fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Maybe Trump’s advisers are the problem
By: Jd Rucker
Tags: White House, Reince Priebus, Politics, John Boehner, Donald Trump

Trump supporters will say, “well, duh.” Trump detractors will say either (1) he shouldn’t have surrounded himself with Establishment morons and liberal manipulators, or (2) Trump would have made poor decisions regardless of his advisers.

It doesn’t behoove me to give the President the benefit of the doubt from a political perspective because all of Trump’s poor decisions bode well for the Federalist Party. However, as an American who puts country before party, I’m hopeful that a shakeup might be good enough to get him going in the right direction. Besides, if he shakes things up and continues to make poor decisions, the blame can be squarely and without a shred of doubt placed squarely on his shoulders.

The most recent observation of poor advisers comes in the form of one of the poorest, Reince Priebus. His latest egregious act was allegedly to bring in another Establishment tool from days past, John Boehner, to push Trump towards signing the Democrats’ dream spending package. According to Axios:

When the spending bill had been negotiated and finalized, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus phoned the former House Speaker John Boehner and told him the president doesn’t like how the negotiation came out and is thinking about vetoing the bill. Boehner has told associates that Priebus asked him if he could talk Trump into signing the spending bill. Boehner said he would.

Again, I’m not making excuses for Trump, but I’d prefer that he turn his ship back towards the right rather than continue his leftward lurch.

If he gets rid of Priebus, that would be a step in the right direction. From there, all he has to do is rid himself of McMaster, Tillerson, Kushner, Ivanka, and half of his senior staff. Then, at least, we might have a chance of this not being a third Democratic Presidential term.

Originally published on Soshable.
How To Save Like A 6-Year-Old
By: Katrina Angco
Tags: Kids, Self Improvement, Saving Money, Personal Finance, Budget

Saving money is easy (and fun!) when you get back to basics.

Doing things is way more fun than waiting, but that doesn’t mean 6-year-old kids don’t save. We do, and some of us are really good at it. Saving money can be fun when you have the right tools. A fun piggy bank can help, and buckets make it easy to see how much money you have saved. Just remember to keep it simple.

Get Piggy

A piggy bank is great for allowance money. While as a grown up you aren’t likely to buy a piggy bank for your savings, you can do the same thing online with Piggy. This free service gives you coupon codes while you shop for stuff online; that way, you know you’re always getting the best deal AND you can see how much you save. Install Piggy on Google Chrome Now

Check with Mom

We always check with Mom before big purchases. While you may not be running things past your parents, you may have other important people in your life, like your kids, your spouse, or someone else. When you talk with these people about your spending goals, you can make decisions that make everyone happy — and what could be more fun than that?

Mom (and the important people in your life) just want what’s best for you.

Saving Adds Up

Saving your change can really add up over time. We’re 6 years old, so we know that if we save some of our pocket money each week we can get something bigger — and you can, too! Putting aside a little bit every week makes it easy to get what you want — like a cool Lego set or a pair of sparkly shoes.

Cash Is Easy

Children also know the value of cash. We don’t know anything about using credit cards or buying something with a loan. We either have the money or we don’t. This makes us picky in ways that adults with credit cards generally aren’t, and it ensures that we always get the exact thing we’ve been wanting.

Cash is king, so keep away that credit card — and earn as much “cash back” as possible w/ Piggy

Cash Back Counts

Finally, remember that cash back is a beautiful thing. You can use apps like Piggy to earn up to 20 percent cash back on the purchases you make online — it’s like saving automatically and it is easy (Okay. A 6-year-old wouldn’t think of that, but it’s a good tip).

Saving money is easy (and fun!) when you get back to basics. Never spend more than you have, and don’t be afraid to save up for big purchases instead of charging them. And remember to never overpay again, with Piggy.
How one kidnap started World War II in the Netherlands- The Venlo incident
By: Karthick Nambi
Tags: History, Europe, World War II, World, War

Fischer was a refugee from Germany to Holland. Fischer was able to convince British Secret Intelligence that he has contacts in Germany. The latter wanted to end Hitler’s rule and make peace in Europe.

Sigismund Payne Best was assigned the task to coordinate Fischer. Best was a World War I veteran. He ran a spy network from the Hague and married a Dutch woman.

Major Stevens accompanied Best in his meetings with Fischer. Fischer discussed a possible plan to overthrow Hitler and to declare peace in Europe. After he won the trust of Best, Fischer introduced Walter Schelelndberg to Best.



Walter Schellenberg was a SS officer and head of for foreign intelligence in the Third Reich. He was the protege of Heinrich Himmler, the SS head, and had close contact with Reinhard Heydrich.

Schellenberg will be responsible for the kidnap attempt on the Duke and Duchess on Windsor in Portugal and also attempts to contact British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill throughCoco Chanel to negotiate separate surrender terms. Schellenberg ran several German spy network across Europe in World War II.

The Venlo Incident:

Reconstruction of the kidnap.Source-Wikipedia

Himmler received regular updates on the operations with Best from Schellenberg.

Schellenberg convinced Britain that it is possible to overthrow Hitler and an allied Britain, and Germany could take on Soviet Russia. Once Best was confident that he is in talks with a high-ranking Nazi official, Himmler gave the green signal to kidnap Best and others.

Best got a request to meet at the town of Venlo in a restaurant, Cafe Buckus, near the border. The Dutch security services sent Lieutenant Klop with Best and Major Stevens.



Fischer, along with Schellenberg and Schutzstaffel(SS) personals, entered the restaurant and threatened the Best and party. Lt Klop shot with his gun as a counteraction but was injured due to return fire by SS.

Best, Stevens, and Lt Klop were hurdled into a car and driven to Berlin. Lt Klop later died due to the wounds in a hospital in Dusseldorf. Himmler linked the British spy action with the attempt to kill Hitler in Bürgerbräukeller by Georg Elser.

The worst part of the incident was that Best carried a list of British intelligence service personals in Europe, which fell in the hands of Germany. The list put the entire British espionage operations in Europe at risk

Aftermath:

German troops enter Amsterdam.Source-Wikipedia

The involvement of Dutch security officer Lt Klopp in the spy action became a pretext for the German invasion of Holland. Germany accused that the Netherlands had joined hands with Britain to kill Hitler and to create chaos in Germany.

The deception action played out by Germany ultimately was used as a reason for the German invasion of the upper countries like the Netherlands. After the Venlo incident, British intelligence moved its operations entirely out of Europe until Churchill became prime minister of Britain and established the Special Operations Executive, or SOE
Reading: The Fake Shock Over Trump
By: Jon Armstrong
Tags: Politics, Link, Trump, 2016 Election

Frank Bruni in Sunday’s NYTimes has a great piece on the feigned shock from Republicans:

Listening to the 2005 recording of Donald Trump’s comments to Billy Bush, I had many reactions. Disgust was one. Amazement was another: I still struggle to comprehend how Americans let Trump get this far.

Which has been my response as well. Surely, the “Family Values” party of a decade ago would never nominate Trump. And I’ve wondered if this final straw for so many Republicans is that there is a truth they can’t escape in the video footage.

Bruni:

But surprise at what he actually said? Please. And I don’t believe for a nanosecond that it’s what the Republicans now denouncing and even fleeing him felt. The biggest shock is their charade of it, because the recording revealed nothing new.

Finally, I agree, as do so many of those I follow on Twitter, with this point:

Any Republicans who are discovering and proclaiming moral outrage only now aren’t entitled to it. They should have found it on any number of previous occasions.

The Fake Shock Over Trump
A Girl Named Lucky and Boy Called Sorrow
By: Matti Engelbrecht
Tags: Love, Poem, Life, Poetry, Creative Writing

Photo by Marius Muresan on Unsplash

A girl named Lucky and Boy called Sorrow,

Together, gliding through the dancefloor.

He’s in a black suit, she in the white dress,

together on the dancefloor in tide embrace.

A girl named Lucky, Boy called Sorrow.

Pretty rose, in shrub full of thorns

Both happy and sad,

Torn by default.

A girl named Lucky and Boy called Sorrow.

He is the groom, she is his bride.

We are their wedding guests.

Waiting for what will happen.
Exposed — A Lightweight Kotlin SQL Library
By: Siva Ganesh Kantamani
Tags: Programming, Kotlin, Database, Sql, Android

Queries

At this point, we have a database connection and have created tables, meaning we’re ready to store and retrieve data from the database. Thanks to the Kotlin extensions feature, we don’t need to do much work. The Exposed framework contains extension functions to perform database queries in the easiest way possible.

selectAll

This function is used to get all of the rows and columns inside of the table into a query format. We can use the Kotlin map function to transform the result into an appropriate format. Have a look:

Selecting a subset of columns

Now, it’s not always required to get all of the columns into the table. For example, to show a movies list, we only need a movie name and image. For this, Exposed has an inbuilt solution using the slice function. Have a look:

Inserting data

To create a row in the table, we can use the insert function. Have a look:

Actors.insert {

it[name] = "Actor name"

it[image ] = "http://sampleurel.png"

}

Updating data

It’s time to update the data that was already inserted in the database. Similar to insert , we have an update function. Have a look:

Actors.update ({ Actors.actorId eq 3}) {

it[name] = "Captain Marvel"

}

Deleting data

This is the easiest part; we can delete data with the deleteWhere method. This function deletes all the rows which satisfy the passed condition. Have a look:
You Believe
By: Terry Mansfield
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Poem, Self, Poetry, Belief

You Believe

You believe that success only favors the bold.

It doesn’t.

You believe that a just cause ensures you prevail.

It won’t.

You believe that superior ideas guarantee victory.

They don’t.

You believe that God’s on your side no matter what.

He isn’t.
Cynefin Framework, Part 1: Ordered, Unordered, and Confused Domains
By: Andreas Holmer
Tags: Snowden, Cynefin Framework, Leadership, Decision Making

Each week I share ideas on the future of work. And this week, the topic is decision making in a world of constant change.

Why am I writing about this? I’m working on a method to assess organizational agility. And as part of that work, I’ve dug into complexity theory and, with that, Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework. What follows is part 1 of a 2-part introduction. I’m building to think. And this here is a by-product.

A short introduction before we start:

Cynefin is part sense-making device, part decision-making tool. And in this first installment, I’ll focus solely on the sense-making aspect of the framework. Specifically, I’ll focus on the primary and secondary domains used to categorize and understand the context in which decisions are made.

Let’s dig in.
Voyeur
By: Oakley Roberts
Tags: City Living, Nocturnal, Nightlife, Haiku

Haiku is a form of poetry usually inspired by nature, which embraces simplicity. We invite all poetry lovers to have a go at composing Haiku. Be warned. You could become addicted.

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Ten Things That Scare Me
By: Mark Starlin
Tags: Fear, Humor, Other Stories, Politics, Television

I was scared into doing this list by Kyrie Gray. Trust me, you do not want to tangle with Lady Gray. I’ve seen her knock out boxers well above her weight class. [Kidding. Or am I? Bwahaahaahaahaa!]
BitPay Enters Agreement with Bitmain to Develop Open Source Blockchain Security Software
Tags: Bitcoin, Bitpay, Blockchain, Bitmain

BitPay Enters Agreement with Bitmain to Develop Open Source Blockchain Security Software BitPay Follow May 2, 2017 · 3 min read

ATLANTA — MAY 2, 2017 — Today bitcoin payments leader BitPay announced that it has entered into a multi-million dollar development agreement with Bitmain Technologies, the foremost provider of the “mining” hardware used to secure blockchains. Over the course of its multi-year agreement with new customer Bitmain, BitPay will create advanced open source software for the miners, mining pools and full node operators which maintain and secure blockchain transactions.

BitPay will draw on its more than six years of experience in building payment technology and secure open source platforms for payments on the Bitcoin blockchain. BitPay has a long tradition of servicing the most significant companies in blockchain mining hardware and is now pleased to count Bitmain among its customers. BitPay also processes hundreds of millions of dollars in payments yearly for businesses worldwide, including industry leaders like Microsoft, Valve, and PaySafe.

“At BitPay, we recognize that there is an untapped market of mining companies that require more advanced platforms for their businesses than are available today,” said BitPay CEO Stephen Pair. “We value having Bitmain as a customer, and we believe that miners and mining technology providers like Bitmain play a vital role in the security and ongoing success of the Bitcoin blockchain.”

Bitmain is one of the most successful providers of the hardware used to secure blockchain transactions. In recent years, the company has played a major role in hardware innovation to support the exponential growth of Bitcoin — the world’s first and most successful blockchain.

“BitPay has established itself as a leader in open source development for the Bitcoin blockchain,” said Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu. “We believe that together we can make real improvements in how we secure blockchain transactions and grow the impact of blockchain technology in digital payments.”
The Top 16 Websites to Learn Programming in 2020
By: John Selawsky
Tags: Programming, Software Development, Coding, Learn To Code, Learning To Code

The Top 16 Websites to Learn Programming in 2020

Resources to get you started on your coding journey today

So, you’ve chosen the programming language to learn and decided to start browsing all over the Internet looking for a course that will satisfy your requirements. That’s where you may encounter a problem because there are tons of great resources on the web to help newbies learn coding from nothing. The question is: which one to choose?

I’ve put together the top 16 websites I find the best for novices. To begin, I recommend taking a quick look at the chart with pricing and other useful information about each platform.
Automatically Scan Your Slack Workspaces for Confidential Information
By: Jashan Preet Singh
Tags: Management, Programming, Slack, Cybersecurity, Collaboration

The Solution (Slack Watchman)

You need something to keep a constant eye on your Slack workspace. Slack Watchman uses APIs provided by Slack to search for potentially sensitive data exposed in your Slack workspaces.

Here’s a detailed explanation:

Too lazy to read?

Slack Watchman uses the Slack API to query your workspace for:

Externally shared channels.

Potential leaked passwords.

AWS keys.

GCP keys.

Google API keys.

Slack API keys & webhooks.

Twitter API Keys.

Facebook API Keys.

Private keys.

Secret Keys.

Paypal Braintree tokens.

Bank card details.

Certificate files.

Potentially interesting/malicious files (.docm, .xlsm, .zip etc.).

Passport numbers.

Dates of birth.

Paypal Braintree tokens.

Bank card details.

The querying is totally dynamic, you can ask your Personal Slack Watchman to only look for things you think are suspicious and rest will be ignored. So, you have the power of keeping a close on things that matters the most.

Slack Watchman can also output a list of all channels, users, and admins of your workspace so that you can audit for any uninvited guest in your Slack workspace.

You can run Slack Watchman to look for results going back as far as:

24 hours

7 days

30 days

All-time

The best way is to perform an all-time full scan at the time of installation and then keep scanning every 24 hours or 7 days.

The results are stored in a CSV file that you can review and can take action on.
Series — REST API dengan Spring Boot
Tags: Rest Api, Spring Series By Amendo, Software Development, Spring Boot

Easy read, easy understanding. A good writing is a writing that can be understood in easy ways

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The Magic of Chipotle
Tags: Burritos, Vegetarian, Indian, Chipotle

Growing up vegetarian wasn’t easy. Vegetarianism was supposedly a growing trend in the 2000s, along with veganism. Gone were the days of fast food, claimed some. Vegetarianism was the key to losing weight and staying thin!

My family’s reasons for vegetarianism were slightly more traditional and religious. The story went that Hindus considered the cow sacred. Therefore, it was against our ideals to eat any part of the animal we considered sacred. This principle extended to any kind of meat — seafood, pork, chicken, lamb, etc. And since generations of my family on both sides had followed this principle, it made logical sense to continue.

Living in India as a vegetarian would have been fine. But I think the fact that we were living in the US with a fast food joint every other roundabout changed perspective for us. We actively avoided McDonald’s and their French fries, couldn’t stand the smell of Wendy’s and cringed every time an ad for KFC came on television. Taco Bell was one fast food place where we found small solace with sour cream in our chalupas and Mexican sauce that made our mouths water wistfully. But still, it wasn’t until I was 11 that we discovered Chipotle, which changed everything.

A new Chipotle had opened up by the movie theatre in my hometown, and a friend of ours recommended it to us. And so we adventured, the four of us equally curious — and slightly suspicious. There we were, my brother, my mom, my dad, and me, ready to delve into a strange new world. Their wood and aluminum decorations intimidated us a little. There I saw it, their red boards with all their options. VEGGIE was an option, listed right up there next to all the meat options.

I rejoiced, ordered, and met my true love. The salsa and sour cream complemented each other, and I could barely even register that I was eating rice and beans and green peppers and onions. Everything inside that little burrito of hope called to my appetite. I devoured it, enjoying every scoop. For us, it was revolutionary.

Before Chipotle, every vegetarian option we tasted when we ate out was bland, not quite like a good homecooked Indian meal. Chipotle fulfilled our desire for rice and the familiar, adding beans and new flavors and vegetables along the way.

After Chipotle, we tried more and more vegetarian-option-offering restaurants. Slowly, we grew accustomed to good vegetarian food that could be bought, subsequently unlocking each one. Chipotle changed our lives.
Why Now is a Great Time to Invest in Student Property in the UK
By: Sarah Roberts
Tags: Stamp Duty, Property Investment Uk, Buy To Let, Property Investment, Investment Tips

If you are a property investor in the UK, you will have most likely considered investing in student accommodation at some point in time. Student investments are some of the most attractive buy to let ventures in the UK. This is because they’re:

A. Often more affordable than residential properties.

B. Offer high rental yields due to low property prices and high rental costs.

C. Are in demand due to a thriving student market.

While many investors may have questioned the success of UK property investment following the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic toll it’s taken, the reality is that for those interested in investing in student property, now is one of the best times to do so. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why purchasing student accommodation is a great idea in 2020.

Student Applications are at a Record-Breaking Level

Demand is one of the most crucial things that an investor looks for when it comes to buy to let properties. While in a lot of UK cities, there’s never been a shortage of students seeking stylish and well-located student accommodation, recent figures suggest that the student market in the UK is set to rise to one of the highest ever levels.

In data released by UCAS, it was found that a record number of people had applied to attend university in the UK in the academic year of 2020/2021. With higher student numbers across UK cities come September, there’s likely to be an unprecedented demand for student rental properties, which could see rental prices rise within the most desirable student developments. Not only does this mean that you could be benefiting from higher rental yields than usual, but you can also expect to secure tenants for your rental property more quickly.

There are Huge Discounts Currently Available

Because of the uncertainty surrounding the UK property market right now, a number of property developers creating exciting new projects are introducing deals and discounts on their properties as a way to attract investors. Get in touch with property investment companies selling off-plan properties to find out about the exclusive deals available.

Another way investors buying student property can benefit from discounts is through tax cuts. Following the announcement of a stamp duty tax holiday, buy to let investors are able to save up to £15,000 in tax when purchasing a property. Set to last up until March 2021, this provides the perfect opportunity to make huge savings. With the market set to recover by 2021 and beyond, evidenced by Savills predictions of a five-year property price growth of 15.1% by 2024 — and a higher 24.1% growth in the North West region, you can currently maximise your capital growth returns by spending less on your investment.
Our CEO & Co-Founder Roi Speaks on a Panel in De/Centralize Singapore 2018
By: Sungpil Nam
Tags: Bitcoin, ICO, Airbloc, News, Cryptocurrency

Hello Airblocers! We are proud to announce that our CEO & founder Roi Nam (Sungpil Nam) speaks on a panel in De/Centralize Singapore 2018.

The event is held for two days on 5-­6 April 2018 at Level 4, Orchid Ballroom, Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Singapore. You can check out the details on the official website.

Other panels on the same session include Chirdeep Singh, a Founder of Ocean and Mike Davie, a CEO & Founder of DataStreamX.

It’s noteworthy to say that Ocean protocol and Airbloc share many things in common. Ocean is renowned for its distinctive and clear technical white paper regarding how to deal with big data on/off chain and build an efficient and practical network for data trading & exchange. For them the data collected or provided is used for AI research and for us it’s used for efficient digital advertising, but both projects focus on data trading & exchange between certain entities.

Via this chance our team hopes to take a deeper dive into the world of big data trading & exchange networks based on blockchain technology.

Also with our special code “AIRBLOC15”, you will be able to get 15% discount from the original ticket price. Please check out the event registration url!

Let’s hope he can well explain our network and bring Airbloc to the world!
2018 NFL Regular Season Team Stats
By: Carlo De Marchis
Tags: Sports, NFL Playoffs, NFL, Data Visualization

As always a-la CDM, my obsession with sports data visualization.

As we get ready for the first games of the NFL Playoffs here is the full picture of how each team performed during regular season, in order of playoffs ranking.

Each team is presented in a chart which contains all games with points scored and points against and a line that indicates the points difference, positive is a win, negative is a game lost.

It may be interesting to check how teams did during the season, for example notice how the Chiefs had always strong scoring averages and the few (4) games they lost where for few points (-3, -3, -2, -7) and by the way they lost to teams who are all in the Playoffs.

The Saints, if you remove the first and the last games, always had amazing scoring averages and point differences, except for the game they lost with the Cowboys, by 3 points.

The Rams with an impressive season, only one scored less than 20 points, when they lost to the Bears, and only 4 times scored less than 30.

AFC

Division Leaders
They laughed when I said Face Recognition was easy. But it can be.
By: Tirmidzi Faizal Aflahi
Tags: TensorFlow, Deep Learning, Data Science, Technology, Machine Learning

Maybe you have seen it before. Maybe some of you use a face unlock feature that some phones have. This technology called Face Recognition is simply amazing. But, do you think it is hard to make an application based on that technology? It is actually not that hard. You can even make it with less than 10 lines of codes! Seriously. Here is my Face Recognition Tensorflow tutorial, special for you.

TL;DR

Here is the code, in case you don’t want to read the article. LOL.

from easyfacenet.simple import facenet images = ['images/image1.jpg', 'images/image2.jpg', 'images/image3.jpg']

aligned = facenet.align_face(images)

comparisons = facenet.compare(aligned) print("Is image 1 and 2 similar? ", bool(comparisons[0][1]))

print("Is image 1 and 3 similar? ", bool(comparisons[0][2]))

And it will output the following:

Is image 1 and 2 similar? True

Is image 1 and 3 similar? False

Wait, wait. No tensorflow? There is tensorflow of course. For this tutorial, I use an algorithm called Facenet that was developed with tensorflow. And while it is easy enough for me to use Facenet out of the box while coding tensorflow syntax, I don’t think most of you would be comfortable with that.

So, I decided to create another interface on top of Facenet, which I called Easy Facenet. To install the library, you can just type

pip install easyfacenet

And you are good to go!

The article should not end like this, should it? Of course not.

Let me explain to you, line by line, the tutorial. At the same time, we’ll cover how Face Recognition works in the first place.

Face Recognition
Winter Calls Me Home
By: Carolyn Riker
Tags: Poetry, Photography, Nature Writing, Winter, Chance Encounters

Will you let me rest here a bit?

Between your branches so cozy and warm.

Will you share the snowy-ice blanket

as it embraces against this wintery storm.

Thank you for this spot nestled high in a tree.

The view is splendid and safe

while I prepare for my

deep, deep, deep

sleep.
Deepvariant Deploy
Tags: Gene, Tools, https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases/tag/0.19.2, Deepvariant

This article will tell you how to use deepvariant from nvidia driver.

Sponsor:

We are using the D52BV provided by Quanta Computer.

Environment inside:

80 vCPU

4 T4 GPU

512 GiB RAM

Environmental configuration

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Nvidia driver 410.129

CUDA 10.0

cudnn 7.6.3

Bazel 0.19.2

Tensorflow 1.13

DeepVariant 0.8.0

Python2.7

Java 1.8

Install Nvidia driver

Before you install nvidia driver. You need go to this page download program.

sudo chmod u+x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-410.129-diagnostic.run

sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-410.129-diagnostic.run

If you install fail or you lack some tools, this command is uninstall driver.

sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-410.129-diagnostic.run --uninstall

Then, follow below command.

nvidia-smi

You can see this figure.

Congratulations, you did it.

By the way. I delete GPU UUID, so you can’t see it.
2019 IS HERE AND IT’S NOT YET. 2019 IS HERE AND IT’S NOT YET
Tags: Steem, Games, Crowdini, Questions, Steemit

We have our Best Song of 2018 final matchup. Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper’s Shallow vs Paul McCartney’s Come on to Me.

Pretty tight question yesterday. If Taylor Swift had tied Paul McCartney I think I would have put both in the finals today vs Shallow.

Today is the last day of 2018…but it is also the first day of a new game. I’m calling this game 2019 IS HERE. Rules are the same, you can see the rules below.

I hope everyone has a great New Year’s Eve today/tonight and I will see you tomorrow morning when I announce the winners of the Best Song of 2018 game.

Time to pick which song you like best…Voting is now open!

All the best,

Jason
Divergent Pigmentation
By: Daniel A. Teo
Tags: Racism, Ethnicity, Poem, Prose, Discrimination

Narration: This poem is that of monumental narrative, garnered to gain your sympathy for the minority communities worldwide and differentiate treatment from that of the ethnic majority. As most of us should be familiar with the Black Lives Matter movement (mainly the notion of racially motivated violence towards Black people), that should be enough to slap all of us out from this fixed thought of societal equality. Like I've mentioned in the poem, “ inverted societal pyramid” shows how minorities are placed in the smaller end of the pyramid whilst their counterparts stay at the top of the pyramid. Like this concept, not just in America, races that aren't “common” are usually tormented with fewer opportunities, harsher treatment, and worse quality of living. Even in my country, where racism often goes unnoticed, Indians and Malays are placed at the lower end of the superiority. They are often associated with being uneducated and poor, which angers me on so many different levels. This sort of treatment to any ethnicity or skin color is UNJUST and downright nauseating. Just because one is born into a person of color or minority race does not mean that they can be cursed with a lifetime of discrimination and oppression. This hence brings in the topic of role reversal, to question how humanity chooses to degrade and derogate minority communities instead of embracing them and their unique differences. It definitely sucks to think if we all woke up with different skin colors, our lives would change, even if deep down we’re the same people.

Check out the prompt here.

Oh man, looking back I think I might have written OFFTOPIC… but thanks to J.D. Harms and the Scrittura Team for giving my work a home!!

Best,

Daniel A. Teo
Making the Grade
By: Rick Glascock
Tags: JavaScript

Ranking and Ordering objects by Category

XinJiang, China — Rick Glascock

Here’s a challenge whose solution lets us use a variety of JavaScript’s features.

The Challenge: Given a group of numeric scores, between 0 and 100, compile the scores into a table that shows the percentage of the scores that fall in the various categories. Unrepresented categories should not be included in the results. The results should be sorted first by their percentage (to 2 decimal places) of the overall set of scores and next by the categories rank.

The categories and their respective score ranges:

Exceeding: 91–100

Meeting: 81–90

Passing: 71–80

Emerging: 61–70

Failing: 0–60

The sample set of scores [92, 83, 65, 63] would yield:

Emerging: 50.00%

Exceeding: 25.00%

Passing: 25.00%

‘Emerging’ tops the list with the highest percentage. ‘Exceeding’ comes before ‘Passing’ as its rank is higher.

Solution:

First we set up a lookup table, array that contains the category’s name, rank, range, and total number of instances as objects. Setting up this way allows us to easily adjust ranges if needed:

const categories = [

{ name: 'Failing', total: 0, rank: 1, min: 0, max: 60 },

{ name: 'Emerging', total: 0, rank: 2, min: 61, max: 70 },

{ name: 'Passing', total: 0, rank: 3, min: 71, max: 80 },

{ name: 'Meeting', total: 0, rank: 4, min: 81, max: 90 },

{ name: 'Exceeding', total: 0, rank: 5, min: 91, max: 100 },

];

Next we iterate through the list of scores finding the index of the category to which the score belongs to and adding to the total of that category. We also disregard any score outside the allowable range.

for (let i = 0; i < scores.length; i += 1) {

const idx = categories

.findIndex((category) => scores[i] >= category.min && scores[i] <= category.max);



if (idx !== -1) {

categories[idx].total += 1;

}

}

Because we will not include categories with no scores, we filter the results:

const finalCategories = categories.filter((cat) => cat.total > 0);

We will need to sort by two different criteria — by the percentage found and, if equal, by rank of the category. We set up a custom compare function to do this and then sort using the compare function:

function compare(a, b) {

if (a.total < b.total) return 1;

if (a.total > b.total) return -1;

if (a.rank > b.rank) return -1;

if (a.rank < b.rank) return 1;

return null;

} finalCategories.sort((a, b) => compare(a, b));

We need the total number of scores that were within the allowable range to calculate the percentages. We can use the reduce function:

const finalTotal = finalCategories.reduce((acc, value) => acc + value.total, 0);

After setting up an empty array for our result, we iterate through the finalCategories building the output text:

const result = finalCategories.map((ele) => {

return `${ele.name}: ${((ele.total / finalTotal) * 100).toFixed(2)}%`;

}); return result;

That’s it!
UPDATE: VectorZilla Token Pre-Sale extended
By: Vector Zilla Pr
Tags: Vectorzilla, Blockchain, ICO, Ethereum, Token Sale

VectorZilla Token Pre-Sale extended. To join pre-sale signup now at https://account.vectorzilla.io/#/signup

VZ Pre-Sale: Extended until February 20th, 2018

VectorZilla announces that it will extend the pre-sale dates in order to accommodate overwhelming response. VZ envision a diversified community of crypto supporters, not just big early investors.

In addition to the crypto enthusiast, traditional tech angels investors and VCs have been inquiring about VectorZilla Token Sale. So, we have decided to push ICO date announcement and extended the special bonus offer of Pre-sale until 20th February 2018.

The VectorZilla Token Pre-Sale is LIVE!!!

Minimum Contribution: 0.10 ETH (reduced from 0.25 ETH)

Pre-Sale Additional Bonus Structure

Tier 1: Up-to 1500 ETH

1 ETH = 1000 VZT + 25% Bonus (1,250 VZT)

2 ETH = 2000 VZT + 50% Bonus (3,500 VZT)

10 ETH = 10,000 VZT + 60% Bonus (16,000 VZT)

The regular bonuses are 25% for amounts of contribution less than 2 ETH.

Tier 2: 1501 ETH To 5000 ETH

1 ETH = 1000 VZT + 15% Bonus (1,150 VZT)

2 ETH = 2000 VZT + 40% Bonus (2,800 VZT)

10 ETH = 10,000 VZT + 50% Bonus (15,000 VZT)
The impact of polling places on voting
By: Mit Election Lab
Tags: Esra2019, Politics, Voting

Efforts to increase voter participation have largely focused on designing more efficient and convenient ways to bring voters to the polls on and before Election Day, or to reduce the burden of voter registration. But an underappreciated determinant of voter participation is the attributes of location at which we vote. The location, staffing, and operation of polling places may have an independent effect on voter turnout. The accessibility of polling places, the time it takes to check-in and to vote, and the experiences voters have with poll workers and the polling place environment can deter, obstruct and prevent persons from voting.

Drawing on a nationwide study of polling places attributes in the 2016 and 2018 elections, we estimate the effects of a wide range of polling places attributes on the voter turnout. We organize these polling place attributes into:

contemporaneous attributes expected to impact turnout in the immediate election, and downstream attributes expected to impact turnout only in future elections.

Our current analysis finds significant relationships between turnout in the contemporaneous 2016 election and two important polling place attributes observed in 2016 polling places. First, the visibility of the polling place (e.g. a visible address, name, signs, and flags) is associated with a 4 percentage point increase in turnout. Second, a high quality interior of the polling place (rated “excellent” by observers) was associated with a 2.5 percentage point increase in turnout. However, other attributes expected to have a contemporaneous impact, based on past research and/or theory, did not show evidence of significant relationships. Further, examining 2018 turnout reveals no support for expected downstream impacts of any polling place attributes.

In sum, we find important effects from polling place attributes for scholars, election administrators, and policy-makers to ensure polling places do not deter voters, while also suggesting that many aspects of polling places may not have significant impact on turnout, although these attributes often have important impacts on voter confidence in elections.
Something is Rank in the State of Data
By: Niklas Elmqvist
Tags: Data Visualization, Bar Chart, Graphical Perception, Research

This article summarizes a paper authored by Pranathi Mylavarapu, Adil Yalcin, Xan Gregg, Niklas Elmqvist. This paper will be presented at CHI 2019, a conference of Human-Computer Interaction, on Monday 6th May 2019 at 14:00 in the session Perception of Data Visualisation.

Exports and imports of Scotland from Christmas 1780 to Christmas 1781. From “The Commercial and Political Atlas”, 1786 (3rd edition, 1801) by William Playfair.

(Note: This article was originally published in Sparks of Innovation: Stories from the HCIL.)

In 1786, William Playfair (1759–1823) invented the bar chart, which conveys values using the length of a rectangle. He did this to help members of the British parliament — many of them illiterate — understand complex data without the need for actual numbers. The bar chart has since become one of the most prolific and familiar types of statistical data graphics, and is a staple in many infographics. Bar charts are commonly used to visualize many items side by side, such as the gross domestic product of countries, the unemployment rate in U.S. states, or the enrollment in different academic units at a university. Such lists are often sorted, and we thus refer to them as “ranked lists” and their visualization as “ranked-list visualization.”

Horizontal bar chart showing a sorted list of 150 countries (scroll bars are used to see the full visualization).

However, while bar charts remain the dominant form of ranked-list visualization, they have an important drawback. As the picture above suggests, showing a long ranked list typically requires scrolling, as the whole list won’t easily fit on screen at the same time. For this reason, visualization experts have in recent years proposed several alternatives to bar charts.
Depicting Quranic Lengths with Sentence Drawings Data Art
Tags: NLP, Quran, Data Science, Data Visualization, Islam

Depicting Quranic Lengths with Sentence Drawings Data Art

http://quranvis.shaham.ca (Works best only on Desktop)

This project is an attempt to visually model groups of chapters in the Quran. Verse translation texts are analyzed using NLP topic-modelling techniques and then visualization using a specific art concept of Stefanie Posavec’s Sentence Drawings.

The concept of Posavec’s sentence drawing is pretty simple: you draw a line relatively equivalent to the length of sentence (word count), make a right turn, draw a line corresponding to the next sentence, and so on and so on. What this results in is a visual that is congested where it encounters continuous short sentences and open where a long sentence appears.

Posavec’s original Legend and Basic Structure

As an extra, I also use pyLDAvis to allow users to explore the topic terms.

Example of pyLDAvis to explore topics and terms association

I had the code and visualization all set up from a previous project so I thought this would be another great application of similar techniques. For more details, process, inspirations, and how it works, please see the parent project:

Link to Interactive Visualizations:

Sample Usage

Getting a visual feel of where any given term appears
Let’s Not Talk About Accessibility but Inclusivity
By: Angela Sanchez Mezquita
Tags: Programming, Diversity, Diversity And Inclusion, Diversity In Tech, UX

Let’s Not Talk About Accessibility but Inclusivity

Designing for everyone

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Inclusivity Versus Accessibility Versus Diversity

As a UX designer, I’ve faced a lot of projects where the client particularly asks “to be accessible.”

When using the word “accessibility” in our industry we normally mean that our products have to be accessible for those with disabilities, and as designers, we should make sure that everyone can access and enjoy our products.

When accessibility just includes this group of people, we are leaving many others out of our range. That’s the reason why I prefer to use the word “inclusivity” instead of accessibility.

In the context of product design, inclusivity means making our products the most usable by the widest range of people including, but not limited to, people with disabilities.

And what about “diversity?” That term is so trendy now and you can hear it in almost every big company.

Although the term diversity embraces all people regardless of their situation, culture, ethnicity, age, gender, sexuality, etc., have you ever thought that a group of diverse people could feel non-inclusive?
Thanksgiving While Queer
By: Gloria Bates
Tags: LGBTQ, Family, Idahotb, Transgender, Thanksgiving

I’m sitting on the couch, trying not to draw too much attention to myself. Also trying not to look my partner in the eye, as my godfather asks me about whether there’s “any boys to worry about at that college.” I lie. I say no.

But my partner isn’t even out to my parents yet at FTM. I’m not out to my godparents as queer. We’re not there yet, and it’s kept me up for weeks. It keeps the three of us up that night, as I hear the “she” hitting my partner viscerally in the chest. I know the work it’ll take to lift those words out of him again.

My godmother wanted us to watch videos of one of her new favorite comedians. That started off safe enough; my partner leaned against my shoulder (female-presenting privilege) and sighed.

Then the comedian went into a skit about lesbians. Lesbianism being the punch-line, not the circumstance. My partner went rigid before I did. I looked at my father, and he asked them to change.

My mother knew better. She knew that asking why to change it would invite more scrutiny. She wanted to protect me. I held my breath as we sat through the rest of the skit.

I grew up with these people. They raised me. My extended family doesn’t live out here; they were my holiday plans. I walked to their house after school for food and rest before basketball games.

And they don’t know who I am. They’re moving to Texas to protect their children from people like me. They probably won’t come to my wedding.

And when I’m just getting to processing all that, I have to swallow whatever I’m feeling and help my partner pick himself up after all of the “she” and awkwardness that comes with seating arrangements and friend-zoning and being the other religion, other ethnicity, other orientation, the OTHER in my house. The pain of realizing that I couldn’t protect him swallowed both of us.
Ad-Hoc networks QoS and Security overview
By: Hadi Fadlallah
Tags: Security, Qos, Networking, Adhoc Network

ad-hoc network

Ad-hoc networks Quality of Service parameters

Bandwidth: the rate at which an application’s traffic must be carried by the network. Latency: the delay that an application can tolerate in delivering a packet of data. Jitter: variation in Latency. Loss: the percentage of lost data. Security Availability: the ability of a device to send or receive packet from other devices. Battery life Mobility

Security techniques used in ad hoc networks

Public Key algorithm: Every device generates a pair of keys an use them for encryption and decryption. Authentication using certificates: each device must have a certificate from a trusted root. Hash functions: to check signature and data integrity.

These security methods increases the network traffic between devices, and require more processing in each devices, also communication between devices will consume more time.

References
Students: Don’t Travel to “Find Yourself”
By: Li Charmaine Anne
Tags: Study Abroad, Travel, Self, Millennials, Students

Did I “find myself” in South East Asia? To a certain extent, perhaps. I finally got over my crippling fear of flying because I experienced plenty of dangerous driving, providing me the perspective needed to stop fearing planes. I also learned that I can be quite good at haggling—the ethics of which I now struggle with.

But these weren’t the most powerful thing about this trip; the most powerful thing was that I discovered other places, people, and things for what they were.

On the way from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep, our bus broke down in the middle of the highway. Stranded with no Wi-Fi in scorching heat, a generous farmstead on the side of the road came to our rescue. The family sheltered the 50-something-odd travellers in their home, a quaint yet magnificent structure on stilts. We hid in the open-air “basement,” which was used as a garment factory of sorts (perhaps the family business).

But these weren’t the most powerful thing about this trip; the most powerful thing was that I discovered other places, people, and things for what they were.

The family matriarch — a grand, wise-looking elderly lady in long, colourful robes and wielding a walking stick — came down to greet us confused foreigners. She gave a welcome speech that the bus staff translated. Later, a group of middle-school-aged children came by to visit us, wide-eyed with curiosity. From my experience, Cambodian children are the opposite of shy; a bike ride through rural areas often elicited welcome screams of “hello!” and “how are you!” Kids would literally dash out to wave at you and my friend almost ran over one once as a result. I reckon they were excited to show off their English (and many Cambodians I met spoke impeccable English).