fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
David Attenborough, from Natural History Broadcaster to Social Media Influencer
Tags: David Attenborough, Instagram, Digisoc1

Over many decades Sir David Attenborough has amassed an audience of millions with his documentaries and environmental campaigns through many digital means such as film and TV. His presence is known worldwide as much of his work can be found on the BBC and now Netflix with his short new film and book.

This year he switched his mode of contact with the world by downloading Instagram and becoming the fastest person ever to reach 1 million followers in just over 5 hours overtaking Jennifer Aniston. David is capitalizing on his young following by engaging with them more directly as 73% of Gen-Z use Instagram regularly.

David expresses his ideas and connections online using the help of others to post for him to bridge the gap in his online knowledge. He acknowledges his gap in online skills and is getting help from people who know how to post effectively. Reaching his target audience of future leaders, he must broadcast his ideas in places they will see them, with a large following of 6 million he is achieving this goal.

Through his feed you can see several personalized videos David has filmed himself, speaking of ideas for the future and how we can carry the torch for saving the wildlife and natural environment of this planet. This is a much more sensitive and personal glance into the life of such a famous man, as we get to see his story from the start, and how he has come to learn in the same way that he hopes we will, from the messages he is sharing.

Attenborough has been deemed a national treasure for many, many years and has been named one of the 100 Greatest Britons. Using his well-known name, he has created a video for his followers in which he is answering questions from other celebrities such as Billie Eilish and David Beckham. Not only does this help him achieve his goal of educating the world but also helps him engage with people from different generations and social groups.

This engagement with different demographics allows for his online presence to be more noticed and interacted with but also allows for him to grow as an online influencer. He can bring in people who may not have initially heard of him and those who did not know he was now on Instagram.

This collaboration with others highlights the importance of David’s voice and puts him in a different setting to which we see him, one on one engaging with other celebrities. These different perspectives David shows of himself make him a very authentic and accessible individual.

His recent online presence and dominance were timed with the release of his new Netflix documentary ‘A Life on our Planet’ which was his mission statement. His Instagram account is a support and follow up to his ideas expressed in this film and how sudden action is required, people must engage in new things such as Sir David Attenborough joining the online world.
The Ex-Guest
By: Jenny Jedeikin
Tags: Jenny Jedeikin, Comics, Divorce, Family, Relationships

Jenny Jedeikin’s work has appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Rolling Stone, The Advocate, The UK's Oh Comely; read more at jennyjedeikin.com.

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Lemon Meringue Cookie Goodness
By: Deanna Yang
Tags: Lemon Meringue, Cookie, Personal, Lemon, Business

[gallery type=”square” columns=”4" ids=”819,816,818"]

This week, our new cookie of the week was the Lemon Meringue Cookie. One of my favourite cookies so far (after carrot cake!), it has a lemon filling and meringue on top — blow torched to perfection. It’s simply divine and I have to stop myself from eating them all myself because we sell out everyday and I don’t want anyone to miss out! It’s definitely the most aesthetically pleasing cookie we’ve invented so far too.

A customer told me that they had read a good article about me in Unlimited Magazine so I rushed down to the local bookstore and grabbed myself two copies. I always feel sheepish reading magazines in public that I know I’m in. I have this crazy paranoia that someone will see me reading about myself and think I’m vain haha.

The article is well written and I liked how at the end, there was a reflective piece from Ken Erskine (who leads the start-up team at the Ice House) saying “Young, talented entrepreneurs shouldn’t hold back”. It’s so weird seeing myself in print — almost cringe-worthy but it’s an honour to be in Unlimited and to take up 3 pages!

Lately, I’ve been in a bit of a slump. For so long I’ve been raring to go, fighting so hard & working so much…but now, it’s so hard to find motivation. There is so much work to be done yet I’ve seem to have lost that gusto that got me through all those hard times. I’m starting to lose focus…my brain is constantly going on imaginary cruises around different dreams in distant lands. I really need to snap out of it.

How do you motivate yourself? I know it sounds stupid, but I often find motivation from the past Deanna. Reading on my old diary entries, it makes me sad reading how inspired and motivated I was in the past and I feel ashamed that I’ve lost that recently.

Here are a couple quotes I jotted down two years ago when I first thought of Moustache:

The mind is everything. What you think, you become — Buddha / Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. / The only products with a future are those created by passionate people. / Success is earned — Nike /Pain is temporary, giving up is forever. / Success isn’t free & living isn’t easy / The man who moves a mountain, begins by carrying small stones — Confucious

Keep me accountable guys…this time next week I promise I will be back to my motivated self! x
Instagram Filter｜兩組調色濾鏡用點擊螢幕按鈕連接. 自從在YouTube分別分享製作Lightroom調色濾鏡及點擊螢幕按鈕教學後，…
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My Secret Visualisation Technique to Dramatically Improve Your Stories
By: James Garside
Tags: Art, Writing, Creativity, Productivity, Essay

Do you feel like you’re lost at sea when it comes to telling your stories?

You want to write a novel, short story, or screenplay, but keep drowning in the details. You know what it takes to write a decent story, and you’re in love with the story that you want to tell, but you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. You’re willing to write your ass off, and have written successfully in the past, but you choke at the sight of the blank page.

If you don’t do something about it then you’re going to die with this story inside you.

When you die your untold stories die with you. No-one can tell your stories as well as you can. No-one is coming to rescue you. No-one is going to do it for you. Your ship is sinking fast.

The good news is it doesn’t take much to turn your boat around and steer you in the right direction. You just need to think about story in a different way. Sometimes making a subtle shift in the way that you think is all it takes to stay afloat.

If you use the following visualisation technique it will radically improve your understanding of stories. It’s something that I normally only teach to my creative writing students. You’re welcome.

How to shape your story

What shape is a story? Make that shape with your hands.

Did you make a circle, a triangle, a square?

Some people even draw squiggly lines or try to trace a story arc in the air.

This makes sense — stories have shape and pattern.

Most plots follow the trajectory of an arc but often with twists and turns.

Now I want to show you the true shape of a story.

Make the shape of a bowl with your hands.

Fill your cupped hands with water — I’d advise doing this away from your computer or phone.

Try to hold your hands so that the water doesn’t leak out.

This is your story bowl.

Story Bowls

When readers look at your work they’re not interested in the words so much as the stuff that’s held inside them. No matter how much water you try to hold most of it will slip through your fingers unless your hands maintain a good shape.

That’s how it is with stories. The quality of your story determines how much of the world it can hold.

Visualise your story bowl as you write. Try and see the world in which the story takes place as a handful of water that you’re trying to keep inside the bowl. The words will come — don’t look for them, just focus on whatever it is that you hold in your hands.

You want to make of your story a bowl that can hold the world; and in order for your words to be able to hold the world they must be watertight.

Your story literally needs to hold water. If your story can be picked apart, then you’re going to get wet.

Lao Tzu said that a bowl was useful, not in itself, but because of the empty space and what it could hold. When you write you’re making a space for the world.

A story bowl has the potential to hold any amount of water. Sometimes a novel may only hold a cupful of water, because it is full of holes, whereas a haiku may hold the entire ocean.

It all depends upon the strength of the vessel.
Twenty Minutes in an Instant
By: Jay Sizemore
Tags: Decision Making, Poetry, Time, Trauma, Jay Sizemore

Twenty Minutes in an Instant

A poem about decisions

Photo by Science in HD on Unsplash

where the atom splits apple

chopping block maul the bomb

dropped ten-mile momentum

the eyes blink lash dance

and the world a vanishing

bloom of white-hot light

buildings burning paper shadows

deserts now shimmering rivers

of molten glass

this, in a flash

built from layer upon layer

of decisions stacked in rows

dominoes like suburbs

ready to fall at a whim

the sound of a bottle

tipped to the rim

of an empty tumbler

and the liquid hitting bottom

nothing as simple as time

its steady passage

a Niagra of yearning or whisper soul

yet we ache

for that simplicity

to explain what went wrong

how the body became a weapon

how the pine needles

got tangled in her hair

how the finger found itself

on the trigger

or on the zipper

inside the sleeping crevices

of a person like a watered stone

fractured frozen alone
Our position on the upcoming Bitcoin Cash hard fork
By: The Voltaire Team
Tags: Bitcoincash, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Cryptocurrency Investment

Bitcoin Cash will hard fork on November 15 2018 around 4:40 pm UTC as part of a scheduled protocol upgrade. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding this fork due to influential ecosystem participants being strongly divided in opinion.

Who does Voltaire Support?

As part of our mission to see peer-to-peer electronic cash displacing the financial system, Voltaire will respect Nakamoto Consensus and support the chain with the longest proof of work.

What this means in practice is that Voltaire is ready to follow and list either conflicting implementation (Bitcoin ABC or Bitcoin SV). We’ve prepared our wallets to support both coins, as the situation will require, and will follow the chain with majority hashpower.

We are discouraged by the lack of compromise and side closest with Bitcoin Unlimited’s, neutral approach.

What will happen?

A hard fork occurs when miners want to change the Bitcoin software. The change is major and renders the older chain invalid. In this case, two Bitcoin Cash development teams would like to introduce changes to the Bitcoin software which are incompatible with not only the current chain, but each other’s new chain.

We expect a contentious (competing) hard fork. In order to protect user funds, we will be suspending Bitcoin Cash deposits and withdrawals at 4 pm UTC on November 15th.

Should the fork result in two competing chains, we will monitor the demand for supporting the minority chain over the coming weeks and months.

Are my coins safe?

Yes. In order to protect user funds, we will be suspending deposits and withdrawals at 4 pm UTC on November 15th. We strongly recommend users withdraw Bitcoin Cash from Voltaire and secure their own private keys for the duration of the fork action, which can be monitored here.

Will trading be available?

Yes. Trading on Voltaire will continue to operate as normal during the fork.
Thread
By: Gretchen Lee Bourquin, Pom-Poet
Tags: Poetry, Life, Love, Perseverance, Self

I take the one loose thread

From this tattered life

And pull

Hang from this thin material

And the bunches and knots

Pinch and pull into distortion

And when the thread breaks

Misshapen, I must move on

No matter how I tug and pull

At the fabric

I am never what I was

But that is fine

I place the garment

Over my head

Arms through the armholes

And wear it proudly to the party

Blemishes and all.
Your Relationship Shouldn’t Stop You From Investing in Yourself.
By: Landy Simpson
Tags: Inspiration, Life, Love, Relationships, Self

Your Relationship Shouldn’t Stop You From Investing in Yourself.

You’re in a relationship today, then single tomorrow. That’s why it’s crucial to invest in yourself.

Photo by Briona Baker on Unsplash

Investing in oneself throughout a relationship ensures that healthy coping mechanisms are in place for recovery when a relationship comes to an end.

You’ve probably heard this before, but you need to be happy on your own before you enter any relationship. Each party in a relationship should invest in individual happiness as much as collective happiness. A relationship is a union of two parties, and it requires both parties to bring a part of themselves to the table. But you can’t just bring anything to the table; you need to bring your best self. And you are your best when you can talk about all the joys in your life, such as your hobbies and aspirations.

Photo by Anastasiia Tarasova on Unsplash

Individual happiness strengthens a relationship, but it also reinforces independence. It’s easy to become codependent on your partner and live life like conjoined twins. But it’s detrimental to your wellbeing because your happiness is dependent on the other party. You also become responsible for the other party’s happiness, which is an immense weight to shoulder alone.

Another person shouldn’t dictate your happiness, and if they have that power, it’s time to take it back. A relationship is a single part of one’s happiness. Therefore, it’s essential to treat it as such and shoulder the weight of your happiness on yourself.

Continue to generate business ideas and travel plans in your relationship. Although relationships can change or halt plans, don’t throw out those plans altogether. Integrate them into your life and actively invest in them. Grow comfortable looking yourself in the mirror and identify the parts of yourself that still need growing. Practice self-love daily. Love yourself as if you didn’t have a partner to validate that love for you.

Have you ever broken up with someone and didn’t know what to do with your mind or body?

Maintaining a relationship means having a routine in a relationship. For example, every weekend, you travel to your partner's house for a date night, or every night you call your partner to inquire about their day. The longer the relationship, the more comfortable one becomes in the relationship's routine, and the harder it becomes to imagine not doing that routine. However, sometimes in establishing a relationship routine, individualistic routines become lost.

Continue to practice individualistic routines. Perhaps go to a new cafe every other weekend with a friend, or at night you read a little bit before you go to sleep. These are the small pleasures that shouldn’t feel foreign and should go unaffected if a relationship ends. And it’s these small pleasures that help make the recovery of a failed relationship a little bit easier.
Bye Bye To The Medium Partner Program
By: Mike Essig
Tags: Poetry, Writing, Medium, Money, Medium Partner Program

For the last three months, I have participated in the Medium Partner Program (MPP). During that time, I have received about $1,500 for my locked poems. That is more than I have ever earned by writing in my life.

As a retired person living on Social Security, that equals about one month of my normal income. The money has been both unexpected and helpful. I truly thank both Medium and my readers.

But, as of January, I will no longer participate in the MPP. There are two main reasons why it is not for me.

The first is that I simply don’t understand how it works, Medium has decided that must remain shrouded in mystery. All I can say from my own experience is that to succeed with the MPP, it is necessary to deluge Medium with locked posts. Even then there is no consistency to the results. I once received $100 for one clap on an old poem. This month that same poem received many claps and has earned nineteen cents.

The second reason derives from the first. Unlike prose, poetry cannot be reduced to a formula and mass produced. It happens in its own time. Forcing it is a sure guarantee of diminishing its quality. I don’t want to do that and I won’t.

This is not a criticism of the MPP in general or those who choose to participate. I understand the ego stroking of being paid for writing and that many really need the money. It’s just not for me.

Also, in 2017, I have published many hundreds of poems on Medium. (See my profile.) My brain needs a time out. So this is my last original post prior to January.

After that, I will revert to asking for PayPal donations (as shown below*).

It feels better for me if people voluntarily donate because they choose; less like I am selling widgets.

To all those who have donated through PayPal in the past, my heartfelt thanks. To those who may do so in the future, thanks in advance.

I am grateful to Medium for providing me with a platform for my work. I am even more grateful to all the readers who have provided me with encouragement and insight.

In the interim, I will continue to publish pieces submitted to Other Voices. Please feel free to continue to send me your work. I promise to post it quickly.

So, to all a Merry (fill in the blank) and a Happy New Year. See you back here in January.

MCE

*If you like this piece, and can afford it, please consider donating.

I do not participate in the Medium Partner Program. If you like my work, this is how you can show it. Thanks.
Alcides + Adriana
Tags: Artisan, Nonprofit, Sustainability, Voices

Alcides + Adriana

They learned to repurpose palm trees to support their family.

Alcides lives near the second-largest swamp in Colombia. He used to be a fisherman but with illegal mining, the waters got more and more contaminated and contained less and less fish. When ‘CorpoAyapel’ started giving classes on how to make handicrafts from local palm trees, Alcides and his wife, Adriana, decided to participate. He recalls that the learning process wasn’t easy:

“Sometimes, I had to skip classes as someone from the family had to take care of the food. Sometimes we didn’t have food at all, but luckily the children could eat at school.”

Now, with income from selling their handicrafts, Alcides and Adriana don’t worry as much about the future. They moved to a beautiful brick house with a workshop area in the patio, and they are dreaming even bigger for the future:

“Everything we have comes from handicrafts. My wife and I are a perfect team. We are already making goods for the Christmas handicraft fair in Bogota, and my daughter is planning to study business management next year.”

Alcides doesn’t remember the last time he went fishing. Coincidentally, his fish-shaped weaved artwork is his most popular.

Learn more about ‘CorpoAyapel’, a GlobalGiving partner.

— Story and photo by Viktorija Noreikaite of the GlobalGiving Field Program
Forgiving Those Who Betray You Will Set You Free!
By: C S Bhambra
Tags: Self Improvement, Self Love, Betrayal, Betrayal Trauma, Forgiveness

Betrayal in my younger years

When the ugly truth of betrayal showed its face, my world plunged into a mess of negativity. Emotions shoved me into corners of overwhelming anger, hurt & sorrow. I wanted revenge, how dare these people rob me of enjoying my life?!

I felt wounded, used, conned, and enraged at those who disguised themselves as genuine.

When we don’t know who we are, we are more likely to put up with things that the real us would never accept!

I played the blaming game, going to and fro from blaming them, then myself, was it that I was too trusting or naïve? I didn’t fully understand how to trust my intuition. Instead, I trusted their deceit filled lies!

Yet in reflection, I believe it was based on not being aware of who I really am.

I gave my love, time & trust & in return received my heart being ripped apart like starving lions feasting on their prey. Their betrayal was their lies, affairs, unplanned pregnancies of others (one who was meant to be a friend) & manipulation.

My pain lingered and fed on my bitter tears, I just wanted to feel nothing.

Instead of nothing, it left me feeling like I could never trust again. For many, the icy touch of deceitful experiences can do so much harm.

It took roughly two years to learn to forgive the betrayers.

Think about that, that’s 104 weeks; 730 days; 17,520 hours! So if I slept an average of 6 hours within those years that’s an estimate of 13,140 hours of living life with this wound in my soul. Imagine all of that time, stolen from a past experience.

If only I knew where life would take me to, I would’ve tried a whole lot harder to pursue forgiveness, not for them but for myself.

You may ask why forgive? This is a very important process in finding any peace & moving onto a brighter stage of your life.

I’ve learned from this experience and others that — when we don’t know who we are, we are more likely to put up with things that the real us would never put up with!

Truth, friendship, faithfulness & care when found in love, is like the hand that will never let go when you are sinking.

Now, thankfully after much inner healing, I got gifted with my husband, my best friend and I couldn’t ask for a better partner! I believe if I hadn’t let go of my negative thoughts and emotions then I would’ve been on a very different path, like Sliding Doors making decisions can really change your course of life.
ICO Alert Crypto Minute August 21, 2018
By: Joshua Bryant
Tags: Bitcoincash, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Crypto Minute

New Bakkt platform will not support margin trading

Kelly Loeffler, chief executive of the newly announced Bakkt platform, recently posted the founding principles of the platform to trade, store and spend cryptocurrencies. She emphasized the critical role of cryptocurrency physical delivery in setting trusted price information. “Specifically, with our solution, the buying and selling of bitcoin is fully collateralized or pre-funded. As such, our new daily bitcoin contract will not be traded on margin, use leverage or serve to create a paper claim on a real asset.”

Chinese bank issues securities on the blockchain

According to a Coindesk report, one of the largest privately held commercial banks in China has completed an issuance of securities worth $66 million using a proprietary blockchain platform. The platform was designed in-house by Zheshang Bank to allow registered companies to broadcast account receivable assets to potential investors and to enable settlement of peer-to-peer transactions.

Bitcoin Cash usage decreases in commerce

As reported by Bloomberg, Bitcoin Cash usage in commerce has dropped significantly in recent months. A review of payments received by the world’s 17 largest crypto exchanges has shown that BCH payments fell to $3.7 million in May from $10.5 million in March, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainanalysis.

Data courtesy of coinmarketcap.com as of 11AM EST

Data courtesy of coinmarketcap.com as of 11AM EST

Data courtesy of coinmarketcap.com as of 11AM EST

Have a major development in mind or an opinion on a story listed above? Please

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AR VR for Business Adoption Goes Through Mobile
By: Georgi Atanasov
Tags: Mobile, Augmented Reality, Unity, Virtual Reality

In other words, unless some revolutionary stand-alone device gets invented, AR VR adoption will go through mobile in terms of install base and reach to end users.

Mobile AR VR for Business

The challenge is to demonstrate to businesses the value of AR VR in solving business problems more efficiently that conventional solutions that exist today. In an early market we can only sell complete solutions, not vision and/or tooling. Businesses will inevitably fail to imagine the value of AR VR unless they see it in action. And by “see it in action” I mean a complete working application, not slides and images.

We can approach a potential customer with a working application in two ways:

By carrying the $3000 HoloLens device and do the demo

By simply asking the customer to download a mobile application from the store on their smartphone and demo it

Obviously, Mobile AR VR provides the fastest path to reach out to a potential customer and do a demo. It is the preferred one as it requires little to no investment in terms of hardware — it is already there. Burdening the business decision maker thinking with a solid initial investment of $3000 per single HoloLens device immediately puts pessimistic flavor in the overall conversation and the value that we try to demonstrate has reduced probability to be seen/understood. At a later stage it may turn that stand-alone AR VR devices are better fit for a particular problem, but this can only happen when the initial value proposition is sold to the business owner.

As I pointed out in my previous post, the top three reasons that prevent people from doing AR VR business application development today are

I see no value in AR VR for solving my problems

I have no business requirement to do such applications

HoloLens device is too expensive

Mobile AR VR can definitely be the answer to these reasons and can help people invent bold ideas more rapidly.

Conclusion

If you have an idea how AR VR can solve a business problem I would recommend going mobile first during the validation phase. This will give you better exposure and remove the hardware entry barrier in business conversations.

At Progress Telerik we will be taking the same approach and everything that we build will be mobile-first. Being based on Unity3D, it is literally trivial to expose what we have today to Mobile. If you know C# and .NET, Unity3D is the only reasonable choice — it is truly cross-platform and produces high-quality 3D experiences.

Thanks for reading and good luck with your experiments. Comments and thoughts are more than welcome :)
Science Says Marijuana Makes You Skinny — Seriously
By: First To Know
Tags: Science, Weight Loss, Marijuana, Cannabis

No one’s denying that people usually get the munchies after smoking pot or eating cannabis edibles. All that is definitely true, so much so that many people who are ill and have no appetite or people who need to put on weight often use medical marijuana to help stabilize their body mass at a healthier weight.

But what about the rest of us who are not trying to gain weight? The myth so far has been that people who smoke pot eat more and therefore weigh more. New scientific research, however, is contradicting this popularly held believe.

According to the journal of Obesity Biology and Integrated Physiology, researchers have found that cannabis users have a lower body mass index. Basically, pot users are on average thinner than non-users. Not only that but there’s good news for diabetics and pre-diabetics: Cannabis users have lower blood glucose levels than non-users.

That’s not where the good news ends, either. Several studies show that cannabis users have a higher caloric intake on average than non-users despite the fact that they had a lower body weight. This means that using cannabis may encourage the munchies and make you eat more, but your metabolism simultaneously gets a little boost that prevents weight-gain. Who would’ve ever thought that marijuana makes you skinny?

The reason for the metabolism boost is that Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) stimulates the production of a hormone called ghrelin. Ghrelin is a poweful appetite stimulator and is often called “the hunger hormone” in the scientific community. However, ghrelin also plays a big role in helping our bodies break down and metabolize carbohydrates.

Wait! It gets even better: Scientists at the University of Nebraska, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found that marijuana users had a smaller waist circumference than non-users.

In yet another study of 52,000 participants, it was reported — and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology — that rates of obesity are 1/3 lower in cannabis users versus non-users. Cholesterol levels also proved to be healthier in cannabis users as well.

So there you have it: You may be eating more after taking a few tokes but the same stuff that makes you crave all kinds of crazy foods is keeping your body from retaining fat! Now that’s reason to celebrate with a few hits, no?
Svandis is Hiring and Scaling Operations!
Tags: Hiring, Blockchain, Updates, Token Sale, Cryptocurrency

At Svandis, our mission is to give our users the best trading experience possible. To do that, we depend on our team of talented, ambitious people who share a common passion for excellence.

Svandis is entering into a scaling phase, which means we are expanding our Technological Development Team and Data and Analytics Team.

Whether you have years of experience or are just starting your career in crypto-related services, we’ll help you realize your full potential and achieve your career goals. Svandis has a truly decentralized company structure, with offices located in Iceland, Canada, Russia, Estonia, and Ukraine. We also embrace remote working, with employees from Montenegro, Armenia, and many more.

Other than working with a great team of smart and energetic people, we also offer a very competitive salary. We also have a defined career path for successful individuals in this practice.

We are looking for new members of the Svandis Team to fill the following:

Gamification Integration Experts

Researchers & Analysts

Backend Developers

Natural Language Processing Developers

Frontend Developers

If you are interested in learning more, visit our Hiring site. If you don’t see a position that is right for you, stay subscribed to our social media channels for new openings.
Official release of 0xcert Framework v1.0.0. Odin
Tags: Blockchain, Decentralized Web, App Development Framework, Dapps, Decentralized Apps

Two months ago, we published the Release Candidate (v1 RC1) of the 0xcert Framework for building dapps.

After several tests and updates, we’re now proudly announcing the official release of the Framework v1.0.0. called Odin.

The evolution from Beta to Odin

To improve the effectiveness and overall performance of the Framework, the Odin version was optimized in several points and provides some new features.

Here is what made it evolve from Beta to Odin:

Personal_sign added

Additional tests

Additional gas optimizations

Support of the older MetaMask version

Updates of documentation and description

Update of permission system

Support of enumerable extension

Methods to directly prepare asset metadata

Improved certification

Bug fixes

Code style

These updates make the Framework an even more potent tool for developing decentralized applications, since it proves to be more secure and reliable while providing additional functions.

Help us improve the Framework in the Bug Bounty

We ran multiple tests and combed through every line of the code. The audit was done thoroughly and with special attention to detail by William Entriken, the lead author of the ERC-721 standard for non-fungible tokens and advisor to 0xcert. We really appreciate his feedback and improvement recommendations, and soon, we will publish the audit report for the dev community’s reference.

Still, we acknowledge the power of third-party and community revisions, so to let the developers have a say in our work, we’re opening the Bug Bounty for the 0xcert Framework v1.0.0..

Rewards are waiting to be paid out to bug hunters based on the risk rating model determining the severity of the issues reported.

Start building with Odin

While the framework has been available for a couple of months since its announcement, we can now finally say it’s ready for you to use it in the production of your dapp.

It’s your turn now.

You’re welcome to join us in improving the tools for the future of building dapps or simply leverage the Framework v1.0.0. to develop your own dapp from scratch.
Mindfulness
By: R. Rangan Phd
Tags: Mindfulness, Inspiration, Science And Soul, Nourishment, Psychology

Mindfulness

A collection of links for mindfulness related resources — updated weekly)

Photo by Chris Ensey on Unsplash

Looking for some inspiration for guided meditation or mindfulness exercises?

Here we list a selection of mindfulness and related stories and websites and invite you to explore the links. We will update this story with our weekly finds, so please feel free to stop and check them out.

We have been following some of these mindfulness resources and found them useful. We invite you to explore these links but please keep in mind that there are several methods to get started in mindfulness or meditation, and you might have to try several ways to find the one that resonates with you. It is also worth noting that a wide range of experiences is possible when engaging in the meditative process and that it may not be the right approach for everyone.

I found it helpful to have support from a teacher experienced with meditation, to guide me as I was starting to explore meditation. A meditation group or a meditation circle might also be helpful. I encourage you to try various methods, and hopefully, you might find one that makes sense and works for you.

Leave us a note if you have a favorite and we will check them out too!

With Gratitude.

Last updated: Dec 20th, 2020 —

Meditation for Anger by Headspace

A 10-Minute Guided Meditation to Tame Holiday Stress by mindful.org

Loving-Kindness Meditation — Strengthen feelings of kindness and connection toward others at The Greater Good Science Center based at UC Berkeley.

A Basic Meditation to Tame Your Inner Critic at Mindful.org

Guided Meditation on the Inner Critic, by Mark Coleman

With mindfulness, life’s in the moment by Liz Mineo

A Harvard Health article — Benefits of Mindfulness

How to Be More Mindful at Work

Mindfulness for Children

What Is Mindfulness?

Guided Meditations by UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center

Breathe Better With These Nine Exercises
Monday, January 27, 2020: San Geronimo Valley: Presentation & Book Signing by Owen Clapp
By: Anne T. Kent California Room
Tags: Events, Marin County, Local History, San Geronimo Valley, Historical Photographs

by Carol Acquaviva

The following excerpt is from the recently-published Images of America: San Geronimo Valley by its author and historian Owen Clapp:

Before 1914, what today is known as Forest Knolls was thought of as the eastern reaches of Lagunitas. It was sparsely populated but had enough residents to support a general store in the current Papermill Creek Saloon building, constructed in 1907.

Much like the Village name Woodacre, the name Forest Knolls was the invention of the Lagunitas Development Company, surely inspired by the grassy knolls atop its low hills. While it was the last of the four villages to be conceived, it soon caught up to its neighbors with a commerical district that in the 1940s boasted two grocery stores, two gas stations, two bars, a dance hall, a beauty salon, and a branch of the Marin County Free Library.
Magpul Daka Pouches
By: Curious Inkfish
Tags: Organizational Culture, Everyday Carry, Articles, Review, Edc

Last fall when Magpul realeased the DAKA pouches I immediately grabbed the medium and small sizes. I was getting ready to head to Canada for a month long trip for work and then I was off to the UK for vacation. The DAKA pouches proved to be excellent for organizing travel documents and other administrative items. The RF welded construction is durable and the material has a great non-slip texture and holds up well. Due to how the material is welded together, the pouches are best suited for more flat items, they don’t expand much and don’t pack well with bulky items.
High Level Citizens Forum On Wastes Reduction And Management
By: Iccdi Africa
Tags: Women, Recycling, Wash, Waste Management, Climate Change

The High-Level Citizens Forum on Waste Reduction and Management in Lagos State took place at the Nigeria Institute for International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos.

Theme: The Role of the Citizens in Waste Reduction, Protecting the Environment, and Promoting Zero Waste Campaign”

The forum focus on active government/citizens/communities collaboration in waste reduction as a solution to the increasing municipal waste disposal and management challenges in Lagos State.
Blockchain: The Underappreciated Workhorse Behind Cryptocurrencies
By: Richard Zhu
Tags: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

The surge in prices of cryptocurrencies — decentralized digital currencies that use cryptography to control issuance and verify transactions — has led to the perception of a bullish market (just a reminder that this article does not serve to provide financial advice in any way) and the resulting craze leaves us wondering about the origin of these currencies and the backbone of digital currency: the blockchain.

Bitcoin, the ’gold standard’ of digital currency, has grown from $900 to $16 000 in about a year

So what exactly is the blockchain? It’s an unchangeable, decentralized record of the past that is something akin to Google Docs: where you can type something on your computer and have it replicated on the screens of each collaborator of your document. Now imagine this Doc being permanently set in ‘comment-only’ mode before being used as a running ledger of some transactions that have occurred between you and a friend. As new transactions occur, comments containing details of these exchanges are added to the doc. These comments are gradually converted to text based on general consensus across all collaborators on the doc.

The ability of the blockchain to house a permanent record across a network of computers where anyone can join is so powerful that governments, financial institutions, and startups alike have already taken great strides towards adopting the technology. And there’s a justification for the confidence; it provides transparency and reduces the trust we need in the various components of any technological system. As a fresh year begins for cryptocurrencies, the blockchain is a must-explore topic for any reader, and there’s no better way to explore this technology than to play around on myCryptoHippo, a free, risk-free cryptocurrency trading simulation.
This Is Your Brain on Coronavirus Dreams
By: Joseph Frankel
Tags: Mental Health, Dreams, Sleep, Health, Psychology

During sleep, the brain cycles through different stages. Most dreaming, especially vivid dreaming, takes place during the REM (rapid-eye movement) sleep stage, which the brain first enters about 90 minutes into the night. And as you sleep, each REM stage is longer than the last and evokes more intense eye movements, which may indicate more vivid dreams. “If you sleep four instead of eight hours, you’re not getting half of your dreaming time — you’re getting more like a fourth,” says Deirdre Barrett, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School who’s been conducting a survey of dreams during the Covid-19 pandemic.

With many people staying at home with no nighttime activities, we’re likely to be sleeping more and getting more REM sleep, allowing vivid dreams to take place. Waking up during the other stages of sleep — thanks to alarm clocks and the sleep deprivation of life as usual — you’re less likely to remember dreams so clearly. “An eight-hour sleeper has about five dreams a night and forgets most of them,” Barrett says.

With no commute in the morning, we’re also more likely to wake up during REM sleep, allowing us to remember those dreams better. “For so many people, their conditions of awakening have radically changed” says Kelly Bulkeley, a psychologist who runs the Sleep and Dream Database. “A lot of people aren’t springing out of bed, taking a shower, running out the door,” he says. “That inevitably increases dream recall and the ability to remember those intense dreams.”

As for the content of people’s dreams, Bulkeley speculates that social distancing and the surreality of the current crisis play a key role. “To the extent that there’s some evolutionary function for dreaming, that it contributes to survival, this is the time we should be dreaming a lot, and they should be vivid,” he says. “One of the strongest signals of waking/dreaming continuity are our social relationships. The fact our social life is turned around by this crisis, we’d expect to see far more vivid dreams.”

The craving for social activity — or the fear of it — was front and center in many of the dreams I heard. One friend described a dream in which she journeyed from crowded coffee shop to coffee shop, looking for the one with the shortest line. Only upon waking up did she think how odd it was to be around so many people. Another friend told me she dreamed of going out to dinner with friends and realized mid-dream that they were putting people in danger. Yet another told me of driving home some unwanted party guests who had refused to leave even though they were violating social distancing. In the dream, the party guests attacked him.
Grants Available for Community-Based Organizations to Support Student Learning
By: The Office Of Superintendent Of Public Instruction
Tags: Education, Student Support, K 12 Education

The competitive grant funds will be available for community-based organizations to provide expanded learning and integrated student supports to address student and family needs.

OLYMPIA — September 18, 2020 — The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) will offer competitive grant opportunities to community-based organizations (CBOs) to support student learning during the 2020–21 school year.

The CBO grants will be focused on supporting students and their families to engage in school-based learning, regardless of their school district’s reopening model. Grant funds can be used to provide expanded learning opportunities to support and complement the teaching and learning in a class as well as integrated student supports to provide wraparound services for identified student and family needs. These grants can also be used to strengthen language and disability access for students and their families.

Eligible organizations for grant funding include smaller, local CBOs who serve specific local needs and populations, as well as larger statewide CBOs who provide direct services to students or regional network supports.

OSPI received federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds (ESSER funds) through the CARES Act and allocated over $8 million for this opportunity.

Priority scoring will be provided to CBOs that emphasize activities to address the unique needs of students in student groups that have historically been the furthest from educational justice.

In addition, OSPI requires that CBOs demonstrate how their work is in partnership with their local school district.

Application materials and more information about eligible activities can be found on the 2020–21 Community-Based Organization Grants webpage. Grant applications open September 21, 2020 and are due to OSPI by October 7, 2020.

For More Information

· 2020–21 Community Based Organization Grants webpage

· Expanded Learning Opportunities

· Integrated Student Supports Protocol
[BLOG] Leading Blockchain Commercialization
Tags: Blockchain, Temco, Commercialization, Bitcoin, Blog

[BLOG] Leading Blockchain Commercialization

Facebook has jumped into the development of blockchain service.

Most recently, the news about the largest social media platform, Facebook, jumping into the blockchain industry has been the hottest topic. In the past June 18th, whitepaper of “Libra”, a blockchain project from Facebook has been released. Within the company, Facebook calls it the “Global Coin”. Also, according to BBC, the so-called “Global Coin” is expected to be released next year.

Facebook’s blockchain project, “Libra”

Based on what has been released so far, Facebook has established its subsidiary company, Calibra, and planning on creating Libra Association including globally renowned members such as Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Uber, Booking.com, Coinbase, and more.

Libra is working on embracing 1.7 billion people in the world without proper financial assets or services. According to a report from the World Bank Group, there are approximately 1.7 billion users without bank accounts or affiliated with bank systems. So the Libra project is focused on developing a system that people around the world who currently do not utilize institutional banking systems.

Libra is also planning on developing convenient transfer methods. Mark Zuckerberg has emphasized that financial transfer should be just as simple and as easy as transferring photos. Also, on June 18th, as Facebook revealed the expected release of Calibra, it had described the use of its features such as transferring of currencies, make payments, scanning codes to purchase coffee, pay for public transportation without physical tickets and more, with a click of a button.

The international transfer of the currency without institutional banks is following a similar concept as mentioned above. Through Calibra’s demonstration video, the public was able to get a glimpse of how the global coins can simply be transferred. At the point of transferring the global coins, the sender may transfer the coins to the recipient, and the recipient can convert the coins to the fiat currency for that country. In addition, global coins do not need central banks for the transfer and the sender is only responsible for small fees created from the transaction which is much less than if one was to go through the central banks for the transfer.

In following, Facebook’s “global coin” will not only be used on Facebook but also on WhatsApp and Instagram, for payments and international transfers. Facebook approximately has 2.4 billion monthly users, WhatsApp has about 1.5 billion users, and Instagram has about 1 billion monthly users a well. Libra project is composed of the user based on social networking companies mentioned and seems that it will facilitate the mass adoption of blockchain technology throughout the world.