fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Would you have hired a young Steve Jobs?
By: Bret Waters
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Steve Jobs, Hiring Strategy, Startup Lessons, Hiring For Startup

Steve Jobs’ application for employment, 1973

In 1973, while enrolled at Reed College as an English Lit major, Steve Jobs fill-out the job application posted above. He indicated that he didn’t have a phone, had no job experience, and his access to transportation was “possible, but not probable”. Not a very impressive candidate.

It gets a little more interesting on the bottom half of the application, where he indicates that he has computer skills and calculator skills (wow!). He somewhat cryptically draws an arrow between the two and writes “design, tech”. He also notes that his special abilities include “design engineer”.

I don’t know whether he got the job or not.

Reviewing applications and hiring good people is hard. My career as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur was certainly defined by this. When I hired well, good things happened. When I hired poorly, things usually went to shit.

In fact I’ve come to the conclusion that, if you want to run companies, the primary factor that drives success or failure is the ability to recruit great teams.

A few months after Steve Jobs submitted this employment application he dropped out of college, travelled to India for a while, came home, met Steve Wozniak and founded Apple. Today we think of Apple as being synonymous with great design engineering, and yet Steve wasn’t a trained engineer; he was an English Lit dropout. But it turned out his superpower was hiring and motivating brilliant engineers.

His best hire, arguably, was a 37-year-old materials engineer he hired away from Compaq Computer. Tim Cook later said “No more than five minutes into my initial interview with Steve, I wanted to throw caution and logic to the wind and join Apple”. Steve’s random hire of a materials engineer turned out well. Tim Cook eventually became CEO and has now led Apple through the nine most profitable years in the history of the company. That’s a pretty good hire.

Would I have hired the young Steve Jobs who filled out this application? I don’t know; probably not. But I do think that the most important things to know about an applicant aren’t on their resume. What matters is understanding what really drives a person. And when this 18-year-old wrote that his real passion was “design engineering” he was being 100% self-aware, true to himself, and predictive of his career.

It was right there on his application.
5 Ways Podcasts Will Prepare You For Solo Travel
By: Jj Wong
Tags: Travel, Language, Podcast, Personal Growth, Learning Language

The Call to Adventure

Fast forward to 2018 — I’m an English teacher in Toronto, with students from all around the world.

My classes were always a unique mix, but I’ve never had a class without a Colombian or Brazilian student.

From my attendance lists, I became familiar with the long names of my Hispanic American students that never fit in my tiny box. I learned that if the first letter was an “R” in Brazilian Portuguese, it sounded like an English “H” — I mispronounced “Renata” for an embarrassingly long time.

English only in class.

But during breaks, I would overhear my students chattering away in Spanish and Portuguese. At lunchtime, I’d eat with my students, and they’d share stories about where they were from.

Through my students, I travelled the world every day. Mexico in the morning, Japan at lunch, and Turkey before the end of class.

Fridays were heart-breaking.

Students would graduate and return home from their brief Canadian adventure. They’d be full of joy, grateful at achieving their dreams of journeying abroad in a new language.

“Come visit our country someday! You’re always welcome.” My students said.

“I promise I will.” I suck at goodbyes.

When the lights went out, a part of me was missing.

Being a teacher is to give your heart and soul and watch it waltz out of the classroom every other week. It comes with the territory. My students left my world as quickly as they entered it.

I’d open Google Flights.

“What if I just…?”

I’d never travelled alone before. I’d never been somewhere where I couldn’t communicate with the local people.

Adventure was out there — But I was too scared to go.
Chile Pepper Profile #11: Mirasol
Tags: Mirasol, Photos, Peppers

Mirasol

Mirasol means ‘looking at the sun’ in Spanish and describes the erect nature of the pods which grow on a compact plant. The pods are 3 to 5in in length and can be used both fresh and dry. At about 5,000 scoville heat units, these peppers…

Click Here for more.
3 Tips to Help You Cope With This Strange Holiday Season
Tags: Self, Covid 19, Mindset, Self Improvement, Holidays

1. Acknowledge and accept.

Six months ago I thought I would be spending my winter holidays in Greece.

I felt hopeful and started looking for plane tickets.

However, many of us across the world are now in a second lockdown and travel restrictions are making it impossible for us to visit our loved ones.

Over the last two weeks, I have started mentally preparing myself for what is to come: A very, very different holiday season.

Come to terms with your reality.

My reality this holiday season is that I won’t be celebrating Christmas or New Year’s with my loved ones.

Fighting this reality would only frustrate me, so the alternative is to face it and work with what I have.

Be grateful if your loved ones are safe and well, even if you can’t visit them.

Remember that this will pass and that normal times are bound to resume again. The next holiday season will look much different!

Accept it.

I find talking out loud to myself to be very effective: “I accept that I will not be celebrating Christmas or New Year’s with my friends. I’m upset about it, but I won’t let it bring me down.”

If talking to yourself isn’t your thing, then write down your feelings. Let it all out on paper.

Talk about your frustrations, what isn’t going the way you thought it would, and why you are feeling this way.

Then, start problem-solving, considering how you can have a safe, fun holiday, even if it isn’t the one you were dreaming of six months ago.

Acceptance doesn’t mean resigning yourself to a mediocre holiday, it just means making the best of your situation instead of complaining!

Make alternative plans.

This holiday season is probably going to be different for most of us. We’re going to have to think outside of the box a bit and make some substitutions, but that doesn't mean that it won’t be enjoyable!

Instead of flying anywhere, I’ll be at home in Morocco watching my favorite Christmas movies and eating the traditional cookies I grew up with.

I’ll be writing and reading a lot, seeking enjoyment in the little things.

What can you do differently that will still fulfill you this year?
Botnoi Classroom — Machine Learning 01
By: Kritsaneepon Pratomrit
Tags: Distance, Data Scientist, Machine Learning, Botnoi, Gradient Descent

This publication consists of articles related to Data science and AI written from Botnoi’s data scientists and students.

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How To Extend The Joy Of Your Holiday Travel
By: Kim Duke
Tags: Happiness, Travel, Life Hacking, Life Lessons, Food

It Has To Be Suitcase Worthy

Most airlines allow you 50 lbs in your suitcase — don’t put any food in your carry on as cans and bottles are forbidden. My husband learned this the hard way in Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris.

The airline agent told him he had to empty his carry on bag filled with escargot and duck confit cans and move them over to his suitcase. I knew there was a black cloud brewing over my husband’s head so I smiled and said,

“Keep thinking about how good they will taste in January!”

My friend Tina and I hit New York annually and one of the first places we go to is Zabar’s deli. We eat a bag of their famous cinnamon rugelach and wouldn’t you know it — they carry French escargot too. And so now both of us haul cans back from New York each year and we bring an extra bag just to carry edible souvenirs.

Remember — if you love it — bring back as much as you can. I hauled 10 lbs of frozen Amish (Amish!) butter back from Hawaii and our friends laughed and didn’t do it. But I knew they secretly wanted to and they expressed regret once they got home. So I took a picture of me eating it on toast and sent it to them.

My husband and I still long for the massive cans of duck confit we didn’t buy in a little market in Bordeaux. We bought only two delicious cans — as if we were going to be back in France like next week or something. Well, hello— eight years later we still haven’t been back and we shake our heads at how stupid we were.

What other kinds of edible souvenirs have I brought back from my travels?

Balsamic vinegar and wine from Italy and coffee from Hawaii. Wine, escargot, and duck confit from France. Lobster from the Canadian Maritimes. Honey butter from Minnesota. Hot sauce and beans from Texas. Tea and jam from England and Scotland. Bars of spiced chocolate, vanilla, and massive pink marshmallows from Mexico. Lavender from Provence. Sardines and coffee from Portugal and a long tube of Portuguese custard tarts.

And let’s not forget about butter and cheese — I will haul that from absolutely any country in the world. No wonder I have one arm longer than the other.
Bring Flat Ideas to Life
By: Andrew S Allen
Tags: UI Design, Tools For Design, UX Design, Productivity, Product

Bring Flat Ideas to Life

Paste™ with Frames

Device mockups are necessary but painful to work with.

Like many designers, we’ve long used high-fidelity device mockups in an effort to bring early ideas and designs to life. We’ve tried all the best ones. But they all fall short for similar reasons — they’re too much effort, painful to use for videos or animated gifs, often too detailed and distract from the design, and we’ve spent more money than I care to admit on them.

That’s why we’re excited to announce a new feature for Paste called Frames…

Frames are smart filters that wrap any media inside beautiful, interactive mockups of a phone, tablet, laptop, or window.

Yet they do more than just make your work look good — they offer context. Frames transform your plain screenshots or mockups into something real as if holding an idea in your hand.

Time-saving. Copy & paste from Figma. Drag & drop an artboard from Sketch. Spend more time on design thinking and less on your workflow.

Get Frames in one step. Simply paste or drop in your artboard.

Intelligent. Paste detects the attributes of your media to automatically apply the right frame at the right time — phone, tablet, laptop, portrait or landscape. Drag in a phone mockup and get a phone frame. It feels like magic.

Different Frames to choose from.

Interactive. Everything is fully interactive. You can scroll mockups, play videos, show gifs, run interactive prototypes, and embed files all inside frames. Hovering over a frame flattens it out so that you can present it cleanly. Our frames are built using CSS and web-native transformations, so they perform well and run everywhere.

Simply beautiful. This is beauty that doesn’t get in the way. Clean, simple, tone-on-tone aesthetic that you can change with one click. Plus, you can get instant on-brand mockups by setting up your team colors.

Color fast. Frame, background and text all coordinate automatically.

Try Paste — it’s free to get started. If you happen to find it as useful as we do and want to save time and elevate the design discourse on your team, it’s just $8/mo per member.
The Manor Atop the Hill
By: Tien Skye
Tags: Satire, Humour, Horror, Gothic, Flash Fiction

Atop the hill, the Johnson family lived in a great ancient manor. Legend has it that a young couple had moved in some twenty years ago and there was great talk in the town. The townsfolk learnt that the wife was pregnant and would give birth soon.

Sadly, she gave birth not in the middle of the night when there was a thunderstorm. Instead, she gave birth on a sunny high noon in a local hospital and no wolves howled. She also did not die of a difficult childbirth while cursing the father and the townspeople; in fact, the couple had five children in total, three girls and two boys.

The eldest was a girl and the youngest was a boy and they were all healthy. The children did not visit doctors for any major illnesses and the only times when they did was for immunisation shots.

And whenever the Johnson family came down to the town, it was always in broad daylight without any bats trailing behind them and there were no eccentric behaviours. The parents were amicable and the children were polite; they misbehaved at times naturally, as all children did but there were no anomalies, neither were there any commotion or deaths in the local pet population.

The family did not even have a hunchback butler or a pale skin maid. They were a family of normalcy with no dark history or hidden secrets.

The town could find no possibilities of spreading any malicious rumours. Eventually, they gave up and waited for the next family to move into the great ancient manor atop the hill to find opportunities of spreading dark rumours.
Words. Behaviour. Habits. Values. Destiny.
Tags: Actions, Words, Personal Development, Self Improvement, Growth

In a culture of instant gratification, it’s challenging to just shut everything off and focus on the quality of your thoughts.

‘What you think about, expands.’ — T. Harv. Eker

I know that I have been challenged in the past few weeks to become aware of my thoughts — even the ones that I’m not fully aware of. It’s those little voices that I have grown up with, repeating themselves over and over. Do any of these questions sound familiar?

‘What will people think?’ ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ ‘What if you fail?’ ‘Are you sure you can trust him/her?’

It’s funny, as I didn’t even realize how deeply rooted some of these thoughts were until I was tested just recently. Tested through recent interactions in my personal life and within my career. I became so vulnerable and emotional at the slightest comments (or lack of comments) — seeking external validation when I knew what I really had to do was the internal work. I resisted the internal work for days on end, putting my guard up until I realized that things were not going to change unless I changed.

My head and heart are always going back and forth, pulling me in opposite directions. My heart says to follow my passion and intuition. My head brings me back into being practical and reasonable. It’s a constant struggle and when these thoughts go unchecked, they affect my attitude and behaviour.

One of my favourite quotes, hope that you also enjoy it too!

― Mahatma Gandhi

This post originally appeared on Health and Vitality.
World Aids Day: 10 things you may not know about HIV
By: World Food Programme
Tags: HIV, AIDS, Humanitarian

Poor nutrition is a huge danger to HIV sufferers — the virus compromises nutritional status, weakening the immune system, which increases their susceptibility to opportunistic infections, such as tuberculosis.

Food insecurity is associated with increased HIV transmission risk behaviours and decreased access to HIV treatment and care.

1.

In 2019, around 38 million people globally had HIV — 1.7 million of them became infected with HIV within the past year.

2.

Every week, more than 5,000 young women between 15–24 years become infected with HIV.

3.

Adolescent girls and young women are increasingly infected by HIV — they make up 10 percent of the total HIV-positive population, but represent 25 percent of new HIV infections.

People in Inchope, Mozambique, receive quick and free healthcare at the ‘blue box’ clinic. Photo: WFP/Rafael Campos

4.

By ensuring that pregnant women living with HIV are diagnosed, started and retained on antiretroviral medicines during pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding, the chances that they will pass on the virus to their newborn babies becomes less than 1 percent.

5.

Out of 109 countries reporting to UNAIDS in 2017, 76 have laws that specifically criminalize HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission for prosecution based on general criminal laws. Four countries have reported that they criminalize mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

An HIV clinic run by WFP and partners in Inchope, Mozambique. Photo: WFP/Rafael Campos

6.

Whereas someone who acquired HIV in the pre-treatment era could expect to live only 12.5 years, a young person in industrialized countries who becomes infected today can expect to live a near normal lifespan.

7.

In 2016, 2.6 million or 1 in 14 people living with HIV were affected by humanitarian emergencies.

8.

In 2019, WFP reached around 400,000 people living with HIV and their families with in-kind, voucher or CBT transfers to protect their nutrition and food security, in 18 countries.

9.

In 2019, WFP supported the national HIV response of 35 countries across the globe with capacity-strengthening activities

10.

More than 25 million access antiretroviral therapy around the world by the end of 2019.
Binge
By: Shalini C
Tags: Lust, Intimacy, Love, Addiction, Poem

Photo by Richard Jaimes on Unsplash

There’s hunger that I know of

and then there’s

this catch-in-the-reel effort

of untangling myself

unscathed, untorn, whole

from the spiked mesh

of the lies you cloak

underneath your silken blade

of tongue

swilling salty epiphanies

in soft vapor seals coming undone

Unreeling to your flesh and hue

becomes my world entwined in you

My heart hammers

on the roof of your mouth

Heavy

with the sprawl of rain’s promise

beneath a sullen, nimbus cloud.
5 Signs That You Might Be a Programmer
By: Justin Cordero
Tags: Humor, Software Engineering, Programming, Technology, Coding

1. Your brain keeps trying to debug that code from earlier, even while you’re asleep.

You’ve spent two unproductive days trying to work out this bug. You’re fed up and at your wits end.

Running through scenarios in your head, you think you might have the solution.

No wait, that can’t be it.

You’re laying in bed at night — tossing and turning — mind racing — annoying your spouse. Then, you finally fall asleep.

But your brain doesn’t stop there. While dreaming, you’re analyzing code, running through loops, and testing different functions.

Then it happens… You’ve finally solved it!💡

You wake up in the middle of the night with the solution and think, “I better remember this in the morning.”

The next day you rush to the computer and login.

You review your code, ready to resolve the issue.

That’s when you realize…

That the entire time, you just forgot a semicolon.
SURF EXCLUSIVE | Highlights Lucas Silveira 2017 | Rusty
By: Daisy Crawford
Tags: Ocean, Surf, Sport, Surfing, Videos

Watch the clip here

2017, the first year having Brazilian gun Lucas Silveira riding with the R dot on his board. Not one to stay at home longer than a few weeks, the following 6 minutes shows Lucas doesn’t need a hometown advantage when it comes to his surfing. Hawaii, Indo, Europe; its all there, and its all be annihilated. A Short Film by Loic Wirth Filmed by Pablo Aguiar, Leandro Dora, Kako Lopes, Bruno Zanin, Yana Vaz, Marcelo Amaral, Leandro da Silva, Gastao Entrudo, Fred And Loic Wirth Soundtrack by Ruby Haunt — Freeway Crush

http://skuff.tv/clip/5605/exclusive-highlights-lucas-silveira-2017-rusty-intl

Head to skuff.tv to watch more cool clips
How To Get Out Of Your Music Comfort Zone in 2021
By: Isaiah Mccall
Tags: Culture, Music, Music Voices, Entertainment, Spotify

How To Get Out Of Your Music Comfort Zone in 2021

Suggestions for exploring new genres

Canva

Music continues to evolve at an almost untrackable rate.

From the thrash and crash sounds of death metal to the dynamic beats of hip-hop to the progressive sounds of pop. Music is alive and well, but perhaps more stranger than it’s ever been before.

Despite an infinite amount of interesting music, it’s become easier than ever to fall victim to your music comfort zone.

In 2015, the Skynet & Ebert blog looked at data from US Spotify users and Echo Nest. By age 33, it was more likely that users would never listen to new music again.

The Number One Reason to Try New Music

Opening yourself up to new music is a very rewarding experience. You develop new neurons as you have that moment where a song clicks. All this takes is an open mind and willingness to understand something that you simply don’t.

In 2015 Spotify found that more people were listening to heavy metal over pop music, and according to insider radio, over 115 million people enjoy country music.

So why don’t you like these genres?

I guarantee there’ a song in these genres for everyone. So, if you’re interested in getting out of your music comfort zone, here’s an excellent place to start:

Genre Starter Packs (3–5 Songs Each)

Classic Rock And Roll:

— Three songs to turn up to full volume in your stereo and make your neighbors call the police.

Modern Hip-Hop/R&B:

— Whether you’re trying to set the mood or need some smooth jams for a 2 am night drive; these songs always kill.

Progressive Pop:

— Pop is genius when these artists make it

Dua Lipa — Future Nostalgia

Lady Gaga — Babylon

Charli XCX — Forever

Gorillaz — Desole

Jessie Ware — Spotlight

Modern Rock And Roll:

— “Rock and Roll is dead!!” is a lie.

Country Music:

— For when you're driving with the windows down and feeling free

Experimental:
Do you want to replace Redux with Context? Read this.
By: Martin Schnurer
Tags: Rewrite, Approach, React Context, React, Redux

Okay so you read the whole redux documentation, understood the concept. You successfully dispatched your first action. Then you implemented action-creators, then assigned each action type as a string to constants so you don’t duplicate yourself in the redux ecosystem.

And then your application started to grow. Eventually, typescript was added so you have better safety over your code.

You probably have seen this at least once:

FETCH_USERS_STARTED

FETCH_USERS_SUCCEEDED

FETCH_USERS_FAILED

For all of these, you need to write unique action types, maybe another action creators, another reducer and switch-cases. Oh yes, and typescript types.

Oh… why this code I wrote doesn’t work? I forgot to dispatch the action! Shit.

Hah. Wait! There’s more. You read somewhere that you need to handle asynchronous code with redux-thunk or redux-saga. Thinking about thunks is not always straightforward. Not for junior developers.

Realisation

Eventually, your redux-based application grew so much and you’re looking on each reducer, how much of junk code is there. So many switch-cases that started to be unreadable. Have you ever forgot to write break after some case ? I did.

How many actions and action creators are there? You are telling yourself, do I really need to write all that code to just fetch freaking data from server? Or just simply set some variable globally? Is this all necessary?

Maybe you need all that code

Maybe your application needs that. I can’t generalise over each codebase on the earth. But… from my experience. People (coders) just want to update their store and get all the freaking components listening on the store to get updated. Developers want to avoid prop-drilling.

Context is here. Let’s rewrite to Context. Goodbye Redux

I saw a lot of articles after context was released.

“Why you should avoid using Redux and use React Context instead”

“Why you should use React Context”

“Use React Context whenever possible!” (joke)

Context is nice little and simple way of sending data down from Provider to a Consumer . Nothing more. This innocent sentence almost convinced even me to move my application to React Context.

Context pitfalls:
What is the energy consumption behind Bitcoin Mining?
By: Will Preston
Tags: Energy Consumption, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Mining, Bitcoin, Andreas Antonopoulos

There has been a lot in the news recently surrounding the energy consumption behind Bitcoin Mining with some claiming it consumes more electricity a year than Ireland.

Photo by Witch Kiki on Unsplash

While we don’t dispute the figures or the idea that Bitcoin Mining could be consuming more electricity than 20+ European countries. We will discuss why and how it is using the electricity and what would be the alternatives.

“Bitcoin mining is one of the few industries that is completely geographically independent meaning all you need is cheap electricity.“ — Andreas Antonopoulos

We looked into this and came across a YouTube video by the renowned bitcoin advocate Andreas Antonopoulos. He explains his thoughts behind what is happening and we will outline some of them here.

The only other industries that comes to mind are in the tech industry such as call centres relying on a “cloud based” Private Branch Exchange. This is where businesses outsource call centres to areas with cheap reliable workforces that are flexible. They are often created to meet Businesses demands and torn down just as fast.

“The decentralisation of Bitcoin is driving the decentralisation of energy production.” — Andreas

In China there are areas of cheap electricity because the power plants are being built for the future, 10–15 years down the line or even further in some cases. This creates a situation where some areas are currently creating way more power than they will require for sometime. Without a distribution network to move the power around it is often wasted. This is where Bitcoin mining has decentralised the energy market and allowed for power plants to pay back their costs much faster. This is more of a byproduct, but a reality.

Turning energy into an Alternative Store Value

The miners therefore have found a way to turn energy that may have gone to waste into an alternative store value. The energy consumed is what often would have gone to waste since mining with expensive electricity is uneconomical and wouldn’t be profitable without subsidies.

The decentralisation of Bitcoin means that current miner levels provide the services needed to keep Bitcoin secure while efficient enough to handle an exploding exponential growth at the moment and into the future. With the cost / reward getting harder each month the computing power will grow but only inline with what power resources are available to it.

With Bitcoin being a trending topic it is no surprise energy consumption would be a concern, but really is it such a bad thing? We should consider the other wasteful acts surrounding energy usage, if Bitcoin ends up decentralising the energy markets it will ultimately drive in a new era of modern power plants and solve the governments problem of who pays for it. The energy costs could ultimately come down, either way we will be bringing in an era of more energy efficient power stations that use alternative energy such as solar, wind and geo-thermal.
The ONE thing you need to understand about social media
By: Richard Clark
Tags: Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media, Digital Marketing, Facebook

I’m responsible for digital marketing & communications at a large Canadian advocacy organization.

Colleagues and friends frequently ask for social media advice. This short post is meant for them. If you happen to have just stumbled upon this post, I hope it’ll help you too.

Note: if you’re already a digital-first communicator or social media professional, this won’t be revolutionary.

The objective of this post is to articulate the one principle about social media that most non-digital professionals don’t think about. By making this principle a part of your mindset, you can set your social media game apart:

The whole point of social media is to build an audience.

That sounds self-evident, but think about it for a second.

Marketers used to rely on content creators — newspapers, radio stations, TV networks, etc — to build an audience. Then, the marketer would pay the content creator for access to the audience (through advertisements).

This model still exists, even in the digital world. You can pay websites or social media companies to serve your ad to their audience.

But social media gives you the power to build your own audience. Once you’ve built your audience, you can put your message in front of them any time you want.

BONUS TIP:

Social media companies make money by showing advertisements. The longer users stay on their site, the more ads they can show. The more ads they show, the more money they make.

That’s why social media companies have complicated algorithms that shows users content they’ll be interested in, and buries content that’s boring.

Nothing is more honest than a social media algorithm. If your post is irrelevant, nothing you can do — including paying to boost it — will make it preform well.

Algorithms determine if content is interesting by how much engagement (ie. likes, shares, clicks, etc) it receives.

The more engaging content you post, the better your reputation with the social media companies algorithm. And the better your reputation, the more people in your audience will be served your content by the social media company.

That’s why it’s okay to post things for the simple purpose of boosting engagement. For example, a provocative poll or video is sure to generate lots of reactions. While it may not be linked to something you’re working on today, you can consider these types of posts an investment in your page’s reputational future.
It Is What It Is
Tags: This Happened To Me, Poetry, Art, Creativity, Religion

Illustration by JM Navarro. ArtPeople Gallery

a pair of pessimistic eyes

ignore the igniting double-rainbow

that kindles neath a dead pot of homemade anxieties.

give him a saucer of no water

and he’ll tell you all the dreams

he never had, after quenching his half thirst, that is.

spills orange juice

over the drowsing sky; no prayers

at the church made up of sand.

a pleasing idea, God,

because you don’t see,

all things bright and too holy

don’t notice you in return.
These Days Are Among My Worst
By: Michael Francis
Tags: Culture, Poetry, Society

These days among my worst

But endure them I must

For I have a job to do

I go to work, putting aside my disgust



Like most, I have my craft

This unique act is all my own

For no others do what I do

Though I never work alone



Each day, a new list of tasks

To complete one by one

Like you, I spend each day

Working until they’re done



In places all over the world

I have meetings, as most do

While you may work in groups

Each of my dates is set, a reservation for just two



For I am the Darkness

That brings your final light

I am the agent who visits you

The day of your permanent night

My work may seem unjust

Days filled with grief and fear

But my work must be done

And peace follows wherever I appear

Many fear my required role

Their loved ones often rage

I accept that it must be done

I ask you try for calm acceptance

No matter the cause or age



You may ask me what makes these days

Harder than the rest?

Aren’t there many others that would be easier to detest?

Take the child,

innocent and pure,

senselessly sickened with a cancer

Or victims of an accident,

taken in an instant

their numbered called far too soon

For even those fates most tragic, I can tell you my answer.



To the child, I bring an end

Not just to life, but a prolonged agony

To their families I bring a date

To start healing the broken family



And to those that perish so suddenly

By accident or disaster

I offer that they rarely suffer

Their demise quick, no time to fear

a meeting with their master
ML11: Hands-On Line Chart by Python
By: Morton Kuo
Tags: Machine Learning, Matplotlib, Data Visualization, Python, Data Science

… that very different Machine Learning algorithms, including fairly simple ones, performed almost identically well on a complex problem of natural language disambiguation once they were given enough data. [1]

There are a couple of main challenges of machine learning as follows: [1]

In a famous paper published in 2001, Microsoft researchers Michele Banko and Eric Brill showed that very different Machine Learning algorithms, including fairly simple ones, performed almost identically well on a complex problem of natural language disambiguation once they were given enough data (as you can see in Figure 1).

As the authors put it: “these results suggest that we may want to reconsider the tradeoff between spending time and money on algorithm development versus spending it on corpus development.”

The idea that data matters more than algorithms for complex problems was further popularized by Peter Norvig et al. in a paper titled “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data” published in 2009.10 It should be noted, however, that small- and mediumsized datasets are still very common, and it is not always easy or cheap to get extra training data, so don’t abandon algorithms just yet.

It should be noted, however, that small- and medium- sized datasets are still very common, and it is not always easy or cheap to get extra training data, so don’t abandon algorithms just yet. [1]
A Gift
By: Kathryn Jean Elise Bebbington
Tags: Cats, Haiku, Kittens, Poetry, Christmas

Haiku is a form of poetry usually inspired by nature, which embraces simplicity. We invite all poetry lovers to have a go at composing Haiku. Be warned. You could become addicted.

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5 Tips for Giving Effective Feedback to Students
By: Chad Jardine
Tags: Teaching, Edtech, Education, Feedback, Videos

Giving feedback to students is tricky. That’s why I began researching how to give effective feedback. What did I find? Here are five helpful feedback tips for my fellow educators.

1. If in doubt about timing, give immediate feedback

When you give feedback is important. Generally, there’s immediate feedback and delayed feedback. “Immediate feedback” must directly follow the completion of a task. And this kind of feedback works best for the retention of verbal, procedural, and motor skills. It’s also best if the task is new, particularly difficult, or you’re working with a lower achieving students.

2. Use a variety of feedback methods

Students prefer verbal feedback, but there are unique benefits to written and video feedback. That’s why it’s a good idea to mix up your feedback methods. And don’t forget to experiment with new feedback technology. In a comprehensive literature review of feedback research, Dr. Valerie J. Shute encourages professors to “exploit the potential of multimedia . . . consider alternative modes of presentations (e.g., acoustic, visual).”

3. Reference student outcomes.

Always try to reference assignment goals or course outcomes in your feedback. Doing so makes your feedback more specific and minimizes any signs of bias. It also gives students a macro view of their learning and allows them to track their progress.

4. Don’t compare students in your feedback.

Whenever you get egos involved, learning suffers. That’s why educators should never compare students in giving feedback.

5. Give feedback first and delay the accompanying grade.

An interesting study by Dr. Ruth Butler in 1998 suggests that feedback is most effective on it’s own — sans grade. So consider giving feedback first and delaying the accompanying grade. Or just do more feedback-focused exercises with drafts or activities.
A Stone’s Throw Away
By: Darryl Willis
Tags: Hope, Poetry, Poetry On Medium, Community, Literally Literary

Image by Darryl Willis. All Rights Reserved.

Some may gather flowers,

but I will gather stones —

for protection or aggression,

build a wall, for ammunition;

make a fortress vast and strong.

Yet, it is a thing of textured art:

a medium, a tool to shape

the icons of imagination

Walls are built to enclose

the captive, to repel the stranger.

Yet, a bridge may transcend

any boundary that divides.

One may build a citadel

barred and shut from within,

while another builds a chapel

without doors to close —

a place of welcome

and respect for those

who come with emptied hands.

There is a time to gather.

A place is built to stop and rest

at journey’s end. But the road

may carry us around the bend

just a stone’s throw away.

There is a time to gather.

Some would gather flowers,

but I would gather stones.
Dear community! We are happy to present our team member — Gemma Clapton.
Tags: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Team, Bitcoin, Cix100

Gemma is an experienced financial services business development professional with a proven record within the City of London. Starting as a junior broker at Vantage Capital Markets in sterling vanilla products, completing her FSA Financial Markets, CISI Certificates, she moved into electronic trading platforms focussing on developing markets. She has worked extensively with domestic and international start-up ventures, in which she has refined her relationship management, operational and innovation delivery skills.



Her profile on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemmaclapton/



Our website: http://cryptoindex.io/



You can always check the current CIX100 composition at our MVP platform: http://cryptoindex.ai/

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Hedgehog-Burrito Boundaries
By: Eve Bigaj
Tags: Relationships, Life Lessons, Psychology, Self Improvement, Self

The next morning, life proves me so very, very wrong.

I want to meditate in our bedroom. The problem: Ben is sitting, sockless, on the living-room couch. And so I remind him, just like I have every morning for the past month, to take his socks out of the closet before I block his way. He needs a moment. My morning routine slips through my fingers; I twiddle my thumbs indignantly.

Thankfully, I remember that I’m taking a course on boundaries.

“From now on, can you get your socks from the bedroom without reminders?” I proudly request.

“Okay,” he says. I didn’t expect him to sound this taken aback.

As I turn towards the bedroom, a bolt from the blue: “Thank you?”

He wants me to apologize? Hadn’t I just spent a month tending to the warmth of his feet, putting an extra todo in my morning routine and getting only grumbles in return? He knows that I meditate every morning — why would it be such a big deal to just take the socks out the as soon as we get up?

This is all news to Ben. “If reminding me was so hard, why did you keep doing it?”

“For you! What did you think?”

“That you really hate being interrupted while you meditate!”

“No, I just I imagined that you wouldn’t want to interrupt me, and so you’d sit huddled on the couch with your poor cold feet!”

We start giggling as soon as the words come out of my mouth. The only person in this household who gets cold feet (in both senses) is, of course, me. Projection, projection, projection. Ben’s socklessness would have caused him no grief — and if it had, he would have just stridden into the bedroom without a second thought.

I did the “selfless” thing — then both of us got hurt.

Then it sinks in: the buffer isn’t a false set of spikes. It’s a fluffy blanket around my hedgehog. It’s there for both of us.
Tree health monitoring for greener cities
By: Frank Van Geertruyden
Tags: IoT, Green City, Geographic Information, Health Monitoring, Data

The challenge

Trees give us oxygen, store carbon, and stabilise the soil, thus improving air quality and contributing to a healthier environment. Recent studies have shown that they can have a beneficial effect on acute respiratory symptoms. People living in a tree-filled area are less stressed and have healthier babies. And patients heal faster and have less pain after surgery if they have a tree to look out at through the window of the hospital room. Just to say that trees are extremely important!

However, trees in urban areas are continuously exposed to numerous stress situations, like air pollution, soil compaction, exhaust gases and physical damage to the tree trunks. Which not only has negative consequences for our health but might even cause damage or accidents (falling trees, broken branches, …)

Therefore, it is vital for responsible authorities to anticipate these problems. But without the proper tools and information, this is easier said than done.

The solution

Fortunately, these tools do exist. The basis of tree inventory and mapping is the acquisition of aerial or satellite images, while the physiological tree status is assessed with colour infrared (IR) images. Vegetation reflects much more in the IR spectrum of light and can hence be better analysed than in the normal light spectrum.

An inventory of the tree patrimony — tree species identification, tree height, trunk circumference measurements and the spatial localization of trees — is essential for good tree management. Based on semi-automatic aerial or satellite image analysis, the crown diameter of every tree can be calculated. The location, the extent of trees and their proximity to buildings can be visualised in a GIS (Geographic Information System) environment. And in the field, each tree can be labelled to assure the correct identification. Trees can even be evaluated through time by making evolution maps, visualizing the improvement or deterioration of the health status of trees.

All this enables the green city service to map the physiological status of every tree and to establish a well thought out tree policy for the years to come.

Data provider: Eurosense

Eurosense offers high-quality geographical information — certificated according to the ISO 9001: 2015 standard — derived from spaceborne and airborne remote sensing sources. The company can provide you with a whole range of satellite images from all over the world, whereas airborne surveys are performed with four company-owned airplanes (or with helicopters, for corridor mapping and more detailed surveys). Eurosense has sensors for aerial photography, laser altimetry, and thermography, enabling them to acquire data day and night, and is specialized in the production of value-added products, such as land use maps and flood models.
Cyber & Data
By: Prof Bill Buchanan Obe
Tags: Cybersecurity, Machine Learning, Blockchain, Data Science

Into cybersecurity and want to learn more about machine learning, blockchain, or Big Data analysis? Or, are you a data scientist, who wants to learn more about cybersecurity data? Well, we are currently working with the Data Lab and Satisnet on a new learning platform for Cybersecurity and Data Science, and as our first steps we are pleased to announce a fantastic new training programme:

You can book on the initial set of courses here:

Cyber & Data: Cyber Threat Awareness. 12 March 2020. Book.

Cyber & Data: Incident Response Planning. 23 April 2020. Book.

Cyber & Data: Open Source Intelligence using Python: 30 April 2020. Book.

Cyber & Data: Splunk Analytics and Visualisation. 4 May 2020. Book.

Cyber & Data: Cyber Security and Machine Learning. 6 May 2020. Book.

Cyber & Data: Incident Response Planning. 14/15 May 2020. Book.

Cyber & Data: Introduction to Blockchain. 3 June 2020. Book.

Cyber & Data: Security Analysis and Visualisation with Elastic. 17 June 2020. Book.

Cyber & Data: Tenable and Vulnerability Management. 24 June 2020. Book.

Cyber & Data: Applying Threat Analysis. 8 July 2020. Book.

More courses will be announced soon.
Bakkt Completes $300 Million Series B Financing
By: Bakkt Blog
Tags: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Rewards, Payments, Bitcoin

Bakkt launched two years ago with the vision of building trust in and unlocking the value of digital assets for institutions and consumers alike. Since then, we have been focused on delivering that vision. In 2019 we helped launch the first end-to-end regulated market for bitcoin and an institutional bitcoin custody offering too.

Today, we are pleased to announce that Bakkt has raised an additional $300 million of capital. We have also updated our website with new details about the Bakkt app scheduled to launch this summer.

Sign up for exclusive updates and early access on the new Bakkt website

At Bakkt, we take a broad view of digital assets. Digital assets include things as diverse as loyalty and rewards points, in-game assets, merchant stored value, and cryptocurrencies, and collectively represent nearly $1 trillion in consumer spending power. Despite the size of this market, consumers still find digital assets to be difficult to access, confusing to keep track of, and challenging to use.

Bakkt gives users control over their digital assets. Whether it’s miles from your favorite airline, loyalty points from the local grocery store, or bitcoin you’ve purchased, the Bakkt app enables you to aggregate all of these assets into a single digital wallet. In just a few taps you can use those assets to shop at your favorite merchants, send them to family and friends, or convert them to cash. We believe that you hold more value than you realize and we’re here to help you track, spend, and send your digital assets however you want.

Unlock the value of your digital assets with the Bakkt app

I’m excited at our potential to unlock nearly $1 trillion of digital assets when the Bakkt app launches this summer. With the completion of our Series B financing and recent acquisition of Bridge2 Solutions, Bakkt is now a team of 350 employees and powers the loyalty redemption programs for 7 of the top 10 financial institutions and over 4,500 loyalty and incentive programs including two of the largest US airlines. We have the unique opportunity to leverage the technology, infrastructure and partners across our businesses to bring innovative new products to market and in doing so expand access to the global economy.

To sign up for exclusive updates and early access to the Bakkt app, please visit www.bakkt.com/signup.
Mathematical Foundations of Consciousness?
By: Pito Salas
Tags: Mathematics, Consciousness, Technology, Research, Life

Say what? I came across this paper; Mathematical Foundations of Consciousness. I generally love this stuff: Mathematics and writings on the nature of consciousness. When I saw this paper the title really intrigued me. Now my math is not strong enough to tackle anything like PhD level math (in fact my math knowledge beyond under graduate level is definitely uneven.)

“The self-referential qualities of consciousness place it outside conventional logic(s) upon which scientific models and frameworks have heretofore been constructed. However more contemporary mathematical development has begun to deal with features of self-reference. We shall address Schrödinger’s critique by assembling and extending such development thereby putting self-reference as a form of awareness into theory. In this way we shall frame mathematical foundations for a theory of consciousness.” (from Mathematical Foundations of Consciousnes)

As I said, my math is weak, so I am not appreciating it, but to me this paper came across as a bunch of fancy mathematics with only peripheral thinking about consciousness.
Create a secure and H/A VPC on AWS with Terraform
By: Muhammet Arslan
Tags: AWS, Cloud, DevOps, Terraform, Vpc

VPC

A virtual private cloud (VPC) is a virtual network dedicated to your AWS account. It is logically isolated from other virtual networks in the AWS Cloud. You can launch your AWS resources, such as Amazon EC2 instances, into your VPC.

When you create a VPC, you must specify a range of IPv4 addresses for the VPC in the form of a Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) block; for example, 10.0.0.0/16 . This is the primary CIDR block for your VPC. For more information about CIDR notation, see RFC 4632.

It was much more important to choose CIDR range for VPC before AWS presented the EDIT CIDR feature. But again, it’s not so easy to add multiple CIDR by the configuration aspect of resources. So it’ll be much more logical to choose CIDR before.

On the following table, you can see the Masked IPs details.

When you create a VPC, you must specify an IPv4 CIDR block for the VPC. The allowed block size is between a /16 netmask (65,536 IP addresses) and /28 netmask (16 IP addresses). After you've created your VPC, you can associate secondary CIDR blocks with the VPC. For more information, see Adding IPv4 CIDR Blocks to a VPC.

When you create a VPC, AWS recommends that you specify a CIDR block (of /16 or smaller) from the private IPv4 address ranges as specified in RFC 1918:

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix)

- (10/8 prefix) 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix)

- (172.16/12 prefix) 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

For this article, I’ll use 10.0.0.0/20 for VPC CIDR.