fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Codable in Swift and iOS
By: Steven Curtis
Tags: Swift Programming, Swift, Programming, Software Engineering

The implementation: codable

A typical application takes data from an Endpoint and decoded into a Swift model. Now since structs typically represent data and are value types they are suitable for models (over class , although you need to make your own decision about this).

This user mode conforms to the Codable protocol. This means that we can choose to either encode to decode to (from) the Swift UserModel model.

We can encode this through the following function:

We then can decode user model:

The issue with the above is that this is the simple case. The JSON format exactly matches the model which is a rather lovely synergy of a back and front end.
The Borrowed Breathe
By: Priyanka Srivastava
Tags: Personal Essay, Singapore, Hindi, This Happened To Me, Writing

The Borrowed Breathe

Life after lockdown in Singapore

आज बाहर के रंगो को देखकर एक अलग सी घुटन

आज आज़ाद होकर भी एक अलग सी उलझन

image from Author

Now I am not worried that my hair has the texture of dried grass and my eyebrows have become bushy. Now I don’t miss the regular parlour appointment for a head massage or the foot reflexology.

Now my priorities are different. There should be a book to read, in the morning I should do one or two hours of writing followed by home chores, the evening is for a walk if I can manage.

In my home, I am happily settled like a stranger, each day I am learning to fall in love with the colours of the sky and the noise of the raindrops, the only guests I can attend at my home.

image from Author

This post is not about this strange life which I am living since the past few months, this post is about the outing which happened today.

Now that rules are being relaxed in Singapore today we went for grocery shopping and also had coffee at my favourite place but instead of being happy I was sad. I felt suffocated, I failed to recognize my city which reminds me of colours. Today it was bleak, there was no warmth. I felt I am in a box surviving on borrowed breathe.

I can’t think of travelling in this situation whenever we do, I missed my home and that freedom, for the first time I felt caged like a bird.
14 Data Visualization Plots of Seaborn
By: Aayush Ostwal
Tags: AI, Data Science, Data Visualization, Machine Learning, Data Analysis

Data Visualization plays a very important role in Data mining. Various data scientist spent their time exploring data through visualization. To accelerate this process we need to have a well-documentation of all the plots.

Even plenty of resources can’t be transformed into valuable goods without planning and architecture. Therefore I hope this article would provide you a good architecture of all plots and their documentation.

Content

Introduction Know your Data Distribution Plots

a. Dist-Plot

b. Joint Plot

c. Pair Plot

d. Rug Plot Categorical Plots

a. Bar Plot

b. Count Plot

c. Box Plot

d. Violin Plot Advanced Plots

a. Strip Plot

b. Swarm Plot Matrix Plots

a. Heat Map

b. Cluster Map Grids

a. Facet Grid Regression Plots

Introduction

Seaborn is a Python data visualization library based on matplotlib. It provides a high-level interface for drawing attractive and informative statistical graphics.

For the installation of Seaborn, you may run any of the following in your command line.

pip install seaborn

conda install seaborn

To import seaborn you can run the following command.
A Basic Introduction to Separable Convolutions
By: Chi-Feng Wang
Tags: Mobilenet, Neural Networks, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Convolutional Network

Alright, but what’s the point of creating a depthwise separable convolution?

Let’s calculate the number of multiplications the computer has to do in the original convolution. There are 256 5x5x3 kernels that move 8x8 times. That’s 256x3x5x5x8x8=1,228,800 multiplications.

What about the separable convolution? In the depthwise convolution, we have 3 5x5x1 kernels that move 8x8 times. That’s 3x5x5x8x8 = 4,800 multiplications. In the pointwise convolution, we have 256 1x1x3 kernels that move 8x8 times. That’s 256x1x1x3x8x8=49,152 multiplications. Adding them up together, that’s 53,952 multiplications.

52,952 is a lot less than 1,228,800. With less computations, the network is able to process more in a shorter amount of time.

How does that work, though? The first time I came across this explanation, it didn’t really make sense to me intuitively. Aren’t the two convolutions doing the same thing? In both cases, we pass the image through a 5x5 kernel, shrink it down to one channel, then expand it to 256 channels. How come one is more than twice as fast as the other?

After pondering about it for some time, I realized that the main difference is this: in the normal convolution, we are transforming the image 256 times. And every transformation uses up 5x5x3x8x8=4800 multiplications. In the separable convolution, we only really transform the image once — in the depthwise convolution. Then, we take the transformed image and simply elongate it to 256 channels. Without having to transform the image over and over again, we can save up on computational power.

It’s worth noting that in both Keras and Tensorflow, there is a argument called the “depth multiplier”. It is set to 1 at default. By changing this argument, we can change the number of output channels in the depthwise convolution. For example, if we set the depth multiplier to 2, each 5x5x1 kernel will give out an output image of 8x8x2, making the total (stacked) output of the depthwise convolution 8x8x6 instead of 8x8x3. Some may choose to manually set the depth multiplier to increase the number of parameters in their neural net for it to better learn more traits.

Are the disadvantages to a depthwise separable convolution? Definitely! Because it reduces the number of parameters in a convolution, if your network is already small, you might end up with too few parameters and your network might fail to properly learn during training. If used properly, however, it manages to enhance efficiency without significantly reducing effectiveness, which makes it a quite popular choice.
Making The Big Bucks On Medium
By: William, Dollar Bill
Tags: Freelancing, Advice, Ｍedium, Opinion, Writing

Making The Big Bucks On Medium

Can it be done — and how do you do it?

Photo by Alexander Mils from Pexels

Everybody's dying to know the secret formula that will enable us to make some real money on this platform. So hypnotized by that prospect are we that several big earners here have made a lot of their cash by simply advising the rest of us on exactly how to ascend the slush pile of articles submitted for publication.

I am certainly not that success story. But with a lot of work and publishing two to three stories per day, I’ve managed to enter the elite group of triple-figure monthly earners for three consecutive months. And as I understand it, that would put me in the top 5% of writers — at least earningswise.

So maybe I am qualified to advise on the subject after all. Probably not. But regardless, I have read numerous articles on how to make the big bucks, and written several of my own.

Maybe there’s something in the following embeds that might help somebody. It’s worth a shot. Granted, my observations are a little alt at times. But maybe that’s a good thing — as you won’t find them anywhere else from all the mainstreamers who have succeeded here.
Pieces and Ash
By: Talaya Mccain
Tags: Self-awareness, Self, Self Growth, Spirituality, Self Improvement

Photo by Jens Johnssonon Unsplash

I was wondering what it would feel like to be this far.

I’m so far now.

Further than I ever thought I’d be.

I wanted to live there, back there.

But, violent silence and comfort pushed me here.

To the brink.

Fore the way back to you is finally dead.

May it rest in pieces and ash.
There’s a Rumor — Marilyn writes Humor!
By: Marilyn Flower
Tags: Humor, Writing Tips, Poetry, Writing, Satire

There’s a Rumor — Marilyn writes Humor!

Don’t take my word for it, see for yourself…

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Taking a little break from our friends at Jesus the Lamb to catch up on some laughs. As you might guess, I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. The late-night end is the funny one — so enjoy! If you LOL, leave proof! Thanks!!!

You may recognize these early rough drafts of your fav famous poems…
The Top 3 New JavaScript ES 2021 (ES 12) Features I’m Excited About
By: Nick Bull
Tags: Programming, JavaScript, Software Development, Nodejs, Es2021

2. Promise.any

Promise.any accepts an array of promises and resolves as soon as any of the supplied promises become resolved.

It sounds difficult, so here is an example:

We make three requests simultaneously. When one of the requests resolves, Promise.any also resolves and logs the first resolved request in the console (in our example, it’s Google).

If all promises were rejected, Promise.any throws a new type of error: AggregateError .

What’s new about it is the AggregateError object represents an error where several errors are wrapped in a single error.

Here is how it looks:
Mormon, Stoic, Taoist — Notes on Effortless Action
By: Nathan Smith
Tags: Mormon, Philosophy, Taoism, Stoicism, Religion

The Stoics taught that the difference between peace and suffering is learning to distinguish between what is and is not in your control — a state of mind called apatheia.

Apatheia is like archery: you can control the type of bow and arrow you use, your form and stance, time and setting — but then you have to let the arrow fly. You’ve made your preparations, but once the arrow is loosed, you don’t decide what happens next. A crosswind might divert it; your target may fall over; an animal might leap in the way — none of which is up to us. What belongs to us, our task, is to prepare the shot. From there, whatever happens, happens.

This Stoic mentality reminds me of wu wei, or “effortless action,” in Taoism. Wu wei lets nature flow like water, and joins that flow, against our tendency to freeze up and become rigid, unbending, immovable — much like ice or stone. We often work despite nature, not with it; we say we know better, so wu wei requires trust. It’s the trust of laying back in water and letting it buoy you; of a cat falling from a tree and loosening up rather than tensing — and landing on its feet as a result. In Taoism, wu wei answers ”thusness.” “Why are things as they are?” “Because they are, thus and so— now what?” Let them be, let yourself be — and everything accomplishes itself of its own accord.

I often find myself saying in moments of passing stress or frustration something that might sound a bit quaint: How would I do this differently if I were water? The sentiment is enough, I think: force nothing, flow with everything; either way, things tend to work out the way they do — no other way. That’s the thought of Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching: the Tao forces nothing but is the space within which all this occurs, making room for everything, neither dividing nor ruling — only holding, like the empty inside of a vase, and the air that fills it. Like the present moment in which all this occurs thus and so.

I’m tempted to say Mormonism has a touch of this wu wei in it. D&C 88 describes the earth as following the same “celestial law” as the gods, which is to say that the earth “filleth the measure of its creation” (88:25) — it flows as thus and so it is. Many Taoists might like that verse, seeing nature and her effortless action as the prime model for us, the ones who can’t stop suffering under our efforts. Perhaps that’s the essence of grace: to stop trying; to let be. To flow over it like water over a stone; to let your feet leave the floor as when you let the water carry you; to loosen up and let nature flow as she does like a cat falling from a tree, always landing on its feet.
Let The Rain Fall
By: Salitha Nirmana Meththasinghe
Tags: Mental Health, Nature, Love, Poetry, Life

Let The Rain Fall

Wishes of a pluviophile

Image by chulmin park on Pixabay

Wind baptized by heat rules the atmosphere roaming everywhere

Yet it’s no longer an auspice of hope but something that tires exhausted bodies

Torsos of trees let go of dry leaves surrendering to its will, hiding the remorse

Provoked dust teases the strained eyes but tear glands keep a poker face

Lament of beings for a drop of water fills the air replacing cheep with sound of misery

while mirage is reinforcing the effect showing the wounded a false hope

Sun absorbs the silent sighs of a dry and cracked earth holding on to passive intentions

While profusely soaking anything with its rays unconsciously fueling the drought

Uncountable eyes are towards the sky yearning to see a ray of fortune

Only to get lost in the blue endless abyss hanging right above their heads

A single thought sparks the nerves that lurk in their skulls

Even the heaven is blind to the pain they are going through at the moment?

So, dear mother earth,

kindly wake up from your sleep

and open your eyes,

don’t let the prayers those innocents mutter in their mournings

pass beyond you without getting noticed,

Make your mind to allow these dethroned rivers and streams

to return to their old glory,

Let thunder become a music to the ears and
Daily Weirdo Poems & Stories
By: Jason Mcbride
Tags: Poetry, Science Fiction, Haiku, Fiction, Writing

Daily Weirdo Poems & Stories

Sharing some of my recent work and the stories behind the poems

I’m working on making a living from my fiction and poetry. That means I have to actually publish my work for people to read (or ignore). Every day I am post three poems or micro stories on my website and on various social media channels.

I am also going to be posting them to Medium.

Here are the posts for Monday, November 26th and Tuesday, November 27th.

Each day I share three different short poems or micro stories. Here are the posts for Monday, November 26th and Tuesday, November 27th.

This first poem is part of my upcoming collection that I will be publishing in January 2019. The collection is called How the Machines Won. It’s a series of speculative fiction poems that tell the fragmented history of humans came to be enslaved by the machines and algorithms they created to make them smarter, happier, and richer. About half of the poems will be haiku. There will also be a few micro stories in the book. There will be about 600 poems and stories in the published work. It will be released in ebook and paperback. An audiobook addition is planned, but there is not a current date for that project.

This second poem is a cinquain, Any five line poem is technically a cinquain. I’ve been experimenting with meters where the first line is two syllables, the second line is four syllables, the third line is six syllables, the fourth line is eight syllables, and the last line is two syllables again. This poem will also be in How the Machines Won.

I wrote this haiku for How the Machines Won, but I’m not sure if it will make the final cut. I’m not sure I like the first line. I wrote this haiku back in February, and this project has undergone a change in focus since then.

This is one of my favorite haiku from the How the Machines Won. This poem will be next to a micro story that fleshes out the idea of what an algorithmic bounty hunter is.

I wrote this haiku as I was wondering about the idea of machine learning and context. The internet is full of information taken out of context. Being smart is about more than knowing a lot of discrete facts. it’s about understanding the context that those facts fit in. The success of AI and machine learning hinges not on the ability to learn, but the ability to understand context. George Orwell’s 1984 is also largely about context and how an authoritarian regime succeeds by destroying context.

Not every poem and story I post will be from How the Machines Won, but this project has been front and center in my mind lately. The recent revelations about Facebook’s PR shenanigans on top of their data abuses have a dark humor to them when you notice the prompt “What’s on your mind?” when you view your timeline. It seems that social media platforms know us too well. This poem is a tanka. This is a Japanese poetry form related to haiku. Typically, English tanka have a syllable pattern of five, seven, five, like a haiku, and then two more lines of seven syllables each.
Pros and Cons of Being a Multidisciplinary Designer in a Product House and Why It Is So Satisfying
By: Matt Koziorowski
Tags: UI Design, UX Design, UI, Design, Product House

Independent Project Managers? Individual Traffic Managers? We don’t need them anymore. Our multidisciplinary team of Designers and Developers does the job.

After a few years spent on gaining experience in creative agencies and corporations, I could fairly say, that the IT industry is growing by leaps and bounds. New software is developed, new technologies are used. Evolution in managing businesses is visible at a first glance. Managers don’t waste their time and money on recruiting people who’d preserve unnecessary jobs. Teams are skilled and extremely effective these days.

As a UX/UI Designer in a Product House I can say, the times of sharing responsibility among different positions in company are almost over. Some management duties were absorbed by other jobs. Responsibility for project and traffic management rest with designers now.

How does it affect our reality? Let’s take a closer look at pros and cons of multidisciplinary approach to designer’s job.

Advantages of being a Multidisciplinary Designer at Product House

Our company management methodology is based on the lean concept.

Lean management seeks to eliminate any waste of time, effort or money by identifying each step in a business process and then revising or cutting out steps that do not create value.

What does it mean for us, multidisciplinary designers? First of all, the responsibility for client’s projects lies with us. We solve the problems because we work closest to them. Taking care of the highest possible quality of products is extremely motivating.

Direct contact with a client makes the feedback process quicker and more effective. We don’t need to engage other team members in our tasks anymore. Given the information isn’t distorted or lost somewhere along the way, this makes a great improvement.

Moreover, straightforward communication with a client allows me to set my own pace of work. Thanks to appropriate work time estimations I have the ability not only to do the design jobs, but also to write this article or join some workshops and conferences.

Frugality is the substantial advantage of having multidisciplinary designers onboard from the company’s point of view. It’s economically and strategically wiser for a company to invest its resources in development of current employees by financing courses, workshops or conferences, than it is to spend time and money on random recruitments for one skill and one time needed jobs.

Spreading knowledge and skills on multiple levels (not limited to design and management, front-end or back-end basics sound great too!) may lead us to more demanding positions, like product owner or startup founder, in the future. Let’s take Vu Hoang Anh as an example — from a designer to the CEO of Avocode. Check out his interview on multidisciplinary approach and building a successful startup at Design Encounters last year.
Paint It Black: 7 Dark & Moody Kitchens to Enjoy All Year Long
By: Maria C. Hunt
Tags: Kitchen Interior Design, Design, Kitchen, Black Kitchen Ideas, Interior Design

It’s the color of choice for tuxedos, limos and chic little dresses. Black is luxurious, mysterious and it has gravitas — and in 2019 it’s been bringing all that badness to kitchens all over the world.

This fascination with dark, moody kitchens is a natural reflex to the white kitchens that have been so dominant for the past decade — so are all the other colors trending now.

“Everyone is looking for spaces that are moody and cozy and comforting,” says Sarah Robertson, principal designer at Studio Dearborn in Westchester County, New York. “Black makes the walls recede.”

Black is also a natural foil for the light wood and stone floors that are popular right now, too.

Even if you’re not thinking about taking your home kitchen to the dark side, you’ll still be inspired by these seven examples of black kitchens. Some are small, some are sleek and modern, others are cozy and comfortable. But no matter how you look at it, black is beautiful.

Photo credit: Tatiana Shishkina

Black Russian. This ultra compact, 24-square-meter (that’s 250 square feet) apartment designed by Tatiana Shishkina of Inroom Design in Vladivostok, Russia has just a slip of a kitchen. But with its textured walls, jewel-like appliances and white shelf and simple dining counter, it says so much. The best part may be the way she used skeletal stairs to divide the kitchen from the rest of the flat.

Photo credit: Ken Fulk

Black gold. Ken Fulk’s wonderfully warm black kitchen spans classic, farmhouse and midcentury. He collaborated with KitchenAid to outfit the Tribeca loft that’s his new East Coast headquarters. The matte black cabinetry features bright bin pulls and brass luggage corners.

Photo credit: Nicole Hollis

All black everything. California designer Nicole Hollis went all in on black to create this stunning kitchen for her San Francisco studio. We love how the shiny glass tile adds light and reflectivity. Using a range of finishes from the glossy to matte creates its own kind of palette, even though everything is black — save the salt.
Hide & Seek
By: Leigh Huggins
Tags: Personal Growth, Self, Mental Health, Poetry, Life

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

You’re not lost. Not yet.

You’re just waiting for someone else to find you.

You want them to recognize what you are, and relay the message.

Music and movement open you up for seconds, minutes, maybe even hours…

And then you return to your oyster. Safe. Closed. Clamped shut.

Your friends call it turtling, because the world is a scary place, and burying your chin into your shirt collar makes you feel safer.

You are terrified. And that’s okay.

You have no idea what comes next, but you expect the worst.

Stuck in your ways, burrowing into your blankets with quiet despair,

I see you.

I want you to know, no matter how alone you feel, how small, how unsettled and unmoored,

You know better.

You will remember, in time,

That you are worthy of all the things you don’t believe you deserve.

And the only way you will ever find out exactly what you are made of,

Is by making something new, and having the courage to share it.

Seek openness.

Lean into fear.

Question judgement.

You’ve got this, little one.

It’s safe to come out now.
Where Is Jho Low, the Billion Dollar Whale?
By: Sebastian Stone
Tags: Finance, Malaysia, Fraud, Books, Jho Low

The Take on Billion Dollar Whale

From Hollywood to Manhattan night clubs, the book takes its readers on a thrill ride; one that will leave you gobsmacked at Low’s unabashedly bold displays of wealth. While he celebrated, he was robbing the Malaysian people in broad daylight. The book pulls back the curtain on the ugly corners of global capital markets and capitalism generally. Low has an uncanny ability to pull the levers of power and convince people of his value. Numerous powerful people and celebrities fell prey, from Leonardo DiCaprio, Swizz Beats, and Paris Hilton, to Goldman Sachs bankers. Everyone has their price. Even Chris Christie is reaping the Low rewards by currently representing the international fugitive in a variety of forfeiture actions. The book does a good job at shedding light on the inner psychology of these people. They must have rationalized: “why raise alarms when we stand to benefit”?

In conclusion, the book is an easy and entertaining read by Wall Street Journal investigative journalists, Tom Wright and Bradley Hope. It will shock and awe that a fraud of this scale could take place in 21st century international markets. Yet if you were like Low and grew up in the developing world, perhaps you too would construct a worldview that seeks to legitimize illegal and unethical behavior because others engage in it. Which is why the current Razak case in Malaysia is so important. Not many former heads of state in the region are held to account for abuses of power, permitting many to act with impunity. Razak’s conviction and the pursuit of justice against Low will go a long way toward restoring and building trust in democratic institutions and ultimately, the rule of law in the region.

But the world should not forget that none of this would have been possible without either consent or willful blindness from scores of executives across the international financial system. Jho Low may have exposed some of the corrupt corners of the financial world. We should not forget, however, that many executives were willing to aid and abet his actions for the right price.
Market trends bulletin — Insights 2.0 Vol 8
By: Team Koinex
Tags: Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Analysis

Market Analysis:

Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at 6674 USD (as of 24 September 2018, 11.04 IST) with fall of 0.49% in last 24 hours. As per our previous market trends bulletin — Insights 2.0 (Vol 7) daily technical analysis forecast BTC started downtrend till support level 1(6250 USD — 6300 USD). It was good opportunity for margin traders to Sell/Short and book profits. Ethereum and other altcoins also went down and bounced back with BTC. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) extended CBOE and VanEck Bitcoin ETF proposal. This news did not make significant impact on Bitcoin (BTC) trend.

Bitcoin (BTC):

As per daily timeframe, BTC has tested daily Resistance level 1 (6784 USD) and failed to break and close above it because of selling pressure. The previous two daily candles closed as bearish spinning tops, which indicates a lack of determination and bears dominated the last 48 hours session. So we anticipate two scenerios here, one, Bulls come back into game and BTC may Retest Resistance level 1 (6784 USD) or else BTC manages to break and close above Resistance level 1(6784 USD) and we see continued uptrend till Resistance level 2(6984 USD).

Ethereum (ETH):

Ethereum is currently trading at 239 USD (as of 24 September 2018, 11.06 IST) with fall of 1.19 % in last 24 hours. The daily timeframe shows ETH has tested Resistance level 1 (250 USD) but failed to break and close above it because of selling pressure. The ETH daily candle shows Bullish spinning top pattern which again shows that the market seems undecided and Bulls have dominated last 24 hours session. So we might see a Bullish reversal if ETH breaks and closes above Resistance level 1(250 USD). If it succeeds then more Bulls (buyers) will fill their bags at retest and uptrend may continue. But if ETH fails to break this Resistance level 1(250 USD) then it will test Support level 1 (221 USD) and Support level 2 (185 USD).

Aeternity (AE):

AEBTC is currently trading at 0.0001514 BTC (as of 24 September 2018, 11.08 IST) with fall of 1.11 % in last 24 hours. The daily timeframe analysis shows AEBTC has formed ascending triangle pattern, which has a high probability of breakout than breakdown. The Daily candle closed in a bullish spinning pattern which shows that the market is undecided and bulls dominated last 24 hours session.
3 Detailed Templates for Your Next Testing with Users
By: Slava Shestopalov
Tags: User Experience, Product Management, Design, UX, UX Research

Designers often underestimate the value of a full written script for usability testing. But there is no shame in always having one — in fact, an elaborate and well-thought-through script is the expert habit.

Inspired by a classical template, which Steve Krug composed ten years ago, I created another one to reflect my usability testing experience and adjust old good techniques to the 2020 reality.

Template structure

Facilitator’s part: not shared with a user but essential to keep in mind.

Intro for a user: an explanation of the goal and “rules of the game.”

Mini-interview: ideas for getting acquainted with a user.

Tasks with a prototype or live product: task hierarchy and examples.

Outro: session closing and the next steps.

Helpful reading
Still Feelin’ Alive at 25(K): My NaNoWriMo Halfway Mark
By: Megan Wagner
Tags: NaNoWriMo, Authors, Writing

Having never participated in NaNoWriMo before, I had no clue what writing 25,000 words felt like or if I could even do it. In my last post, I had proudly survived my first week, hit 10,000 words and quickly figured out this stuff is for real not easy. And thanks to my amazing writing buddy, Martina, who has kept my ass in gear, I can happily report that I broke the 25,000 mark like a champ. Here are a few realizations I’ve learned by reaching the halfway mark of my writing journey.

Character inspiration is awesome.

Have a real-life nemesis that you would love to see go down in the worst kind of way? Make them your inspiration for your story’s evil villan! Need a name for a sweet, old woman who bakes cookies for the little town orphans? Name her after your gold-hearted grandmother whose makes the most delicious snickerdoodles of all time. Find your inner Taylor Swift and instead of writing songs about ex’s or people, be sneaky and incorporate them in your story.

Keep reality alive in fiction.

Weave in real-life events into your story, such as historical milestones, modern day conflicts and important eras in pop culture. These will keep your story more grounded and interesting for you to craft plot lines around. It also adds a very realistic tone to your story that will help your reader connect with your fictional storyline.

I’ve surprised the hell out of myself.

Looking back, my story seemed so simple and not nearly as interesting then when I first started. There are days when I’ve definitely struggled and the words just haven’t flowed. Some days I would have much rather slept in a few extra hours rather than guzzle down a pot of coffee before 6 a.m. But I’m thanking myself for stayed relatively disciplined. Now, my story has taken on a life of its own and is becoming way bigger and better than I ever could have imagined — all because I just started typing.

So cheers to the next 25,000…and beyond!
4 Reasons to Use Kubernetes in the Serverless Era
By: Gaurav Agarwal
Tags: Technology, DevOps, Programming, Kubernetes, Serverless

4 Reasons to Use Kubernetes in the Serverless Era

Is serverless a replacement for Kubernetes?

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash.

Serverless is cool and has taken the tech world by the storm. It is evolving quite a bit and growing at a tremendous pace. The reasons for its success are its developer-friendliness, ease of running microservices, and lower infrastructure overhead.

Serverless, or FaaS (Functions as a service), is a technology that helps you run code within dynamically managed abstracted servers. The cloud provider provides a provision to run your stateless event-triggered system without worrying about the underlying infra.

Some of the popular serverless offerings are AWS Lamba, Google Cloud Functions, and Azure Functions.

Built for scalability, it allows multiple parallel invocations of your functions, and you pay for the number of executions instead of allocated resources.

Kubernetes, on the other hand, is an open-source, robust, widely used container orchestration platform that allows you to run your applications on the scale.

It is a hybrid between IaaS and PaaS and allows you to standardise your applications to run the same everywhere by using containers. Kubernetes runs on servers, and you or the cloud platform manage the underlying infrastructure. Therefore, there is some infrastructure administration overhead.

That makes serverless a great proposition. It solves a variety of problems that we never thought about before, and it has its use cases and customer base. But before you think that this is going to change everything in IT, think again. It is not a one-size-fits-all technology. Kubernetes, for its part, looks promising in its ability to cover almost everything. Let’s find out how.
William Moss, MD, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center and professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland. Every…
By: Elemental Editors
Tags: Coronavirus, Vaccines, Covid 19

“I’m hopeful that by the school term of fall 2021, we will certainly have a vaccine we can administer to children over 12, and I think we have a good shot of having a vaccine for even younger children as well.”
Floating labels, high-conversion pages, prototyping smaller, and more UX links this week
By: Fabricio Teixeira
Tags: Chatbots, Interaction Design, User Experience, Design, Hot This Week

What’s hot in UX this week:

What exactly are design principles? What are they for? Are they useful? How? What makes a good design principle?

In an attempt to answer those questions, I poured over the biggest collections of design principles on the internet, and came to the following conclusion: corporate design principles are a set of shared guidelines that reflect the core design values and vision of a company.

They are meant to remind teams what kind of user experience they should be striving for, and help them make decisions. Here are some examples from some well-known brands.

Read full story →
COVID-19 News for State, Local, and Tribal Leaders, 10/16/20
By: Harvard Ash Center
Tags: Covid 19, Local Government, State Government, Coronavirus, Tribal Government

Welcome to our weekly roundup of articles and resources for state, local, and tribal leaders creating policy to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic as well as steering the social and economic recovery for their communities. Postings below do not convey endorsement of any particular organization or opinion contained in links.

Many of the early hotspot cities were also at the forefront of innovation, prompting questions over how well connected cities would respond to the pandemic.

Dharavi contained Covid-19 against all the odds. Now its people need to survive an economic catastrophe.

By making some small but important adjustments, several cities participating in the national Love Your Block City Hall VISTA program have found ways to continue reaching residents and support community projects during the pandemic. Their efforts are relatively easy and inexpensive to implement and provide lessons for other cities as they contend with COVID-19.

Syracuse is a modest sized city of just over 140,000 people in upstate New York. It sits within the heart of the Finger Lakes region, not far from Lake Ontario. Although far from the worst hit areas of New York state by COVID-19, Syracuse saw alarming increases in cases and deaths during the initial wave of the pandemic.

As communities nationwide shift their focus from response to economic recovery, transit agencies are supporting local efforts by increasing the availability of service.

Indiana Chief Privacy Officer Ted Cotterill said several years of transforming the state’s culture of enterprise data-sharing paid off during the health crisis.

The cities and local jurisdictions that I’ve seen performing best during this crisis are those that laid the technological foundation for a streamlined, efficient and disruption-resistant workforce. One way to do so is through automation.
Pandas DataFrame — simple transformations in Python
By: Hana Šturlan
Tags: Python, Transformation, Simple, Pandas

Useful data transformations for practical analysis.

Pandas DataFrame — simple transformations in Python

Few simple codes often needed while preparing your data.

While coding, it seems there are few data transformations I often needed and always trying to find the best possible solution. At the beginning of my Data science “journey,” I was drawn to simple answers that will make data look more representative. While learning, I had the logic of it in my head, but I wasn’t experienced enough to pull code out of my sleeve.

So let’s dive in.

Photo by Franki Chamaki on Unsplash

1. Add column based on condition

This is something always needed in my code. To make better predictions or visualizations, there is undoubtedly still a need to add something extra to my data. In my opinion, the most effective way is adding a column with function — having more control over it, and it is easily adjustable to any need.

def func(data):

if data['column']==condition:

return 1

else:

return 0

We define a function — take the entire dataset, in IF statement check if the selected column follows entered condition.

Conditions can have many variations :

# one condition

if datadata['column']==(>,<,>=,<=)condition:

# multiple conditions - and (&) , or(|)

if (datadata['column']==condition) | (datadata['column']==condition2):

With the return, we decide what needs to be entered in our new column if the IF statement is True, it can be int, string, float, etc.…

As an example, I will use the Iris dataset :

def func(data):

if data['PetalWidthCm']>1.19:

return 1

else:

return 0

We want to create a new column based on Petal Width in cm — IF Petal width is greater then 1.19, in new column write 1, if it is less or equal write 0.

Calling the function :

Applying function by each row — axis=1 — using .apply.

data['Is-PetalWidth_greaterThen_1.19']=data.apply(func,axis=1)

Output :

2. Get dummy variables

In short, the dummy variable is a numeric variable that represents a unique value of categorical data. For each categorical variable — the number of dummy variables = number of unique values in the categorical variable.
How Pedigree Cleverly Used a Classic Pet’s Game to Tackle Depression
Tags: Marketing, Strategy, Culture, Social Media, Pets

How Pedigree Cleverly Used a Classic Pet’s Game to Tackle Depression

A reminder that dogs can indeed be your best friends

Screencapture from Brings It Back.

264 million.

According to the World Health Organization, that’s the estimated number of people suffering from depression in the world.

To put that into perspective, that’s equivalent to the entire population of Indonesia — the fourth largest country on the planet.

What’s more, up to 800,000 people take their own lives each year. That’s a shocking statistic to even think about.

Clearly, depression is both a significant mental and societal issue that needs to be dealt with seriously by everyone — and thankfully, there are some brands that graciously take on part of that incredible responsibility.

In fact, one particular pet food brand’s campaign did it so well, they managed to seamlessly integrate a timeless game that you play with your dog with the overarching issue of depression.

I’m talking about Pedigree Petfoods and their 2019 campaign “Brings It Back.” Let’s take a look at exactly how they pulled this off, and what we all can take away from this amazing campaign.
14 Deep and Machine Learning Uses that made 2019 a new AI Age.
By: Vlad Alex, Merzmensch
Tags: Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Art, Digital Life, Data Visualization

9. pix2pix, face2face, DeepFake and Ctrl+Shift+Face

Deep Learning world is full of experimentation. People think out of the box and that’s the most inspiring thing about DL specifically and AI in general. Gene Cogan experimented with dynamic pix2pix: in this case, the source was not a sketch, but webcam (his face) and the target was trained on Trump photos:

These experiments inspired researches (in this case: Dat Tran) to face2face:

The principle is smart:

1. face2face model learns facial features / landmarks

2. It scans webcam input on facial features

3. It finally translates it into another face

Another frontier of the post-truth epoch is reached — now we can modify not only images, but also moving pictures. Like AR applications on popular messaging apps, AI interprets the video footage and modifies it, in perfect ways.

Artists like Ctrl+Shift+Face perfected this method to an unbelievable level: he switched playful faces of actors in cult movies with the help of face2face. Like here: “Shining” with Jim Carrey. Side by side comparison shows you how well can even the fine psychological play be translated.

Such implementation bear manifold possibilities within:

Filmmakers can experiment with actors before the audition. They can also localize movies for better lip-synchronization in various languages, as Synthesia did with David Beckham.

Now imagine these possibilities for international video conferencing using AI-driven language translation and speech synthesis.

Artists can produce subversive and surreal “Being John Malkovich” alike masterpieces. For example this inspiring, bright and slightly absurd cover of “Imagine”, being sung by Trump, Putin, et al.:

Passed away persons can be revived. The best example is singer Hibari Misora, who preformed new song on annual Japanese New Year TV event NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen (NHK紅白歌合戦). She did it this week, even if she died 30 years ago. The visuals were reconstructed with the help of AI, the voice was simulated by Vocaloid:

But the new ways for DeepFake are open. Remember ZAO, the Chinese DeepFake fun app: transfer yours and celebrities face. Now you are Leonardo DiCaprio. Combine it with biometric payment rolling out in China, and you have endless possibilities for fraud:

My coverage of this topic (Friend-Link):
4 Front-End Trends and 1 Loser
By: Szymon Adamiak
Tags: JavaScript, Software Development, React, Nodejs, Programming

Photo from Svelte.

Svelte

According to the documentation, Svelte is a component framework — like React or Vue — but with an important difference. The difference is Svelte runs at build time, converting your code to highly efficient JavaScript. So you can get the benefits of the component framework without the performance penalty.

Svelte has been around for a few years, with the latest version (3) shipping in 2019. It has over 39K stars on GitHub, but it’s not widely used in bigger projects, as it’s still perceived as immature. So why will 2021 be the decisive year for Svelte’s popularity?

The typical problem with component frameworks is they are rendered client-side, so search bots get an almost empty HTML, which is bad for SEO. To alleviate that problem, each library has its solutions. For Svelte, it was usually Sapper. But in October, at Svelte Summit 2020, its creator decided to ditch Sapper and propose a new way of making Svelte applications.

The new approach will be based on a SvelteKit. Its goal is to focus on the developer experience, with fast builds, hot module reloading, error overlays, and serverless support. If Svelte can add a seamless experience and out-of-the-box SSR support, it may be a game-changer.

So it seems Svelte is going to provide a first-class experience for the developer. But will it be enough to convince them to use it?
What Can the Tech Industry Do?
By: Theresa Semackor
Tags: Diversity In Tech, Programming, Diversity And Inclusion, Startup, Black Tech

What Can the Tech Industry Do?

How you can help encourage more diversity and bring change to the tech industry

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER on Unsplash

George Floyd — a black man who will be etched into modern-day history. A man that sparked change and discussion around race relations. A man that in 2020, was murdered in broad daylight by police officers. Like many others, my hope is those involved will be brought to justice and that this will ignite a continued effort to bring equality to black people around the world.

In each area of society, we need to work to dismantle systemic racism and improve the economic power that black people have. One industry — the one I work in, the one I enjoy, the one we all benefit from — is technology. Plenty has been written surrounding problems regarding diversity and inclusion in the tech industry, and with recent events, I think the case for diversity becomes even more overwhelming at this point.

Efforts so far haven’t ignited huge change, but change is happening.

I am part of a network called TLA Black Women in Tech. It’s part of the wider Tech London Advocates (TLA) network — both aim to amplify the voices of technology in the UK. TLA Black Women in Tech, in particular, was set up to support, mentor, and encourage diversity and inclusion in the UK. They post job, funding and network opportunities, events, and anything that helps move the industry forward in regards to black women.

Meet Andy Davis, a black angel investor that is dedicated to pushing the culture forward and investing in black founders. Every Monday at 7 p.m. on his Instagram, black founders have the opportunity to pitch to him and his very engaged audience.

Meet Jermaine Craig, who built Kwanda, a platform for people to invest in projects that benefit the black community.

There are so many other organisations and individuals that are pushing the culture and paying it forward showcasing why we need diversity in tech. It’s us that are invested in using our technical skills to elevate our community, therefore, more of us are needed!
A Beginner’s Guide on Sentiment Analysis with RNN
By: Susan Li
Tags: Machine Learning, Python, NLP, Recurrent Neural Network, Deep Learning

Maximum review length and minimum review length.

print('Maximum review length: {}'.format(

len(max((X_train + X_test), key=len))))

Maximum review length: 2697

print('Minimum review length: {}'.format(

len(min((X_test + X_test), key=len))))

Minimum review length: 14

Pad sequences

In order to feed this data into our RNN, all input documents must have the same length. We will limit the maximum review length to max_words by truncating longer reviews and padding shorter reviews with a null value (0). We can accomplish this using the pad_sequences() function in Keras. For now, set max_words to 500.

from keras.preprocessing import sequence max_words = 500

X_train = sequence.pad_sequences(X_train, maxlen=max_words)

X_test = sequence.pad_sequences(X_test, maxlen=max_words)

Design an RNN model for sentiment analysis

We start building our model architecture in the code cell below. We have imported some layers from Keras that you might need but feel free to use any other layers / transformations you like.

Remember that our input is a sequence of words (technically, integer word IDs) of maximum length = max_words, and our output is a binary sentiment label (0 or 1).

from keras import Sequential

from keras.layers import Embedding, LSTM, Dense, Dropout embedding_size=32

model=Sequential()

model.add(Embedding(vocabulary_size, embedding_size, input_length=max_words))

model.add(LSTM(100))

model.add(Dense(1, activation='sigmoid')) print(model.summary())

Figure 3

To summarize, our model is a simple RNN model with 1 embedding, 1 LSTM and 1 dense layers. 213,301 parameters in total need to be trained.

Train and evaluate our model

We first need to compile our model by specifying the loss function and optimizer we want to use while training, as well as any evaluation metrics we’d like to measure. Specify the appropriate parameters, including at least one metric ‘accuracy’.

model.compile(loss='binary_crossentropy',

optimizer='adam',

metrics=['accuracy'])

Once compiled, we can kick off the training process. There are two important training parameters that we have to specify — batch size and number of training epochs, which together with our model architecture determine the total training time.

Training may take a while, so grab a cup of coffee, or better, go for a run!