fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Come Back, Gently, to Lovingkindess Meditation
By: Kawandeep Virdee
Tags: Meditation, Mental Health, Deep Sit, Mindfulness, Wellbeing

Deep sit

Come Back, Gently, to Lovingkindess Meditation

A quick refresher on this powerful meditation practice that has transformed my outlook and my relationships

Illustration by Kawandeep Virdee in Feeling Great About My Butt

Try making a plan: set yourself a calendar appointment to go offline and plug into your wellbeing for as long as you can spare. It doesn’t matter much what you do with that time, so long as it’s something that will make you feel good.

Forge’s Daily Tip reminds me to schedule time to take care of myself right now. I do this daily when I meditate. But this morning, I took it further in the direction of wellbeing and feeling good. This morning I moved my practice towards lovingkindess meditation. I’ve felt more stressed, and my thoughts tense. Lovingkindess meditation, also known as metta or maitri, brings feelings of care, warmth, and love towards oneself and everything. It is challenging, but it can profoundly shift your outlook.

It’s been months since I’ve regularly cultivated lovingkindess. I need a refresher for the practice, so I head to some of my go-to teachings on this. From Jon Kabat-Zinn in Wherever You Go, There You Are:

As usual, the place to begin is with yourself. Might you invite a sense of kindness and acceptance and cherishing to arise in your own heart? You would have to do so over and over again, you know, just as you would bring your mind back to the breath over and over again in the sitting meditation. The mind won’t take easily to it, because the wounds we carry run deep.

I first learned about lovingkindess reading Pema Chödrön’s When Things Fall Apart. Chödrön describes the practice of noting when you are thinking. While resting the attention on the breath, the mind wanders. When you notice yourself thinking about something, just label “thinking” and come back to the breath, gently.

Saying “thinking” is a very interesting point in the meditation. It’s the point at which we can consciously train in gentleness and in developing a nonjudgemental attitude. The word for lovingkindess in in Sanskrit is maitri. Maitri is also translated as unconditional friendliness. So each time you say to yourself “thinking,” you are cultivating that unconditional friendliness toward whatever arises in your mind. Since this kind of unconditional compassion is difficult to come by, this simple and direct method for awakening is exceedingly precious.

What I love about Zinn and Chödrön’s descriptions is that they are both natural extensions of anapana (“mindfulness of breathing”). Zinn emphasizes coming back to lovingkindess, over and over, as you would the breath. The capacity for lovingkindess grows by returning. And Chödrön emphasizes how you notice, just before you come back. By noticing gently, you can cultivate that kindness.
Professor Sheds Light on the Ethical Failings of the Human Brain
By: Texas Mccombs
Tags: Behavior, Morality, Management And Leadership, Psychology

Professor Sheds Light on the Ethical Failings of the Human Brain

Why do ‘good people’ do bad things? Robert Prentice explains that when it comes to acting ethically, your ego is not your amigo.

Observers in many disciplines continue to explore the roots of ethical behavior and misbehavior, and recent evidence suggests that what we think of as morality is largely tied to psychology, self-image and the wiring of the human brain.

These human psychology and behavior studies suggest that most people innately believe they are more skilled, ethical, and generous than their colleagues — a tendency that can cause some to venture into murky moral territory.

Professor Robert Prentice, chair of the Business, Government and Society Department at Texas McCombs and founder of Ethics Unwrapped, a free educational series designed to increase understanding of ethical concepts, outlined some of the scientific findings on ethics in the lecture video below.

Prentice, a lawyer who specializes in corporate governance, regulatory oversight, and ethical decision making, said the study of ethical behavior applies to the business community as well as in everyday life.

In a business context, ethical dilemmas may emerge when a person’s self-image is inflated to a point that he or she feels entitled to cut corners.

“Under certain circumstances, we give ourselves license to play a little faster and looser than we normally would,” Prentice said. “And we don’t realize how much the last decision we made can affect the next decisions we make.”

One example of this principle is explored in a study involving two groups of stockbrokers. The first group was asked simply to give investment advice to clients. The second was also asked to give advice, but also to disclose potential conflicts of interest that could influence their recommendations. Researchers found that the second group was more likely to recommend poorly performing stocks than the first, perhaps suggesting that the moral boost from the disclosure made the brokers less motivated to act in their clients’ best interest.

The brain can also shift perspectives of right and wrong, Prentice said, because it has a vested interest in self-preservation. Because the mind deflects self-doubt in favor of a more optimistic outlook, people have a natural tendency to be overconfident.

“We know we haven’t been perfect, but we still want to tell a positive story to ourselves about ourselves,” Prentice said.
Storiqa Announces Listing on The Asian Crypto Exchange CoinBene
Tags: Blockchain, Token Sale, Stqtoken, Cryptocurrency

Storiqa has a market cap of over $ 50 million. We are ready to embark on Chinese cryptomarket: STQ token will be listed on Coinbene!

The exchange has already successfully positioned itself with over 0.9 Million sign-up users who are located in USA, Vietnam, Japanese, Austria, German, Malaysia, South Korea, Mainland China, British, Russia, and other 200 countries. The volume of total transactions exceeds $5 billion with over 10,000 new users per day, 25,000 daily active users, and daily transaction volume of ¥250 million.

Storiqa will gradually attract Asian crypto audience to token and the product itself. We have strong support in Asia represented by former CMO of Huawei Alan Wong. He is currently facilitating company’s development is Asia.

Meet Storiqa on Coinbene!
The best Indian restaurant in São Paulo accepts Bitcoin!
By: Ramon Oliveira
Tags: Criptobanco, Startup, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

Brancryp has been delivering the best usability experience ever since, and São Paulo’s most traditional and award-winning Indian restaurant, Samosa & Company Indian Food, now accepts Bitcoins as a payment method through Bancryp.

For over 10 years in São Paulo, Vijay Ramesh Bavaskar has brought the essence of Indian food to São Paulo, with colors and outstanding flavors that attract the taste of Samosa & Company’s customers .

“Samosa & Company tracks and cares about technology in all its processes, from food storage, cooking, preparation, and now also with payments through Bitcoin” — comments Vijay.

Check out the video bellow:

Stay tuned to our official channels:

Telegram: https://t.me/bancrypEN

Facebook: https://goo.gl/uSFiLb

Instagram: https://goo.gl/UfKeSr

Twitter: https://goo.gl/8CbCms

Medium: https://goo.gl/tUawqp

YouTube: https://goo.gl/LmkeD2

Suporte Online: http://bancryp.com/
Growth of a different kind
By: Ben Edwards
Tags: Introspection, Startup, Values, Self Worth, Self-awareness

A year go, I thought it would take awareness, discipline, and good habits to take control of my life and to maintain balance while working for a startup again. Increasingly, however, I am learning it will actually take complete change of perspective. A new way of conceiving of myself.

Introspection has never been something that has come naturally to me and I’ll write more about this in 2020, but over the past three years, I have come to know myself much better. I’ve been inspired by a confluence of sources as I have begun to look more inward these past few years:

Time way from work, after SmartThings

Author, Sam Harris’ book/app, Waking Up and podcasts, many of which deal with consciousness and meditation

Working with and growing with the extremely generous and open leadership team at Misty Robotics

But largely it was a growing realization that I should be curious about myself—that there were parts of me that needed to be examined, understood, and hopefully improved.

Part of what I have come to understand is that I am not my work. (I am also not my thoughts, but that is also a post for another time). I have to remind myself of this often, but I know my value is not derived from what I do.

“Your value comes from who you are, not from what you do.”

When a great friend, recently sent me, Chop Wood, Carry Water: How to Fall In Love With the Process of Becoming Great by Joshua Medcalf, these ideas—these recent realizations—were reinforced and illuminated in a new way. That last quote above, and those below are from this book.
Never underestimate the power of your own story.
By: Camille Deputter
Tags: Writing, Journaling, Storytelling

Never underestimate the power of your own story.

This is why your story matters.

It’s no surprise that I believe in stories. I believe they matter. Your story matters.

I truly believe we can use our stories for good — to have a positive impact on the world, help others, and make our own unique, meaningful contribution.

And since you’re here, I’m willing to bet you agree with me on that.

But why do stories matter so much? Well, here are a few reasons. This isn’t a comprehensive list, it’s just a few things that I’ve learned to be true.

1. Stories are human.

We all tell them. And we all want — and need — to hear them. Stories are a way for us to make sense of the world. They’re a way for us to carry our history and our humanness. A way for us to connect. And a way for us to grow and see things with fresh eyes.

2. Everyone has a story to tell. And everyone wants to be seen and heard.

Stories are a way for us to show people who we really are. It’s at the heart of being human. By sharing your story, you could be giving someone else a way to recognize themselves, or an invitation to share their own. Also, listening is a very good thing.

3. If you don’t tell your story, someone else might.

If you don’t tell your story, it’s possible that we will simply never get to hear it. The world will really never know you, the history will slide away, you’ll never fully make the change you want to make. But perhaps even worse, if you don’t tell us, someone else might try to speak on your behalf, and miss the full story. If you don’t tell us who you are, someone else might, and get it wrong. If you don’t tell us what you stand for, someone else might, and miss the point. If you don’t put into words what happened, someone else might tell it very differently. There is power in speaking for yourself.

4. Stories are powerful. We need to use them for good.

If you have change you want to make, if you want to have a positive impact on the world around you, you’re going to need to tell some darn good stories. That’s how change happens in the world: through better, more honest storytelling. That’s something the world can always use more of.

5. Stories are editable.

How you write your story is up to you. Just because it broke your heart doesn’t mean it’s a tragedy. You can make your story what you want it to be.

6. You can use your stories to help others.

What do you want to do with your story? Make a positive impact: Make a contribution to the world that is uniquely yours? Inspire? Educate? Lead, and maybe even leave a legacy? These are things your stories can help you do. (And it’s why I dedicate myself to helping people tell their stories.)

So there you have it. Never forget how much your story matters.
Latino Community Engagement Study
By: Community Foundation H Z
Tags: Community Foundation, Community Endowment, Latinos, Philanthropy

In 2017, LAUP was awarded a $20,000 grant to engage Latino community leaders, leaders of partner organizations, and most importantly, area Latino residents to determine the most urgent needs to address to ensure that Latinos thrive in our community and to utilize the information gathered to shape LAUP’s future work.

The Latino population in the Holland/Zeeland area is growing and the insights gained through this process will have a lasting impact on our collective understanding of the most pressing needs and promising opportunities for our local Latino community. LAUP collected more than 280 survey responses and held four focus groups.

“LAUP is very excited to have this new data from the Community Engagement Project. Our hope is to call key community members and agencies to the table as we look to provide more solutions to the top three issues facing the Latino community. We now have our marching orders.” — Ed Amaya, Chair

What the Survey Asked

280+ people who took the survey answered a variety of questions related to how they view success. These are some of the most common responses.

Please rank these factors of success in order of importance to you (Por favor clasifique estos factores en orden de importancia para usted):
How to Think Big and Aim High in Your Life
By: Darren Matthews
Tags: Personal Development, Leadership, Self, Self Improvement, Life

How to Think Big and Aim High

Gary’s words float us through the choice we have and the questions we must ask ourselves.

“At the end of the day, if you have a choice, think big. If you have a choice, aim high, and then ask yourself, “What do I need to do to do that, and what are the habits, or what’s the one habit I need to develop such that by doing it, everything else is easy or unnecessary,” and go get that habit. But if you don’t think big, what’s your choice? Right?” — Gary Keller

Thinking big is a deliberate choice. One we consciously need to force upon ourselves when it comes to thinking. For this mindset shift is a powerful one, it leads to you to challenge your existing beliefs, to move on from accepting the day to day grind of the lives we live.

Questioning everything you do, why you do it, and how it affects you starts the process of thinking big.

But beware. The trap door of thinking small catches us all often.

To avoid this, we need a logical process to follow. A behaviour that takes us into the game of thinking big.

1. Create space and time to think big

For me, you must deliberately create space and time to think. Whether this is on your morning run, or meditating by yourself, or even talking it through with your partner, you need space and time.

Without them, you will fall back into the comfortable, easy place we all want to be in. If you want a better life, you must step outside of your comfort zone.

As Mandy Hale says:

“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” Mandy Hale

2. Question yourself — Aim High

Gary’s killer question is one of the most thought-provoking ones I’ve ever come across.

“What’s the one habit I need to develop such that by doing it, everything else is easy or unnecessary,” — Gary Keller

Aiming high, which this question most certainly does lead towards the ideas and ambitions that appear from thinking big. We often dream big. But, how do you turn the dream into reality?

3. Seek outside authority

We are all guilty of believing we must reinvent the wheel. But we don’t. All we need to do is find someone who’s done it before and done it well and copy them. The internet makes this so easy.

Answers come in all shapes, whether it be books, videos or one of the millions of ‘How to’ articles online. Filter your search results and research the answers you find to get the best answer. It works, Gary Keller is a perfect testimony to this approach.

4. Act

Thinking creates action, so don’t stand in the way. Start today, build the habits to enable you to achieve your big ideas.

As the marketing geniuses at Nike say, “Just do it.”

5. Review and adjust as required

Don’t accept that as you’ve found this great way to do something that it will now be fine. No, you must review and tweak your habits to help you achieve your goal. The logic is simple and easy and keeps you moving forward.
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Thursday, Humor, Comics, Cartoon, Architecture

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

Follow
The Basics of Startup Financing. Show me the Money!
By: Livio Marcheschi
Tags: Venture Capital, Startups

— This article covers the Basics of Startup Financing. Advanced concepts can be found in the long version of this article —

SETTING THE VALUATION

TERM SHEET & CAP TABLE

STARTUP EQUITY FOR EMPLOYEES

EQUITY VS DEBT

TOOLS

Equity Investment Simulation

Tool to calculate the impact of raising money on existing partners

Tool to calculate the impact of raising money on existing partners High Tech Startup Valuation Estimator

VC Nemesis

A free tool to see who’s invested in the competition

Happy reading,

— Livio (@LivMKk)

URL.05.03

— Find other links to relevant articles in Startup Links (collection) —

P.S.: If you care about raising funds, you should read about Startup Financial Planning
J.K. Rowling Threatened to Sue Kids Site For Implying She’s Transphobic
By: Catherine Caruso
Tags: Transgender, Women, LGBTQ, Equality, Media

Engaging in the very cancel culture she has often decried on Twitter and in the cursed Harper’s letter, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling threatened to sue The Day — a British news site for kids — for libel.

Rowling’s lawyers claimed that the website published an article that implied she was transphobic. The article in question was titled “Potterheads cancel Rowling after trans tweet.”

The Day has since issued a formal apology, claiming that the article was meant to spark debate about whether or not it is possible to enjoy art produced by “deeply unpleasant people.”

“We did not intend to suggest that JK Rowling was transphobic or that she should be boycotted,” The Day’s statement read.

“We accept that our comparisons of J.K. Rowling to people such as Picasso, who celebrated sexual violence, and Wagner, who was praised by the Nazis for his antisemitic and racist views, were clumsy, offensive and wrong.”

Despite the hasty apology, Rowling has indeed published a plethora of transphobic comments as of late on social media and in a lengthy essay she self-published last month.

In June, she posted a series of outraged tweets after a Devex article used the inclusive language “people who menstruate,” which aims to acknowledge that cis women are not the only people who have periods.

During that same tweet storm, Rowling also falsely claimed that cisgender women are being erased and has insisted that activists are suddenly claiming that sex isn’t real.

Since then, she has come out against the use of hormone replacement therapy, citing junk science to claim that it’s dangerous and has even falsely claimed that young people are somehow being forced to medically transition, using people who have detransitioned — oftentimes for unrelated conditions—to justify her claims.
My Eyes Witnessed Love
By: Melanie J.
Tags: Philosophy, Self Love, Love, Sunset, Self-awareness

My Eyes Witnessed Love

A beautiful sunset warms my heart and fills it with joy.

Photo Credit: Pinterest

One of my favorite things to do is to watch sunsets. I think the sunset is God’s way of sending me love and to remind me of one of the rare treasures on this planet. Sunsets are filled with such radiance and the colors that paint the sky are warm and stunningly beautiful.

Living in Florida, I am afforded many days with skies filled with God’s artistry and no two sunsets are ever the same. Each day, the sky refreshes back to a blank canvas waiting for God to paint a new masterpiece and I was always front and center to witness the phenomena.

Paint your masterpiece

On the blank canvas blue sky

My eyes witnessed love

After work, my favorite thing to do was to watch the sunsets while curled up in my oversized armchair and let my imagination run free. Dreaming of a life in a faraway land, walking on a beach with my future dog and my future husband. My heart was always filled with joy and my soul set free.

I recently moved, so I no longer get to witness the sunsets as often, but just knowing they are there, brings me comfort. I know God didn’t forget about me and I will one day return to witnessing God create sunset masterpieces while looking out from the balcony of my future home, with my future husband, and future dog, as I enjoy a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.

My eyes will witness love again.
Becoming Whole
By: Wendy S. Bradfield
Tags: Relationships, Love, Solitude, Poetry, Self-awareness

A Poem

Photo by form PxHere

I long for the nights when love’s arms pulse around me

But I live for the days when my solitude yields good art

I long for the nights when my desire spills over the edges

But I live for the days when my strength encompasses me

I long for the nights mirrored by your eyes

But I live for the days when my imagination runs wild in the cosmos

I long for the nights when your lips dance upon me

But I live for the days when I croon a song made up along the way

I long for the nights when drama fills the air

But I live for the days when I am serene as the Sahara

I long for the nights when comfort is near

But I live for the days when not knowing is freedom

I long for the nights when I am drunk on you

But I live for the days when I am whole, unencumbered by the suffocating weight of you

If you like this, you may fancy this:
The Honey Galaxy
By: Paul Götze
Tags: Illustration, Everyday Life, Drawing, Comics, Art

Welt Aus Quark collects small everyday moments that are worth honouring and turns them into comic strips and drawings

Follow
10 Best Project-Based Tutorials To Learn Frontend Development
By: Ann Adaya
Tags: Work, JavaScript, Software Development, Programming, Software Engineering

10 Best Project-Based Tutorials To Learn Frontend Development

Let’s end 2020 with a BANG! with these Free Tutorials to take for your Web Development Journey

Photo by Anastasiia Kamil on Unsplash

“Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” — Brian Littrell

Never be afraid to suck at something new, everyone needs to start somewhere.

Becoming a Frontend Developer in my personal opinion is the best path to start your developer journey.

It is easier, it is a good introductory topic before you decide to fully define what kind of developer you really want to become.

When I started I honestly thought of working as a Web Developer and nothing else, I don’t have any knowledge about Software Development, DevOps, Fullstack, Mobile Development, etc.

All I know is that I need to learn HTML, CSS, Javascript, MySQL, and PHP that’s all — and that was what I have been working on before I got my first developer job.

It was very fulfilling being able to build your own website from scratch, and seeing your friends using it, it was just so cool.

Almost 5 years fast forward — well, the journey was as hard as fvck but it was definitely worth it.

My plan to become a Web Developer has been one hell of a ride, a few months of working my first developer job I was re-assigned to the Mobile Developer Team, and now in my current job, I am working as a Software Developer.

One thing I’ve learned though is that learning these fundamentals had really helped me a lot, HTML, CSS, Javascript, and Database is still part of the stack that I am currently working on, and the crazy part is this project is so huge that it took more or less 100 developers.

So, don’t underestimate these fundamental technologies, they will serve you a lifetime.
What should I learn first in coding?
By: Vyron Vasileiadis
Tags: Mobile App Development, Data Science, Elearning, Codingbootcamp, Web Development

Make sure you focus on learning the fundamental concepts instead of a particular language or technology stack.

There are many debates online on what you should learn. The truth is that you will be required to learn new technologies for different companies in your career. So, you should focus on transferrable knowledge: fundamental concepts.

Avoid tech debates. Is iPhone better or Android better? I’d say both do the same job pretty well in different ways.

You can choose any modern tech stack and start learning with the fundamentals.

Web Development

Web development is about building websites and web applications like Facebook.com and Twitter.com.

There are two parts in web development: front-end and back-end.

Front-end is everything you can see and interact on a website. You will need to learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Back-end is everything you don’t see on the website: databases, business logics, user management, etc. You will need to learn any one of the following back-end languages and frameworks:

Python / Django

Node.js / Express

Java / Spring

PHP / Laravel

C# / ASP.NET Core

How should you pick? You can choose any one of them. You just have to make sure you learn the fundamentals. Personally, I think C# / ASP.NET Core offers the best coding experience and is in high demand from companies.

By the way, if you know front-end web development, you can build mobile apps too! Read on.

Data Science

Data Scientist is the №1 most promising job for 2020. It comes at no surprise as Data Scientist topped Glassdoor’s list of Best Jobs for the past three years, with professionals in the field reporting high demand, high salaries, and high job satisfaction. It has been labeled as “the sexiest job of 21st century”.

Python and R are the two major languages in data science and analysis. Many of the common tasks can be achieved in either of them. However, Python is considered the industry standard and many data science frameworks are implemented exclusively for it.

There are many frameworks built on Python that power data science tasks. Some of them include NumPy for scientific computations, Pandas for manipulating data, Matplolib for creating complex visualizations, Scikit-learn, PyTorch and Tensorflow for machine and deep learning.

Mobile Development

This one is easy.

If you want to build iPhone apps, learn Objective-C or Swift.

If you want to build Android apps, learn Java or Kotlin.

Alternatively, you can use React Native or Ionic to build both iPhone and Android apps. Both are web based technologies using JavaScript, so if you know front-end web development, you can build mobile apps too!
this was the coldest christmas, since the split
Tags: Holidays, Relationships, Love, Poetry, Sadness

i wish i could hold what we had

in hand, a holiday globe, falling snowflakes

falling for you, falling together, in a whitened world

the clearest skies, onlookers… transfixed eyes,

like — how is that?

like — how are they?

i don’t know.

i don’t get it.

an unusual image.

yeah, we pushed limits, driven by flurry—

— precious passion.

you looked @ me. i looked into you —

for approval. (like children do.)

those sweetened — soft smells.

i just want you.

in a way, what a lover you were with me.

but in other ways, you contradicted that.

like an angry mum.

like a boring child.

like a darkened day.

i miss shopping for you. getting little gifts.

do you miss this? you probably are doing this

…for many others.

i loved your raw spots.

not because i had to.

not even because you asked me to.

i loved them because they were rawly you.

when you were bawling, crawling, calling for perfection

out of me

i melted, the belting was seen as sweet, sad +…

screams for healing,

your soul was kneeling.

the tears peeling old skin, + scars,

you were my star

where . you . are .

— now —

is not with me

— and i’m not with you —

how is that for two

to break away

to fall away

out of that globe

out of that whiter world

into foreign places

tattered traces

memories, erasin’

i just don’t know.

where are you with all of this?
坐月子期間，有哪些東西不能吃？
By: Tony Zeng
Tags: Health, 健康, 媽媽, 月子中心, 坐月子

in Both Sides of the Table
Although I’m Horribly Scared, I Just Wanna Party [Short, But Not That Sweet]
By: Markus Russin
Tags: Fatalism, Party, Carpe Diem, Reflections, Poetry

Six Years of poetry-only publishing, PoetsUnlimited was a diverse, engaging and authentic poetry magazine. For most of that time a daily publication, it was always diverse and original, and free-to-read by all.

Follow
2019 Australia | 布里斯本＋黃金海岸 5天4夜 隨遇而安的自由行
By: Meng Lin
Tags: 2019, Travel, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Australia

in Both Sides of the Table
Seven Deadly Wastes: Over production
By: Jez Halford
Tags: Software Development, Productivity, Process, Flow, Agile

The Seven Wastes are an idea from lean manufacturing, and I’m exploring how they relate to software development. Last time was over processing, and this week is over production.

Over production is, very simply, building stuff that isn’t needed or that nobody uses. Here’s a fun tweet that suggests some organisations will build anywhere from six to hundreds, or even thousands, of bits of software that all solve substantially the same problem.

But that’s not the only problem. Within any single piece of software there’s generally some features to be found that no one ever uses.

Clearly building and maintaining those applications and features is a waste of our time. But just how much time can we waste on it?

Developing any feature, used or not, has a cost. Each thing we build must be compiled, tested, integrated and maintained for its lifetime. Each feature adds complexity, is a potential point of failure and a potential attack vector.

In short, developing stuff is about the most expensive thing we can do, and developing useless stuff appears to be endemic within the software industry.

The best way to avoid this kind of nonsense is strong product ownership, coupled with developers who buy in to the ideals of what they’re building.

A team that understands the why as well as the how will be more likely to challenge bad idea, and more likely to suggest better and more useful solutions.

So, bring everybody along for the ride. Understand the problem before solving it and if at all possible build in some analytics and remove things that nobody uses.
Kotlin for Lunch - Execution After Return
By: Christoph Frei
Tags: Code Smells, Kotlin, Programming

“Kotlin for Lunch” collects Kotlin exercises, usage patterns, or “the Kotlin way” to solve development issues. This article should be short enough to have fun with Kotlin during a short lunch break.

We are here today: Kotlin > Scope Functions

The scenario:

We have a function that returns the reference to an object and then needs to update that very reference after it is returned.

Here is a naive and simple implementation of that idea. It doesn’t work. After return Kotlin doesn’t execute code. You get an “unreachable code” warning.

So the first working approach is simple; lets add a temporary variable to get that up and running. That’s good enough for production…

…but it doesn’t look nice, the temp variable is a technical crutch. So lets see if we can get rid of it.

Can we (miss?)use try…catch…finally and do the modification in that last finally block?

This works, and… looks a bit better than the temp variable, but we have more lines. We can write it in one line by making it a lambda, but doesn’t make it much better.

We know that the try is not needed, that code smells at bit. But if we would have exception handling already in the code, we would probably leave it like this.

Lets go back to the original idea and go a bit more crazy. We need a temp variable. There is something in the Kotlin handbook that exactly offers that. I can be found in the documentation for the operator inc(), that is utilized for the special symbol ++.

Kotlin (as basically all other languages) distinguish between the postfix ++ and the prefix ++. var j = 0; var i = j++ gives us i=0 and j=1. var j = 0; var i = ++j creates i = 1 and j = 1.

How does Kotlin do this? Here from that handbook:

And “storage a0” is exactly the temp variable that we can utilize. Lets try it out. Our inc()-operator just needs to return the next element, which is then assigned to itself. Next solution looks like that:

We can make it more elegant be moving the operator definition out of the function. And if we could change the whole interface, make inc() public, and everyone could just call next++ instead of forward().

Our function a very nice one-liner. But still — introducing an operator and somehow interpret ++ as the same as “move to the next element” smells still a bit…

The Kotlin syntax is not at its limits here — we have another solution: also for the win! Lets return next, but execute some code also(!) before returning.

This seems the most elegant implementation of code execution “after” return.

And if you want to play around, here a working example with all functions.

Creates the following output:

Current next name: b

Current next after calling forward: b

Current next after calling forward1: c

Current next after calling forward2: d

Current next after calling forward3: e

Current next after calling forward4: f

Current next after calling forward5: g

Current next after calling forward6: h

Current next after calling forward7: i

If you know another way to do it, no matter if more or less elegant, please let me know. Comments welcome. :-)
How to Conserve Your Precious Attention Span
Tags: Slack

One of our client projects needed help with developer operations and infrastructure. The client had grown large enough to need a dedicated Ops specialist on staff who specialized in knowing how to configure servers and the like. This was good news for us.

But this person was very busy, being the only ops person in a quickly growing organization, so they agreed to help under one condition:

“Hey I’m happy to help out and join your team, but I need you to tag my @ mentions as either [action required] or [FYI]. I will respond in a timely fashion to the former and eventually catch up on the latter.”

Immediately, I realized this person was a genius.

Unsurprisingly, these days we have shorter attention spans than goldfish. Everything we install on our mobile devices (or every Saas product we sign up for) greedily asks us if they can send us pushes, badge icon numbers, emails, SMS, and stop by to ring the doorbell. We experience a constant battle to keep this sort of thing under control.

Some choose to silence all of it, which is a totally rational response.

At work, this is harder to do. The ops person I mentioned is “part of” a half-dozen or more teams, each vying for their attention, probably saying something like “this is super urgent please help!” (like I did, shame on me).
Every limitation of democracy in one chart. http://ift.tt/28QEfjA
By: Aksh Gupta
Tags: Instagram

Every limitation of democracy in one chart. http://ift.tt/28QEfjA
The Hook Up
By: Kyle O'Reilly
Tags: Flash Fiction, Science Fiction, SciFi, Advertising, Short Story

The Hook Up

A girl too good to be true

Image public domain, courtesy of comicbookplus.com, modified from original.

She was back, just as Calix had hoped.

The metal doors slid closed behind as she approached the neon bar. Her hips swayed slightly with every delicate step. Poised with both hands on the bar, her eyes flitted to meet Calix’s for the briefest moment before staring ahead confidently.

God, she is hot, Calix thought. More than hot: She was his dream girl — as if designed precisely for him — right down to the bright-pink, punk-rock streak running through her hair. But what the hell does she want with a level 0 newb like me?

Calix shook the last drop into his mouth and let the mug fall heavy on the bar. He glanced at her, and she smiled quietly back. Now or never, he thought, and he walked over.

He leaned into the bar and mustered the courage to meet her gaze. Panic rattled him. But to his surprise, she initiated before he even had the chance to botch it.

“Hey there,” she said in a sultry, feminine whisper, “How about a drink?”

Calix perked up, realizing this might be easier than he thought. “What, uhh, what can I get you?” he replied as cooly as possible.

“Bartender!” She called, waving down the robot whirring around behind the counter. “Two Mountain Dews.”

Mountain Dews? In a bar like this? Calix thought. He loved Mountain Dew, but it wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. Eh what the hell, he thought. I’ll go with it.

Calix was glad that he did, because she really was his dream: Witty, athletic, and best of all, a raging Ramones fan like he was. She laughed and drummed the driving rhythm to Judy is a Punk when Calix started singing.

“Hey, let’s get out of here,” Calix offered, heart pounding — partially from nerves, but mostly from the three Mountain Dews.

She smiled and turned out of the bar, looking over her shoulder and beckoning him to follow.
Eating Disorder Recovery During a Pandemic
By: Maryam I.
Tags: Health, Mental Health, Covid 19, Mental Illness, Nutrition

For years, this was the pattern of my life.

I would decide that I wanted to stop being the isolated, self-absorbed, anxiety-filled shell of a human being that anorexia had reduced me to. But every time it came to doing the hard work — eating more, exercising less, and allowing my body and mind to just rest — I backed out.

I wanted to recover in theory. I just couldn’t muster up the courage to do it in practice.

Until one day, I got really sick of it.

I got sick of my mind feeling like a storm was brewing in there, all the time.

I got sick of feeling tired and angry and overwhelmed for no real reason, other than that my body needed to be fed.

I was sick of a life in which the only time I could feel happy was when I was running — and even that wasn’t true happiness, but simply a byproduct of the endorphins produced by my brain because of the exercise I forced on myself.

I was sick of living in my own world, of cutting myself off from the amazing people and opportunities in my life.

And so I chose to truly recover, which meant that I had to change my disordered habits. I stopped restricting food, stopped overexercising. I gradually healed my mind and body, until I got my life back.

I just wished it hadn’t taken me ten years to truly start this process.

Because if I had done the hard stuff ten years ago, if I hadn’t allowed myself to relapse as soon as I gained some weight, I wouldn’t have had to endure a decade of misery and isolation. I wouldn’t have subjected my family to the cruelty that is anorexia — for ten long years. And my body wouldn’t have had to undergo the destruction that malnourishment forced upon it.

I wouldn’t have had to sacrifice years to this cruel ‘half-life’.

But I cannot turn back the clock. I cannot change what I did.
Barbara Lee is the bravest woman in Congress
By: Ben Wolford
Tags: Video, Trumpocalypse Now, Congress, Terrorism, War

It was Sept. 14, 2001, and the United States was already at war, having been surprise attacked in the heart of the financial capital of the world. We didn’t yet know exactly who we were fighting or where they were. But Congress couldn’t just do nothing. It had to declare war. Right? One person didn’t think so.

Video directed by Matthew Palmer
Of ecommerce & false promises — How product matching can deliver on long forgotten promises.
By: Anjali Krishnan
Tags: Retail Technology, Ecommerce, AI, Amazon, Retail

You’ve most likely seen an Eames ‘Eiffel’ chair. It would’ve been there in some office lobby you waited at, cafes you’ve walked by or a co-working space you frequent.

It’s everywhere.

Now if you feel like you want to buy one and search on Amazon you will get quite a few options.

via Amazon

Here’s where the problem starts.

Are they all the same color? What about the nifty rod design which gave the chair its famous name — is that identical? Material? Manufacturer?

Can you tell them apart using just 2-D images?

Should you have to?

In a recent Quartz article journalist Mike Murphy talks about the trouble with finding similar items across websites especially when they have been obscured by different names, descriptions and prices.

Let’s consider a few simple examples which compare product images without added distractions of dissimilar layout, rehashed descriptions and arbitrary prices — how fast can you tell if the items are matched?

EXAMPLE1: Ice-cream — colour saturation or new flavor?

EXAMPLE2: Toy Carriage — new toy or repeat purchase?

EXAMPLE 3: Rug — the same or unique?

You could probably tell the answer after a pause but imagine trying to pick from Amazon’s packed UI or even a more regular listing style like Wayfair’s:

Screenshot from Wayfair

You are likely doing a minor version of this exercise every time you make a purchase. It’s exhausting, inefficient and frankly unnecessary.

People shouldn’t need to put their detective hats on every time they want to shop for something. Ecommerce was supposed to take the guesswork out of shopping.

So what’s the solution?

An AI-powered solution to product matching.

At Semantics3 we’ve taken a multi-modal deep learning approach towards solving the problem of finding matching products. Multi-modal here implies that our algorithms take into account images, names, descriptions, features and all of the other data points that sites provide to describe their products.

The above product images were from an article by Govind, our head of data-science, which takes a look at the tricky nature of product matching.

A person trying to figure out matching products between sites is inundated with a ton of information — different angles and saturation for images, variant text, prices and non-standardized features. Add in unique website layouts and product matching by humans is, optimistically speaking, non-scalable (and realistically speaking — impossible).

Match.

Not a match. Notice that the number of windows aren’t identical

Not a match. The design is different.

Instead our Product Matching AI, trained and tuned on painstakingly curated datasets built over many years, can scalably take all available data and weigh it in context in order to decide whether two given products match.

And that, can make ecommerce much better for all.

Interested in our AI-based Product Matching API? Check out our AI solutions!
React Components Lifecycle
By: Skyforce Technologies
Tags: React Lifecycle, React Lifecycle Method, React Tutorial, Componentdidupdate, Componentdidmount

React components lifecycle — Mounting, updating and unmounting of react class components.

In this tutorial, we will learn several react lifecycle phases which our class components goes through. We do not have any lifecycle phase for functional components. If you are new to react you can also check our previous tutorials on React Basics and React Hooks Introduction before continuing with react lifecycle.

Mounting Phase — This is the phase when the instance of a component is created and inserted into browser DOM. We have several methods gets called during this phase — constructor, render, componentDidMount

Here, constructor is the place to assign initialize state variables with default values or with props. componentDidMount is the place to make an AJAX call to an API while mounting your component. Render method renders the view we already know this. But during render, if we have any child components inside, then those components will also get mounted. Let’s see the order in which parent and child gets rendered.

Updating Phase — This is the phase when state or props of a component gets changed. We have two methods gets called during this phase — render, componentDidUpdate

In componentDidUpdate we can have our previous state and props values. And as we discussed this gets called after a state/prop update. So, if we want to perform any task based on specific state/prop variable change then we can compare old state/prop variable with the updated value and perform the task. Remember we can do this as well in the callback function of our setState method, but there we can’t access any previous state/prop after update.

Unmounting Phase — This is the phase when a component gets removed from the DOM. For example, in a shopping cart, a product item is a component inside the cart. So, when you remove a product item from your cart, it is being removed from the view DOM. That is called the unmounting phase of that product item. Here, we have a method called componentDidUnmount. And remember after unmounting the state changes because you can removing an item from the DOM tree. So, component Cart gets re-rendered, which means the component goes through updating phase after unmount.

componentDidUnmount gets called just before the component gets removed. So you can do any clean up activities here.

That’s all about class component life cycle. In the next tutorial we will be learning how to call an API from react, which we will doing using componentDidMount method as discussed in this tutorial. Hope you have enjoyed this tutorial. Thanks :)
Going Home (the Old Black Train)
By: M Vaughn Duck
Tags: Death, God, Religion, Poetry, Poem

We all take a first breath, then go our separate ways — but in the end we all Go Home …

Poem — Go’in Home (the Old Black Train) …

When days take their turn to sleep through the night

And the bells have begun their farewell

Comes a raven to stand guard not far

And the moon and stars forever shine on ..

It’s not a time to cry –

For I’ve left this land and one day I’ll take your hand.

When nightingales have sung their adieu one night

And too the last bell has bid its farewell

Comes an old black train that waits not far

To carry me on as I travel along to my star

No need to say goodbye –

For I’m going to a place to rest forever in His grace.

When all the years become one long dark night

And silent the bells for farewells,

Absent too the faithful raven who stood guard afar

That witnessed tears that no longer flow on ..

There’s no need to wonder why –

For the old black train — it’s work too has been done.

M. Vaughn Duck

(we all take that first breath, then go our separate ways, but in the end we all go home/s) January 31, 2012, ,,,,,2020 ©, all rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is strictly prohibited.

Flyingonward@hotmail.com

Footnote: Is it so difficult to believe there is life after death? Perhaps it seems too incredible that we have a soul (our existence) that leaves the body upon physical death and goes on to somewhere else. Consider Consciousness = Energy + Matter. Consider the First Law of Thermodynamics. Energy cannot be created or destroy — it can only be changed from one form to another, which must also apply to Life’s energy. So where does our energy go upon death?

Consider our universe consists of matter and energy and a spiritual force, and this spiritual force has a name (Creator, God). Is it then not God that is the collective consciousness of our universe?

So, where does our human energy (soul, existence) go upon death as it cannot be destroyed? Heaven — where the sun always shines on in the everlasting blue sky. Just be sure you’re on that old black train before it pulls out of the station! “Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die. (Ezekiel 18:4)”