fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Apple’s First Arm-based Macs Are Here With the M1 Chip
By: Walid Ao
Tags: Silicon Valley, Apple, Tech, Mac, Technology

In WWDC 2020, back in June, Apple announced the transition to Apple Silicon. It promised that the first systems would be shipping by the year’s end. Today, Apple announced not one but three new Macs with their in-house chip named “M1.”

The three Macs are; The MacBook Air, The MacBook Pro, and The Mac Mini. Personally, I was anticipating the Mac Mini and the MacBook Air to be announced — I was shocked by the MacBook Pro announcement. Apple announced in WWDC 2020 that developers could order a Mac Mini to start developing apps for the new lineup, and The MacBook air is basically the next step after the iPad Pro. That’s why those two announcements weren’t a surprise. But the MacBook Pro is a huge step for the Cupertino company.

Apple promises up to 3.5x faster CPU, up to 6x faster GPU, up to 15x faster machine learning, and up to 20 hours of battery life.

It is a big leap forward for the Arm-based laptops in general. Arm-based laptops are currently known for their ultralight form factor, with the latest entry being the Surface Pro X. Arm-based laptops aren’t known typically for their performance and capabilities, making the performance promises by Apple very intriguing.

The company already showed off compatible applications such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Lightroom running on Apple’s chip back in June. These apps won’t be immediately available with the new Macs; for example, Photoshop will launch sometime in 2021. Apple-owned apps (including the pro-level apps) have already been fully ported to Apple silicon Macs.

The new Apple silicon Macs can also run the massive library of existing iOS and iPad apps, which helps bridge the gap in supported apps until all of the apps are ported to the new chip. This move allows the customer to purchase one app to run on all of their devices (iPhone, iPad, and now Mac).

This transition is the first of its kind since Apple transitioned to Intel processors back in 2006. This time Apple promises that Rosetta 2 will help with the transition.
What Is Copywriting & How To Grow Your Business With It
Tags: Copywriter, Copywriting, Home Business, Copywriting Tips, Online Business

What Is Copywriting?

Copywriting is the ability to connect and persuade a reader to take a particular action. Not just with words, but it can be accomplished with pictures or video too.

If you think you’re not a good writer, no worries most copywriters aren’t born. Copywriting is a learned skill.

If you never quite pick up the skill or just don’t want to do it there are plenty of good copywriters willing and able to help you out. You can outsource a good copywriter.

You should consider hiring or outsourcing your copywriting if:

Your website has very low traffic, or those that do visit leave without purchasing anything.

You haven’t updated your blog recently

You’re uncertain what or how to write on your website

You don’t know what to put in your email campaigns.

You’ve neglected your social media networks

Why Is Copywriting So Important?

Every business relies on promoting their business through advertisements, emails, sales letters and other promotional materials. Successful copy adds to the business bottom line with more sales.

The main purpose is to generate an action. What is said and how it’s said helps to grab the reader’s attention and inspires them to take action and purchase from you.

You are exposed to copywriting on a daily basis. You probably just didn’t realize it. Now you know copywriting is used to effectively convey a message to the reader. Connect with the reader and motivate them to take an action.

If you got value feel free to share this article with your friends. Also check out our other articles on Medium or on our blog at www.StartLivingBig.com

Debi

Create A Business To Love

P.S. — If you’re looking to create a new life and need a step-by-step blueprint for building a profitable Online Business as fast as possible, we recommend trying out the 15 Day Online Business Builder Challenge first.
LinkedIn API + Python = Programmatically Publishing
By: Alessandro Berti
Tags: Pages, API, Organization, Python, LinkedIn

It’s time to get your hands dirty with some code!

Gif via GIPHY [https://media.giphy.com/media/l2SqhXKKs7HJHFkDS/giphy.gif]

To get your Access Token, you need two REST calls:

A GET that will redirect you to a new URL. From this URL, you’ll need to extrapolate the value in the parameter code . A POST that will return your brand new Access Token.

Let’s do it step-by-step!

1. GET

Just have a look at the following URL. Wait before copy&paste!

https://www.linkedin.com/oauth/v2/authorization?

response_type=code&

client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID&

redirect_uri=https://example.com/auth/linkedin/callback& state=RandomString&

scope=w_member_social,r_liteprofile

⚠️ →I said “Wait”! ←⚠️ Gif via GIPHY [https://media.giphy.com/media/xT1XGOSpbtYvl9HlGE/giphy.gif]

Parameters

response_type=code . It’s already ok, just copy it.

cliend_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID . Insert your Client ID specified in the Auth section of your LinkedIn App.

redirect_uri=https://example.com/auth/linkedin/callback . Insert the Authorized redirect URL you specified in the Auth section of your LinkedIn App.

state=RandomString . Chose your preferred-at-random “RandomString” (i.e. ILovePointerPodcast).

scope=w_member_social,r_liteprofile . The scope is very important! It specifies the permissions you need.

Let’s make it easy: If you are planning to interact just with your own profile in “reading mode” then, the r_liteprofile permission is enough. If you are planning to exploit LinkedIn API to publish posts in your own profile, you need “write permissions” (i.e. w_member_social) .

However, you can compose permissions as in the example: scope=w_member_social,r_liteprofile .

If you are planning to use LinkedIn API to interact with your page, please keep reading until the ⚠️⚠️ ACHTUNG ⚠️⚠️ paragraph.

Permissions change according to your needs. In case you want to further investigate:

Now, you can copy&paste the following GET url.

Thanks for the patience.

https://www.linkedin.com/oauth/v2/authorization?response_type=code&client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=https://example.com/auth/linkedin/callback&state=RandomString&scope=w_member_social,r_liteprofile

Just paste the above link (filled with your correct data) in your browser.

If you are on the right way, you’ll get redirected here:

Screenshot by Author

Once clicked on “Sign In”, you will get redirected again to an empty page!

⚠️ → Now, take a look at the new URL of the empty page! ← ⚠️

Copy it to a note. Is it something like that, right?
Meeting Philosophy in practice
By: Nicolas Pellissier
Tags: Wasting Time, Startup, Organization, Meetings, Productivity

5What we should do better: measuring results and rewarding them

Create KPIs to measure results

With the Google Calendar API, we can gather data from public Back Maker invitations. These are the KPIs we are in the process of creating:

% of meetings with more than 8 attendees (to check if the 2 pizza rule is followed)

% of meetings with correct format/content (% of invitation where names starting with “SHARE, DECIDE, …”, invitation with a description, a Zoom link, a document link…)

% of meetings refused (measuring if Back Makers are really free to refuse invitations and linked this KPI to “% of meeting with good content”, we expect a high % of refusal in case of meeting with poor content)

# of meetings per day (with a focus especially on Productive day)

% time spent in a meeting per week

We think we should also look at the attendees' satisfaction:

R.O.T.I. method (as for “Returns On Time Invested”) asking the attendees to vote from 1 (I clearly wasted my time) to 5 (it was really useful, I would have been a shame if I wasn’t there)

Random satisfaction survey on our meetings policy to gather and test new and creative ideas

Clarify good behaviors and reward them

We’d like to create a virtuous circle encouraging people to better follow our guidelines. To do so, we intend to put the spotlight on people who have great “meeting KPIs” and publicly congratulate them (with an - asynchronous - Wall of Fame for example). We could also ask these people to publish some testimonials that highlight their personal motivations and gains.

We also plan to incentivize people to refuse invitations when they don’t understand what value they’d bring to the meeting or if they see that the meeting runs counter to the company’s meeting philosophy (for instance, when I see more than 8 participants in a meeting, I challenge the meeting owner about the role of each attendee). One way to do so would be by creating a playbook that explains when invitations should be refused and how it can be done politely and professionally.

In the roll-out of such actions, our ambassadors will have a key role in spreading these best practices among the teams and to identify room for improvement.
Voice
Tags: Voice, Eos

Voice 是 Block.one 旗下基于 EOS 的社交项目。2020 年 3 月，Block.one 表示将向区块链社交应用 Voice 投资 1.5 亿美元以支持其独立运营。为了部署和推广 Voice，Block.one 仅购买 Voice.com 域名，就花费了 3000 万美元。还购买了 330 万的 EOS RAM 资源，以及支付 2400 万美元罚金给 SEC，为 Voice 做好合规准备。

2020 年 8 月 15 日，Voice 目前已经开启邀请注册，但在全球范围内，目前也只限于 23 个国家，包括有美国、英国、加拿大等，未包括中国。根据 Voice 的最新政策，每个 Voice 用户只可以邀请 10 个朋友加入。

中国、中国香港访问 Voice.com，会提示：「Unfortunately, our content is unavailable in your area. We are working hard to implement all the necessary controls to adhere to local laws and regulations. We hope to invite you onto our platform soon.」

笔者已经成功注册 Voice，需要做如下准备工作：

如果是 iOS，需要准备一个非国区、非港区 Apple ID，最好是美区；

如果是 Android，需要正常登陆 Google Play；

在 App Store 或者 Google Play 下载安装 Voice；

准备一个非港区 TZ，最好是美国 TZ；

去社区找一个邀请码，记住登记的邮箱是一个没在 Voice 官网登记的全新邮箱；

找一个明亮的地方，背景最好是纯色，因为注册要求简单的 KYC，获取到的头像将作为 Voice 头像，而且目前暂时还没法更改。

注册好 Voice 后，默认会送 3000 个 Token。邀请注册期间的 Token，会在邀请测试结束之后清零。但是创作的内容、点赞、评论等会保留。

前有区块链内容平台 Steemit，现有 Block.one 团队的区块链社交平台 Voice。EOS 社区饱受诟病，Block.one 甚至被贴上了不作为的标签。如今推出 Voice，还宣称 EOS 是最适合部署 DeFi 的平台。社交这个赛道，早已有 Facebook 这些巨头，您觉得 Block.one、Voice 还有机会吗？

我是区块链罗宾，博客 dbarobin.com

如果您想和我交流，我的微信: Wentasy

本站推广

币安是全球领先的数字货币交易平台，提供比特币、以太坊、BNB 以及 USDT 交易。

-EOF-

版权声明： 自由转载-非商用-非衍生-保持署名（创意共享4.0许可证）
DeFis
Tags: Defi, Eos

Blogger of dbarobin.com, read more about me at robin.finance.
Keras Model Sequential API VS Functional API
By: Rahmat Faisal
Tags: Neural Networks, TensorFlow, Keras, Machine Learning, Deep Learning

Sequential API

Sequential API allows you to create models layer-by-layer by stacking them. It is limited in that it does not allow you to create models that share layers or have multiple inputs or outputs.

Example Code:

Result

And now lets plot your model using keras utils.

Keras Plot Model

As you can see, Sequential API create model and stacking them together layer by layer. Sequential API is very easy to create deep learning model in most of case.
Machine Learning Using Titanic Data
By: Abinaya Jayaprakash
Tags: Keras, Pandas, Machine Learning, Model Training, Data Analysis

Why not try out machine learning along with data analysis??

Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence where we construct models/systems that learn and study data to make predictions.

This is what I tried out as well using the analysis I did on the titanic data set. A model that can predict the chance of survival for any passenger based on data about them.

Let us begin creating our model. What would the first step be?

Understanding your data set

The data set I chose is “Titanic: Machine Learning from Disaster” from Kaggle and which contains two separate train and test data files.

Analyzing the train and test data is essential, which is explained in detail in my article “Investigating Titanic Data”.

As observed in the data, the test data is missing the ‘Survived’ column.

Therefore we can use the features Sex, Age,Pclass, Fare, Embarked, SibSp, and Parch that affected survival rates in the train data as observed in the analysis done.

This is then fed into a model which then predicts survival for passengers in the test data.

Preprocessing data

This step involves cleaning both train and test data and obtaining a data frame with values of features consisting only features we decide to input into the model.

I decided to use imputation to fill in the missing values in the Age and Fare columns. This method refers to replacing missing entries with the mean of all values under the respective column in the data.
Free Personal Finance Courses on YouTube: A Key to How I Saved $24k
By: Sadie Lee
Tags: Saving, Saving Money, Finance, Personal Finance, Rich

Free Personal Finance Courses on YouTube: A Key to How I Saved $24k

Pexels: Robert Bogdan

I went from living paycheck to paycheck to maxing out a Roth IRA and saving $24,000 towards paying for my Master's degree.

I talk more about how I changed my money habits here. But what also helped was the money education I got for free.

How?

I started watching 2 Cents, and below are my 5 favorite videos by them to help you change your money ways:

You should probably never, ever buy a new car off the lot on credit.

In this video, the pair discuss problems with new car purchases! Cars are so expensive, and the second a new car is driven off the lot, it has started deprecating. You should buy your cars upfront, in full.

Eating Out is Costing you Thousands a Year

If you eat out a lot, you need to see this clip. Eating out even just once a week can make thousands of dollars of a difference in your yearly budget!

If You Can Retire in your Thirties, You can Probably also Penny Pinch

After watching this clip, I realized I did want to work as hard as I needed to retire in my 30s. But I did want to adopt the saving techniques. Even just lessening financial strain for the second half of your life is a goal worth striving for!

How to Avoid Money Mistakes!

This video talks about some of the common mistakes and how our emotions are tied to our financial choices. We often don’t think through some of our more impulsive purchasing choices…

The Importance of an Emergency Fun

Okay, I don’t have one of these. It’s called my credit card or my parents. But after I pay off my Master's program, it’s my next financial goal! An emergency fund is one of the first recommended goals for those looking to work on their finances.

My Top Takeaway Money Tips:

You should be stashing as much money as you can towards education or retirement in your twenties as soon as you can.

An emergency fund is also the first savings goal you should reach. You may only need $3–$5,000. This is the difference between moving home with mom and dad or accruing high-interest credit card debt

Money is emotional for all of us. But there are ways to be smart and savvy with it.
How Much Are You Really Paying for Streaming Subscriptions?
By: Carter Kilmann
Tags: Saving, Money, Personal Finance, Netflix, Amazon

How Much Are You Really Paying for Streaming Subscriptions?

Photo by Sayan Ghosh on Unsplash

The average American has three or four subscriptions to streaming platforms, such as Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Apple TV+, and Disney+. But we can afford to because, compared to cable, these services cost much less, ranging between $4.99 and $13.99 a month.

These subscriptions don’t seem that expensive, but that’s intentional.

Quick, without doing any mental math, which one sounds more appealing?

Seven payments of $14 or a one-time payment of $98?

The idea of pulling $98 of our wallets is much harder to get behind. Even though seven installments of $14 equals $98, people are still drawn to the smaller dollar figure. It’s all pricing psychology.

Marketers make big numbers digestible by converting them into smaller monthly sums. But, in reality, you’re paying for access to something in perpetuity — or until you cancel.

I’d wager that you haven’t considered whether you’d have a Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon subscription in 15 years, but it’s fair to assume these streaming platforms aren’t going anywhere. So, how much will you pay to these companies over the next 15 years?

Let’s start with the OG streaming service: Netflix.

How much will you spend on Netflix over the next 15 years?

Needless to say, we need to make a few assumptions, as I’m not privy to the future pricing strategies and business initiatives of Netflix.

The streaming behemoth has a history of subscription fee hikes, so we’ll start there.

Over the last decade, Netflix has raised its standard subscription fee five times, resulting in a cumulative 75% fee increase since its original pricing.

In my opinion, they can only do this so many times before the benefit of higher subscription fees outweighs the loss of subscribers. As monthly fees increase, so will cancellations. I don’t know what that price point is, and I’m sure Netflix is spending millions of marketing research dollars trying to figure that out, but I’ll assume they won’t go past $20 per month.

That might sound astronomical to some and reasonable to others. It’s subjective.

So, we’ll assume Netflix raises its standard subscription fee by a dollar every two years until it hits a ceiling at $19.99 per month. Based on that assumption, you’ll pay Netflix $3,166.20 over the next 15 years.
Why My 4-Year-Old Daughter Is More Than Your Son’s Future Wife
Tags: Parenting, Equalityforher, Raising Kids, Gender Identity, Feminism

My name is Shannon Cain and I am the mother of 4-year-old twin girls. I am passionate about examining unhealthy societal roles imposed on children and striving for equality in gender roles.

An example of inequality in children’s gender roles includes letting people know that the comment “My son’s future wives” is NOT a compliment when referring to my young daughters.

Recently, someone left this comment on a @FeministMomming post, which included a picture of my twin girls. Perhaps it was harmless, but I do not favour romanticizing or sexualizing children’s relationships. It is not a compliment.

Many times, well-intentioned grandparents, friends, aunts, and uncles make reference to baby boys being ‘heartbreakers’ and little girls being ‘a tease’. The sexualization of children begins almost immediately and kids are put into a box before they’ve even learned to sit up. Before a child even has a chance to confirm their identity as male or female, adults are making assumptions and encouraging inappropriate behaviour.

Previously, a parent at my girls’ preschool came up to my husband and I and let us know that their son was playing with one of our daughters and she was the boy’s “new girlfriend” and

that the “son was a total player.” At the time, the children were only two years old.

These comments marginalize girls. What do some adults feel the need to romanticize different-gender relationships with children? Does it help them make sense of the world?

Parents conclude from the start that a boy’s only interest in girls is seeing her as a romantic partner. — “Girlfriend” or “wife”. Not vibrant, independent, funny, smart, kind, empathetic, delightfully engaging humans. These comments from fellow parents offer insight into how sexism starts earlyand is ingrained and accepted by society. Girls are marginalized from the start and it’s time that we as caregivers, change that.

Shannon Cain,

Blogger, Feminist Momming
The Letter to My Mum I’d Write
By: Robin Kyrie
Tags: Transgender, LGBTQ, Gender, Nonbinary, Gender Identity

The Letter to My Mum I’d Write

Photo by Kate Macate on Unsplash

Mum, I know you don’t understand very well what’s happening. I know you seem to think my love of makeup and my clothing choices aren’t usual. You even question if I’m regressing in gender identity back to more feminine. We fight about it a lot, and I’ve had to lie to you to tell you that I’m a drag queen. Because I don’t have the mental energy to educate you on non-binary identities.

So here it is, in pen and ink. Or well, typed word, but that’s just splitting straws. I’m non-binary. You may have to do some googling yourself, but there are some immutable facts about being non-binary, and my experience of it. So first of all, I identify as demi-male, also sometimes referred to as demi-boy. I prefer using a male signifier as I feel like the word boy is a bit too childish. Both are accurate. It means that I view myself as masculine, but I also consider myself as androgynous in presentation. If gender is a spectrum (which it is — a very wiggly one), it means I’m more towards the wriggly end of masculine.

So what does that mean? It means my use of makeup, my clothing choices, everything, is me being me. It’s me authentically expressing myself. I know you worry about me. I know in the past, when I first came out as trans, you worried about me getting beaten up about being called a freak. I don’t want you to worry about that. I’ve learned to self-police myself, you see. I’ve learned where the ‘safe’ areas are to express myself are fully, and where not to. I wish that weren’t the case, but it is — unfortunately. It’s why I tend to be more open about my identity and experiment more at home; I know where I live isn’t the most accepting. We learn these things being trans and non-binary.

So please don’t worry about me, and don’t worry about using pronouns that aren’t right. I’m at peace enough with my identity that he/him is still fine, as I don’t have the mental energy to unpack the whole potential debate about they/them we could end up having.

If I could send this to you, I would hope that it would allow you to understand more. I don’t want the arguments or to have to explain things right now. I want you to embrace me and my identity.

Your gender non-conforming son.
Poor Rudolph
By: Phil Johnson
Tags: Business, Comics, Cartoon, Humor, Technology

Cartoonist. Former Dave Letterman joke writer. Yinzer. Dad of two girls (one a T1Der). Beer drinker. Pizza lover. He/him.
Trad
Tags: Comics, Cartoon, Fantasy, Humor, Identity

Almost famous cartoonist who laughs at her own jokes and hopes you will, too.
One More Reason to Miss College
By: Phil Johnson
Tags: College, Parenting, Comics, Cartoon, Humor

Cartoonist. Former Dave Letterman joke writer. Yinzer. Dad of two girls (one a T1Der). Beer drinker. Pizza lover. He/him.
How to directly download Kaggle dataset to Google Drive
By: Sasiwut Chaiyadecha
Tags: Google Colaboratory, Google Colab, Google Drive, Kaggle Api, Kaggle

Kaggle is one of the most useful website for data scientist. It contains large amount of data to use the project. Taking about Deep Learning or AI, these require quite serious processing. Many people tend to use Google Colab for model training since the GPU available for free. One drawback of Colab is that the model is no longer remained when quitting the notebook (unless you are the pro user). The solution is to move the workspace to Google Drive because it can be saved all information after leaving the notebook.

Sometimes, the download and upload are consuming the time. The topic for today is how to directly download Kaggle dataset to Google Drive. Everything will be on cloud for sure!

Setting up

First thing first, we need two accounts which are Kaggle and Google. Go to Kaggle website and open ‘My Account’ scrolling down to API. Click on Create New API Token

Web browser will ask you to download json file, named kaggle.json . The file contains Username and Key that will be used for config Google Colab environment.

Colab

Moving to Google Colab, firstly don’t forget to mount the Google Drive. Otherwise, your data will be lost anyway. In this tutorial, we are going to create the new notebook for coding config environment. You may change directory to some folder in your drive but remember dataset will be downloaded to that directory.

It might seem a bit different from others because this tutorial doesn’t require any upload file to Google Drive. I have faced many issues when using upload json file and configuration method. Instead, we directly used information in json file and config in the Google Drive following code above.

**Important the code above is CASE SENSITIVE. It should follow exactly the same.**

Kaggle API

We are now ready to use Kaggle API. To use it, go to the link we needed and find “three dots” somewhere on the right side of the page. Then, select Copy API command (refer to figure below).

Back to Google Colab notebook. Insert the new cell and type ! at the beginning followed by the API command (refer to example code below).

Downloading tv-shows-on-netflix-prime-video-hulu-and-disney.zip to /content/drive/My Drive/Colab Notebooks/.kaggle

0% 0.00/88.0k [00:00<?, ?B/s] 100% 88.0k/88.0k [00:00<00:00, 12.2MB/s]

The dataset will be downloaded to your Google Drive (wherever your current working directory).

Conclusion

Overall, it is a good practice when you want to use Kaggle dataset and working on Google Colab at the same time. If you have any question regarding this or else, we can continue the conversation over the LinkedIn. You can find my LinkedIn as below.

See you next time!
How to use an IDE in Google Colab (and Kaggle Kernels !) instead of Jupyter or a simple script.
By: Skander Hadj Romdhan
Tags: Google Colab, Data Science, Kaggle, Software Engineering, Machine Learning

The data world is filled with a lot of constraints that all data practitioners are facing daily. One struggle I had past years is the hardware. It’s not easy to find good hardware for deep learning and also cloud solution can be expensive. Also, many other practitioners could face a lack of viability for DL oriented hardware in some countries…

Kaggle and Google Colab Logos

Kaggle and Google came with Kaggle Kernels and Google Colab respectively to face this issue and make hardware available for people to practice or experiment using their datasets. These products provide the user with the ability to use high compute capability units such as GPUs and TPUs that are essential to training models in a quicker way.

Available runtimes in Google Colab

Available runtimes in Kaggle kernels

The screenshots above show the runtimes available in the two platforms, note that in Kaggle kernels you can choose to write a single script instead of a notebook, link Google Cloud Services (BigQuery, Google Storage and AutoML). Also, in Kaggle Kernels you can choose to code in an R environment that supports only GPU runtime. Provided runtimes also have high RAM (above 12GB in most cases).

These free hardware solutions are providing us with a developing environment as shown above but we can’t use an IDE there and enjoy its features.

An IDE can provide a lot of benefits for a developer :

Code into many files and structure the project as the developer wants Easy connection to Git and version control Have access to a debugger Easy access to a terminal

Now, everything changed with colabcode, a python module released by Abhishek Thakur a data scientist and Kaggle X4 GrandMaster. With this package, we can have access to VSCode in our web browser that is connected to the environment provided by Colab or Kaggle Kernels and so benefit from the hardware with an IDE. The package has been made to have a continuous running process that will keep your session active and don’t let the environment shut down until the maximal quota is reached (8h for the free version of Google Colab for example)

Hands-on!

Now enough talking, let’s see how to make this solution work and what are the features of colabcode.

The module works with only two lines of code but first, you have to install it.
Getting ‘More’ out of your Kaggle Notebooks
By: Parul Pandey
Tags: Programming, Data Science, Kaggle, Jupyter Notebook

Tips to get ‘More’ out of your Kaggle Notebooks

Let’s now quickly jump into some of the tips that I keep in mind before attempting to create a new notebook.

1. Tell compelling stories through Notebooks

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.” Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

Notebooks are an excellent tool to get your ideas across. They allow you to interactively explore data, create visualizations and then share the results with the world. In a way, you can combine both code and a writeup in the same environment. Use crisp visualizations to create a compelling storyline. Pick up a unique problem and try to work through it. Define the purpose of the notebook at the beginning itself and then wrap it up with a fitting conclusion, to create an impactful story.

In the notebook titled Geek Girls Rising: Myth or Reality! , I analysed the 2019 Kaggle ML and DS Survey data for Women’s Representation in Machine Learning and Data Science. The problem statement that I chose to work upon was whether the women participation in Kaggle was improving and how did it compare to the previous years. I created a report by analysing the data across various attributes like gender, countries, age groups etc. Finally, I concluded the analysis with key take ways and some recommendations.
Seguimiento cartera inversión en tiempo real - Google Sheets
By: Miguel Alcalde
Tags: Investing, Inversion, Google Sheets, Acciones, Portfolio

in Change Your Mind Change Your Life
Muck Rack and I Just Tusseled in Bed
By: Terry L. Cooper
Tags: Journalism, Writer, Publishers, Authors, Portfolio

Long pull on the cigarette.

Blows out smoke from mouth and nose — just like in the movies.

Ahhhh. That was good. Was it good for you? You seemed to be the ‘Little Engine That Could’ there a few times but in the end? Oh yeah. You definitely came through for me.

I said all of that to say this. I am now on Muck Rack. If there’s a specific article/story of mine you’re looking for, this will be the easiest way to find it. That is until, eh hem, Medium makes more changes.

Now I can finally get out of bed and actually adult some today! Thanks to Roz Warren for the idea.
The true reason why long-term investors will embrace Bitcoin.
By: Avantgarde Digital Research Blog
Tags: Investing, Bitcoin, Money, Cryptocurrency, Portfolio

Nice charts. But what does this imply for my portfolio?

The important thing is that the abovementioned valuation metrics are not mere numbers. They are closely related to long-term expected returns on these asset classes. For instance, the Shiller P/E is closely related to S&P 500 total returns 10 years down the road. The higher the Shiller P/E, i.e. the more prices (P) have decoupled from earnings (E), the lower the future expected return for the S&P 500 and vice versa.

The same can be said for US Treasury bonds: The best predictor for the expected return on a passive investment in 10-year US Treasury Bonds is the current 10-year yield itself. The lower the yield, the lower the expected return.

Inflation-adjusted Gold and US Real Estate prices behave similar to the Shiller P/E: The higher the respective metric, the lower the respective expected long-term return prospects.

The following figure depicts the abovementioned relationships in a scatterplot for US equities, 10-year US Treasury bonds, Gold denominated in USD and US Real Estate. I have chosen the period from 1971 onwards, i.e. since the demise of the Bretton Woods System/Gold Standard and the beginning of the Fiat Standard.

Fig. 5: Valuation metrics and long-term expected returns since 1971

As you can see, the abovementioned valuation metrics fit future returns quite well. More specifically, these metrics can explain at least 60% of the variation in 10 year forward returns since 1971 for Gold and US real estate and even up to 88% in the case of US Treasury bonds. The Shiller P/E explains around 67% of variations in S&P 500 10yr forward returns.

If you look at the latest estimates, the abovementioned valuation metrics imply an expected return of only 0.7% p.a. for US equties, -2.4% p.a. for US Treasury Bonds, -25.1% p.a. for Gold (!) and -0.8% p.a. for US Real Estate in nominal terms for the next 10 years.

No, that is not a typo. Gold is likely to be the worst major asset in the next 10 years since it is extremely overvalued as well. The only major asset class that will deliver positive nominal returns is US equities. The abovementioned return includes dividends as well meaning that the price return is likely to be negative since the current dividend yield stands at ~2% p.a. Accounting for inflation, all these assets are bound to yield negative long-term returns since the expected inflation rate over the next 10 years currently stands at ~1.7% p.a.

In sum, this implies an average nominal portfolio return of only 0.2% p.a. in the next 10 years which is way below the average of 5.8% p.a. in the last decade and below average expected inflation rate of ~1.7% p.a. for the next 10 years. In order to grasp the importance of this, the following table shows the performance of a so-called naive “Austrian portfolio” consisting of US equities, US Treasury Bonds, Gold and US Real Estate with 25% weighting each for comparison:

Table 1: Austrian Portfolio Performance since 1971
CoRL 2020 Best System Paper Winner: Noah’s Ark Lab Multi-Agent RL Simulation for Autonomous Driving
Tags: Conference, Machine Learning, Self Driving Cars, Corl2020, Research

CoRL 2020 Best System Paper Winner: Noah’s Ark Lab Multi-Agent RL Simulation for Autonomous Driving Synced Follow Nov 18, 2020 · 4 min read

The CoRL 2020 Best System Paper Award was presented today to Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and University College London for their paper SMARTS: Scalable Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Training School for Autonomous Driving. The CoRL 2020 Award Committee praised the work as “a thorough and well-thought-out system with strong potential impact for the Autonomous Driving community.”

The paper introduces SMARTS (Scalable Multi-Agent RL Training School), a realistic multi-agent simulation platform for autonomous driving. SMARTS supports the training, accumulation, and use of diverse road user behaviour models to help reinforcement learning (RL) researchers examine realistic road interaction scenarios. It has been open-sourced.

While exploring the open road can be exhilarating, the driving experience more typically involves navigating busy streets packed with other, often unpredictable drivers. For autonomous driving vehicles, interactions with the wide range of intelligent and not-so-intelligent other road users present a fundamental challenge with very high stakes.

The researchers identify a pain point: “Current mainstream level-4 AD (Autonomous Driving) solutions tend to limit interaction rather than embrace it: when encountering complexly interactive scenarios, the autonomous car tends to slow down and wait rather than acting proactively to find another way through.”

The team notes that in California in 2018, 57 percent of autonomous car crashes were rear endings and 29 percent were sideswipes by other cars that could be attributed to heavy breaking and the overall “conservativeness of the autonomous car.” Autonomous vehicles’ unwavering adherence to posted speed limits has also resulted in long lines of traffic on rural roads and dangerous overtaking.

Doesn’t that sort of driving sound like a typically overcautious rookie is behind the wheel? Novice drivers can head to a driving school to learn such real-world road skills, and the researchers believe RL agents should do the same, as “driving in shared public space with diverse road users is fundamentally a multi-agent problem that requires multi-agent learning as a key part of the solution.”
Future of Offensive Attack Simulation: Strategies, Tools & Techniques
Tags: Cybersecurity, Hacking, Conference, Infosec, Cybercrime

A hack is executed every 39 seconds and impacts one in three Americans every year.

Join us in the discussion on Future of Offensive Attack Simulation: Strategies, Tools & Techniques with Bikash Barai and Matthew Rosenquist

Click Here to Join the CISO Platform Fireside Chat: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/3356142006680293903
My key takeaways on Cloud-Native KubeCon Conference (CNCF) 2020 thus far
Tags: Cncf, Service Mesh, Cloudnativecon, Kubernetes, Conference

This is my first KubeCon, and in the unfortunate 2020, this was all online. What I am after was The Content — and I was very much pleased.

This is seriously the best one-stop-shop for all things Kubernetes and ServiceMesh

Conference cost $75 + $20 for ServiceMeshCon — my area of interest.

The sheer amount of Kubernetes Cloud-native content, particularly in regards to service mesh was astounding. I have booked several days off work on this study leave, thinking I can do 2-for-1 and get Kubernetes Security Certification — which was announced as expected, done in between.

I wish. No way. “Aint nobody got time for that”. I will cover the CKS separately in another blog as I prepare to take my own exam.

My Notes and Key Takeaways

There is a service mesh now from any and every provider. Pick your poison. F5 comes out with Aspen Mesh. VMware has Tanzu, Kong has App Mesh. This is by far a non-exhaustive list, besides the originals like Linkerd and Istio.

It was a lot to take in.

Linux Foundation Kubernetes Security Specialist 15% off ($300) with this generic discount code. Discount off Course & Exam booking SCOFFERS15 . Personal Discount code allowed for 30% off the CKS booking — and I used it up :D

You need CKA as a pre-req
Big girls don’t cry (neither do boys)
By: Sarah Haggart
Tags: Guilt, Shame, Life, Vulnerability

Vulnerability

Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash

Vulnerability doesn’t mean you cry uncontrollably, it doesn’t make you weak. Vulnerability is a means to connection. It’s human nature to want to make connections with other people. We yearn for that accepting relationship. We need to feel like we belong. Vulnerability means sticking with it during the cringe worthy moments. Those moments you feel like turning around and running away, if you just ignore that need to run and face the fear whatever it may be, where would you be? Where would you be if you wouldn’t have taken that job offer in another state? Where would you be if you decided to ask that cute guy out instead of waiting for him to ask you?

Shame

Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash

Shame is not something that I thought of when I thought to describe myself or how I was feeling ever in my life. Not one time could I remember thinking of the word shame. I had an aha moment with my therapist last week. I was venting about my mother and how the upcoming holidays were making me anxious. Then all of a sudden she says well maybe you feel shame because you don’t want to be judged by others based on the things your mom does.

It was like a light went of that I have never seen before. I suddenly realized why I had this feeling as I’m trying to rebuild the relationship with my mother. I realized why I never came home after school, I realized why I never invited my friends over to my house. It wasn’t because we weren’t clean people or because I didn’t want my friends to see my house. It was because I was afraid of what they would think if they say my mom drunk, If she fell down while they were there. I was feeling shame about those possible situations. Partly because I had already experienced those exact moments and had no desire to feel them again.

I realized why I have communication problems with my husband. I felt shame for speaking up about anything because I didn’t want to upset anyone and speak undesirable feelings. Shame is not something you feel because you necessarily did something bad or wrong. Shame is something you feel because of what you think others think. Shame is the feeling you have because of something that has happened to you.

Shame is holding on to what you have done or failed to do against who it is that you want to be!

Guilt

I didn’t even want to write about guilt, but because it is so correlated with the word shame I have to bring it up to explain the difference and educate people who might not know the difference. Guilt is the feeling you have once you have done something wrong. When you actually do something. Guilt is what you feel when you accidently step on your dogs tail. Guilt is so closely correlated with shame that people do not know the difference and that’s ok. Truly, you don’t know what you don’t know.
The Courage to Bare Your Soul
By: Megan Minutillo
Tags: Vulnerability, Self-awareness, Miscarriage, Infertility, Courage

The Courage to Bare Your Soul

Photo by Todd Rhines on Unsplash

I recently wrote a piece about the IVF journey my husband and I are currently on.

As one might imagine, writing an essay about the struggles of infertility and the journey of IVF is quite personal. In the days of internet trolls and horrible humans feeling like they have a right to lash out with words, I was rather nervous about hitting the submit button. But then I remembered how much comfort I got from others’ essays and how I drew on the courage of strangers to have courage in my own life, and I thought, if I could do that for just one person, that would be enough. That would be worth the stress and the potential nasty words that would come my way.

So, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and hit submit.

Days later, when my glorious editors at P.S. I Love You published the article, I would, like most freelance writers, share amongst my social media streams.

Again, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and hit “post.”

What happened next was extraordinary.

No nasty internet trolls said some God awful things to me, and I did not receive one piece of well-meaning yet unsolicited advice. Instead, stories of pain came flooding into my inbox and the comments section.

I learned of the miscarriages of far too many wonderful women I know — and the miscarriages of strangers I will probably never meet. I learned how many IVF warriors are out there, so many in the middle of the journeys, and others who are on the other side of pain, enjoying each precious moment with their beautiful children. I learned how too many women have questions that they’re afraid to ask and hold pain that they’re afraid to let show.

It was beautiful.

It was eye-opening, too. For these were women from all different walks of life — the differences amongst them could fill a book or two, and yet, here they all had this thing in common. Here they were, afraid to share their story, stuck with how to sit with their pain. Many might look at them and think that life is perfect, and that they have it all together, and that it would be crazy to think that they could be grappling with a world of hurt.

And yet, here they were, in my inbox, saying just the opposite.

Too often, I think we forget that while the world feels as if we’re more connected and growing smaller, there is a world of emotions and experiences that happen on the other side of the screens that you see. It’s impossible to know what someone is sitting with, what circumstances weigh them down unless you ask — or unless you stand strong in your vulnerability and share. In doing so, you provide an entryway into a conversation that they perhaps would never know how to start.

In doing so, you provide a flashlight to someone who is desperately trying to find their way out of the dark.

We can never know what another human being is going through — but we can choose to show up in the world in such a way that makes them feel as if they have the courage to bare their own soul.
Poetry Collection Debut
By: Samantha Lazar
Tags: Writing, Poetry Article, Vulnerability, Publishing, Poetry

Poetry Collection Debut

Photo by the author

I just published a book.

Me.

The two biggest feelings I have right now:

Excited: Giddy with the news. Giddy from the accomplishment. Giddy with the potential and the relief from the hard work and healing. Vulnerable: I am naked at school, naked on stage, an imposter, my own version of Narcissus. I just know there will be formatting issues in print — typos, font sizes, grammatical errors (gasp!)! Who would actually spend their hard fought-for dollars on my poetry (besides friends and family)? What if people love it? What if people hate it (and tell me so)? What if I care?

Well, those of you not new to this game can probably relate. I am not well-versed in the business side of art. It is hard to self-promote something so personal, so eternal, so deep and important to me. It is hard to self-promote my own healing.

I would love to just stay in feeling number one: Excited. But would I be normal if I did not debase my own accomplishments directly after? Doesn’t everyone sink their own ship by imposter syndrome?

But deep, deep down, I know that this is me. This is truly me. Writing is my breath. My therapist says so. And so does my astrologer. It’s in the cards, people!

And this text by one of my most supportive friends this morning:

“Your talent as a poet needs to be shared. It’s not a hobby or something you dabble in. You pour your soul into everything you write and that’s something that needs to be shared and celebrated. I’m so proud of you for putting yourself out there!” — J.H.

On my Amazon author page:

Samantha Lazar is a teacher and writer living in North Carolina. She teaches 5th graders everything from Language Arts to How to Be a Good Human. She studied English and secondary education with a concentration in creative writing at Appalachian State University. After two decades in the classroom, Samantha decided to delve deeper into the study of how people learn. She has a Masters in Education from Meredith College. As a child, she knew she wanted to be a writer after connecting with the characters in Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh and Daphne’s Book by Mary Downing Hahn. She spends most of her time encouraging kids and young adults to dig deep and use their power of language to inspire the world. She is at home wherever she is with her husband and son.

It’s true. It is me. And here I am. Promoting my work to the world. Cause this teacher, wife, mama has student loans to pay and more books to write. Progress over perfection, right?
I Wish I Never Learned to Code
By: Tyler Hawkins
Tags: JavaScript, Programming, Satire, Heroku, Humor

Professional Life

If you think those browsing habits are bad, just wait until you hear about the kinds of conversations I have with other software engineers. As a whole, engineers tend to be fairly opinionated. Pedantry runs in our blood. Do you indent your code using spaces or tabs? Are you more of a Vim or an Emacs fan? Chrome or Firefox?

In wiser circles these conversations will ultimately lead to someone asking “Does it really matter?”. Bikeshedding is a real phenomenon and needs to be carefully kept in check.

xkcd — Real Programmers

As more and more companies adopt agile methodologies, from time to time we have to weigh the comparative trade-offs between using Waterfall, Scrum, or Kanban development lifecycles. We all enjoy bashing on Waterfall as an artifact of the past used by old-fashioned and inefficient corporations. However, the Scrum versus Kanban war rages on.

“You’re a believer in Scrum, you say? I’ll bet you love your artificial time boxes that cause hurried code to be imprudently shipped in order to meet an imaginary deadline before the sprint ends.”

Dilbert — Scott Adams

Speaking of agile, what is a story point, anyway? A measure of time? Effort? Complexity? Risk? All of the above? You and I could likely spend hours debating the merits of each definition without coming to a mutual understanding.

At some point this may devolve into more bikeshedding, but being able to understand one another and communicate effectively is critical, and that includes having a shared understanding of the terms we use throughout the day.

Frontend development opens up a whole other world of talking points, most notably: “When are we finally going to drop support for Internet Explorer?” I have to walk the fine line between hating on Internet Explorer and wanting to drop it and simultaneously understanding the need to support it for those of our customers that are stuck using it. (Those poor unfortunate souls…)