fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Cryptocurrency industry is still in its infancy.
By: Dominik Martin Świerkot
Tags: Bitcoin News, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Crypto

A recent survey by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), a regulator in the UK, showed that more than 70% of consumers didn’t know what a cryptocurrency was and only 3% of respondents had ever bought one of the digital assets.

These data points put things in perspective and remind us that this industry is still early in its maturation and there is a lot of work to do… Education and awareness have always been important, but now design, user experience, and interfaces will become focal points as we try to onboard mainstream consumers, and these are the points which have the utmost importance while developing Snowball.

While not surprising, the most exciting part to me is the incredible number of young people who are spending 100% of their time working in crypto. This isn’t about a “get rich quick” scheme for them. The idea of automated finance are definitely taking hold and it is obvious people are fed up with the legacy system. Lastly, Bitcoin is thought of as the least risky investment opportunity among this crowd.

The shift is inevitable

“Due to trying to take the market share away from one of the most important tools of power — money — central banks and governments all over the world tried to kill bitcoin, albeit unsuccessfully,” Angel Versetti, CEO of blockchain firm Ambrosus comments.

The conversation around the largest crypto asset includes a degree of inevitability. There is no talk of “if” Bitcoin’s price recovers, but rather “when.” There is no concern of whether Bitcoin will establish a new all-time high in the future, but rather a debate on whether it will be $100,000 or $150,000 in the next bull market. And these young people aren’t just talking to entertain themselves — many of them have significant portions of their net-worth held in digital assets.

While 70%+ of mainstream consumers may not know about cryptocurrencies, the enthusiasts are pushing an impressive pace of innovation right now. It is just a matter of time before crypto goes mainstream, the fact companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Starbucks expressed interest in getting involved in this industry is not a surprise, everyone wants a piece of the landgrab before it’s too late.
Made of Gold
By: America Zed
Tags: Love, Poetry, Friendship, Poetry On Medium, Life

I always knew that

you were different,

Giving both your

hands away.

Sparks of gold shone

through your eyes,

Shining beauty

from your face.

Though you had

no one beside you,

You have closeness

that is rare.

Never staring

through offensive,

Always smiling,

Full of care.

And if someday

you melt away,

Softly in that

tired soul.

I will remember

your open heart,

Forever shining

Made of gold.
The Affair of the Cat’s Butt in the Night
By: Kelly Fields
Tags: Humor, Short Story, Humorous Life Lessons, Cats

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

A true story of the darker side of pet parenthood.

Ethel loved to play, and rambunctious curiosity ruled her days. She dumped out all the toys in her toy basket and ran around like she was possessed chasing shiny balls or little stuffed mice.

My dad built her a toy she adored. It was a fishing pole with string and a little tuft of crumbled up newspaper at the end. I cast out the line and Ethel would chase after the newspaper at the end as if nothing greater in life existed. She grabbed it and shook it in her teeth imagining her prowess at murder.

One morning I found the fishing pole on the ground and the string was missing. I thought it was a little odd, but I figured the cat had most likely dragged it under the couch or something.

Then later that night I wandered into my office and found Ethel there with about nine inches of poop-covered string hanging out of her ass. You cannot imagine the horror. What are you supposed to do upon stumbling in on your cat in this predicament? I certainly didn’t want her running around the house dragging a shitty string all over the furniture. How much more string was in there anyway? Terrifying visions of pulling on the sting and having her little kitty intestines come out with it swirled in my head. Panic set in.

Finally, sweat pouring down my brow, I decided to cut the string off at the butthole. I figured this was the safest option to avoid accidentally gutting my cat. So I grabbed scissors and a bunch of paper towels and set forth to de-string the cat’s ass. Ethel saw me coming and was not pleased. I think she was perfectly content with the state of her stringy bum.

As soon as I got a grip on that string to try hold it so I could make the cut, the cat bolted. She ran away from me like she was on fire. In a heartbeat I was stricken with dread. Visions of intestines spattering from her butt flashed in my brain until I looked down. I held in my paper towel clad hand a two-foot long, shit-covered string and there was no longer a cat attached to the other end.

Ethel had freed herself. More relief arrived when I scanned the room and found not an intestine in sight. Ethel’s biology remained intact.

That fishing pole toy went straight into the trashcan. I was not going to mess around with string-based toys any longer, since it seemed my cat saw no problem with eating multiple feet of it at a time. I should have been a better pet parent, but sometimes you just have to learn from your mistakes.
Who’s leading the next breakthrough? The current landscape of Central Bank Digital Currencies
By: Americana Chen
Tags: Digital Transformation, Blockchain, Technology, Banking, Finance

6. The US’s approach — slower but with more prudency

While other countries are actively rolling out piloting projects, the United State, who had been one of the leading country in terms of technological advancement, seems to be a little bit behind on its progress towards issuing a CBDC. One of the reason is that for domestic consumers, the existing digital payment system in the US is already very convenient, most consumers are not willing to change their payment methods and adapt to a new digital payment system. A survey conducted by Genesis Mining consisting of 400 participants, revealed that less than 25% of participants agreed to the proposition of a Dollar CBDC. Most respondents have associated the concept of CBDC with crime activities fostered by cryptocurrencies, which could be the major reason why the general public in the US are pushing themselves against the idea of CBDC.

The US Federal Reserve is being exceptionally prudent on the issuance of US CBDC. In contrast with most of the countries focusing on the benefits of a CBDC, the US have identified many potential challenges and issues that would arise with the issuance of a CBDC, mainly concerning the security challenges, such as cyber attack, fraud and implementation of anti-money laundering laws in CBDC.

image source: Unsplash

The Deputy Treasury Secretary Justin Muzinich also said that “ finding a balance between preventing illicit activity and respecting consumer privacy will be a challenge.” The dilemma between security and privacy is a major challenge for US CBDC, as US citizens are more sensitive to cyber privacy issues.

“We do think it’s more important to get it right than to be first and getting it right means that we not only look at the potential benefits of a CBDC, but also the potential risks, and also recognize the important trade-offs that have to be thought through carefully,” — U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell

The US have been researching and developing a hypothetical CBDC with researchers at MIT, but the feasibility and the progress has been much slower than other countries such as China, Japan and Singapore.
Justice Arrives When the People Are Watching
By: Conor Kelly
Tags: BlackLivesMatter, George Floyd, Police Brutality, Justice, Racism

Despite the arrest of former officer Derek Chauvin, there is still more to be done. There is no guarantee that he will face the full consequences of his actions, despite being charged with murder and manslaughter. Nor is there any guarantee that the other three officers will face any legal repercussions. Things could indeed change. Indeed, there is a possibility that I may be proven wrong, and the city of Minneapolis will know justice, unlike so many other municipalities. Still, there is reason to be skeptical and vigilant, as it took six days before any action was taken against the principal perpetrator of this brutal murder.

High-level officials in the state have not responded well to the cries for justice, and only when they faced the heat of the national spotlight did they change their approach. Hennepin County Prosecutor, Michael Freeman, went out of his way to say that the events were ‘horrible,’ but did not warrant charges. Of course, now he changed his tune. However, punishing one murderous cop is not enough. There were four officers involved in that shameful display, and they are all accomplices in the gruesome abuse that sent Mr. Floyd to his grave.

Seeing justice done to not just one but all of the officers involved is a matter of critical importance. In a country where Black Americans are twice as likely to be killed by police than their White counterparts, it is of the utmost importance that the rule of law is applied to the police just as much as it is to the ordinary citizen, especially when a significant portion of those citizens are getting special treatment. The law needs to be a means by which all Americans are kept safe, not just a weapon to be wielded against a demonized Black populace. It depends upon the faith of the governed, and when that faith is eroded by constant abuse, the result is never going to be peaceful. This is not an endorsement of that violence; it is merely an observation of a self-evident truth.

If such violence is to be prevented, a message needs to be sent, a message that screams to the men and women in law enforcement that their authority is not a right; it is granted to them by the people. And it, like all forms of power, can be taken away if needed. But taking their authority from them is not enough, far from it. When authority is abused, the perpetrator must face the law’s full might. Not just because they have broken the law, but because they have abused the trust of the public that trusted them with that said authority. This message must be sent in the form of a conviction.
BitHD and Hoo Reached Global Partnership
By: Bitpie Wallet
Tags: Hoo, Bithd, Multisig, Bitcoin, Cold Wallet

BitHD and Hoo Reached Global Partnership, Both Sides will Collaborate in Wallet Security Service.

BitHD announced a strategic partnership with Hoo, and Hoo will join the “BitHD Multisig Union” program. The BitHD team will provide Hoo with a full range of customized wallet security services, including ERC20-based Multisig solutions. Hoo’s risk prevention capabilities will be further improved to ensure platform user digital asset security by using BitHD cold wallet.

About BitHD

BitHD is an independent brand that under Bitpie Wallet. All of our products are warm welcomed by the users. For now, we have gain trust and respect from large number of professional practitioners in the industry, exchanges, blockchain firms, and normal cryptocurrency users.

For now, both of the BitHD products BitHD Watch and Razor have supported BTC, USDT（ERC20 & Omni）, ETH, EOS, LTC, BCH, BSV, DASH, DOGE, ZEC. And BitHD Watch & Razor are the only two cold wallets that support BTC, USDT, ETH ,all ETC 20 Tokens and EOS Multisig function.

About Hoo

Hoo.com is a leading blockchain assets service company in the space. Started as a crypto wallet, it aims to build a top blockchain assets service platform whose business has expanded to crypto exchanges, wallets, custody and mining industry.

Focusing on innovation and creation, Hoo.com officially launched its initiative “Hoo Option” after several trial fundraisings which were hugely welcomed by the users. Hoo Option is a program which digitalizes the assets rights of Hoo users, such as Gain Right, Refund Right and Insurance Right, etc., bringing excellent user experience for traders in the field.

The BitHD Cold Wallet launched the “BitHD Multisig Union” program on March 22, 2019. We have promoted the concept of Multisig to help companies in the industry understand, learn, and gradually start using the “Cold wallet + Multisig technology” to manage large amount of assets with our partners. We hope that through the efforts of us and our partners, we can effectively improve the current blockchain firms` asset management status in the industry and contribute to the development of the blockchain industry.

Find us on:

👉Twitter ; 👉Facebook; 👉Telegram Channel
On the Danube (A Dunán)
By: Joe Váradi
Tags: Translation, Love, Relationships, Poetry, Hungary

On the Danube

Raging storms and rushing boats, oh River

Countless clefts to your bosom deliver!

And how deep the wound, and how long the rift!

More so than what passions on hearts inflict.

But after the boats depart, and the storms quell:

The gashes heal, once again all is well.

Yet once the human heart a crack sustains:

No ointment will seal the wound, mend the pains.
For better survival chances, ICOs need to do this one thing
By: Ref Crypto
Tags: Blockchain Startup, Coins, Blockchain Technology, Blockchain, Blockchain Development

A recent study has revealed the one thing that ICOs need to do if they are to boost their survival chances. The study was jointly conducted by Emmanuel De George who is an assistant professor of accounting and fellow academics from Columbia Business School and the University of Utah.

With over 75% of ICO projects dying within the first six months, what De George and his fellows sought to understand was what made the difference between the surviving 25% and the rest. They analyzed 776 projects and realized on top of having good ideas that were solving real problems the one other thing that stood out was transparency at the beginning.

ICOs that failed to give their investors proper detailed disclosure at the start had higher chances of failing as time progressed. Part of the necessary information that should be revealed at the outset includes availing the source code of tokens to show that there is a finite supply of the and also revealing that tokens held by founders will only be cashed after a period of time and not immediately after the issue.

Also, it’s crucial that ICOs provide informative white papers and also seek to be rated by top firms like ICObench, ICO Drops, ICORating and ICO Alert as this helps reassure the investors.

The high crash rate has alarmed regulators who have resulted in warning investors of the potential dangers of investing in ICOs however, despite this ICOs have experienced high growth rate and De George said“ICOs are running at a rate of about 100 a month, We don’t envision that to be slowing down at all.”

Adding:

“What you are seeing is a lot of entrepreneurs with a lot of ideas. This is by far the cheapest way of raising capital these days because you don’t have the regulation that comes with other forms of capital raising.”

Recently Autonomous Research LLP released data that indicated that ICOs have already attracted 12 Billion in 2018.

Do you agree that being transparent is the one thing ICOs need to do if they are to boost their chances of survival?

Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Expert Selection: Amin Rafiee — Decentralized Governance
By: Simone De Bruin
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Bitnation, Amin Rafiee, Blockchain, Bitcoin

Amin has been working closely with the developers of some of the most hyped-about coins on the crypto market since 2013. He’s an active user of bitcoin communities and a respected member that is constantly involved with the dedicated developers and leaders of this exciting industry. With a keen eye for the latest advancements and a diverse background, including Industrial Design, Engineering, R&D, Marketing, International Business, Philosophy and Psychology, providing a strong foundation to understand and communicate with a large number of members across different fields. A regular speaker at Bitcoin conferences throughout Europe, Rafiee has been helping share the truth, freedom, and choice that Bitcoin and its partner platforms have to offer. The most recent example of this was through BITNATION’s refugee aid. Rafiee is an advocate of P2P and decentralization in an otherwise centralized world.

“This video involving one our founders, Erik Vollstädt, was covered by the German’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW). I believe this video really puts the concept of BITNATION and decentralized governance into an easily understandable notion. It also covers some basic information of the historical involvement of governments and progression of virtual states.”

“BITNATION was initiated by Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof in 2014. Since then it has really inspired thousands of minds around the world. This video shows her story, the concept and the global perspective from both a political and social perspective. A world that is unfairly determined by the geographical location of your birth.”

“This was a talk I did at the European Commission on the social benefits provided through BITNATON and other blockchain based platforms. It explains how Blockchain can help refugees throughout Europe and also globally, taking into consideration the possibilities of global citizen identifications, bitcoin based debit cards and other means that can really help stateless individuals.”

“When we consider the concept of closed source vs. open source, we tend to forget the amazing benefits that are provided by an open source environment / software. Case in point would be Linux vs. Windows. Linux running on the same kernel can be used — and is used — in defense systems, global banking systems, satellites, home appliances to your Android phones and very secure super computers. Whereas Windows is used in the desktop market and only due to the trend instead of providing anything better or more superior. This concept should be considered when we take into account any attempt of creating a centralized system. An open system is a system that has stood the test of nature. I believe Andreas Antonopoulos really puts this into a understandable manner in this talk.”
People, Practices & Place
By: Richard D. Bartlett
Tags: Community, Organization, Facilitation, Microsolidarity

People, Practices & Place

A Simple Structure to Hold a New Microsolidarity Community

Last week I published the latest story in my Microsolidarity series, explaining how to start a new mutual aid community (a “Congregation”). That chapter was exclusively focussed on the initiation process: where do you start?

For this chapter, I want to advance the clock a few months. Assume you’ve had one or two amazing gatherings, and there are 20 or 40 people ready to commit to supporting each other. What’s the minimum organisational structure needed to hold them together? I’m going to make a short sketch of a complete structure, as a first guess. The parts are all tried and tested, but I’ve never had a chance to launch a new community with this whole structure, so this is slightly speculative.

I think it is important for a community to be aligned at the abstract level: having shared values, principles and purposes. However, I don’t think it is very interesting to create that alignment by talking about it. Instead, the focus is on finding alignment by doing stuff together. So the essence of this proposal is to organise primarily around three concrete elements: a small group of People, doing periodic Practices in a defined Place.

For the sake of this article, assume that all the members of the Congregation are working in related fields towards some positive social change, e.g. activists, community organisers, and people working in NGOs and social enterprises. They have shared interest so they’re predisposed to collaborate, and they have enough shared context that they can support each other effectively in their personal and professional development.
La bellezza della Complessità
By: Dave Fuschi
Tags: Data Art, Arte Contemporanea, Wild Mazzini

We exhibit solo and group projects by emerging or international artists who use data to create artworks that transfigure complex information

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Strange Allusions
By: J.D. Harms
Tags: Poetry, Damage, Thinking, Understanding, Reading

Strange Allusions

A Poem

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

You strangle every frame you come across

the rhythm of discord

taking whatever breath you thought

could stomach the weight

of new dysfunctions

Tragedy its own allusion

bitter mouths & curled/ eyes

every glare a new condescension

A never spoken message

taking on the scope of the antichrist

Worried about the reference

the neverending reference to the glee

& scorn delivered

together /Open dials to the wretched

the birthing of a new

cascade of fire & intention

Spiralling twisting rejections wait

— take their turns

begin the frailer & softer turns

before the jerk becomes your whole gut

& viscera

is just another name for movement

Willingness just another word

for fate/

Streamed the connections into

a lake

then took the rejection all the way

to its apex

before the steep & swift

turns became

the Greek for talented /ruminating

over how

how to get to the next portrait

without falling\
Press Release: New Privacy International investigation exposes the role of Kenyan government surveillance in facilitating torture and extrajudicial killings
By: Privacy International
Tags: Kenya, Privacy, Surveillance, Human Rights

Key points:

For press inquiries please email press@privacyinternational.org or call +44 (0) 20 3422 4321

Today, Privacy International publishes a new investigation about state surveillance in Kenya, highlighting that a pretext of counter-terrorism is leading to gross human rights abuses and a cycle of arrests, torture and disappearances. The report, entitled ‘Track, Capture, Kill: Inside Communications Surveillance and Counterterrorism in Kenya’ shines a light on the techniques, tools and culture of Kenyan police and intelligence agencies’ surveillance capabilities. The report specifically details the routine unregulated intelligence sharing between government agencies.

Key Revelations:

Dr Gus Hosein, Executive Director of Privacy International said:

“This report lifts the lid on the Kenyan government’s uncontrolled powers of surveillance, by collecting unprecedented testimony from current and former law enforcement, military, and intelligence personnel.

“Communications surveillance in Kenya is conducted outside any effective regulatory oversight. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) in particular is operating outside of any meaningful constraints on its far-reaching surveillance powers. Our sources informed us that sensitive surveillance data is shared with police units, including the GSU-Recce company and Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, and used in counter-terrorism operations in which suspects are routinely and gravely mistreated. Surveillance is facilitating the violation of rights guaranteed by the Kenyan constitution: freedom from torture; cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; and the right to a fair trial.

“The spectre of highly intrusive surveillance can create a chilling effect on freedom of assembly and speech in the run up to elections. In these times of uncertainty and insecurity in Kenya, the practice of communications surveillance must be reformed to uphold the rule of law, and instill public confidence that the government respects the constitution and fundamental human rights.”
Preparation for Bitcoin cash stress test day begins
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Bitcoincash

A group that runs a website ‘BCH stress test day’ reported a stress test on the platform. This was reported on news.bitcoin.com As part of this test, the group is planning to process millions of transactions of minimum fee. That too, all those minimum fee transactions at once in one single day.

Since the number of transactions that are to be processed is insanely huge, the lead developers working on the project want everyone in the community to participate and pull this off.

Furthermore, spendbch.io, along with Bitbox which is an open source project, came up with a tool for this project. This tool allows anyone to ‘spam’ the network with transactions.

Node.js App for stress testing by Spencbch.io

The BCH blockchain has a block capacity size of 32 MB, which is multiple time huge than many blockchain based ledgers available today, including the prime cryptocurrency Bitcoin. This broad block size is exactly that is making higher throughput for BCH possible. Higher block size means that more transactions can be placed within every block. This directly means that more number of transactions can be processed every time a block is verified and added to the blockchain/public ledger.

The BCH chain had an 8MB block size until this may. Miners have been processing the transactions between 2–8MB. Furthermore, Viabtc was able to process an 8MB block that had 37000 transactions in it. The 8MB block that was added to blockchain successfully is an evidence that a 32MB block size would be a really amazing thing to help process more transactions.

Now that the platform has a 32MB block size, the developers want to stress test it. The test will have the system process huge number of transactions all at once in a 24-hour window.

Therefore, Spendbch.io came up with an app for stress testing the network. The tool is a “starting point” for the 1 BCH bounty program that will be offered to someone who can develop an advanced version of the app.

“BCH-stress test is a concept app that can be used as a starting point to claiming the stress test bounty,” said the spendbch.io developers

Furthermore, there has been a spike in the number of BCH transactions. Bitbox creator Gabriel Cardona along with many other BCH enthusiasts have been sharing screenshots of the number of transactions. Johoe’s Mempool and Fork.lol have been collecting data that show a steep jump in the number of BCH transactions.

“Big increase in bitcoin cash transaction count since yesterday. Here’s the script from Spendbch.io if you’d like to play along — Let’s stress test BCH to prove to the world we can scale,” Cardona tweeted

The stress test is scheduled to happen on September 1st around 12 PM UTC. Furthermore, the open source tool developed by spendbch.io is available here in the Github repository.

What do you think of this stress test? Are you going to participate in the test? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
Towards better code
By: Ramanan Balakrishnan
Tags: Programming, Software, Coding, Software Development

Let’s face it, we have have been writing software for decades now. We can no longer claim to be a new domain and pass-off nascency as an excuse for shipping sloppy code.

Most of us can tell the difference between good code and bad, but how do we go about creating beautiful software instead of merely reading about it?

Well, let’s make an attempt here.
The U.S. economy and the 2018 midterm
By: Mae Yen Yap
Tags: Money, Budget, Elections, Politics, Economics

What’s the problem?

The Trump Administration’s achievements include an unemployment rate that has decreased significantly, a growing U.S. economy and an inflation of costs that has helped achieve the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target.

Despite all that, there are still several economic issues to consider for the upcoming midterm election.

Jobs are increasing, wages are not

Source: CNN

Source: BBC

Source: Pew Research Center

Source: CNBC

Tax cuts

Source: Politifact

A quick rundown

Deficit: Refers to the annual difference between government spending and government revenue. The government collects revenue through taxes and uses the money collected on programs such as health care. If the government spends more than it is able to take in, a deficit occurs. If the opposite happens, it runs a surplus.

Tariff: A tax on a good produced by another country that is imported into the U.S. through local businesses.

U.S.-China Trade War: The U.S. and China are currently in a trade war in which each of the world’s two biggest economies are continuously imposing more tariffs on thousands of goods from each other.

The status of international trade

Source: BBC

Source: BizPac Review

Source: BBC

Reducing the U.S. trade deficit was one of President Trump’s main economic goals, but things aren’t going to plan.

China has had the advantage of lower tariffs on its goods and had shipped products into the U.S. at very low prices, particularly in contrast to goods from local business. The Trump administration is reverting this by imposing sweeping tariffs, a decision that has been reflected back on U.S. goods imported into China by the Chinese government.

Both governments have since imposed more tarrifs as the trade war escalates. Although Trump claims that this is in the interest of U.S. businesses, the “losers” of the war will most likely be consumers from U.S., China and possibly the rest of the globe.

Where Democrats and Republicans stand

Source: The New York Times

Democrats are worried. The increase in federal deficit could lead the Trump administration to cut funding on federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare, programs that aim to help working and middle class Americans.

Republicans, on the other hand, have made major changes since Trump signed the new Republican tax cut bill in 2017. The tax cuts under the current Republican leadership has the federal deficit at $779 billion, the largest deficit since 2012’s recession.

At the rate that it’s going, the U.S. government will be facing a debt of $1 trillion by 2019. According to Vox, Republicans are blaming Democrats for the deficit.
Las 5 maneras en las que está cambiando la publicidad digital en el 2017.
By: Diego Barrera
Tags: Mercadotecnia, Publicidad, Digital Marketing, Advertising

Artículo original: “The 5 Ways Digital Advertising is Changing in 2017” por Pandora For Brands.

Fuentes:

1) eMarketer, US Digital Ad Spending, Septiembre 2016

2) Business Insights, The Ad Tech Explainer, Enero 2017

3) eMarketer, US Digital Display Advertising Trends 2017, Enero 2017
Merchants and Madness
By: Victor Sarkin
Tags: Archived Prompts, Poetry, Haiku, Giabprompt, Writing Challenge

‘Genius in a Bottle’ Prompted Writing Challenge

Merchants and Madness

GiaB writing prompt #5

Photo by Tupungato on Shutterstock

Browsing through the stalls,

a haggling cacophony

overwhelms my peace.

Shopping is our chance to wonder and dream. To imagine ourselves in different clothes, or picture various new elements in our homes. It’s where we as an imaginative species co-mingle with others and take part in group dreaming about possibility.

The Challenge

We invite writers to produce a piece of poetry, fiction or non-fiction on the theme of Shopping.

The Guidelines

We cannot publish pieces or reward writers who self publish or publish at another publication, so those pieces have to remain external to the challenge. Only pieces submitted to Genius in a Bottle will be considered for the challenge. If inviting other writers from outside the publication, please ensure they are aware of this.

Poetry is to be limited to 30 lines but can be in any style.

Fiction and non-fiction submissions are to be capped at 750 words.

Please refer to the prompt in the subtitle. Feel free to copy this as a template: GiaB prompt # [insert prompt number and theme here].

When submitting, please ensure that one of the 5 tags is GiaBprompt.

Please ensure a second tag is Poetry, fiction, or non-fiction, as appropriate.

We would like to become exposed to writers and pieces that you have enjoyed in all of Medium. Please tag up to ten writers whose pieces you have enjoyed recently, or who you feel may enjoy participating in this challenge.

For further information pertaining to the challenge, please refer to the rules and guidelines.

And away we go. We look forward to enjoying the paradise of the written word with you all.

Victor Sarkin and Chirag
Theatre News: Les Misérables to return to the West End
By: Noah Keate
Tags: West End, Les Miserables, Matt Lucas, Theatre, Sir Cameron Mackintosh

Les Misérables is returning to the West End nearly seven months after it closed down due to lockdown.

The production, which has won multiple awards, will take place at the Sondheim Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue from the 5th December, lasting six weeks.

The announcement was made on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent, where cast members from Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera and Mary Poppins performed a musical number.

The news comes as Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s production celebrates its 35th birthday as a musical.

Tickets for the production have been on sale since 14th October, with the theatre ensuring its audience will be socially distanced.

The production will star Matt Lucas and Michael Ball and comes as alongside the announcement that pantomime will return to the West End.

From the 13th to the 15th November, the casts of four of London’s biggest shows — Wicked, Mamma Mia, Come from Away and Dear Evan Hansen — will return to the West End in a The Show Must Go On! Live at the Palace Theatre.

The theatre owner Sir Cameron Mackintosh stated that “I can’t tell you how emotional this is for me and for all of us.”

Support The Indiependent

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Image: VillageTheatre / Wikimedia Commons
How to Temporarily Change HTML and CSS with Any Browser on Any Website
By: Songtham Tung
Tags: Browsers, Hack Html Browser, Software Development, HTML, CSS

How to Temporarily Change HTML and CSS with Any Browser on Any Website

Tricks and Tips to Quickly Change Text, Update Color, Reorganize Structure, and More.

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

HTML is a language for creating web pages.

is a language for creating web pages. CSS is a language that describes the style of an HTML page.

In this article, I will demonstrate how to hack or quickly change HTML and CSS with any browser on any website. This is a useful skill to have for Frontend Developers and any one who is interested in learning more about what’s under the hood of websites.

For our purposes, I will only use Google Chrome, but you can also use it on any browser e.g. (Mozilla, Safari, IE, etc).

Getting Started: Right Click and Inspect

Right Click. Inspect.

This reveals the contents under the hood of a website so to speak, similar to a mechanic looking under the hood of a car. It might look intimidating if you’ve never seen it before, but don’t worry! It’s not as scary as it seems. There’s a pattern to it.

Google Chrome’s Inspect Panel

We will only focus on the Elements (HTML) tab on the left panel and the Styles (CSS) tab on the right panel.

Change the HTML

Let’s try changing the HTML of Google.

We’re going to change the text from Gmail to MediumMail.

Click the mouse icon in the upper left corner and then click Gmail

To do so, click the mouse icon on the upper left corner of the inspect panel. This selects an element in the page to inspect it. Click Gmail.

Replace Gmail with MediumMail in the HTML

This will automatically highlight the element in the HTML. From here we will replace the word Gmail with MediumMail and press enter. If you did it successfully, you should now see MediumMail where Gmail used to be.

Great! Now that we’re done hacking the HTML, let’s hack the CSS.

Change the CSS

To change the CSS of a website is similar to changing the HTML.

Let’s change the text color of MediumMail to Red.

Changing the color text of MediumMail to red in CSS

Similar to the steps above, click the mouse icon on the upper left corner of the inspect panel. Then click MediumMail. In the right panel under the styles tab, enter color:red .

If you did it successfully, you should now see MediumMail in red color.

Conclusion

Knowing how to temporarily change the HTML and CSS of any website with any browser is a good skill to have. This can be used to quickly test changes to your webpage before actually coding it out.

Try giving right click + inspect a shot! You can do it on any website, including this one! As a simple test, try changing the words and color on this page. If you have another way of doing this or you have any problems with examples above, just drop a comment below to let me know.

Thanks for reading — and please follow me here for more interesting software engineering articles!
Weight for Me II
By: Anthony Azekwoh
Tags: Essay, Fiction, Workout, Life, Short Story

When I first got to the gym, what I simply told the instructor was, “Hey, I just want to get fit, you know? Lose some of this stomach.” Now that I think about it, there must have been a gap in the communication somehow and what he actually heard was, “Train me like you would the Avengers.”

If I wasn’t sweating oceans, out of breath and about to lose consciousness, then Mike wasn’t having it. It wasn’t like he hated me (which I hope he didn’t), he just had this silly, impossible, preposterous idea that I could somehow do all of it.

The gym at Ikoyi Club is moderately sized and from time to time, an elderly woman or man that looked like they were about to fall off would walk in and I would sigh in relief. At least now I wouldn’t be the least fit person around.

“Fifty more,” Mr Mike would say as I did the bench presses.

“But I just did fifty,” I’d say, looking at his eyes, pleading with mine.

“Fifty more,” he’d repeat as he put on the TV and watched Channels.

Those remaining fifty would be done in sweat and blood. Okay, not blood exactly but sweat, a lot of it. After I was done, I left the weights to drink some water and an old woman shuffled to the press, tried the weights and cursed that they were too small. She added some more weights and smiled, lifting twenty in the amount of time it took me to gulp.

Fuck, I thought. You know you’re doing badly when people who get pensions lift more than you.

Facing endless mortification in the gym, I decided to try swimming.

I — and I don’t mean to brag here — am an amazing swimmer. And that’s just it. Given time and space, I would probably have even gone pro, but I took one look at Michael Phelps and his cute innocent face and his big big dreams and I decided that, na, I’d let him have it. It didn’t seem fair having me compete with mere mortals and so, I quit while I was ahead. I was just too good.

I was in the pool doing laps and some nine-year-old girl was doing hers beside me, fully kitted in state-of-the-art Speedo gear. I had lost my goggles years ago but that didn’t matter, really. I was born of the water, practically a mammal-reptile hybrid; I could see without silly artificial help.

She looked at me and said, out of the blue, “Race you?”

I laughed good-heartedly — it was a good, long chuckle. The poor child, she didn’t know what she was getting into.

I shrugged easily and agreed and then, the race was on. And I smiled before starting. This would be a piece of cake. Like stealing candy from a nine-year-old.
Stop and listen
By: Sylvia Clare Msc. Psychol
Tags: Peace, Other Doors, Compassion, Love, Poetry

pixabay

Peace is a place I cannot find so often

not as often as I would like.

Like a wayward child my mind has its own agendas

Yet like a child I can take its hand

And draw it upon my knee to stop

Just for a while and to listen intently

To the peace of silence and love.
You are my Religion
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Self, Love, Spirituality, Culture, Religion

Mention faith in the same breath as secularism and people get confused.

And yet, I’m an atheist with faith, the unwavering kind. But the difference is that I’m an ardent believer in us, humans, rather than in representations of us often referred to as deities.

Because we have reason and intellect, because we are curious and questioning, because we are real and tangible, I place my faith in us. This means that I believe in the limitless potential of the human spirit and value human prowess above all else, be it science or art.

Human intelligence is the closest thing I have to religion because this asset we all share makes miracles big and small happen every single day. We survive, we rise above adversity, we heal, we rebuild lives, and we change.

Our capacity for evolution and self-actualization only knows self-imposed limits. If we do not set any then our life is wide open, a blank page on which we’re free to weave any thread our imagination can conjure up.
Long Ago Train
By: Bill Dubay Jr.
Tags: Poem, Poetry, Poetry On Medium, Lyrics, Short Story

POETRY

Long Ago Train

A song with a lost melody

Commissioned by the author from Leonardo Romero

Beyond the border lies this place,

That sits within the mind of a sleeping sage,

Whose hands hold the promise of release,

But conceal the invitation to a padded cage.

It’s easy to slip secretly into its sacred springs,

To lay in it lazily without concern,

Washed away in the hope its promise brings,

Hoping to be among the many who never fully return.

Once I saw myself returning from that space,

Eagerly waiting for that long-ago train,

So I gave myself a ticket and exclaimed,

“This one’s for you, mine’s been misplaced!”

Over the line lies burnt remains of forgotten campaigns,

If I were to walk along its dusty plains,

I’d go cloaked beneath my past face,

and hobbling along my future twisted cane.

“Where is it?” you might ask,

Is it at the bottom of this flask?

Or behind the flimsy veil of my death mask?

Maybe just beyond the finish of a forgotten task?

You might ask yourself as you’re returning from that space,

Eagerly waiting for that long-ago train,

And then give yourself a ticket and exclaim,

“This one’s for you, mine’s been misplaced!”

I might recognize you, my friend,

As one whose been around that bend,

And I might give a subtle nod and say,

“See you again back around that way”
Jay-Z Wants You To Live With Regrets
By: Level Editors
Tags: Jay Z, Brené Brown, Advice, Song Lyrics, Culture

Jay-Z Wants You To Live With Regrets

Word to Jay (and Brené) — own, embrace, and fully step into living with those regrets

In his latest “What Would Hov Do?” column, Joel Leon. tackles one of the most human feelings we experience: regret.

He hits the Jay-Z crates — and the self-help aisle for some Brené Brown — to tackle a reader’s question.

Get some inspiration from his advice below.
You Can’t Say The C-Word On Television
By: The Nib
Tags: Comics, Mueller, Donald Trump, Political Satire, Rudy Giuliani

Sign up for Taking Stock of COVID: New comics from The Nib

By The Nib

New comics from Matt Lubchansky, Keith Knight, and Niccolo Pizarro. Plus How Seniors Are Living With COVID-19. Take a look
Build a Text Documents App in SwiftUI
Tags: Mobile, Xcode, Swift, Swiftui, Programming

FileDocument

Create a struct of type FileDocument . You will get an error message asking you to add the protocol’s stubs. Click “Fix” to add the required data. As you can see below, the protocol allows us to read and write documents through its read initializer and write function. You will also have the readableContentTypes static variable that will help us determine and limit the types of files we want to allow in the app.

What we want to do next is assign our readableContentTypes to UTType.plainText and create a new string variable to hold the user’s text input. Inside the initializer, get the file’s content, then try to assign its value to our text variable.
The 6 Biggest Meteorites Found On Earth
By: Jayani Randika
Tags: Aliens, Asteroids, Meteor, History, Space

The 6 Biggest Meteorites Found On Earth

Rocks from outer space had been visiting earth since the beginning of times.

Image credit: American Museum of Natural History, published in the New York Times, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Although the one and only Chicxulub Impactor (11–81 kilometres in diameter) that wiped out the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago, hold the record for the biggest ever meteorite to ever hit the earth, it is neither the first nor the last of such visits.

Some were lucky enough to survive the journey into our atmosphere and made the earth their home while some just evaporated creating spectacular shooting stars, and of course, there are others who skim past the earth! Among these alien rocks, there are pretty big ones weighing as much as dozens of grownup elephants!

And these are the 5 largest, burnished and strangest looking meteorites that were lucky enough to enter the earth, obviously since the Chicxulub impactor. Enjoy!
3 Self-Awareness Quotes That Can Uplift Your 2021 Instantly
By: Rajesh Vairapandian
Tags: Self Improvement, Self, Quotes, Life, 2021

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

3 Self-Awareness Quotes That Can Uplift Your 2021 Instantly

We seek happiness in various ways of Life. Being happy is the ultimate goal for all. However, we encounter difficulties in achieving happiness through multiple blockages. Toxic people,lack of finance, unhealthy body,stress, all of these we face in our Life, which makes us unhappy.

We observe that most people are moving at a fast pace in their lives, trying to achieve genuine happiness and peace of mind but fail to get.

These self-awareness quotes that can help shift our low energy to high energy and bring happiness into our Life.
This AI can Colorize your Black & White Photos with Full Photorealistic Renders! (DeOldify)
By: Louis, What S Ai
Tags: Machine Learning, Photography, Deep Learning, Photos, Pictures

This is done by training the generator like a regular deep network’s architecture, such as ResNet. That way, the model is already pretty good at colorizing an image before training the complete GAN architecture. Then, it only needs a short amount of this typical generator-discriminator GAN training to optimize the “realism” of the generated pictures.

Gaussian noise is also randomly applied to images to generate fake noise during training.

This is a type of data augmentation that can be performed on the training images to improve the results and resistance to noisy inputs, using the same technique as style transfer, where the noise would be the style of the image we want to copy and can be applied more or less to the transformation.

The whole architecture uses a basic ResNet backbone on a U-Net. Where the generator network in the GAN training is the U-Net architecture. Right now, there is no complete explanation of how this works, but the author is currently working on a paper about DeOldify, where he will further investigate why and how his technique, previously found only by trials and errors work.

Watch this video if you’d like to see more results and how to use it:

You can find three things in the references below. At first, there’s the GitHub link with a complete detailed explanation of the technique and even google colab tutorials to use it yourself. Then, you can find a free API on DeepAI using DeOldify where you can simply click and try yourself. Finally, the third link is the most advanced version of DeOldify if you are looking for the best results. It is on MyHeritage’s website and is paid to use.