fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Becoming Root Through Misconfigured SUDO
By: Vickie Li
Tags: Programming, Linux, Cybersecurity, Software Development, Security

SUDO Privilege Escalation

So how can attackers exploit their SUDO rights to execute arbitrary commands as the root user?

If the attacker has SUDO rights to programs that allow command execution or arbitrary writes to files on the system, the attacker can exploit the temporary root access to execute code as root on the system. You can find the commands the current user can run with SUDO via this command:

sudo -l

For example, let’s say that regular users are given the ability to run the command find with SUDO so that they can search for all files on the system. The find command is usually used for locating files and often has SUDO permissions to allow users to find files across the system. But find allows the execution of system commands through the -exec flag! For example, to run the ls command from within the find command, you can use the command find . -exec ls \; . So if a user can run the find command as SUDO, they can execute system commands as root!

These misconfigurations make privilege escalation trivial. For example, an attacker can use the ability to execute commands as root and add themselves as a root user in the /etc/passwd file. This command will do just that:

find . -exec echo “vickie::0:0:System Administrator:/root/root:/bin/bash” >> /etc/passwd \;

This command adds a root user with the username vickie and an empty password. Since 0 is the UID of the root user, adding a user with the UID of 0 will give that user root privileges. This command is not possible for regular users because only privileged users can modify system-critical files such as the /etc/password file.
Bless Your Election
Tags: Art, Religion And Spirituality, Social Media, Poem, Election 2020

Bless Your Election

A Poem

Photo by burak kostak from Pexels

I give you to the Father,

said a woman on Facebook to someone she found troublesome.

It sounded like a punishment.

Go to your room,

and close the door.

And don’t have those opinions anymore.

I thought of my Granny,

who sent me out to find a stick

that she might use as a switch.

I do not think that she ever used it.

An empty threat,

instead of a promise.

But I do think the Father wants to see all of us.

Note: I wrote this after reading the comments on some depressing Facebook thread on a cable news site. The woman’s comment — and subsequent follow up — reminded me of the Southern woman’s Bless Your Heart which is often a euphemism for Kiss My Grits. We all have to assume the best of each other, and want the best for each other too. That’s the only way we’ll push through.
Visit us at the new Eidoo blog
By: Amelia Tomasicchio
Tags: Medium

Medium adopted a new policy related to digital currencies, tokens, ICOs, and airdrops as explained here.

This is the reason why we created our own Eidoo blog that you can find on the Eidoo official website too, so to be more independent and free to write any communication related to our services.

This means that we won’t use Medium anymore, so you won’t find any recent news on this Medium page.

Visit us at blog.eidoo.io
Here’s Why We Should Stop Telling Our Girls to “Stay Quiet”
By: Anangsha Alammyan
Tags: Equality, Women, Culture, Gender Equality, Feminism

Sometimes, It’s the Women Defending Patriarchy

Some days back, I wrote a post about how frustrating it was to be a woman. I shared my story of how a man had once cornered me in an empty street, groped at my boobs, then sped away on his bike, leering at me as if what he did deserved a Nobel prize.

I had written about how helpless the incident made me feel, that I stood rooted to the spot, unable to cry or shout, unable to retaliate, letting the stranger make me feel bad about my own body.

I wrote about how I never shared this with my parents about how I just went home and cried in the shower.

A man had commented on the post saying that because I was a woman, I should expect something like this every time I step out of my home. “Men will be men,” he added.

This was not only an insult to women but also to every man who would never touch a woman against her consent.

I lashed out at the injustice of this in another post. The response to my views was mostly positive, but what shook me, was another comment, made not by a man, but by a woman.

The person writing that comment is not good in English. Probably he didn’t convey his thoughts properly. You know how I got the gist of that comment? “There will be always men like that. So please don’t lose courage. Be brave; otherwise, you won’t be able to go out every day”

This sounds better, yes.

But doesn’t what she said translate to- “There’s no use fighting. Stay quiet and let the world bleed you”?

Why?
Towards native windows support for Glamorous Toolkit
By: Tudor Girba
Tags: Inspection, Debugging, Pharo, Gtoolkit

First, the context.

Glamorous Toolkit is built in Pharo. Pharo comes with the Morphic graphical system. Morphic is great, but it shows its age. That is why Glamorous Toolkit is based on a separate graphical stack called Bloc.

Even though it is a separate stack, for the longest time it was hosted within the Morphic graphical system of Pharo. This strategy was useful while bootstrapping the system and allowed us to utilize the Pharo tools while developing the new world. However, the end goal is to create a complete new graphical world that can live in native windows, independently of Morphic.

Morphic does not offer support for multiple native windows. To address this issue, we first needed an infrastructure that pushed the knowledge of the windowing system out of the virtual machine and into the image. Recently, this came together based on the excellent work of the Pharo community, and in particular of Ronnie Salgado and Esteban Lorenzano. Back in October, we reached the first solution to render Bloc in a native window.

That first implementation allowed us to handle mouse events. However, we still had to work our way to handle keyboard properly.

So, that’s the context of our story.
Innocence Lost
By: Edh Lamport
Tags: Poetry, Poem, Winter, Poetry On Medium, Spring

Welcome to Lit Up -The Land of Little Tales. Here you can read and submit short stories, flash fiction, poetry - in brief, your own legend. We're starting little. But that's how all big stories begin.

Follow
Few months of food assistance mean a lifelong income
By: Aichurek Zhunusova
Tags: Cheese, Kyrgyzstan, Women Empowerment, Food, Asia

Dreams can happen

But the dream became a reality when the World Food Programme (WFP) trained 50 women in Kashka-Suu village, including Jiidegul, on home-based dairy processing. With support from Japan, WFP provides skills training to women in the poorest regions across the country to help them create a source of income and afford healthy and necessary foods for their families.

Kashka-Suu is located on the foothills of Padysh-Ata pasture that is full of cattle during the summer months making it the perfect place to host the milk processing training.

“I always thought that making cheese was difficult …it turns out that mozzarella is not as difficult…it only takes 3 hours.”

During the training, Jiidegul learnt how to make cheese with supplies already available in her village. “I always thought that making cheese was difficult and that it required certain skills as well as professional equipment,” she said. “It turns out that mozzarella is not as difficult to make if you know the technique — it only takes 3 hours.”

Teaching food making; lifelong food assistance

Jiidegul is cutting freshly prepared cheese that she learned how to make it herself after receiving a WFP training on dairy processing. Photo: WFP/Maksim Shubovich

The 4-day training covered basic milk processing skills, including cheese making, developing yogurt starters and sour cream processing. After successfully completing the training, every participant received food assistance for her family including 150 kg of flour and 15 litres of oil — enough to cover the family for six months until they start making money using the skills they learnt.

A self-help group was established among the women who participated in the training. They produced the first samples of their dairy products including cheese, kurut and creams. Their products were tested and by residents who liked them.

Such locally-made dairy products are indispensable in the local diet and are considered a healthier option compared to industrial products that use preservatives and artificial flavour enhancers.
How the Newsfeed is Connecting Campuses and Building Communities
By: Alexis Castorina
Tags: Higher Education, Social Learning, Edtech, Newsfeed, Campus

Most art majors would want to know about the new gallery opening next Friday next to the coffee shop everyone loves. And not to mention, wine was being served (for those 21 and over, of course!). But they never even knew about it.

Whether it’s a new art gallery opening around campus, a fundraiser being sponsored by Delta Gamma, or just a simple due date changing on a class assignment, the way students discover and consume information is completely different than the way they did just a few years ago. Why? Ask Apple and Facebook. :) Students simply aren’t getting the right information at the right time in the channels they are consuming content in today.

But, the newsfeed is changing that by changing the way campuses communicate. It’s revolutionizing how entire academic communities are staying connected and informed. Here’s how.

The Newsfeed and Notification Generation

If your university’s idea of notifying students of important information and events resides in mass emails to their university-issued .edu email address, you need to keep reading. While it may seem like you’re keeping students informed by blasting off emails, you should check your open rates to see if that’s working. Email doesn’t work the way it once did. Students rarely check email, and frankly, they forget to.

While they might gloss over emails or paper packets, the newsfeed allows students to quickly scan all the updates from their classes and communities. Students want the same engaging user experience they get with social media. They stay informed through push notifications and scrolling through newsfeeds.

Getting the Attention of Millennials

It’s no wonder “text neck” has become a common medical ailment. We are always looking down at our phones. And it’s not just students. Consider your daily mobile usage habits. It’s hard to get the attention of students today when they’re always on their phones. So, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Give them content how they want it and in a way they’re comfortable with — their smartphones.

Now That You’ve Got Their Attention…

Keep it. Faculty, administrators and other leaders can communicate directly with students by posting announcements that students will actually see via the Notebowl Bulletin (i.e. Newsfeed). Drive even more engagement with comment and sharing options enabled. Notebowl offers features that harnesses the power of familiar social tools to keep students engaged with the entire campus experience from classes to sporting events.

What’s Next?

It’s true that academia typically isn’t an early adopter of new technology, but think about all of the possibilities that lie ahead with keeping campuses connected. Artificial intelligence, virtual reality, algorithms designed to serve up content based on students’ behaviors and interests. The newsfeed could provide course recommendations, clubs, custom majors and more — all based on a variety of available data points and continual machine learning. The possibilities are vast.
custody
By: Haiku Love Bites
Tags: Poetry, Haiku, Love, Life, Parenting

Written by

#Writer — #Haiku #poetry & #love #poems — Big feelings and emotions packed into seventeen tiny syllables of mystery and adventure one Haiku at a time -
The Illustrated Interview: Deb Lucke
By: Edith Zimmerman
Tags: Spiralbound, Comics, Illustrated Interview, Deb Lucke

Every week on Spiralbound we ask one of our featured artists: How do you make comics? This week we spoke (emailed) with Deb Lucke, of “A Case of Illegal Attic Occupancy” and “Little Deb in Slumber-Clinic.” (Check them out if you haven’t already! And see here for our full interview archive.)

So, Deb, how do you make comics? (Text from Deb, drawings by Edith Z.)
December 4, 2017
Tags: Crowdini, Questions, Games, Steemit, Blockchain

HOW TO TELL IF YOU WERE UPVOTED ON STEEMIT

I know Steemit is a new interface and it can be a little confusing. It certainly took me some time to get used to it.

One of the things that can be confusing is seeing whether you voted or not. I put the image above to help clarify this.

If the circle with the up arrow is green, you have upvoted that post. If the circle with the up arrow is white you have not.

Two things to note…

The line with the circle, earnings, votes and comment totals is found at the end of the post just below the tags and above the first comment

I have found the site is off and on about refreshing itself. There have been plenty of times I have had to refresh the page to show my vote. So if you are checking and don’t see your vote when you should, refresh to make sure. :)

All the best,

Jason
Go Introductory Tutorials
By: Uday Hiwarale
Tags: Go Programming Language, Golang, Golang Tutorial, Go Programming, Programming

Data Types and Variables in Go

In this article, we are going to look at some of the basic data types in Go and how we can declare variables and…
Lifecycle Methods in SwiftUI
By: Karthick Selvaraj
Tags: iOS, Swiftui, Swift, Programming, Mobile

Lifecycle Methods in SwiftUI

The missing manual

UIKit developers may have heard of the term View Life Cycle methods. Okay, if you are a UIKit developer, let me ask a few questions before we dig into the topic.

Can you please list all the view cycle methods in ViewController without touching Xcode now?

Also, can you please list the view cycle method when navigating between two ViewControllers, with the correct order? 😅

Okay, if you got the above questions correct, this will be easy for you. Can you please list the same thing when presenting a ViewController as PageSheet or FormSheet on iPad?

Little complicated, right! Maybe at least for me 🤯

We are having the number of view life cycle methods in ViewControllers, which will be called in different sequences based on our design. This might be even more complicated when we have custom UI using ContainerView on a single screen.

It’s simple in SwiftUI.
Episode #17: Yiseul Cho (Perceptra)
By: Around The Block Podcast
Tags: Crypto, South Korea, Podcast, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency

Yiseul Cho, Perceptra

Yiseul Cho is one of the most legendary investors and advisors in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. After co-founding Hashed, she has since created Perceptra, a blockchain production lab that works with hand-picked projects to bring their tech to the Asian market. In this interview, Elaine and Yiseul talk about her background and how she parlayed that into a career in blockchain, leaving South Korea years ago in search of blockchain development only to return after the country took a liking to Ethereum, and the two highest-potential sectors where she thinks blockchain will break through first.
Quantization (post-training quantization) your (custom mobilenet_v2) models .h5 or .pb models using TensorFlow Lite 2.4
By: Alex G.
Tags: Machine Learning, TensorFlow, Tensorflow Lite, Quantization, Raspberry Pi

Note before you start:

So, let’s start :)

Hardware preparation:

Software preparation:

1) What the quantization model in the context of TensorFlow?

This is a model which doing the same as the standard model but: faster, smaller, with similar accuracy. Like in the gif below :)

Quantization your model .h5 or tflite using TensorFlow Lite (Photo,GIF by Author) https://github.com/oleksandr-g-rock/Quantization/blob/main/1_-bmgkbQNGwVkDJJq64yVxQ.gif

or this :)

Quantization your model .h5 or tflite using TensorFlow Lite (Photo,GIF by Author) https://github.com/oleksandr-g-rock/Quantization/blob/main/1_8z4lTcSfyEad87GGsf9IPw.png

Big turtle is simple CNN (.h5 or .pb ) model.

A baby turtle is a quantization model.

:)

Put it simply, usually, we use models with next weights (465.949494 and etc …) these weights usually are floating-point numbers.

In the screenshot below, you can see these floating-point numbers for weights— it’s just an example.

Quantization your model .h5 or tflite using TensorFlow Lite (Photo,GIF by Author) https://github.com/oleksandr-g-rock/Quantization/blob/main/1_KvHwa5eUfyVTaNzEm3TJ8A.png

But after quantization, these weights can be changed to …

Quantization your model .h5 or tflite using TensorFlow Lite (Photo,GIF by Author) https://github.com/oleksandr-g-rock/Quantization/blob/main/1_3bYW4pjMPEAN47aXLrDVvA.png

So it this is a rough example of what quantization is.
Something Like Love
By: Hengtee Lim, Snippets
Tags: Travel, Short Story, Love

When we first met, she used to draw pictures. She was young. Growing up.

The pictures were like works in progress. Each one a part of something bigger. Nascent potential. All of it filled with hope, character, individuality, and a dash of irrepressible youth.

I fell in love with that freedom. I fell for the enthusiasm, and the passion, and the raw emotion.

At a time when people called me a robot, she chose the word subdued.

It felt like something special between us.

It felt like something warm.
Whispers
By: David Rudder
Tags: Nature, Poetry, Whisper, Wind, Spirituality

Whispers

I can hear it in the wind

Photo by Mor Shani on Unsplash

I can hear it in the wind

gentle as the breeze

glowing in the stars above

and blossoming in the trees.

Words I can’t enunciate

a rustle in the air

I stop and stand in wonder

and whisper if I dare.

I hear a sigh and I can’t try

to tell you how I feel

or open up my heart

for fear I might reveal.

The love that lingers deep below

some words left best unsaid

the fear of opening up the doors

to see the seas of mist ahead.

Hidden behind silver veils

disguised below the sea

whispered by the whippoorwill

far above the trees.

I don’t know if thoughts can grow

and change into ideas

and how the rhyme turns into time

and gradually appears.

Sparks of speculation

the cream in the cat’s whiskers

rumours floating in the air

or sense in silent whispers.

©

David Rudder

24th November 2020

Thanks for reading.
What Are We So Hungry For?
By: Yael Wolfe
Tags: Relationships, Howl By Yael Wolfe, Love, Self Love, Sexuality

Howl

What Are We So Hungry For?

And why do we keep reaching for the things that don’t sustain us?

Photo by Hosanna Nield on Scopio

I met him at work. I really didn’t like him, but I could tell he liked me. When he asked me out, I said yes, even though I didn’t want to. I was only 19 and by then, I’d learned that I was on this planet to please men. I thought I had to do what they wanted. That’s all I knew of the world — not my will, but theirs.

So I said yes.

I’m not sure how I ended up thinking I was in love with him. I’m not sure how I ended up lying in his bed, tipping my face up, waiting for him to kiss me. I’m not sure how we ended up having sex, and I definitely don’t remember how it came to pass that we moved in together shortly after.

All I know is that I was starving. I had spent the last seven years feeling like a gazelle on the savanna, looking over her shoulder for any evidence of the lions that lurked there. I had spent the last seven years avoiding them, or bandaging my wounds when one caught me by the ankles.

Suddenly, I had a lion. I wouldn’t have to worry, anymore. Finally, finally, I could stop being afraid all the time.

I had someone to protect me.

But he tried to pressure me to drink. He tried to pressure me to smoke. He told me I was ugly and fat and disgusting and that he was the only person who would ever be able to love such a pathetic creature. He ridiculed me in front of his friends and they all laughed, looking me up and down. He slept with my best friend when I was out running errands. He squeezed me and twisted my limbs and pushed me against the walls until I cried and begged him to stop.

For a while, it seemed like a small price to pay, letting one lion slowly tear me to pieces, rather than trying to outrun them all.
Jetpack DataStore: Improved Data-Storage System
By: Siva Ganesh Kantamani
Tags: AndroidDev, Android, Mobile, Jetpack, Programming

Save and Retrieve Data

Now that we’ve created our DataStore andkeys, it’s time to save the user’s status. We’ll save an integer with values 1, 2, 3, and 4 representing STARTER , ONBOARDING_LEVEL_1 , ONBOARDING_LEVEL_2 , and VERIFIED , respectively.

Save

To save key-value pairs in the DataStore file, we have to use the edit function, which updates the value. Here, we use the suspend function to save values. Have a look:

Saving values in our DataStore

Retrieve

To retrieve values from the DataStore, we use the Flow API. One of the main advantages of using Flow is every time a new value is updated in the DataStore, we get notified. So we no longer need to check for updated values anymore.

Retrieving data from the DataStore

Instead of handing the integer to the user-status case at the call site, we can use functions like map to transform the data into an appropriate data type.

Now, let’s bring the pieces together so they make more sense. Have a look:
Do we really think the foxes…
By: Nathan Eckenrode
Tags: Poetry, Revolutionary, Politics, Resistance

The foxes will be foxes

They are hungry and crafty

They just want to feed their babies

And their bellies

Their metabolisms burn up fuel

Quickly, they sneak and attack

Do we farmers really believe

That the foxes will stop

We need to fix the coup.
How to Manage LEDU Tokens If You Used JAXX Wallet
By: Dr. Michael J. Garbade
Tags: Education, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Bitcoin

If you purchased LEDU tokens and sent them to a JAXX wallet then you may not be able to see them. In this article we will go over how to view and manage your LEDU tokens using Jaxx and MyEtherWallet. If you purchased LEDU tokens and sent them to another wallet then just follow our guide How to Add Education Tokens to Your ERC20 Compatible Wallet.

All ERC-20 tokens are built on the Ethereum blockchain, so they all have the same ETH style addresses and can receive any ETH token successfully. Due to the nature of Jaxx’s wallet structure, for each token your Jaxx wallet holds, a specific set of HD wallets is created to only recognize the given token. (ex. you can send ERC-20 education token (LEDU) to a ETH address and your JAXX wallet will be able to detect the LEDU token transfer). In order to access the funds you have sent to your ERC-20 token wallet, you will need to export the private keys of the wallet holding the funds and import it to a wallet like myetherwallet.com.

MyEtherWallet is a wallet provider that allows you to access all of your ERC-20 tokens from one ETH address.

Here is how you can manage your LEDU tokens from JAXX to MyEtherWallet (MEW)

1)After downloading JAXX, export your private keys from your JAXX wallet by clicking on the MENU button of your JAXX wallet.

2) Click ‘Tools’ then ‘Display Private Keys’.

3) Create a 4-digit security PIN.

4) Select ‘Display Ethereum Keys’ to show your keys that you will need to EXPORT.

5) Your public and private keys of the JAXX wallet will show. It is important to save your public and private keys and the 12-word back-up phrase you got when creating your JAXX wallet.

6)Once you are at MyEtherWallet (https://www.myetherwallet.com/), on the right side, click on the ‘Help’ to open the knowledge base and search for ‘How do I run myetherwallet locally’.

7)Click on the uplink and download the distribution zip file.

8)Once downloaded, you have to unzip the file. Once done, it will look like this and you have to open the ‘index’ file to give you access to the MyEtherWallet.

9)Once you go to that, it will look like just the website. Click on ‘View Wallet Info’.

10)Select the ‘Mnemonic Phrase’ or ‘Private Key’ so you can access your JAXX wallet.

11)When you click on ‘Unlock’, the site will show your JAXX wallet information. You can view the balance and check the transaction history from here. You can also send tokens by clicking on ‘Send Ether and Tokens’ and putting your private key to gain access to the wallet.
Self-Made: How Far Has Black Hair Come?
By: Seanna Wong
Tags: Black Hair, Gender, Colorism, Netflix, Race

Self-Made: How Far Has Black Hair Come?

1910 and 2020 are looking sorta similar

Courtesy of Netflix

Miss ‘Rona has had me and, I’m sure a majority of the U.S., watching a lot through streaming accounts this past week. The latest seasons of The Real Housewives of Potomac, Series of Unfortunate Events and All American proved distracting albeit entertaining binges for sure. But last night I watched season one of Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C. J. Walker and frankly it has me in my feelings.

Like most things lately I started watching because of mixed reviews on Twitter. Everything from imploring prayer for Octavia Spencer as some deemed the show was simply not it, praise for the representation itself, as well as paragraphs of disappointment from what seemed like yet another unnecessary story of colorist black female rivalry between Madam C.J. and Addie Monroe (real life Annie Turnbo Malone).

For those who side with the latter view of the season or variations of it, I wonder if the dark skin vs. “high yellow” or light skin debate is considered too old and over with to discuss. Mainly wondering because I highly disagree.

Although Addie Monroe’s character displayed somewhat brazen mulatta pride, quasi-self hate, and frayed self-concept that came off a bit strong it wasn’t at all modernly unrealistic. Even if writers took creative liberties for a feuding plot line between both leading characters, the conversation is still worth having as colorism runs rampant today. It’s hard to talk about Black hair and texturism and not have colorism join the chat.

After finishing the series and completing my very minimal quarantine schedule for the day, I started thinking about my own childhood of bending ears forward to avoid the vengeful burn of a hot comb. Giving myself split ends running a flat iron through my hair trying to keep up with the Weinsteins and the Joneses, failing miserably, and finding a new form of self-care in going natural.

Embedded in all of those experiences and more was the indirect control of whiteness funneled through the lens of Black exoticism, that is prioritizing lightness and the fetishization of more-than-just-black or black but with non-black features that is so ingrained in beauty standards that it is hard to unlearn.
Springrole— Un réseau professionnel décentralisé ; le LinkedIn de demain
Tags: ICO, Professional Networking, Blockchain, Social Network, Cryptocurrency

La vision de SpringRole :

“ Project Spring Foundation is building the Spring network from the ground up, while considering all stakeholders. Users are fairly incentivized with SPRING as are attesters, ultimately providing a highly useful and validated resource for recruiters and prospective employers, partners and others. In fact, by fairly incentivizing users, users are always the central focus of the network. ”
The Rebel Poets Society
Tags: Erotica, BDSM, Dominatrix, Poetry On Medium, Sex

(Spell-)Bound

An Erotic Poem

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

“A slow burn produces an explosive fire,”

she tells you as she presses her lips against your inner thighs.

“Endure,” she whispers as you reach for her hair.

“Let me control the pace, and I’ll reward you.”

You’re close to trembling, as her mouth takes you in

and you’re left wondering when she’ll allow you to touch her.

You ache and you crave to punish her for this —

but if the gods could ever be human

you know they themselves would launch ships just to lie beneath her

begging, too, for her invitation.
Manga Rock Shuts Down Due to Piracy and Starts MR Comics
By: Limarc Ambalina
Tags: Manga, Anime, Comics, Mrcomics, Anime News

Manga Rock Shuts Down Due to Piracy and Starts MR Comics Limarc Ambalina Follow May 10 · 2 min read

While, I was looking for places I could suggest my readers to read the Your Name manga online, I came upon one of the most famous manga sites and manga apps in the world, Manga Rock. Unfortunately, the company has closed down. Manga Rock online and the Manga Rock APK on the android and iOS app stores have also been taken down.

Like me, you’re probably wondering why and the answer is piracy. “There’s no excuse for the negative impact aggregator sites like ourselves have created for the comic industry and creators,” says Manga Rock. The company has admitted their faults in full and genuinely wants to right their wrongs.

Only, they are not simply taking down their site and app, they are completely rebranding and recreating their company from the ground up.

Via their new brand, MR Comics, the company plans to create a new platform. This platform aims to make comics accessible to fans all over the world. With over 10 years of experience building tech and catering to manga fans, the company shows great promise. Numerous Youtube commentators have already expressed their support.

Creating a Netflix for Manga

Everyone loves manga, but are people willing to pay for it? The answer seems to be yes. One user named Adishnu asks “Can’t you make it like a Netflix for manga? One [fee] and unlimited reading, but like affordable? [Because] I wouldn’t mind paying that small amount, as long as I [can] keep reading.” Adishnu brings up a good point, one that I’ve been wondering for a long time. Why doesn’t someone come out with a Netflix for manga? After all, streaming services like Netflix have significantly cut down movie and television piracy. It’s easy to believe that a similar platform would do the same thing for manga.

Youtube commentators have shown almost universal support for such a platform. However, it’s likely easier said than done. There are copyright laws in place that may be different per country or per company.

One huge benefit MR Comics advertises is tools for creators. The company plans to provide creators and publishers with AI-assisted tools to help them with their work.

Until the platform takes off, however, we will have to read manga the standard way: buying them in stores or online.

Original article reposted with permission.
Tokenizing Unique Digital Goods
By: Andrew J. Chapin
Tags: Non Fungible Tokens, Blockchain, Bhq Contributors, Bitcoin, Cryptokitties

NFTs are a meaningful step forward for a few reasons.

There is provable scarcity. Each asset is provably unique so you know if that “one of a kind” collectible is actually one of a kind. Counterfeit digital goods are a huge problem — especially with items like event tickets — but issuing over an NFT addresses those issues.

Ownership is verifiable. End-users truly own a digital good. It cannot be charged back or taken away, and it is no longer dependent on a central business, government, or authority. This means a service or product that issued the asset does not need to exist for the asset to live on. Further, all aspects of ownership are visible. Who created, possessed, transferred, and owns each asset are out there for everyone to see.

They’re programmable. The asset itself holds code identifying all unique information about the asset, and since this code is available to the public, other applications can incorporate the goods. We don’t know what opportunities this affords yet.

Liqudity. The ever-present opportunity to exchange a digital asset is meaningful — you don’t have to rely on StubHub to find a buyer for your digital event ticket, for example. Irreversible transactions offer protections (both buyer and seller-side) not found in many commerce channels.
SAMENA Trends — December 2018 by SAMENA Telecommunications Council
By: Bubbletone Blockchain In Telecom
Tags: Blockchain Development, Middle East, Telecommunication, Blockchain, Blockchain Technology

Blockchain-based Platform and its Opportunities for Telecom Operators

by Alexander Yakovenko, Project Director at Bubbletone Blockchain in Telecom, pages 79–81:



https://www.samenacouncil.org/samena_trends/interactive/december2018

About SAMENA Trends

SAMENA Trends is SAMENA’s monthly newsletter. This newsletter incorporates news, analysis, data and research on Telecommunications and ICT industries in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa and reports on recent regulatory, commercial and technical developments in the sector.

https://www.samenacouncil.org/samena-trends
Unexpected Visitors
By: Kerri Richardson
Tags: Lift Your Spirit, Christmas, Blog, Electricity, Church

We had some uninvited, but welcomed, guests join us on Christmas Day. Actually, they arrived on Christmas Eve, prior to our getting to my in-laws’ house, but only my father-in-law, Bill, saw them.

Bill’s sister, Kathy, recently had to put one of her beloved dogs, Lucas, to rest. It’s been an incredibly difficult time for her as any animal lover can appreciate, and while visiting her during the day on Christmas Eve, Bill offered words of comfort as she grieved. “Lucas is up there looking down on you, Kathy. He’s up there with Dad and Deb (Kathy’s dear friend who passed unexpectedly a year ago), and he’s at peace.”

That night, Bill and my mother-in-law, Jeanenne, head off to church. As the vocalist sings the Our Father — a favorite part of the service for both of them — Jeanenne, as always, bows her head with eyes closed, and Bill, as always, looks up at the ceiling. This time, however, Bill saw more than the beautiful architecture of the building.

“As clear as day,” he tells us on Christmas, “up at that ceiling, I saw my father’s face, with Deb standing next to him, and she was shaking Lucas’s paw.” Not one to cry easily, his eyes fill up with tears as he shares his incredible experience. I begin to cry as well. “I just kept staring, and they stayed there — Dad looking at me, and Deb smiling as big as always, holding Lucas’s paw. I just couldn’t believe it. And I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.”

It’s no secret that everyone doesn’t subscribe to my belief of life after death, or that our loved ones communicate with us from beyond. And before this experience, Bill would have been at the top of that list. He had heard us talk in the past about friends of ours who are mediums, psychics, spiritual communicators, etc, and always took it with a grain of salt or challenged the validity of it all. But, his experience in church that night tells me that he’s more open to the possibility because his loved ones felt it safe to come.

Their visit continued on Christmas Day, noted by lamps turning off (two at the same time), and other flickering electricity. Some powerful stuff was going on in that house! I hope Bill and Jeanenne continue to see it for what it’s meant to be — a message from loved ones on the Other Side, letting them know all is well.

So, do you acknowledge your visitors? How do you know when your loved ones are around?

Image by Brooke Anderson
Five Bullet Friday: Week 03
By: Ben O'Hanlon
Tags: Blockchain Development, Crypto, Fintech, Newsletter, Blockchain

Five Bullet Friday: Week 03

If this is the first time you’re reading our newsletter you can subscribe here and guarantee you don’t miss out on important news.

Komodo Showcasing Multi-Chain Architecture: Z-Transaction Functionality Is Moving To A New Interlinked Chain

We’re making some important changes to our main chain which showcase how adaptable our blockchain technology is. I recommend reading our newly posted article written by @Daniel CP “Komodo Showcasing Multi-Chain Architecture: Z-Transaction Functionality Is Moving To A New Interlinked Chain” to get up to speed.

Here’s How Komodo (KMD) Deals With 51% Attacks — Explains Founder & Core Developer James Lee

“The news of Ethereum Classic (ETC) getting 51% attacked spread like a wildfire just recently. Following this hack, questions began to raise regarding the security levels of various Proof-of-Work (PoW) employing chains. Is there a major flaw floating around in the PoW framework? Is there a workaround that can minimize the damage caused by such attacks? Komodo (KMD) seems to have employed a solution that might help in case of a 51% attack, the Delayed Proof-of-Work (dPoW).

Why are exchanges the primary target for double spend attacks?

Excellent Twitter thread by Haseeb Qureshi @hosseeb explaining 51% attacks and why exchanges are the primary target for a double spend attack, both of which can be countered by Komodo’s delayed proof of work. This is a great thread to point people to when you’re in a conversation.

Haseeb’s Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/hosseeb/status/1082815549132816384

Komodo’s Delayed Proof of Work explained: https://blog.komodoplatform.com/delayed-proof-of-work-explained-9a74250dbb86

Komodo, just another crypto or better than Bitcoin?

Trade Crypto Live does an in-depth analysis of Komodo in this Youtube video.

00:47 Komodo Overview

02:45 Keys of Komodo

07:01 Atomic Swamps and BarterDEX

07:25 Cross Chain Smart Contracts

08:03 Delayed Proof of Work

10:09 Myths and Facts of dPoW

11:25 What the Notary Node Do

12:01 Jumbler, the decentralized tumbler

13:18 China loves Komodo

Would you like to write for Komodo?

We would like to invite the submission of articles for our ‘community content’ section on Medium. Each submission should include a story, no matter how brief, to draw the readers into your story and understand how the tech works in real life. Read our submission guidelines here and you could find yourself published and featured in this newsletter.

Thank you for being a part of our community. Want to get these Five Bullet Fridays in your inbox? Subscribe here.
Lost in Translation
Tags: Humor, Fashion, Funny, Comics, Cartoon

Written by

Almost famous cartoonist who laughs at her own jokes and hopes you will, too.
Report from the Interior by Paul Auster
By: Carol Mann Agency
Tags: Paul Auster, Autobiography

Having recalled his life through the story of his physical self in Winter Journal, internationally acclaimed novelist Paul Auster now remembers the experience of his development from within through the encounters of his interior self with the outer world in Report from the Interior.

From his baby’s-eye view of the man in the moon, to his childhood worship of the movie cowboy Buster Crabbe, to his dawning awareness of the injustices of American life, Report from the Interior charts Auster’s moral, political, and intellectual journey as he inches his way toward adulthood through the postwar 1950s and into the turbulent 1960s.

The final section of Report from the Interior recapitulates the first three parts, told in an album of pictures. A story of the times — which makes it everyone’s story — and the story of the emerging consciousness of a renowned literary artist, this four-part work answers the challenge of autobiography in ways rarely seen before.

Report from the Interior is available now for purchase at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and your local indie store.

Praise for Report from the Interior

“Report from the Interior is a fetchingly original, if eclectic, examination of what it feels like to be a young person in a puzzle-world that still hasn’t fallen into place. We all felt it as children; Auster has simply revisited it and put it into words.” — Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Report from the Interior adds another piece to the jigsaw puzzle of one of our greatest writers.” — Shelf Awareness

“Auster is an achingly talented essayist.” — Denver Post

“The interplay of memory, identity and the creative imagination informs this portrait of the artist as a young man, a memoir that the novelist’s avid readership will find particularly compelling…. Auster has long rendered life as something of a puzzle; here are some significant, illuminating pieces.” — Kirkus

“This erratically episodic, somewhat puzzling compendium rounds out the edges to Auster’s oeuvre.” — Publishers Weekly

“A high-wire explication of his inner life… Auster’s phenomenal literary powers are generated by his equal fluency in matters emotional and cerebral. Here the origins of that sustaining duality are revealed.” — Booklist
The Worst (and Last) Thing The Narcissist Said to Me
By: Ena Dahl
Tags: Women, Relationships, Narcissism, This Happened To Me, Short Story

The words unsung

In the months after I came clean about my affair and we were still living together, I kept wishing for him to say the right things. I yearned to hear the words—any words—to make me want to stay. I grappled for something to keep us afloat.

I spent hours writing him messages. We went to therapy, and I tried to initiate conversations, giving him a chance to say it. I wanted him to tell me, and show me, that he understood: I wanted some proof that he empathized.

I wasn’t looking to justify my affair, but I wanted him to see the full picture. I wanted him to tell me that he was sorry too and that he was ready to take his share of the responsibility and do whatever necessary to save us.

I know now, that expecting empathy from a narcissist is akin to squeezing blood from a stone (nowadays he frequently uses that same idiom to justify why he simply can’t pay any child support. This, in the same message where he attaches a picture for our daughter; of himself—in his new car—on his way to work. *Eye-roll*). Expecting an apology from him was a futile pursuit.
Fourth annual ‘Living Well with Lupus’ symposium scheduled for April 25
Tags: Awareness, Symposium, Fundraiser

The Lupus Foundation of America is presenting the fourth annual “Living Well with Lupus” symposium at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Cherry Hill on April 25 from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

There will be three speakers at the symposium. They include Linda Brecher, rheumatologist at Penn Medicine Associates in Cherry Hill, on “Living with Lupus,” Mark Thuer, certified health coach of Cherry Hill on “Lifestyle Choices To Help You Thrive, Not Just Survive” and Tom Giordano, Jr. attorney with Pond, Lehocky, Stern, Giordano on “Disability & Returning To The Workplace.”

The cost is $10 per person plus $5 for any additional guests. The fee includes brunch and materials. To attend, register online at www.supportlupustristate.org or call (866) 517–5070 or email info@lupustristate.org.
Is Your Family Story Fact or Fiction?
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Heritage, Family, Dna, Ancestry, History

The year is unknown, but I believe it to be sometime in the mid-18th century, amidst the French and Indian war. With no concrete date to start with, I may have to work my way backwards.

I’m interested to find out how much truth is in this story — how much of this story is my history. Am I really a descendant of French royalty, or is that only a story told down from my grandmother and her grandmother before? Was it based in fact, or simply a bedtime story?

On one hand, I know that with a lot of work, nothing is impossible. But on the other hand, how does one verify such details — how do you prove a child was taken and raised as someone she wasn’t? It’s very doubtful any records were kept of such things — after the ship came to port. But could there be a record of the voyage? The passengers — those who lived, and those who died? …but then, what possible reason would a royal family have to travel from France to America; if they did, was it aboard a cargo ship? Or was it a sailing vessel?

So many unanswered questions, and so many silky threads to follow, many of them long broken.

Although every path might lead to a dead-end or maybe more unanswered questions, some stories must be read. Some stories are meant to be picked apart and put back together, even if for nothing more than our own personal gratification.

We all come from somewhere, and this big spinning ball we live on actually isn’t as big as we believe it to be. In a world of broken promises, forgotten roots, diluted bloodlines, and lost identities, I think we owe ourselves a little truth. I owe myself a little truth. So I’m going to follow the sticky and silky strands until the web has been woven. Until I know who I am.
Finding Rehomed Memories in a Thrift Store
By: Vanessa Torre
Tags: Home, Life Lessons, Self, Memories, Family

I rarely feel compelled to buy anything when I find little memories. Except for Pyrex. Pyrex is the link to both my mother and my grandmother. If I had a bigger kitchen, you can bet I would have an entire cabinet filled with nothing but old Pyrex. It gives me that much joy.

I didn’t buy the dessert glasses that day. Getting to see them, touch them, and have a flood of memories hit me was enough. I have dozens of other memories to encounter. Now, I make trips to Goodwill just to visit my past. Who knows what I’ll find.

It’s made me think differently about what we do with the things that we no longer want. I’m not one to hold onto much. I have embraced the joy of tidying up even though I said I wouldn’t.

The hard part for me is that I derive a lot of simple pleasure in small things. If I bought and kept every single thing that sparked joy for me, I’d be a hoarder. I’m not compulsive, I’m just happy.

I like to think of donating our stuff to Goodwill as rehoming our memories. We look around our homes and determine that we have gotten all the mileage we need out of that set of gas station glasses our parents collected in 1982 and passed on to us when we moved out on our own for the first time and needed glasses. Those glasses that have lived in every house we’ve lived in.

We may not need them anymore but that’s not to say that someone else doesn’t.

That silly pint glass with the Charlie Brown cartoon on it is someone’s childhood. I like to think that if we took those glasses to Goodwill, they will find their way to the person that needs to see them.

When we had to put my grandma in memory care, my parents and I had to sort through her things and decide what would be kept and what would not. We gave nearly everything away.

I kept her Coke soda glasses. The same ones she would use to make me an egg cream every time I went to her house as a kid. They’re still in my cabinet even though I have not once used them since I placed them there nine years ago.

My grandma passed away two months ago. I’m keeping one of those glasses and rehoming the others. It’s time. The memory is too burned into my mind to ever lose it. One glass is enough.

I hope in a few months someone is standing in Goodwill, smiling, remembering their own grandmother. I wish that for them.

So, next time you’re cleaning out your house or your mom’s house or your uncle’s house, don’t throw anything away. Send the things off to be rehomed. Someone needs to hold them or own them.

Someone lost a loved one. Someone had a picture hanging in their childhood home. We all deserve to be reunited with our own memories, even if for just a moment.
Entanglements
By: Uchechi Obasi
Tags: Poetry, Haiku, Heartbreak, Dating, Love

I tell stories entangled in the ridges of my mind. My words will nourish your soul. Passionate about women, children, tea and a little “too” many other things.

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