fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Monitoring Linux Logs with Kibana and Rsyslog
By: Antoine Solnichkin
Tags: Programming, Software Engineering, Monitoring, Linux, Software Development

Sometimes you may want to monitor SSH intrusions on your VMs.

Sometimes, you might want to see what errors were raised by your application server on a certain day, on a very specific hour.

Or you may want to have some insights about who stopped your systemd service on one of your VMs.

If you pictured yourself in one of those points, you are probably on the right tutorial.

In this tutorial, we are to build a complete log monitoring pipeline using the ELK stack (ElasticSearch, Logstash and Kibana) and Rsyslog as a powerful syslog server.

Before going any further, and jumping into technical considerations right away, let’s have a talk about why do we want to monitor Linux logs with Kibana.

I — Why should you monitor Linux logs?

Monitoring Linux logs is crucial and every DevOps engineer should know how to do it. Here’s why :

You have real-time visual feedback about your logs : probably one of the key aspects of log monitoring, you can build meaningful visualizations (such as datatables, pies, graphs or aggregated bar charts) to give some meaning to your logs.

about your logs : probably one of the key aspects of log monitoring, you can build meaningful visualizations (such as datatables, pies, graphs or aggregated bar charts) to give some meaning to your logs. You are able to aggregate information to build advanced and more complex dashboards : sometimes raw information is not enough, you may want to join it with other logs or to compare it with other logs to identify a trend. A visualization platform with expression handling lets you perform that.

to build advanced and more complex dashboards : sometimes raw information is not enough, you may want to join it with other logs or to compare it with other logs to identify a trend. A visualization platform with expression handling lets you perform that. You can quickly filter for a certain term, or given a certain time period : if you are only interested in SSH logs, you can build a targeted dashboard for it.

for a certain term, or given a certain time period : if you are only interested in SSH logs, you can build a targeted dashboard for it. Logs are navigable in a quick and elegant way : I know the pain of tailing and greping your logs files endlessly. I’d rather have a platform for it.

II — What You Will Learn

There are many things that you are going to learn if you follow this tutorial:
There is a part of me A small part with a loud voice.
By: Adam Allred
Tags: Poetry, Love, Travel, Travel Writing, Blog

Enjoying a struggle is a skill that most people do not have. But most people do not have an inner part of them that gets louder when they get comfortable. Maybe it is mental illness, maybe it is something else. But I think those of us who have a desire to be everywhere and nowhere at once, got that from sort of trauma. It could have been big or small, but somewhere along the line, something told them that they had to get out. They had to leave, and they couldn’t, now they are still running all of these years later.

We want to be the best version of ourselves, and after being told stories of people discovering themselves after going on some harrowing journey, some of us are constantly traveling, trying to push ourselves to a limit hoping that a new part of us will come out. That the thing we are missing will jump out of us and then everything will be okay. That skill of character will appear and finally, finally we will be able to rest.

But maybe that person we are trying to be, or find, or create, is already here. You are already that person, and you haven’t let yourself be still enough to met them. You spend your whole time trying to find them, you are actually running away from yourself. Love yourself enough to shake your own hand, you will be surprised who you meet.

This is not where I intended this poem and subsequent blog to go, but I like where it went.
5 Ways Reading Makes You A Better Writer
By: Anirban Kar
Tags: Self Improvement, Writing, Productivity, Reading, Writers Block

5 Ways Reading Makes You A Better Writer

Reading for pleasure beats “write-everyday” in terms of productivity.

Photo by Maddog 229 from Pexels

I wish I could say it is easy being a writer. Trust me when I say I would love to announce that it is as easy as gazing at the stars and penning down the lucid contents of your mind on a bright, breezy evening.

But you and I both know this is not the case.

Being a writer is easier said than done. You have to come up with new topics, delivering something moving and meaningful. Besides, you have to keep it engaging and enticing also. Now add the constant demand to keep up with the deadline and stay on board with the editor’s feedback, and you get a world of pain a writer needs to go through every single day.

All it takes is one unpredictable anomaly to knock us off of our positions. For some, it may be financial stress. Others might lose it after a death in the family. For you, it might be your inner conflicts.

When you are a writer, it gets too easy to be bogged down by underwhelming reception by the audience or the strings of rejections. And the worst of all is the numbness of mind where you would give anything you have to get back in the flow — yet you can’t. There is a simple yet essential therapeutic initiative to find the lost touch. That would be reading.

Now the question arises: How will reading help you become a better writer?
Love As Belonging
By: Rebeca Ansar
Tags: Poetry, Art, Haiku, Poem, Self

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DIMCOIN: The Journey Continues
Tags: Dim Ecosystem, Dimcoin, Nem, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

As we witnessed last year the crypto market, of over 1000 cryptocurrencies reached an awe-inspiring total market capitalization of $60 billion as of September 2017. It then reached 10 times that, in just two months, to $600 billion! This motivates us all to keep moving forward and working to make the DIM Ecosytem a reality.

On that note, there are a few updates:

Hybrid Stock Exchange (HYBSE) progress is going according to plan. We estimate it is 40% completed and are satisfied with the development so far. All of the software developers through-out the world are having a general meeting this month for the first time. A selected group of developers are currently going for further blockchain development training.

The journey for exchanges is still ongoing with a lot of effort put into getting DIMCOIN listed. With our recent GitHub update and the explorer almost finished, it will greatly benefit us with implementing DIMCOIN on the exchanges that we have previously talked to. Our past experience has shown us that we need to crawl before we walk. We have recently listed on Iquant as well.

DIM Ambassadors have been narrowed down to 32 applicants and the due diligence selection process is underway. This can take a while because we need to be sure with whom we are entrusting with our Brand. DIM Ambassadors will be the voice of DIMCOIN in their respective countries, promoting its vision and securing companies interested in being listed.

DIM Promoters have been chosen and have begun their work with more to follow as we finalize our approach.

DIMCOIN participants are encouraged to join the Telegram group of their language if they need specific assistance. Kindly let us know if you would like a new language to be added to the list.

Wise Consulting had a productive meeting in Dubai regarding their SRO license last week in Switzerland.

We have begun the process of selecting a DIMCOIN presenter that will be giving updates via vlogs and Youtube.

As we get closer to the completion of HYBSE, we will be looking to garner interest from more and more companies to participate. There is a listing incentive if anyone can secure a company being listed — and DIMCOIN will be offering 0.1% of the company’s listing market value as this incentive.



Monday’s AMAs will no longer be taking place, there will be a new weekly update to keep the community informed.

In conclusion, we would like to thank the DIM Community for their patience. 2018 will be the year that many will remember as the rise of DIMCOIN.
Flying Drones Over Europe’s New Borders
By: Pixel Magazine
Tags: Europe, Refugees, Photography, Migration, Drones

EvH: Tell us more about the decision to use drones — how did that complicate the work and expand its possibilities?

RD: I had collected a lot of research and stories on the borders and had started plotting them on a map at home. One night when I felt I had enough stories and the outline of the borders became clear to me I was thinking of how to photograph this story, not to just make pictures of fences and places where there is nothing. So I looked at the map and decided that I needed to make my own photographic map of Europe, a topologic survey of how the European borders looked now, and topographical work is mostly looked from above. Hence it was quite clear from the start that I needed to get airborne somehow.

First of all I had never used a drone before, and my choice was either to rent a helicopter for each location, or to start looking at the drone technology and what possibilities this would give me. Given that helicopter flights are incredible expensive but also the physical distance that this tool gives you to your subject, I was quite sure that the drone would be the perfect tool to still tell the scale, but in a near and detailed way. The whole technical aspect of actually building your own drone, getting it to fly steady and work with the camera was a nightmare, but I learned along the way and made due with what I was capable of myself.
Cryptomas Presents from Bybit
Tags: Bybit Events, Bybit, Bitcoin, Cryptomas

Today concludes the end of our cryptomas campaign, we were very happy to see the positive response we got from all of you for our 7 days crypto and winter themed posters. A big thank you for all those that participated, liked us, and retweeted us; we will not forget you.

If you followed the rules and left us your UID, you should now receive your cryptomas gift! So don’t hesitate, head to www.bybit.com and spin the wheel once more!

Where to Find Us:

Website: www.bybit.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Bybit_Official

Reddit: www.reddit.com/r/Bybit/

Youtube: bit.ly/2Cmuibg

Steemit: steemit.com/@bybit-official

Facebook: bit.ly/2S1cyrf

Linkedin: bit.ly/2CxHGcz

Instagram: www.instagram.com/bybit_official/

Telegram: t.me/BybitTradingChat
Devプロトコルがスタートします
Tags: Blockchain, Developer, Defi, Cryptocurrency, Open Source

dev-protocol/protocol

Version: 2.1.4 There is a possibility that this white paper will be updated. When there is an update, the version…
Sevencoin Exchange 進展報告 03/04–03/10
Tags: Sevencoin, 工作誌, Blockchain, 進展報告

in Eudaimonia and Co
R for GTFS — Getting the number of trips per hour for each line
By: Santiago Toso
Tags: R, Markdown, Transit, Gtfs, Data Science

Joining the data frames

As we can deduce from the previous section, we are going to get the number of trips per hour from the ‘stop_times’ data frame. The tricky thing is that in ‘stop_times’ there is no variable that tells us what route the trips is doing. To get that information we first have to pass through ‘trips’. This data frame is the one that holds the relationship between the ‘trip_id’ (present in ‘stop_times’) and the ‘route_id’ (present in routes).

To get all the information we need in the same data frame we are going to travel the diagram above from ‘stop_times’ all the way up to ‘routes’.

stop_times <- stop_times %>%

left_join(trips) %>%

left_join(routes) %>%

select(route_id, route_short_name, trip_id, stop_id, service_id, arrival_time, departure_time, direction_id, shape_id, stop_sequence)

First, we join stop_times with trips. At that point, the data frame has the route_id and the trip_id. Then we join it with ‘routes’.

Finally, we select the relevant variables to continue. You can take a look at the final data frame with the ‘head()’ function.

head(stop_times)

Right now, we have the passing time for all the stops (check the column ‘stop_sequence’). But we only need the first stop to calculate the number of trips per hour. Furthermore, considering that the trips are roundtrips, we only need one direction. If not, we could be duplicating the number of trips per hour.

Also, notice that the ‘arrival_time’ and ‘departure_time’ are characters. This wouldn’t allow us to make mathematical operations with them.

Finally, the column ‘service_id’ tells us that there are many different services that operate in the period of time this GTFS covers. We need to choose one before calculating the number of trips per hour.

In the next section, we are going to see how to solve all these issues.
augmented-ui — Cyberpunk-Inspired Web UI Made Easy
By: Indrek Lasn
Tags: Programming, Design, Web Development, Technology, CSS

Examples

To use augmented-ui, let’s create a div element. Notice the augmented-ui property attached to the element. These are meant to define the styling for the element.

<div class=”demo” augmented-ui=”tl-clip br-clip exe”></div>

Let’s give the div height and add some padding.

Notice the CSS variables we’re using here. The variables are provided by the augmented-ui library and are the core way of styling elements.

We should see the following appear on the screen:

Pretty neat. Let’s add a gradient border. Add the following styles to the element.

--aug-border-bg: linear-gradient(red, transparent), linear-gradient(to right, blue, transparent), black;

Here’s what we should see:

As you can see, it’s simple to build augmented style components with the library. I’m a big fan of cyberpunk, so I’m naturally excited to see what you can build with the library.
Write your love (325)
By: Roxana Ștefan
Tags: Poetry, Poems, Love, Thoughts, Poetry On Medium

I want to still feel your lips

writing novels on my body.

from Monday to Sunday,

night after night.

you will read me every day,

make my lines better every night.

In the end,

I’ll be the book of your life;

revealed desire inside unlocked words.
Can Freelance Writing Help you Rebuild a Life?
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Mental Health, Freelancing, Work, Writing, Media

Can Freelance Writing Help you Rebuild a Life?

On transcending illness and hardship, word by word

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

It isn’t unusual for me to tiptoe out of bed in the middle of the night to go fix some copy.

Against my better judgment, I’ve been known to forgo sleep to meet deadlines, a habit I acquired as a long-term freelancer for B2B publications back when I started out in journalism. No matter how chronically understaffed we were, magazines always went to press on the same date every month.

It fell to freelancers who wanted to keep working for this publishing house to smooth out the process, whatever it took.

As I came from the technical side of news and current affairs broadcasting, even trade press rush felt oddly peaceful. Spending the night writing up features about housewares isn’t quite the same as coordinating live radio-two ways by remote. And having technology fail you while an irate journalist spews expletives at you down the phone line all the way from Jerusalem.

The ability to let others vent while remaining calm, composed, and capable comes down to detachment and razor-sharp focus. Being as “unflappable” as “indistractable” is the only way to survive in news. You learn how to become a reliable farmer who delivers on schedule using all the tools at your disposal; you become an effective communicator so you can immediately enlist help without a fuss.

Once you’ve worked under this kind of pressure, nothing much can faze you, not even the prospect of rebuilding a life word by word after a five-year hiatus.

Out loud, in print, and in public.
In Limbo Again
By: Jj West
Tags: Poetry, Haiku, Love, Health, Relationships

Love reading haiku? Then knock yourself out! Go read a few:

Want to be the first to pick up what I’m putting down? Click this link to slip inside my inner circle for updates on new articles, stories, poems, and anything else I’ve got goin’ on.
Bisq Network — Skip the Thai Exchanges
By: Gemslove, Tbx
Tags: Decentralized Exchange, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Thailand

Lets get straight to the point. What is Bisq? You can learn more about it on their website then me telling you what it is — https://bisq.network

“Safe and secure way to buy/sell Cryptocurrency for Fiat”

How does it work?

If you are looking to buy Bitcoin, you will be shown a spread of orders opened by sellers for you to choose the best price to buy your BTC. Yes its as simple as that. Is it safe? Yes ! Bisq is using Multi-Sig wallet and the seller must deposit the BTC before even you submit the order. So there is very less chance of you getting scammed. The only thing where you can be scammed is when you have sent the money and the seller says he/she has not received the money and vice versa.

How to solve Dispute?

The community is still fresh and everyone is really perfect at their trades. I recommend you to be disciplined as well. If we run into a dispute you will be shown to the “Support” where the middleman will ask for all supporting documents before any claims can be made. Just try to follow all the steps that are there on screen and it is just perfect to be honest !

Things you will need

Computer

Bisq Installed — https://bisq.network/downloads/

E-Mail — https://tuta.io/ (Anonymous Secure E-mail with mobile client)

Some BTC to deposit into Bisq (I recommend 0.05BTC)

Why do I need to have BTC at start? As everything is done using Multi-Sig wallet which is part of the Bitcoin Blockchain we need to have some BTC to be able to use the system. Just think of it as a fund when opening your bank account. It is still yours its not taken away.

Start with installation. If you are using Bitcoin, I guess you know how to install the software.

When you start the application, make sure to allow it through the firewall and the application uses TOR network for higher security and anonymity to keep your ass hidden and so when you click on any hyperlink they will always give option to copy, Use it ! Do not click “Don’t show again”

Market Page

This above page is where you will be using mostly. Let’s start with setting up our system.
5 apps to champion Knowledge Management and why they didn’t play out for an architecture company
By: Sebastian Murillo
Tags: Knowledge Management, Innovation, Design Thinking, No Code, Airtable

5 apps to champion Knowledge Management and why they didn’t play out for an architecture company

And what we did about it

Knowledge Management is important in the success of your company. As Forbes says in this article:

It facilitates decision-making capabilities, builds learning organizations by making learning routine, and stimulates cultural change and innovation.

Behemoth companies have famously invested in KM solutions and their projects are now taught in the best business schools. See CEMEX Way.

If you are a growing startup or a team with remote collaborators and this concept does not ring a bell it’s time to get on with it! Little time invested in knowledge sharing may go a long way if done right.

A bit of context.

Earlier this year the company I work for was struggling. BIMmx, a small architect of record company of 1 year, had been withstanding steady growth and developing loads of new systems to contain ongoing projects. Communicating new solutions within the team was getting harder by the day.

After an interesting thought and design process we arrived at a decision. Finding or developing a central management system for managing company knowledge was necessary to enhance information flow within the team. Read more about this process here.

This is not your typical list post.

The following analysis serves a specific purpose: reviewing existing tools to find out if they could solve our KM needs. By sharing this I wish to convey thoughts we had while considering alternatives to later develop a solution.

These are the features deemed important for our solution and the ones considered in the evaluation.

UX

Considers usability and function. How quickly could a new user onboard the platform? Is the solution clear enough that someone without context understands it?

Flexibility

Know-how exists in several formats. Some popular ones for an architecture office are .dwg, .rvt, and .skp files (all generally in large files). A flexible platform would allow management of any kind of file formats: video, GIF, file, spreadsheet, link, and more.

Organization

In the KM platform, are documents organized by file type? By service? By department? By date of creation? Having the possibility to manage know-how by several layers helps users in the retrieval of data.

Scalability

How likely is it that this tool scales into something else? APIs, integrations, and internal tools are great to keep developing the system.

Maintenance

How is data updated? Is bulk-changing it possible? All documents will be in a constant feedback loop so being able to edit, save, and keep track of changes is essential.

Feasibility

Economic and engineering aspects of the solutions come in this part. Would everyone need a new account to use this? Could this platform work connsidering our current team?

The contenders.

Next up are the top 5 solutions considered and why they didn’t work out for us.

Trello
Settling In
By: Deborah Barchi
Tags: Mindfulness, Poetry, Meditation, Health, Self

Settling In

A visualization poem

Photo by Levi XU on Unsplash

In this moment

settling in

like a smooth stone

sunk in sand.

In this moment

settling in

like a warm egg

cupped in down.

In this moment

settling in

like a soft dove

wrapped in silk.

Nothing else you have to do.

Nowhere else you have to be.

In this moment…

**************************************************

With gratitude to my wonderful teacher, Leanne. Namaste!
Crypto “gurus” and affiliates could ruin everything
By: Patrick Manfra
Tags: Crypto Affiliates, Trevon James, Bitconnect, Crypto Gurus, Bitcoin

I believe in decentralization, and the future that cryptocurrencies will play in creating that future. I want to do everything in my power to push adoption, I even created one of the few legitimate ways to earn crypto in order to push adoption. (https://junktion.io) So that everyone can be a part of this financial revolution. I have been working so hard to prove to anyone and everyone that
To Myself
Tags: Love, Poetry

To Myself

I think of you,

yet I keep this to myself.

I remember us,

yet I keep this to myself.

I remember you walking through the door,

and falling into your love,

with your arms wrapped within my being,

I think of what once was.

It comes to me in spurs,

It comes to me in moments,

It comes to me in full,

It comes to me in absence.

It comes to me like you were yesterday,

Yet yesterday in long gone.

As quick as night curls around the stars,

And disappears with the dawn.

I miss you in these moments,

I keep this to myself,

I cry with an ache.

I keep this to myself.

Time has moved on,

We have moved,

too.

Just for this moment,

It is like I am in front of you.

Do you think of me?

In a quick memory?

Like a flash of old film,

Developing?

I think you must,

For our time was precious,

When there was an ‘us’.

Now the time has passed,

We are photos of once was,

I close the book now,

Just as we did,

Our love.

Written by Nix 2017
3 Lessons From 2020 That Have Made Me a Happier Person
By: David Liira
Tags: Inspiration, Lifestyle, Fitness, Advice, Health

2) We must prioritize systems over motivation.

I read Atomic Habits this year, and it inspired me to shift my paradigm on what makes a good habit stick. Whenever I’d flunk a health-related goal in the past, I’d blame it on my lack of motivation and poor discipline. Now, I realize that I was simply failing to set myself up for success in the first place.

“Motivation won’t take you where you want to go. It’s that simple. It may get you up for the first two weeks of January, but it will surely shrivel when the going gets tough and you’re leaning on your emotions to pull you through.”

We get so caught up in goals and resolutions, especially around this time of year. While they can be positive, I fear that we reach for the stars but fail to assemble the rocketship. Here’s a quick outline of the difference between the two:

If you’re an entrepreneur, your goal might be to build a million-dollar business. Your system is how you test product ideas, hire employees, and run marketing campaigns.

If you’re an athlete, your goal might be to win the championship. Your system is how often you practice, what you do in the gym, and your method for studying game tape.

Both of these individuals have lofty goals, but it’s their systems that will ultimately deliver. In reality, all of us have gutsy dreams for life. The ‘aha!’ moment for me was when I realized that my intentions to be successful don’t always correlate to the final product. Sure, you should set benchmarks to guide you, but always remember to prioritize your systems to get you there.

I fear that we reach for the stars but fail to assemble the rocketship.

I used to watch motivational videos whenever I’d procrastinate from studying for a big test. Although this source of inspiration helped at first, leaning on it wasn’t sustainable. After graduating, I spent some time learning how to study. After finding what works for me (active recall, spaced repetition, etc…), I now genuinely enjoy the process and have found much better results. Fine-tuning my system made all the difference.

Here’s some food for thought:

1. Winners and losers have the same goals. (Do goals really set you apart?)

2. Goals are at odds with long-term progress. (You’ve achieved it, now what?)

3. Goals can restrict your happiness. (Does happiness have to be conditional?)
Episode 65: Tanmay Bakshi, Google pay fail, Wonder Woman and the Nancy Podcast
By: Ada S Sisters
Tags: Nancy Podcast, Google, Podcast, Tanmay Bakshi, Wonder Woman

Listen here: iTunes | Libsyn | Spreaker | Stitcher | BluBrry

We’re back to regular programming this week, and wow, some stuff happened while we were on our Bob Mob cruise! Like Google announcing that it would be too expensive to actually equalize salaries across genders, and that panel at the Hall of Femme event that was ALL men and mansplained the heck out of the topic. We’ll tell you about a good news/ bad news story with a Calgary twitter account that secretly filmed women but was shut down thanks to some good social media samaritans.

Wonder Woman continues to blow the box office out of the water, but the sponsors continue to disappoint us with diet pills and cleaning products. No, we’re not kidding. Thankfully, the first Google story we have for you this week is their Wonder Woman coding game. It’s awesome.

Less awesome is Google’s claim that it would be too expensive to actually pay the women that work for them the same as they pay the men.

We’ve got a new podcast you need to listen to called NANCY just in time for Pride Month and we’re SO impressed with a 13 year-old programmer on a mission to educate 100 thousand coders — we’d like to help ; )
Use Your Credit Card on Binance
Tags: Credit Card, Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Payments

At Binance, we support the broader use and accessibility of cryptocurrency worldwide.

That’s why we’ve partnered with leading payment processing company Simplex to enable users to buy cryptocurrencies with their credit cards directly on Binance.com.

Check out the feature here!

Read more about it here.
Brave New World, are we there Yet?
By: Agnes Kim
Tags: Pandemic, Writing, Brave New World, Future, Philosophy

In 1932 Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World. In 1958 he concluded the world was becoming IT much faster than he originally thought.

Photo by Mateo Catanese from Unsplash

May 18th 1958

Aldous Huxley, talks to Mike Wallace about the threats to freedom which he foresees coming at us in the future.

A social critic, obviously ridiculed as he speaks of matters most people are unable to grasp. Regardless the fact his arguments sound improbable, he is given the right to speak.

Mike lits a cigarette on a television show. Philip Morris makes a fortune on a conversation regarding the threats of advertising. Life is jolly.

Aldous Huxley — […] the dictatorship of the future, I think will be very unlike the dictatorships which we’ve been familiar with in the immediate past.

Overpopulation, bureaucracy, propaganda, drugs, advertising, behaviour altering subliminal programming, lack of critical thinking skills, and technology. The list goes on. The issues Aldous mentioned in his works as most dangerous in the hands of the wrong people have never rang as true.

If you want to preserve your power indefinitely, you have to get the consent of the ruled, and this they will do partly by drugs as I foresaw in “Brave New World,” partly by these new techniques of propaganda.

They will do it by bypassing the sort of rational side of man and appealing to his subconscious and his deeper emotions, and his physiology even, and so, making him actually love his slavery.

Mike Wallace — Well, let me ask you this. You’re talking about a world that could take place within the confines of a totalitarian state….Do you believe that this Brave New World that you talk about, could, let’s say in the next quarter century, the next century, come here to our shores?

Aldous Huxley — I think it could.

I feel it so extremely important here and now, to start thinking about these problems. Not to let ourselves be taken by surprise by the…the new advances in technology.

To avoid the disaster Huxley suggested preventive education and laws banning the use of the ‘controlling technologies’. In 1974 The United Nations Human Rights Commission task force denounced the use of subliminals and called for the prohibition of their use. That’s about that.
Variadic Functions in Swift
By: Jesus Bernal
Tags: Swift, Swift Programming, Variadic Functions, Swift 5, Xcode

Variadic Functions in Swift

What is a variadic function?

A variadic function is simply a function that accepts 0 or more items of the same type.

What uses variadic functions?

If you have ever used the print statement then you have used variadic function. If we click into it’s signature, then we get the following

public func print(_ items: Any..., separator: String = " ", terminator: String = "

")

The print function accepts any amount of items that are of type Any. Which allows us to print multiple object by separating them with a comma.

Let’s make our own variadic function

To do so, we declare the parameter type just like normal and add three periods (…) after it to tell Swift we want to accept any number of this type.

Here is an extension to UIView, that will allow us to add as many views to a view that we want.

extension UIView {

func addSubviews(_ views: UIView...) {

views.forEach({ self.addSubview($0) })

}

}

Without variadic parameters

view.addSubview(v1)

view.addSubview(v2)

view.addSubview(v3)

With variadic parameters

view.addSubviews(v1, v2, v3)

Hope you enjoyed this short write up but most importantly learned something new!
As Merry as the Day Is Long: A Collection of Parenting Stories
By: Grace Farris
Tags: Comics, Kids, Moms, Parenting, Grace Farris

The Binky Files

I don't think any parent intends for their giant toddler to be addicted to a pacifier
Comparing Crypto Indices: Understanding the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index and the Rad 30 Crypto Composite
By: Harry Simon
Tags: Blockchain, Ethereum, Crypto, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

On Monday, we launched the Rad 30 Crypto Composite that tracks 30 crypto assets not named Bitcoin or Ethereum. Later in the week, on Wednesday, Bloomberg (in partnership with Galaxy Digital Capital Management) launched the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index (BGCI) that tracks 10 of the largest crypto assets by market cap.

There are some key differences between the two approaches:

1. The BGCI tracks 10 of the largest crypto assets. The RAD 30 tracks 30 varied crypto assets.

The top crypto assets by market cap present a very specific view of decentralization. The BGCI effectively tracks two sectors:

Cryptocurrencies and Store-of-Value Coins (Non-private: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ripple; Private: Dash, Monero, Zcash)

dApp Ecosystems and Smart Contract Platforms (Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, EOS)

These crypto assets are undoubtedly important. They do not, however, offer an understanding of how crypto is impacting the diverse set of industries in which it is being deployed and explored. The RAD 30 excludes BTC and ETH. The RAD 30 tracks assets drawn from 10 (decentralized) sectors:

Advertising

Crowd Capital Allocation

Distributed Cloud Computing

Ecommerce

Energy

File Storage and Sharing

Financial Services

Healthcare

Insurance

Social and Digital Media Networks

We believe both approaches are important and valuable. One offers concentration; the other offers variety and perspective.

2. The BGCI, at least currently, is heavily weighted toward BTC and ETH and is very correlated to both assets.

So far this year, both the RAD 30 (-37.5%) and the BGCI (-19.4%) have traded down. As have BTC (-34.6%) and ETH (-0.38%).

The BGCI typically moves with BTC and ETH. Since the beginning of 2018, the BGCI diverged from (read: moved in the opposite direction of) BTC on 13.4% of days (17 total) and diverged from ETH on 7.9% of days (10 total).

The RAD 30 diverged from BTC on 44 days (34.7% of total) and from ETH on 45 days (35.4% of total). RAD 30 moves on its own ~2–3x more often than BGCI. This becomes more evident when examining correlation data and charting how assets change over time.
I’ve Been Writing 2 Articles a Day And I’m Not Burnt Out
By: Khadejah Jones
Tags: Ideas, Writing, Blogging, Writing Tips, Self

I’ve Been Writing 2 Articles a Day And I’m Not Burnt Out

How to come up with ideas rapidly.

Photo by Sticker Mule on Unsplash

I still don’t understand the big idea about burnout. So far I’ve been writing one article every day since June 2020 and I’ve been writing two articles a day this month in December 2020 to challenge myself. Don’t get me wrong, I understand how people can get worried about it.

I’ve had my own family worry about me getting burnt out. However, I look at it differently. You see, writing is a craft I’m determined to get better at mixed with fun. For me to increase my writing muscle, I can’t take any breaks. Will I take a break after writing for a year straight? Maybe.

Right now, I don’t see myself getting burnt out anytime soon. I believe a large part of this has to with coming up with ideas. Since I’ve found ways to push multiple ideas out of my head every day, I’m not hard-pressed on whether or not I’ll get burnt out.

Here are my main sources of writing ideas I use every day in order and what specific topics I get out of each one:

Every-day life situations (topics vary)

YouTube (entrepreneurship)

Twitter (pop culture/current events)

Quora (life lessons/self-improvement)

These are the platforms that I use the most on my phone besides thousands of hours of Spotify (and I mean thousands). So I recommend scoping out which social media platforms you use the most. Smartphones are so advanced nowadays that it probably tells you that in your settings.

After you’ve found them, pick 4–5 apps so you can use them as back-up pools of information. I say to have 4–5 is because there could be one specific platform that you get ideas for one specific topic. As mentioned in my list above, I use Twitter for current events because I think it’s the most optimal app for that subject.

Once you have your apps figured out on top of using your every-day life situations as a pool of ideas, you’ll be dead-set on not burning out for a long time. As long as you can come up with ideas, you’ll never get burnt out.

So get your phone out and start exploring. You never know what you’ll find.
Shedding light on Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs)
By: Travis Teo
Tags: Blockchain, Ethereum, ICO, Ieo, Bitcoin

The beauty of ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) is that investors across the globe can be gathered virtually and the project is given a fair chance to be evaluated. Unfortunately, the current ecosystem and beauty of ICO is being severely violated by many.

With our IEO (Initial Exchange Offerings) platform at Tokenize Xchange, we believe that we are the gatekeepers of new projects for our investors. The current expectation in the crypto world is that projects expect to have an easy and effortless way raising of capital while investors want their investments to moon in a short period of time.

This brings about the question — why do most ICOs fail even though they raise a lot of money? This is because the current expectations are without a doubt, not sustainable in the long run. All projects regardless of the potential they possess needs to be done in stages and they do not become a major success overnight. If new budding projects are expected to achieve colossal tasks and goals with the inadequate infrastructure or experience and scarce resources they have, the entire ICO would eventually collapse.

This leads to our next issue of why many projects are unable to raise money nowadays. The main issue is the lack of confidence that an ICO that is not yet proven would be able succeed without any fundamentals or incubators and advisers to ease them through this complicated uphill task.

Tokenize Xchange wants to be that exchange that steps up and make a radical change to how ICOs are done. In the private equities’ world, where phases and stages (Angel round, Seed round, Series A and the list goes on) exist to test and validate ideas and projects, we would want to apply the same structure to the crypto world whereby there would be phases our projects to evolve and develop.

We will move away from the norm of ICOs raising $5Million to $50Million and create accessibility for projects with market capitalisation starting from $100K. We thereby introduce a new feature where the community will be able to see what phase or stage the IEO is currently in.

Projects will be categorised based on their revenue track record and market capitalisation and where they will only be allowed to raise a certain amount of capital for each individual category.

There is a huge void in the IEO ecosystem which we have seen numerous flaws and weaknesses, so let us take a bold yet necessary step towards a more comprehensive and secure IEO platform!

Exciting new features that are coming soon!

We have shortlisted a few interesting and innovative projects that involves breakthrough patents from Japan as well as an Augmented Reality company dealing with IoT (Internet of Things) from Thailand that will be available on our IEO platform in the near future!

In addition, we are also in the progress of introducing a “Project Tag” feature which allows our users to know what phase (Seed, Series-A, Series-B) the project is currently in.

Click here to see the successful IEOs and the ongoing IEOs!
Cocktail of the Week: Un Boheme
By: Jonathon Howard
Tags: Gin, Beefeater, Grapefruit, Lemon

D’s really wanted to try St. Germain, an elderflower liquor. It wasn’t easy to find though! The regular grocery stores here didn’t care it and the first two liquor stores I went to didn’t either. I finally found it at this shady, dirty, but surprisingly well stocked liquor store in town. Now that I have it I had to figure out what to make with it. This turned out to be easier than I thought because a lot of people we know seem to love the stuff. A few emails later I had the start of a nice selection. First up, is this mix of citrus, gin, and St. Germain.

[caption id=”attachment_5223" align=”aligncenter” width=”579"]

The ingredients[/caption]

Un Boheme

1 ½ oz gin

1 oz St~Germain

3 oz fresh grapefruit juice

1 oz fresh lemon juice

¼ oz simple syrup

Combine the gin, grapefruit juice, lemon juice and simple syrup a shaker. Shake with ice and strain into glass. Garnish with grapefruit twist.

Wow! This was a fantastic cocktail: Citrusy, elderflowery, sweet and easy. I don’t think “elderflowery” is a word but the grapefruit and St~Germain complement each other perfectly. Turns out my friends know a thing or two about cocktails! I was a little leery about St~Germain without having tried it before but now? Now, I’m really looking forward to trying the rest of these recipes…
Java Lambda
By: Daniel Liu
Tags: Java, Programming, Java8, Backend Development, Lambda

Java Lambda

Lambda is a short block of code that is a function do not have a name

Overview

Lambda was added to Java in version 8. Similar to Python lambda is a short block of code that is a function do not have a name. Like functions they can take in arguments and returns a value. Unlike Pythons lambda Java has its own way of using lambda. Like in Python lambda functions are typically used in higher order functions or functions that take in another function as an argument.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Implementation

To use lambda you start by declaring the argument separated by -> then the function definition.

// argument -> definition

x -> System.out.println(x)

If the lambda function takes in more than 1 argument or not argument it needs a parenthesis.

(x, y) -> x + y

() -> System.out.println("hi")

If the lambda function is more than one line you can use curly braces to wrap the definition but if it is supposed to return a value be sure to add that.

(x, y) -> {

System.out.println("x: " + x);

System.out.println("y: " + y);

return x+y;

}

Assigning

To assign a lambda function to a variable you have to declare the variable using the Consumer key word. The generic declares what type of argument the function will take.

Consumer<Integer> display = x -> System.out.println(x);

This can be used by higher order method as is.

ArrayList<Integer> numbers = new ArrayList<Integer>();

numbers.add(1);

numbers.add(2);

numbers.add(3);

numbers.add(4);

Consumer<Integer> display = x -> System.out.println(x);

numbers.forEach( display ); >> 1

>> 2

>> 3

>> 4

To use the Consumer method outside of a higher order function you will have to use the accept method.

Consumer<Integer> display = x -> System.out.println(x);

display.accept(1); >> 1

Conclusion

Using lambda helps reduce lines of code and makes use of Java’s built in higher order function. It is also used in functional programming and is more efficient as well. Overall while it is not necessary to use lambda it helps keep code readable.
I Will Pray for You
By: Erika Sauter
Tags: Religion, Life, Culture, Life Lessons, Psychology

I do believe in a higher power but not a traditional God. I believe in the universe. I believe the universe will provide for us in the sense that we’ll get what we give, it will keep us safe and is far more powerful than humans will ever be individually or collectively.

I feel saddened by the world. The citizens of the world are angry, the citizens of my home country, America are the angriest I can recall in my life time, Mother Nature is angry as if she’s lashing out against us in the form of global crisis.

The universe will not protect us if we continue to treat one another in the way we have been and I have to accept I have no control. I’m only one person. I can’t change our current situation alone yet I feel I have a personal responsibility to try. I can continue to do what I believe is the right thing, but it’s never enough. Because of this, I feel heartbreak and guilt.
Cupertino DateTime Circular Spinner Picker
By: Greg Perry
Tags: Android App Development, Programming, Flutter, Technology, iOS App Development

Easily pick a Date or a Time in your Flutter app

I wrote a routine to quickly and easily pick a date or time in your Flutter app. It wasn’t an original concept but based on the work by developer, Miguel Ruivo. While working on my latest project, you see, I was looking for a means to pick a date and a time using Cupertino (iOS-style) widgets. That’s when I stumbled upon Miguel’s NativeCupertinoPicker.dart. It works with the CupertinoDatePicker class which supplies an iOS-style DateTime picker.

If I didn’t have Miguel’s work as a foundation of my own work, I wouldn’t have the time now to write about it here and share it with you. See how this works? I openly credit Miguel Ruivo here and now for my own contribution.

That’s the power of open source in this day and age. For example, we’re a fledgling community of developers, and our shared efforts contribute to that community as a whole. I’ll pay it forward now and offer the routine, showCupertinoDatePicker.dart, to our fledging Flutter community. Like Ruivo’s routine, my routine also utilizes the CupertinoDatePicker class which, in turn, works with the showCupertinoModalPopup function to display a circular ‘spinner’ at the bottom of the screen of your mobile app.

Many of you will now take a copy of this routine and get on with your day. You’ve got deadlines, and besides, your manager will be coming around your desk shortly. Yes, take it and make it your own. I’ll invite the rest of you to stick around, and I’ll explain how to use this routine in your next Flutter app.

Screenshots Only. Click For Gists.

As always, I prefer using screenshots over gists to show code in my articles. I find them easier to work with, and easier to read. However, you can click/tap on them to see the code in a gist or in Github. Ironically, it’s better to read this article about mobile development on your computer than on your phone. Besides, we program mostly on our computers; not on our phones. For now.

No Moving Pictures No Social Media

Note, there will be gif files in this article demonstrating aspects of the topic at hand. However, it’s said viewing such gif files is not possible when reading this article on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc. Please, be aware of this and maybe read this article on medium.com

Let’s begin.

Android vs iOS

I’m currently working on an app for a client. Of course, it’s written in Flutter and will perform on an Android phone as well as an iPhone. Below, are screenshots of the same entry screen in the app I’m working on. Clicking on the date field or on the time field will display the appropriate means to pick another date or time depending on the platform. Easy peasy.