fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Pain Is Everywhere Except, on Our Faces
By: Manas Bhardwaj
Tags: Self Improvement, Mental Health, Miniblog, Family, Self

Pain Is Everywhere Except, on Our Faces

Why it’s such a taboo?

We are all trying to heal from things, we don’t discuss

Don’t talk about your pain, no one’s interested. Keep it to yourself as you have the sole power to defeat it.

You may think, they will care but you are just another subject of gossip for them.

Spoiler of life —

Everyone has pains. Everyone suffers deeply internally thinking about that one incident that changed their life.

No one is as happy as they portray themselves on Instagram and Facebook.

Your family members, are the only people to support you at any cost. Even on the death bed.

They are the only ones wiping their genuine tears.

Don’t feel lonely. Pain is an integral part of life. Enjoy it, by keeping it to yourself.

Stay strong. Stay safe and keep shining :)
TidePay會員認証教學
By: Tidepay Helper
Tags: Kyc, Payment Systems, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Fintech

Digital payment solution in crypto and fiat currencies, serving as a multicurrency wallet

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Everybody Should Try Warframe
By: Jared Lee
Tags: Free To Play, Features, Gaming, Warframe, Digital Extremes

Everybody Should Try Warframe

Embrace the weirdness

Warframe is a weird game. I won’t get too deep into its baffling development history — though I highly recommend everybody check out Noclip’s documentary series on the game — but everything from Warframe’s art style, to story, to gameplay structure, to business model, to its ever-growing success, is weird. It’s a weirdness that might scare people away, or prove too daunting at first glance. But it’s also a weirdness a hell of a lot of people are on-board with, as is evident by its #4 position for concurrent players on Steam. Warframe is weird as hell — and everybody should give it a shot.

My experience with Warframe probably mirrors that of a lot of others out there. I first heard of it while exploring the PlayStation 4’s launch offerings. The reputation for free-to-play games then was even worse than it is now, so I had very low expectations when I downloaded it, and even then just to see what the PS4 was capable of.

What I was treated to was a game that looked like H.R. Giger doing a design pass on the Big Bad Beetleborgs.

Warframe circa 1996.

The bug-like, robo-organic hybridized look was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. There’s been creatures in other games that drew similar inspiration from insect exoskeletons and the like, but I’d never seen protagonists that looked like that. It was initially off-putting and weird. I wasn’t sure what to think of it.

The gameplay confused me too. While slashing and shooting my way through waves of (gross looking) enemies felt great, I wasn’t sure to what end I was doing it. I was only more confused the more I played, and eventually abandoned it before really giving it a fair shake. It was free-to-play, and many games like it would come and go, so I wasn’t too eager to invest much into it, expecting it to shut down at anytime.

But unlike its competition, Warframe stuck around. The developers kept adding to the game, and improving upon it, and listening to their fans in the process. My initial thoughts after learning as much were, “people are still playing that weird-ass bug game?” I was assured it was much different now, and a much bigger game. I was still playing Destiny at the time, so “it’s different now” didn’t mean very much to me. For us Guardians, “different” meant an adjustment to the RNG on a raid. For the Tenno, though, it was stuff like story quests, open worlds, archwings, and more.
GIVE a Hilarious Knock-knock Joke to a Loved One!
By: Patricia Grm
Tags: Cryto For Children, Stay At Home Parent, Givenation, Children, Social Distancing

Series to make You Smile

Monday is here along with a new week. During hard times like these, we need to stay focus and keep our children motivated to go on.

There are plenty of things to do at home together with our family. Children need interaction, they need us. Let’s use the time we have now to be there for them.

Parents, please take notes. At GIVE Nation we came with the idea of adding a pinch of humor to this week’s recipe. We came up with a list of Hilarious Knock-knock Series for Kids.

#1

Knock, knock

Who’s there?

Cow says

Cow says who?

No, a cow says moo!

#2

Knock, knock

Who is there?

Broken Pencil

Broken Pencil who?

Never mind, it’s pointless.

#3

Knock, knock

Who is there?

Iguana

Iguana who?

Iguana hold your hand!

#4

Knock, knock

Who is there?

Egg

Egg who?

Eggcited to meet you!

#5

Knock, knock

Who is there?

Spell

Spell who?

OK, W-H-O.

#6

Knock, knock

Who is there?

Wendy,

Wendy who?

Wendy Easter Bunny coming?

#7

Knock, knock

Who is there?

Hatch

Hatch who?

Bless you and please cover your mouth next time.

#8

Knock, knock

Who is there?

Barbie

Barbie who?

Barbie Q chicken!

#9

Knock, knock

Who is there?

Dishes

Dishes who?

Dishes a nice place you’ve got here

#10

Knock, knock

Who’s there?

Luke

Luke who?

Luke out! Here comes another knock-knock joke.

GIVE Nation, wants to help and make children happy. One day, these children will become world leaders and today they need our support. Join our mission now. Together, let’s boost among children the meaning and importance of helping others.

Become a GIVE Ambassador and Help GIVE foster generosity and sustainable financial literacy!

JOIN US HERE:

✔Twitter

✔Facebook

✔YouTube

✔LinkedIn

✔Instagram

✔Telegram

By focusing on community driven education and including philanthropic actions; GIVE Nation helps 5–18 year olds with sustainable financial literacy while positively impacting their community through the power of altruism and partnered charities. GIVE offers unique education and opportunities for children, while providing a reward system for good behavior & charitable acts. GIVE Nation’s incubator retains features for our children within a safe ecosystem that’s been scientifically proven to not only generate business opportunities, but more importantly; GIVE Nation’s platform offers features for our children within a safe ecosystem to improve our planet and foster entrepreneurship, imagination, and altruism.

GIVE’s mission encourages an altruistic culture in young minds by improving the planet through promoting transparent acts of kindness. Future generations achieve happiness and sustainable financial well-being through a real-world education using digital currencies, blockchain and A.I. technology while supporting charities. GIVE Nation is a world for kids by kids.
Independence Days Challenge Week 2
By: Erica Street
Tags: Gardening, Sustainability, No Waste, Food, Sufficiency

Independence Days Challenge Week 2

Salads, more salads, and so much zucchini!

Photo: Erica Street

Plant or Harvest Something

Planted — a clump of chives that a friend kindly dug out of her garden for me when I mentioned that I didn’t have chives this year. Harvested — snow peas, kale, chard, zucchini, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, dill.

Preserve Something

Shredded a bunch of zucchini and froze it in pint jars.

Waste Not

When I made my local CSF order, they were selling halibut heads! At $2.00 a pound, I figured it was worth buying one and seeing what I could make with it.

I also temporarily fixed my food processor with duck tape. I think I can limp along with it for a while longer — and then, when it’s really dead, I’m going to buy a good one that is less likely to break.

Want Not

I continued doing summer work for extra income.

Eating the Food

Eating so many salads right now. Sometimes 3 times a day — breakfast salads are highly underrated.

I made more chard pesto, and then served it over polenta, roasted garden zucchini and shallots, and some cherry tomatoes that mostly got eaten during the dinner prep.

I made another crazy good dinner this week — garlicky grilled lamb burgers from our local lamb, with a kale and tomato salad, and an old-fashioned sour cream and cucumber salad.

Step Up

I started planning what the two high school service clubs I advise might be able to do to help our local community this school year, even while social distancing.

Skill Up

I went to a fantastic webinar put on through the Murdock Trust about how to help people distinguish fact from fiction in online articles and media. I will definitely use some of these approaches with my students next year. I also went to a webinar about anti-racist teaching, and one on drip irrigation.

Winter Is Coming

Gah. This is where I always fall short. I am very deadline-driven and not really a “prepare for the future” kind of person. I need to start cleaning out my garage. This is a big job and is going to take a while, but I need to do it because I’d like to order a pallet full of stove pellets, which are discounted through our local hardware store in August, and I need the space to keep them.

The Independence Days Challenge

To learn more about Sharon Astyk’s Independence Days Challenge and how you can participate, see this post.
WILD INK!
By: Dougald Hine
Tags: Västerås, Foraging, Ink, Art

WILD INK!

Make ink with foraged materials: a workshop with Caroline Ross, 4 November 2019

In November 2019, we’re starting a new collaboration with our friends at SAKUM (Samhälle, Kultur, Människor) here in Västerås.

Join us for a hands-on workshop with British artist Caroline Ross, learning to make ink from plants, berries, and other materials that can be found around the city. This is an evening for people of all ages and levels of experience, whether or not you call yourself an artist.

Caroline lives and works on an island on the River Thames, making drawings and paintings from wild and ancient materials. Although she trained as an artist for many years, throughout most of her art school education there was no mention of the craft of making art. The materials she learned to use were something that came from an art supply shop, with no thought as to where all those dried up plastic pens would go after they had been used.

But it is only in the past 200 years that coal and oil-based chemicals have provided the world of colours and tools that today’s art students take for granted. For 50,000 years before that, humans had been making art materials from earth, minerals and plants — and it is these older traditions which Caroline invites us to learn from.

Caroline’s own study of bushcraft, ‘primitive technologies’, earth skills, early and pre-Renaissance art techniques led her into a new way of working, reskilling and rewilding her artistic practice. Since 2016, she has been bringing her ‘shadow-making basket’ of materials and skills to share with others at festivals, workshops and courses.

On 4 November 2019, Caroline joins us for a workshop at Länsbildningsförbundet, Stora Gatan 16, Västerås from 18.00–20.30. In the course of the evening, you will have the chance to try making ink, quills and brushes, as well as ochre paint.

Tickets cost 100kr and places are limited. To book yours, please contact info.sakum@gmail.com.

Bring (some of) your own supplies: Participants are asked to bring two clean glass jars — as well as any wild edible berries or dried colourful petals that you would like to try using in making ink. Other materials will be provided.

Caroline’s work: https://carolineross.co.uk/

SAKUM: https://www.facebook.com/sakumvasteras

A school called HOME: https://aschoolcalledhome.org

PRICE: 100kr
How I seized the research moment
By: Researcher Chronicles
Tags: Students, PhD, Education, Research, Communication

Preeti Raghunath, a PhD student and Academic Research Specialist at Editage Insights, talks about how she didn’t wait to publish a journal article during her research but chose to make the most of the opportunities at hand instead.

The best decision I made during my PhD was to seize the research moment!

Most of us PhD researchers spend over half a decade exploring a niche area. We also spend a lot of time and effort in getting publish-worthy work ready. I was no exception. However, I realized that I was missing out on sparks and ideas that would make for interesting reading and listening, since I wanted to work on something as formal as a publishable paper. This is when I decided to take the plunge, and seize the research moment.

How, you ask? Read on.

My research is on a strand of broadcast media policymaking in South Asia. While I find my work super interesting and satiating, I often stumble upon strands of interesting research or thought, that force me to spend some time on them. The initial few years of my PhD were spent in dismissing such thoughts and ideas as extraneous and unnecessary to my core work. However, I soon embraced them since they also helped expand and add richness to my own area of focus — — the broad area of media policy in South Asia.

For instance, I branched out to explore an annual conference held by the International Public Policy Association (IPPA) one year, and it opened up doors on some cross-disciplinary conversations. Similarly, a whim of an idea led me to contact the London School of Economics’ South Asia blog to contribute an article, and now, I’m a regular contributor to the LSE South Asia blog!

I have explored ancillary and adjacent areas of research and writing, not only beefing up my resume but also contributing to my own intellectual journey and broadening my horizon. I have now written and presented extensively on areas like data protection legalities and human security in South Asia, telecommunication policies in the region, regional diplomacy and communication policy, besides presenting on methodological considerations that go into comparative policy studies.

I also found myself applying to and getting selected for workshops and short courses on a range of complementary research fields, where I made use of opportunities to present my work and ideas that bridge research programmes. Exciting opportunities and instances such as these only add to the inner life of a researcher during the PhD journey, which can otherwise be very pointedly focused on one strand of work, and hence, be limiting.

Instead of waiting for formal instances to publish research, I made use of my multidisciplinary bent and newer opportunities like writing for institutional blogs to leverage my interests.

The result? I’m a more content person for putting my ideas and work out there, and engaging with a wide variety of people and occasions.
How do venture capitalists add value?
Tags: Venture Capital, Startup

What do VCs do after investing in a startup? More specifically, what do VCs do to add value to startups? To help answer this question I retrieved an industry survey from 1984 when the professional VC business was just shy of being 30 years old. The survey had 49 responses from VCs who represented around 40% of aggregate funds under management in the US venture capital industry at the time (Gorman & Sahlman, 1989). The following table highlights a few characteristics of the funds and individuals that took part in the survey.

Gorman & Sahlman, 1989 (survey)

When VCs were asked to rank the services they offered to portfolio companies, they identified the following three as the most important: (1) help obtaining additional finance, (2) strategic planning, and (3) management recruitment. The following table details how all the major services were ranked.

Gorman & Sahlman, 1989 (survey)

Of course, VCs also provide other valuable services. They help coach management and can sometimes help with operational matters. But out of all the services a VC can offer, many investors agree that help with fundraising, strategy, and recruitment is key. Entrepreneurs also agree. In a more recent survey — which involved 10 presidents and founders as well as more than 20 life sciences companies — entrepreneurs agreed that the most important areas where VCs could add value were financing, strategic focus, and recruitment of senior management (Dotzler, 2001). This is consistent with the research in 1984. A detailed ranking of value-add activities from the 2001 survey is listed below:

Where Venture Capitalists Add Value (Dotzler, 2001). *Note: Factors were given a score of 2 (very important), 1 (moderate importance) or 0 (not important). There were 10 participants in total, making 20 the maximum score.

It’s important to note that these findings are generalised. An early-stage startup that is yet to find product-market-fit will have completely different needs to a startup with an established business model that needs help with scaling. Furthermore, different VCs appear to adopt different strategies when it comes to helping founders. Some investors are more operationally involved (e.g. platform funds hire functional experts in marketing, sales, legal, design, etc. that work with portfolio companies directly on these issues) while others, like Correlation Ventures, are more hands-off and don’t take board seats. Both strategies have their pros and cons but in both cases a VC adds value by ensuring that at the very least, a startup has access to capital, strategic insight, and the management talent necessary for success.

Sources:

Dotzler, F., 2001. What do venture capitalists really do, and where do they learn to do it?. The Journal of Private Equity, 5(1), pp. 6–12.

Gorman, M. & Sahlman, W. A., 1989. What do venture capitalists do?. Journal of Business Venturing, 4(4), pp. 231–248.
Squeeze maximum profits from your online business through SEO
By: Sajiv Kumar
Tags: Seo Consultant, Hire Seo Consultant, Synapseinteractive, Seo Consulting Services, Seo Specialist

SEO consultants at SynapseInteractive offer result oriented search engine optimization (SEO) services to businesses in the USA, UK or elsewhere seeking more customers and greater ROI through their online ventures. SEO is a must for all businesses willing to expand their customer base across the globe.

Remember, countless websites struggle for visitors’ attention on the cyberspace. But, very few of these websites are successful in attracting potential customers. Chances of your website being spotted by your potential customers on Google or any other search engine will increase drastically with SEO.

Our SEO consultants will formulate result-oriented and effective SEO strategy to improve the ranking of your business in the USA, UK or elsewhere on Google.

Follow us on Instagram: SynapseInteractive SEO Consultant

Learn more: SEO Consultant PPT or SEO Consultant Video
【Important Announcement on Restoring Withdrawal Service of TANK 2.2.0 Cloud Wallet】
By: Tepleton Community
Tags: Education

Announcement key point:

On November 20, all the upgrading of TANK 2.2.0 has been completed, and the withdrawal service of cloud wallet has been resumed.

Dear TEP users:

The overall upgrading of TANK has been completed on November 20, at 20:30 (GMT+8), and the withdrawal passage has been reopened. Users will get the upgraded new TEP when you initiate withdrawal from now. All the functions have been restored, please rest assured to use them. Tepleton official sincerely apologizes for the inconvenience and confusion caused by the systematic upgrading.

The sketch diagram of the upgrading; 4-day countdown to the close of upgrading passage

Special reminder:

The TEP token upgrading passage will be officially closed on November 24, at 23:59 (GMT+8), by then you will not be able to upgrade the old TEP, the old TEP will become invalid permanently, and the old TEP will not be able to participate in the ecological building and activities. Please pass on the message to others.
#14 Growth Weekly News
By: Alexandra Poulopoulou
Tags: Google Ads, Google Cloud Platform, News, Google Analytics, Data Visualization

Google Ads provides a lot of columns that you are called to choose from. It makes it hard to get away from the status quo of just adding the columns you’ve always added to your reports. Google Ads’ new “recommended columns” feature suggests new reporting columns that you should be using based on your campaign and account settings.

6 min | About Store Visits in Analytics (beta)

Store Visits in Analytics are available in more countries! Store Visits in Google Analytics helps you see how visits to your website influence visits to your physical location. If you’re an ecommerce company with in-store products is tough to estimate foot traffic by location. However, it can be an important insight about your customer’s journey.

2 min | Turning data into NCAA March Madness insights

Last year, Google Cloud teamed up with the NCAA to help them bring together their wealth of historical data. During the 2018 March Madness tournament, Google Cloud used data analytics on Google Cloud to help them better understand the game, and build some fun predictions for what might happen. Google Cloud turned these real time predictions in TV commercials during the Final Four — and they weren’t far off the mark! In connection with this year’s March Madness tournament, Google Cloud team are extending your NCAA campaign to developers everywhere with training that enables anyone with an interest in basketball and data analytics to dive in.

See it all in action — and why not, participate — at g.co/marchmadness — as well as find links to all training, certifications, resources, and more.
Frequency Counter Algorithm
By: Kenneth Young
Tags: Coding, Programming, Javascript Tips, JavaScript, Algorithms

Frequency Counter Algorithm

Pt 2: How To Count Elements In Arrays Using JavaScript Objects

In my previous article, I talked about how to use objects to find elements in an array faster and how I used it to solve one of two challenges from a technical interview. Here we will discuss the second challenge!

// Check if it's possible to make a string into a palindrome

// A palindrome is a word that spelled backward reads the same

// Check if it's possible to make a string into a palindrome // Input

// str: any string



// Output

// boolean, true if you can make the string into a palindrome // Examples

// racecar => true

// ice => false

// madam => true

// aaabb => true

// abc => false

The key difference here is that we aren’t determining if a string is a palindrome, but if it CAN be turned into one.

After thinking for a while, I thought about the characteristics of palindrome words. One thing stuck out to me, there is one or no odd amount of letters.

Since that is the case, we can rephrase the question. It can be turned into “Is there one or no amount of odd letters?”

To answer this, we need to count the amount of each letter in the string. Easier said than done!

One of the most common ways of counting elements in an array is something like this:

TRADITIONAL APPROACH

Counting With Variables

GIF of this approach here:

The problem here is that it only counts one type of letter, a. We don’t know what letters are going to be inside the string. We could just make a counter for every letter from a to z (lol) and, check inside the if, for every possible letter. But that's would be WET code. DRY code is the way to go.

Introducing objects. Again.

We can use objects to store the counters. Every time we hit a new letter, we can add it as a key in an object and set the value to 1. If its a letter we already have inside our object, we can update the value.

Storing counters inside objects let us create counters dynamically as we go through each element in the array. Code looks something like this:

FREQUENCY COUNTER APPROACH

Counting With Objects

I’m a fan of visually showing code instead of explaining it in text, so here is a gif of how it works:

This last GIF shows the object that is returned: {“m”:2, “a”:2, “d”:1}

Now that we have an object with all the counters, we can loop over the object and count every letter that is in odd numbers. If there are one or less odd amounts of letters, we return true. Otherwise, false.

Solution

And that's how to use objects to count instead of regular variables. It's very useful when you want to count the occurrences of any elements in an array without knowing what or how many elements are going to be inside that array.
LINIX101: Soft fork vs hard fork
By: Lnx Official
Tags: Blockchain, Gda, Linix, Lnx, Lnx101

Blockchains are often used as a public and permissionless network in which there is no central authority controlling its flow. While this concept of decentralization sounds great, it also comes with drawbacks. Blockchain offers a limited list of options in a “take it or leave it” scenario, meaning that there is no such thing as a “could I?”, but always a “you have to”. So, what do we do if a problem comes up? What if, it doesn’t suit a specific need or there is a flaw in the code? Even in those cases, we are still able to upgrade the network but only with the consent of the majority of users.

CONSENSUS ON UPGRADES

Regardless of the technical differences, public projects have one similarity in which the network will only upgrade, but most importantly maintain itself if, and only if, three groups work together: developers, validators and users.

DEVELOPERS: in case a change is needed, they are responsible to come up with the best technical solution. If no developer decides to code, no matter how much people debate, there will be no change.

in case a change is needed, they are responsible to come up with the best technical solution. If no developer decides to code, no matter how much people debate, there will be no change. USERS: they maintain the network busy and running, they are the supply and demand providers. Without supply and demand, the network would be worthless.

they maintain the network busy and running, they are the supply and demand providers. Without supply and demand, the network would be worthless. VALIDATORS: they validate transactions and make sure that everything is right. If there are no validators, transactions would never complete.

If one of those groups is either absent or decide to do nothing, the network will never be fully functional. This is one of the main reasons why forks are hard and uncommon.

FORKS

In DLT, whenever a modification in the code happens, we call it a fork and it must usually be accepted by the majority of the players mentioned above. The new code has two characteristics in which it is similar, not equal, to the original one and shares the same history.

Forks in DLT can be divided into two groups:

SOFT FORK: the majority agrees to upgrade the current status and maintain only one network HARD FORK: there are at least two groups that disagree with each other resulting in single or multiple networks

SOFT FORK

When talking about soft forks people repeatedly explain it as being a backward compatible upgrade. What it means is that when there is a change in the protocol, users are given the option to update it or not. Even if someone decides to not update, this person will still be able to make transactions as long as it doesn’t break the new rules. As time passes, the number of users following the old rules decreases eventually reaching 0.
The Hunger
By: Abigael Taiwo
Tags: Poetry, Love, Relationships, Poetry Writing, Relationships Love Dating

The Hunger

That leaves you starving

Photo by Tiraya Adam on Unsplash

He looks at you

with a hunger

in his eyes

watch him

come alive.
7 Life-Changing Books You Can Devour In A Single Day
By: Vincent Carlos
Tags: Ideas, Self Improvement, Productivity, Life, Books

7 Life-Changing Books You Can Devour In A Single Day

#2 and #5 will only take you 30 minutes to read

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

You think I just “click-baited” you, huh?

You think it’s impossible to read a “life-changing” book in just one day, don’t you?

But let me tell you something…

It’s possible.

How do I know?

I know because I’ve done it.

And you know what?

It’s not that hard either. You just need to know which books to read.

Obviously, you won’t be able to read Leo Tolstoy’s 1,296-page “War and Peace” in one day. But if you’re like the average adult who can read about 300 words per minute (or 18,000 words per hour), then you can easily read a short 150 page book in a single afternoon.

This is why I compiled a list of 7 life-changing short books that you can devour in a single day.

Yes, I mean it.

These 7 books will significantly change your life in major ways and they only require a little bit of your time. That’s a great ROI.

I hope you enjoy!
Black Gods of the Metropolis (1)
By: Megan Goodwin
Tags: Lecture

Savage, “Forward”

Just…wow. One paragraph in and we already know that the scholar who wrote the definitive work on new religious movements in the early 20th century had that work reduced to what Savage calls “his racial credentials” by the Philadelphia Anthropological Society, which sponsored the book’s publication (1970, vii). Cringe.

Savage also tells us that the Philadelphia Anthropological Society’s microaggression — which might just be a straight up aggression, honestly — “spoke to prevailing assumptions about the nature of the nexus between race, religion, and culture, ironically the central intellectual debate in the book,” (1970, vii). So we also know right away that Black Gods of the Metropolis will help us better understand what Weisenfeld calls religio-racial identity: the imbricated intersectional ways race, religion, and culture co-constitute each other, especially in the context of what’s now the United States.

Sidebar: I hope you caught that Fauset was denied an officer’s commission in the armed forces because federal law enforcement was investigating him for his political activism. That’s going to be a theme in this unit as well.

Fauset did not follow the lead of other scholars at the time who designated as “cults” most Christian holiness, Pentecostal, and storefront churches. He distinguished the latter institutions by referring to them not as cults but as “orthodox evangelical churches.” (Savage 1977, ix)

Fauset’s doing this work while many other early scholars of religion are showing up in unfamiliar religious communities and deciding for themselves whether they were “really” Christian. This is a groundbreaking approach to the study of religion; Fauset is years ahead of his time. I also love the description of these NRMs as an “adventuresome range of religious ideas and practices,” (Savage 1977, x). This description of radical religious innovation has big Olamina energy imo.

It’s also important to note that Fauset spoke to and recorded interviews with laypeople rather than focus solely on religious leaders. Again, this is an approach that the discipline of religious studies wouldn’t adopt for decades after Black Gods’ publication. Fauset’s willingness to credit NRM members’ explanations for joining these groups is likewise remarkable; even many scholars of religion outside NRM studies often fail to treat members of so-called cults with this kind of respect. So too Fauset’s insistence that Black people’s belonging to NRMs was both a religious and a political commitment.
Setting up Auth0 with Terraform
By: Mario Fernández
Tags: Oauth2, Terraform, Auth0, Oauth, Infrastructure As Code

Let’s imagine you have an application divided into two components, a frontend, and a backend. The frontend is a Single Page Application written in React, and the backend is a REST API written in, say, Kotlin. You want to implement some functionality that requires authorization. You naturally gravitate toward OAuth. But then you realize that implementing it by yourself implies much effort. And you still need to manage users. Maybe use an OAuth provider? It all seems kind of overkill for protecting your homemade recipes manager.

That’s where an Identity Platform like Auth0 comes in. Why reinvent the wheel when you can use an existing solution?

The authorization flow

There is so much material about authorization/authentication already out there, what else can be said at this point? Maybe we can have a look at a simple diagram that shows the position of Auth0 between my frontend and backend:

Until now, everything might sound familiar. Fetch a token in the frontend using a flow, include it in the request to the API with a header. Then verify the token in the backend to ensure its validity. Got it.

Setting up Auth0

You still need to set up the whole thing in Auth0 itself, however. Most guides you’ll find on the internet show you how to do that by clicking through the UI. Which works, more or less. But what about the second time you want to do it? You’ll start from scratch, assuming you still remember how to do it, of course.

The whole point of this article is that you are much better off using Infrastructure as Code instead. I am going to show you how to deal with the previously mentioned setup by using Terraform, a tool to provision infrastructure declaratively. It is definitely worth learning.

Auth0 + Terraform

There is an excellent terraform provider for Auth0, which will make our life massively easier. We’ll declare our stuff, provision it, and store the code in git . That way, you can quickly check what you did, and adapt it for further applications without much effort. Or even write a blog post about it.

Let’s assume we already have an account served under a domain ( auth0_domain ). If we want to work with Auth0 programmatically, we need to create an application with access to the Auth0 Management API. We have to do this step manually, following these steps. After this, we'll have a client_id and a client_secret that we can use throughout the rest of the process. On to the code.

The provider

The first thing we need to do is set up the provider.

This provider requires the credentials we manually obtained in the step before. Store them securely in something like gopass. You can export these credentials as environment variables, and they will be picked up by terraform automatically. You only need to follow this specific syntax:

Let’s set up our application

The identity provider

We can provision our users, but what about using an existing solution like Google? Then we don’t need to do any account management. For that, we need to define a connection.
Lest I forget — Thursday, December 7, 2017
By: A.C. Flory
Tags: My Soap Box, Aussie, Politics, Celebrations, Australia

I’m hopeless with dates so I wanted to commemorate the day on which marriage equality became law, here in Australia. I’m so proud. :)

-hugs-

Meeks
Technical analysis — READ THE CHARTS
By: Alex Balingit
Tags: Trading, Investment, Technical Analysis, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

We caught some flack a few weeks ago recommending a short on bitcoin before the big correction. We also were asked how we “knew” XRP and LTC were going to have the lot big runs late last year, and why we were shorting XRP after the big run.

We even have posts pending right now asking why we would assume Bitcoin would go down (or up), and the response is this: technical analysis. We don’t “know” anything. We just read the chart, and it shows us the level of optimism/fear in a market. Those emotions follow visual patterns on charts.

TA can also include things like “psychological resistance.” For example, bitcoin may struggle at $9k and $10k price zones because people assume that is will struggle. Professionals will also assume resistance in price zones where a coin has previously struggled to grow further.

Some folks think TA is simply witchcraft, but there’s a reason professional traders have used it for a hundred years. The reason is that TA combined with a systematic approach of scaled buys and sells is predictably profitable. We created this group primarily to work on charts with friends and teach everyone how to be predictably profitable.

What are your thoughts on technical analysis? Are you consistently profitable when you trade?

Continue the discussion over on our Facebook group!
Minimum Dot Product
Tags: Cpp, Code, Programming, Competitive Programming, Algorithms

Problem Introduction

The dot product of two sequences a(1) , a(2) , . . . , a(n) and b(1) , b(2) , . . . , b(n) of the same length is equal to a(1) b(1) + a(2) b(2) + · · · + a(n) b(n)

Problem Description

Task: The goal is, given two sequences a(1) , a(2) , . . . , a(n) and b(1) , b(2) , . . . , b(n) , find a permutation π of the second sequence such that the dot product of a(1) , a(2) , . . . , a(n) and b(π 1) , b(π 2) , . . . , b(π n) is minimum.

Input Format: The first line contains an integer n, the second one contains a sequence of integers a(1) , a(2) , . . . , a(n) , the third one contains a sequence of integers b(1) , b(2) , . . . , b(n) .

Constraints: 1 ≤ n ≤ 10^3 ; −10^5 ≤ a(i) , b(i) ≤ 10^5 for all 1 ≤ i ≤ n.

Output Format: Output the minimum possible dot product.

Time Limits: C: 1 sec, C++: 1 sec, Java: 1.5 sec, Python: 5 sec. C#: 1.5 sec, Haskell: 2 sec, JavaScript: 3 sec, Ruby: 3 sec, Scala: 3 sec.

Memory Limit: 512 Mb

Sample 1

Input:

1

23

39

Output:

897

Explanation:

In this case, 897 is just the only possible dot product.

Sample 2

Input:

3

1 3 -5

-2 4 1

Output:

-25

Explanation:

−25 = 1 · 1 + 3 · (−2) + (−5) · 4.

What To Do

The first thing to note is that the problem can be restated as follows: partition two input sequences a = (a(1) , a(2) , . . . , a(n)) and b = (b(1) , b(2) , . . . , b(n) ) into n pairs of the form (a(i) , b(j) ) such that the sum of their products is minimum.

We claim that it is safe to multiply a maximum element of a by a minimum element of b. We illustrate this by a toy example. Assume that n = 4 and that a(2) = max{a(1) , a(2) , a(3) , a(4) } and b(1) = min{b(1) , b(2) , b(3) , b(4) }.

Consider a candidate solution:

a(1) b(3) + a(2) b(4) + a(3) b(1) + a(4) b(2)

Here, a(2) is multiplied by b(4) and b(1) is multiplied by a(3) . Let’s show that if we “swap” these two pairs, then the total value can only decrease. Indeed, the difference between dot products of these two solutions is equal

to (a(1) b(3) + a(2) b(4) + a(3) b(1) + a(4) b(2) ) − (a(1) b(3) + a(2) b(1) + a(3) b(4) + a(4) b(2) ) = a(2) b(4) + a(3) b(1) − a(2) b(1) − a(3) b(4) = (a(2) − a(3) )(b(4) − b(1) ) .

It is non-negative, since a(2) ≥ a(3) and b(4) ≥ b(1)
What Do You Think of When You Hear the Word ‘Wellness’?
By: Jennifer Geer
Tags: Wellness, Health, Wellbeing, Self, Psychology

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

We can relate the quest for wellness to a theory from psychology. Psychologist, Abraham Maslow believed humans have a basic set of needs that must be met to achieve our potential, which he called self-actualization.

“Self-actualization can generally be thought of as the full realization of one’s creative, intellectual, and social potential through internal drive (versus for external rewards like money, status, or power).” — Positive Psychology

He called it the hierarchy of needs. It’s been around for 70 years and it is still used in motivational psychology today.

Photo by Saul McLeod / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

It’s generally represented in pyramid form, like the image above. At the bottom, and most essential for survival are your physiological needs. Things like food, water, sleeping, and breathing. Obviously, if you’re having trouble breathing, that’s going to take up all of your focus. Leaving no time for kombucha smoothies.

At the next level comes safety. This is having a safe place to live and the resources that you need to stay there. Then comes love and belonging. Humans are social and a sense of belonging is a critical need.

Once those three basic needs are met, we get into Maslow’s more “advanced” levels. By esteem, he means confidence, self-esteem, and respect. Respect not just by others, but for others as well. And once you manage that, he believes you can work at self-actualization.

How Does Self-Actualization Relate to Wellness?

Maslow believed that self-actualization meant the fulfillment of one’s greatest potential. If you can reach your full potential, it stands to reason, you will find well-being when you get there.

Reaching self-actualization, or being well isn’t about making the most money or being the most powerful person in the room. You don’t have to run marathons or even belong to a gym. You don’t have to be vegan or only eat organic foods.

You need a healthy body and a healthy mind. And when you’ve got that, you can begin to follow your dreams. You can try to reach your potential. It’s in all of our grasps to do so.

If you have financial resources, but your emotional state is hurting, you’re going to have trouble reaching it. But if it’s more than you can fix on your own, get professional help. Don’t struggle with things like anxiety or depression by yourself.
Unto Us
Tags: Gift, Poetry, Christianity, Faith, Kingdom

Amidst the fierce fitfulness of humanity,

Caged in collapse, calamity and depravity,

Unto us a baby is born.

As misconceptions bred perceived reality,

And pride seeped in the wandering of the worldly,

Yet unto us a baby is born.

Trumpets sounding the revelation of a kingship,

Amongst the invasion of an aphotic kinship

Still unto us a child is born.

How the cosmos sighed and stars aligned,

Caught in the tension of future and past,

See unto us a Messiah has come.

Here as in Heaven and Crown proclaimed,

As victory came and victory reigned,

For unto us a Messiah has won.
Active Medium Publications About Business
By: Casey Botticello
Tags: Business Analysis, Medium, Business Strategy, Business Models, Business

7. Social Media Success

🔗 Publication Link

✍ Editors: Shelby Leigh

✎ Publication Description:

Social Media Success provides social media and digital marketing tips for writers. From Instagram to Twitter to Pinterest, writers should be leveraging social platforms to find engaged readers, and we’ll help you do it!

✉ Article Submission Information:

— Casey Botticello

Thanks for reading this article! Leave a comment below if you have any questions. Be sure to sign up for the Active Publications, to get the latest updates on new Medium publications accepting writers!

If you liked this article, here are some other articles you may enjoy:

Casey Botticello is a partner at Black Edge Consulting. Black Edge Consulting is a strategic communications firm, specializing in online reputation management, digital marketing, and crisis management. Prior to founding Black Edge Consulting, he worked for BGR Group, a bipartisan lobbying and strategic communications firm.

Casey is the founder of the Cryptocurrency Alliance, a Super PAC dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain advocacy. He is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania, where he received his B.A. in Urban Studies.
Price Of Basic Attention Token In India (BAT/INR)
By: Abhey Arora
Tags: Basic Attention Token, Blockchain, India, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

The Basic Attention token is a token used to obtain a variety of advertising and attention-based services on the Brave platform. The utility of the token is based on user attention, which simply means a person’s focused mental engagement.It improves the efficiency of digital advertising by creating a new token that can be exchanged between publishers, advertisers, and users. It all happens on the Ethereum blockchain.

BAT is one of the most popular digital currencies in the cryptocurrency world. BAT launched in June 2017 with an opening price of BAT in INR 14.40 and attracted a lot of attention because of it’s features of improving the efficiency of digital advertising by creating a new unit of exchange between publishers, advertisers and users and so many investors invested in this.

And due to market crash the price fluctuated and the price reduced and in the end of Aug,2017 the price of BAT in INR was 17.29

The market condition remained same and its lowest value of BAT in INR 8.97 in November 2017.

But after the crash period over the Price started increasing and in Dec it reached at its max.value and closed the Year 2017 with Price of BAT in INR 28.19

On 1st January 2018,The Price of BAT in INR was 31.25

The main purpose of the token is to help gauge or measure user engagement more accurately. BAT Project incorporates the token as a form of currency in their digital advertising ecosystem as a point system that rewards publishers, users, or advertisers.

The advertising industry is a very lucrative market. Google and Facebook heavily rely upon ad revenue .This excited every BAT investor as It’s the best source of revenue.

Because of this Investors started paying more attention and Basic Attention Token is currently ranked 50.

To know the current rate of Basic Attention Token in India you can check BuyUcoin rate page.
Was David Bowie good for Planet Earth?
By: Jonathan Poletti
Tags: David Bowie, Sexuality, LGBTQ, Life, Music

For many fans, the late British singer David Bowie is remembered as a fun, colorful alien. A pioneer of gender bending, maybe “queer” or “genderqueer.” The reality, I’m afraid, is that underneath the make-up and costumes is the oldest, worst thinking about sex.

He was creepy in a lot of ways. A man having sex with 14-year-olds is not acceptable. I read Bowie biographies, marking passages that horrify me, and the pages are full. “He slept with women because it appealed to him; he slept with men as trophies as he exerted control over them.”

Christopher Sanford’s biography, Bowie: Loving the Alien, continues on, detailing Bowie’s views on women: “It was their business to ensure the continuity of the race and to look after men and children.” A female lover is quoted saying he had “almost a pathological aversion to open up to a woman.” His ex-wife, Angela Bowie, notes that “David made a virtual religion of slipping the Lance of Love into almost everyone around him,” but in her experience, “the sex was lousy.”

He’d become incensed if kept waiting for service from women. John Lennon reprimanded Bowie for barking at Lennon’s fiancé to make breakfast. Angela has a scene: “David hurtled across the room, grabbed my throat in both hands, and started to throttle me.” There’s his odes to Hitler. “Oh he was a terrible military strategist,” he says, “the world’s worst, but his overall objective was very good, and he was a marvellous morale booster.”

He goes on and on about Nietzsche’s “superman” as a model for himself, so the Hitler praises are an obvious extension.

On reflection, I came to realize that Bowie was hostile to the very ideals he seemed to champion. He sold the illusion of being liberated, but the “changes” were cosmetic, skin-deep.

He remained fundamentally male—if that means: detached, misogynist, and violent.
5 Reasons Sleep Is Important for Your Health
By: Jennifer Geer
Tags: Wellness, Lifestyle, Life, Sleep, Health

5 Reasons Sleep Is Important for Your Health

It may be affecting you in ways you didn’t realize

Photo by Kate Stone Matheson on Unsplash

I love to sleep. This wasn’t always true. In my youth, I would have happily skipped out on sleep in exchange for excitement. As I grew older and wiser I realized how much better I felt when I was well-rested.

And then came motherhood and with it, a level of sleep deprivation, unlike anything I have ever known before. If you’ve ever spent your days and nights caring for a small creature that feeds every hour, you’ll know the feelings of desperation I had reached.

It’s years later and the former newborn that needed me every hour is now a grown child that sleeps through the night (mostly.) Yet, I am left with an appreciation for sleep that will never go away.

Yet, I sometimes still miss out on sleep. These days it’s almost always my fault, though, I can blame my dogs on some nights. I tend to binge on Netflix or mindlessly scroll through my phone. I don’t know why I do this; sleep is critical and we should be taking it seriously.