fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Parallel-TMS
By: Micah Walter
Tags: Work, Talks, Design, Museums, Web Development

When I first started at Cooper-Hewitt, we had a very small proportion of our collection on the web. I knew we had all this stuff, in databases, files, and brains, throughout the museum, but almost none of it was available beyond the walls of the institution. At the time of my arrival we had an installation of something called eMuseum containing about 1,000 the 225K objects in our collection.

Eventually I learned that eMuseum was the public facing website of something called TMS. I didn’t know what TMS or eMuseum was at the time, but I realized that this thing was our only real pathway for anyone into our collection. It was for all intents and purposes, the only way to “see” our collection. And, I was curious as to “why” we only had 1000 records online.
Full of Bile
By: Tooth Truth Roopa Vikesh
Tags: Surgery, Fitness, Diversity, Hospital, Parenting

150 WORD STORY

Full of Bile

When the “fit” need surgeries

Glistening and red, she savoured the slower moves of the cooldown. Either the workouts were getting easier or she needed heavier dumbbells to accompany them.

Photo of prayer area at Mercy Hospital, Jamshedpur, where my surgery will be done. Hospitals having prayer areas, it’s frightening.

Her husband called out, “Honey? Dr. Vivek wants you to get a fitness certificate from the anesthetist before he’ll schedule your gallbladder surgery!”

She grimaced. Till 4 days ago, she never knew she had a gallbladder. She wondered how many days she’d have to miss work and workouts to have the surgery done.

I showed up for the fitness test. This is a picture of the area outside the Operation Theatre where I got my lists of tests.

She knew very well what the fitness test entailed, with HIV, Hepatitis and Coronavirus clearances. Then a chest x-ray (thanks, coronavirus!) and maybe a echocardiogram.

Still, “fitness test” always made her think of the kind they took at the National Defence Academy, the ones with the push-ups and pull-ups.

Doctors should have more of those, we’d have a lot less malingering. Maybe even a four-minute mile?

Now she knew she was full of bile!

That dig of the doctors, about how a pizza pie slice or a KFC chicken burger could actually kill her? That had hurt. Yes. Better take the appointment and get this over with.
Best Ibanez IJRG220Z Jumpstart Electric Guitar Pack
By: Michael Henderson
Tags: Electric Guitar Packs, Electric Guitars, Amps, And Effects

in Both Sides of the Table
Asian Markets Driving Bitcoin To $8,000 And Beyond?
By: Ric Ruben
Tags: Trading, Financial Markets, USA, Bitcoin, Asia

Bitcoins latest run to $8,000 has been fueled by growing interest amongst institutional funds like Blackrock, and speculation about a Bitcoin ETF proposal currently being deliberated by the SEC.

Both of these indicators would seem to point to the US markets pushing Bitcoins price up to the $8,000 level. Yet recent reports show that the Asian markets are actually responsible for the bulk of Bitcoins recent trading volume.

EToro senior analyst Mati Greenspan shared his thoughts on Twitter, stating that:

The surge above $8,000 was definitely led by East Asia. Take a look at bitcoin volumes in Japanese Yen and Korean Won at the time of the surge (13:30–15:00 on the chart). In contrast, USD volumes had only a small spike and USDT (tether) remained constant through the movement. pic.twitter.com/fHdD8gRTTL — Mati Greenspan (@MatiGreenspan) July 25, 2018

The first graph shows the Bitcoin/JPY trading volumes are at about 11,000.

Likewise the Korean markets experienced their own spike followed by a steady wave of volume trading in early July 23rd.

The BTC/USD trading volume only experienced a small spike, followed by mediocre trading volume.

Japanese Government devalues Yen

The Japanese Governments devaluing of the Yen may be the key reasons why Japan has experienced a recent surge in Bitcoin trading volume. As seen in countries like Venezuela and China, national currency devaluation usually leads to citizens transferring their money into other assets classes like Gold, Bonds or Bitcoin in order to retain or appreciate the valuation.

Korea and Japan have long been strong adopters of Bitcoin and blockchain technology. Both countries have seen Bitcoin adopted by retailers, tech companies (like Samsung) and even airlines. The Japanese Government has arguably gone the furthest in its adoption by officially recognizing Bitcoin as a legal currency.

This recognition would have likely led citizens to view Bitcoin as the ideal currency substitute during times when the Yen was struggling.

Conclusion

It remains to be seen how much higher Bitcoins price will ascend. However, what is clear is that despite the catalyst for the recent price surge being predominantly US-based events (ETF announcement and Blackrock exploring Bitcoin) the trading volume charts seem to indicate that the Asian markets are the most eager to take us into another crypto bull run.
What Your 90s Tamagotchi Parenting Style Says About Who You Are Now
By: Steph Westendorf
Tags: Tamagotchi, Humor, 90s, Parenting, Satire

Then: You played ball with your Tamagotchi more than you fed or disciplined it.

Now: You’re known as the “cool uncle.”
Always Work To Make Better Art
By: J Cleveland Payne
Tags: Talent, Personal Development, Hard Work, Art, Storytelling

This…Is Actually Pretty Good Art.

Originally Posted At yourbetteryou.info.

You are not mistaken.

You could have easily crafted that poorly written article that is currently being shared across the internet by that somewhat famous person that no one remembers why they became somewhat famous.

And if you would have crafted the same article, the only real responses you would have expected to receive would be from internet grammar trolls. And maybe you mom, siding with the internet grammar trolls.

Here is the truth: many people producing bad art, literature, and science are more famous than you. Their fame precedes them, and so does their potential to gather audiences. Not the actual art they produce for those audiences.

It is not fair, but you should never stoop to the level of producing bad art for the sake of matching more popular artists who produce mostly bad art.

**********

J Cleveland Payne is a writer that wishes he was more famous. You can help him reach his desired level of fame by reading his writing here on Medium, at the Your Better You Project, or his personal blog at jclevelandpayne.net. Like everyone else on the internet, you can find him on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
BitBay Community Update – 26th July 2019
By: Bitbay Official
Tags: Bitbay, Dynamicpeg, Cryptocurrency, Altcoins, Decentralization

Bitker

Established in Singapore in 2017, Bitker is the One-Stop Digital Asset Trading Platform. The platform supports cryptocurrency trade, including currency transactions, contract transactions, and leveraged transactions.

Chaoex

Established in June 2017, Chaoex is a global trading platform. Chaoex strategic partners include well-known investment institutions, artificial intelligence trading providers, digital asset liquidity providers and other professional institutions.

LAToken

LAToken is a top 20 cryptocurrency exchange specialized in providing liquidity for new digital assets. Besides crypto trading, eligible LAToken users can participate in selected token sales at pre-sale and crowdsale stages.

We are proud to have these exchanges as partners to bring the Dynamic Peg to the world and be able to show what this new protocol can do for traders and investors.

We’ll have release dates for each exchange as soon as the integration process is completed but we can say that, so far, it is going very well. Stay tuned…

BitBay Website Update

We have now completed the move of the BitBay website from the Drupal CMS to a static GitHub hosted website. This is another step towards the goal of self-governance where community members can submit pull requests to update the website and the community can vote on whether or not to implement these updates. The governance process has still to be implemented via the BitBay forum, but our contributors are working on this and it will be ready soon.

BitBay Foundation

In other news, we have also launched the BitBay Foundation website preview at https://bitbay.foundation

While the legal framework is still being completed, we are confident this will be done in the next couple of weeks so we are asking our community to provide us with their feedback on the foundation website. Once the foundation setup is complete, it will be possible for anyone to donate to the foundation causes, contributing to the growth and development of BitBay.

Web Marketplace

Next week we will also be rolling out a new update for the web marketplace which will include small bug fixes, a lot of improvements for mobile and tablet devices, an improved buy and sell flow for users, and some new features which we will announce at the time of release.

And finally, a big thank you to all our community members old and new for your continued patience and loyalty while we have been working on securing new exchanges for the Dynamic Peg. We know everyone is looking forward to this as much as we are!

Until next time,

Shorn Keld – Lead Project Manager @ BitBay
More Young People Should Be Investing — Here’s Why
By: Sarah Roberts
Tags: Money Management, Property Investment, Financial Planning, Investing, Investing Tips

It’s easy to get started with

Technology is increasingly interweaving with every single aspect of business these days, and the investment world is no different. Investment companies are using advancements in tech to help them work more efficiently, and you as a potentially successful investor can do the same.

Got your smartphone to hand and at your disposal? Here are some different examples of investment apps that you might want to look into:

MoneyBox — This app has a unique idea, and you might have seen it advertised before, either online or on television. Taking the pressure off your shoulders and allowing you to carry on as normal, MoneyBox rounds up the remaining change from any purchases you’ve made and automatically injects it into your investment portfolio, allocating it towards micro-investments in whatever you’ve decided on when setting up. With little at risk, this is a great way to get started, and the automated AI system takes control so you can focus on what matters.

‘Robo-investors’ or robot advisor AI that is learning how to invest well is a big recently developing trend in investment platforms, and you’ll likely see a lot more of it over the coming years. It will no doubt get better and better as time goes on, although be careful not to put all of your faith into it, as it’s up to you to make the ultimate decision on where your capital goes.

Freetrade — If you’re still trying to learn the ropes of investment and want to figure it out as you go along, Freetrade allows you to set up an account and get started without putting a single bit of money into it. This is perfect for those that perhaps can’t afford to get involved in investment right now but still want to educate themselves, or those that are anxious about putting money into something that they haven’t tried out first.

Robinhood — Robinhood is an investment platform that is still in early access in the UK, so you’ll have to sign up, for now, to find out more as it releases, but it’s proving to be extremely popular among passive investors and entrepreneurs across the pond. Again, you can invest extremely small amounts, which is perfect for those of you who are just getting started, and another benefit is that you can invest without commission. International investments are even free from exchange fees, too.

Did you know? — Software and investment platforms are a major component of what makes investing so easy to get involved with nowadays, but they aren’t the only use of tech in the investment world, and there are many other interesting examples. Virtual Reality is even used in some cases.
Managing Disposables in RxJava 2 — The Less Bad Version
By: Cody Engel
Tags: Reactive Programming, AndroidDev, Rxjava, Rxjava2, Android App Development

Scoping Disposables Is Important

Unless you want bad things to happen it’s important that your disposables aren’t globally scoped and you can dispose of some without disposing of everything. In the Android world I’ve found that having one CompositeDisposable per view controller ( Activity / Fragment ) as well as one per ViewModel seems to work out fairly well. This means we want something that looks something like this…

class ExampleViewModel : ViewModel() {

private val compositeDisposable = CompositeDisposable() fun doSomething() {

val disposable = Single.just(1)

.subscribe {

//update something onNext

}

compositeDisposable.add(disposable)

} override fun onCleared() {

compositeDisposable.clear()

}

}

This will work out fine however in every ViewModel we are forced to create the CompositeDisposable and wire up the onCleared function. The natural extension onto this would be to create a base class for our ViewModel which could look something like this…

abstract class DisposingViewModel : ViewModel() {

private val compositeDisposable = CompositeDisposable() fun addDisposable(disposable: Disposable) {

compositeDisposable.add(disposable)

} override fun onCleared() {

compositeDisposable.clear()

}

}

Then in every ViewModel that needs this code it simply just extends from the DisposingViewModel and it just has to invoke addDisposable . If you are against the idea of inheritance being used in this way (you aren’t alone) then it’s worth noting that creating a solution for this using class delegation in Kotlin is not much more work.

Is There An Even Better Way?

There might be. Whether it be a more home grown solution or a battle tested open source project I’m sure something out there exists. At this time I wanted to write a follow-up article so I could deprecate the previous one that continues to rank well on Google and potentially mislead developers. So more on that to come, in the mean time if you have additional thoughts feel free to leave a comment.
10 Years of Spotify; Is Data Changing the Way We Write Music?
By: Platform
Tags: Music, Streaming Music, Music Data, Data, Music Business

www.theguardian.com

The streaming service is a decade old on Sunday. So has it created a post-CD paradise for listeners — or turned today’s music into a grey goo? Our music editors argue for and against

Is data changing the way we write music? — www.m-magazine.co.uk

Although it’s widely acknowledged that streaming services have played a large role in the financial recovery of the music business over the last decade, a recent report commissioned by the BPI claims that the industry’s relationship with these platforms has grown far closer than many could have predicted.

Spotify Announces New Initiative for Hosting and Providing Analytics for Podcasts — www.billboard.com

Spotify announced Spotify for Podcasters on Wednesday (Oct. 3). The new platform is designed to make podcasters content available on the streaming platform when they provide Spotify access to their feed.

Ministry of Sound Strikes Exclusive Playlist Deal With Apple Music — variety.com

The dance-music giant’s playlists will be removed from non-Apple Music services.

Downloads are crashing across the music industry — www.musicbusinessworldwide.com

But at Beatport, they’re actually climbing. Why?

Sony ‘wouldn’t rule out launching Spotify rival’ — www.bbc.com

The head of Sony Music also said he could withhold music from the service if it began signing artists.

Visualizing 40 Years of Music Industry Sales — www.visualcapitalist.com

A look at four decades of music industry sales. After a devastating decline, streaming services like Spotify are helping the industry regain its footing.

Streaming Music — for Foxtel Customers — eftm.com

What is Stingray Music?

Spotify, Live Nation Add Dates For RapCaviar Live — www.hypebot.com

Spotify continues to expand its live concert initiatives. The streamer and Live Nation Urban have announced new dates for their RapCaviar concert series in Toronto, ON and Dallas, TX.

Radio’s Most Innovative: Austin City Limits Radio — jacobsmedia.com

The merger of Austin City Limits and KGSR/Austin to become Austin City Limits Radio is truly innovative in a city that’s all about music.
Qtum PoS mining open
By: Sophie Ha
Tags: Eng, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Notice, Finance

Dear supporters

This is APIS team.

APIS platform users can access to Quantum PoS service from 15:00(UTC+8) today.

Quantum

Quantum coin is a Blockchain token platform supporting smart contract and it is the very project which got to popularized Proof of Stake. It secured various DApps and been doing multiple updates to improve network ability recently.

We’re releasing a new coin project service every month and will keep doing our best to live up to your love and support.

Thank you.

APIS team

APIS Official Website｜ APIS PLATFORM(apis.mn)

Twitter ｜Telegram(ENG) ｜Telegram(KOR) ｜Telegram(JPN)
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Humor, Friday, Illustration, Space

First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.

Follow
Trendyol’da Golang ile 1.5M Throughput
By: Hüseyin Güner
Tags: Concurrency, Golang, Trendyol, High Throughput, Webapi

Trendyol Group | LinkedIn

Our mission is to serve our customers to buy what they want, when they want with the best experience driven by…
Let’s Go Exploring!
Tags: Moment, Perspective, Time, Endure, Encouragement

The final entry of my favorite comic strip was in the paper on December 31, 1995.

The Calvin and Hobbes finale was both the perfect goodbye and an enduring encouragement for new seasons:

2014 is brand-new!

May it be a fresh start for you.

May it be full of possibilities.

May the magical world of God’s creation be vivid before you every day.

May you always be exploring.
Medium’s Compensation Tweak Hurts Writers
By: Patsy Fergusson
Tags: Writing On Medium, This Happened To Me, Médium, Writing, Poetry

Medium’s Compensation Tweak Hurts Writers

Including this young Nigerian poet

Photo from the first poem Stephen Emmanuel Ogboh submitted: Wild Child

One happy thing that happened after I started the publication Fourth Wave was that a young man from Nigeria started sending in poems. We developed a nice friendship via email as I published them and we discussed them. Stephen Emmanuel Ogboh submitted the first poem from his own account, which didn’t allow for compensation. After talking it over, we posted the rest from my paid Fourth Wave Editors account and put his author attribution in the subtitle so he would have the opportunity to make money. He didn’t want to invest in a paid membership. He also wasn’t able to format the poetry well on his phone — the technology he had access to. I told him I’d gladly send him any money that his poems earned.

Today I logged into that account to check his lifetime earnings. The first poem we put behind the paywall, back when claps were a main component of the compensation equation, was this one based on the experiences of his mum, which includes a beautiful picture of her that he took himself:

You get a feel for the sincerity of the author in the note about him at the end:

Emmanuel Stephen Ogboh is a young Nigerian poet who loves to write about his observations and experiences. Inspired by Lisa Smallwood, an American poet and Chidinma Abiakalam, a Nigerian counselor he’s written works published or forthcoming on Tuck, Matador Review, Down in the Dirt, Chelsea Review, and elsewhere. Follow him here: https://medium.com/@Stephenecdotes.

Since being published on June 7 of 2019, that poem has earned $6.28 on 170 views, 104 reads, and 23 fans, with an average read time of 33 seconds.

The latest poem he submitted, after claps were devalued in the compensation equation and replaced by “read time” as the principal component, was this one about the troubles women face in Nigeria and elsewhere:

Since being published on Oct. 13 of 2020, that poem has earned 5 cents (!!!) on 123 views, 111 reads and 4 fans, with an average read time of 42 seconds.

So that’s the whole problem right there.
Why Teaching English for Hujiang?
By: English Teaching Jobs
Tags: Teaching, Online Teaching, English Language, Teachers, Education

One of the largest and multi-language learning platform in China

Large Multi-Language Learning Platform

Hujiang is one of the largest E-learning language platforms in China. It covers multiple languages (English, European languages, Japanese, Korea) for all student ages, adults, exam prep, college-level students, and children. Hujiang has a strong focus in exam prep especially, whether it’s college entry exam, accounting/finance/business or career-oriented exams for students preparing to go study abroad. As of October 2017, they started to push for K-12 teachers.

Teaching Materials

Due to the focus in older age students and perhaps bit outdated tools, you might find their platform not as appealing nor as engaging as other platforms that teaches younger children.

Requirements

They are looking for native English teachers that speak English at an idiomatic level. The operating system of your computer should be a Windows computer, with the Internet connection of at least 10mbps, along with a high-quality headset. The peak hours that you will be teaching between 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm Monday to Sunday Beijing time. Those who are open to teaching on Saturday and Sunday will receive preferential treatment when applying. You should be certified in either TKT, TEFL, TESOL, CELTA or similar to increase your chances of getting a job. They also offer Audio Only 9 am — 10.3pm 7 days a week. Audio classes: $12–16 and face to face $16–22. There are opportunities to do other roles as well. As an example, there are assessments of demo lessons to determine the level of students.

Read more about Job Requirements on OETJobs

Interview Tips

Skype interview with the HR — Some common questions about yourself, teaching experience, and the Internet speed. Demonstration class after a successful interview. You’ll receive a lesson and instructions on how to use Hujiang’s teaching platform, CC Talk, to deliver a demo. During this demo session, HR will mock the interview by pretending a student to assess your teaching skills. If you pass the demo class, you’ll receive a paid training course online with the guidance of a trainer.

How to Apply?

Apply via Oakary, oakary.com/apply
When Students Don’t Learn As Hoped
By: Street Consulting
Tags: Teaching, Intervention, Special Education, Teaching And Learning, Professional Development

In most systems, when a student doesn’t learn as hoped, the adults wonder what is wrong with the student and begin to think about “prescriptions’ to fix them. Sometimes these prescriptions are services, like special education, and other times they are literally prescribed drugs, like Adderall. However, if we consider that this notion of children not learning as hoped is socially contrived, we can quickly see the flaw in jumping to this conclusion. Students naturally exist on a continuum — those that don’t fit a teacher’s planned response aren’t broken, they just are.

When students don’t respond to our teaching as we hoped we have to look at our teaching first. We have to accept that there is no singular one way to teach that will effectively reach all students with all content, and when it doesn’t, it isn’t the fault of the child. Our responsibility in these situations is to rigorously examine our teaching and find other ways. When you step back and look more globally at a child, you invariably find that they are very able to learn in different contexts.

We have to ask ourselves what we can learn from those contexts to better inform how we should teach that child. Before you try to diagnose the child, first diagnose your own teaching.

Improvement begins with I.

– Arnold H. Glasow
Everything You Have Right Now is Enough
By: Kim Duke
Tags: Life Lessons, Self, Simplicity, Self-awareness, Life

When I was in my 20s and early 30s, I used to tell people how I loved the word more. Yikes — if only I could go back in time and kick my ass for being so ignorant. I sold national television advertising and I was good at it. But I always wanted more.

More money, more recognition, and more opportunity. I was driven and accomplished a lot. I bought a house when I was 23. I had a nice car, money in the bank and I travelled. But sometimes I would lie awake at night and think,

“Is this it? Is my life only meant to be about chasing more?”

I had hit the wall of more because it meant I never had enough. And quite frankly — it was a crappy and dissatisfying feeling.

Secretly I knew I wanted to focus on the gentle side of more. I wanted more joy, more giving, more love, more calm and more learning. I wanted more nature, more reading and time spent with family and friends. I wanted to be more grateful.

And I finally started to figure it out that I had to start to love the word enough.
How Peripheral Awareness Fuel Intense States of Flow
By: Jean-Marc Buchert
Tags: Awareness, Psychology, Productivity, Mindfulness, Focus

How Peripheral Awareness Fuel Intense States of Flow

The 3 benefits of expanding and deepening your senses

One day, calling me to see if I had found my feet in my new job, my employer told me about his day:

“You know, today I had an appointment with an agency client in Marseille (i.e a city in France). I took my bike and climbed up the hills to meet him in Cassis on the other side. So that made my day of sport. “ “Like me, nothing prevents you from taking breaks as you like. It’s not just the work you do in front of your computer. It’s about finding time to step back. Otherwise you lose the sense of what you’re doing.”

His thoughts confirmed what I had been thinking about working remotely. When working at home, you need to find a balance between intense and undisturbed work and moments of break and relaxation.

But, further on, you need to reconsider your ordinary work process, especially the importance of more ambient and open awareness.

This attention is often little understood.

Your mind, when working, seeks to minimize sources outside its focus. However, it does not close all its attention to its surrounding environment. On the contrary, it keeps perceiving sensory signals somewhat unconsciously.

These are for example the sounds of the TV when checking your smartphone or the music on the radio when looking at the road.

These signals, if they disturb you, can lead you to distraction. But, if you manage them, they can also boost your productivity.

According to Dr. John Yates in The Mind Illuminated, meditation also increases a peripheral awareness of our environment just as essential to our perception.

Let me share with you my understanding of this specific attention and how it can help you enter deeper productive states.
Designer Joseph Dirand Imbues a Greenhouse Vibe into a New Vegetable-Driven Restaurant in Manhattan
By: Surface Magazine
Tags: Travel, Restaurant, Restaurant Business, Interior Design, Sustainability

By The Surface Editors

Le Jardinier

Location: New York

Designer: Joseph Dirand

On offer: Renowned French architect Joseph Dirand is behind the look of the light-filled space with an abundance of green, from mint tones in the marble walls and floors to the mossy-hued velvet chairs. The modernist interior feels like a lush greenhouse thanks to leafy plants that line the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Standout features: Reflecting the planty aesthetic, Joël Robuchon protege Alain Verzeroli turns out a vegetable-driven menu using classic French techniques. The light cuisine includes dishes such as white asparagus and blood orange topped with a buckwheat puff, and farro risotto enriched by violet artichokes, spring peas, and paprika. Del Posto alum Roberto Longo’s extensive wine list draws on the French regions of Champagne, Burgundy, and Bordeaux.
Big Data Is Big Business
By: Notes
Tags: Music, Technology, Big Data

Technology and music has become so synonymous with each other in the modern age, to the point where algorithms are being developed to create playlists for consumers. One would assume that companies like Apple and Spotify are in the music business, I would argue that this isn’t the case and that their actually in the business of big data.

Firstly, what is big data? According to searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com it is “is an evolving term that describes any voluminous amount of structured, semi structured and unstructured data that has the potential to be mined for information. Big data is considered to be the one of the most valuable assets that a company has. While in its raw form, its considered to not be very useful but when mined it can be used to plan the trajectory of the company, project profit and losses (when mined) for example 1 million people listened to Ghetts new album. With that he can use that information to plan a tour (FREE PLUG GHETTS IS GOING ON TOUR IN JANUARY 2019).

Spotify are a data driven company. They use data as a means to train their algorithms to create uniquely curated playlists for each consumer which birthed their most popular feature, discover weekly. As mentioned in a previous article, they also use the data as a means to curate unique fan engaged events for artists. Artists such as Kylie Minogue and Stormzy are examples of this. Speculation time! As mentioned in a previous article, Spotify are on the way to being a conglomerate and apart of that would be to establishing a record label, however I do not believe they will like to be labelled as such but I do believe its coming and there are many examples to back my claim, Drake’s shameless promo of his latest album all over Spotify, their focus on fan engagement, their investment on Distrokid and many others.

Apple made their intent on big data very apparent with their latest purchase, Shazam! It was confirmed in December of 2017 that the acquisition was happening, but what does this mean? Its reported that it has been downloaded over 1 billion times and is used over 20 million times per day (The Verge) the information that can be mined can be used to another stream of income for instance, the powers that be at Apple music may be able to identify trends that gives them a clearer idea of ‘popular’ or ‘rising’ stars, maybe even sign them…

Whilst human curation is still very much a thing and will continue to be, the rise of data driven playlists and recommendations is here to stay in the music business. With information like this, what’s stopping companies like Spotify, Apple music, Deezer and others from set up record labels and signing artist based on their analytics?
6 Tips for Better Core Data Performance
By: Antoine Van Der Lee
Tags: Core Data, Programming, iOS, Mobile, Swift

1. Make Use of a Background Managed Object Context

One thing we didn’t do from the start is to make use of a background managed object context. We only used the view context to perform any Core Data-related tasks: inserting new content, deleting content, fetching content, etc.

In the beginning, our app was relatively small. Only making use of the view context wasn’t really an issue and didn’t result in any visible performance penalties related to Core Data. Obviously, once our app started to grow, we realized that the view context was associated with the main queue. Slow queries blocked our UI and our app became less responsive.

In general, a best practice is to perform data processing on a background queue, as it can be CPU-intensive. Examples like importing JSON into Core Data could otherwise block the view context and result in unresponsiveness in the user interface.

The solution is to make use of a background managed object context. The latest APIs make it easy to create a new context from your persistent container:

let backgroundContext = persistentContainer.newBackgroundContext()

I recommend this method over the NSManagedObjectContext(concurrenyType:) initializer, as it will automatically be associated with the NSPersistentStoreCoordinator and will be set to consume NSManagedObjectContextDidSave broadcasts too. This keeps your background context in sync with the view context.

You can save this background context on a custom persistent container subclass. This way, you can reuse your background context and only have to manage two contexts. This keeps your Core Data structure simple to understand and prevents having multiple out-of-sync contexts.

If you only have to use the background context in a few places, you can also decide to use the performBackgroundTask(_:) method that creates a background context in place:

persistentContainer.performBackgroundTask { (backgroundContext) in

// .. Core Data Code

}

However, this method creates a new NSManagedObjectContext each time it is invoked. You might want to consider using the shared background context if you're dispatching more often to a background context.

Don’t pass NSManagedObject instances between queues

Writing multi-threaded Core Data code is a lot more complex than using a single view context. The reason for this is that you can’t simply pass an NSManagedObject instantiated from a view context to a background context. Doing so would result in a crash and potential data corruption.
Time we Pretend
By: Aakash Dahal
Tags: Life Lessons, Questions, Self Improvement, Mystery Of Life, Love

Why is it so hard to break the barriers of suffering and forgive even long after the pain has disappeared ? Is it really something that happens naturally or do we play a major factor in it ? What does it even means “naturally” ? If we interfere in things it is also naturally because it is obvious we are also a part of nature.

Questions. Questions. Questions. There are so many of them. We try to know the answer, but then is knowing really enough? We might know something without understanding which is completely useless. Is it possible to understand everything? Does everything matters ? What does it even means by saying “ things matter” when all of us trying to get out of this materialistic world we live in.

Everything is interconnected. You, me your dog, the sky, music, rocks everything. It feels that way or maybe it was once a thought but it grew rapidly inside me like a cancer and now i feel that. I want to experience that which is not but to get there i need to simply be. I, I ,I who is this I anyways ? We all are I’s its not ego, its not a soul. How do you even know you have a soul ? Because you feel it ? But how is feeling more real? Just because your physiology is that way and gets your heart pumping doesn’t means its real. It might not and It might be.

Everything is so uncertain but we like to take things too seriously. We like to see things as “Forever and ever” and though we all know how vulnerable we are. We enjoy pretending. We are all pretenders. Pretenders pretending without even knowing we are pretending and every time the drama doesn’t goes the way we want.

We suffer and feel pain because we are pretenders without even knowing we are pretending. We basically know nothing compared to the vastness of the universe . Yet we go around life pretending we Know after all we need something to cling onto, to hold onto because no one wants to know there is no meaning but see that’s the tricky part. It doesn’t matters but it does. Its a paradox. Which makes you cry and laugh at the same time once you see the miracles in everyday life.
Here are My Three Personal Mantras that will Make you Go “Aww”
By: Charlotte Zobeir Ali
Tags: Spirituality, Reading, Ideas, Mindset, Energy

Here are My Three Personal Mantras that will Make you Go “Aww”

They will brighten your day

Handmade Mantra Mandala painting /thetibethouse.com

Did you know that a mantra is believed to have a special spiritual power?

It makes perfect sense because when you keep on repeating an inspiring phrase, your mindset starts to shift effortlessly.

The best thing with mantras is that you can create one that works for you. There are no specific rules, as long as the phrase motivate and trigger something positive inside you, things are all good!

I could have written a list of the best mantras out there but readers would have been bored. Sharing my top three personal mantras is a fun way to connect and get the conversation going.

My ultimate goal with this article is to show that mantras are great if you want to live a stress-free life.

Here are my current three mantras that will make you smile and reflect.
Climate Change
By: Virtual Mosque
Tags: Animal, Climate, Change

Shayaan talks about the devastating effects that climate change is having on the Earth, not just from a monetary point of view but from the impact on human and animal life. He then goes on to explain what The Holy Quran has to say about climate change.
Practical science
By: Tom Winstanley
Tags: Fun, Consultancy, Education

Having an educational background in the dreaded “mickey-mouse” world of business administration and working in an environment that is overwhelmingly populated with scientists and engineers, I am often reminded of how little I know about the world around me.



It is easy to develop a view of knowledge based on your work; I am (amongst other things) an analyst in the telecommunications industry and know a fair bit about how to design and build software applications. Despite this I know virtually nothing about how the world works.



This is, somewhat paradoxically, one of the reasons why I enjoy working in the consulting industry — there are so many interesting smart people from all walks of life who have a very practical understanding of why things happen in the real world to keep kicking me into thinking about stuff outside my work environment!



Why am I writing this? I was moved to reflect on what I know and don’t know by a posting on www.ted.org by an educational consultant, previously from the BBC, showing how little we know and how much this has to do with our educations.



I suspect it is true for large portions of the population (myself very much included). It is a reminder to me how important it is to stay inquisitive about the mundane and to continually ask myself simple questions. And it is also a reminder to me of why I like working with so many smart and practical people from so many varied backgrounds. Thank you once again TED!



Here it is.



http://static.videoegg.com/ted2/flash/loader.swf
A “Vaikne Esmaspäev” with the Liisi Koikson Trio, Live at Must Puudel Cafe, Tallinn
By: Stuart Garlick
Tags: Music, Gig, Live, Liisi Koikson

Liisi Koikson continued a mini-tour of favourite Estonian gig venues last night, taking her friends who made up her jazz trio to the Must Puudel, epicentre of so many cool happenings in Tallinn. The wind was up and the air stung in that icy early-winter way outside, but Liisi’s music, as I’ve said before, always takes me to a happy place, convincing me everything will be alright. There will be other artists whose songs remind me of other times in my life, but Liisi Koikson will always be the soundtrack of when I arrived in Estonia, as I said here.

[caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”2500.0"]

The Liisi Koikson Trio at the Must Puudel, Tallinn, 30/09/2013[/caption]

As you can see above, it’s a small cafe, cosy, intended to feel like a 1970s house. Originally, the owner, Estonian indie-rocker Vaiko Eplik, used this room to stage a weekly music quiz, as well as regular bands from Estonia, Finland and further afield. Now he also owns the larger sister cafe Sinilind, a lot of the centrepiece events have moved on — but for an artist like Liisi, with a pure, precise tone, this is undoubtedly the ideal venue, as her music, and the subtle way in which it is played by her musicians, benefit from being heard at close quarters.

As well as old favourites like “Ettepoole” and “Varjud”, the opportunity was taken to try some new tunes, like “Hey Baby”, a rare English-language song, penned by Liisi in London having, she said, been inspired by a lot of soul music. Some of the other new music showed a move towards darker, more atmospheric territory. It is a delicate balancing act, keeping fans of the earlier work happy while also broadening the range of musical of influences, but she seems to be managing it.

“Not Like This”, on her Soundcloud profile, on the other hand, is pure Eva Cassidy, and sounds utterly timeless. This is going to be quite some album eventually.
9차 얼리버드 안내
By: Sophie Ha
Tags: Kor, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Notice, Finance

APISplatform

Official publication for APIS, the world-first masternode…
We Celebrated Black Joy in an Especially Anti-Black Year
By: Level Editors
Tags: 2020, Black Joy, Racism, Race

We Celebrated Black Joy in an Especially Anti-Black Year

Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying

“Despite a pandemic that struck Black communities with cruel precision, the virus in the White House, and months of protesting systemic racism and extrajudicial police violence against Black people, we found joy.” — David Dennis, Jr.

Read Dennis’ story in its entirety below.
Color in Design Systems
By: Nathan Curtis
Tags: Colors, Design Systems, CSS

Contrast & Accessibility

Solving for accessible color contrast should a core practice of setting up any digital color system from the get go. However, design can be tumultuous place, and teams can lose sometimes. Or some members don’t know about accessibility. Or they simply don’t prioritize it.

A systems team can engrain accessible practices into a workflow to provoke and spread values in accessibility broadly across an enterprise.

#13. Check Contrast Early & Ritually

It happens often: a few weeks or days before a product — or design system — launch, finally somebody notices. The design team hasn’t taken necessary care to ensure the primary and secondary color palette is being applied in a way to meet WCAG 2.0 color contrast of 3.0 (for large, heavier type) or 4.5 (for standard type). So designers — and then, their developers — scramble to determine fixes and inject it into the code.

Takeaway: Any system designer responsible for color must be familiar with WCAG 2.0 rules, have a tool (like Tanaguru) to test color pairs, and incorporate the practice into color selection.
How .NET 5 Can Make Your Life Better
By: Adem Zeina
Tags: Dotnet, Software Development, Microsoft, Dotnet Core, Web Development

“The .NET 5 project is an important and exciting new direction for .NET,,” Microsoft said. “You will see .NET becomes simpler but also have a broader and more expansive capability and utility. All new development and feature capabilities will be part of .NET 5, including new C# versions.

“We see a bright future ahead in which you can use the same .NET APIs and languages to target a broad range of application types, operating systems, and chip architectures. It will be easy to make changes to your build configuration to build your applications differently, in Visual Studio, Visual Studio for Mac, Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps, or at the command line.”
DomRaider advertizes in “Les Echos“ French Business newspaper
By: Domraider Team
Tags: French, ICO, Initial Coin Offering, Blockchain, Domraider

Eventhough DomRaider’s core activity is mostly digital, we did not forget to focus on offline media to communicate about the launch of our ICO. That is why this morning, french readers discovered DomRaider ICO while opening the daily newspaper les Echos.

Circulation: 127,468, Readership: 566,000.

DomRaider Ads announcing our ICO launch
The Power Is In Your Decisions
By: Anthony Boyd
Tags: Productivity, Leadership, Self, Advice, Education

The Power Is In Your Decisions

Whether you make good decisions or bad decisions, it’s up to you. It’s in your control.

Photo by Susan Yin on Unsplash

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with defining what is in our immediate control.

I think it’s my natural reaction to chaos and information overload — but what we control is worth thinking about no matter what’s going on in lives because in any given phase of your life, you’re making decisions.

On a day-to-day basis, decisions serve as the catalysts that push your day forward.

And you never know if the decisions you make are good ones or bad ones until the buffer between the moment you’ve made your decision and it’s consequence has expired.

Some say they use their intuition to judge if the decision is good or bad, which usually manifests itself as: “I have a good feeling about this.”

But I think we can all agree that making emotional decisions isn’t reliable.
Bogan Bible: The Ten Commandments
By: Matthew Querzoli
Tags: Humor, Religion, Jesus, Short Story

Bogan Bible: The Ten Commandments

God Lays Down the Law

20 And God spoke all these words:

2 “I am the Lord your God, Legend of the Realm, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery and no beer.

3 “You shall have no other gods, legends or better mates before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, your Legend, am a jealous Legend. I know it’s a problem, but I’m seeking help with a pshycologist about it. If any of you know a good chiropractor as well, let Me know — I put out my back making the bloody Himalayas. Anyway, I’ll bloody punish you if you step out of line,6 but I love those blokes and chicks who follow My legendary laws.

7 “Don’t use my name as a swear word. Not cool, lads.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a chillax. 10 On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. No one at all, alright? 11 I made everything in six days, and had a chillax on the seventh, playing some Grand Theft Auto with a case of beer.

12 “Be nice to your folks. Unless of course they abuse you or something. Then I give you full permission to not be nice.

13 “Don’t kill anyone. Only mongoloids do that.

14 “Don’t bloody have sex with your mate’s husband/wife, or cheat on your husband/wife. If you do, you are scum.

15 “Don’t steal. Work for what you want you lazy buggers.

16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. Whatever that means.

17 “Don’t be jealous, aye.”
I finished Andrew Ng’s Machine Learning Course and I Felt Great!
By: Michael Li
Tags: Software Development, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Education, Andrew Ng

Just finished Andrew Ng’s Machine Learning course on Coursera, and it’s GREAT! Here some thoughts and observations:

What’s great about it

A well-designed learning curve

EVE Online game’s (in)famous crazy learning curve

This is especially important for people that never heard of Machine Learning. Not assuming the student has any prior knowledge and gradually guide them through complex concept makes the learning experience challenging yet still fun.

2. Avoid complex math, yet find a way to still enable the student to do ML

The Andrew Ng ‘Silent Protector’ Meme

Maybe the biggest fear for people want to get into Machine Learning and AI is ‘I’m not a math person’. Being able to not getting into too much math yet still explain clearly the concept is invaluable, especially for totally green guys.

3. Octave/Matlab is more ‘math’ like, less digression on programming language itself

Some people might not agree with me on this. Yes, Octave/Matlab doesn’t have all the fancy libraries like scikit-learn and Pandas, yet it’s very expressive when it comes to representing math equations. Transfer equations from class to Matlab code is easier than Python IMHO.

4. Cover most popular models, a good foundation

Linear/Logistic Regression

SVM

Neural Network

Collaborative Filtering

Anomaly Detection

K-Means

PCA

With all these algorithms/models under your belt, you are ready to solve a lot of problems with Machine Learning.

5. Provide practical ML projects knowledge, not only algorithm and programming

Besides theory, the course also offers very practical Machine Learning project knowledge, hot to build a pipeline, how to structure the problem solving, etc.

6. Well designed quizzes and assignments, as part of learning too

I was always amazed by how well the quizzes and assignments are designed. They are challenging, yet with some efforts achievable, and at the same time offer some new perspective on the lesson. I always learned a few new things doing those and totally enjoyed them.