fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Eating Taco Bell in Tokyo
By: Priyanka Bose
Tags: Food, Creative Writing, Self, Culture, Personal Essay

My last meal of 2019 was a Chickstar, a hexagonal limited edition version of the Crunchwrap Supreme, which I purchased at the Taco Bell in Shibuya Dogenzaka and savored over the course of three beautiful minutes along with my friends, who had ordered the same thing. It had no sauce, because Taco Bell in Tokyo doesn’t have any kinds of hot sauce, but that was okay, because somehow they managed to ensure that its flavor profile was perfectly balanced without any additions needed.

It wasn’t the end of year meal I had originally intended; in fact, I had never even had a Crunchwrap Supreme before that day. When I’m stateside, Baja Chalupas are more my style, or bean burritos, or a pair of crunchy tacos spilling over with diced tomatoes and shredded cheese, with a healthy amount of fire sauce drizzled all over, dripping onto my hands.

When I stood in line poring over the menu board, I was initially dismayed that none of these options were available to me, but then my eyes focused on the photo of the Chickstar glowing in the middle of the board, looking like a star shaped pita pocket. I decided right then and there that that was going to be my order, and when my friends noticed it as well, they had the same reaction. This, this was the magical Japanese take on American fast food that we had all been waiting for. It had been a long, windy day, filled with endless walking, and we were all ravenous. The Chickstar more than delivered.

The funny thing is, I wouldn’t exactly call myself an adventurous eater, but I am fond of non-seafood based Japanese cuisine, and for most of the trip, I truly had kept trying mostly Japanese foods for my daily meals. However, my friends and I had a mutual fascination for Japanese versions of American restaurants, and we punctuated our traditional meals with snacks from these places, including Wendy’s. But even though we enjoyed our time at Wendy’s, there was just something particularly special about standing in the street on New Year’s Eve as the crowds rushed past us, underneath the familiar purple and white Taco Bell logo glowing brightly. Though we didn’t exactly want to admit it, five days in, we were a little tired, and something as simple as eating Taco Bell felt like we were a little closer to home.

There was something oddly comforting about eating the Chickstar, the Japanese take on an American take on Mexican cuisine. Though there are many moments I look back on fondly six months after traveling there, those sublime three minutes still stand out to me in particular, because with the current state of the world, I can’t imagine when I’ll be able to do something like that again; waiting in a long line full of other people, licking my fingers after polishing off the pita, feeling comfortable standing in a crowd of strangers rushing by me as I stood still, savoring the moment and not worrying about what was to come.

Hopefully one day, I’ll be able to experience it again. For now, I keep store-bought Fiesta Cheese and Fire Sauce in the fridge.
How avoiding the Freshman 15 will boost your GPA
By: Homework Help Global
Tags: Fitness, Education, Gym, Personal Development, Health

As the phrase “freshman 15” highlights, first-year university students tend to let their health slide. Late night study sessions typically take priority over trips to the gym. But research shows that the instinct to spend hours hunched over a computer in the library couldn’t be more misguided. Making time to exercise — even if it means cutting into study time — can make your GPA skyrocket.

The Three P’s

First things first: why do freshmen gain weight so consistently? The answer lies with the two closely interconnected Ps: pressure and partying. Students are under huge amounts of pressure: they’ve got tight deadlines, assignments that can be worth up to 100% of their final grades, and massive student loans or debts they know they’ll have to find a great job to pay off. It doesn’t help that many are living alone or away from their parents for the first time ever. To deal with all of these foreign pressures, lots of students party. They don’t know about all the healthy things they could do to cope with stress, and without their parents keeping them in check, they tend to let loose. Some consume excessive — even dangerous — amounts of calorie-dense beer and liquor. Others indulge in comfort food that makes them feel better in the short term, but makes them pack on the pounds over time.

Those students who are most vulnerable to the two Ps also tend to have questionable study habits, including a third P: procrastination. Rather than breaking their semester’s work down into bite-sized pieces they could more easily digest over a longer period of time, many first years try to power through all their final essays and studying at the last minute.

Knowing they only have six more hours to start and submit that paper before the deadline, they’ll stay up all night to get it done.

Or, they’ll sit in the library for days on end, trying to learn a semester’s worth of material in a single week.

How Academic Performance Is Affected

What these students don’t realize is that their instinct to do nothing but study is actually dragging their academic performance down. Endless research has been conducted on students’ study and exercise habits, and it all shows that those who find time to work out get better grades.

One study showed that students who hit the gym 16 times monthly received GPAs of 3.10 or higher.

The effects of exercise were still strong for those who went less frequently: students who worked out just seven times a month — once or twice a week — had GPAs of 3.06 or higher. Another study found that a one-hour increase in time spent exercising each week correlates with 0.06 more GPA points. Finally, a third study controlled for gender, study time, and area of study, noting that these variables might influence students’ GPA independently of their exercise habits. Even still, those who exercised every day had GPAs 0.4 points higher than students who didn’t.
Linguistics of Illusion
By: Tima Loku
Tags: Relationships, Language, Poem, Love, Toxic Relationships

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

The signifier and the signified

former the word

the latter the real thing

so when you say “I love you”

what does it signify?

possessiveness

the need to conquer?

when you say “my love”

what does that signify?

the possessed

the conquered?

should I mistake the shadows

for the human

eat up your words

the linguistics of illusion

say I'm fulfilled

or should I leave this cave

in search of the real

burn my face

on the rays of the sun

leave you bankrupt

eating your own shadow

a puppeteer

without a puppet?
The Cure for Everything
By: Meaghan Ward
Tags: Poetry, Relationships, Love, The Bad Influence, 50 Words

They say the

cure for everything

is salt water:

Sweat, tears, or the sea.

Yesterday, with you,

I got all three.

Yet, I think the cure

was your touch and the

way you looked in my eyes.

Crashing waves don’t beat

the sound of I love you.

Not even close.
The WFP humanitarian who went from tackling Ebola to coronavirus
By: Antoine Vallas
Tags: Humanitarian, Covid 19, Ebola, Haiti, Wfp

Chiara Camassa is an administration officer for the World Food Programme in Haiti, where there are currently 72 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Five people have died. Since arriving in the Caribbean country four months ago, Camassa has been the WFP ‘focal point’ for COVID-19 issues — largely due to her experience of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014. Below, she talks about her work.

Tell us about how you came to tackle Ebola?

I landed in WFP’s regional response hub of Accra, Ghana, with the responsibility to deploy and track assets throughout three affected countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. What we mean by ‘assets’ is mostly generators, prefabs, sanitation structures … and generally, anything that helps us or our partners set up treatment centres, offices and infrastructure in a very short time.

Temperature check at a food distribution in Nippes, Haiti. Photo: Caritas

We often think of WFP as the organization delivering food assistance, but it also plays an important role in procuring and moving such assets, and participating in the construction of treatment centres.

I was always travelling between the three countries, sometimes to remote villages by helicopter, to keep track of assets and understand how they were being deployed and used.

What were your impressions of WFP’s response?

Going into these remote villages, often not accessible by road, or where trucks would get stuck in the mud, it was rewarding to see that our food assistance was reaching the families that needed it.

A UN Humanitarian Air Service helicopter transports medical staff, medicines and hospital equipment across Haiti. Photo: WFP/Antoine Vallas

The assistance meant that people would not have to take long journeys to buy food to put on the table. It allowed them to stay at home and avoid contact with others, which helped to prevent the spread of the virus.

What lessons can be learned from the Ebola response?

In both contexts, food assistance can help facilitate sheltering at home. Here in Haiti, we’ve delivered a month’s worth of food rations to the people in Ennery in the town of Artibonite, just as it was about to be placed under quarantine by the Government.
TEDxKyoto “Side x Side” Talks vol.1
By: Ichi Kanaya
Tags: Ted, Education, Religion

松山さんのトークに続けて聞きたいのはこちらのトーク．

（ダン・デネット「宗教を，全ての宗教を学校で教えよう」）

ダンはこう言います．

Here’s my proposal, I’m going to just take a couple of minutes to explain it: Education on world religions for all of our children — in primary school, in high school, in public schools, in private schools and in home schooling. So what I’m proposing is, just as we require reading, writing, arithmetic, American history, so we should have a curriculum on facts about all the religions of the world — about their history, about their creeds, about their texts, their music, their symbolisms, their prohibitions, their requirements. And this should be presented factually, straightforwardly, with no particular spin, to all of the children in the country. And as long as you teach them that, you can teach them anything else you like. That, I think, is maximal tolerance for religious freedom. As long as you inform your children about other religions, then you may — and as early as you like and whatever you like — teach them whatever creed you want them to learn. But also let them know about other religions.
How to Convert DOCX to JPG in Node.JS
Tags: Nodejs, Docx, Jpg, Convert, API

Converting document files into images can be an incredibly useful feature to have, but it is not always easy to set up, especially for Node.JS users. In this particular case, we will be diving into conversion between Word DOCX files and JPG image format. To avoid this dragging out for the whole afternoon, we will be making good use of an API that was built exactly for this task.

Aforementioned API will be needing its library before we continue. We can install it using npm.

npm install cloudmersive-convert-api-client --save

And now we just need to use our DOCX file as an argument for convertDocumentDocxToJpg, the details for which are below:

var CloudmersiveConvertApiClient = require('cloudmersive-convert-api-client'); var defaultClient = CloudmersiveConvertApiClient.ApiClient.instance; // Configure API key authorization: Apikey var Apikey = defaultClient.authentications['Apikey']; Apikey.apiKey = 'YOUR API KEY'; // Uncomment the following line to set a prefix for the API key, e.g. "Token" (defaults to null) //Apikey.apiKeyPrefix = 'Token'; var apiInstance = new CloudmersiveConvertApiClient.ConvertDocumentApi(); var inputFile = "/path/to/file"; // File | Input file to perform the operation on. var opts = { 'quality': 56 // Number | Optional; Set the JPEG quality level; lowest quality is 1 (highest compression), highest quality (lowest compression) is 100; recommended value is 75. Default value is 75. }; var callback = function(error, data, response) { if (error) { console.error(error); } else { console.log('API called successfully. Returned data: ' + data); } }; apiInstance.convertDocumentDocxToJpg(inputFile, opts, callback);

Easy!
Join B21 CEO Simon Pearson in Blockchain Summit at Zug
Tags: Investment, Wealth Management, Cryptocurrency Investment, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

Start-up Hall

We have added another event to our Roadshow this April. And this time we are going to Zug, the crypto valley of Switzerland, and where Ethereum was first incorporated.

B21 is very excited to have our CEO Simon Pearson participating in the BANKING panel discussion on the topic ‘Is Blockchain-based Finance the Future or an Option?’ at 11.35 AM.

Get 20% discount using code ‘SimonPearson20’ on delegate passes.

Venue : Theater Casino Zug, Artherstrasse 2–4, 6300 Zug

And it does not end there. You can visit our exhibit space in Startup Hall and meet one of our founders Nitin Agarwal along with Simon Pearson and get to know how B21 brings cryptoasset investing to the masses.

Click here for more information about the event.

About B21

B21 is creating the world’s largest crypto community by making it super simple for customers to invest in cryptoassets with their local currencies,using a simple mobile app. It is marrying the trust provided by a regulated entity* to the power created by the decentralized world. B21 has an experienced management team previously running a regulated crypto related business with over 1,000,000 accounts and is advised by Brock Pierce. Seed capital is provided by the key backers of Block.One

For more information, please check www.b21.io

*B21C Limited is seeking authorization from the Gibraltar FSC and other regulators.
Medium’s New Clickbait Guidelines Are Controversial — But I’m Fine With Them
By: Tom Kuegler
Tags: Creativity, Social Media, Medium, Art, Writing

Photo by Medium

A few days ago, Medium released the following story:

For those who didn’t read, it was an interesting guide detailing EXACTLY what Medium views as clickbait.

At first, I was a little apprehensive to like the changes, but after a second and third reading I must say I’m happy with their new guidelines.

As a publication owner who outsources all the editing to a very capable Stephen Moore, it’s nice to know what Medium wants and doesn’t want from us.

Now, on to the big questions..

How will these changes affect you?

What exactly do they say?

How will they affect Medium at large?

Let’s get into all of that.
Technical Analysis For The Day
By: Akhil Nayak
Tags: Technical Analysis, Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Bitcoin, Btc

As of now, price level of $6450 is holding strong support.

If bulls are strong enough to hold this level, expecting a price bounce again in upward direction.
Welcome to ‘A Life of Words’
By: Renata Gomes
Tags: Creativity, Self Improvement, Productivity, Writing, Writing Tips

Welcome to ‘A Life of Words’

A publication for those who make words their life.

This publication was born with the intent of serving as a meeting place for likeminded writers.

Medium is our chosen platform. That means our aim is to publish quality pieces that fit well within the environment of Medium, making use of its formatting and publishing resources in the best way possible.

Writing is both our chosen subject and our craft. Yes, the whole thing is a bit meta.

Here, we aim to publish quality writing about… writing.

Here, we discuss everything about the craft: techniques, tips and tricks, inspiration from our favorite authors, and more. We talk about the writing life: victories, failures, but more importantly, lessons learned.

We welcome writers who wish to improve themselves as well as help others improve. We’re looking for people with unusual stories to tell, clever perspectives, and interesting points-of-view.

The writing journey is a very personal one, but we all need company sometimes, and our hope is that you can find — and offer — some company here.
Visitor in the Rain
By: Sajina Ignatius
Tags: Insects, Nature, Rain, Impressions, Photography

Flicker and Flight is a Poetry Publication that has married the art of Photography. This publication focuses on supporting Nature, Love/Unity, Spirituality, and Growth, through the beauty of Word-Play and Images.

Follow
Sequoia Alternative Program hosts car show
By: Tom Beck
Tags: Education, Events, Cars, Fun, Schools

Sequoia Alternative Program hosts car show

The event turned out to be a success for the program with more than $2,000 raised for the United Way Disaster Recovery Funds.

The students and staff from the Sequoia Alternative Program hosted a Car Show on Saturday, Oct. 28 to raise funds to aide in the recovery efforts for Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. More than 40 antique, modified and pro-street automobiles competed in several different categories ranging from “Student’s Choice” to “Best Antique Car or Truck.” The event turned out to be a huge success for the program with more than $2,000 raised for the United Way Disaster Recovery Funds.

Sequoia Alternative Program Director Ben Lamberson said, “I couldn’t be prouder of our students and staff for all their hard work in making this event an absolute success. Teaching our students the importance of community service is one of the cornerstones of our program. Today’s event was an excellent example of the positive impact even a small program like ours can have when we work together to make a difference.”
Why do I never give less than 50 claps in Medium stories?
By: Casimiro Designer
Tags: Medium Stories, Claps On Medium, Writing, Reading, Medium Writers

Never clap for retribution, clap for recognition. Clapping for retribution does not help motivation.

What have we learned on Medium as writers about clapping?

Medium says that the applause allows you to show your support for an average post. In other words, applauding is not for retribution, but a way of giving support to the writer, with whom he says: I liked the content, keep writing, I recognize that it was a very essential story for me, so applause for you, because you deserve it that support.

Now why don’t I clap less than 50 claps?

When I read a story, it’s because that story interested me, and when I follow this writer, it’s because his stories will contribute to my growth, and for that reason, I recognize his astonishing work, I clap to support the writer, and if Medium says to me: look, dear reader, you have the chance to thank your writer, with up to 50 claps, so I give 50 claps because there is no point in giving less than 50 claps if his content was useful to me.

Medium’s written content, regardless of the theme of the story, or the location of the writer, is the best-written content in the world.

By clapping Medium classifies the stories, in the system evaluating the applause that users distribute individually, and evaluating their applause for a specific publication in relation to the number of applause that they normally provide, Medium is able to see if this applause was given by support, or just for retribution.

What is the applause for retribution?

Applause for retribution is that applause that you give back to a writer who has read your story, liked your story and decided to give support by applauding. You realize that he did it, you go to his profile, and you get to the first stories, and you just start cheering one by one until you say enough, even without knowing the content written in the story.

What is the applause for non-retribution?

Applause for non-retribution, are that applause that is given in stories that after you have read and understood the concept, you recognize that the story was useful and pleasant so you give that support to the writer.

Applaud for support for the writer, not for retribution.
My Content is Being Stolen and I’m Sure Yours is Too
By: Josie Klakström
Tags: Help, Content, Writer, Stolen, Writing

The website is http://moneybuzz.online, an aggregator who’s not asking permission to use articles, but they are adding a backlink and citing the author. However, a comb of the articles they’ve taken from me, has shown that I’ve had no backlink clicks from this site.

ILLUMINATION, Evelina Vrabie, Stark Raving, Shannon Ashley, Zulie Rane, Jamie Logie, Rubens Cantuni, The Innovation, P.S. I Love You, Matt Stevenson, Tracey Ford, Avishya Arali, The Ascent, The Startup, Misook Ji, Maya Kosoff, LEVEL Editors, David Leibowitz, Samir Ghosh, Ryan Fan, Jhemmylrut Teng. You all have articles on this website, and I’m guessing none of you gave them permission to use your work.

“But it’s adding read-time to your post, plus an inbound link to your article.” So? It’s not being used with my consent. Without our consent. If people are reading an article on this site, they’re not going to then come to Medium and read the piece again.

What can you do?

Medium has said the below;

As the copyright owner, you need to make a claim against them for copying your work. As there is no contact information on the site, you can do a Whois lookup to find any other information on the site: https://www.whois.com You may need to start higher up the food chain, possibly by contacting their DNS registrar, as copyright violation should be against their terms. Again, we are working to identify and stop this behavior. However, you, as the copyright owner, have much more power than us as an interested third-party, but non-copyright holder.

I’ve contacted the hosting site but it’s obviously too late to pull back any of the traffic this website has taken.

They are using our content without our permission. A lot of it. Not just a few articles here and there — thousands of articles.

There are so many articles on this site, if you find a name that I’ve not tagged above, please do so in the comments.
charles bukowski on the literary hustle
By: David Connell
Tags: Links, Artists, Charles Bukowski, Celebrity Letters, Auden

Via this isn’t happiness: Charles Bukowski outlines his modest terms for a poetry reading. If you hire Bukowski, I’d imagine you wouldn’t know what to expect. However, as he notes, “Auden gets 2,000 a reading, Ginsberg 1,000, so you see I’m cheap. A real whore.”
Tell Me Your Story, Not Your Status
By: Isaac Morehouse
Tags: Creativity, Social Media, Storytelling

I like to ask people when I meet them, “What’s your story?”

It’s more interesting to me than typical questions about education, major, city of origin, job title, or sports team. All of these things might play a part in their story, but story implies something much broader and more personal. It’s the narrative of your past, present, and expected future. It’s the drama of your own life as you see it playing out.

When I think of the most interesting and talented people I know, I think of their story. I don’t think of their status. “Oh, he’s a graduate student” is a status. So is, “Married, salesperson, lives in Ohio”, or, “Studying business at USC”. A status is a static snapshot of a handful of labels attached to a person based on some institutions or external standards. It conveys nothing really unique that gets to the core of the person, or the animating force behind their actions and ideas. There is no passion in it. No sense of direction and creativity.

Your story is fun, entertaining, unexpected, and lively. It’s the narrative arc of your life, your motivations, your goals, what wakes you up in the morning, and why you do what you do. It’s not a summary of past accomplishments or even current activities. It’s not a hobbies list. It’s a description of the theme playing out in your world. If you described the movie The Matrix with the typical cocktail party status approach it’d be a few bullet points like, “Guy quits job. Trained in martial arts. Solved agent Smith problem. Reads code”. Contrast that to the inspiring, unforgettable power of the same facts in story form.

If I sent you a few bullets on schools attended or subjects studied, would they be as compelling an intro as something like, “She’s the girl who is obsessed with word-play and since childhood has been trying to be a well-known writer”, or, “He’s the guy who left his desk job to climb mountains barefoot because he was so tired of all his health problems”, or, “She’s the girl who’s trying to figure out how to use design to improve people’s moods”?

You are living a story. What is it? The sooner you stop defining yourself by your status, the sooner you can spot the beautiful narrative you’re creating and communicate it to others.
What to Expect During your Software Developer Interview
By: Hootsuite Careers
Tags: Hiring Tips, Interview Tips, Software Developer, Recruiting, Careers

You stumbled across our software development jobs, you applied (or if you haven’t, apply here), and now what? If your resume impresses the hiring team, here’s what you can expect.

Step 1: The recruiter interview

You’ll get a phone call from one of our tech recruiters. They are looking for you to take them through your resume and share more information about your experience and how it relates to the job description.

The recruiter wants to get to know you and your experience. Be prepared to answer a few behavioral questions relating to our four company values. Pro tip: Find our values here or in the job description.

Step 2: The technical interview

You impressed our recruiter, now we need to learn more about your technical skills. You’ll be sent an online technical coding test to assess your programming, development, and technical knowledge. This is your time to amaze us with your skills.

Step 3: The final interview

Congrats! You’ve made it to the final round. Here’s what you can expect.

The three-hour final interview begins with a two-hour technical interview. This could include pair programming, solving algorithms, or architecting. We want you to demonstrate your ability to work out loud and work as part of a team.

The final hour of the interview is focused on an assessment of your soft skills — think mentorship, communication, creativity, teamwork, and problem-solving. Show us you know how to be a team player who contributes to the success of those around you.

That’s our interview process! After the final interview, the recruiter will reach out to you as soon as possible, usually within one week of your interview. We aim to have our interview process concluded within two weeks from the recruiter interview, subject to individual circumstances.
Noise Lab Researchers Meet to Discuss Censorship and Network Interference
By: Nick Feamster
Tags: Outreach, Research, Measurement, Censorship

Researchers from Georgia Tech, the Tor Project, Stony Brook, Citizen Lab, and the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation met to design and prototype new tools for measuring Internet censorship. The meeting was hosted by Google’s Measurement Lab. Many current tools under development were presented and discussed, including:

Encore, a tool that uses third party measurements to determine Web accessibility

Centinel, a new platform for running cross-platform network interference measurements

MySpeedTest, an Android-based platform for measuring application performance

OONI, the open observatory of network interference

ICLab, a vision for a combined, cross-platform suite of censorship measurements

Meeting to Discuss Network Interference at Google, May 2014.

Originally published at http://noise-lab.net on May 9, 2014.
How to Use Istio to Inject Faults to Troubleshoot Microservices in Kubernetes
By: Gaurav Agarwal
Tags: Technology, Programming, Kubernetes, Microservices, DevOps

How to Use Istio to Inject Faults to Troubleshoot Microservices in Kubernetes

Improve your microservices running on Kubernetes

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Imagine you’ve deployed the reviews-v2 microservice into production, and you have an issue. Users are complaining they can’t see the reviews in your application intermittently.

You’ve run a thorough investigation in your development environment, but you’re not able to find what the problem is.

The only way to investigate the problem is by looking at the traffic flowing through your production services. Someone from your operations team notice timeouts in the chain, and you need to investigate further.

This story is a follow-up to “Locality-Based Load Balancing in Kubernetes Using Istio.” Today, let’s discuss fault injection and troubleshooting.
StyleGAN2 Projection. A Reliable Method for Image Forensics?
By: Vlad Alex, Merzmensch
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, AI, Published Tds, Ai In Discourse

Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.

Check your inbox

Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription.
A Dream
By: Devon Henry
Tags: Poetry, Dreams, Poem, Poetry Under Cover, Love

A Dream

Last night I dreamt of you

while the whole world shook-

You came to me in a dark house

while I searched for the one I love and

opened your arms to me

again, penitent

invited me back into that

Seven PM Tuesday death,

warm security like rocks in my pockets

while I waded out into this world

I felt myself flush

a final touch of heat

before hypothermia’s dreamless sleep-

which I might welcome upon waking,

Ashamed of how I answered you
The Need For Empty Space Is Pressing
By: Rebeca Ansar
Tags: Creativity, Poetry, Poem, Poet, Haiku

Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.

Check your inbox

Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription.
Guaranteed Unconditional Happiness
By: Shaun Tinney
Tags: Happiness, Mindfulness, Life

Have you ever wished for unconditional happiness? Well, it can be yours right now. But only right now. There is no other time to be happy, or anything else for that matter. After all, it is always now.

As with many of the challenges we face as humans, the problem contains the solution. The key to unconditional happiness is right there in the word that comes before “happiness”.

Unconditional is listed in the dictionary as meaning not conditional or limited; absolute, unqualified. If we place any conditions whatsoever on happiness, then we place it out of reach.

We tend to move our happiness behind barriers labeled “once” and “when” and “if” certain conditions are met. Feels pretty normal, but any condition that can be met can also be unmet. This turns happiness into a total gamble.

Since continual change is a guarantee in this life, basing our happiness on any set of changing conditions condemns it to be temporary.

The only question you have to ask yourself is, “Do I really want to be happy?” If your answer is “Yes”, then get rid of your arbitrary conditions and be happy now. “Yes, but…” is just another way of saying, “No”.

The happiness you seek is always already here, but only if you want it.
ฟังก์ชันใหม่ช่วยตัดสินใจ Fundamental Indicator พร้อมใช้งานแล้ววันนี้ที่ Bitkub
Tags: Analytics, Indicators, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Bitkub

Bitkub.com is a new generation digital asset and cryptocurrency exchange platform that offers advanced cryptocurrency exchange services

Follow
Hey, wait a minute…
Tags: Social Distance, Technology, Humor, Friendship, Comics

Hey, wait a minute…

This is supposed to be a video call.

I have been on exactly one Zoom call in these 4–6 pandemweeks.

LIVIN’ RIGHT

https://www.dieselsweeties.com/ics/1010/
Five Signs Your Wife Is A Sociopath
By: Simon Black
Tags: Movies, Marriage, Murder, Humor, Hollywood

Five Signs Your Wife Is A Sociopath

Better read this fast, guys — you might be sleeping with a monster

Photo by Callie Gibson on Unsplash

It’s not good to be married to a nutter, so you better read each of these carefully and make sure you haven’t made a terrible mistake. (Also, how many of these crazy ladies do you recognize?)

Five Signs Your Wife is an Axe Murderer

She was chopping wood yesterday. You watched her chop the same piece of wood 40 times (why you were counting, I don’t know). She then looked at the piece of chopped up wood, stared at it for 60 seconds, and started drooling. When she saw what she had done, she subsequently took up another piece of wood and gave it one more chop than she had given the first piece. (Again: why were you counting?) You don’t have a fireplace or a wood-burning stove. Or any need for chopped wood whatsoever. You didn’t even know you owned an axe.

Five Signs your Wife is Trying to Turn You into a Murderer

She keeps instructing you to look like a flower but act like a snake. She yells at Spot to get out. Why is she so mean to that dog? She tells you’re too full of milk — yet you’re lactose intolerant. She talks in her sleep. She walks in her sleep. When you’re about to finish, she says, “Something wicked this way comes,” and starts laughing maniacally.

Five Signs Your Wife is Trying to Frame You For Murder

She knows you’re cheating on her with the sexiest woman alive — that’s right, Emily Ratjakowski. No wonder she wants to frame you for murder — what woman can compete with Emily Ratjakowski? She is obsessively journaling, every day, all the time. But you snuck a glance at the date on her most recent journal entry. It was for, like, a year ago. WTF? She keeps your sperm in the fridge. Looks just like mayonnaise — be careful. She’s a famous character in a super popular series of children’s books that is just amazing — hint, hint. She’s gone.

Five Signs Your Wife is Going to Drown the Children (or Maybe Already Has?)

She always wears the same white dress with the white veil. Does she ever wash that thing? You are so busy you only see each other at night lately. And it’s usually down by the river. She cries a lot. More like wails, actually. Or maybe that was just the wind. It’s scary down here by the river — you guys have to stop meeting like this. What does “Donde estan mis hijos” mean?

Five Signs Your Wife is Going to Senselessly Slaughter Some Super Cuddly Spotted Puppies

You work as a furrier. She wears an enormous fur coat which swings about her like a cloak and must have cost about 101 young minks their cute little lives. She had two-toned hair long before Billy Eilish. She drives a zebra-striped car. If she doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will.

Five Signs Your Wife has Already Killed You (Yet Somehow You Are Still Talking)
Stranger
By: Paroma Sen
Tags: Poetry, Time, Mirror, Literary Impulse, Stranger Things

Stranger

Hush….Look Closer

Photo by Taylor Smith on Unsplash

She looks back at me

not a hint of recognition on her face

The lips, eyes, skin — that are so familiar

yet she looks different somehow

As if the seasons have changed on me

I don’t recognize her anymore

The woman in the mirror

she’s a stranger to me now
Properazzi.com
By: Iván De Prado
Tags: Properazzi, Computers

Properazzi .com has just launched a new and simplified interface, with many improvements in terms of usability and speed.



These improvements are consistent with an expansion in the following countries:
用Python + Metaflow完美整合一個資料科學專案
Tags: Data Engineering, Data Visualization, Python, Data Science Tools, Data Science Projects

大家好，自從上次的我的弱點的文章，有提到我想要增強我在Data Engineering上的能力，這次的文章我就要介紹Netflix內部非常盛行的資料科學流程管理工具Metaflow，這是一個我覺得非常好的一個開源工具，能夠超級快速的建立和管理不管是個人或是一個團隊的資料科學專案。

相信你或者是你的team會同時擁有一個或好幾個不同的專案在身上，每個專案都必須來來回回處理很多事情，同事也必須一直一直的優化，舉例來說，一個資料科學專案的流程可以如下:

(1) 已定義出一明確的商業問題

(2) 根據商業問題嘗試去分析並提出可實行的解決方案

(3) 透過機器學習演算法來完成解決方案

(4) 將模型部署到是server上

(5) 模型被用來預測的新的資料，被透過訓練來保持最新的狀態

(6) 新資料被預測後會對現今的做法產生新的想法

(7) 將新的想法回到(1)

每個需要預測的資料科學專案最終都會追求越來越精準的模型，所以在不斷接受新需求的情況下，又要能快速改到上面流程的某一個步驟，這樣幾乎無終止的輪迴急需要一個快速改動的能力，又想要都可以在同個程式語言上完成這件事，這就促成了Metaflow的誕生。

接下來我會逐一的介紹和實際使用Metaflow，以下是這篇文章的步驟:

(1) Metaflow介紹

(2) 資料集

(3) 原本專案流程

(4) Metaflow範例

(5) 使用Metaflow來建立專案

(6) 結論

Netflix給Metaflow的解釋如下:

Metaflow is a human-friendly Python library that helps scientists and engineers build and manage real-life data science projects. Metaflow was originally developed at Netflix to boost productivity of data scientists who work on a wide variety of projects from classical statistics to state-of-the-art deep learning.
I, Robot
By: Michael Madill
Tags: Communism, Future, Poetry, Poem, Robots

We all view the world through a unique lens. Politics is in literally everything from our churches to our social organizations to news events and crime to our governments. This is the place to share your view, regardless of your political leanings: all are welcome.

Follow
Inspiring Scenes from Madame Secretary for Writers
Tags: Creativity, TV Shows, Inspiration, Entertainment, Writing

I am a freelancer and mother and hustle on the side as a writer. It’s my passion and I love writing. But like most self-employed folks and moms across the globe, I regularly bump into one of THOSE days. And as comes with the territory for those who juggle many hats and hustle too, we have the need for our own poison to feed the soul and soothe away the strains of the daily grind.

If you still did not guess from the title, Madame Secretary on Netflix is mine. The series is drama, action, intrigue, power, and brilliance all rolled into one.

But entertainment aside, its magic is in three scenes that really resonate with the writer in me. They never ever fail to motivate me and get me to start hitting the keys on my phone or laptop. Voila! Blog post done!
4 Ideas for Regulating Big Tech from Harvard’s Board President
Tags: Harvard, Data Science, Privacy, Data Privacy, Regulation

Common ownership of data on “human behavior”

Marty: So, first of all, I would say monetizing human behavior belongs to the commons. It does not belong to any one company. And any company that wants to access the click streams, the aggregated, anonymous click streams of people has to pay the commons for that. And the government can use that revenue…

Kenn Cukier (moderator): Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me stop. I’m a company. I’ve hired some of the smartest data people in the world to tell me what signals are relevant and which ones aren’t. I’m going to invest a pile of money to be really smart and collect that data [and] another pile of money to make sure the data is clean. And then you’re going to tell me that I have to give away this data to some commons, to my competitors. That’s crazy.

Marty: Well, okay. Um, so, so right now…

Kenn: Because I’ll just explain why, because it would chill, it would chill innovation. I wouldn’t become a smarter firm that’s willing to make those investments to learn what’s relevant and what’s not [in] understanding consumer behavior, if I wasn’t able to monetize that myself and get my competitors away from it.

Marty: I am not at all worried about the ability of Facebook and Google to pay the commons for access to individual data and still derive insights and still clean it and still find the signal better than anybody else and still serve up those targeted ads. So just right now, they’re getting it for free. And so this could be the source of new revenues for land grants, for education, like the land grant universities for education. That’s one thing.
Attention
By: Nuance Media
Tags: Life Lessons, Poetry, Culture, Feminism, Love

Attention

My first act of attention was at 7 months within; I begged my mother to let me go…

by Roha Hena

Illustration by Sarah Chan

My first act of attention was at 7 months within

I begged my mother to let me go, kicking,

It was perhaps then she felt a jolt

Her belly round and swollen, protecting me from the outside

Stretching to make more room while I craved for the unknown

It was then, when she found out on a fall morning that I needed to come out

When the woman in the crisp white coat told her I had to be freed from the cage

At the tender age of 21 she wept

“Why?” she trembled, water dripping from her face

“Is my biology not enough? Am I not woman enough?”

For she had been taught when she was a little girl

That her worth depended upon her strength to bring children into world

The doctor consoled her between the fertile brick walls

Telling her that some children demand to see the world

My next act of attention was in mid-fall, tearing my mother’s belly and having to be lifted out

As I cried at my first breath of air

My mother sighed heavily

She endured so much pain from me

Her organs moved around to make space for someone that kept demanding more,

Someone who left marks across her body

She never imagined that a daughter could demand so much,

For she was told that women hide in shadows, don’t raise their voice and seldom demand attention

But in front of her was a girl crying to be heard, cradled in her father’s arms

My mother fell into unconsciousness

And in that moment my father decided to raise his daughter without a cage

To let go of everything imposed upon her.

Two decades later I run my fingers over her — my mother’s tender belly — asking what the jagged line across her stomach signified

She looks almost angry but laughs,

“It was your first act of attention.”
Irie Love Sings About Love in These Last Days
By: The Jasper Lines
Tags: Love Songs, Soul Sessions Usa, Music, Ire Love, Hawaiian Rb

Irie Love is a Hawaiian R&B Reggae singer and songwriter. She is a talented singer with a beautiful voice, and her songs have feeling and meaning. Irie sings a song titled Love. In this day and time we hardly hear singers singing about love in songs, but today we do find few singers that still do. Irie Love is one of them. She sends out a message that love is the only way that we are going to survive in these last days and trying days. Her message is full of truth.
How to Spend Less Time on Your Phone and Improve Your Life
By: Itxy Lopez
Tags: Sel, Life, Advice, Personal Development, Success

Why Do You Spend so Much Time on Your Devices?

The simple and truest answer is that you’re bored. CNN Business wrote, “Fiddling with our phones, [researchers] say, addresses a basic human need to cure boredom by any means necessary.”

You don’t know what you do, so you play games on your phone and watch YouTube videos on your laptop.

Here’s the kicker, though: Those are the very things you’re tired of. You feel jaded with your life because you do the same thing repeatedly.

How many times can you go on social media? For how long can you watch the latest Netflix series?

You’re allowed to spend time however you want, but that’s the problem. You’re not spending it doing anything. You’re wasting it.

That’s not to say that all time spent watching YouTube videos, scrolling through social media, or watching TV shows is a waste of time. You want to use your devices mindfully.

Instead of using social media to pass time, use it because you want to connect with friends. Instead of letting your life pass you by without a second thought, be wary of how many videos you’re watching.

Think about what you’re doing instead of just doing it.

You need more to do — or even, less. There are lots of benefits to being bored, such as:

Letting your creative juices flow

Increasing overall happiness

Boosting focus in the long run

If you can’t find anything to do, that’s okay, too. Boredom is good for you.
Generating Types From JSON Schema With QuickType
By: Dennis O'Keeffe
Tags: Nodejs, Json, Yml, Python, API

Building on from previous posts on a spike on JSON Schema, we will continue in this one by looking at an alternative library to the json-schema-to-typescript the library previously explored.

Setting Up

For book.json , add the following. It will follow a similar JSON schema we've used previously with the Book but a few changes, so are sure to copy-paste it across.

Writing out the script

index.js will look like the following:

In the above script, we are going to generate TypeScript and Python output for the sake of demonstration.

Running the generator

Run node index.js and you will get the following output for TypeScript and Python respectively:

The Python output:

Hooray! We can cut a lot of fluff with these helpers.

Resources And Further Reading

Image credit: Alessio Rinella

Originally posted on my blog.
Life Lessons from the Guy Who Ruthlessly Transformed the Book Publishing Industry and Won
By: Tim Denning
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Psychology, Relationships, Philosophy

Tucker Max is the poster guy for a care-free way of life.

I’ve read his work religiously since I discovered him years ago on Tim Ferriss’ podcast. Tucker started out as a pretty crazy cat.

Tucker also had his fair share of controversies too. Half the time though, controversy is created by a group of people who are easily offended and probably should be offended more often. Nobody is Tom Hanks or Nicole Kidman in real life.

In 2002 he tried to get his book, “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell,” printed and released by traditional book publishers. Tucker sent roughly 1000 query letters to agents and publishers. Not one of them was interested in him or his book. They treated him like a loser.

Tucker retaliated by setting up his own blog and building a massive audience from scratch. Then in 2006 he published I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and three years later it became a #1 New York Times Best Seller “with no outside support,” according to Tucker.

That was his first “screw you” to the publishing industry. His book “Assholes Finish First” was his second.

The problem with Tucker Max is that people judge him based on his pre-2012 self. But in 2012 he publicly announced he was leaving his old player lifestyle behind. In 2014, he took on the book publishing industry with Scribe Media that was designed as an alternative route from the typical painful options, and old school gatekeepers with boring hairstyles.

His company has published thousands of books in a totally different way. Some of their hits include Tiffany Haddish’s, The Last Black Unicorn, and David Goggin’s, Can’t Hurt Me.

The fact is we all change over time. Tucker’s change has been one I’ve personally watched through his Facebook page. I randomly added him as a friend many years ago even though I didn’t know him. He accepted. I watched his life daily through his “Lesson Learned” updates.

The guy is self-aware, compassionate, driven by his wife and two kids, and damn inspiring. He has put his past behind him.

Give me an imperfect person full of flaws and surrounded in controversy, who has changed their life, over a perfect role model nobody can relate to and pretends their shit doesn’t stink, any day of the week.

Transformation is the beauty of life. It’s where the real wisdom hides.

These are Tuckers’ life lessons to help you level-up your life.
How To Be Kind In A Digital World
By: Agnes Louis
Tags: Life Lessons, Compassion, Life, Warm Hearts, Kindness

Always take the chance to be the rainbow in someone’s cloud

I had it inscribed on my leather notebook:

Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. — Maya Angelou

This is a whole new world we live in.

You don’t have to meet someone in person to be kind, caring and helpful to him/her.

This is a world where we can help and care from afar.

Whenever a chance to be nice to someone presents itself, I grab it.

It can be wishing someone a good day, a great weekend. It can be asking someone if he/she is okay if you sense something is amiss. It can be answering someone’s question when you have the answer or direct them somewhere else if you don’t.

There are many ways to be kind in this faceless world (I know there are pictures and stuff but you know what I mean).

Something important to remember here. As I’m sure you would have already known, the Internet can also be a dangerous place, with bad people lurking around the corner.

You need to be kind and smart.

If a random person tells you he’s in danger and needs you to give him your bank account because he needs a foreigner to be able to transfer to himself the 10.5 million US dollars he had inherited from his parents who died in a war in Libya, you don’t just give out your bank account. Even if he tells you all his family had perished in the war. You just don’t disclose your bank account information.

(Dear Ali, shame on you for coming up with this scam. There are real people dying, suffering from the war out there, real people who have really lost their whole family and you use this story to scam people? Shame on you. There’s a special place in hell for people like you and no, you cannot have my bank account.)

Don’t be like Ali. Be nice and good in this lovely space. We are sharing this world with many of our brothers and sisters from all around the globe. Don’t be mean.

Be nice whenever you see the chance.