahead to pursue a story can be entirely up to how well a reporter can sum up a lot of information to a rushed editor. That challenge is enormous for data journalists, who might have to begin a pitch by explaining why a standard deviation figure is significant or summarizing an interesting trend in a thousand-row data set.

That’s why Popily was made to be fast and shareable. The process is quick and the results are interactive. We want data journalists to see how it fits in their lives.

The graphics above were made in a matter of minutes, and I’ve already found questions to explore. They’re the results of 271 lead tests on tap water from Flint, Mich., published by the Flint Water Study in December. Seeing raw data displayed like this is a great step in the data exploration and story research process, and after some data fact-checking (is there really a Ward 0?) Popily can create polished interactive visualizations for the readers to explore.

Here were the steps to get from file download to graphs

Step 1: Find the Data (Cleaning Optional)

The raw data XSLX from the Flint Water Study.

The XLSX available from the Flint Water Study website has a few quirks that some visualization platforms dislike: the header row has some buttons and there are summary and source rows at the bottom. Popily is smart enough to ignore all that. All it needs is the file.

Step 2: The Six-Click Upload
What are Libraries, Frameworks and Packages?
By: Madhuresh Gupta
Tags: Libraries, Angular, Framework, React

We all have heard of Angular, React, Vue, Node packages and many of you would be even using these on a regular basis.

But often we really don’t have a clear idea as to what these are why do we need in the first place.

So, a library is basically a collection of programs or a bunch of handy code someone’s written for you, which you can use in your programs.

A framework is usually a bunch of libraries, and sometimes (but not always) some external utilities, all geared towards solving a particular task. For example, making a web site (web framework), or displaying a user interface (UI framework), etc.

And a package means some code, that has been isolated from the rest, so that after someone makes their own libraries, frameworks they can bundle it and distribute among others easily.

Summing up, these contain reusable pieces of code which anyone can incorporate in their project so that they don’t end up wasting time in re-inventing the wheel and rather focus on the main objective of our project.

For example, if you are writing a program where you will be working with integers and you will need to perform addition and subtraction many times in your code.

def calc(num1, num2, operand):

if(operand == '+'):

return (num1 + num2)

else:

return (num1 - num2)

Congrats, you just created a library. Now for rest of the code all you need to do is to call this function everytime you need to perform addition or substraction.

Now question comes how do we find these packages and frameworks for our code? Just like when we need to search for an Android app we go to play store, for an iOS app we have AppStore similarly for managing frameworks and packages we have “Package Managers”.

We have following package managers for common programming languages:

2. Python

pip or the PyPI is the central repository for all python packages. We usually incorporate these packages by using the command “pip install …”.

3. Java

Maven is industry standard when it comes to Java packages. In contrast to this, even Gradle is a package manager which is relatively new but is rapidly gaining popularity.

4. .NET/ C#

NuGet is the package manager for .NET. Microsoft maintains and manages the packages for .NET.

So probably by now you must have had a basic idea on how packages, frameworks work and where are they maintained. Can you think of some idea or a piece of code which can be re-used by other fellow developers?

If yes, then go ahead, write your library or framework and publish it as a package! 😊
When to Declare the Type on a Variable in TypeScript
By: Voon Ming Hann
Tags: Programming, Typescript, JavaScript, Nodejs, Front End Development

When to Declare the Type on a Variable in TypeScript

Let’s talk about type inference

Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash

I think this is one of the most frequently asked questions by beginners in TypeScript. I found myself asking it, as I went straight to the official TypeScript docs to learn.

There’s a feature in typescript called type inference, where it guesses the type by the variable’s value.

For instance, you type out the type annotations manually for strings, numbers, objects, arrays, and functions like this:

const animal: string = ‘cat’ const count: number = 5 count animalObj: {} = { name: ‘cat’, count: 1 } const animals: string[] = [‘cat’, ‘dog’, ‘bird’] const logAnimal: (i: number) => void = (i: number) => console.log(‘dog’)

Now, try to delete the types and hover over the variables. You’ll find that TypeScript can still tell you what type it is!

When to declare type to variables in TypeScript?

The answer is when TypeScript is able to do the type guessing. We’re just going to rely on it as much as possible. It makes no sense to write unnecessary characters when we don’t have to.

But there are two other situations where we need to manually add the types.

A function that returns any type

When typescript can’t figure out the type inference, it will just use any type. For instance, because JSON.parse can return any type, the variable result is any type:

let result = JSON.parse(‘4’) result = JSON.parse(“{value: 123}”) console.log(result)

To avoid any type on result , which might prune to an error in our codebase, we can manually declare the type:

const result: { value: number } = JSON.parse(“{value: 123}”)

console.log(result.someOtherProp) // ts now throw error which is what we wanted

This often happens when we use methods from libraries that aren’t written in typescript.

Assign a value to a variable in multiple lines

Type inference works when you assign a variable a value in one line only. Let’s try multiple line value assignation on a variable:

const arr = [1,2,3] let twoExisted twoExisted = true

Try to hover over two variables above. TypeScript knows tht arr is number [] but twoExisted is an any type, although it’s been reassigned to true . We have to do this:

let twoExisted: boolean

twoExisted = true

This can happen when we want to use temporary variables for data from external sources, like the data from the API calls.
The Weekly Authority #55
By: Digital Authority Co
Tags: Marketing, Content Marketing, Content, Social Media, Digital Marketing

This makes controlling your platform even more important.

What happens to your business when your number one traffic and lead source stops?

If all your eggs are in that basket and you don’t reinvent yourself quickly, you’re done. If you were crushing SnapChat and all of a sudden Instagram is practically identical, what happens to your reach? Then Facebook Messenger and any other of numerous things that will appear to take away the attention you had with your audience.

You must funnel your social media audience back to your site, back to your email list.

Sure they could unsubscribe, but you own that list, no one is going to change that. That’s why you hear ‘The money is in the list’ because no matter how many followers or likes you get, it really only matters how many turn into clients.

The most important thing you can do to establish a lead source is to provide value in exchange for permission to email potential prospects.

Once you’ve established a lead magnet and email series to follow it’s important to continue to improve it to provide as much value as possible which will leave your prospect thinking, “If this is what he’s giving away for free, I can’t wait to buy the product or service.”

Which is why we’ve been working on improving the Weekly Authority.

After getting some feedback (always important to ask your audience!) we’ve shortened the Weekly Authority to give you only the Most Important Content & Social Media Articles that you need to implement into your business.

Less is more, especially when time is always of the essence.

We want to give you the most valuable resources we can find, to save you time and help you position your business as the authority online.

Leave a comment and let our team and I know what you think of the new format, design and if you find any in-depth articles that you want to share, get in touch!
5×5 — FIVE QUESTIONS. FIVE GUEST INTERVIEWS.
By: Shannon Grinnell
Tags: Mentorship, Life Lessons, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Entrepreneurship

“Most people can’t keep showing up to anything. I think that your ability to show up and keep showing up and, and outwork, everybody else is everything. I also want to comment that I think for young people listening to this podcast in their 20s and they’re getting going, there’s this horrible pressure that I did not have that they have that you have to be part of a startup be crazy successful, have a non-profit, intern at the White House… stop it. Slow down. Do one thing well.”

– Michael Hyatt

Speaking of Crypto compilation podcast. Five Questions. Five Guests. Featuring Sandra Ro, Bruce Silcoff, Hartej Sawhney, Michael Hyatt, and Bernie Moreno.

Michael Hyatt, Co-founder of BlueCat

What if I could get five of the coolest, forward-thinking, big-picture seeing, crypto dynamos together in one place and pick their brain about things that are blockchain related, and not?

I’d want to ask them about some challenges that they’ve

Bruce Silcoff, CEO of Shyft Network

overcome. I’d ask if someone’s new to crypto, where should they start to wrap their head around Bitcoin, blockchain and this whole new crypto world. And I’d want to know what’s most important, from their perspective — Love, Money or Influence.

Well, in this compilation podcast, I’m bringing you five different podcast guests who’ve all answered the same five questions.

Sandra Ro, CEO of Global Blockchain Business Council

1.If someone’s completely new to the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, what would you like them to know?

2. Looking back, what was one of the most challenging things you faced in your career and how were you able to overcome it?

3. What would you say is the most important character trait that someone who’s about to enter the workforce should possess?

4. If you could create your own city or town, what are three key elements you would want to include?

5. LOVE, MONEY, + INFLUENCE — can you rank them in order of importance and explain?

Hartej Sawhney, Co-founder of Hosho

Bernie Moreno, Blockland Cleveland

Guests:

Sandra Ro

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandraro/

CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council

https://gbbcouncil.org/

Bruce Silcoff

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucesilcoff/

CEO of Shyft Network

https://www.shyft.network/

Hartej Sawhney

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hartej/

Co-founder of Hosho

https://hosho.io/

Michael Hyatt

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhyatt1/

Co-founder of Blue Cat

https://www.bluecatnetworks.com/

Bernie Moreno

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernie-moreno-4251884/

Blockland Cleveland

https://www.blocklandcleveland.com/
Leaving SF? Bring The Best of SV Values With You, Not Just SV Dollars
By: Hunter Walk
Tags: Startup, Tech, Technology

Why Startup Ecosystems Need More Than Just VC Funding

Hi. I read your [Tweet, Medium Post, WSJ OpEd] about leaving the Bay Area for [Texas, Florida, Seasteading]. I totally understand. Even though I might be more progressive politically than you, I too am frustrated by San Francisco’s [tax policy, failure to pass housing bills, conflicted attitude towards tech companies]. But no hard feelings and your [pictures with the mayor of your new city, floorplans for your new house, comparison of your new tax bill to your old effective rates] do occasionally make me jealous, although we don’t have any near term plans to leave.

One ask though. Don’t just take your intelligence, your hustle and your [angel, VC, SPAC] dollars to the new city — bring the best of SV values with you too. While it’s fair to assume we named Homebrew after [coffee, alcohol, opensource software package manager], it’s actually a tribute to the Homebrew Computer Club. The HCC was a group of early PC enthusiasts who met in the 70s and 80s to just tinker, share, build. And it was perhaps most notably where Jobs and Woz connected.

What would a modern HCC look like in your new city? It certainly would be visually different — the HCC was very white and very male. But besides fixing that, maybe a lot of the values would be the same. Sharing versus stealth. The love of building versus just the love of funding. Challenging each other constructively, even sometimes competitively. Supporting failures in addition to cheering successes.

Maybe I’m overly nostalgic for a Silicon Valley that we’ve romanticized but never really had. Maybe being an incumbent industry versus underdog means there’s too much power in tech to ever return to hobbyist roots. But I [like, respect, have muted on twitter] many of the people moving away and am actually hopeful they find what they’re looking for in their new locations. It’ll be good for the US overall and good for entrepreneurs everywhere if they bring the best of SV values with them. So that’s my hope.

Farewell travelers! I look forward to visiting you as soon as I’m able to access [OneMedical’s COVID vaccines, Benchmark’s private plane, the a16z stash of antibodies].

Your friend,

hunter walk
Amerika’ya Nasıl Göçülür?
By: Mustafa Gerdan
Tags: Türkiye, New York, Hayat, Turkish, Amerika

Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.

Check your inbox

Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription.