fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Multiple vs Multivariate Regression
By: Sameer Bairwa
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, Regression, Linear Regression

Multivariate Regression is a method used to measure the degree at which more than one independent variable (predictors) and more than one dependent variable (responses), are linearly related.

Most regression models are described in terms of the way the outcome variable is modeled:

In linear regression the outcome is continuous,

Logistic regression has a dichotomous outcome,

Logistic regression has a dichotomous outcome,

Multivariate analysis refers to statistical models that have 2 or more dependent or outcome variables.

A multivariate linear regression model would have the form

Y_(n×p)= X_(n×(k+1)) β_((k+1)×p)+ ε

where the relationships between multiple dependent variables (i.e., Ys) — measures of multiple outcomes — and a single set of predictor variables (i.e., Xs) are assessed.

In any data analysis, the goal is to extract the accurate estimation from raw information.

One of the most important question is whether a statistical relationship between a response variable (Y) and explanatory variables (Xi) exists or not.

An option to answer this question is to employ regression analysis in order to model this relationship.

Multivariate Regression is one of the simplest Machine Learning Algorithm.

It comes under the class of Supervised Learning Algorithms i.e., when we are provided with a training dataset.

Multiple vs Multivariate Regression

The terms multivariate and multiple are often used interchangeably.

However, these terms actually represent two very distinct types of analyses.

A regression analysis with one dependent variable and 8 independent variables is NOT a multivariate regression. It’s a multiple regression.

Multivariate analysis ALWAYS refers to the dependent variable.

But what about multivariate analyses like cluster analysis and factor analysis, where there is no dependent variable, per se?

It’s not really about dependency.

It’s about which variable’s variance is being analyzed.

We’re just using the predictors to model the mean and the variation in the dependent variable.

References:

1]http://cs229.stanford.edu(For more information on Multivariate Regression)

[2]http://docs.scipy.org (For using “NumPy” library with python)

[3] Some examples are taken from

http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/dae/mvreg.htm
My Home is Burning
By: Feather Tales
Tags: Poetry, Climate Change, California Wildfires

My Home is Burning

Wake up, little girl, your home is on fire.

Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

I existed in a well,

dark and endless, surrounded by cement and bricks,

small flowers peeked out at me from within imperfect cracks,

and I peered back.

Sweet cosmos, of pale pinks and blue-

I followed you,

up and out and through,

but it was wrong-

the view.

Overhead, puffs of orange hues blanketed the skies,

while smoke stuffed air filled my lungs,

and stung my eyes.

I had been asleep in darkness,

dreamt in waves of waste,

never changing,

never trying,

never healing,

never learning,

I opened my eyes too late

and now-

My home is burning.

~Feathertales

I have been struggling to write this poem for weeks. I don’t really have words for what's happening on the west coast — where my family is, where I grew up and lived, up until two years ago. I can’t put into words what California is to me, other than home. I used to walk down uneven pavements, under a grey, cloud-covered sky, the coastal breeze whipping my hair into an unruly mess and a smile onto my face. I used to listen to waves lapping on the shore, the sea lions barking in the distance whilst my hands drew words on the sand.

Now all I see is red and orange and smoky skies on the television. I see my mother’s backyard covered in ash in pictures. I see forests and homes burnt to nothing. It’s still spreading. Every year it gets worse.

Climate change is real and it’s time for us all to wake up.
ITC Progress in Technology and Marketing
By: Iot Chain
Tags: Announcements, English, Iot Chain

On the basis of the existing node communication, attributes of generating public and private key pairs as well as light and heavy nodes have been added. Coding debugging to the main chain thread at the networking stage, as well as network interaction between the main chain and nodes have been completed. In next week, transaction and DAG will be added to nodes and the main chain.

Multiple nodes:

Bluetooth communication code among phones and network communication code between phones and servers of our android app haven been realized. And we are optimizing wallet code of ios app.

Announce in advance-ITC technical first draft whitepaper will be list at the end of Jan!

Marketing partnership

ITC listed on

Huobi: https://www.huobi.pro/zh-cn/

Bibox: https://www.bibox.com/

Coinbene: http://www.coinbene.com/#/

CEX.com: https://cex.com/

OKEX.com: https://www.okex.com/

Since Christmas, the price of ITC has been growing straightly. On 12.25, it was only $1.05, market value of circulation was around $50 million. But until 1.4, the price has changed to $6.85, and the market value of circulation have been up to $300 million. In total, price increase over 552% and circulation market value increase over 554%.

Strategic alliance with Acute Angle Cloud

The ITC team announced to join hands with Acute Angle Cloud and the two sides reached a strategic alliance to explore and practice the application of IOT operation system in various industries as well as to promote the innovation and development of blockchain technology.

Strategic cooperation partnership with Adzar Energy

ITC announced to cooperate with Adzar Energy, a leading company of distributed energy overall scheme, to construct the new ecosystem of distributed photovoltaic market. This will not only change the current circulation and transaction modes of clean energy market, but also promote the application of blockchain technology in energy industry.

ITC Received Millions of Investment from Link VC

The ITC (IoT Chain) project announced the acquisition of millions of investments from Lync, and the two sides reached a strategic partnership to jointly build a IoT Chain ecosystem, based on blockchain technology.

Lin Japing also said, ITC, is an exceptional blockchain project in the industry which has already made its first step into the scenario application of the blockchain project. He believes it is very likely to become the key factor in a new round of industry innovation.

ITC and GVE reached a strategic cooperation to jointly promote the development of blockchain

Recently, ITC announced a strategic partnership with GVE’s Global Blockchain Rural Ecosystem. Both parties will join forces to promote the application and popularization of the blockchain.
Announcing Our Successful 2018 Financials Audit by Big Four PwC
By: Hugo Finkelstein
Tags: Audit, Token, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

LGO Becomes the First Euro-Zone Company That Raised Funds Through an ICO to Have Its Financial Statements Audited by PwC

LGO has set a goal of building a fully transparent, secure and fair digital asset trading platform focused on the needs of both institutional and retail investors.

With this ambition in mind, we are proud to announce that our 2018 financial statements have been audited by the Big Four audit firm PwC. By doing so, LGO becomes the first euro-zone ICO-company to be audited by PwC.

Over a period of several months, the financial statements of LGO, incorporated in France, were subject to PwC France’s auditing process.

Cryptocurrency has brought a new level of complexity to the auditing approach. One of the main challenges was to establish the ownership of cryptocurrencies and tokens which LGO (previously known as Legolas) received and created during our successful Initial Coin Offering in 2018. This was made possible thanks to the new Halo tool developed by PwC to support the auditing of cryptocurrency.

At LGO, we share the purpose of building trust and pursuing our commitment towards full transparency and innovation.
Weekly update #5
By: Live Stars
Tags: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Weeklyupdate, Bitcoin

Exchanges — Currently we are waiting for Cryptopia, and we hope that they will process our request for listing as soon as possible. We are considering Livecoin exchange as an option for listing as well. We would like to know your opinion about listing on Livecoin. At the moment LIVE is available on Openledger and Forkdelta.

Beta version — Everything goes well. It is constantly being developed and improved. Soon, the first beta version of the platform will be moved to a new server with a new domain. The platform is ready for uninterrupted broadcasts via the modified WebRTC, the first version of the beta will have private anonymous chats between models and users, a private chat, payments with LIVE tokens, as well as the direct deposit and withdraw to the platform account.

Legal side — Registration in Cyprus is in the process. The necessary documents have been submitted to the Cyprus register. Next step after the establishment of the Cyprus company will be the acquisition of a statement on compliance with the accounting requirements of 18 U.S.C. 2257. Only after this label, models will be allowed to appear online.

Important Note — Since users will be able to pay models only in LIVE tokens, which will be purchased on exchanges in the first stages, we urgently need to get new listings before the release of the beta for token availability on the market and the required trading volume.

Also, we want to note that the beta version, despite the work that is being done, is still a raw product and will be constantly updated starting from the design and up to the functional side of the platform. We would like to remind you that the final release of the finished product is planned at the end of this year. However, as we planned, after obtaining the permission for the Cyprus company, we will begin the first broadcasts. Users will be able to spend interesting time on the platform, and the models will be able to earn LIVE while we continue to develop and will promote the platform and attract new users and models. Beta version announcement is planned after LIVE will be added to the new exchange (Cryptopia or Livecoin), since we do not see the point of doing this without exchanges and models.
Beauty and The Beast
Tags: Craft, Culture, In The Know, African American, Quilting

Starving for cultural experiences during these pandemic times could be seen as the sign of a deficiency affecting one’s current mental health. But a visit to the Katonah Museum of Art to encounter the beautiful textile creations of Bisa Butler turned out to be an immediate cure for any such anxiety.

My first impression was an overflow of emotion in the face of these colorful life-scale portraits. The subjects of these pieces all face front, intricate collages of fabrics skillfully stitched together in a reinvention of the technique of quilting.

The exhibition opened with an explosion of color in which five nonchalant but elegant young men are superimposed on a zig-zag rhythmic background that magnifies their silhouettes. “Southside Sunday Morning” is Bisa Butler’s interpretation of a famous black and white photograph of dapper young black men shot by Russell Lee on Easter Sunday 1941 in Chicago.

Bisa Butler has transposed her gift as a painter by using fabrics and patterns that tell layered stories. But she takes it to the next level by searching through photographic archives, specifically to do with the Depression, to find the inspiration for her quilting compositions in the dignity of previously anonymous black people.

My subjects stand in defiance against racist stereotypes.

This visual investigation has grounded her art to a new level of meaning.

How to witness the past, the silence of unknown people, captured in an ordinary moment of history.

How to empower black identity.

How to connect to the reality of today.

How to elevate this ancient craft of quilting to a legitimate act of artistic creation.

African-American quilting tradition goes back to the time of slavery, when highly skilled women made quilts for everyday use by using scraps of fabrics to beautify textile juxtaposition. This craft has always been an activity that collectively binds women together, transcending the slow process of sewing, tapping a resilient inner communal force. Historians have referenced the fascinating story of Underground Railroad Quilts, which embedded secret codes in the form of symbols such as Bow Tie, Bear Paw or Log Cabin, communicating to the slaves the pathway to freedom while also providing them with clues on how to survive the journey.

In the same way, Bisa Butler uses a graphic language full of symbolic significance to underscore her portraits. From her grandmother and mother, she inherited the New Orleans culture and love of sewing. From her father, born in Ghana, she embraced the rich patrimony of West African wax printed fabrics, full of joyful pop culture iconography. A bird out of its cage stands for freedom; Euro currency signifies wealth. Elsewhere, iconic figures are honored — a shoe pattern represents the inspiring confidence of Michelle Obama; repetitive medallions celebrate the wisdom of Nelson Mandela.
Deep Cuts
By: Fọlábòmí Àmọ Ó
Tags: Heartbreak, 2020, Love, Poetry, Africa

I hope

I will find love

again

I hope

I can get

over you

someday

for I still

love you

but the wounds

you cut

are still too deep

to heal.
Object Detection Zoo PART-5 | Bottle Detection
By: Mihir Rajput
Tags: Bottle Detection, Deep Learning, Yolo, Data Science, Object Detection

As an environment-friendly person, I would suggest that plastic bottles should not be used or used with limitations.

To do so automated monitoring would be required. That’s the important reason I chose to train the bottle detection algorithm on this world environment day!

Here are some use-case scenarios which can use the bottle detection,

Beaches, lakes, gardens, cinema halls, some streets where bottles are not allowed, bottle detection can be used to monitor these areas automatically using CCTV cameras.

Bottle manufacturers can use this for counting and monitoring purposes.

Automated or ROBO hotels(which uses automated serving using robots) can use bottle detection to verify if all the essentials(water bottles primarily) are available on the table or not.

Some of these use-cases may not make any sense,

Maybe you can think of a better use-case/application for this!

In the end, it’s all about the individual’s capacity for imagination and thinking.

YouTube Link:

object detection | bottle detection

You can contact me for the weights/model via,

My GitHub profile,

https://github.com/mihir135

LinkedIn,

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mihir-rajput/

Email,

mihirrajput9@gmail.com

Any feedback or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Plague Vector
By: Zach J. Payne
Tags: Poetry, Life, Love, Pain, Grief

Now hearts may heal, but muscles, mighty scarred

may lose their strength and cease to operate

sufficiently. This life is mighty hard

and grief, a monster, given time, ablates

all living flesh. We wither from within,

eroding ever on like porous stone;

our corpses cut with caves. We wallow in

black pus and bile, bitter and alone.

Salvation lies beyond our weary hands.

The end — unlovely, yes — is preordained.

Exhausted bodies fail at life’s demands,

but, thankfully, this pathogen’s contained:

For when we die, we take our grief away

and others may swim on to better days.
The Biggest Career Mistake You Can Ever Make
By: Ayodeji Awosika
Tags: Personal Development, Careers, Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Inspiration

I can proudly say I’ve accomplished many of my dreams — from writing three books to speaking on stage in front of 1,000 people.

To a large degree, I owe the success I’m experiencing right now to a job I had as a manager of a video store making $10/hr.

There was a lot that happened in between, but if I connect the dots backward, that’s where it starts.

Before landing the job as the manager of the video store, I’d been hired and fired from a string of menial jobs (while supplementing my income selling weed). I could never hold a job down for longer than 6 months.

Deep down I knew I was intelligent and capable, but I had issues with authority along with an endless list of other issues that kept me from being a model employee.

The smart and capable person I knew I could be was buried beneath the experiences that shaped me into becoming someone I didn’t enjoy being. I wasn’t completely devoid of hope. I had the feeling that things would turn around someday.

Little did I know my life would change because of a job I took selling DVDs.

At the time, I was just looking for a job because I was broke. I happened to live by the video store so I walked in and applied. I filled out the application in persuasive detail (I was always decent with words), told the manager about myself and seemingly made a good impression.

I interviewed to become a “crew member” but the hiring manager saw something in me. He asked me if I was interested in becoming the manager of the store.

The thought that I was capable enough to manage a store was alien to me prior to him bringing it up. Someone seeing something in me was all it took for me to get motivated.

I accepted the job as the “manager in training.” To prepare for my new position, I started watching interviews of successful people and TED talks about leadership. I invested myself and the process I used to become a better manager led to me becoming a writer and doing what I’d always dreamed of doing.

In the process of learning to become a better leader and learn new skills, I started to share ideas and things I learned on my Facebook page. A friend took notice of my essay-like status updates and asked me to write some articles on his website he was working on.

I’ve been writing non-stop for years since. The birth of the career I always dreamed of indirectly came from a career most wouldn’t consider top-tier.

This is a roundabout way of getting to the lesson learned:

There’s something to be gained from every single job experience.
‘’What Bitcoin does to money, Peer Mountain does to Information’’
By: Peer Mountain
Tags: Technology, Blockchain, Media, ICO, Bitcoin

Another Podcast with Jed Grant. This time we can hear Jed being interviewed by Block.News.

‘’What Bitcoin does to money, Peer Mountain does to information.’’ says Jed. ‘’We enabled exchange of trusted information online amongst parties, as you were all sitting around the table.’’
Oops.
By: Adam Hrankowski
Tags: Mathematics Education, Mathematics, Math

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Oops.

How to fail at maths.

Have you seen my latest blunder? Here it is:

Can You Solve This Limit?

To magnify my shame, here is the video version:

Limit with factorial leads to familiar solution (YouTube).

The goal was to solve this limit:

Cool limit

I ended up with the right solution, but got there… um… creatively.

Some comments about my approach were generous. One writer on the mathematics stack exchange kindly called my derivation an “heuristic” before correcting my maths. Before publishing Two Concise Proofs of Harmonic Series Divergence, I received valuable feedback on that site. Perhaps I should have followed my own example.

I have since set up warning beacons on both the article and the video, lest anyone fall into the same pit. Each of these has now become a “spot the errors” exercise.

The point in all this? If you want to hit a home run, you need to be willing to strike out. Lots.

Major league hitters who strike out a lot tend to be more productive hitters. - Good Hitters Strike Out More Often Than Bad Hitters Do.

How can a student learn this beautiful fact?

There’s a test on Thursday, and I don’t have time to play around. Show me how to get the answer in the back of the book.

Who can blame that student? Grades do matter. However, exploration is more than a luxury in mathematics. It is mathematics.

If you would like to study mathematics, treat it like finger painting. Make a mess. Fail.

The enemy of success is perfectionism.
Xpo Network v1.2, TCRs, Curated Communities and more: New Stuff We’re Building at Prism Labs
By: Ankit Kumar Singh
Tags: Blockchain, Crypto, Ethereum, Work, Bitcoin

Xpo Network v1.2, TCRs, Curated Communities and more: New Stuff We’re Building at Prism Labs

And we need your help

In the past few weeks, we have been delving deep into how Open Sourced Communities should work and how can we ensure that people are able to find and join projects of their choice.

Our first experiment with Xpo.Network yielded great results for us. A white-labeled SaaS tool for projects to engage their communities with 12 reputed projects as users, thousands of active contributors which consist of some top crypto folks, and with well over $25k in rewards distributed already and counting.

The success of our SaaS product motivated us to explore what are the problems that people face during the course of building a more open organisation?

One of the most talked about things was, a lack of a platform for talented individuals and projects to connect with each other.

Our vision for Xpo Network is to serve as a new age collaboration platform for talented individuals and open sourced projects along with inventing new working models between the two parties.

In Xpo Network 2.0, what we are attempting to build is a self-organized community curated directory of contributors, a place to geek out about crypto projects with other enthusiastic people and form skill-based sub communities and teams to tackle problems and find new projects to work with.

However, a lot of questions remain unanswered:

Do we need a token curated registry?

Do we need ranking?

Do we need curators?

How do we give our users tokens?

What kind of projects do you want to be showcased on the platform?

Do we bring in other elements of the blockchain ecosystem such as Journalists, Investors, Traders onto the platform as well?

How should the tokens be distributed?

How should the governance structure of this platform look like?

Till now, by talking to a few folks from the community we found some really interesting things to debate.

People don’t want to vote frequently. They want to vote only when there is a major change in rules or their presence in TCR is questioned.

Airdropping Tokens to first members of the community is the best way to bring folks into our ecosystem.

Ranking Mechanism is really crucial for these Token Curated Registries. Especially things ranking update methodology and frequency.

For reference , here’s something we have been reading about a lot lately :-

Coming to the point, the questions above have been boggling our head over the past few weeks, and we thought it’d be best if we let the upcoming community members answer these questions.

By taking this route, this is the first time Prism Labs is going to build (or shall we say BUIDL?) a product in public.

So, if you think that you can help us out here, fill up this form and we’ll get back to you within 12–24 hours.
The economics of incubators and accelerators
By: Max Nathan
Tags: Coworking, Incubator, Urban Planning, Accelerator, Economics

Accelerators and incubators are business support programmes that provide co-working-based packages of support to young firms to help them grow. Widely used in the tech sector, they are now increasingly applied in other industries — including retail, fashion and design and household goods — even in the Bank of England.

Why should we look at these interventions? In a nutshell, they’re now a very visible part of the UK urban landscape. As of April last year, there were 771 incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces in Britain. NESTA have done some great work mapping their spread (see image).

In particular, there’s been an explosion of co-working, incubator and accelerator provision in London: in 2014 there were at least 132 programmes, 50% of which had arrived since 2012, and in 2017 the capital had 171, more than the next ten cities combined. Together with pop-ups, co-working and evolving high streets, these flexible spaces and practices are — arguably — starting to change the wider urban fabric.

It’s also important to look at these co-working models because of what they might achieve. In theory, incubators/accelerators can make entrepreneurs more effective, and help firms/founders to innovate. That feeds into long-term economic growth. In cities, they could also deepen clusters. They may also help groups — like some BME or female founders — facing structural barriers in ‘regular’ economic space.

Given that over half of UK providers now have some public funding behind them, it’s particularly important to understand whether these programmes actually work. For the more selective business models, like accelerators, providers might just be picking founders and firms who would do well anyway — what economists call a selection problem.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! Taylor’s token sale has been postponed for 48 hours .
Tags: Token Sale, ICO, Blockchain

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! Taylor’s token sale has been postponed for 48 hours.

In order to provide a fair experience to our contributors, we decided to postpone the crowd sale launch time in a few hours.

A few hours before the token sale, due to a technical issue in one of our server-side systems, some contributors experienced a considerable delay in our website while submitting their Ether wallet address to be whitelisted in the token sale smart contract in the Ethereum blockchain.

To guarantee that all contributors have the same and fast experience that is needed to be fair in a first come, first serve basis, we decided to postpone the token sale for 48h, time enough to update the server-side system and website and thoroughly test the fix which has already been addressed.

The new time of the token sale launch is February 21 at 2 PM UTC. The end date is now March 22 at 11:59 PM UTC.

We understand that this decision may be bothersome but, as we have mentioned before, we want to have a glitch-free token sale and be fair to all contributors.

We kindly thank you for your support and wish you a great token sale participation!
Four Sites for Otome Game Lovers
Tags: Anime, Manga, Translation, Comics, Videogames

Four Sites for Otome Game Lovers kkasagawa Follow Dec 10 · 2 min read

Haven’t seen a post like this — at least on here — and maybe it already exists but the more content the better, right? With My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! (or Bakarina) converting fans and harem members alike, I thought I’d do a round up of otome game (Japanese romance simulations targeted towards women) related sites.

These aren’t limited to games, but also include other mediums (Haha. Get it?). So, let’s get to it!

English Otome Games

The go-to blog for all information related to English otome games. Whether fan-translations, official translations, or original English releases, this place has it. Plus, they always give you a place to gush over new official releases like Aksys’ 2021 lineup.

Novel Updates

The ultimate collection of all fan translated web novels. Check their Otome Game or Villainess Noble Girls tags for inversions of the original ‘heroine’ centered story line where the evil girl— though…they’re usually not even evil — win the prince’s heart.

Don’t want to go through the whole site? Here are six standout translators —who don’t use Machine Translations (MTL)—that work extensively in this genre.

Kawaii Janakya Dame Nano!

Hand’s down the best otome game review blog I’ve ever read. Hinano has me laughing out loud every single post with her English language reviews of Japanese games. If you’re ever feeling curious about the latest from Japan — or hell, if you’re ever just feeling down and need a good chuckle — tune into her blog!

Wattpad and Web Novel

Okay, okay, I cheated by adding two sites here, but these two fall under the same category. That’s otome games (heroine or villainess time travel and reincarnation included) novels written by fans (often non-East Asian ones).

Web Novel in particular has official translations — like check out The Villainess Turns the Hourglass — and original content — The Villainess Aims for a Peaceful Life — alike.
Apocalypse Now and Again
By: Robert Turner
Tags: Humor, Philippines, Gardening, Asia, Ants

Apocalypse Now and Again

Based on real events in the heart of Asia

We are desperately looking for cover. We’ve radioed in our position and they’ve scrambled the fighters. In minutes napalm will rain from the skies and our enemy will be incinerated.

Their tiny lungs will explode from the searing heat and we will sit and observe with gleeful smiles from the safety of cover as they writhe on the floor in agony.

Okay, so no planes were coming, but the thought was immensely satisfying. I pick another very tiny red fire ant off my foot and crush it with relish. I am an animal and nature lover no more, this is war. There will be no prisoners, screw the Geneva Convention.

I only become aware of my tiny little passenger after he has sunken his pincers into my already swollen foot. The agonizing bite alerts me to the other eight little red ninjas, that have climbed unnoticed onto my feet and are now trying to select a virgin section of foot to set ablaze.

They are silent, deadly and completely immune to water, fire, motor oil and a selection of other liquids and solids we unleash on them. It’s their garden and no way are they giving it up without a fight. Game on. Our enemy may be small, but they are legion.

The problem is monumental. They outnumber us by millions, they have dug an intricate network of underground bunkers and they possess state of the art communication systems and lookout sentries posted in the trees with binoculars.

Don’t believe me? Leave a piece of food unattended in any location, and I do mean anywhere, for longer than five seconds and it’s gone, carried off by the enemy's supply lines which magically appear from nowhere.

Remain stationary for longer than ten seconds and the suicide squads strike. With no regard for their own safety, they attack remorselessly, resulting in the unfortunate victim having to perform a spontaneous rain dance to try and dislodge them. All to no avail. They’ve dug in and surgical tools are required to prise them loose.

It’s not a fair fight. We are bigger, supposedly brighter and definitely stronger, so why am I staring at my swollen feet again, on the verge of frustrated tears, wondering where it all went so wrong.

Whilst pondering this question, I am forced into the dance again, having stood still for longer than ten seconds to think. Stupid human. Forget the napalm, it’s time to go nuclear.

It’s just started to rain and an evil smile crosses my lips as I see tiny red butts scuttling for cover. The smile doesn't last long though, a sharp bite on the shoulder reminding me I forgot the mosquito repellant.

I wonder what the neighbors would think if they saw the foreigner gardening in a wetsuit?

I am also starting to suspect that the ants may be behind the slogan, ‘It’s more fun in the Philippines’. What better way to lure in a food source.
The Place Within
By: Dr. Christine Bradstreet
Tags: Faith, Healing, Inspiration, Spirituality, Poetry

The Place Within

No storm can touch you

The storm churns the surface,

While the depths of the ocean remain calm.

This is the nature of the place within.

Beautiful, peaceful, poised,

Perfect, whole, and complete.

Untouched by pain, sickness, or sin.

Immune to chaos,

Free of the ego,

One with the Divine.

You are not the churning surface.

You are not the storm.

You are the depth of the ocean.

Truth lies within.

The ocean knows she’s the ocean,

And no storm can touch her.

-CB

Visit me at www.christinebradstreet.com

You deserve genuine and lifelong happiness, the type of happiness that can’t be taken away from you no matter what sort of craziness is happening in the world. Read my book, Happy Ever After. We can all use that right now.
Uh Oh Moschino: The latest brand hit with allegations of discrimination
By: Whitney Alese
Tags: Fashion, Bias, Racism

Here we are, a mere few weeks into 2019, and fashion brands STILL don’t know how to act right.

This time, the offender is the Italian brand, Moschino, who is best known for their bold and satire laden pieces. Literally short months after Moschino dropped heavily hip-hop-influenced collection with H&M (barely recovering from their own racist marketing misstep), the Italian luxury label is being sued for racial profiling and discrimination by a former employee.

Shamael Lataillade, a Haitian-American and former employee of Moschino, makes several claims against her store managers at a Moschino store in West Hollywood, including saying that the supervisor discriminated against her and mocked her as someone who “practices voodoo”.

However, the most incendiary of Shamael’s claims is the use of codename “Serena” for Black customers who they felt couldn’t afford anything in the store. Serena, like Serena Williams, the greatest athlete alive right now, who could easily buy the entirety of that particular Moschino boutique if she so chose.

In her lawsuit, Shamael alleges that the store supervisor instructed store employees to watch black shoppers in particular, and to watch them particularly closely “if they didn’t have diamonds or carry name brands.” Store associates were also instructed to tell so-called “Serenas” certain items were out of stock in order to get them out of the store. The suit also alleges that the supervisor in question would record license plate numbers of black clients, and in one instance, called the police on a “suspicious” customer, Shamael says. That customer “turned out to be a high-profile rapper.”

Moschino has denied the allegations saying “complies with applicable equal employment laws and values and respects all customers and clients regardless of their race or background.” Interestingly enough, Shamael was terminated for speaking out against the codeword and other racist practices occurring at the store to Moschino corporate according to the suit.

To be honest, Moschino is a surprising brand to see this behavior from. This label is best associated with rappers like Offset and Cardi B among many others. The label’s creator, Jeremy Scott, has spoken out about gun violence and gun control as well as many other issues.

That all being said, a brand can be easily taken down by the individuals within it. After all, a brand is not a person but is comprised of many people. People with their own biases. People with their own ideas and ideals. People with their own hatred. While Moschino the brand may easily align itself with hip hop culture and people of color, individuals who work within that brand can just as easily not align themselves with those same ideals.

This post was originally shared on The Reclaimed Blog.
How to sell your service in a monthly package instead of your hourly rate
By: Eric Jan Huizer
Tags: Work, Freelancing, Clients, Client Relationship, Pricing Strategy

How I started and grow my subscription/ retainer business:

Let’s use my own situation as an example, I want to have more clients for a monthly retainer since that will give me more time to improve my overall service.

The first step will be to set a price, or in this case three prices since I want to use the decoy effect that I’ve mentioned earlier. I made three options which you can find in the previous part of this article, always make sure that you can help your clients without any stress to keep your service optimal. Be sure to describe every option as detailed as possible to make it easier for prospects to choose the best option for them.

I made an overview for myself of the work I need to do to get my desired recurring income each month within 40 hours per week. Right now I am not going into detail about how you can find your own rate for the service you provide, please let me know if you want to know more about this subject.

Now that your prices and offers are set, it’s time for the next step: being available for the client.

It is not only important to deliver on your promises, no, it’s also important to stay available for last-minute changes and receiving/implementing feedback. All my clients know that I am not available during weekends since these days are for me and my wife. Make sure to set rules, you can include a chapter in the contract saying that you respond to messages within 16 hours for example.

Also, don’t be afraid to include a guarantee or implement a free cancellation within the first month. I am not a fan of this, but some of my freelance-friends offer the first-month retainer/subscription with a 50% discount. Also, try to include all the things I’ve mentioned in this article to come up with your own unique monthly service that focusses on your specific clients. Make your service personal and focus on their specific needs.

I hope this article helped you to understand some of the things you need to do before you can enjoy your monthly recurring revenue. When you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment, I would love to talk about business with you.

If you like this article, you might also like:
Vite Labs Listing FRM on ViteX
By: Khun Sir
Tags: Vite, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Ferrum, Announcements

Ferrum Network Token (FRM) will be listed by Vite Labs on ViteX！

Deposits and withdrawals of FRM will start at 7 am (UTC+0), Feb 26.

Trading of FRM/BTC will start at 7 am (UTC+0) on Feb 27.

For the previous partnership announcement, check here: https://medium.com/vitelabs/partnership-vite-labs-and-ferrum-network-co-listing-9e583b8c760.

About Ferrum Network

Ferrum Network was built to address two fundamental problems impeding the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies: slow transaction speeds and the lack of interoperability between networks. It leverages the values of existing blockchains and connects them to a high-speed transaction layer that enables peer-to-peer transactions of any digital asset. Laser-focused on user-acquisition and global adoption, Ferrum Network has built a vertically integrated line of financial applications on top of the network, allowing users to buy, exchange, transact, and store any digital asset with no counter-party risk.

Related Links

Website：https://ferrum.network

Telegram：https://telegram.me/ferrum_network

GitHub: https://github.com/ferrumnet/fenova

Explorer：https://etherscan.io/token/0xe5caef4af8780e59df925470b050fb23c43ca68c

Twitter： https://twitter.com/FerrumNetwork

Reddit： https://www.reddit.com/r/FerrumNetwork/

Statements

The asset description is taken from official materials such as white papers issued by the official project team so that investors can better understand and evaluate the project. The content of this article is obtained through legal channels to ensure the reliability, accuracy and completeness of the information as far as possible, but does not guarantee the accuracy and completeness of the information stated in the official materials.

Vite Labs does not provide any investment advice or advice on trading techniques, models, algorithms, or any other schemes, and makes no representations, warranties, or guarantees to you of any kind. The Site and the Services are offered strictly on an as-is, where-is basis and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, are offered without any representation as to merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. The contents of this article shall not be used as the basis or evidence of morality, responsibility and law, whether expressed or implied.
Introduction to MotionLayout (part I)
By: Nicolas Roard
Tags: Motion Design, Android, Constraintlayout

Why MotionLayout ?

The Android framework already provides several ways of adding animation in your application:

This section will cover how MotionLayout differs from those existing solutions.

MotionLayout, as its name hints at, is first of all a layout, letting you position your elements. It’s actually a subclass of ConstraintLayout, and builds upon its rich layout capabilities.

MotionLayout was created to bridge the gap between layout transitions and complex motion handling. You can think of it in terms of capabilities as a mix between the property animation framework, TransitionManager, and CoordinatorLayout.

A mix between the property animation framework, layout transitions with TransitionManager, and CoordinatorLayout

It lets you describe the transition between two layouts (like TransitionManager), but can animate any properties as well (not just layout attributes). Moreover, it inherently supports seekable transitions, like CoordinatorLayout (the transition can be driven purely by touch and transition to any point of it instantly). It supports touch handling and keyframes, allowing developers to easily customize transitions to their own needs.

MotionLayout is fully declarative

Beyond this scope, the other key difference is that MotionLayout is fully declarative — you can fully describe in XML a complex transition — no code is expected (if you need to express motion by code, the existing property animation framework already provides a great way of doing it).

MotionLayout tooling

We do believe that this focus on declarative motion specification will simplify creating such animations, as well as open the way to provide great graphical tooling in Android Studio.

While we are actively working on this tool, it’s not available yet. It will likely be available once the library reaches stable / beta.

Finally, as a part of ConstraintLayout 2.0, it is available as a support library, backwards compatible to API level 14 (ICS) : which means it supports 99.8% of current Android devices (see distribution chart).

Limitations

MotionLayout will only provide its capabilities for its direct children — contrary to TransitionManager, which can work with nested layout hierarchies as well as Activity transitions.
We Feel for You, Chris Wallace
By: Tina L. Smith
Tags: Politics, News, Culture, Election 2020, Satire

SATIRE

We Feel for You, Chris Wallace

None of us would have wanted your job

Photo by Attentie Attentie on Unsplash

Dear Chris,

You’re getting a lot of heat today for your debate moderation last night. Most of it is deserved.

You placated when you should have reprimanded (“You’ll like this next question, Mr. President!”). You tolerated when you should have taken control. You gave up when you should have cut the mic — climbing on stage to pull it off the lectern, if necessary.

But, truth be told, not one of us would have wanted to be in your seat last night.

We can guess what you’re thinking this morning: “Host the debate, they said. It’ll be fun!, they said. You’ll get lots of screen time, they said.”

Never once did they say you’d be berated and abused by POTUS. Or that someone was going to shoot the Orange Man with a syringe full of adrenaline and pinch his nipples just before the debate. Or that he’d use the debate to launch his blatant voter suppression scheme using white supremacists to intimidate people at the polls.

Who could know such things are possible in a civilized society? Well, a society that USED to be civilized.

So while you absorb the blows from both sides, sit down and treat yourself to a big cup of Joe and your favorite morning sweet. I’m thinking a Cinnabon is in order, with extra icing.

You’ll get past this. Your career will survive. Believe me, your network colleagues are tipping their red hats and breathing a sigh of relief that it was you and not them taking the beating.

But be sure to get in the shower soon. It’s gonna take some scrubbing to get the stench of MAGA desperation that permeated the room out of your pores.

The drowning man always tries to take down the closest person. We’re glad you survived. Barely.

Flowers and chicken soup are on the way.

With deep concern (for you and, um, the future of democracy and the world),

The Weary American Public
區塊鏈、虛擬貨幣快速上手 | 新知交流 (上集)
By: Cobinhood 中文
Tags: Blockchain, Cobar, Law, Business, Cryptocurrency

in In Fitness And In Health
【妊娠11～16週目】つわりの症状をまとめてみた ～後編～
By: Aya Satoh Hoshina, ほしなあや
Tags: Pregnancy, Diary, 日本語, 日記, 妊娠

Written by

Japanese-English food/travel/lifestyle writer & translator. Lived 11 years in U.S., 5 years in Thailand. 海外居住歴16年の日英バイリンガル翻訳者／ライター。元記者／編集者。Loves 食／住／旅／写真／宝塚歌劇／猫
10.5 Presidential Social Intelligence Battleground Tracker — COVID Diagnosis Trump Sentiment & Issue Flow
By: Adam Meldrum
Tags: Social Listening, Joe Biden, 2020 Presidential Race, Donald Trump

10.5 Presidential Social Intelligence Battleground Tracker — COVID Diagnosis Trump Sentiment & Issue Flow

A pulse of how potential voters in battleground states are discussing the Presidential candidates

Please read the background post on this project if it is your first time reading.

Past posts:

— Our initial dataset from the week of 7.3 was detailed here.

— Data from the week of 7.11 was detailed here

— Data from the week of 7.19 was detailed here.

— Aggregate data to date through 8.14 was detailed here

— Language data from the weeks of 8.07 & 8.14 was detailed here

— Aggregate data through 8.25 was detailed here.

— Language data from 8.21–8.28 was detailed here

— Language data from 8.28–9.04 was detailed here

— Aggregate data through 9.5 was detailed here

— Language data from 9.04–9.11 was detailed here

— Aggregate daily support gained/lost data through 9.17 was detailed here

— A first look at Supreme Court Data was detailed here

— A deeper dive into Supreme Court Data was detailed here

— A language comparison between voters in NC and FL was detailed here

— An overview of the pre-debate top issues was detailed here

— Aggregate daily support gained/lost data through 9.30 was detailed here

— Post debate issues and sentiment were detailed here

Battleground States in our Analysis: AZ, CO, FL, IA, ME, MI, MN, NV, NH, NC, PA, TX, WI

Date Source: All data is publicly available and anonymized for our analysis from Twitter, Facebook, Online Blogs, & Message Boards.

Technology Partners: Eyesover & Relative Insight
Five Bullet Friday: Week 04
By: Ben O'Hanlon
Tags: Newsletter, Fintech, Blockchain Technology, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

Five Bullet Friday: Week 04

If this is the first time you’re reading our newsletter you can subscribe here and guarantee you don’t miss out on important news.

Tweets from our CTO worth reading!

Crosschain atomic swaps have been executed/processed solely with SPV technology which means users won’t have to sync (download) a full blockchain db or to run a blockchain daemon in order to use our DEX technology https://twitter.com/0xca333/status/1088245559134171136

Imagine if you could import/load new consensus rules DURING runtime? https://twitter.com/0xca333/status/1087904226460745730

GIN Platform adopt delayed Proof of Work

GIN Platform is the latest in a line of projects who have adopted dPoW that include GAME Credits, Kreds, Einsteinium, HUSH, SUQA, Verus Coin and Pearl Pay. To read the original tweet click here: https://twitter.com/gincoin_crypto/status/1086595631190298624.

ICObench raised Komodo’s rating

After reviewing the team’s progress, the rating was raised from 2.4 to 4.3 out of a maximum of 5. You can read the analysis here: https://icobench.com/ico/komodo.

Komodo is looking to hire an excellent technical writer!

If you could be that person or you know someone who fits the bill, please submit an application: https://komodoplatform.com/technical-writer-job-post/.

5 KMD bounties are being awarded to encourage the community to help new members

Join our Discord to help the community. If you feel someone has gone the extra mile to help you or you have any questions let Shossain know. Click here: https://discordapp.com/channels/412898016371015680/412915799251222539/535188945974198285.

Thank you for being a part of our community. Want to get these Five Bullet Fridays in your inbox? Subscribe here.