fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Hypothesis Testing Explained!
By: Saiteja Kura
Tags: Technology, Data Science, Hypothesis Testing, Statistics, Probability

Hypothesis Testing Explained!

Let us try and understand the widely used concept of hypothesis testing and p-values.

Designed using Canva.

Let us consider you are asked to test whether the newly created navigation bar on the home page, of your company website, is attracting more users than before. How will you approach this problem? How can you be sure this change in traffic to your website is due to the addition of navigation bar and not something that happened by coincidence! This is where hypothesis testing comes into the picture.

A Simple Example

Designed using Canva.

Let us consider 4 friends A, B, C, and D who are in a dilemma of choosing the person who cooks every day. So they write their names on 4 chits and pick one chit every day. The person having his name on the picked chit is the person who is going to cook on that particular day. After 4 days, person A did not get a chance to cook. The friends got suspicious and tried to find the probability of person A not getting a chance to cook for 4 days which would be

3/4 * 3/4 *3/4 *3/4 = 81/256 = 0.31 = 31%(since 3/4 is the probability of person A not being picked on one particular day ie. out of 4 total outcomes there are 3 outcomes in which person A is not picked)

31% chance of not being picked for 4 days consecutively seemed fine for the friends and hence they continued the same way. But after 16 days, Person A still did not get a chance to cook. Now the friends again decided to find the probability of person A not getting a chance to cook for 15 days which would be (3/4 multiplied by itself 15 times) = 0.01 = 1%.

Now the friends really got suspicious about person A not getting a chance to cook because the probability is only 1% (which is less than 5%) and concluded that person A has committed to cheating.

Okay….Why did I mention less than 5% in the brackets?

In general, statisticians set a threshold value for things to occur by chance. If the probability is less than that threshold value they conclude that there is no chance for random occurrence. Like in the case of the 4 friends, after 4 days the case of A not getting a chance to cook might have occurred randomly and the probability of 31% denotes that. But after 15 days the probability became 1% which significantly reduces the case of A not getting a chance to cook being random. Here the 5% value is known as significance value. The 31% value for 4 days and the 1% value for 15 days are known as p-values. Here,

Null Hypothesis — Person A did not get a chance to cook purely due to random chance and did not cheat.

Alternative Hypothesis — Person A did not get a chance to cook not due to random chance and cheated

For the 4 days scenario, since the p-value, 31% is greater than the significance value of 5% we do not reject the null hypothesis.

For the 15 days scenario, since the p-value, 1% is lesser than the significance value of 5% we reject the null hypothesis.
International Digital Currency by Uber Co-Founder
Tags: Eco, Payments, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Uber

Uber co-founder, Garret Camp, is launching a new cryptocurrency called Eco; aimed at making digital currency available, easy to use, and easy to access for everyone in the world.

If successful, this new currency will be used daily as a form of payment for any type of transaction.
The Sandbox is available in Messari Registry
By: The Sandbox
Tags: Data Analytics, Messari Registry, The Sandbox, Blockchain Analytics, Blockchain Gaming

We are excited to announce that The Sandbox has joined the prestigious Blockchain and data analytics platform registry firm Messari Registry, in order to provide more transparency to the enthusiastic community of the decentralized gaming ecosystem.

With this new alliance, the team behind The Sandbox is committed to delivering relevant project information and updating it periodically so that all Messari investors and users obtain reliable information about the virtual world based on Blockchain.

To access this information, The Sandbox will have its own profile in Messari, which can be accessed by all interested parties through the following link Messari asset profile.

The Sandbox platform profile includes everything about the history, roadmap, team, token, launch, technology, security, and governance of the decentralized virtual world.

In addition, users will be able to consult the exchanges available to acquire their native token, as well as to obtain real-time metrics of the price of $ SAND, last trade, the real volume in 24H, supply, all-time high, and cycle low, among others.

About Messari

Messari is a highly prestigious cryptocurrency analysis firm and Blockchain platform within the industry, which brings transparency to the crypto economy.

With an exceptional team of industry experts and creative problem solvers, the firm helps investors, regulators and the general public better understand the ecosystem by providing real-time data tools that help drive smarter decision-making.

They provide a common standard for crypto investors and other professionals to communicate their ideas, as well as help users, make more informed decisions by being aware of exactly how a derived metric is calculated and avoiding potential data errors.

The methodology used by the crypto asset analysis firm is made up of two main sections, a list of more than 100 quantitative metrics and a list of more than 15 qualitative rankings.

We are sure that with this new alliance, investors, enthusiasts, and lovers of games with Blockchain technology, as well as crypto assets in general, will be able to find in Messari the most complete and updated information about The Sandbox, which will generate peace of mind and confidence when making decisions about the native asset of the platform.

More Information

The Sandbox is a Blockchain-based virtual world that allows players to build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences using non-fungible (NFT) tokens and the platform’s utility token, $SAND.

You can get more information about the game on its website: https://www.sandbox.game/en/.
Selchie
By: Yael Wolfe
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Creative Writing, Poetry, Love, Women

Selchie

A poem

Photo by Esther Ann on Unsplash

Though I walk on dry land, I do not belong here

and I never have.

I am from the blind, black sea

and only know my sisters.

I want to know this world.

I do.

But it wants something else of me

or maybe nothing at all.

I am wanted.

Yes, I am wanted.

Yes, I am wanted.

But I was not made to be touched.

I was not made to be loved.

Only the sea can know me.

© Yael Wolfe 2020
Benebit rated in the top 3% for all upcoming token sales — ICObench
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Benebit Ico, ICO

In preparation of our upcoming pre-sale on January 22, 2018, top ICO ratings site ICObench has placed us in the upper echelon of ICOs.

Earn money back with every purchase and benefit from Cashback and Loyalty Points every time you shop. Start using and redeeming your customer points right away. An all-in-one platform that creates added value for customers as they shop at their favourite companies as well as increases brand exposure via targeted Loyalty and Cashback Programs. Transact in your choice of currency — fiat or crypto — on the Benebit platform. The Bene Card replaces all loyalty cards for fast, easy and secure participation in different brand loyalty programs. C2C transactions are easy, instant and secure with Benebit. Send BNEs or your choice of currency to any user on the platform.

ICObench uses a rating system that combines an assessment algorithm (which uses more than 20 different criteria to measure) and independent ICO experts. An ICO’s rating is monitored daily and fluctuate as more experts provide additional ratings.

At the time of publishing, Benebit’s decentralized all-in-one platform received an overall score of 4.3 out of 5, putting us at #19 out of 670 ICOs rated on ICObench. Other highlights include a score of 4.9 for Benebit’s ICO profile and 4.6 for our team. Nearly all ICO advisors granted us with a perfect score for our team and vision as well.

ICObench’s trusty little companion bot Benchy scored us 4.9 out of 5.

Read our ratings on ICObench here. For more ratings, be sure to check out our post on Track ICO.

Join the upcoming Benebit token sale on January 22, 2018.
Matters & Don’t Matter
By: Vaghawan Ojha
Tags: Poetry, Life, Internet, Love, Friendship

How fearful is to realize,

That we don’t even matter to each other,

Anymore;

How absurdly funny,

Do the late night talks sound,

How gloomy is it to remember the autumn eve,

How stupid is the facebook,

And its messenger,

How absurd is the Instagram

And our pictures,

How desolate is whatsapp, snapchat,

Hotmail, gmail, yahoo,

How grim are the UX

Of every other apps

Where we could be together,

How cynical is the autumn breeze,

How sick is its evening,

How sadly amusing is its mirage,

How funny is it,

That still young people,

Catch their hands and walk together,

When we two,

Would have exactly done the same,

It’s stupid, it’s absurd, its funny,

It’s abysmal,

But despite of all,

It’s as sad as

The unpurified soul,

Scattering its sadness

In its own tomb;
The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker…
By: Ann Litts
Tags: Life Lessons, Retirement, Nursing, Burnout, Letting Go

We are more than what we do

Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash

June 2017:

Careers. It’s often the first question a person will ask when they meet you, “What do you do?” I’m always tempted to answer, “As little as possible” or “Right now, I’m standing here talking to you.” But in the end, I usually confess that I’m a nurse.

Saying I’m a nurse doesn’t even begin to do my chosen career justice. I’ve had this gig for well over twenty years and in that time I’ve worked as a floor nurse on a respiratory unit, a home health nurse, an ICU nurse, a GI procedures nurse, a pre-op nurse, a recovery room nurse, a kidney transplant coordinator and an operating room nurse. I know nurses who found their groove right out of nursing school and settled in, but not me.

My family used to tell me I had a two-year attention span and then I’d be off looking to change my department and learn new stuff. I did settle into the surgery side of the equation eventually, as I adore surgeons and their decisive ‘take no prisoners’ attitudes. They are an acquired taste and completely my tribe. I have managed to more or less hang out in the operating room in some way, shape, or form for over ten years.

Looking back at the decisions I made to stay or go from a specific job, I can see a pattern. Early in my career, before I knew better — and I think most nurses do this — I gave 100% to the job. It’s that kind of job. Patients need you. Your co-workers need you. Your boss needs you. The list goes on. You forget that YOU need you. And burnout happens. Two years in, you can’t face the commute that used to take you to the J.O.B. you loved just a short time before. There is no cure for burnout. I know, I tried everything, because I did love those jobs I left behind. Nearly every single one of them (not the GI procedures one…I didn’t really care for that one).

Now I’m an old nurse. They call us Sages at my facility. We get our own breakfast during Nurses Day (not that any of us in clinical areas can go because, you know? We have to take care of patients — but it’s a nice thought). And with age comes a wisdom I didn’t have when I first started out. I can feel the burnout when it begins these days. The groan at the alarm clock, the constant slow boil of irritation, the inability to go above and beyond at the job any more, the need to blast rock and roll music from my car on each and every commute home — all the signs.
If You Don’t Have a Side Hustle, You’re Missing Out
By: Jake O'Brien
Tags: Money, Side Hustle Tips, Side Hustle, Entrepeneurship, Entrepeneur

1. Excitement

Many people have a hobby. Whether its fishing, collecting stamps or gaming, there are countless things people use to bring joy to their life. I find my enjoyment in side hustles, I think it spawns from my addictive personality. I’ll get incredibly invested into certain projects, devoting hours of my time and get a rush of excitement as I begin these side hustles. I often keep them for a few months, but by then my interest has waned and I move on to something else. I like to keep things fresh and with side hustles this is easy to do, there’s often no commitment and no risk in switching. There is nothing more exciting than making your first amount of money from a project. No matter what your day job is, or what your financial situation is, that first $10 you make from a side hustle will be the most exciting $10 you’ll ever make.
React Dark Mode switch in Material UI Dashboard
By: Uddeshya Singh
Tags: Development, Dark Theme, Material Ui, React, Coding

All of this was designed using Material-UI’s standard components and pallets. Since my goal was to focus on implementing the theme switch feature, I went ahead and used an open-sourced material-ui “getting started” dashboard template whose source code has been kept in the resources section in the end. (and a sandbox has been embedded too, just so you know, you can play around with it 😄)

Project Structure

I worked on my project on sandbox which honestly made the development life cycle super smooth and the sandbox template I chose was React by CodeSandbox Team, and the final project structure is as follows.

Project Structure

Here, the dashboard folder holds the file taken from the Material-UI dashboard template. Package.json holds the classic package names and index.js file handles the import of App.js and renders the ReactDOM into index.html (not shown in the sandbox)

here, I have created darkState state which will be saving the user preference for the object, whether the user wants a light theme or a dark theme, keeping the default value of false, This will be responsible for the type of Material UI theme we want to be passed in our components. I have used a constant object named darkTheme which is one such MuiTheme object.

I am using a function handleThemeChange() to change the state of the darkState variable and hence change the pallet type.

Now, to change the theme of the passed components, all we need to do is enclose them in <ThemeProvider> tag and voila, your job’s done!

Note: I am using a simple <div> Sample Text </div> for now for the sake of simplicity. This should be replaced with actual Dashboard components to achieve the desired effects.
If You Want To Change Your Life, Start With A Day
By: Chase Arbeiter
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Life, Self, Growth

If you want to change your life, it will take time.

As Jim Rohn said, “You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction.”

So, by focusing on one day, you can change your direction in life.

How did you contribute towards change in your life today?

Was it an improvement, or did it leave you dissatisfied?

You will not experience life-altering change every day, but when you make the right deposits into your personal life, little by little, over time, you will gain momentum in the right direction.
Airdrops Thursday April 19
Tags: Bitcoin, Airdrop

New crypto airdrops and bounties published at AltcoinTrading.NET just now.

One warning this time.

Nocta / $NOCTA

19 April — 20 May 2018

Decentralized platform that connects sex workers with consumers. Drops up to 3750 NOCTA per user for social media activity.

About Nocta → web

Form → join

ITIS Network / $ITIS

16 April — end of presale

A new coin with POW/POS and masternodes, claiming to be linked to a pet charity (10K coins at least to have a masternode). Itis is giving away both bounties and airdrops. In the simplest tier you get 50 ITIS for spreading the coin ann thread.

The ann thread in question or more info on the web

Warning:

Charity Token / $CHT / https://charitytokenonline.com

The token requests vote for listing their token on the SouthXchange which needs users to send .001 BTC to the exchange. The airdrop will only happen after the listing, which needs 500 people to send in the money, AND the google form is sketchy — it asks for social media activity but not for profile links to check the activity. Not worth the risk.

Give us a clap or five! It helps us get our work out there.

Want to know about all current verified airdrops?
빠띠의 새 멤버, 켄타와 쩨리를 소개합니다!
By: Gj찐쩐 錦珍
Tags: Parti People, Parti

in In Fitness And In Health
Installing IntelliJ IDE on Ubuntu
Tags: Intellij

We can use snaps to install IntelliJ IDEA EAP builds, including both community and ultimate editions.

Snaps will update app automatically, and we will always have a fresh IntelliJ IDEA build . Snaps are really easy to install and use. On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or later, snaps come pre-installed.

To install IntelliJ IDEA Community via Snaps from the command-line, use the following command:

sudo snap install intellij-idea-community — classic — edge

Executing below command will startup the IDE

intellij-idea-community
Yes It’s Only Week 1, But I’m Already Missing the Old NFL
By: Corey Asztalos
Tags: NFL, Football, News, Opinion, Sports

Week 1 of the 2020 NFL Season Green Bay Packers @ Minnesota Vikings Sunday 9/13 (link)

Last Thursday evening was bittersweet when the NFL kicked off its 101st season as the Kansas City Chiefs soundly defeated the Houston Texans by a score of 34-20. While the product on the field was very entertaining, the atmosphere in the stadium was lackluster at best. I already miss the fans, and I can tell the players do too.

Without thousands of people packed into stadiums, drinking beers and screaming their heads off, NFL games have been reduced to a dull, practice-like atmosphere as Patriots head coach Bill Belichick bluntly put it yesterday. Basically, it’s like playing practice mode in Madden. Fans in the stadium create a unique home field advantage for each NFL organization that forces road teams to game plan differently and make adjustments to account for the crowd noise. Cheering fans can cause the visiting team to commit penalties, get rattled off their game and have serious miscommunication issues that can directly impact the outcome.

Having people cheering in the seats also helps fuel the fire and give that extra boost to NFL players. For example, when star DE J.J. Watt gets a sack, he usually gets pumped up and celebrates to the crowd by saluting at them. Now, he’s going to be saluting at empty seats this year… talk about a buzzkill. When players get announced on the PA system and run out onto the field before games, there’s no longer that roar of the crowd to pump them up as they intensely make their way out there.

Texans DE J.J. Watt’s Sack Celebration (Link)

This season will also be the first time where playoff seeding and home field advantage doesn’t matter. Because there are little to no fans in the seats, road teams won’t have to worry about being intimidated or having a hard time calling plays due to crowd noise. Any team no matter their seed has a legitimate chance to win, anywhere, anytime. However, some road teams really enjoy embracing the underdog role and actually use hostile opposing crowds as a psychological advantage to pump themselves up before a big playoff game and catapult themselves into a “cinderella” Super Bowl run (ex. 2012 Baltimore Ravens, 2007 New York Giants, 2001 New England Patriots, etc).

Without full stadium crowds, it’s already clear that the 2020 NFL season will not be nearly as fun or entertaining for both players and fans watching at home. A huge piece of the game has been removed and the product on the field will not be the same. I guess players like Kirk Cousins can no longer blame the fans for playing poorly on the road anymore. I don’t even want to imagine the Super Bowl without fans, but these are some unorthodox times and we just have to ultimately go with it and hope everyone stays healthy and continues to test negative for COVID-19. This is still better than not having a NFL season at all, so I’ll just be grateful for that.
Here’s Another Writing Trick to Try When You’re Experiencing a Creative Block
By: Brandon B. Keith
Tags: Creativity, Self, Inspiration, Writing, Writing Tips

Some years ago, a coaching client told me she was deeply worried and dealt with lots of anxiety over the creative process.

“I just can’t write,” she said. Her emphasis on “can’t” was as if it was law.

Through our conversation, I gave her an assignment: “If you can’t write, describe what you’re feeling. But on paper.”

It’s what I now call prescriptive writing. As in, writing meant to address the current concern or issue amidst you. I recommended it because it’s worked for me.

It may sound simple or silly, but you’d be surprised how many people bypass this effective method. Don’t knock it until you try it.

Writing to Make Sense of It

The approach is just like Julia Cameron’s infamous, “Morning Pages.” The big difference is, you’re leaning more into the emotions. It’s an intentional flood of your thoughts on paper.

It’s like how mediation tells you not to dismiss or judge a thought quickly. As you write, you are just the observer of this emotion.

You can do it in a blank document or with a pen and pad.

This approach still works wonders for me when I’m blocked or frustrated or even when I just don’t want to write. Rather than focusing on trying to write what I want, I write what’s on my mind, how I feel, or why I don’t feel like writing. What better way to trick your blocks than talk about why you have blocks?

If not for a project, I hope you can use it for your own forward progress and reconciling. Because sometimes, the best medicine is the power of writing out what’s troubling us most. It’s writing to make sense of things.

I didn’t know what I was doing, primarily. But that didn’t stop me.

All I paid attention to was how the writing made me feel and the function of it. Not whether I got it all right. At the time, showing up to the page was enough. It’s all that is needed most times — showing up to the page, again and again, not judging your imperfections.

Maybe you won’t know how to make sense of what you’re feeling. Perhaps you won’t know the proper way to turn a phrase the way you like. Maybe your taste in literature far eclipses what you’re capable of writing (for now).

Here’s the key: You decide what it means.

And this kind of writing gives you back the control.

Plus, maybe the raw material could be used for work in the future. You’ll never know until you just start writing.
Mathematical Miracles of Quran
By: Sumera Rizwan
Tags: Knowledge, Learning, Mathematical, Divine Blessing, Quran

Exceptional knowledge

The text of the Quran is miraculous on many accounts especially the argument that it was revealed to a prophet who could not read or write yet it carried the exceptional knowledge. The Arabic text would not conform to the standard poetry and prose categories commonly expressed by other forms of written and spoken languages and therefore is attributed to the supernatural.

Today I shed some light on the numerical miracles of this divine book.

The divine balance of numbers

1. The word “Salawat” (prayers) is mentioned 5 times in the Quran, and the number of daily prayers mandatory for every Muslim is A- Subh, A-Duhr, Al-Asr, Al-Maghrib, Al-Isha.

2. The Word “Sahr” (month) is mentioned 12 times in the Quran, just as the number of the months there are in a year.

3. The word “Yawn” (day), in the singular, is mentioned 365 times in the Quran, just as the number of days there are in a year.

4. The word “Ayyam” (days), in the plural, is mentioned 30 times in the Quran, just as the number of months there are in a month.

The precise number of a word and its antonym mentioned in Quran

“al Hayat” (life), 145 times

“al Mawt” (death), 145 times

“al-Dunya” (mundane life), 115 times

“al Ajira” (the afterlife), 115 times

“Malaika” (angels), 88 times

“Shayatin” (demons), 88 times

“ar Rajul (man), 24 times

“al Mar’a (woman), 24 times

“ar Raghba (wish), 8 times

“al Jauf (fear), 8 times

“as Salihat (good deeds), 167 times

“as Sayya’at” (wrongdoings), 167 times

“an Nafaa” (benefit), 50 times

“al Fasad (corruption), 50 times

These are just a few examples of the incredible number balance in the Quran. This book is full of miracles and a call towards guidance, the more you learn from it the more it teaches you.

There are numerous scientific and mathematical miracles In Quran waiting for us to discover them.
Visualising your Data
By: Daniel Neaves
Tags: Data Visualization, Business Intelligence, Machine Learning

One of the most important questions you will ask yourself about any Machine Learning project is this;

Does my model fit?

This question is being drilled into me more and more as I go deeper on my Machine Learning journey.

So how do you go about answering that question?

Well firstly let’s dispel any hope you had of ever answering yes; No your model will never ‘fit’.

In fact George Box first coined this phrase in 1976;

All models are wrong, but some are useful

So let’s revise our question;

How useful is my model?

Great. But how can we answer that question with any degree of certainty?

One of the most effective tools in your arsenal is Data Visualisation. Once you have trained your model you can visualise it, with the training data and predictions by plotting them on a graph. Of course, the kind of visualisation you use will differ depending on the type of model you used.

Source: Generated in RStudio using course content from: Udemy: Machine Learning A-Z

Once you have established your graph or visualisation, you can see much more clearly how your model performs on your data. It’s then possible to go back to your model and tune hyperparameters (like all the knobs on an old fashioned equalizer, hyperparameters are for fine-tuning your model).

You can do this iteratively until you’re satisfied your model as useful as you think it should be.

Data Visualisation is a crucial feedback loop

Using this technique is a cornerstone of good model making.

It’s an obvious point, but the more you practice and hone your skills in Data Visualisation, the more the quality of your models will improve.

There are many courses available dedicated to the art of Data Visualisation, in fact here’s an excellent article from freecodecamp that evaluates and ranks several popular courses;

Data Visualisation is not only useful when you’ve created your model though, it should be the first tool you use when starting a project;

What does the data look like?

Where are the correlations?

And ultimately; Which type(s) of model shall I evaluate?

You can use the visualisations to see where the natural divisions lay in your data. It’s even possible to construct visualisations for many dimensions of data, it’s just up to you to construct something that is capable of revealing correlations.
The Owen Gun
Tags: The Owen Gun, Submachine Gun

Evelyn Owen’s first indigenous UK homemade weapon built in 1938 Chambered in .22 Short. He constructed a drum magazine from an automobile crankshaft’s harmonic balancer. The magazine/cylinder held 44 .22 short cartridges. A grammaphone spring powered the magazine. It featured a thumb trigger and eventually was abandoned for a simpler design, that of a magazine fed from the top.

47,000 of these were made.

Tagged as: The Owen Gun
Daughter, in Elysium
By: Zach J. Payne
Tags: Poetry, Relationships, Life, Family, Love

after Adriana Mather

Perhaps you kept me in the crystalline,

the memory of land a perfect sphere,

a comfort to the wanderers within

the mirror realms of memory and fear

who seek a hither shore, a simple light

unburdened by the indecisive hues

that come with the complexity, the fight

against the evils we cannot excuse

or will away with love. Will you return

and pare away the evil that holds fast

demonic airs that make the stomach churn

or hold us separate to the bitter last?

I loved you in in the idyll. Then the grief

disfigured you past childish belief.
Three Different Things: January 10, 2019
By: Sean O'Brien
Tags: Marketing, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation

Early Hours

For things just getting started.
Connecting cook and customer in Libya
By: Un Development Programme
Tags: Technology, Libya, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, International Womens Day

For much of their lives, Fatima Nasser and Aziza Adam have lived with war. And yet it has not stopped the young Libyan entrepreneurs from trying to make change in their society.

They are the co-creators of Yummy!, an app that connects home-based cooks with customers who want delicious, fresh homemade food delivered to their door.

Their idea came from a situation that most of us find ourselves in — what to do about lunch?

“My colleague Aziza Adam and I were giving a workshop,” Fatima says. “We were hungry, so I told her; ‘imagine there is an app delivering homemade food’. At the beginning it was only an idea, but after we developed it, it became real.”

Fatima Nasser, left, and Aziza Adam, founders of the Yummy! phone app. ©Fatima Nasser

Yummy! provides a vital service in a country where only one in four women are employed, and their rights and opportunities are often curtailed by culture and by conflict. Fatima and Aziza want to do more than help connect cooks and customers — they want to be examples of change, and to provide opportunities for women and girls.

“Surrounding girls with fear and overly protecting them as they grow up is reflecting badly on their lives. They don’t get much choice when it comes to decision-making or handling problems outside of the house, which is a barrier preventing them from reaching or using their full potential,” Fatima says.

The food delivery service started in Sebha, in the south west of Libya, but it has since expanded north to Benghazi and Tripoli. It’s benefited from a three-year, European Union-funded partnership launched by UNDP Libya and Tatweer Research, which supports local entrepreneurs and boosts security and economic recovery by creating jobs.

Tatweer Entrepreneurship Campus, TEC, is a co-working space where young Libyans can develop their business plans, get training, mentoring, office space, and financial support. The TEC team is also incorporating entrepreneurship education into university curriculum, and working with local governments to reform business regulations to create sustainable jobs outside of the public sector.

The security situation remains unstable in Libya — Fatima recalls armed clashes taking place outside in Sebha while they were developing their app. But she refuses to let that stand in her way. And she and Aziza want to encourage other women to do the same.
5 Ways To Effectively Get Along With Bully Co-Workers
By: Tammy Sons Owner Of Tennessee Wholesale Nursery
Tags: Life Lessons, Work, Bullying, Work Smarter

Regardless of whether or not you like your job, work can be a stressful environment. That stress is amplified if you have to deal with a person picking on you for some unspecified reason. Putting up with a bully in the workplace can severely impact your work performance, which is why this is something that should be dealt with swiftly and professionally. Fortunately, there are ways to combat this without causing a scene:

Limit conversational topics with the bully

If you’re going to talk to the bully at all, try and stick to topics that revolve around the workplace. Avoiding personal conversations gives the bully fewer angles from which to attack you. No matter how personal the bully tries to get, as long as you respond only with objective facts or observations (such as “The water cooler is almost empty,” or “I heard the printer is getting replaced”), they will get bored at your lack of emotional reactions and likely leave you alone.

Avoid being alone with them

The less people are around, the more powerful a bully becomes. If you can manage to only interact with the bully in a public setting, you take away the majority of their power. Childhood bullies thrived on public approval and being seen as tough, whereas workplace bullies are in it for the minor power trip they get over tormenting their co-workers or subordinates. You can avoid this by working near or with other coworkers, if possible.

Be the bigger person

While you may not have any control over how you feel when you’re being harassed, you do have the power to decide how you will react or handle the situation. Within reasonable circumstances, do your best to remain polite and professional with the bully. If you don’t give them the reaction they’re looking for, it takes almost all the purpose out of it for them.

Fight bullying with kindness

Turn the tables on the bully — go out of your way to be nice to them whenever possible. Hold the door open, offer them some of your lunch, compliment their appearance. This will be more effective if there are more people around. The bully has no ground to stand on when the person they’re picking on is acting towards them with kindness and grace. Be the bigger person.

Be honest

Whether it’s with the bully themselves or with your immediate supervisor, sometimes being honest is all it takes to resolve a situation like this. Confronting the bully and telling them that their behavior makes you uncomfortable or upset could be a wake-up call. Alternatively, reporting their behavior to upper management could lead to the bully being reprimanded and the situation blowing over. Nobody should have to put up with being harassed in an environment where they need to put in the work to support themselves just to maintain a professional facade.
Trust the blank page
By: Sergey Faldin
Tags: Creativity, Motivation, Inspiration, Writing, Writing Tips

Trust the blank page

It knows more than you do.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Artists have a phrase I like.

“Trust the soup.”

They use it to tell themselves that everything they are seeking is in the process.

I came up with a writer’s version: trust the blank page.

Let it guide you.

All you need to do is sit down in the morning, open the blank page — or wherever you left off the day before — and trust it. Let the blank page and the blinking cursor point you towards what you want to say, or write, or do.

Don’t think. Don’t push. Don’t try.

Trust the page.

Writing is a practice. And any spiritual practice requires a dose of blind faith.

Put your blind faith in the page.

It knows more than you do.
10 Principles for Typography in UI Design
By: Danny Sapio
Tags: Product Design, Visual Design, UX, UI, Design

Typography involves so much more than choosing a great font. When used effectively, it can enhance usability, readability, accessibility, and hierarchy within an interface. In this piece, I’ll share some tips and industry-standard principles for using type like a pro in a UI.

1. Typography Terminology

Typography terminology creates the foundation of our knowledge of type. Think of typography terms like kerning, leading, and weight as levers that we can pull to create more readable and aesthetically pleasing designs.

Tracking

Tracking or letter-spacing refers to uniformly increasing or decreasing the horizontal spacing between a range of characters.

Baseline

The baseline is the invisible line upon which a line of text rests.

Leading

Leading is the vertical spacing between two baselines of type. This is more frequently called line-height in the modern age. Oh, and it’s also pronounced “ledding.”

Weight

Weight refers to the relative thickness of a font’s stroke.

Serif/Sans Serif

A serif is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface that does not include serifs is a sans serif one (sans = without).

2. Hierarchy
One Drone, Two Arms
By: Hackster Staff
Tags: Robotics, Drones

Up until now, a vast majority of drones have been centered around photography and filming. However, there’s a rising demand for ‘copters capable of performing specific “hands-on” operations such as dropping life-saving buoys, retrieving hazardous materials, delivering water by the pool, or simply helping you move things.

This is where PRODRONE’s latest device comes in. The PD6B-AW-ARM is “a large-format drone” equipped with a pair of five-axis robotic arms, enabling it to carry out (no pun intended) a variety of tasks. The arm’s can impressively handle payloads up to 22 pounds, with a 30-minute flight time.
Celebrating My Garden as a Temple of Female Sexuality
By: Yael Wolfe
Tags: Spirituality, Nature, Outdoors, Gardening, Feminism

Celebrating My Garden as a Temple of Female Sexuality

I kneel and pray and become a more complete woman in this sacred space

Copyright Yael Wolfe

Yesterday morning, I was squatting next to my raspberry bush and eating the most tender berries straight from the vine, bringing them to my mouth with my dirty fingers. I’ve had these bushes for two years now and typically get a harvest of about 10 berries.

This year, after moving one of them to see if it would like a new location better, the relocated bush has been exploding with berries — even now, into October, when we’re getting gentle freezes at night.

I’ve probably gotten about 100 berries this year, but I can’t be sure. They never make it into the house. I always start out with good intentions, placing the berries into the basket I use for harvesting, but three berries in, I realize I need to taste one.

They are so soft, so pliable. They stain my fingers, a reddish juice wetting the dirt that has dried on my skin. And they are warm from the sun, even on an October morning.

So on that beautiful morning yesterday, I let my weight fully drop down into the squat, my pelvis dangling between my ankles, and I placed one of the berries into my mouth. It was sublime.

I combed through the vines with my ungloved fingers, looking for more, absolutely intoxicated with the sweetness of those berries. I didn’t even notice the thorns. I just wanted more.

I picked the last ripe berry and ate it. Then I ate the few that I had put in my basket.

Then I sat there, still in my squat, and looked around.

The garden is resplendent, even now in mid-October. There are a few red leaves on the ground. My wildflowers, chamomile, borage, calendula, and petunias are still blooming. There are tomatoes here and there, struggling to ripen in this cold. (I’ll give them a few more days and then pick them — even the green ones will ripen indoors.)

Nearby, a solitary bee landed on the purple-blue borage, making its way across the delicate petals. It was the only bee in the garden. I thought of her tireless efforts to do her job and keep her hive going, even now, as most of the other pollinators are preparing for the winter, not venturing out as often.

I felt a little tipsy then, as I often do in my garden. This is one of the sexiest places I know.
Momentum is Everything
By: Zach J. Payne
Tags: Creativity, NaNoWriMo, Productivity, Art, Writing

One of the hardest things about writing a novel is the sheer number of words involved.

I remember when I was in high school, how me and my classmates would balk at having to write a 500-word essay.

500 words! That seemed like so much. It felt like we had to use every stupid trick in the book in order to weasel our word counts that long — passive construction, strange verb tenses, long strings of adjectives, the whole greasy, bubbly, cheesy, verde-infused, organic, locally-sourced, delicious, chicken and pepperjack cheese enchilada.

Damn, I made myself hungry.

Anyway, back then, 500 words felt like a whole universe. But when you’re writing a novel, 500 words is nothing.

Actually, that’s not fair. It is something. Rather, I should say that it’s a fraction of what you need.

If you’re writing for NaNoWriMo, your goal is to write 50,000 words, so 500 words is 1/100th of what you need. (And yes, I’m so bad at math, that I put this in a reducing fractions app, just to be sure.) Unless you’re writing middle grade or books for younger readers, that’s not a full novel.

I write YA, so I shoot for around 80,000 words. 500 words is 1/160th of what I need. Some people write much longer novels. George R.R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons is 414,788 words. Rounding up, 500 words is 1/830th of that.

Okay, if you’re like me, this math is probably making you sad now. Like I said, one of the most daunting parts about writing a novel is the sheer number of words involved. And yet, people do finish novels. Even George R.R. Martin, eventually.

The only way you’re going to do this is if you keep writing forward.
Thailand
By: Mick Champayne
Tags: Travel

Visual Design Lead at Huge + aspiring futurist. First one to laugh at my own jokes 😎🤙

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Paper Playground
By: Dan Leicht
Tags: Cats, Shopping, Poetry, Haiku, Writing

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Fiction writer. Coffee enthusiast. Writer of romance, mystery, and humor. Discover more at Patreon.com/danleicht and DanLeicht.com
Critical RDP Flaw Leaves up to 2.3 Million Servers Exposed (CVE-2019–0708)
By: Daniel Andrew
Tags: Security, Microsoft, Remote Desktop, Cybersecurity, Vulnerability

Yesterday Microsoft published a security advisory bulletin for a critical vulnerability in its remote login service ‘Remote Desktop Services’, commonly known as RDP. The flaw allows a completely unauthenticated attacker to gain full access to the system, so in vulnerability terms, it’s about as bad as it gets.

RDP is popular among sysadmins as a way of remotely logging into Windows machines for admin purposes, and can often be used to gain access to corporate resources for remote workers.

Shodan shows the RDP login screens available to the whole internet

Because of this, RDP is very commonly exposed to the internet, and over 2.3 million servers expose this service worldwide. Windows servers running certain versions of Windows 7, and Windows 2008 are vulnerable, and these operating systems are still widely in use, and are supported by Microsoft. Out-of-support operating systems Windows XP and Windows 2003 are also affected.

At the time of writing, there is no publicly available exploit code, so we’re unlikely to be seeing mass exploitation just yet. However, Microsoft did patch this issue after seeing some exploitation in the wild, so we know at least targeted attacks are already taking place, and it is likely to be only a matter of time before the patch is reversed to uncover the details, and exploit code becomes more widely available.

The infamous ‘WannaCry’ attack back in 2017 used a similar bug in a Microsoft’s ‘SMB’ service, and led to the compromise of over 200,000 systems worldwide, impacting over 150 countries and costing approximately $4 billion in financial losses.

Exposed Remote Desktop services worldwide

Due to its similarities, this vulnerability is highly likely to be leveraged in the same way. It will probably only be a matter of time until news of the next worldwide attack breaks, again locking tens of thousands of corporate machines with ransomware.

Since 2015, Intruder has been recommending to its clients that both SMB and RDP services should not be exposed to the Internet, and should instead be placed behind a VPN for defence-in-depth purposes. While this may not be the time to say “I told you so”, it is an important reminder that vulnerabilities can be discovered in internet-facing services at any time, and rather than playing whack-a-mole by patching each vulnerability as it occurs, keeping your attack surface to a minimum is a much more prudent approach for the long-term.

For those who don’t already know, Intruder’s continuous vulnerability monitoring service lets you know which ports and services you have exposed to the Internet, detects vulnerabilities, and makes recommendations to reduce your organisation’s attack surface. So if you haven’t tried it already… then maybe today is a good day to start!
Who Is Your Soul-mate?
By: Isaiah Bhambra
Tags: Self Love, Relationships, Soulmates, Love, Connection

A soul-mate is your best friend

Photo by Pablo Merchán Montes on Unsplash

They will have a stronger vibe if they are your soul-mate. That person becomes your best friend as much as they are your lover.

The attraction is there, which most people usually see first but it has to be balanced by a friendship.

Without the friendship, the relationship may not truly sustain. For example, if it’s always about sexual relations (like too much of anything) the foundation may not be strong enough. For example, a tree will not grow strong without its roots firmly in the soil.

A magical beauty

So when I use the word soul-mate, I’m not saying it loosely, because there is definitely a magical beauty in that word. When you unconditionally love someone and care about someone, you want to be better for yourself, but also for that person. What makes them grow, makes you grow. Their happiness is your happiness.

Money comes and goes, friends come and go, life comes and goes. Most things are temporary. Love only creates more Love.

Love is energy and energy never dies, it only transfers.

So why not experience and share life with that individual, your soul-mate. This is my interpretation anyway. Love is the only thing that truly keeps us going in life. Without love where would we be? Furthermore, would most of us even be here?

Your love is my love — Whitney Houston

True love grows every day. When you’re going to have a future with someone, the person’s health becomes your health.

Your partner takes what you say with love. Words and actions should be one and the same; always. You don’t only say ‘I love you’. No, you show someone. It’s like that saying ‘actions speak louder than words’.

Anything you do not protect, you eventually lose. Defend them as you would yourself or maybe even more. Be there when they need you to hold their hand. Show them you love them, take care of them, and cherish them.

This is what I believe protects them. In the words of Whitney Houston, ‘your love is my love’.
Your ‘Company Culture’ Is Racist
Tags: Work, Culture, Racism, Business, Race

Your ‘Company Culture’ Is Racist

How White Supremacy fuels professional bias in the workplace

Amid the Black Lives Matter movement, plenty of companies posted statements stating they “Stand in solidarity with the Black community”, but if this is true — why are we often the only Black person in the department? Or in the entire company? Truthfully, companies participate in discriminatory practices that uphold White supremacy, however, they call it ‘Company Culture’.

In a recent survey from Cubiks Netherlands, it was discovered that 84% of the recruiters surveyed said that culture has become a prominent factor in the selection process. It seems as if many companies would prefer to hire someone who will get along on the playground rather than someone who will perform the job accurately.

Company Culture

As a Black woman, when I hear the term “company culture”, my bones automatically tense up and my expression becomes slightly agitated. Because I know what that term means for myself and many others alike. Company culture is a synonym for professionalism, but what happens when that culture is rooted in implicit bias? When these same standards are what make Black women more likely to be sent to HR for complaints regarding our attitudes or unprofessional hairstyles.

So when a company says they want an employee who’s a great “fit”, for many Black women we know that equates to a heavy amount of code-switching on our end to “fit in” as opposed to the African American Vernacular English we’re used to speaking.

What exactly IS ‘company culture’?

Company culture typically describes the environment of the workplace. It’s what makes an employee a “good fit”, it’s related to their values, attitudes, interests, and unsurprisingly — their appearance. It’s what makes a coworker feel comfortable enough to invite them for lunch or strike up a conversation at the printer.