fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Celer Network 71st Weekly Project Progress Report (1/13–1/17)
By: Celer Network
Tags: Blockchain, Celernetwork, Celerweekly

Dear Community,

Happy Weekend! 🙌 Here is our 71st weekly project progress report on our community building and technology development! Meanwhile, you can also follow our Twitter account for more updates from Celer Network.

Past Events:

1. Celer Network 2019 Reflection

Read our freshly published 2019 Reflection here. 2019 was a growth year for Celer Network. In 2020, we hope to see increasingly faster growth and positive return from the seeds we planted in 2019.

2. CelerX Interview 2.0

In Celer Interview 2.0, we invited our design lead — Alex to share more behind the scenes stories of Celer. What’s CelerX and what’s the design philosophy behind it? Which CelerX game is Alex’s current favorite? 🐕 Check the interview for all the answers.

3. Solitaire & Gem Cash released in CelerX

Solitaire fans 📢We’ve just added the classic solitaire game into CelerX! Now you can play your favorite card game in CelerX and compete with players around the world. Better yet, with real money prizes!

Match three or more gems to get gold coin rain and high score! The newest addition “Gem Cash” is an addictive and easy game to play.

Join CelerX tournaments here: https://go.onelink.me/N9wI/1stT

4. Partnership with Poseidon Network

We’re excited to announce Celer Network’s upcoming strategic partnership with decentralized content acceleration network -Poseidon. The partnership will allow Celer to help Poseidon Network to improve its profit-distribution mechanism.

Technology:

Mobile:

Finalizing the gamified app on iOS

Finished gamified app onboarding flow for Android

Designed reward phase-2 APIs

Backend:

Continue design and begin implementation of new CelerX reward features

Successfully tested SGN functionalities and UI features on Rinkeby testnet

OSP reliability and operational improvements

Community:

Twitter: 18,896

Telegram: 23,561

Wechat: 9,766

Thank you for reading our 71st weekly report! Please join our telegram group to stay in touch and ask us questions!! We will see you next week! 🙌

Download CelerX now!

Follow Celer Network:
Lay2 Project Awarded Ecosystem Grant
By: Nervos Network
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Community Update, Dapps

Mar 12 · 3 min read

Nervos is still in its infancy as a public chain. Many of the grant projects that have joined our ecosystem so far are actively building the infrastructure to facilitate growth and developer on-boarding. Today we welcome Lay2, our 6th grant recipient!

Lay2

Goal: Make CKB available to everyone

The Nervos cell model and the RISC-V based VM of CKB provide unprecedented flexibility and extensibility, forging new paths for Nervos.

The Lay2 project team is designing an original product— pw-sdk.

Different from ordinary sdks, dApps developed with pw-sdk (called pw-dapps) can directly run in wallets of Bitcoin, Ethereum, EOS, Tron, etc. No specific development is required on the wallet side to support pw-dapps. In fact, they don’t even need to support the CKB chain, e.g. MetaMask can run pw-dapps now.

Essentially, any blockchain address is already a valid CKB address, and there is no need to create a CKB wallet before using pw-dapps. Both user experience and security of assets of pw-dapps will be consistent with native dApps on those blockchains.

This is a tremendous boost for the Nervos ecosystem; pw-sdk will enable a large number of mature crypto infrastructures and their users to experience CKB. It highlights the unique capabilities, value and potential of CKB as a new generation of encrypted economic infrastructure.

Read more about Lay2’s project in their RFC on Nervos Talk
Maker’s Not So Stable Governance
By: Daily Bit
Tags: Blockchain, Venture Capital, Cryptocurrency News, Fintech, Bitcoin News

*Originally posted in The Daily Bit.

Yesterday, venture capital firm a16z purchased 6% of the total Maker (MKR) stablecoin supply for $15 million. It’s the latest investment disclosed by the fund since their sizable commitment to the Dfinity Foundation in late August. And with an initial runway of $300 million, more will follow.

On that note, the focus shouldn’t be on why a16z invested in Maker — it’s arguably one of the more promising algorithmic stablecoin projects in the market — but rather how the investment was made.

Meltem Demirors kicked off the conversation, explaining why she believes the sale is a display of poor governance and project management by Maker:

(If you haven’t read the full thread, carve out some time. As us millennials say, it is fire.)

Here’s the condensed argument: Maker’s team made the deal behind closed doors. Given that Maker token holders were expected to have a say in major decisions… that’s problematic.

And the deal is notable. Crunching the numbers, $15m at 6% implies a $250m valuation — a ~20% discount compared to Maker’s current mkt cap of ~$311m.

Which reminds us… market cap is a crummy valuation metric. Watch a couple minutes of Nic Carter’s talk at Honeybadger 2018 or rifle through his slide deckto see what we’re talking about.

Relatively speaking, discounts are nothing new

Venture capital firms and token discounts go together like white on rice. Sure, many kickbacks are outright criminal (advisors have reportedly received discounts of at least 900% for some projects), though there’s no denying that VCs bring a slew of resources to the table.

Not to mention that a16z’s investment is, by all definitions, a smart business play. Passing Meltem the mic once more, a16z is, in a sense, buying distressed companies on the cheap.

With so many ICOs strapped for cash due to 1) poor treasury management and 2) the falling price of ETH, who knows? Similar purchases could become a habitual thing for VCs.

Circling back — what about the voting?

The general consensus is that Maker holders should have been informed of the purchase. However, that’s one of the challenges of capital raises.

Consider this: If token holders were sent a memo explaining that a16z was obtaining discounted tokens for provisioning operating capital… *some* investors might’ve (accurately) viewed that as a distress signal, triggering a selloff and potentially exacerbating Maker’s fundraising needs.

So, while settling the situation in private goes against the tenets of Maker’s governance system, the foundation could’ve been looking out for the financial well being of the company. The question is whether or not that decision was rightfully theirs to make.
Configurable Alerts and New API Endpoint for Pre-Transfer Checks
By: Crystal Blockchain
Tags: Bitfury, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Analytics, Crystal Blockchain, Blockchain Analytics

In the latest update to the Crystal Blockchain platform, version 2.13, we have updated our alert settings and developed a new API endpoint for withdrawal transaction transfers

Configurable upgrade to our alert settings

We have upgraded the transfer alert settings on the Crystal platform to be more customizable!

This update allows our users to set different thresholds for transfer amounts received and/or sent for each type of entity, as well as by flow direction — helping you manage your alerts in a much more structured way.

Alerts can be divided into counterparty risk score rules and/ or risky amount rules.

The risky amount rules now allow users to create their own alerts for particular entity types.

Users can now set up the direction of the transfer and they can also add minimum and maximum risky amounts, as well as different grades of alerts based on different risk score thresholds.

These alerts will have two possible threat levels: medium and high (e.g. Medium Risk Score 50<75 and High Risk Score >75). The level of threat can be set in the alert rules settings menu.

New pre-transfer check API endpoint added

We have developed a new API endpoint for adding a transaction to the withdrawal transfer (if it has not been specified while creating the transfer.) Users can now check the transfer risk score of the withdrawal before making the transaction and later add the transaction hash.

This update makes withdrawal transfers all the more efficient for exchanges and their users. This endpoint will be described in the API reference and is free of charge for our API users.

See the Crystal Blockchain platform in action. Get a demo today
Private Cloud deployments & automated infrastructure provisioning
By: Nico Meisenzahl
Tags: Automation, Cloud, Kubernetes, DevOps, Infrastructure As Code

This week I attended DNUG 46 in Essen where I gave two talks.

In my first session “Automate your development and operation processes!” I talked about the pros of an automated infrastructure provisioning as well as how to start with it.

In my second talk “Build your own private Cloud environment” I talked about the needs and ecosystem which are needed to successfully build and run a private Cloud environment on-premises.
Now or Never Bounty Campaign from Beldex!
By: Beldex Exchange
Tags: ICO, Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Bounty Program, Blockchain

It’s the time to get your Beldex coins for the ICO, and the price is $0.23. However, that’s the usual way of getting hold of our privacy enabled coins. What’s the different way you ask?

Welcome to Beldex Bounty Program!

Earn ​coins​ by discussing about the Beldex project in our telegram group for at least seven consecutive calendar days. Participants who send spam messages/advertisements of other projects will be removed from the whole Bounty Program and group.

Rules

a. Raise/answer questions about Beldex

b. Your own opinions about the Beldex ecosystem and its related technologies

c. Constructive discussion on the Beldex token sale

Coins will be rewarded as per the Activity percentage, here are the numbers for your reference. Please note: Bad “flood ratio”( Spam Messaging) could disqualify you from the campaign.

Rewards are as follows:

If you are in top 3: 200 Coins

If you are ranked 4 to 10: 100 Coins

If you are ranked 11 to 20: 50 Coins

If you are ranked 21 to 50: 20 Coins

Combot will determine the winner based on the activities executed by members. And coins will be sent to the top 50 most active participants indulging in constructive promotions in the group. So join the telegram group and start earning BDX coins!

In care you wish to purchase coins in the traditional method then the ICO will last till August 15th 2018. The prices of one BDX right now is $0.23 and it’ll be $0.25 from August 1st.

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter |Telegram |Facebook
Equipos de trabajo remoto
By: Guvery Oficial
Tags: Discord, Digital Tools, Remote Working, Notion, Clickup

in In Fitness And In Health
Ambrosus: A New Type of Health Care Collaboration, Quality Assurance Provides New Value to Enterprises, DNA Tracers Meet Ambrosus Blockchain
Tags: Ambrosus News, Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Ambrosus, Blockchain

Welcome to our small bi-weekly update on $AMB! All the information about the current state of development and partnerships is accessible via their Progress reports: in the recent update, a project with DNA Tracers company was announced; they also work on a collaboration to completely reshape preventative healthcare as it is currently understood. Not only is this initiative groundbreaking within the healthcare industry, but it is also going to utilize the Ambrosus blockchain for securely storing and managing data — with the opportunity of incorporating Ambrosus IoT devices further down the line.

A formal announcement is expected soon. Moreover, they are currently in negotiations with a large US condiments company that produces vanilla extract for the multi-billion dollar food industry. The unique opportunity at hand refers to the fact that a potential solution would not only trace vanilla from Madagascar but also from Indonesia and Uganda as well. More amazing use-cases of Ambrosus can be found at the end of our update. Furthermore, Ambrosus hosted a meetup in Brussels on October 16th and attended the Hard Fork Summit — feel free to share photos with us if you participated in the events! The Ambrosus community is slightly growing in various social networks; enthusiasts actively participate in AMB life at Reddit and Telegram Chat.

Paradigm Fund is waiting for more progress of Ambrosus and ChipLess! Stay tuned!
What Does It Mean To Be Alive?
By: Tom Stevenson
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Life, Inspiration, Personal Development

Can you truly say that you are alive?

By definition, we are all alive. Every human that walks on this beautiful place we call home, that breaths in the air around us are alive.

Of course, being alive does not mean that one is alive. We all breath the same air, but not all of us cherish it in the same way. Not all of us wake to breathe in the crisp air in the early morning.

Here, we must make a distinction between being alive and living. Being alive means that you are living and breathing. Although it does not always mean that, people in comas are still alive, even though they are not in possession of their functions.

Living is something else entirely. To live is to make the most of your time on Earth. To push yourself to escape your comfort zone and challenge yourself to the things that scare you the most.

It was T. S. Eliot who said: “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

Pushing ourselves to the outer limits of our boundaries is when we find out who we truly are. To go through life without testing oneself is to waste your time on this Earth.

Human history is one of endeavour and struggle. We did not get to where we are today as a species by sitting around and watching the world pass us by. Our ancestors took life by the scruff of the neck and bent it to their will.

That is the reason we are here today. To waste this gift on idleness and comfort is a travesty.
Welcome to Our Dance
By: Louise Foerster
Tags: Depression, Poetry, Dance, Music, Joy

Welcome to Our Dance

Turn up the music and join us

Photo by Max Hofstetter on Unsplash

There’s too much to do.

Morning’s ambition urges

Better get going:

Essentials will not

Happen unless you do them.

Stories twist undone,

New friends need greeting,

Weeds promise mayhem.

(Old stuff’s waiting, too.)

I made the mistake

I will never regret:

I reread her piece

And I responded.

Then I kept answering her:

We’ve known that dark place,

Emerged stomping feet

To music that needs dancing.

Play it loud, Maeli.
View Constructors in Kotlin
By: David Perez
Tags: Android, Engineering

Photo by SevenStorm

An extremely common thing to do when working on an Android app is to create reusable views. Historically this involves creating anywhere from 2 to 4 different constructors that initialize things like custom view properties. This was mandatory because Java forced you to specify each constructor manually and while you can still do it this way, there is now a much simpler way using the @JvmOverloads annotation when defining the constructor in Kotlin. The annotation is documented as such.

Instructs the Kotlin compiler to generate overloads for this function that substitute default parameter values.

In other words, all the methods (constructors in this case) will be written for you using the default values in places that do not provide their own.

A basic view constructor.

The example above will cover most custom views: just add some generic default values for the optional parameters and you're done. There are instances where you can have issues with those generic values, though. Extending an EditText is one such instance where a specific style is needed in order to make sure it looks correct.

A view constructor with a specialized style.

You can see the second example is extremely close to the first with only 2 primary differences:

The constructor only takes three parameters; this is because the EditText does not have the fourth constructor available.

does not have the fourth constructor available. The default value for defStyleAttr is not 0. This is because the view internally has a style set and using 0 would replace it, causing the view to look incorrect. The value I have used is the same one the view would apply internally maintaining a consistent baseline for the view before applying all the customizations.

Knowing when to use a specialized style can be difficult, but you will usually know when you first see the view. You can also investigate the source code for the View you are extending to see what it is doing.
Three Different Things: February 25, 2020
By: Sean O'Brien
Tags: Machine Learning, FCC, Cloud Computing, Data Science, AI

Three Different Things: February 25, 2020

Ajit Pai, Key Business Questions, and a16z AI

DUBNER: So you have personally pinballed between government service and private practice for many years, including a stint at Verizon. Where should we expect to see Ajit Pai 10 years from now? Are you running a telecom? Are you running for president of the United States? What are you doing? PAI: Well, so just between us, since you promised me that no one else was listening — so about a year, two years ago, maybe, when I was in Los Angeles for some meetings, I had a chance to visit Judge Judy. And I told her, as I will tell you, that I think she presides over the highest court in the land, and should she ever choose to hang up her spurs, it would be an honor of a lifetime for me to don the robe. She humored me with a pleasant response. We’ll see if that pans out over the next decade. But other than that, and the Kansas City Chiefs losing their minds and signing a slow 47-year-old to be a wide receiver, I don’t really have any particular aspirations that I can share at this time.

In which public service and reality shows are indistinguishable.

2. Use Data to Answer Your Key Business Questions

This shortage of translators is already stark, but its severity increases exponentially when considered against the backdrop of the kinds of cross-functional teams described above. If activation-ready analytics is the goal, organizations need translators who are multilingual, not just bilingual.

This is one of the hardest aspects of achieving a truly data driven business transformation — the requirement of individuals with cross-domain knowledge. Identifying these individuals and empowering them should be one of your first steps.



3. Andreessen-Horowitz craps on “AI” startups from a great height

This is something which is true of pretty much all machine learning with heavy compute and data problems. The pricing structure of “cloud” bullshit is designed to extract maximum blood from people with heavy data or compute requirements. Cloud companies would prefer to sell the time on a piece of hardware to 5 or 10 customers. If you’re lucky enough to have a startup that runs on a few million rows worth of data and a GBM or Random Forest, it’s probably not true at all, but precious few startups are so lucky. Those who use the latest DL woo on the huge data sets they require will have huge compute bills unless they buy their own hardware. For reasons that make no sense to me, most of them don’t buy hardware.

Some much needed perspective. Here’s his TLDR summary from the article:
A Search for Holiness
By: Deborah Krulicki
Tags: Spirituality, Poetry, Love, Peace, Christmas

A Search for Holiness

A poem

Photo by Donnie Rosie on Unsplash

It is one day before the winter solstice

Four days before the day hailed as

Merry and bright, during a year when

I have no need of such distractions

I am hungering for the essence of holy

Not in the terms of nomenclature or

The chosen and unchosen

A deeper holy that I have been seeking

For some time

I rise each day to a series of questions

That I ask myself

Can I set aside the demands of this world

Am I able to still the mending of what is

Broken and cease doing what is not yet

Done

Do I have a place where I might go that is

Devoid of sound or completely filled

With the symphony of nature

In such a place have I learned to hear

The longing of my own soul and the intake

Of the breath of the divine

Have I mastered attentiveness to

The wild and glorious beauty that dances

For all who take the time to see

Have I found myself and the wildness

Of my own heart

Have I allowed myself to be surprised

In that way that brings light to my eyes

I looked out upon the clean surface

Of unbroken snow behind a windbreak

Formed by cedar, hemlock and birch trees

And said to my love, let’s go outside

The open space is hungry for snow angels

I love that you are always willing to

join in whatever adventure captures me

We both scrambled for hats, boots, mittens

I put on my bright red Canadian parka

That will keep me warm when the world

Outside is sub zero and off we went

We lay beside each other in the cold snow

Within our hollowed out snow angels

I turned to you just in time to see

A single snowflake light upon your face

I smiled and said, “Holy Christmas, my darling”

As we both found holiness

In our small protected cathedral

Behind the trees
MAGA Supportive Companies Underperform Those Leaning Democrat
By: David Leibowitz
Tags: Politics, Finance, Culture, Government, Business

So let’s say you support Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign and want to virtue vote with your bank account or 401k, even after he leaves office. You might draw up a list of the top companies that support GOP agendas, stack rank them, and purchase stock from the top hundred fifty companies on that roster.

But analyzing the possible candidates for your portfolio would take considerable effort. Instead, you could find an exchange traded fund (ETF) which does the scoring for you, and then you could just press the easy button by purchasing one share of the ETF instead of dozens of individual company stocks. You wouldn’t have to search for long, as an ETF exists that allows you to politically invest — with stock ticker symbol (you guessed it) MAGA.

Point Bridge Capital, based in Texas, launched the “GOP Stock Tracker ETF” (symbol: MAGA) on September 6, 2017. According to their fact sheet, the MAGA ETF comprises stocks in the S&P 500 that are “highly supportive of Republican candidates for federal office including President,” and Congress.

But you might want to think twice before forking over those retirement savings because the performance of MAGA has been abysmal when compared to most other leading financial indicators.

Point Bridge GOP Stock Tracker ETF (MAGA) compared to the S&P 500 (Point Bridge Annual Report, July 2020)

To qualify for the index, Point Bridge ranks the top 150 Republican/GOP stocks based upon the political contributions of the company PACs and their employees over the past two election periods using data from the Federal Election Commission. This allows investors to “make investment decisions based upon their Republican political beliefs,” according to Point Bridge in the fund description.

Of the 150 companies within the portfolio, the top MAGA Index Republican donors that the fund holds include Las Vegas Sands, AT&T, Charles Schwab, Honeywell, Home Depot, Berkshire Hathaway, and UPS. Absent from MAGA are the biggest tech gainers over the past several years.
How & Why You Should Brainstorm Original Headlines
By: Leigh Fisher
Tags: Creativity, Marketing, Leigh On Writing, SEO, Writing

Your Original Ideas Will Be Your Most Unique Pieces

They may not always be your most successful pieces, but it’s important to be well-rounded. That piece with a more clickbaity title may do better in the short term, but you want to show that you’re well rounded. You can write about your perspective in thoughtful, unique ways, but you can also write crowd-pleasers.

If you post nothing but “10 ways to do this” and “5 reasons you should do that,” eventually, your audience is going to get tired of your work. People who start following your work and read many of your stories are going to have their eyes peeled for the headlines that are uniquely yours and only yours.

We all need to write eye-catching headlines. We all need to get our content out there and share it in an easily digested way. There’s nothing wrong with writing pieces like that — they can be a great way to boost your web presence. But also mix it up with your most original thoughts on your topic.

For example, here’s a story I wrote recently. It’s looking at an aspect of poetry that isn’t spoken about quite as often as things like how to write emotional poetry.

This hasn’t been my most successful piece ever, but I absolutely loved writing it. I really enjoyed exploring this line of thought, and a few readers out there enjoyed it as well.

You’ve got to enjoy what you write and exploring unique thoughts will help you do that. You’ll appreciate yourself for it, and your readers will also enjoy the breath of fresh air.
Oven-Roasted Herb Lemon Chicken
By: Mitra Hooshmand
Tags: Healthy Recipes, Calories, Food, Healthy

To enable employers and employees to think differently about mental and physical wellbeing — at work and beyond.
Missed America (Haiku)
By: Tre L. Loadholt
Tags: Light Up Medium, Strength, Light Up The World, Writing, Peace

This piece is two-fold. It currently completes the Missed America Haiku Series, and it is also a response to The Scene & Heard for light/peace/empathy/solidarity/and stepping our humanity game up.

I affirm that I am light. Whenever there is darkness, I will shine.

Missed America Haiku Series

Part IX, Part VIII, Part VII, Part VI, Part V, Part IV, Part III, Part II, & Part I

One Million Flames Call
COVID-19 Update: Fisherman — Making Better Websites
By: Jeff Piltch
Tags: Small Business, On Demand, Startup, Food Delivery, Coronavirus

Here we will be revisiting Fisherman, a Boston-based company that is automatically generating complete restaurant websites for small businesses that don’t have a website or have a critically outdated one.

The Problem

Point-of-sale (pos) companies need a way to scale their online ordering solutions, but their small and medium business customers don’t have the time, ability, or money to set up ordering-enabled websites. Companies that don’t already have this set up are especially vulnerable amid the Coronavirus outbreak.

What The Company Does

Fishmerman’s software integrates with POS and other enterprise technology and automatically generates complete, live-updating websites for their customers.

The Market

There are 15 million SMBs in the U.S. with no website or a critically outdated one. Roughly 330,000 of them are in their target market of restaurants. SMBs, restaurants, and websites are traditionally high-CAC, competitive industries to play in, but Fisherman is able to keep its costs low while looking to scale to millions of businesses that need its solution.

What Fisherman Is Doing Amid Coronavirus

1. Automatically generating free websites for restaurants that need to transition from on-premise to off-premise.

2. Matching consumers to local restaurants that most need their takeout orders to stay open.

3. Partnered with One Fair Wage to collect donations for laid off restaurant service workers.

We love what Fisherman is doing to help and are proud to have profiled them in The Buzz. Connect with the Fisherman team.

Subscribe to The Buzz to get more startups and COVID-19 updates delivered directly to your inbox.
Astonishing GAN Applications
By: Tim Cvetko
Tags: Machine Learning, Generative Adversarial, Deep Learning, Aritificial Intelligence, Generator

Astonishing GAN Applications

The future of generative models

We have come a long way in creating generative adversarial networks, from a simple idea developed mainly by Ian Goodfellow to creating absolute shockers to the machine learning community. Without further ado, prepare to be amazed.

StyleGANs

StyleGANs have proposed not too far ago, and its main goal is to produce high-quality resolution images and a greater diversity of images in the output.

The coolest thing about StyleGANs is increased control over image features. This can be done either by adding features like shoes to a dog picture or mixing styles from two different generated images together.

CycleGAN

Now, this is the one that really gives me the chills. Its core is based on the idea of training two unpaired collections of images. Cycle consistency loss is applied, and so the generator learns to map the X onto the Y distribution of models. This can be applied from horses-to-zebras, converting CT to MRI scans, predicting the climate change surroundings of a given street/city, or transforming a satellite image into a street view. Crazy stuff! :)

Super Resolution GANs

Super-resolution GAN applies a deep network in combination with an adversary network to produce higher resolution images. Under the hood, an algorithm or a fancy trick called progressive algorithm produces a high-quality image.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Image blending

Photo by USGS on Unsplash

Photo editing

This method could be useful in Photoshop-like applications or more. It uses neural style transfer to generate new images.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Pix2Pix

Pix2Pix is an image-to-image translation generative adversarial model capable of transferring characteristics of one image to another.

Stark GANs (Text-to-Image GANs)

Imagine that you’re a painter or a developer for the sake of argument. Either way, you’re dealing with the wishes of the client. You can’t seem to figure out what he/she wants. He writes it on a piece of paper, and your intelligent GAN generates an image.

A model fitting the description. One might call it science fiction. It’s all now possible with Stark GANs.

Summary

There is still so much I haven’t covered in this article, from image synthesis, video segmentation, face synthesis, object detection, medical anomaly detection to video generation, face aging, and more. If you’re as excited about promoting and creating a new state of the art GANs, I suggest doing the GAN specialization on Coursera, reading the most original articles out there. You are very welcome to share feedback or get in touch with me on any machine learning topic.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-cvetko-32842a1a6/

Gmail: cvetko.tim@gmail.com

GitHub: https://github.com/timothy102

Happy experimenting, and see you the next time !!! :)
The 2020 election is tearing retirement communities apart.
By: Brendan Vaughan
Tags: Politics, Trump, Election 2020, Biden

The 2020 election is tearing retirement communities apart. So I was talking to a source we’ll call my “Mom” (not her real name), and she mentioned that the election-related tension within her North Carolina retirement community has reached a boiling point. Bipartisan dinner parties have become untenable; she was recently mocked for wearing a mask to Docktails. Trolling the Trumpkins in her midst, she and her Biden-supporting friends paid to have a Biden/Harris billboard installed along the nearest highway.

Hearing all this, I thought, “This seems like a great story… but do I really want to send a reporter to report on my Mom?” I don’t, and I’m glad I didn’t, because my old pal and colleague Alex French just published the exact same story in New York magazine, and it is a delight: “Not every Democrat in the Villages is content to go high when her Republican neighbors go low.”
Bittrex and Invest.com Band to Create an EU-Focused Crypto Exchange Platform
Tags: Blockchain, Crptocurrency, Investing, Bittrex

The new crypto exchange will give EU-based customers a robust and reliable platform by two top brands in the blockchain and finance industries.

The new crypto exchange will give EU-based customers a robust and reliable platform by two top brands in the blockchain and finance industries.

Bittrex, a premier U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange platform, announced a partnership with Invest.com, a leading Fintech brand, to launch a new digital trading platform targeting EU based investors.

According to the official announcement, the new digital trading platform will operate under Invest.com’s brand name and will boast a rare combination of Bittrex’s innovative trading platform technology, a selection of nearly 200 digital tokens, Invest.com’s knowledgeable team of experts in derivative trading, portfolio management and equity trading. Invest.com’s spokesperson and co-initiator of the partnership, Itai Avneri, said,

We are very excited to form this joint venture with Bittrex. Innovation and determination have led invest.com to take a strategic step forward into the new world of trading. The brand will focus solely on the emerging crypto industry.

Bittrex CEO Bill Shihara stated that both companies hope to enable customers to get wider access to the world’s leading innovative blockchain projects, besides further increasing the adoption of the revolutionary blockchain technology. He added that the establishment of the exchange platform is only the beginning as they plan to expand globally through new services and strategic partnerships. Shihara further said,

Blockchain technology has the potential to provide groundbreaking solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. That’s why every action we take is geared toward advancing this emerging technology, including launching this new trading platform with invest.com […] Today’s announcement is another exciting step forward for the industry and Bittrex as we continue expanding our global footprint through new services and strategic partnerships.

Besides its robust token listing process, Bittrex will also provide the exchange with its fast trade execution, reliable digital wallets and security applications. Invest.com will contribute a decade of experience in portfolio management, derivative trading and equity trading. The initial focus will be on customers in the EU but the platform will eventually spread to limited to qualified regions and countries, based on applicable international laws and restrictions.

Disclaimer: information contained herein is provided without considering your personal circumstances, therefore should not be construed as financial advice, investment recommendation or an offer of, or solicitation for, any transactions in cryptocurrencies.
Embed Interactive Plots in Your Slides with Plotly
By: Liana Mehrabyan
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Visualization, Data Science, Towards Data Science, Python

Effective communication is essential for us data scientists, and Plotly’s interactive plots are a great tool for that. But when it comes to presenting our work in a traditional slide-styled presentation, those plots are hard to integrate in our daily tools like PowerPoint or Google Slides. In this post, we’ll get to know the Spectacle editor — a presentation tool by Plotly that allows to embed your interactive plots and animations in your slides and level up your presentation.

But .pptx works just fine… why bother?

Photo by Leonardo Baldissara on Unsplash

Imagine you’ve covered what you thought was important for your presentation and then get follow-up questions from your audience that refer to minor details or a certain subgroup of your population. Now, you have to go back to your code to retrieve an answer or follow up on that later. Wouldn’t it be way easier to just slice up your plot and retrieve whatever needed right on spot? Check out, for example, this parallel coordinates plot that you can filter and highlight on any variable:

Courtesy of the author.

Or, this animated bar chart that you can interact with as you present:

Courtesy of the author.

What is needed to get started?

A Plotly chart studio account : you can easily sign up with your github, Google or Facebook accounts.

: you can easily sign up with your github, Google or Facebook accounts. Interactive Plotly plots : in my last post, I introduced Plotly’s interactive plots and animations. The code available in the post should be enough to generate a few plots to play with.

: in my last post, I introduced Plotly’s interactive plots and animations. The code available in the post should be enough to generate a few plots to play with. Finally, a quick download of the Spectacle editor.

Diving in

Once you’ve logged in, the interface is very familiar and intuitive to work with. Start up with your usual presentation prep routine:
The intruder
By: Greta Luna
Tags: Short Story, Cats, Pentina, Fiction, Microfiction

Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pixabay

Every morning, I would be woken up by my neighbour's cat who seemed to not have a liking to his original home. I tried locking every window and throwing things at him. I asked him not to come, until I could not fight him anymore. This was now his home.
G Suite E-mail as SMTP for Firebase Auth
By: Ömer Taban
Tags: Authentication, Firebase, Gmail, Smtp, G Suite For Business

Hey everyone,

You are developing an authentication system with Firebase but hey ! verification mails go to spam folder.

Ooops ! That doesnt give a good impression for your customers.

We can overcome this trouble by adding SMTP service to Firebase Authentication Settings.

Yes I am talking about this page fellows!

I hope you are using G Suite in your company or organization.

G Suite account’s price is 6$ per user/month. (It’s extremely cheap compared to smtp services). It gives us 2000 e-mail per day which is fair enough for a startup.

Let’s start by enabling 2-step verification and app passwords for g suite account first. This g suite account should be the one you wanna use for firebase authentication’s e-mails.

Go to this link and make sure that 2 step verification is enabled under “Signig to Google” section. Then go to “App Passwords” which located just below to the 2-step verification option under same section.

Select “Other (Cutom name)” for app then it will ask for which device you want to use this password, you can write whatever you would like, I prefer to label it as “firebase”.

Then we get our app password, we should note it in safe place. We will use it in next step!

Then, we should allow less secure apps to sign in with out app password. Otherwise Google will not allow Firebase to signin this account.

Just go to this link and check the radio button “Allow users to manage their access to less secure apps”

One more step remaining to switch back to firebase page which is unlocking the captcha.

Just navigate to this link and proceed by tapping on “Continue”.

All ready !

We can configure firebase authentication smtp settings with g-suite mail address.

In password section, you should use the app password we have created before.

Congrats, you should have registration mails inbox instead of spam folder after this.

Best Regards,

omert

patron-labs
CME Group Announced The Date Of Bitcoin Futures Launch
Tags: Startup, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Fintech, Blockchain

It’s the news of the week: the rate of Bitcoin continues its upswing. The currency is already traded for over $16.000. One of the reasons for the rapid rise was the decision of the Chicago exchange CME to launch the trading of futures for Bitcoin.

As the Chairman and CEO of CME Terry Duffy explained, this decision is aimed to “create a regulated offer that will give investors transparency and a possibility to shift risks”.

The start of trading is planned for the 18th of December.

How can that affect the cryptocurrency market? Evgeny Romanov, CFO of Zodiaq, makes a forecast:

“The launch of a derivative product is a logical development of any financial instrument with a growing capitalization. Speaking about its success in the long term would be too ambitious on this stage. However, if we speak about the short and middle term planning, this event may lead to the emergence of an instrument of objective assessment of the expectations of market players concerning the future price of Bitcoin. I believe that more derivative instruments will emerge for other top cryptocurrencies. We may even see an index of cryptocurrency funds quite soon. I think that the demand will grow because of the rising interest of institutional cryptoinvestors, as they will need hedging instruments for their positions. We at ZODIAQ are poring over the potential for the realization of the full framework of instruments of investment in cryptocurrency actives. That is why in the ZODIAQ Crypto-exchange and Trust Fund (ZEST) these instruments will undoubtedly take their decent place”.

More about blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies and Zodiaq project in particular at our official Facebook page or in our Telegram-chat!
5 Tips for Growing Your Styling Business (For Free)
Tags: Stylist, Marketing, Fashion, Growth, Style

Regardless of your passion for fashion, no business exists without customers. Here are some ways to grow your client-base.

1. Referrals and Word-of-Mouth

When clients love what you do, they tell their friends — but don’t expect it to happen automatically. Consider offering special perks or gifts to clients who help you spread the word.

2. Join Local Organizations

Attend events or meet-ups in your local area that appeal to your target demo. Giving potential clients an opportunity to learn about you and your business in a social atmosphere creates a way to “soft sell.” Close the deal by sending them a link to your site on Arthur.

3. Share Your Story on Instagram

Even if selfies aren’t your thing, Instagram is still a great way to attract clients. Whether you feature an outfit a day (#OOTD) or photos of you styling clients, your grams should remind people how talented you are. Share more looks by linking your Arthur site in your bio, and don’t forget hashtags!

4. Create Content

Keep up with clients and followers even when you’re not working one-on-one. If a blog is too much for you, start by creating a regular newsletter of some of your favorite pieces and relevant styling tips. We love Mailchimp.

5. Grow Your Digital Presence

Take advantage of any free space to post about your services. Some easy examples are Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, Thumbtack, and UpWork.

Are you a personal stylist or shopper? Sign up for Arthur to manage and grow your business online. Easily assemble and send digital lookbooks to clients and earn commissions on what they buy. See a sample lookbook here.
Drip 57: Holistic Change
By: Leanne Gordon
Tags: Self Improvement, Personal Growth, Making Change Happen, Change Your Life, Goals

Photo by Klara Kulikova on Unsplash

Is change like a big bowl of spaghetti?

There’s a lot going on when you’re trying to change something, whether it be at work or in life.

When we consider it at a high level, it’s a complete meal. The pasta, sauce and cheese, all in together. At closer inspection it is a tangled mess of individual elements.

How can we have any control over change when it is difficult to clearly see a single strand, where it starts and where it ends. If we pull on one piece, we are bound to end up with a fork full.

I wonder if we spend too much time trying to disentangle the components of change — trying too hard to find the single piece that will make change easier.

What might be the outcome if we treated change like that bowl of spaghetti, accepting that it is a meal best consumed tangled?
small town
By: Ashley Capes
Tags: Small Towns, Ghost Town, Poetry, Literally Literary, Australia

(image via pixabay, Pexels)

has an old Esso sign on a tin shed

and someone who used to sell honey

painted yellow on the next one,

at the corner a pink golf ball

towers over the coastline, ridges

like the moon.

in spring flowers grow

round the blue tractor

and dirt collects in the seat

marks on the footpath

don’t fade and the cemetery

never shrinks, only the town around it.

beyond the tennis courts

ghosts shed fingernails and

police sirens skip over fences;

no-one lives down there

where the surf plays dead

and moonlight walks on water.
Delta Summit Index is Live!
Tags: Delta Summit, Ethereum, Announcements, Bitcoin, Iconomi

With the end of Delta Summit 2018, Delta Summit Index (DSI), one of the world’s first crowdsourced crypto indexes, is live! DSI represents the collective knowledge and sentiment of the blockchain experts in attendance at Delta Summit. The final structure and description are as follows:

Delta Summit Index Prize

Anyone who holds Delta Summit Index two weeks after its creation will automatically be entered for a chance to win the value of their DSI holdings in BTC or ETH, up to $2,000! If you would like to participate in this contest, all you have to do is buy into DSI on the ICONOMI platform. If you don’t have an ICONOMI account yet, you can sign up here. The full terms and conditions for this prize drawing are available on our website.

We hope to see you next year at Delta Summit 2019!

Follow our official channels for more updates and news:

Facebook / Twitter / Reddit / Medium

Subscribe to our mailing list
Solidity Fundamentals. Reference Types
By: Ferdi Kurt
Tags: Ethereum, Defi, Programming, Blockchain, Smart Contracts

Arrays are group of elements of the same data type in which each element has a particular location called index. Size of arrays can be fixed or dynamic.

In Solidity, A[5] is always an array containing five elements of type A , even if A is itself an array. This is not the case in other languages such as C.
British Pathé releases 85,000 films on YouTube
By: Virtual Mosque
Tags: Ahmadiyya, Lahore, British

Newsreel archive British Pathé has uploaded its entire collection of 85,000 historic films, in high resolution, to its YouTube channel. This unprecedented release of vintage news reports and cinemagazines is part of a drive to make the archive more accessible to viewers all over the world. “Our hope is that everyone, everywhere who has a computer will see these films and enjoy them,” says Alastair White, General Manager of British Pathé. “This archive is a treasure trove unrivalled in historical and cultural significance that should never be forgotten. Uploading the films to YouTube seemed like the best way to make sure of that.”

The above is fantastic news for sites like ours and the Woking Muslim Mission website as we can finally watch and share, at no cost, stunning videos from when the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement ran the Woking Mosque in the UK.

Further videos can be seen here.

Original Source: British Pathe
Unorganized thoughts on our “sabbatical”
By: Mick Champayne
Tags: Life Lessons

💭

Maybe I’ll put these into a more coherent form someday…

“Everyone and their TV commercial wants you to believe that the key to a good life is a nicer job, or a more rugged car, or a prettier girlfriend, or a hot tub with an inflatable pool for the kids. The world is constantly telling you that the path to a better life is more, more, more — buy more, own more, make more, fuck more, be more. You are constantly bombarded with messages to give a fuck about everything, all the time. Give a fuck about a new TV. Give a fuck about having a better vacation than your coworkers. Give a fuck about buying that new lawn ornament. Give a fuck about having the right kind of selfie stick.

Why? My guess: because giving a fuck about more stuff is good for business.

And while there’s nothing wrong with good business, the problem is that giving too many fucks is bad for your mental health. It causes you to become overly attacked to the artificial and fake, to dedicate your life to chasing a mirage of happiness and satisfaction. The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important.” — The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson
3. 비트코인과 이더리움
By: Hyungmok Joh
Tags: 이더리움, 가상화폐, Korean, Cryptocurrency, 비트코인

At the forefront of technological innovation, the blockchain industry is constantly changing and growing in an accelerated fashion. The Ceta Network mission is to nurture this evolution by providing foundationally sound projects with visibility and community building.

Follow
How to Check for Undefined in JavaScript
By: Dr. Derek Austin
Tags: JavaScript, Software Development, Software Engineering, Programming, Coding

What if a JavaScript value is undefined ?

In JavaScript programming, you will encounter the primitive data type undefined , which indicates the absence of a value.

“The global undefined property represents the primitive value undefined . It is one of JavaScript's primitive types.” — MDN Docs

JavaScript variables start with the value of undefined if they are not given a value when they are declared (or initialized) using var , let , or const .