fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
The Fascinating Mystery of the Black Clouds of 536 AD
By: Mythili The Dreamer
Tags: History, Life, Culture, Travel, World

The Fascinating Mystery of the Black Clouds of 536 AD

Mysterious black clouds appeared in 536 AD that changed history dramatically.

Image Credits : TheVintageNews-536AD

In the summer of 536, strange black clouds appeared in the skies over much of Southern Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. Also known as the ‘veil of dust’, it plunged all the world into gloomy years of cold and darkness for more than 18 months. As medieval historian Michael McCormick says about the event.

“It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year.”

There were a lot of other disastrous events that may have resulted from these ominous clouds. A deadly pandemic swept through the Byzantine Empire in 541–542, which became known as the Justinian Plague. A third of the population perished during the outbreak.

Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell to 1.5°C — 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. The Irish chronicles record ‘a failure of bread from the years 536–539.’In China in 536 AD, there was famine and drought all around with reports of a ‘yellow dust that rained down like snow.’ On the other hand, unusually heavy snowfalls were noted in Mesopotamia.

Scandinavia was devastated with 75% of its villages abandoned by the Swedes to search for more fertile lands beyond. A Norse record describes the event as ‘The sun turns black, earth sinks in the sea. Down from heaven, stars are whirled.’

The severe changes in weather impacted every part of the world as human populations around the earth were disrupted and for many, it would have felt like the world was coming to an end.

What caused the occurrence of the mysterious black clouds? Experts are divided in their opinion.

One group says that the cause of all this misery might be one gigantic volcanic eruption, namely Ilopango in El Salvador. This could have resulted in a layer of ash and dust covering the skies of much of the Earth. Another group says the dark clouds occurred due to a near miss from a comet passing by that could have left thick dust clouds of particles in the atmosphere.

And recently, researchers based on data collected believe that the source of the mysterious clouds might have been two volcanic eruptions and not just one, one in 535 or 536 in the northern hemisphere and another in 539 or 540 in the tropics that kept temperatures icy cold till 550.

But the identities of both the volcanoes are unknown to date.
Dogs are the best
By: Tiffany Hsu
Tags: Pets, Haiku, Dogs, Animals, Poetry

Photo by Raquel Garcia on Unsplash

The best pets are dogs,

they can play, protect, and eat.

Then they take a shit.
I Am Joe Biden’s Cuneiform Bone
By: Judy Millar
Tags: News, Pets, Satire, Humor, Joe Biden

HUMOR | SATIRE

I Am Joe Biden’s Cuneiform Bone

And I’m here to demand recognition

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

My fellow Americans

I am speaking to you today — from inside a sweltering boot!! — to correct some egregious #FakeNews.

To wit:

Major the dog is not the face of this newsworthy foot fiasco. In fact, Major’s a minor player. He was simply doing his stupid ‘ball drop’ routine. It’s all he’s got, he needs new material. Major slipped on a throw rug. A throw rug! He wasn’t even running like a proper dog in a proper field. He just slipped and slid down a flat hallway like some kind of klutzy canine Gerald Ford. The President-elect then tripped on the rug on which Major slid — acting as the classic Laurel to Major’s Hardy. To his credit, he executed an applause-worthy airborne triple axel. Joe even stuck the landing. But I — an innocent intermediate cuneiform bone — bore the brunt. Clumsy-ass Major got his mug pictured on the front page of every news rag in America. Meanwhile, I suffer in silence.

No more! I want it known that:

I am single-footedly holding up the future President of the United States.

I am doing so from inside a boot. A stinky boot. Did you research this man’s foot hygiene before casting your vote? I didn’t think so.

boot. Did you research this man’s foot hygiene before casting your vote? I didn’t think so. I am willing to suffer for America. But I am not willing to suffer in silence. Major had his moment. I want mine.

Front page news! “Cuneiform Bone Comes Through for the Country”

Release the x-rays! Or I just might buckle.
ในการทำเว็บไซต์ ใครควรจะ slice รูป ?
By: Suranart Niamcome
Tags: CSS, Web Design, Coding

in In Fitness And In Health
What I Wish I Knew About Toddlers
By: Lana Graham
Tags: Parenting Advice, Love, Toddlers, Life Lessons, Parenting

What I Wish I Knew About Toddlers

Finding the pleasure in sticky hands and dirty feet

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

Toddlers are like old, drunk people. You can’t understand what they’re saying half the time. They fall over a lot. They get cranky for no reason. They poop their pants. But in the end, you can’t help but love them.

Before I had kids, I’d heard about the “terrible twos,” and witnessed a few odd temper tantrums in shopping centres. But what I didn’t know and wish someone had told me earlier are some less obvious things.

Toddlers are like puppies

After having kids, what struck me as weird was how toddlers follow you everywhere. It was kind of cute at first. Like a puppy who wants to be around its owner all the time.

But that got old real fast, especially when you just want to have a shower without a chubby, grubby face staring at you through the steamed-up glass screen. You know that won’t happen for at least another few years.

Toddlers are mini mess-making Houdinis

What I also didn’t know was the sheer amount of mess toddlers create all by themselves. You feel accomplished because you’ve managed to do a 15-minute tidy up of the lounge room. But when you turn around to bask in the cleanliness, you’re confronted with a room full of Lego pieces, pillows, empty toy boxes and food crumbs that lead straight to your toddler’s bedroom.

Upon entering your toddler’s bedroom, you’re confronted with more mess and wonder how on earth they managed to create such destruction in such a small amount of time. Pure magic.

Toddlers go from zero to crazy in five seconds flat

One second you’re feeding your happy toddler their favourite cracker snack, and the next your toddler is screaming their head off for no apparent reason. The reason, of course, is because you’ve served your toddler their snack on the blue plate instead of the pink plate. Big mistake.

Bad Parenting Award right there.

Toddlers will break your heart

Of course, there are many frustrating, anger-inducing and downright scary moments that your toddler may instil upon you. However, there are also those moments that literally break your heart from happiness.

The first time your toddler tells you, “I love you,” suddenly makes up for all those other crazy things they’ve done. Hearing those words makes everything else feel inconsequential. Everything is forgotten, your toddler is forgiven and you are at one with each other.

At least for that tiny moment, until they manage to sneak into the kitchen pantry and spill a whole box of cereal on the floor that you’ve just finished vacuuming and mopping.
Home
By: Tre L. Loadholt
Tags: Children, Love, Fiction, Home, A Cornered Gurl

Home

Part VI: Farewell Family (Isaiah & Theo)

Courtesy of Pinterest

Today is the day. We are leaving. Our Mom called two days ago and said we had to come home. There is a surprise, we are told. I hate to cut our trip short. Nan and Aunt Josephine had a big two weeks planned for Theo and I. That’s all we had left, two weeks. Now, we are leaving sooner than that. I am not happy, not because we are leaving early, but because I believe this surprise could have been discussed over the phone.

We already know about Dad’s new placement. He accepted a job in Hartford, Connecticut. Cold weather, blistering Winters.

*sighs*

I am a boy of the South. I am not made for the North.

Courtesy of Pinterest

I don’t know why Izzy’s so fussy. I can’t wait to hear what this surprise is! I wonder if they got us a puppy! Ooh, a puppy would be great! I would name him Charmer. Nan says, “Theo, you are a charmer, baby. A charmer!” When she tells me that, her face is full of Christmas. There is enough happiness there to get a sweet tooth. Auntie Josephine tells Nan, “Don’t go gassing the boy’s head up, Pip. Let him keep some humility about himself.”

I don’t know what Auntie Josephine means. I thought humidity meant hot. I thought grown ups put gas in cars. She confuses me. But, I do wanna know about this surprise. Mama said she has to show us, she can’t tell us.

I am excited!
What Story Am I Going to Write for the Next Chapter of My Life?
By: Yael Wolfe
Tags: Self, Feminism, Reflections, This Happened To Me, Birthday

Photo from author’s family collection

For much of my young life, I couldn’t wait to be 30. I believed, for a long time, that that was going to be an incredible time in my life. I imagined I would understand the world so well, I’d have exorcised my demons, and I’d finally overcome my insecurities. In other words, I’d be perfect — beautiful, thin, happily married, well fucked, financially stable, and maternally realized.

As it turned out, 30 was a shitshow as was pretty much the entire decade that followed. Because life is a shitshow. Which is totally okay and normal and not really that big a deal if we learn that early on and stop trying to make something else out of it. Shitshows can be pretty amazing if we learn to adapt, flex, relax, sidestep, and you know…duck.

My forties, as it turns out, have been pretty great. Not because anything was better than it was before. (Again: shitshow.) But because I stopped expecting things to be like a Hallmark movie. I stopped believing that if I could just “figure things out,” I’d be a lot happier.

Nope, I just started accepting that I was going to have to find ways to be happy in the midst of the struggles and hardships and accidents and earthquakes.

My story became less about what I’m supposed to do and aspire to as a woman in her forties and more about what I want. I know what you’re thinking: Is that even allowed? For women to write their story according to what they want? I’m going to be bold and say, “Fuck yes, that’s allowed. And it always was. And always should have been.”

Of course, there will be lots of people who will disagree with you if you take this stance. Our culture does not like women who are their own masters. We prefer them to sacrifice their wants and needs in order to take care of their children, their spouses, their pets, their aging parents, and their communities. If a woman finds herself in a different kind of plotline (either by circumstance or choice), it tends to stir up a lot of discomfort in others.

Honestly, I don’t like this part of writing this unknown story of a single, childless woman in her forties. I don’t like the criticisms, I don’t like the judgments, and I especially don’t like the fact that so many people think that I ought to strive for their approval. Though I have seen some finger-wagging at men who don’t “settle down with a nice woman,” in general, we don’t feel entitled to voice our opinions or criticisms about the way men live their lives. We certainly shouldn’t be subjecting women to this nonsense.

But I think the best way to push back against this sexism is to just keep pen to paper and continue on with our stories, ignoring the detractors, commentators, and critics. They’re comfortable with the accepted plotline for women and would like you to just toe that line, please.

It is hard for them to imagine that a woman over 40 can be anything she wants to be.
INVEST WITH US, ONE TREE AT A TIME
Tags: Carbon Emissions, Forest, Cryptocurrency, Carbon Footprint, Bitcoin

The global carbon credit industry is a billion-dollar industry having crossed a sum total of financial transactions of over $48 billion in 2017. Despite this advancing industry, environment experts and agencies have questioned the emission trading in prohibiting the emission of greenhouse gases. This industry is filled with obstacles and errors causing a hindrance to its efficient advancement.

In light of the problems prevalent in the current carbon credit industry, Forest Foundation offers a platform to release carbon credits that have real underlying forests. The foundation will purchase real forests around the world and issue carbon offset tokens against them. Additionally, Forest Foundation offers a Proof-of-Forest protocol for public use. The Proof-of-Forest protocol makes real-time tracking of forests and plantations feasible by using satellite imagery, title records to prove ownership, and annual taxes to ensure continuous maintenance of forests.

Their one of a kind and progressive blockchain technology enables this. Forest Foundation will list FRST tokens on FreedomDex, allowing traders as well as emitters to purchase tokens efficiently. FRST tokens will be available against all the major cryptocurrencies listed on FreedomDex Exchange including BTC, ETH, LTC, DOGE, XRP, and fiat currencies.

Forest Foundation is introducing an extraordinary ecosystem that issues private carbon offset tokens that are backed by real forests. This Initial Coin Offering will help the Foundation raise funds to purchase forests around the world.

The mission of this distinctive project is unlike any project out there, aiming to contribute to the health of the Earth by preserving and maintaining forests around the globe . The Forest Foundation is creating reliable carbon credits through their efficient blockchain technology that are guaranteed to have a truly positive environmental impact.

Forest Foundation uses blockchain technology to hold data pertaining to the ownership of forests, which includes forest ownership records, annual tax records, and satellite images to prove its existence.

Forest Foundation also offers its investors a chance to give back to our planet earth and help make a difference and bring about a change. By investing in the Forest ICO, one is helping repopulate the current depleting forests around the world and helping save our plane. By being a part and investing in this ICO, you too can now help save our planet one tree at a time.

For more information, visit https://forest.io/.

You can also connect with the team on Telegram, Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. And be sure to subscribe to our newsletter below for important updates!
How Can You Shange for life?
By: Bhupinder Sandhu
Tags: Lifehacks, Life Lessons, Positive Thinking, Positive Psychology, Positivity

One good thought can change your life in seconds!

I often get asked, why is my life is like this or why I’m in this situation? And my simple answer to these questions is that your life and situations are the reflection of your thoughts and actions. Or simply put, your life is the manifestation of where you have focused your energy throughout your life. Helpful and productive thoughts bring positivity and positive colours in your life and when you follow then by a positive action, it not only adds value to your life and of others, but it also creates an inner peace.

It is very simple but most ignored fact that your thoughts give birth to your actions. You need to watch your thinking pattern; it will tell you your untold story which you all want the answers for. Out of our average 60,000 thousand thoughts per day 70% are negative, this is a big indicator of the direction our life state. Slowly with effort, practice to bring more positivity in your life, more you water more it would grow and soon you will have a field of positive flowers. To get there you would need the tools of patience and persistence.

Living life in the field of these positive flowers protects you from the thorns of negativity, hatred, jealousy, and other low frequency feelings. And if you get few you can consciously dig them out when they are small. With time you will become an effective farmer who would know his crop and strong enough to protect his crop. When you develop the habit of thinking good, your mind gets full of good and with a good positive mindset, you would be able to see good in everything.

Positivity fills your life with freshness, you zeal to live and look forward to every moment of life and what it brings, you look forward to every new day of life. When you follow your thoughts with subsequent actions, you add value to the universe, to your life and to the life of others. These actions help, uplift, and encourage others. This would bring true satisfaction and sense of accomplishment.

Always watch your thoughts, practice to fill your mind with positive, helping, and uplifting thoughts. And let your actions add value to the lives of others. Only positive thoughts and actions can make a positive difference, which this world needs the most at this moment of time.
Machine Learning: Dimensionality Reduction via Principal Component Analysis
By: Benjamin Obi Tayo Ph.D.
Tags: Machine Learning, Pca, Iris Dataset, Predictive Model, Feature Extraction

Dimensionality Reduction | Towards AI

In machine learning, a dataset containing features (predictors) and discrete class labels (for a classification problem such as logistic regression); or features and continuous outcomes (for a linear regression problem), is used to build a predictive model that can make predictions on unseen data. The predictive power of a model depends greatly on the quality and size of the training dataset.

Generally, the larger the dataset the better, however, there is always going to be a tradeoff between the size of the dataset and computational time needed for training. It turns out that in some very large datasets, there might be lots of redundancy in the features or lots of unimportant features in the dataset, and hence dimensionality reduction techniques could be used for selecting only a limited number of relevant features needed for training.

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a statistical method that is used for feature extraction. PCA is used for high-dimensional and correlated data. The basic idea of PCA is to transform the original space of features into the space of principal components, as shown below:

Figure 1: PCA algorithm transforms from old to new feature space so as to remove feature correlation. Picture adapted from: “Python Machine Learning by Sebastian Raschka”

A PCA transformation achieves the following:

a) Reduce the number of features to be used in the final model by focusing only on the components accounting for the majority of the variance in the dataset.

b) Removes the correlation between features.

How does PCA work?

To illustrate how PCA works, we show an example by examining the iris dataset.

The code can be found on GitHub.

Let us look at the covariance matrix:

This table shows strong correlations between original features in the Iris dataset.

This figure is a matrix plot that shows scatter plots, density plots, and correlation coefficients between original features. Notice the strong correlations between original features.

Let us now examine the transformed covariance matrix:

This table shows zero correlations between transformed features.

This figure is a matrix plot that shows scatter plots, density plots, and correlation coefficients between principal components. We see that the correlation between features has been removed.

Here is a summary of helpful indicators from a PCA calculation:

Summary of importance of components.

Based on this summary, we see that 99.5 percent of the variance is contributed by the first three principal components. This means that in the final model, the fourth principal component PC4 could be dropped since its contribution to the variance is negligible.

In summary, we have shown how the PCA algorithm can be implemented in R using the iris dataset for illustrative purposes. You can download the code on GitHub.

Thanks for reading.
Proud to Be a Librarian
By: Jack Herlocker
Tags: Librarians Rock, No Crime In Rhymin, Better Reading, Better Be Quiet, Better Thinking

If tomorrow I was stuck at work

I can’t imagine that

I’d be afraid to take them on

’Cause I’m a tough old bat

I worked real hard to now become

The person whom you see

’Cause I’m the sort who says both “R”s

When pronouncing “library”

And I’m proud to be a librarian

Where the books I loan are free

And I’m grateful to my Aunt Lucille

Who got this job for me

And I’d gladly stand and SHUSH! you all

If you have too loud a say,

And the penalty is fifty cents

If your books aren’t back today.
Phases of the Day:
By: Carol Burt
Tags: Dawn, Poetry On Medium, Poetry Prompt, Poetry

Phases of the Day:

DAWN

Oh, how I love you

Sweet beautiful dawn

With your glorious hue

Across the eastern sky

Warmly you kiss the dew

You expose, chase away

Things hidden

With glorious light of day

Filled with hope as you are

The darkness doesn’t dare

Though it’s left its mark

Deep down in my soul

Clouds collide with images stark

Surely they will take their toll

Laying awaiting the return of dark

Through the beauty of your stay

Dear hopeful energetic dawn

I miss you almost every day

Because to finally get awake

I’m always woefully too slow

Your first blush is quick to go

But you’ve left your full light

Now I know it will be alright

Though slithering dark awaits

Only just barely out of sight

Bright sun blocks the gates

To hell

For now

Timothy O’Neill
How to Enable Run-Mode Specific Servlets in AEM?
By: Albin Issac
Tags: Aem, Programming, CMS, Software Development, Technology

How to Enable Run-Mode Specific Servlets in AEM?

Enable Run-Mode Specific Servlets in AEM

Servlets are one of the important building blocks of the AEM system to enable the AEM system interacts with external applications, servlets can expose data with external applications also data to be consumed by the Font-End layer.

Some of the time, we may have the use case to enable the servlets based on the run mode(author, publish, etc)of the AEM server, for example, the servlet should be enabled only in the servers with run mode publish or should be enabled only in servers with run mode dev.

In this tutorial, let us see the details on enabling the Servlets in AEM based on the run mode.

The ConfigurationPolicy helps to set the policy for the components through DS annotation.

The configurationPolicy controls whether component configurations must be satisfied depending on the presence of a corresponding Configuration object in the OSGi Configuration Admin service(osgi:config). A corresponding configuration is a Configuration object where the PID is the name of the component.

ConfigurationPolicy.IGNORE — Always allow the component configuration to be satisfied and do not use the corresponding Configuration object even if it is present.

ConfigurationPolicy.OPTIONAL — Use the corresponding Configuration object if present but allow the component to be satisfied even if the corresponding Configuration object is not present.

ConfigurationPolicy.REQUIRE — There must be a corresponding Configuration object for the component configuration to become satisfied.

By specifying the configuration policy as REQUIRE the component will be enabled only when the configuration(osgi:config) is available for the specific run mode otherwise the component will be unsatisfied.

By following this, we should be able to enable the Servlets on specific run mode, create the configuration(osgi:config) for the servlet PID on required run modes so the servlet will be enabled for those specific run modes and disabled on other run modes.

Created a servlet(RunModeBasedServlet.java) and enabled the ConfigurationPolicy as REQUIRE

After deployment, the servlet is “unsatisfied” state and will not be accessible through http://localhost:4503/bin/demopathbasedservlet

Let us now create a osgi:config for the Servlet(PID — com.sample.servlets.RunModeBasedServlet), I want this servlet only enabled for “publish” run mode so creating the config node only for publish node under my project(/apps/weretail/config.publish)

Now the servlet is active for publish run modes and accessible through the URL(http://localhost:4503/bin/demopathbasedservlet)

Enable the osgi:config node for required run modes so the servlet will be active for that specific run mode and disabled for remaining run modes. The same approach can be used to enable or disable any components based on the runmode.

Happy learning, feel free to provide your comments.
A Hiding Place
By: John Ross
Tags: Inspiration, Self, Christianity, Religion, This Happened To Me

Trials come. And the reality is, trials often overcome us.

As much as we desire to be overcomers and conquerors, sometimes, we’re just not. We fail. We get overtaken. We experience loss.

Pain and suffering come to those who least deserve it. Death comes at the wrong times. And losses that can never be replaced enter our lives.

While reading in the Psalms, I came across this passage:

“Surely when the great waters of trial and distressing times overflow, they will not reach the spirit in him.” (Psalm 32:6, Amplified Bible).

There is no denial from the Psalmist of the ability of trials to overflow over one’s life.

And yet, in this drowning of one submerged, the water can still not touch one’s spirit.

We can’t explain away tragedy.

But we can hope that when trials come and when waters overwhelm, there is still a spirit inside of us that remains whole, at peace, and content amongst the chaos and loss.

In the next verse, the Psalmist states:

“You are my hiding place.” (Psalm 32:7, Amplified Bible).

A beautiful thing to know, when you’re overwhelmed — when you’re drowning in the trials of life. When there’s nowhere to go… there’s still a place to hide.
The Unofficial Weekly Stratis Retrospect #72 — Khilone
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Stratis, Bitcoin, Stratisweekly

It’s time for The Unofficial Weekly Stratis Retrospect #72.

For anyone wanting to read my previous blogs, you can find them all here.

Disclaimer: Never take anything I say (or anyone else on the Internet says) to be investment advice. Consult with a professional, and extensively do your own research before ever investing into anything.

Release Date For Cirrus Sidechain Masternodes

Last week Stratis announced the official release date for the Cirrus Sidechain Masternodes. They will be released on the 1st of July this year.

This release includes Stratis Smart Contracts in C# and will be made available for community testing two weeks prior on the 17th June 2019 to allow Masternode Operators to familiarize themselves with operating a Sidechain Masternode and to allow users to interact with the Cirrus Sidechain.

You can read the full announcement here.

Stratis Report By Nik Patel

Nik Patel‏ is the author of ‘An Altcoins Trader’s Handbook’ and a respected person in the crypto space. Recently he released his 21th Coin Report and this time its about $STRAT. In the 6,000 words report, Nik dives into all aspects of its fundamentals, as well as its price history. You can read the full report here.

He graded Stratis a 9 out of 10.

The project is fundamentally solid with no critical flaws: price is attractive; liquidity/volume is high; the leadership shows commitment to hitting deadlines, informing the community and pushing the project forward; development is consistent; community is highly-engaged and growing. Some minor imperfections in fundamental or technical soundness.

Thank you, Nik for making this independent review of $STRAT.

Binance also added the Stratis report to their info page.

Development

Last week Kees de Wit from SolarisCoin, a project that most likely is going to move over to the Stratis Blockchain shared his opinion on their products. The best feedback one can get.

Articles On Publish0x

Last week the following articles about Stratis were released on Publish0x:

Thanks to community members Chrispop and Bogdanel for writing them.

GLUON

GLUON is a verified ICO on the Stratis Platform. Last week, GLUON released new information about their project:

That’s it for now. All the best to everyone!

Khilone

Follow me on Twitter to get all the news right away: https://twitter.com/Khil0ne

And be sure to read all my stories on Medium over here:

https://medium.com/khilone

Other things to keep your eyes on:
#WhatIWantedToWear: The Skin I’m In
Tags: WhatIWantedToWear, Body Image, Transgender

RuPaul once said “we all come into the world naked and the rest is drag.” In thinking about what I wanted to wear, I found that what resonated most deeply wasn’t how I dressed my body up in drag, but how I felt about my body itself. As a survivor of body terrorism, I often think about whose bodies are devalued, criminalized and ultimately destroyed.

While I have learned to celebrate my body, the journey to radical self love wasn’t easy. In fact for the majority of my life I internalized the shame of being too fat, too black and too intersex for mainstream America. Everyday in ways big and small I was told that my body didn’t belong in their bathrooms, on their airplanes and especially not on their runways. However since relocating to NYC earlier this summer I’ve become one of the first plus size trans models of color.

I believe that when we show up whole and authentically we allow others to do the same. That’s why I’ve decided to unapologetically display my dark skin, my stretch marks and all my lovely lady lumps. This nude self portrait has become one of my favorite pictures because it signifies the moment when I learned to love my body in all of it’s melanated glory. So if anyone else asks me WIWTW, my answer will definitively be #TheSkinImIn.
Code Snippet: Keep Sidebar Elements in View When Scrolling
Tags: Css3, JavaScript, Tutorials

Whether it is a list of products you are promoting, published ads or other elements on the sidebar, you will likely want to have these elements in view at all times even when scrolling. By using JQuery, you can make this possible.

To do this, use the code snippet below:

//keep element in view

(function($)

{

$(document).ready( function()

{

var elementPosTop = $('#sidebar-ads').position().top;

$(window).scroll(function()

{

var wintop = $(window).scrollTop(), docheight = $(document).height(), winheight = $(window).height();

//if top of element is in view

if (wintop > elementPosTop)

{

//always in view

$('#sidebar-ads').css({ "position":"fixed", "top":"10px" });

}

else

{

//reset back to normal viewing

$('#sidebar-ads').css({ "position":"inherit" });

}

});

});

})(jQuery);

The above code can also be made into a JQuery plug-in and used on WordPress sites.

Here is the plug-in version of the above code:
The end of Customer Experience, UX and Service Design is near. Deal with it.
By: Luis Alt
Tags: Innovation, UX, User Experience, Service Design, Customer Experience

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. Customer Experience, UX and Service Design help organizations to provide excellent services. We do it in different ways, but that’s what we do. Not for much longer.

We used to have few interactions with organizations

Not so long ago, people used to have someone to do all their small tasks for them. Things like booking flights, canceling meetings, remembering important dates and even shopping gifts. They were called secretaries, but they are not so popular anymore since resource optimization was a thing in the past decades. Also, new tools came up. Calendars, e-mails, online shopping, web check-ins, etc. We got used to doing everything on our own. And with services cutting down on staff and automating everything, customer experience and service design appeared as the answer to simplify ever growing complex structures to clients. It just made sense and, to be honest, feels good to help companies be more efficient and yet more attractive. It’s a win-win outcome: customers are happier and companies more profitable.



With AI and personal assistants popping up everywhere, I’ll sure be out of work soon. It’s not that some robot will steal my job as it is stealing the one of drivers and cashiers. It’s just that I don’t see many services interacting so much with people anymore.

One interface to rule them all

Let’s imagine the following. You had to delay a meeting one day which made it impossible for you to take a flight home on the same day and get to your partner’s birthday. You would still call your wife/husband to tell him/her what happened but, in a perfect world, would you…

• change your flight to the next day

• postpone meetings on the next morning

• buy a better present to your partner (right?)

• make reservations at an exclusive restaurant back home

• book another night on your hotel

• order dinner

• reschedule your airport shuttle

…or would prefer to have your ai-powered assistant do that for you instead with one simple request? (and you're done!)

Most service interactions will happen backstage. We’ll ask Siri/Alexa/Google/etc. and they will deal with the providers for us. Experiences will be flawless and smooth. We’ll be happy. Companies will be more efficient. Win-win-win-win.

So, in the future, service designers will be responsible for orchestrating “Service API’s.” And taking care of the few physical touchpoints that will remain, might be an intern’s job only.

Real service design will take place at Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and a few others only. We will talk to them; they will deal with the rest for us.

Of course, this is an exaggeration. But, is it? What do you think?
Latest picks: What does GPT-3 mean for AI?
By: Tds Editors
Tags: The Daily Pick

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Interlude
By: Leila Wu
Tags: Fiction, Short Story

I woke up to blackness. That was pretty common. My room had six windows exact. I could barely see the moon, save for when I pointed at it. I let my head leave the pillow for a minute as my eyes adjusted. There was a tiny monkey in my room, fast asleep. He looked so peaceful resting there, breathing in, breathing out. I heard a whisper come from what seemed to be outside my room: “Monkey. Monkey.” Did I just say that or was it coming from outside? No, it was outside, I’m sure of it. I heard the voice again call the monkey. I sat up in bed and pulled the covers a bit closer to my chest. My throat was tightening. Still the voice kept calling the monkey. At first the sounds seemed to come from nowhere in particular, then they were distinctly traveling through each of my six windows. The voice was consistent. So was the monkey, at every call he fidgeted and adjusted his sleeping position, but then continued to snooze. I started to feel anxious as the voice got louder. “Monkey! Monkey!” It was so loud I’m sure the moon could hear it. Through one window, through the next. Just as I was about to open my mouth and scream I saw a hand come through the window, grab the monkey by its neck and lift it up. “Oh monkey! There you are!”
OUR VISION
By: Cp Processor Team
Tags: Cryptocurrency, ICO, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Token Sale

Focus on global payments by decentralized lightspeed network and “world’s single coin” with stable tokens model.

The Coin Payment Processor Project aims to improve and change three very important and closely related functionalities that will significantly change the global economy and trade that we know today. Beside the fact that all three functionalities have strong correlation and connection, if they are combined, a new dimension will be created, that will change the work of banks, card payment systems, merchants and ordinary people all around the globe.

The evolution of money is inevitable and it is only a matter of days when a decentralized universal world currency will finally come to life. We are also witnesses of the first examples of free payment without borders, which are done instantly and without a bunch of intermediaries. Also, cryptocurrencies are one step away from getting the role of real money. The Coin Payment Processor Project is therefore on its way to connect all missing links and create a new dimension of global payment.

Coin Payment Processor Project = Cryptocurrency as money+Free international payments+Decentralized universal currency

In blockchain We trust!
A Chapter?
Tags: Writing Prompt Response, Poetry, Sky Collection, Covid 19, America

Is this the book you read and loved

until that one chapter that

was horror in print,

inked nightmares,

before the tale returned

to that sweet story

that we all want,

cause we need confirmation

that life is good and

endings are happy and

what we believe is truly

noble and honest and

will survive the

obligatory conflict?

Or is this a series,

tome after tome like the

Encyclopædia Britannica

that lined my childhood case,

but not facts or truth or knowledge,

just jumbled lies, nonsensical theories,

and the nightmare that never ends,

not a lone chapter, not a

conflict that resolves,

not a happy ending?

Some pains don’t end,

some hurts don’t heal,

people die, civilizations disappear,

history not heeded,

lessons not learned,

knowledge not imparted,

we are not invincible

and not all that special.

That line’s been crossed —

the one in the sand or the stone,

across your back or against

your throat, the line that once

separated us from them

and doesn’t anymore,

we’ve crossed to the

side of the doomed

because we weren’t so

blessed after all.

Why should we expect rainbows

when there are concentration camps

and wars and children in cages

and dead dissenters and the helpless

who say I can’t breathe

when we breathe and dance and

pretend everyone does?

Too many died alone in a country

that denied their lives and their deaths,

too many suffered when their suffering

was unnecessary, avoidable,

and controllable,

when truth and justice

waited to be held aloft

while too many litigated,

agitated, and negated

all we once held as self-evident.

A needle won’t stop the bleed

or the contamination

or the damnation.

Sorry, not a chapter,

not a piece but the whole,

someone wrote us into the

story without our consent,

and we can’t stop the ending.

© Dennett 2020
[Wallet] Why an investor must use IONIA -investment information -
Tags: Bitcoin, Wallet

This is IONIA :)

There’s a lot of information in the uncertain market for cryptocurrency.

It’s too hard to find or analyze technical and difficult information among those.

Blockchain technology is evolving, and good news comes out.

If I don’t know if they’re good or bad, I’ll end up losing them.

The place where you can view this information is easy and convenient is…

It’s an Ionia wallet(Platform)

Ionia has a plan to move to the platform at Multi-Wallet.

Beyond storing tokens and coins, we plan to provide investment indicators to ensure that we make the right investments in the crypto market.

Ionia thought that all users should be able to get investment information on crypto assets (token/coin) fairly.

The current asymmetric problem of information asymmetry!

Although the data associated with the difficult technology of the block chain are open, these data are hard to see by people looking to invest in crypto market.

Information is pouring out from various channels.

Unstructured data not regularly accumulated needs to be processed with investment information

Ionia,

We want to visualize this data in a way that’s easy for everyone to see and provide investment information.

If so,

Users can make investments faster and easier using the data provided by the IONIA.

<List of Ionia information sources>

Basic information about crypto assets:

Detects changes such as cryptographic asset issuance and incineration, and github history changes.

About Blockchain:

Detects changes in block size, number of transactions, transit time, transaction costs, etc.

Detection of key crypto asset addresses:

Transmits of crypted assets such as the Exchange, Whales, ICO Foundation, etc.

Exchange Information:

Detects changes in the volume of crypto assets listed on the existing exchange, price changes, and context of adding new crypto assets

Article Information:

Key articles on crypto assets worldwide
An Abundant Holiday Wish
By: Trista Ainsworth
Tags: Joy, Abundance, Poetry, Poetry On Medium, Wishes

My wish for you today sparkles bright,

The planets are to align tonight,

Bringing us closer to our dreams,

This universe is more than it seems.

My wish for you today is one of peace,

May your abundance increase,

Bringing you closer to your goals,

This universe is more than the stories it extols.

My wish for you today is one of joy,

I extend to you gifts that you can enjoy,

Bringing you closer to your desires,

This universe gives us all the love we require.

My wish for you today is one of appreciation,

All of us are grateful for our good situation,

On this planet spinning of blue,

This universe always has beauty for you.
I, Gertrude
By: Raffaella Ferretti
Tags: Women, Feminine, Poetry, Life, Literature

Behind the ear,

with the finger, I enter the curl

and I play with it, more and more

forgetful of doing it.

Sitting at the desk,

suspended in the morning light,

I see the night

not far away.

A sharp sound of a shot…

They run away, but

the Sun is high

and do not reach it.

The curl has unrolled,

unraveled, defiantly unfolded.

The finger drowns in the black and

then touches the white.

It is a clear imprint:

a sign I observe to fetch redemption,

but the possible is rampant,

it expands too much.

Then, the finger spills the ink

submerging everything

in the obscurity and

while this existence falls

annihilated in a black lake,

time continues and goes.
This week in #Scala (Jul 8, 2019)
By: Petr Zapletal
Tags: Distributed Systems, Sbt, Functional Programming, Thisweekinscala, Scala

This week in #Scala (Jul 8, 2019)

Welcome to the new edition of #ThisWeekInScala!

This blog aims to keep you up to date with the latest news from the world of Scala and Reactive programming.

It has been a week since the previous #ThisWeekInScala so lets catch-up on the latest Scala & Reactive happenings…

New Content

Updated Software

New snailgun is out

Metals v0.7.0 available

In case you are looking for new challenges, pay attention, because Disney Streaming Services is hiring!
World Trade Uncertainty Weighing On Global Growth
By: Ivan Lapickii
Tags: Uncertainty, Economics, Infographics, International Trade, Data Visualization

Recent analysis from the IMF cites increasing uncertainty caused by trade tensions as a primary driver of sluggish global growth, a trend which moved the IMF to issue a downward revision to its global GDP growth forecast in the July edition of the World Economic Outlook. According to IMF estimates, the escalation of trade uncertainty observed this year could consume around 0.75 percentage points of global growth in 2019.

To track trade tensions globally, the IMF and Stanford University teamed up to develop the World Trade Uncertainty Index (WTU).* This index measures trade uncertainty in 143 countries based on the frequency with which the word “uncertainty” is mentioned in country reports produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit. And today the index sends a clear message as it continues to hit new 20-year records: uncertainty has taken hold.

The surge in trade uncertainty since late 2018 coincides with the first tit-for-tat tariff increases between the US and China during 3Q2018. In the first quarter of 2019, the index rose sharply again after a significant increase in US tariffs on imports from China.

Trade uncertainty merits monitoring globally. The US-China bilateral dynamic, while certainly influencing recent Index scores, is not solely driving the overall index or the risk to global economic growth referenced by the IMF.
Chasing Success
By: David Milgrim
Tags: Memoir, Comics, Art, Success, Humor

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Technical Debt and Product Success
By: Roman Pichler
Tags: Product Management, Technical Debt, Product Lifecycle, Innovation, Agile

Technical Debt and Your Product

To understand if and to what extent your product is affected by technical debt, talk to the development team, for example, in the next sprint retrospective. I find that development team members usually have a good understanding where issues in the architecture and code are.

Additionally, consider asking the team to collect data that shows how much technical debt there is, where it is located, and how bad it is, for example, by using code complexity, dependencies, duplication, and test coverage as indicators. There are a number of code analysis tools available that collect the appropriate data and show how adaptable the architecture and how clean the code is. [2]

Once you understand the amount and severity of tech debt in your product, analyse its impact on meeting the product goals and achieving product success together with the development team. Take into account the cost of delay, the cost of not addressing the technical debt now but delaying it to a future point in time. Should you, for example, continue adding new features to the product for the next six months and plan in bigger technical improvement work afterwards? Or would it be better to address the worst debt now?

Furthermore, consider the life cycle stage of your product. Technical debt is particularly bad for new and young products: If your product has a closely-coupled architecture with lots of dependencies, if it lacks (automated) tests and documentation, or if it is full of spaghetti code, then experimenting with new ideas and adapting the product to user feedback and new trends will be difficult and time-consuming. Similarly, if you want to extend its product life cycle, you may have to first remove (some of) the technical debt before you can make the necessary changes and add new features or create a variant.

Having said that, it is a valid strategy to launch a minimum viable product (MVP) whose architecture, technology, and code has been intentionally compromised in order to reduce time to market — as long as the quality is good enough to adapt the product to feedback from the early market. But apply this strategy with caution: You will have to spend time addressing the technical debt incurred and putting your product on solid technical foundations. This should be done before reaching product-market fit, as you will otherwise struggle to scale up and keep your product growing.

If, however, your product is in maturity — or even decline — and you do not intend to extend its life cycle but focus on maximising the business benefits it generates, you probably want to do as little debt removal work as possible.