HH88.mp3

Harpreet: [00:00:09] What's up, everybody? Welcome. Welcome to the Arts and Data Science Podcast. It is Friday, July eight, 2022. Man, the year is fine by super quick. I feel like I say that every episode of record at this point, but I can't believe it. We're well over the second. We're well into the second half of the year. I feel like the beginning of my year kind of sucked, but I'm looking to turn it around on the second half of the year, so definitely, definitely get pumped on that and burnt out for a while. So we've got to kind of get back into it. This episode that you listen to right now, it's brought to you by Zee, by HP, get rapid results from the most demanding data sets, train data models and create data visualization with Z data science, laptops and desktop workstations. The Data Science Stack Manager provides convenient access to popular tools and updates them automatically to help you customize your environment on Windows or Ubuntu. Feel free to come by and ask any questions or visit HP dot com for more information. So there is no new podcast episode released today. That's because podcasts kind of on a hiatus. You guys know my basement was flooded at the beginning of the year and I just kind of been going off of my backlog.

Harpreet: [00:01:31] So I finally filled up the backlog of episodes having recorded brand new episodes since at this point must have been like mid May or mid December of last year when I recorded a episode. So. Clear out. I'm out of podcast episodes, but we'll get back up soon. There's a couple of special episodes that I'll be releasing. I did a talk with Kiko and Marc on managing their mental health as [00:02:00] a data scientist that's going to be released, so keep an eye out for that and then I'll be rereleasing some older episodes from backlog. There's actually an episode that Abraham Cherian recorded and interview with me for his podcast, and he asked that I could ask that shared on my podcast. So we'll do that as well. But keep an eye out for new episodes. They are coming soon. All right, guys, that's enough from me. Let's go to questions. But first, the chat about everybody joining us. Jay, what's going on? Christian to Russell, Gina, Megan, Eric, Kiko, search character. Megan. Megan just bought a house. That's awesome. Congratulations. And I've never got to welcome Megan to the pocket. I have good luck. 100%.

Speaker2: [00:02:44] So thank you.

Harpreet: [00:02:46] Let's go to AJ for his question. By the way, if you're tuning in on YouTube or on LinkedIn or whatever it is, you're tuning in, maybe even Twitch. Go ahead, drop a question. I'm monitoring all those channels. I'll be sure to get your questions. And also, if you're in the room and you have a question, go ahead, type your question out or just say that you got a question. I'll add to the queue if at any point you want to respond or kind of chime in to whatever questions happening, be sure to use the raise hand icon here in Zoom and I'll add you to the Q but J go from. All right. Thank you so much.

Speaker3: [00:03:18] So the general question is, say you have a data science project that you want to do on the site. You really like the idea. You want to get started with it, but you do it after work because you know.

Harpreet: [00:03:27] You have to still do your.

Speaker3: [00:03:28] Own work, but work leaves you screen fatigued. And so the general question is what are techniques or methods that everyone here in the in the podcast do does to be able to mitigate such screen fatigue so we can get on with doing that side project that you've been looking forward to.

Harpreet: [00:03:46] I love that. That is a very, very good question. It's a appropriate question. So my wife is an optometrist, so she always worries about this all the time. So she's got these glasses that reflect blue light. So that's been helpful. But [00:04:00] a simple trick she taught me was the 20 2020 rule. So every 20 minutes just get up, look at something 20 feet away for like 20 seconds. So just kind of stare off into space every 20 minutes for about 20 seconds. And that, I feel like, has dramatically helped with my eyes drying out and things like that. But I'm curious to see or also just kind of I don't know if that's what you mean by screen fatigue or is that like.

Speaker3: [00:04:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like you say, you get off work, you get home, and the last thing you want to do is look at the screen again. So. Exactly.

Harpreet: [00:04:37] Okay. I'd love to hear from everybody else here. Go for it. Ben, good to see you again. Ben, shout out to Ben. So when we go, then Meghan and then Ben, how do you guys do a screen fatigue? So for Nikki.

Speaker4: [00:04:50] So it's not even screen fatigue. It's like boredom. And under actually trying to figure out how much should I even say if this is recorded in my teammates or no. And I mean, so, you know, we went through a bit of a rough acquisition at MailChimp. So there's a lot of times where like our workload was like not consistent or it was also not like interesting. You know, there's just things that are happening with the workload. So it's not even scream fatigue. But I feel like at the end of the day, there is a lot of days where I was just like, Oh God, I'm just so burned out. So I'm even looking at screen. It's like, I don't even want to think code. I don't want to think. Data anything, even though like normally I love reading the books and I love like watching the YouTube lectures. I was just like, I can't, I don't have any creative juices left. So I tried doing this thing where and I'm also not the 5 a.m. Club, like, no go, I'm not a morning person. But it's also hard. Like if you start your workout, if you start like the most, I'll say the most uninteresting thing, if you start the hardest thing that is also not your passion thing in the morning, you immediately get drained out at the end of the day.

Speaker4: [00:05:57] And I tried doing this thing where like I would set aside two or 3 hours [00:06:00] at the end of the day, you know, to work on like content, work on side projects, all that, and it just wasn't happening. So finally I was like also I was like going to bed stressed out. So finally what I had to do was basically say, instead of trying to do like the two, 3 hours, like every day, maybe what I'll do is I'll set aside like my weekends, so Saturday, Sunday, and then I would try to utilize whatever internal company resources to either take time off on Fridays, like for the afternoon or something like that, or even negotiate for 20% time. So that's something that we do at MailChimp. We basically say, look, 20% of all working hours is spent towards like foundation time is spent towards self development. So that's also another thing that you can you can negotiate with your manager potentially, because what you can do is you can work on stuff that both feeds your soul, like your side projects, but it also feeds in immediately to the business. So that's the way to do it. So that's how I've done it, where I'm like, Look, I put in my like eight, 9 hours, whatever, Monday to Thursday, maybe I put in a few hours on Friday morning.

Speaker4: [00:07:03] Night times is like for me, I work out, I eat good, I watch Stranger Things while knitting. You know, I also make like clothes as my hobby, my passion. And then Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'm like, okay, this is my like like my me time, my content time. I like learning side projects and it's kind of better that way anyway because I feel like if I only do two, 3 hours of like a personal project, it's like you're constantly context switching, whereas I can just kind of be in the zone for like three days straight and then I get a break for the next four days. So that's kind of how I approach it. Before I used to do the whole like, Oh, let's just do incremental progress every day. But you know, I'm just like, Yo, that didn't work for me. So that's, that's one option. But also to negotiating the 20% time, I think it's actually a lot easier to do that than some people would think if you just put the right business value framing around it. And it's I would recommend that.

Harpreet: [00:08:01] Kiko, [00:08:00] thank you very much. Megan, let's hear from you and let's go to then after that. And if anybody else has tips here on how to battle scream, fatigue leaves to raise your hand and chime in. And if you've got questions to watch on LinkedIn, YouTube or here in the Zoom chats, and I'll get your question queued up. Meghan, go for it.

Speaker2: [00:08:20] Yeah, I yeah. That screen fatigue problem and context switching is something I battle with every day working from home. It's really hard to power through that mid to late afternoon slump to try to switch gears to the million other things that I've send myself up for after work. And to be honest, like most days, I don't get to those things that I have been telling myself I need to do that day. But I've slowly been learning to give myself some grace for not getting to those things every single day. Sometimes it could just be like once or twice a week, or if it's on the weekends, that's totally cool too. But on the days that I do get to all of those other outside of work tasks that I need to get to. What has helped is what what Russell said in the chat, just switching up my landscape and going to a cafe down the street or to a library or something like that. And that just really gets me. If I do a different task somewhere other than this little nook of my house, it it makes me sort of excited to to tackle it.

Speaker2: [00:09:44] And yeah, that's like nothing super profound, but it works for me. And I used to hate leaving my house just because I'm like, I have everything I need here. Like, why would I waste the time to [00:10:00] get dressed and go somewhere else? But it's actually made such a huge difference. Just going somewhere, going somewhere different for a change of scenery and then coming back. I actually can like once I come back from that different environment, I feel like I've accomplished a lot that day because I can successfully separate work from the other things in my life that I have to do. Whereas in the past, where I was stuck at at home all day, it, it all just blends together and it's really easy to be like, like, you know, it's really hard to switch off this one part of my brain and turn on this other part of my brain. But, you know, changing up your scenery is kind of like a hack to to do that for you. So that's helping me.

Harpreet: [00:10:52] 100% cosigned out. Since I've been displaced because of flooding in the basement, I've been at this co-working center. It's co-working centers like it's this huge, just like two stories in the sky. These different kind of zones that I could sit in and just kind of switch up the vibe a little bit. When I get tired of just being my kind of cubicle ish area, go downstairs or go up here, even just go for a walk. I think it's helpful. So I think like it's probably a matter of trying to get away from the screen as much as possible during the day in little increments to kind of save yourself from the fatigue. Megan, thanks so much. Let's hear from Ben Taylor. Also shout out to Serge in the building. Serge, what's going on? Kosta has to ask. If you have questions, let me know if anybody else has questions. Do it? No. Then go for it.

Speaker3: [00:11:46] I think this question makes me sad. Well, the reason makes me sad is because I miss having screen fatigue. I someone asked a couple of days ago what my favorite software suite is or like my regular go to. And the answer [00:12:00] was Slack and Gmail or like Slack in the G suite because it's been so long since I've like sat in a dungeon with music, looking at a terminal for like. And you feel like you're a superstar for six, 8 hours all day. I completely agree with Sara being said. Context switching, changing the environment, going on a walk because I remember the contrast. Who tried to fix a bug. It's impossible. You've already spent like two or 3 hours on it and you're racking your head and and we all know it's always going to be your fault, but sometimes you hope it's not. You hope it's like the universe or some impossible bug. It's always your fault. And then I take a 15 minute nap, going to walk, come back, fix the bug in 5 minutes. And so I think there is that reminder that it's not. Time is not a perfect time and qualities important to consider, like a 14 hour day is maybe not as productive as. A seven hour a day if you have the right breaks and stuff. So yeah.

Harpreet: [00:12:58] Yeah, absolutely agree with that. I feel like doing a lot of good quality work and 4 to 5 hours a day is definitely more than enough search and scope to use the service. Russell I just got a chance to kind of scroll through the chatter, so that's great insights and tips as well. So go to search and then wrestle it. You needed surgery? I kept. I kept meeting surgeon background. I still go for it. Yeah. The way I do it is. Yeah, I definitely tried to block off some time during the weekends to do my personal projects and freelance stuff. But if I feel the need to do it during the week, I. I, I just have a KVM switch and I switch between my personal laptop and my work laptop with one mouse click and it's fantastic. And so if I need to kind of change a scenery and do something else, I can [00:14:00] do it. And all my work is gone in a split second. Right? And I'm down to like personal work mode. Of course, that doesn't solve the kind of need to kind of go out and take a walk and that sort of thing or do some exercise. Although I have a standing desk too, so that helps a little bit. It's not quite exercise, but it's it's like much better than sitting all day, I have to say.

Harpreet: [00:14:31] What is that? What is the KVM switch or KVM switch is like an old school thing to switch between computers, right? So you have like I have like a separate keyboard, an ergonomic keyboard. This one over here. Well, I don't know if you can see it. And I also have ergonomic mouse and they're connected to this device and that device is connected to my my laptops. So I just have a switch. And I usually don't use the switch that switches between my, my one computer and another. But I, I use the mouse, the mouse with the button. I can just do that. And yeah, what it does is interfaces the monitor, the mouse and the keyboard. That's why it's called KVM. Between two devices. Well, it could be three or four or five, but generally it's to. That's awesome. Absolutely. Love that. I wish I wish I wish apple made ergonomic stuff. It's just like flat and then flat. Yeah. Let's let's go to let's go to Russell and then post up. And then after that, we will go to questions. So, okay, so let's do Russell Christian Benjamin's question. Lots of great tips. Hopefully, just keep in mind that this is recorded so you can go back and listen to all these tips. Russell.

Speaker3: [00:15:59] Thank you. Great. Yeah. [00:16:00] So a lot of what I said in the chat has been echoed by other people already talking, so I'll go on to say what I refer to. This entire process is like neuroplasticity. It's the ability to to allow your brain to do different things. So I try to use that in the opposite direction to refresh my brain just by doing something different. And I try not to get too entrenched in doing one thing for multiple hours. It's very easy to do, and I do it far more often than I'd like. You know, sometimes I said to do something in the morning. My wife goes out and she says, Yeah, I'll see you 3 to 4 hours later. And she comes back and it's a blink of an eye for me, you know, and I'm not eating or drink anything in that time, but I try not to do that wherever possible. So I have a watch that gives me a little reminder to move every hour if I haven't. So I take that opportunity to have a bit of a walk around the house, go and get a drink. And if I feel like I'm blocked down on something, I think snow blindness is a very good analogy for this. As Ben was saying, you're looking at code for a long time. You just can't spot the bug. Don't do something else. Take your eyes out of the code. Refresh your eyes. What I most commonly do is I'll read a little article or on a news website or listen to a bit of music or, you know, just go for a walk in the garden just for like 5 minutes. It doesn't need to be a long period of time. Come back and look at it. And as Ben says, you know, we do refresh ideas. It's usually far more easy to to spot something there. So so that's my comment. Neuroplasticity, I have a bit of a read on it and try and utilize it to your advantage.

Harpreet: [00:17:41] Thank you very much. Let's go to a coastal depression and then we'll go to this question. Yes. I guess like I said in the chat, it's not just necessarily screen fatigue. Screen fatigue is a symptom. It is an overall thing, which is just general fatigue. Right now, [00:18:00] you might be sitting in the same chair for for a long time. You won't be just stressed about thinking through the different challenges you're working on at work. But. And the worst thing I ever did is probably the best thing for someone else.

Speaker3: [00:18:15] Case in point.

Harpreet: [00:18:16] Surge has a KVM switch. I had a KVM switch. The problem became that I would very quickly, you know, I'd go for dinner after work and then I'd come back and I'd be like, Oh, actually, I think I know the solution to that problem. I'd jump back into work at like 730. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and I'd be like, Oh, actually, I should try this. And I'd try something else at like 3 a.m.. And my colleagues would be like, Wait, why is there a 4 a.m. commit? Why is there a PR opening at 330 in the morning? Dude, what's going on? Right.

Speaker3: [00:18:48] So we tend to throw.

Harpreet: [00:18:49] Ourselves at problems. We're problem solvers. We have these bugs that bugs. We've got the itch to attack a problem head on and just keep attacking it relentlessly. Right. And that can be a superpower, but also a real weakness. So for me. And I find this it's very difficult to like leave the zone. Leave the work zone. Right. I find if I close my work laptop entirely, unplug it, put it into my bag. Right. That's enough of a physical barrier for me to turn that off and really turn my brain off all those problems. So it's almost like a ritualistic habit. I say I have this ritual. At the end of the day, I'm going to close my laptop. I'm going to put it into my backpack. And then suddenly I'm a lot fresher on days that I don't do that. I don't have the freshness to attack my personal projects, my personal learning, things like that, because there's always that thing sitting there, whether I'm doing it or not and I'm using it or not. There's a bit of a background background noise, if you will. So that's that's one thing. [00:20:00] And yeah, like Russell said, I also found that when I use a smartwatch that can buzz, essentially give myself a little vibration. I basically set like a 25 minute timer here and I use like Pomodoro and stuff like that. And it's essentially a reminder every 20 minutes, 25 minutes to get up, do something, to take a break, to change what I'm doing. Right. I can use the 20, 2020 rule that I was saying before. But for me, it's really that. It's got to be something that's silent and tactile so that I can do it even when I'm in the office.

Harpreet: [00:20:34] Otherwise, what works at home like a loud timer doesn't work when I'm in a loud office space. Right. So having something like this that can just do a little tactile. Buzz, buzz, buzz. It's really solid. I think those things actually work. But yeah, monitor your overall fatigue overall, like how much have you slept the previous day? And all of these other things like having having blue light filtering glasses. I've done that too. It helps, but that's addressing the symptom. But the root causes the energy that you've got at the end of the day after work. And that could be from sleep. That could be from stress. That could be from the compounding factor of sleep stress. And you know what? You've eaten through the day. So it's something I struggle with because I throw myself at problems. And like Russell said, it might be 3 hours and I'd blink. And suddenly 3 hours ago and I've just been smashing out a problem, you know? And it might just be that you're constantly jumping from fire to fire, dealing with one thing or the other at work, and that just tires you out in a way. So energy monitoring is something that I'm. And I'm really keen to hear if anybody has any tips, let me know if any of them left off. I'm really curious to see what people do for energy management. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to hear that, too. So if you're watching this thing, you've got tips. Sure. Let's go to Christian that after Christian will go to Jesus. Question And just [00:22:00] a heads up. Ben Taylor Jena's got a question that's kind of a Ben tilt to it. So pay attention when the Christian go for it.

Speaker3: [00:22:11] All right. So, yeah, I think for me, as far as facing fatigue, after a long day of troubleshooting bug and a dashboard or what have you, for me, I'm a verbal processor and that's probably specific to my personality, but I like to either call my mom or someone that I'm close to a friend, extended family member and just try to talk to them about their day. And it kind of gets me out of my own world. Cooped up here in my studio apartment. I think I just get so into a problem too. I can relate and I hear that. So just talking to someone else for me and kind of sharing my life, I'm sharing their life. It just helps me to kind of recenter and then I'm able to go back to the problem later and attack it with a clean head.

Harpreet: [00:22:55] So yeah, absolutely. That that's a great benefit of being with that. We have there are things it kind of gives them a little bit of that what you're describing there. So. Yeah, excellent point. Thanks so much, Kristen. All right. Let's go to your question. Go for it. And then if you're still there, be sure to listen. Scott, the genius is this question. I've got some band vibe to it. If you're listening on YouTube, if you're watching on LinkedIn, wherever you are and you have a question, feel free to go ahead and type the question out and I'll get you a question. Or if you want to join the zoom, let me know. Send me a message. I'll get you a link to the Zoom room. And if you're watching this on Twitter and or LinkedIn, go ahead. Snapchat like me, that reaction go through, Gina.

Speaker2: [00:23:40] Thanks, Ari. Yeah. So this question I think will be appealing to everybody on here. But I know Ben is is in a pretty big picture thinker role, or at least that's my impression. And I know, Ben often when I've seen you on the happy hour, Ben, [00:24:00] we've had some really interesting discussions that are pretty wide ranging. So this question is related to that. And for those of us who do have insatiable curiosity, who love to learn about a great many things, but who may not be, might like to have that t shape, have a lot of breadth, but also some depth. And I do in a few different areas. But as I transition into data science as a first pass, that may not be I might not find that perfect, sweet spot of data science with whatever vertical or deep area of knowledge I have. And so I guess the question is, how can those interested in in well, either data science practitioners currently or those who are looking to transition to data science who have this insatiable curiosity, what might folks recommend as far as how to best leverage that it? Could it be as straightforward as saying, look, you know, part of being a data scientist is always being open to learning, always being wanting to stretch yourself. And those are traits that I think are very valued by many employers. Or is it something broader than that? I would love to hear your guys's thoughts on this.

Speaker3: [00:25:33] So China, to make sure I focus on the right question, is it how to satisfy this insatiable curiosity within the realm of data science and then also concepts of breadth versus depth? Or maybe. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker2: [00:25:48] Yeah. I would say certainly. I mean, I think there's lots of opportunities for all of us to learn. And in this field we can be pursuing personal projects [00:26:00] in addition to work, which is the kind of one of the things Jay was alluding to earlier, like, I want to do some personal projects, but I've been working all day, you know, and you have this AI fatigue, brain fatigue. But as well, if you're marketing yourself, you know, in in a job search context or in a project, you know, project work context, you know, how how might one leverage that? Or are you better off just focusing on, you know, this is my depth, this is my area depth. And here's how I can I mean, you're trying to solve problems for companies. I guess what I'm getting at is maybe some companies or positions might value, you know, a kind of broad interdisciplinary thinking more than others. So that's you know, you could tell I'm kind of grappling with this and trying to to.

Speaker3: [00:26:55] I love I love where your your mindset because this is maybe I'll I'll react to what I'm thinking and then you can push back. But I think when people are starting out early on is as a data scientist, we always want. We tell them we want more breadth rather than depth. Because I've interviewed I've been interviewing people where I found out they didn't know SQL or they didn't know something that was a huge red flag because you want some breadth. I don't expect them to be great at it, but if they haven't had an exposure, so breadth is good. But I think initially as a data scientist, there's vulnerability when you're. I felt that when I was more junior. I need to show people how smart I am. And sometimes you do that by chasing depth. You pick something, you just chase it down the rabbit hole, try to learn as much as you can. Now, later in my career, I'm a big fan of Barrett beyond data science, because if you understand the sales process, if you understand marketing partnerships, if you understand the other ecosystems, you can still focus back to your depth pillar that you cared about, whether it's innovation or something. But now you'll bring a more mature perspective that we're working [00:28:00] on some innovation and data science. Am I going to be able to market this? Our sellers can be able to sell this without me. Or are they even excited to sell this? Are they willing to list this as a top closed reason? The other thought too is AI is very unique because it's it's the intersection of everything philosophy like creativity, the human mind, how it works. And I think that's why it makes it so fun.

Speaker3: [00:28:25] Gina because you for me, I think anyone here who's a podcast host could definitely relate to this. Kenji said it best where he said, I would still do my podcast if I had one listener. And he's bringing up a very important point because he gets smarter. If you if you're bringing up people that are truly diverse with their backgrounds and if you have a conversation with them, you're really looking for people that are vulnerable because you you don't want to feel like you're talking to someone who has a barrier. If you can really push the edges of possibility, then you can do that over coffee, over beer or drinks. Or if you have a podcast that you're hosting, then you can selfishly bring people on. Where you have a conversation with like I just had a conversation with someone in music, music theory and it blew my mind because there's no such thing as the perfect song like the Jack Black and I find the perfect song. The answer is actually no. There's no perfect. But that's something I've never thought about, and I'll never think about that unless I interact with that human. And so diversity of interaction, I think that kind of feeds that side. But also I think something that's missing on the data science front is the art side. Like the art changes, the storytelling, the creativity, the art and the music. The more you can bring that into your domain, I think the more exciting things become. Sorry, not. Was I way off to, you know, was I just kind of like all over the map or were there something.

Speaker2: [00:29:43] No, that's no, that's great. That I think that helps. Yeah. I mean, I know it's a huge question, but that's why I asked, because I'm trying to get a handle on where the value is, not just for ourselves. I mean, I value it, obviously, [00:30:00] but but, you know, I think there's always a tension between. How much should I, how broad should I go? Or if you're someone who loves to learn. How much should I indulge that versus how much should I be focused on very specific skill sets and tasks and the like. And as we know, there are just so many. And data science is changing so quickly that you can't know everything, can't be an expert in everything.

Speaker3: [00:30:26] Yeah. And I know other people are going to jump in on this, but this there's so many fascinating facets to this question because when I graduated in chemical engineering, I spent years being angry. I was so angry that I spent over $100,000 in this college education. I don't use any of it. But hindsight like I learned to learn. And so I would really encourage that activity of learning to learn. But don't limit yourself to data science. So if you go and you become a sales or customer facing data scientist supporting the sales process, maybe even become an IEEE, become a sales rep for a year or two, maybe get fired or succeed doing it and then go to marketing. Then it's that learning to learn that I think makes us human. If you're if work is easy, I would argue you have a problem. For anyone listening, if work has become easy, then you're ready for your new challenge. And that could be in the company or without. There's always there's no top tier. There's always there's always another challenge that will kick your ass. And that's great. That's awesome because you surround yourself with other people that are up for getting their asses kicked. And that's that's the fun energy that makes this career so exciting. Anyway, I talk too long, but I'll turn it over to everyone. Jump in.

Harpreet: [00:31:44] Absolutely. Love it. Learning how to learn it is one hell of a skill. I've actually got an episode with Dr. Barbara Oakley. She actually created the course on Coursera called Learning How to Learn. It's a completely free course. I think it's like a couple hours long, definitely go entry into that course. It is amazing. And [00:32:00] the episode I did with her, I think it was it's called Learning How to Learn with Dr. Barbara. We check that out and much in the same vein of kind of learning how to learn. Do an episode with Andy Hunt. We call it pragmatic How to Become a Pragmatic Neuroscientist. He's the author of not only pragmatic programmer, but pragmatic thinking and Learning. So that kind of. Meet. The episode that we recorded was all about that pragmatic thinking and learning. By the way, I don't know if it's a podcast on my podcast, but that's part of the reason why I talk to all the diverse people that I talk to are you see me talk to authors from a wide variety of disciplines. I talk to philosophers, scientists, data scientists, just regular people. People. People? Yes. And it's for that same. Just to learn something like it, it just gives me an excuse to explore something new, fun and interesting. And I would definitely I would continue to do this even if like this podcast, because it's so much fun. Ben, thank you so much. I asked Meghan and Eric to go, but they were both. They're both intimidated. You can still answer. Yes, still going. But I'll give you time to recoup. Let's go to Mexico and I'll go to Meghan and let's go.

Speaker4: [00:33:18] Yeah. I think two things I also want to point out is like. There is like the ability to learn and there is like the willingness to let your yourself learn something that maybe doesn't bring in money, like probably like a lot of people. I am descended from immigrant parents all about carrying on the American dream. You know, make sure to make the sacrifice of the ancestors worth it. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Generational wealth, all that. Yeah. And there's, like, this whole thing about, like, how you can. How you can kind of, like, lose your sense of your own individual individuality and kind of your own passions by, like, constantly chasing the, like, the credibility, the dollars. [00:34:00] I got to make my parents proud. All that nonsense. This is also why I'm in therapy. Because I was such a good daughter. But, you know, I think so. I think there's two things. I think, one, there's like like. You have to sort of let yourself learn something, even if there's not like a direct incentive attached to it. Like, I think that's really, really hard for some people. It's like it's something I had to relearn because I had all these things I was very passionate about when I was younger and I didn't really think they would kind of tie in.

Speaker4: [00:34:32] So in college I ended up studying like anthropology, like monkeys. I mean, is that really some people go, is that a really great model for how people work? Unfortunately, yes, actually it is. But anyway, but it didn't directly lead to like the data scientist career. Right. Like I kind of went to growth and data analytics and data science then now in the labs, like kind of mostly self-taught, I've only done like one or two boot camps at most like 1.5. And yet these are all areas that are, I think, considered very innovative. They're considered very highly desired, all that good stuff. And I'm definitely not in them because I'm smart or anything, but I went into them because I was genuinely interested. So when I was a data scientist, I was genuinely interested in like, Oh, right, okay. So now I have a pickled model. What do I do with it? Which ultimately like led me to try and answer the question of like how do you actually deploy systems, right? But it wasn't like with this idea that, oh, I'm going to go become an animal ops engineer and go work for a company and yadda yadda, yadda. It was like, Oh my God, things are breaking. I want them to break less, you know? So there is that willingness to just kind of learn without having like a roadmap.

Speaker4: [00:35:45] And then also too, there's the willingness to kind of learn stuff that I'm going to be bad at. So like, I love boxing, I love dancing, I love making clothes. One of those I hope to turn into an activity, but the rest of it, I'm going to be mediocre for the rest of my life. But, you know, that's that's okay. [00:36:00] Like, I enjoy it. It keeps me healthy, you know? So I think a lot of it is just being like, okay with not following someone else's expectations and plans and kind of saying like, hey, just because it doesn't, you know, bring me like some Udall or utility right now, it it helps make you happy. You enjoy your life more. And I think that's just like as equally as important as like, oh, yay, I got this PhD. Oh, I got the certificate. Oh, look, I got this promotion. I got this magical job. Those things are important. But like, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, have you sort of actualized, like what you wanted to get off life? And that doesn't always directly correlate to, like, career, professional and like, financial success. So.

Harpreet: [00:36:45] Thank you very much. Let's go to Meghan and then let's go to Eric. Eric. Eric was building. I think you have another question after this. So go Meghan, then go Erickson's and then go back to Gina's question. If you're listening on LinkedIn or YouTube. Go ahead and drop your question in the chat and I'll be sure to get your question. Corporate.

Speaker2: [00:37:10] Yeah, I. I've sort of gone on a tangent like not related to the original question, but I'll try to chime in in the direction that this conversation has gone. On the topic of. Chasing things that you actually want to learn as opposed to things that might maximize your income or your title or whatnot. For me, being pretty early in my career, I will admit I have fallen prey to the chasing status and money and titles a lot more than I'd like to admit. I mean, you [00:38:00] know, being so active on LinkedIn, you see a lot about like the hype of data science, data analytics, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, I came in, I came into data analytics and then data science, you know, being very easily influenced by those narratives. But at the same time, I, it, it intersected with a period of my life where I realized I did not like to learn anything. I came from a finance field before data, and I had no incentive to grow or to learn or to challenge myself in that field. And so at that period of my life, it intersected with me seeing things on LinkedIn about this cool new field or not new, not new, but new to me called data analytics or data science.

Speaker2: [00:38:56] And so I how I like my origin story in this field is, you know, wanting to go towards something that actually made me want to become better and and do better and challenge myself and do the hard things which truthfully never interested me before when I was in, when I was in finance. And so I, I gravitated toward this thing called data. The data field that I that for the first time in my life really did make me want to dig deep in and learn and challenge myself. And I have followed that like that direction and listening to my gut in that sense. And so far in my very early career, I think it's made me like feel fulfilled for the very first time since graduating college, being like three years out of college, so [00:40:00] far it has voted well for me. And yeah, that's that's my answer to like how I have experienced, like wanting to, to learn things and actually grow. So I don't know if that answers your question in the least bit, but that is my my $0.02. I think that's great advice. I mean, I'm a little bit further out in my career, let's just say three years out of college.

Speaker2: [00:40:32] But but good for you. I mean, that that's a lot of insight for those three years, I would say, especially to kind of have that pivot. And there are certain things, obviously, I think probably about finance and data science. There are certain things in both areas that were probably appealing to you. But in any case, I guess no matter where we are, there's always an opportunity to, you know, to kind of keep growing course. Correct, as the case may be. I do think sometimes mid-career, it's it's it can be challenging because people if you're changing, you are coming without this, you might be coming in as entry level in one sense. But then but you don't. But then you have all this other experience. And I think a lot of times it can be hard, I think, for companies to know where to put you. And so, yeah, I mean, one of the just general parts of my question is how do you identify employers or anybody who collaborators who might appreciate that, that kind of perspective and background? Yeah. So thank you, Megan. That's that's awesome. Thanks so much.

Harpreet: [00:41:58] Megan. I love a good origin [00:42:00] story. Thanks for sharing. I definitely appreciate that. Let's go to to Eric here. And after Eric, got to start your message, you in the chat about your question. But I think I just did that. So hopefully that was good. And if you guys it on LinkedIn or on YouTube, you got questions, let me know or if you have a question here, the chat or rather if you've got questions, let me know the chat and I will get to you. Eric Great.

Speaker3: [00:42:34] I assume you mean me, not the other, Eric. Because also.

Harpreet: [00:42:36] Here. Yes, yes. Yes.

Speaker3: [00:42:38] Okay, cool. So. Worked in lots of different lots of different areas over the past ten, 12 years. And. Some have been more interested in my wanting to try and experiment and learn about different things than others. I'm not 100% sure how to identify those ahead of time other than like. I guess. I think that one of the most important parts is knowing myself or knowing knowing oneself in order to be able to even be able to say, like, I'm interested in these things or like I even have an idea. Maybe the next couple steps down the road of like some things that I'm interested in, or I have the tendency to like find new things to be excited about. And of course, you know, I'm going to do my job. But, you know, I love getting involved across across whether it's silos or department lines or whatever. And I think just like knowing that about oneself and being able to have that conversation with others, because I once upon a time had a. A job interview. And they asked me, you know, where do you expect to be in [00:44:00] five years or whatever? And like, really the only thing that I could say, because I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, was like, not where I start, you know? And I wasn't I didn't have a problem with, you know, not necessarily being in the same company. And that was fine. But I knew that I wouldn't be where I started because I just like experimenting and seeing and trying and stuff. And so if that resonates with.

Speaker3: [00:44:26] The person that I'm talking to or if they can relate to it or share their own examples of it, then it's like, All right, cool. Like we're we're buddies here. This is this is a good a good conversation. But I think being able to identify that stuff even before that so that, you know, whether or not you're even like applying to the right organization, I don't know. The best thing I can think of is when I see like that comes off the top of my head is like Shopify. They, I follow Shopify on LinkedIn, right? And Shopify posts like stories about their people like all the time. Like they've been doing it for months and months and months. And I don't know if they have like full on blog posts associated with them or if they're like just like short little snippets or whatever. But it's cool because I can see a pretty wide range of individuals that they spotlight who work in different areas of the company, who can talk about their their backgrounds and experience. And I think that that kind of gives me a feel for like, is this a company with a lot of a lot of diversity? Who's going to embrace some of the things that I want? Or is it maybe a company that has a culture that I wouldn't resonate with? And that's okay, too. So I think, you know, kind of like pinpointing a handful of places to then like listen to or follow and try and get the feel for what makes them tick.

Harpreet: [00:45:48] Thank you very much. I like that. I like that. Time I was used to Mitch Hedberg line, which is the five year anniversary of me asking this question. But [00:46:00] I think so much. If they want to go next. I forgot. They have a building. Sorry. Let's go to Vivian and then we'll circle back to Gina's second question.

Speaker2: [00:46:14] Okay. I guess. I kind of went a different direction when I was thinking about this, but I was thinking like, just give up. I don't know. That's how I feel. I read this book or that's where I've been lately mentally. And I read this book called 4000 Weeks. That was that's like time management for mortals. And like, that book is so awesome. And like, honestly, life is stressful enough and there is enough things to do and accomplish. And instead of trying to do it all, just do what you want and give up on the rest, like just give up. And I think that when it comes to like finding companies and things like that, I don't know. There's there's nothing wrong in my mind with being, like overly blunt or upfront about things because you have nothing to lose. Like, you know, there's lots of times where I do my best work when I'm finally on the precipice of like, all right, like if I don't like, just do whatever I can, I know I will fail. And so, like, there is no there is no risk anymore. And just doing whatever I can and like being as blunt as possible or like whatever, because there's no like, like I already can see that I will fail if I don't do something. So like, at this point, there's, there's no point in holding back anymore, like, like you're allowed to, to be blunt, with companies about like, oh, I have an alternative background or whatever. And like, I don't know, I, I also have. You know, I think a lot of us in this field are like career changers and things like that and have a diverse background. [00:48:00] But some of the best people that I work with are the people who managed to find the company through alternative means and have nontraditional backgrounds. And I don't know. I don't I don't know how to like. Make companies like change. Is this what we're talking about, by the way? I hope I'm just way out of left field.

Harpreet: [00:48:24] But I love it. I love what's going there.

Speaker2: [00:48:27] But I don't know how to make companies like change or anything. But I do know that if maybe if maybe there's wisdom in the giving up and just like having nothing to lose and being upfront about who you are and what you have to offer that will. Make magic happen of like finding those companies that feel the way you feel and like and value that sort of thing. But like I, I actually started at Meta with their Return to work program, so I actually started as a like alternative type of employee. And in I really feel super passionately about these types of programs because there's several like engineers that I work with and stuff who were like rotational. They started as rotational engineers and it just brings so much more diversity to because those people are always. Like the women, the people of color, like the people who have those different backgrounds. And I don't know, it's just just awesome to work with those people and to feel like you bring a lot more perspectives to the room and things like that and a lot of different kinds of people together. And I'm one of them, so I don't know. I really feel passionately about that.

Harpreet: [00:49:44] Thank you very much. Yeah, I'm actually I started listening to 4000 weeks earlier this week and I guess I left, but it's a very, very good book. I really enjoyed it so far. Matt since Here in the Room was on [00:50:00] that blog yesterday and we're talking about something similar, I was telling him that I'm kind of letting everything fall apart right now. And he brought up this idea of like Shoo Hari, which is like a martial arts kind of concept. And the first thing is like gathering. So the reason we're talking about this is similar to what people were saying in the chat about following all these productivity hacks and all the self-improvement type stuff, which is look the author of for last week to talking about self-professed productivity geek just like. Absorbing all this knowledge as they do with all the without a lot of information. I got no clue how to use any of it now. Saturated, so then just let it all fall apart. Key national fundamentals match the basics. Let everything fall apart. You kind of put stuff back together in your own way. This is unrelated to anything that we're just talking about the current moment, but that's what Happy Hours are all about giving. Thank you very much. What's next? What's the next question? I guess on that note.

Speaker2: [00:51:06] I think I just want to say thanks, Vivian, because that was awesome then I think, yeah, it's sometimes it's really hard to like kind of give in to just the reality, which is you can only do so much and so then you're best off just focusing on the things that you do best that you like to do. But it can be so hard when there's so many different. And now with the Internet, everybody's got an opinion and everybody can publish it. And so then we have that much more information, which is a cognitive load. I see. Christian has his hand up. Did you want to add something?

Harpreet: [00:51:42] Yeah, I actually. Real quick. Sorry, real quick. I forgot. I had a point to make where you're asking about how do you figure out if a company is like this where they kind of embrace this diversity of backgrounds, just go to their LinkedIn page and like if you can get access to the LinkedIn profiles of the people who you are interviewing for [00:52:00] and just look at all the backgrounds and just look like, where's this person come from? Where's this person coming from? I mean, LinkedIn is just kind of a resonate, but I think it gives some indication. Sorry about the question. Go for it.

Speaker3: [00:52:12] No, no worries. I was just wondering if I could ask a question.

Harpreet: [00:52:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: [00:52:17] Okay, perfect. So and I posted when I entered into the chat room or the zoom room rather, but essentially I'm just kind of in a position right now where I'm kind of locked into one tool and I want to get more experience in the larger, broader stack of data engineering. But I'm really locked into Looker right now, so I guess I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice for navigating that within a company or how to I mean, I know like working on projects like is ideal, but at the same time I have to do these like trial periods for Snowflake or DVT and I've done like some hands on labs recently, but it's not long enough and I want to actually be able to work with a data set. And then I also have a consultancy, so I'm trying to build some kind of project for one of my target market businesses, small businesses that I'm.

Speaker2: [00:53:13] Trying to connect.

Harpreet: [00:53:13] With.

Speaker3: [00:53:14] So I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice on how to level up if at your current like day job you're not necessarily getting all of the.

Harpreet: [00:53:23] Tools that you need to really be considered like a full stack engineer or scientist. Let's go to Mexico. And then if anybody else is to chime in here, please do let me know. Kiko, go for it.

Speaker4: [00:53:35] A quick question. Are you a company that would be considered like an enterprise legacy, kind of like old school? They've got lots of lots of stuff going on, yadda, yada.

Speaker3: [00:53:50] Absolutely. Yeah. It's a Fortune 500. Yep.

Speaker4: [00:53:52] Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So and there's like, is there like internal, internal [00:54:00] red tape and politics?

Speaker3: [00:54:02] Yeah. Because each engineer is designated to their specific tools. So we have ETL, engineer, snowflake architects and then looker engineers. And I'm on the looker visualization engineering side of it.

Speaker4: [00:54:14] Okay, cool. Yeah, like, like at MailChimp I, my team works with like similar teams. They're called like they go under data services. So it's like an engineering, like, you know, data delivery, orchestration, all that. And we've kind of struggled honestly because our teams are siloed. It ends up happening that way just because people are heads down there doing their work and all that other stuff. And it's like, Well, we don't want to make changes. We don't want the data pipelines to break that feed the entire company, yadda yadda. So two ways. So I still think that like negotiating 20% time with your manager is really great and especially if you can get like ground up support. So like you put it in the ear of all your friends and everyone like goes, Hey, could we all do 20% time? So that's one way to do it. Another way to do it is to actually volunteer to host internal hackathons that pair up different people from different teams. We've done that three times. One was for testing out GPT three and then there's like two others that has been really successful. And more importantly, it looks really amazing when it comes up for your promotion time when they're like, Oh, this person intern, they improve the internal culture and they. Made morale go up and all the other stuff raised.

Speaker4: [00:55:27] It's good leadership. So that's one way to do it. A third way to do it is there are probably people in your team who honestly feel very similarly. I know in my team and in other teams I was partnering with, people were like, We kind of want a little bit more like exposure. And we were going through the acquisition so the business leaders could not really like justify that kind of cut and spend. And so what we did was we found like some external hackathons or open source projects and like a group of us just kind [00:56:00] of would do that like on our off time together. And the fun part was if it, if it looked interesting and was like a viable candidate for use within the company and especially if there were members from different teams, we could all kind of pitch that and bring that up. And that would be one way to get inserted into like a tooling or project. Another way also sometimes is offering. I wouldn't really suggest this, but you could offering to help cover on call time. That can be a great way to go about it. It's painful. No one wants to do on call. And yet that's where you learn a lot about the internal tooling, where you learn about the bugs that come up and.

Speaker4: [00:56:47] And people always love free on cold labor so much. Everyone loves that. So that can be another way to do it. It also te if your company, if they're like a Fortune 500, they probably have some kind of like educational reimbursement or what have you. So you can also bring that up with your managers say like, hey, you know, like there's like this certification or project base like program I want to do, you know, and I think it'd be really good for our team help expand our capabilities, yadda yadda, yadda, you know, just kind of plug and play into the strategy at the time. And those are a couple ways to do it. Like in an enterprising company, it's like so different from a startup where you could literally walk over and go, Hey, can I help you out? Help you? Like, Yeah, let's do that. Yeah, there is companies, right? You always have to kind of soften it and do a little bit of finagling, but there are ways to do it. We have done all the ways internal hackathons to what's really nice is if you pitch it, you can also get internal funding for it. So like funding for extra compute, try out new tools, all that other stuff.

Harpreet: [00:57:49] Sure. I love it. Yeah.

Speaker3: [00:57:52] And I actually did get certified in Snowflake last year, end of.

Harpreet: [00:57:56] Last year.

Speaker3: [00:57:57] To try.

Harpreet: [00:57:57] To break.

Speaker3: [00:57:58] Into Snowflake and it yeah. I just [00:58:00] haven't had much movement on it but yeah, those are those are great insights.

Harpreet: [00:58:04] I appreciate it. Let's go to search next on this. And if somebody else wants to chime in here, we'd love to hear from you. But I'd probably ask many different questions. But I just want to do a quick shout out. There's a talk I saw at the World Conference in Toronto by Kevin. He's the CEO of Dad, a friend of mine as well. And he had this kind of five step process for evaluating a tool, I don't think. I'm not really asking answering the question exactly. But his scenario is essentially with all these tools out there, how do I figure out the right one to learn where I want to invest time in the right one for my problem? And five step process was define the problem, define the problem parameters. Google the problem. See if anybody else has done work on it and has the insights. Evaluate the solutions and integrate. I think it's called solving ML ops from first principles. There's like an entire slide and it might be like a video or something, but check that out. Let's go to search and then if anybody else would like to chime in here, we'd love to hear from you. Well, a good way, I think, to level up is to seek people in your company that do the job you want to do, or at least the one you want to learn the most about, and ask your manager to let him let you shadow this person and create like having formation interviews, you know, informal interviews with this person as well, just to kind of pick their brain. They'll they're going to be able to give you tips on how to best get there within your organization, which I believe is a far quicker way than doing it outside of your organization, unless that job does not exist in your organization. But yeah, those would be my $0.02. Thank [01:00:00] you very much. J. Megan Richards. Eric, anything to add here? First one to those. All right, Christian, any any follow up thoughts or any follow up?

Speaker3: [01:00:21] Yeah, no, I think it's good. It's tough. It's tough when you work remote.

Harpreet: [01:00:25] And a majority of your colleagues.

Speaker3: [01:00:27] Are in India.

Harpreet: [01:00:28] That time difference.

Speaker3: [01:00:29] Definitely can inhibit. And then on top of that, I don't.

Harpreet: [01:00:33] Have.

Speaker3: [01:00:34] A physical location.

Harpreet: [01:00:36] Where.

Speaker3: [01:00:36] I'm based out.

Harpreet: [01:00:37] Of company's located in.

Speaker3: [01:00:38] Chicago, so I've done a few informational sessions. I love that idea. That's great. It just it's hard to create any traction with that, I.

Speaker2: [01:00:48] Guess, when you're just.

Harpreet: [01:00:48] Kind of posted up alone at your desk in your apartment. So yeah, I really appreciate it. A great question and thanks for asking. Gina, I think you had another question if you want to go for it.

Speaker2: [01:01:06] Yeah. Thanks, Harpreet. So this one's just a lot more straightforward than my last one. This one has to do with what people's experiences have been with trying to obtain project work. Have people used Upwork or other platforms? I came across one called Flexjobs, but it's like a subscription model for candidates, which instantly has me kind of scratching my head a little bit. But maybe there's a good reason for it. So anyone has thoughts on this or experience with these or other platforms. I mean, obviously word of mouth is one way to get at business. I've done it in the past with other consulting work that I've done, but specifically around data science. I'd love to know people's thoughts. Oh yeah. Eric, you said it's [01:02:00] for remote work, which is. Yeah, that's fine too. I I'm curious to know. Yeah. If flexjobs, if anyone has experience with them, what their, what your impression is of a subscription model where the candidates having to pay money for that.

Harpreet: [01:02:19] So kind of make sure I understand questions like how to get clients like freelance type of work, like consulting projects type of thing.

Speaker2: [01:02:29] Yeah, certainly Upwork is one example of that. But as well, I was asking about Flexjobs because Eric pointed out in the comments that that is a platform for remote only work, which I am also interested in as full time employment. So I'm basically looking at various different options. And but the it seems somewhat unusual to have candidates paying money for subscriptions. So yeah, just curious to hear.

Speaker3: [01:03:06] Something out there about that. So yeah, so like sites like Upwork and others, that's more like a, like a bid bit for work type model, right? So you're probably familiar with it. You know, Flexjobs is different in that. So Flexjobs is kind of the best way that I understand it is it's kind of like any other job searching site, except that it's going to be like all remote work. And so you can and you can find like it's not an exclusive job board. Like you can find flexjobs jobs elsewhere. I believe my wife had a subscription for it. And so but the nice thing is it's just going to be more. Curated. So you're probably you're going to have less to sift through and be able to probably find more what you're looking for. It's [01:04:00] not necessarily oriented towards like freelance work. It's not a gig, a gig site like like Upwork or others. And so. So yeah, I mean, I would just say think about that before you go into it's not too expensive for a subscription. So, you know, I mean, I think you can get 90 days for the price of 30 or something like that if you try it out, if you if you get it right. So it's not I don't think it's too bad. And it's not like a it's not like a pay by the application or something like that with like Upwork where if you get paid they're going to take their, their cut of your of your payment through their platform or whatever. So I feel like it's somewhere kind of in the middle.

Harpreet: [01:04:40] And on that topic of oh, sorry, real quick, but on the topic of freelancing, a couple episodes you might want to check out on the podcast. One is with Alyson grade. We short the Freelancers Bible and we did like an episode called The Data Scientist. Also, KURTIS Pike's a well-known freelancer, got an episode with him. I think he's going on this podcast as well, looking and stuff like him search. Go for it. Yeah. No, just quickly going to add one more into the mix. I don't know if you heard of Code Mentor, but back in my Web development days, I, I occasionally would find work through there. But my, my specialty was more like involving like Mongo and big data technologies and some like mobile app developing. And what I found is, is since you're like a mentor to other coders, I think they kind of value the work more I see now. They have and I have never baited here or like offered my services, but they have Tableau, MATLAB, machine learning like several possibilities there of what you can offer. And I think the rates are higher there or at least were back when I would do it like five years ago, four years ago. [01:06:00] And I think it's still the case then in other places. And so yeah, I, I throw that option out there. Another website is called Toptal. Toptal. And these folks specialize in tech type of jobs. So like software developers, designers, finance people, product managers. They also have their scientists. And there's also, I think, something to check out for you as well. Awesome. Any other questions or comments that they want to bring up? Did somebody say they had a question? But I missed it.

Harpreet: [01:06:41] Attached to your heart today. So it's possible that I missed your question. All right, cool. So there's actually a comment coming in from Fiona's man. I can't say last name Raubenheimer, because it's not a question about how cool to have Megan Lu and Ericsson's new podcast. Have a listen to the podcast for quite a while. Super cool to see these games here. This is this is actually cool. Welcome. Welcome to the podcast. That welcome here. Yeah. It's a regular it's there all the time, but both are at the same time. Yes, I agree. Awesome. Definitely chime in our how often together. Thank you so much. Eunice. I guess so. We'll be back next week. Remember, the podcast is kind of on a bit of a hiatus because ran out of episodes to release. So seven months by recording a single EPS of eight months for a single episode and finally run out. That just tells you how hard I was going with these recording scripts. So we'll be back in action, start recording stuff, hopefully in August when my basement is back and I've got equipment and all that stuff. Next week we'll [01:08:00] be at the same time, but I'll be on location recording from my parents backyard in Elk Grove, California. But hopefully my dad's not tuning in to what is supposed to be a surprise. I'm going to that surprise. Yeah. Take care. Have a good rest of the weekend. Sponsored. Sponsored by HP. Remember, go to HP HP dot com for data science. To learn more about buy HP machines specially built for data science. My friends remember you got one life on the planet on a tennis court.