fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
The Unofficial Weekly Stratis Retrospect #65 — Khilone
Tags: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Stratis, Stratisweekly, Cryptocurrency

It’s time for The Unofficial Weekly Stratis Retrospect #65.

For anyone wanting to read my previous blogs, you can find them all here.

Disclaimer: Never take anything I say (or anyone else on the Internet says) to be investment advice. Consult with a professional, and extensively do your own research before ever investing into anything.

Stratis Sidechain Masternodes Update

Last week Stratis announced their Sidechain Masternodes Update. In this update, they shared that the application process for the Cirrus Sidechain Masternodes has now come to an end.

A great amount of interest has been received which has resulted in a significant number of Masternodes being assigned. The development of the Sidechain Masternodes is also drawing to a close, making this a great opportunity to offer a lower-level explanation as to how the network will operate and also what features to expect.

On Discord Chris shared that over 80 applications have been filed by $STRAT holders who are willing to support the network.

You can read the full announcement here.

Stratis Development Roadmap Update

This week Stratis will release their latest roadmap. On this roadmap, you will find the things that Stratis will be working on for the coming period. Over time Chris already shared some of the details. Items we might expect are:

Smart Contracts and Sidechains Version 2

SegWit

Unity SDK

TumbleBit for Stratis

And much more

Stratis Monthly Development Update #2

Another month has passed since Stratis’ initial monthly update. This month the focus has primarily revolved around the development of the Sidechain Masternode. You can read the monthly #2 here.

The Stratis Monthly #2 contains:

Full Node Development

Sidechain Development

Privacy Protocol for $STRAT

Full Node on Microsoft Azure

London Blockchain Expo Global 2019

Minnesota Cryptocurrency

Last week Stratis sponsored a meeting with the biggest crypto university club of the USA, Minnesota Cryptocurrency. A big shout out to ‘Pharaoh’ for arranging this and to Chris and Paul from Stratis for their presentation and answering the audience their questions.

Stratis has been on the top of Reddit’s r/CryptoCurrency for quite a while thanks to this event which lead to a lot of exposure.

It was a great success and in case you missed it:

Testing

Testing is one of the most important things in development. Before a product comes to the surface there have been multiple test rounds. Stratis wouldn’t be Stratis if they found a way that makes testing way more efficient. Thanks to Maciej for sharing this.

MediConnect

MediConnect is a verified ICO on the Stratis Platform who currently utilizes the Stratis ICO Platform for their ICO. Last week, MediConnect released new information about their project:

That’s it for now. All the best to everyone!

Khilone

Follow me on Twitter to get all the news right away: https://twitter.com/Khil0ne

And be sure to read all my stories on Medium over here:

https://medium.com/khilone

Other things to keep your eyes on:
Frightening New Christmas Specials
By: Daniel G. Jennings
Tags: Satire, Humor, Comedy, Humour, Comedy Writing

Every year TV programmers subject innocent viewers to thousands of hours of horrendous Christmas specials.

These terrible programs feature bad animation, stupid plots, corny dialogue, silly sentiment, and overacting. However, frightening Christmas specials attract good ratings and lots of advertising. Therefore, programmers will subject us to unlimited numbers of such specials.

Image by monicore from Pixabay

To make your holiday TV viewing more miserable. Lists of Doom will offer a list of suggestions for terrible new holiday TV specials.

Some Frightening New Christmas Specials Coming your way include:

Christmas with Dracula A Vampire Christmas A Zombie Christmas Christmas in Hell A Gangster Christmas Frankenstein saves Christmas The Doom Christmas Special A Vigilante Christmas Ronald McDonald Saves Christmas The Burger King’s Christmas Romance KFC Presents Colonel Sanders Home for the Holidays E.T. Saves Christmas Christmas with the Manson Family A Werewolf Christmas Assassin’s Christmas Special Mafia Christmas The Christmas Terrorist Slasher’s Christmas Cujo’s Christmas Super Villains’ Christmas Nazi Christmas Bibleman Wages War on Christmas A Slasher Christmas Axe Murderer’s Christmas Hercules Saves Christmas The Christmas Cult Bad Santa’s Animated Christmas Special The Toxic Avenger Saves Christmas Jesus Saves Christmas A Trump Christmas Christmas at Mar-a-Lago Evil Elf’s Christmas Special Elves Gone Bad Elves Gone Wild Slaughterhouse Christmas 2020 The Hallmark Channel Presents White People’s Christmas 2020 White Santa Black Santa Chrisley Does Christmas Christmas with the Miz World Wrestling Entertainment Presents Mick Foley’s Hardore Christmas Santa Saves Hanukkah Secret Santa Christmas Special The Masked Singer Presents Masked Santa’s Christmas Carols The Grim Reaper’s Christmas Special

So please watch old movies or binge watch some good shows on Netflix (NFLX) this Christmas and avoid Christmas specials. The Christmas Specials will get worse every year.
Deadpan Sight
Tags: Poetry, Poem

You could see him over there; any one could do it.

The night creeping around the floor accelerates.

Speaking in tongues; the sun got up and dressed.

You can undo emails if you’re elastic enough.

Dropkick your aura, or flirt with your entrance to hell.

You could see him under the bridge if you had a ticket.

A flock of moss loosened up after a few drinks.

Dog whistles were given out at the rally; everyone winked.

The little I know about raves has sent me into the woods

along with a ball of sundresses and collections of famous soot.
Frozen 2: Predictions From the World’s Biggest Experts
By: Lauren R. Weinstein
Tags: Kids, Frozen, Disney

Sign up for Taking Stock of COVID: New comics from The Nib

By The Nib

New comics from Matt Lubchansky, Keith Knight, and Niccolo Pizarro. Plus How Seniors Are Living With COVID-19. Take a look
Points of Self-Intersection
Tags: Fiction, Perspective, Math, Poetry, Photography

Spherical awareness drifts under hyper-surfaces

Curving dimensions within smooth singularities

Old shells collapsing under degrees of freedom

Boundaries of density fighting the cross sections

Internal magnitudes shaping differential forms

Defining parameters along a continual meridian

Within a linear rotation of fluid boundary points

Orienting us under manifolds of self-intersection
My dada’s love for kantola and other stories
By: Krutika Behrawala
Tags: Relationships, Food, Indian Food Recipes, Bfflocalbeat, Gujarati Food

My dada and I in the early 1990s.

Every episode of Aav Re Varsaad brings back memories of dada, each incidentally related to food. My earliest memory with him is visiting Rama Krishna, a restaurant in our resident suburb of Vile Parle, Mumbai. He’d drive me down in his white Fiat 1100 and we’d relish a sada dosa together.

While the docu-series focuses on the Desai kitchen, it is filled with universal truths about Gujaratis and their obsession with food. As Desai’s mother points out, even a fast in their household involves the preparation of different dishes and eating till full.

My grandfather, who grew up in Amdavad (Ahmedabad, if you will) with familial ties to Surat, was no different. For him, fasting days were an excuse to feast on sabudana khichdi, rajgira (amaranth) puris, ghee-laced chunks of suran (elephant foot yam) and dahi kela nu raitu (banana raita).

He couldn’t stand bland food and required each dish to have a fine balance of sweet, sour and spice. So, even a simple moraiyo — a porridge of barnyard millet — would be tempered with lots of cumin and ginger.

When my sister and I would abstain from salt for an annual, five-day fast in monsoon, colloquially called ‘aluna’, he’d ask my mother to make bhajiyas of moras bhaji since the sea purslane’s inherent salty taste would please our palates. Though this request was made on our behalf, he’d be the one relishing these fritters the most, his eyes glinting with joy.

My dada lived to eat and cherished every meal. He’d place a teapoy by the window, adjust his chair to face it and eat mindfully, without watching television or any other distraction. It’s a habit my sister and I have cultivated too.

Celebrating his birthday on September 2, 1989.

If he enjoyed the act of eating solo, he loved sharing food and feeding others in equal measure. His mental map of Mumbai was dotted with restaurants and food stores as landmarks that came to his rescue on any occasion or outing.

No visit to our family doctor in Andheri West was complete without bringing home mawa cakes and chocolate rolls from Merwans Cake Shop. On Janmashtami eve, he would accompany my father’s friends to Dadar flower market to pick up fist-sized batata vadas from the iconic Maharashtrian eatery, Mama Kane’s. If he sniffed a new food store opening in Vile Parle, he’d be among the first to queue up and parcel fare for us to try.

I never saw my grandfather cook but he pampered me by waking up before dawn and making kadak cha as I studied for Class 10 exams. Used to this habit, I still can’t get myself to make tea every morning. If I do, I tip in an extra spoonful of tea leaves so that it resembles the cider hue of his cha.
She Said Goodbye (Part One)
By: Yaman Nimer
Tags: Love, Poem, Life, Breakups, Poetry

She said goodbye

and then everything began to float

cars, buildings, trees,

litter and fiery leaves,

hovered three inches off the ground

in the late afternoon sun.

And just like that,

nothing felt real anymore.
Closed Heart, Open Heart
By: Carolyn Swiszcz
Tags: Vulnerability, Emotions, Loving Kindness, Valentines Day, Comics

I’m a painter-printmaker and creator of Zebra Cat Zebra, a zine delivered by mail every other month. Six Issues for $24. Subscribe at www.carolynswiszcz.com

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How to buy POWR a.k.a Power Ledger
By: Vaz Reddy
Tags: Bitcoin, How To Buy Power Ledger, Ethereum, How To Buy Powr, Power Ledger

How to buy POWR a.k.a Power Ledger

Comprehensive guide on understanding what is Power Ledger, purpose and how to buy POWR coin from Binance.

An Introduction to Power ledger

I think it’s important to understand at least the very basics of what you’re purchasing, so this and all future articles will include a short introduction to get you started.

Power Ledger (POWR) Platform forms peer-to-peer energy transactions by recording both the generation and consumption of all platform participants in real time. Energy generation and use are transacted at predetermined rates.

Let’s get started

To begin with, we need to buy either Bitcoin or Ethereum to buy any Cryptocurrency on exchanges. So follow the link below to buy Ethereum on Coinbase and then follow the next steps to buy POWR on Binance. If you already have Ethereum with you — you can skip this step and go on to Binance registration.

Follow this step by step guide to buy Ethereum

Ethereum, a revolutionary platform on which more than 70% of coins are built. We explain here how to buy Ethereum…hackernoon.com

POWR can be bought with Bitcoin too — just that it takes more time to transfer to another exchange, I am suggesting to go with Ethereum as it takes only few minutes.

Register on Binance

Binance is a cryptocurrency exchange with relatively less transaction fees and been faring good so far without any issues and good support response. There are two options for trading platforms on Binance: Basic and Advanced. I’ll be primarily covering the Basic trading option in this article, but you can check out the Advanced view below. There are not many differences between the two views with the exception of being able to do more detailed technical analysis in the Advanced view.

Deposit your Ethereum to Binance

Once you’ve registered on Binance and logged in, you can see few menu items on top right corner. One of the is “Funds” which has a sub menu item named “Deposits Withdrawals”. This is the place where you can see all your coins(purchased on Binance and received from other addresses).

So in order to send Ethereum which we bought on Coinbase or Gemini to Binance, we need to have an Ethereum address — we can find this on this page.

Check out the following screenshots to learn how to deposit Ethereum to Binance from Coinbase
All About RSA Encryption Technique in Cryptography
By: Harshit Dawar
Tags: Cryptography, Security, Encryption, Decryption, Cipher

All About RSA Encryption Technique in Cryptography

This blog aims to explain the very famous encryption technique i.e. RSA, by covering every related topic like asymmetric encryption, block cipher, public key & private key.

Everyone is concerned about security today because, in this digital world, where everything is online, chances of fraud are very much high. That is why everyone is concerned about security. Most of the organizations today, provide specialist security jobs because they want the utmost security for their data.

In order to learn advanced security concepts, everyone should be familiar with basic cryptography algorithms, & RSA is one of that.

Brief about Asymmetric Encryption!

It is an encryption technique that involves 2 keys, one public & one private. In asymmetric encryption public key is available to everyone, but the private key is available to only the person/machine which has to decode the message. Since 2 keys are used in asymmetric encryption, that is why it is considered to be a stronger encryption technique as compared to symmetric encryption where only 1 public key is used for both encryption & decryption.

Brief about Block Cipher!

The cryptography algorithms which works on block cipher for encryption & decryption, they encrypt & decrypt the message in blocks, i.e. every block is encrypted separately, that is why it is hard to crack block ciphers as compared to stream ciphers.

RSA 😍

It is developed in 1977 by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, & Leonard Adleman. The name RSA was coined by taking the initials of the surnames of its developers.

It is an encryption algorithm that works on a block cipher.

It is an asymmetric encryption algorithm.

It involves Euler Totient Function & Fermat’s theorem to encrypt the text. If you are not aware of these terms, please refer to my blog on each of these topics by visiting the links mentioned below.

I will explain this algorithm in 3 steps:

Key Generation Encryption Decryption

Key Generation

In this step, 2 keys (1 public & 1 private) are generated & then they are used to encrypt & decrypt the messages respectively.

First of all, to generate the keys, we need to select 2 prime numbers, let’s say they are “p” & “q”. Now, we get a number let’s say “n” = p * q.

Furthermore, the Euler totient function has to be calculated which is:

phi(n) = (p - 1) * (q - 1)

Now, we have to select one number let’s say “k” such that, gcd(k, phi(n)) = 1, & 1 < k < phi(n).

At last, one more number let’s say “v” has to be calculated such that:

(V * k)mod(phi(n)) = 1 or (V * k) % phi(n) = 1

Now, we have calculated all the required parameters for the public & private keys. Only the key formation is left now, & that too is explained below.

Public Key: {k, n} <- It is used for encryption

Private Key: {V, n} <- It is used for decryption

Key Generation is completed now.
Introducing inclusive beauty searches for mobile
By: Pinterest Engineering
Tags: Pinterest, Diversity In Tech, Inclusive Design, Inclusive Innovation, Diversity And Inclusion

By Yanis Markin | Product Designer, Discovery

This week, we’re announcing skin tone ranges is coming to iOS (followed by Android) so Pinners can discover relevant hair and makeup ideas. Over the coming weeks, when Pinners search for beauty ideas on their iPhone or iPad app, a palette representing a range of skin tones will appear. The palette enables them to personalized Pins and videos they see.

By combining the latest in machine learning and inclusive product development, we’re able to directly respond to Pinner feedback and build a more useful product.

Last year, nearly 60% of the top 100 search terms for skin-related searches involved a tone, such as dark skin, pale skin, and olive skin, which showed us women of all skin types wanted a way to customize their searches.

Keep an eye out for a deeper look at the design process behind the product.

Acknowledgements: Emma Herold, Lulu Cheng, Long Cheng, Yixue Li, Larkin Brown, Candice Morgan, Xixia Wang, and Laksh Bhasin.
Criptomoedas são soluções para os desbancarizados
By: Sean O'Donoghue Morgan
Tags: Bitcoin, Português, Criptomoeda, Portuguese, Criptomonedas

in In Fitness And In Health
How I’d Learn Data Science if I Could Start Over (2 years in)
By: Terence Shin
Tags: Data Science, Machine Learning, Education, Work, Statistics

2. Programming Fundamentals

Just as having a fundamental understanding of math and stats is important, having a fundamental understanding of programming will make your life much easier, especially when it comes to implementation. Therefore, I recommend that you take the time to learn basic SQL and Python before diving into machine learning algorithms.

a. SQL

It’s entirely up to you whether you want to learn Python or SQL first, but if you were to ask me, I’d start with SQL. Why? It’s easier to learn and it’s useful to know if you work for a company that works with data, EVEN if you’re not a data scientist.

If you’re completely new to SQL, I recommend going through Mode’s SQL tutorials, as it’s very succinct and thorough. If you want to learn more advanced concepts, I would check out my list of resources where you can learn advanced SQL.

More importantly, below are a handful of resources that you can use to practice SQL.

b. Python

I started with Python, and I’ll probably stick with Python for the rest of my life. It’s so far ahead in terms of open source contributions, and it’s straightforward to learn. Feel free to go with R if you want, but I have no opinions or advice to provide regarding R.

Personally, I found that learning Python by ‘doing’ is much more helpful. That being said, after going through several Python crash courses, I found this one to be the most comprehensive (and it’s free!).

c. Pandas

Arguably the most important library to know in Python is Pandas, which is specifically meant for data manipulation and analysis.

Below are two resources that should ramp you up pretty quickly. The first link is a tutorial on how to use Pandas and the second link provides dozens and dozens of practice problems that you can use to solidify your learnings!
Three Functions to Know in Python
By: Luay Matalka
Tags: Programming, Data Science, Software Development, Technology, Machine Learning

We first need access to the lowercase alphabet. We can either write out a string with all the lowercase letters, or we can use the string module as follows:

abc = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz' or import string abc = string.ascii_lowercase print(abc)

# 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'

Then, we can write our encrypt function as follows:

def encrypt(msg, n):

return ''.join(map(lambda x:abc[(abc.index(x)+n)%26] if x in abc else x, msg)) encrypt('how are you?',2) # 'jqy ctg aqw?'

We create the function encrypt with two parameters: the message we want to encrypt, msg, and the number of spaces n we want to shift the letters by. The iterable we pass in to the map function is the message, msg. The function we pass in to the map function will be a lambda function, which takes each element from the msg string, and if the element is a letter in the alphabet, it replaces it with the shifted letter depending on the n value we pass in. It does so by taking the current index of that letter in the alphabet, or abc.index(x), adds the n value to it, and then takes the modulus of that sum. The modulus operator is used to start back at the beginning of the alphabet if we get to the end (if abc.index(x)+n is a number greater than 25). In other words, if the original letter was z (which will have the index 25 in the abc string we created above), and the n value is 2, then (abc.index(x)+n)%26 will end up being 27%26, and that will yield a remainder of 1. Thus replacing the letter z with the letter of the index 1 in the alphabet, which is b.

map(lambda x:abc[(abc.index(x)+n)%26] if x in abc else x,msg)

Remember that the map function will return a map object. Thus, we can use the string method join, which takes in an iterable (which the map object is, since it is an iterator, and all iterators are iterable), and then joins it into a string. The function then returns this string.

To decrypt a message, we can use the following decrypt function (notice how we are subtract n from abc.index(x) instead of adding it):
Community Update — October. Dcrypt Community,
By: Jack Trunz
Tags: Cryptocurrency Investment, Trading, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Crypto

Dcrypt Community,

Since our official launch in the beginning of October, we’ve been working hard to add many new features and traders to Dcrypt, and we’d love to share our progress with you.

Growth

• 200+ new traders

• 1,000+ trades placed

• $100,000+ invested

Features

• Bitmex Advanced Analytics — We now provide data that can’t be found anywhere else. Traders can track information like volume/session profile, volatility, open interest and buy / sell volume.

• Chat — Dcrypt has added chat so you can share ideas with some of the most successful investors in the space.

• Trading Competitions — We’ve built live leaderboards to track PnL and positions for traders interested in making some extra cash

Partnerships

• We partnered with the Frontier Research Group to offer a trading competition to members of both platforms. The competition is for Bitmex Futures trading and will take place over two weeks, with the trader with the highest ROE winning $1,000.

Going Forward

Over next month, we plan to push the second set of futures analytics, as well as extended exchange support for portfolio management.

We are very excited for the things to come and will keep the community updated on how everything progresses. If you have something you would like to see on the Dcrypt platform or have general comments/concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out at jack.trunz@dcrypt.io

I wish our users and the crypto community the best of luck in the next coming months.
Bit Hacks: Find if a Number Is a Power of Two Without Math Function or Log Function
By: Maroun Maroun
Tags: Bitwise, Algorithms, Bit

Problem: Given a positive integer, write a code to find if it is a power of two or not.

“A number is a power of two” means that it can be written as 2^x where x is an integer. For example:

8 is a power of two = 2³

a power of two = 2³ 12 is not a power of two since there exists no x such that 2^x = 8

a power of two since there exists no x such that 2^x = 8 32 is a power of two = 2⁵

Image by Matt Artz on Unsplash

The immediate solution: Take the log of the given number on base 2 and if you get an integer then the number is the power of two.

Another solution: Keep dividing the number by 2, in any iteration, if n%2 becomes !=0, and n is not 1 then the number is not a power of 2. If n becomes 1 then it is a power of 2. Example:

8 / 2 = 4 => 4 / 2 = 2 => 2 / 2 = 1

= 4 => 4 = 2 => 2 = 12 / 2 = 6 => 6 / 2 = 3 => 3 / 2 = 1.5

= 6 => 6 = 3 => 3 = 32 / 2 = 16 => 16 / 2 = 8 => 8 / 2 = 4 => 4 / 2 = 2 => 2 / 2 = 1

The above solutions work just fine, but what if we want to achieve a solution using bitwise operators only? There are many possible solutions as well. In this post, we’ll focus on two of them.
Recently the NowJersey Digital Magazine crew made a trek… nay..
By: Mike Decastro
Tags: Nature, Newjersey, Family, Sunflower, Holisitc

Our hope is that we were able to capture even a slight bit of the magic, on film. We worked hard trying to film the right shots, angels & moments, that would convey what we were experiencing. If the sunflower clips in our video ‘This Is Our Garden..’, or this article, inspires anyone to get outside and get to the middle of a sunflower field.. or even better, to plant your own, large or small; then we’ve accomplished everything we hoped for in our visit to a NJ sunflower field.

For more articles spotlighting New Jersey gems, please check out NowJersey on Medium.com

NowJersey is New Jersey, curated. Please do follow us on Facebook & Twitter for curated NJ scoop. And on Instagram for beautiful photos of the Garden State from some of NJ’s best photographers, as well as some serious foodie pics!

We are passionate about life in New Jersey. If you love New Jersey, ‘like’ us!
Bankrupt!
By: Ruks Moreea
Tags: Finance, Debt, Change, Bankruptcy, Poetry

The Charging Bull and Fearless Girl square off in New York City’s financial district. Source: npr.org

Bankrupt. Does the word mean “When banks corrupt us?”

Banks tempt us into living beyond our means with cheap loans and potentially with negative interest rates in an attempt to spend our ways out of recession.

What happens in an economic downturn is that people default or are unable to pay their loans … go bankrupt.

Can we look up to some Financial Messiah to save us or can we save ourselves from worse turmoils?

Can financial institutions act in a more holistic manner, not Robin Hood-style but more to financially empower?

Perhaps financially naive and totally utopian, but changes around us stimulates thoughts of rippling changes

From Politics

To Economics
A Head is Just A Head
Tags: Comics, Humor, Self Love, Cartoon, Politics

Written by

Almost famous cartoonist who laughs at her own jokes and hopes you will, too.
El futuro de una Internet vigilada y menos segura
By: Lautaro N. Rubbi
Tags: Internet, International Relations, Technology News, Technology Trends, Technology

Ph.D. and MG. in International Relations. Expert in International Security and War. Special interests in new technologies, productivity, and philosophy.

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UI/UX Design: The 3 Massive Pitfalls of Framer
By: Nick Lawrence
Tags: Ui Ux Design

Overview

The first time I saw Framer in action, I legitimately thought that I had seen the future. This was it. The coup de grâce. The deathblow to all the BS that we’ve sustained as designers and developers alike.

Finally, a tool that would help us bridge the gap and create a better workflow for everyone, across teams, and across the des/dev barriers.

Little did I know that, much like Macaw and their Alchemy engine (which was bought up by Webflow for use in their product), Framer still has a long way to go before becoming the industry standard.

In this article, we’re covering the top three pitfalls of Framer that you and your team should know about before ever touching it.
Gedung Joeang 45
By: Yacob Wijaya
Tags: Dki Jakarta, Museum, Jakarta Pusat, Revolusi

in In Fitness And In Health
#waityourturn or Get to the Back of the Vaccine Queue
By: Robert Turner
Tags: Covid 19, Profiteering, America, Healthcare, Vaccines

#waityourturn or Get to the Back of the Vaccine Queue

Money, wealth, and influence don’t increase the value of your life

Image/Covid Vaccine/Associated Press

It had to happen, it was unavoidable and it is currently unfolding under the noses of the American authorities. How they react will be telling.

CNN reports today how wealthy Californians are trying and succeeding to jump the vaccine queue, using their wealth and influence to buy immunity. The vaccine is a valuable limited commodity that enjoys a global demand. This was always going to be a problem. How America deals with it is going to be telling.

What your wealth doesn’t get you

First of all, let’s establish a few facts. Your wealth, influence, and reach don’t increase the value of your life. In fact, if we are going to start using weighted scales to determine distribution, you, my entitled friend, are at the end of the queue.

You don’t need the vaccine immediately and here’s why.

You have unlimited access to the best healthcare money can buy.

You are capable of surviving almost unscathed throughout the duration of the pandemic, both financially and health-wise.

You are not (health issues aside) in one of the groups that Covid has mercilessly targeted over the last few months. If you were, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

You are not economically or socially disadvantaged.

In fact, the very thought that you feel entitled somehow to bypass frontline healthcare and at-risk populations for the vaccine makes me sick to my stomach.

A suitable and appropriate response, in my opinion, would be to confiscate your assets and to redistribute them to the millions of Americans who are starving and facing eviction.

Sadly, I know – and although this is conjecture on my part, I would stake my few remaining hairs on it – that you aren’t alone. Foreign governments are probably engaging American officials with very similar requests as I write this.

Those with influence over the vaccine supply chain and very few morals must be rubbing their hands in anticipation of the financial windfall. Millions paid to get bumped up in the queue, boxes of vaccines being diverted to mysterious addresses and fortunes being made, literally overnight. All the while, Americans on the frontline die. The old and the at-risk die.

President-elect Joe Biden is a few weeks away from taking office and he is well acquainted with the military. We are at war, make no mistake, and profiteering from the spoils is a very serious offense.

I am certain Democrats will view this in the same light.

In the meanwhile, stop what you are doing. #waityourturn. If not, there will be consequences, and if you think you can avoid criminal sanctions, try and protect yourself from us, from the reach of social media.

You will be named. You will be shamed.
How To Stop Being A Moody
By: Darshak Rana
Tags: Self, Advice, Spiritual Secrets, Life Lessons, Self Improvement

“We are governed by our moods; should be the other way around.”― Haresh Sippy

Moods play a major part in our lives. They govern our emotions, feelings, and actions. And if they are not managed well, they can wreak havoc and chaos in our lives and relationships.

“Moods are psychological states that can occur in the form of a reaction to an event without any explainable external cause.”

To be able to control moods, we must first understand them.

Most of us are not able to understand moods because they misunderstand it for emotions. But they are different. Moods, unlike emotions, are less specific, less intense, and less likely to be initiated by a possible cause. While emotions (happy or sad) are mostly triggered by a person, event, or thoughts.

Besides, the mood is a product of two dimensions: energy and tension. One can be energetic or tired while being calm or tensed. Moreover, one feels best when one is in a calm-energy mood and worst when in a tensed-tired state. When low energy arousal is coupled with tension, one experiences a bad mood.

“You have to learn how to stay in a good mood as you overthrow the sour, puckered hallucination that is mistakenly referred to as reality.”-Rob Brezsny

Hence, we must know the art of controlling our moods, so that they don’t ruin our personal and professional life.

So, let’s get started.
Do FACTS and LOGIC Really DESTROY Anything?
By: Wabi Sabi
Tags: Rationality, Lived Experience, Politics, Philosophy, Nietzsche

I saw an interesting thing recently. A tweet from someone I don’t follow came up in my timeline, arguing that logic wasn’t ‘helpful to the complexity of lived experience’.

I think that’s true often enough to make it a worthwhile observation. But the mysterious tweeter went further and claimed that logic is essentially flawed. They set out to show this by using apparently strict logic to justify a bad conclusion:

Reason tells you that (1) it’s better not to suffer than to suffer, (2) the living suffer more than the dead, ergo (3) it’s better to be dead than alive.

The point seems to be that FACTS and LOGIC aren’t the right tools for evaluating the worth and functionality of a life.

I think logic isn’t the right tool for deciding whether life’s worth living or not, or for making basically any other important life decision, but not because it’s flawed. The problem with logic is that it’s flawless, and everyday life isn’t.

The chain of reasoning above is flawed not because logic’s flawed, but because the chain isn’t properly logical. Logic is just a tool for taking incoming data and using it to spit out more data. The tool is perfect in itself — once you’ve agreed on how many “2” is and how many “4” is you can’t argue with the statement that 2+2=4. But when you’re dealing with anything less abstract than mathematics the quality of your conclusions depends on the quality of your data. The input affects the output.

So if you went up to Carl, the Friendly Logical Robot, and said ‘Suffering is bad, the dead don’t suffer and living people never experience anything but meaningless, overwhelmingly agonising suffering — is it better to be alive or dead?’, then he might give you something like the chain of reasoning above. His conclusion would be wrong, but only because you gave him the wrong data. You left out all the beauty, meaning and happiness we can feel, aspire to and inspire in others, often without especially setting out to.

But say you said ‘Suffering is bad, living things suffer, dead ones don’t, but there’s more to life than suffering — now, is it better to be alive or dead?’

Here’s how Carl might respond:

(1) It’s better not to suffer than to suffer,

(2) The living suffer more than the dead,

(3) Therefore the dead have one advantage over the living,

(4) But there’s more to life than suffering,

(5) I haven’t been told whether any of this “more” stuff is good enough to outweigh the painful stuff,

(6) Therefore I can’t say whether death or life is better because my information is incomplete.

This is why no-one likes Carl.
Meet my 8-year old Economics Professor
By: Roshan Daryanani
Tags: Life Lessons, Children, Challenge, Effort, Fulfillment

Over the course of my time as a Maths tutor, I’ve noticed that primary school students shy away from money problems (to be fair, we all run away from money problems in real life, but that’s another story).

Young children in particular seem to dislike questions that involve working out total cost and calculating change.

In a recent lesson I was teaching on this topic, the student in question was a little girl we’ll call Olivia. Exhausted by the prospect of another ‘Jimmy buys two candy bars and a packet of chips’ question, she sighed and said:

“I wish everything was free.”

Welcome to the club, sister.

But then — get this — she thoughtfully added:

“No, actually then everything would get sold out really quickly. And there wouldn’t be anything left.”

Woah! She was both making Adam Smith proud and bringing up a really good point.
Bias & Variance in Machine Learning
By: Harshit Dawar
Tags: Bias, Variance, Machine Lear, Deep Learning, Data Scienc

Bias & Variance in Machine Learning

This blog aims to explain the fundamentals of Machine Learning, which are Bias & Variance. These are the terms whose understanding is very much important for future learning in this field because everything in the machine learning field depends on this only.

I am pretty much sure, that most of you guys might have heard about these terms, but you are confused in these terms as they are also available in multiple other fields like statistics.

How these terms are different in Machine Learning & what is their role in Machine Learning? If you have these questions, or even if you have not heard these terms at all, don’t worry, this blog will guide you to the exact meaning of these terms with practical & diagrammatic explanation.

Introduction to Bias & Variance!

Both of these terms are elaborated in the general visualization of a graph. Let’s take an example of a very easy Machine Learning algorithm i.e. Linear Regression, whenever a graph of Linear Regression is plotted, both of these terms Bias & Variance are observed, & depending on them the general ability of the Model to predict in future is identified.

Both of the terms are opposite to each other generally, it might be possible that many of you have tried to understand these terms, but you might feel that they are confusing or difficult. You need not worry, this blog will clear all doubts regarding this topic & will explain them in isolation, rather than explaining both of them in one go.

Both of the terms are explained below individually with graphical representation.

Bias

It is a term which refers to the extent of the model of predicting much far away than the actual value.

For example, let’s say the actual value for a quantity is 100, but the model predicts it to be 35. It is clear that the model does not learn the patterns from the data, & that is why it is not able to predict the correct value(not even closer to the correct value).

Because of the inability of the model to capture the patterns in the data, it predicts much far away from the actual value. This behaviour arises due to a very large bias. This is the exact meaning of the Underfitting of the Model. Therefore, by understanding Bias in depth, it is clearly depicted that if Bias is very high, than there will be underfitting.

A graphical representation of high bias is shown below:
My Joomla Is Infected with Malware — Git to the rescue!
By: Zoran Antolović
Tags: Malware, Git, Joomla, Web Development

Joomla and almost every other open source CMS are very vulnerable, not because they are bad in their core, but because users mostly don’t care about updates and security issues.

chmod everything to 777, use pirated components from torrents and everything is just fine. After few months or years, the party will start.

TL;DR: Using git status you can easily detect changed files and, therefore, you can find what files are created by malware script.

SPAM mail example

Few days ago a friend called and asked about one site that I created back in 2013 — it was full of different malware scripts and mail queue was always full with a lot of SPAM email that used their infrastructure to distribute. Even in the root directory, there was a directory called ‘anal-xs4s’ and it was full of different malware PHP scripts.

Joomla was up to date but components weren’t and someone was able to infect server.

Ideally, the best solution would be to export articles and pages, burn everything with fire and reinstall it again. Unfortunately for me, this wasn’t possible.

I wish I used Git back then…

I was thinking about tricks and solutions I can pull on this and I got an idea — “Hey, I can just use Git to check what files are changed and just reset them!” — Great idea, if you have used Git earlier. I could just do git status and list files that are changed (i.e. infected) and rollback them.

Malware cleanup

Since I couldn’t just git init infected site, I had to clean project first. There are several steps I used, maybe you can find them useful:

Do an antivirus scan to identify infected files with known malware. We got dozens of files with .suspected extension and delete them. Analyze one of the infected files — decode base64 obfuscated code and figure out what Mr. Bad Guy wants to do. Using grep try to identify similarly infected files using keywords base64 and eval - it will take some time to analyze and find what really is infected and what is misused. Disable known dangerous functions such as eval Once when project is clean, initialize git repo with git init Monitor changes with git status and stay safe.

Additionally, you have to fix directory and files permissions — 644 for files and 755 for directories. Also, uninstall all modules and components you aren’t really using.

Do you have your own method for malware cleanup? Let me know!
Remote ESY for disabled students can only mean one thing
By: Laura J. Murphy
Tags: Parenting, Childcare, Covid-19, Blog, Education

Restaurants, retail, and salons are opening. Daycares, summer camps, and local youth sports are also starting.

But not essential programs for children like mine — no extended school year, no social skills groups, or ABA therapy in a center. Thus, no reprieve for special needs parents lucky enough to work from home through a pandemic.

I don’t feel lucky at all. I feel overwhelmed and busier than I have ever been in my entire life as I struggle to take on the jobs of remote working, remote learning, remote therapies, and then all of the other things like maintaining a home, preparing meals, with no time left to manage my own self-care or mental health. The kids are fighting, crying, and angry that they can’t go anywhere or socialize. And I find myself struggling to keep it together as I am running on empty.

No respite.

No time to catch my breath.

Photo Credit: Photo by Gajendra Bhati Pexels, Free to use

We are stuck in remote limbo, where typical families get what they need while we get left behind. My children sit on screens so I can work and we are all miserable. And I wonder if these kids will be reprimanded for their behaviors as they struggle to adjust to a new normal when we resume what's left of our old lives. Will there be lenience to progress forward after taking several steps back this year?

And I wonder about the parents who have to report back to work without childcare. Those that will lose their jobs now, or in 12 weeks when their FMLA runs out because their child can’t function in a daycare setting or they can’t afford to pay sitters $15 per hour.

I wonder about those like us that do not have help and why nobody is talking about this.

I even wonder about those that missed the summer camp registrations because we were on the stay at home orders.

And now suddenly we are not.

Since the economy needs to open, all of the places that churn an income and trickle tax dollars into the wheels of commerce are “safe.”

But not public schools.

We don’t know when they can be open. They predict that students may need to go for half the day or partial weeks, embrace staggered schedules and alternate attendance almost three months from now.

But let’s talk about the elephant in the room for a second — that school is childcare for a lot of us. Teachers are not babysitters but the structured social experience of going to school is what enables many of us to work. If school is not in session full time by the Fall, or at all — then many parents cannot work outside of the home full time. Or even right now.

So why is everything opening, but not public school programming this summer? Is it because they take away from rather than contribute to recovering economic stimulation?

If it isn’t safe for schools, how is it safe for camps and daycares? Parks and waterparks? Casinos and gatherings?

Not providing ESY or public school programming for disabled students this summer can only mean one of two things — that those students don’t matter or that it isn’t truly safe to open yet.
If We Can Get Through This, We Can Get Through Anything
By: Vincent Van Patten
Tags: Love, Life Lessons, Inspiration, Growth, Life

My eyes scanned from bottle to bottle, row to row. Should I go Scottish, American, or Japanese?

“Ah bourbon, the cure for what ails me,” I looked to the left at the gentleman in the same position as I and gave a subtle laugh at his remark. He looked over and gave a brief nod and a crack of a smile beneath his mask.

I could notice by the way his eyes changed.

He picked up a bottle of caramel brown liquid and ambled off, content with his decision and the promise of an evening burn.

Trader Joe’s was bustling with holiday cheer; I don’t know how else to put it. Shopping carts donned evergreen wreaths and shoppers had a skip in their step. I was even the proud recipient of a witty comment in the whisky aisle.

It’s been ten months since March when the official lock-down began. Each season has felt like a period to overcome on its own — but we’ve done it, and we’ll continue to move forward.

We’ll do it by staying at peace as much as we can, going out of our way to help others who need it, and living to spread our unyielding light. While many of us are hurting, there is always a reason to be grateful.

We’re alive. We’ve made it this far. We’ve come together as communities, as nations, as a planet. We can only go up from here.
マスクをつけるということ. だれのために。なんのために。
Tags: 気になること, 日記

in In Fitness And In Health
Plan(t)s
By: Tania Braukamper
Tags: Poem, Gardening, Plans, Life, Poetry

The little plants we couldn’t keep

Alive, the plans we couldn’t meet

That I’ve been nurturing instead

But find I’m clutching wilted, dead

In sad forms to my chest —

Bury them like little stars

That sting a dirty sky, and marred

With fallen spines the ground will cry

For cacti

And our lost designs
All about Covariance in Data Science
By: Harshit Dawar
Tags: Data Science, Feature Engineering, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Correlation

Data Science is a very hot topic at present. Most of the pursuing students are selecting this field as their profession, in addition to that, many corporate guys are also shifting towards this technology by seeing the scope of this field.

Since Data Science is very much famous & a hot topic, that is why it is attracting most people which is an amazing thing, but in contrary to that, most of the guys, when they start learning in this field, they have a feeling to learn it as soon as possible. But, Data Science is a very much vast field, it can be considered as an ocean of different concepts which has to be understood clearly in order to excel in this field.

The major problem with most of the people is that they do not try to understand the concepts, & as a consequence of this most of the concepts are missed in the field like Data Science, moreover the concepts which are learned, are also not properly understood.

Because of this learning approach, most of the people remember to find the correlation while doing the Feature Selection, but they didn’t even know where Feature Selection lies in Data Science Pipeline. In addition to that, while finding the correlation, various techniques are a must learn, so that one could understand why a particular technique is applied at the moment? why not others? What is the drawback of the other techniques?

This blog will cover everything related to the Covariance from its internal working to significance to its use-cases.

An In-Depth Introduction to Covariance!

Covariance is an integral technique to find the correlation between the features of a dataset. Covariance is actually a Feature Selection technique that is in turn a part of Feature Engineering.

Correlation

It signifies the similarities between the features, or it can be understood as the dependency between the features. For example, consider 2 features let’s say employee salary & experience. Then in general, as the experience increases, salary increases. This is the correlation between these 2 features i.e. with the increase in one feature, the second feature is increasing.

There can be 3 types of correlations between two features:

With the increase in one feature value, another feature value is also increasing(positive correlation). With the increase in one feature value, another feature value is decreasing(negative correlation). With the increase in the value of one feature, there is no change in the value of the second feature(zero correlation).

All of the above-listed correlations can be found out by the Covariance technique. Now, let’s just understand how does it work.
BNS IEO on KuCoin ‘Spotlight’
Tags: Bitbns, Cryptocurrency, Kucoin

Dear users,

Get ready for the BNS token IEO being conducted over Spotlight — a dedicated platform by KuCoin that supports budding cryptocurrencies. More details will be released soon.

BNS token was announced last year and the pre-public sale rounds already concluded with an overwhelming response. The IEO on KuCoin Spotlight is going to be the first IEO for BNS.

Investment thoughts? Read more about BNS here:

Official Website: https://bitbns.com/

BNS Token Website: https://bitbns.com/bns

Whitepaper: (Click to view): https://bitbns.com/bns/whitepaper%201.3.pdf

Disclaimer: Spotlight is a high-risk investment channel. Investors should be sensible in their participation and be aware of investment risks. KuCoin is not liable for user’s investment gains or losses. The information we provide is for users to conduct their own research. It is not investment advice. KuCoin reserves the right of final interpretation of the activity.