fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Post Alpha Release Updates!
By: Bitfia Labs
Tags: Startup, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain

After a tremendously positive response on Alpha PINT App, Beta development kept us on our toes.

What have we been up to post the Alpha Release?

· Our core developers worked on each feedback received during Alpha Launch campaign and our users are happy with how things look now.

· We are at the verge of Beta Launch.

· Worked to enhance our PINT App security and got in touch with reputed organizations to put PINT security through certified security tests. Our team confidence is sky rocketing with a positive go ahead on security standards from reputed organizations.

· Leadership and developers brainstormed over the need of a PINT Peer to Peer Marketplace and PINT Peer to Peer marketplace reached the first stage of development.

The successful PINT Alpha launch kept us too busy with Venture Capitalists and Agile Investors. We have a huge announcement coming ahead.

Stay Tuned!
Pass By Reference vs. Pass By Value
By: Daniel Liu
Tags: C Plus Plus Language, Programming, Java, Front End Development, Backend Development

Overview

When using variables in code there are 2 different ways the data can be used. When you pass a variable to a function it is either a pass by reference or a pass by value.

Pass By Reference

Pass by reference is when the memory address is passed to the function. This means that whatever changes happens to the variable will affect all other variables pointed to that memory address. The following code is in C++.

#include <iostream>

using namespace std; void increment(int &x) {

x++;

} int main() {

int num = 10;

cout << num << endl; increment(num);

cout << firstNum; return 0;

} >> 10

>> 11

As you can see when you change the value in a function the variable outside is changed as well. In C++ you tell tell the function that it is pass by reference by adding the “&” in front of the variable name.

Pass By Value

Languages like Java is pass by value by default. Pass by value means that when you change the variable in a function it does not affect the variable outside. The following code is in Java.

public class Increment{ public static void main(String []args){

int x = 10;

System.out.println("Before: " + x);

increment(x);

System.out.println("After: " + x);

}





static void increment(int x) {

x++;

System.out.println("Function: " + x);

}

} >> Before: 10

>> Function: 11

>> After: 10

As you can see even though the variable was modified inside the function the variable itself outside does not change. Most languages are pass by value by default. When you pass a variable with that contains a primitive data type it is pass by value. But when the variable is an object any changes made to that object is applied to all variables referencing it.

Conclusion

You should be aware of pass by reference while programming. When passing lists, arrays or object any changes in a function can have unintended effects. C++ has pointer variables which points to memory address which is pass by reference by default. Usually you can decide whether or not to use pass by reference by looking at what the function should return. If it returns one value it should be pass by value. If it returns two or more distinct values then it should be pass by reference.
Regular update from Ubcoin: September 2018
By: Ubcoin. Cryptocurrency Reimagined
Tags: Android, Ubcoin, Ubcoin Product, Development, Ubc

Product Development, Token Updates and other Ubcoin news — a summary

Product Development

An important milestone was reached: we released both iOS and Android Ubcoin Market apps in three languages: English, Korean and Indonesian. It is fully workable and includes the escrow service (protecting both buyers and sellers) and integration with Telegram.

Download iOS app: https://itunes.apple.com/ru/app/ubcoin-market-cryptocurrency/id1410295111?mt=8

Download Android App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ubcoin

The next release will be available within a few weeks. It will include filter, categories and search options and Telegram bot improvements.

We are working on loyalty program development and are going to discuss it with the community soon.

We are also preparing a very important development update related to the exchange process in the app. It should influence greatly the competitive position and potential of the whole project. We will announce it in the nearest future.

Token news

UBC token is available on three exchanges: COSS, LATOKEN and IDEX

https://exchange.coss.io/exchange/ubc-eth

https://wallet.latoken.com/market/Crypto/ETH/UBC-ETH

https://idex.market/eth/ubc

On September, 27 UBC reached $1 mln daily trading volume on COSS exchange.

We also participated in a voting contest on Indodax exchange. Ubcoin collected more than 29 000 votes and will take part in the next few voting rounds (all votes from previous rounds are saved for the next ones).

Marketing

You can read about Ubcoin Market app features and plans in English and Korean articles:

https://www.coinspeaker.com/2018/09/20/ubcoin-ubc-releases-ios-app-ebay-like-crypto-marketplace/

https://coinidol.com/ubcoin-ubc-releases-ios-app-ebay-like-crypto-marketplace/

https://www.coinpress.co.kr/2018/09/23/10037/

http://cointoday.co.kr/2018/09/21/ubcoinubc-토큰-ios-앱-출시-ebay와-같은-온라인마켓-출시/

In a video interview Stan Danysh (company Chief Operating Officer) is explaining ideas behind Ubcoin Market and the nearest development plans of Ubcoin team: https://youtu.be/DnyX6LA_Zu8
How to Lead When You Don’t Feel Motivated
By: James Williams
Tags: Technology, Management, Leadership, Business, Engineering

How to Lead When You Don’t Feel Motivated

How I conquer my daily struggle.

Photo by Zhang Kenny on Unsplash

Sometimes I wake up, and I don’t want to do anything. The day’s goals seem daunting, but I understand I must soldier on.

The demands of leadership are like carrying an anvil. For much of my career, I’ve been the “throat to choke” on the frontline of production mishaps, over-promises, and angry customers.

To be the one with a target on your forehead makes you assume the fetal position and weep. The grind of the technology business exhausting. Deadlines, sprint-points, and deliverables are all euphemisms for stress.

Companies are no different. How do I get up and sell, but all I want to do is write code? When will the company scale, and does it always have to be me?

My passion is building technology, and always will be. Through it all, I’ve learned to follow a system — to put one foot in front of another and just keep going.

In the spirit of “keep it moving,” here’s what I’ve learned.
This is a brilliant piece, Tom.
By: Robert Merrill
Tags: Math, Future Of Work, Business, Education, Future

This is a brilliant piece, Tom. It reminds me somewhat of Conrad Wolfram’s TED talk in 2010 where he reminds us that we focus on teaching Calculating in school and not Math, and that needs to be improved.

In a world where my watch can run complex calculations just by me speaking the right words to it, the ability to inherently know what the words I need to say are becomes infinitely more important than if I can accurately work out the details.

In fact, in the analytical work many people do today, you would be fired if you spent time manually calculating out the things your spreadsheets churn in milliseconds. Even the thought of it sounds ludicrous! Yet, we push and push our students to work out the problems. Work out the problems. Work out the problems.

Never, unless you major in Math in University, do you get to wonder why this is the way to solve this problem and get underneath the way it all works (which is actually an incredible launch pad for why we should all learn programming, if you think about it).

Yet, #2 pencils still reign in the classroom, teaching a skill you should never use in actual life.
How To Create Global Variables In Python
Tags: Programming, Python Programming, Python, Software Development, Data

The values ​​defined in the function are called local variables . These values ​​disappear after the function runs. For this reason, local variables cannot be accessed from the desired location of the program.

As seen in the example above, the function was ran and we saw the x value on the screen. But we want to print the x value again, we see that our x value disappears.

At the same time, changes made to variables within the function do not affect the original. In the example below, the variable x defined with the same name is defined as both global and local. The global variable with the same name will remain as it was, global and with the original value because a new scope is defined in the function.

Output:

8

10

As you can see the x value is still 10.

What if we want the changes we make within the function not to be lost?

We can use the global keyword to create a global variable inside a function.

Output:

10

As seen in the example above, we received an error in the first example, but we did not receive an error this, because we made a global definition in this function.

The variables we create outside of the function are called global variables. Global variables can be used both inside of functions and outside.

Output:

Call x from within the function: Python

Python

Finally, the reason for the error in our 2nd example was that the variable y is defined in the function and cannot be used in the other function. We can figure out this problem by defining the variable y globally outside of the function.
Principle — 4 Little Tricks to Share Your Idea in an Effective Prototype
By: Kamil Janus
Tags: UI Design, Mobile App Design, Design, Motion Design, Principle

How to prepare a clickable prototype that contains all interactions.

How many times have you tried to explain your excellent design to a developer? Either using gestures, storyboards or easy digital prototypes with finished design views — it’s not easy to communicate your vision. Principle gives you the power to show basic interactions in few easy steps. After reading this article, you will be four steps closer to express your vision.

Here is full sized Calendar View I’ve prepared for my HUB Mobile Application. Firstly I tried to explain my vision of interactions to my friends, using InVision app with few screens uploaded. Didn’t work. Then I spent 2 hours preparing this prototype. It finally opened their mind.

The Beginning

There is one thing you need to remember if you want to use Principle. Preparing designs in Sketch will make you able to just copy-paste full components from one tool to another, so that you save a lot of time. Be sure that artboards in Principle are the same size as those from Sketch. Thanks to that all the parts will fit each other.

Preparing Principle Artboard

After preparing design in Sketch, you need to think about animated layers. Each motion is somehow different but in this case you need to divide them into two categories.

Motions like fading or moving on y or x axis don’t require extra work. You can simply copy (ctrl+c) the components in which you want to use these motions from Sketch and paste (ctrl+v) them into a Principle artboard. However remember that asymmetric shadows will disable auto center option. Furthermore Principle doesn’t contain rulers.

moving and fading

In case of motions like stretching, rounding corners or even text changes, I suggest you to recreate these layers in Principle. Don’t worry, texts created in Principle will match exactly these from Sketch!

stretching and rounding

I prepared 750x1334 artboard. The whole animation shown above took a total of 9 artboards.

Motion Matters

Well animated interfaces will help the user understand the relation between two screens and prepare her or his mind to smoothly cross from one action to another, but here is a catch — UI is not a Disney movie, so step wisely when adding successive motions.

“There is no such thing as a boring project. There are only boring executions.” –Irene Etzkorn

In this part I will show you how I design motions in my prototypes. If you need to fill some blanks related to Principle basics, do not hesitate to watch this Principle basics tutorial.
CUMMULATIVE MEAN ALPHA(CMA) : Deriving the possible alphabet sums for a parent alphabet
By: Kingsley Izundu
Tags: Algorithms, Encryption, Cyber Security Awareness, Cryptography, Google

Simple framework analogy of CMA

There are Alphabets derived from their parent’s Alpha position. These alphabets are in their own distinct tuple; with their numerical representation sum giving the parents alphabet representation.

i.e alphabet at position 6 which is F, has its children alpha’s or its CMA’s as [(0,F),(E,A),(D,B),(C,C)] where 0 denotes that the letter F is the original alphabet in which other tuple were derived. When each of these tuple CMA’s are added, their numerical sum points to the alphabet F on the Alphabetical table.

MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF CMA

Model of CMA

ALGORITHM USING PYTHON

Algorithm for Cummulative Mean Alpha

RESULTS

Cummulative Mean Alpha for P

CONCLUSION

We could generate cummaltives of n tuples for a given Alpha, I believe it is possible and it can be applied in some cryptographic systems where we disguise the main alphabet with its n tuple set. We hope to do more on the research concerning CMA.
Bringing the best out of Jupyter Notebooks for Data Science
By: Parul Pandey
Tags: Data Science, Towards Data Science, Jupyter Notebook, Programming, Ipython

3. Notebook Extensions

Extend the possibilities

Notebook extensions let you move beyond the general vanilla way of using the Jupyter Notebooks. Notebook extensions (or nbextensions) are JavaScript modules that you can load on most of the views in your Notebook’s frontend. These extensions modify the user experience and interface.

Installation with conda:

conda install -c conda-forge jupyter_nbextensions_configurator

Or with pip:

pip install jupyter_contrib_nbextensions && jupyter contrib nbextension install #incase you get permission errors on MacOS, pip install jupyter_contrib_nbextensions && jupyter contrib nbextension install --user

Start a Jupyter notebook now, and you should be able to see an NBextensions Tab with a lot of options. Click the ones you want and see the magic happen.

In case you couldn’t find the tab, a second small nbextension, can be located under the menu Edit .

Let us discuss some of the useful extensions.

1. Hinterland

Hinterland enables code autocompletion menu for every keypress in a code cell, instead of only calling it with the tab. This makes Jupyter notebook’s autocompletion behave like other popular IDEs such as PyCharm.

2. Snippets

This extension adds a drop-down menu to the Notebook toolbar that allows easy insertion of code snippet cells into the current notebook.

3. Split Cells Notebook

This extension splits the cells of the notebook and places then adjacent to each other.

4. Table of Contents

This extension enables to collect all running headers and display them in a floating window, as a sidebar or with a navigation menu. The extension is also draggable, resizable, collapsible and dockable.

5. Collapsible Headings

Collapsible Headings allows the notebook to have collapsible sections, separated by headings. So in case you have a lot of dirty code in your notebook, you can simply collapse it to avoid scrolling it again and again.

6. Autopep8

Autopep8 helps to reformat/prettify the contents of code cells with just a click. If you are tired of hitting the spacebar again and again to format the code, autopep8 is your savior.
The Mirror
By: Priyanka Srivastava
Tags: Awakening, Prose, Reflections, Spiritual Secrets, Writing

The Mirror

A reflection on being a writer

Photo by Windows on Unsplash

“The only thing grief has taught me, is to know how shallow it is.” — Emerson

Sometimes when I read I find words looking back those pieces of mirror which I need to pick for myself. And I do that, words have been nourishing my soul since a long time.

Words don’t judge me when I pause my thoughts or sit quietly with a blank page. I have met too many poems and I have held too many words, I think with time we become better in this. We become expert in exposing our flaws, we don’t feel awkward when we see that reflection looking back even when we fail to recognise it.

That’s what words do to us, that keep abrading those scars which we love to carry till we start loving them. And our consciousness becomes much more alive, we realise that sadness is just a fleeting moment we learn to survive.
Applied Psychology in Silicon Valley.
By: Jason Hreha
Tags: Behavior Design, Silicon Valley, Psychology

Applied Psychology in Silicon Valley.

My answers to questions from Arjan Haring of the Persuasion API.

Question 1: How do the people in the Bay Area look upon a neurologist/psychologist turned technologist? And do you consider yourself a converted internet cheerleader?

I will say that psychologists and behavioral-scientists are seen, more or less, as omnipotent puppeteers. Most people believe that neuroscientists and psychologists have unraveled the human brain, and that if you understand these sciences, you can completely predict and change human behavior. The truth is a bit messier: Yes, we understand a lot about the brain and human behavior. Yes, we are better than most other people at changing behavior and inducing habits. But doing this requires a lot of experimentation and failure. Every group of people and every product is different—the dynamics are different. Because of this, your first attempts at changing behavior in a given group as a behavior change scientist are probably going to be ineffective, since you’re still getting a sense of how individuals operate within the system you’re building, and how all of the variables interact. However, if we are disciplined and thorough, we can begin to understand the driving factors in any given system and do some pretty amazing work. It takes patience, though. It’s not instant. It requires us to gather a lot of data from initial experiments and failures. We can’t just look at a person or a product and predict exactly what our product tweaks will do.

As for being an internet cheerleader… I would say that I’m almost the opposite of an internet cheerleader. Most of the products currently being built make our lives easier in ways that are, I think, counterproductive. We are already built to be as lazy as possible. It helps us conserve energy. It also reduces our risk. Habits are built from success—they’re the behaviors that have consistently worked in our environment.But I’ve always been a believer in hard work. I think it keeps us energetic and productive. I’m sure that many of you have spent a vacation on the couch. What was that like? You probably felt tired, lethargic, and out of it most of the time. Sure, it was relaxing. But, it wasn’t invigorating and energizing. We need to expend energy to be energetic and be our best selves. We grow through hard work and stress. So, I’m not one for getting rid of all the hardships and chores we have to do in our lives. I think that it’s good to mow the lawn, take out the trash, and walk to work—these things keep us active and alive.

With products like Instacart, Google Shopping Express, etc., we’re enabled to be as lazy as possible for a quite affordable price. Web technology is also getting rid of our need for human contact. No longer do you need to call a restaurant to make an order, you can do it online. No longer do you need to stop by a friend’s place, you can text or Facebook message them. I’ll talk more about this later.
I Was Heartbroken Witnessing How Unfair I Was Towards My Kitten
By: Myriam Ben Salem
Tags: Self-awareness, Self, Pets, Love, Self Improvement

I Was Heartbroken Witnessing How Unfair I Was Towards My Kitten

The surgery made me realize my fault!

Courtesy of the author

Back in October — curiously, it feels like it was a year ago — I met a little living miracle. She was the one who adopted me if I want to be fair!

To describe the last two months we spent together as magical would not give them enough credit!

Most of our moments together are hilarious or affectionate. I’ve always adored making silly noises and giggling at her funny reaction!

The last time it happened, I was talking to my dear soul friend Jill Horton. I laughed loudly for some reason, and when seeing her facial expression, my laughter became even louder!

I’m pretty sure she’s saying something like, “Why do you need to be that weirdo, you humans? Can you at least warn me whenever you decide to have a silliness crisis?”

She’s an enthusiastic, playful, adorably curious, and stubborn kitten. Occasionally, her last attribute could get the best of me.

I was finding myself so frustrated with her tendency to test the boundaries — her very favorite game — that I was shocked at the aggressiveness in my tone!

I even found myself hitting her gently as my silly way to tell her what she was doing was not acceptable, that Mommy was not happy; hence punishing her for her lack of discipline. I was feeling too bad about myself afterward. Something was off. I was out of my integrity and I knew the root cause. Nonetheless, I wasn’t ready to face the ugly truth.

It was another bias and pattern from the residual part of my distorted subconscious program, “I am a dog person; I’ve always had such genuine and immediate connections with dogs; dogs love you unconditionally while cats are selfish and show affection merely when they need something!” Being so engaged in fighting against NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) symptoms didn’t help!
Here’s The Single Greatest Life Advice (If You Want To Live A Life of Peace)
By: Chase Arbeiter
Tags: Self-awareness, Self, Life Lessons, Anxiety, Life

You lie awake at night, thinking about all the things you must do the next day.

Work. Kids. Dinner. Bills.

Chores around the house. Book the summer vacation. Plan the birthday party. Finally, find the time to get together with a great friend.

At that moment, it feels like the list is a mile long. The list keeps growing, and the time is shrinking.

Worry and stress start to take over, and the next thing you know, you’ve been awake in bed for over an hour.

On top of those concerns, you are also replaying that conversation with a client, hoping that they understood what you meant and aren’t upset. Or, you’re worried about your friend and her husband, who just received terrible news about his health.

Meanwhile, you still can’t figure out why another friend just stopped calling or answering your texts? Why doesn’t your favorite TV show come on anymore? Did that client ever let you know when they wanted that project to start? When are my tires scheduled to be rotated?

The questions, worries, and concerns never give you a break, and they can spin out of control pretty quickly if you aren’t mindful of this.
I Deleted All Social Media From My Life and This Is What Happened
By: Auriane Alix
Tags: Self, Mental Health, Social Media, Life, Self Improvement

An assessment after 1 month:

It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

It wasn’t that hard. Maybe because the decision had had time to mature for many months before I made it. And because I knew why I was doing it.

The hardest part was not being able to share my photographic work on Instagram anymore. Because I am a photographer too. But I decided that my mental health was more important than that.

Removing all forms of social media from my life has brought many benefits. Here is a summary.

I am much more focused.

Scrolling teaches us to be deconcentrated. To unplug our mind and put it under an infusion of uninteresting scrolling images before our empty gazes.

I have regained some of my ability to focus.

Just like the concentration I had as a child. When I grew up, I missed those long afternoons spent reading. It was as if I couldn’t focus anymore. Now I understand why.

I am also less distracted, thanks to the drastic reduction in notifications.

I now can focus on what matters.

On myself. What I want to do with my life. Without any unsolicited outside influence. I am in my own little bubble.

“Remove all these useless tools. It’s a wonderful world.” — The Social Dilemma

I have more time.

I used to get lost in endless scrolling. I grew lazy. Do you feel mentally tired? A good scrolling session doesn’t require to turn on any brain cell.

Which means that I was losing one to several hours of my day, every day.

Now that I no longer have this easy and constant distraction, I read a lot more. Up to 1 or 2 hours more each day. It feels good to focus your attention on something really meaningful, something that adds value to your life.

My screen time has decreased a lot. The only screen time I have now is when I’m working on my laptop. And that’s already enough.

I have a lot more time in general. Less time for a ‘fake community’, more time for my real community: my loved ones.

I have realized that, contrary to what we are led to believe, life is better without.

They have created a false need. But when we no longer have it, we lack nothing. On the contrary, it’s as if I had freed myself.

Social media have only brought one positive thing in my life. When I was younger and discovered myself as a homosexual. It made it easier for me to see that there was a community, people like me. I could learn from what I saw of them, and that helped me to build my identity.

But I’m sure I would have done just as well without it.

We don’t need it. Why would you want to see what other people’s lives are like? You only see what they allow you to see.

It makes us envious. Curious in an unhealthy way. Narcissistic. It puts us in competition with each other. It erases our individuality.

Why make a spectacle of us?

I believe that this constant need to show ourselves reveals a void in our lives.
Psych Ward Reviews Update 1/11/17: Becoming a more Comprehensive Site
By: Kit Mead
Tags: Mental Health, Disability, Psychiatry

Psych Ward Reviews Update 1/11/17: Becoming a more Comprehensive Site

Exciting changes are happening: submission options for news articles on hospitals, Psych Ward Reviews in the news, and more!

I want to make the site more comprehensive and include as much data as possible - thus giving people more information to make decisions, and furthering the goal of holding hospitals accountable - I am initiating the following changes:

Submission Options Now Include Hospital News Articles

If you find a news article on any psychiatric hospitals - including but not limited to ones you may have been at - you may now submit it for our collection of articles!

Upcoming Collection of News Articles

In addition to taking submissions, I'm adding articles I find and also articles collected courtesy of Morgan Shields and their team - authors of the study mentioned in my Establishment article assessing the quality of inpatient services. They have collected a great many articles. Article collection (page link) will be both for hospitals with reviews on the site and those without.

Ideas: Possible Upcoming Information on Core Quality Measures

Also possibly upcoming is a data table on core quality indicators for a large number of psychiatric hospitals in the United States. Many, if not most, of the reviewed hospitals will be on this data table - and others that are not yet reviewed will be on there if this comes to fruition.

Some Site Reformatting

I have added the pages for submitting and news article collection, and also have added some pages and links that have all reviews listed, and all news articles listed. I have modified the Categories and Tags page to be Searching the Site. It has an updated explanation of how I use the categories and tags, and an updated explanation of searching the site. It no longer has the list of hospitals - that is now under "View All Reviews."

Upcoming Articles Regarding Psych Ward Reviews

Psych Ward Reviews will soon be featured in another multimedia outlet, and also possibly featured elsewhere on the web. More info to come!
Mother Earth has a Rhythm
By: Tauna Pierce
Tags: Environmental Issues, Environment, Making A Difference, Poetry And Prose, Poetry

Mother Earth has a Rhythm

Poem

Mother Earth has a rhythm

that must not be disturbed

a distant drumming heartbeat

that often goes unheard.

We’re chewing and choking

on our piece of Heaven

and leaving scars on the land.

We’re snatching and grabbing

more than our share

and we all got the blood on our hands.

It’s an over-consumption

an awful malfunction

and we’re digging our own grave.

We cannot create

a more perfect place

than what is ours to save.
What Do You Know Review
By: Inspirited Minds
Tags: Islam, Mental Health, Depression

Firstly, mashAllah! Secondly, Alhamdulillah! Thirdly, wow! Leyla Habebti travelled to Norwich on Saturday with intentions to deliver a talk on awareness of Mental Health, and her personal experiences. Not only did she do that, but she also brought about a sense of connection. Leyla told the small community of ladies in Norwich about her own story and battles, and she emphasised “everyone has a story to tell” — we all knew this, and it suddenly dawned on us, that yes, we all do have a story. Whether we say it out loud or not, we all have a story, and this brought about a stronger connection than just sisters in Islam, we became sisters with stories.

Everyone came to a mutual understanding that mental health is a sensitive topic, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t speak about it — or totally push it out of the way because we haven’t got the exact answers or solutions, but be brought to the forefront and taken with awareness. When good and positive company was mentioned, I couldn’t help but think of the hadith that mentions a person is on the religion of their friends — and this probably had the most impact on the young teenage girls who I later overheard say “I’m glad you would understand if I was to ever come to you with a problem”, so we can definitely say that Leyla exceeded her intentions. After making it clear how common mental health problems are, we all realised that we are not alone. We no longer felt like strangers to one another, but sensed some sort of deeper understanding of one another.

I noticed that a few sisters exchanged meaningful glances as if they were saying with their eyes “we have some talking to do”, or smiling with their slightly teary eyes as if to say “I know, and I am here”. The talk made many sisters emotional, and lots of tissues were handed round, some shared their stories out loud, whilst others spoke to Leyla at the end and reached out for help. Many sisters were eager to ask questions on how to deal with friends with mental health but were unaware of their situation, or help friends who keep putting themselves down, to how to speak out about it and bring themselves back up — even after the talk ended, and food was being served, Leyla had a queue of sisters waiting to ask her something. MashAllah the talk was successful in educating, caring, and connecting, Alhamdulillah the talk brought us all closer together and more aware, and most importantly, we’ve just made another community active on empowering and putting mental health first.
Kissing With Mask NOT the Same as Sex With Condom
By: Daniele Ihns
Tags: Humor, Pandemic, Sex, Poetry, Coronavirus

Kissing With Mask NOT the Same as Sex With Condom

Experts say…

Wall painting by street artist Pobel in Bryne, Norway.

Kissing with a mask on

I’m not sure what to expect

From such an oxymoron

Would it be the same effect

As having sex with a condom?

Yes, they say, so sinless

And, yes, they are adorable

But their science is as senseless

As my question was rhetorical

For while both suck, indeed

And that’s correct to say

At least condoms succeed

At keeping something at bay

A mask on the other hand

Is a gimmick for a germ

That can easily cross that line

So I hope they understand

That if corona was a sperm

They’d be pregnant in no time
Among Us v. Fall Guys: What Makes a Product Sticky?
By: Murto Hilali
Tags: Gaming, Marketing, UX, Product, Product Design

Among Us v. Fall Guys: What Makes a Product Sticky?

The 200 IQ strategies that made Among Us win quarantine

Yeah heartbreak sucks, but have you ever been murdered by your bro outside of cams? (Looking at you, Ariful). If you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, you probably haven’t heard of Among Us.

Among Us is an online multiplayer party game like Werewolf or Mafia. It’s been downloaded 100 million times and has the population of Italy in terms of daily active players (60 million).

Fall Guys is another online multiplayer party game that saw an explosion in popularity recently but seems to have lost some of its momentum — unlike Among Us, which seems to be here to stay.

Why is Among Us stickier than Fall Guys? What makes one product more marketable than another? Here are my thoughts.
How to Take Responsibility for Women Who Never Do Anything Wrong
By: Elisabeth Ovesen
Tags: Mental Health, Inspiration, Advice, Life Lessons, Self Improvement

Red Flags

Red flags are everywhere. There are signs all around that tell you where you should and should not be. There is a gut feeling, an intuition that screams at you when it’s time to leave a situation, to find the nearest exit, and create a shift. And then, you talk yourself out of it. You settle. You decide to love yourself a little less every day and live with a circumstance that doesn’t make you happy. The moment you make this decision, whatever happens next is your responsibility.

Consequences

When you ignore red flags, when you go against what you know in your heart is right, you put yourself in danger of experiencing some pretty painful consequences. But, such is life. We are not always going to make the right choices, and no matter what, we must lie in the beds we have made. The key to living with your consequences is accepting your role and responsibility in what has happened.

Responsibility

It’s time to stop blaming everyone else for what “they’ve done” to you. Instead, question how you put yourself in such a position in the first place! Reverse engineer the problem, go back in time and pinpoint the exact moment you saw or felt the first red flag. That’s the moment you should have walked away. That’s the moment you decided to take on the consequence. Take responsibility, quit playing the victim, and stop giving the power to the person or the circumstance that hurt you. None of this would have happened without your consent. Take the responsibility and begin feeling the shift. Always remember, although you are free to make your own decisions, you are never free from the consequences of those decisions.
Own Well Being
By: Randy Shingler
Tags: Self-awareness, Mindfulness, Wellbeing, Emotions, Poetry

Recent scatterings of thoughts and feelings

Striving for elevation above chaotic turmoil

Meditatively focused on my own well being

Events and happenings which I can control

Faithfully nurturing spiritual inner being.

Multiple things I wish were different

But not allowing emotional attachment

Knowing little I can do to change them,

Maintaining peace in heart and soul

Demeanor and feelings, I can control.

Watching fiery sun set in the west

Profusion of painted reds and orange

Faint moon begins appearing in east

Enjoying surreal beauty in day’s end

With fading day evolving into night.

Concerned about where country is right now

Marching and demonstrating on occasions,

But most important to maintain inner peace

By assiduously nurturing my own well being.
The Best New App for Entrepreneurs to Record Podcasts
Tags: Podcast, Digital Marketing, Entrepreneurship

Author: Jason Parks / Source: Entrepreneur

It was a goal of mine to get a digital marketing podcast published on the iTunes and Android store. The issue was that I didn’t want to have to go through the hassle of creating an XML feed to host the podcast on my site.

Like many entrepreneurs and business owners, the XML feed deterred me from my ambition of creating my own podcast. I know I could have figured this out or asked one of the developers at our marketing agency to help. At the end of the day though, the XML feed was a hurdle and because of this, I didn’t pursue my podcasting ambition.

I know that there are a lot of entrepreneurs like me who have yet to record a podcast due to the hoops that you’d have to jump through with this XML feed. That’s about to change!

You are my Anchor.

I was recently introduced to Anchor, an app that allows you to broadcast your voice, music and conversations, all for free. Gary Vaynerchuk, one of the most popular marketers in the world right now, had Anchor’s CEO on one of his podcasts. When I heard that Anchor allows you to get your podcasts pushed to Apple and Google, I immediately downloaded the app.

According to The Verge, the app can now publish recordings to podcast platforms, sending them to both Apple and Google’s collection of shows for even more people to find. While podcasting has always been open to anyone, Anchor is trying to remove the last few hoops that people had to jump through, like setup, hosting and distributing an RSS feed so that listeners can subscribe to the podcast. “Unfamiliar with RSS?” Anchor wrote in a blog post. “Cool, let’s keep it that way.”

BOOM. I finally had a place to record my podcasts and easily distribute them to Apple and Google. And 99.6 percent of new smartphones run Android or iOS. If you want to easily get your podcast distributed, Anchor is your go-to…

Click here to read more
UI設計筆記工具篇：Flow-神器！動態做好Code 就完成！
By: Laura Lin
Tags: Animation, Design, Flow, Sketch, iOS

Design, code and collaborate.

Framer is the best way to create interactive designs from start to finish. Design from scratch and then easily turn…
The Top 5 Deep Learning Libraries And Frameworks
By: Priyesh Sinha
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Programming, Deep Learning

In this article, I’m going to cover the top 5 Deep Learning Libraries & Frameworks.

Here you go —

Keras

Developed by François Chollet, a researcher at Google, Keras is a Python framework for deep learning.

Keras has been used at organizations like Google, CERN, Yelp, Square, Netflix, and Uber. The advantage of Keras is that it uses the same Python code to run on CPU or GPU.

Keras models accept three types of inputs:

NumPy arrays , just like Scikit-Learn and many other Python-based libraries. This is a good option if your data fits in memory.

, just like Scikit-Learn and many other Python-based libraries. This is a good option if your data fits in memory. TensorFlow Dataset objects . This is a high-performance option that is more suitable for datasets that do not fit in memory and that are streamed from disk or from a distributed filesystem.

. This is a high-performance option that is more suitable for datasets that do not fit in memory and that are streamed from disk or from a distributed filesystem. Python generators that yield batches of data (custom subclasses of the keras.utils.Sequence class).

Keras features a range of utilities to help you turn raw data on disk into a Dataset:

tf.keras.preprocessing.image_dataset_from_directory — It turns image files sorted into class-specific folders into a labeled dataset of image tensors.

— It turns image files sorted into class-specific folders into a labeled dataset of image tensors. tf.keras.preprocessing.text_dataset_from_directory — It turns text files sorted into class-specific folders into a labeled dataset of text tensors.

In Keras, layers are simple input-output transformations. For the preprocessing layers it includes:

Vectorizing raw strings of text via the TextVectorization layer

layer Feature normalization via the Normalization layer

layer Image rescaling, cropping, or image data augmentation

Example —
Rick and Morty writer’s room
By: Ray Alez
Tags: Comedy, Television, Rick And Morty, Cartoon, Writing

I wanted to figure out how does the process of writing a Rick and Morty episode look like, and here’s the information I could assemble.

They have 3 boards in the writer’s room:

1. Brainstorming board

They start by brainstorming episode ideas and writing them down on the board.

These are general high concept story ideas that look like this:

2. Story Circle board

Then they work on a rough story outline. They use Dan Harmon’s story circle that represents the simplified version of Campbell’s Hero’s journey, and looks like this:

You can read more about it in the awesome series of articles about the story structure that he wrote, here you can read about the process of breaking a story in more details, and here Dan explains this process using a Community episode as an example.

Sometimes, there are several circles for different characters or storylines.

If you look closely, you can see that they also have a print out of Campbell’s monomyth on their board.

Here’s how the breakdown of the “Close Rick-Counters” episode look like:
What is Top 3 and How to Write For Us?
By: Daryl Bruce
Tags: Medium, Publication, Community, Writer, Writing

Top 3 is a new publication where Medium writers support other Medium writers by promoting each other’s work. Medium members are encouraged to post three stories from other writers that they enjoyed reading.

Take a look at some of our writer’s stories to get a better idea of how it works:

Write for us!

If you interested in writing for us, the process is very easy. Simply ask to join by commenting on this article.

Submission Guidelines

We aim to keep everything as simple as possible with this publication, but there are few basic rules we ask you to follow.
Do Your Vue Components Communicate Correctly?
By: Seifeldin Mahjoub
Tags: Programming, JavaScript, Vuejs, Front End Development, Nodejs

Do Your Vue Components Communicate Correctly?

Seven patterns, pick the right one

Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash

As your application matures, there will be an increased communication between your components so it’s crucial to pick the right communication pattern.

Picking the right communication pattern not only simplifies debugging but also aids in rapid feature development as patterns are repeated and the codebase becomes predictable.

In this article, we cover seven communication patterns to add to your arsenal when passing information between your components.
Use This One Simple Technique to Kill Procrastination
By: Kapil Goel
Tags: Goals, Self-awareness, Self, Procrastination, Advice

How to Kill Procrastination

If your goal is to climb a mountain and you know the why and how of it; and what will be the path,” you will be confident. If you know someone has done it before, you will be even more hopeful, which will drive you further.

This level of clarity is useful, but not enough to keep you moving in your day-to-day actions. So ask yourself these two questions:

1. How can not doing something bring you more “pain” than doing it?

In my case, I wasn’t taking any step to grow myself, and my pain got severe over time, which forced me to take action. However, if there is no pain and you are in a comfort zone, you can induce it. For instance:

How ugly will I appear in the next two years if I don’t exercise daily?

How badly will competitors swipe the market share if I don’t adapt to a new business model?

How will I pay the EMI for a newly bought land-rover defender if I don’t upgrade my skills or change my job?

This technique will work if the pain of no action is more than the pain of action.

You can make it effective with the power of visualization. Like when you “vividly see yourself as fatso” or see something scary. Excessive pain may also trigger fear and that might kill your desire, so use it prudently.

2. How can doing something bring you more “pleasure” than not doing it?

After the painful kickoff, I aimed to work on a few projects, and one of them was to explore non-fictional writing. Initially, I was checking the responses to my published articles every hour.

How engaging was my article?

How many readers liked it?

It wasn’t much different from people addicted to social media. But I wanted to quit this endless cycle to check.

I discovered an activity, (in one of my journal sessions), that made me happier. I created a visual report for my published articles, and looked forward to reading those who performed better. By analyzing article reading data and comparing between them, I gained more pleasure than watching several hits. This cycle of feedback gave me joy, visible progress, and hope to reach my goal.

A few other examples to understand it better.

What if I use my Netflix watching time to lose my fat, train my muscles, and look leaner?

What if I use a new business model and have a monopoly on the market?

What if I do a part-time MBA and get promoted to be an area sales manager in my company?

Find out what you can relate to with pleasure and visualize it. “Look at the lean and fit version of you, sweating on the beats with the routine at the gym.” This will pull you like a magnet and help you get rid of less pleasurable tasks.
Dreaming Of Bugs Right Now? You’re Not Alone
Tags: Sleep, Metaphor, Psychology, Dreams, Dream Meanings

By Elizabeth Gulino

PHOTO: VISHAL BHATNAGAR/NURPHOTO/GETTY IMAGES.

Vivid, nightmare-ish dreams tend to happen when one is feeling stressed and anxious — two very common emotions as we navigate life in a pandemic. And the most common theme of the vivid dreams we’ve been having? Bug attacks.

Deirdre Barrett, PhD, a Harvard psychologist and dream researcher who launched an international survey about pandemic-related dreams, told WebMD that the most common dreams reported just so happen to include “swarms of wasps, flies, and gnats to armies of roaches and wiggly worms.” Apparently bug attacks are “by far the most common metaphor” out of 8,000 responses.

“I think part of it traces to the slang use of the word; we say we have a bug to mean we have a virus,” Barrett continued. “Dreams can be kind of pun-like in using visual images for words.”

Vivid dreams happen during the rapid eye movement phase of our sleep cycles. If your ZZZs end up being disturbed because of stress and anxiety, or even if you find yourself sleeping more because of any quarantine-related schedule changes, you may be spending more time in REM sleep, leading to those intense dreams.

“One of the hard parts about dreams is that they don’t speak our language,” Lisa Harrison, MA, psychotherapist in private practice and a candidate training as a Jungian analyst, previously told Refinery29.

Being chased by something in a dream — even by bugs — can mean you’re avoiding something. “The degree to which you are being chased gives a clear indication of the degree to which you are avoiding an issue that needs to be addressed,” psychotherapist Matthew Bowes previously told Refinery29. “Perhaps you’ve been risk-avoidant, or you’ve held back on confronting something which is uncomfortable or frightening.”

When asked specifically about bug dreams, Bowes revealed that being overwhelmed by tiny monsters like spiders and worms “may indicate that little irritations or worries are creeping up on you.”

To stop these creepy crawlies from appearing in your dreams each night, it might be good for you to confront whatever is in your life that’s annoying you right now — no matter how small. After all, waking up in a cold sweat after being surrounded by swarms of bugs might just be worse.