fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
It’s cool to see how Product People played a small part in people like Ryan Hoover and Hiten Shah…
By: Justin Jackson
Tags: Product Design, Startup, Podcast, Makers, Entrepreneurship

It’s cool to see how Product People played a small part in people like Ryan Hoover and Hiten Shah meeting up.

When I started the podcast, that was my dream: that listeners would see the humans behind the product.

Personally, I’m interested in how products connect people. For years I’ve used Path to interact with my family back home. I’ve met many friends through Slack chats. I watched a documentary by LEVI on Vimeo, and we ended up hanging out in person a few months later.

The things we make can create a connection.

It’s a good reminder to keep making things. Whether we’re writing code, publishing blog posts, or recording podcasts, our work can foster meaningful relationships.

Friendships forged on a platform can outlast the platform itself. To me, that’s worth investing in.

Cheers,

Justin Jackson

@mijustin
Cleaner Data Analysis with Pandas Using Pipes
By: Soner Yıldırım
Tags: Machine Learning, Python, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Pandas

Cleaner Data Analysis with Pandas Using Pipes

Practical guide on Pandas pipes

Photo by Candid on Unsplash

Pandas is a widely-used data analysis and manipulation library for Python. It provides numerous functions and methods to provide robust and efficient data analysis process.

In a typical data analysis or cleaning process, we are likely to perform many operations. As the number of operations increase, the code starts to look messy and harder to maintain.

One way to overcome this issue is using the pipe function of Pandas. What pipe function does is to allow combining many operations in a chain-like fashion.

In this article, we will go over examples to understand how the pipe function can be used to produce cleaner and more maintainable code.

We will first do some data cleaning and manipulation on a sample dataframe in separate steps. After that, we will combine these steps using the pipe function.

Let’s start by importing libraries and creating the dataframe.

import numpy as np

import pandas as pd marketing = pd.read_csv("/content/DirectMarketing.csv")

marketing.head()

(image by author)

The dataset contains information about a marketing campaign. It is available here on Kaggle.

The first operation I want to do is to drop columns that have lots of missing values.

thresh = len(marketing) * 0.6

marketing.dropna(axis=1, thresh=thresh, inplace=True)

The code above drops the columns with 40 percent or more missing values. The value we pass to the thresh parameter of dropna function indicates the minimum number of required non-missing values.

I also want to remove some outliers. In the salary column, I want to keep the values between the 5th and 95th quantiles.

low = np.quantile(marketing.Salary, 0.05)

high = np.quantile(marketing.Salary, 0.95) marketing = marketing[marketing.Salary.between(low, high)]

We find the lower and upper limits of the desired range by using the quantile function of numpy. These values are then used to filter the dataframe.

It is important to note that there are many different ways to detect outliers. In fact, the way we have used is kind of superficial. There exist more realistic alternatives. However, the focus here is the pipe function. Thus, you can implement the operation that fits best for your task.

The dataframe contains many categorical variables. If the number of categories are few compared to the total number values, it is better to use the category data type instead of object. It saves a great amount of memory depending on the data size.

The following code will go over columns with object data type. If the number of categories are less than 5 percent of the total number of values, the data type of the column will be changed to category.
To Be a Good Writer, Join a Writing Critique Group.
By: Prajakta Unknown
Tags: Writing, Advice, Productivity, Writing Tips, Freelancing

The Structure and How it Works

We are a group of five writers, each with their own genre and style. We have one business writer, a fiction writer, a memoirist, a historical fiction writer and a poet. We meet weekly, and critique one member’s work each week over Zoom— with candour, tough love, and giggles. We also have a Discord channel where we chat about things unrelated to writing and share resources that may help each other.

I was the first to go under the knife. I had submitted two poems, both of which looked complete to me, until…you can guess! After an hour-long discussion around length, use of words, imagery and details big and small, I had my work cut out for the rest of the month.

Little did I expect that so much room for improvement would be revealed in my pieces which looked proper and polished to my own eyes. That first meeting was enough for me to clearly see that this was going to be the best action I’ve taken to hone my craft so far.

Three Main Take-aways

I took away three key lessons from joining this writing critique group on why this is something every writer should consider.

1. A willing and high-quality “focus group”

A writing critique group can become your tribe. They will offer you candid, useful feedback on your prototype novel or poem before you launch it in the wider market. In a way, your peers are your test audience, and they have every reason to help you make your work better.

2. Accountability, every week

There are so many articles on Medium about how important it is to write everyday. Developing a regular writing practice has the power to transform our inner self, to clarify blocks in our power to express, to help us articulate complex ideas, and to improve our abilities to write well. For me the greatest benefit of being part of a writing critique group is that it creates the right amount of pressure for me to keep writing every week.

Positive peer pressure from this group also led me to join the NaNoWriMo challenge this year. One of the writers in the group participates every year, and this year, she managed to convince all five of us to join. To my own surprise, I wrote 10,000 words during the month!

3. An insider view of other writers’ minds

When I joined this group, I was expecting some feedback on my work but I was also keen to learn from other people’s writing and thought processes. Yet, I had totally underestimated how much insight I would get into the minds of other writers, who write a totally different genre.

This is especially true of the fiction writers. The way they create worlds and build characters is simply fascinating. For example, one of my fellow writers wrote an entire chapter describing the childhood of her protagonist, only to share later that the novel only takes place during the character’s adulthood. Writing up her childhood was her technique for extrapolating an authentic character into adulthood. Such insight has changed the way I read. Moreover, it is making me a much better storyteller.
Substack Writing Tips
By: Substack Writing
Tags: Technology, Writing, Blogging, Substack, Journalism

4. V A L U E

When you sign up for Blogging Guide as a paying subscriber, you gain access to my back catalogue of premium posts and to any future subscriber only posts I write. However, this is true for any Substack publication and is frankly a dubious value proposition for readers ( i.e.Sure, I’ve read Casey’s free posts but will I actually get enough value from a relatively new newsletter, to justify the purchase?).

To make this decision easier for my readers, I provide my readers with instant and exclusive access to several digital products that I have created.

If you click on the following locked post (which is also referenced in my featured post, pinned to the top of my Substack homepage), you will see instructions explaining how to download several of my digital products for free!

Locked Post Containing Downloads for Subscribers:

There are many ways you can gate (control the access to) content.

Since I was already selling these products through Gumroad, I continued to utilize their platform, but you could accomplish the same thing through Etsy or any other digital eCommerce store.

Paying subscribers now have instant access to my bonus content.

Better yet, because this content is listed for sale on Gumroad, it helps potential subscribers realize the value of becoming a subscriber.

The products I am offering free complimentary access to are worth $250 (and I plan on adding more).

Since the current price of my newsletter is only $50 per year, the value proposition becomes much more clear:

Obviously, what you offer your readers will depend upon your niche. And some niche topics may not lend themselves toward digital downloads. But I am sure there are many other creative ways to provide bonus content.

Still, providing clear and instant value to potential subscribers is a valuable tactic on Substack (or pretty much in marketing/sales in general).
The Sexual Overtones in All Relationships
By: Ilexa Yardley
Tags: Relationships, Sexuality, Artificial Intelligence, Entrepreneurship, Data Science

Sex is involved in every relationship. Bi-sexual, or not. Everybody’s bi-sexual.

Multi-sexual. (Photo by Raw Pixel)

There is a hidden sexuality in every relationship. Bi-sexual, or not.

This is because there is a male hidden in every female, and a female hidden in every male.

This explains male relationships. Female relationships. Male and female relationships.

It, also, explains sexual relationships. The hidden sexuality in all relationships. The sexual overtones in all relationships.

Zero and one is one and two.

Conservation of the circle is the core dynamic in nature.
How to run Jupyter Notebook on Andriod?
By: Namratesh Shrivastav
Tags: Python, Andriod, Jupyter Notebook, Data Science, Machine Learning

Recently, I was searching for Jupytter Notebook to run my Andriod mobile. But there was no straight way to install it. So I thought let’s write about it.

We will divide it into two parts, the first will be application installation, and the second will be the Andriod Setup.

1. Installation

There are two things you need to install from the google play store to get started.

1 . Install Pydroid 3 — IDE for Python 3 from google play store

2. Install Pydroid repository plugin from google play store

After installing the above 2 applications we are good to install jupyter Notebook.

2. Andriod Setup

Open Pydroid 3 — IDE for Python 3

click on pip icon

search for jupyter -notebook and install it.

Click on the terminal icon

type jupyter-notebook in terminal

A new page will be launched as a local host

create a new python file and your jupyter notebook is ready.

Thanks for reading.
No Fear. No Limits. No Regrets in 2020
By: Lucy King
Tags: Inspiration, Writing, Self Improvement, Lifestyle, Storytelling

No Fear. No Limits. No Regrets in 2020

If you want to view paradise simply look around you and view it.

Wall mural at Adelaide Central Market, Australia ©Lucy King

At Mindset Matters, we believe you can change your life depending on the type of stories you tell yourself.

It’s been a whirlwind building up this publication. Thank you to everyone for your support over the past six months.

To close out 2019, here’s a collection of our top performing, curated stories. Each story explores a dimension of mind, spirit and creativity with over 100 likes or 500 reads. All of the listed stories have been distributed in topics by Medium. Several of them are double and triple curated even!

Looking forward to write and share many more stories to uplift you in 2020. You can find inspiration everywhere — even in the most unlikely places such as an airport!

A positive sign spied recently at Adelaide Airport ©Lucy King

No prizes for guessing where the editor of Mindset Matters is spending her New Years holiday. For those of you embarking on New Year’s Resolutions, one last reminder: Mindset matters more than you may think!

Enjoy!

Mind — A deep dive into the psychology of our everyday behavior.

Spirit — Stories to inspire and motivate you to reach your full potential.

Creativity — On art, design, writing and innovation.

Thank you for reading!
Can a Planner Obsession Make You Less Productive?
By: Lana Graham
Tags: Productivity, Planner, Writing, Ideas, Bullet Journaling

Can a Planner Obsession Make You Less Productive?

I never thought I’d be a 30-something woman obsessing over stickers

As a young girl, I kept a diary to write my deepest, darkest secrets. Thirty years later and I’ve moved from diaries to planners.

If you think there isn’t a difference between diaries and planners then you haven’t stepped into the all-consuming Planner World.

Welcome to Washi Village, Sticker Mountain, and Pen Paradise. Where all your planning dreams come true.

Planners are meant to help you be productive, plan your life, make it easier to schedule events and be more efficient.
The Intimacy Paradox During Christmas Holidays
By: Synthia Satkuna, Ma Candidate
Tags: Relationships, Intimacy, Life Lessons, Mental Health, Psychology

The Intimacy Paradox

During times like these, people still crave intimacy. We are social beings, and it’s natural to feel certain things, but it’s also a pretty bad time considering everything that’s happening here.

I ended up on one of my notorious Google rabbit-holes and stumbled upon the intimacy paradox. It’s a very curious phenomenon, especially in 2020.

You see, we struggle to establish autonomy as adults, especially as we have to balance the need to make sacrifices for our families and friends.

For example, there’s already comprehensive research studies on the state of intimate relationships during the first wave, such as how couples were forced to cohabit for 24 hours a day, which can be pretty unhealthy, while single people are stuck with no prospects.

Photo by Randy Jacob on Unsplash — It’s okay to be single in 2020.

If these were normal times, and you were a child, we would feel the safest in the loving arms of our parents. Being rocked back and forth, we all know our parents would protect us from all the scary monsters in the world.

Perhaps you even went on a holy pilgrimage many years ago. If you’ve never been on the land you’re pilgrimaging to and are unfamiliar with the norms and customs there, it’s much more comforting to rely on the support of others to help us get from Point A to Point B.

However, these social supports are fiercely limited. During times like these, we continue to remain uncertain, even as we’re heading closer and closer to a more ideal future.

While I have no answers or solutions, the best we can do is keep optimistic. I mean no matter what’s happened in history, society has found ways to keep moving forward. Society survived the World Wars, polio, and so much more. If society did well in the past, it can do so again in the future.

As Roy T. Bennett once wrote,
Fourth Wave Has a New Look
By: Patsy Fergusson
Tags: Design, Feminism, Writing, Equality, BlackLivesMatter

Our new masthead was designed by artist Leila Register, with inspiration from and gratitude to regular contributor Peter Pruyn.

So much has happened since we sent out the last communication to Fourth Wave subscribers in mid-May, including Medium’s change in labeling for this type of communication from “letter” to “newsletter.” The most obvious change, though, is our new redesign.

Some of you might have been fans of the previous masthead, which featured a woman holding her arms up while looking out at the ocean — a literal translation of the feminist term “fourth wave.” I know I was. Because I designed it! :p But about the time I was receiving $1,200 from the U.S. government, I was realizing that image was under par, so I decided to spend some of that money hiring actual artists to come up with a new vision for the site.

You can read about that thought process, and see a few of the options it generated, in two stories:

How I Spent My $1,200

and

Why Beauty is a Drawback
How to Change a Trump Supporter’s Mind (in 2021)
By: Keith Dias
Tags: Politics, Political Science, Psychology, Science, Culture

Humphrey Bogart and the Mandela Effect

Collage by author/Original photos: Wikipedia Commons

Sometimes it feels impossible to change a Trump supporter’s mind. It feels like facts don’t even matter to them. How can we possibly find common ground with them?

“The election was rigged! Hilary is a pedophile!”, they scream.

It brings to mind the Mandela Effect. This is a phenomenon named after the widespread belief that South African civil rights leader Nelson Mandela died in prison.

He didn’t, of course. Mandela was released from prison and actually served as President of South Africa before he died. This memory of his prison death is completely false, yet many people believe that it happened.

This effect is used to describe memories that large numbers of people swear they have despite all proof to the contrary. Some even say that memories like this are evidence of a parallel universe.

Remember the classic black and white movie “Casablanca”? In one iconic scene set at a nightclub, a heartbroken and drunk Rick, portrayed by Humphrey Bogart, demands that the pianist named Sam play his favorite song.

“Play it again, Sam”, you may remember him saying.

Only, he doesn’t actually say that in the movie. Rick just says “Play it”. He never utters the other two words. This is an example of the Mandela Effect. You’ve known this movie for your entire life, and now you find out, all of a sudden, that the most well-known line in it was actually never said.

You’re not the only one who misremembers the line, by the way. Popular culture is littered with references to the non-existent phrase. There’s even a used sports equipment store in my own neighborhood that alludes to the line in the name of its business. They call themselves “Play it Again Sports”.

A likely explanation is that you, and others, had a lapse in memory with respect to that movie. Rick never said that famous line and Mandela didn’t die in prison. And we haven’t been bumped into a parallel universe.

It doesn’t matter if a lot of people believe in something or how passionate they are about it. That doesn’t make it true.

For those that refuse to accept the truth, we have to agree to disagree. This, by the way, is how to handle a Trump supporter.
UX & Psychology go hand in hand— How Gestalt theory appears in UX design
By: Norbi Gaal
Tags: Design, Gestalt, User Experience, Psychology, UX

In the age of AI and “Human Centered Machine Learning”, it’s essential that we understand the needs and behaviour of our users. This is doubly true as a UX designer. In order to create work that better serves the needs of our users, it’s important to understand some basic psychological principles. Which is why I want to share with you Gestalt theory. With this toolkit under our belt, we can consciously design user experiences that truly fit the users.

Introduction of Gestalt psychology

Gestalt theory was founded by Max Wertheimer at early 20th century. This psychological philosophy addresses with perception, perceptual experiences, and related patterns of stimulation. The motto of the gestalt philosophy is:

“The whole is other than the sum of the parts.” — Kurt Koffka

When human perception meets with complex elements, we recognise the whole before we see the individual parts. As a designer if we understand these psychological principles, we can be more conscious during the design phase. One of the basic document of Gestalt principles stated by Max Wertheimer in 1923, called Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms defined some basic principles (laws) that show how the mind tends to perceive visual stimuli.

Law of Proximity

“Law of Proximity” states when objects are close to each other and they tend to be perceived together in one group. Basically proximity is closeness. If we use clear structure and visual hierarchy we will be less charged by the limited cognitive resource of users, so they will be able to quickly recognise and react.
Once Again
By: Brianna R Duffin
Tags: Sleep, Mental Health, Fear, Psychology, Poetry

Photo by Şahin Yeşilyaprak on Unsplash

I crawl out of the dream

and shake the predator

off my consciousness.

I’m much too cold

to will myself out of bed,

but not so scared anymore.

I’m burning up under all

the layers, but I’m cold

all the time these days.

I’m fumbling through the

maze of all the places I

went wrong, afraid.
Short-form stories are a great way to reach scrolling writers fast.
By: August Birch
Tags: Medium, Writing, Marketing, Money, Life Lessons

Short-form stories are a great way to reach scrolling writers fast. If you keep this little posts within the guidelines, not only do you get a 100% read-rate, you also have a quick way to promote your latest story to readers who may not have noticed it otherwise.

With the new changes in distribution (see above), we writers need to hone every promotional tool in the shed.

I believe these short-form stories are a great way to grab your reader’s attention in under 150 words (so the entire text is visible in preview).

Enroll in my Free Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers
Practical Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn
By: Soner Yıldırım
Tags: Data Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Python, Programming

Practical Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn

EDA, feature engineering and preprocessing, pipelines

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Customer churn is an important issue for every business. While looking for ways to expand customer portfolio, businesses also focuses on keeping the existing customers. Thus, it is crucial to learn the reasons why existing customers churn (i.e. leaves).

Churn prediction is a common task in predictive analytics. In this article, we will try to predict whether a customer will leave the credit card services of a bank. The dataset is available on Kaggle.

We will first try to understand the dataset and explore the relationships among variables. After that, we will create pipelines to transform features to an appropriate format for model training. In the final step, we will combine the feature transformation pipeline and a machine learning model in a new pipeline.

The first step is to read the dataset into a pandas dataframe.

import numpy as np

import pandas as pd

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

import seaborn as sns

sns.set(style='darkgrid') churn = pd.read_csv("/content/BankChurners.csv", usecols=list(np.arange(1,21))) print(churn.shape)

(10127, 20)

I have excluded the redundant columns in the dataset using the usecols parameter.

(image by author)

There are 20 columns. The screenshot above only includes 7 columns for demonstration purposes. We can view the entire list of columns by using the “columns” method.

We should always check the missing values in the dataframe.

churn.isna().sum().sum()

0

The isna function of Pandas returns true if a value is missing. We can apply sum functions to count the number of missing values in each column or entire dataframe. Since there is no missing values, we can move on.
Clickbait Subject Lines: You Won’t Believe the Results
By: John W Hayes
Tags: Email Marketing, Marketing, Entrepreneurship

“Email on the Move” by rawpixel on Unsplash

Clickbait is a pejorative term for a headline-writing technique that online publishers have been using for years to drive traffic to websites, more often than not featuring paper-thin content, in the hope of driving advertising impressions and revenues.

You only need to click on a clickbait-type headline a couple of times to realize you’ve been duped — like a fish finding itself on a hook after biting down on a juicy worm.

The thing about clickbait is that it nearly always leaves a bad taste in your mouth. The content is rarely as sensational, awe-inspiring or informative as the headline promises, and quite often, it simply wastes your time.

Note: As an ex-newspaperman, I’m constantly perplexed as to why any editor would allow their “quality” content to be sullied by clickbait-style advertising partnerships (see below). In an age when ad-blocking software robs publishers of much-needed revenue, I guess many are just desperate for the cash they generate, although I cannot help but feel it’s a rather short-term plan for a very uncertain future.

Not All Traffic Is Good Traffic

The basic premise of clickbait is that all traffic is good traffic. This doesn’t work in the world of email marketing, where long-term relationships are far more valuable than quick wins.

For an email marketing subject line to drive real success, it has to tell the subscriber absolutely everything about the email they are about to open. It’s actually very similar to a good old-fashioned (honest) newspaper headline, which tells the full story and encourages the reader to pick up a newspaper and carry on reading.

I doubt very much that you would pick up a newspaper again if its headlines had little connection to the articles or were just a front for ill-targeted advertising. It’s exactly the same with email.

The moment an email subject line tricks or misinforms a subscriber to open an email is the moment you lose that subscriber’s engagement forever. They will either unsubscribe or (worse still) never open another email from you again.

In the perfect world, your subscribers will never receive an untargeted message. However, as we don’t live in a perfect world, I would rather a subscriber not open the occasional email because the subject didn’t quite pique their interest than waste their time on misleading and highly frustrating content.

Instead of attempting to hoodwink your subscribers into opening your emails, wouldn’t it be better to just give them what they want?

This abridged post first appeared on the iContact Email Marketing Blog.
I Broke My Lifelong Habit of Chronic-Lateness and You Can Too
By: August Birch
Tags: Life Lessons, Entrepreneurship, Habit Building, Life, Psychology

Being chronically-late affects everyone around us — more than we think

I broke my habit of chronic-lateness

Exactly 60 days ago I made a pledge to myself (and my son) to stop being chronically late. For most of my life I’ve been late to everything. It’s embarrassing, selfish, and depressing.

I was early for 60 days straight — first time in my life!

Being late didn’t make me more productive. I got worse.

I did everything at the last minute. I showed up to meetings as the guy who tip-toed in, opening and closing the door behind me, with the one-handed, queen wave and the mouthed ‘sorry.’

But none of the work stuff pushed me over the edge. I was just rude. My reputation at work wasn’t as big a deal to me as my integrity at home. My chronic lateness didn’t shift until my son broke-down crying after I made him miss the bus for the umpteenth time.

I felt so low. I mean, the lowest — rock-bottom. I was a piece of crap.

I was an addict to lateness. I tried to pack 100 pounds of activity in a three pound bag. And now my six-year-old son had to be the one to tell me to get over myself. I was humbled, embarrassed, and ashamed. I still am, but I’m getting better.

You can read more about the beginning of my journey here:
Trust Me?
By: Paula Crofoot
Tags: Short Story, Fiction, Escape, Writing, Trust

Trust Me?

Should I?

©Paula via Canva

“Do you trust me?” he asked, offering me his hand.

I could barely hear him over the whirl of the helicopter blades but I’m good at reading lips.

“Not at all.” I replied as I took his hand. “But hey, this night has been full of surprises.”

Duncan helped me up into the helicopter as it lifted off the ground, just avoiding the bloodthirsty creatures that dived for us.

I watched them gather underneath us even as the helicopter gathered altitude. The last thing I ever expected when I agreed to this blind date was for the restaurant to be crashed by blood-thirsty former human beings, attacking anything and everything in their sight. For some reason they seemed to be zeroing in on me.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that my ‘date’ had known what was going to happen. He’d been assigned to keep me safe as apparently, I was the key to saving the world.

We buckled into the helicopter as his friend steered us away from my former home. We’d heard rumors that there was a safe zone in Texas of all places that was creature free. If we could get there and prove we were uninjured, we’d be safe. Supposedly. It hadn’t been long since the creatures had begun attacking but to my knowledge, the world had been overrun already.

But with the winds gathering and the numerous creatures we just left behind, I didn’t know if we could make it to Texas from New York. I wasn’t even sure we could make it out of New York safely. If there were rumors about a safe zone, no doubt there would be more of these things and I didn’t like the looks of this wind.

Just then, the helicopter bucked in the wind.

“Hang on!”

I grasped the seat in front of me and the hook above my head, “Already hanging!”

I felt him wrap his arm around me, other hand wrapping around the hook above his head. The helicopter rolled in mid-air, shuddering and there was a loud snap above our heads.

“What was that?!”

Before he could answer, our pilot spoke, “One of our rotors just snapped! We’re going down!!”

The helicopter took a nosedive and I felt his arm tighten as the pilot yelled, “Hold on!”

I felt the hook above my head be ripped from my hand as the top of the helicopter ripped off, leaving nothing but open air and jagged walls above us. There was no way the seatbelts were going to hold even if there was any way this helicopter was going to land safely.

He pulled my hand off the seat before it could be broken, even as the seatbelts snapped from the winds, pulling us out of the helicopter.

“Hold on!”

I wrapped my arms around his waist, holding on tightly, hoping like hell he had a plan that I couldn’t see beyond freefalling to our deaths.

Just then, I felt something hit me in the back of the head as we cleared the helicopter remains.

As I blacked out, I swear I saw wings above him, coming out of his back. But that’s not possible, is it?
Medium is a fantastic source for a writer’s multi-income streams.
By: August Birch
Tags: Medium, Money, Writing, Entrepreneurship, Life Lessons

Medium is a fantastic source for a writer’s multi-income streams. By using Medium as the beginning — the gateway — you can bring new readers inside your proverbial fence and into your world.

Medium isn’t the end, but the beginning.

You can use your Medium stories to earn your reader’s trust, showcase your expertise in your niche, and encourage readers to join your email list for a deeper-dive.

While our reads and partner income might’ve taken a dive, Medium is still one of the best places to gather your tribe.

Enroll in my Free Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers
Are you a Panster or a Plotter
By: Tammi Brownlee
Tags: Novel, Advice, Writing, Writing Tips, Storytelling

Are you a Panster or a Plotter

Pros and cons of both

Photo by Dan Dimmock on Unsplash

To plot or not to plot is the question. But the answer is not the same for everyone.

Plotter

A plotter writes down every detail of every chapter from beginning to end. They know how the story will start, what each character will do and how the story will end. Their outline is specific, and there is no deviating from it.

Pros — This always leads to a more organized writing experience as the you, the writer, already know what is going to happen. It allows you to sit down and type that 80,000 word novel in no time, getting you to the editing part quicker which, in turn, gets you to the publishing phase in no time.

Cons — Plotting leaves no room for deviation. Meaning that if you want to kill a character off mid-way through and it is not in the outline, your whole system gets messed up. Say you want to change a particular aspect of an incident, you can’t change it without having to redo the remaining outline.

Pantser

A panster literally flies by the seat of their pants when writing. They have no idea how it will begin, how it will end and nothing in between. There is no outline to follow, no path already chosen. Just the writer, a keyboard and a blank screen awaiting the arrival of the next best-seller. You want to kill your character off? Go ahead, there are no rules.

Pros — A literal free for all going on. There is no telling what your fingers will type on the screen. The anticipation might even be the highlight of your day. You, the writer, have the possibility to surprise yourself with the events in the story.

Cons — Two words, writer’s block, these two words can wreak havoc on your ability to finish the story. Without a path to follow you are pretty much winging it and that can cause writer’s block in the middle of the story. Stuck on a chapter? Well you can’t move forward because you don’t know what will happen next until you write this one.

Are these the only two options?

Absolutely not! Imagine a line, on one end is the word Plotter and the other end says Pantser. In the middle is wide array of levels to the writing process. Some would say that somewhere in the middle is good, an equal balance.

But really it is up to you, the writer, as to where you sit on that line. I am closer to a panster, outlines bore me and seem tedious. But I do create lists for each of my characters. A bio for each one saved in a folder on my computer.

I also tend to know the ending, the conflict and the why the conflict is happening. But I don’t write the end first, although it is something we can do as writers. Knowing the end could help write the beginning and all that stuff in the middle.

In the end, it doesn’t matter whether you are a Plotter or a Pantser. What does matter is that you do what feels comfortable to you. Want to write a six page outline, go ahead! Want to sit in front of your computer waiting for the words to make it to the screen, go ahead!

You do you!
NFL All-Time Series: Top 5 Quarterbacks in Dallas Cowboys History
By: Jeffrey Genao
Tags: Sports, History, Writing, NFL, Productivity

1. Troy Aikman (1989 — 2000):

The man of the hour. The best Quarterback to ever put on a Cowboy Uniform and one of the 10 best Quarterbacks of All-Time. Many criticize Aikman for not having gaudy numbers. Even for the 90’s. However, he played in a run first scheme that didn’t ask him to throw much. When he was asked to throw, the results were more than satisfactory. Aikman is one of the most accurate Quarterbacks to ever play. He would put the ball where ever he wanted to in his prime. With six Pro-Bowls, three Super-Bowls, and a Super-Bowl MVP, it’s hard to say anyone else did it better at the Quarterback position than Aikman did for the Cowboys.
Unboxing of Mind
By: Priyanka Srivastava
Tags: Prose, Writers On Writing, Writing, Nonfiction, Writers Life

I believe my mind has become that box which has too many wires tangled inside, each day I untangle few but the next day a new nest is there which I need to dismantle.

It’s a love and hate kind of relationship with my mind and every time my mind wins, there is a poem waiting like a gift which I need to unbox. A good reason for me to search that paper and scribble it all before it gets tangled in the mesh.

Whatever I write here or at another place is that piece of the moon which keeps burning me.

Have you ever imagined standing at the edge of a cliff and thinking to jump or to walk away, we become those abandoned words stuck in some story. The choice is ours whether to ink it or leave it empty and when you are a writer you know to write is easier.

That doesn’t mean each silly thought which speaks to you has to be on the page, some are those stars, which need to stay hidden behind the dark clouds because the time is not right for them to speak to the page. Look for that moon which is illuminating the clouds above, look for it and pull it down so that it can brighten the page and you can let go that anxiety.

Maybe as a writer when you read this you may feel it’s not the same for me, words don’t burn me, the sky doesn’t come closer at night. The reason you are made of different stars but that can’t stop you from mapping your journey.

I wrote here and unboxed my mind, laid it bare for you on the page, you can love it or hate it, you can adore it or push it, this is me on the page.

A ticking bomb which never stops, a tale which is forever looking for new words.
Numpy HandBook For Beginners
By: Abhay Parashar
Tags: Numpy, Data Science, Machine Learning, Python, Artificial Intelligence

Numpy HandBook For Beginners

A handbook that will definitely come in handy

In this blog, we are going to discuss the Numpy library in python and later we are also going to prepare a notebook that can be used by us as a handbook later on in the future.

What is Numpy?

Numpy stands for Numerical Python and is a python library for all kinds of scientific calculation. It consists of many multidimensional arrays and a collection of routines to process them. It adds additional support for matrices and large multidimensional arrays by adding a large collection of high-level mathematical functions. It was created in 2005 by Travis Oliphant. It is an open-source project and you can use it freely in your code.

In python, we have lists that can serve the purpose of an array but the problem with lists is they are slow to process. On the other hand, NumPy arrays have an advantage over Lists. They are much faster than the lists because they are stored in one continuous place in memory. Also, NumPy arrays are optimized to work upon CPU cores.

You Can Find Pandas Handbook For Beginners Here.

Concepts to be covered in Blog
The frozen middle
By: Ed Pike
Tags: Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Change, Startup, Entrepreneurship

Bite sized leadership advice

Leadership is only effective for two levels known as Boss Squared.

We are motivated to please our Boss, in return they keep us, and the tribe ‘safe’. A simple concept.

To please my boss I adopt their priorites, copy their behaviour and respond to what is important to them. Simple stuff.

But I am not naive. Like a weather forecast I look beyond my Boss to their Boss, known as Boss Squared. Think of this as an early warning sign that change is coming. My Boss will be influenced by their Boss.

The influence goes no further.

That is it. Two levels.

When your CEO stands on the stage and pronounces change, expecting it to magically happen. It doesn’t. The best they can hope for is awareness.

Behavioural change only happens when your Boss, or your Bosses Boss start doing things differently.

The failure to cascasde and engage the middle leadership layers is called the ‘Frozen middle’. A group of leaders who are often seen as being blockers to change. They aren’t, they just aren’t connected the change; the CEO just stood up in front of everyone, what do they need to do?

If you are a change agent .. watch out for the frozen middle by ensuring that every second layer of leadership are effective leaders who are clear on what they need to do differently.

Some practical advice

When you take on an assignment, start with a role map. Map the change targets, then work your way up the structure noting each two layers until you get to the sponsor of the change. Have a leadership plan, with explicit actions that cascades every two layers Coach (senior) leaders on the limit of their effectiveness Recognise that all-hands, or town hall meetings will *only* achieve awareness. They are not the magic touch, just the opening ‘hello’.

This is part of our Leadership Wizdom series, bite sized leadership advice for leaders who wish to improve their leadership, but don’t have much time. For more indepth articles check out The Change Wizard.

We coach leaders and help their organisations become more adaptable at www.thechangewizard.com
Problem solvers always are the winners
By: Luis Acerv
Tags: Startup Lessons, Entrepreneur, Ceo Skills, Startup, Design

“The reward for being a good problem solver is to be heaped with more and more difficult problems to solve.”

— R. Buckminster Fuller

Constancy, dedication and commitment. It is not easy to do what we want, there are many obstacles everywhere, but the main thing is oneself.

As I write this I also try to solve many problems in Kchin, from simple bugs to the big logistical and financial problems, and I know that when I solve some things others will appear. And yes, that sucks; but I have learned something at this time, and that is that at the end of the day those who resist and persist are those who reach the goal, because it is very easy to conceive ideas, what is complicated is to carry them out; someone once told me that the best project is just the one that gets going, the others are just occurrences.

The important thing is to work steadily, ideas will improve, you do not have to have a complete idea to start working on it, you do not have to waste time developing a master plan, you just need to start, work and focus and the rest will come, conditions will be given.

So stop focusing on what you do not have, better pay attention to all the resources with which you count and use them, whatever is missing will come at the right time, not by magic but by simple logic.

There is no greater reward for the entrepreneur than seeing his ideas and work come to life, to see all that was only air and notes become something real and functional.

And mainly remember to enjoy the trip…
How To Tell Human Stories That Make Your Brand Look Good
By: Thom Gallet
Tags: Social Media, Branding, Marketing, Storytelling, Freelancing

How To Tell Human Stories That Make Your Brand Look Good

Cut the buzzwords about connection and community

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

You’re sitting in meeting room three, the whiteboards are covered in marketing ideas, and everyone is trying to answer one question.

How do we create a compelling brand story?

Everyone is on their second cup of coffee, and frankly, your team ran out of useful ideas seven minutes into the meeting. Suddenly, a light bulb goes off in your head, and you blurt out:

“Why don’t we put the people in front of our product?”

The meeting erupts with applause and cheers! You immediately receive a promotion and a corner office, going down in history for singlehandedly saving the company with your brilliant idea.
The Case for Starting a Business With Your Friend
By: Casey A.
Tags: Startup Lessons, Startup Life, Startup, New Business, Entrepreneurship

If you have a moment like this, do something about it

Alex and Brett both remember the exact moment that they decided to go into business together. Not to be melodramatic, but it reminded me of asking someone about the moment they held their baby for the first time or met the love of their life. It was a moment etched into their memories with such acuity that I felt as if I was there with them when they described it to me.

Alex called Brett one day with an idea, confident he needed Brett to help him bring his idea to life. Brett and Alex didn’t assume they understood someone else’s problem. Sure, they were student-athletes themselves, but Brett had spent three years working at a teacher recruitment company, and Alex had first-hand experience as a coach. This meant they spent their 20s deepening their understanding of the industry they were about to break in to.

The two were on the same page before they had even talked about it, as Brett recalls:

“We’d actually just happened to both, without speaking with each other, have something similar in mind at the same time. So it was like this unspoken bug was out in the universe that told him to call me that day. And that was the spark.”

They didn’t ignore the spark and they used that spark as their call to do something. They not only trusted the moment where they both felt called to go into business together, but they trusted each other enough to know they could do it as a team.
Turns out, coffee has an agenda.
Tags: Coffee, Productivity, Comics, Storytelling, Humor

If you purge your soul onto paper and are doing it for the love of writing. Then this publication is for you. We love gritty, raw, emotional, thought-provoking, rebellious, sexual, spiritual, nature-related writings and comic strips.

Follow
10 Python Skills for Beginners
By: Nicole Janeway Bills
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Python, Technology, Data Science

#7— Apply a condition to multiple columns

Let’s say we want to identify which Bach-loving plants also need full sun, so we can arrange them together in the greenhouse.

First, we create a function by using the def keyword and giving it a name with underscores between words (e.g. sunny_shelf). Appropriately, this naming convention is called snake case 🐍

The function sunny_shelf takes in two parameters as its inputs — the column to check for “full sun” and the column to check for “bach.” The function outputs whether both these conditions are true.

On line 4, we .apply() this function to the DataFrame and specify which columns should be passed in as parameters. axis=1 tells pandas that it should evaluate the function across columns (versus axis=0 , which evaluates across rows). We assign the output of the .apply() function to a new DataFrame column called ‘new_shelf.’

Alternatively, we could use the np.where() function for the same purpose:

This function from the numpy library checks the two conditions specified above (i.e., that the plant is a lover of full sun and Germanic classical music) and assigns the output to ‘new_shelf’ column.

For these tips on .apply(), np.where(), and other incredibly useful code snippets, check out Chris Albon’s blog.
Dismantling Neural Networks to Understand the Inner Workings with Math and Pytorch
By: Mehdi Amine
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Python, Data Science, Deep Learning

Motivation

As a child, you might have dismantled a toy in a moment of frenetic curiosity. You were drawn perhaps towards the source of the sound it made. Or perhaps it was a tempting colorful light from a diode that called you forth, moved your hands into cracking the plastic open.

Sometimes you may have felt deceived that the inside was nowhere close to what the shiny outside led you to imagine. I hope you have been lucky enough to open the right toys. Those filled with enough intricacies to make breaking them open worthwhile. Maybe you found a futuristic looking DC-motor. Or maybe a curious looking speaker with a strong magnet on its back that you tried on your fridge. I am sure it felt just right when you discovered what made your controller vibrate.

We are going to do exactly the same. We are dismantling a neural network with math and with Pytorch. It will be worthwhile, and our toy won’t even break. Maybe you feel discouraged. That’s understandable. There are so many different and complex parts in a neural network. It is overwhelming. It is the rite of passage to a wiser state.

So to help ourselves we will need a reference, some kind of Polaris to ensure we are on the right course. The pre-built functionalities of Pytorch will be our Polaris. They will tell us the output we must get. And it will fall upon us to find the logic that will lead us to the correct output. If differentiations sound like forgotten strangers that you once might have been acquainted with, fret not! We will make introductions again and it will all be mighty jovial.

I hope you will enjoy.

Linearity

The value of a neuron depends on its inputs, weights, and bias. To compute this value for all neurons in a layer, we calculate the dot product of the matrix of inputs with the matrix of weights, and we add the bias vector. We represent this concisely when we write:

The values of all neurons in one layer.

Conciseness in mathematical equations however, is achieved with abstraction of the inner workings. The price we pay for conciseness is making it harder to understand and mentally visualize the steps involved. And to be able to code and debug such intricate structures as Neural Networks we need both deep understanding and clear mental visualization. To that end, we favor verbosity:

The value of one neuron with three inputs, three weights, and a bias.

Now the equation is grounded with constraints imposed by a specific case: one neuron, three inputs, three weights, and a bias. We have moved away from abstraction to something more concrete, something we can easily implement: