fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
6 Simple Principles to Start Implementing Now to Better Move Towards Your Goals in 2021
By: Akshad Singi
Tags: Ideas, Self Improvement, Advice, Life Lessons, Inspiration

6 Simple Principles to Start Implementing Now to Better Move Towards Your Goals in 2021

Ride the wave that’s about to flow through your life.

Photo by André Hugo on Unsplash

I learned an incredible life lesson a few weeks ago when I took my first few surfing lessons. The lesson is going to help me make the most of 2021. But before we get to there, let me first tell you about surfing.

To catch the waves at their peaks, we swum deep into the ocean. On reaching there, we waited patiently for the waves to come. If the waves didn’t come, Sandeep, our instructor would call the waves as if they were his buddies: “Badabadabadabadabada.”

Sooner or later, the waves would arrive. On trying to ride those first few waves, I failed miserably; almost drowned. However, after many unsuccessful attempts, I was able to ride one. I remember it quite distinctly. On seeing the wave approach, Sandeep said to me: “I see a big wave coming. Get on the board. I want you to ride this one.”

I braced myself. A few moments before the wave would hit the tail of my board, Sandeep gave me a powerful push. This time, I kept my calm and focus — maintained my balance, stood up, and stayed on the board like my feet were glued to it. This was it. I was surfing! Oh, what an extraordinary feeling that was. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life. On top of that, when I thought about it in retrospect, I learned an important lesson as well.

Just like the wave in the ocean, there’s another wave coming in all our lives—the motivational wave of the new year. And if we prepare ourselves well, we can ride that wave quite well to make 2021 a good year. And I know that it’s stupid to wait for a new year to change your life, but it doesn’t mean you cannot use the wave of motivation to your advantage when it’s already coming.

With this article, I want to give you a timely push, just like Sandeep pushed me on the board. With 2020 being a sucky year for many of us, we have high hopes for 2021. Ergo, I see a big, fat wave coming; more powerful than I’ve ever seen. And if you’d humour me as your instructor for the next few minutes, I’ll do my best to give you a strong push with some simple yet powerful principles. I recommend you start using them today so that when the wave peaks on 1st January, you’re well prepared to stand up with an elite-level balance.

Excited? Get on the board, then. Brace yourself. The wave is coming, and I want you to ride it.
Every engineer is different
By: Blog Moove-It
Tags: Devsnack

DevSnack #28: in this week’s DevSnack we bring 5 interesting links on Personal Software Process (PSP). Get a general overview on how the process was born by talking to its creator and take a pick at its fundamental basics. Hear some opinions from those who are not really keen on this type of processes and finally, if it caught your attention, take a look at PSP phase 2: TSP. Dig in!

#1 — Personal Quality Management with the Personal Software Process

If you’re feeling doubtful regarding the needs that Personal Software Process addresses, @AlanSKoch gives you a brief yet powerful introduction to the reasons why PSP may be exactly what you need.

# 2 — Personal Software Process

In this article, @gwareddm talks about the PSP from an agile-developer perspective and explains why — sometimes — the grass is greener on the other side.

# 3 — An Interview with Watts Humphrey

Because it’s always better to go straight to the source, @Grady_Booch interviews Watts Humphrey — PSP creator and walks us through the development of this process.

# 4 — Introduction to the Personal Software Process

Lois N. L. Akoto explains PSP in a nutshell, providing a general overview of Introduction to Personal Software Process — the PSP bible.

# 5 — Implementing TSP process to build better software products

Do you like to push things further? @anandsesh_s tells you how, by implementing TSP after PSP.
Forever a Misfit
By: Nikki H. Rose
Tags: Misfit, Lost, Home, Poetry, Belonging

I fought for my place

every moment

of every day

but you tried to take this

from me

I don’t belong

in this world

but I never have

–not like you

so this is really nothing new

but I fought, anyway

my knuckles bloodied

scarred from battle

from years of trying

to belong

from years of shouting

at the top of my lungs

dreaming to be heard

desperate for a voice

each day I have dreamt of a home

a place to feel safe

a place to call my

own

with others who listen

who understand

and care

with those who see me.

I fight

every day

making my voice louder

and stronger

forcing people to listen

to see

this misfit

the one with no home

the one who doesn’t belong

the one who remains unseen

the one who continues on

making a home

in a world of unforgiving voices

creating a space

for people like me.
How to Successfully Manage a Data Science Delivery Pipeline
By: Jan Teichmann
Tags: Machine Learning, Product Management, Project Management, Towards Data Science, Data Science

How to Successfully Manage a Data Science Delivery Pipeline

Data science projects: to deliver or not to deliver.

That isn’t the option but the disappointing reality of 85% of data and data science projects failing to deliver commercial value or seeing no business adaptation, according to Gartner. The truth is that being successful at data science in a business setting is a complex challenge. You can read about the unique strategic requirements and technical requirements in my previous blog posts. This blog covers the last piece in the puzzle, which is delivery management of data science projects.

When we look at a project delivery pipeline it is important to remember that data science is (a) still an emerging business function and (b) constantly evolving from ongoing innovation.

Building a Foundational Layer

Many data scientists find themselves in tech companies running agile software development cycles, which can feel a little like a square peg in a round hole. What differentiates the data science function from software development is the amount of commonly open-ended research that comes with the role, and this is where standard agile processes can collide with the interests of data scientists.

Research is an essential part to data science, but does not fit the standard agile processes very well.

Any data science team needs to spend a significant amount of its time on research to build out their foundational layer where data science adapts the continuously evolving field to the business’s specific context. We can break this foundational research work into three categories:

Long term: Conducted by specialised research teams at established data driven hi-tech companies. This is not your typical commercial data scientist of the enterprise.

Medium term: Building out scalable foundations by adapting the ever evolving key domains in data science to the business specific context.

Short term: Application specific challenges such as solution design, presentation layers, algorithm selection and validation methods of models and metrics.

Many businesses fast forward their research backlog by hiring specific expertise and talent from relevant domains such as NLP or computer vision. Regardless, there needs to be continuous investment into the foundational layer to keep resources relevant and to provide the data science team with opportunities for development. This is crucial for team motivation and retention.
Hollywood To Go
By: Tre L. Loadholt
Tags: Dreams, Audio Poems, Art, Hollywood

Hollywood To Go

Courtesy of Jeremy Moore/Fine Art America

*Musical Selection: Rufus & Chaka Khan’s Hollywood*

He’s got dreams —

He tells his sister

He’s gonna make it.

His hands flailing in the

Air, outta control.

There’s nothing in his bones

Remotely close to talent,

But, he’s got dreams.

Who was she to trample on them?

Schoolboy fever, he spends

His free time creating art

No one buys, but he’s

Going to Hollywood —

City made of lights

And overpriced ecstasy.

“Eh, lemme hold somethin’!”

The words echo within his

Mind louder than a bullhorn

Can muster. Must be Sean.

He’s gotta brand new car,

Riding the flex, showing off

That candy-red paint.

Oh, they’ve all got dreams,

But his are more important.

He’s gonna escape the

Death grip of past due bills,

Stale coffee, and beaten up

Trash bins holding day-old-bread

With just enough mold to be

Considered dangerous for consumption.

They eat it anyway.

Of course, what do you do

When Hollywood is twenty years

Down the road in a glass

Globe with figurines

Standing around waiting to be

Shaken?

You take your chances.
Yoga for My Soul
By: Melissa Steussy
Tags: Yoga Benefits, Mindfulness, Yoga, Anxiety, Blue Insights

Photo by Conscious Design on Unsplash

Yoga for My Soul

I’ve been one to feel lost and alone

I still feel that way sometimes, but when I break now, I am faithfully able to float back up to the surface.

It starts with shallow breathing.

I start to recognize I am off.

I take a deep breath and share out loud how I am feeling.

I don’t try to numb or run.

I stay steady.

I roll out my trusty yoga mat and let my forehead find the cold rubber.

I take guidance from my body on what it needs and where to move.

I feel my body start to unwind and roll with the movements.

My breathing becomes less shallow-more deep and steady.

I begin to focus on the sensations in my body and where my muscles need to flex.

I concentrate on the movements and holding my poses.

I let the Shavasana have its way with me and relax into my mat.

I continue to breathe until I hear the chime awakening me back to this world.

I arise and am now standing taller.

I am proud to have heard the call and taken the time.

I am grounded and centered on what’s to come. I am flexible and easy to maneuver.

I crave that intimate time with myself and my mat.

I call out to my inner self and ask for a reprieve for all of the countless times I ran from the pounding in my chest and didn’t stop to acknowledge her.

All of the times I thought food or a new outfit would fix the dull ache I felt pulsating from the inside out.

I cringe when I think of all the times my body needed me and I neglected it.

I come clean now and go inside. I praise this worthy body and how it has carried me. I once was broken and now I am set free. I am made new, a new creation. I am one with myself. I am rescued. I am no longer alone and afraid. I have come home to myself.
2020 Mindful Balance: How I Evolved
By: Zen Michael
Tags: Self Improvement, Stress And Anxiety, Mindfulness, Meditation, Awareness

This is an aspect in which we were all probably forced to evolve a lot during this year of 2020. With the impact of the pandemic, we were all forced to recognize the many moments, people, things, opportunities, and situations that we usually enjoyed every day and that we are no longer able to appreciate in the same way because of the pandemic.

In the beginning, we suffered such a strong impact that we all probably have experienced this change only as aggression. We tended to focus on what we had lost, on what we were no longer able to do, on the places where we were no longer able to go, on the travel plans that had to be canceled.

At least, that’s what I felt in the first weeks and months of the pandemic when anger and fear were my dominant feelings.

However, the prolongation of the pandemic brought some changes to these feelings. Realizing the fact that I was unable to change the situation, that it was not dependent on something that I could or should do, led me to a more peaceful acceptance of the circumstances.

At the same time, all those little moments that I used to enjoy and that were no longer available came to be seen in another way. These little moments of pleasure, distraction, discovery, or socializing, gained another value.

The little things and the small moments began to be recognized, they stopped being events without importance to become moments with great value, the ones we miss the most. This recognition increases the awareness and gratitude we feel towards them.

I feel more aware today of the many things and peoples in my life for which I should be grateful and for which I need to practice appreciation and gratitude.

I feel more grateful not just by comparison with all who lost so much during this pandemic — also for the direct value that these things, peoples and moments, have to me.

I feel more grateful.

I am happy with this change.
Node Event Emitters — For Beginners and Experts
By: Kunal Tandon
Tags: Programming, Technology, JavaScript, Software Development, Nodejs

For now, we’ll only pay attention to these two member functions:

on(eventName, …)

emit(eventName, …)

To publish an event, we use the emit() function, and to listen to an event, we use the on() function.

In EventEmitters , we publish and listen to the events by name.

In the last code snippet, where we created an EventEmitter object, we use the following code to raise events and listen to them.

Running the above code snippet prints the following output in the console:

> Data Received

In the above code snippet, we raised an event with the name myEvent on the last line, and we had a listener registered to the event just above the line of the publishing event.

At the time of publishing the event, there must be an EventEmitter listener existing to listen to the published event.

For example, if we change the above code snippet to …

… the output will be:

> Listener 1
Pandemic Adventures
Tags: Adulthood, LGBTQ, Life Lessons, Transgender, This Happened To Me

A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have dared to go somewhere by myself. My grandmother was over the moon when I asked her if I should go to the mall. Anxiety has ruled my life for as long as I can remember.

I would have anxiety attacks all throughout the day. School was a nightmare. I dreaded every day. When I first started riding the bus for community college, I was scared out of my mind. Then when I moved into my university room, I was terrified. Now, sometimes fear and worry are normal with these big changes — but my anxiety made me physically ill.

When I moved into my campus apartment for my second academic year, my depression and anxiety skyrocketed. I wasn’t really sure why, because I wanted the apartment. However, during Christmas break, I realized I couldn’t go back.

That was about two years ago, maybe a little more. So much has changed since then. I’ve gone from Alabama to Michigan. I started medically transitioning with testosterone. I lost my kidney and went back on dialysis. I moved from a rural area to right next to downtown in a different city. I have a girlfriend that I’m working on building a life with alongside the children. I’m not just a doggy dad anymore. The only thing that’s really stayed the same is having my pup Ginger by my side.

This day was a huge representation of how far I’ve come.

I grabbed a Lyft to the mall all by myself. I wondered around, going in whatever store I wanted and stayed as long as I wanted. I ordered a strawberry lemonade by myself. I used to beg my grandmother and my friends to order stuff at the counter for me.

Is this stuff embarrassing? To some people, yes, To me, no. I’ve come such a long way. I went on an adventure. I strolled around for about three hours and got a lot of walking in. Overall, I had a blast.

I didn’t even think twice about going out. I even talked to some people at the mall (from a safe distance of course.) I bought some stuff. Then I came home and hung out with my older housemate and her daughter’s roommate. We laughed and talked and pet the dogs. My anxiety was nowhere to be found.

Today was a great day.
How Being Disliked Will Set You Free
By: Sarah Caliendo
Tags: Self Development, LGBTQ, Self Improvement, Women In Business, Women In Tech

How Being Disliked Will Set You Free

Break free of perfectionism. It’s holding you back

Photo by Eepeng Cheong on Unsplash.

I’ve been a recovering perfectionist since my late 20s. Being “flawless” was how I derived self-esteem. Others were responsible for how I assessed my value. Perfectionism was something I was proud of — it enabled me to minimize risk and master a number of difficult things. It shielded me from the pain of failures in my career aspirations and rejection in relationships.

Perfectionism was a skill that yielded many positives. One way it manifested was in a constant need to be liked by everyone, which I was fantastic at. It meant I worked my ass off to succeed in difficult skills, experiences, and entire careers. Not only did I accomplish my goals, but I also performed extraordinarily because I couldn’t disappoint my boss, my partner, my team, or my parents. It meant I impressed people and all kinds of relationships thrived. No matter how challenging the person or dynamic I was faced with was, I could connect with them and “turn” them, making them happy or otherwise at any cost. I could blend in, passing in any environment — even ones that were threatening. I could also proudly take center stage when I needed to, polished and put together.

But perfectionism has also prevented me from having many new experiences, being authentic, dreaming, and experiencing joy. All these positives were just performances rooted in a fear of being disliked. At a certain point, this becomes unsustainable. If others knew who I really was, if they saw me and my flaws, they’d fire me or they’d bolt. And because my perfectionist mindset was all or nothing, I caused myself a lot of suffering and held myself back.

But gradually, I became less interested in others’ views of me — and that set me free. While I’m not perfect in accepting my flaws, I am a lot more modulated. When I realized being liked was overrated, here’s what I discovered.
《Agent Quant一週》美國道指受制三角旗形區間，4月迎接突破大行情(4月1–4日)
By: Investbot App
Tags: Algorithms, 港股, 香港, 交易, 投資

investbot is strategic trading robot based on massive financial big data evaluation and machine learning to maximize profit. More details: http://bit.ly/2MWVdM6

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Positive and Negative
By: Raj Modi
Tags: Poetry, Poetry On Medium, Humanity, Evolution, Positive And Negative

Positive and Negative

Elegaic poem

A lovely creation -by an unknown Artist- I founded, in the dirty corner, at my campus, captured by Raj Modi.

Hands-on a guitar-strumming for a sound

The string vibrates and making life inside the quarks

With all of these theories, with all of this knowledge

We built walls, structures and countries, so, we can fight

The vision was never clear, not even today

Making success in every possible way

Subjects are so deep that roots are invisible

A single path with no return way

A dot with a world with a beam of a light

A dot with some thoughtful minds

A dot with thousands of sinful religions

A dot with millions of corrupted politicians

A dot with generals, A dot with a laws

With rice, bricks, cars, and phones

Sex with the same or opposite genders

With voices that shouted in protests for the same matters

With floating plates, with a subtle rise in the Himalayas

With science minds that fighting against these holy Devi-Devtas

With a war, with all these bloody rivers flowing into the country’s growth

With fewer people having a great amount of money

A child with hope and young with a dream

Parents with wishes, and we all with something

That something we want is hurting this nature

Haunted ‘us’ praying and blaming it on manmade sculptures

Philosophically, I’ve tried two plus two five

maybe we all did, Still, there’s no better life

At a time, At a distance, the color meets

And here we are, seeking for greed

No hope left inside in us

No power can save us

On this pale blue dot inside an immense dark,

‘us’ Are The ones who killed us
copy file in rust
By: Omar Faroque
Tags: System Engineering, Rust Programming Language, File Copy In Rust

This article inspired by the book “The linux programming interface” by Michael Kerrisk. It is an example in the page 71, written in C but I want to write similar in rust. Here is my solution:

We need few steps to read or write a file in almost every system.

Open file read file close file

In my example, I read 12byte into a buffer and write to a different output file. Here is the code:

How to run the code:

cargo run input.txt output.txt

We are reading the filename from the command line. Code can be found here.

Note: I am not an expert in rust. I am learning and I would love to hear your input.
How to Create a Revolut-Esque Cards Collection View on iOS
By: Burhan Shakir
Tags: Swift, Mobile, Programming, iOS, Xcode

How to Create a Revolut-Esque Cards Collection View on iOS

Learn to make scroll-and-snap collection view cells and scale them on scroll

Photo by Arnel Hasanovic on Unsplash.

This article is to help you understand how you can customize a UICollectionView layout by subclassing a UICollectionViewFlowLayout .

We’ll get into insets and line spacing to customize the spacing around the cells and use the UIScrollView protocols to add a snapping behavior to each cell when a user scrolls. We’ll also add in a scaling animation to the cells when the user is swiping over them to give it a bouncy feel.

We’ll be creating an In-App Wallet that is similar to what Revolut has (i.e a collection of credit cards that the user can swipe through, centering the selected card and displaying a small part of other cards):

This is what you will achieve by the end of this article.

Let’s break down the problem into three parts:

Add spacing between cards such that a part of the previous and the next card is visible (centered pagination).

Add a snap-on-scroll behavior so that only one card is in the center of the screen.

Scale down the selected card when the user starts scrolling and scale up the new card on scroll end.

So let’s get started. 🥳
My Father Created an Imaginary Friend for Me
By: Christine Schoenwald
Tags: Humor, Fathers, Relationships, Family History, Life Lessons

My imaginary friend’s name was Prunella Smith, and she was annoyingly perfect in every way. She got good grades, excelled at sports, did charity work in her limited spare time, and she never once failed to live up to expectation.

I didn’t do any of those things.

I thought not biting my nails was a considerable accomplishment.

If I had created this pretend frenemy, I would have come up with a much better name like Savannah Baudelaire-Longhouse or Harpsichord Jones. She’d have been sophisticated and cool like Kalinda Sharma on The Good Wife or fashionably evil like Villanelle in Killing Eve, not an ordinary schoolgirl.

If I were going to have an imaginary arch enemy, I would want them to be a bad-ass.

I was about eight when my father created Prunella and her family.

At first, I loved the alternative universe aspect to these yarns. My brother’s name was “Fritz,” and Prunella’s brother’s name was “Ritz.” What are the chances?

Prunella’s mother’s name was Carbara as opposed to my mother, Barbara, and even though Prunella’s mother was self-centered too, her mother never read under a tree rather than watch her daughter her master the breaststroke. However, my mother didn’t care about not measuring up to the bar which Carbara set.

Prunella’s dad worked for Kole Pineapple, not Dole Pineapple, and her dad drove. My father’s imagination was limited to letter change, not creating Sims-style strategic life simulations.

What would it be like to be part of the Smith family, I wondered? Was every day a mixture of rainbows and puppies? Did they poop Skittles? Besides the Smith family commitment to perfection, they were also devoutly Mormon. I think my dad added that small detail to give the Smiths a little flavor and because we lived down the street from a Mormon Temple.

In every way Prunella was flawless- I was flawed. When Prunella’s parents went to her parent/teacher conferences, her teachers fell over themselves, praising her. She never got called out for talking in class.

Prunella certainly never peed her pants in the first grade and had to stand in front of the radiator in the nurse’s office to dry them out. Prunella probably never had to pee at all.

I knew Prunella wasn’t real, but it didn’t stop me from hating her. She was the shining example of everything I should and could be, and everything that my father wanted me to be.

When I listened to the Prunella stories, I only heard the same message, which was my father was disappointed in me.
Video: Benjamin Bollen provides an update on OpenST Protocol, openst.js, and OpenST Mosaic at Berlin Ethereum Meetup — 28 August 2018
By: Jason Goldberg
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain, Technology

Video: Benjamin Bollen provides an update on OpenST Protocol, openst.js, and OpenST Mosaic at Berlin Ethereum Meetup — 28 August 2018

Talk sets table for formal introduction of OpenST Mosaic at ETH Berlin on 7 September, 2018

This September OST introduces the OpenST Mosaic protocol for scaling Ethereum to thousands of transactions per second. Our featured presentation is at @ETHBerlin on 7 September: “Running Meta-Blockchains to Scale DApps on Ethereum” by OST’s Benjamin Bollen. The introduction of OpenST Mosaic will be accompanied by a draft of the OpenST Mosaic paper and release of openst.js and mosaic.js.

OPENST MOSAIC PAPER ABSTRACT: OpenST Mosaic is a protocol for running meta-blockchains on Ethereum to scale DApps to thousands of transactions per second. OpenST Mosaic is a set of Byzantine fault tolerant (BFT) meta-blockchains defined in smart contracts on Ethereum. A meta-blockchain has an open set of validators staked on Ethereum, and each block is committed by a super-majority vote. Mosaic introduces BFT consensus rules that allow validators to leverage more efficient auxiliary systems running in parallel for block production, while millions of transactions can be finalised before the header is asynchronously committed to Ethereum. Ethereum remains the sole source of truth by locking value tokens on Ethereum while minting a utility token representation on the auxiliary systems. Validators get rewarded collaboratively based on gas consumed thereby solving for the verifier’s dilemma. As a result Mosaic can finalise thousands of transactions per second on Ethereum at a lower gas price. We have built an atomic gateway protocol that Ethereum DApps can deploy to leverage Mosaic to scale.

@benjaminbollen gave a preview of some of the OpenST Mosaic concepts live on 28 August 2018 at the Technical University in Berlin.

Following @ETHBerlin @BenjaminBollen & I will present OpenST Protocol and OpenST Mosaic with broader context for scaling both mainstream apps on blockchains and DApps on 13 September at the Upbit Developer Conference on the island of Jeju.

On 14 September 2018, South Korea — Ben presents OpenST Protocol & OpenST Mosaic, a tech talk, at HASHED.

There are a lot of very smart people in the industry working on Ethereum scaling concepts and we look forward to discussing OpenST Mosaic with them, how OpenST differs & why, and contributing to the overall body of work towards scaling Ethereum.
Police Monoculture
By: Petr Swedock
Tags: Police, Workplace Culture, Law Enforcement, Community

Many, if not most, police departments across the country have a policy of recruiting and hiring at most only slightly-above-average intelligence. Police departments, though ostensibly separate, local, and distinct, often use the same tests and the same criteria for recruits and for training. These policies are local, but deployed nationwide. They exist on the theory that exceptionally intelligent police officers will too easily become bored with the job and leave after only a few years of costly training. From walking a beat to stakeouts or simply directing traffic, the theory goes, very smart people will get tired and bored too easily.

Besides very little scientific basis for this theory, there are several fatal misprisions here. First, that highly intelligent people are helpless before boredom and have little sense of duty and diligence; This is to say that boredom is a force more powerful than diligence or discipline. Secondly, it fails to address the idea that seasoned officers of average or slightly above average intelligence teaching raw recruits of the same intellectual gifts might not be the main driver of cost in training. If you don’t have anyone of exceptional intelligence to promote, from time to time, you’ll just get more reinforcement.

The problem, of course, has nothing to do with any particular recruit or officer of average or above-average intelligence. Any sizeable group will have a large number of their personnel — perhaps even a majority — of average intelligence.

The problem is the wholesale exclusion — indeed denial — of anybody well above average or of exceptional intelligence.

When high intelligence is denied all you will get is what an average intelligence thinks is acceptable and a continually re-enforcing cycle of that average intelligence.

Monoculture

What you get is a monoculture: a complete lack of diversity where behaviours and mores that ought to be challenged, are instead adopted and propagated. That’s why Eric Garner can be asphyxiated in 2014 and George Floyd asphyxiated in 2020… Where’s the impetus to change? To get better? To do better? To even understand what better means?

Given the complexities of modern policing, a distinct and well-entrenched monoculture has a levelling effect: reducing the complexities to simplistic solutions of brute force and violence; reducing the willingness to change.

And, not for nothing, how is it that we can have a thriving genre of television, from Columbo to The Wire that portrays smart detectives chasing down the bad guys when the police in the real world isn’t that smart? I’m not saying they’re dumb. But I can’t say they are smart. (And, also not for nothing…if there’s nothing limiting the intelligence of the criminals… Why should we limit the intelligence of the police?)
Why’s a Girl Like You Alone?
By: Jessica Brauer
Tags: Relationships, Short Story, Love, Feminism, Dating

“Why’s a girl like you alone?” he slurred, weaving his hands through mine, pushing a curl of my hair behind my ear. Every neurotransmitter in my body filled with preparatory breath for one, big, harmonious, panicked song.

Please. Stop.

“You’re beautiful and smart and funny.” The skin on my neck tightened–tiny cracks spreading like wild rivers across my trapped knuckles. I forced my lips to curl and my eyes to sparkle, while I thought about slamming his weathered face into the coffee table.

“There are hundreds of men who wish they had someone like you,” he ambled. “I wish I had someone with a heart like you.” He touched my knee and my hip and my face, feeling proud and accomplished with his prey pinned beneath his canines.

“I wish I could have you.”

My stomach churned, wrapping my stomach around my might, tangling my strength with my muted voice. I felt the gears inside me rattle and shake, thudding against my bones, vibrating the muscles in my head, humming unpleasantly behind my ears. I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth behind my expected smile and finally, they slipped, spinning wildly, nothing to grab onto. Like me–no purpose, no partner, just constant motion.

Every predatory memory I’d suppressed rushed over the barriers I’d built to protect myself years ago. The scary stories I told myself weren’t real, like slumber party folklore, filled a library in my mind with the blink of an eye.

Bloody Mary.

Please show me the Reaper.

Bloody Mary.

I’m too tired for another.

Ms. Worth, I believe you.

Take the pain away.
Your Parenting Style is Irrelevant
By: Daniella Mini
Tags: Hsh Prompt, Family, Parenting, Life Lessons, Autism

Your Parenting Style is Irrelevant

Parenting is hard as it is, so embrace the style that fits you best

Photo by ketan rajput on Unsplash

Parenting is a humbling experience. It is exhausting, joyful, eternal, overwhelming, draining, blissful — all of that and more! But, above all, parenting is humbling. You may be a stay-at-home parent, the CEO of a big tech company, a teacher, a plumber.

It doesn’t matter! Parenting will still stump and humble you — even if you have a PhD in child psychology.

Why? Because there is no handbook, because your child is his (I use his because I have two sons) own person, because your actions don’t result in what you thought they would, and, above all, because there is no preparing for the emotions that your children will evoke, regardless of your parenting style.

Yes, parenting style is largely irrelevant in parenting. Let me qualify “irrelevant” though. Irrelevant in that there is no such thing as the best or worst style, or a set of styles that will make your children grow up into good or awful persons. Irrelevant as long as there is no pathology, neglect or abuse. Irrelevant as long as what we mean by “style” are factors such as whether we lean toward being strict or flexible, promoting academics or sports, or encouraging safety or risk-taking.

I’m an older parent, not in that I’m old (I’m just 50), but in that my children are young adults already, 23 and 25 years old. I’m also an early childhood special education teacher. My 25-year old has autism. Clearly, I’ve seen many parenting styles.

My own style when my kids were growing up was the strict, minimal-screen-time, museum-going, nerdy style. I’ve seen the celebrate-risk-taking, getting-dirty style; the fall-asleep-when-tired, eat-when-hungry style; the home-schooling, pray-as-a-family style; the allowance-giving, chores-assigning style. Guess what? They all work!

Parenting is humbling enough as it is. So, I’d say to the younger parents: your style should be the one that you’re more comfortable with. Change it if you need or want to. Let’s remember that we’re just doing what we can as parents at any given time and that parenting is forever, no matter how old our children are. That’s what I tell myself at least.
Do These 5 Things to Dramatically Improve Your Communication Skills
By: Jordan Mendiola
Tags: Life, Education, Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Communication

1. Ask if Everything’s Okay

According to Metro, new research released by Time to Change reveals that when asked, over three quarters (78%) of us would tell friends and family we are ‘fine’, even if struggling with a mental health problem such as depression or anxiety. Our hesitance to speak out applies even when we need support the most.

Every day, there are countless interactions come across shallow. When I have gone to work with my army friends, we’ll talk about sports, things happening worldwide, and crack jokes. It’s a ton of fun! But the deep conversations are the ones that have made my connections so much more meaningful. From time to time, we’ll ask one another if we’re doing okay. Like really doing okay deep down. Sometimes, we’ll hear stories about things going on at home or personally that are striking. There are some things we’ll never know about unless we open the floor to be vulnerable with one another.

When you ask if someone is okay, you’re building an immense trust and bond with them. Not many people ask people if they’re doing okay. Maybe you’ll hear a “You good?” comment, which means you know something is off. Asking someone, “are you okay?” is a much more genuine response to someone looking sad or depressed. I’ve asked people if they’re okay, and they have vented for an hour about a personal crisis they’re facing or relationship problems, financial issues, you name it, I’ve heard it. We have to be there for one another and genuinely care. Mental health cannot be taken for granted.

It’s really tough to talk about personal problems unless you’re asked. When I meet someone, I don’t immediately throw all of my baggage on them right away, but it’s okay to not be okay. Someone who’s truly there for you and is empathetic will ask you if everything’s okay. We shouldn’t feel like we need to beg someone to hear us out. Therapists can do a great job of helping us with our issues, but why pay for time with a stranger rather than someone else in your life? I have nothing against therapy, but friends, family, and significant others are supposed to be there for you as well. You can be the bright light at the end of someone else’s dark tunnel by simply asking, “Is everything okay?”.
Mark Old PL/SQL Code as "Not For Use":12 Things Developers Will Love About Oracle Database 12c Release 2 Part 11
By: Chris Saxon
Tags: Sql, Software Development, Programming, Plsql, Oracle Database

Mark Old PL/SQL Code as "Not For Use":12 Things Developers Will Love About Oracle Database 12c Release 2 Part 11 Chris Saxon Follow Oct 18, 2017 · 2 min read

Times change. New code quickly becomes legacy code. And legacy code is often superseded by better, faster code. So you deprecate the old code.

But this brings a problem:

How do you stop people using the legacy modules?

People tend to stick with what they know. Even after you’ve repeatedly told everyone to move to the new module there’s always (at least) one developer who insists on using the deprecated procedure instead of the newer, shinier option.

And in complex applications it’s tough to keep track of what’s obsolete.

This is tough to solve.

So to help you with the deprecation process, we’ve introduced a new pragma for this.

To use it, place

pragma deprecate (

deprecated_thing,

'Message to other developers'

);

below the retired section.

Great. But how does it help?

We’ve added a bunch of new PL/SQL warnings: PLW-6019 to PLW-6022. Enable these and Oracle will tell you if you’re using deprecated code:

alter session set plsql_warnings = 'enable:(6019,6020,6021,6022)'; create or replace procedure your_old_code is

pragma deprecate (

your_old_code,

'This is deprecated. Use new_code instead!'

);

begin

null;

end your_old_code;

/ show err

Warning(2,3): PLW-06019: entity YOUR_OLD_CODE is deprecated

This is great. But we’ve all been ignoring the “AUTHID DEFINER” warning forever! If code is truly obsolete, it would be good if you could stop people using it all together.

Fortunately you can!

Here’s the great thing about warnings. You can upgrade them to be errors! PLW-6020 is thrown when you write code calling a deprecated item. Set this to error and the offending code won’t compile:

alter session set plsql_warnings = 'error:6020'; create or replace procedure calling_old_code is

begin

your_old_code();

end calling_old_code;

/

show err

3/3 PLS-06020: reference to a deprecated entity:

This is deprecated. Use new_code instead!

Of course, if you turn PLW-6020 into an error system wide, a lot of stuff might break! So you can selectively upgrade it on given objects:

alter procedure calling_old_code compile

plsql_warnings = 'error:6020' reuse settings;

So now you have the power to force others to stop using pre-historic code.
Driving to a Waterfall
By: Trapper Markelz
Tags: Poetry, Free Verse

Photo by Corwin Thiessen on Unsplash

We think the birds are singing,

but they laugh while we lie

in our beds, the world thumping

around us like four wheels

crossing a covered bridge built

to keep us safe from above and below.

Deep within the boarded up belly,

radios cut with a static hiss,

and the rain stops for two seconds

of sudden silence.
GrabaMeal: the decentralized meal sharing economy to implement trust and transparency in operation
Tags: ICO, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum Blockchain, Bitcoin, Peer To Peer

Introducing personal properties for commercial uses as sharing and renting basis in now a popular trend in business: Uber and AirBNB are the two successful business modules working successfully worldwide.

Like room sharing and ride sharing, meal sharing as a business model has great potential to explore, which is executed by the GrabAMeal platform, which is a meal sharing platform, enabled by P2P networking, empowered by blockchain, ensuring trust and transparency in its business transactions.

How GrabAMeal works?

GrabAMeal intends to launch a global platform for integrating healthy food seekers (buyers) with people, willing to serve preferred freshly prepared and tasty meal on demand (sellers). The core idea is to find the type of food one wants to consume from the options available within a specified area. The listed sellers can receive the order, prepare the food, and deliver it delivery on time at a prefixed place. The modes of delivery is expected to evolve over time, but initially, it has planned as “Take away” or “Dining in” although the provision of “Home Delivery” option has kept open if the seller can provide the facility to the buyers.

To make this peer-to-peer operation smooth sailing and bringing in transparency and trust amongst its participants, GrabaMeal relies on three protocols, i.e., identification, reward, and dispute resolution.
Where #ImFrom: Struggle for satisfaction
By: Aj
Tags: Asian American, Filipino, Japan, Im From, Identity

By Armand Cuevas

In Japan, more so than in America, I am reminded that I am not white.

The question of “Where are you from?” in a place as diverse as California was almost always innocuously aimed at your hometown — the place you grew up — instead of being an indirect way of asking about your ethnicity.

Armand holds a lantern in front of the Tokyo Skytree. (Photo courtesy of the author)

When I first moved to the suburbs of Tokyo to be an English teacher, the question became one I answered almost daily. If I interact with somebody new, my country of origin is brought into question.

When I say that I am American, half the time I get the following questions:

“What are your parents?”

“Where are your parents from?”

“Is your father American?”

At first, I struggled to answer these questions, in part because my Japanese is subpar. Now, I am quick at knowing how to answer.

My parents were both born and raised in the Philippines, got married and moved to America, where I was born and raised. All of us have American citizenship and we identify as Filipino Americans.

Japan is one of the most homogenous countries in the world, so I understand why I’m asked that question. I visibly stand out as someone of Filipino descent, and the country has a known history of insularism, so seeing non-Japanese people is a novel experience for many.

I’ve noticed the nuances of vocabulary between the two languages. In English, you simply combine the identifiers, sometimes with a hyphen. However, in Japanese, when I say I am Filipino American, I use the phrase “firipinkei amerikajin,” which can be more directly translated to “American of Filipino descent.” There is a subtle implication that being both Filipino and American is a bit anomalous.

It is hard to deny that I and other Asian Americans living in Japan are often asked the follow-up questions that dig deeper into our ancestry and ethnicity, as if “America” isn’t a satisfactory answer. Meanwhile, our white American colleagues are not asked this question since it’s a given that you’re white and American. The curiosity, intrigue — whatever you want to call it — stops there.

This is part of a series called #ImFrom, where members of the AJ+ community share personal stories about the question, “Where are you from?”
Getting To Know JavaScript Built-In Methods — Objects
By: Tolani Benson
Tags: Programming, Javascript Tips, Software Development, JavaScript, Javascript Development

JavaScript Object Methods

Returns an array of the keys that the object contains. (A more advanced version is Object.getOwnPropertyNames(obj) which also returns non-enumerable properties, but I won’t go into this here, read the docs for more information about enumerable & non-enumerable properties.)

Returns an array of the values of each of the elements in the object.

Returns an array containing nested arrays for each key-value pair. The first element in each nested array is the key, and the second is the value. Eg:

obj = { a: 1, b: "b", c: [3,4,5] } Object.entries(obj)

>> [["a",1], ["b","b"], ["c",[3,4,5]]

Creates a new object from an array of key-value pairs passed as the argument. Returns the new object.

Adds the key-value pairs from the source element to the target element. Mutates the target element. Return value is the mutated target element. If there are duplicate key names the values in the target will be overwritten with the values with the same key names from the source element.

Prevents an object from being edited — makes it immutable. You may have noticed that I defined the person object at the start as a constant, but I was still able to add new properties and edit the values of existing properties. This is because objects point to a specific point in memory, and the constant refers to the location in memory of the object, not the content. Using Object.freeze you can prevent the data within the object from being changed. An attempt to do so will either fail silently, or in strict mode will throw an error. However, it is worth noting that this only applies one level deep, so be aware that it is still possible to change the values of nested objects. The return value is the object which was frozen.

Checks whether the object passed in is frozen. Returns a boolean.

A less strict version of Object.freeze. Prevents properties from being added to or deleted from an object, but the values of existing properties can be changed. Returns the object which is being sealed.

Checks whether the object passed in is sealed. Returns a boolean (will also return true for objects which are frozen).

Prevents new properties from being added to an object, but existing ones can be edited and deleted. Returns the object passed in.

Checks whether the object passed in is able to have new properties added. Returns a boolean.

For more advanced users. Returns an object containing nested objects detailing the configuration of the descriptors (such as value, writable, configurable etc) for each key/property of the provided object.
Tovit- a COVID-19 toolkit
By: Sidra Ahmed
Tags: Open Source, Covid 19, Code Spotlight, Watson Discovery, Watson Assistant

Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash

Recently we went through a major change in life, we had to change how we live, how we work, and where we go. COVID-19 has been classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization and with the cases rising daily, we can still say that we are not safe. With movement restrictions to lockdowns in many countries, COVID-19 has changed our lives and our responsibility as humans is to stay safe and keep our loved ones safe.

There are many ways a person can stay safe nevertheless, we also need tools and proper information. Informative tools may include chatbots, dashboards showing the cases and maps which mark supplies. In addition to this, a recent idea termed contact tracing allows us to track our movement into COVID-19 hot spots. With the help of latest technologies such as Watson Assistant, Watson Discovery and open-source projects, we can develop new applications and ideas which can help us aid the community.

Considering the staggering impact this pandemic has had on different communities and the global economy, here’s a take on a COVID-19 toolkit solution Tovit built by me, Fawaz Siddiqi, Mridul Bhandari, gselentumkaya and Faiz Hasan.

Here’s a brief about Tovit in a nutshell:

Tovit is a one-stop-app with all the assets you need to stay safe from COVID-19 and be well equipped with all the necessary resources. Our app consists of three components :

— A dashboard that gives us a visualization of the number of cases by countries as well as global cases.

— An open-source contact tracing module within the app which works based on barcode hosting and registry.

— A map that points to the closest supermarkets/groceries allowing you to meet your daily needs.

— A chatbot which gives more information about COVID-19, also including self-screening.