fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
There is No Labor Shortage
By: Katrina Stone
Tags: Society, Politics, Covid 19, Labor, Economics

On the May 18 episode of The Daily podcast, Kevin Roose spoke with New York Times economics and business reporter, Ben Casselman, about the surprise in the April jobs report that showed despite the US emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, 266,000 jobs — just a quarter of the expected number — were added in April. Apparently, economists are perplexed. (Before delving into the conversation, Casselman says: “So I will try to answer your questions as best I can. But I’m going to offer a warning right up front here, which is that I have no idea what is happening in the economy right now.”)

Casselman shares several reasons why workers might be scarce at the moment: lingering COVID-19 safety concerns; parents remaining without childcare options; and more generous unemployment benefits that have enabled workers to be less desperate, and hence more discerning, with the jobs they accept.

These reasons are all part of the picture, but notably absent was any mention of one important factor: low-wage workers are no longer willing to be exploited.

That is, workers are no longer willing to receive wages that don’t pay enough to cover their bills and a decent standard of living; workers are no longer willing to work without paid time off, paid sick leave, or health insurance (after a deadly pandemic, no less); workers are no longer willing to be treated like automatons without dignity and feelings; workers are no longer willing to have their entire lives revolve around a low-paying job that doesn’t leave them enough time in the week to live and tend to the things that matter most like their families, their health, and their own dreams.

With nearly 600,000 American deaths due to COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic last year, many people have reassessed their lives. They realized life is short and had time to reflect on what matters most. Why toil away at a job that doesn’t pay you enough so that somebody else can actualize their dream? Many people have realized there are other options. Lots of service industry workers have moved on. Some are now driving for Uber, DoorDash, which while having its own problems, generally pays equally, if not better, than working in a kitchen while also offering substantial freedom to set one’s own schedule; some have moved on to other industries; others have started their own businesses, and some have decided to downsize and live with less.

For years, low-wage workers in foodservice and retail have been scolded by those unwilling to raise wages that “if you want to make more money, then go learn a skill or start your own business.” Well, many have.

Enter, the so-called labor shortage.

The reality is that many businesses in the service industry were struggling to find workers even before COVID-19. When have we not seen Now Hiring signs at McDonald’s? Shaming people, cutting unemployment benefits, and offering one-time incentives to workers won’t fix the issue.
A Father’s Day legacy of service
Tags: Fathers Day, Social Justice, Public Service, Labor, Workers Rights

By Lee Saunders

This Father’s Day is a special one, as our country emerges from the worst of the pandemic, allowing many extended families to come together once again in person.

Emmett Saunders Jr., the late father of AFSCME President Lee Saunders, is flanked by President Saunders’ two sons: Ryan (left) and Lee Jr. (right). (1991 photo)

A lot of thought goes into what to get dad for Father’s Day. But nothing I ever gave my father, Emmett Saunders Jr., can compare to the gift he gave my brother and me every single day. His union job, as a bus driver for the city of Cleveland, didn’t just allow him to provide for our family. It came with a set of unshakable values that continues to be a North Star — the dignity of a hard day’s work, pride in public service, the need for worker solidarity, the importance of social justice, civic activism, and community engagement.

It was my parents’ belief in giving back that guided my brother and me as we became men, as we began making defining personal and professional decisions. They inspired us both to become leaders in our unions and our communities.

My father himself had an extraordinary role model. His father, Emmett Saunders Sr., was the principal of a segregated school in Clarksburg, West Virginia, during the Jim Crow era. My grandfather also served as president of West Virginia State Teachers’ Association, a professional organization for Black educators. For many years, they were denied membership in the all-white West Virginia Education Association. But my grandfather, working with many others, was instrumental in the eventual merger and integration of the two groups in the 1950s.

I am lucky to still have my mom, going strong and still living her values at the age of 95, but my father died in 2009. The power of his example is still an important influence in my life. I tried to do for my sons, who are now grown men, what he did for me. And now that I have three young grandsons ages 6 and under, I feel an added responsibility to pass on my father’s legacy.

These boys’ earliest years aren’t turning out to be easy ones for our country — a global pandemic, social and racial unrest, extreme political polarization and divisiveness. So I feel an even greater sense of urgency to teach them everything I learned around Emmett Saunders Jr.’s dinner table about service, selflessness and sacrifice.

I always look forward to Father’s Day — to the family time, to playing with the kids and, of course, to getting their gifts. But what really matters are the gifts I can give them.
The balance between being alone and being with others.
By: Brigitte Van Tuijl
Tags: Women Entrepreneurs, Alone Time, Ideal Schedule, Introvert In Business, Introvert

Since 2013, I don’t make more than 4 appointments per week, maximum.

And every 4th week is my hermit week: my completely appointment-free week.

VERY rarely I make more than 4 appointments in a regular week, when something wonderful comes along that I love to make an exception for.

That always works out well.

Recently I had a week with 7 appointments.

SEVEN!!!

For you, that may sound like nothing, but for me, it’s an ungodly high amount of appointments and direct interaction, which always drains me, no matter how much I love everything I do and everyone I interact with.

But this time, there were a couple of things I REALLY wanted to do, and none of them could be postponed to a different week.

Much to my surprise, I felt fine at the end of that week.

“Hey!” I thought on Friday evening, “I’m fine! I even feel energized! Maybe, after 8 years of sticking to my strict 4-appointments-maximum-regime, I can make changes to my schedule. Maybe by now I have more space for appointments than before!”

Then came Saturday.

BAM!

I was completely knocked out.

I felt slightly nauseous, completely wiped out, inexplicably cold and sooooooooooooo intensely drained.

I took a 2 hour nap and still felt SO tired.

I spent most of the day on the couch and most of the Sunday in bed, doing nothing, taking it SUPER easy.

On Monday, I felt like a balanced human being again.

The message was totally clear:

NOPE. I still need LOADS of alone time.

I still need to stick to 4 appointments per week MAXIMUM and one hermit week per month.

Ha! So glad I didn’t make any changes to my schedule yet! 🙂

ALSO:

I remembered that I used to feel like this every weekend ALL OF MY LIFE until I created my Happy Hermit Schedule in 2013.

Holy jesus in a rowboat … how did I survive that?!?!

I know the answer, by the way:

Smoking and alcohol and powering through on willpower.

The first two put a damper on all input and put a literal and energetic smokescreen between me and all the energies I pick up in every interaction.

The powering through on willpower kept me going, but it didn’t make me happy.

Phew.

Glad those days are over!!!

NEVER going back to a full schedule, busy weeks, and pushing myself over my limits and boundaries.

(And never smoking and drinking again, either.)

How about you?

Do you enjoy enough alone time?

Do you enjoy enough interaction?

Or do you (have to) go against your nature and haven’t found your natural balance between being alone and being around others yet?

You need both, so make sure to make space for alone time AND peopling time in your life.

Love,

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Real-Time Introduction to NumPy
By: Saiteja Kura
Tags: Statistics, Numpy, Python, Data Science, Computing

NumPy library consists of many functions.

In many domains like Scientific Computing, Deep Learning and Financial analysis we work with high dimensional arrays. You may think Python’s data structures like lists, tuples and dictionaries can be used to store such data. Yes, they can be used but the performance is way too slow than expected.

Why lists cannot be used?

1. In lists heterogeneous data can be stored, so lists contain the overhead of type checking whereas in real life we deal with high dimensional arrays having homogenous data.

Example: An Image is a matrix consisting of pixel values in numerical form.

2. Lists do not completely use the low-level hardware mechanisms in-order to accelerate operations.

Numpy is intended to bring performance and functionality improvements for numerical computing.

NumPy (Numerical Python) is a library that tries to efficiently process and store high dimensional arrays. It is a well-known and well-used package in Python in almost all fields. NumPy is very useful for performing mathematical and logical operations on large high dimensional arrays and matrices. It has a plethora of functions that can be used for performing various numerical operations efficiently.

A Brief Description of what NumPy offers at various levels.

Creating arrays in NumPy.

To start using NumPy and all of the functions available in NumPy, you’ll need to import it. This can be easily done with this import statement:

import numpy as np

A NumPy array is a homogeneous grid of values. The size of the array along each of its dimensions is called its shape.

# Creating 1D array arr1d = np.array([1, 2, 3]) # Creating 2D array arr2d = np.array([

[1,2,3],

[4,5,6]

]) # Creating 3D array arr3d = np.array([

[

[1,2,3],

[4,5,6]

],

[

[7,8,9],

[10,11,12],

]

])

Some of the alternative methods to create arrays in NumPy are listed below.

# Create an array of all zeros

a = np.zeros((2,2)) # Create an array of all ones

b = np.ones((2,2)) # Create a constant array of x

x = 0.8

c = np.full((2,2), x) # Creates a 3x3 identity matrix

d = np.eye(3) # Create an array of random values

e = np.random.randn((2,2)) f = np.arange(0, 30, 5)

Output: [0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25]

g = np.linspace(1, 15, 3)

Output: [ 1.0, 8.0, 15.0]
Day5 — Data Preprocessing Implementation for Machine Learning
By: Shridhar Hegde
Tags: Jupyter Notebook, Numpy, Data Science, Python, Machine Learning

For today, we had to implement Data Preprocessing using Python in Jupyter Notebook.

Definition

Data Pre-processing is the process of making the data fit to be used to train a Machine Learning model. The data set often contain anomalies and if used to train ML model often gives erroneous outcomes. Thus this discrepancy should be removed and to do that Data Preprocessing is used.

Three types of data anomalies:

Real world data are generally:

Incomplete: Missing attribute values, missing certain attributes of importance, or having only aggregate data Noisy: Containing errors or outliers Inconsistent: Containing discrepancies in codes or names

Implementation

This is the data preprocessing implementation that is done for the current task at hand.

Data: The data taken for this is the Bank Markintenance Data (click here to get the data). Have a look at the definition of the data set there.

Let’s dive right in to the implementation.

First import the required libraries. And then read the “bank.csv” data file.

#Import the libraries import pandas as pd import numpy as np #Read the data df = pd.read_csv(“bankmarketing.csv”, sep=”;”)

Then just display the head and tail of the data frame.
Data Preprocessing using Numpy and Pandas
By: Shivansh Keshari
Tags: Aritificial Intelligence, Numpy, Data Science, Machine Learning, Pandas

In this article we will discuss about data preprocessing using numpy and pandas . Here we will also learn how to implement the Data preprocessing in python

What is Data Preprocessing?

Real world datasets are often incomplete i.e. attribute values will be missing; noisy (error and outliers); and I consistent, which means there exists discrepancies between the collected data. The unclean data can confuse the mining procedure and lead to unreliable and invalid outputs. Also, performing complex analysis and mining on a huge amount of such soiled data may take a very long time. Preprocessing and cleaning should improve the quality of data may take a long time. the process of enhancing the quality of data is called data preprocessing.

Python Libraries for data Preprocessing:

1. Numpy: Numpy is the core library for scientific computing in Python. It provide us multidimensional array object for different operation

Installation in Windows 10 Operating System: pip install numpy

Some application of Numpy

· Creating Array: For creating a numpy object in python , import numpy library and use array() method to create an array.

· Data Type of Array: In array() Method we can also define the datatype of the particular function , so we can create any type of array using this

· Array indexing:

Indexing is one of the most important function that we done using numpy library . In indexing we implement various operation ,so that we can processing the data in efficient way.

Field Access is one of the most important operation that we do so we can check various things about the data like shape, type ,etc.

· Mathematical Operation

In numpy array we can do different mathematical operation like sum,min, max etc.

· Broadcasting

2.Pandas:

Pandas is an open source python package providing fast , flexible , and expressive data structure designed to make working and labelled.

Some application of Pandas

· Creating Data Frame

· Reading and Writing Data

Pandas library provide us various method to read and write data , that we use further in machine learning

· Statistical Summary

· View Data

· Join

This is all about data preprocessing by using numpy and pandas .

All this above code is available on the link below:-
Linear Algebra using NumPy and SciPy
Tags: Linear Algebra, Numpy, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence

Linear Algebra using NumPy and SciPy Khushijain Follow Jun 17 · 3 min read

NumPy

import numpy as np

Dot Product of two vectors

Dot product can also be calculated using ‘@’

Cross Product

Scalar Multiplication

Matrix multiplication

numpy.matmul() function is used to return the multiplication of the two matrices. It gives an error if the shape of both matrices is not aligned for multiplication.

Determinant

Solving Linear equations

x + 6y + 15z = 11

3x + 9y + 5z = 9

x + 4y + 7z = 6

Above linear equations can be solved for value of x, y, and z using numpy.linalg.solve()

Inverse of a matrix

This function is used to calculate the multiplicative inverse of a matrix

Addition

Subtraction

Multiplication

Scalar division

Transpose of a matrix

Linear Algebra using SciPy

scipy.linalg module contains all the functions of linear algebra. It contains all the functions that are there in numpy.linalg but has some advanced functionalities that are not present in numpy.linalg

from scipy import linalg

Solving linear equations

Finding Determinant

Finding Inverse of a matrix using linalg.inv()

Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors

We can find Eigen values and Eigen vectors using linalg.eig() function.

To know more about the functions of linear algebra, you can refer to the official documentation of numpy and scipy.

Happy Learning!
Basics of Google Sheets
Tags: Google Sheets, Numpy, Google Colab

Hello everyone, given below is the summary of the topics I learned today.

Table of Contents

NumPy Google Colab Google Sheets

NumPy

NumPy (Numerical Python) is an open-source Python library used for working with arrays. NumPy can be used to perform a number of mathematical operations on arrays such as trigonometric, statistical, and algebraic routines. Therefore, the library contains a large number of mathematical, algebraic, and transformation functions.

In order to use numpy in your local machine use the following command:

pip install numpy

and then import it in your code editor using an alias ‘np’

import numpy as np

To learn more about numpy functions with the help of code, refer to the Jupyter notebook I created by clicking here.

Google Colab

I covered this topic in my previous blog given here.

Google Sheets

Collaborative, smart, secure spreadsheets for fast-moving organizations

Google Sheets is an online spreadsheet app that lets you create and format spreadsheets and work with other people.

Creating a new spreadsheet

You need to have a google account to be able to use google sheets. Once you are logged in to your google account in your favorite browser, open up new spreadsheet by using the URL “sheets.new” or simply click here. A blank spreadsheet will open.

Let’s discuss some cool features of Google Sheets that will make your work easy.

Use Formulas

If we need to multiply values in column A, B and C for each row, we can use the formula ‘ =A1*B1*C1 ’ and press enter. This will give us the value for the cell.

To get answers for each row, click on the shaded blue square given at the bottom-right corner of 1st cell and scroll downwards. This will fill the values for all rows.

Similarly, to make a sequence of numbers from 1 to 10, select some initial rows and scroll downwards. It will automatically create a sequence.

Same for week days:

or month names:

2. Insert new rows and columns:

Use ‘Insert’ option given in the toolbar menu.

3. Rename your spreadsheet:

4. Formatting

Formatting like bold, italics, underline, font-size, alignment can be done using ‘Format’

Some formatting options are also given in this bar. Try them out.

5. Freeze

Use ‘Freeze’ to freeze header row, in case you have a large number of rows.

6. Analysis using spreadsheet

Select a table and click the ‘Explore’ option given on the bottom right corner.

It will show some basic graphs like bar graph, line graph, pie-chart, etc.

Statistical info is also shown:

Now, you can download your work in any format: .pdf, .xlsx, .csv, etc.

Here, I have shown only a few basic functions to get started. To learn more go to the official website of google docs here.

Happy Learning!!
Starting with Machine Learning🤖(Day 1)
By: Sandeep Kumar
Tags: Beginner, Numpy, Python, Google Colab, Machine Learning

You will encounter this image more often if you are new to machine learning 😃

According to Arthur Samuel, “Machine Learning algorithms enable the computers to learn from data, and even improve themselves, without being explicitly programmed”.

Machine learning (ML) is a category of an algorithm that allows software applications to become more accurate in predicting outcomes without being explicitly programmed. The basic premise of machine learning is to build algorithms that can receive input data and use statistical analysis to predict an output while updating outputs as new data becomes available.

Machine Learning is also used by physicists not only by IT guys in the self driving cars, face recognition movie recommendation system and what not.

It is used by the physicists in the sense that they usually start with large datasets of the particle that they create in a detector and they use ML to identify ten or one minutes that helps them in winning noble prizes 🏆.

ML algorithms can be primarily classified depending on the presence/absence of target variables.
Operations on Image in OpenCV
By: Shubham Kumar
Tags: Opencv, Numpy Array, Numpy, Image Processing, Collage

Here is the code for creating an image using numpy array, as first I have created a 3D numpy array of size (600*600*3) in which I filled orange color from rows (0–200) and then accordingly I filled white and green colors in the rows (200–400) & (400–600) respectively. Then with the cv2.circle function I created an image with centre coordinate as (300,300) and radius as 100, with filling blue color in it

This is the view of the image created

Cropping and Swapping the cropped part:

rob.jpg

hal.jpg

These are the two images which I am going to use for cropping the faces and swapping with one another

First we will load two different image in two different variables

Then we will crop a part of first image by slicing through rows and columns, i.e. for rows(start_index=7: end_index=82) and for columns(start_index=90: end_index=160)

Displaying the first cropped part

Then we will crop a part of second image by slicing through rows and columns, i.e. for rows(start_index=15: end_index=92) and for columns(start_index=90: end_index=175)

Displaying the cropped part

Allocating the cropped image in the particular selected rows and columns of the first image for swapping

Code for setting the cropped part of first image in the second image

Face Swapped (Cropped part swapped)

Making a collage:
NumPy a Boon Package!!!
By: Abu Qais
Tags: Numpy Tutorial, Numpy, Python, Data Science, Machine Learning

NumPy (Numerical Python) is an open source Python library ,a fundamental package for scientific computing in Python. Some of the features we’ll find in NumPy :

It is a multidimensional array object, providing fast array-oriented arithmetic operations and efficiently broadcast operation across dimensions. Tools for reading/writing array data to disk and working with memory-mapped files, It is designed for efficiency on large array of data. Provide implementations of many functions across linear algebra, statistics. NumPy operations perform complex computations on entire arrays without the need for Pythons for loops.

Comparing performance :

Time consumption creating a numpy array and a list

Consider a NumPy array of one million integers, and the equivalent Python list :

NumPy based algorithms are generally 10 to 100 times faster (or more) than Python list and use significantly less memory.

The NumPy ndarray: A Multidimensional Array object

Creating ndarray :

arr = np.array([[1,1,2,3],[5,8,13,21]])

arr

>> array([[ 1, 1, 2, 3],

[ 5, 8, 13, 21]])

arr.shape #shape attribute gives size of array along each dimension

>> (2,4)

arr.ndim #ndim attribute gives the dimensions of an array

>> 2 This array has 2 axes. First axis has a length of 2 and the second axis has a length of 4.

Note : In NumPy, dimensions are called axes.

NumPy Operations

we can perform arithmetic operations such as add(), subtract(), multiply(), and divide() in a ndarray(n-dimensional array) must be either of the same shape or should confirm to array broadcasting rules. Few operations of NumPy are shown below :

'Adding the two arrays a and b' : >> np.add(a,b) or a+b

'Subtracting the two arrays a and b' : >> np.subtract(a,b) or a-b

'Element-wise multiplication of a and b': >> np.multiply(a,b) or a*b

'Matrix wise multiplication of a and b' : >> np.dot(a,b)

'Exponential of all elements in a': >> np.exp(a)

'Sine function of all element in a': >> np.sin(a)

'Squareroot of all element in a' : >> np.sqrt(a)

'Zeros Matrix of size (a x b)' : >> np.zeros((a, b))

Broadcasting

It describe how numpy treats with the different shapes during arithmetic operation. Smaller array is “broadcast” across the larger array so that they have compatible shapes.

Stats with NumPy

NumPy has quite a few useful statistical functions for finding minimum, maximum, percentile , standard deviation and variance, etc. of the given elements in the array.
Five Numpy Functions To Save You Some Time
By: Yash Prakash
Tags: Programming, Numpy, Python, Machine Learning, Pandas

Numpy is arguably the most used library in data science, just in line with Pandas. It’s the first library you import in every data science project, and in my experience, it’s quite helpful to just know some functions to quickly modify your arrays with the least amount of Googling.

import numpy as np

Thus, spin up your Jupyter notebook as well as your favourite note-taking app, and jot down these functions as you read this article. They will be handy in your most future projects.

Let’s get going! 👇

Making special arrays

This is a category in which I include three numpy functions:

Make an array of zeroes:

np.zeros((2, 3)) # make a 2x3 matrix of zeroes

Make an array of ones:

np.ones((2,3))

and,

Make a square array of identities:

# identity matrix

np.eye(3, 3, dtype=int)

special numpy array functions

Finding unique values in an array

To find and get a list of all the unique values in an array, you only need to remember a simple function:

np.unique(arr) # get unique values in arr

unqiue values in a numpy array

Quite handy, isn’t it?

Splitting an array vertically and horizontally

Splitting an array into two equal parts can be useful for randomly sampling some part of the data you’re working with.

We define a simple array first:

array definiton

Then, we split it:

np.hspit(arr, (tuple of columns to split with))

numpy array splitting

Similarly, you can split vertically too via the vsplit function.

np.vsplit(arr, 5)

Finding minimum and maximum

Consider an array such as:

sample numpy array

Then, we can have the max and min values via:

numpy arrays max, min values

If you put axis = 0 , it calculates max and min values row wise, instead of column wise.

Stacking Arrays

One on top of another or one beside the other, numpy has functions for all kinds of stacking two or more arrays.

Let’s define two simple arrays first:

two numpy arrays

Then, we can stack them horizontally via:

np.hstack((arr, arr2))

horizontal stacking of arrays

Similarly, for vertical stacking, you can do this:

np.vstack((arr, arr2))

vertical stacking of arrays

Concluding…

What’s next? Should you go ahead and memorise these methods? Not really, because once you start practising them on some data in your next project, you’ll automatically come to remember them in due time. No additional effort will be needed.

Now that you know the existence of such cool numpy functions, I would recommend you to go ahead and experiment with them on your own. Maybe you’ll find some neat little trick that I didn’t explore in this article? It all comes down to some practise. It can be wondrous and quite fun too!
Python Function Guide: Day 10
By: Python Novice
Tags: Programming, Numpy, Python, Data Science, Sort

Hello all, This is post 10 of my 365 posts of re-learning python. I am writing about small topics from python I learned /used during the day at work. At the end of 365 days, the aim is to be better at python than I am today. If you are reading this, this is not a regular tutorial/ how to do this-that page, but a page out my python-re-learning-guide-journal-ish-thing. Only prerequisites are you must know what list, tuple, array, data frame, series and sets.

I am currently looking into functions of numpy. For reference of the numpy series I will be using O’reilly book “Python Data Science Handbook” by Jake VanderPlas.

Today we will look into our final topic under the Numpy library, that is sorting arrays.

There are definitely more functions available to work with arrays but this too follows the Pareto rule, if you know 20% of most commonly used functions then you can solve 80% of Numpy problems, and so the goal is to master that 20%

Thank you all for reading this.

I only write for self-cognition-process. I am no expert.

If you think there is something I could have done better or I have done wrong, please let me know at methodappend@gmail.com!

I have also started an instagram page. I draw my own drawings (uploaded at the start of the page). Please follow my Instagram handle.(https://www.instagram.com/append_art.py/)
Gauging users’ reactions to non-native UI
By: Frances Biedenharn
Tags: Cross Platform, UI Design, Usability, UX, UX Design

I’ll use myself as a counter example because I have my “social networking” screentime limited to 30 minutes on my phone.

My top 3 apps on my iPhone (besides messages…) are:

spotify instagram pinterest…

When I’m in spotify and I click the “meatball” icon (or the more_vert icon) i darn well better see a full screen overlay giving me the option to share the song or go to the radio. (These are tasks I do often.)

>Share> “have you listened to this podcast from 2010?”

But, when I use instagram, I am still sometimes perplexed at its architecture.

While I can easily browse my old photos or add a story, how do I allow someone to follow me, again? (This is a task I do rarely because I am lame.)

As for pinterest, well, if I get over the embarrassment of it being a top 3 app, I can tell you that I expect and am pleased by the full-screen, ultra-dynamic cool, neat, interactive search screen. I can also tell you that I just now guessed that this questionable icon:

No.

would lead me to settings, purely because the placement of the settings screen(s) was architecturally similar to instragram and spotify. I can tell you, too, that I’d never visited my pinterest settings and probably never will again. Bye.
Beauty and the Usability
Tags: User Research, Aesthetic Usability, Usability, Aesthetics

I have often been asked this question: What is good design? While it may seem like there is one simple answer to this, I always struggle to respond. I can tell what design is not: It is not just about the aesthetics, it is not objective, neither is it very subjective, it is not what you perceive immediately after looking at something, and so on.

It’s safe to assume that good design is usable. But what about beautiful design? Design that looks good. Design that catches your attention. Design that attracts you with its simplicity, colors, texture or material. Can that be considered usable? Apparently, the answer is an astounding yes. This also corresponds to social psychology findings that people associate a person’s physical attractiveness with other personal attributes.

Image from https://uxdesign.cc/design-principle-aesthetics-af926f8f86fe

In their study, Masaaki Kurosu and Kaori Kashimura demonstrated the aesthetic-usability effect [1]. They concluded that “a user may be strongly affected by the aesthetic aspect of the interface even when they try to evaluate the interface in its functional aspects. In another study, researchers N. Tractinsky, A.S. Katz, D. Ikar addressed two objectives: 1. To test whether the initial correlation of perceived aesthetics and usability reflect more general tendencies to associate aesthetics with other system attributes; and 2. To explore what happens to users’ perceptions of aesthetics and usability after they use the system. This study strengthened the evidence of other studies that found strong correlations between users’ perception of an interface aesthetics and their perception of the usability of the entire system [2].

What does this mean when we are studying user behaviors? It’s quite puzzling. It is no news that attractive things are certainly preferred over less attractive ones, but why should they necessarily work better than the unattractive ones? Alice Isen’s study shows that when people are relaxed and happy, their thought processes expand, becoming more creative, more imaginative [3]. Donald A. Norman believes that this and other studies combined, suggest attractive things make people feel good, which in turn makes them think more creatively [4]. How does that make something easier to use? By making it easier for people to find solutions to the problems they encounter.

The aesthetic-usability effect is merely a phenomenon which has been supported by five or six studies. Since the effect has also been disproved by other researchers, there are no final conclusions drawn.

However, assuming that the effect has not been disproved, a few things to keep in mind for us user researchers:
Local e-commerce —Usability case study
By: Hajrah Mushtaq
Tags: Ironhack, Prototyping, UI Design, Usability, UX Design

At Ironhack, I was given the challenge to redesign a local e-commerce website focusing on Usability, with a team of three other members (Lotte, Joao, and Nastya) and deliver an interactive Mid-Fi prototype. We chose to collaborate with Kokiedog.nl

CLIENT

Koekiedog.nl is a young dog food company that was established in the Netherlands in 2021. The company is a family-owned business based in The Hague. As they recently started the online business they are struggling with increasing their sale online, and after our research, we noticed they could improve their website. Home-baked, cookies made of natural ingredients are a unique idea in the Netherlands yet and there are not many companies having the same product line.

Stakeholder Interview

We interviewed the stakeholder to get some insights into what their idea is on the website and what they like to see changed. We talked with Wing, the Co-owner of Koekiedog.nl. She is mostly responsible for the website and works on all marketing and advertising-related activities.

Some key findings from the stakeholder interview:

Primary users are people with more expensive dog breeds

Playful & Inspiring Theme

Ingredients and Quality matters most

Homemade and 100 % natural food is the selling point

The flow of the website does not work well

Integrate website with Instagram

Add payment options on the website

The interview helped us figure out where they want koekiedog.nl to be in the future.

MARKET RESEARCH

Feature Competitive Analysis

We started by conducting market research and comparing the features of four different brands (Pedigree, Nom Nom, Tails.com, and Doggy Deli) that have similar product lines, to get a better idea of our competitors.

Feature Competitive Analysis

From the Feature Competitive Analysis, we spotted that Nom Nom and Tails.com do not offer different food quantities but they do have a chat feature on their websites which is good for rapid response to customers’ queries.

Market Positioning Map

The Market Positioning Map clearly depicts where our brand lies currently, where there is a gap in the market, and what the goal of our brand is.
I don’t understand this.
Tags: Sekiro, Meaning, Videogames, Gaming

I don’t understand this. Playing the game — gaining experience, building the circuits, etc. — lowers your experience of difficulty. You even cover this in your essay.

There are tons of ways to lower the difficulty of Sekiro and other Soulslikes. Grinding currency (souls, whatever), finding a “better” character build, watching someone else beat the boss and learning the strategies, among others. But, for me — and for many others — the most “fulfilling” way to lower the difficulty is to simply get better at the game. You can get better at the game by practicing; i.e.: literally just playing the game, and paying some attention to it.

And many of these games are even designed to help you build those circuits — starting out with relatively simple enemies with small numbers of possible moves, but which deal a lot of damage if you are hit. If you can’t dodge these highly-projected abilities, you will just die, and you will learn very quickly — if you’re paying any attention — that you need to avoid these attacks. And thus the learning begins.

My problem with these kinds of pro-easy-mode arguments is that the net-result of implementing an easy-mode in Soulslike games would be to eliminate a diverse piece of video games. Some people (myself included) literally want a game that doesn’t have an easy-mode. There can be a plethora of reasons for wanting this;

Maybe you are afraid that you’ll be tempted to use the easy mode, when you know that playing on the “normal” difficulty will be more fulfilling if you stick it out.

Now sure, someone could say “Well that’d be your fault for succumbing to temptation” — and you’d be right; but who cares? That doesn’t negate the reason; this person simply doesn’t want to be tempted. I don’t see anything that is obviously wrong with that.

On Cheese:

I don’t like that “cheesy” strategies exist; things like exploits that negate boss abilities, etc. I wish Soulslike games simply didn’t have them. I think they are bad for the “integrity” of the game. I do not support From Software purposefully placing cheesy strats in their games. But we can’t expect every single boss fight to be exploit-free; that’s just not how game development works. You can’t catch everything.

On Walkthroughs/Grinding:

Personally, I am always a bit disappointed in myself when I feel like I need to rely on a walkthrough (or grinding) to figure out how to beat a boss. I almost wish I could just… eliminate that temptation completely from my brain. But frustration is a helluvan emotion, and sometimes it gets the best of me.

Diversity:

I think that diversity in video games is really good. The fact is, Soulslikes not having an easy mode is a differentiating factor that many people find meaningful — it adds to diversity.

The best part is that… there are so many other games that people can play to satisfy their own diverse tastes.

I wrote a little bit about diversity of experience here. Would love it if you gave it a read.

https://medium.com/@brocklewis_13490/gaming-as-a-source-of-meaning-c3b44d71394a
The Burning eyes
By: Arunas Kacinskas
Tags: Poetry, Lyrics, Meaning, Love, Life

The Burning eyes

Rain on me and wash away my sins.

Today was bleak and I wake up hurting.

My heart is black and it's have been colored by night.

So you don't need to stay alive.

I write so no one should read this.

The tears in my heart have been ripped apart.

Do you hear me humming in the dark?

Do you still want to touch the corners of my eyes?

I pray for us to keep ourselves apart.

Will you save my soul when I'm done playing around?

Should I stop for you and refresh my complaining?

Is it too late for us to start again?

My mind aches then you aren't around,

but your eyes have been covered with lies.

The electric cross is burning me and my sins.

I hope that our skin will touch again.

Will your prayers reach the sky or

it will melt in my mouth?

I'm dreaming to write to you, but it's too late for me.

So I rather complain about life.

They taught me to love but left me with pain.

I'm asking if you will leave me again.

Standing in front of the creator I'm praying for forgiveness.

The concrete sky has been my salvation.

My feelings have been folded to your hands.

Now you have the power to break it apart.

I'm putting my word to my mouth, so I can scratch my pain away.

I need to soak up the mess I've done.

I left you hanging by words, so it can cover your eyes.

You hide behind the fire, so it won't burn as alive.

My ego is torn apart because you swallowed the key to my heart.

I'm lying to save myself. The selfish, but trying to improve.

You can rip apart my words I said and put them reversed.

The trust was between the eyes

Now they are covered with surprise.

The end is near, so forgive my claustrophobic fear.
AMC Full Form In Maintenance | What Does AMC Stand For
By: Dula Bhowmik
Tags: Amc, Meaning, Full Form, Amc Meaning

AMC full form is “Annual Maintenance Contract” & AMC is an important part of sales. The better After-sales service provided by any company will help to generate more sales, in the long run, also build a reputation for the brand.

We choose established branded products to get the after-sales service better.

Why Do You Need AMC (Annual Maintenance Contract)?

Imagine a scenario where your laptop, your PC motherboard, a printer, or even a keyboard go bad, and what happens? It is impossible to rely on these gadgets in minutes. What if the warranty period exceeds the repair service period? Please do not worry. Where there is a problem, there is the solution. This is where the AMC (Annual Maintenance Contract) comes in handy.

For your convenience, these services are offered under well-known names in the technical support industry. This service is also known as a post-warranty agreement designed to help you out of this situation.

Considering that your PC’s motherboard is not working and needs to be repaired or replaced, the market value can be very expensive. It is recommended to buy a new PC that is relatively cheap. But instead of ignoring the problem, why not fix it on its own?

Choosing a company that provides reliable services For annual maintenance purposes, will help you save time and money but how?

The answer is very simple. Choose a company that offers customers the best deals at competitive prices and also covers all computer hardware equipment and printers. Customers can enjoy the privileges of hardware maintenance and repair throughout the year by paying an annual fee. Hence, it is more beneficial for you if you are offered to pay an annual maintenance fee which is almost equal to a single repair or replacement of the equipment.

There are many AMC providers, but you should choose wisely, but choose a company that provides your customers with benefits and advantages at a competitive level. Providing world-class service while maximizing customer satisfaction should be a central area of ​​interest. Ensure that customers receive fast and cost-effective service.

Choose to associate with a well-known name that sets a standard benchmark that measures maintenance services, and be aware of the testimonies of large customers offering the maintenance of their machines opportunities.

This is an example of the computer but in case of any large buying, we should consider the AMC for the better service in future.

You Also May Like To Read
On Becoming A Pro (At Anything) — And Does It Matter?
By: Mario M. Montreal
Tags: Skills Development, Meaning, Personal Development, Expert, Professional

As you may know, I read a lot.

And, recently, I re-read Turning Pro by bestselling author Steven Pressfield.

It’s about how to beat your inner demons (which he calls Resistance), and why we need to go from being an amateur to becoming a professional (turning pro) if we want to “become who we always were but had, until then, been afraid to embrace and live out.”

The first time I read it was in 2016.

It’s a book that gives you a not-so-nice-but-necessary-kick-in-the-ass.

Ok, enough bragging about me being a bookworm.

Now to you:

Why am I telling you all this?

Because I’m sick ‘n tired of my own BS.

Yes, I’ve accomplished a lot of things I never dreamed of — in the past.

All the friends I made

The social skills I developed

My attitude of gratitude for life

Who I’ve become so far

Meditation

Peace of mind

Doing things I’m passionate about

Having traveled to more than a dozen countries

Et cetera

You’re getting tired, too?

That’s the issue.

You could fall into the illusion that my life’s helluva paradise on earth. Most probably you don’t care at all about me and wish I revealed the secret to becoming a pro at anything right here right now. Alright…

Long story short

Turning my social life around in mid-2014 (and writing online consistently since 2021) wasn’t an accident; I surrounded myself with the right people, was in the right environment, took daily action, and adjusted.

Hate the term, but I “deserved” it.

I took action no matter what.

Yet, it wasn’t by design.

I had no clear strategy.

I wasn’t a pro.

If you want to improve your life, you don’t need to be a pro. You need to get your sh*t together. You gotta take daily action.

Once you improve your life, you need to maintain it and keep growing. This is where Turning Pro comes in. It’s not about you bragging in front of your newly made friends that you’re better than them… rather the contrary. It’s about you lifting everyone else up — especially when they are down ‘n out — because it’s the right thing to do. You intuitively know that.

Tbh, I could have gone further and excelled faster if I had a sound strategy put in place back in 2014.

No regrets.

Here’s what I believe:

“It’s much easier to turn your life around (even if you have no clue at all what you’re doing = amateur) than to strategically create a meaningful life once the foundation is in place (=pro).”

Why? Because, lifestyle habits.

In order to ‘turn pro,’ you got to commit and re-commit every single day.

That’s the key.

That’s the secret.

That’s why long-term growth is harder to achieve than short-term results.

Every single day, you gotta take action.

Whether you’re poor or not, doesn’t matter.

What’s easy to do is also easy not to do.

Learned this from listening to Jim Rohn.

One decision every single day.

Will you (re)commit yourself to do what you set out to do?

Or will you give in to immediate gratification?

Most people choose the latter.

My advice?

Go against the grain.

No one said it’s gonna be easy.
vocabulary — booster. Hi Guys…
By: Kalaivani Kannan
Tags: Dilemma, Ideas, Meaning, Vocabulary

Hi Guys…

Today I am going to discuss one of the topics which most helpful to your improvised communication.

I have read some vocabulary today, thought to share with you people who need to know. I will give you one example sentence for your better understanding. whenever we read one word or synonyms, the idea is like we should remember the word with one easy sentence means it won’t forget from our minds.

The words are,

Adherence — We should adherence precautionary measures on these pandemic days.

Reward — He/She had rewarded Rs.5000/- for the best performance.

Plethora — youngsters are facing a plethora of problems due to unemployment.

Recapitulate — While we are in a Group discussion, we have to recapitulate the important points once in the end.

Volatile — Heating water is a volatile process.

Mesmerize — Ooty is a wonderful mesmerizing place to visit.

Mandatory — Wearing a mask is a mandatory one nowadays.

Existence — we are the living existence on earth.

Embrace — I wish to embrace my victory through my hard work.

Dilemma — I want to commence to study IELTS but still in dilemma to choose the categories.

To name a few — I like flowers, name a few is Rose and jasmine.

The short span of time — Ram won first place in the puzzle competition, He finished his task in a given short span of time.

Here are few words with equivalent sentences, Hope you read them and build your vocabulary with me. Thank you all.

Regards,

van_kalai