fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
The Unspoken Skill of Great Planners
By: Julian Cole
Tags: Planning, Brand Strategy, Advertising

We spend a lot of time speaking about planners craft of getting to a great strategy or brief. However, we seldom talk about the other side of a great planner: The ability to sell the shit out of work with conviction. Think of it like this: taking your skills away from the safety of Powerpoint and into a client’s text messages.

We need to hear more planners telling the story of that award-winning creative that was saved by texting the client a reminder that this would be the 4th round of ‘on brief’ creative that they would kill.

That they never wait for the official feedback and always catch the client in the hallway afterwards.

That they purposely leaked the ideas to the day-to-day client so they could get positive momentum around the idea in the meeting the next day in front of the most senior client.

That they got the social platform to co-present because they knew that held weight in the client’s eyes.

We should teach planners the art of getting their hands dirty in the selling of ideas, otherwise we risk getting planners perfecting the art of Ted Royer’s Step Back Planning.
Showtime
By: Sébastien F. Dejean
Tags: Poetry, Love

Slow dancing to our favorite song

out of pace, swaying and forgetting

life’s ultimate wrongs

we don’t need the quarrels

we’re ignoring the problems from our barrels.

Numb from our endless caresses

our tortured bodies lie at rest

becoming alive at the melody’s best.

The world crumbles around

as we keep on moving to the sound

with alacrity you kiss me

as my lips bowing to your devotion

and my eyes shine with admiration.

“Showtime it is” you said

I smile reaching your forehead

as we simply drift away in a dream of fate

that is devoid of pain, suffering and hate.
Ongoing Race Conversations With My Son
By: Dekera Greene Rodriguez
Tags: Race, Comics, Parenting

Spiralbound

Comics for life, brought to life by Edith Zimmerman.
ICO Analysis — 5 reasons why you should have a look at Blue Whale Foundation
Tags: Blue Whale Foundation, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Gig Economy, Ico Review

3. A decentralized system, some Provinces, a federal architecture and a DAO

In order to ensure trust on the Blue Whale network and to through the provision of transparency on every activity occurring within the system, the Blockchain technology and smart contracts are used. Furthermore, making use of advanced cryptography, the network is kept safe from external bad actors.

As a decentralized solution, Blue Whale Network plans to create a network of various sharing platforms (also called blockchain node) which share the same philosophy but have their own unique form of governance. These individual ecosystems within Blue Whale Network are labelled “Provinces”.

Each province can use a white-label DApps (provided directly by Blue Whale) feature their own CAMs, DANs, and an access to ReBa, which are powered by the Blue Whale blockchain. This permits those provinces to offer the same contribution-based reward and employment benefits to the freelancers on their own sub networks. This is all done while keeping a degree of autonomy over their own province and the freelancers within it. The Blue Whale network will respect this autonomy.

These province may also choose to issue their own token to raise funds through ICOs — of which, 10% will be kept as a reserve with Blue Whale. If not, they must purchase 10% of their valuation worth of BWX tokens at the prevailing exchange rate.

This ensures that the Blue Whale main network, and its sub networks, continue to remain mutually-invested in each other.

This kind of governance and autonomy is like the Federal system. That’s why Blue whale as labelled his architecture as a “Federal Architecture”. The provinces are free to operate according to particular parameters outlined by the federal blockchain.

In addition, the main governance of Blue Whale Network is a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) which has introduced a voting mechanism that will permit to address issues that affect the entire network. This voting mechanism will allow the participants on the network adjusting policies such as operating costs, savings rate into Rewards Bank, Referral fees, issuance of new coins, incentive/payout algorithm and penalties.
Difference Between Standardization & Normalization
By: Harshit Dawar
Tags: Machine Learning, Feature Engineering, Deep Learning, Data Science, Normalization

It's completely fine if you feel confused between the topics “Standardization” vs “Normalization”. A few months ago, I was one of you, therefore, I can completely understand this feeling of confusion & sometimes frustrated too, because there was no good & easy resource to explain the topic.

But, there is no need to worry because this blog will not only clear all the doubts between these topics but also provide their use-case i.e. when to use which.

Important Prior Knowledge!

Before explaining the difference between “Standardization” & “Normalization”, let me build the context for that.

Standardization & Normalization, both are part of Feature Engineering which in turn a part of Data Science.

If you want to learn about Data Science Pipeline, then check this blog:

Feature Engineering means to apply your engineering mind & skills to optimize the features so that the model can be effectively & easily trained on those features.

Standardization & Normalization both are used for Feature Scaling(Scaling the features to a specified range instead of being in a large range which is very complex for the model to understand), but both differ in the way they work, & also, they should be used in the specific use-cases(discussed later in this blog).

This much information is enough for setting up the context before explaining the topics. Now, let us jump directly to the main topics.

Standardization

This concept refers to make the data distribution to be normal.

It transforms the mean of the data to be 0 & its variance to be 1. As the data value tends towards infinity, variance of the data tends towards 1.

For example, consider the data shown below:

Raw Data [Image by Author!]

Now, when standardization is been applied to this data, it will be transformed into the data shown below.

Standardized Data [Image by Author]!

The formula used to apply transformation!

Standardization Formula! [Image by Author!]

In the above image, x is the value in the data, “mu” is the mean of the data, & “sigma” is the variance of the data.

Implementing Standardization to Data!
How to Get an API With Angular 10
Tags: Angular, Angular 10, API, Angular Cli, Http Client

How to Get an API With Angular 10 brendanMulhern Follow Dec 5 · 5 min read

Sometimes in life it is important to learn how to get an API with Angular. This is often times an important step in becoming a front-end developer. The following is a tutorial on how to get an API with Angular 10.

To start off with I will start “sudo” shell. This is only necessary because I am on a Mac.

Next: (assuming you have the Angular CLI already installed): one is to initialize new Angular project with the following command.

One will then be asked if the would like to “enforce stricter type checking”. My answer to this was “yes”.

Then one is asked if they would like to “including routing” in their Angular Application. The answer to this for me was also “yes”.

I then select CSS for my “style sheet format”.

The project is then created and the node_modules folder is installed.

I then “chown” the project in order for it to be editable on Mac in VS Code.

I then open the project in a new VS Code window with the following command.

From there: in the app.module.ts file: I import Angular’s built in Http Client. This goes as follows:

Once imported the HttpClientModule can then be added the imports array; again in the app.module.ts file.

From there I go to the root of the project’s directory and create a new service with the following command.

To edit the permissions and allow for the code to be edited in VS Code on a Mac: I “chown” again.

Then I am to edit the Get API Service.

First in the get-api.service.ts file I add the HttpClient.

Secondly I add the Observable method from ‘rxjs’.

Then I add the HttpClient to the file’s constructor as http.

The code for the service file is as follows:

As one can see I create the getAPI method with the parameter url. This returns an Observable with the type of any. The method then uses http’s get method which passes in the url and the httpOptions; which go as follows:

This can go in the top of the service’s file above the class of GetAPIService. Now on to the app.componnent.ts.

I import OnInIt from “@angular/core”.

I also import the api service from the services folder.

From there the apiSerivice is added to the app.component.ts file’s constructor as apiService.

Then I create the variables posts with type any posts: any

The app.component.ts file then uses the url given and the apiService to get the url provided. You can use your own API Route if you wish. I used my own (by the way).

In the ngOnInIt file I import the service and the url and get the API. Now we move on to the app.component.html file.

In this file I data-bind the posts array for it’s description, author and post.

From there I serve with project with the Angular CLI.

Then (in the browser): I go to the following url.

This is how the final API Get looks:

Well: now you know! This is the basics of front-end development and I hope you were able to get through the article!

Reference:

Angular (n.d.), Get data from a server. https://angular.io/tutorial/toh-pt6
we need notecards for the web
By: David Connell
Tags: Blogging, Digital Publishing, Posthaven, Medium, Technology

Felix Salmon is right in so many ways here, but his note about some user-generated content platforms being “too beautiful” as to become intimidating/a barrier to bringing quick thoughts to the web is particularly prescient.

There’s a need for a space between the Twitter’s 140 characters and Medium’s high-design environment. Something that is essentially a mobile-friendly online text field where users can tap out quick thoughts, collect and display them publicly and share them via social media. There should be one minimal design to rule them all, no theme picking, no customizing, no effort but type and share, with a simple Twitter, Facebook, Google or email sign up and share functionality.

There are services that begin to fill this need — Postach.io, which I’ve been experimenting with and Posthaven, which resurrects the functionality of Posterous come close, but don’t get to the pure simplicity I’m imagining here. Others would argue that Facebook pages and Google+ fulfill this need. However, both also are walled gardens and don’t play well with other platforms because they’re geared toward keeping you in their space.

Tumblr arguably fulfills exactly what I need, but again it has a layer of functionality that goes beyond this concept.

It sounds crazy to say, but I don’t think there’s a truly efficient way to easily create and share text via social media. What am I missing?
ARIMA And ETS Forecasting In R
Tags: Personal Development, Personal Growth, Analytics, Data Science, Predictive Analytics

Accurately forecasting costs, sales, user growth, patient readmission, etc is an important step to providing directors actionable information. This can be difficult to model by hand or in Excel. In addition, using traditional methods like moving averages might not provide enough insight into the various trends and seasonality.

Using models like the ARIMA and ETS provides analysts the ability to predict more accurately and robustly by considering multiple factors like seasonality and trend. What is even better is that languages like R and Python make it much easier for analysts and data teams to avoid all the work they would usually have to do by hand. This can reduce the time to develop a model by more than half and increase accuracy.

Our team has developed a course to help upskill your analysts in the skills of R programming, ARIMA and ETS. It covers not only the programming aspect, but also helps cover many of the important topics that have to do with time series forecasting like stationarity, autocorrelation and unit roots. This class will help educate your team and improve their ability to use R and develop models for forecasting.

Call To Action

If your department is looking to develop an improve your forecasts and upskill your employees contact us today! We would love to help instruct you and your teams

The Goals Of This Service Are:
Words for Our Daughters
By: Jeanette C. Espinoza
Tags: Empowerment, Love, Daughters, Self Love, Black Women

No matter what society dictates, never attempt to define your worth based on your physical appearance or your ability to attract the opposite sex. That creates conditional self-love and puts your precious self-esteem in the hands of others. This gift should remain in your possession since it’s much too valuable to share with another human being or entity.

You must fall madly in love with yourself not just today, but EVERY DAY. Love every inch of you even when you’re having a bad hair day, or when the numbers on the scale aren’t what you want them to be, or if the young man you like forgets to tell you that he thinks you’re beautiful. These are not constant variables, but you will always have complete control over how you feel about yourself at any given moment. This deserves more of your time and attention than concerning yourself with how the world perceives you.

Self-love needs reinforcement and should always be a part of your daily routine. Your thoughts will continue to dictate the outcome of your life until the end of time and your incredibly gifted mind will take you further than anything else you possess. You have the power to create worlds and God has blessed you beyond measure. Focus on building yourself up internally. Seek the wondrous gifts that were placed in your spirit even before you were born. Your life should be a testament to how many gifts you find within your heart and how much better the world becomes when you share them selflessly.

I know as a Black woman it can be difficult to cultivate a true sense of well-being in a world that was designed to work against you. It breaks my heart that I brought you into a world that could callously disregard young women who share your hue when they are senselessly abused or murdered.

It pains me to the core of my being that you don’t have the same freedom as your White counterparts and that your life is not upheld with the same reverence in their eyes that it is in mine. But this does not mean that you aren’t capable of living a beautiful, prosperous, and successful life. The road to the promised land for a Black woman may be paved with obstacles, but none are insurmountable. You have the blood of fearless and undauntable ancestors flowing through your veins and working in your favor. The endless tenacity and courage that was passed down to you will always guide your path.

You will succeed in everything you pursue with passion, faith, and belief in your abilities. You are made of the stuff that creates MIRACLES.
Gorgeous Girl At The Library. An Erotic Story
By: K. Love
Tags: Short Story, Sex, Romance, Sexuality, Love

She wasn’t putting on any panties

We were at the library

She was reading a thick book

There weren’t many people there at the time

Just 5 or 6 people I guess

She was having glasses on

She was into the book she was reading

I was curious to know

Cus she was so damn gorgeous

I don’t think anyone had noticed she didn’t have panties on

But am sure she knew I had found out

I lost focus on what I was doing and was staring at her

She knew it, she’d set the trap, and it had caught a good fish

It hooked me, such a beautiful thick camel toe she had

Her pussy was pink and looked thirsty

I had to calm myself down and not think too much about it

But as I was watching her and thinking my cock kept on getting swollen.

I gulped some water from the bottled water I was holding

Distracted myself a little with my phone

A few minutes later I summoned enough courage

Walked up to her and sat beside her

Said hi

She responded like she’s been waiting for me

With a grin on her face

Light introduction, small talk

I told her she had a beautiful pussy

She said it was thirsty for a dick

I suggested I can quench her thirst

And ask how about we go to the library’s restroom

We excused ourselves and left for the restroom

Restroom

She’s on her knees sucking my gigantic cock

Locking my fat balls

I pull her hair

She is looking at me while she’s sucking

Then she gets up

Bends over to the washbasin

I fuck her mercilessly

Pounding her ass as hard as I can

She’s moaning but just within her

So no one hears there’s action inside

I slap her ass, she gasps

Then I spread her ass cheeks

Pull her hair the more and fuck her like a wild beast

Minutes later I cum right inside her

Breathing deeply, we rest

We get out of there

like nothing ever happened
Poiesis — Update!. We have made some improvements to…
By: Zay Pareltheon
Tags: Submissions, Improvements, Editors, Scrittura, Updates

Photo by Laura Vinck on Unsplash

We have made some improvements to Scrittura.

https://medium.com/scrittura/submissions-babba7fcddaa?source=friends_link&sk=c1b637e61fc2926758f63943a62cde9a

You can read about them in the updated “Submissions” located on the main page. The added clarity and insight in these revised submission guidelines makes reading, writing, and dreaming better for everyone.

We are welcoming new editors, a restructured main menu, and an enhanced poetry prompt section.

Enjoy, dream, create, write, and share. Scrittura is changing!
Block Talk — Pittsburgh Grand Prix
By: Evan Schindler
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Ethereum, News, Blockchain

ICO Alert Block Talk is a collection of street interviews where we test the knowledge of the public on subjects like Bitcoin, blockchain, cryptocurrencies and ICOs.

In this episode, we were on site at the Pittsburgh Grand Prix auto show to find out which cryptocurrencies people sold to buy their sweet Lamborghinis!
Elizabeth’s Prison
By: Heidi E. Cruz
Tags: The Tudors, Poetry, Elizabethan England, Elizabeth I, Historical Fiction

The crown is my prison,

Holding all the things the

True me desired locked

Forever in the Tower of London

My mother, Lady Greensleeves

Felt the deadly weight and

Only required a few moments, before

Being relieved of it

A French sword painted with

Her red blood told me

All I ever needed to know

About my future chains

I have loved and hated,

Smiled and wept,

Been gentle and violent

In a repeating circle

The one I leaned on,

Who held my hand and had

Seen all my emotional ties

Left me in death

Now I am alone

And only the Queen of England

Can I ever be…
the elephants are rising in my chest
By: Kamila Zguzi
Tags: Women, Flowers, Men, Poetry, Love

covered by your hands and feet

blowing off dead fruit flies from apples and mangoes

in your father’s kitchen

glasses standing in rows like transparent legionnaires

sharping bayonets

eating with your hands, sleeping with your heart

homeless dog, rail tracks, ruined house, needles

next to a field

overrun with wild poppies

rooted deep with their mouths wide open

unsettled and ready

to eat the blueness of my skies

to utter words

whisper consolation in the fat grass

the dirt of the earth

the permanence

solitary spiders quivering

my mother cutting a pomegranate in four, even halves

the first that I have ever tasted

seeds spilling out from your mouth like stones

the splendidness of your face

the pale moon of it

our bodies twisted and bent on my floor

my impatient legs and your hard manhood in the garden

of my overripe, heavy, tender pears

the molasses that I licked off your tongue

when you planted yourself inside my earth

it is not the leaving

I could survive

the leaving

and the flicker of the light on your back

curved like a bamboo tree

it is not the leaving

I could survive

the leaving

unwrapping myself from your knees

the beetles rolling on their bellies

waving their thin limbs, hoping that you would turn them back

to some place

to some greater heights

I sleep under your gaze

like a field mouse under a broom

watching your nose

and the light blinds me

and God reaches out to my mind

and pokes me with his grace

but I run and hide

behind the scarce hawthorns

that cluster and tighten around my body

like wild pythons in the afternoon of birth

thinking

that forgotten people do not live

they do not quite disappear

but the parts of them

once alive

wither

like barren butterflies

with no wings.
Arduino based SMS alert system (Life Alert inspired)
By: Zach Young
Tags: Esp8266, Twilio, Software Development, Arduino, IoT

Background

To understand the usefulness of this project you must first understand the circumstances that necessitated its creation.

My brother has a high-function form of autism called Aspergers. In many cases, including his, people with this disorder can have meltdowns. In recent months the frequency and intensity of his meltdowns have increased dramatically. So much so, that on several occasions he has injured himself without knowing it in the moment. Many times these occur in the middle of the night when my parents are asleep. And though these meltdowns are usually associated with running, jumping, and screaming, often times it does not wake them up. Being able to intervene and give him something to help him calm down has become essential to prevent him for hurting himself. But if my parents aren’t awake to do this, how can they intervene?

In comes what I’ve deemed “Life Alert”.

Just like the actual Life Alert, this sensor sends out a notification to alert someone when it has been triggered. In the case of this system, because his meltdowns are always associated with screaming, when the sound sensor is triggered at a certain decibel level then the ESP8266 sends out an SMS via Twilio, to my parents, to alert them so that they can intervene.

This project can be adapted to use whatever sensor fits your needs. The emphasis, however, will be on how to integrate Twilio into your project.
How to Automate XCTests With GitHub Actions
By: Mattia Righetti
Tags: Github, Ios Development, Github Actions, iOS, Programming

How to Automate XCTests With GitHub Actions

Optimise your time with CI/CD automation and focus on what matters

Photo by Julie Laiymani on Unsplash.

Ever since GitHub introduced GitHub Actions in 2018, developers now have a powerful tool to create complex pipelines for CI/CD without the need to rely on third-party software.

If you’ve worked on a project with a team composed of multiple people, you know that a lot of things can go wrong. A lot of code can break with a single commit pushed/merged by mistake or a commit made by a user who was not paying much attention to other people’s code.

The most obvious way to overcome this is to create a solid test suite that will increase in time and tell you if something is broken and needs fixing or if your code fits well with the previous code.

Tests can vary a lot, and as your project grows, your test suite will too. There are UI and unit tests, and each one of those will need to be tested on different devices with different scenarios. Who wants to wait 15 minutes for your tests to finish running? GitHub Actions are here to rescue us and will do the work.

From here on out, I’m going to use some tests from my test app that is called TestApp.

Let’s first create a .yml file that is going to contain our XCTest workflow. I’m calling it xctest-workflow.yml and it needs to be put in the .github/workflows folder in order for GitHub to recognize and execute it.

This is how the workflow is going to look:
Sexual Alchemy: Water
By: Ena Dahl
Tags: Short Story, Sexual Alchemy, Sacred, Tantra, Sexual Transmutation

It was about all the cups he never filled, metaphorically, but also quite literally.

She could count on one hand the times he had filled her water glass without being prompted, during their decade of meals together.

Defyingly, she’d place her glass in front of him; next to his own, that he’d just topped up. Her eyes, firmly fixated on his hand closing the bottle cap, he’d remain oblivious. She’d clear her throat, loudly. Still no reaction. Eventually, giving up, she’d pull the bottle from his hand.

—Whaaaaaat!? He’d look up, perplexed and defensive, his voice twitching with fury.

—I’m not a mind reader, just tell me what you want!
Charts and Graphs Humour
Tags: Oracle Cloud, Data Science, Data Visualization, Charts And Graphs, Humor

A traveler of both time and space...to be where I want to be…find me another space in another time.

Follow
Project ‘Sidewaukee’ Makes Milwaukee Sidewalks More Accessible
By: Berkeley I School
Tags: Accessibility, Disability Accomodation, Ischoolprojects, Mobility, Data Science

What inspired your project?

Annie: During the ideation phase, I wanted to find an opportunity to apply data science to improve our local community’s access to information about transportation and infrastructure. As an avid biker and runner, I noted how many fantastic tools exist for navigating trails and cities. Then I thought about loved ones using mobility devices like wheelchairs, scooters, walkers, and crutches to get around — I was surprised to find a lack of tools for this.

Anu: This project has been close to my heart from the time Annie discussed the idea. Having grown up with a wheelchair dependent sibling, I know how difficult it can be for the individual and their loved ones to go for a stroll.

I saw this project as a perfect opportunity for me to be part of a team that could make a difference in the quality of life for those who use a mobility device.

What was the timeline or process like from concept to final project?

Amy: From the start, we set interim milestones, including built-in “buffer” weeks since nothing ever goes exactly according to plan. We spent the first 2–3 weeks doing research, user interviews, and setting up some of the basic data engineering pipelines so we had a solid foundation before really digging in. By week 11 we had a working minimum viable product which we used to begin soliciting user feedback while we continued to add additional features and fine-tune our model.

How Sidewaukee works, from the Sidewaukee website

Emily: About halfway through the semester, we struggled with the fact that there were so many different features we wanted to add to our product, and we knew we wouldn’t have time for all of them. Our professors, David and Joyce, suggested that we think ahead to the final presentation, and narrow our ideas down to the 3–5 “nuggets of gold” that would differentiate our product and help us tell a compelling story about solving our users’ needs. This valuable exercise helped us re-focus our energy on the most high value work, and got us thinking early about how to tell the story of our project’s specific value.

How did you work as a team? How did you manage to work on your project as members of an online degree program?

Amy: Because most of us were working full-time, we discussed our schedules and work habits very early on and made a plan that allowed for flexibility while still holding team members accountable. For most of us, the bulk of our work time was on weekends, so we scheduled our weekly check-in for Monday evenings so we could assess what we accomplished the previous weekend and identify any roadblocks for the coming week. Throughout the week, we also held each other accountable through a shared Trello board and heavy usage of Slack — posting updates each week on the specific tasks we planned to accomplish.
Implement Touch Events in SwiftUI
Tags: Mobile, Swift, Programming, Swiftui, Xcode

Implement Touch Events in SwiftUI

Why have two buttons when you can have one?

SwiftUI is a very new and rapidly evolving framework — which is great, but that also means it lacks lots of nice features, including touch events.

So what’s a touch event? If you’re coming from UIKit, you’re probably familiar with them. Really, they’re just a fancy way of saying “Press detected!”

However, because iPhones and iPads are advanced, multitouch-capable devices, sometimes “Press detected!” isn’t enough. You might want to detect when the user first touches down or maybe when they release … or maybe when they drag and release.

Back in the UIKit storyboard, these touch events were easy to handle. UIButton s came with a huge list of touch events, including Touch Up Inside , Touch Down , Touch Up Outside … there were a lot more, and all together they could receive every action your finger could perform.

But what about SwiftUI? Uh … not so much. By default, you only get one touch event: Touch Up Inside .

This means the button action will only be called when both these conditions are met:

The user lifted their finger

The user’s finger was inside the bounds of the button when lifted

In today’s apps, Touch Up Inside is the most common touch event used because it gives the user time to cancel. If they decide they don’t want to press the button, all they need to do is drag their finger away — an easy way out.

So it makes sense that SwiftUI’s buttons only support Touch Up Inside straight out of the box … but what if you want to access all the other touch events?

Let’s say you’re making a racing game where there’s a gas pedal. When pressed, the car should go faster. When released, it should slow down. This requires three touch events — Touch Down , Touch Up Inside , and Touch Up Outside . (There’s no Touch Up touch event, but Touch Up Inside and Touch Up Outside combined have the same effect.)

But if SwiftUI’s buttons only support Touch Up Inside , how are you supposed to make these racing games? Of course, you could heavily sacrifice UX and go with a toggling button — press to accelerate, press to slow down, and then press to accelerate again:

Alternative #1: Toggle-style button

Or you can additionally sacrifice the UI for a multibutton approach:

Alternative #2: Multiple buttons

More buttons, more better! Right? Wait … it looks terrible!
We Can Help Each Other
By: Darrin Atkins
Tags: Helping Others, Business

What are some things you can do with your phone that have a real positive impact on helping others succeed? I am glad you asked.

You can log into social media and give a sincere positive review of a business or writer

You can share their work, product or service with others

If you are on Twitter, it is very easy to follow, like, comment and retweet

You can buy things that are offered for sale by your favorite business, entrepreneur, or writer

There are services you can obtain, that you can order or request on a regular basis

You can call, text or message others when a business or person needs help or encouragement

Consider helping a friend today. You never know what they are going through and how every little thing can help them today.
What It Was Like to Win the Apple WWDC Scholarship in 2019
By: Rudrank Riyam
Tags: Mobile, WWDC, iOS, Swift, Programming

What It Was Like to Win the Apple WWDC Scholarship in 2019

Documenting the process of creating the submission project

WWDC 2019

June 4, 2018

I remember going through the WWDC website to watch the keynote on my MacBook Air.

I wished I could watch it live someday. So, during the intro music, I started exploring the site to understand how the developers get a ticket for it. It was $1,600 for a developer, based on a lottery system. Ummm, no. I scrolled down and found this on the homepage.

“Scholarships — Students and STEM organization members can apply to receive a conference ticket, lodging, and one year of membership in the Apple Developer Program.”

Ahh, this is what I am looking for!

But now I would have to wait for a year to apply. I went through the requirements, a full project on Xcode Playgrounds/Swift Playgrounds with some essays. I had just started iOS Development, and my experience with Playgrounds was limited to declaring a few variables. And only 350 students were selected from all over the world, ranging from school students to PhDs. This seemed difficult, and so I gave up.
It Is Time For QR Codes To Come West
By: Ross E. Sheingold
Tags: Digital Marketing, Qr Codes

QR codes — popular abroad, funny looking barcodes here in the U.S. In reality, they hold the power to bring a stale medium to life.

Savvy marketers have been talking about the impact that QR codes are going to have on advertising for a long time, but I’m more intrigued by the impact they are going to have on the medium of print in general.

A couple of days ago, I was reading an article about Cee Lo’s new “Fuck You” video in the print version of the New York Times. It wasn’t alive at all. It was black and white. It was print.

Now, imagine if there was a QR code on the NY Times page that I could scanned with a QR code app on my IPhone. Upon scanning, my IPhone would “link” to a blog post on NYTimes.com with Cee Lo’s video. I’d be engaged and my experience would have been thoughtfully enhanced. As a not-so-insignificant side effect, page views on the NY Times blog are increased and ad revenue increases.

Doesn’t this seem like a no brainer?
ETHOS ($ETHOS, $BQX) Update with the TCL Fundy Team
By: Ti Naugs
Tags: Crypto, Fusion, Cryptocurrency, Digital Wallet, Bitcoin

ETHOS ($ETHOS, $BQX) Update with the TCL Fundy Team

$2.45/BQX or ETHOS listed #75 on coinmarketcap

ATH Jan. 2018 @ $10.86.

Market Cap $188,371,008 USD

ETHOS, originally known as Bitquence (hence the BQX ticker on Binance but the ETHOS elsewhere), proposes an easy-to-use universal wallet and fiat Ethos offers a range of cryptocurrency-related services that are powered by the community. The Universal Wallet includes innovative social and sharing features that allows users to interact with each other, sharing insights that can lead to smart investments.

Where’s the wallet?!

The Universal Wallet was planned to be completed in Q1 2018 but has been pushed back to June 2018. The Beta testing is underway and there were 200+ selected to complete this “final” stage of testing.

Team:

Founder and CEO Shingo Lavine is young but has done a great job in surrounding himself with an experienced and driven team although there are no big names that stood out.

In the ETHOS News:

A partnership with Fusion Financial Advisors, LLC (“Fusion”). Fusion is the first federally registered investment advisor regulated in the United States, offering diversified portfolios consisting of cryptocurrencies. This has given the ETHOS universal wallet additional functionality and weight.

ETHOS has brought the whole package but is leaving the power and security in YOUR hands. The fiat/crypto you trade and invest with, as well as your private keys and information, are all held securely in your own possession. This is something that neither Coinbase or Robinhood have yet to offer. With numerous other features including social networking and access to exchange traded funds (ETFs), cryptocurrencies and other limited investment products through the Fusion partnership, ETHOS is poised to make a huge splash with their delayed but impressive Universal Wallet.

Join us at tradecryptolive.net and on Facebook (tell us you saw us on Medium.com!)
The Best of Both Worlds — Bitcoin + Ethereum
By: Shane Moser
Tags: Trading, Token, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Bitcoin

In the business world, we see all types of mergers happen across a variety of different levels and sectors. It can be smaller companies joining forces to simply remain afloat and competitive, or market giants coming together to dominate a particular part of an industry. When efforts are combined the results are often a positive thing.

When it comes to cryptocurrency mergers and acquisitions still continue to happen regularly as the crypto space slowly evolves. As things continue to change we are beginning to see interesting things happen, such as the joint project between Bitgo, Kyber Network and Republic Protocol which hopes to bring the ever famous Bitcoin (and potentially other cryptocurrencies) to the Ethereum platform.

Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) is an ERC20 token backed by the value of the BTC we all know and love. By creating this kind of BTC/ETH hybrid this project hopes to bring together the perks of both worlds in one cryptocurrency by utilizing Bitcoin’s prevalence in the crypto space alongside the powerful smart contract technology of Ethereum.

The combination of these two technologies may create something new that the crypto space so desperately needs, and that’s an even bigger ease of use. By putting Ethereum and Bitcoin together the gap between the two ceases to exist, allowing for free-flowing exchange between the two networks.

This brilliant combination of networks bolsters the strength of each network in a new way, which on the surface seems as though it would be highly enticing to cryptocurrency advocates.

As the crypto space progresses into the future perhaps we will be seeing more concepts and projects come together such as this. By mixing together platforms and technology from differing crypto entities, we suddenly have a recipe for new ways of doing things, which is exactly what the quiet crypto space needs.

After all, if you can’t beat them, join them…together.
The Physics
By: Aliasger Yusuf
Tags: Culture, Body, Poetry, Relationships

The Physics

He was there

Photo by Jarek Ceborski on Unsplash

She was sitting by the bedside drinking coffee, he came in

“You look muscular,” She said.

“Do I only look ____________

Haven’t you felt it ?”

He asked.

“I have ___________________ but SOMETIMES !” she said.

“Why not ALWAYS ?” He asked.

The

QUESTION HANGS in the AIR _____!!!
Hymn to all gods (№ 1). What follows is my own translation of…
By: Peter Sahota
Tags: Religion And Spirituality, Hymns, Sanskrit, Religion, Rigveda

What follows is my own translation of Rig Veda Mandala 1 Sūkta 89 (आ नो᳚ भ॒द्राः). The opening line of this verse is a well-known and well-loved one, quoted in the Baudhāyana Gṛhya Sūtra and many other later texts. The later verses include the famous lines भ॒द्रं कर्णे᳚भिः श‍ृणुयाम देवा etc. which appear in rearranged form in one of the Śānti Mantras that are recited daily.

The hymn is in praise of all the gods (viśvadevāḥ) and the ṛṣi responsible for this verse is Ṛṣi Gotama Rāhūguṇa, one of the descendants of Ṛṣi Aṇgiras, whose family contributed many verses to the Rig Veda, and especially to Mandala 6.

In making this translation, I consulted the excellent translation and notes by Professors Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton. I translated the words ‘ṛjū’, ‘śubhaṃ’ and ‘bhadram’ all as ‘good’, which like the Sanskrit terms has a very capacious range of meanings, including a moral dimension which is certainly present in these Sanskrit terms.

The accented Sanskrit text can be found here.

Let us get good ideas from across the world,

Unimpaired, unobstructed, bursting through.

Let the gods always be for our growth,

Our unceasing protectors day after day.

Let the gods be favourable towards the good

Let the gods reciprocate [in giving] gifts to us

We crave the fellowship of the gods

Let the gods carry us through life so that we remain alive

With the ancient prayer we call them,

Bhaga, Mitra, Aditi, unfailing Dakṣa

Aryaman, Varuṇa, Soma, the two Aśvins.

Let Sarasvatī delight us.

Let the wind blow to us a delighting remedy

[Let] Mother Earth [do] this; [Let] Father Heaven [do] this

[Let] the delighting soma-pressing stones [do] this;

Benevolent Aśvins, hear this!

We call upon that power who is the master of the moving and the still,

Who impels the mind, to favour [us].

Let Pūṣan increase our wealth,

The unimpaired guard [and] protector of our well-being.

[Let] Indra [grant] our well-being!

[Let] wealth-giving Pūṣan [grant] our well-being!

[Let] secure-wheeled Tārkṣya [grant] our well-being!

[Let] Bṛhaspati grant our well-being

The dappled-horsed Maruts whose mother is Pṛśni,

The good riders who always come to the vidatha [events]

Fire-tongued sun-eyed men;

May all the gods come here according to our wish

O gods, may we hear with our ears what is good!

O you to whom we sacrifice, may we see with our eyes what is good!

Praising with firm limbs and bodies,

May we attain the lifespan fixed by the gods

So surely one hundred autumns are before [us], O gods,

Until you cause the decay of our bodies

[And] when sons will become fathers.

Let our life not be harmed mid-way.

Aditi is Heaven; Aditi is the sky;

Aditi is the mother, the father [and] the son

Aditi is all the gods [and] the five tribes;

Aditi is what has been; Aditi is what will be
Black Mothers in Chicago Are the Village Against Gun Violence
By: Kelly Glass
Tags: Politics, Black In The Midwest, Gun Violence, Chicago, Activism

“We are not activists,” said Tamar Manasseh, founder of Mothers Against Senseless Killings, in a Facebook post.

In the days before Manasseh wrote these words, her friends, Andrea Stoudemire and Chantell Grant, were murdered on a Chicago corner.

Grant was a young mother, 26, who Manasseh says would bring her kids out every day to play. Grant and Stoudemire, 36, each had four children. “Two activists killed,” read the headlines from national news publications, framing them as women who set out to battle for a cause and their deaths as some sort of casualty of war. Even one of the city’s many nicknames, Chi-raq, coined by Chicago rapper King Louie, lends to the idea that the city is a war zone. In war, the only solutions are death and imprisonment. Black mothers, however, are bringing different solutions to Chicago through their presence.

Gun violence in the Windy City has become a political talking point for conservatives who feign interest. This year alone, from January through September, there have been 1,633 shootings and 382 murders in Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. That’s 382 lives too many that have been taken, but these numbers represent the lowest number of shootings in the city since 2015.

“When Black children are not safe to play on their block, walk to the store, or go to school, Black women in Chicago step up. When the sons and daughters of Chicago are killed, Black mothers step in.”

Progress is being made, despite President Donald Trump’s obsession with painting Chicago as an embarrassment to the nation where crime has reached “epidemic proportions.” Chicago has seen an 11% decrease in murder while Washington D.C. is grappling with a 38% increase in homicide. But it doesn’t serve the political agenda to highlight Chicago’s decrease in homicides.

It also doesn’t serve the myth of Black-on-Black crime for national media outlets to talk about the flood of Black women in concern, all the while ignoring the effects the state and federal government’s long history of racist policies and persisting segregation has had on the current situation. The fact that gun violence is on the decrease doesn’t bode well for conservative media outlets that wield the news of any shooting in the city as an example of why tight gun control policies, like the laws in Illinois, don’t work. The idea of an epidemic is a narrative largely created by the media.
¡Gracias a Dios soy un emprendedor digital!
By: Jena Apgar
Tags: Spanish Medium, Digital Entrepreneur, Spanish, Digital Nomad Lifestyle, Beekonnected

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Pouring Some Whisky In The Veins
By: Suntonu Bhadra
Tags: Whisky, Weekend, Poem, Bourbon, Poetry

a glass of bourbon, melted ice

coupled with late-night potato chips while crushing onto the teeth

sipped heat went down to the throat

a chilled feel, and gradual slower motions

fading the light away

one by one, suddenly dark

faded tunes from the YouTube

the street side musicals soothing my heart

the piano play on the station

the vocal on the side of the street

the harmonica sync with the violin melody

mixing up beats, one by one

taking me to the stairway to heaven

Ah! the glass runs empty

the ice-cubes waiting

to be soaked in bourbon waves

let me pour some

whisky in the veins.

Suntonu Bhadra ▪ December, 2020
[Foresting Platform: Get to know first] #6
Tags: Platform, Payments, Cryptocurrency, Offline, Blockchain

Dear friends!

Let us continue our series of revealing Foresting little secrets 😊

The blockchain is simple but at the same time great technology that makes unbelievable changes in almost every industry. Despite being new, day by day we hear the news that blockchain technology is used more and more, and it’s beyond being just hype.

However, many blockchain projects fail due to a weak token ecosystem structure or its absence. We are aware that the PTON token ecosystem should demonstrate a high degree of decentralization and token utilization (rather than speculative trading) in order to create a stable structure.

We are working hard to secure price and increase the value of PTON, and we believe it should be done with enabling PTON token to become an offline payment method.

So, here is one more way of PTON token utilization. After the platform launch, online purchase of mobile coupons with PTON token will become possible. You will be able to pay with PTON for mobile coupons and use them in more than 60000 offline stores such as GS25, Tous Les Jours, Lotte Cinema, Starbucks, and other stores all over Korea.

In the previous article, we have already talked about PTON token as an offline payment method. We have mentioned that anyone, who holds PTON tokens, can easily pay for any coffee or beverage using Foresting Wallet, Bitberry wallet, or Ledger, cold wallet.

You should try and see it with your own eyes! 😉

We create value and we do it for a better world and for people, who believe in FORESTING.
Molehill Recovery
By: Geoffrey Von Zastrow
Tags: Labor Market, Jobs, Economy, Covid 19, Congress

When U.S. unemployment broke record highs in May of this year, a direct result of the Covid-19 induced lockdowns, Congress — in a rare show of bipartisanship — swiftly stepped in to provide pandemic relief to the nation, stemming what would have been a deep(er) long(er) crisis. As the summer gave way to fall, the labor market bounced back with new jobs and what seemed to be a recovery and stabilization — at least that’s what it appeared to be on the surface. The story, of course, is far from over.

As the year spirals to its end, Congress continues to debate a new stimulus package, while the Senate proceeds with judicial confirmation hearings, and the Executive remains focused on securing an unlikely Electoral College victory.

The elephant in the room is and remains the teetering labor market.

Today the U.S. unemployment rate stands at 6.7%. This figure is calculated through a precise and narrow lens. It doesn’t necessarily capture the full picture of what’s happening in the labor market today. Employment data, tabulated using the Current Population Survey and published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, uses the survey responses of 60,000 American households and categorizes all persons above the age of 16 as either employed, unemployed, or not in the workforce. Those who have not actively looked for work in the past four weeks are not considered part of the labor force, even if they want to work. In other words, the number of people who aren’t working is necessarily higher than the unemployment rate. In ordinary times this makes sense. If a person wants to work, but isn’t actively looking, there is good reason to think that they shouldn’t be labeled ‘unemployed’. (Perhaps they’re caring for a relative, or otherwise unable to spend the time and effort needed to find the next opportunity.) In the context of the current pandemic, however, the story is more somber.

The U.S. economy has recovered only 12.4 of the 22 million jobs lost in March, but it has been in fits and starts. In October, private employers added 610,000 jobs. The very next month, U.S. employers added just 245,000 jobs during the month of November. That same month, the number of persons not in the workforce who nevertheless want a job increased by 448,000. As the BLS explains, these individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the last four weeks or were unavailable to take a job. This is the unemployment crisis.