Plutonic Rainbows

Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

August 20, 2018

I am currently reading this excellent book about the American Economy and its darker side.

From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of nomads: migrant laborers who call themselves "workampers."

On frequently traveled routes between seasonal jobs, Jessica Bruder meets people from all walks of life: a former professor, a McDonald's vice president, a minister, a college administrator, and a motorcycle cop, among many others--including her irrepressible protagonist, a onetime cocktail waitress, Home Depot clerk, and general contractor named Linda May.

In a secondhand vehicle she christens "Van Halen," Bruder hits the road to get to know her subjects more intimately. Accompanying Linda May and others from campground toilet cleaning to warehouse product scanning to desert reunions, then moving on to the dangerous work of beet harvesting, Bruder tells a compelling, eye-opening tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy--one that foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, she celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these quintessential Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive. Like Linda May, who dreams of finding land on which to build her own sustainable "Earthship" home, they have not given up hope.

You can get your copy here.

Gift from Berlin

August 12, 2018

Received some lovely @spacy_io stickers from the very generous Ines Montani, who works on AI, Machine Learning and NLP. Thanks so much. You can follow her at @_inesmontani.

Creating and Amending Lists

July 04, 2018

A quick example that loops through a predefined list of colours and creates an additional empty list to which a ranger of numbers are added and then printed out.

colors = ['red','blue','green']

assets = []

for colors in colors:
    print "The colours are: %s" % colors

    for n in range(1, 10):
    assets.append(n)

for n in assets:
    print "The number is now: %d" % n

Boolean Rules

June 10, 2018

One thing I need to learn before I go further with Python is to thoroughly learn the logic rules. Sure, you can just learn the concepts but being able to write actual code will mean memorising these rules.

  • not False = True

  • not True = False

  • True or False = True

  • True or True = True
  • False or True = True

  • False or False = False

  • True and False = False

  • True and True = True
  • False and True = False

  • False and False = False

  • not (True or False) = False

  • not (True or True) = False
  • not (False or True) = False

  • not (False or False) = True

  • not (True and False) = True

  • not (True and True) = False
  • not (False and True) = True

  • not (False and False) = True

  • 1 != 0 True

  • 1 != 1 False
  • 0 != 1 True

  • 0 != 0 False

  • 1 == 0 False

  • 1 == 1 True
  • 0 == 1 False
  • 0 == 0 True

Blockchain Hype

May 17, 2018

This happens with anything fairly new in the industry. Currently, Blockchain technologies are the magic fairy-dust that will solve all of the security problems, as well as validating everything from photos to news feeds.

Ersin Akinci writing for Medium:

So then why are there so many blockchain startups appearing? Two words: hype and monetization. The hype around blockchains makes fundraising easier if you’ve got one.