fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Fukushima: Japanese Tragedy Leads to Strides in Energy Conservation
Tags: Energy Management, Workspace, Artificial Intelligence, Climate Change, Energy Efficiency

Energy Consumption and the Workplace

Picture Bob Cratchit rubbing his hands together and blowing hot air between them in a futile attempt to warm them. Meanwhile, Scrooge, oblivious to the needs of others, scans his books and calculates his future earnings.

Fortunately, workplace heating and cooling has improved since Victorian times. Although no laws prevent companies from being Scrooges, if a legitimate complaint is filed, OSHA will step in and protect the whistleblower from retaliation from his or her employer.

Also, architects and engineers have a set of guidelines they must follow while designing and constructing workplaces. After all, it’s in no one’s best interest to have uncomfortable workers because it would lead to a loss in productivity. This doesn’t mean problems don’t exist, however.

Copyright : conssuella

Pollution: A Hot-and-Cold Issue

The main issue affecting workplaces today is how green employers are. Most of the world’s carbon dioxide pollution comes from power plants, and the energy those power plants make goes mostly to commercial buildings.

Building on that information, ask yourself what that energy is used for. Hopefully, you said heating and cooling. But it has become a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul situation because the planet is getting warmer. See the problem? More energy = more pollution = warmer planet. Regardless of whether you believe rising temperatures are a result of pollution, we can all agree that pollution isn’t helping. World leaders are trying to resolve the problem, but the country that deserves a shout-out is Japan.

Government and Private Sectors Get Cooler

Before the Fukushima tragedy, Japan’s Ministry of the Environment created the _Cool Biz_program, which required all government ministries to set their thermostat to 82 degrees during the summer. Workers were told to wear starched short-sleeved shirts and to leave the suits and ties at home. It only took the country two years to see dramatic results. Japan’s carbon dioxide emissions were cut by 1.5 million tons.

Since the nuclear disaster, Japan has created the _Super Cool Biz_program. Whereas the original program lasted from June to September, Super Cool Biz runs from May to October. Fukushima was inarguably a tragedy of epic proportions, but at least something positive came from it. During the first program, only government agencies took part. Now, a majority of the private sector participates as well. Governments and private employers around the world should follow suit to save energy and reduce harmful emissions.
你以為你的選擇真的是你的選擇？｜百書維新
By: Alvin Chen 陳俞安
Tags: Books, Read, 百書維新, Reading

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Day Tripping at the Rocking Horse Graveyard aka Ponyhenge
By: Tracey Folly
Tags: Travel, Culture, Relationships, Lifestyle, Humor

Upon our arrival, I almost immediately developed an attachment to a vintage Radio Flyer rocking horse that sat decaying slowly in the back row of ponies.

We weren’t the only ones there. Cars lined the side of the road, and couples wandered among the rocking horse discards smiling and taking selfies at a respectful social distance. No one else seemed to take any particular interest in the toothless wide-eyed pony in the back row. I doubt anyone would even miss him if he were gone.

According to my boyfriend, no, I may not load my favorite rocking horse into the hatchback of my Volkswagen Beetle and bring him home to live with me. Nor may I rent a U-Haul for the same purpose no matter how many stray ponies I might be able to round up and transport in one trip.

So, I did the next best thing. I found my pony friend’s doppelgänger on eBay where it costs a whopping $900 to send him home. That doesn’t even include the shipping charge itself. Local pickup is free, but we aren’t exactly local. My dream pony is in Virginia, and I’m south of Boston.

My boyfriend offered to buy him for me, but I couldn’t possibly accept. Still there are two weeks left on the eBay auction. So I’ll keep it in mind.

Yet I can’t help but worry that the pony rejects at the Rocking Horse Graveyard are really in need of rescue. After all, do you know what happens when years of New England seasons wear down their paint and plastic, stands and springs? They cull the herd (i.e. They throw the downtrodden and decaying ponies in the trash).

I’d never do that to my favorite vintage Radio Flyer rocking horse. I think I’ll name him Stanley.
LEDU 产品名字投票结果出炉
Tags: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Chinese

Education Ecosystem is a decentralized ecosystem for learning about technologies and trying them out hands-on using free practical project examples.

Follow
Vote: Best Story of the Last 2 Weeks, Holiday Edition
By: Cody James Howell Phd, Raiden
Tags: Travel, Travel Writing, Best Of, Writing, Community Engagement

Community Event

Vote: Best Story of the Last 2 Weeks, Holiday Edition

You decide, who at World Traveler’s Blog had the best story

The time has come to vote for the next winner of our “Best Story of the Last 2 Weeks” Series!

We have published even more this time around, and our following has now exceeded 100!

With the ever-increasing number of great submissions and amazing stories, we have decided to implement an objective selection process to produce the top 5 candidates. Then, the community can vote on the overall winner!

For purposes of transparency and fairness, I will briefly explain the scoring system (if you are familiar with rock climbing competitions, this may seem familiar).

The data for all stories published over the last 2 weeks have been gathered and ranked. Views, Reads, Claps. Within each of those three categories, a ranking is assigned from highest to lowest (ex: the most views received 1 point, the least got 16 points this time). Then, the rank for each of the 3 categories is added together. The stories with the lowest score win!

If you didn’t get in the final run-off this time, make sure to boost your numbers in all categories to rank higher! Check out the top 5 stories and see what they did well, let’s all use this to become better writers.

In the case that one author has multiple stories in the top 5 (as happened this week), that author can select their favorite story from the bunch but will only get one submission. The other top stories will go to the next authors in order.

First, I just want to say that everyone is doing great, we receive many wonderful submissions, and our publication is getting more and more views and read time:

Thank you all so much for making this community such a wonderful place!

Without further ado, here are the best performing 5 stories of the last two weeks (in no particular order)!

PLEASE CLAP A SPECIFIC NUMBER OF TIMES TO CAST YOUR VOTE!

If you haven’t read these stories, make sure to catch up before casting your vote.

Clap ONCE

For “8 Signs That You’re Visiting Italy The Wrong Way” by Christinamiceli:

Clap TWICE

For “Mount Ruapehu and the Tongariro Crossing, a New Zealand Multiday Great Walk and Honeymoon” by Cody James Howell PhD (Raiden):

Clap THREE times

For “How To Travel Off The Path in Cambodia” by Marcus Franke:

Clap FOUR times

For “The Far East Uncovered” by Misbah Ul Haq Syed:

Clap FIVE times

For “The Ultimate Road Trip Guide: Sydney to Cairns, Australia” by Liv Mello:

Please only clap either ONCE, TWICE, THREE, FOUR or FIVE times! Not more!

In case you accidentally applauded too much, or you want to vote for more than one story you can also leave a private note instead:)

TOO MANY CLAPS WILL BE AN INVALID VOTE!

Voting will be open for 3 days (depending on turnout, it is a holiday after all, but please try to get those votes in soon).
Plutus Weekly Report — July 1st 2018
Tags: Bitcoin, Mobile Payments, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Report

In situations where users compete for value, it is inevitable that eventually someone will attempt to seize any advantage they can, even resort to actively malicious means to gain access.

Developers know that every time a vulnerability is patched, a new one may be discovered elsewhere. Malicious actors may use social engineering, code injection, overflow exploits, race conditions, and more esoteric exploits to gain access and wreak havoc.

This is why we have come to the conclusion that the best way forward is to offer rewards to anyone who can help us create a more robust software ecosystem.

As such, we will be rewarding users who manage to find exploits in our software and report these in a private, timely, and discreet manner. Additionally the structure of our upcoming bounty program will provide numerous incentives that we believe ethical hackers will find quite enticing.

The Plutus Security Bounty Program will officially launch July 11th, and will include a comprehensive list of instructions and rewards.
Train Your Assistant 10x Faster
By: Adam Benvie
Tags: Watson Assistant, Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, Ibm Watson, Wa Announcement

Most companies have a record of every end-customer inquiry within their service desk tool(s), yet when they train an assistant (aka chatbot) to automate answers to certain questions, they’re often just guessing at what customer issues to handle. This is super painful and draws out the time it takes to get a compelling assistant in front of customers.

And that’s exactly why we’re launching Intent Recommendations! This feature lets you get up and running with new topics (aka intents) in your assistant really quickly — all based on the raw logs from your existing customer service operation. Watson combs through all of your users’ messages, groups them according to topic, and then prioritizes the highest impact clusters (so that you know where to start building).

In addition faster training time, Intent Recommendations will also help you create a much more effective assistant in the long run. This is because real-world requests lead to a much more accurate system than do employee manufactured training sentences or sample training data.

Here’s How it Works…

Step 1: Import a File

Gather your customer requests into a CSV and then import the CSV into Watson Assistant.

Note: The CSV should only contain requests from the customer (no agent responses) and each request should be in its own cell in a single column. Once your CSV is ready, find the “Get Recommendations” button on the Watson Assistant intents page and import the CSV from your device.

Step 2: Add Recommended Intents

After Watson is done grouping the customer requests, it will display the four most recommended topics on the intents page. You can view all recommended topics ranked by most recommended by clicking “view all recommendations”.

Choose a topic and review the requests inside of it before adding it to your assistant’s training. You can remove requests you don’t think are a good fit, and when you’re happy with all the requests inside of a topic, you can add them as a new intent or add them to an existing intent.

Step 3 Add Recommended User Example

After you’ve added a topic, you can continue training your assistant on that topic with Watson’s help. Simply click “Show recommendations” within the intent page and Watson will continue recommending similar requests to add to the intent — this helps to further strengthen how well your assistant can cover this specific topic. The more examples, the better!

Getting Started

Intent Recommendations are available now on Watson Assistant’s Plus and Premium plans! To get started on plus or premium, visit the Watson Assistant pricing page. To learn more about how Watson Assistant’s Intent Recommendations work, see our product documentation.
The Morning After
By: Patsy Fergusson
Tags: Election 2020, Feminism, Writing, Debate, Trump

It’s like reading about a Trump voter saying she’s making more money than she ever has and that’s why she’s voting for him even though she can see he’s an a**hole. And like I’m asking her, with all my heart and mind and every cell in my body, is any amount of money really worth all this?!?!
Post-Millennial Life
By: Ottilie Max
Tags: Post Millennial, Ottilie Max, Social Media, Poetry, Y2k

We partied like it was 1999.

Until the clock became a computer.

Now, our feelings look like photographs.

Our thoughts scroll out like ticker tape.

Post-millennial life.

Maybe we’ve been uploaded, finally.

The computers didn’t crash; they took over.

Now they speak for us.

They party like there’s no tomorrow, like there’s no consequences.



We’re no longer faces emoting empathy.

Our eyes belong to our screens.

We look at white space like it’s a dream, and we forget how to live in between — the updates, the notifications, the installs, the upgrades, the messages, the data stream.

Once upon a time, we walked, looking at the flowers.

Now we touch everything with our phones.

We feed our phones with information, and our phones filter the world for us.

Are we dying on this digital plane?

Or did we die 20 years ago when the computers psyched us out?

Descartes might have got it wrong.

Feelings are human.

Thoughts can transcend time.
Inbest Network: Roadmap 2019
By: Inbest Helper
Tags: Inbest, Inbest Network

in Both Sides of the Table
Piper’s Choice — Escape. Part 2-Escape
By: Tree Langdon
Tags: Relationships, Series, Self Improvement, Piper, Fiction

They drove in silence, each lost in thought. Glancing over, she said, “I’m Piper? Thanks for your help back there.”

“Uh, I’m Tori.” The driver shrugged off the hood and ran long fingers through her tousled black curls.

“You’re, a… a girl? Are you kidding me! I thought you were a guy, coming to my rescue and all that.”

She flushed in embarrassment. “I mean, not that a girl couldn’t come to my rescue, but… you really tackled Rick hard.”

“Aw, it was a lucky break, I caught him off guard.”

“You could have fooled me; he dropped like a sack of potatoes! I’m glad that fucker hit his head.”
In These Times…
By: Lola Aylmer
Tags: Wordsmith Library, Poetry, Email, Creative Writing, Lockdown

In These Times…

A lockdown poem

In these different times…

In these bizarre and eye-opening times…

I start the email…

the inbox sound shoots fear through my throat.

In these strange times…

What is scarier?

Outside (breath condensing in ice cold knives threatened by children)

or

inside (breath infected in maskless noses out)

In the*cough cough*

Don’t worry it’s not COVID!

We still chuckle -

uncertain and uncomfortable.

In these weird times…

We are intensely alone together.

I am watching my frozen zoom square,

How am I still not bored of my own face?

I turn off my camera and cut and dye my hair.

It is the only thing I can control.

In these scary times…

I FaceTime my grandma for the first time

just to see her and hear her voice.

I call my grandma just to say hi

Not Thank You or Happy Birthday or Merry Christmas

Just ‘hello I miss you,

please stop crying.’

In these times that are timeless where days have no meaning and I am still in bed but I am at uni or on a date or with my mates or at the pub quiz but I still have not moved and nothing else is moving definitely not time no nothing has changed we are all the still same but everything is so different still waiting holding baited breath in an attempt not to breathe in this plague and I am so afraid.

In these times…

while stillness will not stop.
I’m Not Out to Everyone
By: Faith Ann
Tags: Relationships, Women, LGBTQ, Bisexual, Sexuality

I’m Not Out to Everyone

And I couldn’t care less

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

I am a bisexual woman. I’m proud of my sexuality and it is apart of my identity. I’ve been sexually and romantically attracted to both men and women for as long as I can remember. That being said, I am not out to everyone in my life.

I’ve been told by a variety of people (both queer and straight) that not being out to everyone is an indication that 1) I’m not really bisexual, or 2) I am ashamed.

Thing is, I’m not ashamed.

If anyone were to ask me, I would proudly share. I have never lied about who I am, but I also don’t feel the need to volunteer my truth with everyone I meet. Or even with people who I am really close with.

My sexuality is a part of the woman I am, it is important, but at the end of the day, it is just one aspect of who I am. If it comes up, it comes up. If it doesn’t, who cares. I do not feel any obligation to share any more than I feel an obligation to tell people how many degrees I have.

Of course, there are moments where I do feel I have an obligation to divulge this part of my life. If I am ready to commit to someone in a relationship, I usually let my partner know that I am interested in both men and women. It is an intimate fact to share and if I am interested in an intimate relationship, it becomes about trust.

I also want to gauge their reaction. I have come across plenty of men and women who are uncomfortable dating bisexual individuals. While I can respect that decision, it is a red flag for me. I don’t want to date someone who cannot accept me in all my glory and respect different aspects of who I am.

However, I wouldn’t consider it much more of a red flag than if a potential partner couldn’t accept that I solo travel a lot. Now I didn’t choose to be bisexual and I choose to solo travel. But both are deeply important to the person I am today and I am not going to stop being bisexual, any more than I am going to stop wanting to travel alone.

If they cannot respect something I cannot change, I am no longer interested in dating them. Their loss, not mine. I have naturally curly hair and if you don’t want to date someone with curly hair, I’m not your girl. I’m bisexual, you have to be okay with that too.

There are also plenty of people who perhaps feel they have a right to know but I haven’t explicitly told them. I have friends who aren’t aware I’m bisexual. Good friends and old friends. They haven’t asked and I haven’t felt particularly inclined to share.
“Why people in ‘Crypto’ space use Telegram is all beyond me”
By: Niharika Singh
Tags: Telegram, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Security, Technology

Recently my favourite figure, Amber Baldet, from Blockchain world tweeted about how there doesn’t exist an application which she can use to give usernames instead of phone numbers to the guys she just met. So the tweet sparked a thread and someone suggested her to use telegram, and oh boy, she lashed out!

And I completely agree with her.

She also highlighted a point where she doesn’t understand why people in the “crypto” space use Telegram at all!

The same people who vouch for exceptional security offered by blockchain actually have most of their conversations on the most insecure chat app in the world — Telegram.

Issues with Telegram

It doesn’t encrypt chats by default. One has to turn on an additional setting to converse in an encrypted format known as Secret chat option. To know how to do that, click here. Telegram has delivered everything a government wishes for.

option. To know how to do that, click here. Telegram has delivered everything a government wishes for. All your data is stored on Telegram servers. Who knows in what form (encrypted or not)!

The desktop app is also not secure. Hackers took advantage of the loophole and installed remote-controlled malwares into the PCs.

Check out this amazing article which goes into technical detail of the encryption protocols being used.

“Why people in ‘Crypto’ space use Telegram is all beyond me” — Amber Baldet

If anyone of you know the best chat app, please let me know too in the comments below. Thanks in advance! :)
I Love My Cats, but They Need to Keep Away From My Water Glass
By: Christine Schoenwald
Tags: Pets, Life Lessons, Cats, Humor, It Happened To Me

My cat, Josie, looks at me, questioning when I place my hand over the top of my glass as she’s about to dip down for a cool drink of water. “Don’t you love me?” she seems to say, acting as if I’ve wounded her.

I’m sorry, but Josie has other places she can go for some water, like the massive bowl in the kitchen and the smaller bowl right across from it near the door.

There’s also a water dispenser in the cat’s rumpus room, aka the laundry room, if the kitchen water isn’t fresh enough. The cats have water-choices — we’re not rationing water over here or living our own version of Urinetown.

Josie probably remembers that my no water policy didn’t hold for one of my cats, Yoshi. I allowed Yoshi to drink from my glass and even encouraged it because I wanted to make sure he got enough water.

Yoshi was a magical cat, so although it can’t be proven, I’m almost certain that his saliva was made up of lemon drops, fairy-dust, and liquified joy.

When Yoshi died, the privilege of sharing a glass of water with a human died with him.

Bacteria live in our mouths.

There’s a hierarchy of mouth bacteria where our pets are concerned. A dog’s mouth is cleaner than a cat’s mouth, which is surprisingly more hygienic than a human’s mouth.

We encounter many things that are far dirtier than a cat’s mouth, such as cell phones, sponges, escalator handrails, money, and the bottom of purses, but we rarely think twice about using them.

However, I’ve never witnessed my cell phone licking its own butt.

I can’t share a glass of water with one of my feline friends, but I will allow them to lick my face, bite my nose, and kiss my lips — those aren’t disgusting to me at all.
Bizkey (BZKY) listed on CoinMarketCap
Tags: Bitcoin, Announcements

Greetings from Bizkey,

We’re happy to inform you that Bizkey (BZKY) is listed on CoinMarketCap. You can now easily check information about BZKY on CoinMarketCap.

CoinMarketCap is a website that provides information on cryptocurrencies and exchanges globally. Anyone interested can search and find information about price, market cap and volume of cryptocurrencies, shown in rankings and charts.

Listing of BZKY on CoinMarketCap demonstrates once again that Bizkey is a reliable project with growth potential.

We appreciate your interest in and support for Bizkey. Please stay tuned for more news!

Best,

Bizkey Team

Bizkey (BZKY) 已被CoinMarketCap (CMC) 收录

据官方消息，近日，Bizkey (BZKY)强势登陆CoinMarketCap (CMC)，用户可以在CoinMarketCap.com网站上查询BZKY相关信息。

CoinMarketCap是目前全球最具公信度的加密货币综合数据网站，用户可以在网站上搜索、查询加密货币的价格、市值、交易量、排名等信息。

BZKY成功被CMC录入，意味着Bizkey在技术、产品等方面已经获得了全球区块链市场的认可。

感谢您对Bizkey的关注与支持！
Lurking Freshwater Monsters
By: U.S. Fish, Wildlife Service
Tags: Fish, Environment, Halloween, Water

What’s Halloween without monsters? But not all monsters live under our beds or are the stars of horror movies. Some are real-life monsters found in America’s waterways. Though they’ll never be stars of slasher films or trick-or-treater costumes, monster fish can be terrifying but in some cases, they need saving too.

There are monster-sized fish that can weigh hundreds of pounds. Some are shocking in appearance with beady eyes and mouths lined with sharp teeth. And then, there are the invasive monsters, steadily overtaking our lakes and rivers like alien monsters from outer space. Scary, yes! But each of these species are also a part of the aquatic-conservation mission of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

So with Halloween upon us, here’s a little info on five different Monster Fish.

Alligator Gar — a monster in size
Journey of Gnosis
By: Taha Abbas
Tags: Consciousness, Gnosis, Religion, Self, Mysticism

For millenia, mankind has believed in a higher power, who controls their fate, punishes them for their sins and rewards for living a virtuous life. Those who seek refuge and turn within, often realise that all this time they were looking in the wrong direction.

When a seeker begins questioning their existence, they are introduced to a world that exists under the vast Ocean. One realises that they are one of the infinite thoughts in their own mind, seeking their origin. The microcosm (soul) merges with the macrocosm (I AM). We are here to remember who we are.

There is a mystical tradition exisiting since the beginning of time. Your Spirit has manifested and then evolved into a personality, struggling to know itself and serving it’s reflection. This is how love was born.

From nothingness, to infiniti, you begin the journey of Oneness, that leads to duality. One day,’ two shall become one’, but that will not be the end, but the begininng. This is the dance of life. You were to annihilate within your self.

Understanding ourselves gives us the privelege to understand God. Just as we have a conscience, we also have a lower self. Similarly, the macrocosm, consists of two polarities, the God head and the Devil. From quantum physics, we have learned, how a particle exploded, splitting into the positive and negative charges, thus sustaining life.

We see the opposing force, or darkness, as evil, therefore we fear it, because we do not understand that it exists within us. The same way, we fear the Creator, as we consider it separate from ourselves. As long as one is living in an illusion of separation, they shall remain miserable and search for the One, in different places.

The story of Moses is an archetypal depiction of how a soul travels from ignorance to attain enlightenment. A drop realises it is the Ocean. Pharaoh was corrupt, as he believed himself to be God, whereas, Moses, who was once in ignorance, similar to pharaoh, later, realised that He is God. The difference was of knowing. The former is our intellect, and the latter, is our conscience. We shall only be liberated, when our inner self realises itself, through us. Only then, our old self, shall be melted, taking us to paradise.
The Internet is Trying to Cancel Sia — But Does She Deserve It?
By: Chelsey Flood
Tags: Autism, Pop Culture, Social Media, Equality, Mindfulness

Sia got Angry with Twitter

Things started to get really interesting when Sia started interacting. There is a bad part of me that enjoys being able to screenshot a tweet like this.

After all, celebrities need to be talked about in order to continue to enjoy the unbelievable privilege of living a life of luxury and doing work they love, right? It’s a life the rest of us literally cannot imagine.

So naturally, there is a touch of schadenfreude when they get things very wrong, very publicly. What on earth was Sia thinking?

Is it that she is so protected and privileged that she thinks she can use social media like a normy? Or is she stirring up controversy to sell cinema tickets?

As Oscar Wilde observed: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Indifference, not hate, is the opposite of love.

The internet was not indifferent. So far the trailer has 27k likes versus 16k dislikes on YouTube. There have been pieces wincing at her misstep in the Independent, Refinery29 UK and NME. And comments are still coming on Twitter. “Sia has got this one wrong,” the UK’s National Autistic Society said.

After Sia referenced talking with Autism Speaks, the charity put out a tweet denying any involvement in casting.

Sia’s frustration that people haven’t even seen the whole movie sounds logical, but who needs to see 89 more minutes to understand that this is another instance of ableism?

Anne Hathaway apologized after she was called out on social media for her depiction of limb difference as scary. In spite of it being very likely not her creative decision, she listened to the feedback and said she was sorry. We all have to do this sometimes. It’s the mature thing to do. It’s a shame that Sia couldn’t manage this so graciously.

She claims she tried one autistic person in the role, but that “casting someone at her level of functioning was cruel, not kind”. Twitter users are aggravated by this. At best it is lazy. At worst it reveals a failure to see autistic people as capable of performing the role. For sure it shows a lack of commitment to representing the community that she claims to be celebrating. And her defensive replies on Twitter underscore this.

It’s clear that she wasn’t prepared for this response to what is obviously supposed to be a defiantly feel-good movie. After all, Sia is a left-leaning liberal: she was thrilled for Kamala, and she often speaks up for LGBTQIA rights on Twitter. She genuinely wants to build the sort of utopia that I dream of. Just listen to the lyrics of Together.
Imagine a Unites States …
By: Paul Thomas
Tags: Racism, BlackLivesMatter, James Baldwin, Malcolm X

Imagine a Unites States …

White America created this, and only white America can end it.

People often either over-idealize or reject as a “bad” song the lyrics to John Lennon’s “Imagine,” but the concept serves a useful purpose.

Imagine a United States where the public and political leadership took seriously Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protests against the racially inequitable policing and justice system in the US.

Imagine white America taking action because they listened, believed, and truly wanted an equitable and just country.

Imagine the many Black lives that would be with us today, alive and mostly anonymous in those lives.

Imagine no marches, no protests or signs emblazoned with “George Floyd” or “Black Lives Matter.”

But, instead, white America attacked Kaepernick, retreated into their comfortable white denial.

But, instead, white America today points accusatory fingers at “riots” and laments the loss of property, proving that for many whites, Black lives in fact do not matter.

White America created this, and only white America can end it.

Now.

Imagine a country where the police protect and serve.

To make that real, white America must admit that the police protect and serve white interests at the expense of those lives that do not matter.

If you suffer white denial, if you are fretting over the protests and not the blue knee that took George Floyd’s Black life, I am providing a reader below.

But this is not a place for your white denial or white arguments.

“There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now,” James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name (“Faulkner and Desegregation”)

Reader

James Baldwin: “the time is always now”

False Equivalence in Black and White

James Baldwin: “It’s a trauma because it’s such a traumatized society”

Understanding Racism as Systemic and about Power

All Lives Matter as a response to #BlackLivesMatter is offensive because…

James Baldwin’s “They Can’t Turn Back” (1960): “On such small signs and symbols does the southern cabala depend”

The “White Gaze” and the Arrogance of Good Intentions

This Is U.S.: “To be a Negro in this country…”

“The Other America,” Martin Luther King Jr. 14 March 1968

“Every white person in this country…knows one thing,” James Baldwin (1979)
GroceriStar — React Native developers onboarding
By: Arthur Tkachenko
Tags: Food Technology, React Native, Application Development

Shopping List App (part of the GroceriStar project)

Our goal is to make an app that will have similar functionality as our GroceriStar project does. Although right now it is just a simple shopping list, we will use this code in order to create an application for GroceriStar.

It will incorporate the methods described in https://groceristar.github.io/documentation/

Currently, the design is not finished, but this can give you some details: https://www.behance.net/gallery/59251083/Alpha-Fruit-apps-PSD.
Bloomberg exit triggers receivership clause in soul deal with the Devil.
By: Sexy Hermit
Tags: Satire, Billionairelifesyle, Evil, Elections, Politcs

Now that Bloomberg has officially given up his end of life mad money shopping spree for power, doing so has put his soul literally in limbo between heaven and Hell.

“We had a deal.” Said PLUGRAZTIKALTIK, in a richly timbreed voice you might expect from a Balrog lawyer employed by The Devil. “We acted in good faith with the promise of the presidency. We gave him mayor of New York years ago sure, but nothing was stipulated specifically when he’d become president. He just quit right before our job was done. It’s for these reasons that we are entitled to the soul of Mr. Bloomberg.”

PLUGRAZTIKALTIK went on to say that the level of wealth and power that Bloomberg had is the only reason the Devil is even considering a new deal. “Bloomberg has really impressed my Lord with this purely ego-driven lust for power and his inexhaustible supply of media manipulation.” Said a hopeful PLUGRAZTIKALTIK but then becoming visibly upset, though with such empathy and compassion you felt like giving him a hug, all be it with a 75-foot tall creature made of fire and stone. PLUGRAZTIKALTIK then gave some surprisingly candid statements for an entity sworn to uphold the contracts of the damned, “It’s really too bad he pulled the plug before we were done on our end! We were so close with Bloomy! Oh well, back to hoping the Trumps get their shit together enough for us to take control. Maybe not until his grandkids at this point. Trump won’t even take our advice! Billionaires, Man! You just can’t trust any of them.”

The Hummingbird was able to get a comment from a Bloomberg lawyer, Justin Puphpees, “The Bloomberg camp denies none of these claims from the underworld. Until some other asset of my client can be agreed upon for his soul, custody has been given to Supreme Court Justice Judge Roberts.”

Justice Roberts was unavailable for comment.

While it's unclear why Bloomberg wants to prematurely end his deal with the devil, it is still clear that he’s absolutely incomprehensibly rich and powerful. Perhaps its enough to keep him out of Hell for just a bit longer.

This is a developing story.
Flying Free
By: Anna Da Silva
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Covid 19, Outdoors, This Happened To Me, Poetry

Flying Free

5 days, 5 poems, 25 words each

Photo by pixel2013 on Pixabay

They pass,

in flexing

honking arc,

heaven high,

across steely sky.

Streaming south,

towards

warmth and release.

Summer’s geese

are leaving us,

flightless,

and entrapped.

Photo by Anna da Silva, 25.10.20

My thanks to Suntonu Bhadra for the inspiration to write this “multiplier of five” series. The challenge is to write five poems of 25 words each, in five days, all on a common theme. I have chosen the theme of “leaves”. This is my second in the series, you can find the first here:
2016 — Day 15
By: Taz Ahmed
Tags: Iftar, Fasting, Ramadan, Poetry, Poem

2016 — Day 15

Water

Khadija Anderson

Sheikh Hamza said that Allah bestows water as blessing or curse

climate change has proven that as fact

places are either flooding from too much water

or drying up from drought

I haven’t fasted in 8 Ramadans and have blamed it

on the long summer days where I live

today I decide to start at 8am to make it a 12 hour fast

which is the average around the world

I get through the first half of the day

around 4pm my throat is aching from

the 100 degree heat

so I drink a cold glass of water

aware that it could be a blessing or a curse
HOW THE PANDEMIC HELPED ME TO DISCOVER MY “NEW” CITY
By: Merih Deniz Toruner
Tags: Coronavirus, Discovery, Pandemic, Photography, Rhode Island

I moved to Providence, Rhode Island over a year ago for college and for biomedical research. Sometimes, though we’re living in the same place for so long, we subconsciously ignore the surroundings: great lakes that harbor the fishermen, everlasting hickory trees, or the secret beaches where no one goes, but which is surrounded by a couple of country houses and at afternoons, the sunset. After the pandemic, I decided to stay in this small city, Providence, with a couple of my friends to perhaps focus more on my studies and research, but what I didn’t anticipate was to rediscover every corner of Providence through these six months.

From Prospect Terrace Park. Photo courtesy of the author

For some people, sunsets symbolize an ending, but they are the ones that illuminate the night and the city once more time and yield a crimson sky. Prospect Terrace Park was my only stop when I had to take my coffee from Starbucks at 6 pm and go back to my home. It is right at the Congdon Street and throughout these six months, I’ve witnessed different kinds of sunsets, narrow streets, and cups of coffee. Across another sunset, I used to go there with my cup of coffee — Robusta. With the breeze, I was trying to capture the moment and watch the setting sun and the crimson sky. I could see the Providence, all of it, small houses at College Hill and the Financial District. This place, after a couple of weeks, turned into my stopping point to destress before my exams or important paper submissions. I rediscovered my love for photography in that park. Every sunset was worth capturing and I remember running there just to watch the redness of the sky and the dancing of the clouds. The view of the State House from the park, first Baptist Church of America, and the Providence Place Mall — they were all looking magical and in the middle of a pandemic, this kept reminding me of the how beautiful this city is, as long as the sun is keeping on shining above. With a little bit of sunlight, everything is forgettable except the beauty of the trees, the city, and the skyline.
Promítání filmů s Artinii licencemi: Jak si vedla místa, která pořádala filmové večery
Tags: Film, Organize, Public Screening, Business, Artinii

A film distribution platform. We are building a global online database of films available for single public screenings anywhere anytime.

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Robinhood Crypto Now Lets You Buy Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash
Tags: Litecoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoincash

The U.S. exchange Robinhood has added Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash, expanding its list of tokens to four. The company intends to add more tokens.

Robinhood, the startup that launched its crypto-focused investment platform called Robinhood Crypto in February, has listed two new tokens on their platform, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. The two new coins join Bitcoin and Ethereum and come in response to customers’ growing calls for additional trading options.

Robinhood is a U.S. Based financial services company launched in 2013 and headquartered in California. With the Wall Street Journal recently valuing the company at $5.6 billion, the rise has been quick and the company has many expansion plans on the horizon. The roadmap sees them moving deeper into cryptocurrency by listing the aforementioned coins, expanding availability to include New Jersey just this week, and promising that there is more to come.

Robinhood only serves the United States at the moment. Moreover, crypto trading is limited to 17 states within the country, which can be viewed on the startup’s blog post. The platform can be used both via a mobile app or through the browser, and allows a user to make his or trades through a quick procedure that only requires the deposit of funds — with no verification required.

Not an Exchange, Many New Features Rumored

It is also worth noting that Robinhood is not an exchange itself. Rather, it works with other exchanges to facilitate crypto trades for its users, effectively acting as competition for crypto exchanges. Despite its small offerings and lack of a wallet (users must convert to fiat first), Robinhood’s biggest advantage is that it makes getting into cryptocurrency trading, has proven to be a growing pain for the industry, a very easy process.

The addition of these two popular tokens and the promise of more appears to be part of a strategy to put more focus on cryptocurrency. We reported that Robinhood had listed a job advertisement for the position of cryptocurrency engineer, whose responsibilities would include working on a cryptocurrency wallet. A wallet would enable users to transfer crypto assets from Robinhood to other services.

In a tight market with multiple players, analysts are looking at Robinhood and whether developments such as built-in wallets, coupled with its intuitive interface, could result in disruption.

Disclaimer: information contained herein is provided without considering your personal circumstances, therefore should not be construed as financial advice, investment recommendation or an offer of, or solicitation for, any transactions in cryptocurrencies.
elegant bachelor
By: Matt Vercillo
Tags: Cannabis, Literally Literary, Writing, Poetry, Recycling

elegant bachelor

I begin fingering the ashtray.

One of those nights.

I shake the dust free and pluck out some roaches.

Laid out on a supermarket circular-

5 golden brown beauties

not dead, resting their eyes.

I pinch a couple down the middle and crack

them open between my thumb and knuckle.

The rest require surgery with little scissors

and the knife from my desk drawer,

I make precision cuts to honor the donors

and make use of their guts.

Pork chops are on sale, ham hocks are half-off.

Clumps of brown and green, crumbles of black matter

rolled in a paper with a pinch of tobacco for filler.

Ashen complexion. Acrid confection. User discretion.

I smoke it and ignore the life I’ve chosen.
Wasted flames
By: Nuno Ricardo
Tags: Life Lessons, Poetry On Medium, Relationships, Poetry, Life

Some choose to feed relationships

they know beforehand to be flawed

wasting flames in soggy fireplaces

surrendering to warmth once outlawed

Forget all defenses and swing for the fences

reveal deepest troves to win honesty back

and capture dreams as brains rewrite their senses

boring holes in walls erected after every attack

Overflowing with affection that can never be spared

sparks of faith invade doubts that scream of failure

fruits of joy that grow larger when shared

open minds to free prisons from their jailer

Intimacy is an act of love and courage

a plot of defiance against faint-hearted characters

one gritty and unpretentious display of kindness

artfully writing an epic story in daily chapters
Updated SlideMagic PPT conversions
By: Jan Schultink
Tags: PowerPoint, Design

I just added the PowerPoint conversions of the new SlideMagic insert templates to the Google Drive (link here).

A warning though: you get the templates in PowerPoint, but that is not the big deal of SlideMagic, the hard part is to change/adapt these layouts to your specific situation. And doing that in SlideMagic is super easy, and a big pain in PowerPoint.

Image from WikiPedia
The Pilot Who Survived Being Sucked Out of the Plane
By: Mythili The Dreamer
Tags: Travel, Culture, History, World, Life

The story of Tim Lancaster

It was a Sunday and it was a holiday flight with 81 relaxed passengers and the crew led by Captain Tim Lancaster who had worked together for many years. The aircraft was a 43-tonne BAC 1–11, which was known as the jeep of the skies because it was reliable and easy to maintain. The flight was going from Birmingham, UK, to Malaga, Spain.

Once everybody had settled down Tim made his usual comforting captain’s announcement.

“You’ll be pleased to know the weather is sunny and dry in Malaga and we should be on our way shortly.”

Little did Tim know that his next 22 minutes would be the worst time of his life.

27 minutes into the flight, the left-hand windscreen in the cockpit came loose and flew off. This caused a decompression inside the cockpit, causing two of the six cockpit windows to be shattered. The moment the windows shattered, Captain Tim Lancaster was ripped from his seat and sucked out of the window at 23,000 feet (7000 meters).

The aircraft began losing height as papers began to flew all around and soon the wind was rushing in at 630 km/h and -17C. As Lancaster was barely holding on to his life with half his body out of the window and slipping fast, co-pilot Alastair Atchison, fought to control the aircraft shouting ‘Mayday! Mayday!’ into the radio.

At that moment, Lancaster’s savior came in the form of flight attendant Nigel Ogden who had come in to ask the pilots for refreshments.

Ogden did not waste any time. He grabbed Lancaster’s legs, just as he disappeared out of the window. His rugby training helped him as he was able to resist the 500 pounds [about 200 kilograms] of pressure pressing against Lancaster’s body. As Ogden said later.

“I jumped over the control column and grabbed him to avoid him going out completely. His legs were jammed forward, disconnecting the autopilot, and the flight door was resting on the controls, sending the plane hurtling down at nearly 650 km/h through some of the most congested skies in the world. I thought I was going to lose him, but he ended up bent in a U-shape around the windows.”

Atchison made an emergency landing at Southampton, with no passenger injuries. Lancaster survived the horrible 22-minute ordeal with a broken arm, frostbite, and severe bruising while Ogden suffered a dislocated shoulder and frostbite. As Ogden said later about Tim’s miraculous escape.
LMM — Neural Network That Animates Video Game Characters
By: Mikhail Raevskiy
Tags: Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, AI

Researchers at Ubisoft have proposed an alternative to the Motion Matching algorithm for automated character animation. The Learned Motion Matching approach combines the advantages of the classic Motion Learning algorithm and neural networks. The resulting model does not store animation data or additional metadata in memory, unlike the standard MM algorithm. At the same time, the LMM model retains quality, control, and fast iteration time, as in the MM algorithm.

Limitations of the past approach

Despite the fact that neural network generative models for character animation are capable of learning compact controllers, methods like Motion Matching are still the most popular in the gaming industry. Popularity is driven by adaptability, prediction quality, low preprocessing time, and visual quality. However, the memory cost of such approaches grows linearly with the amount of data used. This leads to a balance between animation diversity and production budget. The researchers propose to combine the neural network approach and the MM algorithm. This solves the linear scalability problem.

How the Learned Motion Matching algorithm works

The LMM algorithm consists of three parts, just like the standard MM algorithm:

Projection; Decompressor; Going to the next step (stepping)

Difference between Motion Matching algorithm and Learned Motion Matching algorithm. Source: Unisoft

Decompressor Algorithm Pseudocode. Source: Unisoft

Details of the network architecture for each of the modules. Source: Unisoft

Model performance evaluation

The researchers compared the proposed algorithm with two basic algorithms: Motion Matching and Motion Matching with the Decompressor. Below you can see that the Learned Motion Matching algorithm uses less memory. This makes the model faster. However, the model was trained on a GPU, while the underlying algorithms were trained on a CPU.

Comparison of standard Motion Matching algorithm, Motion Matching with the Decompressor and Learned Motion Matching in terms of memory consumption, performance and training time. Source: Unisoft

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