Data visualizations are handy ways to examine and think about data. Observable is a Jupyter Notebook-like tool that makes it easy to quickly run JavaScript code in cells so you can see what you're doing in real-time.

This post will go over how to make an interactive bar chart showing Taylor Swift's most-used words from her lyrics with Observable using D3.js. In the meantime you can view the completed notebook and visualization here, and you can fork and edit it yourself.

Brief Intro to Observable

You can think of each different cell as a function. Cells come in two primary forms:

1. Expressions. Expression cells are the most concise and are meant for simple definitions and in Observable outside of a closure, you don’t need a var/const/let keyword.

2. Blocks. Block cells are encompassed by curly braces and include more complex code …

Recently I was looking for some datasets to analyze and make predictions based on data for a blog post project. I got stuck when I kept running into datasets that were fun but not good: oftentimes, AI projects struggle due in part to data-related issues.

What makes a dataset good or bad? What are some things you should consider when looking at a dataset? How should you interpret a dataset, from beginning to end? Read on to find out!

5 questions to ask yourself before working with a dataset

1. How was the data compiled? 

Was it aggregated from multiple sources? Did you compile it? If it came from different sources, you may have to format the data so different variables within a given attribute are consistent, such as dates, times, addresses, states or cities (maybe they’re abbreviated?), numbers like currency, etc., and some of the data may not be …

If you do web development, you've probably used console.log at least once (or over a thousand times...who's counting?) because that's the best debugging method! But did you know there are other console methods? Taylor Swift's most recent album folklore is chock full of pensive metaphors, allusions, and symbolism, and this post will liken some of those lyrics to six lesser-known JavaScript console methods.

What exactly is the console?

The console is a global object letting developers access the debugging console. It has a plethora of methods that make it easier to log statements, variables, functions, errors, and more--oh my!

6 console methods that are like folklore lyrics

1. console.log = "But it would've been fun // If you would've been the one" 

console.log is the most commonly-used method. Used for general purpose logging, it displays the message passed to it in the web console. Did you know you can decorate …

If you have opinions about how your city is run, it’s more important than ever to make your voice heard. This blog post will go over how to build a SMS chatbot using Twilio Autopilot, Twilio SendGrid, Twilio Functions, TwiML Bins, and JavaScript to engage in local civic issues. 

One example might be San Francisco, where the city is planning to permanently cut 40 of 68 bus lines and free bus rides for youth. 

In this blog post, concerned citizens can tell members of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to not cut bus lines. Read on for a step-by-step process to build the bot, and you can text the +14153068517 number to see the example!

Set Up your SMS Chatbot

To follow along with this post, you need three things:

• A Twilio account - sign up for a free one here and receive an …

Hamilton the Musical will start streaming on Disney Plus this Friday, so happy Hamilfilm week! To celebrate, learn how to build a SMS chatbot that recommends the Hamilton song most relevant to you right now using Twilio Programmable SMS and Functions, Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services, and JavaScript.

See it in-action: text how you’re feeling to +13364295064. The longer and more descriptive your message is, the more data the app has to analyze what Hamilton song you need now!

Prerequisites and setting up Azure Cognitive Services

To follow along with this post, you need three things:

• A Twilio account - sign up for a free one here and receive an extra $10 if you upgrade through this link
• A Twilio phone number with SMS capabilities - configure one here
• Microsoft Azure - make a free account here if you don't have one already

To use Azure Cognitive Services, …

The IBM Watson supercomputer is perhaps best known for beating two quizmasters on Jeopardy, but it can do so much more, such as diagnose cancer, fight crime, and more. Watson also provides APIs and tools to help developers build intelligent models and apps. This post will use deep learning to extract relevant information such as texts, like entities, keywords, categories, sentiment, emotion, and more from a text message with Watson Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and Twilio Functions.

This post was written with IBM developer advocate Dave Nugent for a joint workshop.

Prerequisites

To follow along with this post, you need three things:

• A Twilio account - sign up for a free one here and receive an extra $10 if you upgrade through this link
• A Twilio phone number with SMS capabilities - configure one here
• IBM Cloud account - sign up for a free one here

Now let's get started …

Pose detection is one fun and interesting task in computer vision and machine learning. In a video chat, it could be used to detect if someone is touching their face, falling asleep, performing a yoga pose correctly, and so much more! 

Read on to learn how to perform pose detection in the browser of a Twilio Video chat application using TensorFlow.js and the PoseNet model.

Setup

To build a Twilio Programmable Video application, we will need:

• A Twilio account - sign up for a free one here and receive an extra $10 if you upgrade through this link
• Account SID: find it in your account console here
• API Key SID and API Key Secret: generate them here
• The Twilio CLI

Follow this post to get setup with a starter Twilio Video app and to understand Twilio Video for JavaScript a bit more, or download this repo and follow the …

With many of us now working remote, video chats are so in right now. Here’s how to get up-and-running with a video chat room in nine minutes using Twilio Programmable Video and the Twilio Serverless Toolkit in JavaScript.

Setup

To build a Twilio Programmable Video application, we will need:

• A Twilio account - sign up for a free one here and receive an extra $10 if you upgrade through this link
• Account SID: find it in your account console here
• API Key SID and API Key Secret: generate them here
• The Twilio CLI

Save your API Keys somewhere to use them soon and then install the Twilio Serverless Toolkit via the Twilio CLI if you haven't already by running

Have you ever wondered what Twilio product you are most like? Now you can text +1 (321) 340-6085 to find out!

These entertaining "What kind of ____ are you?” quizzes have risen in popularity, getting shared an average of 1900 times on social media according to Buzzsumo. Read on to see how you can make a punchy and fun Buzzfeed-style quiz "What Twilio Product are You?" with Twilio.

Set Up and Configure your Bot with a Twilio Number

To follow along with this post, you need two things:

• A Twilio account - sign up for a free one here and receive an extra $10 if you upgrade through this link
• A Twilio phone number with SMS capabilities - configure one here

Go to your Autopilot c …