fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Mixed Feelings About Karen
Tags: Mothers, Labelling, Family, Culture, Karen

I don’t understand the ‘Karen' labeling. Maybe it’s because my mother is a Karen. Actually she’s a Karin, small technicality.

Karin having fun with goats. Photo by author.

Albeit, I don’t always like or agree with her. As her daughter it’s my right to get annoyed, with eyes rolling saying shortly, “Karin.” Sometimes it’s in unison with my equally annoyed sisters.

Yet when a stranger shortly tells another stranger, “Stop being a Karen.”

It hits different. I’m not one to get easily offended. Ask any of my friends they’ll tell you it’s hard to offend me. Regardless of spelling, much like palm trees and raspberries, hearing ‘Karen,’ always makes me think of her.

Palms in FL, a very Karin symbol. Photos by author.

Surely I’m not the only child of an un- ‘Karen,’ ‘Karen’ for a mother and gets slightly annoyed all ‘Karen’s’ are lumped in this group of entitled middle-aged women who can be annoying.

My ‘Karen’ loves to have fun, talks loudly, and laughs even louder punctuated with dorky snorts. And she’s always laughing. She’s a dictator when it comes to making sure you’ve eaten all your veggies. Terrible fashion sense and even worse home decorator. Seriously never call her for fashion or decorating advice.

Her optimal habitat is on a deck at a family get together sharing funny nostalgic stories with a glass of wine in hand. Once while eating a donut she started singing a parody to “Like A Virgin,” by Madonna, “Like a donut! Round with a hole in the middle.” Ten years later that dork is still singing it.

She’s a strong women who empowered my sisters and I to work hard for what we want. We weren’t raised with a sense of entitlement, everything had to be earned. She got a master’s degree while raising two kids with a husband to give her family a better life. Best of all my ‘Karen,’ helped raise and house a child she didn’t give birth to without ever hesitating. My mother is all about family and helping anyone in need, without ever putting anyone down.

Karin at the LEAF Festival, enjoying peace, love, and music. Photo by author.

Why in this age are we so fixated with labeling and cancelling? I remember how she was a tad hurt (she’s also not easily offended) and confused my mother was when she found out about the ‘Karen' labeling.

I know it was a popular name for women now in their 40’s, 50’s, and ‘60’s. So surely out of all the ‘Karen’s’ there are plenty of sweet, quiet, polite, fun ‘Karen’s’ who don’t deserve to be associated with the sterotype.

Now that I’ve just said ‘Karen’ in my head a hundred times, maybe you will too and realize it’s just a name and it sounds ridiculous when used otherwise. Maybe I would feel defintley if instead I had a ‘Patrica’ or a ‘Donna' or a ‘Rebecah’ as a mother. Who knows.

Instead we need to find ways to constructively give feedback, to compliment strangers more. Most of all let’s direct all this labeling and cancelling energy into finding ways to commit small acts of kindness. And let’s channel a bit of my ‘Karin,’ and think of funny lame jokes and relaxing palm trees, just enjoying life.

What do you think about all this?
Two Powerful Questions to Fuel Self-Awareness
By: Bob Wuest
Tags: Self Improvement, Personal Growth, Emotional Intelligence, Self-awareness, Personal Development

Two Powerful Questions to Fuel Self-Awareness

iFAQs — InFrequently Asked Questions of the Head and Heart

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

Would you believe me if I said that reflecting on just two questions can positively affect the quality of your life?

Note that I said reflecting on two questions, rather than just thinking about them.

Before I share the questions let’s dwell for a moment on that term reflecting on.

Thinking about a question yields a quick answer that allows you to move on with your busy life as if you had never even considered it in the first place. Five minutes or a day later you will have forgotten about both the question and whatever answer arose in response.

Reflecting on a question, however, requires that you internalize it. As you do so you let it develop a burning curiosity within you for deeper answers — with the intention of becoming more self-aware. If you’ve ever reflected on questions like Who am I? or What is my purpose? you’ll know exactly what I mean. The question almost takes on a life of its own within you. It rolls around in your head or heart for days (or years) on end. Insights about the answers might pop up when you’re not even thinking about the question because you have developed a passion for obtaining answers. You have commissioned your inner wizard to respond.

Yeah. That’s reflecting.

One of these questions is directed to the head, the other to the heart.
Back to School 2020: Supporting national school meals programme to navigate in the coronavirus era
By: Aichurek Zhunusova
Tags: Kyrgyzstan, Schools, Food

2020 has been an unusual year and will remain to be so until the end, at least for school children. This has led the World Food Programme (WFP) to introduce unusual solutions to ensure schoolchildren receive nutritious meals no matter what learning arrangements are in place. In spring, when all schools were closed due to the outbreak of COVID-19, WFP had to make quick decisions and distribute food to children as take-home rations.

As the new academic year started on 1 September, WFP was fully prepared.

The rehabilitating and upgrading school canteens were completed to ensure they would be ready to prepare hot meals as classes resumed, as a part of the Ministry of Education’s efforts to reach all primary schools with school meals by 2022.

WFP also designed new online training for school cooks and learning materials for parents, as well as solutions to ensure schoolchildren can fully benefit from nutritious meals to boost their education and well-being.

Distribution of fortified wheat flour to schools

As the new school year kicked off in Kyrgyzstan at the beginning of this month through distance learning, WFP launched the “Healthy Baking at Home” campaign for up to two weeks, in which parents attended educational events as they collected their take-home rations of fortified wheat flour from the schools.
TTC & 바이낸스 체인: 상호 운용성을 위한 크로스체인 솔루션 ‘카르노(Carnot)’ 개발
By: Chase Chang
Tags: Ttc, Partnerships, 바이낸스, Acn

in In Fitness And In Health
Meet Justin Renken— ARK’s New Communications Specialist
By: Travis W
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Arkecosystem, Crypto, Bitcoin, Hiring

We would like to introduce ARK’s newest team member Justin Renken, our new Communications Specialist. His roles as Communication Specialist include Community Management, Educational Resources, and Community Outreach.

Justin will be assisting Matthew, Rok and Travis with ARK educational resources. He will also be filling some Community Management roles like Slack chat, Reddit and other community engagement platforms.

Justin comes from a very diverse background. He has experience in infrared photonics, and is a co-author of a published patent for thermal imaging products in industrial automation and laboratory use. His experience also includes writing, developing applications in OpenG, creative media, sales and support, music production and advertising.

Some of you may be familiar with Justin’s work and community engagement already. Here are a few of his more well known accomplishments:

Contributed to the ‘blockchain concepts’ section of our documentation at ARK’s Docs.

Created and operates ArkStickers.

Contributed to ARK Directory Kits in the form of his ARK Presentation Series.

Created an ARK overview video.

Collaborated on multiple community projects with other ARK community members.

Over time, Justin is expected to become more outward-facing as new opportunities arise to hone ARK’s messaging. That may include videos, live streams, speaking at small events, and more. He will be focused on enabling new community members to get up to speed with ARK concepts quickly and efficiently.

We are ecstatic to have Justin on the team, and can’t wait to put him to work. He is very active on Slack and Reddit already, make sure to welcome him to the team. He goes by @Justin (doubled1c3) on slack, and doubled1c3 on Reddit.
My Guilty Pleasure? “Girl Music”
By: Mark Starlin
Tags: Karen Carpenter, Olivia Newton John, Guilty Pleasure, Celine Dion, Writing Prompt Response

Public Domain

I will admit that I was initially attracted to Oliva Newton-John when I saw a poster of her in a music store when I was a teen. Her natural beauty grabbed my attention at first, but then I heard her breathy, angelic voice. I was hooked. Despite the female perspective and emotional balladry of songs like I Honestly Love You and Have You Never Been Mellow, I still wanted to hear that voice.

Naturally, I didn’t tell anyone I was an ONJ fan until later when I was married. My wife eventually figured out why I was willing to watch the movie Grease with her whenever it came on television. [Laughs.]

It was a lightbulb moment for her. “Oh. Now I get it. I wondered why you were watching this. It’s Olivia Newton-John.”

Busted!

Hey, I didn’t need to ask her why she watched Top Gun so many times. It was obvious to me. Although it was Goose she really had the crush on, not Maverick. The shirtless volleyball game scene might have a little to do with it also.

I eventually did get to see Olivia in concert a few years back. My wife bought the tickets as a birthday gift and went with me. She enjoyed the show and sang along with most of the songs.
The World Before Us
By: Maryjo Bautista
Tags: Stamps, Poetry, Paper Poetry, Scribble, Pppprompt2

Photo by the author

This poem was inspired by the conversation I had with my mother a few days ago. I had asked her about the way they communicate during the earlier times. She happily showed me these old letters and photographs that she had kept for years. It’s the letters and photographs she had exchanged with my father during the early 1980s. I can see in her eyes how precious and priceless these experiences might have been. The joy of receiving letters from the people you love the most — letters and postcards that were carefully crafted, where emotions had dripped through the words and fell right into the paper.

I was so astonished to see these old photographs — almost yellowish, portraying how they lived for years even before I was born. I asked myself, “When was the last time I wrote a letter by hand? or when was the last time I received a handwritten letter from someone?”

The old-fashioned way of letter writing can seem like an obsolete form of communication now, in our digital world which prefers electronic texts and typing-using-a-one-thumb types of communications. But I believe letter writing is still just as wonderful and fulfilling as it has always been during the old times. In the same way as photographs, these letters can capture a moment in time — a moment in one’s life. They can show us the deep emotions of the writer, what was going on to their mind, or what exactly was happening in the world at that time they wrote the letter.

Handwriting is an extremely personal aspect of one’s character — the way they think or the way they behave. It can say a lot about one’s personality that’s why receiving a letter from someone is very heartwarming. It’s like they are opening their heart to you.
Даже гению нужно уметь презентовать себя. Уроки от Леонардо да Винчи
By: Стас Гуревский
Tags: Presentations, Storytelling, Medium

in In Fitness And In Health
Many to Many Relationships in Relational Databases
By: Raşit Saygılı
Tags: Modeling, Sql, Relationships, Data Science, Database

Photo by Ivo Rainha on Unsplash

Relational databases enable users to store and retrieve data from related tables(1). They compose of tables, rows, columns, keys, atomic data, and relationships between tables. There are three types of relationships in these databases;

· One to One (1:1)

Example: In nature, each element has one formula and each formula represents one element.

· One to Many (1:M)

Example: In business, each staff works in one department and in each department, many staff can be working.

· Many to Many (M:N)

Example: In university, each student can attend many courses and in each course, there can be many students.

Many to Many(M:N) Relationship

Many to many relationships create uncertainty and duplications on data that will eventually result in wrong statements for queries(2). In the below example;

Each person can use many banks and each bank can have many customers.

In the Entity-Relationship (ER) Diagram, ‘person_id’ is specified as Primary Key, and Primary Keys should be unique. There are rows that have the same Primary Key in people table. SQL Server will be raising an error if this table is tried to create(3).

Violation of PRIMARY KEY constraint ‘PK__customer__543848DFE23A1B1A’. Cannot insert duplicate key in object ‘dbo.customer’. The duplicate key value is (1).

A common way to avoid problems while setting many to many relationships is creating a new table which is called ‘join table’, ’junction table’, ’cross-reference table’, ‘bridging table’, ‘intersection table’ in various resources.

Join table has to be composed of ‘person_id’, ‘bank_id’ from related tables’ Primary Keys and it is possible to add a new column in Join table (i.e. ‘account_type’). ‘person_id’ and ‘bank_id’ are both Primary and Foreign Keys in Join table. Primary Keys can’t be NULL values. Because of that every ‘person_id’ and ‘bank_id’ values should be filled from people and banks tables.

People and banks tables have ‘many optional’ to ‘many optional’ relationship. It means that a customer can be working with many banks or he/she can’t be working with any bank. Also, a bank can have many customers or it can’t be having any customers.

many optional

In people_banks table, each ‘person_id’ should match up with only one ‘person_id’ in people table. So that, each row in people_banks table has ‘one mandatory’ relationship with people table. This rule is also valid for the relationship between banks and people_banks tables.

one mandatory

References

1. https://www.oracle.com/database/what-is-a-relational-database/

2. https://documentation.sisense.com/8-1/managing-data/working-with-data/many-to-many.htm#gsc.tab=0

3.https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G_14.1.0/com.ibm.ddi.doc/ids_ddi_186.htm
Learning To Use Rust Over a 16-Hour Hackathon
By: Sid Shankar
Tags: Software Development, Rust, Programming, AWS, Hackathons

Getting Started on the Back End

A Google search for “Rust web framework” yielded a top hit for Rocket. I dove into the site to find the documentation and examples seem well laid out and thorough.

One caveat with Rocket is it needs the nightly version of Rust to operate. Not a big deal in th context of a hackathon.

The GitHub repo has plenty of examples. Perfect.

I used Cargo to set up a new project, added Rocket as a dependency in the TOML file, and following the instructions in the Getting Started guide for Rocket, set up a route:

#[get("/")]

fn index() -> &'static str {

"Hello, world!"

} fn main() {

rocket::ignite().mount("/", routes![index]).launch();

}

For anyone familiar with Django, Flask, Express etc., this should look very readable. As a Rocket user, you use macros as decorators on functions to map a route to a handler function.

At compile time, the macros are expanded. This will be completely transparent to you. If you’re curious to look at the expanded code, the cargo-expand crate can be leveraged.

Here are the interesting/challenging highlights of my app-building experience with Rust:

Specifying the route response

I wanted my contents route to list all the files in the S3 bucket by returning a JSON data structure.

Notice (in the code below) how you can look at the function handler associated with the route to immediately determine the response shape.

Crafting the response shape was extremely easy. If you think of the JSON data as a structure with fields, where each of those fields could, in turn, contain its own structure and fields, then this maps well to a Rust struct .

So all you have to do is to define the struct (s) that constitute the response data shape and tag each one with:

#[derive(Serialize)]

struct (s) tagged with #[derive(Serialize)] can be passed to the JSON function from rocket_contrib::json::Json , and away we go!

Working with multipart uploads

I was knee-deep in building the application with Rocket when I realized I’d likely have a form on the front end that’d result in a POST with multipart/form-data .

Unfortunately, Rocket (as of v0.4) doesn’t have multipart support. This seems to be scheduled for v0.5.

This meant having to work with the multipart crate and needing to figure out integration with Rocket. The resulting code worked but could’ve been a lot cleaner with in-built multipart support in Rocket.

Configuring CORS

Once the routes were in place and I’d done some testing using curl and Postman, it was time to integrate with the front end. I needed to set the response headers appropriately to avoid CORS issues.

Again, there’s no in-built support in Rocket.

Looking through the issue log on the GitHub repo, I saw some of the building blocks for a solution, which resulted in this:

Shortly afterward, I discovered rocket_cors, which significantly slimmed things down.
9 must-have Chrome extensions to make your life easier in 2020
By: Owais Ali
Tags: Google, Productivity, Chrome, Extension, Growth

Extension Lists

Here is the list of extensions that I have found and used personally. And these are all general-purpose extensions, that can be used by anyone, not specifically geared towards writers or web developers.

I have added links to that extension on the Chrome store, so you just click and download whichever extension you find relevant to you.

Also if you are not a Chrome person, you use open-source Mozilla Firefox you can still search for these extensions as addons on Firefox. Chances are you will find them with the same names or addons with other names but the same functionality on Firefox. Let’s begin.
Go To Disney+, and watch Togo
By: Dante Orange
Tags: Biography, Disney, Movies, Willem Dafoe, Family Movies

Togo is the first smash for Disney+, in regards to original movies. I found it to be a legitimately great film and such a surprise. It is filled with a lot of heart and backed up by a powerhouse performance by Willem Dafoe.

The film tells the often overlooked true story of the Siberian Husky, Togo, who was selected to lead the 1925 serum run, but was considered by most to be too small and weak to lead such an intense race. His owner’s will and faith in his best boy were so strong that he trusted him to lead anyways — strengthening their bond along the journey. Through it all, Togo proves himself worthy of the title “man’s best friend”.

Admittedly, I had never heard of the real story that the film is based on before its release, but having done my research on the subject matter — I firmly believe that Disney has done justice to its legacy.

Dafoe shines in his portrayal of Togo’s owner, the heroic Leonhard Seppala, delivering one of the best roles of his career. Seppala’s relationship with Togo and the other dogs is portrayed in such a beautiful and heartfelt way.

Although the PG-rated film is streaming on the family friendly streaming app, it is rather serious and slow-paced, which will likely be off-putting to children. I gave it a 0 Incluvie score, but a high general score, due to the lack of minorities and only one prominent female character: Seppala’s wife. The minority absence, however, isn’t a bad thing because it fits with the movie’s time period.
Announcement #12 — Back to School with Bitbns Academy!
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Bitbns, Bitcoin

Announcement #12 — Back to School with Bitbns Academy! Bitbns Follow Aug 14 · 2 min read

Dear Users,

When we created Bitbns, we decided it’s going to be for everyone — a beginner, a professional trader, or anyone in between. And that brings us to Announcement No.12 from #100DaysofBNS:

Bitbns Academy: an in-depth, comprehensive repository of all essential concepts in blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Here’s a teaser for it:

You can visit the Bitbns Academy page from here

With Bitbns Academy, we aim to help anyone learn extensively about cryptocurrencies. Whether you’re a person with zero awareness on Bitcoin or a professional trader who makes an income out of trading; Bitbns Academy has something for each learner class. Essentially, even stock market traders who are well-versed with the concepts of trading conventional stocks, can foray into crypto trading with Academy by learning the differences between the two trading systems and leverage the highly volatile cryptocurrency markets to their advantage.

Practically, Bitbns Academy has an ocean of concepts to learn, which is why we’ve divided it into modules, which have further been divided into smaller chapters. So yes, you can take your own sweet time and patience in discovering cryptocurrencies like never before. Some of the modules we’ve covered in Bitbns Academy are introduction to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, where & how to buy cryptocurrencies, fundamental & technical analysis, trading & investment strategies, types of trade orders, and many others major concepts from cryptocurrency trading.

The launch date for Academy is September 5th as we are razor-focused on a seamless launch. So stay with us, follow us up on our social channels for further updates.

On a side note, we’d like to let you know that we’ve been working on Bitbns Academy for a while and launching it somewhere around the BNS launch falls right in place for us because as we expand the Buyhatke ecosystem through BNS token, we intend to expand the understanding of cryptocurrencies among our users and prepare them for the ecosystem we strive to build.

In Other News…

We received tremendous response for our pool sales concept and we would work to make it grander and better.

Also Gas, NEP5 and ONT deposits and withdrawals are open now. NEO deposits are open NEO withdrawals would go live by 15th August. PS: the addresses have changed for these coins. After opening EOS and Cardano with the last announcement, major coins, NEP5 and ONT today, more than 85% of coins are now open for deposits and withdrawals. We would complete the rest of the remaining coins upgrade by 25th August.

Till then,

Onwards and Upwards towards to the future of finance

Team Bitbns
Sketch 69. A Review.
By: Marc Andrew
Tags: UX, Sketch, UI, Web Development, Design Systems

Colour Variables

With the new Colour Variables introduced in 69 you can now set colours that sync perfectly across your document, and across multiple elements.

You can have Colour Variables that are linked up with Text Style colours, so when you make a change to that single colour variable you’ll see it updated across multiple elements, which can include Text Styles also. This is a real time-saver compared to the methods used in previous versions of Sketch.

You can create Colour Variables from the Colour popover and edit them easily from there, or, and this is probably my more preferred method, you can jump into the Components View and create and edit them from there also.

Of course, you can still use existing Colour Layer Styles if you have them in your document or design system, and link them up with Colour Variables, or you can just go with Variables, it’s entirely up to you.

With my own Design System; Cabana, I’ve gone with a mix of Colour Layer Styles and Variables for now. I feel Layer Styles are just that little more versatile currently, and allow you that bit more freedom than Variables alone. This I’m sure will change as this new feature matures over time with future updates of Sketch.
Everything I do Starts on Yellow Pads
By: Peter Avritch
Tags: Startup, Entrepreneurship, Work, Programming, Business

I’m a software developer and I’m addicted to ruled yellow pads.

There, I said it.

I think these magical pads are the secret source of my mojo, so I have no intention of kicking this paper habit which has sustained me for decades.

Sometimes I’ll have two or three pads going on at the same time as I sit in my big comfy chair or sofa at home and meticulously plot out code modules or business strategies.

Having multiple pads is like using multiple monitors on your computer. Once you’ve tried it, there’s no going back. It just makes it so much easier to see the big picture; especially when the pieces are tightly connected.

If I’m starting a new product or business, I can easily go through a dozen or more pads as I do research and scribble down abstract thoughts and ideas.

At first, I try to resit tearing out the individual pages, but eventually, I get too many disconnected thoughts on single pads, and I break down and rip them all out and create piles by topic on the floor; ready for waiting paper clips or giant fasteners.

My detractors tout their mind maps and Google Docs; but to me, these simply don’t give me the free-form experience I feel is so essential to my personal process.

I frequently use One Note, included with Microsoft Office, in combination with my pads — mostly as a system for rich bookmarking that automatically syncs in real time between my MacBook and iPad Pro.

That’s right. When I’m really in the zone, I have two or three pads, a MacBook and an iPad all going at the same time.

My living room sofa and coffee table transform into implements of inspiration, my new desk, with my 60" wall-mounted TV just waiting for an opportunity to jump in and show me a brilliant YouTube video using ChromeCast or Apple TV.

I’m always on the lookout for new tools that might help with my creative process, but somehow, I keep falling back to my old habits.

Laugh if you want. It works for me.

I wonder if I’ll ever change?

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +391,714 people.

Subscribe to receive our top stories here.
The Generosity of Human Warmth
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Society, Relationships, Psychology, Self, Culture

I venture out for my weekly shop in the narrow streets of the medieval Dutch city where I live and the atmosphere outside is noticeably different from a week ago, less convivial, less gezellig.

Some of the people walking around seem utterly lost and directionless. A man shuffles along looking fearful and apologetic, clutching a shopping bag for dear life. We cross paths twice, I beam a smile his way twice but he doesn’t see me. An elderly lady is muttering to herself in the candy aisle, some teenagers are ooh-ing and aah-ing over every item, their enthusiasm forced. A mother and daughter are going around the block, arms interlocked.

They’re all out so they don’t have to be home; I’m out because we’ve run out of supplies.

Even though the Dutch government hasn’t yet enforced lockdown and we are free to go out of walks or bike rides, we’ve haven’t been. No one in my household has job security so we’re fighting hard not to sink and working as much as ever, making the best of what we have and adapting as we go along since no one knows what comes next.

Not having to go out actually saves us time, balancing out the curious fact that everything now seems to take longer, somehow. Life happens in slow motion, at a pace dictated by the determination not to crumble while exhaustion intensifies steadily.

Lockdown distorts time, some hours go by faster than others, mornings vanish or drag on, afternoons are either endless or gone in a flash. In the evening, we work then revisit comedy classics that are painful to watch as an American. George Carlin and Dave Chappelle make me all the more grateful for my current geographical coordinates, as does John Oliver.

But watching America from abroad doesn’t lessen the horror of witnessing a country self-destruct in real time. For every American stepping up to the plate, there’s another trying to line their pockets with the proceeds of fear and panic. And the current administration encourages them to do so, no matter how much collateral damage greed creates.

Can any presidential candidate reverse moral rot so widespread COVID-19 rapid testing is the new status symbol?
Inheritance vs. Composition
Tags: iOS, Xcode, Swift, Programming, Mobile

Problem with Inheritance

You’ll quickly get a rather deep and wide inheritance. You may end up with a deep class hierarchy some days. One change from the upper-class may destroy all the below classes. The moment you decide to inherit from another class, that’s time you tie your class to it. You’re never sure what the superclass is going to do as it’s out of your control :D This is known as the fragile base class problem

The class hierarchy is very, very difficult to change once it’s been deployed. One option would be to re-write the whole thing.

Apparently, inheritance brings me so much annoyance. One normal day I get:

git pull master

Everything looks good — there are no conflicts. Time to create a branch to work on. First things first, run the project — still good, compile success. Then I sanity check my latest developed feature — and boom, it’s messed up.

After some time debugging, I finally find out why. It’s because of some changes made in the root class!

Sometimes, it’s true that we use inheritance inappropriately. The Liskov Substitution principle would be the most important guideline to determine whether inheritance fits your design or not.

For instance: B is inherited from A. Use Liskov Substitution to justify the relationship between B and A, then reverse the relationship and justify it again. If the relationship seems to make sense in both directions, you’re better off not using inheritance.

With Inheritance, you may consider what superclass is doing and also what your subclasses may want to override/change. Instead of focusing on your scope, you may have to spend time to understand a large amount of code across your app, to just “make it work” well.

One problem with inheritance is that it encourages you to predict the future — it’s a trap. Inheritance encourages you to build a taxonomy of objects very early in your project. You’re probably going to make design mistakes by doing that. In some cases, it also breaks encapsulation as well by exposing properties/methods for subclasses to use.

Another downside of inheritance is that it makes debugging a significant challenge when the class hierarchy becomes too complex. A simple stack trace can spill out of the screen when there are 30 layers of inheritance.
The Conscious Silence
By: Paul Mulliner
Tags: Mindfulness, Meditation, Poetry, Life, Self

The conscious silence inside us, is prior

to all thought.

It’s one conscious space in all of us,

it’s the space and silence of now.

Finding this conscious space inside,

brings moments when all experiencing

seems joined.

Into the one shared heart of our being.

We’ve become the One, reflecting back to itself.

And then sometimes, our thinking

can create a tribe, a comforting sense

of belonging.

Excluding those that don’t belong,

don’t fit in, to ‘our’ tribe.

It’s all just thought, which is to say some

sort of mental process.

And it isn’t changed by thinking

we should think differently.

We can realize our common humanity

by letting go of thinking.

Letting it dissolve away inside us

and finding the one conscious space

that joins us.

Finding our inner self in harmony

with all conscious space,

Where all experiencing vibrates, or resonates

into coherent orchestration.

With the one joined heart

of our being.

Then we find that life is simply living

itself within us.

And life is new in every moment,

as it happens.
Handle Concurrency in Gorilla Web Sockets
By: André Marques
Tags: Concurrency, Golang, Gorilla, Websocket

Most of the times, if you want to get started quickly with web sockets you will go to socket.io. But are there any other solutions? In this post, I’ll tell you all about an other framework, Gorilla web sockets, that I came across during a personal project.

Golang + Gorilla

At some point, I was building a web application and felt the need to have web sockets in my infrastructure. Because this was a personal project and I had some time, I thought that I could learn something new and use another framework besides socket.io. I was learning Go at the time and it was the perfect moment to try to use web sockets with it. I found that the Gorilla framework could do the trick, handling connections, and broadcasting messages.

Simple web sockets interaction

First of all, if you are using an HTTP framework in your Go project, you have to listen to the WS endpoint and create a handler that will connect all of your socket clients (in my case, I was using GIN framework).

router.GET("/ws", func(c *gin.Context) {

wshandler(c.Writer, c.Request)

})

The wshandler here will have to register connections and save them into a structure so that you can broadcast messages to your clients. These connections will have to be mapped with some kind of ID (normally a user ID). For the structure, normally a map is used to do the trick.

var sockets = make(map[string]*Connection)

Here, we’ll create a map binding a key to our connection, and this will be used for all kinds of web sockets messages. For instance:

var upgrader = websocket.Upgrader{

CheckOrigin: func(r *http.Request) bool {

return true

},

} func wshandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

conn, err := upgrader.Upgrade(w, r, nil)

// error handling here

defer conn.Close()



err = conn.ReadJSON(&message)

// error handling here



if sockets[message.SOME_ID] == nil {

connection := new(Connection)

connection.Socket = conn

sockets[message.SOME_ID] = connection

}

}

But what is this Connection struct exactly? This struct will hold the socket connection and a mutex so that you can lock the connection and wait for the unlock so that you can send the message.

// Connection - Websocket connection interface type Connection struct {

Socket *websocket.Conn

mu sync.Mutex

} // Concurrency handling - sending messages

func (c *Connection) Send(message Message) error {

c.mu.Lock()

defer c.mu.Unlock()

return c.Socket.WriteJSON(message)

}

Now, instead of using WriteJSON directly in your wshandler, you will have to use this new Send method that will handle your desired concurrency.

for key, connection := range sockets {

err := connection.Send(message)

if err != nil {

delete(sockets, connection)

}

}

And there you have it! You successfully handled concurrency in your Gorilla project.
Monotony
By: Jonathan Greene
Tags: Poetry, Life, Boredom, Isolation, Self-awareness

Monotony

A Poem

Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash

I open my eyes every morning

with delusional forgetfulness

of the plight we are all in

Another day at home

with the same general schedule,

the same regular meals,

the same feeling of humdrum

and personal malaise

and while I do my best

to appreciate all that I have

it doesn’t make me less bored

with the unstrung monotony

currently calcifying my life

New day, new show

New day, new project that

I will carefully avoid completing

because then I would need

to start another one

and finishing anything right now

is so underwhelming and unsatisfying

that it almost feels better

to add to my to-do list

so there is more to do

while I am still tucked away,

in parental solitude,

wondering if this is

the very definition of ennui

Sweatpants or shorts,

cereal or waffle,

Earl Grey or Darjeeling,

these are the top questions

that plague my morning

and cause serious rumination

because why not?

I have the time

All I have is time right now,

that, and the backtalk from

the person in the mirror

who keeps telling me

that I could be less bored

if I accomplished more

and that my pandemic mindset

is contextually negative

or the sound of a flatline

Read a book, listen to a podcast

Watch a MasterClass, cook something

Learn something, meditate

Spend all day online

clicking from here to there

but going absolutely nowhere

Same chair, same lights

Same snack, same bites

Use wipes, open boxes

Sanitize my hands,

then touch a box corner

Wash my hands again,

dry my hands, have a snack

Put on a sweatshirt, listen to a song

Click, click, click

from here to there again

and back to here again

The monotony is deafening

even in a world without sound

The walls seem closer each day

and the outside seems brighter,

even with the shadow of doom

hanging over its head

Hanging over my head

as I walk the dog three times

and avoid others as if

there was a virus going around

Go around the block, come back

Toss bag, hang leash

Wash hands, get a snack

Do laundry, refresh Whole Foods

No available delivery times

Try to write, check email

Open YouTube, watch The Dodo

Get a drink, look on Instagram

Take a pic of the dog, Wednesday

Press reset only to realize that

everything is still the same

Start again

Monotony
Heathcliff’s Requiem
By: Paul Austin Murphy
Tags: Moors, Poetry, Heathcliff, Requiem, Wuthering Heights

In that moor’s strict seclusion,

He would happily die.

He’d let the wind and rain (which he loved too much)

Take him deep into their sweet, deadly arms.

A calm, final movement.

A smooth, long fall through marsh grass -

Like Alice down the deepest well.

There shall be no pain.

There shall be no sorrow.

No one to cry.

Only a most-elemental death.

A slow fall from consciousness.
We all are slaves of the mind.
By: Naveen Bommakanti
Tags: Consciousness, Freedom, Success, Mindset, Awareness

Even the very freedom we seek is the mind’s command.

Importance of realization, awareness and consciousness:

We all are slaves of the mind, even the very freedom we seek is the mind’s order.

We create our own barricades, block all the passages, decide what not to do, believe in everything which doesn’t even exist, limit ourselves with whatever existed and then try hard to escape from all the uncertainties that we inject into our heads.

No single creature outside our body has control over us, even if they appear to be. We are just being fooled by our strange brains. Misguided by the shadows of our eyes, adapted to the logic of our senses. Obsessed with the worldly possessions created by our imagination. To the core, we are being manipulated by our very biological system.

So, now reiterate, what is the cause of our issues?

The utter failures of our lives work are the lack of awareness of our own biology and the functionality of our complex inner mechanism.

The cause of all issues is not because of lack of education but one’s inability to think.

And the root of all illness is the fear- Just question yourself! Fear of whatnot!

Out of all the extrinsic desires, the only essential approaches we are attempting towards is connection and independence.

Yet, everyone is seeking for valuable connection, everyone is seeking for individual independence. But what everyone failing to realize is-

The aim of connection is not to connect with the world but to one’s own self. And the aim of independence is not to become free but to connect with the world.

“When one connects to one’s higher self the ultimate freedom is the connection to everything.”

Therefore, the learning should begin with mind and end with soul. Hence, everything else includes in it.

In such a way, The journey of mastering mind is the way to realization, then advances its search to be aware and eventually ends with consciousness. Forthwith, life begins.
Getting Started With Creative Coding
By: Jun Wu
Tags: Art, Learn To Code, Programming, Coding, Design

Getting Started With Creative Coding

When art meets programming and generates design

@heftiba unsplash.com

We all know that programming can be functional. In the business world, we program to solve business problems. In the software world, we program to create a product that can either entertain or help us live better. Can you imagine programming for art? This is exactly what Creative Coding is. It’s the art of creating visualizations for expression.

You generate (2D, 3D, interactive) visualizations by applying algorithms using a programming language. Historically, this is called generative art. But, more and more, with the hype of data science, programmers are venturing into creative coding to bridge the gap between art and programming.

By the way, I find the name “creative coding” to be somewhat misleading. It implies that programmers who engage in creative coding are not programmers. They are coders. This is not true at all. To be a functional “creative coding” artist, you are straddling many disciplines: art, design, programming, and math. Often, you end up creating algorithms for your projects. Not only do you need math fundamentals, but you need artistic sensibilities to apply these algorithms to generate art. People who are truly great at “creative coding” are polymaths. They search for meaning in both the creative universe and the logical universe. They delve deep into the subjects that they work with. They end up becoming great programmers. A lot of their projects are software projects.

Designers who historically used Illustrator and Photoshop are also venturing into creative coding. Here’s an inspirational video of how designers are using creative coding in different types of ways. You will find creative coding designs in large art installations at museums, in concerts, in-store displays, and in trade show displays. Very often, marketers use these types of art displays to inspire customers.

Kids find it easy to use creative coding as a stepping stone to get into programming. Most kids who are in junior high school or elementary school love to draw and paint. Often, these kids are visual learners who can potentially become polymaths. They find it fascinating to use creative coding to explore more logical subjects such as math, biological sciences, architecture, and engineering.

Disclaimer: This article is purely for information purposes. This article does not contain affiliate links.
I’m Quitting My Job to Join the Gig Economy
By: Kendra Perley
Tags: Jobs, Freelancing, Economy, Work, Parenting

I’m Quitting My Job to Join the Gig Economy

Am I crazy? Maybe. But I’m a millennial mom on a mission.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Let’s start this post with gratitude. Like many, expressing my gratitude is something that I don’t do regularly, unfortunately. Blame it on our current culture or the lack of brain space to remember one more goddamn thing, but I need a mindfulness app on my phone to remind me to recognize the good in my life.

The sheer fact that I am able to quit my full-time, salaried corporate writing job is because of my husband. He’s propped me up emotionally for years now, and now he’s going to carry the weight of being our financial stability if my plan goes to shit. I wrestle every day with the internal guilt I feel for putting such pressure on him. Am I being selfish?

But we’ve discussed it thoroughly and have both come to the conclusion that this is what is best for our family at the moment. As a full-time working mother to two young children, I’m burned out. I’m overburdened with all the things I carry in my mental load, and physically exhausted.

I wake up tired from shitty nights of sleep, chug a bunch of coffee throughout the day (which amps up my anxiety), then rush home to care for our boys, and then crash when they do. At this point in my life, I feel like no one is getting the best version of me — not my boys, not my husband, not my co-workers, and not myself.

So I’m making a change.

The opportunity arose to make the leap into freelance and I’m taking it. I’ve been doing the freelance game for a few years now when I find the time for projects I want to work on. There are major draws to the freelance world: choose when and where you work (hello, sweatpants!), and who you work with.

But there are obvious drawbacks: employer-provided health insurance, 401(k) plans with employer contributions, paid-time off, consistent work/paycheck. But what I’ve learned as I’ve grown older is that the 9–5 office corporate life just isn’t my jam. And trying to be everything to everyone is wearing me down.

And I’m a low-key risk taker.

You won’t find me jumping out of an airplane or swimming with sharks, but when it comes to betting on myself, I’m all in.

So I’m starting my journey excited, terrified, motivated, and with a grateful heart. I know how fortunate I am to be my own boss and spend more time with my children — an opportunity many parents would love to have.

No matter what opportunities you have, always bet on yourself.
FLUON at the Digital Currency Summit, Zug, and Barcelona.
By: Francisco Gordillo
Tags: Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Fintech, Blockchain

The last 10 days have been full of public activity and the beginning of our effort to share our work. We presented in Madrid, Zug and Barcelona.

Madrid. Our roadshow kick-off took place at the Digital Currency Summit in Madrid on Wednesday, 31st of May. The Digital Currency Summit was held at ICADE (Universidad Pontificia de Comillas), one of the most prestigious universities in the Spanish speaking world.

There was the official announcement where Carlos Buendia (our head of development) and myself presented the concept, and an additional presentation by Cristina Carrascosa (our head of legal) on asset tokenisation.

Francisco Gordillo at the Digital Currency Summit — 31st May — Madrid

Carlos Buendia at the Digital Currency Summit — 31st May — Madrid

Cristina Carrascosa at the Digital Currency Summit — 31st May — Madrid

ZUG. The following Tuesday, 6th of June we presented at the First Tuesday Crypto Valley meetup in Zug, Switzerland together with aeternity. It was a fantastic night with a very demanding and knowledgeable audience. We made friends and felt very comfortable in our soon-to-be new home in Zug. We’d very much like to thank Soren Fog for the invitation, Validity Labs and Lakeside Partners for their warm welcome.

Francisco Gordillo in Zug — June 6th

Dinner in Zug

Barcelona. on the 7th we woke up in Zug, rushed to Zurich and flew to Barcelona, where we presented with Wings, NEM and B9lab. There were some 250 people, all presentations were quite interesting and the Q&A panel with all 4 presenters was fantastic. I’d like to give special thanks to Alex Gines and Juan Miguel Perez and congratulate them for the fantastic organisation.

Full house in Barcelona

Francisco Gordillo presenting FLUON in Barcelona

Q&A with Wings, B9lab and NEM in Barcelona

Next in line is Prague on Monday the 12th of June, where Carlos Buendia will be presenting at Paralelni Polis. Looking forward to meeting the Czech crypto community!

An additional note. The Crypto Birds podcast (in Spanish) kicked off with amazing content and an interview with the FLUON team… thank you Carlos!
Technology, disruption and Pokemon GO
By: Joseph Emmi
Tags: Technology, Software, Pokemon Go, Disruption, Journal

Is not amazing that a company that two weeks ago was consider as falling behind, with almost no presence on Smart Phones, launched what have become the hottest game on the planet, literally changing the world overnight. Pokemon GO is only about a week old. A WEEK!

Love it or hate it.

That’s the disruptive power of technology and software in the world we’re living in.

How long this will last? Who knows…

I’d like to think that not even Nintendo expected such a massive success, but most interesting to me is what are they going to do next to keep the momentum and/or capitalise what they achieved, because if there’s something I can agree is that they are jumping late into the Smart Phone games bandwagon, but also, clear example that you don’t have to hit first to win.

Is it a matter of the right timing? Or to be lucky at the right time when finally decided to jump in?

I personally don’t believe in just “luck”, so I will think about “circumstances”.