fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Here’s What You Should Know About a New Menopause Treatment
By: Emily Mullin
Tags: Health, Women, Menopause, Body, Profam

Here’s What You Should Know About a New Menopause Treatment

It’s unproven, and it comes with potential risks

Credit: Jasenka Arbanas/Moment/Getty

A British fertility clinic in Birmingham, England, says it can stave off the unpleasant effects of menopause for 20 years by freezing a piece of a woman’s ovary when she’s young, then reintroducing it in her body later in life through transplantation.

The clinic, ProFam, reports that nine women aged 32 to 39 have undergone the freezing procedure, which costs £7,000 to £11,000 (about $8,500 to $13,300) and involves a small incision in the abdomen, called a keyhole surgery. Surgeons removed a piece of an ovary, cryopreserved it, and years later, plan to transplant it back into the women in a second surgery.

The procedure, called ovarian tissue transplantation, is nothing new in the world of fertility medicine. It has been performed for the past two decades as a way to preserve fertility for women and girls about to undergo chemotherapy and radiation, which can damage the ovaries. (For cancer patients who freeze ovarian tissue in their teens and twenties, the transplanted tissue can restore fertility later on for five years or more.)

But this is the first time it’s being used in an attempt to delay menopause. Doctors, however, are wary about offering the procedure to healthy women because it hasn’t been shown to be safe or effective.

“This is not ready for prime time,” says Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director for the North American Menopause Society and director of the Women’s Health Clinic at the Mayo Clinic.
Implementing Simple Auth To Your Next.js Website using Next.js Auth
By: Dennis O'Keeffe
Tags: Nextjs, React, Web Development, Programming, JavaScript

Implementing Simple Auth To Your Next.js Website using Next.js Auth

Add your own simple authentication to websites using Next.js Auth

Password protection for deploys can be a costly payment when hosting websites, particularly when you want to protect branch deployments.

In today’s tutorial, I am going to show you how you can set up your own simple authentication protection on these branches using Next.js 10 and Next.js Auth.

Getting Started

Setting up the API

In pages/api/auth/[...nextauth].js , add the following:

We are going to use NEXTAUTH_USERNAME and NEXTAUTH_PASSWORD to set up our basic environment variables.

The above will make a comparison, and if that comparison is correct, we’ll return the user object which will just be a name of admin and ID of 1 .

Setting up a private page

In pages/private.js , add the following:

Here we will use the useSession hook to determine if we are logged in, while using signIn from the next-auth/client library to given an option for the user to sign in.

Updating pages/index.js and pages/_app.js

Finally, let’s update our base page:

This will do similar to our private page based on the session.

As for pages/_app.js we will ensure our auth provider is there:

That is all we need for the code setup!

Setting environment variables

For local development, we can add env vars to the .env.local file. Add the following now:

Here we set the username and password required for the auth and the apps URL (here it is just localhost).

Perfect, now we can see things in action!

Exploring the website

If we run npm run dev , it will run next dev through a package.json script and start the website on localhost:3000 .

The page as it sits currently does not have access, and so it displays our sign-in message.

Regardless of access, there will be a link to click through to our /private page where all the content is private.

If we select that, we will see that we do not have permission.

If we now decide to click sign in, we will get a sign in page provided by Next.js Auth.

Writing in our username and password as we have set it in the environment variable will result in us being redirected to the previous page with access.

Success! We have managed to add simple, basic authentication to our Next.js application.

You can try out the project being hosted on Vercel.

Resources and further reading

Image credit: Chris Yang

Originally posted on my blog.
7 Essential Non-Technical Skills Every Successful Developer Should Have
By: Mahdhi Rezvi
Tags: Software Development, Technology, Productivity, Work, Programming

7 Essential Non-Technical Skills Every Successful Developer Should Have

Becoming great is much more than just writing code

As developers, we all would like to get ourselves a well-paid job. We also probably have plans to gradually move up the corporate ladder and reach success. Unfortunately, not everyone manages to reach this goal. Some find it really hard to go up the ladder, while others find it difficult to land a developer job.

It is indeed true that you need strong technical skills as a developer to succeed. But it’s also true that it takes more than just technological expertise to rise through the ranks and win the opportunity to command teams, projects, and eventually businesses.

By developing and broadening your non-technical skills, you increase the chances of not just landing a “good job” but a great career in technology as well.

“The soft skills are the hard skills. People who master the critical leadership skills today are anything but touchy-feely — they’re direct, they’re clear, they’re compassionate, they’re no-nonsense. But they’re not soft.” — Amy Edmondson

Here is a list of non-technical skills that will ensure you a great career in tech.
I Look 10 Years Younger Thanks to This Diet
By: Hakima T A N T R I K A
Tags: Self, Health, Diet, Weight Loss, Life Lessons

#1: I stay away from meat

I am a vegetarian who eats some types of fish. Vegetarianism benefits my health. It also empowers me to know that this diet choice is good for the environment. If you’re a meat lover, you can just lower the amount of meat you eat in a week.

#2: I avoid gluten

For the past few months, I also have had a gluten-free diet and I am healthier than ever. As a result, I’ve lost 11 pounds and become lean. My mental health improved and overall, I feel great.

#3: I drink plenty of water

It’s easy to forget to drink water when busy. That’s why I have a one liter, reusable bottle to keep track of my daily water intake. Hydration cleanses the body and gives the skin a healthy glow. Studies show that women should drink 2,1 liters a day and men should drink 2,6. I try to drink a pint of water as soon as I wake up to start the day refreshed.

#4: I eat breakfast after 10 a.m.

I always wait until 10 a.m. before having breakfast. I’ve always done that naturally since I’m 12. Call it intermittent fasting if you want.

For breakfast, I put two pieces of gluten-free bread in the oven and I add two sunny-side-up eggs to put on toast. So far, this meal has fiber, carbs, and protein. Avocado with lemon juice is a great option to spread on toast instead of butter. With that, add fruit and this is all that’s needed for a balanced breakfast.

#5: I have a light lunch

For my mid-day meal, I swap heavy carbs for a light dish. Couscous and quinoa are great choices, as they are nutritious and fill you up. I chop up cucumber, bell peppers, and celery and mix them into the couscous/quinoa. Adding a splash of avocado oil and a sprinkle of a herb enhances the flavor. Sometimes I make tuna avocado (a healthier tuna mayo option) and put that in too. This lunch is fun and simple and there are loads of routes to take it.

#6: I never skip dinner

Having a decent-sized dinner is key. It should keep you going until morning to avoid late-night snacking.

My staple dinner is a brown rice with tofu and vegetables. Tofu is often seen as flavorless, but marinating it in sesame dressing is delicious. For texture, I air-fry the tofu. The beauty of this dish is its simplicity. You don’t need to be a professional chef to experiment with it.

#7: Hot beverages and dark chocolate are the new desserts

I stay away from sugar. High levels of sugar increase the risk of age spots. A herbal tea fixes my desire for something sweet after each meal. I add a piece of 100% chocolate for my chocolate fix. My favorite brand is Island Shark Chocolate from Hawai'i. It’s ethical and doesn’t use child slavery. Cacao helps the brain make serotonin, a chemical that makes us happy.

#8: I recycle the leftovers

Last but not least, I always make more food for lunch and dinner than I know I’m going to eat. Making twice the amount of food I need for one meal creates leftovers. It’s nice to cook a big meal that I know I’ll love the next day. Plus, I don’t have to think so much about cooking!
PPT hack — custom chart templates
By: Jan Schultink
Tags: Hacks, PowerPoint, Presentation Design, Design, Data Visualization

The standard PowerPoint templates do not look very good. The standard slide layout invites people to write presentations through endless lists of bullet points. But even more time-consuming to change are the standard templates for data charts.

This earlier post with a make-over of a column chart in a presentation by Skype shows some of the pain a presentation designer has to go through over and over again to create decent data charts. It took me around 17 years to discover the option to create your own templates. Let’s save you this time, right now.

If you click a chart in PowerPoint 2007, you can find the “save as template” button in the “design” ribbon of the chart. (Confusingly, two “design” ribbons pop up when you have a chart open, one for the chart, one for the slide). Give your template a name and PowerPoint 2007 will save it in the appropriate directory (with a “.CRTX” extension, but you do not need to worry about that).

The next time you select “insert chart”, a folder appears at the top of the standard PowerPoint options, open it to create a data chart using your own customer templates.
How to Enjoy The Art of Scrapbooking
By: Marjorie J Mcdonald
Tags: Creative, Inspiration, Creativity, DIY, Lifestyle

CREATIVITY | DIY | LIFESTYLE

How to Enjoy The Art of Scrapbooking

Get your supplies and special papers organized

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Many people who scrapbook love the types of paper that are available for them to use. It then gets easy to begin collecting papers rather than using the papers you have and doing your scrapbook project.

Set up your special scrapbook hobby

Keep your supplies and scrapbook papers organized. Knowing what you have on hand will help avoid duplicate purchases and help you get started on a current scrapbook project more quickly. Then, you will also be able to stay with the current project, so it gets completed.

If you need help, hire an organizer to get you set up so your special scrapbook hobby will be more enjoyable to you. This organization will create less confusion for you as you make your scrapbook pages and assembling your final scrapbook for yourself or as a gift.

Selecting and Storing Scrapbook Papers

Image by PIRO4D from Pixabay

The position you store your scrapbook supplies in will depend on the paper’s stiffness or card-stock and the amount of paper you have to get in an organized order. Avoid storing something that would get damaged if you tried to keep it in a way that was not compatible with its weight or shape.

Your space and storage methods will make it easy or more challenging for you to get to your scrapbook supplies. Carefully consider what would be the easiest to use and the most space-efficient.

If you know the scrapbooking you like to do, it will also help you organize your scrapbook supplies and scrapbook paper storage.
Designing a Product Information Management System. Part II: Deliverables
By: Michał Mazur
Tags: Product Development, Software Development, UI Design, Software Engineering, UX Design

Designing a Product Information Management System. Part II: Deliverables

Part II of the story of how we designed a tailor-made PIM system for an Enterprise. In 6 weeks.

In PART I, we focused on the Strategy and UX Design phase in the process of designing a Product Information Management Platform (PIM). Our work triggered digital transformation on a company level.

Now it’s time to connect the dots and unveil the full picture of what we actually managed to achieve.

Syncing with the development team

Apart from back-end development, the design team needed alignment with the data science team. Their work, in turn, was focused on building realistic concepts of how the assistive AI functions of the PIM (more on that later).

The collaboration was important for the whole product team, especially to the designers, who did not want to build unrealistic product features. The PIM was supposed to be a start of the transformation, not a science-fiction promise.
Authenticate using Apple on Web using Firebase Auth
Tags: Authentication, Sign In With Apple, Firebase, Apple, JavaScript

Sign in with Apple was announced in 2019 and allows users to authenticate into your Firebase app with an Apple ID.

Before you start make sure you have a firebase project and enroll yourself in the apple developer program. Now create a web app in your firebase project in the Firebase console.

Step 1: Create or Update an App ID

From the Apple Developer Portal go to Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles » Identifiers. Create a new App ID or update an existing app and give it the Sign In with Apple capability.

Step 2: Create a Service ID

From the Apple Developer Portal go to Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles » Identifiers. Create a new Service ID by clicking the (+) button in the top left corner. And make sure that “Sign in with Apple” is checked.

Now click on the “Configure” button, in the modal popup, select the App ID that you created on the last step and give the domain name and the Return URLs from the firebase.

Step 3: Register a Private Key

From the Apple Developer Portal go to Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles » Keys, create a new private key (keep it private). It is used to validate requests from Apple with your Firebase project.

Select the “Sign in with Apple”, click on configure and select your App ID. Now Download the Key and copy your Key ID for the next step.

Step 4: Enable & Setup SignIn Method on Firebase Console

Head over to the Firebase Console and go to the Authentication » Sign-in Method tab. Enable Apple and enter the required details.

Step 5: Frontend Implementation

We now have all the pieces in place to implement SignIn with Apple into our web app. Because this is Firebase, it only requires a few lines of code. Assuming you have firebase installed in your project, simply make a reference to the provider and call signInWithPopup().

import * as firebase from "firebase/app";

const auth = firebase.auth(); async signInWithApple() {

const provider = new firebase.auth.OAuthProvider('apple.com');

const result = await auth.signInWithPopup(provider);

console.log(result.user); // logged-in Apple user

}

Hooray!!, Now you can authenticate your application using Apple.

Say Hi, It’s free at @matheswaaran_S or https://matheswaaran.com
OfficeBeats — Trello Mix Vol. 2
Tags: Music, Dj

It’s been over a year since I’ve released a studio mix. My interest in music production began with house music and when I came across an early DJ Tiesto mix named “Live at Innercity 99” my life was completely changed and I aspired to be a DJ as well.

This is my latest creation…ENJOY

Tracklist:
Health Insurance Premiums Are Rocketing — Here’s How to Keep Yours Low
By: Frederik Bussler
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Health Insurance, Data Science, Insurance, Data Analysis

Insurers are in a world of hurt, as premium income will decline 3x as much this year as in the Great Recession¹.

At the same time, health insurance premiums are expected to rise as much as 40% as costs shift to consumers². Premiums vary from person to person, and as it turns out, there are factors you can control.

I explored an insurance dataset³ from the US Census Bureau to find attributes that impact premiums. Previously, I analyzed an insurance churn dataset, finding that a major reason for insurance churn is simply high premiums.

Here’s how to lower your health insurance premiums.

1. Don’t Smoke 🚭

Smoking kills over 480,000 Americans a year⁴ — twice as many as the worst-case estimates for COVID-19 in 2020.

Insurers know this, and they make smokers pay dearly for their deadly habit. Uploading the data to the analytics tool Apteo, we can see that the average non-smoker pays a reasonable premium of $7,435, while the average smoker has a mind-blowing premium of $34,440.
How to setup Google Payments to pay for Cryptonite anti-phishing security service
By: Paul Walsh
Tags: Chrome, Cybersecurity, Security, Blockchain, Google

Some Cryptonite users are complaining that they are unable to pay for the service. Google Payment is a bit of a pain, so I apologize for having to use this payment method. We will look at implementing a more convenient payment system in the near year — when we can dedicate more time and resources to the project.

Below are instructions that must be followed in order to be able to pay for Cryptonite. I have also included instructions on how to use Cryptonite on multiple computers using the same account.

Using Cryptonite on multiple computers

To use Cryptonite on multiple computers, follow the steps above — making sure you sign into the same account that you used to pay for Cryptonite. Make sure you turn on sync or Chrome won’t know that you’ve already paid for Cryptonite.

After you have signed into the same Google Account and turned on sync, install Cryptonite. Don’t install Cryptonite and then sign into Google — that might not work.

Cryptonite is built for desktop browsers

Cryptonite does not work on iPhone or Android devices — it’s a desktop browser extension. You can however, request access to our email security service that offers the same level of protection for your native (pre-installed) email client https://metacert.com/email ← if you like Cryptonite wait until you see this working.

If you REALLY want to pay in crypto

If you have serious difficulty in paying for the service using Google Payments, you can use crypto. To enquire about using crypto please send a private message to Billy on Telegram — https://t.me/RobotComms ← Billy will NEVER DM you unless you message him first. You can also connect with Billy on Slack — the link can be found at the bottom of metacertprotocol.com

If you still have problems trying to pay for Cryptonite please contact us through our ticketing system — it’s the fastest way to get help.

Get Support Here.
NE-YO RELEASES “MORE THAN I SHOULD”
Tags: Candice Boyd, Music, Press Release, Ne Yo, Ravaughn Brown

NE-YO is officially on SoundCloud, and releasing a barrage of music preceding his new project.

GRAMMY-award winning icon, NE-YO, has a new album on the horizon… But before he gets to all that he’s taken to SoundCloud to release a few records that didn’t quiet make the project. So far we’ve received “Earn Your Love”, a remix of Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble,” and now, an original ‘audio soap opera’ called “More Than I Should” — which highlights a platonic love tryst gone awry.

“The only thing that matters even more than the music is the story you tell. “

Listen to NE-YO’s “More Than I Should,” featuring Candice Boyd and RaVaugh Brown here: https://soundcloud.com/ne-yo/more-than-i-should
Understanding Python Dictionaries
By: Sadrach Pierre
Tags: Data Science, Python, Technology, Programming, Software Development

In python, a dictionary is a data structure that contains an unordered collection of key/value pairs. In this post, we will discuss how to define and work with dictionaries in python.

Let’s get started!

Dictionaries in python are defined using curly braces ‘{}’. We will start by defining a dictionary that contains two keys. The first key will be called ‘News’ and it will map to a list of news article headlines. The second key will be called ‘Clicks’ and it will map to a list with the number of times the article was clicked :

news_dict = {"News":["Selling Toilet Paper During the Pandemic", "How to Reopen Gyms?", "Covid-19 Risk Based on Blood Type?"] , "Clicks":[100, 500, 10000] }

If we print our dictionary, we have:
Makeshift Movement
Tags: Poetry, Photography, Audible Sundays, Life Lessons, Music

Audible Sundays

Makeshift Movement

The beauty of co-existence lives nonspecifically. We are not the sum of our parts, nor have our parts ever been the sum of who we are. Our individual experiences come in different shapes, gravitating over the storied illusion of permanence. Dark days and bright nights take their hold on us. When excitement entangles too tightly, we break apart again… falling like free particles into the makeshift movement below us.

Words and photography by LB © 2020
How Google delivers Defense in Depth?
By: Priyanka Vergadia
Tags: Security, Cloud Computing, Data, Cybersecurity, Cloud

How does Google Cloud’s multi-layer defense work?

The hardware is Google controlled, built and hardened.

Any application binary that runs on Google infrastructure is deployed securely.

There is no assumption of any trust between services, and multiple mechanisms are used to establish and maintain trust — the infrastructure was designed to be multi-tenant from the beginning.

All identities, users and services, are strongly authenticated.

Data stored on Google’s infrastructure is automatically encrypted at rest and distributed for availability and reliability.

Communications over the Internet to Google Cloud services are encrypted.

The scale of the infrastructure allows to absorb many Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, and there are multiple layers of protection that further reduce the risk of any DDoS impact.

The operations teams detect threats and respond to incidents 24 x 7 x 365.

Intrigued? Here is a whitepaper on the Google Infrastructure Design that goes into all of these areas in significant detail.

How Google delivers Defense in Depth?

BeyondCorp — Google’s Zero trust security model for your apps

Now that you know how Google Cloud implements layered defense in depth for its infrastructure, let us throw some light on how to create the same zero trust model for your own apps on Google Cloud.

For your applications on Google Cloud, you can apply BeyondCorp, which is Google’s implementation of the zero trust security model. The idea is that you shift access controls from the network perimeter to individual users and devices. BeyondCorp allows employees, contractors, and other users to work more securely from virtually any location without the need for a traditional VPN. This provides the access control that you need to protect the apps and the data within your environment.

Conclusion

Defense is depth is a concept to secure your data and apps. In this article we saw how Google protects its infrastructure using multiple layers of defense and by apply zero trust model at each layer. Additionally by applying BeyondCorp principles you can shift access control to the users instead of network perimeter and protect your apps & data.

Resources

To learn more about security on Google Cloud, check out this link to the detailed security whitepaper.

Want more GCP Comics? Visit gcpcomics.com & follow me on Medium, and on Twitter to not miss the next issue!
Questions on Life
By: Marisa Hoenig
Tags: Life, Thoughts, Society, Philosophy, Lifestyle

What’s the point? What’s the joy in writing to change one person’s life? What’s the impact of studying for years? What’s the true value of the money we earn and the gifts we give? Is everything just the sum of the love we give and receive? Why do we chase the silliest dreams?

And, how did we even become who we are? How did this world evolve into what it is, with beautiful buildings and extraordinary people and the most wonderful grass and air and sky?

How did someone invent carnivals and ice cream? How did they dream up this device that connects my words to the world? When will the innovation stop? Will it stop? Will the world ever stop?

Is life a series of levels where one lifetime ends and we’re transported into an alternate universe? If so, who knows about it? Is this why we have shows like “Doctor Who” and movies like “The Avengers”? Are they built upon the reality of an alternate time?

What’s the point of all this? What’s the point of anything?

Hmm. I know some religions cover these questions, but I am eternally curious about the possibilities. I would love to say I know these answers. I would love to hand them to you and solve your worries and troubles.

But, I think part of the beauty of life is figuring it out. We don’t know what’s going to happen. We don’t know why everything is the way it is. Instead, we receive the opportunity to impart small bits of our love and knowledge onto the world and change it in tiny ways. One piece of writing inspires someone who’s stuck in a pickle. One kind gesture encourages another to pursue their most impossible dream.

No matter what we do, the world will keep spinning. I think that’s reassuring to know — no matter what we do, the world will continue. No matter how bad of a mistake we think we make, everything will be okay. No matter how much we succeed and strive, things will continue, maybe even for the better. We can shout into this void and try our best — try to make a difference. And we will. Our efforts will move mountains, even when we don’t realize they do.

We’ll keep thinking, evolving, creating, writing, and being human. It’s all we can do. Keep searching for the answers to those questions. Keep being human.

(Unless you’re an alien of course — in which case, ignore all of the above and impart your wisdom on me, thank you.)
Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic with data and context
By: Chris Von Csefalvay
Tags: Open Data, Covid 19, Coronavirus, Data Science, Data Visualization

The COVID-19 outbreak is in many ways an outlier. It emerged with unusual speed, spread rapidly throughout the globe and has elicited a public health response that is unprecedented in recent history. Yet this time, humanity faces a pandemic with a wealth of information that would have been unimaginable just a few brief years ago. Writing for ZDNet, Larry Dignan referred to this outbreak as the most visualized pandemic ever, and the sheer number of data sets available — some more accurate, timely and reliable than others — to the general public is staggering. Yet in data, as in all narrative endeavors, context is everything.Each new data source we add to the free-of-charge, public data set provides additional context. Each new source is vetted for accuracy. The data is collated, unified and normalized. Internal keying around the same widely used conventions — e.g. normalization of country names to ISO 3166–1 names and country codes — facilitates going beyond individual data sources and enables users to extract meaning and information from the raw data itself regardless of which data set it came from.

Choropleth map of U.S. counties by relative ICU demand from COVID-19, calculated as the number of cases per fully staffed ICU beds (2018).

Our recent visualization illustrating the cases as a function of staffed intensive care unit (ICU) is an example of this context. Only data unified along the same primary keys and carefully curated for data quality can create the contextual understanding that is needed in this situation. By seeing cases in the context of the underlying healthcare system, public health planners can anticipate whether healthcare capacity will be exceeded in a particular location and enterprises can track the movement of COVID-19, assess supply chain risks and evaluate strategic options.As an epidemiologist, I know first-hand that a pandemic can often feel like a sweeping turmoil, and curated, cleaned data is indispensable for data-driven decision-making. Models and decisions are only as good as the data supporting them.

The data set is freely available, and accessible via S3 as well as on Snowflake Data Exchange. We hope we can contribute by providing more information and clarity over merely providing more data. In the end, it is that information and clarity that will make all the difference.
Sony’s PS5 Greets Londoners In Lockdown
By: Vinita Ramtri
Tags: Creativity, Innovation, Videogames, Technology, Advertising

Eric Lempel’s Promise

Rumours regarding the PS5’s launch go as far back as 2017 when fans were lining up at stores. Later, in an interview with Geoff Keighley, Sony’s Eric Lempel dispelled the rumour promising ‘we’ll let you know…it’s not going to happen at a minute’s notice.’ If the recent adverts are anything to go by, Lempel has truly delivered on this promise.

The Theme

Sony’s entire campaign pivots on the human spirit of exploration with top adverts reminding us that exploration is in our DNA.

Featuring adventurers such as Amelia Earhart, first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and Mae C Jemison, the first black woman to travel into space on space shuttle named Endeavour, the adverts pay tribute to their spirit to discover the unknown, ‘see what’s never been seen and hear what’s never been heard.’

‘Ultimately we chose to spotlight these groundbreaking explorers,’ said Lempel, in an interview with Business Insider.

Sony’s Advert for PS5

The theme aligns fully with the added features to the PS5. Here in this little clip, you can explore the added adventure that new features such as haptic feedback, 3D audio and adaptive triggers will afford to the fans!

Tweet by @EricFossum

The Recent Adverts

The projections kicked off in California on 12 November 2020 and after being showcased in 25 locations, including Tokyo, New York, Auckland, Seoul and Dubai, they culminated at London’s famous Piccadilly Square on 19 November 2020.

Also, as part of the campaign, they delighted commuters with PS5’s adverts at the London Underground and that on a lockdown morning in Central London by replacing the iconic roundels with the PS5's shapes.

You might have thought that given the lockdown and reduced footfall particularly in central london, they might have picked virtual options such as maybe partnering with Google’s iconic logo. But given the entire spirit of exploration, this totally makes sense and that too, at the footsteps of Microsoft’s flagship Oxford Street Store.

As per the brand’s own tweet, they gave the Oxford Circus signs an upgrade taking it from one iconic shape to four using the four shapes from PS5’s DualSense controller.

And fan’s are lapping it up. While we’re here, have a look at this one!

Although the signage lasted only two days, a few stations have been renamed as part of the same campaign and those will last until mid-December.

Mile End station is now being rebranded Miles End, in a nod to Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Lancaster Gate is being rebranded Ratchet and Clankaster Gate, Seven Sisters transformed into Gran Turismo 7 Sisters, and West Ham into Horizon Forbidden West Ham.
How to create navigation in Angular 9 Application using Angular Router
Tags: Angular, JavaScript, Typescript, HTML, Router

This article will demonstrate the proper way to create page navigation leveraging routing features provided by the Angular 9 framework.

1 — Create a new Angular 9 application

First let’s create a simple Angular 9 application which we will use for the demonstration purposes of how to create page navigation.

If you want a detailed step-by-step tutorial showing you how to create a new Angular 9 application, I have written an article that details the process. You can see it here:

Run the following command in you VScode terminal:

ng new Navigation

and follow the prompts on the screen. When prompted with the following question:

“Would you like to add Angular routing? (y/N)”

You need to choose the yes option. This will include the AppRoutingModule and imports it into the AppModule of the Angular application. If you accidentally chose no, you can always add it after the fact via the CLI using the following command:

ng generate module app-routin --flat --module=app

Creating the application will take few minutes to download all of the necessary dependencies. Once the application is completed successfully you will get a prompt in the terminal indicating so.

2 — Test

As noted previously, the AppRoutingModule is automatically included in the app.module.ts file. This makes the AppRoutingModule available application wide. In the screenshot below you will notice that the AppRoutingModule is included in the imports inside the @NgModule decorator.
On creating synergies
By: Pedro Brandão
Tags: Strategy, Technology, Business, Design

Enter Coletiv. They are a new tech company that approached us and we both saw an opportunity to create something special without compromising our identity.

Coletiv’s vision aligns perfectly with ours: to deliver quality driven products.

The first project we took together ran perfectly fine. Their developers are not only excellent coders but they actually fit like a glove within our culture.

Even though they are hardcore technical people with no design background, we all get along pretty well as we understand the value in each other.

By bringing everyone together in the same physical space we bring new perspectives to the table, create dialogue between different thought processes allowing us to keep things fresh. There’s also undeniable value in having close contact and merging teams together to fulfil the shared goals of a project, allowing us all to push the limits but, at the same time, adapt and pivot quickly around limitations.

By keeping things separate, we allow each other to keep focus on what we do best. It allows us all to become the best on what we love to do instead of trying to absorb every know-how into a single entity that wouldn’t correctly represent who we are. It allows everyone to grow at their own pace and to their own vision while keeping all the advantages of having no gap between design and development, the ability to share processes and, together, an overall amazing capability of being able to take on any kind of project — no matter how challenging it is.
Köstner’sche Intelligenz
By: Vlad Alex, Merzmensch
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Merznlp, Art, Published Narrative

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Installing and Running Tensorflow-GPU using Anaconda on Windows
By: Ekemini Okpongkpong
Tags: Anaconda, Python, Windows 10, Deep Learning, TensorFlow

Installing and Running Tensorflow-GPU using Anaconda on Windows

How to install Tensorflow-GPU on Windows 10

Requirements; Anaconda, A PC with Windows 10 OS, Internet connection and at least 1GB of data.

1. Run Anaconda

If you do not have Anaconda installed, you can download it from here and install then search for Anaconda in the Windows search bar. Run the Navigator and Anaconda prompt.

2. Create an Environment

You can create a new environment by typing the following command on Anaconda Prompt.

conda create -n gputensorflow python=3.7

For the purpose of this article, the environment name is gputensorflow and we’re installing python version 3.7, you can choose any environment name.

3. Activate the Environment

conda activate gputensorflow

4. Install the ipykernel

To install the kernel, enter the following command;

pip install ipykernel

Then:

python –m ipykernel install --user --name gputensorflow --display-name “gputensorflow”

5. Installing Tensorflow-GPU

conda install tensorflow-gpu

Anaconda installs Tensorflow-GPU and a number of libraries. This may take a longer time than other installations.

6. Restart your PC (optional)

7. Run Anaconda and the TensorFlow environment

When you open the Anaconda Navigator, click on the arrow beside the “Applications on” and click on your environment.

8. Launch Jupyter Notebook

You should have something like this 👇

There you go, you can now create your Neural Networks and other stuff with TensorFlow. You can also install other libraries.

I hope the article was helpful, If you encountered any challenge while following the steps, you can send a Direct Message to me on Twitter or drop a comment in the Response section.
The Pond
By: Matthew Donnellon
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Creative Writing, Creativity, Poetry, Life

Written by

Matthew Donnellon is a writer, artist, and sit down comedian. He is the author of The Curious Case of Emma Lee and Other Stories.
What Not to Do When Preparing for Technical Interviews
By: David Peletz
Tags: Life Lessons, Software Engineering, Business, Data Science, Technology

What Not to Do When Preparing for Technical Interviews

Mistakes I’ve made preparing for technical interviews

Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash

Technical interviews can be super challenging. Very few people enjoy getting in front of a whiteboard to solve a tough coding question. That said, many companies use technical interviews in their hiring process for software engineers. Throughout college, I’ve spent a lot of time preparing for technical interviews and I want to go over some of the main mistakes that I made so that you can hopefully avoid them in your preparation.

The most detrimental mistakes I made are:
Traceability of information — Master your data capital
By: Ella William
Tags: Analytics, Big Data, Traceability, Data Science, Data Visualization

The democratization of data access and usage in the enterprise is underway. Establishing data governance and organization-wide information management becomes a must.

Metadata management allows the end-to-end traceability, from data sourcing to data consumption. This traceability is required for personal data by regulations such as GDPR.

Read More
Small Data vs Big Data
By: Yash Joshi
Tags: Big Data, Data Science, Data Analysis

Other than 3V’s!

Well, it is common and you all must be aware that Big Data is mainly defined by 3V’s i.e, variety, velocity, and volume.

VOLUME: The amount of data is huge.

VARIETY: Contains multiple forms of data.

VELOCITY: Huge amount of streaming data is continuously analyzed in near real-time.

But there is something more that differentiates big data from small data. Let’s have a look over these:

GOAL: Small data helps to accomplish a single task by analyzing the data. Whereas in Big data, the goal evolves and redirects to some unexpected situations. We can have one specific goal in the beginning over time it changes.

Large data is distributed across different servers over the cloud.

LOCATION: Small data is located usually in one place in a single file in either a database or a local PC. But big data is spread across multiple servers over the cloud in multiple locations.

STRUCTURE: Big data can be semi-structured or unstructured across many sources as compared to structured small data which is available in a single table.

DATA PREPARATION: Small data is usually prepared by end-users for their own specific goals. So the person who is putting the data knows the use of it and what to get from data. On the other hand, big data is prepared by a group of people who may not be the end-users. So, the coordination required to process the data is very much advanced.

Big data, big storage

LONGEVITY: Small data can be kept for a limited amount of time or we can say till the project lasts. But infinite time storage is the requirement for big data.

REPRODUCIBILITY: If by chance a data is lost or having any faults then it can be made again in case of small data, but replication in big data is not feasible. So any bad data if to be removed should be carefully studied and analyzed before deleting.

STAKES RISK: In small data the risks are limited. Whereas in big data, risks are enormous as money, manpower, material, and time involved are high.

INTROSPECTION: We get well organized, individual data points that are easy to locate with clear metadata giving clear information of all the columns in case of small data. But in big data, many files in many formats can be difficult to locate. If not properly documented then it’s difficult to interpret the data.

Many different forms of analysis can be performed based on a variety of data.

ANALYSIS: Small data can be analyzed in one procedure on one machine. Whereas big data may need to be broken apart, analyzed in steps using different methods in distributed environments.

Well, these were some more differences other than the major 3V’s which I thought of sharing!

Hope you like the content!
10 Tips to Ramp Up New Developers
By: Jenn Greene
Tags: Leadership, Programming, Software Development, Startup, Learning To Code

1. Reduce Context Switch Before the Task Is Completed

This all makes sense and is reasonable until deadlines approach. Chances are, you always have managers to report to or customers to respond to. A missed deadline would be a sour blemish on your performance report. Whenever I see newly hired developers still trying to understand the code base mere days away from the deadline, I have to fight the urge to ask them to push whatever they have and complete it myself.

Think back to the time when you started as a junior developer. How often were you assigned to work on a project only to be told to switch to another one while a senior took over your original project?

We have to be aware that switching context is detrimental to ramping up new developers. It is a trade-off that most people overlook. Consider pairing with the new developer to get the tasks done before the deadline.

Unless you have enough people working on a project, the productivity of a lean team will always dip before it can climb up again. Many project managers or non-tech business decision-makers assume that hiring more developers is a direct causation of higher productivity. We should be actively communicating this.
The 3 Different Generations of Piano Players That Come to Fort Collins
By: Zay Reyes
Tags: Downtown, Players, Instruments, Piano, Music

FORT COLLINS — Clashing xylophones, the bellows of kids screaming, combined with water trickling down the statue of eagles sets the stage for many casual pianists in Fort Collins. Pianos can be found downtown and other various locations in the city thanks to the Bohemian Foundation and other charitable organizations, but the piano in the heart of downtown by our ice skating rink is for all intents and purposes the main hub. People of all ages flock to play these beautiful instruments, most of the time with little to no hesitation. This ultimately begs the question, who are these performers?

Photo Credit: Zay Reyes

The Teachers

Jessie Mathews is a local music professor who has been teaching since 2009. He is well versed in the piano, but is mainly a trumpet player as he’s played it most of his life. He is a part of a music group called Guerrilla Fanfare which travels the Northern Colorado area performing. Jessie isn’t originally from Colorado but is fond of the pianos in our town.

I asked Jessie why he thinks the pianos in our town are important he responded with “It makes them(people of Fort Collins) feel things and life more enjoyable.”

The Students

Haven is a 12-year-old girl and Trevor is her 9-year-old brother the duo are advocates for music in public spaces. Trevor made it very clear that he was the better piano player out of the two since he has a couple of music classes under his belt. He likes to play “12 bars blues” which is a lengthy piece. I asked the two why they thought the pianos were a staple to the town. They responded by saying they don’t think Fort Collins would be the same without them.

The two are from out of town. So anytime they make the trip to Fort Collins, they continue to make it a priority to play the pianos whenever they come.

“Inspire people with music.” Trevor said when I asked him why he enjoys playing in these type of public areas.

The Travelers

This performance was distinctly different than the other two. As I listened to the performer I could sense a form passion in the moment. His name was Stefan and he is a 26-year-old man from Serbia. He’s never been to Colorado before, let alone Fort Collins, so when I asked him why he decided to play I was struck by the simplicity of his answer.

“I saw it, liked it and thought; ‘why not I haven’t tried this in awhile’.”

He proceeded to go about how he’s only seen pianos in public spaces when he was in Europe. “People over there value art and music. In America, it’s more mass produced.”

Hopefully this is a sign of change, and more cities and states start to adapt this movement.

Photo Credit: Zay Reyes

It’s no secret that people of all ages around Fort Collins love their pianos. Each piano comes with a unique design to them and are painted by local artists. In fact, the pianos about town program is currently looking for new artist for this year so if you’d like to apply, find out more information here.
Javascript: How You Can Implement a Stack in 3 Mins
Tags: Angular, JavaScript, React, Vue, Data Structures

YOOHOO…Champ! You made it this far! You are absolutely amazing

Let’s use the stack class

The first thing we have to do is to instantiate the stack class we created.

//instantiating the stack

let stack = new Stack()

Next, we can add some items (we push 1 and 2, we can push any item to the stack)

//pushing a new item to stack

stack.Push(1)

stack.Push(2)

Next, we can go ahead to test if the items were added to the stack. This should return false.

//returns false

console.log(stack.isEmpty());

Let’s go ahead and call the peek method, we would get 2 this is because it’s the last element added to the stack.

//returns 2

Console.log(stack.Peek());

Let’s go ahead and add one item to the stack.

//adds 3 to the stack

stack.Push(3);

Let’s check the size to confirm how many items are in our stack.

//out puts 3

console.log(stack.Size());

Let’s print all the items in our stack

//returns [1,2,3]

Stack.Print()

Let’s go ahead and remove the item from the stack

//removes each item from the stack

Stack.Pop()

Stack.Pop()

Stack.Pop()

Let’s check once again if it’s empty
How to plot percentage-filled text using Python
By: Muhammad Iqbal Tawakal
Tags: Python, Data Visualization, Data Science

Several weeks ago, a colleague of mine showed a lovely plot to display a value for certain group of data. I can’t show you the number because it’s work related, but here’s the snapshot of the plot.

Believe me guys, there’s supposed to be number beside each plot!

In my opinion, this is brilliant. It is aesthetically pleasing, and the key message gets reinforced and emphasised not only once, but twice, using different level of height and shade of color. You can also see the trend/progress from different segment. (What do you mean that you can use barplot to get the same effect? Where’s the fun in that? #newyearnewviz).

However, this is carefully handcrafted using world best image and graphic processing software, Microsoft Powerpoint. That way, when the value is changed, then you need to manually update the plot. Definitely not ideal because it can be time consuming for frequently updated data.

This is something that can be done programmatically and because I can’t seem to find any ready-to-use implementation in the net, let’s code it by ourselves! What better way to celebrate new year than creating new visualization function?

The basic idea is pretty simple. First, create a mask that select only the letter pixel. Then, create a second mask to select all the pixel up to certain height. Finally combined them both using logical AND operator to produce the final mask. Of course, the devil is in the detail. In order to be able to do that, you need some inner working knowledge of multidimensional numpy array indexing. The whole idea is implemented into function below.

Pardon for not being the most graceful piece of code in the net

The full function can be found in this repo https://github.com/mitbal/sidu/blob/master/plot_filled_text.ipynb. You can also customize the color to represent your company (red for Bukalapak, green for Tokopedia, for example). What? You also want the size of the text to be variable also? Fork the repo and go hack it yourself.

Some examples

And more example. How wonderful it will be if the conversion rate increase by absolute 10% for each cohort year

Happy new year!
Tonight’s comic is somehow sick of podcasts.
Tags: People, Humor, Comics, Life, Podcast

in From the Desk of the Nerd Legion