fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Addiction: The Power of Denial
Tags: Denial, Awareness, Acceptance, Addiction, Addiction Recovery

Looking Back

Let me share with y’all a part of my journey when I was in total denial.

During my last year of active addiction; I fought tooth and nail to control my drinking habit. In truth, I didn’t want to stop. I went as far as going into a treatment facility to learn all about alcoholism in hopes of being able to drink successfully. Haha!

Talk about being in denial!!

Not only did I learn the harmful effects of acute alcoholism, I saw graphic pictures of the internal damage it caused to the body, in particular, the liver. It scared the crap out of me.

No more drinking for me, I proclaimed, but at the same time, my mind was in a whirlwind trying to figure out how to numb the pain that was apparent now that I wasn’t drinking. I was able to fool the staff and other clients in the facility, but inside, I had a battle of wills and needed something to ease the cravings I couldn’t control.

I didn’t realize that I should have been paying more attention to the coursework and therapy sessions that discussed the psychological issues which propelled me to drink in excess. I kept my mouth shut because, in my mind, there were no issues to discuss. My focus was on getting through my stay at the rehab so that I could get high. It was the only way to numb the pain.

All the while, everybody else was talking about their issues; I was trying to figure out another way to use drugs successfully. I knew I couldn’t drink anymore because my family would know from the smell if I did, and cocaine was out of the question. I tried it once and didn’t like it, I rationed. However, Heroin was the answer because it was known to have similar effects like alcohol. It would numb the pain, and no one would be the wiser.

As soon as I got out of rehab, I went straight to the dope spot and bought me a bag. My first experience was indescribable. Okay, I could get used to this, I thought to myself.

But the euphoria that the drug provided was short-lived. Heroin is a potent drug, and I was hooked before I knew it, and not only that, I had to increase the intake to keep from having withdrawals.

Why couldn’t I get this thing right? I didn’t understand it; I couldn’t get control of my habit. I just wanted to feel good, carefree, happy. But instead, I was hurting. I panicked! I was spiraling out of control; this dilemma was way worse than when I was drinking.

I could not use Heroin or alcohol for that matter successfully, so I could not dull the pain.

Eventually, I hit rock bottom, with no way up and out of my mess. I had to surrender, to accept that I was in denial. I would never be able to use Heroin successfully. I had to find another way to ease the pain. Here I was still in denial and never gave one thought of going back in treatment. I kept experimenting but all failed and finally, I decided to get the help I needed.
Submitting to On Advertising
By: Matt Klein
Tags: Branding, Digital Marketing, Writing, Advertising, Marketing

Submitting to On Advertising

How to write as a guest…

We’re always interested in writers sharing their thoughts to the On Advertising publication, and pride ourselves on being the largest open Medium publication in the field of advertising, marketing and branding.

Some things to keep in mind when submitting work:

- First, please review some of the our prior published pieces, as this will give you an idea of the type of work that we’re interested in

- We prefer tackling issues with a skeptical lens, questioning the status-quo and supporting these claims with convincing evidence: data or anecdote

- We do not publish how-to articles or reviews of companies or products that tend to have an explicit agenda or bias from the writer

- After submitting, we will update the header image, title, subtitle or tags to ensure your piece fits consistently within our publication

- We hold the right to make any minor grammar or formatting edits

As far as the submitting process goes, please publish your piece on Medium and reach out to Matt at Matt@KleinKleinKlein.com for review including the link. If the piece is a fit, we’ll add you as a writer on the back-end, and you can then add your piece to the On Advertising publication via the article’s settings. (Instruction here.) After your first piece is accepted, you can then easily add future articles to the On Advertising publication, which will then be reviewed.

If you do not hear back, apologies — we try to respond to all submissions. However, if you do not, it’s mostly likely because of bullet one: the piece is not entirely aligned with our content guidelines. Ask yourself: Am I writing with a unique perspective? Am I convincingly supporting my skeptical approach? And is my piece clear, succinct and thought provoking enough for a CMO?

Please do reach out with any questions and thanks for your interest!

Warm regards,

Klein, Editor in Chief
Veterano de combate de la Marina estadounidense que sirvió en Irak enfrenta deportación a El Salvador
By: Revista Rectum
Tags: USA, Politics, El Salvador, Inmigracion, Donald Trump

in Both Sides of the Table
Rules Engine — Java(Drools) & Ruby(ruleby)
By: Blog Moove-It
Tags: Ruby, Drools, Ruleby, Java, Jboss

Today we made one presentation with the whole team of moove-it about rules engine in Java and Ruby.

We talk about Drools and ruleby.

We share the presentation …

Rules Engine — java(Drools) & ruby(ruleby)

View more presentations from martincabrera.
These 2 Simple Techniques Can Bolster Your Emotional Resilience
By: Jenn Tomomitsu
Tags: Resilience, Mental Health, Self Love, Self Improvement, How To

1. Re-Frame Your Inner Dialogue

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

How often do you monitor or re-frame the thoughts in your head?

A large part of how we respond to the world is influenced by our thoughts and what we tell ourselves. For example, do you look at a person or situation and tell yourself that it is bad? Horrible? Scary? Annoying?

One important way to strengthen your emotional resilience is to amend your inner mantras. Even if it’s a small adjustment from ‘this situation is really stressful’ to ‘I am working hard and finding solutions’, it can go a long way towards making you feel more able to deal with the situation.

The other thing about your inner mantra is what you consistently say about yourself. Do you encourage your own skills? Do you feel capable of achieving things? Or are you hard on yourself? Do you diminish your own ability?

It’s no secret that if you constantly berate yourself or if you tell yourself you’re not good enough, you will feel small in the world. Anxiety and fear are a direct product of this kind of thinking. When we feel small, incapable, or not strong enough to deal with stress, then we weaken our defenses.

Negative thoughts gain momentum. The more you think this way, the more intense they become, snowballing to such an extent that they can cause anger, anxiety attacks, and intense sadness.

Therefore, the words we choose in our head about the world and about our own ability are incredibly important when it comes to emotional resilience.

Words carry immense power and energy. Use them wisely.
Tackling the all-important: “What are your Salary expectations?”
By: Arif Mansuri
Tags: Interview Questions, Job Search, Career Advice, Salary Negotiations, Interview Tips

If you miss, it could really cost you.

The answer to this question probably needs a small book by itself, given the nuances and details one should consider.

At this time, allow me to share some critical tips -

Don’t state your expectations first.

Unless you are asked to, don’t call out your expectations first. Your desired figure may be way off what they have in mind, and so let them make the first offer.

2. If asked to state your expectations, do not provide a fixed number.

It should always be a range from X to Y. In this range, X should be the minimum, below which you will not accept this job, and Y is your dream salary within realistic limits.

To calculate your X, consider your current annual expenses, your savings plan, and the risk premium at moving to this firm and add them up. Do not go lower than this figure, because that would mean you’re taking a step back on the financial ladder.

For Y, research your role and the typical salaries for this role at this firm. In other words, Y is the upper-end of the market value of your role. This is your upper limit because you are unlikely to get paid more.

3. Separate the variable from the fixed.

In fact, explicitly ask how much would be the monthly gross pay. Some firms mix in the variable and give an inflated impression.

As for the variable, as an example ask how much would an average performer make in an average year. The amount quoted on paper may be fabulous, but it’s unrealistic if only the top 10% earn that.

4. Talk about a signing bonus.

Especially if there is still a gap between your ask and their offer.

But don’t forget that this is a one-time payout and your actual salary remains unchanged, though the signing bonus might tide you over for a year until the annual salary revisions come around.

5. Check for work-from-home and telecommute possibilities.

This is likely to bring down your monthly expenses and hence help you save more even with the same paycheck.

Plus, it will save you stress and give you more time for yourself and your family. All of this, is worth factoring in to how attractive the offer is.

6. Don’t forget relocation expenses in case you’re moving cities.

And finally, always be polite and gracious. A good deal has to work out for both parties and so don’t play hardball and be difficult. Even if you win, this starts off your working relationships on an unpleasant note.

Instead, acknowledging their offer as being fair or generous, and explaining the reasoning behind your calculations is the positive way to proceed. Not only will they be more likely to negotiate and consider your ask, but you might actually impress them and win over a few friends even before you join.

All the best!

As always, stay cool and keep building a better life.

Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel
What Is the Walrus Operator in Python?
By: Jonathan Hsu
Tags: Software Development, Programming, Python, Data Science, Technology

Before and After: Implementing the Walrus Operator

Let’s take a look at a simple use case and how we can implement the walrus operator to improve the efficiency of our code.

We’re going to check the length of a given list and print an error message that includes the length.

my_list = [1,2,3,4,5] if len(my_list) > 3:

print(f"The list is too long with {len(my_list)} elements")

In case you’re unsure about the f before the string in the print statement, that’s called a format-string literal, f-string for short.

Now, the walrus operator will eliminate calling the len() function twice.

my_list = [1,2,3,4,5] if (n := len(my_list)) > 3:

print(f"The list is too long with {n} elements")
Riding High on the Anxiety Coaster
By: Zach J. Payne
Tags: Life Lessons, Anxiety, Self, Creativity, Life

Today we’re starting the Ninja Writer Academy workshops, and, I have to admit, I’m really nervous.

I’ve taken part in a million different workshops over the years, basically any time I was there and I could afford to be a part. But this is the first time in my life that I’ve been in charge . . . that I’ve been responsible for leading the group.

And, now, I’ve got a little knot of worry rolling around in my stomach.

It doesn’t stand up to much dissection. I mean, how hard can this be? We’re going to have a handful of people getting together, reading their work out loud, and the others offering critique. It’s not like this situation is going to turn into a race riot or the second coming of the Altamont Free Concert.

Or will it?

In my brain, the possibility is always there. I’m a firm believer in Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Usually at the worst possible time. In my brain, it’s a 50:50 chance between it turning out all right, and being a complete disaster.

That’s anxiety for you.

So I’m preparing for the best — reading some great stories, working with some new writers, and seeing what they have to share. I’m also worrying about the worst: dissatisfied writers who feel like they aren’t getting what they want.
New Fees in the Future For Credit Card Users
By: Ipg Media Lab
Tags: Anti Trust, Percolate, Credit Card, Fees, American Express

An anti-trust suit from 2005 has finally been settled between merchants, credit card companies, and banks to allow retailers in 40 US states to add surcharges on credit card purchases. These fees are still illegal in California, New York, Texas, and seven other states. The fees are optional for retailers, and there will be no fee on debit card purchases, but if you often pull out the plastic, that 1% cash back might not be worth it much longer.
Racial Justice Tidal Waves
By: Randy Shingler
Tags: Blue Insights, Racism, Poetry, Equality, BlackLivesMatter

Many heroes standing tall

Demanding respect and equality

Harmful pasts long endured,

Dramatic voices being heard

Chanting “Black Lives Matter”.

Their protests and demonstrations

Creating renewed public awareness,

Support multiplying every day

United States and globally

Recognition time has come.

White supremacists, tragic figures

Intimidators, armed with guns

Racial taunts, misguided lips

Some public officials inciting,

President and Attorney General.

Tidal waves, indelible imprints

When wildly wash ashore,

Respect, equality engulf world

Racial Justice tidal waves.
What is Love?
By: Muhammad Zunair
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Romantic, Love, Poetry, Life

Is it a blessing

Or a suffering?

Is it a need

Or an enigma?

An escape

From our loneliness?

Or is it just a trick

To make us reproduce?

May be,

It’s a way

Of satisfying our physical

And sexual urges

Well,

Neither Scientists

Nor Psychologists

Could solve this mystery

Just like you,

They had the same questions

But just like me,

They couldn’t find an answer

Even Philosophers,

And Writers tried their luck

But they couldn’t find

The truth of it

Does it make us whole?

As Plato suggested

Or does it help us escape our loneliness?

As Bertrand Russel once said

Was Robert Stenberg Right?

Is it an amalgamation

Of intimacy, passion

And commitment?

Or is it what Shakespeare told us,

Love is a spirit all compact of fire,

Not gross to sink, but light,

And will aspire

Does it actually make our lives beautiful,

Wholesome and meaningful?

Stay. So the world may become like itself again

At least Faiz Ahmad Faiz thought so

Does it really make people insane

Or was E.E. Cummings right?

It is most sane and sunly

And more it cannot die

Is it really a matter of souls

Is it really the case

Of one plus one equals one?

Is it really a mathematical anomaly?

Are two humans,

Being in love,

Really that inseparable

Or is it just what we think?

Do we really need love

Or is it just an illusion?

Does it really conquer all

Or is it just another lie?

So, what exactly is love?

To be honest,

I’m not that big of a ponderer

All I know is,

I’m just another wanderer
JavaScript ES 2020 Tips: The .matchAll() Method
By: Reina Mitchell
Tags: React, JavaScript, Programming, Nodejs, Regular Expressions

.matchAll()

With .matchAll() , it does not create a single array with all the matches extracted but creates an iterator. It takes one argument: RegExp .

According to MDN web docs, the RegExp must have the /g flag. Otherwise, a TypeError will be thrown.

To better understand the .matchAll() method, let’s try using it.

I will paste into the console our example above, but with .matchAll() in the variable vowelsInString :

When we check the variable vowelsInString , we get back a RegExpStringIterator .

What does that mean?

To see the iterator, we can either loop through it or use the .next() method. I’ll show you both ways.

If we use .next() :

We get the first match and it is in the form of an object with two key-value pairs. It has a value key that has an array as the value and a done key with a value of false .

Inside the array in the value key, we have the actual match and all of its information. The first index is the vowel we were looking for in our regular expression. The next index in this array reads like an object. It contains the index value of where the match is in the original string. Next is the input property with the value of the input string itself. And finally, the last index is the groups property that looks to see if capture groups were in our regex.

The second done key of the object means that there are additional matches for this regular expression. In other words, this iterator has not finished yet. When we get to the end, it will change to true . Let's continue on with our iteration:

This is what the final one would look like:

As you can see, our value is undefined and the done property is now true .

Now I will show you how it works with the for…of loop:

To convert this to one complete array, MDN advises using the spread operator. To do so, all we would have to do is write:

let allMatches = […vowelsInString]

Now there is an array of arrays that houses all the matches and their corresponding information.
turn, turn, etc.
By: Matt Vercillo
Tags: Creative Writing, Aging, Poetry, Heartbreak, Fiction

turn, turn, etc.

Moon. Tides.

Rivers rise.

Strewing pieces of

myself behind.

Moon. Tides.

Rivers rise.

Crumbling bangs

erode the hairline.

Moon. Tides.

Rivers rise.

Cystic acne on

my inner thigh.

Moon. Tides.

Rivers rise.

A slow piss and

commute at five.

Moon. Tides.

Rivers rise.

A sopping heart

is hard to fly.

Moon. Tides.

Rivers flee.

I’ll offer you

what is left of me.
Chynge Renaming Token from XCLP to CLPX as of 13th August, 2018
Tags: Blockchain, Token Sale, Announcements, Cryptocurrency

Dear Chynge Community,

Chynge has been using XCLP for our token since the very beginning of our project.

We have since received feedback on the difficulty of XCLP’s pronounciation and elected to change it to CLPX instead which is not just easier to pronounce for everyone but to have a tighter association with “Chynge”.

We could continue our ICO using the current XCLP token symbol which would be easier to do. However, the team discussed and agreed that renaming the Chynge token after our ICO ends would likely bring about more inconveniences (read: headaches) for both Chynge and our community when distributing our tokens and listing on exchanges. Hence, this has led us to the decision of biting the bullet, and making the change now.

Our new token will henceforth be known as CLPX.

For existing Chynge token buyers and bounty participants, please note the following:

1. The renaming of the Chynge token from XCLP to CLPX does not affect your token rights.

2. For those who have already created a Stellar trustline to XCLP, that trust line will no longer be valid. You will need to create a new trustline with CLPX.

3. For those who have not created a trustline to XCLP yet, this does not affect you. You will simply need to create a trustline to CLPX to receive CLPX tokens.

We have not distributed any tokens, neither XCLP nor CLPX, thus, there is no effect on the receipt of tokens, and no exchange of old and new Chynge tokens is required.

NOTE: For buyers, please be advised to always pay attention to the token logo and new name during your purchase in the future.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused and thank you all for your understanding and patience.

from Chynge team

To learn more about Chynge, please visit: http://www.chynge.net

Read the Whitepaper: http://bit.ly/chynge_whitepaper

Join the Chynge community on Telegram: https://t.me/chynge
Creative Advantages of A Noisy Mind: 9 Sure-Fire & Safe Ways to Hallucinate
By: Angela Volkov
Tags: Hallucinations, Subconscious, Psychology, Creativity, Perception

A complex sensory environment

We live in a complex sensory environment while our apparatus for perceiving this reality has its limitations. Take visual perception: everything you see is projected onto your retinas — upside down. Your mind has to interpret this input to construct one cohesive, right-way-up image.

Thus, perception is a process of filling in the blanks. A highly constructive and idiosyncratic process, guided by our personalities, expectations and past experiences (Partos, Cropper, & Rawlings, 2016). This makes perception a process vulnerable to error; in particular, under conditions of perceptual ambiguity and high perceptual load we are susceptible to incorrectly interpreting sensory information.

Perceptual ambiguity

Some auditory and visual stimuli are ambiguous in nature. A good example are those optical illusions where your mind, in the search for truth, switches back and forth between interpretations: duck or rabbit? Maiden or crone? Is the dancer rotating clockwise or anti-clockwise? The fading light is also a source of perceptual ambiguity; in the dark, it is far harder to make accurate visual judgements.

Sometimes in its search for meaning, the mind latches onto the most likely explanation available to us, but as we are limited by our lived experiences, misperception may result (Powers, Kelley, & Corlett, 2016). I’m reminded of something which happened to me in Japan, many years ago.

My friends and I were waiting for the train to take us to the quaint village of Otaru, famous for its music boxes and Venetian glass. My blood ran cold as a scream pierced the winter air. Bewildered, I communicated my panic to my nonchalant friends, searching their faces for a reflection of my reaction. I was an island universe in that moment, hearing a woman in distress, while the people around me registered only a noisy fox.

In an attempt to make sense of what I was hearing, my mind had twisted the sound into a familiar percept, something like the Wilhelm scream. Were I to hear the shriek of a fox again, I would be able to categorise it with ease, particularly given the appropriate context. (I’m, of course, not quite so alone; Japanese folklore is rife with foxes disguising themselves as fair maidens as tribute to this eerie similarity.)

High perceptual load

Sometimes we are required to interpret our complex sensory reality under less than ideal conditions. Simply put: the more that’s going on, the fewer neural resources are available to adequately deal with any single thing, and distraction leads to perceptual confusion (Lavie 2005).
If the World Would Limit Carbon Emissions Would It Prevent Any Future Global Warming
Tags: Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Environment, Python

Greenhouse Gasses: Around 95% of scientists agree that the current global warming is being caused by human intervention because in climate history we have never seen this great of an increase in this short amount of time. More importantly, they have targeted greenhouse gasses to cause this global warming and reducing the size of polar ice caps leading to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is concerning the increase not only has to produce rising sea levels but additional more violent weather patterns and violent droughts that have led to various forest fires around the globe. At the dust of the Industrial Revolution, the atmospheric co2 concentration measured (278 Parts Per Million). Today we are at a concentration (414 Parts Per Million) and reach (516 Parts Per Million) by 2080 at the current rate. That's about twice pre the Industrial Revolution concentration levels.

Slightly Symmetric Distribution

Distribution: When we dive deeper into the distribution of decade average temperatures we can see that it hovered around 8–8.5 Degrees Celsius between (1760–1920) and more recently has crept its way up to 9.5 recently in 2010.
Kendini Yeniden İnşa Etmenin El Kitabı
By: Özgür Şahin
Tags: Türkçe, Türkçe Yayın, James Altucher, Mentor, Kisisel Gelisim

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The Future of Light
By: Greg Yeutter
Tags: Health, Sleep, The Future Of Light, Circadian Clock, UX

The LED Revolution

Red and green LEDs have been around for about 50 years, mostly confined to use as indicator lights in electronics. In the early 90s, three Japanese researchers at Nagoya University and Nichia Chemical created the first blue light emitting diode (LED) from gallium nitride (GaN).

One of the blue LED inventors, Shuji Nakamura. Photo by Ladislav Markuš.

The discovery by Nobel recipients Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura was significant because blue light can be converted to white light by means of a phosphor material. The phosphor material, for example yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG), is generally yellow in color and sits atop the LED die material.

In the mid-2000s, companies started packaging blue LEDs and phosphors into bulbs and other light sources. These early products were expensive ($20-$50 for a bulb) and largely had problems with color consistency, heat, and lifetime.

Today, you can buy an LED bulb for about $1.50.

The cost of components dropped, along with increases in performance. According to Haitz’s law, the cost per lumen (an amount of emitted light) decreases by a factor of 10 each decade.

Today, you can buy an LED bulb for about $1.50. That bulb has better color performance than its swirly compact fluorescent equivalent, and lasts 10,000–20,000 hours. Other LED sources can last significantly longer (50,000–100,000 hours). By contrast, an incandescent bulb may last 1,000–2,000 hours.

LED lamps are not far off in price from incandescent lamps at the point of sale. But their long lifetimes and low power usage mean you can save significantly more. Over the life of a cheap LED bulb, you will pay about $12, including the purchase price and energy. Five 60 Watt incandescent bulbs would cost about $78 over the same period of time. And don’t forget that you have to change the bulb five times instead of just once.

You probably wouldn’t know it, but this trendy Edison-style bulb is LED. Photo by IKEA.

Efforts have been made to phase out the sale of incandescent bulbs in numerous countries. Even though legislation has not passed in some places, the lighting industry has largely moved on to LED anyway. IKEA became the first large retailer to sell only LED lighting in 2015, and others are making similar moves.

The efforts are working. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, LED market penetration was 12.6% in 2016. That’s up from just 3% in 2014.
Living
By: Ep Mcknight
Tags: Life Lessons, Startup, Self Improvement, Poetry, Life

A poem reminder that wasted time is never gotten back

Photo by Oliver Sjöström on Unsplash

Life is short

put your heart

in all you do

no regrets

a life well lived

is pure joy!

For additional reads:
Custom Snippets in Aptana 3
Tags: Cool Stuff, General, Ide

Aptana Snippets

There are some very useful snippets in Aptana like auto building Html tags (Type “div” and hit “Tab” then Aptana will generate “<div id=”name”></div>” for you) but most amazing thing is its very easy to create your own snippets.

If you are using “console.log()” function a lot like me then writing a snippet for this function will save a lot of time for you.

To add a “console.log()” shortcut key

Create a new project and go to project folder (where your “.project” is found) Download bundles.zip Extract the zip content to the root of your project folder. The folder hierarchy :

And restart Aptana 3. Now open an Html file, select a text and hit “Shift+Command+.”
Adaptive Images : picture และ srcset คืออะไร + สอนวิธีใช้
By: Suranart Niamcome
Tags: Picture, HTML, Art Direction, Coding, CSS

in Both Sides of the Table
A Sonnet for Lonely Nights
By: Jason Cormier
Tags: Jason Cormier, Whitaker Writings, Poetry, Poems On Medium, Sonnet

The night is here, but soft as shade, and now

a day of loneliness will end. The need

to act upon desire — or rather heed

the lessons learned from having nil to show

on mornings after failing trials of romance —

takes control of me, and seems to feed

the primal drive to mate, to plant my seeds

and watch the spawns of sin take life and grow.

It forces words to flow. It steers my tongue

as winds may guide the sails of ships to rocks

that break and crush the soul. So watch me sink,

descend the green and blue, to black. My lungs

can fill with arctic pitch. Allow my socks

to slide beneath your sheets and let me drink.
¿Cuál es la diferencia entre analítica y estadística?
By: Cassie Kozyrkov
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Ciencia Y Datos, Data Science, Technology, Analytics

Head of Decision Intelligence, Google. Hello (multilingual) world! This account is for translated versions of my English language articles. twitter.com/quaesita

Follow
What Could’ve Been
By: Jason Gutierrez
Tags: Thoughts And Feelings, Poetry, Love, Haiku, Thoughts

What if in this life

Time and space could be rewound

You and I…could be
Genevieve Gaudet: “Let’s build better foundations, not better facades”
By: Code For America
Tags: Healthcare, Safety Net, Service Design, Civictech, Cfasummit

As a service designer working on the social safety net, Genevieve Gaudet frequently talks to people who have found themselves in a government office at one time or another, asking for help with some basic need. And through stories that sometimes span years if not generations, she often finds that they are skeptical about whether or not they will get that help.

There are cracks in our civic life that are both longstanding and urgent, and they are affecting government’s relationship with the people it tries to serve. And to fix it, those of us working both in and with governments need to realize that we’re not starting a new relationship between that person asking for help and their government, but repairing a deeply broken one. Civic technologists need to ground our work in a long-term vision, and hold ourselves accountable for reaching it — together.

“Stability and trust that it’s possible are the foundations upon which government services, the front lines of our democracy, are formed.”

At Code for America Summit, Genevieve spoke about two examples of putting the intention of that service design approach into her work at Nava. The first was helping to launch a new program at Medicare aimed to both control costs and, more importantly, get 34 million Americans the highest possible care. The second is in conjunction with Code for America on our Integrated Benefits Initiative, which leverages technology and design to demonstrate a more human-centered safety net that enables access, improves efficiency, and promotes integrity.

“This is my challenge to the community, to encode a deep level of intention in the work we do right now, and in the way we work together.”

When we focus on repairing the foundations of our work rather than simply patching the cracks, we can take accountability for outcomes that extends beyond the scope of a contract and encode intention into our practices and our industry. We can then be radical about our proposals for ways to improve trust in government services, and rebuild generations of broken trust.

To hear Genevieve’s Summit presentation in full, watch the video below.
Talking Honestly About Genitals
By: Clio Hartzer
Tags: Transgender, Language, Transphobia, Euphemisms, Menstruation

Cisgender folks, we need to talk about language again. I’ll be talking about genitals, so some may consider this essay not safe for work (NSFW).

The other day, I was writing a comparison between home-made face masks (low effectiveness against COVID-19) and penile condoms (high effectiveness against pregnancy and STD transfer).

What struck me is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard them called “penile condoms” before. They’re usually called just plain “condoms”, or “male condoms” to distinguish them from the vaginal variety. (Linguistic research: A Google search without quotes gives 18,700,000 results, but with quotes a mere 30,900, including medical sites.)

This reminded me of the brouhaha a few months ago about makers of menstrual products seeking to remove overtly feminine aspects from their packaging. We as a culture continue to call them “feminine hygiene products”.

So here’s the reality: There are women and non-binary people who have penises (and men who don’t). There are men and non-binary people who menstruate (and women who don’t).

There was a time, not so long ago, that I was willing to make a distinction: Male/female as terms for anatomy, man/woman/non-binary as terms for identity. And I get that doctors need to know what body parts you have for certain situations.

Medical professionals, though, would be pretty much willing to go along with whatever linguistic game we wish to play. Among colleagues, they’re generally good with using appropriate medical terms. Yes, they may need to know whether or not you have a functioning uterus, or whatever. There are ways (better ways, even) to ask that than by asking gender.

So I’m not willing to make that distinction anymore.
Orville Peck is the gay cowboy hero we need in music today
By: Matt Sevits
Tags: Music, Country Music, LGBTQ, Gay, Pride

Facebook.com/orvillepeck

Orville Peck is the gay cowboy hero we need in music today

Fighting the status quo in the wild, wild west

Country music is starting to look a little queer these days — and it’s about time. Kacey Musgraves, ever the outstanding ally, has gone mainstream with her glittery, rainbow-infused message of equality. Shane McAnally, an openly gay man, is one of the hottest songwriters in Nashville right now (and a fledgling TV star, thanks to NBC’s “Songland” reality competition).

Enter Orville Peck: the unlikeliest of gay cowboy heroes. Obscured behind a beaded mask and sounding like Johnny Cash had a queer lovechild with Roy Orbison, Peck is crafting some of the most dizzying, delirious and deliciously retrograde country music out there. Here we have love and loss in a good old-fashioned country style, but filtered through a queer lense.

On an album full of gems, “Kansas (Remembers Me Now)” stands out for the way it sounds like it’s being played on an ancient jukebox a hundred feet away, across an empty dancefloor in a dark dive bar. It’s incredible, and it’s moving. It’s evocative of a specific time and place in our lives where heartbreak still aches strong and loneliness is both unavoidable and darkly comforting. Still, despite its obvious influences from the past, Peck’s material still feels fresh, due in part to the various ways in which Peck, by simply existing in the genre, flies in the face of convention.

Facebook.com/orvillepeck

Lucky for us, he’s more than just neo-noir country atmosphere and mystery (looking at you, Lana del Rey); tracks like “Dead of Night” and “Hope to Die” showcase his powerhouse vocals, while the haunting interlude “Old River” echoes with loss. Then there’s “Buffalo Run,” which infuses the middle of the album with a dangerous electricity.

Representation is important, and Orville Peck is an exciting moment for anyone who grew up in a rural small town or felt stuck on the periphery of the heteronormative world of country music. That lonely, isolating experience is reflected here in the melancholy lyrics and frequently somber tones. It also speaks to anyone who might not identify with the glam-heavy, disco-dance we tend to expect from high-profile out-and-proud gay musicians.

It’s dirty, it’s dark, and it comes closer to real life for an underserved portion of the LGBTQIA community. Welcome to the table, Orville.
Open sourcing Zoba’s Julia geohashing package
Tags: Transportation, Mobility, Python, Data Science, Julia

At Zoba, we deal with a lot of event data that happens at discrete points: a user unlocks a scooter, a vehicle has its battery swapped out, a user ends a one-way car-share trip, etc. When analyzing these data, it’s often useful to group events spatially. Typically this grouping is accomplished via a grid system. A grid is a set of non-overlapping polygons which covers a region, usually the whole world. Each point is therefore associated with a single polygon (a “grid cell”), and we can discuss statistics like “the average number of rides on a Wednesday” for each grid cell. Many grid systems also support varying granularity so that the world may be divided into a few large polygons or many small polygons.

The most common grid systems — also known as geocoding systems and closely related to spatial indices — include Uber’s H3, Google’s S2, and variations on the geohash system. Every grid system involves trade-offs between desiderata such as simplicity, speed, low spatial distortion, equally sized cells, consistent distances between neighboring cells, and so forth. Stay tuned for a blog post exploring the trade-offs between these systems!

Geohash based systems are among the simplest grid systems; they “unwrap” the surface of the Earth to a longitude-latitude rectangle and then subdivide that rectangle. This procedure introduces nontrivial spatial distortion, especially over large regions. Nonetheless, at Zoba we’re big fans of geohash systems because they’re so simple and work well in most cases where the cells are small. In particular, geohash grid cells are intuitive and easy to explain: they’re just latitude-longitude rectangles. Geohash cells at different granularities also nest perfectly (i.e. a granularity-n cell can be perfectly divided into granularity-(n+1) cells), a useful property not shared by all grid systems.

Accordingly, many of our analyses have used Hilbert-curve flavored geohashing¹ as provided by a small open-source Python library. In addition to Python, we use Julia heavily, especially for computationally-intensive data science work. So we decided to write a Julia implementation of Hilbert curve geohashing, which would allow us to use geohashing in Julia without relying on language bridges. Further, we’re big fans of open source — much of our tech stack from LibGEOS on up to Django is open source software — and we wanted to give something back to the community.

To that end, today we’re delighted to announce the initial release of GeohashHilbert.jl, a small pure Julia package providing Hilbert-curve geohashing. This package is fully interoperable with the aforementioned Python package; encoding locations as geohash cells or decoding cells to locations will provide the same result in either package. We welcome use, feedback, and contributions, and hope to release more Zoba-built open source geospatial tools in the future.

[1] A Hilbert curve is used to order the grid cells in the subdivided longitude-latitude rectangle; this has the nice property that nearby grid cells tend to have similar identifiers.
City Recommender System with Python [Part 2/3]: EDA — Finding my Schitt’s Creek
By: Elias Melul
Tags: Schitts Creek, Cities, Visualization, Recommendation System, Data Science

Ideally, this method would show an obvious ‘elbow’ — that is, a sudden, drastic change in the decrease in error such that the marginal benefit of adding a cluster is reduced dramatically. The right plot of Figure 1 shows a clear elbow at 4. However, there is no clear elbow for the weather data (left of Figure 1). I decided to apply 5 clusters. Now, lets cluster and plot the data!

To do so, I created this function. It requires the normalized array (normDF — output of the elbow_kmeans_city function), the number of clusters (k), the original dataframe (regDF — used in the elbow_kmeans_city function), and a dataframe with the latitude (lat), longitude (lng) and city names (CityName, STATE — ie. New York, NY), which you can download here.

def Map_KMeans(normDF, k, regDF, citiesLatLong):

w_mod = KMeans(n_clusters=k).fit(normDF)

temp_df = regDF

try:

temp_df = temp_df.drop('Clusters',1)

except:

pass



temp_df.insert(0,'Clusters',w_mod.labels_)



temp_df = temp_df.merge(citiesLatLong, how='inner',on='City')



map_clusters = folium.Map(location=[37.0902,-95.7129], zoom_start=4) # set color scheme for the clusters

x = np.arange(k)

ys = [i + x + (i*x)**2 for i in range(k)]

colors_array = cm.rainbow(np.linspace(0, 1, len(ys)))

rainbow = [colors.rgb2hex(i) for i in colors_array] # add markers to the map

markers_colors = []

for lat, lon, poi, cluster in zip(temp_df.lat, temp_df.lng, temp_df.City, temp_df['Clusters']):

label = folium.Popup(str(poi) + ' Cluster ' + str(cluster), parse_html=True)

folium.CircleMarker(

[lat, lon],

radius=4,

popup=label,

color=rainbow[cluster-1],

fill=True,

fill_color=rainbow[cluster-1],

fill_opacity=0.7).add_to(map_clusters) return map_clusters, temp_df

Figure 2: Weather clusters in US

WOW! Seems pretty spot on.

Orange — cold winter, humid continental cities (includes Alaska, not shown)

Red — warmer, humid subtropical cities

Green — inland, large swing, semiarid cities

Blue — warmer, arid cities

Purple — mild summers and winters with abundant annual precipitation (marine west coast climate)

With these functions defined, lets visualize the results from clustering socioeconomic data!

About Socioeconomic Data

Due to difficulties scraping indices in Numbeo, we lost most of the smaller towns listed for venue and weather data. Nonetheless, it includes over 600 places in the US including most — if not all — large metropolitan areas and cities with populations above 100,000.

Figure 3: General Socioeconomic data clusters in US

Two things stand out from the above map. The purple dots represent MSAs and the orange represent high quality of life cities with high poverty rates.

Figure 4: Zoom to Rochester and Syracuse, NY

We will take a look into some examples, including Syracuse, Rochester and Harrisburg (Orange), and New York and Pittsburgh (Purple).
🔎 How to use the Cryptosheets CS.SYMBOLS function to get live or historical data for any crypto asset in Excel & Googlesheets
By: Chris Ware
Tags: Trading, Crypto, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

HOW WE’RE CONTRIBUTING

The global crypto identifier data set is likely the single most important crypto one there is to facilitate genuine global adoption. We are confident this tool can add value to your daily workflow and help you accomplish your objectives by improving efficiency, accuracy and saving tremendous amounts of time.

This might be the single most powerful custom function we have and it’s only going to get better as we continue building, improving and rolling out new proprietary meta data fields for CS.SYMBOLS so stay tuned for future posts on this subject.

👉 You can help contribute by using CS.SYMBOLS in your spreadsheets, suggesting enhancements, identifying bugs and helping promote the powerful transparency of the data to the broader community.

Did you know that while you have been reading this article…

38 new smart contracts were created on the ethereum network

new smart contracts were created on the ethereum network 13 listed crypto assets were DElisted from several major exchanges

listed crypto assets were DElisted from several major exchanges 26 new trading pairs were listed on several major exchanges

new trading pairs were listed on several major exchanges 1.4 crypto frauds were revealed, rendering their project tokens worthless

crypto frauds were revealed, rendering their project tokens worthless 18x new leveraged derivative instruments started trading on some exchange you’ve never heard of

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The Holidays are Not Cancelled. Time for a Reality Check America
By: Kathy Crosby
Tags: Politics, Holidays, Covid 19, History, Lockdown

The Holidays are Not Cancelled

Time for a Reality Check, America

Norman Rockwell’s “Thanksgiving Picture” — Screenshot: Author

“Large Thanksgiving gatherings = Small Christmas funerals” “You never know when your last holiday with a loved one will be, don’t give up an opportunity.” “Oregon Governor warns of $1250 fines, 1 month in jail for violating new COVID mandates.”

In a year that continually feels like a bad sci-fi movie that never ends, we are all more than ready for a little Norman Rockwell in our lives.

The problem is — that America never existed.

The famous Saturday Evening Post cover that gives us all the warm fuzzies and causes us to fill our Social Media feeds with cries of protest against being told we can’t have that same glorious multi-generation gathering around the antique family table was a political statement all its own. It was commissioned to represent President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State of the Union “The Four Freedoms” speech given on January 6, 1941.

In this speech, he argued for four freedoms for the entire world (not just Americans). They were:

1. Freedom of speech

2. Freedom of worship

3. Freedom from want

4. Freedom from fear

Arguably, that pretty much sums up the politicization of the Coronavirus. This discussion, however, is about the longing for something that never was and the reality of the world we are currently living in.

According to Canterbury Law Group, there are nearly 2,400 divorces every day in the United States. Six percent of those people get remarried. Add in a child or two, and once they grow up, some in-laws. Although more and more adult children are staying close to home (or even remaining in the home), there are still many who live in different states and need to travel to spend holidays with loved ones. To simply share a holiday meal with everyone in your family, it can easily be a four-day endeavor!

As we pass 12 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States alone, and close in on 300,000 deaths, we are being asked to make some concessions to our usual holiday plans. America, we have got this. Our melting pot of stepchildren can tell you exactly how it is done.

Friendsgiving? Take it outdoors this year and find an activity to do together that does not involve eating and excessive talking (you have probably been doing a lot of that during quarantine anyway). Ice skating, hiking — whatever your area offers. Do it in small groups socially distanced. You just might end up with those “remember that year?” memories that we all look back on so fondly as time goes by.

Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Be kind to one another. Be creative and open to change. Remember that Thanksgiving is about being thankful and Christmas is a feeling that you carry in your heart. Two things that you can do anywhere.

As FDR said, “To that high concept there can be no end save victory.”
Oxygen
By: Presley Thomas
Tags: Mermaid, Fiction, Prose Poetry

Photo by Jana Sabeth on Unsplash

I was a mermaid once. All fins and scales. Water was oxygen. It suffocates me now, but sometimes I squint my eyes to see that one breathable gas that creates it when I turn the faucet on: water and soap, soap and water, 20 seconds at least.

I used to swim meters in as much time. Our fishy biology, I read from my Atlantis Monthly subscription, makes mermaids immune. I wonder if I made the right choice for living. If the unknown was worth the risk.

Two legs, feet, and these unwebbed hands. Useless for treading water or long distance swimming. These dirty hands that a golden ring fits so neatly on. Even as my prince’s kingdom crumbles.
Taking a look at must-know “utility types” provided by TypeScript
By: Uday Hiwarale
Tags: Typescript, JavaScript, Programming, Nodejs, Deno

TypeScript provides some standard types globally that act as utilities to convert existing types into new types with some modified behavior. These types are defined in the standard library of the TypeScript installation, hence you do not need to import them in your program. They are always available in your program and you can start using them right away.

In the Type System lesson, we learned about the keyof keyword to create a union type from the field names of an interface. Similarly, we learned typeof keyword to create an interface type from a plain object.

Similarly, these utility types appear in the type annotation which takes existing types as their input and returns an output type that we can use as a type for a value. I am going to cover important ones here, but you can follow this documentation link to know more about them.