fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
In Focus: Morehshin Allahyari
Tags: Artist, 3D Printing, Digital, Human Rights, Women

By Marie Chatel

Last week on international women’s day opened in Geneva the international film festival for human rights FIFDH, a forum questioning injustice, armed conflicts, lack of civil rights, and other critical social frameworks, and which this year traces the specific impetus of women activists (through March 17). With movie On Her Shoulders documenting Nadia Murad’s fight for the recognition of Yazidis’ genocide, the opening ceremony set the tone in reminding of the courage, responsibilities, and risks that women take to defend their values. Conspicuously, digital art also benefits from the work of women who challenge such socio-political issues and with that in mind who better to profile than Morehshin Allahyari.

Morehshin Allahyari, © courtesy of the artist.

Iranian artist and activist Morehshin Allahyari grew up in Tehran where she studied social science and media before moving to the United States in 2007 for a Master in Digital Media at the University of Denver followed by an MFA in New Media Art at the University of North Texas. Dwelving from her experiences in both countries, she uses archiving, documentation, the internet, technology, and notably 3D printing, to challenge the dogmas of Iranian society, the country’s loss of heritage with Daesh’s destruction of cultural objects, colonialism and its effects in our perception of Middle-Eastern female figures. Mostly, her work questions memory and the impact of time and location in the understanding we have of cultural artifacts at large.

Dark Matter

Initiated in 2014, this series of 3D-printed sculptures humoristically combine everyday objects and things forbidden in Iran, such as dogs, dildos, guns, neckties, satellite dishes, VHS, Bart Simpson, pigs, alcohol, and Barbies, resulting in playful and surrealist objects. Allahyari opens here a conversation on censorship, documenting the life she experienced and the aberration of these bans. Getting a fine, going to jail, and being arrested or investigated by the moral police are amongst the risks you take when breaking with the rules of Iranian society. Enticing or disenchanting, Allahyari points to the magnetism of objects that you can’t access and proposes a new context — virtual or 3D printed — where the value and perception of these commodities can evolve. Ultimately, she asks: “Could inserting the sculptures into another time and space change our relationship to these objects and challenge us to enter a historical dimension of the work?”; “When looking back in twenty years, how would it feel to revisit this collection?”
Leverage Multicore For Faster Performance In Scikit-Learn
By: Kaushik Choudhury
Tags: Data Science, Python Programming, Programming, Machine Learning

We will use the “Volcanoes” dataset in this article to understand the parallel tasking process in Sckit-learn.

from sklearn.datasets import fetch_openml

from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier

from time import time

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt

In the below code, “volcanoes” dataset is fetched from openml.

X,y= fetch_openml(name="volcanoesb3",version=1,

return_X_y=True,as_frame=True)

The elapsed time to train each model will be saved in a list “timetaken”. I have a quad-core laptop hence will be training the machine learning model with a maximum of four cores. In case you have an octa-core or more cores then you can mention “n_cores” up to eight or more cores.

timetaken = []

n_cores = [1, 2, 3, 4]

In the below code, the machine learning model is trained from single-core to quad-cores in a loop and the time elapsed to train is saved.

We can specify the number of jobs to run in parallel with “n_jobs” parameter in RandomForestClassifier. In case, we would like to use all the cores available then we can specify “n_jobs” as “-1”

for n in n_cores:

start = time()

model = RandomForestClassifier(n_estimators=1500,

random_state=42, n_jobs=n)

model.fit(X, y)

end = time()

elapsedtime = end - start

timetaken.append(elapsedtime)

It is helpful to visualise the time it takes to train the model with different cores.

plt.plot(n_cores, timetaken)

plt.show()

We can see that model training time decreased drastically as it is trained from one core to three cores. There is only a slight gain of time from using three to all four cores.

It took close to 22 seconds to train the model with single-core and it drops to approx. ~ 11 seconds with three cores.
Experimenting with generics in Go
By: Alexey Soshin
Tags: Go, Generics, Programming

For the sake of the exercise we’ll implement a simple list of generics elements, that should have some basic higher order methods as well, such as Filter , Foreach and Map

We’ll start with the definition of our generic data structure:

type List(type T) struct {

elems []T

}

As you can see, we now are able to declare types after struct or interface name. Most languages use <> to denote a type, although Scala, for example, uses [] . Go uses (type) for the same purpose.

Having declared the type, we now can use it inside our struct to define slice of elements.

Translating this to Java, we would have something along those lines:
The Fantasy Fiction Series That Impacted My Life More Than Any Self-Help Book Ever Could
By: Anangsha Alammyan
Tags: Fiction, Read, Self Improvement, Books, Ideas

The Fantasy Fiction Series That Impacted My Life More Than Any Self-Help Book Ever Could

Steven Erikson’s 10,000+ page saga “Malazan Book of the Fallen” taught me lessons that defined my identity

Book covers from Goodreads.

Whenever someone asks me what’s the best book I’ve ever read, I always say — without hesitation — that it’s the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson.

There are 10 massive books in the series, each 1000+ pages long. I could never bring myself to write a review for the awesomeness of the world Erikson has created.

A part of the reason is that the series is so huge and all-encompassing, that one review will never be able to do it justice. However, aside from pulling me out of some truly dark moments, these books have taught me a lot of valuable life lessons no self-help book could ever have.

In this post, I will try to share some of the most impactful lessons with you. Without spoiling anything, here’s how the Malazan Book of the Fallen series has helped me over the years:
Lovers to be
By: Neha Ravindra
Tags: Poetry, Poetry On Medium, Dating, Poem, Love

Lovers to be

Love is peaceful and chaotic like the raging sea

Confusing and calming, will it cease to be?

We walk through storm, thunder, and rain

Hand in hand walking in happiness and pain.

Your heart is so pure and your is love is sweet

My heart is selfish, it needs you in every beat.

When asleep or when I’m awake

You occupy my mind with each breath I take.

Without you, I wouldn’t know what love meant

I would never smile, I could never be content.

Your smile makes me smile and brightens the day

I would bask in its tenderness if only I had it my way.

It’s still fresh in my memory, the day we met

The love we shared and emotions that were left unsaid

Nothing in this world can even compare

The joy you bring and the love we share

If I’d never met you, I don’t know what I’d do

I’d be so lost and incomplete without you.

Today is the day you fly high and bright

Amidst all the happiness, it’ll be my favorite sight.

To every wound that bled

And to every tear, I shed

Sing me a happy song of victory and glee

Let’s bathe in love as the world calls us lovers to be.
Understanding ‘==’ vs. ‘is’ in Python
By: Diwakar Singh Parmar
Tags: Python, Python3, Python Programming, Programming

Analyzing the Difference

In this post, I will be analyzing the basic difference between them.

For this, we will start with some analogy with twin cats. So, assume that you have twin cats which are very similar. They have the same charcoal fur and the same piercing green eyes. Just by looking, we can’t tell which one is which.

Now, come to our == vs is operators in Python.

The == operator compares by checking for the equality. If these two cats were two Python objects, then if comparing them using the == operator, it will return ‘Both cats are Equal’ as the answer.

The is operator compares by checking for the identity. If we use is for comparing them we will get ‘Both cats are not Equal’ as the answer.

To really understand this, we will write some code.

First, we will create a list named a which contains elements [3, 4, 5] and another list b which will point to the list a .

Let's inspect these two lists. We can see that these looks point to the identical-looking list.

Because the two list objects look the same, we’ll get the expected result

when we compare them for equality by using the == operator.

However, that doesn’t tell us whether a and b are actually pointing to

the same object. Of course, we know they are because we assigned

them earlier, but suppose we didn’t know — how might we find out?

The answer is to compare both variables with the is operator. This

confirms that both variables are, in fact, pointing to one list object.

Now, let’s create another list c using the list() which contains the elements of the list a .

If we look at list c , it looks similar to the list pointed to by a and b .

Now, we will compare a and c using the == and is operators.

Here, the == operator gives True because both of them have the same content.

Python is telling us that c and a are pointing to two different objects, even though their contents might be the same.

So, to recap, let’s try and break down the difference between is and

== into two short definitions.

An is expression evaluates to True if two variables point to the

same (identical) object. A == expression evaluates to True if the objects referred to by

the variables are equal (have the same contents).
寶島金融FMF 雙週報00006期
By: Formosa Financial Team
Tags: Fintech, Newsletter, Blockchain, Updates, Cryptocurrency

in On The Couch
React Testing Library Surpasses Enzyme!
By: Malcolm Laing
Tags: Testing, Reactjs, JavaScript, Frontend, React

It’s official, Testing Library (formally known as react-testing-library) has surpassed Enzyme in weekly downloads. While enzyme encourages you to test your component’s implementation, react testing library encourages you to test as a user.

If you are still using enzyme, now is a great time to learn how to use testing library.

To help you get started, here are three of our favourite posts about testing.

A deep dive into testing a CRUD React application using Jest and Testing Library. In this post, we show you how to easily test asynchronous user interactions.

The missing documentation for how to set up testing library with NextJS.

An exploration of testing asynchronous forms using Formik and testing library. Good reading for the developer who is comfortable testing presentational components, but needs a bit more exposure to testing user interactions and asynchronous functions.
Foggy Days…
By: Simone Azevedo
Tags: Human Behavior, Friendship, Humanity, Belief, Pandemic

…or pink lens?

Photo: Simone Azevedo

My mornings usually start the same way: check my phone. Partially because I text my son every night so, when I don’t get an answer immediately, I have a good reason to check early in the morning.

He doesn’t know but this grounds me. Gives me a sense of connectivity. Even when he answers with a short “goodnight”. It really makes my day.

Checking my phone early in the morning requires one more step: get my glasses.

I can read some stuff without it. Distance is my friend. Too close and is all blurred.

I remember reading a book years ago. The girl would see the world with a pink lens: all beautiful, calm, peaceful, perfect.

I am, most of the time, optimistic and excited about the world. Almost like the girl in that book. Not naïve, but prefer to see the “good side” of things.

Lately, it is just a bit more complex: my glasses seem to be foggy, dirt.

I wonder if I am losing faith in humanity.

Well, not fair. Maybe I had a pink lens before.

I can’t quite grasp it but start to realize that some of my concepts about relationships might be old, not up-to-date. I don’t know.

This is poking holes in my beliefs.

One day everybody wants to “Zoom”; the next day nobody has time.

One day we miss hugging our parents; the next day better to stay away from family.

One day you enjoy working from home; the next day you miss the office hallways.

Humans are strange creatures.

I am struggling with the definition of a few words: friendship, missing, support.

Will all change after the vaccine is available? Will it ever be the same? I doubt.

I just need to update my dictionary — or clear my glasses.
Tanki aPoo the Wonder Dog. A tanka for Tanki
By: Terry Mansfield
Tags: Poetry, Dogs, Cell Phones, Humor, Tanka

A tanka for Tanki

Photo of Tanki aPoo provided by Kurt Gasbarra

This tanka poem hereby immortalizes Tanki aPoo, friend Kurt Gasbarra’s amazing, cell phone-using wonder dog.

Note: As promised, I wrote this tanka poem for Kurt Gasbarra in honor of his beloved Tanki aPoo. Be sure to check out Kurt’s unique poetry.

__________________

Thanks for reading.

Check out my stories on Vocal Media.

These are my most popular pieces, with many thousands of Reads:
Submissions
By: Dan Canon
Tags: Legal Scholarship, I Taught The Law, Law, Submissions

If you have something you’d like to see published in I Taught the Law, please send an email with your Medium handle to itaughtthelaw@gmail.com. We’ll add you as a writer. Once you have your article drafted in Medium, and you’ve been added as a writer, click the three dots in the upper-right hand corner and then “Add to Publication.” This will not immediately publish your piece; we still get a crack at it.

Please note that adding you as a writer does not mean that you will be published here. It just means that you have the ability to submit. We will still review all submissions before publication. We might also do some minor copy editing, because we’re writing professors and we can’t help ourselves. If we want to make any changes to substance, we’ll run those by you first.

If you don’t have a Medium handle, then you’ll need to email your submission along with a brief (one paragraph) bio. From there, the process is pretty much the same.

We don’t pay for submissions. Maybe someday we’ll be able to do that, but not today. We will share your stuff via our social media accounts and all that. We’ll also be very grateful.

We are still figuring out what sort of publication this is, so for now, any article related to “the law” in any way will be considered. We’re mostly interested in good writing, in plain English, on topics that haven’t been done to death or that you have some personal experience with.

Here’s what you should NOT bother submitting:

Advertisements for products or services

Links to other stuff you’ve already published, unless you can prove that we can reprint it in full without getting in trouble

Self-serving praise (unless you really, really deserve it)

Anything that may qualify as libel (if you aren’t sure what that is, we can recommend some law schools to attend)

A note about citations: We encourage you to show your work, but let’s face it — no one reads endnotes. Please provide hyperlinks as much as you think is appropriate, even if you’re just citing to Wikipedia or whatever. If you’re a legal professional, remember that our goal is to bring law stuff to non-lawyers, so hyperlinks to your arcane terms and esoteric references are appreciated.

We also encourage you to use Perma Links to freeze the websites you reference in time. That way, the editors won’t get messages about dead links six months from now. Those make us grumpy.

If you have any other questions, get in touch with us. We’re pretty easy to find.
The Significance of a Mental Health Day
By: Lindsey, Lazarte
Tags: Culture, Millennials, Advice, Life, Mental Health

In the past, when life was not as progressive as it is today, the roles that we played in our lives were somewhat limited. In particular, women played the sole role of Mother, stay-at-home wife, and homemaker while men played the sole role of worker and breadwinner for the household.

Now, with equal rights and the abundance of opportunities that are open to women, we have boldly stepped into a life of multiple roles, while simultaneously juggling the role of Mother and homemaker. In the BuzzFeed article, Petersen goes on to write,

“Millennial burnout often works differently among women, and particularly straight women with families. Part of this has to do with what’s known as “the second shift” — the idea that women who’ve moved into the workplace do the labor of a job and then come home and perform the labor of a homemaker…But sociologist Judy Wajcman found that in heterosexual couples, that simply wasn’t the case: Less domestic labor takes place overall, but that labor still largely falls on the woman.”

Though, I’m not yet a Mother or wife, the weight of the roles that I play in my life very much wear me down.

If you look at anyone’s Instagram or Twitter bio today, you’ll often times find a list of identities separated by commas — such as Artist, Consultant, Mother, Entrepreneur, Triathlete, Musician, etc.

We pride ourselves in the many roles that we uphold. I, personally, pride myself in the ability to juggle marathon training, freelance writing, working a 9–5 office job, being a girlfriend, a sister, a daughter, a friend,

However, all of these roles, identities, and responsibilities that we juggle on a daily basis can set us up for both mental and physical burnout. And when this happens, we need to be aware of it.

We need to take a step back, unplug, rest, and relax.

We need to understand the significance of a mental health day. And we need to realize that this burnout lifestyle is not sustainable. As Petersen writes towards the conclusion of her article,

“But individual action isn’t enough. Personal choices alone won’t keep the planet from dying, or get Facebook to quit violating our privacy. To do that, you need paradigm-shifting change.”

We need to collectively make a conscious decision to change the current norm of work standards and living standards. If we don’t, we’ll plummet into a state of burnout that could ultimately affect our emotional, mental, and physical well-being. Because if we want change, we need to take it into our own hands.
What’s the Aha Moment?
By: Daniel Morales
Tags: Books, Daily Challenges, Book Review, Books And Authors, Book Recommendations

What’s the Aha Moment?

Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown

This is the moment that the utility of the product really clicks for the users; when the users really get the core value — what the product is for, why they need it, and what benefit they derive from using it. Or in other words, why that product is a “must have”. This experience is what turns early adopters into power users and evangelists.

For instance, for Yelp, that experience was the ability to discover promising local restaurants and businesses through trusted community reviews. For eBay, the aha moment was finding and winning one-of-a-kind items at auction from people all over the world. For Facebook, it was instantly seeing photos and updates from friends and family and sharing what you were up to. From Dropbox, it was the concept of easy file sharing and unlimited file storage. Or take Uber’s aha moment, which Uber co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick explained as, “You push a button and a black car comes up. Who’s the baller? It was a baller move to get a black car to arrive in 8 minutes.” An aha experience is a necessary ingredient of sustainable growth because it is one that is simply too remarkable not to value, to return to often, and to share.

Thus the key to knowing when it’s time to start the high-tempo push for growth is simple: Can you identify an aha moment that users love?

Today’s Challenge

What’s the aha moment?

Today Challenge’s Options

Solve here: https://www.bookcademy.com/home/show_daily_challenges/what-s-the-aha-moment
BTRIC commits to the Blockchain Defensive Patent License
By: Blockchain Technology Research Innovations Corp.
Tags: Patents, Blockchain, Startup, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

Photo by Sebastian Pichler on Unsplash

As you know, BTRIC is committed to operating as a completely transparent organization. We are committed to helping other organizations increase their transparency by adopting the best practices that we create and maintain to their own organizations. We believe that the intellectual property — patents, source code, concepts, standards, and best-practices guidance — that enable the transformative paradigm-shift now taking place is simply too valuable to be subject to restrictive patents, licenses, or other encumbrances that hinder their use for any purpose. We commit to making the intellectual property we create available to all. Specific to any patents we are ever granted, we commit to this offering pursuant to the Blockchain Defensive Patent License. We encourage all participants in the industry to adopt permissive licensing models to the extent possible. Everyone should benefit from a level playing field. That is part of what we, and so many others, are working to achieve.

Learn more about the Blockchain Defensive Patent License on this website:

Learn more about BTRIC on this website:
The best of Dynamics 365, in Flock
Tags: Apps, Business Intelligence, CRM, Productivity, Flock

The best of Dynamics 365, in Flock

Get real-time business intelligence in your favorite work chat app

Flock now integrates with Microsoft Dynamics 365 to offer you easier access to business critical reports and sales intelligence — all within Flock.

Teams use Dynamics 365 to find the right info at the right time to move their business forward. And now, Flock allows your team to get all that info right where you need it the most — in your favorite work chat app.

Reports from Microsoft Dynamics 365 in Flock

Daily summaries, weekly comparisons and more — you can configure this integration to share data on metrics that matter to you and your team. And making this magic happen is as simple as 1–2–3!

Install the Microsoft Dynamics 365 app from Flock’s app store. Configure the app and select which reports you’d like to receive. Go back to Flock and see actionable insights pouring in, in real-time.

If that’s too simple for your taste, here’s the process in a little more detail:

Install the app (duh!)

Go to the Flock app store and search for the Microsoft Dynamics 365 app.

Or click here to go to the app page, and click on Install.

Tell it what to do (double duh!)

Fill in your team’s Microsoft Dynamics URL. It might look something like yourorg.crm.dynamics.com.

Select which metrics you’d like to receive reports on and their frequency.

Select which Flock channel you’d like to send these reports to.

Kick back and relax (huh?!)

No, seriously, that’s all. Just kick back, relax, and you’ll see real-time reports on metrics show up in the Flock channel of your choice.

Icing on the cake? You can configure the Microsoft Dynamics 365 app to send different reports to different channels so every team member has access to the data they need, right when and where they need it.

So, there you go. No more shuffling tabs and juggling apps. You can now receive real-time business intelligence in Flock, discuss it, work on it together, and get things done, faster. Also, if your team uses a different CRM, check out the apps for Freshdesk and Zendesk in Flock’s app store.

Let us know how your team uses these apps to be more productive. Cheers!
Don’t bring me flowers
By: D Abboh
Tags: Lyrics, Relationships, Storytelling, Love Letters

don’t bring me flowers through the sunshine or the pouring rain

I don’t need you to walk a thousand miles falling at my feet — with your every bone broken in a tragic heap

I need you to bring me what’s troubling your peace of mind, bring me what lights the fires behind the glints in your eyes

bring me your low lights and lonely hours before dawn and after midnight, bring me the ghost stories haunting you until the sunrise

bring me the simple makings of your biggest smiles, bring me the ash from the smoke in your chest when you get high for awhile

bring me your weekend vibes on a Monday morning, sweet Soul melodies as we’re yawning

bring me those thoughts that make you feel jealous and crazy when you think too much, bring me the changes you’re going through — bring me your butterfly love

bring me your spilled out guts, bring me your tears and cry to me, but only if you still believe in this thing called love, and I am that one you are thinking of

bring me your head full of adventures, bring me your pockets full of dreams, bring me your Oceans and rivers, let’s ride waves — sail away like islands in the stream

bring me you falling down when things fall apart, bring me how you rise again despite a broken heart

bring me the grit that keeps you alive, surviving now so you can thrive

bring me that flawed someone who sees the human in me, bring me your joy and your doubts and some reciprocity

let’s breathe it all in, one breath at a a time, the fragrance of this messy life, the scent of you and I, read our blueprints like maps across our backs, exchanging pieces of soul — let’s start forever with all of that

just don’t bring me flowers if you won’t bring me you, that’s all I really need for you to do
“Mint az élesztő, ahogy megkeleszti a tésztát.” — Csókási Zsolt (Magyar Telekom) a design érettségről
By: Katinka Boros
Tags: In House Design, Consultant, Customer Journey Map, Service Design, Service Designer

Our publication is a (kind of) personal journal of meet. We tell stories about our work to inspire you. We also tell stories about our mistakes so you don’t make the same ones. We tell our stories but want to hear yours too. So let’s meet.

Follow
超過截止日期才開始跑流程的法國博士班申請經驗分享
By: Jamie Lin
Tags: France, PhD, Application

因為校方遲遲無法排出面試時間，在九月中我先收到了預先註冊通知，過不久也收到了九月底的面試通知，校方給的面試規則如下：

15 minutes of presentation followed by 15 minutes of questions by all the members of the jury. Given the multidisciplinary composition of the jury, your scientific presentation has to be oriented “consumer”.
8 Publications To Kick Start Your Medium Journey
By: Ash Jurberg
Tags: Advice, Writing, Life, Writing Tips, Success

8 Publications To Kick Start Your Medium Journey

For new or emerging writers this is a great way to grow your audience

Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash

Updated: November 2020

You’ve decided to write on Medium.

Congrats — this is your first step to Jeff Bezos type wealth. Or not.

Either way, you need to make a start and the journey of 1000 miles starts with the first step.

You may be the best writer in the world, but if no one sees it, it doesn’t matter. One way to build an audience is to get published in a Medium publication. Then your stories are shared with their subscribers.

There are thousands of publications — ranging from those with only a handful of subscribers to the big ones like The Startup which have over 600,000. Some are no longer active so it can take time and research to work out the best strategy to submit your work.

Many aim big from the start. They start by applying to the biggest publications they can find and there are articles to help you do this:

It can be tempting to start at the top — but when you’re a novice writer, a far better strategy is to target the smaller publications. They generally respond quickly and are more open to giving opportunities to new and emerging writers.

It can be a great confidence boost to get a story accepted and watch your stats increase. It will help you build your writing portfolio. You can grow with a small publication. Build an engaging relationship with their audience. And by association build your own following.

Here are eight publications you should apply to as an emerging writer.
Why LGBTQ+ People Aren’t “Just Like Everyone Else”
By: Danny Jackson H.
Tags: Transgender, Gay, LGBTQ, Diversity, Queer

Why LGBTQ+ People Aren’t “Just Like Everyone Else”

We’re inherently different and there’s nothing wrong with celebrating that.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

A few days ago, I read a wonderful article by fellow LGBTQ+ writer James Finn about Burger King’s history with “rainbow capitalism,” which is whenever a brand uses some kind of message in their advertising that is supportive of LGBTQ+ people.

Ever since I first began seeing these kinds of ads around 2012 or so, I’ve had mixed feelings about them. On one hand, it’s nice to see companies not only acknowledging that queer people exist but actively showing their support for us. It also lets me know which of my homophobic Facebook friends to avoid based on who gets offended at these ads.

On the other hand, it sometimes feels disingenuous. In many cases, it seems like they’re capitalizing on the fact that supporting LGBTQ+ rights is sort of “trendy” these days. Also, it often feels as though these ads were written by straight people.

I especially got this vibe from Burger King’s 2014 Proud Whopper ad campaign that James mentioned in his article.

Essentially, Burger King customers were asked if they’d like to try a new burger called the Proud Whopper. Some customers in the video believed that it tasted slightly different from the regular Whopper. However, it was later revealed that it was the same burger. The only difference was that it came in a rainbow-striped wrapper that said, “We are all the same inside.”

At first glance, this seems incredibly supportive. I’ll admit, it was very cute to see people in the video get emotional over a burger that validated their identities.

But something about that message rubs me the wrong way.

Sure, I get what this ad campaign is trying to do. It’s attempting to show customers, many of whom are straight and may not be entirely supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, that queer people are just like anyone else, except for their sexual orientation or gender identity. I understand how this message can help the non-queer population grow a little more comfortable with us.

But this idea isn’t correct.

Many straight or cisgender allies try to show their support for us by claiming that we’re “just like everyone else” on the inside. The truth is that we’re not, though.

Yes, we’re still regular human beings. I get that point that they’re trying to make. But your gender and sexual orientation play a major role in your personality, whether most people consciously realize it or not.
Chalkboard Thoughts — Dec 17, 2020 — Episode 5 — Christmas Baubles
By: Michael De Groot
Tags: Whiteboard Animation, Storytelling, Blackboardthoughts, Shareyourstory, Stayingaliveuk

As we were coming out of an imposed 2nd lockdown here in the U.K., the government had the foresight to announce that we would have relaxed rules between 23rd and 27th December to celebrate Christmas with family, allowing us to travel and mix with 3 other households. The guidance can be found here, please study it carefully. Since then infection rates, which had been going down have steadily been going up, so much so that many areas in the Southeast of England have had to go into Tier 3. You can learn about your own area restrictions, by going here and entering your post code.

These relaxed few days over Christmas are called ‘bubbles’ and nobody in the press or so far in comedy programs has renamed these ‘bubbles’ as Christmas ‘baubles’, which would be a natural thing to do of course?

Thanks to my dear wife Clair, she came up with this other term and we rolled around the kitchen in fits of laughter!
Additional Security of Bit Trade Accounts
By: Bitbon System
Tags: Asset Management, Trading, Exchange, Security, Cryptocurrency Investment

Recently, cases of hacking into personal profiles, e-wallets, various social media accounts, etc. have become more frequent all over the world. First of all, this problem concerns the Internet users who do not use all the tools offered by different resources for maximum protection of personal details. More often, this is due to lack of awareness among users that such tools exist.

Taking into account the previously described trend, we would like to additionally remind you that there are two ways of securing your accounts on the website of the Bit Trade Exchange of Digital Assets:

Create a strong password, which will contain letters, digits and other characters (for example: mv254Cu!XFRo#A). Only you know this password, and it will not be used concurrently on other internet resources ;

; Set up two-factor authentication (2FA). In fact, this is a method of two-level protection:

The first level is your Email and password, and the second one is a temporary confirmation code (2FA) to log in to your Bit Trade account. This code is required for each new login to your Bit Trade account. It consists of six digits and is generated in the Google Authenticator app. Please note that the temporary 2FA code is only valid for 30 seconds, after which it is automatically updated in the app.

It is also important to note that now, in order to transfer your Bitbons to Assetboxes of other Bitbon System Users, the use of the BTSC protection code (Bitbon Transfer Security Code) is compulsory. So, if you have not previously used this tool, you must set this code value on the “Security Settings” page in the “My Profile” section on the bit.trade website. The accompanying step-by-step information, displayed when setting the BTSC, will allow you to do this in just a few clicks.

Based on the foregoing, our Company offers Bit Trade Customers to pay special attention to creating a strong password and, if necessary, to strengthen Customers’ valid passwords and use additional tools to protect their Assets and personal details in their Bit Trade accounts.
New Tricks Help Sentinel Raise Over $300 Million
By: Jason Mcmahon
Tags: Business, Technology, Australia, Digital Marketing, ABC

Yesterday, this topic was broached on 612 ABC Brisbane radio, as our Managing Director joined his mentor-turned-mentoree, Michael Sherlock to discuss their experience.

Listen to the whole interview here: https://soundcloud.com/user-747468731-727041018/bambrick-media-sentinel-abc-interview

In our fast-paced and ever-changing world, keeping up with new technologies and information is ongoing and never-ending. The technology that only a few years ago was considered revolutionary is now outdated and simple, everyday tasks have been transformed in ways we wouldn’t have imagined.

The same goes for our relationships. When once it was once almost exclusively older generations teaching younger generations, we now see the opposite.

When we think of mentoring, we conjure up images of the more experienced cohort sitting down patiently to provide much-needed advice to Gen X, Y and Z. Now, often it’s these younger generations passing on their knowledge to those who once taught them.

Reverse-mentoring is a revolution that we are all aware of on some level, yet rarely speak about.

This intriguing interview, hosted by Kelly Higgins-Devine, explored with humour the ways in which traditional working relationships have been altered by the new digital world.

“Can you teach old dogs new tricks?” Kelly asked at the opening of the interview.

Some may not think so, but Tim and Michael have proved them wrong.

So what’s Tim and Michael’s story?

Michael Sherlock is a high-profile business leader who transformed Brumbies from an ailing bakery business to the second largest bakery franchise system in Australasia. His relationship with Tim didn’t start until recent years, however, until Michael entered his current role as Chief Marketing Officer at Sentinel Property Group, and Tim decided to try his hand at franchising.

“I had sold Brumbies and I needed to reinvent myself,” Michael explained. “Tim approached me to help him in the franchising area.”

Around that time Michael was placed in charge of raising money from high-net-worth individuals for Sentinel. Traditional marketing wouldn’t suffice, so Michael turned to his mentoree for solutions.

While Michael admitted he was a bit cautious of the digital world to begin with, this twist on traditional mentoring resulted in exceptional success.

“We’ve been able to raise around $300 million from individuals without even placing an ad and we’ve done it all digitally by using all of the tricks I’ve learnt from Tim in the reverse mentoring scenario.”

While this success was due to digital marketing tactics such as Remarketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Michael has also experienced success on social media.

“I got into Twitter because that’s a bit funky,” Michael said. “Now I’m global and I’m trending. I’ve got about 400 followers.”

So does reverse mentoring work? “It’s just a two-way exchange and learning from somebody else,” Michael says.
Why I Think Banning Books Is Stupid
By: Hargun Singh
Tags: Books, Storytelling, Writing, Life, Censorship

I think banned books should be allowed and judged by whether they are appropriate or not. The reasons some people might ban books in schools is because they might not only be inappropriate, with language usage and images, there might be some things that are out of the code of conduct for the school.

As Neil Gaiman once said, “I don’t think there is such a thing as a bad book for children. Every now and then it becomes fashionable among some adults to point at a subset of children’s books, a genre, perhaps, or an author, and to declare them bad books, books that children should be stopped from reading… It’s tosh. It’s snobbery and it’s foolishness.”

Neil is saying that kids have options to read but every once in awhile the adults should choose the things you read. So I think that most times you should have the freedom to read what you want. The people that should have the job to choose the books you read are you and your parents.
Introducing UpStride’s Open-Source Image-Classification API
Tags: Computer Vision, Open Source, Programming, Image Classification, Deep Learning

How Can You Use It?

Everything is pure TensorFlow — with its latest version. It’s super stable and reliable, and it can scale up to a data center of GPUs. We have many functions preprocessing that you can configure. The training-model part is in TensorFlow 2, where everything is neat and clean. The export part is the same — you can export in few lines of code.

You only have to write a simple configuration file to leverage the API. Then you can specify which model architecture you want, point to your data folder, list the different data-augmentation strategies, and set the hyperparameters.

On top of this, you can run it with a simple command:

Make run starts the environment

Clean neural-net architectures

Start your project with verified and tested neural-net architectures, such as MobileNet, ResNet, VGGNet, EfficientNet, nasnet, and more. All of these are verified and tested internally.

Data-augmentation strategies

Choose from a list of options — ranging from random geometric transformations to color jittering.

Data-pipeline creation

Use the latest optimization from the TensorFlow data pipeline, with TF record processing, cache management, and data parallelism already set up.

Training on multiple GPUs

Make the best use of your computing resources by choosing from a series of options, such as distributed strategy, mirror strategy, asynchronous strategy, Horovod, and more.

Export

Quickly export or save your trained model, and start deploying efficiently using TensorRT.

Reporting

Quickly collect logs from TensorBoard, and choose from a list of options for visualization.

Our code is also intended to be very modular. If you want to implement new strategies or training methods, such as architecture search, it’s relatively easy. The only part that changes is the training part. Instead of just doing a loop and fitting models, you can do two loops — one that’ll fit the model and one that’ll fit the architecture search. If you want to implement a new training paradigm, it’s also possible.

Within UpStride, we use the API to gather all of our classification projects. It helps us avoid creating long Git branches, ensures we can easily reproduce experiments, and makes sure our benchmarks are run on the same source code as TensorFlow and that any improvements made on code features impact everyone.
Why do people pay for live TV? News.
By: Paul Dughi
Tags: News, Television, Streaming, Cord Cutting, Cable

We’ve heard so much about cord-cutting in the past few years. As streaming has increased, broadband-only homes are on the rise and now make up as much as 37% of homes, according to Kagan.

If you’re wondering why those still paying for satellite or cable haven’t joined the cord-cutter movement, we have the answer:

The majority of Americans that pay for live television say the main reason is local and/or cable news, according to a new study done by Civic Science.
National Currencies Need Not Be a Ponzi Scheme
By: Wael Itani
Tags: Economics, Money, Justice, Technology, Economy

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

As the Lebanese cautiously rejoiced their national currency recovering more than 20% of its value against the United States Dollar, Harvard fellow and former banker Dan Azzi announced on Twitter that the Lira market is being manipulated with a massive, unnatural injection of the dollars.

Dan Azzi tweets “Lira market being manipulated with a massive, unnatural injection of $” following the sharp recovery of the LBP/USD exchange rate accompanying the reappointment of a former Prime Minister.

A back of envelope calculation made its way into the replies. Assuming a $7 million daily market, injecting $2 million dollars daily with the willingness to lose 20% of its value could have been pushing exchange rate. Effectively, at a cost of $400 thousand a day, “you can turn a whole population into poverty or into a more affordable life.”
Registration for #CTIF2020 now OPEN
By: Civictech Contributor
Tags: Civictech, Civic Tech Network, Civic Engagement, Ctif2020, Events

The Civic Tech Innovation Network is bringing the civic tech community together this March. This event is for all people who are interested in how new technologies could enable better services and relationships between government and citizens.

We invite you to come and be a part of this exciting community event! We invite the civic tech community, government and non-governmental organisations including techies, activists, current and potential civic tech users, students and the digital media community to join us at the Civic Tech Innovation Forum taking place on the 18–20 March 2020.

The annual conferences are intended to enable network members to engage face to face, learn about innovations, tools and techniques, share experiences and meet potential collaborators. They present an opportunity to gain an overview of what is going on in the sector in South Africa, Africa and the world. They also provide an opportunity for CTIN to consult with network members to inform the design of future activities.

We have put together an exciting programme, including opening plenaries, exhibitions from African civic tech initiatives, workshops tackling many civic tech related issues and civic tech masterclasses by leading civic tech players. .

Here is why you should register and attend #CTIF2020

We have exciting local and international speakers including
Third “Sex and the City” Movie Threatened
By: Choire Sicha
Tags: Idk, Why Not, Movies

In this one, the first 40 minutes are just the ladies on a rooftop in Williamsburg, throwing rotten vegetables at the 20-somethings below. Then Miranda does a $12-million Kickstarter to fund her new boutique law firm. Charlotte fires her household staff. Samantha has sex with some men. Carrie, now single, writes a column for XO Jane and, whilst picking up her $45 check in the office, meets Lena Dunham and then goes home and hangs herself. Sounds good, can’t wait!
Good Night, Sweet Eclair
By: Josh Kiev
Tags: Tiny Life Moments, Grief, Pets, Loss, Love

Good Night, Sweet Eclair

A Tiny Moment of “Saying Goodbye to a Loved One”

Published by Author. Goodnight Sweet Girl!

The Moment

Six weeks ago I wrote about my cat, Eclair, who was in the last stages of renal failure, and how she had been saying goodbyes for a while now. Nightly visits when I went to bed, extra snuggles, and howling in the morning. I think the howl was her trying to communicate with us that she was hurt and needed our help.

She fought bravely, struggled to take medicine, but wouldn’t go without our permission. She finally told us please, and stopped eating. We took her to the vet this past Friday, hoping we might have a little more time with her, but she decided she was ready to go. We left heartbroken.

The Reflection

I guess we sort of blocked it out but she was pretty ill. It’s easy to just assume your pet will always be there and as long as they are sort of functioning you can cope. Cats are stoic anyway and will just fight through it as if to say, “Hey, people, I know you’re not as smart as me, but will you pay attention!”

I think an indoor cat has a difficult time going when it is their time. They say a cat in the wild will slink off and go seclude themselves when they’re ready to leave this place. Residing mainly inside, they can’t leave and feel like they still have to watch over their home companions. You are living in their world, duh!

I keep looking around for her, calling out her name, and patting the bed. Even though I know she’s gone, I don’t want her to be. She did so many things that she won’t anymore.

Some people might look at them as only pets, but when you love something unconditionally and take care of it and see them off it’s painstaking. We kept after her to the end. On her last day with us, she rubbed us through her cat carrier and said goodbye. We told her how much we loved her and thanked her for taking care of us.

The Takeaway
The Trumpet Player
By: Esther Spurrill-Jones
Tags: Canada, Memories, Creative Non Fiction, LGBTQ, Memoir

The air is diamond bright and sharp, a chill biting at my face. I place my feet carefully, walking over the snow between the rows of white crosses toward the cenotaph. I join the scattered group of others standing in a loose ring around the towering memorial.

Colours so bright. Blood red poppies placed on white crosses in the snow. Green trees reaching for the sky. My coworker’s bright pink coat. The white marble of the cenotaph against the crystal blue sky.

The trumpet player stands in front of the cenotaph, black jacket and pants clinging to a slight body. Their hair is short, sleek, dark. They lift a silver trumpet from its velvet nest and check the valves and mouthpiece. I am entranced.

Children chatter and giggle to their classmates. Military members march in formation, white gloved hands swinging at their sides, uniforms crisp in the November air. A hush falls over those gathered as a high school student stands to read “In Flanders Fields.”

The trumpet player puts their trumpet to their lips, silver catching the sun as the first notes of “The Last Post” ring out across the cemetery. White gloved fingers dance over the valves and I forget the cold. I can’t take my eyes off them.

As the last notes fade away, groups step up in turn to lay wreaths at the base of the cenotaph. I watch the trumpet player carefully lay their trumpet in its case, nestled in red felt. I watch them stand up and fold their delicate gloved hands. I watch them watch as the wreaths are laid. My chest is tight and my hands tremble.

The Remembrance Day ceremony ends and each person turns to leave, slowly making their way back to school or work.

I never see the trumpet player again. I never spoke to them. I will never know their name. But I will always remember that moment, crystallized in time, standing in a snowy cemetery in November. I will always remember that beautiful person, so perfect in form and grace. I will always remember that silver trumpet, those white gloved hands, that fine boned face. I will always remember.