fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Difference in Indifference — Caste and Criticism
By: Atharavraj Yadav
Tags: Caste, India, Articles, Madhya Pradesh, Caste Discrimination

As a boy, I’d observed the caste discrimination in my village. There were several aspects to it, but one considerable facet that I see was that, it was the act of dominance and power. There’s a ranking that endure in sociality and psychology that occurs alongwith it.

Image by MetsikGarden from Pixabay

The individuals who clean toilets, cut your hairs, repair your shoes, wash clothes, execute final rites at crematorium ground, caters as your housemaid and even expert craftspeople, were all labelled a lower caste in hierarchy. They did not get opportunity for education and were financially unsound. Most of them did not enjoy any patrimonial property to possess. The unlucky facet of it was that they’d their caste as congenital. One has to encounter huge counteraction inside one’s family and society to be able to identify a wicked and show it as it is. It’s very well obvious that without counteraction, there can’t be any considerable alters in the society.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

One of the prime contributors towards imposing caste system is, your last name or surname, that’s assumed to delineate your caste. Most of my friends are married to partner of same caste they pertaining to, just to have an equiponderant in the caste system’s hierarchy. One can evidently filter these facets by reading the last name. marrying a person regardless of their social order shall be the subsequent step in proper direction. Love go beyond all the frontiers of hatred and division.

Image by Kant Smith from Pixabay

Another facet which was formerly and presently vehement in rural areas is the act of untouchability. To be competent to get free from all misfortunes of caste system, it’s important that this tradition be eradicated and excoriated as a terrifying anecdote of spiritual unenlightenment. Wherever one witness it, directly or indirectly, in the shape of mental or physical, it should be reprobated and penalized by statute.

As George Washington Carver aforesaid, ‘Education is the latchkey to unbar the golden doors of freedom’. But regrettably in India, most of had handed the erroneous keys and as a result, they scramble to unbar the propitious gate of freedom.
Top Trader Unlocks 860 LOC in Payout (Trading Event)
By: Locktrip.Com, Loc Token, Official Blog
Tags: Trading, Ethereum, Locktrip, Crypto Trading, Bitcoin

Week 1 of the trading event has just ended — and what a gripping round it was! Speaking in the name of the LockTrip team, this was one of our favorite events so far and we enjoyed watching it unfold day by day.

Top Performers

In the center of the event was the competition for the top 3 positions. As these positions yield additional prizes from the Bonus Pool, they are highly desired among traders.

The top performer had a healthy safety margin towards its competitors, but ranks 2, 3 and 4 were much closer to each other.

The Bonus Pool always grows at 0.25% of the trading volume. Thanks to 261,818 LOC being traded throughout the week, it grew up to 655 LOC, which was allocated for the podium positions as it can be seen from the screenshot above.

Together with the 500 LOC reward for reaching the 50k LOC volume milestone (see below), the top performer unlocked a total reward of 860 LOC. Will we see the 1,000 LOC barrier being broken next round?

Other Winners

The great thing about the trading event is that everyone can unlock payouts, regardless of their position in the ranking. Reaching certain volume thresholds guarantees fixed payouts.

As a result, 22 traders were able to unlock payouts. All rewards will be distributed within 5 days.

Next Round Starts Today!

Were you unable to join during Round 1? No problem! Round 2 starts today. You can view the exact starting time in the Event Overview below:

If you registered your wallet for the previous round, there is no need to register again. If you are new, please register your wallet before starting your trades. More info about the event can be found here.
Binary Search Tree
By: Sejan Miah
Tags: Programming, Swift, Binary Search, Algorithms, iOS

Implementing a Binary Search Tree:

Let’s get one thing clear, if you’re going to implement a BST, the underlying assumption is that you have the values that you are trying to sort in the order that you want them to be sorted in. If you call your binary search tree function within your previous function that is sorting your array of values, chances are you will end up with a run-time of O(n log n), which nobody wants. At this stage in the game, I try to keep algorithms at O(n) if not faster.

For the most your binary search tree should have a run-time of O( log n), this is because if we are searching through an array of size n, and halving the array each time time until we get the value we want, that can be expressed as base-2 logarithm of n, AKA O(log n). Logarithm functions grow very slowly and are the inverse of exponentials, which grow very quickly. Worse case scenario you have a lot of values, the run-time is usually O(n).

Here are some charts from Khan Academy that visualize this:

Further Reading:

https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/algorithms/binary-search/a/running-time-of-binary-search
33. Mood-worlds of the Slowdown. Olelakan Jeyifous and Simon Stålenhag…
By: Dan Hill
Tags: Art, Design, Urbanism, Architecture, Cities

It’s hard to believe there’s a British child of my generation (I was born in 1970) who did not play in or near such a waste-ground as a kid, but I imagine that’s consistent across much of Europe — certainly Amsterdam (from which Van Eyck’s playgrounds spring up like flowers) and Berlin, where the bombs’ scars are still just about visible as toothy gaps, but now usually populated by beautiful, convivial gardens and playgrounds (described here).

So the mood-world of the bombed-out playground is clearly tangible and immediately recognisable, but the way that images are provoked is also slippery and complex enough to offer this “assemblage of mixed moods.” This makes the concept of mood-world itself as interesting as the particular instance of the waste-ground or bombsite.

‘Mood-worlds’ may be valuable addition to our toolkit, as something other than mere drawings, plans or reported populated with tables and graph—as more open, evocative, generative, diverse, immersive and almost ambient sensibilities. They could work alongside other forms of input, providing a far richer set of ingredients for brewing new thoughts about cities and places.

Highmore, as a cultural theorist, explores these mood-worlds through narrative forms such as novels and films. Assessing different forms of representation may open up new vistas onto the landscapes in question here.

But waste-grounds and bombsites are the opposite of what a slowdown landscape mood-world might be. They provide useful prompts, through their indeterminacy, openness, blankness, scrappy at-hand adaptability, fallow condition, and not least the resilience and diversity of their intransigent flora. Yet a slowdown landscape could be rather more joyous, vibrant, alive, and sometimes impeccably designed. The typical Post-war Bombsite Mood-World was often a key backdrop to the Acceleration-era narrative—a space not left purposefully incomplete or fallow, but merely carelessly left behind in pursuit of narrow economic agendas.

Stålenhag’s slowdown landscapes

Perhaps the Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag captures this maudlin mood-world redolent of the end of the Great Acceleration, endless soft-blue chilly landscapes punctuated by the headlamps of 1980s Volvos glowing in the gloom, or ramshackle ICA supermarkets slowly tumbling into the snow. Only a fully Nordic writer like Karl Ove Knausgård could capture the stubborn melancholy of these scenes. I recall his description of flying into Oslo and looking down at the pin-pricks of orange car headlamps amdist the cloaking snow and indigo: “like little ponds of heat … filled with a particular contrarian dignity, for the space in which they occur is not only black and freezing cold and endless, it is also expanding.”

Stålenhag’s exurban environments are video game widescreen, hovering indeterminately in the similar landscapes of the USA’s Mid-West and Sweden’s midriff, bleakly beautiful, largely depopulated, redolent of entropy, with vanishing points that most thoroughly vanish, lost in the mist.
6 Things Programmers Know Are Bad But Still Do Anyway
Tags: Programming, Web Development, JavaScript, Technology, Software Development

1. Quick and Dirty Solutions

Sometimes you know the solution you chose is suboptimal. However, this suboptimal solution gets implemented because it's quick and the code works. This leaves you with more time to fix other stuff. Nothing wrong with that, right?

It feels good to fix a certain problem within a matter of time. But making your code work is only a tiny part of the job. The problem with quick and dirty solutions is that this approach brings some serious deficiencies that lead to more technical debt.

Whenever you bring another one of your quick and dirty solutions to review, you should be aware of the fact that these “solutions” can be devastating for the morale of the team.

In your defense, there might be some cases where quick and dirty may not really matter. It might actually be the right way to go in certain situations (e.g. when code has a short lifespan).

But when you need code for the long run, fixing things in a quick and dirty way will come back to bite you. Don’t justify these solutions by saying that you’ll clean them up later. We’ve all heard that fairy tale before.
Lingerie’s Allure and Impact on My Sexuality
By: G. Charles
Tags: Women, Sex, Men, Sexuality, Relationships

I’m not sure how I first stumbled across my mother’s lingerie drawer, but I did during a time she and my father were out. No one was around and I pulled it open and ran my hands over a black, sheer nightgown with a slit up one side. It was a wonderfully dangerous feeling. I pulled it out with my breath just caught in my chest, dashed into the bathroom, undressed and slipped it on.

Looking back, I can see a difference between sex and sexuality. I didn’t fantasize about kissing and fucking, but I enjoyed the elegance of what I was wearing. I quickly took it off, put it back and said nothing.

When another opportunity came and I was alone, my mother’s lingerie drawer was like a treasure chest. I took out the same gown, slipped it on but this time I added a touch of lipstick and eyeliner.

Femininity was a gorgeous gift that drew me in with the desire to imitate a lingerie model.

My bedroom was upstairs where we also had a storage closet. There were other sheer gowns on clothes hangers that were easier access. I’d sometimes take those and hurry to my room, try them for a few moments and enjoy the fabric’s sensation before taking them off and returning them, never revealing this secret.

But I was also quite masculine, a long-distance runner who enjoyed competing among other sports. I respected men.

Both masculinity and femininity swirled together when I was 19 and living in a studio apartment with a roommate. He’d often ask me what I thought of guys who were gay. I’d say they were fine and shrug off the question. But he’d ask more questions and I confided that I felt I was likely bi-sexual with an interest in oral sex with guys. But I also shared my desire for lingerie and how I liked wearing my mother’s on occasion.

He wanted to know more. We slept on daybeds and he invited me to push ours together. My desire for wearing bikini bottoms struck me with a sense of inner heat but I never acted on those thoughts or desires. I nicely declined to push our beds together and after that semester he moved out.

I found out later he was gay and liked me and I often wished he would have come out and said it directly. I was unaware, even though I could sense the confluence of masculinity and femininity in our relationship.

He was as masculine as me, or perhaps more so. He never mentioned a desire to wear women’s clothing although it appealed to me. But that didn’t mean I was gay. It really meant I admired women and wanted to imitate their mystique as closely as possible.
74 Million Voters is Not Half the United States
By: Carol Lennox
Tags: Vote, Politics, Election 2020, Society, Democracy

74 Million Voters is Not Half the United States

Stop saying it is.

Photo by Orlova Maria on Unsplash

Please stop saying half of the U.S. supports the wannabe dictator in the White House, who is currently trying to organize a coup.

The argument keeps being stated that “half” of Americans back Trump. While 74 million isn’t a number to be disregarded, it isn’t even close to half of the American population, not nearly half of eligible voters, and not even half of registered voters.

The number of registered voters in the United States is around 207 million. That’s only 81 percent of all eligible voters. Eligible voters are around 264,114,000. Of those approximately 207 million registered voters, only around 155 million voted. Half of that is 77 million.

Trumps 74 million votes aren’t even half of the number who voted, much less half of the registered voters, which is 103 million, and nowhere near half of the eligible voters, which is 132,057,000.

In fact, his 74 million is 58 million less than half the eligible voters. It’s 30 million less than half the registered voters. It’s 7 million less than the number of people who voted for Biden.

Is that clear as mud? Bottom line is, Trump didn’t win the support of half of the U.S. He didn’t even come close to half of registered voters, and certainly not half the eligible voters, and he was 7 million behind Biden in the actual vote. Biden received 4 million more than half of the counted votes.

If the election could really have been rigged, as Trump keeps insisting, why stop at the number of registered voters? Why not cast fraudulent ballots for all those eligible voters who weren’t registered? Why not fraudulently register them and cast votes for them? They didn’t go to the polls, so they would never know. And yet, hat didn’t happen.
Group Captain Leonard Cheshire On Leadership
By: Raf Casps
Tags: Military History, Bomber Command, War, World War II, History

Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, Baron Cheshire VC OM DSO** DFC is interviewed by Group Captain (later Air Vice-Marshal) Tony Mason CB CBE DL at the RAF Staff College, Bracknell, February 1978. During the interview Group Captain Cheshire discusses his now legendary record of achievements throughout his service during WWII.

Group Captain Cheshire received a commission as a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve on 16 November 1937. Although he demonstrated considerable prowess in training as a single seat pilot, by a vagary of the system he was destined to be posted to Bomber Command. During the War his command appointments included 76 Squadron, 617 Squadron, and RAF Marston Moor and he was, at one time, the youngest group captain in the RAF. By July 1944 he had completed a total of 102 missions, for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. His citation simply states: ‘Cheshire displayed the courage and determination of an exceptional leader’. After the war, Cheshire founded the charity Leonard Cheshire Disability and devoted the remainder of his life to pursuing humanitarian ideals. His obituary in the Independent (1992) declares that ‘LEONARD CHESHIRE was one of the most remarkable men of his generation, perhaps the most remarkable’.
Sunlit Soul Blues Sing of Unity
By: Carolyn Riker
Tags: Poetry, Diversity, Equality, Unity, Democracy

A rose speaks the sky and sea.

From her heirloom wisdom

never to abandon but as a eulogy.

It repeats for the living

whose dying is blindly quenched

by false pretense of white man’s undoing.

A rose reminds us of her realities,

as we are our ancestor’s revolution.

Only together will we be a democracy.

As the day passes

the petals of her skirt fall and decay

to balance the earth’s Native truths.

Spirits nudge us to know

the bounty of humanity’s needs.

A cry to see the epic love notes

served to us by lesser means,

hidden in plain sight such as

the homeless seeded along

their daylight-shadowy plight.

The marginalized who carry

this deadly weight,

sing from sunlit soul Blues,

till fingers bleed and we hear

the depth of their truth. The musical riffs

are how tree rings first grew.

Diversity brushes the score

with ivory and ebony. And the pulse

rises and falls with rhythms of courage.

Vulnerability crests over infinite illusions

and the scales of transparency

let us hear the voice of Muddy Waters

who feeds our need for a deep-rooted equality.

All this is felt from a rose

who symbolism sky to sea

with an unbinding call

for all to join

a deeply needed unity.
Books That Foster Critical Thinking: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
By: Zachary Walston
Tags: Personal Development, From The Library, Personal Growth, Books, Reading

Photo by Isaac Davis on Unsplash

The themes of doubt and scientific curiosity are threaded throughout The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynman, and they are among the most important mindsets anyone can adopt.

“The prize is the pleasure of finding things out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it.”

Questioning everything does not mean we lack commitment; the aim is not to be a perfectionist. Frequently expressing doubt and maintaining a high level of scientific curiosity is the single most important quality for any professional aiming to constantly improve. We will never have all the answers, but we can keep refining and layers on new concepts, new perspectives, and new information.

“It is our capacity to doubt that will determine the future of civilization.”

Find more recommendations at zacharywalston.com

*Book link is an Amazon Affiliate Link
Speed up Sketch workflow using Boolean Operations
By: Sahil Dave
Tags: Product Design, Sahil Dave, Sketch, Graphic Design, UI Design

The inspiration for this article came after spending hours drooling over the icons that Marc Edward made in his new Imgur album “Vector icon speed runs”. Make sure to check it out.

Although, by the looks of it, he is using Adobe Illustrator and there are a few other things that Marc does in his speed run; in almost all of the flows he uses some kind of Boolean Operation.
Movement in Video Games
By: Michael Lubinski
Tags: Lifestyle, Videogames, Features, Nintendo Switch, Gaming

Movement in Video Games

These Nintendo Switch games will blow your mind the second you pick up the controller due to their extremely fun movement mechanics

Every so often a video game will come along that’s an absolute joy to play. What I mean by this is that you are blown away simply by picking up the controller and performing its most basic functions. Whether the game features running, jumping, sliding, dodging, or flying, whatever it ends up being, is simply a joy to play.

Through the course of reviewing Nintendo Switch games in the last few years, I’ve discovered a handful of such games that tickle that specific fancy.

They are few and far between, rare even, but you know you have one when it feels just right.

I’ve compiled five such games for you all below. These games will blow your mind the second you pick up the controller. Some are hugely successful, while others are not, but they all have one thing in common. They have all created a stellar movement experience for the player.

Shinsekai Into The Depths

Kicking this list off with a bang! If you have followed me for any length of time you’d have noticed by flamboyant support for Shinsekai Into the Depths. In fact, it’s my current pick for Game of the Year in 2020.
What Everyone Should Know About Chasing Their Dreams
By: Anthony J. Yeung
Tags: Self Improvement, Inspiration, Personal Development, Life, Life Lessons

You’ve probably read countless stories on Medium about people who made all their dreams come true by taking a huge risk, committing to their goal, and working harder than anyone else. (After all, that’s the recipe most articles teach for success.)

For example, they took out a loan to start a business, took a one-way trip to a different continent and started a new happy life, or quit school to create a social media platform—and everything worked out in the end.

But that’s only 1% of the story.

The reason why I shared my tale is to explain that there is no rule in the book that says that everything has to go your way when you follow “the plan.”

Life can be cruel.

Life can be mean.

Maybe someone else could’ve done the same exact thing I did in Australia and succeeded. Or maybe someone else tried the exact same thing I did to write for magazines like Esquire and GQ and they fell flat on their face.

The only difference between them and me is just timing and the luck of the draw.

Life doesn't always go according to plan, even if you have the best fucking plan possible. And while it's valuable to think ahead, but it's even more valuable to understand things change rapidly (and drastically) and you must be prepared to adlib or retreat.

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." —Mike Tyson

A lot of self-improvement people make it seem if you work really hard, wake up at 4 AM in the morning, read awesome quotes, and commit everything to your goal, you will achieve your dreams.

But that is not necessarily the case.

Because when you read their stuff (ex. articles like “How I Made $XX,XXX/month on Medium”), remember something important: Their articles are not a cookbook.

With a cookbook, if you follow a recipe to make, say, a cake, you will always make a cake. But with “success stories,” if you follow their recipe, you will not always make a cake. Sometimes the cake catches on fire. Sometimes you can’t find certain ingredients. Sometimes random people pour sand into your mixing bowl. Sometimes you don’t even have an oven while the person who wrote the recipe has a deluxe Michelin-star kitchen.

The brutal truth is the personal development space has a lot of “survivorship bias,” which is our tendency to analyze only those who succeeded and create conclusions about them while ignoring the many, many people who didn’t succeed. Unfortunately, this bias can screw you up:
Horatio — one of the Conservancy’s feathered wildlife ambassadors
By: Conservancy Of Swfl
Tags: Florida, Education, Birds, Wildlife

By Conservancy Volunteer Bill Rhodes

Over the past few years, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida has been redesigning and rebuilding its wildlife rehabilitation area, a part of the von Arx Wildlife Hospital facilities. Behind the main hospital, new flight and recovery cages for birds of prey have been built as well as a new, modern aviary and a shallow pool built for wading and shore birds.

A few birds are permanent residents and serve as wildlife ambassadors. They came to the Conservancy badly hurt, wings or eyes damaged, and cannot be released into the wild. Other than the impairment from their original injuries, they are healthy now.

One wildlife ambassador is a red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis, named Horatio. Red-tails are among the most common hawks in North America, often seen in trees along roadsides. He has a reddish tail that contrasts with his overall brown plumage, and sports large, razor-sharp talons. Horatio, incidentally, may not be a male — birds that do not exhibit sexual dimorphism (males and females having differing plumage and colors) can only be told apart by an internal exam or blood test.

He came to the Conservancy in 2004 with a broken wing, after a fall from his nest. Horatio is large, and looks bulky, but he weighs only 2.5 lbs. Birds’ bones are hollow, keeping their weight down to permit flight. Horatio’s right humerus (wing bone) was broken from his fall, and while it mended, he is unable to fly well enough to be released into the wild. While red-tails can live 12–15 years in the wild, in human care they can live as long as 25–30 years.

At home now in a 30’-foot tall wire mesh, wooden, and steel aviary, Horatio has several roosts, ramps, and platforms to hop and climb on as well as a pool to bathe in. He is fed rats and mice, along with quail and chicken, which reflect the types of prey he would hunt for in the wild. While red-tails prefer small mammals as prey, they are opportunistic and can target birds, lizards, and snakes also. Like other birds of prey (except turkey vultures, which rely predominately on smell) red-tails hunt using their highly developed eyesight. Circling high above the ground, they can spot a field mouse scurrying in the brush below. Those you see on roadside trees and poles use those perches to scan the ground for prey and will swoop down from there to capture their food.

Come meet Horatio, our wildlife ambassador. He can be heard from a distance, seen close-up in his enclosure, and is often brought out by a Conservancy naturalist to the delight of guests and children during educational programs.
Two More Books off the List… Oh, look there’s still a Library here…
By: Jonathon Howard
Tags: Politics, Religion, Reviews, Books

Yesterday I finished reading The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy by Two Guys. I didn’t finish the book but I am done with reading it. I should have just picked up the original article these two wrote. I don’t need a 400 page, immaculately researched, and backed up book to tell me that Israel gets a free pass here in the United States. Turn the news on and you see it does. As do all our other brutal but anti-terrorist friends in the world. Is this going to change anytime soon? Probably not, the book quotes innumerable politicaians and organizations that all say the same thing, “The Israel Lobby is the most powerful in Washington”, and “They control the public discourse relating to Israel and the Middle-East in this country”. That is a depressing thought, it is also depressing to think that even bringing up the topic of a bias in American discourse towards Israel gets you immediately labeled a new anti-Semite. So I guess that is what I’m going to be looking forward to, when I say that Carter is right and what is going on in Israel and along the West Bank is Apartheid and there is no excuse for it in a democratic country. There is also no excuse for anyone who thinks that it is okay to do so, regardless of the reasoning behind it. Racism is Racism, Hate is Hate. You don’t get rid of it by building walls around it, or killing it.

Enough of the depressing, soul wrenching dump we call the Middle East.

I also just finished Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner. I liked the book, but then Buddhism appeals to me Zen in particular because there is no religiousness about it. It’s a practice and it’s solely concerned with the here and now, this existence. If more people were doing that instead of getting weepy eyed and hopeful about what might happen after were dead, the world would be a better place. I didn’t need all the talk about the punk scene in the 80’s but that’s Warner’s life and this is his book… So he can do what he wants. Stripping all the bull out of practice though, I liked that. Also the talk about Godzilla rocks, he needed more of that and less of Ultraman, who likes Ultraman?

In conclusion, if you’re interested in learning about Zen Buddhism without all the ritual and formula and tricky words, without all the baggage you should pick up a copy of the Hardcore Zen. If you need all the references to back up what you already knew about American foreign policy towards Israel pick up the first book and flip to the back, there is pages of it. Oh, and pointing out the truth doesn’t make you a bigot. Some people just don’t like the truth… Screw them.
Crypto meltdown: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, and Litecoin are being crushed
By: Round The Block
Tags: Ripple, Ethereum, Eos, Bitcoin, Litecoin

Last week certainly was one to forget for crypto traders with heavy declines being experienced by almost all major coins. Unfortunately, the selloff has continued this weekend and the crypto market has fallen deep into the red. At the time of writing the entire value of the crypto market is down to US$209.4 billion according to Coin Market Cap. This is a decline of almost 8% since this time yesterday and extends the market’s seven-day decline to a whopping 21.5%. While the rejection of the Winklevoss Twins’ ETF and a delay in a decision on the VanEck ETF has weighed…

Last week certainly was one to forget for crypto traders with heavy declines being experienced by almost all major coins.

Unfortunately, the selloff has continued this weekend and the crypto market has fallen deep into the red.

At the time of writing the entire value of the crypto market is down to US$209.4 billion according to Coin Market Cap. This is a decline of almost 8% since this time yesterday and extends the market’s seven-day decline to a whopping 21.5%.

While the rejection of the Winklevoss Twins’ ETF and a delay in a decision on the VanEck ETF has weighed heavily on the market this month, the latest decline could be attributable to comments from a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.

According to Bloomberg, its analyst Mike McGlone has warned against buying the dip in the prices of cryptocurrencies.

He has stated that: “Bitcoin is in dump mode, following the pump run-up on the potential for a U.S. ETF. It may not subside until revisiting good support near $4,000 — last year’s mean.”

The market appears to have taken heed of these ominous words. Here is the state of play this afternoon:

The Bitcoin (BTC) price is down 5% over the last 24 hours to US$6,142.07, reducing its market capitalisation to US$105.7 billion.

The Ethereum (ETH) price has plunged 12.2% since this time yesterday to US$318.07. This leaves Ethereum with a market capitalisation of US$32.2 billion.

The Ripple (XRP) price has fallen 12.5% over the period to 29.78 U.S. cents, reducing XRP’s market capitalisation to US$11.7 billion.

The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) price is off 8.5% since this time yesterday to US$552.23. The Bitcoin spin off now has a market capitalisation of just over US$9.5 billion.

The EOS (EOS) price has plunged 10.6% over the last 24 hours to US$5.14, leaving EOS with a market capitalisation of almost US$4.7 billion.

Outside the top five the declines have been just as severe. The Stellar (XLM) price is down 5.3%, Litecoin (LTC) is off 11%, Cardano (ADA) is down 8.7%, Tether (USDT) has fallen 0.5%, and the TRON (TRX) price is down 9.8%.
In 2021, Effort Is Sexy AF!
By: Jane Doe
Tags: Self Love, Love, Dating, Life Lessons, Relationships

In 2021, Effort Is Sexy AF!

He’s not too busy, he just doesn’t care…

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

‘I don’t have enough time to check my messages’. ‘I’ve just been so busy and tired’. ‘I don’t use my phone during weekends’. ‘I have two jobs, I’m just too tired’.

I’m sorry, I’m leaving these excuses in 2020, because that’s where they belong, with the rest of the trash year!

How many times do we try to convince ourselves that these could be true?

How many times do we make excuses for their excuses?

Don’t get me wrong, they actually could be true…

But let’s be honest, really brutally honest, it’s probably not true. As much as it hurts and pains us to think that the person we know, the person we met, could have such a Mr Hyde type personality hidden away.

How do you reconcile those two personas in your mind?

The one you met that caught your attention, that slowly cracked your defences and broke them down, and the one that you feel so distanced from, the ghost of a person that has made you lose your mind…

Which one are they really?

I keep comparing it to the person I first met… like they aren’t the same person.

Because at the end of the day, if someone liked you, really liked you, they would invest in you!

They wouldn’t use these excuses.

Having two jobs shouldn’t stop you from contacting the person who gives you butterflies, someone who you may want to spend the rest of your life with.

You’re really going to go all day without speaking to that person? They’re really not going to contact you? And that’s okay?

No… I refuse to believe that.

I believed it the first time.

I told my friends it was fine that he wasn’t messaging me every day or during the weekends.

I was busy too!

I told myself that I was fine. I wasn’t.

I kept checking my phone. I was busy but I would’ve messaged him.

I would have prioritised you.

You just didn’t care enough to do the same…

No matter what, that has to be the bottom line.

He didn’t care enough…
White Noise
By: Jessica Lovejoy
Tags: Heartbreak, Poetry, Love, Poem, Poetry On Medium

how can silence

pierce the ears like so

how does white noise

fill the room like this

the quiet does haunt us the most

I suppose.

you’ve left me to be with my thoughts

nothing more —

I’m alone

with wild creations

unrealistic expectations

without a voice of reason

or any voice at all.

too much screaming

into the abyss

my voice grew hoarse over time

but you’ll never know this.

it’s been so long

since you’ve gone from this place

evaporation —

I wish you’d come back

and come clean.

© Jessica Lovejoy 2019. All Rights Reserved.
自學系列 | iOS Swift | 第一課：開發工具＋ App 基礎觀念＋ 基礎 UI
Tags: Coding, Online Courses, Beginner, Swift, iOS App Development

iOS App Development with Swift | Udacity

Learn iOS app development with Swift with our online course. Make an iPhone app, learn Swift and gain basic iOS…
Sexual Assault Allegations Were Made Against Actor Ansel Elgort
By: Jessica Lovejoy
Tags: Women, Equality, Ansel Elgort, Culture, Celebrity

Just yesterday, I wrote a piece about the sexual harassment allegations against American actor Chris D’Elia made by several underage girls. He’s denied the claims since even though various online users posted screenshots and email threads of conversations and interactions with the actor while they were minors, with proof that D’Elia was made aware of their age.

I believe the girls who came forward because it is the right thing to do. Since the news broke out about D’Elia, many girls have posted stories online that are so similar in nature — in the things he said, the way he’d berate them for not replying, the way he’d ask them for pictures. And when someone comes forward, I believe them because I know what it’s like to be dismissed. I know how painful it is to speak up knowing most people won’t believe a word you say.

And just two days after D’Elia’s story made its rounds, the trending page on Twitter felt like the most sickening kind of deja vu. American actor Ansel Elgort began trending for a very similar reason to D’Elia. An underage girl messaged by a famous actor is the commonality— but this time, Twitter user @itsgabby claimed that she was sexually assaulted by Elgort when she was only 17, and Elgort was 20.

(Note: Twitter user @itsgabby has removed/deleted their account shortly after it began trending online. All claims are unverified at this time, and to my knowledge, no outlet has been able to make contact with this user.)

Part of her statement read:

“I didn’t think he’d ever see my DM, I was just a kid and was a fan of him. So when it happened, instead of asking me if I wanted to stop having sex, knowing it was my first time and I was sobbing in pain and I didn’t want to do it, the only words that came out of his mouth were “we need to break you in”.

After Twitter user @itsgabby posted her story, user @maddeesawnn came forward and shared pictures of Snapchat messages between her and the actor, which were exchanged when she was only 16 years old. Elgort was 20. (In the state of Georgia, the age of consent is 16 which doesn’t make their relationship illegal, but predatory nevertheless because she was a child.)
Mariposa
By: Anna Rozwadowska
Tags: Poetry, Time, Writing Prompts, One Line, Poetry On Medium

Share your own one-line poem (16 to 30 words) or a Chalkboard Espresso (1 to 15 words) on the theme. Tag your piece in response to this post piece and tag your piece “One Line” or “Chalkboard Espresso” as appropriate. If you have a stand-alone poem, be sure to leave a link in the response section below.
What Color Are My Eyes?
By: Shea Oliver
Tags: Horror, Murder, Fiction, Short Story, Dark

The question seems simple to you.

Yes, with my eyes I can see

But never into my own do I peer

So, I ask this question: what color are my eyes?

I knew when I was a boy

I knew when I was a teen

Then it all happened; I forgot.

It started with the knife in my hand

It started with the dead body at my feet

It started with a sick satisfaction

I felt a rush of pleasure beyond description.

Fulfillment of my darkest cravings

One thrust of my knife after another

Blood splattering and horrified screams

A life in my hands extinguished.

You’ll call me a murderer

And you’ll be correct

For I took a life

For the briefest of moments, panic consumed me.

What had I done?

Can it be undone?

Who had I become?

Forgive me now for what I share.

Panic left me alone with my deed

His dead eyes looked directly at me

Stared at me in the wrong way

I carved them free from his head.

Ended that accusation he cast

Forth from his eyes

Never to plague me again

Yet, his were not the only ones.

More eyes tormented my soul

Leered at me in the wrong way

Pierced me with judgment

What else could I do?

My knife sang its song

Brought death to those

Who looked at me wrong

Now you know my dilemma.

For what would happen

If I looked into my own eyes

the wrong way
The Governor’s Hand
By: Adam Meldrum
Tags: Coronavirus, Google Trends, Governor, Social Intelligence

The Governor’s Hand

Examining the Discussion of Governors During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Ah, States’ Rights.

The 10th Amendment is my favorite of the Amendments — Amendment #1 in my heart.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

— Well written.

— Concise.

— Linguistically sexy.

The leadership of Governor’s during Coronavirus is on display, under attack, and in the spotlight.

A quick look at the conversation and interest around these leaders — a deeper dive into each to come individually.

Entities: Andrew Cuomo (NY), Gavin Newsom (CA), Mike Dewine (OH), Gretchen Whitmer (MI), Ron DeSantis (FL)
Leading KPI for CPG Digital Ad Campaigns
By: Adadapted
Tags: Mobile, Mobile Advertising, Digital Marketing, Advertising, Apps

Leading KPI for CPG Digital Ad Campaigns

Getting on Consumer Digital Grocery Lists is the #1 KPI of a Successful CPG Ad Campaign

Industry leading KPI measures purchase intent based upon products added to digital grocery list

Have you ever questioned how hard your mobile ad spend is working for your brand? Are you getting increased requests for metrics that support your digital advertising investments? What if you could measure exactly what the consumer’s reaction was when they saw your promoted product? And that measure would give you a meaningful KPI that directly relates to sales and truly reflects purchase intent. This would be idyllic, right?

When consumers open up their favorite digital shopping list, search for their preferred product and then place it on their list, this typically indicates that they are going to purchase this product, correct? Well, yes, the answer is yes. People do not add products to their grocery list that they do not intend to buy. In fact, in a 2018 study polling consumers that frequently use mobile shopping list apps, 81% of respondents confessed to purchasing ALL the items they add to their list. 81% folks — that’s huge!

Now, place that into perspective in the mobile advertising space. A consumer sees your ad containing your promoted product, is offered the option to add said product to their grocery list and then does, in fact, engage with your ad and add the product to their list. Wouldn’t you say this is a pretty solid indication that the consumer is at the very least interested in your product and at the most planning to purchase your product? You can’t deny that this measure of intent is a crystal clear view into the consumers’ preferences and purchase.

Consumer adding a promoted product to their digital shopping list

“Products Added-to-List” Has Become the New Industry Standard

This is why “Products Added-to-List” has become the new industry standard; a leading, lower funnel KPI in the mobile advertising space. You are probably wondering, what about impressions and clicks? While still valuable in some scenarios, neither of these metrics give any indication of interest or intent. This is why CPG companies like Johnsonville and Chobani, to name a few, have adopted the “Products Added-to-List” KPI for their mobile campaigns. The landscape has changed, an RFP is no longer complete without including tactics that support “Products Added-to-List”.

Wondering what all the fuss is about? Contact us at info@adadapted.com to learn more.

About AdAdapted

AdAdapted (www.adadapted.com) is the leading “add-to-list” mobile advertising and insights solution for CPG brands and the agencies that represent them. AdAdapted offers CPG brands the ability to directly target their primary consumers in the apps they use to plan and shop. AdAdapted’s platform places CPG brands in front of consumers with native, non-disruptive ads at the exact moment of decision-making, targeting consumers with laser-like efficiency and getting products added to digital shopping lists.
A Kiss for Luck
By: Austin Briggman
Tags: Poetry, Scribe, Adventure, Autobiography, Short Story

Photo by Shaik Shaad on Unsplash

so there i am

sitting

at the house

waiting for some action

as was in between

jobs

at the moment

when my fiance

sends me a picture

of a chicken

behind the school’s

chicken coup

fence

so i threw on

a flannel

and drove on

over

i had never

run down

a chicken before

and the opportunity

was thrilling

so blasting

heavy metal

through the speakers

of the impala

seemed appropriate

for the occasion

upon arrival

i received

the location of the chicken

instructions on how to open the back gate

and a kiss

for luck

the poor girl

was staring

at the coup

wishing she could

be back home

with her sisters

eating muck

and meandering about

safe

from the monsters

of the outside world

however

every time i came near

she bolted

into the thicket

of trees

and vines

and broken logs

as she lured

me into the woods

i became entangled

in vines and

howled with rage

didn’t she realize

i was trying

to save her?

chickens are stupid

and i

was being outsmarted

by one

the chickens here

eat a mixture

of mashed up

corn and beans and seeds

some other ingredients

unknown to me

which smells

quite the opposite

of delightful

after i climbed

out of the madness

i grabbed a bucket

of feed

and lured her back

out

in the open

sprinkling the food

on the ground

as i whispered

to her

“c’mon baby girl”

she was hesitant

never looking

away from me

as she dipped

her head to eat

slowly

walking closer

i flinched

to readjust my

positioning

and she stiffened

taking a step

back

“c’mon now”

after a brief

reassessment

she came forward

the muck to good

to resist

finally

both of my hands

shot out

and were upon her

wings

as i held her

to my chest

“you’re safe now

my love”

i said

looking up

to the sky

“everything

is good”

and then

she shit all over me
Bite me
By: Kaitlin Korona
Tags: Sex, Poetry, Horror, Love, Relationships

Photo by jean Toir on Unsplash

You waking nightmare

fever dream

failing heart who scrapes

a needle through my cherry tongue

dominate

drip

scare

shake

you, my stain, lick with thirst

hold back your metal arms

or bite me lucid.
A Brief History of the Semicolon in Programming
By: Michael Mcmillan
Tags: Programming Languages, Programming, History Of Programming, Semi Colon, Coding Style

Early High-Level Languages and Semicolon Use

Programming language prehistory ends when Fortran was introduced as a high-level programming language in the mid-1950s. Fortran didn’t use semicolons as either statement separators or statement terminators. Statements in Fortran could only be written one per line, and the new line was the statement terminator.

The first use of the semicolon in a modern programming language was with ALGOL 58. However, this version wasn’t heavily implemented, and it quickly morphed into ALGOL 60. This early version of ALGOL used the semicolon as a separator, though it was often used superfluously as a statement terminator (though this wasn’t required).

This mixed use of semicolons could lead to very confusing programs where semicolons were placed often at the end of some lines and not others, as shown in this snippet of ALGOL 60 code I borrowed from Steve Maurer’s website:

COMMENT advance to the next un-crossed out number. ;

COMMENT this number must be a prime ;

FOR i := i WHILE i<1000 AND candidates[i] = 0 DO

BEGIN

i := i+1;

END;

COMMENT insure against running off end of the data structure ;

IF i<1000 THEN

BEGIN

COMMENT cross out all multiples, starting with 2*p.;

j := 2;

k := j*i;

FOR k := k WHILE k < 1000 DO

BEGIN

candidates[k] := 0;

j := j + 1;

k := j*i;

END;

COMMENT advance to the next candidate ;

i := i+1;

END

END;

Algol 60 led to other versions of Algol … leading up to Algol 68. Many, many languages were based on Algol, but the version that had the most impact on languages today was Basic Combined Programming Language (BCPL).

BCPL is a programming language that was developed by Martin Richards at the University of Cambridge in 1967. BCPL was designed with many of the concepts that later influenced the development of the C language, as we’ll see in a moment. BCPL also used semicolons as statement separators, and many programmers writing BCPL also used semicolons to indicate the end of a line — though like with Algol, this use was superfluous. The end-of-line character was the true statement separator in BCPL.

Another language that influenced the current use of semicolons was IBM’s programming language PL/I. PL/I was developed in the mid-1960s and was the C++ language of its time — as the designers of the language tried to include every feature of every other popular programming language, such that the language could replace Fortran for scientific computing and COBOL for business computing.

PL/I used semicolons for statement terminators, and this design decision was influential to other language implementors, such as Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, the developers of C.