fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Optimizing Canvas Accessibility For a Changing World
By: Workday Design
Tags: Accessibility, UX, A11y, Software Engineering, Design System Manager

Accessibility often represents the difference between a usable website and an indecipherable mess for people with disabilities. This is all the more important because of the recent need and desire to work from home; Gallup reports that in 2012, 29% of American employees worked remotely at least some of the time, but by 2016 that number grew to 43%. Despite this growing trend in remote work, the number of accessibility issues in web applications continues to slowly increase. The need for individuals and organizations to integrate accessibility best practices into their daily work is stronger than ever before.

At Workday, we believe products should work well for everyone, regardless of ability. Because of that, our Workday team is working diligently to improve the accessibility of all of Workday’s digital assets throughout the company. No matter a user’s ability, they should be able to perceive or do everything in Workday with equivalent ease of use.

Workday’s Canvas design system has particularly revolutionized the way we are integrating accessibility into Workday products. Through collaboration between our dedicated Accessibility team and the Design System team, the design system now provides our designers the tools and guidelines to build out a single, cohesive experience across all products and platforms. Canvas is also open source, meaning that anyone can access the original source code.

While Workday’s presentation on this topic at the 2020 CSUN Assistive Technology Conference was cancelled due to COVID-19, you can listen to the full video recording of our presentation in which William Stanton, Justin Panté, and I discuss:
Are Cats Competing For Your Job?
By: Katy Velvet
Tags: Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Cats, Future, Humor

Are Cats Competing For Your Job?

Artificial intelligence may be the least of your problems, according to this kitten.

In The Robots Are Coming: The Future of Jobs in the Age of Automation, 47 percent of U.S. jobs are “at risk of being replaced by robots and artificial intelligence over the next fifteen to twenty years.”

But in recent reports, experts have discovered that the furry feline sitting on your couch could be the real threat to society. CI takeover is a new fear in humanity, and according to Larry Elliot: “Cats will take our jobs. We’d better plan now, before it’s too late.”

Since at least 2013, Google has been integrating automated bot-detection into its CAPTCHAs. But there’s one thing they haven’t considered: Are you a cat?

The difference between bot and cat are widely unknown. However, we have recently studied the way a cat moves its mouse before clicking the “I am not a robot” button.

According to Google, CAPTCHA is defined as:

“A program or system intended to distinguish human from machine input, typically as a way of thwarting spam and automated extraction of data from websites.”

Take away the p, and you’ve got CATCHA. Is this a conspiracy theory for cats wanting to take over the world?

According to wired.com, Google’s artificial brain learned to find cat videos in 2002:

“Picking up on the most commonly occurring images featured on YouTube, the system achieved 81.7 percent accuracy in detecting human faces, 76.7 percent accuracy when identifying human body parts and 74.8 percent accuracy when identifying cats. We never told it during the training, ‘This is a cat,’” Jeff Dean, the Google fellow who led the study, told the New York Times. “It basically invented the concept of a cat.”

Not convinced? Read on to find out how cats are competing for your job.
How to deal with Underperformers
By: Niels Brabandt
Tags: Appraisal, Goal Setting, Performance, Goals, Leadership

How to deal with Underperformers

Why your leadership skills determine people’s success

Setting goals is not uncommon in our working world. No matter if you drive a business or an organisation in the charity sector, goals are a common ground to develop your organisation in the right direction.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

When you set goals, of course, targets can be missed. This aspect of the working world is where the problems begin. Often, after the leadership team and one of their staff members talked about what to do to become better in the future, the relationship between employee and leadership person is far worse than it has been before. This result is not because you pointed out to a missed goal, but it is due to the way how you communicated with your team members.

The question is: how can we do better?
Fish in Rod
By: Jim Mcaulay
Tags: Revenge, Jokes, Fishing, 100 Words, Humour

Fish in Rod

Sometimes you just have to fish or cut bait. A 100-word story.

Photo by David Kinnear on Unsplash

For a few years, Mr. Fischer kept his mistress in a large, luxury apartment with high ceilings and a great view.

When he tired of her, he found a new love and said, “You can move into a small room in the basement. It’s quite cozy there.”

Before she left she bought some cod and stuffed it into a hollow curtain rod.

The smell became unbearable. Mr. Fischer searched for the source to no avail.

His girlfriend became disgusted and left him. The apartment became uninhabitable.

When she regained the apartment, she trashed the curtain rod and the smell disappeared.
eICN Exchange Process Continues
Tags: Security Token, Announcements, Bitcoin, Iconomi, Eicn

As planned, the first step in the process of exchanging ICN finished on December 31, 2018. 80% of ICN holders already exchanged their ICN, with the following results:

The dedicated ICN exchange page will remain continuously available until December 31, 2019. There will be two distribution dates:

July 31, 2019: All ICN tokens exchanged by June 30, 2019

All ICN tokens exchanged by June 30, 2019 January 31, 2020: All ICN tokens exchanged by December 31, 2019

Exchange Rates

The ICN to eICN exchange will remain 1:1 for the entire period up to December 31, 2019. The ICN to ETH exchange rate has changed and is now 0.00165 ETH for one ICN token. This exchange rate is valid until January 31, 2019.

Starting February 1, 2019, the ICN to ETH exchange rate will be 0.00125. We encourage you to act now and exchange your ICN on the ICONOMI platform.

After December 31, 2019, exchange of ICN tokens will no longer be possible. All ICN tokens still on the ICONOMI platform on December 31, 2019 will be converted to ETH at the exchange rate valid at that time.

We encourage all ICN holders who have not yet taken action to start the ICN exchange process now!

Why Exchange Your ICN for eICN?

Subscribe to our Medium and mailing list, and follow our official channels for more updates and news:

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The Ups and Downs as a Life-Long Seahawks Fan
By: Jordan Mendiola
Tags: NFL, Football, Inspiration, Seahawks, Sports

The Ups and Downs as a Life-Long Seahawks Fan

I bleed green and blue because of this organization.

Seahawks

The Seattle Seahawks have and always will be my favorite sports team in total, hands down. I’ve been part of our team's drought in the early 2000s and when we lost the Super Bowl to Pittsburgh in 2005.

Ever since John Schneider and Pete Carroll stepped in as general manager and coach, things have turned around, and we’ve been on track. Winning the Super Bowl in 2013 against the Broncos was huge! Losing to the New England Patriots in 2015 was a stinger.

It’s never easy being a football fan. Things tend to go right for a set amount of time before they crash and burn, then it’s rebuilding time. The Seahawks have been an interesting story throughout the years, and I enjoy the ride.

Pete Carroll loves drafting young, hungry rookies who are looking to make an impact and play somewhere they feel accepted, ecstatic, and passionate about the game of football. We acquired Jamal Adams, and he is fun to watch. His passion in his interviews is so infectious. It makes me happy to see guys who want to win join our organization.

Seahawks fans have been able to experience many noteworthy players:

Steve Largent

John Kitna

Shaun Alexander

Matt Hasselbeck

Lofa Tatupu

Walter Jones

K.J. Wright

Marshawn Lynch

Russell Wilson

Bobby Wagner

Doug Baldwin

Richard Sherman

Earl Thomas

Cam Chancellor

The list goes on and on, and that’s the beautiful thing about the Seahawks. We’re always evolving and going in the direction of acquiring young players who break out to become stars. There are ups and downs, but we know that our team always has a chance, and we’ll get it right.

Some of the most noteworthy new players we have in 2020 get me excited for the playoffs and the future of our team. Here are some:

Jamal Adams

Tyler Lockett

Chris Carson

D.K. Metcalf

Carlos Dunlap

Shqueem Griffin

The list continues, but there are a lot of young leaders on our team that’ll carry us far into the future, especially being surrounded by Bobby Wagner and Russell Wilson. I hope that our team has many more Superbowls to come, and with the culture of this organization, I’m very optimistic that’ll come true.

It was a shame to lose a lot of our veteran players, the Legion of Boom, and a handful of other guys who didn’t like the looks of their contract, but our team is always in a growth mindset while maintaining the guys who make the biggest impact for us.

It’s impossible to keep everyone on the team because of salary caps, but I know that our leadership will manage the team the right way and always find new talent. This could be our year and the rebirth of our team’s run to the big dance. I see a lot of things to get excited about with the Seahawks and if you’re a 12, remain optimistic!

I love our team. I love the Seattle Seahawks.

The future is bright!

Go Hawks!
Eve Again
By: John Horan
Tags: Bible, Christianity, Carl Jung, Poetry, Psychology

Six Years of poetry-only publishing, PoetsUnlimited was a diverse, engaging and authentic poetry magazine. For most of that time a daily publication, it was always diverse and original, and free-to-read by all.

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Glossa
By: Mike Essig
Tags: Creativity, Poetry, Writing, Identity

Don’t look for much me here.

The work is smarter

than I can ever imagine.

It has its own life,

speaks in its own tongue.

I just listen carefully,

and try hard to write it down.
Amadou From Senegal
By: Tom Daly
Tags: Senegal, Family, Tom Daly, Comics, Moms

Tom Daly makes comics about what is on his mind; getting thrown out of a store when he was a little kid, creepy neighbors, or hugging his kids. TomDalyArt.com

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Navigation Featured story: https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/why-one-side-of-your-nose-always-feels-more-congested-than-the-other-78fc8fb41f8e
By: David B. Clear
Tags: Science, Explainer, Oh So Clear, Writing, Comics

Why One Side of Your Nose Always Feels More Congested Than the Other

And why it’s not always the same side
The Fastest Computer Doesn’t Compute
By: Ilexa Yardley
Tags: Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Reality, Mind, Data Science

Digging into the human mind.

Photo by Van Tay Media on Unsplash

Pi in mathematics is the correct articulation (name) (representation) for the human mind.

Pi

Where pi cannot (not) operate without the zero and the one because the zero is a circumference and the one is a diameter.

Circumference and Diameter

This means the zero is, at all times, and therefore, half-the-time, a one.

Zero

One

Where, half-the-time is all-the-time:

Half and Whole

Half

Whole

Where the diagram is constant and the words to describe the diagram are variables (variable).

Constant Variable

This means that everything depends on X and Y, more correctly known as 0 and 1, yet also known as F and M.

F and M

So how does the human mind distinguish between the elements articulated above? There is a circular (duplicitous) relationship between an individual and a group. Explaining negation.

Individual and Group

Individual

Meaning the individual is the largest and smallest group. Explaining why (and proving) a computer doesn’t, actually, compute.

Compute (Computer)

It changes values, moving X to Y (0 to 1) (changing X to Y, 0 to 1). Where speed makes no difference whatsoever. Because, within an uber-simple (always-conserved) circle, X is always Y (zero is always one) (circumference is always diameter).

0 to 1 (1 to 0)

This proves negation is duplication (the equal sign is a circle).

Negation (Duplication)

Equal Equals Not-Equal (Half-the-Time) (All-The-Time)

It’s the diagram that’s important. All the rest? Superfluous.

Conservation of the Circle is the core, and, therefore, the only, dynamic in Nature. Explaining the computer. And, the human mind. In general.
The Controller
Tags: Poetry, Gaming, Guilt

xbox controller

Tutorial

They gave him a gun, a knife and

let him run, headshot gets a bonus

easy targets walking in chorus

Stage One

The somersaulted cliff jumping

upside down climbing

knife in teeth, mission probable

targets blur, face melting to bubbles

so much learning

so empowering

Stage Two

This is serious, there is a purpose

the story solidifies, the enemies multiply

the bullets slid through skulls

the knife pulls the pulse

no anger just speed, just power

mastery is cocaine without the powder

Stage Three

The boss awaits, reasonably grotesque

suitably oversized and no finesse

limbs, head and lolling tongues

in his lair he defends

with a hundred minion strong

them no match for a hero

them forgotten masses in acres

The Credit Rolls

He woke in a room,

with a pretty lady in a dress

She said:

‘Now let me tell you this

there was no simulation

it was Very Real.

Keep the bonus,

decide the onus.’

So he went with the gun

the knife and then ran

to have a whole lot more fun
The Eternal Problem
By: Lisa Spray
Tags: Poetry, Death, Time, Poem, Religion

We all must you know.

Someday we must go —

On the great adventure.

Greatest of them all,

No matter if we squall.

Death won’t for us wait

Past our written date.

No matter how we hate

Our very own “use by date”.

To our God we will go

Whether we then say, “Yes,”

Or scream out loudly, “No!”

Soon our judgement we’ll know.

So now may be the last chance

For me to change how I prance

About in this, my life’s dance.

“Please, God, help me do my best.

I know You will do the rest.
RL Course by David Silver (Lectures 1 to 4)
By: Cédric Bellet
Tags: Reinforcement Learning, Machine Learning, Deepmind, Biffures, ML

RL Course by David Silver (Lectures 1 to 4)

A summary of 15 hours into reinforcement learning

I continue my quest to learn something about reinforcement learning in 60 days (this is day 20), with a 15 hour investment in Deepmind’s David Silver’s course on Reinforcement learning, which itself draws from Sutton and Barto’s 1998 book, Reinforcement Learning: an Introduction.
The art of unraveling
By: Shannon N
Tags: Self-awareness, Healing From Trauma, Abuse Survivors, Self Love

I thought I was falling apart, but really I was just tangled up

Photo by Joanne Adela Low from Pexels

“Mom, look what the cats did!” I awoke this morning to my son thrusting a ball of tangled yarn in my face. I groaned. Their most recent excursion into my craft room had turned a skein into an irreversible mess of knots, and the cheap, acrylic box store yarn was definitely not worth the time and sanity to even attempt to save it.

But this time was different. Today they had gotten into my beautiful, soft, hand-dyed wool that I was saving for future inspiration. It could be turned into anything. A beautiful scarf for a gift, a slouchy hat for me, maybe those socks I had been meaning to learn how to knit. But now it had no potential. It was just a disaster.

After venting my anger, I resigned myself to the situation. I could either throw it away or try to save it. I turned the tangled mess over in my hands, trying to make sense of it. As I attempted to pull it apart I saw knots forming and tightening. I knew if I forced it there would be no saving it.

I sat back and assessed the situation. I needed to find the end. I started pulling it through the first several knots but soon realized that the loose end was becoming entangled into new knots. So, I started wrapping it into a ball. Small and hard to grasp at first, but more manageable as I kept winding. When I came to a knot, I gently teased it loose and passed the growing ball through.
TriviaSpar Reaches 100,000 Downloads on Google Play!
Tags: Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain Startup, Bitcoin, Blockchain Technology

The TriviaSpar & Knowledge team are proud to update the community with the extraordinary growth our blockchain integrated trivia app has achieved.

TriviaSpar has been downloaded over 100,000 times, with well over 1.5 million questions answered so far! From October to December, Triviaspar has moved up 600 ranks in the Google Play Store’s trivia category, and isn’t slowing down anytime soon! In addition to the increase in downloads, TriviaSpar has an outstanding rating within Google Play (4.3/5) and the Apple App Store (4.5/5).

TriviaSpar QuickLinks

Download TriviaSpar: https://triviaspar.com/download/

Create a Knowledge account: https://account.knowledge.io/sign-up/get-started
Blockchain payments put more money in merchants’ pockets
Tags: Blockchain, Ripple, Bitcoin, Payments

Unless you work in the payments industry, you’ve probably not spent a great deal of time thinking about how credit cards work. You take your item to the cash register, you swipe your card, and then the purchase shows up on your bank or credit card statement.

… it’s complicated

Like with many things in life, there is more to this process than meets the eye. Consider this scenario: your laptop has just had its third birthday, which means that it’s well on its way towards planned obsolescence.

You go online, find the model you like, and make the purchase for $1000.

Behind the scenes

Your $1000 purchase goes straight into the pocket of the merchant, right? Well, not exactly. In total, there are about a dozen steps from the initial purchase to the merchant reaching your payment. You can find a good breakdown of the process here.

From this initial $1000 purchase with your Visa card, after each intermediary has taken its cut, the merchant will receive $944.20.

That seems like a lot… so where does this $55.80 go?

First up is the interchange fee of $25.10, which goes to the acquiring bank — i.e. the merchant’s bank.

The payment processor (PayPal in our example) then takes a cut of $29.30, comprised of 2.9% of the purchase + $0.30 processing fee.

Finally, assessment fees of $1.40 (0.14% of the purchase) are levied by card/payment network (Visa).

Surprise! Blockchain payments are cheaper!

We already know that payments made on blockchain networks can be faster and much cheaper than more traditional methods. But adoption amongst both consumers and retailers lags behind contexts like trade finance.

Luckily, there are a growing number of popular companies like Microsoft, T-Mobile, and Shopify that allow consumers to use crypto to pay for goods.

What if the shop accepted crypto?

For this same $1,000 purchase, let’s look at the fee structure using Nano. The transaction fee is $0.00 and the processing fee from CoinGate is $10, or 1% of the purchase cost. There are no assessment fees, meaning that the merchant ends up with $990.00 worth of Nano.

Depending on preference, the merchant can then decide to convert this crypto back into fiat currency for a fee of 1% + $0.15, bringing the total fiat currency they receive to $979.95. This means that an extra $35.75 goes into the merchant’s pocket if they accept Nano. Transactions with Stellar and XRP yield similar values.
On Mourning And Celebrating The Things We’re Missing
By: Kathryn Dillon
Tags: Relationships, Self, Covid 19, Sports, Baseball

It’s May 9th, 2020. During normal times, as we like to say these days, my husband and I would have attended several baseball games by now, shivering as the wind whipped through the Cleveland Indians ballpark at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario, not far from the shores of Lake Erie.

Early on in the pandemic timeline, when we realized the baseball season wasn’t going to look anything like we’d expected this year, I immediately wanted to play make-believe.

I wanted to break out Ken Burns’ amazing baseball documentary, to revisit our favorite baseball movies (Major League, I’m looking at you!). I wanted to blast our substantial baseball playlist while drinking Great Lakes Brewing Company’s Chillwave, a stellar seasonal IPA we usually enjoy at the ballpark during early-season games while enduring temperatures at least as crisp as the beer itself.

I wanted to stream one of the prior-season games the local stations were broadcasting, and pretend the world wasn’t currently a blazing dumpster fire of uncertainty and loss.

My husband, often a strange voice of reason in situations where my emotions take over, said no.

He wasn’t ready, he said, because he hadn’t finished grieving for the season, yet, grieving for what it should have been.

It would be too depressing, would remind him of how the coronavirus had taken from us one of our favorite things (though we have no illusions about how incredibly fortunate we both are in the grand scheme of things).

We’ve been cooped up together for almost two months, now, minimizing contact with anyone else. We’re trying to avoid having bad days at the same time, trying to be gentle with each other and ourselves, trying to respect each other’s needs during the quarantine. So, even though my inner toddler was having a bit of a temper tantrum, I swallowed hard, and I acquiesced with his “no baseball, for now,” wish.
Sorting Objects in Python
By: Sadrach Pierre
Tags: Technology, Software Development, Data Science, Programming, Python

In computer science, classes are blueprints for defining objects with related attributes and methods. A common task in computer science is sorting data structures based on attributes. In this post, we will discuss how to sort objects of the same class based on attribute values.

Let’s get started!

Suppose we have a class called ‘AppleMusicUser’, with an ‘__init__’ method that initializes an apple user ID:

class AppleMusicUser:

def __init__(self, apple_id):

self.apple_id = apple_id

Let’s create an instance of our ‘AppleMusicUser’ class with the email ‘emusk@tesla.com’:

user1 = AppleMusicUser("emusk@tesla.com")

If we print this object we get:

print(user1)

Which says the ‘AppleMusicUser’ object is located at the specified memory address. We can change how this object is represented by adding a ‘__repr__’ method:

class AppleMusicUser:

def __init__(self, apple_id):

self.apple_id = apple_id

def __repr__(self):

return 'AppleID({})'.format(self.apple_id)

Now if we print:

print(user1)

Next, suppose we have a list of ‘AppleMusicUser’ objects:

users = [AppleMusicUser("mzuckerberg@facebook.com"), AppleMusicUser("jdorsey@twitter.com"), AppleMusicUser("emusk@tesla.com")]

Let’s print the list of objects:

print(users)

We can sort the list of objects according to the apple ID using the ‘sorted()’ method and a lambda function:
Buttondown Review
By: Casey Botticello
Tags: Creativity, Social Media, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Journalism

Reasons to use Buttondown

Simplicity

The main reason to use Buttondown for your newsletters and email campaigns is because of its simplicity. Its design allows the writer to focus on the writing process instead of fiddling with cumbersome templates and building blocks that can be confusing and affect the way emails are displayed. In addition, its auto save feature prevents loss of work, and there is also drag and drop image uploading, all of which save time on the design aspect of writing emails.

Minimal skills required

As noted by founder Justin Duke, Buttondown emphasizes speed and simplicity in use over complicated email building and automation tools. As such, almost anyone, with minimal technical skills, can have a newsletter drafted without much effort. When compared with similar newsletter creation tools, including TinyLetter and SubStack, Buttondown appears to offer the best experience in terms of ease of use and clean design.

Revenue stream generation

Another reason to use Buttondown is that it offers users the option to earn revenue. This was mentioned earlier but deserves to be highlighted again because some companies take a portion of subscriber earnings. Substack, for example, collects one-tenth of all revenues gained from paid subscriptions. Buttondown, on the other hand, does not collect from any revenue earned from subscriptions. As a result, you get to keep all funds made in this regard.

Community outreach

The business model of Buttondown is one that is built on supporting community. For starters, the platform is built on open source software. The company’s founder also gives back to several open source projects as a way to support the software community.
Nowhere to go
By: Guy New York
Tags: Short Story, Sexuality, Romance, Fiction, Erotica

She was looking out the window when I woke up. She had my bathrobe on and coffee in hand.

“The bed is warmer,” I said, pulling the comforter up to my chin.

“Why did you let me stay here?”

I rolled onto my back, still beneath the blanket. Because I wanted to see if we could fall asleep without giving in? Because I still want to fuck you even though we shouldn’t? Because I love you and miss you, and I thought I could manage them both?

“You had nowhere else to go,” I mumbled.

“You got hard six times in your sleep,” she said.

“You counted?”

“It was hard to ignore. You had your arms around me and your cock was pressing against my back.”

“I’d apologize, but I had no control over anything. Besides, I get hard when you walk into the room. Sleeping next to you was impossible.”

She put her mug down on the window sill and opened the robe. The clothes she had slept in were gone, and I could see goose bumps covering her naked skin. I lifted the blanket without a word and she crawled in next to me.

“What are we doing?” she whispered as I pulled her to me.

“I was planning on fucking you.”

“We did so well last night.”

“We were sleeping,” I said before kissing her for the first time. She collapsed next to me, her mouth open and her hands searching. Within seconds I was inside her, she was beneath me, and all those years of wanting vanished in an instant.

“I didn’t sleep at all,” she said as she lifted her hips up to meet me. I brushed her hair from her face and kissed her again. I kissed her lips and her chin. I kissed her cheek and her neck. I kissed her shoulders, her wrists, and the palms of her hands all because I could.

“Neither did I.”
溫故知新 之 速速回顧敏捷宣言
By: Yu-Song Syu
Tags: Agile Methodology, Customer Relationships, Agile Development, Software Engineering, Agile

Kuma老師的軟體工程教室

Welcome to the Kingdom of Software Engineering
They Call Me Tree
By: Greg Prince
Tags: Short Fiction, Poetry, Nature, Flashfiction, Microfiction

A well of life to them that seek.

The morning dew and food-light freshen my core.

Inspired.

My thousands shake in the breeze, little leaves, little leaves.

How I love you each and every one.

Breathing into the ocean of atmosphere on this orb sustaining all life,

an afterthought for a dog to piss on.

But, even so, my process is chemical wonder and the piss will be used as sustenance.

I am mighty.

My shade is a blessing.

Give all of my being for every one of those human bugs.

Gnawing away at the hand which fed them from their puny existence.

My countenance overlooked but by a few.

Meditation and patience are in every fiber, my every fiber.

Strong and tall, flexible and wise in each limb and branch.

I am home to every creature.

Behold beauty in all my forms and ways.
프로그래머스[K번째수]
By: Hyunjun Kim
Tags: Algorithms, Programmers

To iterate is human, to recurse divine.

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Higher Animals
By: Christyl Rivers
Tags: Animals, Spirituality, Evolution, Inspiration, Climate Change

Sharing the remote control Christyl Rivers

My cat doesn’t care if the whole thing crashes

He likely will be taking a nap

He knows the inner working of the mind of God

As Australia burns, he climbs into my lap

It’s we who ‘know so much’ that are so odd

When the talking heads are screaming

With pitched and fiery speech

He raises up his head to get a scratch

He doesn’t know the meaning of the word impeach

While with rasping tongue he gives himself a bath

When commanding love — so not in pain —

Holy beings seem to rise above it

So much to learn from the animal brain

A divinity and wisdom we wouldn’t covet

If we could tap our own core animal again

All those millennia ago, we were as good as they

— And even they were not so domesticated —

But conquest crept into our hearts, and fights to stay

It’s these few angels that remain undecimated

I weep for you, wounded wombat, and roo,

If I could I would ask forgiveness for our kind,

I swear I understand, you are sacred and true

As are all beings humble in heart and mind
Japan After The Earthquakes
By: International Med. Corps
Tags: Humanitarian, Nepal, Earthquake, Speed Saves Lives, Japan

It was also the final blow Kuramoto’s cherished family home. “It is totally destroyed,” Kuramoto said, sitting on a mattress on top of a bed frame made of cardboard boxes. “That house lived through four emperors.”

One month after the two earthquakes rocked Kumamoto prefecture in central Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s main islands, more than 10,000 people are still living in evacuation centers, unable or too afraid to return home. Many of them are elderly and now uncertain of where they will live after losing what they so carefully built over decades in seconds.

At Kinokura Elementary School, where Kuramoto and her husband have sought refuge, 10 of the remaining 12 residents are over the age of 70. “I had seen footage from all over the world of earthquakes,” said Kuramoto. “It looked terrible. I never thought it would happen to us.”

International Medical Corps deployed an emergency response team to Kumamoto the day the second earthquake hit. “We quickly found that there was a high number of elderly living in evacuation centers,” said Samuel Grindley, International Medical Corps’ Emergency Response Team Leader in Kumamoto. “Our work over the past month has focused on trying to bring what dignity and comfort we could for older people after they were thrust out of their homes because of the earthquakes.”
How to Choose the Azure Region
By: Daniel Rusnok
Tags: Cloud Computing, Software Architecture, Microsoft, Azure, Cloud

Azure Regions

Azure regions approximately specified Azure Resource’s physical location. It is not the precise location of the machine your resource is hosted on but it’s more the scope where you expect the majority of requests. So, the first question you should ask yourself is:

Where is most service users?

Some services are not available in every region. You can find out which service is available where at Microsoft webpage. Few of services from Azure portfolio is defined as global. Which means they are highly available in every region. For example, Azure Active Directory.

If you are designing the whole cloud infrastructure, you should check the availability of each service in the region you planned to use. So, the second question you should ask yourself is:

Is each of service you need available in the region you want to use?

Another reason to pick different region can be regulatory and compliance reasons with regards to data residency. Data residency refers to the physical location of information in environments such as the cloud or on-premises servers.

If your company or industry is heavily regulated, you might need to look at the specific requirements. There is a chance you might need to do some extra encryption of your data. This is a tough topic and Microsoft created a document to help you with it. Take a look here.

We figured out the third question:
Podcasting: Co-Hosting and Recommendations
By: Rachael Gresson
Tags: Storytelling, Podcasting, The New York Times, Digital Marketing, Podcast

All-Time Favorites:

The classic but still worth the recommendation. There’s not much that hasn’t been said about the original podcast giant This American Life but it lives up to the hype with thoughtful, diverse, and engaging storytelling on a weekly basis. I still think their 2013 two-part series where they embedded journalists into a Chicago school for five months is some of the best reporting I’ve heard.

It’s all about the storytelling. If you haven’t heard about Serial you’re newer to this than I imagined! Serial gets a recommendation because of its role in giving podcasts a second wave of audience expansion and because the storytelling is just that good. Start at the beginning with series one and the gut-wrenching story of Adnan Syed before listening to their spinoff S-Town.

Tickle your international and feminist fancies. This podcast is essentially the current affairs musings of three intelligent, funny, and fiercely feminist New Zealand women. For me it’s a taste of home, for you On The Rag will be a glorious insight into New Zealand culture explained using fantastic exotic accents.

A double header for the morning commute. Like many, I’m a creature of habit so my commute to work follows the same routine every day.

Up First by NPR gives you the top news headlines for everything you need to know in 15 minutes or less.

Then The Daily by The New York Times goes deep on one topic guided by journalist Michael Barbaro. Quite honestly it’s the best way to start my day because who actually reads all those morning email digests they signed up for?

Required listening for getting through your twenties. Host Anna Sale doesn’t hold back when talking to her guests. In Death, Sex & Money she talks to celebrities and everyday people about things that can make life really hard sometimes but are often not talked about. If you have ever wonder if you’re doing life right, this podcast is for you.

Honorable Mentions:

Found where all good podcasts live: Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher. I’m always looking for new listens! So if you have a recommendation, please leave a comment below.
Through Love
By: Shringi Kumari
Tags: Colonialism, Humanity, Poetry, Isolation, Tragedy

I wish to speak to somebody

… but nobody real and certainly nobody made up

You…

Do you ever think of simply talking to me

— about lugubrious romance over a cup of tea in perfect china

Dainty flowers flowing off the carpet into our ghazals

The era of laborious push and pull of love

I would obviously be the poet — long flowing drama

— heart of an ocean and also a scared rabbit. I shall trap

like a web of honey and escape like a dead wasp

Flowers around your arms, your hair

Your wrists, my ankles —

And the slow abstract dance — by a glistening lake

As though partition never happened

As though colonization is fabrication of Eeyorish books

My skin was never sold to suitors. All love is — was —

is this conversation where we flick stray petals off each other’s

— banarasi robes

A turmeric sheen has taken over this fiction

Beside kheer and beetle leaves is a perfectly contrasting

— streak of blood. Reminding us of screeching humanity

painting the backstage of this exquisite affair. Love —

an interlude to thorough violence —

Could we gently spill this hot cup of tea —

on pages and pages describing war. Could we shed

the rosewater pretence of poetry and wear red mulmul

— borrow an ewer and walk off to the himalyas

Scrub urdu off this soul. There is no place for such

language in the austerity of life, they say. Even in the mountains

— there are divisions. On all sides are shreds of brocade

marking the destiny of all love to fall against truth

— against this blood minded race that looks for love with

two swords and a tongue rubbed with unknown yearning

This is why we don’t talk. There is nothing left to discuss

Not even art. Not even… love

This is why we don’t meet — between shattering crockery

— shattering layers of ganga and godvari. Shattering sky

Shattering drama. Not even art. Not even art…

Shattering mirrorwork, shattering palaces — shattering zari

— shattering art. Even art…Even you, Even me

Even our silent cup of banarasi chah
The Town (Coming Tomorrow)
By: Tammi Brownlee
Tags: Fiction Series, Storytelling, Fiction, Supernatural, The Town

The Town is a series about a woman, Tabitha Fenton, who wakes up in her car on a deserted road with no idea who she is or where she came from. A wound on her head tells her that something bad must of happened to her.

She discovers her name when she finds her driver’s license, which tells her she lives in Davenport, Maine. With a rock blocking the path behind her she has no choice but to drive forward.

When she enters the town of Davenport she is met by a police officer, noticing she is hurt he calls an ambulance for her. While searching her car to find out who she is, he discovers her name and becomes frightened by who she is.

News gets around fast in Davenport, Maine. It doesn’t take long for the 1,200 residents to know who she is.

At the hospital Tabitha finds a very cold welcome. With some even asking her when she will be leaving. Her interest peaks when she the address from her license is not a house, but rather an open field in the outskirts of town.

Within a few hours weird things start happening in the town. Tabitha, still trying to figure what happened to her and who she is, decides to stay. Which is not met with excitement from the others in the town.

The first episode

On Friday November 1, 2019 the first episode of The Town will be published. Then each Friday for the next 8 weeks there will be a new episode published that will continue the story of Tabitha. Will she find out her secret history? Will she remember who she is? Only time will tell. Stay tuned to read this fascinating story!
COVID-19 Update: PartRunner — Construction Supply Logistics
By: Jeff Piltch
Tags: Construction, Startup, Coronavirus, Delivery, Logistics

Here we will be revisiting PartRunner, a Boston-based company that is building a platform to solve last-mile delivery for the construction industry and its suppliers.

The Problem

Moving parts/materials are a costly experience for companies in the construction space. If logistics is not part of a company’s core-competency, it is not uncommon to see slippage on that end of the business.

What The Company Does

PartRunner’s solution is an on-demand delivery service (Last-Mile) that enables companies (Supply Houses and Contractors) to move material on-demand. The service is mainly B2B now.

Here is a link to our initial profile on PartRunner in case you missed it.

Here is what PartRunner is doing NOW to adjust to the Coronavirus outbreak …

1. They have established pickup and dropoff locations with many of their customers, which helps to significantly reduce human contact.

2. All drivers have been instructed to pick up and drop off curbside and use cleaning wipes to thoroughly clean their vehicles’ interior surfaces throughout the day and between deliveries.

3. Drivers are utilizing a “touch-free” Point of Delivery process and will not be getting in-person signatures from customers until further notice.

4. Here is more information about what PartRunner is doing.

PartRunner has built a strong and reliable fleet of drivers, and the team is poised to help in other industries outside of construction. Definitely reach out if you could use their service or know someone else that could. We’re proud of the PartRunner team for playing their part in limiting the outbreak, while pushing through to keep its customers happy and safe. Connect with the PartRunner team.

Subscribe to The Buzz to get more startups and COVID-19 updates delivered directly to your inbox.
Scrum, эффективно и быстро
By: Bogdan Bogomaz
Tags: Life Hacking, Project Management, Agile, Scrum, Russian

in In Fitness And In Health
Choosing Kindness
By: Sarah E Sturgis
Tags: Empathy, Holiday Spirit, Holidays, Writing, Kindness

Choosing Kindness

Spreading kindness throughout the year, not just at the holidays

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

We have reached the new year! We have celebrated the holidays, practiced kindness towards others, been gracious and generous, but now what?

The holidays are a special time of year because we get together and spread joy around us. Though, for some it can be the hardest time of year. It is to those that we must remember that their circumstances may still need help after the holidays are over.

When we think of being kind, what do we think of? Perhaps, someone needs a smile and a simple, “Hello!” can make their day. Maybe another person is sad or depressed and just needs someone to listen to them. Being kind can come in many different forms. And when it comes down to it, the age-old rule, treat others as you would want to be treated seems to be the best compass to guide us as we enter this new year.

I was reading a story written by Gladysdaeweeks about this same subject and it made me wonder why we must have a holiday to teach us to be kind to others. Why is it that we don’t extend this feeling of love, kindness, and gratitude on throughout the year?

There is no rule, nothing to keep us from extending our hearts to others throughout the year. There is no limit to the joy we can share with those without any. So, why don’t we do it? Sure, we find time now and then to do something nice for someone, but the Christmas spirit is something that can last all year ‘round if we let it.

My New Year’s resolution is to try to extend this feeling of kindness and joy to those around me throughout the year.

I choose kindness. I choose gratitude. I choose Joy.

I challenge you to try this with me. For kindness is easy, it doesn’t cost anything but your time and when you give a piece of yourself to be kind to another it is the most uplifting feeling in the world.

Choose kindness this year. Choose empathy, courage, graciousness this year. Choose to notice more, the little things that are precious. For it is the little things in life that mean the most. A happy day with a loved one, a moment in time, a glimpse of what your future brings; these are all to be cherished!

So, let the joy of the holidays spread throughout this coming year! Choose kindness and empathy, choose to open your heart to others. This will only lead to positive, new and exciting experiences filled with hope.

This will be my New Year’s hope, to treat others as I would want to be treated.

I hope you all find it as fulfilling as I do!
Kubernetes Pod Redundancy Strategies
By: Harry Martland
Tags: Distributed Systems, Containers, Programming, Kubernetes, DevOps

Scaling

Rather than manually calculating the number of pods we need at peak times, we can let K8s do this for us. Given a scaling metric, K8s can scale our service in and out based on the current demand. This reduces costs by scaling down during lower demand and up when we need it. Scaling in itself does not give us resilience from pod failure but does protect against increasing demand. Keeping pods small in terms of memory and CPU allows us to more precisely scale and cut costs even more.

For information on how to find out when to scale your service, check out my article on Performance Testing for K8s Autoscaling.

When scaling a service, you should include some headroom, meaning you should not push your pods to the limit. Your pods will take some time to start up, and autoscaling metrics are calculated periodically. Your application needs to be able to handle the requests between requesting to scale up and actually scaling up. If you have lots of pods, the headroom can shrink, as it is spread out across all pods.

Horizontal Pod Autoscalers (HPAs) are used to autoscale our services in K8s. For more information on how these can be set up, check out the documentation. For more information on which metrics are not a good idea to use for autoscaling, check out this article.
Monkeymind
By: Sam Ripples
Tags: Meditation, Poetry, Self, Philosophy, Personal Development

Monkeymind

I am on a roller coaster/ and I cannot get off

Photo by Quinten de Graaf on Unsplash

I cannot

stop

I am on a roller coaster

and I cannot get off

no matter how hard I try

the ride never slows

and I’m whipped in the wind

my mind out the window.

Here it is, monkeymind,

run-on sentences are friends of mine

like the endless marquee strung across

my eyes

they never stop going

just curious motion

that sets in motion

my endless

distraction.

Spinning, spinning

running free

wheeling with no autonomy

I cannot control its currents and eddies

using all my energy

to just keep my head steady.

And so on I go

on the endless ride

the tidal flows of my

monkeymind.
Do You Miss Drinking?
By: Russ W
Tags: Recovery, Addiction, Mental Health, Addiction Recovery, Alcoholism

Sometimes people ask me if I miss alcohol. I’m sure they ask you too.

I make sure to look them in the eyes and capture the expression on their face.

That look is a reminder. It transports me back in time. I use that look to trigger my memories of what it’s like to live life at the bottom of a bottle.

“Do you miss it?”

The people who ask me this, of course, are drinkers. There can be layers of meaning in that little question. Those four words can say so much.

Sometimes it’s an innocent question, a legitimate curiosity about what life would be like without the safety net of a tall pour at the end of a long day. This sort of nonchalant wonder comes from the “regular drinkers” who simply haven’t ever considered what abstaining would really be like.

But more often the question comes from someone who has a legitimate concern about themselves. This facial expression is what I use as my trigger.

If you really look closely, you can sense a hint of self-doubt and even a little pain. Their wonder is not an innocent question about what it would be like. These people have already considered what it would be like and maybe have even tried before.

It’s almost as if you can see the conflict on their face. They know they should probably stop themselves — if not indefinitely at least take a break or cut back in a major way. They want to, but maybe they can’t. Maybe they’re in denial about the concerns expressed by friends, family and lovers.

I know that hesitating, sheepish question and the painful emotions that hide beneath it because I lived it for many years.

I try to capture their look in my mind because it grounds me. I’ve trained myself to think back to the worst months of dependency. That’s what people in recovery mean when they say “play the tape forward.”

To ward off thoughts of what you might legitimately feel you miss, honestly remind yourself how easy it is to fall back into addiction.
A Blooming Flower
By: Anitha Sankaran
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Poetry, Flowers, Surrealism, Spring

A Blooming Flower

A Free-verse Fictional Poem

Pop up

From the dust, I grew

Each dot in the universe

connects with the

cells of my body

Pop up

I open the petals

of my heart buried

within this frail vessel

Pop up

I outstretched my hands

to hold the water

from the blue sky

Pop up

I held the crown in my stalk

to gaze the shining Sun

and the sparkling Stars

Pop up

I’m a collective

pearl in the cosmos

Blossoming and drying,

I leap from life to non-life

in a short span.

©Anitha Sankaran 2020

In response to the Poetry Prompt: “ Collection &/or Connection” by J.D. Harms —