fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
How these guys grew their nutrition company fast and kept costs low
By: Akin Shoyoye
Tags: Subscription Boxes, Startup, Fulfillment, Customer Experience, Nutrition

From top left to right: Gus, Charles, Alex, Max

What do you do if you lead a busy life and can’t satisfy your nutrition needs?

16 hour days on the campaign trail, an atmosphere more intense than a startup, investment bank work ethic on steroids, Gus Rietsema directed the finances for a congressman’s campaign, but had trouble directing his own nutrition habits.

Living off convenient store protein bars, fast food, and take out didn’t help his situation either. This couldn’t last long if he wanted to join the competitive weightlifting ranks he aspired for in the future.

“When I was working on this campaign, I looked at my boss and said, wouldn’t it be great if someone could take all this nutrition and put it in drinkable form?” Gus remembered.

So he met Alex, Max, and Charles — the squad immediately clicked and developed a joint vision: ending the miserable supplement situation for their own good and coincidentally, also others’ good.

This is about a bunch of guys solving a problem the industry had not solved for them.

Charles, Macrofuel’s food scientist behind the formula, went straight to the lab and began developing recipes. After several iterations, the team created a product they’re proud to use and share.

“It’s an easier way to get your macronutrients. Not carbohydrates from sugar or maltodextrin. It’s carbohydrates from real food ingredients,” Gus described. “A complete meal designed to fuel your body and help you perform while being healthy.”

What do you do when you invented the right nutrition product, turned it into a successful business, but don’t have the time to take care of order fulfillment?

With Max leading the marketing efforts and Alex taking charge of technology, Macrofuel launched in January 2016.

Immediately, the team was in business, and having to deliver over 300 initial orders of Macrofuel — and fast! As orders kept rolling in, it quickly became clear they needed someone to take order fulfillment off their hands and allow for Macrofuel’s natural growth and expansion.

“That’s when we found you [Shotput] in TechCrunch and realized we can have someone else fulfill these orders! It’s affordable price spares us the headache on our end. After we talked with you guys [Shotput] we realized it was extremely do-able,” said Gus.

Excited to work with Macrofuel, we make it our high priority to have systems in place for Gus and his team to comprehensively optimize their fulfillment operation and prevent stress around that part of running their business.

“It wasn’t complicated and it just made our lives easier because we didn’t have to worry about the backend. We’re able to focus on the most important part, which is our customer relationships.”

The team’s recently been featured in the popular lifestyle publication, BroBile, as one of the hottest meal replacement supplements on the market. They now have their sights set on raising their first round of funding and increasing their product reach.
ARRIVE Dashboard Demo Now Available
By: Rakuten Ready
Tags: Location Intelligence, Metrics, Analytics, Demo, Business Intelligence

The ARRIVE dashboard provides real-time trip data and analytics to help you gain valuable insight into customer travel patterns and performance of your order ahead program. Now you can explore the dashboard before diving into implementation with our new ARRIVE dashboard demo.

The dashboard demo is populated with hundreds of sites and has thousands of simulated trips occurring each day. Each trip is modeled off of real life trip data, to provide a representative example of customer behavior and trip metrics. Dashboard data is updated continuously, providing a real-time view of open trips, as well as historical trip volume and metrics.

The ARRIVE dashboard demo displays the same summary metrics and site level metrics that companies have access to for their own sites. Ready to start collecting your own trip data? Follow our quickstart guide for iOS or Android to get started.
10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Buying More Stuff
By: Ben Le Fort
Tags: Money, Life Lessons, Productivity, Personal Development, Personal Finance

Written by: Adam Parsons

Before you get nervous about the rest of the article, please know that I’m not here to preach about the financial sins of overspending during the holidays. There are enough articles about that.

Nor am I here to rehash the entire wants-vs-needs argument. We’re all grown-ups here. And again, there are enough articles about that.

Instead, this article is to help crystallize what it is we really, truly want as opposed to whatever is cheap and/or convenient. In fact, you may end up spending more money on your stuff, but you’ll probably be spending better.
Gently guiding the (machine) learner
Tags: Machine Learning, Semi Supervised Learning

1. The human expert only labels a subset of that data (say 10%; the individual steps are shown in green). This cuts down massively on labelling time. Let’s refer to this initial labelled data as the seed data.

2. We train our machine learner (which could be ANY type of algorithm suited to our task, be it regressor or classifier) JUST on the seed data.

3. The now trained learner generates predictions on the rest of the data set and provides a value of how confident it is for each of its predictions.

4. The learner returns the predictions with the lowest confidence ratings to the human domain expert (kind of like a student going to a teacher with their homework saying “I wasn’t really sure how to do these…”).

5. The human expert only labels these low-confidence data points.

6. Finally the additionally labelled data is fed into the labelled data set and, along with the seed data, is used to retrain our machine learner.

A lot of the problems arise in Step 1, where we select our seed data. Before addressing that, let’s go through an example.

Fig 2: a boundary case; the learner hasn’t quite figured out the features that make a “4” a “4”.

Imagine you’re training a classifier on the MNIST handwritten digits dataset (a collection of pixelated images of single digit numbers from 0 to 9). Suppose that we lost all the labels for this data. We could just the then you would train your learner on a subsection of the data that was labelled. It is useful to think of the low-confidence data points as being highly discriminant — they are very good boundary cases that test your learner’s comprehension of the data. Then, when our learner makes predictions on the rest of the data, it will return us the predictions with the lowest confidence, as shown in Figure 2. A classifier might misidentify the number “4” as a “1”, but we can see why it would do so.

Figure 3: I went with “7” but honestly your guess is as good as mine

In Figure 3 you can see an example of what this would look like in a Notebook (I used the standard example code for modAL, an Active Machine Learning library built to be compatible with Scikit-Learn).
Advance Planning, Stoic Style
By: David Breeden
Tags: Covid 19, Humanism, Expectations, Stoicism, Unitarian Universalist

Photo by Renáta-Adrienn on Unsplash

The eighth saying in the Enchiridion (Greek for “handbook”) by the Stoic Epictetus goes like this:

Realize how little you control what happens; learn to wish that everything that happens happens as it happens. Then all will go exactly as planned. (8)

I suspect that Epictetus had his tongue firmly in his cheek with those words, but the over-the-top sentiment holds a real truth central to contemplative traditions such as Stoicism, Daoism, and Buddhism— our attachment to our expectations are a source of pain and confusion.

The COVID-19 pandemic has interfered with a good many assumptions, expectations, and attachments. For example — except for those of us who have lived in hurricane zones — most Americans have not experienced empty store shelves. Now, that’s a reality. Assumption shattered.

In some rural areas, grocery stores have closed because shipments are going to cities. Many Americans had an expectation about our supply chains. That expectation is shattered.As Epictetus reminds us, “realize how little you control what happens.”

Many of the 3.3 million Americans who filed for unemployment last week were attached to the idea that some kind of job would always be available. Others, with reduced hours, working from home, or suddenly working in mortal danger, had expected something very different.

Many of us assumed we could always, and any time, hop into an automobile or buy a bus, train, or plane ticket in order to see our loved ones. Another shattered attachment.

As our social order creaks like an old shed in the wind, for our own mental health, it is time to embrace the ancient wisdom of realizing “how little you control what happens.” The wisdom of Stoicism, Daoism, Buddhism, and a few other traditions, teach us how to deal with the extremities that the pandemic have brought. Human beings have been down this road many, many times before.

Many who have not delved deeply into these traditions consider advice such as, “learn to wish that everything that happens happens as it happens” as an invitation to passivity. This is far from the case. Rather, the practice of letting go of assumptions, expectations, and attachments gives us the strength to think outside of unexpected boxes.

Try it. At least in baby steps.
Technical debt: প্রোগ্রামারের দেনা
By: Ahmed Shamim Hassan
Tags: Technical Debt, Software Development, Bangla

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Frozen-Lake as a Markov Decision Process
By: Sai Sasank
Tags: Reinforcement Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Markov Decision Process, Machine Learning, AI

Improving Policies and Value Functions

Before we solve for optimal policies and value functions, let's look at the initial agent definition. The value function v(s) is initialized to 0s and the policy π is initialized to a random deterministic policy.

The initial agent definition.

Policy evaluation. Instead of solving for v(s) exactly by analytically solving the linear equations, we solve iteratively by starting with an arbitrary v(s) and nudging it closer to the exact solution at each step. In each iteration, the “nudge” is done using the Bellman equation itself. Below is a function that does this and we call this algorithm iterative policy evaluation.

Policy evaluation implementation.

Policy improvement. We have seen how to estimate a value function for a given policy π using the policy evaluation algorithm. Once, we evaluate the policy π we ask the following question: For some state s would it be better to take an action a that is not suggested by π? To find out we look at all such actions a and see if q(s, a) ≥ v(s) in which case we will update the policy π(s) to a. The resulting policy is at least as good as the previous as a consequence of policy improvement theorem. We repeat this step for all states and the resulting algorithm is called the policy improvement algorithm. If there’s no change in policy we say it’s stable.

Policy improvement implementation.

Policy Iteration. As long as the policy is not stable we repeatedly use policy evaluation and policy improvement. Each policy is guaranteed to be a strict improvement over the previous one unless it is already optimal and therefore stable.

Policy iteration using policy evaluation and policy improvement.

Further optimization by Value Iteration. In policy iteration, we perform policy evaluation and policy improvement repeatedly in succession until the policy is stable. Instead, we can sideline updating the policy and instead find optimal value function first. Using the optimal value function, we can extract optimal policy directly.

Value iteration implementation where we sidestep explicit policy improvement until the end.

Generalized Policy Iteration. The idea of using policy evaluation and improvement algorithms together (we have already seen two ways of doing it: policy iteration and value iteration) is a recurring idea in RL and is referred to as Generalized Policy Iteration. In fact, we can make an asynchronous combination of policy evaluation and improvement algorithms by updating the state-values in any order, even updating some state-values multiple times before updating others.

Experiments

In a small experiment, we will consider two agents where the first one uses policy iteration and the second one uses value iteration. The complete code can be found here. Below is the frozen-lake environment.

S F F F

F H F H

F F F H

H F F G

Comparing Optimal Value Functions. Let us compare the estimates of the optimal value function in the cases of policy iteration and value iteration.
Kitapların İyileştirici Etkisine Sığınmak
By: Eren Cicibıyık
Tags: Sanat, Edebiyat, Türkçe, Kitap, Kariyer

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A Moonlit Stroll in an Indian Village
By: Harsh Kundulli
Tags: India, Poetry, Moon, Poem, Haiku

I publish a poem every day. The Haiku are here. The others are here.

Stay in touch with me here.
8 Haikus About Haikus
By: Daniele Ihns
Tags: Satire, Poetry, Humor, Haiku, No Crime In Rhymin

I don’t understand

them Haikus. Why are there no

rhymes? Ruined it, damn

Let’s start it again

Trying not to break a thought

Between these short lines

Got it, ok, breath

Think something clever to say

Oops, ended again

A thought in a pill

For those who enjoy eating

Wisdom in pellets

Minimalistic

Oversimplification

To leave you breathless

A lot like drowning

In a sea of emptiness

Throw me a lifeline

No, a proper line

With more than five syllables

Please, I’m begging you

Sonnets are better

But there’s not enough space here

For this conversation
Weight of Love
By: Jimmy Nyakora
Tags: Life, Love, Work

Photo by Manuela Kohl from Pexels

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I sell men’s socks and briefs,” he says, setting down a camping bag big enough to dwarf his frame.

I look up from my work station to the bold sun-matured presence of a middle-aged man.

“The products are imported and of high quality — made in China!” He unzips his weather-beaten bag to show us a few samples.

I feign a casual assessment then pass them over to my colleague, who hands them back.

“So, how many do I pack for you, sir?”

“Not today,” I say. I know I am lying — I don’t want to disappoint him. “Maybe next time.”

The air thins with the silence of disappointment.

“Doesn't the weight of the bag break your back?” I ask, diverting attention from the awkward silence.

“It is a man’s duty to be persevering and strong so as to provide for his family,” he replies.

He must provide, he is determined to fight; to take back home the spoils of war after victory. The labors of love will withstand the greatest distances that he covers on foot. No bag can break the back of a man dedicated to the protection of his family.

As he bends down, shoving back his unsold wares, disappointment darts across his face, a brief dark cloud.

Another missed sale? Maybe the last stop before he calls it a day? His last hope for the evening meal?

Will he trudge back home, with head hung low and, with the setting sun, his hopes sunken? Will he bravely smile as he strides down the homestretch; his children rushing up to him. animatedly chanting — Daddy! Daddy! Did you get me a gift?

Will he smile, lift up his daughter in his arms and cradle his son’s head as he hopefully says — tomorrow, I’ll get them for you, my loves.

Or will he, with a flood of insecurity snap at his children’s advancement? Or sneer at his wife’s encouragement? Will she understand? Will he sulk and complain about life’s misery? Will he be present with them, laugh, share jokes and tickle his kids over their measly dinner?

Will he pick up his bag tomorrow and harness himself to it; determined to bear the weight of love bravely?
Central, We Have a Problem
By: Rob Eggers
Tags: Pentina, Space, 50 Word Stories, Flash Fiction, Dialogue

“Central, this is Alpha One.”

“Go ahead Alpha One.”

“We’ve lost a lot of fuel, but we think we have enough to get home. Just waiting on your confirmation.”

“Alpha One, we’ve done the math and we’re truly sorry. We are organising the calls with your families. God bless you.”
Is Having Children A Selfish Thing To Do?
By: Kesia Alexandra
Tags: Kids, Family, Blog, Parenting, Children

I can’t think of any unselfish reasons to have a child.

Photo by Marvin Lewis on Unsplash

The disparaging way people talk about creating families these days strikes me as uniquely of this time. I don’t know, maybe it’s because everyday for at least the past decade it has felt like the world was ending. The most basic human impulses are subject to critique, and many of them rightfully so. Many of those supposedly innate impulses have found us all in quite a predicament globally. Among the millennial demographic, having children is often discussed as being an irresponsible act comparable to millionaires taking private jets to meet up for lunch or America electing Donald Trump as president. So what of this impulse to create a family through raising children? Is this an inherently selfish thing to do?

My opinion? You can rack your brain for days, weeks, months and never come up with an unselfish reason to have children. All reasons inevitably reflect back to the parent’s desires. Even if you are only having children to make someone else happy — your own parents perhaps — it is selfish because you receive some type of satisfaction from making your parents happy. (By the way, please don’t only have children to make your parents happy — if you’re fortunate enough to live long enough, you’ll be stuck with them long after your parents are gone.)

Any way you slice it, having children is selfish. I had children for selfish reasons. I didn’t have a family and I wanted one. I tried to fit in with other people’s families. I took people seriously when they said I was always welcome, until I realized, I wasn’t. Not always. I wanted a place to belong and people to belong to. I have that now.

In high school I had a science teacher. He and his partner were planning on adopting a child. They had begun the process and he would excitedly share with us updates and details. It’s not my story to tell, but for some reason or another, the adoption fell through. Shortly after, he and his partner ended up moving to California, where they thought they might have a better shot at a successful adoption. I think of them often when people discuss how having children is selfish. These men were willing to pack up their lives and move across the country to build a family. They traveled across the country to give a home to a child who did not have one. But they were also willing to do this because they needed the family as much as the child. In some ways it’s selfish, in some ways it’s selfless but either way, it’s a beautiful thing to do.
3 Simple Ways to Deal with Stress
By: Saliba Faddoul
Tags: Relaxation, Stress, Wellbeing, Wellness, Mental Health

3 Simple Ways to Deal with Stress

Knock out stress with these simple tricks that you can do at the office today!

The sad reality is that an article about dealing with stress will forever be needed because removing stress from our lives is something many of us can’t do, but at the end of the day we can learn to deal with it 10x faster with just a few easy to follow techniques. These are the three ways I’ve learned to deal with stress in a just a quick second.

Turn the music on (&blast it in your ears). So you don’t actually have to blast the music in your ears, but what you can do is just play something that moves your mind off the current issue or situation. By this I mean, something soft without a beat is not going to help you deal with stress, the entire point of the music is to draw your mind away from your issues. But if you choose a song that is not fast paced, has a good beat, or is not loud enough to hold your attention than the technique is not really going to work properly. Walk yourself through the issue. So this one is something I do all the time and sometimes it makes me look like I’m crazy, but it works. Talking to yourself is a powerful and awesome way to get over stress in just a few minutes. Now I’m not advocating that you talk about anything under the sun to yourself, what I am advocating is that you stop and think about all the problems and issues that you are facing at the moment. For example if you missed a deadline at work and are in trouble, walk yourself through why you missed the deadline, where did you waste time, how could you change it, and how can you fix the situation. Don’t have a meltdown and don’t lose your grip on reality, and try your best to walk yourself through the steps you could take to fix the situation quickly and calmly. You’re Positives. Sometimes it is easy to get lost in all the negative things in life, but when we are at our lowest points it is always important to remember the things that we have won. Life is not a marathon it is a sprint and if you think of each failure or each stressful moment for more than just the moment in which it is happening you will never be happy. Don’t do it. When you feel stressed, STOP, and think of all the good things that are happening in your life. Think of the good things that have happened already and encourage yourself that the good times they’ll be back soon.

All in all, it is ok to feel stressed, but what is not ok is to sit back and do nothing to stop it. Never allow stress to overtake your life, and always remember that a few simple steps can really change the way your entire day will go.

LOVE THE ARTICLE, SHOW IT SOME LOVE WITH A SHARE & A CLAP! Want more tips to deal with stress you can check out my “awesome” video HERE!
Traces of Mika is a podcast designed for Black girls who dare to Dream
By: Tamika Newhouse
Tags: Black Podcasts, Therapy For Black Girls, Phoebe Robinson Podcast, Black Girl Magic, Black Women Writers

Traces of Mika is a podcast designed for Black girls who dare to Dream Tamika Newhouse Follow Dec 20 · 4 min read

Traces of Mika season 2 art work

Season 1 of Traces of Mika was like a mini roller coaster — ups, downs, and all arounds. You don’t quite know what to expect even though you know what to expect. Much like getting on a rollercoaster — you know what you’re getting on. You have an idea of what they’re like and been on some before. Similarly, you have listened to podcasts, but are you ever REALLY ready to experience the fast wave of emotions and thrill. Traces of Mika offered the joyride we enjoyed and like the Raging Bull at Six Flags, we’re ready for another spin. When we fastened our seatbelts and hit play for the first time, we took a dive into the inner life of author, mother, and creativeprenur Tamika Newhouse. Upside down and all around — we cried, laughed, questioned, snapped in agreement, shook our heads in disagreement, revisited the track while we learned a new deep perspective, and were inspired to live authentically.

Traces of Mika offered us Tamika’s journey to success as a Black woman and young single mother. We listened to her ups and downs in the publishing industry, as well as conversations about relationships and marriage with her close friends. More importantly, we learned about her struggles with depression and how she continued her focus to succeed as she coped and healed. We lost ourselves in the emotional episode, “Open Letter to Mama,” in which Tamika explores her pain in the loss of her mother. We witnessed the beauty of her own mother-daughter relationship in “Rain in December” with her daughter Daijah. We celebrated the strength and beauty of strong female friendships and the important role these connections serve in our healing. Finally, the most unique element in this season, the interwoven audio featuring Tamika as a child created the vibe of the ride. This memoir podcast is so beautifully crafted and honestly true, that you can’t do anything but buckle up and go on the journey with her and her guests to the end. Luckily it’s not over yet.
Time
By: John Bysinger
Tags: Time, Poetry, Life

Time

Time is relative is what we’re told.

I believe we control how quickly it moves.

An increase in our activity speeds it up.

Our sloth slows it down.

At birth our time begins from a complete stop.

At death it ends at complete stop.

It is our perception of it’s speed that changes, and our perception is controlled by our activity.

Can we control it by choice?

Can our actions detirmine it’s speed?

Maybe we can chose when it ends.
Design Genius Bullied by a Dictatorship : Notes on Oskar Schlemmer
By: Kerry Dooley Young
Tags: Art, Germany, Bauhaus, History

Design Genius Bullied by a Dictatorship : Notes on Oskar Schlemmer

Sept. 4 is the birthday of a Bauhaus artist who flourished in Germany’s vibrant 1920s. Then Nazis gained power by sowing division among citizens, stirring violence in the streets and attacking artists and the press.

How cutting edge were the costumes Oscar Schlemmer (1888–1943) designed for his Triadic Ballet?

So cutting edge that art critic Alastair Smart credited Schlemmer as an influence on costumes David Bowie and Lady Gaga wore on stage decades later. (There’s a link at the end of this essay to a bibliography with details on Smart’s article and other material used in researching this essay.)

Decades after the Triadic ballet toured in the 1920s, Bowie and Gaga were looking rather futuristic in stages costumes that echoed Schlemmer’s designs.

In a 2019 article appearing on the website of Christie’s auction house, Smart wrote about Schlemmer and other artists who work as part of the Bauhaus. This German art school operated only from 1919 until 1933. But it has had a lasting effect on modern style. The artists, architects and designers of the Bauhaus emphasized sleek spare designs, such as the logo Schlemmer for the group, as seen below.

Signet of the Staatliche Bauhaus, designed by Oskar Schlemmer and used from 1922. Wikimedia copy of image in the public domain.

Schlemmer made his name in art circles with his work on the theater’s workshop.

“During his years at the Bauhaus, he put on a number of avant-garde stage productions, most famously Triadic Ballet, in which dancers in geometric-shaped costumes made mathematically-inspired moves — in a manner rather resembling marionettes without the wires,” Smart wrote.
Use the Lottery to Fund Retirements
By: Corey Keyser
Tags: Economics, Politics, Policy, Finance, Investing

Every year, Americans spend more on lotteries than they do on music, movies, sporting events, and books combined. Despite all the odds, it’s seen by many as a viable form of savings.

As a math teacher, I don’t know how to process that. The expected return is basically zero yet so many of us are still tricked into funding it. The real problem, though, is that the majority of people who frequently participate in the lottery are from the lowest levels of education and socioeconomic status (tend to come from the bottom 20%).

It’s a tax on people who don’t understand probability, and, while, in some cases, that money may be going into public services that improve the lives of people who fund the lottery, it’s fairly easy to imagine how it can end up being a net negative. For instance, lotteries are often partially used to find education, but education investments don’t always have clear social returns and it doesn’t end up clearly improving the lives of lottery participants.

So here’s my proposal.

Take the $73.5 billion spent on lotteries annually — which ends up being about about $1,038 each year per participant — and put it towards different savings vehicles that can actually benefit the people who are participating.

These savings vehicles can vary widely, but the possible outcomes across the board are massive. Take Bill Ackman’s idea for baby bond “investing accounts.” A yearly investment of $26 billion (still only one third of yearly lottery spending) could provide every child in the US a retirement account that is worth $1 million by the time they are 65. Or take Cory Booker’s baby bond plan. It would cost $60 billion a year and would build a nest egg of about $50,000 for low-income children that can be used to support education and homeownership. With some creativity, the lottery can become a source of financial well-being for millions of Americans instead of just being a tax.

It’s notoriously difficult to create noncoercive policies that encourage people to save more money. And on a global level, the United States has an abysmal household savings rate. It’s not baked into our culture to save, and so many of us get stuck in endless cycles of credit debt and financial instability. It’s gotten to the point where 59% of Americans can’t afford an unexpected $500 bill. This has translated into significant retirement savings gaps that will undoubtedly lead to eventual financial trouble.

This can be a positive way to indirectly encourage saving habits without having to deal with extra taxes since each person is participating in the lottery voluntarily. There’s obviously a lot more work to be done on the specific details for how this could be implemented, but I think the idea at the heart of it is worth pursuing.
Force Pelosi
By: William B. Turner
Tags: Politics, Impeachment, Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi

Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi

Now is the perfect time to start impeaching Donald Trump.

The Atlantic is out with an unusually acute piece by Peter Nicholas that starts out quoting Trump golfing buddy and Republican windmill Lindsey Graham to the effect that Trump has said to Graham that he is “really pissed” about impeachment, which is characteristically stupid. The House has any number of good reasons to impeach him, but he remains entirely clueless.

The article goes on to state that, while Trump is apparently obsessed with impeachment, his staff is entirely unprepared for it and would rather Trump focused on his reelection bid.

That’s exactly why impeachment should start now. Nicholas notes that Pelosi has resisted impeachment to this point, but that the so called president’s staff thinks the Democratic base will eventually “force” her to do it.

Let’s get to forcing.

Nicholas notes that impeachment would knock Trump off of his election campaign message, the (tepid) economy. Since Democrats uniformly want Trump gone, and one excuse for not impeaching was the always absurd claim that doing it would hurt Democrats politically (so the blue wave in 2018 was not about getting rid of Trump? Please), here is specific evidence that impeachment would interfere with his reelection bid. Do it.

Nicholas also points out that the House could range over a much wider field of Trump’s past bad behavior. This is already happening, with House members Maxine Waters (CA) and Elijiah Cummings (NY) seeking documents from non governmental sources about Trump’s business operations.

More importantly, Trump continues to obstruct justice daily and has recently stated on national television that he would accept help from foreign actors for his reelection bid if they offer, which amounts to suborning the offense. With Republicans refusing to take steps to combat foreign interference in our election generally, one effective response is to publicize it via the highly effective mechanism of impeachment hearings. It is not unreasonable to say that announcing the intention to cheat in the next election itself justifies impeachment.

The objection still comes that the Senate will not vote to remove him. Irrelevant. We did just see some signs of resistance to Trump in the Senate, although not enough to remove him. But we will never know what effect impeachment hearings in the House will have on the opinions of Senators until the hearings are underway.

Impeach him now.
If I Could Tell You
Tags: Poetry, Understanding, Love, Haiku, Tanka

If I could tell you

Of all the times I’d wait for

You to come to me

If I could tell you

’Bout all the times you broke my

Heart so heartlessly

If I could tell you

The times I opened up to

You, and you mocked me

If I could tell you

All the tears I shed for you,

And the smiles forgone

If I could tell you

All the stories of my heart,

For once, you listen,

And understand how I feel,

If only I could tell you……
Elon Musk wins his bet in South Australia!
By: A.C. Flory
Tags: Politics, Technology, Elon Musk, Australia, Climate Change

As a long time fan of renewable energy, the latest news about Elon Musk fills me with glee. He bet that he could install a megabattery in South Australia in 100 days, and he’s come in ahead of schedule!

The story began last year when South Australia suffered a massive storm that destroyed infrastructure meant to allow Australian states to ‘share’ energy on a huge network. Due to some market manipulation on pricing, and a toothless watchdog asleep at its post [yes, AEMO I’m looking at you] South Australia suffered crippling blackouts, off and on, for weeks.

As the South Australia government is Labor and had invested heavily in wind farms, the Liberals in the national government went on a renewable energy bashing spree without offering up one, single practical solution. And then Elon Musk spoke up and shamed them all. He said that he could create a mammoth battery capable of storing the energy from the wind farms until needed. Then he bet the cost of the battery — $50 million dollars — that he could make good on his promise in 100 days. If he lost, he would carry the cost of the project.

Well guess what? -big grin- South Australia has a $50 million dollar bill to pay!

More importantly, all the dinosaurs in our government advocating for dirty coal power stations have been silenced, at least for a while.

You can read the whole story here:

Today really has been a good day. Thank you, Elon Musk. :)

cheers

Meeks
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Space, Friday, Humor, Cartoon, Comics

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

Follow
Rejected Pagan Hallmark Holiday Specials
By: Kyrie Gray
Tags: Movies, TV, History, Humor, Christmas

Rejected Pagan Hallmark Holiday Specials

Posters from the movies you’ll never get to see

Would you sacrifice you family’s trust for the perfect romance?

Why couldn’t she have loved that dog from The Grinch?

Getting bagged together might be the start to a beautiful relationship. Maybe Krampus will even let them keep the whip.

A heart warming tale about a home-warming log business saved by family and love.

Images public domain altered by author

While you’re hunting for love have you ever thought love is hunting for you in the form of a mob of fairies?

Be careful what you wish for. Unless you wish for love. Because this is Hallmark and that’s what we do. Just not for pagans.

Maybe 13 IS her lucky number after all.
Writing workshops are where people go to conceal and reveal themselves
By: Laurence Miall
Tags: Rachel Cusk, Outline, Edmonton, Writing, Writersworkshop

It had taken me a while to write the blurb for my workshop:

Is your story BIG, ENORMOUS, OR GIGANTIC? Everyone knows an entire world — or even the universe — can fit into a story. This means your story could potentially be infinite in size. But wait! No one has time to read an infinite story, and no publisher would be willing to cut down all the trees of the world — and then some — to print a story so big. Join Laurence to find out just how big YOUR story is and learn how to fit it into a form that will satisfy readers of all appetites.

I had discussed the “curriculum” of my workshop extensively with my wife. As a therapist by training, primarily working with children, she is adept at finding age-appropriate activities that will create safe boundaries and encourage creative exploration. One game in particular unleashed a wave of giddy excitement and hilarity in the class. Students are in pairs, facing back to back. One student tells a story. The other illustrates the story on a small, hand-held whiteboard ($4 at Dollarama). Then the students reverse roles. The activity produces outlandish stories and even crazier drawings.

My main concern was that students gain an appreciation for constructing narrative, but not feel undue pressure to complete a finished piece that week. It would be almost impossible, I told them, especially given all the other classes they were attending, to write a movie script or a novel. It would suffice, I said, to have an outline.

The students and I had conversations that could become deep very quickly. One girl wanted to write a novel about a Jew during WWII, who, to evade capture, disguises herself as a Nazi and joins the German army. I asked the student what would happen next in the story? She told me a series of quite exciting adventures, and I nodded my head, intrigued. I then delicately pointed out a particular problem that she might encounter in carrying out this narrative. Even as I was talking, I wasn’t sure I should be challenging her narrative at all. But I had respect for the maturity of my class. The previous day we had discussed a short story called Mr. Fixit, and the students had dissected it and explored every aspect with an acuity that amazed me.

“The problem you might have to confront,” I said, “is that your Jewish hero is likely, at some point, to be asked to do something horrible to another Jew.”
Situs Bersejarah Calon Arang Dirusak, Salah Siapa?
By: Yacob Wijaya
Tags: Berita, Jawa Timur, Candi, Kediri

in In Fitness And In Health
Tuning Varnish Cache
By: Ft Product
Tags: Cache, Speed, Monitoring, Ft, Financial Times

by Samuel Parkinson

The FT recently sent me on a Varnish administration course run by Varnish Software; based just around the corner from our London office.

It was a brilliant two days of learning all about Varnish cache and the VCL language, making good use of The Varnish Book for course material.

Here are some tips on tuning Varnish cache that we discussed during the course.

varnishstat

If you’re already running Varnish cache, I’d highly recommend getting to grips with the varnishstat CLI tool.

One feature of note is how by default the tool will hide counters with a 0 value. You can toggle the display of all the counters by pressing d. You can also find a list of all the counters in the reference manual.

The tool provides a great real-time view of the cache, but for historical stats you’ll need to export the data somewhere else.

varnishd Parameters

Several key statistics were highlighted during the course, all of which relate to a configurable varnishd parameter.

Looking at the sess_queued counter in varnishstat, it’s described as the “number of times session was queued waiting for a thread”. Directly relating to the thread_pool_min parameter. If you’re seeing a large number of queued sessions, consider increasing the minimum number of threads to meet the typical number of connections varnish is receiving.

We then have sess_dropped, linking to the thread_pool_max parameter. If you see a number of dropped session, even after adjusting thread_pool_min, increase the value of thread_pool_max or spread the load between several varnish nodes.

Lastly there is the n_lru_nuked counter, which shows the number of objects that have been evicted from storage early to make room for new objects. If you see a value here, consider increasing the size of your cache for the storage type, the right size will mean a small to 0 value for this counter.
Machine Learning and the Production Gap
By: O'Reilly Media
Tags: O’Reilly Insights, Machine Learning, Oreilly Insights, Data Science, Big Data Training

Editor’s Note: Mike Loukides, VP of Content Strategy at O’Reilly Media, takes a look at one of the biggest challenges in Machine Learning today, and how one author helps to address it.

Image purchased by O’Reilly Media from You Work For Them

The biggest problem facing machine learning today isn’t the need for better algorithms; it isn’t the need for more computing power to train models; it isn’t even the need for more skilled practitioners. It’s getting machine learning from the researcher’s laptop to production. That’s the real gap. It’s one thing to build a model; it’s another thing altogether to embody that model in an application and deploy it successfully in production.

That’s where Emmanuel Ameisen’s book, Building Machine Learning Applications, comes in. When I first met Emmanuel, three or four years ago, what impressed me wasn’t his expertise in building models — though he clearly had that. (I first learned about Emmanuel through articles on his blog.) He clearly cared about the whole process: not just developing algorithms, finding and cleaning data, and training models, but building a working application and putting it in production.

That’s what his new book is about. The development process doesn’t end with a model. It ends with that model that’s deployed. You can’t just talk about programming or training; you’ve got to make this work in the real world.

Emmanuel starts at the beginning: what are the goals for the product, and how do you refine those goals into something that can be reasonably implemented? You need to understand whether a problem can be solved — and if not, how to reframe the problem so that it can be. You need to define metrics that show how your system is performing, and whether you’re making progress. You need to collect relevant data for training, and deploy pipelines that will feed data to the model when it is in production. Making a product that works in the real world also includes understanding how to deploy the model; monitoring performance after deployment; and ongoing maintenance and updates.

Maintenance may be the most important issue. In the last few years, operations teams have learned a lot about continuous deployment and delivery (CI/CD). The question facing us now is how machine learning applications fit into this model. How do you monitor ML applications, and what kind of monitoring is needed? How do you detect model drift? These concepts are new to the ongoing conversation about monitoring and observability. How do you practice rapid deployment when training a model can take hours or days?

There are many books out there that talk about machine learning. But this is the only one I know of that covers the entire process, end-to-end, in approachable and practical terms. It’s the only one that focuses on the biggest machine learning problem of all: getting the model off of your laptop and into production.
Prometheus Awakens
By: Gary Every
Tags: Greek Mythology, Fantasy, Forgiveness, Zeus, Prometheus

Prometheus Awakens

There were three words which could release him

Image public domain, courtesy of The British Library, modified from original.

His eyes flutter and Prometheus awakens, staring deep into the fierce eyes of an eagle. The eagle screams and tilts back her head, raising her wings above her head before dropping her razor-sharp beak into the flesh of Prometheus’ belly. Prometheus screams. The beak rips his flesh, the skin tears, blood flows, and Prometheus’ wound reopens.

The eagle lifts a talon, and the clawed toes reach into the open wound, digging deep inside the human torso. The talons wriggle as they search, puncturing vital organs as Prometheus groans. The eagle searches and searches before grasping Prometheus’ liver whole. The eagle wraps both feet around the liver. Her wings flap as her body tries to rise. Connected by muscle, veins, and tendons the liver refuses to leave. The eagle flaps her wings harder, talons digging deep into the liver. Prometheus faints from the pain. The eagle flexes, her torso straightening ramrod straight, yanks back her wings hard, and launches into the sky. Prometheus’ liver leaves his body with a pop, flying away in the grasp of the eagle’s talons.

Prometheus awakens with a scream. He watches as the eagle circles into the sky before gliding back down to earth, perching atop the thickest branch of the nearest tree. With weeping eyes Prometheus watches the eagle eat his liver. Prometheus moans. He collapses, chains rattling as they sag. Prometheus hovers above the earth, suspended between two pillars. He makes eye contact with the eagle, both glaring fiercely. The eagle eats his liver. The razor-sharp hooked beak feeds, blood splattering the eagle’s white hood.

Every morning Prometheus awakens to the same scene, Zeus’ gift of imprisoned immortality. This fate is Prometheus’ punishment for stealing the secret of fire and presenting it to mankind. Angry Zeus had Prometheus chained between two pillars. Prometheus awakens every morning just before an angry eagle pecks out and eats his liver. It is incredibly painful, and it kills him slowly. Every single sunrise he dies again. Except Zeus has gifted the poor man with immortality. Every sunrise, Prometheus resurrects again, growing a new liver overnight. Every sunrise the eagle eats his liver again. Every day Prometheus bleeds to death, slowly and painfully. Every night Prometheus grows a new liver and is resurrected in the morning just in time to have his liver eaten. Every morning Prometheus awakens, staring at the fierce eyes of an eagle.

One morning Prometheus realizes that beyond the eagle’s fierce and hungry glare the colors of the sunrise hover in the air. Despite the pain he has not died, disappearing into dust. Despite the tortures he has not lied and betrayed his soul. He stares at all the beauty surrounding him, the promise of a new day, looks deep into the eagle’s eyes, and says, “I forgive you.”

Released from her assigned role, the eagle cries, piercing whistle echoing across the sky and flies away free.
You can now watch time float with this levitating clock
By: Selene Kyle
Tags: Technews, Startup, Design

Flyte, the startup behind some cool products like levitating light bulb and Lyfe planter, recently launched another Kickstarter campaign. And this time, the project is a levitating timepiece. Named Story, this clock uses Flyte’s signature mag-lev technology to make a small metal ball hover over the wooden surface of the clock.

What makes this Story timepiece different from the company’s previous products? Well, unlike those, this clock can levitate vertically, horizontally, or at a 60-degree angle, depending on how you’d like to display it.

Instead of just telling the time, the device also has some cool features. You can set the device in three different modes — Journey mode, clock mode, as well as timer mode. All these you can do with a mobile app or manually.

JOURNEY MODE

In this mode, you can set the timepiece to a certain date, which is very special to you — Be it your birthday, shift to your new home or the birth of your child. It will serve as a countdown until that certain day and will hit the 12 o’ clock position when that arrives.

CLOCK MODE

If you set the timepiece in clock mode, its chrome will levitate around each hour of the day, while telling the time.

TIMER MODE

You can also set Story for your short time activities. Imagine you have a one-hour meeting. Just set the timer and it will count the time for you.

Besides, Story comes with a LED display, which shows time in digital form in the center of the timepiece. You can set the display to permanently on, off, or display through motion. Also, with this backlight, the timepiece can mimic moon phases, illuminates sunrise, sunset, as well as temperature.

The clock is currently available for pre-order on Kickstarter. It will cost the super early backers between $399 and $449, depending on which color they are choosing between Ash and Walnut. The company plans to ship the device in November 2017.