fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Bloom With Us: Tiny Life Moments Readers Club
By: Keno Ogbo
Tags: Life Lessons, Advice, Readers, Quotes, Tiny Life Moments

My top three takeaways

Since I am asking you to share yours, I thought it would be fair to share a few of my favourite life quotes from two weeks of editing Tiny Life Moments.

“Age is a privilege, that not everyone gets to enjoy.” Eli Snow

We all complain about old age, and if you are young, don’t worry, you will get old and complain. I moaned through my menopause, complain about my weight not shifting as easily as it did. But Eli’s beautiful story reminded me of this simple truth, ‘not everybody gets to be old.’

“There is always the opportunity to turn a situation positive.” Woei T

I would have been raving mad, frustrated and stressed if I went through Woei T’s experience of being stuck in a snow storm instead of travelling. But somehow, for him, it turned out to be a special moment he never forgot. How?!

“If I cannot swim, I will not lose my mind.” Dr. Jackie Greenwood

This lesson is very current, as most people in lockdown have had to give up something. For a significant number, it was their freedom, for others, hobbies. This story was an apt reminder that nothing is indispensable.
25 Inspiring Quotes from 25 Inspiring Black Women
By: Zora Editors
Tags: Strength, Self, Inspiration, Black Women, Quotes

Photo: Luis Alvarez/Getty Images

Need some motivation for the new year? Lean on the strength of our ancestors to help get you through the transition from a melancholy 2020 to a magical 2021.

“Even though some won’t admit it, women are the backbone and the glue that holds this country together,” writes Cheryl Brown. “Collectively we are a force to be reckoned with but individually we all have days when we need a little help. On those days, I call on my Black Girl Magic and gain strength and inspiration from the words of some awesome women!”
Use Machine Learning Without Writing Code
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Sklearn, Data Science, Scikit Learn

Use Machine Learning Without Writing Code

igel: a machine learning tool that automates everything for you

Introduction

Probably, if you landed here to read this post, then you already know machine learning (ML) and you are excited to know how to use it without writing code as the title claims. Maybe you are even asking yourself how can this be, right?

Anyway, everyone has probably noticed how the field exploded in the last several years. It is really unbelievable what we achieved to do with ML and how far we have made it easy to use. In fact, there are much libraries out there that allow you to use ML with few line of code, right?

However, building ML models is actually the easiest and fast done part of the work. Developers spend much time dealing with pre-processing the data than actually building the model and using it. Another issue is that the field is moving so fast and most of the time, you ll need to try a lot of things and take a look at the results.

There is no correct way that will always get you the best results, you really need to try different things and most of the time make sure that you have a good quality data first before spending much time wanting to derive something useful from it. Trust me, I’m facing these challenges all the time!

I find myself sometimes writing a lot of boilerplate code to use ML models even when I’m using such a great library like sklearn and the like. Furthermore, If I’m done with a task and want to change some small parts and re-use the model, I find myself looking through my codebase in order to find the spots that I want to update, which is not quite easy if you have a large codebase and probably not what you want to do all the time.

Therefore, I created igel …
Bride!
By: Pawan Kumar
Tags: Storytelling, Poetry, Relationships, Love, Dating

You are my whole universe.

I can’t leave your side.

Soon you will be my bride.
我的區塊鏈之路 — 前傳. 在高中考完學測之後就沒有再寫文章（寫作文真的是很讓我頭痛），寫作能力也是隨著時間…
By: Hank Huang
Tags: Technology, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain, 區塊鏈

Two months. Online. Self-Learning to Mastery. Shortest-path to Enter the Blockchain Era.

Follow
Discovering the “Story Cubes”
By: Fernando Agüero
Tags: Writing, Creativity,  first stories, Storytelling

Last month I discovered the Story Cubes while navigating on my Instagram feed. One of the users I follow, @peregrinogris, started the #100dayproject using this kids toy that boost creativity.

Fright, Animalia and Mythic dices packs

They are basically packs of themed dices that you roll to create stories. It’s recommended to mix dices from different sets to generate an interesting story. Another tip is to start by writing 100-words stories. Constraints are another way to boost creativity.

What the creators say:

We started out making a creative problem solving tool combining evocative symbols and story making to fire the imagination. It has evolved into a universal story generator, satisfying an almost tribal need for storytelling.

People say that reading is a great way to improve your writing, and since I’m happy with my recent read habit reinforcement (thanks to 1984 and Creativity Inc.), the next step is to start writing more again.

Dices rolled by @peregrinogris

My plan is to start writing 100-word stories each day and post a weekly article with them. I already ordered this pack on Amazon!

Update: I already wrote my first stories

Never settle.
How I am reading every article on medium without membership
By: Dilbag Singh
Tags: Médium, Medium Engineering, Cybersecurity, Hacks, Issues

How I am reading every article on medium without membership

I am not hacking or doing anything illegal.

“Necessity is the mother of invention”

Earning nearly 320 $ per month from my regular job do not allow me easily to pay even 5$ per month to read articles on any website. It can shake all my budget.

However, I really felt this urge to read all these articles and found the solution. firstly I tried to convince my friends to buy a membership for the annual package but they did not found it useful. So, Either I have to pay 5$ or just limit myself to only 5 free articles every month. but then I remind myself of one of my best friend, who help me watch access youtube and other sites even during my office time and give no trace to my IT admin.

Ladies and gentleman, mine and your all’s best friend “Incognito Window”.

Yes, I wrote this blog to tell you that you can access free articles by just copying and searching the title in incognito window. It has worked for me for nearly 99% time. Sometimes I have to add the writer name with the title too, In case if I do not found it on the top of goggle.

here is a little video I am sharing on my YouTube channel, where you can see me using this hack. I am simply copying and pasting titles.

copyrights by author

However, being myself a writer too on medium, I understand the perspective of this medium program, How it helps the writers to pay on time for their hard work. I have also planned to buy this membership next month too.

I am also tagging Medium Staff, Medium, Medium Writers, Medium Engineering in this article so that they can see this thing and can debug the issue. I am not writing this article with any purpose to harm or degrade the medium community. I am really thankful for this platform and community and will try my best to make it more and more strong.
The Art of Awareness
By: Julie Von Nonveiller Cairnes
Tags: Consciousness, Art, Awareness, Outcomes, Creation

ZEN KOAN 2:

The level of consciousness determines the outcome of all creation

Found these thoughts useful and interesting? For more of my articles, songs, poetry and stories, feel free to follow me (Julie Cairnes ) on Medium and check out the links to a few of my most popular sites below!

You can also find me (and my therapeutic services) at my website —

www.juliecairnes.com.au OR email me at juliecairnes1111@zoho.com
How to Enhance Your Marketing Campaigns With Design Principles
By: Olha Bahaieva
Tags: Marketing, Productivity, Marketing Strategies, Design Thinking, Design

Your content is your typography

The primary goal of any marketing asset is to bring a message and catch attention. It means the typography is the key tool for you as a marketer. Your campaign always starts with the name. It also includes a description and CTA.

For example, I want to make a simple flyer. The purpose of it is to explain X product or service. As a designer, I’ll have a lot of shape ideas, images to use. I can go crazy about it.

As a marketer, there is only one task for you. Your goal is to drive traffic or boost sales. And the text is your tool to explain what people will get from your marketing campaign. It means you use headings and subheadings.

Headings explain the goal of a marketing campaign. Subheadings have second priority, but still are important. They provide details of the offer. It’s a short inside of what you’ll get.

Headings and subheadings have only up to three seconds to catch the attention of readers.

These three seconds will decide if a reader wants to continue reading an offer, or he or she will skip it. If a reader doesn’t like it, there is no value of such a marketing asset.

Here is a good example of typography usage:

I always love to analyze design. It helps to find basic design principles. If I look at the example above, the very first thing I notice are headings. Each of them is unique and placed properly.

In this example, the designer used the typography according to the shape of the product. While the bottle has horizontal text with a light curve, the hotel item has a vertical one.

For me, as a designer, it’s an obvious principle. But working with marketers, I see this gap in their design knowledge. They go with standard solutions rather than think of a new level.

This example proves that marketing assets need to have a typography principle. It catches attention. And that is the goal of any marketing asset.
How England Funded Its Own Invasion By Napoleon
By: Erik Brown
Tags: History, Business, Finance, Culture, Government

How England Funded Its Own Invasion By Napoleon

One of the shadiest real estate deals in history

Napoleon Bonaparte — Pixabay / Picture By WikiImages

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” — Napoleon Bonaparte

The Louisiana Purchase might have been one of the greatest land acquisitions in history.

The United States purchased a large track of land from Napoleon Bonaparte’s France for $15 million in 1803, which equates to about 15 cents per acre according to the Library of Congress. This is generally where the story ends in most history classes. Some of the details may be explored, but it usually takes the form of an amazing real estate deal and ends there.

However, there was much more to the moment than just a simple purchase. There was intrigue, strategy, and almost a monumental blunder. In fact, a group of British banks funded Napoleon’s war against England and possibly paid for an invasion of their own island. What’s more, it appears the British government may have been on board with it.

As opposed to a real estate deal, the Louisiana Purchase might be one of the most documented cases of shady wheeling and dealing on a global scale the world has ever seen. The deal itself was likely more fit for a soap opera or an over the top mafia movie than a history book. At points it’s hard to keep track of who is attempting to screw who out of money, territory, and position.
This Is How You Unlock Someone’s Mind and Have Interesting Conversations
By: Max Phillips
Tags: Self Improvement, Creativity, Life Lessons, Interview, Talkshow

Sit back and drink the story in

An exciting story is one that doesn’t need to be interrupted.

When someone is deep in a story, any interruption can throw them off. By sitting back and drinking the story in, you’re giving them the best possible conditions to speak.

Whether it be on a first date or a talk show, the more comfortable a person feels, the more likely they are to open up. In his interview with Tim Ferriss, Matthew McConaughey told a story about how using mink oil caused him to have acne as a child, which his dad then tried to turn into a failed lawsuit. Most notably, Ferriss didn’t speak for about ten minutes. He understands the importance of sitting back and shutting up. It allowed McConaughey to unlock his mind and tell an interesting story with little provoking.

McConaughey got so lost in his story; it felt like Ferriss wasn’t there. The longer he spoke, the more I felt like the story mattered. All because Ferriss gave him the best possible platform to speak from — an open ear.

Sitting back and drinking the story in allows you to learn more about the person by letting them go down their path, rather than one you have manufactured.
Yes, TDD Slows You Down
By: Alessandro Diaferia
Tags: Software Development, Startup, Tdd, Programming, Agile

Yes, TDD Slows You Down

And that’s OK

Photo by Sindy Strife on Unsplash.

I recently had the opportunity to reflect on testing practices — in particular, the different layers of testing (unit testing, integration testing, acceptance testing).

The test pyramid suggests that each level has an associated cost. The cost of your tests then translates to the pace at which you can make changes to your system.

Quite frequently, early-stage organizations tend to focus less on unit tests and more on acceptance testing. This might be the case in the early days of a new product. There’s a high fluctuation in requirements and you might feel that unit tests will slow you down when it comes to making radical changes to the implementation.

By not investing in unit testing, though, you are giving up the opportunity to do test-driven development (TDD). Yes, you will still be able to write acceptance tests before writing any code. But having such coarse-grained tests will not constrain you in the way you structure your code, your components, and how they communicate with each other.

Your acceptance tests will guarantee that your system meets the requirements now.
Some Snow Came
By: Floyd Mori
Tags: Poetry, Water, Weather, Winter, Snow

Some Snow Came

Just a little storm

(Image is author’s)

It snowed today.

The ground has some white on it.

The snow makes the world pretty

for a while until it melts.

It was not a big snow storm,

basically just a dusting,

but we need the water.

No one likes icy roads

which might come with snow,

but snow can be fun for children.

Winter has arrived.
Integrating physical devices with IOTA — Zigbee edition
By: Hugo Gregersen
Tags: Payments, Iota, Zigbee, Python, Tutorial

Introduction

This is the 15th part in a series of beginner tutorials where we explore integrating physical devices with the IOTA protocol. As promised in the previous tutorial; this time, instead of integrating our IOTA payment system on top of the proprietary and closed source Phillips Hue system, we will now take the same idea and apply it on top of the open source Zigbee hardware and software platform.

Note!

Notice that the Phillips Hue system is also based on the Zigbee protocol, so any Hue devices that you may already own should work fine with this tutorial.

Note!

I suggest you browse trough the first and fourteenth tutorial in this series before continuing as they will provide some additional context to the general use case and what we are trying to accomplish in this tutorial.
Read on: — What’s in the latest issue of Dyson’s magazine?
By: Dyson On
Tags: Symphony, Music, Dyson, Tech, Inventions

#ON01.18 on:Symphony

Foreword

Sir James Dyson describes how and why his engineers decided to redesign musical instruments from scratch. He also explains that when it comes being an inventor, constantly engaging in creative side-projects and tasks are a vital part of the pilgrim’s progress.

Invented instrumental

Introducing the Cyclophone, a pipe organ made using recycled vacuums | Photography Matthew Beedle

Ever heard of an Ampsi-chord? How about a Cyclophone? No? Well that’s because Dyson engineers recently made them up. After months of hard work, six entirely new musical instruments were unveiled in Dyson’s Malmesbury HQ in front of a crowd of unsuspecting onlookers. Read all about how each new musical device works and, most importantly, how it sounds?

Q&A with Toby Purser, Conductor of the Orion Orchestra

Toby Purser conducting ahead of his performance at London’s Cadogan Hall | Photography Tom Cockram

Toby Purser is one of the music industry’s most respected rising stars. After a chance conversation with Sir James Dyson, Toby was selected to conduct a piece of music which was composed specifically for — and using — Dyson technology. We talk with him about what makes a good conductor and why he thinks music needs to constantly try new things.

Interview: Meet David Roche the man blending science and music

David Roche pictured in Downing College, Cambridge | Photography Tom Cockram

David Roche is an experimental, young composer who like to try and make music using unusual methodologies and techniques. In his most recent piece, David took up the challenge of making a serious piece of music for, about, and even using, Dyson technology. We ask what inspires him when making music?

The Dyson Symphony — A song of sound and science

On 18th February 2018, London’s prestigious musical venue, Cadogan Hall, hosted the first ever performance of an original piece of Dyson music, using never before played instruments designed and made by Dyson employees. This is the story of the unusual experiment to combine science and music.

What does music look like?
What did our students see last night?
By: Melissa Cropper
Tags: Ohio, Joe Biden, Teachers

Did you watch the debate last night? Did your family watch? Did your students?

When I was a student, I remember my teachers encouraging us to watch Presidential debates and to learn about current events and the political process. What do you think students who watched the debate last night learned?

If they were viewing the President as a role model, they would have learned that it’s ok to interrupt, to bully, and to ignore the rules to which you have agreed. They would have learned that if you disagree with someone, it’s ok to lie and call them names in service of your argument. They would have learned, falsely, that there was disagreement about whether masks help contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Most disturbingly, our students would have heard the President of the United States refuse to unequivocally condemn white supremacists and even tell the Proud Boys, a violent, bigoted militia to “stand by” for his orders.

This is unacceptable. Our students, and all Americans, deserve better.

If you’re unsure how you’ll be voting this year, or whether you’ll be voting at all. I urge you to look deep into your heart and imagine the country and community that you’d like to see. Do Donald Trump’s hateful and dishonest words and actions fit into your vision? Would you encourage your students to watch him speak and to regard him as a leader? Would you allow this kind of behavior in your classroom?

You might not agree with every stance that Joe Biden takes, but you’ll never feel the need to cover up your children’s ears when Joe Biden is speaking. You’ll never have to wonder if Joe Biden will respect the results of a free and fair election. And you’ll never hear Joe Biden offer anything but complete and total condemnation and scorn for white supremacists and violent groups.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will fight for working people and fight for our students, regardless of where they live and what they look like. The Biden administration will fight to triple Title I funding to support schools in high-poverty areas and fully fund the federal share of IDEA so that all students get the support they need in our public schools.

On our elections page of our website, you can read more about why we’ve endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our next President and Vice President, and you can view our endorsements for Ohio Supreme Court — Jennifer Brunner and John O’Donnell — and our full list of endorsements for the U.S. Congress, the Ohio Legislature, and the Ohio Board of Education. You can also click here for information on downloading the AFTVotes app and getting connected to ways that you can help us win big in 2020.
A Walk in the Wind
By: Deborah Barchi
Tags: Creativity, Poetry, Self-awareness, Writing, Blue Insights

Outside the light trembles.

Rough winds shake the walls.

Crabbed leaves jump and scatter.

Dead branches snap and fall.

Tightly bundled in layers,

plunge into the air.

Fierce howls become hisses,

beneath the wraps you wear.

Time to loosen your scarf,

and push back the hood.

For a poet, numbed senses

can never be good.

A walk in the wind

should stir up the blood.

Release stagnant waters,

and bring on the flood.
In case you forgot
Tags: 2016 Election, Lds, Mormon, Politics

In case you forgot

Just a friendly reminder

You can be a liberal and a Mormon.

You can be a conservative and a Mormon.

You can be a Lockean idealist and a Mormon.

You can be a socialist and a Mormon.

You can be a communist and a Mormon.

You can be an unwavering pacifist and a Mormon.

You can be an unaffiliated situational pragmatist and a Mormon.
The Mission Studios
Tags: Marketing, Content Marketing, Podcast Advertising, Advertising, Podcast

The Mission Studios

We create custom podcast sponsorships that drive results

The Mission Studios partners with companies to create custom podcast sponsorships and distributes them to our audience of millions.

We help mission-driven companies build brand trust and connect with customers in a new way.

The New Way

Our custom podcast sponsorships combine guaranteed reach and massive upside. Nielsen Studies show that exclusive, branded integrations produce better recall and results than traditional advertising.

Built to connect. Built to drive trust. Built to last.

Our sponsorships are exclusive, custom, and integrated. Our ad reads are segments that listeners look forward to hearing. Each episode contains value adding, evergreen content that is relevant to your company and industry.

Audience of Millions

Each month, The Mission’s media channels reach millions of the smartest people in the world. They trust us to create media that improves their lives.

Some of Our Clients

A Few Places We Have Been Featured

A Few Of Our Podcasts

The Mission Daily. Your daily dose of news that matters, scientific studies and actionable insights designed to improve your health, wealth and wisdom. No politics. No arguing. Just goodness.

The Story. The unknown backstories of people who changed the world. You walk a mile in their shoes, and we save the identity until the end of the episode. Some names you know, some you don’t.

The Future. Deep dives into topics that is vital to creating a better world. We explore the stories, history, science, technology and makers of The Future. The Future won’t happen unless we build it.

Guaranteed Reach. Massive Upside.

We work with you to ensure each campaign delivers value. But we’ll also swing for the fences.

Learn More

To learn more about why companies like Salesforce trust us to produce results, connect with our team here. Or email info@mission.org!
Snarky Jesus Thanks You For Remembering His Birthday
By: Brian Abbey
Tags: Short Story, Fiction, Culture, Humor, Christmas

Snarky Jesus Thanks You For Remembering His Birthday

Christmas birthdays are the worst.

Image by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday last week. It was nice to see some of you take a moment from your little Christmases to remember my special day. I’m well aware how busy you people get over the holidays.

We had a small shindig at my place. In the morning we staged our annual nativity scene with Mom and Papa Joe. After centuries of my part being played by Middle Eastern Jewish boys, this year we branched out to be more inclusive. For 2020, I was played by a prokaryote from Jupiter’s moon Europa. I think it brought a subtle intensity to the role.

We also decided to diversify our three wise men by having three wise entities instead. We went with an emerging consciousness from Kepler-62f, a worm from Kepler-442b, and a redheaded caucasian girl named Jesper from Cincinnati. Of course, somebody objected to the word ‘wise,’ saying it suggested intellectual elitism. So, we called them guests and ditched the gold, frankincense, and myrrh for crafty homemade stuff that wasn’t as commercial, like hand-woven coasters and a steampunk medallion.

Oh, and somebody placed a penguin next to the manger, for, you know, global warming. It actually kinda worked next to the sheep.

I’m not really a cake guy, but mom insisted on baking something so I suggested a key lime pie. It was delicious and gave me a chance to show off my wine pairing skills. I turned a bucket of water into a few carafes of dry Muscat to highlight the pie’s citrus notes. After a few rounds, Matthew suggested I make margaritas. I’d never turned water into a cocktail before, but after a little trial and error, and a couple of birthday shots, I nailed it. Of course, Thomas said I should have used reposado instead of anejo tequila but by that point, I was like ‘Free booze, Tommy. Don’t be an ass.’

Speaking of asses, the angels decided it was an ugly sweater party without telling the rest of us. Good job, angels. Some of them showed up with sweaters decorated with snowflakes and one angel had a Star Wars sweater, but a couple of knuckleheads showed up with Santa sweaters. I didn’t want to be a wet blanket, but I had to send them home. You don’t show up to a Packers game wearing a Vikings jersey unless you’re trying to start something.

Having a Christmas birthday is not fun, especially when you’re Christ, but we had a good time and I think this endless margarita thing is a solid new birthday tradition. So, thanks to all of you who remembered, and for the rest of you, there’s going to be hell to pay.

LOL! Kidding! No one’s going to hell for forgetting my birthday. I’m just going to make you repeat 2020 from the start.

Ha! Got you again! Sorry, I’m still a little wonky after all that tequila. No hell and no 2020 repeats, I promise. At most, a tiny swarm of murder hornets and maybe another Spiderman reboot, but that’s it.

Happy New Year, everyone!
Are they still pajamas when you’re awake?
Tags: Halloween Costumes, Fashion, Work At Home, Comics, Halloween

More from rstevens Follow

I make cartoons and t-shirts at www.dieselsweeties.com & @rstevens. Send me coffee beans.
There’s Hope
By: Jeremiah Luke Barnett
Tags: Motivation, Self, Suicide, Hope, Purpose

I feel overwhelmed and stressed and yet I’m so excited.

Not long ago I was working just as hard and feeling completely empty. No excitement. Barely any ability to motivate myself to continue to work the long hours that I was putting in.

It is incredible to me to see that there was a point in my life not too long ago when I had no idea that it was possible to carve out space in life for doing things that I cared about.

I thought it was hopeless and now today as a product of putting in years of effort and sticking with things that I cared about, I see that there was hope the whole time it was just so hard to see when I was stuck in the ditch.

I can’t tell you what you’re pathway out of the darkness is going to be but I can tell you that there is a place that is not so dark as the place that you exist now.

I can’t tell you what your recipe for solving your specific problems is but I can tell you that there’s a place that is less broken than the one in which you feel like you exist.

I can say this because I have been in that place. If there is one thing that I would want to leave this world with it is the idea that there’s hope is.

There is a way forward. With time and with effort you can dig yourself out of the hole that you might feel like you’re in.

There is hope.
iPhone X in 2020 | Should you still buy it?
By: David Paris
Tags: Apple, Review, iPhone, Tech, 2020

Are you considering buying a new iPhone but can’t decide if you should invest in the new iPhone 11 or get Apple’s 2017 iPhone X? Well, you’re in the right place to find the answer.

First of all, Apple has already discontinued the iPhone X from its stores and website, but you can still buy it from Apple’s verified resellers or your phone carrier.

I’ve purchased the iPhone X 256GB in silver a month ago (April 2020) for 920€ (1 003USD) and so far I am highly satisfied with the performance. I’ve upgraded from the 2016 iPhone SE so it has been a huge step forward for me. I went from a 4" display phone with an A9 Bionic chip and storage of underwhelming 32GB to an edge to edge 5.8" OLED display machine running A11 Bionic chip.

I was impressed with the phone design and that was actually the reason why I’ve got the X instead of the new 11. First of all, I had to get used to the absent home-button and a missing headphone port, which after all wasn’t that big of a deal because I’ve got used to the swiping gestures pretty fast and since I own a pair of AirPods the missing jack port wasn’t a big problem as well (also Apple includes their classic EarPods with a lightning connector in the box).

Features that I was the most excited about were the dual camera and the Face-ID.

I’ve tested the portrait mode on both back and front cameras and I was really impressed by the results. There were many effects I could choose from before and also after taking the picture, although it doesn’t have the depth adjusting feature like its “older sibling” iPhone Xs. The shots were looking really great and crisp compared to my old iPhone SE as long as I had a good lighting, but in the dark it gets kind of grainy and the portrait mode doesn’t do that much of a great job as well. However, I’m really enjoying the camera and I think for an average user it’s more than enough.

The first day, it was a really weird feeling that I was no longer using my finger to unlock my phone, but my face instead with the “Face-ID”. The setup was easy and quick. So far, it has been giving me a great reliable response. It recognizes you in the dark, wearing a cap or sunglasses and adapts to your face changes over time. Personally, I find using the Face-ID easier and more complex than the old Touch-ID, which wasn’t as responsive if you didn’t tilt your finger the right way or it was wet.

There is so much more to this phone and I could talk about it all day long but we have to come to the conclusion. Do I recommend you buying the 2017 Apple’s iPhone X even though there are 6 newer models that you could get maybe for even a better price? Yes. If you prefer the X's design over the 11’s or XR’s and if you want a great, fast, reliable phone with a crispy camera, then definitely yes.

Thank you so much for reading my article, I hope you found it helpful or entertaining in any kind of way. I would be greatful for any kind of feedback from you. Make sure to share it with your friends and contact me for any other questions.

Bye.

David Paris
People Aggravated By Citizenship Question Inclusion
Tags: News, Census, Trump Administration

It was announced last Tuesday that a citizenship question would be added in the 2020 Census. The announcement did not go over well. Some, like the Justice Department and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross who wanted the question, did support its inclusion stating that it would help prevent voting mismanagement whereas several others disregarded it due to a high possibility of it resulting in a miscount of participants.

A prediction came over from Robert J. Shapiro, who was undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs during the 2000 Census, that more than 24 million people may refuse to take part in the 2020 census because of the question inclusion and the fact that the Justice Department is involved in the request will scare people. According to Robert’s prediction, there are around 6.8 million illegal immigrants who will skirt the count altogether. He also predicted that out of the 8.8 million legal residents, half with illegal immigrants in their household would also skirt the count while the other half would lie that the illegal immigrants are legal. Millions of others who have mismanaged their student loan payments would be wary of filling the census forms accurately due to the fear of government tracking, even though the Census Bureau does not share individual answers with law enforcement authorities. These over 24 million people are in addition to the expected “normal undercount” which happens ever census.

Mr. Shapiro has also said that it could cost California and Texas seats in Congress and Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia would suffer a loss in funding from government assistance programs. He has called the question inclusion “dangerous”.
Inhaling data
By: Martin Vetterli
Tags: Cancer, Digital, Science, Statistics, Computer Science

Where we finally understand the link between Nobel prizes and chocolate, and between correlation and causation

Photo by Charisse Kenion on Unsplash

Back in high school I often used to hitchhike (you know, this free ride sharing method before Uber). Once, a salesman for a tobacco company took me with him, and sure enough, we started arguing if smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer. His argument was simple: in Switzerland the number of babies per family and the number of storks had declined since the Second World War. So does that mean storks brought babies?

Of course not, and in much the same way, he saw no link between the increase of tobacco consumption and lung cancer. It was only a correlation, he argued, but there was no cause-and-effect relationship. As absurd as it sounds, he was making a valid argument. A correlation between two phenomena, such as the number of babies and storks, does not imply that there is a causal relationship.

A few years ago a doctor published a tongue-in-cheek article with a similar logic. He showed a clear correlation between a country’s level of chocolate consumption — and its number of Nobel prizes! In his data he showed that countries with more chocolate consumption had more Nobel Laureates. For example, the chocolate consumption in Switzerland is about 12 kilograms per year per person and Switzerland had about 33 Nobel Laureates at that time of the analysis. On the contrary, countries like France or Italy, which only had 5–10 Nobel Laureates each, consumed less than 5 kilograms of chocolate per year per person.

Clearly, the article by the doctor was ironic: a simple data correlation between two phenomena does not prove any causation, since two events can simply occur together without a clear cause-and-effect relationship (such as storks and babies). However, one cannot completely rule out that chocolate influences intelligence, even if it could as much be the other way around (meaning that having many Nobel Laureates in a country leads to a high chocolate consumption). Causality can thus clearly be an explanation of an observed correlation.

But it’s not the only one. In the case discussed above, it is much more probable that both phenomena, chocolate consumption and Nobel prizes, are simply influenced by a third factor, such as the richness of a country. This would exclude a direct correlation between the two.

So what about cigarettes and lung cancer? Today we know that smoke contains a plethora of carcinogens. These are chemical substances that damage the cells inside the lung, and by doing so increase the risk of lung cancer. Thus, for cigarettes and lung cancer a clear causality was found. But before this was known, it was just a pure correlation, too. And in fact, Ronald Fischer, one of the most famous statisticians of the 20th century, argued against a causal link (exactly like the salesman in the car) — and all this while calmly smoking his pipe.
Mountains & Valleys
Tags: Age, Aging, Wisdom, Quotes, Thesceneandheard

I was always a writer but lived in a bookkeeper’s body before I found Medium and broke free — well, almost. Working to work less and write more.

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Top Level Talent Joins MF Chain
By: Modern Finance Chain
Tags: Mfchain, Ethereum, ICO, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

Building the future of cryptocurrency requires more than just ambition, detailed plans and code. A complete and established team along with key expert advisors are a necessity in today’s crypto-community.

MF Chain is pleased to announce the addition of well-respected and talented blockchain experts. Each of our new team members brings a diverse background of financial management and planning, code development, fund-raising and marketing experience within the blockchain and cryptocurrency community.

These key additions will be instrumental in MF Chain’s success. As members to our Advisory Board and Team, these experts will assist MF Chain in achieving all milestones set within our roadmap.

Bogdan Fiedur, Advisor — Blockchain Expert

Bogdan is a full stack developer, smart contract developer, crypto-investor, entrepreneur and President of Blockchainexperts.io. He has over 20 years of IT experience in building e-commerce websites and has been involved in blockchain development during last 3 year

He is also an ICO advisor working with 10+ successful ICOs to date and deeply involved in offering presentation and workshops on blockchain and smart contract programming in his local crypto community of Winnipeg.

Bogdan now focuses on the Blockchain industry and offers advice, consulting services and connections to Blockchain experts. Most recently Bogdan has cofounded ‘Bitjob’, a freelancer blockchain platform for students and participated in several ICO projects as a team member.

Through these projects Bogdan acquired intimate knowledge with inner-workings of ICO development from conception to execution.

Naviin Kapoor, Advisor — Blockchain Expert

Naviin Kapoor, a block chain consultant and a business transformation leader with more than eleven and half years of experience in project management and business analysis and more than one year of experience in ethereum, bitcoin, hyper ledger, EOS, consensus protocol and distributed/shared ledger technology. He has also attained various industry certifications such as PMP, CBAP, ITIL & Professional Scrum Master Level 1.

He had worked on various banking transformation projects — “sustainable and disruption”, which were initiated in various domains such as Retail Banking, Cash Management, Integrated Liquidity Management (ILM), Corporate Banking, Asset & Wealth Management, Financial Messaging, Regulatory Sanctions Filtering and Local and International Payment Systems.

Hristo Piyankov, Advisor — Blockchain analytics

Hristo is a blockchain consultant in the intersection of his two main interests — analytics and blockchain. He has a 13+ years experience in the banking and finance sector, with majority of the time spent on machine learning, analytics, financial models and making sure data works for the business and not the other way around.

Now, he is helping blockchain companies make sense of their data and economy models; plan their investments; manage their risk and revenue; or build the occasional machine learning model.
The Best Reading Lists
Tags: Technology, Inspiration, Science, Readinglist, Reading

The Best Reading Lists

Reading Inspiration From World-Class Leaders

Reading long-form essays and books is one of my favorite ways to learn new things. While I try to let my intellectual curiosity dictate my reading habits, it can often be helpful to find inspiration from mentors or people you find interesting.

Inspired by Michael Nielsen’s tweet, I put together a collection of reading lists that I found to be particularly engaging and insightful. Enjoy!

The Best Reading Lists

David Benioff — List

David Bowie — List

Stewart Brand — List

David Copperfield — List

Michelle Dockery — List

James Franco — List

Neil Patrick Harris — List

Bill Gates (2018) — List

Steve Jobs — List

Alan Kay — List

Max Levchin — List

Casey Neistat — List

Trevor Noah — List

Barack Obama — List

Michelle Obama — List

Michael Pollan — List

Carl Sagan — List

Sheryl Sandberg — List

Derek Sivers — List

Leo Tolstoy — List

Alan Turing — List

Neil deGrasse Tyson — List

Alice Waters — List
API Development With Flask for Beginners
By: Peter Ayeni
Tags: Flask, Programming, Python, API, Web Development

Bus Data

For the remainder of this tutorial, we are going to build a CRUD API for managing buses of AA motors. Let’s define the information we need to collect about each bus.

Number Plate

Manufacturer

Model

Year

Capacity

Above is the data that will define each bus. We can create a Python list to help us store each bus’s information.

The above is a list of a dictionary, this is a way in which you will see collections of data being created in most languages to store complex data in memory. We will be using the above list from now on in our application.

Above, I have made a few changes to our code, adding a buses collection and making a few changes to the function.

Our hello function is now renamed to get_buses . The name gives us an idea of what the functionality of the function is, it will get us all the buses in our collection.

To see the result of our work, we need to restart the server using ctr+ c and using python app.py .

Get one bus

Now, let’s create another endpoint that retrieves just one bus.

Above, we added a new endpoint to get a single bus.

We captured the index of the bus we wanted to retrieve via the URL '/buses/<int:index>' so, in our URL, we can have http://127.0.0.1:5000/buses/1 and the “1” will be passed to the get_bus function, which will be used to get the bus at that location of our buses array and return it to us.

Add a new bus

Awesome, we’re getting a single bus. Now we are going to create an endpoint that will allow a user to add a new bus using our API.

Above is our code implementation of the endpoint that adds a new bus, you will notice some simple differences here.

The first that will jump into your face is that our @app.route takes a second argument called methods that specifies the kind of HTTP method we are expecting.

From the definition above for POST, you will remember that anytime we need to create a new resource, we need to use the HTTP method. Also, we import the request method from Flask which allows us to capture the data sent through the request body.

You will also notice that this time, we return the ID of the newly added bus, the ID is just the size of the list and a status code 200 to show that the resource was created successfully.

Let’s update the code to only return the bus we added, that’s better for good user experience and will make the life of our front-end developers better.

Update and delete

As you can see, update and delete follow similar patterns. For the update, we use the PUT HTTP method, we get the content of the update via the request method. We know the data to update by passing it through the URL, as we do for getting a single bus.

Delete is the easiest bit. We take the bus to delete from the URL and use the pop array method to take it out of the list and then return the deleted bus to the user.
Data Journalism can help every newsroom — even the smallest one
By: Check Your Facts
Tags: Europe, Media, Data Journalism, Podcast, Journalism

Bettina Figl is a reporter at Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung. But she is also a research fellow at The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. There she published a paper about data journalism and small newsrooms.

She talks with us at Check Your Facts podcast about how she managed to find her way into Oxford University and what she found out researching several newsrooms. This may help you implementing or strengthen data-driven modules in your newsroom as well.

When Bettina is not writing papers on digital journalism or working for Wiener Zeitung she is organising an event in Vienna called „Aufmacher“ („lead story“). She and her colleagues invite journalists to talk — very casually — about their job. The best thing: it is free and open for everyone.

As usual we also talk about the media landscape and current issues in the guest’s home country which is Austria this time.

Again, you will find many insights on our guest and her work — and even more.
My Reality
By: Fọlábòmí Àmọ Ó
Tags: Poetry, Social Justice, A Cornered Gur, Nigeria, Police Brutality

I shouldn’t

have to run

From the ones

who swore

to protect

I shouldn’t

have to worry

That it is

my last day

Just because

my swag

is dripping

Or my hair

is funny

I shouldn’t

have to be scared

every time

I see

the uniform

Praying

with all I have

That they

don’t take

all I have
10 Writing Truths to Stop Your Self-Sabotage
By: Crissi Langwell
Tags: Creativity, Life Lessons, Self, Mental Health, Writing

10 Writing Truths to Stop Your Self-Sabotage

#2. Your family’s biased views are not an accurate assessment of your writing talent.

Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash

Remember back when you first decided to become a writer? The words probably flowed easier back then, am I right? That was before you started receiving unsolicited opinions about your writing, before your family had ever read a word you’d written, and before you realized just how hard writing really was.

Writing IS hard. But what makes it harder is when we allow external forces affect the stories we have to tell. In response, many of us self-sabotage our writing career without even knowing it.

Your self-sabotage might look like this:

Writing what you think other people want to read instead of what you have to say

Basing your writing value on how many views or dollars it’s earned

Judging your writing against the writing of other authors

Not writing at all

If you find yourself struggling as a writer, and maybe even self-sabotaging, here are ten things you should know:

Never compare yourself to other writers.

2. Your family will view your writing with the same lens in which they view you. Their biased views — either for or against — are not an accurate assessment of your writing talent or works.

3. Base your success on how your writing has made you feel as you create it, and how much you’ve grown with each piece you write.

4. Remain a student in writing for the rest of your life. Pay attention to the techniques of writers you love, take classes and workshops, and push yourself to expand your worldview so that your writing view will also expand.

5. Know that your worth as a writer and the worth of your writing cannot be measured in dollars, but your value as a writer and your writing’s value will appreciate over time.

6. There is always room in this world for more beautiful writing, including your own. When you see someone else’s beautiful writing, resist the urge to feel discouraged about your writing. Instead, celebrate that beautiful writing exists from many different voices, and believe that the world is incomplete without yours.

7. Strive to create something new instead of recreating what already exists. Your voice and experiences are important, and readers will benefit from your authentic stories.

8. Never expect your family to understand your writing and creativity, but do your best to educate them…patiently. If they still don’t understand, that’s their issue and not yours.

9. Whenever a reader or friend offers advice about how you should tell a story or what you should be writing, smile and nod. Then continue to write authentically.

10. Finally, heed these words from Margaret Atwood: “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”
The philosopher’s wounds
By: Shaleen Rakesh
Tags: Poetry, Writing, Experimental

1.

It’s the hour when evening dissolves and I return to darkness. But if there is darkness this deep, there must be light somewhere.

2.

A philosopher says the wound is where the light enters you. I’ve been collecting wounds for years. They have all crawled and made home inside me, illuminating every dark corner of my soul.

3.

Some have entered my blood, others have learnt to lean on my heart.

4.

Ah, there I am, at twelve, deeply embarrassed and stripped to the bone. At fifteen, I can hear them calling me names. I just stand there, full of shame and sweat. And then at twenty six, broken beyond repair, I lie stretched out on the bed, weeping.

5.

My wounds are like a small gathering of friends in here with the light shining down on us.

6.

My wounds have hardened and calcified against the darkness of the world and the light feels like a storm trying to wash them clean.