fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
How My Toxic Positivity Destroyed a Relationship
By: Iva Ursano
Tags: Toxic Positivity, This Happened To Me, Life Lessons, Empathy, Family

I’ll be honest. I had no idea what toxic positivity was. Until someone accused me of being just that. So naturally, I had to Google it.

Now in case you’re not sure what it means, here’s the definition:

Clinical psychologist Dr Jaime Zuckerman explains: “Toxic positivity is a societal assumption that a person, despite their emotional pain or gravity of their situation, should only strive to have a positive outlook.

Guilty as charged!

I believe that no matter how bad things are you need to see the bright side, or “the positive side “ of it. I believe that things always work out. They may not work out the way you want or expect them to, but they work out the way they are supposed to.

But not everyone understands that concept.
My Dream, A Table
By: Jenny Justice
Tags: Poetry, Food, Dreams, Family, Trauma

My dream, a table

this table, a feast

my dream, a gathering

this gathering, for me

not for me as in mine, but for me

as in I can be here, as in I am known

I am seen, I am pivotal to the thing

it goes because I go, these people, my people

not mine as in mine, but people who like me,

who want me, who might in some way need me, or care

my dream, a table,

of laughter and food, of people asking me questions

and wanting to hear the answers, of people

passing the salad, sharing the wine

and here, on this day, on a day,

of meaning, being the meaning to the day

my dream, a table

that somehow resolves it all

that somehow sends me a sign that

trauma can stop rehearsing and that

hey, it is okay, see, look I am wanted, I am

looked to for something, I am

somewhat of a fixture to something

feelings of being irrelevant can cease, feelings

of being merely tolerated dissipate, feelings

of meh I bet they could take me or leave me can flee the scene

in this dream, my dream

of a table full of people, full of happy people

that are here for me.
Expectativas en un mundo de Aparatos Inteligentes
Tags: Normal, Comportamiento, Psicología, Numero 4

in In Fitness And In Health
Rescue me from this poop
Tags: Mess, Sin, Wisdom, Living Life, Perspective

That time of year again, we are entering the 5th season. You do know that we have five weather season, not five, right?



They are: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and…MUD!



Snowmeggedon is not a thing of myth & legend, but it has left a ton of mess with its exit. Yesterday afternoon I had the fun experience of cleaning up the yard from two months of Stitch’s work. It reminded me of a post from a couple years ago, so I thought I’d repost. Hold your nose, and read on…





_________________________________



Friday afternoon I walked out back to take garbage to the alley. The backyard is Stitch’s bathroom, so the white snow that was still on the ground made his dog piles pretty obvious. After getting a plastic grocery bag from inside I started the wonderful task of picking up after him. Late at night when I let him out I don’t go out with him because of the Chicago cold, which is also reason enough to let things go for awhile with a “I’ll pick it all up later.” Seeing the brown/white contrast Friday afternoon — it was time to pick things up. It didn’t look like much though. Upon starting I realized it was going to have to wait a little more. Frozen poopcicles are difficult to break free. I knew 50 degree weather was coming Satrday, so I decided to leave things for one more day.



Saturday afternoon Jeannette, Baylee, and I were going to go to Lincoln Park Zoo to enjoy the first nice day in a long time. We were outside ready to go when I remembered about the backyard treasures. “Let me go and pick these up really quick, there wasn’t a lot yesterday.”



By this time on Saturday, around 1pm, most of the snow had melted. Snow that had been covering up probably over a month’s worth of Stitch’s squattings. There was a LOT! There was definitely more than what I saw on the surface Friday. I literally almost filled a plastic grocery bag. Not fun, not pleasant. Disgusting.



My little backyard experience brought the reality of sin home to me in a real way:



If I would pick up after Stitch immediately I wouldn’t have a bigger mess to deal with later.



Isn’t that just how the junk in our life is also? If I’d just deal with things, not leaving them to the mercy of lame excuses, I’d have less of a mess to deal with later.



But no — I left things. Had a huge, disgusting mess to clean up, holding back a gag reflex at times. Had to wash my hands. Made Jeannette & Baylee wait for me, missing out on part of our planned fun.



Disgusting. And experienced because I didn’t just take care of things immediately, when I knew they needed to be taken care of.



Romans 7 is a great passage to read in regards to our struggle with sin. I’d suggest you check it out, especially verses 14–25. Here’s my paraphrase of verses 24–25:

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this backyard of disgustingness? Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Sunny Day
By: Emma Rose
Tags: Poetry, Positive Thinking, Thoughts And Feelings, Poet, Poem

Photo by Miguel Ángel Hernández on Unsplash

POETRY

Sunny Day

A Poem

Oh, sunny day,

You make my world shine.

You bring me light,

Even on the dullest day.

Giving me some sunshine,

To help soothe my pain away.

Oh, sunny day,

You amaze me,

On how bright you are.

Spreading the warmth,

Enough to go around.

Oh, sunny day,

Keep shining so bright.

Giving me the light, I need,

To get by.
TEDxTokyo yz 2017 委ねられた豊かな時間と空間
By: Takahashi Kayoko
Tags: Tedxtokyoyz, 健康, Tedx, 日本語

in In Fitness And In Health
A better way to set RecyclerView items margin
By: Cesar Morigaki
Tags: Android, Margin, Itemdecoration, Lists, Recyclerview

List is a common component that every Android developer implements in its routine/daily basis. At some point, we need to add a divider between items and/or just adjust the margin for cards to be displayed harmonically. As it’s a common problem, there are plenty of old answers on the internet on how to solve them but most of them are not the best solution. Let’s stick with the margin issue.

Problem

Suppose we’re creating a screen that displays a list of cards that each is expected to have a margin of 16dp. We build the item.xml adding the desired margin:

Root of item.xml

Design preview

The item layout alone seems fine but composing it with several others leads to incorrect margins between them. The vertical margin accumulates with the next one, breaking our expectations.

Margin doubled between cards

The lazy solution

A lazy solution would be to reduce vertical margins to half. Almost everything looks good except for the top margin of the first item and the bottom of the last one. We could play with the margins adding a logic inside the ViewHolder to fix the first and last item.

Margin logic inside the Adapter's ViewHolder

But would we duplicate margin/code for every new list? And if we need to reuse the same card view inside a Grid? There is a better way to achieve the same result!

The ItemDecoration solution

RecyclerView has a feature called ItemDecoration :

An ItemDecoration allows the application to add a special drawing and layout offset to specific item views from the adapter’s data set. This can be useful for drawing dividers between items, highlights, visual grouping boundaries and more.

Cool! That’s what we need! Using ItemDecoration we can create a cleaner and reusable solution. Instead of including the margin inside each item view and adding the logic inside ViewHolder, we’ll create a generic ItemDecoration implementation to do this for us.

Setting the ItemDecoration to the RecyclerView:

Also, we may improve the solution for multiple columns (using GridLayoutManager ):

And the final result using two columns:

Other usages for Item Decoration

I’m not covering these in this article but here are some examples:
Transformation is Hard
By: Anthony Halliwell
Tags: Transformation, Resistance, Change, Short Fiction, Humor

It can be hard to accept that it's time to change

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

“I wish you would change, you promised.”

“Can’t you love who, and what, I am?”

“I do love you, but you said you would try.”

“I am trying. It takes time.”

“All the caterpillars you grew up with are butterflies by now. It’s time you grew up and started molting!”
Şimdide Olmanın İmkansızlığı Üzerine
Tags: Şimdi, Felsefe, Yaşam, Zaman, Türkçe

Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.

Check your inbox

Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription.
UI/UX Career: “The Law of Ten”
By: Nick Lawrence
Tags: Ui Ux Design

The Law of Ten

The law itself is deceptively simple, but don’t let that fool you. Crucially, it is based off of The Pareto Principle, in which 20% of your inputs produce 80% of your outputs, but it goes even further than that because it factors in Murphy’s first law.

“On average, it takes nine failures to reach one success.”

That’s The Law of Ten. Simple, pithy, and I don’t think truer words have ever been said. You need to plan for and understand that for every ten attempts that you make, nine will more than likely fail.

I have seen this sentiment echoed in almost every profession; it has been said in various ways by the greats in their respective fields, and I have personally experienced it first-hand in my many years as a designer.
Use Environment Variable in your next Golang Project
By: Shubham Chadokar
Tags: Quality Software, Golang, Go, Code, Tutorial

When it comes to creating a production-grade application, using the environment variable in the application is de facto.

Originally published at schadokar.dev

Why should we use the environment variable?

Suppose you have an application with many features and each feature need to access the Database. You configured all the DB information like DBURL , DBNAME , USERNAME and PASSWORD in each feature.

There are a few major disadvantages to this approach, there can be many.

Security Issue:

You’re entering all the information in the code. Now, all the unauthorized person also have access to the DB.

If you’re using code versioning tool like git then the details of your DB will go public once you push the code.

Code Management:

If you are changing a single variable then you have to change in all the features. There is a high possibility that you’ll miss one or two. 😌 been there

You can categorize the environment variables like PROD , DEV , or TEST . Just prefix the variable with the environment.

At the start, it might look like some extra work, but this will reward you a lot in your project.

⚠️ Just don’t forget to include your environment files in the .gitignore .

It is time for some action. 🔨

What are we going to do in this tutorial?

In this tutorial, we will access environment variables in 3 different ways.

You can use according to your requirement.
Left
By: Falguni Bhat
Tags: Mourning, Death, Haiku, Life, Suicide

Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Be still, be strong. Life is fragile.

Everybody leaves

Some because they had no hope,

some just had no choice.

When we kill ourselves, it’s not that we’re weak or that death seems easy. We fight, fight hard everyday to stay, to face life. But sometimes the demons inside are too strong. Our strength is not enough. No one knows how bravely we fought. Our successful suicide demanded a plan, the opportunity and a cool mind to go ahead. Yet even in death we are criticised. Called cowards so that everyone can avoid the soul searching, avoid the blame for everything endured.

When we die suddenly while doing routine mundane things, its even more curious and confusing. We all know our time is limited. Eventually all of us are going to end up under a sheet, never to wake up. Yet the surprise of the suddenness baffles us. The endless what ifs, hows, whys, come haunting in endless loops.

Life ends, what remains is how we lived.
What do Amari Cooper and Mike Ditka have in common?
By: Paul Dughi
Tags: Amari Cooper, NFL

Amari Cooper’s had a great start on his NFL career. Through the first three games, he was third all-time for receiving yards by a rookie. In his most recent, he’d already racked up 117 yards on 4 catches and a 52-yard TD sprint against the Chargers.

And that’s where Mike Ditka comes in. Cooper is the 1st rookie with three 100-yard receiving games in his team first six outings since Mike Ditka in 1961. H/T ESPN

After his final year at Alabama, he was selected 4th overall by the Oakland Raiders in the 2015 NFL Draft. So far, he’s lived up to the hype. He had 5 receptions for 47 yards in the Raiders 33–13 loss to the Bengals in September.

In his second game as a pro, Cooper hauled in a 68 yard TD from QB Derek Carr and ended with 109 yards as the Raiders beat the Ravens 37–33. Next up was an 8 reception, 134 yard game in a win over the Browns.
Heaven and Hell? — Say What?
By: Andrew Furst
Tags: Comics, Religion, Self Improvement

If you liked this piece, please take a moment to recommend it!

Say What? is an ongoing series of laconic exchanges on Buddhism in the format of a comic strip. Sign up to receive them by email
Fall or Exit
By: Presley Thomas
Tags: Fiction

The coffee machine doesn’t start itself. The fridge does not fill itself, and I am the only one that does the laundry. I am in a relationship with myself. I have dinner all the time with myself, but I never know more. I never feel like a different person because I am always myself, all the time, regularly, and in the same places.

I like routine. That is my thing. If you take the base form of the word you get route or a regularly traveled path. It is also a homophone for root, or the ground feeding tendrils at the base of a tree.

I find this comforting as I eat my lunch under the same grand oak outside work everyday. There is a table there, worn where I sit. Sometimes other co-workers join me, but never in the winter months. I wear my thick coat, and pretend I have a ball of fire warming myself from the inside, like the Greeks believed of soul.

I eat breakfast at home listening to the radio. I continue listening on my ride to work. I eat dinner at Rogelio’s Mexican restaurant. I come so often they say they will make me whatever I want. One day I ask for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but they have no bread. They put it between two tortillas instead.

I’m in a relationship with myself, regularly, and in the same places. One day I will be with myself and someone else. They will know where to hack at the roots. What route to take.
Recent Activities Update from NPER #40
Tags: Blockchain, Artinblock, Recent Activities, Intellectual Property, Nper

Recent Activities Update from NPER #40

🚀주간 이슈 업데이트 2018.12.08~12.14🚀

NPER team has decided to communicate more actively and share NPER’s vision with supporters and followers. This is what we’ve been up to during last week! (Some details may be repeated. We ask sincerely for your understanding.)

[NPER Development]

- What we’ve completed

Core

- Refactor function and Add test case

- WASM-based Smart Contract Performance Test

- Refactor function and Add test case - WASM-based Smart Contract Performance Test Art in Block

- Service technical enhancement

- Content registration certificate issuing service demonstration on blockchain

- What’s in progress

Core

- Support for openssl 1.1

- Add feature to restore wallet in the wallet

- Add new dns seed nodes

- Support for openssl 1.1 - Add feature to restore wallet in the wallet - Add new dns seed nodes Art in Block

- Service technical enhancement (Contest Page)

- Mobile Application UX/UI for Android

- Ideation on the use of CP

- Blockchain-based content registration certificate issuing system

- Planning and application of CBN (Content Blockchain Number)

We are establishing a content registration certificate issuing system on blockchain network linked to the art-in-block, and will launch a beta service.

[NPER Biz]

-’Artist’ in Block Media Coverage

‘Artist in Block’ Beta Test is scheduled for media coverage and to collect data of actual user response. NPER will be interviewed by major media company along with Potluck, Creative Workers and KOCCA. We will be continuously promoting NPER through various global media channels.

- ‘Art’ in Block design X Music Collaboration

Art in Block will be collaborating with NPER’s music content partner to hold a design-an-album-cover contest for an artist.

- Application for patents based on blockchain technology

With our outstanding technology, NPER continues to R&D patents that are likely to be commercialized in the blockchian field. Based on the result of R&D, multiple patents, which will be the future driving force for NPER to build IP Network using blockchain, are being applied. NPER will build a patent portfolio that is highly likely to be commercialized.

Details regarding the patents will be announced later.

[NPER Community]

- NPER subreddit on reddit

NPER subreddit on reddit is now open! Please subscribe and create posts! https://www.reddit.com/r/NPERproject/

- NPER Information

Find info on NPER market price and volume CoinMarketCap, CoinCodex, Bitgur and Coinlib!!

Go to>CMC , CoinCodex, Bitgur, Coinlib, Feixiaohao
8 Unheard Browser APIs You Should Be Aware Of
By: Mahdhi Rezvi
Tags: Technology, Software Development, JavaScript, Programming, Web Development

8 Unheard Browser APIs You Should Be Aware Of

Experimental browser APIs that have the potential to change the way we develop web apps

Photo by Szabo Viktor on Unsplash

With the increase in popularity, browsers started shipping APIs for complex functionalities that sometimes can only be implemented via a native application. Fast-forward to the present: It’s indeed quite rare to find a web application that doesn’t make use of at least one browser API.

As the field of web development continues to grow, browser vendors also try to keep up with the rapid development around them. They constantly develop newer APIs that can bring new nativelike functionalities to your web application. Furthermore, there are some APIs that people don’t know much about, even though they’re fully supported in modern browsers.

Here are some APIs you should be aware of — as they will play a vital role in the future.
How I am Learning to Be Enough
By: Mary Ann Lopez
Tags: Life Lessons, Self Improvement, Personal Growth, Self, Personal Development

If some people are emotional eaters, I am an emotional spender. If things are going bad, I often think, “What the hell? I’m already in deep, why not get a little deeper?”

I mention this because like so many other people these days, I am questioning what it means to have enough and be enough in my life.

My closet these days seems pretty bare.

My home does not have a ton of tchotchkes or art for that matter.

I have saved only the books that “spark joy.”

I regularly edit what I own.

I will not say I haven’t spent money on non-necessities — as I try and get out of a financial conundrum — but I have tried to limit purchases.

When I finally broke down a few weeks ago and purchased some new underwear and socks to replace all the holey and worn out pairs, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was making the right decision.

If you are like me, you may have made so many “wrong” decisions you have trouble knowing when you are being sensible. I can rationalize almost any purchase or decision, which means when it is time to make a decision or to choose something I need, I can’t help but question myself.

Funny, isn’t it. At one time I would willy-nilly toss money at a fancy purse, but now buying a new pair of socks or replacing worn-out shoes causes me anxiety.
20 Programming Jokes You Can Understand Even if You Are Not a Programmer
By: Josef Cruz
Tags: Humor, Comedy, Funny, Programming, Technology

20 Programming Jokes You Can Understand Even if You Are Not a Programmer

A little comedy for all of us right now.

Credit: gif-vif.com

It takes a fellow programmer to understand the hardships of another programmer. But it doesn’t mean, the same can be said of their jokes.
How to Make Kafka Producer/Consumer Production-Ready
By: Shivanshu Goyal
Tags: Kafka Producer, Kafka Consumer Group, Kafka, Kafka Consumer

Kafka is an open-source stream processing platform. It is developed to provide high throughput and low latency to handle real-time data.

Before we read about how to make our Kafka producer/consumer production-ready, Let’s first understand the basic terminologies of Kafka.

Kafka topic: It refers to a family or name to store a specific kind of message or a particular stream of data. A topic contains messages of a similar kind.

Kafka partition: A topic can be partitioned into one or more partitions. It is again to segregate the messages from one topic into multiple buckets. Each partition may reside on the same/different Kafka brokers.

Kafka producer: It is a component of the Kafka ecosystem which is used to publish messages onto a Kafka topic.

Kafka consumer: It is another component of the Kafka ecosystem which consumes messages produced by a Kafka producer on a topic.
Reversing a Singly Linked List With JavaScript
By: Chad Murobayashi
Tags: JavaScript, Data Structures, Singly Linked List, Linked Lists, Interview Questions

Reversing a Singly Linked List in place

From here, let’s add the reverse method. Rather than creating a new list, we will be reversing the list in place.

The first step will be to swap the head and the tail. We can do this by creating a node variable to store the current head. Then set the head to be the tail, and set the tail to be the node variable where we saved the head.

reverse() {

let node = this.head;

this.head = this.tail;

this.tail = node;

Next, we will write a for loop to loop through each node in the list. The old head is already stored as a variable called, node. In addition, we will need to create two other variables to keep track of the previous value and next value.

reverse() {

let node = this.head;

this.head = this.tail;

this.tail = node;

let prev = null;

let next;

In the for loop, first, save node.next to the next variable (we need to save this variable so we can access it in the loop). Then assign node.next to be previous value (this reverses the list).

reverse() {

let node = this.head;

this.head = this.tail;

this.tail = node;

let prev = null;

let next; for(let i = 0; i < this.length; i++) {

next = node.next;

node.next = prev;

Finally, we will shift the node value and previous value over by one. All we need to do is set previous to be node, and set node to be next. At the end of the loop, we will return the list by returning this.

reverse() {

let node = this.head;

this.head = this.tail;

this.tail = node;

let next;

let prev = null; for(let i = 0; i < this.length; i++) {

next = node.next;

node.next = prev;

prev = node;

node = next;

}

return this;

}

The final code, including methods added from the previous article, will look like this.

You can now create a list by creating a new instance of the SinglyLinkedList class and pushing data into the list. If you call the reverse method on the list, you will have successfully reversed a singly linked list!
5 Ways to Change Your Life From the Inside Out
By: Michael Leonard
Tags: Self Improvement, Life, Mindfulness, Self Development, Personal Development

Create Evening Routines

While most people have used or at least read about a morning routine, Benjamin Hardy and other authors introduced me to the power of an evening routine as well. Benjamin taught us that successful people intentionally direct their subconscious to help them with problems before going to sleep.

A great morning routine actually starts the night before. I started living by this Thomas Edison quote,

“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.”

Now, each night I spend 5–10 minutes using my journal to activate my subconscious mind before going to bed. I start by writing my three wins for the day to feel accomplished and proud of the day.

Then, I look at my goals and ask some questions about why I am struggling to achieve them. Instead of thinking of them hard, I write out the problem and several questions asking my subconscious mind for the answers.

This will give my subconscious mind something to work on while I sleep.

Lastly, I write out some of my goals as if they are already complete.

For example, instead of saying “I want to be a professional golfer” I write “I am a professional golfer on the PGA Tour.”

Then, I visualize for a few minutes each of these dreams as already completed to give myself a positive visual image before going to bed. This was the exact opposite process of what I had previously done.

Usually, I would wind down in the evening, watch some TV, scroll the ‘gram in bed and finally go to sleep. But when I was drifting off to sleep, I would worry about the future instead of dreaming about it in a positive way.

I’ve since learned that negative thoughts, especially at night, are poison for your mind and goals. Unfortunately, that’s what most people do — go to bed dreading tomorrow, worrying about paying the bills, keeping their job, etc. If you really want to change your life, get clear about what you want and ask your subconscious for help before going to bed.

Don’t forget, your mind is a supercomputer but formal education doesn’t teach us how to tap into the seemingly unlimited power of it. Habits like journaling, hypnotherapy, and asking questions before going to bed will activate your subconscious and help you achieve your goals.
Whack A Meng — new Here Be Monsters mini-game made with Dart and StageXL
By: Yan Cui
Tags: Dart, Games, Here Be Monsters, Programming

Hot on the heels of making my first game with Dart and StageXL at the London GameCraft 2013, I decided to strike whilst the iron’s hot and make a mini-game featuring characters from our MMORPG Here Be Monsters.

The result, is a whack-a-mole style game where the antagonist is ‘Meng the Terrible’ from the on-going Nanjing storyline in the world of Here Be Monsters.

Your task is simple, just whack him whenever you see him poke his head out of the rabbit holes!

To progress through the levels, you need to whack Meng enough times before the time runs out, and in later levels NPCs (other monsters from the world of Here Be Monsters) will pass by the rabbit holes. If you intentionally or accidentally end up whacking the NPCs they’ll no only show you their displeasure but also deduct your current score!

To show their support for your quest to vanquish the evil doers in their world, the NPCs will give you some words of encouragement at the end of each level depending on if you were able to accomplish your target.

Whilst by far not my strong suit, I have thoroughly enjoyed the asset production aspect of making this game. Whilst I’m still very much a beginner and learning plenty about Dart and StageXL, I have been pretty impressed by how productive they allow me to be in putting this game together so quickly on my own.

Links

Play the Game

Source Code
Well, my friend, your questions are deep and will probably take us both a lifetime to unravel.
By: Rev Dr Sparky
Tags: Heresy, Faith, Hope, Christianity

Well, my friend, your questions are deep and will probably take us both a lifetime to unravel. I, too, am repulsed by the current perversion of “Christianity” for political purposes — to the point that I and many others simply don’t call that particular worldview Christian at all. Frankly, they are taking positions that would be called heretical if we weren’t so shy about the word. This crisis, I believe, is what you are talking about, and indeed it does repel thousands, if not millions of saddened faithful.

There are noble attempts by progressive, orthodox, and traditional Christians to retain their identity against the onslaught of those self-serving ideologues. We look desperately for other names for ourselves: Jesus Followers, for example; Believers in Christ. But we are hampered, as always, by the very commitment to lovingkindness that prevents us from attacking in the same way others do.

Meanwhile, many seeking/inquiring Christians are indeed drawn to Eastern paths, seeing them as more peaceful and more unified (that hasn’t always been true, but it seems that way to us in the West). (Read Jack Preston King on these subjects — he’s awesome.) Westerners have had a fascination with things Eastern for some time, and you can find evidence of the ebb and flow of this perennial interest. Witness the resurgence of popularity of Thich Nhat Hanh’s 20-year old Living Buddha, Living Christ.

For most progressive Christians, there’s not a thing wrong with searching among all the world’s religions, seeking compatible views and new insights.

But I must tell you, from my (mumble, mumble) years of experience searching, searching for churches, leading churches, finding Christianity, losing Christianity, blah, blah, blah — the single most difficult hurdle for finding a community of faith is — you guessed it — the community. The people.

Ultimately, you can find the perfect doctrine, the perfect mystical experience, the perfect God — and chances are very good the people will crap it up for you, one way or another.

But you know this, because you have experienced it and talked about it, and you’ve probably already figured out that the main thing about your religious faith is that it’s about loving G*D and loving people and loving yourself, and trying to put it all into practice, so when they crap it all up for you, you just want to deal with it and keep on going as best you can. When you do that, you’ll keep shining like the sun.

And it’s those people that are the point of it all, I guess — there to love and forgive and to love you back; shining like the sun and being the children of God — the very reason for the whole thing.

So I’m just here to affirm your wisdom and tell you that everything will be all right in the end.

And if it isn’t all right, it means it’s not the end.

:-)

Sparky
A True Story Of An Amazing Disappearance
By: Bebe Nicholson
Tags: Short Story, Writing Prompts, Fiction, Romance, Stranger Things

Mike paused, glancing at the small group huddled around the bonfire. His voice, booming a minute ago, dropped to a whisper. “They say his lyrics are strangely similar to what happened to him.”

“Creepy,” Meagan shivered, snuggling closer to Jason. The bonfire’s flames leaped and danced, throwing long, flickering shadows across the three couples gathered around it. “Could we please talk about something else?”

“Campfire rules mean no changing the subject.” Jason snaked an arm around her waist. “Everybody has to tell a story, and it has to be true.”

A needle of irritation jabbed her, but it was gone in a instant, dissolved by a glance at the two and a half carat diamond glittering on her finger. Meagan still couldn’t believe Jason had proposed. She shouldn’t whine about a few ghost stories when he had planned this whole night so she could meet his friends.

“I gotta go pee,” said Mike’s girlfriend, Alex, breaking the spell. “Save me a beer.”

What a Barbie doll, Meagan thought, watching Alex glide away from the group. She had a curtain of straight, blonde hair and breasts so large they had to be implants. My God, they’re cantaloupes, Meagan thought uncharitably, then berated herself for being uncharitable. She felt awkward around Jason’s friends, but she wanted them to like her. She was going to marry Jason, and these were the people he had hung out with since high school.

Meagan took stock of the others. Alex’s boyfriend Mike was one of those fraternity types who seemed to attract the best looking girls despite a beer gut blooming over his belt and a smile that could turn on a moment’s notice into a malicious sneer.

Olivia, sitting on the other side of the fire, spoke in a smoky contralto at odds with her petite frame. Nobody seemed to notice that she wasn’t as pretty as Alex. She was too confident and vivacious for people to suspect that she was less than beautiful, and tonight her dark eyes flashed when she said, “I’ve got a true story!”

“Go for it, babe,” said Patrick, Olivia’s boyfriend. He was almost as hot as Jason, but not quite, Meagan thought with satisfaction. Patrick reminded her a little of Chris, except that Chris lacked Patrick’s arrogance.

I’ve got to stop thinking about Chris, she reminded herself, but she couldn’t forget his devastated response to her engagement. Chris, open and readable as a young pup, had shaken his head in dejected misery when she said, “We’ve never been anything but friends. You know that.”

“Pay attention,” Olivia snapped, yanking Meagan’s thoughts away from the boy she had grown up with.
Downloads
Tags: Model Aircraft, Onshape, Downloads, Aviation, Computer Aided Design

Downloads

Our always growing set of downloadable artifacts.

Feel free to view these online (pan and zoom available) or right-click the [download] at the end of each caption. You can also pop out the viewer into its own separate window using the black button at the top right of the previewer.
Pieces
By: Anna Breslin
Tags: Love, Life, Self, Poetry

Pieces

A Poem

Francisco J. Vázquez photo of work by Igor Mitoraj en Coruña II CC BY 2.0

.

.

All the little muscles

tighten and twist

to hold me together

a little too tight

as if I might otherwise

break into several

hundred useless fragments.

An erector set facade

unafraid, denying

more than one truth

about myself, life,

the country I live in,

what tomorrow

will bring.

There’s been so much

rearranging behind

the scene.

I construct,

deconstruct,

put everything back

just where it was

and call it changed

because it’s been

dusted off.

I say I can believe again,

because that’s the way

of humans.

Do I still believe in

belief after all these years

and all I’ve seen?

I am w e a r y.

What was the point

of everything I learned

now that the world has tilted

like a pinball machine

that’s been played too hard?

I want to unscrew, unfasten

bolts, pull out nails,

and be a million loose pieces

scattered around.

Nothing.

Everything.

Built for these times.

~

© 2020, A. Breslin. All Rights Reserved
VS Code Extensions for Ruby on Rails Developers
By: Thomas Van Holder
Tags: Vscode, Ruby on Rails, Software Development, Ruby, Programming

Ruby

This speaks for itself. Ruby syntax highlighting.

Intelligent code completion and documentation while you’re writing code.

Be wise and never forget to close the end immediately.

Useful shortcuts to save you time.

Get quick insight on the defined database schema while you’re typing.

Code formatter for writing Ruby.

If you’re running into the following error, follow this guide to link the right execution path:

rubocop is not excutable

execute path is empty!

Not being able to indent your html.erb files in VS Code can be a real pain. ERB Formatter depends on the htmlbeautifier gem, so we need to install that dependency too.

gem install htmlbeautifier

8. Emmet in ERB
How Do You Know If God’s Voice Isn’t Just An Illusion?
By: Jocelyn Soriano
Tags: Spirituality, Christianity, Religion, Relationships, Catholic

Is God real? Or is He just an illusion in your head?

I have currently read this post by Dan Foster titled “How Do You Know You’ve Found God?” , and I must say I truly appreciate his insight.

The first thing he considered was the existence of disagreement between you and God’s voice. If God never disagrees with you, then there is a high probability that it isn’t God.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways,

and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

— Isaiah 55:9, WEB-BE

It made sense.

Do we truly desire to follow God and heed His voice? Or do we only want to validate what we have already decided to pursue?

If it is God, there is a good chance that we’d find some contradiction with our plans, however good they seem to be for us. God sees more. His wisdom is beyond our grasp. He sees not only what could make us happy for now but what could benefit us for eternity.

And if God will at times disagrees with our good plans, how much more with our bad choices?

If we try to accept only the part of the Bible that is comfortable for us and that goes along with our wishes and disregard the rest, are we truly following God?

The second clue Dan discussed was very similar to the one I wrote about in my book “To Love an Invisible God.”

In his article, Dan discussed how one clear evidence of our relationship with God is how we are changed.

If our lives remain the same, if we are not conformed more into His image day by day, are we truly following God?

In my book, I’ve mentioned how one proof of God’s existence is the testimony of the lives of saints. Saints are people just like us, but through God’s grace, they were able to live lives with heroic virtue.

We thus see saints who were willing to give up their lives for the sake of the Gospel. We see people like Mother Teresa abandoning everything and living in poverty to serve the poorest of the poor.

Isn’t this the most difficult thing to do? Though we want to do good, we often fail. By ourselves, we fall continuously into sin.

But by God’s grace and our cooperation, through an authentic relationship with the Living God, we are able to live holy lives.

This change of heart, this change of life, is one of the greatest miracles that can ever take place in a person’s life.

You may also want to read:
Why The Assassination Of Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientist Was More An Attack On Joe Biden Than Iran.
By: Arthur Quayle
Tags: Iran, United States, Foreign Policy, Politics, World

Background

In 2015, Iran agreed a long-term deal on its nuclear programme with a group of world powers known as the P5+1 (US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany). Under the agreement, Iran agreed to limit its sensitive nuclear activities and allow in international inspectors in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. The accord covered uranium enrichment, the handling of plutonium and the prevention of the secret development of nuclear weapons, all in return for the lifting of economic sanctions that had cost the country more than $160bn (£118bn) in oil revenue from 2012 to 2016 alone (1). The deal would also allow Iran to regain access to the more than $100bn in assets frozen overseas and would be able to resume selling oil on international markets and using the global financial system for trade (1).

However, in May 2018, US President Donald Trump abandoned the landmark deal and in November that year, he reinstated sanctions.

With Trump set to leave office on 20th January 2021, to be succeeded by President-elect Joe Biden, the consensus is that a new deal could be back on the table. Biden’s close ties to the Obama administration — the administration that really drove home the Iran deal — combined with Biden’s more internationalist attitude, suggest that he will push for a nuclear deal similar to that which was agreed in 2015. Whether or not Iran will now accept such a deal is the big question.
超療癒的桌上盆栽！Green Pandora的盆栽真的超萌超推薦！
By: Tony Zeng
Tags: 職場, 盆栽, 療癒, 工作, Work

in In Fitness And In Health
Are You Really in Pursuit of Happiness?
By: Teresa Funke
Tags: Giving, Inspiration, Happiness In Life, Civic Engagement, Art

This Fourth of July weekend, I’m musing on the Declaration of Independence. What exactly did our Founding Fathers mean by including “the pursuit of Happiness” as one of our unalienable rights?

Some say our Founding Fathers were influenced by Francis Hutcheson, an Irish reverend and philosopher, and others who believed that happiness was best achieved when people engaged in civic actions to ensure the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers. In other words, men like Washington and Jefferson, who had wealth and property and everything you could need to be “happy” by our modern definitions, knew that true happiness came from contributing to society, not just seeking personal wealth, satisfaction, fame, or glory.

Our interpretation of this “right” has changed in modern times. Most people today view it in a more self-gratifying manner. Our right to pursue happiness seems to mean the ability to seek personal fulfillment, material goods, time for our hobbies, etc. We have truly become a “me-centered” nation.

But what would happen if we all looked at the things that make us happy in our personal lives and sought to make those things more readily available to others? And what if we pushed our lawmakers to do the same?

So, if getting a college education helped you achieve happiness in your career, could you demand our politicians make college more accessible and affordable to all? If you were lucky enough to benefit from a grant in your arts career, might you encourage your Congressmen to make sure more grants were available for others? If you take pride in your heritage, might you encourage new candidates entering political races to embrace and support diversity in all areas?

And when your pleas fall on deaf ears, can you take matters into your own hands? When our lawmakers fail to care for those in need, can we be the ones to start scholarships, set up grants, raise awareness, take action?

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend wrote that the Founding Fathers knew, “People were happy when they controlled their destiny, when their voice was heard, when they participated in public events, when the government did not do things to them, or even for them, but with them.”

Our Founding Fathers understood that happiness is hollow when it’s not shared. And they recognized that when only a portion of our citizens are happy and others are not, unrest will follow. It isn’t just our duty to care for others, it’s our right. How privileged we are to live in a country where we can fight not only for our happiness, but for the happiness of others.
EMX会员邮件第3期
By: Earth Koed
Tags: Chinese, Exchange, Futures, Bit, Trading

in In Fitness And In Health
Events Impacting BTC This Week (March 16, 2018)
By: Crypto King
Tags: Tech, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency

THE STATE OF BITCOIN

The bulls were stampeding in the final months of 2017. The month of December saw Bitcoin approach $20,000. The following month of January saw a correction of epic proportions concluding in February when BTC dipped under $6,000. This was a percentage decrease of over 70% from BTC’s December highs to their February lows. The bears seemed to have taken full control of the market back from the bulls.

Who Will Win?!

February through the beginning of March saw the bulls build some momentum with BTC building significant steam following the Chinese New Year. This was a short-lived rebound with BTC going from its February lows of under $6,000 to a March 5, 2018, high of $11,600.

By March 9, 2018, Bitcoin was back to under $8,400 and it seemed the bears had regained full control. Today, March 15, 2018, BTC resides at a price of $8,200, only slightly lower than where it was exactly a week ago.

The most important questions to ask are: What events are currently impacting Bitcoin and where is it likely to go in value from here?

EVENTS NEGATIVELY IMPACTING BITCOIN PRICES

The last ten days have been filled with multiple negative news events that continue to drive down the value of BTC in the short term. Much of this negative sentiment is caused unnecessarily by the light in which articles are written.

Other events are indeed negative, dramatically shifting the total numbers of buy and sell orders on the market. This prior bearish turn in the market has been precipitated by four large events:

These four events all dramatically shifted the price of Bitcoin and the overall cryptocurrency markets downward in the prior ten days.

To read the entire piece regarding the major events impacting BTC this past week feel free to check it out here:

Bitcoin & Crypto Markets Continue Their Slide

Tomorrow’s main article will be a special highlighting the Top 5 Altcoins of The Week! Some of the coins are exclusively available on either:

Binance

Cryptopia

Bibox

I appreciate all my loyal followers! I am trying to build a social media presence and would love if you followed me on Instagram and Twitter as well! For tips and strategy hours before being posted to the message boards follow on Instagram: JaketheCryptoKing and Twitter: JbtheCryptoKing.

Now the Kingdom is on Discord: https://discord.gg/qTjQp8W (join the group to reach me directly).
Svelte.js — An Introduction to the Compiler as a Framework
By: Thibault Goudouneix
Tags: JavaScript, Software Development, Svelte, Sveltejs, Programming

All Right, but How Can Svelte Be Interesting?

The biggest advantage of Svelte is, as the name suggests, the very low weight of the application when compiled, which promises a loading speed that is impossible to achieve with frameworks like Angular, Vue.js, or React, which embed a runtime in addition to the logic code of the application. With Svelte, you only have your code with just the right amount of Svelte, so you don’t overload the scale.

However, Svelte is also quick during execution. Indeed, it compiles your code to make something probably much more optimized than what you would have done alone on your side (while having your source files of Svelte code perfectly readable and maintainable) and especially: It does not have virtual DOM, and that’s one less layer to run to reflect a change on the page.

Then, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, Svelte gives you a more readable and maintainable, component-oriented code. Why? First, because you group everything related to a component in the same file: logic (JavaScript), structure (HTML), and style (CSS) — everything goes there! And secondly, because Svelte’s philosophy encourages you to write code that is as concise and easy to understand as possible.