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Things You didn’t Know About JavaScript Types
Tags: Programming, JavaScript, React, Software Development, Web Development

Things You didn’t Know About JavaScript Types Oskar Follow Jul 11 · 6 min read

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

In the world of transpilers it’s hard to look back and return to the fundamentals, Typescript and Babel eliminated so many problems that JS devs had daily.

Types and equality rules of JavaScript were always confusing, and now many of those are abstracted away so you don’t have to worry about them, but that doesn’t mean that they completely disappeared.

In my experience, the best way to be great at something, is always to start from fundamentals and build up.

JavaScript has two types of values, there are different notations out there, but let’s call them Primitive and Complex. The biggest distinction between them is that primitives are always immutable, while complex values are mutable.

There is a popular myth in JS that everything is an object, we’ll explain primitives, see how they behave and why they are not an object. You can always check type of any value using typeof operator.

Primitives

There are seven primitive types in JS, they are:

Number

BigInt

String

Boolean

Symbol

null

undefined

You are probably familiar, and use daily Number, String and Boolean. These three are really self explanatory, interesting thing here is that immutability we mentioned, let’s consider this piece of code:

let name = 'Oskar'; console.log(name[2]); // prints: 'k' // lets try to set name[2] to 'c'

name[2] = 'c'; // the code above ran without errors so let's print name again console.log(name); // prints: Oskar // whoah name didn't change from original assignment

Look at the example above, even though you can run code like that without errors, String is a primitive value and primitives are immutable hence you can’t change name[2] = ‘c’ and name variable will point to the same value as it was assigned to in the last assignment.

You can prohibit these assignments ( name[2] = ‘x’ ) since they have no effect anyway, and many other sloppy things in JS, by using strict mode.

Note that you can always reassign variables, doing this name = 'Oscar' will always work. You can always reassign if you need to, but you can’t mutate value itself, at least not for any of the primitive values.

BigInt

JavaScript is using floating point math which means that you can’t count on having every number in the world available to you, JS will always try to provide a number that’s pretty close to number you want, but there are no guarantees that you will get exact value you expect.

Probably most famous example of this is:

let num = 0.1 + 0.2; console.log(num === 0.3); // prints: false

What!!! (0.1 + 0.2) === 0.3 is false!!!

That’s right, open you browser console and try it out.

In JS floating point universe 0.3 doesn’t exist, so if you add two numbers above result will be:

console.log(0.1 + 0.2); // prints: 0.30000000000000004

That value (0.30000000000000004) is closest thing that that exists in JS universe to 0.3 , hence that’s returned when you do 0.1 + 0.2
Do Psychics Prey on Sadness?
By: Jacqueline Dooley
Tags: Mental Health, Grief, Parenting, This Happened To Me, Death

A few months after my daughter died, I joined a Facebook group comprised of parents who, like me, want to believe that our child’s soul lives on.

There are nearly four thousand members in this group. We have lost children of all ages, in every imaginable way.

It’s a place for grieving parents to share signs of their dead children — or our hope of receiving signs — without judgement. One of the group’s main purposes is to connect psychics and mediums with bereaved parents and this is the real reason I joined.

I’m always looking for signs.

I don’t consider myself an atheist, but I’m not religious, so I was unprepared for the deep spiritual crisis I experienced when my daughter was dying. I had no way to convincingly reassure her that her soul would survive death because, quite frankly, I wasn’t sure it would.

I told her that there is a place I believe all our souls go to after we die, a place of joy and solace. I wanted this to be true, but she knew me better than anyone. She saw the doubt in my eyes.

She was fifteen — too old for fairytales.

After she died, the idea that nothing was left of her — not even her soul — was impossible for me to believe. She felt so close, as though she was at the periphery of my vision or around the next corner.

In the weeks after her death, I watched for signs constantly, testing the idea of faith for the first time in my life. I collected feathers, heart-shaped stones, and other trinkets that I imagined she’d left in my path. Still, I doubted that these were actual messages from my daughter. A thought kept running through my head — a desperate heart sees what it wants to see.
Algorithms & Data Structures Series
By: Omar Elgabry
Tags: Programming, Coding, Algorithms, Data Structures, Java

Algorithms & Data Structures Series

Inspired by Algorithms, Part I course from Princeton University.

Algorithms, Part I course from Princeton University — coursera

This course covers the essential information that every serious programmer needs to know about algorithms and data structures, with emphasis on applications and scientific performance analysis of Java implementations . Part I covers elementary data structures, sorting, and searching algorithms. — coursera.

One last note to mention, I’m by no means an expert and I’m still learning, and part of learning process is sharing and trying to communicate what you’ve learnt so far.

The list of articles in the series are as the following:

The articles starts with “ — ” aren’t main topics but they support the overall understanding of other articles in the course. It’s not recommended to skip any of them while following along.

It’s worth to mention that these articles will be kept updated when there is a bug, misspelling, grammar mistake, or any other issue.
Remote Jobs, Freelancers and Corona (Covid-19)
By: Salman Habib
Tags: Freelancing, Covid 19, Remote Job, Remote Working, New York

Today, human life is going through a very important turning point in history. Corona (Covid-19) makes very strong impact on our life style and financial status. Financial conditions have deteriorated to the point where most developed countries are struggling to survive. But when it comes to freelancing and remote jobs, the future looks bright.

Due to Covid-19 majority of people are almost confined to their houses and now we have to make many decisions in the context of Corona. A great example of this is Twitter allowing its employees to work in their homes for indefinitely and this historical decision seems to be the permanent future of the industry.

In current scenario full time office employee is very expensive for any company or organization. And the kind of financial deficit world is facing has led to the growth of remote jobs and freelancing industry. Online shopping and the availability of everything at home has also become a habit and a compulsion of the people. Compared to before and after Corona, many of our activities are limited to the Internet.

The majority of businesses who have no existence on internet are trying to make their identity online because the business of the future is in the world of internet. Now you can understand how many job opportunities are coming for freelancers in coming days. Just update and enhance your skills to earn more.
Machine Learning is Becoming a Joke — Is AutoML Good For Data Scientists?
By: Nishu Jain
Tags: Machine Learning, Automl, Artificial Intelligence, Career, Data Science

There was a time in the recent past when data scientists used to build ML algorithms from scratch. Before these new, fancy, and “sophisticated” libraries took over, true data scientists were aware of the underlying mechanics of the algorithms. They really knew about the models they run and the mathematics they used.

Today, everyone is a data scientist and it disintegrates the significance of this profession. With the help of highly abstract libraries like Keras and Scikit-Learn, a newbie can write the code without actually knowing what’s happening beneath.

And the corporate giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are working on making it even more abstract and simpler. With their AI and cloud technology, they are giving birth to a new field called AutoML, where they’re hiding the underlying methodologies even better.

But, Is The Simpler The Better?

Some would argue that losing touch with mathematics will not allow any room for creativity and innovation. And for the most part, they’ll be right.

As we start to build our ML models using highly abstract frameworks, we have lesser control over them. Just like in the case of programming languages, everybody knows, Python might be simpler but has lesser control over the machine in comparison to C and C++.

Hence, providing lesser or no room for improvement; the same old pattern repeats again and again. Building models with a GUI environment is not a good idea. Not yet.

Because of these new AutoML tools, so-called data scientists will never develop the intuition required to solve a problem; at least not if a problem lies at the microscopic level.
Comprendiendo los datos
By: Cassie Kozyrkov
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Technology, Analytics

Head of Decision Intelligence, Google. Hello (multilingual) world! This account is for translated versions of my English language articles. twitter.com/quaesita

Follow
13 Most Common Google Cloud Reference Architectures
By: Priyanka Vergadia
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, Google Cloud Platform, Serverless, Cloud Computing

13 Most Common Google Cloud Reference Architectures

Summary of #13DaysOfGCP architecture Twitter series

👋 Hi Google Cloud Devs!!

I am asked multiple times to compile a list of most common Google Cloud reference architectures. That got me thinking and I started #13DaysOfGCP mini series on Twitter. If you were not able to catch it, or if you missed a few days, here I bring to you the summary!

Kickoff and your topic 💭 suggestions

Thank you to all who provided the topic ideas and shared their thoughts. This has been instrumental in helping me pick the topics that you all were interested in seeing the over the course of 13 days.

Kickoff day to grab all your topic suggestions! Thank you for participating :)

#1: How to set up hybrid architecture in Google Cloud and on-premises?

Day 1: How to set up hybrid architecture in Google Cloud and on-premises?

#2: How to mask sensitive data in chatbots using Data loss prevention (DLP) API?

Day 2: How to mask sensitive data in chatbots using Data loss prevention (DLP) API?

#3: How to build mobile app backends on Google Cloud?

Day 3: How to build mobile app backends on Google Cloud?

#4: How to migrate Oracle Database to Spanner?

Day 4: How to migrate Oracle Database to Spanner?

#5: How to setup hybrid architecture for cloud bursting?

Day 5: How to setup hybrid architecture for cloud bursting?

#6: How to build a data lake in Google Cloud?

Day 6: How to build a data lake in Google Cloud?

#7: How to host websites on Google Cloud?

Day 7: How to host websites on Google Cloud?

#8: How to setup CICD pipeline on Google Cloud?

Day 8: How to setup CICD pipeline on Google Cloud?

#9: How to build serverless microservices in Google Cloud?

Day 9: How to build serverless microservices in Google Cloud?

#10: Machine Learning on Google Cloud

Day 10: Machine Learning on Google Cloud

#11: Serverless image, video or text processing in Google Cloud

Day 11: Serverless image, video or text processing in Google Cloud

#12: Internet of Things (IoT) on Google Cloud

Day 12: Internet of Things (IoT) on Google Cloud

#13: How to setup BeyondCorp zero trust security model?

Day 13: How to setup BeyondCorp zero trust security model?

Wrap up with a Puzzle

Conclusion and Credits

I am thankful and really humbled by your participation, engagement and topic suggestions that made this series so much fun, not just for me but also for the rest of the Google Cloud Community members!

Thanks again and 👋 until later 🙂
10 Tips and Tricks to Boost Your React App’s Performance in 2020
By: Harsh Makadia
Tags: Programming, JavaScript, Reactjs, React, Nodejs

2. useState Lazy Initialization With Function

There are times when we need to set the initial value of the state from some variable or from a function that returns a value.

Let’s take a look at the example below:

const initialState = someFunctionThatCaluclatesValue(props) const [count, setCount] = React.useState(initialState)

Since our function is in the body, every time a re-render happens, this function is getting called even if its value is not required (we only need it during the initial render).

Let’s see how to lazy initialize useState with a function:

const getInitialState = (props) => someFunctionThatCaluclatesValue(props) const [count, setCount] = React.useState(getInitialState)

Creating a function is very fast. React will only call the function when it needs the initial value (which is when the component is initially rendered). So even if the function is taking a lot of time, it will be slow on the initial render only. This is called “lazy initialization.” It’s a performance optimization.

Let’s look at this GIF to get an idea of what that looks like:

Lazy function vs. ordinary function

To play around with the example above:
Guest Posting on devconnected
By: Antoine Solnichkin
Tags: DevOps, Programming, Technical Writing, Blog, Writing

Before submitting your article

Before submitting your article, make sure that the following points are met:

The subject of your article is related to at least one of the points above .

. Your article is well writen without too many misspellings .

without too many misspellings You agree not to remove your article once published.

Are those three points met? It is time to publish your article on devconnected.

Submitting your article

Are you ready to publish your masterpiece?

We made the process easy by creating this three questions form for you.

Once you submitted your article to us :

You will be added as a writer to devconnected.

You will add your story to the publication (using the following tutorial)

Publication time! Your story will be visible on devconnected.

Thank you!

Antoine
A Perfect Sleep…
Tags: Storytelling, Relationships, Love, Poetry, Dating

Falling asleep between your arms with my cheek against your chest,

Enveloped in the warmth of your love,

Perfect dreamless sleep…
SQL Window Function — Part I. Explanation with an example using the…
By: Ganesh Dhasade
Tags: Sql, Data Analysis, Data Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning

SQL Window Function — Part I

Introduction & Overview Types of Window Function in SQL.

Image by Author, inspired by the Toptal.com

Introduction:

A window function performs a Data Analysis calculation across a set of table rows that are somehow related to the current row. Address the comparable type of calculation can be done with an aggregate function that gives a single row or grouped by condition (refer to Figure 1).

Window function does not cause rows to become grouped into a single output row. Rows retain their separate identities also able to access more than just the current row of the query result. (refer to Figure 1)

Figure 1 — Difference between — Aggregated and Windows function

The database used to explain below concepts: Postgres database and Dataset: Available at Github Order_Table.csv

Window Function Syntax:

Window_Function([All] expression)

OVER( [PARTITION BY expression_list] [ORDER BY order_list Row_or_ Range clause] )

Each part of syntax has been explained as follows:

Window_Function:

There are 3 major types of window_functions

Window Aggregated Function: Consist one of the supporting aggregated function i.e. AVG(), COUNT(), MIN(), MAX(), SUM().

Window Aggregated Function

2. Window Ranking Aggregated Function: Consist one of the supporting ranking function i.e. RANK(), DENSE_RANK(), ROW_NUMBER().

Window Ranking Aggregated Function

3. Window Analytical Function: Consist one of the supporting ranking function i.e. FIRST_VALUE(), LAST_VALUE(), NTH_VALUE().
Where the Roll Unravels
By: Terrye Turpin
Tags: Writing, Fiction, Toilet Paper Caper, Writing Prompts

Photo by Frida Bredesen on Unsplash

Hey there, fearsome followers of Out of Ideas, Out of Time. The title of our little pub has never been more fitting. We’ve left Stark hanging like an empty cardboard tube, can anyone step up and hasten the inevitable end to this tale?

If you’d like a shot at fame and notoriety, no need to feed your mate to a hungry tiger, just sign up for one more chapter of The Toilet Paper Caper.

But I understand if you’re so stressed out by the current crisis that all you can manage is lying in bed watching Tik-Tok videos. In that case, please take a moment to comment with your suggestions for the story here — Where the Roll Unravels and I’ll polish up the last chapter, including every prompt.

No suggestion is too silly, here is the chance to see your ideas come to life with less effort than it takes to order grocery delivery from Amazon.

As a refresher, you can find all the chapters here — Toilet Paper Caper
A Guide to a More Meaningful Life
By: Jon Hawkins
Tags: Self, Life Lessons, Psychology, Life, Self Improvement

A Guide to a More Meaningful Life

Forget happiness, the path to satisfaction is meaning.

Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash

Despite life getting increasingly better by every conceivable standard, here in 2020, more people feel alone, depressed and hopeless than ever before.

To figure out why, we need to ask ourselves: what constitutes a good life? And what makes your life worthwhile?

Some of the worlds greatest thinkers have been grappling with this question for years:

In 340BC, Aristotle identified the good life as aligning with living virtuously.

And, around 290BC, Epicurus identified the good life with finding happiness and inner tranquillity.

Most of us intuitively agree with Epicurus — attributing the good life as synonymous with a happy life.

In fact, our culture is obsessed with happiness, and we do everything in our power to increase our own. Somewhat like utilitarians, we measure how well our life has gone by how happy we are.

But, as it turns out, what determines how well we feel our lives have gone has nothing to do with happiness. In fact, according to Psychologists; what determines feelings of despair isn’t a lack of happiness. Rather, it’s a lack of meaning and purpose in life.

It’s clear, then, that pursuing purpose and meaning over happiness, is a more fulfilling path. Research even shows that people who have a sense of purpose are: more resilient, do better at work, and live longer.

So, how can each of us find meaning?
Numb
By: Daniel A. Teo
Tags: Prose, Mental Health, Happiness, Depression, Self Improvement

Numb

Prose

Photo by Konstantine Trundayev on Unsplash

You’d know you hit rock bottom

when the people around you start to vanish.

One by one

they leave,

as your social circle becomes smaller by the second

even your tears leave you too.

What’s left is someone brimming with sorrow

yet with no tears to cry

only to wallow waist-deep in negativity

yet trying so hard to fight on.

I always believe that NO ONE

in this world is weak or strong.

We all fight our share of battles,

but some of us grow tired of fighting wars

we know deep down we’ll never win

So we let them get the best of us.

And like that,

we grow tired.

We grow tired of societal expectations.

We grow tired of the piles of workload.

We grow tired of donning fake smiles.

We grow tired of making an effort to dress and look presentable.

And when all around us makes us tired,

we fall into the worse stage of

being numb

where emotions are left unfelt

And people are left uncared for.

We start to become encompassed by more negativity

maybe start to bring harm to the question

we neglect everything, everyone,

and most importantly,

ourselves.

We look into the mirror

see not us

but someone rotten of emotions

numb of life.

The worse part?

Nobody knows about us.

Nobody knows our anguish

, nor do they check upon us.

And in our attempt to share with them our troubles,

only to be replyed with

dramatic

or exaggeration.

Depression is scarily

widespread today.

It is heart-wrenching to know.

CHILDREN now

already falling into the abyss of depression.

And when they reach out to parents and friends

with a fixed mindset

and heedless thoughts

they question everything

they question whether they are loved or not

they question favoritism

and whether the earth truly has a space for them.

And as they jump from balconies

or harm themselves in clandestine

who are we to refuse

that the upcoming generations

might only mature to be sadder?

Depression is named

the silent killer

for a reason.

and none of us should neglect that

or anyone suffering from it.

The stigma surrounding mental illness should be

eradicated as soon as possible.

Because I love you.

We love you.

If you decide to let depression get the best of you,

who would take care of your kitten back home?

Who would assure the grieving parents that go to bed crying every night?

Who would be here to look at the beauty of the world, to taste the tastiest of waffles, see the brightest of days, to see the person who actually loves you?

because mark my words.

We all love you. You are never alone, and we got your back. Hang in there, please!

You may go to bed sad every night, may not be loved widely, but at least you’re loved DEEPLY.

By me.
Dear Balance, I Need Your Help with My Emotions
By: Katrina Paulson
Tags: Self-awareness, Self, Inspriation, Emotional Intelligence, Creative Non Fiction

Dear Balance,

I hope this message finds you with a smile. If I know you, you’re probably down south learning to surf and making new friends or maybe you found a secret hideaway stacked with books.

I’m not sure if you heard, but I wrote a letter to Anger. I know I wanted to eliminate it from my life after the way they behaved. But you were smart and blocked me with your calm demeanor, the natural opposite of my fury at the time. With your arms crossed you shook your head while swatting down each of my arguments with your annoying logic. Don’t think I didn’t notice the laughter behind your eyes. You always find humor in my tantrums.

As I’m sure you know, you were right. After you returned to your life of adventure and quiet contemplation, I sat down to write. I’ll have you know, I loathed every word I typed — at first anyway. Then Love came in to help and by the end, I felt a weight lift from my chest. Just like you said I would.
A Beginner’s Guide to Hypothesis Testing
By: Ashwini Atmakuri
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, Hypothesis Testing

Significance level, P-value & Confidence Level

The significance level is represented by the Greek letter alpha (α).

The common values used for alpha is 0.1%, 1%, 5%and 10%. A smaller alpha value suggests a more robust interpretation of the null hypothesis, such as 1% or 0.1%.

The hypothesis test returns a probability value known as p-value. Using this value we can either reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternate hypothesis or accept the null hypothesis.

p-value= Probability(Data | Null Hypothesis)

p-value <= alpha: Reject the null and accept the alternate hypothesis

p-value > alpha: Failed to reject the null hypothesis

Let us experiment on the above hypothesis by flipping a single coin five times.

Experiment Performed:

After flipping the coin five times, we got five heads in a row (X) = 5

Considering alpha = 0.05

p-value :probability(X=5 |Ho)

Result:

No. of events in possible outcomes with all five heads = 1

So,P(X=5 |Ho) = 1/32 = 0.03

0.03 signifies that there is only a 3% chance of getting all five heads in a row which is less than alpha.

P(X= 5 |Ho) = 0.03 < alpha( 0.05)

As the ground truth observed cannot be rejected, hence the null hypothesis(Ho) is rejected, and the alternate hypothesis is accepted.

The confidence level can be obtained by subtracting the significance level of the hypothesis from 1 of the given observed sample data.

Confidence level = 1 — significance level (α)
NaNoWriMo 2020, Day 1
By: Julie Russell
Tags: NaNoWriMo, Nonprofit, Fiction, Writing

I did not wake up this morning motivated to write. I was sluggish after drinking wine last night with friends in my “pod.”

But yesterday I declared on Twitter:

So I got up, made coffee, opened my writing notebook, and inked my way through three pages of meandering thoughts including the never helpful, what am I doing with my life?

Word count: 378. Not terrible.

I updated my word count on the NaNoWriMo website, and saw I’d earned a badge:

Spoiler alert: you’ll see this when you update today!

Then I walked my dog, talked to a friend about all the things, and when I said it is National Novel Writing Month, he exclaimed, “I want to write a novel!”

YES! yes YES yes YES yes YES!

“Wonderful!” I said to my friend, “Go sign up on the site and let’s do this together!”

My friend is a talented fine artist and hasn’t written a novel before. But that’s what November’s for — to take someday ambitions and turn them into today.

That’s what November’s for — to take someday ambitions of writing a novel and turn them into today.

At home, I refilled my coffee and hopped onto a Google Meet with my writing group friend, Kelly Dennehy. Since shelter-in-place we’ve met virtually every Sunday to talk about our novels and write for an hour.

The possibly, probably rebellious secret sauce to my 8-year winning streak is that I count all the words I write in November. I’d count my grocery list if I needed to get to 50K.

I would love to hear how Day One of your novel writing is going!

Leave a response. Or write a post for the publication, then leave me a private note and I’ll add you as a writer to the Friends of NaNoWriMo Medium publication.

Your novel matters!

Julie 💜 ✍️ 💜

Word count: 2076 😌
Is the chain different for everyone?
By: Joseph Emmi
Tags: Discipline, Commitment, Goals, Writing, Self Improvement

This is what I asked myself on days like today, where I’m about to go to bed, exhausted and fighting to stay awake, yet suddenly remembering that I pledge to get back into writing everyday just two days ago.

I wonder if not breaking the chain means different things to everyone, if it’s an absolute definition or if it is just me looking for a way to justify my inclinations towards just fallen asleep instead of fulfilling my commitment.

There’s people that write from Monday to Friday, there’s people that write everyday, is one group better than the other? Is it a matter of preference?

There are definitely success stories on both sides.

I don’t have an answer, and there’s only one way to figure it out, but so far at least I know which side I’m on.

aThe mr
Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
By: Brandon Poplstein
Tags: Digital Marketing Tips, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Marketing, Digital Marketing

Alarm sounds. 5am. My eyes open. I grab my phone and instantly start scrolling…

There is no doubt in my mind that social media has changed the way individuals communicate with one another. We are constantly liking, commenting on, and creeping on everyone else’s shit. And it seems like we can’t get enough. The question is, how do we take advantage of this?

Facebook currently has over 1.23 billion monthly active users and Snapchat reels in a respectable 200 million monthly active users. With numbers like this, it’s hard to disagree that social media is where the people are. And if you know anything about business, you know that you should be focusing on where the people are and will be, not where you think they are or where they used to be.

Big corporations are just starting to realize the importance that social media has. Brands like Amazon, Mountain Dew, and Coca-Cola are just now hopping on the Snapchat and Instagram bandwagon, and they’re pleasantly surprised with the response.

Now you may ask yourself, “Instagram…Okay I guesssssss, but why would Coke want to go on Snapchat?” A year ago… hell, maybe even 6 months ago I would have agreed with you 100%. But the numbers speak for themselves, 45% of 200 million (90,000,000) Snapchat users are aged between 18–24 years old, and I’d estimate that roughly 85% of the 90,000,000 millennials like to drink Coca-Cola are on Snapchat. So it would be a huge mistake to not advertise on a platform with over 76 million users in their target market.

I also know that unless you’re a freshman in college, students save hundreds of dollars by buying books off Amazon, rather than getting ripped off by their school bookstore. And 90% of those students are also on Snapchat and Instagram. Companies that are willing to stick their necks out on the line and take a step back from a traditional marketing approach are currently REAPING in the benefits.

These social media platforms are becoming more and more powerful. Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for our generation are like CBS, NBC, CNN, and FOX for baby boomers. Young adults are spending more and more time in front of their phones and less time in front of their TVs (excluding Netflix). So how do you manage this transition correctly and leverage it to your advantage?

1. Concentrate on your users, audience, customers, and fans.

Figure out what they want. Develop a deep connection with them. Build Trust.

2. Improve your skill, expertise, competence, and product.

How can you get better? How can you make your product better for the people who use it?

3. Engage with your users

Reach out to your users. Interact through comments. Reply to them. Make sure they know you’re message is genuine.

By using these three steps, I was able to grow my Twitter following from 300 to over 1000 and my Instagram following from roughly 1000 users to over 4600 in just a 6 month period.
Unearthed Crypto Gem Poised for Resurgence
Tags: Venture Builder, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Southeast Asia, Startup

Top of The Charts

One of RedFOX Labs’ standout attributes is its mission to make real-world products. As a venture builder, it’s in the project’s DNA to replicate revenue-generating businesses.

And the project’s gaming studio, RFOX Games, just recently hit the start button. The studio’s first foray into video games — Keys to Other Games — has become a blockbuster hit in its own right.

The funny thing about that is there’s not even a playable game yet. For now, it’s all about buying, selling, and trading NFTs in anticipation of what’s ahead.

But this month aims to change all that. Per the KOGs Roadmap, December is bringing the game’s beta version, a staking program, plus the dynasty’s 2nd Edition NFTs.

After launching in August, the game’s collectible tokens quickly shot to the #1 position on the WAX Blockchain’s most prolific secondary marketplace, AtomicHub.

AtomicHub sales figures as of November 21, 2020

At the time of writing, KOGs sales are nearly 2x that of its nearest competitor. And it’s easy to see why collectors are going ape over the 1st Edition.

For starters, there’s a game right around the corner — a digital remake of controversial schoolyard classic, POGs. While most other NFTs are only for staring at, KOGs — geographic laws allowing — let players challenge foes in winner-take-all online matches.

There’s gambling. And tournaments. Best of all, as the name screams, KOGs are tokens that unlock in-game items like skins, plus grant access to special levels and competitions.

Not to mention, these NFTs are gorgeous. Feast your eyes on this ultra-rare stunner:

KOGs — Keys to Other Games —NFTs trade on AtomicHub

Once the game launches and a new audience realizes there’s a 1st Edition to collect, we may very well see a serious spike in demand for 1st Ed. KOGs.

NFTs perfectly encapsulate the main benefits of running video games on top of blockchain networks.

Blockchain gaming items are immutable, easily authenticated, and owner-transferrable across supported titles. Coupled with the ability to stonewall cheating fraudsters, blockchain gaming is the future mainstream gaming doesn’t yet know it needs.

No, decentralized gaming isn’t as polished and shiny as centralized gaming on a console or PC. But self-ownersghip of in-game items is, to wear out the pun, a game-changer.

But RedFOX certainly isn’t a one-trick pony. Blockchain gaming is but one piece of an oversized puzzle …
Our World Needs a Reset Button or Maybe a Rewrite #7
By: Brenda Mahler
Tags: Covid-19, Faces Of Covid, Reflections, Poetry, Coronavirus

Our World Needs a Reset Button or Maybe a Rewrite #7

A poem that places a face on Coronavirus

My newest short story’s

main character is a

mutated jellyfish,

sporting fangs

He slithers on land

Sits beside me when I write

Follows me on long hikes —

I am of the supporting cast

This siphonophore plays the villain

Using his tentacles to

Deposit mold spores

Where I walk and on my food

Turning sushi, prime rib and

Maryland blue crab into

Unhealthy delicacies

I crave but must resist

Microscopic mold buds

Infest humans, imitating a cold

Cause weakness and death

If I allow them to be a part of the story

However, I am the author who

Cannot allow the protagonist to

Control the final outcome

He lives between the lines

My hands freeze unable to

Alter the climax

The resolution falling

To an action that requires revision

With a slash of my pen

Verbs decline, adjective multiply

His influence diminishes

His barbaric yelp silenced

Granting the reader hope

Redemption and grace

To be realized in the sequel

of life’s long arduous journey

A preventable tragedy

— Sarah, female

This is one poem of many that were composed after interviews with people affected by the pandemic.
The Reason You Should Stop Chasing Your Dreams
By: Yeva Volkova
Tags: Personal Growth, Inspiration, Motivation, Dreams, Life

The outside world is a projection of you. It is like a mirror that shows you what are you emanating with your thoughts, feelings and actions.

But if you mirror yourself, then who you are? Who is emanating those waves that are reflecting in the mirror?

Have you ever watched Matrix? I hope so. If not, I’ll explain an important part of the movie that gives you the answer.

The protagonist, Neo, is in a white room with the Architect. He explains to Neo that he see himself that way because he was used to it. Remember also that Neo could immediately receive all the useful information from a computer and to learn anything he needed.

Life is a game, someone says. But most important is that we are the main protagonists – we can always choose to change our identity, and to learn anything we want. If we stop emanating certain forms in the mirror, then we will see a different result.

So, if we can emanate and change, this means that we are bigger than our identity, our appearance, our knowledge and belief system. Someone says we are pure consciousness, a part of divinity, love. I don’t want to give a description and to limit. To me, we are infinite.

The infinite has no limits and no limitation. It is in everyone and everyone is in it.

An Italian Romantic poet, Giacomo Leopardi, wrote a poem that me touched since the first moment I read it. “L’infinito” is its name:

But sitting and gazing, endless spaces beyond it, and inhuman silences, and the deepest quiet I fake myself in my thoughts; where almost my heart scares. And as the wind I hear rustling through these trees, I, that infinite silence, to this voice keep comparing: and I feel the eternal, the dead seasons, the present, and living one, and the sound of her. So in this immensity drown my own thoughts: and sinking in this sea is sweet to me.

By realising you truly are, you will stop asking for what you want to have. You have always wanted to be.
How to create stronger layouts with the 8pt Grid System
By: Marc Andrew
Tags: UX Design, UI, Design, Graphic Design, Web Development

Originally published at marcandrew.me on September 3rd, 2020.

Layout Grids are everything in UI Design.

Well. Ok. Don’t discount Colour. Don’t forget about Typography. But get your Layout Grids right and you’re half-way there in creating much better looking, and functioning UIs.

Consistent, and scalable spacing helps you eliminate guesswork whilst designing and developing. It requires fewer design decisions. And it enables a much faster turnaround on projects.

The 8pt Grid is one of the most commonly used Layout Grid Systems there is, and for very good reason.

Let me tell you more about it in this article…
The Virago Newsletter for November 20th, 2020
By: Michelle Jaqua
Tags: Newsletter, The Virago, Feminism, Women, Writing

Here’s your chance to catch up on the articles for this week:

Confessions of a Former Spearmint Rhino Lap Dancer “Gentlemen’s clubs like this have a business model built on exploitation — there, I said it. Clubs are over-filled with girls, sometimes more girls than customers, and each girl is paying a fee to be there. We are self-employed and losing money in the form of ‘house fees’ before our shift even starts.”

4 Ways We Use Kindness as Currency and Why It’s Dangerous “In our society, kindness is a commodity. Acts of goodwill are often weighed down by conditions, including reciprocity. Receiving kindness bears responsibility beyond just paying it forward: nowadays, kindness often comes with expectation.”

My Path from Party Girl to Homebody “Having spent much of my young adult life plagued by the ravages of love and sex addiction, I am acutely conscious of the blessings reaped from currently sharing a loving life partnership.”

Thanks, But No Thanks “The opportunity to meet people and talk to other humans was, I have to admit, a big draw to the job with the insulting pay. The job was only 18 hours per week. It’s close enough I could walk or ride my bike over. There were several attractions beyond the pitiful pay.”

This is What Happens When You Look for Inspiration in Uncommon Places “Change is a disruption. We resist change because we fear it. That resistance is the same as inaction, and if we don’t push past it, we stay stuck. We miss out on discovering something better.”

Bipolar Disorder Makes My World Smaller “I didn’t feel like I was being a good mother, which I wanted to be more than anything. Trying to self-medicate with alcohol and drugs with my new boyfriend didn’t help either.”

It’s Okay if You Don’t Change Your Name “I feel your name is the most important part of your identity. If I had changed my name, every time I signed, I would feel I am under him or belonged to him in the literal sense.”

8 Myths of Domestic Abuse “Abusers make conscious decisions on who, how, and when they decide to abuse. Drinking or other habits can exacerbate violence, but it’s not the cause of the abuse, and is only an excuse for their irreprehensible behavior.”
Explain Like I’m 5: Big O Notation
Tags: Algorithms, Coding, Software Engineering, Computer Science, Programming

Explain Like I’m 5: Big O Notation

Making a sometimes intimidating concept simple

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

Hi there. This is the first in a series of articles in which I will be covering computer science concepts in simplified, easy-to-understand terms. From my own personal experience, despite the enormous amount of resources out there, it might be difficult as a beginner to learn new programming concepts. This is because many sources often explain them using overly technical jargon.

So my goal here is to break things down to analogies/everyday examples as best as I can in order to serve any beginners out there who might be struggling to understand these core concepts.

Let’s jump into our first topic: Big O Notation.

Consider an example with me: You are volunteering at a big conference and you’re responsible for giving each attendee their name tag when they show up. You are given a pile of unordered name cards. How will you go about this task?

The first and terribly inefficient way to complete this task is that for every person who shows up, you look through every single card in the pile until you find their name card. The second way, perhaps that which you just thought of, is organizing the cards in sub-piles based on the attendees’ last names. This might take up a bit more space on your table, but then all you would need is the attendee’s last name and you could retrieve their card in a much faster way.

In this example, you can see that there are many different ways to solve a problem. Two things we consider are how fast a solution is and how much room a solution takes in order to determine if it is the “best” option. In measuring how “fast” something is, we can literally time the exact amount of seconds or minutes, but this may not be the best way to go. In the first solution where you are going through every single card in a name pile to find a name, you might get lucky and find it immediately, whereas other times you might have to take time to go through almost the whole stack to find it. So measuring the actual time to determine the solution’s effectiveness is not the way to go.

Instead, we can explain effectiveness using Big O notation. In short, Big O answers this question: As the size of the input increases, how does an algorithmic solution perform in terms of time and space? In the example above, what if the conference now takes in an additional 1,000 people? How would your first solution compare with the second? Hint: It’d be even worse!

The following are some common time complexity cases and real-world examples to help you think about them. In these examples, n represents the size of the input.

Note: You can find many examples of analyzing complexities of actual code on the web, so I won’t go over them here. My favorite lesson is from Alvin from Coderbyte.
Different Types of Visualizations
By: Mayer Seidman
Tags: UX, Design, Data Visualization, Data

Different Types of Visualizations

People learn and digest information differently. In addition to tables and (typical) bar charts, there are all kinds of ways to spice up your data. Here are some alternative visualizations to try:

Pie/Circular Chart. Its simple but very powerful. The data is shown in a more shapely and informal kind of way. Additionally, the succinct layout makes it quite easy to digest the information.

Flipped Bar Chart. Take your bar chart and flip it on its side. There is a lot less chart but again, the information is much more succinct and friendly.

Without overloading your users, give them a few options. If you are going to go with only one form of visualization, survey some users and find whether they have a preference.

Data is an awesome and powerful tool. Like anything else though, don’t let it get too complicated. Keep it simple.

— — — — — —

Humanizing Data Part I

Humanizing Data Part II
Top 10 UI/UX Design Instagram Accounts for Top Notch Design Inspiration
Tags: UI, Design, Behance, UX, Instagram

Designers from all over the world Tag there designs on @graphicdesignui and get featured on this account. A very good account to look at on a daily basis for UI inspiration.

Witty digital is a Digital Marketing Agency located in Israel. You will find very innovative design solution on their timeline.

Tubik is a design studio based in Ukraine. Check out their account for UI, UX, Logo, branding and there Work process. A very cool studio where any designer would love to work.

In Kem WD account you will find really creative UI work done by him. I really like his dark theme designs.

This is the place for who love paper wireframes. this account is loved by many professionals.
3 Reasons Why ‘Play’ Is Not a Luxury
By: Katie Martin
Tags: Mindfulness, Humanity, Innovation, Wellness, Excercise

1. Play Strengthens Survival Skills

The first reason why we play is that it strengthens our ability to survive. Karl Groos was a leading pioneer in applying evolutionary theory to the study of play and contended that “higher beings”, or mammals, needed to practice behaviors and excercise their bodies in order to become competent adults. For example, his theory could explain why Alaskan bear cubs that play more are also more likely to survive the winter, as was found in a study by Fegan and Fegan (2009). This research suggested that the cubs were able to develop the physical and emotional skills critical to survival.

Groos’s theory also explains why species that rely more on learning than instinct play more than instinct-dependent species. He also wrote that humans practice skills specific to our species; for example, many of our children’s games exercise our mental and language capacities. Personally, as a kid, I remember constantly wanting to play a memory card game, which involved flipping cards laid out in a grid and remembering their matches faster than my competitor (usually my grandma). This was from the time I was five or six. In fact, many of my favorite “active” childhood games involved some sort of mental strategy (e.g., Capture the Flag, Hide and Go Seek, Marco Polo, etc.). Humans, according to Groos, use play to practice the skills we need later in life, and that includes having a robust mental capacity.

After reading about Karl Groos’s theory, I now wonder if reading fiction also fits within it. For both children and adults, reading fiction might be a kind of play that exercises empathy and emotional capacity, which are critical to thriving as humans. For example, a squirrel doesn’t need to understand how another squirrel might react based on his complex emotional state, but humans sure do. Like Groos said, we rely on learning and processing more than instinct, and that learning is done through our real as well as imaginative experiences.