fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Getting Real
By: Ace
Tags: Company Culture, Change, Sustainability, Data, Eyecare

Dear reader,

Through We’re Working On It, a platform dedicated to openness and self-reflection, we invite you to follow our journey as we work hard to become a less harmful company. We’re figuring it out as we go along, and we are by no means experts on the subject (yet). We will be as transparent as possible however and report both our successes and failures along the way.

As I pointed out in my previous post, we are not a sustainable company. We’ll probably never fully be. The harsh reality is that every product manufactured or service rendered comes at an environmental cost. However, this does not mean that we shouldn’t do everything in our power to reduce harmful impact in every way we can.

The latest calculations show that things are not going in the right direction. At all. Carbon emissions in 2018 are at an all-time high, according to the Global Carbon Project.

For Ace & Tate, getting our shit together meant that we first needed to understand our impact — both direct and indirect. Essentially, ‘direct impact’ results from the activities we have a high level of control over (like our offices and our stores) and ‘indirect impact’ results from all other activities (such as manufacturing and shipping our products).

As we don’t own factories, we work with our partners across the full value chain to eliminate harmful practices and reduce impact. Luckily, our value chain is relatively simple as we are, to a large extent, vertically integrated. We design our own products, we work directly with the factories and then we sell them through our own stores (our website and physical stores).

So, we got to work. Back in 2017, we set out to establish a baseline for Ace & Tate’s environmental footprint¹ that we could use to measure our progress against.

First, our sustainability team set out to find a partner who could help us do the math. Sustainalize fit the bill and having them on board guaranteed an unbiased report. Together, we decided that the first order of business was to establish a baseline: an internal document that quantifies our entire impact as a company. This document could then be used as a benchmark for all future activities, helping us understand what the most harmful aspects of our business are, and pushing us further to address them.

In other words, we stopped talking and got cracking.
Symfony: Generate a URL
Tags: Symfony, PHP

Two ways to generate a URL in your sf_Actions and don’t escape the & symbol

1.

$this->rehearsalUrl = $this->getController()->genUrl("rehearsal/treepopup?studyunit_id={$this->studyunitId}&source_id={$this->source_id}&subject_id={$this->subject_id}"); 2.

$subject_cached = $this->generateUrl('subject_cached', array('id' => $subject_id, 'user_id' => $user->getId()), true);

$this->redirect($subject_cached);
iOS Core Data with Sugar Syntax
By: Bassem Qoulta
Tags: Core Data, iOS, Sqlite, Sugar, Swift

Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar on Unsplash

When I started iOS programming since years ago I was mixing up between the Core Data and the Database, but in fact the Core Data is not a database even Core Data is actually backed by an SQLite database but both of them are ways of providing searchable and persistent storage. In short description we can say that SQLite is a database itself and Core Data is an ORM (Object Relational Model) which creates a layer between the database and the UI.

What’s Core Data?

Core Data is a framework that you use to manage the model layer objects in your application. It provides generalized and automated solutions to common tasks associated with object life cycle and object graph management, including persistence. It typically decreases by 50 to 70 percent the amount of code you write to support the model layer and to well understand the Core data and how it works we need to understand the Core Data Stack.

What’s Core Data Stack?

The Core Data stack is a collection of framework objects that are accessed as part of the initialization of Core Data and that mediate between the objects in your application and external data stores. The Core Data stack handles all of the interactions with the external data stores so that your application can focus on its business logic. The stack consists of four primary objects:
Weekly update #7
By: Live Stars
Tags: Weeklyupdate, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

Unfortunately, we have to announce that Beta release is delayed until 23rd of May.

As we have stated before, we have been working on transferring our beta application to our production servers. However, what seemed to be an easy task at first turned out not so well and due to server configuration websockets, which are essential part of our streaming system, are sometimes getting blocked for clients. Issue is being worked on.

Our lawyers are also still working on model-side documentation, which is necessary to start our streams.

We understand we are missing our deadlines, and we apologize for the delay.
In Western Oregon
By: Terry Trueman
Tags: Sheehan, Beauty, Poetry, Art, Short Form

In Western Oregon

Oak trees hide

In soft green patches

Tired old men

Creaking when the stretch.

A broken cattail,

Twirling,

Bends in silence as we pass.

*********************************************

Wikipedia & Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Trueman

http://www.encyclopedia.com/children/scholarly-magazines/trueman-terry-1947

Thanks, ILLUMINATION for letting me pitch, via this short-form poem, my longest and best work!

Sheehan. An Epic Poem of Love and Loss | by Terry Trueman ILLUMINATION | Medium
Political poetry: Don’t look away
By: Courtney K
Tags: Poliprompt, Poetry, Perspective, Politics

Don’t look away.

Don’t you see me here?

You pretend that you don’t, but I feel your glare.

I was born in this world, just like you.

And believe it or not, I deserve a life too.

Don’t look away.

Don’t you see I bleed too?

Are you afraid that I might be just like you?

Do you see a bit of me inside of you too?

I see you.

You with your eyes that dart the other way.

You with your lips without a kind word to say.

Not to someone like me.

I know that you want to but please…

Don’t look away.

I know it’s easier to do.

Easier to look away than to admit that this could be you.

I could be you. You could be me.

No, you’ll just look away so that you can’t see.

Look at your phone, look at the wall.

Look at literally anything at all.

Anywhere except at us, at me:

Squashed like a bug under society.

Under the weight of demands, of poverty, of sickness.

Under the weight of this world; the weight of existence.

Here I am, spinning here with you on this great big ball.

Do you really not see me at all?

Don’t you see?

I could be you.

You could be me.

Don’t look away.

Photo credit: Mika @mikafinland
Designing for large touch screen — Always have the user context in mind
By: Yubing Zhang
Tags: User Experience, User Research, Touchscreen, Interaction Design, UX

Most of designers have experiences in designing for desktop or mobile interface. So do I. But three months ago, I was challenged to design for a large touch screen of food vending machine. The screen is 22 inches. What does this mean?

The screen size is about 14 times larger than that of the average smart phone, and 8 times larger than that of iPad mini and 3 times larger than that of iPad. The significant difference in size has a real impact on user behavior.

Hand movement

It’s easy to realize that facing a larger screen size significantly increases the interaction efforts of tapping, typing, and moving between screens. They are more likely to access the interface at extended arm’s length and must hold their hands in the air, which increases fatigue.

Eyes scanning

Using smartphones, users can take in the whole screen at one glance. With a large screen, they must move their heads around to see all parts of the interface, which requires more effort from users.

Clearly, my story about large touch screen interface design went beyond that. Mentally, users also have different feelings about large touch screen. I first did an image board to understand where do people usually get access to large touch screen — the user context.
markramsey.com
By: Mark Ramsey
Tags: https://medium.com/dolphin-squad/tagged/podcast

in Both Sides of the Table
Writing First Go Backend Application
By: Tanveer Prottoy
Tags: Go, Programming

Photo by Gia Oris on Unsplash

Go is an awesome language, with it’s feature rich standard library, great built in concurrency with Goroutines and Channels to communicate between Goroutines. Go is good for getting things done fast as it is well equipped with required resources. Go compiles fast, which is great as it helps during development and debug phase.

Let’s dive into some code (I won’t be covering Go installation here, assuming it’s already installed).

Let’s create a new, empty directory named demo-app somewhere outside $GOPATH/src, cd into that directory then in the shell or cmd run the command that’s below.

go mod init example.com/demo

This will create a Go module. The go mod init created a go.mod file. Let’s check the content of that file.

cat go.mod module example.com/demo go 1.14

Now on the root of the directory create a main.go file. This is the entry point of our Go app.

package main import "fmt" func main() { fmt.Println("Hello world") }

Let’s run the app. This would print “Hello world” as expected. Run the command below in the shell to run the app.

go run main.go

Image provided by the Author

Let’s create something a little more practical. Create a package name app. Inside it create app.go file. In it there is a HandlerFunc which writes the response “Hello world”. The HandlerFunc is set with the ServeMux with pattern “/”.

Updated main.go file is below.

Here is the app structure.

Image provided by the Author

Let’s run the app. This time the app will print “Hello world” on http://localhost:3000/

Image provided by the Author

Thanks for reading. Please give some claps if you liked the post.
Drawing The Everyday
By: Liza Donnelly
Tags: Politics, Daily Life, Observation, Art, New York City

Drawing The Everyday

A New York City street vendor puts me in a trance

How many times have I passed by people just doing their jobs and don’t notice them? Hundreds of thousands of times.

While waiting for a meeting, I sat in a coffee shop and drew what was in my line of vision. What sat squarely in front of me and my cappucino happened to be this man in his magazine stand. There was a few feet of sidewalk and glass between us, so I could draw him unoticed. The man seemed very happy to be doing what he was doing: selling candy, chips, water, soda, gum, lottery tickets, perhaps a newspaper (there were only a few offered), and rearranging his merchandise.

I enjoyed watching his smile as he greeted the people who stopped to buy something. For the nine minutes it took me to draw him and his wares, I was in a sort of trance, focusing on the colors and shapes, his smile and his hat. I was momentarily oblivious to my emails, the news of the day and world events.

The above video was done with video screen capture. Here is the finished product.

It was a lovely few moments of noticing the everyday.
S.E.E.***
By: Kittie Phoenix
Tags: Poetry, Warfare, Spirituality

Image Source: Pixabay

I see you.

You see me.

The wolves see the lambs,

And the rams and ewes refuse to see.

Shadows surround all;

Do you see the unreal mists of reality?

The most blind are the seeing refusing to see.

Open your eyes.

See the enemy.

See those that are for us are more than those against.

Don’t see a pattern?

There is none to see.

The pattern is there is no pattern.

Imitate Jesus…

Even when you don’t see.
Mayors Message
Tags: Medford Town Council, Medford Township, Mayor Jeff Beenstock, Voices, Headlines

I am the mayor of Medford for 2016. Under our form of government, Medford has a council and a manager. The Manager runs the Township on a day-to-day basis The Council makes policy decisions.

The mayor and deputy mayor are appointed by council every year at council’s reorganization meeting in the beginning of January. It has been the custom in Medford for the mayor to change every year and rotate among the members of council. This is done to emphasize that each member of council has one vote and is equal in stature and power.

However the mayor is the face of the council for the year. He or she chairs the meetings of council, is asked to make public appearances on behalf of the township, and often called upon by residents who have a complaint or wish to discuss a matter relating to township business.

Because I am a new mayor and this is my first column, I want to introduce myself. I have lived in Medford with my family for over 16 years. I am a real estate attorney and a partner in a Philadelphia based law firm. I have been active in MYAA as a coach and in my homeowners association. In 2011, I participated in the Blue Ribbon Committee that evaluated the Medford Crossings project for the township. I was appointed to council in December 2011 after a resignation and elected to complete the unexpired term in November 2012. In November 2013, I was elected to a four-year term on council. Last year, I served as deputy mayor.

In January of 2012, all five council members were either newly elected or newly appointed. We inherited difficult financial circumstances and have accomplished much in the past four years. The financial well being of the township was our focus for most of that time. With the help of the staff and the support of the community, we are in a much better place financially. We will soon turn to the annual budget for 2016, and do so without the concern or anxiety that we faced in our early years.

However, in my view, the process to adopt the township’s annual budget is still among the most important actions council will take in 2016. Township Council and the manager will be holding special meetings on Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. and March 5 at 9:30 a.m. Both of these meetings will take place at the public safety building located on 91 Union Street in Medford. We encourage every resident of Medford to attend one of these meetings to learn about the township’s budget, share your thoughts and concerns with us, and ask any questions you may have. In the words of former mayor Randy Pace, “Don’t expect from your government; inspect your government.”

I am proud to serve our township and its residents as Mayor in 2016. I look forward to sharing my thoughts in this column about issues and topics relating to Medford’s government that arise during the coming year.

Jeffrey Beenstock
The Best Code Assessment Platforms for Screening in 2020
By: Daniel Borowski
Tags: Recruitment, Recruiting, Programming, Coding, Hiring

[🚨🚨🚨 Read the 2021 updated version of this article here]

In 2019, we surveyed 200+ stakeholders in technical recruiting and gathered feedback on tools and popular methodologies for how to efficiently screen and recruit engineering candidates. We published our results in this report and created a list of the top technical assessment platforms alongside it.

If you’re a technical recruiting or engineering hiring manager, here are the latest reviews of 2020’s top platforms for efficiently and accurately screening and interviewing developers and engineers.

Beyond Code Assessments for screening, check out our other reviews for:

Top code assessment platforms for interviews →

Top code assessment platforms for projects →

1. Coderbyte

Helpful links: Website | G2 | Capterra | Pricing
On Stranger Tides: The NYC Ferry
By: Charley Cohen
Tags: Nyc Ferry, Rstudio, Ferry, Data Visualization, Public Transit

This chart is the same as Chart II, but broken down by each individual ferry line. As shown, the East River Line still remains the most popular line, but the Astoria and Soundview Lines saw an increase in ridership. This could be explained by East Siders of Manhattan who needed to commute didn’t want to take the 4/5/6 Trains, or perhaps residents of Brooklyn and Queens who wanted to connect to Pier 11, the central hub, to get to the Rockaway beaches.

Perhaps in the long run, we will see these changes have more outcomes, but as a short term solution to a major transportation disruption, centralizing the system has helped the overall health of the NYC Ferry. In fact, comparing ridership on the Astoria, East River, and the Soundview Lines between September of 2019 to September of 2020 shows that these changes will be beneficial to the Ferry in the long run. The charts below show these three lines.

Chart V — Astoria

Chart V — East River

Chart V — Soundview

Overall, the number of riders from 2019 are higher than those of 2020, but there are some days in the latter year that are higher than those of the former. Some of this can be explained by bad weather (for example, on 9/24/2019, the temperature dropped 15 degrees from the day before). But looking at the Astoria Line shows that there are more riders using the service overall, having the most overall days with higher 2020 than 2019 service amongst the three lines. Yes, ridership in September of 2019 averaged about 24,5000 riders compared to the 15,550 riders in 2020, but there are signs that the future may be better for certain Ferry Lines.

It will take a couple of years to see if the health of the NYC Ferry system (along with the health of all transit in New York City) will recover. But, by looking at data between September 1st, 2019 to September 30th, 2020 — we see that not all is hopeless for the newest form of travel in New York City. As a sign of life, looking at the season Governor Island Shuttle Line, the top ten days of ridership are split between 2019 and 2020 (although the top three days are from 2019, with about 2,400 weekend riders). Ferries and river-crossings will always be a part of the history of New York, and how COVID-19 will affect the NYC Ferry system will come as the story sails along.
This Machine Will Give You The Perfect ‘Office’ Stare
By: Klaudia Amenábar
Tags: Poetry, The Office, Copyright, Life

This Machine Will Give You The Perfect ‘Office’ Stare

Because sometimes we all need to break the 4th wall.

We’ve all been there — someone says something stupid and we wish there was a camera in the room that we could turn to with a deadpan stare.

“Stare into the camera like ‘The Office’” has officially ascended from classic meme to state of mind with the release of The Office Stare Machine. Enter almost any emotion you can think of and the machine will play clips of characters from the show looking at the camera with that exact emotion. (Seriously, there are almost 800 different emotions that the machine can translate, from “disgruntled” to “murderous” to “horny.” Try it!)

Creating the Stare Machine was a labor of love for hero/all-around genius Joe Sabia. Sabia is just a normal guy with a fancy day job at Condé Nast who spent a year and a half of his life indexing every single stare from the show’s 201 episodes.

“I created this project to advocate for copyright reform and highlight the importance of fair use in protecting creators and their art,” Sabia says on the Stare Machine’s website.

Once Sabia had catalogued all those stares-to-camera, his friend Aaron Rasmussen, who’s an inventor living in San Francisco, coded it into the machine.

Go take a look and revel in this genius work of “The Office” fandom. There’s even an easter egg if you watch all 706 stares.
Decide
By: Rodney Gainous Jr
Tags: Life Lessons, Work, Self, Self Improvement, Life

Photo by Vladislav Babienko on Unsplash

Decide where you want to go.

And when you know where you want to go.

Don’t wait.

Because there’s no such thing as waiting to make the choice.

When you wait…

You’ve made the choice.

Waiting is the choice.

So don’t wait… just do it.

#TwentyTwenty #CodeSigned #CodeSignedBy

RJ /// Rodney Gainous Jr /// @RG2Official /// (424) 334–8004

Life is a game.
Monthly summary. Unicash bounty coming soon. What’s next?
By: Unifox Official
Tags: Bitcoin, Money, Cryptocurrency, Unicash, Unifox

Despite the terrible market conditions UniFox mission has been unchanged since the day 1 and already fulfilled milestones is the evidence. Even though the future is hazy it is getting clear that the trend is in stable tokens. Therefore we are focused on expansion of Unicash! What’s next?

Dear Foxers!

In this monthly summary, we are going to cover solely Unicash news as it is something that is going to bring another evidence of our effort! Here it is!

Unicash

We are getting great responses from local offline (and online, too!) exchanges about the purpose of Unicash that is to be a worldwide middle man between fiat currencies.

In order to fasten the adoption and to get you involved as much as possible. We decided to launch an Unicash bounty program whose accurate structure and rules will be presented in the next blog post.

This will give you another opportunity to help us spreading the word about Unicash or to get personally involved and become a country deputy of Unicash.

You will be able to earn UXC tokens that are 1:1 to fiat currencies. UXC can be implemented even at your favorite store!

When if not now? Where if not in your town?

Sounds interesting? It is!

UniFox social sites to become UXC

We have decided to temporarily change UniFox social media names to Unicash in order to facilitate Unicash expansion.

It does not mean in any way that UniFox is changing. Unicash is still a part of UniFox and it is going to last.

Regional platform Unicash.cz

As stated in the past, we are going to launch regional platforms to make Unicash adoption as easy as possible.

The very first regional platform comes from the Czech Republic and is called unicash.cz . The platform works best for merchants and stores to get to know Unicash platform better and it is also the opportunity for local sellers to spread Unicash implementation in their favorite shops and get reward fees!

What should be the next regional platform we should launch?

Let us now!
Using Data Science to Unearth New Stories of WWII
By: Mara Truslow
Tags: Big Data, Data Science, Data Visualization, History, Wwii

Two years ago, I dreamed up the idea to build an interactive dashboard to tell the story of an Army Air Force combat group during WWII using big data.

Wallace B. Truslow

Behind the dashboard was my own family’s story: my grandfather Wally took his service on a B-24 crew in Europe to the grave. A lifelong struggle with PTSD left his wartime service a mystery to everyone in his life. Because I’m a data scientist by trade, I turned to data in telling Wally’s story twenty years after he died.

When I began researching Wally’s service with the 44th Bomb Group, I eventually stumbled upon newly digitized data sources from WWII. In spite of an increasing amount of digital information available about WWII, the databases housing the data made it impossible to aggregate and analyze the data.

I wanted to look beyond Wally’s story to the 44th Bomb Group at large to contextualize Wally’s service. For example, knowing Wally flew 42 missions in the war meant little without understanding the average number flown of missions an airman in the 44th Bomb Group flew over the course of the war.

With much manual effort and a serendipitous hunch, I determined that Wally flew more missions than 99.5% of all 5,000 airmen in the 44th Bomb Group. It was an insight gleaned from the data that fundamentally reshaped how I perceived Wally’s war and the grandfather I knew.

I knew if I could create a manipulable data set, there were hundreds more insights, like the one I gleaned about my grandfather, waiting to be found.

The dashboard idea was born from my desire to look at the relationship between missions flown, combat losses, and demographics for all 5,000 men in the 44th Bomb Group — a monumental task never done before.

I began by exploring how I could leverage the 21st century digital tools designed for business analytics to tell a new history of the war with big data. These tools, which are the staples of my day job studying human capital issues, proved remarkably useful in looking to the past.

What I learned is that unearthing insights from 75-year-old isn’t markedly different than extracting insights from new data.
A Nurse Named Elise
Tags: Life Lessons, Humanity, Love, Writing, Fiction

A Nurse Named Elise

A Short Story

Once upon a time, in a country not too far away, in a town so small, you would barely even notice it, there was a nurse named Elise.

Elise was — at least that’s how her friends and those who knew her would have described her — quite ordinary. She lived in an ordinary apartment, she worked in an ordinary hospital, and there had never been any scandal, the smallest bit of rumor about her.

But, and few people knew this, and those who did would never tell: Elise was anything but ordinary. More than that, she was quite extraordinary, from the roots of her blonde hair all the way to her big toe.

Annabelle met Elise on a mild summer evening, the evening of the worst day in her young life. It had been one of those evenings when the smell of rain is already in the air and the sun bathes everything in a golden glow that seems as if it was not from this world. Annabelle had just turned 18 and the lightheartedness that surrounded her felt like it would never end. Annabelle was happy, her feet were in airy sandals and she was pedalling wildly on the pink bike that she loved so much. If she had not known better, she would have thought she was flying.

She saw the man ahead of her, coming towards her, the hood of his jacket pulled deep into his eyes, and Annabelle was still thinking about how this summer day was far too warm for a jacket when she was knocked off her bike with a jolt. The pain went through her like a lightning bolt and she felt the skin on her elbows tear. She saw the bloodshot eyes of the man leaning over her, tearing at her skirt and pressing her hands to the asphalt.
Re: [Cryptography] Bitcoin theft and the future of cryptocurrencies
By: Ersin Taşkın
Tags: Bitcoin, Ledger, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Consensus

2018–01–05 14:14 GMT+03:00 Ersin Taskin :

Reversibility is a requirement which cannot be denied in systems addressing real-world scenarios as Henry Baker beautifully explains in a recent post in this mail list. In Turkey life-threatening ransomware occasions involving Bitcoin is increasing day-by-day. The adversaries have taken a lot of Bitcoins from innocent people and Turkey is new to Bitcoin. The police can capture the guys that physically attacked and captured victims and took their Bitcoin. That is the easy part. However, Bitcoins are gone and the State cannot get them back. All they can do is send the attackers to jail for 1–3 years. There are so many guys in Turkey that have nothing to lose and that would indeed wish to stay in jail for some time and getting out rich is a gigantic bonus. You cannot scare them with legal stuff. So Bitcoin ransomware crimes are only increasing here. This has proven to be universal. Just Google “Bitcoin ransomware”. And it is a real, big problem. I find the cryptocurrency community ignoring this issue amazing.

We cannot ask people to apply Winklevoss Twins’ solution which dramatically proves the necessity of reversibility. The only universally applicable way to resolve this issue is reversibility. We must acknowledge that state has legitimate use cases. In order to use state in this use case, we need a reversibility mechanism in Bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies in general). A legitimate currency (crypto or not) must allow reversibility at least as an option to its users. Reversibility can be anchored to relevant State tools (such as courts). I as a Bitcoin supporter and user should have the right to use such an option. Anybody who wants to transact with me also has the same right to choose that option.

I am working on a paper proposing a new protocol to Bitcoin called Proof of Trust (POT) (and Proof of Prophecy (POP) as a special case) where I address the issue of reversibility as well as efficiency, privacy, security, and performance.

I must say that Iang is on the right track because an application level Trusted Third Party or a protocol level Anchor is needed for a solution to reversibility.
WeTransfer’s commitment to photography
By: Lucy Pike
Tags: Inspiration, Photography, Community, Creativity, Wetransfer

I’m always excited by the enthusiasm photographers have for WeTransfer and how they use it, what they like about our service and how we can improve. But at the same time, they always ask me: So why does WeTransfer have someone doing photography?

The short answer: Because photographers matter to us. If you’re reading this and don’t know who we are, WeTransfer is a file sharing company used by 40 million users who transfer 1 billion files every month. Of those, we know photographers make up a big proportion of our creatively-minded users.
Introducing MJR Analytics … and How Two Years Go So Fast When You’re Learning Something New
By: Mark Rittman
Tags: Looker, Bigquery, Product Management, Big Data Analytics, Analytics

Today I’m excited to be launching MJR Analytics, a new consulting company focusing on modern, cloud analytics projects using technology from Looker, Qubit, Fivetran, Oracle, Google Cloud Platfand Snowflake and development techniques learnt from my time working as an analytics product manager at a startup in London.

Our new website (and no that’s not me sitting in the chair)

So what have I been up to in the two years since I left my old consulting company, and how has that experience and the way I’ve been working with analytics technologies over that time inspired me to start another one?

Come over to our new company website and read the fully story.
Professional Writing Doesn't Have to Kill Your Passion
By: Shannon Ashley
Tags: Life Lessons, Coaching Corner, Money, Blogging, Writing

How many times have you heard a professional athlete complain that playing their sport for a living has killed all of their joy? And how many times have you heard a Hollywood actor bemoan how professional acting has destroyed their passion for the art?

Frankly, when I hear such professionals discuss their time in the industry, what I typically hear is how much they love the game, or how they are still enamored by the art. Furthermore, I don’t see many colleagues or fans complaining that so-and-so is “in it for the wrong reasons.”

When actors and athletes make money doing what they love, people don’t bat an eye. They don't throw shade by suggesting that they’ve somehow been corrupted by their ambition. They don’t worry about celebrities being driven by the wrong reasons. And they’re not talking about how they’d do it all for free simply because they’ve got passion. Folks do not clutch their pearls and give side eye to the entertainer who has the nerve to mix business and pleasure.

I wonder why it’s different in the writing world.

Writers constantly throw shade at other writers for being “in it for the money.” They warn each other not to do it for “the wrong reasons,” as if they can’t believe somebody else has the audacity to make money doing anything they love. As if passion and earnings are inherently at odds.
How To Build Relationships When You’re Not A People-Person
By: Barry Davret
Tags: Life Lessons, Relationships, Psychology, Leadership, Self Improvement

Back in the 90s, job seekers used to highlight “people-person” as a skill on their resumé. Now it’s just assumed that everyone who interacts with the world possesses this trait.

The dictionary defines it as an outgoing, gregarious person with good communication skills.

Nobody would ever describe me as a people-person. Sure, I enjoy interacting with others, but I prefer it in small doses. After an hour or so, I reach a point of saturation. I feel the urge to escape and recuperate in isolation.

Put me in the middle of a group; I won’t stand out. Throw me into a room with networkers; I won’t own the room, whatever that means. Our culture values chattiness over thoughtfulness, but that doesn’t mean you can’t remain true to yourself while adapting to the world.

The struggle of “quiet contemplatives”

There’s a name for people like us. We’re the quiet-contemplatives. We do a lot of thinking, but many of those thoughts never materialize as vocal expressions. Some folks interpret your economy with words as rude, boring, or disinterest.

That’s the feedback I had experienced for much of my life, and it hindered my ability to forge meaningful relationships.

Understand this. There’s nothing wrong with you if you’re not a people-person. But to build relationships, you need to adapt your style to better fit cultural expectations while also exploiting your inherent advantages.

These five strategies will help you improve your relationships without betraying your true self.
Finding Comfort in Uncertainty
By: Katherine Mello
Tags: D3js, Data Humanism, Programming, Data Science, Professional Development

How can we get “unstuck” when we reach a mental block while creating a visualization?

We’ve all been there — the rip-it-up and toss-it-out point in a project where frustration is at a peak. The panelists each had unique suggestions on how to move past this low point in the process.

Jill provided a couple of tips for finding the motivation to finish a visualization. First, she said it’s important to pursue projects that you find entertaining. She also talked about how it’s often beneficial to let the project rest, and then return to it with a fresh perspective. Nadieh remarked that she takes a different approach; she generally tries to tackle other design aspects of the visualization, like the legend, and says that that usually helps her realize what is missing from the piece. Shirley added that she might try to show the visualization to someone totally unfamiliar with the project to see what their perspective is.

Has the process changed from when the panelists first began practicing dataviz?

The variety of answers to this question speaks to the fact that most people come to this field with a range of skills and backgrounds and that most end up molding their practice and widening their approach as they move along.

Nadieh said that her tools have changed; she tries to start out with pen and paper more frequently. But along with using different tools, she has also changed her mindset when approaching a project. She now frames her work around a different set of questions. Instead of looking at a list of charts and asking herself which to choose, she now asks herself, “What is my goal?” and “What is my data about?”

Shirley admitted that she used to make visualizations without enough regard for the end user, so that’s something she now incorporates into her work from the start of a project. She added that considering the interpretability of a piece is more crucial to her than pursuing purely technical challenges.

Jill agreed with Nadieh, in that she tries to use pen and paper more often in order to experiment with different encodings. She also agreed that exploring the data and then considering the design is part of her current process. Broadening her toolset has been another natural progression throughout her career.
Software Engineer Interview Questions to Know Inside and Out — Intro
By: Andrew Oliver
Tags: Data Structures, Programming, Interview, Software Engineering, Algorithms

Over this past school year, I became all too familiar with the technical recruiting process. In the fall semester, I opted for a breadth-first search approach and applied to about 30 software companies. In the spring semester, I helped run a technical recruiting class for undergraduate students in their first and second year. Based on my experience and the experiences of the students in the class, I learned two key things about software interviews.

The Pareto Principle of Software Interviews: 80% of the questions asked are the same 20% of questions. This list of 13 covers that 20%. There’s only one question in an interview — “Why should we hire you?”. Sure, they may ask it in a roundabout way. But that is the only question they’ll ask. We’ll talk more about this towards the end.

Disclaimer: This list should not be your one stop shop for technical recruiting preparation. In your interviews, you may see all of these questions. You may see none of them. This is far from a software interview panacea. For such a panacea, check out Cracking the Coding Interview.

We’ll cover 13 questions (a baker’s dozen) and their variants over the next seven parts. Our goal is to provide thorough and exhaustive answers so we can know these questions inside and out, forward and backward. Feel free to skip around in whatever order you like! Or start with Part 1 here.
Export to Excel with spreadsheet gem
By: Andreas Fast
Tags: Format, Colors, Excel, Gem, Export

While using the spreadsheet gem to export data to a Microsoft Excel file I encountered various problems and lack of proper documentation forced me to dig pretty deep. So here are a few tips you might find useful.



The gem works with a workbook object and worksheets in this workbook. To get started:

workbook = Spreadsheet::Workbook.new

sheet1 = workbook.create_worksheet name: worksheetname



To write a row of data as usually is done in reports you can use:



sheet1.row(1).replace [ ‘col1’, ‘col2’, ‘col3’]



Rows and Columns are 0 based, so col1 would be printed on A2 (Excel coords).



Now to the beauty of it all, formatting, first of all, create a format:

bold = Spreadsheet::Format.new :weight => :bold

bold20 = Spreadsheet::Format.new :weight => :bold, size: 20

nobold20 = Spreadsheet::Format.new size: 20

bold_grey_bg = Spreadsheet::Format.new pattern_bg_color: :cyan, weight: :bold, pattern: 1, pattern_fg_color: :black



Use :weight to set bold, italic etc, pattern_bg_color for background, to use a font you have to create a Font object and assign it with font: font_object. You have to use pattern: 1 for the background to show, haven’t figured this one out yet.



Available colors(0.6.5.9):





COLORS = [ :builtin_black, :builtin_white, :builtin_red, :builtin_green, :builtin_blue, :builtin_yellow, :builtin_magenta, :builtin_cyan, :text, :border, :pattern_bg, :dialog_bg, :chart_text, :chart_bg, :chart_border, :tooltip_bg, :tooltip_text, :aqua, :black, :blue, :cyan, :brown, :fuchsia, :gray, :grey, :green, :lime, :magenta, :navy, :orange, :purple, :red, :silver, :white, :yellow ]



If you need more colors please refer to http://rubyforge.org/forum/message.php?msg_id=95796 as there it is explained how to add all the colors of Excel to the gem.



Instead of modifying the gem though, I would suggest using the following two lines at startup, they modify constants which isn’t very nice but maybe preferable to modifying the gem just to get some color working.

Spreadsheet::Excel::Internals::SEDOC_ROLOC.update(:blue_gray => 0x001f)

Spreadsheet::Column.singleton_class::COLORS << :blue_gray

To set a format you can use

sheet.row(3).default_format = format_object (e.g. bold20, created before)

or a certain cell

sheet1.row(8).set_format(1, bold_grey_bg)



Ok, that’s it, if something else comes up I’ll edit this post.
Misunderstood Words
By: Susan Brearley
Tags: Reading, Humor, Advice, Poetry, Satire

Ryan Fan’s recently curated post about comptrollers had me laughing out loud this morning.

This prompt challenges you to pick a word — ANY word — that you can twist and turn and come up with a funny story.

This exercise reminds me of Emily Litella. Who remembers Gilda Radner’s classic SNL character?

Courtesy of YouTube

Put on your silly hat and pick a word! Have FUN and I look forward to what you create with this one!
Is our investment portfolio properly diversified?
By: Joan-Marc Fisa
Tags: Quantitative Strategies, Portfolio Management, Quantitative Finance, Stock Market, Finance Management

Factoring time into your diversification strategy

People are accustomed to thinking about their savings in terms of goals: retirement, college, a down payment, or a vacation. But as you build and manage your asset allocation — regardless of which goal you’re pursuing — there are 2 important things to consider. The first is the number of years until you expect to need the money — also known as your time horizon. The second is your attitude toward risk — also known as your risk tolerance.

For instance, think about a goal that’s 25 years away, like retirement. Because your time horizon is fairly long, you may be willing to take on additional risk in pursuit of long-term growth, under the assumption that you’ll usually have time to regain lost ground in the event of a short-term market decline. In that case, a higher exposure to domestic and international stocks may be appropriate.

But here’s where your risk tolerance becomes a factor. Regardless of your time horizon, you should only take on a level of risk with which you’re comfortable. So even if you’re saving for a long-term goal, if you’re more risk-averse you may want to consider a more balanced portfolio with some fixed income investments. And regardless of your time horizon and risk tolerance, even if you’re pursuing the most aggressive asset allocation models, you may want to consider including a fixed income component to help reduce the overall volatility of your portfolio.

The other thing to remember about your time horizon is that it’s constantly changing. So, let’s say your retirement is now 10 years away instead of 25 years — you may want to reallocate your assets to help reduce your exposure to higher-risk investments in favor of more conservative ones, like bond or money market funds. This can help mitigate the impact of extreme market swings on your portfolio, which is important when you expect to need the money relatively soon.

Once you’ve entered retirement, a large portion of your portfolio should be in more stable, lower-risk investments that can potentially generate income. But even in retirement, diversification is key to helping you manage risk. At this point in your life, your biggest risk is outliving your assets. So just as you should never be 100% invested in stocks, it’s probably a good idea to never be 100% allocated in short-term investments if your time horizon is greater than one year. After all, even in retirement you will need a certain exposure to growth-oriented investments to combat inflation and help ensure your assets last for what could be a decades-long retirement.

Regardless of your goal, your time horizon, or your risk tolerance, a diversified portfolio is the foundation of any smart investment strategy.
Why Won’t Jeff Bezos End World Hunger?
By: Ryan Nehring
Tags: Tech, Social Justice, Money, Amazon, Philanthropy

Discussing the ethical implications of Billionaires is a daunting prospect. It’s exceedingly difficult to fit ultra-wealth into any objective moral framework. Instead, we collectively make silent agreements to create quasi-plausible excuses for why we’re not all outraged and disgusted by their unfathomable excess.

We excuse it by asking ourselves and others to “Look at all the good they’re doing with their money”, while tacitly implying we would, of course, do the same or more in their position. Rarely are the results of their would-be philanthropy scrutinized, and even more rarely are they seen in scale to the well from which they draw upon.

If you had the power to end world hunger for even 1 year, and you didn’t, is there any way to view that as anything less than inexcusably reprehensible?

Dreams are incredible and often inspiring things. What they aren’t, however, are plans. We rarely, if ever, consider the potential ramifications of achieving a dream, and The American Dream is no exception. Runaway capitalism is the inevitable result of a nation built on the idea that personal wealth equates to a person’s inherent value, and that any means of achieving that wealth are acceptable; indeed the seed-capital that served as the initial investment for the worlds largest economy was generated by slave labor and later exploitation of the working class.

The mechanisms intended to keep free-market capitalism from entering this runaway phase do not work when so much wealth is concentrated into so few people. Our collective societal buying power is rendered moot because people like Bezos no longer need our money to succeed. They have all the money they, and their families will ever need and are now simply keeping score.
Umbrellas
By: Lisa Wathen
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Community, Fear, Compassion, Poem

Umbrellas

A poem for dark times

Photo by Joy Stamp on Unsplash

Shelter

The tenuous, fragile membranes that shield —

Stitched together

Held to jointed tines, ribs we pray will be

Solid and strong, but also

flexible

So the battering winds will bend, not break

And though we may be tossed about

Blown here and there

Our sanctuaries will stay with us

Gripped in our desperate fists

Pulled down around us

Flawed and imperfect

Tattered and here and there

Broken

But better than nothing

And always with room for another to draw in

Lean close, share even a small measure

Of refuge.
NEXTY PLATFORM EXPLORER MAINTENANCE
By: Nguyễn Bình Minh
Tags: Blockchain, Nextyplatform, Explorer, English

NEXTY PLATFORM EXPLORER MAINTENANCE

Nexty official announcement regarding current queries on https://explorer.nexty.io and/or balance display

Dear Nexty community,

The Nexty team would like to announce that our explorer is currently under maintenance. Therefore, you cannot access to the site https://explorer.nexty.io or some transactions may be unavailable according to some recent reports.

When explorer is under the maintenance, you may get problems with displaying NTY in your wallet. However, don’t be panic and please stay calm because your balance does not vanish. When the maintenance finishes and blockchain completes synchronization, and you still find the amount 0, please kindly contact the support team so we can double-check on explorer.nexty.io.

We will have another announcement on all Nexty Platform SNs when block explorer is ready soon.

(For instant support, please join Nexty Official group at https://t.me/nexty_io)

Thank you for your patience and we are really sorry for this inconvenience.

Best regards,

The Nexty team
Data Structures in Swift — Queue. Queue is the second structure at my…
By: Mateusz Ślaski
Tags: Data Structures, Programming, iOS App Development, Swift, Algorithms

Queue can be build using array with some limited functionality and can handle few operations like adding new elements on the back of the Queue, removing first element from the Queue, and check the first element without removing it.

Queue’s operations

Check implementation of regular Queue below:

Queue’s implementation

Take a look at usage of our Queue:

Queue usage

Removing first element from the array is not efficient because it requires to shift rest of the array’s elements in memory.

To create more efficient version of Queue we can build some logic to track first index from the queue and remove “empty” spots from the array exactly when we want, not after every operation when some value will be removed. There will be a little bit more code but I belive that, it is good to know that approach.

Removing elements from Queue will look like this:

Boosted dequeue method

To cover that functionality we have to think again about the data which will be stored at Queue. At new configuration we have to handle Optionals. It is a key concept to leave rest of array as it is when first element will be removed. Okay, you can ask, how to handle iteration over non-optional values of Queue? I don’t want to use if let or guard statements for that! The answer for that question is a HEAD. Not my or yours ofc 😃. If you heared about Linked Lists you probably know what I’m talking about. HEAD’s responsible is to track first non-optional value at Queue. With HEAD we can still use computed property for counting non-optional values without checking if the value is nil or not. Now you probably want to ask: What about all that “empty” fields at Queue. Why I have to allocate memory for hundreds of nils? For that case we have to create a method which will remove all nils from queue at some circumstances for example when nils are covering more than 25% of Queue’s length etc.

Check implementation for “Smart” Queue: