fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Argo, 2012 — ★★★½
Tags: Thriller, Brian Cranston, CIA, Action, Drama

We can’t leave someone behind. We have to bring the boys home. This has been a theme for many Hollywood movies. It fills everyone with a sense of pride, nationalism etc. This is an instant effect. Probably that is the reason why these films are generally a commercial success. But this is about the entertainment industry. What about when these incidents actually take place? What mettle are the people made of who go in the troubled zones when odds are stacked against them. Argo is a story of one such operation led by CIA.

What we are, are required to follow orders. — Jack O’Donnell

This is easy. Because the sense of responsibility is absolved the moment you just follow orders. Your conscience is not questioned when you introspect. Even if it does, you tell your mind how your actions were not in your control. This all goes out of the window when you decide to take decisions which are in conflict with orders. Things work or they don’t but the sense of responsibility and ownership falls on your shoulders. You can shake it off. When your decisions make an impact on others’ lives, this burden is tremendous.

The story is well known. The movie is based on a book. So the content is all there, and there are many cinematic liberties to make it a thriller. It all works out well. Although the end is far too dramatized for my taste, I would not hold it against the film. The movie gets serious when in Iran and way too superfluous when in Hollywood LA. This has an impact on the perceived genre of the film. It definitely was noticeable and odd.

I liked the cinematography. Iran looks beautiful from the lens of Rodrigo Prieto. It’s huge mosques, the skyline, and the bustle of the bazaar, all are captured very well. The movie also films the tensions in the house very well. I liked it. The movie starts like a documentary and then progresses to be a film. That works.

The characters blend in nicely. I liked Bryan Cranston as Jack O’Donnell. He merged with the role so well, that I later realized I have seen him for five seasons of Breaking Bad. Ben Affleck is marvelous. I am becoming a fan of his brooding acting and that smirk. It feels that the character comes naturally to him. There was criticism for his casting, but as a moviegoer who is not well aware of the facts of the story, he did not disappoint. I wish the he reboots Max Payne. He would fit so well in that series.

The movie maintains the pace and hence remains a thriller. It keeps the bearing of period drama too. The initial monolog of introduction helps to understand the conflict. You feel somewhat strangely sympathetic towards the revolutionaries too. As a movie, it portrays CIA and Affleck to be the only orchestrator of it whole, that goes over the top at times.

Overall, I enjoyed the film. It kept me on the edge for most of the times. I am willing to give it 3.5.
List Group guide for billboard framework
By: Amir Mahmoud Mirzargar
Tags: CSS, Framework, HTML, Web Development, Elbillboard

Hi everyone

To use Listgroup, just connect the billboard library (CSS & JS) to the web page first (CDN or Local) And then create your Listgroup using the code below.

You can find files and CDN billboard framework in following link.

Recommended connecting the Font Awesome library to the web page to display the fonts icons.
3 Things Writing Taught Me About Life
By: Yousuf Rafi
Tags: Writing, Life Lessons, Writing Life, Lifehacks, Writing Prompts

I had no idea the thing I hate the most could one day become my greatest strength. That’s why they say if you want to humor GOD, share your plans.

I was sad. Losing a job with not much saving is not an ideal life that I dreamed of living in my childhood. While I was buried deep in my thoughts, I unknowingly took a piece of paper and started writing a poem one fine evening. I was sad and wrote the poem pouring all my emotions into it.

To my surprise, the poem was loved by my family, friends, and most of my friends on social media. It is then I realized the power of writing my thoughts. Since that day, whether I am freelancing or working full-time, there is not a single day that I skipped writing for myself. And Later, I realized the changes that are writing bough into my life.

Here are some of the things that I learned while writing my thoughts:

1. Learn From Your Mistakes & Make New Ones

Mistakes are part of life. You cannot ignore them. But as you grow old, you get better at resolving them. With every rejection I get, I learn something new about myself. I get to explore the side of my life, which I was unaware of.

Don’t take your rejections at the end of the world. Learn from them and move on to make new ones.
How Video Games Will Change the Museum — The Five Best Ideas of the Day: May 6, 2016
By: Aspen Institute
Tags: Videogames, Education, The Five Best, Climate Change

The Five Best Ideas of the Day: May 6, 2016

1. If we really want to show moms some love, we should step up the fight against Zika virus.

By Ashish Jha in USA Today

2. Want to live longer? Don’t retire.

By Ann Lukits in the Wall Street Journal

3. A surprising side effect of the opioid epidemic: rising organ donation.

By Elahe Izadi in the Washington Post

4. Solar power is contagious.

By Brad Plumer in Vox

5. Have hedge funds lost their Midas touch?

By David Randall, Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Lawrence Delevingne at Reuters

Sign up to get the Five Best Ideas of the Day in your inbox every day.
Accelerating the Implementation of the SDGs with Smart Capital
By: Maya Plentz, Editor, Founder, The Un Brief
Tags: UN, Sdgs, Sustainable Development, United Nations, Technology

UN Sustainable Development Goals

The UN Brief interviewed technology investor Bill Tai to speak about impact investing, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs or Global Goals), the new wave of technology and digital transformation we are seeing, and how venture capital is looking to ‘do well by doing good’.

Bill has logged-in 30 years in Silicon Valley, first as a chip-designer, then as an investor in deep-tech, enterprise software, and consumer startups, in 150 companies, 22 of which went public. Besides his impressive track-record as an investor he is also an avid kitesurfer, who cares about the oceans, leading an annual fundraising event for marine protection in Richard Branson’s island.

What he looks for in the companies he invests? How he became the first backer of Zoom, and why he invested in the Australian graphic design startup Canva? How emerging economies are poised to create technology companies that are truly global, have social impact, and are scalable? We addressed these and other questions on the subject of Internet infrastructure and software.

We also spoke about his collaboration with the UN Joint SDG Fund, a new financial instrument to accelerate the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the upcoming events that will take place at the UN in October and November, with Lisa Kurbiel, Director of the Joint SDG Fund, and Bloomberg’s David Rubenstein. Take a listen:
Get involved into API testing in a new way with Katalon Studio
By: Katalon Studio
Tags: API, Software Development, Programming, Continuous Integration, Testing

Hello all,

Katalon team is excited to announce the release of Katalon Studio v5.8, bringing you an all-new experience for your API/Web Service testing project:

Instantly import Web service requests with Quick Start Wizard

The Quick Start wizard allows you to quickly import Swagger 2.0/WSDL definition, create draft REST/SOAP requests to try out with variations of testing data requirements. When importing Web service definition, Katalon Studio will load specified information and populate into your project so you will never have to spend time converting them manually. This wizard can be launched and relaunched anytime in Help > Quick Start.

Retrieve Request History at any time

All Web service requests sent in Katalon Studio are stored in the ‘Request History’ panel, which you can retrieve anytime.

Add Web service request to new/existing Test Case

Web service request objects can be added directly to a test case from the ‘Object Details’ view with two available options: ‘Add to new Test Case’ or ‘Add to existing Test Case.’

Support PATCH HTTP method

Katalon Studio now supports the PATCH HTTP method to help you apply a partial modification to resources.

This release also includes new bugs fixes to advance the convenience and quality of your test automation:

Fix an issue in which local URL cannot be used for SOAP requests.

Remove an error message displayed when users create a new sample project.

We hope you enjoy your API testing experience with Katalon Studio v5.8. For further reference, you can check out this list on top API testing tools in 2020. Don’t forget to provide your feedback so that we can make Katalon Studio more suitable for your needs.

Thank you and happy testing!

Katalon team.

UPDATED: Katalon ver 7.x is available now. Click here to download the latest version.
Human or A.I. composed music?
By: Angely Salazar-Sandoval
Tags: Composer, Music, Technology, Artificial Intelligence

Humans listen to a song and think about how nice the melody is but they usually don’t think about who or what composed the song. Artificial Intelligence is evolving and can now create music on its own. This will be a step for an affordable and simpler way to create melodies for the internet masses. A.l. composers are going to impact our lives greatly in the future. But how you may ask?

Artificial Intelligence uses deep learning and reinforcement techniques to create music. To understand how a non-human can be able to create music on its own, you have to know what deep learning algorithms are.

Deep learning is a part of machine learning where A.I. mimics how humans think. It creates patterns based on data and information it receives from the internet. A.I. uses resources like social media and search engines such as Google and Youtube to learn music history and different songs. A.I. then uses the information it learns to distinguish patterns, tempos, and notes to create its own melodies.

Reinforcement learning techniques are also a part of machine learning and are similar to goal-oriented algorithms. The way it works is when A.I. is given a task, it learns how to do it correctly based on previous attempts and errors.

Exactly how humans make a mistake and quickly learn from it. A.I. understands the problem and adapts to correct it. A.I. uses clusters of similar-sounding songs to pick out the similarities and create a new tune.

Both deep learning and reinforcement learning can be used by Artificial Intelligence to compose music. Aiva Technologies is a company that has successfully created an Artificial Intelligent composer. Aiva (Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist), is a non-human composer who was taught to compose classical and symphonic music. Aiva does this by using both deep learning and reinforcement techniques; it reads music written by composers like Mozart and Beethoven to compose its piece.

Aiva has become the world’s first virtual composer. It has composed many different genres of music including Rock and Chinese. Companies like TED trust Aiva to compose music for their events. Aiva’s music has expanded and can now be listened to on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Music.

Here is more information about Aiva and its music.

Artificial Intelligent composers are going to impact our lives in the future because it will become the new mainstream music. It will become easier to create songs for commercials with no copyright. Music will be cheaper to produce which would help large companies.

Artificial Intelligent composers will not take over an artist's job; however, it will shape the world with the expansion of creating new music and evolving life.
My Weird Writing Habit That Motivates Me to Wake Up Every Morning
By: Kathy W.
Tags: Writing, Mindfulness, Lifestyle, Productivity, Self Improvement

How My Weird Habit Formed

One day, I was writing half-way and I can’t stop dozing off. It was 1 am in the midnight. Queue my overactive mind:

“I have a lot more to write.”

“I have many more ideas that I want to put in.”

“I want to finish this before I go to bed.”

Yeah, I want to finish everything I’ve started today, as usual, at once. However, my exhausted body and mind denied mercilessly, “Negative, good night!”

So, I slept.

The next morning, I woke up with great spirit. My body isn’t heavy. My heart is on fire. Something is pushing me off the bed. Within 30 seconds, I bid farewell to my bed and I was sitting in front of my unfinished article, in my jammies. I can’t wait to finish the piece even if my stomach was empty.

It feels like I’ve found my ikigai.

I was surprised by myself. Why can I get up so quickly? How can I get so passionate in the morning?

The next day, I tried it again. I purposely left my work unfinished at night so that I can complete it the next morning. As expected, the next morning I am filled with purpose once again. Slowly, leaving articles unwritten turned into my writing habit. A weird habit.

Since then, I’ve stopped completing articles all at once. I break them up into two days. I stopped writing from scratch in the morning. I do it in the afternoon or evening. Completing an article is way easier than starting it from scratch, which is why you should do it in the morning.

Since I’m not a morning person, I don’t want to overload myself with too much stress in the morning. I start my day by doing something easier instead. In the afternoon or evening, I’m warmed up. Starting a piece from scratch is much easier now. Then, I’ll end my day by finishing the first half of a new article.
7 Hacks for ES6 Developers
By: Tal Bereznitskey
Tags: Async, JavaScript, Hacks, ES6

Following the original JavaScript hacks, here’s some new goodies. Coding JavaScript in 2018 is actually fun again!

Hack #1 — Swap variables

Using Array Destructuring to swap values

let a = 'world', b = 'hello'

[a, b] = [b, a]

console.log(a) // -> hello

console.log(b) // -> world // Yes, it's magic

Hack #2 — Async/Await with Destructuring

Once again, Array Destructuring is great. Combined with async/await and promises to make a complex flow — simple.

const [user, account] = await Promise.all([

fetch('/user'),

fetch('/account')

])

Hack #3 — Debugging

For anyone who likes to debug using console.log s, here’s something awesome (and yes, I heard of console.table ):

const a = 5, b = 6, c = 7

console.log({ a, b, c }) // outputs this nice object:

// {

// a: 5,

// b: 6,

// c: 7

// }

Hack #4 — One liners

Syntax can be so much more compact for array operations

// Find max value

const max = (arr) => Math.max(...arr);

max([123, 321, 32]) // outputs: 321 // Sum array

const sum = (arr) => arr.reduce((a, b) => (a + b), 0)

sum([1, 2, 3, 4]) // output: 10

Hack #5 — Array concatenation

The spread operator can be used instead of concat :

const one = ['a', 'b', 'c']

const two = ['d', 'e', 'f']

const three = ['g', 'h', 'i'] // Old way #1

const result = one.concat(two, three) // Old way #2

const result = [].concat(one, two, three) // New

const result = [...one, ...two, ...three]

Hack #6 — Cloning

Clone arrays and objects with ease:

const obj = { ...oldObj }

const arr = [ ...oldArr ]

Note: This creates a shallow clone.

Hack #7 — Named parameters

Making function and function calls more readable with destructuring:

const getStuffNotBad = (id, force, verbose) => {

...do stuff

}

const getStuffAwesome = ({ id, name, force, verbose }) => {

...do stuff

} // Somewhere else in the codebase... WTF is true, true?

getStuffNotBad(150, true, true) // Somewhere else in the codebase... I ❤ JS!!!

getStuffAwesome({ id: 150, force: true, verbose: true })

Already knew them all?

You’re a true hacker, you can read more tips & tricks for writing better code.

Let’s continue the conversation on Twitter. You can also check my startup Torii where we make “SaaS headache” go away.
APIS x Bithumb 거래소 상장
By: Apis Team
Tags: Notice, Kor, Finance, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency

APISplatform

Official publication for APIS, the world-first masternode…
El que quiera celeste, que defina su atributo
By: Martín Thompson
Tags: Design, Graphic Design, Product Design, UX, UI

We specialize in end-to-end development of high impact products, providing technological solutions to start-ups and companies that are seeking to innovate and need support in developing their ideas.

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Respect
By: Øivind H. Solheim
Tags: Communication, Bullying, Respect, Blue Insights, Poetry

What is respect?

Yes, it can be difficult to say exactly what respect is, but it is actually something that is very important in human relationships.

Respecting the person you are talking to means relating to what the other person is doing and what the other person is saying, and not interpreting hidden intentions into the other person.

Showing respect means being able to see the other person, and being able to listen to what the other person is saying.

Respect is about the ability to take in what someone else says even if it is something other than what you yourself want or think to do.

Respect is about not making threats.

Respect or lack of respect often emerges in situations where there are conflicting interests or simply conflict.

In such situations, a lack of respect will manifest itself e.g. by not relating to what the other party is actually saying, but attributing hidden intentions to the other party. Lack of respect is shown by the use of irony, condescension and sarcasm — that is, tools that the one who feels upstairs uses to push the other down a bit.
Let Death Be Your Constant Companion
By: James Ryan Leonard
Tags: Death, Philosophy, Mindset, Leadership, Life

Let Death Be Your Constant Companion

Don’t just come to grips with death. Allow it to guide you toward a good life, and make it a partner on your journey.

I drive fifty minutes to work every day, and fifty minutes back home. Most of that time, I’m either dealing with big-rigs on a two-lane country road, or I’m dealing with big-rigs on a busy highway. At any given moment, any single distraction — mine or someone else’s, caused by anything at all — could initiate a series of misfortunes that I wouldn’t be able to avoid, and … well, that would be that.

One hundred minutes of nearly every day of my life, I am literally inches away from death. Cumulatively, that’s more than eight hours of every week spent on the knife’s edge. More than four hundred hours every year on death’s doorstep.

But of course, humans can get used to anything. After a while, these quietly death-defying moments become pretty mundane. It’s almost like we need a close call every once in a while, just to shake ourselves back to awareness.

We see death routinely in our escapist entertainment — every show or movie or news report seems to pivot around death — but in our real lives, death has become almost entirely invisible. When a relative or a pet passes away, it’s often behind closed doors. When I’m driving along on autopilot, listening to Seth Godin or Steven Wilson, it’s really easy to forget that at any moment, any car ahead of me could blow a tire and spin out and send me careening off to my untimely demise.

Death is out of sight, out of mind. And so we begin to ignore it, at our peril.

Ignoring death allows us to prioritize the future over the present. Our actions and behaviors today don’t seem as important as whatever it is we’re working toward — our next promotion, our next big project. It’s ok if our relationships suffer a little now, because of how much better things are going to be down the road. You’ll make it up to them.

But every time our relationships suffer, in every tiny instance, they break a little. And when we ignore death, it’s easy to convince ourselves that we still have plenty of time to fix things, no matter how badly we break them.

And this is our great folly — treating today as if it is less important than tomorrow.
TNDL: The marigold is also called the “herb of the sun”, representing passion and even creativity.
By: J. K. Woods
Tags: God, Jesus, Christianity, Religion, Spirituality

UCYG—ELYON: THE TEACHINGS OF FULL TRUTH AND TRUE LIGHT OF THE NEW DIVINE LOGOS, SANCTIONED BY “YAHWEH ELYON’S SEER PROPHET” FOR THE CLEANSING OF OUR UNIVERSAL COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE, TERRA (EARTH) AND SKY!!!!!!!

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November Rain
Tags: Resistance Poetry, Poetry, Democracy, Trump, US Elections

November Rain

Skies will light up

Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash

come this november

there will be a rain

storms have been brewing

clouds have been darkening

thunders have been growling

but you didn’t see anything

you didn’t hear a thing

the people you thought

will endure anything

can feed on anything

give them some toys

and they will keep playing

come this november

you will hear them roar

you will see their might

skies will light up

let’s see then

how you remain blind

it will pour down heavily

will not see colour or race

office will be flooded

and you will have to vacate

come this november

there will be a rain
Let AiX Control The Way You Trade
By: Ana Podrimaj
Tags: Trading, Crypto, Finance, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain

It happens all the time, to get stuck in the traffic, so what we do is we try to find a solution on moving faster. We shift the road, thinking it will help us escape the massive traffic, what happens is that there is a car accident right there, impossible for you to even get on that road. So we instinctively try to get back at where we were. Suddenly the traffic there is even heavier, and you get yourself to far from where you were, making you think that you should’ve probably stayed there from the very beginning. Traffic, sounds like trading too.

Sometimes your tradings seem like traffic, you try to make the perfect move but you end up regretting it. Now, AI backed by Blockchain came to the rescue of the trader. A single platform able to manage and centralize the whole diversity of exchanges in one interface. Trading calls at your fingertips, cheaper portfolio management, data analysis, trading history, and many more services, all brought to life through AI and Blockchain, in a single app, called AiX.

Jos Evans an experienced Trader and Broker with a ten-year history of succeeding in Finance came up with a brilliant idea of AiX, a transformative Artificial Intelligence system built to act as your broker across the crypto and regulated financial markets. The opportunity to democratize finance, and help people around the world to grow their capital and make it cheap to do so, was the main reason he wanted to get into crypto space.

You have the opportunity to join a revolution in trading. AiX is going to totally transform both crypto-trading and traditional finance through the inter-dealer broker market. Combining AI and blockchain technologies means everyone will be able to research, manage and execute multiple trades in a single domain. Our mission is to turn the financial world on its head. Current practices are a barrier to efficient, transparent trading.

You can engage with the AiX team and the AiX community through our Twitter and Telegram channel. This is the quickest way to get in touch and to have your questions answered.
Bounty and Airdrop Distribution Completed
By: Team Remiit
Tags: Bounty, Blockchain, Remiit, Cryptocurrency, Airdrop

Dear REMIITers,

Thank you to everyone that participated in the Bounty and Airdrop event. After a long wait, we have finally distributed the event tokens to approximately 62000 wallets!

*Token Metrics*

Total Supply : 11,551,408,911.3399584 REMI

Total Circulating Supply : 2,704,472,411.33995 REMI

Distributed for Events : 153,063,500 REMI

Thank you again for participating in our event and stay tuned for what REMIIT has to bring to the remittance industry.
Mülakat #1 - Mutable ve Immutable
By: Aybars Arslan
Tags: Stringbuilder, String, Net Core, Mutable, Immutable

Basically C# .NET Developer but always looking for new things to improve software development life cycle 🚀

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The one thing HR and IT are still missing about Employee Experience
By: Federico Francioni
Tags: Employee Experience, Employee Engagement, HR, UX, Human Resources

Example of a traditional IT approach

These examples of frameworks are not conceptually wrong. Not at all. But the end-to-end solutioning approach is often very functional and process-focused: the most used terms I hear are from hire-to-retire and service architecture. While these programs might have been designed adjacent to the employee, they do not put the employee at the center.

THE MISSING ELEMENT

Why is this important? What is wrong with these frameworks? Well, let me toss it back to you. In the frameworks above, is anything missing? Or anyone?

They forgot the human beings! By solving for individual pieces of the puzzle from the business’s point of view, they fail to solve for our everyday life at work. The overwhelming universe of people, processes and tools we interact with at work can be a total nightmare, no matter how fancy a benefit is or how simple a website looks.

In the end, everyday our employees wake up and go to work just to experience an unpredictable combination of what is shown below:
Yeme-içme konusunda yeni uygulama : Zomato
By: Evren Yildiz
Tags: Yaşam, Foursquare, iOS, Teknoloji, Eğlenmek

in Both Sides of the Table
Recipe 81: Hobo Dinners
By: Sarah Charles
Tags: Recipe, Cooking, Food, Intentional Life, Marriage

This is one of the many recipes that Aaron and I want to share with you. We are overjoyed for you to come with us on our journey as we put together different concoctions and laugh together (all while hoping to not burn our apartment down). Please enjoy these recipes as much as we have. We welcome you to a small, but intentional, part of our lives.

If you would like to read the post that accompanies this recipe, check it out here.
Trap Day
By: Jeff Bailey
Tags: Maine, Island, Vacation, Fun, Atlantic

A rewrite:

Jeff Bailey © 2016

They brave the choppy waters and uncomfortable beds to search the stores and along the shores. There are those moments when the real emerges, and all the conditions apply, excitement and over-indulgence yet, the sparkle remains.

Weathered by wisdom the waitress radiates like the rays of the morning sun and warms the room, She listened to your story and shares one of her own. The thankful lobsterman smiles and quietly nods on Trap Day.

Hidden deep within the Wild Lands beneath the comings and goings is the reason: People long to feel safe, if only for a day.
CSS 專家密技/CSS Protips 07–13
By: Jane Lin
Tags: CSS, Frontend, Notes

in Both Sides of the Table
Астрономия на Луне
By: Anastasia A.
Tags: Moon, Astronomy, Cosmos

in Both Sides of the Table
How I Reached 900K Views on My Stories in the Last Month
By: Tim Denning
Tags: Inspiration, Writing, Life Lessons, Blogging, Social Media

Stop Trying to Figure Out What Worked

The truth is no one knows why your views are down or why people have stopped reading for a short time.

Tinkering with hypotheses about what’s wrong will not help the problem.

Maybe your articles aren’t being curated enough, or your formatting has gotten tired, or you used too many bad feature images, or you didn’t edit enough, or you’re letting every god damn opinion influence how you write.

No one knows for sure. The longer I spent trying to analyze my writing failures, the longer I didn’t sit back down and start writing again. The last time this happened was when I was making music and spent one too many weeks over-analyzing all my music. This led to me taking a break and then giving it up altogether.

Your headlines are fine.

Your images are good enough.

Your topic selection is still on point.

Your white space in between sentences won’t really make you Ryan Holiday.

The only thing you need to figure out is how not to stop writing and ignore your writing stats. (I still haven’t found a way to ignore my writing stats, but I’m getting better at it.)
New features of macOS Big Sur
By: Milan Panchal
Tags: Macos, Apple, WWDC, iOS, Big Sur

macOS Big Sur brings a refined new design, powerful controls, and intuitive customization options to the most advanced desktop operating system in the world.

macOS Big Sur — Apple next-generation Macintosh operating system

At #WWDC2020 on June 22, Apple previewed next-generation macOS Big Sur (Veriosn 11.0) the successor to macOS 10.15 Catalina.

Big Sur comes with the brand new design which also includes the biggest Safari update ever and powerful enhancements to Messages, Maps, and privacy.

It is named after the coastal region of Big Sur in the Central Coast of California.

System Requirements

Before jumping into the features of Big Sur, here is the list of a supported system that can be upgraded to macOS Big Sur.

MacBook (2015 or newer)

MacBook Air (2013 or newer)

MacBook Pro (Late 2013 or newer)

Mac mini (2014 or newer)

iMac (2014 or newer)

iMac Pro (2017)

Mac Pro (2013 or newer)

Big Sur is a major upgrade with several features and enhancements that users can take advantage of.

The following are the list of features and enhancements that Apple highlighted during #WWDC20 keynote.

Key Features and Enhancements

Refined User Interface

Until macOS Catalina, Apple has inconsistency between its Mobile OS and Desktop OS. With the help of macOS Big Sur, Apply has finally addressed that issue and fill that gap by implementing major UI changes.
If They Once (More Impeached You)
By: Suzanne La
Tags: Humor, Trumpism, Corruption, Impeachment, Song Par

If They Once (More Impeached You)

Sung to the Beatles’ “If I Fell”

If they once more impeached you

Would they dare to follow-through

And help re-

claim this land

’Cos you’ve been impeached before

but the Senate is your whore

and won’t take a stand.



If they were to impeach you

I would concur

from the very start that you

deserve it — so does Burr.



Should we trust in you? Oh please!

We’re mortified

That you do just what you please —

or what Putin prefers.

’Cos you’ve caused so many pain

and you are so bad — greedy, corrupt, and insane.



So I hope to know your lies

the public sees through.

With joy I would cry

if with tax fraud they got you

’cause you’ve caused so many pain

and you helped Corona kill your friend Herman Cain.



So I hope and pray that they

fin’lly do it —

With joy I would cry

if impeachment gets its due.

If they once more impeached you.

Enjoy this lit karaoke version by Goldmine 1969
Most Common Loss Functions in Machine Learning
By: Sparsh Gupta
Tags: Deep Learning, Optimization, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science

As a core element, the Loss function is a method of evaluating your Machine Learning algorithm that how well it models your featured dataset. It is defined as a measurement of how good your model is in terms of predicting the expected outcome.

The Cost function and Loss function refer to the same context. The cost function is a function that is calculated as the average of all loss function values. Whereas, the loss function is calculated for each sample output compared to its actual value.

The Loss function is directly related to the predictions of your model that you have built. So if your loss function value is less, your model will be providing good results. Loss function or I should rather say, the Cost function that is used to evaluate the model performance, needs to be minimized in order to improve its performance.

Lets now dive into the Loss functions.

Widely speaking, the Loss functions can be grouped into two major categories concerning the types of problems that we come across in the real world — Classification and Regression. In Classification, the task is to predict the respective probabilities of all classes that the problem is dealing with. In Regression, oppositely, the task is to predict the continuous value concerning a given set of independent features to the learning algorithm.

Assumptions:

n/m — Number of training samples.

i — ith training sample in a dataset.

y(i) — Actual value for the ith training sample.

y_hat(i) — Predicted value for the ith training sample.

Classification Losses

1. Binary Cross-Entropy Loss / Log Loss

This is the most common Loss function used in Classification problems. The cross-entropy loss decreases as the predicted probability converges to the actual label. It measures the performance of a classification model whose predicted output is a probability value between 0 and 1.

When the number of classes is 2, Binary Classification

When the number of classes is more than 2, Multi-class Classification

The Cross-Entropy Loss formula is derived from the regular likelihood function, but with logarithms added in.

2. Hinge Loss

The second most common loss function used for Classification problems and an alternative to Cross-Entropy loss function is Hinge Loss, primarily developed for Support Vector Machine (SVM) model evaluation.
Heartbeat
By: Rebeca Ansar
Tags: Experience, Poetry, Peace, Relationships, Life

I want to lay my ear

against your chest

and hear the reliable

pattern of your heartbeat

a unique intimacy.

the allowance to bear witness

to the mechanics of your existence

and find my comfort there

in the middle of all this uncertainty.
My Hilarious Stories Flop and I Hate You For It
By: Teresa J Conway
Tags: Humor, Satire, Sex, Adultery, Relationships

My Hilarious Stories Flop and I Hate You For It

Or I’m not funny. You be the judge

Photo by Dmitry Vechorko on Unsplash

It’s pathetic to tell people you’re funny. More often than not, the people who say they’re funny are, but in a creepy sort of way, or like milk that’s been left on the counter too long.

But am I that bad? I don’t think so, so my only conclusion is — it’s you, not me.

As your benevolent mistress, I have decided to give you a chance to redeem yourselves. Clap, highlight, and comment to let me know I’m funny, or I will block you.

And by block you, I mean think poorly of you as I cry myself to sleep, and if that happens, you’ll only have yourselves to blame.
Reviewing for In Medias Res
By: John Byron Kuhner
Tags: Classics, Events, Latin

We’re just as interested in what’s going on in the world of Classics as you are — and here you’ll find reviews of books, movies, exhibitions, concerts, and anything else that might be current. Do you know of an event In Medias Res should be covering? Are you interested in submitting a review of an event or book? Send pitches to inmediasres@gmail.com.
Mighty Redcar: Recommended docu-series
By: Adam Colthorpe
Tags: Travel, Redcar, Documentary, Life, North Yorkshire

The Mighty Redcar is a shining example of the power of documentary television: Sweeping vistas of the North Yorkshire coast; industrial backdrops; engaging characters plucked from the 35,000 residents; real lives.

With Amazon Prime, an Unlimited Cineworld ticket, and a Todoist list competing with my inbox for most unticked items — it may seem strange that I’ve found time to indulge my documentary passion. But something in the BBC mailer caught my eye; a year in the life of a town and its residents. The Mighty Redcar is reality TV I can indulge in, away from the forced confrontation of Big Brother and Love Island, and away from the predictable ups and downs of competition TV with Strictly and X-Factor.

The Mighty Redcar is a documentary series spending one year in the life of a selected group of local individuals and families. We get to spend a year accompanying them in their lives; through the good times and the bad, through the GCSE results and the convictions.

You are immediately struck by the fantastic cinematography, with the opening sequence sweeping up and over the coastline, the industrial landscape, and down into the town to meet the unassuming stars of the show.

It’s in amongst these normal, everyday, folk of Redcar that we quickly realise that normal and every day mean entirely different things to them than they do to people who live elsewhere — with employment being one of the critical drivers of concern in the area.

The characters get introduced to you slowly and with great care, ensuring that you get to know each one individually and begin to map out in your mind how they all connect and interrelate together. It’s excellent casting by the researchers, and it feels delicately handled by the director and camera crew.

The editing is subtle and effective — it involves you in the story without feeling like you are being dragged forwards too quickly, or held dawdling too long.

It’s the real lives that capture our attention. This is not poverty-porn as witnessed in many factual TV series. This is observational soap-opera, with natural suspense and drama and not forced storylines. This is how it should be done.

There’s an image that stays with me, shown early in the series. A two-panel plywood gate painted white and probably an entrance to a building site or disused lot. There’s nothing left around it, it’s a shiny white gate in a bleak landscape.

And yet, amongst the bleakness is humour. On the front of the doors a local resident has taken to some insightful graffiti: in scrawled red text — ‘Narnia’

Maybe that’s what keeps them going, hope that if they keep opening doors, then the promised land could be found just beyond the threshold. I hope it’s not just bleak snow without a lamppost in view. I hope they achieve their dreams. Because thanks to the superb casting, direction, and cinematography — they all feel like family now.

Watch The Mighty Redcar on BBC Two or on the iPlayer — https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bjj734
ACTUALA CRIZA ESTE TERENUL PE CARE VA APARE UN NOU FASCISM — considera cercetatoarea politica Nina Georgescu
By: International Relations
Tags: Russia, Informations, Russian Affairs, United States, War Crimes

IRICE is dedicated to promote the international relations of Romania and to develop the economic, cultural and diplomatic relations with nations of the world.

Follow
Stellar Dev Digest: Issue #72
Tags: Stellar, Blockchain, Horizon v1.13.0, Fintech, here

Application of the Week

This week I’m featuring a case study from the Bitbond team that outlines a new Securities Tokenization platform they developed in collaboration with Standard Chartered Ban and UnionBank of the Philippines.

Earlier in December, the innovation and venture arm of Standard Chartered Bank, together with UnionBank of the Philippines, successfully completed a proof of concept issuance of a tokenized bond. This test issuance was done through a “sandbox” environment that closely replicates Bitbond’s securities tokenization platform built on Stellar.

The demo consisted of mirroring a traditional issuance of a 3 years and 5.25 years dual tranche retail bond totaling PHP 9 billion (~150M EUR) on a platform dedicated to securities tokenization.

You can read more about Bitbond’s work on this project and what they learned here.
Adventures In Micro-fiction
By: Mark Starlin
Tags: Writing, Fiction Writing, Essay, Flash Fiction, Microfiction

When I first started writing on Medium, I had no idea there was such a thing as micro-fiction or flash fiction. Actually, I was pretty ignorant about writing in general. I didn’t know the jargon. Drabble, pantster, WIP, alliteration, protagonist, prose? I thought we were using English here? Thankfully, searching the internet is easy.

My first impression of flash fiction or micro-fiction was not positive. The stories I read seemed to be incomplete. Or people put in difficult situations that ended with an “F-Bomb.” Or they were just plain confusing. These stories didn’t appeal to me.

Then I read a couple of good flash-fiction stories that painted a picture and told a whole story. So I gave it a try and came up with a flash-fiction tale about a flying incident. I posted it, then quickly deleted it. I was still in the skittish, nervous Bambi phase of my Medium experience and worried that it was too heavy for my regular humor readers (all 8 of them.) It sat in my Scrivener file for about a year and a half.

Back in August, one of the writers I follow, Jk Mansi, posted a 50-word micro-fiction story on The Friday Fix. I liked the idea of the story having to be exactly 50 words. Limitations can bring out creativity. So I decided to give it a try.

Actually, I cheated. I noticed that my original flying story had about 57 words. I figured I could easily cut seven words. Ha! It’s not as easy as it sounds. But I am nothing if not stubborn. So I hacked away and rewrote until I had exactly 50 words that still told the story. I sent the draft to The Friday Fix, and to my surprise, the editor, Justin Deming, thought it was good and published it.

It got a couple of encouraging responses, and I was hooked. Since The Friday Fix only published once a week at the time, I decided I would try to do one micro-fiction story per week. I have been successful in that goal so far. Some stories were better than others, but I feel like I am developing a feel for it.
ICON Use Case — STIN Progress Report #2
By: Jakob Gmoser
Tags: Decentralization, Block42, Blockchain, Use Cases, Icon Foundation

NFC interoperability with the contactless chips provided from Infineon is now implemented for both iOS and Android devices. You can see a screenshot of a successful NFC interaction below:

Successful NFC chip interaction on iOS

Moreover, the landing page with further information about this project is in the final stages of the development. Of course we will share it with you as soon as it is online.

Integration of Infineon’s SECORATM Blockchain solution

The contactless chips are now already stamped and packed up for the application on the labels.

Other important news

STIN already finished the distillation and is now preparing everything for the bottling and packaging process.

We are also strongly working together on making the application as easy as possible to use and creating guides on how to verify the scarcity of one bottle also with the help of the ICON Blockchain Explorer.

What’s next?

After some last tweaks on the UI of the mobile applications we will focus on the content which is needed for publishing the apps in the App Stores.

The landing page is also nearly finished, but we still need to wait for pictures of the final bottles until we can put the landing page live.

The final step is then to bring everything together by attaching the chips and the labels on the bottles. We really can’t wait to share the final product with you.

If you have any questions join our telegram group we will gladly answer them.
Natural Language Understanding for Chatbots
By: Kumar Shridhar
Tags: AI, Chatbots, Machine Learning, Naturallanguageprocessing, NLP

The NLU is used to accomplish two main tasks: to identify the intent behind what a person is saying, and to generate a response based on the identified intent.

In simple terms, the intent is an action or task that the user wants to accomplish. Based on the users’ needs, the NLU software provides a text or a voice response. In any case, it should be tailored to the user’s needs.

If the user wants to “check” a movie’s rating, its response should be the movie’s rating (e.g. “The movie was rated as PG-13”).

Who is using NLU?

NLU software can be used in a variety of applications including customer service, sales, chatbots and virtual assistants, etc. Some NLU software solutions are designed to only identify the intent of the input while other software solutions are designed to also generate a response. Many companies are using NLU, e.g., Amazon uses it to help you complete purchases, Google uses it in its search engine and Netflix uses it to recommend movies or TV shows. NLU helps these companies provide a better user experience to their customers.

How does NLU work?

A naive NLU system takes a person’s speech or text as input, and tries to find the correct intent in its database. The database includes possible intents and corresponding responses that are prepared by the developer. The NLU system then compares the input with the sentences in the database and finds the best match and returns it.

NLU researchers and developers are trying to create a software that is capable of understanding language in the same way that humans understand it. While we have made major advancements in making machines understand context in natural language, we still have a long way to go.

Some of the most prominent use of NLU is in chatbots and virtual assistants where NLU has gained recent success. These systems are designed to understand the intent of the users through text or speech input.
What is ReactJS?
By: Pulsara Sandeepa
Tags: Reactjs, JavaScript, Programming, Front End Development, Web Development

What is ReactJS?

A walkthrough to ReactJS

Photo by Ferenc Almasi on Unsplash

React is a front end library developed by Facebook for creating reusable UI components. It is used to handle the view layer for web and mobile apps. Before working with React you should have a solid knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript.

Features

It is using JSX(JavaScript Syntax extension) which is similar to HTML. React is all about Components and we have to think about everything as a component. Unidirectional data flow makes it easy to make the app and Flux is a pattern that helps to keep the data unidirectional.

Advantages

Uses virtual DOM that helps apps performance. It can be used on the client and server-side. Component and data patterns improve readability.

Disadvantages

Covers only the view layer of the app. Uses inline templating.

Setup the Environment

First of all, we have to install the runtime environment to react. We can use nodeJS as the environment.

Install nodeJS from https://nodejs.org/en/download/

Then install Visual Studio Code. Go to https://code.visualstudio.com/

and downloaded the latest version.

It is recommended to install Git on your computer.

Then you can check the version of npm by typing, npm --version in the terminal.

Create an app

Create a root folder as React or any name you prefer, as below.

C:\Users\User\Documents\VS Code>mkdir React C:\Users\User\Documents\VS Code>cd React

Then you can create your first React app by typing the following command. I named my app as ‘test’ and you can give any name as you prefer

C:\Users\User\Documents\VS Code\React> npx create-react-app test C:\Users\User\Documents\VS Code\React> cd test C:\Users\User\Documents\VS Code\React> npm start

Screenshot by Author — to test react app

After that, you can see your first react app is running on the browser in port:3000. Let’s learn further. Then you can delete unnecessary files as shown in the below image.

Screenshot by Author — keep only the necessary files

The ReactDom.render() the function is inside the index.js file as well as we can edit the app.js file as we prefer. Inside the public folder, we can see the index.html file and the purpose of the function is to display the specified code in the HTML element.

We can change the index.js file to display some text as below.
Nails, you will never be one of us
By: Valerio Luconi
Tags: Punk, Music, Hardcore, Metal, Grindcore

From Oxnard, California, Nails play a grind influenced hardcore-punk and feature Todd Jones, former member of hardcore legends Terror and Carry On. What do they sound like? Broken bones, smashed teeth, mass destruction, two planets colliding. That’s what they sound like.