fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
What is branding?
By: Ian Evenstar
Tags: Branding Strategy, Brand Strategy, Branding, Brand Building, Business Of Design

Like people, brands are complex. They take a lot of work to raise; they go through many changes during their lifetime and require special care to reach their greatest potential.

Branding is an essential component of building a prosperous company, organization, or career. But I find that there are so many misunderstandings about what makes a brand, how to do branding, and ultimately how to build a successful brand. Because of this, I find that to make a significant change; we always need to start with an understanding of what a brand is.

So, what is a brand? This question is as simple as it is complicated — check out this article where I cover four key topics:

How we define a brand The difference between a brand and branding How to express your brand through brand touchpoints Brand Touchpoint Activity

I was taught long ago that a brand is not a logo, and I’ve seen this recently on LinkedIn. I don’t want to name any names, but I thought it would be helpful to share my perspective.

For me, a brand IS a logo. It’s a website, it’s a brochure, it’s your product, it’s your service, it’s your positioning, your mission, vision, and values. It’s all of these things combined.

So what is a brand then? A brand, simply stated, is an identity. It is a way of being that is expressed over time. It’s a living, breathing thing that often changes.

Take a person, for example. You might have someone that’s introverted or extroverted; maybe they like to read a lot, hang out with friends. Maybe they spend most of their time with family or in the great outdoors. This is what defines them. This is what defines their identity. And a brand operates very much the same way.

What is branding?

Branding is the activity or process of expressing identity. Brand identities are expressed in three ways:

1. Physical

Physical branding involves anything that is tactile by nature. Physical branding might include your outdoor ad campaigns, program brochures, and print collateral.

2. Digital

Digital expressions are essentially anything that prospects engage with online or on a screen, including your social media accounts, your website, and emails.

3. Experiential

Experiential branding means the sights, the smells, and the sounds that accompany your brand. These are particularly important for brands that have physical locations.

Think of your favorite local cafe: it has a specific smell, a particular style of decor, and even the cleanliness of the bathroom is part of the brand experience.

What is a brand touchpoint?

The places that your brand is expressed are called touchpoints. So a brand identity is expressed through the process of branding, and a touchpoint is where that sensation is transferred.

A touchpoint is where your audience interacts with your brand. It’s what allows a brand to be recalled. It’s what allows a brand to be purchased. It’s what allows your audience, your brand tribe, to continue to grow.

It’s the sensation that’s transferred from your identity to the audience, which makes a touchpoint so important.
Eurika: A UI Case Study
By: Jessica Adamowicz
Tags: UI, Design, UX, UX Design, UI Design

Our “Why” is based on the idea of Pattern Language which was created by architect Christopher Alexander and is defined as,

“an attempt to express the deeper wisdom of what brings aliveness within a particular field of human endeavor, through a set of interconnected expressions arising from that wisdom.”

This info was obtained from the Group Works website at this link on the Group Works website.

Our three directions

After creating our “Why”, we went three different directions in terms of the mood and visual language using the results from our gut test and the information obtained from our initial client kickoff meeting. We also kept our persona in mind throughout this process.

Using the gut test results, we decided to go a playful direction as well as a more muted, professional direction, both with a large focus on imagery. We also decided to go a direction with a minimalist approach with more delicate pastel colors to give our client a variety of options to choose from and give him the option to choose different elements that he liked from each direction.

Daniel did choose elements from each direction and from there we combined them to create the final design, which will be explained later.

The Muted Direction

Muted Moodboard

Muted Moodboard

The first direction that our team decided to go was the muted direction. It has a very muted and professional feel with a focus on human connection, and the mood conveyed through the moodboard is:

Wise, Positive, Evolving, Human Connection

Muted Style Tile

Muted Style Tile

The visual language elements of the inception sheet are portrayed through our style tiles.

Visual Language:

Shape — Angular Space — Open Movement — smooth, direct Color — Solid, muted, natural
This is worth a watch: Robots Dancing
By: Eric Martin
Tags: Future, Predict, Robots, Technology, AI

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When was the last time?
By: Bunga Istyani
Tags: Short Story, Fiction, Feelings

“You’re starting to lose the magic.”

“Excuse you?” She looked up at him, raised her eyebrows up a notch.

“Tell me, when was the last time you randomly walk into a flower shop? When was the last time you spend your time watching the sky turning from yolky orange into an indigo dusk? When was the last time you sit in a coffee shop, staring at all those passing cars outside and thinking about dusty dawn?”

Alaska paused. She opened her mouth but none came out of it. She inhaled deeply and stutters, “I…I don’t know what to say.”

“Do you remember you used to talk poetry? You used to listen with your ears, your eyes, and your heart. You were a wizard with the pointy hat from across the road, happily playing with those cats and raindrops, you used to wave away your wand, saying hi to every passerby. You used to smile at strangers,” he continued as she stares blankly at the sky, avoiding his gaze.

He chuckled, knowing what’s on her mind. He knew this time she couldn’t deny his sentence. “You carried around your crayons, you loved the white one as if it’s the last man standing that guards its legacy bravely. You used to talk about it so happily I saw rainbow in your eyes.”

“I… I don’t know. It feels like all of my emotions are sucked into a blackhole of nothingness,” said Alaska. Her voice started to tremble. She hated it so much to face the fact that he’s right, “I don’t know what should I do?”

“Breathe,” he put his hand on her shoulder, giving her a sympathy pat. “Invite your melancholy outside for a stroll. Take photos. Read a poem. Or write one.”

“Find the magic dust!” he said, enthusiastly. He called out the Alaska he used to know. He knew that deep down somewhere, she’s there.

“You know what, Alaska?” he whispers with a voice deeper than before, “There are always doors for those who want to find them.”
3 levels of Machine learning as I see it and why you don’t need to worry about Maths in ML all the…
By: Aseem Bansal
Tags: Data Engineering, Machine Learning

With all the hype about machine learning and lot of people coming to talk about this field there seems to be one common thought process that has became mainstream i.e. to use ML you need to go Maths first. One big reason of that is when this all started the expertise was only in Universities where a theoretical first approach was used. Thus a Maths-first approach for ML is the main discourse out there everywhere. But that is not the only approach out the there.

If you are a non-technical person it is completely possible for you to take benefit from the new advances in Machine learning/Artificial Intelligence because there are people out there to make things simpler for the rest of the world. You have to understand that while everyone is saying that use AI or become irrelevant the situation is also a massive opportunity for big Tech players like Google, Microsoft, Amazon. They stand to make a lot of money if they can make AI/ML easy and accessible for the rest of the world. They did for cloud and they are in a race to do it for AI/ML too.

If you are a technical person my advice is that before you start to delve into machine learning/artificial intelligence learning race take a step back and think about what your goals are.

If you start in this field without a guide it can be a very frustrating experience. I am 90% sure that when you start you will go and do Andrew Ng’s Machine learning course as more than half of the internet tells you to do that. But after doing that most of the people are left confused about what next unless you are the ones who already have a business use case in mind when starting with the course.

If you just want to build solutions review what the big players offer out of the box. If their offering does not satisfy your requirements before you go and start doing machine learning courses bear in mind it is long term en-devour (~6 months to 1 year) if you go take Maths first approach and then you will have to deal with productizing your solution which Andrew Ng’s course won’t prepare you for at all. His course is like teaching you the basics that you will never use in real life. Real life is different. You will have to call upon other people’s experiences (like I shared here) and make your own solution.

If you want to changes directions and do a career in Data Science/Machine learning/AI or whatever buzzword brought you here then look at other posts as there are already a lot out there. My only advice is keep a solution in mind before you start and go practical rather than theoretical. I recommend fast ai’s Machine learning course as their approach is good.

Now if you are interested in learning more about the ML APIs that are provided by the cloud providers you can check this out.
The One Habit Great Leaders Adapt — Even If They Dislike
By: Shashi Kulkarni
Tags: Work, Leadership, Productivity, Technology, Business

Q2 — Addiction

“We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.” ― Santosh Kalwar

© Shashi Kulkarni — 2020

Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry Potter in the famous film series, and became a world-famous star, says this about his drinking habit:

“I was living in constant fear of who I’d meet, what I might have said to them, what I might have done with them, so I’d stay in my apartment for days and drink alone. I was a recluse at 20. It was pathetic — it wasn’t me. I’m a fun, polite person, and it turned me into a rude bore.” ~Daniel Radcliffe

Addiction can take many different forms. The ones which are commonly well-known in this category are drinking, smoking, vaping, drugs, eating junk food, and the likes.

But many of us are addicted to our phones, our social media personas, and the dopamine we get from the likes and the related notifications through the apps on our phones.

We start watching TV just as only one episode of a famous series and before we know it, we have finished the entire series within a day or two.

We know that these activities of getting up late, too much sugar, having jealousy, or checking our phone every few minutes are not good for us. We still keep doing them because we like them.

These are the activities of quadrant two of Addiction or cravings. They drive us in a downward cycle from where we are.

These activities take most of our time and are mostly non-productive.

These activities should be restricted to only the time which can be called as relaxation, which is necessary to get pumped up again. Those which fall under the criteria of cravings should be closely watched and replaced with eating healthy food only.

The activities which fall under pure addictions, need to be controlled by following mindfulness, meditation, and yogic practices. Many times, some of these addictions will need medical help to get rid of it.
Angular 6 Features
By: Kunal Thorat
Tags: Angular, JavaScript

As we know Angular 6 has been released. The angular team has come up with a lot of features. Of course I will not be able to go over them in this one post. I will go over the features that I have read up and am reading.

Angular 6 modules are generally focused on

Reducing compilation time (Bazel Compiler):

During development, for any change, the compiler rebuilds the complete code which obviously takes a lot of time. Bazel will only compile what is necessary hence reducing compile time

2. Reducing the code size (Ivy):

Ivy will not be default, if you want to use this you will need to manually change a compiler option. If used this will improve speed, reduce size and give an increase in flexibility.

3. Service workers:

Service workers were released with Angular 5 but they were not stable. The angular team came with the stable version and with an additional feature. Service worker helps us to caching the application in the browser which can run in offline mode.

4. Component Dev Kit(CDK) :

This package is already used by the Angular Material library, which offers 30+ UI components. What if we don’t want to use Angular Material but want to build your own library of UI components and control page layouts? CDK gives us the authority to do this.

Features included in Angular 6 :

Typescript 2.7

Changes in Router Module :

Currently, NavigationStart there is no way to know if navigation was triggered imperatively or via the location change.We just need to add navigation source and restoresState to navigationStart event then we would able to know navigation was triggered imperatively or via the location change.

Changes in Form Module :

ngModelChange is now emitted after the value gets updated. Initially, you could get the result by passing the $event parameter on OnChange Event.

Example :

<input [(ngModel)]="Angular" (ngModelChange)="onChangeEmit($event)"> onChangeEmit(event) { console.log(event); }

It will log the updated value.

But if you don’t pass the $event parameter in OnChangeHandler event then you will get old value on onChange and not updated value.

Example :

<input [(ngModel)]="Angular" (ngModelChange)="onChangeEmit"> onChangeEmit(ngModel : NgModel){ console.log(ngModel.value) }

It will log the old value.

In Angular 6 you can get the updated value without passing any parameter.

Example :

<input [(ngModel)]="Angular" (ngModelChange)="onChangeEmit"> onChangeEmit(ngModel : NgModel){ console.log(ngModel.value) }

It will log updated value.
Indian Exchange Koinex Launches XRP-based Crypto Trading Market
Tags: Xrp, Ripple, Ripple Coin, Koinex, Bitcoin

Koinex is one of the top cryptocurrency exchange in India. Recently it has launched crypto-to-crypto trading on its platform. Soon after that, it has launched XRP based crypto trading market, which is first to be done by Koinex in the Crypto world. Users can now do crypto-to-crypto trading from Koinex website or through its official app. Currently, 15 pairs of tokens are allowed for crypto-to-crypto trading (BTC & ETH) and 8 XRP pairs.

“Our platform is built with the agility and technical brilliance to adapt to any market requirement. We were deliberating on the possible new offerings on Koinex and many of our traders expressed interest for a crypto-to-crypto trading corridor. Our thoughts matched and we expedited the platform integration and today are set to offer our entire crypto-pair bouquet for seamless trading, and many more such surprises are in the pipeline to enthrall our users,” said Rahul Raj, Co-Founder, and CEO of Koinex.

@Ripple (XRP) has always been a crypto-crowd favourite because of its high liquidity and ease to transact. For the first time in the crypto world, Koinex proudly presents XRP-based trading market with 8 XRP pairs going live tonight. #XRPTheStandard#WhatsNextOnKoinex #Ripple — Koinex (@koinexindia) April 28, 2018

Among the 8 pairs of tokens launched, the tokens available for trading under XRP based crypto trading market are –

AETERNITY (AE)

EOS (EOS)

GOLEM (GNT)

LITECOIN (LTC)

NUCLEUS VISION (NCASH)

OMISEGO (OMG)

REQUEST NETWORK (REQ)

TRON (TRX)

Also, Koinex has slashed the trading fee for buying and selling at 0.15% for INR market. Additionally, for the crypto-to-crypto pairs trading, there is zero trade fee.

The tokens available in the Bitcoin market will be Ethereum (ETH/BTC), Litecoin (LTC/BTC), TRON (TRX/BTC), Ripple (XRP/BTC), OmiseGo (OMG/BTC), Bitcoin cash (BCH/BTC), EOS (EOS/BTC), Nucleus Vision (NCASH/BTC), and Request (REQ/BTC).

The tokens available in the Ethereum market will be TRON (TRX/ETH), Ripple (XRP/ETH), OmiseGo (OMG/ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH/ETH), EOS (EOS/ETH), and Nucleus Vision (NCASH/ETH).
The Nimiq Community Update — Week 11
Tags: Blockchain, Ethereum, Nimiq, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

The Nimiq Community Update — Week 11

Welcome to the Nimiq Community Update! This a community contributed weekly write-up on what Team Nimiq have been posting in the official Nimiq discord channel alongside community led projects and content being created for Nimiq. Nimiq.Community will always be ‘by the community for the community’.

Nimiq is a browser-based Blockchain designed for simplicity. Nimiq’s reason for existence is to bring the benefits of blockchain technology to the mainstream. To achieve that purpose Nimiq has been built from the ground up to address and break the barriers to entry that inhibit the mainstream adoption of blockchain technologies. Nimiq is encompassed by a strong philanthropic mindset, it will always remain open-source and community-driven.

Aligning the community

Week 11 brings a multitude of Nimiq.Community related updates from the launch of a community managed Nimiq roadmap to a new medium for all Nimiq Community related content, this expansion is part of a strategy to galvanise and highlight the fantastic work of community members.

As part of aligning the tone of voice, messaging, branding and other aspects of Nimiq.Community; the discord moderation team has been expanded to support Nimiq.Community related social media, Team Nimiq ‘s community manager Richy is advising this effort.

Here’s a list of the Nimiq.Community social channels that will be managed:

If you would like to contribute to Nimiq.Community please get in touch with any of the Nimiq discord moderation team or through any of the social media links above.

Marketing

Following last week’s post about the test version of the Nimiq web-shop, the Nimiq ledger promotion announced as part of the ‘Nimiq: Past, Present & Future’ blog series by Team Nimiq is approaching completion, whilst details haven’t been shared on the form this promotion will take, it will be integrated as a multi-pronged marketing strategy highlighted in the aforementioned blog series.

Exchanges & Trade
Daily Recriminations
By: Michael Burg
Tags: Humor, Politics, Sarcasm, Satire, Comedy

You think my momma’s fat, well your momma’s so fat that …

Photo by Yosh Ginsu on Unsplash

Recriminations noun — retaliatory accusations

With all the horseshit out there about the benefits of meditation, mindfulness and daily affirmations I think it’s time for a dose of reality, daily recriminations. Besides they’re so much more appropriate for today’s political and societal climate (talk about global “warming”).

And we’re off.
So You Had A Bad Day
By: Charlene Fate
Tags: Inspiration, Happiness, Encouragement, Life, Uplifting

So You Had A Bad Day

How To Hang On During Tough Times

Photo by Yuris Alhumaydy on Unsplash.

There’s nothing wrong or evil about having a bad day. There’s everything wrong with making others have to have it… with you.-Neil Cavuto

Is today a tough day? Are you struggling to just exist today? It happens to all of us. Some days are just rough.

You want to close your eyes and wake up to tomorrow already. Unfortunately, you have to muster through today.

It’s a challenge to forge through a rough day or week. The temptation to shrink away and hide is high but we can’t hide. Even if we manage to slink away for a short period of time we know the responsibilities will be waiting for us to return.

To make it through a rough patch you must acknowledge that things are rough. Embracing the battles of life allows you to let others in to help you.

Once you acknowledge and accept life’s rumblings you will open yourself up to solutions. Solutions flow easier to minds that are not riddled with angst because of denial and secrets.

So if today is tough for you don’t be afraid to share. Don’t be too proud to accept help. We’re all in this together.
Find Me On The Internet
By: Emma Geary
Tags: Personal Essay, Professional, Creative Work, Publishing, Blogging

Want to see my writing outside of Emma In Print?

Popsugar: “How I Keep Stress From Taking a Physical Toll.”

The Bleu: “Just Ask: Getting What You Want.”

The Bleu: “Everything You Should Be Watching This Fall.”
How to detect image contents from Ruby with Amazon Rekognition
By: Peter Cooper
Tags: AWS, Image Recognition, Ruby

Rekognition is a new Amazon Web Service that “makes it easy to add image analysis to your applications.” It can detect faces and objects, and even let you store libraries of faces for future recognition.

If you’ve ever used an AWS service from Ruby before, doing some simple image rekognition (sic) is straightforward.

Create a .env file with your AWS credentials

AWS_REGION=us-east-1

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=[put that key here]

AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=[and the other one here]

Get the credentials from AWS, as you would for any other service. (For extra security, use IAM to create credentials solely for Rekognition.) Note that it’s currently only available in US West, US East, and EU Ireland regions.

Create a Gemfile to get a simple project going

source ' https://rubygems.org gem 'dotenv'

gem 'aws-sdk'

The dotenv gem pulls in the .env file as environment variables for your program. The aws-sdk gem is Amazon’s official Ruby SDK for AWS.

Write a Ruby program to query Amazon Rekognition

require 'dotenv'

Dotenv.load

require 'aws-sdk' client = Aws::Rekognition::Client.new resp = client.detect_labels(

image: { bytes: File.read(ARGV.first) }

) resp.labels.each do |label|

puts "#{label.name}-#{label.confidence.to_i}"

end

First, we load our libraries and load in the environment variables from .env. The AWS SDK will use your credentials automatically.

Next, we create a client object and call its detect_labels method (really, Rekognition’s DetectLabels method) with the raw data of a file whose name is passed in via the first command line argument (ARGV.first). Finally, we print out the labels and confidence levels returned.

Do some detecting

If the above file were called detect.rb for example, you could run this:

ruby detect.rb myimage.jpg

Let’s say that myimage.jpg looked like this:

The above Ruby script would produce:

Freeway-64

Road-64

Dirt Road-63

Gravel-63

Asphalt-56

Tarmac-56

Intersection-55

The labels of what’s been detected are on the left, with the percentage ‘confidence’ of the detection algorithm on the right.

Have fun and remember Amazon will charge you $1 per 1000 images processed unless you’re on the free tier.

Random terrible ideas for this stuff if you’re bored
Focus On Creating Value, Not Code
By: Edwin Klesman
Tags: Coding, Entrepreneurship, Developer, Mindset, Startup

Too often, we want to start working on a solution in a heartbeat 💓.

It is nice to start building on something. And as developers, in code we get a kind of comfort since we know what we’re doing and how to use all the tools at hand.

Starting On The Solution Too Fast

We start designing. We grab a coffee and start coding at once. Or load up our tools and get that project started. 🏃🏻‍♂️ Run. Run. Run.

There’s nothing wrong if you’re doing this to learn by doing, but if you want to build a viable product or just something that solves a problem for you or others, the diving-in-head-first-method might not be the best one.

I get it: as a coder, I know how fun it is to code a solution to any problem.

But more often than not, this gets you into trouble further down the path:

Missed scenarios 😕

Wrong assumptions 😞

Error-prone implementations 😖

Solve By Focusing On Value First

Prevent those troubles by thinking about #valuefirst: what is the thing you’re trying to solve /create. And, more importantly:

WHAT IS THE VALUE YOU CAN PROVIDE WITH THE SOLUTION? 🤔

If you need to test before you can define the value, start with setting up a proof of concept (PoC) using tools that help you to validate your assumptions:

non-coding / low-coding tools

Use Excel

connect services using Zapier to set up a workflow

validate your idea using a SIMPLE landing page

These kinds of PoC setups can be done quickly and while they aren’t going to be the final solution, they WILL prove to you if all the time you’re investing will pay off eventually.

It’s better to waste 10 hours on an idea proven wrong than 1000 on a working solution never being used

Don’t worry about scaling, best practices. Look and feel. 🙅🏻‍♂️

Worry about testing and validating the solution you want to create and the value it will create for its users.

Actionable steps to do this

Here are the steps I take when I validate the value of my idea:

Create a simple PoC in code/demo video/visualisation showing the main idea of the solution Create a simple landing page for my idea (using Carrd.co) Get the PoC in people’s hands asap and get to test it out by/with them for early feedback Tweak the idea and ask for $$$ (if a viable product is your goal)

This mindset isn’t earth-shattering: it’s what the book The Lean Startup and Pieter Levels’ book Make: bootstrappers handbook already describe.

Stop building on assumptions and start validating before you build

Code Hard, Ship Harder

Let me know how you’ve validated your ideas. Any tools, tips or tricks are welcome!
POSTCARDS FROM NEW YORK: FROZEN SPRING #1
Tags: Poetry, Art, Photography, Phoetry, Thesceneandheard

Scene & Heard is where readers, writers, artists, photographers, creatives gather to observe and showcase their artistry…

Follow
Eggs? The Cheapest Source of Protein
By: Hafsa Waqar
Tags: Fitness, Eggs, Healthcare, Health, Food

Eggs after a post-workout:

When you sweat out in the gym, you lose muscles and your glucose levels decrease. To have protein-rich post-workout snacks and some carbohydrates, eggs are amazing sources of this highly required combination.

People chose egg whites as a snack to replenish their tissue with a high amount of proteins and carbohydrates. Egg yolk contains a high amount of cholesterol and fats which is why people prefer to consume just the egg whites to play safe and restrict them to consume fats.

Eggs give me protein after a good workout. The cheesier, the better! Shanola Hampton

Hard-boiled eggs are one of the easiest snacks when it comes to post-workout meals. Rich with proteins and increase glucose levels to the normal again after a tense workout.
dia zero
By: Vinícius Asevedo
Tags: Poesia Brasileira, Literatura, Poema, Poesia, Surreal

in Eudaimonia and Co
[BLOG] A New Trend For Luxury Markets, GUHADA
Tags: Blockchain, Guhada, Online Shopping, Platform, Luxury

Growth of the luxury markets from “YOLO” spending

Recently, there had been a great spending increase by young adults around the age of 20s, recognized as the big spenders for luxury products. As “YOLO Life” is becoming a trend within the group, the purchasing rate of the group is much higher than other age groups. It is a global trend that young adults are becoming the big spenders of luxury products. The luxury brand companies and the industry is increasingly more focused on online shopping malls to target young adult luxury item shoppers.

In the past 25th, the online portion of the global company of luxury products, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH)’s 24S, known as their online-shop entered the Korean luxury market by adding Korean language and related services, confirming the significance of the luxury market industry in Korea. In addition, the country’s premium outlets facilitated by top-rated malls, as Lotte and Shinsaege shifted their momentum to focus on online shopping.

The consistent problem of the luxury market, the counterfeits

Although the increase in growth of the luxury markets persists, the problems of counterfeit products still yet been solved. Even a simple search about luxury products online, financial damages caused by counterfeit products easily appear on the first page. In addition, a 30-year-old counterfeit luxury product seller had been sentenced for a felony offense. The felon executed the fraudulent activity by copying the brand symbols and trademarks and placed them on the products that were being sold on the site, selling about 25 thousand products, approximately equal to 12.7 million dollars in real product value.

As the sale of luxury products have become active through social networking sites nowadays, the damages related to the sales had been increasing as well. It is especially difficult to track all the sales that happen through social networking sites since most of the sales are done privately through direct messages between the merchant and the purchaser, so it is becoming a critical issue. The products purchased through the social networking sites are not entitled to a refund since the sales are done privately and even if the product is a fake, there are not much of ways to recover the lost or financial damages.
June Garden
By: Jane Woodman
Tags: Poetry, Sonnet, Garden, Change, Ruminations

Now carrots push their shoulders above soil,

And garlic leaves start yellowing to brown.

Already the first crop of sweet kohlrabi

Grew fast in spring, so it’s long since cut down.

Cilantro, too, and chervil had their season,

So basil now and eggplant take their place,

While peppers and tomatoes slowly increase

And set their flowers and fruit at their own pace.

Now curcurbits are vining over spaces

That last year gave a home to all our beans;

Potato plants are turning yellow, fading–

That’s cause for joy when one knows what it means.

Such constant variation signifies

That everything must change, but nothing dies.
Learning to “EXIIST” in the Present
By: Alexis Cruz
Tags: Performance, Events, Creative, Music, Dance

Another recurring action/character was a group of dancers from the first story, who grew in numbers with each act. They significantly outnumbered the women in white and wore all black to contrast them visually. This group represented the rising action, which was emphasized by ad libs and the performance music.

As the show went on, the stories got more and more intense. They were filled with drama, grief, and even death, which made the show much more theatrical than strictly movement based.

Fifth story main character, a patient with declining health.

Despite the somber mood, the ending monologue done by Friidom, and the ensemble dance cypher spread good vibes. “Perhaps existence is not yet defined,” said Friidom in regards to the themes of the stories/acts that the audience had witnessed.
ECOMI Partners With GoChain to Improve Speed, Transactions, and Security
Tags: Partnerships, Blockchain, Collectibles, Bitcoin, Startup

ECOMI is proud to announce a partnership with GoChain, to launch our token sale and support the ECOMI Collect app and digital ecosystem.

GoChain has built the world’s only full-service, enterprise grade public blockchain protocol based on an industry standard codebase. It is the only network protocol that offers Enterprise level support, high transaction speeds, and upgradeable smart contracts.

What’s the Go with GoChain?

GoChain is a scalable, high performance, low cost, and decentralised blockchain that supports smart contracts and distributed applications. Moreover, GoChain is 100% backwards compatible with the Ethereum blockchain, including wallets and smart contracts, allowing for a seamless transition to the new network, and offering a scalable blockchain which is:

10x more decentralised - GoChain forces nodes to be in different countries, run by unrelated people/companies, ensuring true decentralisation and improved security.

- GoChain forces nodes to be in different countries, run by unrelated people/companies, ensuring true decentralisation and improved security. 100x faster - GoChain can currently handle 1300 transactions per second, compared with Ethereum’s 13 Tx/second, and is on track to reach 13,000 Tx/second by Q2 2019.

- GoChain can currently handle 1300 transactions per second, compared with Ethereum’s 13 Tx/second, and is on track to reach by Q2 2019. 1000x greener - GoChain operates with a fraction of the energy consumption required by the Ethereum chain.

- GoChain operates with a fraction of the energy consumption required by the Ethereum chain. 7500x cheaper (at least).
A Beginner’s Guide to Deep-Throating Your Man Like a Pro
By: Brown Sugar
Tags: Sex, Oral Sex, Guides And Tutorials, Sex Tips, Sexuality

Your gag reflex can be a problem when trying to deep throat. Your body is going to respond violently if you stick something too far in the back of your throat.

So, you’re going to have to practice relaxing those muscles if you’re going to ever successfully deep throat your partner.

1. Lubricate the Penis Well

A well-lubricated penis slides better than a non-lubricated one.

The most comfortable and most pleasurable way to do this is to suck on your partner’s penis for a minute or two until it is good and moist.

2. Align Your Throat and His Penis

Make sure you are in a comfortable position, and your throat and the penis are correctly aligned.

The best way to accomplish this is to have your guy lie on his back, and you lie on your stomach alongside him.

When you ben over him, you’re going to want to keep your neck as straight as possible, so his penis is pointing directly at the back of your throat.

If that angle doesn’t work for you, you can have him stand, and you position yourself on your knees in from of him. This position gives you more control and makes aligning your throat and his penis much easier.

3. Slide the Penis Into Your Mouth Slowly

You can either do this yourself or have him slide his penis into your mouth.

You want to move slowly.

Very slowly.

You’re not trying to engage your gag reflex.

Continue to slide the penis into your mouth until you feel your gag reflex kick in. If your partner is the one doing the sliding, be sure to let him know that you’ve reached a point where you need him to stop, or you will gag.

4. Hold in Place

Hold his penis in position for as long as you again.

Once you feel like you can’t hold it anymore, let go and take a break.

Relax.

5. Repeat steps 1–4

You only become good at things when you practice. So keep at it until you’re only gagging if you want to, not because you can’t help it.

Also, Rome wasn’t built in a day; it may take you a few attempts to get over your gagging issues. I’m sure your boyfriend won’t mind that you want to have his penis in your mouth as often as possible.

You’ll notice that after each session, you’ll be able to hold his penis in place longer and longer until your gag reflex isn’t an issue at all.

However, don’t try to do this too many times in one day; this is something that you should do over time.

Too many times in one day, you could make yourself sick and possibly cause you to vomit, and vomiting is definitely NOT sexy — so take your time.
Joe Biden Visits Idaho ‘or Iowa or wherever the hell I am’
By: Spud Times
Tags: Politics, Iowa, 2020 Presidential Race, Idaho, Satire

Last week former Vice President and 2020 presidential candidate, Joe Biden, showcased his working class roots at a $1,000 per head fundraiser at the Boise residence of Skip and Esther Oppenheimer.

Biden told supporters that he is the only candidate able to win back Midwestern states like “Idaho or Iowa or wherever the hell I am,” from President Trump in 2020.

The former Vice President name-dropped famous politicos with whom he’s worked, “…whether it was Frank Church or Chuck Grassley, and don’t you worry about Chuck, I’ll whip that old-timer into shape once I get in the Oval.”

When it was brought to Biden’s attention that some of his peers in the Senate have been dead longer than his opponent South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg has even been alive, Biden dismissed the remarks as agism and claimed that, “I’m not going to stop until I’ve won every vote in this state from Coeur d’Alene to Keokuk.”

When asked about his recent mix-ups with Senators Booker and Harris over issues of race, and his plan to address racial inequality in America he said, “Two words — Barack Obama. Ever heard of him?”

Biden concluded his remarks at around 5PM citing his need to get to bed soon for the “bus ride to Cedar Rapids tonight.”
Mani5 — The latest happenings this week
By: Alex Myers
Tags: App, Civil Rights, Disney, Dating App, Baby Names

by Lucy Rogers

Every Friday we round up the five coolest things that have stood out this week against the rest. Seen something pretty awesome? Let us know by tweeting us at @ManifestNewYork.

60 Years ago — A pivotal point in the civil rights movement

Sixty years ago this week, ‘the first lady of civil rights’, Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. Rosa refused to give up her bus seat to a white male on Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, sparking efforts to end racial segregation. In a 1995 interview, she said she wasn’t angry about being asked to leave her seat, just resolute. “I don’t remember feeling that anger, but I did feel determined to take this as an opportunity to let it be known that I did not want to be treated in that manner and that people have endured it far too long,” she said. Be bold. Be brave. Words to live by.

Giving away 99 percent but keeping one

On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla, posted a letter on their Facebook page to their newborn baby girl, Max. In said letter they outlined their plans to donate a whopping 99 percent of their Facebook stock — worth about a cool $45 billion — to promote equality and the human potential. “Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities,” they wrote. LIKE

Baby X-Pro II

It’s common knowledge that naming a baby is difficult — so why not take inspiration from your cellphone photography habits. Yup, according to the website BabyCentre, there has been a dramatic rise in the naming of newborns after popular Instagram filters. The site claims that Lux is the top choice. Additionally, Ludwig, Amaro, Reyes, Hudson and Kelvin all rose up the popularity rankings for boys while Juno, Valencia and Willow were routinely picked for girls.

Disney for Daters

Mouse Mingle, yes, Mouse Mingle, is the new dating website here in the States doing the rounds for those who looking for love, Disney style . The website features all the traditional elements of a dating site, with customizable profiles, photos and ratings. For $12.55 a month, users can private message and partake in online chats with other users. Where the website differs from other sites is in its questions, which ask users to share their favorite Disney songs, characters, parks and memories.

Salty Stuff

Beginning this week, New Yorkers might notice something different about the menus in their fav fast food establishments. In an effort to fight heart disease — the cause of 1 in 4 deaths in America, according to the CDC — New York has become the first city in the nation to implement salt warning labels on chain restaurant menus, highlighting food containing at least 2,300 milligrams of salt.
Космическое предложение от Компании Simcord
By: Bitbon System
Tags: Mars, Offers, Simcord, Bitbon, Space

The Bitbon System is a large-scale infrastructure project, which represents a decentralized platform for Contributing. https://www.bitbon.space/en/home

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Should Unemployment Benefits be Free to Collect?
By: Geraint Clarke
Tags: Work, Politics, Society, Finance, Economics

Should Unemployment Benefits be Free to Collect?

Mobilizing the out-of-work workforce

Photo by Joel Barwick on Unsplash

This may be a controversial topic, one you may presuppose is going to be unbalanced — it’s not.

I live by the beach and tourism during summer takes a toll on the environment. There is trash everywhere. People discard their child’s dirty diapers and the remnants of smashed glass-bottles that used to hold alcohol are strewn across the paths.

As I was walking my dog through this proverbial minefield I saw a group of volunteers in high-visibility gear, trying to clean up the mess from the previous weekend’s footfall.

They were unpaid, so they only have limited free time and often it’s not enough to complete the work that’s needed.

I immediately thought, how would an economist solve this problem? What group of people do we already pay, but yet don’t have any responsibility for work?

The answer, those who are currently unemployed.
Excellence In Public Sector at Australasian CX Awards
By: Elyse Wyatt
Tags: News, Transport, Customer Experience, Software Development, Awards

We were thrilled to celebrate our work with Auckland Transport at last week’s CX Awards in Sydney. The CX Awards benchmark and recognize Customer Experience excellence and innovation across Australia and New Zealand.

Auckland Transport came home with Excellence in Public Sector: The Citizen Experience, for work on Tertiary Student Concessions, and were also nominated for Best Use of Technology to Revolutionize CX — for the development and evolution of the AT Mobile App.

Applying design thinking and lean approaches, we have made a difference in the lives of Aucklanders. Developing GIS mapping tools has resulted in reduced waste internally and a better customer experience. Smart use of data and leveraging the AT Mobile app has reduced customer effort for thousands of Auckland students. — Auckland Transport

Judges said this entry was a great example of technology, meets needs, meets design, meets customer focus. It demonstrated great problem framing, clearly articulating benefits and robust solutions. A great example of the practice and theory of CX.

Improving the Student Concession Experience

Concessions are an important part of public transport for students. Auckland Transport’s tertiary student concession application process, however, was forcing students to go through four different steps in order to obtain their concessions, of which three out of the four steps involved students queueing up at the university and at AT’s contact centers. Not only was this a sub-optimal customer experience, but also a large overhead on AT contact centers.

We embarked on a pilot with Auckland Transport to optimise the tertiary student concession application process. Discovery work via a series of workshops was undertaken in order to determine the necessary next steps for this work. We then successfully implemented a pilot with the University of Auckland, and implemented an automatic eligibility validation mechanism. The steps required to apply for a concession was reduced. Automatic eligibility validation was then rolled out for AUT University and Massey University.
Lojong Practice Journal: Always maintain only a joyful mind
By: Kaitlyn S. C. Hatch
Tags: Buddhism, Dharma, series of posts, Life Lessons, Lojong

‘Always maintain only a joyful mind’ is quite the slogan and one I found easier to contemplate when I looked at a few other translations. In Traleg Kyabgon’s book, The Practice of Lojong, this slogan is translated as ‘Always have the support of a joyful mind’, which definitely has a different feeling to the translation overseen by Chögyam Trungpa, and closer to my own sense of what this slogan is instructing.

‘Always maintain only a joyful mind’ can too easily sound like we are being told that we should always try to be happy, in all situations. This is, of course, an absurd notion, and counter to the four noble truths, which instruct us to acknowledge that suffering is simply a part of life, and a part of life only made worse by trying to ignore it.

‘Always have the support of a joyful mind’, however, aims our attention towards what we are trying to cultivate. It’s not that we need to always be happy, but that a mind that is oriented towards joy is going to be more supportive than one oriented towards misery, despondency, or pessimism.

While I definitely think this translation is an improvement to the first, it’s the Padmakara’s translation that I like best: ‘Always be sustained by cheerfulness’.

Regardless of the translation, this slogan is about understanding that the most effective attitude to cultivate, regardless of our circumstances or emotions, is one that uplifts us. It’s not about being happy all the time or finding the silver lining to every single difficulty. It’s about seeing how every situation, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable or painful, is an opportunity to wake up. If everything we experience is an opportunity, no matter what, we can always, even when we are in the midst of grief or rage or fear, find a way to practice.

It’s not even so much a difference between optimism and pessimism as it is seeing the potential in being alive and having the ability to contemplate, to learn, to grow, to cultivate wisdom and compassion. I don’t always look at the difficult things in my life as opportunities. It’s not easy to do. I also don’t believe that ‘everything happens for a reason’ so much as we get to give meaning to everything that happens. We get to choose the point of our own lives, which means we get to decide what to do with the circumstances of that life.

I’ve chosen the point of my life to be love. Love seems to be a pretty great purpose for living. And when I pause to consider even the more challenging or painful parts of my life, I see how living through adversity helps me to show up better for others. I have more compassion for others for having stayed present with myself in some incredibly difficult times. I can’t go so far as to say I now look forward to difficulties, but I no longer see them as something to resist or dread, so much as I see them for the opportunity they have for me to connect even deeper with my own humanity, and therefore the humanity of others — and that is something I can always be joyful about.