fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
The Time Jesus Cracked a Joke
By: Michael Murray
Tags: Bible, Spirituality, Christianity, Jesus, Religion

Photo by Magdalena Smolnicka on Unsplash

In the Bible story found in John 1:43–51, a very awkward thing happens. A young man named Philip tries to tell his friend Nathanael about how awesome Jesus is.

“We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth,” says Philip excitedly.

But Nathanael is not having it. He scoffs at the idea.

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asks sarcastically.

It gets even more awkward when Jesus shows up. Jesus and Nathanael come face to face, and Jesus decides to break the ice… With a joke!

As Jesus sees Nathanael approaching, he smiles and calls out:

“Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

And everyone starts laughing. Why?

Jesus was making a pun!

The Israelites descended from the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The name Jacob means deceiver, and boy did that name fit him well. In the book of Genesis, we see Jacob deceive people over and over again. (The book of Genesis is a very messy book. If you think your family has issues, just read it, and you’ll feel better.)

Jacob cheated his brother, deceived his father, and got into a practical joke war with his uncle. He finally meets his match when he gets into a wrestling bout with God. After the fight, God changes Jacob’s name to Israel, which means struggles with God.

When Jesus says that Nathanael is “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit,” he is using a play on words. He’s saying, literally, here comes the deceiver who doesn’t deceive.

Christians are quick to affirm that Jesus was fully God. It can be harder to remember that Jesus was also fully human.

We know there were times when Jesus wept (John 11:35, shortest verse in the Bible!), but there were also times he laughed. There were times he laughed so hard his sides ached, and he couldn’t breathe. Imagine that!

Jesus wasn’t above cracking a joke.

Humor can either be used as a weapon or a balm. It can tear people down or build bridges between them. All too often, I opt for the former. It’s easy to make a quick joke at someone’s expense.

But Jesus’ joke had a purpose. Jesus knew Nathanael was looking for truth, and Jesus affirmed that quality in him. He was saying, Nathanael! Now here comes a guy who tells it like it is. A real straight-shooter! Jesus was meeting Nathanael in his skepticism.

I’m glad that when we scoff at Jesus, he gives us grace. Sometimes that grace comes in the form of a joke. Jesus knew that Nathanael was critical of him, and rather than take offense, he laughs it off. He eases tension and uses the moment to make Nathanael feel known.

That’s what Jesus does for all of us. He offers us the gift of being known by him.

Questions to Ponder:

Which do you have a harder time believing/imagining: that Jesus was “fully God” or “fully human”?

Jesus can meet us anywhere — in skepticism, doubt, fear, anger, sadness, joy. Where do you need Jesus to meet you today?
¿Qué hacemos para reducir los errores y entregar un producto de calidad?.
By: Roger Einstoss
Tags: Testing, QA, Software Development

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The Launch of the SpaceX Starship Prototype, and What it Means for Humanity
By: Juliano Righetto
Tags: Spacex, Humanity, Astronomy, Space, Space Exploration

To date, the spacecraft that we launched into space have maneuvered for landing in three different ways: using parachutes (the vast majority, a method used in all American, Russian, and Chinese space capsules), gliding (a method used only in American Space Shuttles and in Soviet Buran) and making propulsive landings aided by “grid fins” (the way the first stages of SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets return to the ground). These methods work well in their respective spaceships (perhaps, except for the Space Shuttle, a hazardous flying machine), but they could not be used on the Starship.

Its characteristics would prevent the use of any of them.

And why, then, use belly flight?

The Starship is a far more ambitious undertaking than any that has yet been done. Understand: every capsule created until today was intended to take one to seven astronauts to the low Earth orbit or three astronauts to the Moon. The Space Shuttle could carry a maximum of eight people to the low Earth orbit, plus one twenty-nine ton cargo.

The Starship was created to take 100 people to low orbit and, with orbital refueling, carry them to the Moon or Mars, along with 100 tons of cargo.

With appropriate adaptations, this crew and cargo can be taken to other solar system locations such as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Comparing the Starship to a space capsule or Space Shuttle is like comparing a bicycle to a car.

The problem is that you cannot land the Starship using (only) the old methods. It is too big to use a parachute, the gliding method used by the Shuttles has proven to be expensive and dangerous, and the speed at which it arrives is too high for it to land using only grid fins and propulsion.

You need to lose a lot of speed before that.

And so it was, then, that the SpaceX team created the belly flight.

First of all, the configuration used during re-entry into the atmosphere will be similar to that seen in the last photo, with only the front part slightly raised. According to computer simulations, this configuration is quite efficient for dispersing the plasma generated during the re-entry of the atmosphere without transferring too much heat to the spacecraft.

The steel that makes up its fuselage, more resistant to heat than the Space Shuttles' aluminum, requires less sophisticated heat protection than the ceramic tiles of the Shuttles, making the Starship safer and cheaper.

After re-entry, the maneuver fins would come into action. These four flaps fold up or down, acting like a skydiver's legs and arms in free fall. That means that the Starship doesn’t “glide.” It “falls in a controlled manner.” Using the flaps, it can go to the landing point, where, finally, the engines will take over and place it safely on the ground:
How To Learn Any New Programming Language Quickly
By: Bob Roebling
Tags: Programming, Programming Languages, Education, Experience, Projects

The Tools

Photo by Fleur on Unsplash

The tools are all the same, and while they can be learned in any order, this is the order I usually take.

Variables

This seems simple enough, but seriously, how do you create a variable?

Operators

What are the operators, and how are they used? You can assume you have basic math operators, but what about logical operators? Is an “AND” operator spelled out as “and” or “AND,” or does it use symbols such as “&&?”

Conditionals

Surprisingly, my most read articles for both Swift and Python have to do with decision making. The next thing you need to know is how you can make decisions in your program. Does the language you are trying to learn use the traditional “if/else if/else” or something more Pythonic such as “if/elif/else?” Does your language have a “switch” or “guard” statement?

Loops

How can you loop through repetitive tasks? Does the language contain for-loops, while loops, do-while loops, or for-each statements?

Functions

Is it possible to create functions? If so, how do you do it? How do you include parameters in these functions? Knowing how to properly use functions will save you time and make your life so much easier.

Classes and structs

Does this language understand the concept of classes or structs? It sounds like a dumb question, but some languages don’t have either, or they have only one. If it does, how do you create a class or struct? Does the class require a constructor or init method?

Error handling

Errors are inevitable. When they occur, does this language have a robust error handling solution and how do you use it? Is it “try/catch,” “try/except,” or something else? Are there other clauses such as “else” or “finally” that allow other options for errors?

Testing

How do you test your code? Is there a built-in library for testing or do you have to download a separate tool?

All of these tools should be in most modern programming languages. Even the older languages such as COBOL have most of these, but they may be called something different, like paragraphs or copybooks.
Why Ronald McDonald Is a Killer Clown
By: Context Staff
Tags: McDonalds, Capitalism, Donald Trump, Consumerism, Food

According to Forbes, McDonald’s is the largest restaurant chain in the world. The question that naturally arises is why. Is it the tastiest? A subjective question, but a strong majority of answers would be no. Is it the healthiest? Most people would say no. So what is the appeal of McDonald’s that makes it the most widespread restaurant chain in the world?

The answer lies in the fact that McDonald’s is fast, cheap, and very addictive. Even if other brands serve better food, the McDonald’s brand value is something which has been built up in the eyes of the consumer over a number of years.

With the advent of globalization and rapid improvements in technology, the speed of any commodity is crucial to its success in the market. In a capitalist system, everything which is a commodity is looked at through the lens of profit. It results in a system that champions monetary gain rather than customer satisfaction. This means serving a customer as quickly and as cheaply as possible. As a result, assembly line organisation in restaurants is really important for delivering food in the fastest time possible. If you are looking for visual proof of this, look no further than your local McDonald’s.

The time taken from placing the order to receiving it rarely takes more than two minutes, three if it is a big one. In the 2016 movie ‘The Founder’, which is the story of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc, McDonald’s 60 second Kitchen to Window formula is highlighted. It details to painful extents how much tomato is to be put in the burger, how much lettuce, and even the exact amount of sauce the consumer will receive in their food.

Food was never meant to be standardized. Food is essentially an extension of a person’s creative skill and ability, and trying to put a cap on a person’s creative ability is unfair to those who practice it. Time is essential in order to extract the maximum flavor from any meal. There is a reason why fresh food tastes better than pre-cooked or ready-to-eat meals, and the latter are, of course, a product of capitalist culture. They save time and can be mass-produced. These also earn their manufacturers maximum profit. As a result, why would anyone pay extra to eat in a restaurant when they can get the same dish much faster and on the go?

The answer is simple: when you take the time to cook food, or go to a restaurant, you are getting more than just a meal. You are getting an experience.

When you eat with your family and friends, food becomes a catalyst between you and other people to enjoy your time, slow down just a bit ,and bond with one another. In other words, what you buy is not food, but the time for food to work its magic in the form of relationships. Then again, yes, you do buy the food too.
Using Data Science To Uncover State-Backed Trolls On Twitter
By: Chua Chin Hon
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Journalism, US Politics, Disinformation, Data Science

Catching these state-backed operators requires team effort, and not everyone involved will have the skills to run a large number of suspicious tweets through a machine learning model. Neither is it efficient to run a model each time you want to check on a few potentially suspicious tweets.

To this end, I built a simple web app — http://chuachinhon.pythonanywhere.com/ — where the user only needs to key in the text of a suspicious tweet to get a quick check on whether it could be a Russian troll tweet or not. The app is simple and you can easily build 10 different versions if you need to put them in the hands of teams in 10 different countries or markets.

It won’t be as accurate as the latest model on the data scientist’s computer, but it serves as a quick diagnostic tool that would complement other tools used in Step 1 to identify a state troll’s digital fingerprint.

STEP 3: ANALYSING PREDICTIONS WITH SHAP

There are at least two ways to further analyse the model’s predictions, such as by examining the predicted probabilities or plotting the frequencies of key words which appear most often.

But neither method offers the level of granularity that SHAP can provide, in terms of shedding light on what features prompted the model to predict whether a tweet is a real or troll tweet. SHAP can also be used to gain insights into where the model’s predictions went wrong, and what could have caused the incorrect classifications — an essential insight for updates to the model as the trolls update their tactics.

A detailed explanation of SHAP, or SHapley Additive exPlanations, is beyond the scope of this post. In the context of this project, it is perhaps easier to illustrate how SHAP works with a few examples.

SHAP EXAMPLE 1

Here’s a tweet that the Model 1 accurately classified as a real tweet: “An announcement of a summit date is likely to come when Trump meets with Chinese vice premier Liu He at the White House.”
Angry Boss Syndrome Plagues Nation
By: Scott Rosenberg
Tags: Trump, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Politics, Ethics

The NewCo Daily: Today’s Top Stories

A good organization complements its leaders’ weaknesses; a bad one magnifies their flaws. Under President Trump, the entire executive branch of the U.S. government has turned into a feedback loop for the man’s moods and outbursts, as an extraordinary account in The Washington Post makes clear.

The White House team is on a bipolar roller-coaster that rises and falls with Trump’s state of mind — and we’re all along for the ride. If you’ve ever worked for someone with Angry Boss Syndrome, you know how dysfunctional this can get. The organizational focus narrows down to assessments of the boss’s psyche and efforts to influence it, while everyone scurries to buffer themselves from executive whim and rage.

Of course, this is no way to run a business, let alone a country. Today the Trump team rolled out its Travel Ban 2.0 — the latest close-the-borders effort piling to the build-the-wall campaign, the ICE crackdown on “dreamers,” and the H1B-visa limits. A few of the rough edges of the original order have been smoothed out, and Iraq has been removed from the list (CNN). But the essential outline stands: keep out visitors from a handful of mostly-Muslim countries — even though they’re not where any terrorist attacks on the U.S. have originated.

So it looks like it’s time to prepare for another round of legal combat, airport protests, and presidential reaction. Brows will darken; tweets will fly. Meanwhile, anger builds, and the real business of the nation languishes.
I Just Had An Eye Transplant
By: Sylvia Wohlfarth
Tags: Poetry, Rhymes, Animals, Humour, Operations

I’ve just had an eye transplant

And when I close my older eye

I see my dinner with my other,

A juicy earthworm all squishy

And fat.

Now don’t squirm at my daily fodder.

So, tell me what am eye?

And no sorry, I’m neither a cat

Nor an elephant at that.

I’ve just had an eye transplant

And when I close my older eye

I see my nocturnal enemy,

Hooting and ready

To swoop down and eat me.

My future looks deadly.

So, tell me what am eye?

And no sorry, I’m not a bee

Nor a soldier ant, hee hee.

I’ve just had an eye transplant.

And when I squint through my new eye

I see two other eyes, whiskers and a nose

Glued to the glass of my bowl.

One of my many foes.

So, tell me what am eye?

No, I don’t belong to the crows

Nor am I a pheasant as far as that goes.

Now, that’s enough methinks.

There are way too many eyes

For me to see

And I’ll only drive you crazy

If I continue on my never-ending transplant spree!
by Background Noise Comics
By: Background Noise Comics
Tags: Humor, Cooking, Jewish, Yom Kippur, Comics

Written by

Daily comic by Lisa Burdige and John Hazard about balancing life, love and kids in the gig economy.
Bitupper: analyzing the services. Bitupper Block Explorer
By: Maria Fomina
Tags: Bitupper, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Bitcoin

All the might of the Bitupper Block Explorer is available on testnet.bitupper.com, where you can test its functionality and then leave feedback and suggestions in our social networks! What features does the Explorer provide and why is it needed at all?

A block explorer is a tool which allows to track any transaction happened in the blockchain. As you know, the cryptoworld we live in right now, is built around the blockchain technology. Blockchain consists of transactions made between users, made to miners from reward centers, made between stock exchanges and so on. Every single cryptocurrency movement ever made is given it’s own “index” and is stored in blockchain. If the transaction is not found in the blockchain, then a transaction error occurred. The block explorer is similar to the history of a bank account, but it is unified for all accounts of all users of a certain cryptocurrency. This makes the cryptocurrencies transparent and eliminates the need for a third party.

How many services do you use to work with cryptocurrency, to send funds, to check whether a transaction made in a certain cryptocurrency was successful? More than 1? And how many of them do you trust your money? Trust your assets only with yourself with the help of Bitupper! We believe that the count of services for working with cryptocurrency should be no more than one!

We create a multicurrency Bitupper Wallet containing all supported cryptocurrencies (BTC, LTC right now and BCH, ETH, DOGE to be supported soon) and combined with Bitupper Explorer. What is the essence?

Each transaction receives a unique index, which is tracked as part of the blockchain associated with it. The selection can be customized to get results, for example, for a certain period of time. You do not need to use each block explorer separately, everything works on the same website. You can search for transactions by addresses, block heights or hashes.

If several matches are found during the search, all such transactions will be displayed to select the desired currency.

Bitupper meets the requirements for providing a high level of security, which will be discussed in more details in one of the following publications.
Wreath
By: Amy Knight
Tags: Family, Christmas, Poetry, Acrostic, Nature

Wind your twine around this hoop of mine,

and find some peace as one more piece

of winter’s puzzle bends to your design.

Round – with holly, ivy, spruce- we go;

and round again

with eucalyptus, elegans and sloe.

Each sprig we cut

from branches wild and free

is nature’s gift, from Earth to you and me.

A year-long search for ways to be together

culminated in three rings of birch,

hung from three doors, in frosty weather.

These symbols of the season

raise our spirits, and

(if we should need a reason)

give us cause to raise a glass;

to pause and look at what we made,

at what we took and what we gave.

Hope is handmade, handwoven.

Fingers pricked through knitted gloves adorn their wreaths

with beauties of the hedgerow,

weaving leaves and ribbons

round and round,

with love.

© Amy Knight 2020

Images: 1. Amazon (birch wreath), 2. MarthaStewart.com (fingerless mittens) 3. Wreath made by the author with locally foraged fruits and foliage

More like this…
SCI Daily Crypto Digest: Strong Breakout!
By: Jervis C. Tinimbang
Tags: Fintech, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Philippine, Bitcoin

July 18, 2018

Image from Coindesk

Bitcoin (BTC) surged past $6,800, and came close to $7,500 before settling between $7,300-$7,400. Market sentiment remained positive after news that Blackrock may trade crypto and Coinbase looking to expand its crypto listings. Technically, BTC broke out from a bullish head and shoulders chart pattern. Using a measured move from the head to the neckline as a guide, the target should be around $7,700.

Support levels are at $6,800 and $6,400 while resistance levels are at $7,500 and $7,800.

*BTCPHP: 398,790 / 384,080

*ETHUSD: $503.09

*USDPHP: 53.4293

*BTC market cap: $126B

*Crypto market cap: $294B

Image from coin360.io

News:

*Mastercard has secured a patent for a system which would speed up cryptocurrency transactions. The company acknowledged the fact that while fiat transactions are instant, blockchain-based transactions take a significant amount of time. Mastercard described the patented system where users would have their fiat and crypto accounts linked, which would then allow crypto payments to be able to use the fiat currency’s payment rails and security features.

*The Nikkei Asian Review reports that Japan revamped the Financial Services Agency (FSA), better equipping it for the fintech age. Its newly created Strategy Development and Management Bureau will devise financial policy strategy, inspect financial institutions, and handle tasks that encompass wide-ranging fields, such as financial technology, virtual currencies, and money laundering.

*Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings is now opening its VCTrade crypto platform to all Japan residents aged 20–70. The first bank-backed crypto exchange, had a limited soft launch last month, testing and making sure its security is robust before opening it to the public. Initial pairs available are XRP/JPY, BTC/JPY, and BCH/JPY.

SCI | buybitcoin.ph | Bitbit | Keza | Rebit.ph
When dementia comes, kiss me.
By: Martina Rl
Tags: Prose, Dementia, Fiction, Poetry, Literally Literary

“By the pink and orange sunset we both loved, even without a giggling crowd — kiss me again.” (image © Jana Manalo)

My sweetest darling,

I am sorry, if amidst a thousand mantras of forget-me-nots, I’d wake up one day without remembering how your dear name used to linger endearingly, along the crests and troughs of my tongue. But come that moment, I plead you to kiss me, softly, and then eagerly.

Teach my mouth how to say it once again, for we both know that it is only your lips that knows its way through. Kiss me softly, and then eagerly.

Kiss me until a spark of recognition appears in the brown of my eyes. Yet still, kiss me softly until I close them.

Kiss me, until I’m moaning and gasping for air— like our first night, a few hours after we said our shares of I do’s. Dress me up if you must, in my old-aged wedding dress with some of its laces already in loose threads, and you in your browning button-up shirt. Walk me to the beach and let me feel your hands intertwined with mine once again, or carry me in your arms if I couldn’t anymore.

Then, by the pink and orange sunset we both loved, even without a giggling crowd — kiss me again, like it’s the first time you did, after I’m finally proclaimed as your loving wife.

Kiss me in all the ways that you can.

My love, I may have forgotten, but as you kiss me I know my heart would plunge into yearning madness. Your lips would be alarm bells that’d be nudging at my whole being. And though I may not come back to you instantly, I promise to find it within myself to fight the sickness that’s consuming me.

Kiss me darling, softly, and then eagerly. And even if through it all I’d still won’t remember your name, I’d kiss you.

For you know it is only you and your lips I’d been aching all my whole life for.

Kiss me sweetheart, softly, and then eagerly. Please do until you find the woman you loved — afraid and hiding in between the caves of her disease-consumed mind. She may have forgotten how to say the words, but know she is in love with you, always and forever, all and just the same.

Kiss me. I promise that soon after, I’d be fighting.

And only you, love, would be the one to feel that it is finally, and truly, me

— back home to you.

It is I, and my heart beats for you.

.
การทำ Stochastic Gradient Descent ด้วยวิธีการ Partial Derivative Approximation
By: Pisut Oncharoen
Tags: Botnoi, Gradient Descent, Data Science, Optimization

This publication consists of articles related to Data science and AI written from Botnoi’s data scientists and students.

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Literally Last Week
By: Jess Kaisk
Tags: Creative Writing, Literally Last Week, Literally Literary

It’s the first one of 2017, and its a fantastic one! We hope that you all had a great New Years, and are ready to take on 2017! Here are five of last week’s writers that, quite simply, nailed it!
Impress Your Friends With These Fun and Useful Mac Terminal Commands
By: Javascript Jeep
Tags: Mac, Command Line, Terminal, Programming, Cli

1. Make Your Mac Talk to You

Yes, your Mac can talk to you. Whatever you say, it will repeat it.

say “I am Groot” say “I am great at impressing people”

The say command will dictate whatever sentence you enter between the double quotes in the default system voice.

You can also change the voice by going to System Preferences → Accessibility, → Speech → System Voice pop-up menu, and then choosing a voice.

It’s a cool terminal command to prank others with.
Earning Millions on YouTube Is So Easy, Children Are Doing It
Tags: Technology, Influencer Marketing, Social Media, YouTube, Children

Earning Millions on YouTube Is So Easy, Children Are Doing It PCMag Follow Jan 15 · 3 min read

The Forbes list of top earners is out, and an eight-year-old boy and six-year-old girl beat out almost everyone else.

By Chandra Steele

Onscreen fame and the fortune that followed used to lie below the Hollywood sign-but now, it’s attainable on laptops in living rooms.

YouTube is the banner under which clicks and cash are to be had. Earning $20 million or so is so easy, a child could do it. And there are two children on the list that Forbes created of the top earners in 2019 (based on pretax income from ads, sponsored content, merchandise, tours, and other related earnings).

Eight-year-old Ryan Kaji earned $26 million last year, more than anyone else on YouTube. It’s not a shock for anyone who has walked into a Target and seen that his Ryan’s World toy line dominates nearly an entire aisle. Kaji started with unboxing videos, but his channel now includes a wide variety of content, and his empire also encompasses a clothing line, a Nickelodeon show, a deal with Hulu, and partnerships with plenty of brands.

Five-year-old Anastasia Radzinskaya isn’t far behind at third place on the list, with earnings of $18 million last year. Radzinskaya was born in Russia and has cerebral palsy. Her parents started making videos of her to document her developmental progress. She now stars on six multinlingual YouTube channels (the largest of which is Like Nastya) and has deals with major brands. She moved to the United States in 2018.

Videos with children attract three times as many views as other videos, according to Pew Research Center. There are many worrying connotations attached to this data, but there are also adults who are willing to act like children to capitalize on it.

The second-highest earners on the list are five in their 30s who act like children under the collective name Dude Perfect. They blow things up in slo-mo, put on panda suits, and perfect trick shots, all for their channel and for a show they have on Nickelodeon.

Rhett & Link are also grown men but are also childhood friends who are living the dream: They have a comedy-focused YouTube channel that brought them $17.5 million last year.

If you follow Jeffree Star, then you probably don’t need to look at this list to know he rounded out the top five by taking in $17 million last year. Just the other day, he said hello and welcomed viewers to his new 25,000-square-foot home. The makeup mogul takes a minute before the tour to remind viewers that six years ago, when he was making the move from Myspace fame to a new YouTube channel, he had just under $600 in his bank account.
How video games perpetuate Muslim stereotypes
By: Virtual Mosque
Tags: Guys, Bad, Games

From Nicole Lee on engadget;

“We are often just reduced to four or five stereotypes,” said Dr. Romana Ramzan, a game design lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University in the UK. “It’s usually summed up by the clothes we wear. So if you’re a woman, you wear a hijab […] If you’re a man, you have a beard or wear your national dress.” She added that Muslims are also often portrayed as aggressive and violent. “In games, we will be represented as the ‘other’ people who are the ones you have to kill. Usually it’s a slightly dark-skinned character shouting Allahu Akbar, carrying an AK-47. Or he has a camel or a goat.”

Movies and video games often take their inspiration from current culture and news and at this point in history Islam and Muslims are seen as an easily identifiable “bad guy”. The easiest way to represent this “bad guy” is to fall back on stereotypes so that little explanation is needed and the story can quickly move forward. It is a point which is causing some Muslims to demand that changes are made as it reinforces negative images of Muslims. I certainly see the point being made, as shows like Homeland, do reinforce the idea that Muslims are all terrorists, however this is nothing new. For years during and after the Cold War Russians were stereotyped as the typical villain in movies, even as recently as last year Hollywood blockbusters were depicting Russians as the typical “bad guy”. After the World War II the Germans and Japanese become the villains.

So is this a demonisation of “The Muslims” or is this just the lazy way that Hollywood and the media work?

Khan also singled out upcoming titles like The Sun Also Rises (about civilians caught in the Afghan war), Dujanah (the story of a girl living in a Muslim country) and Saudi Girls Revolution (where the main characters are female motorcycle heroes who drive across post-apocalyptic Saudi Arabia) that show a different side of the Muslim world. The last in particular is a game developed by a Saudi prince, which Ismail said could inspire change.

Rather than complaining some people are taking direct action and working on titles which depict Muslims in a different light far removed from the usual stereotypes. More work like this is needed but as the Russians have found out little will change the medias’ ability to fall back on sloppy, lazy stereotypes.
Ovcode Smart Contract Audit
By: New Alchemy
Tags: Solidity, Security, Ethereum, Smart Contracts, Token Sale

OVCODE Blockchain engaged New Alchemy to perform an audit of the smart contracts involved in the creation and distribution of the OVC token used for their upcoming verification system. The engagement was technical in nature and focused on identifying security issues in the design and implementation of the contracts, finding differences between the contracts' implementation and their behavior as described in public documentation, and finding any other issues with the contracts that may impact their trustworthiness.

Ovcode provided New Alchemy with access to the relevant source code and whitepaper. The audit was performed over the course of one week. This document describes the issues discovered in the audit.

After receiving New Alchemy’s report, Ovcode made several changes to the smart contracts. This document has been updated to reflect those changes.

Files Audited

The code reviewed by New Alchemy is in the GitHub repository https://github.com/OVCODE-Switzerland/ovc-smart-contract/ at commit hash 1c272df7f6fd3900b53301fd8c714f8503e5a548 .

After receiving New Alchemy’s audit, Ovcode made changes to their smart contracts. These are reflected at commit hash c80ddd420a3dbbb7efb4c8621dcc130c20770073 .

New Alchemy’s audit was additionally guided by Ovcode’s whitepaper. After receiving the initial report, Ovcode released an updated version of the whitepaper and added the OVCOIN whitepaper to GitHub.
Synchronized Swimmers of the Sky
By: Breanna Lowman
Tags: Poetry, Poems On Medium, Reflections, Nature, Birds

Synchronized Swimmers of the Sky

Starling Gazing

Photo by Rhys Kentish on Unsplash

Upward, downward, skyward antics

Swoon and soar and dive as one

You hold my gaze with your acrobatics

Flutter formations beneath rays of sun



Transfixed within your living lullaby

Swaying with your dancing form

Harmonious movements mystify like

A shoal of fish beneath waves perform

Oh synchronized swimmers of the sky

Your frolic of the air sure does satisfy
When You Can Orgasm Alone but Not With a Partner
By: Kaye Smith Phd
Tags: Feminism, Sex, Masturbation, Desire, Women

Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow (How to Come with Your Partner)

The easiest road to orgasm for most women is to utilize how you masturbate during sex. Even if you think it’s weird.

Sometimes the only thing you need to change is how you think about sex.

Women beat themselves up for not being able to pull the orgasm du jour out of their hats. “Why can’t I come during vaginal?” “Why can’t I squirt?” “What’s wrong with me for taking so long, for needing my hand, vibe, teddy bear?” “What wrong with me…”

This is a woman’s version of performance anxiety. And if any of these thoughts enter your head during sex, you can kiss your orgasm goodbye.

Self-acceptance goes a long way here. And I believe that most masturbatory styles can be utilized with a partner with some creativity.

You just have to throw out the sexual script.

What is the sexual script you might ask: The unspoken rules and norms that structure how we have sex.

Contrary to popular opinion, hetsex is anything but natural. It’s as well- choreographed as Swan Lake. And given the intermingling of gender, power, and sexual repression, it’s frequently a hot mess.

Our culturally determined scripts tell us how to have sex. It tells us who the players are, where, and how we’re supposed to do it. Everybody knows the rules even if they don’t follow them.

It usually gives the male the unfair responsibility of carrying the show, while the female gets the unfair responsibility of carrying his ego.

He does. She gets done.

One of the most destructive aspects of hetsex is the idea that a woman’s orgasm MUST be partner induced. This, coupled with the limited range of sexual activities (compared with female masturbation), raises the bar for orgasm and means that women like Michelle will be left out in the cold.

Not that they say anything, though.

Most of us conduct our sex lives in silence. We do what is expected. For instance, the last time you were with a woman or a person with breasts for the first time, did you suck their boobs? Did you french kiss your partner?

Do you know for a fact that this was a turn-on? Odds on, the answer is no.

Maybe you should find out.

Michelle, Jessica, and countless other women struggle with their sexuality because they keep trying to fit their too big foot into Cinderella’s glass slipper. They hate on their big foot and want a downsized version.

I say throw out the damn glass slipper and buy a bigger shoe.
IBM Watson
Tags: Chatbots, NLP, Intent, Watson Assistant, Ibm Watson

IBM Watson

Sign up using https://cloud.ibm.com/registration Search for Watson.

3.Select the Watson Assistant and Create one, then Launch Watson Assistant.

this opens up the Watson Assistant tool in a new window.

4. Lets create 3 intents. Become_a_member, Stories_in_medium, and monetize_medium. Add the example user utterance to each intent, so that it recognizes and segregates when a user asks something similar.

tip: add at least 5 user utterance so that Watson understands and trains itself.

5. Next select the annotate entities. This will allow you to add entities/synonyms to the word. Once created when you click on the next word it will automatically add this value to the entity.

6.To add hard coded responses in the nlp, let’s go to the Dialog section.

7. Add a node, and Filter by intents. Select the intent you want to configure the response for in condition.

you can configure many kinds of responses like text, image, options. Options is for button response, select the suitable type and configure response.

8.To configure responses on click of the buttons you can provide child nodes to the node created. Which means I will need 2 other intents with yes and no as the user utterance in them.

After adding yes or no intents in the intent section. Select them to configure the child node responses.(delete the Anything else node)

9.Let’s test it by clicking on the Try it!!

10. To use this nlp in your nodejs adapter or any other channel adapter that you create you will need to API key which you find on navigating out of the designer and checking the 3 dots for settings.

Next up, let’s check the voice-based NLP’s, Alexa and GoogleHome.
My Tar Filled Eyes
By: Amanda Dalmas
Tags: Poetry, Unrequited Love, Suffering, Pain, Sadness

A Poem

Photo by Tayler Lyons on Unsplash

My diamonds have become so compressed

that they ooze burnt motor oil now.

I thought they were enough of a payment.

A year's worth of tears and sexless nights.

Where has my self worth gone?

No-where to be found.

Still, you will not break.

And I am pooling around your feet…

Melted by the flames of passion, no one has quelched

in what has felt like an eternity….spent

waiting,

aching,

Over You!

Amanda Dalmas ~ Dec. 27th, 2020
Key Ingredients for Data Science Recipe
By: Shubhangi Gupta
Tags: Data Analyst, Codingurukul, Data Science

Despite of being the sexiest job of the 21st Century, considering to be for two or more decades. Data Science is the best combination of scientific process and methods, implemented by algorithms for extracting the insight knowledge of data in various forms, structured or unstructured or both. Data Science is the unified phenomenon of statistics, data analyzing with machine learning and other related methods.One may know that R language and python is considerable for these skills. But they might not aware of the basic component of a data scientist.

What is data science? Why you need it?

Data Science is the technical omniscience which could be implemented after the extraction of unstructured or structured data form or both. Moreover, data science is likely to be analyzed better before computing. Example-It could be real-time example as well, How we create excel sheets in our day to day life after data extraction to get it in an organized manner.

What skills it is likely to cover? What you need it for this?

Getting ready for a job like data scientist or data analyst, all you need to develop his hacker mindset by enhancing the problem solving skills. One should be more curious about the data, strategies and passionate about the business and analytics. The more they chase towards the innovative and creative means, the more they get. Like the thirst makes your way to an oasis and dry mouth will ever found the ocean for you . After all, necessity is the mother of inventions.

A modern data scientist with his skill ranging.

Lets get started with fundamentals

Python

R Language

Machine Learning and Deep Learning

Statistics

Database Management

Data Optimization

Linear Algebra

Regression and Logistic Regression

Classification using K means Clustering

Week 0 Fundamentals for R language

It will be comprises of introduction to the language and mathematical foundations, first level of algorithm, R codes of development and its applications.

Stay connected for the next article for Week 0, from the basics to new extent level of learning. Happy learning.
Choosing Your React Native Debugger Environment
By: Allan Graves
Tags: React Native Debugger, Android App Development, React Native, iOS App Development, Visual Studio Code

Recently, I had the chance to interview for a React Native development position at Microsoft. It was a fantastic sounding position — one of the interviewers threw me for a loop.

What do you think of the React Native debugger, they asked?

Me ….

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

Yeah. I blanked. Entirely.

Looking back, it wasn’t my finest fifteen minutes for something so basic. I’m sure they expected something like Oh, I love Visual Studio Code, it’s awesome at single step, etc. Or maybe, you know, the layout inspector could be better. I blanked. Just everything… gone. I mean, there’s like 5000 ways to debug React Native, and I couldn’t figure a single one. Not even the ones I’d been using for a while.

Needless to say, I did not get the job, but I did get a fantastic new interview question for when I interview others. (Side Note — the interviewer was pretty chill about it and just moved on. Very appreciative of their professionalism.)

So, like any good engineer, I tried to figure out why I blanked.

Google returned about 500 different results for debugging React Native. In varying stages of development. Most of them were just lists of tools. With very few examples of why you would use one over the other.

Most of them were some front end to the Chrome Inspector, which I find… okay.

Lastly — most of these results were just lists. No comparison of features, or explanations of why you would use one over the other. Just — here’s how you can debug React Native.

So, let’s talk about my needs, and then talk about the options.
3 Easy to Use CSS Text Effects
By: Tyler J Funk
Tags: CSS, HTML, Beginner, Text Effects, Web Development

Lately I have been doing some digging into text effects that can be created simply from just using CSS. I found a few that were very easy to implement, and I figured I would share those in this post. The text effects I will be talking about are just a few of the endless possibilities with CSS, but I found them to be especially creative, quick to use, and ultimately, great for beginners with CSS like myself.

I’ll be briefly talking about a few text effects which I first found here and then decided to create my own version. You’ll notice there are a lot of other amazing effects in there, it’s a great resource for text effects.

This post will focus on the CSS/HTML only examples that don’t require a ton of CSS (easy to use).

Let’s get right into it!

Modern Looking Vertical Text

This effect is a modern take on vertical text, inverting them in opposite directions. Someone might use this effect for their portfolio site. You can find the original CodePen that inspired me here, below is my own take on how to approach this effect:

I learned 2 new things from making this one, I learned about the CSS properties writing-mode , which allows us to turn our text sideways, and line-height , which helped to bring the baselines of the text closer to each other.

I chose to use percentages for each translate() so that when the font size is changed, the right foot of the “k” would still be lined up with the foot of the “l” in “Tyler”. This is a stylistic choice that would be different depending on what text you choose. It may be necessary to play around with the translate() property to get it looking how you want.

On that note, depending on what font you use, you may need to play around with the line-height property as well.
Statistical Significance Explained
By: Will Koehrsen
Tags: Hypothesis Testing, Towards Data Science, Data Science, P Value, Statistics

The second building block of statistical significance is the normal distribution, also called the Gaussian or bell curve. The normal distribution is used to represent how data from a process is distributed and is defined by the mean, given the Greek letter μ (mu), and the standard deviation, given the letter σ (sigma). The mean shows the location of the center of the data and the standard deviation is the spread in the data.

Normal Distribution with mean μ and standard deviation σ

The application of the normal distribution comes from assessing data points in terms of the standard deviation. We can determine how anomalous a data point is based on how many standard deviations it is from the mean. The normal distribution has the following helpful properties:

68% of data is within ± 1 standard deviations from the mean

95% of data is within ± 2 standard deviations from the mean

99.7% of data is within ± 3 standard deviations from the mean

If we have a normal distribution for a statistic, we can characterize any point in terms of standard deviations from the mean. For example, average female height in the US is 65 inches (5' 5") with a standard deviation of 4 inches. If we meet a new acquaintance who is 73 inches tall, we can say she is two standard deviations above the mean and is in the tallest 2.5% of females. (2.5% of females will be shorter than μ — 2σ (57 in) and 2.5% will be taller than μ+2σ).

In statistics, instead of saying our data is two standard deviations from the mean, we assess it in terms of a z-score, which just represents the number of standard deviations a point is from the mean. Conversion to a z-score is done by subtracting the mean of the distribution from the data point and dividing by the standard deviation. In the height example, you can check that our friend would have a z-score of 2. If we do this to all the data points the new distribution is called the standard normal with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1 as shown below.

Transformation from normal (right) to standard normal distribution (left). (Source)

Every time we do a hypothesis test, we need to assume a distribution for the test statistic, which in our case is the average (mean) hours of sleep for our students. For a z-test, the normal curve is used as an approximation for the distribution of the test statistic. Generally, according to the central limit theorem, as we take more averages from a data distribution, the averages will tend towards a normal distribution. However, this will always be an estimate because real-world data never perfectly follows a normal distribution. Assuming a normal distribution lets us determine how meaningful the result we observe in a study is. The higher or lower the z-score, the more unlikely the result is to happen by chance and the more likely the result is meaningful. To quantify just how meaningful the results are, we use one more concept.
The Art of Self-Blindness
By: Niharika Gursahani
Tags: A Cornered Gurl, Heart, Challenge, Pain, Haibun

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

I bury those untold stories beneath my skin and name them scars — I treat me like a burial ground for every emotion ever felt as your deep intoxication pulls me apart and tries to weigh me down and break my limbs — the agony dreads me and controls my sanity like a puppet and I cannot tear it down, I require sanity for that — I feel ripped by the fickle fingers of those well-known strangers who took my heart away and left me barren — but I still smile, and I still laugh, I still breathe — as I wonder about the identity of this stranger in the mirror in front of me.
Binance Flash Update
Tags: News, Blockchain, Binance, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

Listings

Binance Supports VEN Mainnet Swap and Adds VEN/USDT Trading Pair

Binance would like to confirm that we will support the VEN Mainnet Token Swap. Binance will also open trading for the VEN/USDT trading pair at 2018/06/22 8:00 AM (UTC).

Max Supply: 873,378,637 VEN

Circulating Supply: 526,019,148 VEN

About VEN: https://info.binance.com/currencies/vechain

Official Announcement

Binance Lists Community Coin Round 7 Winner — Pundi X (NPXS)

Binance will open trading for NPXS/BTC and NPXS/ETH trading pairs at 2018/06/21 2:00 AM (UTC).

Max Supply : 280,755,195,000 NPXS

Circulating Supply : 69,302,626,409 NPXS

About NPXS: https://info.binance.com/currencies/pundi-x

Official Announcement
“Becoming Burlesque” by Jackie English (2017)
By: Rene Hirsch
Tags: Movies, Female Directors, Dance, Strippers, Religion

Movies directed by women

Week of first features

Top score: gender (10)

A somewhat amateuristic script and direction, but a joyful atmosphere

Cast: Shiva Negar, Elise Bauman, Alli Chung

Director: Jackie English

Writer: Jackie English

Music by Bruce Fowler, Keegan Jessamy, Bryce Mitchell

Cinematography by Clement Lush

Film Editing by Paul Whitehead

Art Direction by Kei Yano