fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Jay-Z, Yo Gotti Threaten to Sue State of Mississippi Over Prison Conditions
By: Citizen Truth Staff
Tags: Prison, African American, Mississippi

Rap artist and entertainer Jay-Z performs on stage at the Bryce Jordan Center in front of a sell-out crowd on Friday, Oct. 9, 2009. (Photo: Penn State)

“If they don’t right this wrong, we’re prepared to take legal action to provide relief for those that are incarcerated and their families.”

Rap mogul Jay-Z and hip-hop artist Yo Gotti wrote a letter to two top Mississippi officials Thursday, protesting the inhumane conditions of Mississippi prisons. They threatened to sue the state if the conditions weren’t improved.

They were motivated by an outbreak of deadly gang violence that left five dead in Mississippi prisons earlier this year, which brought the system’s long-running problems under sharp scrutiny. Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton said the killings at Parchman Penitentiary were unprecedented in her 12 years in office.

The rap stars’ letter was addressed to Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant and Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Pelicia Hall and listed the dire conditions: frequent prison lockdowns, violence, a staffing shortage and inmates forced to live in squalor with rats crawling over them as they sleep on the floor due to no access to a mattress or a cot.

Governor Phil Bryant has previously blamed the recent violence within Mississippi prisons on gangs operating inside the system. The Grammy-award winning billionaire rapper Jay-Z and fellow artist Yo Gotti are fighting this misconception.

“To see this happen so close to my hometown of Memphis is truly devastating,” Yo Gotti said. “That’s why we’re calling on Mississippi state leaders to take immediate action and rectify this issue. If they don’t right this wrong, we’re prepared to take legal action to provide relief for those that are incarcerated and their families.”

Alex Spiro, a New York lawyer representing Yo Gotti and Jay-Z’s company, Roc Nation, collaborated in writing the letter with them and signed it too.

Although the New York-born Jay-Z did not grow up near Mississippi, Spiro attested to his and Yo-Gotti’s past efforts for social justice and civil rights, including violations of the Eighth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act from the prison system and government.

The lawyer suspects that race plays a part in the marginalization of these prison inmates, resulting in a lack of resources at these facilities.

Previous efforts from prisoners’ rights advocates investigating the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) have been fruitless in reforming and better funding the prison system.

Although a spokesperson for Governor Bryant has not publicly responded to the letter, State Rep. Robert Johnson visited Parchman with other Democratic state lawmakers on Friday. Johnson conceded that the conditions were appalling for any human habitation, with broken toilets full of waste, leaking ceilings, and understaffing.

On Saturday, the Mississippi Department of Corrections also posted on Twitter that cleanup is still underway at the Mississippi State Penitentiary’s Unit 29 after the recent unrest.
Catherine Breillat
By: Rene Hirsch
Tags: Catherine Breillat, France, Brief Crossing, 36 Fillette

in The New York Times
“That the plant-based meat industry has never industrialized production is why plant-based meat continues to be so expensive.”
By: Sarah Kessler
Tags: Food, Technology, Future Of Food, Plant Based Meat

“That the plant-based meat industry has never industrialized production is why plant-based meat continues to be so expensive.” Sarah Kessler · Nov 18

America consumes the equivalent of 96 pounds of chicken per person every year. In order to make plant-based alternatives competitive, writes Andrew Zaleski on Future Human, they need to be manufactured at an industrial scale. Zaleski profiled Rebellyous Foods, a startup that has built a 10,000-square-foot production space in West Seattle with hopes of developing the technology it will take to produce enough fake meat to take on Big Chicken.

Read the full story here:
Solving for the One Big Goal: A Story and a Map
By: Niko Canner
Tags: Journey, Goals, Goal Setting

I know of no one whose story provides as powerful a roadmap for how to pursue an unreasonable goal than my friend Mark Pollock.

Mark would point out that even as he has lost the most basic abilities we take for granted — he cannot see and he cannot walk — those losses simply make him what we each are when we take on work larger than ourselves. None of us possesses, at first, the powers that we need. Each of us must make our road.

Mark was born in Northern Ireland. He was blinded in his right eye at the age of five and couldn’t play team sports for fear that his other eye might be damaged. Nevertheless, he saw himself as an athlete, rowed competitively, and captained the rowing team at Trinity College, Dublin. Then, at twenty-two, he suffered a detached retina in his left eye. He went blind.

Plunged for a while into crisis, Mark reaffirmed his identity as an athlete. He returned to rowing and won medals for Northern Ireland in the Commonwealth Games. He ran an ultramarathon in the Gobi Desert, six marathons in seven days, running next to a sighted partner. On the tenth anniversary of his blindness, he competed as part of a team racing to the South Pole. His team of three journeyed for 43 days, each pulling two-hundred-pound sleds. They completed the race; they reached the pole.

The next year, tragedy struck.

Mark fell out of a friend’s third-story window. He fractured his skull; his spine was broken in two places. He was paralyzed.

There in his hospital bed, a marathoner and explorer rendered unable to move his legs, Mark decided on his life’s work. He would find a way to make it possible for people like him, who suffered from spinal paralysis, to move. He, and his partner Simone beside him in the hospital, initially had no hypotheses about how this could be achieved. They had at first no relevant connections. They had no financial resources to speak of. Mark was as powerless in relation to this goal as one could imagine being — but he was resolved that this would be his work.
The 2 Most Important Ways Programming Changed the Way I Perceive the World
By: Zachary Minott
Tags: Thinking, Life, Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Programming

Responding to Failure

As programmers, we have to deal with an immense amount of failure on a daily basis. Some of you may be familiar with the 90-90 Rule of software engineering. If not, it is beautifully explained by Tom Cargill of Bell Labs:

“The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.”

Basically put, the majority of the time spent writing code is actually spent debugging it. In light of this fact, it’s important to understand that not everything works out on our very first try. Debugging is all about understanding our failures, finding out what caused the failure in the first place, and then making the appropriate adjustments to overcome that failure. Wash, rinse, and repeat. The important thing is that we don’t quit until the code we wrote runs the way we intended it to.

Trial and error ultimately leads to success

Imagine if every time we ran into an error or a bug in a program, we just gave up. Nothing would ever be accomplished. Nothing would ever be created. If anything is to be achieved in this world, we must overcome the failures in front of us. If there is anything debugging has taught me, it would be this.

Failure can be frustrating. It can make us feel like we’re not moving forward. It can make us feel like we don’t know enough. But that’s the point. Failure should inspire us to learn more, think about different approaches we can take, and adopt a different perspective. It allows us to understand our problems to the point where we won’t run into them again. Trial and error ultimately drives us towards progress and becoming better as people. So don’t be afraid to experiment and be bold in your decisions.

I know that in the past when I didn’t succeed at first, I wouldn’t allow those things to slow me down. I would keep trying and trying until I had a marginally low percentage of error in my performance of that activity. It’s exactly what allowed me to become a Division 1 athlete. It’s what allowed me to become regularly recognized for my performance at my current company. It’s what allowed me to exude the most value I possibly could to those around me. So my advice would be to never quit. Keep trying and be persistent. Learn from your mistakes. And use the reason that you started in the first place to keep driving you forward.
Here We Go Again With Bitcoin
By: Michael Trigg
Tags: Crypto, Speculation, Investing, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

Have we seen this story before?

Image By: Andre Francois McKenzie, Unsplash

I received an email the other day from one of the banks I deal with on the once again rise of Bitcoin. It stated: “Bitcoin reached an all-time high this morning, at $30,000 CAD, or USD$23,446.”

Well gee, where is my 10 foot disinfected pole. Yes, the one I would not touch Bitcoin with at this price.

The email continued with: “It might be hard to believe, but had you invested only $5 into bitcoin in March of 2010 it would now be worth approximately $50 million today. Yes, you read that right.”

For those who have followed the travails of Bitcoin, you will know that in December 2017, Bitcoin hit a high of $19,783 and then dropped like a rock in a well, hitting a low of $6,200 by February 2018, just 3 short months later. Had you had bought into Bitcoin at that point and purchased $100,000 worth, you would have bought 16 Bitcoins. Those 16 coins would have a value today of CAN$480,000 based on today’s value of CAN$30,000. A very good time to sell given what happened back in 2018 when the bottom fell out.

Over the past decade, bitcoin has seen more drama and theatre than anything viewed on Netflix.

Image By: Pricsilla Du Preeze, Unsplash

Also stated in the bank’s email was the following: “Although the debate will continue, and bitcoin will continue to rise and drop like a rollercoaster, bitcoin’s now been around for over 10 years and there’s only ever going to be 21 million of them.”

A question that arises is; how do we know there is ever going to be 21 million Bitcoins? Who is making this claim? The bank? I doubt it. The man alleged to be behind Bitcoin? Nope. He is not even admitting he is the founder let alone disclosing what his real name is. Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym used by the presumed person or persons who first developed the Bitcoin. Many people have claimed, or have been claimed, to be him but as yet, this person remains shrouded in mystery. There is some interesting speculation on this upper limit of Bitcoin on this website. A pointed question that comes up; is it possible that bitcoin’s protocol will be changed to allow for a larger supply? Interesting question.

Regardless of which side of the coin you are on (sorry about the pun); the pro or against, always keep in mind, Bitcoin is a volatile currency and should be regarded as speculative, to say the least. Ask the opinion of any bonafide investment specialist and they will advise you to have no more than 10% of your investment portfolio in the speculative category.

Thinking of buying into Bitcoin at $30,000 a pop? Ask yourself if the reward is worth the risk given the massive tumble that occurred just two short years ago.

If you have any comments, disagreements, or additional information on this post, please contact me either through Medium, or through my website.

Follow me on TWITTER, FACEBOOK & LINKEDIN.

Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel
Stringifying your C++ MACRO
By: Rahul Bhadani
Tags: Cplusplus, Macro, C, Cpp, Programming

Do you know that you can also stringify the MACRO?

Sometimes you want to convert MACRO arguments into a string constant. This is achieved by the stringification of MACRO.

“Stringification” means turning a code fragment into a string constant whose contents are the text for the code fragment. For example, stringifying foo (z) results in “foo (z)” .

In the C & C++ preprocessor, stringification is an option available when macro arguments are substituted into the macro definition. In the body of the definition, when an argument name appears, the character # before the name specifies the stringification of the corresponding actual argument when it is substituted at that point in the definition. The same argument may be substituted in other places in the definition without stringification if the argument name appears in those places with no # .

But note that there is no way to combine an argument with surrounding text and stringify it all together. Instead, you can write a series of adjacent string constants and stringified arguments. The preprocessor will replace the stringified arguments with string constants. The C compiler will then combine all the adjacent string constants into one long string.

Here is an example of a macro definition that uses stringification:

#define WARN_IF(EXP) \ do { if (EXP) \

fprintf (stderr, "Warning: " #EXP "

"); } \

while (0)

All leading and trailing whitespace in the text being stringified is ignored.

Any sequence of whitespace in the middle of the text is converted to a single space in the stringified result. Comments are replaced by white space long before stringification happens, so they never appear in the stringified text. There is no way to convert a macro argument into a character constant. If you want to stringify the result of the expansion of a macro argument, you have to use two levels of macros.

Stringification in C involves more than putting double-quote characters around the fragment. The preprocessor backslash-escapes the quotes surrounding embedded string constants, and all backslashes within a string and character constants, in order to get a valid C string constant with the proper contents. Thus, stringifying p = “foo

”; results in

“p = \”foo\

\”;”

However, backslashes that are not inside string or character constants are not duplicated:

by itself stringifies to “

” .

The following example prints the text “now is the time”
XBANC token is now listed in one of the first exchanges in the world!
By: Ramon Oliveira
Tags: Android

Bancryp is working hard with the goal of expanding and launching new solutions, in addition to improving the security we offer in our current services. As you already know, in just a few months we were extremely developed and, in November, 2018, we were already operating. And now, one of our biggest efforts has been accomplished, the XBANC token is now listed on the international exchange Bleutrade!

That company, based initially in Brazil, started in 2014 in the cryptocurrency market as an innovative exchange, working with a platform meant to simplify cryptocurrency trading. It is the first Latin American exchange to announce a new office in Malta, and it carries more than 250 thousand users.
The Jingle Bell of Christmas
By: Darshak Rana
Tags: Poetry, Spirituality, Christmas Gifts, Love, Christmas

As the Chrismas arrives,

A sudden light engulfs,

Happiness fills the air,

And the scents of joy sparkles.

The spirit of Christmas is peace,

And the heart of Christmas is love,

Let’s pray that the bloodshed shall cease,

And humanity prevails like the stars above.

This Christmas, let’s stretch our hands,

To help one another.

Putting our egos aside,

We can celebrate the spirit of humans.

Forgetting the differences — is Christmas for me.

Choosing to overlook others’ weaknesses is my aim.

Let’s spread and send the waves of harmony,

To make our lives peaceful eternally.

A good time is coming if we believe in helping.

Then we won’t have to wait for Christmas to enjoy it.

We won’t have to count for that day on our fingers.

As each day would be a Christmas day.
Sound of Silence
By: Carly Richmond
Tags: Developer Productivity, Workspace

Sound of Silence

The Effects of Work Environment on Developer Productivity

Space may be the final frontier. It may be wide and open. Or even closed and confined. In the software development world we often focus on tooling and its effect on programmer productivity. This crazy distributed world is encouraging us to think less about the importance of physical workspaces.

Our work environment historically hasn’t been given much focus. Only when Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister was published in 1987 were the social aspects of software engineering popularised. Today the notion of Agile workspaces is being advocated for fostering collaboration and productivity. The question we should ask ourselves is what environmental factors support agility?

I read Peopleware in university when examining personality composition of productive teams. Yet, the lessons regarding workspace and its effects are another vital consideration. Changes to my own desk positioning have caused me to re-investigate the insights proposed by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. This week I’ll outline my musings on the office surroundings, and how it affects our productivity.
A Life-Changing Week at the National Jesuit Student Leadership Conference
Tags: Jesuiteducated, U Detroit Mercy, Leadership, College, Education

Screenshot from NJSLC 2019 video

From July 10–14, hundreds of student leaders from Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States and Belize gathered at the University of Detroit Mercy in Detroit, MI for the annual National Jesuit Student Leadership Conference (NJSLC).

For NJSLC co-chairs (and Detroit Mercy students) Sarah Hirschmann and Ben Westphal, hosting the Conference was an experience they will never forget:

“NJSLC 2019 was truly an unforgettable experience for us. Our favorite part of the Conference was meeting all of the student leaders and their advisors. Twenty-five of the 27 U.S. Jesuit colleges and universities (as well as St. John’s College in Belize) were in attendance this year! We were able to learn how everyone is trying to make positive changes to their campuses, communities, as well as themselves.

We were mainly inspired by how motivated everyone was to find new ideas to bring back to their campuses and how they can rise from the ashes of any darkness! Between our keynote speakers, leadership sessions, spark sessions and discussion panels, we had 70+ speakers throughout the five-day conference who helped inspire all of us. These speakers ranged from national speakers to Detroit Mercy professors to our community members and, of course, the amazing Jesuit Student Leaders. These sessions were truly impactful and had a unique flare that inspired students to open their minds to diverse topics.

Overall, it was amazing to meet every one and to learn what they do on their campuses. It was a life-changing week with student leaders from all across the world! Thank you to everyone who helped and inspired us all to rise from the ashes.”

To learn more about this year’s National Student Leadership Conference, please visit udmercy.edu. Many thanks to Sarah Hirschmann, Ben Westphal and Gary Erwin of the University of Detroit Mercy for contributing content to this story.
Mapping EdTech Investments in 2020: Where Did the Money Go?
By: Kenza Bouhaj
Tags: Investment, Venture Capital, Covid 19, Education, Edtech

COVID-19, for all its disastrous effects on countless lives, has accelerated a positive trend that we’ve all been witnessing over the past few years: the move towards digital education. As schools and universities were shut down worldwide in March 2020, parents, educators and students alike scrambled to find a close substitute to something we think of as irreplaceable: in-person education.

As a response to these unusual circumstances, education-themed companies have proliferated across the world. Investor interest in these companies has increased, even as economic downturns reverberated across the world. To understand and quantify the (increased) value that society has put on this industry, I look at the investments made in the Education Technology — EdTech- field so far in 2020 (from January 1st to September 1st). I sourced my data from the Crunchbase database of funds raised by startups. A further, original step in this blog post is my categorization of EdTech companies into 14 sub-fields (e.g., K-12, Higher Education, Tutoring Marketplace, Workforce Development). The latter will help us understand the relative importance of these fields in 2020 vs. in other years.
Role of Distance Metrics in Machine Learning
By: Writuparna Banerjee
Tags: Machine Learning, Towards Data Science

Distance metrics play an important role in machine learning. They provide a strong foundation for several machine learning algorithms like k-nearest neighbors for supervised learning and k-means clustering for unsupervised learning. Different distance metrics are chosen depending upon the type of the data. So, it is important to know the various distance metrics and the intuitions behind it.

An effective distance metric improves the performance of our machine learning model, whether that’s for classification tasks or clustering.

Let’s say we want to create clusters using the k-Nearest Neighbor algorithm to solve a classification or regression problem. How can we say that two points are similar to one another?

This will happen if their features are similar. When we plot these points, they will be closer to each other in distance.

Hence, we can calculate the distance between points and then define the similarity between them. Now, the question arises— how do we calculate this distance and what are the different distance metrics in machine learning?

That’s what we will discuss in this article. We will go through 6 types of distance metrics in machine learning.

Types of Distance Metrics in Machine Learning

Euclidean Distance

2. Manhattan Distance

3. Minkowski distance

4. Hamming Distance

5. Cosine Distance

1. Euclidean Distance

Euclidean Distance represents the shortest distance between two points.

Euclidean distance formula can be used to calculate the distance between two data points in a plane.

Euclidean distance is generally used when calculating the distance between two rows of data that have numerical values, such as floating point or integer values.

If columns have values with differing scales, it should be normalized or standardized before calculating the Euclidean distance. Otherwise, columns that have large values will dominate the distance measure.

Euclidean distance is calculated as the square root of the sum of the squared differences between the two vectors.

Where,

n = number of dimensions

pi, qi = data points

This calculation is related to the L2 vector norm(discussed later).

Now, let’s stop and look carefully! Does this formula look familiar? Well yes, this formula comes from the “Pythagorean Theorem”.

Let’s write the code of Euclidean Distance in Python. We will first import the the SciPy library that contains pre-written codes for most of the distance functions used in Python:
PAYWALL FREE: Starting Up, Python Updates, and My Approach to Not Understanding
Tags: Not Understanding, Python Updates, Starting Up, Paywall, Paywall Free

Sign up for Get Better Tech Emails via HackerNoon.com

By HackerNoon.com

how hackers start their afternoons. the real shit is on hackernoon.com. Take a look
Trie Data Structure: Overview and Practice Problems
By: Coding Freak
Tags: Algorithms, Coding, Programming, Data Structures, Trie

Trie Data Structure

Trie is a tree-based data structure, which is used for efficient retrieval of a key in a large data-set of strings. Unlike a binary search tree, where node in the tree stores the key associated with that node, in trie node’s position in the tree defines the key with which it is associated and the key are only associated with the leaves. It is also known as prefix tree as all descendants of a node have a common prefix of the string associated with that node, and the root is associated with the empty string.

Below is the list of commonly asked Trie interview questions -

Thank you.
Surprise Feature: Search by Map is now Live!
By: Locktrip.Com, Loc Token, Official Blog
Tags: Travel, Vacation, Locktrip, Blockchain, Ethereum

Today we are announcing a key feature that will significantly improve the user experience for our customers — Search by Map.

While the work on previously presented features continues at full steam, we have been secretly working on various new features to the map, which we believe will make a notable difference to the search experience of our users.

Until now the map feature on our marketplace was passive. It was capable of displaying results, but was limited to the actively selected results page. To show different hotels, users had to skip to the next page manually.

Introducing Search By Map

With the Search By Map feature, you are now able to search hotels directly on the map, without having to bother with anything else. To activate it, simply enlarge the map when you are at the search results page. It’s that simple!

Check it out by searching on our marketplace:

At first it will show you a general view of the city. By zooming in and moving around, you will see more hotels popping up automatically. Below is a quick video on how it looks like in action.

In addition to this, the hotel list on the left side will automatically show you relevant options for the area you are currently viewing. It updates with every move made on the map.

Once you have found an option, you can simply click the icon, which will pop-up additional info such as a photo preview, as well as the star-category of the hotel.

You can conveniently select the hotel directly from the map view to arrive at the hotel details page — and book!

Improved Mobile View

The features above are not the only improvements we have made. For mobile view, we have removed the “Use two fingers to move the map” requirement. This is no longer necessary. Instead, users can now enjoy the map much more intuitively and with a single finger. Of course, search by map is also available for mobile.

Hint: The two screenshots were taken at different times, which is the reason for the 1 Euro difference.

Other improvements can be seen from the comparison picture above. Overall, the map is now much more stable and has undergone various performance upgrades.

More features to the map are already in development and will be released later this year. We hope that you enjoyed this surprise and are looking forward to the next deployments!

Join our Telegram Community 👇🏼

LockTrip is a blockchain-based travel marketplace that allows users to save up to 60% on their bookings by cutting out middlemen. Every booking burns LOC proportionally to its booking value, continuously reducing its total supply.
France Hypocrisy Will Only Increase the Chaos
By: Mohammed Nadir
Tags: France, Politics, Islam, Racism, News

France Hypocrisy Will Only Increase the Chaos

France is in a crisis

Photo by Gabe Pierce on Unsplash

France is in a war state. They are spreading troops in cities after the latest terrorist attack in Nice and the horrific beheading of the French teacher in one of Paris suburbs. They claim they are fighting “Islamist terrorism.” But are they?

If you look deep enough, you’ll realize something else. You’ll see how they’re using the latest attacks as an excuse to oppress Muslims more in their alleged freedom-granting country. They know very well that terrorism has no religion. Yet, they choose the bogeyman route. They choose to blame Islam for the terrorist attacks in France.

Those who carried the attacks, if they happen to be real Muslims, don’t represent Islam in any way. We condemn them as much as everyone else. Islam has always been about peace and brotherhood. But Macron and France officials still insist on attacking Islam. They keep shutting down mosques, robbing Muslim women of the right to dress modestly, and the discrimination cycle goes on.

Because of France officials’ ignorant acts and statements, islamophobia has reached an all-time high. This led to more terrorist attacks against Muslims in France.

We all have heard about the beheading of the French teacher and the church’s knife attack. But has anybody heard about the arson attack at a mosque in France’s Chateaudun? Or the horrific stabbing of two Muslim women near Eiffel’s tower that happened lately? Two French women stabbed them to near death because of wearing a headscarf. Isn’t this also a terrorist attack? Then where is the media? Why people aren’t talking about it?

What if we just reverse the roles and made the French white women the victims? If the Muslim ladies were the attackers, guess what would have happened? Macron would have come rushing to the scene with the press. And again, blame Islam for the attack. He will act all sad and compassionate, but on the inside, he will be glad for the new opportunity to terrorize France and Europe against Muslims and Islam.

He wants people to despise immigrants and minorities. And not only in his country but all across Europe and the West.

France’s ridiculous hypocrisy is only going to increase the chaos. They think that only Muslims will suffer from this political play. That this will cover up for their recent economic failures. They hope that this will please the far-right and will earn Macron their votes. But the truth is everyone will. Because If leaders in France and elsewhere keep encouraging hate, the people won’t be able to live together in harmony — despite their differences.

There are psychopaths and extremists from different backgrounds — and distinct religions — who are waiting for the chaos to surface. When officials act with such hatred, they will reveal themselves, and God knows what they will do.
In the Bible, is porn bad?
By: Jonathan Poletti
Tags: Spirituality, Sexuality, Christianity, Life, Religion

In the Bible, is porn bad?

I’m trying to find what verse says so.

Christians like to say: ‘porn’ is bad. What verse in the Bible says that? A book that starts with naked people in a garden doesn’t seem like it’d condemn . . . naked people? I was thinking about it. Wouldn’t God love porn? He loves the humans in porn, and the humans viewing porn (cf. 1 Jn 4:8; cf. Mt 5:44). One loved person is looking at another. That’s bad?

I grew up in Evangelical Christianity. We measured all spirituality by how well the body was covered, and by how few people you touched, or looked at.

If you could not think about them, that’s even better.

One day I asked: Where is any of that in the Bible? The sexual body wouldn’t appear to be bad.

“The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a master craftsman,” says the man in the Song of Songs (7:1).

The verse prompts the reader to imagine the woman’s body, whose shape evokes the craftsmanship of God. I’m not married to her. She’s not married to the man in the Song. They just like each other.

In the Bible, liking each other is fine. Sex is fine—it’s “very good” (cf. Genesis 1:31). “For everything God created is good,” Paul affirms in 1 Timothy 4:4.

The basis on which to prohibit or even critique porn is unclear. The only comment that Jesus seems to make on clothes, certainly, is not to ‘worry’ about them (Luke 12:22; Matthew 6:25).

There is no prompt in the Bible, ever, to conceal sex acts. When Isaac and Rebecca, in Genesis 26:8, are being sexual in some public way, they’re godly.

Maybe we can condemn porn by breaking down porn into constituent parts? Isn’t it, basically, curiosity about other humans? Interest in the human form?

That’s all part of the original “good.” The human is good—since Genesis 1.

Porn might indicate mental manipulation, avoidance of real people, fantasy, etc. Those aren’t great, but they’re also part of the journey that every person makes. Every being grows. Children crawl before they walk. Processes and journeys are biblical concerns, and so porn might be understood as a stage of psychosexual growth which needs to give way to later stages.

That doesn’t make it bad.

If Christianity had gotten too vigorous in prosecuting sexual display, then porn might be a necessary correction.

Recall that, for John Calvin, the body is full of “carrion, dirt, and corruption,” as human intimacies are “a shameful thing that one dares not mention . . .”

The body, for him, was simply ugly. “There is something so unaccountably shameful in the nakedness of man,” he says, “that scarcely anyone dares to look upon himself, even when no witness is present.”

I prefer Ecclesiastes 3:11: “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”
Beyond Weisfeiler-Lehman
By: Tds Editors
Tags: The Daily Pick

By Michael Bronstein — 6 min read

In this post, I argue that the graph isomorphism setting is too limiting for analysing the expressive power of graph neural networks and suggest a broader setting based on metric embeddings. This is the third in the series of posts on the expressivity of graph neural networks.

By Thomas Hikaru Clark — 8 min read

In this article, I will explain the Universal Approximation Theorem and showcase two quick examples with PyTorch code to demonstrate neural networks learning to approximate functions. Feel free to skip straight to the code and visualizations if you already know the basics of how a neural network works!
I Regret a Lot
By: Nosh Komen
Tags: Short Story, Written Tales, Life, Self, Poetry

I Regret a Lot

I hesitated to come into the world of troubles

Photo by C Technical from Pexels

Wanted a larger world

Felt suffocated in my mum's womb

I kicked at the walls

I was tired and worried

9 months was a lot

It was boring to be alone

It was too quiet inside

I was anxious to be outside

‘World of freedom’, heard an insider

9 months was a lot,

Because no one listened to me,

At the 7th month

I threatened an abortion

I wanted to come on my own

Doctors said, not yet time!

They overdosed my mum,

With injections of progesterone

preventing escape from the womb

After decades,

The big day arrived

9 months had elapsed

I was finally delivered

My first sight wasn’t appealing

I was born in a hospital setting

People cried in pain

Irritating sirens of ambulances

Buzzes and beeps

Beep! Beep! Beep!

From lifesaver machines

The place looked horrible

Just from the first glance

On the same day

Doctors broke my skin w' needles

I was injected with too many drugs

To vaccinate against the anticipated

That was the beginning of troubles

I grew up freely

Realized that there is no freedom

This world is a real prison

Like, you pay for food?

Entertainment needs money?

I wonder, you pay for rent?

Communication isn’t free?

I recalled the beautiful moments

In the womb

I received free food

From cords connected to abdomen,

Where food flowed into me

Anytime I needed

I was entertained for free

Swam in an expensive fluid

Here, I pay to swim in ordinary water

At womb, I paid no rent

The uterus was a good apartment

It had everything I needed, yet free

Here, I pay a lot of dollars

To live in an empty room

Communication was also free

I communicated with mum freely

Using expensive chemicals

Called hormones
Autism and Tactile Sensory Issues
By: Ellie Jane
Tags: Shopping, Sensory Overload, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Sensory Processing, Autism

Autism and Tactile Sensory Issues

A poem about shopping when you’re on the Spectrum

Image Source: wikihow

Go in

See something you like

Pick it up

Try it on

Easy peasy, right?

But it isn’t at all…

Velvet and nylon

Woven wool, brushes against my skin

And slowly but surely I pull further and further away from the racks

As t-shirts, dresses and jackets all grab my nerve endings

And tug ruthlessly

Pulling, pushing, snapping and grating

Until I can no longer see the sky blue dress, which one pleased my eyes

I can only feel

Feel the shivers running through my veins

The zaps of electricity as one sleeve of each woollen jumper manages to brush against me

The mere sight of nylon places a frog in my throats

But velvet oh velvet is my kryptonite

I see it and want to run

So I do

It’s been all of fifteen minutes

I think …

And already I’m squeezing my moms hand

A silent signal we devised when I was a child

A signal that that says so much but equates to four simple words

Too much, must leave …
Friends! Brothers!
By: Fyodor Klubnikin
Tags: Fiction, Revolution, Absurd

Friends! Brothers! Sisters! Lend me but a sliver of your time to convince you that we have been put-upon! The powers-that-be have taken advantage of us and pushed us far beyond what is reasonable! It is time to fight back, to prove that we, the hard working members of the collective are the ones who deserve respect, that we will no longer accept the abuse this system places on us!

You, over there! Yes, stand! Stand proud, brother! I have heard of your suffering at the hand of our enemy! Doused with noxious fumes every hour and a half as if clockwork, bathed in the carcinogenic horrors of smoke and ash! Look at him, brothers and sisters, see how sooty he is! He is truly covered in the blackened sins of our avaricious leader. Is this what you were made for, brother? No, no it wasn’t, look at his eyes well up with tears as he feels the weight of abuse on his conscience. Brother, tell us your name that we may know you. Lungs? A good Christian name, that is. Sit down, we feel your pain, brother.

And you, sister, I know you well. Friends, behold one of the hardest workers among us: Liver. Her role is of utmost importance. She cleans the systems so that we all may function well. But, like all of you, her life is made heavy by the ignominy of what she is forced to bear, the labor she is unintended for that she must toil under, week after week. Liver, speak up, name the foul potion you must digest so that the rest of us do not perish. Speak up, my sister in arms! Did you hear that, friends, WINE COOLERS. Hiss with me, brothers and sisters! Damn the name of the brew that plagues our dedicated sister! Gallbladder, I know you are close to her. See how she weeps, please do go and comfort her. She is in a time of need. Lend her a sympathetic ear and a steadfast shoulder.

And now let me tell you my story of woe. It is not so different from many of yours, I know. I have seen us sweating under the ill-fitting yoke of labors demanding work beyond our designated functions!

…

No, no, you sit down, no one knows why you’re here, Appendix, I do not mean you.

Ahem.

I have been beset by the worst that humanity has to offer. I have battled concoctions more vile than I could have imagined in the worst of my fever dreams, seen horrors unnamable among women and children, and come out wounded, brittle, with holes in my protective lining.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, I know you will support me, Stomach, in proposing the only solution that can repair the damage that has been done: REVOLUTION!

Excerpt from a movie titled That’s Why It’s Actually Kind Of Cool That I Threw Up In Your Shoes Last Night
How to convert a Balsamiq wireframe to HTML/CSS
Tags: Wireframe, Web Development, Front End Development, CSS, HTML

(This article was originally published on Yotako’s blog)

In our last post we went through the case of PSD to HTML/CSS conversion in the app development process. With this post we will go back in time, earlier in the design process, and tackle the case of wireframe into code conversion. For this purpose we will use Balsamiq, the well-known wireframing software, and see how we can combine several online tools in order to bring some innovation in the development workflow.

Designing wireframes is usually a good way to start an application project. Wireframes help to focus on usability and architecture first without the potential distraction of a fully detailed app design. They also enable to clarify the features from day one instead of wasting precious time on PSD or Sketch mockups that would potentially end up in the trash. For all these reasons it’s important to make the design and development process as iterative as possible from the beginning. And using a wireframing tool such as Balsamiq is a good way to achieve it. If you are new to wireframing have a look at this great collection of wireframes gathered by Emma Drews.

After several iterations on your wireframes you may decide to code your app from there and keep on iterating with a real code based app instead of a design. For instance, if as a developer you plan on doing the UI yourself in HTML/CSS you will probably not go through designing mockups with Photoshop or Sketch and you would benefit from rapid iterations from wireframes to interactive online previews. Getting source code based on your wireframes would enable you to save time in your front-end development.

Imagine you can get tailor-made source code based on your own wireframes and with the stack of your choice. Let’s look at a solution to considerably improve such wireframe to HTML/CSS workflow using Balsamiq and Yotako. With such solution you can develop web or mobile apps in a faster and easier way without programming manually from scratch looking at your wireframes.

Fine-tune your wireframes

In order to get the most out of Yotako your wireframes need to respect the Yotako guidelines. In these guidelines you can check the list of Balsamiq widgets Yotako currently supports. It’s also important to always put your widgets in a container (such as an iPhone or a browser window) so Yotako can apply the correct lay-out to your designs. You can also see how to use multiple pages and navigation in your wireframe so your application is already dynamic.
#47: Part 2 The Great Gestation
By: Kelly Mcquade-W.
Tags: Education, Blockchain, Investing, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

Coloring Crypto is a podcast that sets out to illuminate the blockchain. For more episodes or to join us for a future episode, contact us at ColoringCrypto.com.
I WISH
By: Parul Sharma
Tags: Short Story, Fiction, Illumination, Microfiction, Wishes

I WISH

Everything is so beautiful dad, she said

Yes, darling. He replied

Give me the big star dad, I will put it on top. She said.

His father helped her with her crutches and she placed the star.

“I wish I was the star that went on top”. She said smiling.
Docker คืออะไร + สอนวิธีใช้สไตล์ Web Developer
By: Suranart Niamcome
Tags: Tools, Highlight, Docker, Coding, Linux

SiamHTML

The collection of articles for front-end developers
VSCODE setup in C++
By: Sabuj Jana
Tags: Editor, Jadavpur University, Sabuj Jana, Cpp, Setup

I am an IT student at Jadavpur University. My daily coding blogs and my experiences. My main profile contains stories of all genres.
Backup Raspberry Pi SD Card on Mac — the Simple Way
By: Claudio Carnino
Tags: Backup, Raspberry Pi, Technology, Sd Card

Backup Raspberry Pi SD Card on Mac — the Simple Way

Cloning is the perfect backup strategy

It’s too easy to burn an SD card by writing to it too many times, or to irreversibly destroy your configuration by doing what sudoer should not do. Cloning your SD card, as an image that you can flash onto a new card whenever you want, is the perfect backup strategy.

Update: click here for the new 2019 version of this guide.

Insert the SD card in your mac. Open Disk Utility app and select the partition you want to backup inside the Raspberry Pi SD card.

Select the partition you want to backup inside the Raspberry Pi SD card

Select File > New Image > Image from “boot”.

Create an image of the partition

Select DVD/CD master from the Format menu, then Save. This will create a cdr file, which is the mac version of the iso file.

Done! You’ve created a complete clone/backup of your RPi SD card.

Restore your backup

Some time in the future you will have to restore this backup — how do you do that? Simple: restore the the backup file with with your favourite app. On MacOS I suggest you to use the Etcher app.

Before opening Etcher, rename the file, replacing the .cdr extension with .iso extension.

Done (again)!
Voice of the Boys
Tags: Sexual Assault Awareness, Sexual Assault, Poetry, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Abuse

Captured by: Author

Don’t hear of it so oft

Am I the only one?

My sister came crying to me one day,

Complaining about

The man who pulled her skirt

I wondered again, why does it happen?

Does it happen only to girls?

No, it happened to me

It happened despite gender.

It happened to a boy.

That boy is me.

He showed me porn

When I was six

I thought he was cool.

Showing me stuff banned at home

I didn’t know at the time.

Oh, why didn’t I?

How could I?

I was getting groomed.

For the next four years of abuse.

I was her student, and I was bright.

I’d stay after class, but that wasn’t right.

Of her or of me?

I was ten then

She’d pull my shorts down.

Touch my genitals

I thought it was love, a young boy’s crush.

It took me 17 years to realize

When I found true love

I wasn’t a stud, I wasn’t too special.

I was a victim of abusive hands.

I doubted myself

I doubt myself

Am I not a boy enough?

A man enough?

The only one who cries,

Feels strangled?

Perhaps the world is

Not kind enough, and I was not

Right enough,

To self-doubt

To not talk out

To feel worthless and lost.

But now I speak,

I speak for you all,

I’ll be your voice

The voice of the boys.
DC Fights Marvel in the Multiverse
By: M.G. Siegler
Tags: Dc, Comics, Marvel, Warner, Film

Interesting profile of Walter Hamada, who is clearly being set up as the foil to Kevin Feige at Disney/Marvel. Feige, of course, has been absolutely masterful when it comes to weaving together an insanely complex and interconnected narrative via the Marvel Cinematic Universe. To say DC has paled in comparison is like saying a lightbulb pales in comparison to the Sun.

To wit, from Brooks Barnes:

For various reasons, including creative misfires and management turnover at DC Films (Mr. Hamada took over in 2018), Warner Bros. has badly trailed Disney-owned Marvel at the box office. Over the last decade, Warner Bros. has generated $8 billion in worldwide superhero ticket sales, including $36 million from “Wonder Woman 1984” over the weekend; Marvel has taken in $20.6 billion.

And that’s despite some massive swings like two Superman movies, one with Batman, Justice League with both of them and Wonder Woman and Aquaman, the latter two of which had their own movies which were hits. In that regard, DC actually would seem to be doing okay versus Marvel, it’s just that Marvel is doing so insanely well under Feige. And, undoubtedly related, the quality of the Marvel films is just a level (or two) above the DC films.

This profile reads as if DC now recognizes they can’t compete head to head with Marvel so they’ll try a slightly different approach, a “multiverse” one in which their characters exist on several different timelines at once, played by different actors. It’s risky because it’s far messier and in many ways more complex than the Marvel approach, but it can be bigger in scope if it works. And it may work better in a world that’s not just theatrical-drive, but morphs to be more focused on streaming services. Of course, it’s not like Disney is resting of their laurels in that regard!

Aside: I wonder if this all makes it more or less likely that we eventually get a Marvel/DC crossover movie or show. It would seem we’re a decade away from that at least. Probably longer. Marvel just brought Spider-Man back into the fold, now they need to work on X-Men!