fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Lit Sponsorship Opportunities
By: Scott Stavrou
Tags: Humor, Culture, Fiction, Books, Satire

Soon every book will be out of the red and into the black with these classic promotions!

Photo by Danny on Unsplash

Johnson Outboard’s Gatsby Motorboat — beat on against any tide!

Boulangerie La Valjean Baguettes— our bread is a steal!

Don’t fear the sticker price — you’ll loath yourself if you don’t buy this Cadillac El Dorado. Perfect for Vegas road trips!

Buggin’ out about incomprehensible Metamorphosis? Orkin Pest Control’s “Samsa Package” will make your home less Kafka-esque!

Hallmark reminds you to remember the most important woman in your life this Mother’s Day with our new Oedipus Greeting Cards.

Home Depot, get it done by Friday, Mr. Crusoe!

Don’t get lost in a maze of your own making, Icarus — take flight with Uber.

Hey, Lady MacBeth, don’t just worry about stains — Shout them out!

Planning one trip to two cities can be a dickens of a struggle. Airbnb has thousands of rentals in and around London and Paris!
A Tale of Horrifying Smells…
By: Tiffany Antone
Tags: Humor, Pregnancy, Life, Motherhood, Food

Or, “The Pregnant Lady’s Nightmare”

When everything smells like garbage… (Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash)

The first time I was pregnant, there were exactly two things I couldn’t stand the smell/sight of: pickles and grilled meat.

Well, I’m pregnant again, and this time, I basically hate everything.

I don’t know about other pregnant women, but I will tell you this: Eating while pregnant has been a monumental chore of agonizing proportions. I have spent more time planning meals on the daily, these past three months, than a personal chef — whose job it is to plan meals — does.

I wake up wondering what I might be able to eat that won’t make me hurl, feel a moment of relief when pancakes still sound good, then spend the next three hours agonizing over what the hell I am going to find “edible” for lunch. The whole process starts over again as soon as I’ve choked down something palatable for lunch and have to start mentally re-checking the menu-dex for dinner ideas.

It’s stupid and exhausting, and demoralizing. So if you have a nauseous pregnant woman in your life, you should totally listen to her when she begs you to stop using that DISGUSTING body wash and go buy her some eggrolls from that place across town because that’s the only thing she can eat right now, damnit!

My hangry spirit animal these past two months… (Photo by Jason Hafso on Unsplash)

And just to further illustrate the insanity of it all, here is a list of stupid smells/foods that have pissed me off, made me nearly/puke, or given me a splitting headache:

The public bathroom that smelled like fried chicken. A public bathroom should never, Ever, EVER, smell like fried food. The student eating lunch on the bench directly outside my office for the entire first trimester of my pregnancy. At least once a week his meal has been unidentifiable, but distinctly pungent and unavoidable. My husband’s chapstick Cat food Milk, and anything that had milk on/in/near it. My toddler’s poopy diapers, which have turned into vomit-inducing stink bombs from hell (thankfully, my husband has been taking lead on these!) Food in the sink. Even if I just put it there myself. The moment it hits the porcelein, it is StinkTown. The break room at work. BBQ sauce My toddler’s morning breath Ranch dressing Ham Any and all bread (this one has been heartbreaking because normally I LOVE bread!) Pickles (unless fried) Sandwiches of any kind Chicken… unless it’s KFC fried chicken, in which case I will drive 20 freaking miles to stuff it down my gullet, because apparently this baby is a fan of greasy grease grease chicken… and their delicious fake mashed potatoes. Soda Car exhaust Gummi bears Lysol

Basically I’ve been eating pancakes, Jimmy Dean sausages, Starbucks Gruyere and bacon egg bites, and macaroni and cheese for three months.

Honestly, I am amazed that the human species has lasted as long as it has — and that women continue to willingly put their bodies through hell in order to keep the species alive.
Object size as a way to convey meaning
By: Kunal Rathore
Tags: Mapping, User Experience, Design Thinking, Design, Signifier

Object size as a way to convey meaning

Here is a list of some everyday activities which are mapped on objects based on size.

Car Remote Key

Functions- Unlock and Lock.

Car Remote Key

It makes sense to keep the buttons different sizes, so that buttons could be identified just by the touch.

Smaller button is used for unlock as user needs to be sure when to unlock. The chances of Unlock button being accidentally pressed while is pocket is smaller.

Dual Flush Toilets

Functions- Flush with different amount of water.

Dual Flush for Toilet

Two buttons of unequal sizes. One is meant to flush liquid waste and another solid waste using relatively larger volume.

The bigger button is used for larger volume though would be used less. And smaller button for smaller volume. So Larger Button is not used for activity that will be used more often but to keep it metaphorically consistent- bigger button, more water.

Similar example is size of sockets and plugs based on current rating. More current ratting, bigger the size.

Mobile Alarm

Functions- Snooze and Stop Alarm in iPhone.

Default iPhone Alarm App

Its mapping is similar to the car remote key. User needs to be absolutely sure when stopping the alarm. Stop button’s colour is dull and have smaller size compared to Snooze button which is larger and highlighted with colour contrast so that user is in lucid state when pressing Stop button.

Smaller size of Stop button is used as a constraint.

Currency Notes (Indian Rupee)

Functions-Currency Denominations

Older Indian Currency Notes (Newer design is also based on same concept)

Bigger denomination notes have bigger size. It is easier to identify value based on size of the note.

Smaller denomination notes are exchanged more often. Why not make smaller denomination notes bigger based on frequency of use? Bigger denomination note might stick between smaller denomination notes and passed accidentally if smaller denomination notes are bigger. Obviously if the vice-versa happens, the financial loss will be lesser.

Keyboard

Functions-Pressing keys.

Apple Keyboard

The size of some keys like space bar, back space, return, etc is larger than other keys based on the frequency, they might be used.

Similar patterns can be noticed on calculator where result key is larger.

Power button is usually made to stand out in devices usually through larger size.
Get Started With React Credit Card
By: Jobayer Hossain
Tags: Nodejs, Programming, React, JavaScript, Reactjs

Install

npm install --save react-credit-cards

After you install, you need to start your app again with npm start .

SetUp

Now we create a components folder in your src directory. In this folder, we create a file and name it MyCards.js . Now our folder structure looks like this:

Home Directory

Open your MyCards.js file, and create a simple functional React component. Now our MyCards.js file looks like this:

OK, now we’ll import some things from our react-credit-cards package. We import two things from react-credit-cards and place our Mycards.js file at the top.

Cards: import Cards from "react-credit-cards"

Style sheet: import "react-credit-cards/es/styles-compiled.css"

So far, our MyCards.js file looks this:

MyCards.js

After we successfully import the cards and the style sheet, we move onto actually coding.

Create a state, and define the default value as an object

Create a form, and also create a change handler

So now our MyCards.js look like this:

MyCards.js

After you successfully do this step, it’s time to implement our Cards component which provided our react-credit-cards package.

The card component accepts four arguments as props: CVC , expire , name , and number . This pass our value from input box to this component’s props using the state.

So far, our MyCards.js file has all of this code:

MyCards.js
Something Good.
By: Anna Mischke
Tags: Music, Inspiration, Alt J, Personal

Equal parts magic and tragic, musings from someone who still feels like they’re 12. But definitely are not.

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Kicking off a new year with Meyer Foundation staff and board updates
By: Nicky Goren
Tags: Meyer Foundation Staff, Philanthropy, Board Of Directors, Meyer Foundation Board

As we launch into 2020, I would like to share news about a few exciting changes to leadership and titles at the Meyer Foundation.

Aisha Alexander-Young and Karen FitzGerald

First, I am excited to announce that Aisha Alexander-Young and Karen FitzGerald have both been promoted to vice president roles: Aisha will serve as the Vice President for Strategy and Equity, with primary responsibility for leading and overseeing strategy development and implementation and racial equity, as well as our convening and advocacy strategies, which includes strategic communications. Karen will serve as the Vice President for Community Partnerships & Learning, with primary responsibility for leading and overseeing Meyer’s grantmaking and capacity-building strategies, as well as organizational learning and program evaluation. Together, they will co-lead a newly organized department at Meyer for Community Partnerships and Strategy.

Andrew Brown

Andrew Brown, has been promoted to Grants Manager. Since 2011, Andrew has served in a number of roles including, Grants Management Assistant and, most recently, Grants Administrator. In 2019, Andrew played a pivotal leadership role in our transition to a new grantmaking process and software. He is the current program chair of PEAK Grantmaking’s Greater Washington, DC Chapter.

We are very fortunate to have on staff leaders with deep experience, expertise, and talent to move the work of the Foundation forward and are excited about this new way of working together going forward.

Welcoming Ryan Young to the Meyer Foundation Board

Ryan Young, Community Change

Finally, in December of last year, our board unanimously voted to appoint Ryan Young to the board of directors. Ryan is the Chief of Operations and Organizational Sustainability at Community Change.

Ryan brings experience in a wide range of financial, investment, and operational areas and has an interest in the exploration of long-term sustainability planning. His career has focused on providing strong strategic leadership to organizations promoting positive change for national and international social justice issues. He has served in several capacities in domestic and international nonprofit organizations and has provided consulting services to organizations around development of strong internal control environments. We are thrilled that Ryan is bringing his expertise and deep commitment to social and racial justice to the Meyer Foundation board and our investment committee.

Thanks for reading.

Wishing you all a fruitful and positive new year and new decade,

Nicky
Fidelity driving into Crypto Lane — Top 5 Implications — Cautiously Bullish
By: Sankalp Shangari
Tags: News, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Technology

This week has started on a high for the cryptocurrency Industry as Fidelity is all set to launch a Crypto trading platform. It is perhaps the biggest news in recent times that can surely take the whole crypto industry to greater heights.

The company will be officially called as Fidelity Digital Assets that will provide an enterprise-grade custody solution, a cryptocurrency trading platform and consulting services 24 hours a day all through the week. It is specially designed to align with blockchain’s always-on trading cycle. Let’s consider the broader implications of this mega news for the crypto industry itself:

For those who are not aware, Fidelity Investments is the fifth largest asset manager in the world providing financial services worth $7.2 trillion across the globe. It includes customer assets, providing clearing, custody and investment services for more than 13,000 institutional advisory firms and brokers. Now, it is finally entering into the cryptocurrency market which means that there is a demand for cryptocurrency assets. The giant didn’t just wake up overnight. They were planning and planning and planning and carefully crafted and launched. It will present cryptocurrency as a serious investment option for investors like Family offices and Hedge funds. They have been shying away so far, largely due to the Custodian issues surrounding digital assets. But now, with a giant asset management monster protecting your hard-earned digital assets, you can sleep safely (no pun intended). This paves way for 2019 to be the year of Wall Street driving their lambos to Crypto Lane. This, coupled with an investment of 16 million dollars in BitGo by Goldman Sachs are signs of better things to come. Not only the market will witness huge liquidity we should also see Bitcoin touch the 15k dollar mark by June next year. Other sleeping or dreaming or partially daydreaming giants will wake up to this. The boards of these giants will not let them sleep anymore. Have to do SOMETHING. Need to make some noise. It’s all bullish.

However, the continuing issues of Tether, wash trades, whales manipulation, Bitmex overleverage etc. are continuously dampening the spirits. So trade with caution. Also, for the first time in the history of Bitcoin — 2008 onwards, this is the first traditional stock and bond crisis brewing up. As of now, I am undecided as to how this will affect the crypto markets. Early signs are that there is pressure but the market is so tiny and nascent that there shouldn’t be many spills over. I am yet to decide and hence I remain cautiously bullish.
Down at the Heart of the Matter
By: Randy Cooper
Tags: Red Flowers, Flowers, Macro Photography, Snapshots

So now life has come full circle. I’m older now than I was. But that’s a good thing. The world has changed and so have I. Still find me at randy19064@gmail.com

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Ad un Passo. Time is a variable measure. Perception…
By: Paola Ritucci
Tags: Poetry, Time, Life, Perception, Poetry On Medium

Time is a variable measure.

Perception, approximate.

What if I wasn’t out at 7?

If you were to leave at 7:02?

Time.

Decides

Elaborates

We are simple human beings.

On the other side there is light,

on this side it is dark.

At the center a chasm.

He could have removed the earth from my feet.

I for now,

with my feet,

I can only get out.

Everything stopped, including my thoughts.

My head is empty.

I take a few steps,

but,

my knees doesn’t want to bend.

Then,

suddenly,

the perception

becomes conception.

It’s still early for me.
iDoneThis + Slack + Talko
By: Talko Team
Tags: Mobile, Teamwork, Slack

Our Slack integration is essential to how our team operates as a distributed (and often mobile) product development team. Since we released it last week, it’s been wonderful to see many teams come onboard and give it a try!

Several people have asked for more information about exactly how we use these and any other tools to drive our daily standup meetings. Here it is, in one simple photo:
HxH Detours: Heaven’s Arena Character Introduction
By: Rupa Jogani
Tags: Hunter X Hunter, Anime, Detours, LGBTQ, Analysis

Hisoka’s back and extra as ever in Heaven’s Arena. This time around, Hisoka is here to idly kill time by battling in the arena while waiting to meet with the rest of the Phantom Troupe ahead of the Yorknew auction. That’s right — we learn that Hisoka is a masquerading Phantom Troupe member, who is biding his time until he gets the opportunity to battle the troupe’s leader, Chrollo. Until then, he’s in Heaven’s Arena to gauge Gon’s progress with learning Nen, giving him first-hand battle experience with a few of the nuanced applications of Nen, and giving a rundown of Nen personality traits. The battle between Gon and Hisoka is one of the most fluid, jaw-dropping battle sequences in the entire show. It’s also one that sets up a bait-and-switch anticipation of what the final “major” battle of the first, overarching story of the show will be. We’re led to believe this will occur between Hisoka and Gon since they’re constantly ruminating over battling to the death, but (spoiler alert!) the real final conflict is Gon’s much darker self-destruction in the Chimera Ant arc. But that’s much later and you’ll have to wait quite a while until I finally talk about it!

Kastro

Kastro is an elite fighter of Heaven’s Arena and is only one battle away from being able to challenge a floor master. When he first fought and lost against Hisoka two years prior to the story, he spent those years honing a very specific cloning ability to exact revenge against Hisoka. Joke’s on him, though, since he’s foolheartedly trying to impress a Gemini by literally becoming a Gemini which Hisoka is not about at all. Kastro doesn’t understand astrology (or Hisoka, really) and this backfires spectacularly. His role in Heaven’s Arena is to show the downfalls of overextending one’s Nen abilities, and to teach Gon and Killua that flashiness over a solid grasp of the foundations can lead to one’s demise.

Machi Komacine

*chokes*

We meet our “first” official Phantom Troupe member in the explanation-heavy Heaven’s Arena arc! Machi is a member of the notorious Phantom Troupe which, you may remember, is the exact group Kurapika is seeking his revenge on for committing genocide against his people. Machi is one of the earliest members of the troupe (we learn about this more in the next arc), but in her first introduction, she serves as a guide for explaining Nen and uncovering some of the mystery behind Hisoka, and clues us into the next arc. Her Nen abilities allow her to create threads that she can use to suture wounds (and reattach limbs), take photos with her eyes for medical diagnosis, and as we see in the next arc, she can also use her thread to kill and track people. She doesn’t put up with Hisoka’s (or anyone’s) bullshit and her bantering with other characters is a true delight to watch.

NEXT TIME ON HxH DETOURS: I take a dive into the basics of Nen, the Hunter x Hunter battle system, and whether or not Nen is actually just horoscopes.
The Stage
By: The Nonconformist Magazine
Tags: Poetry, Poet, Poem, Poetry Writing, Poetry On Medium

POETRY

The Stage

by Aimee Nicole

I don’t remember if the couch was an emerald fabric

chafﬁng my arms raw or blue-white patchwork like a picnic quilt.

I don’t remember if the curtains were soft see-through

beige or heavy cotton closed off to passers-by.

All I remember were your hands like snakes working

under my clothing, ignoring my pleas growing softer then quieting.

The background noise of an unknown movie pushing

myself deeper into the pit of me where I would stay for the next 10 years.
Upcoming Technology Radar review — Late 2020 Since Thoughtworks published Technology Radar in October, I now have been able to get time to do my usual review in two parts. Tools, Techniques in part 1…
By: Karthick Thoppe
Tags: Software, Engineering, Future Technology, Software Engineering, Technology

Upcoming Technology Radar review — Late 2020

Since Thoughtworks published Technology Radar in October, I now have been able to get time to do my usual review in two parts. Tools, Techniques in part 1 and Languages & Frameworks, Platforms in part 2. Please stay tuned.

If you wish to explore the Radar yourself including the themes, you can do here:

Lastly, if you are interested to build your own Radar for internal reference — which I think you must — you can follow this link:
Mexico WILL Pay For The Wall
By: Kevin Grant
Tags: Mexico, Payments, Unemployment, Donald Trump, Immigration

Donald Trump says there will be a border wall, and Mexico will pay.

I hate to be the one to break this to you liberals out there, but if Donald Trump becomes President, and builds an effective wall across our southern border, then Mexico will pay for it whether they want to or not. Repeatedly.

Right now, Mexican immigrants in America send tens of billions of dollars of their income (or welfare) back to Mexico each year, in the form of what are called “remittances”. According to the Government Accounting Office (GAO), in 2014 about $25 billion dollars in remittances were sent from America to Mexico (see this article in Breitbart).

Assuming that there are, very roughly, about 25 million legal and illegal Mexican immigrants, combined, in America, then I’ll give a very rough estimate that the average immigrant is sending back about $1000 per year. So if an effective southern border wall cuts the total number of Mexican immigrants in America by only 4%, or about 1 million, then that will represent a loss to the Mexican economy of $1 billion American dollars per year, in perpetuity. That same money that would otherwise go to Mexico would be earned by American workers instead, who would spend it back into the American economy, taxes and all.

This would also take those currently-unemployed American workers off of welfare, without replacement, as the Mexicans who would otherwise have taken those jobs would never have entered the country. If each of those 1 million Americans was using welfare services totaling only $20,000 per year, then that comes to $20 billion dollars in annual savings for the welfare system, which is probably enough money to finance an entire, very substantial border wall in significantly less than one year (although it would take longer than that to build).

So it makes no difference whether or not Mexico literally writes us a check to pay for the building of a border wall between our two countries. The only thing that has to happen in order for Mexico to be forced to pay for a wall, is for the wall to function successfully as a wall. Like it or not, directly or indirectly, Mexico will pay.

Then, if we want to help Mexico with their economy, we find some way to do it that doesn’t involve importing all of their unskilled labor.
Wakeful(less)
By: Adam Millett
Tags: Poetry, Society, Algorithms, Resistance Poetry, Social Media

‘Consciousness’ hits

The harmony splits

I remember things that I ‘have to do’

Just a moment ago

I was floating on flow

In a land without rules,

Without ‘false’, without ‘true’

The light shines in

The time shines in

The shite shines in

What a dreadful place

Awake awake

For badness sake

The realm of

Sense(less) dissension and hate

It’s cold as fuck it’s noisy too

As other people’s ‘perspectives’

Scream through

Better listen and learn

More like

Bicker and burn

Get dressed

Get stressed

Let the ‘real’ world return

Awake awake

But not quite enough

Guzzle coffee, take drugs

Just to focus on stuff

That you’d rather forget

Work, anxiety, mess

A society swept up

In shiny duress

That yells

Good fucking morning

In everyone’s face

Through the

Screens

Through the

Waves

Through the

Brain cells erased

Eat your eggs, drink your juice

And then scroll through your day

Scroll through love scroll through hate

Scroll your own thoughts away

Awake awake

But still fast asleep

In a world run by robots

That run our beliefs

Awake awake

But still fast asleep

In a world

Where the ‘shepherds’

Love strangling ‘sheep’.
Blockfight Press Release and HALO Giveaway
By: Halo Platform
Tags: Blockchain, Haloplatform, Blockchain Game, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

BLOCK & CHAIN GAME STUDIOS LAUNCHES BLOCKFIGHT

DICE ROLLING BATTLE GAME FIRST RELEASE FOR NEW PLATFORM

February 27, 2019 — Block and Chain Game Studios (https://blockandchain.games/) is pleased to announce the public release of Blockfight — an exciting creature-centered dice battle game built using blockchain technology. This visually immersive and technologically cutting-edge battle game is the first title published by Block and Chain Game Studios, an up-and-coming blockchain gaming platform.

Blockfight is an immersive online gaming experience where players battle grotesque monsters, displayed in high-res 3D. The beasts take massive hits all based on the roll of the dice, which rely on blockchain technology to ensure truly random and provably fair results. Just select your character and how much you want to risk on the fight and your characters will battle it out to the bitter end.

The creatures battle for guts, glory, and valuable rewards. Beat them all and fill your trophy room — and your digital coin wallet! Players can play completely free to test the waters, thanks to a generous allotment of in-game coins provided by Block and Chain. Users who want a bigger thrill will undoubtedly want to try their luck with a favorite cryptocurrency, such as Ethereum and HALO.

Blockfight is free-to-play and can be accessed directly on the web: https://www.blockfight.com/

Blockfight may be a new title from Block and Chain Game Studios, but it’s built on top of blockchain technology that is well-established. This is possible due to Block and Chain Game Studios’ partnership with Halo Platform, which has built some of the most robust and reliable blockchain technology available today. This cutting-edge platform will make gameplay and cryptocurrency flows on Block and Chain’s platform nearly seamless. If you’re a developer and have your own crypto-based experience you’re wanting to show the world, we suggest you roll the dice around in Blockfight a few times just to see how easy and seamless it is to integrate with the Halo Platform.

Block and Chain Game Studios is a division of the Halo Platform aimed at encouraging the development of blockchain gaming and introducing the gaming community to the benefits of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. To learn more about Block and Chain Game Studios, check out our website at https://blockandchain.games/ or contact us at bnc@blockandchain.games.

To find out more about the Halo Platform, see their website at: https://www.haloplatform.tech/

As a thank you to our loyal players, we have kicked off a weekly giveaway campaign where players can win up to 100,000 free HALO. Check out the campaign here: https://bit.ly/2UfNQEk

Like, share and play to win!
Aesopica is Still Relevant
Tags: Self Improvement, Literature, Storytelling, Society, History

Fables used to illicit a groan from me. Yes, I understand what the story is saying. Yes, I comprehend what I am expected to do. Little did I realize that being drilled with these stories gave me a grounding I would use throughout my life.

Aesop, a slave and storyteller from ancient Greece, has been credited with hundreds of these moralistic tales. That they capture the essence of living successfully in society — even today — speaks volumes about their worth. Our social rules and expectations haven’t changed much in thousands of years. Isn’t that something?

The Sun & The Wind

The sun and the wind watched a man walking along the road and had a bet. Whoever could get the man to remove his coat would be declared the most powerful. The wind went first, and almost blew the coat right off him. But instead he wrapped the coat more tightly around him and powered on. Next up came the sun, who shone upon the man. Becoming hotter and hotter, the man took off his coat.

When I was a child I loved this fable. The art of persuasion versus the malice of force. It said that all you need is to put forward a good argument with solid evidence and you will be more effective than trying to change someone’s mind through force alone. Is this why I don’t argue on the internet? Possibly.

The Tortoise & The Hare

Overconfident and boastful, the hare proclaimed he was faster and better than everyone else. The tortoise challenged him to a race and he almost laughed in his face. The day of the race came and the hare sped off, leaving the tortoise in his dust. Halfway through, the hare decides to take a nap. Sure enough, the tortoise overtakes him quietly and wins the race.

Ah, perseverance. I do not have it. But slow and steady progress is better than burnout. We’ve all learned that the hard way.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

A bored Shepherd boy tricks the villagers into thinking a wolf has come to eat the flock of sheep he is taking care of. Eventually they stop believing him and when the wolf actually comes, no-one comes to help him. He and the sheep are eaten by the wolf.

Every time I was caught lying, someone from my family would sit me down and tell me this tale. Has it stopped me lying? No. Has it made me smarter about when and how I lie? Yes. Which in turn has made me more honest. Fine, it worked. I hope my family are proud. (They are not.)

What intrigues me about Aesop’s Fables is how universal they are; to any society we have created, at any moment in time throughout our history. What Aesop seems to have accomplished is to take the fundamental workings of human interaction and provide a metaphorical rule-book. This, without religion or fear of any higher power striking you down if you did not do as instructed.

Or, as Christopher Hitchens so wonderfully put it:
How Alcohol Messes With Our Sleep
By: Gillian May
Tags: Mental Health, Education, Sleep, Health, Addiction

How does alcohol affect sleep?

Alcohol has an effect on all neurotransmitters, which are types of proteins that help send chemical messages across our nervous system. Part of the “high” in drinking alcohol is directly related to the alteration in these neurotransmitters.

We need a healthy flow in these neurotransmitters to move through our sleep cycles properly. So it’s no wonder that alcohol, in any quantity, will alter these sleep cycles.

The most significant effect of alcohol on sleep patterns is a decrease in REM sleep, especially later in the night. REM sleep is the sleep cycle most responsible for resting and rejuvenating our brains. So it’s no wonder I still felt tired after I slept a full night during my drinking days.

Surprisingly though, the biggest effect of alcohol on our sleep is not because of the alcohol itself, but the withdrawal process.

During withdrawal, these neurotransmitters are rebounding back from their depressed state. This means our nervous systems are in chaos as they attempt to calm down and find equilibrium again.

Unfortunately, for alcoholics, this process can cause severe insomnia and anxiety, and it can take up to a year for things to settle.

It’s important to know, though, that even mild withdrawal can cause sleep issues in social drinkers. The good news is that withdrawal settles more quickly for those who engage in light social drinking.

Photo by Megan te Boekhorst on Unsplash

This was absolutely true for me when I first got sober. I only wish I had it in me to do this research back then. It would’ve helped me make sense of what was happening to me. Now, I try to pass this info on to others so they can educate themselves more.

Many people have asked me about my first few months of sobriety. Like I was, they are confused as to why they still feel like dirt after getting sober. But rest assured, things get better over time, even though sleep issues do tend to take a little longer.
How Google Is Quietly Upending the Search Engine Landscape
By: Toni Koraza
Tags: SEO, Content Marketing, Marketing, Content Strategy, Startup

Screenshot from Author’s iPad

One. The answer to our quick question is one. Congratulations, you’re not the winner. Nobody is a winner. Except maybe Google, but the platform has been winning already. No news here. (The screenshot is from my iPad and represents roughly 50% of Google’s first page.)

What can we see when we search the term podcasting?

Paid advertisement

Google’s Long dictionary

Side snipped from Wikipedia (not Google’s content)

People Also Ask section (definitely not Google’s content)

Good luck getting any Google traffic for your next podcast. Google does everything in its power for users to never leave Hotel Google. Imagine Tech Willie Wonka that doesn’t have chocolate for you, but still keeps you locked in its factory; that’s Google right now.

Let’s drop the satire, and explain what’s going on and why is Google not keen on letting traffic leave the platform. You can see for yourself why it doesn’t pay to count on grandpa Google to pay your student loans anymore.

“41% of the first page of Google search results is taken up by Google products. “ — The Markup analysis

The world of content marketing is changing. The revolution is here. We already have everything in place for the transition. Paid newsletter, content on-demand, and exclusive content ecosystems are already becoming the next avenue for content creators, especially writers.

You can’t count on positioning your stuff on Google any longer. Google is still the biggest search engine platform on the planet. Ranking on the first page still brings tons of traffic. But the organic reach is contracting and it might suffocate your whole business. SEO is not a business strategy anymore.
Inside: 1996
By: Melissa Miles Mccarter
Tags: Writing, Fiction, Short Story, Creative Writing, Internet

Inside: 1996

A short story

Moira gnawed on her pencil, holding it between her teeth as she extracted page after page from the printer, which sat on the far corner of her desk, humming quietly. She read each one, swiftly taking the pencil and circling mistakes, typos, that she had to correct, before she could send in her column. She frowned — her back aching, her arms tired — at a single passage, realizing that she had not gotten that quote.

There was a glaring empty blank spot in the middle of the paragraph, which was supposed to have been filled in later. It was now later.

She frowned again.

I don’t really need this quote about heart surgery recovery, do I? I can just cut it out.

But then she pointed out to herself that the story was on complications in surgery, and recovery is really important and she didn’t have any other quotes to substitute, so goddamn it, she had to get it.

Who was the source? she asked herself absently, holding onto the pencil, pulling off layers of wood with her teeth. Finally, she sighed, and picked up the phone, tilted her head to the side, trying to figure out the best way to phrase the question. She sat there so long with the phone in her hand, rehearsing, that it started to accusingly beep at her. She scrunched her forehead, deepening the wrinkles, took a deep breath and dialed the phone. While the phone rang, she exhaled slowly.

Getting the voicemail, she relaxed slightly. She started tapping her fingers on the desk, wondering if she should leave a message, considering that if she left a message, she had no idea when the person would call back. Maybe I should hang up, and find another source? Moira was irritated; the area behind her eyes began to throb. How dare Dr. Neptern not be there? She listened to the message on the voicemail, and then stopped tapping her fingers.

Did I really hear this? Did it say that I could send email, and the person would write back immediately, that this was the preferred way of correspondence?

Moira smiled, hung up the phone, the pounding pain in her head slightly subsided. She logged onto her email account, and typed her question. She clicked send, leaned back to wait, and wondered how long it would take. She imagined the doctor sitting in his office, typing away on an important paper, with his email able to beep anytime he got a message. He hears the beep, and excitedly, because getting any email is still exciting for him, opens up his email and then….

Beep. She looked at her screen.

“New message from dneptern@ufd.org.”

She happily opened it up, thinking, I got my source, the universe loves me.
Why People Enjoy Working
By: Christopher Martlew
Tags: Careers, Agile, Work, Leadership, Motivation

People work well because they enjoy working.

We work for fulfilment, to achieve a sense of accomplishment, to do something we are proud of.

This is best evidenced by the information technology industry’s free Open Source movement — this is software written by volunteers across the world for no reward.

Linux is a major computer operating system comprising some 15 million lines of code representing over a thousand person-years of development — and it’s free. Linux runs much of our corporate computing across the world and is also (partly) used in smartphones, such as the Google Android system.

Wikipedia is another example: a free online encyclopaedia, written by thousands of individuals for no reward other than esteem from their peers and perhaps some element of immortality.

So what is it that motivates people who work nine to five for a salary to go home and spend their free time applying their creativity for no material remuneration?

The answer lies in the upper levels of Maslow’s motivation pyramid (below). It’s our desire for autonomy, mastery and purpose [i].

Autonomy is the desire to be self-directing, to feel that we are not being controlled by someone else but that we are in control. It appeals to a fundamental longing for freedom that is a part of the human nature.

Mastery appeals to our need for self-esteem and achievement and is the reason that people have creative hobbies such as painting, making music, playing games, or writing for little or no financial reward.

Purpose gives us a reason for being, a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Purpose answers the fundamental ‘why’ question.

There are lessons for the agile organization in following Maslow ‘upside down’ — by encouraging an environment where people have autonomy over their work, enjoy realistic deadlines, can be good at what they do and have a purpose to believe in.

That’s what I think…what do you think?

#OnBeingAgile

If you’d like to join the conversation please share via the heart button below.

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It’s Going to Be Okay
By: Carolyn Riker
Tags: Self Care, Self Love, Poetry, Personal Growth, Poetry On Medium

Just for a few

let your emotions spill

like the overgrown petunias

reaching for the sun’s edges.

Just for a few

stretch out your thoughts

and let them marry the clouds

blue skies don’t last forever.

Just for a few

let your tears flow fondly

over memories gathered

in grasses clumps of clover.

Just for a few

hold this precious moment

without answers to your questions

but respect to their sources.

Knowing, just for a few

it’s okay to meditate

on the dreams held by tomorrows

and right now, giving your heart self-love.
SwiftUI in Production
By: Martin Mitrevski
Tags: Programming, Swift, Swiftui, Apple, iOS

The Pros

SwiftUI is perfect for this task. If you split the area into different parts (and sub-parts) for the goalkeeper, defence, midfield, and attack and just use spacers and offsets, you can achieve a very nice representation of a football formation without doing too many calculations. If I had to do this in UIKit, it was going to be a lot of work.

As a bonus, while you go through the questions, there are some nice animations for which you just have to call the animate modifier. Again, doing this in UIKit would’ve been a lot more work. The questions themselves have many different representations depending on the question type. Using SwiftUI’s composition approach, it was very easy to reuse components, move them around, and so on.

Another point is the design and UX that was prototyped and created along the way. At one point, one view was at the top, then it was moved to the bottom. In SwiftUI, that’s a very fast change, while you would have to mess with constraints the whole time in UIKit.

Working with Combine was also a very nice experience. It helped a lot in the sync mechanism, where I created custom publishers for my repositories. The repositories would first fetch and return some cached or bundled data and then sync with Firebase to get the latest changes. For a trivia app where there can’t be mistakes in the data, this was very helpful.

Here’s a glimpse of how I did the repo subscription:

I used the standard MVVM pattern in this app, and Combine fits in very nicely there. The view models were @ObservableObjects that were created from the outside and passed to the view. Therefore, I won’t do any changes for iOS 14 and there’s no need to use the new @StateObject .

A nice way to do this is to use a hierarchy of dependency containers. Having containers that create the views and view models is also very useful while using the SwiftUI previews feature because views and view models can have complex initialisation methods. For example, if I want to create a FootballTeamView that has a FootballTeamViewModel that has a PlayersRepository , AnswersRepository , and UsersService , and those also have other dependencies, the previews can get very messy.

What I did first was use protocols for all the dependencies in the types mentioned above. Then, I created a PreviewsContainer that implements PreviewProvider . In this provider, I created mock repositories and data that is displayed in the previews. Therefore, creating dependencies in the SwiftUI previews was very easy. The good thing is that since the PreviewsContainer implements PreviewProvider , it will not go in the release version of your app. Another benefit is that you can use those same mock implementations in your unit tests.

These are some of the benefits of working with SwiftUI/Combine apart from the fun factor, which — for a pet project done after work hours — is what drives you.
How Dreams Keep Us Writing
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Success, Freelancing, Writing, Life Lessons, Social Media

How Dreams Keep Us Writing

Success is only ever one more piece away

Photo by Lacie Slezak on Unsplash

Social media has empowered greed and gullibility.

If you want instant success as a writer, here’s a quick way to make bank: Make a headline out of the name of the social media platform of your choice, add the word money or better still a dollar figure, and readers will flock.

Luring the candid and the desperate to the page with elusive promises of lucre has become a self-referential niche of its own. It’s also the quickest way so-called influencers have found to get paid and increase their bottom line.

Day after day, they churn out the same repackaged message of empowerment; if they can do it so can we because they’re no one special. Better still, they had nothing going for them before they started writing online. They were failures.

Their willingness to portray themselves as a success by using self-deprecation should give us pause for thought. How can we respect someone who doesn’t respect themselves? And, most importantly, (how) can we trust them?

The answer is a resounding yes! We too constantly belittle ourselves because we’re afraid of dreaming too big, wanting too much, being too greedy.

They’re us, we’re them, wow. We’re all failures personally and together.
Congrats on your gay saint!
By: Jonathan Poletti
Tags: Catholic, Religion, Sexuality, LGBTQ, Life

Congrats on your gay saint!

As Catholics canonize John Henry Newman, may we all celebrate!

Not being Catholic I can only be grateful to the Vatican for celebrating, with the canonization of John Henry Newman (1801–1890), one of the great writers of British history, a Catholic with Protestant leanings—and a gay love story for all ages.

He was a pastor to the ‘lowly’, the factory workers, immigrants and tradespeople, even as he was a powerful writer—a favorite of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and many modern writers. He helped to dislodge the world from the long, dark night.

In him something humane and reasonable entered into the religious mind that had for millennia been petrified by ideology. He’d note there was “something true and divinely revealed in every religion.”

And he lived with and was inseparable from Ambrose St. John—“my earthly light,” as he calls him. Newman writes:

From the first he loved me with an intensity of love, which was unaccountable. At Rome 28 years ago he was always so working for and relieving me of all trouble, that being young and Saxon-looking, the Romans called him my Angel Guardian.

Grieving St. John’s death, Newman writes a friend: “This is the greatest affliction I have had in my life, and so sudden. Pray for him and for me.”

And to another: “I do not expect ever to get over the loss I have had. It is like an open wound which in old men cannot be healed.’
Here’s How to Find Out How Racist Your Kids’ School Is
Tags: Schools, Youth, Race, Education, Racism

Your step-by-step guide to using the Department of Education’s latest data release to uncover — and address — the racial disparities in your district.

Some of the 11 students of the first, and last, graduating class of Livingston High School pray at their commencement June 3, 2008, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

By Samuel Sinyangwe

April 27, 2018

I remember being suspended for “insubordination” in sixth grade. I thought my teacher just didn’t like me. I didn’t know I was experiencing something much deeper and more problematic. It wasn’t just one bad teacher. The entire school district was four times more likely to suspend students who looked like me — Black boys — than our White peers. And while I didn’t have the information I needed to make sense of my situation then, we now have all the tools we need to fight back.

This week, the United States Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights Data Collection released new data on racial disparities and other forms of discrimination in virtually every school and school district in America, from pre-K through 12th grade. Collected every two years, the data shows which groups of students each school suspends each year, who gets referred to police, who gets arrested at school and who gets access to high quality teachers and advanced courses. This is an invaluable resource for students, parents and educators to dismantle the school to prison pipeline and address systemic injustices in our nation’s schools.

Here’s how you use it to combat racism in your school: http://bit.ly/2I5CUDZ

© 2018 Colorlines. All right reserved.
5 Lessons Learned by Losing My Grandmother-in-Law
By: Maryam Merchant
Tags: Inspiration, Happiness, Family, Life Lessons, Relationships

5 Lessons Learned by Losing My Grandmother-in-Law

It again reminded me that we are temporary on this earth

Photo by 𝔥𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔞𝔯𝔶 𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔞𝔩𝔱𝔞 on Unsplash

The first ten days of December were all unpredictable for me.

I lost one of the best people in my life. I was connected to her so much. She always treated me like her own daughter and when she knew that I and her grandson is getting engaged she was the one who blessed us abundantly and her face was glowing with happiness.

I lost her on 8 December 2020. She was in bed for the past three months and she was a bit unconscious at times but her presence at home was precious.

When I visited her just before 2 days of her death. Everyone asked who is she, as she used to forget things at times but she smiled and said, She is my granddaughter-in-law and kissed me by saying Take care and stay happy.

When she said that, I felt so connected with those words but deep down I was even thinking that something is going to happen now. As it was the moment which God created and those were the last words spoken by her for me.

She is gone now, but all the time I spent with her is kept in one corner of my heart. And I learned many things from her death about life.