fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
The Notorious Sexual Practices of the Ancient World
By: Mythili The Dreamer
Tags: Sexuality, World, History, Culture, Feminism

Erotic Sculptures of Live Sex Acts

Picture a scenario: a couple having passionate sex oblivious of the world around them and a sculptor silently working in the background, observing their expressions, their acts, and their passion, and immortalizing everything exactly into stone.

It is believed that the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho in India or most commonly known as the Kamasutra temples appear so lifelike because they were made by artisans observing live acts being performed before them. Though the temples were well-known to Indians for centuries beforehand, The western world only discovered them through the writings of Alexander Cunningham, a British archaeologist working in India in the 1860s.

Most of the erotic sculptures can be found either on the outside or inner walls of the temples and it is believed that they were created to celebrated womanhood as they show heavily ornamented, busty, athletic women indulging in various sexual acts with their male counterparts. The well-contoured bodies also show various other actions besides sex like washing their hair, applying makeup, and also indulging in sensual massages.

And despite the remoteness, Khajuraho is one of the most popular destinations in India with millions of tourists visiting every year to soak in the erotica spread all around. But the question that has puzzled historians till now is that, why were they created? Were they a sex-education manual for men and women or the sadistic product of the perverted mind of some king who had them built for his own pleasure?

The sensuous poses and pouting expressions of the well-proportioned men and women and the humongous effort that had been put in to create the lifelike statues during the live acts leave us with a lot of questions, unanswered.
[Crypto-currency] How to be part of Mining pool
By: Exnomy X Linkercoin
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Mining, Ethereum, ICO

Written by

EXNOMY — DECENTRALIZED FINANCE ‘ ‘ Linker Coin — Linker Coin Project will connect prospective and pre-existing coins with Linker Coin.
Rationing Remission
By: Bernie Sanders
Tags: Cancer, Healthcare, Drug Price Stories

Nine years ago, Anthony David Jacques — then 26 — was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood that usually strikes older persons. He had been fatigued, and was certain he was just out of shape and needed to hit the gym.

The leukemia diagnosis was a shock to Anthony and his wife; married just one and a half years, they were planning to start a family soon. But before that, Anthony, would need to start treatment with a powerful oncology medicine called Gleevec.

Though the disease had caused his white cell count to skyrocket dangerously high, “I was in remission in just eight months,” said Anthony. “That’s a testament to how awesome that drug is.”

When he and his wife finally did start their family, Anthony temporarily discontinued Gleevec. With the birth of his daughter, he re-started the treatment again. He’s been on it ever since. But not without twists and turns.

“I’ve completely changed the direction of my life several times,” Anthony said.

Gleevec, the brand name, cost about $3,400 when Anthony began taking it; with insurance, he could afford the co-pay. The medicine was one of the new “targeted” cancer compounds developed in the 1990s, with the help of scientists at the National Institutes of Health and government funding.

Now its sticker price is about $10,000 a month. In Canada, Gleevec is about one-third the cost, but insurance companies will not cover medicines imported illegally from Canada. Without insurance support, Anthony can’t afford the Canadian prices.

For a few years, he paid only $200 a month for an alleged generic version of Gleevec available by mail from India. He and his wife were living in St. Lucia, and he was teaching gemology.

“Some friends of mine were told by their insurers to pay 20% of Gleevec’s cost as their copay. But they just couldn’t afford it. A couple of them died.”

They returned to the United States and settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, around the time that the Affordable Care Act was passed. The ACA helped him pay for Gleevec.

Anthony, now 35, has new insurance connected with a new job; but getting Gleevec through the policy is taking longer than he expected.

He has run out of the medicine and can’t afford to purchase it while he waits for his insurance to kick in.

“I can’t front $10,000,” he said. “I’d been rationing it the last few months.

“It’s ironic, I work in public health,” said Anthony. “People shouldn’t have to make decisions whether to pay for medicine or some other necessity.

“Some friends of mine were told by their insurers to pay 20% of Gleevec’s cost as their copay. But they just couldn’t afford it. A couple of them died.”
Infographic example — poor info / great graphic
By: Jan Schultink
Tags: Data Visualization

Infographics can look great, but can do a poor job in getting data across. This data could have been brought out better with simple bar charts. I am still struggling to get the point (15+ years of chart-decoding-experience as a strategy consultant is not enough in this case).

Original on Good Magazine. Click the image for a bigger picture.
UK Transport Costs are Rising, and Only Electric Vehicles can Save the Day
Tags: Transportation, Climate Change, Electric Car, UK, Energy

UK Transport Costs are Rising, and Only Electric Vehicles can Save the Day EnergiMine Follow Nov 21, 2018 · 2 min read

Transportation costs within the UK are seeing a steep rise, impacting the lives of millions of people who rely upon transportation to commute to and from work.

The rising costs have notably been seen with rail fares, which have risen by 3.2%, and could add more than £100 to annual season ticket prices. Just for the record, rail passenger journeys in Great Britain in 2018–19 Q1 increased to 429 million, and given how the UK hasn’t seen average wage increases of 3% since 2015, the financial implications of these rising rail costs needs no explanation.

It also appears the rising transportation costs have also affected those who drive.

According to the Office for National Statistics analysis on family spending in the UK for 2017, expenditure on motoring cost car-owning households are averaging £99.50 per week across all disposable income brackets in 2016/17 — up 10 percent on the previous 12 months. This strain is even more burdensome for the lowest 10 percent of the disposable income bracket, who are reported to spend an average of £58.20 per week on motoring in 2016/17, a 37 percent increase compared with just £42.50 during the previous 12 months.

What can be done to solve this?

A widely held position is that electric based transport will drastically reduce overhead costs — which in turn will lower individual costs whilst also reducing one’s carbon footprint.

For this to happen, however, people need to be incentivised to change the way they view and use energy. We at Energi Mine believe the EnergiToken (ETK) rewards platform will provide a much needed entry gateway into using more energy efficient modes of transport; notably electric vehicles.

ETK is a tangible currency which will be used for an array of different things, ranging from being used to settle energy bills, charging electric vehicles at approved charging stations, or being converted into fiat currency on exchanges. This will encourage more people to change their attitude and behaviour towards energy consumption, motivating them to reduce energy waste and pursue greener modes of transport, all of which will contribute to the lowering of carbon emissions.

It is our belief that a greater shift towards the use of green transportation will further encourage the UK Government and local authorities to implement more subsidies and support for greener, and quite frankly, more economically efficient modes of transport.

Go electric, save more.

For more information about EnergiToken and its energy-saving reward scheme, please visit www.energitoken.com, follow on Twitter at @EnergiMine or join the EnergiToken Telegram group.
《每周50在幣圈》011-流通創造財富
Tags: 中文, Bitcoin, 區塊鏈, Ethereum, Eos

人們透過努力工作創造財富，又或者通過買股票、買基金等等創造財富。但為什麼虛擬貨幣只是透過電腦敲出來的代碼能夠創造財富？為瞭解釋這個問題，就必須先瞭解物理學家Adrian Bejan 於 1996 年提出的“構造定律”。大概的意思是「萬物都是以某種流動系統，減少阻力進行運作或是演變」。

Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organization

by Adrian Bejan

Link: http://a.co/7nBxnZH
Muslims Must Present Merciful Face of Islam to World: Rouhani
By: Maryam Khy
Tags: World, Politics, Oslam, Iran, Religion

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says Muslim people are duty-bound to present the true and merciful face of Islam to the world in the wake of terrorist attacks carried out in the name of this religion.

“Fighting oppression, extremism and terrorism are duties of all religions, including Muslims, and we should present Islam’s merciful face to the world more than before,” Rouhani said on Thursday evening.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Sheikh ul-Islam Allahshükür Hummat Pashazade, the chairman of the Caucasus Muslims Bureau in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan Republic.

In the talks, Rouhani expressed pleasure with Pashazade’s report on the reinforcement of religious bases, and said “the bases of unity among Islamic communities must be further strengthened, and the enemy must not be allowed to divide Muslims by sowing discord.”

Rouhani also hailed an increase in the Iranian and Azeri people’s trips to each other’s countries, and described it as a valuable step in development of relations and further closeness of the two nations.

For his part, the Chairman of the Caucasus Muslims Bureau briefed the Iranian president on the conditions of the region and Azerbaijan Republic, and said closer relations between Tehran and Baku are beneficial to both nations and the region.

He pointed to the growing enthusiasm of people for religion in the region, and said, “Currently, religion is the axis of unity among peoples in the region and Azerbaijan, and we are currently witnessing increased mosque attendance, and the people of Azerbaijan widely welcomed the Arba’een March this year.”

Pashazade is the Grand Mufti of the Caucasus which includes his native Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Georgia, and Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Ingushetia, Chechnya, Karachay–Cherkessia, and Adygea in the Russian Federation.

On November 21, 2009, he was included in a 500 Most Influential Muslims of World book.

https://ifpnews.com/iran-president-hassan-rouhani-meeting-sheikh-ul-islam-allahshukur-hummat-pashazade
VectorZilla Token Presale | Bonus Structure
By: Vector Zilla Pr
Tags: Token Sale, Blockchain, Vectorzilla, Ethereum, ICO

VectorZilla Token Presale | Bonus Structure

The VectorZilla Team has some exciting news. VectorZilla Token Presale has already started, now some additional bonuses are available to all early participants & investors.

We have made a few changes in VectorZilla Token Presale terms to enable greater participation. One of the key reason that prompted the change was the ongoing rise in the price of Ethereum. We have adjusted following terms:

1. A reduced entry price with revision in minimum contribution amount to allow broader participation. Now a minimum contribution of 0.10 ETH, 100 VZT can be brought before calculating bonuses. 2. Additional up to 35% bonus tokens on top of pre-announced bonus. So now up-to 60% Tokens are available to grab for early contributors.

The VZ Token pricing was based on the price of Ethereum, and the impact of the increase in its value has priced out many of the supporters & participants with a desire to get involved in VectorZilla Project, so we felt it was only fair to lower the entry point to allow greater participation and offer additional bonus VectorZilla Tokens to our early contributors and investors.

VectorZilla Token Presale Key Information

Token Price — 1 ETH = 1000 VZT

Minimum transaction amount — 0.10 ETH

Maximum supply — 100,000,000 VZT

Available for purchase — 75,000,000 VZT

Emission rate — No new coins will ever be created

Accepted currencies — All major Cryptocurrencies including ETH, BTC, LTC, XRP, Waves etc. Shortly we will be accepting Fiat currencies.

Coin distribution — Coins/tokens distribution to ERC 20 supported ETH Wallet will start within 48 hours of Token Sale.

Presale Minimum Funding Goal — 200 ETH

Maximum supply (hard cap) — 5,000 ETH

Pre-Sale period — Jan 15th to Feb 05th 2018
The Challenge to Lead as Out Gay Men
By: Darren Stehle
Tags: Social Justice, Leadership, Mastermind Group, Gay, LGBTQ

Recently I asked a question in an LGBTQ Professionals Group on Facebook. Here’s what I posted:

I’m creating a small group mastermind for gay men to explore their unique and vital role in society, and to create meaningful, humanitarian change in the world.

Currently, I’m creating the structure and preparing content for the program. But there is one, vital question that will make all the difference in the direction I take. To know this I need your help. Feel free to provide as little or as much detail to the question below (and thank you in advance for your help!):

“What's the single biggest leadership challenge you face at work, or in your personal life, as a gay man?”

I received a large number of fascinating responses to my question. Not once did I get any leadership jargon. Instead the responses were about our shared humanity, how we want feel, how we want to be seen, heard, appreciated, and respected.

Not only did I discover a lot of what I expected — issues of defensiveness, fear of disclosure, discomfort with gay men deemed too out or flamboyant (or LGBTQ “radicals), and some ignorance of history — I was impressed by kindness, insight, and concern for how we can improve the world.
How We Built CoinTracker to Make Cryptocurrency Easier to Use
By: Chandan Lodha
Tags: Cryptocurrency Investment, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Taxes

To our surprise, people actually started using our tool. Emails started to come in with feature requests, bug reports, and just gratitude for building CoinTracker. It began with a single message, then multiple messages a day, and then tens of messages per day with some users taking time to write multi-page feedback documents.

“Thank you for a great service. This is exactly what I was looking for, and it even has a few features that I didn’t know I needed before I actually had them.”

Our users spanned across the world. It truly gave us pause when we received an email from a spa owner in Thailand with a series of feature requests. People told us they were going to ditch their spreadsheets for CoinTracker.

Email from a passionate CoinTracker user

Since then, we’ve continued to relentlessly improve CoinTracker to solve our users’ (including our own) needs as crypto users. We believe it’s critical to hide the complexity of blockchain and cryptocurrency from end users and that’s why we’ve always prioritized automatically syncing your balances and transactions from your exchanges and crypto wallets. We’ve also built a cryptocurrency tax product that lets you get your capital gains form with the click of a button that thousands of users used to file their 2017 cryptocurrency taxes.

In January, we joined Y Combinator and soon thereafter raised a $1.5M seed round led by Initialized Capital (first seed investors in Coinbase) and other great angels.

While dozens of crypto portfolio trackers have popped up, we have differentiated CoinTracker with a focus on simplicity and ease of use. Underneath the hood, this requires us to tackle a host of technical challenges to hide complexity from the end user, such as automatic data sync with exchanges and crypto wallets, auto-classifying transactions, and properly tracking cost basis. We think we’re on a path to build CoinTracker into a best-in-class service that’s essential for every cryptocurrency user.

As we look forward, we are extremely excited about the challenges and opportunities ahead. There is huge scope to further improve cryptocurrency taxes, to make crypto trading more user-friendly, to build a simple, secure, reliable crypto wallet, and much more. Ultimately, we think an individual should be able to securely store their own money and move it anywhere in the world instantly without having to rely on a third party. We believe that being the true owner of your money and other digital assets is a powerful idea.

If you want to help us make this vision a reality, we are hiring.
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Monday, Paul Klee, Comics, Illustration

First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.

Follow
Vite Insights #4: What Types of Coins are ViteX’s Gateways Looking For
By: Christy Li
Tags: Vitex, Cryptocurrency, Cryptoexchnage

Our gateways constantly receive recommendations of prospective coins from our community. We hope this article will shed some light on the types of coins these gateways find interesting.

TL;DR: The best coins for the gateways tend to meet four criteria: no presence on major exchanges, loyal community, active github, and the “it” factor.

Lack of Presence on Major Exchanges

This one should be quite obvious. If a coin is already on Binance or Coinbase, it is generally difficult to attract liquidity away from these major platforms.

But these exchanges do not have a monopoly on the world’s worthy coins, simply because large exchanges don’t have the bandwidth to be fully aware of the vast number of quality projects out there. Indeed, some projects refuse to be listed on these major platforms for a variety of reasons (Digibyte initially declined to list on Binance, for example).

Active OTC trading is a great area to look, because this implies high interest in trading.

Loyal Community

The number of followers/subscribers in the various social channels (Telegram/Twitter/Discord) is not as important as the quality of the community. To get a sense of the true following of the project, one must look at the activity of the users (are they asking meaningful questions?), the experience level of the users (are there whales showing interest? Endorsement by legitimate industry players?), and the speed at which the community is organically growing.

If a project has a miner community, that’s a positive sign because these stakeholders have incurred considerable sunk cost and will likely continue to support the ecosystem.

Older projects also have communities. The fact that they were delisted by major platforms exposes an opportunity for smaller exchanges. For example, PASC got delisted by Poloniex, and Gridcoin got delisted by Poloniex and Bittrex.

Active Github

There should be at least some software commits in the last two months. Here, the commits must be indicative of serious, not symbolic development efforts. The more developers, the better. Developers with frequent media exposure would also be a plus. The amount of forks and stars are also indicative of developer interest in this project.

“It” Factor

Some projects have a distinctive concept or model, are well related to current trends, or have connections with well-established projects. For examples, see some recent DeFi projects.

We hope this article provides some insight into the coins ViteX gateways are particularly interested in. We look forward to your continued recommendations.

Submit a Listing Recommendation: https://forms.gle/krgsR48AfMRNpkD17
Chucky
By: Robert Carlson
Tags: Friendship, Oakland, Neighborhoods, Short Story, Pittsburgh

Chucky

Vignettes of Growing up in Oakland

When my parents moved the family from the eastern suburbs to Oakland when I was 8 I lost contact with the boy who everyone said was “my other half.” We were like one person in two bodies. We got into the same misadventures together, at the same time. This was an easy undertaking.

I was sitting in the kitchen when the phone rang. It was one of those black wall phones by Western Electric. It was mounted at a central spot of the first floor where most family activity was probable: outside the kitchen on a set of back stairs to the second floor or cellar.

I answered to a voice, “Bob, do you know who this is?” I immediately did.

“Chucky,” I said and a year or so of absence melted into obscurity. We caught up. We made plans. We conspired to get together. His father’s Auto Parts Warehouse turned out to be only a mile away along the 82 Lincoln line. In actuality if one stood in the middle of Centre Avenue by that warehouse you could see the steps up to my street in the farthest distance. Who knew? We didn’t until after that phone call. Then we did.

We were both fascinated with radio and started to learn Morse Code in preparation for getting our Novice armature radio licenses. We got plans for shortwave transmitters and receivers. The TV repair shop a neighbor of his owned in Oakland provided ample spare parts. It was not long before we were dotting and dashing our important intrigue in the nighttime air. We did not need our parents’ phones or their bills in order to foment our next misadventure.

In a parallel existence a good school friend at Frick lived on McKee Place and his parents did not have a phone. If I wanted to call him he could go to his grandmother’s apartment on the floor below. There was a tap on the heating pipes to signal an incoming call and he could run down the stairs to get the call. Needless to say we did not talk on the phone all that much. Too bad he was not Ham operator.
Submissions to Climate Conscious
By: Sean Youra
Tags: Medium, Climate Conscious, Submission Guidelines

Photo by Burst from Pexels.

Updated 12/17/20

Submission Process

Are you passionate about nature and protecting the environment?

Perhaps, you’re deeply interested in the science and impacts of climate change, and want to share your knowledge with others?

Maybe you know of specific actions and policies that can help reduce our emissions?

Or, you have a vision for what future civilization should look like in a more climate-conscious and sustainable world?

If any of those sound like you, then please follow the steps below to be added as a writer for Climate Conscious and have your posts reviewed for possible publication:

Follow the Climate Conscious publication Comment below with “I want to be a writer!” You will receive a notification in Medium once you are added as a writer for the publication (please allow up to a week to be added before following up) Please choose at least one of the following tags to ensure your story is added to the correct section of the publication: Psychology, Vision, Policy, Politics, Climate Action, Activism, Science, Technology. If you do not choose one of these tags, one will be chosen for you. Once you have a draft story ready to be submitted to the publication for review that follows the Formatting Guidelines below, use the “Add to publication” link in Medium and choose Climate Conscious. Please note: We are no longer accepting published stories, only draft stories. Your story will be reviewed to ensure that it complies with Medium’s Rules and Ad-Free Policy as well as the Formatting Guidelines. Partner Program stories must also comply with Medium’s Content Guidelines and Curation Guidelines. While your story is being reviewed, please do not submit additional stories. Repeated violations of Medium’s Rules or these submission guidelines will be grounds for removal as a writer for Climate Conscious. Please keep in mind your story may be edited for grammar, spelling, and general formatting prior to having it published. However, stories with significant grammar, spelling, and formatting issues may be rejected if they require extensive editing time. It’s recommended that you use Grammarly prior to submitting your story to help fix common writing errors. Stories should generally be at least a 3-minute read time. Make sure to regularly check your draft story (in Medium’s desktop version) once submitted as we may leave private notes that require action on your part before publishing your story. The Climate Conscious logo at the bottom of your submission means it has been accepted and scheduled to publish. We aim to have all stories published within a week of submission.

Formatting Guidelines
Say It Isn’t So
Tags: Comics, Fantasy, Cartoon, Funny, Humor

Written by

Almost famous cartoonist who laughs at her own jokes and hopes you will, too.
Youtube Launches “On The Rise” To Highlight Up and Coming Channels!
By: Daniel Imbellino
Tags: Content Creators, YouTube, Video Promotion, Youtube Creators

Youtube Launches “On The Rise” To Highlight Up and Coming Channels!

Youtube just launched their “On The Rise” initiative within the platform’s trending tab, that will highlight up and coming content creators on the platform. On The Rise is part of Google’s initiative to find more ways to bring visibility to smaller channels who deserve to get more recognition for their work. Smaller creators have long complained about the inability to rise on a platform that’s dominated by click-bait videos, and channels who hold their audiences through things like giveaways and begging for likes.

Channels with 1,000 or more subscribers will automatically be eligible to be featured on Youtube’s trending tab. Each week Youtube will select four rising stars to showcase using the badges “Creator on the Rise”, and “Artist on The Rise!”

Channels selected by Youtube staff will be featured for an entire day, helping to give more visibility to those who deserve it. Google stated, “ We hope this will help the world discover inspirational new creators.”

On the Rise creators will be selected based on a number of underlying factors, including their overall watch time, subscriber growth, and view counts.

Youtube has also rolled out other initiatives to help smaller channels to continue to grow their audiences, including the introduction and expansion of “Interest Categories”, that showcase content to users based on their personal interests. Just like following channels, users also have the option to subscribe to their favorite interests.

For instance, if you love fighting games, there’s an interest category for that! So far it appears Youtube has done a pretty good job of including a mix of content from both smaller and larger channels within the interests categories.

Being as there’s thousands of smaller channels who often cross the the 1,000 subscriber count each day, this may give some of them a fair shake at rising to the top even faster. The only downside to the initiative is the fact that only 4 creators will be showcased each week, a very small number considering how many channels hit the afformentioned subscriber counts on a regular basis.

Although, it’s possible Youtube could decide to extend the number of creators they highlight each week as the program moves forward.

The official story from the Youtube Creators blog: https://youtube-creators.googleblog.com/2017/01/a-new-way-to-discover-up-and-coming.html

Written and published by Daniel Imbellino — Co-Founder of Strategic Social Networking and pctechauthority.com. Many thanks for reading. Be sure to check out Strategic Social Networking Community on Google+ to connect with tens of thousands of IT professionals and learn effective strategies to grow your social presence online. You’re also welcome to follow Strategic’s brand page on G+ for the latest social media and IT industry news.
Functional Programming Series(1): What Is a Semigroup?
Tags: Functional Programming, Programming, Web Development, Semigroup, JavaScript

What is Semigroup?

The image is from wiki

Okay, I said earlier in this post that Semigroup comes from Magma. Magma is a set of elements that always assures every element from it is still the same type element after operating, such as adding or subtracting.

Basically, if a set, S, of elements to be Semigroup, every element of it must meet the condition of Magma. Plus, they also must comply with the following rule.

If a, b, and c are a member of a set S and where · is a binary operation, (a·b)·c must be equal to a·(b·c). Both of their results must be a member of S.

Semigroup: a ∈ S, b ∈ S, c ∈ S --> (a·b)·c = a·(b·c) ∈ S

And this feature is called “associativity” in the FP world.

Let’s expand our previous example used in the Magma chapter. What I’m going to do with this is to let the methods take one more argument.

const semigroups = {

mul: (x: number, y: number, z: number): number => x * y * z,

};

Now they are three arity functions that take three arguments and return a Number type element.

semigroups.mul(5, 3, 2) = 10

When multiplying those three numbers, the order of multiplying them doesn’t matter. (5*3)*2 = 5*(3*2). The left-hand side gives you 30 as a result, and so does the right-hand side.

(5 / 3) / 2 = 0.8333...34

5 / (3 / 2) = 3.3333...35

But in this example, each result gives you a different value. So (5 / 3) / 2 is not equal to 5 / (3 / 2); this can’t be a Semigroup operator.

But we already confirmed that multiplication can be a Semigroup operator. Then we can say (Number, *) is a Semigroup. (As you can see from the word “group”, Semigroup refers to a pair of a set of some types and a binary operator)

Now it’s your turn to think about if plus (+), minus (-), and division (/) can be Semigroup operator.
Building/Moving update
By: Ben Edwards
Tags: Personal, House Related

We have sold our townhouse and are now living in a small (1 bedroom) in St. Paul. We wait now for the legal wrangling of our future neighbor and the jokers who sold us the lot we intend to build on. Hopefully we will know the outcome in a week. I hate all this waiting. (especially since it will likely take between 100 and 120 days to build our new slightly larger home (still 1 bedroom though). So now we must root for the jerks who sold us the lot to prove that our neighbor has no claim on the lot at all — then we build. If the (nicer) neighbor wins we are going to have to get lawyers involved ourselves and sue the previous sellers. Not fun.

— — — — — -

I would much rather have a president who is in bed with an intern than one who is in bed with big, filthy business.
The Lessons of War, Power, and Politics from Troy (2004)
By: Muhammad A.
Tags: Hollywood, Movies, Politics, War, Power

Troy (2004) is one of the evergreen movies of Hollywood which revolves around war, power, and politics. The script of the movie teaches many lessons to its watchers. Especially the dialogues of Brad Pitt (Achilles), Eric Bana (Hector), and Sean Bean (King Odysseus). Here are the important lessons from the movie:

1. Leadership

Sometimes you have to serve in order to lead. –Odysseus

These words are said by king Odysseus to Achilles as an answer when Achilles asked him why are you serving king Agamemnon. It is true, leadership without any prior serving experience is awarded only a few people. Most of the people have to serve first to get leadership.

2. Live by a code

This is a piece of advice from prince Hector to his soldiers as history has witnessed soldiers usually used to not follow any code or law during wars and behave like animals. Life without a code is meaningless, especially if it will directly impact one’s country and family.

All my life, I have lived by a code. And the code is simple: honor the gods, love your woman and defend for your country. –Hector

3. War and Politics

This is another piece of advice from king Odysseus to Achilles when Agamemnon called on Achilles to his court. Being a great soldier, Achilles should ignore the talks of the old king as it is part of politics according to the above statement. These words are still valid and quite practical in the contemporary world. The politicians of old-age exaggerate young soldiers for war.

War is young men dying and old men talking. You know this. Ignore the politics. — Odysseus

4. Fight for Honor

When Achilles destroyed the temple of Apollo, in an informal meeting, prince Hector tells Achilles that there is no honor in fight/war. It is indeed meaningless to say fight for honor as war just bring destruction to nations.

Only children and fools fight for honor. — Hector

5. Soldiers and their kings

This is the advice given by Achilles to his young cousin Patroclus when he wanted to fight for the Greek army during the war.

Soldiers, they fight for kings they’ve never even met. — Achilles

6. Limitations for a King or Ruler

King Odysseus tells Achilles, being a king, you are tied up with various things and you cannot take decisions freely.

The world seems simple to you, my friend, but when you are a king very few choices are simple. –Odysseus

7. Fear is Useful

Achilles fears no one. The wise king Odysseus tells Achilles, that Ithaca is a small kingdom and it cannot make enemies like king Agamemnon. So, fear is useful to save the kingdom.
Photographing Nudes
By: M. H. Rubin
Tags: Growing Up, Photography, Sexuality, Nude, Art

When I got to college this was still on my mind. During a short vacation in the middle of my freshman year, I found a semiotics student in my dorm who was willing to model for me. Karin was cosmopolitan and had a kind of nonchalance about the whole thing that gave me comfort. As a student of a unique sort of multiple image printing, I never considered the body an element that would stand alone —like Bernhard or Weston— for me, the nude form was a Uelsmann-y element in a composition, and certainly a way of introducing some provocative subject matter into my work. My primary objective, I told myself, was to make my photography seem more serious.

Karin took off her clothes, lit another in a long series of cigarettes, and I shot her in her dorm room, which was too dark, and then up on the roof, which was too bright. I was still embarrassed to look at her directly, or talk to her much while she was unclothed. I shot one roll of film, 36 images, and disappeared into the darkroom to see how they came out.

They were okay, but I only made a contact sheet. I was too ashamed to print any. They’d need to be a lot better to warrant that effort.

A couple days later I tried again, but this time with a different dorm-mate. Michelle was an art student and had done a little modeling at RISD. Preparation consisted of hanging a sheet, to isolate her from the background, but still, this was the most uncomfortable I had ever made myself and again, I made a contact sheet — just thumbnails — but wouldn’t print any. Neither Michelle nor Karin seemed to care that nothing much came of the project. It was clear this was the first and last time I would shoot anyone naked. Which was fine with me. That was in 1981.
Infinite Dimensions of Our Faith
By: Sam Kimberle
Tags: Spirituality, Philosophy, Religion, Sonnet, Poetry

Infinite Dimensions of Our Faith

A Collaborative Sonnet by Tapan Avasthi and Sam Kimberle

Image by Michael Drummond from Pixabay

No need to make your presence known for me

to know you’re there, watching over my life,

I’m alive with a sense of being free

while you shelter me steadily from strife.

No need to assert that my faith is weak

to gauge it by visits to your palace.

Why compare, or mark it odd and oblique,

when infinity can not join races?

No need to beg or charge an entry fee

to fool me with no forum to discuss —

I cry for compassion, and you hear me.

My faith is mine alone, safe between us.

I nourish you with my inner divine

love grows between us, beyond any sign.
Hi Rachel! Great piece and very powerful angle.
By: Max Masure
Tags: Inclusion, Company Culture, Diversity, Gender, Management And Leadership

Hi Rachel! Great piece and very powerful angle.

This is interesting to see how we both focus on inclusion – I got the same thoughts as you and I wanted to help too. That’s why I moved from being a designer/creative director with startups to being the co-founder of Argo Collective. I figured I could use my skills in design thinking/sprint/brainstorming to guide companies on how they can evolve and be more inclusive.

With the workshops we do, we start by introducing people to their own privileges, which is an extremely powerful moment and very often with those big Aha! moments.

In your article you talk about how people can decide to work in management to recruit more diverse people. The angle we took at Argo is to train the entire organization to be more inclusive and guide them to change little things by little things – that includes training the management teams already in place.

I am curious to hear your opinion on this.
The Spirtual Lesson Of Forgetting To Take Out The Trash
By: Eric Craft
Tags: Life Lessons, Spirituality, Bible, Religion, Christianity

The Spirtual Lesson Of Forgetting To Take Out The Trash

Hearing God’s Word vs doing something with it.

Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash

Forgetting to take out the trash.

I have one chore that I always forget to do, and that is I don’t always take out the trash. My mom growing up would get so incredibly frustrated with me when I was growing up because I would hear her telling me to take out the trash and then four hours would pass and the trash would still be overflowing. This would inevitably lead to my mother yelling at me and I’d get in trouble. I don’t think I’m the only person who has ever heard they are supposed to do something and then do the exact opposite, however. I believe this something that all of us struggle with. That deep down inside we know we are supposed to take out the trash but we just keep forgetting to.

Just like the silly things in life, like forgetting to take the trash out and do the dishes on a much more spirtual side we tend to do the same thing with God’s word. We’ve read God’s word, we have studied it and have even gone to church, but for the most part, we are walking around forgetting to do the things that he has actually called each one of us to.
SCI Daily Crypto Digest: Bear Trap!
By: Jervis C. Tinimbang
Tags: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Fintech, Philippines

July 23, 2018

Image from Coindesk

Bitcoin (BTC) rallied after initially correcting yesterday to the ~$7,300 price level. BTC reacted positively after the selloff, and broke out of $7,500. The cryptocurrency is now threatening the $7,700 resistance. The broader market followed BTC, pushing up market cap to $288 billion.

Support levels are at $7,500 and $7,200 while resistance levels are at $7,700 and $8,000.

*BTCPHP: 425,020 / 397,070

*ETHUSD: $468.54

*USDPHP: 53.413

*BTC market cap: $131B

*Crypto market cap: $288B

Image from coin360.io

News:

*The Business Insider reports that Coinbase has onboarded a $20 billion hedge fund through its Coinbase Prime broker business. Coinbase Prime’s services, which essentially offers the same services as a traditional prime broker such as custody and financing, makes it easier for institutional investors to get into the crypto space.

*The CME Group tweeted in that Bitcoin futures’ average daily volume rose 93% QOQ, while open interest increased by 58%. The volatility over the past quarter made futures trading attractive, since traders can profit on both directions, going short or long Bitcoin.

*Coindesk ran a feature on Chinese crypto millionaires using Bitcoin to buy real estate abroad. The article said that the Chinese are turning to foreign real estate markets to diversify their assets and use crypto, either directly or converting through an exchange dealer first, for settlement. Propy, a real estate crypto platform, said that half of its website views come from China and that they are mostly interested in US and UK locations.

SCI | buybitcoin.ph | Bitbit | Keza | Rebit.ph
Brother
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Friends, Friendship, Family, Brother, Haiku

Brother

A haiku

( Photo by Bess Hamiti from Pexels)

My brother, you are

Where have you been all my life?

So glad I found you
I Saw Mom Get High With Santa Claus
By: Sienna Gonzalez
Tags: Humor, Christmas, Parody, Santa Claus, Marijuana

I Saw Mom Get High With Santa Claus

A re-imagined Christmas carol for the stoners out there.

Illustration by Sienna Gonzalez

I saw Mom get high with Santa Claus

Underneath the mistletoe last night

She coughed too loud to hear

That I was stepping near

But I know what it smells like ’cause my dad does this all year

Oh, I saw Mom eat chips with Santa Claus

Crumbs all in his beard so snowy white

Oh, what a laugh it would have been

If Daddy had only seen

Mommy high with Santa Claus last night

I saw Mom get high with Santa Claus

Underneath the mistletoe last night

Her eyes were pretty glazed

And I was quite amazed

Because the room’s a mess and yet my mom seemed so un-phased

I saw Mom get high with Santa Claus

Underneath the mistletoe last night

Oh, what a sight it would have been

If Daddy had only seen

Mommy high with Santa Claus last night
Building a Scrum Poker App using MotionLayout
By: Matias Isella
Tags: Kotlin, Android Development, Android, Constraintlayout, Motionlayout

I think animations are one of the most complicated things to do in Android. Making a simple animation sometimes takes a lot of code, and it gets harder if you need to synchronise them.

Luckily, Android provides a few tools that enhance the user experience. One of the latest ones is MotionLayout introduced in the Google I/O 2018. Even though it is still under development, the tool appears to be stable on beta 6.

So, I have decided to give it a go by writing a simple Scrum Poker application.

In case you don’t know what Scrum Poker is, here you can find the rules.

Summary

Basically the app will display 3 states:

Initial: Showing all the cards

Selected: Showing the selected card flipped down

Revealed: The card is shown

The goal is to develop the app using as few lines of code as possible relying on the MotionLayout XML description file to build and trigger the animations for us.

The finished project can be found on Github.

Let’s do it

If you plan to follow this post step by step, I encourage you to use Android Studio 4 (Currently on Preview) because a few design tools have been included. The Motion Editor, for example, allows you to navigate through the sequences, and help you preview what the layout will look like.

Motion Editor available on Android Studio 4

To start with, you need to use an Empty Activity project from the Android Studio Project Templates.

Once you have set up your Project, you just need to add the dependency in gradle.properties and you are good to go.

implementation 'androidx.constraintlayout:constraintlayout:2.0.0-beta6'

Let’s set up a simple RecyclerView with an Adapter to show the cards.

Now you might notice something strange, you are leaving the TextView selected_card_title outside the Card. What is this for?

MotionLayout inherits from ConstraintLayout , which works with a flat hierarchy view (there are no nested view groups). So if you want to animate or change the constraint of that view, you have to do it at root level.

Let’s use data binding for the cards, to reduce the boilerplate, and focus on the MotionLayout.

Now, let’s define the Domain Class and the Adapter to display these Cards.

Once the initial setup is done, you are ready to build your Scene.

A MotionScene is an XML resource file that contains all of the motion descriptions for the corresponding layout.

Source: https://developer.android.com/training/constraint-layout/motionlayout
What Giving Felons the Right to Vote Says About Us
By: The Good Men Project
Tags: Social Justice, Equality, Voting, Voting Rights, Politics

What Giving Felons the Right to Vote Says About Us

The Myth of Meritocracy doesn’t just lie to us about successes, it also lies about why people fail.

Photo credit: Ye Jinghan on Unsplash

By Paul Hartzer

Should incarcerated felons be allowed to vote?

Vermont Senator and Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders set off a firestorm recently by stating an unequivocal, unconditional “yes.” Even the Boston Marathon bomber. Even rapists and murderers. Even “terrible people,” Sanders insisted, deserve to vote.

I know what my argument would have been when I was more idealistic. And that argument is this: People who are in prison have committed crimes against society and, in so doing, have violated an important social contract. Therefore, they do not deserve to vote until they have paid their debt to society.

I don’t believe this argument anymore, and I’ll be explaining why here. I’ll also say I’m less interested in the specific issue of voting than I am in the mismatch between what many Americans believe about how prison works and how prison really works.
He Thought He’d Never Walk Again — Then He Met International Medical Corps
By: International Med. Corps
Tags: Nepal, Physiotherapy, Rehabilitation, There No Matter Where

FEBRUARY 19, 2016 — NEPAL

In late October 2008, while celebrating Deepawali (an important Nepali festival) with his family, 79-year-old Chandra Bahadur Shrestha felt a sudden loss of sensation in the right half of his body.

Worried, his family rushed him to Kathmandu for treatment. The next day, Chandra Bahadur found himself laying on the hospital bed, unable to move.

Chandra Bahadur was referred to a rehabilitation center in Kathmandu where he underwent numerous physiotherapy and rehabilitation sessions with little avail. “I had difficulties doing daily chores like cleaning, washing and self-grooming”, he recalls. These problems were compounded by his limited mobility which not only hampered his social life but also affected him psychologically, causing loneliness and low self-esteem.

Then one day Chandra Bahadur visited the physiotherapy step-down facility run by International Medical Corps, where a team of trained physiotherapists and nursing staff assessed and evaluated him, and developed a comprehensive rehabilitation plan.

After three months of regular psychosocial and therapeutic intervention, Chandra Bahadur found himself able to walk again. “During the early days, I would feel like giving up the exercise and would think that I was destined to be bedridden”, he admits, “but later on, I was able to do the task that I was assigned to do, because of the new and exciting exercise programme. I was able to adhere to the program every day thanks to the sheer encouragement and supportive environment created by the International Medical Corps physiotherapy team.”

A resident of Gorkha District, Chandra Bahadur is among hundreds of people in Nepal who suffer from various long term crippling conditions. Seven years earlier Chandra Bahadur had been diagnosed with hypertension, but despite that, he refused medicines prescribed by the physician; like many others in Nepal he believed that taking medicine leads to lifelong dependency. So he lived with his pain, unable to walk on his own for years before he was helped by International Medical Corps.

After seeing the results, Chandra Bahadur regrets not seeking help earlier. He recalls that the day he was able to walk was one of the happiest moments of his life.

“That day, early in the morning, he was strolling around the neighborhood and I could see his happy face greeting everyone because it was after a long wait that he was able to walk around independently,” said his son, Sanjeev Shrestha. “Now he can do his everyday activities unsupervised and loves to chat with other elderly men.

“I am grateful to International Medical Corps’ physiotherapy team for giving my father his life back.”

Originally published here on the International Medical Corps official website.
Wasn’t Supposed To
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Poetry, Unrequited Love, Love, Unspoken, Secrets

This wasn’t supposed to happen

I wasn’t supposed to care this much

You weren’t supposed to get to me

This wasn’t supposed to be

But I can’t help myself with you

One word and you’re under my skin

You’ve got me trapped in a spell

And I don’t want to get out

Why do your eyes see my soul

Why do your words fill my mind

I thought you were safe

And I didn’t see the danger signs

Now I think of you when I shouldn’t

When I close my eyes, yours is the face I see

Yours is the voice I hear

Your lips are the ones I dream of

To cover every inch of me

No, this wasn’t supposed to be

This wasn’t supposed to happen

You weren’t supposed to get me

I wasn’t supposed to fall

…I wasn’t supposed to love you
A Month of Rare Digital Art from MakersPlace
By: Devin Finzer
Tags: Makersplace, Featured, Guest Post

We at MakersPlace are excited to announce that we’ve teamed up with OpenSea to bring their NFT community a curated selection of never-before-seen rare digital artworks each week for the next month.



Read the full post on our blog.