fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Unlock honest feedback from your employees with this one word
By: Claire Lew
Tags: Leadership, Startup, Employee Engagement, Employee Feedback, Management

Unlock honest feedback from your employees with this one word

Consider using this one word in your next one on one meeting…

A few years ago, a CEO told me how she was struggling to get honest feedback from her board.

No one seemed willing to be critical or give her pointers on things she could improve. After every board meeting, she would turn to them and ask directly:

“What feedback does anyone have for me?”

She’d hear crickets. Every single time.

No one would speak up. Even though they were board members — people who are supposed to hold her accountable as the CEO of the company — they shied away from offering their honest input.

This was so perplexing to the CEO. She felt like she was being very clear with what she wanted… Why weren’t they just giving her the feedback she was asking for?

One day, she decided to try something different.

Instead of asking, “What feedback does anyone have for me?”… she asked this:

“What advice does anyone have for me?”

All of sudden, everyone started weighing in. “Well I might try this…” and “The way you brought up this point could’ve been better…” and “You could try structuring the meeting like this…”

The word “advice” unlocked all the honest feedback that CEO needed.

Why? The word “feedback’” carries a lot of baggage. To some, they automatically associate it with a “critique” or something negative. It can seem scary and formal.

But “advice” is a much more welcoming word. Advice is about lending someone a hand. When someone gives you advice, they’re just looking out for you.

And when you ask for advice, it’s an invitation. You’re signaling that another person has expertise or knowledge that you find interesting and valuable. That person is often flattered you even asked for advice in the first place.

Who doesn’t love to give advice? :-)

The next time you’d like to get honest feedback, try asking for advice instead. Notice how much more people open up to you. See how swapping that one word makes a difference.
Django REST API
By: Pavel Ilin
Tags: Python, Django, Rest Api, Rest, Framework

Last week we talked about creating basic applications with Django. Today let’s try to design a RESTful API with Django.

Prerequisites

Before we start let’s install additional libraries which will help us design API:

pip install djangorestframework pip install markdown pip install django-filter

Project Setup

Now let’s make sure that all moving parts of the REST framework libraries are in their places.

In the project folder we have file settings.py. In it there is an array INSTALLED_APPS. Add one more element, ‘rest_framework’, to this array. Also we need to add this dictionary to this file:

REST_FRAMEWORK = { ‘DEFAULT_PAGINATION_CLASS’: ‘rest_framework.pagination.PageNumberPagination’, ‘PAGE_SIZE’: 10 }

In the previous post we didn’t sync with the database. We can do it by running migrations:

python manage.py migrate

Also let’s create superuser:

python manage.py createsuperuser — email admin@example.com — username admin

Now our initial database and admin user ready we can start developing API.

Serializers

Serialization is a process of turning data into readable format. In our case we will use serializer from the django rest framework library. Let’s cd to the app directory and create file serializers.py. In this file we will import the User model, import serializer and create filter data we are going to send out. This is how serializer looks like:

Views

Next we will need to create a view where user serializer will be used. Here we will query the database and sort record:

You can see that we are not declaring individual views. Instead we use viewsets. We group common behavior into classes.

Urls

And finally we need to write some routes for our API. Let’s cd to the project (not app) directory and open urls.py. Using viewsets allows automatically generating each URL config by registered viewset with router class:

And our brand new API is ready to use.

API CRUD

Let’s run server and see what we got:

python manage.py runserver

If we open localhost there will be all declared routes, in our case only one, because only the users have been created.

And if we click on the users route we will see serialized data from the User table.

That is Read operation, what about the rest of them? Easy! On the bottom of the page we can find an interface for sending POST requests which will create a new record in the user table. And after creating a new user we can follow RESTful convention and go to the URL users/:id (in our case that id will be 2) and see all details about this specific user and we have interfaces for Update and Delete actions.

CRUD is complete!

Conclusion

Django is a very powerful framework and with additional libraries it allows us to create fully functioning APIs very fast.

Keep learning, keep growing!

Let’s connect on LinkedIn!
6 Steps to Up the Sustainability Game for Your Business
By: Eunice X.
Tags: Finance, Investing, Sustainability, Venture Capital, Economics

Lessons from the most sustainably managed company in the world

Photo by Alexander Abero on Unsplash

While some business owners are still hanging onto a feast or famine mindset, others, as if tipped off by a prophet, have embraced a marathon running attitude. Gone are the old days where Darwinism reigned in business — sustainability is the new law of jungle.

However, unlike financial success, ‘sustainability’ of a business is daunting to measure to say the least. It’s like trying to predict human longevity — use all the health matrix you want but only time will tell.

Yet The Wall Street Journal cracked the hard nut head-on. They recently published a ranking of the The 100 Most Sustainably Managed Companies in the World.

Who claims the top spot? Let me spare you the laborious effort of a click. It’s one of the largest Japanese conglomerate with business in electronic products, video gaming, music and media — Sony.

Sony’s headquarter in Tokyo. Photo: Sony.net

To combat the pandemic alone, Sony set up a $100 million Sony Global Relief Fund for COVID-19 for efforts in medical — donating $10 million to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund; education — joining UNICEF to roll out digital learning platform “Learning Passport” in Latin America; and the creative industry —Play At Home for gamers, 500 ARTISTS WANTED for musicians, and free Sony cameras for visual artists.

All these efforts find their roots in Sony’s purpose statement revealed last year, “Fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology”, which to Sony is not a goal but reason for existence.

Before the word “Covid-19” existed in any dictionary, Sony has been funding startups focusing on environmental technologies with plans to invest 1 billion yen ($9.46 million) over the course of three to five years and recoup in about a decade. It publicly announced its goal to achieve a “zero environmental footprint” by 2050 and use 100% renewable energy by 2040 — both are now very well on track.

If you are wondering how Sony became the most sustainably managed company in the world, here’s six easily applicable steps we learned from Sony’s sustainability success.
Netflix Is Now Worth More Than Disney — What’s Their Next Move?
By: Murto Hilali
Tags: Finance, Technology, Marketing, Business, Data

BYTE/SIZE

Netflix Is Now Worth More Than Disney — What’s Their Next Move?

Four 3D chess moves that could make Netflix top dog

Created by Murto Hilali

My friends, who are 17–18-year-old males, have devoted their eyeballs to Netflix’s latest reality show: Too Hot To Handle, where attractive singles spend a month on a desert island trying not to advance the human species together (no sex):

These are guys who read self-help books and publish on Medium, guys who I admire. My point? Netflix has successfully stolen my friend group’s souls, AND I WANT THEM BACK. Slow clap, Netflix, slow clap.

Quarantine has people flocking to their screens and Joe Exotic’ mullet, and the streaming giant’s market cap is almost $187 billion now — just above Disney’s. With all this momentum, don’t be surprised if the firm starts making baller moves to grow its reach.

I got Netflix two months ago, so I’m already an expert — here are my unrequested (and probably unqualified) ideas for where Netflix could be heading next.
Karma Enters Global Market: KYC Now Available For The Foreign Citizens
By: Karma Project
Tags: Investing, P2p, Global, Development, Banking

Hello, dear friends!

Foreign Investors Allowed

Finally, a citizen of any country can pass the KYC on our platform and become an accredited investor.

We’ve connected popular KYC and AML provider — The Sumsub company. They provide a standard KYC procedure: one just need to add a passport photo/ID/drivers license photo and selfie with this document.

There are also important rules for our Korean friends

After passing the KYC investor can join any existing loan offer on the Market.

For the moment we start to work with foreign investors who have accounts in Russian banks or in Rubles in local banks. Plus, we're now integrating with an international payment system to allow any investor to join our platform from any banking account or a credit card.

Automatic accreditation for the Russian investors

We've developed a scoring system which automatically check investors' data. It helps to reduce the average moderation time to 1 min.

Notifications about virtual account updates

You always can control any incomes on your virtual account, such as payout amount, new deposits etc. Email and SMS notifications will make you aware of any operations with your balance.

“Zero commission” offer for investors extended till the end of June

The amount of new Karma investors is increasing on a daily basis. We are really happy that the majority of investors is staying with us and reinvesting more after receiving their first income.

We're working on attracting new investors also. That’s why we decided not to charge platform’s commission from all investors till the end of June.

Withdrawal fees

We’ve paid banking fees for any operations by ourself for a long time, but as the amount of users is growing, we have start charging a small fee of 50 RUB for every virtual account withdrawal.

Cheers^_^
The Feynman Technique Can Help You Remember Everything You Read
By: Eva Keiffenheim
Tags: Reading, Books, Education, Learning, Personal Development

The 4 Steps You Need To Take

In essence, the Feynman technique consists of four steps: identify the subject, explain the content, identify your knowledge gaps, simplify your explanation. Here’s how it works for any book you read:

#1 Choose the book you want to remember

After you’ve finished a book worth remembering, take out a blank sheet. Title it with the book’s name.

Then, mentally recall all principles and main points you want to keep in mind. Here, many people make the mistake to simply copy the table of content or their highlights. By not recalling the information, they skip the learning part.

What you want to do instead, is to retrieve the concepts and ideas from your own memory. Yes, this requires your brainpower. But by thinking about the concepts, you’re creating an effective learning experience.

While writing your key points, try to use the simplest language you can. Often, we use complicated jargon to mask our unknowingness. Big words and fluffy “expert words” stop us from getting to the point.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” — Albert Einstein

#2 Pretend you are explaining the content to a 12-year old

This sounds simpler than it is. In fact, explaining a concept as plain as possible requires deep understanding.

Because when you explain an idea from start to finish to a 12-year old, you force yourself to simplify relationships and connections between concepts.

If you don’t have a 12-year old around, find an interested friend, record a voice message for a mastermind group, or write down your explanation as a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or Quora.

#3 Identify your knowledge gaps and reread

Explaining a book’s key points helps you find out what you didn’t understand. There will be passages you’re crystal clear about. At other points, you will struggle. These are the valuable hints to dig deeper.

Only when you find knowledge gaps — where you omit an important aspect, search for words, or have trouble linking ideas to each other — can you really start learning.

When you know where you’re stuck go back to your book and re-read the passage until you can explain it in your own simple language.

Filling your knowledge gaps is the extra step required to really remember what you read and skipping it leads to an illusion of knowledge.

#4 Simplify Your Explanation (optional)

Depending on a book’s complexity, you might be able to explain and remember the ideas after the previous. If you feel unsure, however, you can add an additional simplification layer.

Read your notes out loud and organize them into the simplest narrative possible. Once the explanation sounds simple, it’s a great indicator that you’ve done the proper work.

It’s only when you can explain in plain language what you read that you’ll know you truly understood the content.
Don’t Use Quarantine as an Excuse To Stop Having Boundaries
By: Carrie Wynn
Tags: Mindfulness, Relationships, Mental Health, Advice, Self

Don’t Use Quarantine as an Excuse To Stop Having Boundaries

You need to protect your mental health now more than ever

Adobe Stock Photo

There’s nothing like a global crisis to give people in your lives the excuse they have been looking for to touch base. We are scared, anxious, and nervous and because we are emotionally vulnerable, it can cause us to allow outreach from people that we wouldn’t normally tolerate.

In the past few weeks, I have seen and heard examples of the following types of what I would call “quarantine inspired outreach”.

“I’m so bored, let’s shake things up.”

A coworker told me that she had become so bored while trapped indoors that she thought about texting her ex-boyfriend over the weekend, just to create a little excitement.

Although this may seem like a good idea after too much time and a little too much wine, don’t do it.

You need to respect people’s boundaries and remember that just because you think it’s funny to text your ex, his new girlfriend is probably not going to think the same thing. No one needs to be instigating fights while people are trapped together in a 500-square-foot apartment.
What Are the Rules for Lending Your Books to Friends
By: Hazel Clementine
Tags: Books, Reading, Friendship, Relationships, Education

Photo by Євгенія Височина on Unsplash

When you start to collect books at home, your friends and guesses will begin to envy you. Then every time you have visitors, you will live in dread of the moment that when they want to borrow one of your books. Besides, you will find yourself in an uncomfortable conversation.

Letting a visitor borrow a book is a complicated situation. Every reader like me wants to share the stories that make us happy; however, on the other, we do not want anyone to put their greasy fingers on our beautiful little books. The reason is that the statistics tell us that if we lend a book, the probability of seeing it again is almost 0. Even if we are lucky enough to see our books back, we would see that most of the pages of it turn into yellow and fall apart as we turn the pages. I am utterly sure about that because It is like the law of thermodynamics.

Once one of my books leaves the house door, it becomes Schrödinger’s cat, and it will be both located and lost. I call that situation “the uncertainty principle of borrowed books.”

I also want to add that yellow pages or missing pages are not our friends’ fault, and it is not because they are careless. If we want our friends to return the books that they borrow, we have to put set some strict rules. Moreover, we should print a booklet and put it inside the books.

For the rules, the first thing we need to make it clear that they have to return the books. That’s why we should make a list of which books we give and to whom in a simple spreadsheet, or in a booklet to keep them recorded. If we also want to put an approximate return date, do it. For instance, we would even write it down in the agenda to send them a reminder email. Yes, we need to be that heavy!

You should also clarify that if they return the books with stained chocolate, wine, coffee, or other fluid and moisture — not to mention loose pages or damaged covers — they have to buy a new one. That is the best way to make sure that they will be careful.

Finally, and the most vital point to keep in mind! The books that we love shouldn’t be lent. Thus, we shouldn’t present them because it is the best way to see them again. If our favorite books pass to others, then they will give the books to strangers. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible for those books to find their way back home.

If you are still willing to lend your favorite books, there is nothing to say. You are such a person that wants everyone to enjoy such special readings as you. I sometimes buy a couple of second-hand copies and have them available to everyone who asks me to read them. If the books are returned to me, that’s fine. If they get lost in the hyperspace, then nothing happens, and I don’t need to be sad.
Why I Am Choosing to Stop Writing on Medium at This Point
By: Rasheed Hooda
Tags: Writing, Purpose, Passion, Options, Life Lessons

I published my first post on Medium on October 25, 2019. and my 400th on October 24, 2020.

In that one year, I earned a total of $359.94, just shy of 90 cents per story.

While that is more than I’ve ever earned from my writing, it is less than what I expected to earn per month by the year’s end.

When things don’t go as planned, it is only prudent to analyze and evaluate your efforts.

“Regardless of how far you’ve traveled down the wrong path, turn around.”

~ Turkish Proverb

Looking Back

When I decided to publish on Medium, I planned to evaluate the ROI after the first six months of 2020. However, by the end of June, I was fun making friends and picking up followers, so instead of doing a thorough analysis, I decided to continue.

I have learned that the journey of life is not linear. There are ups and downs and a lot of curves along the way. Sometimes, you even have to take a detour and get back down the road.

Medium is no different. I learned from others that sometimes it takes one story to catch fire for your income to skyrocket. I have always believed in synchronicity. When you are committed to an idea or a goal, the Universe conspires for you. And, when that happens, it doesn’t always look like what you may have expected.

In October, as I approached my first anniversary of writing on Medium, the Universe gifted me with a sizable reward that had nothing to do with writing. It made me pause. I decided to take a look at where I was and where I was headed.

Freedom Lifestyle

Simply put, Freedom Lifestyle is organizing your affairs in such a way that you can spend your time doing what you love and enjoy. When I started writing on Medium, I had been enjoying Freedom Lifestyle because I was able to twist balloons and give them away. I learned that when I did that, others gave away money. It worked for me.

I approached writing on Medium in a similar vein. My goal was to build it up to the point where it will take care of my ongoing expenses and free up the time I spent on twisting balloons. I didn't expect that I would be forced to stop twisting balloons because of the way 2020 turned out. However, as I have always believed, the Universe had arranged to take care of me before I even knew that there might be a need for it.

Moving Forward

I have been receiving signs that while I am on the right path, a fork lies on the road ahead, where I may be able to change direction and have a more fulfilling opportunity.

I enjoy writing, and it enables me to pursue my purpose in life. However, I know that it is not something I feel passionate about. It is not the thing I do best. My choice of communication modality is verbal, as opposed to writing.

It is time for me to explore that.

“If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.” ~ T. D. Jakes

As always, thank you for reading and responding.

Here are a couple of related stories:

Graphic created by Rasheed Hooda using Canva

Will you buy me some chai?
Welcome to the Bazaar of the Bizarre
Tags: Musings, Writing, Bazaar Of The Bizarre, Mdshall, 21stenturygrio

Here are some quick notes pertaining to the tabs of this publication. Since tabs are tag-loaded, it is important to properly tag posts, so that they fall under the correct tabs. For posts to be loaded in the Poetry From The Soul tab, make sure that your main tag is “Poetry.” For posts to fall under the Musings tab, make sure to use “Writing” as your main tag. Although I have no problem with writers cross-tagging their work as “Poetry”, “Musings”, and/or “Writing.” it is my aim to have the bulk of “Poetry” posts fall under the Poetry From The Soul tab; whereas, the Musings tab will be the general section solely for various kinds of prose such as contemplations, flash fiction, meditations, memoirs, reflections, short stories, and vignettes. For posts to fall under the Fibonacci & Other Weird Forms tab, please use the tag “Forms,” and anything in this section can be automatically cross-tagged as “Poetry.” Although all forms are welcome, I say the more experimental (and less traditional), the better, only because experimentation with various forms has always been instrumental in the honing of my skills as a poet.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash
In search of better agriculture and food sector outcomes in Punjab Province
By: World Bank
Tags: Health, Poverty, Agriculture, Data, Food

* A five-year program seeks to empower small scale farmers and strengthen markets in Punjab province in Pakistan * The transformation process is essential to boost sustainable growth and tackle persistent malnutrition in a province where about 40 % are employed in agriculture and about 40% of children under age 5 are stunted * A recent visit to Punjab provides snapshots of the opportunities and challenges involved

What if public expenditure and regulations could be designed to deliver more results-per-rupee in the agriculture and food sector of Punjab province in Pakistan? What if government spending resulted in more poverty reduction, higher resilience, more business opportunities, and better nutrition? What would a smarter food economy look like? Who would benefit and who would stand to lose?

A year and a half after the start of a five-year Punjab Agriculture and Rural Transformation Program, the answers to these questions are still being formulated, as reforms and modernization attempts are being made in the fields, market lanes and offices of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province. But one thing is clear: there is appetite for change.

Although public support for agriculture totaled about US$ 1.3 billion in 2017, growth has been low and erratic in the last few years, holding back a sector that provides about 40 percent of employment and contributes more than 20 percent of provincial GDP. Nor is the sector providing adequate nutrition: a survey found 39.2 percent of children under 5 to be stunted in Punjab.

The program known by its acronym SMART, supported by a World Bank program-for-results loan, seeks to remove some of the obstacles to growth by introducing policy and regulatory changes, and technological innovations.

A visit to the province in July 2019 provided multiple snapshots of the opportunities and challenges involved in the transformation process.
What’s on Mind ?
By: Nalini Gupta
Tags: Deep Thoughts, Poetry, Fiction, Writing, Poetry On Medium

Whats on your mind?

They asked

Different worlds

Or happy thoughts.

There is a dark tunnel

Which leads to hell

And this is all

Left to imagine.

A slideshow flash before my eyes

Of people I love and hate

The happy thoughts of future

Are far behind

Fear takes it all away

Does it happen to you too?

The trembles pass down my spine

And the hair stands erect at their end

Negative thoughts has filled me up

And the tunnel will take me to hell.

On the other side,

I saw a shrub blooming

Among the dark clouds

It gave courage and strength

Maybe that is all what I want.
What if you could draw your thoughts in technical interviews?
By: Sagar Desai
Tags: Technical Interview, Software Engineering, Software Development, Interview, Coding

A lot of people like drawing out their approach as they work through coding challenges, and that usually involves using a pen/paper or your iPad. Even some of the best tech interview related products like AlgoExpert (which I highly recommend using) end up showing you how to work through problems by drawing on a (digital)whiteboard. This got me thinking, why dont we have a single place to code, draw, and video chat with another person? I decided to build that.

Just share your sandbox link!

Interview Sandbox is an app that came out of the desire for a place to practice, pencil, and perform without having to have a split screen, or to spend time drawing on a piece of paper and showing your interviewer your thoughts. The app is pretty simple, you create your sandbox (no login needed!) and share your link with anyone else, to get them on the same page. They can see your code in real time, see your drawings in real time, and you can chat with them too. After you’re done, just save the link for future reference. That’s it.

The app is currently in v1 so there may be some quirks and some bugs, but I will be ironing those out and it should get better with each successive use! Oh and if you have any feedback on how it can get better, I would love to hear. Just leave a comment.
20 Free iPhone Mockups [PSD, Sketch] - December 2020
By: They Make Design
Tags: Mockup, Design, Sketch, Psd, Iphone X

Device mockups are getting more and more popular these days. Apple started this trend by sharing the frontal PSDs of the recent iPhones on their Guidelines portal years ago. These mockups were just renders of the devices without any artistic branded touch to them. Lots of designers in the industry felt a need to create some custom frames to present their products in a unique way. And the over years the mockups visual style went from photorealistic ones to simplified versions like some of the ones above.

Now it is a huge trend when designers wait each fall for the upcoming Apple iPhone event and start drawing as Tim Cook speaks on stage. And then they post them on Dribbble or Bē.

Q: Where to use these mockups?

A: Lots of products these days find these templates/mockups useful for a wide range of marketing needs: AppStore screenshots, app landing pages or just present UI/UX design works using these iPhone X mockups.
About Written Tales
By: Written Tales
Tags: Poetry, Publishing, Fiction, Writing, Written Tales

pixabay.com

Who is behind Written Tales?

I would like to introduce myself. My name is Kevin, a writer just like you trying to build a reader base.

Why?

I was tired of how the publishing business works. How some charge writers a fee to submit their work. Others make the writer wait for months without hearing a word. How the entire process can be discouraging for new authors. Then, a cord struck within. I had a desire to create a publishing platform. A program to help writers grow their talent and promote the work they write. And from this “Written Tales” was born.

The Goal

The goal of Written Tales is to give new and seasoned writers a platform where they have an uncensored voice. A stage where their work can reach maximum exposure through multiple social platforms.

Without creative arts, innovation will die. Society will tumble into the abyss of ignorance. And critical thinking will become a lost art. Writers need an uncensored platform for their voices, and a community to help them grow. Due to this need, I decided to fund the project because I believe in the cause.

Uncensored?

We are not reckless in what we publish, but we are open-minded. We believe in free speech and will protect it even if we do not agree with the author’s position. Some creative works may offend, others will bring happiness. And this is the beauty of a platform that does not restrict a person’s view. Again, we will not publish reckless writing. But, writing that leads to lively debate, we will.

Final Comments

We are here to help bring literature back to the forefront of society through short stories, flash fiction, and poetry.

If you would like to be a part of this cause, please join as an author, or support us by signing up for the Written Tales newsletter.
Personal Finance Classes Offered By Making Of A Millionaire
By: Ben Le Fort
Tags: Money, Personal Finance, Education, Community, Productivity

Our top personal finance classes available on Skillshare

If you don’t have a Skillshare subscription, that is okay. If you use this link, you get a free trial on Skillshare, which is more than enough time to take all of our courses.

In the interest of full disclosure, if you do sign up for the free trial, we get a referral fee from Skillshare. It costs you nothing (and in fact, it gives you 2-free months) and helps us keep this publication alive, but we want to be fully transparent at all times.

1. Personal Finance Masterclass: 6 Steps To Lock In Your Financial Goals

If you take one class on personal finance this year, make it this one.

This class is about much more than budgeting. By the end of this class, you will know exactly how much you need to be saving for an emergency fund, retirement, and to pay off all your debts.

To do that, you will use the custom-built excel workbook that I have built and made available for anyone taking this class. It will crunch all of the numbers for you and create a budget that locks in these goals.

In this class, you will learn how to use the excel workbook as well as the six steps to creating a goals-based budget.
The World Won’t Cry With You
By: Darshak Rana
Tags: Life Lessons, Motivation, Poetry, Life, Philosophy

Leaving my dreams behind, I walked a thousand miles.

To see if the world would buy my smiles.

I lost my passion; I lost my will.

But nothing moved, and watching my pain; the world stood still.
Project Journal, Week 5. Welcome to our DATA360 team blog! This…
By: Minh Ta
Tags: Chicago Crime, Chicago, Data Science, Kaggle, Bigquery

Welcome to our DATA360 team blog! This blog will be the journey of our investigation into interesting aspects of the crime in Chicago.

The city of Chiacgo. Credits: Fox News

We started our project by brainstorming the topic we would like to dig into. KD was interested in crime in general, so we decided to investigate crime. Aside from that, Chicago is known by many people as the city of crime and violence. With that in mind, we agreed to make ‘Crime in Chicago’ as our topic.

Data Mining

For the first week, we found some relating and interesting datasets on Kaggle and on other sources.

Kaggle, a data-sharing community. Source: Kaggle

Crimes of Chicago

The first dataset we found interesting is Crimes in Chicago, a ernomous BigQuery dataset which consists of crime data from 2001 to 2017. This dataset contains more than 6,000,000 rows of incident data (Yes, 6 millions). We are not so sure to what extend we can use this dataset for, but we are sure that we can do many great things with it. We figured we can merge other datasets with this one to tell interesting stories.

Other Datasets

Other datasets we found include the temperature of Chicago’s Midway Airport from 2000–2019. We found an interesting finding with Crimes in Chicago and Midway Airport Temperature which we will share in our next blog post. Additionally, we gathered Chicago’s Gasoline Price from 2000 to 2019 and Chicago’s Unemployment Rate from 1990 to 2019. We have not done any analysis with those two datasets yet, but we expect to find some interesting correlations once we do.

That’s what we got for this week blog! There will be more, but we will save the fun for next times. I hope you enjoy this blog post. Please comment below for what you found interesting or what you want to suggest about our project!
YouTube Gave Me an Award and I Hated It
By: Stella Brüggen
Tags: Psychology, Happiness, Careers, Self Improvement, Self

When I started at university, I thought I would be incredibly proud if I got a master’s degree. But as I slowly got closer, it seemed less and less impressive.

Similarly, before I was accepted into the conservatory, it seemed inconceivable to me that I could ever do something so fantastic as getting a degree there. But I’m about to start my third year and not only am I doing it — I’m surrounded by people who are also doing it. It suddenly doesn’t feel so special anymore.

Imagine a mountain climber who is about to reach the peak of a mountain and goes: ‘But… this isn’t impressive at all. It’s just three lousy little steps.’

We forget where we have come from. We forget to look behind us and see the distance we’ve already crossed. We forget to be grateful to our former selves — for all the times we stuck with it, when it was difficult, but especially when it was easy.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

And then… like a million more steps.” – Felicity Ward

This is really funny, but it’s actually kind of profound. It’s as if we think that in order to be truly fulfilled, something needs to feel like a Heroic Effort, when in reality it’s the thousands of tiny steps (some of which we took because we had no choice) that got us to where we are.

If you study for every test because there is a professor forcing you, that doesn’t mean you’re not actually passing the tests. It means you set yourself up in a way that didn’t allow you to slack off.

Just because I have a natural aptitude for languages, that doesn’t mean that A for French at the conservatory is meaningless.

And just because I enjoyed making mermaid videos and it never really felt like work, that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be proud of reaching a milestone.

Me with my Silver Play Button. Yay.

I’m not an unhappy achiever. I’m an ungrateful one.

I think I’ll maybe just hang that silver play button somewhere and practise gratefulness. Not gratefulness for all the effort and blood/sweat/tears it took, but gratefulness for the fact that sometimes, things appear to have come easy — and that’s okay.
A Mid-Autumn Day’s Matinee
By: Ernio Hernandez
Tags: Reading, Fiction, Writing, Culture, Play

My play Translation by was just published here on Medium — you could say it’s “in previews” if you want to seem like a real theatre geek. In the traditions of Shakespeare in the Park and midweek midday matinee performances, I am unlocking it Wednesday (+ 3 others) for all to read, enjoy and share.

Translation by — Doing my best not to spoil it (yet still sell it) I can say it is a comedy of errors centering on a group of diverse players trying to ready a translation of a work… and not fully succeeding.
beginnings
By: Rebeca Ansar
Tags: Life Lessons, Motivation, Poetry, Poet, Poem

I can

is shedding its

onerous mass

to become the

starting point of

a high spirit

drop the ‘t

erase for heart’s sake

can’t

is a nefarious tightrope

masquerading as path

meant for falling soles

it has no business

in the hallways of beginning

decorated with hope.
Build React Tabs Using Recoil, Styled Components, and Storybook.js
By: Jennifer Fu
Tags: Nodejs, Recoil, JavaScript, React, Programming

Build React Tabs Using Recoil, Styled Components, and Storybook.js

A development guide to building React components with the latest technologies

Image credit: Author

In a previous article, we introduced Recoil, the state management library that’s been available since May 2020. For managing states, Recoil is simpler and more effective than Context API and Redux. We have been using it for our projects ever since.

In another article, we introduced styled components, a JavaScript library that allows us to write CSS inside a JavaScript file. As a result, components can run independently, without relying on any external CSS files.

Storybook is a tool for UI development. It makes development faster and easier by isolating components. This allows us to work on one component at a time.

We use tabs as an example to illustrate the power of Recoil, styled components, and storybook.

As we are writing an interview series, creating tabs components is also a frequently asked interview question. This article prepares you for both development work and interview challenges.
How to write articles that people want to read
By: Sunil Sandhu
Tags: Writing, Programming, Articles, Guides And Tutorials, Tutorial

How to write articles that people want to read

Here are a bunch of recommendations that the In Plain English team consider to be best practices when writing articles that your readers will find engaging and easy-to-read

Take a moment to give your article a good title and subtitle . Try to make them concise, yet compelling. If in doubt, ask yourself: “Would I find this title interesting enough that I would want to continue to read the article?”

. Try to make them concise, yet compelling. If in doubt, ask yourself: “Would I find this title interesting enough that I would want to continue to read the article?” Don’t create weird formats for your headings and subheadings. Just keep them simple and make sure that the formatting for each heading/subheading in your article is consistent with one another. If you are planning on numbering your headings, here are some examples for you to refer to:

1. This is a good heading

2. This is another good heading

1 : > This is a bad heading

2 #: This is another bad heading
Problems Deep Learning will probably solve by 2019
By: Surya Remanan
Tags: Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science

It is hyperbole to say deep learning is achieving state-of-the-art results across a range of difficult problem domains. A fact, but also hyperbole. In this post, you will discover recent applications of deep learning.

Deep Learning for Forecasting Nuclear Accidents

Forecasting is one of the many applications where machine learning techniques have established a firm footing. With the deep learning networks getting better with each passing day, the move to entrust these networks with something as sophisticated and incredibly powerful as nuclear plants are in progress. The external instabilities like Tsunamis and extremist activities like terrorism cannot be forecasted with certainty. But what happens within a nuclear plant can be controlled and should be.

Deep learning for diagnosis and prognosis

A piece of news published two days ago claims that deep learning can analyze lung cancer histopathology slides in less than 30 seconds.

Deep learning to eradicate suicide

In a recent NYU study wherein scientists built a natural language processing AI, basically, the same technology that runs Alexa, Assistant, and Siri that can detect PTSD in veterans with 89 percent accuracy just by listening to audio recordings of the person’s speech.

Deep Learning to Save Lives

The rapid advances in computer vision due to the application of AI starting in 2012, have led to predictions of the imminent demise of radiologists, to be replaced by better diagnosticians — Deep Learning algorithms. These algorithms will help “automate every visual aspect of medicine,” going beyond radiology to pathology, dermatology, dentistry, and to all situations where “a doctor or a nurse are staring at an image and need to make a quick decision.” This “automation” does not mean replacing doctors. Rather, it means the augmentation of their work, providing consistent, accurate, and timely assistance. We need all the doctors we have in the world and we will need 10X more because of the aging population.

AI-Based System to cut process time for abnormal X-Rays

Deep Learning can help a Sales Team Thrive

Machine Learning, specifically Deep Learning, fills in gaps that human intuition never could. Put to use across a team of eager sales pros, its innate advantages add a layer of intelligence to any crew’s knowledge base. As a tool, deep learning provides insights by spotting and naming patterns in millions of unstructured data points. Deep Learning bridges gaps in the sales pipeline by determining who is most likely to convert to the next stage in the sales funnel. Using Deep Learning, sales leaders can not only identify a good-fit potential customer, but also predict the possible deal size, deal cycles, and other insights.

Conclusion

There are many cases where AI and Deep learning can revolutionize a particular field. The list would go on and on. There are a plethora of applications. By the end of 2019, we will witness a wide variety of problems solved by AI.
Top 9 Jupyter Notebook extensions
By: Magdalena Konkiewicz
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Technology, Data Science, Programming

Introduction

Jupyter Notebook is probably the most popular tool used by Data Scientists. It allows mixing code, text, and inspecting the output in one document.

This is something that is not possible with some other programming IDEs. However, the vanilla version of the Jupyter notebooks is not perfect.

In this article, we will show you how to make it slightly better by installing some useful extensions.
5 Tips for Composing Event Handler Functions in React
Tags: JavaScript, React, Reactjs, Nodejs, Programming

5. Avoid Referencing and Depending on the State Inside Event Handlers (Closures)

This is a really dangerous thing to do.

If done right, you should have no problems dealing with states in callback handlers. But if you slip at one point and it introduces silent bugs that are hard to debug, that’s when the consequences begin to engulf that extra time out of your day.

If you’re doing something like this …

… you should probably revisit these handlers and check if you’re actually getting the right results.

If our input has a value of 23 and we type another 3 on the keyboard, here’s what the results say:

If you understand the execution context in JavaScript, this makes no sense because the call to setValue has already finished executing before moving onto the next line.

Well, that’s actually still right. There’s nothing JavaScript is doing that’s wrong right now. It’s actually React doing its thing.

For a full explanation of the rendering process, you can head over to their documentation.

But, in short, whenever React enters a new render phase, it takes a snapshot of everything that’s present specific to that render phase. It’s a phase in which React essentially creates a tree of React elements, which represents the tree at that point in time.

By definition, the call to setValue does cause a rerender, but that render phase is at a future point in time. This is why the state value is still 23 after the setValue has finished executing, because the execution at that point in time is specific to that render, sort of like having their own little world they live in.

This is how the concept of execution context looks like in JavaScript:

This is React’s render phase in our examples (you can think of this as React having its own execution context):

With that said, let’s take a look at our call to setCollapsed again:
I spent most of the last three decades scribbling about traveling, business and dining.
By: Teri Bayus
Tags: Muse, Sex, Writing, Affairs, Writer

I spent most of the last three decades scribbling about traveling, business and dining. Reporting on the tastes, flavors, ideas and sights that deemed worthy to be documented in ink. In that journey, I have become an expert at expressing other people’s passion. Not my own.

When I decided my voice worthy and ready, I wrote a sad book about my sister dying. Then I wrote an equally dreary book about my son’s drug addition.

Again- I found myself the presenter of other people’s stories. I would mantra — “My life has been unusual and full of adventure! It is time to tell my story.”

In my novel queue I have my circus story (I left law school and became a trapeze artist for 5 years), a couple of screenplays about raising 6 foster kids, a teleplay based on a weekly murder and HOA and a grand adventure after my uncle died and left me 5000 animals. Many words tapped, thesaurus consulted and wine gulped, but I never sent my babies into the wild. I kept them in folders and desk drawers waiting for that magical moment when I felt worthy/ready/brave/done.

For my maiden voyage, it made sense to combine sex and food for a summer read and Consumed was born. In this building of prose, I accidentally acquired a muse. In searching sexual and dinning matters our profiles found each other and became tangled like a gold chain left in the jewelry box.

The muse bounced and enhanced my words. I did the same for them. I loved it because the act of writing can get quite lonely and I’m a social beast. Also there was something in the anonymity that brought out an honest bravery I didn’t know I possessed.

In this unusual pairing of voices, we volley sexual and life situations back and fourth. The result is rough, funny and sometimes extremely sexy.

This has become a highly addictive practice. It’s a new relationship bound only by prose and honesty. There are no limits or judgments. Writing is a lonely road and the opportunity to travel it with a compadre made it palpable. Thru practice, it provided the courage I lacked.

We have never met. I don’t know the muses name. They do not know mine. I have been given permission to share using a pen name.

This strange liaison is one of the finest I’ve ever experienced. We chat about everything and nothing. It’s honest, profound and most importantly facilitated my voice. I write for them. I believe everyone should have a muse in their life.

Rarely does this happen. I thought it right to share.

On this blog/space/journal I will share our daily contemplations. I have promised to do this daily, the muse has not. You may recieve my strange brain fevers, or a tapestry of elegance, a dance of two writers.

See if you can tell where the muse voice ends and mine begins. I barely can anymore.
Wintertime
By: Sydney J. Shipp
Tags: Poetry, Self-awareness, Winter, Time, Nature

Wintertime

A poem on on the nature of time in the cold season

by Kristen Munk on Unsplash

I hear the mountain

of this magical landscape

enchanted by souls

who were wronged in the past

The land is still loyal

and it sings to the spirits

Shuddering peaks

groan and creak

as they exhale fall’s last gasp

They contract and they cool

like the days of the season

They shrink like the years

before me on my path

I’ll turn thirty one

with the rise of the sun

and I tense

like the rocks

at the prospect of that

The moments are cold

and they turn to ice crystals

frigid seconds set in stones

that skip forward through time

But in the heat of the fire

they’re melting and malleable

and for once in my life

the manipulation

is not my mine

I finally let go

and I let the heat warm me

I unclench my hands

turned to fists in the cold

The minutes and hours

thaw into each other

Time turns to liquid

that my fingers

can’t hold

Coyotes call

at the base of the mountain

Their voice brings me back

to the tempo of time

It echos the rhythm

of winter come running

and the moments

freeze back

into the the forward design
Five Important Facts You Should Know about Digital Marketing
By: Wenting Xu, Tina
Tags: Digital Transformation, Marketing, Strategy, Marketing Strategies, Digital Marketing

According to a ‘Managing Digital Marketing’ study by Smart Insights, 46% of brands don’t have a defined digital marketing strategy, while 16% do have a strategy but haven’t yet integrated it into their marketing activity. The right digital marketing strategy can give companies the competitive edge over their rivals, and to maximize growth, profit, and value.

Here are the five important facts that you should know about digital marketing. They’ll ensure you get the most out of your people and digital investments by aligning them with the critical moves that drive competitive advantage and superior results.