fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
About that Teacher Who Failed Their Whole Class
By: John Gorman
Tags: Politics, John Gorman, Society, Socialism, Economics

Teacher Fails Entire Class:

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that she had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on this plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars — something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
Looper
By: Jack Burt
Tags: Poetry, Writing, Humor, Corporate Culture, Satire

Photo by Author

Confined to one view

Twenty cups deep

Into Peruvian coffee

And wandering the

Radioactive zone of sleep

I dipped my face in the water

Eyes burning binary with

Insane noetic add-ons

And kept finding author

Author

Author

All the way down

Mounting variations of

Chrono-absurd sounds
Cycle of Invention
Tags: Gaming, Photography, One Line, Creativity, Poetry

Cycle of Invention

The advent of each new visual invention is powered by our collective imagination, and even after it is replaced, its legacy lives on… in the form of nostalgia.
Find a Lonely Place
By: Jason Mcbride
Tags: Poetry, Self Care, Books, Surreal, Haiku

Weirdo Poetry is a place for experimental storytelling. Here you will find visual essays, haiku, poetry, comic strips, micro memoirs, and flash fiction. These are stories that grab a hold of you and never let go. Each story is guaranteed to make your day at least 1% better.

Follow
Blockchains
By: Raffay Ansari
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Future, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain

Blockchain

Appearing as an emerging technology trend on the world’s leading research firm, Gartner, is set to revolutionize the finance sector and many more like an entire Supply Chain or a Product Checking Mechanism. Blockchain, simply put, is a distributed ledger, a ledger on each node and computer all receiving transaction requests and maintaining the ledger. Kind of fits the analogy of “distributed trust” as there are no governing bodies, local authorities or banks involved in the entire process, as it entrusts the entire process to the community members who are better known as nodes on the network.

Blockchain is also specifically important for the new form of web, the Web 3.0, better known as the Decentralized Web as it is bringing forth a new version of Economics as we know it, known as the “Shared Economies” system, essentially attaching the Blockchain as an immutable ledger in the system to keep perfect records of who owns what cryptocurrencies and who transacted how much with transparency by not revealing identities and encrypting every entry on the Blockchain.

To address privacy concerns, the Blockchain is more efficient as stated above that it uses a ledger to record every entry and is sent to all the nodes for record keeping, there is no case of false or faulty transactions, as each and every transaction is recorded and are securely recorded on the blocks as well.

Cryptocurrencies can not run without the Blockchain as there would be no accountability whatsoever in the system and would be another Decentralized attempt at cryptocurrency which was failed by predecessors B-money and Bitgold.

It is imperative for cryptocurrencies to use the Blockchain as in every decentralized system, the policy is “sharing is king”, every peer can have the same file, movie or music on their computer. Money does not essentially work this way, it needs to work with memory: where it originated from, who owns it, who sent it, who receives it. Hence, the emergence of Bitcoin with a newly introduced concept of consensus, the consensus models essentially consists of Proof-of-Work, a system that calculates various equations to ‘validate the transaction’, upon doing so, the validating node is reaching consensus on the transaction and is ready to be recorded on the blocks.

More improvements have been added since the emergence of cryptocurrencies, the Ethereum platform brought Smart Contracts and DApps on the Blockchain, making it an application development platform with user generated custom assets.
3 Ways to Be a Blogger in a Time When Bloggers Where Predicted to Be a Dead Race
Tags: Social Platforms, Blogging, Blogging Platform, Social Media, Writing

Blogging is hard work. Sometimes is rewardless work. A blog requires a lot of continuous attention, especially in today’s world, where everyone blogs and the blogger who’s more present is likely to be more successful.

I read all the time that blogging is dead. It should actually have been dead for at least ten years, from what I hear. Yet, people are still blogging, and promoters always suggest to have our own blog and site, no matter what else we’re doing online.

Here are some great articles about blogging and how to be a blogger in a time when bloggers should not exist anymore.

[Blogging Mindset] It’s The Bottom That’s Overcrowded

by Cristian Mihai

It’s always hard to hear that we are not succeeding because we are not putting in the effort. As Cristian Mihai says in this article, it’s easy to think that we are putting in a lot of hard job, and we don’t like to consider that there are people out there who are willing and are indeed working a lot harder than we are.

Yes, I think that, unfortunately, results are rarely proportionate to the effort, but still we tend to think (I am guilty of it, I’ll admit it) that the work necessary isn’t as much as it is actually required.

This article addresses both the mindset and ways to overcome it.

What I’ve Learned Blogging for 6 Months Every Single Day

by Sergey Faldin

A very inspirational article, with the feet on the ground and no fluff to it.

The biggest takeaway here is: decide your rules, stick to them no matter what happens and hold in it, because otherwise, you’re likely to quit too early and think you’re a failure where a little more time would have given you success.

I’ll admit it, holding in it is often harder than we think when we see little or no results, but it’s worth giving a fair shot.

7 Sins You Should Never Commit on Your Blog

by Jessica Wildfire

A really great article about positivity.

In today’s blogging words, it seems like negativity is the best bet at success. And unfortunately, it is true that shedding negativity, sometimes in a violent way, never fail to attract other people, usually other people who want to pour even more negativity.

The author of this article advice to never do that. She goes through a series of different attitudes, but the punch line is: never go along with negativity. Stay positive, try to add value, help, and stay away from anyone who doesn’t.

I thoroughly agree.
Meu livro favorito de UX
By: Fabricio Teixeira
Tags: Arquitetura De Informação, User Experience, AI, Livros

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David Archuleta
By: Arin Segal
Tags: Archuleta, David, Music

David talked with me about his participation in the Constitution Fair event, his plans for music and the upcoming Ice Show he is taking part in. Visit for tickets to the show!
Write for the Data Visualization Society
By: Data Visualization Society Team
Tags: Data Visualization, Writing

As data grows more central to our personal and professional lives, the practice of data visualization becomes ever more important. The Data Visualization Society (DVS) aims to collect and establish best practices, as well as to foster a community which supports its members as they develop their data visualization skills.

At the moment, the DVS dialogue predominantly takes place in a free and open to join Slack workspace, with channels covering a wide range of topics. This Medium publication is an important part of our mission to share those conversations more broadly and provide a place for our members to discuss a range of topics in data visualization in greater depth. We highly encourage any of our members to use this platform to further their ideas and spark discussion both within the Data Visualization Society and outside it among the general community of practitioners.

What you should write about

Honestly, that’s up to you! You could summarize a topic that comes up on the DVS Slack channel, write a response to an article or social media post, or you could share your working method on a new skill you’ve learned. Our publication will grow and expand as our writers submit articles on various topics, so please consider our publication a platform for any subject that you have in mind.

How to get started

If you are interested in writing for us, just drop any of the editors a message on he DVS Slack or email us at admin@datavisualizationsociety.com in order to be added to our writer’s list. Please note that we are happy to publish articles written in multiple languages, but may not be able to provide editorial support at this time for certain languages. Once you’ve been made a writer, just submit your draft to us when you’re ready and we’ll take it from there.

If you would like to join the Editorial Staff to help us reach a larger audience via translation, please reach out via Slack or email!

And, if you’re not already a member, you can join the Data Visualization Society for free! Please sign up at datavisualizationsociety.com/join
Video: Enabling Autonomous Teams Through DevOps Technologies (Hebrew)
By: Riskified Technology
Tags: Videos, Sre, Agile, DevOps, Kubernetes

For Agile to be more than just a buzzword, we need to have the Agile supporting foundations in our R&D organization. Those are Cultural, Organizational, Procedural and Technical.

In this talk, Karin Moscovici, our VP R&D, and Erik Parienty, our Head of DevOps, share Riskifed first-hand story on building autonomous agile teams (outside and inside the R&D) and what the basics needs from a company for doing it right are.

By the end of the talk, we will better understand what a DevOps Culture is and how the DevOps team is enabling the Agile autonomous teams to work independently by developing new infrastructure projects, with different DevOps tools such as Kubernetes, Helm & ArgoCD.

*Talk is in Hebrew
So When Did Our Simulation Begin?
By: David Mark
Tags: Riz Virk, Simulation Hypothesis, Philosophy, Religion, AI

Thanks to fellow Hacker Noon writer and author of the Simulation Hypothesis Riz Virk, the Simulation theory or argument popularized by Oxford’s Nick Bostrom and Elon Musk has now begun to penetrate much of the tech world and beyond.

When I first heard this theory I found that it parallels two philosophical neo-theological movements that I have ascribed to or at least felt compelled to connect to: Chassidut (Jewish mystical movement pioneered in Eastern Ukraine over 250 years ago) and Zen Buddhism. The metaphysical underpinnings of both, in which they discuss the nature of the world being but an illusion (Mitzrayim in Chassidut and Samsara in Buddhism) seem like nice theological fits to the Simulation theory.

However, my main thrust of this article is not to discuss the parallel qualities each have to this current theory, but rather ask a more fundamental question about the impact this theory has on a variety of accepted understandings of our universe.

Shattering Our Beliefs

Perhaps one of the biggest foundations and belief sets that the Simulation theory unravels if true (I for one believe it is) is the age of our universe. Now when we look out at the universe through a scientific lens we see it being billions of years old. Surprisingly, this has never been a conflict for those of us who ascribe to the Hebrew Bible. Years in Judaism are counted from the creation of Adam. The sages very rightly warned us not to try to understand the Six days of Creation as it is beyond us. Meaning billions of years could fit into those 6 cosmic days.

I am mentioning this because it is important to understand that from my perspective I am raising the issue of the Simulation theory and the age of the Universe not from a theological challenge, but rather that the Simulation theory is perhaps the single biggest watershed moment for those technologists that have followed what were accepted underpinnings of Western science.

The Simulation theory renders the debate about the universe’s age obsolete as it does the question about evolution or environmental shifts or whether the dinosaurs are really real. All of those things would be easily programmed into the simulation as part of the “game.”

What is Reality?

This is the point, which is most transformational — nothing we have here is truly real. Only the Constructor or Architect of the Simulation is real and since we are in the Simulation we cannot actually understand what it is exactly.

Since there is a high possibility that none of the things we have gleamed about our reality’s past are concrete (either they are programmed into our simulation from the beginning or the Constructor has shifted the underpinnings whenever the simulation needed a tweak) then perhaps it is time for humanity whether we are PC (player characters) or NPC (non-player) characters or a combination of both to figure out what the Constructor really wants from us and how to reach the final “level” and of course rescue the proverbial “Princess.”
I Listed My House For Sale — And Immediately Started Receiving Brochures From Moving Companies
By: Hurriya Burney
Tags: Real Estate, Advertising, Business, Technology, Marketing

I Listed My House For Sale — And Immediately Started Receiving Brochures From Moving Companies

Targeted advertising in the real world

Photo by Ranurte on Unsplash

I recently listed my apartment for sale online.

After my realtor posted it through our local multiple listing service, it was re-posted across the local net by various eager real estate agents.

A few days later, I started receiving brochures in the mail from moving companies.

At first, I was confused. How the heck did they find out so fast that I was planning to move? I felt uncomfortable and spied upon.

And then it struck me — they track online real estate listings to identify warm leads. Of course! If you’re a moving company, wouldn’t you do the same?

If someone has listed a home for sale, chances are that they are planning to move. Even if the home is an investment property and occupied by renters, they may still need your services if the new owner asks them to vacate.

After my initial discomfort, I thought — this is genius! What a creative way to market your services.

Regardless of what business you’re in, the internet has made it remarkably easy to reach new customers.

The days of sending out mass-mailed brochures to an entire neighborhood are gone. This is not a very effective strategy anyway. Mass-mailed brochures are impersonal and most end up in the trash, sight unseen.

Instead of mass mailing, why not leverage the power of the internet to identify only the people that may need your services and reach out to them directly? Yes, it requires more effort, but your Return On Investment (ROI) would be much greater.

Websites like Google do it all the time through targeted online advertising. I’ve never searched for a cocktail dress online without being teased with ads for clothing retailers planted in every unrelated website I subsequently navigate to — days and sometimes weeks after.

Even smart home devices like Google Nest and Amazon Alexa do it. A friend was recently telling his wife he had a headache. Unbeknownst to him, the silent sentinel, his Google Nest, was listening. Soon after, he started receiving targeted advertising online for Advil, Tylenol, and Aleve.
Zombie Walk
By: Lise Colas
Tags: Zombies, Halloween, Society, Short Story, Humor

I met up with Zara outside The Slug and Lettuce. Purple hair this year, but still that effortless unkempt look. Nice ragged slash along her throat, exposing the carotid and lots of gore splattered around her cleavage.

“You look the business,” I said.

“Thanks. I’ve slapped on a bit more this year.” She flicked back her rank locks and adjusted the neckline of her velvet top. “Last time was an utter disaster, too lilac and turquoise, not enough vermilion.”

“Yeah— like Monet’s bloody garden.”

She leaned in close to inspect my face. “Ooh Terence, I adore your mad staring eyeball and is that a garotte mark? Sweet.”

I took her arm and steered her into the pub. I was dying for a drink.

The international brigade was already there, a cluster of droogs in party bowler hats and white long-johns, knocking back pints of craft beer and chatting amongst themselves. Kinky Scandinavian blonds, all nice and lean — but not for me. No blood and guts, far too clean-cut. I couldn’t honestly see the point, their own mothers would be proud of them. There was a lull at the bar, so I took the crumpled note from my pocket.

Usual pint of Darwin for me and half a dry cider for Zara. A beefy bald guy barged past in a pink bustier and black lycra cycling shorts, a tiara of razor blades stuck into his scalp. “Watch it, princess!” I hissed, as beer slopped over the sleeve of my best jacket. A girl with blackened lips, her snub nose pierced by a massive safety pin, scampered in his wake. Ah, the Rocky Horror mob —the usual bunch of punk wannabees in torn fishnets.

“Hey, look — there’s Elvis!” Zara squawked, pointing at a thick-set chap in shades, dark hair swept back from a widow’s peak, flared trousers and satin cape, droning into a mic set up on a small stage near the back.

“Nah, that’s just a pimped-out Bela Lugosi.” I took another swig from my pint.

Zara began to cackle in that inimitable way of hers.

“Hey, behave yourself!” I hissed, pulling her over her towards a dark corner. There was a good half hour to kill before we’d be under starter’s orders.
EC by Example: CountBy
By: Donald Raab
Tags: Programming, Java, Open Source, Software Development, Eclipse Collections

Learn how to use the countBy method in Eclipse Collections.

Count the fruit by color

CountBy

The method countBy returns a Bag in Eclipse Collections. A Bag is an unordered Collection which allows duplicates. The internal structure of the HashBag implementation in Eclipse Collections is an ObjectIntHashMap . The keys of the internal map are the items, and the values are the counts stored as ints. The method countBy takes a Function as an argument.

The following code will illustrate how to count a collection of Fruit by their color, using a method reference. We store the result in a variable named COUNTS_BY_COLOR .

We have two methods that query the ImmutableBag that is created. They are used in the following tests.

RED is the top fruit color

Here’s the code in plain text if you would like experiment on your own.

public enum Fruit

{

APPLE(Color.RED),

BANANA(Color.YELLOW),

CHERRY(Color.RED),

PEAR(Color.GREEN),

STRAWBERRY(Color.RED),

LEMON(Color.YELLOW),

KIWI(Color.GREEN); private final Color color; private static final ImmutableBag<Color>

COUNTS_BY_COLOR =

Bags.immutable.with(Fruit.values())

.countBy(Fruit::getColor); Fruit(Color color)

{

this.color = color;

} public Color getColor()

{

return this.color;

} public static int getColorCount(Color color)

{

return COUNTS_BY_COLOR.occurrencesOf(color);

} public static boolean isTopColor(Color color)

{

return COUNTS_BY_COLOR.topOccurrences(1)

.anySatisfy(each -> each.getOne() == color);

} public enum Color

{

RED, YELLOW, GREEN

}

}

And the code for the test.

public class FruitTest

{

@Test

public void redFruit()

{

Assert.assertEquals(3,

Fruit.getColorCount(Fruit.Color.RED));

Assert.assertTrue(

Fruit.isTopColor(Fruit.Color.RED));

} @Test

public void yellowFruit()

{

Assert.assertEquals(2,

Fruit.getColorCount(Fruit.Color.YELLOW));

Assert.assertFalse(

Fruit.isTopColor(Fruit.Color.YELLOW));

} @Test

public void greenFruit()

{

Assert.assertEquals(2,

Fruit.getColorCount(Fruit.Color.GREEN));

Assert.assertFalse(

Fruit.isTopColor(Fruit.Color.GREEN));

}

}

APIs covered in the examples

countBy — Counts the elements Collection by the Function specified and returns a Bag. Bags.immutable.with — Creates an ImmutableBag with the specified vararg’d elements. There are mutable and immutable Collection factories in Eclipse Collections. occurrencesOf — Returns the count from a Bag for a particular item. topOccurrences — Returns a List of items and their counts in descending order by the number of occurrences.

Check out this presentation to learn more about the origins, design and evolution of the Eclipse Collections API.

Eclipse Collections is open for contributions. If you like the library, you can let us know by starring it on GitHub.
3 features you don’t wanna miss in Python 3.9
By: Carlos Equiz
Tags: Software Development, Python, Coding

Photo by Simon Abrams on Unsplash

Since version 3.9.0, Python adopted a release calendar with annual cadence making releases smaller. The final planned release for Python 3.9.0 is scheduled for October 2020.

Let’s review the new handy features for string and dictionary manipulation and the improved typing module.

1. Dictionary Merge & Update Operators

Merging two dictionaries was never easier with union operators
Marketing in Different Languages
By: Kahli Bree Adams
Tags: Marketing, Transcreation, Language, Business, Translation

Some examples of transcreation

Souq.com:

Souq.com is Dubai’s largest online retailer until recently acquired by Amazon. When it wanted to introduce the famous American ‘Black Friday’ sale in the United Arab Emirates, the company chose to go with the transcreated name ‘White Friday’.

The reasons behind this transcreation are, for one, that Friday is the day dedicated to worship in Muslim countries, and secondly, in Middle Eastern culture the color black has a negative connotation because it is associated with mourning. White, on the other hand, is associated with innocence and thus has a positive connotation.

If Souq.com had called its campaign ‘Black Friday’, this would have likely caused offense in the target region and the campaign would have backfired. It’s important to bear in mind that colors have different meanings and implications in different countries, so their use should be very carefully evaluated during the transcreation process.

Apple:

Apple initially advertised its iPod shuffle mp3 player with the slogan “Small Talk”. But, as language industry expert Nataly Kelly points out in her book Found in Translation, that short slogan proved quite difficult to translate. In English “small talk” is an idiomatic phrase, which can’t be translated literally. Although other languages may have similar idioms, they may not contain the word “small”, so the wordplay would be lost.

In the end, Apple had to recreate the slogan from scratch for its different target languages and even local language variants — in other words, the slogan had to be transcreated.

And here are the results:

French: Donnez-liu de la voix (“Let him speak”)

Canadian French: Petit parleur, grand faiseur (“Says little, does a lot”)

Latin American Spanish: Mira quién habla (“Look who’s talking”)

European Spanish: Ya sabe hablar (“Already knows how to talk”),

Although all of these slogans differ significantly, they all communicate the same idea: astonishment at how much this small device can do.

Honda:

Honda’s “Fitta”’ model had to be renamed to “Honda Jazz” in Scandinavian countries because the company realised that the word “fitta” is a vulgar term in many Nordic languages. Commissioning a transcreation rather than a mere marketing translation before the launch would have prevented this embarrassing cultural mistake. And Honda could have saved a lot of money because the company spent a fortune on the “Fitta’ marketing collateral and branding before the faux pas was noticed.
Contusions
By: Jessica Lee Mcmillan
Tags: Nature, Time, Poetry, Entropy, Writing

Cell walls breached

abrading prints

on books of leaves

scarred by pen

bleeding fibres

in crisscross tracks

contusions writ

on sediment pulp

like soil emerge

in cellulose chains

& parts of speech

machine degrades

& temporal scrawl

of traversing feet

words that tread

in lovely bruises
Get started with STOMT for business in 3 steps
Tags: Social Media, AI, Customer Feedback, Feedback, Community Building

Choose a displayname and a username for your business, organisation or project

Today we will show you how easy it is to setup an account for STOMT. 🚀

First of all, you should understand the basic system of how STOMT works. At it’s core, STOMT is a social network. Why? Because we want you to interact with your customers and potential customers in a social environment built on simplicity, transparency and trust to make it convenient for everyone.

1. Register as a user 😁

You know this principle from Facebook. First, create a user account, then, create a page for your business. That way you can easily manage multiple projects without the hassle to logout and login all the time. To register as a user, go to our sign-up page.

2. Create a STOMT page for your business 🦄

After signing up and login, you can find a “Create new page” button, in the left navigation-bar. Just click on it, and create your business page in two simple steps!

Pick a category that suits your business or project

3. Integrate STOMT in your touchpoints ✨

STOMT is not just a product, it’s a strategy. So don’t wait for people discovering your profile. Ask for feedback and wishes, all the time. Only that way you can channel any kind of impulse, prevent bad reviews and get the chance to build long-lasting relationships. It also give you more control about electronic word-of-mouth.

Here are some ideas, depending on your kind of business:

Link to your profile (especially useful as local service)

You don’t want to put your 30th sticker on your front-door. Otherwise, let us know.

Create a table-top and communicate your STOMT-profile to your community: stomt.com/{businessname} You can also encourage them to download our app through those handy links: stomt.co/ios and stomt.co/android.

Integrate us on your website

Nothing is easier than that. Just follow the guideline. It will take you two minutes!

Integrate us in your apps

There are integrations for your apps for iOS and Android. If that is not simple enough, please let us know.

Communicate us 🌈

Last but not least, use your existing social channels and emails to communicate that you’re using us. You can also guide people to our STOMT-creation page instead of your profile and set your profile as default-target for the STOMT-creation process: stomt.com/create?to={your username}

Let us know what you’re missing by wishing for it: https://www.stomt.com/stomt
‘Nature Is on Team Machine’ With George Dyson
By: Douglas Rushkoff
Tags: Technology, Society, George Dyson, Podcast

‘Nature Is on Team Machine’ With George Dyson

On a less human-centered perspective on our place in the cosmos

Playing for Team Human today, author and technology historian, George Dyson.

Dyson helps us take a less human-centered perspective on our place in the cosmos for our own — and everything’s — best interest.

In his opening monologue, Rushkoff discusses the imperative to not hold grudges after the presidential election and pays tribute to his late friend, Mark Filippi.

You can listen to Filippi and Rushkoff’s conversation live from New York City’s Alchemist Kitchen here, and explore Filippi’s work at Soma Space.

Analogia: The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Control is now available at your favorite independent bookseller.
What do you do when MySQL isn’t fast enough? Meet MemSQL.
By: Ranjan Srinivas
Tags: Database, MySQL, Sql, Data Engineering, Etl

Many times, we get started with a project, and we use MySQL as our database of choice. It is fairly fast, easy to use, and very stable.

But as the project grows, there is an increasing necessity for not just increased speed, but for high availability, redundancy, and most importantly, scalability.

An even bigger issue, is that of compatibility. If the BI logic, the dashboards and query logic were all written in MySQL syntax, upgrading requires a complete revamp, something which definitely won’t please product managers.

This is where MemSQL comes in. According to the website:

MemSQL is a distributed, relational, SQL database management system that features ANSI SQL support and is known for exceptional speed in both query processing and data ingest.

MemSQL achieves this high performance by:

Making use of RAM / high performance memory. This allows for extremely fast computations. It is also distributed, consisting of nodes that can get accept SQL queries (called the Aggregator), and nodes that are solely for processing the data (called the Leafs). It is highly scalable. Running out of compute power? Simply add a compute resource like AWS EC2, Digital Ocean droplets etc.

MemSQL is built on top of the traditional SQL that we have come to know and love. Speaking in technical terms, MemSQL uses the same wire protocol as MySQL and supports similar SQL syntax as MySQL for easier compatibility.

Now, you might think that such a great software must be really expensive, and has like a 30-day trial period — making testing and validating the software hard. Well, in the case of MemSQL, that’s not the case.

The company allows MemSQL 6.7 configurations of up-to 128GB of RAM to be installed for free. This should be fairly large enough for more small-medium scaled applications, and even for just testing. The license being permanent makes this an attractive offering.

All this is good, but how to get started? Read here. Installation on EC2 or a droplet would be ideal for experimentation, but any Linux machine (even local) would do.

Install the necessary packages, and you would be required to write a yaml file, stating your configurations. A few example are given on the website, but I have provided a simplified version.

license: #add your MemSQL license here.

memsql_server_version: 7.0

package_type: deb

hosts:

- hostname: 127.0.0.1 #ip-address of machine being installed on.

localhost: true

nodes:

- register: false

role: Master

config:

password: password

port: 3306

- register: false

role: Leaf

config:

password: password

port: 3307

This is a simple configuration, for a 1 Aggregator 1 Leaf, on a single host. This should be enough to get you started.

Thanks for reading!
Master Remote Work and Productivity with the Elgato Stream Deck
By: Walid Ao
Tags: Technology, Remote Work, Productivity, Pandemic, Gadgets

If you’ve never heard of the Elgato Stream Deck, then you are in for the biggest surprise in your life. It is a customizable control pad developed for live-streaming. The Stream Deck includes physical LCD keys, which are fully customizable to switch scenes, launch media, play sounds, open apps, and much more on the fly with a single button press. The Stream Deck connects via USB to your PC or Mac.

The device is straightforward in its design with rows or plastic physical LCD buttons.

To get started, just plug the Stream Deck into your PC or Mac, and it is powered on. You will have to download the free software from Elgato’s site to use the Stream Deck — it is effortless and easy to use.

From here, the customization begins. You will find a list of pre-loaded commands, services, and software you may need for your streaming career on the right-hand side. Yes, the device is focused on live streaming. Therefore the main options are suitable for Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Never the less, the Stream Deck can be customized for everyone.

Stream Deck Software on Mac — Screenshot by the author

There are three different versions of the Stream Deck:

Stream Deck Mini ($99.99): comes with 6 customizable LCD buttons.

($99.99): comes with 6 customizable LCD buttons. Stream Deck ($149.99): comes with 15 customizable LCD buttons.

($149.99): comes with 15 customizable LCD buttons. Stream Deck XL ($ 249.99): comes with 32 customizable LCD buttons.

I recently discovered that Elgato also has a mobile app called “Stream Deck Mobile,” which basically turns your smartphone into a Stream Deck instead of buying a physical Stream Deck. The app is subscription-based and costs $2.99 monthly, with a free one month trial period.

Even though the Steam Deck is developed with a focus on live streaming, it can be used to elevate one’s productivity in general. The device can be used to program shortcuts for any software such as Photoshop, Lightroom, and Final cut Pro, and many more.

Elgato Stream Deck can even be used with Medium.

Now in 2020 that classrooms and meetings have gone online, I started using the Stream Deck Mobile religiously. I use it to launch my most frequent apps, control my Zoom and Microsoft Teams sessions. I’ll share with you the Stream Deck integration with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Medium in this story. I’ll share with you further tricks, which might be useful for teachers and lecturers, who currently have their classes online.
Python+ 101: Most useful data structures and algorithms
By: Neerav Kaushal
Tags: Python Standard Library, Data Structures, Python, Algorithms, Useful

2. Most common element and number of occurrences of an element in a collection

Sometimes, we need to find N most common elements in a collection. The Counter class of the collections library is a simple way of extracting the most common elements in a list or numpy array along with the number of their occurrences, with its most_common method.

Figure 2. Most common elements of an array

The most_common method takes the number of most common elements we want as an argument and returns a list of tuples whose first element denotes the most common element of the array and the second element is the number of that element’s occurences, sorted according to decreasing occurences. In the snippet shown in Figure 2, 1 in myarray occurs 6 times and 0 occurs 3 times.

Also, the number of occurences of a specific element can be obtained by indexing. The element 5 , for example, occurs 3 times in myarray which can be found by simply using myarray[5].
Fireflies In Straight Lines
By: Andrew Wlos
Tags: Classic Haiku, Haiku, Haiku Hub, Creativity, Poetry

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Navigating Violent Racism as a Black Woman in Korea
By: Magda Erockfor Ayuk
Tags: Equality, Life, Society, Race, Travel

Navigating Violent Racism as a Black Woman in Korea

It’s not just an “American” problem.

Photo by Chayene Rafaela on Unsplash

She walked toward me, hyperventilating, her shoulders up to her ears. She then proceeded to yell at me in Korean. And I did not speak Korean.

It was the end of my first year in Korea.

I was about to head to the airport, as I’d landed a job in Macau. And the woman yelling at me, who had to be in her 70s, was livid.

(Side note: I only mention her age, because that’s what made the situation all the more shocking. I was taught to respect my elders. It’s also a highly observed code of conduct in Korea. I never thought I’d be attacked by someone old enough to be my grandmother.)

My cab driver leaned against his van, arms crossed, as he watched the drama unfold. All he was missing was popcorn. He seemed quite bored, actually. It wasn’t his business, after all.

As I had no way of communicating with the woman, I returned to my apartment on the third floor to get my second bag.

Back outside, bag in hand, I saw her kicking the trash I’d put out the night before. She noticed me and kicked some trash towards me.

“What is your problem?” I yelled. She didn’t understand me.

She marched toward me, grabbed my bag, and tried to rip it from me. As that didn’t work, she punched me in the face.

She then dug her nails into my wrist so I’d let go of my bag.

“Am I in the flipping Twilight Zone?” I thought to myself. Do not hit this woman. You know she’ll sue you. And, the court will side with her.

I was a foreigner — a Black foreigner. I knew the racial biases people have towards people like me.

Another lady joined us, and I asked, “What is her problem?”

She then mimicked me, distorting her voice as would a kindergartner.

She too grabbed my bag and began tugging.

My cab driver was still there, arms crossed, watching.

I looked up to see one of my neighbors looking down at the scene from his apartment. I asked, “What’s wrong with them?”

“Wait for the cops,” he shot out. There was so much hostility in his voice that I knew he’d called the cops, not on them, but on me.

My neighbor said something to the women too, and they finally took their hands off me. I guess he told them the cops were on their way.

I gave my cab driver my second bag and stomped up the stairs to my apartment to fetch my last one.
WLST script to reset data source password in WebLogic server
By: Albin Issac
Tags: Programming, Weblogic, Oracle, Software Development, Servers

This tutorial explains the approach to reset the password of all the data sources in the WebLogic server. Sometime we may need to reset the password of all the data sources, the below WLST script can be used to achieve the same.

The reset through console takes more time, the WLST script helps to reset the password quickly

WLST Script

ResetAllDataSourcePassword.py

adminIP = raw_input("Enter domain1.AdminIP:")

adminPort = raw_input("Enter domain1.AdminPort:")

adminPassword = raw_input("Enter adminPassword:")

DBPASSWORD= raw_input("Enter new DBPASSWORD:")

DOMAIN_PATH='C://Albin/SW/Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_Home/user_projects/domains/base_domain'

es = encrypt(DBPASSWORD,DOMAIN_PATH)

adminURL='t3://'+adminIP+':'+adminPort

adminUserName='weblogic'

connect(adminUserName, adminPassword, adminURL)

server='AdminServer'

cd('Servers/'+server)

target=cmo

edit()

startEdit() # SOADomain Datasource Configuration

cd('JDBCSystemResources')

allDS=cmo.getJDBCSystemResources()

for tmpDS in allDS:

dsName=tmpDS.getName();

print 'Changing the Password for DataSource ', dsName

cd('/JDBCSystemResources/'+dsName+'/JDBCResource/'+dsName+'/JDBCDriverParams/'+dsName)

set('PasswordEncrypted',es)

save()

activate()

disconnect()

Script

Before executing the script, change the configurations as required.

Execute the script — <<Oracle_Home>>\oracle_common\common\bin\wlst.cmd ResetAllDataSourcePassword.py

Now the data sources password reset to the new value.
Indian [social] media, Rumour, Hoax and how we react :
By: Arpit Goyal
Tags: India, Social Media, Fake News, Self Improvement, Awareness

Hello fellow Indians!

How are you doing? How was your day? (I hope good, I don’t want to be called anti-national)

Let’s talk about ourselves and our motherland India. It is great, right?

After all 36% of scientists at NASA are Indians (36-of-scientists-at-NASA-are-Indians by T.O.I)

actually No.

Yes India is great, but not the NASA thing, ex-Indians/Indian Immigrant scientists at NASA are not even near to 36%. NASA employees of Asian origin sums up to 8.3%.

Here’s a NASA employee’s answer on question “What percentage of NASA employee are Indian?”

Still! UNESCO declared Indian National Anthem best in the world, Really ?

No, never happened, at least UNESCO don’t know.

No worries, We don’t need awards, we are best anyway, India is a shinning Country, specially on Diwali :

India-on-Diwali-by-NASA-fake

No, on Diwali the light increase is so minuscule it won’t even register.

… That image, based on data from the Operational Linescan System flown on US Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites, is a color-composite created in 2003 by NOAA scientist Chris Elvidge to highlight population growth over time

- NASA said.

Hi I’m Arpit, a [realist] Nationalist, I love my motherland India and proud our culture and what we have achieved.

Today (03/12/2015) I received these [whatsapp] messages:

TrueCaller Hacked New by TOI

News from CEO of Whatsapp about Whatsapp is insecure

My friends are great they are so concerned about me

but maybe they are not carefull ?

The news of TrueCaller was from 2013, but people kept on forwarding it without even checking,

Also this Whatsapp news is totally fake, you can just use privacy settings to hide your picture, status, etc. (and no way Whatsapp CEO would say his product is insecure for you.)

Also why would ISIS use your profile picture to abuse you, they are doing worse without faking, the news is clearly fake.

No need to worry Whatsapp users :)

Also, we frequently receive messages that says :

Facebook / Whatsapp is going to charge us soon charge us,

Earthquake predictions on WhatsApp and Facebook,

Like/Share to donate to XYZ,

You can notify the police by entering your PIN number,

NASA announcing 15/10 sometimes 20 days of darkness on earth, etc.

Celebrity news, ex: rumour about Honey Singh being dead.

WHY? Real news about him is stupid enough please don’t create more stupid news, and the fake death of Late Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam when he was travelling in flight was too much, (later he died on July 27, 2015).

Please!!!

Be responsible, be Sensible.

Let’s not make fun of ourselves or our motherland and not contribute such stupid Hoax.

So next time when you forward some stupid text please check, Google, Snopes for news.

Do check Snopes.com they do dig deep about many rumours and tells you truth. (Thanks Sachin)
More Tunnell / WorkCoin Coverage
By: Fred Krueger
Tags: Tunnell, Thumbtack, Workcoin

Again, super happy to have one of co-founders of Thumbtack as an advisor
SCI Daily: Holding On
By: Jervis C. Tinimbang
Tags: Fintech, Philippines, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

September 7, 2018

Image from Coindesk

Bitcoin (BTC) remained steady overnight, consolidating its losses after the sharp drop. BTC is more likely to continue sliding as buyers may have been spooked after BTC gave back all its gains for the past three weeks in just a few hours. The $5,800-$6,200 support is getting tested again and while it has held every time this year, the continued pressure may be weakening the said support levels.

Support levels are at $6,200 and $5,800 while resistance levels are at $6,700 and $6,900.

BTC/PHP: 361,580 / 335,770

USD/PHP: 54.05

BTC Market Cap: $113B

Crypto Market Cap: $208B

Image from coin360.io

*Microblogger and crypto trader Alex Kruger said that a Bithumb user is allegedly making roughly $150,000 a day from wash trading on the exchange. Exploiting the exchange’s 120% fee payback, an opportunistic trader is currently wash trading 31,000 BTC on the exchange at 11AM daily, which is around KRW 278 billion, or around $250 million in fake volume. The trader then collects the full KRW 1 billion rebate that Bithumb offers daily as part of their ongoing marketing campaign.

*A South Korean insurance company, Hanwha Insurance, is reportedly introducing insurance for cryptocurrency exchanges for hacking damages. With the demand for more insurance coverage growing in South Korea, Hanwha plans to start negotiations with exchanges next month. Several cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit, already have insurance, although their policies do not cover hacking, and coverage amounts are low.

*A presidential decree legalizing the activities of cryptocurrency exchanges in Uzbekistan has been signed by the country’s president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. This decree introduces a licensing regime and details the requirements needed to be met to be allowed to operate in the country. Foreign trading platforms looking to establish themselves in the country also need to establish a local subsidiary and abide by the relevant laws and regulations.

SCI.ph | Rebit.ph | BuyBitcoin.ph | Citadax
Mockery In The Church
By: Emmanuella A.
Tags: Relationships, Family, Short Story, Centina, Fiction

Mockery In The Church

Is it sinful to be lonely?

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

Entering a church after so many years sent a cold shiver down my spine and in as much as I wouldn’t want to be here, I had to.

This place only brought sad memories and the after-party is even worse. Let me explain. The last time I had been to a church was 6 years ago during my little sister’s wedding and I was the eldest among 4 yet still single. My family mocked me, they used every opportunity to remind me of my loneliness.

Hey Bunny, how are you and your hus- or sorry I forgot.

Who forgets that? Mockery I tell you mockery.
Hope is a thing with blasters
By: Jay Sizemore
Tags: Poetry, Racial Profiling, Star Wars, Star Wars Force Awakens, Racism

Hope is a thing with blasters

A Star Wars poem about more than Star Wars

Photo by Phil Shaw on Unsplash

Outside, men are being shot in the back.

Deputies are pulling pistols instead of tasers.

Their weapons are not set to stun.

When I was six years old all I cared about

was swinging a tobacco stick

and humming through my lips

the noises a lightsaber would make.

The birds circled overhead

like TIE fighters in formation.

Outside, someone says “fuck your breath,”

while a man bleeds to death,

his incredulous cries winnowing to rasps.

I watch the new Star Wars trailer

on a work break, and suddenly I’m six again,

rolling in the grass, dodging blaster fire from birds.

I remember how Jedi could deflect lasers

with their palms and their faith,

and for ninety seconds, I knew

no bullets would hit their targets.