fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
What Is Hash-Based Message Authentication?
By: Hussain Safwan
Tags: Algorithms, Cryptography, Message Authentication

So you’re reading this, but how confident are you that this is the same text from the author stated above and hasn’t been compromised to something else on the way (like I was writing on Data Science and the adversary altered it to a text on cryptography)? Well, networks are quite precarious in nature and such an incidence shouldn’t be surprising at all. In network communications, the integrity of the message to be delivered is just as important as secrecy and other privacy requirements are.

By integrity, we mean that a message (like this article is a message from me to my audience) should arrive at the receiver’s end just as it left the sender’s, i.e. without any alterations or at the least the fact that it has been altered should be confirmable. The central concept here is to tag the message with an authenticator so that the receiver has a clue of what the original message might have been. Now, there are quite a few algorithms to produce and attach the authenticator, the one we are particularly interested in this episode is the hMAC algorithm that stands for hash-based message authentication code. To go for hMAC, we need to understand the rudimentary one, the MAC algorithm. This should serve as a nice gateway into the realm of message authentication.

Message Authentication Codes

The MAC is a string of fixed size generated by an algorithm that takes the message and a secret key as input. The string, also known as the tag or the digest, is then concatenated to the message itself, and the compound is passed through the unsafe network. On the receiver’s end, the message is extracted and input into the same algorithm provided the receiver has access to the secret key, the same digest should be reproduced which is then compared to the incoming one — if matched the message is authentic else fraudulent. Some of the characteristics of MAC are,

The same message with the same key produces the same MAC MAC is a many-to-one mapping, denoting multiple messages may result in non-unique MACs MACs are evenly distributed and ideally depend on every bit of the input.

Cipher MACs

MACs are a way to secure the integrity of the message and obviously can’t provide the secrecy alone. So the use if MAC with an encryption scheme is the best way to provide privacy and authenticity of the communication at the same time. Below is a diagram to illustrate the procedure, press on the image to zoom in,
Ghosts, Gold, and Gratitude in BC’s Most Popular Park
By: Ryan Frawley
Tags: Travel, Outdoors, History, Family, British Columbia

STAYCATION 2020

Ghosts, Gold, and Gratitude in BC’s Most Popular Park

There’s nothing like a kayaking trip to make you feel grateful.

Lightning Lake, EC Manning Provincial Park. Photo by author.

As soon as I climbed into the boat, I knew it was a mistake.

Not all kayaks are created equal. Some are heavy and slow, but almost untippable. Others are light and fast and precarious. Ever the gentleman, I let my wife’s nervousness convince me to offer her the steadier kayak. And while she paddled off contentedly over the lake’s green water, I launched myself from the beach and almost instantly capsized.

I come from a line of farmers, not sailors. I’m the most lumpen of proletarians, and I need to sit down to put my shoes on.

Back when I delivered appliances for a living, my sense of balance was enough to keep me moving on stairs I couldn’t see past the stainless steel bulk of a six hundred pound refrigerator.

But that balance has evaporated over time, along with the strength that went with it. Years of sitting at a desk and lifting nothing heavier than a glass of wine have made me uniquely unsuited for this adventure.

But the lake is glorious in the sun.

The water shines the color of the trees, and white-bellied ospreys circle in the flawless air. The occasional slap and splash of leaping fish travels quickly over the lake’s calm surface. Dragonflies the size of sparrows buzz past, the long prehensile tail of one gripping the head of another in a bizarre courtship dance.

The world is alive on days like this.

All of it fits. The high sun of summer turns the mountain snow into lake water, and ravens croak in greeting as you wobble past in a rented boat. The water is so clear you can see the stumps of trees that lie beneath the surface, their twisted roots casting emerald shadows across submerged stones as flat bars of sunlight push through.

And slowly, you adjust. The movement of the boat begins to feel natural. There’s a rhythm to water just like there’s a wavelength to light, and you can feel it even if you can’t see it. Keep your hips loose, keep your head up, and keep paddling.
Nap Winter
Tags: Poetry, Science

There’s an uptick in aliens in the winter

Despite the bad weather for UFOs.

University specimen draws lose fewer implants

Around Presidents’ Day, no chocolates or cards.

Make the transuranic scalpels more available,

So there’s no waiting list for patients.

Cows, as well, have the right to subliminal data

Whizzing through enormous eyes in the grass.

The committed will double down under blankets

With no foreseeable income on the horizon

And magnetized home security systems

Shorting out between defunct corn farms.
Understanding Box Plots — Complete Guide for Beginners
By: The Tech Guys
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Visualization, Data Science, Statistics

Interpreting a Box Plot:

Lower Extreme: This is the lowest value in the dataset excluding the outliers( An outlier is an observation that lies an abnormal distance from other values in a random sample from a population)

Upper Extreme: The point of the maximum value excluding the outliers.

Median Value: This is the middle point in the dataset. 50 % of the data points will be below this value and 50% of the data points will be above this value.

Lower Quartile/ First Quartile: This is the point of the 25th percentile. The values of 25% of the data points are lower than this value and 75% higher than this value.

Upper Quartile/ Third Quartile: This is the point of the 75th percentile. The values of 75% of the data points are lower than this value.

Interquartile range(IQR): Points that are in between 25th and 75th percentile. (i.e the middle 50% of the data points)

Whiskers: Points other than the middle 50%.
Endurance
By: Emma Laver-Scott
Tags: Poetry Prompt, Poetry, Strength, Haiku, Pain

Endurance

A haiku

Photo by Hadis Safari on Unsplash

Strength lies not in the

absence of pain but rather

in its endurance

Thank you Deborah Christensen for the prompt: ‘Strength’
Life doesn’t lead you the right way
By: Johnson Kee
Tags: Growth, 100 Naked Words, Path, Life

Life doesn’t lead you the right way

And that’s OK.

Photo by Caleb Jones on Unsplash

I’ve never been a big planner of my life. If you told me at 20 that I’d be a father of 2 at 30, I would have laughed in your face. This isn’t to say that I take fatherhood lightly, I just didn’t think I’d find the right person so quickly.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t occasionally get hung up about why things don’t go my way. Why I didn’t get that raise. Why the thing I’d been planning for for months ended up not working out. Why I’m not wildly successful yet.

But I’ve learnt to let it all go and to always try and find the silver lining. For example, my new role that I’m about to start next week wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t done my time at my last workplace. While it might not have been as intellectually stimulating or challenging, it set me up for what I hope is a career boosting job.

Like Gary Vaynerchuk says, we’re not supposed to have everything figured out by the time we’re 30. I’m 30 and I’m certainly nowhere in that position. All I’ve figured out is that we can only live each day as it comes, to do our best and to not beat ourselves up.
To NaNo or Not To NaNo…
By: Louise Foerster
Tags: NaNoWriMo, Creativity, Books, Novel, Writing

I heard about NaNoWriMo when it was toddling into gargantuan endeavor. Immediately, I was hooked by the concept, although I had never written a novel, hadn’t attempted even a short story in decades.

Who could resist this challenge? Not me.

I went for it.

And it was the longest and shortest, best and worst November of my life.

I learned exactly what it takes to develop a story and carry it forward day after day, pounding out my daily goal of 1,667 words. There were days when the words flowed easily and days when I despaired of writing even 10 words.

That first year, I won.

I did not follow the submission protocol to correctly submit and claim goodies, but I did complete 50,000 words by November 30. It was a ragged, misshapen story, but it kind of held together well enough and only one or two characters changed names and eye color as they lived the story.

I decided to write a 50,000 word novel between November 1 and November 30 and somehow, some way, I made it happen.

The thrill of that first win still resonates deep in my heart.

I’ve taken up the NaNoWriMo challenge every year since then. Each one is its own unique experience. Some of the stories don’t make me cringe. However, each and every story is precious to me.

A NaNoWriMo novel is as much a personal challenge as it is a public enterprise. Do you have what it takes to write 50,000 words even when you’re tired or the baby kept you up all night or your boss wants you to work an extra shift? Do you have the courage to battle old and new demons challenging your talent, your story, your ability to keep going no matter what happens?

I’ve taken the challenge many times. Each time is its own set of demons and confounding puzzles, but it’s gotten easier. Just knowing that I’ve done it before and emerged victorious bolsters my resolve when things are looking very, very bad.
Why We Are Failing ‘Booksmart’
By: Marie Eberle
Tags: Film, Women, Feminism, Hollywood, Equality

Booksmart is Olivia Wilde’s feature directing debut, and if you listen to the critics and film Twitter (like I do, obsessively so) it’s a raucous, stellar success. According to Common Sense Media, the quality and art of the film is deeply reminiscent of John Hughes’ classic 1980s movies — especially Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — if not better than them, because it comes without any of their outdated, now cringe-worthy moments:

For those currently in high school — and for anyone who remembers it — ‘Booksmart’ has the potential to become a classic of the genre.

Screenshot of Jeffrey M. Anderson’s review of ‘Booksmart’

By all accounts, it’s exactly what progressive voices in film circles have been arguing in favour of since forever. The storyline of Booksmart revolves around loveable (but complicated in their own right) high school best friends Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever), on their last day before graduation. Without falling into any stereotypes or cliches, the narrative explores gender, sex and sexuality, girlhood, navigating expectations and growing up, (even sex between women in a vulnerable, non-exploitative way!), in a genuinely joyful and hilarious way. The soundtrack is spectacular, the narrative twists and turns are unbelievably well-made, the script is fantastic, and the camerawork ingenious.

The Teen Movie Canon has never looked better.

Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I walked out of a cinema and felt as good. It’s only May but I can already promise you, Booksmart will be among my top three favourite films of 2019.

And yet, we as audiences are failing ‘Booksmart’.

The modern, female takes on gender and sexuality that the film follows are exactly what we’ve been claiming Hollywood refuses to show us.

And yet, Booksmart only made $8.6 million during its opening (Memorial Day!) weekend.

There is no way Booksmart will make it anywhere near the last great indie “girls” flick, Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird, which grossed $49 million.

Booksmart is exactly what we on the progressive, feminist end of the film communities have been wanting, and we are not rewarding it.

Olivia Wilde on Twitter

Part of the reason is that the release date was bad. The films target audience — older teenagers and young adults — were more likely to go watch film juggernauts like Aladdin and John Wick 3. It’s often a predictable pattern: Smaller, independent films tank because studios don’t grant them the same levels of advertisement, or because bigger franchises or blockbusters get release dates around the same time.

But it’s more than that.
Switch版『アウター・ワールド』をしっかり攻略してみる#6
Tags: 旅行, Nintendo Switch, 日記, Videogames, ゲーム

in In Fitness And In Health
My Tortured Past as a Tooth Fairy
By: Mary Devries
Tags: Life, Family, Humor, Parenting, Children

My Tortured Past as a Tooth Fairy

The highs and lows of bringing the magic for your children

Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

As a child, I loved the tooth fairy. What’s not to like about cash appearing magically under your pillow in exchange for a surplus body part. I eagerly wiggled each tooth hoping for another jackpot soon.

My parents didn’t do anything fancy. There was no glitter or elaborate backstory. Just waking up, remembering with excitement, and searching under my pillow for the cash that I always found. My mom may not have been flashy by today’s Pinterest standards but she was reliable.

I figured I would do the same when my children began losing their teeth. My partner and I discussed our plan ahead of time. We would be reasonable parents. $1 per tooth was plenty. There was no need for elaborate tooth fairy magic. With three kids less than 4 years apart we had to pick and choose what we had the energy for.

As with most of our carefully considered parenting plans, this one did not survive contact with reality.

I blame my cousin.

The day my daughter lost her first tooth, she was having a sleepover at my cousin’s house. We were hosting my cousin’s teenagers along with several others at a church youth group sleepover. You tell me who you think got the raw end of the deal.

When we arrived bleary-eyed at the transfer of teens for tots in the morning, my daughter was full of enthusiasm. The tooth fairy had given her a long handwritten and illustrated letter and four dollar bills.

“I’m so sorry,” my cousin said to me when she was able to pull me aside. “I hope that was enough to give her. It was all the cash we had on hand.”

A precedent had been set.
바이낸스 상장 수수료 업데이트
Tags: Binance, News, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain

Binance Exchange provides cryptocurrency trading for fintech and blockchain enthusiasts globally, with multilingual support over a variety of services.

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Eleven Modern Poems That Will Change Your Life
By: Zach J. Payne
Tags: Life Lessons, Poetry, Life, Art, Poetry Learning

Of all the creative arts that our uber-capitalist hellscape gives the shaft, poetry gets shafted the worst.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, poetry was a respectable writing discipline. Okay, well, maybe it wasn’t all that respected, and it certainly has never been all that profitable for anyone, but, at least, it wasn’t subject to the mockery and scorn that we see these days.

Personally, I (as someone who has written poetry and not necessarily studied it in an academic setting) think that this downhill trend was first seen with Jack Kerouac and the other Beat Poets. After the horrors of World War II, society seemed to take umbrage with those young boys with their mari-ja-wanna and weird writing driving around the country in a ’49 Hudson Commodore, drifting itinerant, jobless.

They were, decidedly, lacking in the American spirit and ethos of Robert Frost. Or some similar shit.

God, this country loves Robert Frost. It seems that in high school, I was practically pelted with his work. And none of it ever resonated with me. The way that poetry is taught, at least in formal academia, is drier than a Triscuit in Death Valley.

Poetry is vital. Poetry is life. And I think these poems will change yours.
The Differences Between Paganism And Wicca
Tags: Personal Growth, Paganism, Witchcraft, Wicca, Religion

Think of Paganism as a single tree.

Just like how the tree of Christianity has Catholicism as a branch, the tree of Paganism has multiple branches such as Wicca, Druidism, Buddhism, Asatru, and Hinduism, among many others. There are thousands of different religions that fall under Paganism.

Pagans typically worship nature as a whole along with the four elements — fire, earth, air, and water. Some Pagans worship multiple gods and goddesses. It’s basically an umbrella term for any religion that is not under Abrahamic origins.

Wicca is a single branch on the tree of Paganism.

Wicca is one of the many branches that are attached to the tree that is Paganism. A common misconception is that Gerald Gardner created Wicca when in fact, he just popularized it in 1954. Wicca has actually been around since the first half of the 20th century in Europe.

Wicca follows The Rule of Three, and you typically worship a single god and single goddess. Their worship of nature includes five elements — fire, earth, air, water, and spirit — rather than the typical Pagan four.

Ancestry, the Pagan holidays, personal responsibility, avoiding to cause harm, and respect for other beliefs are all very important to most Wiccans. They also hold high belief in karma and the afterlife.

Witchcraft is a separate tree entirely.

Witchcraft is not a religion, but a practice. You can take a branch from the Witchcraft tree and put it with a branch from the Paganism or the Christianity tree if you so desire.

You gain experience the more you practice your craft just like you would any skill. There are many ways you can do your practice because while there are guidelines, there are no set rules.

No matter what anyone tells you: witchcraft is a worldly practice. It can be used for good — or ‘evil’ — because everyone’s practice is based on their own individuality. So, one witch can practice very differently from another. It’s an art form, so you can create whatever you want with it.
Why Do We Care About Celebrity Drama?
By: Megan R. Clark
Tags: Celebrity, Learning, Psychology, Lifestyle, Culture

While in self isolation, I’ve made a lot of personal changes. I’ve hopped off of social media, I’ve made a career change, and I’ve stopped worrying about losing weight in a certain time frame. Yet something that remains on my radar is celebrity drama.

I care so deeply about Britney Spears, Shane Dawson, Jeffree Star, Gabbie Hanna, and what the hell is going on in their lives. Only recently did I stop giving a shit about the Kardashian’s: I unfollowed them all from social media because I couldn’t bear seeing one more ad for detox teas that just make you poop a lot.

I’ve fallen down a dozen rabbit-holes over the last several months. James Charles has had to now apologize twice for gate-keeping the beauty industry. Britney Spears is fighting to get rid of her conservatorship. Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star are mixed up in drama regarding Tati Westbrook, as well as racism, grooming, and general unpleasantness. Kanye West tweeted a whole bunch of crap that ended up going viral. Gabbie Hanna spent weeks livestreaming on YouTube about how the platform has shadowbanned her channel and that it’s their fault her music isn’t trending or popular and then disappeared from the face of the earth for a month.

Why the hell do I care though? Why am I following topics like Kanye and Megan Thee Stallion on Twitter? Why, in the middle of a pandemic and amidst arguably the most crucial election year in history, am I so engulfed and consumed with the importance of celebrity drama?

Why do any of us care? How do people like the Kardashian’s get famous simply by letting people watch them in their houses? Kim recently announced that Keeping Up With the Kardashian’s was finally ending after 14 years, and it seemed like Twitter stopped in its tracks. Why are literally millions of people waiting for what Shane Dawson is going to do next? What is up with the way that tabloids express “news?” Are we bored, or is this genuinely interesting?

According to Psychology Today, it’s quite simple: We expect public figures to behave morally and it’s intriguing when they don’t. When someone as loved as Tiger Woods is discovered to be cheating on his wife a dozen times over, it’s fascinating to the general public. We revered Tiger as a stand-up guy who just plays golf and wears a red polo on Sundays. But come to find out his behaviors don’t align with those of most people, the media swarms.

Another argument is that we worship celebs so that we live vicariously through them. The Kardashian’s, while melodramatic to the nth degree, live elaborate luxurious lives. We like to see what they do all day because, in some ways, we wish we could live that life.
Let’s Git Familiar — Part 2. This story is the second part of a…
By: İsmail Gök
Tags: Version Control, Version Control System, Git Workflow, Git, Git Commands

There are three more commands that I want to mention that can manipulate the flow of commit sequences: Checkout, Reset and Revert commands. Let’s first begin with Checkout and Reset.

Let’s imagine a situation that you made some changes on Master branch and commit the changes. Both HEAD ref and Master ref pointers point on that commit, meaning that both last commit you have made and the last commit of the Master is the same one. (your last change) On the other hand, there is a previous commit that you want to go back to. You have two options. First is to use git checkout command. (Note: Usually checkout command is used to switch between branches as in git checkout <branch_name> but if you want to point the HEAD ref onto a previous commit in the current branch you can use git checkout <commit_name>.) The second option is to use reset command. git reset command points both HEAD and Master ref onto a specific commit. There is an image below to visualize the information.

You can get further information about git reset from https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/undoing-changes/git-reset

Another useful command is git revert. Let me again first quote the formal explanation of the command from Atlassian web site:https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/undoing-changes/git-revert

The git revert command can be considered an 'undo' type command, however, it is not a traditional undo operation. Instead of removing the commit from the project history, it figures out how to invert the changes introduced by the commit and appends a new commit with the resulting inverse content. This prevents Git from losing history, which is important for the integrity of your revision history and for reliable collaboration.

Reverting should be used when you want to apply the inverse of a commit from your project history. This can be useful, for example, if you’re tracking down a bug and find that it was introduced by a single commit. Instead of manually going in, fixing it, and committing a new snapshot, you can use git revert command to automatically do all of this for you.

Unlike git checkout (with a commit_Id not with a branch name)and git reset the undo action been made with git revert does not change the location of the ref pointers. The revert operation takes a commit and inverses the changes that commit brings. That operation creates a new inversed commit (reverted commit) and like a regular commit creation, the HEAD ref points to the newly created commit.

git revert HEAD // inverses the changes from the last commit

A figure of branches is shown below to describe the states before and after git revert command.
Hilarious Vintage Advice for Women from History
By: Chelsea Rose
Tags: Sexuality, Society, Relationships, Women, Dating

Cancel your open-mic set

Our journey starts in the year 1850. American clergyman and writer Harvey Newcomb penned the very catchy, How to Be a Lady, Containing Useful Hints of the Formation of Character.

The book offered the young ladies of the 1850s practical wisdom on developing womanly character.

One such nugget of wisdom included the following:

“Do not allow yourself in the habit of joking with your companions. This tends to cultivate severe sarcasm, which is a bad habit of the tongue.”

To put it frankly, a date was no place for Ethel to practice her stand-up routine. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since the mid-1800s. In fact, a sense of humor is often a top trait both men and women look for in a potential partner.

Don’t get me wrong; you do not have to be a stand-up comedian while you’re on a date. But don’t be afraid to show all 32 teeth if something tickles your funny bone.

Unsure of how to bring the laughs on your next date? Here are a few suggestions to get you going:

Minigolf. Try not to laugh too hard when your date hits the ball into the water. Again.

Pandemic friendly indoor bowling. See who will be the first to score a strike using plastic cups and balled up junk mail.

Buy an inexpensive face painting kit and paint each others’ faces.

Complete an online quiz together. Whatever your interest, Sporcle has it. Test your knowledge of Disney moms, NBA teams, the 151 Pokémon from the first generation, or attempt the 4-second music challenge.

Bring in another couple and hold a mock Olympics with silly events and wacky prizes.

Attend your local dinner theater/murder mystery night.

Buy some modeling clay from the craft store and see who can make the best clay reindeer.

It’s too bad Mr. Newcomb didn’t realize that while looks will fade, the ability to make your partner snort like a pig will never go away. Sure, some men feel threatened by a woman who can hold her own at open-mic. Such men say it’s not dignified for a woman to make fart jokes or laugh too loud. Needless to say, we aren’t interested in such feeble men. They probably tell bad jokes anyway.
Cypress — January 5, 2020. Holy Winter!!
By: Jennifer Hammersmark
Tags: Exercise, Skiing, Outdoors, Mental Health

Dr. Jen's Ski Report - 01/05/20

January 05 2020 Holy winter! I was shocked today to see how much snow there is, and how much it snowed while I was…
Yeni altcoin — Holochain (HOT) artık Gobaba’da!
Tags: Holochain, Altcoins, Gobaba, Türkçe, Bitcoin

Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency with Confidence | Gobaba

Gobaba is a secure platform where users can buy, sell, exchange, transfer and store Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies…
How To Programmatically Add Shadow and Rounded Corners to a View — Swift
By: Josiah Rininger
Tags: iOS, Mobile App Development, Swift, Programming, Uikit

How To Programmatically Add Shadow and Rounded Corners to a View — Swift

It’s not always enough to just define your properties and add a corner radius

Photo by Sam Cid on Unsplash

If you are reading this, you’re probably banging your head trying to figure out why your UIView doesn’t have a shadow. Don’t feel bad. All iOS Developers have to figure this out sooner or later. There are many ways to tackle this problem, and I have found this one to be the most effective.

If you want to get straight to the answer, you can find my solution on my GitHub. Otherwise, let’s look at why you can’t see your shadow and find out how to fix this.
Do You Suffer From Dry, Tight Vagina?
By: Ms. Part Time Wino
Tags: Sex, Sexuality, Advice, This Happened To Me, Humor

“You’re so beautiful,” he muttered, planting a kiss on the nape of my neck.

I blushed, wrapping my arms around his neck, drawing him closer. He shifted his hips so his erection poked my thigh, which I knew was his not so subtle way of telling me, “Yo lady, I’m ready to bone.”

Climbing on top of me, he angled himself over my body, with his erect member knocking on my front door. Slowly pushing forward, he slide the tip inside before abruptly pulling out.

“Wow, you’re so tight.”

This wasn’t the first time I heard this compliment. In fact, many of my past suitors would boast about how tight my vagina felt. Which is why I grew up believing that having a tight vagina was a positive thing. After all, no man would win any points by exclaiming that his partner’s vagina felt loose or flabby, right?

“Thank you,” I smiled.

He squinted his eyes, and I could see the gears turning in his brain while he tried to comprehend why I was thanking him.

“Um, I didn’t mean that as a compliment,” he frowned, “You’re tight as in, painfully too tight.”

I gasped, taken back by the new revelation. Questions swirled around and overwhelmed my brain. How could my perfect vagina be — too tight? Did it shrink in size? Did his penis grow a few extra inches overnight? What made it painful?

But most importantly, what do I do about it?
Damn, Peter! / Photo Diary/
By: A G N U U S H
Tags: Photojournalism, Homepage, Archive, Photography, Mongolian

in In Fitness And In Health
Blogging and Journal Writing, What’s the Difference?
By: Ed Newman
Tags: Blogging, Medium, Journal Writing, Psychology, Writing

“The writer of any first person work must decide two obvious questions: what to put in and what to leave out.” — Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard doodle contributed for Dandy Yankee Doodle Project. Photo by the author.

I believe the Annie Dillard quote above comes from her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. She was referring to her own memoir writing if I remember correctly, and to all memoir writing in general. This was before the era of blogs and blogging.

Blogging has become an interesting phenomenon, a natural outgrowth of the world wide web. It’s popular because it is easy. And with all the various platforms today, it’s accessible to nearly anyone.

I remember when people were criticizing email because it was “destroying language” and wrecking good grammar, good English etc. Then texting came along and academics began to gasp.

Has texting destroyed the language? Everything has a pro and con, including email, texting and blogging. I think it’s great that people are communicating. How many letters would people send in a day if they had to type, print, fold, and insert into an envelope that they must still address and stamp? What a hassle. By email, I can maintain contacts with fifty or more people a day. At the office it used to be a hundred or more.

Email is easy, and nearly anyone can do it.

Blogging, likewise, is a heckuva lot easier than building a website. There are hordes of blog platforms that will host your creative output. Some have gotten a lot of bad press, but maybe it’s because the Press is jealous. I wouldn’t doubt that more people read blogs than read newspapers.

In the mid-nineties I built a website, in part for the experience and in part for the forum where I could display some of my work. I used a software program that was limited in capabilities but easy to use. Ease of use was key.

But even so, most people did not have sufficient motivation to get past the web-weaving learning curve. And although businesses everywhere were soon building websites — almost as necessary as business cards and storefront signage — individuals with a website were probably fewer in number.

Blogs changed all that. Blogs opened new possibilities for self-expression that seemed infinite in scope. Ev Williams, who co-founded Blogger and later Twitter (from which he just now stepped down to give yet more attention to his new child, Medium) has been truly on the forefront in this arena. Kudos to Ev Williams
Pie
By: Tom Thomasson
Tags: Limerick, Poetry, Humor, Holidays

There was an Old Man with an Eye

For the last piece of the pumpkin pie

He licked his lips

It went straight to his hips

His belly so full he could die
Waltz of the Wizard: The Magic of Natural Interactions
By: Amy Stewart
Tags: Waltz Of The Wizard, Virtual Reality, Htc Vive, Construct Studio, Interactive

Waltz of the Wizard Official Trailer

Waltz of the Wizard is an experience from Aldin Dynamics and fulfills a fantasy many of us have had: to be a wizard, à la Harry Potter. Really more a toy than a game, the experience allows players to play around at a magical workbench. Cast spells, mix magical potions, shoot giants with crossbows, and open dimensional portals with a magical glockenspiel. It’s all here.

Your alchemical workbench

Aldin has spent a considerable amount of time working on the interactive elements, using its Ghostline Analytics tool to design its user interactions. Everything within reach of the player can be picked up and played with — often in multiple ways. Place the magic orb in the pot to cast a spell, or chuck it at the giant peering in the window. Spells are fun, and allow you to do things such as grow to giant proportions, or turn everything you touch into a butterfly.

Brewing potions create different effects. Trial and error lets you discover the six different effects that can be created.

Casting a spell. The interface is easy to understand and requires little to no instruction

The feel of the interactive mechanics is top notch, and there’s enough to do to occupy a player and encourage them to explore the different potions and spells. The game makes excellent use of natural input mechanics, and the gameplay is intuitive (although a snarky skull is there to give hints if you are stuck figuring out a mechanic).

Multiple objects are available to be picked up and interacted with

It really feels like Aldin Dynamics have spent their time thinking through the things people would want to do with the items in the environment, and made those actions available. There was no moment where I wanted to do an action and found I couldn’t. If this is the level of good feeling interaction Ghostline opens up for developers, it may well become a staple in the VR Development industry.

If there’s one thing lacking it’s that the experience is in need of a story, and at least a minor player goal. I found myself wondering if I had indeed done everything. I longed to actually achieve something with my wizard powers, and to be able to reach a proper ending. It also would have been nice to have a context for the work I was doing at my workbench (an apprentice who snuck in and is messing around, perhaps).

Causing items to float around the room is a satisfying experience

That aside, the experience is well worth a try, especially given that it is free. Check it out, along with Ghostline, and see the possibilities for natural magical interactions. And maybe Aldin Dynamics will expand out the game: something I for one would love to see. As it is, the game is a great lesson in natural interactions and game feel in VR games.
The Last Green Day
By: Abigail Siegel
Tags: Green, Poetry, Autumn, Poem, Winter

Photo by Rémi Walle on Unsplash

The straining rays of the sun nourish

The last of the verdant leaves

For today Flora unfurls to flourish

And my joyous heart begins to grieve

I feel in my soul a dying glow

The emerald gleam beginning to fade

I long for the days when I did know

The comforting cool of a forest shade

The winter is a time of purity

The cleansing of a sleepy world

But I miss the imperfections of viridity

I miss the blooms of life unfurled

This is the last day of deep green

I stretch my olive limbs to the sky

For long this richness won’t be seen

The long days now seem to fly

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

©Abigail Siegel 2019
A Ghost?
By: Erika Burkhalter
Tags: Short Story, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Halloween

A Ghost?

Or a hummingbird? — Lit Up Halloween Spooks

Was I haunted by the ghost of a hummingbird the other day? You can decide.

It is the season for all types of spooky specters to appear.

This one flew in with the night wind, its wings a blur. Shadows had crept from the trees to slink along the garden floor, and most of the other hummers had already abandoned the feeders to find their evening roosts. I thought I felt an unusually cool breeze brushing my skin.

I just had time to grab my camera, still sitting beside me from my twilight vigil of birdwatching.
What is CARRE4?
By: Shanel Pouatcha
Tags: Technology, Future, Humanity, Society, Change

What is CARRE4?

A publication on All Things Redefining Humanity.

Founded 2019

Redefinition: “to give new meaning to”

What does it mean to live, interact, and survive in the human world? What does it mean to be human? Well, that’s something we can never really put a clear definition on. Why? Because what it means to be human is always changing. Thinking, innovation, laws that govern the land, and much more challenge how we live everyday. If you’re older than 15 years of age and you’re reading this, you’ve likely had at least 5 major innovative events in your lifetime that have changed your thinking, approach, and navigation of the world.

Let’s take me for example. Say I’m 17 years old.

2003: Human Genome Project

2004: Google

2006: Facebook

2008: Obama, America’s first black president

2010: Instagram

2012: Snapchat; Marijuana is legalized in Washington and Colorado

2013: Shared Economy — Uber and Airbnb

2015: 2/3 of Americans own Smartphones

2017: Brexit

2018: Facial Recognition Technology

2019: 5G standard is released

2020: COVID-19; Amazon taking over the world

And that’s not even the beginning of it!

When we’re thinking about what redefines humanity, what first comes to mind? Tech? Science? Innovation? Sure. But it’s not at all limited to those things. In fact, humanity can’t be redefined if everything that redefines it is well…already defined!

Deriving from the french word Carrefour, meaning: Intersection, CARRE4 is a space where interdisciplinary and forward thinking approach is welcome.

If you want to read about ideas, people, or phenomenons that are going to redefine the ways we interact, socialize, and live with the environment, people, and things around us — follow CARRE4.

Here, all topics from culture, to society, politics, literature, science, technology will be explored in the scope of humanity.

Some questions reading CARRE4 may answer

How will [blank] change the way I live?

How will [blank] change the way society functions?

How will [blank] affect [blank]?

What is [blank] and why is it important to pay attention?

What does redefinition mean in terms of [blank]?

It’s pretty much that simple. Anything that is affected is changed, and therefore is redefined.

Thanks for reading, and follow to read upcoming articles in CARRE4!

Photo by NASA on Unsplash
History’s Deadliest Female Sniper
By: Jacob Wilkins
Tags: War, History, Feminism, Russia, Ukraine

History’s Deadliest Female Sniper

The Nazis didn’t stand a chance against this woman

Photograph of Lyudmila Pavlichenko by Israel Abramovich Ozersky, 1942 (Wikimedia Commons)

Lyudmila Pavlichenko was born in 1916. She grew up in Bila Tserkva, a village near the city of Kiev, Ukraine.

As a child, she was fiercely competitive. And after hearing one of her neighbours brag about his shooting skills, she decided to join a local shooting club and prove that girls could do it too.

Natural ability

Lyudmila learnt to shoot with a TOZ-8, a target rifle that many Soviet citizens practised with owing to their accuracy and relatively low cost.

It soon became apparent that Lyudmila had a knack for marksmanship. She had the perfect balance of hand-eye coordination, muscle steadiness, good eyesight, and patience.

So, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Lyudmila felt compelled to fight back. She dropped her studies at the University of Kiev and went to join the Red Army.

But women weren’t easily accepted. Despite Lyudmila’s marksman certificate and her sharpshooter badge from the Osoaviakhim, she was advised to become a nurse instead.

Lyudmila didn’t back down, though — she was determined to fight for her homeland. The Red Army allowed her to demonstrate her skills by taking down two Romanian soldiers who were working with the Nazis.

Impressed by her accuracy and efficiency, officials let Lyudmila join the Red Army’s 25th Chapayev Rifle Division.

World War II

Lyudmila was just one of 800,000 women who served the Soviet Union during the Second World War. Whilst the majority had non-combatant roles (like medics, cooks, radio operators, or laundry workers), 300,000 Soviet women were still involved in combat and accounted for two per cent of the Red Army.

Lyudmila’s role was particularly risky. Soviet snipers had a life expectancy of just two weeks. And female soldiers were far more likely to suffer sexual violence if they were captured by the enemy. But due to her impressive skills, Lyudmila was never captured or killed.

Photograph of Lyudmila Pavlichenko by

Vladimir Nikolayevich Ivanov, 1942 (Wikimedia Commons)

She began her sniping career by taking part in the Siege of Odessa, a conflict which took place on the Eastern Front between the 8th of August and the 16th of October 1941. Lyudmila killed 187 German soldiers during this time and was soon promoted to a lieutenant.

The Siege of Sevastopol was her next battleground. As well as adding to her body count, Lyudmila also started gaining a formidable reputation as one of the Red Army’s most dangerous warriors.

But in June 1942, Lyudmila was hit by a piece of shrapnel during combat. Though she survived this ordeal, her time as a soldier was now over.
Press
By: J.D. Harms
Tags: Poetry, Relationships, Evolution, Arguments, Stories

You don’t need to keep working

your palms together like that

The sun does

its old blinding gig/

separates the world from all things

that spin

& I’m hot & I’m hot

sick of complaining but not about

to drop dead of yet another

mouth opening event

but not to swallow

Harsh lines come slinging forward

pressed like unwilling words

into a book

You thought it was about you

You made it

into one long autobiographical fiction

rendering nothing like fat

though you’d know how to do that, too

I imagine

I’d hurt, though, if you thought

this apartment

was the place to stay & stay /taking

lines from other people

certain there’s a story in there somewhere

Something

you think, cleared up by the moon

worth squeezing out
North American Science, Skepticism, and Secular Humanism 7— Secularism as a Moral Duty: Abusers, Cranks, and Frauds
By: Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Tags: Scott Douglas Jacobsen, James Haught, Skepticism, Megachurches, Religion

James A. Haught was born on Feb. 20, 1932, in a small West Virginia farm town that had no electricity or paved streets. During his six decades in newspaper life, he has been police reporter, religion columnist, feature writer and night city editor; then he was investigative reporter for 13 years, and his work led to several corruption convictions. He writes nearly 400 Gazette editorials a year, plus personal columns and news articles. Haught has won two dozen national newswriting awards, and is author of 11 books and 120 magazine essays. About 50 of his columns have been distributed by national syndicates. He also is a senior editor of Free Inquiry magazine. He is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, Contemporary Authors and 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century. He has four children, 12 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. He is a longtime member of Charleston’s Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Haught continues working full-time in his 80s.

Here we talk about another facet of the otherwise laudable American freedoms.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Americans earned a laudable moniker of the free. In many ways, it is true. In other ways, the degrees of freedom determined by the bank account. Another facet of this comes in behavioural and mental freedom in non-constructive ways. Religious fervour produces some of this. What have been cases of massive institutional religious financial fraud in the United States?

Jim Haught: To me, all religion is a financial fraud: It promises supernatural rewards after death, while taking billions in donations. In truth, there are no invisible gods, devils, heavens, hells, saviors, etc. As George Carlin said, it’s biggest “bullshit story” ever told. Ministers are the most dishonest people, because they endlessly spiel lies.

Jacobsen: What have been some of the larger exposures of abuse within religious institutions in the United States, where unquestioning faith of, more often, women followers and boy believers is — well — abused?

Haught: I just wrote a blog post about scandals in megachurches, where millionaire preachers wear huge diamonds and fly in private jets — but often wind up in prison.

Jacobsen: How does the otherwise admirable room for mental freedom for Americans create mental illness or provide an environment for the flourishing of mental illness to come forth in religious practices seen with glossolalia, being a reincarnation of Jesus, hearing the voice of God, believing in the power of intercessory prayer, and so on? Basically, the training wheels are off prematurely, or the guard rails aren’t up at the bowling ally.

Haught: Part of me agrees that anyone who believes supernatural dogmas must be mentally ill. But half of humanity swallows religious claims — and I’m not qualified to pronounce them all nuts.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Jim.

Haught: Keep the faith, baby.

Photo by Edwin Andrade on Unsplash
An invitation
By: Charles Davies
Tags: Poetry, Clearing

A vast hall.

High ceilings.

Oak floors.

Autumn sunlight

dreams through

stained glass.

Whatever is normally here

has been cleared away.

A door at the far corner opens.

I walk in. Striding to a point

a measure of footsteps from the wall,

Chalk in my hand in my pocket,

I crouch to draw a circle

sweeping yard by yard,

marking out a space extending

almost to the edges of the room.

A stage.

A field of play.

A clearing.

Sketchy white lines mark the bound

that says nothing more than —

everything out there

is out there

and when we enter the clearing

we can let it all be there.

We enter the clearing.

There is a rustle of feather on leaf.

Somewhere a stream sings a soft song.

Breathing out.

We begin.
“Use Your Words”
By: Aura Wilming
Tags: Psychology, Emotions, Blog, Writing, Language

“Use Your Words”

There’s twice as many words to describe negative emotions

I clicked on this story, and a sentence jumped out at me. Talking about the English language;

Of those 500,000 words total, as much as 3,000 are used to describe emotions — two-thirds of which are used to describe negative emotions.

As a fiction writer this seems both accurate and interesting. All we have to convey a mood are words, but positive moods are harder to describe. As a result writing about negative moods often reads much more expressive. No wonder really, we’ve got many more words to choose from to express that negative mood.

That got me thinking, do we in general express more negativity? To answer ‘yes’ to that question just doesn’t sit well with me. I still believe we as human beings spend, or should spend, as much time expressing positive moods as negative moods.

I think the ‘problem’ is not expression, but verbal expression. From very young we’re told to ‘use our words’ when we are expressing something negative like frustration or anger. But no caretaker would scold a toddler to use their words when laughing, breaking out in song, skipping around or doing a little wiggle dance. (If that caretaker is anything like me, they are much more likely to join in than insist they tell us what they are feeling.) And this resulted in twice as many words for negative emotions.

But those twice as many words, are a little misleading. Because when I think more about it, because it is more acceptable to act out positive emotions, words to describe positive emotions end up being verbs. If I write “He walked in, whistling a tune” I have set a mood. Is ‘whistling’ an emotion? No, it’s a verb for making sound while expelling air through the lips. But, a person is much more likely to whistle while feeling upbeat. He’s in a whistling mood. And we all know that mood is not bad. If I want the mood more positive, I throw in an other verb. “He walked in with a bounce in his step, whistling a tune” Bouncing isn’t a emotion either, but this guy just went from having a good morning to having woken up on the right side of someone else’s bed.

“Whistle” and “Bounce” probably weren’t counted among those 1000 words for positive emotion. But now I am wondering, if we did start to count verbs, would positive emotions still total half the words of negative emotions? Or would it start to look much more equal?
Answering Legal 10 Day Free Trial Breakdown
By: Frank Cordeira Jr.
Tags: Attorney, Outsourcing, Lawyers, Call Center, Law

Watch to find out everything that’s going to happen during your 10 day free trial! Answering Legal fully integrates with your firm, without changing your current infrastructure! Sign up for a no commitment free trial today! www.answeringlegal.com