fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Disability Awareness Month: The Nazis’ Nameless Victims
By: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Tags: Conversations, Disability, Nazis, Holocaust

Werner Teitz, pictured with his mother, was born in Germany with physical disabilities. Werner could not immigrate to America with his family because the United States denied him a visa because of his disability. He was deported from the Netherlands and killed at Sobibor in 1943. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of the Dumais, Teitz, and Zuckerman families

People with physical and mental disabilities were the Nazis’ first victims of mass murder. Seeing them as a threat to “Aryan genetic purity,” the Nazis deemed these Germans “unworthy of life.” But most of these early victims of Nazism remain anonymous. Laws protecting medical records conceal the identities of many of the 250,000 people murdered by doctors and nurses in this program.

In this digital program in recognition of #DisabilityAwarenessMonth, learn the stories of some of the victims whose names a German doctor has brought to light in order to confront the past sins of his profession.
7 Sexual Positions For This Political Climate
By: Ellie Guzman
Tags: Women, Sex, Humor, Love, Satire

A couple of white people, just like the candidates. [Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash]

A Woman?!

This is when a woman watches you and your partner and coaches you on how to improve. Sure, her tips are great, but there’s something about her you just don’t like.

The Moderate

This is when you’re trying to please both parties but at the end, no one’s happy.

The Yang Bang

This is when you meet a nice gentleman at a bar and suddenly you’re in your bedroom talking about automation while sitting on a vibrator. Then just as you’re about to start something, he leaves.

A Little to the Right

This is when you have sex with someone that’s been begging you for it, and afterwards they say you don’t need reproductive rights and you’re like Wait whaaat?

A Little to the Left

This is when you have sex with someone that’s just fine. Nothing spectacular. The whole time you’re thinking about your amazing ex, Barack.

The Sand Man

This is when you hook up with someone as their supporters throw insults and hot coins at you for literally no reason so you grab your panties and dip.

Four More Years?

This is when you sigh deeply and just bend over. If we’re already getting fucked, might as well have sex.
What I Learned from Losing Locations Before Filming
By: Evelyn Lee
Tags: Movies, Filmmaking, Independent Film, Film, Women Directors

What I Learned from Losing Locations Before Filming

Preparation is key.

They always tell you to plan for the unexpected — what could go wrong almost always will.

When I was starting out, I learned a lot of valuable things from making mistakes. Just two days before principal photography was scheduled to start on a short film of mine, I got a call from the location that was central to the film. The owner said some plans had changed and they could no longer allow us to film there.

I panicked. Would I have to postpone the shoot? Would everyone still be available if I changed the date? Where am I supposed to get a new location in such a short period of time? Will my budget cover this?

Writing and budgeting.

I didn’t have the budget to really consider having a second location (or anything else) as a backup. I didn’t have the owner sign a release form (don’t rely on verbal agreements). I didn’t consider the fact that, quite possibly, things could go very wrong. As stressful as the entire ordeal was, I learned from it in the best way possible.

I contacted everyone in the cast and crew to tell them a problem had arose with the location, and if things don’t get sorted out in time, the shoot might be postponed. Everyone was understanding, and consoled me, assuring me things would be fine.

Then miraculously, one of my crew members told me that someone else he had worked with on another shoot might have exactly what I needed. I got in touch with the person, who was gracious enough to lend me a location that was exactly what I needed — and for free.

Some of the shot list and blocking had to be changed last minute, but otherwise, everything else went exactly as planned. The dates and budget didn’t have to change. Everyone was cooperative, and it was a smooth, quick, and fairly painless shoot.

While everything worked out, it was an important reminder that I wouldn’t get so lucky every time, so I needed to plan and prepare better — and for the worst. Always scout more than one location and have a backup. Make sure all the details are covered. And always sign a release form.

Also, keep the weather in mind. I was lucky this was an interior set and we weren’t affected by the weather. But I also did once film on an exterior set covered in snow and ice, with additional snowfall in the forecast… but that’s another story for another time.

For my following film, I learned from my mistakes. I had backups for everything from location to craft services, and made sure release forms and other necessary paperwork were signed. I ended up having to use one of the backup locations. While some additional accommodations had to be made, it wasn’t the same horrifying situation as the first time.

At least the second time around, I was prepared.
NEM North America Blockchain Tour 2018 | Jason Lee
By: Nem Australia, New Zealand, Official Editor
Tags: University, Blockchain, Announcements, Nem, Blockchain Technology

NEM Australia & NZ Expansion Director, Jason Lee, will be travelling to North America to participate in numerous talks and panels on blockchain technology and NEM.

Below you can find the schedule of all the events that Jason will be participating in. Click the link to find out more and register for your ticket.

24–25 Sept | Los Angeles, California

Engagement with Fuller Seminary — link

2. University engagement with University of Southern California — link

3. University engagement with California Institute of Technology — link
WBTC is now live in COSS Wallet
By: Coss Team
Tags: Trading, Blockchain, Crypto, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

About WBTC (Wrapped BITCOIN)

Wrapped BITCOIN a cryptocurrency token that instills more liquidity in the Ethereum ecosystem which includes decentralised exchanges (DEXs) and financial applications. At present, the greater part of trading volume occurs on centralised exchanges using Bitcoin.

With WBTC, a shift in trend will occur where DEXs will also be able to enjoy the benefits of Bitcoin’s liquidity and make token trades with Bitcoins a possibility. It generates smart contracts for Bitcoin which ‘wraps’ Bitcoin to standardise it to ERC20 format.

It facilitates the writing of smart contracts that integrate Bitcoin transfers.
The Shovan Chronicles — Part 9. Resurrection Uncovered
By: Moshe Forman
Tags: Series, Fantasy, Adventure, Fiction, Coming Of Age

Quench saw a figure emerge from the shadows. He put his finger to Wendy’s lips.

It was Unfrar. “Much as I hate to intrude, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.”

Quench laughed nervously. “We were just joking.”

“I would like to suggest a pact.”

“What do you mean?” asked Wendy.

“Quench, as The Black Redeemer, you will empower us. And I rather like the idea of you, Wendy, being the White Redeemer. Not a figure that that features in our legends, I admit, but you will be a nice embellishment to the story. It will be lapped up by the masses. As for Wendy’s father being the Third Redeemer, sheer genius. I salute you. I would never have thought of that.”

“But what is all this to you?” asked Quench.

“Whilst no admirer of King Megron, I hate the rebel leader Rivek even more; it was he who turned me into a cripple. No good can come out of an insurrection led by such a devious creature. I pleaded with the other outcasts to oppose Rivek’s schemes, but to no avail, so I volunteered to bring you here. It was an excuse to get away, to think about my next move.”

“So what do you plan now?” asked Quench.

“We will set up an opposition in the Rebel camp. If we did it openly we would be crushed immediately, but the moment you are introduced as The Black, and White Redeemers, Rivek will be powerless to oppose us.”

Quench protested. “A guard in the citadel was killed because of us. We want no more bloodshed. We will not be party to your…your…rebellion against the rebellion.”

“I will sue for peace with the King. My plan is to use you and Wendy to get the citizens on our side. We would demand that the King ease the burden of taxation, freeing the citizens from their yoke of poverty, without the spilling of blood.”

“We are getting in over our heads,” said Wendy. “We want to find my father and leave this place. That is all.”

“Getting away will not be as easy as you think. As Redeemers you will have great influence and power. It could be the only chance you get to find your father. Rescuing the Third Redeemer will become a holy duty for the army and citizens.”

“Just leave us be,” said Wendy.

“How you arrived here I do not know, nor how you will depart. No creature ever leaves Shovan. We cannot transverse the seas.”

“Pirates captured Wendy’s father on the sea,” said Quench, “so there are some creatures who do know how to navigate the oceans.”

“This Pirate Kin is not from Shovan.”

Wendy was tired. “We will think about it. Let us rest now.”

As they lay to sleep, Quench could feel the heaving of her breast. “Are you crying?”

“Unfrar said the pirates are not from Shovan. They’ve probably taken my father far away.”

Quench tried to reassure her. “From my window in the attic, I used to see all the vessels that entered the port, from tiny fishing boats to giant battleships. I know every type of ship that ever sailed the seas. The boat that attacked us had masts attached from the edges of the deck. It was like nothing I had ever seen. It couldn’t have been from our world, the pirates must hail from Shovan.”
Die taz: Sebuah Catatan Harian (7-Habis) 27 November 1991: Akhir dari Sebuah Awal
Tags: Privatisasi Media, Kooperasi, Komersialisasi Media, Media Kooperasi

in Eudaimonia and Co
New Hampshire
By: Kamala Harris
Tags: 2020, Politics, Kamala Harri

I just left New Hampshire and I’m humbled that so many amazing people took the time these last few days to join us for my first of what will be many visits as a candidate for president.

We started at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, where I had a great time talking with Granite Staters.

Then, we headed to Portsmouth for our first town hall in New Hampshire — the largest so far in this primary.

We talked about numerous issues critical to the future of our nation: passing gun safety legislation; giving middle-class families a hand up and ensuring wages meet the cost of living, gas, rent, and utilities; making Election Day a national holiday; the Green New Deal; and more.

The place was packed! So many people came out that the fire marshal made us close the doors, so I went outside to talk to the hundreds who braved the snow.

This morning, we joined the Politics & Eggs series — a forum to meet with local leaders and talk about the issues that matter to the people. And, of course, I signed some of their famous wooden eggs:

New Hampshire, thank you for sharing your stories, thoughts, and hopes for the future of our nation. I can’t wait to be back.

Sincerely,

— Kamala Harris
An End of an Era for Doctor Who. Revolution of the Daleks seems to…
By: Leslie Lozada
Tags: BBC, Television, Science Fiction, Entertainment, Doctor Who

As most of us Doctor Who Fans and Followers know, there is a special coming up on New Year’s Day. A couple of people are coming back for the special, the most notable being John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness. But there are a couple of people leaving as well.

Graham O’Brian (Bradly Walsh) and Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole) will leave at the end of the New Years Special Revolution of the Daleks.

I have followed Walsh’s career a lot over the years, most of it being through Law and Order :UK , where it seems like that they needed as many Doctor Who actors as needed to be lawyers and policemen. I’ve also seen him on The Chase (which is why I am sadly disappointed to not see him in the apparent American version that’s on Netflix. So, sufficed to say, I was more than happy to see him in the new cast for Series 11, a familiar face.

I have only seen Ryan’s actor in Doctor Who to date, how ever he has made quite a good impression on this ol’ writer with his performance. He had a lot happen to his characters in just the first series alone.
Building a Low Effort, High Impact Prototype for Hackfest: Online Code Editor for ACLScript
By: Pasang Dawa Lama Sherpa
Tags: JavaScript, Software Engineering, Software Development, Hackathons

ACLScript is a scripting language, similar to SQL used for various data analysis purposes. It is processed by Galvanize’s Analytics engine on the various Galvanize platforms, one of which is the ACL Robotics Platform, https://www.wegalvanize.com/robotic-process-automation/. It is a domain specific language (DSL) and is unique to Galvanize. Users package their ACLScripts in the form of a ‘Robot’ to be sent to ACL Robotics Platform for scheduling jobs to run on a remote Analytics engine machine.

The current development mode workflow in Galvanize’s ACL Robotics Platform requires users to download all the scripts contained with a Robot package just to edit a single line in a script to make a change or fix an error. The change must then be re-committed back to ACL Robotics Platform for subsequent iteration of execution.

The apparent problem is that the user’s download directory gets cluttered with many Robots. Moreover, one needs to have a corresponding and matching encoding (non-Unicode/Unicode) of Analytics application installed just to open, edit and commit the changes. The trivial solution to this problem is to have an online ACLScript code-editor in the Robotics Platform to eliminate the intermediate steps of taking a user from a problem-state to a desired-end-state.

With the use of an existing open-source library this was a low-effort and high-impact project to work on. In fact, it was an ideal project for a two day hackfest event to showcase how a simple and trivial solution can add high value to our existing product and also make the code-run-debug-fix cycle far less tedious.

Design and Interaction With react-monaco-editor

We created a React Application and used react-monaco-editor library for the code editor features. This library has multiple functionalities out of the box like syntax highlighting, language theme, auto-completion, IntelliSense, validation and a diff-editor mode. For a reference, the popular IDE Visual Studio Code is also powered by Monaco-editor. All that needed to be done was to add our ACLScript DSL language. All of the following examples are related to integrating react-monaco-editor into existing application.

Teaching Monaco About the Keywords in AClScript

In order for the react-monaco-editor to successfully highlight the code, we must specify a list of keywords within the ACLScript language. We created a separate file to contain the syntax definitions for the ACLScript language. With the definitions in place, the setMonarchTokensProvider method is used to set the language with the API from editor.api as mentioned in the import statement. See the code below.

The ACLScript keywords were added as part of the tokenizer attribute. This method sets the keyword validation for syntax highlighting and also detects comments within the code.

Adding Auto-Completion Implementation

To better understand the problem and solution, let’s take a quick look at auto-completion example for ACLScript:
A Dolphin Saved Hundreds of Lives in the Early 1900s
By: Sean Kernan
Tags: Science, Life, Nature, History, Animals

Dangerous nautical journeys in the 19th century

The French Pass is located on the islands of Pelorus Sound, New Zealand. It is surely beautiful on the eyes:

Author via Wikimedia Commons

But for hundreds of years, it was one of the most dangerous passes in the world. Its fast currents and sharp rocks sank ship after ship, taking sailors with them.

Entering this pass was necessary for many routes and was a nerve-rattling leg of the journey for most sailors.

All until a strange dolphin started arriving.

They called him Pelorus Jack. Accounts of his efforts began in 1905. A ship reported seeing a dolphin signaling to them just as the ship was entering the dangerous pass.

He was waving his fin and squealing. Then, the ship followed the dolphin safely through and into open waters.

What’s remarkable is that the dolphin not only learned ships could sink, but that sinking was dangerous to humans.

Even further, it cared enough to stop these disasters from happening. Speculation is that he saw several ships sink in the region and adapted.

Pelorus Jack typically met ships at the entrance.

He was particularly keen to help larger ships, as he was a fan of doing periodic surfing sessions on the boat's wake:

Pic of Pelorus Jack from 1909. (Source Marlborough Museum Archives (creative commons license))

This was especially helpful because those larger ships were the most at risk of sinking.

After guiding each ship, Pelorus Jack milled around the entrance to the bay, feeding on nearby fish.

They suspect he was an orphan, which might explain his unusual behavior, as well as his being the only Risso dolphin in the region.
How to build a non-geographical map #2
By: Fanny Kassapian
Tags: Code, JavaScript, Data Visualization, Maps, Leaflet

#Part 2: From scatter plot to interactive map

At the center of data visualization, is communication. The ability to transform a frightening table into a compelling story. Often, the ultimate goal is to drive insights for problem-solving or decision making. In most cases, users don’t get to play with data and take a passive stance. But, what if you want to empower your audience, spark their curiosity and allow them to explore data?

We use maps to navigate the unknown. They give us the confidence to get off the beaten path. We deviate from the initial route and make a stop at a café or a detour by a museum. This is also how we use the web. We make a search, one link leads to another, and we end up developing an interest in something we did not even know existed a few clicks ago.

Could we convey data in the same serendipitous way?

In the first part of this series, we used dimensionality reduction to map similarities in a 2D space. We ended up with a new coordinate system that allowed us to visualize our data in a scatter plot (see graph (Plotly)).

In this article, we will transform it into an interactive map, including a search bar and a side panel. We’ll be using Leaflet and some additional JavaScript.
Best part of my day
By: Sanjay Joshi
Tags: Infosys Bangalore, Bangalore, Everyday, Coffee

Theres this food court in office… it overlooks the golf course. brilliant sight, lush green fields to face while you eat your vada. tats all u get there. best part of my day.

and oh, the tea there is nice. dude puts more milk than a cow can produce in a day, but its nice… especially when it rains.
Instagram’s New Sponsored Post Format: What It Means for Influencers, Brands & Audiences
Tags: Social Media Marketing, Instagram, Instagram Marketing, Social Media, Influencer Marketing

By Chris Carbonaro

Instagram announced via their business blog last week that they would be testing a new format for influencer sponsored content. Up until now on social media outlets the FCC has rules regarding the format of the post — What needs to be included, where the #ad or #sponsored should be, etc. and according to TechCrunch, the FCC sent out letters to over 90 influencers to remind them not to hide the fact that the post was sponsored. This new Instagram feature is the first step in removing that gray area. In the new format, influencers can easily tag a photo or story with a “Paid partnership with” banner. The banner is placed in the same space as a location tag would be, so it is easily visible, however not inherently in your face.

So what does this mean for Influencer Marketing?

First and foremost, it means transparency for all parties. It’s now clearer than ever for people to know when someone they follow is partnering with a brand, but it also places it in a more organic format. Influencers can frame the post how they like, in their natural style that they’ve created for themselves without the need for #ad or #sponsored. The whole point of influencer marketing is trusting an influencer to integrate a brand into the style that their followers embrace them for, and this makes it easier to maintain authenticity and transparency.

Total Reach: 6M*

Average Engagement on Instagram: 41.4K*

Aimee Song, founder of Song of Style and songofstyle on Instagram, is one of the influencers testing out Instagram’s new feature:

“@songofstyle is about sharing my experiences with people and hopefully bringing them inspiration, whether in travel, fashion, or other areas of lifestyle…When working with brands like Volvo, it’s important to remember that people react to the realness of you, so Instagram’s new tagging tool will help show that my take on the XC90 is just that — mine.” (source)

In addition to allowing influencers to be transparent with their followers, the brand can now see the insights from the post. Influencers can see the engagement and reach metrics through their Instagram Insights as they always have, but businesses can now view them through their Facebook page insights, the same way they view the performance of their placed advertisements.

The overall goal here is to make everyone in the influencer marketing game happy; attempting to make everything transparent, organic, and lets the creators focus on content. Instagram is one of the first to adapt to the changing landscape that is influencer marketing, and only time will tell if this new format will prove to be beneficial for influencers and brands.

*Data pulled from Julius.
CalendarSnack Launched New UI — April 14, 2019
By: Greg Hanchin
Tags: Calendar, Marketing Strategies, Email Marketing Trends, Marketing, MailChimp

CalendarSnack Launched New UI — April 14, 2019

Give us a try by sending us a Calendar Invite off of your Calendar Client. Sent it to create@calendarsnack.com. We will send you a notification email with the information in it to get the web embeds, RSVP for MailChimp and reporting.
Bancor Expands to EOS Blockchain
By: Token News
Tags: Blockchain, Eos, Ethereum, Bancor, Cryptocurrency

The Bancor platform has announced that they will be expanding to the EOS blockchain. The decentralized liquidity network will now expand their services to the EOS blockchain, bringing in a variety of new projects that were previously restricted to ERC-20 tokens. This new product, titled BancorX, will allow users to traded between various EOS tokens as well as between EOS and ERC-20.

Bancor revealed in their announcement that “Bancor is now evolving into a cross-chain liquidity protocol,” which leads to the suggestion that Bancor will integrate other blockchains into their platform and potentially develop technology that increases transaction times between various blockchains. While the news is exciting, there has been no set timeline for the launch of BancorX’s EOS live blockchain.

Bancor has decided to launch with EOS due to the faster network transactional speeds vs. Ethereum, as well as the lack of fees. They stated that utilizing EOS eliminates front-running risk, as transactions are not prioritized with paying higher fees.

Token News will update you when BancorX goes live. Subscribe on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to stay up to date with this latest development.
¿Qué es el outbound marketing?
By: Diez Agencia
Tags: Marketing Elemental, Marketing Digital

in Eudaimonia and Co
The Now Nearly Forgotten Jack London
By: Ed Newman
Tags: Ideas, Writing, History, Books, Authors

THE WRITING LIFE

The Now Nearly Forgotten Jack London

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

Photo by Alberto Restifo on Unsplash

In my first writers conference, the week-long Decision School of Writing, the instructor who made the greatest impression on me was Dennis Hensley. Hensley was teaching a class on Advanced Article Writing, though it actually contained plenty more than that.

He shared many actionable ideas, one of them being a recommendation to read Jack London’s Martin Eden, which he suggested would be highly instructive for wannabe freelance writers. It became my re-introduction to the writings of Jack London.

It seems like we don’t hear much about Jack London these days. One of my favorite short stories of all time — “A Piece of Steak” — was penned by London. It’s my understanding that he was the highest paid short story writer in America for a spell. There were no television sets or radios back then. Reading had very little competition as far as diversions go. People who could write a compelling story were rewarded accordingly.

His output was prodigious. Hemingway famously set out to write 500 good words a day. London’s aim was 1000 words a day. He published 40 novels and collections of stories before his premature death.

In addition to being a writer London was an adventurer. Having grown up in poverty, he pursued a variety of “careers” to get on his feet, all of which provided substantial material for the stories and tales he would later write. The power of “To Build A Fire” comes from his first-hand knowledge of Arctic winters. Sailor, oyster pirate and Klondike Gold Rush seeker were just a few of his first-hand experiences that provided a serious authenticity to his work as a journalist, novelist and storyteller.

Having risen out of poverty himself, he became a public speaker and advocate for the poor. And having been influenced by socialist ideals put him at odds with enemies of socialism.

His autobiographical John Barleycorn (1913) about his battle with alcoholism provided ammunition for the Prohibitionist movement which ultimately achieved its aim with the passage of the Volstead Act in 1920. He never saw this come to pass though, for he died at age 40 from kidney failure due to his drinking.

I don’t know if Call of the Wild is still widely read in schools, but I remember it from my early reading years. Burning Daylight is a memorable read, and Martin Eden is must reading if you’re serious about a writing career. Many good insights and takeaways here. I’ve read it twice.

What follows are some Jack London quotes or excerpts from his stories.
After Reading This Book, You’ll Be Grateful Forever
By: Godofredo Rojas
Tags: Self Improvement, Self-awareness, Books, Life Lessons, Habits

Do you realize how lucky you are? If not, there is something beyond that.

The moment you decide to step out of the autopilot mode, make a pause to your busy life, and look around, you will notice. Reading this post means you can afford a computer or a phone, which are dreams of many people who have no tv at home. We get used to stuff or people and believe they will be around us forever.

I was looking for a book to get more info about how people manage their life with almost anything. I was amazed by the Holocaust facts since I was a teenager.

The events that occurred in those times was shocking and hard to understand. I tried to grasp what the purpose of it was. A German friend came home last year, and I never asked a frank opinion about it because I thought she would felt uncomfortable.

My frank questions were:

How could those people in the camps survive?

What was their motivation, living in an inferno and dreaming every day for a new tomorrow?

What would the survivors think about absurd complaints of people nowadays?

They get used to living each day as their last one.

“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Victor Frank was the book where I found all the answers. After reading it, I promise you will never complain about silly situations. And even in the worst circumstances, you will notice something worthy in there.

Let’s break this book down.
The Critical Difference Between Input and Feedback
By: Tia Peterson
Tags: Collaboration, Work, Team, Teamwork, Communication

I’ve been meaning to write something on this topic for some time, because I so often hear people referring to their collaborative process, only to find out that it’s really not collaborative at all. This comes up often at work, in people management, in teams, and working cross-functionally. It’s important to get it right.

I believe that people want to collaborate. Collaboration is satisfying and balances workload. It feels great when a team actually functions as a team — when all voices are heard, all ideas and insights are valued, and all contributions are matched.

On a sports team, collaboration is expected and natural. For example, soccer players have a huge field to play on, so they must spread out and pass the ball to one another to get it all the way to the goal. Everyone’s input and effort is important.

But knowledge work is different. The lines between what people know and what they can do are so blurry that it’s totally possible these days to carry an entire project by ourselves, using only our own input, and just asking for feedback along the way.

In order to truly collaborate, people need to work together and seek input, not just feedback. But not everyone truly understands the difference between the two.

What is feedback and what is input? How are they different?

When we are asking for feedback, we are taking an initiative, communicating it, and then asking for thoughts, opinions, questions, etc. about the initiative we took.

Conversely, when we are asking for input, we are opening ourselves up to the ideas, insights and information of someone else, and then working with those ideas alongside our own. Together, we take a step toward a desired outcome.

The main difference between input and feedback is the point in the problem solving process they come into play.

Let’s just take a quick peek at how these words are constructed as it can provide insight about why they are different.

Feed + back. Feedback is a response. It is sent back. It is a reaction.

An example of feedback: “That idea is literally the greatest idea I have ever heard in my life.”

In + put. Input is information or data/material that is put into something. It comes before feedback.

An example of asking for input is asking “What do you suggest?” But try not to appear as stressed out when asking for input as Johnny Rose (Schitt’s Creek).

Why does it matter which word we use?

We can see from the examples in the silly GIFs above that feedback is not the same as input. Both are important, but they don’t have the same function when it comes to collaboration. If we think we are asking for input but are really only getting feedback, we’re not truly collaborating.
TRAK on LATOKEN…Sign up now!
Tags: Blockchain, ICO, Crypto, Token Sale, Cryptocurrency

Hey TrakInvestors,

Breaking the delightful news here!

TRAK is listing on one more exchange, LATOKEN, a rapidly growing asset tokenization and trading platform.

As you are aware, currently we are listed on Coss.io for trading and this listing has given us some circulation muscle at the start of our token lifecycle.

Now, it’s time to widen our trading reach!

TRAK & LATOKEN are joining hands giving TRAK access to the 85000+ users in the LATOKEN platform and this number is growing daily!

With $35M+ daily turnover and over 250+ crypto pairs for trading, LATOKEN will definitely usher in a new era of trade liquidity for TRAK investors.

We expect the listing of TRAK in LATOKEN to benefit our investors immensely.

The listing would go live on 13th November 2018 at 8 PM Singapore Time (tentatively)

The best of TRAK is yet to come!

Pls signup and deposit your tokens at latoken.com

Visit the Product Website: http://www.trakinvest.com

Visit the ICO Website: https://trakinvest.ai/

Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Trakinvest/

Chat on Telegram: https://t.me/trakinvest

Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrakInvest

Join on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trakinvest-pte-ltd/
“My baby’s open-heart surgery during this pandemic was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with.”
By: Signs Of Life
Tags: Covid 19, Baby, Faith, Down Syndrome, New York

“Very early on, we did a prenatal genome test not thinking much about it, but mainly because I was told it was a fast way to find out the gender of our baby. I got a call around week 13 with the results, and my doctor said we had a very high chance of our child having Down syndrome. We then did an anatomy scan at week 20 to see every part of the baby’s body: Do they have ten fingers? Ten toes? They found an abnormality in his heart. Needless to say, our world came crashing down.

At Joshua’s birth, they confirmed he had Down syndrome and congenital heart disease, which is common in kids with Down syndrome. Prenatally, they found one hole in his heart, a VSD (Ventricular Septal Defect). My husband Chris and I were told it could possibly close on its own, although unlikely given his type and size. So we prayed that it would. But when he was born, they were like, “Looks like that hole’s still there, but he has an additional one that’s even bigger and another smaller one, so there are three holes.” Because these holes were so big, we would have to go into surgery at some point. We always had that in the back of our minds.

In the middle of the pandemic, Joshua was hospitalized due to “failure to thrive” because he couldn’t gain weight. If you have a bad heart, you don’t have much energy. It’s like running a marathon all day because your heart is working extra hard, and then when you’re asked to eat — which is hard for any baby — you just don’t have much to give. Children with Down syndrome also tend to have low muscle tone, which doesn’t help either when trying to suck and swallow. That was a very challenging time too because the hospital had new COVID-19 restrictions that said only one parent could be with the baby. Being separated from your husband and newborn who is about to go through open-heart surgery was not easy. Thankfully, he was only at the hospital for four days.

Then after a few weeks of steady weight gain, he had respiratory symptoms show up and his weight stopped increasing. His heart was failing and he needed to go into surgery quickly. I would say my baby’s open-heart surgery during this pandemic was the hardest and bravest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. Brave because you need to trust that everything’s going to be ok. It takes courage to do that. Even though today’s technology is amazing, it’s just something you don’t want to see your child go through, and you’re never ready for it. He had his heart surgery May 5, 2020. It was a Tuesday; he was home by Saturday. All the nurses and doctors said, “He’s recovering really well. It’s rare that they get out this fast.” I attribute that to many prayers.
Inspired.
By: Sean Moss-Pultz
Tags: Nature

While eating lunch today I noticed myself in a trance, mesmerized by the leaves of an urban tree blowing in the wind.

Relaxation breathed through my fatigued body. For months now, I’ve been in a state of growing frustration over the complexity of my latest undertaking. Ideas have more or less stopped in my head. Each night I still dream. Occupied only with the same tasks I struggle with during the day. Day after day.

Openness, to me, means interchangeability, interlinkedness, fluidity, continuity. Nature is open. Nature can generate leaves with infinite variations blowing in the wind.

I’m beginning to feel inspired again. With a new dream; to mass produce something that is open. One simple idea reproduced in infinite interlinked variations. Like nature.
Programming is not a job — it’s a social activity
By: Bernard E. Robert
Tags: Community, Programming, Teamwork, Open Source, Internet

Coding is a mind-numbing activity. Only the most passionate of tech freaks would say otherwise. Sooner or later, you are bound to hit a bug, or find out there’s something you don’t know. Then, you spend a few minutes Googling, or reading the docs. Do this a few hundred times over, and you are officially a solo programmer.

Enter the developer community. This is a social platform made for and of programmers, indie developers, open source coders, freelancers, and basically anyone who understands code. These communities are designed to take the tedium out of coding, and make it easier on the whole.

Communities like StackOverflow are made up of programmers of different skill levels/skill sets. Forums like Quora are more multi-faceted, but there’s gonna be an answer to a coding question sooner or later. While tutorial sites like Freecodecamp are more focused on the newbie, though there’s a lot of value in the Comments section. Each of these platforms allows programmers to share knowledge, essentially eliminating the need to know everything before writing code.

For me, it was an invaluable experience. Though the calculator program is a beginner-level project, it would take me over a week to complete. This was because I was living on an island (not really, but I was without an Internet connection, essentially the same thing these days), and had no one else to help me.

StackOverflow is definitely the world’s largest right now. With discussion pages on virtually every topic in programming (and language), everyone can get answers, which are agreed-upon by the whole community, and helpful pieces of advice here and there. It has been a huge help to me, and most programmers out there have

Now, when I visit communities like those mentioned above, I wish I had such things back then (speaking of Internet connectivity, that’s a real problem; the Internet is like a different planet, and those in underdeveloped areas like Africa are essentially exiled from the new world. Help them if you can).

This note is for the newbie: instead of doing everything solo and from scratch, take advantage of the enormous resources available, left there with love by older, wiser heads. Believe it or not, working together is an essential part of programming. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, however silly.

To the older, wiser heads: think back to when you were lost, clueless where to begin. Now, think of the kind souls who replied your questions, examined your code for errors, and did all this for free. Since you are quite the pro now, give back to the community. There are always open source projects needing extra hands, and quite a few newbies would appreciate it if you helped them handle erroneous code.
How we calculate our Google rating
By: Sam Jenkins
Tags: SEO, Business Management, CRM, Data Science

We’ve written before on the importance of reviews and ratings. This played a big part in our development and implementation of the ability for tutors to be reviewed by clients on TutorCruncher. It is, of course, important to practice what you preach which is why we also collect reviews and testimonials from companies using us.

You might notice that if you google TutorCruncher, you may well come across something like this in Google:

This structured data adds an extra bit of gloss to search results

The reason for this is that in our website’s structured data, we are able to set up certain pages to include a rating based on a number of reviews. One might suggest, somewhat cynically, that we have pulled a number out of thin air and splashed 5 stars next to it. However, the honest souls at TutorCruncher are above such shenanigans!

This comes from data we have aggregated across the following review platforms:

Taking the mean rating of each of the review platforms (and accounting for the fact that Trustpilot scores out of 10 whereas all of the others score out of 5), we get an average rating of 4.92/5 based on 115 reviews.

Note that this data is accurate as of June 2018.

The reviews we have manually added to our structured data are designed to reflect this fact. If you were to search for TutorCruncher generally, you may well come across specific instances where Google pulls through and displays ratings from recognised review sites:

We rank #1 on Capterra for tutoring management software

Check out all of our positive feedback on TrustPilot

If you have not already, like us on Facebook

Feel free to leave us a review on Google

And of course, the reviews on Google’s dedicated reviews tool display prominently on our company’s profile:

If you search for the best tutoring management software, this is what we want you to see!

This is part of the ever-evolving world of SEO, so take a look at some of the rest of our blogs on good SEO practice for your company. As always, we’d love to hear your feedback.

Thanks for reading,

The TutorCruncher Team
Untroubled Plains
By: Lark Morrigan
Tags: Mental Health, Poetry, Life, Future, Sonnet

Oh how I wish I could soar like a hawk

across rolling hills and untroubled plains,

but my wings are held by a stumbling block

and forever tainted by crimson stains.

Have I traded my life for wandering?

Fueled by mad longing for a futile quest?

Or was I only prone to pondering

whether or not my strength will stand the test?

Perhaps cold, harsh winds have silenced my plea,

but my battlecry has yet to be heard,

reverberating from the beast in me —

a pit of sorrow where my flames were stirred.

This land will never heed my final call,

but to save myself, I must give my all.
Offline First Resources
By: Teri Chadbourne
Tags: Offline First, Progressive Web App, Web Development, UX, Offline Camp

Offline First Resources

Learn, connect, contribute, or camp with us!

Whether you’re just getting started with Offline First or are looking to share your experience with the growing community, there are plenty of resources available to you. Here’s a quick look at some of our favorites.

Offline Camp attendees explain what Offline First is all about.

Learn

Visit the community hub at offlinefirst.org to get started, where you’ll find links to many of the first articles that defined the Offline First movement, plus a collection of use cases and success stories that highlight the potential impact.

to get started, where you’ll find links to many of the first articles that defined the Offline First movement, plus a collection of and success stories that highlight the potential impact. Explore the Offline Camp Medium publication for discussion recaps from Offline Camp, passion talks from campers, and other articles from the Offline First community.

publication for discussion recaps from Offline Camp, passion talks from campers, and other articles from the Offline First community. Listen to podcast episodes featuring Offline First.

featuring Offline First. Attend an upcoming event with Offline First content, from meetups to camps to conferences.

with Offline First content, from meetups to camps to conferences. Follow the Offline First channel on YouTube for curated conference talks on Offline First use cases and technology, as well as passion talks from Offline Camp.

for curated conference talks on Offline First use cases and technology, as well as passion talks from Offline Camp. Subscribe to the monthly Offline First Reader for curated news and resources covering theory, technology and user experience for new offline use cases.

Connect

Join the community conversation in the Offline First Slack team. (You can even use the #gigs channel to find an agency, freelancer, or employee to help you with a project!)

team. (You can even use the #gigs channel to find an agency, freelancer, or employee to help you with a project!) Follow Offline Camp and camp alumni on Twitter.

Contribute

Camp
City Solutions: How Coronavirus Could Prompt a Street-Scape Revolution
By: Jack Collard
Tags: Cities, Urbanism, Covid-19, Urban Planning

‘Tactical Urbanism’: Small changes, big differences

Photo by Vlad Bunu on Unsplash

Therefore, how cancitizens make active differences to the communities and neighbourhoods they live in and specifically the streets that tie them together?

The closure of the great indoors has created a forced perspective: one that has directed our attention to the outdoors. But — how much of the outdoors in our cities can we really call ‘great’?

A shrine to the car, cities have been quietly conspiring against the pedestrian and now, due to Covid-19, their cover has been blown. As discussed, ‘cities’ have almost become the antonym of ‘radical urban change’. The response, then, could be ‘tactical urbanism’ as defined by Lydon and Garcia in their 2015 book ‘Tactical Urbanism : Short-Term Action for Long-Term Change’:

“Tactical Urbanism is an approach to neighborhood building and activation using short-term, low-cost, and scal-able interventions and policies.”

Tactical urbanism goes deeper than street art and creative street decor: it creates long-lasting change that addresses deficient local policy or contends with significant urban issues such as congestion or the Urban Heat Island effect all whilst being easy to enact by the local community.

Covid-19 has opened the door for this kind of urban change to re-imagine the street. Flagship city solutions such as Barcelona’s ‘Superblocks’ (where a differemt sector of the city is pedestrianised on rotation) and Mexico City’s ‘Domingos Ciclistas’ (where 55km of streets between 8:00am and 14:00pm are dedicated to cyclists and pedestrians) are often the centre of attention when it comes to changing our cities’ urban cycles. However, tactical urbanism enacts permanent change through more minor developments that become part of the new city fabric: responses are baked in to the streets rather than being an afterthought of planning ingenuity.
An Ode to the Baobab
By: Wild Ark
Tags: Madagascar, Flora, Tree, Africa, Baobab

No tree symbolises Africa quite like the mighty Baobab. An icon of the African continent it features in folktales and cultural practices, it provides shelter and food for many living creatures and is widely recognised as the ‘Tree of Life.’ Get to know a bit more about this remarkable tree.

The Boabab is one of the oldest living tree species on earth, believed to be 200 million years old.

There are nine species of Baobab spread throughout Madagascar, Africa, as well as parts of Arabia and Australia. Of the nine species, six are found in Madagascar.

Baobab on Kubu Island. © Ben McRae — stock.adobe.com

Baobabs can live for up to 5000 years and grow to 30 meters high.

Baobabs are some of the most significant trees in the world, with circumferences of up to 50 meters.

Old Baobabs create their own ecosystem supporting the life of countless creatures including birds, mammals, insects, and reptiles, not to mention humans. Some trees are so large they have been used as storage huts, shops, post offices and even prisons!

An African elephant and Baobab in Ruaha National Park. Tanzania © Roger de la Harpe — stock.adobe.com

With bare leaves in winter and branches spreading out like roots, the tree often looks like it is upside and is sometimes called as the ‘Upside-Down Tree.’

Baobabs are some of the hardiest trees in the world withstanding severe drought as well as having their bark severely stripped by elephant. They can store up to 120 000 litres of water in their trunk.

Baobab Avenue, Madagascar. © Christian leynaud — stock.adobe.com

Bats pollinate baobab flowers at night!

The Baobab fruit is considered extremely nutritious with high vitamin C and antioxidants as well as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and iron. It is said to provide energy, boost immunity, improve digestive health with its probiotic properties as well as improve skin texture.

Monkey Bread (Adansonia digitata) / Baobab Fruit © Diversity Studio — stock.adobe.com

Fruit can be sucked or soaked to make a refreshing drink. It can be roasted to make coffee.

Its bark is used in making rope and clothing and seeds are ground into oil for beauty products.

Sources:

https://aduna.com/pages/the-baobab-tree

http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_baobab.html