JORAM
MUTENGE
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business
(8)
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(5)
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(1)
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Want to support me?
Did you win the genetic lottery?
essay
If there were a perfect human, that human would do no wrong. But since we’ve all done wrong things knowingly or unknowingly, it follows that none of us is perfect. And it’s…
Nov 28, 2024
Joram Mutenge
4 min
The three groups of people in the world
Having spent some time thinking about how the world works, I’ve come to believe there are three groups of people.
Nov 12, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
The two types of assholes in your working career
career
Tony Fadell is a well-known figure in Silicon Valley, but what really put him on the map was the invention of the iPod. If you’re into entrepreneurship, specifically product…
Nov 5, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
How to create an Economist-style chart with plotly
visualization
When it comes to static visualizations you can use in print, no publication does a better job creating them than
The Economist
. That’s because their charts are simple, yet…
Oct 29, 2024
Joram Mutenge
7 min
For men, the secret to longevity is marrying a wife much younger than you
visualization
Pop culture and the business world are full of older men marrying women who are way younger than them.
Oct 22, 2024
Joram Mutenge
5 min
Unicorn dropout founders are rare
Why you should start using action titles in your charts
visualization
Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates all dropped out of college and founded companies that are now among the most valuable companies in the world. There is nothing…
Oct 15, 2024
Joram Mutenge
10 min
On golf and machine learning
machine learning
A few weeks ago, I played golf for the first time. It’s an interesting sport, but it’s definitely not a sport for the impatient.
Oct 8, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Using variance in product development
Why you must understand variance to improve your business
data
Oct 1, 2024
Joram Mutenge
7 min
The scramble for .ai domain names
visualization
Before ChatGPT came out, AI was a joke. No one paid attention to it. In fact, the majority of people thought virtual reality (VR) was going to happen sooner. Remember the…
Sep 24, 2024
Joram Mutenge
5 min
A simple viz is all you need
Tips for effective data communication
data
visualization
When I was a kid, I was a phone fanatic. I couldn’t get enough of phones because they were the most advanced technology I could afford.
Sep 17, 2024
Joram Mutenge
8 min
Dream big, because dreams are free
Zambia is unquestionably a beautiful country, but it is poverty-stricken. However, my aim in this article isn’t to state the obvious. I want to make a contrarian case that…
Sep 10, 2024
Joram Mutenge
5 min
Why you should make your time love you
A new approach to managing your time
We all have 24 hours in a day, yet some people accomplish more amazing things than others. What is it with time that makes it an obedient servant to some people and a…
Sep 3, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Why loops are frowned upon in data science
pandas
technical
In computer science, looping is one of the most fundamental operations. It saves you from manually doing the same thing over and over.
Aug 27, 2024
Joram Mutenge
5 min
There is so much to see in Chicago
travel
Last week I visited my friend in Chicago. I hadn’t seen him since we left university. It was also a convenient excuse for me to explore the city.
Aug 25, 2024
Joram Mutenge
5 min
Freemium is not a business strategy
business
The classic mistake most entrepreneurs make is attributing the growth from offering their service or product for free to having an effective business strategy. Freemium as a…
Aug 21, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Effective table presentation with code
How to design tables that are easy to understand
technical
data
Most people don’t think about tables when they think about data visualization. But tables deserve as much attention as you put in your charts. To effectively communicate the…
Aug 20, 2024
Joram Mutenge
4 min
Why you should learn polars for data analysis
polars
Datasets used to be small and Pandas was a good tool for your analysis. Now datasets are big and Pandas struggles to handle them. This is where Polars shines. Not only can…
Aug 14, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Creating a pareto chart with plotly
How to use data to grow your business
technical
polars
Picture yourself in the 1980s. You own a software store where you sell software in disks by the unit.
Aug 13, 2024
Joram Mutenge
5 min
Formatting the information displayed in the tooltip of your plotly chats
Enter hovertemplate and customdata
technical
polars
My data visualization journey started with
ggplot
, followed by a brief stint with
seaborn
. After that, I fell in love with
matplotlib
and used it for a long time. But now my…
Aug 6, 2024
Joram Mutenge
4 min
Advanced styling in pandas
How to make your dataframes look pretty!
technical
pandas
I am a sucker for visually appealing things, and I try as much as I can to embody that in my data analysis work. In this article, I’ll show you how you can style your pandas…
Jul 30, 2024
Joram Mutenge
7 min
The many ways to rename columns in polars
technical
polars
Dataframes that have column names with spaces in them can be annoying to work with. I like to remove any spaces or unusual characters from column names. This makes it easier…
Jul 23, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Poor finishing is worse than not getting started
Getting started is the main thing most people complain about when undertaking a project. Intellectually, they may understand the significance of that project but somehow or…
Jul 22, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Should you have a business partner?
business
While the idea of running a business by yourself and pocketing all the profits in your big fat pockets sounds appealing, it’s worth noting that such an endeavor is more…
Jul 21, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Remember these two functions of business
business
Keeping track of every aspect of your business can be difficult. Sometimes it can feel like the business is running you instead of you running it.
Jul 20, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Stand for something
business
In the olden days, you could run a business without worrying about building a brand. Today, having a brand is a requirement to run a successful business.
Jul 19, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
How to spend your hard-earned money
Easy come, easy go applies to money more than to anything else. Money earned with your blood, sweat, and tears is spent wisely. Money handed to you is spent carelessly.
Jul 18, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Is success taking too long to come to you?
For someone like me who’s been working very hard to be successful, it can be very frustrating to realize that you are in your late 20s and have yet to achieve a modicum of…
Jul 17, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Getting month and day names from datetime with polars
technical
polars
When you have timeseries data, you may want to extract the day and month names from the date. Polars makes it easy to do that but the default way doesn’t get you the actual…
Jul 16, 2024
Joram Mutenge
4 min
Timing is everything, but be prepared
Sometimes, it’s not the best person who wins, but the one with the best timing.
Jul 15, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Busy people get things done
If you want something done then go, if not then send.
Jul 14, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
My thoughts on The Americans
tv show
I’m a huge fan of the podcast Not So Standard Deviations. Hilary, one of the hosts, has mentioned the TV show
The Americans
several times. Of course, I had heard about the…
Jul 13, 2024
Joram Mutenge
7 min
Help your struggling two
book
It’s easy for smart people who have made it in life to forget about those who are struggling. This is common among smart, successful people who started from the bottom and…
Jul 12, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Ideas are a dime a dozen
business
Most people have business ideas, but few have businesses. People with only business ideas are convinced that what’s standing in the way between their idea and it being a…
Jul 11, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
The fantasy of poverty is toxic
The media loves rags-to-riches stories because they capture a lot of eyeballs on TV, the Internet, or in newspapers and magazines. The reason they capture many eyeballs is…
Jul 10, 2024
Joram Mutenge
3 min
What were the popular names in the decade you were born?
technical
I downloaded baby names from the US Social Security database and thought creating a chart showing the top 10 popular names in a decade would be fun for my Technical Tuesday…
Jul 9, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Who is your number one fan?
In a world where everyone constantly seeks attention, getting people to pay attention to you has become very difficult. We all feel the need to be noticed.
Jul 8, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Things move at the speed of trust
It’s not impossible to run a business alone but doing it with others makes it much easier.
Jul 7, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Double down on your effort
In business, many things are beyond your control. Sometimes the best product doesn’t sell the most.
Jul 6, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Failing is not losing
Let’s face it, no one wakes up in the morning saying, “I’m looking forward to failing more today!” It just never happens. But even if we don’t like it, failure has a way of…
Jul 5, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Different for the sake of it
Being different scares a lot of people. Think about the time when you were in middle school. Being different from your peers was the worst thing to happen to you.
Jul 4, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Winners of the posit table contest are announced!
A few weeks ago, I participated in the Posit Table contest where I submitted this table. I was proud of the work I did. Two days ago, the winners for various categories were…
Jul 3, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Filling the glass
It’s said that the world can be divided into two groups of people. Those who see the glass half-full and those who see it half-empty.
Jul 2, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Nothing is as good as it seems
It’s okay to have expectations but don’t keep them too high.
Jul 1, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Making beautiful bar charts with matplotlib
technical
polars
Bar charts are one of the most common and informative ways to represent it. They’re also easy to create. But to make them more informative and beautiful, you must spend some…
Jun 30, 2024
Joram Mutenge
5 min
The myth of motivation
If we all waited to have the motivation to do something, none of us would do anything productive.
Jun 29, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
The day your dream came true
In eighth grade, a senior student gave me advice that has been living in my head rent-free ever since. I was standing next to the notice board, enviously staring at the…
Jun 28, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Time for preparation is over
Don’t stop doing the work to wait for your chance to come. Don’t make whining about things not going your way a habit.
Jun 27, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
A familiar surprise is all you need
Daniel Pink said that to sell is human. I don’t disagree. The question is how can you sell successfully? To be successful at selling, you must consider the following points.
Jun 26, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Ask for forgiveness, not permission
Are you afraid of taking action? Do you usually wait for someone to tell you to go ahead? This is a common situation many people find themselves in.
Jun 25, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
How I fell in love with the semi-colon
It’s perhaps the most underused punctuation in the English language; the semi-colon has fallen out of favor. Fewer and fewer people use it mainly because most people don’t…
Jun 24, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Dress for success — especially if you’re not successful
Dressing down is one of the defining features of our time. We see it in Silicon Valley startup founders all the time. Take Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg or Evan Speigel’s…
Jun 23, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
What is sales?
Selling is an important skill that we must all learn. Most people think of it as a talent; you either have it or you don’t. I did too. Not anymore.
Jun 22, 2024
Joram Mutenge
3 min
My reading journey with the Libby app
A data analysis walkthrough
technical
polars
I’m a huge fan of the Libby App by the company
OverDrive, Inc
. I have used it exclusively for my digital book consumption since 2022.
Jun 21, 2024
Joram Mutenge
5 min
Native plotting with polars
Using YouTube comments data
technical
polars
Visualizations simplify data comprehension. A glance at a graph or chart conveys the data’s message, saving you time compared to analyzing a table without visuals.
Jun 20, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Unless you have sales, there’s no business
business
There’s no greater validation for your business idea than for someone to remove money from their purse or wallet and pay for your service or product. When a sale happens…
Jun 19, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Read directly from HTML with polars
A workaround
technical
polars
Suits
was the most-watched TV show in 2023, even though the last episode aired in December 2019. For this reason, I thought I’d use it as an example to show how you can use…
Jun 18, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Loss aversion
When the pain of losing is worse than the pleasure of winning
Failure may be a stepping stone to success, but most people hate it. I do too. Sometimes failure can be so devastating that you don’t know how to recover.
Jun 17, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Practice doesn’t make perfect
If practice truly makes perfect, we would be experts at things we do every day like talking. Very few people speak without using filler words, so we know that the practice…
Jun 16, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
How to be the world’s best boss
tv show
In the TV show
The Office
, the boss Michael Scott had a coffee mug with the words “
The world’s best boss
” written on it. This, of course, was meant to be a joke, but there’s…
Jun 15, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Yesterday, you said tomorrow
Nike owns the slogan, “
Just do it
”, but you can use it for your own motivation. Moreover, the slogan applies to more than just athletes. Anyone can use it. I’ve used the…
Jun 14, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
My submission to the posit table contest
Creating a stunning table with TSA airport checking data
technical
polars
This year, I decided to participate in the Posit Table Contest. Because I’m a fan of the great tables Python library I thought it would be great to enhance my mastery of…
Jun 13, 2024
Joram Mutenge
10 min
Don’t wake up in the morning to be average
book
Every time you wake up in the morning, it’s a whole new day. You can reinvent yourself into something good or something bad.
Jun 12, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Create your own dream
There is no limit to how much you can dream, yet other people still want to lump themselves with other people’s dreams.
Jun 11, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Do something or make an excuse
We each live our own lives and we like different things. We also encounter different opportunities and the way we prioritize those opportunities differs. What ranks high on…
Jun 10, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Is unrequited love a glitch in the human system?
book
If you’ve never experienced unrequited love, you may be the luckiest person in the world regarding matters of the heart.
Jun 9, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Five business questions you must answer
To know if you’re ready to start your own business
business
Having read several books about entrepreneurs and listened to many interviews about business founders, I’ve concluded that if you want to start and run a successful…
Jun 8, 2024
Joram Mutenge
3 min
Other people think your beliefs are silly
tv show
The other day, I watched the TV show
The Americans
and it made me think about the beliefs we hold on to in our lives.
Jun 7, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
On riding a bicycle with a flat tire
If a bell curve were plotted showing the number of miles each human has cycled throughout their life, I would be on the right side of that bell curve. I’ve spent most of my…
Jun 6, 2024
Joram Mutenge
3 min
Dealing with past failures
You can deal with your past failures in two ways. You can either wallow in regret, reminiscing about what might have been if you had taken that chance or hadn’t done that.…
Jun 5, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Cash flow: the blood of business
business
Cash flow is one of the most misunderstood aspects of business, yet it’s one of the things you need to get right if you want to run a successful business.
Jun 4, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Don’t follow your passion
When picking a career, the most common advice is to follow your passion. Unfortunately, passion isn’t enough to make a living.
Jun 3, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Be hard on ideas and soft on people
Running a business is challenging because it involves managing the business’s affairs and managing people.
Jun 2, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
A funny little thing about humans
Human beings are funny creatures. Not funny ha-ha, but funny peculiar.
Jun 1, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Make work your friend
book
In the modern world, working is part of survival. To put food on your table, you have to work.
May 31, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
You shouldn’t be punished forever for your mistake
tv show
We all make mistakes, which is good because we learn from them.
May 30, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Is evil innate or learned?
tv show
The question: “Are people naturally good or bad?” has plagued humans for ages.
May 29, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
So you want to be in charge?
tv show
Being in charge is attractive to most people because it gives them the power to boss people around.
May 28, 2024
Joram Mutenge
1 min
Create dataframe from clipboard content
Using polars alone
technical
polars
It’s amazing how much the Polars library has improved! I remember sandwiching my polars code with pandas code to perform some operations. Even though the library was…
May 27, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Are the links on your resume hurting your chances of landing an interview?
data
We can all agree that it’s bad to have a resume that does not have links to projects or products you’ve built, particularly if you’re seeking a job in a technical role.
May 26, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
RIP data science projects
data
When I was a Data Science graduate student, the emphasis, when it comes to making yourself attractive to employers, was having a portfolio of projects.
May 25, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
When does it hurt the most?
tv show
In 2023, I watched
The Office
for the first time. I know I’m late to the party, but I had to watch it because I was missing out on the references that people I encountered…
May 24, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
A life lesson from fashion
movie
In my early teens, I had to wear a bootcut to be cool. In my late teens, skinny jeans were all the rage.
May 23, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
Genius is no guarantee of wisdom
movie
If you are a genius who can solve complex problems, does it also follow that you will be wise? I’ve always wondered about this question and whenever I ask people, I get…
May 20, 2024
Joram Mutenge
2 min
A piano-playing dog
tv show
The TV show
Young Sheldon
is one of my favorite shows. I especially enjoy Sheldon’s lines which can be funny sometimes and out of context most of the time.
May 18, 2024
Joram Mutenge
3 min
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