fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Wishlist: Linkedin Activity Heatmap
By: Robert Merrill
Tags: LinkedIn, Networking, Connections

I love the professional value LinkedIn provides. Some people really miss the boat when they think it’s “just for job seekers”. There is so much information that LinkedIn can provide.

One thing I love, is how you can find and “follow” a company. This is good stuff. A weekly wrap of who’s there, who joined, who left, where they went… to a geek/recruiter, it’s awesome stuff.

Any astute LinkedIn user or recruiter will tell you that, watching LinkedIn for connection activity (who is connecting to whom, and the volume of connections per user) is an interesting measurement of, well, changes inside a company for one reason or another.

It would be pretty awesome if the LinkedIn crew would publish, alongside their great details about company information, a visualization of companies in my local area that are experiencing a high volume of connections and/or changes that may portend interesting insights!

For example:
The School That Will Change Your Definition of Philanthropy
By: Laura Izquierdo
Tags: Diversity, Life, Culture, Education, Economics

In the outskirts of Bangalore, India, there’s a school unlike any other; Shanti Bhavan. I first heard of it by lucky coincidence after a longwinded scroll through Netflix, when I decided on a gripping docu-series titled ‘Daughters of Destiny’.

It’s an emotive, inspirational, and thought-provoking series that deserves the most attentive recognition; the founding concept behind the school will redefine how you think about ‘giving’, ‘philanthropy’, ‘altruism’, and possibly, life.

Shanti Bhavan means ‘Heaven of Peace’ in Hindi, and that’s exactly what it is to approximately 300 students who come from rural villages or urban slums in India.

The school’s mission is to create social mobility in the lowest caste communities in the country. It’s an undeniably admirable mission, but it’s not the end in itself that’s most interesting, it’s the means to the end — the concept behind the project.

Archaic and discriminatory social norms continue to permeate every aspect of Indian culture. So the concept necessarily has to be revolutionary; it needed to shatter existing mentalities to make way for new social norms that will lead social mobility.
Thank You For Wasting My Talent
By: Katy Velvet
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Work, Productivity, Money, Life Lessons

Thank You For Wasting My Talent

The moment you finally decide that you’re too good for a company.

Sometimes it’s hard to let go of a company you’ve been working for, especially when you’ve been one of their longest employees. You may like what the company offers as a brand, but is that really enough to hold onto repeated mistreatment?

Even after bringing more than a million dollars for their business, you’d think that they’d treat you with a little bit more respect.

But no, that’s not how it works in the real world. Their business is exactly the two words you need to remember.

And this is why I decided to pursue the path of self-employment.

The pure bliss of independence.

The thing is — when you work for other people, you have to constantly cater to their needs. Even if you know that what they’re suggesting isn’t a good or even logical solution.

That’s right. No matter how high of a position you’re in, there is always going to be someone above you breathing down your neck.

And the worst part of it is that they usually have less knowledge and less talent than you. You’re essentially running their business for them and they’re taking all the credit for it.

Is it really worth it in the end though?

Companies can be a challenge to cut ties with at times, simply because they are paying your bills. And when you get a decent salary to support your mortgage, it may even be harder to walk away from.

But there will be a day where you just can’t take it anymore.

And maybe it’s today.

Just know that you’ll eventually break down in pieces and realize that you were wasting your talent all along. And you deserve so much more than that.

Money is great, but it won’t buy you happiness.
Nueva York tendrá operación minera de Bitcoin impulsada por represa hidroeléctrica en el cuarto trimestre de 2018
By: Antra Official
Tags: Criptomonedas, Mineria De Bitcoin, Bitcoin

in Both Sides of the Table
‘Jilted’ prompt
By: Lori Botterman
Tags: Writing Prompt, Short Story

The prompt: Write about an everyday occurrence or exchange, but limit yourself to two paragraphs and appropriately use the word jilt in the content.

The lipstick is deep red. She works hard to apply it just so. She fears she’ll look like Bette Davis in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.” Or worse, a child playing dress up. She takes the emotional leap necessary to go out in public with lips so bright. You cannot help but notice her boldness. She won’t blend in. She never has.

She tucks the lipstick in her pocket. She would need to reapply it after dinner, or else she’d be left with an odd line of red around her otherwise colorless lips. Later, on the sidewalk outside the theater, she reaches in her pocket for her keys as realizes the lipstick isn’t there. The $20 tube of a red called “Jilted” is gone. Likely it’s under the table of the booth they were seated at; a booth as red as the lipstick that had just jilted her.
State Management in Angular using Akita
By: Mohan Ram
Tags: Angular, JavaScript, Akita

AngularInDepth is moving away from Medium. More recent articles are hosted on the new platform inDepth.dev. Thanks for being part of indepth movement!

In this article, we’ll explain the state management concept and how Akita helps us to facilitate the data flow in the application by managing it.

A state machine is any device that stores the status of something at a given time and can operate on input to change the status and/or cause an action or output to take place for any given change. — The State Machine

Simply put, it stores the state of any form of data and manages the state transition based on current state and action.

Why State Management is Important?

Web-apps are getting richer and more complex. Managing state is exponentially harder than it used to be.

Different parts of an application have different responsibilities, and those (components, directives, etc.) are segregated across many different files, but they all need to reflect the same underlying state.

A state management library gives you a convenient way to:

Model your application state

Derive computed values from it

Monitor it for changes

It gives us many benefits like handling normalized data (redundant models can be avoided), immutability and organized state transition, time travel ability, etc.

Introduction to Akita

Akita is a state management pattern, built on top of RxJS and based on object-oriented design principles.

Akita encourages simplicity. It saves you the hassle of creating boilerplate code and offers powerful tools with a moderate learning curve, suitable for both experienced and inexperienced developers alike.

Before we dive in, let’s examine Akita’s building blocks:

The Model

The general representation of the data model which the store is going to manage.

The Store

A Store is like a warehouse, where the data model is going to be stored. You can execute all the DML (Data Manipulation Language) with the help of Akita built-in store’s methods like add() , update() , delete() , setActive() , setError() , etc.

The Query

Simply database queries, which helps querying the store. The query results are available in two forms — reactive queries and synchronize queries.

You can run all the DDL (Data Definition Language) with the help of Akita built-in query’s methods like select() , selectAll() , selectEntity() , selectCount() , selectActive() , etc.

Two types of Stores

The Basic Store — when our model doesn’t represent a collection of entities, e.g., session, UI states, etc.

The Entity Store — when we need to maintain a collection of entities e.g., domain model, e.g., employee, student, etc.
The Slippery Slope Fallacy: How to Spot Unreasonable Assumptions
By: Patrik Edblad
Tags: Self Improvement, Decision Making, Personal Development, Self, Psychology

High school student David wants to spend the weekend with his friends, but his mom won’t let him.

“You have to study on Saturdays,” she insists. “If you don’t, your grades will suffer, you won’t get into a good university, and you’ll end up flipping burgers for the rest of your life!”

This is a prime example of the slippery slope fallacy: assuming that a relatively small first step will lead to a chain of events that eventually culminates in a significant, usually negative, outcome.

In other words, you assume that if A occurs, then B will follow, and if B occurs, then C will follow. And since C is something you really don’t want, you shouldn’t allow A to happen.
The Party’s Over…
By: Background Noise Comics
Tags: Humor, Comics, Vacation, Party, Flying

Vacation actually ended for us over a week ago, and the comics are finally catching up to reality (and so are we).
Zenome Platform Shell
By: Jeff Heizmann
Tags: Genetics, Dna, Development, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

In this note we will cover what we have achieved so far in developing Zenome platform. Zenome platform is actually a big project, so we had hard time choosing what functional blocks to implement first.

We have come to a conclusion that developing an user-end software, capable of handling common genetic data files on the user’s computer, is our number one priority.

Zenome Platform client is based on node.js and Electron (as well as Mist)

We have implemented Zenome-specific parts of interprocess communication between renderer process and nodejs-backend.

Implementation also allows for completely detaching UI from back-end (this is required for light clients that access network through relays). Feature is very experimental for now.

At the renderer process Vue framework (progressive reactive framework) is used to provide best user experience. Code is divided into components (loosely coupled for better maintainability)

Implemented so far:

Local File Management

(Basic) working with Ethereum Network (web3js is integrated into backend)

Handling 23andMe-like genetic data

Filetype and format autodetecting

Async. task managing: starting background tasks etc.

Zenome’s Articles Reader

Work in progress:
The Religion of Abraham
By: Virtual Mosque
Tags: Islam, Eid Ul Adha, Abraham

By instituting the Hajj and Eid-ul-Adha, Islam draws the attention of Jews, Christians and Muslims to the religion preached and practised by Abraham. It was a simple religion of belief in oneness of God, submission to Him, and being prepared to sacrifice what we love in His way. Later followers of Abraham made his religion into one of elaborate rituals and theological controversies on small matters of detail. Hajj and Eid-ul-Adha remind us all that we should turn back to Abraham’s religion of simplicity and sincerity, and that Jews, Christians and Muslims come from the same religious origin.
“OK Boomer” escalated quickly — a reddit+BigQuery report
By: Felipe Hoffa
Tags: Boomers, Reddit, Bigquery, Trends, Data Visualization

“OK Boomer” escalated quickly — a reddit+BigQuery report

Let’s use BigQuery to find the first time that someone commented “OK Boomer” on reddit. Turns out it happened hours and even years before the alleged first tweet. Was this all an attempt by teenagers to replace the word “old” with “boomer”? Let’s dig in.

“OK boomer” growth by subreddit:

# of unique accounts per sub that have commented “OK Boomer”

The first “OK boomer”

According to Know Your Meme this tweet marks the first appearance of “ok boomer”:

The first tweet for “Ok Boomer”. Source: Know Your Meme

And the author has been celebrating it:

But was this the real first appearance? 90 minutes earlier, that same day — April 12, 2018— someone else had immortalized “OK BOOMERS” on reddit:

An “OK boomer” on reddit, 90 minutes before that first tweet.

Turns out there are 9 reddit comments even before that, with “Ok boomer” starting in September 2009:

“OK boomer” reddit prehistory: 9 comments between 2009 and April 12, 2018

And things didn’t escalate quickly back then. It took 9 years to get the first 9 “OK boomer” on reddit, and then we have to jump until October 2018. That’s when we start seeing an almost daily dose of the phrase:

Waiting from April 2018 until October 2018 to find an almost daily dose of “OK Boomer” on reddit.

And it had spread through different subreddits! From /r/Tinder, to /r/worldnews, to /r/xboxone, to /r/golang — redditors started embracing it.

And something happened on March 2019. Until then we had a spotty supply of the phrase, but on March 24 six different accounts decide to comment “OK boomer”. Since that day, the trend continues going up until June 2019, with more than 30 accounts commenting “OK boomer” per day.
Christoph Irmer Joins Review.Network
By: Kris Ristanovic
Tags: Review Network, Blockchain, Rew, Market Research, Christoph Irmer

You might have heard of Christoph, since he’s no rookie in the field of market research. As the former CMO of the Norstat Group, one of the biggest and most renowned Market Research companies in Europe, Christoph brings over 15 years of experience in online research and access panel industry.

His work with the ODC Services, as the co-founder and CEO, brings the knowledge and know-how on how startups are created and driven to success. We believe that the connections he made as the Chairman of the board of DGOF (German association for online research) will be a valuable asset in helping Review.Network in our mission of disrupting the market research industry.

“Today, Review.Network takes a giant leap forward with the addition of Christoph. Christoph’s depth and breadth of market research knowledge will enable Review.Network to deliver the next generation of market research tools, and take us several steps forward on our journey”, Filip Karaicic, CEO.

For more info on Christoph, check out his bio in our team section.
App Directory Spotlight #6 — MonkeyWorks, Primer and odrive
By: Slack Api
Tags: App Directory, Slack, Startup

Happy Friday! It’s featured app day at Slack and we hope you enjoy what we’ve got this week. Our first two apps are great for marketing and product teams and the third is a file syncing product that is applicable to everyone. Share your feedback and let us know if there are any other types of apps you’d like to see featured in the future.

MonkeyWorks connects a suite of marketing tools to Slack so that your team can keep an eye on any and all updates. You can hook up Google AdWords, Optimizely, Mailchimp and Google Analytics and the MonkeyWorks app will provide almost any update you could ask for. For example, with Optimizely connected you can get alerted when variations aren’t getting visitors but you thought they would, when experiments have variations with significant results and get estimates about when experiments might be ready. Living the marketing dream. You can try out MonkeyWorks here https://www.monkeyworks.co/marketing-monitor/.

MonkeyWorks Slack Messages

Primer lets you deploy fully-customizable native mobile screens from the server. You can make custom workflows to provide targeted experiences to different groups of users and then A/B test your flows to improve their conversion rates. With the Slack app your team can stay tuned when new A/B variants are launched and when you have an A/B test winner. You can check out Primer here https://goprimer.com/instant.

An example of Primer in action

odrive is bi-directional file sync for all of your files in Slack. If you’re on a team that shares a lot of files then this is a great app for you. With odrive you don’t have to download a single file from Slack — instead they are all saved and synced into a cloud drive that mirrors your Slack team. If there’s one channel where you save a ton of files you can use the odrive app to peruse those very files in a folder structure, nice! You can find their beautiful informational page here https://www.odrive.com/links/slack.
Does Social Opinion really matter?
By: Akhilesh Lahoti
Tags: Social Media, Philosophy Of Life, Opinion

When I told my mom that I want to marry a girl outside my caste, I could see crinkles growing fast on her head, like a stream of water flowing in to fill the gaps. I asked her, why are you so worried? She replied, “Char log kya kahenge?” (What will people say about it?).

It’s beyond my logical thinking that I take such life-changing decisions based on what people think about it. Contrary to that, almost everyday I count on the opinions of my friends, and even random people at times, before I take decisions. Decisions like, which phone to buy? which movie to watch? where to travel? which book to read? Marijuana: good or bad?..(OK, may be not this one!) and so on.. are majorly driven by people’s opinion. It is actually the reason why reviews and ratings are the heart of so many tech companies ( IMDB, Tripadvisor etc).

The thought has been stuck in my mind for a while — Does social opinion really matter?. Being in my late 20’s, it’s about my age that I should take a stand on such “philosophies” of life. Rewinding back, I recall a whole bunch of my childhood memories revolving around “Char log kya kahenge?” which somehow faded as I aged. The wise man grew in me, who could take his own stand on bigger choices of life, yet running around asking for opinions on rather smaller things.

The mystery here lies in the line you draw between your personal space and social space. That boundary is already defined when your emotions overtake the mind. And when that happens, the opinion is rather a judgement of the society. However, when it comes to this consumeristic world, you seek for a “social validation” before you make a choice. It is rare to go against the masses, when choosing a product (or service). More I think about it, more I realise the importance of social opinion, and it’s quiet presence in my life.

Isn’t it in the power of social opinion to make or break governments, companies, religions, markets…? I wish to see a world where society itself can drive its future, a world where every individual is visible, counted and considered. In the era of smartphones and social media platforms like facebook, I see us heading in the right direction. It’s just a matter of time that our society will start listening it’s own voice!
Rewind “Audience Meter wanted more. So we gave it more. (and other stuff)”
By: Thom Swann
Tags: Live Streaming, Mixer, Streaming, YouTube, Twitch

Version: 0.0.17

Update: #4

tldr;

- Mixer support added for Audience Meter

- New action “Generate Mixer Clip”

- New action “Moderators”

- Added volume slider for the Rewind Instant Replay source

- Added volume slider for playing Twitch clips on your scene

- Next few updates planned out ❤

Mixer support for Audience Meter

We are really excited to bring support for the Audience Meter to Mixer. You will be required to connect your account to the application so we can watch chat for the phrase you set.

If you are unfamiliar with the Audience Meter, check out this great guide by one of our founders(Josh Belkin) here.

New Actions

Generate Mixer clip

Calling all Mixer partners! You can now generate Mixer clips with the press of a button! Connect your Mixer account to Rewind and set the action with ease. We have put in to their request forum for the ability to embed clips. When this is enabled we can start playing those clips on your active scene!

Moderators

Starting in this update you can now set a chat command that you or your moderators can use to execute either of the options below.

Save the replay (default chat command !saveReplay)

Play the replay on active scene (default chat command !playReplay)

We hope this helps with other scenarios that we might not be thinking of!

Volume Slider

A few users have requested the ability to manage the volume of the Rewind Instant Replay source. Starting in this patch you can easily change this.

Note: The FFMPEG_SOURCE available on Streamlabs OBS sets the audio to be heard by your audience and not by you. If you set the volume on the “Generate Twitch clip” action, the sound will be heard by you and your audience.

What’s next?

We were testing the YouTube integration for Audience Meter and ran into a few things that we didn’t feel comfortable with releasing. We will be working on making sure the experience is the best and release this soon.

After YouTube support we have a very spicy update. This feature will allow you even more freedom with your clips and we hope this enables your creativity even more. Stay tuned!

Will Smith on YouTube

Not subscribed to Rewind? More information here

Not ready to hit fast forward? We got you covered.

Easy Setup

Advanced Setup

Rewind v0.0.16 Update

If you have questions or need help, feel free to get in touch with us via Discord or Twitter!

All the best,

The Layer One Team
It Changed That Day
By: Michelle Renee Kidwell
Tags: Strength, Poety, Hate, Love, September 11

C.C.O image From Pixabay

It didn’t take much

For the unbendable

To bend and break’

Just a dose of hate

And in an instant

Our nation changed

But not only our nation

The world.

Those planes forever

Etched in our mind

Images frozen in time

As we close our eyes

And see innocent lives

Jumping to their deaths

The fury of the fire

Just too much to bare.

Heroes were born that

Day

And far to many died

It was a lesson in hate

And love

At the same time

And those images

Forever

Etched in our mind.

First responders

Risking their lives

But not only that

Strangers

Digging under

The rubble

After those towers

Came down

Like a house of

Cards

Only slightly jarred

Thousands of lives

Died under the rubble

The weight of the world

Was on their shoulders.

It was a lesson in hate

As we saw lives destroyed

And a lesson in love

As a nation became united

Once again

Even if only for a time

But everything changed that

Day

The innocent image

Of America destroyed.

In the time it took

For a plane to crash into those

Buildings.

© Michelle R Kidwell

8/01/2018
Choosing a Career? Design Your Dream Lifestyle First.
By: Avery Strange
Tags: Careers, Work, Personal Development, Lifestyle, Self

Design your dream lifestyle first.

Once you’ve designed your dream lifestyle, then and only then does it make sense to consult your passions for career options.

Let me preface this section by saying this isn’t about your half-ass life, this isn’t about your “maybe I could do this” life. You need to close your eyes, dig deep, and answer with complete soul conviction that, “yes, this is what my dream life looks like.”

Here are some important questions to ask about what your ideal life looks like to you:

How do you want to spend your day?

Do you want to stay home in your PJs, or spend your days in a swanky office in a big city? Do you want a lot of social time with friends, or do you prefer cozy nights with a book and hot cocoa? What does your perfect day look like? Write it down — and don’t censor yourself. There are no limits.

Where do you live?

In your ideal future, where do you live? An NYC apartment, or a ranch in Wyoming? This will help you choose a career that makes sense with your location, so you’re not trying to surf in Wisconsin.

How do you live?

What values are most important to you? For example, family, independence, creativity, etc.? How much does your dream life cost, and what are and aren’t you willing to sacrifice to make that life your reality?

Are you introverted or extroverted?

This will help you determine how much of your career time you will need around, or away from, people. For example, I love spending time with my friends, but if I had a people job, I’d be too drained to socialize.

What tasks do you love doing? What tasks do you hate doing?

I don’t see it discussed often, but a career is really just a series of tasks. If you don’t like the foundation of a career, you’re not going to like the building. For example, attorneys are constantly drowning in paperwork, and they’re always on the phone. Those are two things I personally can’t stand, so I’d make a shoddy attorney. I would never love a job that required me to be on the phone more than once a day — and even that’s pushing it.

Meanwhile, what tasks do you not mind? What tasks do you love? I love learning new things, and I love new ideas and flexing my innovation muscle. Therefore, I would suffer in a career where I am not given room for growth or creative expression.

What are your work values?

I could explain this, but you may as well take the quiz and find out what they are for yourself. (Not an affiliate link — it’s free and doesn’t ask for your email.)
Thank You To My 500 Followers!
By: Louis O Neill
Tags: Writing, Journal, Cannabis, Journalism, Blog

I wanted to make a post in celebration of hitting 500 followers on Medium! I began writing on Medium a few years back, covering mostly political content and some philosophical musings here and there, before using the space as a second home for my writings on Cannabis.

I write full-time for The Green Fund, creating podcasts, articles and managing our team to ensure we can produce consistent, high-quality articles regarding the latest cannabis content. Medium, for me, has been a platform where I can expose my thoughts and ideas to a broader audience, and I am grateful that my audience is continuing to grow.

I will endeavor to continue publishing content on Medium, and hopefully, my readers can continue to enjoy it. But for now, thank you to the 500 people that have joined me for the ride!

Additionally, thank you to the platforms that have graciously shared my content; Illumination, A Philosophers Stone, Common Sense Now, The Startup & many more.

Louis
TokenInsight Partners Up with Messari to Bring Transparency to the Blockchain Industry
Tags: Data, Partnerships, Blockchain, Announcements

TokenInsight Partners Up with Messari to Bring Transparency to the Blockchain Industry TokenInsight Follow May 15, 2019 · 2 min read

TokenInsight’s API is live now on Messari !

We’re excited to announce that TokenInisght’s API has recently been integrated on the transparency-focused distributed crypto data library Messari.

TokenInsight’s comprehensive data (including token grades, technology, team, and ecosystem) is now live on Messari's OCFX (OnChainFX) dashboard.

With our partnership, TokenInsight and Messari will better serve institutional investors in terms of making more informed and valuable investment decisions. This partnership is particularly valuable for businesses that focus on blockchain investment.

TokenInisght’s mission is to empower blockchain value investment, continuing to provide unbiased and objective data within the blockchain industry with the aim of promoting transparency and enhancing trust in the crypto community.

Regarding this new integration, Jason Ma, TokenInisght’s head of global partnerships commented,

Jason Ma (Head of Global Partnerships at TokenInsight)

“We’re really excited to be collaborating with Messari to promote the transparency to the blockchain ecosystem. At TokenInsight, the partnership with Messari represents an important milestone and we are thankful to Messari team for choosing us as their data partner. We are looking forward to empowering blockchain value investment with our data and analytics.”

Our team has worked hard to bring the most accurate token data in the market and our newly upgraded website will give our users an in-depth view of the entire blockchain ecosystem, covering over 500 projects and six major industries. The integration with Messari marks a valuable recognition to our constant efforts putting into creating a transparent market.

Stay tuned! As we continue to move forward and scale up our services, we will have more to share with you!
I Didn’t Need My Degree to Succeed at My Last Three Jobs
By: Shaina Waterhouse
Tags: Work, Personal Development, Life, Life Lessons, College

I Didn’t Need My Degree to Succeed at My Last Three Jobs

The majority of my skills came from experience, not the classroom

Photo by Rochelle Nicole on Unsplash

Sometimes, I seriously regret going to college.

I graduated with a degree in journalism and mass communications. I had always loved writing so it seemed like the perfect fit. I had dreams of working for a lifestyle magazine or book publishing company. In my fantasy future, I would spend my days editing fascinating stories, and my free time would be spent writing my own book.

There was one magazine writing and editing class each semester at my college but by the time it was my turn to register for classes it was always full. Instead, I learned the standard format for reporting the news and worked to remove any bias from my stories.

Once I graduated, the positions I qualified for at the magazine and publishing companies were basically unpaid internships or offered very little pay. My student loan debt, car loan, and cost of living in the city of Chicago made the unpaid/minimum wage position not an option for me.

And I was appalled by the idea that I’d just gone to college for four years to work for little to no pay.
A Father’s Love
By: Michael Ranjitsingh
Tags: Christianity, Life, Study, Bible, Joy

For years, I read the Bible every morning during my quiet time. On busy days, it would be a quick skim while on other days I would read the Bible and meditate on it.

After my son was born earlier this year, my attitude towards reading the Bible changed. I was reminded afresh of the magnitude of the sacrifice God made thereby showing me the greatest love imaginable. I loved my son. Deeply. As much as a human possibly could.

How much more then would Father God who created me love me?

This was the thought that stirred me into learning more about Him. And where else to start than his Word, the Bible? I decided I would devote every second of my spare time to devouring His Word. Not just skimming but actually STUDYING it.

I looked online for courses that would help me in this endeavor. The Bible doesn't require a guide to understand it, but the purpose of enrolling in a course was to give me greater accountability and possibly deeper insights. I found a perfect course that was conducted by the New Zealand Correspondence School of the Bible that fit my needs perfectly!

It was a course that I could take in my own time, and hence I could balance it with my variable and hectic schedule with work and looking after a baby. The course was fully free except for postage. I also liked the fact that the course used pen and paper and was not online. I spent more time than was warranted behind a computer screen, and any activity away from it was a blessing.

The course went through the Bible in painstaking detail. Every single verse of the Bible. I decided to give it a go and it was probably one of the best decisions I have ever made. The course helps to look at the context of each verse and pulls on parallel verses in different books of the Scripture to give greater context. I would definitely recommend this course to anyone interested in studying the Bible.

In parallel, it is important to complement the study with fervent and passionate prayer. God will give you the intensity and the passion to help you understand His Word and grow closer to Him. All you need to do is ask. As Matthew 7:7 (NIV) says: “Ask and it shall be given to you…”

It wouldn't be a stretch to say that I fell in love with studying the Bible this year. With every lesson, I learned more and more about this wonderful God who created me and loves me, irrespective of the fact that I am a sinner. His grace is sufficient for me. I can’t wait to learn more and grow into a deeper relationship with Him.

Bring on 2021!
Traditional Foods Abandoned Due to Unwarranted Cultural Fears
By: Bill Broadbent
Tags: Traditional Culture, Food Security, Culture, Chefs, Edible Insects

Bugs are an ancient food that provides real animal protein with all nine essential amino acids. Billions of people enjoy edible insects as food. There are over two thousand insects considered food, and each one tastes different.

Here in the West, we consider bugs the food of the poor or to be consumed only as survival food. This is affecting the world in ways you may not be aware of.

We revere steak and revile bugs. We send this message around the world in our discussions, online, on TV, and in the movies. Our attitude is that bugs are the food of the poor or survival food. So, all over the world, people are abandoning their traditional foods so they can eat as we do. Steak has become an international status symbol.

It’s below us to consider bugs as food. Even though replacing meat with bugs can reduce pollution, deforestation, and the inhumane way we treat commercial livestock. Worthy goals, but overcoming the mental challenge of eating bugs is just too much, don’t you agree?

On top of insects being a real animal protein that include all nine essential amino acids, they’re a prebiotic fiber (nutrition for probiotics), very high in antioxidants, a perfect Omega 3:6 balance, high in B12, Calcium, Zinc, Iron, and more. Insects are also a very bio-available food source.

But, again, does any of this matter if they look gross?

Lobster and sushi were once considered gross, and we overcame those fears. Now both lobster and sushi are some of the most expensive foods.

Bugs taste good, they’re healthy, sustainable, and raised humanely. So, what‘s holding you back?

Chefs are The Answer!

To combat unwarranted cultural fears, vanguard chefs need to put insects on the menu.

Try Chapuline Tostados or Teriyaki Tenebrio, these grasshoppers and mealworms add a nice flavor while also supplying real animal protein along with very bio-available vitamins and minerals.

There’s no reason not to eat insects. As soon as chefs impress people with how delicious they can be, they will begin trending, and the world will take notice.

Make Edible Insects a Trend Here in the West and it will have a Positive Affect Worldwide.

Bugs are a low-cost protein source available to just about anyone anywhere. They can be grown at home on food waste. They can be grown in rural and urban environments. They’re raised humanely and can be a low-tech business.

Bugs as food is an essential factor in reducing meat consumption, thus reducing pollution, deforestation, and the inhumane treatment of commercial livestock.

Don’t Let Your Unwarranted Cultural Fear Stand in the Way!

Support the cause! Add cricket powder to your next batch of cookie dough and bake protein-packed cookies with prebiotic fiber. Chapuline Tacos are high in antioxidants and a fun way to get your B12. Sprinkle black ants on your salad to add a citrus punch and get a very bio-available dose of Zinc.
Cradled
By: Paul Maplesden
Tags: Childhood, Poetry, Parenting, Motherhood, Mothers

There is no safer place than in your mother’s arms.

Think back to the happiest times of your childhood, those moments where you were perfectly content, and many of those would be when your mom was holding you close.

As we get older, although we may not be cradled as often, there’s still a great place of peace, comfort and safety to be found in that loving embrace. The idea of the cradle is a powerful metaphor — A space where we can be vulnerable, let our guard down, and lower the defenses that we so often hold in life.

Finding that serenity is incredibly important when there are so many demands made of us, and the remembrance of our mother’s gentle touch can bring us to rest.

Cradled — A Poem

My eiderdowned comfort

Rests mostly now

In the memories of my mother’s gentle touch.

Cradled, womb-like, warm,

Problemless

In this feather filled reality.

And at night, it urges most,

To cast my mind away,

Enwrapped in another’s, a mother’s arms,

Caught faintly those childhood times.

And bittersweet or haunting life

Is swept away

In gently voiced

Goodnight,

God Bless,

Sweet Dreams

And a kiss

Upon my cheek.

Themes, ideas and background for this poem

This poem is about finding safe spaces and safe places, in our memories and in the embrace of another. It explores the calm and gentleness of the mother-child relationship, the nostalgia that it can bring and the joy and peace that come from certainty and respite. It also highlights the importance of memory and ritual, the idea that we find comfort in the familiar. It’s often the memories from our childhood that can bring us peace, a remembrance of simpler times when we had far fewer responsibilities.

These fond memories are also something that we can pass on to our own children to help them feel nurtured, loved and protected.

Themes explored in the poem include:

The gentle reassurance of being safe, snuggled up under a comforter

The peace of a nightly ritual that calls us to sleep

The protection of memory and nostalgia

The loving touch of a parent

As you read this poem, here are some ideas for further contemplation and exploration:
Not-So-Secret Santa
By: E.M Pauling
Tags: Prompt, Microfiction, Flash Fiction, Short Story, Christmas

Photo by freestocks.org

Mikhail zigzagged hastily through the exuberant office holiday party.

He’d found her!

“Martha! I accidentally packed my girlfriend’s gift instead of yours. Could you not open it in front of the whole office? Please?”

“Oh?”

“Yeah….”

“Well, I’ll still take it!” she winked cunningly and shimmied off to the rhythm.
Nice Guy
By: Christine Graves
Tags: Youth, Microfiction, Gravewriter, The Bad Influence, 50 Word Stories

“Mom, he’s a nice guy. Yes, he has a car but it’s an old clunker his dad gave him. I promise, Mom, he’s really nice and comes from a good family”.

But I knew better. I’d met his father in the backseat of that clunker when we were young ourselves.
Women, We Are Being Pitted Against Each Other
By: Carrie Wynn
Tags: Women, Feminism, Equality, Relationships, Social Media

For the past year or so I’ve been part of 2–3 groups of women’s chat rooms or text/email groups.

Most of them are relevant to writing, others are relevant to advocacy for women.

I have no doubt that these women have the best of intentions, or at least I hope they do. I’ll be honest I’m not great at communicating in these kinds of settings. I have so many other things going on that I usually end up being added to group chats or groups and chiming in every now and then.

However, I have noticed that in every single group the same thing happens.

Cattiness and even drama ensue between the women in the group and it normally stems from the competition that inevitably rises up.
網路業行銷的一週工作日常，以及網路業的特色。
By: Renn Cheng
Tags: Careers, 行銷, Work, Marketing, Internet

Quip

Quip is a new way of collaborating that fuels a culture of action. Empower your employees to get things done faster…
I Confess To Fondling A Fifteen Year Old Girl
By: Steve Wardrip
Tags: Puberty, Virginity, Teens And Social Media, Relationships, Teens

By Steve Wardrip

Did I enjoy it? Yes. Did I consider her feelings? She seemed to like it. We kissed and made out and before you know it, I had my hand on her breast, massaging and kneading it. I started to take her top off and she said, “No! Don’t”, so I didn’t. I sat up in bed and looked around her bedroom, not knowing what to do next.

See, she was fifteen and I was fourteen. She was my neighbor. She always had a crush on me and I liked her okay. I mean, she was cute and nice and everybody liked her. She invited me over and asked me if I wanted to make out with her. I said yes and then we got close and kissed. She lay back on the bed and we kissed some more. Then she said, “Play with my boob.” and I did. We both liked it, but we never did it again after she made me promise to never tell anyone. The only reason I’m telling everyone now is because she told her girlfriend who told everyone at school. Eventually, it was all over town. Even my mom asked me about it. It was so embarrassing. I told her the truth and she said don’t worry about it. My dad patted me on the back and I’ll never forget him saying, “If you think it’s going to rain, don’t forget your rubbers.”

So, there’s my confession. The next time I felt a boob, it was a different girl a year later. I asked her if it was okay. She said, “Yes.” and we had a good time.

The moral of the story. Sometimes girls like consensual sex. Guys always like consensual sex and that means sometimes sex will happen and that’s just human nature.
ImmobilienScout24 API Contest 2012/13 vorabinfos
Tags: Hacken, API, Hackathon, Contest Ergebnisse 2011, Contest

With our digital marketplace @ImmobilienScout, we inspire people's best decisions in housing. We make hard decisions easy. https://www.scout24.com

Follow
To the Top in 4 Months
By: John Schupbach
Tags: Education

I‘m excited to announce that Ajeet Kumar, one of our children, is now the top student in his class at the Carmel Convent School. As you can see here, he wears his “Class Monitor IA” badge with a distinguished sense of pride, which he has undoubtedly earned through a work ethic that makes the rest of us look bad. In only four months, he has gone from living in the slum without ever attending a day of school to now being on track to become the Valedictorian of his 1,625 person prestigious school. Look out world, here he comes.
〈岩波写真文庫〉が撮った1950年代 — — TOKYO＆JAPAN 1950s展
By: Toshikazu Seto
Tags: Reading

Lecturer of CSIS at the University of Tokyo / Social Geography / Participatory GIS / Neogeography / Volunteered Geographic Information / Qualitative GIS

Follow
Data Analysis & Visualisation of Netflix Viewing History
By: Gaurang Swarge
Tags: Python, Data Visualization, Netflix, Data Science, Data Analysis

Photo by Jens Kreuter on Unsplash

This is part of my series of documenting my small experiments using R or Python & solving Data Analysis / Data Science problems. These experiments might be redundant and may have been already written and blogged about by various people, but this is more of a personal diary and my personal learning process. And, during this process, i hope that i can engage and inspire anyone else who is going through the same process as mine. If a more knowledgeable person than me, stumbles upon this blog and thinks there is a much better way to do things or i have erred somewhere, please feel free to share the feedback and help not just me but everyone grow together as a community.

Recently, I was going through my Netflix’s “My Account” page and realised that you could download your profiles viewing activity in a csv format, I immediately thought it would be pretty cool to visualise my Netflix usage. Lately, i have been practicing my python skills, this seemed like a good opportunity to use Matplotlib / seaborn libraries.

Though, i was set up for disappointment, because this is the data that Netflix exported:

The csv file had only 2 columns, date and the name of the show /season / episode in one column.

I figured, there isn’t much i can do about this and had thought of giving up on this project, but then again i didn’t want to give up so easily, besides this is the essence of working with the data, figuring out how to make things work. I took it up as a challenge for myself to atleast be able to get two visualisations out of this to figure out some insights into my Netflix related behaviours.

Since i had only 2 columns to deal with, i started tinkering with the pandas data functions to get more out of these columns and by the time i finished, I managed to go from 2 columns to 10 columns in the dataset. I replicated the same process for my wife’s Netflix profile , in order to do an comparison of our viewing habits.

First things first, lets start with the visualisations that i could extract from the data. Here they are:
Who issues the Certificate for AADHAR
Tags: India, Aadhar, Security, Personal Information, Safety

This was a very interesting observation which I just did and personally I was very surprised and not impressed. This all started when I downloaded my Aadhar card and opened it to check the details and in one of the small corners in Adobe reader used to view Aadhar card I found that the validity of the signer is unknown.

Now the process of validating the Digital Signature is given below for any Aadhar card is given in the below instructions which you can get https://eaadhaar.uidai.gov.in/ site.

Following this I opened “Validate Signature” I got the below message.

Now when I click Signature Properties I found this:

Now in Signer Name I expect “NIC sub CA for NIC” which would mean that the Certificate Authority is “National Information Center” which is India’s premier center for all major Information technology initiatives for Central & State Governments in India, having them as CA(Certificate Authority) makes sense as our Aadhar Data should be maintained in a Data Center by a Nodal Central Government Agency and also them being CA(Certificate Authority) also gives a credibility of that Trust as citizens we put in Central Government in preserving our PI (Personal Information).

But here is what I see the certificate is Issued by (n)Code Solutions CA, which is a subsidiary of “Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals”

Site for (n)Code Solutions CA:

More about Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals Limited:

My Issues:

We are using a non standard Certificate Authority to sign Digital Certificate for the most Identity Document for Indians and that is not a Nodal Agency of Govt. Of India What a Fertilizer & Chemical limited to do with issuing Digital Certificates for Aadhar seems so fishy and puts the whole security and validity of the whole AAdhar process at risk Call me biased why is that each time somehow the most important aspects of Digital transformation for the country is linked to Gujarat. Were there no competent companies in India like TCS, Infosys or even Government Agencies who where competent to issue Digital Certificates.

Conclusion:

My concerns may be misplaced or may be even wrong but I would rather like if someone comes out and gives a better picture and transparent account as to how Government maintains our Personal Information and what is doing to curb the leak of millions of Aadhar information & the host of additional information (Bank Transactions, Income tax Information) which are seeded with Aadhar, but we have heard in recent past have been hacked or leaked, putting the personal information and security of citizens of India at risk.
Dear Lost One
By: Salihu Ibrahim
Tags: Lost, Worry, Poetry, Literatura, Poem

Dear love, I have been thinking about you. You see, I worry so much for you.

I wonder if you are finding ways to cope with your state.

You are in so much pain and you need saving. You want me to rescue you but I can't.

oh, how it feels. Hurts so much that I am not able to take your hand and pull you out of your misery.

oh, how it aches my heart to see you fight with your addictions.

Dear love, the pills don't let you sleep, but it's not entirely your fault.

I wish you had more guidance for real, you were left to face this world alone.

when you were lost in a puzzle no one came to your rescue.

But now everyone wants to put the blame on you, they don't care to read your own side of the story.

But I understand you or at least tried to.

Dear love, when I met you, you were far too gone but you tried to hide.

I wish I knew you before you of now.

You are not a bad person only a person with bad life choices.

I asked how you got here, you said you've been hurt too many times.

You were gullible, naive, and misguided. that was how you got here.