fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Hanging up my chalks!
By: Shakti Shetty
Tags: English, Classroom, Life, Education, Grammar

I started teaching SSC kids English in 2007. I wasn’t supposed to do that. But I did like always, going against popular opinion!



Amma was strongly against my decision to spend weekends with students instead of studying. She, herself being a teacher in Kannada medium, was well aware of its impediments. She was into teaching “field” as she never considered it a “business”. To her, it was a way of saying thanks to her parents who gifted her education. Her argument was that one person from family was enough for the deed. Even my dad’s dad was a primary school teacher and had the most beautiful handwriting of all. At least my dad says so.



Teaching is a noble job. It brings with it this magnanimous attitude that is remarkably different from anything else you do in life. Connecting with kids, hearing their side of confusion, maintaining discipline and conversation on the same line are some of the facets that inject adrenaline on an otherwise dull morning.



Fastforward to 2010, I’ve decided I won’t be teaching anymore. No more sleepless weekends for me. I guess I’ve grown out of this stupid idea of “changing the world” with education. It’s not a worthy fight. Honestly. Every time I came back home, I had pictures of those kids in my mind who never spoke or were too mischievous to even care. It was always good apples and bad apples. On a lighter note, I’m tired of selling false dreams to these students for they’ll learn the way of life sooner or later and they’ll know that it isn’t going to be an easy ride either!



I was the youngest staff member too everywhere I went, be it classes, community school or small-time tuitions. And I’m happy I’m still young while I’m getting away from it to explore unseen avenues like learn French or violin or whatever. Teaching was the best thing I ever did in my godforsaken pale life and like they say, “Once a former teacher, always a former teacher!”
What’s on Your Bucket List?
By: Andy Smith
Tags: Happiness, Storytelling, Nonprofit, 100k Cheeks, Case Studies

Alice Pyne is 15 years old and she is dying.

As Salon details in a recent article, “Alice Pyne is a typical 15-year-old British girl. She likes Cadbury’s chocolate, her friends and her dog. She also has terminal Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Earlier this week she began a blog. ‘The cancer is now spreading through my body,’ she wrote. ‘It’s a pain because there’s so much stuff that I still want to do.’ And she wrote down what they were.”

The first item on Alice’s bucket list? “Make everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor.”

TechCrunch’s Paul Carr may be cynical about the Internet community coming together in favor of a good cause, but what’s amazing about Alice’s story is that she is just one girl with a blog and a Twitter account, yet she was able to gather the attention of a massive number of people in just a few days. Alice’s sister has raised over £30,000 for cancer research. Alice’s blog has thousands of comments. With so many causes and people with cancer in the world, the question remains: why are people jumping to help Alice? What makes her different?

I like the answer given by Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Wiliams: “There’s so much we can’t do. That’s why it feels amazing when someone gives us the chance to do something we can. To send a card. Bake a lasagna. Donate a pint of blood. Raise a little money for research. It’s not just because the sick need it, but because we all need it. In our most grief-laden moments, we search ferociously for meaning and purpose, and we cling to them for dear life.”

Want to help? Check out 100k Cheeks to learn more about how easy it is to become a bone marrow donor.
Start Today!!! Dream Your Dreams…
By: Rohan, Java Mac
Tags: Success, Work From Home, Jewelry In Candles

7 of the most common mistakes that prevent you from reaching your goals and dreams are:

Expecting fast results — it is your patience that will keep you on the right path to success.

2. Using failure as an excuse to give up — why not take that failure and learn from it instead?

3. Not planning on the unexpected — life rarely goes “as planned” so being prepared is a must.

4. Getting bored with the day to day — avoid this by changing, growing, and constantly learning.

5. Failure to visualize — remember the vision board? Now would be a perfect time to create yours!

6. Getting distracted — you have to concentrate and stay on F.O.C.U.S. — Follow One Course Until Successful!

7. Setting unrealistic goals — this only leads to frustration and it starts the whole vicious cycle all over.

Just remember you are an awesome person and once you set out to do something, and stick with it. You will get fabulous results!

I invite you to take a look at what I am doing and sticking with it.

I am not bored with doing this on a day to day basis. It is so exciting and the customers and team members are very interesting.

When it comes on to the response of persons when I share my business and products, is simply awesome.

Please take a look at my project at the website below:-

>>> www.SurpriseJewelryInCandles.com <<<

Have a great day!!!
Presidential Social Intelligence Battleground Tracker: July 5-September 5 Aggregates
By: Adam Meldrum
Tags: Battleground States, Donald Trump, 2020 Presidential Race, Joe Biden, Social Listening

Presidential Social Intelligence Battleground Tracker: July 5-September 5 Aggregates

An aggregate weekly pulse of how potential voters in battleground states are discussing the Presidential candidates

Please check out the background post on this project if it is your first time reading.

— Our initial dataset from the week of 7.3 was detailed here.

— Data from the week of 7.11 was detailed here

— Data from the week of 7.19 was detailed here.

— Aggregate data to date through 8.14 was detailed here

— Language data from the weeks of 8.07 & 8.14 was detailed here

— Aggregate data through 8.25 was detailed here.

— Language data from 8.21–8.28 was detailed here

— Language data from 8.28–9.04 was detailed here

Battleground States in our Analysis: AZ, CO, FL, IA, ME, MI, MN, NV, NH, NC, PA, TX, WI

Date Source: All data is publicly available and anonymized for our analysis from Twitter, Facebook, Online Blogs, & Message Boards.

Technology Partners: Eyesover & Relative Insight
The Priest-King’s Mercy
By: Jl Matthews
Tags: Creativity, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Short Story

The Priest-King’s Mercy

Will delights or horrors await?

Photo by British Library on Unsplash

The noose removed, I allow myself a moment of relief. Mercy, after all, is better than the alternative.

But what is mercy here? Beheading? Ritual sacrifice? Drowning? Time will tell, I suppose.

I’m led down the scaffold, my hands bound behind my back. The scattered hisses from the crowd prove not everyone agrees with the gods’ injunction.

The priest-king and his entourage arrive — bodyguards and young women, perhaps virgin priestesses.

My erstwhile savior is less than pleased, his face a thinly-veiled mask of rage. I contemplate why as we walk. Perhaps ‘mercy’ is a delight. Maybe I’m to deflower that alluring brown-haired priestess before being buried alive?

We arrive at the palace. The entourage is reduced to the priest-king, one bodyguard, and myself. We enter a lavish room filled with scrolls. Incense lingers. The door shuts behind us.

“I trust you are wise enough not to harm me,” the priest-king says.

“Yes.”

He motions to his bodyguard, and my hands are unbound. As the bodyguard exits, the priest-king removes his ornate headdress and searches a wicker basket. He retrieves a knife and a strange fruit. As his knife separates the skin of the sunset-colored fruit, he asks, “Where you’re from, what is the punishment for killing a man?”

“Death by hanging.”

“Here, too. What about killing three?”

“Same.”

He takes a bite of the fruit. Fragrant juice runs from the corners of his almost-tawny lips. “Yet, you are alive. Why?”

I consider my words carefully. “The mercy of your gods,” I answer. At this, his scowl retreats, and he chuckles.

“You know nothing of our gods,” he says, tossing the fruit to me. Though hungry, I hesitate to eat it. I take in the strong scent and taste the tangy juice. “You know nothing of our culture. You don’t even know the orange is a great delicacy here,” he says, bemused by my ignorance. He goes on, “Our gods are… complex. Their will, mysterious. I merely interpret.”

I study the tapestries on the wall — scenes of torture, human sacrifice, and cannibalism.

“You wish to know the manner of your mercy?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“You’ll be freed. So that you may serve the gods.”

“By serving you?”

He smiles. “I am but their most humble servant. You shall be the same for me.” He turns to a particularly violent scene of torture. “Unless… you object?”

“I do not. But why the show? The noose? Your rage as we made our way here?”

“You’re a stranger, in a strange land. You’ve killed three men, and the people know it. They want you dead.”

“But, you don’t?”

He moves to a small washbasin and dips his hands in the water. “The men you killed, did you know who they were?”

“No.”

“They were nobles. Rich. Powerful. Men of great influence in these lands and beyond,” he says, pausing to wipe his hands. “And all of them, for many years, my enemies.”
Season of the Poets' Soul
By: Sneha Mankar
Tags: Poetry, Writing, Literature, Letters From Li, Literary Impulse

LI WEEKLY EDITORIAL

Season of the Poets' Soul

A Letter to An Early Fall

Painting by Leonid Afremov (Viciebsk, Belarus, 1955 — Playa del Carmen, Mexico, 2019)

Warm greetings to all the literary wanderers!

With another fall, another turned page, we’ve officially entered the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, that’s right, the jewel-toned season of autumn. As Alexander Smith says,

“In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October when the trees are bare to the mild heavens, and the red leaves bestrew the road, and you can feel the breath of winter, morning and evening — no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a reverent meekness in the air.”

Autumn, the season of pensive beauty with a dazzling display of crimson leaves sparkling into wild colors and flowering ivy full of swallowtail butterflies, buzzing around, right before the silence of the bleak and bland winter. Just like my words lingering with the embracing sweetness entrenched in its melancholic analogies.

After all, autumn has always been a season of our soul, we, the poets who splatter the seasonal symbols from our palette of words and paint a rhythmical creation of beauty. When we pour our soul into something, we adorn and cover the empty spaces through our emotions recollected in tranquility and so we shine through it.

With this fleeting transition of the season rolling just around the corner, from days growing crisp to deciduous trees to Halloween, now is the perfect time to delve into some prime readings. And to induce you into the ambiance of fall, let’s celebrate this autumn’s arrival with some coruscating pieces of our writers which you can enjoy along with your seasonal drink of choice. Cheers!
On Freelancing Without Routines
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Humor, Freelancing, Productivity, Travel, Music

On Freelancing Without Routines

What does it mean to live out of a suitcase in transit?

“Where am I?”

On any given morning, I’m never quite sure nor can I always ascertain with confidence whether it is still morning, and if so, in what time zone.

As I open a bleary eye and drag my chronically underslept carcass out of bed, my concerns are prosaic to the extreme. I must pee; I must drink water and take my multivitamin; I must inhale coffee as soon as humanly possible.

But first, I have to face the assault course that is my bedroom if I am in Paris. For the last 9 months, I have been living out of a suitcase in transit between the US and the EU so I can help my parents navigate the reality of Stage IV cancer.

I’m a digital nomad again by default — not by choice this time — and although there are many moments of grace, the relentless pace is starting to wear me out.

I currently work a mixture of EU and US West Coast hours, which leaves little time for rest.

Over time, the one suitcase became three, crowding out the small room I occupy in my father’s condo. Walking around it requires maximum wakefulness, which is an impossible feat before coffee.

I generally start my day by tripping on something, stubbing my toe, or miscalculating the distance between my body and the wall. This ensures I’m now conscious enough to locate some items of clothing as I sleep in my birthday suit and can’t exactly walk around in the buff at my parents’.

At least not when they’re home.

The priority is always to get on with work so if I’m not going out immediately, a shower happens later in the day rather than first thing. By the time I make my way to the kitchen, it can be any time between 4AM and 1PM, depending on whether we’re going to the hospital for chemo or if I’m traveling.

Today for example is a home day with my family and it started with my staring at the kettle for a very long time until I realized why it wasn’t boiling.

I had forgotten to switch it on; I’m seldom at my best when I go to bed at 5:30AM and wake up less than six hours later.
AXNET lists Civic with CVC/ETH and CVC/TUSD pairs
Tags: Blockchain, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Tech

AXNET’s Decentralized Exchange has now launched Civic’s CVC Token available for immediate trading, deposit & withdrawal. CVC will have the following pairs in our decentralized exchange: CVC/ETH & CVC/TUSD.

The AXNET DEX allows traders to get access to a high-speed trading engine, with a centralized user-experience, while keeping custody of their funds. Users can connect their wallet via Meta-Mask, Trust Wallet, Ledger, Creating a New ETH account, or importing their private key(Not Recommended).

About CVC

Civic is a personal identity verification protocol that leverages distributed ledger technology to better manage digital identities. As with blockchain projects focusing on supply chain management for consumer products, Civic envisions a safer, cheaper, more efficient identity verification method for individuals and industries around the globe.

About AXNET:

Asset Exchange Network OÜ (AXNET) is a licensed virtual currency to fiat exchange with a licensed virtual wallet platform based out of Estonia. We service our traders worldwide by giving them the first hybrid trading platform that offers both a Centralized and Decentralized exchange that allows our traders to toggle between the two. We are listing traditional BTC, ETH, and USDT pairs with also fiat pairs like USD and EUR through our license and banking networks. We are also launching TUSD pairs for our decentralized exchange to give a stable-coin trading experience.
Self-Sabotage Used to Be My Best Friend and Now It’s My Enemy
By: Tim Lekach
Tags: Self Improvement, Entrepreneurship, Health, Motivation, Positive Thinking

4 Action Taking Tips

What specific actions can you now take to become aware of and overcome your sabotaging beliefs and self-defeating emotions?

1.Recognize that you are at the crossroads where your decisions and choices are yours and yours alone. You have to decide that you’re worth it and that you matter because you do.

2.Realize that you’re the one making the conscious decision to change your damaging self-talk and undermining beliefs and behaviors. No one else can do it for you.

It's the mindset of, it’s everyone else's fault and not mine. Blaming everything around you but not yourself when, in fact, you are truly in control of more in your life than you think.

And yes, this one was hard for me to accept too. But, once I grasped the concept and worked on myself from the inside out, my life drastically changed for the better.

3. Change “I can’t” or “I won’t” to “I Can, I Will” on a consistent basis. Pay attention to the emotional changes going on within you. Be prepared to physically describe your changes and write them down.

Repeat the process of writing down your changing feelings and behaviors and compare your notes every day. Measure your progress by the visible reoccurrences of positive self-talk and healthy behaviors.

Continual negative self-talk will create resentments and disempowering beliefs. Self-resentment is the seed that grows into self-sabotaging behaviors.

I should add that I also created a digital version of this method. I created a motivational and positive Facebook group that has actually grown to almost 200, 000 members.

4. Plant the seeds that produce positive, empowering beliefs and actions. Ask yourself, “Are my actions linked to pleasure-producing situations or to pain-producing situations?” Take the road that gives you pleasure, not grief.

The personal growth experienced from facing a fearful or painful event, or adversity, is important for self-improvement. However, don’t make a steady diet of it. You can grow and change by cultivating positive emotions such as joy, excitement, and happiness.
ExoMars Could Find Life Under the Surface of Mars
By: James Maynard
Tags: Mars, Science, Technology, Biology, Space

Beneath the surface of Mars, microscopic lifeforms could thrive in small pockets of briny water, feeding off radiation from cosmic rays.

Life might still live under the surface of Mars, protected from harsh conditions by the ruddy Martian crust. These lifeforms, should they exist, might be found by the ExoMars mission, scheduled for launch in 2022, a new paper from New York University Abu Dhabi suggests.

The subsurface of Mars — around two meters (seven feet) beneath the outer crust of the world — has never been explored. That will soon change when a roving biological laboratory from Europe digs into the surface of the Red Planet.

The Rosalind Franklin rover, seen here undergoing environmental testing in France, will drill under the surface of Mars for the first time, potentially uncovering microorganisms clinging to life in subsurface pockets of salty water. Image credit: ESA

Conditions just beneath the surface of Mars might protect simple life from the harsh conditions found under the thin atmosphere. There, organisms, protected from the harshest radiation, might actually use some of the energy they receive from Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs). This form of radiation can penetrate several meters beneath the surface of Mars, driving organic reactions. The minuscule Martian microbes might also find moisture in tiny pockets of water found there.

“Presently, there is no evidence of any biological activity on the planet’s surface, however, the subsurface environment, which is yet to be explored, is less harsh, has traces of water in form of water–ice and brines, and undergoes radiation-driven redox chemistry [the exchange of electrons between atoms in molecular reactions],” researchers wrote in an article published in Scientific Reports.
Artificial Reproductive Code
By: Marcus Van Der Erve
Tags: Homai Sapiens, Future Studies, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms

When you use a maps app, you can generally switch between a satellite or areal view of a region and its street map. Drawing a street map from an areal view is not only a laborious task but also a futile one because of the regular changes to our road infrastructure. So, Google commissioned a Stanford research team to teach a machine learning algorithm to transform areal images into street maps and back, all by itself. The early attempts showed to be remarkably accurate. No details were lost when reproducing an areal view from its street map.

However, when analyzing the results, the team discovered that the algorithm appeared to have cheated. Simply tasked to reproduce the areal view at the best possible quality, it had not learned anything. Instead, it had found the path of least action. When transforming the areal view, the algorithm had decided to invisibly encode its details into the street map, not unlike a watermark, so it could later use this code to reproduce the areal view exactly as it was. Mind you, the code that the algorithm secretly included in the street map essentially is a recipe of instructions, a process that tells the algorithm what to do to reproduce the areal view.

This might, in fact, be one of the first examples of what I’d call Artificial Reproductive Code or ARC. As the physician and oncologist, Siddhartha Mukherjee, hammers in his book The Gene: An Intimate History, this is precisely what DNA does. Rather than a blueprint of life, DNA is a recipe for the self-assembly of biological shapes. Not unlike ARC, DNA comprises the steps needed to produce life as the environmental conditions dictate. Considering this remarkable example of algorithm ingenuity, the population of algorithms that will shape Homai sapiens through their entangled behaviors can be expected to spin Artificial Reproductive Code to reproduce its behavioral and, eventually, physical shapes. It may also use ARC to spread beyond our world by means of so-called “Neumann probes”. The latter are space-traveling contraptions that self-assemble into physical shapes with functionalities inspired by the environment of their destiny.
What is Dash?
By: Meredith Davis
Tags: Dash, Cryptocurrency Investment, Crypto, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

Dash aims to be digital cash you can spend anywhere, with an interface, “So easy your Grandma could use it.” Already one of the largest peer-to-peer networks in the world, blasting 4,500 servers worldwide, Dash is fast, processing transactions at 1-second or less. With an interface similar to PayPal or Venmo and a feature called InstantSend, users can make small purchases like a cup of coffee at a shop or a soda from a vending machine without waiting for a confirmation and negligible fees. Dash PrivateSend mixes transaction funds with other funds, making transactions anonymous and untraceable, similar to Monero. Because it is a fork of Bitcoin, the structure is the same, but new and improved, making it readily integrated into the Bitcoin ecosystem with better speed and cost.

In addition to PrivateSend and InstantSend options, there are a few other nifty features of Dash for those a little more on the tech side: Anyone holding 1,000 Dash can form a Masternode. Masternodes can then be the ones to perform PrivateSend and InstantSend functions, earning a high block reward of 45%. Also, there is a really cool development project grant system called the Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or DAO. Anyone can submit a project to develop, market or improve the Dash infrastructure. Masternode holders vote and, if approved, it can then be implemented. If the team completing the project is not performing to standard, the Dash network can vote to stop the payments at any time, ensuring accountability. The result is constant evolution and appreciation of Dash tokens.
Stronger Together on Middle-Pause!
By: Marilyn Flower
Tags: Women, Wisdom, Podcast, Life Lessons, Health

Stronger Together on Middle-Pause!

Announcing the second episode of our podcast, STOMP!

Logo for Middle-Pause’s Podcast

Ta-da!

We just released the December episode of our podcast, STOMP! — Stronger Together on Middle-Pause!

Click on that link to enjoy my interview with our fearless leader, Debbie Walker. Don’t miss her incredible story of overcoming obstacles as a single mother on a journey to empowering herself and others.

We know you’re busy. It’s okay to listen while you do what needs to be done. That’s why we’re podcasting!

And for your reading pleasure, check out these articles….

A Crone’s Observations on Obsolescence and Obsolete — Alison Acheson

How Strong is Your Pelvic Floor ?— Marilyn Flower

You Are Created for Greatness — Debbie Walker
Tell Don’t Ask: Principios de POO en PHP
By: Francisco Ugalde
Tags: PHP, Tell Dont Ask, Software Development, Oop Concepts, Clean Architecture

Senior Software Engineer | I love coding, software architectures and all new technologies. I’ll try to share, in an easy way, all the bits of my head.

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Arba’een A Manifestation of Unity: VP Jahangiri
By: Maryam Khy
Tags: Iran, Arbaeen, Islam, Shiism

Iran’s First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri has acclaimed the large congregation of pilgrims performing rituals in Iraq during Arba’een in commemoration of Imam Hussein (PBUH) as a manifestation of unity among lovers of justice and freedom, regardless of their religious or ethnic differences.

In an address to the closing ceremony of a conference on Arba’een held in Tehran on Tuesday, Jahangiri said the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (PBUH) and his companions on the day of Ashura carried the message of advocating justice and freedom, religious reform, and uprising against cruelty and tyranny.

He also noted that Arba’een mourning ceremony, which falls forty days after Ashura, is a great effort to convey those messages and moral values to future generations.

The vice president said the Arba’een procession is such a miraculous event that has created unbreakable bonds between Iran and Iraq, the two countries that fought a full-blown war with each other for eight years in the 1980s.

After the fall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the ties between the two neighbors improved so rapidly that people of Iraq are impatient to host millions of Iranian pilgrims during Arba’een season, he added.

Jahangiri also highlighted the presence of people from all walks of life in the Arba’een procession, saying different people from around the world flock to Iraq to spread the message of unity in spite of their ethnic and religious differences.

What has kept the Arba’een alive and has turned it into a major social custom is the element of enlightenment in this religious rite, the vice president noted, stressing that such a huge movement must be presented to the world with the works of art.

“The committed artists must try to display a real image of the philosophy of the Arba’een procession to the world,” Jahangiri concluded, stressing that the media could be a loud voice for the promotion of Islam, love for peace and justice, devotion, resistance and freedom-seeking.

Each year, a huge crowd of people, even non-Muslims, attend the commemoration of Arba’een, marking the 40th day after the martyrdom anniversary of the third Shiite imam. The city of Karbala hosts the holy shrine of Imam Hussein (PBUH).

During the Arba’een event, volunteers set up thousands of congregation halls and pavilions in Najaf and Karbala and along the road between them to offer services for the travelers and pilgrims.

https://ifpnews.com/arbaeen-a-manifestation-of-unity-vp-jahangiri
Status.im patrocina TADHack Global 2018
Tags: Blockchain, Ethereum, Development, Hackathons, Bitcoin

in Eudaimonia and Co
Can We Re-Unite The States?
By: Fleur Sauvage
Tags: Politics, Stress Management, Love, America, Healing

Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Dear Friends and Family,

Following a closely held and widely disputed election, the days to come will be noisy, chaotic, and full of stress. The results will have repercussions for years to come. No matter your age, race, religion, political affiliation, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or identity.

Have no doubt — This will affect us all.

I am not here to voice a political or religious opinion. I am here as a human being reaching out to my fellow Americans and beyond, regardless of your mother country. I am reaching out across the globe, to you, at a time of great unrest to remind you of what is seemingly being lost in our species. Lost at a time when it is needed most. The only thing which can and will unite us again:

Love.

Today is a wonderful opportunity to show Love, Grace, and Acceptance to the many people who are no doubt, feeling isolated, defensive, and lost. People will unconsciously attempt to pull you into whatever elevated madness the day (and weeks) may bring.

Do not engage.

Be cautious, be wise, and most importantly: Be patient. Stand strong and focus on what is most important. Your dreams, your goals, and each other.

Know that if we are to move forward, we must weather this storm together — as brother and sister.

Be safe and know that you are Loved.

If by no one else than myself: You are loved.

9: Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or a sister is still in the darkness.

10: Whoever loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble.

11: But whoever hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; they do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them. — 1 John 2: 9–11

There is much blindness as we will surely see in the days, weeks, and months to come.

Be a beacon.

Be safe and know that you are Loved.
At 30, I Do Not Have 30 Life-Lessons to Offer
By: Debdutta Pal
Tags: Personal Essay, Journey, Nonfiction, Life, Self

Thirty. 30. The big three-oh. Thiiiirrrttyyyyy.

Sounds and looks scary, doesn’t it?

Have you ever wondered why?

When I was a child, I used to see thirty-year-olds as mega grown-ups. I would respectfully call them an uncle or an aunt, as is a common custom in the country I grew up in.

I would be asked to be on my best behavior in front of them, not babble and keenly listen to what they had to say, especially in the form of life advice.

Today, when I am about to turn thirty in less than thirty days, I wouldn’t dare advise anyone, even a child.

What if someone blindly follows my word and then goes on to screw up their life? — I can’t take responsibility for that. I would frantically search for a blanket to hide under, just like I did as a child, to escape from the world.

The only thing I can offer you is an insight into my life. I can share my experiences, learnings, and hard-earned realizations from the toughest of times.

When I have these discussions either through my writing or face to face, I always sandwich my content between disclaimers.

This worked for me, but I have no idea if it will work for you. I am sharing my journey with you to inspire you to take one of your own when you are ready for it. Maybe reading through my realizations will make something click in your head, help you connect the dots, and find your way to an answer you have been searching for.

What I’ve discussed in terms of problems, pain, and challenges may mirror issues that you have faced in your life. It may help you gain some perspective and comfort from learning that you are not the only one — And that’s it.

I am not qualified to give you an answer, because I don’t have them myself.

Until now, I have led an eventful life with numerous ups and downs and thought-provoking experiences, but everything I’ve learned is subjective. It’s deeply personal. It’s so contextual that if I had to go through it all over again, I might do things differently or not.

And if I don’t know something for sure, I won’t pretend to know it perfectly to sound confident and mature.

I can share every uncomfortable detail of my journeys with you, but I can’t tell you exactly what to do. I don’t think anyone can, except yourself.
How to Copy Downloaded Coursera videos from an Android Phone
By: Voice Of Reason
Tags: How To, Android

A little over a year ago, I joined Coursera. I took a few classes (Accounting, Entrepreneurial Studies, etc) mainly staying behind in the office for around two hours after close of work because I have crappy internet service at home.

In May last year I lost my Blackberry and so I joined the Android community and I was mighty pleased to have the Coursera Android app on my smart phone — now I could complete more courses as I could download the videos and watch them anytime (or so I thought).

But, I digress. I downloaded lots of videos and as time went on, I found out that Coursera was using up over 1GB of PREMIUM Internal storage space (My LG G Pro Lite comes with 8GB internal storage). I needed to move my videos out and so I started looking for ways to do this.

Luckily, I found this StackExchange Question which led me to another StackExchange question from which I got my solution. I’m going to just go ahead and list the steps here both for future references and for people out there looking for help:

Enable USB debugging on your Android device. Install and Android SDK and USB drivers for your device. In Windows open Command Prompt (or Terminal in Linux), navigate to a directory where you want to store the backup, and issue the following command: adb backup -f courseraBackup.ab org.coursera.android -d This backs up the app and its data (including the downloaded videos) to the location where you ran the command. For Linux, convert the backup to an archive by running this command: dd if=courseraBackup.ab bs=24 skip=1|openssl zlib -d > courseraBackup.tar Extract the archive using: tar xvf courseraBackup.tar

UPDATE: A previous version of this post asked Windows users to download Droid Explorer. That didn’t work for me and I’ve updated this post to show what worked for me.

It turns out a bit more complicated for Windows users (at least, in my case). I spent 4 hours trying different “hacky” solutions before eventually reverting to one that I finally used.

Download Android Backup Extractor (here). And form thence, it’s a simple case of running the following command: java -jar abe.jar unpack courseraBackup.ab courseraBackup.tar [password]

Running that took me all of 5 minutes and I started to wonder what I was thinking by ignoring this approach in the first instance.
Warren Buffett on investing in China (1 of 12)
By: Dan Sweet
Tags: Petrochina, China, Investing, Mba, Economics

This is the first in a series of twelve posts. The introduction to the series is here.



By way of review, these are my notes of Warren Buffett’s responses to questions from Notre Dame and Stanford MBAs on October 9. 2007.

What are your thoughts on investing in China?

If you don’t have a high degree of confidence, just leave it alone. Not buying stocks in China at this time.

The 1790 population of China = the US population now.

I only want things I am certain of.

Know when you are in your circle of competence and when you are outside of it.

Ted Williams — it’s all about waiting for the right pitch.

PetroChina at 33% of book — swing. At 80% of book — wait.

H-shares vs. A-shares — mainland Chinese paying 2.5x as much for PetroChina as HK and US investors.

How he got into the PetroChina investment:



reading Annual Reports in 2003, saw a firm that promised to pay out 45% of earnings as dividends (earnings looked to be worth at least 80–100 billion) then looked up price — found it was 35 billion. Sold investment at 275 billion, it later went to 400 billion.

Yukos was similarly huge, but I’d rather be in China than Russia. Ate breakfast with the Yukos CEO 4 months before he went to prison.

Comparing yourself to your idiot neighbor who is getting rich drives momentum and bubbles.

I would never buy based on momentum.

Buy based on how businesses behave, not how people behave.

It’s like Cinderella. The ball is fun, you know it ends at midnight, but there are no clocks on the wall.

Subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss any of Warren Buffett’s insights from the upcoming 12 posts.
Praying for a Miracle
By: Carole Tansley
Tags: Miracles, Micro Memoir, Faith, Spirituality, Prayer

In this story of an ordinary woman, a friend in trouble with cancer, I was praying the ‘Help!’ prayer. I was asking for the cup to be taken from her. And I knew that God’s will is always done. But I also know that we don’t have to be weak in our prayers. We can ask for anything.

In this case I asked for a miracle. Pure and simple.

And prayer doesn’t have to be said alone. In my case I’m part of a church family which has a team of what we call Prayer Warriors. Long-time Christians who are regular and powerful prayers. There are eight of us, including our two ministers. When a prayer needs to be said for a situation, a message goes out to the Prayer Chain and we all pray for the person or the situation.

We pray intensive, personal prayer (‘Help”), in community, even though we are physically apart. We prayed with faith that our prayers would be answered. In some way. In God’s good time.

We’ve had some miracles as a result of our prayers, I can tell you. Even I, a strong believer, have been stunned at the success of our prayers in situations where all seemed hopeless. For example, one young guy was so far down the wrong track in his life, that it seemed as though he would never be able to turn their life around. Enter regular prayer by the Prayer Warriors, asking for God to support the person, asking for good people to be sent to help and love them, and for them to be able to make their lives meaningful and joyful again.

So we asked for a miracle for this young man, every Monday afternoon for a whole year. And it happened. Gradually he came to himself and found the right path for himself in life. He has taken baby steps towards good future prospects. Amazing grace. An unearned gift from God. An everyday miracle.

Photo: Bruce Mars on Unsplash

Flushed with the success of that particular prayer, I asked God for a miracle for my friend. And so did the Prayer Warriors. We prayed and prayed for our dear sister-in-Christ. We asked that the right people with the right knowledge would be sent to her and that they would know when they saw her exactly what treatment she would need. And that’s exactly what happened. And it didn’t take a year for this miracle to happen. It took a week.

A new treatment was available. And because my friend had looked after herself over the years by exercising regularly and minding what food she ate and what she drank, the medics saw that she was fit enough to take the treatment. So they agreed she could go ahead and have this special, new, powerful treatment.

So this week we continue to pray. But this time they are ‘Wow’ prayers. Prayers of thanks for blessing received, for good people willing to step forward and take a chance on those we love, even in the direst of situations.

But we’re not stupid. We know that whilst miracles can be asked for, and given, they’re not in our gift.

Thy will be done.
Почему я перешёл на Linux после 10 лет работы на Windows
By: Mamedov Elman
Tags: Windows, Ubuntu, Linux, Nuances Of Programming, Operating Systems

GNU Coreutils

This manual documents version 8.32 of the GNU core utilities, including the standard programs for text and file…
Easiest Guide to Getting Stock Data With Python
By: Aidan Wilson
Tags: Algorithmic Trading, Stock Market, Python Programming, Data, Data Science

I recently finished up an introductory course for data science at my university and for my final project, I decided I wanted to work with stock market data. I wanted to place my focus on the algorithmic trading and needed a quick and easy way to gather stock data that was easily useable.

I came across a library called yfinance and it made my project a lot easier!

I would highly recommend reading through the documentation. Its a quick read that will aid you with any projects involving stock data.

Before we begin, we will need to install the yfinance library. To do this, simply copy the following into your command prompt:

$ pip install yfinance

Now we’re ready to start analyzing our stock market data. For my project, I chose the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, which has the ticker symbol SPY. You can use whichever ticker symbol you want, but I will be using SPY throughout this article.

Getting Started

Fortunately, yfinance makes it extremely easy to pull our data and quickly start analyzing it. We can start by importing yfinance and downloading the historical data of whichever ticker symbol we choose using the .download() function. We can then get a quick look at our data by calling the .head() function to return the first 5 rows of our data.

import yfinance as yf SPY = yf.download('SPY')

SPY.head()

Our stock data is nicely formatted in a Pandas DataFrame. This makes it easy, for example, if you were interested in viewing just the closing prices in the dataset.

SPY['Close']

It is also possible to only download data from a certain range of dates. This will require us to use yfinance’s Ticker module, which allows us to do a bit more with yfinance. Once this is done, we can use the .history() function to all of the stock data, or data within a time frame. Let's say we wanted data from the beginning of January 2020 to the beginning of February 2020.

SPY = yf.Ticker('SPY') SPY_History = SPY.history(start="2020-01-01", end="2020-02-01")

SPY_History.head()

Now that we have used the Ticker module, we can call .info to view a much more detailed summary of our data. This will return a dictionary containing 100 keys.

SPY.info

That's a lot of data! We can view individual keys in our dictionary as well. For example, if we wanted to see the current 50 Day Average, we could write:

SPY.info['fiftyDayAverage']

Viewing multiple ticker symbols is just as easy. We can use the .download() function again and separate each ticker symbol with a space. We can then view the last 5 rows in our data to check how it is formatted.

data = yf.download('SPY AAPL')

data.tail()

For a quick visualization of our data, we can use matplotlib and write a one-liner to compare both SPY and AAPL.
The Key Points of Implementing Convolutional Neural Networks From Research Papers
By: Shuchen Du
Tags: Programming, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Software Engineering, Data Science

Trap 1: don ‘t forget batch normalization after a convolution

In order to merge the high-resolution low-level context with the low-resolution high-level feature maps, down-sampling is necessary.

Fig. 2: Downsampling of HRNet

As shown in Fig. 2, down-sampling is implemented with strided 3x3 conv, after with the height and width of input feature maps are halved. If the output size is desired quartered, just do it twice (shown as green blocks in Fig. 2). This seems to be simple and straightforward to implement, so I did it like this firstly:

With strided conv, the width and height become 1/2 of input feature map and the number of output channels is doubled. However, this brings some loss explosion during training as shown in Fig.3 below:

Fig.3: Loss explosion during training

We can notice that loss explodes between 150 and 200 epochs to a big value and keeps constant from then on. The value after explosion is so big that the loss values before explosion look almost like zero. The reason why this happens is due to gradient explosion during training. If the gradients explode, the network weights would be updated dramatically. Thus during the next training round, the inference results would also be dramatically different from before, which results in loss explosion. In this example for per-pixel binary classification, the inference results are activated with sigmoid and then clamped between 1e-4 and 1-1e-4. Since the loss becomes constant after explosion, it can be inferred that the inference results are out of the clamping boundary.

The loss explosion phenomenon disappears after batch normalization is added after each conv:

And the loss curve becomes good accordingly:

Fig.4: Loss curve with batch normalization

Batch normalization is so important ! You cannot ignore it ! Although there are many papers trying to explain why it works, an intuitive reason of why it can suppress gradient from exploding is that the landscapes of loss functions become smooth when batch normalization is applied. A recent paper experimentally shows in Fig.5 that the smoothness of loss landscapes is highly improved with batch normalization applied. With this regularization, the gradient change of each training step is limited to a small range, thus suppressing gradient explosion.
Submit Kaggle Solutions From Command-line Using Phantomjs
By: Muhammad Atef
Tags: Phantomjs, Nodejs, Kaggle, Machine Learning, Data Science

Submit Kaggle Solutions From Command-line Using Phantomjs

Allowing you to submit programatically, even from your remote machine.

You might have participated in some Kaggle competitions where the dataset was in hundreds of megabytes (compressed!). You most probably used a machine in the cloud that can load this amount of data, train some model, and predict the also-quite-large test set. At this point you’ve become eager to submit your predictions to see your position on that leaderboard. So what do you do? Well, instead of downloading this large submission file to your machine and then uploading it to Kaggle, wouldn’t it be easier if you could just upload that submission from the cloud to Kaggle directly? Or even better, automate the whole submission process?

You can do exactly that, by installing my node package kaggle-submit:

npm install kaggle-submit

then running:

kaggle-submit -s <submission> -u <user> -p <pass> -c <competition>

and that’s it! Head over to your submissions page to see the results.

The package uses phantomjs to launch a headless browser, a.k.a a browser without a window. The package then takes your credentials and logs in to Kaggle just like you would normally do to submit your predictions, it uploads your file to the competition you specified.

It is also worth mentioning kaggle-cli which is a Python library providing an unofficial command line tool, to download and upload data. However, a quick look at the issues and commit history will tell you that it’s functionality has been on and off for some time. This is natural when developing unofficial APIs, since the only way to maintain it is keeping up with the website’s UI/API changes.

We shall do our best efforts in maintaining and developing this one. We hope you find it useful and, please suggest more features, fixes, and improvements on the github repo.
There is No Such Thing as Free
By: Stacey Herrera
Tags: Goals, Encouragement, Life, Motivation, Self

There is a price for everything; there is no such thing as free. Payments are not always monetary; most transactions are merely an exchange. Are you willing to pay for the things you desire?

If you want the job, you must be willing to do the work. If you want to be loved, you must be willing to give love to others. If you want more, you must be willing to accept greater responsibility.

If you really want it, you must be willing to pony up. Expecting something for nothing is not just unreasonable; it is unlikely.

Before you make a request, get clear. Are you willing to give whatever it takes to get?

©Stacey Herrera 2020