fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Top 5 crypto initiatives making the world a better place
By: Dan Kosky
Tags: Community, Refugees, Cryptocurrency, World, Environment

Cryptocurrency is not just about trading. As the industry continues to boom, more and more practical applications are increasingly being developed. This includes a wide range of initiatives which benefit the greater good. Our own CLN community, whose aim is to make more equitable local financial ecosystems a reality, is a great example.

Meanwhile, plenty of initiatives now exist which utilize cryptocurrency in order to reduce poverty, help the environment and more. This is not an exhaustive list, but here is a selection of the top 5 crypto initiatives, which are helping to make the world a better place:

City of Berkeley using crypto to fund social housing

This is an ICO with a difference. Rather than an “Initial Coin Offering,” this is an “Initial Community Offering” in which the Californian city of Berkeley hopes to raise funds in order to provide affordable housing. There are currently at least 1,000 homeless people in Berkeley and the forward-thinking city council hopes that selling “crypto enabled microbonds” can help provide a new and innovative answer to the problem.

Cryptocurrency for Syrian refugees

For the millions who have fled Syria’s brutal civil war, accessing currency in order to perform ordinary transactions is problematic. Typically, they no longer have access to bank accounts and the everyday structures that existed back home. So, the United Nations’ World Food Program has given cryptocurrency-based vouchers to around 10,000 refugees in Jordan, which can be redeemed for products at local vendors.

Boosting higher education in Brazil

This one was a little bit ahead of its time and was never actually implemented, but the Brazilian government was close to adopting it all the way back in 2003. The idea was to issue educational vouchers in the form of the complementary Saber currency, to children as young as 7 years old, in return for participating in an educational mentoring scheme. Additional Sabers could be accumulated over the years and redeemed aged 17, in return for paying university fees.

UNICEF’s “Hope Page”

Earlier this year, UNICEF Australia launched the “Hope Page.” The idea is a simple one — Visit the page and agree to allow your computer’s processing power to help mine cryptocurrency. All cryptocurrency created by this effort is to be used to support UNICEF’s work helping Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. In essence, the public is being given the chance to mine cryptocurrency for people who desperately need it, not profit.

Carbon credits saving the environment

Believe it or not, it is now possible to measure the carbon value of everyday products. Thanks to a blockchain-based system developed by a Swiss non-profit, consumers are able to purchase ‘climate-positive’ products, which can earn carbon credit. This methodology, which can track emissions and reward those choosing to limit them, has attracted the attention of the World Economic Forum.
Isolation & Fear: in the Arms of the Virus
By: James Finn
Tags: LGBTQ, Storytelling, Covid 19, Writing Challenge, Writing Prompts

Writers, Prism & Pen offers you a somber challenge

As the covid-19 pandemic explodes, many of us feel isolated and afraid. The holiday season approaches for many, but the virus denies us the comfort of family and communal hearth. For some, it is snatching loved ones. In the US and the UK, inept politicians leave us feeling thrown to the wolves without leadership to help pull us through.

P&P’s new two-week prompt starts today

For many queer people, the holiday season is already hard. For some (like me) the holidays are more about mourning than joy. But even for those who delight in the festivals, this year challenges us in unexpected ways.

Writers, my challenge to you is to write about isolation & fear with candor and strength. Shout your defiance, dance with joy, whisper your dreams, or share you pain through personal stories, fiction, or poetry.

But you don’t have to write about isolation & fear. The prompt is there to inspire, not restrict. You’re welcome to write about anything within our guidelines at any time.

New to Prism and Pen?

Here are our submissions guidelines. Hope to hear from you soon!

Alert! We now accept artist interviews and reviews (book, film, music, etc) about queer-focused art.

Stories so far —
Privacy International calls on UK government to reveal secret intelligence sharing arrangements with the United States
By: Privacy International
Tags: Surveillance, United States, Big Data, Donald Trump, Privacy

Privacy International has today written to government ministers, members of the opposition, and oversight bodies reaffirming its call for the UK government to reveal secret intelligence sharing arrangements with the United States.

The original UKUSA agreement — drafted shortly after World War II — allows UK and US agencies to share, by default, any raw intelligence, collection equipment, decryption techniques, and translated documents.

Current arrangements also allow US intelligence agencies to collect intelligence and operate from within the UK, reportedly including in support of special operations involving lethal force.

Disclosures from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 drew the world’s attention to the staggering scale of surveillance permitted by the global internet infrastructure, allowing intelligence agencies to intercept the communications of hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis.

Except for the decades old UKUSA agreement, no information about the rules governing the extent of this sharing were publicly available prior to a 2013 challenge brought Privacy International and nine other human rights organisations at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), a government body which hears complaints about surveillance activities in the UK empowered to accept evidence from government in secret.

Aside from a few paragraphs summarising its approach to obtaining information from the US released during the lawsuit, the UK government has consistently refused to reveal to the public details about intelligence sharing practices and policies. It has also argued that such intelligence sharing should not be subject to the same safeguards as its own interception powers.

The IPT rejected the majority of Privacy International’s claims in judgments in December 2014 and February 2015, although it found the complete lack of publicly available rules on intelligence sharing prior to the lawsuit to be problematic. Privacy International and the nine other human rights organisations have appealed the IPT’s judgments to the European Court of Human Rights.

In its letter, Privacy International has called for the UK government to release key documents outlining the UK’s intelligence sharing arrangements. The government has already presented many of those documents to the IPT in a closed hearing, but has so far refused to make them publicly available.

Privacy International has also forwarded reports detailing the extent of what is publicly known about intelligence sharing with the U.S. Government, and concerns about the existing lack of details, adequate safeguards, and oversight mechanisms.

The letter has been sent to the UK Secretary of State for Defence, Home Secretary, and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, their parliamentary opposition, as well as the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament and the Interception of Communications Commissioner’s Office.
Review of Pandas DataFrame
By: Muhammad Zohaib
Tags: Python Pandas, Data Mining, Python, Machine Learning, Data Wrangling

Image source: edureka.co

Let’s learn how to get data in and look at it.We’ll need to remember a few things about pandas. First, pandas is a library for data analysis. The powerful tool of pandas is the data frame, a tabular data structure with labeled rows and columns.

Image source geeksforgeeks.org

As an example, we’ll use a data frame with Boston data.(here)The rows are labeled by a special data structure called an index.Indexes in pandas are tabled. Lists of labels that permit fast look up and some powerful relational operations.The index labels in the Boston Dataframe are unnamed.Labeled rows and columns improve the clarity and intuition of many data analysis tasks.

When we ask for the type of the Boston , it’s a data frame.

When we ask for its shape, it has 506 rows and 15 columns.

The Dataframe columns attribute gives the names of its Unnamed, crim, zn, indus, chas, nox , rm , age, dis, rad, tax, ptratio, black, lstat, medv. Notice the boston columns attribute is also a pandas index.

Data frames can be sliced like NUM PY arrays or Python lists using colons to specify the start end and the stride of a splice.

First, we can slice from the start of the dataframe to the 5th row non inclusive using the iloc accessor to express the slice positionally.

2nd, we can slice from the 5th last row to the end of the dataframe using a negative index.

There’s another way to see just the top rows of the dataframe, the head method specifying head five returns the first 5 rows. Specifying head two returns just the first 2 rows.

The head method is particularly useful because our data frame here has over 500 rows.

The opposite of head is tail. Specifying tail without an argument returns the last five rows. By default. Specifying tail three returns the last three rows.Again, tail gives a useful summary of large data frames.

Another useful summary method is info Info returns other useful summary information, including the kind of index, the column labels, the number of rows and columns, and the data type of each column.

The columns of a dataframe themselves are a specialized data structure called a series, extracting a single column from a dataframe returns a series.

Notice. The series extracted has its own head method and inherits its name attribute from the Dataframe column.

To extract the numerical entries from the series.Use the values attribute. The data in this series actually form a NUM py array, which is what the values attribute actually yields.

A pandas series then is a 1 dimensional labeled numpy array and a dataframe is a 2 dimensional labeled array whose columns are series.We’ve seen a few concepts extending what we already knew, including head, Tail info, index values, and series.Take some time to practice using these concepts, here you can find the link to notebook and boston.csv file on Github.
Let’s Adopt a Habit to Keep Our Code Clean
By: Adiba Abid
Tags: Javascript Tips, Coding, JavaScript, React, Programming

Don’t call the World Dirty because you Forgot to Clean Your Glasses! — Aaron Hill

Let’s make this task easier. During this test, we’ll first discuss some Benefits of Writing the Clean Code. Then, We’ll take a jump at some tips, or practices, for writing clean code to make it a good habit.

Major Benefits:

One of the most benefits is that clean code helps us minimize the time. We’d like to spend reading and trying to know the code. Messy code has the uncanny ability to hamper any developer and make his work much harder.

Another advantage of writing clean code is closely associated with the primary one. It allows for easier and faster adoption. What I mean is this! Let’s say that we’d like to hire another developer. How long will it take her to know the code and find out how to figure with it? It depends. If our code is messy and poorly written, she is going to need longer to urge through it. On the opposite hand, If our Code is Clean, Readable, Comprehensible, and Straightforward, She is going to be ready to start faster.

Now, once we discussed the advantages of writing clean code, It’s time to find out some tips which can help us roll in the hay.

Write For Humans:

The code we write is going to be interpreted by machines. However, it’ll be read and improved by humans. So, Write Incredibly Beautiful, Impressive, Attractive, and Readable Code.

Example of Indentation - Make code readable for people

Use Meaningful Names:

Meaningful names are descriptive enough that other developers are going to be ready to understand the aim of the variable, function, or object.

Use meaningful names for variables, functions, and methods

One Task At A Function:

Let every Function perform only one task. This may make your functions smaller, and increase your specialization in implementing that specific feature and therefore the ability to debug that function.

This practice of letting every function, or method, perform just one task is named the Single Responsibility Principle. — Introduced by Robert C. Martin.

One function or method performs only one task (Single Responsibility Principle)

No matter how hard you are trying to Write Readable Code, Sometimes you ought to insert some comments into your code to elucidate that's why and make your code more understandable.

Consistency Is Key:

Pick a group of Coding for practices then stick with those practices altogether of your projects. It’ll be much easier to return to your older code and continue where you left off. Like Indentation, Naming style, File structuring and etc.

Review Your Code:

When you write code, If you would like to stay it within the best shape you would like to update it regularly. You ought to review it daily, Clean it up, and Improve it.
FROM WEB DEVELOPMENT TO BI- EP01
By: Ismail Talhaoui
Tags: Obiee, Odi, Oracle, Java, Jee

From Web Development To Business intelligence

Hello everyone i decide to write this series of stories about my experience where i passed From Web development to Business intelligence.

Firstly i’m a web developer i choose to move to data field starting from BI , after more than 4 years in programming (java,c++,c…) and i’m planning to write series of stories from my experience with one or two articles per month .

i will start with questions that any one who want to move from programming to Data will ask :

- can i move to Data domain ?

yeep that’s absolutely possible .

- my previous experience will be an advantage for me ?

again that’s absolutely right the previous experience will help because when we write programs we use database (Relational database) and the start point for BI is a relational database (in most cases) so the past knowledge will help to made the data understandable .

new let’s move to what i learn in this month so the firstly i started by reading generally about BI from different sources like books (Business Intelligence For Dummies,Oracle Business Intelligence EE 11g,…) ,Videos (youtube , dailymotion,…) and websites (openclassroom, udemy, lynda,..)…, so i learned the history of BI and the process or life cycle of a BI Project .

Since i will work with Oracle BI Solution i started with learning the Oracle ELT Which is ODI (Oracle Data Integrator )- oracle use the concept of ELT (extract Load Transform ) instead of ETL (Extract Transform Load) which is used by many Companies (microsoft,IBM,…).

ELT made it possible to integrate many data sources to one target database (Data Warehouse) from different types RDBMS (Oracle, sql server, Mysql…),files, (xml,json,log,…) or web services…, oracle use ELt so we benefit from the treatment speed of database management system instead of using server to make transformation between source and target DBs.

after that i moved to learn OBIEE which is used after data warehouse for making and publishing reports.

this is the end of the 1st episode , in the next one i will speak about generally about the project which i’m working on, and more technical information about oracle solution until then i will leave you, thank you for your priceless time .
I Start To Wrinkle Like The Bed
By: Mary Jones
Tags: Poetry, Life, Depression, Mental Health

What if I don’t want to be strong?

Is that so wrong?

How I stand outside the desolation of a stage house

singing the same old song

Everyone listens,

Cheering with an outlandish applause

but no one hears me

I sit at the foot of a bed with wrinkled bedsheets

Falling back to lie down,

as I wait for the next round

I frown out of frustration

Out of defeat

Out of depression

Out of deceit

I wasn’t prepared for this living

This process of elimination

That I’m beaten down for

Falling back further,

I start to wrinkle like the bed

Old, shriveled up, tossed out

Used up until I’m dead
Distancing Self
By: Background Noise Comics
Tags: Comics, Humor, Mental Health, Mental Health Awareness, Therapy

Written by

Daily comic by Lisa Burdige and John Hazard about balancing life, love and kids in the gig economy.
Penjelasan singkat tentang project dan product serta perbedaan antara keduanya
By: Fitra Akbar
Tags: Indonesia, Project Management, Product Manager, Startup, Product Management

Easy read, easy understanding. A good writing is a writing that can be understood in easy ways

Follow
An in-depth look at the AppBar widget
By: Greg Perry
Tags: Programming, Flutter, Android App Development, Mobile App Development, iOS App Development

In this article, we’re going to review the AppBar widget’s parameters one by one using a little app I whipped up for this exercise. It’s available to you for download on Github called, appbar_example. You can then ‘look under the hood’ at the code and see how to use AppBar widget’s many parameters.

I Like Screenshots. Click For Gists.

As always, I prefer using screenshots in my articles over gists to show concepts rather than just show code. I find them easier to work with frankly. However, you can click or tap on these screenshots to see the code in a gist or in Github. Further, it’s better to read this article about mobile development on your computer than on your phone. Besides, we program mostly on our computers — not on our phones. Not yet anyway.

No Moving Pictures, No Social Media

There will be gif files in this article demonstrating aspects of the topic at hand. However, it’s said viewing such gif files is not possible when reading this article on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc. They may come out as static pictures or simply blank placeholder boxes. Please, be aware of this and maybe read this article on medium.com

Let’s begin.

We’ll work our way down the AppBar’s named parameters and illustrate how each affects the appearance of the app bar and the general ‘look and feel’ of the app overall. This widget is, in fact, a StatefulWidget. That means it has a corresponding State object (_AppBarState) that retains some values for the duration of the app. Below is a screenshot of the AppBar widget.

Implements A Preferred Size

Further note, the widget implements another class called, PreferredSizeWidget. Unlike Java with its explicit Interface types, Dart has implicit Interfaces. In Dart, as you see in the screenshot above, you can assign any class as ‘an interface’ to any other class by simply specifying it with the keyword, implements. That means, however, you’ve now some further work to do. All the functions from that class will need to be re-implemented in your own class (unless yours is an abstract class). Further, any instance fields from that class will need to be re-assigned values — otherwise, they’re null.

In the case of the AppBar class implementing the class, PreferredSizeWidget, it is the instance field, preferredSize, that now has to be assigned a value. You see, it’s seen as the height in which the AppBar widget would prefer to be if it were unconstrained. In most cases, that height is the sum of [toolbarHeight] and the [bottom] widget’s preferred height forming a band (a bar) along the top of the screen.

Play With Your AppBar

Again, the sample app on Github, will allow you to try out to some degree each and every parameter offered by the AppBar widget. Note, its parent widget, in this case, is the Scaffold widget and is also using a Drawer widget in this app. It this drawer that you’ll use to adjust the AppBar’s parameter values:
A Complete Guide to the Python Range Function
By: Chaitanya Baweja
Tags: Coding, Software Development, Python, Data Science, Programming

Syntax

range(start, stop, step_size)

Here:

start : Starting point of the sequence. Optional and by default 0 .

: Starting point of the sequence. Optional and by default . stop : Ending point of the sequence. The sequence ends one element before stop .

: Ending point of the sequence. The sequence ends one element before . step_size : Increment sequence by step_size . Optional and by default 1 .

Range returns a sequence of numbers that begins at start and ends before stop . The difference between the elements is step_size .

Let’s take a closer look at all three possible variants of the range() function.

Variant 1: Using only one argument (stop)

Here, we only pass a stop argument (where to end) to the range function. start and step_size will take default values of 0 and 1 , respectively:

# Print first 10 numbers starting at 0

for i in range(10):

print(i, end=' ') # Output

# 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Note: In the output above, the sequence ends an element before the stop value of 10. stop is not a part of this sequence.

Variant 2: Using two arguments (start and stop)

Both starting and stopping parameters receive values. step_size is 1 by default:

# Print integers starting at 1 and ending before 5

for i in range(1, 5):

print(i, end=' ') # Output

# 1 2 3 4

Variant 3: Using all three arguments

Now, we will use all three arguments: start = 4 , stop = 15 and step_size = 3 .

# Print integers starting at 4 and ending before 15 with a step of 3 for i in range(4, 15, 3):

print(i, end=' ') # Output

# 4 7 10 13

Note: The step value is 3 , so the difference between each number is 3 .

All three variants of Python’s range function (photo by the author).

Here is a quick snippet of the output when printing all even values between 2 and 20 :

for i in range(2, 20, 2):

print(i, end=' ') # Output

# 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Team Zero — Welcome Laura 👋
By: Zero Currency
Tags: Blockchain, Zero, Marketing, Cryptocurrency, Crypto

Team Zero would like to welcome Laura, who’ll be helping with Marketing & PR at Zero.

https://twitter.com/ZeroCurrencies/status/1334104600186671107?s=20

Blockchain PR
These Three New Species Of Peacock Spiders May Be An Arachnophobe’s Best Friend
By: 𝐆𝐫𝐫𝐥𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭, Scientist
Tags: Evolution, Zoology, New Species, Spiders, Science

Are you afraid of spiders? Most people are, but you might change your mind after learning about three newly-described peacock spiders, Maratus species, discovered in southwestern Australia. In fact, these tiny spiders are so adorable that an entire community of people from all walks of life have come together to devote time and resources to better understand them, making this a labor of love.

“I work on these spiders in my spare time after work hours,” said the author of the study, biologist Joseph Schubert, who pays his bills by researching a group of invertebrates known as Collembola (these are six-legged relatives of insects), at Monash University.

These new species were discovered by the citizen science group, Project Maratus

“These spiders were found by a group of keen-eyed individuals called ‘Project Maratus’, who actively head out into the wilderness and seek out new species of Maratus,” Mr. Schubert said in email. “They sent the specimens they found to me to formally classify in the lab.”

Project Maratus is a not-for-profit self-funded group of citizen scientists that undertakes field work and promotes peacock spider research. According to their Facebook page, Project Maratus is a “mammoth commitment”, often involving many thousands of kilometers of driving from habitat to habitat throughout Australia and weeks spent away from home.

“Our dedication and passion for the natural world is what drives us,” writes Project Maratus on their Facebook page.

The devotion of Project Maratus’s volunteers is invaluable. Currently, little is known about these spiders’ status in Australia, so Project Maratus’s findings are essential for expanding our meager understanding of peacock spider evolution and ecology. This dedicated community of spider hunters and macro photographers and videographers is the first coordinated effort to locate and identify these overlooked spiders’ distributions and preferred habitats throughout Australia.

Peacock spiders are Australia’s most charismatic minibeasts

“Surprisingly, I grew up an arachnophobe,” Mr. Schubert said in email. “In an attempt to cure my fear, I began keeping spiders as pets in high school. My fear slowly developed into fascination, and over time I have learned to love them!”
For Rachel Carson, Wonder Was a Radical State of Mind
By: Kris Wetherholt
Tags: Nature, Philosophy, Articles, Science, Rachel Carson

For Rachel Carson, wonder was a radical state of mind - Jennifer Stitt | Aeon Ideas

In 1957, the world watched in wonder as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into outer…
Modern Reflections of the Past
By: Emily Guzewicz
Tags: Storytelling, History

I can still recall his face and on good days, his voice. My grandfather was my favorite person. He was more than a grandfather — he was the sturdy tree we would climb on when we were children, tossing us over his shoulder and making us laugh until we were exhausted. He was the smell of summer and the excitement that came with visiting his beach house each weekend.

My grandfather died when I was in high school, it was the longest day of my life so far.

When I first heard about The History Project and began planning our workshop series, I couldn’t help but think about him. The stories I now make up, the places my imagination goes while looking at old photos.

Working with The History Project and the team was an incredible and reflective experience. I was instantly moved by Niles’s story and all that the platform could do, organically making you think of memories that may have been tucked away in the sock drawer of our minds.

I am the Program Associate of Senior Planet, the country’s first technology themed senior center. My job allows me to work closely with the thousands of members that come through our door on a monthly basis, the most rewarding part of my job. Working with the History Project introduced me to a group of our members on a deeper level. I was able to hear their stories, their memories — their lives. What occurred before they stumbled upon our center, what brought them to us, to me.

I think technology is so important to seniors, it gives us all the opportunity to reflect on some of their favorite life moments. No matter what age you are, technology reminds us of our stories. The History Project and similar tools bring something personal to technology, something leaving us all hungry, not just for the past, but for the power of memories, and how we can create more of them.
Designing for Peace of Mind
By: Cayla Dorsey
Tags: Family, Safety, Technology, Microsoft, Design

Growing up is one of the few experiences that everyone can relate to. And whether it’s a distant memory or a more recent one, a hallmark of childhood is that healthy push-pull between freedom and safety. We want breathing room for exploration and growth, but also parameters within which to feel safe and respected. How those are defined and enacted differs for every family, however, so when a group of people at Microsoft came together to build the Family Safety app, you can imagine the breadth and complexity of that purview.

It wasn’t just about identifying core needs and corresponding solutions, it was also about creating a design framework that would be robust and flexible enough to apply atop any family’s needs. Ultimately, the app’s ability to drive productive conversations proved central to their design thinking.

Conversations support family achievement in ways that are effective, sustainable, and collaborative because they foster co-creation and respect the agency of kids and adults alike. Short or long-term goals, screen time, grades, driving — these are among the many topics that families come together to define, discuss, and plan for.

From a design perspective, we can create experiences that support and spark those conversations. Conversations where you co-define the environments you want to create, habits you want to build, and adjustments you might need to make while en route because, as 2020 has reminded us in ALL CAPS, life is unpredictable. Through building better habits and conversations, the app hopes to provide families with more peace of mind.

Creating emotive and inclusive visual designs
Corporate Storytelling
By: My Special Book
Tags: Anniversay, Corporate Books, Retirement Gift, Storytelling

Corporate Storytelling

Preserving stories of companies & businesspeople

Corporate Books

We have broad experience in producing high quality books for institutions & corporations. From the history of a company to the professional trajectory of an entrepreneur, an executive or the dean of a school. Here some samples of our work.

“Flash of Genius”

The history of Andrew Corporation

Founded in 1937 in Chicago, Illinois, the Andrew Corporation was the most important manufacturer of satellite antennas. A few years ago the company was sold and in order to preserve the legacy of his grandparents, and that of the company, Edward Andrew Jr. hired MSB Storytelling to produce “Flash of Genius.” Browse the book online

A life in the company

A retirement surprise present

The CEO of Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Geoffrey Marshall, receiving his surprise retirement book.

Companies such as American Express, Aegon, Pfizer, Carlson-Wagonlit among others hired MSB Storytelling to produce a surprise retirement book as a present to honor top executives retiring from their companies.

Watch Geoffrey Marshall testimonial

A hundred years, thousands of lives

Schools and Colleges anniversary books

We produced several books for educational institutions turning 100 and 50 year anniversaries. Belgrano Day School (100 years), St. Agnes School (50 years) and St. Hilda’s College (100 years). Also we made many retirement surprise books for their Deans and Directors. Watch a General Director testimonial.

THE STEEL COVER BOOK

Company Anniversary Book

Guidi Industries, a metallurgical engineering company that produces metal parts for the automotive industry celebrated their 70th anniversary. In MSB Storytelling we designed an original anniversary book with molded steel covers.
How to Select All <div> Elements on a Page using JavaScript
By: Dr. Derek Austin
Tags: Software Engineering, Programming, Software Development, Web Development, JavaScript

How to Select All <div> Elements with jQuery

For completeness, I think it is important to look at how you would select all <div> elements using the popular jQuery library, in case you start working on a project using jQuery or just prefer jQuery’s syntax.

Though I don’t usually use jQuery myself, I find it’s useful to be aware of jQuery syntax so I know what I’m looking at when I see it. While jQuery’s popularity has been decreasing in favor of native syntax and frameworks like React or Vue, you’ll commonly see it on older projects.

Needing to know jQuery syntax is especially useful when looking at legacy code that someone might not have updated in the last five or ten years.

The jQuery syntax is a little simpler, but not much more: $("div") is the jQuery equivalent to document.getElementsByTagName("div") .

Here is the API documentation on jQuery’s element selector:

“Description: Selects all elements with the given tag name. → element: An element to search for. Refers to the tagName of DOM nodes. JavaScript’s getElementsByTagName() function is called to return the appropriate elements when this expression is used.” — jQuery Docs

As you can see, $("div") is actually just a wrapper for the JavaScript function we already covered — syntactic sugar for convenience purposes.

Here is a brief code example, where I load jQuery from the console and then use it to select all the <div> elements on the page.

View the raw code as a GitHub gist

Note that jQuery’s $("div") method returns the exact same HTMLCollection as the getElementsByTagName() call — the jQuery selector is just a wrapper around the native JavaScript syntax that makes it more concise.
It Gets Dark Before the Light
By: Jane Hwangbo
Tags: Love, Life Lessons, Entrepreneurship, Life, Poetry

“Where thoughts go, energy flows.” — a spiritual proverb

You were told not to be stupid, but you were already smart.

They convinced you that you needed to create an identity, but you were born perfect.

They said that you needed to exceed the average. It was a lie. Average people don’t exist in the real world.

You were unique. You were sorry that you were different.

They said they loved you, but they didn’t know how. (They tried their best.)

They demanded that you fight their demons for them because they failed. You tricked yourself into believing they were your demons.

If you were a boy, you needed to make enough money, said the people who failed at love.

If you were a girl, you were too fat or your hair was too curly, said the sad people who failed at love.

You bought the clothes. You bought the makeup. You bought the house. You bought everything that anyone would ever want, just in case.

You thought you were kind. No one bought it.

The ground beneath your feet began to shift violently. Doubt began to seep. You stopped believing you were smart. The days became long.

You took every relationship that had shown you unconditional love and smashed it to pieces.

You sighed with relief. There was nothing left to screw up.

You were finally alone. You let yourself cry. You stopped struggling. Everything became very still.

You thought you would die but your heart kept beating. It didn’t care what you thought.

Your heart stopped apologizing. It became quiet. You were still breathing.

You saw the upside to the blackness of the night. If you fell, you knew you could get up. It was hard at first.

You stopped fretting and you started exploring. You practiced falling.

From the dark, there comes the light. Thank god for the dark. Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy New Year.

Call to action

Hit the ❤ button if you liked this article! You’ll help others find it.

Sign up for my free weekly newsletter (packed with thoughts I don’t share anywhere else) at janehwangbo.com.
My Own Time
By: Kim Smyth
Tags: 100 Naked Words, Freelance Writing Jobs, Work Life Balance, Writing

Photo credit: Pixabay

So between my pending surgical procedures and my mother-in-law’s recent diagnosis of T-cell lymphoma, I find myself “working” from home again. I helped my client find a full-time caregiver since I am no longer able. Ok, so I haven’t exactly figured out where the money will come from yet, however, I have been working hard, taking more classes in copywriting, doing little projects and sending work out here and there. Suddenly though, my family seems to think that just because I no longer work outside the house, that I have all the time in the world! “You aren’t doing anything now, you should be able to go shopping when you want, take Claudette to all of her appointments, etc.” Uh, no. What I said was, if I was able to, I wouldn’t mind doing what I can for whomever needs it to keep my husband, or brother-in-law from missing any work. That doesn’t mean I’m at everyone’s beck and call 24/7! I’m trying to write here, I’m working on my own time, fulfilling my dream of becoming a freelance writer, not twiddling my thumbs at home. And actually, it isn’t my whole family making me feel that way, just my sister-in-law. She really doesn’t get it I guess, that what I do here IS a job. Even if I haven’t made any big money yet, just pennies really. But someday, I’ll have it all worked out. Alright, just had to get that off my chest, rant over. Anyone else ever feel that way? I know you do, I’ve heard it before from many of you writers out there. How do you deal? What do you say to these non-believers that your work is justifiable? Me, I’m just waiting until that day the check arrives in the mail, or I finally sign that first client. Then I can show her and say, “Told ya.”
Digital radio brings tight targeting and happy listeners
By: James Cridland
Tags: Radio, Targeting, Marketing, Digital, Content

Comedians Lee and Dean, who present special shows for Fix Radio in May 2018.

One of the benefits of digital platforms is that you can launch new, niche radio stations there.

My daughter goes to sleep listening to a children’s radio station on her digital radio, as one example. The programming from Kinderling Kids Radio from Sydney, is safe and age-appropriate — and successfully relaxes her for a good night’s rest.

Another example is a Chicago start-up, Quantum Music, which is running online radio stations for the seven million Chinese ex-pats who live in North America. There’s clearly a need for a station like this — but probably not possible for an FM frequency everywhere.

And then, in the ultra-competitive market of London, where a typical listener can find over 110 radio stations on their DAB receiver, there’s Fix Radio.

See what they did there

Ask anyone who’s had work done on their home or office recently, and they’ll tell you that builders, plumbers, plasterers and the rest are heavy radio listeners, right through their work day. Fix Radio — tagline “We’re nailing it!” — is a radio station specifically aimed at builders and tradespeople.

The station, available on DAB, online and through an app, has just celebrated its first birthday, and is growing both in listenership and in advertising — describing itself as an “important platform to the construction industry’s biggest brands”.

Listener marketing in a city which is often cold and damp has been well-targeted and simple: the “Bacon Butty Tour” consists of brightly-coloured vans which drive to building sites across London: they have so far handed out over 20,000 hot butties to promote the station. Craftily, the vans also visit clients, too.

Butty delivery van. White, naturally.

If the weather is important to the marketing of the station, it’s also important content. Detailed weather updates keep outdoor workers informed — laying concrete in the rain isn’t a good plan, it turns out — and the station’s website nicely contains specific weather forecasts for some of London’s most busy construction areas.

Programming is nicely tailored to the audience, who listen long and often to the station. There’s a “no-repeat guarantee” for the music they play, which is all up-tempo. There’s daily construction industry news, and sports news; lots of “music marathons” as well as focused chat in drivetime periods.

The station also airs a weekly show with advice on everything from tool thefts to tax advice and doing your own accounts; and as any good station does, it supports a charity that is relevant to its listeners — a construction industry charity, in this case.

New platforms are, essentially, making these types of radio stations possible. Stations aimed at this tight demographic couldn’t operate in the limited world of FM spectrum; but with digital, radio stations can target much tighter.

Fix Radio seems to be a good example of what you can do with a clear focus on your audience, and a digital platform to reach them.
Why Leaving a Project Unpolished Is OK
By: Kevin Fawcett
Tags: Programming, Agile, Startup, User Experience, Product Management

Does Your Customer Really Want the Bells and Whistles?

“80 percent of features in the average software product are rarely or never used. Publicly-traded cloud software companies collectively invested up to $29.5 billion developing these features, dollars that could have been spent on higher value features and unrealized customer value.” — Pendo’s 2019 Feature Adoption Report.

Don’t spend time adding low-value features backed by assumptions. Perfectionists often tailor products to their ideal image, not necessarily the customer’s. The customer may appreciate the extra features, but not all improvements will change their decision to purchase or retain a product.

Example: A web developer spends a month trying to create a user experience that shows data in a table with filterable/sortable columns.

Unexpected outcome: The customer uses the export feature to download the data and view it in Excel.

Sometimes a simple conversation with a customer can save tons of time and money. In this real-world case, the customer provided the data to a third-party for auditing. There would never be a case where the auditors would be allowed access to the fancy web table.
Dreams Do Come True
By: Janny S Heart
Tags: Illumination, Illumination Curated, Writing, Self Improvement, Illumination Poetry

Introduction to ILLUMINATION-MIRROR

Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

I’ve been writing since I was a young child. I wrote in spurts and was never consistent. Most of the time through my early 20s, it was when I was down, a relationship break up, or some sort of personal catastrophe.

I began writing again about a year ago at the urging of a friend Linda Aileen Miller. She helped me discover ILLUMINATION and ILLUMINATION-Curated and a great community of writers.

I have to say, I didn’t write in earnest until recently. I didn’t have the confidence or commitment to take responsibility for what I needed to do. Thanks to many fine writers, I began to write more seriously and more often. Some are sad, some are light, some are whimsical, and some stories tend to be serious. Take a look at this article I wrote as I was losing my beloved King Charles Maggie Mae. It gave me great comfort and solace to write this story and begin the process of her transitioning to the Rainbow Bridge. There is nothing that will replace her in my heart but it helped me tremendously to move on in the grieving process.

I also write about family experiences, mental health issues, and just for fun!

I have been leaning more towards poetry and there are so many outlets to share your writing on these platforms. Change is the name of the game. We’re embracing it here and I hope you’ll join us!

This is an article about mental health I designed about panic attacks. I tried to be light, include personal experience, and also facts!

Once again, there are so many incredible writers in ever way you can imagine. I hope you’ll join us! Feel free to reach out to me! I’ve learned so much in this past year! I’m happy to oblige! Participate in Challenges. It not only introduces your work but it introduces you to a wider audience, to many writers, and is an opportunity for growth and fun!
Do we get to Choose how to Live?
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Travel, Personal Growth, Life Lessons, Mental Health, Self

This train is a high-speed womb.

Compressed into my burgundy window seat in a carriage decked out in shades of red and pink, I watch the French, then Belgian, then Dutch countryside zip past.

Three hours and twenty minutes after leaving Paris, I am reborn on a platform at Amsterdam Centraal station. Gingerly, I make my way to the elevator, unsure how to proceed with a present so full of promise it looks unreal, such is the contrast with what came before.

I can’t shake off the feeling that my being in the Netherlands is yet another anomaly, in line with the many more that now make up my daily reality.

After the parasite in my head curtailed my freedom and held me hostage for five years, leading an autonomous life again is a shocking experience. Not a day goes by that I’m not mildly surprised I’m still around, all the more as all I actively wanted for five years was to find a way not to be.

Unable to think, unable to write, unable to support myself, unable to imagine a future that stretched beyond the next hour, I was done with life.

Over the course of five years, major depressive disorder was the slow death that almost disappeared me. Little by little, I lost track of what made me me as I sank deeper into an affective, emotional, professional, and intellectual coma.

I was never supposed to wake up. Or exit the void. Or throw myself back into and at life.

And yet, here I am, suitcase in tow, blown away by it all.

Granted, it is also windy in Amsterdam.
Pandas Trick #1 — Change the default number of rows returned from the head method
By: Ted Petrou
Tags: Data Science, Pandas, Programming, Python

The pandas DataFrame head method returns the first 5 rows by default. This is controlled by the parameter n . In this trick, we will use partialmethod from the functools standard library to set n to a different number. This trick is available on the Dunder Data YouTube channel (Subscribe!).

Become an Expert

If you want to be trusted to make decisions using pandas, you must become an expert. I have completely mastered pandas and have developed courses and exercises that will massively improve your knowledge and efficiency to do data analysis.

Master Data Analysis with Python — My comprehensive course with 800+ pages, 350+ exercises, multiple projects, and detailed solutions that will help you become an expert at pandas.

Get a sample of the material by enrolling in the free Intro to Pandas course.

First, let’s read in a sample DataFrame containing bike rides from the city of Chicago and call the head method with the defaults. Note, that it returns 5 rows.

import pandas as pd

bikes = pd.read_csv('data/bikes.csv')

bikes.head()

The functools standard library comes packaged with partialmethod which allows you to set parameters of a particular method. You can set any number of parameters with it. Below, we reassign the DataFrame head method so that it returns 3 rows as a default instead of 5.

from functools import partialmethod

pd.DataFrame.head = partialmethod(pd.DataFrame.head, n=3)

bikes.head()

Why do this?

I use the head method frequently to shorten the displayed output of the DataFrame. When I am creating live tutorials, 5 rows can take up too much space on the screen, so changing this default to 2 or 3 makes sense and saves a bit of time. It can also be helpful if you have written a large report that makes use of many calls to the head method, and want to shorten all of those outputs with a single command.

General usage

partialmethod is only available in python 3 and can be used for all methods to set some or all of the parameters to a particular value.

Master Python, Data Science and Machine Learning

Immerse yourself in my comprehensive path for mastering data science and machine learning with Python. Purchase the All Access Pass to get lifetime access to all current and future courses. Some of the courses it contains:

Exercise Python — A comprehensive introduction to Python (200+ pages, 100+ exercises)

— A comprehensive introduction to Python (200+ pages, 100+ exercises) Master Data Analysis with Python — The most comprehensive course available to learn pandas. (800+ pages and 300+ exercises)

— The most comprehensive course available to learn pandas. (800+ pages and 300+ exercises) Master Machine Learning with Python — A deep dive into doing machine learning with scikit-learn constantly updated to showcase the latest and greatest tools. (300+ pages)

Get the All Access Pass now!
TensorFlow está muerto, que viva TensorFlow
By: Cassie Kozyrkov
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Ciencia Y Datos, Data Science, Technology, Machine Learning

Head of Decision Intelligence, Google. Hello (multilingual) world! This account is for translated versions of my English language articles. twitter.com/quaesita

Follow