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Uncategorized

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

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Social Media Technology

How Social Media Needs to Change

I originally made this post on medium.com on January 9, 2018 and never copied it over to this blog, which I am doing. To view the post there click here.

You don’t have to look far for people who will tell you social media is bad for you. We can feel it reading through a friends posts about how wonderful and photogenic their life is, only to reflect on our own and feel like we’re not living the fulfilling lives of our peers. Whether it’s your own personal experiences, a friend or article ranting about it (hey, here’s another!), or the countless countless experiments that tell us unequivocally that social media is making us unhappy. We know something is fundamentally wrong with social media.

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Movies

Avengers Infinity War – My Revised Lives/Dies List

It’s been five days since I’ve seen Infinity Wars and I can’t stop thinking about it. This might come as a surprise since the only other article on this blog is about how much I disliked the first one. Since then I’ve come to have a healthy appreciation for the MCU. The light-hearted jokey tone, great actors utilized well, engaging screenplays, and giving lots of respect to the source material I grew up with.

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Machine Learning

Is a robot uprising taking place?

Is a robot uprising taking place?

The short answer is no.

The long answer is…

Categories
Machine Learning Technology

.NET-Core GoogleCloudMlV1PredictRequest Execture Method Returns null Response

Execute GoogleCloudMlV1PredictRequest gives a GoogleApiHttpBody object that has null fields

While creating a .NET-Core MVC API to interact with my Google Cloud ml-engine model, I came across a strange issue. For testing purposes, I used Google’s Census example to get up to speed and make sure what I wanted to do works.

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Machine Learning Technology

The Basics of Machine Learning

Today, my brother-in-law asked me about machine learning and where it’s going. I’ve been really interested in the field lately, so I wrote a message to illustrate some of the basics. I decided I would post it on here for anyone else who might be interested in learning a bit more. Let me know your thoughts, questions, and any points I might have gone wrong too!

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Dating

Why You Aren’t Actually a Hopeless Romantic

Are you incorrectly identifying yourself as a hopeless romantic?

I was talking to a friend who identified herself as a hopeless romantic. This immediately rang false to me because she is very positive, and takes responsibility for her life. Hopeless romanticism has always struck me with a negative vibe. Subscribing to a belief without actually believing in it. Like someone who takes vitamins everyday but doesn’t actually believe they do anything. Going through the motions and cynically subscribing to something because it is either easier or fashionable. It makes you into a kind of martyr, which is a way to self identify, but not a healthy one.

Categories
Technology

Are GUIDs actually unique?

No.

This could potentially be the shortest blog post ever written, and the short mathematically accurate answer is “no”. A GUID (globally unique identifier) is a 32 character sequence of  alphanumeric (letters or numbers). They are useful to developers because, in theory when generated, no GUID like this has been generated before, nor will another be generated again.

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Traveling

Why Travel Days Are Better During the Day Than the Night

Money and time wise, economically it makes sense to travel at night. You save money on booking a hostel, and you’re sleeping during a time where you’re physically inactive anyways. In practice though, it just doesn’t seem to work out.

Night travel gets you into a city WAY too early (usually around 6 AM) meaning that you can’t actually check into your hostel (there is something so unsatisfying about leaving your bad in the hostel lockup).

You also probably didn’t sleep well on your bus/plane/train so you’re groggy. Even as a self diagnosed narcoleptic who can sleep pretty much anywhere at any time of day, once I’ve had that first doze off on my mode of transportation I’m pretty much awake for the rest of the ride, day OR night.

If you actually do muster up the motivation to start exploring, you get immediately frustrated when you can’t find things, and even when you do manage to successfully navigate a map through the fog of exhaustion and find your way, you aren’t conscious enough to appreciate the things that you find.

Arriving mid day means you get to check into your hostel, wash the bus/train/plane off you, and settle into your new home for the next X number of days. You have time to chill in the hostel common room where you’ll talk to other travellers. You’ll have some time to learn from those who have been touring the city already for a few days before you head off into it on your own.

Old Town Hostel Dubrovnik - Common Room
Pictured: Experts in their particular field

Wandering around a city you don’t know with little to no advice (trust me, I’ve tried doing the research BEFORE getting into a city online or in guidebooks, and word of mouth has won over in good advice about 100 to 1) is just not as effective. Not that I don’t mind a good wander, but a good wander is usually a lot more enjoyable after a good nights sleep and with some idea of the lay of the land (from a helpful receptionist).

What do you think? Is there a way to travel at night that works for you? What are your experiences?

Categories
Traveling

Rye-KUH-vick

View of waterfront from KEX hostel
View of waterfront from KEX hostel

The trip started out on just the right foot. As usual, I got to the airport 3 and a half hours early, but the trade off was I got to sit in the emergency exit seats with infinity legroom, and I was informed the seat next to me was going to be empty. Not a bad start to the trip.

Additionally, although Icelandair doesn’t serve in flight meals (not gonna lie, was NOT aware of that when I boarded on a totally empty stomach) but it has a lot of nice little touches. Bottles shaped like glaciers, all the stuff on board has little Icelandic phrases on it (though since some of the characters are beyond my lexicon and there is no phonetic pronunciation included, they are a little beyond me), and although it’s small I love these little touches. I’d gladly give up the crappy in flight meal for them.