fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
This Is What America Looked Like Before the EPA
By: Matthew Gault
Tags: Defiant Science, Environment, Environmental Issues, Epa

This Is What America Looked Like Before the EPA

In 1971, the fledgling agency sent photographers across the country to document environmental devastation

by MATTHEW GAULT

Pres. Donald Trump wants to dismantle the EPA. It would be almost impossible to do so outright, so he did the next best thing. He picked former Oklahoma attorney general and notorious EPA-hater Scott Pruitt to head the Agency and put forth a budget plan that would gut the department.

Trump’s budget proposal — which still needs Congressional approval — would cut one fifth of the agency’s staff, eliminate entire programs and trim $2 billion from its budget. The point, Trump said, is to use the saved cash to bolster the military.

This is a terrible plan. The much maligned Environmental Protection Agency provides an incredible service to both America and the world — it makes sure the world outside our window never again looks like it did in the 1960s and ’70s.

It’s hard for people who weren’t there to remember what the world was like before the EPA. There was a reason Pres. Richard Nixon’s proposal to establish a federal agency to protect the environment enjoyed bi-partisan support. Back in 1970, humans had done a great job of fucking up nature.
That Quiet Love
By: Priyanka Srivastava
Tags: This Happened To Me, Writing, Poetry, Relationships, Priyanka Srivastava

That Quiet Love

A micro poetry about balancing writing life

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

those who know me

they know that when I write

I meditate, even when I am

sitting next to them I am not there.

sometimes they pull me back

other times they let me be me.

that’s the quiet of saying

they love that part of me.
Breakout Startups #22- Fast
By: Ankit Kumar Singh
Tags: Breakout Startups, Fast

What is Fast?

Fast is building the button for the world’s fastest login and checkout experience for the Internet. This can be easily added to any website for secure one-click login for all users.

The product supports 100% of users, authenticating through email, and doesn’t require users to have a Fast account.

If you want to have a demo of how the product works, here’s a good explainer from the website👇

Product

Fast currently enables a Stripe like integration for websites to enable one-click login and sign up for websites. The product has already integrated with a bunch of websites.

Along with this, the company is planning to enable Fast Pay which will enable users to pay with just a tap on any site, even on the first visit.

Fast Pay- One-click Checkout

A Product like Fast is very beneficial to businesses as it can help them in increasing sales on conversions along with increasing the ease of the use for the users.

Currently, Fast is available to install on any of the 33M+ websites running on any of these platforms.

Investors

Fast has raised a total of $2.5M in a Seed Round led by Jon Hammer(Investor in companies such as Robinhood, Collibra, TransferWise & others) of Index Ventures where other marquee ventures such as Kleiner Perkins, Global Founders Capital, Susa Ventures also participated.

Team

Domm Holland- Founder & CEO of Fast, Prominent figure in Australian Startup Ecosystem, Previously; Built an award-winning technology platform and business which dealt with more than $50M in transactions.

Allison Barr Allen- COO of Fast, Previously; Global Leadership Team at Uber.

Jon Amadei- Product at Fast, Previously; Square, Wish.

Market Landscape

Fast is solving a big pain point for both users and businesses which is having different usernames and passwords for every site they visit. Facebook and Google solve it through their OAuth Tool but they acquire all the user data in the lieu of doing this.

This is one essential factor that plays well for a product like Fast is that users don’t want to give away their data to Google and Facebook which are the current authorization tools used by a lot of websites.

Fast is committing to not owning any data related user’s identity which makes it a product to watch out😄

Along with this, the product has been generating great buzz in the tech circles.

Along with this, the company is hiring employees from startups such as Uber, Postmates and several others. The company’s most notable hire sofar has been Allison Barr Allen, who joined as COO of Fast from Uber where she was a part of the Global Leadership Team.
For When Your Stomach Does Front Flips
By: Gloria Bates
Tags: LGBT, Poetry, Loneliness, Relationships, Life

At night, I imagine the breadth of your shoulders

As varied sloping into darkness.

You have become a late night craving:

Sometimes, brown sugar heaps

Shifting under my breath,

Sometimes the salt of your sweat

Drying in my sheets.

I dream in the shape of the space between

Your two front teeth when you sleep.

That is to say, I hope

I’m stuck on the tip of your tongue,

Because wedged between

What I’ve told you and what you’ve told me

Is the ache in my bones when my hips

Creak against

The snowflake air that

Shudders in whispers

As the shutters of my window

Fail to block

The bleak morning light whimpering on

About another day the Lord has made.

And though I say, “amen,” I am a

Dis-congregated sinner

Whose wandering mind

Lusts for baby boy fields and dirty

Fingernails holding baby’s breath for me,

My lover is out there and

I hold my baby’s breath in me

And I want him to huddle inside of me

When when his breath pushes up against

My chest like a troubled tide,

And my mind pranks us both and whips us

Up into a summer squall.

I want his hands

Pressed against my heaving stomach.

I want to hold his piece in my stillness and

Let God’s people say amen.

Gloria Bates
It’s Finally Here. Today, I sat and read the world’s news.
By: Jeremie Kubicek
Tags: Authors, Self-awareness, Leadership, Human Resources, Books

Many of you have already purchased it. Thank you! We so appreciate your support. As you read it I think you will see how it could be a field guide to helping people know how to get those they lead to higher levels while staying healthy themselves.

For those of you who have not had a chance to purchase the book, would you consider it? Go to amazon.com or to the 100XLeader.com and pick your copy up.

By the way, since this is the last week that our book sales will count towards the list, would you consider picking one up for your team or for any you are leading/training?

Thanks for your partnership in getting people 100% healthy and for training them how to Multiply (X). Fighting for the highest possible good of those we lead is worth it!
Where is Love?
By: Ian Cahill
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Love, Poetry, Longing

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

Where is love?⁣

Is it on the couch while you read upstairs. ⁣

Is it tucked away in corners like some hidden despair?⁣

If I look super close after you’ve had a drink or two, I think I see your love. But is it really true?⁣

⁣

Is your love in a rhyme? I may never know. Your upturned lip, is that a smile? It keeps me awake at night. ⁣

⁣

Listen, I know a lot of time has passed since we first set eyes on each other, but that doesn’t mean you no longer fill my heart, just because I watch TV or work on my art.⁣

⁣

I’m really just looking for affirmation. It all just part of this equation that has you and me and love wrapped together. ⁣

⁣

So where is love? I look hard for it everyday. Like a miner, chipping away. Sometimes I find a piece or two. Sometimes I find the whole you. ⁣
FAANG Stocks Haven’t Moved In A Month — What That Means
By: Cody Collins
Tags: Stock Market, Money, Tesla, Investing, Stocks

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash

Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. Also known as FAANG.

Four of the top five (sorry Netflix) largest companies in terms of market capitalization. The other company in the top five, Microsoft (they will be important to look at too.)

Being such large companies, they have a great influence on the market. Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon account for more than 16% of the S&P 500 weighting. In an index of 500 stocks, three stocks have more weighting than over 100 other stocks combined. Almost every, if not every, fund manager has some or all of these companies in their portfolio.

Because of their influence, when they move, the market moves. These six stocks helped lead the market comeback in late March and early April. They have all been great performers this year. But recently, not so much.

Tesla has been dominating the recent news, rightfully so, as it is up about 50% in the past month and even more for the year. The approval of a COVID-19 vaccine and talks of a new stimulus deal has also been ruling the news.

Performance This Past Month

All that said, FAANG and Microsoft have not had any gains this last month. Well, four of the six haven’t really had any.

Using the market close price of 12/15 and the market opening price of 11/16, here is how the six stocks have performed:

FB — 0.18%

AMZN — 2.33%

APPL — 7.53%

NFLX — 8.29%

GOOGL — (0.17%)

MSFT — (0.34%)

Looking at the charts of these companies for the last month provides a better picture. You can see four of the six haven’t really done anything.

Apple was up big 12/15 on news, but before 12/15 their monthly gain was less than 3%. And Netflix is likely benefiting from the rising cases and stay at home orders being issues.

What it Means

In a world dominated by technology, it's not often the big tech stocks lag the market. If a stimulus bill passes, the market could be poised for a breakout. And this breakout could be led by FAANG and Microsoft.

While recovery stocks like major airlines (UAL, AAL, etc.) and oil companies (XOM, BP, etc.) are up the past month, they may not have more room to run. As the virus is contained and the world goes back to normal, recovery stocks will…well recover. But a stimulus bill now would help the biggest companies. People will push money into the market and FAANG and Microsoft will benefit, similar to how they did after the first stimulus bill.

There’s no guarantee that a new stimulus bill will pass. And there’s no guarantee that if one does pass, the market or any of the above-mentioned stocks will take off. But after moving sideways for the past month, an additional $800 billion ejected into the economy could give these stocks that boost they need.
Huobi appointed the head for a new trading platform
By: Ico, Crypto News
Tags: Huobi, Market, Blockchain, News, Token

One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges of the world Huobi published a press-release in that reported about setting head of the recently created trade platform, being under the management “strategic partner” exchange in the USA, company HBUS.

Till to lead the American market of the digital assets of Huobi, Frank Fu occupied leading posts in Meitu, Inc. — to the company from China, elaborative photos-appendixes for smartphones.

Fu also started a few mobile blockchain applications and startups in the areas of the digital medias in Asia and United States.

Huobi, headquarters that is located in Singapore, this year actively conducts international expansion. In March an exchange registered HBUS Inc. in FinCEN, and in April reported about the plans to open headquarters in London.

According to a press-release, today Fu will come forward at conference Blockchain Connect with a lecture on a theme “Global blockchain industry and its prospects”.

Also in this month Huobi declared a start own public blockchain, project Huobi Chain Project (HCP), that will get financing from a growth fund in size of 100 million dollars.

Before in this month an exchange declared development own blockchain platforms also. For the start the project under the name Huobi Chain money will be used from a fund.

Before reported that the new index exchange of Huobi 10, watching 10 leading cryptocurrencies, was added to Bloomberg Terminal.

According to data of CoinMarketCap, now Huobi is a fourth in size crypto exchange, the volume bidding that for twenty-four hours makes near $852 millions.

Join our Telegram channel
Tuesday’s Gone
By: Adam Meldrum
Tags: Democratic Primary, Social Listening, Super Tuesday, Google Trends, Network Graph

Tuesday’s Gone

And Cometh Again…

It was a wild week and a great one for Biden.

Seven days ago he rode the wave of Clyburn’s endorsement to a blowout win in South Carolina — resurrecting his campaign from lackluster performances in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.

Since then, Buttigieg, Warren, Steyer, Bloomberg, & Klobuchar dropped out — three of whom, (so far) went on to endorse Biden. And Joe went on to drastically over-perform on Super Tuesday, take the overall delegate lead, and effectively end what looked to be unstoppable Bernie momentum.

Whew.

Ok we are not hear to recap the narrative, we will leave that to the fake news.

Let’s look at some numbers.
About
By: Robin Bhan
Tags: About Us, About, About Me

About

Our Mission

‘The Logical Hindu’ aims to start this journey with you by answering some of your most common doubts concerning:

Ancient Indian practices (by merging both belief and logic) Core teachings of the Vedas Core teachings of the Upanishads

The Indian culture, traditions and texts are ancient and contain a wealth of knowledge & information.

‘The Logical Hindu’’ attempts to present you with this information crisply and excitingly.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Before you leave

Please fill this short survey. This survey will help us to improve and plan our future content accordingly. We look forward to serving you.

About the Author

My name is Robin, and I am the author of two e-books: ‘Why accepting failure is not an option’ & ‘It's 7:33 p.m.”

What I do when I am not writing

I am an MBA and work full-time as a Marketing Consultant for a Canadian company.

My Hobbies:

I will narrow it down to below three:

Love to read (my other favourite genres: Strategy, Business & Marketing) Occasionally cook (by referring to YouTube) Like to watch movies and web-series (favourite genre — Psychological thriller or the story of an underdog)

My favourite book: The Alchemist My favourite cuisine: Rajma Chawal My favourite movie & web series: Interstellar & Scam 1992

Want To Collaborate

My area of expertise lies in the CopyWriting, Content Writing, Website Writing, & Digital Marketing.

You can connect with me on Twitter, and we can decide how we can take your business to the next level.
7 Reasons Your Pitch Got Rejected
By: Alicia Wilcox
Tags: Writing, Pitch, Freelance, Freelance Writing, Writing Tips

7 Reasons Your Pitch Got Rejected

Common pitching mistakes & how to fix them

Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

As a writer, our job often starts by pitching to 50 clients a day and getting rejected from 49 of them. Not only can it be tiring to pitch to many new clients a day, but it can be discouraging to experience multiple rejections without knowing why.

Ultimately, your income as a writer lies in how impactful your pitch is. No matter how experienced you are or how good your portfolio is, a dull pitch will prevent you from getting any new jobs at all.

Below are seven common mistakes that writers make while pitching, and how you can grab the client’s attention in under 100 words.
Submit your Medium story to California Dreaming
By: Gena Vazquez
Tags: California, Writer, Publication

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the premiere publication that covers everything California.

We invite you to submit your story to our growing publication whether you are a resident or lover of California. The publication covers the news, issues, discoveries, general interests, and people of California.

Here’s the Deal

We will do our best to get your articles published within 24 hours of submitting to our publication. All articles must have to do with your experiences in California or about California. Medium Paywall Articles will be prioritized. Respond to this post with a link to your profile and we will add you upon approval. Please adhere to all of Medium’s Rules and Guidelines.

Thank you,

Gena Vazquez
DeepCode recognized as a top 16 startups disrupting software development with AI
By: Deepcode Ai
Tags: Deepcode, SaaS, Artificial Intelligence, Development, Software

Top 16 AI trailblazers

The 2 original sources are linked below:

AI is transforming lives and businesses everywhere. From retail to finance to healthcare to media, there is hardly any industry or vertical left untouched by AI. Software development is something that is ubiquitous to almost all the industries and, in the world of Agile and DevOps (that is fast approaching), the pace at which we need to deliver and update software is increasing rapidly. To cope with this change, there is a need to incorporate AI in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

Recognizing this, over the past few years, multiple startups have come up to fill this gap. They are constantly innovating to help increase the productivity and accuracy across all stages of the SDLC, starting from requirement gathering to development to testing to deployment to application security. Startups are constantly filling this gap with the application of next-generation concepts such as Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and deep learning.

In this research we present an assessment of startups utilizing AI in the field of software development, primarily focusing on their innovation, growth story, and the impact they have created in the market. We present an assessment and detailed profiling of the 16 AI startups across the stages of requirement, development, testing, deployment & maintenance, and security. Each startup profile provides a comprehensive picture of its technology capabilities, achieved market growth, and the perceived investors’ confidence.
The Woman Who Survived a Meteorite Attack
By: Mythili The Dreamer
Tags: Culture, Space, Feminism, World, History

The Woman Who Survived a Meteorite Attack

Ann Hodges was probably the only person in history to be hit by a meteorite in her Alabama home in 1954.

Image Credits: ThisisAlabama

Is there anything in the universe that is so dangerous that it can wipe out all of us instantly?

It is a meteorite. Let us say, if a one-kilometer long meteorite were to hit Mumbai city, this is what will happen.

· A deep crater at least 10–20 times the diameter of the meteorite would be formed at the impacted site, flattening everything all around it.

· The shock of the collision would create a massive earthquake of more than 10 on the Richter scale that would wipe out almost the entire population of the bustling city.

· If the meteorite falls in the sea, a massive tsunami would drown the city.

· And after the impact, the dust and debris would block the sun for months leading to diseases and drought.

In short, it would be a human and environmental disaster of massive proportions that would take years to recoup from the destruction.

Scary? Isn’t it?

Now the good part,

According to Tulane University environmental sciences professor Stephen A. Nelson, the chances of getting killed by a meteorite is only 1 in 250,000(almost negligible!).In fact, there is more probability of you getting murdered (1 in 185), killed by a cyclone (1 in 60,000), drowned by floods (1 in 27,000), and killed in an airplane crash (1 in 30,000).

But then weird things happen and that was what exactly happened to Ann Hodges on a quiet afternoon in 1954 when a softball-sized chunk of black rock broke through her ceiling, bounced off a radio, and hit her in the thigh, leaving her with a deep pineapple-shaped bruise.
SEO stratégia elemei: így tervezd a keresőoptimalizálás tevékenységed
By: Minorics Dávid
Tags: SEO, Performance Marketing, Performance, Online Marketing Strategy, Seo Strategy

in Both Sides of the Table
10 Critical Mistakes That Set Me Back 10 Years in Freelancing
By: Steven Ma
Tags: Work, Business, Freelancing, Marketing, Startup

10 Critical Mistakes That Set Me Back 10 Years in Freelancing

Here are the shifts I made to finally grow my business.

Photo by Hannah Wei on Unsplash

For 10 years, I’ve been an unsuccessful freelancer. That doesn’t mean I was a failure. I landed a few big projects, and I’ve been able to keep getting new clients over the years. But for the majority of that time, I hit a plateau. I wasn’t increasing the number of new clients and I wasn't increasing my overall revenue. I just chugged along.

10 years ago, I started freelancing in graphic design. It morphed into web design. Now I do mostly web design and social media marketing, but I am shifting to a bigger focus on strategy consulting.

Through all those years, I made critical mistakes that kept my business from really taking off. During my first year, I was actually taken advantage of by a company that didn’t pay me — you can read that story here and what I learned through that experience:

I’m not a successful freelancer now. But in the last 2 years, I’ve finally started making changes that I’ve been putting off for the past decade. I’m actually experiencing growth — more clients and higher-paying clients. These changes are things I should’ve done early on.

Though my experience is in the marketing industry, these principles can apply to any type of freelancer.

If I had known more about the pitfalls of freelancing early on, I could have experienced success in my business sooner and not wasted so much time. So if you’re new in your freelancing career or are currently on a plateau, this advice could alter the path of your business for the better.
One big reason why you should read this blog.
By: Rock The Apple
Tags: Vagabond, Life Lessons, New York, Music, New Music

I’ve just started to write this musical blog and already have predicted success for one small band.

One month ago I wrote about Vagabond and their concert at the Brooklyn Night Bazaar for $12. A month ago it was a local band that was trying to build a name.

However, in the first May issue of Time Out New York, they published interviews with the band’s lead singer about their first album. In just a moment this local band became big. At their May 6 concert they were sold out, and new concerts are soon to come. But the price is less likely ever will be $12.
Dog food never tasted better
By: Avner Sorek
Tags: JavaScript, Startup, Nodejs, Development, Software Development

I usually write about more technical topics — but I just wanted to share a small story about how using my own side-project really made my day.

I was doing some coding for the great people at dorbel.com, when I ran into an issue that required getting some stats from the Google Analytics API, on a Node.js server. It didn’t take me long to npm install googleapis , the official Google API client for Node. The Readme file was pretty helpful in getting me started, and then I moved onto the Reference Docs. Those were alright, but since the package really covers a lot of services — they didn’t go into a lot of detail. I soon found myself going back and forth between trying out stuff in the REPL, The Google Analytics developer page, The Google API Explorer, The Developer Console, and some SO questions…

I knew what method I wanted to use, but I couldn’t find the direct documentation for it. And then I remembered — this is why I built libhive !

What’s that code example site called again?

So I quickly opened the libhive googleapis page, found the examples for the method I needed (analytics) — and from there it was a breeze!

I quickly understood what I was missing, and I also saw how other people implemented similar issues.

“Eating my own dog food” was really fun for me — it strengthened my belief that my side-project is useful, and I hope other people will find it useful for their day-to-day work as well.
List of the Best Apps & Websites to Stay Safe in Hurricanes
Tags: Website Development, Development, Apps, Climate Change

The recent Hurricane in Florida showed how disastrous natural calamities can be leaving no choice to us other than wait for it to be normal. It is true that humans can’t do anything against natural calamities. But, what we can do the best is to prepare safety measures in advance. Hurricane Irma offered an example of how mobile apps can play an effective role at the time of emergence.

Zello is one such app that helped Hurricane stuck people in Florida to establish their connection with the outside world. It was because of the application that people remained connected with each other. Here is a list of such applications people can use while they are stuck in Hurricanes.

List of Best Apps for Tracking Hurricanes

Here are a few apps that are handy for people in order to remain safe during Hurricanes:

Hurricane Tracker

The app is one reliable to track hurricanes. Hurricane Tracker uses National Hurricane Center (NHC) data in order to transfer audio briefing. The app gives the real time broadcast making it easier for the users to remain updated with the latest developments. Customizing the application gives message alert access to the users. There is a Model Watch feature that uses predictive analysis in order to provide hurricane related updates. Moreover, the app can be downloaded at a cost of $4/app.

AccuWeather

The app offers insightful meteorological information to the users. AccuWeather map categorizes globe into five distinctive regions. Once users select a particular area, the app shows a series of comprehensive detail through including metrics such as wind speed, location, and directional movement through two column grid-based table. AccuWeather is available to download for free.

This Article is Originally Published here.
Millennial to Marketer: A Love Letter
By: Umna Khan
Tags: Social Media, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Millennials

Dearest Marketer,

Please don’t take this the wrong way. What we have had in the past has been great but I know who I am and what I want so its time I expressed it.

It’s not you, its me. I am a part of the most dynamic group of individuals. Naturally, I am always craving the “next big thing”, which you know forces companies to develop new and innovative products and services constantly. I am extremely diverse and open-minded to change. Lately I’ve been valuing positive feelings and experiences over economics. Contrary to your assumptions, I am extremely trust-worthy and can be a potential long-term partner in this relationship if you work on the following with me:

Get personal. I want to feel connected and those traditional outbound marketing efforts are annoying and unimpressive to someone who wants to receive more customer-centric and personalized advertising.

Be Genuine. I’ll feel empowered if you deliver authentic content that I can relate to and share with others. I’m not naive so I’ll know when you’re presenting the real deal.

Talk digital to me. I’m tech savvy — on average I spend about 17.8 hours EACH DAY consuming media. You know where to find me so take advantage of every platform (especially Facebook).

Let’s collaborate. I want you to include me in the the creative and development process of your advertising campaign. If you understand and use my perspective, your content and brand will hit close to home for your entire audience.

I can be influenced. You can use this to your advantage. I may not trust what you have to present to me right away, but if I see my peers sharing your content, I’m much more likely to give it a chance.

I’ll never leave (as long as you give me a reason not to.) You won’t have to worry about me leaving as long as you keep building a solid relationship and show your presence, preferably online, in new ways.

Have fun with me! I want a browsing or e-commerce experience that’s entertaining. Deliver content in such a way that I can actively engage and get excited. Like I said earlier, I’m all about positive feelings.

With this in mind, we’ll be a match made in marketing heaven.

With Love,

A Millennial

___________________________________________________________________

If you like what you just read, please hit the green ♡ below to recommend, so others can find this too. Sign up for Zumaeta Group’s newsletter.

Other articles you might like:
Why You Should Drop Everything and Buy a Copy of OUR BODIES, OUR SHELVES: A COLLECTION OF LIBRARY HUMOR
By: Roz Warren
Tags: Humor, Self Promotion, Writing, Promotion, Books

Why You Should Drop Everything and Buy a Copy of OUR BODIES, OUR SHELVES: A COLLECTION OF LIBRARY HUMOR

You’re Stuck At Home. Maybe Forever. You Need a Good Laugh.

The Front Cover. A vinrage photo of librarians actually climbing the shelves.

Our Bodies our Shelves is my collection of humorous essays about library life.

It got terrific reviews, even though you’ve never heard of it.

How many terrific reviews? Thirty excellent reviews on Amazon and over 100 on Good Reads. (Were there negative reviews too? Of course. But let’s not pay attention to them.)

Other than the fact that it’s a good read, why should you buy it?

It’s a great gift.

Anyone can buy a gift copy of a bestseller that everybody wants to read, like Where The Crawdads Sing or The Guardians.

But it takes a very special and thoughtful gift-giver to give the gift of a good book by a totally unknown writer.

Say your bookish friend has a birthday coming up, and you want to buy her a book she’ll love. You’re thinking of buying her Where the Crawdads Sing.

But? Chances are that at least one of her other friends has the exact same idea!

She could end up with multiple Crawdads!

How to avoid that? You need to buy her a book that you are absolutely certain she hasn’t read.

Trust me. She hasn’t read my book.

I know exactly how many people have read Our Bodies, Our Shelves. 1,471. Because that’s how many copies I’ve sold.

Okay, so some of those copies were sold to libraries. And others were shared among friends. Still? The odds are excellent that the recipient of your gift has not only never read Our Bodies, Our Shelves, but has no idea that it exists.

Plus it’s a humor book. Which means? It won’t frighten or depress her. Reading it won’t make her want to spend the rest of 2020 hiding under the bed.

Instead, it will make her laugh.

The world being the way it is, she probably needs all the laughs she can get.

In fact? So does everyone else on your 2020 Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanzaa/Festivus holiday gift list. So why not get that shopping done early and buy a copy for everybody on that list?

Then you can put your feet up, relax and read about Crawdads.

( Roz Warren writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times and is the author of two collections of library and book-related humor, Our Bodies, Our Shelves: A Collection of Library Humor, and Just Another Day At Your Local Public Library, both of which would make great gifts for your favorite librarian or other bookish friend.)

But wait, there’s more:
Become a Writer for the World Traveler’s Blog!
By: Cody James Howell Phd, Raiden
Tags: Travel Blog, Travel, Blog, Writing, Digital Nomads

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Welcome to the World Traveler’s Blog.

We’re super excited you stopped by! Our blog is a collaborative project from a diverse group of adventurers and digital nomads sharing the world through inspiring stories.

Our slogan is: The more you know, the better you travel!

What Kind of Writers Are We Looking for?

We love to read travel stories that deliver a message and add value to the reader. The world is too beautiful to stay at home, right?

Share your experience, add some great pictures, and make sure your story is structured, edited, and well-formatted. Please edit your draft with these tools before you submit it to us:

Grammarly makes sure everything you type is easy to read, effective, and mistake-free.

Hemingway Editor to structure and improve the readability of your story.

Here are some more useful tips for travel writers like you:)

Once you have written your story, ask yourself this question: Do I love my story?

If the answer is yes, send it to us! You can do so by clicking on the three dots at the right corner, choose “Add to Publication” and select “World Traveler’s Blog.”

We will review your story as fast as possible!

Please make sure you include at least one travel-related tag, like “Travel”, and add a subtitle to help with SEO.

We reserve the right to add such SEO edits to your article before submission, you can always change them if you wish.

How to Become a Writer?

Simply leave a comment in this article and let us know why you would like to join our blog.

Two Reasons To Join World Traveler’s Blog.

We don’t just publish stories!

Marcus Franke and I (Cody James Howell PhD (Raiden)) started this publication with a purpose in mind:

To build a better travel community where we could share both our adventures and the knowledge we gained from those experiences.

1 We love and promote all the amazing stories of our fellow travelers!

We are pretty active on both Facebook and Twitter.

We also have a brand new Newsletter where we will promote your work and share other stories that everyone here will enjoy! Please join us!

We are all part of a community who vote on the best articles and other topics that will help us all become better writers!

2 We have an amazingly active and positively minded community that welcomes every new writer.

“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” — African Proverb

Stay safe, travel well, and keep writing!

-Cody and Marcus
Economic Sanctions and The Tragedy of Trump’s Syria Withdrawal
By: Tom Williams
Tags: Foreign Policy, War, World, Peace, Politics

The next development in the story will likely come next week, when Congress — returning from recess — is expected to get a veto-proof majority for putting sanctions on Turkey following their aggression towards the Kurds. This should be alarming to peace activists and anyone who has opposed recent US interventions.

While sanctions are seen by many as a peaceful alternative to war, they are far from it — with it estimated that over 500,000 children under five-years-old died as a result of UN Security Council sanctions on Iraq between 1990 and 2000; a civilian casualty level exceeding that of the Iraq War. Those statistics regarding the 1990–2000 Iraq sanctions came from a survey of over 2000 children under 10-years-old across neighbourhoods in Baghdad and, also found that the level of children whose growth was stunted had increased from 12% in 1991 to 28% in 1995, while the number of Iraqi children needing urgent attention due to emaciation had quadrupled from 3% to 12% in the same time period.

Over 500,000 children under five-years-old died as a result of Security Council sanctions on Iraq between 1990 and 2000

While sanctions have become a popular way for recent US Presidents to try and change the behaviour of countries, the evidence is clear that the economic downfall they cause hurts ordinary civilians, not the ruling class. As Robert A Pape said in his study, ‘Why economic sanctions do not work’, “external pressure is more likely to enhance the nationalist legitimacy of rulers than to undermine it”.

This may be because sanctions allow leaders of the countries being sanctioned to create an us-against-them, underdog type narrative that allows them to portray the West as oppressors, and changing course because of sanctions would make those leaders seem weak. Indeed, as writer Beheshteh Farshneshani said in the New York Times in 2014, “Sanctions on Iran are severely weakening the middle class, breaking the collective will and marginalizing democratic voices while solidifying the power of the ruling elite”, showing how sanctions can do the opposite of what they intended.

“Sanctions on Iran are severely weakening the middle class, breaking the collective will and marginalizing democratic voices while solidifying the power of the ruling elite” — Beheshteh Farshneshani

Now, sanctions aren’t always unsuccessful. In South Africa many credit sanctions with helping to bring down apartheid, by showing South Africa’s isolation in the world — though, even in this case, many believe the sanctions impact was limited, compared to the huge impact of the work of anti-segregationists like Nelson Mandela. However, even though sanctions don’t always have a strong, negative impact, they are by-and-large ineffective at achieving their goal, with Robert A Pape, saying in his aforementioned study, that sanctions are only successful 5% of the time.
Why I’m Tired of Love Interests
By: Marie Raven
Tags: Writing, Ideas, Fiction Writing, Relationships, Writing Tips

Not everyone is searching for a love connection.

As authors, we need to work to bring a greater diversity of important relationships into our work. We place too much emphasis on romance and the immediate-family unit.

Expanding the reach of our fiction is essential for two reasons:

Romantic relationships represent a very narrow scope of life experience

Writing more broadly makes us write better

Maybe it’s more accurate to say not everyone is searching for a romantic love connection.

However, in adult life in the West, we neglect other forms of love in our lives. Instead, it’s chiefly vital that we establish a romantic partnership. Next in line is the familial love between parents and children.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage, right? Everybody knows that.

Single, childless people? You’ve all experienced the cringe-inducing pity of others who just can’t quite recognize your life as whole, worthwhile, and fulfilling. Ah, your poor empty bed and barren womb. Alas!

To be clear: this is not a dig at the desire to have a romantic relationship. It’s a very natural thing to want — it’s just not the only metric of normalcy.

This is also not a dig at the romance genre of fiction. However, romance is not the only genre of fiction, and not all fiction must include a romance.
Why you should invest in Blockchain now
By: Fiona Büschl
Tags: Articles, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Coronavirus, Startup

Why you should invest in Blockchain now

The rise of Blockchain in the new decade

2019 has been an interesting year for Bitcoin, crypto assets, and other blockchain technologies such as Distributed Ledgers (DLT). On an annualized basis, Bitcoin’s return of nearly 100 percent has surpassed almost all traditional financial market products, e.g. US and European stocks, government and corporate bonds, and commodities. In other words, blockchain technology is starting to establish itself again after the crash of 2018 and the industry is at a turning point in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic crisis. With the beginning of a new decade, the blockchain scene is set to go through tectonic shifts, which is why we decided to have a closer look at the main trends in the space and potential benefits for investors to get exposure to this asset class.

Overview

When looking back, 2018 was a particularly active year with 297 deals worth about $11.7 billion. This activity has come despite the big crypto crash with an 80% value drop, surpassing the Dot-Com Crash of 2000. Nevertheless, since then the industry has regained its strength with blockchain continuing to disrupt traditional industries and business models.

According to Crunchbase the United States are still the central hub for blockchain, however, Germany is set to be the next pioneer for this technology with the new “crypto law” that came into force in early 2020. The new law will reduce regulatory uncertainty, thus attracting startups and investors. Also, the Swiss government proposed updates to the banking, corporate and financial infrastructure laws to accommodate Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), making it a central hub for the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries in the future.

As the market is still quite young, many of the established VC funds are still generalists according to Crunchbase. Most VC firms specializing only in the blockchain were founded over the last decade and focus mostly on cryptocurrencies, decentralized platforms, and fintech companies.
block42 contributes to ICON — Update #5
By: Lukas Götz
Tags: Decentralization, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Icon Foundation

Decentralized!

On Tuesday, 29th of October it finally happened: the ICON network moved from a centralized system towards a decentralized one. A thank you goes to the guys from ICON Foundation (especially to Ben Lee and BongAn Ha), who did an amazing job the last couple of weeks. And also the infrastructure team from block42 spend hours of setting up, testing and configuring our servers — special thanks to Christian Lanz for creating a secure and stable network setup!

I would like to cite Min from the foundation, who posted the following on Twitter yesterday:

You are witnessing history today. This is the birth of a new digital nation. From this day forward, it’s up to YOU to participate in ICON governance by voting and taking action. It’s up to US to help build the ICON network together.

This goes out to all #ICONists! It is up to us to participate in building a worldwide decentralized blockchain network. Everyone who is contributing to ICON will strengthen the ecosystem. We as block42 will definitely do so!

P-Rep Network Setup

The network tests prior to #decentralization gave us important insights of how the P-Rep network setup should look like. Finally, we came up with the following configuration (for now):

P-Rep network setup

On our Github profile the entire setup is described in more detail: https://github.com/block42-blockchain-company/icon-prep-network-setup

In order to provide a highly available server infrastructure we installed a monitoring tool. You can have a look on our server’s availability by opening https://stats.prep.b42.tech.

Spread the word!

We keep pushing our efforts in spreading the word about ICON. Again Moshbit CEO Julian Kainz took the chance to speak about the ICON network at the University of Kapfenberg (Austria) on October 22nd.
Review: DeconvNet — Unpooling Layer (Semantic Segmentation)
By: Sik-Ho Tsang
Tags: Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Neural Networks

1. Unpooling and Deconvolution

The following is the overall architecture of DeconvNet:

DeconvNet Architecture

As we can see, it uses VGGNet as backbone. The first part is a convolution network which is as usual like FCN, with conv and pooling layers. The second part is the deconvolution network which is a novel part in this paper.

Remember positions when Pooling (Left), Reuse the position information during Unpooling (right)

To perform unpooling, we need to remember the position of each maximum activation value when doing max pooling, as shown above. Then, the remembered position is used for unpooling as shown above.

Convolution is to conv the input to smaller size (Left) Deconvolution is to conv the input back to larger size (Right)

Deconvolution is just to conv the input back to larger size. (If interested, please read my FCN review for details.)

An example of Deconvolution and Unpooling

The above figure is an example. (b) is the output at 14×14 deconv layer. (c) is the output after unpooling, and so on. And we can see in (j) that the bicycle can be reconstructed at the last 224×224 deconv layer, which shows that the learned filters can capture class-specific shape information.

Input Image (Left), FCN-8s (Middle), DeconvNet (Right)

Other examples as shown above which shows that DeconvNet can reconstruct a better shape than FCN-8s.
On-Premise Data Labeling
By: Wafaa Arbash
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Labeling, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence

If you haven’t heard of the Universal Data Tool yet, it’s an open-source web or desktop program to collaborate, build and edit text, image, video, and audio datasets with labels and annotations.

This is our eighth community update! By releasing these videos, we hope to engage the community and encourage new contributors.

Full Video:

Join us for a Hacktoberfest Hackathon

We are super excited to announce our 8-hour Hacktoberfest Hackathon on October 29th. You can get all the information as well as register at this link

https://organize.mlh.io/participants/events/5164-universal-data-tool-livestream-mini-hackathon

New Feature: Asynchronous Datasets Loading

You can now add millions of samples in a single dataset when using an external server.

Easier On-Premise Usage

The Universal Data Tool along with a collaboration server can now be run as a single docker container. See the on-premise documentation for more details.

You can provide different options to the docker container to control various aspects of the Universal Data Tool. You’ll know if a configuration value is used because it will appear in the starting logs as shown below. This allows you to configure things like S3 integrations without needing any user input.

Other Updates

Fixed reload config state in Audio Transcription: Configuration in Audio Transcription is updating now (thanks @anaplian!)

Configuration in Audio Transcription is updating now (thanks @anaplian!) Fixed Portuguese translation: Now you can see the special characters in Portuguese translation (thanks, @miguelcarvalho13)

Now you can see the special characters in Portuguese translation (thanks, @miguelcarvalho13) Introducing Manage Plugins: You might have noticed the “Manage Plugins” option introduced in version 13 of UTD. It helps to add an ES6 module to add more functionalities. This is a work-in-progress as of now. However, there will be new features in this option soon.

That’s it for our eighth community update, be sure to follow us on Twitter or join our Slack to hear more!
30+ Piece of Art Code Comment People Ever Wrote in Code.
Tags: Software Engineering, JavaScript, Programming, Coding, Software Development

30+ Piece of Art Code Comment People Ever Wrote in Code.

Who Says Software Developers are not Humorous?

Photo by Joshua Aragon on Unsplash

Code Commenting! Some people say its ugly , Some says its standard and good practice to do. This is most people believe i guess

“Good code is self-documenting.”

Well, This writing will show you how code commenting can be Bad Ass piece of artwork too. I have listed some artistic code comments people encountered in production code.

Note : This piece is the sequel of 25+ Useless Code Comments People Actually Wrote In Their Code.

TL;DR Noting serious here ! Read this just for fun !

Note: I have added Most of the Comments in github gist as they broke in standard code formatting on medium.