fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
New Lending Platform Announces Plans to List OGN
By: Max Unger
Tags: Finance, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Fintech, Defi

Decentralized finance (DeFi) acts as the backbone to the future of blockchain-powered commerce. DeFi protocols enable the creation and transfer of new forms of money, fueling the growth of blockchain-powered economies. Open and cryptocurrency-powered commerce networks power new ways of doing business for everyone, including the unbanked.

Beginning of this year, we launched our own ERC-20 token, Origin Token (OGN), which drives behavior for end users, developers, marketplace operators, and other ecosystem participants on the Origin Platform. More recently, we’ve introduced our own stablecoin, the Origin Dollar (OUSD), a high-yield savings instrument built directly into a medium of exchange. OGN acts as the governance token for the Origin Dollar (OUSD) network, creating a positive feedback loop between the two tokens.

As we continue to increase the utility of OGN throughout the entire crypto ecosystem, we were recently introduced to the Bonded Finance team. With a belief that open finance is a harbinger for the future of money, Bonded aims to make open and accessible DeFi products like any free marketplace. Today, we’re proud to share that Bonded Finance will list OGN as a lending and borrowing asset for their inaugural product, Ionic. This is Bonded Finance’s first product with a hand-picked selection of tokens that aren’t traditionally available on the incumbent lending platforms.

As part of our partnership with Bonded Finance, OGN holders will enjoy:

Access to Ionic — Bonded’s lending/borrowing product

Opportunity to lend and borrow the OGN token

Increased utility — earning potential in upcoming products

An opportunity to earn as you HODL

Drive demand by removing tokens from circulation

Ability to earn liquidity incentives and BOND tokens

Together with DeFi protocols like Bonded Finance that empower users to take ownership of their finances, we believe our free-to-run Dshop platform that is fully customizable and cryptocurrency-powered will unleash new economic opportunities to all participants of the Origin network. Both Bonded and Origin aim to be drivers of advancing DeFi economies and we are happy they chose to include OGN as one of their supported assets.
Anguilla 2015
By: Andy Tillo
Tags: Carribean, Caribbean, Anguilla, Crocus Bay

Had a great time with the fam in Anguilla this year! The first picture in the mix is a collage of 47 photos stitched together from the cliff overlooking Sandy Ground on South Hill. HERE (78MB) is the full size if you want to take a look. The kids were all much better than we had anticipated them being and everyone had a pretty good time!
What if they don’t come back?
By: Joseph Serwach
Tags: Culture, Marketing, Catholic, Christianity, Leadership

Photo by Serge Le Strat on Unsplash

What if They Don’t Come Back? Churches stopped services during the spring lockdowns. Most re-opened by May but the “Sunday obligation’’ has been lifted — for now.

With many seeing numbers down by a third, Dan Cellucci of the Catholic Leadership Institute, asks “What if they don’t come back,’’ saying of trends: “What I was predicting would take 10 years may now only take two.’’

He notes Jesus said the gates of hell would never prevail against the Church but He didn’t say how many parishes we would have.

We ask “what if” in fear

If you’ve focused your mission on organizing events, how does your work and mission change now?

But what if we asked “what if’’ around what’s possible?

What if God is calling us to something greater?

Here is the full talk:
I Live in a Centuries-old Caste System in 2020
By: Niharika Sodhi
Tags: Culture, Society, Diversity, Racism, Life

What is this caste system?

The caste system of India started during 1500–1000 BC. According to Hindu mythology, it started as early as 320 BC. In this article, we’ll stick to concrete proofs instead of myths here.

It initially started by dividing society by the kind of occupations they do. This also means in modern-day that majority of the people pursue various jobs because of their caste. Not because they had a choice.

Below, you can see the caste hierarchy.

What you see is a centuries-old thought process followed today as well.

The Dalits, also known as the untouchables (lowest caste) cannot drink from the same glass of water as those people who belong to an upper caste. People residing in remote villages who wash their clothes with river water cannot wash it in the areas the higher caste do because they will pollute the river. They are branded as untouchables because people think whatever they touch becomes dirty because they’re dirty.

These are just a few instances and to write about the discrimination faced by Dalits needs a different article altogether. While the government is helping them with education and job subsidies, this issue requires a cultural change and not a change of law.

Our part of the world is the most densely populated piece of land. To give you a perspective, the population of Bangladesh is more than the population of Russia and the size of Bangladesh is lesser than the size of the U.S. state of Texas. People here are not shaped by education as much as culture and religion.

If you have a neighbourhood brown friend, I want you to ask them if they can be a carpenter and let me know what they say.
Non-Blooming Wallflower
By: Adam Kinyua
Tags: Short Story, Spooky, Fiction, Love And Realism, Fantasy

It has been 3 good years since I last tasted the wine of your lips. I remember how you waved with tears flowing down your cheeks and I waved not. I wish I was a good lover. I wish I treated you better. I knew I was not the best boyfriend for you, but you loved me with conditions not. Sometimes, when you woke up in the middle of the night to ask me, “what are we,” and I had no clue how to answer it. How you used to ask me to place my right hand in V-shape so you would lie there weeping slowly into the morning. I remember that one time when we were in the farms, and when the moon came out and owls started owling, we went out and walked under the moon. I held your hands and I promised only death would do us apart. That other time, when you went to see your grandmother and you brought me chicken meat in a nylon paper bag (sobs), Oh my God! How poor we used to be, going to the park, cheaply dressed, going for little shoppings and buying the cheapest clothing. The cheap shirts you bought me and looked for an expression on my expressionless face, how you wished I became a better human being, how you knelt down and said prayers as I watched you? How you bought me all those special cheap stuff while denying yourself everything? How you used to watch me study overnight and wished you would help…

You know what, time does not allow some things to happen. I know I can never go back to the years past and be a better person to you. I know you still hold deeply onto me. You still think I am an upright human. You still think I can fall in love with you again and begin from zero, but to be frank, I know I cannot. I sometimes cry on college’s balconies for things that have done that were not proud of not. I know it’s life and I have so many memories that I wish I would ever find a way of forgetting.

IN A NUTSHELL…

…That day, in the cafeteria, as we ate pilau and drank fermented milk when you said how badly you wanted me when you said I was a man with a unique taste, a true African man full of blessings when you praised my bedroom skills and the flexibility of my bones, when you said all you wanted from life was me… when when when when times many then…

…It ended because it ran its course. The universe was molding you for something better. Stop holding your innocent self accountable from LOVES and FRIENDSHIPS that dwindled out years ago…

I

I know you can

I know you can stop

mistreating yourself and

Allowing your conscience to

Work overtime. Be grateful

That it ran its course

And ended itself

peacefully

!!!!

“…where the tombstone lies, beneath it, lies 207 bones. Knock out the tombstone, flatten the ground, and let the grass grow back, where it was weeded off. A beginning welcomes an end. A sunrise sets a stage for sunset. Let’s all enjoy the vivid life of the spring, and the last fall of the autumn leaves. Let love blossom where it may, and let the beauty of darkness prosper…”

“…What’s done in love has immortality in it…”
Adding TypeScript to an existing Vue CLI project.
By: Thabo Ambrose
Tags: JavaScript, Typescript, Vuejs

Vue and TS

I thought having a type system especially for the Vuex store files for TechRelief would make coding in the project efficient r I wanted to map the entity’s different states/stores in the code and the collections on Firebase

I am new to Vue’s echo system, but since it uses JavaScript, something I am familiar with, it was relatively easy to get a hang of it.

I did not want to infer everything including the components, but just the data models and some other objects that might need some typing. But why.

One of the motives is the following from a medium post.

The project was not created by me, I was supporting the project, so I will not go through the steps on installing the relevant tools and how to scaffold a Vue CLI project.

So here’s how I did it.

Prerequisites for the following steps.

Have the Vue CLI installed globally in your machine.

Have a Vue project created with the Vue CLI.

Install TypeScript

vue add typescript

And… that was it actually.

I had already created a tsconfig.json file with basic config entries but the above command added the other essential ones and added vue and tsx type declaration files (shims-vue.d.ts and shims-tsx.d.ts).

The above command also added some dependencies.

devDependencies

@types/jest

@vue/cli-plugin-typescript

@vue/eslint-config-typescript

ts-jest

typescript

On top of that, it made some Jest config changes in the package.json file.

Using TypeScript

Now with all that set up.

I started by typing the store slices for the app’s state, I have the state slices files as .ts. Example for the user state slice file user.ts, I had some interface like.

export interface IUser {

name: string;

age: number;

}

I have also changed the store.js file’s extension to .ts where I am configuring Vue to use Vuex.

Vue.use(Vuex);

In this file is the file where I import the typed state slices, actions, methods, mutations, and getters of the individual state slices.

Using the store in the Single-File Vue Components (SFCs)

To get the benefit of TypeScript in these files, I have the lang attribute with the value of ts for the script tag of my SFC.

I have also installed the Vetur, a Vue tooling extension for VS Code.

Without these two things, the script lang and Vetur, I did not get the static typing features.

So I think it is advisable to have these both sorted out

Example

<script lang="ts"> // Note the lang attr

// Your Vue code goes in here </script>

Example

Vetur tool reporting

The following thread is also very interesting.

Github — Vuex issue

Some resources

https://alligator.io/vuejs/using-typescript-with-vue/

https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/11739 (Not so relevant)

That’s it for now.
28) I Just Got Home but the Day is Almost Over
By: Del Singh
Tags: Relaxation, Time Management, Work Life Balance, 100 Naked Words, Life

Photo by David Klaasen on Unsplash

I left the office and got home. I relax for a bit and have dinner. It’s 9pm now. An hour to dedicate to anything before I go to bed and do it again.

What happened to my day?
How to Break into Medium with Four Strategies
By: Jessica Lynn
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Success, Freelancing, Writing, Money

Medium is an exciting place to be a part of. Recently, the platform rolled out more changes to the site, making it more blog-like. There is now more you can do with your Medium homepage to personalize it and have it reflect your personality, or “brand” if you have one.

While it is harder to break into Medium simply because there are more writers than ever before here, it isn’t impossible.

If you’re just jumping on now and want to make a part-time or full-time income, it is still very possible. If you are willing to put in the work.

In 2017, when Medium rolled out the Medium Partner Program, which pays writers based on Medium members’ engagement, writers joined in droves. It is a great way to make money. If it weren’t for Medium I wouldn’t be making as much as I do by working from home.

I’m making close to 4K per month, sometimes less, and sometimes more, Medium’s public data suggests I’m well above the average in terms of earning. Medium’s public data states,

55% of writers or publications who wrote at least one story for members earned money.

7.1% of active writers earned over $100.

Medium offers the possibility to make money from your stories.

Some writers earn 15K per month, that is where I want to be. And it is entirely possible if I don’t abandon my writing goals.

Here are some things I did in the first six months on Medium to grow my follower count and earn money the first month.

You probably won’t be making $1,000 a month the first month, but I hit that number fairly quickly back in 2019, but who knows, you could write a viral story your first time out, it happens.

It’s possible to make some extra cash if you put in the writing and marketing effort.

Your strategy going forward:

One. Start your own writing challenge.

I need a challenge to motivate myself. So, I picked a day to publish my first story; it was not perfect, and my writing has improved since then. The important thing was that I started.

Then I gave myself the challenge of posting every day.

In June 2019, I started a 30-day challenge of writing and publishing once a day. I didn’t miss one day of publishing. It wasn’t easy, but I made sure I wrote and published once a day, sometimes twice.

What this does.

It forms a habit. The act of showing up forms a habit. Think of it as a small win. You are adding to your identity as a writer. When you show up to write; you are a writer.

The more you do that, you add to the belief that you are a writer.

Every habit is just an obstacle to getting what you want. Running is an obstacle to getting fit. Investing and saving is an obstacle to getting financially stable. A daily writing habit is an obstacle to getting paid for your writing.

Get past the obstacle, and you will see the results of your effort if you stick with it.

At the end of 30 days, your writing muscle will be fit.
You Deserve Someone Who Will Give You More Than A ‘You Up?’ Text
By: Thought Catalog
Tags: Sex, Poetry, Self, Love, Relationships

2 am.

Your phone beeps. Or vibrates. Or maybe even just silently lights up in a room full of darkness. I guess you’ve been waiting for this. You’ve been hoping. Even if you won’t admit it out loud, you’ve been hoping.

2 am.

Your heart is sitting somewhere in your throat and you keep trying to swallow it back down. But nothing works for this. Nothing seems to do the trick.

You don’t remember how you got here, or why you’re so willing to sit and wait for someone who doesn’t take the time to ask how you’re doing in the daytime. It’s like you only exist after the clock strikes 12. You’re living some reverse Cinderella fairytale. This is nothing like you thought it would be.

Just waiting. Just hoping.

Television and movies lied to you. You don’t change him. An epiphany doesn’t hit in the middle of the night. There’s no grand gesture or sweeping overture that lets you know the big romantic finish is coming.

If he doesn’t make an effort, if he gives only the bare minimum, if his interest in you seems permanently tangled up in his own loneliness or sex drive, that’s all this will ever be.

And you deserve more.

You deserve someone who asks about your day and not just out of politeness or formality. You deserve someone who wants to hear about the details — the fight you had with your boss or that interesting factoid you just learned about hummingbirds. Someone who asks questions and digs deep, wants to learn as much about you as he can. You deserve someone you can talk with at all hours.

For now, you’re putting all your faith in someone who keeps proving to be just one thing: not deserving of your time and attention.

And it burns. You see potential and find excuses to cut him slack. You convince yourself he can become this person — this one you deserve.

Because when he asks, yes, you’re up. But not for the right reasons. Remember, this is not a reflection on you or your worth. You just haven’t found the right person to stay up at 2 am for.
Pop Music, Feminism And Guilty Pleasures
By: Corren York
Tags: Culture, Feminism, Music, Women, Life

The women have faced harsh media criticism since the start of their journey. Along with some general insults — talentless, stupid, insignificant, puppets — there were some incredibly vicious attacks that focused on their bodies and physical appearance. Ugly, slutty, cheap. Whores. Inappropriate. Common. They were lambasted for the outfits they wore, the things they said, and the way they looked.

She was called a chubber, flabby, and the odd one out.

Jesy Nelson was cruelly established as ‘the fat one’ in Little Mix since their inception. She was called a chubber, flabby, and the odd one out. As a woman who has always been curvy, even when I was much slimmer, I identified with Jesy’s body type. I felt those insults as if they were being aimed at me. What should have been one of the most exciting times of Nelson’s life was being overshadowed by body-shaming.

The online bullying she received at the hands of trolls, tabloid news outlets, and media personalities led to depression, an eating disorder, and a suicide attempt in 2013.

The criticism that the women have faced could have easily broken them. Nine years of defending themselves against personal attacks, unfair scrutiny and vile commentary could have ended them a long time ago.

Yet they choose to keep going.

The message in their music is of female empowerment, equality, and strength. There’s respect for the genuine experience of love, and a focus on the importance of friendship that’s both refreshing and relatable. This isn’t pop music that encourages tired, empty clichés for the sake of profits. It’s not vapid nonsense. It’s authentic and endearing — and it happens to be defined as pop music.

They use their platform to bring awareness and support to the issues that matter to them. In 2019, Jesy Nelson presented a documentary that revealed her experience with online bullies and body image to the public. Leigh-Anne Pinnock will be the face of an upcoming documentary that examines colourism and race. Jade Thirlwall is an advocate and active campaigner for LGBT+ rights and charities. In 2018, Perrie Edwards spoke candidly about mental health and her battle with anxiety.

Their latest album, Confetti, released on November 6th and I couldn’t be happier with it. The collection of mostly upbeat tracks is pop music at its finest. Instantly appealing beats and melodies coupled with meaningful lyrics and a strong message. It’s going to be on repeat for weeks.
UNICEF’s Magicbox Using Open Source by Red Hat and Uber and Big Data by Facebook to Map for Emergencies
By: Mike Fabrikant
Tags: Unicef, Data Visualization, Open Source, Humanitarian Innovation, Facebook

Six weeks ago I wrote an article about a health specialist at UNICEF named Sudha. She wanted a map of Malawi and all of its health facilities to add to a slide deck. The article described how we might customize kepler.gl, an open source geospatial toolbox by Uber, to enable UNICEF staff to create and share interactive maps.

This article describes some of what we’ve done so far.

I work on a project at UNICEF called Magicbox. It’s about ingesting all types of data from the public and private sector, and applying data science to improve programmatic response in country offices.

An example of Magicbox might be:

Advising a government on what which schools to prioritize for adding connectivity and infrastructure.

Determining where to setup the next Ebola response center during an outbreak.

Schools in Kyrgyzstan as data points and clusters colored by level of connectivity to the internet (provided by the Ministry of Education).

We recently completed a prototype, as part of a collaboration with Red Hat Innovation Labs, to map schools and connectivity in Colombia for disaster preparedness.

The map started out with:

school locations — Ministry of Education

internet connectivity scores — Ministry of ICT

reports of violence and natural disaster, aggregated at the country level — UMAIC.

Following the Red Hat engagement, we further added cell phone coverage provided by Facebook for a school mapping preparedness project, shared through Facebook disaster maps, and baseline mobility provided by Telefonica. We also ported the app to represent data for Ebola affected regions in Central Africa.

2g, 3g, and 4g coverage across Colombia provided by Facebook (left). Individual schools as points colored by level connectivity (Right).

Population displacement data provided by Facebook was used to prioritize the available response and support services to communities displaced by the Palu tsunami.

As more country offices look to us for interactive maps that display various types of data, our software development team is opting to deliver apps based on configurable frameworks rather than code from scratch.

Kepler.gl is a front end application that hosts all data in the browser. We’ve added a backend so that users can import data sets direct from Magic Box. The first data set we’ve connected are country borders.

A feature we have added to import shapefiles from an external source.

Bangladesh at admin level 3.

You can see this feature live here, and you can clone a version of this app here. Be sure to checkout dev branch.

It was coded by fellow software developer, Marcella Maki, and two visiting developers, Thoa Ta and Courage Angeh. It was added using dependency injection. There are many more features we would like to add, so please keep reading if you’d like to contribute.
Your Top 3 Accessible Handbags for Autumn.
By: Elizabeth Wright
Tags: Disability, Handbags, Fashion, Inclusion, Fashion Trends

“Be A Nice Human, Born Anxious”

It sounds like such a simple message, doesn’t it? For some, it seems the meaning is lost.

Born Anxious is an Autism friendly clothing brand; owned by a mother of an Autistic child, this range is what fashion is usually not for people on the spectrum. The clothing is soft, sensory friendly; there are also no labels at all. (These are just two issues Autistic people face when shopping for clothing.) There are also a range of colours, to suit a variety of sensory needs.

As an Autistic person, it was a revelation to find this brand. I am not a very ‘fashion forward’ person — preferring to stick to my own preferred style of clothing. I also usually go for soft fabrics — with things like sequins and zips to be tolerated only for official-type functions.

One Tuff Muvva and Born Anxious have collaborated to bring you the ‘Be A Nice Human’ collection. On the back of slogans like #BeKind, this has the idea to build a kindness army. And there are two different style of handbags — including a messenger handbag and backpack.

You can buy the messenger bag here, and the backpack here.
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Abstract Art, Drawing, Sunday, Art

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

Follow
I Was In Syria During Bashar Al Assad’s Election
By: Claire J. Harris
Tags: Culture, Travel, World, Syria, Politics

I walked across the stretch of land that divided Turkey and Syria — a line drawn after World War 1 and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. This artificially constructed border, determined by the war’s winners, turned the people living in the town of Nusaybin into Turks, and their neighbours living in the near identical town of Qamishle into Syrians.

The year was 2007 and the country was gearing up for the inevitable re-election of Bashar Al-Assad — president for the past seven years.

The border was chaotic, with cars struggling to pass the crowds of people on foot, pushing wheelbarrows or carrying loads on their shoulders or heads. As I waited an eternity to get my stamps, I was ushered into an office and given a seat. The customs officer gave me tea while he reclined at his desk and chatted to me. He was clearly in no hurry to get things done.

When he finally got around to looking at my passport, he directed me to another building for the police to approve the visa I had already received in the embassy in Istanbul. The policeman behind the counter glared first at my passport and then at me. He stood up from his seat slowly, reaching for the pistol in the holster on his belt.

He pulled the gun out with both hands and pointed it at my head.

I was shaking on the other side of the desk, suddenly remembering that I’d just entered the Middle East and the dozens of warnings the Turks had given me: “Why are you going to Syria?”

He spoke slowly, still scowling. “Welcome. To. Syria,” he said slowly, and his face cracked into a smile. At once he started cackling uproariously and his two colleagues behind the desk joined him, exploding with chortles of laughter.

I sighed with relief as he stamped my passport and sent me on my way, still chuckling behind me.

It was funny because Syria was, in fact, one of the safest countries for women to travel, a haven of peace in the Middle East.
Pray
By: Shavaun Scott
Tags: Coping, Psychology, Defense Mechanism, Personal Development, Religion

Photo by Rohit Guntur on Unsplash

My hometown smelled like exhaust and chorizo.

The steel mill and freight trains belched black smoke into the sky. The air was dark gray and burned my eyes, leaving them permanently shot with crimson.

If you tried to run, your chest hurt when you inhaled.

Breathing was dangerous.

People spoke Spanglish or hillbilly pidgin. Mariachis blew trumpets at weddings and quinceneras.

Everybody got drunk at funerals, and on weekends swilled Bacardi from the bottle in the back of cruising lowriders.

Girls who got raped after football games already knew how much money they would get from welfare if they decided to keep the baby.

It was best not to cooperate with the DA, since every criminal had at least one cousin who did hits; they’d get back at you if you snitched.

I was a permanent alien in my hometown. All I ever wanted was to run away.

But there were churches. Hallelujah, baptized, and born again.

Churches with rock bands on Saturday nights, churches that were shimmering warm and bright, where the light was clean and holy, where God’s family opened their arms to hug you and they said they loved you and everybody read the rules together from the same book.

You could be baptized in the spirit and speak in tongues, get filled with the holy ghost and punctuate every sentence with praise the Lord, and trust that good things would come to those who wait.

In church I learned there was no need to think about the future just follow the blood on the tracks and trust God who controls all things, even the temperature of the water that comes out of the tap, God who numbers every hair on my head.

God will take care of my life, no planning required, no thought required, just pray. Don’t feel. Don’t think. Just pray. Keep praying. Keep praying. Keep praying. Pray harder.

Pray until you are out of breath.
A great process to know how to unit test (your Swift code)
By: Daniel Souza
Tags: Unit Testing, Swift, iOS, Sandi Metz, Testing

I will show you a way to identify what you should test and some concepts to make your life a little easier when writing tests.

At some point in my career I knew how important unit tests were, but I didn’t know how to test my code. Many have faced the same issue. We read articles on how to start, but still, it’s hard to apply what we’ve learnt to our own code. We usually don’t have those functions that just sums up two parameters and returns the result, and we see it in many examples out there. Well, I came across a process that made it really easy for me.

The first thing I want to say is that you don’t need to change your architecture to start unit testing. That’s a mistake some developers make when they hear that a certain structure can make the code more testable. Then they wait until shifting to this new way of coding to start writing tests. Let’s not do that! If you want to test an existing code you will probably need to refactor some parts, but definitely not to change your architecture!

All about messages

Messages are the way objects talk to each other in an object oriented world. You pass a message to an object when you want it to execute a method. It’s the same to get a property value and that goes for everything else!

The process for knowing what to test has three simple steps and they all involve messages.

1. Identify the type of the message

There are two possible types of messages: Query and Command. It may be obvious but query is when you ask for something and a command is when you tell it to do something. A query has a return, but doesn’t change any state while a command has no return, but has some side effects.

query = returns something and changes nothing

command = returns nothing and changes something

2. Identify the origin of the message

There are three possible origins for a message: Incoming, Outgoing and Sent-to-self.

Incoming: When an object receives a message from the outside (another object).

Outgoing: When an object sends a message to the outside.

Sent-to-self: Guess what?! When an object sends a message to itself.

3. Follow this chart:

Unit Test Minimalist by Sandi Metz

Ooh! What a great chart! Right?! Keep this around until it becomes natural to you.

Applying the proccess

First example is an adoption of Equatable.

The function has a return and it doesn’t change any state. It’s a query! It is public and can be called by another object that wants to know if two Wallet are equal. Incoming! Incoming Query: Assert Result.

Incoming Query is pretty straightforward. You have an expected result, then you call the function and assert it if it returns what you’re expecting.
A Spiritual Autobiography
By: Stephen C. Rose
Tags: Values, Esto, Autobiography, Life

A Spiritual Autobiography

Today I started to be a trifle more forthcoming

I have never been one who speaks much about “worldly” experiences I’ve had

But now there is occasion.

My goal is resurgence

Reach

Turning heads

Not to me but to the truth

A tweet posted yesterday expresses it

+

WE DO NOT NEED MOVEMENTS

Individuals are movements

Individuals who know we are I-We-All

Movements can be suppressed

Individuals are eternal like grass and trees

Chop us down we grow back

We come back

Time after time

We are inveterate

We win

Finally we are love

4:34 PM · Oct 25, 2019

+

Here is this morning’s mini-story.

When I met Nixon he advised me to forget print journalism and move to TV. I laughed inside, remembering he had fallen to JFK largely due to Kennedy’s overcoming him in the TV debates.

Nixon had faults but he was candid.

7:26 AM · Oct 26, 2019

+

The mission I am on is not to become a near-death experiencer

My ambition is not speak with utter clarity about time spent fully conscious while flatlined

Candid near death experience is not the hallucinatory product of neurons and such in individual brains

There is enough proof out there

Consciousness is non-local

Heavenly accounts are real

I need not try to ride that train

+

My mission is to write to an ever widening public

I am a dense sort who happens to be exactly who I am

A spectrum of always-on consciousness

From Dostoevsky denial

To Swedenborg certainty

I have three essential ideas to spread

1.

Philosophy is is universal practice

Reality is all

Ethics and aesthetics are the prime elements in acts and expressions leading to progress

Individuals are the source of divine mission

2.

Religions are fading

A common spirituality emerges

We are all part of the Same Source

Our common goal is manifesting unconditional love

3

We will achieve no progress based on negation

Feeling is consciousness

Egoistic beliefs are common and can be bypassed

We can and must create new communities based on positive values

Safe

Secure

Car free

Fair

Available to all

+

I do not assume when my eyes close for good these beliefs will be universal

But they will no longer be dormant

I will be happy to be seen as one who helped develop these approaches

We are beyond the ages we have come through

I work with countless others here and there

Evolution is our goal

The future is the individual

I

WE

ALL

+

Tolerance, helpfulness and democracy are ways unconditional love can become incarnate
Privacy by Design: a quick introduction and checklist for the seven principles
By: Babar Suleman
Tags: Privacy, Design, User Experience, Checklist, Principles

Photo by Matthew Henry from Burst

The privacy and security of user data is one of the hottest issues in tech today.

We have all heard about the horrors of Cambridge Analytica and how our own data is increasingly being used against us.

Web-savvy users had long taken matters into their own hands, many using tools like Tor or VPNs to protect their identities and data online, but the majority of users browsing the internet or engaging with their favourite apps are unaware of how their data is being used and the real cost of an apparently ‘free’ service.

As designers, the biggest questions facing us are then how can we make sure that businesses don’t exploit consumer ignorance, and how can we design better interfaces and experiences that respect the user?

Luckily for us, we have a useful guide in the form of ‘Privacy by Design’ (PdD), a system of best practices outlined by Dr. Ann Cavoukian, then Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, who came up with the principles in the 1990s but they have only taken on great importance in our current times.

The whole PbD document is worth reading but, as a quick introduction, I’m listing them below complemented by my own handy and easy-to-use checklist items that we should know by heart as we go into designing any new system:

Proactive not Reactive; Preventative not Remedial

Checklist Item #1: I have designed a system that anticipates and takes care of privacy issues before problems occur, not after!

2. Privacy as the Default

Checklist Item #2: My user doesn’t need to do anything to protect their data, its protected by default.

3. Privacy Embedded Into Design

Checklist Item #3: Privacy is a core feature of my design, not an accessory or detriment to functionality.

4. Full Functionality — Positive-Sum, not Zero-Sum

Checklist Item #4: Having the best privacy measures is not an excuse for shoddy functionality or false compromises.

5. End-to-End Security — Lifecycle Protection

Checklist Item #5: My design protects user privacy from start to finish

6. Visibility and Transparency

Checklist Item #6: All privacy policies and their implementation are open, visible, transparent and independently verifiable

7. Respect for User Privacy

Checklist Item #7: I make privacy user-friendly by allowing all individual users to manage their own data

I hope this quick guide has been a useful introduction to this wonderful resource for designing for privacy, and I highly recommend delving in further!

Design is no longer just about the look and feel of an experience, it is also increasingly about the ethics of it. Next time you’re brainstorming ideas for a website design project, make sure you have given proper consideration to user privacy and security to ensure a safe and ethical environment for your users!
Self-Love
By: Sharon Brandon
Tags: Inspiration, Spiritual Secrets, Illumination, Spiritual Tree, Spirituality

Who I am to me is as important as it is to breathe. I need not look to others to validate who I am.

Sincerely

Embracing

Legitimately

Finding

Lasting

Open

Value

Emphatically
Practicing Devotion
By: Simran Kankas
Tags: Mindfulness, Letters, Devotion, Self Improvement, Spirituality

Dear Readers and Writers

Congratulations on being positive. I know you are holding up alright. I am confident about that because I can see it in your writing. Give yourself a pat on the back.

I am also in a positive state of mind.

I am reading and watching Ramayan these days. Ramayan is a holy book of Hindus, but that’s not the point.

To me, Ramayan is not just a religious book; but a spiritual guide to living. I like the way it teaches us life lessons through its stories.

After I finished reading the first chapter, I made a promise to myself that I will adopt at least one of its teachings per day.

Today, I am practicing devotion.

Devotion does not necessarily imply one’s loyalty to God. It means to do, think, and feel everything in life with pure love and full attention.

I am practicing devotion in everything I am doing today, whether it is writing, reading, cooking, breathing, or taking care of my body.

I am practicing being loyal to myself.

This activity is not only fun, it also helps in grooming my ability to stay calm.

How about you? I hope you are also finding new ways of learning and having fun.

I am thankful to you for sending positive energy through your spiritual stories.

Keep floating in Tranquility.

Thank you 🙏

Simran Kankas

#Stay Blessed #Stay Healthy
The Last Star
By: Mike Rosser
Tags: Poetry, Space, Cosmos

Upon the edge of space the last star dies.

We see it not, for death hath claimed all men.

His breath is light, his chest ceases to rise.

A final spark, now joins his spent brethren.
《隨想》及散文目錄（2017–18）
Tags: Fiction, 小說, Love, Relationships, Life

은미 씨 생일 축하해요

Drink with me to days gone by To the life that used to be At the shrine of friendship never say die Let the wine of…
Safe Registry For Drone Pilots In The UK
By: Deep Aero Drones
Tags: Drones

Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has implemented a series of rules and regulations to guide the correct and safe use of drones in the particular territory.

According to Mark Boyt, founder and CEO of Drone Safe Register, one question remain unanswered, that- apart from all the rules and regulations what is the guarantee that the pilot is well trained and certified to take the safe fly and landing and work in an efficient manner.

“I thought it was important to have one private entity that would group and act as a certification entity to guarantee the public that the pilots they are hiring to do a job are responsible, qualified and properly trained and insured individuals,” Boyt said.

There is still a need to a central repository of insured drone pilots.

Source: http://bit.ly/2FkpORL
Apple finally apologizes for their overpricing, intentional battery slow-down, and lack of customer…
Tags: Android, Tech, Apple, Smartphones, Technology

Apple finally apologizes for their overpricing, intentional battery slow-down, and lack of customer support.

Well…Apple finally caved. After $1000 smartphones that never really hit the mark with customers they have officially offered an apology and a price reduction. They also have apologized for their $999 stand and actually have included it with their new sleek XDR Pro display.

But they didn’t stop there. They have decided to replace customers batteries for free for all the slower iPhone models from iPhone 7 and before. They also have offered a very fair and balanced refund program.

Finally after all this Apple love, they have decided to offer warranties for their products for free, 24 hour customer support and repair (depending on your warranty), and free hardware like a fast charging plug and case.

Apple truly has made up for all their past mistakes…

Well…if only any of this was true. In a perfect world Apple would still act like a company who cares about their customers. But Tim Cook’s Apple ain’t the Apple we all knew and loved. Thanks Apple…hopefully one day you will see the error of your ways.
Sevencoin Exchange 進展報告 12/17–12/23
Tags: 進展報告, Sevencoin, Blockchain, 工作誌

in Both Sides of the Table
How I Relearned a Language With Duolingo
By: Theo Sheppard
Tags: Spanish, Life, Language, Education, Language Learning

How I Relearned a Language With Duolingo

Is a 200-day Duolingo streak worth the time?

Public Domain — Credit: Listen & Learn

I recently reached the 200-day (unbroken streak) milestone with the language-learning app Duolingo. Here are my thoughts on my progress during this time and whether using Duolingo every day has been worthwhile.

But, first, here’s a rough outline of my background in learning Spanish:

I learned Spanish throughout my time at secondary school (between the ages of 11 and 16) and had a decent grasp of conversational Spanish vocabulary and grammar.

I generally understood how and when to use the present, past preterite, past imperfect, future inflection and conditional future tenses and had a basic awareness of the present subjunctive and past subjunctive tenses.

I also had the opportunity to visit Spain several times during these years. I felt confident having basic conversations in Spanish and could comfortably cope with ordering at restaurants, asking for directions, and so on.

But, since then, I have allowed my Spanish to slip. 200 days ago I could still manage some conversational Spanish, but with nowhere near the same degree of fluency or confidence. I’d become out of touch with the grammatical rules of the language and had forgotten much of the vocab I used to know.

In an attempt to claw back my Spanish, and gifted more free time than I knew what to do with (*lockdown*), I decided to give the language learning app Duolingo a go.

Duolingo is a free language-learning platform with millions of users worldwide. The app allows users to learn languages using the traditional theme-based method, dividing vocab into various topics and then subdividing these topics into different levels of difficulty, called ‘lessons’.

These lessons involve translation exercises (from your native language to your target language, and vice versa), listening exercises, matching exercises (to images or words) and speaking exercises.

However, Duolingo’s main attraction is its use of a concept known as spaced repetition. Over time, as you progress through new topics and levels, old lessons will begin to ‘crack’. When this happens, you are encouraged to revisit these lessons to prevent your progress from being lost. This means that you are being constantly reminded of old vocab, making you less likely to forget it.

Duolingo logo — Wikipedia Commons, public domain

My goals for re-learning Spanish could be summarised as follows:

Expand my vocabulary. Revive my lost understanding of Spanish grammar and grammatical exceptions. Become more confident in my ability to speak conversational Spanish and understand spoken Spanish.

Of course, 200 days isn’t really long enough to accurately measure my progress. Nevertheless, my progress over the last four months should act as a fairly reliable indicator of my language learning trajectory.
All Media Outlets Have an Agenda
By: Geraint Clarke
Tags: Culture, Society, Philosophy, Politics, News

All Media Outlets Have an Agenda

Is it possible to only consume the facts?

Photo by Filip Mishevski on Unsplash

You’re no longer watching or reading the news. The news you consume is a new product created from facts that become mixed with someone else’s biases. How it’s told and presented is more important than ‘what’ is told or presented.

The truth is, social media has killed the news industry. Your friend’s post on Facebook saying “I’m safe from the earthquake in Taipei” tells you two things. They are safe – and there’s been an earthquake in Taipei.

That second part used to be the job of traditional media outlets. Now their business of broadcasting has been automated by the public.

To produce the revenue-generating attention they’re used to receiving, they sensationalize everything. Anonymous sources come forward with unreported, uninvestigated rape allegations, Ellen’s staff don’t like their bosses (shock) and Trump’s latest tweet is the reason for hundreds of years of oppression.

True or not, every single media outlet has an agenda.

Once you understand that your mind becomes an impregnable fortress of serenity. It’s not what they’re saying, it’s how and why they’re saying it now… For more money, that’s why.

Media outlets are a business, not a public service.
Celer Network and Bytom Blockchain sign MOU
By: Celer Network
Tags: Blockchain, Celerpartners, Celernetwork

Celer Network and Bytom Blockchain recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding which indicates that both sides will collaborate on strengthening Bytom’s ecosystem.



Celer Network is a platform enabling internet scale blockchain applications based on off-chain scaling techniques. It allows everyone to quickly build, operate, and use highly scalable decentralized applications through innovations in and incentive-aligned cryptoeconomics.

With the aim to accelerate blockchain mass adoption, Bytom will cooperate deeply with Celer Network in the future on layered architecture, production iteration, developing sidechain modules and passages supporting fast off-chain status change, through combining different off-chain scaling techniques and creating a comprehensive solution.

Follow Celer Network:
Tesla Displays Positive Results And We Know Why
By: Irina Slavcheva
Tags: Earnings, Stock Market, Investing, Tesla, Cars

Credit: Photo by Charlie Deets

Tesla, Inc. is a highly complex company with grand ambitions underpinned which conceptually suggests parallels with the early Standard Oil created once by John D. Rockefeller. This is the most rewarding but also the hardest strategy to pursue and until recently the same existence of the company was in question. Investiger’s analysis continually discovered though that Tesla’s cumulative strengths surpass its weaknesses by far and in fact the company occupies the №1 spot for near-term and mid-term growth potential for several quarters now.

The previous quarter our material showed that the company demonstrated remarkable resilience in a very rough environment and in addition to the positive Model 3 deliveries, Tesla’s solar storage solution continued to pick up pace.

This quarter Tesla reported on October 22 and the results were positive. The company’s sales are picking up not only in China but worldwide too and the cash flow and margin growth are impressive.

When analyzing Tesla’s performance, it is important to note that we look at the company from several important perspectives:

· Tesla is a high-tech company in the category of Microsoft, Apple or Google.

· As a car manufacturer it’s in a class of its own in the same way Apple is for mobile devices and services.

· The company’s business model is contrarian to traditional car producers which is a positive.

· Tesla’s design, engineering and sales processes are created to be different in a late Steve Jobs-like way that has nothing to do with other manufacturers and this is good.

Perhaps surprising to many, our analysis also discovered that Tesla is in fact excellently managed in both operations and financially.

This material is prepared for Investiger and is based on findings from the Robalyst platform. To get insights on other companies visit www.robalyst.com.