fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Article Comment: We fight networks by realizing we are networks.
By: Grey Swan Digital Staff
Tags: Trading, Risk, Complexity, Systems Thinking

Michael - In times of crisis, when verification of information /sources may be incomplete, we also seek other forms of safety and security. In these instances, limiting our risk with bounded solutions may be satisfactory.

Now, imagine combining bounded systems with super low latency across a network of diverse actors. During turbulent transition, feedback is high variety and super fast, with manageable risk. An extraordinary combination for volatile environments.

Finally, apply the above to the largest financial markets in the world, and things get very interesting.
West Michigan Potters Guild brings pottery and the human touch with fall show
By: John Kissane
Tags: Pottery, News, Art, Culturedgr, Craftsmanship

West Michigan Potters Guild brings pottery and the human touch with fall show

The 34th annual fall show and sale is at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church this Friday and Saturday, with everything from the functional bowl to the decorative wall art for sale from over 40 artists.

Jeff Rottman, volunteer for the West Michigan Potters Guild for 15 years, is one of over 40 artists selling their work at this weekend’s event. Photo credit Eric Tank.

Pottery is at least 20,000 years old and is so addictive that people do it even after death, if the film “Ghost” is accurate, and everyone agrees that it is.

This ageless art will be on display this weekend at the West Michigan Potter’s Guild 34th Annual Fall Show & Sale at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church. Over 40 artists will present their wares, which range from the sturdily practical usable bowls to the wonderfully impractical abstract designs.

The Guild is an all-volunteer organization. Jeff Rottman, owner of Grand Rapids Pottery, has volunteered with it for 15 years, and in that time has done just about every job the Guild offers.

He values the way it gives potters a platform.
Millennials & Mothers: The Key Target Groups We Should All Focus On
By: Dalia Research
Tags: Market Research Companies, Research, Market Research, Market Research Reports, Market Research Analysis

Photo by Kayla Harris on Unsplash

Millennials

Millennials are poised to overtake Baby Boomers as the largest segment of the US population in 2019. Millennials are the trend-setting consumers of today and tomorrow, so it makes sense that companies should invest more money into millennial focused research. According to Dalia’s 2018 Sampling Report, 46% of market research project managers say that they need more reach with millennials. But, millennials are a tough group to reach; not only do their values differ greatly from those of previous generations, but they also have very different habits.

For one, because they place such a high premium on mobility and travel, they can be hard to pin down. The homeownership rate for millennials is about 8 percentage points below baby boomers when they were the same age. Besides that, they are less likely to be married or have children, and they prefer to spend their money on traveling, experiences, or technology, rather than on other material things.

In order to reach these young, digital nomads, you have to meet them on their own turf. For example, with millennials spending 90 hours a month in apps, it’s a good idea to incorporate in-app-environments into your targeting strategy. Leveraging mobile is really the key to reaching this target group.

Mothers

Besides millennials, Dalia’s 2018 Market Research report also shows that mothers are a highly sought after target group: 47% of project managers say they need more reach to mothers. Considering the huge impact mothers make on the consumer landscape, it isn’t surprising that they’re so in demand. They are often in charge of household finances, and make most major purchases relevant to their house and their children. Nearly half of mothers in the US are the primary or co breadwinner. Not only are they major consumers, but they also absorb a lot of media; Edison research estimates mothers spend 8 hours and 37 minutes a day consuming media online, on TV, on their phones, etc.

Besides this, mothers are very digitally literate. Internet penetration among US mothers is currently at 96% and social media penetration is at 88%. Mothers are usually accessing the internet or their social media accounts via their smartphones, so having a mobile-optimised strategy is vital.

Mothers have the most free time between 2–4pm (after lunch and before they pick up their kids from school), so strategically deploying surveys around content they enjoy, during these windows of free time, is a great way to boost response rates.

For more information about target groups, check out Dalia’s Full Market Research Sampling Report.
The Best Way to Build an Audience (For Fiction Writers)
By: Shaunta Grimes
Tags: Creativity, Freelancing, Blogging, Productivity, Writing

If you’re a fiction writer, you might not want to hear this.

And I don’t blame you. It can be hard to hear. Because what we want is for our fiction to stand on it’s own. What we want is to believe that if we’re good enough, we don’t have to do any of that icky marketing stuff.

But it’s not true. Not for you. Not for me. Not for Stephen King or J.K. Rowling or anyone.

Finding your audience is your responsibility.

Trust me when I tell you that your publisher won’t do that for you. They’ll support you as best they can, but it is your job to let readers know about your book.

And since you’re you’re good at the whole stringing words together thing, one of your best available tools is blogging.

Writing a blog (on your own website, on a free WordPress blog, right here on Medium, wherever) is a way for you to build a bridge between yourself and your readers.

Let’s assume I’ve convinced you that if you’re a fiction writer, you need to blog.

Your instinct might be to blog about your awesome fiction work. Behind the scenes pieces, cover reveals, posts begging readers to buy your book (for the love of God), posts that share your process.

I’m going to break this to you as cleanly and quickly as possible.

No one cares.

Don’t believe me? Ask yourself this. How many blogs do you follow that are written by relatively unknown authors (or even bestsellers) that are all about their process?

None? Hey. Me, too.

But you’ve got all kinds of interesting things to say. Or teach. Or share. Write mostly about those things and then, when you have a book to market, you’ll have an audience happy to listen.

The Basics

Think about these four things:

What are you good at? What do you want to be good at? What interests you? What is interesting about you?

Here are my answers.

I’m good at writing, books, reading, gardening, taking care of people, understanding body politics, teaching.

I want to be good at playing the guitar, camping, Iron Man triathlons.

I’m interested in politics, family dynamics, stories in all their forms (books, TV, movies), systems, productivity.

What’s interesting about me is that I’m a published author, I have eight siblings, my dad was in prison when I was a kid, I’m a full-time writer.

Now do that for yourself.

You’ll have a goldmine of blogging ideas. Pick one and start writing. You can either teach something or learn something and share what you’re learning.

And with every post, seek to connect with readers. Try to remember that you’re writing for them, not yourself. Write to teach, to share, to give your readers something.

If you only write about your own fiction writing, you’re writing for you. And that might feel good, but it’s unlikely to gain much traction.

Put your readers first. That way, when you have a book to sell, you’ll have people willing to take a look.
Android 11- Top New 11 features for android.
By: Shirsh Shukla
Tags: Android App Development, AndroidDev, Android Update, Android, Android Apps

In this article we will discuss about what android provides in new OS updates. And How they are helpful for us.

If you have google pixel device(after the version of pixel 2).then you definitely get this now. and for other its depend upon your device company.

So let’s start to discuss that,
Happiness is dwelling upon the melancholy without repercussions.
By: J M Jackson
Tags: Poetry, Psychology, Art, Happiness, Blitherings

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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Taking Advantage of the pixEOS Smart Economy
By: Jeremy Nation
Tags: Gaming, Art, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Eos

With an exchange listing for PIXEOS Tokens just around the corner, the pixEOS team is busy at work. A number of features that will build merit in the platform are scheduled to go live in anticipation of PIXEOS Tokens being in the hands of a wider audience of crypto users. Many are familiar with the crypto term “hodl,” which means to hold onto cryptocurrency rather than selling. As these platform features integrate with and enhance the pixEOS smart economy, now more than ever, the incentive to hodl onto PIXEOS Tokens has never been stronger.

From the start our team has been focused on giving back to the community that makes up our base. We’re constantly running promotions, contests, and rewarding participants by means of the smart economy underlying the pixEOS platform. The distribution mechanism behind this smart economy is the staking system that offers daily PIXEOS Token rewards, and a weekly EOS reward based on overall platform volume to stakers. As the platform continues to grow, each additional facet that goes live will act as a pillar upholding the staking system, bolstering the integrity of the pixEOS profit-sharing network.

The opportunity to stake PIXEOS Tokens gives everyone the option to earn passively while they hodl. When daily drops of PIXEOS Tokens are staked alongside existing staked tokens the rewards grow, so keeping tokens staked in the platform lets users to make the most out of the pixEOS rewards system for the long haul.

Rewards for staked PIXEOS Tokens will only grow as additional platform elements go live such as the rare digital art, Grand pixEOS Art Gallery, Auction House, Art House marketplace, and the pixEOS Game Center where 15+ games are to be deployed on 2019. As each of these additional platform elements is integrated, the staking system will in turn provide greater rewards, enriching those who hodl fast. Early adopters of the pixEOS staking system will experience a first mover advantage as additional utility fosters value in the network.

By continuing to build out the pixEOS ecosystem, the team is giving our PIXEOS Token hodling community a reason to see value in their tokens. Soon, a vibrant marketplace of rare digital art will go live, fundamentally supported by PIXEOS Tokens. They will serve as the backbone of a system for artists to put rare digital art on the EOS blockchain, the basis for collectors to expand their anthologies of rare digital art, and the gateway for gamers to reach a world of entertaining titles and rewards.

We invite you to take advantage of the pixEOS smart economy for artists, gamers, and collectors. Join us as we pave the way forward for an interactive profit sharing marketplace of rare digital art and games on the EOS blockchain.

pixEOS Official Links:

Website | Twitter | Telegram | Trybe | Facebook | Instagram |Contact
Introducing Girls Go CyberStart 2019
Tags: Girls In Tech, STEM, Education, Cybersecurity

Today, the 2019 Girls Go CyberStart initiative has launched as part of the Governors Cyber Skills Program! Girls Go CyberStart is a free, forward-thinking cybersecurity skills program designed to educate and inspire high school girls in the US to discover the opportunities and rewards offered by a career in cybersecurity.

More than 6,600 high school girls played Girls Go CyberStart in 2018. The goal for 2019 is to triple those numbers, teach more girls core cybersecurity skills, and build their confidence in problem-solving.

“Thank you for this opportunity. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and now I do thanks to this program.”

High school girls across 26 states, in grades 9 through to 12, are invited to participate in the Girls Go CyberStart challenge in which they will compete for cash prizes, scholarships and the right for more students in their school to play CyberStart. You can check if your state is eligible here.

Across three stages, girls will battle in teams to become one of the top schools that compete in the grand finale — an online Capture the Flag competition!

The top schools in each state will take part in CyberStart Compete

Participants are encouraged to set up a Girls Go CyberStart club at their school or youth organization! A club must be registered by an advisor; this can be any teacher, administrator or adult associated with your school or an organization such as Girl Scouts, YWCA or a homeschool association.

To progress past the first stage of the program, clubs need to have a minimum of 5 girls registered who have completed 6 challenges each!

You can trial the types of challenges the students will face in the games by visiting go.girlsgocyberstart.org.

No prior experience is required as the program gradually builds students’ knowledge base. Whether they already know a bit about coding, or have never considered a career in technology, why not let them give Girls Go CyberStart a shot!

To learn more about Girls Go CyberStart visit our website, then register for when Girls Go CyberStart restarts: https://ggcs.online/medium
My Data Camp Journey
By: Ayşe Bat
Tags: Learning To Code, Data Science Skills, Data Science, Datacamp

What I don’t like about the datacamp?

1- R programming courses more than python programming courses. 😒

2- Sometimes the provided datasets are different than in the videos or the practice part. So, you can see the different result or you may need additional effort on the datasets the bring the same result.

3- Even if all technical part well-covered but I think I need more practice to be more efficient. For example, in the data cleaning part I got every technical detail but if I got a really messy dataset I am not sure how to handle the data.

4- I understand the idea of data science part by part. I think there are not good at putting the piece of information together to going through the whole process. Like, How I connect the SQL and Python?
Cara Handle Error pada Microservice
By: Deni Husni Fahri Rizal
Tags: Micoservices, Chaos Engineering, Microservice Architecture, Chaos Monkey, Error Handling

This publisher is for expert and veteran programmer to share idea…

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No Escape For The Children
By: Toni Tails
Tags: Life Lessons, Life, Family, Mental Health, Parenting

Parenting, Family, Abuse

No Escape For The Children

Mom and Dad are kings of the world in an abusive household

image by Ulkar — purchased by the author

When you are brought up in that kind of environment, it doesn’t feel like any escape exists outside of death.

I tried to commit suicide throughout my childhood as a result of a toxic, abusive environment.

I didn’t understand that my parents weren’t the most powerful beings on earth because they kept my siblings and me isolated.
Compound identified that may help treat heart failure
By: Stanford Medicine
Tags: Stanford Scope, News Home, Drug Development, Heart Health, Health

Compound identified that may help treat heart failure

Stanford researchers have discovered a compound that reduces the symptoms of heart failure after a heart attack in initial animal tests.

By Mandy Erickson

Heart attack survivors may think the worst is behind them. But many later develop heart failure, a progressive disease marked by shortness of breath and swelling of the legs. Symptoms can prevent patients from working, exercising, even picking up grandchildren.

Heart failure occurs after a heart attack when enough of the heart muscle dies, causing the rest of the heart to overwork, which leads to more damage. To protect an overworked, failure-prone heart, cardiologists typically prescribe medications that encourage the heart to take it easy, said Daria Mochly-Rosen, PhD, a Stanford professor of chemical and systems biology.

But Mochly-Rosen is hoping to tackle heart failure at the molecular level. She and her colleagues — including lead author Julio Ferreira, PhD, a professor at the University of Sao Paulo — developed a compound, SAMβA. Pronounced “samba,” like the Brazilian dance, SAMβA strengthens a weakened heart. In preliminary tests in rats, it appears to improve heart functions in heart failure caused by a heart attack.

The study appears in Nature Communications.

One contributor to heart failure following a heart attack is the accumulation of broken or dysfunctional mitochondria, the small organelles in cells that produce energy. The researchers identified a pair of proteins that, when bonded, gum up the normal activity of mitochondria and contribute to heart failure. One of those proteins, βIIPKC, is found in higher levels in failing human and rodent hearts.

The researchers tapped their chemistry know-how to develop SAMβA, which can prevent these proteins from bonding, thereby improving mitochondrial function and providing more energy for the heart.

In tests, post-heart-attack rats that developed heart failure and were treated with SAMβA had better cardiac function — measured by how well the left heart ventricle pumps blood with each heart beat — than rats who weren’t treated with SAMβA.

“We greatly improved their hearts,” Mochly-Rosen said. “If humans are going to be like rats, perhaps we can treat them with a drug that prevents this deterioration.”

She added that they also gave healthy rats doses of SAMβA “and it had absolutely no effect,” an indication that the compound is nontoxic.

Mochly-Rosen and Ferreira suspect that SAMβA will also be effective in humans. If so, it has the potential to be developed into a drug for human heart attack patients, they believe.

“I’m hopeful SAMβA will be accepted by the industry for drug development because it appears very promising,” Mochly-Rosen said.

Image by JanBaby
Building a Sentiment-Classifier App With CreateML and SwiftUI
By: Fred Gray
Tags: Machine Learning, Software Development, Swift, Programming, Swiftui

Building the App

When we create a model using CreateML, the output .mlmodel file includes a class representing our model. This is how we’ll interact with our model in our app. On the output tab, click on the “Xcode” button, and you’ll see a new Xcode canvas detailing your new CoreML class. To add your model class to your app, you can simply drag it into the project files.

First, we can create a class to handle our model ( SentimentIdentifier ) — you must also import the CoreML and NaturalLanguage modules. This class will manage the machine learning aspect of our app. The class should conform to the ObservableObject protocol, as we’ll be publishing the outcomes of our predictions for the views to update themselves with.

The class is fairly simple. It has two published properties for the data our view will be interested in — the prediction [positive ( 4 ) or negative ( 0 )] and the confidence of the prediction, which if it’s the most likely out of two possibilities will be between 0.5 and 0.999 etc.

In our class initialiser, we initialise our model from the SentimentModel class we imported and then create an NLModel ( SentimentPredictor ) using our model. The NLModel is what we’ll actually use to make predictions, using its built-in methods.

Then, we create our predict function. This takes a string (i.e., what we want to classify) and uses our NLModel to make a prediction. We can also use predictedLayoutHypothesis to see the confidence of the prediction. This function returns a [String : Double] dictionary containing the classifications and how confident the model is in each.
How to Create an End to End Object Detector using Yolov5?
By: Rahul Agarwal
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Visualization, Data Science, Programming

Creating Custom Dataset

You can forgo the first step if you have your image Dataset. Since I don’t have images, I am downloading data from the Open Image Dataset(OID), which is an excellent resource for getting annotated image data that can be used for classification as well as detection. Note that we won’t be using the provided annotations from OID and create our own for the sake of learning.

1. OIDv4 Download Images:

To download images from the Open Image dataset, we start by cloning the OIDv4_ToolKit and installing all requirements.



cd

pip install -r requirements.txt git clone https://github.com/EscVM/OIDv4_ToolKit cd OIDv4_ToolKit pip install -r requirements.txt

We can now use the main.py script within this folder to download images as well as labels for multiple classes.

Below I am downloading the data for Cricketball and Football to create our Custom Dataset. That is, we will be creating a dataset with footballs and cricket balls, and the learning task is to detect these balls.

python3 main.py downloader --classes Cricket_ball Football --type_csv all -y --limit 500

The below command creates a directory named “OID” with the following structure:

OID directory structure. We will take only the image files(.jpgs) from here and not the labels as we will annotate manually to create our Custom Dataset, though we can use them if required for a different project.

Before we continue, we will need to copy all the images in the same folder to start our labeling exercise from Scratch. You can choose to do this manually, but this can also be quickly done programmatically using recursive glob function:

import os

from glob import glob os.system("mkdir Images")

images = glob(r'OID/**/*.jpg', recursive=True)

for img in images:

os.system(f"cp {img} Images/")

2. Label Images with HyperLabel

We will use a tool called Hyperlabel to label our images. In the past, I have used many tools to create annotations like labelimg, labelbox, etc. but never came across a tool so straightforward and that too open source. The only downside is that you cannot get this tool for Linux and only for Mac and Windows, but I guess that is fine for most of us.
Yesterday’s Tragedies
By: Not Another Tv Dad
Tags: Poetry

By CL Bledsoe

My daughter isn’t into the music

I like. I must not have neglected

her enough. She likes pretty things

that sound good and rehearsed.

I’m more comfortable with chaos,

which mirrors my own experience.

If they can afford guitars that stay

in tune, they can’t speak to anything

I understand. Production value means

turn everything up. She wouldn’t be

caught dead in a leather jacket. I’ve

given serious consideration to cheer

practice for her. All of this, to me,

means a chance at happiness, or

at least, a different kind of misery

than I knew. I’m an adventurous

father; I don’t keep her mired in

the same old tragedies.
最單純的努力：動畫《強風吹拂》中的跑與不跑
Tags: 動畫心得, Animation, 動畫評論, 強風吹拂, 動畫

in In Fitness And In Health
Cold Case: Pauline Cantu Diaz
By: Ashley Kay
Tags: True Crime, Crime, Justice, Feminism, Women

Cold Case: Pauline Cantu Diaz

Missing since December 7, 2010.

Pauline Cantu Diaz. Image from NamUs / Public Domain

On December 7, 2010, 64-year-old Pauline Cantu Diaz left her workplace and headed to the San Antonio house of her estranged husband, Pedro “Pete” Ruiz. She was just supposed to pick up a lawn mower and head home, but she was never seen again.

A few days later, Pauline’s truck was found on Highway 181, just down the street from Pete’s home. Her purse was left inside.

Her family hired private investigators and they hypothesized that Pauline met with foul play at her home after returning from Pete’s residence that night.

[S]he arrived home after going to [Pete] Ruiz’s house, and was surprised there. The shoes she wore on the day of her disappearance was found inside her home, and they had sand stuck to them, similar to the sand found at Ruiz’s home. Some clothes were also scattered on the floor of her residence, which is uncharacteristic of Diaz; she normally kept everything neat and clean (Source: The Charley Project).

Although authorities think she may have been attacked inside her home, they still say that Pete is likely responsible. Days before she went missing, Pauline talked to Pete about getting a divorce, and a few days after she went missing, he inquired about her life insurance policy.

No one has been charged in Pauline’s case and it remains unsolved. There is a $25,000 reward for information that could lead to her whereabouts or an arrest.

Pauline Cantu Diaz. Image from Help Us Find Pauline

[Rufus] Martinez said the lack of closure on this case continues to take its toll on his wife and the rest of the family. “Pauline was a very nice person to me,” he said. “She was a wonderful person. I’m lucky to have a mother-in-law like that” (Source: William J. Gibbs Jr., Dec. 7 marks two years since Pauline Diaz’s disappearance).

Pauline’s family says that she was a friendly, yet very strong-willed person, and would help anyone in need. They claim that she never would have left without telling them.

The Diaz family says they want the public to know she is still missing and they haven’t forgotten about her (Source: Erica Hernandez, 9 years later and still no sign of Pauline Diaz).

If you have any information on the disappearance or whereabouts of Pauline Cantu Diaz, please contact the Wilson County Sheriff’s Office at (830)393–2535, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office at (210)335-TIPS, the Crime Stoppers of Wilson County at (830)393-4636, or the Heidi Search Center at 1(800)547–4435.
In pivoting to paid, publishers run into tech headaches
By: Save Journalism
Tags: Google, Advertising, Digital Advertising, Facebook, Journalism

Max Willens’ piece in Digiday explains how small and local news publishers are trying to adapt to a digital landscape where the rules have already been decided by giant tech companies.

While the digital advertising ecosystem is constantly changing, its list of dominant players and tools is largely settled, which compels vendors to build products that play well with key ad tech products. The consumer revenue space is different, with only a few 800-pound gorillas setting the rules for how publishers might build or manage relationships with consumers.

These tech giants are rolling out digital tools to help newspapers, magazines, and publishers, but their solutions are not one-size-fits-all.

What’s even worse? By providing these tools, tech giants get to take even more revenue from small and local newspapers.
An Ex-Uber, Glovo Expansion Lead on Why This is the Right Time for Geospatial Analytics
By: Aditi Sinha
Tags: Geosaptial, Mapping, Operations, Geolocation, Monitoring

An Ex-Uber, Glovo Expansion Lead on Why This is the Right Time for Geospatial Analytics

For companies with ground operations to become operationally efficient

Note: We at Locale.ai are committed to making the geospatial industry more robust and mainstream. This is part 2 of the series “Ask an Expert” where we engage with geospatial experts 1:1 on interesting ideas, discuss geospatial techniques and tools and talk about the industry! You can read Part 1 here.

Introduction

Utsav Agarwal is now working in an early-stage fintech startup, Flat White Capital, aimed to enable millions of Indian households to meet their credit, savings and investments needs by better monetizing their assets.

Utsav

Prior to this, he worked with Glovo and Uber in their expansion teams and started up with #nwplyng, a free, fun & simple way to share music with friends on Facebook, Twitter & Foursquare.

In this interview, we will talk about his learnings at Uber and Glovo and why he thinks all logistics, commerce, mobility or social networks need to carry out geospatial analytics. We will also cover the gaps the Covid Pandemic has uncovered for supply chain companies and the steps they need to take in the future to avoid a situation like this.

To set some context, can you talk a little bit about your background. How did you make a shift from studying music management to working in an early-stage startup, Flat White Capital?

Utsav: It’s been an interesting journey — not one without its own challenges and highs & lows. ‌

‌‌

‌I’m a Mechanical Engineer by academics; special emphasis on academics as it’s a degree I’ve, not the knowledge. As a teenager, I got really into indie rock and the sub-culture that came along with it. In my 1st year of engineering, I got an opportunity to manage a thrash metal band — which I gladly accepted. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to pursue the passion further after graduating. That led to the Music Business certificate from UCLA.‌

‌‌

‌Ironically, it’s my time in LA that opened my eyes to the tech startup ecosystem. I witnessed the meteoric growth of Foursquare and Groupon during my time in LA.‌

‌‌

‌In 2011, I moved back to India for a myriad of reasons, and that’s when I decided to switch to tech. I figured the best way to learn is to startup and throw myself into the deep end — so a music sharing app called nwplyng was born, that fit perfectly with my past experience in the music industry and newfound passion in tech.

Here is a write-up about his experience and lessons. Check it out here:
How to Write to Win Under the New MPP
By: Meg Stewart
Tags: Blogging, Médium, Top 3, Make Money Writing, Writing Tips

If you’re wondering how to win at writing under the new MPP earnings system, take heart. My top 3 posts this week will give you some very concrete tips for how to attract more readers, improve your writing, and boost your reading times.

Images are Critical to Attracting Readers

One of the things that’s become even more critical under the new MPP system is convincing readers to choose your post to read in the first place. You’ve got to get them to click on your post out of all the posts on the page. I wrote a post awhile back about why headlines are critical and how to improve them, but the other, even more important component to getting potential reads is your feature image.

Rachael Hope gives some great tips on just how to choose the best stock images to use for your post. These aren’t generic tips either which is what I loved about her post. She gives you concrete tips on which colors to choose, size considerations, some tips for getting creative with searching for images and even some not so well known sites for finding great images. Check out her post below:

Boost Your Read Times

In addition to the best headline and great images for your post, you’ve got to be able to hold the attention of your reader once they’ve clicked into your post and scrolled past your image. Keeping the reader on your post as long as possible is how you win under the new MPP system. The best way to do that is to make sure your post isn’t boring! Duh.

Gone are the days when even mediocre writers could earn money by getting folks to clap up your post in return for clapping on theirs.

Under the new MPP system, reading time counts big. Because of this, more people are reading only what they like and what holds their attention.

Readers aren’t as willing to slog through bad writing or boring topics as they were before. Now readers, who under the old system might still skim your post even if it was boring, will click away if you don’t hold their attention.

But T.S. Johnson gives you 5 very concrete ways to think about your writing so you can avoid writing the same things everyone else is writing and write something that holds readers on your post all the way through. Check out how to keep the boredom out of your writing and boost your read times below:

Improve your writing

Leo Teixeira has come up with a great technique for how to release everything you have to say onto the page and then clean it up so you can get to the core theme so your final edited piece is polished and shiny. Check out how he discovered this technique below and learn how to use it to make sure your initial draft is polished so it’s value shines through for your reader.

Now that you’ve got some concrete tips for honing each component of your posts, include writing daily in your routine, and you’ll make the best of the new MPP earnings system!
The Writing Life is a Solitary One
By: Michelle Monet
Tags: Creativity, Writing Life, Books, Writing, Writing Tips

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my writing life is that writing, for the most part, is a solitary endeavor. Some might prefer to use the word lonely, but — it is not a group effort.

It reminds me of when my boyfriend and I go to a casino.

He likes to play craps or a $10 Poker table. I like either a 25-cent multi-game slot machine with BlackJack or a $5 Poker table.

He goes his way. I go mine. Then we meet in an hour or two. It seems to work well for us. Last time I ran out of money before him. I stood behind his chair at the craps table. He shooed me away with his hands,

‘Go away!! You know you jinx me when you stand behind me! You bring me bad luck. Gambling is a solo game, not a group sport!’

Yep. So is writing. Writing really is a solitary (at times lonely) sport.

G.A. Cummings
The Oldest Insult Known to the Human Race:🖕
By: Qizhen Li
Tags: Life, History, Culture, Ideas, Middle Finger

What many might think to be an invention of the modern world, the history of the finger actually dates a lot further back, a lot further back. Although the exact group or person who invented the gesture is unknown, documentation of the finger dates back to the Romans and ancient Greece.

Today, almost everyone knows the middle finger as an insult, in the ancient times, however, although still an insult, the finger had much more of a sexual flair to it: it represented the phallus, or in other words, people used it because middle fingers look like dicks. It’s that simple.

The first ever known photograph of the gesture, 1886. Public Domain

Somewhere along the way, another meaning must of came up for the finger. When the gesture made it into the Suda, the 10th-century encyclopedia, it’s meaning was “to touch the anus with a finger.”

The gesture arrived in the United States, according to anthropologist Desmond Morris, likely along with Italian immigrants. History was then made in 1886 when Boston Beaneaters pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn gave the finger to rival team New York Giants in a joint team photograph. That was the first-ever known photograph of the gesture.

In 1968 when the North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo and its crew, the sailors gave the middle finger in photos, tricking North Koreans into believing that it was a “Hawaiian good luck sign.” Unfortunately months later, when the North Koreans finally found out the meaning of the finger, the crew were subject to more severe punishments.

USS Pueblo sailors giving the “Hawaiian good luck sign” in a North Korean propaganda photo. Public domain

George W. Bush flipped the bird when he was the governor of Texas, or as he said, it’s “just a one-fingered victory salute.”

Even before Bush ever used the finger, former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau gave the finger to protesters when he was on a train visiting Salmon Arm, BC. It would become known as the “Salmon Arm salute,” which, little did the former PM know, would come back to haunt his son years later.
1000+ Bookmarks Later: These Are The Top 5 Most Influential Articles I’ve Read In the Past 5 Years
By: Aj Goldstein
Tags: Technology, Education, Lessons Learned, Learning, Life

Man has the internet taught me a lot.

Today I found myself digging through a time-capsule worth of bookmarks from the past 5 years in search for a master list of design resources requested by a co-worker.

In the process of all this digging, I came across countless articles I’ve since forgotten existed, yet at the time of reading were nothing short of mind-expanding for me.

It’s funny how learning works. When we really learn something, the lesson becomes part of who we are. But somewhere along the way, we tend to forget the source.

Perhaps this is where the myth of a self-made person comes from? In ourselves and others, all we ever see is the end-result; too easily forgetting all the people that’ve helped along the way.

As I look back on the 1000+ articles I’ve read and bookmarked over the past 5 years, I thought I would share the 5 that have been most influential on my thinking.

I’ve chosen these articles because, since reading each of them, I’ve experienced a distinct before/after in how I approach the given topic. And collectively, the lessons I’ve taken away have served as more of an education than school ever could:

1) On making big life decisions:

https://hbr.org/2013/11/stop-worrying-about-making-the-right-decision 2) On minimizing regret and living a good life:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/study-reveals-5-biggest-regrets-people-have-before-die-iwuoha/ 3) On asking for, and giving, advice:

https://cfe.umich.edu/no-advice-is-better-than-bad-advice/ 4) On the pursuit of mastery:

https://jamesclear.com/deliberate-practice 5) On making things people want:

https://blog.bufferapp.com/people-dont-buy-products-they-buy-better-versions-of-themselves

Here’s to feeling infinitely grateful to all the people we’ve never actually met, and yet thanks to the internet, have permanently changed the course of our lives 🙏
Oscar nominations 2017: Surprises and Predictions
By: Marcel Neuhoff
Tags: Movies, Oscars

Oscar history in the making

The 2017 Oscar nominations have been announced, and they’re a mixed bag of surprise and record-setting for this year’s hopefuls. La La Land continues its dominance at the Golden Globes with 14 nominations, and now ties with Titanic and All About Eve for most ever. La La Land could very well also join the likes of Ben-Hur and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King for most wins with a successful night at the Dolby Theatre.

Meryl Streep further confirmed her Hollywood eminence with a record-breaking 20th Oscar nomination for her leading role in Florence Foster Jenkins. Years of controversy concerning the nominees have also come to an end. Seven people of colour are among those nominated for acting categories, including Denzel Washington and Viola Davis for Fences, Mahershala Ali for Moonlight, and Octavia Spencer for Hidden Figures.
Akadály
Tags: Philosophy, Trends

I'm noticing as hard as I can, beauty and meaning in life. Here, through writing. Endless.Consulting

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Tek Sayfalık Web Sitesi
By: Hunili Yazılımcı
Tags: Ücretsiz Hosting, Tek Sayfa Web Sitesi, Other, Single Page Web Hosting, Kartvizit Web Sitesi

in In Fitness And In Health
Barayamal partners with Fishburners to launch program for Indigenous entrepreneurs
By: Mat Beeche
Tags: Mentorship, Business, Barayamal, Australia, Community

Indigenous-focused accelerator program Barayamal has announced partnership with Fishburners that will see four Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entrepreneurs selected to take participate in its new three month ‘Budding Entrepreneurs Program’.

Designed to nurture innovative ideas, the program will give each participant access to Barayamal’s Entrepreneurship Development Program, where they will be mentored by the Barayamal network and take part in workshops, with the organisation promising “culturally appropriate support”.

Participants will be able to choose between residing at Fishburners’ Brisbane or Sydney locations, with the latter to be situated in the new $35 million startup hub currently being developed with funding from the NSW Government.

As Fishburners residents, the program’s startups will be able to tap into the space’s resources, allowing them an opportunity to participate in events, weekly workshops, and additional mentorship.

Residency in the space will be free for each participant, as well as access to legal, accounting, marketing, design and PR advice in a move to bolster each startup’s opportunities.

The Budding Entrepreneurs Program extends upon Baraymal’s existing initiatives, including a pre-accelerator program targeting Indigenous founders which ran towards the end of last year.

Australia’s first Indigenous-focused startup accelerator, the program was founded by Dean Foley, who incepted the idea after launching the first Indigenous Startup Weekend early last year.

Supported by Slingshot, the pre-accelerator program saw five tech-based Indigenous startups participate, including Yulngu App, a platform allowing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists to upload and sell their art direct to customers.

Despite the support, Foley said his budget for the program was “zero”, as the program didn’t have any funding.

“My marketing was just to go out to the people I know, the people who attended Startup Weekend, and asking if they wanted to participate,” Foley said at the time.

“We’re just working very lean; it’s all about getting these Indigenous startups up and running and getting them to close the gap by increasing employment and economic development in their communities.”

According to the latest government employment study, Indigenous employment in Australia sits at 48 percent; Baraymal believes that Indigenous businesses present a high-growth and employment solution.

To apply for the program, entrepreneurs must supply proof of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage and have a startup less than two years old. The idea or model for the startup must also have a positive impact on the Indigenous community.

Foley, in collaboration with Fishburners and Terri Waller, managing director of SevGen Indigenous Corporation, will form a panel that interviews each startup shortlisted for the program.

You can find more about the program here.

Image Source: Barayamal.
Code Smell 01 — Anemic Models
By: Maximiliano Contieri
Tags: Software Development, Code Smells, Clean Code, Object Oriented, Programming

Code Smell 01 — Anemic Models

Your objects are a bunch of public attributes without behavior.

Photo by Stacey Vandergriff on Unsplash

Protocol is empty (with setters/getters).

If we ask a domain expert to describe an entity he/she would hardly tell it is ‘a bunch of attributes’.

Problems

No Encapsulation.

No mapping to real world entities.

Duplicate Code

Coupling

Solutions

1) Find Responsibilities.

2) Protect your attributes.

3) Hide implementations.

4) Delegate

Examples

DTOs

Sample Code

Wrong

Right

Detection

Detection can be automated with sophisticated linters ignoring setters and getters and counting real behavior methods.

Also Known as

Data Class

Tags

Anemic

OOP as Data

Encapsulation

Setters/Getters

Mutability

More info
Do You Know Those Who are Haughty over Those Who Struggle and are Downtrodden?
By: Brad G. Philbrick
Tags: Arrogance, Helping Others, Struggle, Self-awareness, Toxic Relationships

Pinterest

One of the most disheartening events is being called in on a medical emergency from one overdosing on drugs whose life is in danger. In a hospital, such an event is known as a code blue. Usually, it is a young man or woman. It is sad.

During the crisis healthcare professionals struggle to keep the person alive. Often with winning results, but there are times when the battle is lost. The person perishes.

What is even sadder when one hears an individual say, “I do not know why hospital workers waste their time, saving drug addicts lives.”

Others say when seeing a drunk laying in the street, “I am sure glad I never got that way, who would ever do that to themselves?” They say these words with an air of arrogance and self-righteousness.

Think about it. Are those who degrade others misfortune that much different? One suffers from the toxic and dependent effects of drugs and the degradation it bestows. Others negative thoughts and behaviors have toxic effects too. This toxicity has adverse effects on ourselves and those around us, friends, family, and coworkers. Another way of saying it is comparing the difference of being sick in public from being sick in private?

So much has been written about the eight toxic people to avoid. A quick recap of those eight bad traits is those who gossip, those who are judgmental, the jealous ones, the always the victim, the manipulative, those who smother and insist on being in control, the unintelligent who do the same wrong things over and over and finally the naysayers.

Surely then, chemical addiction is not the only way to lose integrity and self-esteem. The list of bad behaviors that can reduce our image is numerous. Looking inward, searching self, and seeing our shortcomings and striving to improve them is the beginning of a quality life.

One often finds that there are more similarities than differences between being chemically addicted and possessing toxic traits.
El Estado de CoinYou — Noviembre 2018
By: Molly Malone
Tags: Espanol, Español, Bitcoin, Noticias, Criptomonedas

Splitting time between my original home in rural Minnesota & my second home, Guatemala | Director of Education with CoinYou.co, a Crypto Learning Community

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Vegetarians, Vegans, Halal, and More — Understanding Dietary Preferences
By: The Maverick Files
Tags: Food, World, Culture, Health, Awareness

Vegetarians, Vegans, Halal, and More — Understanding Dietary Preferences

A new form of social awareness to avoid asking dumb questions

Image by GraphicMama-team from Pixabay

Food is at the center of everything we do — it provides us the required fuel to go through our lives, and is also an essential part of most social aspects of our lives.

Whether it is for a friends’ meetup, a professional networking session, a formal meeting, or any other social construct, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners are often the backdrop or format for social gatherings.

Having spent the last three years of my life in Hong Kong — a country where the majority of the population, both native and expatriate, is used to a largely no-restrictions diet, being a vegetarian is not that easy.

This isn’t because you don’t find enough food and supplies for a vegetarian, but more to do with the ignorance of people about what being a vegetarian really means. With the variety of other different dietary preferences coming into play — vegans, pescatarians, ovo-vegetarians, and so on, keeping track can be hard.

After telling a waiter at a restaurant that I am vegetarian and being run through a list of the “fish” that’s available, it is indeed an annoying experience.

Another thing I hate is when dietary “preferences” are commonly referred to as “dietary restrictions” — there is a BIG difference. I am not “restricted” by any rules or health considerations from eating something — I just CHOOSE a certain dietary set and so the right word to use is “preferences”.

So here is a quick reference guide for understanding the various types of dietary preferences.
A Cat’s Cry for Help
By: Conny Manero
Tags: Cát, Animals, Poetry, Animal Rescue, Cats N Things

Look into my eyes

How can you walk away?

And not listen to my cries

This shelter is noisy and crowded

So far away from home

Doesn’t anybody want me?

I’m scared and all alone

Locked in a cage, I’m waiting

Will someone come in time?

Please, please help me!

Or a needle might end this life of mine

So many kittens, so many cats

All waiting for someone to say

“Come here cute pussycat.”

I want to take you away

But will that pussycat be loved?

Or suffer a fate worse than death

Will it beg for mercy?

With his last dying breath

It doesn’t have to be that way

It’s all up to you

There can be an end to this suffering

Depending on what you do

Be responsible, and care

Spay or neuter your pet

Sooner rather than later

Make an appointment with the vet!
Interns: Definitely Just Be Yourself In The Office, Including “Edgy” And/Or “Nude”
By: Choire Sicha
Tags: The Youngs, Interns, Millennials

Hey, young ladies! Do you regularly exhibit your nipples and/or pudenda on the streets? Young millennial fellas: are you a balls-out kinda guy in general? Good news! While some uptight fools will tell you not to dress like a slanch for your internship, we believe you are more likely to Find Your Unique Path and also to Make It In New York City in general if you just “be yourself.” An office is an extension of your lifestyle, after all, and if your lifestyle is nipple-centric or “neo-burlesque” or “embodying James Deen gifs,” that is fine, and don’t let anyone tell you different. You’re only young and pretty once!

Adult-sized diapers and day-glo werewolf-hair arm-gloves are also cool.

BE YOURSELF. It’s the only way that we can figure out who you really are, and separate you from the weirdos and losers with their slacks and briefcases and preparedness.

Helpful illustration by Lorena Cupcake.