fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Exploring the Ethics Surrounding Texting Therapy
By: Synthia Satkuna
Tags: Texting, Mental Health, Psychology, Counselling, Therapy

It can be pretty overwhelming finding a source of therapy and care that is specific to your needs. Sometimes, we know what we want but we are unable to physically attain a specific service, whether it is through substantial financial loss or not being in close proximity to a specific professional.

Perhaps your desired therapist is miles away. You find yourself researching for credible online therapies instead and a website presents itself as a texting-based therapeutic service.

Photo by Susanna Marsiglia on Unsplash — It’s okay to seek online services sometimes.

You put in the money for the service and it seems simple enough. However, there’s a lot happening behind the scenes which can make one’s head spin. For example, each province, territory, state, or even country have their own unique guidelines, code of ethics, and/or laws to follow when it comes to mental health.

For example, a psychotherapist in Ontario, Canada is governed by the Code of Ethics crafted by the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO), a regulatory body that is constantly adapting its rules to align with the laws of the province and the country.

The purpose of such regulatory colleges is to protect the interests of the public, while also legitimizing and providing training to therapists to be able to practice in the field.

Photo by Clarissa Watson on Unsplash — The regulatory colleges protect the people.

The verbiage for the Code of Ethics for psychotherapists in other provinces or countries is not going to be the same as the place you are living in. Plus, there are other professionals who need to be regulated within your area that have their own set of ethics too, like nurses, social workers, doctors, and other professionals.
Beauty and the Blackfishing
By: Soler Bean
Tags: Culture, Makeup, Beauty, Black Women, Racism

White to black in under 1,000 days. Fascinating.

Leighann Renee — Unsplash

The way aspects of blackness have become a trend infuriates me beyond words.

It’s like these people are shopping in a store, picking out features they think are desirable.

“Hmmm, dark skin is nice… but not too dark.”

“Oooh! This bubble butt is super cute!”

“Nah, I don’t want a wide nose, that’s… too black.”

“I want my lips as full as I can get them!”

It feels like a Build-A-Bear for black people, and it sickens me.

I know that the trends will change again, going into the 2020s. I know that as soon as they do, the fillers are getting dissolved, implants are getting taken out, and the tanner is getting shelved. The offending blackfishers will start the rebuying foundation in their actual shade. They’ll begin straightening their hair again, and they’ll get rid of all their ‘kooky’ Kankelon wigs and extensions.

In 25 years, blackfishers will look at old pictures of themselves and laugh at how they used to present themselves. They’ll say: “Wow, my style really changed!” while looking through their old Instagram pictures along with their kids.

When the trends change, blackfishers will remove everything that they added onto themselves to make them black.

Then, all aspects of blackness become undesirable. Again.

__

Thank you for reading! Join my mailing list to be notified whenever I post.

Solér Bean is a freelance writer and an always-exhausted college student. A Las Vegas native, she lives with her mom, dad, little brother, and Malcolm- the needy schnauzer. She’s been writing for five years about politics, various social issues, race, relationships, dating, and mental health. She is currently a top writer in the ‘BlackLivesMatter’ and ‘Racism’ categories on Medium! Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
How We Can UnTrump America
By: Russ W
Tags: Media, Injustice, Society, Trump, Politics

Do you feel a tinge of blind, uncontrollable rage every time you look at the news? Does that rage grow more overwhelming with every abuse of executive power?

Is your anxiety rising as we countdown until November? Does fear shock your system every time Biden does something dumb? Does a sense of hopelessness well up inside that he’ll just bring a different kind of incompetence?

Good. Then you’re just like me. And it’s a fucking injustice.

We, the American people, deserve better. We deserve to live in a nation where people look out for one another, where people put the common good above self-centered desires, where vice signaling is not used to defy public health measures, where police don’t target a specific race, where we can hold an election without the imminent threat of interference.

We scratched our heads in disbelief in 2016 as fellow citizens collectively turned a blind eye when sexual harassment claims piled up, and he bragged about pussy grabbing. We’ve sat wringing our hands in agony for four years enduring his transparent manipulation and delusional statements in head-shaking disapproval.

We’ve winced and cringed every time his fat, orange, pompous face opened, and his grease-soaked cheeseburger lips unleashed a new verbal assault on the truth. It’s been a waking nightmare where no value or community right is safe from his grabby, greedy child-sized hands.

Well, I have a message to you, to the Democratic party, to every liberal media outlet out there. We need to UnTrump America, and I have a plan.
The Mobile Innovation Lab is Wrapping Up. What Else Do You Want to Know About Mobile News Innovation?
By: Sarah Schmalbach
Tags: Journalism, Mobile, The Guardian, Innovation

The Mobile Innovation Lab is Wrapping Up. What Else Do You Want to Know About Mobile News Innovation?

In two short weeks, the Guardian US Mobile Innovation Lab will be powering down their phones and moving on. (Don’t worry, this was all planned in advance!) So, what do you still want to know?

Photo by Keith Erskine / Alamy

Friends: this is last call.

We’ll be working furiously between now and March 30 to share the final details of what we’ve done and learned during our time with the Guardian, and we thought we’d take a moment to ask you — our community — what you were still most interested in hearing about. So:

What else do you want to know?

Is there anything else you’d like to know about our work over the past two years (and change) that we haven’t yet addressed here on Medium? Please let us know in the comments, or DM us on Twitter, or email us at innovationlab@theguardian.com. We’ll do our best to get to anything you suggest before we go.

Have we been helpful?

If you or your organization has been impacted by our work, we would love to know about it. If participating in or reading about any of our projects has inspired a conversation, or caused you to think about something differently, or even launch something, we would be thrilled if you could tell us about it in this short survey. Your feedback will help us get a sense of where we’re leaving off, and how to best spark new thinking in the industry where it’s most needed. Hopefully it will also help all types of news labs continue to evolve.
Press Play: The Remix
By: Nifemi Aluko
Tags: Remix, Writing, Writing Challenge, Music, Books

Back in the 90’s and 2000’s when remixes were a big thing, I couldn't wait to hear the new features, verses, and remixed choruses of some of my favorite songs.

Press Play on my bookshelf

Only a few remixes were as good as the original but they were still worth listening to.

When I published my first book — PRESS PLAY — in April 2020, I went on a journey to publish one medium article per week to get snippets of the full message to my book to a new audience.

I found it interesting that by mixing and mashing up certain chapter and sub-chapters from the book I could develop a fresh outlook on the ideas in the book without it losing its core message.

The core message being that music can radically galvanize empowerment and collaboration at a global scale to disrupt some of the biggest challenges we face in our communities.

I thought I would compile that list of medium articles into what I’ll call the “PRESS PLAY REMIX”

It’s the book — remixed and seen from a different persepective and you can read it all here by clicking on the “chapters” below.

I hope you enjoy it.

PRESS PLAY: THE REMIX

Part 1: High-Level Issues

Part 2: On finding purpose

Part 3: “Taking-action” Toolkit

Part 4: Evolving with Music

Interested in getting the full perspective on how music can be a super catalyst for change?

Check it out in its original “un-remixed” form in my book — PRESS PLAY: Music As A Catalyst of Change
Build Python Packages Without Publishing
By: Max Reynolds
Tags: Programming, Python, Data Science, Coding, Software Development

Build Python Packages Without Publishing

Easily access and organize your Python modules

Photo by Leone Venter on Unsplash

Packages in Python allow for seamless distribution of python modules. When we use pip install, we are often downloading a publicly available package from PyPI. Local packages can also be useful for code organization and re-use, allowing you to simply import a module without having to navigate to its directory or re-write code. In this demonstration, we will be building and accessing a basic Python package.

Let’s create two simple modules and package them. We will then use this package to write a simple app that prompts a user to select a .jpg image from their computer to be gray-scaled.

Write your modules

ui.py

#ui.py from tkinter import filedialog

from tkinter import Tk def get_image_file():

Tk().withdraw()

filename = filedialog.askopenfilename(title = "Select file",filetypes = [("jpeg files","*.jpg")])

return filename

image_edits.py

#image_edits.py from cv2 import imread, COLOR_RGB2GRAY, cvtColor, imwrite

import os def write_grayscale_image(filepath):

original_image = imread(filepath)

grayed_image = cvtColor(original_image, COLOR_RGB2GRAY)

grayed_filename=os.path.join(os.path.split(filepath)[0],'grayed_'+os.path.split(filepath)[1])

print(grayed_filename)

imwrite(grayed_filename, grayed_image) #export grayscaled image

return grayed_filename

Init and Setup Files

Create a blank __init__.py file, which will be used by Python to recognize this as a package.

$ touch __init__.py

At this point, our file structure should look like this:

dir/

image_pkg/

ui.py

image_edits.py

__init__.py

Next, create a setup.py file outside of your package directory

setup.py

import setuptools setuptools.setup(name='examplepackage',

version='0.1',

description='An example package',

url='#',

author='max',

install_requires=['opencv-python'],

author_email='',

packages=setuptools.find_packages(),

zip_safe=False)

Note that packages not included in the python standard library should be included in install_requires. Our file structure should now look like:

dir/

image_pkg/

ui.py

image_edits.py

__init__.py

setup.py

Build and install your package

If you are using virtual environments (generally good practice for Python development), create and activate your environment.

$ python3 -m venv myenv

$ source myenv/bin/activate

Install wheel.

$ pip install wheel

Install the package into your environment.

$ pip install .

Our package has been created, and we can now use it from anywhere. Let’s create a simple app which incorporates our package contents.

main.py

#main.py from image_pkg.ui import get_image_file

from image_pkg.image_edits import write_grayscale_image write_grayscale_image(get_image_file())

We have now built and implemented a basic python package! More information regarding package distribution, licensing, and installation can be found in the documentation.
Step by Step Guide to install Python Environment on Ubuntu
By: Positive Stud
Tags: Setup, Python Programming, Ubuntu, Python, Installation

6 steps to follow while installing Python Environment on Ubuntu

How to install or upgrade Python Environment on Ubuntu?

For coding python into your computer, you are required to download and install python script. In this blog, I would be providing a detailed procedure for downloading and installing Python on your PC.

Note: If you have Windows OS then, please refer to my previous blog which has been provided below
SREies Part 1: Configuration Management
By: Krishelle Hardson-Hurley
Tags: Configuration Management, Systems Engineering, Docker, DevOps, Software Development

What is Configuration Management?

According to this awesome Introduction to Configuration Management tutorial by Digital Ocean, Configuration Management is:

“…the mechanism used to make the server reach a desirable state, previously defined by provisioning scripts using a tool’s specific language and features.”

I know what you’re thinking, “What the heck does that mean?” Let me try to break it down by using an example.

Krishelle’s Kakes

One of my cakes

Let’s say I decided to open up a bakery called Krishelle’s Kakes that instantly was a hit (I did used to bake cakes actually!). Imagine this bakery serves pastries, cakes, cupcakes and chocolates, and that everyday the line is out the door. The business has become so popular that I immediately decide to expand and open other locations around the state. With this expansion though, I really want to make sure that the customer’s experience is the same no matter which location they attend.

How would you solve this problem?

Some things that come to my mind include:

I need to make sure business partners and I are the only people making decisions that affect the business, this includes shop design, recipe changes, and employee responsibilities, to name a few. I need to make sure each shop is designed similarly to ensure a consistent customer experience. I need to make sure each shop gets the proper equipment to run efficiently (oven, pans, pastry bags, cash register, counter space, etc). I need to make sure all of my recipes are written down and shared with each store location. I also need to ensure that each location gets the same ingredients delivered on time for business.

These are very similar to the types of questions a system designer asks when building a large scale distributed system. Here are some of the solutions that Configuration Management (CM) provides:

Centralized Decision Body: A centralized place where all systems decisions are organized and defined. Uniform Configuration: CM ensures that each machine is configured appropriately, according to the centralized definition. Automated Software Installation: CM ensures that each machine gets what it needs to do its job, meaning it has all of the software packages it needs to run properly. Distribution of Resources: Engineers ensure that all of the processes that a machine needs to perform are written down in the form of code (scripts). CM ensures that all machines get the proper scripts needed to do it’s job.

In other words, Configuration Management Tools offer a framework through which SRE’s can automate the process of configuring a machine in a large system of machines. Configuring a machine means making sure the machine’s set up matches other machines like it, and that it has the correct software and scripts needed to perform all processes assigned to it. This process is called “provisioning” a machine.
Toward Effective Data Journeys in Exploratory Visual Analysis
By: Jian Zhao
Tags: How To, Visualization, Data Journey, Exploratory Data Analysis, Recommendation System

There exists a number of academic works on facilitating an analyst’s data journeys. Here, I briefly introduce a few, but this is not an exhaustive list. In general, the approaches in these works either leverage empirical observations, heuristics, or rules to generate appropriate charts based on certain constraints (e.g. APT, Voyager, Draco), or employ machine learning and/or data-driven methods to train models in recommending meaningful charts from data (e.g. DeepEye, Data2Vis, VizML).

APT is one of the earliest systems, introducing a compositional algebra to enumerate the space of charts and rank them using expressiveness and effectiveness criteria, based on the study results in human perception. This set the foundation of many follow-up works, including the “ShowMe” feature in Tableau.

Voyager, built on CompassQL and Vega-Lite, searches and ranks charts using similar criteria. The system also supports browsing of charts and covers a broader search space, suggesting data variables to explore from a partial chart specification. Its later version, Voyager 2 supports using “wildcards” (i.e. “*” that allows analysts to specify multiple charts in parallel) for recommending relevant charts.

Draco is another chart recommendation tool that models visualization design knowledge as a collection of constraints and rules. By using ASP (Answer Set Programming), the tool describes the constraints made in analysts’ queries and searches “optimal” solutions.

The above rule-based approaches, however, are limited by the perceptual principles applied. They may face the cold start problem (i.e. no history to use for recommendations), costly creation of rules (for generating charts), and the combinatorial explosion of charts. With the recent advances in machine learning, several data-driven approaches have been proposed.

Data2Vis aims to build an end-to-end pipeline to generate charts directly from data. It employs sequence-to-sequence recurrent neural networks (RNN) to transform a data file in the JSON format to a chart in the Vega-Lite specification, by viewing the inputs and outputs as sequences of characters.

DeepEye combines rule-based methods with machine learning models to classify and rank visualizations. It leverages a binary classifier to determine whether a chart is good or bad, and uses a supervised learning-to-rank model to select appropriate charts, relying on expert knowledge for partial ordering.

VizML learns visualization design from a large corpus of dataset-chart pairs collected from the Plotly Community Feed. It extracts features from each dataset and five key design choices from each chart, and then optimizes the models to predict the design choices based on the features.
It’s OK to Admit You’re Writing For Money
By: Oren Cohen
Tags: Writing, Finance, Life Lessons, Money, Personal Development

Many writers I’ve been reading online in the past few weeks have been saying stuff like, “True Writing is above compensation,” or “If you’re writing for money, you’ll never succeed” and many sorts of things along those lines.

I’m here to say it as clearly as I can: Not True.

One example is from my time in college. One of my extracurricular courses was about the science of Creativity over the decades. During one of the classes, our lecturer asked who in the class has a favorite author. Many people raised hands and said many names, which I don’t remember. What happened next was burned into my mind.

The lecturer asked one of the students what does she think about the author as a person. The student glorified the author for their works and how smart they must be for creating them.

The lecturer laughed and started explaining that this same adoration was why medieval artists were so successful. It’s because we subconsciously put Creativity and Art on a pedestal higher than we are.

And perhaps we shouldn’t, but that’s a discussion for a different day.

Today, I want to focus on how we writers are affected by this trait of human nature and how it relates to getting paid for your writing.
What is Lottie?
By: Emine İnan
Tags: Airbnb, Lottie, Animation, Lottie Animation

Lottie

Developed by Airbnb, Lottie is a library for Android, iOS, Web, and Windows. Lottie is used to adding animations on website or mobile application.

Lottie parses Adobe After Effects animations exported as JSON files through an open-source After Effects extension called Bodymovin and renders them natively on mobile and on the web.

Why is Lottie Preferred to Other Formats?

Lottie vs Other Formats

There are many reasons why designers or developers prefer Lottie animations over other formats like PNG, GIF. The main reason is that the size of a Lottie file compared to PNG or GIF significantly increases download speed and reduces the amount of disk space used.

How to Use Lottie?

Let’s learn how to use Lottie!

Step 1

First go to Lottiefiles.com and select the animation you want to use.

LottieFiles

Download the animation of your choice. If you want, you can change properties such as animation speed and background color here.

Downloading Animation

Step 2

First, open an empty project in your IDE (Here used Android Studio as IDE) and add the required implementation in build.gradle. The latest version of Lottie can be different, you can check it here.

Step 3

Open the raw folder inside the android res folder to keep the lottie files.

To open a raw folder, follow these steps:

Right click the res folder.

folder. Choose New.

Choose Android Resource Directory.

Name the directory raw.

In the Resource Types Section add raw.

Section add Click ok.

Put the previously downloaded animation files inside the raw folder.

Raw Folder

Step 4

Add LottieAnimationView to your layout.

LottieAnimationView: The view component used to display Lottie animation.

LottieAnimationView

app: lottie_autoPlay: If this field is correct, the animation screen will run automatically without you having to do anything.

app: lottie_loop: If this field is true, the animation will run over and over again. If false, it will run once and then stop.

app: lottie_rawRes: references the JSON file of the animation.

Step 5

Now is the time to run the application!

Lottie Animation

To access the finished project on GitHub:
Inspiring Voyeurism
By: Vlad Alex, Merzmensch
Tags: Memories, This Happened To Me, Short Story, Art, Inspiringvoyeurism

Inspiring Voyeurism

Saving Other’s memories. Index of the Series.

People are throwing away their memories. Because every word on a postcard is a segment of a fate. In my series “Inspiring Voyeurism” I explore such splinters of other people’s lives.

How does it work?

1. look for written postcards in flea markets or antiquarian bookshops

2. read the text addressed not for you

3. re-imagine lives and recherche about details

4. new story, new life, new alternate reality is born

Is it ethical? Am I stalker?

I am mostly not looking for persons. I am looking for circumstances, facts and environments. It isn’t about to follow others’ fates. It’s about recomposing world. At the moment, as the postcard is thrown away, or being sold, it leaves the comfort zone of anonymity.

Shall it be published?

Yes. This is the precious memory of the world. And as the memory is being fictionalized with the time (all the time), so this unknown world history is part of semi-fiction. Everybody is relevant. We are all integral parts of this reality. And this inspires.

Here are my — and now yours — shared memories:

SocialLink
Reading List 2020: MA Regenerative Economics
By: Daniel Christian Wahl
Tags: Economics, Regeneration, Economy, Sustainability, Education

Reading List 2020: MA Regenerative Economics

Curated by Daniel Wahl for Schumacher College

I was a student on the MSc in Holistic Science at Schumacher College in 2001–2002. For the last 4 years I have been teaching on the MA in Ecological Design Thinking, and this year I started teaching on the MA in Regenerative Economics.

I only had one 2-hour conversation session with the students. We covered a lot of ground. I curated the reading list below based on my notes from that dialogue to offer the students pathways to dive deeper into the subjects their questions raised or my my answers referred to.

Sharing my recommended reading suggestions to the MA in Ecological Design Thinking led to a lot of positive feedback from around the world.

Encouraged by this interest and gratitude I decided to also share this resource list more widely. May it serve!

Economics:

Business:

Other thinks we touched on:

—

If you like the post, please clap AND remember that you can clap up to 50 times if you like it a lot ;-)!

Daniel Christian Wahl — Catalyzing transformative innovation in the face of converging crises, advising on regenerative whole systems design, regenerative leadership, and education for regenerative development and bioregional regeneration.

Author of the internationally acclaimed book Designing Regenerative Cultures

Please consider becoming a patron of my ongoing work:
Five Things Make Your Business More Success
By: Xiaoyu Yao
Tags: Marketing, SEO, Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Email Marketing

Taking into consideration the pandemic and the current economic situation in the world, here are the FIVE most important things you should know to make your business more successful in 2020.
He does what he thinks is right.
By: Nishchal Raj
Tags: Perspective, People, Life Lessons, Enlightenment, Life Hacking

There might be someone in your contact list who never listens to anyone saying anything of his benefit or in other words, he does what he thinks is right.

Now, according to different perspective this has many answers, why it happens. I am here to gently explain some of the perspective that will support this.

First, let’s start with the one which is rare, but is real. You may think that this alone will answer the thing, but it’s not true, explore the blog and you can get what's the real perspective that will explain the person’s thinking you are dealing with.

According to the researches done in the past, everyone needs a master who guides on the path to success and some meet them too. Masters are the one who have achieved mastery in a skill and the one who follow them as their mentor, achieves greatness too, either equal to him or surpasses him. Say it, Leonardo Da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Bruce Lee and many more are in the list who had some masters as their mentors. But this doesn’t happen with everyone, not everyone meets his master in their lives. There are people who have handled the things on their own, the ups and downs they have gone through have taught them a lot and they gradually live their lives on their own terms and conditions. They find their instinct as their master, they do what it says to them and they win in their lives.

“If you can’t find anyone, be your own master.”

So, as you can see we are reaching at a point here. Those who are their own masters, may listen to other’s words but won’t follow them as they deep down know that those things won’t apply to them, their thinking which they have developed in this life has helped them grow, so why they need to listen to some other’s words. They simply discard the words. This makes them happy and they keep moving forward in life with their own thinking.

Now, there are other kind of people, the one who might know that the things said are right but won’t follow it, this happens to those who don’t truly understand the words and simply discards it. They are the one who think they can achieve what they want with their own thinking and this is where they are wrong. Sometimes, listening to the one who tells you right is the way to move further and if not, there can be consequences. The percentage of such people is more than the previous one obviously.

“Follow someone who knows more than you.”

Then comes those who unnecessarily make their ways in front of the right people and start giving them advice, the one who thinks he is right whatever he is saying to the person, but is actually not even understanding what other is up to. Here, the one who walks in to say falls into a trap of thinking he is superior to the other but actually, the case is opposite.

“Leave them on their own if they are not getting you.”

Concluding the above points we can see that, the first one needs no one, the second thinks he doesn’t need any advice and the last thinks he is right, he should tell others to be right.

Happy thinking!
What’s the difference?
By: Michael Mitsakos
Tags: Decision Making, Joy, Beauty, Masters, Difference

Sometimes it sucks.

And when it does, then screw it.

Go to bed, and just leave your stuff undone.

Whatever.

But when you wake up the next morning,

and the sun is out there for you,

with light that comes in through the shades,

then you can’t screw up again,

not seeing that grace.

You just can’t be down one more time,

not seeing that chance of new.

You just have to get up and do whatever it takes.
Community Service Organizations Modernizing with Online Raffles
By: Robb Clarke
Tags: Fundraising, Charity, Canada, Community, Startup

International service organizations are a cornerstone of just about every community across Canada. Whether it’s a small town or a booming metropolis you’d be hard pressed to find one without an Elks Club, Rotary Club, Masonic Temple, Shrine Temple, or Kin Clubs.

Organizations like this are a major part of my family’s history. My maternal grandfather was involved in Rotary. My paternal grandparents are/were heavily involved with Freemasonry and the Order of the Eastern Star. All taking high ranking leadership roles within their respective organizations.

No strangers to ever changing technology, many of these clubs have partnered with The Lotto Factory to meet their modern fundraising needs.
Text System Mastery with Shared Styles
Tags: Design, Text Styles, Tutorial, Sketch, UX

Text styles with a strong hierarchy

You might have noticed that sometimes your fingers, bypassing the thought, manage to come up faster with a name for a new layer or style, so you might have noticed such menu options in your project as Title-2, subheader-small, header-3 etc so let's stop making and distribute poorly organized styles.

When we have a mess in styles it becomes more complicated to communicate even basic requirements when it comes to everything that is text or font related. A project text system must have a good place in any product designer’s mind, so our goal is to make an accessible and reusable typography system that can expand or collapse depending on the size of the project.

To do this, we will need to determine in advance the number of used text styles, for this example, we will use the existing standard for web development, for us designers HTML offers six headings of different levels that show the importance of a section, title or text. Thus, the <h1> tag is the most important heading of the first level, and the <h6> tag is used to indicate the header of the sixth level and is the least significant.

Let’s look at how to apply this approach to text styles, and make some simple steps to organize them in groups so we can give them a structure and manage them.

Creating a Typography System

1. Open Sketch app, and start with writing all your text styles in a simple list, in order from the biggest to the smallest one, set all text layers alignment to the center. Hint — remember that the number of your styles can affect the overall feeling of typography in the project, so more does not mean better, try to constantly reuse same sizes instead of making a new one when designing a new web page or screen.

2. Now duplicate the column and make the left and right aligned columns to form a font table, and do not forget to change the alignment of each text layer to fit the appropriate column.

3. Copy the resulting table and duplicate the required number of times in accordance with your brand or interface status color, for example, Accent, Disabled or Active text status.
How To Protect A Screenplay — Shane Stanley
Tags: Writing, Screenwriting, Writer, Creative Writing, Writing Tips

Film Courage: How does a writer protect themselves from being taken advantage of?

Shane Stanley, Filmmaker/Author/Instructor: Again, I think the most important thing a writer can do is obviously they have to copyright their material and that includes the treatments, it includes the script, and you have to take notes of where projects go. I look back at some of the projects I had ripped off and if I had just taken better notes, just documented — who, what, when, where and why I could have stopped them from being taken or at least gotten to partake in its success or failure from a producer or a creator standpoint. I just think it’s too easy for people when we’re coming up we want so bad to have our work accepted, we want to make it so bad whether we’re an actor or a writer. The problem is if you’re…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).

Related videos:

The Mistake I Made When Hollywood Stole My Screenplay — Shane Stanley

What If Producers Steal Your Screenplay? — Rachel K. Ofori

Screenwriters Shouldn’t Be Afraid Of Their Scripts Being Stolen — Mark Sanderson

Best Way To Protect A Screenplay Is With Copyright — Travis Seppala

Producers Who Try To Scam Filmmakers — Dui Jarrod

An Idea Is Worth Very Little In Hollywood by Gary W. Goldstein
Confluence of Dreams
By: Aspen Blue
Tags: Passion, Love Letters, Poetry, Dreams, Longing

Dappled sunbeams lit first dreams of you

upon tables up-ended turned gazes we knew

quiet beauty tides hemmed inside oceans born

of cacophonous waveforms, divinities yearned

Learned in feint lines of symphonic menus dined

feasting harp strings plucked by sonatas’ rise

in octaves of reprise for hungry harmonies to find

Wishes, like twilight, descended down my face

finding soft places to sprout into streams

these wonderful things, liminal spaces

where nothing replaces whispers traces

of my hands through your hair

Beyond tears, in roaring ears, slashing fears

by midnight incandescence I danced

flickering in flames, a candle guiding through

the darkness that enshrouds us

driving passions far, to stars collapsing too

Cradled in the lap of minute civilisations

I held consecrated spaces for you

room enough for every shard of glass

in the cabinet of this heart, tearing you apart

collecting, redirecting every self-inflicted blow

cultivating love in this soil richly tilled, we’re filled

Walking beside the banks of the river Loss

hand found hand upon blanketed moss

flourishing strengths within a genius stroke

as we awoke from a nightmare of un-needed
What It’s Like To Date A Functional Alcoholic
By: Faith Ann
Tags: Mental Health, Military, Self, Addiction, Relationships

For over a year, my partner was drinking a fifth of vodka every other day. Then he was going through a fifth every day. He would drink as soon as he got home from work and keep drinking until it was time to sober up to drive to work. Marc’s coffee mug was always filled with some type of strong concoction. He continuously buzzed…on the verge of drunk.

But he was completely functional.

He was never late for work or drunk on the job. He was attentive enough to me as a partner. He completed all of his part-time schoolwork, he even maintained a 4.0 GPA. He never physically or emotionally abused me, like addicts often do in their belligerent stage. For all intents and purposes, he seemed completely normal.

Actually, it got to a point where I couldn’t even recognize if he was drunk or not. I would know when I leaned in to kiss him and the scent of vodka jerked me awake or if I saw him pour a glass of rum with a splash of juice. But his normal was him intoxicated so it was hard to point out. Of course, I always objectively knew he had been drinking because he always was but if I was a stranger, I would have no idea.
암호화폐 선물 : 데이 트레이딩으로 수익내기
By: Ryan Hansen
Tags: Korean, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Bitcoin

in Both Sides of the Table
Cold Case: Lana Derrick
By: Ashley Kay
Tags: Society, Crime, Indigenous, Women, Politics

Cold Case: Lana Derrick

Missing since October 7, 1995.

Lana Derrick. Image from Unidentified Wiki / CC-BY-SA

19-year-old Lana Derrick, a member of the Gitanyow First Nation Band, disappeared over Thanksgiving weekend in 1995. She was last seen at 3:30 am on October 7, partying with friends at a cousin’s house.

The RCMP received a tip from a witness claiming to have seen Lana get into a car that morning with two men at a gas station in Thornhill, British Columbia. The gas station was off of Highway 16, otherwise known as the “Highway of Tears.”

In early 1996, the RCMP released composite sketches of the two men Lana was traveling with. Lana’s family is unsure of the validity of these tips (Source: Unidentified Wiki).

Image from Unidentified Wiki / CC-BY-SA

Although they are skeptical of the witness’ claims, Lana’s family does believe that more than one person was involved. Additionally, they have claims that police did not take Lana’s case seriously until they began to attract media attention in 2014. Her family says that when she went missing, police insisted that Lana was out partying, or with a boyfriend, and didn’t want to conduct a search.

Despite her family insisting otherwise, no real search occurred for Lana until nearly a week after [their] initial meeting. Lana’s family, friends and community came together to search for her all over British Colombia before, during, and after any police help. After a couple of days assisting in the search, police decided it was time to call it off. “They had put in their seventy-two hours. ‘Everybody go home now, we’ll let you know what we find out.’ And we said, ‘You go home. We’re not done,’ Marge said” (Source: The Hue and Cry).

Recently, Lana’s case has been looked at in connection with a serial killer.

Derrick’s case is part of an RCMP task force called E-­PANA. It was launched to review and investigate a series of unsolved murders and disappearances with links to Highway 16,­­ dubbed the Highway of Tears. The investigation is trying to determine if a serial killer or killers is responsible for deaths and disappearances along major highways in B.C. (Source: CBC News).

Police have never identified a prime suspect in her disappearance, and her case remains unsolved.

Lana Derrick. Image from Unidentified Wiki / CC-BY-SA

Lana was a student of the forestry program at a college in British Columbia. She was shy, but goofy, and loved to learn.

“She just loved working outside, and logging and all that stuff that went with it. She was really good in her classes,” said Sally Gibson, Derrick’s aunt. “She was really gung ho about going to college, and she was doing really good. She was happy” (Source: CBC News).

If you have any information on the disappearance or whereabouts of Lana Derrick, please contact Valley Pacific Investigations at 1(866)962–5585, or the RCMP Tip Line at 1(877)543–4822.
The Mystery of the Silent Twins, June and Jennifer Gibbons
By: Alienworkshop
Tags: Twins, Crime, Psychology, Mystery, Bizarre

Behaving strangely since they were toddlers

June and Jennifer were born on April 11, 1963, in Barbados. They are the identical twins to Gloria and Aubrey Gibbons. Their parents are known to be immigrants from the Caribbean islands. When the twins were toddlers, there were no strange signs to make either parent suspicious.

June and Jennifer Gibbons tended to communicate only with each other. They became known as “The Silent Twins.” However, this was still considered natural by both parents. But as they grew, so did the strangeness. Soon, the parents started getting worried.

At school, June and Jennifer were almost mute. Just like at their home, they were mostly silent and only talked to each other. They also spent most of their time playing with dolls in the room. However, sometimes the two would invite their little sister Rose to talk.

June and Jennifer’s behavior continued to worry their parents, especially as they were being subjected to bullying and racial discrimination by their schoolmates. This alienated the girls even more.

June and Jennifer started to use Barbadian or Bajan to communicate with each other. Barbadian is based on The English language with African influences often used on the Caribbean island of Barbados.

Their fast way of communication with unique accents was sometimes incomprehensible to others and only understood by themselves. The behavior lasted long enough until both were in their teens.
A Nightly Moment
By: Skyler Stevens
Tags: Poetry, Art, Poetry On Medium, Image, Poem

The spider, gray with dark stripes

And spiny legs,

Silent on the wall.

My finger, long and thick,

Pointed at the spec —

Hesitates…

Squish! The arachnid is dead.

Little black remains. Just a

Mark on the wall.
Secure Management of User Location Data to Improve User Experience
By: Jay Khemaphiratana
Tags: Data Analysis, Data Visualization, Data Security, Data Science, Data

This publication consists of articles related to Data science and AI written from Botnoi’s data scientists and students.

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Learn About ILLUMINATION-Curated
Tags: Business, Writing, Science, Technology, Self Improvement

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Four Ways to Find Your Best Keywords & Improve SEO
By: Lyndsay Bouchal
Tags: SEO, Web Development

While much has changed over the last decade when it comes to SEO, the fundamentals of performing keyword research have remained the same. The goal is still to find the words and phrases your prospects are using to seek out your services and products. There are a variety of tools and tactics you can implement to mine keywords effectively:

Use keyword research tools like Google’s Keyword Planner and Searchmetrics’ Keyword Analysis to find popular keywords and phrases that aren’t ultra-competitive. Analyze your website analytics to identify which keywords are already generating traffic and sales. Look at your competitors’ top-ranking pages and determine which keywords they’re targeting. Use Google’s Suggest to mine long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are words or phrases that are more specific — and usually longer — than more commonly searched keywords. Long tail keywords get less search traffic, but usually have a higher conversion value as they are more specific. Google Suggest is the list of auto-filled suggestions that drop down in your search bar when typing in keywords. Most of these keywords are what real people have actually searched for.

Now there’s good news and bad news that come with learning these keyword research strategies. The good news is: They’re very effective at finding relevant keywords. The bad news is: There’s been a shift away from achieving high-ranking results from the use of good keywords.

According to Searchmetrics’ 2016 research:

High-ranking pages use around 20 percent fewer keywords in body copy than in 2015. 53 percent of top ten Google ranking results include the keyword in their title. 52 percent of top ten Google ranking results include the keyword in their description. Less than 40 percent of top ranking landing pages have the keyword in their H1.

These statistics demonstrate how Google now evaluates content according to relevance over keyword inclusion.

Here’s why: Google has become wise to our SEO game. Instead of looking at search queries solely in terms of keywords, the queries are analyzed in terms of user intent. What does this mean for keyword research? You should focus on finding relevant subjects to build your content around. Instead of selecting one or two words or phrases to write about or around, use your research to learn more about your audience and their needs, their queries, and their interests. Write about that instead and add in keywords as appropriate.
How my friend grows his success-potential exponentially
By: Christiaan Van Eijk
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Success, Friendship, Mindset, Personal Development

During Danny’s childhood, most of the people around him did not believe in him. Danny didn’t really seem to care about that though…

During Danny’s first ‘real’ job, most of the people around him didn’t believe in him. Danny hated that job. Quit. And didn’t really seem to care about the disappointment this caused to the people around him.

Danny has never been able to ignore his true self. Despite people trying to guide him in different directions.

School, another school, a job, another job… etc.

All of this doesn’t mean that he never changes perspective, not at all. It means that he would never be able to lie to himself in order to comply with- or to defend someone else’s view of him.
Me and my misophonia
By: Samantha Oosterling
Tags: Noise, Short Story, Lifestyle, Misophonia, Patience

It was an ordinary day when I watched television with my brother, about twenty years ago. He was having dinner at the time and suddenly, while watching a movie, I heard *cling chew chew chew swallow* and again and again until he was finished with his dinner. With every bite he took the spoon hit his teeth and every time it was irritating me more and more.

I thought maybe I was tired of the day at school and didn’t say anything about it to him. To my surprise, the days after I realised that there were more sounds bothering and irritating me. Sounds that other people hardly notice or don’t even hear at all. Most of these sounds are the repetitive sounds like people chewing (especially hard food), breathing, typing, mouse clicking and a LOT more.

At first I thought I had some sort of superpower that I can hear all those sounds which nobody hears or hardly hears. Unfortunately this “superpower” was becoming more and more of my cryptonite.

The years passed and the list of sounds I hate grew longer. Of course I told friends, family and coworkers about my “superpower” and most of them took it into account which I appreciate. I also bought noise canceling headphones which I am very fond of because they filter out the noises I hate.