fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Sharpen up Your ‘Argument Etiquette’ by Letting Someone Else Win for a Change
By: Dave Sellar
Tags: Self Improvement, Personal Growth, Relationships, Personal Development, Life

Sharpen up Your ‘Argument Etiquette’ by Letting Someone Else Win for a Change

Sometimes we need to look at things from a different angle.

Photo: Josh Howard/Unsplash

Have you ever had a standoff with someone over something trivial?

You argue your case (very well I’m sure), but you can’t seem to get through to them. It feels like you’re talking in a different language. You explain it in the simplest way you know. Often several times. Sometimes a little slower, sometimes a little louder. Still. Nothing. You wonder if they’re even listening to what you’re saying.

Their inability to understand something so logical is frustrating but fear not; we’re going to look at taking a different approach. It’s not always easy, in some cases it requires the patience of a saint, but you may learn something about the other person. You may even have more respect for them once all is said and done.
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Drawing, Illustration, Monday, Watercolor, Art

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

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JavaScript Algorithms: Verifying an Alien Dictionary (LeetCode)
By: Anatolii Kurochkin
Tags: Data Structures, JavaScript, Software Development, Algorithms, Leetcode

Description

In an alien language, surprisingly they also use English lowercase letters, but possibly in a different order . The order of the alphabet is some permutation of lowercase letters.

Given a sequence of words written in the alien language, and the order of the alphabet, return true if and only if the given words are sorted lexicographically in this alien language.

Example 1:

Input: words = ["hello","leetcode"], order = "hlabcdefgijkmnopqrstuvwxyz"

Output: true

Explanation: As 'h' comes before 'l' in this language, then the sequence is sorted.

Example 2:

Input: words = ["word","world","row"], order = "worldabcefghijkmnpqstuvxyz"

Output: false

Explanation: As 'd' comes after 'l' in this language, then words[0] > words[1], hence the sequence is unsorted.

Example 3:

Input: words = ["apple","app"], order = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"

Output: false

Explanation: The first three characters "app" match, and the second string is shorter (in size.) According to lexicographical rules "apple" > "app", because 'l' > '∅', where '∅' is defined as the blank character which is less than any other character ( words = ["apple","app"], order = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"falseThe first three characters "app" match, and the second string is shorter (in size.) According to lexicographical rules "apple" > "app", because 'l' > '∅', where '∅' is defined as the blank character which is less than any other character ( More info ).

Constraints:

1 <= words.length <= 100

1 <= words[i].length <= 20

order.length == 26

All characters in words[i] and order are English lowercase letters.

Solution

First of all, let’s find out what lexicographic order is — wiki. What we really need to know about lexicographic order for solving this problem:

If two words have the same first letter, we compare the second. If the second letters are the same, we compare the third and so on. Finally, one word comes before the other if the first differing letter comes before the corresponding letter.

If two words are identical up to the length of the shorter word, the shorter word comes first.

In other words — javascript.info:

Compare the first character of both strings. If the first character from the first string is greater (or less) than the other string’s, then the first string is greater (or less) than the second. We’re done. Otherwise, if both strings’ first characters are the same, compare the second characters the same way. Repeat until the end of either string. If both strings end at the same length, then they are equal. Otherwise, the longer string is greater.

To compare two letters in JavaScript means to compare their codes in Unicode (16-bit Unicode Transformation Format). So, using Unicode we know that a has feff0061 char code, b has feff0062 , and so on.

'a'.charCodeAt().toString(16) -> 61

'b'.charCodeAt().toString(16) -> 62

...

'z'.charCodeAt().toString(16) -> 7a
Cara Buat Package Node js Sendiri
By: Haidar Afif Maulana
Tags: Programming, JavaScript, Open Source, Nodejs, NPM

Easy read, easy understanding. A good writing is a writing that can be understood in easy ways

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BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY AND SOLAR PUNKS W/LEON-GERARD VANDENBERG
By: Shannon Grinnell
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Solar Energy, Tecnology, Cypherpunk

“What we think Solar Punk is, is this mash up of what Solara is, solar and then this cypher punk cyber punk initiative and so it’s a mash up between this social theme with a technology positivity to it.”

Leon Gerard Vandenberg, Solara Ltd on the Speaking of Crypto podcast

Leon-Gerard Vandenberg

Solara

One of the reasons why the ideology behind bitcoin made so much sense to Leon-Gerard

Leon-Gerard Vandenberg

Vandenberg early on is because he had been creating a payment system that had similar goals behind it, called US Navy Cash. As he put it, “Imagine having the United States Treasury Department as a customer!” Well.. the US Treasury Department wanted thier Navy to have its own currency and to create a payment system that was transparent and resistant to fraud. Sound familiar? That was years before Bitcoin was ever mined. So it makes sense that Leon-Gerard, with that background, would go on to mine Bitcoin himself, and be working with related technology many years later.

Now Leon-Gerard Vandenberg is Chief Technology Officer for Solara, and developing an incredible clean energy blockchain network. He’s developing blockchain technology around solar energy generation and distribution and tokenizing the energy, through SOL tokens, as an asset.

go.solara.io/webinar

We also talk about the goal of financial inclusion and bringing opportunities that go along with creating infrastructure around solar energy to developing areas. By bringing energy as an asset to these areas, the advantage of blockchain tech and its inherent transparency and immutability, will come with it, so that political and financial fraud can be eliminated along the way.

Solar is the cheapest way to make energy, so is it possible to democratize wealth through creating digital villages?

go.solara.io/SolaraDigitalVillage

He mentions that there are trillions of dollars of bonds allocated by the World Bank and the United Nations in a green climate fund to assist in aid for infrastructure in developing countries.

GreenClimate.Fund

Leon-Gerard mentions his work with Fuzo building a working system on feature phones and smart phones, but that the company just didn’t get the traction to be able to scale.

He talks about ESIMS which can act like solar sensors with a stack of features inside and how that technology can be applied in the cases that he’s referring to.

He mentions Rob Allen, one of the advisors for Solara, who was on the Speaking of Crypto Podcast #011

Recommendations:

Book: Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor’s Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond

By Chris Burniske and Jack Tatar

Naval podcast with Nick Szabo

@Naval (Naval Ravikant) interviewing Nick Szabo for Tim Ferriss

The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Nick Szabo
How the languages that we use shape our awareness
By: Leander Caspar
Tags: Language Learning, Language, Self, Philosophy, Awareness

Umbrella

Let’s take the word umbrella as an example. Rain has always prevented us from going outside. Or do you like going outside and getting soaked? At some point, a smart person invented a “hand-held portable canopy which opens and folds” and protects from rain.

But how to call it?

Umbrella itself doesn’t really tell you what it is. In Japanese, the kanji for umbrella is 傘 that looks like a tiny umbrella cute isn’t it?

The word 傘 is pronounced as ‘kasa’ which sound like the Spanish casa (house) to me.

If you speak another European language, you would not see a depicted umbrella but maybe “un parapluie” as in French or ‘paraguas’ as in Spanish. The french one meaning stop-rain, the Spanish stop-waters.

Although the Spanish ‘paraguas’ could also describe a dam. In German, we say Regenschirm directly translated as a rain screen, or a screen that protects you from rain.

These are quite different images more like a metaphor describing what it does.

Coming back to the umbrella. Did you ever wonder why it is called umbrella? Why don’t we say something purpose-related like rain blocker as in sun blocker or like rainscreen as in sunscreen?

When taking a look at the Italian equivalent there is ‘ombrello’, which is quite similar to umbrella. Why is that?

Both derive from Latin ‘umbella’ that describes a spot of shadow. ‘Umbella’ itself comes from the Latin ‘umbra’ a shadow or shade.

“L anguage is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.”

Rita Mae Brown

Languages can make you realise how cultures are interconnected. Trade relation, the social structure, cultural exchanges or even invasion become visible in language.

Photo by Hannah Wright on Unsplash

The more we learn the more we associate with the things around us

From ‘umbra’ I came to umbrage and that I associated with umbridge. All of the sudden looking at an umbrella led me thinking about Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter.

There it did not stop. Dolores itself means the pain in Spanish and derives from Latin meaning pain as well.

You could go on and track it all the way to it’s Proto- Indoeuropean roots.
Magic 3D Cameras. How do they work?
By: Rob Adamson
Tags: Style Transfer, Dual Lens Camera, Photography, Depth Map, 3d Images

Magic 3D Cameras. How do they work?

A dual lens camera, like that on the back of an iPhone X, uses the lens separation to detect a parallax shift to measure 3D depth.

Objects closer to the camera, shift by a greater distance between the two lenses. This parallax shift based on distance is called disparity.

So how does the single front-facing camera measure depth since there is only one lens? This technology is called TrueDepth. You might be surprised to know that the TrueDepth camera projects an infrared light pattern in front of the camera.

By observing the infrared pattern distortions from objects in front of the camera lens, the snapshot software calculates the distance from the camera to each point in the image. From this, the software creates its disparity.

Both technologies then generate a secondary image of depth pixels — a depth map. But instead of each pixel representing a color, the pixels represent depth at that point in the picture. By combining a depth map with colors, it is possible to blur or even make transparent parts of a photo such as the background of a portrait.
Abuse Culture Highlight: The Reclamation of Noetispace
By: Michon Neal
Tags: LGBTQ, BlackLivesMatter, Noetiscape, Healing, Cuilverse

#metoo type stuff: the partner I had that went to jail just helped me realize something, though it was secondary. See, I often dream of one of the many many houses we lived in and I never exactly put together why this one in particular. The dreams were always rather pleasant or neutral, never nightmares. But in telling him this morning, when I went to explain the possible significance, it hit me.

Though shit had already occurred before - and wouldn't stop until six years ago when I both "aged out" (for now; if I make it to what's considered old age the risk goes up again, though being diasabled and trans BlaQueer still places me at higher risk) and finally escaped Ohio - this was the place where the worst happened, where the worst began.

I was 12. His name was Adam and He was a few days younger than me but twice as big. He was the son of my mom's bf and lived with us. He was one in the uncountable line of Black men and boys who terrorized me. For eight months, he crept in at night. My only saving grace was my period, which brought different tortures with it due to endometriosis and pcos.

But, that was where most of that happened. When they finally moved out I told my mom asap. She said there was nothing we could do. Imagine my surprise years later when I realized the statute of limitations was passed, but I could have filed. That is, if the injustice system gave an actual damn about victims, or Black disabled afabs.

"Maybe you dream about it to take your power back," former partner says.

Indeed. I've had to reclaim many spaces: public places, the shower, my bed, my dreams, my mind, my body... I have never had a home, per se, only temporary domiciles, shelter, or street.

But this house is also where my fight took on its most effective form: in the creation of the cuilverse. I wrote with intent mad as Hatter's, for my soul and my life.

Perhaps, then, that house represents where I created the space for my enduring home, in which my fractured selves could meet, meld, and be.
New AMA interview with a popular Crypto pool fund manager
By: Sharik Khan
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, ICO, Investing, Bitcoin

🖐 Hey PEP Network fans,

👉 Check out our CEO, Uday Kadirvel, and CSO, Sujith C.R., doing an interview with one of the most popular private crypto pool manager ILYA.

In the video ILYA discusses with us the founding of PEP Network, why it’s needed and useful in today’s world, and more!

➡️ https://youtu.be/3w-EAJMeQIU
Good People
By: Melinda Smith
Tags: A Cornered Gurl, Hypocrisy, Poetry, Racism, Politics

Good People

A poem

Photo by Robert Zunikoff on Unsplash

Did you use chopsticks at that posh sushi joint

where you made fun of the waiter’s L’s and R’s and eyes?

Did you break apart the cookie and read your white fortune,

crumbs flying from your lips

as you laughed about the Kung Flu?

Did you gripe about jobs disappearing?

The ones you’d never want

because you’ve worked too hard

for your degree

to slum in a field next to rapists and murderers

(and some, of course, good people).

Did you chant about a wall

while your bloated belly

struggled to digest Taco Bell?

Did you joke about the Jews

taking over Hollywood and healthcare

as you looked down your smooth nose

at the bagel and cream cheese on your plate?

Did you cite free speech when the young neo-nazis marched because

there were good people on both sides?

Did you use permanent ink

when you wrote the name and number of that slut

on the bathroom wall?

(just locker room talk)

Or did you use the cheap pen

you got at the rally,

the one where they decided that women

were made to carry babies in their bellies

not monthly pill packs in their purses?

Did you fault a man for kneeling

and then fault him for shouting?

For marching?

For breathing?

Was he disrespecting the flag you revere?

The one slathered all over

your beer koozies and bikinis?

Did you miss the good old days

when he knew his place?

And you —

did you watch as

these things happened?

We all did

But some of us, I’m sure are

good people.
how to build a face-tracking with Raspberry and OpenCV
Tags: Face Tracking, Raspberry Pi, Opencv

This is my very first project on Raspberry. My motivations come from the article of Leigh Johnson :

It seems simple to start a project on Raspberry, so let’s start.

My github repos for this project : https://github.com/nguyenrobot/palt-tilt-cam

This project is realized in collaboration with Clément COSTE, one of my colleagues.

Part 1 — Build List

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B — 4GB

Pan-Tilt HAT for Raspberry Pi

Pi Camera v2 8MP

Micro-SD Card

Mini-HDMI Cable

Cable for Raspberry Pi Camera — Dimension : 457mm x 16mm (18" x 0.6")

USB-C Charger

USB-C External battery (optional by strongly recommended)

I spent roughly 100€ to get all necessary thing in France where we pay so much of TVA tax.

The choice of Pan-Tilt HAT is quite important. Because you have to find a way to control your Pan-Tilt HAT. I use the Pan-Tilt HAT from Waveshare which I have to spend sometimes to understand how to manually control the servo-motor via HAT by keyboard.

An external battery with USB-C output is highly useful for other projects on Raspberry in which your Raspberry must be mobile.
Ferris Wheel Turning
By: Aaron Pruner
Tags: Culture, Childhood, Action, Entertainment, Poetry

The sky is afire with noise and technicolor signs

Sweat beads on the faces of carnival workers

The show is busy and long are the lines

Diamonds gleam like the eyes of shadow lurkers

Calliope dances in children's playground minds

Hobo clowns on stilts hop along, drunk and singing

The air smells of sugar, beer and stale pork rinds

Kids swat at the air, the mosquitos are stinging

Bearded ladies convene behind the old red curtain

One Armed Jack smokes a cigarillo beside the orange shack

Tophat Tim checks his watch for an hour, uncertain

A tattoo of a no-faced Jesus stretches long down his back

Funhouse mirrors bend minds like aluminum spoons

Music, like cotton candy, linger dirty and sweet sticky

The dusty floors are covered with pieces of animal balloons

Your pockets are empty, but the children stay picky

The night’s at an end, the goat-man waves and smiles

Laughter and cries lay muffled behind heavy drapes

The carnival freaks hustle like happy slaves down the aisles

To their wooden cages to rest, and dream, like tired human apes
🔥 🇮🇩 Marketing update for the community: growth in Indonesia
By: Ubcoin. Cryptocurrency Reimagined
Tags: Indonesia, Ethereum, Ubcoin Media

Considering this as part of our comprehensive marketing strategy, we pay much attention to promoting Ubcoin Market app on Asian markets.

For this reason app is translated to Indonesian and Korean languages.

Organic growth in Indonesia is very good and promising already, but we also use some promotional tools there.

🎥 There are some new Ubcoin Market app reviews from popular Indonesian youtubers:

Dzaky Net https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUr28N7uzqQ

THINK Production https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2grFoUpyuc

THE Update’s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RglqettpelA
Reversing a Linked List
By: Steven Zhu
Tags: JavaScript, Algorithms, Software Development, Coding, Interview

Credits to HOTLITTLEPOTATO

While preparing for your coding interviews, you may have come across this very popular linked list problem, reverse a linked list. This problem can seem quite intimidating at first but if you remember the structure of a linked list and how to manipulate the pointers between each node, it can make the problem significantly easier.

Structure of a Linked List

So very quickly, let’s go over the basic structure of a singly linked list. A linked list essentially looks something like this:

Credit to HackerEarth

There is a head of the linked list which can be seen as the first element of the linked list. Each element of the linked list is called a “node” and each node has two properties. A linked list has a data property which stores information and a next property that is a pointer to the next “node” in the linked list. The image above shows an example of a linked list called a singly linked list. Singly linked lists only go in one direction with each node only pointing to the next node. There is a type of linked list called a doubly linked list where each “node” has a pointer that points to both the next “node” AND the previous “node”.

Reversing a Linked List

So let’s dive into the problem now that we have discussed what a linked list is. So say you are given this singly linked list.

Input: 1->2->3->4->NULL

Write a function that takes a linked list as an argument and returns that linked list but reversed.

Expected Output: 4->3->2->1->NULL

So how would we approach this problem? If you are familiar with the structure of a linked list, you may realize the key to solving this problem would be to utilize the pointers.

What if we went step by step through each node and flipped the next pointer to point to the previous node instead? So it would look something like this:

1<-2->3->4->NULL 1<-2-3->4->NULL NULL<-1<-2<-3<-4

The node containing 4 would become the new head and the node containing 1 would now be pointing to NULL. So what does the code look like?

Edge Cases ?

When doing algorithms problems, you should always think about the edge cases that might make your solution fail.

One possible edge case is if the linked list is empty. Our solution will still work because the while loop will never run, since current is null . Since we are return prev which is set to null anyway, our solution works.

Can you think of anymore?

If you think you have a grasp of this linked list problem, I would definitely suggest testing your knowledge on Reverse a Linked List II.
Ripples of Impact: Empowering Tomorrow’s Leaders with Today’s Tech
By: Beeline Reader
Tags: Social Enterprise, Accessibility, Education, Social Impact

Like many Stanford students, Eva Hangartner is accomplished and multi-talented: she graduated from the prestigious Bronx High School of Science in New York City (where she competed in track and swimming), she speaks German and Arabic, and she is now pursuing a major in history. When she finishes at Stanford, Eva plans to work in the field of refugee support and advocacy.

Unlike most students at Stanford, Eva is legally blind. She was born with a congenital condition known as cone dystrophy, which she was diagnosed with at age three. Cone dystrophy is a progressive condition that becomes more severe over time. While Eva presents as sighted (i.e., does not use a cane), she must sit in the front row to be able to see the whiteboard and finds reading on screen to be frustrating and difficult.

Of course, Eva’s rigorous course load means that she has enormous amounts of reading to do — often hundreds of pages per week. Fortunately, she is supported by Stanford’s Office of Accessible Education, which turned her on to two Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA) member organizations that have together helped her plow through her weekly reading load.

Bookshare

The first is the Bookshare reading platform, which allows Eva to access many books that she needs to read for class. The Bookshare platform contains hundreds of thousands of academic and popular titles, and it uses advanced text-to-speech capabilities so she can listen to her reading materials out loud.

BeeLine Reader

Though she is legally blind, Eva still reads visually, with the help of a color-based technology created by SEA Pave a Path member BeeLine Reader. Instead of displaying text in black, BeeLine Reader uses a color gradient that wraps from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. Displaying text in this way makes reading easier — especially for people with vision impairments, dyslexia, or ADHD.

Here’s an example of how it looks:
Imagine How Is Touch the Sky
By: Lucy The Eggcademic, She Her
Tags: Humor, Confusion, Poetry, Poetry Prompt, Memes

Imagine How Is Touch the Sky

Prompted poetry: What do you feel when you look at the sky?

Imagine how is

touch the sky

became that classic meme

for describing

visual design choices

that do not make sense,

embodying that classic

feeling of confusion.

When I look at the sky,

this is the first thing I feel —

to imagine how it might be

to touch the sky,

seemingly impossible and vaster

than I can ever imagine.

When I look at the sky,

I imagine how this limitless sky

embraces the entirety of our world,

its flaws and its hopes,

and most importantly

the chaos and confusion within.
My Friends Said, ‘Go On The Rebound’
By: Artemis Inks
Tags: Relationships, Love, Sex, Poetry, Dating

The Idea of you seemed so easy and harmless mixed with sharp liquid.

Yet so did the apple before the sour bite chucked humanity out of the garden.

They promised laughs and hazy smiles.

Easy relief and an itch finally scratched.

But is the morning version of myself,

Willing to pay my night self’s price?

For that short moment of thoughtless relief,

Will it be worth the pain in the morning?

When awaken to smudge mascara and glitter around my neck.

Will it be worth the red-rimmed eyes, tangled hair, and bruises along my skin?

Will it be worth that awkward conversation?

“Do you take sugar in your tea?”

“I should really be going.”

“Oh really? You can stay longer if you like.”

Translation: Thank God you’re finally going, and I never have to see you again.

When the door shuts and I step under water spray to clean you off of my skin,

I look back in the mirror and think,

Was it really worth it? Following their lead?

Because now I feel worse than I did before.

-ARTEMIS INKS
U.S. professor gives Israeli prize money to Palestinian university
By: Bilal Zuberi
Tags: Education, Israel, Mathematics

A US professor of Mathematics (and former Field’s Medal winner — David Mumford) has decided to donate his prize money from a prestigious Israeli award to Bir Zeit University in Palestine. I am struck by the depth of Prof. Mumford’s comments regarding his otherwise simple act of philanthropy. It was not about trying to solve a problem, nor even about trying to help build peace in the world — it was about realizing what brought success to him and then using his prize money to make those factors more available to scientists in an otherwise besieged part of the world. Brilliant.

I was just telling a friend this weekend that i want to support world class higher education in the developing parts of the world, and especially in Pakistan and Palestine. I truly believe that higher education, especially in the sciences, can enlighten, emancipate, encourage, and motivate people like no other thing. Education brings confidence and an ability to start rationalizing situations and problems so at least a solution can be imagined, if not immediately implemented. Prof. Mumford is right: Education brings hope. And that part of the world really needs hope.

— -
Phase One… Completed!
Tags: ICO, Taylor App, Token Sale, Blockchain

Our token crowdsale has officially and successfully ended. It has gone by quickly and smoothly, without any significant glitches, and are humbled by the amount of support received.

Here are the main closing numbers

500 ETH soft cap reached within 10 minutes

The soft cap is the real deal breaker for any token sale. This is the minimum amount of funds for the start-up to continue operations utilizing the resources from the token sale.

Regardless of the confidence we have in our project and the number of registered contributors prior to the token sale launch, reaching the soft cap in 10 minutes has justified a few hops in the office.

Total number of contributors

From the total members in our supporting community, 1,689 contributed buy purchasing tokens during the crowdsale.

Total number of tokens and total amount raised in ETH

The total number of TAY tokens sold publicly, at a price that varied during four weeks of token sale, is 4,482,839.69144727. That amounted to a total of 3,097.96 ETH raised.

The average contribution was 1.83 ETH per contributor.

Total token holders with long-term access to services

a) Members who purchased more than 1,000 TAY and have access to Taylor Standard: 516.

These members can use the Standard Trading Assistant and enroll in Standard Academy courses.

b) Members who purchased more than 3,000 TAY and have access to Taylor Premium: 289.

These members can use the Premium Trading Assistant with bigger trading limits and priority notifications and enroll in Premium Academy courses featuring leading crypto influencers.

Next steps

During the next few days, we will release another post detailing the next steps and procedures.

Taylor is here to stay and we are proud to be a stepping stone to new crypto traders that would otherwise be hesitant to participate in it. We want to thank all our community members for the amazing support and for allowing our mutual goal to become a reality.

User registrations still OPEN

People can still sign up to be a user of our services and a member of our community. If you have not yet, take a chance to do it! If you are already a part of our community, it will be a blast if you can join us in getting the word out.

Stay in touch

Find more detailed information about the Taylor service, and the Taylor Academy at https://smarttaylor.io.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or on your favorite social media platform to stay up to date with our latest news and announcements.

Feel free to post your questions, suggestions, and comments on our Telegram channel. We look forward to hearing from you!
Of poetry and airplane safety
By: Anuj Mathur
Tags: Humor, Poetry, Love

Welcome to yet another edition of Dear Know-it-all(DKIA) — the place where I heal the world one question at a time. Our first question today comes from a lucky someone who’s found his soulmate but is a tad apprehensive about how to approach her:

Dear Know-it-all, I’m in love. I knew that she was the one as soon as I landed on her Facebook profile. She was a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. It was like we were meant to be together. The other three women I was stalking on Twitter and Foursquare paled in comparison. I knew that I couldn’t just send her any old introductory message. So, I toiled, and I toiled and then I toiled some more, then slept for a while, and then there was some more toiling until I came up with this: Roses are red, Violets are blue, I wanna makes, Fraanship with you. What do you think? – Desperately hers

Dear desperately hers,

I must confess that I like your style. There are only two ways to woo a girl — the way of the gentleman and the way of the creep. I like how you’ve honed in on the latter perfectly. Let’s face it, it’s much less work. Imagine bending down to lay your jacket in every Bangalore puddle you come across in this rain! And let’s not forget those skyrocketing dry cleaning bills.

I love the poem. Just one minor bit of feedback — violets aren’t really blue, they’re violet.

Ah, true love! I’m always happy to help it along. Our second question was called-in via phone by someone who has complete disregard for the law:

Dear Know-it-all, I am currently travelling from Mumbai to Delhi by air for the first time. Midway into the flight, the pilot started telling us about the weather outside and the route that he was going to take. A quick check on my phone(luckily I had the required maps offline because it failed to connect to the internet) revealed that it was a very roundabout way of getting there. I quickly waved the air-hostess over with my phone and asked her to tell the pilot to turn the plane around. She stared at me with a look of horror, screamed something about it being every man for himself and jumped out of the plane with her parachute. Now one emergency landing later, I find myself alone in the plane and the authorities seem to be on their way. So, I’m calling you to ask what just happened? – flying newbie

Dear flying newbie,

This’ll teach you to pay attention to the air-hostess when she makes her safety announcements. Studies have shown that mobile phones in airplanes are the biggest cause of airplane crashes, way ahead of pilots doing wheelies after playing beer pong and the riots resulting from the airline running out of vegetarian meals. I hope they lock you up and throw away the key.

Such irresponsible behaviour always gets under my skin!

Well, that’s it for another edition of DKIA, try not to do anything stupid before I return. And if you do, please keep it to yourselves.
Prism & Pen Prompt Thawing A Frozen Heart
By: Pierre Trudel
Tags: Poetry, Feminism, Haiku, LGBTQ, Transgender

When you come out as Trans, your cold body feels tired and weak. Finding solutions from dysphoria brings the heart and soul to a whole other level.

It was as though I am reincarnated into the real woman I am. Being in a freezer waiting all these years, alone. Finally, I can breathe.

Louise

This story is a response to Prism & Pen’s writing prompt Thawing a Frozen Heart

Other stories so far —
Absurdity in advertising.
By: Kristi Keller
Tags: Facebook Ads, Advertising, This Happened To Me, Consumerism, Humor

Absurdity in advertising.

The nonsense consumers buy into.

Photo by Ken Treloar on Unsplash

I recently stumbled upon something…rather something stumbled upon me.

I didn’t ask to see this and now I can never UN-see it.

Facebook plopped the most absurd advertisement into my screen space and I’m at a complete loss. Not only do I not know why the ad targeted me, I have no idea what it’s actually selling for $2.00.

Is it underwear that sprays air freshener? Someone with stinky parts might actually pay $2.00 for an invention like that.

Or is it a sneezing penis? We’ll never know.
Paying It Forward
Tags: Success, Pay It Forward, Life, Self, Gratitude

About seven years ago, I was fortunate to have met Tom, a classmate turned friend.

At the time, I was stuck in a dead-end job managing a retail pharmacy, and was deeply unhappy. I applied like crazy elsewhere, but nothing materialized.

This is it. I am going to be stuck here forever, doing this for the next 40 years of my life, I thought. Life seemed bleak and hopeless.

Throughout that period, Tom would send me new job postings from his place of work, to try to help me out of this rut. But almost every single posting he sent, I rejected it saying I was unqualified. And it was true; I WAS unqualified. He told me to apply anyway, but I wouldn’t.

He might have gotten frustrated, could have given up, but kept sending me vacancies nonetheless. On one of the tries, a posting hit a home run, and we became colleagues on top of friends.

During and after, I was really appreciative of all his efforts towards me, and genuinely thanked him for it. He always brushed it off, acted like it was no big deal, and instead, asked me to pay it forward.

And I took that to heart.

Every chance I got to pay it forward, I would.

I was keen on bringing others out of their unhappy positions at work as well. Those who I saw had the potential or wish to do more, but were stuck or didn’t know where to turn, or those who asked me personally, I tried to help.

I wanted them to reach a place of growth, hope, and satisfaction, just like I had been given.

And those who thanked me, I asked them to also pay it forward.
JEF welcomes the LUISS Business School International in Israel for the September Business Tour 2019
Tags: Startup Nation, Innovation, Israel, Business School Roma, Enterprenuership

JEF welcomes the LUISS Business School International in Israel for the September Business Tour 2019 JEF Follow Oct 3, 2019 · 2 min read

The Jewish Economic Forum was honored to cooperate with one of the leading business schools in Europe, the LUISS Business School. A group of 19 amazing, young and ambitious entrepreneurs, came to Israel to explore the highly developed businesses which created Israel as a global hub for innovation and prosperity.

The students were enriched with workshops that provided them with lean startup methodologies that will contribute to their futures as innovators, such as idea validation, teamwork, networking, the “art” of pitching, business intelligence & how to attract funds and investments. Every day the students met with leading entrepreneurs from the industry, who shared their personal journey with success and failure stories from their own experience.

As well as, lectures from Professors who explained the key success factors of the Israel Valley. In addition, we had corporate visits to leading companies and venture capital funds, who play an integral role in Israel’s success. Adding on, the students visited two leading universities in Israel, the Technion and IDC Herzliya that contributed and impacted greatly worldwide in the field of research and development. The delegation also had an open session with the Italian Ambassador in Israel, Gianluigi Benedetti, discussing building bridges between Italy and Israel.

An amazing Study tour delegation comes to an end! We are extremely hyped to see what the future holds to our young cadets who just began their journey!
Revitalizing, city, life, gentrification
By: Carl L Lane
Tags: City Living, Housing, Gentrification, Revitalization, Activism

Revitalizing Our Inner-City Neighborhood — Without Gentrification

I didn’t want to simply have a nice house in a bad neighborhood

I bought a little house a couple of years ago. It sits on a mostly quiet street in a mostly Black subdivision, with a good amount of Latinos. The larger area of Houston, of which my subdivision is a part, is called Sunnyside, and it has a reputation for being a tough neighborhood.

I was born and raised not far away, in an area called South Park. Like most people from such neighborhoods, I grew up dreaming of one day being able to buy a big house in the suburbs, and park a European sedan next to a big SUV in the garage.

I’d had an adult life full of speed bumps and false starts. So by the time I was finally able to clean up my credit enough and save a little money to buy a house, I had long since woken up from dreams of suburbia, and escaping the kind of neighborhoods that were responsible for my very existence.

Predictably, most of my friends (including those who were from the same kind of neighborhood) thought I was crazy for buying a house in Sunnyside. I was convinced of my own genius. I had a plan to have a plan.

I wanted a house in the kind of neighborhood where I’d grown up because looking back on my own childhood, I didn’t remember some dangerous war zone where you couldn’t even walk down the street without being shot or robbed. There had been tough times and tough people for sure, but most were hard-working people hoping to make a better life and laugh a little along the way.

I didn’t think these were lesser people. These were people who never quit. They were people who managed, generation after generation, to raise good kids and make a life for themselves in spite of playing with a deck of cards that was often stacked against them. I believed in these people, and I believed in the communities they called home.

I remember the laughter of children who had not yet realized that they were poor. I remember what it was like to watch a father take his wife into his tired arms and dance with her in a cracked driveway as they played something slow on the car radio.

Beautiful young girls would put on shorts and lotion their legs down, and take walks through the neighborhood streets in groups, and drive schoolboys crazy with the discovery of themselves. This was what I wanted the world to see.

To us, the hood wasn’t some generic area with a new name painted over the old one, with newly constructed lofts, a trendy coffee shop, and a yoga studio around the corner. To us, it was home. It was a part of us. It was the garden from which we had all grown.
4 consejos para potenciar el aprendizaje de un nuevo idioma
By: Leticia Estevez
Tags: Aprendizaje, Turismo, Educación, Academia, Idiomas

Aquí comparto mis ideas y experiencias en el sector viajes y turismo | Sharing my thoughts and experiences about travel and tourism

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Medium Newsletters: A new way to connect with readers
By: Brad Artziniega
Tags: Medium, Product, Newsletters

Four years ago, we launched Letters to help Publications connect with their audience directly in their readers’ inboxes. Since then, we’ve seen the efficacy of this tool for publishers. We’ve also seen opportunities to improve it to help creators better reach and grow their audience.

Today, we’re launching Newsletters: a new way to build relationships and share stories with your Medium audience.

We made Newsletters easy to create and powerful to use. Any Publication on Medium can start a newsletter and correspond with their subscribers directly in their inbox. Publications can now give their Newsletter a name and description, so Publications can let readers know what to expect. For existing Publications, the email audience you’ve already built with Letters will continue on with you when you start your Newsletter. Publications can now share a link to the Newsletter sign-up page anywhere to promote and grow new subscribers more easily. And if publishers want, they can get replies from readers directly in their inbox and have a back-and-forth over email for a more direct connection.

Our Newsletter editor simplifies creations and makes your stories look great in every subscriber’s inbox. Newsletter emails are visible on the website and app so creators can share and promote them to new audiences.

We want to make Newsletters easy to grow and discover on our platform. We’re starting by making it easy to promote your Newsletter across your publication stories. With a single click, readers can subscribe to your Newsletter from your posts.

This is just the beginning of Newsletters and we have a lot more to come. We’re excited to help strengthen connections between creators and readers and welcome new voices and stories to Medium.
The Meaning of Life Is to Do What You Do
By: Caleb Tuttle
Tags: Aristotle, Philosophy, Happiness, Life, Purpose

The Function Argument

The function argument claims that each thing does something unique, and it is good for each thing to do its thing well. Stated differently, for each thing, there is an activity unique to it, and the thing should excellently engage in this activity. Stated differently again, each thing has a unique function; activating the function is good.

For example, to borrow from Aristotle, the function of a knife is to cut. A good knife is sharp (i.e., cuts well). The function of a house is to shelter, so a good house will not allow rain through the roof. The function of a tree is to do tree-things, such as absorb sunlight and grow.

With this observation that everything has a unique work (i.e., activity, function), Aristotle asks, What is the function of a human being? In his words:

“For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or an artist, and, in general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the ‘well’ is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function. Have the carpenter, then, and the tanner certain functions or activities, and has man none? Is he born without a function?” (1097b25–30)

To identify the function of a human being, Aristotle observes the rest of nature. He identifies three categories of life: plant life, non-human animal life, and human life. These three categories have corresponding categories of functions. The defining function of plants is nutrition and growth, of non-human animals perception, and of humans rationality.

Thus, for Aristotle, the governing function of a human being is to put to work the rational faculty. (He separates the rational principle of human beings into two kinds: the kind that obeys rationality and the one that thinks and governs.)

Note that rationality is the governing function of a human being. Aristotle recognizes that humans are social animals, that we need food, that we perceive things with the senses, and so on. He identifies the rational faculty as the defining characteristic, not as the only characteristic.

By identifying the function of a human being, Aristotle argues, we know generally what the meaning of human life is, i.e., what a good and happy life consists in.
Meet B21 Team at the below shows
Tags: Events, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, B21

Meet B21 team at

22nd March : London ILFR

27th and 28th March : Zurich Crypto ICO Summit 2018

29th and 30th March : New York Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Investment Summit

4th to 6th April : Oakland, Ca BLOCK 2 The Future

16th to 17th April : Dubai : World Blockchain Forum Dubai

25th and 26th April : Zug Switzerland : Blockchain Summit Crypto Valley

30th April : Tokyo : D10e Tokyo

Or email us at founders@b21.io to schedule a time to meet.

Follow our channels

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LinkedIn

YouTube

Website
Portrait of a Miscarriage
By: Lise Kunkel
Tags: Grief, Miscarriage, Poets Unlimited, Loss, Poem

for Lily 1994

They can never seem to stay in the picture

the way dead people do forever —

Mama at the picnic table, sturdy in her housedress, surrounded by her daughters in their 1950s finest, and me — a serious preschooler, balanced ably on the bench

My childhood friend Leslie — with her Roman nose, that pale white skin, and her prankish smile as she twirls a blade of grass between her slender fingers

Aunt Gert, tall and trim, with her bright blonde-do and her cat rimmed glasses, smiling broadly for the camera

Dear Old Dad, with his birthday crown, raising his glass to the New Year!

My brother Joshua, wearing his Dead Horse Inn tee-shirt with a shit-eating-grin in a cloud of smoke — the doobie just out of the frame

Me pregnant, then not

Unapologetically, our children slip off — moving stealthily from our photographs —

their fine hair electric with each determined step
9th APIS Masternode Early Bird date & Notes
By: Sophie Ha
Tags: Eng, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Finance, Notice

Hello, This is APIS team.

9th APIS Masternode Earlybird will start from approx Dec 18th. 2020 13:35 (UTC+8). Although, please note there could be a slight difference following the Block formation time. To be exact Earlybird starts at Block height 7,776,000‬. Although, please note there could be a slight difference following the Block formation time.

On 18th, you can apply for 9th Early Bird with APIS formerly joined to 8th Early Bird.

But please note that you can’t apply with APIS joined to other PoS products.

Withdrawal & deposit on APIS platform and other Masternode join will be suspended from 18th 11:00 (UTC+8) to the next day 15:00 (UTC+8).

9th Early Bird starts at 7,776,000th Block on Dec18th. On 18th, it is possible to join 9th Early Bird stage with APIS already joined to former Early Bird You can join with APIX token as well. The platform will automatically apply them to APIS as you deposit APIX. You can’t join with APIS allocated to other Masternodes or PoS products. Withdrawal & deposit on APIS platform will be suspended from 18st 11:00 (UTC+8) to the next day 15:00 (UTC+8).Other products join would be temporarily suspended as well. APIS Masternode Early Bird join should be done only on APIS platform

Thank you,

APIS team.

APIS Official Website｜ APIS PLATFORM(apis.mn)

Twitter ｜Telegram(ENG) ｜Telegram(KOR) ｜Telegram(JPN)
Obv
Tags: Lit, Verse, Poetry

You could get into those tiny sandwiches,

Or lift tons of metal, get into physics,

Collect candy dispensers while considering

How to get a steak knife through your chest.

Some decisions are made for you: customer convenience.

We’re all the Nigerian prince who turned philanthropic

At the last minute after the war over rocks

Used in phones for everybody.

Audiophiles are embarrassing musicians,

And sharks have no gold medals to date.

I’m don’t like vintage bunkers,

Only new ones built from scratch

To accommodate the interstellar viruses

We thought Technicolor was joking about.

The Everglades have all the chill

And all gators with none at all.

I’ve given up on the no-calorie, pulverized flower additive

That could get me back on the road.

I am following winter around the globe

Without even mentioning skiing,

Just calling people to get Helen Keller reports

On what the sun looks like and how the snails

Are coming on with their intense optimism.

No viewers available, no complaining,

They turned off the car alarm

And made sure everyone knew it was the wind.

Some desserts are serious, like when you insult

Dracula just as everything was going well.

The laughs were sucked under the door

Out into the night where nobody finds the gold

Just because she/he is stupid: they failed to dig

Two feet down because they were busy with pigs

And mushrooms: a meritocracy.