fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
COVID-19: Months 6–15
By: Sarah Carr
Tags: Pandemic, Daily Life, Pandemic Diaries, Covid 19, Pandemic Reflections

We are so thankful for our health and our home and for the safety of our families and friends. It could have been a lot worse. MUCH, MUCH worse. Washington State has been rather conservative when it comes to re-opening, which aligns with our personal values. However, there is no winning in this situation, because a slower re-opening means that small businesses suffer, children struggle, and unemployment continues for many around us.

Thankfully, we were able to get our first vaccine on April 16th, the second day for most adults in our state, and then our second shot four weeks later on May 14th. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who made that happen and for how efficient and well-run the clinic was at the Kaiser clinic near our house. It’s absolutely wild that we got our vaccines 15 months after this started and we are grateful for the technology that allowed that to happen. Sergio had mild side effects both times; other than some arm pain, I felt fine!

Proud vaxxers!

I have to remind myself pretty regularly now that “You can relax — you’re vaxxed!” We still follow local mask rules in stores because we believe in setting a good example — and if wearing a mask helps people who work there feel safer, we’re open to that too. I imagine that these mandates will start to lift later in the summer, given that Washington State has reached almost 50% of the population fully-vaccinated, and in King County we’re approaching 70%! It makes me proud to live in a place where people are caring for those around them, especially those people who are unable to be vaccinated yet, including kids younger than 12 and the immunocompromised.

So — that’s that! I’m looking forward to sharing some more regular life updates as our life gets… more regular again (we hope). And wherever you are, remember — be safe, take care of yourself and those around you, and get the vaccine!

Cheers, Sarah

P.S. I mean, you know this happened as soon as we had our Immunity Day. I’ll be back next week to tell you all about it our first post-vax trip and give you some new travel tips for this current version of normal!
Is everyone doing okay?
By: Amanda Miyahira
Tags: Mental Health, Dark Humor, Pandemic Diaries, Mental Health Awareness, Languishing

Photo by Elia Pellegrini on Unsplash

Asking in earnest because I can barely answer the question myself. It’s been almost two years since I could answer this in a concise or even coherent way. Instead of processing my feelings to provide a better answer, I’ve been plying my brain with K-pop videos to combat the malaise and general feelings of whatever-the-fuck.

In early 2021, with the help of friends, therapy, endorphins via exercise (mostly overeating), and quotes from the internet that I haphazardly applied to my life, I pulled myself out of an almost all-consuming depressive state. I tried to dilute my despair around friends and family, annoyingly, behind texts like: “I’m depressed, haha” and “I’ve never been this sad in my entire life, lol.”

The bargaining it took to get out of bed every morning was substantial. I couldn’t sleep most days and spent large swaths of time crying from exhaustion (and plotting my sleep-interrupting neighbor’s demise, haha). Almost everyone made aware of my insomnia recommended meditation — and maybe try to get more sleep?

FYI, people who can’t sleep for several days and weeks and months have tried every purported remedy on the internet. I would’ve snorted a Quartz crystal while doing sun salutations if more than two Reddit forums recommended the combo.

So yeah, I climbed up the slippery, lube-covered ravine and out of my depression pit. The journey was terrible, and I cried the entire time. Once I emerged, I thought I’d feel the sun on my face again, or whatever Eat, Pray, Love was about.

But as we all know, the Now That’s What I Call Pandemic franchise has no end — coupled with global atrocities, a surge in hate crimes, climate change, the collective stupidity of people, and other delights, I found myself in a new place. Not depressed, not happy, just wading around in tepid, Atlantic Ocean waters. If this emotional place could be a color, it would be a cargo shorts tan.

If you’re looking for an uplifting ending, here it is: I was able to temper my insomnia through meditation and sheer willpower.

Just kidding.

I take prescription-grade meds, baby, and I sleep like how I imagine Paul Rudd sleeps — peacefully and drenched in skin-softening ceramides. I also started playing volleyball recently (and obsessively), and knowing that there’s the potential to spike a ball in someone’s face is enough raison d’être for moi to get out of bed in the morning. And, my neighbor is still very much alive, and only out of undeserving compassion on my part.

I am such a good person.

I haven’t figured out how to climb out of this Florida swamp (emotionally), but I did feel happy for 25 seconds the other day. Now That’s What I Call Progress.
Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy In Connecticut.
By: Lift Wellness Group
Tags: Mental Health, Eating Disorder Recovery, Eating Disorder Therapy, Eating Disorder Treatment, Eating Disorders

MEGAN FREYER, MA, LMSW

CLINICAL COORDINATOR

Megan joined the LIFT Wellness team in February of 2017. In that time, she has cultivated a word-of-mouth referral base for her unparalleled ability to join and accommodate with clients of varying ages and presenting problems. Megan feels passionately about the need for client-centered, strengths based practice that utilizes the therapeutic relationship to empower clients to move closer toward their goals, while simultaneously advocating for them in whatever ways possible.

Megan has experience using Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Play Therapy, as well as other evidenced based treatment modalities. Megan also likes to teach and encourage clients to use mindfulness techniques as a basis for helping them recognize and effectively manage difficult emotions, encouraging them to discover and utilize effective coping skills. Megan works collaboratively with clients to tailor treatment plans to the individual and provide the highest quality client-centered care.

Megan received her Masters in General Psychology from the New School for Social Research and a Masters in Social Work from Fordham University. She also has a Certificate in Child and Adolescent Trauma Training from the National Center for Trauma and Social Work Education.

Read about our different services and choose one that’s right for you here.
My Rebound Girl. “You don’t knock anymore,” I say to her…
By: Hanna Caldwell
Tags: Bulimia, Breakups, Rebound, Relationships, Eating Disorders

Unused pillows. Photo by Hanna Caldwell

“You don’t knock anymore,” I say to her without turning over on the bed. She slips in, every angle pressed against me. Beautiful things are always sharp.

“What’s the point in knocking? You answer every time, I might as well have a key made,” she laughs. Her body floats off the mattress, doesn’t leave behind a single crease or crumpled sheet.

“Not every time,” I breathe deep, and it catches in my throat, raw and burning. She places her hands over my stomach, and presses down.

“I don’t want you here right now, but I just… don’t want to be alone. We aren’t exactly friends, you know,” I continue, stuck underneath her unmoving fingers. It’s a place I’ve been before, in different cities and bedrooms and bodies than this one. She starts to hum, hooks a leg over my hip, and presses her lips just behind my ear.

“He left, didn’t he? I knew he would. Why would he stay?” I close my eyes, try and fall back into myself. This is what she does, I remember. She sneaks into the darkest parts of me and digs.

“I love him so much. And it’s empty now,” I say, quiet and light, immediately regretting opening my mouth. I don’t want her to have him. Not his warmth or his kindness or his laugh. She could never fill all the space he took up. But she doesn’t try.

“It’s not like it matters. In the end of it all, you weren’t enough for him to want,” she says. It’s always fun for her to taunt me, makes me feel like I’m in on a joke or the subject of one. My discomfort is the pound of flesh to keep her satisfied.

“You can be the sweetest girl he’s ever met, get him gifts, share his passions, keep his secrets. But the reality is that he can do better. You know that! You’re too much, they’ve all told you — ” Her fingers cut me now, trace along old, splitting marks.

“It wasn’t about me. He said it wasn’t about me, he’s just dealing with other things right now,” I can feel it shatter as I said it.

“Imagine the other girls he’ll be with after you. Those short, little ones with sweater dresses maybe. Is that his type?” She twists over me, nothing hips balanced on mine. She is hollow, and I envy her. Her hands trail up my body, gliding over ribs she would have to search for, the softness of me inciting visible disgust on her face. They settle on either side of my neck.

“Here’s what you always seem to forget, love. I know what’s best for you. I know how to make it so he can’t hurt you again. And there isn’t anyone who can love all those awful parts of you that you box up. No one but me. Stop fighting what you’ve always wanted,” Her smile melts over me, drips down into my mouth. The taste of it makes me sick.
Individual Counseling In Monroe, Fairfield County.
By: Lift Wellness Group
Tags: Eating Disorder Recovery, Eating Disorder Therapy, Mental Helath, Eating Disorder Treatment, Eating Disorders

WE BELIEVE PSYCHOTHERAPY SHOULD BE APPROACHABLE, ACCESSIBLE, AND RESULTS-DRIVEN.

LIFT Wellness seeks to empower individuals to define and claim the lives they were meant to live. This means starting off by getting clear about hopes and dreams. We take a collaborative approach, meeting individuals where they are. We are passionate about helping clients to harness and leverage strengths and resources in order to draw a line of intention and purposeful, deliberate action between an individual’s current reality and their ideal future state.

LIFT therapists partner meaningfully with individuals by first, setting up space for clients to discover, accept and embrace themselves and their present circumstances. Our outcomes are extraordinary, because our clients work as hard as we do.

YOUR MIND MATTERS.

The mind- and the thoughts contained- determines a destiny. How badly do you want to address your compulsive eating? To what length would you go to rescue your relationship? What would it feel like to be free of your self-defeating thoughts? Using cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, and the latest evidence-driven, proven strategies, we work to advocate and coach clients to create a vision of how they would like to feel, and together, draw a map of how to get there.

LIFT offers full-cycle outpatient and intensive outpatient eating disorder recovery services, including comprehensive treatment planning and execution of care for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, other specified feeding and eating disorders, ARFID, binge eating disorder, compulsive overeating, disordered eating, body image issues, compulsive exercise, and body dysmorphia.

Read about our different services and choose one that’s right for you here.
I Hate My Body, and I’m Ready to Talk About It
By: Lauren Hess
Tags: Beyourself, Binge Eating, Recovery, Eating Disorders, Sex

Eating disorders, sex, shame, and liberation

Left: 2007 / Right: May 2021

Left: 2008 / Right: May 2021

Don’t talk about these things. Don’t share these pictures. Don’t talk about these things. Don’t share these pictures. They won’t accept you. Don’t talk about these things.

My twisted logic goes something like this: bipolar and anxiety disorders “happened” to me. But my eating disorder has always felt like a lifestyle choice. Having a troubled relationship with food is a sign of weakness; a lack of discipline.

It has taken decades to unpack that my issue with weight was never a matter of “letting myself go.” It was a desperate wrestling with the pain of never “having” myself in the first place.

Hating my body is not merely an inconvenience or nagging voice in my head. My distorted body image has often made me feel less than human. Shame runs through my capillaries, imprinted on each cell, written in my genetic code. Shame — cunning, hungry, consumptive, thieving, and opportunistic. It metastasizes so brilliantly, I can’t possibly outpace it.

My body — this mortal, temporary vessel— is the source of more humiliation than the sum of all of my flaws, defects, unflattering truths, and stains on my record. This 5'2" home of flesh and bones is constantly tuned to a frequency of inadequacy. But shame is a prison for which I am the sole gatekeeper — and I want out.
Eating Disorders: Health Issues
By: Jyoti Malhotra
Tags: Teenagers, Teens, Habits, Junk Food, Eating Disorders

Eating Disorders: Health Issues

'This stress of time management anyway has an ill impact on our health. It gets aggravated due to the modern lifestyle and eating patterns.' Ranjini speaking as our class discussions had resumed.

'I bring tiffin to school every day. Even when I plan about eating food from the canteen, my mom always packs a tiffin for me. When I was younger, it used to contain some of my favourite snacks. As a child, I used to love potato fries, bread pakoras, rolls which my mother dotingly prepared in the morning. But nowadays, I don't prefer fried food so it is mostly vegetables and chapatis.'

''Lately, I observed that food was disappearing from my tiffin. Some of my dear friends who have more right over me than even my parents were the reason behind it. Well! though I love them all, I have to go hungry during the school hours. One of them confessed one day when he said, “you're so lucky to get such delicious food every day.” I was taken aback. I just carried and consumed simple meals every day.'

'It was then that I started observing the tiffins around me. The first thing that startled me was the realization about the great number of students who didn't bring any food from home. They actually survived on canteen snacks. Like most other canteens, ours offers us a range of piping hot samosas, cutlets, puri chana, sandwiches and other things.'

'All these are good once in a while things and definitely not suitable for a daily basis consumption. They are an inversion of the food pyramid making us, affluent babies, malnourished and nutrient deficient. As I looked at the food items that others had brought, I saw tiffins stuffed with sandwiches, noodles, biscuits, packaged savoury snacks. I saw less rice, parathas, vegetables or other healthier options.

Well, it's not just the school where youngsters are eating unhealthy. Our generation is an expert in eating out. Is it the easy accessibility to delicious food or the temptilious endorsements? Maybe it is the aromatic whiff of coffee combined with freshly baked bread rolls topped with melted butter and cheese. These mild and strong flavours lure us with their irresistible fragrances at every nook and corner.'

'Sometimes, we just want to hang out with friends to beat the stresses of the day or to celebrate a birthday. It's normally burgers and pizzas, pasta or dimsums. As accompaniments, fries and colas are mandatory partners. Cheesy Jalapeno fingers, falafel and hummus just sound irresistible. And instead of stopping us, even the adults have joined our junk food gang now. Colas, popcorn and nachos are an indispensable part of a movie watching experience. It's always a big bucket of caramel and cheese for me.

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0914YSZHP/ref=cm_sw_r_wa_apa_glt_E1YNKPPGY89QNK0BW03J
No means … I’d like a cup of tea. “I’ll just make you a cup of tea,” she…
Tags: Culture, Communication, True Story, Consent, Stories

I shifted, looking for somewhere to put the cup of tea that I wasn’t going to drink, and wondered how to get my meaning across.

I’ve always prided myself on my ability to communicate clearly, but I was staying with a lovely family in Ireland, and we were having repeated misunderstandings around two major points:

I didn’t drink tea; and They didn’t believe me.

After several days of surreptitiously pouring cold tea into potted plants, sinks, and gardens, I steeled myself to tackle it head-on.

I carefully put the unwanted cup of tea down on a side table, adjusted the tablecloth, took a deep breath, and said, as politely as I could, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

She looked surprised. “Of course. What’s wrong?”

“It’s about the tea -”

She interrupted. “Oh, it must be cold. I’ll make you a fresh cup.”

I hastily picked up the cup and held it out of her reach, trying to keep control of the conversation. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, I really don’t like tea. I don’t drink it, and I don’t like wasting your tea and your time.”

Her brows furrowed for a moment, then her face lit up. “Oh, that’s alright. I have some other teas you can have instead. Not everyone likes the same tea.” She stood up and moved to take my cup. I held it away from her.

“Thank you, but you don’t understand. I actually don’t like any tea. I don’t drink tea. I really don’t want a cup of tea.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?”

“I did. I’ve been saying, ‘No,’ every time you offer me a cup of tea.”

“Yes, but that’s what you’re supposed to say when someone offers you a cuppa. It doesn’t actually mean you don’t want tea.”

I realised I was staring, and hastily glanced back to the neatly embroidered tablecloth. “Well, I do mean it. I don’t drink tea.”

She looked appalled. “Is that common in your country?”

I blinked. “Not drinking tea?”

“No, saying no when you don’t want something.”

I nodded. “That’s definitely common.”

She scratched her head. “That sounds confusing. What do you say if you do want it?”

“Well, I’d say, ‘Yes,’ in that case.”

She shook her head, surprised by this strange cultural quirk.

I decided to try a different tactic. “So, if everyone here is supposed to say no when you offer them a cup of tea, what do they say if they really don’t want a cup of tea?”

She turned her gaze towards me, visibly confused. “Why wouldn’t they want a cup of tea?”
A girl was born in 1985 in an Indian orthodox family, a second child of her parents.
Tags: Indian Girl, Life, Girl, True Story

A girl was born in 1985 in an Indian orthodox family, a second child of her parents. Elder one was a girl too. Parents wanted a boy, so they planned for a third chid and their prayers were answered this time! The BOY was born.

Since starting the girl (let’s call her Sheila), faced the Indian societal differences between a boy and girl. Parents never felt they owe any explanation to the girls because it is inbuilt into this “Indian Society”. She grew up and became rebellious, asked her parents the WHYs whenever anything was allowed to the brother but not to her. Sheila got selected in her school’s Basketball team. She played at district level, but then… Dad said NO to playing because this is a boy’s game. She cried and created ruckus at home but Mom never supported her.

But Sheila was a strong minded girl, she finished college and joined an IT company which was too far from her home, as she wanted to live on her own now. She started earning good money , had her own share of struggles but never thought of leaving job and going to home.

To be contd….
Blacks and Whites
Tags: Negative, Bnw, Writing, True Story

One of many things that I’ve found out about myself is I tend to see things in black and white. I always put things in boxes of rights and wrongs, positives or negatives, and it has taken its toll on me.

A few weeks ago, my friend and I were playing Truth or Dare when one of them was asked to name one negative thing she didn’t like about me so she said that I can be negative. Don’t get me wrong, I do love some constructive criticism from my dearest friends but I took the wrong way to deal with that information. All I could think is I am a negative person and everything that comes out of my mouth and everything I do is at least 50% negative and it is a very, very ugly feeling.

I was scared to speak because I didn’t want my friends to know how my brain works and they go, “Oh my God, she’s definitely not a decent person! I should cut her off” or something like that. Even typing what was in my head on this website scares the sh*t out of me because you readers might wonder what could probably come out of my mouth and even think that I’m really a bad person. Am I crazy?

Anyway, things got darker in my head and the next thing was I cried while talking to a friend on the phone. It was a bit relieving, considering how difficult it is for me to deal with my emotions but it was draining, the whole I-am-a-negative-person thoughts. I was scared, tired, confused, and the worst is I felt like I disappointed not only me but also my friends. Why am I a negative person? Why can’t I figure out how to deal with it? My thoughts were pushing me to the ground and that is why I decided to tell my housemates too (FYI they’re also my close friends and I feel like I need to clarify this because people think that our relationship is only limited to sharing a house together). It was embarrassing but again, I felt relieved because I was finally able to let some of my emotions out. Now the next part will tell you some wholesome words that my housemates told me that night.

One of my housemates asked me if I remembered us talking about my tendency of seeing things in blacks and whites. It was a different context back then because I believed we were talking about my ex, about me putting the labels of who’s the villain and who’s the victim. Now back to this topic, my friend told me that just because someone said that I can be negative doesn’t necessarily mean that I am a negative person. This is one of my favorite lines:

“You’re a spectrum, and it‘s very okay if you have a bad trait or two because they don’t define who you are as a whole person.”

I’m grateful for my friends, for speaking up when I’m being mean, understanding my struggles, and most importantly for helping me see things clearer and show me not only grey but every color in this world. I might not be able to really show them how much I love them and really grateful for their existence in my life but I really do so if any of you see this writing, thank you so much.
Use Let’s Encrypt to Automate HTTPS for Your Kubernetes Cluster on Raspberry Pi
By: Jonathan Scott
Tags: Programming, Containers, Kubernetes, Maker, Raspberry Pi

How Let’s Encrypt Works

Let’s Encrypt is a Certificate Authority (CA) that implements the ACME Protocol such that an HTTPS server can be configured without any human intervention. We will configure an HTTPS server for the domain https://cloud-tack.com , but you should replace this domain with yours at each step. More specifically, the HTTPS server in this guide is a Traefik Ingress Controller that runs as a container within K3s on Raspberry Pis.

There are two steps to certificate issuance. The first step is that an agent who intends to request a certificate must prove to the CA that it owns the domain for which the certificate will be issued. This process is called Domain Validation. Only once the agent proves this can it request, renew, and revoke the certificate. The agent in the context of this guide is a cert-manager application deployed within the cert-manager namespace (more on this in the following sections).

The agent initiates the process by asking the CA how it can prove ownership of the domain for which the certificate will be issued (e.g. cloud-tack.com ). The CA responds with a set of challenges and the agent must complete one of the challenges in order to prove ownership. In this guide, the agent will complete the HTTP01 challenge:

Provisioning an HTTP resource under a well-known URI on http://cloud-tack.com/ (e.g. http://cloud-tack.com/8303 ).

The agent will place an HTTP file at the specified URI and the CA will verify that this file is accessible, has the correct content, and has the correct signature, by downloading the file at the specified URI (e.g. http://cloud-tack.com/8303 ). If we didn’t own the domain, then we couldn’t place the file in the correct place and with the correct content and signature, so this is proof of ownership. The cert-manager is responsible for creating this file and, along with it, a temporary Ingress such that http://cloud-tack.com/8303 routes traffic to the file for the CA to download. Only after proving ownership can the agent submit certificate issuance requests, renewals, and revocations.
How to Design Software — Plugin Systems
By: Joseph Gefroh
Tags: Programming, Makers, Software Engineering, Software Development, Software Architecture

The Concepts

Plugin systems come in many shapes and forms — to illustrate the design, the following basic concepts can help frame your thinking:

Conceptual components of a basic plugin system

The program

The first piece is the program itself, the thing whose behavior you are actually trying to enhance or modify. This might be a game like Skyrim or it might be a business application like Sketch. It might even be your own program!

Whatever it is, it offers some set of behaviors and capabilities that you want to change. More importantly, it does not know about the changes you want to make.

The hook

Something in the program you’re trying to change has to run the code it doesn’t know about. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to change the behavior.

This point at which the code is run is called the hook. Rails’ model callbacks or Vue’s component lifecycle hooks are examples of hooks used out in the wild.

A simple example of a hook is below:

See how the onSaveHook has no behavior. In this example, it is expected that this behavior will be filled in by a class extending RecordSaver and implementing new behavior in the subclass.

The plugins

The plugins are the code that other people write and “plug in” to enhance the capabilities of the program.

You could potentially extend the RecordSaver class from the example above with functionality such as below:

class LoggedRecordSaver < RecordSaver

def onSaveHook()

puts 'Saving record.'

end

end

Now when LoggedRecordSaver#save() is called, it will print Saving record. after calling #writeToDisk() to the console. This behavioral enhancement was done by extending RecordSaver — a basic way to enhance a program’s behavior.

Note also that RecordSaver doesn’t know anything about LoggedRecordSaver : the coupling is unidirectional.

The loader

Having a plugin is useless if it never actually manages to run. Something needs to load the Plugin to start executing its code.

There are a lot of techniques available to actually make this happen — two methods are:

Plugin-driven, where the plugin knows how to access the program and self-registers.

where the plugin knows how to access the program and self-registers. Program-driven, where the program knows how to find plugins and loads any it finds.
Cycloid-O-Matic Draws Fun Shapes with Modded Steppers
By: Jeremy S. Cook
Tags: Arduino, Spirograph, Technology, Makers

Spirographs, which use a series of connected rotating gears to draw interesting curve patterns, have fascinated young and old alike for generations. Now, with the advent of cheap stepper motors and accessible design tools, InventorArtist Darcy Whyte has taken this toy into the 21st century with his Cycloid-O-Matic.

His project rotates paper using a lazy Susan arrangement, powered by a cheap-o 28BYJ-48 stepper motor. A pen is held in a clothespin overhead via a linkage system, attached to two stepper motors that vary its extension. This lets the pen move in and out/left and right according to the motion of the motors, while the paper itself spins to produce beautiful patterns.

Stepper motion is controlled by an Arduino Uno and GRBL shield. While it typically uses a computer interface, an Arduino-only version is in the works, though there’s a bit of an issue as of this writing in varying the motor speed.

One notable sub-hack here involves modifying the 28BYJ-48 motors for use with the GRBL shield, as the coils are normally center-tapped and would require a different type of driver. Conversion, however, is simply a matter of cutting a trace on the circuit board, and with proper measurement you can even do this through the housing without seeing the circuit board!
Build Your Own Minivac 601 Replica
By: Cameron Coward
Tags: Makers, Retrocomputing, Computer Science, Technology

In the early 1960s, “real” computers were so large and expensive that it was virtually unheard of for any individual to have one at home. But, of course, people still needed a way to learn about the principles of digital computing. For a lot of people, that meant receiving training at one of the few companies or universities with a computer. For others, that meant using far more affordable educational devices that could provide the functions of an extremely basic computer. The Minivac 601 was one such device, and Megardi has a tutorial that will walk you through how to create your own replica.

Unlike modern computers which use transistors as logic switches, the Minivac 601 used electromechanical relays. Considering that a processor today can have billions of transistors, the idea of using relays in their place is unthinkable. But when the Minivac 601 was released in 1961, it was cheaper to use a handful of electromechanical relays than transistors, which were still cutting-edge technology at the time. The Minivac 601 used DPDT switches and SPDT push buttons as binary outputs, and lights as outputs. A special motorized dial was used to enter decimal or hexadecimal numbers, and also acted as an output.

Megardi’s replica of the Minivac 601 seems to be extremely faithful — both in appearance and functionality. To build it, you should only need a 3D printer and basic woodworking tools. The electrical components may be a little difficult to source, but Megardi was able to find parts that closely match the originals. The only major exception is the dial, which Megardi hasn’t been able to motorize yet. It can still be used like the original, but requires that the user move the dial manually. If you want to experience some very early computing history for yourself, this is a fantastic way to do so.
Supporting Local Makers Beyond a Global Pandemic
By: Irene Bantigue
Tags: Makers, Baltimore, Small Business, Covid 19, Local Economy

It’s been a year since Mount Royal Soap Company’s three-person team first reimagined their 500 sf kitchen to meet local demand for personal protective equipment (PPE). Today, and ~1 million bottles of hand sanitizer and soap later, the Baltimore-based skincare manufacturer continues to defy expectations of what a small business is capable of when given the right supports.

“Three soap-obsessed friends” (Courtesy photo)

Prior to last year, governments and institutions often overlooked the opportunity to partner with local makers, pointing to high costs and limited production capacity as key barriers. However, PPE shortages brought on by the breakdown of our global supply chain in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic tested that calculus.

With nowhere else to turn, institutional buyers began sourcing from local manufacturers, and an interesting thing occurred: their investment allowed these businesses to increase their production capacity and lower their costs.

The case of Mount Royal Soap Company demonstrates that with the right investments, small businesses can overcome these challenges — all while circulating dollars back into the local economy and strengthening our regional supply chain.
April Bonanza — 0% Maker fees for BTC/INR and USDT/INR Pairs
Tags: Usdt, Makers, Btc, Bitcoin, Free Trade

Giottus celebrates its third anniversary on 14th April, 2021

Entering its 4th year of service, Giottus, India’s top-rated cryptocurrency exchange, has announced a bonanza to all its users. Till end of April, the platform will waive off all maker fees for BTC/INR and USDT/INR pairs. This is in addition to the strategic agreement with Bitfinex which allows 0% maker fee trade with 14 USDT pairs on the exchange. Essentially, till end of April 2021, users can now transact in 16 pairs with 0% maker fees.

On this joyous occasion, Vikram Subburaj, Co-founder and CEO, said

“This is an invitation to all users to join us in celebrating our 4th year of operations. Serving the Indian cryptocurrency ecosystem for the past 3 years has been a roller coaster ride. In spite of multiple hurdles, we have been committed to delighting our customers while providing a safe platform to invest and trade in cryptocurrencies. We are happy to note that we remain the top-rated crypto exchange in India. We believe the 0% maker fees for BTC and USDT INR pairs is just a show of gratitude to all our users who continue to believe in us.”

Maker order refers to orders that are not matched immediately against an order already on the order book. They add to the liquidity of the order book and get matched when a suitable order is received.

To know more, contact our support team via live chat or email us at support@giottus.com.

3 cheers to Giottus and its users!!! Hurray!
games that don’t work
By: Arvind Ashok
Tags: Games, Strengthtraining, Chasing Numbers, Motivation, Strength

It certainly does in some places at certain times — the Daily9 FLC is one. The point is not to sleep to score a point — the point is to sleep. But that’s a game that works. For the short-term at least. It is on you to build on it. And of course, it does not work for everyone.

Likewise, I am better off focusing on what I want to do — talking about strength training and moving towards a sustainable, healthy lifestyle, and the stories and the specifics of it. If I connect to a few of you and it helps you provide a perspective, or sometimes it is a simple “Do this!”, I think that’s pretty frickin’ great. Once I realised I was playing the game wrong for myself, I was able to start writing — and not worrying about # of reads and likes and all that stuff. It feels liberating.

I guess now I can generalise for the world from this drastic reveal and create a proverb. But seriously, that was (one of) my Resistance.

Sometimes, play the game by your own rules

Know when things are not working and change the approach — finally I got around to this. Writing here works a lot better for me and I am having fun. I don’t get Instagram, to be honest. It is not a format that works for me. Writing ideas and stories to sell (sell does not have to be a bad word, I tell myself) strength training and healthy lifestyle over here feels good. To top it off, a few of you write to me and share your stories, which makes it a much richer experience.

Not all stories of mine will resonate with you but some will, and if I can be part of that moment, that’s a number I’ll keep track of. That’s a joke. Get it? Coz am talking about not counting and no numbers. Well, I laughed!
Strong
By: Jojo Bosquet
Tags: Personal, Strength, Depression

What are you supposed to do when you can’t do the only thing you’re supposed to do?

When you’re so broken that you can’t even cry anymore, when you feel so numb, so helpless, so empty…

And then when the feelings finally come they stampede the emptiness and you feel them exponentially, the tears start pouring threateningly, drowning you, asphyxiating you. And the air leaves the room and fear comes in tripping, like a drunk man in an empty street at midnight, making you feel helpless, although rationally you know all odds are on your favour, but you still feel that pressure in your chest, you still feel scared. And then guilt follows suit with that snide look of reproach and disgust at you for always making things about yourself, for thinking you’re half as important as anyone else, for daring to think you can be a priority, when really you are at the bottom of the waiting list.

So what do you do then? What do you do when you’ve always been taught to stay strong, but that’s the one thing you can’t do anymore. What do you do then? When you barely have the energy to stay motivated, when reasons to stay alive are scarce, when you just don’t know what to keep fighting for or how to keep going?

What do you do?

When you know you have to stay strong, but you weakness has become stronger than your strength.
DoDreamChain’s Strength
Tags: Strength, Blockchain, Services, Dodreamchain

Currently, the outbound study abroad industry for Korean students is already in a situation where the procedure through online platform is already established. So DoDreamChain focuses on the inbound study abroad industry, where students from abroad come to Korea.

Since the number of international students in Korea has exceeded 100,000 for only three years, there is no clear online platform and procedure yet. In this regard, our DoDreamChain has almost preempted the inbound study market.

As it is offline, there are various problems such as paper documents, illegal brokers, and studying abroad in camouflage. In addition, there are problems that most international students are matched by the interests of the agency rather than the purpose of studying abroad because they are mostly through agencies.

DoDreamChain has a difference that it can reduce the structural problems of the existing offline study abroad market through document verification, AI video interview, and reputation inquiry using blockchain.

The number of international students visiting Korea is increasing, but the process still remains in the past. DoDreamChain offers the convenience that the existing foreign study system did not provide, and wants to give the best study experience in Korea.

Thank you!
Everyone’s Accomplished Something
By: John Kuvinka
Tags: Positivity, Careers, Confidence, Strength, Accomplishments

Years ago during the holidays when I was working in the retail world I found myself sifting through some resumes looking to bring on seasonal help. I came across a lot that I could tell were generated by one of the big job search sites — they all had the same plain layout and the different sections were all in the exact same order on each. One resume in particular stood out to me because under the accomplishments section the applicant had simply listed:

None.

At the time I found that sort of odd. I wondered why someone would devalue themselves like that by pretty much flat out telling an employer, even one just looking for a seasonal temp, that they’ve accomplished nothing. But, when I really thought about it I realized that an accomplishment can be something very different in a company’s eyes than in an individual’s.

At the end of the day everyone has accomplishments, whether or not they feel a prospective employer will appreciate them. For someone who doesn’t have an impressive work history or degree achieving personal goals and overcoming obstacles should still be valuable to any business. We all have to start somewhere — know your strengths and be proud of who you are.
Strengths are Fluid
By: Make Ads With Me
Tags: Strengths, Advertising, Portfolio, Art Direction, Weakness

As we grow up and get to know ourselves, we begin to identify our strengths. And we begin to craft our identity around them.

I think what we forget to factor in though, is that our strengths and weaknesses are not black and white. That sometimes, it’s not about who we are, but WHERE we are.

What I mean, is that sometimes, we’ll find ourselves in situations where we aren’t as good at certain things as we have been before. And instead of looking at the holistic situation, we start thinking about what changed about us. What’s “all of a sudden” wrong with US. And this leads to a loss of sense of self. A loss of the identity we had crafted around our strengths.

For me, that identity was a person that connected with everyone she met and was confident in front of a room of people no matter what. And in the last few years, this hasn’t rung true in the same way it always had. I’ve had coworkers and teams I haven’t clicked with, and material I’ve been nervous presenting. I took this really hard. I began to feel like I was a lesser version of the person I was. I wasted so much energy figuring out what “changed” about me, versus trying to improve anything about my current state.

But once I took a step back and looked at the situation more holistically, I realized that it wasn’t that I was all of a sudden weaker, it was that I was exposed to environments I hadn’t had been before. Like, when I wondered why I wasn’t besties with everyone I worked with, I looked around and realized that as I had moved up the totem pole, my coworkers were no longer fellow recent grads with little responsibility at work and at home. They were a range of people different than me. So it’s not that I didn’t still have the strength of connecting with people, it was just that I hadn’t been around people as different than me than I had thought. And then when it came to presenting, it wasn’t that I lost my ability to wow a crowd, but that the stakes had been raised, the material was harder, and the audience was more intimidating. I didn’t account for these things. I just looked at myself as someone who was nervous presenting and not best friends with all her coworkers and assumed I wasn’t the same person I once was. The fact is though that I’m still the same person. I’m just getting to know her better and how she adapts to the world around her.

What are your strengths? Have you ever found yourself questioning them?
About Me — Zesty Zaria. Happy to be able to find a space where…
By: Zesty Zariah
Tags: About Me, Feminism, Life Lessons, Determination, Strength

About Me — Zesty Zaria

Happy to be able to find a space where I can learn to fly with clipped wings zesty zariah Jun 17·3 min read

Photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash

My name is Zaria. I live in Lahore, Pakistan with my two children and a husband. My husband has one other wife. We all live in one gigantic house like one big happy family.

I always have been a writer. I wanted to study further and teach English,but my rich family thought I did not have to do anything. So I ended up writing by the light of a candle in my lonely room.

In those days, I would scribble my thoughts at the end of the day and keep them under lock and key in my diary. As soon as my parents left me in solitude to shut my eyes to be well rested, my mind opened up.

I would stare at the glittering stars and be ready to strain my eyes and my fingers, sometimes until dawn. The chirping of the birds and the Islamic call for prayer was my warning sign to stop and get ready for school.

My addiction to books and writing was never appreciated by my family. I kept at it somehow, at all times. It has since become my only escape for normalcy. When I write, the universe listens, and attempts to find a solution to my problems.

I have kept quiet too much. I have adjusted and re-adjusted to satisfy my family, then my husband, then his mother and now my kids. I have always kept myself in second place, only to learn that there is no one who would keep me in first place.

This realisation is fearful, in a world so uncertain and unkind. I have since promised to make the world my oyster. I will not keep quiet, as long as there are people who would read my work.

There are many women who have suffered like me. Who have given their loved ones all they have. Who have shoved their own desires away to take care of them later.

Later would never come. My mentor, the only person in the world I could share my written work with, waited too long to write his book. It was left incomplete, and so was his life. With his last breath went away his life-long dream and his unshared thoughts.

When my fingers collide to put pen to paper, my meekness withers away. Suddenly I am more in control of myself. My unspoken words find meaning. I would be very happy when others too find inspiration in my words.

This I would like to do, before I wither away.

So at zesty Zaria you would find

the confessions of my dirty mind

blasphemous thoughts that race with time

struggles of my absurd life

fantasies that keep me alive

I hope, we can continue this journey together — you and me.

Thank you for reading and letting me share a part of my world with you.
Perfect power
By: Small Voice Today
Tags: Bible, Devotional, Power, Designed2encourage, Strength

But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me. — 2 Corinthians 12:9

Where can you find strength?

When the Apostle Paul wrote this there were things causing him pain or making him feel weak. Whether these were physical or emotional, or some outward problem we are not told. Paul says he has prayed for them to be taken away, but God has allowed them to remain for a reason.

We might like for things to always go smoothly, for God to immediately fix our problems and take away our aches and troubles. Often, in His love, He does take them from us. But He also may allow things to remain in our life in order for us to realize He is the source of our strength.

We can face all things-not because of our own strength-but because of God’s power and grace. His power becomes all the more visible because we can face problems that are impossible for us to deal with ourselves, and through Him we overcome them.

Like Paul we can be happy about our frailties because it is through our weakness we recognize the grace and love of God. Whatever it is that burdens you, makes you feel helpless, or causes you distress are all leading to the overwhelming power of our Father. All of these things are temporary, and will soon be gone. But through them we come to know God’s perfect power.
Here’s to the Unmotivated Students
By: Sam Lee
Tags: University, Strength, Study Abroad

Change isn’t easy.

Whoever tells you it’s easy to uproot your life and completely change your daily routine is a liar. The excitement of a new place doesn’t help you avoid the anxiety and stress of change. I’ll admit the first month I arrived in South Korea it was nothing I had imagined. I didn’t have any friends, classes weren’t blow off classes that my peers have described in their experiences. I began to ask myself, “Why did I even choose to do this?” The looming question bothered me day after day of getting lost in the city, attending class I didn’t like and ultimately being alone.

But, once I decided I was tired of feeling down and in the dumps, everything changed. I realized that many people don’t receive opportunities like this and that I was wasting precious time. I looked for the beauty in getting lost, exploring a new place and had to put in effort to put myself out there to other study abroad students. After I decided to make that mental change, everything seemed brighter. I made friends and we travelled and explored, I had others to help with difficult school assignments, but most of all I learned that I am stronger than I think I am.

Lasting Effects

After realizing I was capable of more than I thought I was, my time abroad became the best time of my life. Sure, you still have stress of school and assignments, but I was able to overcome those. Instead of wanting to give up, I was able to persevere and I learned a lot about myself. The once self-conscious, anxiety-ridden person blossomed into a more confident, outgoing and positive person. Today, I still struggle with the negative thoughts, I don’t think they ever go away permanently. But, with that experience and knowing the fact that I moved across the world and was able to succeed provides me with confidence and hope that I can always strive to move forward.