fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
It’s Taco Tuesday, So I’m Serving up Some Spicy Gumbo Because That’s the Best I Can Do
By: Lon Shapiro
Tags: Humor, Sports, Relationships, Writing, Politics

It’s Taco Tuesday, So I’m Serving up Some Spicy Gumbo Because That’s the Best I Can Do

This is the big push to meet my end-of-the month dream!

Photo by Miguel Andrade on Unsplash

Unlike the big shots who lie to you about earning thousands of dollars by following their writing secrets, or the little shots who write stories worth reading, I will offer only the sad, desperate call of the everyman.

“Please ma’am, will you buy me a taco?”

I don’t mean the whole dollar taco at Del Taco, I’m talking about ending September like a telethon, where you can help me reach my goal of making 30¢ a day on Medium.

See, I’m about 57¢ short for the month and it’s September 29.

Normally, I wouldn’t say anything, because heavens knows I’ve had plenty of months worse than that.

But a reader here and there keeps finding my best work somehow, and I’m reminded again by how perverted the algorithm is.

For example, here’s one of my best writing articles ever.

The Gods of Medium curated that baby last August and then uncurated it this year.

Seriously?

There are something like 47,000 articles being submitted to curation every day on this site, and somebody took the time to wade through my thousands of stories and say “fuck this guy, no tacos for him anymore.”

I mean, what’s the world coming to?

That is why I am bald-facedly panhandling on the internet.
Red Water — Yellow Sea :: Cronulla Beach :: GMS :: 30/03/2013
By: Alexander Kesselaar
Tags: Blog, Australia, Cronulla, Fotostat, Landscape

Some Photos from one of the last nice mornings for a while. Looks like the rain has set in for a while here in Sydney.
Green Spiky Nova Pulses - Sound and Design - Medium
By: Michael 'Myk Eff' Filimowicz
Tags: Flair, Design, Art, Technology, Creativity

VJ Loop |Green Spiky Nova Pulses

at VJ Loop Zone

A continuous supernova of green spikes and yellow-red blast radius, with psychedelic overtones and mandala undertones. Could also be thought of as a flowering cosmic cactus (maybe). Seamless loop.

Media Format Info: Quicktime Movie, MPEG-4, MJPEG codec (Photo JPEG export), Progressive Scan, 60 FPS, 16:9 aspect ratio, 1280 x 720 (720P), 417 MB file size, 33s duration.

Available at VJ Loop Zone
Research sounds warning for gene editing in embryos
By: Solstice Media
Tags: Genetics, Dna, CRISPR, Science, Genetic Engineering

Gene editing in embryos to repair defective genes may cause more harm than good, research from South Australia has shown.

The research led by the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and the University of Adelaide has uncovered a significant hurdle for realising the potential benefits of gene editing in embryos.

It provides an alternative explanation following a North American study published last year that seemed to demonstrate gene editing in human embryos was highly effective in repairing a defective gene in a majority of the embryos.

Gene editing is the process of cutting specific regions of a cell’s genetic material with molecular scissors, and then “repairing” the cut by altering the target DNA sequence, resulting in a specific change or “edit.”

The South Australian team, led by Professor Paul Thomas, discovered the process of repairing the cut could sometimes lead to a significant loss of DNA, meaning function to the faulty gene could not be restored.

This research provides an alternative explanation to the North American study, showing rather than gene editing fixing small errors, much larger errors could instead be created.

“Gene editing technology is still relatively new, and part of this field of research includes understanding the flaws, which will ultimately allow us to develop the safest possible therapies for genetic conditions,” Professor Thomas said.

“Understanding the fundamental mechanisms by which these tools work are important advancements for research and for clinical translation to treat a host of genetic diseases.”

Professor Thomas and Dr Fatwa Adikusuma, the paper’s first author, replicated the North American study on mouse embryos, which closely replicate the development of human zygotes.

Australia has strict legislation against using gene editing in human embryos.

“We looked beyond the small deletions, exploring larger areas of DNA,” Dr Adikusuma said.

“When we searched a wider area, we found that repair of the DNA break generated by molecular scissors resulted in deletion of large stretches of DNA.”

Gene editing technology with molecular scissors, or CRISPR-Cas9 as they are scientifically known, are being used in studies to cure muscular dystrophy in mice and a number of clinical trials are also underway to test gene editing therapies for several cancers and blood diseases.

The research findings were published today in the British multidisciplinary science journal Nature.
Boost VC’s $500k Sci-Fi Accelerator — Apply to Tribe 14!
By: Maddie Callander
Tags: Entrepreneurship, SciFi, Funding, Accelerator, Startup

Are you a Sci-Fi Founder looking for investment? Apply to Boost $500k accelerator. www.boost.vc/apply

We are investing $500k in 10 startups for Tribe 14.

What’s new at Boost VC?

What are we looking for?

Every year, we share “request for startups” in the different industries we invest in — you can read the latest posts here:

Application FAQ

To Submit an Application: www.boost.vc/apply

www.boost.vc/apply Deadline: All Tribe 14 Applications must be submitted by Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at Midnight PST.

All Tribe 14 Applications must be submitted by Dates: Tribe 14 will start in August 2020 in San Mateo, CA.

Tribe 14 will start in August 2020 in San Mateo, CA. Location: San Mateo, CA. Our program combines in person and digital events. Housing & office space is provided for teams in residence during the accelerator program.

San Mateo, CA. Our program combines in person and digital events. Housing & office space is provided for teams in residence during the accelerator program. Learn more: www.boost.vc/accelerator

www.boost.vc/accelerator Questions: Reach out to us at apply@boost.vc

Ready to submit your application? www.boost.vc/apply
A Beginner’s Guide To Computer Vision
By: Richmond Alake
Tags: Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Technology

Computer Vision

Before we dive into the various CV techniques, let’s explore the human body part that computer vision is trying to emulate in terms of functionality.

Most humans don’t give much thought to vision; it’s a bodily function that automatically works with little to no deliberate influence.

Photo by v2osk on Unsplash

The human vision sensory system has developed over thousands of years to provide humans with the ability to extrapolate scenery meaning and context from the light that is reflected by objects in our 3-dimensional world, into our eyes.

Our eyes and brain can infer an understanding of environments from reflected light.

Our visual system equips us with the ability to determine the distance of objects, predict the texture of objects without directly touching, and identify all sort of patterns and events within our environment.

Computer Vision is the process by which we try to equip computer systems with the same capabilities that the human's visual sensory system possesses.

An appropriate definition for computer vision is as follows:

Computer Vision is the process by which a machine or a system generates an understanding of visual information by invoking one or more algorithms acting on the information provided. The understandings are then translated into decisions, classifications, pattern observation, and many more.

Our visual sensory system consists of the eyes and the brain, although we understand how each component of the eyes such as the cornea, lens, retina, Iris etc., we don’t fully understand how the brain works.

To create algorithms and systems that have the capability of extracting contextual information from images, causations of patterns have to be observed. Then solutions can be derived from the understanding of the causes and effect of specific patterns.

There are a lot of applications of Computer Vision, here are a few:
Home Less
Tags: Poems And Stories, Haiku, Poetry, Poems On Medium, House Of Haiku

Haiku is a form of poetry usually inspired by nature, which embraces simplicity. We invite all poetry lovers to have a go at composing Haiku. Be warned. You could become addicted.

Follow
New Tokens Added to Bitfinex
Tags: Trading, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Bitfinex

We are pleased to announce support for RLC, RCN, REP, TRX, ELF, AID & SNGLS, tradable against BTC, ETH and USD.

Deposits have been enabled with trading set to commence at 15.30pm UTC today.

To learn more about these projects, please visit Bitfinex Support. We are excited to provide a platform of support for these unique projects and to contribute to the the long-term development of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Margin trading for all pairs will be enabled as and when the Bitfinex order books develop the required liquidity. All ERC20 trading pairs will eventually be migrated to trade only on Ethfinex.
New digs for Conservancy Queen
By: Conservancy Of Swfl
Tags: Nonprofit, Education, Wildlife, Environment, Animals

By Lacey Wilkerson | Conservancy Education intern

Have you ever gone to a party where you didn’t know the other guests? Or were you ever the new student at school? In those moments, you may have felt similar to the way our queen angelfish is feeling this week!

On December 28, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida’s Animal Care Coordinator Katie Ferron made the decision to move our queen angel from her previous home in the “Oceans at Risk” tank into the Dalton Discovery Center’s 5,000-gallon patch reef tank.

Queen angelfish typically inhabitant warm, coastal areas of the Atlantic, such as the patch reefs found on Florida’s gulf coast, so this is a very appropriate spot for her to be! She was a very brave and outgoing inhabitant of her smaller tank, so we all knew she would do great in her newer, bigger home!

The queen angel is currently about 4 inches in length and is just a few years old, but she could potentially grow as large as 18 inches!

In the past week, she’s had to go from being the biggest fish in a small “pond,” to being the smallest fish in a very big “pond.” It’s a big adjustment, but she’s doing very well. Her first few days in the new tank were spent close to the water’s surface and off to the side, away from the larger fish. Queen angels are known to be shy reef fish, and they typically live solitary lives or may occasionally be found in pairs.

Since her introduction to the tank, staff and interns have noticed her becoming much braver and venturing deeper and out toward the middle to explore and eat. As she grows more confident and comfortable in her new home, guests are able to get a better look at her brilliant yellow body and fabulous blue trim.

Just as you made friends at that party or got more comfortable at your school, queen angel is finding her place in her new home. Everyone at the Conservancy predicts that in the weeks to come she will start to thrive and reclaim her title as the “queen” of her tank!
The ISW: W9 2019 NFL Odds & Data
By: John Culver
Tags: Handicapping, Sports, NFL, NFL Picks, Sports Betting

W9 Initial Value Plays

Each week, the ISW identifies weekly value plays. These plays should not be misconstrued as official picks, plays, or wagers as we believe long-term wagering ROI is more a function of bankroll management and allocation than of win rates.

We define value as instances where the odds of covering are at least >52.4%, and when spreads between our win and/or cover probabilities and the market are substantial — yielding positive long-term expected values (EV). The last thing we ever want to be confused with is as a tout. We’re long-term-probability-minded here — remember 52.4% is almost the same as a coin toss, but the margins is where the value lies. In the long-term, the EV will deliver alpha.

The ISW’s W2–8 Initial Value Play Performance
Sexy Build Up Time
By: Reuben Salsa
Tags: 50 Words, Writing, Ideas, Salsa, Microfiction

50 WORD STORY

Sexy Build Up Time

First time meeting the woman of my dreams

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

I needed release.

Several unsolicited requests to date led to silence. Normally I’m too scared to leave the house and actually meet women. But this felt different. We connected.

In desperation I sent another photo of me. Outside the house. Excited.

“You’re perfectly safe” I whispered to the locked door.
“Two Old Feisty Broads”
By: Michelle Monet
Tags: Humor, Musical, Music, Songwriting, Women

TWO OLD FEISTY BROADS

For once in our lives

We don’t care what

They’re thinking

Now that we’re

Feisty old broads.

For once we can eat Krispy Kreme’s

Without blinking

Cuz now we’re ok

With our bods

Once we could reach for

Our toes

Without groaning

It was so e-e-e-aasy before

Now our boobs

Just touch

The

Floooor…

We are WOMEN

Hear us ROAR!!

For once in our lives

We wear shoes that don’t hurt us

Not like high heels did before

For most of our days we choose to

Wear slippers

Even to drive to the store

For once in our lives we can stop

Hiding wrinkles

We can laugh at our hormones

And Untimely Tinkles!

For once

We can cheer

Cuz we’re

Two

Old

Feisty

Broads.

For once we can go

To bed

With our sweats on

Not lingerie like the past (Screw Victoria Secret)

For once

We can go

Paint the town

Without makeup

Now we are comfy

At last

For once we can throw off our bras

Cuz they’re too tight,

We now proudly

Call our grey hairs

Wisdom HIGHLIGHTS!

For once in our lives

We don’t feel

That we are

Frauds…

(Becaaaause…)

We’re happy to be

Two

Old

Feisty

Saucy

Spicy

Sassy

BROADS!
On the Realization That I Will Never Be the Best Writer
By: Jonathan Greene
Tags: This Happened To Me, Writing, Blogging, Self Improvement, Books

On the Realization That I Will Never Be the Best Writer

Getting Over Myself (and How You Can Get Over Yourself, Too)

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

I just started listening to Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon and it’s blowing my mind. This isn’t the first time I’ve been reading or listening to something and had the realization that every word I’ve ever spilled onto a page or screen is tantamount to discarded bulk waste. You know, the kind that you put out on bulk day and it’s so awful that bulk trash won’t even take it. That’s how I feel about my words sometimes.

There are days when I am typing away, sufficiently pleased with myself, and then I listen to The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath or read Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami. Then I feel like an impostor. And not just a regular one, like a third-rate one, not even good enough to be a good impostor. I can’t even have impostor syndrome correctly.

But for all the times this has happened to me (and probably to you), this time was different. I had a serious realization while I was fanboying over Kiese’s dynamic spoken-word flow as he read his novel into my soul.

I will never be the best writer.

And when I say never, I really mean it. Never, ever. I don’t even know if I will ever be good, but I can be one hundred percent sure I will never be the best. And as that dawned on me, like our realization that the Tooth Fairy is just an elaborate prank pulled off, for years, by our parents, an overwhelming sense of calm washed over me. I can stop worrying.

I will never be the best writer.

Some hardcore coaches and online trainers would call this level of realization a defeatist attitude. I call it realism. And honestly, it’s not really much of a stretch. Who was I to ever strive to be the best writer anyway? I majored in Criminal Justice. I went to law school. I didn’t even start reading as a voracious bibliophile until a couple of years ago, so who the hell was I kidding even worrying about how good I was? Or am.

In short, this is about getting over myself. And how you can get over yourself, too.
Cent’s Crypto Roundup
By: Matthew 吾馬太
Tags: Bounties, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin, News

Cent’s Crypto Roundup

The Top Crypto News Curated by Centians for ETH

Bitcoin News

@Houwang: This is great news from a financial aspect, [since it means] a sea of green will flood the markets - around 5% for major coins.

Project Updates

@jamonayy: This one is quite the event, as it grants ONT holders the ability to redeem ONT NEP-5 tokens for mainnet ONT, to claim ONG (Ontology Gas) and to create an ONT ID, i.e. a digital identity of sorts on the Ontology blockchain, which is heavily geared towards enterprises.

General Crypto News

@rhyzom: I’m one of those die-hard Opera users…and learned that Bitmain just bought a very large stake in the company (after having been entirely bought out by a Chinese consortium in 2016, which I also wasn’t aware of...).

Global Crypto

@rarej: This creates awareness and brings more mainstream adoption and attention to crypto, which is good news in my opinion.

@FergHex: The article describes the benefits of using blockhain to mitigate corruption and speed up some formalities in the government’s dependencies. It’s good to know new technologies will be used in my dear country for good.

Crypto Essays

Note: This list was derived from the top 10 responses made by Cent users to an actual bounty made on Cent [here] with only slight edits for clarity.

Thanks to Centians @jaymonnayy, @rhyzom, @brunchtime833, @agfnzn10, @Houwang, @rarej, @broskier, @Ninjatron, @FergHex, and @ddsik99 for contributing to the first ever Crypto BOTI (and getting paid!).
3 values to teach our children in the battle against hate, inequality and fear
By: Ermelin Leal
Tags: Terrorism, Education, Social Change

Our ancestors fought years for freedom, peace and equality. And here we stand in a world where we can’t trust our leaders, let alone each other. We can’t go to bed without worry about what would happen tomorrow. We live in a world of hate, inequality and fear.

We are all very different people, and that is ok. We all have different goals, values and life experiences. And that is ok too. But what is NOT ok is the fact that we think we have the right to judge or punish those that don’t follow our way of thinking or lifestyle, those that were born into a different religion, nationality or race from our own.

As a mother, I feel this huge responsibility. I look at my kids innocent faces and I think about how every adult that has walked on earth was once a child. An innocent and loving child. However, something happened between childhood and adulthood that shaped that person for good or bad.

I feel, as parents, teachers and citizen, we have the power and responsibility to change the world we live in. We need to be role model to our children. We need to show them the most important values in every relationship which are respect, love and compassion. If we are able to live by these values we will love one another and so will our children and their children. There won’t be room for hate and fear in our heart or theirs.

This article was inspired by the recent tragic events against the LGBTQ and Black/African American communities.
Why Great Data Engineering Needs Automated Testing
By: David O'Keeffe
Tags: Dataops, Data Engineering, Data Science, DevOps, Data

My introduction to testing

I had the pleasant experience early in my career of encountering one of the most gnarly databases known to mankind. I would look through a table, glancing at it’s hundreds of mysterious columns, make an assumption about it’s contents, then write my ETL code accordingly. I would run it in pre-production, saw things looked about right, push it, only to find out months down the track there was an edge case I was unaware of hidden within it.

In fact there were so many edge cases lurking about that I could not possibly catch them all. I would spend an enormous amount of time exploring the data trying to find them. Soon enough I would forget one or another. I realized the only way to cover myself was to attempt to document every assumption I made. How did I document it? I discovered gherkin.

A Typical BDD Scenario

As data pipelines are essentially black box functions I could craft the input and assert the output. No more guess work required and the business could easily confirm what I was doing was correct. Then it was simply a matter of slamming those datasets into a test framework and calling the right functions. I knew exactly what to expect. It was a liberating moment for me that alleviated so much of my stress and gave me a lot of confidence. It came at the added benefit that I no longer had to sit there and wait for expensive clusters to churn my data as well. The tests ran fast and I could develop entirely on my local machine. Every new edge case became another test in the suite. Finally, the beast could be tamed.

There was a slight caveat: it took me almost two weeks to implement a test framework that would deserialize gherkin tables and pass it through PySpark. I would then spend another two weeks creating Docker containers to integrate it into in our continuous delivery pipeline. It was difficult to convince management to let me temporarily pivot from my usual development activities. Luckily they did and I consider it to be one of the most eye opening experiences I’ve had thus far in my career. I discovered that it’s possible to test your data pipelines and save a ton of time and money in the process.
Shannon Leaves Home
By: Samantha Lazar
Tags: Short Story, Horror, Creepy, Fiction, Magical Realism

MAGICAL REALISM|HORROR

Shannon Leaves Home

A short story

Photo by Jake Stark on Unsplash

The sign made Shannon gag. The fact that her dad was so proud of being able to erect the damn thing, with a party and everything. So gaudy. It loomed along the freeway in front of her, a nightmare. That roach slashed through the O in their last name. Gross.

The billboard read, 80 Years Dead: Cortney Family Exterminators

Yet, she couldn’t really complain, could she? She turned on the heated leather seats in her new birthday BMW. Being finally 17, she could drive herself away from the house and on past that stupid sign.

She knew she would be late now. She’d left the house already running behind, in a huff, slammed the front door, even. Ahead of her now, brake lights appeared in the morning rush. Great, she thought, some texter trying to merge, probably. Shannon came to a halt maybe six cars before she could pass the billboard. She scratched at her forehead. 80 Years Dead.

The cars did not move. She would be late for her lit class again. It wasn’t as if she had finished her final paper anyway. Mr. Johnson had come to expect lateness from her, but she didn’t want to disappoint him again. Maybe if she got there a few minutes late, she could creep in undetected. Or if he looked down at her, she would tell him she was in the restroom, say sorry, and take her seat.

But still, the cars were not moving, and that damn sign. It was so tacky. She told her dad she was embarrassed at the ribbon-cutting. Tasteless. A ribbon-cutting. She had finally gotten the nerve to bring her feelings to light.

“Not now, Shan!” her mother had hissed. She had grabbed, clawed to hold Shannon’s hand. Told her to smile.

Now Shannon thought back to the sharpness in her mother’s tone this morning. A screaming match, but an argument Shannon knew she could not win.

“Look at your legacy, Shannon, this is all yours!” Her mother practically spat the words at her.

“I don’t want it!” Shannon screamed at her. She hated her family’s business and what they did. And she had a secret. She didn’t tell her mom she had seen the roach again in her bedroom.
Choices
By: Danna Reich Colman
Tags: Life Lessons, Choices, Life Choices

Choices

If I choose this, I can’t choose that

If I say this, I can’t say that

If I eat this, I can’t eat that

If I listen to this, I can’t listen to that

If I buy this, I can’t buy that

If I see this, I can’t see that

If I love this, I can’t love that

If I want this, I still want that
Into the caves, goodbye 2020
By: Amelie Bauer
Tags: 2020, Change, New Beginnings, Poem, Growth

Photo courtesy of TravelAwaits.com.

We were all on the tip of the mountain

Here we are in a widespread stampede

Confused about the advance

And watchful of our friends

Preparation begins

As all societies reach a close

The animals begin to inch down the mountain

To look for asylum

They discard any extra way to lose their profit

The animals scurry into hiding

Searching aimlessly for coverage

A push for shelter leads the animals to caves

Into their own cages

All lodge with the ones they trust

Throwing away any possibility of cost

They discard their trust in the numbers

Collapsing percent by percent

The animals depart from the tip of the mountain

Into a hideaway

Troubled by the future

In the question of when the solution will come

The epidemic spreads and isolation begins

Worried as to their future

The people escape and prepare

The numbers fall

All in the representation of the horror to come

Into the caves, they go

Protection commences

But it was not protection

It was change

It was growth beneath the skin

A growth that would have happened years from now

Spead up to create an advance

All we terrified

But are now sound

All have lost

And continue to lose

But the end is in sight

A new way of life is about to begin

One very different than before

But the animals have all grown

A substantial amount

And we prepare for a better way of life

The animals thank the good that came from the horror

And exit their cages

They wish to be free

And will be soon
Netflix made chess cool again
By: Danyal Huq
Tags: Data Visualization, Netflix, Queens Gambit

It is amazing to see how a streaming service can have a such a large influence, both in its reach and its power.

About the data

The data is available via Google Trends and can be found here.

The original visual is also on his twitter here.
Help! I’m a CEO & I’ve a Zoom thing!
By: Dorian Sweet
Tags: CEO, Technology Strategy, Culture Change, Transformation, Video Conferencing

What to do when the future joins your company.

Photo by Alexis Fauvet on Unsplash

It’s 9:05am, the prep for the board meeting at XEN2.5 Inc. is late in getting underway. Three people, Jerome Kahntwright, Leslie Foxmaiden and April Teasdale are in the virtual lobby and several other execs are having problems getting on the call. Bob Smithers, the CEO of XEN2.5 is staring at his iMac screen like a cat looking at a moth out a window. He’s already spilled his coffee and mopped up the wet with a printout of the deck he’s reviewing.

Things are not going well.

Bob zeroes in on some red text on screen, clicks ‘start meeting’ and it looks like he is underway. A few awkward moments of ‘hi’ and ‘wait a sec’ and ‘can you hear me!?’ signal a sketchy start …yet no one is using live video. This doesn’t work for Bob. He tells the team ‘folks, turn on video …please’ and a minute later the faces fill the screen. Suddenly loud, distorted vocal noises constipate the meeting, it’s Jason Chassuer, the new operations guy who can’t help but speak-yell at anything or anyone he works with. Now the audio is a garbled barrage of noise, video stutters and images of degrading faces. It looks like there is a connection problem.

This zoomy-video thing might have been bad idea, thinks Bob.

9:15, Bob texts the CIO’s right hand, Jeff Wilikers. Bob, in a slightly irritated voice, calls Joe and tells him of his predicament.

Jeff: “Are you using your WIFI or Ethernet connection?”

Bob: “No. I mean …I don’t know?!”

Jeff: “Ok, what kinds of cables are plugged into your computer?”

Bob: “Um…power, and a little black plug with no cable …and that’s it.”

Jeff: “Ok, you’re using WIFI”

Bob: (semi-calmly) “Ok…? Does that matter?”

Jeff: “That’s not important now, a few more things…”

Jeff proceeds to take Bob through a series of system screens to run analysis of his baud rate and connectivity. It’s 9:22 and Bob has delayed a very important meeting.

It’s time think about plan B.

Meanwhile, Kahntwright, craning his neck to check out CNBC in the next room, is allowing the gnawing sounds of market commentators to be heard through his laptop mic.

Foxmaiden, notices her hair in the reflection of her art print by her desk. It’s a fallback mirror in her home office and its clear her hair ‘isn’t working’ today. Little does she know, while she preens, everyone is watching…her video is the only one that’s working.

Teasdale is typing away, ‘clackity-clack-click-clack-clack-clack…’ on her laptop, as a stream of buzzes from texts are heard while rushing to get the last few pages of her document posted for this call.

Chassuer, is now breathing into his mic heavily. Soft rushes, like a moist wind on beachgrass, flood in at 5 second intervals. It’s always a comfort to have a serial killer in attendance.

Bob: “Everyone get off video …we’ll do this as a call.”
Who Will Get The COVID-19 Vaccine First: A List
By: Alex O'Connor
Tags: Mark Zuckerberg, Humor, Tech, Satire, Covid 19

Who Will Get The COVID-19 Vaccine First: A List

1. Mark Zuckerberg 2. Mark Zuckerberg 3. Mark Zuckerberg.

Photo by Daniel Schludi on Unsplash

1. Mark Zuckerberg

The most god-like man in America must get the first COVID-19 vaccination. What would the world do without him? Go back to Myspace? I’ve used Myspace, and I’ve also posted a Facebook status-update without using #blessed. Both experiences made me nauseous.

2. Mark Zuckerberg

According to Pfizer and Moderna, everyone needs two doses of the vaccine before they have full protection. Two vaccines will keep Facebook fully protected and allow me to keep connecting with hot Russian singles on the Facebook page Single Russian Women Looking For Dating.

3. Mark Zuckerberg

Okay, hear me out, but Mark Zuckerberg isn’t a normal guy — he’s a God — so he needs a lot more vaccines. To be safe, let’s give him enough vaccines to protect every facet of his infinitely-faceted, steaming hot, tech-guy self. Who cares what the science says? A third dose of the vaccine guarantees that Mark Zuckerberg keeps pioneering his sexy, ultra-casual hoodie style. Did hoodies exist before Mark? Will they exist when he is gone? I’m getting cold just thinking about it.

4. Mark Zuckerberg

The fourth vaccine will purge Mark of all ill-wishing media attention. Let him censor who he wants, let him deal with the misinformation, let Facebook users plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan. I trust Mark Zuckerberg.

5. Mark Zuckerberg

After five COVID-19 vaccines, Mark becomes immune to government lawsuits. He also gets back the ten hours he spent explaining the internet to congress.

6. Mark Zuckerberg

Five sips from the elixir of life are hardly enough to protect our endlessly gifted, prodigious king. A sixth vaccine lets Mark keep WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram in his domain. Would Mark ever intervene for the sake of the common good? Definitely not, so let’s follow the Messiah’s example. Let Mark Zuckerberg neutralize his competitors, accumulate obscene wealth, and hopefully, his Instagram likes will trickle down to my account.

7. Mark Zuckerberg

I want this vaccine to start leaking out of Mark like my personal data leaks out of my Facebook profile — first slowly, then with my most sensitive information being used by Cambridge Analytica to threaten America’s national security. Vaccine seven also guarantees The Social Network never leaves Netflix.

8. Mark Zuckerberg

For every category Mark is the best in the world in, he gets an additional vaccine and an additional tax break. Sorry, those are the rules, and you’re right, that does leave him with all of the COVID-19 vaccines. Is that gluttonous? Absolutely not. That’s like saying one person can have too much money or too many Russian girlfriends. #blessed
Moments in Sync
By: Paul Mulliner
Tags: Poetry, Self, Poetry On Medium, Dreams, Life

The air is still, a void of space, beneath the azure

blue of sky, no breeze disturbs the ocean

gliding slowly past, nearby.

And sometimes, there are those moments,

fleeting, like reflected sunlights’ dance,

or like refractions through a shard of glass.

Or your glance, in the mirror of the cafe

filled with laughter and romance,

where we met, that lazy, rainy day.

Moments transient, inexpressible,

when all experiencing seems joined,

into the one shared heart of our being.

And all life breathes with one breath,

and every leaf of every tree is known,

by the one experiencing in all of us.

And all experience passes endlessly

into the joined fractal memory

of our generation.
Ctrl-Alt-Delete: The Planned Obsolescence of Old Coders
By: A. Jesse Jiryu Davis
Tags: Engineering, Tech, STEM, Careers, Digital Life

In 2007, Mark Zuckerberg, then 22, said out loud what many in the software industry think: “Young people are just smarter.” Twelve years later, the lack of older programmers is still little studied compared to other dimensions of diversity. Google’s annual diversity report, for example, counts how many women or people of color it employs. Microsoft tallies its American Indian and Alaskan Native staff, and Apple is proud to hire veterans. It is commendable that these companies have revealed some measures of their diversity, but there is an omission: None report their age distribution.

Ari Rapkin Blenkhorn is a 47-year-old engineer who says she quit her last full-time job because the company, she says, wanted “a crowd of cheap youngsters. They didn’t want to support more senior people with established careers.” Her employer, which she requested not be named, valued her professional connections but did not invest in that network by sending her to conferences. “I believe they really didn’t understand why this was important or how my attending a research conference was different from junior developers attending technical training.”

Blenkhorn says that once she was back on the job market, the ageism she experienced was compounded by sexism. Despite her profound technical achievements, she was dismissed by recruiters as irrelevant and dull, as a “mom.” She recently completed a PhD in computer science and hopes the education will improve her chances in the job market.

Kevin Stevens, a 55-year-old programmer, faced a similar attitude when he applied for a position at Stack Exchange six years ago. He was interviewed by a younger engineer who told him, “I’m always surprised when older programmers keep up on technology.” Stevens was rejected for the job. He now works as a programmer at a hospitality company where he says his age is not an issue.

For other programmers, the outcomes can be far worse. A 2018 investigation by ProPublica’s Peter Gosselin and Ariana Tobin into age discrimination at IBM found that starting around 2014, the company attempted to reinvent itself by replacing older workers with younger ones. It laid off veteran employees by the thousands and strong-armed others into retiring. One 60-year-old systems engineer named Ed Kishkill was sent a layoff notice and told he had three months to find another job at IBM. Despite his decades of experience, he was rejected for all other positions. By the time of the ProPublica article’s publication, Kishkill was working as a Staples store clerk.
stargazing
By: Carina Kimlan Hinton
Tags: Poems And Stories, Poetry, Poems On Medium, Poetry On Medium, Poem

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

a constellation in the sky

a dazzling array of sparkling worlds

so far away

my eyes upturned

to the luminous glow

which spurs imagination.

my dreams lie

not here on earth

but somewhere in their

celestial worlds.
How to Enable User-Friendly URLs for Websites Through Apache HTTPD Server
By: Albin Issac
Tags: SEO, Programming, Apache, Technology, Software Development

How to Enable User-Friendly URLs for Websites Through Apache HTTPD Server

Enable user-friendly URLs for websites through Apache HTTPD Server.

A user-friendly URL is a Web address that is easy to read and includes words that describe the content of the webpage.

Defining the user-friendly URL is the best practice also the recommendation for SEO, the user-friendly URL’s helps to hide the complex internal URL’s from the end-users and search engines. These URLs help visitors to remember web addresses, which they can easily type to access the page.

For example, the long URL /test/en/pdp/book.html?id=123 should be changed to the user-friendly URL /en/book/123

The Apache URL Rewriting (mod_rewrite) along with PT(PassThrough) flag helps to define the user-friendly URL’s in Apache by hiding the complex and lengthy URL’s from end-users.
9 HABITS of Super-POSITIVE People
Tags: Life Lessons, Personal Development, Productivity, Self Improvement, Life

LIFE IS FULL of positive experiences. Notice them. Live your life to the fullest potential by reveling in the beauty of these experiences, and letting them inspire you to be the most positive version of you. Living a positive life is all about creating positive habits to help you focus on what truly matters. This is the secret of super-positive people.

Here are nine simple ideas to help you follow in their footsteps:

1. Wake up every morning with the idea that something wonderful is possible today

Smiling is healing energy. A consistently positive attitude is the cheapest “fountain of youth.”

You’ve got to dance like there’s nobody watching, love as you’ll never be hurt, Sing like nobody is listening, And live like its heaven on Earth.
The Decoy Effect: How the science of pricing influences customer choice
By: Jennifer Clinehens
Tags: Business, Marketing, Psychology, Sales, Startup

Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash

“Pricing is the moment of truth — all of marketing strategy comes to focus on the pricing decision.” — Harvard professor, E. Raymond Corey

Everyone wants to increase their sales.

But not all sales are created equal — some are more profitable than others. In any given product line, items that seem like they’d provide similar profitability, often don’t.

That’s because the cost to market, manage, and sell a product doesn’t have a direct correlation with the final price. Products that cost less to sell bring in a bigger percentage of their sale price — they’re more profitable for the brand.

So how do you get customers to pick the option that’s best for your bottom line? There are a few tactics you might use. You could:

Decrease the number of choices Keep your high-margin products top of mind Reduce the risk of trying a new, high-margin product

But, there’s a way to price your products that will make choosing the highest margin item a no-brainer. It takes advantage of a proven psychological trigger.

It’s called the Decoy Effect, and it’s a research-backed way to influence customer choice based on pricing.

What is the Decoy Effect?

The Decoy Effect describes how price comparisons between products affect choice. It states:

When there are only two options, and they’re priced “fairly,” people make decisions according to personal preference.

But, if there’s a third choice that’s overpriced compared to the first two options, it changes how people consider all of the options.

The third option is a “decoy” choice.

Source image via Aleksandr Vector on The Noun Project

The decoy’s purpose is to change perceptions of the other options, not sell.

Why? Customers compare the other products against the decoy. And because the decoy price is unreasonably high, everything else seems reasonable in comparison.

The Decoy Effect works because people are clueless about what something is supposed to cost.

William Poundstone, author of “Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value,” put it this way.

“People tend to be clueless about prices. Contrary to economic theory, we do not really decide between A and B by consulting our invisible price tags and purchasing the one that yields the higher utility. We make do with guesstimates…”

Examples of the Decoy Effect in Action

Below you can see two examples of choice sets — one without a decoy, and one with a decoy.

Choice set with no decoy:

This choice set is far apart both in features and in price. A customer looking at these options would be swayed more by their own needs than by the car’s price.

Choice set with a decoy:

Source images via Nikita Tcherednikov on The Noun Project

In the example above, the price of the medium coffee ($6.50) acts as the decoy to push more people toward a large. The price difference between the small and the medium is much more than the price difference between the medium and the large.

The greater the difference between the decoy and the low-priced option, the greater the effect.
2018 Priority University Spring Webinar Series Schedule Announced
By: Priority Payment Systems
Tags: Payments, Training Courses, Education, Training And Development, Webinar Training

Priority is excited to announce the schedule for the 2018 Priority University spring webinar series. The fourth installment provides you with useful features you may have missed, along with insightful ways to increase value and transform your Merchants processing experience.

All webinars will be recorded and shared on the Marketing & Training Product links available on Priority University.

To join, simply click the “Register Here” link. After registering for the webinar(s) of your choice, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining and logging in.
Weekend Berminal Brief (8/26/18): More ETF Rejections And Thailand Is Launching Its Own Cryptocurrency
By: Berminal - The Crypto News Platform
Tags: Thailand Crypto, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Project Inthanon

The State Of The Market: It was an exciting week for the industry with ETF decisions and a BitMEX glitch, but the market managed to remain somewhat stable. Over the last 7 days, the Crypto market went to a high of $221 Billion and a low of $203 Billion. It is now back to $215 Billion. Bitcoin (BTC) saw gains this week, going from $6,450 to $6,700. With the increase in price, Bitcoin dominance has also increased from 51.3% to 53.7%. Ethereum, on the other hand, has gone down from $300 to $275.

1) The SEC has rejected a series of Bitcoin ETFs once again. This time, it includes two ETFs filed by ProShares that would track bitcoin futures contracts, another from GraniteShares, and five leveraged and inverse ETFs from Direxion. A total of 9 ETFs proposals were rejected. Once again, the SEC expressed concerns about manipulation and less oversight on the Bitcoin market. However, the CBOE Bitcoin ETF is still pending, with a decision set to come around September 30 (read more).

2) After Thailand’s crypto-friendly regulations, their next move is to create a digital currency. However, the digital token is not for the general public to use. It will be used by banks to transact with each other. Thailand’s Central Bank has partnered with 8 participating banks to test out its central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiative called ‘Project Inthanon.’ The bank will use R3’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform Corda to build a proof-of-concept prototype (read more).

3) A glitch in the BitMEX system hurtled Bitcoin prices from $6,500 to $8,000 within a few minutes. The fact that trades were not initiated during this time suggests that the bug had something to do with visuals but cryptocurrency investors are slightly irked as constant inexplicable events on cryptocurrency exchanges could lessen the likelihood of a Bitcoin ETF being approved by the SEC. Popular YouTube technical analyst, Don Alt asked BitMex to “please, stop teasing” and complained that the fact that the entire market rallied $40 on this bug adds another reason “why we should have alternatives.” While the visual glitch did not impact or execute trades, BitMEX is one of the largest cryptocurrency platforms and controls more than 40% market of the Bitcoin-USD market (read More).

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How Using an Outline Can Improve Your Writing
By: Victoria A. Fraser
Tags: Freelancing, Writing, Advice, Organization, Writing Tips

Keeps Your Thoughts Organized

The most obvious benefit of an outline is that it organizes your thoughts. You can improve the logic and flow in your writing by writing down the main ideas you want to cover first.

Sometimes this process even helps you come up with new ideas you may not have considered while writing. While typing out the broad concepts, you can easily generate new ideas you might not have otherwise.

Saves a lot of Time

An outline is a roadmap for you to follow that makes it easier to write quickly. You don’t waste time thinking about what to tackle next or what order is best because you have already decided on that.

As I alluded to in the introduction, it also saves you time editing. You don’t have to make major changes moving a paragraph from the end of the piece to the start. Reformatting and adding in sentences to fix it requires more effort than just having it flow logically from the start.

Provides a Framework to Get Started

When I have difficulty writing, especially for a client, I start with an outline. First, writing the outline is still an important part of the process, so I consider it to be time well spent. Then, once I’ve done that I find it a lot easier to write the rest.

Outlines are a great way to cure writer's block. If you don't use them and often struggle to get started, then I’d encourage you to try this next time you’re staring at a pencil on your desk hoping the article will start writing itself.

Makes a Long Piece Less Intimidating

My outlines helped me through my university career immensely. When I had a word count or page requirement for a class, breaking it down into manageable pieces helped me because it made writing less daunting.

In my Creative Writing degree at UBC, I had to write 10-page stories every other week. At the same time, I also had Psychology classes where I had to write 10-page research papers. Now, those kinds of requirements don’t scare me at all, but back then it sure did.

Using an outline lets you break it down into small chunks that you can easily tackle. For the research paper, I could write just a page or two on whatever section I needed to do next. For short stories, I could write three pages of one scene, then 3 more pages of the next scene.
Literary Seasoning
By: Victor Sarkin
Tags: Archived Prompts, Haiku, Poetry, Writing Challenge, Giabprompt

‘Genius in a Bottle’ Prompted Writing Challenge

Literary Seasoning

GiaB writing prompt #3

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

Green grass. Yellow sands.

Orange leaves. White webs of ice.

Oh, how the gowns change.

The four personalities of the Earth are an abundance of inspiration for writers. For everything in our experience is subtly influenced and changed by the transitioning landscapes and weather.

The Challenge

We invite writers to produce a piece of poetry, fiction or non-fiction on the theme of Seasons.

The Guidelines

We cannot publish pieces or reward writers who self publish or publish at another publication, so those pieces have to remain external to the challenge. Only pieces submitted to Genius in a Bottle will be considered for the challenge. If inviting other writers from outside the publication, please ensure they are aware of this.

Poetry is to be limited to 30 lines but can be in any style.

Fiction and non-fiction submissions are to be capped at 750 words.

Please refer to the prompt in the subtitle. Feel free to copy this as a template: GiaB prompt # [insert prompt number and theme here].

When submitting, please ensure that one of the 5 tags is GiaBprompt.

Please ensure a second tag is Poetry, fiction, or non-fiction, as appropriate.

We would like to become exposed to writers and pieces that you have enjoyed in all of Medium. Please tag up to ten writers whose pieces you have enjoyed recently, or who you feel may enjoy participating in this challenge.

For further information pertaining to the challenge, please refer to the rules and guidelines.

And away we go. We look forward to enjoying the paradise of the written word with you all.

Victor Sarkin and Chirag