fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Sometimes I Resist The Urge To Write
By: Jill Reid
Tags: Life Lessons, Productivity, Self Improvement, Writing, Life

It’s a losing battle, and I rarely win.

Because writing is my master — and she has no patience.

My reluctance is usually centered on committing to a specific timeframe.

My rationale is simple: All that planning affects, well, everything.

And unless my mind, fingers, and the clock are willing, writing can easily become more like work than pleasure.

I think the problem stems from knowing that — no matter what the activity or responsibility— I need to schedule it. Not that I consider writing in the same league as cleaning the house, baking a batch of cookies, or trimming the hedges.

For me, putting words to virtual paper is a necessity — one I’m unable to hold off for very long.

I’ve made a few attempts to follow a disciplined daily routine to accommodate my writing — even to the point of making a steadfast commitment that it’s my one-and-only priority for the day.

On some days, it works really well. But on others, the self-imposed agendas of grooming, meal prep, laundry, exercise, correspondence, marketing, social media, and cleaning the cat box typically stomp all over my best intentions.

And after too many emails, phone messages, and dishes pile up, I’m left with a creativity-busting combination of frustration and irritating annoyance.

Yet, underlying these swirling mental dust-devils remains the constant urge to write. But my muse is an impervious imp that never let's go, despite my attempts to bargain with lame excuses, attempting to put my writing on pause.

And negotiations stall, once again.
A beautiful meme-y start
Tags: Relationships, Relationship Building, Parenting Advice, Parenting, Memes

Today’s Day 1 of this blog! Here’s a quick explanation of why I made it and what it’s supposed to be:

It’s going to be focused on relationship and parenting advice, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes irreverent, and always with a touch of meme-y goodness. I’m adding the memes because I think it will make it more fun to read. If they make it LESS fun to read, make sure you let me know in the comments section below :D

Regarding relationships, I’ve been in mine for about 11 years now, by the grace of God. I sort of stumbled into that longevity, not by a rock-solid foundation of common interests, but simply because I was willing to lose thousands of arguments every year, for 11 years straight. While this has left me a shattered shell of a human being, I’ve also learned a thing or two, and over time I’ll try to put some of it down in words. I’ll be sharing a lot of “what not to do” memes and fails too, like this one:

Regarding parenting, I have 1 elementary-school-aged son. When he found out I was going to use memes on a blog, he suggested that I use one that said “21”. So he will not be contributing to the meme selection. They’re not really appropriate for him anyways. But rest assured you’ll be getting quality parenting advice from the MemeDaddy Blog, like this gem:

So enjoy! If you have any ideas for topics or would like to contribute a post or a meme, email me! That’s all for now.

BONUS MEMES:
Poisson Distribution Explained — Intuition, Examples, and Derivation
By: Aerin Kim
Tags: Probability, Mathematics, Machine Learning, Data Science, Statistics

1. Why did Poisson invent Poisson Distribution?

To predict the # of events occurring in the future!

More formally, to predict the probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time.

If you’ve ever sold something, this “event” can be defined, for example, as a customer purchasing something from you (the moment of truth, not just browsing). It can be how many visitors you get on your website a day, how many clicks your ads get for the next month, how many phone calls you get during your shift, or even how many people will die from a fatal disease next year, etc.

Below is an example of how I’d use Poisson in real life.

Every week, on average, 17 people clap for my blog post. I’d like to predict the # of ppl who would clap next week because I get paid weekly by those numbers. What is the probability that exactly 20 people (or 10, 30, 50, etc.) will clap for the blog post next week?

2. For now, let’s assume we don’t know anything about the Poisson Distribution. Then how do we solve this problem?

One way to solve this would be to start with the number of reads. Each person who reads the blog has some probability that they will really like it and clap.

This is a classic job for the binomial distribution, since we are calculating the probability of the number of successful events (claps).

A binomial random variable is the number of successes x in n repeated trials. And we assume the probability of success p is constant over each trial.

However, here we are given only one piece of information — 17 ppl/week, which is a “rate” (the average # of successes per week, or the expected value of x). We don’t know anything about the clapping probability p, nor the number of blog visitors n.

Therefore, we need a little more information to tackle this problem. What more do we need to frame this probability as a binomial problem? We need two things: the probability of success (claps) p & the number of trials (visitors) n.

Let’s get them from the past data.
Silence fosters creativity
By: Brian E. Young
Tags: Creativity

Silence fosters creativity

Silence is more important than you think.

The study of silence first happened by accident. Researched compared silence at first as a baseline to other sounds. (As reported by Rebecca Bear for Lifehack.org.)

Physician Luciano Bernardi explored silence in his research on music. When inserting randomly stretches of silence, the pauses induced a relaxing effect. Even compared to even the most relaxing music. Observing sensory processing at the University of Oregon in 2010, Michael Wehr found that both sound and silence signal change to neurons. When sound or silence is sustained it’s viewed by the brain as inactive.

Taking space from connecting with others may help encourage creative thought. Meditation including silence benefits critical thinking as argued to the paper “Reflectivity, Creativity, and the Space for Silence”, by Jane Dawson of St Francis Xavier University:
1,000 Sexually Liberated People Have This in Common
Tags: Life Lessons, Science, Empowerment, Sex, Sexuality

What does it mean to feel at peace with sex?

Once a month I host an Erotic Writing Workshop for women and feminine people; and I hear this inquiry asked often.

We live in a society where shame is more normal than sexual liberation. As such, many people accept that guilt, shame, or pain will always be connected to their sex life. Actually, feeling liberated and healed in your sexuality is possible.

In a recent interview with sex scholar Dr. Emily Nagoski (you may have heard of her best-selling book Come As You Are or watched one of her three TED talks) she discusses a study where 1,000 people identified as sexually liberated.

After examining the research, Dr. Nagoski found one similarly among all the participants.

Each person had to relearn everything they thought they knew about gender, sex, and sexuality.

Relearn everything? That’s not overwhelming at all.

While you may or may not agree with the conclusion of this study, the results resonated with me. I’m queer woman who grew up in a Jewish and Catholic household. I was young when I learned that what I had been taught about love or sex was unreliable. The very fact that I existed proved that.

It was a long time ago when I decided to feel healthy and empowered as a sexual being. The route I decided to take mirrors Dr. Nagoski’s, I studied human sexuality at Berkeley and became a sexuality scholar myself.

Sexual healing and empowerment take time and work. There isn’t an overnight fix. However, there are three simple steps anyone can use right now to begin their journey towards sexual liberation.
This Pill Could Replace Insulin Injections— Five Best Ideas of the Day: February 8, 2019
By: Aspen Institute
Tags: Insulin, Science, The Five Best, Education, Kindness

A nonpartisan forum for values-based leadership and the exchange of ideas.

Follow
Window of heart
By: Simran Kankas
Tags: Philosophy, Self, Mindfulness, Poetry, Haiku

More from Simran Kankas Follow

Author of ‘Beyond and Within’ — https://amz.run/3ZHY; My bond with the universe since the childhood helped me find the purpose of my life.
Health Questions Part 4: Set Up a Challenge
By: Michaela Grek
Tags: Health, Coaching, Goals, Self Improvement, Life

Last day!

I hope you’re feeling this momentum the same way I am! It’s time to seal this challenge and create an action plan.

In case you haven’t done the first three days, check them right down below.

What’s this all about?

A gentle reminder.

This is a series of 4 health discussions taking you on a journey like no other. You’ll discover more about yourself and grow your clarity around your own personal health. All in the comfort of your home.

Before we go ahead and ask the questions below I want you to record your answers. I’m assuming most of you would be happy to write down your thoughts and answers as we’re all writers here on Medium. However, a simple web-cam or phone recording will do, too. The reason I suggest video recording as well is that it’ll force you to speak your mind and answer these questions as if you were having a conversation with someone. Perhaps a coach.

So open your Google Docs or Web-cam and answer these questions:

What’s the very next best step you’re going to take?

How are you going to challenge yourself?

How can I help you complete your challenge?

Don’t overthink these or filter your answers. And for the love of health don’t Google these either. It’s your interpretation and your journey.

Don’t forget to have fun!
Welcoming Mark Goad to the OMERS Ventures team!
By: Omers Ventures
Tags: Startup, Ovtalentnews

We are very excited to announce that Mark Goad has joined the OMERS Ventures investment team.

Mark is responsible for researching and executing on investment opportunities in growth-oriented, disruptive technology companies. Prior to joining OMERS Ventures, Mark was the Head of Strategy and Head of Sales at SAP.iO, the venture and incubation group of SAP — the world’s largest enterprise software company.

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I’m originally from Scarborough, born and raised in the Toronto area. I play hockey and soccer once a week and am training for my first full marathon at the end of this year.

You recently moved back to Toronto from the Valley. What made you come home?

It is an incredible time to live in the Bay area. San Francisco is not only one of the leading global economic and technology hubs, but is emerging as a cultural force as well. While it is easy to lament some of the area’s (pricier) growing pains, I had a great experience living in SF. I came home to be closer to family (this becomes important) and make my impact on the Canadian startup scene. The opportunity to join the incredible team at OMERS seemed like the perfect place to make this happen.

What are your main investment areas of interest right now? Any particular sectors that excite you?!

Coming from SAP, my entire world was enterprise software applications. I have spent my career witnessing the efficiencies unlocked by replacing outdated legacy applications with modern SaaS solutions that are supercharged with ML & DL.

On a personal basis, I get excited about the tremendous opportunities for digitally native, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands and application cryptocurrencies that build vibrant virtual communities by requiring customers to become shareholders.

What was the last book you read?

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore, a must read for pre- and seed founders hunting for product market fit or secondary market expansion. The methodology focuses on finding (sometimes small) groups of users with an acute pain that your product can solve better than anyone else; then expanding to larger, adjacent markets with similar needs.

Finish this sentence! The future will be…

Bigger, better, more Canadian!

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn and Twitter!
A Blue Beginning
By: Trivikram Prasad
Tags: Flash Fiction, Writing Prompts, Microfiction, Weekly Prompts, Fiction

August 14th Prompt — Theme: Build & Destroy

Photo by Dewang Gupta on Unsplash

Well-etched creases appeared on his face. The eyes spoke of incredible intellect as his face lit up with a smile.

“You seek a path. First, vanquish the evil that has built a tower in you.”

“Only then can you create a pure world.”

I was a god but listened.
Software is hard, part II
By: Leo Soto
Tags: Software Development

…as already pointed out.

I know I don’t really need too much evidence, but here we have some numbers about failure rate on IT projects. They can be handy someday ;-)

It summarizes different studies, including some embarrassing bad numbers:

51 % (of the surveyed people) viewed their ERP implementation as unsuccessful

31.1% of projects will be canceled before they ever get completed. Further results indicate 52.7% of projects will cost over 189% of their original estimates

only 16.2% for software projects that are completed on-time and on-budget

Yeah, I’ve not given the details about how these numbers were obtained. See the linked article, if you are intrigued.
¡Termina la competencia Brave New Memes! Premios y más.
Tags: Crypto, Twitter, Status, Decentralization, Memes

in Both Sides of the Table
Kiddie Academy of Langhorne to host ‘STEM Adventures’ event
By: Samantha Bambino
Tags: Children, Learning, Projects, STEM, Education

Activities on Jan. 26 combine elements of science, technology, engineering and math in interactive projects that foster learning through play

The Times

Source: Kiddie Academy

Kiddie Academy of Langhorne, 670 Woodbourne Road, Building 2, invites local families to share in fun, educational and age-appropriate activities at an indoor STEM Adventures event on Saturday, Jan. 26 at 10 a.m. Activities are based on two themes that combine elements of science, technology, engineering and math in interactive projects that foster learning through play.

Out of this World — making moon sand, creating craters, lunar volcanoes, using force to move rockets, making mini constellations and shooting stars, communication in space and mission control

Fun with Machines — vibrobot scribble machine, marble run, wheel and axle construction, cardboard tube derby, pulley and levers

Kiddie Academy wants local families to see all the ways in which its Life Essentials curriculum taps into children’s natural sense of wonder and discovery as they explore the laws that govern the world around them. The event also aims to provide parents with ideas on how to bring STEM education into the home.

STEM education in early childhood provides opportunities for building the next generation of scientists, engineers, mathematicians and critical thinkers.

Visit kiddieacademy.com/events/stem-adventures/ or contact Kelly Lebotesis at 215–750–5512 or langhorne@kiddieacademy.net for more information or to register.
MoBee — Synergy of Blockchain And Telecom Market
By: Alex Tishkov
Tags: ICO, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Altcoins, Mobile

A company is aiming to create an international mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) using its own cryptocurrency for payments.

Unlike other mobile virtual operators whose service is based on reselling traffic we found revolutionary solution appropriate to all telecom market counterparts.

MoBee — Synergy of Blockchain And Telecom Market

MoBee ecosystem is based on three main components: MoBee virtual operator, NetWorx platform and DiStream moneybox application. Their interaction is built on unique model.

Mobile providers engage experts to operate and maintain infrastructure and reckon by traffic.

Traffic is redirected to MoBee subscribers and paid off by MBE tokens using DiStream moneybox application.

MoBee operator is sending MBE tokens to experts from NetWorx.

MoBee is:

The highest quality pure mobile communication and no annoying advertising on the network; A limited offer with a price level 30% lower than current prices; Workplaces for high-level specialists in the telecommunications industry

MoBee cite multiple ‘flaws’ in similar virtual operator schemes — namely, the lack of flexibility in price plans for customers, lack of opportunity for collaboration with other companies, and geographical constraints- and say that their solution is unique, allowing them to be in a business position to hold high margins whilst offering low price services…

https://cointelegraph.com/press-releases/mobee-synergy-of-blockchain-and-telecom-market
It Will Get Easier
By: Cortney Clift
Tags: Change, Pandemic, Hedonic Adaptation, Transitions, Life

For the most part, hedonic adaptation is a passive and automatic process — a psyche-saving system that happens all on its own in the background of the brain. How quickly we adapt depends on a few key factors.

“In the positive domain, to slow down hedonic adaptation, you want variety, surprise, and novelty,” says Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. In the negative domain, avoiding those same three factors — variety, surprise, and novelty — is what will help to speed up the adaptation process.

“During the first week of the pandemic, there was so much happening. We just could not adapt,” Lyubomirsky says. The country was being inundated with surprising, new information while business and social guidelines changed at a head-spinning pace. But as the weeks went on, Lyubomirsky began to hear from people that quarantine was beginning to feel easier. “My hypothesis is that it’s due to adaptation kicking in,” she says. “When things stop changing so quickly, we’re able to start getting used to it.”

It’s the people who focus mainly on why a change happened who tend to be the slowest to adapt.

That said, the climb back up to a happiness baseline is slower when you’re recovering from a negative life change than when you’re coming down from a positive one. “It’s normal to experience a spike in negative emotions in the first week or two. After that, you start to normalize,” Tasler says. Even if you begin to feel a slight improvement in those first couple of weeks, it takes somewhere between four to eight weeks for hedonic adaptation to really kick in. “Then, over the next two to 16 weeks, you will start to return back to normal. By three to six months most people tend to be back to their baseline happiness,” he says.

Of course, this timeline varies widely depending on both the individual’s circumstance and how they respond to it. One group is generally the slowest to adapt, Tasler says: the people who focus mainly on why a change happened.

“We don’t know why this pandemic happened,” he says. “So a much more productive way to get through it is to ask, ‘What can I do to pursue meaning out of this situation? What can I do to be of service to the people around me and become stronger as a result of this?’”

These are the people using their 3D printers and sewing machines to make masks and personal protective equipment for health care workers. It’s people like DJ D-Nice who’s spinning records and boosting morale every day for hundreds of thousands of people on Instagram Live. It’s the volunteers delivering groceries to at-risk communities and the people buying breakfast for first responders.
The Whistle Blows
By: Moshe Forman
Tags: Resistance Poetry, Society, Poetry, History, War

Across muddy fields, the whistle blows,

calling men to the mill, withered by hunger and toil,

shuffling along the rural town’s shabby streets,

the nations claws pulled by nutrient’s lack.

Working men whose lifeblood ebbed,

in darkened workshops under smoggy skies.

Across muddy fields, the whistle blows,

calling fighting men of England, their bayonets to fix,

firm muscles to gird on the African veldt.

The morsels on their plate shall England’s worldly portion secure.

Nourished to disperse Dutchmen from the black man's abode,

enslaving those who, by their blackness, they are destined to rule.

Across muddy fields, the whistle blows,

calling men to the scrum, shoving, grasping the ball.

On the rugby field, the prowess of England’s gentry fails,

crushed by colonial rivals, England’s game is lost,

the vigour of its elite manhood decayed, casting doubt;

upon the sports fields of Eton, will England's wars be lost?

Across muddy fields, the whistle blows,

calling men “over the top” from a Ypres trench,

bodies, well-nourished, yet no better fare,

as the shrapnel shreds their muscled limbs,

healthy lungs ripped by the poison gas,

never again to savour the bounty of Empire’s fertile fields.
SIMDAQ will be the first user of the market making service LiquidWave
Tags: Trading, Trading System, Blockchain, Wavesplatform, Smq

SIMDAQ will be the first user of the market making service LiquidWave SIMDAQ Follow Mar 19, 2018 · 1 min read

Dear friends! We are happy to announce that SIMDAQ will be the first user of the market making service LiquidWave from Waves Platform. A final setup of the system in close cooperation of the teams is going now.

The big idea of ​​this project is to create a liquid market for new tokens as an element of an efficient ecosystem for ICO and the growth of blockchain startups. LiquidWave — guaranteed liquidity for cryptotokens.

We are one of the first in the Waves Lab and now with great interest we are participating in the next launch in the Waves ecosystem. This step is important for our tokenholders who believe in our project. We are preparing a lot of announcements for you this spring. And LiquidWave is a great start to this series of news. Stay tuned!
Local SEO
Tags: SEO, Expertise, Digital Marketing

Local SEO should be at the forefront of all conversations when it comes to operations, marketing, digital presence, and overall existence.

There are many factors that play into Search Engine Optimization and is a service that takes a lot of work, analysis and understanding of all the factors that play into it. SEO is not a $299 a month package or just putting up some pages on your website. SEO is invasive and data driven that takes people, not a widget, to put your best effort forward. Knowing where to start to understand or even what to look at is the hardest part.

We start with NAP and it doesn’t involve sleeping. NAP stands for Name Address Phone. By simply missing an apostrophe on one website versus Avenue spelled out or abbreviated to AVE makes a world of difference in the realm of local SEO. There are citation services out there, and many agencies and companies offer them as well, to update all your listings from one location. This is a vital aspect to customers being able to find you when they are looking. Pay attention to the details, because they matter. Having capital letters, abbreviations, etc. all matter in how you’re being ranked. Visit here to run a scan to see how you are listed across citations.

It’s always a shock to see how many errors there are and missing citations all together. Citations are also referred to as local listings, business listings, and can be found on any website, app or presence that lists out your name address and phone numbers for customers to be able to reach you. You think you spend all this time and work with all these companies that everything should be covered, but the internet is not slowing down anytime soon. Lots of newer sites are grabbing information from other sites so there is a potential with one wrong piece of information to be affecting multiple websites if not more.

We are offering a discounted price to anyone signing up this month for listings management. Contact us today and see how we can help!
Resize & Crop Image with GD2 Lib.
Tags: PHP, Cool Stuff

/*Begin - Resize and Crop image with GD2*/

function exportimg($source, $target, $width, $height, $quality,$resize,$center){

$ext = strtolower(pathinfo($source, PATHINFO_EXTENSION));

list($width_orig, $height_orig) = getimagesize($source); if($center==1){///Crop centre

$image_p = imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height);

$width_temp=$width;

$height_temp=$height; if($width_orig/$height_orig>$width/$height){

$width = $width_orig*$height/$height_orig;

$x_pos = -($width-$width_temp)/2;

$y_pos = 0;

}else{

$height = $height_orig*$width/$width_orig;

$y_pos = -($height-$height_temp)/2;

$x_pos = 0;

} }else{///Just resize

if($resize == 0){}///Resize to exact new width&height if($resize == 1){///Resize to these max width&height

if($width_orig<$width && $height_orig<$height){

$width = $width_orig;

$height = $height_orig;

}else{

if($width_orig/$height_orig>$width/$height){

$height = $width*$height_orig/$width_orig;

}else{

$width = $height*$width_orig/$height_orig;

}

}

} if($resize == 2){if($width_orig>$width) $height = $height_orig*$width/$width_orig; else {$width = $width_orig;$height = $height_orig;}}///Dynamic Height if($resize == 3){if($height_orig>$height) $width = $width_orig*$height/$height_orig; else {$width = $width_orig;$height = $height_orig;}}///Dynamic Width $image_p = imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height);// } if($ext == "jpg" || $ext == "jpeg") $image = imagecreatefromjpeg($source);

else if($ext == "png"){imagealphablending($image_p, false);imagesavealpha($image_p, true);$image = imagecreatefrompng($source);}//convert transparent if($center==1) imagecopyresampled($image_p, $image, $x_pos, $y_pos, 0, 0, $width, $height, $width_orig, $height_orig);

else imagecopyresampled($image_p, $image, 0, 0, 0, 0, $width, $height, $width_orig, $height_orig); if($ext == "jpg" || $ext == "jpeg") imagejpeg($image_p, $target, $quality);

if($ext == "png") imagepng($image_p, $target, 9); }

/*End - Resize and Crop image with GD2*/ exportimg("original.jpg" , "new.jpg" , 400 , 300 , 80 , 0 , 1);//resize and crop to 400x300



OOP version is coming soon.
Hauntingly Beautiful: The Dead Lakes in Gulf County, Florida
By: Stephanie Arsenault
Tags: Tasty Travels, Gulf County, Nature, Florida, Dead Lakes

Hello dear friends.

I’ve missed you; have you missed me? Not so much? That’s okay, just lie to me. Entertain me. Pretend that you’ve missed me so horribly that you just can’t bare it. Okay, that might be a little much; but come on. It’s been a while.

In fact, it’s pretty much been a whole season. But I know you haven’t actually missed me; summertime, after all, is made for having fun outdoors. For soaking up all of the sunshine, sitting around campfires, and drinking cold beer on hot days. It’s for camping with friends, lying under the stars, and mostly surviving on food that is cooked on a grill or over a fire.

So if you haven’t missed me, I don’t blame you. It just means that you’ve been busy enjoying summer, and that makes me happy.

That said, I don’t know where summer went. Seriously.

I didn’t cook anything over an open fire, I did NOT go camping… hell, I didn’t even get a sunburn! Not that that’s a bad thing. I mean, it’s good to stay safe in the sun, but I feel like not getting a single sunburn says that I simply didn’t spend enough time outside. I didn’t even have to wash grass stains out of my clothes, or clean tree sap off of my hands. What has the world come to?

I have five days left until autumn. I better get working on my summer, eh?

In all honesty, it’s been quite the busy summer {busy with non-summer fun related things}. Perhaps instead of longing to enjoy those last few days of sunshine, I should embrace fall and look forward to those crisp, cool, autumn days.

That, or I could just spend my time day dreaming about sunny skies and clear blue water; sandy beaches and creamy grits; colourful seashells and beautiful birds…

Yeah, that sounds a little more likely.

Enter: the Dead Lakes in Gulf County, Florida.

The lakes, located in Wewahitchka {known simply as “Wewa” to the locals. Say it with me now: “Weeeeeeee-wahhhhh”}, are like something out of a fairy tale.

White Tulepo trees {remember when I went to the Tulepo Honey farm?}grow along the banks of the lakes, while long-ago cut tree trunks peek out of the dark water. The water was quite high when I visited, making for a slightly less dramatic scene, but it was still unlike anything I’d ever seen.

Now, I am determined to visit the lakes during the fall or winter: when the water is low, when the sky is dark, and the fog rolls in, creating a haunting environment that my camera and I can spend hours with.

As you can see, however, this place is stunning, regardless of the time of year. There are magnolia, bald cypress, and longleaf pine trees lining the edge of the water. There is soft, hanging moss that blows gently in the wind, and alligators slyly slinking around underwater. I couldn’t even cook this place up in my imagination; it’s somewhere I long to visit again soon, somewhere I hope to visit often.

Plan to be in the Gulf County area? Get in touch with the fantastic folks at Off the Map Expeditions. They’ll take you around the Dead Lakes, and give you a nice history and environmental science lesson while they’re at it.
“What The Kanye Controversy Can Teach Us About Black Voters”
By: Jess Brooks
Tags: Kanye West, Race, Politics

“What White and and three other researchers found in a recent study is that social pressure from other black people is how this Democratic norm gets policed. They found that the expectations around this norm were so powerful that simply having a black questioner ask a black respondent about their voting preferences made that respondent more likely to say they were voting for a Democratic candidate.

Chryl Laird, one of the study’s authors, said this is how everyone votes. We like to think of our voting choices as purely rational, but we take cues from the people around us, especially when we don’t know much about a candidate or an issue. Laird said social influence and pressure partly explain why most white evangelical voters in Alabama supported Senate candidate Roy Moore last fall, even after he was accused of sexual misconduct involving minors…

Kanye has cast himself as an iconoclast, brave enough to flout prevailing expectations for black people. But it makes sense to ask how much his current ideological trajectory owes to his own changing personal arithmetic around social sanction and social rewards. He is not in Chicago anymore. And Kanye, ever the solipsist, could just be looking for affirmation from the people in his current social universe who can give it to him. (That math is different for John Legend and Chance, who are more closely tied to black communities through their activism.)”
Micro Business: Verim Arttırıcılar
By: Hüseyin Mert
Tags: Girişim, Girişimcilik, Micro Startups

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Viewing Chainlink Transactions on the Ropsten Testnet
By: Thomas Hodges
Tags: Smart Contracts, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Decentralization

To begin, you can watch the transactions of the deployed LINK token contract on Ropsten here. This link filters for the event topics of data requests. Click on a transaction and go to the Event Logs tab and you’ll notice some of the events contain a lot more data than the others. Those are the requests for data, and you can change the Hex drop-down to Text on the last few entries and see part of the payload.

See the URL and the path that makes up the payload of the request.

You can also use a CBOR decoder to view the full payload in plain text:

We use CBOR to encode requests for data.

For example, here is a transaction of one of my tests. First, you can see that the beginning of the Input Data, 0x620cae68 , is the function selector of requestEthereumPrice(string) when you hash it with Keccak-256. Then, if you convert the input data to UTF8, you’ll see that I used “USD” for my input parameter.

USD is the input parameter used.

Going to the Event Logs tab of that transaction, you can again see the requesting payload, and the address of the oracle contract that I used, here. On the oracle contract, you’ll see the transaction that my node created to fulfill the request here, and again, you can convert the Input Data to UTF8 to see the value that was given.

696.64 is the value given to the oracle contract.

Additionally, you can go to the Event Logs tab, and directly obtain the hex value sent to the contract:

Topics[2] contains the requested value.

Once you enter the value of the last topic (Topics[2]) into a hex-to-string converter, you can see the value:

The requesting contract wanted bytes returned.

If you would like to deploy contracts or run your own Chainlink node on Ropsten, check out the examples on our Github. You can now create your own contracts to utilize Chainlink on Ropsten. Feel free to ask us questions on Gitter!
Medium for nonprofits, explained
By: Alex Field
Tags: Medium, Public Relations, Nonprofit

By now you’ve heard of Medium. Maybe you read how Melinda Gates stays impatiently optimistic, met the bad-ass scientists who also happen to be women, or couldn’t resist a click on “7 things I did to reboot my life.”

You may have even created an account after seeing another nonprofit’s story on Twitter. And when dipping in from an email digest, maybe you noticed the big-format, window-like photos and surprisingly high-quality writing that seems to be the norm. Me, I’ll never forget how a practical and compelling story convinced me to write my representatives about gun control for the first time.

I’ve been using Medium personally and I’m blown away by the inspiring ideas that are shared each day — in stark contrast to the no-brain share-drivel that occupies our feeds. I’ve also helped my nonprofit clients use Medium effectively over the last couple years, so I wanted to share some guidance if you’re thinking about jumping in. Because I believe that now, more than ever, is the right moment to get started.

[Note: If you’re very new to Medium, this explainer from the team at Buffer is a must-read.]

Let’s get this out of the way first: Why should my nonprofit join *another* social network?

I get it. Google+ still hurts. And, it takes precious staff capacity and internal political capital to convince an organization to expand its online footprint. You should never launch into a new presence without careful consideration.

So, let me ask a few questions about the way you currently create and post content for your nonprofit:

Is your nonprofit’s blog easy to find on your website? Are the posts you work so hard to create getting the level of attention you want? What’s the reading experience like? Is the text the right size? Does it look great on mobile? Are the photographs you’ve collected from your programs given space they deserve? Do you have in-depth analytics for your content, like what percentage of visitors actually read the full piece? Will your biggest supporters get a mobile push notification when you add a post? Or just an email… or nothing? Are you reaching audiences beyond those core supporters? Is anyone — you, your board, your partners, or your field at large — really excited about the posts you’re creating each day/week/month?

If you’re like most nonprofits, you probably shook your head at a few of these. I have some very predictable great news: Medium is awesome at all five. So if you’re slowly nodding that this Medium thing might be worth exploring further, let’s dive in.
SCI Daily Crypto Digest: Tight Range
By: Jervis C. Tinimbang
Tags: Fintech, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Philippines, Blockchain

May 3, 2018

Image from Coindesk

Bitcoin (BTC) continues to trade within a tight range, consolidating its gains, and may be preparing for a big move. BTC’s next big move is more likely to be going higher, as the previous trend has been an upward move. The broader cryptocurrency market is still steadily rising, increasing total market cap to $435 billion.

Support level is $8,800 while resistance levels are at $9,200 and $9,800.

*BTCPHP: 496,860 / 459,890

*ETHUSD: $692.76

*USDPHP: 51.873

*BTC market cap: $157B

*Crypto market cap: $435B

Image from coin360.io

News:

*CNBC reports that automakers BMW, Renault, Ford, and General Motors are part of a working group, called the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI), looking to bring blockchain technology to cars. The group has identified several use cases which span the entire mobility services value chain such as, digital identity and history, car and ride sharing, autonomous machine payments, and location in space and time.

*S&P Dow Jones Indices CEO Alex Matturri has acknowledged that they have received requests from customers to build cryptocurrency indexes. Matturri has rejected the idea for the time being, saying that it might be used to manipulate markets or may be easily manipulated. That being said, the CEO also acknowledged the potential and the demand of cryptocurrencies which keeps him from fully dismissing the idea of creating a crypto index.

*The Wall Street Journal reports that Telegram is cancelling a planned sale to public as it had already collected $1.7 billion from its two rounds of private sales, citing a source familiar with the matter.

SCI | buybitcoin.ph | Bitbit | Keza | Rebit
Wikileaks belgelerinde ilginç iddia: “Gül ve Erdoğan Aileleri akraba olacak”
By: Doğu Eroğlu
Tags: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Haber, Wikileaks, Abdullah Gül

in Both Sides of the Table
“The stone goblin stood speechless in shock, could the kids be right in saying that he no longer…
By: Kyle Freeman
Tags: Fiction, Cool, Weird, Webcomics, Art

in Both Sides of the Table
“You must be bold, brave, and courageous and find a way… to get in the way.”
By: Jada Gomez
Tags: Racism, Quotes, John Lewis, Civil Rights Movement

More from Momentum Follow

Momentum is a blog that captures and reflects the moment we find ourselves in, one where rampant anti-Black racism is leading to violence, trauma, protest, reflection, sorrow, and more. Momentum doesn’t look away when the news cycle shifts.
3 Steps to Help You Escape the “Rat-Race”
By: José Lourenço
Tags: Success, Freedom, Money, Investing, Life

1. Understand What’s Keeping You Trapped

There are many reasons that might be keeping you stuck in the Rat Race.

The most common ones are:

Fear Work

At the end of the day, they’re all related with the one thing we all need, Money, but we’re going to take a deeper look at each one of them.

Number one: Fear

Fear usually comes when we don’t understand something. It’s a natural reaction humans have towards the unknown.

When you have a nice and secure job, your biggest fear is losing that job because you know that once that job is gone, the cash-flow to pay your expenses is also gone.

Ever since we’re little kids, we’re told to find a good job and work harder than our coworkers so that we can have a stable life. The problem with this is that no matter how good you are or how hard you work, you can still lose that job in a blink of an eye. The era we’re living in showed us that.

You need to ask yourself: Are you afraid of being an investor or a business owner or are you afraid of just being an employee? Both of these fears are valid, but only one will lead you to escape the Rat Race.

Number two: Work

Vince Lombardi once said: “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

In this world nothing is given. If you truly want to achieve success, you’re going to have to work for it.

Don’t think for a second that creating passive income is something easy. In fact, at the beginning you’ll probably have to work even harder than if you’re just an employee. That’s why I said at the beginning that escaping the Rat Race isn’t something that will happen overnight.

It will require time and effort and you’ll need to overcome the fear of working really hard. You’re going to make sacrifices that at the moment will seem the hardest thing you’ll ever did, but in the long run it’ll be totally worth it.
Beauty so Brittle
Tags: Life Lessons, One Line, Nature, Beauty, Poem

Beauty so Brittle

Chalkboard One Line Poem Prompt: “Brittle”

Photo by Sarah Comeau on Unsplash

Everyone told her — Nothing lasts forever!

Beauty so brittle, nature made so frail

A treasure of today, failing to flower tomorrow

The charm that lasts until the cusp of sorrow!
June Earnings Newsletter
By: Medium Formatting
Tags: Blogging Guide, Medium Partner Program, Newsletter, Medium, Writing Tips

June Earnings Newsletter

Blogging Guide Monthly Newsletter Volume 12 — Published July 10, 2020

Hello everyone!

This is the 12th monthly newsletter from our Medium publication, Blogging Guide.

It crazy to think that this newsletter and its data collection features have been running for an entire year! Thank you for reading and for your support!

This newsletter is intended to help Medium writers by providing up-to-date Medium writer earning data, useful Medium guides with the latest tips and tricks, and a selection of articles (both from myself and other Medium Writers).

Also, be sure to check out our Facebook group, Medium Writing!

This group was created so that Medium writers could share their articles and discuss making money as a writer on Medium. This group is run by Medium Blogging Guide, Casey Botticello, and Linda Williams.

For more Medium writing tips and strategies to monetize your online writing, subscribe to Blogging Guide!

In addition to insightful subscriber-only posts, you will receive access to several of my custom digital products ($250+ value), for free, and gain access to my private Slack channel for bloggers!

Now, onto the interesting stuff!

Medium Partner Program Monthly Earnings Data

I have been keeping track of Medium Partner Program monthly earnings data, through a post that is updated monthly as a resource to writers.

This article is updated monthly and can be found here:

Here are some other stats Medium included on their Partner Program as of June 2020:
Due Time
Tags: Life Lessons, Personal Growth, Mental Health, This Happened To Me, Reflections

I want to write the words I wish were written for me. For those dark moments I kept to myself and insisted on standing alone — even though I never really was.

Follow
Reading Less
By: J.D. Harms
Tags: Poetry, Story, Reading, Image

If you told me

I shouldn’t have these imagined auguries

in my lap

or spindled hands twitching

writing in the scarlet air

as the case may be

I confess

I did nothing as you said

but the book swallowed me

and spit out

some version of acrimonious misery

of me of sketchy atmospheres

nothing that I can recognize
Getting Stuck in an Adventure Game Before The Internet Existed Sucked
By: Hogan Torah
Tags: Culture, Adventure Games, Puzzle, Gaming, Game Design

GIVE WAX FRUIT TO TENTACLE

Getting Stuck in an Adventure Game Before The Internet Existed Sucked

How the hell was I supposed to know to do that?

Maybe it’s one of the thousand things in this room but probably not. Willy Beamish By Sierra No-Longer-Online

Kids today have no idea what it was like to be stuck in a game before the internet existed. It was maddening.

Adventure games were the worst. You had items in your inventory and after you tried every item you realize you must have missed something. So you had to back track and after many hours of searching every inch of every room you had new things to try that didn’t work.

Technically Manic Mansion took me 20 years to finish but I wasn’t actively playing it. I had no idea what I was doing wrong. (Twist the bottom of the staircase knob.)

The most memorable time I was stuck was in Metal Gear Solid for the PS1 with Psycho Mantis.
RamuDroid
Tags: Ble, Wifi, Swach Bharat Abhiyan, Ramudorid, IoT

A low cost, sturdy and neat Robot to clean roads and outdoors for a better and cleaner India. It uses 3 rotating brushes to lift up small objects like plastic cups, wrappers, leaves, poly bags and all litter alike, collects them and tray and proceeds to garbage segregation setup.

The droid also provides real-time camera stream and detects obstruction to re-route itself. It can communicates over GSM ,wifi and BLE . It can also be remote navigated via browsers or android.

Working :

Litter comes between rotating brushes Litter is picked by brushes and pushed upwards Brushes push it towards the tray

Does not use vacuum or suction technology like indoor cleaning autonomous robots , uses brushes instead which are more suited to outdoors

Is inspired by Swach Bharat Abhiyaan in India, it's an effort to contribute to society and welfare and well-being through technology. Following are some diagrams for the current and the previous versions, along with major delta points.

Cost

10 thousand per Robot .

Minimal cost for frame assembly consisting of tray, motors, wheels and battery. Primarily the costly components are the accessories for remote navigation and media streaming such as GPS and camera.

RamuDroid v1.0

Basic setup assembly of tray with remote controlled navigation over Rpi 2 and switch to turn on or off the clening brushes,

Design

Remote Streaming and movement via motors switched manually. Communication over Ethernet.

Dashboard /console Screen

Monitor the movement and remote control of movement and cleaning brushes. Communicate over HTTP REST APIs.

RamuDroid v3.0

Cleaning garbage on public roads and outdoors through robot . Remote navigation and control of control through web page and camera live streaming .

v3 web console

RamuDroid v6

Clean roads , pick up litter ( wrappers, leaves, cups , plastics bits etc ) . communicated over BLE ,Wifi and 3G n/w . Auto buzzer when meet with an obstruction in way . Flash Lights. Enhanced Design.

Web Dashboard:

Enhancements over old console to provide sensor data and analytics of humidity, temperature, weight on tray etc.

GPS location tracking with pins to identify garbage detection or problem areas .

Pin Diagram associated with activities

Github : https://github.com/altanai/m2mcommunication

Slideshare :

Twitter : https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ramudroid
Top 5 best-read blogs in Angular Weekly edition #80
By: Jexia S Editorial Team
Tags: Angular, Typescript, JavaScript, Programming, Angularjs

medium.com

9 minutes — Angular has been around for some time now. But a lot of us still struggle with scaling our applications to match the demands of the requirements. By Aphinya Dechalert.

www.syncfusion.com

3 minutes — This blog post explains what observables are and how they are superior than promises using the Syncfusion Charts control. By Syncfusion.

www.mokkapps.de

10 minutes — I will provide you all the necessary information you need to know about change detection. I will explain the mechanics by using a demo project I built for this blog post. By Mokkapps (Michael Hoffmann).

blog.bitsrc.io

15 minutes — An overview of microfrontend patterns: advantages, drawbacks and implementation. By Florian Rappl.

blog.angularindepth.com

6 minutes — Deep dive into NgRx Store. How I tried to understand it by getting to the very essentials. By Evgeny Fedorenko.

About Angular Weekly

Angular Weekly is a mailing consisting of the latest and finest blogs and tools curated for Angular professionals. I’m your curator Andrey, working from Kharkiv to help building Jexia, a Dutch cloud-based platform providing hosting and several serverless back-end functions for front-end or full-stack developers.

Do you have a question, feedback or you want to share a noteworthy blog for Angular pros? Reach out to me via andrey at angular-weekly.com.