fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
V 2.15: Risk Score Profiles, Alert Settings, Customer Connections & Search Logs
By: Crystal Blockchain
Tags: Blockchain Analytics, Crystal Blockchain, Bitfury, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Wallet

In the latest update, the analytics team has improved risk scoring profiles, alert settings, customer connections, and added a search logging solution.

Risk Score Profile and Alert Settings History

Customers will now be able to save the history of changes to any risk score profiles or alert settings. This update will allow our users to track changes made by themselves or by colleagues (those using a corporate account) to ensure an audit trail is created.

Users can also restore the previous version of the risk score profile and alert settings from the history tab, as needed.

Customer Connections

We have introduced a connections solution for customers through the monitoring tool.

This update allows users to create a connections diagram for any customers’ deposited and/ or withdrawn amounts.

The diagram above shows a summary of a customer’s deposits and withdrawals. It allows users to estimate the source of the customer’s deposits (left) and the destination of the customer’s withdrawals (right.)

This greater level of detail means that users will now be able to see aggregated statistics on all transfers for a particular customer within the system.

The connections solution also enables users to see, not only the types of services the money was interacting with but also the exact names of these services.

Please note that withdrawal transfers without a transaction hash are not considered in connections.

Search Logging

Starting with this release, users will now be able to view previous search results within certain search dates (up to 20 results can be saved). Only successful search queries will be shown in the search bar so users can quickly navigate through them at ease.

Get in touch if there are any features you’d like to suggest to the team, or if you’d like more information about the platform.
2020 in review: top stories and writers
By: Andreas Sandre
Tags: Content, Technology, Social Media, Tech, Government

2020 in review: top stories and writers

In the year of the pandemic, Digital Diplomacy has grown both content and readership.

Digital Diplomacy has grown tremendously in 2020. With almost 80,000 followers, we are now the 64th largest publication here on Medium and amongst the top 25 fastest growing publications on the platform, according to SMedian.

2020 has also been a growing year in terms of stories and writers, with more than 500 articles published, and hundreds of returning writers choosing Digital Diplomacy to feature their stories.

This is also been the year of the pandemic and, like many other publications, we have seen an increase in subscribers, readers, and all metrics.

Eight of our top-stories-ever have been published in 2020, with a total of almost 1 million views and almost half a million reads.

Thank you all!
F# — From string to byte array and back
By: Yan Cui
Tags: Functional Programming, Tips, Programming

There’re a number of built-in literal types in F#, and one of the cool things you can do is to get the byte or byte array representation of a char or string using the ‘B’ suffix, the result is the same as Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes:

Pretty cool, eh?
It Doesn’t Matter Why Marriage Ends
By: Rachael Renk
Tags: Divorce, Relationships, Marriage, Love, Life

Five years ago I married for the second time, to my second husband. This was the marriage that was going to be right. We were equipped with the correct pieces which we arranged at the correct time. He was a vast improvement from my ex-husband: caring and thoughtful and responsible. He wanted to get married, and in an expected series of events, that’s exactly what we did.

And now we are separating.

The logical question that follows is why did it end? What happened?

I’ve been unsure of how to write about the dissolution of my marriage for some time now, which is both surprising and frustrating in light of the time and research I’ve put into the decision. I spent years in couples counseling, individual therapy, self-reflection paired with the inability to think about anything else (for those who have ever considered a separation, you know about this weight and how insidious it is). With all that work behind me, it seems like I should have a neatly packaged answer. An abstract or a lab report.

My other studies have told me that humans have a strong desire to be similar, to imitate. I followed suit, engaging in the same marriage experiment as those around me. Until the raw yearning to go and be alone, the one living in my blood and saliva and brain cells, crushed out the desire to be the same.

What do people want to hear? What’s the truth of it? What should I say?

No one cheated. No one abused. Our stances on religion, politics, and money are not wildly different. The socially acceptable answers do not exist for me. I can point to nothing easily because nothing about this is easy.

How do I tell my parents, married for 34 years and practicing Catholics, that another marriage is coming to an end?

How do I describe the collection of fibers twisting quietly in my gut, despite the pieces of what we’ve built that bring some moments of happiness?

How do I explain the pain of asking for something I want, even though the thing I want has also broken me into a million tiny pieces?
I am off to Chicago
By: Ben Edwards
Tags: General

I am off to Chicago today for a Radiohead concert. I am really psyched up for it. While I am away I have a task for you. Please go and view this page and help me to decide on a t-shirt design for the upcoming Alt Text world tour. Be sure to give me any additional feedback on the shirts, too. Thanks all, I will post the results when I return and probably make a decision in a week or so as to which shirt designs I will have made.
Why do Some men Name Their Penis?
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Language, Humor, Relationships, Self, Sexuality

Toronto, Montréal, Ottawa.

Back when I was still at university in England and traveling to Canada regularly, my partner and I decided to name our body parts for a laugh.

While I’m not 100% sure what he called his penis (Johnson, I believe) and suspect his testicles were never included in the naming process, I went full Ontario on my boobs and vagina. Why Ontario won out to Québec, I don’t know nor can I recall whether Montréal was the part of my anatomy Johnson could visit.

Or simply one of my two chest landmarks.

Ever since becoming sexually active, I’ve wondered why men name their penis while we women seldom bestow pet names upon our nether regions. This gender-specific particularity has always baffled me as well as endeared me to those who choose it.

To me, a named penis means its owner has a playful disposition and the capacity not to take himself too seriously.

It also conveys just a hint of vulnerability as it invites sexual partners to share in a private joke. It can even be the starting point of a four-handed narrative told in a language that only has two speakers.

A named penis is a family member, an expandable part of the male self with its own mind, its own needs, its own agency.

And the comedic potential associated with having a renegade organ in one’s pants can help defuse potentially difficult situations. Separating the penis owner from the penis can make it easier to approach sex in an open-minded, caring, and supportive way.

From original sexual preferences to the occasional lack of sexual oomph or even full-blown dysfunction, communication becomes a lot easier when Johnson is a third party.

Critical distance is always helpful.
3 Rules for Life From a Roman Emperor
By: Mighty Knowledge
Tags: Self Improvement, Mindset, Life Lessons, Stoicism, Philosophy

3. Always act like your best self

“If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.”

For one reason or another, we usually feel the need to have a good reason to do something before we do it. We will only help our friends if we think they will help us. We act friendly towards others if they act friendly towards us. There is a strong sense of fairness and always wanting something in return.

Marcus Aurelius and the rest of the stoics had a different viewpoint. They believed that acting like your best self was something that you should do regardless of what everyone else is doing. That one should try their best at all times, regardless of the situation.

You should do your best and take proactive action all the time because it will help you become the best version of yourself. You help your friend because that’s just what a good friend would do. If they don’t help you back, that’s their problem; you’ve already done your part and can live in peace knowing that. You are friendly towards others because that’s what you would want from them. They can be friendly or not, but you have made the decision to put in your own effort regardless of what they do.

“We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.”

Marcus also believed in the idea of having a purpose and that all (or most) actions should be aligned with that purpose. If not, then you’re actions don’t end up contributing anything very meaningful to your life. But if you have a motivation, an ambition, a project of purpose, then every action you take is adding value. That value goes out into the world and builds up your own strength and sense of fulfillment in the process. You become the best person you can be by acting like it, regardless of the actions of others.
內容行銷與你八字合襯與否的 7 大憑證
By: Henry Hu
Tags: 數位行銷, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, 內容行銷

Co-Founder of Chigyosha Marketing Copr. based in Taipei. Addicted in data mining and content marketing. Passionated by visions and dreams.

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The Touch of Our Humanity
By: Kent Wallace
Tags: Poetry, Passion, Touch Prompt, Poetry Under Cover, Love

My Photo, Taken in Florence, Italy

I touch humanity

with all of me every day

I touch the tools of my trade in an unselfish way

I touch the materials in my hive

creatively solving the problems of other people’s lives

I touch their issues and challenges

their luxuries and needs

I touch their minds

I touch their world as they travel among the weeds

I touch you

for my humanity

I touch your neck behind your ears

I touch the swale in the small of your back that collects my tears

I touch the smell of your skin

the curves of your chin

I touch the taste of your seductive lips

the softness of your thighs and the curves of your hips

I touch the flavors of your mind

I touch your thoughts as we combine

I touch all of you with all of me

Selfishly

I touch you for me
No Roads Lead Here
By: Nancy Peckenham
Tags: Lifestyle, Alaska, History, Travel, Cordova

No Roads Lead Here

Cordova, Alaska: A Town Built on Copper

Alaskans have a reputation for being hardy, resourceful people in the face of bitterly cold winters and other dangers in the environment around them.

In Cordova, a port on Prince William Sound, people live with no roads into or out of town and more than a handful of locals are content if it stays that way. People come and go from Cordova by ferry or fishing boat, a lucky few fly in and out.

Others live out their days in the town that is ringed with snow-topped mountains and features several glaciers nearby.
For The Lost
By: Abigail Siegel
Tags: Poetry, Poem, Pastoral, Poems On Medium, Lost

You lay in the dry meadow

Dead spores filling your lungs like weed

You would know

A world of blurred color

Encases entices you to forget

That you live beyond the dead

The hazy days without end

Do you know we watch you

Fading more each day

Your bright hair once red fire

Now dry hay for horses

That no longer prance in the meadows

You understood the deepness

Of the green woods you walked through

Taking me along the groves of beech trees

Where your words echoed

A thousand times over

I tell you now

Smiling vacantly as if your life mine

Were just a story

Lain in dry fields
A Shocking 1960’s Advertisement…
Tags: Technology, Advertising, History, Robotics, Funny

Sometimes there really are no words. As I do research for other things, publications in a newspaper move me, and I had to create a publication just to keep them separate to the rest of my work.

What the F… [Fudge]

Not sure what they are getting at here, but its a bit ‘ew gross’ category. Shock value for sure. Our society has really come a long way.

Like this story? Want to see others like it? Check out more in Historical News or Internet Archaeology (True Crime). You can catch technology/cyber security influenced articles in Infoseconds.

Sources/References, Bibligraphy
Building an Asp.Net Core Windows Service Task Scheduler
By: Sibeesh Venu
Tags: Quartz, Task Scheduler, Aspnetcore, Azure, Windows Services

Write the Service

As we have installed all of our dependencies, we are ready to create our service. Add a new class with the name BackupService and inherit the same from IHostedService , which is part of Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting namespace.

IHostedService has two methods in it as follows, so we should implement them in our service class:

IHostedService

StartAsync

The StartAsync method can be implemented as follows:

StartAsync

As you can see in the first line of the above code, we are getting the scheduler of Quartz. Let’s create a method and return a scheduler:

GetScheduler

The next step is to build a service provider so that we can inject our dependencies using Constructor Dependency Injection. By default Quartz is not doing this, so we have to build the configuration our own.

GetConfiguredServiceProvider

As you can see, we have configured the services for DailyJob , WeeklyJob , MonthlyJob , and HelperService . We will be creating these Classes and Interfaces very soon.

Once we get the Service Provider, we can pass this to our Custom Job Factory, which we will be implementing soon. Now, we can start the scheduler and schedule our jobs, please make sure that you are using different Identity names for both Triggers and Jobs. The samples are given below:

Jobs And Triggers

StopAsync

The StopAsync method can be implemented as follows:
Genealogy Spotlight: German Immigration Contracts at the GLO
By: Texas General Land Office
Tags: Texas, Maps, History

The records of the General Land Office reflect the long history of a multilingual and multicultural Texas. They represent varying styles of government and communication, and bear the marks of their origins in the minute details present.

The seal of the Adelsverein. Johann Jacob Groos, 14 August 1845, German Immigration Contract 577, Texas Land Grant Records, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

The Spanish Collection, with its characteristic stamped paper, comprises the bulk of the non-English records held in the GLO Archives.

The Land Office also has a substantial collection of German records. While smaller in scope, this collection presents a great deal of genealogical and historical information and features its own distinctive typeface that gives documents in this collection a unique look and feel that links German Texans back to the Holy Roman Empire.

In 1842, a group of German noblemen established the Adelsverein (“nobles society”), formally referred to as the Verein zum Schutze deutscher Einwanderer in Texas (Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas). Its purpose was to create a German society in the Republic of Texas, brought about by concentrated emigration efforts.[1]

The terms between the Adelsverein and the German immigrants were laid out in standard contracts such as this one. The forms were printed in a traditional Fraktur typeface, unique to Germany and areas of German influence. Johann Zipp, 1 October 1846, German Immigration Contract 769, Texas Land Grant Records, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

During the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of hopeful Germans looking to start a new life signed up with the Adelsverein to make the voyage to Texas. The contracts, written in Bremen, were signed by these early German Texan pioneers prior to their departure, and remain in the GLO Archives.

German Immigration Contracts bear the original signature of the immigrant, an exciting find for someone researching their ancestors. Johann Zipp signed this contract at Bremen, Germany. Johann Zipp, 1 October 1846, German Immigration Contract 769, Texas Land Grant Records, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

After they signed their contracts, the German immigrants embarked, usually from Bremerhaven, for the three-month voyage across the Atlantic. They typically arrived at the Texas ports of Galveston or Indianola. From there, they followed a predetermined route, with stations set up along the way in places like Agua Dulce, Victoria, Gonzales, and Seguin. The two most prominent destinations for the German immigrants were New Braunfels, in Comal County, and Fredericksburg, in Gillespie County. Smaller German communities, however, also emerged in towns such as Industry, Round Top, Castel, Boerne, Walburg, Schulenburg, and Weimar.
Swapetition Winners Announcement
Tags: Fintech, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Decentralized Exchange

Swapetition Winners Announcement

Here are the 12 lucky addresses that have been sent $50 USD in ETH for winning the Coinomi and Totle Swapetition.

From January 13th to the 31st, Totle and Coinomi held a Swapetition where anyone who traded on Totle Swap inside of their Coinomi Wallet entered in for a chance to win 1 of 12 prizes worth $50 USD in ETH.

We have selected 12 addresses at random and sent them their winnings. Here they are:

0x0b69a489db825246baffd1de307c65dcc8299c74

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xcdb08050f6c94fe1300bb6ee49f846222be727334fb1c2f2545a553598699627

0x0cd8be7390042d37b15ce8cfae025311a4ea2792

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd8517bd5adeb3d343b9e089a4693e6e25e3a7de590555736064f9ee2263a35ca

0x3184a16df74e61c9706b64ca8196fe7cf6bf484c

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd6076e13666eb7a8dec47031068813a055a8f306358fad2dbab376c802626124

0x61e096021e8daf3797b85d9f04971e10a31fecbc

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x47ff742370ab2a676ed87465963d4e0a1b4d4f65657d4455ba98f340f43fabbc

0x814f13d38bf2d0a34879959f3b90450dce85f8b1

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x7cea79a731d396c973e7d92011e35ff5840e2f422139e2f5ba70f6f8b53a9b03

0x8a2fc8491bda0f774ad3bc6e63ef1b2f1619c933

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x5742bf2b92eab8a52c16b08bd5f1e18252fb0779f53185ece93f0fef479d557b

0xbeb69f2cd0bd55a56d146090faaec3a978e91e45

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x68802b18a7baa9a4505fd67e70f12bd349fbf196607bfce5ea43c2a74a4225b0

0xd912a9df8b1eb15e30b50b3847632b2da8eff3e7

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xfc5fceada3ec809d1aee1cf51f1d42df2f7f6763eafe8d41c0026fee7b43a290

0xe80b168891372957c60b7823d81014d6d8263c4d

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x4d9acc6d460670905efeb586ce8344cc0c2224e9263c550bf98a8f1dce90c14a

0x16dae637c1e137faa88190318d49e7be43d498a5

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe1170cf2734f7a357b4f0dd1875dbde7118f9d79740dd594bc3d7e942e4024c0

0x7839961ae2106b8a82f21827c5c2fc737d73f5b3

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb68aff5060258377ee46795819dffff84982bc20b2c160798161236459080dc6

0xe6fc0e579ade182b2e6a69ac09bd7a87229f59e5

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb9b5845388b06df505d5a7affb5c7b62b4da1332dd15a990eb8f4b6cfc077c64

If you were one of the lucky winners, congratulations!

We would appreciate you telling us about your experience by sending us a message in the Totle Telegram Group. Happy trading and keep your eye out for the next competition…

Trade with Totle Swap and Coinomi

Easily acquire ETH or any popular ERC-20 token at the best price: Totle Swap

Use one of the most trusted wallets on the market: Coinomi Wallet

Totle is a decentralized liquidity aggregator that automatically acquires users the best pricing available for ETH and ERC-20 swaps.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, or Medium for the most up-to-date news on Totle.
How Radio Changed The World
Tags: Tech, Communication, Radio

For just 5 years short of a century, radio has shaped and advanced society like nothing that came before it. Radio has changed the way we communicate with each other, how we share and promote our thoughts, opinions and creations — but not just that; at times, your radio is your companion: loyal and enlightening, ever prepared to share music with you or give you the latest headlines.

But before it was an everyday household item, before it was a diverse multi-frequency platform for communicating and advertising products to consumers around the world, before it became everybody’s ready and willing roadtrip partner, radio technology was simply a spectrum, a myriad almost purely theoretical frequencies that science believed could be utilised for faster and more convenient communication.

Science was right of course, and the world hasn’t been the same since. It’s almost a kind of magic if you think about it.

“radio became an invaluable means of communicating”

From there, radio evolved into a steadfast means of communication for pilots, ship captains, truck drivers, law enforcement, emergency services and many more. It later developed into a vibrant addition to households and, during World War II, when radio became an invaluable means of communicating breaking developments on the warfront, people around the world would sit beside their home radios and await the news with bated breath. Radio was even used to broadcast information to the underground resistance movements in France, Belgium and Denmark in the ‘40s.

Yes, radio changed the world in many ways — almost too many to count — the most important being the rapid sharing of information. In a way, radio was almost a foreshadowing of the Internet technologies that followed.

View the UK Frequency Allocation Chart here
Mexico
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Poetry, Love, Free, Secrets, Runaway

Baby, run away with me

We’ll go where nobody can see

Run until the road runs out

Where no one knows what we’re about

We can go where it’s safe to smile

And our love won’t be on trial

Take my hand and don’t think twice

Let’s take a chance and roll the dice

This feeling we’ve got, this fire inside

We’ve got to keep the flame alive

Let’s run away to the land of sin

Or we’ll never know what might have been

We’ll make love under Mexican stars

Or hide away in old boxcars

Wherever we go will be our place

The night will keep our secrets safe

I’ll love you always and we’ll be free

With nothing to prove to anybody

No one around, just you and I

Barefoot under the desert sky



We’ll wear sombreros and you’ll hold my hand

As we make our way across the land

We can love without a care

My heart is yours, yours mine to bear

Come on my love, let’s jump in

Both eyes closed, into the wind

Hold my hand and don’t ever let go

We’ll run to the land of long ago
The Mathematical Case for Action Reverse Bets
By: Lloyd Danzig
Tags: Sports Betting, Betting, Sports Analytics, Betting Tips, Gambling

Further imagine that we have a high conviction that both favorites will cover their respective spreads, Ravens -7.5 / Giants -3, and wish to risk a total of $100 on those outcomes. There are a number of different ways in which we can wager, each with different risk profiles and levels of variability.

Straight Bets

The most intuitive way to wager on two event outcomes is to place straight bets on each. Assuming that there is a 50% likelihood of any team covering any spread, we can quickly put together a table explaining the Expected Value (EV) of our wagers.

We split the $100 we wish to risk into two $50 wagers on each of the spread bets. We find the expected value for each bet to be identical, producing a long-run loss of $4.55 per $100 wagered.

Maximum Profit : $90.90

: $90.90 Expected Loss: $4.55

$4.55 Maximum Loss: $100.00

Parlay

A parlay, often referred to as an “accumulator” in other markets, is a wager that consists of multiple predictions, all of which need to be correct in order for the bettor to win.

A 2-leg parlay composed of -110 wagers will pay +265 at DraftKings. Therefore, we can similarly model our EV as follows:

Maximum Profit : $265.00

: $265.00 Expected Loss: $8.75

$8.75 Maximum Loss: $100.00

As we can see, parlays increase maximum possible profit at the expense of the expected loss.

If Bet

An “If Bet” is a multi-leg wager wherein game results determines whether subsequent legs have action, regardless of the sequence in which the actual events occur.

For example, we could place a bet with the logic:

IF(Ravens -7.5) → THEN(Giants -3.0)

We would be risking $100 on the Ravens -7.5 and then, only if the Ravens cover, will we risk another $100 on the Giants -3. We can visualize the possible outcomes with a tree diagram:

The first bet is placed on the Ravens. If they fail to cover, we lose $100 and the process terminates. If they succeed in covering, we will win our bet and then risk another $100 on the Giants to cover the spread.

Because each team is expected to cover with a probability of 50%, we can quickly assess the EV:

Maximum Profit : $181.80

: $181.80 Expected Loss: $6.83

$6.83 Maximum Loss: $100.00

We can see that an If Bet serves as something of a middle ground between straight bets and parlays, in terms of maximizing potential upside while preserving expected profitability.

Action Reverse

An action reverse is accomplished by combining two if bets made simultaneously on the same set of outcomes. In our case, we will split our maximum loss of $100 into two If Bets, each with a maximum loss of $50.

One of the bets will be identical to the example shown in the previous section, while the other will be the exact opposite:

Bet #1: IF(Ravens -7.5) → THEN(Giants -3.0)

Bet #2: IF(Giants -3.0) → THEN(Ravens -7.5)

With two tree diagrams, we can visualize these bets:
Did You Look At Yourself In The Mirror Today
By: Ayesha Athar
Tags: Self Improvement, Equality, Life Lessons, Life, Inspiration

Did You Look At Yourself In The Mirror Today

Why does it matter to me?

Photo by shahin khalaji on Unsplash

Society judges you by your appearance.

It’s the first thing we see, and it’s the way it goes. You might think there’s not much you can do about it, right? Wrong! There’s plenty you can do with the information.

Start by keeping the judgment to yourself. There! You have it. A solution!

Judging physical appearance is inborn. Passing on that knowledge to the person — the subject of your judgment — is not. Yet, most of us are guilty.

If someone looks beautiful to you, either tell them or don’t. If someone doesn’t fit into your equation of loveliness, it’s not your place to say either; unless asked.

Trying to convince people to trim the fat off their noses, uneven teeth fixed, bald spots covered, to shed weight, gain weight, paint lips, or otherwise, they look sick. Also, suggesting that they wash their neck daily because, maybe, those necklines are signs of dirt is not your job, responsibility, or your right!

Making fun of others’ appearances is beneath one’s dignity; a below the belt move, to be honest.

Appearance is something we humans have no control over. We are what we have, naturally. We all stand equal in this.

Some choose the route of alteration; some stay the way they are. There’s no space in this matter to fight for an upper hand. If you think you’re beautiful, be thankful. If you consider yourself unappealing, be grateful, still.

Nothing is more beautiful than being human with no disabilities, no defects, no deficiencies.
A Photo Haiku of Motherhood
By: Kaia Maeve Tingley
Tags: Motherhood, Evolution, Caring, Self, Parenting

Kaia Tingley is a writer, artist, podcaster, digital strategy nerd, and sometimes hot-tempered supernova with a wild, free soul. You can find her on Instagram here or on LinkedIn here.
Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018) • Blu-ray + DVD
By: Jonathan 'Jono' Simpson
Tags: Review, Film, Horror, Movies, Culture

Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018) • Blu-ray + DVD

An illustrious British boarding school becomes a bloody battleground when a mysterious sinkhole appears at a nearby fracking site unleashing unspeakable horror.

Good friends on and off screen, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are one of today’s greatest comedy double-acts. Originally beginning their career together in the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced (1999–2001), they also starred in Edgar Wright’s revered ‘Cornetto Trilogy’ (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End), while finding time for other Hollywood projects such as Paul (2011). In 2016, Pegg and Frost created their own production company, Stolen Picture, of which Slaughterhouse Rulez marks its first release…

Crispian Mills, lead singer of indie band Kula Shaker, swaps his guitar for the director’s chair. The singer-songwriter comes with an unfortunate amount of expectation due to his family background, being the son of Roy Boulting — one-half of the Boulting brothers who made Brighton Rock (1948) and The Guinea Pig (1948). His mother, Hayley Mills, also starred in The Parent Trap (1961), while his grandfather is legendary thespian Sir John Mills (Great Expectations).

As co-writer and director, Slaughterhouse Rulez is certainly a step up from A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012), Mills’ debut film and previous collaboration with Pegg. Here, Mills delivers a confection of British Boarding School classics, such as Goodbye Mr Chips (1969), with a dash of Harry Potter, and puts them in a Dog Soldiers (2002) setting. There are plenty of nods to UK cult classics throughout and a little social commentary thrown in for good measure, but Mills also draws on his own experiences bouncing between state and private schools, and never really belonging to either world.

Coming from a working-class northern home, Don (Peaky Blinders’ Finn Cole) is sent to posh boarding school Slaughterhouse in the genteel English countryside. Reluctantly trying to fit in everyone, he causes trouble by falling for upper-class beauty Clemsie (Hermione Corfield), which in turn makes him a target of bullying by head boy Clegg (Tom Rhys-Harries). Luckily, he finds a friend in roommate Will (Asa Butterfield) and they begin to challenge the status quo laid down by the headmaster — known as “The Bat” (Michael Sheen). Secretly leasing its land out to a fracking company, the school is now subjected to earthquakes and sinkholes that unfortunately awaken underground beasts… so the students are forced to survive as their peers fall prey to these unstoppable forces of nature.
Data Visualization — Social Media Usage
By: Lexi Thompson
Tags: Social Media

Social media usage is constantly increasing every day, and platforms are becoming more and more popular. The graph below shows the percentage of adults who use social media by age. It is clear that the age group 18–29 used the most social media. The age group above 65 uses social media the least which is predictable. The pie chart does a good job showing the variety of ages and how much social media they engage in.

Social media is a recent phenomenon (Leung, 2013). One of the main reasons that the age group above 65 does not use social media as much is because of the era they grew up in. Back when they were teenagers or young adults, social media was not around at all. Now that they have grown up, they still believe in the things they knew when they were younger and are usually not as open to learning and engaging in new things. The growth of technology, new generations, and accessibility is why the age group 18–29 has the highest percentage. This age group likes to stay trendy and up-to-date with new advancements and platforms (Leung, 2013). They grew up with social media around them, so they continue to engage in it. In the future, these numbers might change increasingly. Those who are currently 18–29 will become older but will continue to use social media the same amount as they already are because it is what they are comfortable with.

The graph above shows a breakdown of each age group and how often they use each social media platform. The age group 18–29 is the highest on almost all of them except YouTube. Ages 30–49 has the highest percentage when it comes to YouTube and 18–29 is actually the lowest on YouTube. The age group 18–29 is also tied with the age group 30–49 on Facebook. Facebook has very high numbers in all age groups because it has a very wide audience and attracts many different ages. Regardless of the generation, Facebook is the platform that everyone chooses to go to (Leung, 2013). On the other hand, Twitter has very low numbers in all age groups because it is not as popular as it used to be. While many 18–29 year old’s still use Twitter, it is slowly becoming less and less popular because of other new platforms forming. Instagram has the age group 18–29 at the highest and 65+ is very low. Instagram is a slightly newer platform which is why the results are as shown.

Social media is becoming a huge part of people’s everyday lives. It is clearly more prominent in young adults lives rather than the older generation. Although generations react and engage to social media differently, in the future, the numbers may change and be higher or lower within different age groups.

“Demographics of Social Media Users and Adoption in the United States.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 12 June 2019, https://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/social-media/.

LouisLeung, and Facebook. “Generational Differences in Content Generation in Social Media: The Roles of the Gratifications Sought and of Narcissism.” Computers in Human Behavior, Pergamon, 31 Jan. 2013, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563212003706.
Star Struck Sailor
By: John Horan
Tags: Poetry, Christianity, Self, Faith, Buddhism

arnoldus in Pixabay

Who is I in this mind of mine?

I find myself wondering sometimes

Searching the stars for signs

Are fate and destiny intertwined

With choices and decisions made

Or accidents and impulses defining

What will become of me?

A star struck sailor lost at sea

Dropping anchors that fail to find ground

Listening for whispers in the silence without sound

Trailing fingers in water’s salt

Wondering what it takes to be free

Give yourself away or come back to me?

Bridges and lakes and the light of Galilee

Or something beyond words and images,

Rhymes and riddles?

Something silent hiding the secret miracle

Everything bound up in nothing

Parceled out piece by piece

To those that behold the mystery
How to Make the Most of the Sex Toy ‘Feather Tickler’
By: Emma London
Tags: Relationships, Sex Toys, Fetish, Sexuality, Sex

How to Make the Most of the Sex Toy ‘Feather Tickler’

Gentle sensual play can be as arousing as intense play

Photo by George Becker from Pexels

I’m a sucker for sensorial play. Heightening the senses or depriving one (or more) of them is extremely arousing.

One thing I love about being a kinkster is the way my partner and I explore sex, with our plays and adventures. I love to be tied up while he flogs or spanks me, or to be blindfolded when he drops melted wax over my body.

It’s fun and immensely pleasurable to play with your senses.

There are a lot of ways to stimulate your senses, of receiving pleasure, either intensely — like with spanking — or gently, like having your lover’s fingers brushing your skin. Or using toys, like a feather tickler.

How to use a feather tickler

As the name suggests, a feather tickler is an instrument used for gentle sensory stimulation. This sex toy is nothing more than a stem with feathers (usually coloured ones) bounded together on the top.

There are several versions of it: you can choose between long or short stems, more or fewer feathers; thick layers or only a layer of two of feathers.

Image from here

The sensation of being tickled with the plumage of the toy is gentle, it’s a brushing on your skin. But this doesn't mean its effect it’s gentle. In fact, it can be extraordinary deep, sensorial.

Unlike a flogger or a whip - where you must have some precautions - you can use a feather tickler with no worries of hurting or using it in a sensitive area of your partner’s body (as with impact play, where you need to stay away from the major organs.)

You can use this sex toy in any part of the body. You can focus only on one area (upper body, for example), or sweeping it all over your lover’s body, from head-to-toe.

Feather ticklers are versatile

Feather tickling is a sensual play. It stimulates the nerve endings on the body in a soft, erotised way.

You can use it while having your lover restrained in the bed (for example with handcuffs or a scarf) or with their body completely free. I love both versions.

You can play with a feather tickling in a romantic lovemaking session, you can introduce it as an “appetiser” in kinky play, or use it to intercalate sensations during impact play. For example, spank your partner a few times and then brush the same places of the body with the feather tickler. The bipolar sensation is spectacular!

Also, you can use the feather ticker applying different pressures: brush it softly or pressure harder in the skin, even tapping it on the body. Read your lover’s body language and go with it.
Time to abandon SwiftyJSON and use JSONDecoder
By: Eric Yang
Tags: Technology, iOS, Xcode, Swift, Programming

1. JSON Parsing Is Part of the Foundation

Photo by Mirko Blicke on Unsplash.

There are handfuls of well-known projects dealing with JSON parsing employing various approaches and philosophies. SwiftyJSON is probably the earliest and most popular one among them. It’s less verbose and error-prone and leverages Swift’s powerful type system to handle all of the details.

JSONSerialization is the core of most JSON parsing projects. It comes from Swift’s Foundation framework and converts JSON into different Swift data types. People used raw JSONSerialization to parse JSON objects before projects like SwiftyJSON came up. But it can be painful, as the value type and JSON structure may vary. You need to manually handle errors and cast the type Any to Swift foundation types. It’s more error-prone.
Technical Analysis of Basic Attention Token
By: Akhil Nayak
Tags: Basic Attention Token, Technical Analysis, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

With Help of Fibonacci retracement levels we can see the pair has bounced back from 0.786 support level and currently it has even used the next Fibonacci level 0.618 as support.

Looking at current trend it is to good to wait to see if it respects 0.618 again.

Current RSI value is 46 and is expected to go a bit down in order make bullish move again.

At the current position the coin is respecting trend-line support and Fibonacci support levels, it is advised to wait for a green candle to take your entry position.
Transfigurations (a love poem)
By: Yitian Zou
Tags: Poem, Poetry, Love

To first loves.

— —

A dove has replaced my

steady-beating heart with

a flutter, a flurrying,

a heightened sense of

falling, a plunging down

into secret caverns.

I imagine my belly

swollen big with

fish roe, never still

never quiet — a constant

eddying and spilling over

into tidewater.

Carving out all my shame-

filled parts, sowing instead

bamboo shoots —

each stem a cleanly

severed wound, each leaf a

careful promise.

A roving around fluid

bodies, too close and not

near enough. a cove.
Socrates: Virtue is Knowlege and Knowledge is Good
By: Sofia Montaño
Tags: Greece, Values, History, Knowledge, Philosophy

Life and Death

Socrates was born in Ancient Athens, where he lived during the last two thirds of the 5th century BC. Son of a midwife named Faenarte and a sculptor named Sofronisco. He used to say that her mom, as a midwife, helped to bring human life to the world, just as he helped bring knowledge to the world by his argumenative method based on dialogue.

Socrates never created a philosophical school. He wrote nothing, his thought was made known through Plato. He had a strong love of truth and was very cultured. He sought to know the true and just, and this intention will be present in all his dialogues. He rejected the relativism of the sophists.

He carried out long interrogations of merchants, peasants and artisans in the squares and markets. He always asked questions, he asked people about what they considered to be right and wrong,and about how did they knew Gods existed .Thanks to his conduct, Socrates gained enemies who ended up considering that his friendship was dangerous for aristocrats such as his disciples Alcibíades or Critias. Due to his behavior, they made two trials, the first he won, the second he died. They accused him of perverting youth.

He was condemned to drink hemlock for not recognizing the Athenian gods, he was also accused of impiety and corrupting youth in the year 399th c. According to Plato in the apology that his teacher left, he could have avoided condemnation thanks to the friends he still had, but he preferred to abide by it and die at the age of 70. He accepted that they were going to kill him instead of fleeing because he wanted to continue his duty as a citizen to comply with the law, otherwise he would be a monster.
Dogecoin euro quanto vale in tempo reale grafico previsioni 2018
By: Binary Option Europe
Tags: Italiano, Dogecoin, Trading, Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin

in In Fitness And In Health
Almost Home
By: Christie Alex Costello
Tags: Poetry, Home, Relationships, Love, A Cornered Gurl

Laughter on our lips

Magic can’t resist

Eyes toward a path

Bricks by hand we stacked

Callouses from the pain

Sunshine in our smiles

We stood in the snow

Despite all the rain

Anything is ours

Your love first class

Sometimes desire dries fast, yo

One foot on the gas to go

Be patient only time

and truth allow

We’re almost home

Kiss me now
The Echo #28
Tags: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum

Paradigm is an investment firm focused on blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies and cryptonetworks shaping data economy and financial industry since 2013.

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Must-Know CSS Length Units: px, em, and rem
Tags: Coding, Css3, Programming, Web Development, CSS

In 96 DPI resolution, there are 96 dots to one inch. When your eyes are looking at a specific point on the screen, what you're looking at is a single dot within one square inch. Then we can draw the angle between the eyes and the dot, from the top point of the dot to the bottom. this angle is called ‘α’ in this documentation or the visual angle in other documentation.

tan(α) = opp./adj.

tan(α) = ((1/96) / 2) / 28

tan(α) = (1/192) / 28

tan(α) = 1/5376

α = arctan(1/5376) Therefore,

radians = arctan(px/5376) * 2

px = 5376 * tan(radians/2)

With the visual angle, the formula for getting one pixel on the screen can be derived. A pixel in CSS, therefore, is calculated by the DPI value of the screen.

Of course, you don’t have to know about all of this at all, but I’m trying to give you a summary of the history or story behind the origination of the unit px.

Thus, the conclusion of this story is that a pixel in CSS is determined in a different way from how it is determined by the physical device. And theoretically, a pixel’s value in CSS may be different depending on what DPI the monitor has: Ahigh DPI and a low DPI could possibly use different pixel values. Nowadays, however, if the derived pixel value is way too different from the average pixel value, browsers automatically adjust it for you so you won’t feel the font size is so strange.

So px usually isn’t recommended to use to build a responsive website since it fixes the font size and doesn’t change it.
Submission Guidelines — Literary Impulse
By: Editorial Literary Impulse
Tags: Literature, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Submission Guidelines, Poetry

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

We are looking for serious poetry, literary fiction, and creative non-fiction of a philosophical nature that can dazzle us with its language use.

Poems which evoke an image, and often the quirky ones are preferred. We like word-play a lot. But if there is too much wordplay, do not make it a very long poem. Metaphors bring life to verse, in our opinion. If a poem can create a fabulous image in our mind, and if we can read it till the end, we will choose it. We don’t care about a poem’s form. It just should affect us in a way that others can’t.

Short fiction can be of any genre, but they should not exceed 7,000 words. We are looking for inspiration fables, ghostly fables, fairy fables, and science-fiction. Something which is out of the ordinary. We want to read something dreamy. There are millions of stories out there, and millions of copies of those stories. We would love to harbor more of Science Fiction and Fantasy Fiction from South Asia.

The plot is less important to us than the writing style. NO PLOT IS UNIQUE ANYWAY. You are all writers. Deep inside, you are well aware of that.

As for non-fiction essays, if you can explain a philosophical idea (Aristotle, Nietzsche, Camus), well and good. But examples are important. The length can be anything between 1500 and 5000 words. It need not be a very densely researched article, but it should speak something very concrete. We are not looking for something topical. Something which can be read by a person of any nationality is preferred. Personal reflections on philosophical topics are the best.

The review should not exceed 2500 words. A creative review is preferred. We are always looking to know more about books. Book reviews of classics are most welcome, as much as new books on the market. We are actually looking for commentaries. On great books, on great poems, or art pieces.
Information on Display: New Features and More Accessible Data Tables
By: Karen Ng 吳家頴
Tags: Accessibility, Interaction Design, Tools, Material Design

Information on Display: New Features and More Accessible Data Tables

Updated interactions, new customizations and expanded access for users—dig into Material Design’s new-and-improved data tables

Data tables, which organize information into easy-to-digest formats, are especially useful at work. That’s why our latest Material Design release included updates specifically addressing the needs of data tables in the workplace. It’s all part of a new effort to provide greater Material support for the UI needs of enterprise teams, products, and companies.

TL;DR on data tables

Data Table with a variety of actions

Data tables display sets of similar information so that it’s easy to scan — often ordered in a hierarchical or alphabetical way that helps users find patterns and insights. A variety of interactive elements (like selecting rows and column sort) support a range of use cases demonstrated in our design guidance.

To customize Material’s baseline data tables on the web, developers can use our handy Sass mixins.

An example of Sass mixins

Making data tables more accessible

With the latest release, Material data tables got larger touch targets, as well as support for screen reader and keyboard access. The component uses semantic HTML tags, enabling users with different abilities to use our data tables. The web component is implemented in a table-pattern which is optimized for tables with low to zero interactive elements because every focusable element is a tab stop. In this release, checkboxes are a focusable element with keyboard tabs.

Left: target area is 48x48 dp. Right: Users can tab through interactions with their keyboard.

We’re planning to follow up with a grid-pattern variant in a later release which supports tables with many interactive elements. The grid-pattern variant provides users with greater navigation efficiency and flexibility since arrows and other keys can be used for navigation, not just tabs.

While designing for a wider set of users, our team referenced a few excellent articles to better understand data table accessibility:

Next up

Our current release covers foundational usage needs, but we recognize that providing more features will support an even wider set of use cases. New features are already in the works, and we’re hoping to release them by the end of the year.

In the meantime, please use our data table guidance and code to help make your work easier.

What do you think?

Let us know about any feature requests or bugs by reaching out to us on Twitter with @materialdesign.