fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Text Extraction in Python with Neural Networks
By: Sarah Mason
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Python, Data Science, Data Mining, Neural Networks

Photo by sarandy westfall on Unsplash

Image capture makes a snapshot in time of a person, place, or object. Many devices include cameras for taking pictures. This is integrated into everyday life. When taking the picture, there is recognition of that picture and often an autocorrection. Taking that further, there is Optical Character Recognition (OCR) that can take a picture of text and create a usable file that is same as document. Creating a definition of a picture, understanding content, is a complex task. OCR addresses this, and a piece of OCR is knowledge from images.

Why AI?

Creating software to translate an image into text is sophisticated but easier with updates to libraries in common tools such as pytesseract in Python. This is a complicated task that requires an image to be statistically evaluated and assigned the highest probably match for each portion for a recognizable letter. Then, these pieces placed together to output a result without error that is same as the original object. This approach is deep learning using recurrent neural network (RNN), Long Short Term Memory (LSTM), to take an image as input and output text from the image in a file. This is known as text extraction from an image.

Project, Image to Text

For this example, take a picture of a receipt and save to local directory. Next, open Python with the pytesseract and cv2 libraries installed. Using little code, the image can be converted to text using a process of layers of learning to understand text from images and return only characters using layers of repetition to “drop out” leaving only text. For this project, pytesseract is pretrained to find only characters or numeric from the English language and will exclude information that is not a letter or number within that defined set. Output is to a file within local directory.

import cv2

import sys

import pytesseract if name == ‘main’: if len(sys.argv) < 2:

print(‘Usage: python ocr_receipt.py receipt.jpg’)

sys.exit(1)



# Read image path from command line

imPath = sys.argv[1]



# Uncomment and complete the line below to provide path to tesseract

# pytesseract.pytesseract.tesseract_cmd = ‘/usr/bin/tesseract’ # Parameters: ‘-l eng’ for using the English language LSTM OCR Engine

config = (‘-l eng — oem 1 — psm 3’) # Read image from disk

im = cv2.imread(imPath, cv2.IMREAD_COLOR) # Run tesseract OCR on image

text = pytesseract.image_to_string(im, config=config) # Write recognized text to file

f = open(‘receipt_text.txt’, ‘w’)

f.write(text)

f.close()

Conclusion

LSTM based models excel at complex tasks with a firm definition that can be learned through a training set. Python contains several methods of text recognition and pytesseract is an excellent library for image to text processing providing a way to learn from an image and generate knowledge based on analytics.

Example based on: https://www.learnopencv.com/deep-learning-based-text-recognition-ocr-using-tesseract-and-opencv/

More information on Python: https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html
[GEEKY] RubyConf
By: Pito Salas
Tags: Programming

The problem with conferences is knowing what session to go to, right?



Check out this talk called “ZOMG WHY IS MY CODE SO SLOW? Aaron Patterson. It’s really excellent. It has many specific pointers that I will be able to use as soon as I get back.



(Yes, in case you wonder: ZOMG)
The Most Important Quality in a Police Officer
By: John P. Weiss
Tags: Life Lessons, Inspiration, Personal Development, Self Improvement, Life

When I was a boy, my best friend, Steven, didn’t invite me to one of his birthday celebrations. He invited another friend from his school, and they went to a local carnival.

Steven and I lived near one another and were inseparable. Almost every day we got together after school to play frisbee, ride our bikes, and have fun. So naturally, I was confused and jealous when he excluded me from his birthday celebration.

My father found me sulking in my bedroom and asked what was wrong. I told him that Steven went to a carnival for his birthday with another friend, and didn’t invite me. I added that I wasn’t going to invite Steven to any more of my birthdays.

Dad sat down next to me and said, “It’s your choice, Johnny, but I think that would be a mistake. You don’t know why Steven didn’t invite you to his birthday. Maybe his friend was the one with the tickets to the carnival? You two spend nearly every day together. Perhaps he just wanted a change?”

I wasn’t moved much by my father’s reasoning, but then he said something I never forgot:

“It comes down to what kind of person you want to be, Johnny? Small people seek revenge. When they’re hurt, they want to get even. Big people take the moral high ground. They forgive. They treat others the way they’d like to be treated.”

It didn’t take long for me to get over the whole incident, and when my birthday party came around I invited Steven and had a great day. It felt good to do the right thing.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Dad’s fatherly lesson was yet another brick laid in the foundation of my character. There are many important bricks that well-adjusted people are built upon. Honesty. Integrity. Trustworthiness.

When these bricks are properly assembled and modeled by effective parents, gifted teachers, and professional mentors, they form one of the most important qualities that lead to success and happiness in life.

What is this vital quality?
30 Life Lessons Learned in a Startup
By: Stephen Moore
Tags: Life Lessons, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Self Improvement, Life

30 Life Lessons Learned in a Startup

How founding a company made me a better person — and how it may do the same for you

Photo by Annie on Unsplash

On the rollercoaster journey I have embarked on — starting a startup — one thing is for sure. No, it’s not that I’m broke. Well, that too, but…come on!

What I mean is: I have learned more than I could ever have imagined.

What’s more, the things I have learned have made me a better person. Because the lessons I learned in my business have transferred to my life.

I always thought I would get better at business, sure, but I never considered how the process would change me. How much it would push me to grow as an individual, to gain confidence, to believe in myself, to meet new people, share my story, and develop new skills.

The life lessons learned from this experience have changed me for the better forever. Here they are. I hope they will change you for the better too.
That’s it! It is Settled
By: Sue-Ellen Howe
Tags: Obey God, Decision Making, Listen To God, Change Your Life, Christianity

Today’s Five-Minute Friday prompt is “Settle.”

My first response is DON’T.

However, taken in the context of my life and God’s thoughts flowing in me right now it is more:

Settle in your mind this is a battle, and you have to be involved on every level to enforce the victory that I have destined as yours.

This rings true in every single area.

I have made a few absolutely necessary changes in my life and it is still a battle to maintain but I know it is the right thing and sometimes all we need to do is settle it in our minds that this is the way it is going to be.

One particular challenge to my chosen life change means, I have to get up earlier to be able to incorporate in my life, otherwise life gets in the way and my whole day is: push, push, push.

So today as I was making time for the things that I needed to do the thought that came to my mind was,

I need to get up earlier.

Photo by Maks Styazhkin on Unsplash

Then quite the opposite to my normal self condemning response came,

Look at your alarm going off in the morning as your invitation to new adventures in your new day.

Wow!

If I could print that on my heart what a difference it would make!

When we make decisions in our lives and settle it in our mind that this is the way it will be, somehow it becomes doable and sometimes even enjoyable.

Thank you, Lord, that you care about everything in our life and you want to be involved in very concrete ways. Help us to just settle in our minds not to receive the negative I can't and hold fast to the word of God and His promises and settle in our spirit that we will trust and obey the Lord our God.
How I Pamper My Freelance Clients To Receive 91% Repeat Business
By: Vijay S Paul
Tags: Business Strategy, Freelancers, Business, Client Relationship, Freelance Writing

Photo by Filip Mroz on Unsplash

Apart from my day job, I also work as a freelance communications & content strategy consultant.

Over the past 24 months, I have worked with 44 clients helping them with various aspects of their communications and content initiatives. At times, I bring in my additional skillset as a graphic designer and help out with branding & design projects too.

A few days back, I was reading an article on Medium about how it’s easier to retain clients than create new ones. Though I was pretty sure that I had quite a few such retainers, for the sake of the exact number I decided to ‘count’ it.

Of these 44 clients, 40 have been repeat business. Two of them actually go way back to 2013–14, when they were clients of my then startup.

I actually felt pretty good about myself. Proud in fact.

40 out of 44 amounts to 90.9%. Which is the best percentage I have ever had in anything.

I sat down with a friend of mine to make an unbiased note of what I was doing right. Some of these efforts were more from a thought perspective, while some were based on the actual work I was doing.
Ponder and the Ponder Gold Token Sale
Tags: ICO, Bitcoin, Token Sale, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

Large-scale matchmaking has traditionally been done centrally, either through online services such as Match.com or Linkedin, or offline through matchmaking agencies and recruitment firms. Informal matchmaking done among friends and contacts often leads to the best results but is very limited in scale. Ponder takes this informal matchmaking, and scales it for the mass-market using game mechanics and financial rewards. We motivate everyone to play matchmaker.

The Ponder beta is already available in both iOS and Android and has 70k users. The initial focus is on romantic matchmaking. Users drag and drop photos of singles they think would be a good match. If the couple like each other, the matchmaker earns $10. If the couple marry, the matchmaker wins $1000. Singles each pay $10 for every successful match, thereby earning the app $10 for each union.

For singles, Ponder is the best way to find quality dates recommended by friends and a community of motivated matchmakers. For everyone, single or taken, Ponder is a fun game-like experience where they can test their intuition and make some money.

Ponder Gold — Incentivizing engagement

The Ponder Gold token provides users with a number of benefits:

1. A Ponder Gold holder who is dating will be exclusively shown to the matchmakers that have the best match rates. In other words, singles will increase their chances of being matched.

2. A Ponder Gold holder who is matchmaking will be shown the most active singles, increasing their own match rate, and thereby potentially gaining more financial reward.

3. Only Ponder Gold holders can participate in Matchmaking Groups. These are private sub-communities aligned around values and interests, providing a more focused matchmaking experience.

4. Ponder Gold holders can offer other services to token holders such as singles events or relationship advice, with the ability to charge for their services.

5. As we expand into other verticals such as recruiting, Ponder Gold holders will continue to accrue special benefits.

Token Type: ERC-20

Link: http://tokensale.ponderapp.co

Token Sale Volume: 18,000,000 USD

Token Distribution:

25% Token Sale

5% Token Distribution

40% Purchase within app

30% retained by Ponder

Token Price: $0.2

Token Sale Start: 6am PST February 14th, 2018

Token Sale End: 10pm PST April 20th, 2018

Accepted Forms of Payment: BTC, ETH, LTC, Dash, Zcash, NEO, or USD.
🌞Warm Fuzzies🌞
By: Rolli, Https, Ko-Fi.Com Rolliwrites
Tags: Cats, Childrens Literature, Humor, Nonfiction, Life

NEWS

🌞Warm Fuzzies🌞

A brand new essay — with drawings

Hello, Friends —

A couple of things…

I have a brand new humorous essay, “Warm Fuzzies,” in the inaugural issue of Cloud Lake. It’s all about my disastrous attempts to volunteer for various philanthropical endeavors, and includes lots of original drawings.

I hope you enjoy “Warm Fuzzies.” Read it here.

Also — I have a new story for children, “One Gum Bubble,” in the latest issue of Short Circuit, available in short story dispensers worldwide. Check it out.

What have you been up to?
Anything Is Possible
By: John Ross
Tags: Inspiration, Faith, This Happened To Me, Christianity, Poetry

“Anything is possible,” my Lord, He said to me.

If God can raise a dead man, what can He do through me?

He can take a st-stutterer and set the captives free.

He can take that same man and lead him through the sea.

He can take a fearful Gideon and give him strength for battle.

He can take a fearful me, and give me a life that matters

He can take a blind man and open his eyes to see.

He can take our blind souls and fill us with mystery.

He can take a shepherd boy and one day make him King.

He can take your nervous whispers and give you voice to sing.

And He can take a bleeding woman and free her from misery.

And He can take your bleeding soul and fill it with victory.

Cause He can take a loaf and fish and multiply to feed.

For He can take our hungry souls and fill their every need.

He can take the hardest sinner and forgive their every deed.

And God can take the hardest man and bring him to his knees.

He can take a man in chains and free him suddenly.

And He can take our bondage and bring us liberty.

He can take a shepherd boy and fill his heart with dreams.

And He can continue to use that boy when he’s sold into slavery.

God can do the same thing with the dreams He puts in your heart.

But you must be patient and persevere and also do your part.

To dream as big as God dreams and live in faith abundant.

To dream as big as God dreams, I know I sound redundant.

But it’s a matter of life and death to seek the dreams you’re givin’.

So live with faith and power, in freedom as the chosen and forgiven.

Cause God can take your willing heart and change your destiny.

Because He wants to take you and make you His Hands and Feet.

“Anything is possible,” my Lord, He said to me.

If God can raise a dead man, what can He do through me?
Top Modern Data Science, Data Engineering, Machine Learning Tasks to Learn in 2021
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, Technical Interview

Top Modern Data Science, Data Engineering, Machine Learning Tasks to Learn in 2021 Uniqtech · Oct 22, 2020

It used to be mandatory to be a statistician to be a data scientists. While stats knowledge is still helpful, these practical data science tasks are now must-haves for job applications and data analytics interviews. How many do you know? No worries, keep this list in mind. We will have tutorials that address each of these categories. Subscribe and follow us for updates.

Supervised Learning: classification tasks, probabilities, expected values, maximum likelihood, most likely outcomes.

Unsupervised learning: clustering, grouping similar demographics or behaviors together, segmentation

Similarity: similarity metrics, distance functions, identify similar customers, groups, characteristics, demographics

Regression: best fit line, estimation, forecasting, projection, quantitative

Tree based algorithms: decision tree

Boosting algorithms: XGBoost, CatBoost

Compression: information theory, minimize, quantizationm, reducing data size

Optimization for models, optimization search

Co-occurance, co-variance, adjacency matrix, grid

Deep learning, convolutional neural network, generative networks GANs Generative language models

Recommendation systems, collaborative filtering

Neural search, search, indexing

Network analysis, link prediction, graph algorithms

Reinforcement learning

Causal analysis: randomized controlled experiment, A/B testing, statistical testing, remove confounding factors, isolating important factors

Machine learning fairness, ethics, privacy: facial recognition technology fairness, ethics, also data imbalance. Machine learning privacy, local machine learning, data leak through queries.

Did we miss anything? Write your suggestions below, request content for 2020–2021!
A Quick and Dirty Guide to Cultivating Influence
By: Tim King
Tags: Culture, Psychology, Influence, Self, Leadership

A Quick and Dirty Guide to Cultivating Influence

Building your tribe is easier than you might think

Influence is one of those things that we rarely identify in the moment, yet we are influenced by the people we know, the brands we consume, and the individuals we follow on a daily basis.

It’s the intangible qualities of how we’ve been affected that is often most difficult for us to grasp, especially when attempting to build our own personal influence.

Developing influence can seem like a hard road but with the following steps you’ll be well on your way to understanding influence, and how to cultivate your own.
Apotheosis
By: Indira Reddy
Tags: Abuse, Horror, Mental Health, Poetry, Free Verse

every night,

as the dark folds

the doors closed,

i fold into myself,

trembling,

in remembrance

of your barbs,

of your calculated touches

slowly dismembering me

from inside out;

i forget often that you’re

no longer here —

nothing sears habit

into muscles

like stark fear;

i sometimes dream

of replacing my dead heart

with your beating one,

perchance it might

prevent another’s torture;

sometimes i know

i am too far gone to heal,

you’re a virus

and i’m infected,

and all i can do

is pass it on

like a fairy-tale curse

on the next in line —

am i to be your

apotheosis?

i can see you concur,

salivating, eager-eyed,

confirmation of

your belief that

monsters are created

and torture your true art;

but despite the agony

of never-numbing terror,

there is something in me

that shrinks away

from sharing this pain

with anyone else;

is it sympathy

or a demented jealousy,

or just the resolve

of someone

drowning, yet clinging

to a broken piece of wood

that barely keeps them afloat?

i curl, wracked with doubts

yet hope flutters amidst

my slowly decomposing self;

i feel oddly certain

denying you is only weapon

i’ve left in this fight

to escape your clutches,

to remain somewhat sane,

to stay human
Golden Veins
By: Susan Brearley
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Love, Poetry, Fiction, Short Story

Poetry

Golden Veins

An Imagined Future

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

When the ice comes again

and the gold freezes

back into the earth

And the frozen water slowly tumbles

all the elements smooth

Your living spirit breath will

change sides and be grounded

And my roots will come up

and spin

Circle wind words around

your core

Hug and keep you

safe and warm

Until the Mother gives birth

again

Until all is forgotten

But I will remember.

I will breathe

Your story back to life

And blow the breath

into your roots

So they can grow deep

and you can stand tall

and pain free

And all your branches

and leaves can laugh, shimmer and shake

When I whisper

the wind word stories

And tickle your golden veins.
What Does Kotlin Buy You at Runtime?
Tags: Kotlin, Runtime, Java

Photo by Isis França on Unsplash

A strong Java developer, suspicious of Kotlin, challenged me with an interesting question, “What does Kotlin buy you at runtime?” It’s an interesting question because Kotlin runs on the JVM, what can it possibly do for you at runtime? This developer, with strong Java development skills, seemed to feel that any language running on the JVM, brought little if anything to the table if you really knew your Java. In a way I get that, but when you look at how distinctly some languages behave at runtime running on a common runtime, you know there’s more than just syntactic sugar at play. Scala and Clojure each have a distinct character from Java even at runtime. Elixir isn’t the same as Erlang at runtime.

So What Does Kotlin Bring to the Java Runtime?

These were my reactions.

All the newest language features to older more varied runtimes. The Java tagline, write once, run anywhere, is more true of Kotlin. Kotlin can bring richer features than JDK 14 to JVM 1.6, or JavaScript for that matter — so it can bring newer features, at runtime, to older JVMs.

Null Safety. Sure it’s a language feature, but it will, at runtime, greatly reduce null pointer exceptions. Same runtime, different runtime behavior.

Coroutines. A whole class of runtime issues in Java are avoided by coroutines. Thread safety and concurrency issues that can absolutely plague you with Java threading, can more easily be avoided with coroutines. I’ve written Kotlin code employing thousands of actors that ran stunningly from release one. Again, same runtime, but whole different nature at runtime. With Java that aggressively employed threading, I’ve literally spent days in Java runtime stack traces trying to sort out performance issues around data consistency and resource deprivation. Coroutines aren’t magic but I’ve never seen the same sort of runtime nightmares with them that I did with threads.

Tail recursion. You can always unroll tail recursion yourself into loops, but using “tailrec” I’ve been able to write some elegant recursive code that was never going to stack overflow at runtime.

Memory leaks. Kotlin’s more consistent code generation around functions and lambdas, and it’s emphasis on immutability, change the nature of memory use during runtime execution. Obviously they don’t eliminate memory leaks but I’ve never seen esoteric discussions about memory leaks like this one with Kotlin. Again, it’s the same runtime but the nature of the language greatly impacts the behavior of a running program.

I’m sure there are more, probably better, examples of how Kotlin behaves distinctly in the JVM, but I think I’ve made my point. You don’t have to change the runtime, to improve, through a language, how you utilize it.
Realistic facial animations of 3D Avatars driven by Audio and Gaze
By: Chintan Trivedi
Tags: Game Development, Deep Learning, Game Futurology, Animation, Artificial Intelligence

Facebook research has been working on the ability to create photo-realistic 3D avatars of its users, with the idea that their social network platform would one-day allow them to talk to their connections virtually using something like VR. These virtual faces have been named “Codec Avatars” by Facebook. This kind of tech has tremendous applications to the field of gaming, especially for the use-case of letting the gamers customize their playable avatar within the game to look exactly like them.

So today, I want to share a paper that proposes a method to animate these codec avatars. The paper from Facebook reality labs is titled “Audio- and Gaze-driven Facial Animation of Codec Avatars”.

The key idea is to generate facial animations including lip movement as well as expressions like happiness or sadness. The audio and gaze inputs are modeled together with a fusion architecture to obtain the end result, which looks very realistic. In order to fuse the two inputs, a mixture of Variational AutoEncoders (VAEs) is used, where the encodings obtained from these input signals are combined before producing the facial animation output.
Weekly update #8
By: Live Stars
Tags: Blockchain

23.05.2018 we have presented our community our beta version. However, it did not meet the initial expectations. As many of you have seen, stream wasn’t working for some of the viewers, also quite a few issues with the design popped up, especially for the mobile version, which included a “Give Tips” button that covered a part of the stream screen.

First of all, we wanted to apologize to our community. Our beta release performance was clearly not what was expected.

We have heard the voice of our community, and we’d like to explain what has happened and why.

It has been 3 months since our token sale and KYC, and all bounty procedure. Most of this time our developers have been busy creating what was competely missing during our alpha version state — administration panel, which has taken us a lot of time, media server support for broadcasting, private chat, private messaging, tips, deposit. This is our server-side functionality core, which had to be complete before we start further development. Also note that our core team only consists of 5 members and not all of them are developers.

We understand that those things are hard to be seen when stream is not working or website is visually broken.

During development, other part of our team was busy with legal side and community management. Legal side is entirely complete. Now only the software is needed to start, so we will switch to improving our development team so we can process more tasks.

As we stated in our roadmap, we are planning platform redesign which will change the way people see the platform. For now we are considering to close the beta test, so we can focus on fixing what is wrong in Beta 2.0. We will do our best to open the beta test again before the deadline and deliver product which will meet all your expectations.
Cloud storage is not as secure as you think
By: Casper Api
Tags: ICO, Blockchain, Investment, Cryptocurrency

Millions of people store information on “clouds”. However, most of them do not suspect, or rather do not think that their files may be freely available.

For example, in the summer of 2017, due to an error in the information security system, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail and CVs of US army employees leaked to the Network.

According to The Hill publisher, this information was collected for the recruitment company. All the information was placed in the cloud storage, where you can freely download all the materials.

This is not the first time that the information stored on the”cloud” becomes public.

However, the emergence of blockchain technologies can solve the problem of secure data storage.

Casper API is an ecosystem for decentralized file storage on any blockchain platform with smart contract.

In contrast to the classical services Casper API is missing a single storage server, which makes it resistant to hacking attacks, and the separation and encryption of files to guarantee their integrity.
Return
By: D Abboh
Tags: Death, Africa, Home, Poetry, Life

my soul is many rivers bleeding into seven Seas

long as the Nile deeper and wider than the Sargasso or the Mississippi

I am water on water, rolling on a river like Proud Mary

burning with love like incense

dancing through wild winds

feeling the sensation of breaths on my skin

soft watering my way through every obstacle of these day’s and nights

I always dream of leaving in Summer when it’s my time

in my year of return — if you ever seek me you will find

I’ll be sitting on the shores of the golden coasts

like a lighthouse watching the Ocean

as it waves its hellos and the longest goodbyes

the Sun will set and the Universe will rise

as I finally set down the absurdities of a lived lifetime

with wonder about immortality filling each blink of my eyes

I’ll know at last — I am home
6 Dog Breeds That Thrive in Quarantine
By: Kristen Poli
Tags: Pets, Animals, Pandemic, Pets And Animals, Dogs

6 Dog Breeds That Thrive in Quarantine

The perfect dog for the next lockdown.

Photo by Austin Kirk on Unsplash

One of the only “good” things about the pandemic is how many shelter animals are being adopted. Aside from the proven therapeutic and benefits of having a dog in the family, the dog will get a loving home, so it’s a win-win situation. The Pandemic Puppy Boom has helped the adoptions and sales of dogs soar during this time, and here’s hoping that those who chose to look to dogs for comfort during quarantine understand the lifelong commitment of caring for a new furry member of the family.

Numbers of COVID-19 infections are on the rise again around the world, and folks who may not have adopted during the earlier quarantine periods may find themselves wondering if now is the time to adopt a pandemic puppy.

What breed of dog do you get? What breeds are good with families, with small children? How much exercise will your dog need to be happy and healthy? What are the health risks of certain breeds? How will your dog be socialized if a lockdown is imminent?

Pandemic or not, potential pet parents need to thoroughly research their choice of dog before committing to adopting. To get started, here are six dog breeds (and a bonus one at the end) that would be thrilled to lay low and quarantine with your family and you!
HBO Max and the Lose-Lose Situation of the Film Industry
By: Kevin Tash
Tags: Film, Warner Bros, Covid 19, Streaming, Movies

HBO Max and the Lose-Lose Situation of the Film Industry

WB movies will now premiere on HBO Max day-in-date with theaters in 2021.

Source: Warner Bros.

The Warner Bros. run streaming service HBO Max, has just changed the game on theatrical releases. They have announced, and are the first studio to double down on streaming their new releases. Meaning every theatrical release from WB in 2021, from Tom and Jerry to The Suicide Squad, will be on HBO Max for the first month of their theatrical release.

It also appears that unlike Disney’s Mulan, these films won’t be charged an extra premium fee beyond the subscriptions service fee in order to watch these.

Most audiences and film goers praise this decision. It’s easy to see why, practically no one feels safe going to theaters and even after a vaccine is made readily available for the Covid-19 virus, there’s no telling when people will feel safe to go again. This is an amazingly pro consumer move and there really isn’t any downsides to it for us fans. The only thing missing is the fun of seeing these movies in a crowd setting.

But business wise this was a sticky situation. Big movies employ so many people the only way to realistically break even is by doing a big worldwide release. That’s why even big movies now cater to rating and content restrictions of other country’s laws. It’s just part of the business.

Not to mention contract stipulations and licensing deals dependent on theatrical releases. Cast and crew who would get bonuses and percentages of the theatrical gross, brand deals timed for a theatrical window, and plenty other hurdles in the way.

But the issue with this is, that even if movies go theatrical they won’t make the same amount they would before the pandemic.

And if companies aren’t releasing movies, that just means more time with something sitting on a shelf with no actual income.

It’s a real rock and a hard place situation. The studios, employees, and the theater industry all just want to stay afloat like any business. And it seems like no solution will make everyone happy.

No matter how the movies release, a lot of people will be left in the dust. Theatrical releases will keep all the percentages in the contracts well and good but most audiences still don’t feel safe in theaters.

Straight to streaming will cut out theatrical release deals with theaters and also potentially mess with plans made with online stores that sell digital copies of the films.

Also if it goes straight to streaming but costs a premium, like Mulan did, then you could potentially alienate your viewers if you price it to high.
Simple Async API Request With Swift 5 Result Type in SwiftUI
Tags: Programming, Apple, Software Development, Swiftui, Swift

Before we do anything let’s have a look at our API response in Postman

API Response

As you can see from this screenshot our API is returning to us an array of countries with it’s data in {…}.

So let’s look at what will we use in our app from single country data.

Single country API response

From this response we are going to use only name of country and population.
black/white, red
By: Deb Ewing
Tags: A Cornered Gurl, Racism, Multiculturalism, Poetry, Fake News

black/white, red

they used to teach us about propaganda in schools

Self-portrait, photo by debora Ewing

have a baby

they said

it’ll smooth everything over

-with my in-laws, they meant

I felt loved, a shiny white doll, minority

in a country within a country

America whose story is buried

in finer, browner, print

than black-and-white

the print is louder now

called suspect by provocateurs

like cheating at fantasy football

like choosing syrup teams

buried in finer print still

is the clear message

White is Might

White is Right

with a red triangle

where is our America?

we’re told our fathers escaped oppression

our mothers were settlers

but those are immigrants

and these were three-fifths at best

we all read that girl’s diary

remember our history, they said

but this one’s all white

with a red triangle

look before it’s gone

have a poem

they said

it’ll smooth everything over
REGIONAL MINISTER VISITS B.E.C.E CENTRES IN LA MUNICIPALITY
Tags: Education

REGIONAL MINISTER VISITS B.E.C.E CENTRES IN LA MUNICIPALITY

About 1,063 candidates began the 2015 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the La Dade-Kotopon Municipality on Monday 15th June, 2015 at the various examination centres. The centres were Armed Forces Secondary Technical. Compound, Burma Camp Compound A and B, Aquinas Senior High School and Labone Senior High School. On the other hand, the examinations began late at 9.25 a.m., the officers who conveyed the question papers put the delay on the personnel of WAEC who asked them to pick the question papers after 8 a.m.

Delivering his goodwill message to the candidates, the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Hon. Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo urged the candidates to exercise courage and run through the questions, select the one they could best answer since all question carried the same marks.

The Regional Minister said hardworking, discipline and determination are hallmarks for success. The minister made it known to the candidates that, the key to their success is in their hands and that is why they should focused and do the right thing. Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo urged the candidates to put in their maximum effort to pass the examination to put smile on the faces of their teachers and parents. He said “I hope God will give you wisdom and knowledge to answer the questions and pass”

Hon. Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo warned that any candidate who would be caught using any foreign materials to cheat would be expelled from the examination room and that will spell doom for him or her. Also with the minister were the Municipal Chief Executive of LaDMA, Hon. Rita Odoley Sowah, the Regional Director for Education, Mrs. Felicia Boakye Yiadom and the Municipal director of Education, Madam Bernice Addai.
Structure Your International Financial Interests
By: Henley
Tags: Finance, Taxes, Wealth Management, Global Citizen

James Quarmby, Partner and Head of Private Wealth, Stephenson

Harwood LLP, UK

Clients normally have clear ideas about where they wish to invest their money, be it in stocks, shares, or other financial assets. What is less clear to them is how those assets should be held.

Direct ownership is simple but affords little or no privacy and can expose the owner to various risks — from claims by creditors through to bureaucratic interference and local taxation. Instead, their financial assets are invariably owned by a company specifically formed for that purpose, often called a special purpose vehicle (or SPV).

An SPV gives owners much more privacy, as popular jurisdictions do not yet maintain public registers of ultimate beneficial ownership. It is therefore easier for the investor to keep his or her name out of the public eye, reducing the chance of opportunistic legal claims or more sinister threats such as identity theft or kidnapping.

The next question is: Where should the SPV be situated? You could choose from one of the zero-tax jurisdictions, such as the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, or Jersey, but these countries rarely have double tax treaties with other countries, which sometimes means a higher burden of tax at the source of the investment. The investor may also be penalized in his or her home jurisdiction for owning such a company.

This is why we have seen a growth in ‘low-tax not no tax’ jurisdictions such as Malta, Cyprus, and the Netherlands, which give preferential rates of tax and/or generous exemptions together with access to an extensive double tax treaty network.

Once you have chosen the best jurisdiction, you need to decide how to hold the shares in your SPV. These could be held directly or be transferred into a trust. The main benefit of a trust is that it offers a far greater degree of privacy and asset protection because the investment is no longer owned by the investor but instead by trustees for the investor and his or her family.

Structuring ownership for international investors is not easy, but where the underlying investments are valuable it can be a very worthwhile exercise.
How to buy DTC tokens at BitMeEx
By: Nikita Anufriev
Tags: Dating, Datecoin, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

1. Sign up at BitMeEx ( https://bitmeex.pro) . Specify your first and last names, email and set the password. It is 100% FREE. You will receive an email with activation link. Follow the link to complete registration and activate your account.

2. Complete KYC to get access to platform features. Click Wallet and choose DateCoin (second line from the bottom). Click Deposit. At the next page, click Proceed. You will be redirected to the Wallet again. Follow the links at the top left corner of the page to upload Proof of Identity Document and Selfie.

3. Upon KYC completion return to Wallet. Choose the currency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD, EUR, Litecoin, Ripple, etc) and click Deposit.

You will be provided with crypto address for transactions. You should pay to this address from your Wallet. Alternatively, you can pay with fiat using our banking details.

4. After your balance is credited, click Exchange. Choose the currency of deposit and click DateCoin logo at the right part of the screen.

Exchange the amount required to DTC. Check your DTC balance upon completion.

5. To transfer tokens to the app click Withdraw (either at the top of the page or in DateCoin tab). Specify withdrawal amount and wallet address in Denim. Transfer tokens to your account and confirm withdrawal request.

All transactions are initiated immediately after user request. However, transactions are usually processed in 24 hours (or up to 2 business days in specific cases). This fact is attributed to the specifics of transaction processing in crypto networks. Please, keep it in mind when making deposit or withdrawal.
When You’re Scattered & Scared
By: Emily Ann Peterson
Tags: Personal Growth, Personal Development, Advice, Podcast, Fear

At the time of recording this little peep show & mini episode, I was really overwhelmed. Like *scared* overwhelmed. I turned to my favorite ways of refocusing myself and regaining my sense of power. So that’s what I divulge in this little peek behind the curtain of the bravery I am facing first-hand.

Sign up for the Bare Naked Bravery Challenge here: http://barenakedbravery.com/challenge

Interested in hosting a workshop or concert this summer? Shoot me an email: hi@emilyannpeterson.com.

Listen to the Full Episode

Subscribe via Youtube | Apple Podcasts | Google Play | iHeartRadio | Stitcher

Keep in Touch with Emily Ann Peterson

http://emilyannpeterson.com

http://instagram.com/emilyannpete

http://facebook.com/emilyannpeterson

http://twitter.com/emilyapeterson

4 Ways You Can Support the Bravery!

I’m looking forward to being with you next week. We have some great things in store for you! Until then I have one message for you:

Be yourself. Be vulnerable. Be brave. Because the world needs more of your Bare Naked Bravery.
What is Analytics? Part II: A Longer Definition with Three Main Categories
By: Opex Analytics
Tags: Big Data, Data Science, Analytics

What is Analytics? Part II: A Longer Definition with Three Main Categories

by Michael Watson

In yesterday’s post, we discussed a short definition of analytics (“the ability to collect, analyze, and act on data”).

Of course, this is a broad definition. To determine your appropriate analytics strategy, it is important to understand the different categories that make up the field of analytics.

A team from IBM published one of the better definitions of the three categories of analytics in Analytics Magazine. The article is worth a read. Other organizations and universities, are also converging on the same three categories. These three categories, from INFORMS, are:

Descriptive analytics

Prepares and analyzes historical data

Identifies patterns from samples for reporting of trends

Predictive analytics

Predicts future probabilities and trends

Finds relationships in data that may not be readily apparent with descriptive analysis

Prescriptive analytics

Evaluates and determines new ways to operate

Targets business objectives

Balances all constraints

As a side note, the article in Analytics Magazine also is careful to point out that the above three categories apply to structured data. There is a branch of analytics that applies to unstructured data like analyzing consumer sentiment using Facebook and Twitter or analyzing written text for medical diagnosis like IBM’s Watson (from Jeopardy fame).

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Wonder. Fled. Vixen.
By: Milana Bojinovic
Tags: Free, Poem, Bravery, Life

Wonder. Fled. Vixen.

You wonder how, You’d ask me now

Photo by Mallory Johndrow on Unsplash

You wonder how

You’d ask me now

If given chance my dear

Why I’d decided not to hear

Or feel or see you even

So let me tell you then

Brief is the story about that time

Plain and simple, not sublime

When I had decided definitely

(And I had done so, firmly)

Not to hear

Not to see

Not to feel — nor expect to feel

Everyone or anyone but, well, me

And that’s all, indeed

Decided.

Abandoned.

Fled.

Deceased.

So it had happened

That is when it came to be

I had utterly made myself free

That is when I became ME

(lana)

Finally

I stood alone/free and bare

Finally

I shed it, left it, without a care

My fearful skin without a spare

So now I’m — brave!

A snake! -You’d say?

I shake.

But hey

I’m Eve(n),

Vixen

(Or so they say)
How To Share The Pain Of Others
By: Pierre Trudel
Tags: Sharing, LGBTQ, Americanhaiku, Womens Rights, BlackLivesMatter

American Haiku does not discriminate against any pain. We listen and read and report our feelings, no matter what we think.

America helps others no matter who we are. I am Canadien and I feel their hurt and their pain.No matter what I think, talking about it can solve, not doing so can aggravate.
Understanding Your Emotional Triggers
By: Rebecca Romanelli
Tags: Relationships, Emotions, Health, Psychology

These various defense mechanisms are all survival strategies. We have a central, core way we are wired to react but access all types intermittently.

So what can we do when emotional inflammation arises and shows it’s fangs. A powerful beginning is to identify and tag your triggers. I brought mine to the surface and took a good look at their origins.

I’m primarily a Molten Reactor and have to mentally override my initial emotional responses to cope with individual circumstances. I’m hyper aware of the three biggest triggers in my anger zone — any form of racism, sexually inappropriate behavior and environmental degradation.

When I backtracked in my consciousness to uncover the roots of my reactions, it was no mystery why I get triggered. My father was a first generation American raised by two Italian immigrants. He went through the public school system in New York City and suffered corporal punishment for speaking a foreign language at any time on school grounds. He was frequently judged as the son of WOPS [Italian immigrants without papers], an untrue assumption in his case. He also experienced racial prejudice due to his olive complexion and untamed hair.

He was adamant with all eleven of his children, that we should never, ever judge another person by the color of their skin or country of origin. He drilled this lesson into us often, in a variety of ways. I hold gratitude for his indoctrination of justice and equality for all and little tolerance for bigots.

I endured two attempted rapes while I was still a teen. Anyone who has experienced sexual assault can testify to the deep embedding with that trauma and the personal work it takes to integrate the wound. Many of us, including myself, go on to become advocates for the safety and well being of vulnerable populations.

I have had a steady love affair with the natural world all my life. It has been my place of worship and spiritual upliftment. I have immense respect and appreciation for everything our beautiful planet generously provides. When I read about corporate greed and the destructive effects energy vampires wreak on common and preserved land, I have to take an inflammation break.
Finding Your Self
By: Janaka Stagnaro
Tags: Sky Collection, Poetry, Self-awareness, Nonduality, Sprititual

Dear Beloved,

Relish not those who ‘have found themselves,’

For they are shod in iron shoes

Walking over the bog of time.

They find themselves in their jobs,

As doctors, lawyers, and teachers

Nurses, writers, and artists,

Accountants, politicians, and beggars.

They find themselves in their roles

As husbands and wives,

Lovers and ex’s,

Friends and foes,

Sons and daughters,

Mothers and fathers.

They find themselves in their beliefs,

As Buddhists and Hindus,

Christians and Muslims,

New Agers and Jews,

Pagans and Bohemians,

Philosophers and Scientists.

They find themselves in the land of their births:

New Yorkers and Chicagoans,

Texans and Californians,

Americans and Russians,

Earthlings and Aliens.

They find themselves in what they do for fun,

In what they hate,

In what they possess and do not own.

In fact, they find themselves

In every minute of every day.

And sink deeper moment by moment.

Only until you can smell the stench of the mud

And taste the sickness

Will you stop and say:

“I do not know who the hell I am.”

When that moment comes

The iron shoes will slip off

And you will slowly begin to rise.

When you begin to see

That all such notions,

All such identities

Are nothing but lies.

Then beloved,

Over this world you will skip

Asking the question:

“Who am I?”

Beware, dear friend, for the world is slick

With many alluring going on’s,

And lush places

Will continue to grab at you

And suck you down in your quest by saying:

“Now you know.”

Janaka skipped.

Skipped for a long while

Across the world with mouth gaping;

And in between soft breasts with mouth wet,

this and doing that,

Trying to find out who the hell he was.

And just for a moment or two

Even his skipping stopped.

Not because of any person

Or thing,

Or event.

Not even for an idea.

He just stopped

And knew the unknowing.

Now, when some beautiful eyes flutter,

Or when someone dear disappears,

And he forgets to skip

And sinks up to his big mouth —

A mouth that shouts to the world:

“I know what this is all about!”

Even the mud tastes sweet.

— Janaka Stagnaro
overheard in the hallway
By: D. Levolt
Tags: Work, Thesceneandheard, Poetry, Workplace, Poem

walking to the bathroom,

(one of the only

highlights of my day),

an

HR lady

talking to

her colleague:

“you talk about 20 years…

in 20 years

I’ll be on the other side.”

waiting for the day

when she

didn’t have to

struggle

anymore.

I didn’t know if

she was referring to

retirement

or

death.

does it matter?