fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
I Wanted to be Sexually Liberated, So I Became a Stripper
By: Erin Taylor
Tags: Mental Health, Sex, Sexuality, Self, Sex Work

I Wanted to be Sexually Liberated, So I Became a Stripper

All my life, I thought the naked body was sinful and meant to be hidden. At 23, I finished business school and started stripping.

Photo by Ashley Byrd on Unsplash

I grew up in a conservative home, in an equally conservative town, and my parents had my future planned out from a very early age; Marriage, children, and a corporate job, just like my mother and father. There’s no denying how lucky I was as a kid to have everything I needed. I went to church every Sunday with my family, had great grades in school, and competed in gymnastics in my free time. I was the baby, daddy’s little girl, and I lived to please my parents.

Naturally, when I entered puberty, and my body began changing — to the appreciation and fascination of boys my age — it confused and delighted me to be recognized for something I hadn’t worked for.

My body was just part of me, yet my new curves were celebrated by the opposite sex, criticized by my female classmates, and chastised by my mother and grandmother.

I know it may sound crazy, but even my relationship with my father changed when I could no longer wear my training bras. He became noticeably awkward around me, and he stopped inviting me out with him after he witnessed men his age paying me attention at the hardware store.

It was a confusing feeling for a 13-year-old girl to be suddenly punished by her father for something out of her control.

As an adult, I covered up my body and fell into place because I thought my relationship with my dad depended on it. I let go of any wild dreams of accepting my physical self and exploring my sexuality, and instead, I dated men who were just as conservative and concerned with marriage as I was — men who were just as protective about my body as my father. I wasn’t a virgin past 19, but I held back so many parts of myself for the fear of being “sinful.”

It’s no secret that children who grow up in homes like mine — homes where they can’t make their own choices about hobbies or the clothes they wear, homes where they are taught that sex and the naked body is shameful — grow up resentful and desperate to rebel. They want to do anything and everything to go against the status quo.

Is it any wonder that I rebelled right into working at a strip club? I think not.
สิ่งที่ควรคำนึงถึง 10 ข้อ ก่อนที่คุณจะสร้างแผนภูมิเกี่ยวกับ COVID-19
By: Pattarawat Chormai
Tags: Coronavirus, Data, Data Visualization, Covid 19

Sign up for The 'Gale

By Nightingale

Keep up with the latest from Nightingale, the journal of the Data Visualization Society Take a look
How I went from broke college kid to traveling the world as a Digital Nomad
By: Danny Sapio
Tags: Travel, Freelancing, Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Digital Nomads

While in my second year of undergrad, I was feeling stuck and confused about my future. I was working part-time, making $150 per week while accumulating debt pursuing a degree that I wasn’t passionate about. I hoped to achieve big things in my life but was unsure what steps I needed to take to get ahead.

I had just transferred to a much bigger university than my previous school and didn’t know anyone. To make matters worse, I was living in an off-campus apartment with a random guy who didn’t even attend my school, and I had to commute to classes every day.

My situation was the result of poor planning on my part, but regardless of how I got where I was, I wasn’t living the exciting college life that I had hoped or expected I would be.

Although I eventually made friends and acclimated to my situation, I knew that I couldn’t stand to remain in college for the duration of my 4-year degree. I knew I would have to face the reality of my situation, sooner or later. The truth that a marketing major wasn’t something I was interested in pursuing as a career and that I was only in college because I didn’t know what else to do at that stage of my life.

Social pressure was the main reason I went to college in the first place, and staying made it appear to my parents and friends from high school that I was doing something with my life.

I knew that even if I managed to make it to graduation, I would be receiving a marketing degree that would be obsolete by the time I received it.

I had to switch my mindset from waiting for the right information to be given to me, to being an autodidact and seeking out the proper knowledge and education.

If I wanted to escape college and still succeed in my life, then I knew I needed a plan. Dropping out without a plan would likely result in me working minimum wage jobs and living at home, which wouldn’t be an improvement to college life by any stretch.

I knew I needed two things before I could drop out

A marketable skill — most college dropouts that fail don’t have one.

I couldn’t enter the real world without something of value to offer. Without skills, I was only worth the hours that I was willing to work. Not to mention that I’d be replaceable by anyone willing to do the same work as me for less.

Marketable skills are what college and universities are supposed to be providing to their students, but they often fail to do so. The good news is that it’s not the 1800s or even the 1900s anymore — in today’s world, most skills can be acquired online for free. Unless you’re studying to become a doctor — you probably shouldn’t learn how to perform surgery from Youtube videos.

The best part about the internet is that you can use it to learn skills and to find people who are willing to pay for those skills.

The majority of people hiring freelancers on the internet don’t care about degrees; they care about results. I knew that if I could build a portfolio of work around a skillset, then it would be just as good or better than earning a college degree.
O que é e Como Funciona o Amazon FBA? [GUIA COMPLETO]
By: Bruno Cunha
Tags: Ganhar Dinheiro Internet, Ganhar Dinheiro, Amazon, Ganhar Dinheiro Online, Amazon Fba

in In Fitness And In Health
In search of framework
Tags: Big Data, Data Analytics, Data Driven Decisions, Data Science, Business Analytics

When it comes to execution, it is not just the state-of-the-art technology or the people, it is THE HOW (structured approach equipped with methods. techniques, frameworks) that makes all the difference.

With unabated enthusiasm in analytics and data driven decision-making(DDDM), I extensively looked around for information on existing frameworks for moving from data to decisions and how the data analytics projects and programmes are managed.

To my total surprise, the search results on this topic were pretty disappointing and unimpressive to say the least. whatever happened to information deluge.

There are two possibilities for this though -

1. We may well be in very infancy phase of it (data to decisions)

2. Of-course my search skills can be questioned.

Before I dive into my findings on frameworks from known players in the arena, a very quickie definition of — What is Framework?

A framework is a real or conceptual structure intended to serve as a guidance. It is defined as an underlying set of ideas, principles, agreements or guidelines that provide a ‘roadmap’ and supportive structure for achieving a specific goal.

Top 3 -

1. By Gartner

The only framework with holistic approach to analytics programme spanning cross strategy and performance. Gartner uses business analytics as an umbrella term to represent BI, analytics, and performance management combining with it data driven decisions.(Rest covered in separate blog)

2. By PWC —

Four aspects of the framework -

Discovery — define the problem phase, develop a hypothesis. collect and explore data. Insights — perform the data analysis. Actions — Link insights to actionable recommendations. Outcomes — Execution plan and review the outcomes that have transformed the business.

3. BADIR by Aryng

The data to decision journey is five stepped process, from determining business questions to recommendations. BADIR is an acronym which stands for -

Business Question Analysis Plan Data Collection Insights Recommendations

It can’t get any simpler than this, the titles of all 5 steps are indicative and self-explanatory, so allow me to skip the unnecessary detailing just for the sake of it.

The top 3 are chosen purely on the basis of its ease of use, flexible approach to incorporate different methods, techniques(as highlighted by articles).

To summarise, In all honesty, framework neither is a silver bullet nor does it guarantee to make the project/Analytics Efforts fail-proof.

But hey, lack of using any framework would let decision makers either drive in the wrong direction or drown in the data.
Improving Your Mental Health Begins By Talking To Other People
By: Matt Lillywhite
Tags: Relationships, Life Lessons, Mental Health, Self Improvement, Loneliness

Improving Your Mental Health Begins By Talking To Other People

You don’t need to deal with your problems alone.

Photo by Julian Hanslmaier on Unsplash

I used to cry in my bedroom for several hours until the early hours of the morning. It was as if nobody understood me or could genuinely relate to what I was going through.

I felt overwhelmed. My anxiety was at an all-time high. Every day, my mental health was worsening. The quality of my relationships was deteriorating as I felt like I couldn’t confide in anyone. I didn’t want to deal with my problems alone. But at the time, I had no choice.

That’s when I realized something changed my life forever. Healthy relationships are built on a mutual sense of trust and understanding. So when you feel like nobody else can understand what you’re going through, the quality of your relationships will inevitably suffer as a result.

Which is why it’s essential to spend more time with your friends, family, and spouse. Strong relationships are a vital element of a happy life. Our loved ones support us during moments of adversity and help us keep everything together while our entire life feels like it’s falling apart.
More Americans Willing to Take COVID Vaccine
By: Dr. Hesham A. Hassaballa
Tags: Covid 19, Vaccines, Public Health, Medicine, Science

PUBLIC OPINION AND COVID VACCINES

More Americans Willing to Take COVID Vaccine

Public confidence campaigns seem to be working

In a recent USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, 46% of Americans say they will take the vaccine as soon as they can. Compared to a USA TODAY poll in late October, that is close to double. Also in the new poll, 32% say they will wait for others to get the shots before they do so themselves.

This is great news, and it is indicative of the success of public campaigns by physicians, nurses, other healthcare leaders as well as public officials — including the esteemed Dr. Anthony Fauci — to boost confidence in the vaccines.

I myself did the same thing (see below), and thank God, so far the vaccine has been very well tolerated by me and my colleagues.

The vaccine is only truly effective at achieving herd immunity if a majority of the population gets the vaccine. So, the more people take it, the faster we can finally see an end to this nightmare.

I am very encouraged by this new poll finding, and I encourage everyone who gets their vaccine — especially physicians and nurses on the front lines — to publicize their vaccination and get the word out.
What Is GitHub
By: Sebastian De Lima
Tags: Programming, Computer Science, Github, Technology, Productivity

Introduction

Humans have always thought of ways to connect and to work together as a team, over the years we have created new ways to connect virtually allowing us to work together without having to worry about the distance. Applications like Facebook and Twitter are now indispensable for us. Almost all video games allow you to play online with friends or strangers from all over the world. GitHub is another one of these pieces of software that allow people to connect and work together in a more efficient, fast, and dynamic way. In this blog, I will explain how GitHub works and the different things that we can use it for.

How it works

GitHub -in simple terms- is just a space or a cloud if you will where you can save, share, and edit files simultaneously with someone else. Every file, files, or whatever project that you save into GitHub is called a repository or “repo”.

Imagine that you work at Netflix as a product manager and one day you realize that you want to make changes to the homepage. You talk to the developer team and you explain all the changes that you want to do. Let’s suppose that all the code for Netflix is saved on GitHub in different files. The lead developer would then divide the task into different chunks and send the instructions to each developer. It would be very difficult if everyone was working on the same files right? One of the main features is being able to create a copy of the repo and have it in your computer that way if you write code that doesn't work then it won't affect the program because you would be working on a copy of the project, this is called cloning a repo.
This Is My Playbook for Crushing It on Medium in 2021
By: U-Ming Lee
Tags: Satire, Humor, Culture, Writing, Comedy

SATIRE

This Is My Playbook for Crushing It on Medium in 2021

I survived 2020, 2021 is the time to thrive

Photo by Tnarg on Pexels.

I started writing seriously on Medium only in September but I have already published 24 articles, been curated 5 times, and am a top writer in two topics. In these three months, I have grown from zero followers to 111 followers (and counting).

I say this not to boast but to show you I have mastered the Medium opening game.

Tip 1: It is important to establish your authority early in the article.

I’ve spent weeks studying the advice of the established Medium gurus.

I’ve signed up to so many free Medium guru newsletters that my Gmail can no longer distinguish between spam and ordinary e-mail.

I’ve done all this work to make this — my 2021 Medium Playbook— to raise my standings in the Medium game.

I’m offering this playbook FREE for all you dear readers now, for this LIMITED TIME ONLY.

Once I’ve set up my Substack newsletter, my Zoom consulting business, and set up my ConvertKit e-mail thread, this playbook will only be available to subscribers to my $49 course.

So, act fast!

Just kidding. I don’t have any of these yet. But did you feel the urgency?

Tip 2: Hit them hard with the Call to Action

Without further ado, here are my three key approaches to crushing it on Medium.
Requiem for The Carnegie Deli
By: Terry Barr
Tags: One Table One World, New York, Food, Jewish, Family

It was the winter of 1985, and my friend Jerry, his son Tim, and I had driven from East Tennessee to New York in order to interview the playwright/screenwriter, Horton Foote. Jerry was writing a book on Foote, and I was finishing my dissertation, also about Foote’s life and work. Not everyone is lucky enough to meet the subject of his Ph.D. dreams, but I was.

Horton was a gracious man, and he and his wife Lillian welcomed us into their East Village apartment. I wish I remembered more about the couple of hours we spent there, but the time buzzed me as if I were a kid sitting for those brief moments on at the Pizitz Department Store Santa’s knee in downtown Birmingham.

After we left, and we had driven all night and so were plenty tired, Jerry suggested we go uptown and have lunch at the Carnegie Deli. Didn’t have to ask twice, either.

I had been to only one other Jewish restaurant in New York at this point, and that was an obscure dairy restaurant that will be featured later in this series. So, here was to be my first taste of an authentic New York Jewish deli.

I have to add here that my wife and I had been semi-vegetarian until I left for this trip. We did eat fish and occasionally chicken, but NO RED MEAT. So at the Carnegie, I could have opted for any of the multitude of smoked fish plates, salads, or sandwiches.

Could have, but didn’t.

I chose the Jackie Mason, or was it the Henny Youngman, sandwich?: mounds of corned beef and pastrami on rye, with mustard, and horseradish on the side. If you never had the pleasure, these sandwiches weigh two-to-three pounds whether or not the waiter keeps his thumb on the scale.

My joke later on was that I spent the next week digesting that sandwich, though I don’t know whom I thought I was fooling, or why I thought that was a joke. That much red meat is hard on the digestive tract anyway, but having not consumed any red meat for the previous four years? Imagine.

I likely ate two whole kosher half-sour pickles before our food was served, too, and maybe I looked as green afterward as that semi-cucumber.

Still, whatever color you had in your mind, nothing could match the beet-horseradish color of Tim, Jerry’s fourteen year-old son, who decided that what he wanted for lunch was the hamburger.

I’m sure you’ve heard stories about gruff, brusque NYC waiters, and maybe they’re that way because goyish boys order burgers in a deli. In any case, our waiter intervened in Tim’s epicurean life:

“LISTEN KID, IF YOU WANTA BURGER, GO ACROSS THE STREET TO MCDONALD’S. THIS IS A DELI AND IN A DELI, YOU ORDER DELI SANDWICHES.”

You know when someone you don’t know means what he’s saying, and Tim was no exception.

Jerry and I watched the poor guy actually gulp, and then say,

“yessir, i will have a corned beef sandwich.”

Which he went on to eat with gusto, eyeing the waiter from then on with either love or fear (or both) in his eyes.
Why Not Use Kubernetes?
By: Grazi Bonizi
Tags: Azure, Programming, Kubernetes, DevOps, Aks

Why Not Use Kubernetes?

Is Kubernetes really right for your stack?

When to choose Kubernetes?

Many teams are excited to start using Kubernetes. Some are interested in the resilience, elasticity, portability, reliability and other advantages Kubernetes offers natively. Some are technology enthusiasts and just want an opportunity to work with this platform, to get to know more about it. Some developers want to acquire experience with it, so they can add another highly demanded skill to their resumé. In general, most developers these days want to work with Kubernetes at some point.

That may be a really good idea and it may not.

Kubernetes is Designed to Solve Distributed Architecture Issues

As defined by the official documentation website,

“Kubernetes provides you with a framework to run distributed systems resiliently. It takes care of scaling and failover for your application, provides deployment patterns, and more.”

It’s not exclusively made for distributed systems, but for containerized applications. Even so, it does provide many resources that make it easier to manage and scale distributed systems, like Microservices solutions. It’s also considered an orchestration system.

Automation and orchestration are different, but related concepts. Automation helps make your business more efficient by reducing or replacing human interaction with IT systems and instead using software to perform tasks in order to reduce cost, complexity, and errors. In general, automation refers to automating a single task. This is different from orchestration, which is how you can automate a process or workflow that involves many steps across multiple disparate systems. When you start by building automation into your processes, you can then orchestrate them to run automatically. — What is orchestration? RedHat official website

In other words, Kubernetes makes it easier to manage complex solutions that would be hard to maintain without a proper orchestration system. While you can implement DevOps engineering practices on your own, it’s not scalable if you go from dozens to hundreds of services.
Ahmad Hasan Dani, RIP
By: Rohan Joshi
Tags: Indus Valley Civilization, India, Archeology, Pakistan, World

The subcontinent lost a distinguished resource in archeology in the passing away of the great Pakistani Indologist, Ahmad Hasan Dani on January 26. Dani was born in Basna (now in Chhattisgarh) in 1920 and became the first Muslim to graduate from Banaras Hindu University (1944). His works on Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and the Sarasvati civilization have had a profound impact on our understanding of the subcontinent’s history. Dani was one of the few scholars who continued to challenge the two popular, yet divergent theories of whether the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was Dravidian (supported by scholars like Asko Parpola), or Aryan (“Out of India Theory”). He also continued to question theories of IVC’s cultural and religious continuity into early Vedic Hinduism, disagreeing, again, with his contemporaries on the issue.

In 1949, Dani was the first to propose a connection between this reference to “Hariyupiah” in the Rig Veda and the IVC center of Harappa:

In aid of Abhyavartin Cayamana,

Indra destroyed the seed of Varasikha.

At Hariyupiya he smote the vanguard of the Vrcivans,

and the rear fled frighted.

(Rig Veda, XXVII.5)

Professor Dani was a recipient of the Hilal-e-Imtiaz (“Crescent of Excellence”), Pakistan’s second highest honor. During his career, he published more than 30 books, and lived and worked all across the subcontinent, including Dhaka, Peshawar and South India. He was fluent in 14 Indo-European and Dravidian languages. Professor Dani’s intervention in 2005 prevented the construction of an amusement park over an archaeological site in Harappa. His research has helped a region burdened by 400 years of subjugation and slavery, rediscover itself. May he rest in peace.
I Am Living In A Box
By: John Walter
Tags: Poetry, Freedom, Self, Safety, Mental Health

I am living in a box

I created it to keep me safe

I thought I was free

I could no longer see my box but it was there

I kept bumping into it

Invisible restrictions

Constrictions

How to live prescriptions

All part of my box

I created it to keep me safe

I thought I was free

I can now feel my box I know it is there

I’ve tried kicking and punching it

It flinches

Moves a few inches

Then invades me like chinches

They live in my box

I created them to keep me safe

I thought I was free

I thought I was free

I thought I was free
I Am a Mom Whose Neighborhood Burned During the Protests. It’s Time to Defund the Police.
By: Emily Pg Erickson
Tags: Mental Health, Parenting, Politics, Equality, Racism

It was yesterday. I was scrolling Twitter on my phone, and my sweet toddler hit me in the leg. When he hit me, it did not matter that some days earlier he had said, “Pippy nice.” The fact was, he hit me. I have learned, through my training as a mental health therapist, to ask questions about behaviors like this. Behaviors, after all, are a kind of communication.

What was my son trying to tell me? Was he too tired? Did he get too much screen time? Did he need my attention? What was going on just before he hit me?

I have learned, as a mother to young children, that you have to answer behaviors the same way you answer language. This is the context from which I say: The behaviors of the police demand answers.

I do not know all of the reasons the police are not agents of safety in my own community and many others. There are many ideas from many people who have been more awake to the problems of policing much longer than me. But I do know that the police’s behaviors are communication. It is time to listen to what police officers’ actions are saying, to what they have been saying for years.

The police are not solving our crimes. The police hurt people and then hurt the people who ask them to stop hurting people. Police officers are telling us with their bodies that there is a very big problem with policing in the United States.

When my toddler hits me, I work to understand what he is saying with his body. At the same time, when he hits, I do something else. I gently and firmly hold his hands. I say, “I won’t let you hit me.” I do this because I love him. Calling to defund and demilitarize the police is not necessarily an aggressive call to action, though it can be. It is not a way to demonize all people in uniform. It is loving boundaries, which we can set with anyone. Especially those we love. These boundaries can keep our community — all of our community — truly safe.
Objective Tragedies
By: Emma Jane Laplante
Tags: Relationships, Love, Travel, Environment, Poetry

Start with the objective. There’s the virus,

with all the havoc it’s wreaked —

the poorest students falling further behind

(no internet at home), the badly needed

therapy appointments cancelled or unattended,

passersby spitting in the direction of

folks with Asian descent.

Then there’s the subjective. Your favorite

Indian restaurant closing, indefinitely.

Not getting to hug your friend goodbye.

Breaking up, but tenderly,

each of you cupping the other’s face

the way you’d hold a robin’s egg.

The grocery store being out of milk.

Your world is small these days and it’s hard to

triage these things. But since we’re all public health

workers now, it’s become your job to triage,

so you will. You will be a fish in a

Venetian canal, where the waters

(you may have heard) are now clear.

Not, I will add, because of decreased pollution,

but because of decreased boat activity,

which allows sand and sediment to remain on the canal floor.

The difference matters little to the fish,

who can suddenly see where they’re swimming.

No time to distrust it. Keep going.

Keep going. Keep going.
Chance Encounters
By: Daniel A. Teo
Tags: Poetry, Prose, Writing, Photography, Chance Encounters

Subtle Glint

a poem

Photo by Daniel A. Teo

Gleams of the sun

delicately caresses the

ardent ripples of

blue

horizon composed

as the two elements

homogenizes into

ornate gold

Thin sheets of cloud

shadows land from heaven’s

glow

as day dims

and we settle down after the perspiration

on the fine shores

the very serenity

amidst the tempest of the sea

And as the waves collide into the rocks

we espy the last glimpse of around

still dazzling from the glows of the

sun

when they still remain gleaming

but instead under the subtle glint

of the evening lamp poles.
SwiftUI Tutorial — Lists and Navigation
By: Ale Patrón
Tags: Programming, Software Engineering, Xcode, iOS, Swift

List

We’re first going to start by adding a struct called EmojiItem that will represent each of the emoji in our List :

Now, we’re going to define an array of EmojiItem that we will display in the List . You can add this array inside the ContentView struct .

Now, we’re going to define a struct that we will use to display the emoji in a circle:

Finally, we can go to the body section of our ContentView to work on our app’s UI. We’re going to embed all the content of the app inside a NavigationView ; inside it, we will add a List view containing the emojiList we defined earlier. We’re going to embed each EmojiItem inside a HStack that will show the emoji inside a EmojiCircleView , and the emoji’s name in a Text view.

If we run our app now, we should be able to see the list of emoji, but nothing happens when tapping on row in the list…Yet.
Paint the Wall With Pain
By: Gretchen Lee Bourquin, Pom-Poet
Tags: Mental Health, Courage, Prose Poem, Poetry, Healing

Find the place the scar lies and pick the scab. No brushes are needed. Find the loose thread on the stitches. Pull. Slowly. This may hurt. Or fast if you prefer. Like a bandaid. One quick motion.

Do you feel better? No? I didn’t think so. Reach inside. Wipe your hands on the walls. Swirl into shapes. Flowers, trees, hearts. Swords to slay your dragons, your monsters, your own evil twin. Sometimes you have to lose yourself again and again before you can be found.

See that bucket beside you? You’ve collected your tears. Throw it there. Against the wall. Wash it all away. Not enough? Cry. Rinse. Repeat.
The Psychological Facts That People Don’t Know About Book Reading
By: Ashish Nishad
Tags: Anxiety, Personal Development, Reading, Depression, Books

The Psychological Facts That People Don’t Know About Book Reading

A study done at the University of Sussex found that reading can reduce stress by up to 68%.

Photo by Matias North on Unsplash

Good books can inform you, enlighten you lead you in the right direction. once you start book reading you experience a new world and start loving the habit of reading you eventually get addicted to it.

I love book reading because it visualizes a new life experience or teaches valuable life lessons. Every book has some unique lesson when we start exploring then we learning something different.

A study found in the 2009 book reading is a way to relax and reduce stress. It is important to read a good book for at least a few minutes every day to stretch the brain muscles.

The book really a best friend when we board, upset, depressed, and annoyed. A good book always guides on a great path.
Lie to the world — don’t lie to yourself
By: Franco Amati
Tags: Prose, Scuzzbucket, Psychology, Lying, Poetry

Image by Kevinsphotos from Pixabay

Telling a lie is forgivable, but living a lie is not.

By constructing your world from lies, only destruction will come.

Even the smallest lie, if left unacknowledged, can kill any form of love.

Occasionally, I’ll ask people if they’re honest. Are you a liar? I’ll say.

Pointless question, right? The dishonest would just lie about it.

More revealing is how people think about their own lies — the specifications they give.

How often? When? The details mean more.

The reasons are way more interesting.

The most dangerous liars aren’t the ones who lie all the time.

The real shits are the ones who lie all the time AND claim to be terrible liars.

Oh, I suck at lying.

I’m incapable of telling anything but the truth. Be wary of anyone who says this.

They’re the same people who say they don’t understand the point of telling a lie—that such a reprehensible quality is simply beyond them.

Everyone knows the point of lying — it’s to distort reality.

The real honest people — the truth seekers, the ones with integrity, the people who are self-aware — these people usually admit to it when it matters most. When the stakes are high, when the cost involves hurting another — when the effects actually mean something, the honest people come clean. They don’t double down.

They want to purge themselves of this awful tendency.

They would feel appalled by how much they’ve lied, dismayed to the point of guilt and disappointment.

So, ultimately, I don’t fear the casual liar, because I am one.

All writers are. It’s a very human thing. It’s a very real thing.

Anyone who uses language can frame something in such a way that it no longer resembles the truth.

The people I really fear are the ones who have so thoroughly convinced themselves of their own honesty that they lose all ability to even recognize the most obvious deceit within themselves.

It is the self-deceiver who is most disconnected from reality and causes the most damage and pain to others.
Web Notifications Experiments for the June 7 U.S. Primary
By: Sasha Koren
Tags: Mobile, Notifications, Journalism

Web Notifications Experiments for the June 7 U.S. Primary

A quick word on our most recent experiment.

Tonight (Tuesday, June 7) we’ll be sending out three sets of experimental notifications about the last significant primaries of the 2016 presidential election. We’ll send individual state results as they come in, insights from our reporters in the field at candidates’ events and, tomorrow morning, a recap of the ten most important highlights of the night.

If you’re already receiving notifications: You’ve probably landed on this page because you tapped on an alert. For future alerts, pull down on the notification to expand it to see all of the text.

If you’d like to sign up: Web notifications are currently only available on Chrome, so if you have an Android mobile phone (Samsung, included!), sign up here.

We’ll also be gathering feedback from those who participate and will send out a follow-up survey after the last alert on Wednesday. And when we have data and a good sense of what was most engaging to users, we’ll write up what we learned and post it here on Medium.

Questions or observations? Drop us a note: innovationlab@theguardian.com

The Guardian Mobile Innovation Lab operates with the generous support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
HURON RIVER HAIKUS
By: Lisa Patrell
Tags: Swimming, Water, Environment, Resistance Poetry, Pollution

Tobias Freeman

HURON RIVER HAIKUS

Two Damselflies

slow green river snaps

concentric rings bullet out

one damsel flies free.

Yellow Leaf

slow green river grabs

yellow leaf in eddy mouth

summer spins then sinks.

Leaving

slow green river hears

long necks trumpeting, we fly

less a few cygnets.

Unmapped

slow green river chills

below terrapins burrow

and aquifers invaded.

Cold Memory

frozen green river

records ice-storm limb fallen

cruel change cut in ice.

Snow Melt

churned green river bends

sunshine skips across ripples

without frogs humming.

Ollie-Ollie-Oxen-Free!

hometown river was

pooh-sticks, rock steps, soakers — gone

childhood friends and days.

Droughty

cracked green river mud

trunks rise tangled, still dead.

no sliders sunning.

Flash Flood

high green river fast

watershed drinks runoff —

xenocide byway.

Dioxane

our green river sang

once upon a time through towns —

swim advisory.

PolyFluoroAlkylS

green river lazy

worms on hooks, favorite holes —

fish advisory.

Superfund

in parts per billion

poisoned river dies — not a

molecule floats free.
About Me — Yemeece. Beauty, Grace, Power, Complexity…
By: Yemisi Fadiya
Tags: Writing, Introduction, Female, Life, About Me

Writing took me on a journey inwards into me. I began to explore the parts of me I never knew existed. I fell in love with reading, and the books I read showed me that whatever I was feeling had been felt before, and that stripped me of my loneliness. I gulped up many books like a thirsty stranger who just survived a desert storm and had only found an oasis.

“Whatever l was feeling had been felt before by someone else and that stripped me of my loneliness.”

Unlike anything else in my life, including myself, writing was gentle with me. It sharpened my reasoning and helped me to ask the right questions. It began to strip my mind of toxic and limiting mindsets. I began to heal and know the freedom I find hard to describe in words. Gradually, I began to develop the courage to share my poems with the world. In 2019, I published my first collection of poems titled Stirred by life. This book has been an oasis for travelers like myself journeying through the desert of life.

My name is Yemeece. I am a writer and poet. I write for people who need a balm for their pain. I write to destroy toxic mindsets and harmful beliefs. I write for the underdogs like myself who need a silver streak in the grey sky to keep believing. I write for the afraid, the marginalized, the curious, for individuals who seek a healthy mind and a hearty soul. I write to you. I write for me.
Building Android Apps with Mirah and Pindah
By: Nick Plante
Tags: Android, Android App Development, Ruby, Mirah, Mobile App Development

I gave a talk earlier today at the Beijing Ruby group today about my experiences building native Android applications with Mirah and Pindah.

Although I generally prefer building mobile web apps over native development when possible, Mirah is a really promising alternative to Java if you have to go native. Check out the preso below and get involved in the growing Mirah / Android community.

Make sure to grab the code for the example app on the GitHubs.
Wake Up at 4.… AND Get Enough Sleep?
By: Heather Nowlin
Tags: Morning Routines, Sleep, Happiness, Life, Productivity

To this day, I don’t know how I made it through high school.

Homeroom bell rang at an ungodly 7:13 a.m., and I lived in a rural part of the county. If I rode the bus to school, that meant a full hourlong ride from the bus stop (which was a 5-minute sprint from my house) to the school doors. So, I awoke at… 6:04 a.m.? Probably.

Once I was able to drive — and my mom was nice enough to find me a crappy car — I was able to make the drive in about 23 minutes (though it really should have taken me 34).

I don’t know how I survived that...

But I also don’t know how I managed to get out of bed that early for that long — while I was a teenager, who, let’s face it, all suck at getting out of bed.

All of them.

You know they do.

I remember my mom RAGING at me for what felt like hours. WHY wouldn’t I get out of bed? Didn’t I know I was just making things worse? The longer I waited, the more hurry I would be in, the more dangerous a drive. The more she had to yell, the more miserable I was making her… and everyone in the house.

I remember finally getting up and turning on the shower… then falling asleep on the toilet for 20 more minutes. More railing, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. You’re wasting the water! You’re wasting the heat! Do you not have any respect for how hard I have to work to pay those bills?! Get ready and go to school you lazy $@#&!

Ok, my mom was nicer than that… but not much. (And we all know she was thinking it.)

I somehow made it through, and off to college.

College was a dream! I could schedule all my classes to suit MY schedule (and body type). (Which might have meant it took a few extra years, since most classes do not start afternoon 12 noon… but I digress.) I was able to do it how I wanted, and for several years I found myself very happily drifting to bed around 1 or 2 in the morning, and sleeping till about 10 or 11am.

That felt perfectly natural for me. And, in the convening life cycles where I’ve been able to pick my own schedule — including working at bars/restaurants after college, working in theatre during, and a couple of unemployment stints in the years since — that schedule is largely the one my body naturally gravitates toward, and has for a couple of decades now.

That’s right: decades.
¿Hola?
By: Nicolás J. Engler
Tags: Short Story, Fiction, Creative Writing, Nonfiction

Digital product designer that also happens to do a bunch of other stuff on the side. Jack of all trades.

Follow
React’s Context API Explained
By: Hussain Arif
Tags: JavaScript, React, Reactjs, Nodejs, Programming

Usage of Context API

MovieContext.js

Let’s start by renaming our Movie.js file to MovieContext.js . This file will be responsible for passing data to other components.

Here we will start by importing createContext from the react module. Thus, alter your import statement as follows:

Imports in MovieContext.js

This createContext method will help us create a Context instance, which will aid in sending data to various other components.

Next, let’s export our Context instance like so:

Exporting the MyContext context instance

Now, we will export a function called MovieContext and then define it like so:

Further code in MovieContext.js

Lines 2–16 : Standard definition of our movies state

In our return block, write the following code (where code goes here is written on line 19 ):

Further code in MovieContext.js

These lines of code indicate that we are now fully capable of sharing data between components without passing down props manually.

The value attribute in the MyContext.Provider tag in line 1 is the data that we will share to various components.

props.children on line 2 means that the components that will be rendered between the MovieContext tags will have access to the data located in MovieContext .

If this is unclear, don’t worry. It will be explained through code later in this post.

MovieList.js

If you recall, this component was used to display the movies array.

Let’s modify this file.

First, import MyContext from MovieContext :

Imports in MovieList.js

Other than that, import useContext like so:

Further imports in MovieList.js

Within the MovieList function definition, start by writing the following line of code:

Using the MyContext object

This line basically declares a context hook called NewContext . This useContext function takes in an argument that asks for what context object it should use. As we want to use the MyContext instance, we pass in MyContext as the argument.

One question though: What is the value of the MyContext variable? We’ll find out its value shortly. Before that, we’ll have to change our code further.

Now, write the following code after the NewContext declaration:

Further code in MovieList

In this code, we are simply outputting the value of NewContext and then using the export statement so that the MovieList function can be used in other files.

In the end, our file will look like this:

App.js

First, add the following imports to App.js :

Imports in App.js

Now, in the return block, write the following code:

Further code in App.js

This code indicates that now MovieList has access to the data that was shared by MovieContext .

In the end, App.js looks like this:

Run the code. This will be the output:

The output of the code

So where did this string come from?

Let’s backtrack to MovieContext.js and find the following piece of code:

In MovieContext.js :

Code to find in MovieContext.js

This means that the data we write in the value attribute will be shared with the components.
How to Create an Evening Routine for a Productive Tomorrow
By: Ruth Matthews
Tags: Happiness, Personal Development, Self Improvement, Self, Productivity

For some people, it seems so easy to follow a routine from the moment they wake up. They jump out of bed, journal, meditate and drink immune-boosting tea infused with fennel and goji berries. Then they go about their day being awesome.

You might want to begin your day with as little to think about as possible. You might have a family and children to organize. You might just not be a morning person. That’s okay.

To optimize your day, one of the most valuable things you can do is set up an evening routine for the night before. Your mornings may be gloriously unstructured, but you might thrive on having a process in the evenings to springboard into tomorrow from.

A routine should be like breathing. You shouldn’t have to constantly think about it or struggle to remember which steps to do and what order to do them in. It should mold seamlessly to your natural rhythm, making it easier to sustain the habit over time.

Creating a successful routine to optimize your day tomorrow can be broken down into three steps. These are reflection, preparation, and relaxation.

If you naturally have more energy in the evening, you might want to plan your day in detail before bed. If you're someone whose brain switches off after 6 pm, you might just want to take a shower and then jump into bed with a hot drink and a good book. Building a routine that works for you is all about finding your natural rhythm.

These three principles will help you build an effortless evening routine that will set you up for an amazing day tomorrow.
Do People Still Talk On The Phone?
By: Josh Kiev
Tags: Positive Thinking, Connection, Motivation, Friendship, Tiny Life Moments

A Tiny Moment of “Picking Up Where You Left Off”

Photo by Philipp Lansing on Unsplash

The Moment

I just got off the phone with a friend I had not spoken to in nine years. No major fight or disagreement explaining the time gap. I just hadn’t tried to call. Before our phone call, I was checking out his LinkedIn and it alerted him to my presence.

Minutes later a strange number appeared on my phone and went to voicemail. I usually erase these calls. Damn spammers! For some reason, I decided to listen to the message. Lo and behold, it was one of my former chef buddies checking up on me.

The Reflection

My first thought was nobody calls anymore and I texted him to that effect. I followed up with a phonecall and boom it was on! We checked in to review how we getting along. Addition of children, career changes, and other life stuff. During our fifteen-minute conversation, we talked, maybe two minutes, about the pandemic and other US craziness.

I am going to cliché to you now. Yes, it was like we had just talked the other day, but that’s the connection you have with some folks. At the end of our conversation, I felt energized and positive about my current life. I know right? How so in a catastrophic time? Let me offer a different outlook. Like Doc Holliday said to Wyatt Earp in the film, Tombstone, “there’s no normal life, just life.”

There’s no crazy life right now, just life. Don’t stop living it.

The Takeaway

Don’t let Covid or a splitting country stop you from being you.

Keep connecting with others. They want to connect too.

Every day, every moment doesn't have to be shrouded in nihilism.

Give out a yell, scream an ahhhhhh shit! Things stink! Then go do human stuff the best you can.

Don’t let technology steal your human connection.

You are not a text or an Instagram or a Youtube or an email.

Josh Kiev is an actor, chef, and decided not to be negative today!
Evaluation Metrics Part 2
By: Siladittya Manna
Tags: Deep Learning, Metrics, Python, Data Science, Machine Learning

Let us discuss in brief, the other metrics in this picture

Prevalence

Prevalence is the fraction of the total population, that is labeled positive.

Negative Predictive Value

Negative Predictive Value or NPV is the proportion of negatively labeled samples which are correctly predicted negative.

Positive and Negative Predictive Value can again be expressed in terms of prevalence, specificty and sensitivity as

False Discovery Rate

FDR

FDR is the proportion of positively predicted samples which are originally labeled negative. In other words, it is the proportion of false positives out of all the positively predicted samples.

False Omission Rate

FOR

FOR is the proportion of negatively predicted samples which are originally labeled positive. In other words, it is the proportion of false negatives out of all the negatively predicted samples.

False Positive Rate

FPR, Fall-out

FPR is the proportion of negatively labeled samples which are incorrectly predicted positive.

False Negative Rate

FNR

FNR is the proportion of positively labeled samples which are incorrectly predicted negative.

Positive Likelihood Ratio

LR+

LR+ is the ratio of the probability of a sample being predicted positive given that the sample is originally labeled positive to the probability of the sample being predicted positive given that the sample is originally labeled negative. In real life scenario, LR+ denotes the probability of a person who has a disease testing positive divided by the probability of a person who does not have the disease testing positive. Higher the value of LR+, the more likely a positive test result is a true positive. On the other hand, LR+< 1 indicates that a positive test result is likely to be a false positive.

Negative Likelihood Ratio

LR-

LR- is the ratio of the probability of a sample being predicted negative given that the sample is originally labeled positive to the probability of the sample being predicted negative given that the sample is originally labeled negative. In real life scenario, LR- denotes the probability of a person who has a disease testing negative divided by the probability of a person who does not have the disease testing negative.

Diagnostic Odds Ratio

DOR

DOR is the measure of the effectiveness of a diagnostic test (or model), and is defined as the ratio of the odds of the test (prediction) being positive if the sample (subject) is originally positively labeled relative to the odds of the test (prediction) being positive if the sample (subject) is originally negatively labeled.