fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
F# — Pipe Forward and Pipe Backward
By: Yan Cui
Tags: Functional Programming, Programming

I’m taking a bit of time to brush up my knowledge of F# and see if I can write better F# code and one of the things I notice is that whilst I use pipe-forward operator (|>) often when working with collections I don’t nearly use the pipe-backward operator (<|) as frequently as I should. It makes sense as the pipe-forward operator works similar to the way LINQ and IEnumerable works, just to remind myself and others like me how these work:

Pipe-forward operator (|>)

Pipe-forward operator lets you pass an intermediate result onto the next function, it’s defined as:

let (|>) x f = f x

For instance, to apply a filter (i.e. IEnumerable.Where) for even numbers to a list of integers from 1 to 10, you can write:

You can add further processing steps to this intermediate result:

Forward composition operator (>>)

The forward composition operator lets you ‘compose’ functions together in a way similar to the way the pipe-forward operator lets you chain function delegates together, it is defined as:

let (>>) f g x = g (f x)

Now imagine if you have two functions:

You can use them to build a high-order function that returns triples the square of a float, n, using the >> operator:

This is syntactically cleaner and easier to read than:

and it’s especially useful when chaining together a large number of functions.

Pipe-backward operator (<|)

The pipe-backward operator takes a function on the left and applies it to a value on the right:

let (<|) f x = f x

As unnecessary as it seems, the pipe-backward operator has an important purpose in allowing you to change operator precedence without those dreaded parentheses everywhere and improve readability of your code,.

For example:

can be written as

Backward composition operator (<<)

The inverse of the forward composition operator, the << operator takes two functions and applies the right function first and then the left, it’s defined as:

let (<<) f g x = f (g x)

Mostly I find it more suitable than the forward composition operator in cases where you want to negate the result of some function, for example, to find the odd numbers in a list:
Food for Thought
By: Patsy Starke
Tags: LGBTQ, Resistance, Transgender, BlackLivesMatter, Resistance Poetry

A poem for us,

and wouldn’t it be sad

and selfish,

If I wrote this poem for me.

One color,

One view, of stormy seas.

Drowning alone,

all without you.

We march,

with each other

and for each person.

A rainbow of humanity.

This poem is for you,

which makes it for us.

Food for our souls.

Eat, consume, all there is.

So we may live,

together.

A world with many colors.

Let us partake as children.

Innocent

trusting

without hatred,

who give away their poems.

For free and for freedom.
Atheists Aren’t the Bogeymen You’ve Been Told They Are.
By: Jonathon Howard
Tags: Atheism, Life, Religion

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0SqlG8_gVY&feature=player_detailpage]

This has been doing the rounds at atheism focused blogs. DiMortuiSunt, despite the title, is not really about atheism, though that is how I identify myself when people ask.

The nice thing about this video is that it shows that atheists aren’t the bogeymen religious leaders want you to think they are. They’re your neighbors and friends and they want the same thing out of life everyone wants: happiness.
Touch
By: Shipra Gupta
Tags: Touch Prompt, Poetry, Poetry Under Cover

I feel the sensation

When you roll your fingers over me

Heart starts beating fast,

Breath, deep and vast

You go beneath and touch my soul

I get crazy and can’t control

You grab me, squeeze me

mixed feelings are there,

Sweet pain with immense pleasure

We wrap each other

Like body under cover

We go ever deeper

Excitement lit the fire and we burn making love desire…
I Know There’s An Argument To Be Made That Demons Are Nobody’s Friends, But…
By: Joe Garza
Tags: Satire, Humor, Weird, Comedy, Funny

A modest pitch.

Look, I know demons and devils and incubi and succubi and what have you frighten the buh-Jesus out of a lot of people, especially those of the Judeo-Christian persuasion.

And, generally, for good reason.

However.

HOWEVER.

Letting the occasional malignant spirit into your mortal frame has some benefits that are often overlooked in discussions about exorcism. As someone who’s not under the influence of a hellish fiend at this exact moment (praise to you, Satan!) I can honestly and un-possessedly tell you that being a Bed & Breakfast for Beelzebub is actually pretty cool.

Check it out! (By the way, Satan have pity on my long despair!)

Sometimes It’s Good To Just Take A Break From Your Earthly Vessel

Do you ever just look around your existence and reality itself and think, “man, I wish a devilish imp could use my vessel as an Uber ride so I can take a metaphysical breather from my earthly responsibilities?”

I mean, whose brain HASN’T thought that thought?

That’s why I keep my commercial demon on speed dial, and let me tell you, having Captain Howdy on retainer has been quite the godsend. So to speak. (Ahem.)

But you’re probably wondering what happens to your soul when a hellion is taking your person for a mischievous test drive, which brings me to my next point:

I Hear Hell Is Nice This Time Of Year

Look, I know Hell gets a bad rap from all of those movies about what it’s like to die and be sent to the underworld; Hellraiser, Drag Me To Hell, All Dogs Go To Heaven 1 AND 2, etc.

But look, Captain Howdy gave me an informative pamphlet (printed on the skin of a virgin cannibal, no less!), and Inferno really looks like a charming place to rent a timeshare.

With decapitated head bocce ball courts, nightly performances of Rosemary’s Baby: The Musical Revue, and both indoor AND outdoor volcano pools — hell, it’s fun for the whole family, for Christ’s sake!

Also, the crowds are much smaller than All Dogs Go To Heaven 2 would have you believe.

You’ll Make Way More Selling Your Soul To A Demon Than Selling It On eBay

Are those pesky student loan debts still eating away at your credit? Are you trying to save up for a luxury cruise to the Bahamas? Has that Mafia bookie put a bounty on your head because of the money you owe him AND because you slept with his wife AND mistress?

Yeah, I hear ya, buddy. Things are tough all over.

Luckily, all of your money problems can disappear in a puff of crimson smoke and a whiff of sulfur.

All you gotta do is pony up one measly soul — yours or that of your firstborn, whichever is more convenient — and kiss your terrestrial financial obligations goodbye. Demons guarantee top dollar for every soul, whether it’s that of a serial killer or a nun!

Plus, tell them I sent you, and they’ll throw in a free curse to be put on the bowels of one of your mortal enemies! What a steal!
ก.ล.ต แห่งประเทศไทยกล่าวเตือนผู้ลงทุน Token ดิจิทัลของ DB hold ให้ระมัดระวัง
Tags: Bitcoin, ICO, Thailand, News, Articles

Bitkub.com is a new generation digital asset and cryptocurrency exchange platform that offers advanced cryptocurrency exchange services

Follow
Xenu, Intergalactic Overlord, Returns to Earth
By: Ruben Bolling
Tags: Religion, Scientology

Sign up for Taking Stock of COVID: New comics from The Nib

By The Nib

New comics from Matt Lubchansky, Keith Knight, and Niccolo Pizarro. Plus How Seniors Are Living With COVID-19. Take a look
2019: Formosa Financial寶島金融迎接嶄新的一年
Tags: Blockchain, Vision, 2019, Updates, Fintech

in In Fitness And In Health
Young People Can Save Air Travel. When Will They?
By: Jess Watts
Tags: Covid 19, Travel, Gen Z, Corona, Millennials

Super-Travelers: Desire is Strong, but their Timelines Vary

Ilana lives in NYC — blocks away from the eerily silent stretch of Time Square — in the hardest-hit area for COVID-19 cases in the country. Before the outbreak she was what I would call a super traveler. I have never known her to not be planning at least two trips at any given moment, so, being grounded has been especially hard on her. “I honestly have no idea when I’ll travel again, and it’s breaking my soul,” she told me. I know she means it. I asked her whether she would have any trepidation about traveling again after experiencing the crisis that she’s living through in New York. “For me the worry is less so about going to certain countries — like Georgia or Vietnam, for example, which are doing much better and are safer than NYC. It’s more so that I have no idea how America is going to handle it, and I’ll be able to leave.” The fear is not unfounded. The European Union banned travelers from the United States. Still, Ilana is optimistic. “The second I get a glimpse that things are becoming normal, I will book a trip within seconds. ”

“The second I get a glimpse that things are becoming normal, I will book a trip within seconds.”

Larissa can sympathize with Ilana’s outlook. She is also an avid-traveler who recently experienced the apex of COVID-19, but from a European hotbed.

Larissa had imagined a year abroad in the Italian region of Piedmont, learning about culinary anthropology first-hand. But now, classes are held in a familiar state-side living room in Piedmont, California at 5 AM, in order to accommodate her Italian instructors and international peers that she left behind. When COVID-19 decimated the region she flew home right before total lockdown…but not without making a stop for a week in Lyon, and a trip to London. After COVID-19, her future travel plans might not look anything like this. “I might pick less popular destinations, and maybe hop around less from city to city. And maybe doing more local travel instead of far flung destinations every time.”

Larissa would be in good company with the over one million members of Girls Love Travel, a Facebook group of self-proclaimed travel junkies, myself included.* A majority said they would be traveling local or domestically first, seeking out National Parks, campsites, or good routes for road-trips. The sporadic nature of COVID-19 might spell the end of Millennials who multi-hop — going to additional scenic locations just to “do it for the ‘gram.” The social-media grand-tours of multiple country-stops may be replaced for a more focused type of travel.

Many of my 100 GLT respondents said they wouldn’t travel until there was a vaccine, some put a year on it (2021–2025). Others optimistically intended to take existing trips slated for the fall or winter, hoping that it just might be out of the reach of the virus. Even among diehards, there is an air of wait-and-see.
ECMAScript 6 คืออะไร ? + สอนวิธีใช้
By: Suranart Niamcome
Tags: JavaScript, Babel, Highlight, Harmony, Coding

SiamHTML

The collection of articles for front-end developers
Having fun with NLP and Game of Thrones dialogues.
By: Christopher Martínez
Tags: Game of Thrones, NLP, Data Science, Data Visualization, Machine Learning

Having fun with NLP and Game of Thrones dialogues.

Who is the most central character to the series?

Intro.

The final season is upon us! Winter is finally here! So I wanted to play a little with the dialogues to calm my hype for the next season.

Have you ever wonder which character is the most influential? Who speaks the most? Who has more dialogues? Wich words are most used through the series? Who is the true protagonist? or maybe, is it possible for a computer to generate new dialogues for the show? This article will try to answer those questions.

Before anything I would like to mention these two guys whose work inspired a lot of what you are about to see, so please check their posts and their code as well:

Paras Chopra and Daniel E. Licht.

Disclaimer on data.

The dataset consists of 65 chapters of the series, not all seasons are complete, especially season 2, 3 and 4, all other seasons are complete. You can learn more about the technical aspects of gathering the data here.

Do more dialogues mean more words?

Barplot for dialogues

I plotted the top 20 characters with most dialogues and with a higher count of words and we can clearly see the Tyrion indeed never shuts up, with more than a thousand dialogues and an average of 16 words per dialogue is the most talkative character by far.

Barplot for words

Indeed dialogues and words are related and the top 20 characters barely changed from one plot to another, one interesting change is that of the Lannisters, who speak more words per dialogue.

Let’s check that distribution of words per dialogue.

Distribution of words per dialogue of top 5 characters.

Jon Snow is a man of few words, his plot is almost flat, very similar to that of Daenerys, the Lannisters' plots are more robust, meaning more words every time they open their mouths.

Longest dialogue of the sample.

There is a big outlier in Jaime’s plot, so much bigger than the other 4, when I checked I realized that is the biggest of them all. The longest uninterrupted dialogue of our sample data is that of Jaime Lannister telling Brianne how he killed the Mad King back in season 3 with more than 350 words.

What our characters actually saying, is there a pattern?

I plotted the 60 most used words by the top 5 characters, I used NLTK to get rid of some very used words in the English language and some other words that will not bring any value to the plot like ‘King’, ‘ Lord’, ‘Sir’, etc.

Only the Lannisters have LOVE in their words and I think that really defines them as characters, their motivation is mostly passional. While the Starks like Jon and Ned fight because of duty and to save the world or Dany who is fighting because is her destiny and is pretty clear by the words she uses, she is a ruthless ruler; the Lannisters fight because of the people they love. I could also say that Game of Thrones is about a bunch of murderous people with extreme daddy issues.
Machine learning memes that make you ROFL
By: Chandrasekhar Gundluru
Tags: Deep Learning, Machine Learning Ai, Memes

Machine learning memes that make you ROFL

Take a break to smile

Most of these memes are quite related to me and I meet such scenarios while training the models and during the learning process. Remembering those situations with these memes made me smile instantly and I hope you guys will enjoy it.

These are Just LIT**
視角切換
Tags: Work, Bullshit

in In Fitness And In Health
Weekly Roundup: Magic show, shredding event, Assemblyman Joe Howarth
By: Melissa Riker
Tags: Magic, Community, New Jersey, Education

Weekly Roundup: Magic show, shredding event, Assemblyman Joe Howarth

Catch up on what happened this week in Medford.

The magic of giving back

Do you believe in magic?

Shawnee High School senior and magician Jake Strong invites you to his performance at the high school on March 15 at 7 p.m., showcasing the magic of giving back.

The show costs $10 to attend, with all proceeds benefiting Make-A-Wish New Jersey.

The full story can be found here.

Free shredding events for Burlington County residents

The Burlington County Board of Chosen Freeholders is hosting two shredding events this spring where residents of Burlington County can safely dispose of confidential documents.

“Spring is a great time to clear out confidential files. The Freeholder Board is here to help with two free county shredding events. Please mark your calendar now to take advantage of this great county service,” said Freeholder Director Tom Pullion.

The events will take place Sunday, March 24 and Sunday, April 28 at the Burlington County Resource Recovery Complex, 22000 Burlington-Columbus Road in Florence, NJ.

Burlington County Republican Committee drops support for Eighth District Assemblyman Joe Howarth

It’s another political shocker regarding one of the elected officials representing Shamong Township at the state level.

About a week and a half after state Sen. Dawn Addiego (NJ-8) announced she was switching from Republican to Democrat, the Burlington County Republican Committee announced the organization would not be endorsing incumbent Republican Assemblyman Joe Howarth (NJ-8) for re-election later this year.

In a Feb. 8 statement from Burlington County Republican Chairman Sean Earlen, Erlen said he and other party officials believed Howarth had made an “apparent attempt” to join Addiego in “defecting” when Earlen said Howarth cut off contact with Republican leaders in the days following Addiego’s announcement.

The full story can be found here.
Poate Timișoara să devină un centru antreprenorial în România?
By: Toma Grozăvescu
Tags: Sillicon Valley Romania, Timisoara, Antreprenoriat, Centru Antreprenorial

Founder & Growth Hacker @SMARTERS Romania, my purpose is to show people that it can be done.

Follow
Submit your story!
By: Fiction Hub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Short Story

The goal of this publication is to collect the most awesome fictional stories on Medium, and we always look for extraordinary stories to share with our readers.

To submit your story, post it on your Medium profile and send a link to fictionhub.io@gmail.com.

All fictional stories — science fiction, fantasy, comedy, short, long, serialized, etc are welcome. Our only rule — please submit only the stories you’re really proud of.

All accepted stories will be shared with our twitter followers. The best stories will be featured on our frontpage and sent to all of our subscribers in the weekly email digest.

To make it easier for us to feature your story, and to increase the amount of people who will read it, I recommend adding a beautiful illustration at the beginning of the story. Great places to find illustrations are ArtStation and DeviantArt. The best illustrations are appealing to look at, inspire curiosity, and represent the content of your story very well.

To every story we’re going to add footer that looks like this. It will help you, and us, to build our audience.

We’re looking forward to reading your stories!
Our Present World
By: Salihu Ibrahim
Tags: Short Story, Poem, Feelings, World, Poetry

Our Present World

Oh, dear what a world we live in, deep in my soul I don’t want to be a part of.

Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash

What a fake world we live in, you try to be real but find living hard.

Deceived by delusions, always chasing after unlimited wants that never seems to satisfy your desire.

Comparing your self to others, always trying to impress the same people that will always judge your every step.

Looking at what they have, just to envy and not find contentment

Oh my, look at our present world.
Automatic Changelog Generation for Your JavaScript Project or Library
By: Bassem Allani
Tags: Git, JavaScript, Npm Scripts, Github, Changelog

Having a changelog document informs teams and users about what changed and especially if there are any breaking changes that one needs to pay attention to when updating dependencies.

I made some research and found a few libraries that can be used to achieve my goal. I chose to go for generate-changelog for this because it’s quite easy to configure and use.

The general idea is that you will have to use specific keywords in your git commits that will then be parsed, appended to the CHANGELOG.md file and committed prior to upgrading the version (a script will automate this).

So, let’s put that in place. I’m using yarn for this tutorial but you could also use npm instead.

1. Install generate-changelog

Install this utility as a dev dependency by running this command:

$ yarn add -D generate-changelog

2. Configure the scripts

Add the following recommended scripts to the scripts object in your package.json file:

{

"scripts": {

"release:major": "changelog -M && git add CHANGELOG.md && git commit -m 'updated CHANGELOG.md' && yarn version --major && git push origin && git push origin --tags", "release:minor": "changelog -m && git add CHANGELOG.md && git commit -m 'updated CHANGELOG.md' && yarn version --minor && git push origin && git push origin --tags", "release:patch": "changelog -p && git add CHANGELOG.md && git commit -m 'updated CHANGELOG.md' && yarn version --patch && git push origin && git push origin --tags", }

}

3. Make some commits with keywords

Use this pattern when committing:

type(category): description [flags]

For example, after you have installed the generate-changelog dependency you could do:

$ git add .

$ git commit -m "feat(deps): added `generate-changelog` dev dependency"

Note: The supported type , category and flags are all listed in the Generate Changelog Usage section.

4. Run the script

Once you have finished all the work to be done for a specific version, run one of the scripts that we have added earlier in order to generate the CHANGELOG.md file, update the version and push to origin.

$ yarn release:major

Et voilà 🎉

You have made it! Check now the content of your CHANGELOG.md file and you will see that your commit has been added. Next time you run one of the release scripts, the commits will be automatically added to the top of the file. Amazing, isn’t it?

I created this specific Github repository for this tutorial that you can checkout.
Make Time For Living
By: Megan Minutillo
Tags: Life Lessons, Poetry On Medium, Poetry Sunday, Poetry, Mindfulness

Make Time For Living

A poem

Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

My friend Melissa says she makes

time for sunrises, and not sunsets.

She says she’s getting better at it,

though — taking the time to soak it

all in and let herself be drenched

in the morning sun.

She makes time for it, even when

it’s easier to stay snuggled under

the covers.

She stops moving long enough to

see the beauty that surrounds.

Can you say that you do the same?

How often do you rush a sunrise,

in anticipation of a sunset?

How often do you hold your breath

for something better, something

easier, something more exciting,

when in reality, there is often something

extraordinary blazing right in front of you?

I hope you make time for sunrises

and I hope you make time for sunsets.

I hope you stop to marvel at the fall

of the snow, and the way the ocean

hits across the shore, and how the

smell of coffee somehow makes all

of your cells feel alive and energized.

I hope you let your heart be moved by

passionate kissing and tender touches,

and knowing glances and long hugs.

I hope you make time for living.
The Thrilling Conclusion to the Homebound Bangs Saga
Tags: Internet, Humor, Comics, Videos, Friendship

That shutter is closed as hell

https://www.dieselsweeties.com/ics/1012/
In Appreciation of The Good Wife’s Jason Crouse
By: Kelli Marshall
Tags: Culture, Fanfiction, TV, The Good Wife, Television

Paul Newman’s eyes

Humphrey Bogart’s style

Lena Horne’s ferociousness

Greta Garbo’s face

Each of these downright lovely things is the subject of a fan’s appreciation.

For instance, NPR pays tribute to Newman’s “cobalt blue, piercing, intelligent” eyes, always “readable by the camera.” Esquire honors Bogart’s iconic thick-patterned bowties, double-breasted suits, and white tuxedo jackets.

Likewise, The Wrap commends Lena Horne for simultaneously “chewing up the scenery” onstage and relaying stories of Hollywood injustice. And literary theorist Roland Barthes adores the “perfect and ephemeral” face of Garbo, labeling it “an Event” in itself.

Alongside these classical Hollywood stars — and their attributes worthy of praise — we can feature a more recent name: Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

But not so fast…

Unlike the eyes of Paul Newman or the face of Garbo, it’s not a specific attribute of Morgan — his clothing, hair, gait, smile, or voice — about which we sing. After all, Jeffrey Dean Morgan in Supernatural and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in Grey’s Anatomy aren’t necessarily worthy of (our) admiration.

Move along. Nothing to sing about here… (Supernatural and Grey’s Anatomy).

But Jeffrey Dean Morgan in CBS’s acclaimed legal drama The Good Wife is a different story entirely.

Therefore, what is worthy of our praise — and on par with Newman’s eyes, Bogart’s style, Horne’s ferociousness, and Garbo’s face — is Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Jason Crouse.

Wait, why is this character deserving of such devotion, you ask?

Because in Jason Crouse, the writers of The Good Wife have essentially created the ideal (cis white) American man: smart, funny, sensitive, honest, mysterious, commanding, handsome, and sexy.

Well, hello there. Image: TVLine.com.

Jason, Meet Gary

Listen, if you told us Jason Crouse spoke 14 languages, had 12 Black Belts in different martial arts traditions, ran a food pantry in Chicago, was a Navy Seal, owned the anniversary boxset of Pride and Prejudice starring Mr. Colin Firth (and if you asked Jason about it, he’d tell you he too loved the lake/wet shirt scene), and was at church with his mama (cause Jason has a mama, not a mom, not a ma, not a mother, but a MAMA) every Christmas and Mother’s Day, I WOULD BELIEVE YOU. EVERY WORD. EVERY SINGLE THING.

Why? Because Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Jason Crouse, to our best understanding, is not real.

Yes, yes, we understand Jason is a fictional character portrayed by an actor on a television series. But the character is too perfect to be real. Watching him feels like watching a character designed by a focus group of (heterosexual) women who flesh out all the qualities they desire in a mate — like the kinds of characterizations in Harlequin romance novels…or fan fiction.
台北的繁華與台南的氣質，城市化帶來的顏值革命？
By: 侯智薰 Raymond Ch Hou
Tags: Taiwan, 生活, 中文, Life, 城市

Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.

Check your inbox

Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription.
[Video] A Challenge to the Woking Mosque
By: Virtual Mosque
Tags: Woking, Challenge, Mosque

The people who control and run this mosque say Lahori-Ahmadis are heretics because our founders wrote in praiseof the British.

Yet, these same gentlemen invited a British regiment which had served in Iraq and Afghanistan to the Woking Mosque and gave them a reception. Will they care to explain their action?

httpv://youtu.be/Yis9veNY_4I
How To Deploy Your .NET Core App on an IIS Server
By: Agustinus Theodorus
Tags: Microsoft, Software, Tutorial, Programming, Software Development

Configure your IIS Server

Downloading the required packages

Install the required packages before configuration.

Downloading the dotnet SDK

Deployments only need runtime, but if you want to have a more flexible environment that allows you to build and publish dll files rather than only running it you would want to install the latest dotnet SDK, here.

Install the Azure Artifacts Credential Provider

Next, install the Azure Artifacts Credential Provider, full instructions can be seen here.

Azure Artifacts Credential Provider Manual Installation Guide

Find the latest release here, and download the .zip package.

After downloading the zip archive, copy the plugins folder to %USERPROFILE%/.nuget

Set your environment variables, open User Variables and create a new entry.

Set the variable name to NUGET_PLUGIN_PATHS, and because in this case, we are going to be using the dotnet credential provider, so set the value to

%USERPROFILE%\.nuget\plugins

etcore\CredentialProvider.Microsoft\CredentialProvider.Microsoft.dll

Then finish the setup by clicking OK on the Environment Variables dialog.
Talking
By: Jun Wu
Tags: Poem, Poetry, Relationships, Friendship, Resilience

Talking

A poem about conversation

@priscilladupreez unsplash.com

My extroverted muse is

listening intently, trying

to anticipate a gap

in the conversation

to interject with

something interesting

to say.

But, as the sun shone

on my face, the warmth

blinded me for a split

second, I couldn’t focus

on the small talk.

As important as these

words are in daily life,

and as much as I saw

smiles on everyone’s faces,

relating to one another

in a way that we haven’t

been for months during

Covid, I was side-tracked

by dancing blond babies

next to us.

As they spun around in

circles, stirring up grass,

they were painting the

cloudless blue sky with

intimate colors.

The blending of blue

and white, against fading

green background frees

everyone of expectations

in this leisurely afternoon.

When we all ease into this

life, dipping our toes

into our expressions,

despite any and all

circumstances,

we see the beauty in

taking small steps

forward in relating

to one another.
The Definitive Guide to Conda Environments
By: Matthew Sarmiento
Tags: Programming, Software Development, Data Science, Technology, Towards Data Science

Where Environments Live

When you create an environment with Python’s venv module, you need to say where it lives by specifying its path.

% python3 -m venv /path/to/new/environment

Environments created with conda , on the other hand, live by default in the envs/ folder of your Conda directory, whose path will look something like:

% /Users/user-name/miniconda3/envs # Or .../anaconda3/envs

I prefer the approach taken by venv for two reasons.

1️⃣ It makes it easy to tell if a project utilizes an isolated environment by including the environment as a sub-directory.

my-project/

├── conda-env # Project uses an isolated env ✅

├── data

├── src

└── tests

2️⃣ It allows you to use the same name for all of your environments (I use “conda-env”), meaning you can activate each with the same command.

% cd my-project/

% conda activate conda-env

💸 Bonus: This allows you to alias the activation command and stick it in your .bashrc file, making life a little bit simpler.

⚠️ Note: If you keep all of your environments in your Conda’s env/ folder, you’ll have to give each of them a different name, which can be a pain 😞.

So, how do you place environments outside of your Conda’s env/ folder? By using the --prefix flag instead of --name when creating an environment.

% conda create --prefix /path/to/conda-env # Or use -p

⚠️ Note: This makes an environment called “conda-env” in the specified path.

It’s as simple as that. However, placing environments outside of the default env/ folder comes with two drawbacks.

1️⃣ conda can no longer find your environment with the --name flag. Instead, you’ll need to pass the --prefix flag along with the environment’s full path. For example, when installing packages, which we’ll cover in the next section.

2️⃣ Your command prompt is no longer prefixed with the active environment’s name, but rather its full path.

(/path/to/conda-env) %

As you can imagine, this gets messy quickly. Like this doozy, for instance.

(/Users/user-name/data-science/project-name/conda-env) % # 😨

Fortunately, there’s an easy fix. You just need to modify the env_prompt setting in your .condarc file, which you can do with a single stroke.

% conda config --set env_prompt '({name}) '

⚠️ Note: This will edit your .condarc file if you already have one and create one if you do not. For more on modifying your .condarc file, see the docs.

Now your command prompt will only display the active environment’s name.

% conda activate /path/to/conda-env

(conda-env) % # Woohoo! 🎉

Last, you can view a list of all your existing environments.

% conda env list # conda environments:

#

/path/to/conda-env

base * /Users/username/miniconda3

r-env /Users/username/miniconda3/envs/r-env
Izzat
Tags: India, Women, Feminism, Poetry, Human Rights

Will you marry me?

never a question, a statement.

to carry broken burdens

of society

of family.

Yes.

No.

my voice lost to clusters

of joy.

smiles across their faces,

too pretty to thieve.

what can i say?

mouth locked

to conduct family pride.

what i wouldn’t do

to scream

to cry.

to refuse,

a luxury no woman can afford.

except,

i bear a heavy smile.

fear

of appa’s eyes

to let go.

did he ever love me?

to choose pride over one's daughter.

vicious little life,

nothing my choice.

to be born

to serve the father

to be married

to serve the spouse

to yield children

to serve the son.

to cease to exist.

forgotten,

for none listened.

bearing burning scars

of society

of oppression.

of that of existence.

wife or slave?

yet another pawn

to society’s dreams of idealism.

will you marry me?

he asks, bearing out his wicked teeth.
HackWeek in the Age of COVID-19: Making the Best Out of the New Normal
Tags: Covid 19, Teamwork, Hackathons, Resnet, Machine Learning

HackWeek in the Age of COVID-19: Making the Best Out of the New Normal Scout24 Follow Sep 17 · 3 min read

By Johanna Fitschen

Our HackWeek offers all Scouts, techie or not, the opportunity to spend a week each year to develop ideas, pitch them in front of colleagues and work together as #OneTeam with Scouts from all departments to follow up on projects they have always wanted to tackle. This year, HackWeek was held entirely online. In different categories our Scouts can take different approaches with their ideas during HackWeek.

In this year’s category “Bleeding edge technology”, they had the chance to become creative with the help of state-of-the-art technology. As one of the winning teams, they can donate 500 € to a charitable organisation of their choice. The team consisting of Can Rager (Working Student Insights & Analytics), Dierk Bachmann (Senior Data Engineer), Ismail Benbrahim (Senior Data Analyst), Marc Than Van Con (Junior Data Analyst), Siddharth Raina (Data Scientist), Sinisia Milojevic (Senior Software Engineer) and Sumanth Badadal (Software Engineer) has won with their idea “Help our customers choose the right profile picture”. On behalf of the whole team, we talked to Ismail to find out what this idea is all about.

Some members of the winning team

Hello Ismail, why did you take a closer look at our customer’s profile pictures during this year’s HackWeek?

Ismail: We focused on the interests of our customers. The team’s goal was to quantify those characteristics that make a profile photo appealing and trustworthy and use them to predict the conversion rate of a photo, in order to help our customers choose the right profile photo. The technical implementation uses the proven method called transfer learning. As time is of the essence during the HackWeek, we focused our efforts on only one neural network pretrained model called ResNet which we adapted to our particular task.

How happens to this project after HackWeek?

Ismail: We have identified and quantified how some key characteristics almost always translate into a higher conversion rate. We will share those findings with our customers. For example, we found out that for a male agent, wearing a complete suit is better than just a shirt. In addition to these communications, we will continue collecting more data. The data will be incorporated into the Machine Learning Model to improve its accuracy. This would allow to give our customers an initial evaluation of the image quality while uploading their profile photo.

What are you going to do with the prize money?

Ismail: My team and I will donate 500 EUR to Deepwave e.V., an organisation that has been dedicated to protecting the oceans for more than 15 years.

This project sounds cool to you? Why not joining us to realise similar projects? Here are some job offers that might be interesting for you:

Software Engineer — Security (m/f/d)

Senior Platform Engineer (m/f/d)
Zeex vs. Zeek
Tags: Bitcoin

Zeex will allow people to spend their cryptocurrency directly on in-store products without paying fees or converting to fiat currency. The aim is to solve the major issue in cryptocurrency, which is the lack of liquidity — for a currency, Bitcoin and other cryptos are really hard to spend on products! They’re more of an asset class at the moment, and Zeex is going to change that.

Zeex has a great relationship with and some of the same founders as the Zeek group, a company that runs a gift card marketplace. However, they’re two very different frms — let’s take a look.

Zeek Group

Zeek group is a fiat company, meaning people use government-backed currency like dollars or euros to buy products. Zeek customers purchase cards and vouchers to be spent in store, and in doing that they save money — for example, you could spend $95 to buy $100 worth of Starbucks store credit. You can only spend that money in Starbucks, but you’ve saved $5 in the process.

Zeek is a centralized organisation — they own the company, and they’re in charge. They charge fees for their services, which is how they make their money. People use Zeek when they frequent a store often enough to want a bulk order of their currency or when they want a discount on a purchase they’re making. Zeek are a well-established company that have seen tenfold growth year over year for two years in a row, and they’ve made strong partnerships with major retail companies along the way. Recently, some of the Zeek founders saw a great opportunity to completely transform that business model and create a whole new company in the cryptocurrency space — here’s how it works.

Zeex

Zeex is a decentralized platform that allows people to spend cryptocurrency on products. First of all, there’s actually no fiat involved in the process. Cryptocurrency is exchanged for virtual gift cards to be spent directly in stores or anywhere else, without fees. In fact, Zeex doesn’t charge any fees whatsoever for services.

The Zeex platform is a blockchain protocol that operates autonomously — Zeex doesn’t even own it. No-one does! It’s a brand-new business model only made possible by blockchain technology.

Once the platform is launched, it doesn’t need outside management. ZIX is an ERC20 compliant token that acts as the key to the whole platform — users login with the ZIX token and use it to stake their place in the queue to buy their gift cards, which neatly orders the whole process and allows things to run quickly and smoothly.

The whole process is heavily encrypted on the blockchain with proprietary fraud prevention technology, meaning that nobody can ever see your private data, not even Zeex. You’re in control of your money, and your financial information.

This business model will bring liquidity to the cryptocurrency space and allow users to buy real products and services with no fiat and no fees.

Check out our Telegram for more info: https://t.me/zeexme
Give Those YouTube Tutorials Love
By: Andy Mcwain
Tags: Online, Social Media, Tutorial, YouTube

As I write this, I’m still wildly excited about a technical tutorial — yes, video content — I watched today. Excited like vegan triplets at a buffet on all-you-can-eat Korean taco night.

Yes, seriously. That excited.

And when I feel this grateful about new knowledge, I have an ACTION LIST aimed at strategically finding more impactful ways to pay back the YouTube content creator.

And in a world of thumbs-down-giddy, negativity-packed internet trolls, I want us to start a trend where waves of adoration sweep over those online experts who craft solid, useful, and amazing tutorial content.

Dedicated YouTubers (nope, I am not one) are an amazing breed, but I segment them into categories of usefulness.

My sliding scale for YT content sort of works like this:

Hilarious — Funny — Amusing — Entertaining — Mildly Entertaining — Educational — Informative — Helpful — Inspiring — Golden Unicorn

When you see golden unicorns — those who deliver unbelievable value that’s way beyond helpful and inspiring — I suggest you act like it and spend a solid ten to fifteen minutes paying back that human being for changing your world!

Let’s start a new tidal wave of internet civility and gratitude for the hard work of dedicated YouTubers. I’d be happy to see that.
Mongolians are more in debt now than ever
By: Robert Ritz
Tags: Data Analysis, Debt, Mongolia, Tableau, Data Visualization

Mongolians are more in debt now than ever

But they are also richer

The economy is picking up steam in Mongolia. This is good news for the country’s businesses, who can hope the economic growth will translate to more money in peoples pockets. However, in a country that has experienced dramatic up and down swings of the economy, hope may not be in large supply.

As I always tell my students, if you have a question, dig into it and test your hypothesis. My hypothesis is that debt levels may be reaching a critical amount that the economy can no longer bear. This will result in a lack of free cash for regular citizens and a weakening of non-mining economic growth. But hey, don’t take my word for it. Let’s look at the data.

A huge amount of construction has taken place in recent years along with an increase in average salaries. Financing all of this building are commercial loans and also a government backed mortgage program offering the lowest rates in the country. This has led to an explosion of outstanding loans to finance the building of apartments and businesses.

Below I’ve charted outstanding loans and deposits from 2001–2016 (the most recent year available from the national statistical office). After the mining boom in the early 2010’s loans skyrocketed.
How to Use a JavaScript Library: jQuery
By: Kathryn Hodge
Tags: Tutorial, JavaScript, API, Jquery, HTML

Say we had a class named blue that made its elements have blue text. We could use the .addClass() method and add the blue class to all of the p elements with something similar to this where we’d have $(“p”).addClass(“blue”). This may be confusing right now, but don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.

To start, we first need to create an index.html and a script.js file. We’ll also put the script.js file in a folder named js and then link our script.js file in our index.html file. This should look pretty familiar since we’ve done it in other tutorials.
RegExp lookarounds in JavaScript
By: Vladimir Ivanov
Tags: Programming, JavaScript, Regex, Regexp, Regular Expressions

We have a Markdown string:

- 1 potato for 2€

- 2 tomatoes for 3€

- 5 bananas for 4€

Let’s write a code that finds all digits before the euro sign. With lookarounds it can be done like this:

str.match(/\d+(?=€)/g)

Here’s what it means:

\d+ One or more digits

One or more digits (?=€) Followed by €

That’s it! No brainer at all.

That (?=your_regexp) is called a positive lookahead. You can interpret this like because it looks ahead with a positive attitude for what goes next.

In the result you will get an array:

[“2”, “3”, “4”]

Notice that it returned what was before the lookahead, \d+ in our case. The € sign itself is not included in the resulting array.

Now I want to find all digits that are not followed by € sign. That’s also very easy.

str.match(/\d+(?!€)/g)

It’s a negative lookahead. The main difference is ! sign instead of =.

So, this one will return quantities:

[“1”, “2”, “5”]

That’s precisely the digits I wanted.
Advice about listening to yoruself
By: Pito Salas
Tags: Advice, Decisions, Life

A few months ago, a friend of mine told me he was struggling, really struggling with a big career decision. Here’s what I told him, and what I believe and have applied to my own decisions:

“Try to pay very close attention to what you yourself want to do. It is easy to get confused by expectations put on you by others or by yourself based on what you think others — parents, friends, colleagues and so on, would expect you to do or what the conventional wisdom says is the right thing to do. All that is confusing.

You need to try hard to filter that out and find out what you — YOU — really want to do, what your heart tells you. It’s hard to do but I have found it to be a very good exercise. Once you force yourself to be aware of those other influences it becomes possible to try to look beyond them.

Second — if you are in a dilemma where two major choices are both incredibly appealing, just in different ways, and one moment you think one is the right thing and the next moment the other is the right thing — then it’s possible and likely that either choice would be the right thing and you can’t make a wrong decision based on all the information you have now.

Thats not to say that a year from now you discover information that answers the question, but right now, maybe both choices are equally good.”
Ordinary Intimacy
By: Samantha Wallen
Tags: Intimacy, Flash Haiku, Haiku Hub, Haiku, Poetry

Click here to get your get your One Word Can Set You Free Guide as my gift to you, so you can write what wants to be written. The world is waiting for your words.
Cierre de etapas: ICO y TGE
By: Inbest Network
Tags: Inbest Network, Inbest, Latam, Criptomonedas, Token

in In Fitness And In Health
The Ultimate Hackathon Packing Checklist
By: Kim Noel, Kimcodes
Tags: Checklist, Hackathon, Packing Lists

So you’re going to a hackathon this weekend and you’re wondering what to bring? Here is your guide for the ultimate hackathon packing checklist…

Essentials:

Laptop & charger

Phone & charger

Music if you have a separate device for music ipod/mp3 player..

Headphones (noise cancelling is recommended if you have)

Deodorant I would go as far as saying that this is more important than your laptop….

Toothbrush & toothpaste

Sweater

1 t-shirt (yes I said ONE! most probably you will be getting tons of new t-shirts at the event)

1 pair of underwear ( x2 if a 36–48 hour hackathon)

if a 36–48 hour hackathon) 2–3 pairs of socks

Depending on the weather 1 pants/1 shorts +- sweatpants ( x2 if a 36–48 hour hackathon)

if a 36–48 hour hackathon) PJs

Towel depending on if the hackathon offers showers or not — you are usually inform of this only a few days before the event if they will provide showers or not

Facewash/bodywash/soap

Anti-bacterial wipes

Sleeping bag/blanket/pillow

Reusable water bottle

Allergy medicine

Optional :

Playing cards

Earplugs

Sleeping mask

Keyboard/mouse

USB key(s)

Tylenol/Advil

Antacids

Pepto bismol

Shampoo/Conditioner

Bonus : dry shampoo !

: dry shampoo ! Floss

Yoga mat

Pen/Pencil/Paper/Book

Hardware — if you might want to work on a hardware hack first check if the hackathon is MLH affilated, ask the organizers if they will be receiving the hardware lab at their event. Check it out! They have some pretty neat stuff. Also, ask the organizers if they themselves will be providing breadboards, soldering station, etc! Unlike a software hack a hardware hack needs a bit of of planning beforehand to ensure you will have all the equipment you will need.

Small bag for swag

Happy Hacking!
Compression — “In a nutshell”. The simple guide to modern compression.
By: Casey Gibson
Tags: Compression, Computing, Programming, Data

compression: the act of pressing something into a smaller space or putting pressure on it from different sides until it gets smaller https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/compression

We’ve all been there. We’ve tried to squeeze an object into a smaller space with the intention of removing it for use later. Depending on the object, you may desire it to be restored to its original “glory”, while other objects don’t matter.

Think of a soccer ball. You can deflate it to store in tight spaces and then inflate it to once again use it as a soccer ball. This is a form of compression, specifically lossless compression because nothing has been lost in its “compression”.

Another form of compression is a puzzle, of which actually has two forms of compression. If you simply pack up the puzzle into a box, that’s once again lossless compression as you can redo the puzzle and restore it to its original state. If you lose pieces however, when you pack the puzzle up you can still redo the puzzle, but it will have pieces missing. This is called lossy compression as you have lost information that you can’t then restore later.

Computers depend on both of these forms of compression to operate and are both widely used. An example of this is the photos you take on your smartphone. Typically, phones use JPEG images, which uses the lossy compression because it throws away data that humans can’t see in the image. This results in the smallest file size which is why it’s widely used in smartphones.

When it comes to the transmission of data however, computers typically need accurate information and can’t afford to throw away data. An example of this would be transferring money between banks. If someone sent you $5000, you expect to receive $5000, not $500 because the computer decided it didn’t need the extra 0.