fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Tradeoffs In Design
By: Sumit Narang
Tags: Design, UX, Systems Thinking, Product Design, Design Process

What are tradeoffs

When you are designing, you are making a design decision. Every time you are making a decision, you are compromising on something else. It is up to you to decide what is mandatory, what is optional, and what is to keep out.

Every team in an organization is dealing with the tradeoff. Eg: Engineers are deciding internally how to improve the code. What they can change in a given period given the resources they have.

Tradeoffs in design

While designing, you are going through so many alternatives ideas, solutions and it can be difficult to decide which should you select and which should be left out and why.

To make this decision easier, you are looking at different metrics to make a decision. In a project, the three most common metrics are time, scope, and cost. You need to negotiate on these metrics.

Scope: Everything is possible but not everything should be in scope. You cannot fix all the problems at once and not all the problems need to be solved immediately. You need to make a decision on which problem to tackle first and how to scope that out for incremental updates.

Time: Is the time sufficient to build this feature? If it is twice useful and it takes 10 times longer, is it worth it?

Cost: How much you have to spend to build the feature? What is the investment and will it yield the return we are hoping to achieve?

Tradeoffs also depends on priorities — it may be done to attain the business goal, sometimes for technical limitations, sometimes to put user needs above others.

Tradeoffs are more than making a decision

The one important aspect of deciding tradeoff is to reach consensus and alignment with the people you work with. You need to get stakeholders and cross-functional team members to agree on and prioritize various features of the project.

How can you decide tradeoff

There might be a lot of factors that might affect the project. Put different factors that might affect the project into themes and patterns. Now you choose a few and decided the priority based on these factors.
Testing In React, Part 2: React Testing Library
By: Bryn Bennett
Tags: React, Programming, Software Testing, JavaScript, Software Development

The headline for React Testing Library is, “Test functionality, not implementation”. The idea behind this concept is that implementation is constantly being iterated and improved upon, and therefore is unreliable as a means of testing a UX.

For example, let’s say you are working on a small React component for which, early on, you write tests. The component handles a certain amount of logic and renders something to the DOM. As your application grows, so does this component, and eventually it makes sense to break it up into multiple components. As far as the user is concerned, nothing has changed — what is being rendered to the DOM is still the same. In other words, you have changed only the implementation, but not the functionality.

If your initial tests were written to test implementation, they would break. But by testing the functionality — DOM nodes rather than rendered components — your tests continue to pass (unless you screw up the refactoring, of course).

A quick note before we start: Jest and React Testing Library are used very much in conjunction with one another, and while I think it is helpful to focus on each separately, it is nearly impossible to talk about one without the other. You can think of Jest as doing the actual testing, while React Testing Library recreates the thing to be tested (be it an event, a node, etc.). Any Jest functionality referred to here will be covered in depth in my next post.
SEGRON, beyond end-to-end test automation
By: Kevin Hart
Tags: Software Engineering, Automation, Test Automation, Software Testing, Testing

SEGRON has secured €3M Series A Financing from Credo and OTB. We talk with Thomas Groissenberger, its CEO.

PetaCrunch: How would you describe Segron in a single tweet?

Thomas Groissenberger: SEGRON provides future proof Beyond End2End test automation solutions for communication networks.

PC: How did it all start and why?

TG: Working as a Consultant for big Telecom players, 25 years ago, I met Michael. We developed several projects together. After many years, we realised that it was a common need for our clients which was not fully covered by any solution available in the market. Then we decided to establish together Segron initially under the business model of the consulting firm, specialised in the field of network design, deployment and testing for the Telecom industry. Years later, Jari joined the company bringing a big contribution to the development of what is today our main product, SEGRON ATF (Automated Testing Framework) and Petri joined to the company already more than 3 years ago strengthening the entire Segron financial area.

PC: What have you achieved so far?

TG: Certainly, the biggest achievement and asset so far is our wonderful and committed team. Engineers and experts coming from the Telecom industry with invaluable know-how in the sector. Today, we are an international group of 50 people coming from more than 8 different countries. Each of us makes an invaluable contribution of culture, skill-sets, abilities and personalities that make us unique in the market.

In terms of product development, SEGRON ATF, our main product has evolved enormously. Unlike competing solutions, the SEGRON ATF can orchestrate testing with real Out-of-the-Box end-user devices (phones, tablets, laptops, IoT devices, etc.) while providing full access to the systems under test, enabling real-time Signal Trace and system log analysis.

After the introduction of SEGRON ATF and during its continued development, major telecommunications carriers and service operators have selected ATF to meet their current testing requirements. After several years of hard work, we have established a solid footprint across the DACH region. Our product has a presence now in more than 6 countries across Europe.

PC: How will you use your recent funding round?

TG: The funding is undoubtedly a great vote of confidence, already allocated to scale-up our team, innovate our R&D department, increase our communications and marketing efforts and reach more customers in Europe.

PC: What do you plan to achieve in the next 2–3 years?

TG: Our main goals for the upcoming years are:
Python List Comprehension
By: Yaroslav Isaienkov
Tags: Python, Python3, Python List Comprehension, Tutorial, Python Programming

Python List Comprehension

A quick and easy introduction to Python list comprehension

Photo by Amanda Jones on Unsplash

Introduction

In this article, I want to show you a very useful feature of the Python language: list comprehension. After reading, you will be able to write your code more efficiently and beautifully.

List comprehension is an elegant way to define and create lists based on existing lists or iterative objects.

Examples

Basic usage

Let’s imagine that we need to create the list of squared numbers from 0 to 10. I think if you are not familiar with list comprehension, you will do it like in the code below.

But wait, we can use the power of Python language, and do it more elegant:

If you check the arr values at the end of the programs you will see the same values. But with list comprehension, the code looks more compact and it’s easy to read.

Structure

The main structure of this operation have the next form:

[some_processed_variable for some_variable in iterable_object]

If condition

Let’s go deeper and add additional functionality to this structure. Suppose we need to get a list of only odd numbers. Now we can do it like in the code below.

We added an additional “if” condition to the end of the structure (of course we can do it by setting range argument, like range(1, 10, 2)).

Nested loops

We can write a nested loop in the list comprehension. For this, we write two loops one by one — second will be nested. Let’s check it with the common example — create a card deck where each card has suit and value.

As you can see we have two loops: main which iterate over suits and nested which iterate over a list of values.

We can write more nested loops, but if it becomes difficult to read and understand it is best not to.

Another good example of a nested loop with comprehension is creating a multiplication table. Below we create a list with strings in the format “number1 x number2= number1 * number2”. Where numbers 1 and 2 are numbers from 1 to 9.

Real example

The final example I met in one of the Kaggle competitions. There is a table with a lot of columns. And some of them have the format “x<some_number>”. And I wanted to get all these column names for future processing. With list comprehension, it was so easy. There is a small example of this task and solution for it in the next code cell.

Conclusions

In this article, we focused on the list comprehension mechanism in Python. The main concept is it is easy for usage and understanding. But we need to be careful with adding more nested loops and difficult conditionals to our structure — it can start to be messy.

Besides list comprehension, Python has dictionary comprehension and set comprehension. The main difference between them and the list comprehension is to use {} brackets instead of []. And for the dictionary, we need to specify the key with the value.
“What’s Your Current Salary?” Is a Red Flag That You Don’t Want to Work There
By: Jean-Michel Fayard
Tags: Startup, Money, Careers, Work, Programming

The Dreaded Salary Question

Here is the context: You are on the initial phone screen call with someone from human resources.

For the past 30 minutes, you have been trying to explain succinctly what your life has been about in the last decade.

Maybe you have been teased with tricky questions on how Git works internally, and you have done your best to answer correctly.

You are starting to feel exhausted, but fortunately, the call seems to be coming to an end.

Then suddenly, the conversation moves to one last thing: “And by the way, where are you right now in terms of salary and what are your salary expectations if you make this move?”

You may feel the rush to address the second part of the question and skip the first part, but don’t. Let’s focus on the first part: “Where are you right now in terms of salary?”

That question is not legitimate.
Are You Real or Bogus?
By: Rev. Sheri Heller
Tags: Identity, Mental Health, Self, Self Improvement, Authenticity

When one’s core essence is not nourished and is in fact repudiated and put in exile, we desperately try to manufacture and grasp onto what is considered acceptable so as to feel adequate and ‘normal’. The fear of being real is accompanied by the fear of being marginalized. So we lie to ourselves, not even knowing we are living a lie as we are not even certain as to what we feel. We pretend and feign indifference to fit in. To plod on.

That is pretty much how I lived my life, until I embarked on a process of reclaiming my true self. It was the push of despair and the pull of hope that finally ignited the pursuit of self. Getting a place to live, a job (actually three) enrolling in college and starting therapy were critical steps. If I was to have a ‘self’ to even save I had to be willing to responsibly engage in life and learn the proverbial ropes. I needed to take radical risks to heal and discover who I was. This was an especially grueling undertaking at first.

I could barely allow for my therapist to help me formulate a cohesive narrative of my life. A chronological assessment of one’s history and memories is a trajectory to uncovering one’s constitution and character.By examining our experiences and our responses we begin to identify patterns and feelings, exhume trapped rage and grief, detect preferences, reveal strengths, weaknesses, and longings. Initially my therapist’s urging to tell my story resulted in anxious performing. I didn’t know how to receive his care.

Slowly I approached my suffering and allowed my therapist in. I allowed for the mirroring I never got and I learned who I was and who I aspired to be beyond the superficial.

My personal identity with all the trappings evolves over time, but what is closer to the core of my essence is inviolate and immutable. That unique me that consists of my humanity, my intellect, my essence is the guiding force behind who who I am.

That is the self that knows what I want to be loved for, what my worth is, my insecurities, how I feel, what my values are and what my litany of preferences are. To live in that place and own those truths irregardless of trends, what is popular and what will set me apart, is what authenticity is. Having a core self I am now able to gauge how to use my discernment and sense of discrimination to weed out those who are bogus and those who are coming from a genuine place.

Exhuming my real self unearthed an invaluable treasure.
My New Apple Watch is a Privacy Nightmare
By: Matthew Woodall
Tags: Privacy, Technology, iPhone, Apple, Apple Watch

Image courtesy of Techcrunch.com

The Apple Watch comes equipped with some labor-saving apps that are designed to make life easier when using it with your paired iPhone.

I can use my wrist to answer phone calls like a secret agent, I can take notes, talk to Siri, and even ping my phone when I’ve forgotten where I put it. For those of us who remember the 1990 movie with Warren Beatty and Madonna, or even the classic comic strip, there’s even a walkie-talkie app so we can live out our Dick Tracy dreams.

It also comes equipped with two apps that are going to cause a lot of people headaches; a remote shutter release, and a way to activate the voice recorder remotely.

I work in an industry where we are exposed to reams of confidential information, much of which we can’t even share with other parts of my organization. This combination of the Apple Watch and iPhone make surveillance and espionage not only unobtrusive, but also as easy as checking the time.

These are the result of me “checking my watch” in a public parking lot

Taken from my iPhone in my belt holster using the Apple Watch app. (Author)

From the same position, this time using the zoom function. (Author)

As far as anyone could tell, I was checking my watch…maybe answering a message, or reading a notification. There was no indication that I was taking a photograph, not even a shutter release noise.

That school in the background? It’s actually almost an entire city block away, across a football field-sized grassy area. (Author)

When it’s combined with the iPhone 11 Max Pro’s impressive zoom features, you can get clear pictures without ever moving your phone off your hip, or out of your pocket. When it’s combined with the ability to start a sound recording from my wrist, I could conceivably record an entire walk-through of a facility to be reviewed at a later point. Of course, with the ability to slip the bands off, it becomes really easy to hide the watch face in a pocket or even in a hand and take photos that way.

What makes it a voyeur’s dream?

The phone (and camera) could be dozens of feet away, and the remote shutter release still works, makes sense right? Except that if the phone is set on silent, it doesn’t make any noise. Still not getting it?

Voyeur + Apple Watch + iPhone =

This is our (empty) bathroom at home…taken while I was on the other side of the house. (Author)

Consider the thought of a silent phone taking photos after being placed in the ceiling of a dressing room or bathroom.

It gets worse

I forgot to mention, the Apple Watch App provides a live view of what the camera is seeing, even if you don’t take a picture. Anyone with a watch connected to a phone can monitor the room where the phone is while they’re dozens of feet away. So there’s no evidence to prove what happened if the phone itself isn’t found in an incriminating place.
Let Me Tell You
By: Ashwini Dodani
Tags: Mental Health, Haiku, Nature, Life Lessons, Poetry

Let Me Tell You

A nature force

Exemplary like

the sky, my beliefs wanting

you to realize

this soul and body

is not meant to turn into

ash of disbelief

imagination

attempting and admiring

power to embrace

forces I carry

forward, to thirsty souls who

need my light — support

for I am meant to

be present, dedicated

spreading kindness just

to optimize, and

justify every breath, drop

of blood — unrestrained
Is My Husband Gay?
By: Loren A Olson Md
Tags: Love And Sex, LGBTQ, Love, Psychology, Women

LGBTQIA

Is My Husband Gay?

Women search for “Is my husband gay” more than for “Is my husband having an affair?”

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

Sexual infidelity is often considered the ultimate betrayal; it disrupts ongoing, meaningful relationships.

When a heterosexual couple experiences infidelity and the offense is committed with someone of the same sex, it turns worlds upside down.

All relationships have rules. We expect that our partners will keep our interests in mind even when potential rewards tempt them to break the rules.

Infidelity occurs in the context of both heterosexual and same-sex relationships, although expectations may be different. In either case, when expectations are violated, the wrongdoer will have to account for his or her behavior.

Things suddenly shifted inside my head, and I went from thinking I was straight to knowing I am gay.

As I wrote in Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, I know something about breaking rules. I was married with two children when I unexpectedly fell in love with a man.

There was no other way to explain what I was feeling. Until shortly before I came out to my wife, she had no idea about my conflicts about sexual orientation.

“Kevin” is a man in his mid-fifties, married, with two children, one of whom is handicapped. His wife suspected Kevin’s interest in men, and she began to search for clues of his deception. She found his online user name and password for a gay chat room.

She then began to send him emails as if she were a man interested in a “hook up.” Not knowing the messages were actually from his wife, Kevin arranged to meet “him” for coffee, and blowing up Kevin’s secret life.
Viewing the Earth’s Surface With the New and Improved Google Earth Timelapse
By: Google Earth
Tags: Redesign, Design, Google Earth Timelapse, Case Study, Earth Engine

Viewing the Earth’s Surface With the New and Improved Google Earth Timelapse

Two design leads unpack their approach to creating new map imagery and implementing Material Design best practices

By Samadrita Das, User Experience Designer, and Tom Gebauer, Design Lead

Editor’s note: In 2013, we launched Google Earth Timelapse, our most comprehensive picture of the Earth’s changing surface. In 2016, we added a few new years. Today we released a bunch of updates, including design upgrades and mobile support. Below, our design leads share how they approached redesigning Earth Timelapse.

Chuquicamata Mine, Chile

Google Earth Timelapse is a great example of how Google can take a massive amount of data, democratize it, and enlighten us — in this case about the planet we live on. There’s nothing like a living, moving image to show us how the world has changed over decades, as the zoomable video in Timelapse allows us to do for places like the Columbia Glacier or the Tibetan Plateau.

Today we’ve improved Timelapse so that the site can tell richer stories about the planet, and more people can share these stories. Our mantra in getting this project done has been “Earth Day or bust” — and thanks to some scrappy workflow improvisations, we made it!

Why we were up for the challenge

This has been a 20% project for Tom and Sam. Tom is a design lead for Google’s Display & Video 360 project; Sam is a user experience designer on the Geo Enterprise team, primarily working on Google Maps Platform. For Tom, working on Timelapse was a way to do what Google does best: using data to create an amazing and focused experience. (Plus, when people ask Tom what he does at Google, he can say semi-seriously, “I work on time travel.”)

What appealed most to Sam was the chance to contribute to a platform that helps people visualize how the Earth has changed, in a very digestible format. She was also up for the tight-timeline challenge: It exemplified how teams in an organization as big as Google can be agile if the need arises.

With a scrappy team assembled, we focused on the problems to solve:
CARTOON: Bookstore
By: Rolli, Https, Ko-Fi.Com Rolliwrites
Tags: Humor, Life, Books, Comics, Cartoon

Cartoonist’s Note №1

I don’t go to bookstores anymore. I’m allergic to potpourri.

Cartoonist’s Note №2

Like this cartoon? You can now buy the print — or get it on a coffee mug, t-shirt, etc.

About the Artist

Rolli is the author of four books for adults and children, including The Sea-Wave and Kabungo. His cartoons and illustrations have appeared in Reader’s Digest, The Wall Street Journal, The Saturday Evening Post and other top venues. Visit Rolli’s website, follow him on Twitter, and subscribe to his new one-man Medium magazine, Rolli.

HELP!

Medium’s unexpected new change in the way it compensates members of its Partner Program rewards creators of long, padded articles, and essentially demonetizes shorter content. As nearly all of my posts are poetry, cartoons, or efficient fiction/essays, I’m faring very poorly under this new system. Since the change was implemented, my Partner Program earnings have plummeted by 90%, and hundreds of others are in the boat. If you want to help, send an email to Medium CEO Ev Williams (ev@medium.com) and/or to yourfriends@medium.com expressing your displeasure with the changes. Slowly re-reading this post 100 times would also help enormously ;) So would buying me a coffee.

If you enjoyed this cartoon, you might like these ones, too:
Scroll to an element on click in React js
By: Manish Mandal
Tags: Scroll, React, Reactjs

Today we will learn how to scroll to a particular element by clicking on a certain element. This is beneficial if you are creating a single page application and where users click on a particular menu item then he will be scrolled to that referring element. So let us see how to implement that in our React project.

Requirments

Lets first create a blank react project. I will use yarn as my package manager.

yarn create react-app scroll-to-element-react-medium

2. Now open terminal inside your react js project and install react-scroll

yarn add react-scroll

3. Go to your src folder and create a components folder.

4. Now inside your components folder create your first component with the name header.js

5. Open the header.js file in your code editor. I will create a simple menu inside that file so paste the below code inside the header.js file. I have also added some inline styling.

6. Again go to your components directory and create another component with the name middleSection.js. Inside that component, I will add some dummy content with a unique id referring to the menu items.

7. Now its time to use react scroll. Go again to your header.js file and import Link from react-scroll

import {Link} from 'react-scroll'

8. Now wrap your menu items with the Link tag and pass some props like below.

Props Used

* activeClass - class applied when element is reached

* to - target to scroll to

* spy - make Link selected when scroll is at its targets position

* smooth - animate the scrolling

9. Now import components to the app.js file and start the application to see changes.

Below I have shared live and code and GitHub repository for reference.
How to Write When You Don’t Have Anything to Say
Tags: Advice, Writing Tips, Write, Present, Writing

Photo by Amir La Lenia on Unsplash

How to Write When You Don’t Have Anything to Say

It happens. Three steps to see beyond.

We might have days when there is nothing on our mind to say and share. I question if someone will want to hear what I want to say, so don’t say anything at all. The short answer is there’s a light inside of you — in all of us waiting to be sparked up.

My three short and sweet mindful tactics zap me back into finding something. So here’s how to write when you don’t have anything to say because:

Look out the window

Nature is always there. Yes, you will find it is there to stop and stare. Other than that, it is also there to fuel your inspiration and spark your soul. When you allow nature to tap into your creativity, you might find yourself writing a poem about the trees or the leaves flowing in the trees.

Whatever it may be, nature can nurture your mind from going to having nothing to say to have a lot to contemplate and curate. Research shows nature not only makes you more creative, but kinder and happier as well. So go outside and:

Take a walk

Walking outside for me is like taking a shower. It revitalises my senses and brings pack some food for thought. Simply a ten-minute walk will boost your mind and bring you back to now.

When you don’t have anything to say, nature will lead the way. A refreshing breath of air will allow you to come back to your natural state of being there. Then writing won’t be so hard to hone in on!

Call someone up

Hearing someone’s voice is like a magic spell. I often forget how much a second or two can make a difference when speaking to family and friends from across the world. Sometimes I will my eyes and listen to them is — something I will never take for granted.

It will bring you back to the present moment and remind you simply everything is OK. Starting a conversation with someone will get your juices flowing to write when you don’t have anything to say.

Remember: There’s always something to say.
Triangular Numbers
By: Shuo Wang
Tags: Python, Leetcode, Numbers, Math, Programming

Solve

the first example is simple, the target we want to reach is 6. All we need to do is take steps:1, 2, 3. That sums up to 6.

But what if the target we want to reach is 11?

Can we reach it in 4 steps?

No way, even if all steps are toward the target, the maximum we can reach is 10, so we need more steps.

How about 5 steps?

Well, in this case, you can definitely walk past the target…

So we need to think of a way to walk just enough to reach the target. Say, what if we take the first step backward?

That’s still not enough, how about we take the second step backward instead?

Ah, just right!

So, how do we generalize this process? Well, one thing to notice is this:

you see, whenever you decide to take a step backward, you are subtracting 2 times the size of that step from the triangular number. Therefore, the target can only be reached from a certain number of steps if the difference between the triangular number corresponding to that number of steps and the target is an even number!

So this gives a very good criteria to test whether a number of steps (or a triangular number) can reach the target:

the sum of the steps (triangular number) has to be at least as large as the target. the difference between the target and the sum of the steps has to be even.

Now we can implement our algorithm:

def min_steps(target):



res = 0

sum = 0

while sum < target or (sum - target) % 2 == 1:

res = res + 1

sum = sum + res



return res min_steps(11)

# 5

Works!
Loneliness Interrupted
By: Ema Dumitru
Tags: Poetry, Photography, Writing, Poem, Chance Encounters

Loneliness Interrupted

Poetry

LONELINESS INTERRUPTED by Ema Dumitru

Perhaps it was chance.

The gut knows

But it won’t talk.

The unknown man

and the unknown woman

Two lives in use

entered and divided.

The present and the past

above all science.

The trees, the roads, the stones

A small print in a room

The rain that fell at the beginning

of autumn — There was no trace of it

No physical sensation.

All sense of what was real

discharged from the mind.

And as it came, so it went.

The days, the nights, the music

Only marginal notes.

Rain still falling, now with less force

A great performance of the mind.
31Events is not just for invites, it can used for reminders too
By: Arnie Mckinnis
Tags: Events, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Landing Pages

The calendar is awesome marketing tool that is completely overlooked by most marketing professionals. We use email, we use landing pages, we use drip campaigns — but no calendar invitations or reminders.I got an email today from Amazon AWS about their re:Invent 2017 conference. Once I saw it, I thought … “why don’t more companies send calendar invitations and reminders?”.

Announcements like this are good — but how about product launches or maybe even special or flash sales. Anything timebased could be have a calendar invitation attached. So, as an example, I created this landing page, put your email in the box, and it will send you a real calendar invitation/reminder.

check out the landing page here

Just think what you could do with that type of marketing tactic.
Don’t Quit Just Because It’s Hard
By: Maclin Lyons
Tags: Self, Productivity, Life Lessons, Life, Self Improvement

More often than not, you’ll regret it.

Photo by Andrew McElroy on Unsplash

It’s human nature to stay away from any pain. We don’t like to be uncomfortable. It’s so much easier to coast and go through the motions, but there’s nothing admirable about not pushing yourself.

Life isn’t supposed to be so easy. Anything worth having is worth putting in the work. Anytime you’re making a change in your life, there will be an adjustment period.

There will be some time when you’re out of your comfort zone. You have to focus on the goal and realize that the hurdles you encounter are still on the right path to reaching it.

I just finished reading The Dip by Seth Godin and it’s all about knowing when you should or shouldn’t quit. Quit when you’re making absolutely no progress. Quit when you’re positive it’s hurting you more than helping you. Quit when you’re sure that you’re headed down a dead end road and there’s no more possibility of moving upward or forward.

All other times, stick. If you’re resolute in your decision that it is something you want, don’t quit. If you’re seeing results, no matter how small at first, don’t quit. Most definitely don’t quit just because it gets hard.

“The people who skip the hard questions are in the majority, but they are not in demand.” — Seth Godin

The people who stand out are the ones who pushed through the tough part. There’s always a learning curve that you need to get through.

When do most people quit their new workout routine? As soon as they get sore, which is pretty early on because their muscles are adapting to the new stress of exercise.

As soon as there’s even just a little bit of pain, we pull back. This is natural, but not a smart decision if you want to reach almost any goal. Hard work takes discipline and sacrifice, but it should be worth it if you truly want what you’re going after.

Most people quit too early in a new endeavor because they’re expecting an immediate result with little to no struggle involved. That’s not how it works. Remember why you’re doing it.

Another piece of solid advice from Godin is that whatever you’re trying to do, try to be the best. There are far too many people in the middle.

What’s the point of striving for average? Why pick surviving over thriving? All the work you have to do is not worth ending up in the middle of the crowd.

Push through the hard part because average people don’t. Push through the dip because you are that much closer to coming out on top.

If you truly want to change your life or become somebody who keeps your word when you set out to do something, keep going. If you want to have a chance at being the best at what you do, don’t quit. You’ll only end up stronger and better because you didn’t.
The Data Behind the Ur-Physical Graffiti
By: P.G. Baumstarck
Tags: Rock, Led Zeppelin, Music, Data Visualization

Despite listening to Led Zeppelin for over twenty years, I just learned this week that their sixth studio album, Physical Graffiti, was actually two-thirds original material and one-third outtakes from previous albums. Apparently the band recorded three sides’ worth of material for the album but didn’t want to trim anything; so instead they made it a double album by sprinkling outtakes across all four sides.

There were eight original tracks recorded for the album and seven outtakes added. Three outtakes came from each of the previous two albums, Houses of the Holy (including its would-have-been–eponymous title track) and Untitled (hereafter Led Zeppelin IV), and one outtake came from Led Zeppelin III.

I wanted to explore the data by looking at the amount of source material that I had just discovered was recorded for each of their eight studio albums. This is what the original album durations looked like, with Physical Graffiti standing out as the sole double LP:

When we instead distribute the seven outtakes to their original source albums, we see this:

An LP could hold around 46 minutes of music, which was the limit the band stuck to for the majority of their albums. But for Led Zeppelin IV, Houses of the Holy, and Physical Graffiti, the band apparently recorded nearly an hour of material for each. In the case of first two, the band trimmed songs down to those that would best fit on a single LP (2015 interview). But, when faced with the same old dilemma for Physical Graffiti, they had fortunately accumulated enough backlogged material to trim nothing and ship a double album instead.

Led Zeppelin IV, Houses of the Holy, and Physical Graffiti are generally regarded as the band’s best albums, and this data also shows that they coincided with the band’s creative maximum. And so Physical Graffiti is no longer the sole anomalous double LP in their oeuvre but really the capstone of this trifecta.

Now an interesting followup question is, if we were to listen to these outtakes inside the albums they were originally composed for, what order would we put them in? But I tend to agree with the peanut gallery that the albums are perfect as-is, and you can’t just swap in or reorder the tracks. But it is interesting to hear the outtakes alongside their contemporaneous material, so I created YouTube playlists that append each albums’ outtakes to it as a coda (in-joke intended):

And I also decanted the eight “belters” from Physical Graffiti into an Ur-Physical Graffiti, which turns out to be my new favorite Led Zeppelin album:
Instinct
By: Sean Zhai
Tags: Poetry, Environment, Flying, Animals, Hunting

Haiku is a form of poetry usually inspired by nature, which embraces simplicity. We invite all poetry lovers to have a go at composing Haiku. Be warned. You could become addicted.

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Treasure Chest of Real Queer Tales
By: James Finn
Tags: Storytelling, Creative Non Fiction, LGBTQ, Fiction, Poetry

Treasure Chest of Real Queer Tales

LGBTQ storytelling from Prism & Pen — December 6, 2020

by James Finn

Prism & Pen storytelling strikes it rich

New P&P writer Aaron W. Marrs gives us two pieces of gorgeous poetic prose. Danny Jackson H. and theoaknotes ponder unaccepting family members, a painful subject for many queer folks during the holidays. And theoaknotes dares to provide frank (and scarce) info to transmasculine folks who don’t know what to expect “down there” when they go on T.

Add in fiction, poetry, stories about biphobia, queer parents, and being trans late in life, and this week’s edition is packed with queer treasure.

If you’re not a Medium member, please click on the underlined links to read for free. If you can afford a membership, you help support your favorite writers.

Editor’s Picks —

Creative Nonfiction

How Cool Kids Spread Biphobic Toxins

James Finn

I’m not biphobic, really! My first crush was bisexual, and I’ve always been cool with bisexuality. So why have I been spreading biphobic toxins most of my life? My deliciously flaming friend Howie and our gender-rebel pal Carla help explain.
How to Plot Data on a World Map in Python?
By: Athisha R K
Tags: Python, Data Science, Python3, Computer Science, Basemap

Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

I learned a new thing this week. In Machine Learning class, I clustered weather stations using DBSCAN (maybe topic for another article) and plotted those results on a world map. For this, I used the Basemap package in python.

What is Basemap?

Basemap is a tool to create beautiful maps in python. It is an extension of Matplotlib. Using Basemap, we can plot coastal lines and countries directly.

Prerequisites

Basics of Matplotlib and Pandas in Python

Experience with Jupyter Notebooks or Google Colab Notebooks (or any other equivalent)

Lets do this!

I’m using Google Colab for this tutorial. First, we need to install the required packages to use the Basemap in python.

Install The Required Packages

Here, I’m importing the packages which we will be using later.

Import the Packages

We can use any dataset which has Latitude and Longitude as features. Here, I’m using the cities.csv dataset provided by my instructor (You can find a similar dataset on kaggle). Create a Pandas data frame using that dataset file.

Create a Data Frame using dataset.csv

The dataset which I have used has 245 entries and 8 features (including latitude and longitude).

Data Frame Shape and Head

We need only the latitude and longitude for plotting the map. So the following piece of code creates a data frame having only those 2 features.

Extract the required features from the data frame

Set the upper bound and lower bound of latitude and longitude

Upper and Lower Bound of Latitude and Longitude

But how to get the values to set the upper bound and lower bound? I used OpenStreetMap export feature to find those values for South America region.

OpenStreetMap Export Feature

Extract only those data points that lie in the given region. There are 47 data points to plot in the South America region.

Retrieve data points in the specified area

Create the Basemap with necessary parameters like upper bound and lower bound of longitude and latitude.

Create Basemap

Draw coastal lines and countries. xs and ys are relative coordinates on the map. Iterate through the dataset and plot each point on the map. The last line in the below code snippet downloads the image to the computer (or to /content in Google Colab).

Draw the map

Output of the above code snippet

The Final Result!! :)

The below code snippet can be used to display an image in python notebook. Here, it displays the map that was downloaded before.

Code to display an image in python

Output

ExampleMap.png

The above image is an example of how powerful the Basemap package is. Using the Basemap package we could create many more such maps with ease.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Hope this helps. Let me know your views/suggestions/questions in the comments section below. :)

GitHub Link: https://github.com/athisha-rk/mediumArticlesRelatedFiles/blob/master/Basemap_Example.ipynb
Top AI/ML Blogs I follow
By: Naina Chaturvedi
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Education, Tech

This is an education blog by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), a blog dedicated to updating the public about the news and achievement of its students, staff, and organization. This blog covers news on the latest trend in AI as well as different areas of AI application. So, if you are looking for a way to follow the latest news in the AI industry, then follow this blog and never miss out on what’s going on.
Ultimate Designer’s Gift Guide 2020: Buy the Best Gifts for Designers for This Holiday — DesignXplorer
By: Akbar Shah
Tags: New York, UI, Gifts For Designers, Gift Ideas, Web Design

Ultimate Designer’s Gift Guide 2020: Buy the Best Gifts for Designers for This Holiday — DesignXplorer Akbar Shah Follow Nov 8 · 9 min read

Guys, the holiday season is around the corner, so are you ready for the gifts parade? We know it’s super easy to find gifts for anyone but tech geeks in your life. Yes, we’re talking about the hard-to-please graphic designers, UX designers, Web Designers, and all the other digital artists.

Now that we are here with a list of Best gifts for designers, you can stop squeezing your brain for ideas. We’ve covered some amazing holiday gift ideas that could turn your hard-to-please tech geeks dumbfounded.

So now that we’ve got your back, you can stop pulling your hair, relax, and read this post to find some cool Gifts For Designers. These are some thoughtful gifts for your creative partner, brother, friend, or colleague that you are planning to show your love for. We have categorized the gifts into different sections. Thus, you can easily scroll down and find a suitable category for your loved one.

Regardless of the digital artist you are shopping for, these unique ideas will boost your mood and make the gift parade more interesting!

Let’s go!

Nudge the Geek to Have Fun

This is your chance to pull your workaholic designer to the real world and make him/her enjoy these Best Gifts for Graphic Designers. Let them know they deserve much more than this, and there’s more to life. Shower them with these gifts and nudge them to have fun. Your recipients need reminders that the holiday season is around the corner!

Some of these gift ideas are not only fun but also productive. For example, the Polaroid Instant Film Camera is great to snap all the memories instantly. But that’s not all. This can be a cool add-on for the designer’s professional life. Some more gift ideas are as follows.

Fun Gift Ideas to Gift Designers:
How to Become a Better Developer Every Single day
By: Piero Borrelli
Tags: Web Development, Technology, Software Engineering, Work, Programming

How to Become a Better Developer Every Single day

4 ideas to make you a top-class performer without long study nights

Photo by Valeriy Khan on Unsplash

True winners build themselves during their practice time.

That’s something you might have recognized yourself when looking at masterclass performers. You see them doing something and you think to yourself:

“I wonder how much this person practised for achieving this”.

Coding is no exception to this rule. And if you want to be a top performer too, you have to include daily practice of your skills in your life.

Let’s see how you can easily do that with the following list.

You Should Always Have A New Goal And Work Toward It

This is a very personal belief I have, and it’s something that guides me through my life every day. I feel like people always need to set a new goal in their mind. Something that they want to achieve, and they have to work hard to get it.

That’s true for me both on a personal level and in my career. I suggest you set one target at the time for yourself and you build your way toward it.

For example, you could:

Build an app you always wanted to create.

Finally, finish all those Udemy coding courses you have in your library.

Learn a new language you were curious about.

Learn new patterns, techniques, for improving the code you write daily.

Find a way to achieve your goals. Write down the necessary steps if you feel like.

This behaviour has immense value. It will make you grow as a professional because you will learn new stuff and practice. It will give you new occasions because you never know what some knowledge can bring you to in the future.
Learning from Audio: Fourier Transformations
By: Adam Sabra
Tags: Signal Processing, Engineering, Mathematics, Data Science, Machine Learning

Learning from Audio: Fourier Transformations

Breaking down a fundamental equation in signal processing

Related article:

Introduction:

In Wave Forms, we looked at what waves are, how to visualize them, and how to deal with null data.

In this article, I aim to develop an intuition on what the Fourier Transformation is, why it is useful when studying audio, show mathematical proofs to make it computationally efficient, and visualize the results. The data we are working with in this (and related) articles can be found on my GitHub repository for this series.

With this in mind, let’s begin. We will first initialize our necessary variables and packages below:

Recall from Wave Forms:
Think Differently to Flourish and Grow Your Career
By: Matthew Royse
Tags: Inspiration, Thinking, Mindset, Motivation, Self Improvement

Think Differently to Flourish and Grow Your Career

What 5 famous entrepreneurs can teach us about how to think

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

Thinking differently will help your career. How you think about things is as powerful as how hard you work, how successful you are as a mentor or even the skills you gain.

Very successful people think differently from everyone else. The good news is that thinking habits can be learned. Here are wise words of wisdom from 5 successful business people that you can put into action to get ahead.

Jeff Bezos

Founder of Amazon

“If you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall, and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.”

Key takeaways:

Define the problem and explore the causes of the pain. Find as many solutions as you can. Draft a plan of action to crack the code.

Mark Zuckerberg

Co-founder of Facebook, Inc.

“People think innovation is just having a good idea, but a lot of it is just moving quickly and trying a lot of things.”

Key takeaways:

Try things out, even if the outcome is not apparent. Escape the limitations of traditional thinking. Test, test, and test.

Steve Jobs

Co-founder of Apple

“I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it too long. Just figure out what’s next.”

Key takeaways:

Focus on your next goal. Judge success by your momentum. Stay on top of your goals and know where you are.

Warren Buffet

Founder of Buffet Partnership, Ltd

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

Key takeaways:

A poor reputation makes you less trustworthy with people you want to work alongside. When facing a challenging situation, take a couple of deep breaths and then react. After you compose yourself, determine how to best respond.

Elon Musk

Founder of SpaceX and The Boring Company

“It’s important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree: make sure you understand the fundamental principles — the trunk and big branches — before you get to the leaves, the details.”

Key takeaways:
A Curated List of 57 Amazing GitHub Repositories for Every Python Developer
By: Angelica Dietzel
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, Python, Computer Science, Programming

Learn

All of the computer science algorithms implemented in Python — great for tech interviews.

A curated list of awesome Python frameworks, libraries, software, and resources — with code covering almost everything you might use Python for.

A book for self-learners — this book aims to teach the Python programming language using a practical approach.

Python sample codes for robotics algorithms.

Jupyter notebooks for teaching/learning Python 3.

Playground and cheatsheet for learning Python. Collection of Python scripts that are split by topics and contain code examples with explanations.

Useful functions, tutorials, and other Python-related things.

An animation engine for explanatory math videos. It’s basically used to create animations programmatically.

An open-source collection of libraries and tools for natural language processing.

Freely available programming books. There’s a Python section with a ton of free e-books to read through.

A mix of worksheets that walk users through the basics of getting started with machine learning. Includes links to code samples, data sets, and useful videos explaining key math concepts.

Interactive deep learning book with code, math, and discussions. Available in multiframeworks. Adopted at 140 universities from 35 countries.

Models by TensorFlow (67.1k stars)

An open-source repository to find many libraries and models related to deep learning.

A reference for anyone getting started with Google’s TensorFlow machine learning software framework. Includes a long list of code examples demonstrating everything from basic TensorFlow operations to building neural networks.

A list of programming tutorials that are project-oriented, including building web scrapers, applications, bots, etc.

Solutions for various coding/algorithmic problems and many useful resources for learning algorithms and data structures.