fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Let Go Of Love That Isn’t For You
By: Soumya John
Tags: Letting Go, Essay, Relationships, Love, Moving On

I want to remind you that it’s okay to let go.

Let go of a love that cannot hold you. A love that isn’t whole cannot embrace all of who you are. It isn’t sturdy enough to carry the weight of your accomplishments or soft enough to cushion the brunt of your falls. You need a love that’s unafraid to open itself up to you. You are worth a love that is complete in its becoming.

Let go of a love that lives in a time you’re no longer part of. A love that was ideal when you knew less about who you were. You cannot love a love that does not fit with the person you now are. It can neither accept nor understand who you have grown into. You belong to a love that belongs to exactly you.

Let go of a love that promises to arrive, but never does. A love that’s fashioned to forever hold you at the brink of being let in. One that always has you on edge, wondering if you’re asking for too much or too little. You neither have to wait for nor prove yourself deserving of such love. You are more than a love that cannot show up for you.

Let go of a love that always seems to miss a beat. A love created from gut-flipping moments of desire, loss, and longing. One that apologetically says “I wish I could have been there” six months after your world fell apart and they chose to ignore your calls. One that says “I wish it were me” when you tell them how your heart is fluttering for someone else again. Good love can dance to every single beat of your heart. You deserve a love that’s present where you are to love you.

Let go of a love that refuses to forgive you for your mistakes or accept you with your foibles. A love that dangles your wrongdoings before you like a pendulum moving to mark a ticking bomb. One that continually reminds you of what makes you less than. A love that cages you in guilt and shame is not a home; it’s a prison. Never forget that kind love is the only type of love there is.

Let go of a love that wants to change you. A love that’s marked out parts of you that don’t fit right. One that arrives with a plan on how you can be cut, chiseled and tweaked into what it is looking for. Only you get to decide how you fit into your body and your mind and how you wear yourself. Allow for a love that sees you, and holds every bit of who you are tenderly.

Move into a love that loves you. A love that tends to itself so that it can do its best by you. A love that wants you and will let you know so without a sliver of a doubt. I want you to know that you will find it. This is a reminder that you don’t ever have to settle for less.
Trading on high volume
Tags: Golang, Bots, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

This is part 8 in a series of articles on the Nefertiti trading bot. If you don’t know what Nefertiti is or does, please refer to part 1 in this series.

Nefertiti comes with a built-in strategy that is simple but proven; buy the dip, then sell those trades as soon as possible, preferably on the same day.

However, some traders might prefer an alternative strategy. Starting with Nefertiti 0.0.34 we’re pleased to announce that you can now automatically trade the coins that are trending.
Formosa Financial寶島金融 <> Wanchain萬維鏈-合作夥伴宣佈
By: Formosa Financial Team
Tags: ICO, Fintech, Crypto, Partnerships, Blockchain

in Both Sides of the Table
Has the Crypto Market Turned Bullish Again? Bitcoin Almost $9,000!
By: Ivy Riane
Tags: Bitcoin, Investing, Cryptocurrency, Finance, Sentiment

Photo by Andre Francois on Unsplash

Buy orders are now filling up the queue of market activity for the first time since March 2017 at a rate of almost 93%! Selling orders have been rampant the past few months, which has kept the prices down across the board and caused a bit of panic among newer investors.

The market has recovered $120 billion thanks to this massive amount of buy orders. This recovery has been huge and could mean that we are going to see a bull market larger than we saw in 2017.

2017 was a year of monstrous gains so if 2018 has even larger gains then we are in for quite the wild ride!

Many industry leaders have claimed that they see Bitcoin reaching at least $25,000 per coin by the end of 2018, which many have balked at because of the extreme downtrend that has started out 2018 so far.

Tom Lee gave an interview last week to CNBC and accurately predicted a 225% increase in BTC stating:

“We still feel pretty confident that Bitcoin is a great risk-reward and we think it could reach $25,000 by the end of the year… It’s overdue. Bitcoin was incredibly oversold.”

But, the past few days have seen quite a run up, is this the end of the bear trend?

Are we on the way back up?

$1,000 in 3 Days

That is how much Bitcoin surged in the past few days! Investors are rushing back into the market again in anticipation of the $10,000 mark.

We may see some bouncing around a lot near $10,000, but this is normal and should be anticipated.

$10,000 is a big psychological barrier that, once crossed, will indicate a significant climb. Psychological barriers are huge in financial markets because they determine how much the price climbs.

We almost always see bouncing around for a few days near the psychological barriers so it’s not really anything to be worried about it happens. Just a gentle warning :)

Psychological Barriers and Bitcoin

Photo by David Shares on Unsplash

The psychological barriers exist around every $5,000 mark like $10k, $15k, $20k, etc. Every time the price of Bitcoin gets anywhere close to these barriers it will jump around for a little while before pushing past that mark and marching hard towards the next one.

It is possible that there will be some sell offs after we pass $10,000 by some investors that have been holding their coins for months waiting to sell after $10,000 in order to just get out or in order to get out of their position with some minor profits.

Then, we will likely see more selling around $12,000, $15,000, and then around $18,000 based on historical trends. Those people that haven’t sold before $20,000 will likely hold indefinitely or at least until Bitcoin hits $25,000 or higher in order to get profits for those that bought in during the highs late last year.

What do you think about the change in the market and where do you see it going next? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks so much for reading!

Ivy
DEx.top Bi-Weekly Report (8.11–8.24)
Tags: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain, Progress Reports, Decentralized Exchange

1. Product Updates

a. Token classification

Promotion and Tokens with a rating will be displayed by category.

b. The new version of the contracts are under development

The new contract will allow a more transparent transaction and our users can get their currency within 30 days after the contract is stopped. User’s asset security is further enhanced.

2. Listings

a. MT Token(MT)

MyToken is an advocate for value investing and decentralization. It wishes to become the bridge connecting the blockchain technology and its users as well as investors by accelerating the transformation process in which the users get involved.

b. UNetworkToken(UUU)

U Network is a revolutionary protocol for publishing and valuing online content that helps online content platforms better align with the interests of their users.

3. Recent Activities

a. Trade to win a pool of 400,000 MT!（Concluded）

Activity details: https://support.dex.top/hc/en-us/articles/360007916214

b. Trade to win a pool of 3,223,500 UUU！(Ongoing)

Activity details: https://support.dex.top/hc/en-us/articles/360008246834

4. External Partnerships

a. From August 15th to August 16th, DEx.top have been traveling once more! This time, we arrived at the biggest city in Canada, Toronto; participating in Canada’s most renown blockchain industry summit, the “Blockchain Futurist Conference”. The summit itself attracts over 2000 blockchain enthusiasts all over the globe, and we gather for two days to discuss the future of blockchain technology.

b. In this conference, the DEx.top team popularized the knowledge of how to use DEx.top to trade and other information revolving around a decentralized exchange platform. One key feature we talked about is DEx.top’s new mobile wallet. This brand new version will allow users to quickly and easily experience our product using a smartphone. Smooth, fast, and easy-to-learn, this mobile experience will surely get the attention of our overseas friends.

DEx.top is a decentralized Ethereum-token exchange platform based on the smart contract. It introduces the innovative ROC (Replayed On Chain) trading mechanism that leverages the synchronized off-chain and on-chain ledgers to enable instant trading while making traders’ assets safe. DEx.top is committed to providing the most secure, instant, and low-cost trading experience to end users at all levels.

Aug 24th, 2018

DEx.top
Am I... Lovable?
By: Shannon Ashley
Tags: Mental Health, Depression, Self Improvement, Parenting, Life

When I was a child, I had this pretty little picture book called The Lovables In The Kingdom of Self-Esteem by Diane Loomans.

Despite the beautiful illustrations and clearly positive message, I can still remember thinking at around eight years old, Sheesh, what a hokey book! Seriously. “I am lovable! I am lovable! I am lovable!" Those are literally the magic words that open the gates to the Kingdom of Self-Esteem.

My eight year old self thought it was dumb that there was even a place called "the Kingdom of Self-Esteem." I suppose I expected a little more nuance and better allegory? Well...

Nearly 30 years later, I still think about that damn book. And about how naive I was at the time... oh, just so blissfully unaware. Whenever I read the story back then, I actually wondered how someone could have low self-esteem. I didn’t understand how it happens.

Which means back in grade school, I still believed I was lovable. I didn’t even question my worth. Of course, I was attending an extremely nurturing magnet school. It helped that no matter what was going on inside my dysfunctional home, I felt valued by my teachers and I looked forward to school each day.

I can’t tell you exactly when things changed for me. It was more of a gradual progression over the next four years as I made my way into junior high. That’s when my relationship with my mom became especially rocky and I started to struggle more socially — or become more aware of my social struggles, at least.

But in the summer before fifth grade, my best friend, Jay, was killed along with one of his older sisters. They were both trying to save a younger sister caught up in an undertow at a local lake. I rarely saw friends outside of school and no one ever called me on the phone until that particular August. One of the most popular girls in school called to ask if I had heard about Jay because she’d seen it on the news and knew we were friends.

This was back in the early 90s, so I couldn’t just look it up online. I waited to watch the news myself for another blurb and found a newspaper to confirm the story. Then I read about how my best friend Jay Xiong drowned on August 9, 1992, just three days after my ninth birthday.

My dysfunctional home life ultimately meant that my school and home were completely separate. So I wasn’t able to really talk to anyone about Jay’s death. I wrote about it, and when school started, I tried to write to Jay’s other best friend, Matt. We rode the bus together, and Jay used to ride with us too. Matt read my note on the bus, crumpled it up, tossed it to the ground, and I thought he looked like he might cry. We never spoke again after that.

Time kept moving, but I wasn’t quite the same.
B2B 行銷方法論（三）：內容產出的流程？內容團隊的運營、協作與 SOP
By: 侯智薰 Raymond Ch Hou
Tags: Management, Project Management, Social Media, Business, Marketing

【點此使用Airtable】 Organize anything you can imagine

Airtable works like a spreadsheet but gives you the power of a database to organize anything. Sign up for free.
The Tragic Story of Homosexual Jews in Nazi Germany
By: Kamna Kabir
Tags: LGBTQ, Human Rights, Gay, History, World

When World War II ended, it was a time of great jubilation for the thousands of people incarcerated in the Nazi concentration camps. However, nothing changed for the homosexual prisoners who continued to serve their sentence due to a provision of the German Criminal Code from 15 May 1871 to 10 March 1994.

As per Paragraph 175 (Section 175 in English), homosexual acts were a crime. The law wasn’t completely abolished as late as 1994.

A lthough the Nazi’s treatment of homosexuals is well documented, far less attention has been given to the continuation of this persecution in post-war Germany.

The origins of Paragraph 175 can be traced to as early as the 15th century. Most sodomy related laws in the western civilizations are a vestige of Christianity during late Antiquity.

On May 17, 2002 — a date symbolically chosen as ‘17.5’ — the German parliament pardoned all the victims and made provisions for ‘vindication certificates’ upon request.
Mythology is Perfect for Video Games
By: Thomas Jenkins
Tags: Mythology, Videogames, Gaming, Fiction, Storytelling

Hades may be the best video game adaptation of ancient mythology, but it isn’t the only one. Sony’s God of War (2018) loosely riffed on Norse mythology, though its characterization of major figures in this lore is much more vague than in Hades. There’s also an upcoming game this year titled Immortals Fenyx Rising that is promising a Breath of the Wild-like experience set in ancient Greece. It’s a lofty goal, but I’ll probably play the game if it delivers.

Hades and God of War are both triumphant successes and prove that mythology is a perfect setting for a video game. Games often ask players to act like heroes and pit protagonists against equally powerful foes. This is often a major power trip, one that makes so much sense if players are literally filling the shoes of mythical gods. This idea seems stunningly obvious the more I think about it, and maybe its one that more developers are paying more attention to as time passes.

Take, for example, the story of Hades. Zagreus wants to escape hell, but every time he tries he’s murdered brutally by one of his father’s creatures. In a normal video game, players would be asked to suspend their disbelief that Zagreus could survive all this physical abuse (a pretty normal video-game trope) and come back for more. But if Zagreus is a Greek god, then of course he can keep getting up again and again. He’s immortal, and death means nothing to him.

Or in God of War, Kratos’s many battles would be impossible for a man to withstand, but mean little to a god. Fighting ogres, trolls, and other (even larger) monsters may not be strictly easy, but it’s something the character can do again and again and again. I’m not saying that every game should star a divinity as the protagonist, but it often makes much more sense in the game’s universe if there’s a believable reason that the player can go through so much.
Start Meditating in 6 Easy Steps
By: Diksha Bathula
Tags: Meditation, Relaxing, Productivity, Mindfulness, Focus

So, here we go —

Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash

1. There is No Right Place or Right Time

First things first, there is no need to find the right place or the right time. Just sit wherever you are and begin to meditate.

Joseph Goldstein, an expert on meditation and mindfulness, has an account of meditating while travelling in a bus full of people with all kinds of noise and sounds around him.

2. Be Mindful of your Surroundings

Know where you are. Notice your posture and the environment around you.

When you sit, know that you are sitting. Gently relax your shoulders and eyes and choose to be aware of everything that is happening around you.

3. Focus on your Breath

Focussing on your breath is the hook for meditation. The journey begins from here. Remember that it is not the only thing we do in meditation but something to hold on to, to regain control of our thoughts.

You have to let your mind wander, and when it does, acknowledge the thought or the feeling and come back to your breath.

4. Make Mental Notes

Start by making a mental note of your breath. Inhale — In. Exhale — Out.

Make a mental note for thoughts, feelings and sensations. Mental notes are what they are, one-word notes, which let you acknowledge the journey your mind takes and helps you be present and in the moment.

5. Let Everything In

It is quite common to feel irritated when you are trying to meditate and are disturbed by say, some traffic on the road or some pain in your body. This external sensation tends to fluster us a bit and result in our failure to meditate correctly.

But that’s just something we all think and believe. Having a perfect setup to meditate is hard, especially when we are always on the move all day and want a few minutes to relax.

And that’s what meditation is all about — letting everything that’s happening around us, in.

Invite all the external sounds and internal feelings into your mind. Make a mental note of the most dominant feeling or sensation. For example, if you have a happy thought, note it as a “happy thought” and come back to your breathing.

6. Keep Going. Don’t Stop.

Consistency is the most important thing. You have to keep at it every day. Try to sit and relax, even if it is for only 2 mins. Establishing a system is more important than hitting the jackpot in the first few attempts.

Keep going and slowly find yourself meditating every day as part of a newly formed habit.
How Much Does Medium Pay for Views
By: J.J. Pryor
Tags: Life Lessons, Entrepreneurship, Medium, Writing, Life

How Much Does Medium Pay for Views

I examined 25 of my best performing stories to come up with pay rates

Photo by maitree rimthong from Pexels

I’ve had a curious month so far in December on Medium. I tried my best to get published during the last few weeks by exploring different kinds of articles and stories. This also came out of a desire to try to earn more under the new MPP system from Medium.

Luckily my attempts paid off! I’ve managed to be published 8 times in the last couple of weeks! It’s been fun to explore these new styles and I plan on continuing it.

One thing that was a bit unexpected though was the lack of earnings results from this. Of course, we can’t expect any single article to do well just because it’s published. But surely with 8 of them, I thought at least one of them would hit 500 or more reads.

Unfortunately, none of them have come close to that yet. So I got curious today and sat down to do some analysis on their performance vs my previous self-published articles that had similar amounts of views.

And I noticed a pattern in earnings by doing so.
Why You Shouldn’t Carb Load Before a Race
By: Alyssa Atkinson
Tags: Health, Food, Fitness, Science, Running

Meal Ideas

Here are some good pre-race meal ideas that will provide you with a great source of carbs, proteins, and fats. Just remember, everyone’s body is unique, so find what works best for you.

Just because one of your fast friends likes pasta with tofu and veggies before a race, doesn’t mean you have to eat it too.

Maybe you can’t stomach proteins and fats before a race and you do have to rely mostly on carbs. But if you don’t experiment with foods other than pasta, you’ll never know what truly works best.

1. Oatmeal or Bagel With Peanut Butter and Fruit

For the past four years, this has been my personal go-to for races. I typically eat the oatmeal when I have morning races, and the bagel when I have evening races. I have a banana as my fruit of choice. This meal gives me just the energy I need, but it doesn’t weigh me down or make my stomach hurt during the race. Once I got use to eating this as my pre-race meal, I never went back to my old pasta eating ways.

2. Rice With Tofu and Veggies

This was one of the favorites among some of my teammates. Not everyone likes something sweet before a race, so if you prefer a savory meal, this is a perfect option. The tofu provides a wonderful source of protein, and the rice serves as the carbohydrate base. You can even add some avocado for a healthy fat.

Keep in mind that there are thousands of combinations of foods you can test out. Just remember to keep your pre-race meal balanced, and it will give you the energy you need to succeed come race day.
Even The Moon Knows
By: Danielle Gibson
Tags: Inspiration, Poetry, Art, Poem, Haiku

Chaos and Art is the place to share inner ramblings and celebrate the masterful poets of the past.

Follow
Accessible & Independent: 360 MTA Bus Tour
By: Daniel Laplaza
Tags: Transportation, Disability, Accessibility

Accessible & Independent: 360 MTA Bus Tour

Riding the New York City bus in a wheelchair

Navigating New York City in a wheelchair can be difficult. With only 20% of the subway accessible and the Access-A-Ride paratransit service plagued with delays, commuters with mobility issues are left with few options to get around. Fortunately, every MTA bus is equipped with a wheelchair lift and accommodating seating. However, as commuter Shirley Alvarez explains, the bus comes with its own challenge.
September 12 in 35mm
By: Joe Miale
Tags: September 11, Photography, New York, 35mm, 911

In the days following the September 11th terror attacks, I walked the streets of Manhattan with my father’s Olympus OM-2 camera and three rolls of Kodak GC 400–8 film.

This is what I saw.
Adding 1000 Daily Merchants & That’s Just the Beginning
Tags: Payments, Ecommerce, Startups

Once upon a time, three friends sat brooding in a cafe over a need in the market — the need to collect payments. And Instamojo was born. About 4 years and two cities later, Instamojo has come a long way.

Today we’re celebrating a major milestone. Here are some numbers to crunch on:

1. We are adding 1000 daily small business merchants on our platform on an average.

2. At peak, post demonetization, we added 3000 SMEs.

3. That’s a 1500% hike in our daily average!

The numbers jumped significantly post demonetization. Today we have more than 200,000+ online SMEs who use Instamojo to collect payments over various platforms like Whatsapp, Email, SMS through Debit/Credit cards, Netbanking and other Digital Wallets.

These sellers are everyday guys from all over India, and surprisingly, a huge chunk (65%) of them hail from tier II, tier III and tier IV cities — proof that Instamojo is as easy as the alphabet and access to it is even easier.

Take it from our CEO, Sampad Swain:

So far, 1 out of 100 of all active Indian SMEs use Instamojo. While retail stores, street vendors and technology enterprises like e-commerce etc. have found their payment solution in Point-of-Sale (POS) machines, Digital Wallets and Payment Gateways respectively but 47 Million small & micro SMEs haven’t. Instamojo is filling that big gap in the market with its offering across mobile & web.

The gap only widened after the demonetization move and we just hope to make life easier for our customers.

..with demonetization and broader push towards cashless economy, we will bridge that gap faster as more SMEs rapidly transition towards digital platforms like Instamojo, which requires only bank account & mobile phone to get started unlike other alternative which requires hardware installation (POS machines), artificial restrictions ideal for micro transactions (Wallets) or technical integration (Payment Gateways).

Going Forward:

We are set to explore new waters in the coming year. Payments is just the tip of the iceberg, we are all set to go deeper. There are a ton of things we have done this year and there are a ton more things to do.

We want to join forces with several big-wigs in the e-commerce ecosystem to make other elements like logistics, lending, paperless accounting and digital marketing easily available to our customers.

“By FY2018, Instamojo will have 1 million SME merchants on its platform. So far, only offline Point-of-Sale (POS) companies have accomplished this feat with a total installed base of 1.2 Million that took 15 years; however it will take less than 5 years for Instamojo to breach the millionth mark,” Sampad adds.

We couldn’t have asked for a better way to end 2016. Thank you for all the love.
A Guide To A BitcoinTalk Thread For Your ICO
By: Priority Token
Tags: ICO, Promotion, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

Creating a BitcoinTalk thread has become mainstream for most of the ICO projects. Is this message board overrated, and if not, then why it is so important for a new project to present itself on it?

A Brief Background

BitcoinTalk is one of the biggest and most renown message boards for blockchain and crypto enthusiasts on the Internet. It was originally started by nobody else than Satoshi Nakamoto himself on November 22, 2009. Then BitcoinTalk was a place where geeks interested in technical details and Bitcoin-related software shared their thoughts and problems with each other. But those days are gone, and now BitcoinTalk has a variety of sections dedicated to all the key areas of the crypto world. One of these sections covers the ICOs.

BitcoinTalk Today

BitcoinTalk boasts over 1 M of topics with 47 M of posts written by over 2 M members. That’s an enormous user base, isn’t it? Due to that fact, BitcoinTalk soon became a valuable traffic source for everything connected to cryptocurrency.

Your ANN Thread

Your ANN (short for ‘announcement’) thread is a topic where you will share with the world all the crucial details about your project and token. Your ANN thread should be a quick-to-read, easy-to-digest summary of what your project is all about. Be sure to make your first post well-designed with some nice graphics and fonts, but don’t go overboard.

Keep It Going

That’s clearly not enough to launch a thread and leave it for good. You have to update your topic on a regular basis, whilst communicating with your readers and answering their questions. The sooner you react to any activity within your thread, the higher ‘score’ you gain in the eyes of the BitcoinTalk users.

Follow The Rules

Before you dive into BitcoinTalk, take a moment to scrutinize the rules for posting and messaging there. For instance, your account can be banned if you post off-topic too often, or change your IP-address every now and then. To avoid bans, get yourself familiarized with the rules, and create at least 5 backup accounts to keep in touch with the community even if the main account is banned.

Add The Links

A BitcoinTalk thread can only go into so much detail about your ICO, so it’s a good practice to include into the first post a group of links to other resources where users can learn more about your project. These are typically the links to the project website, to the whitepaper, to GitHub, to the social media profiles, etc.

Be Polite And Savvy

You will start receiving your first comments as soon as you launch your thread. Ensure you have enough team members online to answer these comments. It’s also necessary to create a FAQ file for internal use in advance and provide access to it to all the team members. If you find any comments salty or off-topic, keep calm and carry on. All your answers should be polite. Let the moderators do their job, and they will delete all the trash ASAP.
Kostenloses WLAN im Hotel — Ja oder Nein?
By: Reinhard Lanner
Tags: Wlan, Service, Internet, Hotel

in Both Sides of the Table
Living in the Red. Part 3
By: M B
Tags: Life Lessons, Money Management, Single Moms, Money, Finance

Searching for Solutions

It takes me so long just to get clarity in writing. I put it off and put it off, choosing to simply keep doing the daily grind thing instead. I can’t seem to force myself to stop burying my head in the sand, and to do the work. Why? I’m afraid of confronting, because I’m afraid there are no solutions. The bit of digging I’ve done, offer me no solutions. Everything I read about how to handle life at this stage of debt mess, says that I have to just wait it out. 7 years before my credit can improve. I reject this. I will find a fucking way.

Last night, I put it down in writing. And basically, I’m in the red monthly, by about $1200. On the surface, that seems like a huge increase in income to somehow try to find. Thankfully, I’ve been studying financial mentors for about 2 years now, and I don’t see it as impossible. I even have real life examples, such as a friend who is getting herself out of debt by working full-time and freelancing and driving Uber on the side. She’s making $400 a week extra — exactly my $1200 needed. She doesn’t possess greater skills than me. If she can do it, I can do it.

I can’t drive Uber, at least not with my Jeep the way it is. (It’s lifted and I have no step.) I need to modify it or choose something else. My beautiful 4-door Jeep Wrangler is also a puzzle piece that is ridiculous. $600 a month car payment. And I missed my window of opportunity to trade it for a lessor car payment. Or to even refinance. I should have done it before the missed credit card payments and the downhill slide of my credit score. It’s probably too late for that now. More research to be done.

The internet is a beautiful thing, and I know there are answers to be had. But our society in relation to debt and money, is not a beautiful thing. We reward those who don’t struggle, and encourage dependency and a victim mentality on those who do. But those of us who find ourselves in this place are not powerless, and being a victim is a choice. I will not accept endless failure or reliance on federal aid, just because there is no good advice, help, or encouragement out there.

What I did last night, was a huge step. I can now see my goal in black and white. The facts for me at this point, are that I have no more choice of using credit. That’s gone and I must live within my means. This is actually a positive thing, forcing me to increase my income and decrease my expenses. I may have to give up Netflix and even health insurance for a while again. But it’s all doable. And the next step after that, is my battle with the creditors. I know they have the power to take those marks off my credit report. There has to be a way to fix/improve my credit, besides waiting it out. Just because something is accepted by a majority, does not make it an only choice. Puzzle solving requires an open mind and a bull-headed insistence for better solutions.

I’m going to find them, damn it.
Doubt Begets Doubt
By: Eraes Ellis
Tags: Paganism, Polytheist Problems, Religion, Polytheism, Worship

It starts small. Something is just a little more off than it was yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.You might feel lonesome or muted or simply bored and the little ‘ ? ’creeps in the corners where you wish your deities were. If you know how to handle this very specific, very common emotion, it will make your faith stronger.

I have a lot of doubt in my worship — before I came back to polytheism, I used to think I wasn’t very adamant about being agnostic. Until I found this incredibly deep root of Doubt. It price-matches the faith I have for my deities. The stronger my bonds with a god are, the stronger the doubt will be when it hits.

I just can’t seem to shake the doubt.

That’s okay.

I get to say “that’s okay” because right now, it is okay.

A little bit of doubt will help you decide if it’s better to do a prayer in the morning or the evening. It will tell you if it’s time to offer a meal. It will tell you that they love you. If you are wondering “should I…?”, then you’re in the right place because you will need to ask questions in your worship!

Sometimes the “should I…?” evolves in to bigger Q’s.

“Why not this?”

“Where to now?”

“What the heck is going on?”

(this is my most common phrase used while shaking sticks at the sky)

All of these questions can be maintained and I believe that they are healthy sentiments— it’s not the answer that’s important, but the worshiper’s interpretation of an answer. Because that shows how you used the tool.
Roll Back? Fight Back!
By: James Gerstenzang
Tags: Opinion, Global Warming, Air Pollution, Cars, Climate Change

Each gallon of gasoline we burn pumps 25 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Credit: U.S. Department of Transportation

Roll Back? Fight Back!

It was the ‘biggest single step’ against global warming. Trump gutted it.

By Dan Becker and James Gerstenzang

Reprint of op-ed written for CQ Researcher, June 2020

President Trump’s rollback of clean-car rules halts the biggest single step any nation has taken to cut global warming pollution. The rules took effect in 2012 and would deliver a new-car fleet in 2025 that averages 37 mpg, while cutting auto emissions in half. By trashing the rules, the president is leaving the world at far greater risk of the climate catastrophes we are already witnessing.

Before Trump gutted them, the rules not only reduced pollution — they were saving Americans hundreds of billions of dollars at the pump. Even after paying for the gasoline-saving improvements — more-efficient transmissions and safe, lightweight materials — consumers would come out $4,000 to $6,000 ahead because their cars would need less fuel.

Each gallon of gasoline we burn pumps 25 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary global warming pollutant, into the atmosphere. The stringent standards were designed to prevent release of 6 billion tons of CO2 by eliminating our need for 12 billion barrels of oil.

CO2 creates an invisible heat-trapping blanket close to Earth. The energy from that heat is making tropical storms and wildfires more frequent and fierce. The heat is helping spread tropical diseases to once-temperate climates and is making increasing swaths of the globe unfit for human habitation.

Ignoring science, Trump is ending widely popular rules that would improve the cars we drive for years to come and keep as much CO2 out of the atmosphere as shutting all U.S. coal-fired power plants for more than a year.

By adopting these responsible rules, the United States had signaled it was committed to tackling the planet’s biggest environmental threat — rather than burying its head in the warming sand.

Trying to justify the rollback, the Trump administration falsely claimed that stronger rules would make us less safe on the road. As we wrote in The New York Times:

“This is auto mechanics, not rocket science. Ford proved that efficiency and safety go hand in hand when it converted the steel bodies of its F-150 pickups to aluminum. It lopped 700 pounds from America’s best-selling model and helped lift mileage by 4 mpg. The [government] upgraded the truck to a five star safety rating.”

Yet while touting “safety,” the administration ignored deadly air pollution from refineries needed to keep more gas guzzlers on the road. This will kill an estimated 18,000 people.

To justify its attack, the Trump administration has fabricated a false conflict between safe cars and a safe climate. Americans can and must have both.

Dan Becker directs the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity; James Gerstenzang is the campaign’s editorial director.
When my beliefs became the reason behind my pain
By: Shilpi Agarwal
Tags: Life Lessons, Change, Self, Growth, Life

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” — Albert Einstein

What I realized about myself

Often in life, we restrain ourselves with ideals and beliefs which we build early on in life and assume they will hold true in every situation, every step of our life. We rely on the fact that what we are taught and know is the only truth. We hold on to these values believing that they define us and our existence. We start judging the people who hold different values from ours. While doing so what we fail to take into consideration is— the unpredictability of life, the vastness of this world, and our own ignorance. Like I had the belief that without a job, my life was a waste, and everything else meant nothing. I substituted a career with happiness and made my life so difficult. What made it even worse is that they were not really my beliefs, they were second-handed. I inherited those from my parents.

All this while I believed that I was a very ambitious person for whom the most important thing was her career. But that was not true. I did not realize that I am not the same person as my younger self. I had changed. My priorities had changed. Yes, I still wanted to have a career but I wanted a family more and that is why I chose to stay with my husband. But I did not realize it then. I was so busy fighting the situation I was in, that I didn’t even care to stop and take note of what I actually wanted; what really made me happy.

Change in perception

It took me almost two years to understand the fact that life is not about rigidity. It’s about evolving — evolving into a person who is not limited by their beliefs. Who can be brave enough to question and shred those beliefs when they become a hindrance to one’s peace and happiness. It’s about welcoming the change and growing with it.
Berkshire Hathaway and the Trident Group welcome new associates
By: Melissa Riker
Tags: New Jersey, Business, Berkshire Hathaway, Celebration

Berkshire Hathaway and the Trident Group welcome new associates

A breakfast was held to celebrate the newest members.

Berkshire Hathaway and the Trident Group celebrate the sales associates that have recently joined the company at a regional breakfast. “This is a wonderful way to introduce the newest members of our family to their teams who stand ready to assist them in getting every one of their transactions to closing,” said Barbara Griest, president of the Trident Group.

Attendees from the Burlington County Offices include: (pictured sitting left to right) Carol Damato, Trident Land Transfer; Patricia Tiver, Moorestown; Megan Burke, Medford; Lauren Gragilla, Mt. Laurel; Deanna Nielson, Medford; Stacy Pierce, Trident, Regional Manager, (pictured standing left to right) Gerry Griesser, Vice Chairman of the Board, BHHS Fox & Roach/Trident; Bill Stewart, Sr. VP, Trident Mortgage; Larry Lobascio, Trident Insurance; Carl Hinds, Trident Insurance; Patti Lee, Medford; Karen DeBroekert, Medford; Pat Wessel, Moorestown; Denise Pearlman, Mt. Laurel; Michael Wakatama, Mt. Laurel; Bill Fox, Senior VP, Trident Insurance.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach, REALTORS®, is a part of HomeServices of America, the nation’s second largest provider of total home services and recently recognized as “Real Estate Agency Brand of the Year” and “Most Trusted Real Estate Brand” in the 30th annual Harris Poll EquiTrend® study. The company, which has 5,000 sales associates in more than 65 sales offices across the Tri-State area, was recently acknowledged as no. 1 in units sold throughout the entire Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Network. Through its affiliate, the Trident Group, the company provides one-stop shopping and facilitated services to its clients including mortgage financing, and title, property and casualty insurance. The company-sponsored charitable foundation, Fox & Roach Charities, is committed to addressing the needs of children and families in stressful life circumstances and has contributed over $6 million to more than 250 local organizations since its inception in 1995.
What is John Newbery’s Review Club for Bitcoin Core?
By: Zack Shapiro
Tags: Programming, Software Development, Crypto, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

What is John Newbery’s Review Club for Bitcoin Core?

Or how to get started contributing to Bitcoin

John Newbery on Twitter announcing the Bitcoin PR Review Club

Last week, Bitcoin Core developer John Newbery announced a great new initiative to help people who are looking to get involved in developing for Bitcoin Core.

From John’s announcement:

Reviewing and testing PRs is the best way to start contributing to Bitcoin Core, but it’s difficult to know where to start. There are hundreds of open PRs, many require a lot of contextual knowledge, and contributors and reviewers often use unfamiliar terminology. This weekly IRC club is for people who want to help review Bitcoin Core PRs but find the process intimidating. Everyone is welcome to speak and questions are encouraged!

It can be intimidating to get started in crypto, especially Bitcoin. Bitcoin has been around for over 10 years now, thousands of developers are actively building different parts of the ecosystem, and contributing to the protocol itself can feel out of reach.

John’s here to tell you that it isn’t out of reach at all, and he’s working to help you get involved! If you believe Bitcoin is the future of money on and off the internet, then it can surely use your help.

Head on over to John’s announcement post with more scheduling details about when you can join and hop in!
RCN Q2 2020 Recap
Tags: Lending, Fintech, Ethereum, Blockchain, Finance

Collateral-backed Loans

During the past 3 months the feature’s smart-contracts finished their development process and were successfully deployed on the Ropsten testnet. After that, a series of internal tests were conducted to detect back-end issues and evaluate the oracles’ performance, which were accompanied by multiple user tests designed to collect feedback to fine-tune the feature’s UX/UI.

The collected user feedback was used to implement UX/UI improvements.

RCN API’s New Version

The last quarter also included the deployment of the RCN API’s latest version, which has already been synced to the Credit Marketplace. This update provides a more efficient requests’ processing procedure, bringing more stability, better performance, and faster page loading speeds for the platform.

RCN Credit Marketplace v0.1.6.

From April to June the RCN Credit Marketplace went through 4 different updates, concluding with the deployment of version 0.1.6. The implemented improvements include new UX copy additions, redesigned visual components and a faster pagination system.

One of the most important upgrades was the revamping of the Withdrawable Balance and Wallet Balance tools to make them simpler and more intuitive for users, including a change in their names and the addition of new icons and tooltips to them. The redesigned tools will now allow users to clearly differentiate between their wallets’ funds and the ones available on the RCN Credit Marketplace, and easily withdraw them.

The new Balance tools allow users to verify and withdraw their funds more easily.

Another relevant update was the addition of two new user dialogs designed to better guide users while accessing the Credit Marketplace’s features. The first one informs users when the Credit Marketplace is getting synced with the RCN API, providing an estimate of the time remaining to complete the process. The second one pops up when a user is trying to fund a loan that has already been lent by another user, explaining what happened and suggesting to try another one instead.

The first dialog informs when the platform is getting synced.

Uniswap V2 Migration

Q2 also included the release of Uniswap V2. In order to maintain interoperability, all of the RCN Protocol’s smart-contracts have already been updated to be compatible with the liquidity protocol’s latest version and the migration of funds has been completed. This new integration will allow RCN to incorporate Uniswap’s new features and explore the opportunities they offer for the Credit Marketplace.

You can access Uniswap V2 here.
What to Learn to Become a Data Scientist in 2021
By: Rebecca Vickery
Tags: Machine Learning, Editors Pick, Data Science, Technology, Artificial Neural Network

What to Learn to Become a Data Scientist in 2021

and why the data science generalist will triumph

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

When I started learning data science a few years ago most job ads requested a PhD, or at the very least a masters, in maths, statistics or a similar subject as an essential requirement.

Over the last couple of years, things have evolved. With the development of machine learning libraries that abstract away much of the complexity behind the algorithms, and a realisation that practically applying machine learning to solve business problems requires a set of skills that are not usually acquired through academic study alone. Companies are now hiring data scientists based on their ability to perform applied data science rather than research.

Applied data science that delivers value to a business in the fastest possible time requires a very practical skillset. Additionally, as more companies migrate their data and machine learning solutions to the cloud, It is becoming paramount for data scientists to have an understanding of the new tools and technology relating to this.

Additionally, I believe that the days of a data scientist working solely on data modelling, using data pulled together by data engineers, and then handing the model over to a team of software engineers to put into production are largely behind us. Particularly outside of the tech giants such as Amazon, Facebook and Google. In most companies, with the exception of some of the very big tech players, there either isn’t the resource available in those teams or the alignment of priorities are not there at the right time.

“There is a saying, ‘A jack of all trades and a master of none.’ When it comes to being a data scientist you need to be a bit like this, but perhaps a better saying would be, ‘A jack of all trades and a master of some.’” Brendan Tierney, Principal Consultant at Oralytics.

In order for a data scientist to deliver maximum value to a business, they need to be able to work across the full model development life cycle. Having at least a working knowledge in developing data pipelines, performing data analysis, machine learning, maths, statistics, data engineering, cloud computing and software engineering. This means that as we move into 2021 the data scientist generalist is the preferred hire for most businesses.

“The bigger the picture, the more unique the potential human contribution. Our greatest strength is the exact opposite of narrow specialization. It is the ability to integrate broadly.”, David Epstein, Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.

This article doesn’t cover absolutely everything you need to be a data scientist in 2021. Instead, it covers the key skills, both new and old, that have become the most essential for every successful data scientist to have in the near future.