fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
If I Die Before You Wake
By: Erika Sauter
Tags: Psychology, Family, Life, Mental Health, Depression

I was laying on the grass in my backyard looking up through the trees. Colorful, thick branches shook like puppets in the wind and patches of grass were warmed by the glow of sunlight that managed to seep through the cracks. I watched a red leaf as it danced its way down, landing within arms reach of me.

I rolled on my side and picked it up. It felt hardy beneath my fingertips, still moist and sturdy. It wasn’t quite time for it to fall — had it not been for the wind.

I laid there thinking about all the failures I’ve had in my life though somehow in the future they seemed to guide me. It’s a miraculous gift from the universe when something that once had you feeling so poorly about yourself now brings you hope.

I thought about the mistakes I’ve made and the heartbreaks I’ve survived, each charring me with pain, each a reminder not to choose that path again.

I’ve habitually done my best to do what I believed was the right thing. It doesn’t always work out in our favor though, does it?

I’ve continually been intrigued by the idea that everything changes. Even if I were to sit in the same spot and refuse to change everything around me would still change. It all changes, for better or for worse, ready or not.

I woke this morning at 3:00 AM gasping for air. I was relieved I was alive but scared I was going to die. I sat up and looked at my husband sleeping next to me. My heart sunk.

I got up, walked the has and peeked through my son’s bedroom doorway. It was dark but I could hear his sleeping sounds. My eyes welled with tears.

I sat down in the spot where I stood. Thoughts of what my world would be like without me in it down-spiraled. I was catastrophizing. This specific and intrusive thought, it’s normal for me to fear I will die. Though what feels normal for me isn’t necessarily normal at all.

That night, I couldn’t shake the fear of death.
Innovation & Design
By: Pedro Canhenha
Tags: Design, Innovation, UX Design, Design Thinking, New York

Understanding Innovation & Design

I’ve been mulling over the content of this article for quite some time now. There are so many interesting articles being published every day about Design principles (ones that tie with what Dieter Rams so eloquently wrote about), and how those principles have become part of the reality of so many companies, not only software companies, but in other industries as well. One of those Design Principles is of course Innovation or the capacity to be Innovative. This article in particular sheds light on how Innovation lives and breathes within the context of different organizations, and it stands as my own digest of having worked through different enterprises.

Apple has become the staple of case studies of how a true Innovator and how the understanding of Design Principles can effectively take a well known company from a middling success to a market leader and to overall heights never before expected. Under the guidance and tutelage of the late Steve Jobs, Apple has made the process of creation, development and launch of products, something that is emblematic and iconic. This astounding success has of course been the result of many factors, but two of the main ones have been without a doubt “Innovation” and “Design”. As many other companies, both well established and startups, have taken upon themselves to embed those principles into their core philosophy, it’s interesting to recognize how those processes have had various results.

“Design” is a term that is undeniably popular. For the most part, if you ask any individual what they understand by that term, they will most likely respond that “Design” is the way something looks. The term has been used to convey for instance how Fashion Designers showcase their latest creations, or how different car manufacturers showcase new models every year at specific events, etc. The term has simply become deeply associated with how something looks, or more specifically with the aesthetics of a product. “Aesthetic” is a Design Principle, and is definitely something that is crucial when designing a product, of any nature, but it is solely one that sits alongside many others. The challenge for many years, and to a certain extent to this present day, has been to educate and truly expand the notion that “Design” is not just making “something pretty”. The discipline of “Design” in actuality factors a lot of different elements that go beyond “Aesthetics”: there’s economical, functional, cultural, demographic, among other factors that weigh in, when devising a Design solution for a product. For a lot of companies that have never had design as part of their core decision making process, the need to be “Innovative” and bring a “Design” process together is in itself a considerable challenge.
Depression Lies, Poetry Defies
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Politics, Poetry, Writing, Mental Health, Humor

Once upon a time, depression, anger, and poetry collided on the page.

The salad spinner in my head decided to spit out exactly how I — the newly naturalized citizen — felt about the reality of Donald Trump as CEO of America Inc. but in verse rather than prose.

I was so rattled my words, which chronic depression smothered for years, came back for another visit, this time as unidentified editorial objects or poems, depending on how indulgent you feel toward these pithy expressions of displeasure from a particularly peeved person. Prior to this, I had also had an uncanny essay moment, which had resulted in another standalone oddity.

On those rare occasions I managed to be functional, odd was my jam.

A few days ago, I found the indignant poems and they showed me a few things.

All the themes I would come to write about at length are already there. The wrath and revulsion are palpable because the ruthlessness of a culture that elevates mediocrity yet punishes poverty and sickness still shocks me on a daily basis. I never could get numb or inured to it.

It’s not my culture and thankfully it’s not every American’s either.

At some point in 2017, I was breathlessly apoplectic for a while and so my titles were in all caps, sorry about that. As a journalist who abhors sensationalism, I do not recognize myself but every single word happened. The caps provide an accurate snapshot of my mindset at the time, removing them would not. Poetry is more forgiving about such quirks than any other form of writing.

Welcome to my brain, please grab a seat, and buckle up! You’ll find a paper bag in your seat pocket.
You Don’t Need Therapy
By: Susan Kelley
Tags: Relationships, Psychology, Self Improvement, Self-awareness

In comes the vacuum.

Where we used to think of people talking to themselves as the muttering weirdo in the corner, recent research not only shows that it’s not for the crazies, it’s truly beneficial. While it’s true that talking to yourself is an outward sign of some mental illnesses like schizophrenia, key researchers have defined talking to yourself as an important outlet when needed.

Senior lecturer in psychology at Bangor University, Paloma Mari-Beffa notes that talking out loud is a reflection of a person’s inner talk, a problem-solving mechanism. According to a University of Toronto study, self-talk can change our impulses, putting us on a more positive path, even helping to improve mood and self-image.

So, talking in a vacuum, or talking to your self, can be almost as useful as talking to a therapist, if all you need is to get your frustration out, to be heard, and not to get advice.

You know those times when all you want to do is whine and complain, and not have someone tell you how to fix it, or that everything will be all better?

Well — research now tells us that if you just say it, get it off your chest, then that is not such a bad thing. Talking TO yourself, with no expectation of a reply, isn’t such a bad approach after all.

The next time you are feeling that isolation, or that frustration, try this: head out for a walk or jog, iPhone in hand, earbuds in, ready to roll. (This is a mere prop so that no one will think you are a lunatic.) Take that walk, but instead of calling anyone, just talk. Any onlookers will think you are having that conversation with someone on the other end of the call, but really — vacuum. Just speak into the void, pretending you have a listener.

That self-talk might be just what you needed in the first place. Tell your “therapist” everything you wanted to, and take her advice. It’s cheaper than the real co-pay, and there are no interruptions.

Put your words out into the void, and see what comes back. Maybe just the satisfaction of having said them. And maybe that’s enough. It works for me with the typing.
Starting is the Hardest Part
By: Linda Smith
Tags: Productivity, Self Improvement, Life, Entrepreneurship, Advice

One of the main components of my blogging income is sponsored posts. I’m given a product, a set of parameters and then it’s up to me to come up with an engaging story consisting of about 500 words and 10 photographs.

At a quick count, I’ve completed roughly 120 sponsored posts. All on time and meeting (or exceeding) expectations.

Yet.

Yet each time a brand reaches out and terms are agreed upon, the self-doubt begins. I wonder if this will be the time I don’t get it done. I wonder if I have it in me to complete the many tasks and put in the hours involved in creating the creative, authentic photos and words that are expected of me.

I fret and I procrastinate and let anxiety lead the way. I go down the rabbit hole of “am I good enough” and, as we all know, it’s a particularly difficult one to climb out of.

If I’ve learned one thing, though, from my decade of blogging it’s this: anxiety is the antithesis of productivity. Simply beginning, though, sends anxiety packing and is a productivity hack we don’t talk about nearly enough.
Six Habits of Profoundly Lonely People
By: Zulie Rane
Tags: Relationships, Mental Health, Self, Psychology, Social Media

1. You're Always Surrounded by People

Have you ever been at a party, literally surrounded by your friends, but you feel like you’re completely alone?

Loneliness is one of those things where even if you don’t know the cause, you feel the effects. You might not realize you’re deeply lonely, but you still are grasping for anything to make you feel a little less alone. This tends to manifest itself in trying to be around people as much as possible.

The problem is that it’s probably already too late. You’re already struggling to make connections, so surrounding yourself with noise and distraction is like a bandaid on a bullet wound at this point. Shallow connections aren’t going to do anything to truly solve your loneliness.

If you’re noticing yourself doing this, the first step is to realize why — and see what happens when you stop. What fills your head when you try to exist for five minutes without any conversation? What do you turn to?
The Difference Between Designing for Users vs. Designing for Marketing
By: Jon Moore
Tags: Product Design, Design, Product Marketing, Marketing, UX

A few decades ago it actually meant something to describe your company as an “internet business.” The web hadn’t proliferated beyond expensive, behemoth machines in research institutions, and the potential of vast, worldwide connectivity wasn’t yet understood.

Boy, have times changed.

Nowadays, businesses depend on the internet to survive in the same way automobiles depend on fuel. Calling yourself an “internet business” would sound ridiculous, since everyone from Wall Street investment firms to your artsy neighbor shows up online slinging their wares or marketing their skills.

“Standing out” has always been a priority in advertising and marketing, and a swell in competition has companies earmarking enormous budgets for marketing. But customers don’t just care how you look and sound, they expect good design. It’s the first step in pulling interested buyers into your conversion cycle. That’s what marketing design is.

But once you’ve enticed a customer to buy, how do you keep them coming back?
What a Papa John’s Tweet Can Teach Us About Marketing in a Pandemic
By: Jon Torrey
Tags: Covid 19, Startup, Marketing, Advertising

Understanding New Consumer Vulnerabilities

Before you can come up with the messaging like the above Papa John’s example and make it specific to your business, you need to get into the mind of your consumers.

As consumers, we are all more vulnerable because of this virus. Economically, socially, and health-wise.

We’re concerned about our loved ones and our jobs, we miss our friends, but most of all, we want to avoid spreading the virus so that we can get through this as quickly as possible.

Thus, we want the businesses we interact with (and want to support) to acknowledge and ensure we can purchase their products without further risking the spread of the virus.

The good thing is that businesses want this too, but there’s a gap. One way to fill that gap is to ask yourself this question:

What are my customers afraid to tell me?

More often than not, an unhappy customer will simply choose to do business elsewhere in the future rather than provide you with feedback and we’re none the wiser.

Except now, the stakes are much higher, and customers are more sensitive, so we have to improve anticipating their silent needs.

By spending time thinking about what our customers might be afraid to tell us, and to ask our loyal customers or peers for “off-the-record” feedback, we can do a better job addressing their vulnerabilities.

So, what might your customers be afraid of?

Your customers are fragile, handle with care. Photo by jesse ramirez on Unsplash

Let’s use restaurants as our example and work backward from the Papa John’s messaging, to uncover what customer fears they identified:

Fear of the pizza box accidentally opening and the contents being exposed to droplets.

Fear of their meal or the box being placed on an unsanitized surface.

Fear of their delivery driver not respecting the 6-foot rule when dropping the food off.

Fear of not being able to pay and tip without face-to-face interaction.
Why Utah is Growing Faster than Everywhere Else
Tags: Economic Development, Utah, Cities, Smart Cities, Big Data

Did you know that Utah is home to some of the fastest population growth in the country? A few more fun facts: The state is expected to be the best place to live in 2032, houses the nation’s largest number of national parks, and is ranked fourth in the nation in overall well-being. It is also one of three states that has access to Google Fiber and an increasingly strong presence in the tech industry.

Things are coming up Utah.

The fundamentals driving this growth are Utah’s booming economy, low unemployment, and a very affordable quality of life. To understand how this state’s cities are thriving and learn more about how you can repeat the effects in your community, let’s look at the economic impactors and key data associated with its growth.

Utah Soars Above National Average
The Burden of Multitasking
By: Synthia Satkuna, Ma Candidate
Tags: Multitasking, Psychology, Organizational Culture, Mental Health, Time Management

Your Brain is Like an Air-Traffic Control Centre

Harking back to contemporary psychological research, psychologists have identified that the brain is typically not optimized to do two heavy-duty things simultaneously.

As time stretches onward, we will get tired and we will get fatigued.

Even if you don’t feel the effects now, you will likely feel them at another time, depending on your specific situation. The best way to conceptualize our tasks is to visualize an air-traffic control centre.

Photo by Mael BALLAND on Unsplash

When we are multitasking, we code and switch from one item to another, often in quick succession. This is what is called “juggling” and there is usually a cost associated with this constant code-switching.

Sometimes, this cost is time.

For example, let’s say task 1 is similar to task 2, and both require doing some kind of research and mathematical calculations. Task 1 requires 1 hour of your life. Task 2 also requires 1 hour of your life.

Without multitasking, perhaps you’re spending 2 hours at a minimum with a 10-minute break thrown in the middle, making it 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Instead, multitasking may cause you to get both parts done in 2 hours or more. On top of that:

You’re much more tired

There was no self-care break

You might have even wandered into timewasting activities

Overall, the next time you’re multitasking, just be mindful of your cognitive loads. It’s okay to sometimes do two things at once, such as talking to a friend while sorting boxes, but it’s not as appropriate to write two lab reports simultaneously.

In the wise words of Idries Shah,
What Makes People Happy During Coronavirus Pandemic, Study Examines
By: Shin Jie Yong
Tags: Covid 19, Advice, Mental Health, Life, Psychology

What Did They Do?

They collected two survey data representative of China. The first one, involving 11,131 people, was conducted before the coronavirus outbreak was publically reported at the end of December. The second one has 3,000 people and was administered around mid-February.

The surveys measure emotional well-being. “Specifically, they indicated whether they smiled or laughed a lot yesterday, and whether they experienced a lot of enjoyment, happiness, anger, sadness, stress, or worry yesterday,” Dr. Yang and Professor Ma wrote. Demographics like age, sex, income, region, and marital status were also included.

The second survey added measures of sense of control and perceived knowledge about the coronavirus —i.e., how it spreads and preventive measures. Actual knowledge of preventive measures was also surveyed separately.

Then the researchers ran a series of regression analyses with emotional well-being as the dependent variable and other factors (e.g., income, marriage, perceived knowledge, etc.) as the independent variable. The main research question being which factor(s) influences emotional well-being or happiness.
Setting up Anaconda on your computer (MacOS Catalina)
By: Adrian J. Segura
Tags: Jupyter Notebook, Anaconda, Python, R, Data Science

Installing Anaconda (on Mac OS)

There are two (2) ways to install Anaconda

Both of these links are installing Python 3.7 which you should be using as Python 2 is no longer receiving improvements (which includes security updates). I’ll go through the Graphical Installer.

Step 1: Go to anaconda.com/products/individual

Step 2: Click on the Download button and select 64-Bit Graphical Installer

Step 3: Once the .pkg file has been downloaded (could take a few minutes as it’s >400MB), open it to begin the installation process. Click Continue.

Step 4: The next screen provides details about what packages will be included in the installation. Click Continue.

Step 5: You are given the Software License Agreement. Click Continue. You will then have to Agree to continue the installation. Click Agree.

Step 6: You will now select the destination for the installation. You will want to specify where you want to install Anaconda in this case would be Install for me only. Click on Install for me only and then click on Macintosh HD. Click Continue.

Step 7: You will receive on final prompt about the installation on the Macintosh HD. Click on Install.

Step 8: If all goes well, you will have successfully installed Anaconda onto your machine!

Once you are done with the installation, you will find an opt folder in your home directory which contains the anaconda3 folder that was just installed.

You can also verify that the installation worked by using the Terminal and entering conda list . If Anaconda is installed and working, it will display a list of the packages and their versions installed on your machine.

(base) adrian@adrians-mbp ~ % conda list

# packages in environment at /Users/adrian/opt/anaconda3:

#

# Name Version Build Channel

_ipyw_jlab_nb_ext_conf 0.1.0 py37_0

alabaster 0.7.12 py37_0

anaconda 2020.02 py37_0

anaconda-client 1.7.2 py37_0

anaconda-navigator 1.9.12 py37_0

anaconda-project 0.8.4 py_0

applaunchservices 0.2.1 py_0

appnope 0.1.0 py37_0

appscript 1.1.0 py37h1de35cc_0

....................................................................

You can also verify the Python version, which should be version 3.7 (Apple’s computers come with version 2.x installed but Anaconda’s Python version should be reflected). Clear your terminal (type clear and hit return in the Terminal) and enter python . This command will run the Python shell. If Anaconda is properly installed, the version info it displays will include "Anaconda".

(base) adrian@adrians-mbp ~ % python

Python 3.7.6 (default, Jan 8 2020, 13:42:34)

[Clang 4.0.1 (tags/RELEASE_401/final)] :: Anaconda, Inc. on darwin

Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

>>>

To exit the Python shell, type quit() and hit return.

You should also see the Anaconda Navigator under you Applications folder.

This graphical user interface (GUI) allows you to easily launch apps and manage conda packages without using command-line (i.e. Terminal).

And that’s it! You are ready to start working with data using Python or R!
How to Build a Multi-Tenant Application Using Spring Boot and Hibernate
By: Igor Vlahek
Tags: Programming, Spring Boot, Java, Startup, Spring

How to Build a Multi-Tenant Application Using Spring Boot and Hibernate

Build an application where one instance serves multiple tenants or users

Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash

In this tutorial, we will learn how to build a multi-tenant application using Spring Boot and Hibernate. We will show how to build a multi-tenant application in which tenants are using a shared database and shared schema.

This story is a result of a successful attempt to make an ordinary application turn to a multi-tenant application with as little changes as possible to the existing application. This story is influenced by the following tutorial and aims to improve the specified implementation proposed by it. Instead of using HandlerInterceptorAdapter and limit ourselves to HTTP access, we will use annotation with the interceptor approach. That way we will not be bounded to HTTP access only.

Disadvantages of the solution proposed in the article for a shared database, shared schema approach:

The solution works only for REST APIs. If you are listening to a Kafka topic or consuming messages from the RabbitMQ, it won’t work.

The proposed solution for a shared database shared schema with a Hibernate Interceptor is too complicated. I could not get it working on an existing application.

A proposed solution:

Works for all interfaces. Exposed API can be REST API, SOAP API, Kafka listener, Queue consumer, or something else.

We will take an easier approach without having to work with Hibernate Interceptor.

The story is accompanied by a working project hosted on GitHub.
What programming language are you?
By: Pito Salas
Tags: Programming, Java, Python

I’ve gotten very interested in the life cycle of programming language usage. What programming language is “the most popular”, “the most useful”, “best for teaching”, or just “best”?

And in particular, I would like to understand differences based on who or where we are talking about. For example, most popular language used in the enterprise, or for game programmers, or in academia, or in startups, etc.

There is no shortage of studies of this question, and as a start, to tickle my interest, I’ve started a list of those studies. I will continue to update this post as I find out more.

Github is the code repository I know best, but one can be positive that it is not the only one. What we don’t know is how representative it is in general, or of some segment, for example open source. From Githut we can see that JavaScript and Java are the two hottest, and they are both growing. However if you look at Github’s own report, a slightly different picture emerges.

Toibe Software is an outfit that seems to have very comprehensive information, although I’ve not yet seen exactly what their methodology. Looking at their top level report, again I see Java in the number one place. The interesting thing is that here, the older languages like C and C++ show up pretty high.

Another perspective is what language is being used to teach programming. In this paper the claim is made that Python is Now the Most Popular Introductory Teaching Language at Top U.S. Universities. But according to that article, Java is a close number two followed far behind by Matlap and C.

An interesting related question is what programming language is easier or more effective to teach programming. Here I would want to defer to people actually teaching introductory programming. I could find various article espousing different perspectives. Many teachers I have come across believe that Python is a great first language.

… more to come
3 Tips for Leading a Software Development Team
By: Rovie Doculan
Tags: Project Management, Leadership, Programming, Software Engineering, Startup

3 Tips for Leading a Software Development Team

Congratulations! You lead a team now. So what’s next?

Image via Canva

Congratulations! You have been named as a technical lead/team lead/lead developer (or whatever term your company has chosen) in charge of leading a software development team. This next chapter of your career is a milestone for software developers. The mere fact that you have reached this stage reflects how well you have been doing in your career so far.

You may feel excited, anxious, panicked, or a little bit of all these emotions. This is perfectly normal. I was in your shoes just a few months ago when I transitioned from a software developer into a technical lead of an international team of developers in a Fortune 500 company. I was mostly excited because being in a leadership position at work had always been a dream that I had worked towards for years. However, when I actually started in my role, it was harder than I had expected. Much harder.

I eventually pulled it off — after numerous restless nights and copious amounts of coffee — and even received formal recognition and awards for my leadership. Here are three things that I learned the hard way that will hopefully help you in your new role:

1. Learn like it’s your first job out of college

Remember how eager you were to learn in your first job as a fresh graduate? You need to perform at this same level for your new position.

That’s because good developers don’t automatically make good technical leaders. You may be a code ninja, but leadership requires a skill set that developers don’t regularly flex in most of their day-to-day routines. So be prepared for an influx of practical lessons and new knowledge.

That being said, you must also pace yourself while adjusting to your new position. Just. Slow. Down. Otherwise, you risk burning yourself out and dragging your team’s performance along with yours in a downward spiral.

But to truly learn in your new role, you’ll also need to master the art of active listening. Ask what you need to know from your developers, stakeholders, and other teams that you may work with. Then, listen to them so that you can deliver what they need and ultimately enable your team’s success.
New wiki approach: store your documents close to work
By: Michael Dubakov
Tags: No Code, Wiki, Startup, Document Management, Productivity

Here we have many folders for various logical sections: Marketing, Design, etc. You can nest folders and link documents together. Nothing unusual.

However, this approach has one serious downside:

Wiki tends to become a mess with time.

In almost any company wiki has thousands of irrelevant pages and lots of abandoned folders. The problem here is noise. When you have to find an important piece of information, it’s just buried behind hundreds of other documents. Search not always helps. Tags and folders not always help. You have to suffer and keep trying.

Our next wiki iteration is about tight connections between real work and documents.

Wiki per App: Work + Documents = ❤️

Now we store documents inside apps. For example, we have apps for Hiring and for Customer Feedback. Here are the docs inside them:
What is Boosting in Machine Learning?
By: Jaime Zornoza
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Startup, Data Science, Technology, Machine Learning

Introduction to Boosting Machine Learning models

In this post, we will see a simple and intuitive explanation of Boosting algorithms: what they are, why they are so powerful, some of the different types, and how they are trained and used to make predictions.

We will avoid all the heavy maths and go for a clear, simple, but in depth explanation that can be easily understood. However, additional material and resources will be left at the end of the post, in case you want to dive further into the topic.

Before we start, here you have some additional resources to skyrocket your Machine Learning career

What is Boosting in Machine Learning?

Traditionally, building a Machine Learning application consisted on taking a single learner, like a Logistic Regressor, a Decision Tree, Support Vector Machine, or an Artificial Neural Network, feeding it data, and teaching it to perform a certain task through this data.

Then ensemble methods were born, which involve using many learners to enhance the performance of any single one of them individually. These methods can be described as techniques that use a group of weak learners (those who on average achieve only slightly better results than a random model) together, in order to create a stronger, aggregated one.

Generally, ensemble methods are built by grouping variants of individual Decision Trees, as we will see later.

Boosting models fall inside this family of ensemble methods.

Boosting, initially named Hypothesis Boosting, consists on the idea of filtering or weighting the data that is used to train our team of weak learners, so that each new learner gives more weight or is only trained with observations that have been poorly classified by the previous learners.

By doing this our team of models learns to make accurate predictions on all kinds of data, not just on the most common or easy observations. Also, if one of the individual models is very bad at making predictions on some kind of observation, it does not matter, as the other N-1 models will most likely make up for it.

Boosting should not be confused with Bagging, which is the other main family of ensemble methods: while in bagging the weak learners are trained in parallel using randomness, in boosting the learners are trained sequentially, in order to be able to perform the task of data weighting/filtering described in the previous paragraph.
How to Make Your iPhone Black and White (And Why You Should)
By: Megan Holstein
Tags: iPhone, Mindfulness, Technology, Apple, Productivity

My Experience With a Black and White iPhone Display

I’ve tried to turn my phone black and white twice in my life. The first time didn’t stick, and it was back to color within a week.

The second time I tried was eight months later; I switched it to black and white and felt relief.

What it was like the first time

Two minutes after changing my phone screen black and white, two emotions hit me: relief and unease.

The relief was the kind you feel when you put on sunglasses on a bright summer day. I could see again.

The source of the unease wasn’t easy to identify. I spent the next ten minutes fooling around on my phone, feeling somewhat distressed. It felt like wandering around my own house in total darkness. I knew where all the steps and doors were but still couldn’t orient myself.

After that, it got weird. Spontaneously, the colors in the room around me became brighter. I felt an urge to go outside and enjoy the world — even though it was 8 PM on an Ohio winter night, pitch black and cold out.

Text messages felt constraining in a way they never did before. I texted a few people on the black and white screen. It felt like trying to talk to my loved ones through a paper towel tube. People say that texting is not meaningful in the same way in-person interaction is, but I never felt that way until now.

Suddenly, the idea of scrolling through Instagram photos seemed preposterous. Of course looking at a picture isn’t like the real thing. In my head, I’ve always known that. But the muted black and white screen made it feel real. It suddenly seemed that much more important to travel while I’m young and I can.

Half an hour later, I had an anxiety attack. Real, acute anxiety — the kind you get when you come home to find the doorknob broken and the door standing ajar. (It’s unclear whether this is because my brain thinks my phone is broken or my brain is jonesing for the LCD-triggered dopamine hit. I don’t think it matters).

My physical reaction took me by surprise. We never realize how something has wormed its way into our lives until it’s gone.

What it was like the second time

A non-event. It wasn’t until two weeks later that I’d even noticed I’d left it that way. I changed it back, and it looked way too bright, the visual equivalent of eating a chocolate bar for dinner. My eyes felt sick.

I turned it back to black and white. Relief. I went about my day.

Why were these experiences so different?

The first time I tried this, I was still not what you would consider a digital minimalist. My relationship with my phone was mindful, but not minimalist. I was careful with my social media and email notifications, but I left my phone cluttered with apps I regularly used. Duolingo, Instagram, Snapchat, and all the apps I used sucked with a black and white display.
Social Media Keeps Reminding Me of How Good Things Used To Be
By: James Woods
Tags: Mental Health, Wellness, Holidays, Quarantine, Social Media

Social Media Keeps Reminding Me of How Good Things Used To Be

As well-intentioned as Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram think they are being, the constant reminders of how much I did around the holiday season is starting to impact my mental health.

Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash

At the beginning of 2019, I decided to remove social media apps from my phone because I was addicted. I needed to see every post and story. My favorite activity before bed became scrolling aimlessly through Instagram. If I went to bed at 10, there was a good chance I’d finish my nighttime binge by midnight.

When I reinstalled social media apps on my phone in March 2019, I had a completely different relationship with them. I didn’t feel an urge or need to check every story or post. It wasn’t interesting to me because I stopped being in the know on people’s lives. By the time I got back on, people had different aesthetics for their profiles, friends had gotten engaged, people were pregnant, and with all of that, I didn’t need to keep up with it.

Even though I wasn’t on social media very often, I still posted and saved enough of my stories/snaps to get flooded with memories almost daily. Snapchat reminding me of what I was doing one year ago or Facebook taking me back 5 years to being in college. Usually, these kinds of reminders just made me smile, occasionally send to friends, and/or roll my eyes at how ridiculous that moment was. A reminder from social media never made me feel bad.
Solution to Kaggle’s Ames House Price Competition:
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Kaggle, Predictive Modeling

An Exploration of Label Encoder

I have been experimenting with the Kaggle House Price Competition for several months now and I have seen several different methods that have been approached to predict on the house prices in the dataset provided for this competition. The website address to the competition and accompanying datasets is:- https://www.kaggle.com/c/house-prices-advanced-regression-techniques/overview

One solution I found to predict on the sales price was to make the the living space area the only independent variable. Another answer I found was to separate the categorical values from the numerical values and to only predict on the basis that only the numerical values were made the independent variables by which to make a prediction on.

After much reflection and study, I endeavoured to develop an alternative solution that yielded an accuracy of 94.22% when tested on the validation set. This method I explored was to use the LabelEncoder.

LabelEncoder is a preprocessing module within the Python sklearn library, which was designed to be used to encode target variables, such as the y variable. One use for LabelEncoder is to transform non-numerical values into numerical labels, which is what I have done in this exercise.

Sklearn provides an example of how to use LabelEncoder to convert objects to numerical features:-

The train file of this competition question has 81 columns, with 43 of those columns being test based. I therefore was required to use the LabelEncode function on the object columns on both the train file and test file, making a total of 86 columns:-

In addition to encoding the text based columns, I also incorporated feature selection in an attempt to improve my score, dropping a few column that had null values in them:-

After preprocessing the data and selecting a few features, I defined my X, y, and test variables:-

Once the dependant and independent variables had been defined, split the test set for training and testing:-

Once the train dataset had been split for training and testing, I used the XGBRegressor function to endeavour to achieve optimum accuracy:-

Upon testing on the validation set, I obtained an accuracy of 94.22%:-

Of course, more work needs to be done to improve on this score, but it is certainly a good start. The full code to the Jupyter notebook this program was written in has been made public and can be found on the Kaggle website:-

https://www.kaggle.com/tracyporter/ames-house-prices-xgb-regressor
To Overcome Your Insecurities, Understand Where They Come From
By: Matt Lillywhite
Tags: Mental Health, Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Anxiety, Psychology

To Overcome Your Insecurities, Understand Where They Come From

A crash course in eliminating negative thoughts.

Photo by Charnee May on Unsplash

I used to feel insecure all the time. I was frequently worried that everyone would judge me for the insecurities I saw in myself. Honestly, I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror because I always felt embarrassed.

Looking back, I realize that I allowed negative thoughts to get to my head. I let my insecurities control my mindset and prevent me from living a genuinely happy life.

I felt hopeless. But one day, I learned that the best way to overcome your insecurities is to understand where they come from. Because once you can identify why they exist, it’s much easier to prevent them from affecting you in the future. Quoting an article published by VeryWellMind:

“When you start confronting your negative views, you can begin to notice how many of them are not true in your life. Instead of assuming the worst, you may realize that you feel disappointed you did not reach a certain goal, but also accept that you are learning and growing from your mistakes and setbacks.”

From this, I learned that your mindset will never improve until you take action. Why? Because the only person who can control your thoughts is you. Which means you have the power to prevent them from negatively impacting your life in the future.

Here’s how:
Start with values, not your idea
By: Laurence Mccahill
Tags: Popular, Community, Values, Startup, Entrepreneurship

Start with values, not your idea

“Values are timeless. They are the bedrock of a company and don’t change even when everything else does.”

I wish more startups realised this.

Too many are:

hiring the wrong people

building the wrong products

and looking for customers in the wrong places

“A company needn’t model its behaviour on what other companies do, because it doesn’t have to attract the same customers or value the same things. It isn’t as simple as declaring an enemy and beating them…… We don’t particularly care what others choose to do, because we know the game we are playing — and we quite enjoy it.” From the Delighted blog

A revolution is happening

Umair Haque, the renowned writer and economist recently stated that “we’re on the cusp of a values-driven revolution.”

He highlighted that consumers now are much more careful about who they buy from and whether they represent the values they hold dear.

Therefore it’s important to pin down your values and what you stand for.

Think of your core values as those that, when the chips are down, you believe in so much, that if you took them away your company would cease to exist.

However, don’t just brainstorm some values only to then forget about them — you need to live and abide by them everyday. You values are how you behave, not how you would like to.

“In the absence of values all decisions go to profits”

How to identify your values

An excerpt from the Moutains & Valleys exercise from CultureSync.

Think of some key events in your life or career that were significant or life changing, and the type of thing someone would write in a biography about your life (whether positive or negative).

For a positive event, consider what values were present that made it so satisfying for you.

For negative events consider what values were absent or threatened that made it so unsatisfying.

For each of these milestone events, look at the list of values you have identified and consider if there is anything even deeper than these. What values are essential to your perfect world?

After you go through this initially on your own, talking with someone about each event may help clarify and stimulate other important values overlooked at first.

Looking across all the events, pick your top 5 to 8 values that matter the most to you. Base this on how strongly you feel about them.

These are your core values.

Your compass

If you’re going into business, control the things that you can control. Namely:

your purpose

your values

the people you work with

you work with the product or services you build

or services you build the customers you attract

you attract the culture you create.

The rest will take care of itself.

At The Happy Startup School, we believe that the future belongs to companies that are values-driven. We’re building a growing community of people that believe there’s more to business, and life, than making money.
Upcoming Events: Spring 2019
By: Anna Diaz
Tags: Startup, Innovation, Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, International

Where we will be this Q1 — events in February and March, hosted by our own DVN Member funds: Blume Ventures, Manutara Ventures, Draper Cygnus, ACE, and Draper Venture Network.

February 28th: Blume Ventures’ Blume Day in Mumbai, India

Blume Ventures, DVN’s early-stage, India member fund, hosts its 8th annual Blume Day. Once again, Blume brings the Indian startup and venture ecosystem together with its portfolio for a day of learning, ideation, networking. You can read more about 2018’s Blume Day here. 2019 will not disappoint.

March 17th–26th: DVN’s General Partner Spring Forum in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil

Draper Venture Network is going on a South America startup and venture ecosystem tour next month! Draper Cygnus, Manutara Ventures, and ACE are hosting.

35+ of our Member Fund General Partners from around the globe will travel to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Our Network will learn about the region’s entrepreneurial communities with local visits to top-performing billion-dollar companies, government officials at the highest level, and cultural activities such as Argentine tango and polo.

Each year the DVN GP Spring Forum is an opportunity for Network partners to share investing best practices, share the latest deals, and grow in camaraderie while enjoying the local culture. You can revisit 2018 highlights here.
VCU Imagineers Use Spore Stickers to Recycle Cardboard
By: Experimental Civics
Tags: Environment, Sustainability, Technology, Hacking, Hackathons

Earth Hacks Recap

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university located in Richmond, Virginia and on Jan. 26–27, VCU Earth Hacks happened.

Experimental Civics was immediately on-board with being a sponsor, hosting a design thinking workshop during the event, and providing additional support and intros! Kudos to the whole team for running an amazing event!

Start of VCU Earth Hacks

I caught up with Sanjana Paul, one of the co-founders, to ask her why she has supported this event:

Sanjana Paul

“I started Earth Hacks when I noticed that the rate at which environmental problems are increasing is exponential and the rate at which solutions to these problems are progressing is linear. Having attended hackathons in the past, I know that during these events, rapid innovation takes place and projects that would normally take months to implement have working prototypes ready in 24 hours. Attending hackathons, I saw that the types of problems presented for participants to solve are often very limited in scope and don’t seem to address pressing needs. This led my team and I to realize that nobody has really applied the hackathon model of innovation to environmental problems, and we did so, creating Earth Hacks.”

Hackathon 2019 Themes

The 3 broad themes this year were:

Corporate Sustainability

2. Public Health, Biotechnology, and Medical Waste

3. Energy Efficiency

Here is a link to the DevPost for access to the 22 submitted projects!

Who Attended?

147 registered participants were at this year’s Earth Hacks.

12 different universities were represented, with the highest attendance numbers coming from VCU, George Mason University, and the University of Virginia.

Of the 125 participants who chose to respond to the question asking for their gender, 45 were female and 80 were male.

The breakdown of majors who attended Earth Hacks as shown in the image below:

The breakdown of year in college of those who attended Earth Hacks as shown in the image below: