fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Monthly dose of Bitbns Digest from July
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Bns, Bitbns

Hello Users,

How do you feel about crypto markets going hot around these days? We’re excited about all the action and we think the time was perfect to launch BNS, which we did just a couple of days back. Not just that, two of the BNS utilities have already been enabled under #100DaysOfBNS. So that and more happened in the month of July and here’s everything about it, fit to a digest:

BNS IEO Concluded

Guess what? BNS IEO on KuCoin Spotlight sold it out in 15 seconds. Trading for BNS has been kicked off and the 1st BNS pre-sale buyers have already booked around 5x returns. We’re glad that the first two of the many utilities of BNS have already been introduced: Trading Fee Discounts and FIPs with additional interest, both exclusively for BNS hodlers. Good news is that traders have already booked more profit with USDT BTC FIP compared to non BNS hodlers.

One more; the BNS FIP with even more benefits is coming soon. BNS non-hodlers can either go purchase BNS and enjoy the exclusive FIP benefits or simply go for FIPs with comparably lesser interest.

Don’t have BNS? Buy here: bit.ly/Buybns

BNS Unlock Schedule

We have carefully chalked out the unlock schedule to take you through the BNS utilities experience. Check out the token release schedule for BNS token in the tweet below.

Release schedule tweet: https://twitter.com/bitbns/status/1289083697287671809?s=19

Bitbns in Vietnam

Recently, we started a Bitbns Telegram channel for Vietnam. And it makes sense because we’ll be there soon. Stay tuned for more.

See tweet, click: https://twitter.com/bitbns/status/1287051198235779073?s=19

BNS on CoinGecko

Know where else you can check anything BNS? CoinGecko. Yes, an in-depth page for BNS token was added by CoinGecko last month and we’re happy that BNS is going places.

We tweeted: https://twitter.com/bitbns/status/1289217963153739776?s=19

SYLO listed

The vision of decentralised communication embedded in SYLO had our attention, so we vetted and listed it last month.

See tweet here: https://twitter.com/bitbns/status/1286636020956446725?s=19

Past 20k Followers

First things first; thank you for believing in our vision and joining our cause. With your support, the journey to help crypto adoption gets easier. Keep rocking guys.

Warm Regards

Bitbns Team
What Dreams May Come
By: Jois G.
Tags: Life, Memories, Dreams, Heart, Love

What Dreams May Come

And what if they’re all we have?

Photo by Korney Violin on Unsplash

Unspoken words. Unexpressed apologies. Explanations, regrets, confessions, professions, accountability… so much of what needs to be said that remains conversations in our heads. What actually happens if and when that right moment comes along — when the right song is playing, when dispositions are suitably matched, when there is perfect alignment between our inner world and the one we express outwardly — is it only then that truth can be spoken between two people?

There is a lot of focus on “authenticity” these past years. I don’t get it. Isn’t that simply the original state of our being, before we learnt to wear layers and layers of armour? Pretences, masks, armour, shields, however we term these layers, they remain simply our only weapons for self-protection, maybe. Goodbye, authenticity.

And with that goodbye, it seems we bid farewell also to being able to utter heartfelt truths, exchange sincere sentiments, share deep-rooted vulnerabilities.

But every so often, the perfect opportunity does present itself — one can only hope that we can still recognise those for what they are.

Last night, I did.

I had found myself seated beside an old, old friend of mine — quite by chance and a strange twist of fate — and I finally got to say what I had yearned to say for so long.

A thousand apologies for having caused pain. A confession that I did my best with all that I had. Surprisingly, my friend remained seated, patient, kind, and gentle. Understanding dawned on him and in that manifested forgiveness and reconciliation.

Then, my alarm rang. And I woke up.

Brushed off the night.

Shook off the mix of relief and regret.

Breathed.

The right moment had presented itself, and I had seized it.

Perhaps someday soon, that episode could be re-enacted. If so, I hope to be able to be largely present, ready, conscious of the opportunity and just as aware of it as a meeting of time, space and hearts, to seize it when the day arrives.

We all should, really.

And if it should only happen in dreams — for what is life if not a series of one dream linking up to another — may we be able to speak truth too. A space for confessions of the heart is good enough space. Embrace it, facilitate it, dream it, if we must.
Weekly innovation roundup! #2
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Innovation, Technology

Weekly innovation roundup! #2

AI racial profiling, digital assistant wars, 50 shades of emotion ai and more…

By Francisco Jordão, Technical Lead at AnalogFolk

Welcome to the AnalogFolk weekly innovation roundup, where our technical lead Francisco Jordão summarises the innovations of the week; from the weird to the wonderful, and everything in-between.

Samsung has released an official statement addressing reports of display issues with the upcoming Galaxy Fold. There are two parts to the story. First, it noted that it intends to “thoroughly inspect [the review] units in person,” referring to the devices that seemed to have had screens break without a direct, obvious cause. Our review unit developed a bulge that appeared to be the result of something in between the screen and the hinge, ultimately breaking the screen.

Read more…

In a major ethical leap for the tech world, Chinese start-ups have built algorithms that the government uses to track members of a largely Muslim minority group.

Read more…

The shades of emotion in human voice are being decoded and mapped in a way that has never been done before, and it’s providing the foundation for the next generation of emotionally intelligent AI.

Read more…

Facebook is reportedly getting into the A.I. game by developing a voice-enabled digital assistant to compete with products like Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon’s Alexa. If the report is true, Facebook could incorporate the voice assistant into its Portal and Portal+ smart displays.

Read more…

Read more…
Fumée d’Ambre Gris. John Singer Sargent’s Alchemy of Color
By: Mac Daniels
Tags: History, Ambergris, Art, Sperm Whale, John Singer Sargent

What an enchanting image. What’s going on here? Some provenance: J. S. Sargent was 24 years old when he traveled to Africa. He finished this one in Paris from memories and sketches he’d made while in Morocco.

Sargent’s friend and fellow émigré, Henry James, said of it, “[She] stands on a rug, under a great white Moorish arch, and from out of the shadows of the large drapery, raised pentwise by her hands, which covers her head, looks down, with painted eyes and brows showing above a bandaged mouth, at the fumes of a beautiful censer or chafing-dish placed on the carpet. I know not who this stately Mohammedan may be, nor in what mysterious domestic or religious rite she may be engaged; but in her muffled contemplation and her pearl-colored robes, under her plastered arcade, which shines in the Eastern light, she is beautiful and memorable. The picture is exquisite, a radiant effect of white upon white, of similar but discriminated tones.”

It is generally believed that this is a stylized version of the actual rituals Sargent witnessed, a composite of impressions, “The Orient” as seen through western eyes — for Western tastes. “On June 9, 1880, a French critic referred to Sargent’s Smoke of Ambergris as, ‘quite simply, a perfect piece of painting.’”

The subject of Fumée d’Ambre Gris is a Moroccan woman performing a Moorish ceremony with the help of ambergris, a rare substance produced by sperm whales.
Huawei Reportedly Tested a ‘Uighur Alarm’ to Track Chinese Ethnic Minorities With Facial Recognition
By: Dave Gershgorn
Tags: Surveillance, Artificial Intelligence, Technology

Huawei Reportedly Tested a ‘Uighur Alarm’ to Track Chinese Ethnic Minorities With Facial Recognition

The system also identifies information such as age and sex

Photo: Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

Chinese tech giants Huawei and Megvii have allegedly tested software that could identify Uighurs, an ethnic minority in China, according to a new report from the Washington Post and video surveillance trade publication IPVM.

The system being tested tried to identify whether a person was Uighur but also information such as their age and sex. If the system detected a Uighur person, it could notify government authorities with a “Uighur alarm.” The system relies on Huawei’s cameras, cloud computing servers, and other hardware plus Megvii’s facial-recognition algorithms.

Uighurs have faced increasing surveillance and incarceration in China, from the mass collection of DNA to allegedly being forced into more than 250 detention centers.

Huawei and Megvii’s technology is not new. Last year IPVM identified more than a dozen state-run projects that use A.I. to try and detect Uighurs. Some of this research has even been done publicly, like a 2018 paper mentioned by the Post that specifically tried to differentiate Uighur face characteristics from people of Korean and Tibetan descent.

However, the companies that typically supply this technology specialize in security cameras and surveillance tech, like Dahua and Hikvision, instead of mainstream tech companies. Dahua, Hikvision, and Megvii have all been sanctioned by the U.S. government for supplying this technology.

Read the story from the Washington Post for more information. I also suggest following BuzzFeed News reporter Megha Rajagopalan. She’s covered the topic extensively from within China, and you can even read about her work in an interview on OneZero.
Avo, Stadia, Arcade, and the New Grammar of Television (and Games) — Part 2: The Golden Age of Television Platforms
By: Dan Hill
Tags: Apple, Television, Google, Netflix, Videogames

Stadia is Google’s attempt to Maginot Line the entire console industry, an end run around Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, obviating consoles altogether by using Google’s vast distributed compute infrastructure, as a kind of offset chip-set.

As technically impressive as that is, more interesting is the ability to merge videogames and video, even if it is in the spirit of Prime’s X-Ray (around) more than Avo (within) at least initially. There are several key features Stadia will be running here, such as the ability to talk directly to AI and Search via the Assistant button on Google’s bespoke controller, or to segue directly from watching a YouTube trailer for a game to playing a game at that point, via a single click. Or the ability to broadcast the game back to YouTube, or to share a particular point within a game with others.

This is true format innovation by Google, well beyond anything we saw in Apple’s Arcade announcement thus far. Apple, playing it safe as usual, and essentially a hardware company that, deep down, struggles with software, is focusing instead on the content play, looking to fund and develop new games — as they will also do with TV, catching up with Netflix, Prime and YouTube — and simply provide a smooth platform for consumption. It will work, no doubt, but it is less interesting than Google, a company that has the dynamics of the internet in its DNA.

By contrast, Stadia suggests all kinds of invention ahead of us. It is Google attempting to build a Netflix of videogames by using the internet as delivery mechanism, but also creating a new narrative form based on true internet capabilities. In particular, that deep-linking, and so sharing, from games, from moments in games, to people playing games is a fully-realised articulation of the internet’s promise for media, (again, with echoes, for me at least, of the BBC’s “social life of a broadcast”, yet playing out fully in the middle of games, in real-time.)

This blurring of forms reveals a McLuhan-esque dance from one medium to another, before a hybrid emerges. Yet as The Verge notes, from Google’s p-o-v, this could really be about “the future of YouTube, not gaming”.

“Gaming is a conduit or a vehicle, drawing you to YouTube as the important destination” [The Verge]

So back to the avocado, and more directly to the future of gaming experience itself, perhaps, outside of the platform-plays now transforming both TV and games.
Node.js 101 — 單執行緒、非同步、非阻塞 I/O 與事件迴圈
Tags: Nodejs, Event Loop, JavaScript, 程式學習

Understanding the Node.js Event Loop | @RisingStack

This article helps you to understand how the Node.js event loop works, and how you can leverage it to build fast…
Crypto: Time to Mourn or Time to Celebrate?
Tags: Insights, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Iconomi, Digital Portfolio

Over the past four months, discussion about the end of cryptocurrencies trended significantly. For the layman, it was the end; for the knowledgeable, however, it was only another challenging day on the investment battlefield.

I am not sure what the exact phraseology was when the barter (swap) economy was replaced by gold and silver coins, nor when these prepared the context for banknotes. But I am very sure that in that dispute, evolution eventually won, and this will be the case in our time as well.

Having warmed up with this historical (per se) introduction and established that crypto is here to stay, we ask the following:

“So many cryptocurrencies, so many options. I am not an expert, but I want to invest. Where’s my banker, my financial advisor, in crypto?” The answer is quite simple: BMC and ICONOMI.

BMC has been quite successful over the past months despite the significant nervousness in the market. This is for two reasons, one technical and one sentimental.

BMC essentially invests in protocols like WAVES and Ethereum. It is quite strong and solid, as it’s one of the ICONOMI Digital Portfolios that is hedged with TUSD (the other is GMC, also managed by us). That is to say, it has moderate risk and high performance objectives. In other (less sexy) words, it’s structured so that a thin balance is maintained between safety in market lows and good returns in market highs.

This is where the sentiment comes from to seal the deal. Would you buy a newly built house from an architect who did not build his own? Would you buy your fresh fish from a fishmonger who buys fish for his consumption from the supermarket? The hairdresser is the only one you can excuse having his haircut done by a competitor, as I can accept that self-hairdressing in the mirror is quite challenging.

Similarly, the manager of BMC (that is, me, myself, and I) owns a good amount of the Digital Portfolio, which means we have skin in the game. One can see BMC as a crypto retail store; the owner cares about what he owns, which — surprise, surprise — is what you (a potential future investor) own as well: BMC. It is good to hold BMC together through some smooth downs and exciting ups.

Subscribe to our Medium and mailing list for more insights. Follow our official channels for more updates and news:

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Treat Your Development Environments (almost) Like Production
By: Edoardo Nosotti
Tags: Security, Software Development, Cloud, Cybersecurity, Business

Development environments hold precious assets

Yes, you don’t have real users or customers on dev, so who cares if it breaks from time to time? Well, any malicious competitor or hacker might very well care about the code and the configurations you put into your development environment. Information about your software products and services (especially the upcoming ones) might be worth a lot on the corporate espionage market, or be used to learn how to target your production systems. Ensure your development environments are secured, too. Don’t leave “soft targets” around.

You should be part of the design process

One thing I love about modern cloud platforms is the quick prototyping opportunities they offer. It’s really helpful in the design process. Keeping up with change requests from your developers while they try new things and test them might be highly demanding at times, but it also gives you the chance to promptly address any concern you might have about the security design or operating costs of the whole solution. Stepping early into the design and development process and becoming an active part of it might save everybody’s time and a few headaches later on.

Mind the data stored in the development (and test) environments

The data used for application development and testing purpose should always be fake data, randomly generated for the purpose, but that is not always the case. Especially when people need to test systems under their most realistic working conditions, they might copy data from production environments to the test environments. Such data MUST, of course, get anonymized in the process, but a significant number of data leaks occurred and even big companies that are supposed to enforce strict security practices were involved. Also, people might inadvertently post confidential company files to a development system to test its functionality. So taking good care of the development and test environments can act as a “failsafe” to prevent such incidents.
Snow Day, Central Park
By: Remington Write
Tags: Cities, Street Photography, Central Park, New York, Snow

I’ve lived next to the park for coming up on 19 years in the spring. The Google tells me that there are 58 miles of (what they call) hiking trails in Central Park. While there are some fairly steep bits and rocky places, let’s be real Cupcake, it’s New York City. We don’t hike here. Not even in the Ramble or the North Woods. K? I mean, come on, crews were out shoveling all the paths and steps before the snow stopped falling.

All this is to say that I still haven’t covered all the coverable terrain in the park. While we were slogging across an expanse of unbroken snow, AleXander suggested we make a project out of covering every bit of trail in the park. It’s a laudable goal but would take away some of the magic of the park.

A great pleasure in Central Park is to take a turn by a tree I’ve passed a thousand times and find myself in a part of the park I don’t recognize. It happens more often than you’d think possible. 840 acres is only big if you have to mow it.

We’d been in the park for about an hour when the snow stopped and in a blink, the sky went mild and blue with a couple of fluffy clouds. The sun broke out and the world turned into a glittering wonderland. Every hill was a sledding hill. We passed a Dad and his toddler who had wiped out on one of the smaller hills. As he was struggling to get upright with the help of Mom, we heard him say of their snow-suited bundle: “She’s in full sack of potato mode.”
Your Guide to Regular Expressions in Python and Terminal
By: Zack Petersen
Tags: Regular Expressions, Regex, Programming, Terminal, Python

Breaking Down the Expression

Let’s revisit that expression from the beginning:

^\(?[0-9]{3}\)?[\-\s]?[0-9]{3}[\-\s]?[0-9]{4}$

To make this easier to read, let’s break it into smaller chunks and reverse-engineer it to show how it actually matches a phone number. Use the symbols labeled above as a guide. You can also check out RegExr and follow along to see matches as they are created.

^ — the caret: This is to signify the start of our string. Easy peasy.

\(? — optional open parenthesis: We are first escaping \ it so it will read as a literal character ( . Then we’ll add a ? to look for it either zero or one time, making it optional.

[0–9]{3} — looks for any three consecutive numbers, aka an area code (305, 801, 702).

\)? — optional closing parenthesis

At this point, the expression will match either 123 or (123).

[\-\s]? — optional whitespace or dash: \s is the expression for space or whitespace, inside the brackets with a \- (escaped dash), followed by a ? , so it will look for it zero or one time.

[0-9]{3} — looks for any three consecutive numbers

[\-\s]? — optional dash or whitespace.

[0-9]{4} — final expression before the ending tag, looks for any four consecutive numbers.

$ — end of the string.

In this case, both the ^ and the $ could be omitted and are not required for this specific expression. I left them in because they are useful to know and work either way for this scenario. If the phone number was in the middle of other text, you would want to leave them both out.

It’s not so bad when it’s broken down, right? This expression will match any of the following phone number formats:

1234567891

123 456 7891

123 456–7891

123–456–7891

(123) 456 7891

(123) 456–7891

We can simplify if we wish to ignore certain parts of the original expression:

[0-9]{10} — probably the simplest way to check, will not match if any dashes, spaces, or parenthesis are included. Only looks for consecutive ten-digit number.

[0-9]{3}[0-9]{3}[0-9]{4} — a different way to write a consecutive ten-digit number expression (this is essentially identical to the expression above), makes it easier to add in dashes or spaces.

[0-9]{3}[\-\s]?[0-9]{3}[\-\s]?[0-9]{4} — same as previous, with checks for dashes and spaces

Now, let’s look at one way to identify patterns and build our own regexes.
You’re Hiding from Yourself When You Could Be Making an Impact
By: Arlene Ambrose
Tags: Self, Impact, Self Discovery, Authenticity, Fear

You make an impact when you speak your truth. You make an impact when you stop hiding from yourself.

We hide from ourselves when we feel it isn’t safe to express who we are. It’s a method of protection, we can’t bare having our feelings hurt.

Women who hide from themselves have the most valuable words to say.

There’s no getting around your intricacies. Admit it, this is who you are, and you hate it. You’re so petrified of rejection, that you’ve been living a lie.

If you continue to hide you’ll always have a sense of being not enough.

Working towards self-acceptance is the only way to change. It’s acknowledging your most uncomfortable truths.

Exploring unpleasant personality traits help to determine what you want in life. These traits developed because you weren’t able to express your needs in a healthy manner or safe space. Unmet needs are the cause of immature or primal behaviour such as unrighteous anger, manipulation, and control.

When you continue to unconsciously produce these behaviours you’re operating from a survival mindset instead of a creative one. A survival mindset is reactive, a creative mindset solves problems and renders new experiences.

The unpleasant traits in your personality developed for a reason, maybe it was to preserve your innocence during other people’s toxic behaviours and abuse. The goal wasn’t to turn you into a wreck of a person but to protect you at all costs.

You haven’t normalized the fact that it’s safe, even expected to simply, feel how you feel. You will feel unhappy, depressed and have painful experiences in life. Pain is the fastest way to get your attention, it’s the vehicle of change.

Your job is to gently unwrap those traits and say, “thank you, thank you for your protection but I’m going to stand up for myself now, in healthy ways.

You start this process when you stop hiding from yourself.
Why Should You Simplify Your Writing
Tags: Writing, Motivation, Productivity, Writers On Writing

Born in a country where English is not the first language, mastering the language takes some decent amount of motivation. When it comes to a normal conversation, it doesn't seem to be a big challenge, but the scenario is completely different when it comes to writing. It is a different ball-game altogether.

I am primarily a thinker and I do so in simple words.

So, when I write down my thoughts, my language is no different. It is simple.

But as a writer, I also invest a good amount of my time in reading. And I come across various passages with complicated words and phrases; it makes me pause and sit back. I experience a certain amount of unfamiliarity. It is like a feeling one feels when left in a room full of people, whom you do not know.

I have my own doubts like, do I look like someone who lacks ‘depth’?

I find myself in dilemma as to whether to tighten my lace and run after the ‘strong language’ or continue my pace in my straightforward form.
You Conceive Something in Your Mind and Your Brain Follows
By: Tochukwu Okoro E.
Tags: Mind, Productivity, Success, Mindset, Growth

The mind-body relationship is fascinating if you understand it and can exploit it properly.

Most of my productive days are when I make up my mind to do particular things. I’d notice that I just get lost in work and keep going till I’m done with what I set to do for the day.

And it’s even more interesting when I do the opposite, that is, I say I don’t have the energy and all of those negative things, and then I won’t be able to do anything at all.

Our mind is the creative engine, and our body is the doer. Or you can say our mind is the architect, and our body is the builder.

So, whatever you conceive in your head, things will somehow work out to get you to achieve them.

Sometimes, I’ll not be in the mood at all to complete certain projects, but I’ll still make up my mind to do it, and somehow I do, and it amazes me.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Taylor Beta App development
Tags: Blockchain, Taylor App

We have recently published a demo video of our beta app making a trade on Bittrex.

This is a demo video of the a beta version under final testing and release. There are still some known bugs on user the interface.

Some information displayed on the app interface regarding transaction data not is accurate. This happens only during the display of the data on the user interface, not in our backend services.

I would like to share with you some information regarding the development of the app and our plans for its upcoming public release.

We were working hard to release the app during the token sale to help contributors better analyze our project, but it appears that we will not be able to meet this deadline. As it is usually the case with software development, unforeseeable complications have delayed our plans.

Due to the amount of time and effort necessary to develop the token sale systems and smart contracts, we had to divert some of our app developers work on the token sale.

We also encountered an unexpected issue related to rate limits on the Bittrex API we use in our systems.

Our market monitor bot is using a new, beta API (API 2.0) from Bittrex, which is not officially released and undocumented. This API has an endpoint that offers OHLC data (Open-High-Low-Close data) that is crucial for our market monitor bot to work properly. The API 2.0 has rate limits that are limiting how many markets we can monitor and with which frequency we can monitor them.

We have been working directly with Bittrex since November 2017 to get access to a special API with larger rate limits, thus resolving the issue. This new API will require some adjustment to our market monitor bot.

Due to these changes, we came to the conclusion that we will not be able to release the beta app before the end of the token sale. We adjusted the estimated release date to Q2/2018.

We are also determining the API limits of other exchanges and we will start similar deals when necessary.

We published the demo video to reassure our contributors and supporters that we already have a functional product and to let them experience how it works. We plan to update the community in a regular basis about the development of the app.

Despite these delays, we remain completely committed to the project, achieving our mission to make crypto trading accessible to everyone, and making a lasting contribution to the field. Thanks for your understanding and support.

Fabio Seixas

CEO at Taylor
Good Things Always Come in Small Packages
By: Rasheed Hooda
Tags: Self Improvement, Illumination, Top 3, Writing, Community

It has been a busy week for me. I have been posting two stories per day in April, and that takes up a lot of time because I type very slow.

Also, since joining the writers’ community called #ILLUMINATION, here on Medium, I have been reading a lot to support the wonderful writers there who are doing the same for me. My income has more than tripled because of it, and I am thrilled. Take a look at it and join if it suits you.

Okay, without further ado, here are the three gems this week.

I shared one of Kyle’s stories last week. He writes about self-help that doesn’t suck, according to him. He isn’t just being cocky or funny; he backs it up.

I usually don’t share poems, but I have been reading more poetry lately, thanks to the diversity among the writers on Illumination. As a result, Medium is showing me more poems. I found this gem by Jennifer Cowie Kingin my timeline.

“Magic is the feeling that kicks in when something holds us spellbound for brief moments of time,” says Dilip Pitchika.

That is all for this week. I am going to have two or maybe three posts next week.

Rasheed Hooda writes about Personal Growth and Entrepreneurship on #ILLUMINATION

As always, thank you for reading. And here are some more stories.
How I Lost 50lbs in 6 Months Without Really Trying
By: Meaghan Ward
Tags: Life Lessons, Beauty, Self, Weight Loss, Body Image

How I Lost 50lbs in 6 Months Without Really Trying

Something in my life changed, and it changed the way I eat.

Photo by Huha Inc. on Unsplash

I convinced myself that the reason I got so fat could be blamed primarily on all the english muffins with peanut butter that I ate every day after I had my daughter.

Instead of losing baby weight, I was packing more weight on with peanut butter on carbs and certainly not giving a thought to going to the gym.

Over the years I tried Weight Watchers twice, and each time I followed the plan meticulously, counting my points and weighing my meats and doing all the things that make eating food essentially unenjoyable, and each time I would lose around 30 or 40 pounds…

But then, I would stop following the plan, because the plan just fucking sucks, and I would gain all the weight back AND MORE.

It was a vicious cycle that always left me weighing more than when I started out, so eventually I just gave up dieting.

I guess I’ll always be kind of fat, I thought.

But then I got fatter…and fatter…and fatter.

Every January, I make it one of my New Years Resolutions to lose 50 pounds — which is just a fraction of what I actually need to lose to get to my “goal weight” — and every year I have failed.

Until this year…
Truth be told
By: Illia Kondratov
Tags: War, Short Story, Short Fiction, Space, Science Fiction

Image by edavid0817

Historians say many thousands of years ago a word spoken and a soul were the same for people. The word — the breathe — the soul. So people believed in what one have said always.

Funny.

Ardam FTL ship was about to come in three days. Three long days. It’s nothing compared to three hundred years of waiting.

Vrdishek said about it. Calm as always, came by: “Ship’s tuesdayning”. Like a pebble polished with a water. The one who knows the price paid for his every word spoken.

Hope he didn’t catch my shiver. Found me surprised, that’s all. Hope so. He’s too specialized on texture analysis after all. Tactificius on his fingertips. Oculas on his cheekbones. Able to see and feel a micrometer scratch on a surface. He’s a good specialist but not in human reactions.

He has left. I was on my own with the feel everything is too good to be true.
Union — the Shivalingam. Poetry
By: Nupoor Raj
Tags: Partners, Sexuality, Poetry, Unions, Youth

Union — the Shivalingam

Poetry

The sweet somethingness,

that faint familiarity

from the days of youth,

but with a tinge of a strange fragrance.

what’s it about?

this anxiety

for the unknown days yet to be uncovered?

my dream now startled

my breath eager

intense emotions blossoming in my heart

little aches in heart

seeking for a completion

A reunion with soulmate,

A Shiva-linga.
What Is “Home” When Your Life Has Been Messy?
By: Adam Hillis
Tags: Life Lessons, Writing Prompts, Relationships, Life, Family

What is “home”?

Can it be a place when I lived in so many? Can it be people when my family is relationally broken and physically scattered?

How do I define it when it’s messy, painful, comforting, and loving all at the same time?

Home is not a place and it’s not people. Here’s why.

Home Is Not a Place

My parents divorced when I was 11 years old. From that time, until I married my wife 13 years later, I lived in 9 cities and 16 homes. Various combinations of those cities and homes meant I moved 19 times; equivalent to almost one and a half moves every year.

I lived at a campground in an 18-foot trailer, in an apartment, multiple houses, and at my friend’s parent’s house. I lived with my mom, my dad, a step-mom, a step-dad, different siblings at different times, various roommates, and more.

My wife, on the other hand, lived in one home until she was 11, then another until she was 23, then we got married. Her stability was equal in the opposite of my instability.

After 6 months in an apartment, we rented a house and lived there for nearly 11 years.

Though we didn’t own it, that place felt like home.

The memories of virtually our entire marriage were attached to that place. All the fights, the holidays, creating three children, going into labor, first steps, first words, friends over for dinner, dreaming of the future, and more.

The owner sold the home, our home, and we had to move. Leaving that place resulted in moving twice in two weeks, but we found a place to call “home” for the next 15 months.

That landlord was hell, and the year was rough, but we survived and made it to the summer.

Which leads to now.

Last June we felt the pull to do something new. We decided to move 275 miles away to southern Oregon to be closer to family. With a new job and a little bit of money in the bank, we’re now on the hunt for a new home.

Wherever we land it will be the 25th place I will call “home” in my lifetime. That’s way too many for home to be considered a place.
Daring to be Silent Together
By: Jason B. Hobbs Lcsw
Tags: Christianity, Spirituality, Watchmen, Covid 19, Religion

We do not know each other yet; we have not dared to be silent together. Keep open the door of thy heart. It matters not how many doors are closed against thee.

from Howard Thurman’s The Inward Journey

Our circle now meets underneath a large old tree behind the church, next to a labyrinth formed of large stones. For group spiritual direction, we had been meeting in the church library, with air conditioning, a couch, and cushy chairs. Our chairs are now foldable, camp-style, toted from our vehicles to the space where we sit together, in intimacy, but “socially distant”.

Most of us arrive with masks made of fabric; but as is our human nature, we all wear masks of some sort.

A bell is rung. Silence is shared, a quiet that is in ourselves while the wind blows around us.

Then one of us begins to share with the others, uninterrupted words spoken into the silence. The mask is removed as the speaker shares their journey. We observe more silence, then offer our collective spirits, opening to what we have heard and responding to what we hear God saying to us and to the one who has opened themselves to this circle.

A bell is rung and this one is held in the silence before we gently move to the next one who wishes to open their heart and journey to us.
The new song
By: Priyanka Srivastava
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Poetry, Nature, Poem, Writing

The new song

a poem

Photo by Alina Kovalchuk on Unsplash

the evening slipped quietly

left me a poem

tucked under the stars,

for now I let it be lost

tomorrow it will come back

like a new song.
Jewel House
By: Shabazz Publication
Tags: Urban Wear, Fashion, Fashion Designer

The name Jewel House comes from my house of Jewels which is my family. My kids, My Mother, My Brother these are the jewels in my life. Jewel House represents the lifestyle I’m about, family and being clean. The brand is all about quality and style. Jewel house is what you wear when you want everyone to see you at your cleanest. It’s the fit for the major event.

Boosie BadAzz

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Comfortably Numb
By: Ilexa Yardley
Tags: Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Social Media, Virtual Reality, Deep Learning

Addiction to observation…

Photo by Tomasz Zagórski on Unsplash

We don’t have to do much to survive. This is because there is a mandatory circle between an observer and and observation. Turning the observation (all observation) into a circle.

Observer and Observation

This means there is a circle between mind and reality (the reality we create with our mind).

Mind and Reality

This explains the addiction to a smart phone (a ‘cell’ phone).

Conservation of the Circle

Which is why we are all ‘comfortably numb.’ Meaning, it’s irrelevant what we observe. Or, what we ‘think’ about our observation(s). Pi controls the observer and the observation.

Pi (Diameter, Circumference) (Observer, Observation)

And that’s all there is to technology (the circular relationship between technology and biology) (zero and one) (circumference and diameter).

Conservation of the circle is the core, and, therefore, the only, dynamic in Nature.
How Swift API Availability Works Internally
By: Bruno Rocha
Tags: iOS, Xcode, Swift, Programming, Mobile

Type Refinement Contexts for AST Nodes

Naturally, checking if a symbol you’re calling is available for usage falls into that phase. The compiler does it by building Type Refinement Contexts, which are special structures that can hold any relevant additional information that a scope should have. Currently, this is only used for the very symbol availability we’re interested in.

The process starts when the compiler wants to type-check a statement that contains an availability check. Let’s take this one as an example:

if #available(iOS 14.0, *) { } else { }

At this phase, the purpose of the compiler is to search for any availability conditions and build a proper refinement context if needed. For every condition, the compiler will extract the currently-being-built platform from the condition and attempt to build a range of available version numbers. In this case, the range will simply be minimumTarget...iOS 14 , while the else branch will keep whatever its parent refinement context was unless your condition is checking for something lower than the current context (which would reduce it instead).

The main refinement context allows you to freely use anything up to your app's minimum deployment target, which is why you don't need to bother with these checks when you have a sufficiently high deployment target.

if #available(iOS 14.0, *) {

// Symbol Availability: minimumTarget...iOS 14

} else {

// Symbol Availability: 0...minimumTarget (The default)

}

The fact that it works with ranges makes it possible for it to locate potentially useless checks. If a condition’s range is completely contained by the current context, the compiler will ignore it and display a warning:

When the refinement contexts for each scope are determined, the compiler will associate it with the current statement’s AST node and use it for any future availability checks. The refinement contexts are built like trees (where a context has a pointer to its parent), but they are used as a stack. As the compiler traverses your code, these refinement contexts will get pushed and popped as needed:

While the outer else scope will make no changes to availability, the inner else scope will keep the increased iOS 9 availability, as that was the current refinement context at the time. Here’s a visual example of how this works in practice:

Everything shown here also applies to guard statements, except in that case, the positive availability changes are applied to what's left of the current scope.

guard #available(iOS 14, *) else {

// Symbol Availability: 0...minimumTarget (The default)

return

}

// Symbol Availability: minimumTarget...iOS 14

This process involving refinement contexts is precisely why you can’t use availability conditions outside of statements like this:
KYC announcement
By: Live Stars
Tags: Ethereum, ICO, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain

Dear participants, according to Live Stars AML (Anti-Money Laundering) policy, our token holders have to pass the KYC procedure.

Users are asked to provide their identity documents and contact details.

Who has to pass the KYC?

Bounty program participants.

Token sale contributors of amounts equivalent 10,000 USD or more at the moment of transaction.

How to pass it?

For contributors:

KYC is passed through Live Stars contribution panel. You should login on livestars.io, then click on “START KYC” button to start the KYC process. You will have to provide your contact details and upload a scanned copy of an identity document and a utility bill.

For bounty participants:

KYC is passed through Live Stars contribution panel. You should login on livestars.io. Please specify the SAME ethereum address you specified in the bounty spreadsheet. Then click on “START KYC” button to start the KYC process. You will have to provide your contact details and upload a scanned copy of an identity document and a utility bill. If you do not see the “START KYC” button, check if you specified SAME ethereum address in the livestars.io panel settings.

Is it secure?

Yes, KYC is done by a trusted provider, Sum&Substance. You may also check our privacy policy: https://livestars.io/privacy_policy.pdf

How long will it last?

KYC process will be available for passing for 30 days, until 23rd of March.

Requirements for documents:

All sides of the document should be seen in the photo.

The document should take over 50% or more of the frame.

The picture should be clear, without blur and glare.

Use good light with no shapes.

Photo size must have more or 1MP, the size of scanned copies — more or 150 dpi.

Both color and black-and-white documents are accepted

Do not open an image with any graphics editors, because it may be considered as a fraudulent act.

DOCUMENTS

I. Proof of Identity

International Passport,

Driver license,

ID card.

II. Proof of address

It can be: Utility Bill, Bank statement, Tax invoices, Other government issued residential statements/certificates.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us via our Telegram chat https://t.me/livestarsio.
Simple and Effective Web Components
By: George Gabriel Luță
Tags: JavaScript, Front End Development, Web Components, Programming, Web Development

1. Introduction

We are going to explore a curious use-case for this technology and then we will end up with a short hands-on coding session where we are going to brew our very first web component, using nothing but vanilla web standards. Because that’s what web components are. They represent a specification for creating encapsulated reusable components.

But then you might ask “How is this different from the other JS frameworks?”. You are not wrong since that is usually the aim of all the other frameworks out there.

You probably know already how many JS frameworks get born and die each day, almost as if the frontend stage is infinitely expanding, like the universe. Just as an interesting fact, there is even a cool geeky website that you can follow up to check anytime how many days have passed since the birth of the last JS framework.

And that’s not necessarily a bad idea, right? We all love frameworks and the abstractions that they let us use in order to lay the bricks of any modern website. But sometimes, adding an entire framework to encapsulate a single component might be just a bit too much.

2. Technology

For this specific purpose, the web component standard has come to fruition which is based on some simple but effective concepts that we are going to explore in our quest for the web component know-how. Let’s get into it.

Photo by Halacious on Unsplash

Custom Elements

Simply put, these are full-blown HTML elements that include the whole package: custom tags, behavior as well as the template structure. They represent a standard that is defined in the HTML specification right here.

Shadow DOM

You can think of this as a sandbox (almost like an iframe if you may) inside the main DOM where you have the liberty of controlling any structure, behavior, or style, as it is completely detached from the main page. This provides very nice segregation and modularization. As a feature itself, this is also defined in the standard DOM specification which you can inspect here.

HTML Templates

These are the user-defined templates that are implemented through the usage of the <template> and <slot> elements. They contribute to the genericity and extensibility of the component since they can be reused as the basis of a custom element’s structure. And the cool part? They’re not even rendered until they are called upon.
什麼是 ICO ？— 來聽聽工程師怎麼說
Tags: Smart Contacts, Ethereum, Neo, Blockchain Technology, Blockchain

Useful Link

Blockchain Link List

Blockchain Posts List

About me

I am a full-stack javascript developer and one of the contributors for NEO blockchain project.

Build Decentralized Application with Javascript on the top of NEO?

NEO blockchain, programming tutorials, Javascript

If you consider yourself a talent?

Cobinhood Careers

歡迎加入我們的中文官方 Telegram、官方社區
Staff Spotlight: Lauren Forbes
Tags: Work Culture, Ad Agency, Employee Engagement, Agencylife, Company Culture

Lauren Forbes is KATANA’s staff accountant, ensuring that our finances run smoothly and our financial relationships are transparent. She works alongside our CFO to identify areas of improvement, investment, and growth, and has a keen eye for detail — which is why she was our Q2 World-Class champion! A Bay Area native, she came down to San Diego to be an Aztec for Life and get her B.S. in Marketing at SDSU. Since then, she has received her AA in Accounting and is currently working towards becoming a CPA. Get to know Lauren!

1. What’s your position and role at Katana?

I am the Staff Accountant here at Katana.

2. Pick your next vacation, where would you go?

Imagining this was an all expenses paid for vacation, I would take my fiance on a mini European tour. We would start out in Italy to visit Venice, Florence, and Rome. From there we would hop on over to France to visit Champagne and Paris. We would finish in Spain to see Barcelona and Madrid. I think it would be fun!

3. One thing you couldn’t live without?

I really had to think about this one because there are so many things that make life enjoyable (glitter, puppies, Disney, Real Housewives), but I have to go with a sense of humor. Having a sense of humor makes life easier, despite the obstacles that constantly come up in life. Plus who doesn’t like to laugh?

4. How do you define success?

I define success as figuring out what makes you happy and then spending your life doing that. It is simple, but not easy!

5. What’s the last book you read?

I just finished rereading a book by my favorite author Plum Sykes called “Party Girls Die in Pearls”, but I am currently reading “Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion” by Gary Vaynerchuk. So far, it is very enlightening, and I highly recommend it.

6. What has been the most important innovation you have witnessed in your lifetime?

Everyone says internet and cell phones, so for the sake of being somewhat original, I would have to say IoT applications. I find it amazing that we live in a world with smartwatches, smart TVs, smart appliances, smart cars, smart homes, and smartphones. As a society, we have developed a dependence on convenience and connectivity, and I genuinely believe that we haven’t even scratched the surface with the integration of these IoT applications in our everyday lives.

7. If you had to go up against KATANA President and former Rockstar, JJ Bannasch, in the World Lip Sync Battle Championship, what song would you sing?

Without a doubt, I would perform a showstopper by the legendary Miss Britney Spears. Probably Toxic or Circus… total classics!