fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
The Stranger Gardener
By: Marla Bishop
Tags: Idea Stream, Writing, Marlab, Creativity, Homelessness

IdeaStream

The Stranger Gardener

A prose-poem

Photo by Dimitri Bong on Unsplash

I picked him up from outside my local grocers

He seemed down and a little lachrymose

“Come home with me,” I said

“You can have a shower and we’ll stop at the bakehouse and get something delicious to eat.”

I think I had him at eat and he rose from his pavement seat and followed me slowly down the Main Street

Loquacious he was not.

“Choose a cake?” I instructed him when we reached the bakery.

But the multifarious choices seemed to overwhelm him and he stood unmoving and mute.

The salesperson eyed us with disdain, her unfriendly face a verisimilitude of distaste and disapproval.

I ignored her and selected a large box of cream cakes including red velvet and lemon drizzle which I knew we would enjoy immersing ourselves in.

I led him through my garden gate into the jungle of weeds that dominated the space behind my house.

“Help me clear these into a pile and we can have a shower and cake afterward?”

He worked silently and indefatigably which I took as an excellent augury for things to come.
Achieve your target with leads
By: Lucky Gupta
Tags: Lucky Gupta, Leads, Digital Marketing, Leadsin, Lead Generation

It’s really hard to achieve targets when you are a small business or company, but a very simple trick of revenue can help you to achieve them, Yes it’s lead generation.

In simple language lead is a person who is looking for your services and by helping them you can generate revenue and they can get complete their work.

But it’s really hard to capture a perfect lead which instantly gives you revenue because not every lead is interested in your services, some do not agree with your prices, and maybe some not with your work. But here is a way where you can generate a perfect lead for you, there are many companies, people and tools are available who offers you that at cheap prices but you here you’ve to choose a perfect company which is genuine because many can be a fraud, or can provide a dead and unuseful lead.

So for choosing a perfect company for lead generation can be done by rating, reviews, free trials it offers or interaction when you have done that you will have a perfect lead for your business then all you have to do is close it.

Closing a lead is a very important part of lead generation, this is the final step where you will generate revenue and the best thing about closing lead is maintaining your relationship with the person which will give you future revenue.
The Glistening Beauty Of Our True Story
By: Obinna Uruakpa
Tags: Poetry, Consciousness, Poets On Medium, Self-awareness, Spirituality

The Glistening Beauty Of Our True Story

When We Arrived At The River Of The Great Divide

Photo by Jonny Caspari on Unsplash

The time had come

We had to leave,

We gathered stuff

To hurry home,

Prisoners on parole

Aching for the hearth,

We journeyed out

Unperturbed

By road hitches,

Undeterred

By blister pockets

Of our dusty bare feet

Until we arrived…

The river of the great divide,

Clean sparkling water

In the chokehold

Of thick knotted shrubs

Wrapping to tame

The seething bulging flow,

Sieving to cleanse

All in the lair

Soaked and nourished,

A lush green barn

In silvery patches

Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

In the glistening beauty,

Our true story:

We dare not wade

Where we cannot swim -

This subliminal virgin

Won’t take an obtrusive paddle

Photo by Anders Ipsen on Unsplash

OU130220
White
By: Shaleen Rakesh
Tags: Love, Poetry, Life

Credit: Picture by author

What place is born tonight

to weave

a song with

your sky above

What feast is offered

from joyous hands

I have become

your pool of whiteness

like a newborn child

I bite at your skin

I drink at your mouth

and the universe.
Google Play to Downrank Poor Performing Apps in the Search Result
Tags: Mobile App Development, Google, App Store Optimization, Apps

The Google Play Store is all set to roll out some significant changes for ranking the applications. Now the poor performing apps will automatically be downranked. The Google Play Store is looking forward to giving higher ranks to the apps that are easily discoverable by the users. The ultimate user experience will be counted as an important element for the overall app ranking.

The announcement was recently made at the “Game Developers Conference”. The giant search engine is looking forward to set the algorithm for apps that take into account the overall user engagement of the apps and not just the downloads. The step is a move towards rewarding quality apps for providing the best experience to the users. With this upcoming change, the number of downloads will not matter as the single criteria for the success of an application.

How the Change will Impact the Gaming Industry

The change is going to have some serious impact on the gaming industry. It is also going to change the way the games are marketed. A number of game publishers use ad campaigns just to get onto user’s device with any of the strategies possible. This is just to get higher ranking in the “Google Play Store”. Such downloads do not come under the organic category, which is a major concern for a number of genuine mobile app development companies.

Google is enrolling the new change in order to promote the apps that are stable and perform really well from user’s point of view. The change is sure to bring a shift in the ways publishers have been developing and submitting the apps to the app store. The change is sure to bring new challenges for the apps that are not developed in the genuine ways.

Google’s Concerns About App Ranking on Play Store

In its blog post, Google has explained the concerns about the fact that deserving apps do not get the exposure they deserve. Just because some recommended ways are there for app publishers to rank their app higher in the app ranking should never impact the popularity and the potential a mobile app holds. In order to help the apps rank as per their potential, the new app ranking method could prove to be an exceptional one.

However, Google has not cleared the air on the fact that which algorithm it would use to keep an eye on the app ranking method. In addition to this, Google has simultaneously working to launch a new editorial page in the upcoming months.

This Article is Originally Published here.
[莫忘衷初] — 談使用多型的時機
By: Yu-Song Syu
Tags: Coding, Programming, Software Engineering, Software Development, Polymorphism

Kuma老師的軟體工程教室

Welcome to the Kingdom of Software Engineering
Dear Future Lover. Dear Future Lover,
By: Maclin Lyons
Tags: Poetry, Life, Love, Dating, Relationships

Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash

Dear Future Lover,

I don’t expect you to know

How to touch me the way I crave

I don’t expect you to know

How to kiss me in a way

That makes my lips miss yours

As soon as you pull away

I don’t expect you to just know

Especially if you haven’t been shown

Or if you haven’t been told

What you thought you knew

Is new between me and you

Everyone is different

Just be willing to learn

Be willing to listen

And maybe we’ll be able to show each other

Something new

Something we’ve both been missing
[Into the Wild] BearTax is Live
By: Vamshi Vangapally
Tags: Trading, Investing, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Taxes

Much said, I’ll let you play with the app now. Go ahead and give it a try!

Share some ❤ with your friends and earn some “Reward Points”!

Did I just mention about the Reward Points? I’m sorry to say this, but you have to wait to learn about referral bonus and how reward points can be redeemed for some green($$$).
How to Make The Best Pumpkin Chicken Noodle Soup — A Homemade Recipe For The Soul
By: Melissa Bee
Tags: Melissa Bee, Family, Health, Food, Self

2. Once the water starts to boil, you can throw your chicken, garlic, bay leaves, and pumpkin in. If using fresh ginger, add now as well.

3. After about 15- 20 minutes, the chicken will be boiled and cooked. Once it is boiled, remove from the soup, and let cool. Don’t forget to remove any impurities you see float to the top.

4. As you wait for the chicken to cool down, add your carrots, celery, and turnips.

5. Give your cooled chicken some chopping into cubes. Leave to the side.

6. Check out your pumpkin to see if it is soft to the touch. If it isn’t soft yet, continue to boil and recheck in 5 minute increments. Once soft, use a fork to mash up all cubes of pumpkin you can find.

7. Once your pumpkin is completely melted and mashed, you can return the diced chicken back to the pot. Add your parsley, green onions, chicken cubes/bouillon, and if using ground ginger, add now. Let boil for 5–10 minutes.

Give your broth a little taste and add salt and pepper to your liking.

8. Add your noodles. Boil according to the time instructed on the package, usually anywhere between 6–10 minutes. Don’t over boil your noodles or you will end up with mushy soup.

9. Stir in the pint of heavy cream. Let boil for 2 minutes. Turn off the stove, and remove the pot from the burner so your soup doesn’t continue to cook (no mushy soup).

10. Pour yourself a big, hot, sweet, and creamy bowl and enjoy your delectable pumpkin chicken noodle soup! You did it!
Hoping for a high score…
By: Andy Anderson
Tags: Humor, Comics, Cartoon, Cannabis, Drug Test

Looking to add some funny to your feed? Follow this page for new cartoons every week.

Follow
If Wishes Were Horses
Tags: Poetry, 2020, Poem, Horses, Poetry On Medium

If Wishes Were Horses

poem

Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash

If wishes were horses, I would need a very large stable

And a much bigger paddock than the one I have got.

There would be work for a stable hand and plenty of fresh manure

For anyone who wanted it.

Some of those wishes are Arabian stallions,

Majestic race horses astounding in their speed and beauty,

Others are little Shetland ponies, pets for children and eminently cuddly.

2020 was a year of unfulfilled wishes,

A jumble of instructions on how to live like we never lived before.

There is only one way to sort these wishes out.

We must come together and invent a method,

A route to new cycles of cooperation.

Then we can mount those horses,

hold tight to the reins,

gallop through the sea salt spray,

with wind in our hair and smiles on our faces.

At one with nature and the vagaries of life.
Simulation of Incentive Design: What is the Most Appropriate Reward System? Part3
By: Jeffrey Lim
Tags: Blockchain, Simulation, Token Economy, Agent Based Modeling, Reinforcement Learning

Mechanism Analysis Result

For the analysis, we will define two metrics. First is the review ratio. The review ratio indicates how many out of all the agents wrote reviews.

However, review ratio does not differentiate reviews written between 1 endeavor and 9 endeavor, and therefore, is inadequate in incorporating the level of effort.

This is why the second metric action ratio was introduced. Action ratio is the ratio of actual actions performed out of the sum of every possible action in one episode. If there were 10 agents and each performed [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] in one episode, the review ratio would be 90% while the action ratio would be 50%.

We are able to carry out a more precise result analysis by comprehensively interpreting the review and action ratios.

Result of the Proportional Mechanism
Football Cannot Be Just A Game
By: Tatyana C
Tags: Edtech, Youth, Passion, Football, Hobby

Football Cannot Be Just A Game

“Football is like life. It requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication, and respect for authority.” –Vince Lombardi

Photo by Mario Klassen on Unsplash

Being a good football player means more than what the simple word says. Yes, it is a game, and it all revolves around that ball, like most people might say. But when it comes to the actual football players, and anyone that has to do with this sport, it is much more serious than that.

To begin with, having a physical sport as a hobby or interest, is already a great reason to carry on. You will always need something to keep your body moving while you enjoy it. A piece of advice, if you are good at playing football already, do not stop. You have every right to love it and to want to take it seriously. After all, it is a life-changer, and here’s why.

It’s great to keep you fit and healthy

No question in that aspect. Any physical sport is healthy, it keeps your heart pumping and circulating that blood flow through your body, that way you’re always energized. Moreover, it helps you stay fit; any body fat you might have is lost, and you literally don’t need gym when it comes to gaining muscles.

It doesn’t only help you socially, but also psychologically

To begin with, the fact that you need to abide by so many rules means you are indirectly building great discipline skills and emotional temperance. As for the competitiveness that a player goes through in this sport, that helps you learn how to cope with loss and practice a great deal of good sportsmanship. You will also learn how to accept constructive criticism, which isn’t always easy for everyone to do, it’s most of what you will be hearing from the coach and maybe your teammates.

This group sport can make the way you deal with life much easier

The way this sport revolves around being competitive all the time helps boost your teamwork more. Once you are good at that, which is a quality you should take your time with attaining, other great “life skills” and qualities will follow. By that I mean, becoming selfless and building better communication skills. Let’s also not forget the structure of this sport. Its organization of time, formation, and rules, can directly construct a sense of leadership in you, help you maintain goal-setting accomplishments, and strengthen your time-management skills.

Come to think of it, all the above have just made your life easier. This beautiful game brings out the best in you, besides your passionate thirst for it. If football is more than a game for you, while others think otherwise, that is not a problem, because after reading this, you know more about it than anyone does. When a sport is part of your hobbies and interest, you are one lucky person!
Scientists discover huge underwater landslide on Great Barrier Reef
Tags: Reef, Great Barrier, Entertainment, Australia

A massive underwater landslide that could have triggered a towering tsunami some 300,000 years ago has been discovered in the depths of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, scientists said Wednesday.

The ancient landslide, likely caused by a strong earthquake that could have generated a tsunami wave 27 meters (90 feet) high, was discovered unexpectedly by researchers conducting three-dimensional mapping of the seafloor around the world’s biggest reef.

Scientists had already located eight undersea hills “in the middle of nowhere” and found the crater while piecing together the contours of the nearby territory, said Robin Beaman of James Cook University, one of the co-authors of a study published in the Marine Geology journal.

“There’s this huge chunk taken out of the continental slope… about 20 kilometers long has collapsed and about eight kilometers deep, so an indent on that sort of scale,” he told AFP.

The landslide, which was discovered some 75 kilometers (45 miles) off the Queensland state coast, was 32 cubic kilometers or “about 30 times the size of Uluru”.

Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, is a giant red monolith that rises 348 meters above the Australian desert.

Scientists estimated the age of the landslide by sampling cold-water corals on one of the hills, also called knolls, at a depth of 1.17 kilometers. The oldest fossil corals were about 302,000 years.

While such a large undersea landslide could have triggered a major tsunami, Beaman said the reef would have acted as a breakwater to reduce its impact.

Tsunamis generated by such landslides also caused “very localized” impact, with waves dropping off quickly, he added.

“The Barrier Reef itself acts like a porous breakwater. It’s very effective in dampening ocean swells,” Beaman said.

The Great Barrier Reef is one of Australia’s best known natural wonders and stretches more than 2,300 kilometers along the northeastern coast.

But while much of the seafloor has been mapped in 3D, the reef’s vast size means that its deeper parts have barely been explored.

Scientists next hope to get a better understanding of the biology of the reef in these deep locations.

The coral community that was sampled included living and fossil cold-water coral species, gorgonian sea whips, bamboo corals, molluscs and stalked barnacles.

They were thriving in pitch-black conditions in water temperatures of about four degrees Celsius (39.2 Fahrenheit).

“The biology we still know very little about… we have some understanding of what’s living on these knolls, but what about the other parts of the deep Great Barrier Reef?” Beaman said.

“What’s living in submarine canyons and the like? For me, that’s the next exciting chapter.”
Squeeze Your Butt Cheeks
By: Kelly Freeman
Tags: Self Improvement, Personal Development, Emotions, Life Lessons, Work Life Balance

Squeeze Your Butt Cheeks

How I learned to manage my emotions at work

Photo by Marten Bjork on Unsplash

We have all had rough days at the office, and some days can be harder than others to keep it together.

I have always been emotionally sensitive, so keeping it together at work has been something I have had to work on a lot. I’ve learned to embrace this about myself and honor all of my emotions because it makes me who I am. But I’ve also learned that there is a time and place to express those emotions, and the workplace is typically not one of them.

My biggest issue with emotion at work is that when I get overwhelmed, mad, or frustrated- I cry. My ability to control this depends on my level of frustration. I try not to do it in front of anyone. I’m a ladies’ room weeper.

On one particularly rough day, when my level of frustration had gotten the best of me, I was talking with two of the company’s female executives about my disappointment in myself for crying out of frustration. One of the women said, “Oh, I know! Wanna know what I do when I feel like I’m going to cry? I just squeeze my butt cheeks!” She giggled and then went on to say with conviction that if you clench the cheeks together you can’t physically cry.

What?!

Is that even a thing?

She told me she’d heard about it at a conference, and it works for her!

I’m not going to lie. I tried it and it worked!
Why I Still Freelance Despite Having a Full-Time Job
By: Angely Mercado
Tags: Careers, Freelancing, Work, Life, Life Lessons

How to (kind of) Balance Work and Freelance:

Get organized — This part is really hard for me. I’m not a naturally organized person. I get scatterbrained easily, and I have a hard time choosing what system would work best for me.

But I learned that I need a small barebones system — it’s better than having no system at all.

I try to make folders in Google Drive or on my laptop with all of my drafts for one project in them. It’s important to have as many of your materials as possible in one place.

Some freelancers get planners, some freelancers get a huge calendar and put it up on the wall, and other rely solely on Google Calendar. There is no one right way that works for everyone, the trick is to find something that you know will work for you in the long run. I rely a lot on Google and my email and also putting post its over my work space in my room. It holds me accountable to things I have due, and it doesn’t feel like I’ve added an extra step of work.

Take on work you actually like — In the last few years of me freelancing, I’ve definitely taken on tasks that I’ve HATED in order to pay my bills. Now, I get to pitch and work on things that mean a lot to me. I also get to charge higher rates for my work because I don’t just accept the first rate that I’m offered. I’m not exactly crazy enthusiastic about every single thing I work with on the side, but I’m currently able to avoid assignments that used to make me miserable. I can also avoid lower paying gigs that I don’t enjoy because I have a steady paycheck coming in for now.

Having a full-time job, especially one in media isn’t easy, especially before big projects or events. So if you take on extra work, don’t hate it. Make sure it’s something strategic that you enjoy and that will actually benefit your career. I can focus on topics that I really care about now, and also take my time when pitching my ideas to editors.

Get ready for an interesting learning curve — I thought I was going to be writing articles in my sleep, but the demands of my full-time job do make me feel tired. It’s different from when I was an intern and actually had a little bit of downtime throughout the work day where I could apply for jobs and freelance and take outside calls for articles. There is no downtime at my job. I don’t really get an official break like I used to at my internship at the start of this year.

I’ve had to learn how to officially shut down my freelancing brain throughout the day.

I’ve never had to segment that before, but it’s necessary to concentrate while I’m writing fintech stories at work. I had to learn to plan out my freelancing while prioritizing my full-time job. My freelancing lives before and after work, but from 9 to 5:30 p.m. all of my energy goes to Bank Innovation. It’s easier to do both when they’re compartmentalized in a way that lets me concentrate on the task at hand. I didn’t know how to do that before I started this job, but it was a necessary skill to learn.
Leverage Your Experiences to Write Better Stories & Poems
By: Alexander Bentley
Tags: Poetry, Writing, Stories, Storytelling, Creative Writing

Leverage Your Experiences to Write Better Stories & Poems

When you write you should write from experience.

A young girl writing in a field, reliving her past memories on the farm.

Or, at least, at a minimum, leverage your past experiences to write meaningful & emotionally charged stories & poems that draw your readers in.

Why should you use experience to guide your writings?

Well, because humans like to hear stories, to learn about the events of other people & to feel connected to the storyteller or characters in your literature.

The best writers in the world draw from their past experiences & wealth of enriched memories. As a writer, you can use the events of your life, the places you know & people you’ve met as source material for your writings. A character in a narrative poem may be inspired by a neighbor or a cranky acquaintance you despise. Your favorite childhood place, such as summer camp or a cabin in the woods, could stimulate the setting for a new short story.

When can choose to narrate a story or poem accurately as it happened in real life, or fib a little bit & exaggerate the details to fit your new narrative. Either way, I encourage writers to leverage experience to write more meaningful & engrossing literature for readers.

What events, places, or people can you incorporate into your stories, or leverage to improve your writings?
2048: Great Game, But Better Resume
By: Robert Merrill
Tags: Game, 2048, Mobile

2048 is a web-based game by Gabriele Cirulli, a 19-year old programmer in Northern Italy who likely just wrote the best resume he ever could have written — a super addictive HTML5 based game that’s mobile responsive and has the plus of being fun to play. I heard about the game from Kevin Marks on TWiG #241. He’s even been referenced by xkcd, which is the geek equivalent of a having your name on a star on Hollywood Boulevard.

Huff Po explains it thusly:

The game has 16 tiles, and you start with two tiles with either a ‘2’ or a ‘4’. In each move, you swipe tiles either left, right, up or down, in order to match numbers and eliminate tiles.

While I work on my score, I’m grinning quietly to myself thinking how this guy just got himself a red carpet to any job he wants — or no job if he chooses to monetize this baby.

Good luck, Gabriele. Way to go. P.S. I’m hiring!!
Coverage of Hunter Biden story illustrates extremes in media polarization
Tags: USA, Politics, Government, Election 2020, Journalism

On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published leaked emails and videos purportedly retrieved from the hard drive of a laptop owned by Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden. This was the “October Surprise” that had been previewed on Dutch public television by Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, and warned about by U.S. intelligence analysts, who feared a potential Russian hack-and-release operation in the final weeks of the election. The result has been an explosive media event, reminiscent of Wikileaks in 2016, which has demonstrated a sharp divergence in how mainstream and far-right media choose to cover a potential foreign interference campaign.

The New York Post emails show Hunter Biden engaged in lobbying activities on behalf of the Ukrainian natural gas producer Burisma Holdings, where he was a board member from 2014 to 2019. They also show a previously undisclosed 2015 episode in which a Burisma executive sought a meeting with then-Vice President Biden (the Biden campaign confirmed this meeting never took place). The leaked emails went immediately viral, cited by supporters of President Trump’s re-election campaign as proof that his opponent was corrupt.

Meanwhile, numerous national security professionals have cast doubt on the origin of the leaks. Shortly after publication of the Post story, it was revealed that Rudy Giuliani, chief promoter of the leaked emails and President Trump’s personal lawyer, had been repeatedly targeted by Russian intelligence for the purposes of laundering disinformation. The FBI quickly launched an investigation. On October 19, more than 50 former U.S. intelligence officials signed a letter stating that the email dump “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Wikileaks 2020?

Comparisons to Wikileaks are inevitable. Then, as now, a political opponent of Trump has been the subject of a calculated email leak in the final weeks before the election. Then, as now, the proxy for the leaks is a suspected Russian asset. It was telling when both Twitter and Facebook — which have prepared extensively for a “Wikileaks redux” — sharply limited the spread of the Post story within hours of release, citing concerns about viral disinformation. This temporary censorship sparked outrage among conservative politicians and further fueled the spread of the emails in far-right networks.
Mr. Bean taught me one thing in Life…
By: Pranali Survashi
Tags: Social, Life, Enjoy, General, Fun

“Enjoy your own company, instead of expecting someone else to make you happy”

“Man is by nature a social animal”, wrote the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. What he meant is that social interaction is an inalienable part of life. But though we may be social by nature, every now and then it doesn’t hurt to give ourselves some “alone time” as a reminder that we don’t always need company or other people to add meaning to our existence.

Putting ourselves first by shutting out our loved ones and having some temporary “me time” Does not mean we are being selfish. This form of solitude can offer notable benefits, such as promoting mental and emotional calmness, which enables us to be more focused and productive.

There are so many little things which I remind me always, that make my day and makes me happy ….

Stop trying to change people who don’t see an issue with their actions, its toxic to your mental health. Today is the day you distance yourself from these people.

Stop giving people permission, it's your mind, body, and heart and it's your responsibility.

No one should have the power over you, God has a purpose for us all.

Only we have the power to heal and fix ourselves.

Self care is not just doing breathwork and eating organic, its also setting boundaries and protecting your time, emotions, energy, and personal space.

Distance helps you to find you.

If we don't have standards we allow other people to define them for us. Which means we subject ourselves to less than we deserve, set rules for yourself.

Your Me-Time will help you to create space for more positivity in your life. When you are alone, you can make choices without outside influence. Thus it paves the way to let you know yourself deeply. So slam dunk the negativity out and cut off those toxic people who are contagious. Life is far too short for negativity!

If you found this article helpful then please share it with everyone.

Thank you! 😃
Inter-Annotator Agreement (IAA)
By: Louis De Bruijn
Tags: Supervised Learning, NLP, Python, Annotations, Kappa

Image by author

Inter-Annotator Agreement (IAA)

Pair-wise Cohen kappa and group Fleiss’ kappa (𝜅) coefficients for categorical annotations

In this story, we’ll explore the Inter-Annotator Agreement (IAA), a measure of how well multiple annotators can make the same annotation decision for a certain category. Supervised Natural Language Processing algorithms use a labeled dataset, that is often annotated by humans. An example would be the annotation scheme for my master’s thesis, where tweets were labeled as either abusive or non-abusive.

IAA shows you how clear your annotation guidelines are, how uniformly your annotators understood it, and how reproducible the annotation task is. It is a vital part of both the validation and reproducibility of classification results.

Accuracy and F1 score don’t take into account the expected chance agreements that are likely to occur when people annotate instances. The measures taking expected chance agreement into account:

Cohen’s 𝜅: two annotators annotating each instance with a category

Fleiss’ 𝜅: each instance was annotated 𝑛 times with a category

This story covers best practices for annotations and explores the two IAA metrics for qualitative annotations: Cohen and Fleiss’ kappa. Cohen kappa is calculated between a pair of annotators and Fleiss’ kappa over a group of multiple annotators.
The real voting fraud in America
By: Gérard Mclean
Tags: Elections, Ohio, Montgomery County

About two months ago, my 20-year old daughter needed to get a replacement driver’s license. I didn’t ask why because she came home, very excited and told me “I registered to vote. Now I can vote against SB-5.”

A few weeks later, she received her voter registration confirmation card letting her know where to vote and her specific precinct. All set, right? That was all she needed.

Not really.

About a week later, she gets this letter in the mail from the Montgomery Country Board of Elections.

This almost went unnoticed by her and me. Apparently, they could not verify her last name by her Ohio BMV records. The same BMV that issued her a driver’s license and maintained her identity for the past six years could not verify her last name which means she would not have been allowed to vote when she showed up at the polls in November unless she returned the “card.”

Seriously?

While I would not go as far as accusing the Montgomery County Board of Elections with purposely stalling adding a young, first-time voter to the rolls because she is likely to vote Democratic in a very Republican county, this sort of thing gives me pause.

A lot of pause.

Add to the fact that the letter was sent in a non-descript, non-official looking envelope, the letter looked like it was run through a copy machine several times and the “card” that needed to be sent back was just printed on the bottom of the letter, without perforation.

They are either trying to frustrate my daughter from voting or the State of Ohio is staffed with some incredibly inept employees. Either way, as a taxpayer of this state, I’ve got some serious questions.

And I need answers.
LGO Markets: Stablecoin Trading. An industry first: access a single…
By: Hugo Renaudin
Tags: Stable Coin, Trading, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

An industry first: access a single common liquidity on BTC/USD with fiat USD, PAX and USDC.

Starting from today; LGO is introducing both Paxos Standard and USD Coin to the LGO trading platform and integrating them with an existing BTC/USD spot market.

Clients now have the ability to fund BTC/USD trades in USDC and PAX. These coins will be credited on their USD balance 1:1.

Fiat USD, PAX and USDC will be amalgamated into a single order book for Bitcoin trading.

An Industry First

LGO is the first exchange to build common liquidity for fiat USD, PAX and USDC on a single order book, actually leveraging the value of a stable coin. As long as they are properly audited and operated, one stable coin represents one USD which means that there is no need for a separate liquidity on LGO.

Since their adoption by other cryptocurrency exchanges, stablecoins and fiat currencies have traded individually against Bitcoin. By implementing this solution, LGO Markets will allow institutional clients to trade seamlessly and without friction, while enjoying common liquidity for all of their BTC trades.

An Institutional Grade Procedure

LGO is dedicated to constantly providing the highest security standards to our clients. The same rigorous transactional AML processes that are currently in place on LGO have been implemented on stablecoin transactions.

A simplified onboarding

Uniting different denominations of USD into a single order book will help grow LGO’s client base and liquidity. Clients who wish to fund their BTC/USD trades using PAX or USDC will be required to go through LGO’s onboarding process and will be able to begin trading on LGO within a matter of days.
Introducing Individual NuGet Packages for Syncfusion Blazor UI Components
By: Rajeshwari Pandinagarajan
Tags: Productivity, Csharp, Blazor, Web Development

We at Syncfusion are happy to inform you that new individual NuGet packages for our Syncfusion Blazor UI components are now available from the 2020 Volume 4 release (v18.4.0.30).

The Syncfusion.Blazor NuGet source has been segregated based on the component and namespace. Each NuGet package uses the same namespace as in the NuGet Syncfusion.Blazor source. So, the new migration will not break your applications.

Pros of using individual NuGet packages

The individual NuGet packages are extremely valuable in reducing the size of the application by avoiding the loading of unwanted assemblies.

They will reduce the initial loading time when compared to the whole Syncfusion.Blazor package. You can install the required Syncfusion Blazor components alone in your application and ignore the rest of the components’ source code.

You can utilize the Blazor WebAssembly lazy-loading functionality.

You can use these individual NuGet packages in Blazor server-side applications to reduce the application’s deployment size in the production phase.

Note: You can’t use both the Syncfusion.Blazor and individual NuGet packages in the same application. It will lead to ambiguous compilation errors at build time.

Available NuGet packages

The following NuGet packages are now available in nuget.org.

Performance metrics

The following screenshot shows the assembly loading time of the complete Syncfusion.Blazor NuGet package and its dependency in the web browser.

The following screenshot shows the assembly loading time of the Syncfusion.Blazor.Buttons package by itself and its dependency in the web browser. When compared to loading the complete Syncfusion.Blazor NuGet package to use Buttons, loading the Syncfusion.Blazor.Buttons NuGet package is more efficient.

The following screenshot shows the assembly loading time of the Syncfusion.Blazor.Grid package and its dependency in the web browser.

Note: The previous metrics were taken in a Blazor WebAssembly application with .NET 5.0 in localhost release mode.

Summary

In this blog, we have talked about the availability of the new individual NuGet packages for the Syncfusion Blazor UI components in the 2020 Volume 4 release. We have also looked at the NuGet package segregation, performance metrics, and advantages.

Syncfusion Blazor components offer over 65 high-performance, lightweight, and responsive UI components for the web, including file-format libraries. Make use of these well-matured components and save time developing complex applications.

You can contact us through our support forum, Direct-Trac, or feedback portal. We are always happy to assist you!
How air pollution is measured in Ulaanbaatar
By: Robert Ritz
Tags: Mongolia, Air Pollution, Data Science, Environment

How air pollution is measured in Ulaanbaatar

4 different sources, 2 different methods

Air pollution is a big issue during the winter months in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The effects of air pollution are quite severe, with those living in the most polluted areas suffering from lowered lung function, increased rates of respiratory infection, and shortened lifespans. In an attempt to solve this issue, the government has been focusing on the source of air pollution, the peri-urban ger districts surrounding the city center. In these areas, houses burn coal for both cooking and heat.

Beginning in May 2019, burning raw coal in Ulaanbaatar was made illegal. To replace the fuel the government coordinated the manufacture and supply of “enhanced charcoal briquettes”, which is supposed to reduce air pollution in Ulaanbaatar by 40–50%.

Along with this change in fuel, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism made a rule change in October 2018 (and implemented in February 2019) to how the air quality index (AQI) is calculated. This change has two impacts. First, physical values of pollution are no longer reported, only AQI. This means researchers and open data platforms (like openaq.org) can no longer reliably use the data reported. Second, instead of the previous used 1 hour average of air pollution being reported, a 3-hour moving average is used to calculated AQI. This change smoothes out peaks and troughs, and, as I will show later, can easily make it appear that air pollution is reducing.

Before we get into that, let’s take a look at the quite messy situation of air pollution data in Ulaanbaatar.

Data Sources

Most people following air pollution are aware of Agaar.mn, the air quality monitoring site that updates hourly showing air quality at 12 stations around the city. There are 4 different sources of air quality data in Ulaanbaatar:

Agaar.mn — part of the Ministry of Environment and Tourism — 12 stations

Tsag-agaar.gov.mn — managed by the National Agency of Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring — 4 stations

StateAir.mn — operated by the US Embassy in Ulaanbaatar — 1 station

People in Need — new air quality stations were launched in 2019 by the international NGO — 16 stations

To make things more confusing, the air quality stations run by the Mongolian government use the new reporting standard mentioned above. This means 16 stations are using the new Mongolian reporting standard and 17 stations using the US EPA reporting standard. Here is a table breaking down each station, the source, and the type of air quality monitoring each station performs.

To understand this visually, I put together an interactive map that will allow you to see how these stations are distributed. One of the biggest criticisms of the government air quality sensors is that relatively few are located in the ger district, the area that has the worst air pollution. People in Need has done an excellent job filling in the gaps in the government network.
Mumbai’s playgrounds: A look into how and where Mumbaikars play
By: Kartik Krishnan
Tags: India, Kids, Urban Planning, Svadsifinalproject19, Mumbai

Part 3 of 3

Read Part 1 here. Read Part 2 here.

We left of understanding the cultural phenomena of kids in Mumbai playing in the streets because of the lack of access to playgrounds and parks. We now take a look at the rise of ‘pay and play’ spaces that have popped up across the city.

Locations of ‘pay and play’ [turfs] spaces in Mumbai

In the last 5–7 years there has been a wave of new ‘pay and play’ [colloquially called turfs] spaces that have opened up all across the city. These turfs operate by charging an entry fee by the hour. They provide people with a safe and clean environment to play in, without the hassle of worrying about oncoming traffic [like when playing on the streets], or worrying about space crunch and having to share an over-crowded playground.

The popularity of these spaces is so high that there are aggregator websites like ‘bookmyturf.com’ and Apps that one can use to book time slots to play. These slots often fill up days and weeks in advance. But these spaces are clearly not designed with keeping inclusivity in mind. Looking at the things that turfs advertise on the aggregator websites paints a picture of who their target audience really is — most turfs offering free parking spaces and coaching on demand.

To collect this data, I went through all the turfs listed on an aggregator website called bookmyturf.com and then cross-referenced that data with Google maps to get the co-ordinates to map them out.

Cost breakdown of different turfs in the city.

Mapping out the costs of the different turfs across the city paints a telling picture. Moving away from downtown towards the suburbs of the city, one can see a change in the price. Expensive neighborhoods like Bandra attracting the highest cost while the far flung parts of the city like Malad offering the cheapest options.

Focusing specifically in M-Ward [West], one can observe different price points in the same locality of Chembur, with 3 different turfs at 3 distinct price points. Play at K-star being located at the prime real estate area near Central Avenue Road is the most expensive turf, whereas Urban Sports located at PL Lokhande Marg, an area with a lot of low income and informal housing in the vicinity offering a cheaper alternative.

There is a direct co-relation between where the turf is situated and the price of entry.

Looking at all this data, one can clearly notice that there are multiple barriers for kids to access safe play spaces in the city of Mumbai, leaving most of the kids in the city growing up with no space to play.
How To Create Horizontal + Vertical Scroll Shadows
By: Michael Chang
Tags: Programming, React, Web Development, JavaScript, CSS

Note: if you’re truly intent on understanding the exact internals, use different colors for the linear gradient so you can visually see how each background contributes to the total effect.

Javascript Scroll Shadows

The same effect can be achieved through Javascript. By listening on scroll events, you can enable / disable absolutely positioned before and after pseudoselectors that create the shadows. Using React and Styled Components, the code would look something like this to achieve the same effect:

const Shadow = styled.div`

position: relative;

border: 1px solid black;

${props =>

props.showStart

? css`

::before {

content: '';

position: absolute;

top: 0;

left: 0;

right: 0;

height: 10px;

background: linear-gradient(

to top,

rgba(255, 255, 255, 0),

rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.25)

);

}

`

: ''}

${props =>

props.showEnd

? css`

::after {

content: '';

position: absolute;

bottom: 0;

left: 0;

right: 0;

height: 10px;

background: linear-gradient(

to bottom,

rgba(255, 255, 255, 0),

rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.25)

);

}

`

: ''}

`; const Container = styled.div`

height: 200px;

overflow: auto;

`; const Content = styled.div`

padding: 10px 20px;

`; const VerticalJSScrollShadow = () => {

const [showStart, setShowStart] = React.useState(false);

const [showEnd, setShowEnd] = React.useState(false);

const ref = React.useRef(); React.useEffect(() => {

const onScroll = () => {

const { scrollHeight = 0, scrollTop = 0, offsetHeight = 0 } =

ref.current || {};

setShowStart(scrollTop > 0);

setShowEnd(scrollTop + offsetHeight < scrollHeight);

};

onScroll();

const node = ref.current;

node.addEventListener('scroll', onScroll);

return () => {

node.removeEventListener('scroll', onScroll);

};

}, []); return (

<Shadow showEnd={showEnd} showStart={showStart}>

<Container ref={ref}>

{Array.from(Array(20)).map((i, idx) => (

<Content key={idx}>{idx}</Content>

))}

</Container>

</Shadow>

);

};

A similar effect can be achieved for horizontal scroll shadows by using left, right, and widths instead. See here for the full implementation.

Pros + Cons

Given these two drastically options to create a same effect, there are some small important differences.

Performance: The CSS approach is significantly better as it is achieved through a single render whereas the Javascript approach requires multiple renders to set the showStart and showEnd states.

Browser Supportability: The CSS approach does not work in Safari (as of Safari 14). The shadow will appear, but will not disappear as you scroll. The Javascript approach does not have this supportability issue.

Development: The CSS approach is a lot simpler than the Javascript approach. The CSS approach only needs to set background styles while the Javascript approach requires refs, state, and scroll listeners.
Developers, welcome to Adobe Summit 2017
By: Lars Trieloff
Tags: Serverless, API, Digital Marketing, Adobe, Webhooks

One year ago, at Adobe Summit 2016, we launched Adobe I/O as the destination for developers using Adobe APIs, extending the functionality of Adobe products to create new experiences.

Adobe I/O brings together developers for Marketing Cloud, for Creative Cloud and Document Cloud products. Since our launch last year, more than 200,000 developers have come to learn, discover and develop apps and experiences.

One of the key pieces of Adobe I/O is the Adobe I/O API Gateway, which enables to developers to access APIs from products all across Adobe using one unified entry point, one secure way to authenticate and one convenient way to manage API keys.

The Adobe I/O API Gateway is now handling more than 700 million API requests per day, with peak traffic going up to 45 million requests per hour for APIs including Creative Cloud Files, Lightroom Photos, the SendToDesktop API, Typekit, Adobe Stock, Creative Cloud Assets, User Management, PDF Services, Adobe Campaign, Adobe Target, AEM Smart Content, Adobe Launch, and AEM Assets.

Adobe APIs now support OAuth and JWT authentication flows, so that authentication for individual users of web or mobile applications, or deep service-to-service integrations, can be supported easily and securely.

Making Adobe APIs more secure, more scalable and more powerful isn’t enough. For developers that are using APIs to power experiences, speed is one of the key challenges.

With the new Adobe I/O Events feature, which is starting its beta program, developers can create lightning-fast event-based integrations using WebHooks. This means, instead of continuously polling an API for changes — for example, the Creative Cloud files or AEM Assets API’s — developers can now let Adobe I/O Events notify their apps when something interesting, such as a file upload, happens.

Adobe I/O Events will make your apps and experiences react faster, and will get you developing faster thanks to a unified event model, which we will extend to cover all Adobe APIs.

For developers who are attending our Adobe Partner Day today at Adobe Summit, don’t miss our sneak preview of the Adobe I/O Runtime, a serverless runtime for API integrations that will allow you to connect Adobe and to third-party APIs.

The Adobe I/O Runtime allows you to run your integration code in the Adobe Cloud Platform, so you don’t have to take care of server set-up, monitoring, load-balancing, failover, auto-scaling, etc. because the runtime is taking care of this for you, behind the scenes. All you have to do is provide your integration code (JavaScript on node.js), and you can use your development tools like GitHub while Adobe takes care of the rest.

Are you in Las Vegas at Adobe Summit this week? Join us at our sessions:

Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter and watch the Day 1 keynote (Tuesday March 21 at 9am PT) and day 2 (Wednesday March 22, 10am PT) live.
March month 2021, a big project
Tags: Telegram, Exchange, Betting, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

March month 2021, a big project

🌐 World cryptocurrency betting and cryptocurrency analysis

Our goal is to make the product of the highest quality. We will try our best to make you satisfied.

March month 2021, a big project. Follow the news and stay with us.