fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Pruned Cross Validation for faster hyperparameter optimization
By: Piotr Gabrys
Tags: Hyperparameter Tuning, Data Science, AI, Machine Learning

This is a challenge I recently faced in order to optimize hyperparameters of a stacked model. I used a Bayesian optimization package to do it (I described it in my Towards Data Science article) with 12 folds. The effect was a raging frustration.

Some of the trials (hyperparameters set and cross-validation) took extremely long to train, and to my despair, yielded much worse results than the ten times quicker ones. At some point I started to print each folds score, it’s hyperparameters, and execution time only to watch it progress and understand what should I change in the search space. As you can imagine I got frustrated by the fact that I was manually overseeing an automatic process! Something had gone wrong.

By looking at folds scores, I realized that within only the first 2–3 folds’ scores I was able to tell whether the total score would be decent or not. There were some very long trials which by fold 3 out of 12 I was sure would yield poor results. As you can imagine that made me think what would happen if I just stopped after the first folds, evaluated the results and went on if the trial was promising or prune it if it was not. But it’s not proper cross-validation, right?
Not Knowing Is OK
By: Siobhan O'Connor
Tags: Faith, Medium Magazine, Doubt, Reasonable Doubt, Society

Not Knowing Is OK

Embrace ambiguity, investigate reality

I have a sad framed picture of a sad printout that reads “Not knowing is OK.” It’s a horoscope of sorts, part of a brilliant art-design project by an Ohio-born artist named Austin Kleon, whose work has guided me for years. It’s a great thing to remember in general, and it proved to be an interesting starting point for this month’s issue of the magazine.

It led to questions such as: What do we trust? What can we believe—and what can’t we? What does it take to change people’s minds, at a moment when the truth itself is in doubt? For Medium’s February issue, the theme is Reasonable Doubt, and we will tackle these questions and more. We’ll be bringing you stories on faith in science and medicine; on our increasing discomfort with machines and on the miracles cures we want to believe in; on social trust and the challenge of seeing other people as they are, online and IRL; on the psychological effects that secretly drive what we believe and disbelieve in politics and religion, marketing and identity, gender, and race.

There is a lot to unpack in these uncertain times, but we’re glad you’re here. Follow us all month long at Medium on Reasonable Doubt.

P.S. One more thing about the theme: I spent the first many years of my career working at rap magazines like The Source and Vibe, during those early 2000s when hip-hop took over the world. I listened to the albums, I profiled the rappers, and I attended the awards shows, which I still can’t tell you about. All those hits, all that music, and to my grave I’ll insist that Jay-Z’s 1996 debut, Reasonable Doubt, remains the best rap album of all time.

Is that reasonable? We’ll never know, not for sure. But not knowing is OK.
The Sisters are Sick.
By: Lisa Martens
Tags: Self, Health, Family, Short Story, Growing Up

The Sisters are Sick.

Caregiving for my mom and her sister, 14 years apart.

Photo by Rex Pickar on Unsplash

I am in the car with my dad. He’s picking me up from the airport. I just spent a few weeks with my grandma. It’s summer vacation.

I am 16, and I just graduated high school. I’m going to college in a month.

I am not proud of myself. I am angry. I am bitter. I finished high school early because I wanted a gap year to travel, but my dad didn’t think it was a good idea. I was old enough to graduate early, so shouldn’t I be able to do what I want with my time?

That’s when my dad tells me my mom is sick. The doctors don’t know with what. She throws up all the time. She eats just eggs and Gatorade. The doctors insist that it’s linked to her depression, her anxiety, her eating disorder, her agoraphobia. My mom is convinced that there is another, more “physical” cause.

My dad asks if I can help take care of her while he’s at work.

I’m surprised. No one told me while I was gone. I had spoken to Mom on the phone and she sounded fine. And I had wanted to have one more fun summer before going away to college.

I come home and mom is on the couch. Even though it’s summer in Texas, she is wrapped in our Christmas blankets. She’s pale. I think of a painting of Juliet dying when I see her.
Why You Should Avoid Pointers in Go
By: Dirk Hoekstra
Tags: Software Engineering, Software Development, Backend, Programming, Golang

What Is a Pointer?

To cover the basics, let’s begin by examining what a pointer is.

Let’s look at the following CoffeeMachine example. The CoffeeMachine struct keeps track of how many coffee beans there are in the coffee machine.

To create a new coffee machine, I use the NewCoffeeMachine() function. Here, I create a new struct and pass the reference to this struct by using the & operator.

When I pass this reference to the CoffeeMachine struct to other functions, they can edit the underlying struct.

For example, I can create a SetNumberOfCoffeeBeans() function that will directly edit the CoffeeMachine struct like so:

Because the SetNumberOfCoffeeBeans() receives a reference (pointer) to the underlying CoffeeMachine struct, the numberOfCoffeeBeans of the original struct is directly updated.

Thus, when I run this, it shows that there are indeed 100 coffee beans in the machine!
3 Truths You Need To Hear To Be Unapologetic About Your Passion
Tags: Self Improvement, Business, Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, Life

2. You Don’t Have What You Need To Succeed, If You Don’t Know Your Limits

Knowing how to succeed doesn’t just involve cost analysis, how to set realistic goals, and where to educate yourself.

It means knowing your limits and when to walk away.

When you are piecing together all the information you need to expand your business or start your business, make sure you know your boundaries.

What are you not willing to sacrifice in order to succeed?

When we do not know the answer to this question we (1) quickly get burnt out (2) can make compromises that make us feel unethical (3) begin sacrificing the wrong things in our life.

I have several non-negotiables: I will not work past a certain hour. I will not regularly sacrifice sleep. I will not miss out on important life events with family or friends. I will maintain a certain level of privacy. I will always try to be fair, even if I’m writing about someone or something I disagree with.

Just last week I saw that a famous magazine was requesting a story that I could write. If I got the gig, I would make a considerable chunk of cash and be published by a brand name.

I decided not to submit my work. The type of article they desired would require me to divulge information about myself, and an ex-partner, that I was uncomfortable with.

Knowing my limits before starting my business empowers me to stick to a course that feels right. Sometimes my business grows slower than other people in my industry, but my business is also aligned with who I am.

This doesn’t mean I don’t mess up. We often learn what our boundaries are because we (or someone we know) overstepped our limits.

I recommend revisiting your limits every six months. Its an integrity audit that helps me remain on course and learn from my mistakes. When my business is in line with my values, I have nothing to apologize for.
The 411 On Active Recovery
By: Scott Mayer
Tags: Exercise, Health, Life, Fitness, Lifestyle

What is active recovery?

Eating right, getting enough sleep and regular rest periods are of course necessary components to staying healthy. But haven’t you noticed that sometimes this isn’t enough? How sometimes, no matter how much you eat, sleep and rest, you’re still stiff and sore that training session?

As paradoxical as it may seem, the best way to recover from a heavy workout or athletic event is to engage in low-intensity exercises following your intense effort. In other words, recovery and rehabilitation should be grounded in light movement, not stillness.

This is known as active recovery.

Concrete benefits of active recovery include:

Preventing lactic acid* from pooling in the muscles, minimizing stiffness and discomfort

Promoting blood flow to the joints and muscles, counteracting inflammation and speeding up tissue repair

Lowering resting heart rate

You’re most likely familiar with active recovery already — if performed immediately post workout, it’s known as the “cool-down”. Just as a proper warm-up is essential for optimal athletic performance, a cool-down is necessary for maximum recovery in the shortest amount of time.

If you’re a runner or biker, this could be some light jogging, biking or walking for 15–20 minutes. If you’re a weightlifter, 15–20 minutes on the rowing machine. Swimming and yoga are fantastic alternatives as well.

The primary goal is to maintain the heart rate slightly above it’s resting rate.

*Lactic acid is a chemical byproduct of exercise, formed when muscle cells metabolize glucose or glycogen (your body’s primary fuel source) for energy. The newly formed lactic acid is then reabsorbed as fuel, assisting in energy output. If not absorbed quickly enough, the excess lactic acid pools, responsible for the “burning sensation” we’ve all felt in our muscles during intense exercise.
How to Use React Hooks Like a Professional
By: Caelin Sutch
Tags: JavaScript, React, Reactjs, React Hooks, Programming

Use Hooks as They’re Supposed to Be Used

While it may seem obvious, I’ve seen some pretty egregious use of Hooks in ways that they’re not supposed to be used. React has defined the following Hook rules.

Only call Hooks at the top level

Don’t call Hooks inside loops, conditions, and nested functions. Let’s take a look at an example:

if (setStorage) {

useEffect(() => {

localStorage.setItem('item', 'example');

})

}

Notice how useEffect is nested in the if statement.

This should be refactored so that we’re calling the useEffect at root:

useEffect(() => {

if (setStorage) {

localStorage.setItem('item', 'example');

}

})

This prevents odd bugs from Hooks not being called in the same order every time the component renders and lets React properly preserve state across useState and useEffect calls.

Only call Hooks from functional components

While this may seem obvious, don’t use React Hooks in normal JS code — only in components. This makes it easier to track where you’re modifying and maintaining state.
Welcoming Bots to the Design Team
By: Matt Cooper-Wright
Tags: Bots, Design, Data, Prototyping, Slack

The Bots

The inspiration for this bot came from our Chicago team, which was working to develop a health monitoring app for smartphones and watches, and wanted to include a prototype messaging system. Rather than spending time coding a system that would automate responses, they hooked up the Slack interface to a service that would send and receive text messages. The result was a system that allowed a non-technical design researcher to send targeted messages directly from Slack, freeing up the developers to work on the next challenge.

Each time a journey was complete, the bot would post a note into a special channel, allowing the whole team to see the activity without having to log in to a separate system.

Meanwhile, in London, we were tracking the daily travel of more than 40 people. During the course of the project, we recorded more than 160,000km of driving, so we built a bot to help us keep tabs on our fleet. Each time a journey was complete, the bot would post a note into a special channel, allowing the whole team to see the activity without having to log in to a separate system. The bot also helpfully included a direct link to a separate dashboard, in case anyone wanted to dig deeper into the data.

The Tech Stacks

Chicago’s bot was part of a loop that connected each of the participants’ smartwatches directly to a design researcher:

Each day, participants would log their activities using Siri’s voice-to-text feature. Siri then transcribed the voice message, and the text was sent to the database, where it was time stamped and stored. From there, a copy was sent to Slack, where each participant showed up as a team member in the chat interface.Then the whole stack reversed, allowing any member of the team to send a message to the participant. Each day, the design researcher simply had to send a normal Slack message and it appeared on the participant’s smartwatch.

We found their workaround really inspiring, so when we started our travel behavior project, we looked for similar ways to save time.

To start, we opted to store each trip in Parse. Once a drive was complete and recorded, we used Parse’s Cloud Code functionality to send a message to Slack using the Incoming Webhook integration. The result was a message from the slackbot each time a drive finished. Cloud Code allowed us to format the message with a link back to the data, so it was easy for researchers to click to learn more about each trip. We could format the message however we wanted, so we gave the bot a small bank of phrases to use to add a little personality. We also gave it a few emoji so that it would fit in with the Slack communication style.
8 Must-Know Data Visualizations for Better Data Analysis
By: Soner Yıldırım
Tags: Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Programming, Data Visualization

8 Must-Know Data Visualizations for Better Data Analysis

Explained with examples using Seaborn

Photo by Lucas Benjamin on Unsplash

Data visualization is a very important part of data science. It is quite useful in exploring and understanding the data. In some cases, visualizations are much better than plain numbers at conveying information.

The relationships among variables, the distribution of variables, and underlying structure in data can easily be discovered using data visualization techniques.

In this post, we will learn about the 8 most commonly used types of data visualizations. I will use Seaborn to create visualizations and also try to explain what kind of information we can infer.

We will use the grocery and direct marketing datasets available on Kaggle to create the visualizations.

The grocery dataset contains information about customer purchases at grocery stores. The direct marketing dataset contains relevant data of a marketing campaign done via direct mail.

Let’s start by reading the datasets into a pandas dataframe.

import numpy as np

import pandas as pd

import seaborn as sns

sns.set(style='darkgrid') grocery = pd.read_csv("/content/Groceries_dataset.csv", parse_dates=['Date'])

print(grocery.shape)

grocery.head()

Grocery dataset (image by author)

The dataset contains about 40k rows and 3 columns. We have member number, date of purchase, and the purchased items as columns.

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

print(marketing.shape)

marketing.head()

Marketing dataset (image by author)

The marketing dataset consists of 1000 observations (i.e. rows) and 10 features (i.e. columns). The focus is on the “AmountSpent” column which indicates how much a customer has spent so far.
Будущее баз данных
By: Postgres Professional
Tags: Postgres, Dbms, Future, Postgresql, Technology

in In Fitness And In Health
You Are Underestimating the Power of A Power Plate
By: Shamar M
Tags: Gym, Yoga, Health, Workout, Fitness

When it came, I had no intention of using it. I love cardio and don’t really waste too much time with weights or machines in the gym.

My mum insisted that I just had one go. Just one. I stepped on and had it on a small to medium vibrating level which I don’t think felt very nice. She turned it up, just to show what it could do and how powerful it was, and that most definitely was not nice.

“Can you feel all your fat shaking about?”

I don’t need a machine to feel my fat shaking about, Mum. But yes, I could feel my fat vibrating around everywhere.

I kept on the machine for a few more seconds and I was warming greatly to it, to the point where it began to feel very nice. I might just stay on here for a few minutes.

As well as feeling fun and helping to realize a bit of tension within, a power plate is completely underestimated. Some of the best things about a power plate is that sometimes it can require no movement at all. You can just stand on it if you want and it can still reap some minor benefits for you.
MYCoin International and the revolution that its about to usher
By: Mycoin International
Tags: Business, Development, Coins, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

In a world that’s gone gaga over the cryptocurrencies, it’s only necessary to bring about a platform that makes sure that, the cryptocurrency that has been bought by the people should be used in the right platform. How do you think that can be done? As cryptocurrencies are prone to fluctuation and require a lot more care while sending. SOME people prefer to keep them so as to get high returns later. But what about the people who wish to use it and spend it ASAP?

We’ve have an answer for you, there’s a platform, a bridge to help you cross the digital path and enables you to use your favorite currency to avail the best features from vendors around the globe. The platform is MYCoin International with really great features. Let’s take a look

1) Buyer risk is reduced — MYCI has a wide network of vendors and tradeable aspects associated with it. With MYCI you can utilize both physical goods and avail services, indicating towards the fact that there won’t be risk attached in using your coins. A wide array of options is guaranteed

2) Faster payment — Traditional methods take days to transact and are tedious to use, with MYCI you can have quicker payments and no submission of different forms and approvals of many kind.

3) Exchange fee is much lower- As compared to traditional methods the fee is much lower for both the buyer and seller, which makes it a platform that can help you save up those precious coins.

4) Acceptance of various cryptocurrencies — One major feature to use MYCI platform is the phenomenal variety of cryptocurrency it accepts, this increases trust and reliability for vendors and buyers. Vendors get paid in fiat currency and buyers can choose from a wide range of services and goods.

5) Safety- With the use of blockchain technology there’s no fear of being hacked or getting cheated or any other fraudulent measures. Hacking would become a thing of the past.

Follow us on

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/infomyci

Twitter : https://twitter.com/InfoMyci

Telegram : https://t.me/mycoin_international
The ACA Repeal Bill Takes Center Stage at Spotlight Health
By: David K Gibson
Tags: Ahca, Health, Politics, Obamacare, Aspen Ideas Festival 2017

June 23, 2017

And so, the Senate version of the Affordable Care Act repeal bill landed Thursday, on the first day of Spotlight Health. This is a bit like putting on a Star Trek fan convention, and having an ACTUAL KLINGON STARSHIP land in the convention center. Luckily, everyone’s already dressed for battle, and it turns out we’ve already got a tricorder (thanks to Anita Goel of Nanobiosym).

Before the welcoming session even kicked off, Kathleen Sebelius sat down with Judy Woodruff to talk about the Senate’s proposal. Sebelius was Secretary of Health and Human Services under Obama and worked to pass and implement the Affordable Care Act, so no one expected her to have nice things to say. But she didn’t just speak about a difference in approaches to health care, she spoke about the Senate bill’s “assault on Medicaid.” (One could easily imagine a Starfleet Commander Sebelius, it should be said.)

What’s on today’s agenda?

A breakfast discussion of the roots of the opioid epidemic with Nora Valkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health. (Spoiler: You probably know the basic story, but the sheer scale of the problem — and the potency of synthetic opioids — is mind-boggling.)

A panel discussion that attempts to answer, “Will People, Data, or Payments Drive Health Care into the Future?” (As you can imagine, viewpoints differ.)

“Quelling Violent Extremism with Public Health Tools” takes place at noon, and looks at an incredibly pressing problem from a health perspective. Perhaps the war on terrorism — like some other “wars” that have been declared in the last half century — could benefit from a solid public health approach.

And, yeah. It’s time to stop by the Mount Sinai booth for a free skin cancer screening. I can’t get an appointment with a dermatologist at home until November.

Sunday, at the Spotlight Health closing session, we’ll see US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price emerge from the Klingon ship, and assure us that AHCA comes in peace.
Would You Trust Your Government If It Changed Its Font?
By: Calum Johnson
Tags: Life Lessons, Power, France, Creativity, Fonts

Would You Trust Your Government If It Changed Its Font?

The French certainly think so.

Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash

“There where the State is present, acts, finances, its presence must be clearly identified.” — French Government, April 2020 (transl. author).

At the beginning of April, the French government announced that it was to start using a new font on its website and in its official documents.

The change came at a time when exposure to government information was as high as it had ever been.

The restrictions imposed on the French public because of coronavirus have thrust the new font onto the screens and into the hands of millions of citizens in the form of advice pages and travel exemption forms.

The new font on the French coronavirus travel form. Gouvernement français / Public domain.

While it is tempting to view the use of La Marianne, as the new font is called, as a coincidence or a frivolous act of bureaucracy, it was every bit a deliberate move.

It is a means of exerting soft power over a population that, like almost everyone across the globe, currently finds itself scared and uncertain.

And the French government hopes that, every time someone picks up a form or views a webpage written in La Marianne, they absorb its subliminal message designed to reassure them.

La Marianne is a font of stability, of tradition, of clarity, and of transparency — and its association with the government imparts these same values on those leading the response to coronavirus.

La Marianne takes its name from the symbol of the French Republic, the female personification of the nation’s values, and a depiction of the Goddess of Liberty.

Marianne, a personification of the Republic. Photo by cineliv on Pixabay.

Her head, in profile, already sits within the French government’s official logo, and she also appears on French-minted Euro coins and some of the country’s stamps.

The values she embodies are part of the message behind the new font.
How Big Is That in Elephants?
By: Ellen Barber
Tags: Communication, Infographics, Business, Design, Cognition

When you have important information to communicate, graphics can be invaluable. A good graphic can make even complex data easier to understand.

That’s because the human brain is exceptionally good at processing visual information. A team of neuroscientists from MIT recently established that the brain needs only 13 milliseconds to process an entire image. Compared to words, which are digested in a linear way using short-term memory, pictures are gulped down all at once and go directly into long-term memory.

So images win! But wait: the ice is slippery… Remember that your graphics should serve the information being presented. If the graphics instead distract or confuse your audience, you may have one of the following problems.

1. Everything Looks Like a Nail

Image credit: Bob Eggers, CondensedLight.com

Not every concept needs a graphic. Would a visual element enhance your audience’s understanding of the concept? If not, a graphic would just be a decoration — or worse, a distraction. Those “spurious correlation” graphs — plotting, for example, the “correlation” between the divorce rate in Maine and per capital consumption of margarine from 2000 to 2009 — are entertaining precisely because the visual representation does not serve the data, instead creating a fictional meaning (a suggested causality).
How a Make 100 Project Might Change Your Year
Tags: Crowdfunding, Make 100, Creativity, Creator Toolkit, Kickstarter

How a Make 100 Project Might Change Your Year

Four creators share how starting small with Make 100 kicked off a year of creative output.

Artist and Make 100 creator Alex Hubbell’s studio

Each January, we invite the Kickstarter community to take part in Make 100, our call for limited-edition projects. The only rule: launch a project with a reward capped at 100 backers — what you make 100 of is entirely up to you.

We started Make 100 in January 2017, and saw a wave of small-scale creative projects from artists, publishers, and designers of all stripes — from 100 photobooks about climate change to 100 lonely whale LPs to 100 boxes of chili peppers. Over 400 creators took part, and many asked if we’d be doing it again the following year. So we brought Make 100 back for 2018, and now we’re gearing up to do it again in 2019.

Considering launching a Make 100 project of your own? Here’s a little extra motivation: it might just kick off your creative career, or take it in a whole new direction. Read on to hear from a few past creators about how participating in Make 100 helped set the tone for the rest of their year.
TypeScript Essentials
By: Anji
Tags: JavaScript, Typescript

TypeScript Essentials

This is a part of a TypeScript series of blog posts. If you haven’t read about the TypeScript introduction, you can read it here

Majority of client-side languages adopting the TypeScript. It greatly helps to reduce the JavaScript issues in development phase.

TypeScript got much attention from the developers once angular adopts it.

TypeScript was publicly made available on October 2012 by Microsoft.

What is Typescript?

Typescript is a typed superset of JavaScript. Typescript compiles to plain JavaScript and adds optional static type and class-based object-oriented programming to the language.

In short, Typescript provides the Type and object-oriented capabilities to the JavaScript. By having optional type checking, Typescript guarantees that the code will run as expected in all the circumstances. Object-oriented capabilities allow the programmers to think in an object oriented way which in turns improves the developer speed and code maintenance.

Note: To understand the TypeScript fully, developers need to have basic understanding on JavaScript and OOPs concepts

Key features

It works on any browser, any host (Node.js, Java), any OS and open source

Supports standard JavaScript

Static typing (optional)

Encapsulation through classes and modules

Support for interfaces

Arrow functions (lambda expressions in .NET)

Intellisense and syntax checking through IDEs

Improves maintainability of the code

LESS bugs as type checking is in place

What is Static type checking?

Static type checking allows you to define the datatypes for your variables, method parameters, method return values and object properties. The compiler will evaluate the program at compile time and report any syntactical issues are there in the program.

Typescript cannot be run or understandable by the browser. So that Typescript code is transpiled into the JavaScript.

Wait! What does it mean by transpilation or what is transpiler?

Transpilation is a process converting the code from one language into other languages. Transpilers are source to source compilers.

Below is the series of blog posts about type script.

TypeScript Introduction

TypeScript DataTypes

TypeScript Classes and Interfaces

TypeScript Modules
The Legend of Karva
By: Tapan Avasthi
Tags: Relationships, Poetry, Fiction, Religion, Creativity

Once upon a time,

a prosperous man lived in peace,

on the banks of the river Ganga.

The man had three sons,

two humble, hard-working hands,

and an honest heart.

Married to a lovely woman named “Karma” —

Solace for his soul,

and the mother of his young children.

The day when they had first kissed

he knew — she was the one,

and a knot was tied with his karma.

Vows exchanged —

And their marriage was solemnized,

by the goddess Ganga.

With each passing day,

their love grew more than their age.

With each haunting night,

they got to know each other more.

His heart — his youngest son,

was closest to her wife, and called her “Karva.”

Love is a mysterious magnet,

it also attracts enemies with metallic hearts,

born in different avatars.

News about the couple’s wealth,

soon reached to nearby villages,

teasing the gape of a greedy merchant.

Cunning as a crocodile,

the merchant marched with a muted pace

and an open mouth to eat his wealthy meat.

In the silence of that cold night,

When the man was asleep,

the crocodile caged him

with his tricks — an evil firm grip.

A gush of blood bursts,

with shrieks of pain and fear,

seeking help and freedom.

His kids couldn’t help,

they were small and weak,

their minds, not nurtured as a warrior yet.

But his wife was strong,

with a spirit of Ganga,

and strength of Amazon.

In this moment of distress,

To save her love, she crafted a plan —

With her sheer wisdom and two helping hands.

Without any fear in her heart,

She fought back,

with a knife and her two kids.

Whooshing and slashing,

his weakest spot — his eyes,

Wounded and blind — his wailing crippled his jaw’s grip.

Justice was served,

with the blood of the monster,

in the court of the river Ganga.

Years of wisdom,

earned by his wife — Karva,

prolonged their life and wealth.

Next morning,

when the neighbors came,

a story was born — “The Legend of Karva.”
The Muse Oak and Art
By: Mimi Bordeaux
Tags: Poetr, Life Lessons, Writing, Love, Life

How the verse wields its silly nouns, verbs; a plethora of adjectives. How we try.. for greatness! Nowhere near, my dear. Today I see some real crap writing. I can’t say who, of course and I know I really shouldn’t belittle a fellow artist but. And there needs to be a BUT.. just look.. what trite tope type of tipsy trodden on its tattered titties.. come here hell and her masters, mistresses, mindfuckers I will eat your heart and spit it out to show you how the truth never hurt anyone and everyone is yours today!
Now that he’s been elected president, Joe Biden has the mammoth task of retooling his science…
By: Max Ufberg
Tags: Public Health, Politics, Covid 19, Science, Joe Biden

Now that he’s been elected president, Joe Biden has the mammoth task of retooling his science agencies. Though the election is barely behind us, it’s never too early to speculate as to whom the president-elect might select to lead the nation in public health and health care policy.

There are a number of names already being floated, as Alexandra Sifferlin reports in Medium’s Coronavirus Blog. Among the most interesting potential appointments: Anne Schuchat, who served two stints as interim director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between January 2017 and March 2018, as CDC director; and Mary Katherine Wakefield, who was the acting deputy secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration from 2015 to 2017, as surgeon general.
The Nile of America
By: Miguel Adrover
Tags: Poetry On Medium, History, Music, BlackLivesMatter, Poetry

A story as old as Time:

Poor people pushed around by rivers.

Muddy waters churning memories —

Juggernauts praised and despised.

They’ve been male, female;

Yellow — Red — Green:

A mighty one takes from Black families.

Cold, once gelid waters

Rush with planet carving might.

Proud people wielded hunger and drive;

They escaped its Old Man wrath,

Its endless, uncaring flow.

This cruel water avatar

Cradled America’s soul —

A story as old as words:

Los ríos son mis poetas favoritos*.
CROW’S FEET WEEKLY DIGEST
By: Nancy Peckenham
Tags: Healthy Lifestyle, Aging, Wellness, Ageism, Retirement

CROW’S FEET WEEKLY DIGEST

We welcome two new writers, Kate Frick Sheridan and Ren Powell who are taking stock of where they’ve been and how that shapes where they may go in the years ahead.

We also hear from long-time Crow’s Feet contributors who continue to find new insights about life as we age.

OUR STORIES

Reflections of an Aging Feminist. (It’s their turn now). By Kate Frick Sheridan

According to Plan. Aging as an Advantage to the Creative Life. By Ren Powell

Either/Or — Both. Who we get to be. By Ann Litts

You Can Do Better Than Telling Mature People That They Look Great. There’s more to them than their appearance. By Christine Schoenwald

Puff is the Only One. I’m crying as I type. By Dennett

Retirement Rocks! One month update. By Ann Litts

A Hike is the Perfect Elixir. An exercise plan for the next quarter century. By Nancy Peckenham

Falling Leaves. His time had come… By Mary McGrath

It’s A Wrap! My holiday wrapping fiasco. By Mary McGrath

How a Seventyish Woman Finds ”Merry” in the Holiday. And an invitation to tell me how you’re doing it. By Jean Anne Feldeisen

The Last Day Of Dwight Lazar. Flash fiction- Treasure every breath like it’s your last. By Vuyo Ngcakani

Many Miserable Returns. Kids today have no idea how hard it used to be to return things in the mail. By Bev Potter

Trans-Continental Christmas. If I pay extra, will USPS deliver a hug? By Cindy Shore Smith

Standing Astride the Generational Digital Divide. The history of computing interwoven with my family history. By Mary DeVries
Healing Seasonal Affective Disorder through Photography
By: Gillian May
Tags: Mental Health, Photography, Winter, Art, Mindfulness

Healing Seasonal Affective Disorder through Photography

How spending some winter days with my camera helped shift my perspective.

Photo by author — winter of 2018, frozen pond

The winter has always been hard for me. I developed seasonal affective disorder (SAD) about 15 years ago, right at the height of my professional life. And as each winter came and went, SAD would get worse and worse.

Eventually, SAD got so bad that I had to reconfigure my life to spend the winters down south. It worked like a charm, let me tell you.

You may have noticed that I don’t use the possessive expression “my SAD got worse.” Instead, I refer to it as a thing in itself. That’s because SAD is not me, and I am not SAD, it’s just something that happens to me sometimes.

By not letting it devour my identity, I’ve figured out how to have a relationship with it. And that relationship has allowed me to move forward in ways that I could not before.

And for me, forward motion meant using my favorite art forms of photography and writing to help heal SAD.
Vortexes and Rollercoasters Are Full of Magical Wisdom
By: Desiree Driesenaar
Tags: Life, Self Improvement, Music, Nature, Self

What a rollercoaster year it’s been. I don’t know about your personal situation but mine was tossing me about like I inhabited a vortex. Left and right. Top and bottom. And once in a while tumbling over in head roll. I’ve never been much of a gymnast, but I had to be flexible as an earthworm to handle the blows and streams.

And I guess it hasn’t been much different for all of you either.

We had dreams. We had plans. We wanted, longed for, desired. And then it was all blown away. Dust in the wind.

I read an article about the nature of mindfulness written by Joe Hunt. And it got me thinking. Do I use mindfulness for self-improvement? Or do I really feel with my gut-feeling what it’s all about? Self-acceptance. I’m good enough. I don’t need to change anything about me. Just make space so new things can emerge. Or not.

This story is about vortexes. And rollercoasters. And ‘flow’ to help us find a way out. Music will accompany us on the journey. And support from all of our sisters and brothers on the same peaceful path towards a regenerative future.
Implement a Countdown Timer with RxJS in Angular
By: Mwiza Kumwenda
Tags: JavaScript, Software Development, Angular, Programming, Software Engineering

Implement a Countdown Timer with RxJS in Angular

Implement a simple countdown in Angular

Photo by Eder Pozo Pérez on Unsplash

Counting down to some special event is something we do a lot.

In this guide, I will show you how to implement a simple and effective countdown timer in Angular using RxJS.

So far, 2020 has been a roller coaster year. How about we implement a countdown timer to the year 2021? The countdown timer we will implement will be updated to the second.

Without further ado, let’s jump into the code.

Create an Angular application

We will get started by creating a simple Angular application via the CLI with the following command.

$ ng new count-down-timer --defaults

Once the application is created go into its root directory.

$ cd count-down-timer

Then add a new component named count-down which will contain the logic for our countdown timer using the following CLI command.

ng g c count-down



At this stage, your project structure should be similar to this.

Implementing the countdown logic

The logic for the countdown time is not complicated. We need to find the difference between the D-day i.e., the day of our event and the current time.

The difference in the time we get is in Milliseconds, so we will convert it into corresponding units i.e., days, hours, minutes, and seconds.

To make sure that the time keeps updating every second, we will use subscription interval which will get the difference in time every second.

To avoid memory leaks in the application, we will unsubscribe from the subscription whenever the count-down component is being destroyed.

The component code should look as below. I have gone for readability over efficiency, so feel free to make modifications if you wish to.

I will not go into detail regarding the time difference calculations in this article, however, I have provided a link to an article regarding the same in the conclusion section.

In the corresponding template code, i.e count-down.component.html, we will display the time to our D-day in respective units using interpolation as follows.

Add some CSS styling to the component’s style template as follows. The styling will center our output and adjust font size.

The CSS is pretty basic, to keep things simple. Feel free to tweak it.

Displaying the timer

To display the time remaining to the D-day, we will inject the count-down child component into the app.component.html parent component as below.

Remove all the code in the app.component.html and replace it with the following single line of code.

The countdown timer in action

To serve the application in your default browser, you can run the following command.

ng serve -o

Here is a look at the countdown timer in action.

Conclusion

There you have it, a simple implementation of a countdown timer updated to the second.

For a comprehensive guide on calculating time differences in JavaScript, you can take look a guide by the Javascript Jeep🚙💨 here.
TLDR Camels and Rubber Duckies by Joel On Software
By: Pavel Trukhanov
Tags: Startup, Software, Pricing, Pricing Strategy, Tldr

The joke of it is, big companies protect themselves so well against the risk of buying something expensive that they actually drive up the cost of the expensive stuff, from $1000 to $75000, which mostly goes towards the cost of jumping all the hurdles that they set up to insure that no purchase can possibly go wrong.
How Democracies Die
By: Dale Biron
Tags: Society, Democracy, Politics, Poetry, Culture

When middle-class dreams shatter,

rarely do the jagged shards fall upward,

which would require muscle, pulleys, power,

a secret conveyor belt pointed toward hidden privilege.

Rather, the broken pieces almost always rain downward,

upon the heads of the poor, the silenced, the vulnerable.

Raining glass helped by the gravitational tug of a demagogue’s

disdain: “It’s them!” “It’s them!” Shouted twice for dramatic effect.

Next comes the angst, the anger, the poisoned gods of grievance.

Then finally the thunder of raging crowds. Now guess who bleeds?

© 2020 –Dale Biron
Get Komoot tour data without API
By: Jakob S
Tags: Python, API, Komoot, Data, Maps

Prerequisites:

We need to import two Python libraries. The first one is the requests library, which allows us to create sessions as well as getting and posting data. The second one is the json library, which we’ll use to parse our data to JSON objects and vice versa.

import requests

import json

Furthermore we need some variables for our e-mail, password and client ID. You can find out the client ID when you login to Komoot and access your account. The ID is located in the requested URL and contains twelve digits.

email = "test@example.com"

password = "123456"

client_id = "111111111111" login_url = "https://account.komoot.com/v1/signin"

tour_url = f"https://www.komoot.de/user/{client_id}/tours"

You are way off, if you think that this is all we need. The annoying part starts right now. To access our data, we need to login to Komoot. To save the login, we can create a session using the requests library. If we log the login request with the Developer Tools, we get to know some basic things.

We need to do a POST request to https://account.komoot.com/v1/signin We need to provide the login data in a stringified JSON object We need basic headers We need basic cookies We definitely need a session!

Let’s put the cart before the horse and start with step 5

# 5.

s = requests.Session() # 4.

res = requests.get(login_url)

cookies = res.cookies.get_dict() # 3.

headers = {

"Content-Type": "application/json"

} # 2.

payload = json.dumps({

"email": email,

"password": password,

"reason": "null"

}) # 1.

s.post(login_url, headers=headers,

data=payload, cookies=cookies)

Let’s repeat what we’ve done. We logged in to our Komoot account by using basic cookies / headers and our login data. The response headers and cookies are saved within our session object. Let’s prove this:

>>> print(s.cookies.get_dict().keys())

dict_keys(['koa_re', 'koa_rt', 'ka_s', 'ka_s.sig']) >>> print(dict(s.headers).keys())

dict_keys(['User-Agent', 'Accept-Encoding', 'Accept', 'Connection'])

That’s a good base for our further action. If we take a look at the cookies the request to the tour data needs, we’ll see that we’re still missing a lot of yummy oat cookies. If we search through all requests data, we come across another interesting GET request which returns further important cookies. As the cookies and headers are saved within our session, there’s no need to provide them.

url = "https://account.komoot.com/actions/transfer?type=signin"

s.get(url)

If we now redo our print statement from above, we can see way more cookies.

>>> print(s.cookies.get_dict().keys())

dict_keys(['koa_re', 'koa_rt', 'kmt_ex', 'koa_ae', 'koa_at',

'ka_s', 'ka_s.sig', 'kmt_session', 'kmt_session.sig'])

We’re getting closer. Please have a look at the request headers. There’s one I haven’t seen before, which is absolutely necessary for our request. So let’s define our header for the initially last request:

headers = {"onlyprops": "true"}

This header forces the server to only return the JSON data located in the following script tag of the original response:
“Strange Fruit” Not Strange Enough
By: Sherry Mcguinn
Tags: Police Brutality, Current Events, Music, Trump, Racism

I write this with a broken heart. “Broken” because I saw a man, a black man get murdered on camera, by a Minneapolis police officer.

Right now, I am profoundly ashamed of being white. That is not empty rhetoric, I promise you, as I am struggling to understand how we’ve come to this point where a man dies in front of our eyes and the perpetrators are not immediately taken into custody.

We all know that if the situation was reversed, and this was a black on white crime, that man would be smacked down and locked up so fast our heads would swim.

If I didn’t know what year this was, I would have to believe that “Jim Crow” is alive and well. And that if I look carefully enough, I’ll see the bodies of black men dangling from trees.

The iconic, yet deeply troubled jazz great, Billie Holliday sang about this very thing.

Southern trees bearing strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the roots

“Strange Fruit” was written by Jewish-American writer, Abel Meeropol, who, in his lyrics, expressed his horror at the routine lynchings of Southern black men during the turn of the century.

Video courtesy of YouTube

As of this writing, the cop who killed George Floyd has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. That’s bullshit.

The third-degree charge carries a sentence of no more than twenty-five years in jail and a fine of no more than $40,000 or both.

That’s not enough. That is simply not enough.

Apparently, Derek Chauvin, the officer in question, or ex-officer was cited in. multiple incidents of violence. Yet he remained on the force.

Plus, as of this writing, the three other offices have yet to be charged! Watching CNN yesterday, we were treated to the news that aside from Chauvin, two of the other officers were also seen kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s prostrate body! While the fourth simply stood there and watched. Like a freakin’ garden gnome!
Being Anti-Vaccine Doesn’t Make You a Rebel
By: Carl L Lane
Tags: Health, Conspiracy Theories, Bill Gates, Vaccines, Coronavırus

Being Anti-Vaccine Doesn’t Make You a Rebel

And Bill Gates is probably not a real life Bond villain

Image by Wikilmages via Pixabay

It was the December of 1999 and most of my friends were convinced the world was going to come to an end when fireworks ignited the sky as the clock struck 12:00 am to ring in the year 2000. For months we’d heard endless stories about how all of the computer systems around the world, with all of their sophisticated programing, would somehow be brought to their technological knees by the fact that the current year on their calendars would no longer start with the number one.

At first I’d laughed at the paranoia of my hippy friends. I’d been as big a believer in the juicy conspiracy theory as the next guy in our crowd of spoken word poets, artists and musicians, but there was something about the idea of Y2K that seemed too simplistic for the havoc it was supposed to cause. I also found that laughing at Y2K made me seem socially undesirable to many in my circle, especially with the more beautifully enlightened girls. So I just listened to them in silence.

And while they stocked up on supplies of food, water, candles and emergency radios, I bought wine, beer and bourbon. My own plan was to follow the advice of a great philosopher who had long ago advised us all to party like it was 1999, and at long last the day was coming near when we could do just that. Prince didn’t seem to be worried about Y2K at all, and his judgement had never failed me in the past.

A couple of weeks before the new year some girls we all knew had come to a poetry cafe we frequented to advise us all not to go out on New Year’s Eve. It was just too dangerous, they said. Instead of going out, they suggested we have a small party at one of our friend’s house. My apartment was volunteered.

We did indeed party. The South African couple that lived next door to me was also having a party that night, and eventually the doors to each of our apartments mostly stayed open as guests at the two parties traveled back and fourth. On the morning of New Year’s day we all woke up and had breakfast together. One of my friends had had his car towed for parking in someone’s space. We looked around the apartment for an hour, searching for one of my other friend’s never to be found ear rings. We all had hangovers, but we had not been given the long rumored flying cars, and the world had remained surprisingly intact.

The phones still worked. The lights still came on when we hit the switch. The morning news came on and reported the weather, sports and what poor fools had gotten themselves arrested for drunk driving wrecks the night before. And Y2K became a punchline rather than a new world order.