fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Love us
By: Adrienne Samuels Gibbs
Tags: Vote, BlackLivesMatter, Ibram X Kendi, Love, Election 2020

from Twitter

I posted this on IG, but wanted to put it here as well.

I strongly cosign what Ibram tweeted on the Saturday the election was called. Everyone is marveling (or pissed) over the voters in more urban areas and the mailed in ballots that tipped the scales to Biden-Harris. But of those who celebrate Black voters right now, I hope the celebration moves beyond loving what we do, to loving who we are.

Love our vote, love our fashions, love our music, love our movies, love our stories, love our breastmilk, love our cleaning, love our hashtags, love our marches, love our suffrage roots, love to touch our hair, love our food, love our worship, love our nannying, love our social media, love our bodies, love our jokes, love our embrace, love our cook outs.

One more hump to get over: love us.
Awareness
By: Jac Gautreau
Tags: Mindfulness, Happiness, Poetry, Lifehacks, Awareness

The ambition of awareness

Is not so simple to achieve

To notice

To bear witness

To observe

To perceive

When focus, like a skittish mistress leaves

And disparate threads prove hard to weave

My stumbling sentience struggles

To defuse distraction’s puzzle

Too often left clambering for clarity

I work to decipher the thunder

Trying to solve for authenticity

To remain open to wonder

Not wanting to dismiss thought

But rather, to befriend it
Learn the Basics of RxJava in Kotlin Basics in 10 Minutes
By: Utkarsh Devgan
Tags: Kotlin, Java, Android, Rxjava, Programming

Learn the Basics of RxJava in Kotlin Basics in 10 Minutes

Add reactive functionality to your Android app

Photo by Ash Edmonds on Unsplash

RxJava is a library for creating asynchronous and event-based code by using observable sequences and functional style operators, allowing executions via schedulers.”

RxJava, in its essence, simplifies developing asynchronous programs by allowing your code to react to new streams of data or asynchronous events and process it in a sequential manner.

A Quick Introduction to Asynchronous Programming:

let’s say you are doing a bunch of tasks on your device:

Button taps

Viewing an animation across the screen

Downloading a large photo from the internet

Saving bits of data to disk

Playing audio

All of these events are apparently happening at the same time, whenever the keyboard animates out of your screen the audio in your app doesn’t fade out until the animation has finished, right?

All of the different bits of your program don’t block each others execution, right? Generally, we’re performing different pieces of work on different threads and performing them on different cores of the device’s CPU.

Writing code that truly runs parallel is rather complex. Especially when we’re dealing with different bits of code that are working on the same piece of data, it can be hard to determine the sequence of the executions.

RxJava deals with all of this in a reactive manner.
Fear or Love — Which Works Better in Marketing?
By: Mark Ames
Tags: Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Advertising, Digital Marketing, Business

Arousal

The online world is full of articles condemning fear-based marketing as prone to abuse and a cause of misinformation, and instead, favor a more loving approach. But what does the research say?

According to famed researcher Jonah Berger, author of “Contagious: Why Things Catch On” and many other books, the key question isn’t whether love or fear motivates us more, but whether something arouses us.

In a multiyear study that analyzed which New York Times articles were the most likely to be shared, Dr. Berger found that those that aroused readers the most were the most likely to make the most-shared list. It didn’t matter whether the emotions evoked were positive or negative, just that they made people feel something strongly.

This phenomenon has its roots back in humankind’s earliest days of survival; when we’re excited by something, we need to do something. Run, jump, yell, wave our hands frantically. Another way to think of arousal is like energy. Energy, like feelings such as love or fear, are neither good nor bad; instead, they’re forces of nature — a part of our world.

When a person receives energy, they need to do something with it. In marketing, this often translates to shares.
Haftanın Patent Raporu #28
By: Patent Effect
Tags: Girişimcilik, Yatırım, Patentraporu, Teknoloji, Türkçe

Patent Effect supports technology-driven companies and research institutes to unleash the power of patents for creating an impact on their innovation journey.

Follow
A Bite-Sized Look Into Our Gut Microbiome
By: Kristen Eleanor
Tags: Food, Science, Health, Wellness, Nutrition

What is our microbiome?

Different communities of microbes populate different areas of our body, not just in our gut. For example, a certain bacteria found on our skin produces toxins to combat harmful bacteria. On the other hand, colonization of the skin with the bacterium C. acnes results in problematic pimples and gives rise to the feared teenaged aesthetic— acne.

Different communities of microbes populate different areas of our body.

Bacteria inhabiting our mouth will secrete substances to lower pH, which creates an acidic environment to help ward off other cavity-causing bacterial species. The microbiota of both male and female reproductive tracts helps create a defence against sexually-transmitted infections, yeast infections and urinary-tract infections. And you’re correct in thinking that the reproductive microbiota of one partner can influence that of the other.

Our gut is thought to house over 100 trillion microbes, home to the most diversity and abundance out of all other body parts. Our gut microbiome plays a crucial role in nutrient metabolism and immune defence, and is referred to as a “microbial organ” due these complex and important functions.

Collectively, these different communities of microbes inhabiting different parts of our bodies create our own microbiome. While we share about 99.9% of our genome with the rest of humankind on earth, our microbiomes can be up to 80–90% different.

Therefore, you can think of your microbiome as your own personalized microbial fingerprint, different from any other human being in the world.
Comprar en Línea con Crypto
By: Molly Malone
Tags: Espanol, Español, Vaporizador, Bitcoin, Criptomonedas

Splitting time between my original home in rural Minnesota & my second home, Guatemala | Director of Education with CoinYou.co, a Crypto Learning Community

Follow
Viviendo nuestros principios, bebiendo nuestra champaña, diciendo adiós a Slack y hola a Status
Tags: Blockchain, Desktop App, Decentralization, Ethereum

in In Fitness And In Health
Announcing 2020 CVPR Low-Power Computer Vision Challenge — Online Track
Tags: Computer Vision, Challenge, Raspberry Pi, Announcements, Pytorch

PyTorch researchers and developers are invited to join the 2020 CVPR Lower-Power Vision Challenge (LPVC) — Online Track for UAV video. The goal of this challenge is to build a system that can discover and recognize characters in video captured by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) accurately using PyTorch Mobile and Raspberry Pi 3B+.

Computer vision technologies have been steadily improving and being built into machines for uses such as detecting oil bilge in oceans to explaining real-life surroundings for visually impaired people. The challenge is that as these computer vision technologies advance, they require a lot more energy to function due to increased computational and storage resources. This challenge presents a great opportunity for the PyTorch community to help advance on-device computer vision technology to enable many new applications.

Online submission will be open from May 16, 2020 to June 5, 2020 at https://lpcv.ai/. Visit https://lpcv.ai/20lpcvc-video-track for more details.

You can sign up for the website by clicking on the “LOGIN” button on the top right corner of the page to get the latest news.

Thank you,

The PyTorch Team
輔具怎麼挑？大家推薦讓長輩用洗澡椅嗎？. 很多人家中都有長輩，而當長輩越來越年長時，免不了需要使用洗澡椅、輪椅、助行器等輔…
By: Tony Zeng
Tags: 生活, 洗澡椅, 健康, Life, Health

in In Fitness And In Health
Submit Your News or Get Reviewed!
By: Mike Gagnon
Tags: Marketing, News, Entertainment, Press Release, Comic Book Industry

Submit News

Share your comic book industry and pop culture news, interviews, previews and press releases and get paid!

What we are looking for:

Your own press releases. First hand interviews with comic book and entertainment professionals. Previews of your upcoming projects. Official recording sales figures. First hand journal or blog style entries. If you’re not sure, we are open, pitch us and see if we like it. We may have questions. If something sounds like a fictional short story or some sort of attempt to defame, it will likely be rejected. Stories will be verified prior to publishing. Content should be informative; if something is too fluffy, salesy or self-serving, it may be rejected.

How to submit:

Have a Twitter Account Have a Medium Account (Free or Paid) If you’d like to get paid, make sure you join the Medium Partner Program. Drop us a quick note at comicbookindustry@my-illuminati.com expressing your interest including your name, email and twitter handle, so we can make sure you are given access to submit articles. When you submit your story, make sure you select Premium content (Metered pay wall) option, if you’d like to earn money from your story. If you are submitting a press release to promote your creative project or business, consider submitting as free content, to reach more eyes. Submit a story. Review process can take up to 4 days before approval. If you contact us to give reference contacts it will go faster. You will be notified when our editors have approved or denied your story. We never have access to your payment info or funds. Money for articles is paid directly to you from Medium based on the number of reads and claps your article gets.

OR you may submit PRESS RELEASES directly to comicbookindustry@my-illuminati.com instead of submitting them on the website. Please note that we do not pay for press releases sent directly and we reserve the right to post those releases as free or premium content, with any Medium earnings on them going to maintaining the Comic Book Industry website.

Please note that all submissions, whether posted on the website or submitted directly by email are published at the sole discretion of the editor, and CBI reserves the right to refuse any content submitted.

Get Reviewed!

Got a comic book or graphic novel you’ve published and would like to have reviewed by Comic Book Industry? It’s easy!

Just send us a .pdf copy of your complete comic or graphic novel to comicbookindustry@my-illuminati.com

Please note that we can not promise all comics submitted will be reviewed or will get an e-mail response. We just don’t have the time.

Please do not send your comic more than once. Please don’t send more than one comic per month.
This AI Could be Used To Design The Next Assassin’s Creed Game!
By: Chintan Trivedi
Tags: Reinforcement Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Game Futurology, Drones

This method is better than simply scanning a house naively using a circular path because it is also able to account for occluded or hidden parts of the monument. For example, in this case the drone is able to account for the hidden parts of the house that are occluded by the roof. As shown in the paper, this RL based scanning method covers 97% of the house compared to just 87% for manual scanning.

Let’s just take a moment to appreciate how much research work needs to go behind the development of such big AAA games just so that we can solve very specific problems like the one I have covered here. It’s not something we appreciate enough when we simply look at the end-product, so it’s truly incredible to come across this paper.
RiCI Honors Veterans
Tags: Prison, Military, Veterans

In recognition of the upcoming 242nd birthday of the United States Marines Corp and Veterans Day, a large group of RiCI offenders celebrated with a banquet, highlighting the five military branches. Offenders in attendance were educated on the history of the Veterans Day. A host of offenders were commended for their service to our country, as many attendees were US Veterans.

The ceremony was coordinated by the SMART program. The SMART program (Structured Military Advanced Readiness Training) was established at RiCI in 2015 as an extension of the IVA (Incarcerated Veterans of America). The group consists of men who’ve made a daily commitment towards living a disciplined, principled, structured lifestyle.

During the course of the festivities, the IVA conducted an impressive drill team routine. Four of the military branches of government were well represented by RiCI offenders attending the banquet.

Multiple speakers in attendance spoke during the banquet about taking pride in past service. Those speakers included Air National Guard Nick Alexander, Retired US Marine Ryan Legg, RiCI Captain Robert Benedict and RiCI Corrections Officer James Jamerson. Jamerson has retired from the US Army and has been awarded with two Purple heart awards during his service.

The veterans were all acknowledged by the keynote speakers and the reminded that being a Veteran can never be taken away from them. Former military service wasn’t required to attend the banquet, however those attending have dedicating themselves to live their lives according to a military based life-style and maintain a positive disciplinary record while incarcerated.
[Podcast] News International and Islam
By: Virtual Mosque
Tags: International, News, Islam

We are the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam and this publication is dedicated to portraying the true, peaceful instructions of the final religion through our live broadcasts in the UK and regular editorials.

Follow
Ticket to RIDE: Memorable Moments from Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Music Fest
By: Mike, Dj
Tags: Culture, Nature, Photography, Music

Year-after-year, the annual batch of festivals starts to look interchangeable. Whether they’re pumping up the usual crop of overpaid, under-performing DJs, or attempting a quick money grab, these things all start to blend together after a while. But perhaps the best cure for festival fatigue is to soak in something completely different.

Case in point is Telluride, Colorado’s The Ride Festival, a two-day camping-based event taking place in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, featuring a blend of well-known favorites and off-the-beaten-path acts of rock, folk, gospel, and country. The Ride Festival celebrates its sixth year this July 8th and 9th, with headliners Beck and Ben Harper, alongside a slew of best kept secrets. The two day event finds attendees pitching tarps on the festival grounds for hiking, rafting, climbing, fishing, mountain biking, hot springs and — of course — watching their favorite bands under the stars.
Learning as fast as you can, and creating a basis for hope
By: Harvard Ash Center
Tags: Resilience, Cities, Covid 19, Leadership, Coronavirus

Learning as fast as you can, and creating a basis for hope

The Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative is collaborating with Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Coronavirus Local Response Initiative to support mayors as they manage COVID-19. A third virtual discussion session held on April 3, 2020, focused on fostering resilience and developing metrics for the “now” normal.

Jorrit de Jong speaks to mayors and city leaders around the world during the virtual session of the Coronavirus Local Response Initiative

In the third session of the Coronavirus Local Response Initiative, Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health provided critical public health information. Dutch Leonard, the George F. Baker, Jr. Professor of Public Management, at HKS and Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration at HBS and Juliette Kayyem, the Belfer Senior Lecturer in International Security at HKS, presented their thoughts on the situational briefing, learning as fast as you can, and creating a basis for hope.
Can COVID-19 be Transmitted Through Second Hand Smoke?
By: Rae Lately
Tags: Society, Public Health, Smoking, News, Covid 19

Can COVID-19 be Transmitted Through Second Hand Smoke?

You can’t suck on a cigarette and wear a mask

Photo by Krismas on Unsplash

Last weekend, I got brave enough to take my kid for a real haircut. The helmet on his head could not be there anymore. This mama is a lot of things, but she is definitely not a barber.

We went to Great Clips and stood in line outside. I was pleased to see their safety protocols. Only a few customers at a time, masks, hand sanitizers, etc. That was fine.

What I was not prepared for was the other people waiting for their haircuts.

One guy sat on the chair right outside the door, pulled down his mask, and sucked on the vape. Another guy decided to chain smoke about 12 feet away.

Exposure to second-hand smoke is one thing, but I am really wondering if the virus can be transmitted in the air through exhaling cigarette smoke. There are studies that suggest COVID-19 could possibly be transmitted airborne in close proximities. What if the virus could be carried further in a sticky cloud?

According to this Healthline article, it is possible that the microscopic droplets can spread further when exhaled and carried through smoke.

But reading this quote from the Washington Post:

There is little evidence to suggest the smoke itself could be carrying the coronavirus, but researchers and physicians say that merely being able to smell someone’s cigarette is a warning sign you’re breathing air that was just in someone else’s lungs.

is enough for me to stay home and cut my kid’s hair or let it grow.

Please be considerate. Wear a mask and keep your cigarettes in your own air space. Thanks.
[Python] 用 Pytest 來做 Unit Test
Tags: Unittest, Unit Test Tools, Python3, Python, Pytest

WisChang005/pytest-demo

You can't perform that action at this time. You signed in with another tab or window. You signed out in another tab or…
Why Do I Write?. A Sunday summer afternoon. The sun was…
By: Ankita Saha
Tags: Short Story, Writing Life, Detoxification, Mindfulness

A Sunday summer afternoon. The sun was a little brighter than the other days. Life was the same.

It was around 12.30 p.m. Everything was messed up. There was a huge and unkempt pile of clothes on the bed. The unwashed dishes were stinking in the sink. The chair started yelling at me asking to drop him back to his place. And on another side of the jumble, there stood a nice wardrobe and inside it was again a pile of clothes precariously standing and fighting for existence.

I had to gather genuine courage to clean it all up!

It was nearly 3.15 p.m. The bedsheet was perfectly stretched at every side. White, neat and tidy. The kitchen perfumed. And the wardrobe looked like a well-planned city. Something was still off. So I planned to take a nap. The blades of the fan were turning at its sickest pace and highest volume. I unfolded a rose-printed bedsheet to wrap myself up. As I slowly snuggled in and closed my eyes, I sensed a disturbing silence. Not the usual one. I just shut my eyes to it. But it was stubborn as a mule! It came back. I ignored again. It refused to go. The struggle went on for almost an hour, until, I decided to get up and write. I pulled my diary from the bookrack, turned to a fresh new page and began penning down every random thought that crossed my mind. There were lines in a sequence that were not in sequence. Thoughts were waiting in the queue but they rolled down in no particular order. There was a rush of ideas and emotions flowing through my blood and into the paper. The past, present, and future all laid down there in a non-chronological manner. Pause. I took a long deep breath. A profound sense of relaxation then filled me up from within. The silence felt so comfortable and the mind was cleared. Suddenly, the phone beeped. Nothing much, some app notifications. And as a usual thing, I just clicked on Instagram for no purpose. And to my shocking wonder, I saw a post that said :

“The chaos doesn’t end, you kinda’ just become the calm.”

It was at that very moment I realized that more than the wardrobe and the kitchen, it was my mind that needed cleaning up.

Sometimes, we get so involved with our schedule, the people around us, commitments and obligations, our roles and responsibilities and all the chaos they bring that we almost forget that we have a mind of our own. A mind that needs space and time. A cluttered mind cannot exist, cannot create. And the only way to declutter is feeding it the right thing. The thing that you truly enjoy and value.

So I write!

What is it that you do every day without any external drive and that fills you up with delight?
Reviving Emily
By: I. M. Dust
Tags: Poetry, Fiction, Fantasy, Magic, Love

Reviving Emily

Spared Love

Image by Aryok Mateus from Pixabay

With thine body lain upon this table,

Anointed in sacred herbs,

And runes inscribed as best I’m able,

I speak the mystic words.

I call to you, my Emily.

Your vessel I have prepared.

Please come forth and be with me.

For then, our love is spared.

Oh my dear sweet Emily,

The time finally has come.

Rejoin me on this mortal plane.

My will — be done.

Waxy orbs roll in your head.

Your spirit’s here, your form is dead.

Your pleas come from maggot-ridden tongue.

My dear sweet Emily, what have I done?

With much pain, I must oblige

Your living-dying wish.

Thus I thrust the dagger forth

and release you to your bliss.
The next phase of WazirX begins 🚀 — Part 1
By: Wazirx Bitcoin Exchange
Tags: Binance, Wazirx, Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Cryptocurrency News

It was Wednesday, January 31st, 2018 when I unveiled WazirX with only one thing in mind — to provide every Indian with a product that surpasses every other global product in terms of quality. It was also the day we introduced WRX, India’s first token backed by a cryptocurrency exchange, to involve our community while building and growing WazirX.

After furious coding and testing, we finally launched WazirX exchange platform on 8th March 2018 with 3 tokens — Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dash. We were also the first Indian exchange to be available on Web, Android, and iOS. With almost 80 tokens trading in our markets, and support for Mac and desktop clients, we’ve come a long way. It wouldn’t have been possible without your support, tribe! 🙌

Have no fear, WazirX P2P is here 💪

I remember how shortly after our launch, the Reserve Bank of India put a blanket ban on crypto in India. True to our promise of involving everyone into the blockchain revolution, we innovated hard and launched WazirX P2P with the world’s first auto-matching P2P engine. What a game changer it’s been! Today, due to its unique nature, WazirX P2P is the cheapest, fastest and most-used method to deposit or withdraw Indian Rupees in India.

India’s first ever Highest Trader contest!

I love how at WazirX, we’ve always continued to innovate and keep the crypto fire alive in India while we saw most exchanges shut shops or move out. Over the previous 20 months, we’ve brainstormed and introduced iconic features like, Deposit Dhamaka, WRX Mining Rewards, XID, and latest being STF!

All this, and YOU have helped us grow rapidly, and become India’s most trusted and largest cryptocurrency exchange! But we’re just getting started. 😎

Fiat <> Cryptocurrency conversion is a global issue.

Millions of people around the world — especially in developing and underdeveloped countries — are facing delays and banking issues with buying or selling of cryptocurrencies with fiat currency. We believe that the next phase of cryptocurrency adoption will happen when the world’s Fiat <> Crypto problem is solved for the masses. We plan to fix this global problem with our one-of-a-kind solution — WazirX P2P! But how?

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

This cryptocurrency revolution is bigger than any of us, and we’ve decided to do something to make it happen faster. And this, tribe, marks the beginning of the next phase — Phase 2 — of WazirX’s journey!

We’ve been acquired by Binance! 🎉

The WazirX team has joined forces with Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange to be a part of their greater mission to spread freedom of money. Read our official announcement here.

…To be continued in Part 2.
Overgrown afternoon
By: Jean Campbell
Tags: Otherdoors, Impermanence, Poetry, Nature, Nature Poetry

Photo by Eliza Diamond on Unsplash

Most of them are here and there

Get forgotten in the crowd

But the rare ones wear a rarer glow

Don’t lose their color or their sheen

Those perfect afternoons don’t go.
Message Masking
Tags: Masks, Covid 19, Photography, Snapshots Challenge, LGBTQ

© Dennett by Dennett — My Favorite Mask

Message Masking

Mask It Up

When alto challenged us to share mask fashion, my only look was this:

© Dennett by Dennett

Yes, I live in Florida and it’s summer and I’m wearing a lined hoodie as I work. 72 degrees is NOT an acceptable environment for me. So, this is how I looked as I worked: masked, in my hoodie, and with the door behind me closed. The reason for the closed door is that the other 15 people in the office do not wear masks, and I don’t want them in my space. Any work for me is slid under the door.

And, that is also the reason I am now semi-retired from that place, choosing to work evenings and Saturdays when I have less exposure to the idiots who believe they are invincible to Covid.

Tired of the fashionless masks I had, I ordered an artsy one:

© Dennett by Dennett — Starry Night Mask

Although this mask is lovely and fits well, it slides around when I talk. Not a good daily mask but okay for quick errands.

Then, I decided that if I have to wear a mask, it may as well have a message. So, I ordered three from the Human Rights Campaign — the one in the top photo and these:
3 Fictional Characters You’d Love to Have As Your Platonic BFFs
By: Anangsha Alammyan
Tags: Creativity, Literature, Fiction, Books, Reading

1. Bartimaeus of Uruk from The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

Genre: Young adult fantasy fiction

Image: Goodreads

A young-adult fantasy set in modern-day London, this book traces the story of young and ambitious Nathaniel, a magician’s apprentice, who is slighted by his master at every instance. Belittled and under-appreciated, young Nathaniel vows revenge and starts devouring ancient magical text to bring his plans to fruition. He learns the complex ritual to summon a powerful 5000-year-old djinn, Bartimaeus of Uruk, and that is when everything comes tumbling down.

The plot is multi-layered and explores some truly dark themes. A powerful djinn bound to the whims of a human master with no free will of its own — that barely scratches the surface of the darkness this book promises.

“Freedom is an illusion. It comes with a price.”

Why you should read the book

The best part about the book is that the story does not take place in a separate world/planet, as is the case in other fantasies. The events that happen to our djinn influence the real world as well. The consequences make the story even more fun to read. A well-thought-out plot with a sarcastic demon for a narrator — would any reader want to miss out on such awesomeness?

Why Bartimaeus would be such an amazing best friend

Bartimaeus is the protagonist and part-narrator of the trilogy. Bart is a middle-level djinni with (in his own words) ‘more resourcefulness and guile (not to mention mindless optimism) in his toenails than all other porridge-brained spirits together.’

Bart is funny, sassy, and wise from his 5000+ years of experience on earth. He has no corporeal body of his own, but can take up any form he wishes to, from dangerous demons spitting venom to beautiful maidens with golden hair running down their backs in ringlets. His favourite guise, however, is that of a fourteen-year-old Egyptian boy wearing a white loincloth and a golden pendant on his bare chest.

If treated with the respect a powerful djinni like him deserves, Bart can be a wonderful companion.

If only I’d known those magical words of summoning Stroud frequently mentions in his books, I’d have summoned Bart to earth once in a while, just to hear him talk. It’s hilarious how he exaggerates his own achievements — often to the point you’d wonder how the world even manages to survive without him.

Our conversations would have lasted hours, if not weeks! We’d have gotten along pretty well, and possibly (if I could earn his trust) our ‘bond’ would have known ‘no limits.’

If only he were real. Sigh.

Purchase the book here.
Google I/O 2018: Firebase의 새로운 기능
Tags: Firebase, GoogleIO, Engineering

in In Fitness And In Health
Gun Rights & 1776 vs. the Christian Pansies (ICYMI)
By: Cody Libolt
Tags: Gun Rights, Politics, Christianity, 2nd Amendment, Constitution

Gun Rights & 1776 vs. the Christian Pansies (ICYMI)

Toward a Theology of Legitimate Government or Rebellion

In the video below, Jacob Brunton and Cody Libolt cover hot topics from the culture, politics, and Christianity.

Is the right to bear arms legitimate?

Was the American Revolution legitimate?

Not according to many of the products of today’s colleges and even seminaries.

Even a topic as basic and obvious as the validity of the American Revolution is now on the table, it seems, and with it, the right for men to bear arms.

This video covers:

Gun Grabbers

Christian Pansies

The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate

The Legitimacy of 1776

A Roadmap for Christians to fight back against tyranny

Video below:

Access the exclusive full length podcasts by becoming a Patron.
Two Halves of a Half: A Brother’s Story (Part 2)
By: Lux Et Flos
Tags: Relationships, Fiction, Race Relations, Racism, Race

Part 1 is right here. While E sulks, I hope you enjoy the ride, dear reader…

Most of the time, E’s lips waggled from start to finish on a road trip. He would comment on everything from bad weather to how useful genetically modified feral hogs could be, hypothetically.

Today, the younger brother shuffled to the corner of the back seat of the van in simmering rebellion. His body hunched into a rigid, faded-coffee-stain beige C that no mortal could straighten out––not his driving brother, Lincoln, not even the attentive Evelyn and her batting eyelashes. She sat right beside E in the back, and he had the nerve to avoid her chocolate eyes like the plague!

Oh well.

With how upset his brother was with him, Lincoln hadn’t expected his usual, jabber jaw self. Even an ex-lover like Evelyn can’t solve a puzzle like E by herself. Hence the “ex.”

Harsh winds and autumn clouds whipped past outside to cover Lincoln’s van with miles of dirt, all without a peep from E. The man just kept breathing loud and annoying and eating crackers.

So Lincoln twirled a new CD by two brown fingers.

As they merged onto the highway, a third Tejano song hit its bridge and E reached his limit.

“Play some real music or I swear — ”

“Heh, sorry.” He switched discs and that song blared from his speakers. The way E yelped while kicking the driver’s seat, you’d think Lincoln had stabbed him!

“I hate you,” E hissed.

“Aw, you fuck with this. Eve, didn’t he used to like Selena?”

“Mhm, Lee musta bent over backwards to get you this one.” She hesitated, then went on in an odd laughing sadness, “Hey E, if I wound up dead––”

From the sound of it, E threw some crackers at her, Evelyn retaliated with a bone-chilling screech, and Lincoln thanked God and Jesus that they both sat in the back so he could drive. Still, he smiled into their tenth mile.
How Can We Affect Meaningful, Evolutionary Change?
By: Darren Stehle
Tags: Gender Fluid, Social Justice, Toxic Masculinity, LGBTQ, Religion

How can we affect positive, meaningful, and evolutionary change?

As for my contributions, I’ve been on a binary/ego trip of late, meaning that I’ve been looking at the roots and the reasons for the state of the the world we find ourselves in. Th-Ink Queerly is absolutely a place for us to discuss how we can lead ourselves to better lead others, and how we can defuse and reduce prejudice over time. The binary is a social construct, and at it’s most base level it expresses one side over the other. Even in Taoism we see a basic binary in Yin and Yang — one does not exist without other other, but both exist because of the other. Imbalance happens when express too much of one of the elements. Toxic imbalance happens when we spend all of our time only in one element.

“How do we affect positive, meaningful, evolutionary change?” is a question I ask myself every day. The answer is that we must first seek to understand. We are all human, even the person who appears to hate us. In no way do I condone hatred or prejudice, but we need to own our emotions and behaviours. How often have you lashed out at someone for the most seemingly innocuous reason? If we can lose it over something that we can later deem unimportant, that is a place we can come from to recognize our own fallibility. This may not be easy, but practice makes for improvement.

The first step is to recognize and help other realize that ignorance is not bliss — it’s a human rights issue. Ignorance in this sense is based on a lack of relevant education, or a life lived under the dogma of an ideology — a religion or a social/political structure where the messages taught about humanity are hegemonic and patriarchal, and limited by a reinforced binary. Listen to my thoughts in, Destructive Emotions Are Related to Ignorance.

We have unique and vital insights to teach others.

We have a different insight than straight people. Hence the word queer, meaning different or odd (as in not the status quo). This is how you can Use Your Difference to Make a Difference.

Perhaps one of the most difficult challenges we deal with as LGBTQ people is that of religion, and how more countries in the world are using “Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs” as a specious defence of prejudice. I attempt to navigate these contentious waters and ask that you read with an open mind in, Were Religions Invented to Control Fear of the Other?
Silent Tantrums
By: Elizabeth Helmich
Tags: Depression, Silence, Poetry, Relationships, Loneliness

Stillness collects in a puddle.

Drip. Ripple. Repeat.

Leaves need no instruction.

I make boats out of paper

until they become cranes

large enough to fly us away

to where there is a sky

so rich and full of adjectives

that I’d love to tell you

all about it.

Except I can’t seem to locate

a one.

We make love in a morning

we pretend is like the others.

Devoid of introduction,

yet there is not enough space

for us to stop

suffocating each other.

Realization creates

a new space, no more

confined than its residents.

I howl to the salted moon

at 8 pm to decimate remains

of who I thought I was.

Taking your hand in mine,

we make press-folds over lines

that exist only in my mind.
Glass half full or half empty?
Tags: Creativity, Writing, Newsletter, Writing Prompts

Glass half full or half empty?

Self-ish June Updates

Photo by Stephan Müller from Pexels

Hello Team Self-ish!

It’s another new month and we all know what that means: a newsletter is coming your way…and here it is 😄

So what's up, what’s down and what didn’t change? I’ll be letting you know in a bit. But first, what’s trending.

Trending

Ngang God'swill N. makes it on the list with two very different pieces:

Faces of the Same is a poem about the similarities between racism/tribalism and nepotism and is inspired by the Nigerian poet, Dike Chukwumeriji spoken word piece titled ‘ The Wall and the Bridge’

is a poem about the similarities between racism/tribalism and nepotism and is inspired by the Nigerian poet, spoken word piece titled ‘ Hey Mom- Ten Things You Should Know is a response to our May prompt.

Ameaka (moi lol)stays on the list with her short but moving poem, Answers for the Girl I Was Yesterday which is a reply to Warsan Shire’s Questions for the Woman I Was Last Night.

Amazing Things That Happened in May

They were plenty, I tell you.

One of our team, Mariette Barah was selected for The Young Writer’s Workshop organized by the prestigious literary magazine, Bakwa Mag in partnership with the University of Bristol. She joined other young and brilliant writers for one week of learning and fun under the auspices of Kenyan writer, Billy Kahora and Ivorian Edwige Dro. Haven't heard about them? you should definitely check them out. We got a chance to listen to them read their work and talk about their writing and it was a transcending experience.

organized by the prestigious literary magazine, Bakwa Mag in partnership with the University of Bristol. She joined other young and brilliant writers for one week of learning and fun under the auspices of Kenyan writer, and Ivorian Haven't heard about them? you should definitely check them out. We got a chance to listen to them read their work and talk about their writing and it was a transcending experience. I was invited by Tre L. Loadholt to participate in her yearly Young Writers of Medium series of poetry collabs with other amazing poets like Zev, Nour and Indira Reddy (who is not so young 😄). Of course, I said yes! It was an amazing experience and the product of our collab is just as beautiful: ‘The Need’

May Prompts

Our May prompt in honour of Mother’s Day was: Ten Things You Wish To Tell Your Mom and the writer’s brought it as usual.

June’s Prompt

It’s mid-year and as you either look back to the start of the year to see how far you’ve come or look forward to how far you have to go, there are two ways you can see it:

Glass half-full or half empty.

So what do you see? let us know. Personal Essay only. No word limits.
Let’s take quick dive in Grouped Notifications — iOS 12
By: Ashish Kakkad
Tags: iOS, Swift, Push Notification

Thread Identifier

Create notification content with threadIdentifier to create group of that notification. Group will be of the application or specific topic from an application.

// Creating Groups with Thread Identifiers

let content = UNMutableNotificationContent()

content.title = "Notifications Group"

content.body = "Tutorial by Ashish Kakkad"

content.threadIdentifier = "notify-team-ios"

Notification payload will be like this

{

"aps" : {

"alert" : {

"title" : "Notifications Group",

"body" : "Tutorial by Ashish Kakkad"

}

"thread-id" : "notify-team-ios"

}

}

Give meaningful name to thread identifier for specific purpose of group.

Summary of group

Simple Notification Group Summary

let summaryFormat = "%u more messages"

return UNNotificationCategory(identifier: "category-identifier", actions: [], intentIdentifiers: [], hiddenPreviewsBodyPlaceholder: nil, categorySummaryFormat: summaryFormat, options: [])

Hidden Previews Summary Customization

let summaryFormat = "%u more messages"

let hiddenPreviewsPlaceholder = "%u messages"

return UNNotificationCategory(identifier: "category-identifier", actions: [], intentIdentifiers: [], hiddenPreviewsBodyPlaceholder: hiddenPreviewsPlaceholder, categorySummaryFormat: summaryFormat, options: [])

Notification Group Summary with Arguments

let summaryFormat = "%u more messages from %@"

return UNNotificationCategory(identifier: "group-messages", actions: [], intentIdentifiers: [], hiddenPreviewsBodyPlaceholder: nil, categorySummaryFormat: summaryFormat, options: [])

Notification Group Summary Argument

let content = UNMutableNotificationContent()

content.body = "…"

content.threadIdentifier = "notify-team-ios"

content.summaryArgument = "Ashish"

Notification Summary with Argument Count

let content = UNMutableNotificationContent()

content.body = "…"

content.threadIdentifier = "notify-team-ios"

content.summaryArgument = "Ashish"

content.summaryArgumentCount = 2

Updated notification payload will be like this
Piggybacking, Acquisition Arbitrage, and Platform Risk
Tags: Technology, Marketing, Growth Hacking, Startup, Venture Capital

At its 2020 Partner Summit, Snap confirmed what many had been witnessing over the last two years. Its developer tools (“Snap Kit”) have allowed a number of startups to skyrocket through the charts. As of May 2020, over 20 of the top 100 iOS and Google Play Stores apps use Snap Kit.

This reminded me of a good number of startups that have scaled by piggybacking existing platforms or using other forms of user acquisition arbitrage. These strategies clearly involve a potentially fatal risk — what happens if someone turns off the tap?

However, I ask myself if early-stage venture-backed startups should embrace that if it means building and scaling faster and more efficiently than the competition, at least initially.

Let’s start with definitions.

Piggybacking and Acquisition Arbitrage 📈

Piggybacking describes the situation where a startup leverages the infrastructure or network of an existing platform to either: (a.) build components of its own offering; or (b.) acquire users, customers or viewers. In simple terms, it’s the entrepreneurial equivalent of climbing a mountain on someone’s back:

For example, Snap Kit allows entrepreneurs to both access Snap’s technology to build product features (e.g., with LoginKit, BitmojiKit or CameraKit) and also share their products via Snap’s userbase (e.g., with stickers through CreativeKit).

Piggybacking is also possible when a platform doesn’t release developer tools. Remember how Airbnb hacked its way into piggybacking CraigsList?

Importantly, using another platform’s tools to build some core aspects of the product (vs. specifically acquisition tools) may have significant effects on acquisitions too. For example, using Snap’s LoginKit simplifies building the onboarding flows of your app, but it also lowers friction with Snap users and therefore facilitates acquisitions of these users.
Introducing Mercury OS
By: Jason Yuan
Tags: Product Design, Artificial Intelligence, UX, Design Thinking, Design

Nine months ago, I set out to invent a new way of interfacing with our devices, armed with only a single metaphor: Mercury.

Mercury, the elemental manifestation of fluid chrome.

Mercury, the Roman deity bridging the boundary between two worlds.

Mercury, the nearest planet to the sun.

Although these versions of Mercury had little to do with interaction design, they perfectly summarized how I wanted the experience of computation to feel. I wanted the experience to feel fluid. I wanted to create something that users could move through without friction or boundaries. I wanted to bring people closer to their North Stars with speed and elegance.

In the months that followed, I devoured countless volumes of HCI literature while pivoting from one prototype to the next. I tried everything from a “smart-fidget-ring” concept that doubled as a universal remote, to wondering if something as simple as a rubber-band could serve as an interface. Although I was surprised that something so illogical could inspire so many avenues for exploration, nothing seemed to capture the feeling I had described in my poetic manifesto.

Messy, manic making. Bottom left sketch was done by my friend Marisa Lu during a particularly productive phone call exploring the mental model of “flows”

My breakthrough came when I realized that I had been asking all the wrong questions. I had spent months trying to invent new ways to navigate existing systems — but what if those systems were fundamentally flawed? What if the experience of Mercury required a radical re-invention of everything I had been taking for granted?
Important Update: Exchange Deposits
By: Energi Cryptocurrency
Tags: Security, Exchange, Deposit, Gen 3, Energi

Today, we have an important update about why deposits are closed on exchanges — and what we’re doing to open them as soon as we can. Since we launched Gen 3, our priority has always been the safety of our users, the security, and stability of our network. That’s why we’ve temporarily closed deposits while we complete testing to guarantee this is the case.

As with any emerging technology, there will be challenges along the way; these should be expected, and prudent behaviour should be appreciated by the community, as it protects the community. In the cryptocurrency space, Energi is at the cutting edge of the industry. By combining smart contracts, a treasury system and masternodes into one coherent whole, we’ve pioneered and built what hundreds of other projects are still striving to achieve, pushing the limits of blockchain technology. This is uncharted territory and there will always be obstacles along the way.

During the migration to Gen 3, scammers attempted to steal over 200,000 NRG from our community. This would be catastrophic not only for the victims, but for everyone in the Energi ecosystem who would have suffered from major market dumping of these illicit gains. We successfully prevented these attacks, and due to our new governance blacklisting feature, the funds were frozen and are in the process of being returned to their victims. To see more about our new governance blacklisting feature, read our recent blog.

Meanwhile, our blockchain had another issue that arose: chain splits. This happens when there are blocks that are out of sync with the main, dominant chain. We immediately jumped on the issue and our dev team has been working tirelessly to resolve them. To ensure the safety of our users and exchange partners, over the next couple of weeks we are performing a thorough review and testing process so that we can be sure there will be no more chain splits. To prevent this from occurring again, we need to test the network to ensure stability. We’ll reopen deposits as soon as we are confident that the network is stable.

Once again, we hope you agree that security is of the utmost importance and appreciate our cautious approach toward getting our new Gen 3 blockchain fully online. Building a new technology, and a whole new financial system, will always involve some trial and error — and together, we can continue to pave the way for the entire blockchain space.

As always, if you need to get in touch, reach out to our Freshdesk live support or message us at support@energi.team.

The Energi Team.
The Five Winds
By: Ann Litts
Tags: Life Lessons, Meditation, Self Care, Self-awareness, Yoga

Photo by Rachel Lynette French on Unsplash

July 2018:

How we perceive the world. What we are attached to — what we are opposed to. Anger. Jealousy. Groundedness. Anxiety. Reactions. It’s all about how the wind blows.

As I listened to my yoga instructor teach us about vayus and the subtle body, I recognized the truth in this. Our lives were so much about our perceptions and thoughts and so little about actual events.

An event or sentence given to us on a day we are well-rested, or have meditated, or are ‘in love’ for instance will be taken with a grain of salt — or a patient nod of the head. Indulgently brushed off as ‘having nothing to with me’ and we move on. Another day — when we might be overly tired, or have some kind of stress running as the soundtrack in the background — it’s a whole different story. We will perceive it as a personal attack and respond in kind or go into a further funk. We are left fuming or desolate. At either extreme — we don’t understand how we went from zero to sixty unconsciously and so quickly.

The wind blew.

In our less than optimal physical, spiritual, or mental state — one of our vayus was activated. And not in a good way. The goal is always balance. Not too little — not too much. The fairy tale of Goldilocks taught us that. Just right. Because too much even of a good thing can be pathological.

The take away from my workshop yesterday was this. Energy is all around us and IN us. Swirling and pushing. Pulling and weaving. We live, literally, in a tornado of emotional, chemical, spiritual, and physical energy. The mind, body, and spirit connected beyond a shadow of a doubt with each other AND to the world at large.

We start by looking inward. At our own winds. Calming our own storms. Staying balanced. Not sending our winds out into the world to push other human’s winds to blow. Because blowback is real. Energy — once put in motion can escalate. Physics 101. And when someone else’s wind meets us, we can be the dampening field where it comes to quiet. We get to chose.

Life is an echo.

Namaste.