fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Bobby Lee looks bullish about Bitcoin
By: Blockchain Connect
Tags: Silicon Valley, Bitcoin

Arguably one of the most important Crypto figures from China, Bobby Lee is best known as the CEO and co-founder of BTCC and a Board Member of the Bitcoin Foundation. BTCC was founded in 2011 and is the first and largest Bitcoin trading platform in China. The Bitcoin Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 2012 with the goal of promoting the adoption of Bitcoin around the world.

picture from bobby lee’s twitter

Before getting involved in cryptocurrency, Mr. Lee graduated from Stanford University with B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science and worked in high-level positions at companies such as Walmart eCommerce, BesTV (largest IPTV operator in China), and Yahoo.

Mr. Lee has a very bullish view on the future of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. He expects Bitcoin to hit a price of $100,000 in 2018. He has been featured on CNBC speaking about how he believes China will eventually open up to Cryptocurrency. He has also delivered speeches at many events including: Blockchain Economic Forum 2018, Consensus 2017, and Techcrunch Disrupt SF 2015. When you listen to him speak, you can’t help but to agree with what he’s saying. All great speakers have the ability to persuade. He has wonderful charisma and strong confidence in what he believes in.

His advice to you:

Bobby Lee has over 74,000 followers and you can follow him @bobbyclee. He will be speaking at the Blockchain Connect Conference in Silicon Valley. You can grab a 30% discount with the following link, https://blockchainconnect.eventbrite.com?discount=MEDIUM20. You can also get a 20% discount in addition to the 30% with the following code.
Smokeless Fire
Tags: Music, Poetry On Medium, Women, Feminism, Growth

Author’s Note- This poem was inspired by the Chhapaak Title Track. A few weeks ago I went watched Deepika Padukone’s Movie ‘Chhapaak’ in the theatre and it felt like I was punched in the gut. The Hindi Movie depicted the real-life story of Laxmi Aggarwal, an acid attack victim. Acid was thrown onto her face when she was 15 years old and she refused a man her hand in marriage. Sure, the movie did little justice to the true pains faced by most acid attack victims in India, but it was a start. ‘Chhapaak’ in Hindi quite literally refers to the sound of the splash of the acid.

Being a South Indian, Hindi is a language I can only understand and am not fluent in. When I had first heard Arjit Singh’s voice in the theatre it hit me harder than I had anticipated but I felt a mixture of fear and anger. What has happened to my country? Laxmi Aggarwal was my age when a man threw acid on her face and I cannot begin to imagine the absolute pain she would have gone through. India has seen over 1500 acid attack cases between 2014–18.

This poem I have written aims to highlight the need for people to understand that they have absolutely no right to touch a woman (or another man) without her/his consent. They fail to understand the humungous consequences that might be the result of one thoughtless action triggered by their fragile ego.

Here is the English translation of the song-
Journée spéciale pour nos développeurs! Le Dev’Hackers Day
By: Cyrille Grandval
Tags: PHP, Agile Methodology, Events, Defensive Programming, Workshop

in Both Sides of the Table
dKargo’s Private Investors are Joining the Staking Program
Tags: Stakingprogram, Announcement, Dkargo

All private investors of dKargo have agreed to use their DKA tokens scheduled to be flown newly into circulating supply to join staking programs for 3 months starting from September 2020.

Currently, dKargo is successfully securing partnerships with a variety of partners for global expansion which is earning trust from the private investors.

Due to our private investors joining the staking program, there will be no additional circulating supply for DKA for 3 months starting from this September and it would give momentum to the growth of dKargo platform.

Thank you.

Token amount participating in the staking program

100,000,000 DKA (2% of Total supply)

Duration of staking program

Sept. 4th 2020 ~ Dec. 3rd 2020 (3 months total)

Upbit Exchange Disclosure

👉 https://bit.ly/3g4OPRG
Train Tracks, Barbed Wire, and Office Building : Tokyo… Rat February
By: Aaron Paulson
Tags: Urban, Tokyo, Photography, Street

Train Tracks, Barbed Wire, and Office Building : Tokyo… Rat February

Candid street, urban, and omoshiroi mono “interesting thing” snaps from an expat’s daily life in Tokyo, the greatest megacity in the world

See more candid street, urban, and omoshiroi mono “interesting thing” snaps from an expat’s daily life in Tokyo, the greatest megacity in the world, at Tokyo 2020 Year of the Rat: February

Artists’s Note: I shoot on Olympus camera gear and, increasingly, an iPhone. Often, not always, I use a combination of in-camera filters, as well as post-processing techniques via a palette which includes Olympus Workspace, Lightroom, and PhotoLabs. I shoot what i see, then edit for what I feel. Just so ya know…
The Dating Pool
By: Jason Mcbride
Tags: Dating, Humor, Vampires, Fiction, Short Story

He knew she was out of his league.

He was so convinced that he deserved to suffer that he agreed to go out with her, fully expecting to be the butt of a cruel practical joke.

But she not only showed up, she also seemed interested in him.

Something in the back of his mind warned him that this woman was dangerous. He had lived so long with negative voices in the back of his mind that he ignored the red flags.

They went out on several dates before he discovered her secret.

She was a vampire.

Worse.

She was a vampire that loved to play with her food.

He could’ve run.

But he didn’t want to leave her. He wanted her to end his miserable life. At least becoming her meal would give some tragic meaning to his worthless existence.

Except she didn’t kill him.

She really had grown fond of him.

She bit him just hard enough to turn him.

Now he’s immortal. He couldn’t even manage to commit suicide by vampire.

They’re not even together anymore. She lost interest and left him when he was no longer a morsel she could devour at any moment.

It turned out he was the butt of a practical joke. SSRIs don’t work on the eternally damned.
Understanding Hoisting in JavaScript
By: Abdullah Imran
Tags: JavaScript, Javascript Hoisting, Hoisting, Understanding, Js Hoisting

In JavaScript, Hoisting is the default behavior where variables and function declarations are moved to the top of their scope before code execution.

No Matter where function and variable are declared, it moved up top on their own scope. Doing this, it allows us to call functions before even writing them in our code.

How interpreter sees the above code:

We Know, In JavaScript, when we have a variable that is not defined then it occurs an undefined error. So in the above example, JavaScript only hoists the declarations part and we got an undefined error.

It’s important to keep in mind that, JavaScript only hoists declarations, not the initializations.

let us take another example,

why this time we got a ReferenceError? Because of trying to access a previously undeclared variable And remember JavaScript only hoists declarations. So Initialisation can’t be hoisted and we got an error.

ES6: Let Keyword

Like before, for the var keyword, we expect the output to be undefined. But this time we got a reference error. That Means let and const variables not hoisted? The answer is Variables declared with let are still hoisted, but not initialized, inside their nearest enclosing block. If we try to access it before initializing will throw ReferenceError due being into Temporal Dead Zone.

Hoisting functions

Like variables, the JavaScript engine also hoists the function declarations. And it allows us to call functions before even writing them in our code.

Hoisting in function expressions are not allowed at all. If you doing this you will get an error.

I hope this lesson provides a clear understands of how Hoisting works in JavaScript. Hopefully, you learned something today. Happy Coding.
The Two Most Important Skills, If You Want to Thrive in the 21st Century
By: Haris Mohammad
Tags: Life Lessons, Personal Growth, Self, Self Improvement, Future

A little over twenty-five years ago, Jeff Bezos saw a trend. The internet was growing in usage at an incredible rate (like “bacteria in a Petri dish,” he says). He realized it was set to change the world forever. Bezos didn’t want to be left out of the action. He quit his job and founded Amazon. Today he is worth almost $200 billion.

Around the same time, Elon Musk was pursuing his Ph.D. when he had a similar realization. He dropped out and founded his first company, Zip2. Today he is worth almost $100 billion.

Of course, not everyone can replicate their successes, but the point is —

Future generously rewards those who can foresee it and act accordingly.

At the same time, the unfortunate reality is, most of us are so in love with the status quo that we cringe at the possibility of the future being any different. Instead of preparing for it (or inventing it), we continue to live in denial. The disaster caused by the current pandemic is, in part, a result of such denial.

But how do we know what to expect from the future, you might ask? Not everyone has the time, insight, or resources to come up with answers to such questions. The good thing is — you don’t have to.

If you are attentive to what the smart people around the world are saying and doing, your task becomes much easier. It will give you a curated collection of some of the most powerful ideas. All you need to do is use your critical thinking to decide which of those ideas make the most sense to you.
Would you like to write for Mindful?
By: Renee Tarantowski
Tags: Submission Guidelines, Photography, Menopause, Writing

Would you like to write for Mindful?

How to get published on Mindful

Mindful is looking for personal stories that focus on the mind, body and spirit of this season and informational/journalistic submissions.

I read each and every submission and will let you know ASAP.

Thank you for being part of Mindful and reaching out to others with your wisdom.

We are all walking each other home.

How to Submit Your Writing
This Month in Chirp — August
By: Jamie Tringham
Tags: Internet of Things, Chirp+ integration guides

Chirp SDK for Arm Cortex-M

We are happy to announce the public launch of the Chirp SDK for the Arm Cortex-M embedded processor range, a powerful and cost-effective way to integrate seamless connectivity into your IoT devices. Data-over-sound has never before been available for Arm chips, and it opens up vistas of new possibilities: seamless provisioning, zero-config M2M connectivity, proximity-sensitive smart objects… What will you build with it?

Download the Arm SDK from the Chirp developer hub.

A tutorial is available in the readme
Crypto Weekly: Bitcoin Set New ATH at $28,500; XRP Crashed at 60%
Tags: Trading, Xrp, Crypto, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

The past week has been rich in events in the crypto world. This also applies to Bitcoin, which continued its growth at Christmas and made many crypto enthusiasts happy. However, besides Bitcoin, many things have happened that will make us remember this week.

First of all, it is worth noting the new problems with Ripple. So, on December 23rd, the SEC filed a lawsuit against this company, as it believes that it was selling unregistered securities in the form of an XRP coin worth $1,5 billion to retail investors for 7 years. At the same time, part of the lawsuit relates to the founders of the company — Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen.

This almost instantly affected the XRP price, which fell 60% in 1 day. And this led to the fall of the entire altcoin market since such a claim could at any time touch every coin. Many crypto exchanges and services have announced that they are stopping XRP trading or are going to delist. This could be called a disastrous day for Ripple.

It’s worth noting that this lawsuit was filed by SEC Commissioner Jay Clayton, who resigned a few days later. This person was skeptical against cryptocurrencies and won lawsuits against many large projects — Telegram, EOS, Libra, etc. In addition, it was he who was the main opponent of the creation of cryptocurrency ETFs. The XRP lawsuit was his last statement and will be remembered for a long time.

Some crypto exchanges were not doing well this week. EXMO, the largest Eastern European exchange, has been hacked. Cryptocurrencies worth $10,5 million were withdrawn from her hot wallets, which is 6% of the total exchange funds. At the moment, the funds have not been returned, but the exchange has already turned to the police and the CipherTrace company, which should help track the funds.

The second exchange that had problems was Livecoin. At first, anomalies in the form of high prices arose there — the price of Bitcoin rose to $220,000, ETH — to $6,500. And then more than 100 Bitcoins were withdrawn from the exchange. Some people suspect Livecoin of exit scam. The company itself claims that they have been hit by a long hacker attack and have lost control of their servers.

And the last big negative news is connected with Ledger. So, a database of 1 million Ledger wallet owners got into the network, which contains mailboxes, phone numbers, and even addresses. And after that, many owners of this hardware wallet began to receive threats from intruders. The company itself says that this is the same base that was stolen in June 2020. And only now there was a buyer on the darknet who bought it.

The good news came from the DEX exchange aggregator — 1inch. The project team launched their own control token, which they distributed via an airdrop to those who previously used their aggregator. At the time of entering the exchange, the token has risen in price 12 times to $3. At the moment, the cost of the token is $1,20.

Now let’s see what happened to Bitcoin and what to expect from it next.

Click here to learn more
Eponymous Laws and Principles
By: Tom Connor
Tags: Tom Connor, Eponymous Laws, Leadership, Blog

First law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Second law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
An Open Letter to the Community on OceanOne Beta Launch
By: Yasmine Moustatia
Tags: Bitcoin, Etherum, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Technology

Dear Mixin Users,

It has been a while that our team has been working on a secret project and yet another milestone for us: Mixin OceanONE Exchange Beta version is officially released today!

Starting from day one, we have been working hard to get to the next level.

True, We have not been very communicative, but now, it is the time to go public! We have been dedicated to deliver to you the best technology and all of this is possible today thanks to the entire MIXIN team, I am proud to say that MIXIN Network is getting even stronger.

MIXIN is also working with other partners, and collaborating with Nepal’s Global Payment Service Provider City on an Instant Messaging Payment System, which will provide more extensive application scenarios for Mixin’s technologies.

Today, we launched the Beta Version of OceanONE. In the following month, OceanONE will be tested by all the Mixin community members. After the test period we will keep communicating when is the launch of the official version of OceanONE.

To participate in The OceanONE Beta Test Events please click on the following link for more details: https://medium.com/mixinnetwork/oceanone-beta-test-event-aefaf17694e2

Based on the features of the Mixin Network, OceanONE is committed to creating a new generation of decentralized exchanges. In just one week, the cumulative transactions exceeded 10 million in 24 hours.

OceanONE accepts all assets in Mixin Network as base currencies and at the moment, the trading pairs supported are Mixin XIN , Bitcoin BTC and Omni USDT.

For example:

I can trade USDT for ETH, BTC, XIN, SC, EOS

I can also trade BTC for EOS, XIN, SC, ETH

And finally for Xin I can trade SC, EOS, ETH

OceanONE realizes the user experience of “0” transfer fee and “1” second to transfer; it has the following three characteristics:

Transparent: all the transaction logs will be available on Mixin Network, which can be viewed by anyone;

Efficient: Same user experience as centralized exchange

Security: Secured as decentralized exchange. All the assets only exist in your wallet.

We are always looking to expand our ecosystem starting from the Mixin Messenger and now with the OceanONE Exchange, we are grateful to be able to deliver the best technology for our community and we are still hungry for more expansion and bright future.

Mixin Team,

August 13th, 2018
I was thinking about lions the other day.
By: Dayton Parks
Tags: Life Lessons, Personal Development, Freedom, Self Improvement, Life

I was thinking about lions the other day.

When I was a kid, I loved the local zoo’s lion exhibit more than any other. The big cats are magnificent. Standing outside their habitat, I would try to get their attention. I would wave and yell at them. But they ignored me as if I were too insignificant to even notice. Sometimes they would sleep in the sun, or they would stand and yawn. And once in a great while, they would roar. It would startle me. And then I would laugh. It must be an incredible experience to see them in the wild.

I was thinking about lions the other day, and the thought occurred to me they have everything given to them: free food, free healthcare, free housing. In exchange for everything being given to them freely, they will never be free again.
Love Letter to Community Colleges
By: Jenara Nerenberg
Tags: Politics, Community, Society, Wellbeing, Education

Love Letter to Community Colleges

Why we need them now more than ever.

The cold linoleum floor was a comfort to my pale, frail, freckly 16-year-old legs, a place to ground my overwhelm and confusion as a sensitive youngster.

My black hair always pulled back, my ears adorned with something, a long necklace draping my chest.

Cement pathways etched the wavy hills of a foggy campus; heavy textbooks weighed me into my body. I took long steps looking out at what felt like a big world. An open sky, a few buildings dotting the horizon, and us students.

My first friend was Aiko; an 18-year-old student from Japan, who was in my Afro-Haitian dance class. My high school down the street didn’t have p.e., only dance, and so I had already studied the art form. I was a skinny white kid but I could move.

My goateed brother, six years older than I, wandered the cement pathways as well. I’d run into him after yoga, flirting back with all the girls who regularly followed him out of class.

The boys I met were from other countries. Occasionally an old high school flame would walk by, we’d greet with a hug.

My political science professor’s daughter was named Liberty. My brother’s name is Justice, so we all hit it off.

My African Studies professor welcomed me and the one other white kid in a room of 30 Black students.

My Religious Studies professor compassionately observed my autistic classmate pace near the exit door of the room.

My English teachers taught me to write.

Those days feel like a microcosm of the world I want to live in, the world I thought I would encounter in the world beyond City College of San Francisco. Everything was nuanced and layered and complex, hierarchies torn asunder. My classmates had AIDS and were veterans and dropouts and the widows of motorcycle murders. I was a child and mentally ill and strange. Our teachers cared deeply.

Every institution should be like this.

Every town should be like this.

Our country should be like this.

We shrug the common person, afraid to confront what’s real and human, always insatiably hungry for more and higher and bigger and different and…greener grass.

Community college felt like the perfect world that didn’t make sense. It did not piece together like some fantasy “melting pot.” More like glass shards of smiles strewn and melded, bright fire red blazing into orange and gold, teal and silver, like the abstract Kandinsky hanging on my wall, linear but not, proportional but not. Complementary, yes…gorgeous, yes.

Almost half of all college students are community college students. We are real and big and sizable and significant. We wear hijabs and sign ASL and work and care for children and take drugs and attend rehab and live in shelters. We transfer to state schools and go on to Ivys and politics and school boards and paint and run museums and perform and all the other things successful Americans do.

And yet no one speaks of us. We exist; there are 8–10 million of us per year.
§9 Aristocratic Generosity … the original Kickstarter?
Tags: Beethoven, Kickstarter, History, Philanthropy, Aristocracy

Patreon, Kickstarter, Unbound, and Brewdog’s ongoing Equity for Punks initiative are all instances of ‘membership platforms’ that allow mere mortals to become patrons, benefactors and minor shareholders. This is a democratic formation of what was once a gesture of ‘aristocratic generosity’ — a central reason for the nobility’s popularity in previous ages, and a more-recent source of leverage for royalty to remain ‘relevant’ in an age of heightened democratic principles and imperatives (Queen Elizabeth II, for instance, has done more for charity than any other monarch before her).

Following the premier of his Symphony №1 (performed 1800, published in 1801), Ludwig van Beethoven was relieved from the vulgar “necessities of life” by wealthy Viennese aristocrats (Prince Lobkowitz and Prince Kinsky) under the condition that he remained living in Vienna and contributing to its cultural scene. From 1809, “Ludwig van” accepted a contract of 4,000 florins a year which, following the death of his original patrons, was honoured by Archduke Rudolph until Beethoven’s death in 1827.

For Nietzsche, generosity is a central virtue partly because it is premised on a removal from material attachment and acquisition. In this sense, ‘generosity’ is always an aristocratic gesture. In the democratic ‘membership platforms’ described above, it is not generosity (as Nietzsche understood it) but a form of collectivized partaking; the platforms are based on individual membership, association and ownership and therefore give the individual a sense of ‘being part’ of a trend. Rather than an act of generosity they encourage an association and stake that is akin to a proliferated form of venture capitalism combined with the allure of wearing a badge of cool. In a strange twist of fate, today, and in particular on-line, it is ‘the people’ rather than aristocratic families that decide the fate of artistic culture and merit. This is not necessarily a cultural race-to-the-bottom as one can imagine Nietzsche suggesting, but rather evidence that Americanism has won out over Old Europe, and the aristocracy of the age is what Edgar Allen Poe once described as an “aristocracy of dollars”.

/Pete Watt
5 Reasons Why You Should Keep Writing (Even If You Want to Quit)
By: Itxy Lopez
Tags: 5 Tips, Creativity, Writing, Motivation, Writing Tips

Giving up sounds easy — sweet, even, like a piano sonata by Beethoven. How easy it would be to let go of your goals and dreams and slide into bed to sleep without a care in the world.

Your doubts would quiet, and you would be at peace. No need to worry about coming up with ideas, writing good headlines, publications, rejections — everything would be gone. It’s tempting.

The problem is that you’re focusing on what you would relieve yourself of now. You’re not just giving up hard work. You abandon all the people you wanted to help, your chance at becoming a published author, the life you’d live if you could make a full-time income from writing.

No matter which path you choose, you have to make sacrifices, but which sacrifices reap better rewards. I ask you: Do you really want to quit?

Here are five reasons why you shouldn’t.
艾爾甘佐酒店：隔離期間
Tags: 中文, Covid 19, Quarantine, Indie Pop, 音樂

還記得「超特白男孩」嗎？



不誇張，解散後重組的男孩們，因為肺炎疫情被困在墨西哥。



原本從義大利、挪威、德國等地飛過去的團員，預計在帕爾諾特音樂祭開唱。



怎料不但演出取消，還因為新的14天隔離禁令，只剩下主唱眼鏡仔 Erlend Øye 和鼓手 Sebastian Maschat 得以見面相聚⋯⋯

但他們已和當地酒店（Hotel El Ganzo）約定好要錄一張專輯（我猜是簽約了），四天免費的錄音室不用白不用，剩餘兩人只好搞出這張民謠取向的《艾爾甘佐酒店：隔離期間》



雖然不是 funky 的超特白，這種雙人組民謠反倒比較像好自在，但怎麼可能不買單，這曲〈Price〉是如此動人：



「代價，你還是要付

因為曾接收了我的愛

美夢，你還是得殺死

在求得自由之前

毒藥，你依賴的毒藥

必須停止吞服

痛擊，你必須打倒我

才能讓我走

但丟出的每一拳

也會傷到你自己

最終，我們找到一個方式

把應該簡單的事，弄得複雜」



感傷的調子配上輕快的「優拉糖果式」叭叭叭唱和，真的好好聽，好適合與週日道別。

Price

There is a price

You’ll have to pay

For once having been

The recipient of

My love

Dream, there is a dream

That you must kill

Before you get to ask

To have back

Your free will

Drug

There is a drug

That you must stop

To be dependent of

Fight, you’ll have to fight

To let me go

And every punch you’ll throw

Will hurt you so

In the end

We found a way

To complicate

What really should have been

A simple thing
Actualización de Beta 0.9.23 — iPad listo
Tags: iPad, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Beta, Decentralization

in Both Sides of the Table
E-book : Java® EE Notes for Professionals Book
Tags: Programming, Books, Coding, eBooks, Java Ee

E-book : Java® EE Notes for Professionals Book

Download Java EE’s E-book free by GoalKicker.com

Download Here : http://books.goalkicker.com/JavaEEBook/

The Java® EE Notes for Professionals book is compiled from Stack Overflow Documentation, the content is written by the beautiful people at Stack Overflow. Text content is released under Creative Commons BY-SA. See credits at the end of this book whom contributed to the various chapters. Images may be copyright of their respective owners unless otherwise specified

Book created for educational purposes and is not affiliated with Java® EE group(s), company(s) nor Stack Overflow. All trademarks belong to their respective company owners

32 pages, published on January 2018

Chapters
The perks of living alone
By: Connie Song
Tags: Relationships, Living, Self Development, Independence, Short Story

The perks of living alone

when no man is an island

Photo Credit: Rhett Noonan photography on Unsplash

“No man is an island, entire of itself.” — John Donne

At one time, I wholeheartedly agreed.

Research, as well as conventional wisdom, has shown that it is actually healthier to be part of a community or a unit, as opposed to the life of a recluse. The psychological and physiological benefits exponentially outweigh the risks of social isolation.

It took me a while to discover the perks that could be derived from living alone.

I was the eldest of four kids, so add in my parents, that made six. At one point, my grandmother came to live with us. She was a sweet lovely who did not want to be a burden to anyone. The house was filled with love.

Filled being the operative word.

I decided it was time for me to get more personal space.

Still in college, I sought an apartment closer to school with the benefit of roommates to split the cost of rent and household expenses. And, honestly, for the sake of not living alone. A succession of roommates with nasty habits permanently changed my perspective.

I’m talking about leaving dirty dishes or clogging up the bathroom drain with obsessive hair compulsions or poor apartment hygiene. I did not want to become the den mommy who would clean up after everyone.

I sought enlightenment and a place of my own.

Here’s what I learned from my experience living alone.

Bathroom privileges.

No one knocking on the door, waiting to get in. Taking care of business with the bathroom door open. Not having to share the medicine cabinet.

Nothing in life is as liberating as completely owning your own bathroom.

More closet space

Need I say more. My kingdom for a sock drawer.

Unrestricted television viewing

No fighting over the remote or bickering over viewing preferences. Or sulking when you’ve been overruled. Or trying to write or read while your roomie is watching yet another distracting episode of Friends or the Good Wife.

Meditation Reinvented

If you want to connect with your inner child or budding artist, living alone is the perfect environment.

Or why not discover Buddhist revelations to the secrets of a happy life; solitude is not a bad way to start the process.

Practice Beyonce dance moves in the mirror, in your personal rehearsal studio. Of course, all these activities bloom within a social environment. Including social media.

So, deep down I understand ‘no human is an island.’ But it’s a great place to visit, for your ‘own piece’ of mind.
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Italy, Drawing, Watercolor, Giglio Island, Art

First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.

Follow
My Perception Of Self-Doubt Differs from Yours
By: Krystal Lo
Tags: Life Lessons, Personal Development, Self Improvement, Writing, Life

The words of truth are always paradoxical- Lao Tzu

Believe it or not, I have always viewed self-doubt as something positive as opposed to being a negative issue. Most people would perceive self-doubt as an inability to complete a certain task. A bad trait in its entirety.

On the other hand, it serves as a way for me to access whether I could complete a task successfully. When I was still working in an office, my manager would pass her tasks to me even though it was out of my job scope. I chose to interpret it as a sense of trust from her.

A part of me doubted my own abilities, another part of me felt reluctant to complete the task, lastly another part of myself thinks I should just suck it up.

Depending on the task given, I would make my decision accordingly. Never would I compared myself to a machine, when I should be in control instead.

So how can self-doubt be linked to self-improvement?

Well, if you can’t complete the given task this time, wouldn’t that motivate you to work harder on it the next time round? Speaking from my own experiences, I would declare we are always seeking for self-worth rather than self-validation.

Self-worth is within ourselves and based on another person’s perspectives. We are concerned about how others perceive our working abilities. Needless to say, we want to always be regarded as an asset rather than a useless tool.

How to establish this healthy connection between self-doubt and self-improvement? Firstly, we should ask ourselves this question: Am I able to do this task without much hinderance? If yes, just go ahead and nail it. Otherwise, think of an alternative method.

Either way, we are always improving ourselves. Each day is always different hence it can be another opportunity or a form of redemption. To stop committing the same mistakes over and over again.

Self-improvement is almost like an invincible path. You don’t know how much you are improving until you master all the necessary skills required to proceed further.

Instead of moping over what you can’t do, why not focus on how much improvement you are making each day? After some time, you would realise that you are getting better.

Before that happens , let’s just keep on trying.
Beijing’s Crackdown! 🥊
Tags: Facebook, China, Netflix, Business, Technology

Big tech stocks have been in some hot water over the past few months with CEO’s from some of America’s largest tech stocks like Facebook and Google being drilled over their privacy and data collection policies.

Overseas another private public sector standoff is taking place, with the Chinese government placing a major crackdown over Chinese Tech stocks. Beijing has deemed companies like Tencent growing at a pace too fast and a size too large and cracked down on companies like Alibaba over antitrust grounds. The implication comes at a poor time for some of these companies with Alibaba falling another 8% on top of its already brutal decline over the past 2 months. Some investors are even seeing this as the “final low” and think it is time for the bulls to return for Alibaba. At the same time many see this is a major risk, with the magnitude of Beijing’s future actions still being unclear.

Despite this, many of you holding FAANG or (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, or Google) may find this as good news. As Daniel Ives of Wedbush explains: “dynamics will yet again bode well for U.S. tech stocks as the favorable backdrop creates a nirvana set-up for FAANG and the overall U.S. tech sector into 2021”. Moreover, with the Senate likely going to republicans and the Democrats holding the presidency a political gridlock is set to follow suit, meaning crackdowns from the U.S government and U.S tech stocks will likely be slowed, another good sign for the U.S tech industry.

I am not a financial advisor and my comments should never be taken as financial advice. Investments come with risk, so always do your research and analysis beforehand.
Effective Ransomware Prevention and Response
By: Eric Vanderburg
Tags: Cybersecurity, Ransomware

The recent Microsoft Office Modern Workplace episode “Ransomware — What you need to know” brought together two great minds, Theresa Payton and Steven Wilson, to discuss this topic. Theresa Payton, CEO and co-founder of Fortalice Solutions, LLC and Steven Wilson, head of EC3, Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, discuss quite a few crucial elements of ransomware protection.

Our companies and data are under an increasing assault from ransomware. Its scale and scope have only grown as profits from attacks are used to improve ransomware technology, and news of ransomware’s exploits encourage others to enter this criminal enterprise. Conversely, the ransomware attacks of 2017 have raised awareness of ransomware and concern for protecting organizational data. This leaves CIOs and CISOs asking how to protect against ransomware.

Ransomware protection is a blend of prevention and response. Prevention controls are designed to reduce the likelihood of ransomware successfully infiltrating your organization. However, no system is perfect, so it is vital to have response methods, including backup and recovery processes in place to handle those cases.

Reducing the likelihood of ransomware

On the webcast, Payton and Wilson list some activities companies can perform to reduce the probability of a ransomware incident. These include utilizing strong passwords, patch management, network segmentation, and employee education.

Collectively, these activities are part of an organization’s cyber hygiene. Strong passwords help prevent against password guessing and cracking while patch management protects against known, vendor-remediated vulnerabilities. Network segmentation limits the potential scope of a ransomware attack so that ransomware only impacts devices and data on a single segment. The last item, employee education, is one of the most important. Solutions are not just technical; they have to address the human side of things too, and employee education helps prevent the mistakes that can lead to a ransomware outbreak. Phishing, for example, is the most popular ransomware distribution method and employee education can train users how to recognize such messages and tactics so that they can be avoided.

Responding to ransomware

Payton and Wilson list incident preparation and quarantining procedures as crucial response activities. Incident preparation includes putting together an incident response plan, practicing the plan, and ensuring that backup and recovery methods capture relevant data, are documented, and tested.

Ransomware has demonstrated its damage potential through the myriad attacks of 2017. The threat continues to grow, and it is even more important today for companies to put the right technology, processes, and procedures in place to protect against this threat and to respond to ransomware incidents.

Special thanks to Microsoft Office, the sponsor of this article. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
Rowan College at Burlington County opens Fall Personal & Professional Development course registration
By: Tom Beck
Tags: College, Education, Business, University, Art

Rowan College at Burlington County opens Fall Personal & Professional Development course registration

RCBC is offering classes in art, education, literature and more.

Registration for Rowan College at Burlington County’s fall 2017 Personal & Professional Development courses is now open.

The college offers non-credit courses to the community so that all students have the opportunity to upgrade skills, pursue new ones or explore a hobby in these special courses. All age groups are represented in these credit-free courses and are registered on a first-come, first-served basis.

New for 2017, the college has modernized its process by moving the course booklet entirely online. Personal & Professional Development brochures were mailed to the community in the new cost-effective approach, which eliminated the need for booklets.

RCBC is offering classes in the following categories:

Personal Development:

· Art

· Culinary

· Education

· Fashion

· Fitness

· Literature

· Music

· Recreation

· Safety

· World Languages

Aquatics:

· Swim Classes

· Certifications

Professional Development:

· Administrative

· Business

· CISCO Networking

· Entrepreneur

· Financial

· Food Service

· Graphic Design

· Health Sciences

· Human Resources

· Leadership Management

· Logistics & Transportation

· Project Management

· Microsoft Office

· Sales & Marketing

Please visit rcbc.edu/ppd for a complete listing of each course and our new express registration to ensure your seat for the fall for an opportunity to transform your life though education at Rowan College at Burlington County.

Registration is also available over the phone at (856) 222–9311, ext. 2530, online at rcbc.edu/WebAdvisor, or in person in Mount Laurel.
What’s your writer bird type?
By: Melinda Crow
Tags: Ideas, Social Media, Creativity, Advice, Writing

What’s your writer bird type?

Lately, I’ve been seeing a LOT of seagull writing. You know the type — they pick through the picnic trash on the beach and the bait entrails left on fishing docks, looking for the juicy bits they can carry home and regurgitate to their baby gulls.

Your best writing happens when you stop throwing up the same old garbage. Seek out your own food. Be a predator — maybe a great horned owl. They aren’t afraid of anything. Hunt down something alive and take THAT home to your followers to chew on.

If you’re interested in breaking the chains holding you back from your best writing, join me on Facebook on the Breakout Writing page. We’ll be starting a mastermind soon for a limited group of owls.
Más de 1.000 personas se han unido a nuestra lista de espera en menos de un mes
By: Sandra Manrique
Tags: Green Energy, Sostenibilidad, Ecologia, Energia, Ahorrar

in Both Sides of the Table
Writing You A Poem
By: Adibah Dahabi
Tags: Poem, Love, Passion, Poetry, Love Letters

Ari He- Unsplash

Writing you a love letter is simple

Your thought fills my paper

I don’t make it abstract

I make it as clear as ice

But you receiving it is different

It goes through water

The letters get smudged

It loses its rosy sent

Even though I drenched it in my perfume and kissed it

Your mind is the ocean

Please let it sit out to dry

I need you to read what it says

Read it at night

Use the moon’s light

Listen to the waves

Understand from where it came

But I know you’ll just toss it aside.
Future Contract Guide Types
By: Mario Gibney
Tags: Xraytrade, Company, Bitcoin, Futures Trading, Cryptocurrency

The best way to learn is through example:

Let's say that you have a hunch that Litecoin is going to have a great first quarter, and let's imagine that LTC is currently worth about 0.015 BTC. I think that's what I think it's going to be worth at least 0.020 BTC by the end of March, so you have to buy some Litecoin Futures LTCH18 (aka, going long on Litecoin).

Now, you might notice that there are two different prices listed - the trading price, and the index price. The LTC is really worth the moment on the spot markets.

If other traders are rather bullish on Litecoin, then the trading price might be slightly higher - say, 0.017 BTC. In this scenario, that would still be less than your March estimate of 0.020 BTC, so you decide it's worth a buy.

You want to know how to do it. For simplicity, let's assume you got one contract, worth 1 Litecoin.

Now, the simple thing you can do is wait until the expiry date arrives. If you were correct, and Litecoin is indeed worth 0.020 BTC by then, your contract will settle, and you'll be credited with 0.020 BTC. On the other hand, if Litecoin performed poorly, and it was only worth 0.010 BTC, you'd be credited with 0.010 BTC, with a loss.

Keep in mind, however, that you do not actually need to wait until the expiry period has finished. You can leave your position earlier than the settlement date by directly selling / buying on the market.

Let's say you're still holding a Litecoin contract, and it's mid-March. All of a sudden Litecoin futures surge, and you see that its futures are trading for 0.022 BTC. You double check your metrics, and conclude that you still think Litecoin will only be worth 0.020 BTC by the end of March. In this case, you will probably want to exit right away.

Thank you very much for your interest. Now, you will be able to exit at a higher profit, and earlier than the expiry date.

There is a lot of other scenarios where you might want to exit earlier (let's say you hear some bearish news about Litecoin, or you have a different position to open up funds for, etc. that you do not need to wait for the expiry date to settle your contracts).

In this example, we used Litecoin, but it works effectively the same for all other BitMEX altcoin futures at the time of writing.

XBTH18 and XBTM18 work extremely similarly, except you're looking at the price of Bitcoin in USD, and each contract is worth 1 USD (not 1 BTC, as you might expect from the way the altcoin futures work).
The one word that can end all wars is LOVE. But it can’t just be a word. It must be an ACT.
By: Treathyl Fox
Tags: Claps On Medium, Love, Peace, War

The one word that can end all wars is LOVE. But it can’t just be a word. It must be an ACT.

It’s funny that you used the words “comedic explanation” because I was laughing as I was reading the paragraph just before seeing these two words. When you began your next paragraph, I’m like: “How did he I was laughing?” LOL.

But your use of the other word “superpower”? That’s not a joke.

Why is that people have no problem understanding that a superhero with superpowers is fiction? But they insist on believing that being a superpower is real.

A SUPERPOWER IS NOT REAL! It’s a figment of man’s imagination. Just like superheroes.

* * *

Dear Leaders: Look at the facts.

There were and are nations who could and can boast that they have the largest military force IN THE WORLD! But does that stop other countries from looking at them from a distance and thinking: ‘Eh! They must have a weak spot somewhere.’

That’s why when a large military force tries to approach the country with a smaller military force, the country with the smaller force starts strategizing.

That’s why there’s such a thing as a WAR ROOM!! Those military geniuses get together and say “You not even gonna bully US!! How many soldiers we got? How much weaponry? Where are our allies? Etc. Etc. Etc. Justification? It’s not war. It’s self-defense. On the ‘outside’ it just looks like war.”

Don't you see Mr. or Ms. Leader with the Goliath-complex? Trust me on this.

If you really were a real superpower, EVERYBODY WOULD ALREADY KNOW!!

There would be NO WAR because everybody would be too scared to fight YOU!

Really!
I Hate Competition — a Delirious Rant
By: Ferdi Zebua
Tags: Capitalism, Rant, Competition, Liberalism

History records that Sukarno, first president of the Republic of Indonesia, used to say that he doesn’t hate liberalism (at least not all of liberalism), but instead he specifically hates free-fight liberalism, which I suppose is a particular sub-strain of liberalism instead of all of liberalism..

Wait, was that free-fight liberalism, or free-fight capitalism? I think it was free-fight capitalism.

Capitalism is about capital.

While liberalism is about liberty.

One can suppose, I guess.

Interesting isn’t it, how at the very least some portions of Western culture equate capital with liberty…

So much so that I, a non-Western exposed to Western culture also thinks that way, at least some times…

(If one lacks capital, one also lacks liberty..? Uhh…) *shiver*
The Editing Process That Helps Me Produce Better Stories
By: Maya Sayvanova
Tags: Inspiration, Books, Editing, Writing, Creative Writing

Editing — a crucial part of writing. The act of going over the material and making it the best it can be.

I find editing requires just as much, if not more effort than writing. That’s why it’s important to create an editing process that you can stick to even when you don’t feel on top of your game.

An editing process is something that changes and evolves, of course, so it will never be set in stone. Mine isn’t either — but I feel it’s gotten up to a point where it helps me create writing that is good, or at least as good as I can get it to be, whether I’m working on a Medium story or a novel.

So, since it works for me, feel free to steal a little something.
Could You Precuse This Busted Manual?
By: Van Sanders
Tags: Opinion, Nonsense, Poetry, Oil, Trump

And they kind of wiped me like there was something they wanted from my side…

There, to my story, like a saggy point, fixed before a hoop, is something general, waiting in a damp-ish hood for restoration and jiggly puppy-spread on dried double-wheat smackers. You shouldn’t fake it like we used to.

Surely I am wax behind a goat. Messy death in applied pride. There could be more to get out of this state one mustn’t grasp for surgery tokens in the handle.

But, my candle isn’t wet for this paddle is my sputum. Remember to spoil the sugar out of my hairy cracks. I’m holding hands with Captain Magic.
Keeping the conversation going: Reflections on the Governors Summit
By: Janet Foutty
Tags: Tech, Women In Tech

It’s now 2 weeks after I was privileged to be a part of the Governors Summit, co-hosted by Facebook and Girls Who Code and I am still energized by the experience. Hearing from the Governors, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook, Inc. COO, and Reshma Saujani, Founder and CEO of Girls Who Code was inspiring. Additionally, the three young women who shared their stories of innovation, breaking cultural stereotypes, and even superheroes, further underscored my confidence in the next generation. All of the personal stories we heard remind us that closing the gender gap in Technology is an important goal and it’s critical that we keep having these discussions and sharing our experiences with each other.

As I said in my discussion, I know that my STEM education makes me a better leader. It prepared me to pursue leadership positions… and gave me the confidence to take stretch assignments and to take leaps. It helps me today. I have taken my background in math and analytics and actively incorporated it into my management style and processes.

STEM subjects (with a heathy dose of the Arts!) can help you develop skills you need to become leaders. And we need more leaders — especially women leaders — at all levels of our fast-changing economy.

But most of all, to all the girls out there, to all the mentors, the supporters, and the support networks, I encourage you to stick with it. This work is hard and it’s easy to give up. So keep doing what you’re doing. Keep pushing for each other, for diversity, and for inclusion.

And know that Deloitte and the many other organizations who support Girls Who Code stand with you and want to help.

I am honored to have had the opportunity to speak with you and thank you to all who let me be a part of this amazing event.

You are all superheroes.