fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Moise Kean finding his form in Paris
By: Samuel Minton
Tags: France, Soccer, Psg

After struggling at Everton, Moise Kean has been a key part of PSG’s lethal attack. The kings of Ligue 1 should try and make his move to Paris a permanent one.

Prior to the start of the 2020–21 Ligue 1 season, Paris St Germain saw some crucial players leave the organization. At least one move that they have made to fill the holes left in their absence has been a success.

PSG saw their captain Thiago Silva, along with Edinson Cavani and Thomas Meunier leave the club. Replacing these players is no easy task.

Along with bringing in talents like Brazilian midfielder Rafinha, Italian right back Alessandro Florenzi, and Portuguese midfielder Danilo, PSG also brought in Moise Kean on loan but according to France Football, there is an option to buy.

So far, Kean has done everything he can to prove to Thomas Tuchel that he should stay. In 11 appearances for PSG, Kean has 6 goals and an assist. We haven’t seen numbers like this from the young Italian since his spell with Juventus.

Kean has been a crucial part of the attack with Paris having to deal with numerous injuries. Players such as Neymar, Mbappe, and Mauro Icardi were forced to miss time. Icardi was just able to get back.

Now with Mbappe and Icardi controlling things up top, Kean isn’t in line to start a lot of games, but having him available to come off the bench as well as start when these guys need to rest.

The option to buy price tag is reportedly set around 20 million Euros. For a player of Kean’s caliber, that’s rather inexpensive.

At the age of 20, Kean hasn’t even entered the prime of his career. He still has plenty of soccer left to play.

So if Kean maintains his form, don’t be surprised if he ends up wearing the rouge et bleu for a while.
As A French American Woman, I Enjoyed Emily in Paris
Tags: Women, Emily In Paris, France, LGBTQ, Entertainment

The French Disdain Was Heartwarming

Emily, with her doe eyes hovering over a permanent smile, is the butt of the joke to all the Parisians she meets. While her co-worker's behavior is exaggerated, there is a pinch of truth to every joke. France and America are distinct western countries with stark cultural clashes. What French people value often counters what Americans value, and vice versa. I thought Emily in Paris honed in on that conundrum pretty well.

A Real-Life Example of French Disdain Towards American’s.

Meet my (American) friend Charlotte. Who, while living in Paris, had an unusual experience with a (French) boyfriend and a pencil.

While living in Paris, Charlotte fell in love with Guillaume. As months became a year, Charlotte adapted to Parisian culture. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, everyone recognized that she was American. She couldn’t even pass for Canadian, and finally had to ask her boyfriend why.

“You smile too much.” Guillaume promptly replied. Explaining that her American ‘tell’ was her constant smirk. The solution? Charlotte was to put a pencil in her mouth to train her face to stop smiling. Of course, this didn’t last long and was really more of a joke. Still, I find that this anecdote speaks to the American-French culture clash. Seeing Emily navigate Parisian high-society as a simple, smiling American was an endearing touch to the fantasy.

I’ve spent the last thirty years living between France and America. Being Americanized does invite a level of disdain from Parisians. We are loud and buoyant where they are subtle and restrained. Though this snowy demeanor should not be confused with brazen rudeness. In my experience, the French are no more direct than a grumpy New Yorker rushing to catch the train.
Contains a lovelier future…
By: Manan Sheel
Tags: Nature, Poet, Colors, Love, Heart

Once,

The sun and the moon,

And all the colorful nature,

were surprised on looking

at a poet’s beautiful heart,

Oh! How in that little place,

in that fist of blood,

was contained

all of the lovely nature,

and all the possibilities

of its lovelier future…

© Manan sheel.
A Surprise Morning in Yosemite
By: Hayata Takeshita
Tags: Hdr, Colors, Landscape Photography, National Parks, Yosemite

A Morning in Yosemite (Credit: Hayata Takeshita)

I am taking an online class from Serge Ramelli. He is a photo editing wizard. I decided to go to Yosemite in mid-November to work on one of his assignments. It was not necessary to go to Yosemite for the assignment, but it was as good a reason as any to go there. It is very inexpensive to go at this time of year.

The assignment was to incorporate foreground interest in a photo. Foreground interest adds depth to a composition. It also makes the viewer feel closer to the image.

I got up early to beat the sunrise and scoped out a few areas. I ended up in Cook’s Meadow around sunrise. There is a well known elm tree there.

There was some low lying fog in the Valley. But, it was pretty far away and did not seem it would fit with a composition of the elm tree.

I was looking for foreground interest for a shot of the elm tree when the sun rose above the far ridge. The sun started streaming through the trees and lit up the fog in front of the elm tree. It sent rays of light across the elm tree.

I did not have my camera with me. I rarely do when I am scoping out shot. I raced back to the car to get my camera, but I was not in time to catch the best of the light across the elm tree. But, the light started to stream in front of the bank of trees to the right of it.

This is the shot I got.
How to Change Material Design Text Field Icon Color: Android Studio
Tags: Android, Icon Design, Material Design, Color, Textfield

How to Change Material Design Text Field Icon Color: Android Studio Gabrîy'êl ·Nov 15, 2020

As you develop your app there are certain things that should be easy to do, like changing the color of an icon in your Materials Design text input field. However, some times the simplest of things may baffle us from time to time. The normal way to change the color of a vector drawable which will be in XML form is to open the XML file from the drawable folder (e.g., ic_baseline_phone_iphone_24) and changing android:tint to whatever color you want the vector to be.

For some reason I am not aware of this will not work in a Material Design text field. This is how you go about doing this:

Go to the Material Design Components (MDC) library and download the icon you want use into your project. Reference the icon in the text field as is by calling: app:startIconDrawable=”@drawable/ic_baseline_phone_iphone_24" To change the color use: app:startIconTint= and put whatever color you want.

That’s all
You Want The Flower Touch
By: Suntonu Bhadra
Tags: Poem, Colors, Beautiful, Flowers, Poetry

a splash of color, blooming around

to let the world know

I’m with you, to mingle

to spark the tone of life

as it seems, I can bloom

I can flourish

I can sing the song with bees

to roam here and there

to spread my seeds

my sparkle of a smile

to cherish

some romantic flavor

a symbol sometimes

an icon

a taste to your life

a cheerful one.

Words by Suntonu Bhadra

Other contents of the writer:
Seeing That Colorful Place
By: Jessica Milliner
Tags: Place, Colors, Vision, Visualization

In a colorful world, there’s a place that can sparkle up. Filling the room with lovely colors. Feels more than just a creative moment. Looking at it as true beauty. Imagine it with some aesthetic features. Lit the place up like a sense of joy. Viewing it on a brighter side.

The place has its fulfilling moment with that artistic twist coming in. Making it more like being seen from a photograph. A photograph can put that bit of sparkle through some colors as well as black and white. Like capturing that very unique soul.

Beyond that colorful expression a place can bring out its warmth feeling. Making it more like letting these emotions out. Nurturing that mind into that feeling through something that’s soothing. Soothing enough to make a place feel like home.
The Top 5 Most Loved Colors
By: Zac Malik
Tags: Opinion, Self, Colors, Favorites, Lists

“When in doubt, wear red”. Bill Blass (American fashion designer)

Red is surprisingly the 4th most favorite color. When I started researching about this topic, I thought that red would at least be the 2nd most favorite color, but I guess I was wrong. Only about 8.5% of people on earth prefer red.

Since red is the color of blood, it has historically been used to represent danger, risks, courage and strength. It is also a symbol of love and seduction largely because of roses.

Fun Facts
Colors of Street Photography from Reddit
By: Yung Han Jeong
Tags: Analysis, Colors, Python, Reddit, Photography

Negative Space

ColorThief selects colors from the most dominant presence first. Therefore, observing white or black as the first tone in the color palette can translate well to the negative space of the photograph.

Of course this is not a perfect analysis as this requires the photo to contain significant and uniform negative spaces. Nonetheless, it was very interesting to be able to pick out the negative space using the palette as the guide.

Computer and human don’t see eye to eye

This part of the analysis had me scratching my head for awhile. Often, the color palette will contain colors that seem to be none existence or only exist in tiny details. I realized that this is due to the different perception in image interpretation between a computer and a person. We perceive images as a whole and we are able to analyze details like color within the context of the artform. However, a computer must do this by the pixels. This is actually one of the more challenging aspects of image classification in machine learning. Take the image below for an example.

From the photograph below, could you pick out the last 3 colors (grey-green, grey, and orange) of the palette?

The grey-green and grey color are mixed in with the asphalt color, which is very hard to perceive until very closely zoomed in. The orange is part of the detectible warning pavers (bumpy pavers for visually impaired) and the fading old paint. Us humans really wouldn’t think beyond that the asphalt is black (or shades of grey) and the pavers are yellow.

Let’s take a look at another example. When you look at the photo below what color seems to be the dominant photo? I would argue that it’s red accented by warm tones like yellow and beige and perhaps even green.

The code, however, seems to say that the dominant colors are from the colors of the buildings, black, beige, and red-brown. The red is ranked second lowest in this palette.

Overall, I hope you learned something from this unconventional data analysis. I certainly had a lot of fun developing this method and got to learn a lot about parts of my interest that I did not know before. If you would like to check out the reddit PRAW api or ColorThief, please feel free to check out my github repo for reference. Last, but not least please check out the embedded links on photograph credit to see more from the photographers!
Fall Colors and Vision Poetry from Year of The Poet (Vol 10)
By: Kimberly Burnham
Tags: Colors, Vision, Poetry, Rainbow, Fall

Featured in The Year of the Poet October, 2014 Volume 10.

Fall flaming colors by Dennis Buchner on Unsplash

Flames of Fall

Before me / a flaming red tree / that last burst of life / near a full fast stream / at the bottom of a bluff / early fall cools the air / as I breathe / in the day

I am in a museum / so is it life? / still life / a real moment / snatched / preserved for all to see

The dreams of endings / of how things were / a new beginning / here on the wall / of life waiting / for us to see / what rises / from the ashes

The Year of the Poet Cover October 2014 Volume 10 The Poetry Posse of Inner Child Press Red Poppies

Seeing With Closed Eyes

Why does it gets blurry / when I move / farther away

My eyes are closed / imagining / my mother’s painting / yellow flowers burst / into the upper right corner / a red and green flowering cactus / subdued below / the functionality occupying / that lower left corner / a toothbrush / a cup on the counter

Why when I imagine myself / standing farther from the painting / do the colors blend / the edges blur / what story am I telling myself?

Taking charge of my vision / of life, of my world perspective / I look again / eyes firmly shut / conjuring up the image / life in all / its brightly colored details

I am up close / to rich details / of love

Photo by Perchek Industrie on Unsplash

A Race To Perspective

If a rainbow of colors / lined up to race / red would win / not black or white / but a rich ruby / dazzling July /

A fire engine / on its way to a conflagration

A Japanese maple / in autumn

Can you see / the colors racing / for a share of your vision / as you look out / the apartment window / or zipping by on a bicycle

You feel the wind / on your face / as you scrutinize the fields / or the view from the red brick library / around the corner

What are the colors / that win in a colorful life? / some days are red / then there are the blue days / mellow as a cool lake / on a hot summer day / nourishing the dreams / helping them flow / as life spirals / still

Rainbow colors and vision: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and purple by Yulia Gadalina on Unsplash

Originally published in The Year of The Poet at http://www.innerchildpress.com/the-year-of-the-poet.php on May 1, 2014.
New Investment, Business, and Finance App — Learn More
By: Rui Carreira
Tags: Business, Money, Finance, Apps, Mobile Apps

New Investment, Business, and Finance App — Learn More

If you’re a business geek, then chances are you sometimes roll around on the app market looking for business apps, investment apps, productivity tools, and the like.

I know this is one of my favorite hobbies and I’m really glad when I find another gem — we all know that information is key if you’re looking to succeed these days.

Well, there’s a new app on the block that sends you to all the right places, and though the navigation isn’t that great, the content in it can change lives, as it provides you some interesting tools, opportunities, and investment pointers.

Let me tell you all about it.
In The Time Of Coronavirus, God Speaks Through Apps
By: Ajay Sharma
Tags: Pandemic, Coronavirus, Faith, Mobile Apps, Religion

When coronavirus started spreading in February this year, religious congregations all over the world were became the reason of anxiety spots. Governments banned the public meetings though hesitatingly. Religious activities were soon under lockdowns. They were asked to vacate their buildings and follow social distancing norms. But this was not an easy task.

The core of the religions has been the promotion of togetherness and physical closeness. Religious leaders had to accept and comply with these norms half-heartedly. In many countries of Asia and Africa, they resisted. But increasing death toll made it clear that God was not helping those who were not complying with the mandate of medical science.

When virus compelled people to leave their worship places, they sought the support of the technology.

Google Trends shows that searches for keywords’ prayer’ and ‘God’ multiplied during the worldwide lockdowns. People turned to YouTube to cope with anxiety and uncertainty. YouTube highlighted that people searched for videos related to yoga and guided meditation most.

Online Church Research Group of Durham University (UK) released highlights in August 2020 around faith-related activities during the pandemic. It concluded that 1 in 4 people engaged in online organized worship during the summer of 2020. Half of the UK’s young people (18–34) said that during the later lockdown, they regularly engage in an online faith-related activity, including regular prayer and engagement with online worship.

A pandemic could not slow down the religious fervor. On the contrary, heads of religious institutions understood the obligation to serve their communities with all necessary content that is required in regular days. They turned to technology to maintain old members and reach out to new ones. The easiest way found was mobile applications.

A surge was noticed amongst the number of mobile applications about religions worldwide. Video conferencing app Zoom expanded its worldwide user base by 300% in just under March. Because upwards of 500 participants can attend a meeting at any one time, it became a popular choice for virtual conferences, festivals and religious sermons.

Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash

It seems God has decided to speak through these apps. Churches, temples, synagogues, mosques and monasteries are moving online and onto mobile apps. Religious communities hope that they can survive the corona wave by using android and iOS apps, social media and live streaming. They are using apps to broadcast their messages, sermons and contents of holy books.

There are anxieties too. How to manage the finances of religious activities? Suddenly donations and contributions went down. Here again, mobile applications proved beneficial. Digital transactions have increased because of these hassle-free applications.
Performance Programming in Flutter — Part 2
By: Vipin Vijayan
Tags: Mobile, Flutter, Mobile Apps, Mobile App Development, Flutter App Development

Working With Low-Level Isolate APIs in Flutter

In my previous article I had explained about how to use Isolates at a high level. Using high-level APIs has some disadvantages though.

By using Low-level APIs over the High-level compute function you can get more control over the isolates. You can pause, resume and stop the Isolates at any point of time which is not possible with ‘compute’ function.

Let’s see how we can do those.

Watch Video

Flutter Isolates

Here I am creating a custom class to sent data to Isolates. I am calling it ThreadParams.

class ThreadParams {

ThreadParams(this.val, this.sendPort);

int val;

SendPort sendPort;

}

Here you can see one of the parameter is a SendPort. This is the port through with the isolate communicates

with the calling Isolate.

There is another class called ReceivePort through which the calling Isolate class gets the data back.
Getting started on making your first iOS App (High-Level)
By: Ayesha Khan
Tags: App Development, iOS App Development, iOS Apps, Mobile Apps, Mobile App Development

In order to make an iOS app, there’s a list of steps that I personally follow through to make one. This is mostly for beginners and this is taken from being in classes, projects, and other sources that helped me! The link of resources will be listed down below.

I broke the steps into three that are easy to remember.

Brainstorming Designing Implementation

Brainstorming

This is where you come up with your idea! This process includes thinking, eliminating, and researching all in one.

Here are some tools that I recommend for this step:

Survey Monkey

Google Drive

Post-it Notes

Sharpie

Start off with post-it notes and start thinking of random ideas, no limit. Make a whole board of post-it notes on a wall.

Now, look at the post-it notes and think of an idea that draws you and your team, eliminate them by groups. You guys can discuss on which idea is more relevant or would be more helpful for people!

After you picked your golden idea, now is the time to think about it in terms of features, what would users want, research similar apps, and such.

First start seeing if there is already an app like yours in the App Store and explore it. Figure out the features it has or is lacking. Make notes, create a document on your reviews of the app in your drive.

You can use Survey Monkey to come up with user feedback and comment about the idea to get a feel for what users want or don’t want. For one of my group’s app ideas on a Transit System, we made questions on Survey Monkey to send to other college students on how they use transportation.
The Influencer
By: A Fresh Pot Of Coffee
Tags: Flash Fiction, Short Story, Microfiction, Influencers

I was mesmerized by her olive skin, impeccable style, her silky voice saying ‘Please Subscribe to my channel’. Her desirable lifestyle was out in the open for millions of views. I was a stalker.

For few weeks she disappeared from my feed. I visited her profile and discovered other followers asking whether she was taking a break. Finally her much awaited reel appeared. It had been posted five minutes back.

She was behind the wheels as the car sped at 150mph on a dark highway. Her red lips dazzled under the car lights, against the dimly lit background. A familiar song played “This is the end, my only friend, the end.”

It felt uncanny but as I scrolled, the post said it was sponsored by a makeup company. “#redbonanzabyrola @rolacosmetics” it read. I moved on to the next post.

Next morning an article appeared “Social media influencer kills herself, Rola Cosmetics gains 300,000 followers overnight”
5 Habits That Can Make You Influential
By: Darshak Rana
Tags: Self, Habit Building, Self Improvement, Inspiration, Influencers

There aren’t any factories that produce influential people, or they haven’t magically landed on earth. They are simple humans who have developed a skill and attitude that people perceive as brand value to follow.

Influencing others is the art of persuasion. If you can master this art, you can convince anyone to believe you. Some of them use it for constructive purposes, while some misuse it.

I have had the privilege of attending the honorable Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi’s event at Madison Square, New York, on September 22, 2014. According to the New York Times, a massive crowd of 19,000 gathered to catch the glimpse of Modi’s speech. Sitting in the spectator seat, I could feel the energy and enthusiasm of the people cheering “Modi, Modi…”

It was hard to believe that people left their work and gathered up for an event on a working day because Americans take their work very seriously.

I thought to myself, “What was it that attracted this massive crowd on a working day (Monday)?”

It, indeed, was an influential power. This power can make anyone do anything. I understood its significance.

Modi was the same person who had been denied the US Visa in 2005. So, how did he become so influential in less than a decade?

Being a voracious reader and enthusiast, I started researching online and read books about influential people.

I read autobiographies of the most influential people in our history like- Nelson Mandela(Long Walk to Freedom), Benjamin Franklin (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin), Mahatma Gandhi (The Story of My Experiments with Truth), Andrew Carnegie(Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie), Anne Frank(The Diary of a young girl), Barrack Obama(Dreams from my father), Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) and many more. From that, I started realizing their values and habits.

Based on my reading research, I present the habits that can make you influential or powerful enough to swing decisions in your favor.
Proyeksi Peran Book Influencers di Ekosistem Literasi*
By: Haris Quds
Tags: Book Influencers, Festival Literasi, Booktuber, Influencers, Literasi

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
Understanding Data Sharing—is my data open, shared or closed?
By: Gavin Starks
Tags: Data, Open Data, Shared Data, Data Infrastructure, Licensing

Applying the Data Spectrum

Here’s one way to think about applying the data spectrum —to understand how we can provide access to data. The question, to begin with, is “how can I use it?”

This builds on my previous posts exploring the definitions of Shared Data

We (Icebreaker One and the ODI) have now co-created an ‘energy’ example of the original Data Spectrum:

Read more about our definitions of Shared Data at IcebreakerOne.org

And how this links with a decentralised data economy
Story of a hackathon — from idea to action in 46 hours!
By: Priyanka Roy
Tags: Open Data, Hackathons, Data Driven, Data

After some intense brainstorming and suggestions from mentors, we reached a consensus that we wanted to help people during a civil emergency. We named our team Tremorz and, as we do at the start of any project, defined a problem statement.

Our Problem Statement

During a civil emergency:

1) There is no single platform where people can seek information

2) There is a lack of community collaboration and people helping each other

Our Solution

We built a mobile application that combines data from sources such as social media (Facebook, Twitter) and publicly available data i.e. locations of community centres, water resources, traffic, and weather feeds. The application allows users to input their needs as well as any supplies they are willing to share with their community. It also allows users to register themselves and their families so they can be updated on each others’ safety during an emergency.

Persona & Scenario

We built our solution bearing in mind a fictional user called Sally. Sally is a single mum with a 10-year-old son, Dan. Sally is at home and has just experienced an earthquake while Dan is still at school. What does Sally do?

Sally has our new app called iHelp on which she has registered herself and Dan. Now she can track Dan and his location using the app. Dan can also mark himself as ‘safe’ so his mum knows he is okay. Sally can also use the traffic and weather feeds to find the quickest and safest route to get to Dan’s school. She picks Dan up from school and they find their way home.

A few days later, there is still a state of emergency and Sally is running low on water, essential for drinking, washing and cleaning. She uses the app to reach out to her community and registers her needs. She also wants to help the community, so lists the supplies she’s willing to share, which include canned food and blankets.

Sam, another survivor using iHelp, has an artesian well in his back yard and lives only a few minutes away from Sally. He lists his supplies on the app. Sally is directed to Sam and contacts him using the private messaging function. Sam and Sally get together and help each other.

Future Vision

iHelp can be used as a single source by the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management to broadcast information to the public. The integration platform and API used between the database and the app allows the plugging in of other information sources as well as alerts. It can be further developed to foster community collaboration during any event such as flooding, fire, landslides — even a zombie apocalypse.

A big thank you to the event organisers for bringing people together and giving us the opportunity to innovate. And also for placing us third in the Best Open Government Data Hack category.

We made a happy team, check out our smiley faces :-)
American fires.
By: Camellia Williams
Tags: Climate Change, Maps, Open Data, Dataviz, Wildfires

American fires.

Sometimes, it seems to me that extreme wildfires are a recurring theme in our global headlines. Australia. Brazil. California. But why? Is what we’re seeing unusual? Or are we seeing a pattern that will repeat itself if we fail to act on climate change?

To understand what’s happening and how it affects our society, we need data. And for that we have access to open data platforms. Through these platforms we can stay informed, predict the future, and make plans to protect the things we love.

Using Global Forest Watch, Resource Watch, and PREPdata to explore the data, it’s clear that this year’s fires in the USA are worse than normal. And what’s more, there are signs that things could get worse.

Where are wildfires burning in America right now?

Wildfires are burning in the western states of Washington, Oregon and California. Colorado too has recorded a higher than normal number of fire alerts.

NASA’s VIIRS fire alert data can be visualised and analysed using Global Forest Watch. The data goes back to 2012 and a selection of data widgets adds context that helps us understand how unusual (or not) this year’s fires are in comparison to previous years.

According to the data available on Global Forest Watch, the number of fire alerts recorded so far this year is high compared to previous years. A total of 36,866 VIIRS fire alerts were recorded between 1 January 2020 and 14 September 2020. The number doesn’t yet exceed the record for 2018 but this year’s fire season isn’t over yet.
Beyond Open-washing: Are Narratives the Future of Open Data Portals?
By: Matteo Moretti
Tags: Design, Data, Open Data, Data Science, Data Visualization

Can you imagine the amount of data visitors and citizens generated during the year? We can tell you about what we received: dozens and dozens of spreadsheets, some handcrafted, some software-generated; textual reports; photo galleries and video interviews. We could simply upload it online in some repo and be done with it. Yet, since the beginning of the collaboration, we embraced the idea of conceiving something beyond the usual. We wanted to give the data back to the people who helped produce it. This meant focusing on what the audience needed to understand.

Saul Wurman, who coined the concept of information architecture in the mid of the 70s, often said: “You only understand something relative to something you already understand.” This simple, yet timeless, statement represents an essential lens through which we design information experiences at Sheldon.studio. In practice, it means that we should design upon the past experiences of our audience in order to explain something novel. So, knowing our audience was the first building block of our design process.

Another key ingredient of our human-centered design approach is the preference for simple visualizations over flamboyant charts, especially when the fancier design would entail a compromise on clarity. Other than the complexity of the data visualizations, we instead leveraged colors and animations to keep our chart designs fresh and engaging, facilitating the audience in the comprehension of hidden data patterns.

From a design perspective, we rooted our visualizations around the central theme of showing the liveliness and the humanity that characterized the cultural programme of Matera. For this reason, we privileged rounded shapes and a profusion of dots swarming everywhere, a metaphor of humanity as seen from a bird’s eye view and we decided to present some visualization using the metaphor of a pack of many separate units/bubbles forming bigger clusters. We feel that this makes the numbers interesting and more intuitive to grasp also for audiences with lower data viz literacy.

A compilation of several counters featured in thge microstories.

In line with our endeavour to keep the data visualization accessible and easy to parse, we devised an innovative way to efficiently integrate legends, charts and text. Readers usually struggle as their eyes ping-pong back and forth between the chart and its legend to understand what’s what, so we tried to intertwine the legend in the descriptive text above it, highlighting keywords with the corresponding colours in the chart. The idea is to spark curiosity in the readers as they note that some words in the text are highlighted, or, the other way around, to prompt somebody to read the text while seeking for the legend.
Understanding crowd-sourced data in the context of LTE Identifiers
By: Umar Khan
Tags: Network Analysis, Lte 4g Technology, Open Data, Big Data, Ieee Projects

Crowd-sourced is a data model in which different individuals from the community or any organisation itself contributes to the collection of the data. It also refers to the open-data as it can be accessed for research purpose without any cost.

Open-data Platform

This post is about an open-data platform OpenCellID [1], which refers to the network data from the telecom towers of the existing infrastructure. The good thing is that you can find the data of almost all the countries and their existing network operators. However, due to privacy, the identity of the operator is not revealed but one can work around the mobile network code (MNC) to do a real analysis.

How to understand?

The OpenCellID data belong to the telecommunication networks which means if you really want to understand the different attributes or variables of the database, you must know the different identifiers used in telecom to understand the network and the corresponding area where the network has been deployed. Below, I have described some of the relevant variables of the database in the form of a matrix.

database:

Database description is taken from[2]

These variables can be understood better if you are familiar with the notion of LTE identifiers. In LTE, different identifiers are used to identify or characterize the area of interest for recognition or other services. For instance, consider a public land mobile network (PLMN) in the figure below, where some base-stations are deployed with eNB-ID and their respective cell IDs (CID). A group of these eNBs or CIDs belong to some unique geographical area called tracking area or tracking area code (TAC). And finally, a combination of CID and TACs can be used to identify a unique base-station or a specific cell in the desired area.

Standard LTE identifiers [2]

The aim to describe identifiers is because the recorded variables in the database are the LTE identifiers as defined by 3GPP, which serve to provide unique and global identification throughout the network. Each TAC is defined by a unique code which represents the local tracking area inside the PLMN. In contrast, PLMN-ID represents a globally unique identifier of the network with the combination of MCC + MNC. The tracking area ID (TAI) is defined as a globally unique identifier in the network for a specific area corresponding to the combination PLMN-ID + TAC. Now, inside every tracking area (TA), each MNO has unique local IDs for each cell (CID) and each eNB (eNB-ID). The detailed discussion on the LTE identifier wrt to the variables used in the database can found in [2,3].

At the end of this post, a reader must learn the followings: 1- What is the open-data platform (OpenCellID)? 2- How to understand it? 3- What are identifiers? 4- Why to understand identifier for OpenCellID?

References

[1] https://opencellid.org/

[2] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9139969

[3] https://community.opencellid.org/
Living Statue Torn Down Without Braking Character
By: Brendan O'Brien
Tags: Art, Humor, Fake News

TENNESSEE — After weeks of protesting and civil unrest, several confederate statues were torn down by protesters and dragged into the local river. One of the statues was Edwin McCormick, local artist and living statue. According to McCormick the protesters believed his rendition of a confederate soldier was accurate enough to be torn down and thrown into the river along with other actual statues that were originally stood in front of several government buildings.

“Honestly it was a dream come true,” said McCormick while taking a smoke break as Andrew Jackson, “Living statues strive to be perceived as actual static , stone or metal statues. And that night I was so believable they (the protesters) put a rope around my torso and watched me sink into the water. “ Protestors and local news affiliates learned of McCormick when he emerged from the river clothes soaked and silver paint running off his body. A group of protesters told us their story of the night.

“We were amazed by guy’s discipline,” said Beth Dahlkemper middle school history teacher, “ he never broke the illusion even when dozens of angry Tennesseans cursed, kicked, and spray painted penises on him.” McCormick still performs as a living statue filling the empty pedestals with historical figures, local heroes, and his copyright free of Spider-Man.
A Lesson in PR from the Founder Who Hosted One of the Most “Epic” Launch Parties in History
By: Aaron Dinin
Tags: Inspiration, Startup, Entrepreneurship, Press, Fake News

Image courtesy Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels

I’ll never forget the first time a reporter contacted me asking for an interview. She wasn’t from the New York Times or anything like that. Just a local reporter writing about the region’s increase in successful venture-backed tech startups. Still, it felt like my company had finally “made it.” We were gaining enough traction to be considered part of the region’s “successful startups,” and that seemed like an important milestone.

I met the reporter for coffee, we chatted for the better part of an hour, and we had what felt like a great conversation about the company and its growth. The interview seemed successful, the reporter was very friendly, and I was excited about what she was going to publish.

A couple weeks later, the story came out. It was maybe 800 words (for reference, the article you’re reading right now is more than double that). Somewhere around the halfway point, the article included a 26 word quote from me that I’m certain I never said, it described my company as doing something we didn’t actually do, and it got my title wrong.

It was one of my first experiences with how the press reframes and recontextualizes content in order to tell the stories they want or need to tell. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, and I understand why it happens, but it can be frustrating, especially when your co-founders, employees, and investors are all asking why you said something you didn’t actually say.

I recently had a conversation with an entrepreneur who helped provide some better perspective on the challenges of getting press to write about you in the ways you want. His name is Craig Kanarick, and his company, Razorfish, hosted what became one of the most infamous parties of the 90s Internet tech scene in New York City.

*Craig’s quotes and story are based on a podcast and interview I conducted with him on October 30, 2020.
What if Everyone Speaks Nothing but the Truth
By: Nikhil Meshram
Tags: Truth, Misinformation, Psychology, Fake News, Society

What if Everyone Speaks Nothing but the Truth

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

If everyone was mentally incapable of lying, how would that change the world?

Lying is the first lesson a person learns from society. There is no single corner in a society where one cannot find a lie. Lying is an unavoidable spiral well of pleasing or misleading information one could easily fall to. Lying might the only socially acceptable moral corruption.

The movie ‘Liar Liar’ presents a true picture of our surroundings and social norms. A lawyer’s career built on lies shackles into pieces when his habit of lying dies. His honesty hurts people he builds relationships with based on lies. His family, friends, and colleagues do not trust him with truth as they were with his lies. What if everyone in the world is incapable of lying? Will it make a world with no faults, a perfect world? Will humanity prosper without lies?

Why lying matter in our world? In society, we learn as we accept things around us. We mature as we accept the truth and differentiate it from lies. Lying is a very human nature that reminds us that we live in a practical and flexible world. Lying can make someone cry; it can also make someone happy. If lies are gone, the truth will lose its importance. The truth will be just another piece of information, holding no face value of its own.

If everyone speaks nothing but the truth, the world will become a place of living machines, irresponsible of respecting others’ emotions or personalities. There are necessary lies as there are essential truths.
Why do you believe in conspiracy.
By: Zanin Tecla
Tags: Social Psychology, Psychology, Belief, Conspiracy Theories, Fake News

Photo: The logic behind conspiracy — LA Times

In the world, some people believe in conspiracy theories and others don’t. People should not believe in every article or piece of paper they read or listen to. To believe something you should have academic proof to back it.

The fact is, people, avoid uncertainty because it is uncomfortable. People look for control about the reality and the life they live in, they have to find a reason in everything they do. The desire for controlling and understanding creates in the mind realities. These realities can be defined as conspiracy theories.

Before believing something always ask for evidence and proof.

There are three ways why people believe in conspiracies. These are Cognitive dissonance, Fundamental attribution error and Confirmation bias.

The Cognitive Dissonance is the people’s tendency to support their beliefs and reject information that contradicts these beliefs. The human being is unwilling to change their minds. One simple example can be how we all know that smoking kills and is harmful in the future but at the same time, we will believe that smoking helps us to not eat as much. Two clear contradictions, smoke kills but helps in reducing obesity?

Fundamental attribution error influence how people judge others, underestimate the environment’s situation and overestimate the personality factors such as attributing a person the wrong personality. For example, people assume actors’ personalities through the character they’re performing rather than by their real personality.

Confirmation Bias is a way of supporting our beliefs by rejecting contradictory evidence. If we think about social media, we can see that people tend to use known channels and sites to obtain the information that they want rather than unbiased sources of information.

Facts are not able to change our minds because we are protected by our own beliefs and thoughts.

References

Brehm, J. W., & Cohen, A. R. (1962). Explorations in cognitive dissonance. John Wiley & Sons Inc. https://doi.org/10.1037/11622-000

Forgas B., & Joseph P.(1998). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 75(2), 318–331.

Kassin, S. M., Dror, I. E., Kukucka J. (2013). The forensic confirmation bias: Problems, perspectives, and proposed solutions. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Volume 2, Issue 1, Pages 42–52.
No, Mr Trump, Covid is Not “Running Rampant All Over the World”
By: Matilda Fairholm
Tags: USA, Covid 19, Australia, Trump, Fake News

No, Mr Trump, Covid is Not “Running Rampant All Over the World”

It’s a warm Sunday morning in Australia. People are enjoying leisurely brunches in cafes, gathering in parks, worshiping in Church. Some are wearing face masks, most are not. Hand sanitizer has become a fixture in most shops and cafes, as has the QR code displayed in the foyer of pubs and restaurants.

We are all good with hand hygiene and contact tracing. After all it’s given us our life back. Not that we lost it for long, with the exception of Victorians, who were unfortunate enough to suffer a second wave due to a mandatory hotel quarantine breach, we have been living pretty much normally since June.

Trump’s latest Twitter-rant.

This morning #NotInAustralia is trending Down Under. Having slept in I was a little slow to catch on. Didn’t take long though.

Screenshot from Twitter by author

No Mr Trump, Covid is not running rampant all over the world. Here are today’s stats from the official Australian Government’s Covid-19 app:

Screenshot from Australian Government’s official Covid app — by author

Granted, life is not ‘normal’. Australians are staying put in our own country, but we are also staying safe. Most businesses are recovering, people are getting back to work and our Aussie spirit is as alive as ever. We are exploring our own backyard and reinvigorating our economy.

Our borders are practically closed. You can’t visit unless you want to go directly from the airport to two weeks of mandatory hotel quarantine, that you will pay for. That applies to returning citizens as well.

Our Government is not perfect, but its management of this pandemic has been exemplary.

If Trump had followed our example.

Let’s look at the stats:

As at today .11% of the Australian population have contracted the coronavirus. That’s one person for every 900 people.

By contrast 3.7% of the American population have contracted the virus. Nearly 4 out of 100 people.

The death rate is even more disturbing.

In Australia, 907 people have died from Covid19, one out of every 30 people who were unfortunate enough to get it. In the US, it’s almost 256,000 deaths. For every 47 people who catch it, one will die.

Before you read anything into that, understand this. Almost every Australian Covid death has been a person with a serious pre-existing medical condition, or a very elderly person. You can’t say the same for the American cases.

If those percentages were applied in the US, there would be about 281,600 cases and less than 10,000 deaths.

Mr Trump, how do you sleep?

You have let your country down, badly.

My American friends, take a long deep breath, and keep that mask on, only 59 days to go.
They Lie!
By: Brenda Mahler
Tags: Politics, Poetry, Conspiracy Theories, Fake News, Lies

They Lie!

Photo modified from original by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

They altered the truth

Damn!

If I am honest

I might as well and say it,

“They lied!”

I am tired

Tired of the lies

Half-truths

Altered truths

Fake news

Different truths

Depending on who’s talking

Political power struggles

Religious beliefs

Personal accounts

Conspiracy theories

Man never walked on the moon

Neither did women

Bigfoot might have

Alien are among us

UFOs are a myth

Santa

Tooth Fairy

Easter Bunny

All real

And Elvis is still alive

Probably lives in Middle Earth

The world is flat

COVID, a hoax

Climate change fake

Holocaust never happened

The end of the world is near

They say nothing I wish to hear
New Florida Gun Law Allows Old Men to Shoot Kids that Won’t Get Off Their Lawn
By: J.W. Parr
Tags: Politics, Satire, Law, Humor, Fake News

New Florida Gun Law Allows Old Men to Shoot Kids that Won’t Get Off Their Lawn

Photo by Aaron Andrew Ang on Unsplash

TALLAHASSEE, FL — Following numerous outbreaks of rioting and looting across the nation throughout most of 2020, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has set his sights on a new law to help protect his residents from unwanted invaders.

The law in question would seek to grant allowance to any man over the age of 65 the right to shoot kids that refuse to get off their lawn.

“In this day and age,” DeSantis began during a press conference, “the people we should be most protective of are our elderly citizens. Thanks to the current pandemic, we’ve been forced to tell most of the elderly to stay inside their homes as much as possible. However, what are they supposed to do when danger shows up at their doorsteps? What about all of the wild, unruly kids running amok thanks to school shutdowns?

“With this law, we would be able to help guarantee the safety of the grumpy old men in Florida, as well as shielding them from any legal responsibilities resulting from possible confrontations.”

DeSantis also commented that he hopes for other states to follow his example in adopting this new law.

So far, support for the proposal has been unanimously positive, surprisingly.