fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Four Things I Learned from my First D3.js Project
By: Pooja Kaji
Tags: Data Visualization, D3js, Data Science, Data, Computer Science

As a Computer Science major, I am always looking for ways to broaden my scope of understanding in the realm of technology and data. When I joined CompassRed as an intern this May and was tasked to create unique visualizations using D3.js, my first reaction was: How? Learning a new concept takes time, especially since I would have to juggle JavaScript, HTML, and CSS simultaneously.

To best learn the toolkit, I opted out of watching 10 hour-long D3 tutorial videos on a loop on YouTube. Instead I chose to create a pilot project, which would allow me to explore and learn D3 in manageable chunks, while still creating meaningful data-binding visualizations. Now that my first project is near completion, here are four things I learned during this rollercoaster-of-a learning experience.

1. Examples are Your Best Friends

My mantra when learning D3 was to start with the simplest shape and to build from there. After finding more than a dozen examples online, I finally produced a tiny square and few other shapes. This was a great exercise to get acclimated to the complexity of the D3 library. It was a proud yet fleeting moment as I soon discovered the dark hole I found myself in after even learning the basics.

My very first D3.js visualization: Red Square and Friends.

Because the ultimate goal was to produce graphical visualizations, I found ways to facilitate the process by finding initial code from base examples posted online from developers who seek those who want to re-use their code. I then utilized this code to build something greater and more complex. This is what truly makes D3.js unique– it is an effective way to master the skill by constructing a bigger, better visual from the parent.

This is an example of a basic line graph I found online (source).

My new line graph built from the one above.

As seen above, the new line graph uses snippets of code from the base line graph (i.e., the axis structure). However, with the addition of zoom, brushing, color mapping, and axis labels, the new visualization is transformed into a more comprehensive data story about, in my case, New York gas prices.

Examples are great tools and resources to be a successful D3.js master, and I have grown to appreciate them so much more.
This is War!
By: Sandy Knight
Tags: Humor, Environmentalism, Short Fiction, Ecology, Rachel Carson

Fiction Short

This is War!

Dedicated to Rachel Carson, The Mother of the Environmental Movement.

“This is war, and you can tell your Queen I sai — , ah…ah, ahh… fff…u.c…k..chuuuu — Sniff”!

The explosion of wind and spittle punctuating my sneeze temporarily scattered the tiny, eight-legged pests across the white tiles.

Spraying pesticides in the kitchen feels counterintuitive to me, so I don’t usually resort to chemical warfare around food. I read Silent Spring in high school. But I’m not above cursing the little devils.

To toast the memory of Rachel Carson, black pepper is one more of my desperate attempts at a bio-friendly-all natural-safe-for pets-but-not-pests- solution to deter the unwelcome insects in their quest for food. Food carried to the secret lair of their insatiable Queen.

Jagged little chips of pizza crust, a sub-crumb of dog kibble, a drop of sweet tea; the Queen loves her carbs and dispatches her minions forth to find them, day and night. They raid the occasional crevice turned food cache where bits of grout has lost its purchase over the years.

Yes, many would die on their mission, but the tiny soldiers had their orders. What else could they do? I wouldn’t mind quite so much, if they were far more industrious cleaners. If they only came in at night. And never until I was well off to sleep. But this is not the case.

I find myself wondering if any of the workers are tempted to purloin for themselves a little snack before delivering their stolen bounty to Queenie.

Oh, how I resent her.

I hope they do cheat her out of a crumb here and there, at least. It’s a dangerous business entering a human’s domain and I don’t begrudge them not wanting to die on an empty stomach.
The one piece of advice car salesmen often miss
By: Shamontiel L. Vaughn
Tags: Sales, Car Sales, Prejudice, Race, Auto

I hadn’t really thought about my experience buying a new car until I was listening to WBEZ’s “This American Life” recently. In the episode “129 Cars,” the team spent a month at a Jeep dealership in Long Island, New York. I kept picturing the car salesman who sold me my last car.

Photo credit: Shamontiel L. Vaughn

When I entered the facility with that “test drive” promotional card, several heads turned. Car salesmen sized me up, one of which waved and asked how could he help. I held up the card and mentioned I wanted to use it. He shrugged and told me “someone else” can help and walked off completely uninterested. I stood there a bit disappointed, knowing what I knew versus what he knew. It was nothing like the way the car salesmen acted in the radio interviews, bombarding customers as they walked in the door. In “This American Life,” one manager specifically talked about why car salesmen should approach every single person who walks in as if it’s a sale. To paraphrase, no one leaves their home, heads purposely toward a car dealership and asks to see cars to not be interested in buying. The goal is to sell them on why they should buy a car, not the likelihood that they won’t.

I pondered on whether this older, white gentleman just decided I was broke from the minute I walked in the door. It was impossible not to notice the sizing-up going on from other salesmen who didn’t bother to even speak nor the lack of interest in greeting me upon entry. If Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs teach you nothing else, it’s never judge a person’s salary by their fashion choices. (My salary does not even mildly come within a 100-mile distance of theirs, but the point remains.)

Then off to the side came a boisterous Italian man about two times my size who greeted me with a smile and guided me over to the cars. Fresh off of a lunch break, he went on and on about the pros and cons of a bunch of cars, and his ears perked up to hear of my interest in Suzuki. It may have taken me a solid 15 minutes after the test drive to buy the car — and the older, white guy stared in disbelief as the Italian guy popped a balloon and shouted “Ey ey ey” loud enough for other customers to turn around. We did some negotiating, I requested a car alarm and a few add-ons to be put on the car to finalize the sale, and I drove off that day — with a free gas card, too. But before I left, the older, white guy walked over, mentioning to me that I never told him I was in the market to buy a new car. My response, “I never told you I wasn’t either.” Meanwhile, the Italian guy was still strutting around dancing in circles.
Field Day, Gym Shoes, and Other Lost Things
By: Jennifer Geer
Tags: Parenting, Self, Culture, Children, Life

My 9-year-old daughter didn’t express any grief at the closing of her school until the day she realized there would be no field day. Before that, she’d treated the quarantine as an extended snow day without the snow. And what kid doesn’t love a snow day?

But then she remembered field day. Field day is a big day for the American kid. I don’t know if other countries have something similar. Field day in the US is an entire day at school, near the end of the year, filled with outdoor games in a grassy field. It’s best if the day is hot and you end up a little sunburnt. It’s a day filled with tug-of-war, relay races, bouncy houses, and no school work.

Last year, my daughter’s field day was rained out as the field near her school was flooded. They held a modified version, mainly indoors. Not the same at all. So this year’s field day was something she’d been planning on since last year’s dismal one.

She hadn’t yet mentioned field day, and I didn’t want to bring it up. But one morning it occurred to her, no field day this year. And the thoughts of field day led her to think of her gym shoes at school, still on a shelf. And all the anger, sadness, and disappointment came out projected onto the loss of those gym shoes.
Fear sells. Don’t buy it.
Tags: Islam, Terrorism, Security

A Platform by the Center for Homeland Defense and Security For Radical Homeland Security Experimentation. Editorial guidelines (Publication does not equal endorsement): http://www.goo.gl/lPfoNG

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Closures in JavaScript
By: Chris Hosler
Tags: Software Development, JavaScript, Javascript Tips

In previous articles I’ve written the topics have included the idea of JavaScript closures before (although I never explicitly said that), and I thought that I would take this opportunity to break down closures a little bit and explain some more about them.

What is a closure?

According to MDN, “A closure is the combination of a function bundled together (enclosed) with references to its surrounding state (the lexical environment). In other words, a closure gives you access to an outer function’s scope from an inner function. In JavaScript, closures are created every time a function is created, at function creation time.”

To simplify this, basically, a closure is a set of nested functions where the inner function has access to variables from the outer function, even after the outer function has been executed. Let’s take a look at an example, to help visualize things…

function outerFunction() {

let count = 0;

function innerFunction() {

count++;

return count;

}

return innerFunction;

} let runCounter = outerFunction(); runCounter(); // Outputs 1

runCounter(); // Outputs 2

Here we set up our outerFunction() with a variable of count that is set to 0 , next we have our innerFunction() nested inside outerFunction() , innerFunction() has access to the variable count inside of outerFunction() , and this is what makes up our closure. The upshot of all of this is that we have access to our count variable outside of the scope of our outerFunction() , this allows us to “capture” the count variable so that even after outerFunction() has done it’s thing we can still access what our count is.

Closure example

One example of closures comes into play when we talk about currying (which I wrote about here). Currying basically takes a function and transforms from sum(a, b, c) to sum(1)(2)(3) …

function sum(a) {

return function(b) {

return function(c) {

return a + b + c;

}

}

} sum(1)(2)(3); // Outputs 6

Conclusion

So that’s a quick rundown of closures, the big takeaway being that a closure is created by using nested functions in which the inner function has access to variables in the outer function scope.

I hope that this has been useful and thanks for reading!
Not rested
By: Larry Nowicki
Tags: Sleep, Rest, A Few Words, I

I could not sleep

I laid in bed with my eyes closed staring at the ceiling

I think I fell asleep

Nothingness

Then I dreamt I was staring at the ceiling with my eyes closed

When I woke up I was not rested

Thanks for reading. You could have spent your time elsewhere but you choose to be here.

Would you like to find some of the things you didn’t know you needed to know? Check out https://hiddenforge.net/

Check out more of my stuff https://medium.com/@larrynowicki

I’m Larry Nowicki the KISS Specialist. What do you want me to kiss for you today?

Keep It Silly Simple.
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Illustration, Comics, Monday, Humor, Instachaaz

This is Chaz Hutton’s face and it (the face) makes me happy everytime I see it poppin’ out somewhere. He’s also an amazing cartoonist and a very talented and funny writer, in the rare case you don’t know him yet.
Types of Data Sets in Data Science, Data Mining & Machine Learning
By: Tarun Gupta
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Mining, Towards Data Science, Data, Data Science

There are three general characteristics of Data Sets namely: Dimensionality, Sparsity, and Resolution. We shall discuss what do they exactly mean one at a time.

What is Dimensionality?

→ The dimensionality of a data set is the number of attributes that the objects in the data set have.

In a particular data set if there are high number of attributes (also called high dimensionality), then it can become difficult to analyse such a data set. When this problem is faced, it is referred to as Curse of Dimensionality.

In order to understand what the hell is this Curse of Dimensionality, we first need to understand the other two characteristics of Data.

What is Sparsity?

→ For some data sets, such as those with asymmetric features, most attributes of an object have values of 0; in many cases fewer than 1% of the entries are non-zero. Such a data is called sparse data or it can be said that the data set has Sparsity.

What is Resolution?

→ The patterns in the data depend on the level of resolution. If the resolution is too fine, a pattern may not be visible or may be buried in noise; if the resolution is too coarse, the pattern may disappear. For example, variations in atmospheric pressure on a scale of hours reflect the movement of storms and other weather systems. On a scale of months, such phenomena are not detectable.

Now, coming back to the Curse of Dimensionality, it means many types of Data Analysis becomes difficult as the dimensionality (number of attributes in the data set) of the data set increases. Specifically, as dimensionality increases, the data becomes increasingly sparse in the space that it occupies. For classification, this can mean that there are not enough data objects to allow the creation of a model that reliably assigns a class to all possible objects. For clustering, the definitions of density and the distance between points, which are critical for clustering, become less meaningful.
The Purge
By: Abhinav Bhatnagar
Tags: USA, India, Vote, Trump, Elections

The Elections! Have you Voted or are you Purged?

Photo by Freepik.com

What is Democracy?

Democracy finds its origin from the Greek word ‘demokratia’, which means “rule by people”. In other words, Democracy gives the citizens of a state the power to govern or elect their representatives. However, no system is perfect and the corrupt eventually discover loopholes or find a way to manipulate the system. So a system designed to empower the citizens, at times ends up suppressing them. And that’s what we are going to talk about today, Voter Suppression. So how does one suppress the voters? They just take away your power to vote. It’s that simple. There are two forms of Voter Suppression. Voter Caging and Voter Purging

A candidate is put on a Caging list when an official mail from the Election body doesn’t reach them. This is called Voter Caging.

Similarly, when a candidate’s name is removed from the voter registration list, it’s called Voter Purging.

Now while both of these terms may sound like total villains against Democracy, they are heroes if rightly used. Yes, that’s right. When Voter Purging and Voter Caging are properly conducted, they can eliminate the duplicate names, people who have moved, died, etc. This would of course mean dependable, accurate, and up-to-date Voter lists, and hence effective Elections. However, in a flawed system, these potential tools are used by corrupt politicians and administrators to deprive certain sections of people of voting in elections for their benefit. So they eliminate the people who they think won’t vote for them.

Photo by Aclu.com

For instance, consider the last Presidential elections of the United States. Reportedly from 2014 to 2016, states removed almost 16 million voters from their voting list. Yeah, that’s a massive purge. So what actually happened was that the Republican Party headed by Trump got these huge numbers of potential voters purged in the name of Voter fraud. While the truth is the actual number of Voter fraud allegations was too insignificant to even consider. Anyway, what matters now is that you are careful enough to prevent such suppression from happening to you. Do make sure that your registration in the official Voter list matches your Voter card. And if you receive mail from the Election commission, respond to it.

Photo by visuals on Unsplash

So if you want to bring change, make your vote count!
SCI Ventures Daily Crypto Digest: There Will Be No Challenge Today!
By: Jervis C. Tinimbang
Tags: Fintech, Philippines, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

March 6, 2018

Image from Coindesk.com

Bitcoin (BTC) challenged tough resistance levels at $11,780 — $12,000 before falling to just below $11,300 as of this writing. Waning interest, as evidenced by low volume of transactions, may have prompted sellers to take some profits off the table.

Support is at $11,000 while resistance levels are still at $11,780 and $12,000.

*BTCPHP: 603,930 / 573,590

*USDPHP: 51.93

*BTC market cap: $191B

*Crypto market cap: $458B

News:

*Bitcoin transactions are at a two-year low, despite rock bottom fees, the Cointelegraph reports. The number of transactions reached a two-year low at 180,000 while yesterday’s transactions were only 195,500.

*Paypal has filed a patent to increase the speed of cryptocurrency payments. The patent describes an “Expedited Virtual Currency Transaction System”, involving the use of secondary private keys to shorten wait times for transactions between consumers and merchants.

*Following the footsteps of Venzuela and the Marshall Islands, Cambodia is considering to launch its own cryptocurrency project. The Entapay project will be proposed in the ASEAN Blockchain Summit, and will be first launched in Cambodia and be promoted all over the world.

*Kakao, makers of the South Korean messaging app KakaoTalk, will be establishing a blockchain subsidiary and is considering and an ICO. The subsidiary, tentatively named Kakao Blockchain, will layout its concrete business plan on March 20.

*The US Marshals are auctioning off approximately 2,170 bitcoins, which were confiscated “in connection with various federal criminal, civil, and administrative cases”. The auction is tentatively set on March 19 and will be split in 14 blocks.

*At the Philippines-Japan Investment and Cryptocurrency Forum, Unionbank’s head of fintech business group, Ramon Vicente V. De Vera, remarked that blockchain for rural banks “may well be the answer to their survival because they are going down”. Unionbank is one of the more aggressive banks in embracing tech like blockchain, empowering rural banks like Cantilan Bank in Davao through blockchain, giving them and their customers access to universal banking products.

SCI | buybitcoin.ph | Bitbit | Keza | Rebit.ph
I Am a Gypsy Soul
By: Ankit Mishra
Tags: Who Am I, Soul, Gypsy, Travel, Poetry

Pic Courtesy — Ishara

Wandering inside my own body

Revolving with the stream of blood

Unsettled like a breathe up in the air

I am a gypsy soul

Traveling in search of my home

Aghast at the cruelty of the People

Preaching the sermon of my sins

Packed with the world of incomplete circles

I am a gypsy soul

Traveling in search of my home

A perpetual dream of dead emotions

Beyond the flights of my Imaginations

Traversing through the universe in an ecstatic motion

I am a gypsy soul

Traveling in search of my home

Transient Like morning dew

Eternal like the cosmic eruption

A life bound with the sense of death

I am a gypsy soul

Traveling in search of my home!!
Sage MAS 500 Receives 5-Star Rating
By: Alok Tyagi
Tags: Accounting Solutions, Sage Software, Erp

Earlier this month Sage MAS 500 grabbed another 5-Star Rating in this year’s review of High-End Accounting Systems by The CPA Technology Advisor. The product received nearly perfect marks in all 6 review categories — Module/Scalability; Usability/User Experience & Security; Extensibility; Integration/Customization; Reporting and Support/Training & Help.

Check it out here.
Georgia
By: Janaka Stagnaro
Tags: Poetry, The Pom, Georgia O Keeffe, Nature, Artwork

Another homage to Georgia O’Keefe. It wasn’t until this year that I took notice of her work. I identified her as an artist who made genitalic flowers and floating skulls. Someone said that my work reminded me of hers so I revisited her work and fell in love with her modern landscapes. And after reading up on her history I have not only come to respect her work but her determination as an artist to break female stereotypes. Here is the first one I did.

Artwork by author

Other writings

Cheers. Thanks for reading.
Unique ideas come independently, but not in the era of high-speed Internet
By: Jeff Heizmann
Tags: Zenome, ICO, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Genetics

Past months Zenome team inspired many people to work more on solutions of genetic data processing and storing. We surely can define it as one of our goals to achieve — inspiring the scientific community to strive for even more innovative approaches. But the saddest fact is that all this inspiration ended up copying the Zenome’s work — from the project’s key idea to the structure of the whitepaper. All the scientist around the world know that respect to the work of your colleagues is important. If you consider another project’s idea as a good base for your own one — it doesn’t mean you copy it without any references. We are all trying to achieve the same goal — to help people to be the real owners of their genetic data, we want to make the genetic services as accessible as possible for them.

Zenome team is trying to get the future user’s trust — we want the people around the world to believe that they can use genetic tests as one of the best solutions to monitor their health. However, the classy copying as well as empty promises undermine the confidence to the idea itself.

There’s no place for grim business if you are trying to help people.
Basic Linux Commands to Check Hardware and System Information
Tags: Linux Commands, Linux, Hardware, Commands, Hardware Information

Basic Linux Commands to Check Hardware and System Information Yagmursahin Follow Dec 26 · 5 min read

Once the Linux kernel initializes, it enumerates all hardware components. There are plenty of commands to check information about the hardware of a Linux system. Some commands report only specific hardware components like CPU or memory while the rest cover multiple hardware units.

Photo by Florian Krumm on Unsplash

1. Printing Machine Hardware Name (uname –m uname –a)

Using the -m switch with the uname command prints the hardware name of our machine. If we want the uname command to print all the information mentioned above, we can use the command with all the switches.

$ uname –m

$ uname -a

photo by author

2. lscpu

The lscpu command reports information about the cpu and processing units. It does not have any further options or functionality.

$ lscpu

photo by author

lshw –List Hardware

A general purpose utility, that reports detailed and brief information about multiple different hardware units such as cpu, memory, disk, usb controllers, network adapters etc. Lshw extracts the information from different /proc files. Lshw is capable of reporting memory configuration, firmware version, mainboard configuration, CPU version and speed, cache configuration, bus speed etc. The lshw command needs to run with super privileges to be able to detect and report the maximum amount of information. So run as root, or use sudo. Lshw assorts hardware components into groups called “class”. Processor, memory, display, network, storage are all different classes.

$ sudo lshw $ sudo lshw –short

Generate report in html/xml format

We can also export lshw reports in html, xml and json formats.

$ sudo lshw –html > lshw-output.html

$ sudo lshw –xml >lshw-output.xml

2. hwinfo- Hardware Information

Hwinfo is another general purpose hardware probing utility that can report detailed and brief information about multiple different hardware components, and more than what lshw can report.

$ hwinfo

$ hwinfo –short

photo by author

3. lspci- List PCI

The lspci command lists out all the pci buses and details about the devices connected to them. The vga adapter, graphics card, network adapter, usb ports, sata controllers, etc all fall under this category. By using previous lspci command with the -v parameter more detailed information about the PCI devices can get.

$ lspci
What Life Did I Know
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Family, Friendship, Love, Poetry, Life

But what life did I know until you

What filled my time, idle hours

Loneliness knew me so intimately

And now laughter fills my heart

What life did I know, indeed

What secrets couldn’t I share

Now here, a gift you are to me

An oasis, a welcome home

What life did I know, I’ve forgotten

It seems unimportant now

You’re mending the broken pieces

The ones I didn’t know were cracked

Oh, what life did I know, tell me

For I’ve found myself in you, brother

Blessed is how I feel, and happy

For you, in this new life I know
BitHD and LBANK Striked a Deal in Wallet Safety Collaboration
By: Bitpie Wallet
Tags: Safety, Bithd, Lbank, Multisig, Bitpie

BitHD and SWFT Reached Global Partnership, Both Sides will Collaborate in Wallet Security Service.

BitHD (hardware wallet brand of Bitpie Team) announced a strategic partnership with LBANK, and LBANK will join the “BitHD Multisig Partnership” program. The BitHD team will provide LBANK with a full range of customized wallet security services based on LBANK security architecture, especially including ERC20-based Multisig solutions. LBANK`s risk prevention capabilities will be further improved to ensure platform user digital asset security by using BitHD cold wallet.

Both sides will collaborate in embracing more potentially new businesses in the future.

About BitHD

BitHD is an independent brand that under Bitpie Wallet. All of our products are warm welcomed by the users. For now, we have gain trust and respect from large number of professional practitioners in the industry, exchanges, blockchain firms, and normal cryptocurrency users.

For now, both of the BitHD products BitHD Watch and Razor have supported BTC, USDT（ERC20 & Omni）, ETH, EOS, LTC, BCH, BSV, DASH, DOGE, ZEC. And BitHD Watch & Razor are the only two cold wallets that support BTC, USDT, ETH ,all ETC 20 Tokens and EOS Multisig function.

About LBANK

LBank was officially launched in December 2015. It officially went live in October 2016. LBank’s vision is to build a ledger bank of the blockchain world based on a world’s top digital asset trading platform. It aims at providing safe, professional and convenient digital asset exchange services to users around the world, and offering a wealth of digital asset financial derivatives and a variety of application scenarios.

Different from the traditional centralized exchanges, LBank will focus on building a community-oriented platform with users as the core. All the rights will belong to the community, all the duties will belong to the nodes, and all the profits will belong to the whole community. LBK will be used as proof of rights, the symbol of responsibilities, and the anchor of the profit.

The BitHD Cold Wallet launched the “BitHD Multisig Union” program on March 22, 2019. We have promoted the concept of Multisig to help companies in the industry understand, learn, and gradually start using the “Cold wallet + Multisig technology” to manage large amount of assets with our partners. We hope that through the efforts of us and our partners, we can effectively improve the current blockchain firms` asset management status in the industry and contribute to the development of the blockchain industry.
President Trump Says He’ll Pull US Troops out of Syria. Now What?
By: Fsi Stanford
Tags: Trump, Foreign Policy, Syria, Fsi Scholars, Fsi Features

Q&A with Martha Crenshaw, a senior fellow at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Written with Katy Gabel Chui.

On Wednesday, President Trump announced he wants to pull troops out of Syria because the United States military had achieved its goal of defeating the Islamic State militant group there. In this Q&A, terrorism expert Martha Crenshaw addresses the president’s decision.

Has the U.S. defeated the Islamic State in Syria? What does “defeat” mean in this context?

U.S. leaders have talked optimistically about “defeating” first Al Qaeda and then the Islamic State since the declaration of a global war on terror in 2001. If it were possible to vanquish such an adversary on the battlefield through the application of superior military force, we would already have accomplished the mission. The Islamic State combines insurgency with transnational terrorism, and its operations flow easily across national borders. Since its beginnings in 2003, it has demonstrated a capacity for resilience and reconstitution — and for surprising us. The loss of the Caliphate has not changed this equation.

What regional impacts might this decision have?

The Iraqi government has not shown itself capable of providing the security or legitimacy that might undermine the appeal of the Islamic State. Despite [Syrian President] Assad’s ruthless consolidation of power with the aid of Iran and Russia, opposition to his regime will continue. If the American-supported Kurdish resistance is abandoned by the U.S. and then destroyed or weakened by Turkey, there will be even more scope and rationale for jihadists such as the Islamic State. Also, we shouldn’t forget that the Al Qaeda branch in Syria is still active.

What about in terms of the U.S. relationship with Russia and Iran versus with allies in the region?

It seems that the assumption behind the withdrawal is that the U.S. is willing to leave Syrian affairs to Russia and Iran and to allow Turkey to pursue an offensive against our Kurdish allies. We should probably call them “former allies” now. Turkey is likely to draw closer to Iran and Russia.

Some American military leaders have spoken up against this decision, calling it wrongheaded. Does that matter?

Probably not to the President’s decisions, but vocal military opposition would matter to Congress and other opinion leaders.
This is another Everything Shortform members notification regarding writers and editors.
By: Greg Prince
Tags: Everything Short Form, Publishing, Writing Tips, Short Form, Social Media Marketing

This is another Everything Shortform members notification regarding writers and editors. Editors have been added, and I have a few spots left; however, they are for previous editors wishing to aid with our publication. New applicants to Everything Shortform will be writers. It’s humbling to see so many requests to be a part of this growing niche. Heck, I’m thrilled to help Shortform Publishing root on Medium, and join with you in making Shortform work!

Frog Figure Files from Pixabay

I’d like to know if you have suggestions for Everything Shortform. Let me plant a few ideas. Would you like to have a few subcategories such as Fiction, Poetry, News, etc.? Do you think I should add color to our page backgrounds?

I’ve noticed nobody has used a Call To Action. Why not? Slap it on there. We’re probably not getting curated, so go for it.

Live long and publish!
Microsoft Excel: The ONE Automation Macro You Need to Use
By: Don Tomoff
Tags: Macros, Excel, Automation, Vba, Top 10 Post

Macros in Excel are intimidating to a lot of users. The beauty of macros, though, is they allow automation that dramatically simplifies our daily use of Excel. Additionally, with the ability to use the Record capabilities in Excel and search on Google, you can literally be up and running with little to basic knowledge of VBA (Visual basic for applications).

So, what one macro do I recommend? A “print to PDF” macro. Here’s what it does and how you can set it up.

Once print parameters have been set , this macro prints the current worksheet to PDF

, this macro prints the current worksheet to PDF The macro names the file with the Sheet Name + a date and time stamp based on when it was printed

It saves the PDF to the CURRENT folder where the Excel file is located

Here’s how you set it up.
Language.
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Illustration, Comics, Graphic Design, Drawing

Did you find this article interesting?

If you liked it and if you feel like it, leave some claps to help whoever wrote it to pay his Lamborghini Urus.

Thank you!
Dear Love songs
By: Moyosore Sheriff Quadri
Tags: Humor, Humour

It’s hard to tell whether love makes one crazy-passionate or one just has to be crazy-passionate to meet up to the expectations of love.

Love songs will have you believing that it is the former, whereas, you are responsible for majority of people doing the latter. And frankly, you demand a lot.

When push comes to shove, I seriously doubt that anyone would catch a grenade for their lover and jump in front of a train. Is it either/or? Because one kills you, and the other… really kills you!

The journeymen claim that they would walk 500 hundred miles and 500 hundred more just to be the man who walks a thousand miles to fall down at her door? Why?

George Ezra sang :

all my love is yours,

all my time is ours,

all my reckless dreams,

all my restless hours,

No matter where you go,

baby I’ll be there…

all of it? …okay… clingy.

The goals we get an inclination to live up to, courtesy of the lyrics you contain, are very unrealistic. I believe they are nerve-wrecking and wreak havoc on anxiety. You have a lot to think about, Bud.

Instead of starting what may have been a more effective way curbing your menace- an online petition, a google form shared on twitter and WhatsApp that no one will fill, I made a list.

Below are a few well thought out lyrics for you to consider:

“I will definitely at a point in this relationship not show up to/for something for/with you, and not have any other excuse other than ‘I was tired’ because I genuinely was. Please don’t make me have to lie to you about it” “If you stare ‘longingly’ into my eyes for longer than 4 minutes 23 seconds at a stretch, I may fart. That’s my threshold “ “You can be very stressful sometimes” “There’s really no way I can tell if you’re the love of my life, you know, what if I just settled?” “ I thought you were funny at first but now I realize it was just lust”

It doesn’t have to be as accurate and fantastic as the ones above, it just has to be vey realistic. It’ll be nice to get an ‘ain’t that the truth’ emotion from you once in a while.

I challenge you to change your narrative.

Best wishes,

Moyosore S. Quadri.
Continúa el Roadshow para agrandar y potenciar el ecosistema
By: Inbest Network
Tags: Negocios, Criptomonedas, Bitcoin

in In Fitness And In Health
New action: Rate Change from Order
Tags: Trading, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Product Updates, Cryptocurrency Investment

Hello superorder users and supporters! It’s been a while since we released something new, mostly updated system and even skipped announcements :)

Today we are announcing new action that a lot of our users have asked for.

Rate Change related to Orders

Now you can use changes of price related to your filled orders for your benefit. It allows some new ways to trade: pyramiding or easy trade targets for example. Here is how it works.

When you create your chain you select Rate Change action and select an order from which the action should calculate change.

In the following example we:

Perform Market Buy Using new Rate Change action wait for the price to go 10% up from our entry Perform Market Sell

Other changes
Machine Learning — Don’t Just Rely on Your University
Tags: Machine Learning, College, Mathematics, Education, Data Science

The Problem with Learning in a University

Incorporating machine learning into predictive analytics has been in high demand that provides businesses the competitive edge. This hot topic is highly subscribed by undergraduates all over the world. However, being formally introduced the concepts and techniques of machine learning in universities may prove extremely daunting for the average undergraduate.

During my undergraduate winter exchange in McGill University, I enrolled myself in their Applied Machine Learning course. Yes, it was foolish of me to enroll in a graduate-level course! It started with the introduction of Linear Regression as it should be since it is the most basic machine learning algorithm out there. The tutor did a great job attempting to explain the intuition behind the algorithm.

But after introducing a ton of heavy math behind the algorithm, the finishing blow was dealt with “Oh by the way, assignment 1 is out, it’s due in 10 days time and you are encouraged to complete it in Python, see you next lecture.”

How was I supposed to learn the concepts of L2 regularization and fitting regression models with stochastic gradient descent in 10 days! I didn’t even know how to code in Python!

I was already overwhelmed by the second lecture that I immediately dropped out. In that course, solid background knowledge in statistics, calculus, linear algebra and programming is assumed. And sure enough, the 4 elements were immediately introduced within the first introductory lecture.

It doesn’t help that I was one of the many students who learn and forget majority of the mathematical concepts through summer/winter break!
Resque Mailer v1.0.0 (with Rails 3 Support)
By: Nick Plante
Tags: Software Development, Open Source, Ruby on Rails

I just released a new version of Resque Mailer (1.0.0), my asynchronous email delivery extension for Resque gem src. If you’re already using it with Rails 2.x, there really aren’t any changes you need to be aware of. Go about your business. However, thanks largely to the efforts of Marcin Kulik, the gem now works in Rails 3.x as well. Thanks Marcin!

So why go 1.0.0? Because it’s feature complete, used by a number of people in production, and has been stable without any significant feature additions or issues for quite some time. It’s still simple as hell, and I don’t see it getting more complicated any time soon. And now that it works on both Rails 2.x and 3.x, well, that sounds like a 1.0.0 to me.
การทำ Dynamic Flex เพื่อแสดงข้อมูลที่มีการอัพเดท ใน LINE ด้วยภาษา Python พร้อม source code
By: Dr. Winn Voravuthikunchai
Tags: Linedevth, แชทบอท, Chatbots, Botnoi, บอทน้อย

obtained his PhD in AI from Caen University, France. He was Chief Data Scientist at Telenor. Currently, he is Founder & CEO of Botnoi Group, and LINE API Expert

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Biden’s First Day in the White House.
By: Lisa Martens
Tags: Humor, Politics, Satire, Trump, Biden

Biden’s First Day in the White House.

Things are a little different, Mr. President.

Photo by Tabrez Syed on Unsplash

“Mr. President, I know you’re familiar with how this office used to be, but I have to tell you that in the past four years, we’ve made some changes, and it’ll take some time to…undo some of those changes.”

“What do you mean? What’s changed?”

“Well we uhm…for lack of a better phrase, baby-proofed the office.”

“Come again?”

“For example: The Button?”

“Yes?”

“Yeah, well, now, when you push it, it shoots confetti instead of nuking communist nations.”

“It shoots confetti.”

“Yeah.”

“Any…particular theme?”

“I think just regular New Years confetti.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, a porn star comes out, tells you the local weather, and then leaves.”

“And why was this change implemented?”

“The idea was that the former president would get distracted and forget that he was trying to start a nuclear war.”

“I see...”

“Another item. The intelligence briefings.”

“What about them?”

“We basically put gibberish on the first nine pages, and the real information on the last page.”

“I think I’m following the trail of thought, but why’s that?”

“The former president never…read past the first page. You know. Kind of like how no one reads the first page of Google. And we thought it was sort of better that way.”

“What kind of gibberish?”

“That was the work of an intern. I think she basically went through Reddit and copy/pasted whatever she found on the front page.”

“How many of these contingencies were in place?”

“Well, okay. Let’s see. The coffee was decaf. The internet didn’t work in his bed — ”

“Why is that?”

“We thought it would discourage him from using Twitter, but it didn’t end up being much of a deterrent. Twitter was kind of the only thing we…let him have.”

“All right. And how long will it take before everything can be put back to normal?”

“That’s the other issue, Mr. President. We’re going to have to let go of about half of the White House staff.”

“Why is that?”

“Because…these contingencies accounted for most of their jobs. Now that you’ll be reading, drinking coffee, and not Tweeting, there are going to be a lot of lost jobs around here.”

“Maybe we can find another job for them. Who are those people over there packing boxes? They actually seem happy to go.”

“The fact-checkers and translators. We gave them a six-month paid sabbatical for their pain and suffering.”
Head-Mounted AR/VR For Human Realistic 3-D Data Visualization
By: Georgi Atanasov
Tags: Augmented Reality, VR, Virtual Reality, AR, Data Visualization

If you have done some data visualizations, chances are that you’ve heard the status quo about 3-D charts — they are bad and they should be avoided. There are numerous papers and books, arguing and demonstrating that 3-D charts are visually splendid but they can be mischievous about data, hence we should strive to present almost everything by 2-D plots.

To a large extent I agree with this argument. But with one very important clarification:

All these papers implicitly assume data visualization on 2-D displays, like monitors, projectors and TV screens.

On 2-D displays, the third dimension is artificially projected through a transformation matrix that distorts proportions. In other words, the sense of depth comes at the price of skewed and distorted images.

Up until the last 3–4 years, 2-D displays have been (with few exceptions) the only channel to present information. But that no longer is the case.

In this story I will share a different perspective on 3-D data visualization in Augmented and Virtual Reality through stereoscopic displays.

Before further reading, let’s watch a video that explains what we, at Progress Telerik, are after:
Unemployed
By: Jonathan James Anderegg
Tags: Infinity, Depression, Television, Poetry

Slide — photo by author

The television falls from the fire escape

Why must I wait for eternity?

Rankling like stolen keys with stilted catchphrases

Yanked from daytime talk show banter

Caricatures of a cauterized wound showing

In negative space the effects of ignoring good advice

Physician, heal thyself.

The infinite and particular can never meet.

Between it and us is a great gap fixed

By a rigged system of our betters unknown

And the television falls from the fire escape

As I wait for an answer.
Improve Yourself: Think About Death
By: Harry Hoover
Tags: Self Improvement, Performance, Personal Growth, Personal Development, Death

I think about the inevitability of death every day. This motivates me to make the most of my time on this planet. Researchers at the University of Arizona have quantified my belief that thinking about death can improve your performance.

In the study, a group of participants was asked to think about death before going onto the basketball court to play. The research subjects scored more points than the control group.

Researchers think that humans have a “terror-management” system to keep thoughts of death at bay. So, when you think about death, your terror-management system goes into overdrive, boosting performance and thus self-esteem.

“Terror management theory talks about striving for self-esteem and why we want to accomplish things in our lives and be successful,” said UA psychology doctoral student Uri Lifshin, co-lead investigator of the research. “Everybody has their own thing in which they invest that is their legacy and symbolic immortality.” The reason people don’t live in constant fear of their inevitable death is because they have this system to help them deal with it, Lifshin said. “Your subconscious tries to find ways to defeat death, to make death not a problem, and the solution is self-esteem,” he said. “Self-esteem gives you a feeling that you’re part of something bigger, that you have a chance for immortality, that you have meaning, that you’re not just a sack of meat.”

One group of participants was asked questions such as,

“Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you,” and, “Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you physically die and once you are physically dead.”

The other group was asked questions about their basketball performance.

Those asked about death improved their personal performance in the second game by 40 percent, while those asked about basketball saw no change in performance. Those who thought about death also performed 20 percent better as a whole in the second game than those in the other group. Before the questionnaires, the performance of both groups was roughly even.

Researchers believe their results are not sport-specific nor gender-specific.

“This is a potentially untapped way to motivate athletes but also perhaps to motivate people in other realms,” Zestcott said. “Outside of sports, we think that this has implications for a range of different performance-related tasks, like people’s jobs, so we’re excited about the future of this research.”

Once you accept the inevitability of death, I believe, you can use this to motivate yourself and to value your life more.

Do you think about death this way?
The Bartender Tales: Cassandra
By: Lidia Almeida
Tags: Short Story, Poets Unlimited, Slam Poetry, Fiction, Poetry

Behind the counter

When a lover came in

Alone she was

Just a heart to be filled

Her eyes ran the place

To empty return

Arched back, so she leaned, whispering:

— Something strong

— Something sweet

— Please.

“It can’t rain all the time”

Said the tattoo across her chest

Her favorite movie line

I tried not to stare.

Wondering if

She really believed that

And why

were

her

boots

Soaking wet?

She told me the story

Of how her parents kicked her out

After their pastor convinced them

In her soul Lucifer took house

But the priest was the one

With evil in his mind:

— He used my body

Like it was his playground

— Made it feel like an honor

To have his cock in my mouth

— “Be a good girl, let me see

Just how pretty you are”

Pause here,

For her to sip on my petrified gaze

And a failed attempt

To let me know she was fine:

— Well, it taught me a less-

A man sat by her side.

— Hey, have we met? Your face is not strange

In his eyes, it was clear, he was being sincere

Within an abbreviation

Red stained, fingerprinted, empty was her glass

Malice was now burning her insides

Blushing cheeks illustrated her eagerness for mistakes

— I could lie and say yes.

— I could lie and say no.

— Or you can buy me another drink and a chance to take me home.

Her every move was calculated

To draw flawless sexuality

A single, perfect, smooth slide

From her neck

All

The

Way

Down

Her back

Lost in the picture

All surroundings were now absent to him

No oxygen

Flooding his brain only the idea of undressing, holding and kissing

Her feet.

Common man,

Common fetiche,

She seemed into it.

Took a minute to recover after the conversation died, impatient

Asked for the bill

— I live 10 minutes from here, Sunset Hill.

The one time I saw her smile the whole evening,

Perfect teeth

Got up, thanked me

“For listening”

Out the door, up the stairs

And to never again be seen

Poor bastard, weak memory

Her face was on every piece of news

No name, no history

Tortured and killed small town priests

Leaving carved their skin:

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned”