fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Meet the Team: Director of Certification Dave Wallick
By: Aleck Silva-Pinto
Tags: Blockchain, Elections, Politics, Tech, Voting

Votem is led by some of the most influential people in the elections, business, and blockchain spaces. This series will bring to light these individuals and their roles at Votem.

Dave has been in the elections business for seven years and was formerly responsible for running and managing the certification process for a competitor. His responsibility will be to lead our certification efforts and ensure our adherence to national and international voting standards.

What brought you to Votem?

Pete’s vision of a fully verifiable and secure online voting system presented a unique challenge to me from a testing and certification perspective. I enjoyed my time with our competitor but found some of the business objectives incompatible with the attempt to certify a truly innovative voting solution. Votem’s desire to incorporate not just US related elections goals but international goals into a single innovative platform while making it certifiable within the US is a once in a lifetime opportunity for someone in my position. I couldn’t pass that up.

What do you see as Votem’s greatest challenge?

Perception and reluctance to embrace new technologies. The pace at which technology in general advances far exceeds that at which the public accepts those technologies in the elections industry. Pushing the envelope in that area while maintaining the public and election administrators’ confidence in the work we are doing will be a continual challenge for Votem.

What is the most common misconception about the voting industry?

That those working in the field are somehow intent on subverting results. In the time I’ve been involved in elections, I’ve seen nothing but some of the hardest working, most sincere, and most dedicated individuals I’ve ever met. They work hard every day, sometimes all day long during an election cycle to produce results the public can trust and believe. This dedication is evident in vendors, election officials, and volunteers equally. It’s truly amazing how hard these people work and with such conviction to common goals.

How do you think Votem can improve upon current voting infrastructure?

I think adding end-to-end verifiability to the voting process so voters can ensure that their vote was cast as intended is the greatest single thing Votem can add to the voting infrastructure. Additionally, I think adding advancements in technology are an added bonus.

What kind of impact do you think Votem can have in the foreseeable future?

Votem will change how we think about access to the ballot and ballot security here nationally. A voter’s ability to be integrally involved in voting process from end to end will hopefully increase interest in elections, increase participation and more importantly increase trust in the results.
ARTIS on the Bituniverse app
By: Artis Turba
Tags: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Altcoins, Ethereum, Ethereum Wallet

Steps to tracking your ARTIS portfolio

Step 1 — Navigate to the Portfolio Tracker Tab by clicking on “Portfolio” on the bottom left of the screen.

Step 2 — After clicking on “Get Started”, select “Auto import from wallet”

Step 3 — insert your public address where your ARTIS is stored. For those who are concerned about the safety of their wallets should note that this is only a balance query API system which means that the API only reads the balances of the Cryptocurrencies and Tokens of an address and can in no way interact with your wallet at all!

enter your wallet address here

Step 4 — When visiting your portfolio page it should look something like the image below. You can adjust settings in the “Me” tab to adjust the APP according to your personal preferences, such as currency, look and feel etc.

ARTIS Portfolio example

Forward Together!
A History of Housing & Growth in Cleveland
Tags: Economic Development, Housing, Cleveland, Smart Cities, Cities

Cleveland is a dynamic city with an industrial past and an exciting future in healthcare and innovation. Given its history, I was curious about the placement of older homes throughout the city. In order for a home to be considered for the National Register of Historic Places, it needs to be at least 50 years old. Knowing the locations of older homes provides a quick estimate for the level of effort needed to assess the areas prior to development. In addition, development plans can be tailored to the preservation or reuse of these homes.

Location, Location, Location!

By visualizing building age by decade, some clear neighborhood housing trends become apparent in Cleveland, OH.

Building Age of Housing Units from 1939 or earlier by census block group

This map shows homes built from 1939 or earlier — dark green areas are places where there are a higher concentration of these homes.
The Rocket’s Brain
By: Raihan Kibria
Tags: Open Source, Neural Networks, Experiment, Game Programming, Evolutionary Algorithms

The Rocket’s Brain

A personal project for tinkering with neural networks and evolutionary algorithms

Two ideas from computer science have intrigued me for a long time: neural networks and evolutionary algorithms. Neural networks are of course everywhere right now: essentially a computer runs a “brain” consisting of simulated nerve cells. They are being used to perform science-fiction-sounding tasks like besting human grand masters in games¹, creating natural looking landscapes from sketches² or even photos of people that don’t exist³. The concept behind evolutionary algorithms is possibly even more fascinating: a population of computer programs is tested against each other in a simulation of natural selection, and over time the descendants of the “survivors” become increasingly better at their required task. Although they are a bit less all-present than neural networks evolutionary algorithms have their applications, and sometimes both are used together.

Neural networks and evolutionary algorithms in their simplest forms can be programmed in surprisingly few lines of fairly straightforward code. Both are notorious for requiring a lot of computing power, but today’s computers should be plenty powerful enough to deal with a small problem even if the program runs in a web browser (or so I assumed). If I had an interesting problem to solve I could make an entertaining personal project that shouldn’t take lots of coding to complete, or so I hoped!

So I tried to come up with a very simple problem that’s also fun to look at. If it could become part of a video game, even better! The objective: hit a target (possibly an enemy UFO) with a homing rocket (possibly fired by the hero’s spaceship). It’s in “space”, a two-dimensional flat plane where the rocket is “fired” starting at some random position and the target is always at the origin of the coordinate system. The rocket can’t fly just any which way but rather experiences simulated (simplified) physics that allows believable (at least to me!) flying behavior. It needs a homing device that controls its main engine, which drives it forward, and two attitude jets on the sides that rotate it. Due to inertia the rocket will keep flying or rotating until the engines counteract that movement, so the homing device needs to take into account how the rocket is moving at all times to steer it successfully. This is definitely solvable in a variety of ways using handmade code, but I was curious how my neural network would handle it, if it could at all.

This project was made in JavaScript and runs on Firefox or Chrome browsers. You can find the source code here: https://github.com/rkibria/evolvenn
Ganesh
By: Sameer Bhangar
Tags: Poetry

What is a head worth?

Not any head

Not the one that chickens

run around without

Not the top of the chart

The front of the line

Not a metaphor, No

Your head

All eleven pounds of it

What is it worth?

You did your bit

Did what you were told

Teachers, mothers, lovers

Friends, books, billboards

Sliced away

Not the slice of Shiva

A clean break to life anew

No,

You worked one hair at a time

Plucked away

Down to the eyes

Snipped the voice

Before the tongue

Sliced the nose

Till roses smelled of gum

These ears you rubbed

To a gentle grind

They rang aloud

Sound of confused mind

It was the neck

You could not bear

No throat left

To voice despair

And in that last snip

Your spirit almost dead

A throbbing heart

Lifted up its head

An elephant woke up

To make his bed
What is Ripple?
By: Meredith Davis
Tags: Cryptocurrency Investment, Bitcoin, Ripple, Cryptocurrency, Xrp

Unlike many other coins that focus on the individual user, Ripple’s “XRP” coin brings blockchain technology and cryptocurrency to the outdated worldwide banking system. If you have ever tried to send money internationally, you know what an old-fashioned, lengthy process it is. Flashback to me stuck in France with eight Euros in my pocket and my travel credit card lodged firmly in an ATM. The night before a bank holiday. Wish I’d had Ripple then.

Here’s how it works, in a very petite nutshell: bank customers log into their accounts through their bank’s website or app. They decide how much XRP they want to send to someone in another country and designate who it’s going to. Skipping a system that takes two to four days to complete, Ripple’s network sends the information to the receiving bank and in the designated account instantly (in five to ten seconds). The technology traces the funds from starting point to destination with certainty of delivery, and because it’s bank-to-bank, not customer-to-customer, no customer information touches the network.

This is a great investment option for people who send money across international borders… or who know people who travel and might need a quick bit of cash, so they don’t end up eating cold McDonald’s fries for dinner AND breakfast while they wait for Western Union.
ICX Token swap schedule announcement
By: Icon Foundation
Tags: Event, Community, Icon Foundation

1. Airdropped ICX are mainnet ICX coins. They do not need to go through the token swap process.

2. There may be SCAM attempts impersonating ICON. ICX token swap will only be made through ICONex, Binance, Upbit and Bithumb(as of June 18th). If you find any SCAM attempts such as asking to send your ICX to an individual wallet for the token swap process, please let us know (hello@icon.foundation)

3. The swapped mainnet ICX coins will be stored in the ICONex ICX wallet starting with hx, not the ICONex ETH wallet starting with 0x. Also, please do not send your ICX mainnet coins to ETH based wallets such as MEW

4. ERC20 ICX tokens that are swapped will be burned(locked) and will no longer be used. The burned ERC20 tokens will not be in the total circulation amount.

5. Hardware wallet support for mainnet ICX is under development. It is difficult to tell the exact time it will be launched, but we will do our best to speed up the process.
Zero One Group Newsletter #5
By: Zero One Group
Tags: Newsletter, Developer Tools, News, Ecommerce, Wealth

There have been many talking about the very social online shopping experience of Pinduoduo. Unlike typical e-commerce sites, Pinduoduo maximises on human network effects rather than a product-based approach. What this means is that e-commerce sites tend to push for increased basket sizes by forwarding purchase recommendations. Pinduoduo on the other hand encourages customers to share products to people within their circle by introducing discounts. For each successful invite, customers get a percentage off their purchase. Who wouldn’t want that?

This probably works for a couple of reasons:

Recommendations forwarded by a trusted contact, The ability to share invites via non-Pinduoduo channels, and; Of course, the discounts.

On top of the above pull-factors is the fact that the platform gamifies user experiences. Interactions with the platform grant users redeemable shopping points. In other words, this platform gives, gives, and gives.

You can read more about this e-commerce behemoth through Y Combinator’s coverage. What can we take away from this story? There is a gold mine of product-people network effects, and to both engage and encourage engagement.
Seabrook, WA -April 2018
By: Andy Tillo
Tags: Seattle, Travel, Seabrook, Beach

It was really windy, and really rainy for 93% of the time, but the other 7% was pretty neat. Great clouds, sun, and drone shots. Tanner and Celeste came out for a few days, and the the ol’ Big Wheel Beach House kept us entertained the rest of the time!

Tanner and I *did* lose the drone in the bushes at one point, and hiked through about 2 hours worth of 9ft tall trees to get to it, but we DID get to it!
#45: Blinked Token Launch
By: Kelly Mcquade-W.
Tags: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Investment, Education

Featuring Julie Benlevi-Zeff, founder of Blinked Token.

Listen Now

Show Notes

Announcing the Blinked Token available now at blinked.live from our sponsor, Blinked (available on the App Store). Guest CEO and Founder Julie Benlevi-Zeff. And Preview of the Coloring Crypto “Gestation Period” episode(s) with Amy Wan, Terrence Yang, Miko Matsumura. Something is coming and we tell you what we know.

Transcript

Coming Soon.
Release Your Expectations
By: Darshak Rana
Tags: Spiritual Secrets, Love, Micropoetry, Poetry, Weekly Prompts

I welcome you all to participate in this week’s prompt, “Expectations”. Please don’t forget to tag me so that I don’t miss reading it.

The stories must be spiritual.

Write a poem, Haiku, short story, life experience, or anything using the theme: Expectations.

Publishing Day: All the prompt based stories would be published on Saturdays only. The rest of the stories would get published from Sundays till Fridays.

We would like to call it Spiritual Saturdays.

If you wish to send us stories, please do it before Saturday, (September 26)12:00 am (GMT-6).

Thank you all!
Mount Revelstoke National Park
By: Georgia Lewitt
Tags: British Columbia, Nature, Life, Hiking, Photography

People must feel nauseated to hear about my discoveries of natural beauties, so I send a lot fewer pictures lately, or none, also telling the stories I want to tell in my head, mostly.

I’m so thankful to the editors of Snapshots for enabling me to share my joy and love for nature in a non-invasive manner.

I knew British Columbia is beautiful. Our license plates read “Beautiful British Columbia” and feature the picture of a valley surrounded by mountains and lakes.

Apart from parading those plates around, we live in that scenery.

I told one of my friends that my closet has a better view than our house in Toronto did, and because where she lives in Brussels she made a heaven for herself, I didn’t feel bad.

Jessica Krecklo Naidu

I do feel quite bad otherwise. The other day the mother of one of my son’s friends sent me a postcard of our former neighborhood dug up, the house we lived in next for demolition.

Last Sunday we visited Revelstoke, and hiked in Mount Revelstoke National Park.
Die Zukunft von Hotels
By: Reinhard Lanner
Tags: Hotelmarketing, Future Of Hotel, Tourism, Tourismus, Hotel

in In Fitness And In Health
Trump left the Paris Agreement. Want to know what did Twitter think of it?
By: Karan Verma
Tags: USA, Trump, Paris Agreement, Twitter, Climate Change

I know you know, that Trump is stupid to have left the Paris Agreement.

I know you know, that the Paris Agreement is a good thing. An optional and not an obligatory agreement.

I also know you know, that Paris Agreement is not enough anyway to deal with the climate situation.

If you don’t know any of this and would like to know, I’d suggest you read and watch some of the stuff I am hyperlinking here.

For some light hearted yet serious banter watch John Oliver breaking all hell lose on Trump on his show here.

Or if you have a little more time and want to look at it from all seriousness then here’s a treat for you, a playlist of all climate change related videos by Vox Media. I personally, love how Vox has covered climate change over the years.

This is all video content, but if you are the reading sorts, here’s more stuff University of California has compiled that will quench your thirst for more knowledge on the topic.

Okay, enough of the gyan (preaching), let’s come back to what we are here for. So what did the top tweeters thought of the USA leaving the Paris Agreement? To answer this question we pulled all tweets (till a week from the announcement) with the #parisagreement and studied them deeply and here’s what we found.

First off, people from across the world tweeted, yes even places such as the Channel Islands, Nepal, Maldives, and Uganda. Below is how the geographical split looked like, yes the long tale was far too long but the major ones are shown below.

Tweets from countries.

Next up, what percentage of people do you think were against trump leaving and how many for? Well, more than 80 percent were against. See the diagram.

For or Against Trump

If you look deeper to identify what feelings / emotions did the people have who tweeted against USA leaving the Paris Agreement then you’d see the below emotions.

Percentage Spread of Emotions Against Trump

You might ask what were some of the stuff being talked about under the emotion, “Vigilance”. Well, it was things like, Hawaii using a legal system to support the Paris Agreement anyway. And conversations about receiving petitions from the American people in general.

The emotions shown by tweeters who tweeted in support of the USA leaving the agreement were:

Percentage Spread of Emotions For Trump

Finally, we went ahead to see what is it that these tweeters are saying broadly. And this is what we found, again long tail ignored.

What did the tweeters actually say?

Just for the final kicker, you wont believe what France is saying to all American scientists and entrepreneurs frustrated of the administration’s attitude towards Climate Change, see for your self in this tweet:

“France is dangling 1.5 million euro research grants to get frustrated American climate scientists to move to France”

With that bombshell, see you next Monday!
Kia Kaha Christchurch
By: Reuben Salsa
Tags: Faith, Culture, Religion, Life, Judaism

Christchurch is a small city. Everybody is connected to somebody involved in the tragedy. Emotions are raw. Our small Jewish community are feeling tender. There’s a divide over how we should react. Like many Jewish communities worldwide, we are insular and try not to stand out. Security and safety are always our first thoughts when it comes to festivals. Our annual Purim party is due to take place on Sunday. The community uncertain whether to celebrate or not. The older generation can still recall the horrors from the war. They are the most vocal in cancelling the event. No party. The world is watching. How can we get drunk and dress up knowing that 50 people were slaughtered just 10 minutes away. Those with children are fearful. Our gates aren’t secure. We can be targets too.

Yet the Canterbury Hebrew Congregation Board believe in life. We believe that terror shouldn’t win. That we should stand proud and continue our traditions. That through many persecutions the Jewish people carried on, standing firm in the face of adversity.

Our community has never felt more fragile. Shock still grips us. We lack guidance from a Rabbi since the earthquakes. We lack strong leadership. Most of all, as volunteers, we lack the experience in how to deal with such events. We lack knowledge in talking to the media, in representing our community, in being seen and being vocal.

We stand with the Muslim members of our community, and collectively send our love, thoughts and support to the families who have lost loved ones.

But how are the Jews in Christchurch*? Like most of the country, we are defiant, scared, shocked, emotional and fearful for the future, but I pray we will all come through stronger — together.

Kia kaha

Last census (2013) showed the Jewish population of Christchurch standing at 435 people. We are the smallest religious affiliation in Christchurch. Of those 435, less than 50 are paid members of the Jewish community.
ERC-721 implementation v2 confirmed as final
Tags: Blockchain, Ethereum Blockchain, Ethereum, Erc721, Non Fungible Tokens

It’s official.

We’ve published the v2 RC1 of the ERC-721 standard implementation a few months ago. Now, the version has been approved as final.

Within the first days of this year, we’ve released the Release Candidate 1 (RC1) for version 2 (v2) of the ERC-721 standard implementation for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain, written in collaboration with our advisor and ERC-721 lead author William Entriken.

$ npm install 0xcert/ethereum-erc721@2.0.0

Up until today, we’ve received a couple of Issues posted on our GitHub, and responded to most significant suggestions.

Since then, no major issues have appeared which makes the v2 of the ERC-721 standard implementation confirmed final.

Compared to the v1, the latest version is optimized and reduces gas fees without compromising the powerful functions of the standard.

The bug bounty that was open for the developer community to find issues and provide suggestions for the RC1 improvements is, however, still ongoing and inviting proposals.

The v2 of the ERC-721 marks the latest update to the first valid reference implementation of the ERC-721 standard that we provided last year, and optimizes is for even better adoption.
How to establish work between designers and developers?
By: Bohdana Tyshchenko
Tags: Figma, Sketch, UX Design, UI Design, Ux Ui Product Designer

Have you ever struggled with a misunderstanding between designers and developers?

Let’s be honest, almost everyone has.

“Why are these developers asking so many questions? Can they just build the website as I have designed? Why are the fonts not the size I wanted?” “Does anyone really care about the font size? It’s impossible to implement your design. Is there any difference between those 2 colors?”

It appears that developers and designers often see the world from nonidentical perspectives and speak different languages.

Have you ever realized that you have no idea, what developers are talking about? Do you still feel scared of words like API, polymorphism, pull requests, etc?

As for the developers, listening to designers’ discussion of empathy maps, wireframes and perfect shade of blue is definitely driving them crazy.

Let’s just accept that, okay?

However, we’re still playing on the same team, aren’t we?

Both designers and developers have the same important goal in mind: “Deliver a great result to the end client”. So, how to achieve this goal most effectively together and avoid getting stressed?

Here are 6 crucial tips for designers that will help to optimize and accelerate designer-developer collaboration:

Communication

This point is the most important one. Talk, discuss, ask and answer questions during the whole design process! Be patient and offer as much help as it is possible. Don’t forget, that both designers and developers are on the same team. Communication is a key factor when it comes to collaboration with other team members. Before starting designing any product or software, make sure you’re on the same page with developers and understand all technical restrictions. Make regular check-ins with the dev team to be sure that everything is moving smoothly according to the plan.

Check out more useful tips on how to arrange designer-developer communication productively here:

“Working Together: How Designers And Developers Can Communicate To Create Better Projects”
//it’s okay to dream
By: Gillian Annie
Tags: Poetry, Ambition, Life, Dreams

It’s okay to dream

Life is all about dreams

When we’re small,

Dreams are near-future goals

Like, I wish I had ice cream today

When we’re big,

Dreams are far-future goals

Like, I wish I had a big house

But it’s important to remember

Dreams are dreams

And all we really have

Is this life.
Ø Crypto Union presents Ø Crypto Pool
By: Ø Crypto Union
Tags: Blockchain, Credit, Cryptocurrency, Investment, Credit Unions

All service beneficiaries are Ø Crypto Union shareholders, in the interest of whom, the project continues to develop and grow. In line with such principles, we feel that passively held capital should be utilised to find returns for our members. This has lead to developmental advancements of our wallet infrastructure.

Typically, securing the various Blockchain protocols offer rewards to active members of the community. The Crypto Union has found an innovative alternative; the idea is to make staking, baking and delegation as simple as possible, in pursuit of which, Ø Crypto Union would like to present Ø Crypto Pool!

Asset-holding wallets of Ø will collectively integrate to participate in consensus mechanisms. In addition to the aforementioned staking rewards, the Crypto Union will offer a wide array of financial and consulting services to token-holding members. Furthermore, by way of Ø Credit Lombard mechanics, participants will have access to transactional credit in fiat, collateralised by the underlying positions. This is the first in the era of cryptocurrencies that a pooling service offers dual utility.

Future integration of XTZ staking on ØPay wallet

Proof-of-Stake and other alternative protocols to the original Proof-of-work will continue to grow in dominance; Ø seeks to further-optimise such mechanisms by innovating to find a secondary utility for staked positions — stake and spend!

To further-explore such functionality, Ø will focus on the Tezos Baking system. The Crypto Union is working harmoniously with a leading member of Tezos’ development team; the collaboration seeks to find positive synergies by offering the community an innovative, efficient and rewarding delegation and baking system. Ø Crypto Union seeks to catalyse development with a reputable, security-focused company, ADAPP.

To further such ambitions, the next stage, in line with the roadmap, is to secure our Baking infrastructure as soon as developmentally possible to initiate the delegation service. Following which, Ø will integrate Tezos with the ØPay application (beta), offering an effortless option to bake and/or delegate the application-stored tezzies. We’ll shortly reveal the membership structure for such services.

More updates are to follow — watch this space!

Ø Crypto Pool

Discord
Is it brunch time?
By: Ben Jacobson
Tags: Mathematics, Twitter, Data Science, Data Visualization, Brunch

Is it brunch time?

Background

I created isitbrunchtimeyet.com a few years ago as a joke[1]. It has since been used mostly as a funny and/or slightly passive aggressive way to ask people to brunch. When I created it I arbitrarily set the brunch time to be 10:15am to 11:45am. It is that decision which leads us here — I want to do better than arbitrary.

Hypothesis

Twitter is a platform that allows users to “get real-time updates about what matters to you.”[2] If we assume people generally tweet about things while they are doing those things then we can assume tweets containing “brunch” are generally happening while that person is actually having brunch. Therefore, if we collect enough tweets over a long enough period of time and analyze the time at which they were tweeted we could infer the specific time range in which brunch falls.

The Data

We begin by using the Twitter Streaming API. This API allows us to subscribe to search terms, for example “brunch”, and get any tweet matching that term sent to our program in real-time. Not only did we collected “brunch” tweets but we also collected tweets containing “breakfast”, “lunch”, and “dinner” to use as controls (which we will review later). We allowed the program run from 2015–06–01 to 2016–05–31 which yielded 100M+ tweets for analysis. Twitter is global platform, so we have to do some additional work to understand the time of day a specific tweet is occurring. At the time of tweet we analyzed the timezone of the person tweeting and any attached geolocation data (when available). Using this data we then made an informed estimate of the localized hour for each tweet.

As a result, we are able to break down a count of tweets by localized hour:
#BigParentingIdea — What If The “Practical” Career Choice Equals A Meaningless Life?
By: Lukasz Laniecki
Tags: Parents, Careers, Passion, Life, Children

Thanks for reading! If you liked this article, here’s more.

Writing is my oxygen. I write every day. About parenting, career life and the challenges of being a young adult.

Each day I share my musings on my blog http://mygame.typepad.com.

You might consider subscribing to my newsletter which goes out once each day. In it you’ll receive my newest posts. No spam guaranteed. Promise!

You can also subscribe to my Medium Publications and receive an e-mail each time I publish a new story. Here they are:

I appreciate every second you spend reading my stuff!

- Lukasz
How did Mussolini and Hitler establish another Fascist Dictatorship that outlived them both?
By: Ioannis Dedes
Tags: Economics, Politics, History, Government, Education

German and Italian Intervention

At this crucial time, Franco was seeing the conditions being unfavorable for the groups that supported him and while the Republican government hoped to get support from the British, the French, and the USSR, Mussolini and Hitler were plotting against the Spanish left. Germany initially started sending powerful units and with the use of the latest technology weapons, Franco’s front was only getting better. Nevertheless, Hitler wasn’t ready yet for another war and this strategy would lead to involvement in Spain so he encouraged Mussolini to provide equal help with him.

Through the help of the Luftwaffe and other deadly weaponry, Franco and his groups managed to win some crucial attacks and advance, even more, encircling Madrid whose invasion would lead to the immediate spread of fascism. With such a strong alliance from the right wind, the left continued to be more pessimistic and with Britain and the US signing a Non-Intervention pact, their only hope was the Soviet Union (the US policy of neutrality and the recovery for WWII is clearly analysed in my article found below).

The latter provided communists and the Popular Front with forces but it was too late that the left didn’t stand a chance against the expanding Fascists. The powerful Nationalists didn’t invade Madrid but occupied Anarchists’ homeland Catalonia and then Barcelona, which meant the end of the war and the loss of Republicans in 1939, leading to a 36-year Fascist regime by Franco in Spain until he died in 1975.The fact that civil wars take place between the borderline of a country doesn’t mean that there are no foreign powers involved and it’s important to understand that vested interests and the incentives of states outside the borders of the war might change the whole outcome of the conflict.

This particular case shows how the Fascist forces of Fransisco Franco were losing the war and how the influence of the two authoritarian regimes in the Western bloc of Europe, Germany, and Italy, managed to establish another totalitarian state for the radical right. Although this wasn’t a milestone for WWII and Spain didn’t have the same impact as Germany and Italy, it was important for the spread of Fascism in the continent, even after the end of the second global conflict.
The Eve of NaNoWriMo 2018, also known as Halloween
By: Julie Russell
Tags: NaNoWriMo

The office felt spooky today. Maybe it was the colorful, yet ominous, message on the light brite, or possibly my colleagues dressed in costumes.

A trio of women were ‘20’s flappers, reminiscent of The Great Gatsby, and another wore an iconic long red cape paired with a white bonnet, and said her name was Offred. Robin Hood and Cookie Monster popped by, along with an egg and a pink squid. A quartet were dressed as sushi hand rolls, and a different trio were space.

How many Halloween costumes are inspired by stories? What would Halloween be without fiction? We might have sushi, but would we have the Handmaid’s Tale? Would we have Cookie Monster?

Wrimos, it’s time to write fiction, together. It’s time to create characters in a fantastical or realistic version of our world. It’s time to fire up our creativity and see where it takes us.

As in previous years, we love your posts about NaNo. Maybe you want to blog about your November journey? Maybe you have writing tips to share? Maybe you want to encourage and motivate the others writing? We hope you’ll take a few minutes out of your novel writing to tell us.

Good luck! We’re cheering you on!
Dem Debates 2: Orange is the New Blue!
By: Background Noise Comics
Tags: Elections, Humor, Politics, Comics, Political Cartoons

Watching these debates can feel like lockup. But if you’re good and do your civic duty, we can elect a better warden for this madhouse.
Five Little Words That Can Set You Up For Failure
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Procrastination, Life Lessons, Failure, Success, Action

I sat quietly on my front porch, watching wistfully as summer came to an end, enjoying the song of L’il Red; the bright cardinal male that serenaded me all season. I love mornings on the front porch, sipping my coffee as the rest of the world slowly comes to life. This has become my favourite part of the day over the past couple of months, ever since the warm weather has graced our little town.

I smile sadly, knowing that with every passing day, we’re getting closer to the ice and snow and sleet, and now the days when I have to spend dark mornings inside are already here. Although the snow isn’t here yet, it’s still dark as night when morning comes, and much too cold to sit outside. This morning, there was frost on my windshield and the temperature was -1 Celsius. Not okay.

One of the most surprising realizations I’ve had this summer has been that I’m actually a lot more of a ‘morning person’ than I ever thought I was. I’ve gone a lifetime claiming the opposite, in fact, but lately, I’ve been finding myself purposely waking up earlier just so that I can have more time out here. Just so I can have more of the quiet ‘me time’.

I smile as I remember the slow patter of rain that fell softly that morning, adding a whispered rhythm to the quiet symphony. The sound and smell of summer rain filled me with a sense of peace as nothing else can, but that morning, it also reawakened an urgency in me. An urgency that’s recently been stirred.

Knowing what pulls at my heart — writing — and knowing that it’s what I love, and what I want — need — to be doing every day. I know that I need to push hard in this quickly passing season of my life so that I can make that my reality in the next one.

I’ve realized that when you treat something as a hobby, that’s all it’s ever going to be; just something you do to pass the time outside of your 9 to 5 paying job. But if you truly want something — crave it so bad you can practically taste it — you, and only you have the power to get yourself there. I crave this more than anything.
3 Simple Ways You Can Take 2021 By The Balls and Fulfill Your Resolutions
By: Khadejah Jones
Tags: New Year, New Years Resolutions, Resolutions, Self, Self Improvement

3 Simple Ways You Can Take 2021 By The Balls and Fulfill Your Resolutions

Leave procrastination in 2020.

Photo by Kalen Emsley on Unsplash

2020 could’ve been the best year of your life.

After years of neglecting your passion, you could’ve decided to jump in full force by practicing it every single day. That’s not all though. You also could’ve exercised like madman six days a week and lost twenty pounds. Not to mention you sucked at keeping your own mental health in check.

2021 is going to be a better year. I’m not just saying this because 2020 was a great year for me, but because 2020 was so bad for you (mostly because of the pandemic) that you want to redeem yourself. I know you’re scared you might neglect your resolutions for another year so here are three ways you can take 2021 by the balls and fulfill your resolutions.
The NonProfit Sector Must Move From Transaction to Collaboration
By: Jason Ricci
Tags: Management, Leadership, Politics, Nonprofit, Cities

I often point to an example of Fluxx’s foundation partners working in Malawi, Africa, leading an initiative to fund investments in micronutrient powders. They were focused on three official measures: Availability, Awareness, and Consumption. This story isn’t about the metrics, though; it’s about a commitment to communication. The nonprofit on the ground and their funders were committed to communicating openly and iteratively throughout the life of the grant. And they followed through on that commitment.

Rather than simply providing a report at the end of the grant’s cycle, answering to the foundation’s KPIs, they worked collaboratively throughout the life of the project.

The project started off well, and they quickly hit targets for Availability and Awareness. Yet Consumption, a critical metric, was stuck at 40%. So together they looked at the data they’d been collecting. The solution was actually incredibly obvious. The places where they were giving out packets were not close enough to the communities that needed them most. So they moved the distribution centers.

Under typical circumstances, the foundation would not have realized what was going on until the final report was submitted. In this case, however, the group used real-time data to create insight into the progress of their work midstream, and this made all of the difference — consumption numbers more than doubled.

The group was able to pivot strategy in response to what they were learning on the ground and consumption numbers more than doubled. This is for me an incredible example about how better information sharing and tighter communication allows us to capitalize on insights, right now.

This is what we need to see more of in the nonprofit world: better collaboration and greater transparency on both sides. Instead of reporting on formal requirements alone, we need to document real-world learnings iteratively. A change in how we interact with each other can disproportionately impact how effective we are are on the ground.

With a frictionless, free-flow of insights, nonprofits can share the stories and capture the moments that give us a continuous, big-picture view. This knowledge sparks curiosity, and it sparks action. It allows the everyday work — the boots on the ground — to be seen, heard, and supported.

Foundations believe in and desperately want this future too. But to get there we all have to be willing to look in the mirror, and we have to be intellectually honest with each other. None of us is as good, smart, or impactful as all of us.

(Video courtesy Classy)
Learning Wolfram: Interacting With Web Browsers
By: Arnoud Buzing
Tags: Quality Assurance, Wolfram, Programming, Webdriver, Web Testing

Learning Wolfram: Interacting With Web Browsers

Automate Your Web Testing and Browsing Workflows

When I worked in Quality Assurance, one of my jobs was to do regression testing on a number of websites. At that time there were only limited automation tools, so my solution involved the Java Robot class to issue mouse and key events. This was of course incredibly fragile.

More recently, automating web browser interactions have become much easier. The WebDriver protocol specifies a really nice set of commands and interactions to talk to a browser. The Wolfram Language (WL) uses this protocol to let you control browsers directly from a notebook session. The interactive nature of a notebook is extremely nice to incrementally develop web automation workflow. In this story, I will show you how to get started with this functionality.

To start a new web browser session, you use the StartWebSession command. Without function arguments, it will start a Chrome browser on your computer. The Firefox browser is also supported.

(image by author)

To open a web page you can use the WebExecute command. This command is the main function you use to control the web browser. You specify the session and you give it a command like “OpenWebPage”, “ClickElement”, or “JavascriptExecute”:

(image by author)

To click, for example, the search icon (the magnifying glass in the top right) you can refer to it by its XPath or CSS selector. You can find these with the developer console of the browser. A well-written web page uses unique IDs for specific elements and in this case, the ID is “_nav-search”. Executing the command brings up the search field in the browser:

(image by author)

Similarly, you can type text in an input field. For example, if I want to search for “dataset” I can specify the element and the search text. Simulating pressing enter is done by adding a “

” (newline) character at the end of the string:

(image by author)

To retrieve and check page content I typically use a small piece of javascript. For example, one way to retrieve the URLs for all the links on a page, I use the following snippet of javascript code:

(image by author)

The result is a list of WL strings which can then be used for a regression test or further navigational steps. In the same way, you can collect the URLs for all images on a web page and then directly import those images in your WL session for further inspection.

When you are done with your browser session you can use the DeleteObject command to end it. This closes down the web browser and ends the connection:

For more information on this useful functionality, check out the guide page for Web Browser Automation. To learn more about getting started with the WL, check out my recent post titled “Learning Wolfram: From Zero to Hero”. A notebook with the full code shown in the images above is available here. Simply click on that link and then download the notebook to your desktop.
Normandia’s Defence during 1942
By: Andrei Tapalaga
Tags: WIB History, History, Strategy, War, Ww2

They had to decipher 7, now we are not talking about just some AAA guns no, we are talking about full-on triple mount 300mm naval cannons that would just obliterate anything it is aimed at, however, these were very rare and had a huge flaw (because of their huge size they were an easy target for bombers.

It is very difficult for many to even think about that time of period as it was presented aa the real hell on earth. What you have portraied above is a 88mm cannon set in a strong pillbox that would requier a serious load to take out. Only the noise when firrd woult threathen the morale of the allied soldiers. This is another concept that Hitler wanted to grasp with huge size weaponary, they put fright into the allied forces and they also make the axis look more overpowerd.

Now many may ask, how good was the defence? Well from the German side it was impassible as they had most of the points secured and it was just simply a massacre for the allied troops. It would have been a better idea to bring troops from Italien and African front in order to reinforce the western defence line and not let the allied forces penetrate back into Europe. If they would manage to hold back the push of the allied troops by at least 2 more weeks this would be crucial to prepare the defence out of Normandy as well as time to bring some troops from the eastern front. It was all about the focus as well as the perspective that the Germans would have in the second world war, the warforce would prove inefficient when it comes to defence against huge numbers.

At the end of the day, numbers will count for something and they have in this gruesome battle, the allied forces had over 100,000 soldiers at disposal from which they have lost almost 5,000 in D-day trying to penetrate the west front. The Germans had the guns but, the shire number of guns.

What was to become a major problem for the allies after the assault of D-day was the morale of the soldiers. Seeing the number of soldiers killed trying to take over the hills they were scared of what was waiting for them deep in Normandy. To their surprise to find less resistance as expected as most of the German troops were holding the line in the eastern front. What is important to note is that the German troops were really outnumbered but never unmatched.
Golden Funk
By: Mimi Bordeaux
Tags: Poetry, Death And Dying, Grief

Golden funk you’re with me again long lost love stranger and friend. A gift is you, my presence inside, wrap me up for me to hide. I love you a little sometimes more the opening of sealed locked doors.

The sky is black as my infernal brain grips the retinas in bleeding pain. Push me down force my fervour, onto a bed in boots and armour.

I cannot see I cannot speak Golden Funk, the abyss tis death
Charles Liu Officially Became a Standing Director of China Blockchain Application Research Center
By: Khun Sir
Tags: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Vite

Recently, Charles (Chunming) Liu officially joined the China Blockchain Application Research Center as a standing director.

The China Blockchain Application Research Center was established in 2015. It is China’s first national blockchain industry alliance. The center is guided by the People’s Bank of China, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, a number of local financial bureaus, Internet finance associations and Internet finance museums. The sub-centers are located in Beijing, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Dubai, Silicon Valley, and New York. Since its establishment, the center has launched a number of blockchain related activities including translation campaign for “BlockChain”, large-scale public lectures, fin-tech and blockchain exhibition, and has been highly valued by the leaders of many local governments.

The consultative committee of China Blockchain Application Research Center

Liu Chunming is a seasoned Internet technology expert. He was an early blockchain entrepreneur. He graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was a senior architect of JD.com and a technical director of the Meituan. He founded Coinport and Vite Labs.

Charles (Chunming) Liu, the founder and CEO of Vite Labs

Liu Chunming said that he will join the China Blockchain Application Research Center as an opportunity to actively focus on the acceleration of China blockchain technology in real applications, and promote technology exchange and sharing for public welfare. He will contribute to the development of China’s blockchain industry.

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