fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
“Snow was general all over Ireland…” The last paragraph of Joyce’s The Dead
By: Dan Mccarthy
Tags: Gabriel, Point Of View, Writing, Ideas, Adverb

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too upon every part of the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. The Dead

James Joyce

First, take away the adverbs:

softly

softly

thickly

slowly

faintly

faintly

Then the adjectives:

dark

mutinous

Shannon

lonely

crooked

little

barren

last

Now, read it again, without the adverbs and the adjectives:

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, falling into the waves. It was falling too upon every part of the churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay drifted on the crosses and headstones, on the spears of the gate, on the thorns. His soul swooned as he heard the snow falling through the universe and falling, like the descent of their end, upon all the living and the dead.

What do the grace notes do to this passage, and to our experience of Gabriel’s quiet ending of hopelessness, divorced from true passion in his history, his life and his love? Through the entire novella, illumination is flickering and perceptions are shrouded in shadow and colored by the ritual of the holiday dinner. The gaslights can not hold their light. At this moment of the end, defied in the intimate soul of his wife, Gabriel has lost his place.

The unadorned writing in the paragraph provides a firm cadence and strong Anglo-Saxon words. The words selected to inform the actions — the adverbs — are like a mother’s gentle whispers to a child in the unsettled night. The words selected to inform the objects — the adjectives — are black and empty, diminished and weary… dark, lonely, barren, last.

At the end, as he’s lifted us into the dark poetry of Gabriel’s vision, separating our perception from the experience of the man and letting us glide unfettered in the gentle cushion of the winter night, Joyce brings us down firmly with his final phrase.

upon all the living and the dead.

A benediction granted not from the altar of faith but the altar of life, where a man’s accumulated experience and misbegotten acts become the trapdoor that he opens to look inward, only to find that within there is the same thing as without: nothing.

The dead are a class unto themselves, not requiring the qualification of “all.”

Joyce doesn’t take life away from Gabriel, just the protection of his self-delusions. After this night, Gabriel will have to live life knowingly in the shadow of the dead.

It’s such a beautiful piece of writing.
Now You’ve Seen Me
By: Estrella Ramirez
Tags: Poetry, Expectations, Curiosity, Self, Questions

Am I all you expected me to be?

You’ve known my words,

my poet’s voice.

Spilling my soul to you

countless times.

Anonymity is freedom here.

Now that you know me, and

you’ve seen the woman behind

the disaster, I wonder —

Am I all you expected me to be?

Do my words read the same?

Do these eyes answer

all your questions, or leave you

more curious than before?

Sometimes I’m tired of hiding.

But once I come out from behind

this facade, there is no going back.

So for now, I sit and wonder —

Am I all you expected me to be?
Create & Recreate
By: 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊.
Tags: Relationships, Poetry, Prompt, Spiritual Secrets, Love

First stage of a relationship (honeymoon):

Love is habanero and honey

Painted in shades of indigo

Magnificently bright, warm and sunny

Proudly showing off that inner glow;

Second stage (doubt & denial):

Love is beans and tofu

Painted in shades of burgundy and black

Questions arise: “Do I even know you?”

“Where’s the one I liked? Come back!”

Third stage (disillusionment):

Love is ashes, smoke and sour grapes

The canvas is covered in grey

When one gives more than it takes

The other asks: “Should I stay or go away?”

Fourth stage (decision):

Love is what you make of it

You can start afresh with a clean slate

Rebuild the halls of Camelot or split

Go your separate ways or date;

Fifth stage (wholehearted love):

Love is galaxies and constellations

Tasting like cinammon and cloves

A time to reap the rewards of your relation

A time to grow and chase new goals.
Strychnine on the rocks
By: Ruth Lazkoz
Tags: Feelings, Poetry, People, Love, Desire

Strychnine on the rocks

Add a dash of coke and garnish with poetry

Photo by JJ Jordan on Unsplash

The rim of the bottle

reminds me of those lips,

which were never mine,

just borrowed,

and the prescription slides off it,

in a transparent mimicry

of burnt caramel.

And it all fits in a few seconds,

your eyes fixed on mine fit in,

and so does your banter and abuse,

and there is time for me to watch the flow,

slow, uninterrupted,

and there is time for me to shiver,

as I know your playing with my infatuation.

Your hips turn back and deny me,

once more,

and the dew of your hand toils to

moisturize the vapidity of your melancholy.

We get back to the harbor that punishes my presbyopia,

to the lethargic and lazy light,

to the chaste and complicit companions,

to the excuse we pretend to be of use for us,

which makes us confront each other again

with a thread of eyesights.

And you forget your dwarf victory,

which perhaps has represented

a vengeance to you,

and which has starched your shirt

thus straightening your back.

And I disguise as a translator

of my own doubt,

which turns into sweat

trapped among my limbs,

with my shoulders sniffing

my tired knees,

and my hand looking for the same doss,

because they tremble

with the lymph of desire.
She’s a Bad Employee and Her Pussy Gets Punished.
By: K. Love
Tags: Erotica, Short Story, Sex, Love, Romance

“What do you mean I’m fired?” Lisa yelled at her boss.

When she had gotten to work that morning, this was the last thing she had expected to hear.

“I’m sorry Lisa. I just have to let you go,” he apologized.

His voice was filled with uncertainty. As if he wasn’t sure this was the right thing to do. Lisa was one of his best employees if you ignored the bad attitude.

“You can’t do this,” she said her voice suddenly low and venomous. If Leon were any other person, he would have immediately taken that as a threat and cowered.

However, it seemed that he was the only person capable of standing up to Lisa and her ill temper.

“I just did,” he said his voice matter of fact, “pack your things and leave the building or else I’ll be forced to ask security to escort you outside.” The threat in his voice was very clear and if Lisa was being honest with herself, it scared her to hear her boss take such a tone with her. This had never happened before.

Of course he had also never done anything more than threaten to fire her before. She had to wonder what had caused his change in heart all of a sudden.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked tearfully. “It’s about that janitor woman, is it?”

“That janitor’s name is Wilma and both of us know that it was wrong of you to insult her in front of our clients,” he pointed out.

He had never seen her look so emotional before and it surprised him. He’d always thought of Lisa as having a heart of stone. The tears running down her cheeks seemed to be proving him wrong.

“Don’t do this. I promise I’ll change. I’ll apologize to Wilma if you want,” she begged though it was still pretty clear from her voice that she felt nothing but hate for the janitor.

“You don’t seem very apologetic right now,” he pointed out.

“I said I’m sorry. What else do you want from me?” Lisa just couldn’t help her outburst.

“I want you to mean it,” Leon replied harshly.

“Fine. What do you want me to do? I’ll do anything,” she said and regretted her words immediately she did. Saying that you’d do anything usually didn’t go very well.

“Anything?” he asked a little amused.

Lisa felt herself shiver at the smile forming on his face. She’d never seen Leon look so mischievous before and she had a feeling that this was not going to be good for her.
CelebA-Spoof — Large-Scale Dataset For Anti-Spoofing
By: Mikhail Raevskiy
Tags: Computer Vision, Python, Data Science, Deep Learning, Machine Learning

CelebA-Spoof is an anti-spoofing dataset that consists of 625,537 images of 10,177 people. Face anti-spoofing is a method of combating the cheating of face recognition systems. The dataset includes 43 attributes: face details, lighting, environment, and type of deception. CelebA-Spoof is built on top of the CelebA dataset. CelebA images have been modified and annotated.

More about dataset

Of the 43 attributes, 40 describe the facial features of a person, such as skin, nose, eyes, eyebrows, lips, headwear, glasses. The last three attributes are for spoofing: spoofing types, environments, and lighting. CelebA-Spoof can be used to train and test face anti-spoofing models.

CelebA-Spoof has three advantages over alternative datasets: size, variety, and breadth of markup. These distinctive characteristics make it possible to increase the generalizing ability of models for face recognition. Part of the markup was borrowed from the original CelebA dataset.

Spoofing types were categorized hierarchically. Top-level classes include print, paper-cut, repeat, and 3D.

In addition to the dataset, the researchers proposed the AENet multitasking neural network model.
Why It’s Easier to Succeed With Learning Than You Might Think Chapter 2 : Any Kid Can Code
By: Laxman Singh
Tags: Python For Beginners, Kids, Python, Python Programming, Kids Programming

Another program to add to your learning where we will learn to fill color in the image created. Then, you can prepare some good images in our own playground for turtle. Let us go through the program which will create randome size colorful squares. Below is the link for refreshing the knowledge what we have learnt so far:

Let us make another good program with a slight modification in our last program to have our understanding solid about loop, conditions and functions

'''

Importing two libraries:

1. turtle is our own friend

2. random - introducing new library which will help to

select the random values to have different color

at each square

'''

import turtle

import random

# picked 5 colors, you can select more but make it sure it exists

# another data type list is introduced. Here color is list

color = ["red", "green", "black", "blue", "yellow"]

#defining shape of turtle

jumper = turtle.Pen()

jumper.shape("turtle")



def squareShape(side):

'''

Name: Square shape

use: you pass the length in side and it will create a square of that shape

'''

times=0

while times < 4:

jumper.forward(side)

jumper.left(90)

times = times + 1



for j in range(50):

# hiding the turtle, if you want to see comment this line

jumper.hideturtle()

# setting the speed to 0 which is fastest and slowest is 10

jumper.speed(0)

# picking up the random color name from the above defined list color

jumper.color(random.choice(color))

# fill color inside the square created

jumper.begin_fill()

# Calling function to create square of length provided

squareShape(random.randint(15,100))

# end fill color in the figure created

jumper.end_fill()

# you can replace the above code with if condition to understand it better

# if j!= 0:

# #calling the function to

# squareShape(5+((j*10)*2))

# else:

# squareShape(5)

# up will not make any line when jumper moves

# below steps to change the location so that next square starts from new position

jumper.up()

jumper.goto(random.randint(-200, 200), random.randint(-200, 200))

jumper.down()

Here is the output of the code written above.

sample output of the above code, colorful squares

Copy the above code, tweak with values in numbers and see the changes. It will help you to learn and make new figures filled with different colors. Happy Coding! I will be back soon!
Welcome to The Inkslinger
By: Alexander Bentley
Tags: Poetry Writing, Poetry, Writers On Writing, Medium Publications, Writing

Welcome to The Inkslinger

The New Blog of Alexander Bentley

Hi folks!

I’m Alexander Bentley & I’m a published author, poet & avid Edgar Allan Poe fan. I’ve started this blog on Medium to address the growing amateur poetry scene on Instagram & elsewhere on the interwebs, while offering up my best practices & writing tips.

For many years I’ve maintained a website, which is almost an identical reproduction of my posts on Instagram. However, I want to contribute to the writing community & add value to the careers & lives of other writers.

If I’m honest, which I am, I must tell you: there is a lot of crap writing out there. Everyone thinks they are a poet these days & instantly publish their latest poem or epigram on social media platforms like Instagram & Tumblr.

Truthfully, many of the posts from “Insta poets” are little more than a regular status message non-writers would post on Facebook. With no editor standing between these poets & their followers. This is amazing, as it’s one of the first times in history, where writers can share their writings without a barrier (e.g., publisher, editor, media company).

I applaud writers everywhere & wish each one the best of luck in their careers. May ambition continue to spark ideas, plots & story lines in their active minds.

When I set out to write A Poet’s Manifesto, I wanted to offer aspiring poets with a no-BS, no-fluff resource on writing poetry. I’ve had readers tell me how great the book is & how it’s given them a new insight into poetry & writing. In the book, I get into the psychological power of a poem & how it quickly bypasses the conscious mind. I talk about how a poem is a two-way experience between it’s author & the reader.

I only mention the book – my manifesto – as I see my new blog, The Inkslinger, as a continuation of those efforts. Because, in my lifetime, I’m on a mission to turn amateurs into more interesting, engaging & talented poets.

Where do I get the term “inkslinger” from? It’s been part of a slogan I’ve used for years. In fact, in all of my books, I include a page with a boilerplate that has my name & immediately below it these three words:

Inkslinger. Wordsmith. Poet.

What does “inkslinger” mean though? It’s sorta like a gunslinger, but it’s a person that flings ink instead of bullets. You know: make peace, not war. Use words as weapons, not guns & bombs. Words are powerful instruments of social connectivity.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “inkslinger” as:

writer, scribbler a timekeeper in a logging camp

Therefore, I’m an inkslinger. I’m a lover. I’m a communicator. I paint images in minds & make you feel a connection to a story, emotion or moment.
Estrategias para una buena experiencia urbana
Tags: Experiencia, Normal, Numero 6

in On The Couch
Во что мы верим. Диалог
By: Katya Serova
Tags: Data Science, Russian, Smart Cities, Urban Planning, Data Visualization

Habidatum delivers data feeds and analytics to enhance commercial real estate financial models with location risk big data, and provides standardized location risk scoring through Chronotope platform.

Follow
Rapper Jay-Z Disses President Trump’s Controversial Views
By: Rahini Takalkar
Tags: Lifestyle, Donald Trump, African American, Twitter, Jay Z

We’ve all heard Trump’s policies and statements on immigration and the American economy, but here’s what Jay-Z thinks.

Trump (left) and Jay-Z (right). Image from CNN.

On Sunday, United States President Donald Trump fired back at Grammy-winning rapper Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) via Twitter. Trump is known to have used the social-media platform as a means of airing his sometimes controversial opinions. His comments were concerning the rapper’s vocalization of his views regarding Trump’s policies and statements in a CNN interview the previous day.

In the interview, Jay-Z responded to Trump’s comments earlier this month from a White House meeting regarding immigration, when the President asked why the US continues to accept immigrants from “shithole countries” (in reference to Africa, Haiti, and El Salvador). The rapper said these comments were “hurtful” and “disappointing”, then proceeded to state, “everyone feels anger [about these statements], but after the anger it’s really hurtful because it’s looking down at a whole population of people and it’s so misinformed because these places have beautiful people and beautiful everything. This is the leader of the free world speaking like this.” Jay-Z further revealed that he was dubious of Trump’ claims concerning job creation for African-Americans.

After Jay-Z’s interview aired, Trump shared the Tweet below, re-accrediting fact that there has indeed been a reduction of African-American unemployment rates during his administration.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate among African-Americans plummeted from roughly 16.5 percent in 2010 to 6.8 percent in December — the lowest since 1972. When questioned about whether America’s economic uplift indicates good leadership from Trump, Jay-Z said that wasn’t the focus. He stated, “…it’s not about money at the end of the day…money doesn’t equate to happiness. It doesn’t. That’s missing the whole point. You treat people like human beings, then — that’s the main point.”
SOLID Principles with Scala
By: Knoldus Inc.
Tags: Solid Principles, Good Design, Scala

It is quite evident what SOLID principles mean for class typed object oriented languages like Java. However, what do they mean for hybrid languages like Scala which merge the Object oriented and functional approaches. In this KnolX session, we tried to decipher what SOLID principles meant for Scala. Though much of what we know about them can be applied to Scala if we code in the Object oriented way with Scala. However, once we are in the functional boundaries then some of the principles like Liskov Substitution, Open Closed Principle have weak relevance in functional languages since these principles are based on inheritance. The Dependency inversion principle is also somewhat less relevant because functions can be passed in functional languages instead of dynamic binding. (Though I still feel that with injection concepts in Scala like the Cake Pattern, we get only half the job done and I miss the dynamic aspect of inject, but may be that is another discussion).

For now, enjoy the KnolX session slides and as always send your feedback to hello@knoldus.com

[slideshare id=14961209&doc=solid-scala-121030233254-phpapp01]
Don’t Sell Your Dreams With the Hope of Buying Them Back Later
By: Jamie Jackson
Tags: Self Improvement, Advice, Life Lessons, Self, Authenticity

I played music throughout my twenties and thirties. The bands I was in never amounted to much, which is ironic considering we often hypothetically toyed with the idea of “selling out.”

Selling out means abandoning artistic expression in favor of commercial success.

Usually – at least in the pre-internet days of music – this was in the form of a big record label deal.

Selling out was seen as the number one sin of musicians.

For some reason, it was thought everyone had to make it on their own, or at least get signed to a label on their terms, with zero compromises.

Today, I haven’t played music for nearly 10 years, but selling out is still a concept I identify with. It’s been ground into me, not only by music but by my years of corporate work where I really did sell out.

Anyone can sell out. All you have to do is sell your dreams to the highest bidder.

You want to be a writer but that lawyer job sure pays well.

You want to be an artist but that finance job means a nice house and car.

You want to run your own business but paid employment means a pension.

Shiny objects often win over artistic expression. So does eating and having a roof over the head, to be fair.

Therefore, most of us sell out. We make a compromise.

We push art and creativity aside in a gamble to buy them back later with the filthy lucre made from our time in the employment trenches.

This is a mistake.

I don’t know who said it, but I saw this written down the other day:

Repression causes depression and the cure is expression.

Selling out is repression.

It’s pushing down your dreams and expressive needs and taking money for the displeasure.

And lo! You get depressed.
Event Summary — Shanghai Meetup, June 23rd, 2018
By: Iot Chain
Tags: Itc, Announcements, IoT, Blockchain

On June 23rd, the ITC team held a meetup in Shanghai as part of their tour in China. They met with community members, blockchain technology enthusiasts, and financial and IoT professionals from across the country.

During the event, the ITC team shared updates on operations, R&D, marketing progress, and data development, while also discussing potential ITC use cases. The team is optimistic about the future of blockchain and IoT, stating that the combination of the two is revolutionary for big data. Identifying important use cases is also key to success. With steady progress being made on the technology, one of the next priorities is constructing a DApp ecosystem while building around specific use cases for the ITC network.

IoT Chain is a secure, light operating system for the Internet of Things, which is the first to combine two important blockchain technologies. ITC is also a firm believer that data sovereignty belongs to the user.
Extra wings for remote working, even at 40k feet
By: Peter Thomas
Tags: SaaS, Collaboration, Apple, Remote Working

My 12.9" iPad Pro is actually one of my favorite devices these days with its split-screen multitasking functionality. The other day while flying at 40K feet in a Boeing 787 I had a fun experience of putting SYNAPS.NET’s external collaboration to the test.

Its a bit surreal to think about live collaboration at 40K feet in a Dreamliner with 2 separate teams, one working on Italian wine and the other on Brazilian coffee, with members in 5 countries speaking 4 languages.

Whether your external workspace needs are with a few partners in English, or with dozens of partners in multiple languages, SYNAPS.NET is the solution for you and your teams.

https://synaps.net
Delighting in God’s Law
By: Roy Chang
Tags: Bible Delight, Delight, Law

I’m thankful to God for his gracious gift of his law. Here are some things that God has used to help me view God’s law as more than duty but delight.

Sanctification begun in our hearts by the Holy Spirit changes our attitude. Instead of being hostile to God’s law, we begin to delight in it. “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,” (Romans 7:22, ESV) WE find that “his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3), but rather “holy, righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). This radical and dramatic change in our attitude toward God’s commands is a gift of His grace, brought about solely by the mighty working of His Holy Spirit within us. We play no more part in this initial act of sanctification than we do in our justification. As Paul said, “All this is from God.” J Bridges, Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love, NavPress Publishing Group, Colorado Springs, 2009, p. 130.

Here’s one that I found helpful from the commentary that church is using for our sermon series in Deuteronomy.
SOC086. Alex Adelman, CEO at Lolli, EARN Bitcoin Free with Lolli ESGS01.
By: Shannon Grinnell
Tags: Crypto, Free Bitcoin, Earn Crypto, Earn Bitcoin, Bitcoin

Alex Adelman, CEO at Lolli

New🎙🎧Podcast + YouTube series –

🎇₿🔥EARN, SAVE, GIVE, SPEND BITCOIN 🔥₿🎇

kicks off with Alex Adelman, CEO at Lolli🍭

Alex Adelman on SOC podcast on YouTube

Alex Adelman, CEO at Lolli, talks about how you can earn Bitcoin for free when you shop online, what he does to help with Bitcoin adoption and education and why he thinks we’re still in the early days in the crypto payments space. This is Episode 86 for the Speaking of Crypto podcast — the first episode for our Earn, Save, Give, Spend Bitcoin Series.

Lolli’s one of our show sponsors. I’m a big fan of Lolli, the team, and what they’re up to and think that being able to earn Bitcoin by doing things we already do — like shop in this case, is one of the best ways for those who are new to Bitcoin to get excited about the space.

We talk about:

What sparked the idea for Lolli

What cheapens a brand or elevates it

What happens if bitcoin goes up 5x

Creative shopping from outside of the US

Wen Canada?

Working on merchant adoption

Merchants becoming Bitcoiners

Lolli blog+ Bitcoin education

Is it too early for BTC payments companies?

margins in the payments space

payment flows

the power of the Bitcoin community

Paul Puey shoutout

Bitcoin vs points

The Lolli wallet + cold storage wallets

Second layer applications

Running a node

@CasaHODL @bluewalletio @lightning @CashApp

The grandma test

We talk about Bitcoin vs points.

“Points are like something that a lot of times. The consumer doesn’t realize it, but it’s an arbitrage on them. Most points never get used. It’s because you forget about them, it’s because they might have terms and conditions where they can take their points back, they can change the price of them. If every company had its own point system. It’s like the most centralized cryptocurrency in the world.”

Please check out our sponsors at speakingofcrypto.com/partners

And… if you’re enjoying the podcast, please take a minute to rate, review and subscribe. This goes a long way to helping people who are new to crypto find the show.

Alex Adelman Links:

Lolli

Alex Adelman on LinkedIn

@alexadelman on Twitter

@trylolli on Twitter

Thank you to our show sponsors 🙏🎉🙌 Ledn+ Stark + Lolli

🎇Apple http://bit.ly/SOCrypto

😎Web https://lnkd.in/gtVHRe5

🎉Spotify http://bit.ly/SOCspot

🎞️YT https://lnkd.in/gSvXbYh
禱告守望香港 - 抗疫爭戰。突發禱文 4. 突發禱文 4
By: Eden S Karl
Tags: Coronaviruses, Hong Kong, Prayer

in On The Couch
Writing
Tags: Poetry, Writing, Life, Thoughts

I’m not sure if I am lazy or surrealist.

Always in revolt against any attempt at self edit.

Because who am “I”, after all, to question what comes forth?

Who am “I” to deny the way that life happens to move?

It’s not “me” who writes anyways

but rather that energy which creates us

All.
Past, Present, Future
By: Susannah Mackinnie
Tags: Childhood, Poetry, Storytelling, Haiku, Fantasy

The child has lost her parents and the brother she adores rarely sees her. Still, family surrounds her.

It is a strange patchwork family with uneasy alliances and genuine friendships. Some members are of the child’s choosing and others have been appointed.

There is self interest, benevolent concern, and surprisingly a genuine love for the child herself. She is a difficult, determined girl, but there is a fierce strength and budding integrity that pulls certain people towards her.

She does not lack champions.

She will need them.

Penelope
Collect for Sunday, August 4; Proper 13C
By: Alan Bentrup
Tags: Church

Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Future of Social Media
By: Sophia Cacioppo
Tags: Instagram, Future Technology, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter

Consuming our lives as we speak, social media is becoming a pivotal part of everyones lives wether people like it or not. It has many positive components and many negative ones as well. But Social Media is progressing so quickly, it can be hard to know what will come next

My prediction is that Social Media will be a main form of all communication. Although this is beginning, I believe it will be even larger than it is now. Cable is becoming obsolete and I believe news services will just stream all of their telecasts instead of having an actual station. We will get all of our news from Twitter, Instagram and Facebook but I hope that at some point someone creates an app that can compile all of our social media channels into one app that makes it seamless for us to not miss a thing. I can see Apple doing this and integrating it into their phone software in the future. The future of social media is changing every day with new updates constantly. I am excited to see where it takes our world.
She wants to divorce her abuser. This law is forcing her to wait one year.
By: Sylvia C. Rolle
Tags: News, Politics, Domestic Violence, Vidéo, North Carolina

Sarah Robinson never thought her husband would lay his hands on her — until he did. Now, all she wants is the chance to make a fresh start and move on with her life. But the state of North Carolina is forcing her — and women like her — to wait a year and a day to divorce their abusers.



North Carolina is one of 17 states requiring a lengthy (6 to 24 months) mandatory waiting period for divorce. In a powerful new video, Sarah calls on the North Carolina General Assembly to change the law and exempt victims of domestic violence from the state’s “one-year” divorce rule. Please watch and share.

Sarah, on her wedding day.

Today North Carolina law makes no exceptions to the one-year cooling-off period — even for women attempting to flee their abusive marriages. That’s why Sarah went public with her story. She’s ready for her elected leaders to take action.

She launched a Change.org petition to catch the attention of North Carolina’s General Assembly and quickly attracted over 130,000 supporters to her campaign. Watch Sarah tell her powerful story today.
유프리즘 Meetings 대기실을 이용하여 상담서비스에 활용하기
Tags: 화상회의, Release N Updates, WebRTC, 유프리즘아이오, 유프리즘

in On The Couch
Writeup to the FLARE-ON 7 Challenge
Tags: Flareon7, Reverse Engineering, Ctf, Python, Hacking

Welcome to the Seventh Flare-On Challenge! This is a simple game. Win it by any means necessary and the victory screen will reveal the flag. Enter the flag here on this site to score and move on to the next level. This challenge is written in Python and is distributed as a runnable EXE and matching source code for your convenience. You can run the source code directly on any Python platform with PyGame if you would prefer (Challenge message).

Contents

Introduction dat challenge Conclusion Acknowledgements Endnotes

Introduction

On the sixth of August, 2011, FireEye announced their seventh annual FLARE-ON challenge, where reverse engineers of varying skill levels from around the world were encouraged to work out the the solutions to twelve reverse engineering problems. I entered and only solved one out of the twelve challenges (mainly because I had to do schoolwork and I’m still a supern00b).

hey, not bad for a supern00b 😉 [1][2]

dat challenge

The challenge was called Fidler, and I started by downloading the 7z archive and extracting the files. Here’s what I got:

The fidler.py file looks interesting, so I ran it with Python(3) and got this:

And trying to close the window gave me this amusing message:
When to Write End-to-End Tests
By: Tyler Hawkins
Tags: Testing, JavaScript, Software Development, Programming, Test Automation

Types of Tests

Unit tests

Unit tests ensure that a single thing works properly on its own. You would generally write unit tests to validate something like a function, a back-end API endpoint, or a UI component. Unit tests are perfect when the thing you’re testing has clear inputs and outputs.

For example, pure functions are deterministic, always returning the same output when given the same input. You might write a unit test for a function that adds two numbers to verify that it returns the correct sum.

You might write a unit test for an API endpoint that takes a userId and returns an object containing the user’s info to make sure it sends the correct response.

Or you might write a unit test for a React button component to ensure that the button text is shown and that the button responds appropriately when clicked.

Integration tests

Integration tests ensure that a few things work properly together. You’re still excluding part of the system, though, or potentially mocking some data.

Kent Dodds’ React Testing Library is a good example of how to utilize integration tests. When you render a component using React Testing Library, it renders the full component tree. So if a component renders other child components, those child components are rendered and tested too. This is in contrast to the concept of “shallow rendering,” which is a common practice when testing components using Enzyme.

For example, maybe you have a simple form component that shows text inputs for a user’s first name, last name, and email address. It also renders a “Submit” button. When you write tests for the form, you can verify that the button and all the inputs are rendered to screen, that you can fill out the form, and that clicking on the “Submit” button handles submitting the form.

However, there are still pieces of the app that are not being tested in this case. The form wouldn’t really be hitting an API endpoint when it’s submitted. And the entire app wouldn’t be spun up since only the form component is being rendered.

E2E tests

E2E tests ensure that a full workflow functions properly. These workflows are often represented by “user journeys” or common tasks that a user might perform when using your app. E2E tests spin up your entire app and use a testing framework like Cypress or Selenium to perform actual actions that a user would take.

For example, you might write an e2e test that verifies that users can create an account on your site. Your test would start your app, navigate to the signup page, fill out the form, and then submit it. This would hit a real API endpoint and insert an actual user into a real database. You’d then probably also verify that the user is navigated to a new page after signing up and that you see their user avatar or username somewhere on the page.
How to start writing your Hyperledger Fabric Nodejs chaincode
By: Jonas Snellinckx
Tags: Testing, Hyperledger, JavaScript, Blockchain, Hyperledger Fabric

⚠️ Note: Since writing this article, our module has gone through some changes and updates. Please check the github for the latest info.

Writing chaincode shouldn’t be a hassle. Luckily Hyperledger Fabric has introduced Nodejs chaincode in v1.1.0 (official release should be out by the end of this month). Compared to Golang, this is a language more people understand and find easier to use, Including us. To be honest, I got to like Golang (when I understood it eventually). But in my opinion, it’s much more of an overhead to write chaincode than Nodejs. We made the switch when we couldn’t access the ABAC (cid) feature in Golang because the dependency of this package didn’t want to be resolved correctly.

All examples are written in Typescript since all of our packages are also developed in typescript. But by removing the types, you can just use it in your non-typescript application as well. We recommend using typescript because, without typings, your chaincode could more easily introduce bugs.

Components

We created a package which contains a set of helper classes in order for you to write code faster. Compared to Golang, your functions can be reduced from 10 lines to 4.

yarn add @theledger/fabric-chaincode-utils

The Chaincode class is a base class containing handlers for the Invoke() and Init() functions which are required by fabric-shim . The Init() function can be overwritten by just implementing it in your MyChaincode class, this function should be called init and will also be injected with the same arguments as your custom functions.

export class MyChaincode extends Chaincode {

The Chaincode base class also implements the Invoke() method. It will search in your class for existing chaincode methods with the function name you sent. It will also automatically wrap and serialize the response with shim.success() and shim.error() . You can just return the javascript object and it will do the rest, BUT returning a Buffer is still supported as well. So for example, if we invoke our chaincode with function queryCar , the function below will be executed.

export class MyChaincode extends Chaincode {



async queryCar(stubHelper: StubHelper, args: string[]) { // You can just return a javascript object

return car; // Or you can serialize it yourself

return Buffer.from(JSON.stringify(car)); }



}

The StubHelper is a wrapper around the fabric-shim stub. It’s a helper to automatically serialize and deserialize data being saved/retrieved. The full API can be found here.

The Transform class is a helper to provide data transformation to and from the formats required by Hyperledger Fabric. The full API can be found here.
Automated Code Analysis: The Next Big Thing in 2020 Software Quality
By: Deepcode Ai
Tags: Software Engineering, Software Development, Static Code Analysis, Software, Software Testing

2020: Automated Code Analysis Emerges as the Next Big Thing in Software Quality an amazing article by betanews reviewing the results of The State of Software Quality 2020 survey results.

My first reaction was: I love when random surveys confirm DeepCode (The Software Revolution) vision from 3–4 years ago. It great to see that the passion, thought-leadership, and hard work of the team have delivered a service that already benefits millions of developers and will help tens of millions more in the coming months and years.

My Top 3 results from the survey:

1. 70% of devs say software quality trumps delivery speed, yet critical production issues persist. I am tempted to add a reference point to highlight the sheer scale of production problems: “the [yearly] cost of poor-quality software in the US [was] approximately $2.84 trillion … on US GDP ($20.4 T)” [1] So, around 10% of US GDP.

2. 50% of teams experiencing customer-impacting issues once or more per month

3. Tools participants plan to adopt in 2020: 37% said static code analysis and 28% said dynamic code analysis: putting these analysis tools at the top of the list. By the way, this is almost an exponential growth in the space given past year trends.

Here are more details on the reference [1] THE-COST-OF-POOR-QUALITY-SOFTWARE-IN-THE-US-2018-REPORT.PDF from the Consortium for Information & Software Quality™ (CISQ™)

Source: [1] THE-COST-OF-POOR-QUALITY-SOFTWARE-IN-THE-US-2018-REPORT.PDF

In conclusion, I have never been so excited about the impact unlocked by DeepCode and all the innovations that the currently wasted resources will deliver for the world and our society. You can start using DeepCode immediately with zero set-up, no contracts or payments required: just log-in with your existing git account.
Using NAT Gateways in AWS
By: Zeeshan Baig
Tags: Cloud, Network, Security, Vpc, AWS

In AWS you can design your own network using VPC (Virtual Private Cloud). You can assign your own IP address ranges and split your network into Public and Private Subnets. In simple words, Public Subnet is like Green Zone where traffic from the internet is allowed while Private Subnet is DMZ where no direct internet access is allowed.

Problem

So what if we need to install/update/upgrade software, utilities or OS on EC2 Instances running in a private subnet? one option is to manually FTP to the box and install it but sometimes is not feasible.

For scenarios like these AWS provides us NAT Gateways (previously NAT Instances which are going to obsolete soon).

Let’s see how to setup NAT Gateways in your VPC

Solution

To configure NAT gateway follow these steps

Make sure you have Internet Gateway route defined in Routing Table Get the Public Subnet ID where your NAT gateway would be deployed Create NAT Gateway Test the Internet connectivity

Diagram courtesy of AWS Documentation

In my example, I have two EC2 Instances running one (web-tier) in the Public subnet and other (app-server) in the Private subnet as shown in the slide

Note: In my example, I am trying to install a git on my EC2 instances in private subnet. The command will fail due to no internet connectivity.

Verify Routing Table for Internet Gateway Route

Verify in your public subnet you have internet gateway route defined as shown in the slide

Create NAT Gateway

Go to VPC > NAT Gateways and click Create NAT Gateways Select Public subnet where your NAT Gateway is going to deploy Select existing EIP or click Create Allocate Elastic IP (this will create a new EIP and assign to NAT) Wait for NAT Gateway Status to become available

Define NAT Gateway Routing in Private Subnet

Make sure NAT Gateway is up and running Click on Routing Table and select private subnet where you want to enable internet access Create Edit and enter 0.0.0.0/0 in the source and select your NAT from the list Click Save

Verify EC2 Instances

Once these steps are done you can connect to your instance running in the private subnet and install updates

Clean up

To clean up what we just did in this post, follow these steps

Delete the NAT gateway Delete the NAT routing in private subnet routing table Release the Elastic IP (yes you have to do it manually).

Hope you like this post, please leave a comment, like or clap or share your suggestions on any topics you like us to post.

@IamZeeshanBaig

About DataNext

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Azure Management Tools
By: Ian Adera
Tags: Learn, DevOps, Cloud, Microsoft, Azure

You can configure the Azure resources by utilizing a broad range of tools and platforms. These tools range from the command line, language-specific Software Development Kits (SDKs), developer tools for migration, and many others.

Some of these tools include:

Azure Portal

Azure Powershell

Azure Command-line (CLI)

Azure Cloud Shell

Azure Resource Manager

Azure Advisor

Azure Portal

Azure portal is the user interface that can be accessed through the web browser. A user within azure will manage services and resources through the Azure portal. In the event that you want to add a database or increase compute power to your virtual machines and monitor your monthly costs.

Azure PowerShell

Azure PowerShell enables you to connect to azure subscription and manage resources and services. You can install modules of Windows PowerShell or PowerShell core which are cross-platforms versions of PowerShell. The New-AzVM creates a virtual machine:

New-AzVM ` -ResourceGroupName “MyResourceGroup” ` -Name “TestVm” ` -Image “UbuntuLTS” `

Azure Command Line Interface (CLI)

This is a cross-platform command-line program that connects to Azure. This means it can run on both Linux or macOS: We can use the command-line interface for automating repetitive tasks. This command such as:

az vm create \ — resource-group MyResourceGroup \ — name TestVm \ — image UbuntuLTS \ — generate-ssh-keys \

Azure Cloud Shell

This is a browser-based scripting environment: Bash or PowerShell. The Cloud shell is launched from the Azure portal. This requires a storage account and upon launching one will be created for you.

Azure Mobile App

The Microsoft Azure mobile app allows you to access, manage, and monitor all your Azure accounts and resources from your iOS or Android phone or tablet. Once installed, you can perform various azure tasks.

Azure Resource Manager(ARM)

The Azure resource manager is a management service in azure. It provides a management layer that enables you to create, update, and delete resources in our Azure subscription.

Azure Advisor

Provides best practices for optimization it will make a recommendation for cost-saving, performance enhancement, high availability, and security options. This recommendation can save us a .csv or .pdf file.

This is a part of a series of blogs about understanding Microsoft Azure
Build Your Own Puppy
By: Ryan Gleason
Tags: Java, Software Development, Web Development, Programming, Design Patterns

Puppy Builder

Let’s build some puppies! (That’s a bit strange to say.)

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

This tutorial is going to be a stripped-down, bare-bones example of implementing the Builder pattern.

We’re going to start by creating a main class called PuppyMain.java . This class serves as our entry point.

PuppyMain.java

Next, we are going to create Puppy.java to house our Builder code and build our Puppy objects.

I’m going to break this down into two sections: the Puppy section and the PuppyBuilder section. However, these are apart of the same Puppy.java class. If you want to see the entire class, you can scroll down to the bottom.

Puppy.java

Here, we are declaring each of these variables to be immutable. Meaning once they are created, they cannot be changed. The private constructor and the final modifier helps us to enforce that immutability.

The only way to create new puppies is to use the PuppyBuilder.

We take the PuppyBuilder as an argument to our private constructor so we can map our Builder variables to our Puppy class variables.

Now let’s dig into the heart of the PuppyBuilder:

Puppy.java

To make this object as flexible as possible, we are going to create a separate setter for each variable.

If we wanted any required variables we can define that inside of the constructor like this (where breed is required):

public PuppyBuilder(String breed){

this.breed = breed;

}

But again, that’s only if we want to include the required fields. In this example, all of our fields will be optional.

Another note: this class is static so we do not have to create an instance each time we want to build a puppy. This will allow us to use our Builder as more of a utility method; readily available whenever it is needed.

Here is the complete file:

And here is an example of creating different puppy objects using our PuppyBuilder from our PuppyMain.java class. We take advantage of fluent interfaces here.

A fluent interface, as per Wikipedia, is “an object-oriented API whose design relies extensively on method chaining.”

You can see that no matter what information we give our PuppyBuilder, it is adequately handled when we print out the string version of each object.
Notas sobre o fim
By: Erick Hunter
Tags: Medium Brasil, Erick Hunter, Resistência, LGBTQ

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