fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Day #3 with Cloud Workflows: variable assignment and expressions
By: Guillaume Laforge
Tags: Serverless, Workflow, Google Cloud, Google Cloud Platform

Now that we have multiple steps in our workflow definition, let’s see how we can pass data around, from a step to another.

In a step, you can assign values to variables. Those values can be ints, doubles, strings, or booleans (and also null). Use the assign keyword as follows:

- assignments:

assign:

- two: 2

- pi: 3.14

- message: "Hello"

- bool: True

Those variables are available in the whole scope of the workflow, and can be accessed in other steps. So let’s see how we can do something with those variables. Let’s add a second step to our workflow definition:

- twoPi:

return: ${"Twice pi is " + string(two * pi)}

We are using the ${} notation to create an expression. We’re multiplying two numbers, we’re converting them to a string, and we’re concatenating two strings together, to get our final value.

Note that not all operations are allowed on all types, so you might need to do some conversions with built-in conversion functions like the string() function in our example. There are all sorts of arithmetic operators or boolean logic operators.

For more information, you can read about variable assignments , data types, and expressions. Next time, we’ll also have a look at more complex data types.
Important Update: Announcing VectorZilla Token Pre-Sale with 60% Bonus.
By: Vector Zilla Pr
Tags: Token Sale, Ethereum, ICO, Vectorzilla, Blockchain

All the details, and how you can participate and acquire VZT

We at the VectorZilla are thrilled to announce our token pre-sale, the first time VectorZilla Token (VZT) is being made available to the public. Here you will find details about token sale structure, bonus, distributions, and more.

We have been hard at work developing VectorZilla, so we are very excited to finally be able to announce our token pre-sale, now for the first time general public and members of the crypto community can acquire VZT tokens.
6 Reasons Why “Networking” Events Are the Absolute Worst
By: Kyle Ladewig
Tags: Networking, Work, Personal Development, Remote Working, Mental Health

We’ve all been there. The never-ending info session or the snoozefest cocktail hour. But networking events are a necessary evil if you want to get ahead, right? Maybe not. One thing’s for sure though — networking is the worst for these 6 reasons.

1. They’re almost always after hours

The last thing you want to do after a long day of work is muster up the energy to meet a bunch of strangers. Then there’s the occasional “breakfast” event, which always starts at some ungodly hour. Nothing like making a first impression before your first cup of coffee, looking like you just rolled out of bed.

2. So, uhhh…what do you do?

Step 1: Spend 5 minutes in the lobby psyching yourself up to approach a group of strangers.

Step 2: Buckle up for someone to recite their resume for 5 minutes without taking a breath. “Well actually I’m a senior VP of experience at a series B startup…” When the stream of B.S. finally stops, don’t even think about asking them what they actually do.

3. They can be overwhelmingly crowded

The only thing worse than walking into an empty networking event is walking into an insanely packed one. The room was designed for 50 people, but 100 showed up. And lucky you, the first person you meet just finished a double helping of garlic bread.

Work Club isn’t networking, and you can do it during normal business hours. Join one near you.

4. The conversation ripcord

You’re guaranteed to get stuck in a conversation you desperately want to escape. So you’ll be faced with a decision:

Come up with an excuse to slip away, and risk standing alone for the next 10 minutes

or

fake a smile, act interested, and hope someone comes to your rescue.

5. The “I love to network” guy

Every networking event has someone who lives to network. Their favorite hobbies are talking about themselves and adding random people on Linkedin. At some point in the night, you’re gonna get cornered by this person.

6. Someone always tries to sell you something

“Enjoy this free pizza. Oh! And while you’re here, let me tell you about this timeshare opportunity…” It costs money to find a venue, order food, and market an event. So it’s not unusual for the organizer to have an ulterior motive, especially at free events — if you’re not paying, then you’re either being sold or sold to.
Either Way
By: Austin Briggman
Tags: Silver Lining, Poetry, Perception, Scribe, Poems On Medium

Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash

the soft shade of blue

in every silver lining

that i see

comes from the

what may or may not

have beens

of my imagination

or

it could come from

a slight variation

of the infraction

of sunlight

through distant

rainclouds

could go

either way
SEPT 05 2020. Wallet update — V4.0.4
By: Stakenet Team
Tags: Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Defi, Bitcoin, Lightning Network

Wallet update — V4.0.4

As we are preparing for V4.0.4, along with bug fixes and optimizations there will also be an introduction of a new swap tab (see image). This is to target DEX users who want a simple UI to click “exchange” and not interact with off chain rentals, channels, etc. This will be important to help on board those not familiar with using layer 2, and an easy frictionless introduction to the benefits of off chain payment channels.

When swapping, the user will always receive the coins on layer 2 , they will however be able to start (if they want) on layer 1 with all assets. Worst case is there would be ~20–30 min wait time (when BTC is involved) for swap completion as we prepare channels, rentals and manage DEX orders in the background. For users who already have funds on layer 2, executing these swaps and trades will be instant and near fee less.

ETH integration

We are in the final phases of adding ETH private key support into the wallet. Look for this to come in V4.0.5 or V4.0.6.

This is important as it will not only allow for storage, sending, and receiving of ETH and its tokens but also allow us in following updates to begin pushing special Raiden deployments to initiate a public test phase of layer 2 with ETH.

HW Support

As we are now in process of adding dependencies for the HW, we have begun development on Trezor and once in place will deploy and integrate other popular HW such as Ledger.

This will allow users to begin securing and managing their funds with our wallet safely and securely. After our planned network upgrades, it will also allow XSN cold staking & storing MN collateral using our light wallet.

Let us know any other major or key feature requests or general feedback in our Discord channels. Those who want to test and try the wallet can access in on this link
How To Attract High-Quality People Into Your Life
By: Zaid K. Dahhaj
Tags: People, Boundaries, Personal Development, Leadership, Energy

How to deal with unhealthy people in your life.

There are two ways to approach this:

Cut them out of your life for good. Limit your interaction with them by creating a boundary.

I will admit, the former is the more difficult option to pursue. I’ve only done it a handful of times.

The latter, on the other hand, requires less work. You can always tell people that you’re focused on what matters to you and leave it at that.

“How do you create a boundary, you ask?”

It’s simple in theory, yet difficult in practice.

It would help if you became obsessed with your journey and mission.

Everything else doesn’t deserve your attention if it doesn’t add something meaningful to your life.

It comes down to what you care about.

Do you care about what your loser friends say more than your growth? Your life will be a reflection of the decision you make.
Iraq Brings Date For Oil Contracts To April 15
Tags: Oil, News, Opec, Iraq

Asim Jihad, oil ministry spokesman, announced on Sunday that Iraq is now planning to award oil and gas exploration and development contracts in 11 new blocks on April 15. Nine exploration blocks in Central and Southern Iraq were initially offered last year and now two more have been added. The announcement took international company representatives by surprise. The date was brought forward, from June 21, so oil companies can bid on exploring and developing the about a dozen hydrocarbon-rich areas.

The new blocks are located in offshore Gulf waters and in the border areas with Iran and Kuwait. Oil companies that are planning to make the offers will get the bidding documents on April 13 as told by the spokesman to Reuters. Bidding offers will have to be submitted on April 15 and the winners of the bid will also be announced on the same day.

On Thursday, the oil ministry announced its measures to reduce the fees in the new contracts received by the oil companies from the government, which includes oil by-product exclusion from the company’s revenues and establishing a linkage between prevailing oil prices and their remuneration. Currently, the Iraqi government pays a fee to its oil producers which is linked to production increases including crude and oil by-products like liquefied petroleum gas and dry gas. The new contracts will also introduce a royalty element.

The contract change was decided by OPEC, subsequent to a glut causing oil prices to crash in 2014 and rendered Baghdad unable to pay the fees, and would also have a time limit for companies to end gas flaring developed from oil fields. Iraq hopes to end the gas flaring by 2021.
Recession Of Creativity
By: Kristen V.H. Middleton
Tags: Creativity, Poetry On Medium, Poetry, Art, Writing

My creativity exists

in the overflow [liquid paint]

which recedes when [cold air]

stress hits; when pressure

pops the bubbles of [rainbows]

effervescent thinking; feeling

and storms snap the branches

of my tree; mind / the winds

demand I go inside and

work on; survival. [Trucks].

Worry, fear= takes precedence,

leaches the warm air from

my lungs where I

want: to breathe

Create, [allow myself to sleep during a rainstorm]

~Make

: something for you.

*

Copyright Kristen v.H. Middleton 2020
The Man Whose Startup Made Millions Just By Selling Umbrellas
By: Swati Suman
Tags: Creativity, Innovation, Startup, Entrepreneurship, Business

Entrepreneurial Journey

As stated, Pratik came up with this business idea in 2014.

“Everyone uses umbrellas and I thought why not design it in a way that people will get emotionally attached to it and then carry it for the love of it rather than just for its utility. That’s how Cheeky Chunk was formed,” says Pratik.

However, the journey of his newborn startup “Cheeky Chunk” remains not easy.

The research started with finding doodle designers and begin working with the talented art student. The investment was born out of his savings of Rs 1,35,000, which he earned by tutoring in his college days for validating the idea.

This monetary gain was spent on designing, manufacturing the product, and developing the website. The idea was validated. He managed to get 500 umbrellas manufactured and sold via friends and family. However, hardly there were any monetary gains from new customers.

At such times his family backed strength and rendered support. His father allowed him to manufacture the umbrellas brought at the factory of his company.

In June 2015, Pratik started his unit with four workers and manufactured 700 umbrellas in the first month. By the twist of fate, his business suffered a loss at its start resulting in no umbrella being bought. Right from showcasing his umbrellas online and promoting it on diverse social platforms, all he gained was a no sale. By the states of it, anybody at such a juncture would get disappointed, so did Pratik.

With anxiety, stress, and worries ruling his odd hours in business, he remained irritated, tensed, and panic-driven. Further, a negative thought followed where he criticized himself for wasting money on this venture.

However, by a twist of fate, things suddenly changed—this time sailing in a positive direction. There was a heavy rain one day that monsoon. Guess what? His umbrellas suddenly started selling.

No less than 400 people bought his designed umbrellas online. And as they say, fortune favors the brave, and that rainy day helped Pratik’s business have a colorful start.

The rest remains history. In less than three weeks, his umbrella ruled Amazon's platforms and was enlisted as the most sold umbrella ever. The majority of sales were witnessed through e-commerce marketplaces — Flipkart, Snapdeal, and a few retail stores in nearby areas.

Cheeky Chunk is focusing on taking one step at a time. With a few of their products prototyped last year, they look for opportunities to grow. Pratik understands that scaling in this industry requires the expansion of the product lineup. To master this, connecting with the investors and team will help expand its market.

He says — “When you see a crowd of 10 people carrying boring black umbrellas, you must smile when you see the eleventh person carrying a yellow one, designed Cheeky Chunk Umbrella. That’s what we are aiming to do for all our products.”

The reason why the idea got spiked —
How Many Times more?
By: Third Act
Tags: Recovery, Anger, Abuse, Poetry, Trauma

Must I open this sore

Sit,

Close my eyes.

Recall,

The incidents,

That made me,

A life-long misfit.

I am told,

To heel my pain,

I must experience it again.

Over and over,

Until I am sane.

At first,

Images without feeling.

Concentrate,

So I know what I have to deal in.

Eventually it comes,

Yelling and screaming.

Hitting and cussing,

Am I just dreaming,

Can I trust what I am seeing?

Scared,

Timid,

Afraid of anger,

I must be in danger,

Every time,

Someone else is upset.

I have relived the experience,

I know what I was feeling.

But the fear has not gone away,

My life it is still stealing.

How many times more,

Must I endure this sore,

Before my life can go on,

Infection lives on.

I am still quick to erupt,

Not able to differentiate,

Between irritation,

And unacceptable conduct.

I don’t want to experience it at all,

I don’t want to relive what was torn.

How many times more,

Will the puss ooze from my sore.
10 Ways to Question and Think Before Entering a New Market
By: Selim Furkan Gul
Tags: Product Design, Marketing, Startup, Market, Product Development

Urgency

Do people want this product or do they need it? Is there a sustainable urgency in the market? (Renting an old film isn’t an urgency situation, yet willingness to attend the premiere of a new movie is extreme urgency because it happens once.)

Market Size

How many people buy this type of things effectively? What is the number of customers of other competitors in the market meeting this need? (The market for underwater basket knitting courses is very small, but the demand for car sales is huge.)

Potential of Pricing

What is the maximum price a typical buyer can pay for a solution? Does this price leave a satisfactory profit after covering the costs? (Gum sells for $ 0.1, but the plane costs millions.)

Cost of Customer Acquisition

How easy is it to acquire new customers? What is the material and moral cost of making a sale on average? (While stopover facilities on rural roads cost less to acquire customers, contractors could spend millions to make large supply deals.)

Value Creation Price

How much does it cost in terms of both money and effort to create and distribute the offered value? Is the profit he dropped worth it? (The cost of creating an online course is very low, but R&D for a new electric car can cost a lot of money.)

Uniqueness of Product

What is the distinguishing feature of the product or service you will market from its competitors? Does this feature really make a difference? How easy is it to imitate this? (There are many grocery stores but very few startups offering space mining services.)

Speed to Market

How fast can you create your new product? Can you keep this pace? (A garden shears are all it takes to prune trees in your friend’s garden, but setting up a new airline can take years.)

Pre-Investment:

How much should you invest before selling? (To become a cleaner you need a few cheap cleaning supplies. To search for gold, you will need millions of dollars to buy land and excavation equipment.)

By-Product Selling Potential

Is there a secondary product that you can offer to customers associated with the product? (Customers who buy razors need shaving foam and a few extra razors, but you buy a Frisbee and keep playing until it disappears or breaks.)

Continuity Potential

How much additional work is required to continue selling after the initial supply is created? (Business consultancy requires continuity of work to be paid, but after a book is published, it can continue to be sold continuously.)
App Directory Spotlight #4 — Todo, Statsbot & Leo
By: Slack Api
Tags: App Directory, Slack, Productivity

Welcome back to our app directory spotlight. We have a particularly awesome set of apps for you this time around. So you can stay abreast, we rotate featured apps every two weeks. It’s a GIF and video filled spotlight this week, so check out these apps and add them to your Slack!

/todo is an incredibly useful todo list for you and your Slack team that lives entirely within Slack. I bet when you first used Slack you wondered how you could manage tasks; /todo is your answer! It’s so easy to use, add it to your Slack right now and just start playing around. You can create your own todo list, assign todos to others or create a todo list for a channel — especially useful if you’re doing a project with a team. Even cooler, /todo is built by Guillermo Gette, an individual developer based in Australia! Check it out and install it here: http://www.zlapps.com/todo.

Statsbot allows you to pipe your team’s analytics data straight into Slack! It is your in-house data guru, the bot user for all of your analytics questions. Statsbot connects to Google Analytics, New Relic and Mixpanel. We have our own internal analytics bot that we use heavily here at Slack and suggest connecting Slack to your business analytics if you haven’t yet. The Statsbot team is aiming to eventually build an AI powered decision support system in Slack for SMBs — so follow them if you’re interested in this kind of thing! You can try Statsbot here: http://statsbot.co/

Leo, the Officevibe Bot, helps you figure out your workplace mojo. Leo asks employees anonymous questions about their experience at work and then shares to managers in a private channel. It also prompts employees to encourage one another and to go have fun! There’s a lot we could say about Leo but we’d rather share the Officevibe team’s video on how they decided to build Leo. Video below, to learn about Leo go here https://www.officevibe.com/slack.
Zero One Group Newsletter #4
By: Zero One Group
Tags: Apple, News, Newsletter, Covid 19, Tesla

Surely, you’ve heard of Google Chrome, Firefox, or Microsoft Edge extensions, but Apple will now allow you to create extensions on their default browser! You will also be able to repackage them or even convert an existing extension you have on Google Chrome.

So, what do these extensions have to offer? Well, like other extensions, it increases the practicality of the browser as a whole, and it’s very customisable to your needs and preferences. The extensions are built on widely utilised file formats, such as CSS, Javascript APIs, and HTML, hence currently existing extensions on other browsers can be easily duplicated into your Safari. XCode, which is built in your regular MacBook, offers impressive functionalities to aid this process, by simplifying the hassle to convert the extensions and allowing you to even build a new extension and refurnish them.

Additionally, an overload of extensions installed in your browser can be overwhelming, especially when access permissions are needed and a good number are not needed for specific tasks. Safari’s web extensions allow you to allocate specific extensions to respective active tabs, and it will only bug you when you open that tab. The rest of the extensions, including their uncontrollable pop-ups, can remain dormant. Furthermore, Apple allows you to only trigger the extension for a period of time, for example, a day, thus increasing the custom functionality of this system!

Internally at ZOG, we have been experimenting with these Safari extensions. It’s always good practice to equip ourselves with new technological releases. To join in our exploration, have a look at the official online documentation provided by Apple.
Kotlin vs Swift: The Abstract Class
Tags: Mobile App Development, Android App Development, Kotlin, Swift, iOS App Development

Learning Kotlin and Swift

Kotlin vs Swift: The Abstract Class

Explore Kotlin and Swift together and learn their differences

Photo by JJ Ying on Unsplash

In Mobile development, the 2 major programming language to learn is Swift and Kotlin. They look very similar, sometimes one feature is available in one language but not the other one. Nonetheless, there are workaround it.

One good example is the Abstract Class.

Abstract class

In Kotlin, we can have an abstract class (e.g. something in between a class and interface, where it enforce some of its variable or function being set, but can still store its own state.

In Swift, there is no abstract class but uses protocol to imitate it, together with the help of class extension.

In Kotlin

Below is a simple example of an abstract class with

an overridable variable something (override by the child)

(override by the child) an overridable function doSomething (override by the child)

(override by the child) a state variable stateVariable

a local function baseLocalFunction

abstract class Base(private val stateVariable: String) {

abstract val abstractVariable: String

abstract fun doSomething()

fun baseLocalFunction() {

println("$abstractVariable $stateVariable")

}

} class Child: Base("SetFromChild") {

override val abstractVariable: String

get() = "Happy" override fun doSomething() {

println(abstractVariable.length)

}

}

In Swift

As there’s no abstract class for Swift, the way to work around it is by using Protocol and Extension class.

The Protocol is used to define all the variables to be set and function to be defined. Note protocol cannot have a variable state or function definition

The Extension class is used to define the default extension function. It still cannot store state variables though.

The Child class will then store all the states and defined all the yet to be defined functions.

protocol Base {

var stateVariable: String { get }

var abstractVariable: String { get }

func doSomething()

func baseLocalFunction()

} extension Base {

func baseLocalFunction() {

print("\(abstractVariable) \(stateVariable)")

}

} struct Child: Base {

internal var stateVariable: String = "SetFromChild" var abstractVariable: String = "Happy" func doSomething() {

print(abstractVariable.count)

}

}

You can get a little more detail in this article.

Summary

To make it easier to compare, the build table is provided
Golden Creatures
By: Vicki Nemeth
Tags: Sonnet, Poetry, Muskoka, Gender, Rule1and2

How biodiverse is Muskoka, that

in public gardens, I discovered two

new insects: male and female ladybirds,

yet shining gold as long Pharaonic lines,

being fruitful: the only of their kind

created for each other knew no duty

but multiply together on the Earth.

But I, I did not write a poem for them,

the story of their love would not embellish.

For suitors, every day, would come for me

who thought themselves of golden blood, and I

made only to adorn and fill their houses.

And so, that precious tale of creatures gold,

although their own, went humanly untold.
‘The Girl Detective’ and Another Poem by Hilary S. Jacqmin
By: The Awl
Tags: Poetry, Poems, The Poetry Section

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

The Girl Detective

“’So, it’s come to that,’ she said. ‘You’re jealous of policemen.’”

— Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man

The girl detective does not date

She sits at home eating a piece of devil’s food cake

with red frosting She sits at home

with a pregnancy test

Icebox light slats the kitchenette

The girl detective rolls seamed stockings down

one at a time, slips off her crepe de chine

and navy pumps In dotted swiss pajamas

she yanks out the lousy Murphy bed

flips on her hot-bulb Hawaiian lamp

the hula dancer’s pampas skirt sways

hips like lava skin like kola nut

The girl detective sets her honey hair

in frozen orange juice cans

She double-checks

her clutch purse for Sweetheart tweezers, compact, blush

then badge and gun

Foundation caramelizes in her vanity mirror

a bullet lipstick ricochets

across the room The girl detective dreams

of handcuffs slanted grillework

lost keys and prison movies where the girls

are Lana Turner blond

All her exes broke

the law or moved to Hollywood

in search of starlets sunglass swimming pools

palm trees and palisades

green velvet theatres sinking into mossy film noir

The girl detective keeps a corkscrew handy

things always do go south it’s best to be prepared

Sideshow Banner: The Engagement of the Fat Lady and the Pocket Man

Jacques played my love-struck contract dwarf in tents

from Brou to San-Maur-des-Fossés.

He brought me saucisson, champagne,

and Gerber daisies wrapped in cellophane;

he stroked the triple strand of pearls that ringed

my clotted custard double chin

so tenderly, I almost thought

his sawdust-kneed proposal was sincere.

The banner painter captured our romance

on canvas. There I sit, enthroned

on gilt aluminum, my teeth

bared in a fox-trap grin, my dimpled bulk

blown up to fill a wincey sideshow wall,

forever fat, just twenty-two.

The joke was that a gentleman

that small could fall for someone oversized

and listing, like an alpine île flottante,

our false long looks some mastodon mistake.

I fed him tarte tatin, marceled my hair,

and kissed his biscuit porcelain brow,

but when the tour closed, he pocketed

my Carbanado diamond ring

and caravanned to Bruges with Snake Charm Elle.

These days, although the cook-tent steams

with boudin blanc, I find it hard to put

on weight. Bereft, I slouch beneath

our faded courtship scene, my heart

a punched-in bladder on a birch-bark stick.

Hilary S. Jacqmin is an MFA student at the University of Florida. Her poem “Wedding Album” was published in Best New Poets 2011: 50 Poems from Emerging Writers, edited by D. A. Powell.

More poems? Yes, they are here. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.
With The Oscars’ Preferential Ballot, Mediocrity Prevails For Best Picture
By: Lucien Wd
Tags: Movies, 1917, Little Women, Oscars, Best Picture

The Academy tend not to make this widely known, but the race for Best Picture at the Oscars every year for the past few ceremonies has been determined by a preferential ballot. For those unfamiliar, this resembles the system of election we have here in Ireland: you give a №1 vote to your first choice, a №2 vote to your second choice and so on; when your first choice is eliminated in a count your vote ‘transfers’ to your next preference. It’s a brilliant system that favours minor contenders in an election, as a citizen can show favour to a niche candidate while not ‘wasting’ their vote — as it will ultimately transfer to one of the major parties anyway if they use transfers correctly. In a competition for the first movie of the year, it’s a different story.

At the Oscars, preferential ballot creates a bizarre process. One would naturally assume that the Best Picture winner is the film that received the most votes from Academy members. But it’s actually the film that triumphs in this PR (Proportional Representation) system. Hence we have what I’m going to call the ‘Rotten Tomatoes Effect’: a film often gets a 90%+ score on Rotten Tomatoes because every critic gave it a middling-to-positive review. Nobody might have loved it, but nobody hated it either.

At the Oscars, this means that while everyone who watched Little Women thought it was the best film of the year, not everybody watched Little Women. Whereas everybody saw Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, some loved it and many thought it was perfectly ok. It’s going to be lots of voters’ fourth or fifth preference. Little Women, which probably scared off many old male white conservatives in the Academy who shuddered at sitting through a Greta Gerwig/Meryl Streep woke feminism lecture (which that movie kinda is, and is incredible), won’t get any preference at all from those who didn’t bother watching it. Hollywood, however, will appear on every ballot. Everyone saw that film.

2017’s The Shape of Water triumphing over Get Out and Lady Bird was the first big example of this process in action: not a single person’s favourite film of the year, but a film that made an appearance on the ballots of young and old, left and right-wing. In 2020, even more so than Hollywood, that film is Sam Mendes’ effortfully executed, effortlessly moving war drama 1917, a film with subtly anti-war politics just quiet enough not to frighten a jingoist, but sharp enough to please a liberal millennial. It’s probably only going to get 10–20% of first preference votes, but it’s going to win. Because everyone will watch it, everyone will rank it third, fourth or fifth, and when Ford v Ferrari and The Irishman and Jojo Rabbit are eliminated on the first three counts it will sneak into third place and rapidly become the immovable lead. With this system in place, a beloved but relatively wild entry like Uncut Gems would never stand a chance.
Medium Writing Tips
By: Casey Botticello
Tags: Medium, Advice, Blogging Tips, Writing, Writing Tips

Below are some of the most frequently asked question about Medium writing tips.

General Medium Writing Tips Questions with In-Depth Article Responses

Quick Answers to Questions About Medium Writing Tips

If you were starting off as a new writer on Medium today, what would you focus on?

I would focus on creating my own Medium publications as soon as I figured out which niches I wanted to write in. I would also focus on building a mailing list (something I did not do early on). Part of achieving success as a writer is the marketing component-readers need to be able to find your work. An email list is one of the best ways to do this!

You have written a lot of articles that generally cover Medium advice and writing tips-if you had to pick 3 three for someone new to read, which 3 would you pick?

This first article is one I wrote early on, but it is really key. Understanding the history and earnings trajectory of the Partner Program plays a major role in achieving success on the platform.

This second article seems obvious (formatting is clearly important) but many people skip over this assuming they know every formatting trick on Medium. This is almost certainly not the case. I’ve spent a lot of time exploring Medium article formatting, and I can assure you that most writers do not know how to optimize every formatting trick. There are also dozens of tricks that are not even mentioned by name in Medium's help section. So even if you took the time to read through the entire help section, there is quite a bit left to discover!
Day 21–25: Q1 Project Week
By: Dylan Thorwaldson
Tags: JavaScript, Software Development, Github, Coding, Learning To Code

I looked nothing like this at any time during Q1 project

The first quarter project week was honestly a blast. Lots of long days and evenings, tons of research and reading, sprinkled in with some coding. Overall it was a really cool experience and I’m grateful to have gone through it.

Although I know it’s nowhere near perfect, I’m pretty excited about the “final” version of my game as well. It was really excited to build something I am proud of, even with my limited and fledgling skills, and then actually be able to host it online so others can play it. It’s hosted here on Github Pages, which I’ve never used before but seems to be working out really well so far.

Here’s the start screen!
The Top 10 Books I Read in 2020
By: Ruchi Das
Tags: Ideas, Book Recommendations, Books, 2020, Reading

Image Courtesy of Goodreads

This is the second book in the Daevabad Trilogy (bless Vipula Gupta and Anangsha Alammyan for introducing me to this wonderful fantasy fiction world).

Nahri’s life has flipped upside down since the start of book one when she lived as a con and a healer off the streets of Cairo. At the start of book two, Nahri is the wife of Emir Muntadhir Al Qatani, the prince-in-succession for the throne of Devabad, the magical capital city. She is the only known surviving magical healer of her kind, the Nahid who has surfaced years later after the last ones of her kind were thought to have been murdered. She knows her marriage is only political, but she loves spending time with Ali, Muntadhir’s younger brother who she finds more in common with than any other person in Devabad, especially since her lover Dara and everyone else she once loved is dead.

To survive in this magically political quagmire of a mess, Nahri must learn to play the game everyone in Devabad is so deft at while keeping alive her love for healing-all while learning to control the new surge of magic in herself.

You read this book through Nahri’s eyes. The magic unfolds in front of you as it does for Nahri. Every revelation in the Devabad universe throws you off your feet. S.A has managed to ensnare all the detailed brilliance in a matter of three books- a rare feat for an author in their first fantasy fiction series.

Out of the three books, I especially loved “Kingdom of Copper” for the way it played on the buildup of book one while laying the premise for the brilliant conclusion in book three. Its revelations throw you off your feet. This book is the most detailed in terms of character building too, taking you on a tour of the minds of all of them.

All-in-all, a fast-paced adult fantasy fiction series packed with magical details, political ploys, beautifully flawed characters, and picturesque descriptions of a magical world you have a hard time coming out of once you’re done with the series.

P.S: This book gave me my first fictional crush in a long time. The bisexual prince Emir Muntadhir has my heart now for all intents and purposes.
Aliens Are Here, And They Just Wanna Be Our Friends
By: Funny Or Die
Tags: Friends, Aliens, Funny Sketch, Jack, Funny Best Of The Web

Aliens Are Here, And They Just Wanna Be Our Friends

Like, they really REALLY want to be our friends

Courtesy of Chris & Jack

Since the dawn of mankind, we’ve looked to the stars and wondered what’s up there. Or, better yet, who is up there. In hopes of someday finding answers, the space probe Voyager 1 was sent out into deep space in 1977, carrying with it a time capsule full of sounds and pictures to show whomever may find it what Earth is all about.

What if the Voyager 1 eventually does find intelligent alien life way out in the cosmos?

And what if they… actually kind of suck?

It’s always felt like there’s this unspoken idea that if we ever make alien contact they’ll be very serious creatures. Intelligent, war-like, or indifferent. So the idea that they may be a bit much and a tough hang really tickled us.

Luckily this is a question none of us have to ponder, because the latest creation from comedy duo Chris & Jack has all the answers. In this hilarious sketch, the aliens who make contact with Earth in response to Voyager 1 aren’t… quite what everyone was expecting. Much like your college roommate in freshman year, these guys just want to be your best buds, and definitely need to take their enthusiasm about it down a dial or two. Or three. And, also like your first college roommate, what they lack in personal boundaries they make up for in fart jokes.

Although Chris & Jack’s body of work has covered everything from how villains workshop their monologues before the secret agent arrives to the inevitable hostile robot takeover, two things you can always expect from them are fantastic writing and award-worthy performances. According to them they improvised as these aliens for half a day, and the dedication shows.

Clear out some time in your day, because this 7-and-a-half minute video is one you’re gonna want to watch more than once.
Don’t move.
By: Alexia Hécate
Tags: Writing, Moebius

At the precise moment I’m writing this, there’s nothing I want less than to make you uncomfortable with me. I know « pity » is a word that is never clearly pronounced when I let people perceive me, or rather when I can’t prevent them from seeing me.

I work on my scars, I press them, burn the few skin that was left sane, just to reach what I feel as the necessary movement of consciousness to widen it. That’s not really what we are taught to do to become. But I can’t stop thinking that to become, I need to be first. Whatever « be » means. Life was generous with me. It gave me so many scars, that I can spend the whole of it on the half of my scars. I know I can’t control the interpretation of these few words. Sometimes, it makes me smile, sometimes, it makes me cry. Sometimes both. Being on Moebius’ Strip. I try hard not to move when I come at that instant. If you see me, unmoving, please, don’t touch me unless you accept to come with me on Moebius’ Strip, don’t try to bring me back. It would tear me a little more. I would need it, but not now.

You’ll burn me one day, don’t be so impatient.
In the News: Talking Transition in NYC
By: Harvard Ash Center
Tags: Foundation, Participatory Democracy, News, NYC

As New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio prepares to take office, a handful of the city’s largest foundations are trying to set a tone for city hall that is more open to community engagement and perhaps more inclusive. Former Ash Center Democracy Fellow Hollie Russon Gilman writes about the Talking Transition initiative in GovLab Blog.

Talking Transition is hosting an open conversation about the future of New York City. Inside a glittering white tent local civic organizations are collaborating to offer an interactive opportunity for New Yorkers to voice their governance opinions. The tent contains interactive keypads, bulletin boards to post ideas, and survey opportunities throughout to share concerns and ideas for the new Mayor.

Read Talking Transition: Participatory Budgeting (Hollie Russon Gilman, November 13, 2013).

View a video and read more about Talking Transition from Open Society Foundations here.

View photos from Hollie’s recent visit to the tent below.

Residents during a participatory budgeting simulation (All photos courtesy of Hollie Russon Gilman)

Message board for residents to post their ideas and concerns for the city and the new Mayor

Tablet stations for residents to weigh in on issues important to them and to rate City services

As of November 19, close to 10,000 people had visited the tent, and more than 48,000 people participated through an online survey

Filed under In the News, Participation, Technology
Pie Chart Basics with Python’s Matplotlib
By: Thiago Carvalho
Tags: Matplotlib, Data Visualization, Basics, Python, Pie Charts

Now, back to the pie!

My idea is to redesign an age distribution chart. These are commonly drawn as a dual-axis bar chart with the width of the bars representing the proportion of each age group, while one axis shows males and the other females.

Health.govt.nz — Maori Health Data and Stats

To do that, we’ll need to encode the proportions of males and females in the slices, and we’ll have to use multiple pies with different sizes to display the age group population.

Let’s create a fake country. I’ll use a dictionary for simplification. The keys will be the group labels, and the values will be an array with the total population in that group, the proportion of males, and the proportion of females.

Now we can select a key in our dictionary, skip the first value in our array and test our pie chart.

Nice! We need a figure, so we have more control over the size of our plot.

Let’s also make our data more explicit by printing it, and try changing the size of our pie.

Alright, for displaying the values, we can just pass a formatting function in the ‘autopct’ argument, and it automatically places the text. The font sizes and other text properties must be passed through a dictionary with the “textprops” parameter.

For the size, we need to use the radius parameter, and this is where it gets a bit tricky.

A general conception around data viz is that when encoding values in the size of a circle, we should use the area of the circumference and not the radius or the diameter.

So, to calculate the radius with the area of a circle, we can use the formula:

Radius = Square Root(Area / Pi)

Many say you can shortcut this formula by skipping pi, in respect to Archimedes, we won’t!

* I’ve also divided the original value by 100 before using it, just for display purposes.
He is my God of Small Things
Tags: Happiness, Poetry, Love, LGBTQ, A Cornered Gurl

POETRY

He is my God of Small Things

Inspired by the eponymous book

Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels

He doesn’t make love to me.

He never goes on long drives with me.

He never hugs me tightly.

He doesn’t introduce me to his friends.

He probably doesn’t even consider me one.

I don’t expect anything from him, though.

Mine is a simple life.

I only look for small joys to keep me going.

One tiny smile from him and my whole universe is upturned.

One whisper from his lips and I know the real meaning of joy.

With these little things, he keeps me happy.

He and I live in different worlds.

I feel his presence all the time, though.

He is that alluring twilight scenery I could sit and admire all my life,

Fully knowing that it wouldn’t notice me.

He is the cause of the vicissitudes of my sanity, and of my peace.

With little things, he keeps me happy.

With small joys, he keeps me going,

Like a god does, for his devotee.

He is my god of small things.
Be a Designer
By: Joseph Emmi
Tags: Designers, Journal, Problem Solving, Design Thinking, Design

Personal journal for thoughts and ideas - What I see, think, feel and do everyday

Follow
Well Completions Fall to Levels Not Seen Since the Beginning of the Shale Revolution
Tags: USA, Oil, News, Business, Energy

After holding steady at the end of Q1, well completions fell across the US tight oil basins in April, dropping by 481. Drilling activity has not fallen as precipitously as active frac fleets, however, driving DUC inventories to record highs with an increase of 717 m/m, half of which are located in the Permian DUCs.

Permian operators were more resilient than those in other basins, but still cut well completions considerably. These declines will continue to accelerate in May.

In the Bakken and in the DJ, where seasonal activity ramp-ups led to higher completions in February and March, completion activity fell to the lowest levels since winter of 2016–17, when severe weather shut in activity. Well completions were also cut in half in the Eagle Ford.

Activity declines were the most dramatic in the Anadarko, beginning long before the collapse in WTI prices. Oklahoma operators completed just 9 wells, not only the lowest number since the beginning of the tight oil era, but likely since the beginning of oil production in the state.
Gitcoin OSS Fund: Round 2’s Radical Results
By: Vivek Singh
Tags: Blockchain, Open Source, Tech, Ethereum

Highlights of Round 2, By The Numbers

We met almost all of our goals for this round (9 of 10 top projects received $2,000, but all 10 didn’t receive $2.5K) — and are marking it down as a success for the program and the community at large.

A huge congrats to the winners, who will receive over $1,000 to support their open source projects. We’re excited to continue to support them using the voice of community as our signal.

(More) Experimentation With Liberal Radicalism

The Gitcoin OSS Fund serves a double purpose: a) first and foremost, a way to bring money to open source projects and b) a research effort to improve Liberal Radicalism (or other mechanisms) which help allocate funding within blockchain communities.

There were many learnings from using Liberal Radicalism as a matching mechanism which we’re excited to tinker with in future rounds.

On Collusion & Identity

During round two, Vitalik Buterin wrote an article on collusion and identity which best highlights one of the largest hurdles in CLR. From that post:

The ideal goal of an identity system is to make it relatively easy for individuals to get one identity, but relatively difficult to get many identities. In the /r/ethtrader donut system, that’s Reddit accounts, in the Gitcoin CLR matching gadget, it’s Github accounts that are used for the same purpose. But identity, at least the way it has been implemented so far, is a fragile thing….

In discussing this fragility, one project in Round 2 — which we’ll leave unnamed here — originally received a significant portion of the CLR matching via contributions from Github accounts which eventually were proven to be fake, puppet accounts. We were able to detect collusion and manually modded out these contribution. We plan to implement more robust identity solutions down the road.

Reaching Critical Mass

It’s also worth noting that the Liberal Radicalism approach improves as the number of donors increases (since the likelihood of the signal being skewed by large donors decreases).

While we’re extremely thankful for many larger donors to Gitcoin Grants (namely: Web 3 Foundation, MakerDAO, POA Network, and the Binance Fellowship Program), we hope that increasing the number of small, individual contributions in future rounds will improve the matching function even more.

Simply put, we’re aiming for more contributions. A simple vote with $1 from 1000’s of contributors is enough to drown out the noise of larger donations, if these projects are unable to receive other contributions from the crowd. We have some ideas on how to encourage these $1 votes in future rounds.

The Future of the Gitcoin OSS Fund
How to Host Your React App on GitHub Pages for Free
By: Sabesan Sathananthan
Tags: Programming, Github, Reactjs, React, Deployment

Using Custom Domains

If you don’t like the github.io in your default domain name, choose another domain name. Github Pages lets you use your own custom domain name and setting it up is just like walking on the beach.

If you don’t already have a domain, go and buy one. There are some free domains you can get from this link. If you’re going to buy a domain, it will cost you probably $1 or $2.

Go to the settings in your registry and add a new domain name. It will generate a CNAME file, don’t delete it in your directory.

The GitHub part is done here. Now, you need to make domain side changes.

Go to the domain you bought, sign in, and pick the domain you want to use. Check the Manage DNS or DNS Settings. Now you have two improvements to make to your DNS.

Records

This is essentially an apex domain which ensures that if any user writes only react-deploy.cf instead of https:/react-deploy.cf or www.react-deploy.tk , it will still function.

There are four IP addresses that you have to use to connect to the server. Those are shown below. But please make sure you go to the official documents and use the new ones.

185.199.108.153

185.199.109.153

185.199.110.153

185.199.111.153

CNAME

This can be achieved by using CNAME if you choose to use www or some other similar sub-domain. We need to point our subdomains to our primary repository tab.

Therefore, we will redirect it to sabesansathananthan.github.io/React-Deploy. Please ensure that at the end of the address, there is a line. It’s not a typo.

Now that both are set, reflections can take up to 24 hours but typically take 45 minutes to one hour. Once this is completed, please search for your website by typing in your custom domain. It’s up and running. It’s on.