fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
What Chopping Your Vegetables Has To Do With Fighting Cancer
By: Alexandra Walker-Jones
Tags: Health, Lifestyle, Healthcare, Nutrition, Food

A Chopping Conundrum

When any cruciferous vegetables is chopped, crushed, shredded, or chewed, it releases both myrosinase, as well as glucosinolate compounds, that then combine to make sulforaphane. This chemical reaction is exactly what produces the mild burning sensation that we associate with some foods of the mustard family. It’s what gives raw broccoli its bite, and what makes spicy mustard, well…spicy (4).

However, in order for the myrosinase enzyme to work its magic, it first has to be given the chance. All in all, myrosinase can take up to 45 minutes once first released (by way of cutting or chopping your vegetables, remember?) to successfully convert itself into disease-fighting sulforaphane.

The other issue here is that myrosinase is highly heat sensitive. One of the fastest ways to prevent any and all sulforaphane formation from occurring is to immediately transfer your chopped cruciferous vegetables into a hot oven or a pot of boiling water — a practice I think it’s fair to assume is pretty routine for most of us.

Interestingly, a solution to the issue lies with the fact that sulforaphane is not heat sensitive. What this means, is that as long as you’re happy to plan ahead, and cut your cruciferous vegetables 45 minutes before you cook them, they will have more than enough time to work their enzymatic magic, thereby retaining the same efficacy in fighting cancer as when consumed raw.

In this sense, you can either exclusively stick to eating raw cruciferous vegetables — and rest assured that myrosinase will continue to produce sulforaphane even after you’ve chewed and swallowed your veg — or, you can chop your cauliflower, cabbage, and kale 45 minutes in advance.

All in all, it seems pretty straightforward. The benefits of regularly eating sulforaphane-rich foods drastically outweigh the inconvenience of leaving your chopped veggies on the countertop for the better part of an hour.

But what if there was another way altogether?
Flutter CodePen challenge
By: Anjan Narain
Tags: Contests, Codepen, Google, Flutter App Development, Designer

From the outset, one of our goals with Flutter was to enable developers to create beautiful user experiences. And every day the worldwide community amazes us with countless apps and experiments that showcase Flutter’s creative potential. Today, we’re pleased to partner with CodePen on a fun series of new challenges to let you show off your Flutter skills.

CodePen is one of the top destinations on the internet for front-end developers to experiment, share, and iterate. Ever since we announced our partnership with CodePen in April, we’ve been amazed by the Flutter Pens you’ve created. And so we want to give you the opportunity to show off your amazing Flutter designs to CodePen’s community of over a million designers and coders.

Challenge details

What is it? CodePen Challenges are fun opportunities to level up your skills by building things. Previous challenges have covered web development themes like JavaScript, Images, and Color Palettes. The Flutter CodePen challenge is a month-long challenge in July to build user experiences with CodePen’s new Flutter editor.

How it works:

The Flutter CodePen challenge consists of 4 weekly challenge prompts, each on a different Flutter topic. Each prompt will be released at the beginning of the week, and the prompts will progress from basic to more advanced, building on each other. To help you, we’ll share some ideas on what to build, recommend resources, and share example pens. Once you complete your Pen, we encourage you to share it with the CodePen community using the tag FlutterPen and the broader developer community on Twitter and LinkedIn with #FlutterPen. The CodePen community will select the best Pens, which will be showcased on CodePen’s homepage.

Date: The first weekly challenge will be released Monday, July 6th, 2020.

Sneak peek: For the first week, we’ll start with one of the most foundational building blocks in Flutter: a Stack widget. Stack lets you layer widgets on top of each other in paint order. You can use it in simple scenarios such as overlaying texts on top of gradients or building some really cool custom designs.

Here’s an embedded CodePen that uses the Stack widget to create a three-panel view. Click Run Pen to see the app in action. Then click Flutter to see the code that implements the app.

Take the challenge!

Get creative and check out the challenge page, starting July 6th! In the meantime, why not use the #FlutterPen hashtag to show off the Flutter Pens you’ve already created? We’re eager to see what you’ve built so far!
Abstract Classes and Metaclasses in Python
By: Michael Krasnov
Tags: Programming, Python, Data Science, Algorithms, Python3

Metaclasses

As you have just seen, Python’s implementation of abstract classes differs from what you see in other popular languages. This is because abstraction is not part of the language’s grammar. Instead, it is implemented as a library. The next logical question is “Can you do something similar yourself, purely in Python?” And the answer is yes.

Before moving to metaclasses, there is something you need to understand about classes first. You may think of classes as blueprints for object creation, and you would be right. But in Python, classes themselves are objects. For example, when running this code:

class YouExpectedMeToBeAClass:

pass

Python will instantiate a YouExpectedMeToBeAClass class and store this "object" in memory. Later, when you refer to this class when creating objects, Python will use that "object." But how does Python instantiate a class? By using a metaclass, of course.

Metaclasses are classes for classes. Metaclasses provide blueprints for class creation. Every class has a metaclass by default (it is called type ). To create a custom metaclass, you will have to inherit type :

class CustomMeta(type):

pass class SomeClass(metaclass=CustomMeta):

pass

Note: type 's parent class is type itself. This is a hack in Python internals, and it is impossible to implement an alternative type using pure Python.

By itself, CustomMeta does nothing. Let's add some more features to show you the power of metaclasses. Let's make CustomMeta check if every child class has a render attribute (like with AbstractRenderer ):

If you try to run this code (without even instantiating anything!), it will throw an error. Let me explain what __new__ is first. This is the constructor for classes, like __init__ for objects. It is called at the moment SomeClass is defined, and whatever is returned from this function becomes the class. These are the arguments: the metaclass ( cls ), new class's name ( clsname ), parent classes ( bases ) and attributes ( attrs ). In the function body, we enumerate the attributes and check if render is one of them. If not, raise an exception. To make this code run, add this to SomeClass :

def render(self): pass
A Start-to-Finish Guide to Building Deep Neural Networks in Keras
By: Andre Ye
Tags: Keras, Neural Networks, AI, Machine Learning, Data Science

1 | Loading Image Data and Basic Preprocessing

Images will (most of the time) be in a .png or .jpg format. They can be loaded using the cv2 library with image = cv2.imread(file_directory) .

The cv2 library has handy exporting from a cv2 image to a numpy array, done through img = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_BGR2RGB) . This will yield an array of dimensions ( m , n , 3), where m and n are the dimensions of the image. 3 is representative of the depth, or the amount of red, green, and blue to incorporate for the final pixel color.

Extracting the numerical data from an image.

Finally, the data should be scaled, or put on a scale from between 0 to 1. This improves model performance (mathematically, neural networks operate better on a 0-to-1 scale). This can be done with x /= 255 .

When all the data is collected, it should be in a array of dimension ( x , m , n , 3) where x is the number of samples in your dataset.

If the y value is categorical, it can be easily one-hot encoded with Keras’ to_categorical :
Heavy trappings
By: Nuno Ricardo
Tags: Society, Life, Self, Poetry Sunday, Poetry

A dusty gaze revealed one map that shows

my inner rivers with their muddy shores

so you can trace me back to my darkest self

you know the walls but I removed the doors

Having the last word comes with heavy trappings

forking out onto a path littered with old deceptions

it sets the stage for acted blessings

to feed resentful unresolved questions

Butterflies swaying the threads

of webs trapping grueling memories

conceal ordeals beneath shiny garments

cunningly disguising naked tragedies

Clogged within a fable where every touch is shy

voices gasp for the sustenance of air

be ready to start and lose, be ready to try

be daring enough to look beyond every vanity fair
Couples Are Rethinking the Idea of Having Kids Because of Climate Change
By: Matt Lillywhite
Tags: Environment, Life, Climate Change, Parenting, Children

Couples Are Rethinking the Idea of Having Kids Because of Climate Change

The future of our children is extremely uncertain.

Photo by Robo Wunderkind on Unsplash

In 2020, we’ve experienced a pandemic, wildfires, and the busiest hurricane season in recorded history. Horrific natural disasters are becoming increasingly common.

So with all of that in mind, it’s understandable why some parents are reconsidering having children. A lot of people are nervous about what their kid’s future may look like in a world that’s been continually devastated by the effects of climate change.

I’m one of those people. Since I was a little boy, my dream was to have kids of my own. Someday, I want to meet an amazing woman & raise a family in a beautiful city. But part of me is worried that dream will never come to fruition, as the long-term future of humanity is extremely uncertain.

Many other people feel the same way. A 2019 poll by Business Insider reported that almost 38% of Americans aged 18 to 29 believe that couples should consider climate change when deciding to have kids.

And with the United Nations predicting a predicted global temperature increase of 3–5 degrees by the year 2100, one can only ask, “what kind of world are we leaving for our children?”
Facebook: No, COVID-19 Vaccines Won’t Require You to Get Microchipped
Tags: Conspiracy Theories, Disinformation, Facebook, Technology, Social Media

As the public waits to learn more about the upcoming COVID-19 vaccines, Facebook is working to prevent baseless conspiracy theories from mucking up the discourse. Can the company pull it off?

By Michael Kan

Facebook is preparing to remove misinformation about upcoming COVID-19 vaccines, including conspiracy theories that claim the treatments will require people to get microchipped.

“Given the recent news that COVID-19 vaccines will soon be rolling out around the world, over the coming weeks we will start removing false claims about these vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts on Facebook and Instagram,” the company announced.

According to Facebook, the crackdown will target false claims “about the safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects,” of the new vaccines. “For example, we will remove false claims that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips, or anything else that isn’t on the official vaccine ingredient list,” the company added.

The conspiracy theory has its origins with the anti-vaccine movement, which accuses Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates of funding COVID-19 vaccines to secretly microchip the world’s population. However, there’s no evidence to support any of this.

“No. There’s no connection between any of these vaccines and any tracking type thing at all. I don’t know where that came from,” Gates told CBS News in June. Nevertheless, the conspiracy theory has persisted on social media for months now.

Another conspiracy theory Facebook plans on removing covers false claims that certain groups of people are being exploited to test the COVID-19 vaccines without their consent.

The impending crackdown will face complaints from the anti-vaccine movement and free speech advocates. However, Facebook said it’s removing the misinformation out of fear it’ll put people in “imminent physical harm.”

Indeed, the upcoming COVID-19 vaccines hold the promise of ending the ongoing pandemic once and for all. On the flip side, the public is still trying to understand the efficacy and potential side effects of the treatments as the FDA prepares to approve them for mainstream distribution.

To keep users informed, Facebook plans on promoting “authoritative sources” on the coming vaccines through the company’s official COVID-19 information center. “We will not be able to start enforcing these policies overnight,” the company added. “Since it’s early and facts about COVID-19 vaccines will continue to evolve, we will regularly update the claims we remove based on guidance from public health authorities as they learn more.”
Out of Yellows
By: Shringi Kumari
Tags: Prose, Summer, Self, Poetry, Weather

I am crying yellow tears. It has only just occurred to me that summer isn’t here anymore. That my three yellow flowers that went missing must be dead. I walk on the wet cement floor of London and think. Where was I yesterday? When did the fallen flakes of sun become curled up autumn leaves shaking in the anticipation of winter rains. Where are all my friends I made in the yellow illusions of daylight. Are they taken? Have the walls of London claimed back warm human bodies it released to the sun. I must be dreaming — it cannot be that I have missed one whole season (one whole cycle of bloom). The year can not be rolling down the hill of life with such speed. I run upwards to look for warmth when a gush of autumn cold reminds me that the mountain of life doesn’t allow climbing backwards. Leaves are but moving time, life is but lost flowers and wilting friends.

I wrap a scarf around my stiffened neck. I am thirsty but I don’t want to see or touch water. I want to dry up like the land. I want to hibernate in the ditches with broken foliage and the city’s sludge. It’s uncanny how nothing reaches the earth anymore, all kinds of yellows are frozen too far up in the sky somewhere. Not to be touched by wanting trees, not even by birds.

A tin of man-made chrome acrylic stares at me. I look in the other direction, at a lone baby clementine sitting on the other end of the table. If we could draw lines between us, maybe we would be a warmer geometry of our own. But we are out of each other’s reach. We are drying in our own spots. Absorbing the last of autumn. Giving up our fluids to the transforming cosmos. Yellow birds is all I can see when I close my eyes. What has happened to me. I was depressed all summer, why am I looking for it now. My scarf tightens and loosens like a snake — all by itself. My mind opens and closes like a window with a broken hinge — all by itself. I smash the yellow acrylic on a cold leaf of paper. It is the coldest yellow I have ever seen. Thick strands of paint snatch away all the opportunities from the blank sheet. They are all wasted in hope. I am with them — part of the attempt of a painting.

I try to capture summer in words instead. All I do is spill one grudge after another. I seem to be upset with the sun and the leaves. They don’t even care that I exist. I shout in words on nature and its cycle. Reminded of how my poetry doesn’t reach its listeners, how it is stuck in a dense network of nothings in the sky, just like the yellow which doesn’t reach any of us — anymore.

Or maybe, I am simply out of all my yellows. And from here, I need to either mix colors to make my own yellow or gradually embrace less bright shades with the same yearning. It is a shame though, I thought I had more time with the yellow. I thought my friends weren’t an illusion. I thought some flowers — especially the three of them were here to stay. for a while longer.
Scotland Becomes First Country to Make Period Products Free
By: Catherine Caruso
Tags: Equality, Health, Politics, LGBTQ, Feminism

In 2018, Scotland made period products free and accessible in every school, college, and university in the country. The new law will incorporate and solidify this measure. Period products will also be available in all public buildings and facilities.

The legislation is expected to cost around £8.7 million ($11.6 million) per year.

While period poverty does not affect every single person who menstruates, it is much more rampant than one might think.

According to a study conducted by the grassroots group Women for Independence, nearly one in five women have experienced period poverty in Scotland. Another study published by Plan International UK reveals that one in ten girls in the UK are completely unable to afford period products. The global coronavirus pandemic has only made this worse.

Of course, period poverty is not just a cisgender women’s issue. It can affect all people who menstruate, including transgender and nonbinary people.

In the UK, people who menstruate typically spend around £13 ($17.37) per month on tampons and pads, and many struggle to afford the cost. Not being able to afford period products can not only cause people who menstruate to miss work and school, but it also lead to urinary tract infections and reproductive health issues.

Ensuring that period products are free and accessible to all who need them will create a more fair and equitable society and allow all people who menstruate to reach their full potential.

“We have shown that this Parliament can be a progressive force for change when we collaborate,” Lennon said before the vote on Tuesday. “Our prize is the opportunity to consign period poverty to history. In these dark times, we can bring light and hope to the world this evening. Scotland will not be the last country to make period poverty history.”

In the US, there are currently no state or federal laws mandating free period products. Only four states have passed laws requiring schools to provide students with free period products.

Some states have outlawed the tampon tax — the sales tax on tampons and other period products that are exempt on other basic health necessities. The UK has also moved to scrap the tampon tax, although the ban does not go into effect until January 2021.
Women in Tech, Quantum Entanglement, and Spotting the Next Nikola | DDIntel
By: Justin Chan
Tags: Fintech, Artificial Intelligence, Business, Blockchain, Technology

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

DDIntel newsletter for the week of September 28

DDI Writer Highlights

To potentially be featured in DDI Intel and on Datadriveninvestor.com, please submit with this form.

By Rodrigo Marino

Times of crisis don’t make an extraordinary entrepreneur less capable, and a product does not lose its technical quality. Therefore, the main variable changing and consequently impacting the investments and valuations is the market.

By Luka Beverin

In 1992, Hurricane Andrew struck Florida and inflicted 27 billion dollars worth in damage. As a result of the destruction, numerous insurance companies dissolved and went bankrupt after having to pay out an unanticipated amount of money to policyholders.

By Norbert Biedrzycki

The earth is sick, and the causes of its disease lie in our choices, our myopia, and our lack of imagination.

By Robert Locke

We all express fear, anger, and laughter by using facial expressions and other body movements. But these experts have gone way further and tied body language to what we actually say and how we say it.

By Marina Alamanou

When two particles — such as atoms, photons, or electrons — are entangled, they experience an inexplicable link that is maintained even if the particles are on the opposite sides of the universe, a million light-years away.

By Jim Katzaman

We all have a mental boardroom, and usually, there’s a hidden bigot at the table.
What Really Are The Fundamentals Of Money?
By: Do Lectures
Tags: Finance, Money, Future, Do Breakthrough, Bitcoin

DO Breakthrough Seminar. This is the question we ask the most: How do you? It is why we started the DO Lectures. We wanted to find out why some people achieve their potential and share the clues they leave along the way.

Follow
11,000 Scientists Declare a Climate Emergency in One Voice
By: Dustin T. Cox
Tags: Politics, World, Climate Change, Energy, Science

11,000 Scientists Declare a Climate Emergency in One Voice

But an investment banker writing for ‘The National Review’ doesn’t believe them

Photo by Xavier Balderas Cejudo on Unsplash

Early this morning, The National Review Online published an analysis of the United Nations’ 2014 Intragovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The article, titled “We Have Time to Prevent Climate Change,” argues that Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and other politicians on the left exaggerate the impending consequences of global warming. It further claims that they do so in direct contradiction to the science cited in the IPCC’s “5th Assessment.”

The story’s author, investment banker William Levin, contends that nuclear substitution for coal power over the next 50 years will reduce carbon emissions to acceptable levels long before disaster strikes. He adds that as-yet undeveloped technology, such as low-cost carbon sequestration systems and solar distributed battery storage, will also play a vital role in preventing a climate catastrophe.

Finally, Levin concludes that there is “plenty of time” to do what is necessary, implies that politicians who advocate for aggressive environmental measures are criminals, and claims that the left’s agenda on climate change will prove to be the “greatest avoidable burden imposed on the world, ever.” No word from Levin, however, on the avoidable burdens imposed on Americans by unregulated investment banking.
The Technology Apocalypse
By: Srinivas Kodali
Tags: Technology, Books, Trai, Aadhaar, Ethics

As the country is debating important technology initiatives, and is making technology mandatory in day-to-day governance, we are still unable to understand the shortcomings of the technology itself. An interesting trait which Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman RS Sharma brought into the debate — incidentally, last week — is harm. How can technology harm us? If technology can harm us, how do we classify/define such harms? These are important questions which no one has an answer to. The latest draft of the personal data protection bill presented by Sri Krishna Committee tries to answer some of them.

Harm from technology is something everyone is studying across the world as we enter the age of ubiquitous computing, with sensors tracking every aspect of our life. Racial biases and discrimination through technology have been extensively documented and debated in the West. It is important as a community that we do not cause any harm to others, especially when Big Data and algorithms are being termed “Weapons of Math Destruction”.

As stakeholders of developing these tech solutions, we can’t ignore the rights of people and work for profits. Employees across different tech firms are even voicing out against technologies like surveillance and Artificial Intelligence which may violate human rights. So there is a need to have a conversation about some of these issues in tech more and start looking at tech differently.

You can read the following books and papers from these organisations who work on digital rights

Organisations:

MIT Civic Media Lab — https://civic.mit.edu/publications/

Gov lab — http://www.thegovlab.org/publications.html

Harvard Berkman Klein Center — http://cyber.harvard.edu/publications

Web Foundation — https://webfoundation.org/research-publications/

Data and Society — https://datasociety.net/research/

Algorithmic Justice League — https://www.ajlunited.org/

Books:
Get INSPIRED
By: Aryan Gandhi
Tags: Growth, Business, Finance, Banking, Writing

I started this publication around a month ago with the goal to create a community where everyone can support each other. Many publications expect that you have the top of the top content and even then some of the stories flop. Here is how we are going to change that:

Every day, depending on the number of stories we have submitted I am going to create a document with stories of the week, and post with new ones every day. I encourage everyone to read and if worthy, clap at least two articles from the list that interest you a day. Hence, we can go ahead and support other authors, and begin to create our community.

Now, I am going to add a curated stories tab where people can check out of all the curated stories on Never Fear.
Toxic Relationships — How do You Know?
By: Holly Kellums
Tags: Love, Relationships, Life Lessons, Life, Health

We see so many quotes, lists and writings on toxic relationships. And, across every social media brand and platform that I have worked on, toxic relationship content is always the most popular. Why? Because it’s really freaking hard, when you’re in a toxic relationship, to figure out if you’re in a toxic relationship. That’s what makes it so certainly toxic, is the fact that you don’t know what’s real. Therefore, there are always people looking for information on toxic relationships because they are trying with every fiber of their being to figure out if they are in a toxic relationship.

“If someone says they love you but the way they treat you says they don’t, listen to what their actions are telling you. People who truly love you don’t just tell you, they show you.” — Bobby J Mattingly

It’s the constant battle between the head and the heart that makes you literally have no idea what is actually going on. You earnestly pray to know what is right. You search, but you are utterly confused. Then eventually, one day you figure out, without a doubt that you are indeed in a toxic and spirit crushing relationship. Maybe it was an article you read or something that happened. Maybe it was an epiphany. Maybe it was just a combination of everything. It doesn’t matter. You finally know. This is what I hope to help people move towards, who need to of course, through my writings on toxic relationships.

So let’s start with the first question. How do you know that you are in a toxic relationship? Well there are countless lists of information on what everyone thinks the signs of toxic relationships are, that any relationship would meet a few of these qualifications. I don’t think automatically labeling any relationship as toxic just because it matches a couple bullet points is healthy either. Looking for toxicity can itself become toxic.
The perfect hot chocolate recipe to keep you warm and cozy
Tags: Chocolate, Health, Nutrition, Holidays, Recipe

This article was originally published on blog.healthtap.com on December 14, 2017.

Nothing feels like the holidays more than curling up in front of the fire with a steaming cup of hot chocolate in hand. Hot chocolate is a staple of this time of year, so we’ve come up with a decadent, indulgent hot chocolate recipe that you can feel great about sipping throughout the holiday season.

Don’t opt for the simple packet of hot chocolate mix in hot water, which is full of sugar, additives, and only a little actual chocolate. Instead, make your own! Not only will it taste much richer and creamier, it will also be much better for you.

This recipe for hot chocolate uses raw cacao powder, which is chocolate in its raw and and purest form. Cacao is known for being a heart healthy superfood due to its incredible concentration of flavonols, a class of antioxidants that are associated with decreasing the risk of heart disease, hypertension, and chronic inflammation. According to Dr. Randy Baker, cacao “also contains mood-enhancing chemicals like phenylethylamine, theobromine, serotonin and anandamide,… and also [aids in] reducing insulin resistance.”

While Dr. Baker mentions that these health benefits of cacao are powerful, he also notes that they can be counteracted by added sugar, which is best to limit. Studies indicate that to derive the optimum health benefits of chocolate, the darker the chocolate the better, so you should aim to choose chocolate that has at least 70% cocoa solids.

This recipe combines both raw cacao and dark chocolate for the ultimate rich cup of hot chocolate. It only takes a few minutes to whip up, so you can be sipping, relaxing, and enjoying the holiday spirit in no time at all.

Decadent Hot Chocolate

What You’ll Need: (serves 2)

2 cups non-dairy milk (we recommend a mix of almond and coconut for some extra creaminess)

2 tbsp raw cacao powder

1.5 oz dark chocolate (70% or above)

1–2 tbsp maple syrup (sweetened to taste)

½ tsp vanilla extract

Combine everything all ingredients in a medium sauce pan. Over medium-low heat, whisk all ingredients together until the chocolate is melted, everything is evenly combined, and the drink is warm. Serve into two mugs, and enjoy. We recommend topping your hot chocolate with a dollop of coconut whipped cream and a sprinkle of cacao nibs to make your drink a little extra festive!

Author: Maggie Harriman
Donald Trump Has Turned America Into a Failed State
By: Jessica Wildfire
Tags: Society, Politics, News, Government, Opinion

Donald Trump Has Turned America Into a Failed State

He didn’t even have to try that hard.

I read the news today — oh, boy. There was a terrorist attack on Christmas morning. The media has decided to call it a “massive explosion believed to be intentional,” because many of us prefer to live in the shallow comfort of denial. I’m not going to say a word to my family until we’re done opening presents, over video chat, because we can’t see each other in person. And yet, my thoughts are in Nashville and its implications. My thoughts are also with the kids who didn’t write to Santa for toys this year. They wrote for things like shoes and textbooks.

I’m wondering when we’re going to wake up. I think Americans live in a failed state now, close if not identical to the “third world countries” we’ve always considered ourselves better than.

Right now Donald Trump, still our president, isn’t thinking about kids in poverty or victims of terrorism at all. He’s busy playing golf and casually plotting to overthrow the government.

Before leaving for his private resort, he vetoed a pay raise for American troops and destroyed a stimulus bill, but not before he pardoned 26 of his most loyal allies, who basically serve as his personal mafia.

Now the government might shut down.

Let’s think about that for a minute. We’re in the middle of the worst health crisis in American history, and we’re facing the possibility that our own government will be temporarily unavailable.

This isn’t complaining. It’s not an expression of outrage. These are just the facts Americans are all processing over the holidays, as we try to rest and spend a little time with our families.
How to set default properties in Figma to speed up your workflow
Tags: Figma, UI, Design, Software Development, UX

How to set default properties in Figma to speed up your workflow

with some drawbacks

While browsing through the Figma support forums, I found a common disdain for the sad, dumpy, default gray that Figma assigns to new object layers created.

Sad dumpy gray

We’ve all seen it. We always go to change the color as soon as we draw it: either by color picker or choosing a library color.

Setting it to UI white

Thankfully, we can say goodbye to the default gray. In fact, not only can you just say goodbye to the gray, you can set any number of different properties as default. The default properties can be entirely defined by you. The process is to create an object, set that object’s properties as you desire them, then top-left menu->Edit->Set Default Properties.

Ah, nice little cards all ready for elevation and content

And presto! Now all objects you create will have the properties you defined as default. This includes border radius and library colors. As you can see here, the next rectangle drawn has 4px borders and is set to my UI/White color.

Rounded corners by default? oolalah

Now when I draw a rectangle, I can jump right into the purpose of that UI element without having to set it up every time. Just one more thing to take off my cognitive workload.

This being said, there is a lot of room for Figma to improve on this feature. When you set the default properties, it changes all layers to those properties. I might want my rectangles to default to UI/White, but if I set that to default, then my text layers will inherit those properties as well. As it is, you have to pick which object saves you the most time. For me, it was rectangles. For some, it might not be worth it at all. However, the feature could be very useful in the future. A tie-in with the new variants announced would definitely be worth considering. Hopefully Figma will address this in the future.
From Ballet to Booleans
By: Rebecca Hickson
Tags: Software Development, Ballet, Software Engineering, Programming, Women In Tech

My Second Act

After establishing a solid base working on my own, I wanted the extra depth that I could gain from a coding bootcamp. My goal is not only to write working code but also to know why it works so that I can craft more robust applications. I searched for a program that was online-only, had rigorous coursework, and flexible hours. Flatiron was the perfect fit!

In October, I began Flatiron’s software engineering bootcamp. I’ve enjoyed participating in the live lectures every day, and the collaborative nature of the class has been very rewarding. Working with my peers has shown me a number of different approaches to solving problems. Moreover, lending a hand to other students reinforces my own understanding of the curriculum. Software engineers don’t work in solitary bubbles, just as most dancers don’t perform only as soloists. The corps de ballet is best when every dancer works in concert towards one common goal, and engineering teams are the same way; I consider learning to work closely with others to be just as important as improving my coding abilities.

I have encountered a misconception that ballet and software engineering have nothing in common, but I believe they overlap in some fundamental areas. In both disciplines, the finer details can make or break your success. Just as a sickled foot can break a ballet dancer’s line, a misplaced comma can crash a software engineer’s build. However, precision alone is not enough. Each line of code must fit into a larger framework, and every ballet step must be connected to the next. Technique is critical, but it is vital that it be paired with vision and understanding of a larger purpose. All the mental skills I honed as a ballerina have prepared me well for a career as a software engineer, and I can’t wait for opening night!
Gradient Descent — A Powerful Optimization tool for Data Scientist
By: Steven Loaiza
Tags: Python, Machine Learning, Algorithms, Optimization

Model Objective

Below we will preface the article with a simple introduction of the structure of the model optimization problem (The notation is not robust).

Suppose you have the following model:

Where f(.) is a function that takes features and parameters as input values. The function then returns an output. The parameter value (β) is not known to us, therefore we will need to learn the values from the data.

We want to find the best parameters (β) so that our predictions (ŷ) are close to the truth (y). To accomplish the task, we would minimize a loss function. β^ is the argument that minimizes the loss function L(.).

Minimizing the cost function

The structure of the loss function will depend on the problem you are trying to solve. Some popular loss functions are RMSE, RSS, and Cross- entropy.

Note: Identifying the structure of the loss function is beyond the scope of the article.

Direct Method

Photo by Mark König on Unsplash

The direct method of minimizing a cost function is ideal because you can be certain that the answer you receive will be the optimal solution. Take for example the simple linear regression below.

Photo by Steven Loaiza on Latex

The objective of the model is to solve for the optimal solution to the β parameters. Linear regression has a well-defined closed-form solution for the loss function. The parameters and can be solved directly.

Photo by Steven Loaiza on Latex

But, not every loss function has a direct solution. Therefore, we need other methods to solve the parameter values.

Approximation Method

There are complex formulas that are not easy to solve for the unknown parameters. On the other hand, even if a parameter can be solved, the time complexity of performing the calculations could take a long time. There are many approximation methods, but we will focus on gradient descent.

We deem the method an approximation because we are trying to get close to the true parameter values that will minimize a loss function. There can be times when the algorithm converges on a local solution instead of a global solution (more on that later).
The Flavours of APIs 🍦
By: Ryan S.
Tags: API, Technology, Software Engineering, DevOps, Software Development

The Flavours of APIs 🍦

Exploring Different Types of APIs and When to Use Each

Source: Vectorstock

In today’s tech landscape, APIs are a hot topic. The rise of microservice based architectures opposed to legacy monoliths has further driven the necessity of robust APIs. With microservices, powerful applications are broken up – i.e. distributed as discrete components across numerous logical and physical machines. This is possible in part due to the availability of cloud computing – virtualized access to almost limitless compute and storage resources made available in a pay-as-you-go model, provided by large technology companies operating massive data centres around the globe.

These microservices based architectures are a contrast to the large-scale, tightly coupled applications of the past that were better designed to run on the limited infrastructure available at the time. When applications required more resources, they would need to scale vertically (i.e. adding more memory, CPU, or storage to the machine). The ubiquity of computing resources in the cloud allows modern applications to instead scale horizontally, by distributing the load over many less powerful machines. Further, applications can be designed intelligently – with components running on infrastructure that better meets the unique load. This ultimately leads to bite-sized chunks of the larger application having infrastructure which is uncoupled from the rest.

With this style of computing, however, comes the requirement for a lightweight communication mechanism which allows for two things:

Consumers (either humans or other systems) to interact with a specific part — and only that specific part — of the broader application.

The various distributed components to interact with each other.

Enter: the modern API. Built on the HTTP protocol, and capable of sharing data over the network in a lightweight fashion, the API is the piping of the web that connects users and technologies.

Microservices and APIs within a distributed system

And similarly to how changes in both technology and human behaviour led organizations to switch from monolithic development practices to microservices – consumers of digital applications have changed in recent years as well. With new ways of building and deploying applications come new ways of integrating them with other areas of your landscape.

While it is true that many of the traditional software patterns still exist as they did years ago, despite changes in technology —new requirements have emerged and old requirements are now amplified given the prominence of digital applications in our day-to-day lives.

That said, let’s take a look at various flavours of APIs, how they work, and the scenarios in which each are useful.
Oh No! We’ve Been Carving our Christmas Turkey Like Amateurs.
By: Liz Porter
Tags: Food, Health, Self Improvement, Cooking, Chefs

Oh No! We’ve Been Carving our Christmas Turkey Like Amateurs. The golden rule is to carve meat against the grain for max tenderness. But we pull our birds out of the oven every year and do the exact opposite.

Here’s a quick tip that will save you time, provide more tender morsels, and dress up your dinner plates! With fewer people coming together for the holidays this year, it’s a great time to experiment with this better method!

I need to get back to my Christmas cookies (216 this year), so watch the video, I gotta go, and Carve Your Christmas Turkey Like a Pro!

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy Cheer to 2021!
Update from AiFinTek
By: Oscar Wilde
Tags: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, AI, Fintech

The team has spend a lot of time on the AI platform integration in the last few weeks. We have a new project for Game development that has been draining our resources. Another firm has asked us to look at Coin integration in their platform. We have also placed some resources into mining and developing mining pools.

And yes, We are also working with an exchange to list our AFTK coin.

In summary, we have been very very busy.

On the Airdrop. We used our AI platform to delete multiple forms, multiple addresses, and multiple scams. In the end we were able to shorten the list of Airdrop members to about 11,400 unique members.

Out of this 11,400 members, about 2,100 have already received their AFTK coins. All remaining members will be receiving their coins. Stay tuned.

Several Apps were used in our testing for Airdrop. We generally found Ethereum to be somewhat dependable but 99.999% quality was missing. Working around various limitation of Ethereum, it has become quite clear to us that better platforms will evolve. Or Ethereum would need to get better by a considerable level.

We have been slightly offtrack with our Airdrop and ICO time line. But at the same time we have invested in our business development and to place the company on a stable path to growth and we are close to a critical project milestone.

As you receive your AFTK tokens — I would just advise — hold them and don’t go sell them for pennies.

A guy sold 10,000 bitcoin back in 2009 to buy two pizzas. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2013/12/23/the-bitcoin-pizza-purchase-thats-worth-7-million-today/#647d06862509.

Hold the AFTK — these are not going to be minted any more. Only 25 million were issued to fund our company AiFinTek. At the right time, we will decide if and how we can allocate some of the shares of the AiFinTek firm to the AFTK token holders.

Welcome Aboard.
i think you’re confusing me with 9/11
By: Lisa Martens
Tags: Poetry, USA, Society, Covid Diaries, Poem

i think you’re confusing me with 9/11

a coronavirus poem

Photo by Flavio Gasperini on Unsplash

you’re trying to

keep everything running, on schedule

denial laced with anger

knocking over

masks in stores — You deserve your

American life, unchanged

forward is the way through

i think you’re confusing me with 9/11

rhetoric about how

you must keep buying, keep going

schedules

resistance

stubbornness —

don’t give in to the fear! you say

but i’m not trying to

scare you

i’m not trying to

destroy your life

i’m not trying to do…anything really.

i am ceaseless. there are things i can live on

and things i cannot

i do not care

if you open parks

open schools

go back to work

i do not care

i’m not trying to

ruin your way of life

i’m really not

i do not care

if you have been in lockdown for

two months and you

really miss your favorite bar.

i do not care

what you miss, what you want

what your goals were.

there are things i can live on

and things i cannot

you’re blaming me for things

that are not my fault.

wanting to disrupt the economy? cause you to

live in fear?

what is fear?

no, i am looking for

lungs and spines and brains

soft, warm tissue

so i can multiply

that’s all i care about

i am not an abstract thing

a thing overseas

a thing somewhere else

i am right here

and i would very much like to go

into your body.

i don’t understand

your rage. i am not

a terrorist. i am not trying to destroy your

businesses, your stock market.

i think you’re confusing me with 9/11

the same stubbornness you felt

the national pride

the dedication to

a “way of life.”

i think you’re confusing me with 9/11

the resistance against

an enemy that looks like a person, an enemy with

a face

i think you’re confusing me with 9/11

but i’m not a single, intentional event

i am a wave, i am a disease

i cannot be

ignored, wished away

i am a wave, i am a disease

i do not tire, i do not rest

i am a wave, i am a disease

i am not your enemy, in fact

i want very much

to be your friend.
Motion Models in Self Driving Cars
By: Prateek Sawhney
Tags: Machine Learning, Self Driving Cars, Deep Learning, AI, Data Science

Odometry

Now that we know one way to calculate the car’s new position, now let’s take a look at another technique to calculate the car’s new position which is called odometry based on motion sensor data. For mobile robots, the values for odometry comes from the sensors located on the wheel which measure how many times the wheels of the car or robot have turned. For instance, the sensor on this wheel would tell us it has turned twice. Given the circumference of the wheel and this odometry data, we can measure the distance travelled. Specifically, the new position of the car is equal to the starting position of the car plus the x and y components of the values given by odometry, multiplied by the circumference of the wheel. Awesome. With this knowledge, next I want you to think about when odometry measurements might fail to report accurate position estimates.

On a slick wet road, there will be errors in odometry values because the wheels will slip and due to this they will travel less distance than expected. Also, there may be error due to the wheels which will slide during braking, further contributing to sensor errors. However, on dry paved roads, the distance travelled by the wheels will be very close to the expected circumference of the wheel. Roads with lots of bumps also create problems for odometry because we are assuming the car travels a straight distance in the direction of its heading. In reality on a bumpy road, the car is traveling much of the distance up and down and not in a straight line. On a road with lots of turns, wheel odometry works well because even though the heading of the car is changing, it’s still moving the expected distance in the direction of its yaw. Notice that despite the fact that the distance vectors for the car are at different yaw angles, the sum of the absolute magnitude of all the vectors is the same as the expected distance travelled.
SplashDance
By: Background Noise Comics
Tags: Humor, Dance, Weather, Summer, Comics

Written by

Daily comic by Lisa Burdige and John Hazard about balancing life, love and kids in the gig economy.