fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Reading
By: Matthew Donnellon
Tags: Horror, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Reading, Short Story

On the corner at the end of the lane there lived a man who couldn’t stop reading.

He filled his house with books. They covered every inch of his walls. Lately he was in the process of getting rid of his furniture.

He read all day, spending the last few moments of twilight huddled against the window so he could see the words.

He used up all of his candles. His house filled with the detritus of candles he cobbled together from the leftovers.

People in the village stopped giving him candles. He asked too often. They had their own needs they said. Candles were rare. They needed every bit of wax.

And yet the man kept reading.

One day a traveler appeared. He strode into the village with a small pony carrying an assortment of wares. Several townsfolk bought and traded the traveler for items.

The traveler sold his goods and worked his way through town until he stopped in front of a house with a man sitting against the wall reading a book.

“Do you have any candles?”

“Ahhh, a reader,” the traveler said, “I might have something better.”

He searched through his bag and pulled out a golden instrument. It had a large gemstone on the top. “Give me your hand,” the traveler said.

The strange man reached out and the traveler pricked his finger with a pin. He squeezed a drop of blood from the wound into the instrument’s reservoir. The gemstone lit up.

The strange man was delighted. He took the instrument and disappeared into his home.

That was the last time anyone remembered seeing the strange man.

Until people around town started to disappear.

It was slow, but one by one the people in the town went missing.

Until the village was empty and the only sign of life was a lit window in the house at the end of the lane.

Weeks of silence caused members of the next town to investigate.

They worked their way through the little village until they found the strange man lying in the middle of the floor surrounded by discarded books, and the gemstone lamp’s light fading.

They looked around the house trying to figure out what happened.

They didn’t see the strange man get up.

Because the man who couldn’t stop reading wasn’t dead.

He just needed more blood.
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By: Skillhive Team
Tags: Technology, Education, Subscription, Newsletter

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Bank Data: PCA. The dataset that will be used for this…
By: Zaki Jefferson
Tags: Data, Python, Principal Component, Data Science

The dataset that will be used for this example is on Kaggle. This discussion will be about the process of using PCA on the Bank data.

What is PCA?

PCA, Principal Component Analysis, is a statistical procedure that uses an orthogonal transformation which converts a set of correlated variables to a set of uncorrelated variables.

PCA is a tool that is mostly used for Exploratory Data Analysis, EDA, and in machine learning predictive modeling. You can also use PCA for dimensionality reduction, this is also known as feature extraction. This become useful when wanting to make a dataset simpler by reducing the amount of features you have in your dataset. You would want to do this to reduce computational complexity of the model, causing your models to run faster.

Step 1: Scale

Always remember to scale your data before performing PCA. Scaling your data is important because the higher value a variable is, the more important it will become.

The image above shows that our dependent variable is Loan Status, a train test split is being performed, and we use MinMaxScaler to scale the data.

We use MinMaxScaler over Standard Scaler because our data is not in a Gaussian Distribution in order to use Standard Scaler properly. We also won’t be using any machine learning models with assumptions of our data being in a Gaussian Distribution. This saves us from transforming the data, one less extra step to do.

Step 2: PCA

After the data is scaled, we can move on to performing PCA. We can use the PCA class from sklearn and fit our training data.

pca.explained_variance_ratio_

The instance above will show the values that our machine learning model thought to have the most importance on our dependent variable. The higher the variance, the more important that feature is.

We can also graph our results to see the features that we would want to keep.
TDL128 Jesus Christ & The Center Of The Storm
By: Larry G. Maguire
Tags: Jesus, Christianity, Writer, Creativity, Podcast

TDL128 Jesus Christ & The Center Of The Storm

As the Christian Easter celebrations landed I had some thoughts I wanted to share around organised religion and the nature of human existence.

On this Good Friday, a significant day in the Christian Church calendar, I’m asking the question; Who are we really? Why do we abdicate responsibility for ourselves to other people and organisations who ultimately have their own interests at heart?

There is a secret that lies in plain sight and perhaps we need to get lost in that in order for us to understand the truth of who we are. As much as I believe Religion leads us astray, I also believe it plays an important part in our ultimate self realisation. Check it out.
Are We Focusing on Wrong Things?
Tags: Death Row, BBC, Delhi, Thinking Aloud, Delhi High Court

Written in response to,

I have a fundamental concern. Why are we hyping it so damn much?

Hear me out. This guy did an unspeakable act of raping a woman. He was caught, convicted and put on death row. There are certain reasons why he did that. Most of those involve how deranged his mind is. We know all that. We also know that as a society we condemned that, and our judicial system punished him severely and rightfully. Why are we still giving any value to what this person has to say?

Isn’t it like saying, How could Hitler even say that Jews are scum? But he does, he acted on his stance and that is the most primary reason why the entire world vehemently hates him. This particular scumbag believes what he may, acted based on that, and although it is a failure of our society that we could not prevent such mentality taking control and perform atrocious acts, we should stop plastering what he says all over the internet.

There are sociopaths in the society. There are people with sociopathic tendencies who think that their views are righteous/normal. This is not uncommon. I am not shielding these people, I am just being indifferent to his comments because I do not value his opinions enough to consider those worthy of any discussion.

Should I reject / ignore him after the judicial system is done with him? Yes. Should I also ignore the bigger problem of the existence of these mentalities? No. I should focus on the social / demographic reasons for why certain people think like that. If we can point it to a one of an incident on a case basis, we should not be alarmed as much. If this thinking and research unearth some regressive undercurrents of the psyche of the masses, then we are a huge problem at hand.

As it turns out, it is the later case. We do have some serious problem about how we think about and treat women in society. We need a more broad debate and reforms for that. Going all berserk over this one product of a demented psyche is not helping.
Interviewing at Facebook — On-Site JavaScript Technical Interview Questions
By: Adi S
Tags: Full Stack, Programming, JavaScript, Algorithms, Interview

The Microsoft and Google Assessments have been popular and readers are asking for more examples!

Here are some questions from an on-site technical interview at Facebook in 2019.

Easy

You are a product manager and currently leading a team to develop a new product. Unfortunately, the latest version of your product fails the quality check. Since each version is developed based on the previous version, all the versions after a bad version are also bad.

Suppose you have n versions [1, 2, ..., n] and you want to find out the first bad one, which causes all the following ones to be bad.

You are given an API bool isBadVersion(version) which will return whether version is bad. Implement a function to find the first bad version. You should minimize the number of calls to the API.

Example:

Given n = 5, and version = 4 is the first bad version. call isBadVersion(3) -> false

call isBadVersion(5) -> true

call isBadVersion(4) -> true Then 4 is the first bad version.

Medium

Design a data structure that supports the following two operations:

void addWord(word)

bool search(word)

search(word) can search a literal word or a regular expression string containing only letters a-z or . . A . means it can represent any one letter.

Example:

addWord("bad")

addWord("dad")

addWord("mad")

search("pad") -> false

search("bad") -> true

search(".ad") -> true

search("b..") -> true
OHF Weekly: Detour to Equality
By: Our Human Family
Tags: Hate, Equality, Racism, OHF Weekly

OHF Weekly: Detour to Equality

Volume 2 Number 39

Photo by Tim Collins on Unsplash

Welp. Here we are. A little over a week after the election and we’re still a nation divided. No rousing national rendition of “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.” No reconciled differences. No “meeting in the middle.” But then, it’s only been ten days.

That’s to be expected, especially with a sizable portion of the populace shunning decency, reason, and principles that were once the hallmark of American society. We have a lot of work to do, but that work does not include bending to the will racial inequality, misogyny, or any form of bigotry.

Sadly, we’ve been down this road before, and Americans have managed to come together and find our way. This time there’s a need for some serious introspection and facing hard truths about who and where we are. Perhaps this time we’ll make marked progress, but it’s going to take a lot of work.

This week, OHF writer Erik Deckers presents what could be considered a motivating factor for the element of America so enamored of bigotry and hate.

New This Week

“What You Loved Was the Cruelty”

by Erik Deckers

What you loved was the cruelty.

The meanness, the spite, the ability to say whatever you wanted, to hurt anyone you wanted. Without retribution.

The chance to show your true heart. To call them ugly names. To shame them. Because it’s what you’ve wanted to do all along.

You didn’t have to hide your ugliness anymore.

Now you could hurt people with impunity. You did it with pleasure.

The cruelty was the point.

What you loved was the bullying.

The mocking of people other than you.

Tormenting people who didn’t look like you. Denying people who didn’t sound like you. Hurting people who didn’t believe like you.

You loved brutalizing people. You took joy in it.

The bullying was the point. (continued at Medium.com)

Last Looks

You can always find Our Human Family articles on Medium and Twitter, and friend-linked versions posted on our Facebook page for your convenience. Be sure to check out our Instagram page. Comment, follow us, and share our articles with people you think would enjoy them. You know, you’re always welcome to chat with us on Twitter.

Have a fantastic weekend. Enjoy these awesome reads.

Love one another.

Clay Rivers

Our Human Family, Founder and Editorial Director
The One Thing About Diabetes That Makes it Dangerous
By: Gillian May
Tags: Wellness, Education, Diabetes, Life Lessons, Health

These days, many people either have Diabetes or know someone with it. With this health issue being so common, how is it that we know so little about it?

In this edition of “Ask a Nurse”, I’ll attempt to explain in simple terms, how Diabetes works, and why it’s so problematic for our health.

There’s really only one thing about Diabetes that makes it dangerous: blood glucose molecules and what they do to our body.

Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. A report on diabetes statistics shows an estimated 10.7 million people in the US between ages 45 and 64 have diagnosed Diabetes, and a further 3.6 million may be undiagnosed.

Also, about 3 million people under 44, and 9 million people over 65, have Diabetes. This data doesn’t separate between type 1 and 2 diabetes.

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

Many people have two key questions about Diabetes:

What is it about Diabetes that makes it such a significant health issue?

Why is this a dangerous illness when I know so many diabetics who look fine?

I will attempt to answer these questions without filling your head with medical jargon or terms that don’t make sense.
5 Quick Breakfast Toasts
By: Geri Shumer
Tags: Breakfast, Cooking, Recipe, Eating, Food

5 Quick Breakfast Toasts

And not one of them has avocado!

Photo By Geri Shumer

My husband eats the same breakfast every single morning — a bowl of cereal.

Monday through Friday he has Honey Nut Cheerios. On the weekends, he goes crazy and switches it up — sometimes he has Special K Choclatey Delight or Honey Bunches of Oats.

This has been his routine for over 25 years. How he can maintain this monotony is beyond me. I like a little variety in my life.

I go through breakfast phases. During the winter, I am an oatmeal girl. I cycle through a few different pre-made flavors, and then usually end up making some concoction of my own. I use plain oatmeal as the base and then play around with different nuts, fruits and spices each day to keep it interesting. In the spring and summer, I like to have a different kind of smoothie each morning.

In the fall, I usually crave something more substantial and move into my toast phase. I love avocado toast as much as the next person, but I feel like it has been overplayed. Last week, I had a lot of random leftover ingredients in my refrigerator and did not want them to go to waste. So, each weekday, I got creative, mixed and matched and came up with five relatively healthy, interesting breakfast toasts.

As you will probably notice, I had a bag of arugula and lots of leftover capers. I also had to find a way to use up a dumb impulse buy of Boursin cheese at Costco that my husband questioned when I threw it in our already overloaded cart. I was determined to prove him wrong — this delicious cheese of my childhood would not go to waste!

Photo By Geri Shumer

All of these toasts started with a slice of basic whole wheat bread. Here they are:

Monday

Garlic and Herb Boursin, cherry tomatoes, arugula and capers.

The photo is pictured under story title.

Tuesday

Salmon, Garlic and Herb Boursin and capers — a little nod to bagels and lox :)

Photo By Geri Shumer

I made salmon Monday night and had one leftover piece. So this toast was made out of that salmon — which was delicious by the way — here is the link:

Wednesday

Shallot and Chive Boursin, honey, fig jam, Trader Joe’s candied pecans, pear and arugula

Photo By Geri Shumer

You can use any candied pecans (or even plain) but my favorite is from Trader Joe’s

Thursday

Peanut butter, Trader Joe’s candied pecans, sweetened dried cranberries, apples and honey

Photo By Geri Shumer

Friday

Nutella, banana, Trader Joe’s candied pecans and honey

Photo By Geri Shumer

Ok - BONUS…I can’t help it…I had to add an avocado toast. Only because on Saturday morning I spotted an avocado that was about to go bad. So, I gave in and made avocado toast. This had avocado, capers, salt, pepper, smoked paprika and arugula.

Photo By Geri Shumer

So there you have it. Almost a whole week’s worth of breakfast toasts that are simple and quick to make. I used the ingredients I had on hand, and you can certainly use them as well. But, I am sure if you check your fridge and cabinets you can come up with some unique, tasty toasts on your own. If you do, I would love to hear what they are!
Looking for Connections in Your Data? Correlation Techniques Come to the Rescue!
By: Ramya Vidiyala
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Education, Technology, Data Science

Looking for Connections in Your Data? Correlation Techniques Come to the Rescue!

Correlation techniques in a nutshell

Machine Learning models are as good or as bad as the data you use. That’s why data scientists usually spend hours on pre-processing and cleansing the data. It is crucial to select only the features that could contribute most to the performance of the resulting model. Here feature engineering comes into the picture.

What is the correlation?

In simple terms, correlation is a measure of how strongly one feature related to another. For instance, height and weight can be positively correlated. And height and salary are not at all correlated.

Understanding the correlation between features helps in feature engineering by imputing missing values using another correlated feature or eliminating redundant features that are highly correlated.

In this article, we will be discussing various correlation techniques and their usefulness.

The following are the most widely used correlation techniques,

Covariance Pearson Correlation Coefficient Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient

Let us dive in!
Trucks
By: Erik Smith
Tags: Blackandwhitephotography, Trucks, Photography, Dutch, Black And White

pic by nearly drowned Erik

Trucks

fragments of Life on the Road #V

Wet. Soaking wet. It rained. ‘Cats and dogs’ they say. It got worse. ..Ah well- I had my scuba gear on standby…
Crypto vs. Fiat Currencies
Tags: Blockchain, Fiat, Crypto, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

The battle royale of money — Fiat (traditional government-backed currency) vs. Crypto (digital decentralized currency). Who will win? More importantly, can both co-exist or is there only room for one?

But first, a brief explanation: Fiat currency is the money we all know and love. We grew up on fiat. The dollars in your wallet are fiat currency.

Fiat currency is any currency backed by a government and/or central bank. This could be US dollars, euro, yen, British pounds, or any other government backed money. Fiat currency belongs to a country. And that country can have one currency, and one currency alone. In the US, it’s US dollars. The government decides when and how much money will be made each year and how much it costs.

Wait, money costs something? Yes, it’s called interest rates.

The government of any given country can print more money, destroy it, and make it more or less expensive to borrow. All this money flows through a country’s banking system, all of which is guaranteed by a country’s central bank. Any financial transaction using fiat ultimately goes through a centralized, government-regulated process.

But wait, there’s more — fiat currencies are inflationary. Remember years ago when you could by candy for a quarter (or maybe you’ve just heard of such wonders) and now that same candy costs a dollar or more? This is called inflation. Governments print more money, and the more money they print, the less valuable each dollar becomes. Most fiat currencies already have or will experience inflation at some point.

Enter bitcoin and blockchain. Bitcoin runs on blockchain technology. Bitcoin’s maximum quantity was coded into it’s creation. There can only be 21 million bitcoins. Bitcoin also isn’t controlled by any one group of people. Nor is it owned by a country. Bitcoin is completely decentralized. Also, having a fixed supply at 21 million coins makes bitcoin a deflationary currency. Theoretically, the purchasing power of your bitcoin should increase when demand for bitcoin increases.

Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies are different in almost every way than fiat currency.

Just because crypto and fiat are almost polar opposites doesn’t mean only one of them can exist. Crypto can exist alongside fiat currency. It can be a competitor, or an alternative to the monopoly, government-based fiat we use today. In fact, there might be times when it is easier to use one currency instead of another. The point is that there is now a viable alternative to traditional fiat currency. Yay!
Guaranteed Income for Economic Empowerment: A Q&A with Mayor Michael Tubbs
By: What Works Cities
Tags: Innovation, Guaranteed Income, Universal Basic Income, Poverty, Cities

Let’s shift to talk about how you’re making this happen. Can you talk about the coalition and relationship building you’ve done in Stockton that’s helped advance this work?

Coalition building is always important. We spent a year designing with our research partners, Economic Security Project, and with community members. We had an advisory group of community members, some who were supportive of the idea and some who were opposed. We did a full community engagement strategy that really engaged the community in designing and helped us decide who got the intervention, what the qualifications were, and helped us decide what to measure, as well as built community buy-in.

Once we piloted, we continued to engage stakeholders and the community. Also, the role of the Mayor is important in setting the tone and making the terms of engagement very clear, especially when you’re doing something a little bit different. There’s going to be backlash and that should be expected. But the Mayor can’t cower and can’t shy away. The Mayor should really lean in, particularly in this moment and say, “Look, we’re testing the idea. We know what doesn’t work — the economic insecurity we’re seeing in our city. Because of that, all options are on the table, and this is an idea we will test.” It really takes the Mayor to own it, and say, “We’re going to figure out what works on this issue.”

Mayor Michael Tubbs champions the value and importance of community engagement. Image courtesy of CNN Business.

I think the best thing for me was actually sitting in some of those community engagement sessions, and hearing from residents I had not met before about how they would use $500 and what it would mean for them. It gave me the courage and the energy to really champion this. People would say amazing things I had not thought of. You realize, “I’m not that smart. I can’t think for 300,000 people, but our residents will know how to use this money.”

I remember one woman telling me that $500 will really matter in the summer. She shared how her kids come back for the summer and she doesn’t tell them they’re straining her financially because she wants them home, but it’s a challenge. She has to buy more food or utilities go up, activities go up — and her income doesn’t. She always gets a little bit of anxiety during the summer because of that.

When I heard her story, I thought, how could we design a program that would meet this and the diverse needs of my constituents? That’s why the mayor sitting in and listening and truly engaging with the community is so important, even if you’re a mayor like me who comes from poverty.
To Be a Successful Creator, Ruin Your Idea Until It Works in the Real World
By: Loudt Darrow
Tags: Success, Entrepreneurship, Work, Innovation, Creativity

To Be a Successful Creator, Ruin Your Idea Until It Works in the Real World

Ideas that don’t lose their wings rarely take off.

Photo by Wilmer Martinez on Unsplash

The hype I felt when I heard the 3D printer had been invented was a mistake. But my brain couldn’t help himself from making a secular leap into a sci-fi future of boundless imagination.

“I can finally print a car and take it to work.”

How long until the hoverboards from Back to the Future 2 start mass production? I’m not a printer connoisseur — hell, I still don’t know how to cancel a print queue I set back in 2002 — but I want to push a button, render an Ironman suit, and sail the skies as AC/DC rocks in my helmet stereo.

3D printers turned to be — well, underwhelming. Imagine the number of awkward conversations the inventors had to have. “Sure, you can print your own car, but it would be the size of a Hot Wheel and you’d have to take it to work in a real car.”

I’m not saying he didn’t want to launch humanity into the Star Trek lifestyle as I expected him to do, but reality has a way of ruining ideas until they work.

This is, against all common sense, a good thing for the successful creator. Their real job, the job of inventors, designers, writers, painters, and the rest of the creative cast, is not imagining great ideas but having them make a difference in our lives.

Good ideas are not enough; we’ve got to make them work. Maybe in some distant future, we’ll 3D print our custom flying suits and make the stuff of our lucid dreams come true. Until then, ideas will rarely take off unless we cut their wings.
Expanded version of Seven actionable marketing trends
By: Helge Tennø
Tags: Augmented Reality, Activity Centered Design, Advertising, Ia, Blog

After publishing the slideshow Seven actionable marketing trends about a month ago, I asked if there was an interest in an expanded version of the slideshow. Elaborating on each trend and including some references and quotes from the insights behind them.

I would like to state that the goal of the document is not to work as a coherent presentation, but rather using the slideshare format to comprise and present a collection of valuable ideas that I felt was/is relevant in regards to each trend.

I hope you find the presentation useful, and that there are stuff/slides in there that proves to be inspirational.

As always, if there are any questions or comments, please contact me and I will do my best to reply.

Also, find most of the individual slides available under CC license on flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/everythingnewisdangerous

Find the presentation below, or here:

View more documents from Helge Tennø.
I Reject 5-Year Plans
By: Megan Boley
Tags: Careers, Life Lessons, Self, Life

I Reject 5-Year Plans

Plans are good but not these ones.

Photo by Daniele Franchi on Unsplash

Every day, I write a daily short prompt in a five-year journal. That way, every year on the same date, I can look back at my responses from previous years and see how I’ve changed.

Today, the prompt was, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

I hate this question.

I started the journal in 2017. So the me of three years ago thought I’d be happily in a relationship, working as my own boss or as the boss of other people, and living in a foreign country by the start of 2022.

That’s a little over a year away — and let me tell you, I’m nowhere near that objective.

In fact, I’m 0-for-3.

No boyfriend, not a boss, and still living in the same city I’ve lived in for six years.

And you know what? That’s just fine with me.
How I Write 20,000 Words in a Single Day
By: Tim Denning
Tags: Writing, Creativity, Life, Blogging, Social Media

How I Write 20,000 Words in a Single Day

And you can too

Photo by Karthikeya GS on Unsplash

The word count at the end of yesterday was 20,000 words. People are often amazed by how a writer can publish 10 full-length blog posts a week.

They say, “I can’t do that.” Well, I couldn’t either back in 2014.

You have to build up to 20,000 words.

Volume of writing is a game anyone can play. Volume brings clarity. Because quality writing is subjective, so what’s the point of guessing?

Writing 20,000 words in a single day has many benefits:

You have a lot of content for social media.

You get better at spelling and grammar.

The emails and slide decks you write at work get better.

You get addicted to writing.

You change lives.

You inspire others with your story.

There are endless benefits to writing 20,000 words in a single day that you’ll probably never discover until you do it. Here’s another one: Three of the most important people in my life met me thanks to my writing on LinkedIn.

Writing can build relationships.

This is how to write 20,000 words in a single day.
TNDL: “WHAT YESHUA MEANT BY SAYING THAT, HIS DISCIPLES AND OTHERS, MUST RECEIVE THE SINGLE EYE TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THE REAL SPIRITUAL WORLD?”
By: J. K. Woods
Tags: Christianity, Religion, Love, Spirituality, God

In the King James Version of the English Bible the text reads:

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

The World English Bible translates the passage as:

“The lamp of the body is the eye.If therefore your eye is sound, yourwhole body will be full of light.

For a collection of other versions see here: Matthew 6:22

Translation[edit]

The Greek: λυχνος, lychnos, is generally translated as “lamp”, but in the King James Version, the Geneva Bible and Calvin’s Commentary it was translated as “light”.[1]

Interpretation[edit]

By lamp, this verse may mean that the eye is a metaphorical window by which light enters the body. Alternatively the lamp might not be meant as a source of light, but rather as a guide through darkness, just as the eye is a guide through life. In this case the verse is almost certainly speaking of a spiritual eye rather than the literal organ. Harold Fowler suggests that in this verse eye is a metaphor for the conscience and moral vision of the individual, both of which serve as guiding lights.[2]

What is meant by the word ἁπλοῡς, haplous, translated as single in the KJV and sound in the WEB, is uncertain. This term can mean generous,[citation needed] and its opposite in the next verse clearly means miserly.[citation needed] This verse can thus mean one is “full of light” if one’s eye, i.e. conscience, is generous. This wording links this verse to the idea of the evil eye, which was often termed the “ungenerous eye”. By this interpretation the good spiritual eye is one that is generous and can perceive God, and thus allows illumination into the entire body. However, in the Septuagint, haplous is used to translate the Hebrew term for “singleness of purpose”.[citation needed] If the author of Matthew was using this translation this verse would be extolling the eye that is solely focused on one thing, i.e. God. This second interpretation links closely with the neighbouring sections where Jesus is warning his followers not to deviate from their focus on God by concerning themselves with worldly things. Both Fowler and R. T. France speculate that this ambiguity is deliberate, and that the verse is speaking about both generosity and single mindedness, as both ideas are discussed in this part of Jesus’ sermon.[3]

According to David Hill, some scholars believe that the metaphor of being filled with light is a reference to the soul, but he notes that this was not a standard metaphor for the soul in Jewish literature of the period.[4]

References

^ Calvin’s Commentaries on Matthew 6,accessed 15 December 2016

^ Fowler, Harold. The Gospel of Matthew: Volume One. Joplin: College Press, 1968

^ France, R.T. The Gospel According to Matthew: an Introduction and Commentary, Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1985.

^ Hill, David. The Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981

Matthew 6:22 — Wikipedia
This Is The Most Important Question For This New Decade
By: Lucien Lecarme
Tags: Blockchain, Spirituality, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Decentralization

The turn of a decade is a moment to look back and to look forward.

When we look back, the things that stood out in 2010–2019 are the rise of social media, populism and some tech companies becoming more powerful than complete nation-states.

Of course, there is much more. Apple iPhone 4 was released in 2010 and Steve Jobs died a year later. Its the century of whistleblowers like Snowden and Christopher Wylie bringing Cambridge Analytica to its knees in the biggest data-hack of the century. We will never know if this practice of targeted dark ads has brought Donald Trump to power in 2016.

It is the century of increasing attention for sustainability targets with the Paris Climate accord as the climax of 174 states wishing for the earth to cool down.

This short summary doesn’t do justice to all those other world-changing events that took place in the last 10 years. It brings forward, however, these 3 keywords that coloured our past decade; Technology, Data and Sustainability.

I forgot one very important thing. Something that started in 2008, but had increasingly impact, attention and adoption in 2010–2019. This is the movement of decentralization coming forth of the invention of Blockchain technology in 2008. This birthed also the internet of Money; Bitcoin.

When we slowly open the curtain of the next decade, we can already see the 4th part of the Industrial Revolution setting itself in position on our world stage. This revolution will blur the boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. Key players will be Artificial Intelligence, The Internet of Things, Quantum Computing, Genetic Engineering and Robotics.

But here is the spoiler alert for this new decade; New Technology comes with a promise and a price.

The promise of the internet that would connect us all in a freeflow of boundless information era has become a corporate playground with gatekeepers and censorship that has left billions of people still excluded from the miracle of a worldwide open web. Just to name a big promise and an even bigger price.

The core question for the next decade is this; Will the 4th Industrial revolution lead to a world where humans will serve technology, or technology will serve humans and will clear the path to make us even better humans?

For the answer, we need to look into the promise of the movement of decentralization. Since it offers the opportunity to keep the power of all those innovations and gifts of technology in the hands of the people.

When technology falls in the hands of mal-intend nation states or leaders who’s only goal is world domination, we might find ourselves rather quickly in a James Bond movie where the villain with a white cat can destroy or control the world with the switch of a button.

The elimination of these black mirror alike scenarios will depend on the success of the movement of decentralization.

Here are the 3 main promises of the movement of decentralization for the coming decade.
What is Litecoin?
By: Meredith Davis
Tags: Cryptocurrency Investment, Crypto, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Litecoin

As Bitcoin grew, it became increasingly expensive to turn a profit mining coins, cutting small and medium-time miners out of the picture. This led to the beginnings of centralization, since only those with a large wad of cash able to buy the equipment and pay the electric bill could continue mining. Identifying the problem and seeking a solution, in 2011 Google engineer Charlie Lee created a system that uses a more memory-intensive mining algorithm rather than a processing power system to increase accessibility.

The result is a system that is capable of handling higher transaction volume than Bitcoin with near-zero cost to users and faster confirmation times, even with increasing confirmation requirements for bigger ticket items. An additional and interesting benefit is that while Bitcoin’s creator (or creators) remain anonymous and have since disappeared, Lee remains an active member of the crypto community, able to advocate for future innovations and guide the technological process.
2020 Census Will Ask If Responders Are U.S. Citizens
Tags: 2020, News, Trump Administration, Census

On Monday night, in agreement with the Trump administration, the Commerce Department announced the inclusion of a citizenship question in the 2020 census.

The decision was made by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross who is determined that it will generate “accurate census block level data” needed in knowing the population percentage eligible to vote. The question inclusion had been requested by the Justice Department in December insisting that it was needed in the Decennial Census to help enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act; its purpose is the prevention of voting rights violation.

Because of this decision, however, several states, including California and New York, intended to sue the Trump administration. California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra has already made plans to sue the Trump administration. Experts and change critics of the Census Bureau have said that the addition of the citizenship question will cause immigrants, who are residing in the country illegally, not to respond. And faulty data would then be collected for government agencies and groups outside that need the census results, because of the grave undercount of the population due to a percentages refusal to answer the specific question. Also, an unfair redistricting to the benefit of Republicans.

According to a statement released Monday by Vanita Gupta, Chief Executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and a Deputy Attorney General in the Obama administration, “Adding this question will result in a bad census — deeply flawed population data that will skew public and private sector decisions to ensure equal representation, allocate government resources and anticipate economic growth opportunities — for the next 10 years”.

A final list of the 2020 census questions is required of the Census Bureau to be submitted to Congress by March end.
Send Your Long-Distance Lover An Envelope Of The Night Sky
By: Dee Fabbricatore
Tags: Poetry, Romance, Life, Love, Relationships

Send Your Long-Distance Lover An Envelope Of The Night Sky

It’s a miniature planetarium in the palm of your hand.

Anyone who’s been in a long-distance relationship knows you need to get real creative to cope with the distance.

And chances are, you’ve even resorted to saying something real cheesy, like, “No matter how far apart we are, we’re still under the same starry sky.”

But how cool would it be to send your beau an entire galaxy? That’s exactly what Hoshi-zora’s star-filled envelopes do. Here’s how it works: As light enters the envelope, the constellations light up and just like that, the night sky is in the palm of your hands.
Do you want to radically change your life?
By: Reggie James
Tags: Agile, Leadership, Transformation, Coaching, Lean Startup

Do you want to radically change your life?

Listening is a critical skill for growth and leadership, but how many of us actually listen well?

A consultant friend of mine recently told me a story about telling his managing director that he was struggling in his current role and that it wasn’t working out. The managing director had just met with a new client who happened to love my friend, and as a result, wanted to do more business with their firm. Rather than listening to my friend’s struggles regarding the role, his managing director praised him told him that this engagement could become a good account for him.

Whose interest did this managing director have in mind? Do you think he actually heard what my friend was saying?

In his book, The Lost Art of Listening, Michael P. Nichols states, “When people respond to us in terms of their own preferences rather than turning to ours, it feels like they don’t really know us, don’t really get who we are, and aren’t really listening.”

It goes without saying that most of us aren’t exceptional listeners. Frequent misunderstandings aren’t just the subject of marital strife, but also the cause of costly errors from boardrooms to call centres across the world.

Why is listening so difficult?

The answer isn’t as nefarious as some might suggest. The problem stems from the fact that our brains think much faster than we talk. The average American speaks at 125 words per minute. At this pace, we’re effectively able to listen and have room to think about other things in the spare time. Issues with listening arise because most of us haven’t been taught what to do with that spare time.

Some of us commonly use this time for “multitasking” such as cleaning a room or typing an e-mail. Other times, the listener may be rehearsing their response while the other person is talking. Frequently, the listener gets an idea and pipes in to change the subject.

Michael P. Nichols writes, “To listen well, it’s necessary to let go of what’s on your mind long enough to hear what’s on the other person’s.”

Here are some tips for substantially improving your listening skills:

Listen to what others have to say first. Listen to what they are saying and give them a fair chance. Refrain from thinking of a counterpoint.

If a team member or colleague appears distant, ask them what’s going on and show them that you’re actually willing to listen. Listen without disagreeing.

Put your emotions aside. Becoming emotional will distort the speaker’s real message in your mind.

Listening is a critical skill for everyone, not just for leaders. Effective listening can reduce anxiety and loneliness experienced by the speaker. When we listen well, we build deeper relationships by allowing the speaker to feel known and understood.

Do you want to improve your relationships and radically change your life? Grab a copy of The Lost Art of Listening.
Islam Conversion Issue
By: Virtual Mosque
Tags: Abuse, Islam, Conversion

Yuvan Shankar Raja quits Twitter after being abused by his followers. The music director’s post on his decision to follow Islam has not gone well with a section of his fans. Their negative feedback has made the Illayaraaja’s son to bid goodbye to the social networking site. He had announced last Sunday (February 9) that he was following the Islam on Twitter. His statement had surprised many. While it did not have an impact on the majority of his fans, a section of followers opposed his decision ‘to convert to the Islam religion’. His faith and belief were questioned and was abused by them.

People accuse Islam of being an intolerant religion. They point to the poor treatment of those who convert to other religions from Islam and, rightly, deplore it. But, as the article below shows, when converts to Islam are subjected to harassment and threats there is usually silence and even agreement with those that are being intolerant and threatening.

Original Source: OneIndia
3 Everyday Habits That Will Stop People From Being Envious of Your Accomplishments
By: Azim Rushdi
Tags: Self Improvement, Mental Health, Productivity, Habits, Psychology

3 Everyday Habits That Will Stop People From Being Envious of Your Accomplishments

The secret to enhancing an admirable personality

Photo by Josh Rocklage on Unsplash

Don’t you find it hard not to flex? You’ve put in so many hours into your work until you eventually achieve your goals. So you posted that photo of award or that gathering with your boss on your social media accounts just to express to others of how grateful you feel and how happy you are that your hard work has paid off.

But to your surprise, you often get comments that are of toxic nature — overt flattery, fake praises, mean comments etc. Those reactions are from envy. Envy occurs when people not only disliked what you have but wished that it would be stripped away from you.

We all need to flex sometimes, it’s in our nature to want to be appreciated. The following habits will allow you to flex safely with minimal risk of envy attack from anyone you know.
Deep learning basics — data augmentation
By: Sophia Yang
Tags: Pytorch, Python, Data Science, Deep Learning

Why do we need data augmentation?

Not enough data . Some models might require lots of data that we do not currently have. We can use data augmentation to create a lot more data for us.

. Some models might require lots of data that we do not currently have. We can use data augmentation to create a lot more data for us. Overfitting . We may want to capture more invariances in our data if the model overfits.

. We may want to capture more invariances in our data if the model overfits. Improve model performance. Avoiding overfitting subsequently improves our model performance. Also if you get stuck in your model training and not see any performance improvement after a while, data augmentation might help you get unstuck.

How do we do data augmentation?

Our goal is to get randomly augmented images for training. There are many different ways to augment your image. Pytorch documentation listed lots of functions. Here are some good ones to use:

Random horizontal flip torchvision.transforms.RandomHorizontalFlip : Horizontally flip the image randomly.

Random resize crop torchvision.transforms.RandomResizedCrop : Randomly crop the image.

Random rotation torchvision.transforms.RandomRotation : Randomly rotate the image with a range of angles to select from.

Randomly change the brightness, contrast, and saturation of an image torchvision.transforms.ColorJitter

The augmentations I listed above all have a random component in it. It is very important to randomly augment your images so that we get to see different images/data for every iteration. Also, note that we can combine all these different data augmentations together using torchvision.transforms.Compose .

Actually, we need to use torchvision.transforms.Compose for single data augmentation also, since we need to convert the images to tensor before we load the data to our model ( e.g., torchvision.transforms.Compose(

[torchvision.transforms.RandomHorizontalFlip(),torchvision.transforms.ToTensor()]) ).

And here is an example of combined data augmentations: torchvision.transforms.Compose([torchvision.transforms.RandomHorizontalFlip(), torchvision.transforms.RandomResizedCrop((200,200)), torchvision.transforms.ColorJitter(brightness=0.9, contrast=1, saturation=0.7, hue=0), torchvision.transforms.ToTensor()]) .

Below is the code (using PyTorch) for generating the image at the top of this article. If you want to use other libraries to do data augmentation, this article summaries various methods and implementations using a couple of different libraries.

Hope you enjoy it! Thanks!

Reference:
Polished
By: J.D. Harms
Tags: Personality, Poetry, Musing, Poem, Image

Polished

A Poem

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

Like a well-used doorknob, like the one that has to sit in the snow and gets scoured clean every turn, and you look up, across your mirrored glance, past the hair with all its imperfections at the moment

and the curse of the polish that you must work while you keep it up; you practice your locution, greet your closet with a closed fist but open arms, then you take care, you will

not leave the world haphazard; breaking rhythms, scorching culture and then raising your own result, your own fantastic dialectic of superficiality; you rushed here, you rush nowhere, and simply exude yourself, exclaim without opening your mouth

ensuring productive lines, the gaze always calculated; here you push into the right distance from the table, from the cup, and hold all silences anathema except those you constructed

that are serving you and the exposition you were keeping up; the pretense, well, that’s where it gets hazy and every one is lost.
Open Call for #NewHarvest2020 Programming Suggestions
By: New Harvest
Tags: Lab Grown Meat, Cellular Agriculture, Cultured Meat, Cell Based Meat, Newharvest2020

Open Call for #NewHarvest2020 Programming Suggestions

Nominate a speaker or panel topic! Applications close Friday, March 13.

Every year, New Harvest hosts an event by and for the cellular agriculture community. This year, we’re introducing a theme…Elephant in the Room.

Our mission has always been to address the neglected needs of cell ag (hence why we support academic research). In keeping with that mission, we want New Harvest 2020 to provide a forum for neglected conversations that the community (that means you!) feels are important for our collective growth.

“Elephant in the room” refers to topics which, although difficult, must be discussed if cell ag is to progress as a field.

What topics need to be highlighted but are often sidelined or ignored? What dialogues, and between which individuals, ought to be facilitated?

…what is the elephant in the room? You tell us!
Axomamma
By: Eli Snow
Tags: Poetry, Mythology, Isolation, Potato, Couch Potato

Axomamma reincarnate

A cruel karmic joke

Her great spirit

Yoked and bound

Into my frail human form

Nobody warned me

Religions could cross like this

Scrambled in the minds of believers

What came first

Chicken or egg?

Belief or

Randy men with lightning eyes that sit on clouds?

A bootstrap paradox

For the ages

The potatoes in my pantry

Shoot runners when I walk by

Sensing the sunlight of my being

I sit and tuck into another bag

Of fries

The remnants of potato eyes

Look out on me with fervour

My power

An endless capacity

For the humble spud

Appetite on a supernatural scale

Zeus turns into a swan or a bull

To get his way

It’s a high-effort play

I’ll just sit here all day

And make short work of the potatoes

A goddess for these modern times

Believe in me

And watch me rise

Only to sit back down on the couch
[日本語]Ginco Bizdev Update,Nov 2018
By: The Ginco Team
Tags: Blockchain, Japanese, Wallet, Cryptocurrency, Startup

in Eudaimonia and Co