fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Breasts and Eggs
By: Yong Yee Chong
Tags: Gender Equality, Women, Feminism, Japan, Books

The right to question what is not right for us

I was sorting the notes taken throughout the reading. A pattern is obvious: the right to be who we are. As much as the title hinted to us about the main issues to be explored, it was the stand of Natsuko compared to her sister’s (Makiko’s) and her niece’s (Midoriko’s) that challenged my own assumptions about being a woman. Why do we accept what was cast to us without questioning its legitimacy? On top of that, the unchallenged rules and norms were conceived by a different gender with the power to make it last for centuries.

Reproductive rights from the lens of a child

I was drawn to the thoughts of Midoriko. As a child, she was quick to judge her mother (Makiko), but each judgment always came with a reason. As the International Safe Abortion Day (28 September) is around the corner, it is timely to look at her angst in the context of reproductive rights. Do children have no right to dictate if they should be born? While her personal experience in school drove her into more internal conflicts, we ought to reflect on how many burdens a child or youth needs to put up with due to some unconscious decision made by the parents. While many would say that having a baby is part of the life process and a big part of a family, have parents thought about why this is normal? If a father or mother says they want to have babies, does the desire justify on its own?
Haptics for enhanced UX: designing for all
By: Avinash Bussa
Tags: Design, Interaction Design, Vibration, User Experience, Haptics

Both the masters play their game in their unique style. Here are a few takeaways:

1. Haptic is always complementary

Google and Apple both believe that haptic feedback should be complementary. In most cases, haptics can never be a primary means of communication but it can be paired with other audio and visual elements.

2. Use haptics to enhance the usability

Haptics should be used to enhance feedback and convey useful information to your users. They should not be leveraged to decorate interactions or provide feedback that is not necessary for the experience. For example, using haptic feedback to indicate a layered or complex gesture, not for normal button press interactions.

3. Minimize battery consumption

We’ve heard that enabling vibrations can drain the battery, but here’s something you need to know. Adjusting the vibration’s intensity and sharpness can help reduce the energy intake for producing vibrations. The less the motor vibrates, the less energy consumed.

4. Custom Vibration Patterns

Apple allows you to define your own vibration patterns for your incoming alerts, alarms, etc. For me, it’s kind of a playground where I can define new vibration patterns for my projects and see how it feels in my hands. This may come handy for you if you’re an iPhone user.

5. 3D Touch Gestures

Again, this is an Apple-only feature. 3D Touch being more sensitive than Force Touch, it has been developed to work using capacitive sensors integrated into the display. Using 3D touch people can access additional functionality by applying varying levels of pressure to the touchscreen.

Does vibration alone enhance the user experience?

Maybe. In most cases, haptics can never be a primary means of communication but it can be paired with other audio and visual elements.

In certain cases where haptic is the only mode of communication, we should be more specific on how we use the haptic and where. For example, when a device has the sound turned off or incapable of producing sounds, or even for features like Talkback.

It is a good idea to avoid…

1. Trying to fit where it won’t

It is true that haptic will enhance the user experience but at times like haptics are making the user uncomfortable, or get irritated, check if you can fix it by adding some visual cue or sound to compliment, but if that doesn’t work as expected, it is better to avoid haptic there.

2. Avoid conflict with system patterns

The operating systems like iOS and Android have already defined a set of vibrating patterns in their OS interface. But as a designer/developer, we are always allowed to create some of our own haptic patterns. But we must ensure our patterns won’t conflict with the system patterns as they may serve different intentions.

3. Skipping the Usability Test

It is always must to test your haptic designs before letting them out to the real users. Testing helps us to identify the issues where the triggered vibrations disrupt other experiences of the product. The early you test, the more efficient the product will be.
“Edward Scissorhands”: A Classic for All Seasons
By: Joel Eisenberg
Tags: Fantasy, Johnny Depp, Movies, Writing, Tim Burton

About “Edward”

On one level, “Edward Scissorhands” is a fable about a boy, with scissors for hands, who cannot touch.

As to the plot, it’s basically a new take on “Frankenstein,” with several twists.

The film opens with a framing device: A kindly old woman (Winona Ryder) tells a bedtime story to her young granddaughter about the origin of snow. Years before, there lived a boy named “Edward” and an old inventor (Vincent Price, in one of his last roles) who was not yet finished with his creation. They lived in a dank mansion atop a mountain, and in place of Edward’s hands, which were not yet ready, the inventor had temporarily attached scissors in their place.

The inventor dies, however, just as he presents Edward with his new appendages and the promise of imminent completion.

Edward now exists in the mansion alone, until Peg Boggs (Dianne Weist), a hard-up Avon lady, unexpectedly visits looking to sell products. She invites Edward to stay with her, which stuns not only her husband (Alan Arkin) but her nosy neighbors.

In short order Edward becomes a neighborhood sensation, cutting hair, grooming pets and trimming bushes. Edward, though, is a timid stranger in this new culture, frightened by his own shadow. He falls in love with Peg’s daughter, Kim (Ryder, soon to be revealed as the grandmother from the open), who is dating the neighborhood bully, Jim (Anthony Michael Hall).

When Kim begins to respond to Edward’s affection, a jealous Jim frames Edward for robbery, turning the town against the interloper and leading to tragedy …

Filmmaking Specs

The plight of the outsider, as cinematically defined by pioneering artists such as Chaplin and Keaton, is very nearly equaled in Depp’s remarkable performance ... as directed by Tim Burton and written by Caroline Thompson, based on a story by them both. The acting is impeccable, as is the direction, and Danny Elfman’s score …

Breathtaking.

Special note must go to the visionary Burton, whose eccentric filmography proves he was one of the very few auteurs who could carry off such a gothic and pastel feat.

The “Batman” director’s filmmaking partnership with the future Captain Jack Sparrow, of which to my mind “Ed Wood” is the other standout, is notable for its many portrayals of societal misfits.
“Quarantine Dreams and Jacob’s Ladder”: from the studio of Amie Oliver.
By: Broad Street Magazine
Tags: Quarantine, Artist, Memoir, Art, Creativity

“Quarantine Dreams and Jacob’s Ladder”: from the studio of Amie Oliver.

Painting her way through a pandemic.

April 14, 2020

I am more grateful than ever to have the time and space in which to escape the current situation. The Art Lab in Richmond, Virginia, is the best medicine for me. Everything is as I leave it there. A continuum exists in that space where I can psychically pick up where I left off easily. The only things that change are the quality of light and the impact of the weather. Bertha, our terrier, goes with me so she can run the grounds and bark to her content. She is excellent company.

That said, the art I feel best represents the impact of our isolation nation is this series of small works on paper — all created at home when I can’t sleep. Insomnia is usually something I experience when traveling — now it’s a sign of the times. It’s an excellent excuse to paint into the early-morning hours and to wake up late and hope the ink or watercolor has dried. I usually work on two to four surfaces at once, as the waiting game (evaporation) is part of the process.

The theme in this body of work is one I’ve referenced since working on “The Moving Cultures Project” in Tibet during 2009. Ladders surfaced in the work I made there… a reference to the Tibetans’ desire to escape oppression and/or attain enlightenment. Since then the ladders have become a running motif for me at times, particularly personal and relevant when I lost my parents in 2011.

As my sleep patterns are so out of whack right now, I dream about these images and have realized my ladders walk the line between a DNA sequence and Jacob’s Ladder. Perhaps we all do, whether or not we see ladders.

This series will continue to evolve. What began as part of my “Dharma Diaries” in 2009 currently reflects the anxiety of an unknown unlike any other in our lifetime. I’m okay with the unknown part. Nature and science rock. It’s the Idiocracy that scares me.

At home I will continue to paint and draw on archival rag paper. Most of these are between ten and eighteen inches in size. I use ink, watercolor, gouache, oil pastel, wax and whatever else fits the bill. Larger work appears on my website and at Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.

I’m also participating in “The Arc of the Viral Universe,” a journaling group that can be found on FB and IG (#arcoftheviraluniverse).

— Amie Oliver

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You can find more of Amie’s work featured in our interview with her here, and in conversation with Patricia Smith’s “Holy War” (where you will see some early ladder work). Be sure to visit her website: http://www.amieoliver.info.

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How to Build Advanced SQL
Tags: Programming, Data Science, Sql, Technology, Big Data

How to Build Advanced SQL

Building more maintainable, readable and optimized data workflows

Photo by Alexandru Acea on Unsplash

SQL remains the language for data. Developed back in the 1970s, it’s one of the few technologies that has remained constant. Regardless of what drag and drop tools come around or what new query paradigms try to overtake it.

SQL remains the most widely used technologies to interact with data. With the advent of databases that utilize NOSQL or (Not Only SQL), layers like Presto and Hive have been developed on top, to provide a friendly SQL interact.

Not only that, but the use of SQL has far expanded beyond data engineers and analysts. Product managers, analytical partners, and software engineers at large tech companies all use SQL to access data and answer questions quickly.

The point is, SQL is worth knowing. But once you know the basics, how do you progress? What takes a SQL user from novice to advanced?

Over the past few years, we’ve spent a lot of time writing SQL for data pipelines, dashboards, data products, and other odds and ends.

We don’t think advanced SQL is about syntax. There aren’t too many fancy clauses after you learn about analytic clauses. Sure, you can loop in SQL and even edit files. However, they’re all actions that can occur in code.

So what separates basic SQL users from advanced SQL users? We believe it’s more about thinking big picture. Advanced SQL developers think long-term vs short-term. They develop SQL that is maintainable, easy to read, and that requires more time and consideration.

In this article, we’ll focus on many of the design decisions that we believe separate novice SQL developers from senior and advanced SQL developers. You’ll notice that this goes beyond SQL. A lot of it will go into more conceptual problems, where there aren’t definite answers to the best solutions.

The format of the tips will be problem or behavior, followed by solution or improved methods. In fact, some of the solutions could be considered design preferences. Some of you might even disagree with the tips we give here. Please leave comments if so — we would love to discuss them further.

With that, let’s get into learning!
Get Answers from Structural Equation Modeling
By: Ella William
Tags: Predictive Analytics, Data Science, Big Data, Predictive Modeling

Things You Should Know Before Using Structural Equation Modeling.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a series of statistical methods that allow complex relationships between one or more independent variables and one or more dependent variables. Though there are many ways to describe SEM, it is most commonly thought of as a hybrid between some form of analysis of variance (ANOVA)/regression and some form of factor analysis. In general, it can be remarked that SEM allows one to perform some type of multilevel regression/ANOVA on factors. You should therefore be quite familiar with univariate and multivariate regression/ANOVA as well as the basics of factor analysis to implement SEM for your data.

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Basic Tips for Re-engaging Your Twitter Followers
By: Pierre Debois
Tags: Social Media, Marketing, Twitter, Business

Basic Tips for Re-engaging Your Twitter Followers

Still not sure how to use Twitter? Here are a few ideas to build an audience or re-engage your followers

Twitter has become a social media standard for being discovered online. Using all its features can help deepen relationships.

Despite the years since Twitter launched, there remains a considerable number of small business people that do not understand the purpose of Twitter.

Yet as of 2020 half of the world population uses social media for news, sharing thoughts, and announcing events, let alone Twitter. Your next campaign can go from mundane to terrific by reexamining your usage against new features and standard rules. The usage is likely in need of an update, especially since tweet character limits were increased to 280 characters back in 2017. That change heralded the end of Twitter’s iconic 140 character limit. It also heralded several unique twists on features that can expand and guide your discussion to the audience you need.

Twitter is the best way to share a message through multiple audiences via hashtag. This tweet was created just as the major character change launched.

If you are among those still looking to understand how to best use Twitter, here is a brief overview. These are not comprehensive, but a few starter tips for being creative on your stream and engaging to draw genuine followers that align to your organization's purpose.
How to Train Your Mind Finish Task In Less Time
By: Joshua Idegbere
Tags: Work, Life Lessons, Procrastination, Self Improvement, Productivity

No task should take > 30 minutes.

“Really?”

Yes, hold up a bit.

I felt the same way about this one the first day I read about it. Now I’m quite at home with the technique and the psychology behind it.

In the book, The Magic Of Thinking Big, David, Schwartz reiterated intentionally walking faster towards creating an internal sense of urgency. As the person with a sense of urgency gets things done — and gets them in time.

And it works.

Allowing no task to take more than 30 minutes stands on the same principle. The aim is to help you think and act like someone who gets things done in less time.

Yes, It is daunting at first, but as you challenge yourself daily, it becomes easy.

The day I heard Tim Denning said, it takes about 1 hour 30 minutes to write a complete story I decided to never write a draft for more than 3 sessions of 30 mins. If I don’t finish after 3 sessions, I will head on to the final thoughts and get it ready for the editing phase. And then submit to a publication. It was almost impossible at first, now it is not as difficult.

But what about bigger tasks? Be resolute; assign the same 30 mins. No task excluded. Especially with tasks that are under your control, none should take over 30 mins.

Even with bigger tasks, determine to get them done within 30 mins. Most times, you won’t be able to complete them. Assign another 30 minutes after about a 5 to 10 minutes break.

But never allow a task to take longer than 3 sessions of 30 minutes at a stretch.

If after 3 sessions the task remains, take a break or work on something else. And then return to it 12 hours later, or preferably the next day.

If you are the CEO of your company, for instance, you can apply the same rule. A meeting should not exceed 30 mins. In fact, most heavyweights entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs don’t subscribe to having long meetings.

Implementing this rule primes your brain to come up with solutions earlier and save time for other important things in your life. I call it disciplining your mind to get things done in time. And it works. Try it. That’s how to become the person who gets things done in time, it is all about disciplining your mind.
If You Want To Find Love, You Have To Heal Yourself First
By: Patrícia S. Williams
Tags: Relationships, Love, Advice, Parenting, Psychology

How Was Your Childhood?

Real love is not something you need to earn, nor is it something you have to fight for. It‘s something you deserve just because you exist.

The problem is, many of us didn’t receive love in the very first stages of our life — and those stages teach us what we know about love and relationships.

Not receiving the love we needed makes us develop coping mechanisms to avoid pain and loneliness. It leads us to push people away, to sabotage ourselves and to do everything we can to never be vulnerable again.

“As part of developing our wounded self, we unconsciously decided that who we really are — our magnificent soul essence — was not good enough. We reasoned that if we were good enough, we would be loved. As little children, we could not understand that not being unconditionally loved had nothing to do with us. That it was because our parents, coming from their own ego-wounded self, simply didn’t know how.” Margaret Paul, in Do You Believe You Deserve Love?

This means that, if you truly want to understand and break down your beliefs about love, you need to go within and look at your childhood.

Were your parents present?

As a child, did you feel loved by them — unconditionally loved?

Did you live in a stable, caring, supportive environment?

Or did you feel like you had to prove yourself in order to receive love? (Like getting good grades, being the golden child)

Did your parents accept you for who you are, or were they constantly trying to change you?

Take the time to get in touch with how you feel about yourself and about your parents. Be honest about your hidden feelings, memories, wounds and thoughts. Don’t be afraid — I know it hurts, but this is how you heal.

To make it easier for you, I’ll give you my story. I was adopted when I was a baby. My parents were always honest about it and they never hid anything from me, so I never thought of my adoption as something that influenced me.

However, the impact was there, and it was huge.

Unconsciously, I have always carried this deep fear of abandonment and rejection — because I was abandoned in the very moment I was born.

I absorbed the message that I was not good enough — if I was, why would my biological parents reject me?

Besides, my father’s authoritarian parenting style only reinforced this idea. I had to follow his rules and meet his high standards, without ever having the space to express myself. He was never satisfied with anything I did.

Living with the constant burden of pleasing him made me build one more belief: that my feelings and opinions don’t matter. If they did matter, why wasn’t I allowed to express them? Why did I have to follow every rule without saying a word?
Egypt Internet State: ‘Not Free’, Slow, for ‘the Few’
By: Islam Salahuddin
Tags: Journalism, Data Journalism, Internet, Freedom, Infotimes Stories

Read it in Arabic

By the end of last month, Egyptian social media folks were shaken by the news of banning more than 20 news websites, including prominent sites like Huffington Post, Mada Masr, Daily News Egypt and, of course, Al Jazeera.

Some critics went as far as expressing their fears of heading towards North Korea’s fate. So, we thought of exploring where the internet in Egypt stands from that of the rest of the world, and, from there, we’ve got a story to tell.

You know, it’s not out of nothing!

We know that this is not the first news website ban in Egypt. In December 2015, Egypt blocked the Qatari news website Al Araby Al-Jadeed and its English equivalent The New Arab. And, guess what, Egypt took that step following Saudi Arabia and UAE footsteps banning the same two sites.

That ban incident was the first politically motivated one on internet since 2011. For that, Egypt rank in Freedom on the Net report, that is published annually by Freedom House, has been getting worse since then.

The Organization has not published its 2017 report yet, but 2016 edition included Egypt with 63 total score (with 100 being the worst), putting the country’s internet under the status of ‘Not Free’ for the second year in a row.

Other main reasons for the score are reported restrictions on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calling services in October 2015, anti-terrorism law and that-time proposed cybercrime bill that ‘contain disproportionate penalties for nonviolent online speech,’ in addition to prosecutions and detentions for online activities.

In general, the report measures freedom on internet according to three main categories: obstacles to access, limits on content and violations of user rights. See the full methodology here.

So, what we would expect for 2017 report is nothing but a longer list of reasons for more bad points and further decline for freedom on internet.

Even without restrictions, it’s slow like a hell!

Of course you know how slow it is, but do you know that average connection speed in Egypt during the first quarter of 2017 was the 35th slowest connection all over the globe? Well, at least we were slightly better than East Timor, an Asian country that you most probably have never heard of. We were still better than Syria by the way, but not Iraq. Sorry.

To put numbers in context, with 1.93 Mbps average connection speed, connection speed of South Korean guys, whose country tops the list, is 14 times faster than us. 14 times! We’re even behind the world median connection speed with 3.43 Mbps.

However, average connection speed in Egypt is on the rise, slowly but somehow steadily, in exception of that accidental spike that we see for the second quarter of 2016.

Pain in the ass, right? Just for ‘the few’

Only 38% of Egyptians had access to internet in 2015. The rest are completely out of the cyber world. Here, we’re 10% behind the world average internet users percentage of population.
Getting the Story Right: Multiple Takes, Multiple Perspectives
By: Corina Paraschiv
Tags: Branding, Community Development, Storytelling, Design Thinking, Brainstorming

The meeting began, first with an ice breaker, where we recorded mini snipets of stories or insights on what Design Thinking meant to us.

We watched one of the short video clips I had produced during the IDEOu Storytelling for influencers class as a inspiration for the stories we would then share.

We then proceeded to the ice breaker — which will later be used for our youtube playlist as additional stories. Nolwen Mahe shared some insights on how DT transforms a team.

James Zdralek shared beautiful stories that made us rethink about what it means to really do Design Thinking as a process.

After this, we explored what had already been done by various sub-groups in our Design Thinking Montreal executive committees, and launched into sharing “the brand”. What we stood for.

The very first version of our presentation on the topic had been a very corporate powerpoint, sharing the vision for our community.

From that vision, which was my initial take on our project, we collaboratively came up with this one, with Monia Poncik.

But it turns out the workshop uncovered a whole dimension I had completely missed. It was a dimension each of my stories in video format seemed to carry — stories designed for participants and leaders — , but that none of my powerpoint slides — which were targeted to the executive committee and partners — spoke about.

And that was a much more personal story than design thinking, leadership and storytelling frameworks; it was about powerful, emotional things like excitement, impact, change, surprise, energy, curiosity, altruism, problems, powerlessness, being overwhelmed, and even having hopeful doubts — or as one expert put it “already being a half-believer”.

Somehow, it was something that had completely escaped the corporate slides.

As the evening came to a close, we knew this would only be the beginning of deeper reflections. Little bits of intuition that we would now have to follow up on and measure up to reality, as we went into the world to collect real data. For only with real, empathic understanding of the people and organizations we were designing for would we be able to craft both a program and a recruitment campaign that would be a true fit.

We would like to thank :

Toni Chowdhury, for the amazing set of pictures taken and shared with us that evening. Learn more about Toni’s captivating photography with Shutter-Tripper here.

And the Westmount Public Library, for lending us such an inspiring space for our workshop. Learn more about the library’s great cultural programs here.
6 Video Game Stories as Good as any Movie
By: James Battaglia
Tags: Storytelling, Videogames, Gaming

5) Alien: Isolation

No movie is as frightening as playing Alien: Isolation with headphones on. You play as the daughter of superfemme Ellen Ripley, gone to the faraway Sevastapol space station to retrieve the flight recorder from the famed Nostromo. An interstellar mishap sends Ripley and her tiny crew onto the trading post’s loading dock without any way to get back or contact their escape ship.

Then it gets worse.

If you’ve seen the movie, you know what else was on the Nostromo, and you can bet something like it found its way onto the Sevastapol spaceport. Too bad it already decimated the crew and made the automated maintenance bots turn on everyone.

Isolation is not fun. At all. You have no way to hurt the alien that’s hunting you, and it never, never stops. You can’t run. You can’t even hide for very long. All you can do it try to keep track of the creature, and keep moving.

You have a motion tracker to help, but if you’re looking at it, distant objects get blurry, so you have to focus. The best way to monitor the monster is by listening to it. That’s where the headphones come in handy. If you have your back to a wall and you hear it 2 feet behind you, breathe easy. At least you know where it is.
Convert Your Jupyter-notebook to Github pages with Github-action
Tags: Jupyter Notebook, Github Actions, Markdown, Data Science, Github Pages

Convert Your Jupyter-notebook to Github pages with Github-action Vivek2509 Follow Oct 24 · 3 min read

Photo by Richy Great on Unsplash

As a data scientist and machine learning engineering, the Jupyter notebook is handy tools you can use.

How cool if you convert that notebook into a blog within less than 5 min?

And now this is possible with Github action and Fastpages templates.

Photo by fastai/fastpages on Github

You can find a live demo here.
Love is Simple, it Encompasses Everything That Exists When the Heart is Open
By: Stacey Herrera
Tags: Self-awareness, Relationships, Love, Intimacy, Life

Love. Love. Love.

It’s the thing that we most desire. We want it. We want to feel loved. We want the people we love to love us back. Because we expect love to be reciprocal.

But is demonstration and reciprocity the recipe for love?

I have been thinking about love a lot lately. I recently talked about it with my sister-friends. The conversation expanded my definition of love. But the more I sit with it the more I realize that love is not as complicated as it seems.

Love is simple… it’s everything that exists when the heart is open.

When the heart is open there is tenderness, kindness, compassion, tolerance, and acceptance. And when the heart is closed, there isn’t. My new found definition of love has prompted me to look at my relationships. To see when I am loving and when I’m not.

Love is not a blanket. You may be loving in one area and unloving in another.

And if I’m honest, there are some areas that I am anything but loving. I sometimes forget that people are human like me. There have been times when I have been generous with my heart and found myself disappointed.

I do not collect people.

When I allow someone into my world, I try not to take their presence for granted. I share my whole self, flaws and all.

I am saddened when friendships end. My heart aches when romance is interrupted. And it makes me physically ill when there is betrayal in my family.

Before now, those things would cause me to rescind my love. Although traces of love would remain in my words, my heart would slam shut, and cast out whoever caused me pain.

But that is not love… and closing my heart does not hurt anyone but me.

It is possible to keep my heart open while walking away. I can accept reality with an open heart, and move on. I can speak the truth, feel anger, and let it be… with my heart open wide.

The closing of the heart is instinctive. Us humans, we shy away from pain and discomfort. And heartbreak hurts like hell, so we close down.

But in shutting down we often take our love back. We act as if it was never as intense. We rewrite history to tone down the enormity of our love. Because if we remember the bigness, we fear that our pain will be too BIG to bear.

When we close our heart, we diminish our capacity to receive love from the people who are still here.

So rather than shutting down, I am choosing discernment. I will keep my heart open, but I will be selective about who I let in. I will be present in my body so that I can feel the truth. I will not shrink or hide from love. I will not try to protect my heart. But I will be more present.

And if I should find myself loving someone who is just passing through, I will allow it.

I will love them the best that I can, for however long it lasts. Then I will set them free. Because open hearts do not bind…. and love is intended to liberate.
2020 Isn’t The First Year I’ve Lost
By: Jacqueline Dooley
Tags: Parenting, Life, Family, Lessons Learned, Coronavirus

Spring is here in spite of the virus. My bird feeders are active with goldfinches, cardinals, mourning doves, and blackbirds. The hyacinths and tulips in my small garden are in full bloom. The tiny magnolia tree that Ana gave me for Mother’s Day four or five years ago is already losing its flowers. Outside, the world looks normal. But in here, where my dishes are clean and my laundry folded, life is still on pause.

“I will lose another year,” I think to myself as I pour a cup of coffee on yet another Sunday devoid of plans or purpose. But this thought feels meaningless, unhelpful. The years are not a given. I, of all people, should realize this. This year will not look like I thought it would, but my expectations are subjective. I know, from experience, that there are only three things that matter right now: patience, gratitude, and kindness.

Be patient. That’s the advice I would give anyone who is sick of all this waiting and worry, to those protestors parading in the streets and the politicians eager to start up the economy again. We cannot change the fact of this virus. We can only do our best to stay safe, keep our loved ones safe, and wait for people who are smarter than us to find a treatment or a cure. We must accept that there’s no way to know what the landscape of our lives will look like when the waiting’s done.

Be grateful. If you are able, then use this time to reflect on the blessings in your life, while also expressing gratitude for those people — the nurses, doctors, postal workers, supermarket employees, and the essential workers who are making it possible for the rest of us to ride this thing out in comparative safety. Be grateful for the people you love and for those that love you.

Be kind — to yourself and to each other. There was already an incredible divide in America before the virus. This divide is our current normal. But we are now in a life or death situation that puts every single one of us in peril, regardless of what we do or do not believe in. What if we help each other because that’s the only way to make it back to some kind of normalcy? What if we don’t revert back to the status quo of hatred and derision after this is over?

The expected, anticipated future we all assumed was a given is up in the air. Waiting for what comes next is incredibly hard. It requires a certain level of sacrifice and resiliency that we’re not used to giving. It requires faith that we can figure out a path forward once we’re past the worst of the disease.

There is no way around this. We can only go through it, then learn to accept the new shape of our world once this is over. A year’s really not that much time to lose when you consider the alternative.
Microsoft 365-apps for Mac gain native M1-support
By: Oliver Pifferi
Tags: Mac, Microsoft, Office, Apple, M1

Microsoft 365-apps for Mac gain native M1-support

While many of you already enjoy your M1-based new Macs powered by Apple Silicon SoCs, my BTO-MacBook Air still needs to make its way to me. For everyone who is luckier than I was so far and is using the well-known Microsoft 365-apps, native M1-support is now for real as Microsoft has just released the specific app-updates.

Office on a MacBook Pro — Photo Credits: Microsoft

The core-Office-apps like Excel, Word, PowerPoint and OneNote are now cloaked under the “Universal”-label, combining the Intel- and Apple Silicon-based version in one binary so that the “new” Macs now have no need for using Rosetta 2 to emulate Intel-based versions anymore.

The “new” PowerPoint— Photo Credits: Microsoft

Additionally, the updated Outlook for Mac-app has been released as well and while earlier versions lacked the support for iCloud-accounts this feature has now been baked into the final version and will be rolled out through the new Outlook over the coming weeks.

While the “usual suspects” of Microsoft-apps are up-to-date now, the Teams-app, based on the Electron Framework, still needs its overhaul for the M1. While this is still work in progress, Microsoft is still redesigning some of its Office-apps for the Mac-platform with an updated Office Start-experience, a change that is told to reach the users with some new updates starting next month.

Outlook for Mac embracing iCloud-Accounts— Photo Credits: Microsoft

For all of you who are still waiting for an updated and M1-optimized version of VisualStudio Code, don’t forget to head over to https://code.visualstudio.com/insiders/ as this version is currently available as well on a daily-release-basis.

The updates for the “classic” Office-programs have already been rolled out and should have hit your Mac by either Microsoft’s AutoUpdate Daemon or the App Store, according on the way you have installed them.
Expectations: The Robber of Joy
Tags: Expectations, Mental Health, Trauma, Self, Healing

Photo by Yasin Yusuf on Unsplash

Expectations: The Robber of Joy

When others tell us who we should be

I just finished watching this is PARIS, a documentary of Paris Hilton.

To be honest, I saw it on my YouTube feed a while back, but never decided to click into it because I wasn’t really fond of her.

Growing up in the same period as her, I saw plenty of stories about her and her actions. She struck me as someone shallow, stuck up, fed with a silver spoon, selfish, and unambitious.

Why would I want to watch a documentary about someone who I really didn’t respect her way of life and choices?

This time, though, I thought I would be open-minded and see what she had to say, and I am so glad I did. Not only was it well-produced, but the story was compelling and struck a nerve in me.

She talked about playing a persona, putting up a façade, and erecting a lot of shields.

This is all due to her parents sending her away to “emotional growth school” when she was in her teens. It was both about the time in the school and the way she was sent.

At her most vulnerable when she was sleeping, Paris was woken up by two strange men essentially kidnapping her. She was screaming for help at the top of her lungs while not knowing what was happening, and seeing her parents standing by and not doing anything.

I can only imagine the terror and betrayal she must have felt when that happened.

All because she was “out of control” and her parents wanted her to act a certain way. To be prim and proper. To espouse the values she and her sister learned in etiquette classes.

Not that expectations are bad; after all, there has to be a standard level of humanity.

But what Paris was doing was normal teenage rebellious behavior. She came of age in New York, a place where all forms of self-expression and creativity was explored. And it was there, in the clubs, that she found her livelihood. She wasn’t thinking about her family image; she was simply free, in her own skin, bringing out who she was as an artist, and not who others expected her to be.
Designing effective onboarding for apps
By: Rohit K Jangir
Tags: Cricplay, UI, Design, Onboarding, UX

What?

Do you still remember your first day of college, where during induction you’re introduced to your faculties, your classroom layout, where the cafeteria is, etc.?

That same process of introducing someone to an unfamiliar environment for the first time is onboarding.

By Minh Pham

In more technical words, Onboarding is the process of introducing a product, service or feature to its first-time users to increase familiarity and understanding without confusing them.

Why?

Now you’d ask, why is onboarding important in apps?

In today’s day and age, where users have access to millions of apps in their devices, onboarding makes a lot of difference in their activation as engaged users.

Value Proposition

A well-designed onboarding explains the value proposition of the app to the users.

Handholding

In some cases, it can also let the users know how to achieve a specific task in the app.

Simplify

In some cases, it can also be used to simplify the user journey, leading the user to the core functionality of the app.

So depending on the use case, onboarding can be very helpful to engage the users in the long term.

How?

Now let’s talk about the “how” of onboarding.

Depending on the stage, you want to implement the onboarding in the user journey; there are three types of onboarding models; keeping the core app flow as a yardstick, i.e. Pre, Post and During.

Depending on the use case, their effectiveness might vary.

Pre

This type of onboarding activates right after the user opens the app before reaching to the core app flow.

This model works very well for showcasing the value proposition of the app or how a specific in-app feature works.

Most commonly, users see a couple of screens explaining which is presented as a carousel that can be swiped through.

By Nitin Bhatnagar

The ease of implementation makes it the most commonly used onboarding model, which you would have seen in a lot of apps. But the same can’t be said for their effectiveness as they are mostly perishable and once the user navigates away from these screens, there are on their own.

Post

This type of onboarding activates post the user has reached the core app flow.

This model works very well for highlighting specific options in the app with a given context; i.e. activating such overlays on particular user actions guiding them through what to do next.

This model is also relatively easy to implement. But due consideration is needed to map out their activation contextually, and a better way of implementation would be highlighting only one option at a time.

During

This type of onboarding uses progressive disclosure to introduce must required features of the app and handhold the user through the core app flow. Here user learns via doing.

This model works very well with a sophisticated core app flow, which needs a lot of user input.

This model is quite challenging to implement as it needs a separate user journey altogether, and it acts like a mini-app within the app. But when designed and appropriately executed, it’s the most rewarding.
Life After Relapse
By: Laura Fox
Tags: Relationships, True Courage, This Happened To Me, Mental Health, Self

Life After Relapse

No one told me I would have to leave people behind.

I remember being told “when you move forward in your recovery you will leave people behind” and I am truly starting to understand what that means.

Certain relationships I have are built on me having low self-esteem and not questioning how one-sided the relationship is. Now I am more confident and want equal roles it is quite painful. Painful because I am seeing clearly what is going on and painful because looking back I can see how this has been a very unhealthy pattern all my life.

I had a breakdown when I was seventeen. I developed agoraphobia due to intense anxiety. I also struggled with my body image and would starve myself. My logic was that if I made myself smaller and took up less space in the world it would decrease the chances of anyone hurting me again.

I am twenty-eight and although I have relapsed a few times since my breakdown, I have been growing in confidence. In the last two years, I have started to blossom into the person I was always meant to be.

I honestly thought people would be happy for me. I have always been told I need to be more confident and learn to love myself. However, the same people who told me these things are the very people who seem to resent my growing confidence.

Nearly all of my friendships were initiated during times when I liked myself the least. Usually, it was with people who needed looking after somehow. I am the friend who builds people up and nurtures them, whilst pushing my needs to one side. I can see why people liked this. It must be nice being the priority all of the time.

But I have found my voice, and after years of searching for it, I am not going to be silenced.

I want equal relationships. I no longer feel inferior to other people and overly grateful when they are kind to me.

Every relationship should be equal and respectful. If someone thinks that’s an unfair demand, then they really aren’t ready to commit to friendship and need to work on themselves. I know this, but it stills hurts.

There is an inner conflict when leaving people behind. Am I a bad person? Is getting better worth it if I will be alone? What I have learned is true friends will travel your journey with you and keep up with your pace because they want to be there. Those you leave behind did not want to be there anyway and that is their loss.

There is no greater joy than seeing someone overcome challenges and blossom into who they were always meant to be. If that is a resentful experience for some people, then they are the ones who need to question themselves and what they stand for. Not you.
PyTorch Lightning 0.7.1 Release and Venture Funding
By: William Falcon
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Deep Learning, Announcements

Venture Funding

You may have noticed that Lightning is no longer in the “WilliamFalcon” Github repo. The scale at which Lightning is now being adopted and used across academia and industry means I can no longer treat this as a “side” project (which it hasn’t really been).

After releasing Lightning in March of 2019 and making it public in July, it quickly became obvious that a single person couldn’t support the appetite for new features from the hyper-engaged Lightning community. As a first step, I formed a group of core contributors who are now leading a lot of initiatives across the framework. This core group was quickly augmented by an extended community of over 113 contributors (of mostly PhDs), and it began to feel like my vision for Lightning to become a foundational part of everyone’s deep learning research code was becoming a reality!

Along with this burgeoning community has come rapidly growing interest from users in corporate and big academic lab settings, making it clear that we need to build a team working on new features and functionality full-time. As such, I’ve secured funding from fantastic venture capitalists to hire a full-time team to help take Lightning to the next level!

I’m excited about this funding because it allows Lightning to stay open-source while building an amazing full-time team to move even faster through new feature requests. The goal is to make Lightning the best research framework for academic labs, corporate labs and production teams around the world.

I’ll announce more details around the funding over the next few months, but in the meantime, I’m hiring for full-time research engineers.

If you want to join the team, feel free to reach out to me at will@pytorchlightning.ai.

If you’re just a generally awesome engineer or research scientist with deep learning experience, also reach out! We are always interested in learning more about what you are up to!
The Leftover Heart
By: Priyanka Srivastava
Tags: Illustration, Paper Poetry, Writing, Poetry, Pandemic

The Leftover Heart

A reflection about surviving the pandemic

illustration by author

we will heal from this sadness

but that leftover heart

that won’t be complete again.

This year has been about different kind of sadness, those cracks which we have learnt to carry will be there, we will heal with time but those memories we will keep shuffling again and again. Our words will help us but our heart will be forever scarred.
Using Poetry to Fight for Social Justice
By: Danielle Gibson
Tags: Poem, Writing, History, Poet, Poetry

Building a Career around Beautiful Words and Transformative Thought

Audre Lorde was a queer woman of color. She grew up in America with immigrant parents. Through these circumstances, Audre learned early on in life what it was like to be an outsider. She experienced triple oppression, being a woman, a lesbian, and black. Through all of this struggle, Audre was still able to achieve more than most. She dedicated her life, career, and creative talents to confronting injustices of homophobia, racism, sexism, and classism in the United States and abroad.

While she achieved much, Audre’s life was never a straight path. After studying for a year at the National University of Mexico, Lorde returned to New York City and graduated from Hunter College in 1959. After undergraduate graduation, Lorde took a job as a librarian and began her graduate program at Columbia University. In 1961, Lorde graduated from Columbia with a master’s degree in library science. Obtaining this degree led her into teaching in the late 1960s. She was not only a college lecturer, but took the time to put on workshops addressing the civil rights issues of the time.

A photo of Audre Lorde. — Image courtesy of WikiMedia Commons

Audre worked as a college professor in the United States from the late 1960s until the early 1980s. While she was working as a professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, she fought to create a black studies department at the school. This was just one of many social justice issues that Lorde fought for during her career. After fighting for social justice and equality in the United States for most of her life, Audre found herself in Europe in 1984.

At the age of 50, Audre Lorde started a visiting professorship in West Berlin at the Free University of Berlin. Here she came together with a group of black women activists and helped to give rise to the black movement in Germany. Lorde’s work, words, and mentorship helped to increase the awareness of intersectionality across racial and ethnic lines in Germany. After making a mark in Germany, Lorde spent the remainder of her life traveling back and forth between the continental U.S. and the Virgin Islands. Regardless of where Lorde resided, she never let up on confronting issues regarding civil rights, homophobia, feminism, or racism. She was an outspoken leader and relentless champion of equality during her short 58 years on this Earth.