fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
5 questions with ContentBox Head of Investor Relations
Tags: Podcast, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Bitcoin

1.How much did ContentBox raise in the private sale? Who was your lead and following investors?

A: Our soft cap is 15,000 ETH, hit that in about a month, and we hit our hard cap of 30,000 in a little less than a month afterwards. We have a wide range of investors. We gave a cap of 500 per investor, so no “lead” investor in the conventional sense. Investors include LinkVC, Sky9, Dimension11, IDG Token Fund, SIG Token fund, Iconic Shen Bo (one of the founders of Fenbushi Capital) among many others.

2. Will ContentBox do a crowdsale and or public presale?

A: No public ICO / crowdsale, because we already hit our hardcap

3. Where is ContentBox incorporated and why?

A: Singapore. They have friendly registration requirements for Foundations, which is the corporate entity for our blockchain project. It is a non-profit entity. Also, Singapore’s regulations are currently friendly towards blockchain projects.

4. Is the Box Token a utility or security? What’s the difference?

A: Utility token. You can exchange the tokens to purchase services within the ContentBox ecosystem, starting with Castbox. We are not selling any equity stake for ContentBox, which is why it’s not a security token.

5. How does the Bounty and airdrop program work?

A: For the Airdrop, you just need to join our Telegram group here and you can earn 10 points, which will translate to BOX tokens on a one to one basis. You can invite friends to the Telegram group as well. Each friend you invite, you will also earn 10 points, and this is an unlimited way to earn BOX tokens.

Contentbox Website: https://contentbox.one/

Telegram: https://t.me/BoxCommunity

Contentbox Twitter: https://twitter.com/Contentbox_one

Contentbox Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/contentboxone/

Contentbox Medium: https://medium.com/@Contentbox_one

Contentbox White Paper: https://contentbox.one/wp.pdf

Contentbox Bitcoin Talk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3898690.0

ContentBox Airdrop: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3293511.msg34365670#msg34365670
How Nature Creates Reality
By: Ilexa Yardley
Tags: Spirituality, Philosophy, Mathematics, Physics, Data Science

The conservation of a circle gives us nature, and reality. Meaning, nature is reality.

Nature is reality. (Photo by Vladimir Kudiov)

We’re all a part of nature. Science, and technology, and, also, mathematics, in general, make it easy to ‘forget’ this. But, forget-it, or-not, we are still a part of nature. Therefore, we’re all engaged with nature. At all times. We cannot separate from nature. Even when we use our mind. (Especially, when we use (or lose) our mind.) To explain, and separate, nature.

So mind shares a perpetual circle with nature. Meaning, mind is, necessarily nature. Mathematics helps us to discover, pi is the only observer in nature. Because zero and one is X and Y, the circumference and diameter, of nature. Therefore pi is our mind, interacting with, and as, nature.

Meaning, circumference, and diameter, is the (mathematical) description for the reality called ‘nature.’ Therefore, mind can originate, and create the reality, called, nature. The circular relationship of mind and matter produce a human’s understanding of, and interaction with, nature. Sex, and nature. Mind, and nature. Therefore, it’s the circle that is in control of, explaining, nature. Creating the reality, the virtual persona, called, nature.

Conservation of the circle is the core dynamic in nature.
Three Different Things: November 5, 2019
By: Sean O'Brien
Tags: Social Me, Data Science, Privacy, Data Analysis

Three Different Things: November 5, 2019

Polish Troll Farms, SQL v Python, and GDPR Fines

Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

1. Undercover reporter reveals life in a Polish troll farm

“The aim is to build credibility with people from both sides of the political divide. Once you have won someone’s trust by reflecting their own views back at them, you are in a position to influence them,” said Wojciech Cieśla, who oversaw the investigation in collaboration with Investigate Europe, a consortium of European investigative reporters. “Reading these communications, you can see how the leftwing and rightwing accounts would receive their daily instructions, how they would be marshalled and directed like two flanks of the same army on a battlefield.”

Once the political stuff winds down, these strategies will be the next level influencer marketing platform.



2. What SQL Analysts Need to Know About Python

SQL isn’t really designed for manipulating or transforming data in certain ways. Higher level data manipulation that is common with data science, such as statistical analysis, regressions, trend lines, and working with time series data, isn’t easy in SQL.

PSA: If you’re a data analyst in any field and you don’t know Python or R, you should do yourself a favor and learn one or both.



3. GDPR fines were meant to rock the data privacy world. They haven’t

On the day GDPR came into force across Europe (May 25, 2018) the French data protection regulator received a complaint about Google. Three days later another arrived at the door of the National Data Protection Commission (CNIL) and at the start of 2019, CNIL hit Google with a €50m (£43m) fine.

Not enough to make Google take notice even slightly.
Treat your data like a pizza.
By: Kris Curtis
Tags: Self Service Bi, Analytics, Data Visualization, Data Strategy, Data

You might laugh at my anecdotal reference. Oh I work for an online food takeaway platform. I work in data I get it.

Just for some background. Before my current career in data, I worked multiple part time jobs paying my way through University. I spent some time travelling the world and during both these times I worked, yep, as a pizza cook.

I personally feel grateful to have worked in hospitality when I was younger. It’s given me an appreciation for this industry and how customer service plays a role in getting customers to come back.

I used to deliver pizzas to people. Long before smart phones and GPS maps. Armed with grid coordinates, a street directory (Refedex-yeah Brisvegas) and a torch to find the house numbers, I’d deliver orders of pizzas most nights during the week. Making sure hungry people got their pizzas delivery on time so they could enjoy them still steaming hot.

It was at a data event last year, talking to other people in my network, eating pizzas and sharing stories about difficult stakeholders when I jokingly made the connection.

Data is like delivering a pizza.

Think about it. You are handing the (hopefully) hot pizza (or insight) over to the customer. They are hungry and have paid extra for the service.

Think about the last time you had a bad takeaway. Have you ever gone back to the same restaurant and ordered again?

They want to know that what is in the box is exactly what they ordered. They don’t want to have to check it right then out on the street in the cold. They want to receive their product all in one piece. Not all squashed and soggy.

What they don’t want is someone leaving their pizza at the front door, or just tossing it at them, hoping they catch it.

And yet that’s exactly what some companies do with their data. Their business users place an order, the analyst prepares it and the just fires off an email to them with some data or some charts as an attachment. The equivalent of driving past their house and just frisbee the pizza box at the front door.

Why?

Time, pressure, volume of work, the normality of how data and information is delivered to the business. There are probably lots of other reasons, but not for this blog post to go into.

When I came to this realisation, I knew I had been guilty of this in the past. As analysts we were never really trained on this part. This “data handoff” to the customer.
Getting Your Instant Nexo Loan in Three Easy Steps in 200+ jurisdictions and 45+ currencies
Tags: Fintech, Hodl, Cryptocurrency, Banking, Bitcoin

Basic Verification (for loans up to $10,000)

You will be asked to verify your account by entering your information and submitting it for review. You will not be required to upload any documents.

Advanced Verification (required for 30% dividends, the Nexo payments card, and for bank withdrawals up to $2,000,000)

To complete the process, take a photo with your mobile phone or upload an existing copy of your Passport, Driver’s License or ID card.

Deposit Crypto Assets to Your Secure Nexo Wallet

Presently, you can make a deposit, choosing from Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), XRP, Litecoin (LTC), NEXO Tokens and Binance Coin (BNB), with new collateral options being added regularly (you can vote here).

Crypto assets are held in multi-signature wallets and cold storage at BitGo custodian (backed by Goldman Sachs) and PrimeTrust.

Click “Deposit”, and enter the desired amount. You can increase your Loan Limit by placing more crypto into your Nexo Wallet at any time.

We have recently decreased the minimum loan amount to $500 and increased the maximum limit to $2,000,000.

The Loan Limit is dynamically determined by the Nexo Oracle algorithms, depending on the current and historical volatility and market liquidity of the particular assets.

Depending on the type of assets you deposit, the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio ranges from 20% to 50%. Example: If you stake $10,000 worth of BTC, you will be able to withdraw an instant loan of approximately $5,000, i.e an LTV of ~50%. If you place a mix of assets, the LTV ratio will be determined proportionately.
Project Euler — Problem 99 Solution
By: Yan Cui
Tags: Functional Programming, Project Euler Solutions, Programming

Project Euler — Problem 99 Solution

Comparing two numbers written in index form like 211 and 37 is not difficult, as any calculator would confirm that 211 = 2048 < 37 = 2187.

However, confirming that 632382518061 > 519432525806 would be much more difficult, as both numbers contain over three million digits.

Using base_exp.txt (right click and ‘Save Link/Target As…’), a 22K text file containing one thousand lines with a base/exponent pair on each line, determine which line number has the greatest numerical value.

NOTE: The first two lines in the file represent the numbers in the example given above.
How To: Compile a Solidity Smart Contract Using Node.js
By: Morgan Fogarty
Tags: Nodejs, Women In Tech, Tutorial, Ethereum, Smart Contracts

In the previous blog post, we wrote a smart contract using the Solidity programming language.

Next, we need to compile the hello.sol file so that we can test and deploy our smart contract.

The properties we’ll need to use on the compiled file are the Application Binary Interface (ABI) or interface and the bytecode . The bytecode is what will actually go onto the blockchain to make the smart contract work and the interface will be the Javascript layer that acts like a human-friendly map of the bytecode .

Let’s get started!

In the terminal at the root of your project, type:

npm install --save solc

solc is a Solidity compiler.

Next, create a file called compile.js at the root of your project. It should be siblings with your contracts folder. Write the compile.js file, pictured below.

compile.js

We require two Node modules( path and fs ) and our Solidity compiler ( solc ). The reason we can’t simply require our hello.sol file is because Node will try to execute files as Javascript and would throw an error with a .sol file.

The helloPath variable finds the current working directory ( __dirname ) and navigates to the hello.sol file within it. The source variable is populated by the raw source code of hello.sol which is located in the helloPath . The UTF-8 string represents the encoding of the file.

On line 8, we call compile() on the source code and specify how many contracts we’ll be compiling. In our case, it’s one.

It may help us to see what’s happening under the hood, so let’s change line 8 a bit and log our contracts object to our console.

altered line 8

Type node compile.js into your command line at the root of your project and you should get something like this:

weeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

The result of compile() will always be an object. contracts is the top level object, containing all the contracts we’ve compiled. Again, in our case it’s only one contract. Let’s look closer at the two properties that we really care about: interface and bytecode .

First, the bytecode .

bytecode

This is the code that will be deployed onto the blockchain and executed in the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). As you can see, it’s not human readable. Which brings us to our second important property, the interface . This is the ABI.

Application Binary Interface (ABI)

Looks a little more familiar, right? These are the Javascript methods that we’ll be able to use when testing and deploying our contract.

Once you’ve thoroughly investigated the contracts object, go ahead and press undo a few times to bring line 8 back to it’s ready state.

Ready!

Compile file written!

Tune in next time when we will test the contract code using the Mocha testing framework.

Copy / paste-able compile.js file:

const path = require('path');

const fs = require('fs');

const solc = require('solc'); const helloPath = path.resolve(__dirname, 'contracts', 'hello.sol');

const source = fs.readFileSync(helloPath, 'UTF-8'); module.exports = solc.compile(source, 1).contracts[':Hello'];

Also, Read
Diyalektik Arkadaşlara Hepimizin İhtiyacı Var
By: Batuhan Apaydin
Tags: Diğer

I believe that the secret to a successful product and marketing strategy is understanding our behaviors and motivations — our momentum; understanding why we do what we do.

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Bus Crash
By: John Schupbach
Tags: Travel, India

Simply riding in a vehicle in India is an exhausting, frustrating, and harrowing experience. There are only rare lanes, almost no traffic lights, and seemingly few rules. It’s hard to describe or even comprehend just how aggravating it is to travel here because there is nothing even remotely similar to compare it to.

On Friday at 7am, we caught a bus toward Agra. There is no bus stop, bus station, or anything that would suggest a bus even comes by. A tuk-tuk driver, instructed by our Host-Dad, just took us to the highway and flagged down a bus going south. A man who essentially serves as a conductor for the bus and sits by the door verified that the bus was going to Agra. We boarded and found just what we had expected. The bus was frigid, filthy, and well-worn with peanuts and litter covering the floor, seats shredded by overuse, and windows barely transparent from scratches and dirt. The ride was to take five hours in good weather, but this morning was foggy, damp, and gloomy.

About an hour into the ride, the bus pulled over to the side of the road. Almost everyone got off the bus and scattered around to pee wherever suited them. After finishing business, people bought snacks and chai and got back onto the bus just to throw the Styrofoam cups and plastic wrappers out the window or on the floor.

To keep warm, I had put on every shirt I had packed and placed my big backpack in my lap. Like most Indian drivers I have ridden with, this bus driver’s actions were unpredictable, not to mention uncomfortable. Incessantly blaring the horn and slamming on the brakes, he was driving just like everyone else.

Three hours into the ride, the brakes slammed on again. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, I had come to expect the severe braking, then a honk, then acceleration. Not this time though. At about 15 mph, we hit the cargo truck in front of us. The windshield shattered and the bus jolted to a stop. Everyone was ok, but many of the passengers had been asleep and had not braced for the impact at all. There were some bloody lips and I imagine black eyes and bruised cheekbones the next day. However, we were all fine and luckily only inconvenienced rather than injured.

We got off the bus with our bags and stood in the eerie fog on a stretch of road in the middle of nowhere. It was only then that I realized we were one of a chain of about 10 different accidents. Although lanes are painted on the road no one follows them. As a result, our bus was immobilized right in the middle of the main highway between Delhi and Agra. People, debris, and our bus practically shut down the whole road. A few vehicles were managing to squeeze through. While the locals were practically starting a riot to get their money back from our bus conductor, we quietly jumped on a bus that was moving and headed
How to Actually Make Sex Toys a Part of Your Sex Life
By: Sexedplus Dan
Tags: Communication, Relationships, Comics, Sex Toys, Sexuality

This comic is not about how to tell your partner you’d like to use toys with them. This comic is not about the practicalities of using toys with your partner either. It’s also not about the joys of using sex toys alone, or anything about how to pick out toys. Though, to be clear, those are all worthwhile topics.

This comic is about how to make sex toys a more regular part of your sex life with a partner. This is about when you and your partner both like sex toys, and you want to use toys together, and maybe you’ve even used toys together before, but for some reason it’s just not as often as you’d like.

Maybe you just have trouble remembering they’re there. Or maybe it’s hard to find the motivation to get them out. One way or another, it can be a challenge to use them as often as you’d enjoy it. Here’s a few tips and ideas that might help.
Generating solar power — and self-reliance — in the West Bank
By: World Bank
Tags: Middle East, Solar Energy, Education, Electricity, Schools

Spreading the “Culture of Solar”

The new solar arrays are a test case for solar energy in the West Bank, which has virtually no domestic power industry and imports up to 90 percent of its electricity.

“It is fundamental that we diversify the sources of energy,” said Education Minister Marwan Awartani. He hopes the project will “spread the culture of solar [and make the West Bank] more self-reliant.”

That self-reliance is a long-term goal of officials in the West Bank and Gaza. Between them, the enclaves have a single, hobbled power plant. That, combined with fuel shortages and aging power lines, has led to widespread blackouts. The effect of power cuts is especially dire in Gaza, where the United Nations has warned of “disastrous consequences” from ongoing electricity shortages.

“There are many challenges in the West Bank and Gaza, but perhaps the biggest among them is energy,” says Youssef Habesch, IFC’s resident representative for the West Bank and Gaza.

Blackouts put a brake on commerce and economic growth, says Habesch, which is something the West Bank and Gaza can ill afford. Poverty is rampant, and more than 25 percent of residents are jobless, one of the highest rates in the world.

That’s why there’s a palpable sense of hope in Beit Hanina. There, like in much of the West Bank, rooftop solar arrays are one of the few practical ways to generate electricity.

Al Adhameya principal Sayyef Mansour says the school is excited by the availability of clean, reliable, and relatively cheap power. The school now spends up to four-fifths of its operating budget on electricity,

“At school and in our village, we all consider this solar project a great achievement,” he says. “This project will ensure that students are comfortable in their learning environment… a right everyone should have.”
TF-IDF: Term Frequency and Inverse Dense Frequency Techniques
By: Delal Tomruk
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, NLP, Tf Idf

Data Science

TF-IDF: Term Frequency and Inverse Dense Frequency Techniques

With examples!

Photo by William Iven on Unsplash

TF-IDF is used to measure the importance of a word in data. It is particularly useful for scoring the words in text related computations, such as text analysis and Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms.

We measure TF-IDF scores using the following formula:

Simply put:

TF = number of times the term appears in a document/total number of words in the document IDF = log(number of documents/number of documents the term appears)

In this equation, we can observe that TF-IDF calculates the number of times a word appears in each document, however the frequency diminishes if the word appears in other documents. Therefore, the word is not particularly important for the specific document, as it has also appeared commonly in other documents as well.

This explains why we don’t exclude stop words in a TF-IDF computation. Stop words are the words that appear commonly in a text and don’t have a particular meaning (some examples are: ‘the’, ‘a’ and ‘is’). Since our calculation offsets the effect if the word appears in other documents, it is very likely that stop words appear commonly across all documents and will result in a low TF-IDF score in any case.

If the computation score is high, it means the word is rare.

A Quick Example

Assume that a document has 20 words and 5 of them is the word “great”. The TF will be calculated as:

tf: 5/20 = 0.25

Now assume that we have 5 documents in total and the word “great” appears in 2 of them. The IDF will be calculated as:

idf: log(5/2)= 0.398

Therefore, the TF-IDF will be:

tf-idf: (0.25)(0.398) = 0.0995

Another Quick Example — with Sample Code!

To compute the TF-IDF score, we first need to remove all punctuation and lower case the words.

#replace punctuation characters with a space df['example'] = df['example'].str.replace('[^\w\s]','') #store words in lowercase form df['example'] = df['example'].str.lower()

Count how many times each word appears in the document. (You can also calculate TF-IDF with scikit-learn.)

d={} examples = df['example'] for p in examples: dict = {} examples_df = df.get_group(p) for i, row in examples_df.iterrows(): count = row['count'] word = row['words']



d[p] = examples_dict

Define the computation of IDF in a lambda function and apply it to the respective columns.

df['idf'] = df.apply(lambda x: math.log(total/x.total_word_count), axis = 1) df['example_tfidf'] = df.apply(lambda x: x.example_tfidf * x.idf, axis = 1)

You can find an extensive example on my Github.
Cartoon about the 2020 presidential election
By: Andy Anderson
Tags: Humor, Comics, 2020 Presidential Race, Vote, Funny

Looking to add some funny to your feed? Follow this page for new cartoons every week.

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Melting
Tags: Promises, Lies, Poetry, Haiku, Poetry Prompt

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.

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Behold the Beauty of The Skies
By: Sujani Hansanali
Tags: Poems On Medium, Poetry On Medium, Happiness, Nature, Sky

If you are interested in Nature poetry, like us on our Facebook page and Follow us on Instagram.

It will be an excellent space for showing your gratitude to nature. Love nature. 💚🤗
First Move
By: Joan Evans
Tags: Poetry, Relationships, Gender Inequality, Marriage, Love

Lying naked

between the cold sheets

waiting,

I think of all the

other times I

waited

with stirrings between

my legs.

He lies naked

beside me

between the same sheets

which seem much less

cold for him.

His body is bent over

The New York Times

engrossed in something.

I lie beside him, wondering.

Should I be the one

to make the first move?

What if I do, how do I …

if I decide to make it

at all.
Reframe of Reference
By: Zach Weinersmith
Tags: Relationships, Eat More Comics, Sex

Sign up for Taking Stock of COVID: New comics from The Nib

By The Nib

New comics from Matt Lubchansky, Keith Knight, and Niccolo Pizarro. Plus How Seniors Are Living With COVID-19. Take a look
Stablecoins Are Killing It #17 Features Transfero Swisss & BiLira Discussing Stablecoins In Developing Countries
By: Lou Kerner
Tags: Crypto, Stablecoin Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

Stablecoins Are Killing It #17 Features Transfero Swisss & BiLira Discussing Stablecoins In Developing Countries Lou Kerner Follow Sep 26 · 2 min read

It was another banner week for stablecoins, as stablecoin market cap passed $20 billion, up more than 350%+ year-to-date. And USDC passed ETH as the leading collateral on MakerDAO used to mint DAI:

Episode #17, on Thursday, October 1st, from 1pm-2pm est, features two experts discussing stablecoins in developing countries.

Our 1st featured guest is Thiago Cesar, the CEO of Transfero Swiss, the creators of the BRZ, a Brazilian stablecoin. Transfero is also the largest crypto-payments processor in Brazil and a major OTC broker in Latin America. Thiago Holds an MSc from the University of London, and produced one of the first academic thesis about Bitcoin in 2014, while also being a researcher at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) within the field of digital currencies.

Our 2nd featured guest is Sinan Koc, the Co-Founder & CEO of BiLira, a Turkish Lira backed stablecoin. Previous to BiLira Sinan worked at ConsenSys Token Foundry as in NY. He then moved back to Istanbul in 2019 to start BiLira and build a blockchain ecosystem in Turkey. Sinan graduated from Wharton at U Penn studying Entrepreneurship and Finance.

We’re going to go deep with Thiago and Sinan on the financial inclusion challenges faced by most consumers in developing countries and stablecoins can help. We’ll discuss regulatory and technology challenges as well as other lessons learned deploying stablecoins in developing countries.

As always, we’ll leave plenty of times for questions from the audience

Click here to register for the call on Zoom.

Click here to read “Six Highlights From “Stablecoins Are Killing It” #16 — Featuring Consensys’ Stablecoin and CBDC Lead, Matthieu Saint Olive, and his colleague, Ludovic Courcelas, Government Strategy Lead at Consensys.

If you thought this was worth at least .000001 Bitcoin, please HELP US by clapping below (up to 50 times). Thx!
Announcement: Resuming Withdrawals on March 7 at 9:00 AM
By: Shubham Yadav
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, India, Bitcoin

Dear Coindelta Users,

Recently we faced some problems with our HDFC bank account. Please DO NOT make any deposit to our old HDFC account. This was the core reason for why the deposits and withdrawals were halted on Coindelta. For the last two weeks, our team has been working limitless to find the solution to the challenge we faced. We apologize for the inconveniences faced during this period.

Today, we are glad to announce the integration of a new payment gateway for the withdrawals and we assure you deposits are also coming very soon (the deposit integration has been delayed due to some issues faced by our payment and banking partners. We will update you as soon as we hear on it.)

PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE CHARGES AND LIMITS ARE SET BY THE PAYMENT PARTNER AND THE ASSOCIATED BANKS.

Withdrawals will be processed through NEFT on the same day. Withdrawal Fee: Rs. 30 There will be a maximum limit of Rs. 25,000 per withdrawal. Note that there is no upper limit on withdrawal per user per day. It means you can place any number of withdrawal request in a day provided each withdrawal amount is less than Rs. 25,000.

For example, Mr. Nakamoto wants to withdraw Rs. 2,00,000. To withdraw the same, Mr. Nakamoto can create eight withdrawal requests of Rs. 25,000 each, totalling Rs. 2,00,000. These eight withdrawal requests will cost Rs. 30 each, so totalling a fee of Rs. 240. Mr. Nakamoto will receive Rs. 24,970 into his account eight times.

Having said that, we do understand the need of the crypto-community for a seamless trading environment. We are hopeful for more positive environment towards cryptocurrencies in India. In few days, we will introduce more convenient deposit methods such as UPI, IMPS and NEFT.

We would love to have you onboard in our Telegram community at https://t.me/coindelta. You may also connect with us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/coindelta_.

P.S.: The limits on withdrawals are subjected to change and will be increased in the coming weeks.
Weekly News Roundup #5
By: Parul Gujral
Tags: Crypto News, Cryptocurrency News, Blockchain, Blockchain Technology

Welcome to our Snowball cryptocurrency media digest. Here we will provide you with regular updates on trending news from the blockchain and crypto space.

Rundown of what happened last week:

Top YouTuber PewDiePie Joins Blockchain Live Streaming Platform: PewDiePie, the world’s most popular YouTuber by subscriber numbers, has joined blockchain-based live streaming platform DLive. The 29-year-old Swedish content creator, real name Felix Kjellberg, has signed an “exclusive” live streaming deal with the platform, DLive announced Tuesday. Read more

Blockchain Could Be Used By At Least 50% Of All Companies Within 3 Years, Oracle Exec Says: Ten years after the idea of blockchain was conceived, the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies is starting to be used by large enterprises as a secure way to track goods. But mass utilization is still years away, and it won’t be for every company, said a panel of blockchain executives. “My projection is that between 50% and 60% of companies will use blockchain in the next few years,” said Frank Xiong, Oracle’s group vice president of blockchain product development at the Forbes CIO Summit in Half Moon Bay, California, Monday. Read more.

Tim Draper to Meet with Facebook to Discuss Investing in Rumored FB Coin: Venture capitalist Tim Draper is planning to meet with Facebook to discuss investing in the social network’s cryptocurrency project. “I am interested to hear the story,” Draper said in an email to Bloomberg News. “We will see if it is a fit.” Read more.

VR Firm Magic Leap Seeks Blockchain Engineers for User Data: Augmented reality startup Magic Leap is seeking blockchain engineers according to recent listings on employment website Greenhouse. The firm is looking for a senior blockchain architect and blockchain engineers. Among the duties listed for the senior blockchain architect position, the individual will be “planning and execution of a portfolio of blockchain, smart contract, and Ricardian contract technologies in support of the implementation of our Lifestream business function.” Read more.

Tweet of the week:

This week one of our favorite tweets comes from Anthony Pompliano who’s a strong believer in blockchain technology which underpins cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin itself:
Weswap is now Shiftly!
By: Romain Arandel
Tags: Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

We welcomed Bret as our new CTO, we revamped our landing page and performed a branding update.

Tl;dr: we have a new home at shiftly.finance.

A little history…

We originally chose to name our instant decentralized exchange Weswap as it was catchy, easy to remember and describing our core-product well. We were aware of weswap.com, a financial services company offering fiat currency exchanges, however, we did not see this as an issue given the fact that they had no blockchain vertical and we eventually introduced Weswap.io in July 2018. Since then, we received great feedbacks about it and started to build a small community.

While working on our beta product and roadmap over the last weeks, we identified the need for a more meaningful name that will help us convey our message and communicate better about our products and services. What’s more, we kind of always had weswap.com in our heads when working on marketing and thought that we should have our own unique identity for the long-run.

We also believe that we have to stand out and have a unique marketing proposal given the high number of blockchain and Fintech projects and that this change will be beneficial for us, our partners and our community.

Long story short, we had Shiftly in mind when first brainstorming a name for our project and we all came to the conclusion that it perfectly reflects both our product and values.

Further, we decided to go for a .finance domain name to reflect our vision to shape the future of finance through the development of a range of products and services. It also makes our brand more descriptive and meaningful and we hope that you will feel the same.

Find out more at shiftly.finance.

That’s how Shiftly was born.

Welcome to Shiftly and its new CTO — Bret Faller

We are glad to announce that Brett Faller is joining the team as Chief Technology Officer of Shiftly. We thought that this new step would be the best moment to rework our branding and started to brainstorm all together.

Bret Faller, CTO at Shiftly

W ith almost 20 years of experience as a professional software engineer, Bret has a wide variety of exposure to numerous technologies. In that time, he has worked on and/or lead numerous projects for Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, CNN, NBC, and Boeing, to name a few. His current passions are AR/VR and blockchain technologies.

What’s next

We are currently making sure that our branding is consistent everywhere and are putting the final touches to our beta release on Mainnet — which will be announced soon. Regarding our social presence, we are now focusing on developing our website’s blog section, twitter, telegram and of course our beloved Medium.

We hope that you are as excited as we are and we look forward to start the discussion! Feel free to reach out to us at hello@shiftly.finance!

Join the discussion!
Ventajas de comenzar tu negocio en internet
By: Gabriela Nova
Tags: Publicidad, Internet, Empresa, Español, Emprendedores

in In Fitness And In Health
The Disquiet Sea
Tags: Poetry, Reflections, Tashintheclouds, Relationships, Ritual

The truth is,

our history is still beautiful

and in reflection, I was grateful

for your photos and the memory.

It looks as if the sands have narrowed

since those celluloid days,

unless the wind has changed

my perceptions,

along with the storm-laden sea.

It was ochre red and tipped with white;

painted by the rain.

The water pools in the shallows

as though on a palette;

falling to gravity

and the moon’s tidal whims.

There was a quiet revolution

against the evermore blues…

Amongst the raw beauty,

I looked for your reflection.
How Having a Best Friend Can Beautify Your Life
By: Anshu Singh
Tags: Inspiration, Gratitude, Friendship, Love, Life

Do you have a large circle of friends? Or do you have that one best friend who completes your life? And have you ever wondered to what extent have they influenced your life?

I have. And I see her added values in my present.

In grade 5, I was made to share my desk with a mute girl. At least, that’s what I was convinced of for a week. What else was I to think? I hadn’t heard her voice the whole first week. I was very upset with my teachers for putting me through this but couldn’t do anything about it. In the complete year, we had maybe talked five times. Anyhow, we tolerated each other for the year and were quite relieved when it ended.

But as Fortune would have it, we were in the same class next year too, and again the same partners were allotted to us.

That year, the year after it too, and the one after that.

But as we had kept enduring each other’s company over those years, we got close. I had no idea how close that was until the first day of grade 9 when our classes were no more together. I still remember the day very clearly. She had cried the whole first hour, so much so that a teacher had to be sent to escort me from my own class to calm her down. That was a very emotional moment for both of us.

Researches have been conducted which points to the fact that one’s life satisfaction is closely associated with friendship quality. And I can assure you I have enjoyed each day that has passed around her.
I Didn’t Know My Trans Heart Was Frozen
By: Danny Jackson H.
Tags: Creative Non Fiction, Self, LGBTQ, Life Lessons, Transgender

I Didn’t Know My Trans Heart Was Frozen

Until I stepped into warm sunlight

Photo by sergey mikheev on Unsplash

Growing up, I always knew that I “wasn’t like other girls,” but I just couldn’t articulate the reason why.

Maybe it was because I wasn’t interested in wearing frilly pink clothes. Maybe it was because I preferred playing with my brother’s Hot Wheels cars rather than the dolls my family members bought for me. Maybe it was because I had undiagnosed autism and couldn’t understand most of the intricate social rules that all of the other kids had apparently been born knowing.

Little did I know that the reason I didn’t feel like “other girls” was that I wasn’t actually a girl at all.

Of course, my sheltered Catholic upbringing didn’t grant me the knowledge that not being a girl was even an option. While I knew that something inside of me was wrong, I also had the gut feeling that if I told anyone how I felt, they would cast me out and refuse to talk to me ever again.

So, I buried those feelings and tried my best to act like the girl everyone thought I should be. I experimented with (and ultimately failed at) wearing makeup, I grew my hair out and styled it daily, and I dated guys.

I dated a guy for the last two years of high school. This was also around the time that I started using Tumblr. That website was my first real exposure to the trans community.

I’d grown up laughing at the “men in dresses” jokes I’d seen in TV and movies. But I hadn’t known that people like that actually existed. As I started reading through their blogs, I was spellbound, particularly by reading the experiences of nonbinary people. I hadn’t heard of them before, but as I learned more and more about them, I began to think that term might apply to me.

Unfortunately, my boyfriend at the time was not exactly the most welcoming when it came to trans people, especially nonbinary trans people.

He believed that there was an epidemic of people (especially those assigned female at birth) who were experimenting with being trans or nonbinary because it seemed like the cool thing to do. His intolerance of these so-called “trans trenders” caused me to repress my own confused gender feelings for quite some time.

Even after we broke up, the next few guys I dated seemed to share similar views on trans people. They could maybe understand binary trans men and women, but the “trenders” were clearly taking it too far.
The Important Life Lessons We Can All Learn From Our Dogs
By: Simon Black
Tags: Dogs, Humor, Personal Growth, Life, Life Lessons

I don’t really need my dog to sit and stay and roll over, so why would I “train” him to do those tricks? To prove my dominance and my power?

That’s not the way we are together. I don’t subscribe to the Dog Whisperers of this world who insist that you establish yourself as the alpha in your den. My dog and I are equal partners.

I have noticed lately that my dog responds to my rhythms. That he is often (not always) trying to “tune in” to my wavelength. This partnership or symbiosis we share is really quite mystical, and unlike the partnerships I share with other humans, like my wife, kids or friends. It’s in a way more intimate.

My wife doesn’t want to know what my wavelength is every minute of every day. Nor do my kids. But my dog does.

My dog is the being that cares the most about me on the planet. His name is Mac, and he is a rescue from the pound, where they called him a miniature poodle but someone has suggested he is a bichon poodle.

It doesn’t matter to me what he is, because we are not going to be entering any dog shows. We are just going to be co-existing for the next ten or fifteen years in a peaceful, affectionate and deeply rewarding relationship as dog and human, not pet and master.

We speak to each other in two languages. He understands a bit of human language and I understand a bit of dog. For instance, he knows what “go for a walk” and “breakfast” mean. He knows and loves “chicken”. His mouth will begin to salivate if I simply say the word “chicken.” And I know how to howl at him in various ways that inspire him to howl back and we have quite long conversations about deep spiritual matters, I believe, in our dog language.

His main goal is for our life to follow a rigorous and repeated routine pattern every day. He wants to go for his morning walk at exactly the same time — 6:30 am. He wants to take the same route. He wants to eat afterwards. Then he wants to rest.

I have learned something from this obsession he has with routine and schedule. It’s this — I don’t need to look at my own work schedule or routine as something imposed from the outside upon me.

Scheduling and timetabling and discipline very much come from within our being — we want to be structured this way through time — it calms our anxieties. It makes us feel comfortable.

So when the daily drudgery starts showing up as drudgery, I remind myself that I choose this and I need this.

When I come home from my job, Mac wants to bark at me for a few minutes to kind of yell at me for leaving.

He barks at me not really in anger, but more like an incredulous “how could you!” for leaving him all day. That’s alright. I can take the barking punishment when I get home. And quickly he forgets about it and we go for our evening walk, and have dinner.

That in itself is a daily reminder for me not to hold onto my own incredulous “how could you’s!” with any other human for any longer than a moment. A daily reminder to let it go — whatever resentment I’m still holding onto.
Dendrons
By: Jessica Lee Mcmillan
Tags: Poetry, Reality, Self, Connection, Dreams

Unwitnessed, I swim dreams

and disappear into oceans,

from dendrons I chart

the earth in rivers,

join winds to branch the trees

and summon the horizon

with fingers webbed of light.

At night, in this body

of constellate vines,

I navigate the ether,

the travels of soul.

I see you now

in the longing,

in this journey that outruns

the full of sun.

Only in night silence do

we reach out of body

and feel the connect.

Jessica Lee McMillan © 2020
7 Sequential Operators You Should Know From Swift Combine
By: Zafar Ivaev
Tags: Mobile, Xcode, iOS, Swift, Programming

7 Sequential Operators You Should Know From Swift Combine

first, last, count, contains, allSatisfy, reduce, and more

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash.

In this article, we will master seven useful sequential Combine operators. We will use an Xcode Playground to quickly experiment with examples.

The source code of all the examples is available at the bottom of the article.
Off the Rails
By: Steve Teare
Tags: Trains, Comics, Transportation, Commuter Rail, Steve Teare

Spiralbound

Comics for life, brought to life by Edith Zimmerman.
Travel is all around you — Everywhere
By: Reinhard Lanner
Tags: Ith, Pr

I decided quiet a few months ago to share some ideas with my (former) ith students, now it actually comes to realization. Today I found an interesting web 2.0 project on the internet called Everywhere.

Everywhere Magazine celebrates the belief that travel is all around you. Designed for people looking for authentic world experiences, Everywhere magazine gives a voice to travelers worldwide who wish to tell their stories and share their favorite places.

It´s a magazine, it´s a website and it is a community. I am looking forward reading some inspiring articles. And lets keep in touch — via Facebook or this blog.
Spider-Man: Far From Home — Finding Independence in the Midst of a Legacy
By: Ryan Nachnani
Tags: Movies, Spider Man, Marvel, Film, Marvel Cinematic Universe

It’s no secret that Peter looked up to Tony. That was made abundantly clear in Spider-Man: Homecoming where Peter would constantly be trying to prove himself to him. In Far From Home, he’s matured and would rather enjoy his youth following the large scale events of the Avengers films. He doesn’t want to be a big-time hero, much less the next Iron Man, but it doesn’t help that whenever Peter is forced to don his mask, he is faced with the reality that he couldn’t live up to Tony, even if he wanted to. It’s a pretty big hit to his morale and his motivation for wanting to help others.

We see it first from the person that Peter thinks is responsible for building the Avengers from the ground up: Nick Fury (who, in this film, is actually a Skrull). Following Mysterio’s staged attack by the fire Elemental, Fury confronts Peter about his wavering commitment to the superhero lifestyle. He tells him that he needs to “step up,” and in this case, “stepping up” means abandoning the thing that Peter cares for the most.

That thing being his personal relationships.

Of course, this is something that Peter is not willing to give up and so, he feels like his personal limitations are restricting his ability to become the next Iron Man. He feels like he is letting Tony down.

Whenever Peter is forced to don his mask, he is faced with the reality that he couldn’t live up to Tony, even if he wanted to.

He’s later reminded of his ineptitude by Mysterio through a reality-bending illusion sequence. Being unable to tell what’s real and what’s not, Peter is at the mercy of Quentin Beck’s brutal words.

He tells him that if he was good enough, Tony would still be alive.

It’s hard to hear that your incompetence is the reason that your mentor, your father figure, is dead. At this point, Peter has come to the realisation that the father of the Avengers Initiative doesn’t believe in him, and the villain doesn’t even fear him. In a series of illusions, this statement was the thing that hurt him the most.
Thursday Works Too
By: Juliette Roanoke
Tags: Poetry, Haiku, Humor, Relationships, Sex

I’m the freak in town

You’re the freak from out of town

Let’s get down Tuesday

Monday could be right

But already past midnight

That gives us Tuesday

Wednesday’s for weirdos

Won’t be noticed we’ve no clothes

But must dump Hump Day

I can’t swing Friday

But if we do it my way

We’ll get down Tuesday

Concession offer

I’ll make room for you Thursday

No weekend — full queue

So switch day is it?

It’s your T-day to toggle

Amp up or we’re through
Trump Has Taken over the Voice of America
By: Jessica Lynn
Tags: Election 2020, Politics, Media, Democracy, Joe Biden

Voice of America is a US multimedia agency that serves as the United States government institution for non-military, external broadcasting.

It is the largest US international broadcaster, producing digital, TV, and radio content in 47 languages, which it distributes to affiliate stations around the globe.

Born during World War II at a time when Nazi’s made listening to shortwave radio punishable by death, VOA saved lives by giving the oppressed correct information when Germany was trying its hardest to spread only propaganda.

VOA has been a non-partisan media outlet responsible for keeping a democratic voice alive in a communist world during and since Word War II.

It was a trusted source of information around the globe.

Just this month, Amanda Bennett, Director of VOA and her deputy, resigned last minute with no explanation.

VOA is just one network that runs alongside all the other international broadcasting entities; the US Government’s Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Radio Asia, and The Middle East Broadcasting Service.

Up until now, these entities have all been insulated from any domestic partisan politics in the US, they act as straight news organizations that bring both the values of a free press and actual free unbossed journalism to the world, courtesy of the American people.

Last week that all changed.
TODAY’S QUESTION IS SPECIAL
Tags: Crowdini, Questions, Games, Steemit, Steem

RESULTS AND THE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Yesterday’s Question: How many constellations can you point out/recognize/name without any help?

Comment: “Because I think 0 is embarassing 🙈” by drishitmitra who answered “1”.

See the results and comments here: https://steemit.com/crowdini/@crowdini/question-2018-08-20

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NOTE: Comments are published immediately but votes are not posted until the post is 30 minutes old. If you don’t see your vote after 30 minutes, wait a minute, refresh the page and check again.

Make sure you check to see that your vote was counted. You can tell if your vote counted by seeing the circle with the up arrow to the left of the post earnings is green. You can also go to https://steemd.com/@crowdini (replace crowdini with your steemit username) and look at the right column for your vote.

You can always manually upvote at any time.

If your vote was not counted, fill out this form and we will figure out why ASAP.

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YESTERDAY’S RESULT

Yesterday’s Question: How many constellations can you point out/recognize/name without any help?

Majority Answer: 2

TODAY’S QUESTION

Do you have set motivational phrases you say to yourself?