Writing on mathematics, technology, building, and life.https://allenkunle.me/https://allenkunle.me/issue-32-book-review-drive-your-plow/https://allenkunle.me/issue-32-book-review-drive-your-plow/I last penned a book review on May 1, 2022, when I reviewed Anuk Arudpragasam’s Booker Prizelonglisted book. I have since read about 52 books, many of them with compelling...Wed, 07 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMTLifeBookshttps://allenkunle.me/issue-31-these-words-are-mine-and/https://allenkunle.me/issue-31-these-words-are-mine-and/The most mentally challenging task I set myself last year was to write as many articles as I could. It could be two, a hundred, a thousand. I cared little about the amount, so...Sun, 28 May 2023 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-30-2022-laughter-tears-and/https://allenkunle.me/issue-30-2022-laughter-tears-and/That limbo period between Christmas and the start of a new year, the liminal period when we wait for the dawn of a new year, afforded me the opportunity to cogitate on the year...Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-29-tayo-one-year-on/https://allenkunle.me/issue-29-tayo-one-year-on/It has been a year since my heart shattered into a million pieces. It was a Sunday afternoon. I was cleaning my bathroom, as is my routine when suddenly, the song blasting from...Mon, 21 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-28-on-being-surrounded-by-yes/https://allenkunle.me/issue-28-on-being-surrounded-by-yes/I was going to title this article “On Being Surrounded By YesPeople”. Yespeople instead of yesmen because I don’t think rubberstamping someone’s every action to ingratiate...Fri, 11 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-27-hi-it-has-been-a-while-hasnt/https://allenkunle.me/issue-27-hi-it-has-been-a-while-hasnt/It has been a while since I last wrote to you, hasn’t it? It has been fortynine days since the last time I penned down my thoughts. It doesn’t feel that long, though. It feels...Sun, 25 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-26-cycle-of-influence/https://allenkunle.me/issue-26-cycle-of-influence/Summer is now fully upon us. The sun has been coming out in full glory, injecting colour into everything and everyone. It’s beautiful, but it’s ephemeral. If we are lucky,...Sun, 07 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-25-good-enough-is-good-enough/https://allenkunle.me/issue-25-good-enough-is-good-enough/There was a song our teachers taught us how to sing when I was in primary school. It goes thus:Wed, 20 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-24-peter-principle-and-the/https://allenkunle.me/issue-24-peter-principle-and-the/Work is like a river always trying to swell out of its banks. If you let it, it will flood every crevice of your life, and you will be left fighting with your head barely above...Mon, 11 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-23-toeing-the-underground-line/https://allenkunle.me/issue-23-toeing-the-underground-line/The London Underground logo is one of the world’s most recognised logos. The Roundel, a hollowed red ring with a horizontal blue bar bearing the word “UNDERGROUND” or the name...Sun, 26 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-22-the-paradox-of-choice-affairs/https://allenkunle.me/issue-22-the-paradox-of-choice-affairs/I have noticed that many of the articles in this newsletter coalesce around the theme of friendship. It is interesting because I didn’t set out to write articles of a specific...Thu, 16 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-21-on-building-a-community/https://allenkunle.me/issue-21-on-building-a-community/In March, I wrote the Ebbs and Flows of Friendships article. In it, I touched on the challenges of maintaining adult relationships and the cycles of peaks and troughs they...Wed, 08 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-20-birthdays-in-the-age-of/https://allenkunle.me/issue-20-birthdays-in-the-age-of/It was my birthday a few days ago, and my celebrations were understated, like most of my birthdays since I turned 27. I spend most of the day in a contemplative mood, thinking...Tue, 31 May 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/i-did-what-i-said-i-would-do/https://allenkunle.me/i-did-what-i-said-i-would-do/I am not a fan of selfhelp books. After reading many of them, you find out that most are trite, and their main points can be distilled into a few pages. But that wasn’t the...Mon, 23 May 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/issue-18-planning-for-my-birthday/https://allenkunle.me/issue-18-planning-for-my-birthday/This article is two days late. That is because I have had a lot more on my plate lately. My birthday is in just over a week and one of the things I have always wanted to do is...Tue, 17 May 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/what-means-little-to-you-may-mean/https://allenkunle.me/what-means-little-to-you-may-mean/Adhesive bandages, commonly known as plasters, or in the United States by the genericised trademark name, BandAid, have gone through a few iterations over the last two...Mon, 09 May 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/book-review-a-passage-north-by-anuk/https://allenkunle.me/book-review-a-passage-north-by-anuk/The first time Sri Lanka came into my awareness was in secondary school on a day I was flipping through the atlas in the school library. I was looking at the map of India when...Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifeBookshttps://allenkunle.me/on-dealing-with-microaggression/https://allenkunle.me/on-dealing-with-microaggression/This year makes it eight years since I moved to England. While there are many things I love about this country I now call home, there is also a litany of reasons I hate living...Sun, 24 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/there-is-no-shame-in-that/https://allenkunle.me/there-is-no-shame-in-that/This will be a relatively short article, but don't let its brevity make you believe it was easy to write. I think it will be the most challenging article I'll ever write. How...Tue, 19 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/you-dont-even-got-nobody-bein-honest/https://allenkunle.me/you-dont-even-got-nobody-bein-honest/Last week was mentally challenging for me, so I went on a lot of walks. Apart from the health benefits derived from taking long walks, they force me into a contemplative...Mon, 11 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/book-review-blonde-roots-by-bernadine/https://allenkunle.me/book-review-blonde-roots-by-bernadine/I first learnt about Bernadine Evaristo and her work in 2019 when she was announced joint winner of the Booker Prize with Margaret Atwood. It was the first time since 1992 that...Sun, 03 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifeBookshttps://allenkunle.me/the-ebbs-and-flows-of-friendships/https://allenkunle.me/the-ebbs-and-flows-of-friendships/It was a surprisingly tepid December afternoon. The sun peeked shyly behind grey clouds. Farouq, myself, and one of our mutual friends were in Peckham to eat àmàlà at one of...Sun, 27 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/on-consistency/https://allenkunle.me/on-consistency/This is my tenth article of the year. That means I have published an article every week since the second week of this year. I had doubts at the start about my ability to write...Sun, 20 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/book-review-everything-good-will/https://allenkunle.me/book-review-everything-good-will/I decided to read Sefi Atta’s debut novel because it is much vaunted by some of my friends. Most of them read it in high school and had good things to say about it. It even won...Sun, 13 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifeBookshttps://allenkunle.me/death-to-perfection/https://allenkunle.me/death-to-perfection/When people ask me to list the most impactful books I have read, Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air always makes the list. Written by a brilliant doctor who learnt that...Tue, 08 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/what-do-you-meme-its-not-funny/https://allenkunle.me/what-do-you-meme-its-not-funny/It won’t be an exaggeration to say that the start of this decade has been one of the most tumultuous times in recent human history. We’ve witnessed a global pandemic,...Mon, 28 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/one-life-many-hells/https://allenkunle.me/one-life-many-hells/You think You're frightening me with Your hell, don't You? You think Your hell is worse than mine Dorothy Parker, A Telephone CallSun, 20 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/book-review-african-psycho-by-alain/https://allenkunle.me/book-review-african-psycho-by-alain/“I have decided to kill Germaine on December 29. I have been thinking about this for weeks”. African Psycho opens with those two sentences that immediately get you interested...Sun, 13 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifeBookshttps://allenkunle.me/promote-yourself-your-career-growth/https://allenkunle.me/promote-yourself-your-career-growth/Last week, I saw a tweet that said, “If you can work without focusing on who gets the credit for the wins, you will do big things!”. Like every sentiment expressed on the...Tue, 08 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/book-review-a-burning-by-megha-majumdar/https://allenkunle.me/book-review-a-burning-by-megha-majumdar/I decide on books to read based on recommendations from my friends and close acquaintances or by waltzing into bookshops, sauntering between aisles, reading book synopsis, and...Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifeBookshttps://allenkunle.me/recruiting-participants-for-customer/https://allenkunle.me/recruiting-participants-for-customer/The internet is a graveyard of startups, and those who pry into the carcasses of dead startups have identified many reasons startups fail. They often cite a failure to build...Sun, 23 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/book-review-no-one-is-talking-about/https://allenkunle.me/book-review-no-one-is-talking-about/I first heard of Patricia Lockwood and her new book on The Blindboy Podcast. The host spoke effusively about the book, describing it as bursting in imagination and creativity....Fri, 14 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMTLifeBookshttps://allenkunle.me/till-we-meet-again-omotayo/https://allenkunle.me/till-we-meet-again-omotayo/When I said I needed to write more, I didn’t think the words I would write after would be laden with grief. Yet, here I am with a heavy heart, eyes welled with tears, writing a...Sun, 21 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMTLifehttps://allenkunle.me/bias-variance-decomposition/https://allenkunle.me/bias-variance-decomposition/This post provides an intuitive explanation of the bias-variance decomposition. The bias-variance decomposition shows the generalisation error of a learning algorithm as the sum of three terms - bias, variance, and the irreducible error.Sat, 07 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMTMachine-LearningStatisticshttps://allenkunle.me/deriving-ml-cost-functions-part2/https://allenkunle.me/deriving-ml-cost-functions-part2/Cross-Entropy Loss - a commonly used cost function for binary classification problems derived using Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE)Sun, 31 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMTMachine-Learninghttps://allenkunle.me/deriving-ml-cost-functions-part1/https://allenkunle.me/deriving-ml-cost-functions-part1/Mean Squared Error (MSE) - a commonly used cost function for regression problems derived using Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE)Sun, 24 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMTMachine-Learninghttps://allenkunle.me/dplyr-style-data-manipulation-in-python/https://allenkunle.me/dplyr-style-data-manipulation-in-python/Tutorial on how to write chainable data manipulation code in Python.Wed, 03 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMTPythonpandasdplyrData-Wranglinghttps://allenkunle.me/exploratory-analysis-police-shooting/https://allenkunle.me/exploratory-analysis-police-shooting/Using R packages to perform exploratory data analysis on Police shooting dataset recorded in the United States.Thu, 14 Jul 2016 00:00:00 GMTRPlotly