fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Song Lyrics Without the Suck
By: Nick Plante
Tags: Startup, Song Lyrics, Side Project

Over the past few years I’ve been involved with a number of music-related web projects, including Loudwerkz, DMOD (RIP), and Ink19. Although I make my living on the web and love what I do, I suppose I’ve always been secretly jealous of those snobby record store employees who hear the latest cuts first, troll naive customers, and argue with their coworkers about song meanings :).

Fortunately, the web has lowered the bar to all of that stuff. What would we do without Pandora, Last.fm, and (more recently) Turntable? The one missing piece for me has always been a good song lyrics site. Sure, there are lots of lyrics engines on the web, but they’re all dreadfully designed, spam-centric, and just scuzzy feeling in general. Search for lyrics for your favorite song on Google, and you’re bound to end up looking at popup ads for diet pills.

If you’re like me, this makes you sad. And irritated. So there I was, bitching about this on Twitter one evening, when Seth Banks proposed that we actually do something about it. So we did.

Last week, Seth and I launched Lyricful, which aims to be the first classy lyrics site. We started with a nice clean design and paired it with a sizable lyrics database (growing every day), an intuitive search interface, and some SEO know-how. We’ve also added a few other things we felt fans would find useful, like song previews, concert information, and easy sharing features.

Most importantly, Lyricful isn’t running any invasive eyeball-bleeding advertising. The only ads on the site are in the form of song preview links and concert ticket referrals, relevant to the artist you’re currently browsing (which directly benefits the artist). We built this for ourselves, as music lovers and fans, which means that we wanted to make it as easy as possible to get right to transcribing, discussing, and sharing your favorite lyrics.

Since the soft launch, we’ve started working with a number of artists who were interested in Lyricful and its sister site, MusicNewsHQ. To start with, we’ve added featured / verified artist spots, which will help promote up and coming artists and ensure accuracy of the site contents. Double win. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this project evolves, having both artists and their fans involved in the process. Got feedback for us? We’d love to hear it!
The Last Prompt before the Drawing in December is….
By: Amanda Dalmas
Tags: Partying, Contests, A Rebels Prompt, The Rebel Poets Society, Storytelling

Dec. 1st to Dec. 14th prompt

Photo by Oskars Sylwan on Unsplash

In these dark times…we need a little light. I would like to hear a piece on what the writer can imagine a New Year's Eve Party for 2021 will be like …but with a positive spin-off to it. I want to uplift people and give them hope for the holidays, for Pagans, and Christians alike. I would prefer it to be from the perspective of the writer as well. That the writer is at this party and will tell me this grand story.

I want to hear of this legendary party…where even the God’s might look down with envy. Now it doesn’t all have to be campy. There could be that loud drunk girl…who throws up on so and so…etc. There could be drama. BUT, I do want to hear that it mostly resolves it’s self and is happy in the end.

And it doesn’t have to be a regular party…nor even on this planet. Use your imagination, for your only limitation, is your inhibitions. Let go. Go ID on this shit. Dig deep. Maybe there is a lesson in what you will write. Maybe it’s just a feel-good story or a comic strip. Or you write about a secret BDSM club scene that escalates past midnight. Explore your hard limits. But stay within the Submission Guidelines rules of course.

So I’d like my writers to please put in your subtitles: A Rebel’s Prompt: A Grand Party. The submissions must be no less than 50 words and no more than 2,500 words.

Anyways, on Monday, December 14th, at midnight the prompt will end. Then on Tuesday, December 15th, 2020 I will announce the winner of this prompt. Finally, on Friday, Dec. 18th, I will announce the winner of the Grand Advertising Prize!!! Good Luck!

Amanda Dalmas

J.D. Harms, Mimi Bordeaux, Crystalclearcandace, Scott Leonardi, Ann Marie Steele, Iva Hotko, Robert Milby, Ben Kassoy, Lizzie Finn, Terri Seddon, Zach J. Payne, Kino McFarland, Regina, Calluna, Ed Newman, Shalini C, Tathy M Ntumba, Katy Madgwick, Lavender Nightmares, Gun Roswell, Ngang God’swill N., Penni Livingston, Charlotte Ivan, Dionne Charlet, Lauren Tolbert, J M Mantium, Michael Ritoch, Background Noise Comics, rstevens, marcialiss17, Pablo Stanley, Andy Anderson, Rhonda Skinner, Erica N, David Heatley, Lovely Daye, Wolfie Bain, Ora, Markmalady, Barry Dawson IV, Chelsea Cristoffor, Ravyne Hawke, Aaron Quist, Denis Adair, Jeff Suwak, Sivasai Yadav Mudugandla, Mohan Boone, Ema Dumitru, Suntonu Bhadra, Josie Elbiry
Everything You Need to Know About AirPods Max
By: Henry Gruett
Tags: Technews, Technology, Technology News, Tech, Apple

The headphones also have a digital crown and button straight from an Apple Watch. The crown allows you to change volume, control ANC, use Siri, etc.

Features

These headphones of course have their whole list of features and gimmicks for marketing. Let’s quickly go through them:

The headphones have an array of 6 different microphones for adaptive EQ (including inside your ear). This is a marketing thing we saw on the HomePod. Was it groundbreaking? No, not really.

They will auto-pause when you take them off and put them around your neck (which is nice).

20 hours of battery life is good. Really happy to hear that.

It was rumored that the headphones would be bi-directional (meaning you could put them on either way and they’d adapt) but it turns out they are not. It does, however, say the left and right inside the ear cups. Similar to what Bose has done.

Spacial audio is something new we saw with AirPods Pro and is coming on the Max’s as well. It’s a really cool feature for watching movies and is actually a really cool feature that you won’t find in competitors' headphones.

They also have that AirPods magic which means that they pair with your phone and work amazing. It also of course has Active Noise Cancellation and Siri.

Accessories

It wouldn’t be a modern-day Apple product if they didn’t price gouge you on accessories, Best Buy style.

Apple has two main add ons (kinda) for the Max. The first is a bi-directional lightning to eighth-inch jack for $35. It will let you use the headphones with a wired connection.

The other add on isn’t as much a necessary purchase right now as it is a future one. Apple has confirmed that replacement cups will cost $69 each. I’ve never been so proud and disappointed with Apple at the same time.

Thankfully, the case which can put the headphones in a special lower power mode to save battery comes with the headphones.

But is it Worth the Price?

While the AirPods Max look really cool, it brings up the question of whether it is worth the price tag.

For $550 you can get really nice sounding headphones. And while those headphones don’t have the AirPods “magic”, they do have features the Max doesn’t have. For example, you can’t use an external amp to power the headphones.

But the real competitors to these are Sony’s and Bose headphones. The Sony WH-100X M4’s (yep, worse name on the planet) only cost in the $300 range. They have really good noise canceling and are highly acclaimed. Sure they won’t have that AirPods touch or the spatial audio, but is that worth the cost? We’ll have to see how good they sound once reviewers get their hands on them.

So Should You Buy Them?

No matter what, don’t buy them right now. Even if you’re interested in picking them up, you should wait till reviewers can try them. The headphones are already sold out so you won’t be getting them before Christmas.

There are also rumors that Apple will release a “sports-edition” version which will only cost $350. It might be worth waiting out a month or two to see how these really turn out.
10 Game-changing AI Breakthroughs Worth Knowing About
By: Nishu Jain
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Research, Technology

From the beginning of my AI journey, I found several ideas and concepts promising unparalleled potential; Pieces of research and development that were absolutely mind-blowing; And breakthroughs that pushed this field forward, leaving their mark on its glorious history.

Also, in the last few years, the number of people pointing to the “Skynet-terminator” scenario has increased exponentially … ^_^!

So today, I decided to curate a list of some of the most interesting ideas and concepts (from my own experience) that kept me going all these years.

I hope they’ll inspire you too, as they did to me.

Several objectives, possibilities, and “new ways of thinking” have emerged out of these ideas, so don’t take any of these lightly. We never know what will happen next.

A year spent in Artificial Intelligence is enough to make one believe in God — Alan Perlis

So let’s get started with the very first love of an AI Enthusiast.
Say Hi to Mura!
By: Kamala Sripada
Tags: Journalism

In 2017, I decided to leave CNN-IBN, a place that had been home for more than half a decade. “Don’t quit” was the advice I received from nearly everyone from the industry.

Why? Since I had made it on-air, I was expected to stay there. It was the ‘sweet spot’ that nearly everyone in a TV newsroom was told to aspire for.

Many well wishers volunteered to make me see sense in staying back “Why are you quitting?! You look so good on-air!”.

While I had made up my mind to leave, that statement meant to convince me to stay is what reassured me in my exit.

I left that ‘sweet spot’ to help pilot data journalism projects across multiple newsrooms in India. During the last two years, I’ve had the opportunity to learn things about journalism that have little to do with mass media, big newsrooms, first news breaks and conventional storytelling. Why did I choose to learn new things? As my friend Lakshmi Sivadas puts it succinctly— In a non-linear world, it does not pay to be linear sources of information gatherers and distributors.

In my previous post, I talked about why I decided to become a Tow-Knight fellow — understanding how people consumed the news outside of big newsrooms was important to me.

Over the course of my interviews, I learnt that there are students in India who consume the daily news with the sole purpose of learning from it to clear the general knowledge sections of various exams. I am hoping to build Mura, my project as a Tow-Knight fellow as a news-based learning tool that can help this community.

Mura is a Telugu word roughly translated as a “hand’s measure”, used here to inspire taking one small step at a time.

Keeping this in mind, I envision Mura to be a virtual mentor that teaches students from the news and tracks their learning. For this, I built my first prototype in April and had 10 people test it.

Based on the feedback, the key takeaways have been both for understanding the technology needed to build this, as well as figuring out a conversational voice for Mura to be an effective learning tool.
The Infinite Fount of Novel Ideas
By: Julie Russell
Tags: Novel, NaNoWriMo, Writing

But there was a personal surprise, a gift just for myself, that slayed my greatest novel writing fear:

I don’t run out of ideas.

The first novel I wrote was four years ago, I used my first NaNoWriMo in 2012 to edit and finish that novel. Cheating, I know, but I needed the push to finish.

(I could use that same sort of push now, to finish this novel! — Anyone up for a NaNo-Finishing-Mo? Um, what’s up with the crickets?)

I clung to my first novel through the rest of 2012, and most of 2013, rewriting the same pages over and over again. I was convinced it had to be complete and perfect and publisher-ready before I wrote anything else.

Then October 2013 approached, with its belated San Francisco summer warmth, and I knew I needed to write something new, to release the suffocating attachment I had to my first novel.

From the great abyss of all ideas, new characters arose from my PaperMate Profile pen in my 9x12 writing book.

Set in San Francisco, like my first novel, these characters were new, different, and had their own quirks entirely unlike those in my first novel. The only similarity, in fact, was that I told their story much in the same way as my first novel — alternating points of view by chapter between a mother and a daughter. 55K words later, that NaNo was won.

Then this year, in marched the idea to write the sequel to my first (still unpublished) novel — this time alternating between father and daughter points of view when the daughter visits the father for a month in Manhattan.

62K words and counting, I realized the biggest surprise of all:

Faith that there are always new novel-length ideas.

Always.

My biggest fear was that at best I’d be a one-book-wonder, my first lonely tome destined to be the only title listed next to my name on my hypothetical Amazon.com bookshelf.

But once I created an outlet for my inner writer, the ideas haven’t stopped. I’ll be back next November, and although I don’t know what I’ll write next year, I trust the idea will arrive right on time.
The cost of hiring a data scientist.
By: Callum Adamson
Tags: Data Scientist, Artificial Intelligence, Distributed Teams, Data Science, Hiring

“Deus ex machina” — Menander

Data science, machine learning, Ai, and predictive analytics are the current ‘rock star’ *shudder*, skillsets of digital marketing, and here at Distributed we provide our clients with access to all of them, either to work on in-house proprietary technology, or to augment their teams and help deliver first rate client work .

As we have quite a bit of experience in hiring awesome data scientists I thought it would be helpful to benchmark what costs you should be anticipating when building your own data science team. Below are a few examples which should shed some light on the discipline and what it takes to bring these skillsets in-house.

Firstly, let’s make sure that it’s a data scientist that you need.

Here’s a great graphic to help visualise that we’re looking for in a data scientist.

Jack of all

So what we’re looking for in a data scientist is someone who is capable of overseeing complex data projects from beginning to execution. In addition to having great technical skills, they need to be able to effectively communicate their findings to others in the organisation. They should also be able to manage a team. They should be able to query databases like an analyst, but also able to perform much more sophisticated analysis using statistical techniques and machine learning, depending on the task at hand.

Like most of us that work in specialisms, each data scientist will lean towards a particular specialism, here’s a quick look at the different specialisms.
How does understanding impermanence make life better?
By: Robin Harwick
Tags: Life Lessons, Mental Health, Self Improvement, Self, Trauma

In life, only change and death occur 100% of the time. After a near-fatal car accident that left me unable to walk, I had a lot of time for contemplation. My mom brought me the book The Tibetan Art of Living and Dying, and I became obsessed with understanding the Buddhist teachings about suffering. However, the teachings about impermanence were the ones that troubled me. I danced with impermanence and briefly slipped away from this life.

Instead of learning to embrace impermanence, I spent decades trying to create something stable, meaningful, and permanent. My life was filled with fear and trepidation. PTSD controlled where I went and how I traveled. Each time I got into a car, I was acutely terrorized by the knowledge that I could die and leave my children without a mother. Or worse, I could lose them. People mocked me about my fears as if fatal car crashes were something that never happened.

As the years passed, impermanence screamed louder. Mass shootings propelled my community into darkness. The murder of my dear friend and mentor reminded me again to savor each moment because you genuinely do not know which will be your last — more loved ones perished by accidental overdose, cancer, and suicide.

Impermanence hurt like hell. Impermanence. I must fight.

How does understanding that impermanence exists make life better? I didn’t get it.

With time my community became stronger, we leaned on each other, and we loved harder. Amazingly, the wrenching sadness caused by each of the tragedies was impermanent too. Of course, there is still a sense of loss, but it is no longer all-consuming.

We pulled together in love. We move forward.

It turns out impermanence is not the enemy, for it brings joy as well as despair. In my darkest times, I now understand that they too are impermanent. In this I find comfort.

Instead of grasping tightly to what is — for fear of it going away — I try to savor each beautiful moment so I will have no regrets later. Armed with this knowledge, I step onto my loosely charted path with excitement instead of fear. After all, stability is an illusion.
Need to Vigorously Fight Vaccine Misinformation
By: Dr. Hesham A. Hassaballa
Tags: Covid 19, Misinformation, Vaccines, Medicine, Science

There is so much misinformation about vaccines out there, now that worldwide vaccination programs against COVID-19 have started. We need to vigorously fight against this misinformation because the fewer people get vaccinated, the longer this virus will wreak havoc in our societies and our world, and the longer it will take for this pandemic to end.

Robert Turner — Editor and co-Founder of Being Well and Medika Life (as well as my esteemed colleague) — does an excellent job showing how the vaccine is really, truly safe. And he doesn’t even use science to do it. Check it out.
Are Some People Just Born Lucky?
By: Lindsey, Lazarte
Tags: Self-awareness, Personal Growth, Advice, Life, Self

To me, I’d attribute my luck to my bubbly personality and being blessed with the ability to learn quickly and get things done right away. I also rarely deviated from the rules and was extremely obedient. And obviously, I also took advantage of every single opportunity I received.

However, in my eyes, even though things came a little easier for me in comparison to other people, I never really deemed myself as a lucky person. In the grand scheme of things, I actually considered myself less fortunate than the average middle class.

My parents immigrated from another country, knowing no one and having very little. They did this so they could give me the opportunities that I have now — And I am eternally grateful. But, growing up, we didn’t have everything.

Our house wasn’t huge. We never went to Disney World. We never had a dishwasher. I always had to work growing up. Going to college, I didn’t receive any financial aid from my parents — Every dime I had for college came directly from student loans.

Of course, this isn’t me dismissing the things that I did have. By no means were we poor. We got by. But, it was a humbling thing which taught me a lot about being thankfulness.

As I got older, I realized that the less you had, the more appreciative of a person you were because you know what it’s like to live with less. In turn, the more you know about actually being able to live with less, the easier it is for you to live with less.

So, where does luck fit into all of this?
Is it May already?
By: Patsy Fergusson
Tags: Stories That Matter, Writing On Medium, Women, Feminism, Writing

Dreaming of the outdoors

Dear Readers,

We sent out our last newsletter in February. A lot has happened since then, as you may have noticed! But global pandemic aside, some excellent stories have made their way into Fourth Wave, a publication by/for/about women and other disempowered groups.

Some address these unprecedented times head on. Some look the other way and provide a distraction. We have a lot of book and movie reviews because…what else is there to do?!? :p

We know it’s a long list. That’s because we don’t want to bombard you with newsletters. But we hope you’ll pick some to read and appreciate our writers, and maybe even think about contributing something yourself. Fourth Wave is a growing community of readers, writers, and thinkers who care about equity and changing the world for the better. Here’s a round-up of what we’ve been up to lately:

What We Published in May (so far)…

What to Binge Watch if You’re Anxious

Setting the “Portrait of a Lady” on Fire

Armed Men in Public Aren’t a Symbol of “Freedom”

The Heart of “The Nightengale”

Self-Care is the Antidote to Self-Loathing

What We Published in April

Believe Reade and Vote for Biden

Quarantine Life With Cats and “Control Issues”

Scenes From the In Between

What to Read in Quarantine

What’s the Difference Between Grift and Graft?

Twelve Films to Inspire Discussion About Gender Equality

What We Published in March (when we were feeling poetic!)

What to do in a Pandemic (a poem)

Prophesy (a poem)

Writing is a Starry Night (a poem)

Pandemic Panacea

Open Poem to Lawrence Ferlinghetti From The Urban Forester (a poem)

Ferlinghetti Day is Coming For You!

The Problem With Bucket Lists

Porn, Tears & Talk: How I Wrote _Freeloader in the House of Love_

And What We Published in February After Sending the Newsletter…

Pundits Are Poobahs

More Senseless Destruction From SFDPW

Why Intermittent Fasting Works For Me

What Do Trump Voters Believe He’s Doing For Them?

Harvey Weinstein’s False Memory Defense and its Shocking Origin Story

Wow! I had no idea Fourth Wave had been so productive. Just writing that list of links was exhausting :p (Plus I began another publication called Tarot Me This, so if you’re interested in tarot cards, psychology, archetypes, or divination, check that out.) Yet somehow all I remember from the past few months is staring out the window with longing, like my daughter’s cat in the picture up top. So I guess that’s a bit of good news, anyway. Even if you don’t think you’re being productive, perhaps when you sit down and tote it all up, you are. Or maybe productivity is happening under the surface? Could be. We’ll see what happens next…

In the meantime, please stay safe, stay positive, and stay alive. And keep reading!

Yours truly,

Patsy Fergusson

Editor

Fourth Wave
Compare the Best Javascript Chart Libraries
By: Adil Baaj
Tags: Development, Charts, Web Development, Data Visualization, JavaScript

Compare the Best Javascript Chart Libraries

Chart.js, Highcharts, C3, NVD3, Plotly.js, Chartist, Victory

Read the original article on Sicara’s blog here.

In this article, I provide a decision tree to quickly decide which open source javascript charting library is right for your project. You can use any framework like React, Angular, AngularJS, VueJS or just use vanilla javascript. Links to the graph libraries for each framework are provided below.

I purposely exclude D3.js among the chart libraries. D3 is an awesome javascript library, but it has no “ready to ship” charts and graphs. If you want to learn about D3 you can read my article A starting point on using D3 with React. I will however list NVD3 which is a chart library built on top of D3.

Edit: this post has been updated since its first publication. Last update: 09/11/2017

Table of content

The most used javascript chart libraries

I reviewed all the libraries listed in the aforementioned blog post. This post comes on the first page if you google ‘best javascript chart libraries’. I used this tool to get the following graph. It represents the number of downloads per day of each library through npm (the weekends were removed).
Power to the Indigenous Peoples!
By: Wildlife Conservation Society
Tags: Indigenous People, Indigenous, Wildlife, Environment, Conservation

St. Lawrence Island Yupik share their knowledge and concerns about local waterways given loss of sea ice and increase in commercial shipping. Photo ©WCS.

By David Wilkie and Michael Painter

October 23, 2018

In the wake of the recent Global Climate Action Summit, we need to replay and reinforce the message that Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities — by exercising their rights, securing their wellbeing, and maintaining their cultural identities — will play an enormously important part in keeping forests intact and helping humanity avoid a climate change catastrophe.

WCS has long supported the rights of Indigenous Peoples to decide how to benefit from stewardship of their lands and waters. During the summit, our staff in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the boreal north of Canada, and in Bolivia communicated passionately about the vital role that Indigenous Peoples play in making our planet more resilient to climate change.

Local women helping WCS staff to monitor fish landings in Tanjung Luar village in Lombok, Indonesia. Photo ©WCS.

We noted how civil society has and continues to play a key supporting role in securing rights to Indigenous Peoples’ territory and helping them to build their capacity to manage their natural resources.

But while the importance of securing rights and building capacity for Indigenous Peoples is well understood, we less frequently discuss why it is essential that Indigenous Peoples hold the power to govern their traditional territories and exercise their authority. Without clout, they are often thwarted in their efforts to manage their nature resources.

Time and again, politically or economically powerful actors have undermined or usurped the legitimate authority of Indigenous Peoples. On the other hand, when civil society actors have empowered Indigenous Peoples partners to govern their own territory, they and not others have benefitted.

It is essential that Indigenous Peoples hold the power to govern their traditional territories and exercise their authority.

A little over 180 km west of Kabul in the Hindu Kush mountains of central Afghanistan, the Hazara people have depended for generations on the Band-e-Amir landscape to graze their livestock, provide fuel and fodder, and facilitate rain-fed crop production.

In 2006, WCS helped establish the Band-e-Amir Protected Area Committee (BAPAC). BAPAC is comprised of elected representatives from all 15 villages in the area and members of various ministries and levels of government. Community representatives are the majority of the BAPAC members and consequently have the ability to guide the discussion on whether, why, and how to protect the Band-e-Amir area.
Is it on the Calendar?
By: Arnie Mckinnis
Tags: Digital Marketing, Time Management, Marketing

The number one excuse for missing anything in business is “it wasn’t on the calendar”. That’s true if it’s an internal meeting of your team or a webinar held for your prospects.

The calendar has become an important tool in managing our time, both personally and professionally. It’s on every computer, every phone and included in every productivity application ever created.

Companies such as Franklin Covey have made hundreds of millions of dollars helping us manage our calendars. A quick search on Google for the term “productivity calendar planners” will produce over 30 million results. We crave a better way to manage our time, to be more productive, and get better results. And in most cases, we come back to the calendar to help us do just that.

My question is, if we know that in managing our own lives, why do we believe anyone else is different? If we manage manage our time through our calendar, isn’t it a logical conclusion to believe our prospects and customers do the same thing? Aren’t their lives just as busy as ours, with dozens of tasks to be completed today, and hundreds during a month?

If the answer to that question is ‘yes’, they why not leverage the calendar (which we all know is being used by them) and get our marketing activities right to the calendar. A calendar “event” sent to them is the same as that meeting request you sent to your team this morning. It gets on their calendar, and they can make plans accordingly.

We wrote a Ideabook to help start your idea engine. It’s really just a matter of thinking a bit differently about how you communicate and how you ask for someone’s time. We take that very seriously, we don’t believe in calendar spam any more than we believe in email spam. But we do believe, that even if someone has great intentions to attend your “event”, if it’s not on their calendar, there is a higher possibility of them not attending (as evidenced by webinar attendance rates of 40%).

So, download the Ideabook, flip through the ideas we’ve presented, and see if one or two might spark a thought on how to improve a marketing activity. Right now, it will only cost a few minutes of your time, but we believe, in the end there are major benefits of using the calendar in our marketing activities.
Why You Should Read One Hundred Years of Solitude
By: Jess Tam
Tags: Magic Realism, Books And Authors, Book Review, History, Books

As I was nearing the last few pages of the book, I realized I never wanted One Hundred Years of Solitude to end. I had no idea that a book could pull my imagination to travel so far into an outrageous and magical realm of the living and dead of Macondo.

If I could sum up One Hundred Years of Solitude in just one phrase, it would be, “What the f*ck.” I use that phrase in the most enchantingly and astonishing way possible.

As the author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I believe that he seriously cannot be sane because this book embodies the entirety of what it means to be unique.

This book is so beautifully depicted that you become completely tangled in the absurdities of its magic realist narrative, following a hundred years of many fortunes and misfortunes of seven generations of the Buendia family.

It is a hard read, for there are many complex characters with mostly the same names. Luckily for my addition, there is a family tree to follow. However, I guarantee you it will be an enriching reading experience.

Here are 3 reasons why you should read One Hundred Years of Solitude.
by Lorisa Griffith
By: Lorisa Griffith
Tags: Music, Relationships, Love, Art, Life

SONG NOSTALGIA

“On Your Side” / Pete Yorn

Every September when the air catches a chill, I revisit this song and the feelings it brings up. I have been over the crush I associated with the song for a long time. He was seriously bad news, but it reminds me of how naive I was back then. I thought my love and attention could change someone who didn’t want to change. Breaking apart, coming back together, and starting over couldn’t save us. That’s because God knows best. Some things just are not meant to be and for good reason.

I spent a lot of time downtown in those days. I remember the way the town looked when the sun would go down and the sky would go all sorts of orange, purple, and pink at twilight. The streetlights came on as shops closed and bars opened. Restaurants got ready for the dinner crowd. I would catch up to friends and people watch for a while as I waited for the usual crowd to come out. There was something simpler about life then. Work, friends, and dating (or not) were things that filled my days even though they felt more empty to me then.
Clean Architecture, the right way
By: Angad Sharma
Tags: Software Architecture, Go, Development, Clean Architecture, Technology

What is so Clean about Clean Architecture?

In short, you get the following benefits from using Clean Architecture:

Database Agnostic : Your core business logic does not care if you are using Postgres, MongoDB, or Neo4J for that matter.

: Your core business logic does not care if you are using Postgres, MongoDB, or Neo4J for that matter. Client Interface Agnostic: The core business logic does not care if you are using a CLI, a REST API, or even gRPC.

The core business logic does not care if you are using a CLI, a REST API, or even gRPC. Framework Agnostic: Using vanilla nodeJS, express, fastify? Your core business logic does not care about that either.

Now if you want to read more about how clean architecture works, you can read the fantastic blog, The Clean Architecture, by Uncle Bob. For now, lets jump to the implementation. To follow along, view the repository here.

Clean-Architecture-Sample

├── api

│ ├── handler

│ │ ├── admin.go

│ │ └── user.go

│ ├── main.go

│ ├── middleware

│ │ ├── auth.go

│ │ └── cors.go

│ └── views

│ └── errors.go

├── bin

│ └── main

├── config.json

├── docker-compose.yml

├── go.mod

├── go.sum

├── Makefile

├── pkg

│ ├── admin

│ │ ├── entity.go

│ │ ├── postgres.go

│ │ ├── repository.go

│ │ └── service.go

│ ├── errors.go

│ └── user

│ ├── entity.go

│ ├── postgres.go

│ ├── repository.go

│ └── service.go

├── README.md

Entities

Entities are the core business objects that can be realized by functions. In MVC terms, they are the model layer of the clean architecture. All entities and services are enclosed in a directory called pkg . This is actually what we want to abstract away from the rest of the application.

If you take a look at entity.go for user, it looks like this:

pkg/user/entity.go

Entities are used in the Repository interface, which can be implemented for any database. In this case we have implemented it for Postgre, in postgres.go. Since repositories can be realized for any database, therefore they are independent of all of their implementation details.

pkg/user/repository.go

Services

Services include interfaces for higher level business logic oriented functions. For example, FindByID, might be a repository function, but login or signup are service functions. Services are a layer of abstraction over repositories by the fact that they do not interact with the database, rather they interact with the repository interface.

pkg/user/service.go

Services are implemented at the user interface level.

Interface Adapters

Each user interface has it’s separate directory. In our case, since we have an API as an interface, we have a directory called api.

Now since each user-interface listens to requests differently, interface adapters have their own main.go files, which are tasked with the following:

Creating Repositories

Wrapping Repositories inside Services

Wrap Services inside Handlers

Here, Handlers are simply user-interface level implementation of the Request-Response model. Each service has its own Handler. See user.go
Historical Stock Price Data in Python
By: Ishan Shah
Tags: Stock Market, Python, Data, Programming, Data Visualization

Stocks are very volatile instruments and it’s therefore very important that we thoroughly analyze the price behaviour before making any trading decisions. This is why fetching and analyzing the prices is crucial. And python comes in handy to do that.

The stock data can be downloaded from different packages such as yahoo finance, quandl and alpha vantage. In this article, we will look at fetching the daily and minute level data from yahoo finance. This is brief version to get the data, if you are looking for other methods and different data types then you can refer below.
Why 35 and up Is a Little Too Old to Be Having “Sleepovers”
By: Jesse Ya Diul
Tags: Short Story, Life Lessons, Humor, Writing, Life

Alex and Phil were close friends, not the best of friends by any stretch, but close enough to where it wasn’t uncommon for them to stay up late at night, drinking beers, talking into the evening breeze.

If one of them got too drunk, they’d pass out, and one would let the other crash on his couch for the night.

It happened on one of those nights where Phil and Alex were both getting very good and drunk.

Phil shot his wife a text saying that he was probably going to stay another night over. After sending the text he sat in the darkness with Alex.

They sat together by the fire quietly, staring into the flames.

Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was everything finally coming to a head, but out of nowhere Phil started crying.

It was light at first, but overwhelmed with emotion he started sobbing harder and harder.

Weeping over his dead brother.

In between fits of tears, he would throw up, the snot from the tears mixed with strings of spit and bile stretching from his face.

Alex was shocked.

He tried to get Phil to calm down and drink some water, but he just pushed him away,

He kept repeating “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry” while weeping.

To his brother or to him, Alex never knew. He just watched over him until he finally passed out, exhausted from the tears and the alcohol.

It wasn’t until Phil had rolled over in the grass that Alex saw.

Phil had shit himself.

The garden hose was in the backyard next to the fire pit. Alex pulled it around and gently sprayed Phil to clean him, waking him up in the process.

Upon waking Phil was much more subdued and violently ashamed. Still too drunk to move effectively, he let Alex pull him out of his clothes and throw them away, while he gave him new ones.

Both men were fiercely embarrassed.

Phil, embarrassed at crying in the other man’s presence, Alex embarrassed to have seen the other man crying.

Around four in the morning, Phil crept back to his house crawling into bed with his wife. She asked if everything was all right and he simply shook his head.
Lights
By: Galit Birk
Tags: Self-awareness, Poetry Prompt, Haiku, Tradition, Peace

Haiku is a form of poetry usually inspired by nature, which embraces simplicity. We invite all poetry lovers to have a go at composing Haiku. Be warned. You could become addicted.

Follow
Fibonacci’s Echo
By: Lee-Anne Hancock
Tags: One Line, Nature, Design, Chalkboard, Poetry

Math is like an echo.

Fibonacci knew this.

When you know one thing,

It leads to another.

It’ll always lead to a known place.

Echos are reliable.

Just like math.

In response to Richard L. Boyer ‘Echo’ prompt

The Magnificent Jesse Boy

As always, thanks to our hosts, Kathy Jacobs and Harper Thorpe, and the rest of the talented Chalkboard team!
Deploying Classification Model using Flask
By: Manohar Krishna
Tags: Image Classification, Flask, Deep Learning, Python, Deployment

In my previous article, I’ve described the process of building an Image Classification model using Fast.ai. In this article, let’s see how to deploy it on a web application made out of Flask.

Small Background of the model that we’ve built — Classification of vehicles into emergency and non-emergency. Now that the model is built, what next? How do you want to use your trained model? A simple answer would be to build a web application where you would be able to pass the image and ask for prediction. There are 2 python based options for web development: Flask & Django. I chose Flask since it is light weight compared to Django and also because my deployment will only be based on request/response in text form. Django has lots of things which might not be needed for my webapp and also one can do anything and everything in Flask that can be done in Django.

So this article starts where the last article ended i.e., after getting the “.pkl” file of the model. We built the webapp which runs the trained model in the backend to get the prediction. So let’s get started…
Create a weather app UI with 3D-like illustrations
By: Diana Malewicz
Tags: UI, UX, Tutorial, Design, Apps

Welcome to the third step by step UI guide! Let’s practice some UI skills — I encourage you to take some time and follow my little tutorial. You will most likely end up having a nice UI example to share on your socials and portfolio :)

This time, we’re going to create a visually pleasing, simple weather app with 3d-like illustrations.You won’t need any fancy software to do this — I work entirely in Sketch, but you will be able to recreate this tutorial in Figma.

Please note, that this is not a “legit” process on how to create a product. We will focus on creating a clean, consistent UI, and we skip all the research/user experience/whatever you like to call it/steps.

Basic idea and wireframe of an app

Since we’re going to create a weather app UI, let’s think about what elements and information are crucial for this kind of product:

• Time and place

• Weather condition (visual representation is always nice here!)

• Temperature

• Additional information (humidity, wind, UV, pollution level etc.)

• Weather forecast for the next days

Having these points in mind, let’s create a very rough wireframe:
4 Amazing Templates to Make Product Strategy an Asset, Not a Liability
By: Brandon Lopez
Tags: Planning, Startup, Strategy, Product Development, Product Management

4 Amazing Templates to Make Product Strategy an Asset, Not a Liability Brandon Lopez Follow Mar 10 · 2 min read

I recently wrote a beginner’s guide to product marketing to help startups and SMBs understand the acute need for the function and common pitfalls to avoid. Once you have the right resources in place, the next step is to succeed at strategic planning, roadmap development, crafting a narrative/messaging/positioning, and building a product point of view.

Thanks to my selfless friend Chris Mann, who’s been a product leader at Bizo (acquired by LinkedIn), Coremetrics (acquired by IBM), and CEO at BrightFunnel (acquired by Terminus), he’s shared a few of his amazing and actionable templates to help get you started.

You can find these product-related templates on Valley Innovators’ site here or I’ve included a summary with links below. Keep in mind these templates have been battle tested in the field by Chris and they work in practice. Enjoy!

Strategic Planning Matrix

View Template

Improve the planning process and get stakeholders across the organization including executives, product, marketing, sales, and operations aligned on key strategic and product initiatives with this google sheet template. Use this template to:

Rank strategic initiatives to improve performance

Assign clear ownership and gain better alignment

Increase accountability across teams and owners

Improve communication and shorten timelines

Messaging Blueprint

View Template

Leverage this blueprint to achieve better collaboration and alignment on messaging with this google doc template. Use this template to:

Align on the problem your company solves, differentiators, value propositions, target audience, and core capabilities.

Develop initial messaging for your PR boilerplate and elevator pitch.

Track and analyze competitor messaging.

Solution Spec

View Template

Gather critical product and executive input in this Solution Spec google doc. Use this template to:

Think through product strategy and closely align execs with product leadership

Discuss roadmap timelines, phasing, and implications for better utilization of resources.

Articulate risks and dependencies to remove critical roadblocks

Product Point of View (POV)

View Template

Leverage this POV framework to think through and gain alignment on strategic product initiatives. Use this template to:

Think about and articulate the fundamental challenges and opportunities of a particular product strategy.

Gain input from other stakeholders for better clarity and alignment.

Challenge assumptions on market opportunity, product roadmap, risks, and resources needed for success.

A special thanks again to Chris Mann for sharing these templates. Listen to Valley Innovators’ podcast with Chris for more insights on how to use them or contact Persimmon Marketing for help implementing them to improve your product marketing and development process.
A million things…
By: Yann Girard
Tags: Life Lessons, Inspiration, Writing, Life, Poetry

There are millions of things worth doing.

Millions of things worth seeing.

Tens of thousands of people worth kissing.

Hundreds of places worth visiting.

Dozens of books worth writing.

Hundreds of thousands of conversations worth having.

Thousands of movies worth watching.

Millions of people worth hugging.

Hundreds of thousands of books worth reading.

Millions of songs worth listening to.

And one life worth living.

Don’t waste it…
Tonight’s comic is about seltzer.
Tags: Wellness, Comics, Seltzer, Scam

More from rstevens Follow

I make cartoons and t-shirts at www.dieselsweeties.com & @rstevens. Send me coffee beans.
Perfection
By: Daman Sandhu
Tags: Poem On Medium, Perfection, Poetry On Medium, Writing, Poetry

A Tale of How Chase of Being can create Pressure, Anxiety, Myths and Doubts, wheras Perfection lies in …

Chase of Perfection,

Often ends up with Pressure,

Pressure of Excellence,

Pressure of Achievement,

Pressure to be simply Perfect.

Paths of Perfection,

Often leads to Anxiety,

Anxiety of Failing,

Anxiety of Losing,

Anxiety to be simply Perfect.

Waves of Perfection,

Often creates tides of Fear,

Fear of Rejection,

Fear of Future,

Fear to be simply Perfect.

Myths of Perfection,

Often cascades mirage of Doubts,

Doubts of Self-abilities,

Doubt of not being Enough,

Doubt to be simply Perfect.

Perfection is a Pressure,

Perfection is an Anxiety,

Perfection is a Fear,

Perfection is a Myth,

Perfection is simply an Imperfection.

……………………………..

To Follow My Journey Connect —

📍 LinkedIn —

📍 Instagram —

https://www.instagram.com/daman873/
Experience Index
By: Jack Burt
Tags: Spirituality, Satire, Writing, Life, Poetry

Photo by Author

12, 17, 27

What do they all share?

I can remember a desk

A chair

Something to write with

A room in my head

Filled to the top

More than I asked for

Overload on thought

And just pouring

Dribbling

Existing

Onto a page under light
Simple Solutions to Problems of a Front-end Web Developer
By: Deepak Gangwar
Tags: Development, Front End Development, Web Development, CSS, Education

Simple Solutions to Problems of a Front-end Web Developer

And some things that can make your life much easier.

Photo by Karl Pawlowicz on Unsplash

“NASA has landed robots on Mars and here we are struggling to center-align our divs!”

I once heard it and it resonated with me so much as it has a lot of truth in it. Doing something as obvious as centering a div may seem common sense driven but it was actually very difficult for me to work out in CSS.

Being a front end developer is a dream of many but comes with challenges we have to face and it is a part of our lifelong learning process.

Web development has changed a lot in the past years. I remember coding my first website in notepad and the eureka moment when I figured out how to insert images that can be hyperlinked.

Things have changed a lot since then and for better. Now we have so powerful text editors, CSS preprocessors, amazing libraries. Websites are way more interactive and beautiful and this poses a new challenge to a front end developer to what technologies to learn in this vast ocean.

But there are some of the common things we all encounter and can be a great relief when we find a good solution that is not going to break the site for some unknown reason.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Here are some simple solutions to problems faced by a front-end web developer

and things that are going to make our lives much easier-

Centering a div

Stylesheet 404

Vertical Align

No responsiveness

Viewport units

Adding Custom fonts

Minified CSS and JavaScript

Clearfix for float

Compressed or stretched images

Some things to ease your life as a front end developer-