fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
The Most Powerful Leadership Empowers
By: Lisa Lambert, Co-Founder At Spotlight Trust
Tags: Leadership, Diversity And Inclusion, Organizational Culture, Change, Leadership Development

Leadership is often associated with power: Power Over.

Power Over others is how power is commonly understood. Power Over is at the root of authority, hierarchy, and command and control leadership.

Power Over is Problematic

When Power Over others defines a relationship, it can be used in coercive, oppressive, and abusive ways. When Power Over is exerted on people, it leaves them feeling powerless.

Yet Power Over is limited power. It may seem effective in the short term, but Power Over eventually weakens as friction and resistance increase. And when the Power Over dynamic fades, often so does the change that that sort of power was driving as followers embrace the freedom to choose a different path.

Embracing Trust-Centered Power

But other types of power are more powerful than Power Over, more enduring, and are at the core of more effective leadership. Other types of power unleash, include, and empower others, build trust, and foster the enrollment needed for long-term, sustainable change-making. These are the types of power harnessed by Trust-Centered leaders:

Power To: This is productive and generative. It’s the Power To embrace possibility and make change happen, to make a difference. It’s the power to achieve goals, to create something new, to generously move forward together.

Power With: This is shared power born of trust, togetherness, and collaboration. This is the Power To be greater than the sum of our parts, to harness diversity and transcend differences to forge the path to collective action. Power With is anchored in mutual understanding, respect, dignity, support, empowerment, and co-creation.

Power Within: This involves trusting in oneself and recognizing the gifts each of us has within and courageously sharing these with the world. It involves self-awareness and self-acceptance. It’s also recognizing and celebrating the unique Power Within others so as to fully engage Power With. It’s believing each and every one of us has the Power To make a difference.

Practicing Leadership that Empowers

Reflecting on your leadership, what types of power are you most frequently exercising? As Trust-Centered leaders, our work is not to maximize Power Over. The most powerful leadership empowers others. How might you more readily empower others by leading in a way that cultivates Power To, Power With, and Power Within?
There’s A Little Evil In All Of Us
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Good And Evil, Humanity, Choices, Thoughts, Morality

My daughter and I went to see Maleficent 2 yesterday, and it got me thinking. (No spoilers, don’t worry). I intended to just relax and enjoy the movie, but my overactive brain picked up on some messages that may or may not have been intended.

The film itself was beautiful, and although I hadn’t seen the first one, I had no problem following the story. The only thing that might have made it better was if the children behind me had been taught theatre etiquette by their equally ambivalent mother.

The story-line got me thinking about first impressions. When people first meet me, they tend to think I’m quiet, innocent, kind. I can be all of those things, sure. But looks can be so deceiving.

I’m quiet, only when I’m uncertain or nervous, or maybe when I’m a little shy. I’m innocent? Ha! Never — I just look that way. I’m kind when kindness is deserved or needed. But there’s also a completely different side of me that usually stays well-hidden. A side most people wouldn’t like.

A side of me who is filled with a darkness that most wouldn’t believe exists. It can be unimaginable, even to myself at times. My mind, usually filled with positivity and joy, can get crowded by shadows and demons. Evil thoughts. Ideas. Things I would hopefully never act upon, but that are present in my mind just the same.

And I wonder, how did they get there? Why do I think these things? Why do I have these unspeakable images filling my head, echoing relentlessly, causing me to feel… less than human?

Intrusive thoughts

As it turns out, I’m not in the minority. In an article from Hannah E. Reese published in Psychology Today, Reese talks about the importance of removing shame and guilt for having these thoughts and explains that the reason we have them is not that we want to act on them, but actually quite the opposite.

“ While doing, or wanting to do, any of these things is not normal, having intrusive thoughts like these is normal. Sometimes thoughts like these come to us precisely because we do not want to act in this way; they are simply the most inappropriate thing your mind can imagine.”

Reese goes on to explain that by trying to push these intrusive thoughts from our minds, we actually succeed in making them stay longer.
Owed to a Harper
Tags: Poetry, Inspiration, Celebration, Inspiration Prompt, Chalkboard

Benjamin West, The Bard, 1778, Tate T01900

The instrument in Harper’s hand

Glows with a bright, electric fire.

His songs ring out across the land

And have us chuckling through our ire.

Beside our hearth, he sings, each night,

Selections from our favorite lays

Made new again to fit our plight

And buoy us through the darkened days.

With wit and skill, his fingers play

With barbs like feathered blowgun darts.

He hounds the hounds that loudly bay.

His nimble mind leaps like a hart.

How tight we hold our aching sides!

How our ribs we wrack with laughter!

What respite in amusement rides

And the giddy feeling after!

So, Harper Thorpe , I sing of thee,

With gratitude and praise sincere,

For all the glee you’ve served up free

And, more important, friendship dear.
Flutter. How to Create Your Own Native Notification in Android
By: Artem Diashkin
Tags: Flutter Plugin, Flutter, Android Notification, Notifications, Plugins

Creating Flutter Plugin project

In this chapter, I will guide you through all steps you will be needed to take while creating your Flutter Plugin project.

First, open your Android Studio IDE and select Create New Flutter Project :
Price of an orgasm
By: Asrai Devin
Tags: Sex, Erotica, Fiction, BDSM, Flash Fiction

Photo by MAX LIBERTINE on Unsplash

How much is coming worth to you?

Her arms were sore. She had lost track of how much time had past since he ordered her to go to his bedchamber, blindfold herself and sit on hands and knees on his bed.

His footsteps and the door closing made her turn. “Don’t make a sound,” he ordered.

Her pussy clenched. The long wait and her tired limbs didn’t dampen her anticipation. The only thing damp were her panties. She almost giggled.

He pushed her thighs wider and something moved between her legs. “I can smell your arousal, my slut.” This time it was his hand against her mound. “I don’t think you can wear underwear for the rest of the week. All you do is wet yourself.”

He peeled the thin cotton down her legs. Two fingers plunged into her waiting pussy. She arched her back, wanting to ride her pussy.

“Careful little miss, you seem eager.”

Her inner walls clenched around him. She’d been a good girl all day in anticipation of this orgasm. His thumb moved over her clit and she bit back a moan.

“Every orgasm this week has a price. I might tell you. I might not.” She nodded as his thumb wound around her clit. “It’s up to you to decide if you want to pay the price.”

What was the price for this one?
7 Subtle Signs That Your Friend, Your Best Friend, Is Fake One
Tags: Life Lessons, Life, Relationships, Friends, Friendship

7 Subtle Signs That Your Friend, Your Best Friend, Is Fake One

#1 They act differently when you’re around other people.

“Hey, buddy I love you— You know that right?” “Of course, I know that dude.” “Promise me, that we’ll stick to each others side no matter what happens.” “I promise.”

Friends are like lightning in the dark. They fill colors in our black & white life. It’s them whom we turn to when we have no one because we know they’ll understand us and be there for us no matter what happens. Life without them is indeed life without air and it’s very hard to imagine a life without them. We need them at every moment in our life from the day we’re born to the day we’ll die.

Although their connection with us is not blood relations, but it’s so much more than that, it’s like a soul connection — a ‘special’ one.

We trust them more than we trust ourselves, we share everything with them from our embarrassing secrets to the darkest moments …and we can’t even imagine what will happen if they break our trust. That thing will literally kill us alive.

I am not saying that every friend of yours is fake. I also do have many friends and not all of them are fake. And you do also have some real ones. But for yourself, just for your own sake, think about it for a minute:

What if the person you share your secrets with, is cheating behind your back? What if they are fake ones?

“Oh no, they will never betray me. I trust them. I know them for a very long time they are not like that.”

But what if they are? What if they are not who they show they are?

What will you do then? — Wait for them to show their true colors to you and let them stab you in your back.

Don’t wait for them to ruin you. Don’t make up any excuses. Ditch them before it’s too late. Remember — It’s better to have no friends than to have fake ones.

But it can be hard to tell if someone is a fake friend — especially if they’re trying to be fake about the fact that they’re fake! Keep in mind that feeling suspicious of a person’s sincerity is usually a sign that something is not right.

Here are 7 subtle signs to help you spot a fake friend:
Inauguramos el Centro de Ayuda y soporte Inbest
By: Inbest Network
Tags: Inbest Network, Centro De Ayuda, Soporte, Inbest

in In Fitness And In Health
this town is teetering with your ghost
Tags: Pain, Loss, Heartbreak, Relationships, Love

can you give me just, like, a friendly “hello”?

a few texts back to me, out to me

without entangling emotions

entrenching, upsetting, you stay: unsaid.

we’re both in the same place,

(the way i see it):

we could actually help each other

without being one’s romantic lover

anymore

but. maybe that’s crazy — maybe even impossible —

for you, darling, in your eyes…

o… — those eyes — …

what’s wrong with we? —

— for wishing we would work.

what was wrong with us?—

— was that our similarities shot to outshine one another’s,

+ our differences deadlocked + disagreed.

— i understand i hurt you —

— + i understand you still hurt —

so — i understand why you still want to hurt me.

we used to hit all the breakfast spots,

+ then pick a favorite one,

+ we’d become a kind of family

i’m a-lone, man.

i’m cool, though. + kickin’ it.

i can taste your memory with my heart’s breaking, broken beat.

with you + your long love gone — for a forever time…

(+ with this warring with this mother of mine…):

the only place i can find

feminine attention,

+ feminine affection,

+ feminine disapproving aggression is in my

fashion, creativity, + shy spaces.

it’s a-lone, venture. like i said: i’m a-lone, man.

it’s cool — though — i’m killing

it.

i gave you an emergency call

why won’t you pick up?

will you see if i’m okay?

would you make sure i’m still breathing, beating…

without you. for you. with you —

i used to be in pain. then i became pain —

bitter bones, a hating heart, a malicious + malefic mind —

thoughts of the dark. haunted apart.

now, i’ve aged —

…now i don’t know about you…

…you seem, stuck. stung. sucked, into violence + vortex.

i don’t think i broke your heart.

i think it was already cracked quite severely.

i just distracted it, you know?

straight-up: our relationship was grown, girl.

so, why would i not grow? in it. out to it. out of it.

why wouldn’t growth be a focal point, a total point?

you were the best.

friend.

you were my best.

lover.

you were the cutest.

companion.

you were the most suited

— abandon, me. abandon, you.

we abandoned the path, the cinnamon candled track.

it’s fine, i guess.

i’m finding mine. i think you’re looking for yours,

too.

your laugh was angelic + transcendent.

i actually admired it. gorgeous, goodness, goodness…

where is it?

where are you?

who you laughing @?

with?

+ along to?

…god.

do you have similar thoughts:

when a tangent is overtaken by fear + absence?

i always had a thing for freckles,

[+ your skin was littered with ‘em + i loved it].

i miss them. i’d kiss them. + lick

my own wounds on my own ashen skin…

this is hard, i guess. can we agree on that?

nowadays, when we talk, we never do.

we used to have summers of sand

summers in a land of just us two. it was simply fine = divine.

i’m passing our place.

no one’s ever there.

for you it’s full of regrets.

i’m passing away.

i’d do whatever you say.

for one day.

for one glance.

for one night.

beside you.

beside me.

bedside.

anyway…
5 Trends in Big Data and SQL to Be Excited About in 2020
Tags: Programming, Sql, Cloud, Data Science, Business

5 Trends in Big Data and SQL to Be Excited About in 2020

Distributed data processing, collaborative SQL, and open-source

Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash.

SQL is one of the most in-demand technical skills in the workplace today. Developed back in the 1970s, it is still the way we interface most of our data systems today. Regardless of what drag-and-drop tools come around or what new query paradigms try to overtake it, it has remained.

Many modern database technologies we will talk about today are constantly having to comply with SQL policies vs. SQL needs to be updated.

However, this isn’t to say the SQL landscape hasn’t changed a lot in the past few decades and doesn’t continue to evolve. This is one reason SQL has stuck around so much. It grows and evolves with the times.

This article will summarize some of the major trends currently occurring in the SQL and data analytics world.

We will be discussing how SQL is becoming more collaborative and open, how the majority of databases our world continues to operate on are open-source or switching to open-source, as well as bringing up a few technologies you may not have heard of but should watch out for.

With so much going on in the technical world, this will help provide a clear picture of some of the more important changes in the SQL and data world.
Lamentations
By: Joseph Coco
Tags: Poetry, Romance, LGBTQ, Relationships, Love

Illustration by Harada Miyuki

Pure love,

Pure untainted affection,

Something that never dies,

It never lies,

You see it when you look into my eyes,

Maps of sadness,

Maps of pain,

Maps obscured under the rain,

The sky she weeps,

Her pain it falls,

Right into my eyes,

I see it all,

I stumble here,

I stumble there,

Only to find a source of air,

Gagging sobs,

Choking cries,

I can’t see no matter how I try,

Future obscured,

My vision destroyed,

All because of some silly boy.

For nights I sat and wondered why,

For nights I was kept awake by the wails of agony and despair,

I believed the world so cruel,

Unforgiving of love not normative,

Little did I know,

I was right all along,

You left in fear,

You went and took flight,

All because you dared to love a child of the night,

I screamed at the sky,

I screamed to the moon,

A veritable grave is what became of my room,

The tomb lay silent,

Time after time,

This picture poetic,

Deserving of rhymes,

You come to me now,

Confused and destroyed,

To what do I owe you little boy?

You broke my heart,

You crushed my mind,

All because the world’s unkind,

To you,

To us,

To all those it dares not trust,

The queers,

The fags,

There is no freedom under this flag,

I could not have heaven,

So I then take hell,

And for you my devil,

Break out of your cell.
Skedaddle
By: Terry Mansfield
Tags: Humor, Poetry, Haiku, Go Away, Poem

Hi! I’m Terry Mansfield and I Specialize in Eclecticism

Here are some things about me you probably don’t know (and maybe don’t even care to know; sorry about that).
I Reinvent Myself Every 6 Months and So Should You
By: Danny Forest
Tags: Life Lessons, Education, Inspiration, Self Improvement, Life

By now you might think that I come either from a middle class or higher class family, living in a nice urban area. Maybe you think I was raised by a family that encouraged education and high achievement.

You would be wrong.

I grew up in a very poor family with my three brothers, raised by a single mom in a farm town in rural Canada with 10,000-inhabitants. Except for me, no one in my family, for at least 3 generations, even finished high school.

You may think I’m bashing my family here but you’d be missing the point. They may not have the highest education but in some ways, they are smarter than most of us that have this piece of paper we’re so proud of having.

I’d go so far as to say they were smarter than me for dropping out so early. I only realized that dropping out of school was one of the greatest decisions I could have made back in my second year of University.

During these two extra years when my friends were being told what to do in school, I joined a startup as employee #1, built a game backend from scratch (with zero experience), grew the company to 23 people, and we made 3 million dollars on our first game. So many great lessons were learned from the real-world experience! The knowledge my friends learned is already irrelevant.

Anyway, one of my brothers held all the athletics school records for many years, he was the smartest chess player there was, and he was a master at drawing — three insanely different skills! He beat me at every single thing we competed in. Yet he sucked in school (okay, I beat him there).

That led him to think there was something wrong with him, which led to lower confidence. He lost his drive for many years, yet he had, by far, the highest potential of anyone at the school, even if he had the lowest grades.

Do you see something wrong here?

My brother could have become a great polymath but today’s society cast him away. I’m being overly dramatic but you know there’s truth to it. During the Renaissance, he would have been a genius.

Now compare that to me. I was the most average kid there was. I had okay grades. I wasn’t the best at anything, except for spending a shit-ton of time playing video games on the couch (man I loved the Gameboy Advance!). I was such a “disgrace” that that same brother once told me, when I was 15 years old, the following sentence:

“You’ll never do anything in life.” — my brother

Phew. Harsh thing to say to your brother. Or anyone, really. I could have cried. I could have fought back. I could have listened to him and agreed with him.

But even back then, I had a superpower not many have: I like to prove people wrong about myself. You tell me I will never be able to dance Salsa? BAM! 30 days later I’ve mastered all the basics.

It turns out, this very same sentence above could be the catalyst to what I’ve become today.
Beth Lisick On “Maybe This is My Thing!”
By: Meaghan O'Connell
Tags: Emily Books, Beth Lisick, Work

So this month’s Emily Books pick is a book of short, hilarious essays by Beth Lisick called Yokohama Threeway. Beth has written four books, hosts a monthly storytelling series, is currently on our with Sister Spit, does comedy with Tara Jepsen, is an actress, a slam poet, a mom. So when I got to interview her for Emily Books, a lot of our discussion ended up being about work, success, failure, and trying to get by. I love what she had to say about all of it:

MO: I feel like reading the book, I came away from it feeling like it ended up being a really accurate portrait of like, “the gig economy” or work as a creative person. All the different jobs you’ve had —

BL: …Yeah my particular compendium of these things is very much related to trying to make money, trying to get somewhere, not knowing what I’m doing, being put in a situation — like that TV thing where they’re like, “Oh, you could be a TV host!’ and I’m like, “Okayyyy, maybe I could do that??” And just the constant humiliations of not knowing what I’m doing but forging ahead anyway.

MO: And feeling like, if something comes to you, you should say yes to it, because you never know…

BL: Exactly. Right. “Maybe this is my thing!” I think that there are people who live their lives like that and there are people who don’t. And I do feel like for all the insecurity that comes up, financially and otherwise, it’s worth it to me. I don’t know how to live any other way.

MO: The “maybe this is my thing” bit is one of my favorite parts of the book. It’s so real and I love it in the context of your bio. You host a monthly storytelling series, you’re writing a novel, you’re a spoken word poet, you’ve published five books, you’re one half of a comedy duo — you still have a million things.

BL: Yeah! And I’m sure I always will, and I like that. The ups and downs and the high points and low points of having a career as a writer and a performer — that’s just how it goes. I don’t know how many people that do these kind of things have the kind of story where they just keep getting bigger and keep getting more successful — you know Emily wrote that great thing about money and writing her novel and I thought that was so fucking cool. And closer to most people’s experience.

People want to see themselves as successful and doing well and comfortable and always making more money and getting more popular — or whatever it is — and I think I have always defined myself by the things that don’t go right as much as the things that do go right. And I really do feel like it’s an equal balance. And I feel like trying to hide the things that don’t go right is just…wrong and embarrassing.
Loaded
By: Raúl Güereque
Tags: Patience, Perseverance, Free Verse, Life, Poem

Photo by Christopher Sardegna on Unsplash

Loaded

A Poem

You just sit there

Patiently

Be strong

Like you don’t know you are

Like I know you are

Bare with it all

For now

Just sit there

Patiently

Be strong

It will soon be done

4.27.07
Storming the Gates: Standing Still
By: Darryl Willis
Tags: Travel, Poetry On Medium, Poets Unlimited, Poetry

Photo by Nicolas Jehly on Unsplash

In Newark they tore up the moving way.

Workers knee-deep in terminal floor

stare at cross-piece and rollers pinned

by two-inch nuts and bolts.

Red and yellow barricades

save the cell-obsessed from head-long

pursuit: the inevitable and

indiscriminate scattering of text.

I am distracted and scattered myself.

I hardly notice what stands amiss:

China delayed and now Shanghais

the Munich gate engaged in silent

passive-aggressive war between

Occident and Orient

each can see unwashed brutes

beyond the gate. Presently,

Oriental patience prevails,

frustrating Germanic will. And still

I wait beside a broken floor.
Operation TANGHAM explained: Stopping the spread of extremism in Somalia
By: Ministry Of Defence
Tags: Operations, Somalia, UK, Terrorism, Military

Operation TANGHAM explained: Stopping the spread of extremism in Somalia

British Forces have been in Somalia since 2017, helping to reduce the waves of terrorism by training the security forces. Here are three things you need to know

Somalia’s vast stretches of coastline along the Horn of Africa are infamous for stories of piracy and illegal activity, but less known is the country’s internal struggle with a lingering insurgency borne from civil war and extremist influence.

When left unchecked, violence from these extremist groups such as Al-Shabaab could spill over into neighbouring countries and pose a significant threat to peace.

Since 2017 the UK Armed Forces have been playing an active role in reinstating security and stability in Somalia by building skills within the Somali National Army (SNA).
Back to Basics Software Design
By: R. E. Warner
Tags: Internet Explorer, Software, Use Open Source Software, Web Browsers

Yesterday’s post got me thinking. To sum up, computers are getting faster but software is getting bulkier and slower. While that’s probably a fair generalization, in the world of web browsers, there have been several notable exceptions of late. For years, users have had to choose between Netscape and IE, both of which are notably large for a web browser and not particularly quick at rendering pages. (I’m not linking to either of them, good reader, because I do not endorse them) However, Apple’s Safari was one of the first browsers to come along that bucked this trend, being quick, largely bug-free and very fast. Now for the PC and Mac, Firefox is causing quite a storm. In its recent spate of a massive number of downloads, it has only gained 1% of the marketshare but a million downloads on its first day of release is something to pay attention to.



From reading about people who have made the switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox it seems clear that people are frustrated with IE and looking for an alternative primarily due to IE’s lackluster security features. I’ve even found several recent stories like this one that point to people who are unplugging their computers from the internet do to their frustration with spam, spyware and viruses, oh my!

It’s always been a secret desire of mine to sue Macromedia for Flash’s antics. No program I have ever worked with has been so completely prone to random crashes and bizarre bugs or mis-documented code. But I’m not just using it for fun. It’s my job. If I’m hired to work in Flash then my lost work and time spent restarting Flash and banging my head against a nearby desk is money out of my pocket (and a health risk). Is it so hard to understand that I feel maybe Macromedia owes me something?

Don’t flip out: I’m just as anti-litigation as anyone. It’s a pipe dream to think that in the current social climate anyone is going to sue a software company like Macromedia and get away with it. But in a rapidly advancing technological world where our lives come to depend more and more on bugs not happening in our computer systems, I doubt the shrug generating quality of bugs is going to last too long.

The truth is, it’s not going to continue. The other shoe is going to drop — maybe soon for Redmond. If common web users are willing to completely unplug from the web or do something as unorthodox as use open source software we may be seeing the beginnings of a technological society unwilling to accept technological glitches as a par for the course.
Ficus Macrophylla
By: M Ainsley Blackman
Tags: Short Story, Fiction, Time, Flash Fiction, Trees

Ficus Macrophylla

Flash fiction

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

The couple sat beneath the towering Moreton Bay Figtree canopy, limbs entwined.

She pulled away and drew a pen out of her pocket.

“Let’s write our names,” she said.

As they scratched KE 4 LN 4 EVA into the bark, the tree swirled its leaves as it thought to itself, “I was here long before you and I will be here long after you.”
Stepping Up Into A Better Situation
By: Brian Kurian
Tags: Life Lessons, Poetry, Life, Relationships, Poem

Stepping Up Into A Better Situation

Free Verse poem.

Image by Peter H from Pixabay

I guess you could say

I’m stepping up into a better situation

without any hesitation

because some aspects of my life need some rearranging

maybe, I’m fed up

maybe, I’m the one who is to blame

or perhaps I’m sick of playing this silly game.

Part of me wishes we had never met

because now I can’t seem to forget

all those good times with you

I wish there was something we could do

to try to save this relationship

I’m getting on the plane, and it’s a one-way trip.
When Friends Die
By: Ann Litts
Tags: Aging, Life, Death, Grief, Change

I remember having conversations with Elders — and one point always came back to haunt me. Everyone who knew their history — who had shared their lives — had died. Their parents had died ages ago. There were no siblings left. They had watched and grieved as one by one their friends had moved on to The Next Thing. They had no story-keepers, no memory-holders, no history-tellers in their world who had shared their life.

Is that the point in time then when we are truly gone? When there are none left to tell our stories?

My family of origin was not close-knit. Throughout My Life, The Universe has blessed me with sisters and brothers of the heart. So many wonderful Humans who love me even though they are not required to. Members of my cohort, my generation, My Timekeepers.
Beauty, and the Rose-tint of Nostalgia
By: Ritwik Dey
Tags: Mumbai, Childhood, Fiat, Nostalgia

And I wasn’t particularly fond of them. Even back then I didn’t find the Padmini attractive in the least. Most of my experiences with it were riding in the passenger seat of a taxicab. It was like riding in a padded metal crate, with a suspension made by someone with an intimate knowledge of Bombay’s potholes. And a very dark sense of humor.

Why then did my mind’s eye present this vision to me? Why did I find myself sighing wistfully at the thought of digging up old images of the car? Did I now find it (gulp) beautiful? Ick. I needed a shower.

Right brain: (sigh) Left brain: Yuck!

I thought back again, and dug deeper. I realized that despite being acutely aware of what a monstrosity the car was, I was always happy when I was in one. Because it meant I was most likely with my family, and we were on our way to someplace important, someplace happy — a wedding or a celebration of some sort that required traveling far from home but arriving in style. It meant I could sit by the window and relish a cool breeze while watching the city whip past. And sometimes it meant we’d stayed out too late on a school night, and a cab was the only way to make it back home before dawn. A few years later, being able to pay for one meant I was finally independent, and could provide for my family.

Ugly car + happy memories = beautiful car

Shaking off the mush for a second, what does this mean for the things we make today? Does it all really come down to the context in which they’re experienced, and how it makes one feel? Could the ugly-but-functional designs of today give someone the warm fuzzies tomorrow?
Work is not work
By: Joseph Emmi
Tags: Life Lessons, Boundaries, Work, Entrepreneur, Personal Development

Work is not work

Still set boundaries

I separate my work in two, my day job and my personal work. The first one can be work at times, the latter usually not, that’s because I like it and enjoy doing it, so I don’t see it as such, it’s just how I spend my free time.

Im often referred as “always working” but we all heard that clichè that if you love what you do it won’t feel like work, and it is true.

I believe that finding something creative to do is far more rewarding than just seating all day staring at a screen, and if like me, you’re also aiming to do greater things a create a body of work as way to shape your career, the it is also the only way, at least that I know. However, the more I follow this path, the more I realise two things:

The more you do it, the more it will inform it will inform your decision making You should not be working all the time. Actually, taking a break is my only necessary for your own sanity and health, but also the best way I found to get inspiration and keep coming with new ideas.

Yes, enjoying is key and will set you ahead of the curve in terms of not having to dwell about doing things or not, you just do it. It will be the key differentiator between you and those that just don’t even make the effort on trying.

Just don’t forget that, despite the gift it is that work is not work, there should always be certain boundaries, because no matter what you do and you feel about, life still life, so don’t miss it out, not the people around you.
In Our Opinion: We will never forget
Tags: New York City, Never Forget, Voices, September 11, Headlines

Twelve years have passed since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

That’s hard to believe.

It’s hard to believe that it was 12 years ago that this country changed forever.

It’s hard to believe that it was 12 years ago that so many innocent lives were lost.

It’s hard to believe how much our lives have changed in those 12 years — how heightened security at public places, especially airports, is expected and openly accepted; how a person’s privacy is not always private; how farewell and welcome home celebrations for servicemen and women seem to be commonplace.

There are so many other examples to mention of how our lives have changed since that fateful day 12 years ago.

Here we are, more than a decade later, with 9/11 as a memory for all of us who lived it, and a history lesson for those who didn’t.

Twelve years later, we should all be proud of the way we are remembering and honoring those who lost their lives that day as well as their families, and also the servicemen and women — and their families — who so bravely have volunteered to serve this country.

In addition to annual memorials put on at the national level, local communities are playing a large part, too. Our community, and others around us, are setting up 9/11 memorials, obtaining steel from the World Trade Center to display and hosting 9/11 remembrances.

We should all be proud of ourselves and our fellow citizens. But we should not stop here just because we have done well so far.

We should never forget what happened 12 years ago. We should always respectfully pause and respect those who were taken from us and those who fight for our freedom.

And we should ensure that those who weren’t alive 12 years ago, or were too young to remember, are taught about what happened that day, and how it will continue to affect our lives and theirs.

We will never forget.

Share your experiences:

Have a 9/11 story to tell, or want to send a message to the community or our

servicemen and women? Write us a letter to the editor.
Coinbase adding support for ERC-20 Tokens
By: Blair Marshall
Tags: Blockchain, Coinbase, Bitcoin, Newsletter, Gdax

Coinbase adding support for ERC-20 Tokens

Issue: 029

Headline:

Coinbase announced they will add support for ERC-20 tokens, but gave no indication as to which ones specifically or all of them in general. The post does mention that tokens will be added to GDAX first before Coinbase and that overall, there may be more tokens available on GDAX that are not supported on Coinbase.

They are taking a cautious approach given the controversy surrounding the support for Bitcoin Cash.

Bitcoin:

Ethereum:

Mining:

Regulation:

Other:

What should I be reading:
Screenshot Game: A New Way to Boost Engagement on Instagram
By: Stevie Jordan
Tags: Growth Hacking, Instagram, Instagram Marketing, Trends, Digital Marketing

Screenshot Game: A New Way to Boost Engagement on Instagram

We reached 26,198 people in two days

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

In the past two days, my team and I created a promotional campaign using a screenshot game. The result is a miracle.

I don’t know when this trend started, but there is a trend in the Indonesian Instagram community called the screenshot game. If you aren’t aware yet of the screenshot game, let me give you an example of a screenshot game created by Jägermeister, promoted by a local rock band vocalist here.

You can also mention your friend in the “I challenge you” form to play this game.

The idea is to screenshot the object into the frame, and the game is designed to be so frustratingly hard that people start to talk about it, share with their peers, and ask their peers to try it. So this game has a viral element in it, and brands can start to create and integrate it for promotional campaigns. Like “if you succeed to screenshot the object in the frame, you will discounts or coupons.”

My team and I started my local apparel business in August 2019 and choose Instagram as our main channel to promote our products. Content by content, whether it was organic or paid, we weren’t get anything impactful. So when we saw this screenshot idea, we thought “Hey, let’s try this thing. And if someone succeeds, they’ll get a 20% discount”.

The result was a miracle. We stuck with around 380 followers for months before. And after we did this campaign, only in two days, we managed to get 26,198 reaches, 1,948 profile visits, 116 website clicks, 108 follows, and — wait for it — 317 direct messages. We only spent $2.40.

Our engagement performance and followers leap as I write this article

So how did we manage this? This are how it is done.

P.S. Our performance is arguably good or bad for some businesses since every business has their own KPIs, but we made a huge leap for sure. Which is a good start 😊
面試攻略：開場自我介紹如何贏得印象？
By: 侯智薰 Raymond Ch Hou
Tags: Interview, 職場, Careers, 面試, Work

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The Broken Pieces of Yesterday
By: Jonathan Greene
Tags: Life Lessons, Breakups, Past, Poetry, Relationships

The Broken Pieces of Yesterday

A Poem

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

The words that you said to me

ring like a doorbell in my ear

on a neverending loop

of decomposing disdain

Shattered, like your bedroom window

where the love escaped

and couldn’t take flight

and smashed to pieces on the ground

There once was a time

when your words were only words,

syllables in the wind

But now it’s all different

because your words are darts

and that mess was our hearts

The broken pieces of yesterday

remind us of the small things

because the whole is now destroyed

and our love is being swept up

into a dustpan of despair
Behind of the scenes look at the design of visualizing flight data for Escape
By: Liuhuaying Yang
Tags: Mapping Data, Travel, Data Visualization

How did we start?

We started with a simple question: which city is the cheapest.

But through user interviews, instead of cheapest, in fact, we are more concerned about affordability, and whether this place is worth my money.

For instance, from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, I only want to pay up to 80 Singapore dollars (normally less than S$80), but I am willing to pay S$350 to Bali (normally less than S$170). Because I have always wanted to go to the beach in Bali, but I have little interest in Kuala Lumpur.

As we can see, behind that simple question, there’s a bunch of customized price-comparing questions.

One thing we were pretty sure in the beginning is to plot the prices on the map. It’s not only because this is a travel product, but also because of a design decision in terms of data visualization.
Work at Medium
By: Jobs
Tags: Medium, Careers, Jobs

Work at Medium

Join us and move thinking forward

View all open positions

Humans have never had it so good. The information at our fingertips is unprecedented. But it can get drowned out in an endless glut of noise. It’s getting harder to read things — and write things — that actually matter. That’s why we’re building Medium.

Our mission is to move thinking forward on the urgent issues shaping today and the next 100 years through honest, reflective conversation. We’re looking for teammates who are galvanized by this challenge, who dare to root for the underdog, who are deeply thoughtful and empathetic, and who love that words still mean something. Sound like you? We’d love to talk.
The Rise in Traffic Violation Tickets in New York
By: Lefevre Drucila
Tags: Cycling, Eda, Traffic, Data Science, Data Visualization

What’s to explain the increase in tickets?

Introduction:

Anyone who has driven in New York City may have experience at least one unpleasant moment. As a driver in New York City (NYC), I have learned it is crucial to remain alert at all times. From watching out for cyclists before you make a turn to making sure that pedestrians are paying attention, it can be a challenging experience.

In making sure that traffic laws and regulations are being followed at all times, police are authorized to issue traffic violation tickets to individuals who have violated a traffic law or regulation. While all rules are important to follow, it is likely that NYC drivers have been issued with at least one traffic ticket.

Today, technology has become a huge part of society in which the use of mobile devices while driving has impacted so many lives. The use of technology has also benefited the police force. Through recent advance technologies in police vehicles, it is becoming easier to issue traffic violations and increase safer roads.

Task:

Implement an R shiny interactive dashboard(MyShinyApp) to gain inner insights into which gender and age groups in New York receive the most traffic tickets. Which violations are the most prevalent? Lastly, does the technology continue to have an effect on the increase of traffic violation tickets?

Tools:

Dataset: Traffic Tickets Issued: Four Year Window

Variables Description:

VIOL_CHRG (text): law code of the violation for which the ticket was issued

VIOL_DESC (text): description of the violation

VIOL_YR ( integer): the year that the ticket was issued

VIOL_MO (integer): the month that the ticket was issued

VIOL_DAY (text): day of the week that the ticket was issued

AGE_AT_VIOL (integer): age of the person to whom the ticket was issued

STATE_OF_LIC (text): name of the state in which the ticket was issued

GENDER (text) : gender of the person to whom the ticket was issued ( M = Male, F = Female, C = Organization, U = Unknown)

POLICE_AGENCY (text): the name of the law enforcement agency that issued the ticket

COURT ( text): court where the ticket was answerable

SOURCE ( text): Processing system used by the courts to record and track tickets from issuance to disposition. T.S.L.E.D: Traffic Safety Law Enforcement & Disposition Program, T.V.B: NYSDMV Traffic Violation Bureaus in NYC

Visualization to gain a deeper insight into the rise in traffic violation tickets and understand the dataset more.

Total Tickets that are given in each year

First, we observe that traffic ticket violations increased by approximately 50,000 every year.
💓Look what Twitterati says about us💓
By: Sharik Khan
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Blockchain, ICO, Bitcoin

PEP Network has been making waves across different communities. Investors, Developers, Artists and Crypto- enthusiasts alike are going gaga over the great concept and an experienced team behind PEP Network. In this post, we’re sharing a few of the numerous twitter post that speaks a ton about people’s perspective of PEP Network

Here’s what the Twitter thinks about us!

Thanks Twitterati for believing in us! 😊
Death of the Poet, October 7, 1849
By: V. Plut
Tags: Poetry, Edgar Allan Poe, Eulogy, Lit, Poetry On Medium

In the autumn,

enchantment blows in from the north

and beauty of night dons its blackish garment.

Crows gather about trees caw-cawing

an ominous song of winter’s white curse.

The danger of going where you should not

is ten-fold at this wicked window of time.

On this evening,

most October of nights,

the poet sits at his window.

Balmy breeze carries the raven’s call

and captures yellowed leaves in a gentle net,

slowing their dark funerary descent, —

they rest, finally, beneath the mother tree

where feet of creatures who stalk the night

tred upon their brown-spotted remains,

blood flowing with evil intent.

He picks up his heavy heart

and carries it to the street below,

pausing beneath a gaslight.

An organ sends a Bach fugue from a room above

and he quickens his pace as red embers of blood and death

alight the sorrow within his soul.

In search of a poet’s tender heart upon which to feast,

a creature orders a dark stout

and hands the tavern keep 100 times more —

he lights a yellow eye as the tavern door opens

and the poet enters with wind and scattered leaves.

The moon did not cast its light upon the poet

this dark and dreary night —

his fate a mystery,

he lay in the street dreaming

of Virginia, Annabelle Lee and Lenore,

all knocking,

knocking on his door.

Nevermore the poet’s voice,

but evermore on the darkest of nights,

his voice will cry

forevermore!
Destiny and Fate are Illusions
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Spirituality, Self Improvement, Mindfulness, Culture, Philosophy

Destiny and Fate are Illusions

Biology is the only reason we are here

Photo by Josh Rangel on Unsplash

Humans unwilling to entertain reality will believe anything to make themselves feel better.

Our collective capacity for self-delusion is just as limitless as our imagination.

But while the former rests on co-opting dogma and magical thinking, the latter takes self-awareness and reflection. This, it seems, requires more effort than convincing ourselves some force other than willpower is in charge of our life.

When faced with adversity, many of us will immediately embrace victimhood and look for scapegoats. That we may have had a part of responsibility in how things turned out doesn’t even occur to us; in our mind, we are always right and thus blameless in every way.

So we don’t have to be held accountable, answer to our peers, or engage our brain, we willingly relinquish agency. Although doing so condemns us to a lifetime of whining that life is unfair, it’s a lot more comfortable than tackling reality head on.

Life simply is. One day, a valiant spermatozoid fertilizes an egg and, nine months later, you make your way out of the womb and into the world with a splash and a shout.

Sometimes, our existence is pure love made manifest; other times, the condom broke. Either way, biology is the only reason any of us ever happen.

And yet, the well-trodden path of least resistance is so appealing to our lazy ego that some of us believe we are predestined to serve a higher purpose.

Depending on how and why we were born, it may be true in a roundabout way. Some of us end up being a cautionary tale about disastrous relationships while others are a walking reminder that contraception matters.
Yakima Feb 2018
By: Andy Tillo
Tags: Yakima, Wind, 360

in In Fitness And In Health