fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
I’ll take the handyman over the man in the suit
By: Shamontiel L. Vaughn
Tags: Handyman, Relationships, Aging, Dating, Men

In Illinois, men get married on average at the age of 30.2 years of age and women at 28.5. Interestingly, according to INSIDER Data va Insight, Illinois has one of the lowest divorce rates in the country, with 1.9 divorces per 1,000 people in 2017. These ages caught my attention, primarily because I still didn’t really know what I wanted in my 20s.

By the time 11/11/11 rolled around, and I turned 30 in Maui, I had a much better understanding of who I was, what I wanted and what I didn’t want. Kelly Rowland and Chelsea Handler weren’t lying when they said your 30s are “the best ever.” Paddle board yoga in Honolulu was very cool at the age of 36, but I have not had a happier birthday than that first one in Hawaii. (In Hawaii, men typically marry at 28.7, and women marry at 27.6.)

Even though it rained my first day in Maui, I still jumped in the hotel pool. I swam every single day I was there. (Photo credit: Shamontiel L. Vaughn)

I’m perplexed by the idea that people know what they want in their teens (I know one set of high school sweethearts who have been married for 21 years) and early 20s. Meanwhile I could barely commit to a ceramic paint color, never mind walk down anyone’s aisle. It takes just living your life to figure out, “Hey, I will put up with this, but I won’t put up with that. I do like this, but I’m not really feeling that.”

So joyfully eyeing this guy in my bathroom was a lesson for me. I wasn’t even a homeowner yet and didn’t think I particularly cared whether men could fix stuff. But at that moment, I realized Quality Time may be my Love Language but Acts of Service didn’t sound too bad either.

It’s not that the man in the suit isn’t sexy. It’s just that anyone can put on a suit. It’s not particularly interesting. Those can be sold in department stores or tailor made. You can be everything TLC described in “No Scrubs” and still wear a suit. But if you put a tool belt on or grab a drill, you better know what the hell you’re doing.

Photo credit: Cleyder Duque/Pexels

Minus a fire proximity suit, my usual reaction to men in suits is “meh.” Da Brat* and MC Lyte had their ideas of what they “were looking for,” and I grew into my own. But 20-something Shamontiel would’ve had no clue that Overton Wakefield Jones may as well be Idris Elba. It took years, experience and a mortgage for me to figure that out. I’m pretty amped to figure out what sticks and stays in my 40s, too. For women 30 and up, what new lesson about yourself have you learned that wouldn’t have happened in your 20s? Tell me in the comments below.
Metaphor
Tags: Metaphor, Poetry, Scrittura, Diary, Disillusionment

Metaphor

After Langston Hughes

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

I've

Never

Been used as

A metaphor

Before, until now.

I am the diary

Of duly discovered selves

Disillusioned by truths garnered

Along the way, converging upon

A dream montage that's never known an end.

2020 MDSHall
Want to join our growing community of readers and reviewers?
By: Abbey Heffer
Tags: Submission Guidelines, Book Review, Writer, Books, Writing

Why should you write for us?

Book reviews seem to be in short supply on Medium, despite being an online Mecca for a huge diversity of avid readers. There’s a niche to fill, and we intend to fill it.

The Open Bookshelf specifically seeks to publish voices from around the world, not those born into a country that speaks English as a first language. To help us towards achieving this goal, we provide line-editing, proof-reading and stylistic editing for every submission that comes our way.

This editing offer doesn’t just benefit non-native English speakers; having a second or third set of eyes running over your work is a huge advantage for all writers — budding and established. More than that, for Medium newbies, this editing process ensures that all TOB articles are primed for curation.

Our last three newbies published their first ever Medium articles with TOB and were all curated, some in multiple topics. This discussion by Cassi Snyder is a great example:

And we offer this for free.

Many of us have come over to Medium from the ‘bookstagram’ community. The keyword here is community. We read each other’s work and we love nothing more than to start discussions. More engagement on your stories means more chances to get noticed by Medium’s editors. The more you get noticed by Medium’s editors, the more traffic TOB gets, and the more eyeballs you get on your work.

How to become a TOB Writer

Our inbox was getting a little overloaded, so, if you would like to be added to this publication as a writer, please send us an email including:

1 | Who you are and what you generally write about.

2 | Your review pitch summarised in one sentence. If you have already published your review, include the link here.

3 | Before submitting, make sure that you have followed our editor and at least three other TOB writers. Make sure you have read, clapped and responded to some of our writers’ work. As emphasised above, we are a community; we support each other. It will also help you to understand what we are looking for here.

4 | If you follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter, you will be able to see if we share your work with a wider audience. Again, make sure to like, retweet, share and comment.

5 | With the subject line as TOB Article Pitch [Your Title], send us an email at: theopenbookshelf@gmail.com.

General Guidelines and Formatting

We accept submissions from both those signed up to the Medium Partnership Program and those writing for themselves, our only criteria are quality writing and big ideas. For non-native English speakers, we can provide proof-reading services free of charge on pieces shorter than 1,000 words.

1 | All pieces must have a title and subtitle, formatted as below. Try to keep these simple and succinct.
Dear self, this is how you improve.
By: Kamga Tchassa
Tags: Self Improvement, Change, Productivity, Work, Growth

You’re thinking of abs instead of what to stop eating.

You picture the ‘task’ of waking up early, instead of looking at efficiency in time that allows you to sleep as much as we, your body, need.

You’re looking at sacrifice instead of priorities.

You’ll succeed step by step, bird by bird. You can’t handle 1 million FCFA if you can’t handle 1000FCFA.

It’s a daily practice.

What did I do today to get my dreams forward- physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually?

What did I learn, today? What do I need to focus on now?

What is important vs what is urgent? Tip from Mr. Covey: always do the former first.

Change is gradual. You can’t pressure it. Your brain hates massive change. That’s how we are designed as humans. Start will small steps. 1 minute exercise, or 1 minute before checking a notification after it comes, etc. Increase as required. Measure.

Always measure, my friend.

Enjoy the process. It’s not grind if it’s a habit. It’s not grind if you enjoy it. But you can’t wake up from an 8.30am rise habit to 5am overnight.

No. That’s rude!

Start by seeing how much sleep you actually need to function optimally. Hint: Don’t take the average.

Test. Observe. Measure. Adjust accordingly. That’s how you make massive changes. And don’t forget to love yourself. Be kind. Very.

It’s like hair on your head. If you stare in the mirror everyday, you won’t watch it grow. Doesn’t mean it’s not growring. Focus on the small things you can do today.

Plan for the future; learn from the past; focus on ‘the now’.

Stop thinking about the weight of the building. Focus on the next stone. When you think of the building, your whole being loses motivation. It’s counter productive for your progress to think of the size of the change. It’s too much change.

Just like the grueling task of letting your natural afro grow. Think about waking up with hair after sleeping with a bald head. Won’t you freak out? I am freaking out right now, and I’m your brain!! That’s the situation in which you’re putting our amygdala! Not cool bro.

And one more thing…

“You can gather all the information in the world, but it won’t create any tangible results in your life unless you consistently take action on what you learn”- Patrik Edblad.

You stayed with me this far,
How much runway should you target between financing rounds?
By: Sebastian Quintero
Tags: Startup, Entrepreneurship, Data Science, Venture Capital, Statistics

Entrepreneurs have limited access to hard data that could help them make sound decisions when trying to build a successful new company. This is generally due to a fundamental lack of information about the materialized events of previously successful companies.

Consider that there are a few hundred thousand companies founded each calendar year in the United States (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016), but only ~ four thousand venture capital deals are reported in any given year. Each year between five and six hundred VC-backed entities are acquired, and a few hundred become publicly traded companies (WilmerHale, 2017). That’s honestly not a lot of data, and unless an entrepreneur has access to any of this historical data — or has the time to do the research — they’re pretty much driving blind when making critical decisions.

There are numerous questions that entrepreneurs need to answer with incomplete, or worse, false information. One example is—

How many months of runway should I target between rounds when pursuing venture capital financing?

According to CBInsights, running out of cash is the second leading cause of startup failure. Needless to say—it’s an important question to get right. If an entrepreneur tries to answer this question by triangulating from Google results, they’ll find a few sources that tell them the conventional wisdom is anywhere between 12-to-18 months.

CBInsights estimates the median time lapse between funding rounds for Tech companies to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 months for Seed to Series A and 15 months for Series A to Series B. On Quora you’ll find peers, who with no doubt good intentions, also confirm the 12-to-18 month conventional wisdom. Some experienced VCs however, such as Fred Wilson, recommend planning for about 18 months of runway between rounds. Steve McDermid, Corporate Development Partner at A16Z, also suggests being prepared for the process to take longer than one might expect, and to give yourself “plenty of cushion when assessing your cash runway”. So what’s an entrepreneur to do?

Is it possible that the startup failure rate is so high partially because conventional wisdom tells founders to prepare for 12-to-18 months between financing events when in reality they should be preparing for longer as the experienced VCs suggest? We ingested all of Crunchbase to find out.
Understanding ETL Pipeline
By: Chaitanya Krishna Kasaraneni
Tags: Data, Data Engineering, Data Science, Programming, Etl

Example

Imagine that there is a database that contains web log data. Each entry in the data contains IP address of a user, timestamp, and the link clicked by user.

Think of a scenario where you want to run an analysis of links clicked by city and by day. You would need another data set that maps IP address to a city, and you would also need to extract the day from the timestamp.

With an ETL pipeline, you could run code once per day that would extract the previous day’s log data, map IP address to city, aggregate link clicks by city, and then load these results into a new database. That way, a data analyst or scientist would have access to a table of log data by city and day. That is more convenient than always having to run the same complex data transformations on the raw web log data.

Using ETL pipeline makes sense because, before the usage of cloud computing, companies and businesses used to store their data on private servers that were expensive and running queries on huge datasets could be very expensive in terms of time and economy.
Signing The Consent Papers For Them To Rebuild My Baby’s Skull
By: Joy Stevens
Tags: Disability, Life, Medical, Health, Parenting

Before my son was born he sat in the breech position. I jumped and jiggled around as the weeks went by, but he was not turning. The hospital offered me an ECV. An external cephalic version. This is when a senior midwife tries to turn the baby into a head-down position by applying pressure on your abdomen.

It failed. No matter how much she and her colleague yanked, shoved, pushed and pulled at my belly, the baby was not turning. She said it was the first time in her twenty year career that she hadn’t had success with that manoeuvre.

This is relevant because nobody at the time had any ideas to offer up about why he wouldn't turn. They didn’t realise his head was literally wedged under my ribcage. We now know that his head being trapped under my ribcage was the likely cause of the craniosynostosis he was later diagnosed with.

The baby was big, we had gestational diabetes and I’d just had another baby twelve months previously so I was relieved when they agreed that I could have an elective caesarean section.

The C-Section diary was jam-packed so they agreed to him being delivered a couple of weeks early. Another bonus given that he was approaching 10lb already.

The birth was text-book smooth. It was calm, organised and 100% successful. I was back home enjoying my new son within a couple of days.
Reading should be like whiskey on a wound.
By: J M Jackson
Tags: Writers On Writing, Poetry, Emotions, Emotional Intelligence, Writing

Husband and father who writes about the human condition while trying not to come across too Kafkaesque at parties. He doesn't actually go to any parties.

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by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Art, Wednesday, Illustration, Drawing

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

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Why I’m Embracing Disruptions to My Routine
By: Linda Smith
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Self, Advice, Happiness

A close friend and I each have a milestone birthday this year. To celebrate, we planned a girl’s weekend to a city about four hours away. Good food and wine, shopping, and quality time were all on the agenda, and I was looking forward to it.

Leading up to our trip, though, I started to feel anxious about the particulars. Specifically, the packing and planning for myself, but also all the necessary preparations for my husband and two kids. Going out of town, it would appear, takes no small amount of organization and coordination.

It all worked out, of course, and my friend and I had an absolutely wonderful time, as did my family back home. The experience reminded me of a powerful happiness paradox, though: while we often seek to control our lives, it’s novelty and challenge that are the true building blocks of satisfaction.

Our routines are comfortable and useful, but it’s the new, fresh experiences in life where we stand to gain the most happiness.
Shure MV7 Podcast Microphone Review
By: Derek Oxley
Tags: Technology, Gaming, Voiceovers, Podcasting, Podcast

The OG, Legendary Shure SM7B has been the gold standard in broadcasting for 44 years, damn that is a long time. It now has a little sister, the Shure MV7, which will make podcasters and gamers thrilled.

It started with the SM5 broadcasting microphone — a dynamic boom microphone and quickly found a home in radio and film studios in 1966.

According to John Born (Project Manager, Shure Inc), “A group of Shure acoustical engineers were given the SM57 cartridge element (Unidyne III) and asked, without restrictions on size or cost, to make it better. And they went nuts.” That’s probably the reason John refers to the SM7B “as SM57 on steroids.”

It took over 30 years in the industry before the SM7 eventually found its way into recording studios. Michal Jackson used the SM7 to record Thriller.

In a 2012 interview, David Rochman-(Shure’s Corporate Public Relations Manager) asked John to explain why the SM7 created so much buzz 36 years after its introduction. Here’s what he said:

“A combination of things have probably accounted for this consistent spike in popularity. Maybe it just takes this long for a mic to gain acceptance. Some of it has to do with. emergence podcasting — there’s an appetite for a high quality voiceover mic. And some of it has to do with Michael’s Jackson’s death — everyone was talking about his recordings and how they were made. Then there’s the fact that this is a $350 microphone that has beaten studio microphones costing ten times as much in microphone shoot-outs. It’s finally getting the recognition it deserves.”

The SM7B is now $399 plus the cost of a Cloudlifter, $159, and don’t forget an audio interface at $165. It’s easy to see why the $249 price tag for the MV7 is so appealing.

MV7 or SM7B: which one is right for you? Obviously, there are a few differences between the two microphone, visit Shure’s website for the nitty gritty details.
For the Hate of Hillary
By: Tanner Cole
Tags: Politics, 2016 Election, Progressive, Opinion

I wrote this book review while working at The Progressive up in Madison, Wisconsin. Written early on in the 2016 election cycle, this piece examined the massive swath of hit pieces written on Hillary Clinton over the years and whether there is any reason to pay them any mind. It appeared in the September 2015 issue of the The Progressive.
Ambassador gateway vs Istio gateway comparison matrix
By: Vadym Shevchenko
Tags: Api Gateway

In this story, we’ll take a closer look at Envoy based Kubernetes native gateways. Envoy provides the following main advantages over nginx/haproxy as an edge proxy:

HTTP/2 support

Dynamic service discovery

Freely available advanced load balancing

Both Ambassador and Istio Gateway are pretty similar. However, Istio Gateway looks more mature with a bright and clear future
Submissions
By: The Politics Of Representation Collective
Tags: Submission, Journal, Articles, Writing, Essay

We welcome unsolicited contributions from individuals/collectives/groups who are engaging on topics both directly and indirectly related to the Politics of Representation, and by extension decolonial thought. As we strive for an interdisciplinary approach, we cover a wide range of topics that may range from political economy to cultural analysis. This may include but is not limited to: theoretical, methodological, reflection, opinion and exploratory pieces.

We publish in formats including: essays, poetry, photo essays, and reviews. Pieces typically range from 1000–1500 words in length, however we also post ‘long reads’ that may be up to 4000 words. As our aim is to create a flexible platform, we are open to alternative formats and will decide on a case-by-case basis.

As our audience is comprised of both academics and practitioners, we recommend that the writing style is aimed for the ‘informed public’ and structured in a manner that is exciting, engaging, and translatable across multiple disciplines.

Submission Guidelines:

Please submit a short abstract (100–200 words) to info@politicsofrepresentationcollective.org along with a proposed word count and short bio (and if appropriate, institutional affiliation). We aim to provide an initial response to all potential contributors within two weeks.

We use the UK Creative Commons Licensing agreement for all pieces. However, all rights to the submissions are retained by the author(s), which shall permit the author(s) to request for the submission to be deleted from the our platform at any point, and/or re-posted with another publisher that mandates sole publishing rights.
World of Final Fantasy’s Weird, Conflicting Harmony
By: Peter Cacek
Tags: Final Fantasy, Gaming, Features, Review, Retrospectives

The game sits in an odd spot with me. It’s been almost four years since I last played it, and I still can’t decide if I enjoyed it or not. There must have been some good there, based on how much I think about it. At the same time, the amount of times I rolled my eyes at the characters and dialogue threatened permanent optical damage. Yet, it still picks away at me. Since then, I’ve played glorious games that can be considered masterful works of art, games that have pulled at my heartstrings in marvelous ways, and hands down some of my favorite games of all time. But still, not even these gnaw at the back of my mind the same way World of Final Fantasy does, with its baffling juxtaposition of art style, gameplay, and storyline.

From the outset, the game refuses to hold back with its weirdness. It starts by introducing its two main characters Reynn and Lann — the latter of which goes about thirty minutes without realizing that there’s a foxlike creature sitting on his head. They are told by a random stranger that their whole lives have been a lie and that their parents are dead, but none of that should matter because it’s time to go catch some monsters! After that, they’re whisked away from their neo-French gothic hometown and are dropped in the middle of a beautiful field that looks like it was made out of paper before being told to just go have fun and wander the world.

During my first playthrough, the transition was so stark that I had to take a few minutes to adjust to the change in tone and setting. From there, the game just continued to throw out new concepts and just assumed I was going to keep up. My characters could grow and shrink at will. Every monster I captured had its own skill tree. They could evolve, de-evolve, and transform into unique variants whenever I wanted them to.

But the moment that World of Final Fantasy asked the most from me was when I had to put a bird on my head.
Bursts
By: Ravyne Hawke
Tags: Poetry, Emotions, Free Verse, Mental Health, Political

a sudden burst of creative energy sparked

late in yester evenin’ — words flowed

so why does it feel like doom’s a~waitin’?

there are stones in my gut —

an awful burden I carry around inside

a twelve-day gloom and then more waitin’

even my cheery façade is crumblin’

exposin’ my psyche’s fragility —

how can I maintain this ’til year’s end?

something has to give — these levee walls

with emotional waters batterin’ them daily

are nearin’ a~burstin’ to drown us all

© 2020 Lori Carlson. All Rights Reserved.
사이버베인(CyberVein) 글로벌 공식 홈페이지 오픈
By: Cybervein Korea
Tags: 블록체인, 암호화폐, Notice, 비트코인, 사이버베인

CYBERVEIN - BUILD YOUR CITY

CyberVein DAVE, The one stop AI for smart-city development
What is outsourcing? What does it mean for companies?
By: Jesus Lopez
Tags: Startups, Software Developers, Recruiting, Outsourcing, Remote Working

Outsourcing has become increasingly popular over the last decade as companies grow and their needs start to get so specific, that supply for particular positions, is not easily found in the national market. Moreover, with the rise of the startup ecosystem, outsourcing has provided a way for founders and entrepreneurs to find international top tech talent at a considerable discount to create their companies or enhance their existing team.

The term outsourcing is very much obscured and usually wrapped in a negative connotation, as it has been closely related to a flight of jobs away from the US into foreign companies.

“The main negative effect of outsourcing is that it increases US unemployment. The 14 million outsourced jobs are almost double the 7.5 million unemployed Americans.” as mentioned by Kimberly Amadeo from the Balance.

“It’s become synonymous with corporate irresponsibility, but outsourcing also offers jobs and community programmes [sic],” as argued by Paul Klein from the Guardian.

Regardless, before we can start objecting to it, we need to understand what it is, how to use it, and why it exists.

What is outsourcing?

Put in simple words, the definition of outsourcing is the practice of obtaining goods and services from a foreign supplier. This practice is most commonly used in industries where there’s either a shortage of labor for particular positions or where the cost of labor is too high. For example, software developers or designers, as it reveals the Tech Salaries Report.

Outsourcing is the practice of obtaining goods and services from a foreign supplier.

Companies can outsource any position whatsoever. Still, today, we see companies using it for non-fundamental roles, those whose function is to provide support to the central infrastructure of the company or aid in the day-to-day operations of the company.

Here are the predominant job sectors that companies outsource since 2015:
Nimiq: Past, Present & Future
By: Team Nimiq
Tags: Nimiq, JavaScript, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain

Nimiq: Past, Present & Future

Blog Series — Listings

Since Mainnet launch, we have been monitoring and maintaining the network as its combined hashing power grew to more than 700 MH/s (with peaks close to 1 GH/s). Our community has been very active and already developed a first couple of Nimiq-based applications like poolwatch and nimipet. We encourage them to continue doing so and appreciate it enormously.

Kudos to@brantje for his work on poolwatch

Most importantly, the team has been taking time to assess and investigate the most sensible next steps and strategy to move forward. This strategy is focused on and aligned with the Nimiq core values:

Usability : easy to use for everyone

: easy to use for everyone Censorship resistance : on the level of Bitcoin

: on the level of Bitcoin Web-based : directly usable from your browser, based on nano clients with balance-proofs and transaction broadcasting

: directly usable from your browser, based on nano clients with balance-proofs and transaction broadcasting User Experience : fun to use for technical and non-technical users

: fun to use for technical and non-technical users Scalability: ability to compete with large payment providers

As part of these values we identified the following key tasks:

Grow number of Nimiq Exchange Listings Pursue targeted Marketing Efforts Optimize Network Performance Evolve the Nimiq Ecosystem Investigate Upgrades and Research

We plan on releasing a series of shorter but more frequent posts providing insight for each of these tasks. In addition, we are planning a post regarding operational transparency (status of use of funds, foundations et al.). To kick the series off, we cover the first topic here:

Exchange Listings

Listings have become a competitive market in themselves due to the explosive growth of token projects. As mentioned before, since NIM are not just another ERC20 token a custom integration effort is required from each exchange to proceed with the listing. We make every effort to support such integration and cover any cost of such efforts and fees in order to move this process forward.

As made public last week, we are excited to report that TradeSatoshi moved the fastest and has been the first exchange to make NIM tradable. Users can now easily buy and sell NIM using BTC, LTC, BCH, and USDT.

In addition we are in ongoing discussions and at differing stages of integration with other exchanges including one of the bigger ones. We are working with a number of counsels to fulfill additional requirements for listings (i.e. legal opinions on the type of token) and on steadily making steps forward towards increasing the number of listings and size of exchanges.

Follow Nimiq on Twitter, Discord and Telegram to be notified as soon as a new exchange supports NIM. The next planned post in this series will cover Marketing Efforts.
This Coal Miner Learned How to Paint Thanks to ‘Spirit Voices’
By: Nicole Henley
Tags: Artist, History, Art, Painting, Spiritual

Amazing Art | Paranormal Puzzles

This Coal Miner Learned How to Paint Thanks to ‘Spirit Voices’

The Amazing Story of Augustin Lesage

Some people are born with talent. Others learn through and from a variety of means. And then some have it thrust upon them. For one particular man, since the early 1910s, he credited the voices of spirits with his unorthodox leap into the world of art.

On August 9, 1876, in Saint-Pierre-less-Achuel, Pas-de-Calais, Augustin Lesage was born into a coal miner family. Lesage himself began working in the coal mine in the far north of France from an early age. Then, as his claims go, in 1911, at 35 years old, he was working in the coal mine when he asserted to hearing a voice from the darkness speak up. According to him, the voice declared:

“One day, you will become a painter.”

It is worth noting that, up until this point in his life, Lesage had never trained nor pursued any form of art. His only connection to art beforehand was when he visited the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille museum in Lille during his military service. Upon hearing it, Lesage came to believe that the voice was that of his late younger sister, who had passed away years earlier at the age of three. The voice further instructed him on what he should paint, what supplies he needed, and even where he could get them. From that point, Lesage went to work on his craft. By the following year, in January 1912, Lesage began hearing additional voices. According to him, despite his having never painted before, these spirits encouraged him to do so.
American elegy as amendment, as apology, as blackness got your tongue?
Tags: Poetry, Literature, Stanford, America, Elegy

By Sojourner Ahébée

Section 1.

All mornings shall open like a wound.

Congress will not come to bandage the body.

The State will call in sick. The U.S. will hack its hands

off ;

in other words, it will not touch your body.

Congress may read you your rights. Take note:

your rights have no language for the body;

life, property, citizen

not heart blooming through the hurt,

not lung, not can’t breathe,

Not chest on city floor, playing dead

like dead, no other word for it

Or,

your rights are not your rights to a body

Section 2.

So this morning opens like a wound &

your hotel sits on the edge of two worlds —

a bridge ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ stretched out like a body,

the only thing that separates you from Washington. You

are in Virginia but no words to say it like

the body that is made to feel present, your body that is breaking

before you.

And who is here to amend that, to say

sorry we’ve made a mistake.

You deserve that in writing;

in other words,

your hurt deserves a memory.

Section 3.

revolving doors push out with heavy hands &

you are scared but

say the wound is where the light enters

& you are greeted by a flag with 13 stars,

by three great flags flapping

in the white hands of men,

men who are asking you to name this,

to name their fear.

Something is slipping away from them,

like the moon in your hands.

(Once a slave-girl took off in the black of night,

the black of her own sweat,

and a man went hunting for her in the dark.

When the dawn broke and the hounds had no breath

two Americas removed their dresses, revealed themselves.)

Section 4.

Today, in the parking lot of a hotel,

three men with red flags had you cut open by all the world:

white stars spread out in a blue X as if to erase you, another language for

you don’t get to be here and alive

What they had perhaps forgotten

in the fervor of holding on to some historical self,

was that their violence

gave you a self to speak of,

could be mistaken for poetry —

this strange ability to name, to say

America, I’m here
SwiftUI Scroll Magic
By: Diego Lavalle
Tags: iOS, Swift, Swiftui, Scrollview

Scroll views in SwiftUI are very straight-forward but give us no information or control over the current position of its content. So how can we detect for instance that the user has scrolled beyond certain threshold off the top?

Suppose we have some scrollable content with a title bar that is outside the ScrollView .

public struct JumpingTitleBar: View {



var scrollView: some View {

ScrollView(.vertical) {

Text("""

Scroll down to see the title bar jump from top to bottom.

…

""")

}

} var topBar: some View { … }

var bottomBar: some View { … } var body: some View {

ZStack {

scrollView

VStack {

topBar

Spacer()

bottomBar

}

}

}

}

We want the title bar to jump to the bottom once the user started scrolling down the text. Let’s start by adding an onTop state variable to represent this behavior.

@State var onTop = true var body: some View {

ZStack {

scrollView

VStack {

if onTop { topBar }

Spacer()

if !onTop { bottomBar }

}

}

}

Now for the magic bit of the article, how do we actually find out what the offset of the contents is at all times? For this we leverage .anchorPreference .

Anchor preferences let us compile geometry data about our descendants, of which our scrollable Text is part. We start by defining the key type with a default value and a reducer.

struct OffsetKey: PreferenceKey {

static var defaultValue: CGFloat = 0

static func reduce(value: inout CGFloat, nextValue: () -> CGFloat) {

value = nextValue()

}

}

From the text view itself we report our top anchor’s y position to our ancestors.

GeometryReader { g in

ScrollView(.vertical) {

Text(…)

.anchorPreference(key: OffsetKey.self, value: .top) {

g[$0].y

}

…

We will catch the offset value on the flip side using the onPreferenceChange() modifier on the scroll view itself.

var body: some View {

ZStack {

scrollView

.onPreferenceChange(OffsetKey.self) {

…

}

…

At this point the only thing remaining is to update our internal state according to the received offset.

…

scrollView

.onPreferenceChange(OffsetKey.self) {

if $0 < -10 {

self.onTop = false

} else {

self.onTop = true

}

}

…

The title bar now slides away shortly after we start scrolling down and the footer instantly fades in. The whole action reverses when scrolling all the way back to the top.

For sample code featuring this and other techniques please checkout our working examples repo.

FEATURED EXAMPLE

Scroll Magic
#BigParentingIdea — The Advice I Want My Son To Remember When All His High School Peers Start Worrying About Their Future
By: Lukasz Laniecki
Tags: Parents, Life, Career Advice, Parenting, Passion

#BigParentingIdea — The Advice I Want My Son To Remember When All His High School Peers Start Worrying About Their Future Lukasz Laniecki Follow Aug 2, 2017 · 2 min read

Forget that there is a deadline for anything in your life / that you should have done / found certain things in your life by a certain age.

Forget about needing to figure out in your late teenage years / early 20s what you want to be when you grow up.

Forget that the only time to find a partner is in your early to mid 20s.

Forget that the only time to find your passion is in your 20s.

Forget that the only time to learn, go to college, or master a skill is in your 20s.

Forget that there is a deadline for things like love/ your own family/ success/ career/ passion/ happiness.

Forget that once you reach a certain age it’s game over for you.

Forget that you should listen to people who want only the best for you.

If you can do that you won’t be crippled by this dumb anxiety that is so common in young people nowadays (Am I too old for this? / Is it too late for that?, etc.).
When X8 will add bitcoin as the 9th currency
Tags: Ethereum, ICO, Venture Capital, Bitcoin, Blockchain

Bitcoin was an aspiration for our company although it was the technology behind ethereum that opened the doors for us. When we were deciding which currencies to use in our solution, bitcoin was all the time in our minds.

Currently, our safe haven for crypto investors distributes assets in 8 FIAT currencies and gold.

Adding bitcoin as the 9th currency is a logical step in the development of X8C token. Nevertheless, some things still have to change with BTC that the cryptocurrency won’t destabilize our solution.

But not many.

As stressed before X8C token is a revolution for the crypto world because it brings stability, liquidity and security. In practice, that means that:

- instead of withdrawing cash from online exchanges to avoid the risk of their insolvency, an investor can choose to convert his assets to a stable and secure cryptocurrency, that is redeemable for each of 8 fiat currencies and gold.

- ICO managers can now fix the value of their collected funds with collecting X8C tokens. Without worrying about the price volatility, they can really focus on their startups and work, while keeping all the benefits of keeping their assets in a crypto currency.

BTC goes hand in hand with our X8C token until we get to the liquidity. BTC at the moment cannot be bought with some of the FIAT currencies that X8C token uses to disperse assets. And that affects the ARM technology which automatically shifts assets between FIAT currencies and gold.

We hope to add BTC as the 9th currency as soon as possible. Hopefully in the next two years. Because BTC will bring additional value to the X8C token from two aspects.

First, due to AI in X8C returns for investors are correlated with the price changes of fiat currencies. Higher the daily fluctuations of currency prices bigger are returns for the investors.

And the volatility of BTC price is still far bigger than any other fiat currency.

When BTC becomes the part of our system, the price of X8C will start naturally to correlate with the value of the child of Satoshi Nakamoto. And no solution in the crypto world can deliver that at the moment.

For more information about the revolution in the cryptoworld check our website, Medium page or join our public Slack channel.
How to Create an Animated GIF to Captivate Your Audience
By: Rakia Ben Sassi
Tags: Creativity, Technology, UX, Digital Marketing, Graphic Design

How to Create an Animated GIF to Captivate Your Audience

2 tools I’m using to express information in a more entertaining format

Photo by Alice Dietrich on Unsplash

OK, so what exactly are animated GIFs?

They catch your eyes. They are portable. They auto-play, you watch them passively, no need to engage. They are quiet, they do not interrupt you. They are educational and a great visual way to communicate and pass on information. They make your content get noticed and make it easier to remember by users. They are moving images called animated GIFs.

Twitter posts with images see 35% more retweets than those without. Therefore, you should pay close attention to how you select your image and ensuring that it has been set up properly to avoid missing out on this space. The natural consequence of a content that gets discovered is traffic, post engagement, and social signals surrounding it. All of these factors of course positively contributing to your own search engine rankings and overall content marketing strategy.

GIFs (Graphic Interchange Format, an image type) are insanely popular. An animated GIF is a type of media file that can be inserted into your online content — or used in your presentation, meeting, course, etc — to express information in a more dynamic and entertaining format. This type of media is also interpreted as video. Twitter posts with videos see 28% more retweets than those without.

GIFs are very small and usually of shorter length compared to videos, they do not have sound. It can support a content marketing strategy if used mindfully. Google image search now contains GIF files and animated GIF. This allows your content to be found by a user who wouldn’t have otherwise, which means traffic.

In my articles, especially the technical ones I’m using 2 tools to create GIF animations to them. Below is an explanation of how I’m doing it.

If a picture is worth 1000 words, an animated picture is worth 1,000,000 words.

GIMP

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows, and more operating systems. It supports the feature of creating and editing animated GIF.
Vite Labs x BANANO Partnership Announcement
By: Christy Li
Tags: Vite, Partnerships, Banano, Announcements

We are excited to announce that Vite Labs has engaged in an official partnership with another DAG-based crypto project BANANO. Both Vite and BANANO have long been committed to, through different approaches, delivering real-usable ultrafast feeless blockchain use cases powered by DAG technology, and creating a truly open and transparent finance network.

Since BANANO listing on ViteX, we have collaborated on several rounds of BAN airdrops through the Vite App. We are deeply impressed by the team’s pursuit for fairness and broadness of distribution, and the inclusiveness of the BANANO community. In order for both projects to learn more from each other and to increase visibility of DAG technology in the blockchain industry, Vite Labs and BANANO have decided to form an official partnership.

The partnership includes but is not limited to the following:

The Vite App will become a long-term designated channel for BAN Airdrops

Funding of specific joint activities and campaigns with VITE or VX tokens

More mutual interactions on respective social channels

Increasing visibility and awareness of DAG technologies

Further connecting both communities

About BANANO

BANANO is a DAG-based next-generation cryptocurrency with ultrafast and feeless transactions. BANANO has ongoing 100% free and fair distribution in line with gamification and crypto education since 2018 and is used heavily through intuitive apps and easy interfaces within the expanding BANANO ecosystem.

Follow BANANO:

Website: https://banano.cc

Discord: https://chat.banano.cc

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bananocoin

Medium: https://medium.com/@bananocurrency

About Vite Labs and ViteX

Vite is a feeless, high-performance public chain and the world’s first DAG-based smart contract platform, well suited for commercial dApps with performance rivaling their centralized counterparts. Vite’s capabilities are made possible by its unique asynchronous architecture, hierarchical consensus, and snapshot chain. Vite has a steady record of deploying practical applications on its platform, with products including a decentralized exchange, a public-financing dApp for the American City of Syracuse, multiple game dApps, and micropayment platforms.

ViteX is a decentralized exchange built on the Vite public chain. It is an open exchange run by the community, with its income passed through to the community. ViteX has a platform token VX, VX holders enjoy the right of receiving daily dividends of transaction fees and other revenue of ViteX exchange.
10 Reasons Why it Makes Sense to Write on Medium
By: Victoria Ichizli-Bartels
Tags: Gaming, Productivity, Self-awareness, Ideas, Writing

2. A game platform and game creation system

I have written a story on that aspect already, so I won’t take too much of your time to discuss this here again. I will just say a few words below.

But here is the whole story:

While turning life into fun games, I discover again and again how many parallels there are between games and real-life projects and activities, especially because when you look at the main components of each, you will find that they are the same.

Contemplating a little further helped me realize that Medium wasn’t a single game, but an entire game platform because you can write here for yourself (publishing it under your name/on your profile), for your publication, an external one, or one of those owned by Medium, and you can also aim for your articles be distributed to a wider audience than solely to your followers.

Besides, just like Roblox, Medium is also a game creation system. Each writer on Medium plays their writing game differently. Some write and publish frequently (every day or even several times a day), others only a few times a week or even a month.

Some write short articles (there are even publications requiring short pieces), others write ten-minute and longer stories. And some try both of these options and anything in between. Choosing topics to write and how your writing voice sounds, are also the aspects of your very personal game on Medium.

And last but not least, and probably the most important, you can (and should) adjust the design of your “Writing on Medium” game continually, or at least regularly. That would ensure that you, as the designer of your life’s games (including the bit of it on Medium), satisfy the wishes and the needs of your player, yourself.

For example, I generally tried to post or submit five articles every week. There were weeks in which I published more and in others less. Trying to keep this rule rigid and put the pressure on me (which I did and do sometimes, but fortunately stop when I become aware of it) prevents that I enjoy this writing game. For the article you are reading now, I took more than one day to finish, which will probably result in less than five pieces this week since I combined the writing of this story with several other things I wanted and needed to do.
During the Pandemic, Everyone Is Gaming More, Not Just Kids
Tags: Technology, Gaming, Entertainment, Video Game News, Pandemic

Cooped up inside during stay-at-home orders, many people have turned to video games to blow off steam, with those over 65 spending 45 percent more time gaming than they did a year ago, NPD Group says.

By Michael Kan

Though video games are often thought of as a pastime for kids or 30-something men, pandemic-related stay-at-home orders have broadened gaming’s appeal across all age groups, according to NPD Group.

For adults between the ages of 45 and 54, their time spent gaming increased by 59% over the last year, while their spending rose by 76%, NPD says. Meanwhile, for those ages 55 to 64, time and money spent jumped by 48% and 73%, respectively.

People over 65 got into gaming as well. For them, the time spent gaming was up by 45%, while spending rose by 29%.

According to NPD Group, the increase was consistent across all gaming platforms. “Growth is particularly strong on mobile, which is likely to be the most accessible platform to a wide audience of consumers,” the company added. “Consoles also saw notable increases, driven by families seeking options for group play and by those seeking options for online play.”

Overall, of the 5,000 people polled by NPD, 79% of US consumers report playing a video game in the last six months, a 6-point increase from last year. But the total time spent on gaming was up by 26%. Meanwhile, the total cash paid toward gaming increased by 33%.

The big question is whether the trend will continue once the pandemic is over. NPD Group says it’s possible COVID-19 simply accelerated existing trends, which show that overall, more people are gaming.

“If this is the case, then the gaming market could experience continued growth without a post-pandemic pullback,” NPD analyst Mat Piscatella said in a statement. “If not, however, we may see a post-pandemic valley before returning to growth. It all rests on engagement.”
Let Them Wait
By: Jeremy Musighi
Tags: Technology, Social Media, Productivity, Personal Development, Business

“LET THEM WAIT!” — King Jaffe Joffer

Texts, emails, calendar reminder, phone calls, someone liked your Facebook post, new Instagram follower, Linkedin request, new stories on Snapchat, breaking news, new music on SoundCloud, SportsCenter top plays, iOS/Android update, new video from your favorite YouTube channel, tweets you missed, must-listen podcasts, Venmo request, rate your Uber driver, free Postmates delivery promo.

You are drowning in fucking notifications at all times.

How are you supposed to deal with this?

Option 1: Stop what you’re doing every 3 minutes to check the notification on your phone.

Option 2: LET THEM WAIT!

How are you going to get anything deeply meaningful done without focusing for an extended period of time, uninterrupted?

When your phone goes off, ask yourself:

Is this an emergency? If it’s not, proceed to the next question.

2. What will happen if I respond to this in an hour?

Nothing will happen.

Don’t be a slave to your notifications.