fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Egypt’s Bassem Sabry dies
By: Afeef Nessouli
Tags: Politics, Culture, Egypt, Law, Religion

Bassem Sabry, respected by the entire political spectrum in Egypt’s revolution has died in an accident. Based in Cairo, Sabry was a journalist and political strategist who rose to prominence during the Revolution in 2011. He achieved respect for his on-point analysis of regional politics for several outlets both Egyptian and international. For instance, al-Monitor, Huffington Post and the Guardian frequently cited him. His actual cause of death is still unknown, but outcries of emotion over social media reveal that Bassem will be missed. Read more at The Guardian. Also watch the HuffPost Live homage by Ahmed Shihab-Eldin of Bassem Sabry.
¶ Vol. VI Collage
By: Alejandro Mos Riera
Tags: Alejandro Mos Riera, Art, Collage, Digital Art, Digital Collage

¶ Vol. VI Collage

I dream of you in colors that don’t exist.
Network Engineers : A Community of Experts
By: Mom Foundation
Tags: Software Engineering, Cybersecurity, Engineering, Network Security, Community

Multiven provides its worldwide customers its collaborative platform called Pingsta.This solution allows network engineers to be remunerated for tasks performed at the request of Multiven’s customers, but also to share their expertise to help make the Internet more secure and efficient.

Multiven customers have access to a passionate community of experts.

Pingsta was founded in 2007 in Palo Alto, California, USA, by Multiven CEO Peter Alfred-Adekeye. It is a collaborative, community-based solution with more than 1,200 experts in 55 countries around the world, with an average of 20 years of experience.

Thanks to their expertise, some members of the community take charge, in exchange for a remuneration, of the tasks in support of Multiven’s customers via their dedicated dashboard. The « pay per task » mechanism allows members to earn $ 100 per support task or per hour, for consulting work. So far, the most a Pingsta engineer has earned in a year is $245,000.

« Through Pingsta, we offer a service of quality at competitive prices. That aims to enable our customers to improve the security of their networks and their solutions. » Said Peter Alfred Adekeye, CEO of Multiven.

Pingsta: Decisions affecting the future of the Internet

Pingsta also allows its members to extend their intellectual heritage by contributing to mySolvr, the open knowledge base specialized in Internet engineering. For experts, this represents a real opportunity to transmit their passion and participate in the security and reliability of the Internet network, which benefits all its users.

The community is composed of several experts in the world of Internet engineering who contribute to mySolvr, such as Dr Lawrence Roberts, MIT Doctorate and designer of the Arpanet network, the precursor of the Internet; John Nagle, inventor of the Nagle algorithm, which improves the functioning of the TCP / IP protocol governing all communication rules on the Internet.

Pingsta membership is by invitation only and its members are directly connected to each other. Being part of the community allows them to participate in discussions that will impact the future of the Internet.

Source

Originally posted on : www.multiven.net
Check In On Your Reading Goals
By: Samantha Lazar
Tags: Reading, Books, Goals, Libraries, Samantha Lazar

I just rediscovered a list of books I planned to read. It’s time to get real. How far have I come, and how much do I have to read between now and December 31 at 11:59 PM?

Let’s take a look:

Out of that big pile of books, here is what I can say yes to:

How to Be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith. I go to this book often for writing ideas and creativity. It really isn’t a cover to cover read. I will count this one as a yes. It would have been better if I could have explored the world more in 2020. Covid. Sigh.

Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. I am not sure why I put this on my list. I read it several times a year for my job.

Love in the Time of Climate Change by Jenny Justice- beautiful beautiful!

Organic by Christina Ward- also beautiful, beautiful!

The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney. Yes, I read this. It is incredible and heart warming and heart wrenching. An excellent book for 4th-6th graders.

Mary Oliver: New and Selected Poems. Yes! but not the whole thing!
Could Halo Infinite’s Multiplayer Be Free-to-Play?
By: Wyatt Donigan
Tags: Gaming, Features, Xbox, Business, Videogames

Could Halo Infinite’s Multiplayer Be Free-to-Play?

A new leak points to Halo Infinite breaking the mold with a free-to-play multiplayer model

While 343 Industries has remained tight-lipped about Halo Infinite’s multiplayer component, a European online retailer looks to have let slip some major details about what that multiplayer might look like.

No, we still don’t have any gameplay or anything of the sort, but according to Smyths Toys website, Infinite will break new ground for not just the Halo franchise, but blockbuster multiplayer games in general. We have to take this with a grain of salt, of course, but on the Xbox Series X landing page of their website, it states that Halo Infinite will feature “a groundbreaking free-to-play multiplayer experience.”

Gasp!

Source: Microsoft.

We’ve seen plenty of free-to-play battle royale games come out over the last few years, but we’ve yet to see a major AAA title like Halo make their multiplayer — which is essentially half of the final product — completely free for everyone. Not only will this (if true) boost the hell out of sales for the Xbox Series X, but it could set an industry precedent that changes how we consume multiplayer games from here on out.

Let’s first look at the impact this will have on just the Series X alone. Releasing what is perhaps the biggest component of a Halo game (for a large number of people anyway) for free is insane. There are many people out there who haven’t touched a Halo campaign across the seven games released in the series since 2001, but have poured thousands of hours into the multiplayer. Halo multiplayer is one of the most beloved experiences of being an Xbox owner of every console generation. This game set the standard for what a great console shooter could be. Giving literally anyone who owns a Series X the ability to play this portion of the game to its fullest would be a major selling point for the new console.

Halo Infinite was already a huge selling point since it was going to be part of Game Pass Ultimate, allowing players to forgo spending the full $60 price tag on the game and gain access to it on launch as part of the $15/month subscription fee. But with this rumored method of delivering the multiplayer experience, Microsoft would be taking this a step further. Anyone looking to upgrade to the Series X with the intention of playing Infinite’s multiplayer would only have to focus on the console’s asking price and that’s it. No extra purchase needed to play their favorite game.

Again, insane.
Building a CSV and Excel Parser REST API in Golang using Gorilla Mux
By: Dinesh Sonachalam
Tags: Golang Tutorial, Golang, Docker, Rest Api

In this tutorial, we will learn how to build a CSV and Excel parser rest API using Gorilla mux router and Dockerize your Go application and push your docker image into a docker hub using Travis CI.

Prerequisites

You must have a working Go and Docker environment.

Basic familiarity with Go and Docker.

About the Application

The application is a simple REST API server that will parse CSV or Excel data and return JSON output.

Getting Dependencies

Before we start writing our application, we need to get some dependencies that we will use. We need to get the two following packages:

mux : The Gorilla Mux router.

: The Gorilla Mux router. xlsx : The XLSX is a library to simplify reading and writing the Excel files.

You can easily use go get to get it:

go get github.com/gorilla/mux

Now, let’s create the parser.go file which will contain the entry point for the application:

parser.go

Now you can run the application using go run parser.go and see our application in http://localhost:8000

parser.png

Dockerize our go application:

We are going to create a shell script called get.sh that installs all dependencies for our application to run.

get.sh

Now it’s time to create Dockerfile for our go application.

Dockerfile

Using Travis CI to push our application image to Docker hub

If you are familiar with Travis CI you can use the following settings for the built environment on the file which let us push our docker image to docker hub.

.travis.yml

If you are not familiar with it, I suggest starting reading the Getting Started section of both Travis CI. These tools are well documented and quite easy to understand and use.

Creating docker-compose file to run our application

Here we will be creating a simple docker-compose.yml file to run our Docker container services.

docker-compose.yml
But Only If We’re Brave Enough
By: Larry G. Maguire
Tags: Creativity, Society, Self, Work, Art

There’s comfort in the crowd. There is safety and familiarity. That’s why most people stick to what they know and are afraid to take a chance. To break the mould is dangerous and foolish.

What will I do for money? How will I support myself and my family? What if I fail? All of these are conditioned responses typical of people built to be pawns for someone else’s machine.

Better to remain on the inside, work your ass off for someone else and play it safe. Or you might decide that working hard is not worth it and instead become a slacker without motivation enough to scratch your own arse.

Either way, the end result is the same; a world filled with people who need to be shown the right way to live and work. People who cannot think for themselves, who are manipulated by men in red ties and the lure of bright shiny things. People who have forgotten, and need to be taught how to access their creativity.

The thin script that runs beneath all human activity, and most especially with regard to daily work, is born of fear — fear of being alone and isolated.

But that’s exactly what needs to be done if we are to be free.

We must be willing to walk the road alone. We must disobey the hidden authority that Freud called the Super-ego, that Lacan called Big Other, the one that dictates through society and its agents how we should live and work.

Erich Fromm, philosopher and psychologist said in 1960;

Obedience to the “authoritarian conscience,” like all obedience to outside thoughts and power, tends to debilitate “humanistic conscience,” the ability to be and judge oneself. In order to disobey, one must have the courage to be alone, to err, and to sin. Eirch Fromm | Psychologist

Authority is the enemy of the creative spirit and of the integrity of the individual self. As such, one of our primary role in life, not only as creative people but as human beings, is to go it alone, break the mould and follow the inner voice.

But only if we are brave enough to show disobedience to that authority.
The melding of computer science and economics
By: Mark Plutowski
Tags: Economics, Algorithmic Game Theory, Machine Learning, Decentralization, Game Theory

Why is this important?

Economics used to be done by writing. When I would meet with my dissertation adviser (the econometrician who penned the most-cited paper in economics since 1970) we only needed a notepad and two pens.

Economics is now practiced using supercomputers.

Economists do more than model reality. They have molded the world in which we live. New projects setting out to design economies that will shape our future are now commonplace. The creators of these new economies aim to build trusted systems that do not rely on governments or institutions.

What unintended consequences?

If we assume that people are going to act one way only to discover that they actually behave quite differently, it turns out that the price of being wrong can be surprisingly high. This is known as the price of anarchy. This is a concept in economics and game theory that measures how a system degrades due to selfish behavior of its participants.

Social dilemmas arise especially when the decision-making participant is the unit of human population we call The Person. The consequences of assuming that everyone should simply behave as a perfectly rational, omniscient, tireless, objective, self-interested agent can be quite dramatic. I delve into that setup more deeply in this article about how flawed economic models affect society:

Bring a problem, bring a solution.

Enough already, you say. There are too many alarmists, not enough people putting forth solutions. As it turns out there are solutions just waiting in the wings to address these issues.

One of them is cooperative economics:

Another tool is based on similar underpinnings and melded with computer science. It goes by algorithmic game theory.
You Can Do It Too
By: Taz Ahmed
Tags: Poetry

Salaams! We are back for another Ramadan. It is now the fifth year of our writing group, and it has grown to 55 Muslim-ish and Muslim adjacent folks. People have been resparked and slowly sharing their poetry and art. It has turned into quite the beautiful community space.

Though our writing group, which is facilitated through a Facebook group, is maxed out, I wanted to encourage everyone who’s always wanted to participate in Poetry-A-Day for Ramadan to make their own space. The rules we created for our group was created to create a safe space full of creativity for a community often targeted with violence and fear. Here are our rules, and maybe you can be inspired to start your own creative space.

1) write a poem (prose/paint) a day

2) If you feel like sharing, please post it either in this group, or a link to your blog/photo/site

3) At minimum share one piece a week in this group, four pieces total…

4) Please introduce yourself — if you don’t introduce yourself, even if you have been in this group before. You will be kicked out without an intro — you have until Day #7

5) If you want to add someone to the group, please talk to them first and let them know the rules. Then add them through FB — I’ll send them an email just to be sure they know the rules. And then I’ll approve the addition. Please understand that we are trying to create a safe and creative space of sharing, spirituality and inspiration. I’m closing additions to the group after Day #7.

6) If you want the piece to be published to https://medium.com/poetry-a-day-for-ramadan, tag me in the comment of your post.

As always, if you are writing a poem a day for Ramadan, please feel free to submit it this site for publication. You can also publish on your own site and share the link directly to me at Tazzystar [at] gmail.

May your fast be easy.
Let me be the last one
By: Tasneem Kagalwalla
Tags: Poetry, Relationships, Life, Birthday, Love

Let me be the last one

the last thought of today

let me be in this last moment

as the night gives way to another day

let me blow kisses into the wind

let them be your last red bouquet

let me whisper to the moon

let that be the last song you play

let me paint my heart in your sky

let it be your last gift on display

let me find the shiniest star

make the last wish of your day

Oh God I pray;

let me be the last one

to ever love you this way

and especially today

let me be the last one

the last one to say

Happy Birthday!
Life’s OST
Tags: Prevoid, Poetry, Poetry On Medium, Music

I began writing poetry in 2015 as a release. Only started to get it all out there in 2020. ’A man sound in mind knocks in vain at the doors of poetry.’ Enjoy.

Follow
down from the mountain (or a prefect day with her)
By: Nicholas Petrone
Tags: Otherdoors, Poetry, Music, Love, Festivals

yes, eventually back to the beginning stuff

but not today

today we stay on the blanket

and pull clouds over our faces

today we stay across the street from the mountains

up the road from the answer

downstream from a random Ukrainian neighborhood

centering around a neat little motel with a ping pong table

and lots of strange food

today we dance on our blanket in bare feet

unconcerned about going viral

in the worst possible way

today she drinks the bottle of chardonnay she smuggled in

like we are picnicking quietly in a secluded wood of humanity.
💣 📖💥 納瓦羅《美、中開戰的起點》劃重點 Walkthrough for Taiwanese in “Crouching Tiger : What China’s Militarism Means for the World” by Peter Navarro
By: Kyle Chu 微風捕手
Tags: War, USA, 中文, Taiwan, China

The Taiwan Employment Act

As the nation's defense contractors pleaded with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Tuesday against deeper budget cuts…
My Personal Philosophy of Education
By: Samantha Lazar
Tags: Teaching, Students, Education, Learning

EDUCATION

Photo by Patricia Prudente on Unsplash

I believe children learn best in a community of learners. I believe in supporting students as they learn to be independent thinkers. I think that a school can only truly excel when all people are committed to respecting each other with clear communication and integrity. I wish to work and thrive in a school that offers opportunities for professional growth, values creativity and collaboration, and models respect for the environment and community. I believe we are here on earth to be in the service of others. Being a teacher allows me to share my gifts with others and constantly learn from students and colleagues.

In a classroom of individuals, students have differing needs. I believe that success builds on self-confidence and positive risk-taking. Through all of my work experiences, I look for ways to reach and inspire all types of learners. Getting to really know students takes time and energy. I have taught many students with different learning needs. One of my professional goals is to continue to pursue ways to foster thinking, engagement, and connections in all students.

A program rich with opportunities to play, explore, discover, find meaning, and make connections makes for a great school experience. Children spend so much time at school. I think school should be a positive time that builds knowledge, encourages good character, and sparks a quest for awareness and connections that last a lifetime.
Typerium is Taking Over
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Bitcoin, Investing, Blockchain

Typerium has gone public and the response has been overwhelming. Check out our whitepaper to see why our supporters and ICO review sites are raving about us.

Even when Typerium was just a glint in our eyes, we knew that it was going to have a big impact. With less than two weeks until the pre-sale, we feel like proud parents with a child about to graduate from high school — a little nervous, but confident that we’ve brought it up properly and that it will blossom when it goes out into the world on its own.

Taking Typerium from the earliest ideas to its current state has been a lot of work. Coming up with plans, reviewing them, building a team, getting things under way and more, but it’s all starting to pay off. We only went live at the end of April, but we have already seen an amazing response.

We’ve been covered in places like Creative Bloq and reviewed on a number of ICO rating sites. ICO Detector has us at the top of their ranking and TrackICO has given us an 4.4 out of 5.

Of course, the critics aren’t the only ones who matter and we are tremendously grateful for the huge amount of support we’ve already built online. We have 19,000 members and counting on Telegram, with strong followings on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and our other social media channels. We have also had a number of thoughtful YouTube reviews, such as SkrillaKing’s review video.

The Typerium platform will provide solutions to a range of problems that creators and businesses face and we can’t wait to bring it into the world. The app will make it easy for everyday users to make beautiful designs and it will also allow them to protect their intellectual property. We will also be building a marketplace where people can buy and sell their work.

The Typerium Creative Marketplace will harness the Ethereum blockchain to provide a system of trust and reputation, as well as a fast, cheap and simple payment gateway. Eventually, the Typerium systems will also be available to third party retailers so that they can also take advantage of the benefits.

When Does Typerium Go On Sale?

The Typerium pre-sale will go from the 21st of May to the 25th of June, with the crowdsale from the 26th of June until the 23rd of July. In the pre-sale, 300,000,000 TYPE Tokens will be up for grabs, starting at 0.0135 Ethereum per 1000 TYPE Tokens. In the crowdsale a further 700,000,000 will be available. Sign up for the pre-sale.

We’re so excited about the token sale that we are giving away 40,000,000 TYPE Tokens in the lead up to it. The Bounty Rewards Program will have 30,000,000 TYPE Tokens on offer, while another 10,000,000 will be available through the Airdrop.

Support Typerium by signing up for the Bounty Rewards Program and sharing it with friends. Not only will you be part of a vibrant community, but you can also reap huge rewards. Typerium is here to change the world for creators, business people, supporters, and the world with our Charity Foundation.

Join now! Sign up to the pre-sale, and start accumulating points today.

#TYPEGANG
Waterfall
By: Heather Ann
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Poetry, Poem, Writing, Poems On Medium

Drifting down

In the river

I just stay

And let the water

Gently pull me away

Maybe I’ll approach

A waterfall

And coast

Down it like a slide

Or get swallowed

Up inside

And plunge

Into the water below

No way to stop

The freefall

And the drop

As I reach

The bottom

All is calm

Crystal clear water

Soothes me like a balm

The roar of

The waterfall seems

Like a distant sound

In the stillness

That’s all around

I climb out to

The grassy shore

And let the sun warm me

As I look at what’s to come

And what’s laid out before me

©HeatherAnn
What to do when you have excess zeros in the data!
By: Moumita Ghorai
Tags: Count Data, Regression, Statistics, Zero Inflation

What to do when you have excess zeros in the data!

When to use Zero inflated Poisson (ZIP) models and when not to use them

When the dependent variable is a count (a non-negative integer) variable, such as the number of items bought online, the number of children a couple has, etc., the Poisson model is used to predict the number of occurrences of the variable. It is the most basic count data model and assumes equality of conditional mean and variance. But this is a very strong assumption and often the data set is over-dispersed (the conditional mean and variance are not equal).

Over-dispersion can be caused by an excess number of zeros in the data. There are many real-world phenomena that almost never happen or are rare, and it produces a high zero count. For example, the number of accidents per day, the number of persons hospitalized, etc. These variables won’t fit into the Poisson models because of the unexpectedly high number of zeros in the model. In this case, a Poisson model will give us a biased result. Therefore, it is sometimes advised to use zero-inflated Poisson models that take these excess zeros into account to predict the numbers.

In this article, I am going to talk about why we should not use zero-inflated models just because there is an excess number of zeros.

What is a zero-inflated Poisson model?

Zero-inflated Poisson models assume there are two data generating processes. One set of zeros is regular zero that are generated by a Poisson distribution, and another set of zeros have zero probability of being more than zero. In other words, they are “Definite” zeros, and their observed value will always be zero given any situation. These excess zeros cause overdispersion in the data.

How should we proceed?

We are often tempted to use a zero-inflated model if the data contains more than the usual amount of zeros. But, before doing that, we have to keep a couple of things in mind:

How much is too much? Would you call 30% or 40% too many zeros? Well, that is your decision based on your theory and your data. Study the data carefully! A ZIP model is most suitable for a situation where there are two discrete populations. If your theory and common sense indicate that there is a possibility of “Definite” zeros, use a ZIP model. Otherwise, a basic Poisson model would suffice. We often feel that we need to use fancier models to get better results, but sometimes basic models do the trick!

To sum up —

While dealing with count data, first check for overdispersion. If there is overdispersion due to excess zeros, check to see if the zeros come from a separate data generating process. If the theory does not indicate that. There is no need to use a zero-inflated Poisson model. You may use the negative binomial regression model since it allows for overdispersion. Now the only question remains whether to use a zero-inflated negative binomial model, which is a special case of the negative binomial model. I would recommend Conducting both models and comparing the model fits indicated by AIC or BIC.
The Politics of Organized Religion
By: Leann Zotis
Tags: Church, Leaving Church, Religion And Politics, Organized Religion, Religion

The politics of organized religion is nothing new. Anyone who grew up under the influence of an orthodox, ultra-strict religious cloud knows this only too well — Think about opposition to effective birth control methods or the crazy concept that a chosen human leader might be “infallible.”



My own upbringing was never one of the orthodox extremes, but it was rigid nonetheless.



I knew at a tender age that my church did not align its thinking with my natural inclinations. But, I was raised in a tight knit, loving family who was very dedicated to regular church attendance and participation. My level of indoctrination was so all encompassing that, when my family adopted a kitten and allowed me(at the tender age of four or five) to name it, I chose the name “Moses” even though the kitten was female.



In fact, my tight knit family produced a minister — my older brother who, in many decisions in my life, was my moral compass. I felt it in my heart when my decisions ran counter to what I knew to be his guiding beliefs and I felt some level of remorse whenever I knew I was disappointing him.

Photo by javad allahyari on Unsplash

My First Disillusionment Came at the Tender Age of Six

I remember the day clearly. I was six years old and the season of Advent, those weeks leading up to the favorite day in the life of every six year old child — Christmas — was upon us. My Sunday school teacher announced to the class that we would decorate our classroom in honor of the upcoming season and asked for suggestions from the class.



I eagerly raised my hand high in the air, shaking it vigorously to get her attention.



I caught her attention and squealed out my six year old idea:



“Let’s put a big cardboard Santa figure on our bulletin board!”



I was six years old!



Can you hear the deafening silence?



After her apparent shock and disbelief at my reply, she proceeded to berate me in front of the entire class for my complete lack of comprehension about the “reason for the season.”



Clearly, at six years old, I was already a heathen in her eyes.



The fact that I recount this incident now, many decades later, is indicative of the impact her words had on my young mind.
Making Art in Black Rock City
Tags: Arts, Installation Art, Sculpture, Burning Man

The otherworldly ICARUS. Photo: Luc Asbury.

Returning to Burning Man for its third voyage, ICARUS is a mutated U.S. Air Force hydraulic lift that transports passengers to another dimension. Equipped with a 14,000-watt IMAX sound system, onboard DJ, and nightclub lighting, the musical spacecraft transforms into a fourteen-foot-high desert dance floor to melt away space travelers’ inhibitions.

Hybycozo

This iridescent light installation is a geometric wonderland designed to make you “feel a connection between your heart and your mind.” It’s powered by the infinite improbability of kindness.

Celestial Mechanica in the desert sun. Photo: Joshua John.

The team behind Celestial Mechanica, an eighteen-foot kinetic steel sculpture of the solar system, is ready to make few upgrades so the sculpture can go back into orbit at Burning Man 2016.

The design for Awakening

Re:engineering harnesses the human body’s strongest features with large steel sculptures and DaVinci’s camera obscura. Skeletal hands and eyes emerge from the sand, representing what “separates [life] from the rest of the universe: the ability to observe the world around us and manifest change in that world.”

A belly-up view of the internal lighting of Enunciation

A quiet respite during the day that’s filled with splashes of color at night, Enunciation cocoons burners in a field of light. Changed by each and every touch, the light refracts to express how each visitor engages with it.

The cardboard faces of Renaixement

Pink Intruder, the creators of Renaixement, will bring a piece of the centuries-old Spanish tradition of Las Fallas — a week-long celebration of the arrival of spring, replete with fireworks and flames — to Black Rock City with a monument, or falla, constructed of cardboard and mosaic tiles.

An island unto itself: the Mary Ellen Carter

For over seven years, this floating desert oasis weathered countless dust storms and sailed hundreds across the playa. After its Idahoan crew hung up their gear, a new crew took over the Mary Ellen Carter—and they’re striving to update the nautical art-car so it can make its next voyage.
Why We Won’t See Effects of the Bitcoin Halving for a Few Years
By: Alex Roan
Tags: Finance, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Investing, Blockchain

Gold is a crummy comparison, but it’s one we can all understand. The same goes for oil. Whenever a huge new oil field is discovered and it becomes cheap to extract (the opposite of The Halving), petrol and diesel become cheap to the consumer.

Predicting future price action

In the history of Bitcoin, we have had 3 Halvings. When the chain started, miners received 50 BTC when they successfully mined a block. In 2012 that reward was reduced to 25 BTC, in 2016 it was reduced to 12.5 BTC, and now in 2020, it stands at 6.25 BTC after the third halving.

Each halving has most definitely had an impact on the price, but let’s analyse how…

Figure 1: Bitcoin Logarithmic Price Action Over Time

Figure 1 shows the logarithmic graph of Bitcoin price action over time and the moments at which each of the first two Halvings occurred.

As you can see, it looks as though both halving events preceded extended bull runs, then a plateau until the next Halving.

So naturally, now that The Halving has happened again, it’s time to shoot for the moon! Buy Buy Buy!?

Well, no.

It’s highly unlikely that we’ll see bull runs as exciting as the ones we’ve seen in the past. This is down to a concept called expanding cycles.

Figure 2: Bitcoin Logarithmic Price Chart With Cycles

Notice how, in figure 2, we use the same data, but identify the cycles that appear after the previous two halvings (the blue rectangles).

The first is skinny and tall, indicating that the rise happened very quickly and rose sharply. The second is wider and shorter, indicating that the rise happened slower, and rose less than the previous cycle.

This is the expanding cycle principle. As the market matures, these cycles will become more and more expanded, covering years, and eventually decades in their execution.

The first bull market took about a year to execute.

The second, almost 2.

The third may be anywhere between 2 and 5 years for all we know.

What if…

These assumptions are from a purely technical point of view. What’s not accounted for is the prospect of a “Killer App” coming along which brings about an age of mass adoption of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency in general.

The market has grown steadily despite such an app not yet appearing. No one is buying coffee with their Bitcoin, banks aren’t using Bitcoin for cross border payments, etc.

If a Bitcoin-based product comes along in the next few years which disrupts an industry like finance, then the Expanding Cycle theory goes out the window. At which point, no one knows how high it will go.
The first C language embedded project with Eclipse IDE on Linux Operating System
By: George Calin
Tags: C Programming, Beaglebone Black, Eclipse Ide, IoT, Embedded

The project builds successfully.

What is next?

I recommend you to follow the tutorial about how to deploy and test the application on the embedded device.

I am going to add some interesting (and probably useful) C language example applications here soon.
Carrier
By: Jessica Lee Mcmillan
Tags: Poetry, Paper Poetry, Senses, Body, Nostalgia

Scent brought inside, the crushed leaf

in hand lingers wet, cold

sweet

perfume folds in magazines

making me a cosmopolitan in love

and even the chemical distortions

of boat exhaust on the lake elates

elevates ugly to waterlust

transcending book musk

the text becoming body

like old bones of house

communicating age

in dust of paint

In snow, the absence of smell

resets the heart

where I begin the journey again

as a passenger of scent
Train & Freeze ……. According to your WISH :)
By: Soumo Chatterjee
Tags: Self Improvement, Artificial Intelligence, Education, Writing, Architecture

In this blog I am going to show practically how we can train and freeze different layers according to our choice in a neural network model . Actually this type of problem arise when we add extra layers to a pre-trained model. So here I am going to demonstrate an example where I will add extra layers to the EfficientNet_b0 Model

Model Architecture: →

I have decided to add extra-layers of a dense layer , then a batch Normalisation layer then a dropout layer and finally two dense layers . So, here goes the model . I have commented in code as well .

Now here comes the main part , it has two parts : →

first we will add the new layers added to the optimizer with this code →

2. Then freezing the whole layer at once and then allow training only the extra layers we have added in params list & this code will be kept before the training loop starts

And , hence we can easily learned how we can train as well as freeze N no. layers according to our choice in a pretrained neural network model .

Please, let me know if you have any questions , comments or concerns in comment section below , until then enjoy learning .

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Tags: Machine Learning, Editors Pick, Data Science, The Daily Pick, Towards Data Science

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Net promoter score
By: Alok Tyagi
Tags: Customer Experience, Nps, Agile, Kaizen, Organization Development

If you have not heard about Net Promoter Score (NPS) — do yourself a favor and learn about it. Some links are here, here, and here.

In a nut shell it is about building more promoters of your business than detractors. More customers speaking good about your business the better. It takes a whole lot of effort knowing what customers want and what you need to do meet their need to move the needle on NPS. It requires cultural shift within a company as organizations embrace the concept. Good thing is NPS is great for business hence a feasible sell when starting a new journey. Done right companies grow brand; build trust and establish ever lasting customer relationships.

Consider some of the examples from business perspective:

Loyalty Effect: Depending on the industry, little increase in retaining existing customers (say 5%) can improve a company’s bottom line profitability between 25% and 85%. It is a high margin business.

Cost of Sale: Typically, acquiring new customers is a costlier and some would say low margin business than selling more to existing customers. Some study suggests it often costs 5 to 10 times more than selling to an existing one.

Word of mouth: Customer who are promoters is nearly 6 times more likely to be loyal; buy more again; and recommend your products to others than one who are fence sitters.

It goes other way too: Each unhappy customer and detractors will share their grievance with at least 9 other people. Actually few vocal one will go long way sharing their complain and spoiling customer relationship. So engage detractors proactively.

Studies and analysis across companies now suggest that word of mouth is usually the leading driver in generating leads and business opportunities than other mechanisms. Whatever you believe though knowing what your customer think is important (and good business)…actually much more important in the connected world. Social networks now wield significant influence on us as customers when we consider buying product or services.
Arcプラットフォーム
By: Stratis Karadakis
Tags: Blockchain, Japanese, Ethereum, Decentralization, Government

DAOstack is designed to catalyze the future of collaboration. It's a platform for decentralized governance that enables collectives to self-organize around shared goals or values, easily and efficiently.

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Letter to the Editor: Jackie Faust
By: Tom Beck
Tags: Politics, News, Letters

Letter to the Editor: Jackie Faust

“I don’t want a council that waits for a challenger campaign to take action and listen. I want a focus on Medford every day, not just Election Day.”

I don’t want a council that waits for a challenger campaign to take action and listen. I want a focus on Medford every day, not just Election Day. I want a council that wants my opinion, whether they may agree with me or not. They need to be civil with us. Check out the April 4th meeting on the township website. Put an end to the scare tactics and an end the position that we can’t when the towns around us find a way. No one goes to meetings anymore because they are intimidated. Five minutes to talk is what is allowed. Then council can go on for as long as they want in response, and they offer no option for our rebuttal. Stay the course doesn’t work for me. We’ve been at this recovery for a long time, and they are telling us there is no other way. Providing quality services contributes to strong property values. Let’s bring more balance to the council with new ideas and by having 2 women representing us. A bipartisan council will represent our town more accurately. In Medford, there are more unaffiliated, independent voters than either party. Make your vote count to reflect that Medford is for all.

-Jackie Faust, Medford resident for 27 years.
Back to the Basics of JavaScript
By: Kevin Peery
Tags: JavaScript, Programming, Code School, Codecademy

Although, I’ve been exposed to some advanced JavaScript, I’ve decided to go back to the basics to reinforce the most elementary concepts of the programming language. I’m using codecademy’s Introduction To JavaScript course, which I’m finding invaluable.

However, codecademy offers many other learning modules, such as Learn HTML, Learn CSS, Learn Responsive Design, Learn ReactJS and more. They can all be accessed below:

Another resource for diving deeper into the concepts of web development are the “Learn Enough to be Dangerous” series of courses. The course lineup includes: Learn Enough Command Line, Learn Enough Text Editor, Learn Enough Git, Learn Enough HTML, Learn Enough CSS & Layout, The Rails Tutorial (advanced development), and Action Cable (advanced development). The “Learn Enough” series focuses on technical sophistication, which is an essential skill of this era. It’s definitely worth paying the membership fee. They can all be accessed here:

Going through the “Learn Enough” resources as well as utilizing codecademy’s powerful tools teach one how to code from a basic to an advanced level. They are excellent resources to prepare for an immersive software development bootcamp or are great standalone resources that could easily lead one to qualify for a junior software development position, ideally leading to more on-the-job training.
Psychoanalyzing My Houseplants
By: Emery Schindler
Tags: Self Improvement, Satire, Self, Self-awareness, Humor

Psychoanalyzing My Houseplants

Fern was much too loved as a child, and it shows.

Pothos

Reads a lot of self-help books, and after finishing each book actually makes substantial changes in their life in order to better themselves.

So centered and at peace that they’re able to thrive in any environment.

Good at establishing personal boundaries and communicating their emotional needs with others.
Civil Rights Activist Bayard Rustin (1912–1987)
By: Matt Reicher
Tags: Civil Rights, BlackLivesMatter, History, LGBTQ, Equality

The 1940s

In 1940, he joined the Young Communists League (YCL) as a youth organizer. He soon quit after the Communist Party ordered him to stop protesting racial segregation in the US armed forces. Between the Winter of 1940 and Spring of 1941, he worked with A Philip Randolph to organize a March on Washington Movement against racial discrimination in defense industries. In June of 1941, when FDR banned discrimination in war-related industries and established the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to monitor compliance, the March was canceled.

Rustin worked as Race Relations Secretary for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) while organizing the march with Randolph. In 1942 he was sent to California by (FOR) and (AFSC) to help protect the property of more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans imprisoned in internment camps. That same year, Bayard sat in a second-row seat while traveling on a bus from Louisville to Nashville. He was arrested and beaten for not moving to the back. This would be the first of twenty-four arrests over Rustin’s lifetime.

He refused to enter the draft or perform alternate service, so in 1944 he was arrested and spent the next three years of his life in a federal prison. Rustin was released after twenty-six months. Just a short time after his release, in April 1947, Bayard and fifteen others set off on a tour of southern states to test a recent Supreme Court ruling on discrimination during interstate travel. On April 13, Rustin was arrested for disorderly conduct in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for refusing to move to the back of the bus when asked. The North Carolina Supreme Court upheld his conviction, and in March — April 1949 Rustin spent twenty-two days on a prison chain gang.

After his release, Rustin wrote an article that was published in several newspapers. It documented his experience and led to the reform of prison chain gangs.

His grandmother’s influence could be seen in Rustin’s belief in an intensely non-violent protest. Mahatma Gandhi had a huge impact on him for the same reason, and Bayard planned to travel to India to meet and learn from the man himself in 1948. Unfortunately, in January of that year, Gandhi was assassinated. Rustin still traveled to India that year, and for seven weeks, learned Gandhi’s philosophies of non-violence from family members and other associates of the recently assassinated man.
The Eight Grader Whose Discovery Could Lead To a Covid-19 Cure
By: Kim Mia
Tags: Education, Covid 19, Health, Pandemic, Coronavirus

The Eight Grader Whose Discovery Could Lead To a Covid-19 Cure

Could Anika Chebrolu’s findings be the end this pandemic?

Photo of Anika Chebrolu

As researchers and scientists around the world race to find a treatment for the coronavirus, a 14-year-old girl appears to outshines them all.

The Indian-American teen from Frisco in Texas won the top prize of $25k at the 3M Young Scientist Challenge for her discovery that could be the potential cure for the coronavirus pandemic.

Her invention uses in-silico methodology for drug discovery to find a molecule that can selectively bind to the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 virus. She first began by identifying where and how the molecule would bind to the virus which eventually lead to her finding her potential drug.

She began her research last year after battling a severe influenza infection following which she made the commitment to find a cure for influenza. She was especially inspired knowing how many people still die annually despite vaccinations and anti-influenza drugs on the market. However, her plans took a turn when the coronavirus pandemic hit and she decided to shift her focus on finding a treatment for the COVID-19.

“Science is the basis of life and the entire universe and we have a long way to go understand it fully,” said Chebrolu

She worked closely with 3M Corporate Scientist Dr Mahfuza Ali, who mentored her and guided her to transform her concept into reality. She finally presented her project to a judging panel of scientists and leaders.

Her next goal is to work alongside scientists and virologists to develop her findings into an actual cure for the virus and hopefully control the mortality of the coronavirus disease.

“While my effort to find a lead compound to bind to the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus this summer may appear to be a drop in the ocean, but still adds to all these efforts” Anika Chebrolu said to CNN

As the fight against the deadly coronavirus continues to rage on, we can take comfort in the fact that Anika’s discovery, along with many others, contribute immensely to finding an effective treatment or even a possible cure for the virus. But for the time being, we still have to rely on social distancing, self-isolation, and other measures until we are presented with better alternatives.
Explore the New Layout Inspector in Android Studio 4.0
By: Siva Ganesh Kantamani
Tags: Android Studio, AndroidDev, Android, Programming, Mobile

Explore the New Layout Inspector in Android Studio 4.0

Inspect your Android views’ hierarchies with Canary 4.0

Photo by Yura Fresh on Unsplash.

A new Layout Inspector was introduced in Android Studio 4.0. It is similar to Chrome DevTools — we can inspect views with IDs, a new 3D view makes it easy to see view hierarchy, and most of all, we can navigate to the exact line of a view’s code from the inspector.

Debugging UI issues has been an issue for Android developers since the beginning. With the Layout Inspector, it’s now easy to find the view hierarchy and pinpoint the issues. We can use the inspector with both physical devices and emulators.

To start the Layout Inspector navigate, go to View > Tools Window > Layout Inspector.

Now, a new window with the Layout Inspector opens at the bottom of the studio. By default, you can see the current screen of the emulator/device in the middle. On the left side, there are layout-related things like the view hierarchy. On the right side of the window, it shows the information about the view that is currently selected. Have a look:

Navigating to Layout Inspector

With that said, let’s start digging into the features.
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Humor, Love, Cartoon, Comics, Thursday

First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.

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Transparency in times of misinformation. The 2020 US Presidential Election.
By: Bruno De Oliveira Júlio
Tags: Politics, Data Visualization, UI Design, 2020 Presidential Race, Mass Media

Mosaic of different online publications, dedicated to the 2020 US Elections.

Pandemic and Political turbulent times such as the ones we are facing in 2020, create the need for a ever more transparent communication to the population, whether that comes from a Government, a news outlet, a political party, scientists, doesn’t matter, they all play a big role in informing the society. Design has a huge role in that and I would like to address it on this article.

The recent elections in US plagued with misinformation, outright lies and conspiracy theories have been a good example of how dangerous it is to spread bad information, and all the incumbent big players in media space have a huge responsibility to deliver information clearly, fact checked and accessible. Data visualization, Writing and UI Design can influence opinions when done right. Some of the tricks that I appreciated are here below.