fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
To Have More Successful First Encounters, Be a “Good Journalist”
By: Max Phillips
Tags: Self Improvement, Relationships, Life Lessons, Listening, Mindfulness

Ask Them Questions They Have Never Answered

Whenever actors are promoting their latest blockbuster movie, many of the same answers seem to appear on the internet. The celebrities look outright bored.

It’s no wonder, either.

Interviewers ask broadly the same boring questions such as, “What was your workout like to get into shape for the film?” Or they ask Scarlett Johanson some inappropriate questions about her clothing for the “Avengers” films. Essentially, they are searching for future headlines to post on their websites — a “scoop.”

An excellent example of a good interview is the YouTube channel “Hot Ones.” Host Sean Evans asks celebrities questions while eating chicken wings coated in increasingly hotter sauce. It created one of 2020’s biggest memes — Paul Rudd’s “look at us” moment.

To me, Zac Efron’s stood out the most. Evans asks him some genuinely interesting questions, which Efron appreciates on more than one occasion.

Evans doesn’t touch on any “controversial drama bullshit,” as one comment puts it. Couple that with the unique task of eating scolding hot wings, and you’ve got a great interview. He even touches on usually boring fitness questions, but in such a way that Efron appears to enjoy opening up about it.

Kevin Fredricks, the host of “The Love Hour” podcast, suggests some real-world applications. On a first date, for instance, ask some more adventurous questions, such as:

What is your perfect crime?

What is on your bucket list?

What is your fondest memory of school? (My favorite question as diving into childhood memories is one of my favorite past times.)

Until you are interviewing celebrities, you won’t be able to do any research on the person you meet for the first time. That’s what questions like these are for. You’re researching on the go. Probe their brain for exciting stories — make them think.

Typically, when I meet people, I brace myself for the “what do you do?” and “what did you study?” questions. Those are fine, but they feel like a chore. On my first date with my girlfriend, it surprised me how much I appreciated being asked why I chose to study English and Film. It made me realize I wanted a second date.

Dr. Jane Greer, a marriage and family therapist, says this helps you gauge people more efficiently. Therefore, it can “help you discover if you have common interests or life goals to help you decide if you’d like to see the person again.”

It may seem like more effort, but delving deeper into a person’s life will stop you from wasting time with people you don’t want to be with.
Get ready for a massive surge in sales with eCommerce SEO
By: Sajiv Kumar
Tags: Ecommerce Seo Agency, Seo For Ecommerce Website, Ecommerce Seo Company, Ecommerce Seo Expert, Synapseinteractive

Do you want to double the sales of your online store? Do you want your eCommerce website to gain the top rankings in all major search engines? An eCommerce SEO agency, SynapseInteractive, assists you to achieve top rankings in Google for hundreds of products listed on your eCommerce website with most of the keywords and drive millions of targeted customers. So, be ready for a massive increase in sales! Whether your online store is built on Magento or BigCommerce or Shopify, we offer complete SEO solutions. Our SEO experts are innovative, punctual and dedicated. They create highly-effective custom on-page and off-page strategies in order to optimize each of your product, the categories and the major brand pages. On the whole, SEO for an eCommerce website is highly important and we are the master of it. Are you ready for the revolution? Contact us now!

Follow us on Twitter: SynapseInteractive eCommerce SEO Agency

Learn more: eCommerce SEO Agency PPT or eCommerce SEO Agency Video
Not Everyone Wants to, Or 'Should,' Have Children
By: Sarah Firth
Tags: Pregnancy, Parenting, Women, Comics, This Is Us

Maybe Baby

If I got pregnant now, what would I choose?

Trigger warning: mention of miscarriage, abortion, IVF struggles and infant/child death that may be upsetting.
Join our early bird program and we’ll double your investments for trying CoinBundle
By: Coinbundle Team
Tags: Investing, Topcoinbundle, Finance, Bountiescoinbundle, Bitcoin

Thousands of emails, hundreds of hours of meetings, business trips across 10 different countries and 3 continents, dozens of nights without rest… Our team of 30 professionals and 6 advisors have dedicated their time and energy to bring CoinBundle to life.

We’re proud to announce that our investment platform is almost live. Before we launch to the public we want to hold another round of testing with users to pressure test our payments experience. 100 users will be selected to participate in this program.

We want to test the following features through the early bird program:

User verification: The ability to sign-up and complete KYC/AML from a variety of countries. Payments: Buying a bundle using your credit or debit card, and the flow of funds securely through the platform. Withdrawal: Sending money back to your bank account upon selling of bundles and requesting withdrawal.

How to participate?

You must complete this form and sign up for CoinBundle here: beta.coinbundle.com/signup. If you’re selected, we’ll contact you via email. You will have 48 hours to complete verification and deposit fiat on the platform. You must complete required levels of verification on our platform; You must deposit a minimum of $10 and purchase bundles. We’ll double the amount that you deposit up to $30. For example, if you deposit $10 to purchase bundles you will receive $10 more upon withdrawal at the end of the early bird program. If you deposit $50, you’ll receive $30 as the bonus. You’ll be able to withdraw your funds after September 30th.

Extra rewards:

1000 BNDL (~$100) to every participant of the early bird program; 250 BNDL (~$25) for reporting bugs on the user interface; 3000 BNDL (~$300) for reporting critical issues in the platform.

We will select 100 users from our list; each participant will represent one market that we will focus on. This will help us test CoinBundle in a range of geographies.

Eligibility for participation

You are eligible for the CoinBundle Early Bird program if you sign up for the CoinBundle platform and complete the participation form before August 23rd, 2018, 12:00 PST. Completing the form doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be selected in the program.

You also must be a citizen or legal resident of a geographic area in which purchase, holding or use of CoinBundle Token and tokens of its partners is not prohibited by applicable law, decree, regulation, treaty, or administrative act; not be a citizen or resident of, or located in, a geographic area that is subject to U.S. or other applicable sanctions or embargoes or be an individual, or an individual employed by or associated with an entity, identified on the U.S. Department of Commerce Denied Persons or Entity List, the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals List, the U.S. Department of State’s Debarred Parties List or other applicable sanctions lists; not be resident or domiciled in the United States, China or the Cayman Islands; and be at least 18 years of age.
The Illustrated Interview: Ellen Lindner
By: Edith Zimmerman
Tags: Spiralbound, Ellen Lindner, Illustrated Interview, Comics, here

Every week on Spiralbound we ask one of our featured artists: How do you make comics? This week we spoke with Ellen Lindner, of “Poinsettia, Lost and Found.” (Check it out if you haven’t already! And see here for our full interview archive.)

So, Ellen, how do you make comics? (Text from Ellen, drawings by Edith Z.)
MS Excel — Use #PowerQuery to IMPORT .csv formatted data from the Web
By: Don Tomoff
Tags: Excel, How To, Power Query For Excel, Data Analytics, Data

Overview

When getting data from the web, a lot of sites provide the ability to DOWNLOAD a csv formatted file of the data.

Rather than download it though, you can simply connect to it and import the data using PowerQuery.

Why import? Because the data can be refreshed and updated anytime the underlying source on the web changes!

That’s convenient!

One of my favorite small datasets that I use for training is a listing of banks that have failed (closed or been acquired).

In this video, I walk through importing the data from the web via connecting to the csv rather than downloading the csv file.

Have you used this approach? If not, give it a try!
Be prepared for your Eagle Scout board of review
By: Chuck J Douros
Tags: Eagle Scout, Boy Scouts, Life, Web Content

It’s the pinnacle of Scouting; the top of the mountain. The Eagle Scout rank takes years to attain and is the highest honor a Boy Scout can achieve. Ask any scout and they’ll tell you they aspire to reach Eagle. Yet, historically less than five percent of all Boy Scouts reach the goal.

The top prize is difficult to garner, but not impossible. By design, boys grow into it, step-by-step; like a mountain ascent, they conquer one challenge after another until they reach the top. After years of effort, experience and achievement, the Eagle candidate must pass his Eagle board of review; a final check-and-balance preceding the prize. Akin to a job interview, the aspiring Eagle candidate presents his portfolio of achievements to a panel of adult volunteers from all walks of Scouting. While it may seem daunting and intimidating, the board of review is made easier with a little preparation and planning. Here are some tips for the Eagle candidate:

Recite

The advancement committee will ask you to open your review with the Pledge of Allegiance, Scout Oath, Scout Law and Outdoor Code. Be flawless, confident and clear as you recite them. Practice ahead of time, in front of family and friends.

Uniform

It’s not the day to forget your belt. The advancement committee expects you to be in full uniform. Show up out of uniform and it is possible that the committee chairperson might end the board of review before it even begins. If you are unclear about uniform requirements and badge placement, refer to BSA’s uniform inspection sheet or check with your Scoutmaster ahead of time.

Documentation

Be prepared to boast about your accomplishments. Organize and display letters of recommendation, merit badge paperwork, and your Eagle project workbook in a manner that is easy for the committee to review. In most cases, the advancement committee will take the opportunity to review it before the board of review, so first impressions count.

Practice

The committee will ask you questions so they can evaluate your readiness, understanding and passion for Scouting. You won’t have family in the room to throw you a lifeline. Be prepared for the interview by anticipating the questions they will ask and practice your answers out loud. The committee may ask about your Eagle project, religious affiliation, character, current events, and camping, among others.

Rest

Get plenty of rest the night before your board of review. You need to be on your toes during the review. If you are not well-rested it will show in your body language and the committee might mistakenly believe you’re simply disinterested and not enthusiastic.

If you would like to receive future Boy Scouts of America news directly to your email, click on the SUBSCRIBE button at the top of this article.

Originally published by Chuck Douros, National Boy Scouts Examiner, Examiner.com
TEMCO’s Proposal for an Integrated Supply Blockchain
Tags: Temco, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, General, Bitcoin

TEMCO’s Proposal for an Integrated Supply Blockchain

TEMCO started with the idea, “How can products be distributed and delivered to consumers in a reliable way?”

TEMCO is a public supply chain blockchain system that utilizes Smart Contract to overcome the limitations of existing supply chain management systems. In the existing system, the information of each distribution participant within the supply chain process was cut off, but TEMCO has made it possible to connect each participant through a blockchain so that the pre-delivery stages can be grasped in real time. This not only builds consumer trust regarding the supply chain process, but it also has a cost-cutting effect through more efficient supply chain management.

The TEMCO project aims to create a system that can overcome the limitations of the existing supply chain management system by utilizing Smart Contract within the public blockchain ecosystem. The goal is to enable all participants to have access to real-time information on the entire supply chain process from production through distribution to sale at retail outlets.

Through TEMCO, consumers can select products that have passed through a reliable standards. Companies are expected to increase their profitability by streamlining supply chain structure and building a competitive product sale strategy through the TEMCO platform.

The cost of introducing infrastructure for SMEs can also be drastically reduced. In the past, it took several billion won to develop supply chain management infrastructure for SMEs. The TEMCO platform, however, connects every stakeholder under a single platform without the need for a large initial investment, as the only cost is for Smart Contract execution without any additional subscription fees.

There is also an advantage in strengthening the product safety mechanism. In the existing system, it was difficult to identify the cause of quality-related claims. With the introduction of the TEMCO platform, it is possible to trace distribution history down to a single order, which can help identify the responsible party if a dispute occurs. Therefore, it is expected that it will help manage food safety at the government level including the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Food & Drug Administration.

TEMCO also took advantage of the private blockchain. Confidential information that should not be disclosed can be managed without being exposed on the platform.

The TEMCO team will also build a TEMCO marketplace where suppliers and consumers can participate. This allows consumers to purchase safe products that have come through the proper supply chain process, and manufacturers and distributors can create a virtuous cycle structure that reduces distribution costs and rewards legitimate value.
Alone or Together, It’s All a Challenge in a Pandemic
By: Yael Wolfe
Tags: Self, Family, Balance, Relationships, Life

Alone or Together, It’s All a Challenge in a Pandemic

Trying to find balance in quarantine.

Photo by Leon Seierlein on Unsplash

“I’m gonna lose it if we don’t eat soon,” I said.

It was almost ten in the morning. My brother Jack was scrolling through his emails. My mother was playing a game on her tablet.

This was a typical scene at my mother’s house. She gets up at seven, putters around for a while, works out for half an hour, then spends an hour watching the news, playing computer games, or shopping online.

My brother, a night owl, likes to work late and get up at nine to a slow-starting morning.

Neither of them likes to eat before ten.

I, on the other hand, like to get up as early as I can force myself out of bed, take my walk, and head immediately into the kitchen for food. If I don’t eat by nine, I start to feel sick and I get extremely grumpy.

“Can I just make my own breakfast? I really cannot wait another hour.”

“You know how I feel about eating together. When people live together or are staying together, you take care of the group first. I don’t want everyone making three different meals and three different messes every time we get hungry.”

I’ve heard this argument a million times since I was a teenager. Back then, she preferred to eat dinner at eight-thirty — monumentally late by my body’s timing, since I have always been ravenously hungry by six, without fail — and I’d beg her to let us eat earlier or at least let me have snacks. But no, we all had to eat together.

I retreated to the guest room to spare us all from the inevitable argument that would follow if I stayed in the same room with them for any longer without eating.

“You can go home if you have to do things your own way,” my mom yelled after me, somewhat testily. (Seriously, we have had this same argument for decades and both of us are tired of it.)

“I’m not going home yet! I love being here!” I yelled back, in an angry voice.
America Drifts to Sleep Under the Crushing Weight of Uncertainty
By: Andrea González-Ramírez
Tags: Politics, Election 2020, Trump, Joe Biden

America Drifts to Sleep Under the Crushing Weight of Uncertainty

Who is going to be president? No idea! And we won’t know for a while.

Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

“It’s going to be a long night. A long week,” ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos casually said as the clock struck 12:24 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, November 4. What a massive understatement. Americans have gone to bed without having any idea of who will be sworn in as president on January 20, 2021. And if we’re being realistic, it’ll be a while before we know for sure. This wait feels unprecedented and just a little bit terrifying — doing little to quell fears that America is a powder keg waiting to blow.

At least in 2016 the rug was pulled under most Democrats before midnight. While it always takes weeks for states to certify total votes, we can usually rely on the talking heads’ math wizardry to bring some semblance of clarity: The country is fucked or not. You take that knowledge in, go to bed, and wake up motivated enough to get to work for a better nation the next day.

Remember the Bush v. Gore chaos? (I don’t because I was literally a child.) The 2020 election will probably be more like that. Nearly 100 million people voted early, either via mail or in person — a record high propelled mostly by the Covid-19 pandemic. And while it’s great for democracy that so many people participated in the electoral process upfront, it also means it will take a second before quantifying every ballot. (Or deciding whether to throw them out, a likely outcome for nearly 1 million ballots across the nation.) Officials in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan — three key battleground states — say there’s no way they’re declaring a winner in the next few hours. Projections in other states are moving slower than a snail.

That has not stopped candidates from speaking up and crafting a narrative. “We feel good about where we are. We really do. We believe we’re on track to win this election,” Democratic nominee Joe Biden said in a speech shortly before 1 a.m. at a campaign event in Wilmington, Delaware. He added: “We’re going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying votes is finished. And it ain’t over until every ballot is counted.” President Donald Trump, on the other hand, claimed without evidence once again that Democrats “are trying to steal the election.” (His post was hidden by Twitter for violating the platform’s rules and misleading users about the election.)

Rushing to establish themselves as the frontrunners is a classic politician move, but it’ll likely do little to squash the crushing anxiety many Americans are feeling tonight. We better buckle up because we’ll likely feel this for a while.
Pinnacles of Life
By: Anna Rozwadowska
Tags: Beginning, Looker, Life, Poetry, Endings

You are borne from womb

people are

gathering with gaping mouths

looking at this new marvel.

A distraction,

baby brings new life predilections

finances, worries, joys, debt, schooling

scared not, you are scared not,

fearless one.

A wondrous act of creation

so much to look forward to.
Hosting design specs with Sketch Measure
By: Justin Carter
Tags: Design Workflow, Github Pages, Sketch, Sketch Measure, UX Design

Sometimes I need to create a design spec for a developer or team of developers. More often than not I get little to no information about how best I can share a design spec with them. Do they have InVision or Sketch? Will they even download and open the Sketch file or PDF of the spec? How do I share work without sharing on the public internet? I ran into these problems and decided to ask another question: How can I share design specs without my end consumers needing any special software or files and being privately available?

Enter Sketch + Sketch Measure and Github Pages. Using these 3 tools will enable you to answer the question with some additional benefits:

Design spec is hosted (Just share a link others can access anytime.)

It can be hosted inside a firewall, keeping it private.

No more downloads, licenses, or software needed. (They do need a browser.)

No more hours spent making redlines.

It is interactive.

It is free. (Assuming you already have Sketch.)

Assuming that you are still interested you will need three tools for this example:
Is Ethereum Apple? Or Is It IBM?
By: Galen Moore
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Economics, Ethereum, Blockchain, Technology

“It’s early days” might be insufficient

San Francisco’s first real rush of real wealth had nothing to do with Facebook or Google, but it had everything to do with information. In 1872, the industrial Silicon Valley of the world was a hemisphere away, in Liverpool, UK. The exploitation of the Comstock silver lode in Nevada opened up a wildly speculative market in mining companies on the San Francisco stock exchange, manipulated by financiers who had the best information on the state of the mines.

In June of that year, the San Francisco mining stock bubble burst. A year later, the global economy entered a depression, which in San Francisco brought race riots.

In 1872, the Age of Steam was ending; the Age of Steel was beginning. The center of global industrial activity was moving across the Atlantic to new centers in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. About 100 years later, in May, 1968, French workers and students took to the streets on the cusp of the invention of the microchip, a technological innovation that would shift that center of wealth and knowledge, once again. The economist Carlota Perez has observed that social unrest often coincides with a change in the economic paradigm, and this seems to happen about every 50 years.

How interesting, after Facebook, Google and Twitter have been called to account on Capitol Hill, to consider that we may be viewing that cycle play itself out for the Information Age that began in 1972. Among Perez’s crucial observations is the idea that long-wave industrial cycles are not only technological, but economic, social and ideological. It’s been a great run for the information silage model that the FAANG companies represent. It’s true that distributed ledger technology represents a new ideology, based on shared information, trusted for the incentives and rules that govern its many custodians.

However tempting it may be to pinpoint an apogee in an astrology of economic determinism, the center may well hodl for a few turns, yet. While social discontent may be spreading, economic realities are far from what Perez outlined as the business basis of industrial paradigm change. For example, Perez wrote of incumbents:

“Their relative success makes firms amass even more money without profitable investment outlets”

“Profits begin to feel the productivity constriction”

There’s little sign yet that these things are happening. It’s easy to cherry pick facts for almost any narrative, but facts from first quarter earnings don’t seem to match Perez’s pattern for techno-economic paradigm shift:

It might be time for a wave of investment in new technologies and new ways of doing business, as it was in the 1970s. Or, blockchain in 2017–2018 might be more like the invention of the mainframe computer in the 1950s. In other words, Bitcoin and Ethereum may be the IBM and DEC of a nascent industry, with real wealth and innovation to come in a later wave of Intels, Apples and Googles. Even Netscape may not be an adequate simile for how early days it is.

Photo by UC Davis College of Engineering, CC BY 2.0.
We’ve been here: Selections from 6+ years of anti-racist internet reading
By: Jess Brooks
Tags: Activism, Racism

Recognizing and responding to racism is a journey. If you find yourself in a dramatically different place from where you were in 2014, or 2016, or 2 months ago — ready now to grapple with more ideas and activisms — you might have missed some of the best writing on race and racism.

(By “Best” I mean, subjectively, writing that was meaningful to me. Writing that taught me things I needed to know, or helped me understand what I already knew, or was real Art in the sense of communicating reality by bringing me to a new emotional place).
Embracing Mystery
By: Breanna Lowman
Tags: Christianity, Poetry On Medium, Faith, Spirituality, Poetry

Embracing Mystery

For the sake of love

Photo by Mads Schmidt Rasmussen on Unsplash

I’ve placed my hand on the shoulder of a blind woman

And watched her jump for joy as her sight returned

I’ve seen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches multiplied

Having enough to feed a whole school of poor children

I’ve watched a disease that discolored a woman’s face

Fade away and completely disappear before my eyes

I’ve seen all of this and more

And yet…

I still doubt that God will heal

I still recoil from prayer

I still wonder if it all was real

Mystery remains.

I’ve prayed for someone to be healed

With fervent faith and firm belief

And seen nothing happen

I’ve prayed for someone to be healed

With rolling eyes and a heart full of doubt

And seen healing happen

There is no formula for walking with Jesus

There are no steps that give us power

There is no hierarchy of greatness

There are no rules with simple answers

Mystery remains.

I’ve known Muslims who pray to Jesus

I’ve known Buddhists who walk with Jesus

I’ve known Atheists who carry the heart of God

I’ve known Hindus that heal in the name of God

Maybe there is no line or box

Of who is in and who is out

Maybe things are not as they seem

And everyone gets to play on the same team

Mystery remains.

I’ve seen the power of love

A power for this world

But not of this world

I’ve seen the power of humility

A power that doesn’t grasp for certitude

But rather embraces love in the unknown

What if true power looks like sacrifice?

What if true power looks like love?

May we embrace the mystery

And learn love above all else
Ethereum Network Clogged, Gas Prices Rocketing, All Due to a Chinese Exchange
Tags: Hacks, Ethereum, Exchange, Blockchain

Ethereum clogged and gas prices on the rise because of a Chinese exchange

Ethereum’s transaction fees and Gas prices rise up in the midst of what appears to be an ongoing Sybil attack by Chinese exchange Fcoin

The unexpected rise in transaction fees and Gas prices of up to 700% and 1000% respectively is the consequence of a PR stunt by Fcoin, which defined its platform’s voting system as a “one deposit=one vote” system, instead of a “one person=one vote” one. Although the rise in fees has already shown signs of decline, fees may keep on increasing since Fcoin plans on continuing its voting process until July 6.

The outrageous voting rules motivated people with financial incentives to get assets listed on the Chinese exchange to flood the network with a massive number of transactions to new wallets, and then to the exchange, as every deposit from a unique address would equal one vote on Fcoin’s platform. Data from the Gas consumption section of Etherscan.io supports a correlation between the most voted assets on Fcoin and the top Gas consumers.

In an attempt to curve the effects of this increase in transaction fees, Binance announced that it would temporarily increase Gas prices for all ETH and ERC20 withdrawals until transaction fees return to their standard levels. Binance added that it would completely cover the increase in Gas related expenses, in a bid to guarantee a smooth user experience even in these situations,

Although this recent network clog is not related to any flaws in Ethereum’s platform, it does highlight the importance of the network’s scalability issue. Attractive solutions like Sharding and Casper PoS could potentially solve Ethereum’s scalability problems, even though there is a lot of work to be done before they can be implemented.

Disclaimer: information contained herein is provided without considering your personal circumstances, therefore should not be construed as financial advice, investment recommendation or an offer of, or solicitation for, any transactions in cryptocurrencies.
Courage is the Eye-Opening Secret to Accomplishing Anything
By: Doc Jay
Tags: Life Lessons, Courageous Living, Fear

Recently, I told her that I’m working on displaying more courage. It’s one of the three words in my daily affirmation.

Courageous, compassionate, and consistent.

Courage is listed first because I don’t feel that I have much of that to offer. I’ve made countless life decisions out of fear.

She says I am courageous in a lot of other ways. I flat out disagree.

Photo by Felix Mooneeram on Unsplash

Sure I used to sing, act, dance but those things rarely scared me.

Those arts awakened a fire in my soul. With each performance, I felt like a child catching a firefly for the first time, realizing I could hold the light in my hands. I lived to share that light. It never frightened me.

What’s fearful about that?

“Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.” — Eddie Rickenbacker

She may chuckle at the things which scare the crap out of me. Her being social with strangers is as effortless as throwing on her scrubs to go to work at her nursing job. For me, it’s like putting on a tuxedo and tying a bowtie for the first time while running late to the party.

Courage is as individual as your fears are secret. And it is as intimate as love.

Another person cannot deem your actions as courageous or not. Your courage is based on your anxieties, fears, and risks of loss, not theirs.

We stare at the wall of fear and attempt to bust through because of the strong motivations at our core.

NO ONE CAN DEFINE YOUR COURAGEOUSNESS BUT YOU.

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” — Nelson Mandela

Comedians constantly jest about the concept of courage. In the movie Barbershop, Cedric the entertainer’s character says, “Rosa Parks ain’t do nothing but sit her black ass down.”

The public knows of the social risks of breaking the mold in such segregated times. But we assume everything about her fear and her motivations. If Rosa Parks wasn’t afraid or didn’t see going to jail as a risk, then I suppose she did just “sit her black ass down.”

Only she knows whether it took courage to sit (or stay seated) on the bus that day in Montogomery, AL.
“Youthful maiden” architects at Hickory Tavern, N. C. (1890s)
By: Wilhelm Kühner
Tags: North Carolina, History, Genealogy, Architecture, Tedx

“Architecture should have little to do with problem solving — rather it should create desirable conditions and opportunities hitherto thought impossible.” ― Cedric Price

While Louise Blanchard Bethune may be the first American woman to work as a professional architect, starting in 1881, Josephine and Norma May Bonniwell (1877–1961) may very well be the youngest women to do so. Daughters of George Bonniwell from Brooklyn, Josephine and Norma were “carefully trained” by their father and Norma even began working independently as early as March 19, 1892, when the Manufacturers’ Record reported that she had “prepared plans for the erection of [a] $25,000 building at Lenoir College” (no longer standing) in Hickory, North Carolina. She was only 15 years old!

Photo by unknown author, licensed under CC BY.

The following year, Norma designed the Thomas B. Finley House in North Wilkesboro (still standing) and provided the ladies of North Carolina with their “piece de resistance” for the “World’s Columbian Exposition” (Chicago World’s Fair of 1893). While “one does not wonder that it was impossible to get the carving done in North Carolina, or even in the United States, in time for the exposition,” the Hickory Press believed her “exquisite pen and ink drawing of a cabinet” deserved “more than a passing word of notice.”

Three years later, at the age of 19, Norma designed the second First Methodist Church (no longer standing) in Hickory. In 1897 she designed four homes in Statesville, including “one of the most distinctive Queen Anne style houses” still standing in that city. She did work in Charlotte for the Hickory Manufacturing Company and designed a home as far away as Greenville, South Carolina before the entire Bonniwell family packed up and moved to Raleigh sometime in 1899.

Clipping by Wilhelm Kühner via Newspapers.com.

At the ripe old age of 22, architecture was still considered an “odd” profession for a woman. Norma fell in love with a stamp clerk named William Peele King, got married, and stopped practicing her trade. The Thomas B. Finley House (aka “The Oaks”)in North Wilkesboro is the one building she designed that is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, but Norma and Josephine probably both helped George at “Bonniwell and Daughter.”

So they probably helped him design the Black Mountain Hotel, Claremont College, Grace Episcopal Church in Morganton, the Haywood County Courthouse in Waynesville, and the Piedmont Wagon Company in Hickory — home of “one of the most conspicuous examples of New South prosperity in North Carolina” during the late 19th and early 20th century (Freeze, 1995). George co-founded the Piedmont Wagon Company with a distant cousin and a local bridge builder who is the subject of my next book and the primary source of information about some forgotten local history that I shared with TedX Hickory in November...
Create a PDF from a Template serverless style using Azure Functions
By: Philipp Bauknecht
Tags: Azure Functions, Nodejs, Serverless, Pdf Converter

Create a PDF from a Template serverless style using Azure Functions Philipp Bauknecht Follow Apr 29 · 2 min read

There are lots of occasions where you want to create a PDF document, e.g. for a report or an invoice. While there are plenty of options for PDF handling in .NET it turns out none of them actually work with Azure Functions running true serverless in a consumption plan. This is because all libraries I found do rely on GDI+ which is not available in the consumption plan. However most of these solutions work with Azure Functions running in App Plan Basic or higher.

So what is the alternative for running truly serverless?

One of the beauties of serverless systems to me is that you can mix and match runtimes and programming languages and really leverage the advantages of each to compose a distributed system. So while I prefer to build most Function apps using C# and .NET in this case nodejs with Javascript is a better alternative. Since the PDF creation will just be a small component of the overall solution I’m trying to build I can still use C# for all of my other functions.

For Javascript there is a really good library that works both in the browser and the server using nodejs: https://github.com/bpampuch/pdfmake

This library works well with Azure Functions running in the consumption plan and allows easy document composing using a template.

So let’s create a new Azure Functions app. An intro into creating Azure Functions in general can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-create-first-function-vs-code?pivots=programming-language-javascript

After that we need to install the pdfmake library

npm install pdfmake — save

I wanted the actual PDF template to be hosted in Azure blob storage so I can easily update it. Therefore we need to add an input binding to Azure storage to retrieve the template in our function.json:

Here is a sample template, I’m using to create a voucher. Find the full reference for creating pdf with pdfmake here: https://pdfmake.github.io/docs/

So finally let’s put this all together in our function’s index.js

Voucher is a json object we are receiving in the body of the incoming post request. The pdf template is providing via an input binding. After replacing some placeholders with real values in the template we can create the pdf file using the method generatePDF and return it as http response.

And that’s it! Pretty simple eh? Now I can just call this function from other functions or from where ever.
Four Habits of Unsuccessful People
By: Tenzin Ozaki
Tags: Life Lessons, Self Improvement, Self, Habits, Life

I was having dinner with an old friend a week ago. It was the first time we had seen each other since graduating university — about three or four years.

Our friendship was the result of circumstance, not a genuine personal connection. We were simply two 21-year-olds trying to milk every last moment out of our university experience.

We were young, irresponsible, and aimless.

We studied. We worked out. We drank. We partied. Repeat.

We constrained our friendship within the limitations of our environment. When we graduated, and life pulled us in different directions, there was no reason for us to stay in touch.

So, I was a little surprised when he messaged me.

We sat at dinner, talking about our current lives. We started thinking about how different our lives would have been if we hadn’t abandoned the party lifestyle — if we hadn’t made the conscious decision to take the next steps and move forward in our lives.

We were a few of the fortunate ones who realized that drinking, partying, chasing girls, and lifting weights weren’t the only things that mattered in life.

Unfortunately, some of our friends still live that lifestyle well into their mid- and late- twenties. They’re out at the clubs (before COVID) buying bottles and doing drugs, going into debt to buy clothes and cars, taking steroids to stay fit despite an unhealthy lifestyle.

I run into them at bars sometimes, and it’s always the same everything. The same job. The same friends. The same problems. The same dreams.

I question the sense of satisfaction and fulfillment of this lifestyle. Their goals are to have fun in the short term at the expense of long term success. And as my friend and I reminisced about old times, I started to think about the massive differences between my habits then and now — between my old self and my current self.
Manually upgrading to Android 4.2.1
By: Kim T
Tags: Custom, Android, Rom, Developer, HTC

If you are an avid Android user you will find the lack of updates to certain phone models frustrating. Manufacturers such as HTC and Samsung only support updates to supported phones and if you are one of the unlucky ones, you won’t see the amazing new features of Android.



I am one of those Desire HD owners, which despite being a top end phone of it’s time and fully capable of supporting Android 4, is not ever going to be supported.



Here is how to manually upgrade.



1) First root your phone. The Advance Ace Kit is good for Desire HD

http://tau.shadowchild.nl/aahk



2) Then unlock your phone. Easy-S Off is good for Android 2.2 or lower

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=855403



3) Visit the xda forums and download a new img rom. I am using AOSP-4.2.1 which works really well!

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2003273



4) Download the Rom and the google app zip files to your computer e.g.

Rom: http://downloads.codefi.re/synergy/codefireX-Ace/cfx_ace-4.2-BR4.zip

Apps: http://goo.im/devs/KonstantinKeller/mako/gapps/gapps-4.2-JOP40C-121116.zip



5) Connect your phone via USB cable and mount the SD card as a drive. Copy the two zip files onto the route and name the Rom as update.zip.



6) Reboot your phone in Recovery Mode and first select backup phone. After backing up the phones current files, select wipe data / factory reset



7) Now select apply update.zip and wait for the files to be extracted to your phone. Then hit reboot and do the same again to apply google apps zip file to your phone. Happy days
Developer Envisions Bitcoin Dead Man’s Switch
By: Robert Hoogendoorn
Tags: Joost Jager, Lapps, Bitcoin, Lightning Network

Dutch developer Joost Jager believes a dead man’s switch could be made for Bitcoin holders using the Lightning Network. When someone sets up the dead man’s switch they need to confirm that they are alive periodically. As soon as they are unable to do so, the system will send a message to those inheriting the holdings using the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

Jager showcased his idea at the Advancing Bitcoin event in London. Together with a group of developers he explored building a dead man’s switch using the Lightning Network as a messaging system. This secret message can be a code to a safe, a private key to a cryptocurrency wallet or just an explanation on where to find the information that’s needed.

A dead man’s switch isn’t new. Edward Snowden used one in case he would be dead before his information could reach journalists. Also John McAfee claims to have one set in place. Building one that works through the Lightning Network means that no third party is required to keep the information secret. It allows privacy for all involved as well.

If one doesn’t want to set up their own server to act as a Dead Men’s Button and use a third party instead, it is necessary to incentivize the third party. Lightning as a payment system can serve this goal. Other useful characteristics of Lightning are that it allows the sender to remain private and the attachment of custom data to a payment. Joost Jager, Github description

Joost Jager and Whatsat

Jager has been developing on the Lightning Network for some time now. Last year he released a concept for a messaging program named Whatsat, which allows for encrypted private messaging without any storage on centralized servers. In addition everything is routed through the TOR network.

Even though the current version of the Lightning Network allows such communication to be free, it’s unlikely it will stay like this. That’s why Jager created a paid version of Whatsat. Here people need to pay 0.3 satoshis per message, giving a small fee to the nodes carrying the data. At the current rate that would be $0.00003 per message. If someone would send 90 messages per day, the messaging app would cost 1 dollar per year.

What is the Lightning Network?

The Lightning Network is a second layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. In this case we are talking about the Bitcoin network, but technically the Lightning Network can run on top of any blockchain. It’s a payment protocol for fast transactions between participating nodes. Many developers believe the Lightning Network to be a solution for the scaling problems that Bitcoin is facing.

What the Lightning Network does, is creating a temporary communication channel between two parties. Here these two parties can make as many transactions as they want. Only after closing the channel, the nodes can communicate the outcome of these transactions to the Bitcoin network. As a result a transaction on the Lightning Network only needs to cost a fraction of a cent.
Recipe 25: Steak Tacos with Guacamole
By: Sarah Charles
Tags: Recipe, Food, Cooking, Intentional Life, Marriage

What You’ll Need

For Steak…

Sirloin (8–16 oz) — size depending on how many you are feeding. It’s killer leftover, too.

Chili Powder (1 teaspoon)

Salt (1/4 teaspoon)

Pepper (1/4 teaspoon)

Lime, cut into wedges (1 medium-size)

Sour Cream (1/4 cup)

Corn Tortillas

Cast Iron Skillet or any Non-Stick Skillet

Cooking Spray

For Guacamole…

Avocado, ripe (1 medium)

Onion, chopped (1/4 cup)

Tomato, chopped (1/4 cup)

Lime juice (1 teaspoon)

Salt, to taste

How We Did It

Begin by removing avocado flesh from skin. Mash until smooth.

2. Add chopped onions, chopped tomatoes, and lime juice and mix thoroughly. Place in fridge.

3. Mix together chili powder, salt, and pepper. Rub it into both sides of the steak.

(Note: Trim fat off of sirloin if necessary (or desired).)

4. Coat your cast iron skillet (or non-stick skillet) with cooking spray and heat to medium-high heat.

5. Grill both sides of the steak for 7 minutes per side (or until it is to your liking).

6. Remove the steak from the skillet, let the meat rest for 5 minutes, and carve into thin slices.

7. Warm your tortillas by heating a separate pan on low-medium heat. Heat on both sides for around 2 minutes (or until they are to your liking).

8. Add steak, sour cream, guacamole, and lime (juice) on top of tortillas.

9. Enjoy!

A Final Note

Aaron and I had so much fun cooking this recipe together. We loved putting our own spin on it but we do need to give credit where it is due. Find the original recipe here:

Be sure to follow Cooking With Sarah for weekly recipes and stories! If you liked this particular post, send some love and give it a few claps. Happy cooking!
We Waste Hope on Hopeless Things
By: D Abboh
Tags: Poetry, Prose, Self Love, Hope, Heartbreak

We waste hope on hopeless things. Like a man being able to save a woman like me.

Like when you’re adrift in an Ocean of misery, and your lungs are flooded with waves after endless waves of grief with every, single, breath you take — until drowning becomes your only reality. A willing man, starts to look like a life raft to a woman like me.

We waste hope on hopeless things. Like a man being able to save a woman like me.

So in desperate need of a glimmer of hope, you clung to that raft like he was a lighthouse guiding you home. You let him bring you back to lifes shores, lay you down and give you mouth to mouth until the icebox around your heart began to melt — and you could feel your heart beating once more.

We waste hope on hopeless things. Like a man being able to save a woman like me.

So you spent hour’s and days and weeks and nights, wrapped up in something in his eyes, spilling drunken confessions from your guts, telling him you just needed a touch of love, not seeing that he was oblivious — as he gazed from your breasts down to between your thighs, speaking of wild thoughts running all through his mind.

We waste hope on hopeless things. Like a man being able to save a woman like me.

Still, you loved and loved and loved some more, you felt alive like never before. You found yourself building foundations out of sand, trying to make a home out of a willing man. That should have been the first red flag, people aren’t home’s — but you already knew that. So you built and built and built alone, turned around — and found him gone. Salt water on your tongue and in your eyes, knee deep at the mercy of the Oceans tide.

We waste hope on hopeless things. Like a man being able to save a woman like me.

Now you watch the sun set, forget the things you should regret. Pin your hopes on new beginnings in the morning, a different you — another way, pick your battles and come what may, your tired bones don’t let you down, you set fires to memories and build from the ash, letting go of somebody that you used to know, you close the door — you’re already home.

We wasted hope on hopeless things. A man can’t save a woman like me.
Cold Stillness
By: William J Spirdione
Tags: Sonnet, Winter, Poetry, Nature, Emotions

Cold Stillness

A sonnet

photo by William J Spirdione

Sometimes a cold stillness on the inside,

Cries out for cold stillness on the outside.

Time to put on some boots and quickly stride,

Into the woods where some peace doth abide.

Winter sun shines on frozen beaver pond,

Green needles stabbing at the bluest sky.

Long branches held high across the beyond,

Wishing downcast feelings a quick good bye.

Stare into the endless tangled branches,

Leaves long lost sunk beneath the shallow ice.

Red frozen twigs and yellowed grass dances,

Between stumps and logs, their placement precise.

To some it’s a boring, quiet still scene.

To others, it might be calm and serene.
มีเงินแต่ไม่รู้จะซื้อหุ้นอะไร ให้ ML มาทำนายช่วยเลือกหุ้นที่ทำกำไรให้ดีกว่า
By: Chayanis Tuntearapong
Tags: Botnoi Classroom, Stocks, Data Science, Time Series Analysis

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

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