fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
The GameCredits Foundation October 8 2018 Update
By: The Gamecredits Foundation
Tags: Updates, Gamecredits, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

Hello everyone and welcome to yet another report from The GameCredits Foundation.

Before we get started, we wanted to share a friendly reminder that the official GameCredits website is https://gamecredits.org

Details for this reporting period

We’ve partnered with Qlear Protocol to decentralize gaming on every platform! Read more about it from our press release here and Qlear’s press release here (psst: this was the not-so-secret-but-kinda-secret surprise)

Xsolla has added GameCredits to their list of supported currencies! Read more about it here

We’ve got a new community manager: everyone welcome R3D in Discord and Telegram! He will be helping us significantly by answering questions and being available to the community as a liaison for the GCF. You can still reach GCF members in Discord — just look for the “GCF Member” role and reach out!

Electrum-GAME is in the works and being tested! With Electrum-GAME, users can store their GameCredits in a light wallet without the need to download the whole blockchain. As an added bonus, Electrum-GAME offers users the ability to store GameCredits on major hardware wallets out there, including TREZOR, KeepKey and Ledger Nano S. Here’s a screenshot of the work in progress:

Screenshot of Development version of Electrum-GAME

Contact us!

We’re always eager to hear back from our community! Make sure to leave any GAME-related questions on our social media/communication platforms;

Discord

Twitter

Telegram

Facebook

Reddit

Steemit

GitHub

Sincerely,

The GameCredits Foundation
Councilman Chris Buoni resigns after seven years of service
By: Melissa Riker
Tags: New Jersey, Community

Councilman Chris Buoni resigns after seven years of service

Buoni annouced at the Feb. 5 council meeting that he is moving out of New Jersey.

Medford councilman Chris Buoni resigned on Feb. 5 after seven years of service on council, including one year as deputy mayor in 2013 and one year as mayor in 2014.

Buoni announced at the Feb. 5 council meeting that he is moving out of New Jersey — for now.

“This state is on a pathway to ruin. New Jersey will go bankrupt, I have no doubt,” Buoni said.

Buoni said that regardless, New Jersey is a great state and this might not be the last of him. He said that he might return back to New Jersey at some point.

“If I do, I hope I can move back here to Medford Township,” Buoni said.

Mayor Chuck Watson said that together they have worked hard to serve Medford Township and they have become good colleagues and friends.

“You and I have become very good friends and you may not be sitting here at council anymore, but we’ll still be good friends,” Watson said. “Thank you for your service to our community, but that you mostly for your friendship.”

Buoni said that this resignation is tough and bittersweet for him, however, after his years of service it has become routine.

“In my case it’s good to move on,” Buoni said. “I just hope that Medford continues to find people of quality and make great decisions.”
MPX and Position Tokens are live.
By: Collins Brown
Tags: Crypto, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

Claim MKT for paying reduced fees and make your first trade today on MPX.

Introducing Our First Token — Leveraged BTC/DAI

We make it easy to get short (sBTC) or long (LBTC) leveraged Bitcoin (as an ERC-20 token) on the Ethereum blockchain. Come trade today. At launch, MPX is not available to traders in the United States, thank you for being patient as we work to make access available more widely.

We’re changing the way you trade, starting with sBTC and LBTC:

Synthetic price exposure. Trade the price of BTC on the Ethereum network

Safe leverage magnifies long or short gains

No margin calls, socialized losses or capital calls

We’ve removed forced liquidations or market blowouts

On-chain collateral and settlement

No wrapping, no borrows, no BTC custodian

What’s next?

Trade more crypto assets like XRP, EOS and XMR as ERC-20 tokens

Traditional assets on chain, like a FANG stock index

Totally new assets like a Crypto Volatility Index (similar to VIX)

What is MARKET Protocol?

MARKET Protocol lets users mint tokenized assets which can represent any asset, such as Apple shares, YEN, or 2x leveraged short Bitcoin. Our smart contracts enforce token rules, which eliminate counterparty risk. Built as ERC-20 assets, our tokens can trade on any exchange or application.

Soon someone in the Philippines can invest in a US stock index, a person in an unstable region can access a reserve currency, or a crypto trader can profit from a decline in the price of Litecoin.
Smokin’ Mirror
By: Jalyn Folston
Tags: Change, Spirituality, Poetry, Illumination, Self Realization

Photo by Skyler King on Unsplash

Smoke covers the mirror as sweat drips down my face

my temple is tired and ready to quit.

I lift my arm and reach my hand,

Still can’t seem to clear my clouded views,

I inhale the smoke

Burned.

But relaxed, then preceded to take a deep breath.

I extend my arm — soon,

Finally embraced the fumes

I slowly wiped the mirror clean

But steam steadily filled the room

The smoke again engulfs the mirror as sweat drips down my face

I release my arm but reach my hand back

Burned.

By the hot water that unseeingly dripped

In pain, but not in vain

My view became much clearer

I relaxed, took a deep breath.

Then finally started to see what was in the mirror.
The way we eat is changing.
By: Erika Block
Tags: Food, Agriculture

We want to know where our food comes from and how it was produced. Food buyers and suppliers are reinventing the way they operate to meet rapidly growing consumer demand for healthier, sustainable food.

Local and sustainable sourcing is an increasingly important competitive business advantage.

But legacy supply chains cannot meet the consumer demand that’s driving change across the food system.

Local Orbit offers a holistic mix of online tools, custom software development services, training and strategic consulting focused on strengthening local food economies.

We work with people as they launch new businesses and procurement programs, and as they learn, adjust, grow, struggle, succeed — and occasionally fail.

By enabling efficient, decentralized supply chains, Local Orbit increases market share for small and mid-size food producers and helps people build a more equitable and sustainable food system.
A Fuller Framework for Making in Maker Education
By: Jackiegerstein Ed.D.
Tags: Education Reform, Education, Makerspaces, Makers

Originally published at https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2016/10/23/a-fuller-framework-for-making-within-maker-education/

Background Information

I recently learned, for the first time, about Aristotle’s belief that there were three basic activities of humans: theoria (thinking), poiesis (making), and praxis (doing). Corresponding to these activities were three types of knowledge: theoretical, the end goal being truth; poietical, the end goal being production; and practical, the end goal being action (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_(process)).

The Greek theoria, from which the English word “theory” is derived, meant “contemplation, speculation, a looking at, things looked at”. The word theoria is derived from a verb meaning to look, or to see: for the Greeks, knowing was a kind of seeing, a sort of intellectual seeing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoria).

Poïesis is etymologically derived from the ancient Greek term ποιέω, which means “to make” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poiesis).

Praxis (From ancient Greek: πρᾶξις) is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realized (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_(process)). “Praxis” may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. Praxis may be described as a form of critical thinking and comprises the combination of reflection and action. Paulo Freire defines praxis “reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed.”(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_(process))

Implementing a Broader Framework of Making in Maker Education

All of this led me to think about how this would translate into a full spectrum of making in the context of maker educator. Having such a framework would help insure that learning from the making experience is more robust, not left up to chance. I believe a fuller spectrum or framework would including the following elements:
Multiply two integers. Isn’t it simple?
By: Alessandro Attanasi
Tags: Multiplication, Karatsuba, Schonage Strassen, Toom Cook, Harvey Van Der Hoeven

In 1963 Toom published its result about computing two large integers improving on Karatsuba algorithm [2], and few years later in 1966 Cook refined the algorithm in his PhD thesis [3].

The Toom-Cook algorithm is similar to the Karatsuba one, indeed it is also a Divide-and-Conquer strategy. But instead of splitting the original number in 2 parts, it splits the number in k parts, so we speak about Toom-Cook-k. Usually the most used variant is the Toom-Cook-3. The key idea of the algorithm is to write two polynomials p(x) and q(x) both having degree (k-1) and with coefficients the k parts the two given numbers M, and N. The splitting is done in a given base B, so we can write for the case k=3 (the generalization is trivial):

and it implies that p(B)=M and q(B)=N. Based on that we can compute r(x)=p(x)q(x), so r(B)=p(B)q(B)=M*N, i.e. what we were looking for. The schoolbook multiplication of the two polynomials will require 9 multiplications, while the Toom-Cook-3 only 5, and this is the root of the better performance, indeed the recurvise expression of the time complexity can be written in a gerenal way as:

Thanks again to the master theorem, we find that the Toom-Cook algorithm performance is

Now let’s go deeper into the algorithm to understand how it is possible to compute r(x), i.e. how to compute all the (k-1)+(k-1)+1 coefficients of r(x), based on the coefficients of p(x) and q(x). From now on I’ll refer to the Toom-Cook-3 case, so k=3. The main idea to keep in mind is that a polynomial of degree d is totally defined once we have its value in d+1 points, so in our example being r(x) of degree 4, we will need 5 points. We chose x = {-2, -1, 0, 1, infinity} and compute p(x) and q(x) for each of them:

Note that these two sets of relations can be written in matrix form as following, where each row of the matrix contains powers of one of the evaluation points, and the vector contains the coefficients of the polynomial:

In that way for computing the 5 values for p(x) we need 6 additions and 2 multiplications, but Bodrato [4] found a way to reduce a bit the number of operations to 5 additions and 1 multiplication by doing the following chain of operations:

At this point we can compute the polynomial r(x) in the same 5 points as:

At this step we entered the recursive procedure 5 times, and finally we have to merge the results. This is the most tricky step because we have to do the reverse of the operations we did in computing p(x) and q(x) at the chosen 5 points, i.e. we have to solve the following linear system:

so by inverting the matrix we get:

And again it is possible to minimize the number of operations here by carefully chaining a sequence of operations as the ones defined by Bodrato.

Once the coefficients of the polynomial r(x) are found we can immediately compute the product of the initial numbers by summing them as:
歇回兒，來口茶｜她說
By: 王昇 David
Tags: Feelings, 她說, Life

in Both Sides of the Table
Yayındayız!
By: Terrace Vista
Tags: Haberler, Türkçe

in Both Sides of the Table
Startups That Don’t Make A Critical Early On Transformation Will Likely Fail
By: Martin Delaney
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Startup, Leadership, Business, Founders

Startups That Don’t Make A Critical Early On Transformation Will Likely Fail

Behaviours that generate initial success later lead to failure.

Thanks to Francisco J. Villena for the image.

The genesis of a startup is among my favorite phases.

At this point it’s just a handful of founders — maybe just one — with a hypothesis in-hand, usually little in the way of resources, and a ton of energy.

The sense of pioneership from working on an idea, area of investigation, or product that no one else in the world “has done before” gives an awesome sense of purpose.

It feels like “anything could happen”. From abject failure to ludicrous success.

Those diametrically opposed outcomes inject an intoxicating cocktail of excitement and apprehension into the mission.

In order to mobilize a hypothesis into an early product and achieve tangible results, founders have to own certain domains of expertise and seemlessly switch between many others too.

Examples are sales, tech, customer relations, marketing, research, fundraising, product development, PR, operations, legal, admin, accounting, regulatory compliance, etc.

Taking on all of these roles is exactly what’s needed to succeed in the very beginning. There’s simply no one else to do them.

Plus, the efficiencies gained from just a few people handling all of them can create incredible momentum.

This versatile founder input propels a startup to its first funding round or product-market-fit (eureka!) moment, often both simultaneously.

But, this dynamic can’t persist.

It’s critical founders drastically recalibrate their contributional activities from that point onwards, otherwise, it will likely lead to failure.

Here’s why, through a personal lense.
Tail recursion in Java
By: Justin Dekeyser
Tags: Tail Recursion, Programming, Functional Programming, Java, Algorithms

Designing a tail recursive algorithm

The following snippet shows how we are going to design a tail-recursive algorithm:

See github project for full Java code source

As you see, we begin by defining an interface. Why not a class? Because what we are designing is an algorithm. As such, it is only a method contract which cannot have any relevant state. From the OOP point of view, what we are designing could hardly be an Object.

The recursive call needs to have return type as Object . This is a requirement which the user will not find blocking, as a tail recursive call is design to be a terminal operation. The exposed casting is done safely in the executor-method, which acts as a guard.

The whole interface is annotated as TailRecDiretive and the provided name is the name of the algorithm implementation that will be generated by our annotation processor.

The public guard (which is aimed to be used by users) is the TailRecursiveExecutor , while the recursive call is the TailRecursive method.

Note that we you have written here is a complete tail recursive algorithm. No boiler plate is needed, except the annotations. Those are mandatory, as the processor needs to know which method has which role, etc.
Hop on: Philadelphia to London
By: Antonia Depace
Tags: Education, College, Study Abroad

It has been two years since I last traveled outside of the United States, and I could not be more excited. My experience with Emerson’s Kasteel Well was so fun and eye-opening that I never thought that I would find anything that could compare. But then I found the Global Pathways program to Aix, and with the help of my advisor, applied (To my Kasteel family: don’t worry, you still hold a special place in my heart.)

This trip will be very different, but in a good way. I will be studying in Aix for three weeks, taking french lessons with IS-Aix, and exploring southern France just as I had wanted to when I was last in Europe. I will also be living with a host family, whom I will be expected to speak to in french (I’ve only taken two years of the language).

As this is my first blog post, out of the many, for this trip, I wanted to take the time to thank everyone who donated and supported me so that I could be sitting here at the Philadelphia Airport three hours before departure time. Without your donations, it would have been really hard to make this trip work, so it truly means the world to me. You have made a dream come true.

As promised, I will be keeping a blog filled with photos and stories about my adventures. And, hopefully, they will be much more exciting than this one. I’ll be sure to post them on social media, but just in case (or if you are really interested) you can follow my account here, on medium, so that you can receive updates every time I post.

Thank you, again, to everyone who helped! Look for a post from Aix soon.

à bientôt!

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed my post you can click Recommend and/or Share below.

Follow me on Instagram to see my yoga and travel experiences @keep_depace
Reverse job fair showcased students to potential employers
By: Sean Devlin
Tags: New Jersey, Local, Education

Reverse job fair showcased students to potential employers

Recent event held at RCGC assists members of the Adult Center for Transition

Dan Sulpizio, Senior VP at Parke Bank and Pres. of the Gloucester County Habitat for Humanity Board, job seekers Charles Gumpert and Edward Lee McDonald, Dr. Fred Keating, President of RCGC and Freeholder Heather Simmons

Release issued by Gloucester County:

On Friday, April 20, Rowan College at Gloucester County hosted their first Reverse Job fair. The Reverse Job fair allowed student members of the Adult Center for Transition (ACT) to showcase their strengths and demonstrate how much value they can bring to businesses or organizations present at the event.

ACT is a post-secondary experience that prepares young adults with disabilities to become independent, contributing members of society. By focusing on student goals and strengths, ACT provides targeted academic, social and vocational education to prepare each graduate for tomorrow’s competitive workforce.

In attendance was Freeholder Heather Simmons, liaison to the Department of Economic Development and Workforce Development Board.

Freeholder Simmons said, “This event allowed young job seekers to take on the role employers would usually take at these job fairs. Local businesses were able to meet with postsecondary education students seeking employment and hear what strengths they could bring to the workforce.”
[BLOG] TEMCO’s BI-tool and the Business
Tags: Big Data, Bi Tools, Business, Blog

TEMCO’s BI-tool, as a hope for the SMEs

To analyze largely accumulated data, corporations and large companies have team of professionals dedicated to analysis of such data. However, the SMEs cannot afford such departments are teams. For SMEs to analyze such data, it consumes large amount of time and cost if they want to analyze the data themselves. Accordingly, there are much need of analysis tool that can efficiently analyze such data that is cost and time efficient.

TEMCO is providing a solution for such companies who cannot efficiently analyze the large accumulated data. TEMCO’s Bi-tool (Business Intelligence tool) provides a strategical decisions for the companies who need the organization, analysis of the data on the blockchain. In addition, TEMCO utilizes the blockchain to connect the supply chain network, collecting requests, deployment, inventory and more related data for visualization.

4 Major aspects of TEMCO’s BI-tool

TEMCO’s BI-tool collects and processes large amount of accumulated asymmetrical data from the internal and external systems, it also supports visualization of data, dashboard report tool to provide direct solution for the businesses. The uses of TEMCO’s BI-tool is organized into 4 parts based on the need and uses of the client.

First, the BI-tool can be used for reporting. TEMCO’s BI tool can collect and process large amount of data and create data visualization, dashboard viewing, charts, and more similar direct reporting can be created based on the symmetrical data. Second, the BI-tool can be used for data analysis. It means that the BI-tool can be used as a tool for processing of entire data to analysis of the data.

Third, the BI-tool can use used for analyzing Big Data. Forth, the tool can be used for developing the infrastructure. So the BI-tool can be used in various ways. The blockchain based supply chain data management system and Business solution package.
Stop Living a Complacent Life
By: Aaron Schnoor
Tags: Development, Purpose, Self, Growth, Life

Stop Living a Complacent Life

How to end the “good enough” mindset

We have a complacency problem in America.

It’s a difficult problem to address, isn’t it? Complacency is a word that many Americans are familiar with, but how many people actually know what it truly means?

Complacency: self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies

For many years, I believed that complacency and laziness were synonymous. Laziness, however, is intentionally not acting in a specific way, even if you understand the dangers that come from your inaction. It’s easy to recognize laziness. But it’s not so easy to recognize complacency.

Complacency also shouldn’t be confused with finding happiness in your status quo. You should be happy with who you are and what you’re doing, and you shouldn’t feel bad about being happy.

What does complacency look like, then? And how can it be avoided?

In his book The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream, author and economist Tyler Cowen explains how Americans have fallen into a pit of complacency:

“Americans often point with pride to our role as the world’s leading innovator. And yet despite this leadership and innovation, if you compare America today to forty years ago, the country seems to have lost its mojo. The passion and perseverance that fueled progress in America has been falling since the 1960s, back when we dreamed of seeing flying cars and colonies on other planets by the turn of the century. Instead, recent innovation tends to be on the margin rather than fully transformational — like more ways to socialize online, play games, and get services without leaving the house.

In other words, we’ve fallen into the mindset that things are “good enough.” We’ve lost sight of our dreams and ambitions, and we’ve become overly-comfortable in the way things are.

This slow regression into complacency does not only apply to businesses. As Cowen writes, every decision that Americans individually make — when added together collectively — can lead to decreased innovation.

“While seemingly small, Americans’ complacent, safe decisions end up meaning a great deal for the wider economy.” — Tyler Cowen, The Complacent Class

Do you find yourself doing the same thing over and over, day after day? Did you never finish that degree or class that you always wanted to complete? Is there a job position or promotion that you envy but cannot find the motivation to get? Are you comfortable with your current life but know that you’re missing out on something?

If so, you might be suffering from a bad case of complacency.

There are ways to avoid complacency and make a change, however. The following tips, which are drawn from Cowen’s book, may help you regain your original path to success.
Let It Take You
By: Rebeca Ansar
Tags: Inspiration, Creativity, Poetry, Poem, Haiku

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Eclipse Haiku
By: Jackie Ann
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Sorrow, Haiku, Poems On Medium, Eclipse

pixabay.com

There is no shadow

anymore — the whole of it

in complete darkness

© Jacqueline Ann 2020
Trials of Transition:
By: Allie Keeler
Tags: Transgender, LGBTQ, Family, Love, Rejection

We maintained this “status-quo” type relationship until my world was rocked when my Mother had a near fatal heart attack on August 15th, 2016. For the past few years, I had been able to suppress or ignore most of the gender dysphoria that gnawed at me simply by keeping myself busy and distracted. This brought me back down to Earth with the realization that my life could be over in an instant without ever having lived. I will never forget the 10 days that my mother lay in a coma in the ICU, being unsure if she would ever wake up. I spent hours watching over her alone, taking shifts with my Dad, Grandmother, and Brother to make sure that she had a family member nearby.

It was in these moments, a 210lb, broad shouldered, muscular person with arms popping out of their sleeves and a close shaved, almost officer-like haircut -that no one would mistake for the son- was standing guard over this tiny 105lb, lifeless woman appearing as if to be her rock-solid protector- and began crying on the inside with a voice repeating “I’m here, Mom- your Daughter is here. Please wake up”. Simultaneously, I continued to try to be there for my Father as he feared losing his wife and tried to keep it together for both of our sakes. He needed his son in those moments and I never before had that been so difficult as it was then.

I tried to distract him as best as I could, trying to minimize his time by himself when he couldn’t be at the Hospital. I became fully aware of the duality of how I felt, and who I was outwardly as my family and the world knew. Though my Mother came back to us, and has had a long road to recovery, my world was never the same after that. I knew that ignoring how I felt inside was something that I couldn’t do any longer and I began seriously contemplating Transitioning through that Fall and then actively planning for it from the Spring of 2017 onward.
ONE DAY
By: David I'Olua Alabi
Tags: Creative Process, Inspiration, Creative Writing, Motivation, Poetry

A POEM

A hard working mind

Will definitely reap

Whatever it sows sooner or later.

One day broken dreams

Will become fulfilled dreams.

In the face of all odds,

You shall reap the good things of your dream.

And like the sun travels from the east to the west,

So shall your harvest success travel round the world.
Part 2 — Is a Business Plan for the Creative Industry an important document?
By: Peter Moore
Tags: Music, Creative, Careers, Business, Planning

Looking at the second part in the three-part series, of writing a successful business plan for the creative industries…

This is a very important area to really take forward and perfect your business plan and ideas over time.

This is an area you are going to need to put together a solid business plan for your creative career, and not just if you looking to raise finance but a road map to see where you are going to be heading over the next 2/3/5 years!

No plan then you are almost doomed to fail, this article looks at a few points and tips for the second phase of your business plan stratagy!

Writing a business plan for your music career!

For all the creativity needed to sustain and build a career in music, having a business plan is one way to stay properly grounded, and ahead of the game, this will define your goals and objectives going forward.

Which will provide clarity for your ideas

Many artists and bands struggle with creativity versus commerce, but it's something you as a creative are going to have to overcome, it's really that simple, and especially with how the world is today you are going to need to apply yourself.

It's just not good enough to just put out your product and expect the world to love it, sorry it doesn't work that way-its called lots of hard work and graft!

How to start and where to begin!

There are lots of resources to help you push your business along, like online — including articles, courses, companies, people, etc — to help write a business plan or at least give you some advice on your journey.

But where on earth do you begin?

A good place to start is to define what a business plan is and why you will need this document.
There is a New Way to Be
By: Tanya Buchko Green
Tags: Life Lessons, Blue Insights, Self Improvement, Creativity, Poetry

There is a New Way to Be

Walking Your Own True Path

There is a new way to be.

Not the way your mind works,

not the way you receive everything, filtered and shaped to please, as if you fear anything bigger than yourself,

not even the way you were shown, through others’ teachings in carefully scripted bestsellers.

There is a new way to be.

The way you search for footholds as you clamber up the hill,

the way you try, and fail, and try again,

the way you honor the butterfly crossing your path,

the dream waking you in the night,

the words pouring from your pen,

the feelings bringing you back to yourself.

To be,

Being,

is not shapeable, not negotiable.

Being stands alone,

emanating like fire floating on the dark ocean –

a source of light to illuminate a limitless path.

Not given to one,

but ever existent in all,

coalescing at points of intersection with Truth.
Free iPhone Wallpaper — Disney Edition
By: Jordan Blaser
Tags: Disney, Free Downloads

For my final BFA project I designed an iPhone App for Disney. I did a little illustrating which always makes me super nervous, but I am really happy with the way they turned out. I decided it would be nice to turn those illustrations into iPhone Wallpaper!

Cheers!
Reinforcement Learning
By: Imalka Prasadini
Tags: Reinforcement Learning

In machine learning, there have main three areas. Supervised learning, unsupervised learning and reinforcement leaning. Reinforcement learning gives solutions for various kind of planning and control problems. Policy, model of environment, reward signal and value function are major components of reinforcement leaning.

Reinforcement learning can consider as a part of an artificial intelligence. It has become apparent in artificial intelligent systems and fixing sequential decision-making problems. And it was able to pass human level in various fields. Reinforcement learning use different actions and experiment in many successes and failures to interact with an unknown environment. This is done while affording to increase the received rewards.

How Reinforcement learning differ from supervised and unsupervised learning.

When considering about machine learning, there have three major areas that are supervised learning, unsupervised learning and reinforcement learning. However, reinforcement learning different from those branches.

In supervised learning machine learns from training labeled data which is given by an external supervisor. When increase the amount of training example, it will help to improve the process of performing of this learning system. Unsurprised learning is based on finding hidden structure in set of unlabeled data. Sometimes the reinforcement learning seems like unsurprised learning. However, Reinforcement Learning’s main target to maximize the rewards than seeking hidden structure.

Let’s briefly look on main components of Reinforcement Learning system.

Policy, value function, reward signal and model are main components of Reinforcement Learning system.

The policy can be a function, search process or lookup table. The main goal of the reinforcement process is identifying the most favorable policy. The value function is the complete future rewards are predicted by using the value function. States and select between actions are evaluated by using this value function. The reward signal shows how better, and worst is an event. Also reward signal states the problem’s goal where the agent’s target to increase the total rewards. Finally, The model is the predictions that are going to be made about the environment are allowed by the model of the environment. This is an additional part of reinforcement Learning. Model-based methods use planning and models.

It has been used in many fields. Games gives best environment for reinforcement learning agent.

So let’s consider some practical examples of Reinforcement Learning system concisely.

Reinforcement learning mostly use in building artificial intelligence for computer games. AlphaGo, ATARI are some examples for those computer games. Also in robotic and industrial automation, uses reinforcement learning. This is possible reinforcement learning allows to the system can learn itself from its own experience. Further, text summarization engines, dialog agents are some practical examples where reinforcement learning is used.
Stunning
By: Chris Hedges
Tags: Tsunicorn, Transgender, Self Love, LGBTQ, Society

She always turned heads when she entered a room. Men couldn’t keep their eyes off of her. She considered it a superpower once she got used to it. When she was younger, it frightened her. Now, she loves the attention.

She once just wanted to hide. She didn’t want people to see her. It caused her anxiety. She just wanted to blend into the scenery. She was wary. If people knew her, what would they say? What would they do?

When she was younger, she didn’t feel like she fit in with everyone else. Maybe it was all in her mind? Maybe she didn’t?

Her self-perception was different than the way the world saw her.

There was a mismatch.

A mismatch she kept hidden instinctually.

A loud group of religious folks condemned her.

Some in society wanted to erase her.

Mean politicians who secretly desired her wanted to regulate her body.

Sometimes, the cruel classmates would see her and make bullying comments. Kids can be cruel like that. They wanted to make her cry.

These days people are a lot less prejudiced.

The tide is turning.

Cruelty is transforming into loving.

The generations since her youth have grown and learned not to fear. Even many of the older generation are learning that love overcomes fear. Maybe they aren’t afraid to speak up these days for their fellow humans.

It makes for a kinder and happier world.

She has met some friends.

They have gone down the same path before her. They are beautiful. They are confident. They are not afraid. They are role models.

“If they are confident and proud, I can be the same.”

She has never known women like them before. She has seen some like them, but always from a distance. Usually on YouTube or the internet.

Her lack of self-confidence had made her afraid to reach out. She was afraid of rejection. That has changed since her younger days.

These women welcome her with open arms.

They aren’t perfect.

Nobody is.

It is a valuable lesson to learn.

Love yourself and everything about yourself.

Women in her situation have an uphill battle in life. The battle makes them more loving to fellow sisters. All for one and one for all.

After the pandemic struck, she went into to her isolation. Her little bubble.

Maybe it is a cocoon. Maybe she’s a butterfly waiting to emerge.

Her solitude isn’t lonely.

She is falling in love with herself.

She is fine just as she is. She doesn’t need outside reassurance that she is worthy. She knows she was divine just by her existence.

Just as everyone else is divine.

We are all worthy of love and respect.

She knows she is strong, worthy and full of love.
CSS Variables and How To Use Them
By: Shahed Nasser
Tags: Software Development, Programming, CSS, Tutorial, Web Development

A lot of people don’t know about CSS variables, and you might be one of them! It’s time to learn about CSS variables and how you can use them.

CSS variables are declared for a specific element as a custom property. Then, you can use that custom property anywhere you use that element.

Declaration and Usage

Here’s how you declare a custom property:

element {

--background-color: #f00;

}

Here, element can be a selector of any element, for example, div, p, .test, etc…

What we did is that we declared a custom property for this element called --background-color . All CSS custom properties must start with -- .

Now, we can use this custom property inside element using the var function.

element {

background-color: var(--background-color);

}

Here, we assigned the background-color property of element to the variable we declared earlier.

This is nice and all, but usually we have repetition inside different elements, not just one. declaring a custom variable inside one element type is not very convenient.

In order to use a custom property inside more than one element type, we can declare the custom property inside the :root pseudo-class.

:root {

--primary-color: #333;

}

Now, we can use the variable --primary-color inside any element in our document:

div {

color: var(--primary-color);

} p {

background-color: var(--primary-color);

} .fancy {

border-color: var(--primary-color);

}

By declaring our custom property inside :root , we are now able to use it inside div to set the text color, p to set the background color, and any element having class fancy to set the border color. This way, not only did we minimize repetition, but we also made it easier to edit and change our website’s primary color at any given point.

Inheritance

Elements can also inherit custom properties. For example, let’s say we have the following HTML:

<div class="parent">

<div class="first-child"></div>

<div class="second-child"><div>

</div>

Then, we declare a variable called --text-size on .parent :

.parent {

--text-size: 15px;

}

Now, we can use --text-size not only inside .parent , but also inside its children as well:

.first-child {

font-size: var(--text-size);

}

We can also override custom properties. We can do that by redeclaring the custom property inside the child element:

.second-child {

--text-size: 30px;

}

Now, if you use --text-size inside .second-child , it’ll be evaluated to 30px, but if you use it inside .first-child or .parent , it will still be 15px.

Fallback Values

You can also define a fallback value for a variable by passing a second parameter to var . For example:

.second-child {

font-size: var(--text-size, 30px);

}

Fallback values are used when the variable is not defined yet. They are not used as a fallback to browser incompatibility.

Conclusion

And that’s how you can use CSS variables! Keep in mind that some browsers like Internet Explorer don’t support them, so if you need to support all browsers you need to take that into consideration.
Nature Knows No Good Or Bad
By: Desiree Driesenaar
Tags: Spirituality, Philosophy, Nature, Art, Life

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend. Strange to call him that because the conversation we had, was the first time we ever met. At a distance. We used skype for a great talk on our work and lives.

We connected for real and listened deeply.

And we flowed. Him often angry and flowing beautifully. Me just me with all the flow I had in me.

In the end, he thanked me that his anger was welcomed in our conversation. We handled it well. Both of us in our own, very diverse ways.

And it triggered the wish to write a story about good and bad. And our perceptions. And the way nature looks at the matter.

My friend and I are very different. And we are so the same…
Pepsi Nearly Had to Buy a Harrier Jet — for a Customer
By: Sean Kernan
Tags: Life Lessons, Humor, Business, History, Life

Pepsi Nearly Had to Buy a Harrier Jet — for a Customer

They shouldn’t have advertised a $30 million item for $700,000.

Source: Wikimedia pic

In 1996, Pepsi rolled out one of its “Drink Pepsi, Get Stuff” campaigns.

It was your usual promotion where you get points for purchases that you can later use.

The TV ad targeted teenage and early 20s customers. It showed all the cool things you could win with Pepsi points.

They showed a kid wearing a Pepsi T-Shirt: 75 Pepsi Points.

A kid wearing a leather jack: 1,450 points.

Sunglasses: 175 points.

They then boasted:

“The more Pepsi you drink, the more great stuff you’re going to get.”

Then it escalated.

The commercial ends with that same kid (wearing the leather jacket and sunglasses) landing a Harrier jet in front of a school.

Everyone’s papers were blowing off their desks and kids were crowding to the window to see the jet landing.

A harrier is a “jump jet” which can go vertical like a helicopter. Its engines can rotate downwards. Source: CBS News pic

The campaign was mostly a success as sales increased significantly. But there would be an interesting twist to this promotion.

A 21-year-old business student, John Leonard, saw the commercial and took a particular interest in that jet.

To get the Harrier, he would need to buy millions of Pepsis (most winning Pepsis had one point on the label, others had three and five — there were no one-million-point Pepsi bottles).
FPS歴15年の古参が伝える、PS4版CoD上達に繋がる記事まとめ
Tags: Videogames, Fps, PS4, ゲーム

in On The Couch
How to Short Altcoins on Binance
Tags: Crypto, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Altcoins

Shorting Bitcoin has always been an option but we know there is no easy way to short a cryptocurrecy at this time

Well we may have found something that works and is really close to the way they do it and it has a very good tracking system in place as well.

We are using a trading platform called 3Commas that allows us to short altcoins and track the performance. You are able to take a coin and HODL it long term if you choose and still make profit off it when it goes down!

Check out this video for a in depth explanation to get a better idea of how we are making it happen:

https://youtu.be/xWnkLRII_FY
What the Pandemic Has Shown Us About Life
By: Zul Bal
Tags: Pandemic, Learning, Reflections, Hope, Life

If everything in the last resort is in the hands of God or of blind chance, what hope has humanity except in submission? — Buddha

This year we bought a Lego Town Advent calendar for our son. Every morning he sprints to the kitchen table to open a new window for his surprise mini-Lego. Today it is an ambulance car. His excitement lies in not knowing what is about to be revealed.

Life is a lot like this Advent calendar. It reveals what is in store for us bit by bit. Though, unlike this calendar, life can also throw us unwelcome surprises.

This year has taken us all by surprise. One year ago, no one knew that a killer virus was about to sweep the globe and wreck the lives of millions. But, of course, the nasty surprise was simply a manifestation of many concurring conditions and causes.

Buddha teaches that all events arise from a chain of cause and effect. Epidemiologists had warned for years about the next pandemic before the arrival of Covid-19. People didn’t listen. Politicians didn’t prepare. And, still today some people won’t wear a mask.

As of today, close to 1.7 million people have died from it worldwide.

It is hard to comprehend the enormous loss and pain that has transpired over the past year.
On Eagle’s Wings
By: Estrella Ramirez
Tags: Ode, Family, Memories, Loss, Poetry

A year to the day,

since you went on

your way, and climbed

the stairway to heaven

The girls miss their

Gigi, but I tell them how

much happier you’d be,

united again with your

one and only

They never met him,

but sometimes we

drive down, to that

part of town, the corner

of 12th and Washington

I tell them the story

how once upon a time

he spent his whole life

building a future, for

them — and the daughters

they’d have, who had

daughters of their own

I’m so grateful you

met them, even though

you’d forget, because I

remember so many

moments to cherish,

of time they spent

with you

Holding my breath

for the moment I

got the text, to tell me

you’d drifted off

peacefully — they

said “Eagle’s Wings”

was playing, and I can’t

help but sing the refrain

softly to myself —

“And he will raise you up, on eagle’s wings,

bear you on the breath of dawn, make

you to shine like the sun — and hold you

in the palm, of his hand”

You always told me, when I

was a little girl, to never

fear the thunder — for every

loud rumble was the sound

of angels bowling — I’ve never

thought of rain, the same,

drawing peace from the

sound of rolling thunder
The Pairing Diaries: Week 1
By: Malina Tran
Tags: Software Development, Programming

The Pairing Diaries: Week 1

Four weeks. One tour.

Credit: #WOCinTech Chat

This is the first of week of pairing with software crafters from the 8th Light LA office. A recap of my experiences thus far:

Monday, January 16th

Mob programmed with Matthew and Rob on a Java/Spring project. We’ve done this before with a Scala project so I felt comfortable with the dynamic. I liked how they first provided business context (white-boarding is helpful!) and then the purpose behind their story/task. It was probably the largest, most complex codebase I’ve ever seen. At a higher level, they were writing tests and editing a function such that any updates to the database required the creation of another database record. There were times that my head hurt. I think I could’ve been more verbal, but it was nice that I was able to contribute in some ways.

Tuesday, January 17th

Paired with Kirby on a Rails project. We worked on various tasks, including modifying the type of data we’re sending from the view to the controller, editing and saving text input from a custom field, and creating a modal for updating data for all users. We also talked through refactoring and troubleshooting when a custom integration test failed.

I have more first-hand experience with their app since I have QA’d a story of theirs. It was nice to be briefly back in the Rails world, to work on front and back-end issues, and just overall to pair with Kirby who is delightful. (I also learned about Vim Awesome).

Wednesday, January 18th

Took a break to finish reading “Extreme Programming Explained.” Wrote some blog posts (here and here).

Thursday, January 19th

Mob programmed with Kirby and Byron on the same Rails project! We worked on rebasing various branches and refactoring in both Ruby and JavaScript. Despite their assertions that it would be boring since they weren’t adding new features, it wasn’t. It felt good to be able to contribute throughout the day, and I was able to follow along just fine. 😁 They also did a good job with clarifying their intent. I learned tons of git tricks from these guys.

Friday, January 20th

(TBD). In the morning, I plan to pairing with Richard on his Clojure tic-tac-toe game. In the afternoon, I’ll be working with Byron on his JavaScript idea.
Where College Is Free
By: The Nib
Tags: Debt, College, Comics, Student Loans, Education

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