fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
“Toward what island-home am I moving”
By: The Hairpin
Tags: Poetry, Featured Poet, Joanna Klink

by Joanna Klink

Toward what island-home am I moving,

not wanting to marry, not wanting

too much of that emptiness at evening,

as when I walked though a field at dusk

and felt wide in the night.

And it was again the evening that drew me

back to the field where I was most alone,

compassed by stems and ruts,

no light of the fixed stars, no flashing in the eyes,

only heather pared by dry air, shedding

a small feathered radiance when I looked away,

an expanse whose deep sleep seemed an unending

warren I had been given, to carry out such tasks —

that I might find nothing dead.

And it was again the evening that drew me

back to the field where I could sense no boundary —

the smell of dry earth, cool arch of my neck, the darkness

entirely within myself.

And when I shut my eyes there was no one.

Only weeds in drifts of stillness, only

stalks and gliding sky.

Come, black anchor, let us not be harmed.

The deer leafing in the dark.

The old man at the table, unable to remember.

The children whose hunger is just hunger,

and never desire.

— Poetry, November 2012

Joanna Klink’s most recent book of poems is Raptus (Penguin 2010). She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Montana-Missoula.
Growing Up Queer: Part II
By: Gloria Bates
Tags: Growing Up, LGBTQ, Relationships, Memoir, Life

Anabel sat in front of me in my after-lunch English class. She was kicking her little legs under her seat at the desk, singing a song I’d never heard quietly under her breath. She flipped her hair out of her face, but it kept falling back into her eyes. I was mesmerized.

I would be seeing her for the last time. I had just told the school counselor about what happened at lunch, and watching her at that moment, finally happy, felt cruel. In a few minutes Anabel would be called in. She’d feel sold out, lash out, and maybe not talk to me ever again.

Unless I didn’t tell her… I couldn’t tell her. She was so beautiful, kind, and sweet. I wanted to keep being around her. If she found out about me, I wouldn’t get to be around her anymore. All of this would be gone.

The classroom door opened. My stomach lurched. I couldn’t look at her as the office assistant called her name. Anabel trailed out after her. I’d just have to keep this to myself.

I was getting better at that.

Anabel never came back to class.

Class flickered past like a blurred film tape until I was back outside. I sat on a table, listening to a classmate yawn on about all the homework she had that night. I knew what class Anabel had at the end of the day. I wanted to see if she was okay, even if I was too scared to talk to her. I knew that she had two friends — juniors in high school — who would meet her there. She looked up to them and they looked out for her. They were good to her.

Anabel screamed at them, pushing them away, and stomped down the school quad. I don’t think she noticed that everyone was staring. Once she was out of sight I stood up and forced myself to walk to my P.E. locker in the middle of the conversation.

I needed space to think.
How To Be Your Unapologetic Self And Live Your Truth
By: Sergey Faldin
Tags: Life Lessons, Inspiration, Self Improvement, Life, Self

What does it actually mean to “being yourself”? I have a tattoo on my left arm with this two-word directive: “Be yourself,” but as my girlfriend’s five-year-old sister asked me once, “How can you not be yourself?”

I remember pausing in a way adults pause when they haven’t thought about something from that particular angle.

It turns out you can.

Let’s go back to that poet we mentioned earlier, E.E. Cummings.

Addressing budding poets and writers, he wrote:

“A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking. Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.”

Bam!

This is so important, I implore you to re-read this quote a few times.

I see evidence of this wisdom in my writing. When I write something that has already been said or have to research, I am not original. I am not myself. Whereas when I write about my feelings or fiction, I am most original — because I am also most myself, which is the same thing.

So — to be yourself, all you have to do is feel.

You will be yourself to the extent you’re true to your feelings.

Thoughts lie: you may think one thing today and change your mind tomorrow. I don’t know about you, but I experience this all the time. Our thoughts are heavily influenced by what we read, watch, hear, absorb — and sometimes, it’s easy to get lost in our own minds.

To me, the mind is like a train station: every once in a while, you hear the robotic lady voice telling you on which platform your train is waiting; most of the time, however, it’s a cacophony of voices, distracting you from the goal.

However, what we feel is the truest compass. It’s never ambiguous and always guides us towards what we want most. Unlike thoughts, you can’t change your feelings on a whim. They are either there or not.

Expressing those feelings — which are not limited to “sad” or “happy” and are unique to you and me — is what art is all about.

Living your own life is art too. Artistic people have artistic lives — because to be creative (or make art), you must allow yourself to feel things and be your original self.
[Notice] Free LNC Airdrop Event
By: Exnomy X Linkercoin
Tags: Blockchain, Airdrop, Linkercoin

[Notice] Free LNC Airdrop Event

Free LNC Airdrop Event

This month Feb. 3% airdrop for Bitnaru LNC Holders + Pre-registered ETH accounts

Bitnaru LNC holders will automatically get additional LNC 3%. The holder of LNC in private ETH wallet must register their ETH account address to the below link.

https://forms.gle/vNAghY9GKfCfQo5fA

Please check the snapshot schedule.

2020/2/29 GMT 12 PM

All exchanges except Bitnaru such as HITBTC, Ether Delta, DEXHI and others does not support this airdrop event.

The LNC tokens stored in private wallets should be registered the ETH account address.

Thanks
Voluntari.ly
By: Gary-Yau Chan
Tags: Hackathons, Disaster Response, Nonprofit, Mobile

Voluntarily is an app that helps volunteer canvassers and relief organizations collect, communicate and visualize data about disaster-affected areas.

Recognition:

Winner — Disruptor Cup, Apr. 2013

Presenter — New York Tech Meetup, Jan. 2013

2nd Place Overall — New York Tech Responds Hackathon, Nov. 2012

Voluntarily is a mobile tool or canvassers and web admin for relief agencies. The mobile tool helps volunteers collect information about individual households in a more efficient way. An user is supplied with a list of households to visit, right on their smartphone, and for each address he or she can quickly fill out and submit a form describing the outstanding needs. When the form is submitted, the information shows up in the relief agency’s admin backend. Agencies can see the data charted, and a real-time heat map of the needs of a given area. Both the mobile and backend interfaces are intuitive, require little or no training. Icons are integrated with the mobile UI to enable clear communication in a multi-lingual community.

Our goals are to help volunteers do their jobs better, and to help relief agencies have the best knowledge possible of the conidtions of indivudals in their area. Increased understanding means a more efficient and organized relief effort: the ability to help more individuals, even a potential to save lives.

Learned: Disaster Recovery, User Dynamics, Technical Complexities
How to learn smarter, not harder, in the age of time deficit
By: Ivana Markovic
Tags: Microlearning, Training, Improvement, Growth, Talent Management

I’m passionate about talent management and culture. My objective is to make Osedea the best workplace for our team.

Follow
TokenClub Livestream & Airdrop with LEDU Advisor Chandler Guo
By: Dr. Michael J. Garbade
Tags: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Airdrop, Ethereum, China

Today, Thursday June 21st at 6pm PST (Friday June 22nd 9am Beijing Time) our advisor Chandler Guo will be speaking about LEDU in a livestream on the TokenClub app. He will be explaining why he took an interest in LEDU and answering questions about our coin.

To join the livestream you can click on the link here. If watching on a mobile device you can get the best experience by downloading TokenClub’s app. You can also get free LEDU coins in our special airdrop just for this event.

Airdrop Details

Post the picture promoting the event to at least three (3) WeChat blockchain groups with a minimum of 100 members in each group OR post the picture to WeChat moments and get at least six thumbups. Take screenshots of your promotions and send them as proof to the official WeChat account of “海外币圈”. You will then get an auto reply telling you where to enter your ERC20 compatible wallet address. You will receive free LEDU coins within 2 weeks if your promotion is valid.

Get LEDU Coin

Get LEDU coins now with ETH or BTC on Gate.io. Read more about LEDU coins on our project page and ask any questions you might have in our Telegram group chat.
Where our Lives Once Were
By: Natassa Penn
Tags: Walking, Life, Scuzzbucket, City Living, Poetry

Where our Lives Once Were

An evening in the city

Central Athens tonight (Author’s own)

Where our lives once were

now lie empty chairs

the bar we met, our first coffee

no one to envy

for sitting at our table

no new loves to be born

no warmth

to be witnessed

where our lives once were

now lie tired souls

who walk past reminiscing

worrying about the new order

that’s yet to come

only to make us worse…
How to Build a Node.js API Cache With Redis
By: Louis Petrik
Tags: JavaScript, Web Development, Redis, Nodejs, Programming

What Is an API Cache and Why Should We Use It?

I think everyone should already know what a cache is. It (mostly) temporarily stores data that will be needed again in the near future (e.g. to save computing power or network usage).

An API is an application programming interface to which requests can be sent to obtain data.

So how can we use these two technologies together?

Let us refer directly to the example of what we are about to implement ourselves: In our web app, a user enters data that is then sent to our server. We, on our server, do not process the sent data (a number) ourselves. We only evaluate it.

Therefore, our server sends the data it has received from the client to an API, which in our code example performs a calculation (it doubles the value) and then sends the result back to our server. The server, of course, returns the result to the user.

So far, no problem, right? But what if several users send the same number in a very short time? Since our API only multiplies the numbers by two, this means that if the same number is transmitted several times, the same result will be returned again and again — only that a request is needed again and again.

And that becomes a problem because it costs unnecessary capacity. APIs are often not free to use and you pay per large amount of requests.

In addition, API requests take a certain amount of time, depending on location and capacity, which is negative for the user experience.

This is where Redis comes in. Redis is a very, very fast in-memory data structure store, so it’s perfect for the volatile storage of small and non-complex data as well as very fast retrieval.

If you want to learn more about Redis in Node.js, you can read one of my previous articles:
Trust in the Faculty Senate
Tags: LGBTQ, Transgender

by Alex Katz

As much as it pains me to complain about a column with an economics joke as its title, I simply must in this case. Today’s “No Free Lunch” column from the Daily comments on ASSU President Angelina Cardona’s recent push to put a measure on this year’s ASSU ballot regarding ROTC.

The two econ-jokesters behind the column argue that the ROTC issue is fundamentally a conflict of rights: those of transgender people vs. those of people wishing to participate in ROTC. (As an aside, I’ll note that this is an incorrect framing of the issue, as transgender people do not stand to gain any rights in the event that ROTC remains off campus. In fact, as a Review editorial and recent Daily op-ed have argued, bringing ROTC back to campus will likely further the transgender cause in the long run).

Within this rights framework, No Free Lunch argues that a non-biased arbiter is necessary to determine whose claim is more legitimate. And, according to the authors, that non-biased arbiter is of course… the Faculty Senate?:

When there is a conflict between different groups’ rights, it is the role of a non-biased arbiter, or in our case the Faculty Senate, to decide who has the more legitimate claim.

Not sure I’m buying that the legislative body full of strong opinions on our nation’s military and that is more or less responsible for keeping ROTC off campus for 4 decades will be “non-biased.”

Perhaps the column’s authors would do best sticking to econ jokes.
New Hampshire: “Day of” Momentum
By: Adam Meldrum
Tags: New Hampshire Primary, Google Trends, Democratic Primary, 2020 Presidential Race

Or should we say “Klo” Mentum?

Photo by Elliott Stallion on Unsplash

How about “Klo-Ba-Charge”? Yes. No. Maybe? Anyone?

Well…either way, her interest has spiked…

If this interest translates to votes on the ground, a late break for Klobuchar “could” hurt Buttigieg (and his potential ceiling) the most as he was likely best positioned to pick up those same “late-breakers” — with potential to run away with New Hampshire.

Warren is likely not happy either.

Bloomberg smiles.
Create Beautiful Images in CSS to Buff Up Your Portfolio
By: Albert Walicki
Tags: Programming, Css3, CSS, HTML, Html5

Exercise 3. Weather Images

Let’s get our hands dirty. We will create two images: a basic sunny cloud and a stormy, evil one. But don’t worry, it’s simple.

All images are based on this article.

First we need to create a few components.

Our base colour component is created similar to the way we did the first one.

Base cloud

Cloud shadow

To create shadow, we need to duplicate our cloud with additional blur, colour it blue, and scale it down.

Base cloud with shadow

Step by step:

Duplicate the cloud with a blue colour.

Add blur.

Scale it down — transform: scale(0.8).

Add pseudo-elements — two white circles to mask our shadow.

Sun image

This is pretty simple: a circle with a shadow and a pseudo-element background to lighten our sun.

Cloud and sun

Now we have to combine the sun, the cloud, and some additional sun flashes.

Full image of cloud with the sun

And that’s it!

You can play with the sunny cloud on CodePen.

As you can see, creating this image took us only a few minutes of work. Moreover, creating another image based on this one can be even faster. So let’s do this!

Lightning bolt

First of all, let’s create a lightning bolt shape by merging two triangles. Now use two triangles and animate the shape with CSS.

Lightning bolt

Storm cloud

Okay! Let’s finish our cloud by combining our basic cloud (with grey background), the lightning, and some CSS for wind and water drops.

Complete stormcloud

You can play with the storm cloud on CodePen.
In the core of Data Science with Filip Nikolovski
Tags: Data Science, Bootcamp, Vienna

Brainster —

Filip, you’ve completed the stats & maths module with several groups already. What’s your experience with beginners? Are you satisfied with their progress, taking into account that this Module is one of the most intensive and complex ones on this Bootcamp?

Filip —

I agree with the complexity and intensity of this module. What we cover in those few weeks, is usually learned over the course of months. After having a couple of successful groups, I can claim that the students and I handled this intensity well!🙂

At first, I had my doubts about adult students going back to maths after spending years without practicing it. Let alone depending on it for their progress on this Bootcamp.

The first moment when I realized I was wrong in doubting the students’ motivation, I was instantly relieved.

I especially enjoyed the working atmosphere and the ‘chemistry’ between colleagues. It inspired me to be more creative myself.
When the Water is a Mirror
By: Lisa Bolin
Tags: Nature Photography, Nature, Life, Reflections, Photography

The light here is special. I guess if you’ve grown up at this latitude you’d be used to it, but I’m used to a killer sun. Burning-your-retina kind of sun. Australia is sometimes like that. Harsh.

Here, the light is soft, hazy, the sun low in the sky. Sometimes it makes photos look unfocused. It’s also a possible reason why people here can look so young! No harsh sun to weather their skin prematurely.

As I head towards the end of 2020, I can’t quite believe everything that has happened. Or not happened. So many cancelled plans. So many people around the world struggling. But also, many who found strength in ways they perhaps had never considered.

As a lover of travel, I have stayed put for the first time since moving here in 2017. I haven’t been back to Australia. Haven’t seen my family there. Haven’t explored new places, seen new faces.

I have read widely though, another way of travelling I guess. I haven’t written a great deal here on Medium but I have started some writing projects outside of this space. Projects I’m excited about.

I’ve changed jobs, cooked new recipes, made new connections via the wonders of technology. I’ve cried, laughed, watched way too many series and films!

So, as I reflect on my year, I think about the water as a mirror. Reflecting back what we show it. But knowing there are depths below.

~thanks for reading~

I want to thank Dennett. Because she is a lovely shining light on this platform ❤ She is gracious, kind, honest and accepting. She never writes a clickbait title! She encourages us to get out, see the small things, capture them on our phones (in my case an iPhone 6!). I love reading about her walking adventures. One day, we might be able to meet, share a cuppa or a glass of my fella’s homebrew!
Rethinking Metcalfe’s Law applications to cryptoasset valuation: summary
By: Dmitry Kalichkin
Tags: Cryptocurrency Investment, Bitcoin, Valuation, Cryptoasset, Cryptocurrency

Introducing Network Value to Metcalfe (NVM) ratio and using it to identify and predict price bubbles

This is a summary of Cryptolab Capital’s second article from our series on cryptoasset valuation techniques. Read the full article in our blog.

For cryptoasset investors the first quarter of 2018 has been drastically different from 2017. Following a truly remarkable (albeit, not 100% healthy) 60x appreciation in 2017, the crypto market has experienced a strong correction, falling 58.2% from an opening $612bn in total network value on January 1st, to $256bn at the end of Q1. In April, the markets have turned around and regained some of these Q1 losses. Following all this volatility, right now many investors are puzzled by the question as to whether this is the end of price corrections, or just a temporary reprieve.

To answer this question Cryptolab Capital uses a data-driven approach to cryptoasset valuations and looks at the fundamental foundations of asset prices. In our February article Rethinking Network Value to Transactions (NVT) Ratio we shared one of the quantitaive metrics that we use. Today I‘m excited to share with you a summary of our new research on Metcalfe’s Law applications for cryptoasset valuation, and to introduce the Network Value to Metcalfe ratio (NVM).

Summary

Our goal was to estimate whether current Bitcoin price is supported by activity on the network. To do this we have built robust upper and lower bounds for Bitcoin Network Value, based on a number of Daily Active Addresses (DAA), using different variations of Metcalfe’s Law. Using these bounds, we have defined bottom-up valuation of the Bitcoin network as a function of DAA.
June Newsletter
By: The Oasis Labs Team
Tags: Blockchain, Privacy, Ethereum, Updates, Rust

Happy summer! As you gear up for the pool, the beach, or whatever fun vacations you have planned, we’re sending you our monthly newsletter to remind you that developing on the Oasis platform is just a click away. Developing makes for a great weekend adventure and our documentation is a breezy beach read.

In all seriousness…some updates on what we’ve been up to and what’s going on in July below.

Office Hours on Blockchain WASI

In May we released an RFC on our proposal for a Blockchain WASI design and this month the engineers behind the proposal walked through our thinking and shared some of the new development work we’ve done to the Oasis Devnet including:

New WASI runtime 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️ (coming soon!)

🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️ (coming soon!) Our new Mantle SDK ⛰, a new Rust development library that seeks to abstract away many of the nuances of blockchain for easy development.

Don’t worry if you missed it — we have a summary of the office hours here and a full recording here.

WebAssembly Debugging

Oasis engineer Will Scott outlines some new tips and tricks for the best ways to debug WebAssembly. Read more in Will’s blog post here.

Developer Spotlight: DAPPS Inc.

This month, DAPPS Inc built a new integration that makes Oasis Labs available to Salesforce developers. You can read more about their integration here.

Upcoming Events

Sign up for any of these events below. We’d love to see you there!

#ICYMI: Past Oasis events and press

We’re Hiring

Come join our team and help build the future of data privacy technology. If you like midday walks, views of the bay, and in-house espresso, you’ll fit right in.
Faith
By: Georgia Lewitt
Tags: Fiction, Faith, Life, Poetry, Hope

My faith in You has carried me through.

Or was it my faith in me?

Have faith, have faith, be patient and have faith,

you’ll get there, you’ll see, you’ll manage, have faith.

Is it faith though that carried me through?

Maybe it was hope and the idea of me and You.

I have faith in the universe where I feel I was thrown

as a wingless butterfly at birth.

The power of my being exceeds the capacity of comprehension I’ve managed to acquire and so I seek strength through my convictions.

I go back to the fountain of my being trying to grasp more meaning. How do we come? Where do we dissolve? Do we dissipate or just reassemble, tiny particles flying together taking one shape or another?

I’m gazing at the shape I’m crowding the universe with these days and I’m determined to embrace it as all there is. For now.

Yes, I do believe I have faith.
Vignette From Granada, March 2017
By: Grace Moore
Tags: Travel, Creative Non Fiction, Travel Writing, Spain, Personal Essay

Vignette From Granada, March 2017

It is my 25th birthday, and my grandfather has been dead for three weeks.

View from the San Nicolas Viewpoint. Photo credit: author

Warm sun hits my face but I still wear a jacket against the late-March chill. I hoist my purse, heavy with my camera, more securely onto my shoulder and make my way to a low wall that runs around the cobblestone square. I followed the advice of my guidebook here, the San Nicolas Viewpoint in Granada, Spain. I got lost along the way, but maybe not as lost as I would have expected given my track record on my trip so far.

It is my 25th birthday, and my grandfather has been dead for three weeks.

People talk and laugh all around me, and I understand almost none of it. The heaviness that sits inside my chest keeps me separate from this communal happiness. It has followed me all the way from America, as if thousands of miles, an entire ocean, or a customs official could be enough to separate me from it.

The guidebook didn’t lie — the view here was worth the walk. The Alhambra and the Generalife, the vast complexes which I explored the day before, take up most of the view. Beyond that, the Sierra Nevada mountains tipped with snow rise up in the distance.

It seems I might be the only one who is here alone. But maybe that’s how the lonely always feel. I take a few photographs of the view, think of asking someone to take a picture of me. Then decide against it.

The heaviness persists, and my ungrateful brain is a betrayal. I try to conjure up the gratitude I know I should be feeling. After all, isn’t this what I always wanted, to feel foreign streets under my shoes, to be surrounded by a language I can’t understand?

But I have never been so far from home. And when I take photos, I think of how my grandfather will never see them. Nobody warned me about this part of adventuring alone, the part where you feel nothing in a place you expected to change you, when you eat your birthday dinner alone in a bar, something you end up not even liking because you still have a hard time understanding menus.

It’s not very glamorous, is it? Doesn’t make for a great story to tell back home, does it? What will the story look like upon the retelling? Oh, this is where I spent my birthday. Yes, one to remember for sure. Best birthday present I’ve ever given myself.

I turn from the view and walk back the way I came, back into the city alone.
Nostalgia never gets old
By: Karl Hodge
Tags: Internet

It’s April Fool’s day and the beleaguered people who still read newspapers have endured a seasonal round of traditional pranks from the inky media. The Guardian has a round-up online already.

But this post isn’t about those. It’s about two jokes that oddly misjudged the zeitgeist and our continuing affection for old technology. Even the stuff everyone else thinks is naff. The first is a viral video, designed to market the BBC Store. You may not know, because the BBC is so frightened of advertising its own services in case someone from the Government accuses them of populism, that you can digitally and legally buy loads of old content direct from the BBC. Even stuff that hasn’t made it to other digital platforms.

Because there are always cameras available to grab at the Beeb, because management and admin staff don’t ask for Equity rates and because the budget’s already there for embedding videos online, this is a zero-brain-cell, low budget way for the BBC Store to capitalise on April 1st.

It posits the idea that you now get a free VHS video with every digital download of one of your favourite shows. Ridiculously topsy turvy, eh? It lovingly lampoons the clunky buttons and low-fi performance of these bygone artefacts — making the very presence of a VCR part of the joke. Even though anyone with a Grandma knows what they look like.

Thing is, this video comes the day after the latest flurry of articles about a resurgence in VHS in the second-hand market. Many movies, mainly cult, er, “classics” and low budget direct-to-video b movies have never made it to disc — either DVD or Blu-Ray. Pristine VHS copies of these movies are becoming hard to find and can exchange hands for silly money.

Even more silly though was game dev Don’t Nod’s Rick roll at the expense of Life is Strange fans. The award winning, coming of age video game is already steeped in sun-dappled nostalgia and hipster chic, so its April Fool’s joke offer of a limited edition soundtrack mixtape seems entirely plausible.

Not only plausible — desirable. The Facebook post that launched the joke is full of disappointed comments of the “ha ha… I really wish this was true…” variety. What a missed marketing opportunity. Again, it’s totally blindsided by the fact that — for some — cassette tape has already made a comeback. I would actually pay good money for a “Life is Strange” mixtape. Well, £4.99 plus postage.

In a world where there are fewer and fewer tangible objects for us to hold and cherish, even the ones we used to ridicule can begin to seem precious.

Except for multimedia CD-Roms. No one wants those back.
What is Monero?
By: Meredith Davis
Tags: Cryptocurrency Investment, Bitcoin, Monero, Cryptocurrency, Crypto

While most cryptocurrencies are focused on transparency and public verification, Monero is all about the opposite: anonymity of the sender, the recipient, and the funds themselves. In researching Monero, the term that kept coming up is “fungibility.” No, it has nothing to do with mushrooms. I checked. Fungibility is the identity of the item itself and whether it affects the value. Say you borrowed $10 from a friend. When you pay them back, you can use a different $10 bill and you’re even Stevens, because in most cases, cash is fungible. Now say you borrowed your friend’s Honda Civic, and when you brought it back, it was a Ford Pinto. Not quite so good right? Cars are not fungible. Now say you brought back the right car, but you had used it to rob a bank and crashed it on your way out. That car is now tainted, and its value is irrevocably diminished. That’s what’s beginning to happen with digital tokens because their entire life story is recorded on the public ledger for everyone to see. If a token was used for illegal purposes, it’s value is thereafter affected. Some merchants can no longer accept them. This will never be a problem with Monero coins, because due to their intense privacy, they are fungible.

Using fancy cryptographic techniques, Monero uses ring signatures and stealth addresses to hide senders, recipients and transaction amounts without sacrificing reliability. Users have public and private keys for sending and receiving, and an additional key can be given to a trusted third party to allow them to view, but not alter, the activity on the account. It sounds complicated, but users only need a recipient’s email address to send funds, eliminating some of the long, complex keys other systems use. An additional innovation is the use of an algorithm that does not require heavy processing power, preventing centralization.
Silver Linings
By: Raffaella Ferretti
Tags: Love, Poem, Silver Lining, Poetry, Hope

Paralyzed is fear, but air doesn’t stay still,

Fluctuating lingers around our noses, our mouths, our eyes.

Laments and tears rain on dry stones, cracked open by

Humane cries among deserted tombs of an off-limits church.

Immobility at its place and stuttering uncertainty lock

Doors and gardens to children’s eruptions of freedom.

It’s true: anguish, grief, gloom, and solitude. But.

Walls keep bodies enclosed, but minds fly Pegasus

Through windows, trotting to win the sky of Spring.

Indisputably masked, but faces turn to the scent of

Sun and Zephyr, living impressions from nature’s actions.

Many deaths hurt hearts, but emotions bind and strengthen

Renewed parental and filial acknowledgement in Love.

Through the crevices of fear, still passing air

Brings oxygen and change.

Through souls’ buried sorrow, sprouting hope

Takes root in spirit and life.

Through glitters of collective love, a fresh new start

Explodes indomitable and contagious.

Prodigious human, rejoicing for just a thin slice of moon,

you find hidden silver linings and their precious boon.
The Worst PS4 Games: Aces of the Luftwaffe
By: Alex Rowe
Tags: Gaming, Technology, Mobile, Videogames, Tech

I’m normally an easy mark for an arcade shooter, or “shmup” as some folks like to call them. Give me a horizontally or vertically scrolling background, a ship or plane of some kind, and hordes of enemies to blow up, and I’ll happily give you hours of my time.

Both the Android and iOS platforms are full of this style of game, featuring original entries and classic arcade ports. Many of the newer titles crafted for mobile play improve the core mechanics with skill trees, endless piles of levels, responsive touch input, and a variety of characters to unlock.

Aces of the Luftwaffe is one such attempt at a progression-infused shmup, developed by Handy Games. It currently sells for $3 dollars on iOS, and has a respectable handful of vertical scrolling stages. Although it takes a little grinding to get to the end (or an infusion of additional real cash), its fun controls and unlocks make it one of many “okay” choices in the portable arcade shooter space.
Annotating Bitcoin Data with D3.js and Enigma Public
By: Cameron Yick
Tags: Tutorial, D3js, Annotations, Data Visualization, Bitcoin

“The annotation layer is the most important thing we do… otherwise it’s a case of here it is, you go figure it out.” - Amanda Cox, New York Times Graphics Editor

So, you came across something unusual in Enigma Public, the world’s broadest repository of public data, and want to share the results and process that led to your insights. What’s next?

On the Enigma Data Team, we use a variety of visualization tools to share findings with our users and one another. One such tool is d3-annotation. This open-source plugin for the d3.js visualization library makes this often overlooked process easy and fun.

In this first installment of a blog series on Javascript Data Visualization, I’ll use Observable Notebooks* to showcase two Javascript data visualization libraries, using both the Enigma Public and the Coindesk APIs to highlight some key portions of datasets relating to Bitcoin.

Click here to read my tutorial on adding annotations to charts made in D3.js!**

*Never heard of Observable Notebooks before? Read on!

Data scientists and journalists alike love using “notebook”-style tools such as Jupyter (in contrast to plain text editors) for many reasons, including —

Ability to present text, code, and graphics side-by-side

Ability to run and iterate on code one section at a time through “cells”

A better overall coding experience

Observablehq is a free, web-based notebook for data science, founded by a team of folks with roots in the open-source data visualization community (Mike Bostock, Tom MacWright). Unlike Jupyter, readers can view and run Observable notebooks without needing to install anything, making it an ideal tool for sharing reproducible and interactive analyses.

**Safari is not supported

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Interested in solving complex, unique problems? We’re hiring.
5 Simple Things You Should Do Every Sunday For A Beneficial Week
By: Desiree Peralta
Tags: Inspiration, Advice, Self Improvement, Personal Development, Ideas

It’s easy to let Sundays be really lazy and relaxed, but it can actually be a great day to get a ton of things done and make the start of the week that much more motivating.

Seizing time is crucial to achieving success and growth, so you might consider setting aside part of Sunday to prepare for what lies ahead.

Rest is also important to recharge, so here we leave you a list of 10 things that you can easily do on Sunday to have a productive week and that also leaves you hours for a little laziness.
APIS・FNB、実物経済とつながる仮想通貨とDeFi生態系を構築するためのMOU締結
By: Sophie Ha
Tags: Blockchain, Jpn, Notice, Cryptocurrency, Finance

APISplatform

Official publication for APIS, the world-first masternode…
I Moved Away From Civilization For a Week
By: Sergey Faldin
Tags: Personal Growth, Life Lessons, Personal Development, Life, Self

I Moved Away From Civilization For a Week

And I learned that happiness is in simplicity.

Photo: Hugo Villegas/Unsplash

A few days back, I checked out of my apartment hotel and hailed a cab to drive me to Peredelkino — an old ‘dacha’ place for Soviet writers, near Moscow. Pasternak, who won the Noble Prize for Literature, lived here. So did many other famous Russian artists, writers, musicians, composers.

I rented a small cabin, the size of my family’s living room alone, in the woods, away from civilization. My personal Walden.

But I had trouble sleeping the first night. First-night anxiety, I guess. I tried distracting myself with all sorts of things that usually help: guided meditation recordings, writing down thoughts, reading fiction, reading non-fiction, texting, thinking, counting backward from 1000 (I usually fall asleep somewhere at 940, this time, I gave up trying at 860), what have you. I wanted to fall asleep earlier — i.e., at 10–11 PM and wake up at 6–7 AM.

As they say, “Man plans, God laughs.” I ended up falling asleep well after 2 AM and woke up around 9 AM, getting seven hours of low-quality, anxious sleep.

Perhaps that’s the real problem: expecting too much. We (read: I) expect too much of myself. I want to live a certain way (e.g., wake up at a certain time and go to bed at a certain time), and if I don’t live this way, I feel bad about myself. I get anxious. Perhaps if we let go and listened to what life is telling us, we would be happier. People hold on to the steering wheel of life too much even though life can perfectly be lived on auto-pilot.

On the first morning run — which I usually use to look around a new place I move to — I had to run half of the way through the traffic, coughing on exhaust fumes and messing up my clothes in the dirt. And on the other half, when I was running through the woods, I wet my shoes and almost fell in the frozen pile of mud. Pure bliss.

After the run, I made myself a modest breakfast: two fried eggs. That’s it. No vegetables, nothing. Honestly, I didn’t have anything else. I ate it straight out of the pan, like a real hermit. Or a bachelor.

And you know what I realized while scrubbing the second fried egg from the pan, watching it break and spill with its golden liquid all over the fork?

We want too much. Our generation. That’s our biggest problem.

We live by desire rather than necessity. And all our problems stem from that.

If we started buying only what we needed, we would stumble upon the same eye-widening realization I did as I tried putting the spilled yolk in my mouth: we may want much, but we don’t really need much.
Bharatanatyam Dance
By: Marisol Consuegra
Tags: Bharatanatyam, Dance, Art, Indian Dance, Culture

Bharatanatyam dance was created in Tamil Nadu, South India.

The history of Bharatanatyam is as follows: A group of people known as The Celestials and Indra were fighting against Rakshasas. The fight was on the premise that evil must be eliminated so goodness can be brought to the people. Because the fight went for a long time, together they concluded to approach Bhrama (the creator) for a resolution. They told the creator to give them something they could admire and appreciate visually so they could feel happy. It is said, that with that request, Bhrama created Bharatanatyam dance. Each dance routine has unique lyrics, unique rhythm and contains all nine emotions. Those emotions are called “Navarasas”.

These Navarasas are:

Shringara (Love)

Hasya (Mirth/laughter)

Karuna (Compassion/pity)

Roudra (Anger)

Veera (Courage)

Bhayanaka(Fear)

Bhibatsa (Disgust),

Adbutha (Surprise/wonder)

Shantham (Peaceful)

Dancer: Kavya Boorgu; Photographer: Evan Sayles

The word “bharatanatyam” is made up of the following 4 Indian words which summarize what the dance is:

Bhava (Expression)

Raga (Melody)

Tala (Rhythm)

Natya (Classical Indian Musical Theatre)

Bharatanatyam Dance Costume

The costumes are made with silk with gold zari embroidery designs. The pleated skirt is made to allow the dancers to open their limbs easily while still looking aesthetic. Gem stones are attached to the costume to provide a larger range of colors to the costumes. Usually these stones are gold plated.

(Reference: http://btnydance.weebly.com/the-costume.html)

Bharatanatyam Dance Video

Check out this video of Tufts PULSE dance team performance!

For more information on Bharatanatyam check these sources:

http://btnydance.weebly.com/the-dance.html

http://bharatanatyam.co.uk/bharatanatyam.html

http://www.lasyadance.com/bharatanatyam.html

https://www.facebook.com/Pulse-135607866512880/?fref=ts
Tonight’s comic wants to live its best life.
Tags: Humor, Comics, Philosophy, Robots

https://www.dieselsweeties.com/ics/965/

PS: The ADMIRAL is here.
Avoid a Dirty Git Repo
By: Živković Miloš
Tags: Software Development, Coding, Git, Programming, Version Control

Why Is Git Slowing Down Over Time?

Each time you interact with your repo, you create Git objects. Unpacked, loose Git objects are created with each change. Unused Git objects and unused reflog paths are only creating a mess in your Git repo.

Loose objects in most cases cause slowdown. By default, Git creates new objects for each change you make. Take into account big files that will be duplicated, with little changes between them. To combat this, Git packs those files into packfiles to reduce file size. More on this topic can be found here.

I will show you two methods to clean your Git repo.
Anticipating Wildfire in 2019: Insights from the 2018 Camp Fire
By: Citris Policy Lab
Tags: Disaster Response, Wildfires, Disaster Risk Reduction, Policy, Technology

As the 2019 fire season begins in California, with Red Flag alerts in Butte County and eight other counties in Northern California, it is sobering to review the conditions that fueled the devastating 2018 Camp Fire. What potential actions could reduce risk of new conflagrations in 2019? An interdisciplinary research team of UC Berkeley faculty and graduate students reports a set of key strategies from a recently completed study on mitigating wildfire risk in a changing ecological, economic, and social climate.

1. Changing wildfire risk requires adaptation in budget and capacity for collective action

The need for increased monitoring of sensitive conditions such as temperature, flammability of ground cover, technical infrastructure for communications, water, and power require public investment in the science and technology of managing wildfire risk.

2. Cognition to action — Informed residents take responsible action to protect the community as a whole

Informed community residents represent a major resource in acting collectively to reduce risk for the whole community.

3. Learning from prior experience increases coordination in complex events

Translating insights gained in other, relevant, large-scale, complex events for application to wildfire risk reduction increases the capacity of community organizations to act in coordinated effort to reduce shared risk.

4. Intersection of science, technology, and human organizations creates a new, interdisciplinary science for managing wildfire

No single discipline, no single organization can anticipate or contain wildfire alone. Confronting the hazard of wildfire requires a complex set of interacting socio-technical systems that can learn and adapt to rapidly changing risk conditions.

5. Need: Innovative approaches, new technologies, organizational designs and science

Deeper knowledge of science underlying wildfire hazards, well-designed sensors, systematic data collection and analysis, regular monitoring of changing conditions, and innovative modeling are critical to manage the known risk of wildfire.

Engaging the scientific and technical resources of the ten campuses of the University of California to contribute to these shared strategies would constitute a bold step toward building a statewide map of wildfire risk and a knowledge base of resources for effective wildfire risk reduction.
Carnage
By: Christine Frances Annette Andrews
Tags: Politics, Indigenous, Landscape, Haiku, Culture Shock

Written by

I am retired, enjoy reading, writing and painting watercolours. I keep a curious outlook on life. Remember the past. Live in the present. Welcome the future
Not……Yet
By: Lauren Sigel
Tags: Growth Mindset, Leadership, Accomplishments, Strength, Education

Long before Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindset was widely known, my staff and I often talked about the importance of focusing on student effort rather than results, and on differentiating between the child doing the act and the act itself (e.g. when a child errs or misbehaves, rather than labeling her as bad or flawed, you say she did something bad or made a poor choice). The word “yet” became part of our vernacular, so when a student said “I can’t” the teacher would add the word yet. All this to say that we often emphasized the importance of getting back up and trying again in the face of adversity or of working towards a goal and not giving up when the first attempt was unsuccessful. We knew that avoiding challenges would lead to future disappointments as students need the tools to push through setbacks in order to succeed later in life.

You see, what we were really saying to the children was believe in yourself, trust your potential to overcome challenges and be your best self. I have long believed this and say it to my own children as well. Why then as an adult, with many years of experience behind me and a range of achievements on my resumé, is it so hard to have that same sense of self? Why is “yet” not a word I reflect back onto myself?

What would my adult report card say?

Areas of strength: Lauren has a true love of learning. She is deeply reflective and open to feedback. Lauren supports others’ ideas and successes. She is an insightful thinker who approaches problems and improves upon existing practices with creativity. Lauren is compassionate and can be counted on to deal with colleagues, students and community members with sensitivity and respect.

Area for growth aka Not there yet: Lauren has trouble accepting a compliment and should promote herself and her accomplishments. With greater confidence in her achievements, Lauren could better advocate for both herself and her future endeavors.

Self-Advocacy

So I now take my report card feedback and process it. It is time to self-advocate. “Self-advocacy is referred to as the ability to articulate one’s needs and make informed decisions about the supports necessary to meet those needs.”(Strodden, as cited in Test et al, 2005).

It is time to focus on my strengths and share them with pride. I am proud to be a sincere person who is transparent and fair. I appreciate others’ talents and enjoy collaborating as a team. As a mentor, I am both supportive and encouraging. I am passionate about my convictions and am always hungry to learn more. I am an ear for those who need to be heard and an advocate for those who otherwise would not have a voice. I am curious, interested, and creative. I am a leader and I am ready to lead.
Risk Taker
By: Tre L. Loadholt
Tags: Short Story, Fiction, Risk, Sadness, A Cornered Gurl

Risk Taker

Covered In The Blues

Courtesy of Margaret Bowland/Tangled Up In Blue

Iam Roderick. Roderick Taylor. I am Blue. Everything in me, surrounding me, all that I am is — Blue. I was going to make it. I had the potential to excel and succeed to higher heights, but I lost everything. When I first noticed the color of my bedroom walls changing, I closed my eyes tightly. I blinked. I opened them. I shut them again. Blue was everywhere. It sang. It begged me to wake up. To begin again. To start over. To give it something to ruin.

But, I could not move. I spun in my flannel bottoms. My hands trembling from nothing. Nothing is my fear. How is one afraid of nothing and everything at the same time? Blue is here. It is on my bed. In my tub. Marking the hardwood floors of my spacious loft. It carries a sister with it. Various hues latch on to Blue and I watch it swim up my head, down my face, and into my mouth. I speak Blue. I see Blue running away from my tongue and I try to catch it and shove it back down — down, down, down and deep into my soul.

I fail.

It is not the first time. I know Blue. It comes when nights are coldest and I have trouble sleeping, gripping things that should not be gripped. I am a habitual worrier. Almost ritualistically and as if on cue, I summon Blue without a cause. And Blue comes, ready to remove me from what is “normal” to what my normal is. Society has tried to call what I have something more, but I tell naysayers and pill pushers that “I’m just blue.” I force myself into a world each day knowing that I may fail, knowing that I am already a failure in the eyes of some who cannot see past Blue. Blue to most, is a better color than black or brown or whatever other dark hue people tend to skip over in line for something much better, something much lighter.