fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Investment, Entrepreneurship + Empathy with Parul Gujral
By: Shannon Grinnell
Tags: Investment, Blockchain, Investing, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

Parul Gujral on the Speaking of Crypto podcast

I saw Parul Gujral at a talk he gave at Go Block Con in Los Angeles last October where he shared an amazing story about his uncle Sarwan’s journey and how it has shaped his life and inspired him in all that he does. Sarwan, the oldest of 13 children, comes from a farming family in India. Not knowing how he would pay for it he applied to Berkeley University in California, and to much of his surprise was accepted. A thousand villagers came together to pull their money to make his dream come true and send him to university.

Their investment paid off. Parul’s uncle was able to graduate from university and pay the villagers back with interest.

Parul and I talk about his project, Snowball, the first Smart Crypto Investment Automation platform that enables access to curated index style portfolios. They have raised money through seed funding and have decided not to do an ICO based on sound advice.

Their advisors include Reese Jones, Associate Founder at Singularity University, John Dillon, CEO of Salesforce, and Richard Blum,

“We take advice from these folks because success leaves clues.”

Parul says: “Forty per cent of ICOs run out of money within four months of the ICO closing. So, you think these organizations are able to raise tens of millions of dollars, but they lack the business acumen to be able to deliver.”

He explains that using advisors or seeking expert counsel works because there are things that we just don’t want to DIY.

“Would you go on Google if you’re sick and perform a surgical operation on yourself?… Or would you go to a doctor, whose livelihood is the healing arts or practice, who has gone through a vigorous education system who has access to information and resources and tools that the average individual doesn’t have access to.”

I’d go to a doctor, of course! So, his point is that should novice investors be investing on their own or with the advice of those who have experience?

Parul has been learning a lot on his entrepreneurship journey. He talked about meeting John Perry Barlow, lyricist for The Grateful Dead who was speaking at an invite only event. There were some great conversations at this event with successful people who had completely different perspective and opinions. Parul said that through that, JPB taught him that having radical empathy and an open mind could help in understanding “the different elements that go into the polarities of life.”

He went on to talk about entrepreneurship having its ups and downs and that “entrepreneurs, with all odds against us, feel like we can change the world.” He adds a brazen slogan from a partner company, Ring. “We didn’t know we couldn’t do it. So, we did it.”

Snowball

https://www.snowball.money

Get early access through this referral link (+ bump us up the wait list too)

Snowball Referral Link — SOC
Code Smell 29 — Settings/Configs. Changing system behavior in a control…
By: Maximiliano Contieri
Tags: Programming, Software Design, Code Smells, Settings, Software Development

Changing system behavior in a control board is the customer’s dream. And the software engineer’s nightmare.

Problems

Duplicated Code

If Pollution

Global usage

Coupling

Testability and explosion of testing scenarios.

Complexity

Solutions

Avoid Settings Create polymorphic objects. Inject them externally.

Sample Code

Wrong

Right

Detection

This is an architectural pattern so it should be controlled/avoided by design policies.

Examples

External Connection Settings

User settings

Feature Toggle

Exceptions

Sometimes we use Feature togging as a safeguard mechanism. This is acceptable in a legacy system. These toggles should be very short-lived in a CI/CD system.

Hyper parameter settings should be managed by configuration objects.

Tags

Globals

Conclusion

Setting runtime behavior is great for software systems.

We should configure our objects, so they can behave in different ways, and we should achieve it in an explicit way with explicit behavioral objects.

In this way, our code will be more declarative, clean and testable. It is not as easy as adding an IF Statement. This kind of lazy developers bring lots of coupling and unexpected issues on our systems.

A system with 300 Boolean configurations has more test combinations (2^300), than the number of atoms in the universe (10^80).

Also known as

Feature Toggles

More Info
Flagship
By: Alex R. Young
Tags: Scripts, Plugins

Tim Pope has just released a new plugin called Flagship (GitHub: tpope/vim-flagship, License: Vim). It makes customising the status line and tab line much easier, and other plugins can extend it as well. For example, if you’ve got fugitive.vim installed, then you should see the current Git branch in the status line.

This script isn’t quite the same as the airline breed of plugins that use super fancy glyphs to make the status line look like a GUI. But it does integrate well with 'statusline' and makes the tab line saner.

The extension API is great for adding flags, but what if you want to change the core content? For the status line, Vim already provides a perfectly adequate 'statusline' option, and Flagship will use it in constructing its own. Customizing your status line is exactly the same with and without Flagship.

Unfortunately, dealing with the tab line is much more problematic:

The usual technique (see :help setting-tabline ) involves creating a function that cycles through each tab and assembles a giant format string. Furthermore, while you can use the same status line "%" items, they're expanded in the context of the active window only, rendering most of them worthless for any tab but the current.

Tim calls this an abomination, and instead provides the g:tablabel option, which you can set to customise the format of a tab:

let g:tablabel =

\ "%N%{flagship#tabmodified()} %{flagship#tabcwds('shorten',',')}"

I’ve been testing out Flagship and I really like it so far. It has great documentation and is easy to install. I refuse to change fonts for any script, so this is exactly what I was looking for!
Fog is Clouding Our Judgment on COVID and Everything Else
By: Desiree Driesenaar
Tags: Systems Thinking

Mist and fog are intelligent phenomena in nature. Little water droplets cling together when warmer water in the air is rapidly cooled. It’s alchemy! Invisible gas transforms into tiny visible water droplets.

Mist is often formed when warmer air over water suddenly encounters the cooler surface of the land. Or the other way around.

These droplets form when warmer water in the air is rapidly cooled, causing it to change from invisible gas to tiny visible water droplets. Mist is the thinner sister of fog. One kilometer is the limit. If you can’t see beyond one kilometer, mist turns into fog. Word-alchemy this time.

I can even create mist myself. Exhale the warm air from my body into the cold surrounding air of winter times. And look, there’s mist. Created by me.

Natural phenomena are great metaphors. And fog is often on my mind these days. Billions of droplets are clinging together. Claiming their truths. Clouding my judgment.

What is the truth? What is fake? Are we fighting just a virus? Or is it way more complex than that? And how do we deal with this complexity?

I want to give you my perspective. It might help you see through the fog a bit more clearly as well. If you don’t agree with my perspective, that’s okay. We all have our own pilgrim’s paths to follow. So, just follow yours in a wise way and you will get to your destination. I’ll just follow mine.

Some droplets focus on the fight with COVID, other droplets focus on the economy and the companies that are falling down. Some droplets focus on black lives matter, and women matter and LTBG lives matter.

Some are just waiting for a vaccine.

And life will be normal again.

Or will it?
Using constraints & “magic numbers” to build responsive layouts in Figma
By: Littlebits Product
Tags: Technology, Responsive Design, UI, UX, Product

This post is part of a series: Building a design system with Figma at littleBits. Read the previous post — how we created atomic components with Figma — here.

This year we faced a big challenge at Little Bits — launching 4 new apps on multiple platforms with both mobile and tablet layouts. We knew we needed a strong design system to do it right, particularly given our small team and short time span (6 months).

Templates with responsive layouts played a key role in scaling our work. Here’s how we figured out the approach that worked for us in both Figma and React.

Magic Number

One thing that’s great to have at the heart of a design system is a ‘magic number’ — it helps harmonize layout if sizes of text, graphic elements, margins, and padding, share a common numeric factor.

Before we had any kind of system, we had mocks of several key screens that had been created to establish the visual direction of the app.
How to Tell When It’s Time to End a Relationship
By: Alecia Kennedy
Tags: Women, Life Lessons, Self, Advice, Relationships

How to Tell When It’s Time to End a Relationship

The 5 lines I’ve found that should never be crossed

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

My first marriage ended dramatically. I kissed my ex-husband goodbye in the morning and as soon as his car was out of sight, I started packing. I took my clothes out of the closet and laid them, still on hangers, in the back of my car. I threw drawers full of underwear, socks, and t-shirts in the floorboards. I worked quickly, fearing that he would return home before I could leave. Finally, I placed my cat Samantha in her carrier and locked the kitchen door behind me, never to return.

I managed to get away undetected. My ex didn’t realize I was gone until he came home from work, and by then I had already taken out a restraining order against him and was hiding out in a women’s shelter where I would stay until our court date a week later.

After my day in court, I filed for divorce and promptly moved out of state. By the time our divorce was final, I had a new life, new friends, a new apartment, and a renewed sense of hope for my future — something I had lost over the six years of our marriage.

In preparation for my grand escape, I spent the last month of our married life slipping our wedding china and my personal items into a storage unit. Piece by piece, household appliances, linens, and pictures diminished by half without him ever noticing. I guess he also never noticed that my love for him had diminished by far more than half by the time I initiated my plan.

The day I locked that door behind me, there was nothing but anger and hatred left in my heart for him. I had stayed far too long at the dance and because I had not been able to cut ties earlier, what was once merely dysfunctional had become a dangerous and tricky situation. Stealth became a necessary component of my exit strategy. My ex-husband was emotionally, mentally, physically, and sexually abusive. He would have never just let me walk away.

During our six-year marriage, I had drawn many lines in the sand, and he had proceeded to cross every single one. Just before our first anniversary, I found out he had been cheating on me. He was riding around town with various women while I worked nights at a grocery store. The news was delivered to me by a co-worker and friend. When I confronted him, he didn’t deny it but instead changed his story little by little so that all he was really guilty of was kissing another woman. He said this as if that should have made me feel better.

After all, he said, I was never around and he was lonely. I was too busy getting a college degree by day (something he resented) and paying half of our household bills by night. Somehow, it was all my fault.

I was so stubborn that I insisted that we go on the weekend trip we had planned to celebrate our anniversary. We spent a miserable weekend not having sex in a hotel with a mirror on the ceiling. I sat in the hot tub alone wishing I was old enough to buy an alcoholic drink.
That Pesky Fold
By: Rainne Wu
Tags: Usability, UX, Best Practices, Content Strategy

Okay, so why do we care now?

As virtual eventually began replacing the tangible, the term just sort of stuck. So that now, on webpages, the portion of the page visible without scrolling is also referred to as above the fold. Unfortunately, factoring in a multi-screen world, defining the above-the-fold spaces is more complicated. Recent data from W3C and DeviceAtlas identify 8 common tablet and PC display sizes and 12 smartphone resolutions. Translating to 20 different popular breakpoints amongst the most widely used web-viewing devices, which doesn’t begin to consider the myriad of other possible dimensions used by not-so-popular viewports. Now, that pesky fold could be anywhere and everywhere, making that “important stuff goes here” space that much harder to find.

That sounds complicated. What am I supposed to tell my team?

Don’t worry! There are plenty of resources available to find the most popular screen resolutions by geographic location, which will help establish initial parameters. Adopt a strategic mobile-first approach and narrow down to truly valuable content. Remember, a design should work for both portrait and landscape views on mobile devices. Also, don’t forget that people scroll, so utilize the space below the fold as well.

Ah, so people scroll. Does this fold thing even matter then?

Excellent question. Eye-tracking and usability studies conducted by Nielsen Norman Group (NNG) found that, while the percent of viewing time above the fold has been on a downward trajectory, attention span after the fold still sharply decreases for each subsequent screenful of content. Although the pervasiveness of mobile experiences and long-scroll pages has created a learned behavior with users — in fact, longer-scrolling pages may even increase conversions — relying on dwindling down-screen eyeballs for critical messaging is foolish.

NNG also hit the nail on the head when they said “the fold is a concept. The fold matters because what appears at the top of your page matters.” In other words, don’t cram everything above the fold, but don’t discount its importance either. Be strategic about what you show in that space.

Strategy, got it. How about a checklist of what I should probably put there?

When determining what to show above the fold for your particular website, consider usage patterns and ubiquitous visual vernaculars. Above the fold, users expect to see:

value proposition (what your site or service offers) main navigation primary functions or access to primary tasks something interesting that will encourage scrolling

After all, as Amy Schade notes,
Comedienne
By: Brigitte Bebey
Tags: Painting, Jester, Humor, Art, Poetry

Painting by Brigitte Bebey

Comedienne

A Jester’s Tale

She was not a learned sage,

for she is naught but jests,

especially for consensus

she could not care less.

Making many courts merry

saved her being so

possessed.

With bells on her toes and hat,

she jingles as she falls

and always tumbles out of it,

with laughter had by all.

Oh they rarely question

if it was truth or just a play,

always softly chiming

as she walked away.

But, a whimsical mirror

to all the courtesan games,

it’s not customary for a fool

to remember all their names.

Thus, having no station

agreed to no agreements —

just a wisp completely free

to change in a moment’s hence.

Unbound by propriety,

she draws outside the lines,

does cartwheels on red carpets,

while singing ludicrous rhymes.

Reveling on the outside,

an untethered marionette,

twirling with bells on

in joyous pirouettes.
Wildness and a Boy.
By: Axle Winterson
Tags: Travel Writing, Travel, Adventure, Backpacking, Life

The day was ripening, and the light softer, more mild. I came to a gentle stop in a small mountain village with no name, and I eased myself off the saddle. It was quiet, almost feeling deserted, a serene outpost in a silent undulating hillscape. Just the peppering sound of the cooling exhaust pipe, and a soft breeze wailing around and between little wooden huts and mudbrick.

Two boys appeared out of thin air, as such, and approached me with a cautious curiosity. I gestured an acknowledgement of their presence, they reciprocated with that warm playful humour of youth that tickled the atmosphere and woke me from my trance-like daze.

It was just another soft and human moment without barriers, yet so brief, and as they lost interest in such a foreign novelty, I soon set off again — as the evening was dawning upon me, and my planned destination still so distant.

And so the road again opened out before me, and the sun edged its way towards the horizon — declining into that wonderful orange hue of the end of day.

I continued to ride on, and on, and as the film of day became so thinner and thinner, it did come to my awareness that I may be best to find a place to rest for the night, as to avoid the treacherous hours of darkness.

And so, pulling up in a small town at a lower altitude, with that comforting warmth and humidity of the evening, I pondered on where to stay, and, with the help of a young lady, whom, having no such familiarity with the English tongue, and myself having none with her exotic language, led me by gesture and by the motor of her own bike to a basic — but quite sufficient, roadside hotel where, after a steaming soup bowl on some street corner, I finally lay my head to rest — and the first day of this long journey passed over. Yet, so soon, as if with no interval at all; the jaws of dawn pried open and those first rays of warm light filtered through the curtains of the window and stroked the hairs of my arm — and, as that warm light did caress me, I awoke, eager for the new day.
Can RSS enable new level of productivity in an enterprise space?
By: Alok Tyagi
Tags: Blogging, Startups, Erp

I am excited about how various technologies are evolving and shaping up to play in the enterprise space. Like RSS, which has already proven its mark on the blogging side — but it is now touted to aggregate and push the relevant enterprise data to various users within an enterprise. Some thoughts are captured here on the possible use of RSS in the enterprise world under Enterprise 2.0 vision.

For those who don’t know what RSS is — here is a nice video clip explaining it, how to use it and why you should care.

Watch the Video
Need for measures of Spread — Range, Variance, Standard Deviation
By: Atul Sharma
Tags: Data Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Data Visualization, Data

Taking reference to the same data used in the previous blog:

Range

The quickest spread measurer of a data set is Range. We take the maximum and minimum value out of the data set and subtract to get the range.

(Image by author)

(*Data assumed as the population data for this blog)

Variance

For this measure, we will have to go back for reference, let’s recollect some thoughts previously mentioned. As stated earlier these numbers are nothing but distance measures from the origin when plotted on the number line.

(Image by author)

Let’s take one more dataset with 7 data points of the same value (i.e. Mean of our parent data set).

(Image by author)

Parent Data Set = 150,155,160,160,170,175,180 (all in cm)

New Data Set = 164.3, 164.3, 164.3, 164.3, 164.3, 164.3, 164.3 (all in cm)

Now we will calculate the average of squared distances from the origin for both data sets:

Difference = 27092.85–26994.49 = 98.36 cm2

There is an evident difference between these two measures of two data sets but what if we change the reference from origin to the mean, let’s find out:

You too will agree now that things are better in terms of reference and output value, visualizing them again will lead to further clarity:

(Image by author)

Standard Deviation

You might have noticed that the unit of the output of Variance is cm2 & if we want a measure of spread having a similar mean reference but with original units (cm), then all we need to do is take the square root of Variance. This is what standard deviation is.

Note — All the calculations done above are assuming dataset as population set. The most discussed & debated topic related to the denominator of such measures i.e. why it is N-1 for the samples and why N for the population will be explained later in the upcoming blogs.

With the 2-number summary (Central Tendency & Spread), we can better distinguish among datasets and remember every statistical measure has a purpose to serve. These measures are existing to capture details that were not being captured with already available measures at hand. In the upcoming blogs, you will notice the need for capturing further extractable details using more statistical measures. With this, I end this chewable bite here, looking forward to sharing more blogs in the future.

Thanks!!!
UI/UX: The Fastest Way to Design a Killer Product
By: Nick Lawrence
Tags: Ui Ux Design

1. Understand Users’ Real Needs

Designing any product is absolutely pointless if it does not fulfill real users’ real needs. These are defined by two possible scenarios:

Your users want a result that they don’t have. Your users have a result that they don’t want.

That’s it. These two scenarios drive all action by your user and you must first identify which of these scenarios that your users are in so that you can discern the appropriate course of action.

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Then, you must discern the cause of the results, where they are coming from, what the REAL issue(s) are for your users, and what results they are ultimately looking for.

The best way to do this is by talking to your users and writing down what they say they are looking for/want/need, what they do, how they do it, and asking them why they did it that way.

With respect to the data you gather from those interactions,

your product will either:

Remove pain. Provide pleasure.

Yes, there are nuances, but this is what it boils down to in the end.

Whatever you do to GET the users to use your product is a matter of persuasive UX which hooks into habituation and behavioral psychology, but your product must fulfill those one of those two requirements above, preferably both, in order to be considered viable & valuable, with respect to your users’ needs.
What is the Carbon Footprint of Crypto?
By: Brian Wallace
Tags: Crytocurrency, Carbon Footprint, Energy, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency Energy

A few months ago tech writers started sounding alarms about the massive carbon footprint of cryptocurrency. Apparently since cryptocurrency is built to be self-limiting by increasing the difficulty of algorithms with each use, the amount of energy needed for each transaction goes up. One estimate puts the amount of energy used for Bitcoin alone at 1% of domestic energy production in the United States worldwide. An even more dire estimate says that Bitcoin alone could consume all of the world’s energy by 2020.

It’s likely that Bitcoin will never reach that benchmark for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the prediction is based on a lot of assumptions. The data needed to discover just how much energy cryptocurrency transactions, particularly Bitcoin transactions, are using just isn’t readily available without further study and scrutiny.

That’s not to say that cryptocurrency doesn’t have its problems with energy use — it is exclusively based in the digital world with the exception of a few certificated that get printed off of Bitcoin ATMs once in a while. That said, there is still time to figure out how to use cryptocurrency more efficiently as well as lessons to learn about how to build it more eco-friendly in the future.

Learn more about the carbon footprint of cryptocurrency from this infographic.
Drawing: Mr. Lynch
By: Rolli, Https, Ko-Fi.Com Rolliwrites
Tags: Art, Culture, Comics, Drawing, Film

Artist’s Note №1

This drawing will earn no money (Medium recently all-but-demonetized poetry, cartoons, flash fiction and other short articles). Please consider buying me a coffee. More coffee=more drawings for you to enjoy.

Artist’s Note №2

This drawing is brought to you by the letter “D.” “D” is for Dr. Franklin’s Staticy Cat and Other Outrageous Tales, my collection of humorous stories and drawings for children.

Artist’s Note №3

My new one-man Medium magazine is called — Rolli. Subscribe today.

Artist’s Note №4

From now on, I’m letting my readers determine how often I post new material. When this post reaches 1000 claps — but not before — I’ll post something new.

Artist’s Note №5

You might like these drawings, too.
Book Title Goes Here
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Humor, Illustration, Drawing, Art

Two years of selected illustrations and drawings, free to download: yes, that’s true.

Around sixty drawing have been selected among the hundreds published in the last two years.
The 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive and What It Means for Crypto Businesses
By: Stefan Enchev
Tags: Blockchain, Law, Business, Cryptocurrency, Regulation

The implementation of the AMLD5 within the Netherlands — a relatively stringent regime.

While we took mention that Directives can be modified by Member States, it is common practice for MS to impose a higher burden by way of their implementation. The general sentiment around the EU-28 in regard to AMLD5 is the registration practice for crypto businesses.

However, a small percentage has opted out for some additional protection. Such is also the case for the Netherlands which has, arguably, set quite a high bar for those affected by the new Directive.

Above other amendments, the Dutch Financial Ministry explicitly places exchanges and (professional) wallet service providers under a number of specific obligations.

First, the Ministry imposes a licensing requirement on the above-mentioned providers with a commercial angle — any business operating within a similar capability will not be operable unless they obtain a relevant license from the Dutch Central Bank (DCB). Said licensing practice is also subject to change or even revocation, at the discretion of the DCB in cases of non-compliance.

Second, exchanges and wallet service providers will have to appoint a designated team of experts, charged with the supervision of practices including the handling of virtual currencies. For businesses, this comes with significant additional, both human and financial, resources. What is more, supervision is required to be executed on a daily basis.

Overall, the Finance Ministry’s recommended changes have not been greeted with much enthusiasm within the private sector. Many businesses associated with cryptocurrencies and related activities have voiced justified concerns in regard to the burden they will bear in terms of costs and efforts.

The requirement of daily monitoring and control furthermore supports the claims made by various parties in the official consultations following the proposed AMLD5 amendments.

Renowned blockchain and crypto influencers and technologists have also joined the fray for justification of the elevated compliance standard. Most notably, Sjors Provoost — a vocal crypto supporter as well as Core Bitcoin Developer — has filed a number of official remarks pertaining the Directive’s implementation. To go along Mr. Provoost’s suggestions, here you can find his and the rest of the commentaries from the private sector.
Woz speaks (on iPhone)
By: Pito Salas
Tags: Technology, Blogbridge, Android, Engadget, iPhone

I happen to be reading iWoz, which is Steve Wozniak’s memoir/biography/whatever. It’s a very breezy easy read and fun if you follow this kind of thing. So naturally this caught my eye:

“Woz then moved on to the topic of Android saying that Android smartphones, not the iPhone, would become dominant, noting that the Google OS is likely to win the race similarly to the way that Windows ultimately dominated the PC world. Woz stressed that the iPhone, “Has very few weak points. There aren’t any real complaints and problems.” (from “Steve Wozniak: Android will be the dominant smartphone platform”)

Of course Engadget may not have selected the particular headline that Woz would have liked, because he also lavished praise on the iPhone saying it has “”Has very few weak points. There aren’t any real complaints and problems. In terms of quality, the iPhone is leading.”
The true master
By: Adam Vrána
Tags: Wisdom, Fear, Thinking, Self Improvement, Art

The true master always realizes the knowledge is infinite.

That there are always new ways to learn.

And the path we call life has no ending.

That’s why he’s not affraid of death.

The true master sees each source valuable. And each opportunity exploitable.

He loves to explore life using his fullest attention no matter how much other people discourage him.

The true master treats everyone the same. Whether he’s dealing with a master like himself or a child.

Because the true master knows the children is — from a certain point of view — already being a master.

The true master believes there is no control or leadership needed.

Only a guidance, empowerment and inspiration.

That’s how he spreads his wisdom.

And that’s how he gets attention.

Which turns into respect.

While respect latter turns into achievment.

And the achievment into purpose.

The true master doesn’t use the word “should.”

Because he realizes it’s up to each human being to do it’s own will.

So he spents most of his time listening, not arguing or advicing other people. Unless they ask for his help or advise.

And that’s how he earns their trust.

And their love.

The true master lies withing each one of us.

It’s our very essence.

The little child who never got corrupted by upbringing, school and society.

It’s our purest form.

It’s what I believe we’ll become once we cross the rainbow bridge and leave the world of living…

… to come back and be born once again.

The true master resides in our souls.

Waiting to be awaken.
Why I Don’t Want to Talk to Your Kids
By: Tracey Folly
Tags: Life Lessons, Advice, Life, Parenting, Culture

We live in interesting times. If a woman doesn’t want children, it’s offensive. If a woman has too many children, it’s offensive. If a woman has children with multiple men, it’s offensive. These days, there’s no right way to be a woman, especially when it comes to her reproductive choices.

I am childfree by choice. Yes, I said “childfree.” I’ve learned recently that some people object to that word. These people find it offensive and decree that it shouldn’t be used, which is ridiculous. I’ve worked very hard to remain childfree, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it to please anyone whose decisions have led to a different outcome.

Clearly, I didn’t remain childfree by choice out of a love of children. In fact, I’ve never really liked kids. Upon hearing this, some people have asked, “Do you realize you were once a kid yourself?”

Of course, I realize I was once a kid myself. That’s when I developed a distaste for children in general. As a shy, quiet child, I abhorred the noisier, more boisterous, less well-behaved children. In my public elementary school, that meant I abhorred all the children. As an adult, I still do.

When I was perhaps ten, a younger cousin asked whether I wanted children someday when I grew up. I was horrified at the question. “No,” I said. “Never.” I haven’t changed my mind, and I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Announcing Laracon Online
By: Eric L. Barnes
Tags: PHP, Laravel, Conference, JavaScript

Laracon Online is a brand new one-day conference that will be held entirely online. This means no matter where you live you can now take part in Laracon. No hotels, no airfare, just signup and spend the day watching some of the best speakers right from your computer.

The speaker list includes Taylor Otwell, Jeffrey Way, Matt Stauffer, Adam Wathan, Evan You, Rachel Andrew, Nick Canzoneri, and Jason McCreary. Covering everything from new Laravel features to Vue.js, CSS, and more.

Laracon Online will be held on March 8th, 2017 with opening remarks at 8:45 AM EST. If you can’t attend that day, all the talks will be recorded and available online for viewing at your convenience shortly after the conference ends.

Registration is now open for everyone which includes a conference ticket, the recorded videos to watch after it’s over, a special Slack channel for hanging out and mingling, and even digital swag. All for just $10 during the early-bird special.
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Humor, Tuesday, Comics, Cartoon

First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.

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Why You Need to Have Bull and Bird Eyes Simultaneously
By: Hiba Aloul
Tags: Growth, Self Improvement, Vision, Support, Goals

Quite often, when you are on a path to self improvement or healing, you are faced with different kinds of challenges that are both internal pertinent to your own thoughts and feelings, but also external relevant to your circumstances and social circles.

As much as we like to believe that our support system will in fact be very supportive of our journey, most times you will be met with those who feel threatened by your own growth. Probably because they feel your growth will not include them.

In this case, we may sometimes fall into the guilt trap and tone down our light so we don’t make others feel left out. We may choose to keep it to ourselves and not allow our new and improved self to influence how we show up in the world.

Other times, we may feel resentment and anger for the lack of support and lose the very balance we have been working on.

While most people look out for what’s in their best interest, you on the other hand might feel that doing just that will make you a selfish person.

I personally have always believed that selfishness is a frowned upon trait, until I stumbled upon the term “SELF-ish”. Which I have interpreted to mean this:

Always choose what feeds your growth, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else’s.

So How Can You Stay Strong on Your Journey?

You need to have two different, yet equally important, sets of eyes

1. Bull’s Eyes

These eyes are always focused on your short term goals, habits, targets…etc. You need these eyes because they set the tone of your days.

I personally have a set of daily and weekly habits and goals that I know when I stick to them, I feel more centered and grounded.

Being grounded is very important when you are on any journey to self improvement and healing, it supports your commitment to your goals and gives you a boost of self confidence.

If you think about it, change and self improvement don’t happen in big leaps, they happen on a daily basis, that’s why you need your bull eyes to keep you on track on a daily basis.

What about those who feel threatened by your growth?

Well, I realized that when I have a set of habits and daily goals that I am happily working on, I am immune to distractions and to any criticism and disapproval. It’s like I am shielded from negativity, because just like a bull, I am focused on my target.

2. Bird’s Eyes

These are the eyes you look through to see the big picture, your life vision so to speak.

When you know how you want your life to look like, say in 5 years, everything you are doing now will make sense to you.

You know where you are headed and why you are committed to your short term goals to begin with.

Having such a view, will motivate you to take the smaller steps and embark on all the stepping stones that will lead you there
Birth of a New Dawn
By: Era Garg
Tags: Paper Poetry, New Year, Wishes, Holiday Greetings, Holidays

Image on paper with wet-in-wet watercolour by author

Holiday Greetings to my family, friends, relatives, fellow readers, writers and publication teams on medium. Hope forthcoming new year will be calming, healing and invigorating for earthlings throughout the globe.

Many Thanks to Suntonu Bhadra and Congratulations for Paper Poetry’s steep rise in hearts of the readers.

Era Garg December 2020
The Addiction of Cocaine’s Dollar Signs
By: Don Simkovich
Tags: Crime Fiction, Drugs, True Crime, Crime, Police

Drug Subs

Whale watching isn’t the only reason to scan the ocean. Watercraft that travel at the surface so they’re not easily detected also sail through the water, carrying drugs worth hundreds of millions of dollars in street value.

The vessels are semi-immersible subs, moving at the surface of the ocean so they’re tough for the Coast Guard to find. The crew is usually small with only a three or four people.

Narco-subs are the drug smuggling vehicle of choice in the next Tom Stone Detective novel that I’m writing with Lon Casler Bixby, co-author: Subterfuge.

Researching the subs and other ways cartels smuggle cocaine and other drugs has been fascinating as we reveal in these articles:

Why Narco-Subs are Drug Smuggling Vessels of Choice

Pineapples as the Chosen Fruit of Cocaine Smugglers
Why keep Bitcoin around?
Tags: Cryptocurrency News, Libra, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

A typical crypto-native response is crypto’s indefatigability: “See, states are beginning to realize that cryptocurrencies are potent competition, because we are!”

Bitlievers proclaim that cryptocurrencies are superior money . Therefore, ‘the market’ will inevitably choose crypto.

. Therefore, ‘the market’ will inevitably choose crypto. Some argue that crypto will win the money war of attrition, at which point people may not have a choice but to use crypto. Many crypto folks (though, not all) may believe the Euro and USD will collapse, and related eschatological (end-times) reasons. And the sharpest and most valuable tool in the shed will be … say… Bitcoin.

But this begs the question: if faced with an existential choice between relinquishing monetary control or attacking Bitcoin, why wouldn’t incumbents simply outlaw or otherwise try to capture Bitcoin?

This is the biggest existential question for any limited-utility blockchain tool.

The question is NOT whether states have already done this. The question is NOT whether states/corporations can do this (e.g., whether, say, Bitcoin is inherently uncapturable). The question is much more simple:

Why wouldn’t a state or private competitor to Bitcoin simply try to capture the Bitcoin network? Either through legal/regulatory channels, or via an outright hostile takeover?

Thus far, nobody wants to answer this question publicly.

That’s a shame because there’s no shortage of diehard bitlievers who will stop at nothing to emphasize Bitcoin supremacy. If that’s the case, this should be an easy question for them to answer (and then defend from critiques).
🚩 Roadshow Alert! 🚩
By: Sharik Khan
Tags: ICO, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Bitcoin

🚩 Roadshow Alert! 🚩

PEP Network team meets Bitgosu in South Korea

Yesterday we were at #Bitgosu meetup in #Korea ! It’s Korea’s biggest blockchain Channel! It’s hard to put together into one post what a massive success our roadshow was! We were astonished by the enthusiasm and excitement around PEP Network. We can’t wait to see what our next roadshow has in store for us!

We share below some awesome moments of the meetup:
Born Of A Virgin Mother
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Birth, Virgin, Life, Pregnancy, Miracles

March 1979, Marathon, Ontario, Canada. My mother was working away from home for the first time. My parents were very young — my mom was 22, my dad probably a year or two older. I’ve never met him, so I’m not exactly sure how old he is — I wrote about him here:

Things began to get a little bit out of hand, and to his day my mother isn’t sure what happened as there was no alcohol or drugs involved, but he didn’t remember any of it. Of course, I can only go by very old and faded memories that aren’t my own. We all know that memories have a tendency to change and evolve slightly over the years, and my mother’s memory isn’t the best…but as the story goes, this is how it happened.

I think technically it would be considered rape — or at least attempted rape — but I’m not sure as I wasn’t there. From what I’m told by my mother, it was unintentional. He also stopped when he realized what he was about to do, however it was nearly too late.

He didn’t go far enough to take her virginity, but it appears fate had plans of her own.

My mother’s hymen was shrunken, which means that there were gaps. Gaps big enough to allow for pre-ejaculation fluids to seep through. You could call me a mistake, or an accident — my mother calls me a miracle. Her words, not mine!

They remained friends after that happened, but she couldn’t trust him anymore and refused to stay in a relationship with him. It was June when she went back home and realized she was pregnant. Upon a doctor’s examination, it was determined that she was, in fact, still a virgin. The doctor had to ‘remedy’ that situation with a medical instrument — so romantic.

Unfortunately — or, fortunately? — I can’t say that my life has played out like a modern-day telenovela. That could have been interesting…but I guess our lives are all a little bit like a soap opera for those on the outside looking in. I’m really not that interesting.

Christmas night, I decided it was time and I was ready to meet the world (a month early). Apparently, even from before birth, I had trouble making decisions — first I want to come a month early, and then I make my poor mother wait almost twenty-four hours before making my grand entrance.

So there you have it. I wasn’t supposed to happen, and here I am; born of a virgin mother on the day after Christmas. I was named Edith, which depending on which site you look, means ‘riches or blessed’.

My mother, for reasons that are her own, chose to remain celibate for the rest of her life. She went on a couple of dates when I was young, but brought me along on both and had no interest to pursue a second date with either of them.

If you asked me? Well, I’m no miracle — and certainly no miracle worker. I’m just an ordinary girl with too many hopes and dreams and fantasies.

…but if you asked my mother, she might give you a different answer.
Graph Connectivity With Threshold
By: Omar Faroque
Tags: Graph, Leetcode, Connected Components, Divisor

We have n cities labeled from 1 to n . Two different cities with labels x and y are directly connected by a bidirectional road if and only if x and y share a common divisor strictly greater than some threshold . More formally, cities with labels x and y have a road between them if there exists an integer z such that all of the following are true:

x % z == 0 ,

, y % z == 0 , and

, and z > threshold .

Given the two integers, n and threshold , and an array of queries , you must determine for each queries[i] = [ai, bi] if cities ai and bi are connected (i.e. there is some path between them).

Return an array answer , where answer.length == queries.length and answer[i] is true if for the ith query, there is a path between ai and bi , or answer[i] is false if there is no path.

Example 1:

Input: n = 6, threshold = 2, queries = [[1,4],[2,5],[3,6]]

Output: [false,false,true]

Explanation: The divisors for each number:

1: 1

2: 1, 2

3: 1, 3

4: 1, 2, 4

5: 1, 5

6: 1, 2, 3, 6

Using the underlined divisors above the threshold, only cities 3 and 6 share a common divisor, so they are the

only ones directly connected. The result of each query:

[1,4] 1 is not connected to 4

[2,5] 2 is not connected to 5

[3,6] 3 is connected to 6 through path 3--6

Example 2:

Input: n = 6, threshold = 0, queries = [[4,5],[3,4],[3,2],[2,6],[1,3]]

Output: [true,true,true,true,true]

Explanation: The divisors for each number are the same as the previous example. However, since the threshold is 0,

all divisors can be used. Since all numbers share 1 as a divisor, all cities are connected.

Example 3:

Input: n = 5, threshold = 1, queries = [[4,5],[4,5],[3,2],[2,3],[3,4]]

Output: [false,false,false,false,false]

Explanation: Only cities 2 and 4 share a common divisor 2 which is strictly greater than the threshold 1, so they are the only ones directly connected.

Please notice that there can be multiple queries for the same pair of nodes [x, y], and that the query [x, y] is equivalent to the query [y, x].

Constraints:

2 <= n <= 104

0 <= threshold <= n

1 <= queries.length <= 105

queries[i].length == 2

1 <= ai, bi <= cities

ai != bi

Solution: Easier way to think about this problem is

1. build the graph with divisor

2. Find the connected components

Here is my java solution:
The Greatest Joke I Ever Heard While on a Ski Lift
By: Joe Váradi
Tags: Humor, Travel, Satire, Family, Jokes

A young man walks into his favorite corner pub in Dublin. He walks up to the counter, orders three pints of Guinness, brings them to his favorite table. Has a sip of one, then a sip of the second, then a sip of the third. Repeats this until he slowly finishes all three.

On his way out, the bartender — who is new to the pub — asks him, “Don’t mean to be rude, but why don’t you order them one at a time?”

“Oh, it’s my two brothers and I, you see,” replies the young man, “we’ve been coming here for ages, we’d meet here every Friday over a couple of pints of stout. But now, one of them is off to America, seeking his fortune. The other is with the Naval Service, out at sea most of the year. So I come back here on Fridays, to keep the family tradition alive.”

Weeks pass, the young man returns, but this time he orders only two pints of Guinness. Brings them back to his table, drinks them in his usual way.

As the rest of the patrons take notice, the chatter dies down, and a somber mood descends on the place. On his way out, the bartender stops him again. “Listen, on behalf of all the guys here, just want to express my sincere condolences for your terrible loss.”

The young man appears puzzled, thinks for a bit, then looks up at the bartender with a smirk and says,

“Oh, no, my brothers are fine. It’s just that — I’ve decided to quit drinking!”
Business Plan For Programmers
By: Ata Tekeli
Tags: Business Plan, Coding, Programming, Business

What is it? What should it contain? And why it’s crucial to learn how to write it?

Preparing a business plan is vital and it can help you to create your own business from scratch. Because preparing a business plan is not being taught in technical specializations, we’ll outline for programmers, software developers, and engineers to help plan their own business. Here are the details.

What is a business plan?

The business plan is a document about how the whole business will be established. They include estimations, timelines, budgets, and plans with precisely realistic and detailed forms for investors to evaluate. If you don’t write your business plan for investors, then, it’d be written for the top management about goals, means of accomplishing them, and their timeline to complete these plans. So, it’s a document about the business goals, how they will be completed, and what their timelines are with an organizational chart.

How to prepare a business plan?

A business plan should be precise, realistic and every detail included in all their charts and estimations. Even more, it should be clean and simple enough to be understood by the investors or top management to convince them to make an investment in your startup or setting goals for your current business. They’re being prepared with a Gantt chart, organizational chart, responsibility assignment matrix, and personnel information. And all these details should be written formally to present to top management and investors.

And why knowing to prepare a business plan is crucial?

Knowing to prepare a business plan could save you a lot of time to build your company in its earliest stages. Even more, it could help you get your preferred mean of financing to your startup or an established company. Moreover, it could help you on your way to the top management if you work at a low ending position in a large corporation.

So, preparing a business plan could give you an upper hand in executive positions and finding appropriate means of financing for your business to expand.

According to you, why programmers need to learn to write a business plan? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.