As reported by the Portuguese newspaper <strong>A</strong> <strong>Bola</strong> (via Milan News), Porto are not going to be making any drastic decisions when it comes to their coach.

A Bola: Porto set date for talks with Milan coaching target Conceicao | OneFootball

FC Porto are not going to hold talks with head coach Sergio Conceicao until they have competed in the Portuguese Cup final on May 26.

A Bola: Porto set date for talks with Milan coaching target Conceicao

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A Bola

a-bola

There comes a time in every business’s living cycle when the company turns to public relations. Reasons may vary, but the most common cause is merely the fact that everybody seems to be doing it. Doing PR has become somewhat a must for every market player, but many of them often approach this subject without a clear understanding of why their business needs it. The most common misconception about PR is that any PR-related activities should inevitably lead to soaring worldwide popularity and long queues of clients waiting to sign off the highest cheques. As tempting as this picture may seem, such expectations may be harmful to the company and eventually jeopardize the real potential outcomes that a good PR strategy could bring them. Choosing an appropriate PR strategy with realistic goals can help you raise awareness about your business and products, gain the trust of potential partners, and even get better investment proposals – which is particularly important for startups that are just starting out. This is what I learned from my own experience working with such brands as Qiwi, Whirlpool, Jumeirah, Alrosa and many other major and tech brands in the industry. Key Things to Know About PR The effectiveness of PR activities cannot be measured by the number of leads. No specialist can guarantee you clients as a result of a particular media publication. PR is a long-term strategy. Not only do you often have to wait for weeks before your first headlines come out, but there is also a big preparation stretch that needs to be done prior to that. The PR specialist needs to study the company and its products, find and connect with the right journalists, pitch the articles and prepare the publications strategically to reach certain goals in the long run. All of that takes time. Key Steps to Take Before Investing In PR Define Your Company Goals and Understand How PR Can Help Decide what you are trying to achieve and whether it’s PR that is likely to solve your problems. Some goals that you may set for your PR activities are: Increase your media exposure and take over your industry niche to bring in more clients, and increase revenue, become the market leaders PR helps influence consumers’ behavior by communicating the brand’s value. However, it’s important to keep in mind that PR guarantees no immediate increase in clients and revenue flows. If the company is limited in its budget, it might be worth investing in other promotional activities instead: a marketing campaign or a fruitful collaboration with relevant influencers can generate results much faster. PR is a powerful instrument in the long run, so it would require more patience and significantly more investments. Appeal to potential partners and investors by creating a reliable, influential image of the company A portfolio of media publications is often needed to provide the company’s credibility to investors. Such articles may highlight the business’s growth, its increasing popularity, or generally showcase that it’s interesting enough to receive some media coverage. Promoting an HR-brand If the company is struggling with its hires, the goal of the business is to help more people learn about the company and become interested in its work opportunities. In this case, PR can help increase the company’s outreach to the audience of popular media outlets. Understand Your Expertise Before consulting any PR specialists, try to put down a few thoughts to answer the following questions: What is it that your company is most knowledgeable in? Who can be your speakers? What kind of expert advice can they share? If your business can’t offer any particular expertise, or you’re struggling to come up with the speakers, there are two ways to tackle this problem: Bring in an external expert or speaker (e.g. high-profile advisor in your industry) Choose other methods of promotion Decide on Your Hire Who will be doing your PR? Three options to consider are: Hire an in-house Head of PR (with a potential perspective of growing a whole PR department) Appoint a PR agency Sign up a freelance PR Manager for a certain amount of tasks When to Hire a Head of PR? The more work there is to do, the more likely your business needs one. A big company with a large product portfolio that strives to generate more news and engage with a broader audience would definitely benefit from an in-house specialist that fully concentrates on the brand. A Head of PR is someone who works for one particular company, which means they can handle a bigger workload and consequently produce more significant results. They are always at the very center of the company’s activities and stay on track of everything, thus generating more news hooks and press events. Benefits Fully immersed in the company Always on top of the news Generates news events Finds and hires all the necessary specialists and experts Has a deeper understanding of the company’s PR strategy and a personal interest in its success No limit on KPIs, since you’re an in-house expert Drawbacks May have narrower expertise due to specializing in a particular industry May be less responsive and adaptive to trends occurring in the markets different from theirs Has fewer chances to consult other specialists and compare the company’s activities to other cases If there is not enough work to do for a PR specialist, such a hire can barely be justified Might be less efficient due to less control, as all the KPIs are usually set by the Head of PR themselves When to Hire an Agency? If the company hasn’t grown big enough to consider creating its own PR department, it might be worth hiring contractors instead. However, agencies can be just as useful for bigger corporations once their in-house specialists no longer cope with the workload: in this case, bringing in some help from the agency can impressively maximize the company’s PR efforts. An example of a successful synergy between the company’s in-house PR specialists and contractors is when the first ones are handling the personal brands of the CEO, and the key speakers (e.g., by managing their appearance at key industry events), and the agency covers the KPIs in media publications. Benefits: Offers combined expertise of multiple specialists that can brainstorm together in particularly challenging cases Agency specialists are often highly professional and experienced, as many former Heads of PR continue their careers by opening their own agencies Provides a package of services provided by different specialists (including copywriters, editors, and designers) Own media contact base, personal contacts with journalists, and an ability to build a relationship with the right media in shorter timeframes KPI-oriented approach Drawbacks: Slower speed of response due to handling multiple clients Unless the news event is urgent, the whole process of pitching and preparing media publications can take more time Less integrated into the company and therefore less familiar with its products and activities When to Hire a Freelance PR Manager? This may be the best option for companies tight on budget, but still eager to start diving into PR. Benefits: Cost-friendly Allocates as much time per client as needed, as they have to guarantee some result to justify their service Drawbacks: Less services provided (including consultations) Harder to hire, as the proof of relevant experience is particularly important Decide on the Metrics to Evaluate Your PR Efforts There are a number of parameters that you can use to define the key KPIs for your PR performance. They may include: Number of media publications Audience outreach Quality of the audience Tone of the publications Choose Your Speakers We touched on this subject earlier when we talked about defining the company’s expertise. Now, it’s time to pay closer attention to the profiles of people who will be representing your business. Your speakers are those who… Have a particular expertise Share this expertise with a PR specialist in written form and/or audio recordings. These chunks of information are later transformed into media commentary and publications Usually, the main speakers are the top managers of the company and/or genuine industry experts within the team. If there are no suitable candidates to cope with this role onboard, a PR specialist can suggest bringing in an external expert. For example, a dating app startup can be represented by a popular psychologist. Shortlist Your Preferred Media Not every company needs to be featured in Forbes. Your company’s media needs should be determined by your business goals. For example, when working with the world’s leading diamond mining company Alrosa, we were mostly aiming at industry and luxury lifestyle media, the same media outlets were used for a 5-star hotel chain Jumeirah, including the travel outlets. But when working with fintech company Qiwi, national, business and finance media were used to get the most results for the brand. To Conclude Going through all these steps one by one will help you re-evaluate your PR needs and maximize the effect of your activities without splashing too much cash over nothing. We’re always all in for a startup-friendly approach!

How to Get the PR Ball Rolling

Cómo poner en marcha las relaciones públicas

Comment lancer le bal des relations publiques

पीआर बॉल रोलिंग कैसे प्राप्त करें

PRボールを転がす方法

Como fazer a bola rolar PR

Làm thế nào để có được PR Ball Rolling

如何让公关球滚动

This is a story about the revolution in Africa through . Web3 NFT gaming It's midday in the bustling city of Lagos. The city is known for its famous yellow buses, fast lifestyle, and the never say die of the 20 million people who live there. It's also the home of 21-one-year-old Salami, a crypto gamer. Despite being in his third year studying Physics at the state university, Salami confesses that he currently dedicates almost half of his time to playing . He also says that he owes his current progress at crypto gaming to a gaming guild he joined late last year. crypto play-to-earn games Unlike traditional gaming guilds, crypto gaming guilds aren't based on a group of gamers just coming together to play games. Instead, crypto gaming guilds are a million-dollar crypto phenomenon. They rose in popularity with the and are the only way poor people or people in the global South can play Blockchain play-to-earn games like , , etc. exponential rise in popularity and value of NFTs, Axie Infinity The Sandbox The reason is simple; the virtual assets (NFTs) required to play these games are expensive to purchase. While this is a normal barrier to entry for most gamers of any kind — after all, high-end consoles and computers aren't cheap — it's more so for crypto gamers because of prohibitively expensive NFTs. Game consoles could cost hundreds of dollars, but the NFTs needed to play these crypto games could cost thousands of dollars. These gaming guilds solve this problem by bringing gamers together, renting NFTs out to them, and taking a cut of their earnings. In other words, the gaming guilds help players play expensive games in return for a cut in their earnings. This revenue-sharing program is called a scholarship. For people in like Salami, these gaming guilds are a lifesaver. By reducing the barrier to entry for these games, he can play them and manage to make a living for himself. And it's not only young students like Salami who are getting into the game of crypto gaming. emerging markets Because of the precarious economic conditions in Africa, both old and young people all over urban centers in the continent have been learning how to play these games and joining crypto gaming guilds. The fact that their earnings can easily be converted to dollars, an extremely valuable currency unit in the continent, means that gaming is a lot more lucrative for these African players. It also means that crypto gaming can be a real career path for many African gamers. While blockchain gaming is popular in Western countries, it's never really seen as a good career path. Of course, there are several reasons for this, but the important reason boils down to the odds of success being not very good. In a world where there are better career paths with more stability and bigger odds for success, treating blockchain gaming as a valid career path will just not work. Sure, some game NFTs are worth — however, a vast majority are worth nothing or will soon be worth nothing. tens of thousands of dollars However, this dynamic does not exist in Africa. For example, On the other hand, What this means, in essence, is that there are very few career paths with more stability and bigger odds for success than crypto gaming in Africa, while the opposite is true for developed nations. In the final analysis, this dynamic guarantees that more Africans will be interested in crypto gaming than in the West. the GDP per capita of most African nations hovers below 5,000 dollars. there's hardly any western country with a GDP per capita lower than 30,000 dollars. Africa: The Future Of Gaming Guilds In 2021, a by Kucoin affirmed what most analysts already knew; crypto adoption was growing at an unprecedented rate in Africa. Interestingly, this wasn't because of external factors. It was even despite external factors, as poor socioeconomic and ordinarily meant that crypto adoption would be stunted in Africa. report regulatory metrics However, this was not the case. According to the report, crypto adoption grew by 2500% in a single year. Analysts further predicted that this trend will continue for a long while, even if regulatory and economic indices remain opposed to cryptocurrency adoption growth. With the growth of crypto in Africa came the growth of crypto games. Ordinarily, the adoption of these games would have been met with hesitation. However, 2020 was a period of an extraordinary bull run in the cryptoverse, and this gave most gamers renewed confidence in the market. Within mere months, African gamers realized that crypto gaming was a viable industry. They also realized that only a gaming guild can reduce the barrier to entry and make the space attractive for gamers. Thankfully, there were already a few gaming guilds in place for that purpose, and that's how the gaming guild industry in Africa began to grow. Today, there are loads of gaming guilds in Africa. Some have even been accepted into the Binance Labs accelerator program, and many are poised to interest many crypto VCs. is one of those guilds, and the company has been growing exponentially. Afriguild The guild is certainly the most ambitious gaming guild in Africa right now, as it aims for the ambitious — but still possible — goal of onboarding a hundred million Africans into the world of Web3 in five years through education, gaming, and community building. The team-building effort of Afriguild is led by some of the brightest lights in the Nigerian Web3 space, including Toyosi Abolarin, and Tomiwa Olajide. And the guild itself is already doing exploits. Despite being only a few months old, Afriguild won 2nd place at the Axie Infinity Game Tournament at the Meta Conference In Dubai. This win shows that the startup has built a very vibrant network of young gamers, and its repertoire of games and NFTs is expanding by the day. Right now, the startup is still in early-stage funding, but its magnificent team and expanding community mean that it is one of the most promising guilds in the African Web3 space today. Despite it being a young company, Afriguild has made rather impressive strides in reaching this goal. The startup has built a very vibrant network of young gamers, and its repertoire of games and NFTs is expanding by the day. While many sincerely doubt that the startup will reach its goal of converting 100 million Africans into the world of Web3 within five years, one must realize that it's merely a matter of 2000% year-on-year growth. That has happened before, and it surely can happen again. Are you looking at the next ? What do you think? Yield Guild Games (YGG) The Future Of African Gamers Today For young people like Salami, crypto gaming is a lifesaver. Right now, he is pretty confident that his future lies in Web3, whether it's through playing games or participating in some other way. "I think I've gotten half of all my friends into crypto gaming. Of course, the money isn't a lot. However, while 0.2 BTC or ETH may not be a lot of money in United States Dollars, it's quite a lot in  Nigerian Naira. With that you can feed yourself, and even pay your tuition" He says. And what about his degree in Physics? Will he still pursue it? "Of course, I will. But that's just for a degree. The opportunities in Web3 are a lot more profitable than a degree in Physics. And that's not a bad thing — after all, Elon Musk left a graduate degree program at Stanford to build two internet companies." When asked whether the bear market scares him, Salami just nodded. "Yes, there might be some economic uncertainty. But there's economic uncertainty everywhere. Didn't a global recession happen in 2008?" There are thousands or even hundreds of thousands of African gamers on the continent who feel the same way. The only question now is whether time will prove them right or prove them wrong.

The Rise of Crypto Gaming Guilds in Africa

The image of a programmer is often that of a quiet genius who spends hours deep in code, fueled by coffee and dedicated to finding the best solution. For someone with ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), however, this dream job poses unique challenges. The tendency to struggle with focus or become easily bored doesn’t quite match the stereotype—and yet, there are many people with ADHD who thrive in the programming world. A few years ago, I entered the world of software programming as a career-changer, and I have ADHD myself. When I research this topic online, I often find articles that highlight the positive aspects, but in my opinion, the negative sides of this condition are often overlooked. So, what does it really mean to work as a programmer with ADHD? Here’s a look at the strengths, weaknesses, and the daily balancing act it involves. Hyperfocus: Both a Blessing and a Curse Many people with ADHD experience “hyperfocus.” During these phases, they can become almost obsessively absorbed in a task that interests them—losing all sense of their surroundings. Hyperfocus can be a tremendous strength for programmers, allowing them to be extremely productive and complete tasks in a fraction of the time. The Positive Side: Productivity Spurts: When a developer with ADHD enters hyperfocus, they can often program for hours without interruption, solving even complex problems surprisingly quickly.
Creativity in Problem Solving: Hyperfocus can help them delve deep into the details of a task and find innovative solutions that others might not think of. The Negative Side: Loss of Time Awareness: However, hyperfocus can cause them to lose track of time—sometimes at the expense of other important tasks or obligations.
Energy Depletion: After periods of hyperfocus, many feel exhausted and struggle to concentrate on other tasks. Distraction and Impulsivity: The Daily Battle with Chaos Programming often requires a lot of concentration and patience, as even a missing semicolon can cause errors. Programmers with ADHD constantly battle distracting thoughts and impulses, which can impair their ability to work on detail-oriented tasks. The Positive Side: Quick Adaptability: People with ADHD are often spontaneous and creative thinkers, used to shifting their thoughts quickly. This can be helpful in agile development environments, as they can quickly adjust to new requirements.
Multitasking: Many are skilled at switching between various tasks—an advantage in a dynamic work environment. The Negative Side: Constant Battle with Distractions: A single beep, message, or thought can be enough to break concentration. Constantly refocusing on the original task costs energy and time.
Struggles with Monotonous Tasks: Debugging or waiting for code to compile can quickly become boring. For someone with ADHD, boredom often leads to impulsivity and distraction. Finding a Path to Productivity One of the biggest challenges for programmers with ADHD is the lack of structure. The software development world often offers flexible work hours and remote work—a dream for many, but not necessarily for someone with ADHD. The Positive Side: Freedom to Structure Their Own Day: People with ADHD can make the most of their productive phases without being tied to rigid schedules. Many develop their own creative solutions and routines to stay productive.
Custom Work Methods: The flexibility to adjust breaks and workflows allows them to find ways that better suit their brains and needs. The Negative Side: Difficulty with Self-Discipline: Flexible work hours require a high level of self-discipline. Without set hours, it’s challenging for many to structure their workday.
Delays and Procrastination: The tendency to procrastinate is common, which can lead to last-minute work, resulting in stressful deadlines and sometimes below-average results. Strengths as Team Players and Challenges in Social Interactions While many people with ADHD have strong social skills and empathy, they can also be impulsive and emotional. This can make teamwork challenging, as projects often require clear communication and patience. The Positive Side: High Empathy: Many people with ADHD are especially empathetic and have a good sense for social dynamics, making them valuable team members.
Creative Input and Diverse Ideas: An ADHD programmer’s way of thinking can enrich the team, as they often bring in ideas and perspectives that might otherwise go unnoticed. The Negative Side: Impulsivity in Communication: Unfiltered comments or frequent shifts in thoughts can lead to misunderstandings or conflicts within the team. This impulsivity can also mean frequent topic changes, which may confuse colleagues.
Lack of Patience for Long Meetings: Long, detail-oriented discussions and meetings are often frustrating and exhausting—leading them to mentally check out or lose track of the conversation. Conclusion: The Daily Balancing Act Working as a programmer with ADHD is a balancing act between creativity and chaos, between hyperfocus and distraction, between freedom and structure. People with ADHD can be highly successful programmers and often possess talents and perspectives that are valued in the industry. But the challenges are real: the daily struggle with distraction, impulsivity, and the need for structure is never easy. It helps to develop strategies to compensate for weaknesses, whether by using time-management tools, taking regular breaks, or collaborating with structured colleagues. In an industry that values both creativity and precision, the unique traits of an ADHD mind can be both a curse and a gift. The key is to find a personal rhythm that transforms this daily balancing act into a fulfilling and productive experience. Over the last few years, I’ve had to develop many new strategies to cope with the negative sides of ADHD. I’ve learned a lot about myself and my condition—both good and bad things. I need more breaks than others, have to write things down, and work extensively with checklists. That helps. But still, I keep falling back into old patterns, which can be very demotivating and frustrating at times. On the other hand, I see these phases as motivation to continue building healthy strategies and behaviors. Still, the negative traits of my ADHD often cause self-doubt, even though my ADHD also brings incredible, fascinating aspects that I need to accept and appreciate more. If you’re in a similar situation, I hope this article helps you better understand and accept your condition with all its positive and negative aspects. Having ADHD is certainly a positive thing in the programming world, but it’s also essential to be aware of its challenges. If you’re considering starting a career in software programming or are already in the field but wonder how it can work with ADHD, I hope this article helps clarify things for you. The image of a programmer is often that of a quiet genius who spends hours deep in code, fueled by coffee and dedicated to finding the best solution. For someone with ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), however, this dream job poses unique challenges. The tendency to struggle with focus or become easily bored doesn’t quite match the stereotype—and yet, there are many people with ADHD who thrive in the programming world. A few years ago, I entered the world of software programming as a career-changer, and I have ADHD myself. When I research this topic online, I often find articles that highlight the positive aspects, but in my opinion, the negative sides of this condition are often overlooked. So, what does it really mean to work as a programmer with ADHD? Here’s a look at the strengths, weaknesses, and the daily balancing act it involves. Hyperfocus: Both a Blessing and a Curse Many people with ADHD experience “hyperfocus.” During these phases, they can become almost obsessively absorbed in a task that interests them—losing all sense of their surroundings. Hyperfocus can be a tremendous strength for programmers, allowing them to be extremely productive and complete tasks in a fraction of the time. The Positive Side: The Positive Side: Productivity Spurts: When a developer with ADHD enters hyperfocus, they can often program for hours without interruption, solving even complex problems surprisingly quickly. Creativity in Problem Solving: Hyperfocus can help them delve deep into the details of a task and find innovative solutions that others might not think of. Productivity Spurts: When a developer with ADHD enters hyperfocus, they can often program for hours without interruption, solving even complex problems surprisingly quickly. Productivity Spurts: Creativity in Problem Solving: Hyperfocus can help them delve deep into the details of a task and find innovative solutions that others might not think of. Creativity in Problem Solving: The Negative Side: The Negative Side: Loss of Time Awareness: However, hyperfocus can cause them to lose track of time—sometimes at the expense of other important tasks or obligations. Energy Depletion: After periods of hyperfocus, many feel exhausted and struggle to concentrate on other tasks. Loss of Time Awareness: However, hyperfocus can cause them to lose track of time—sometimes at the expense of other important tasks or obligations. Loss of Time Awareness: Energy Depletion: After periods of hyperfocus, many feel exhausted and struggle to concentrate on other tasks. Energy Depletion: Distraction and Impulsivity: The Daily Battle with Chaos Programming often requires a lot of concentration and patience, as even a missing semicolon can cause errors. Programmers with ADHD constantly battle distracting thoughts and impulses, which can impair their ability to work on detail-oriented tasks. The Positive Side: The Positive Side: Quick Adaptability: People with ADHD are often spontaneous and creative thinkers, used to shifting their thoughts quickly. This can be helpful in agile development environments, as they can quickly adjust to new requirements. Multitasking: Many are skilled at switching between various tasks—an advantage in a dynamic work environment. Quick Adaptability: People with ADHD are often spontaneous and creative thinkers, used to shifting their thoughts quickly. This can be helpful in agile development environments, as they can quickly adjust to new requirements. Quick Adaptability: Multitasking: Many are skilled at switching between various tasks—an advantage in a dynamic work environment. Multitasking: The Negative Side: The Negative Side: Constant Battle with Distractions: A single beep, message, or thought can be enough to break concentration. Constantly refocusing on the original task costs energy and time. Struggles with Monotonous Tasks: Debugging or waiting for code to compile can quickly become boring. For someone with ADHD, boredom often leads to impulsivity and distraction. Constant Battle with Distractions: A single beep, message, or thought can be enough to break concentration. Constantly refocusing on the original task costs energy and time. Constant Battle with Distractions: Struggles with Monotonous Tasks: Debugging or waiting for code to compile can quickly become boring. For someone with ADHD, boredom often leads to impulsivity and distraction. Struggles with Monotonous Tasks: Finding a Path to Productivity One of the biggest challenges for programmers with ADHD is the lack of structure. The software development world often offers flexible work hours and remote work—a dream for many, but not necessarily for someone with ADHD. The Positive Side: The Positive Side: Freedom to Structure Their Own Day: People with ADHD can make the most of their productive phases without being tied to rigid schedules. Many develop their own creative solutions and routines to stay productive. Custom Work Methods: The flexibility to adjust breaks and workflows allows them to find ways that better suit their brains and needs. Freedom to Structure Their Own Day: People with ADHD can make the most of their productive phases without being tied to rigid schedules. Many develop their own creative solutions and routines to stay productive. Freedom to Structure Their Own Day: Custom Work Methods: The flexibility to adjust breaks and workflows allows them to find ways that better suit their brains and needs. Custom Work Methods: The Negative Side: The Negative Side: Difficulty with Self-Discipline: Flexible work hours require a high level of self-discipline. Without set hours, it’s challenging for many to structure their workday. Delays and Procrastination: The tendency to procrastinate is common, which can lead to last-minute work, resulting in stressful deadlines and sometimes below-average results. Difficulty with Self-Discipline: Flexible work hours require a high level of self-discipline. Without set hours, it’s challenging for many to structure their workday. Difficulty with Self-Discipline: Delays and Procrastination: The tendency to procrastinate is common, which can lead to last-minute work, resulting in stressful deadlines and sometimes below-average results. Delays and Procrastination: Strengths as Team Players and Challenges in Social Interactions While many people with ADHD have strong social skills and empathy, they can also be impulsive and emotional. This can make teamwork challenging, as projects often require clear communication and patience. The Positive Side: The Positive Side: High Empathy: Many people with ADHD are especially empathetic and have a good sense for social dynamics, making them valuable team members. Creative Input and Diverse Ideas: An ADHD programmer’s way of thinking can enrich the team, as they often bring in ideas and perspectives that might otherwise go unnoticed. High Empathy: Many people with ADHD are especially empathetic and have a good sense for social dynamics, making them valuable team members. High Empathy: Creative Input and Diverse Ideas: An ADHD programmer’s way of thinking can enrich the team, as they often bring in ideas and perspectives that might otherwise go unnoticed. Creative Input and Diverse Ideas: The Negative Side: The Negative Side: Impulsivity in Communication: Unfiltered comments or frequent shifts in thoughts can lead to misunderstandings or conflicts within the team. This impulsivity can also mean frequent topic changes, which may confuse colleagues. Lack of Patience for Long Meetings: Long, detail-oriented discussions and meetings are often frustrating and exhausting—leading them to mentally check out or lose track of the conversation. Impulsivity in Communication: Unfiltered comments or frequent shifts in thoughts can lead to misunderstandings or conflicts within the team. This impulsivity can also mean frequent topic changes, which may confuse colleagues. Impulsivity in Communication: Lack of Patience for Long Meetings: Long, detail-oriented discussions and meetings are often frustrating and exhausting—leading them to mentally check out or lose track of the conversation. Lack of Patience for Long Meetings: Conclusion: The Daily Balancing Act Working as a programmer with ADHD is a balancing act between creativity and chaos, between hyperfocus and distraction, between freedom and structure. People with ADHD can be highly successful programmers and often possess talents and perspectives that are valued in the industry. But the challenges are real: the daily struggle with distraction, impulsivity, and the need for structure is never easy. It helps to develop strategies to compensate for weaknesses, whether by using time-management tools, taking regular breaks, or collaborating with structured colleagues. In an industry that values both creativity and precision, the unique traits of an ADHD mind can be both a curse and a gift. The key is to find a personal rhythm that transforms this daily balancing act into a fulfilling and productive experience. Over the last few years, I’ve had to develop many new strategies to cope with the negative sides of ADHD. I’ve learned a lot about myself and my condition—both good and bad things. I need more breaks than others, have to write things down, and work extensively with checklists. That helps. But still, I keep falling back into old patterns, which can be very demotivating and frustrating at times. On the other hand, I see these phases as motivation to continue building healthy strategies and behaviors. Still, the negative traits of my ADHD often cause self-doubt, even though my ADHD also brings incredible, fascinating aspects that I need to accept and appreciate more. If you’re in a similar situation, I hope this article helps you better understand and accept your condition with all its positive and negative aspects. Having ADHD is certainly a positive thing in the programming world, but it’s also essential to be aware of its challenges. If you’re considering starting a career in software programming or are already in the field but wonder how it can work with ADHD, I hope this article helps clarify things for you.

Life as a Programmer with ADHD: A Balancing Act Between Creativity and Chaos

Assist Me In Designing a Board Game - Part 3

Part 1 In Part 1 of this board game design experience, we: Defined the target player and customer.
Identified the concept.
Set the overall goal of the game to be Happiness, which is made up of three metrics = Financial Wealth + Lifestyle + Friends & Family. Nothing is finalized yet, but we have enough to move on to the next stage of the design. Game design is an iterative process where we might make a tentative decision to allow us to move on to the next stage to see how things play out. Then we can reevaluate and adjust as we go. Part 2 — What will players do? This stage involves identifying what players will do in the game. To determine this, we must consider what we want players to experience and learn about vis-a-vis personal finance and life. When I was thinking about this, I considered that different phases in life typically occur sequentially (although not always): Youth
Education
Career
Family
Retirement And within these 5 phases of life, there are choices we make — all of which are repeated many times. After a few iterations, I landed on these 6 choices: 6 Choices Nutrition — how do we maintain our biological needs?
Housing — where do we live?
Commuting — how do we get around?
Income — how do we earn money to live?
Savings — how do we save or invest our money?
Free Time — how do we spend our free time? These are the choices most people have to make in the real world when managing life and money. At least that's what I think — perhaps I'm missing something? Let me know in the comments. Rules & Time From a gameplay perspective, having fewer phases and choices is better because it requires fewer rules and may provide shorter gameplay. This makes the game more flexible and versatile. A lot of board games take 1 or 2 hours to play, which may be ok for entertainment, but for schools, this can be problematic as many classes are less than one hour. A game that requires multiple hours (and classes) to play provides teachers with less flexibility. And, requires us to build a way for an unfinished game to be continued on a different day — this is an inconvenience for everyone, but is easier to do nowadays as everyone has phone cameras that can be used to record the current state of the game. I don't yet know how long this game will take to play — we are too early in the design process. If we can keep it to less than one hour that will be ideal. It may turn out that a 2-player game will take less than one hour, while a 3 or 4-player game will take longer. This could be a good compromise as a school typically has to have multiple copies of the game to accommodate all students in a class. Gameplay The next step will be to determine how all of the 6 Choices can be integrated and repeated in the gameplay. That's not going to be easy because of the rules and time issue I described above, while also trying to make the game somewhat fun (even though education is the objective). I've got some work to do here before I post the next update. Health In Part 1, I mentioned that the reason Health is not one of the 3 metrics used to determine Happiness is because Health underlies everything in life. As I make more progress on the game design, I'm also thinking that Health can be used as a super metric where Health points earned during the game can be applied to any or all of the three Happiness metrics. The premise here is that the healthier we are, the more flexibility we have to devote our time and focus on whichever of the three Happiness metrics we choose. Other Considerations I'm still considering using the term "Relationships" to replace "Friends & Family." Here's why: For simplicity, one word is always better than two.
Relationships can be more encompassing to include colleagues at work and volunteer activities, acquaintances, and more.
The only problem with the term Relationships is that it is not as self-explanatory as Friends & Family. Although, everything in a game should be defined in the instructions, even if it seems self-explanatory. Other concepts I want to consider in the gameplay as we go: Budget
Net Worth
Credit and Credit Score
Insurance Share Your Thoughts In the Comments Am I on track? Am I missing something? Do you have any suggestions? Should I keep posting about this game? PS: Please only share ideas if you are willing to allow me or anyone following this discussion to use them for free without any obligation. If you contribute an idea that has a significant influence on the design of my game, I will be pleased to gift you a copy of the game. Part 1 In Part 1 of this board game design experience, we: Part 1 Defined the target player and customer. Identified the concept. Set the overall goal of the game to be Happiness, which is made up of three metrics = Financial Wealth + Lifestyle + Friends & Family. Defined the target player and customer. Identified the concept. Set the overall goal of the game to be Happiness, which is made up of three metrics = Financial Wealth + Lifestyle + Friends & Family. Nothing is finalized yet, but we have enough to move on to the next stage of the design. Game design is an iterative process where we might make a tentative decision to allow us to move on to the next stage to see how things play out. Then we can reevaluate and adjust as we go. Part 2 — What will players do? This stage involves identifying what players will do in the game. To determine this, we must consider what we want players to experience and learn about vis-a-vis personal finance and life. When I was thinking about this, I considered that different phases in life typically occur sequentially (although not always): Youth Education Career Family Retirement Youth Education Career Family Retirement And within these 5 phases of life, there are choices we make — all of which are repeated many times. After a few iterations, I landed on these 6 choices: 6 Choices Nutrition — how do we maintain our biological needs? Housing — where do we live? Commuting — how do we get around? Income — how do we earn money to live? Savings — how do we save or invest our money? Free Time — how do we spend our free time? Nutrition — how do we maintain our biological needs? Housing — where do we live? Commuting — how do we get around? Income — how do we earn money to live? Savings — how do we save or invest our money? Free Time — how do we spend our free time? These are the choices most people have to make in the real world when managing life and money. At least that's what I think — perhaps I'm missing something? Let me know in the comments. Rules & Time From a gameplay perspective, having fewer phases and choices is better because it requires fewer rules and may provide shorter gameplay. This makes the game more flexible and versatile. A lot of board games take 1 or 2 hours to play, which may be ok for entertainment, but for schools, this can be problematic as many classes are less than one hour. A game that requires multiple hours (and classes) to play provides teachers with less flexibility. And, requires us to build a way for an unfinished game to be continued on a different day — this is an inconvenience for everyone, but is easier to do nowadays as everyone has phone cameras that can be used to record the current state of the game. I don't yet know how long this game will take to play — we are too early in the design process. If we can keep it to less than one hour that will be ideal. It may turn out that a 2-player game will take less than one hour, while a 3 or 4-player game will take longer. This could be a good compromise as a school typically has to have multiple copies of the game to accommodate all students in a class. Gameplay The next step will be to determine how all of the 6 Choices can be integrated and repeated in the gameplay. That's not going to be easy because of the rules and time issue I described above, while also trying to make the game somewhat fun (even though education is the objective). I've got some work to do here before I post the next update. Health In Part 1, I mentioned that the reason Health is not one of the 3 metrics used to determine Happiness is because Health underlies everything in life. As I make more progress on the game design, I'm also thinking that Health can be used as a super metric where Health points earned during the game can be applied to any or all of the three Happiness metrics. The premise here is that the healthier we are, the more flexibility we have to devote our time and focus on whichever of the three Happiness metrics we choose. Other Considerations I'm still considering using the term "Relationships" to replace "Friends & Family." Here's why: For simplicity, one word is always better than two. Relationships can be more encompassing to include colleagues at work and volunteer activities, acquaintances, and more. The only problem with the term Relationships is that it is not as self-explanatory as Friends & Family. Although, everything in a game should be defined in the instructions, even if it seems self-explanatory. For simplicity, one word is always better than two. Relationships can be more encompassing to include colleagues at work and volunteer activities, acquaintances, and more. The only problem with the term Relationships is that it is not as self-explanatory as Friends & Family. Although, everything in a game should be defined in the instructions, even if it seems self-explanatory. Other concepts I want to consider in the gameplay as we go: Budget Net Worth Credit and Credit Score Insurance Budget Net Worth Credit and Credit Score Insurance Share Your Thoughts In the Comments Am I on track? Am I missing something? Do you have any suggestions? Should I keep posting about this game? PS: Please only share ideas if you are willing to allow me or anyone following this discussion to use them for free without any obligation. If you contribute an idea that has a significant influence on the design of my game, I will be pleased to gift you a copy of the game.

Assist Me In Designing a Board Game — Part 2

I've been picking away at a new board game for a few years now. I made some progress early on but got stalled with other priorities. I'm now going to push to get the game done. I think it might be a fun experiment to share my design progress online — and create a better game with live feedback from you — where you can influence the design. If people choose to follow and post feedback in the comments, I will take your direction with the design of the game, continue to post my progress with gameplay refinements and design sketches, and continue to ask for your feedback. About The Game This will be an educational board game to help players learn personal finance — but more broadly about life, money, and happiness. I know what you are thinking — The Game of Life! Wikipedia says this game was created in 1860 with the more modern version in 1960. The game has an iconic three-dimensional board with a colorful spinner in the middle. This game is exciting to look at and nicely tactile. It's a vivid childhood memory for many of us. But, to be honest, in IMO, it's not a great game to play. The gameplay is dated. I have no intention of duplicating any part of this game. Our game will have a fresh start (as I try to do with all of my games). I have already designed board games and software games and simulations for personal finance, so I have a good foundation for our new game. I want this game to be like a simulation that recreates realistic decisions people make in the real world. Player & Customer Profile The primary target customers will be schools. But if we can attract home users that will be great too. Designing a product for education first, instead of entertainment, is particularly challenging. It's even more challenging to design a game that crosses over from schools to homes. But we'll give it a shot! (I've written about this here — Using Entertainment Games for Education). Knowing your customer is super important when designing a product. To refine the player profile further, the target age range is likely to be 13 to adult. This encompasses middle schools and high schools. The game may also play well for 11 and 12-year-olds, but here's an interesting fact — we can save thousands of dollars in production costs by setting the minimum age to 13. Why? Because toys and games for ages 12 and under require comprehensive materials testing for child safety. Of course, we always source and use safe materials for our games, but when costly double-testing is not necessary, then we should consider our options. Goals The first step — choosing the goals of the game. This is an interesting challenge with personal finance — because there are no clear right and wrong answers — everyone has their own path in life. Some may choose to pursue financial wealth over everything else, while others focus on personal lifestyle or relationships with friends and family. Some may try to have it all. Our game goals must reflect this reality of personal choice. We must refrain from applying our own biases in an educational product. With this in mind, here is what I'm currently thinking — The overall goal should be Happiness. I feel like this is a good term that can be applied on a personal level regardless of individual life goals. The player with the most Happiness Points (HP) wins the game — although "win" may not be the right term here as we still have to decide if this will be a cooperative or competitive game or something in between. Reminder — the educational objective of the game is to help you gain the personal finance knowledge and skills to achieve your definition of happiness. Next, we have to define Happiness — my current thinking is that it should be made up of three metrics — Financial Wealth + Lifestyle + Friends & Family. Each player may put more or less emphasis on any combination of these three metrics. BTW, our brains like to work in threes. Fours become too complicated. Two is even better but may be too restrictive for the gameplay we want to design. You will see the word "Relationship" in my graphic above because I don't like that "Friends & Family" uses two words, so I'm thinking about alternatives. Where is Health? I carefully considered whether health should be one of the three metrics since it is perhaps the single most important influence on happiness. But I decided not to include in the three metrics because: Everyone wants good health (even if they may not make healthy choices).
Health influences all of our life goals.
Adding a fourth metric breaks our 3-metric rule. So, the best way to include health is to have it applied throughout the game as various choices and events, such as personal care, nutrition, fitness, routine checkups, health insurance, etc. There you have it ... that's where we are so far. I have more to share in the next post. My direction will be influenced by the feedback you provide. Share Your Thoughts In the Comments Am I on track? Am I missing something? Do you have any suggestions? Should I keep posting about this game? PS: Please only share ideas if you are willing to allow me or anyone following this discussion to use them for free without any obligation. If you contribute an idea that has a significant influence on the design of my game, I will be pleased to gift you a copy of the game. I've been picking away at a new board game for a few years now. I made some progress early on but got stalled with other priorities. I'm now going to push to get the game done. I think it might be a fun experiment to share my design progress online — and create a better game with live feedback from you — where you can influence the design. If people choose to follow and post feedback in the comments, I will take your direction with the design of the game, continue to post my progress with gameplay refinements and design sketches, and continue to ask for your feedback. About The Game This will be an educational board game to help players learn personal finance — but more broadly about life, money, and happiness. I know what you are thinking — The Game of Life! Wikipedia says this game was created in 1860 with the more modern version in 1960. The game has an iconic three-dimensional board with a colorful spinner in the middle. This game is exciting to look at and nicely tactile. It's a vivid childhood memory for many of us. But, to be honest, in IMO, it's not a great game to play. The gameplay is dated. I have no intention of duplicating any part of this game. Our game will have a fresh start (as I try to do with all of my games). I have already designed board games and software games and simulations for personal finance, so I have a good foundation for our new game. I want this game to be like a simulation that recreates realistic decisions people make in the real world. board games software games and simulations Player & Customer Profile The primary target customers will be schools. But if we can attract home users that will be great too. Designing a product for education first, instead of entertainment, is particularly challenging. It's even more challenging to design a game that crosses over from schools to homes. But we'll give it a shot! (I've written about this here — Using Entertainment Games for Education ). Using Entertainment Games for Education Knowing your customer is super important when designing a product. To refine the player profile further, the target age range is likely to be 13 to adult. This encompasses middle schools and high schools. The game may also play well for 11 and 12-year-olds, but here's an interesting fact — we can save thousands of dollars in production costs by setting the minimum age to 13. Why? Because toys and games for ages 12 and under require comprehensive materials testing for child safety. Of course, we always source and use safe materials for our games, but when costly double-testing is not necessary, then we should consider our options. Goals The first step — choosing the goals of the game. This is an interesting challenge with personal finance — because there are no clear right and wrong answers — everyone has their own path in life. Some may choose to pursue financial wealth over everything else, while others focus on personal lifestyle or relationships with friends and family. Some may try to have it all. Our game goals must reflect this reality of personal choice. We must refrain from applying our own biases in an educational product. With this in mind, here is what I'm currently thinking — The overall goal should be Happiness. I feel like this is a good term that can be applied on a personal level regardless of individual life goals. The player with the most Happiness Points (HP) wins the game — although "win" may not be the right term here as we still have to decide if this will be a cooperative or competitive game or something in between. Reminder — the educational objective of the game is to help you gain the personal finance knowledge and skills to achieve your definition of happiness. Next, we have to define Happiness — my current thinking is that it should be made up of three metrics — Financial Wealth + Lifestyle + Friends & Family. Each player may put more or less emphasis on any combination of these three metrics. BTW, our brains like to work in threes. Fours become too complicated. Two is even better but may be too restrictive for the gameplay we want to design. You will see the word "Relationship" in my graphic above because I don't like that "Friends & Family" uses two words, so I'm thinking about alternatives. Where is Health? I carefully considered whether health should be one of the three metrics since it is perhaps the single most important influence on happiness. But I decided not to include in the three metrics because: Everyone wants good health (even if they may not make healthy choices). Health influences all of our life goals. Adding a fourth metric breaks our 3-metric rule. Everyone wants good health (even if they may not make healthy choices). Health influences all of our life goals. Adding a fourth metric breaks our 3-metric rule. So, the best way to include health is to have it applied throughout the game as various choices and events, such as personal care, nutrition, fitness, routine checkups, health insurance, etc. There you have it ... that's where we are so far. I have more to share in the next post. My direction will be influenced by the feedback you provide. Share Your Thoughts In the Comments Am I on track? Am I missing something? Do you have any suggestions? Should I keep posting about this game? PS: Please only share ideas if you are willing to allow me or anyone following this discussion to use them for free without any obligation. If you contribute an idea that has a significant influence on the design of my game, I will be pleased to gift you a copy of the game.

Assist Me in Designing a Board Game - Part 1

We all have a treasure trove of old photos passed down from our parents, grandparents, and so on. Often, these photos are in black and white, and sometimes, we wish to bring them to life in color. There are numerous websites online where you can achieve this with just a few clicks right in your browser. However, the problem with these sites lies in their many restrictions on quantity and quality. Additionally, these services often require registration and subscriptions, which can be quite frustrating. In this post, I'd like to share how you can colorize any number of photos using the fantastic tool, DeOldify, without the hassle of limitations, registrations, or subscriptions. DeOldify has an amazing introduction, and you may use it, but for non-prepared people, it may seem a bit difficult. Here, I'd like to demonstrate a simpler way of using DeOldify. Preparing the Environment To get started, you'll need a computer running Linux or macOS. If you're using Windows, you can still proceed by utilizing the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). There is a list of required packages for Ubuntu: sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-pip wget git ffmpeg libsm6 libxext6 You may use the list as a reference if you have another Linux distribution. For macOS (unfortunately, this is an approximate list as I don't have a clear macOS for testing): brew install python wget git ffmpeg libsm libxext The next step is creating a separate folder named Sandbox to do everything in. You can choose any other name or even choose not to create anything and skip this step altogether. # Optional
mkdir Sandbox
cd Sandbox Then clone DeOldify: git clone https://github.com/jantic/DeOldify.git DeOldify doesn't have any releases or tags, which means that we work with the master branch. I believe that everything should work with the latest master at any time. But just in case, here is a revision number with which I tested everything: be725ca6c5f411c47550df951546537d7202c9bc. If you want, you may check it out: # Optional
cd DeOldify
git checkout be725ca6c5f411c47550df951546537d7202c9bc
cd .. After that, install all Python dependencies: pip3 install --user -r DeOldify/requirements.txt
pip3 install --user -r DeOldify/requirements-colab.txt
pip3 install --user -r DeOldify/requirements-dev.txt Next, create a directory for the models, and download the model: mkdir -p DeOldify/models
wget https://data.deepai.org/deoldify/ColorizeArtistic_gen.pth -O DeOldify/models/ColorizeArtistic_gen.pth That's it! The environment is ready; the hardest part is behind us. Now, let's write a bit of Python code. Colorize Everything The most interesting and useful function for us is ModelImageVisualizer.plot_transformed_image(). All we need to do is write code around it. Here is my implementation: #!/usr/bin/python3

from deoldify import device
from deoldify.device_id import DeviceId

# choices:  CPU, GPU0...GPU7
device.set(device=DeviceId.GPU0)

from deoldify.visualize import *
import warnings

import sys
import os

warnings.filterwarnings("ignore", category=UserWarning, message=".*?Your .*? set is empty.*?")

# Play with this constant!
render_factor = 35

input_dir = sys.argv[1]
output_dir = sys.argv[2]

if not os.path.isdir(input_dir):
    print("input directory is not a directory or not exist")
    sys.exit(1)

if os.path.exists(output_dir):
    print("out directory is already exist")
    sys.exit(1)

os.makedirs(output_dir)

root_dir = Path(os.environ['PYTHONPATH'])
colorizer = get_image_colorizer(root_folder=root_dir, artistic=True)
for filename in os.listdir(input_dir):
    f = os.path.join(input_dir, filename)
    if os.path.isfile(f) and (f.endswith(".png") or f.endswith(".jpg") or f.endswith(".jpeg")):
        image_path = colorizer.plot_transformed_image(
            path=f,
            results_dir=Path(output_dir),
            render_factor=render_factor,
            compare=True,
            watermarked=False
        )
        print("{} ready".format(image_path)) Feel free to copy, paste, and modify it however you want. The script reads all .png, .jpg, and .jpeg images from the directory passed as the first script argument and colorizes them, saving the results into the directory passed as the second script argument. Note that the output directory must not exist; the script creates it itself. I saved the script in the Sandbox/runner.py file, but you may use a different location and name if you prefer. Let's try it! I placed a black-and-white photo into Sandbox/photos/in, and the output directory is Sandbox/photos/out: # from Sandbox directory
PYTHONPATH=./DeOldify/ python3 runner.py photos/in/ photos/out/ The environment variable PYTHONPATH must refer to the DeOldify directory. Here is the result: We all have a treasure trove of old photos passed down from our parents, grandparents, and so on. Often, these photos are in black and white, and sometimes, we wish to bring them to life in color. There are numerous websites online where you can achieve this with just a few clicks right in your browser. However, the problem with these sites lies in their many restrictions on quantity and quality. Additionally, these services often require registration and subscriptions, which can be quite frustrating. In this post, I'd like to share how you can colorize any number of photos using the fantastic tool, DeOldify , without the hassle of limitations, registrations, or subscriptions. DeOldify DeOldify has an amazing introduction , and you may use it, but for non-prepared people, it may seem a bit difficult. Here, I'd like to demonstrate a simpler way of using DeOldify . DeOldify amazing introduction DeOldify Preparing the Environment To get started, you'll need a computer running Linux or macOS . If you're using Windows , you can still proceed by utilizing the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) . Linux macOS Windows Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) There is a list of required packages for Ubuntu : Ubuntu sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-pip wget git ffmpeg libsm6 libxext6 sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-pip wget git ffmpeg libsm6 libxext6 You may use the list as a reference if you have another Linux distribution. Linux For macOS (unfortunately, this is an approximate list as I don't have a clear macOS for testing): macOS macOS brew install python wget git ffmpeg libsm libxext brew install python wget git ffmpeg libsm libxext The next step is creating a separate folder named Sandbox to do everything in. You can choose any other name or even choose not to create anything and skip this step altogether. Sandbox Sandbox # Optional
mkdir Sandbox
cd Sandbox # Optional
mkdir Sandbox
cd Sandbox Then clone DeOldify : DeOldify git clone https://github.com/jantic/DeOldify.git git clone https://github.com/jantic/DeOldify.git DeOldify doesn't have any releases or tags, which means that we work with the master branch. I believe that everything should work with the latest master at any time. But just in case, here is a revision number with which I tested everything: DeOldify master be725ca6c5f411c47550df951546537d7202c9bc . If you want, you may check it out: be725ca6c5f411c47550df951546537d7202c9bc # Optional
cd DeOldify
git checkout be725ca6c5f411c47550df951546537d7202c9bc
cd .. # Optional
cd DeOldify
git checkout be725ca6c5f411c47550df951546537d7202c9bc
cd .. After that, install all Python dependencies: pip3 install --user -r DeOldify/requirements.txt
pip3 install --user -r DeOldify/requirements-colab.txt
pip3 install --user -r DeOldify/requirements-dev.txt pip3 install --user -r DeOldify/requirements.txt
pip3 install --user -r DeOldify/requirements-colab.txt
pip3 install --user -r DeOldify/requirements-dev.txt Next, create a directory for the models, and download the model: mkdir -p DeOldify/models
wget https://data.deepai.org/deoldify/ColorizeArtistic_gen.pth -O DeOldify/models/ColorizeArtistic_gen.pth mkdir -p DeOldify/models
wget https://data.deepai.org/deoldify/ColorizeArtistic_gen.pth -O DeOldify/models/ColorizeArtistic_gen.pth That's it! The environment is ready; the hardest part is behind us. Now, let's write a bit of Python code. Colorize Everything The most interesting and useful function for us is ModelImageVisualizer.plot_transformed_image() . ModelImageVisualizer.plot_transformed_image() All we need to do is write code around it. Here is my implementation: #!/usr/bin/python3

from deoldify import device
from deoldify.device_id import DeviceId

# choices:  CPU, GPU0...GPU7
device.set(device=DeviceId.GPU0)

from deoldify.visualize import *
import warnings

import sys
import os

warnings.filterwarnings("ignore", category=UserWarning, message=".*?Your .*? set is empty.*?")

# Play with this constant!
render_factor = 35

input_dir = sys.argv[1]
output_dir = sys.argv[2]

if not os.path.isdir(input_dir):
    print("input directory is not a directory or not exist")
    sys.exit(1)

if os.path.exists(output_dir):
    print("out directory is already exist")
    sys.exit(1)

os.makedirs(output_dir)

root_dir = Path(os.environ['PYTHONPATH'])
colorizer = get_image_colorizer(root_folder=root_dir, artistic=True)
for filename in os.listdir(input_dir):
    f = os.path.join(input_dir, filename)
    if os.path.isfile(f) and (f.endswith(".png") or f.endswith(".jpg") or f.endswith(".jpeg")):
        image_path = colorizer.plot_transformed_image(
            path=f,
            results_dir=Path(output_dir),
            render_factor=render_factor,
            compare=True,
            watermarked=False
        )
        print("{} ready".format(image_path)) #!/usr/bin/python3

from deoldify import device
from deoldify.device_id import DeviceId

# choices:  CPU, GPU0...GPU7
device.set(device=DeviceId.GPU0)

from deoldify.visualize import *
import warnings

import sys
import os

warnings.filterwarnings("ignore", category=UserWarning, message=".*?Your .*? set is empty.*?")

# Play with this constant!
render_factor = 35

input_dir = sys.argv[1]
output_dir = sys.argv[2]

if not os.path.isdir(input_dir):
    print("input directory is not a directory or not exist")
    sys.exit(1)

if os.path.exists(output_dir):
    print("out directory is already exist")
    sys.exit(1)

os.makedirs(output_dir)

root_dir = Path(os.environ['PYTHONPATH'])
colorizer = get_image_colorizer(root_folder=root_dir, artistic=True)
for filename in os.listdir(input_dir):
    f = os.path.join(input_dir, filename)
    if os.path.isfile(f) and (f.endswith(".png") or f.endswith(".jpg") or f.endswith(".jpeg")):
        image_path = colorizer.plot_transformed_image(
            path=f,
            results_dir=Path(output_dir),
            render_factor=render_factor,
            compare=True,
            watermarked=False
        )
        print("{} ready".format(image_path)) Feel free to copy, paste, and modify it however you want. The script reads all .png , .jpg , and .jpeg images from the directory passed as the first script argument and colorizes them, saving the results into the directory passed as the second script argument. Note that the output directory must not exist; the script creates it itself. I saved the script in the Sandbox/runner.py file, but you may use a different location and name if you prefer. .png .jpg .jpeg Sandbox/runner.py Let's try it! I placed a black-and-white photo into Sandbox/photos/in , and the output directory is Sandbox/photos/out : Sandbox/photos/in Sandbox/photos/out # from Sandbox directory
PYTHONPATH=./DeOldify/ python3 runner.py photos/in/ photos/out/ # from Sandbox directory
PYTHONPATH=./DeOldify/ python3 runner.py photos/in/ photos/out/ The environment variable PYTHONPATH must refer to the DeOldify directory. The environment variable PYTHONPATH must refer to the DeOldify directory. PYTHONPATH DeOldify Here is the result:

How to Colorize a Black and White Photo

কিভাবে একটি কালো এবং সাদা ছবির রঙিন করা যায়

So kolorieren Sie ein Schwarzweißfoto

Cómo colorear una fotografía en blanco y negro

Comment coloriser une photo en noir et blanc

एक काले और सफेद फोटो को रंगीन कैसे करें

白黒写真をカラー化する方法

흑백 사진에 색상을 입히는 방법

Como colorir uma foto em preto e branco

Как раскрасить черно-белую фотографию

Siyah Beyaz Fotoğraf Nasıl Renklendirilir?

Cách tô màu cho ảnh đen trắng

如何给黑白照片上色

The Problem: “cd” & “ls” Suck 👎 Using command to change the directory and to preview files in the current directory may work sometimes, but it’s frustrating to have to use this workflow all the time whenever you want to go somewhere. cd ls The Solution I will give you 3 solutions not just one to make your life easier in terminal and jump easily between files. “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” — Abraham Lincoln Let’s Sharpen Our Axe 🪓 You’re gonna need some to follow with me: perquisites Zsh Tmux Zoxide LF Fzf Solution 1: Zoxide zoxide is a smarter cd command This one is pretty cool; here’s what it does: It remembers all directories you visit and organizes them by most frequent. All you need is to type some letters from the name des => Desktop It jumps immediately there (super super cool) Step 1: Install It With Homebrew Brew install zoxide. Step 2: Initialize in ~/.zshrc open your ~/.zshrc file, and add this to initialize it eval "$(zoxide init zsh)" source ~/.zshrc to apply the changes source ~/.zshrc Step 3: Use Zoxide Instead of “cd” First, you need to visit the directories you want to jump to, so can identify it and fuzzy find it. zoxide Type + any letters you remember from the directory. z z desk// cd ~/Desktop Solution 2: LF Manager lf (as in "list files") is a terminal file manager written in Go with a heavy inspiration from ranger file manager Let me tell you a secret; this is my favorite one 🤫 if you’re like me, using Vim navigation keys hjkl After you get used to it, you suddenly want to use them everywhere. does exactly that; it works like columns view in Finder but with Vim. LF But don’t get me wrong; it still works with regular “Arrow” keys as well. Step 1: Install It With Homebrew Brew install lf. Step 2: Change the Directory on Quit “ it’s funny, but for some reason, it didn’t change the directory on quit” It’s like the main point, right !! 🥲 So, let’s fix this with a small function working as a wrapper to lf. It just saves the last directory path in the temp file, then cd to it. Add this function to your ~/.zshrc lf Wrapper function lf { local tmp=$(mktemp) command lf -last-dir-path="$tmp" "$@" cd "$(cat "$tmp")" rm -r "$tmp" } Step 3: Customize Your “lfrc” File It’s the LF config file to customize it; I like to keep it minimal. few UI interface configurations shortcuts to jump to my frequent main directories with a small cheatsheet for favorite LF shortcuts you’re gonna find it at ( if you can’t find it, create it ) ~/.config/lf/lfrc | |/ ) __ _ | | | / | | | () | | | | | | || _/ | ___ ___ _ __ / ( / _ | ' | |/ ` | | | | | ( | | ( | */|| ||| |*|, | | UI Set hidden # show hidden files set icons # show icons for files/directories set relativenumber # show files/directories relative numbers Jump Shortcuts map gh cd ~ # use 'gh' to go home directory map gp cd ~/personal/ # use 'gp' to go personal directory map gw cd ~/work/ # use 'gw' to go work directory map gt cd ~/tools/ # use 'gt' to go tools directory map gd cd ~/Downloads/ # use 'gd' to go downloads directory map gv cd /Volumes/ # use 'gv' to go volumes for (external drives) map gb cd ~/brainExt # use 'gb' to go obsidian BrainExt vault Fav Shortcuts hjkl/gg/G # Vim-like Navigation (move) space/v/u # select/invert/unselect (select) y/d/p/c # yank/delete/paste/clear (change) i/e/l # open with less/default-editor/default-app (open) change your default editor in ~/.zshrc To make sure that when you use shortcut, it always opens with it. e Then verify that your default editor changed: echo $EDITOR export EDITOR=vi # change default editor to vim Step 4: Cool Tmux Keybinding Imagine this scenario: you’re working on a file in Tmux, then do a quick shortcut open in new window to open any file from the same directory 🚀 lf Let’s go do exactly that, in ~/.tmux.conf But first, make sure that zsh is our default shell for the tmux conf Set the Default Shell to zsh set-option -g default-shell /bin/zsh this smart keybinding opens a new window with the name “Files.” ctrl+f The new window starts from the same path as well as your current window. And finally, it opens directly there ( use q to quit ) lf ctrl+f => lf (q) bind -n C-f new-window -n "files" -c "#{pane_current_path}" "zsh -ic 'lf; zsh'" Don’t forget to source ~/.tmux.conf tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf Solution 3: Tmux-fzf Script For this one, we don’t just use another utility. We build our own tmux manager script to fuzzy find all our project files in specific directories and jump. 🦘 Step 1: Organize Your Project Files in Specific Directories For example ~/personal ~/work ~/tools Step 2: Build “Tmux Manager” Bash Script Create a new file with the name in the tools directory. tmux_manager.sh Change this file into an executable: chmod +x tmux_manager.sh This script lists all projects in those directories to fuzzy find. Finally, open the selected project as (or create it if not found) Tmux Session #!/usr/bin/env bash _ __ ___ _ ___ __| | | | /_\ | | | ' ` _ | | | \ / / | || | | | | | || |> <| | | ,/ use fuzzy finder to get my working directories paths session=$(find ~ ~/personal ~/work/ ~/tools -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d | fzf) get last part as a name & replace any (.) with (_) session_name=$(basename "$session" | tr . _) if the session doesn't already exist, create it. if ! tmux has-session -t "$session_name" 2> /dev/null; then # remove err msg to null tmux new-session -s "$session_name" -c "$session" -d fi switch to the session by name tmux switch-client -t "$session_name" Step 3: Create an Alias to Our “Tmux Manager” Script open ~/.zshrc, to add our new Alias Don’t forget to source it 😉 source ~/.zshrc alias tm="~/tools/tmux_manager.sh" Step 4: Cooool tmux keybinding for “Tmux Manager” The same trick we did before with lf. A quick shortcut will run our tmux manager script alias. ctrl+t It will open in a new tmux window; a big list of all projects. Your selected project will open in its own Tmux session. Tell me that this isn’t cool ?! 🙃 bind -n C-t new-window -n "tmux" "zsh -ic 'tm; zsh'" don’t forget to source ~/.tmux.conf tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf Let’s Be Friends on Twitter 👋 https://twitter.com/belalsamyyy

A Blazing Fast File Management for Terminal ⚡️

In today’s world, for many people, conversing with AI has become as routine as discussing one’s coffee preferences with a barista (or it soon will be!). Yet, here lies an irony: . the more we interact with AI, the more elusive our understanding of these conversations becomes This irony essentially represents a modern twist on the “black box” dilemma, which has perplexed the ML community for years. The “black box” problem refers to the opaque decision-making processes of ML models (large language models (LLMs) including), where the rationale behind any given response is shrouded in complexity. Despite advances in technology, the inner workings of these models, governed by billions or soon trillions of parameters, remain largely inscrutable. Their decision-making is a puzzle, complicated by nonlinear interactions that defy straightforward interpretation. Prompting — the buzzing word of 2023 — doesn’t make it any better: we now have obscured layers of communication activated with every prompt. What we see — the prompt we type — is merely the surface. Beneath lies a hidden dialogue, an augmented system prompt, which is a complex, coded conversation the model conducts with itself, away from our understanding. And who knows what a model whispers to itself? So, if you were confused about prompting amid the avalanche of articles, blogs, and tutorials about it — you should be. As Ethan Mollick’s reveals, contrary to intuition, , such as pretending to navigate a Star Trek episode or a political thriller, demonstrating that traditional logical or direct prompts may not always yield the best responses from AI. research the most effective prompts involve imaginative scenarios But it also reveals that it’s not coherent and might change with a new version of the model. He mentions the futility of seeking a universal “magic phrase” for AI interaction, the effectiveness of specific prompting techniques like adding context, few-shot learning, and Chain of Thought, and the significant impact that prompts can have on AI performance. But for me — and I’ve been using AI a lot — many times, the most straightforward prompts, or “magic words,” can be surprisingly effective. How to explain it? A few years back, Explainable AI (XAI) was heralded as a solution to the “black box” issue, with entities like DARPA leading the charge (they created the , which has not been updated since 2021). However, the buzz around XAI seems to have dimmed, overtaken by a broader focus on Responsible AI. Is Responsible AI the solution? XAI toolkit So, that’s what we end up with: How do machines make decisions? — We don’t know! How to talk (prompt) to them? — We don’t know as well! But, please, keep shipping to us new, larger (though we will also take smaller) models! Why? — We don’t know! But we can’t stop. Great Article Covering the Topic An explanatory article about the concept of a black box: https://hackernoon.com/deep-learning-and-artificial-neural-networks-solving-the-black-box-mystery-rl7h32wa?embedable=true 🎁 Bonus: The Freshest Research Papers, Categorized for Your Convenience Special Category: Definitely Worth Reading : Discusses the development and advantages of 1-bit LLMs, promising significant cost reductions and efficiency improvements. The Era of 1-bit LLMs Read the paper : Introduces bGPT, a model that simulates the digital world beyond traditional modalities, predicting and diagnosing algorithms or hardware behavior. Beyond Language Models Read the paper Language Models in Specialized Domains : Integrates music understanding and generation capabilities into LLMs, demonstrating LLMs’ potential in music composition. ChatMusician Read the paper : Aims to bridge LLMs’ gap in interpreting structured data, enhancing their ability to ground knowledge in tables, graphs, and databases. StructLM Read the paper : Focuses on responsibly creating Code LLMs, contributing to advancements in coding benchmarks, and emphasizing model openness. StarCoder2 and The Stack v2 Read the paper : Discusses video generation’s potential as a unified interface for diverse tasks, outlining challenges and future directions. Video as the New Language for Real-World Decision Making Read the paper Enhancing and Merging Language Model Capabilities : Proposes a method to fuse knowledge from multiple chat models, improving chat model performance through a novel merging technique. FUSECHAT Read the paper : Details a multilingual language model that showcases superior performance in coding tasks and multilingual capabilities. Nemotron-4 15B Technical Report Read the paper : Explores latent multi-hop reasoning in LLMs, revealing their inherent capabilities and limitations in complex reasoning tasks. Do Large Language Models Latently Perform Multi-Hop Reasoning? Read the paper Scaling and Efficiency in Model Training : Discusses a system for training LLMs on over 10,000 GPUs, tackling efficiency and stability challenges in large-scale model training. MegaScale Read the paper : Proposes a theory for optimizing LLM learning, aiming for reduced training steps and improved performance. Towards Optimal Learning of Language Models Read the paper : Introduces a model combining gated linear recurrences with local attention, offering an efficient alternative for language processing tasks. Griffin Read the paper : Investigates the effects of scaling on fine-tuning LLMs, providing insights into data, model, and method impacts on bilingual tasks. When scaling meets LLM finetuning Read the paper Improving Robustness and Diversity in AI : Generates diverse adversarial prompts to enhance LLM robustness, employing an open-ended search method for prompt discovery. Rainbow Teaming Read the paper : Proposes a deterministic sampling technique for code generation, improving sample diversity and model performance in compiler optimization. Priority Sampling of Large Language Models for Compilers Read the paper Generative Models and Interactive Environments : Trains a generative model to create interactive virtual worlds from various inputs, advancing generative AI and simulation capabilities. Genie r Read the pape Enjoyed This Story? I write a weekly analysis of the AI world in the Turing Post newsletter. Subscribe for free using the button below and be the first to read the latest stories. The goal of Turing Post is to equip you with comprehensive knowledge and historical insights, so you can make informed decisions about AI and ML. 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Explainable AI and Prompting a Black Box in the Era of Gen AI

A Floating City and The Blockade Runners by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Chapter XXXIX here CHAPTER XXXIX. Some minutes later we were descending a long flight of steps on the Canadian side, which led to the banks of the river, covered with huge sheets of ice. Here a boat was waiting to take us to “America.” One passenger had already taken his place in it. He was an engineer from Kentucky, and acquainted the Doctor with his name and profession. We embarked without loss of time, and by dint of steering, so as to avoid the blocks of ice, reached the middle of the river, where the current offered a clear passage. From here we had a last view of the magnificent Niagara cataract. Our companion observed it with a thoughtful air. “Is it not grand, sir? Is it not magnificent?” said I to him. “Yes,” replied he; “but what a waste of mechanical force, and what a mill might be turned with such a fall as that!” Never did I feel more inclined to pitch an engineer into the water! On the other bank a small and almost vertical railroad, worked by a rope on the American side, hoisted us to the top. At half-past one we took the express, which put us down at Buffalo at a quarter past two. After visiting this large new town, and tasting the water of Lake Erie, we again took the New York Central Railway at six o’clock in the evening. The next day, on leaving the comfortable beds of a “sleeping car,” we found ourselves at Albany, and the Hudson Railroad, which runs along the left bank of the river, brought us to New York a few hours later. The next day, the 15th of April, in company with the indefatigable Doctor, I went over the city, East River, and Brooklyn. In the evening I bade farewell to the good Dean Pitferge, and I felt, in leaving him, that I left a friend. Tuesday, the 16th of April, was the day fixed for the departure of the “Great Eastern.” At eleven o’clock I went to Thirty-seventh pier, where the tender was to await the passengers. It was already filled with people and luggage when I embarked. Just as the tender was leaving the quay some one caught hold of my arm, and turning round I saw Dr. Pitferge. “You!” I cried; “and are you going back to Europe?” “Yes, my dear sir.” “By the ‘Great Eastern’?” “Undoubtedly,” replied the amiable original, smiling; “I have considered the matter, and have come to the conclusion that I must go. Only think, this may be the ‘Great Eastern’s’ .” last voyage; the one which she will never complete The bell for departure had rung, when one of the waiters from Fifth Avenue Hotel came running up to me, and put a telegram into my hands, dated from Niagara Falls:—“Ellen has awakened; her reason has entirely returned to her,” said Captain Corsican, “and the doctor has every hope of her recovery.” I communicated this good news to Dean Pitferge. “Every hope for her indeed! every hope!” said my fellow-traveller, in a sarcastic tone. “I also have every hope for her, but what good does that do? Any one may have great hopes for you, for me, for all of us, but at the same time he may be just as much wrong as right.”... Twelve days later we reached Brest, and the day following Paris. The return passage was made without any misfortune, to the great displeasure of Dean Pitferge, who always expected to see the great ship wrecked. And now, when I am sitting at my own table, if I had not my daily notes before me, I should think that the “Great Eastern,” that floating city in which I lived for a month, the meeting of Ellen and Fabian, the peerless Niagara, all these were the visions of a dream. Ah! how delightful is travelling, “even when one does return,” in spite of what the Doctor may say to the contrary. For eight months I heard nothing of my original, but one day the post brought me a letter, covered with many-coloured stamps, which began with these words:— “On board the ‘Corinquay,’ Auckland Rocks. At last we have been shipwrecked.” And ended thus:— “Was never in better health.” “Very heartily yours, Dean Pitferge.” END OF “A FLOATING CITY.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (2022). A Floating City and The Blockade Runners. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/67829/67829-h/67829-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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