fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
7 Ways To Invest Your First $1,000
By: Betterment Boss
Tags: Money, Life Lessons, Wealth, Finance, Family

jcomp — Freepik.com

When you first enter the world of investing, it can be quite intimidating. As a beginner investor, you have a thousand questions rattling through your brain like “what do I invest in?” and “what if I lose all my money?”. These thoughts are normal, and the best way to not only feel comfortable but also to see noticeable success in your investing efforts is to understand what the best options are for investing your money. Therefore in this article, I will share with you 7 proven ways to invest your first $1,000!

Now, before we begin, there is one thing that you must keep in mind when investing your first $1,000. All forms of investment come with risk, and this means that while you could turn that $1,000 into $10,000, you could also lose it all, so as a general rule, I recommend only ever investing money you can afford to lose. But if you are up for the investing challenge, then here are 7 ways you can get started!

Method #1: Self-Managed Investments

With your first $1,000 in hand, the only person who will be deciding where this money is going is you. Well, if you’re the do-it-yourself type, and you have some foundational investing knowledge, then you can consider picking your own investments. Now, with this method of investing, there are a few considerations to keep in mind. First, you have to identify which online trading platform you want to use to facilitate your investing efforts. Second, you need to complete the administrative work to get your account up and running, and finally, you need to research the stocks you want to acquire and execute the trade.

Now, if this do-it-yourself method sounds appealing to you, then a few things I would consider are the following. Take the time to research which brokers you want to work with when executing your trades. This is one instance in trading where you can save or lose yourself money so take the time to research and choose wisely.

Another suggestion I usually give for new investors is that if you’re going to be picking investments yourself using your $1,000, you might want to pick out some exchange-traded funds (ETFs). ETFs are known for their lows costs and diversification benefits, and this may increase your initial investing success as you are just starting out!
Brahma OS May Progress Report. In May, Brahma OS’s work is constantly…
Tags: Blockchain

In May, Brahma OS’s work is constantly moving forward.

1. Merkle Tree Based File System

Brahma OS Researcher KJ Published MTFS: Merkle Tree Based File System

From May 14th to 17th, 2019, the EEE HotlCN 2019 Academic Conference was held in Seoul, South Korea. On the afternoon of the 15th, Dr. KJ, a researcher at the Brahma OS team, conducted an in-depth analysis of his new paper, “MTFS: Merkle Tree Based File System.”This system provides a solution for private file storage using the blockchain technology.

2. Technical Progress

Support for features and capabilities for fingerprint-free payment at the system level;

Migrate existing system code to Android 9.0 (Android Q) to support more devices and features;

Establish an internal team with researcher KJ to initiate the development of the MPFS system;

Support mobile phones equipped with Brahma OS to use NFC payments in digital currencies such as BRM and ETH by working with offline public service agencies and merchants;

optimization of wallet and system.

3. Token Price

The price of BRM has been relatively stable in the past month. At present, the trading mood is relatively moderate, and the price of token and trading volume are relatively stable. At present, the top ten positions accounted for 88.16%, and the top 30 positions accounted for 91.56%. Compared with the 30 positions in early May, the proportion of positions increased slightly.

3. FCoin First Anniversary Community Congress

Brahma OS was invited to participate in the FCoin First Anniversary Community Congress. The synergy between the consensus ecology and the public chain discussed at the meeting, as well as a series of design and core features of the public chain. Brahma OS has benefited a lot and will continue to work hand in hand with FCoin to make more contributions to the benign development of the blockchain ecosystem.

About Brahma OS

Official Website: https://www.brahmaos.io

Twitter：@brahma_os

Medium：BrahmaLabs

Community：

Official group: https://t.me/BrahmaOS

Chinese group: search BrahmaOS on WeChat to join the WeChat group

Korean group： https://open.kakao.com/o/gdqRKcQ

Japanese group: https://t.me/joinchat/HaZYOw7vh68w64bIOom6Uw

中文: https://t.me/BrahmaOS_chs

@ANNBrahmaLabs：https://t.me/ANNBrahmaLabs

Contact：

Korea：tina@brahmaos.io

Japan：ryan0911@naver.com

Other area：Lynn@brahmaos.io
Spirit-Spirituality is not a fad
By: Anna Rozwadowska
Tags: Humanity, Spirituality, Mind, Self, Philosophy

I understand, as with most things in society, consumerism’s grip on the realm of spirituality has undermined, in many ways, the credibility of the spirit world, which in all honesty resides within you. Let us throw this acknowledgment aside and focus on spirituality and the essential nature of a human-being.

In my story “My Story As A Psychic, Medium and Spiritual Coach,” I describe in great detail how I became a professional psychic and medium, and how everything has unfolded for me in this realm. Please keep in mind that I also have an M.A. in Environmental Sociology and over fifteen years of professional experience, working in the fields of research and environmental management. Therefore, in reading this, keep in mind that I am not a ‘quack’ nor a misguided individual; rather, my studies and experiences in the spiritual realm have helped open my eyes to the human separation that we create as ‘believers,’ ‘atheists,’ and the blindness of human knowledge in recognizing that they are part of a larger being than themselves.

Universal Knowledge

Even the greatest thinkers of our time, scientists, inventors, astronomists, have recognized that there is more than meets the eye, when it comes to Universal knowledge~ a term I use to refer to the vast storage of information that is hard for the average human to grasp, because it remains a mystery, and even those who would not identify themselves as ‘spiritual’ have alluded to this great mystery, including ancient cultures.

For example, here are some quotes from famous people on the great mysteries of the Universe:
It was a teaching
By: Shannon Mastromonico
Tags: Confessional Poetry, A Cornered Gurl, Poetry, Art, Writing

It was a teaching

and I have learned

Phasing ©Shannon Mastromonico 2020

I remember everything

especially the times you held space

when no one else would

The way you showed me that it is okay

to accidentally break things

or to spill milk

When you gave me a home

The way you cheered

when I sang

I remember you with my friends

and how they thought you were the coolest

This is a blanket

with frayed silk edges and it covers

any mixed-up words

or mixed-up worlds

between us, through the years

and there were many

It was a teaching

and I have learned

We were daughters and brothers once

in other lives. In this one

you weren’t what I called you

There is no word

for someone who shapes

the person you are
A Letter to Gender Dysphoria
Tags: Life, Gender Identity, Transgender, Mental Health, LGBTQ

A Letter to Gender Dysphoria

Something you need to know…

Dear Dysphoria,

I hate you.

You’ve ruined me in more ways than I can imagine. You’re the reason why I hate mirrors. Some days are better than the others. But most days are literal hell. The constant binding and packing. Having to hide certain parts of me just to show the world who I really am. It’s exhausting.

Dysphoria, you’re a liar.

I know who I am but you continue to make me feel like a foreigner to my own body.

I look at old photos, not with shame but with confusion.

Who is that person?

Dysphoria, you’ve made me feel like a fraud.

I exist in my body but live in my head.

I’m tired, but you continue to work.

Day and night. 24/7.

You just won’t shut up.

So I drown you out with music and wine.

Anything to numb the pain.

I cover you with clothes that make me feel like the person I know I should be.

But there you go, stripping away my pride.

Dysphoria, I tried to make you leave.

I asked you nicely to go away.

You yelled at me. Telling me that you’re here to stay.

Dysphoria, do you know what you do to me?

You make me feel like a prisoner begging to be free.

Dysphoria, I’m saying goodbye.

You can’t come back, so don’t even try.

I’ve decided to live in my truth, and no longer, a lie.

Sincerely,

Imani
Bacon Maple Waffles are the Answer
By: Crystal Jackson
Tags: Mindfulness, Life Lessons, Lifestyle, Self, Happiness

Bacon Maple Waffles are the Answer

I Forget the Question

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

It all began at a psychic fair.

I feel like that statement deserves a backstory. I love my work. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that all writing research has to be boring. Some of it certainly can be. But so far, I’ve researched a great many interesting topics. If I’m bored learning about it, I’m pretty sure no one is going to want to read what I’m writing.

Which is how I landed myself in the middle of a psychic fair. I was honestly picturing something a little more flamboyant, a little less like a standard daytime networking event. No, I wasn’t expecting a gypsy caravan or a carnival act, but I was a little surprised by how workaday it all seemed.

This is why research is so important. I went to check it out — not only for the sake of accuracy but also to rid myself of any preconceived notions. I needed the story I’m writing to be grounded in reality even though it’s entirely fictional. What else was I to do but roll up to a psychic fair?

It was honestly fantastic. The room was a little cramped for my taste, but the readings were professional. And uncannily accurate. Tarot cards, palm reading, numerology, astrology, gemstones, and even a medium made my list. It was fascinating, and I got a better handle on what I needed to write. I left satisfied with my day of work, but I was ravenous. Coffee for breakfast wasn’t exactly working for me.

Driving around looking for eats brought me to a cute coffee shop with bacon maple waffles. The menu was much more varied, but once I saw the waffles, there was no need to consider the alternatives. I’m not sure what the question is, but I’m pretty sure bacon maple waffles are the answer.

Why?

They made me happy. They tasted delicious. Does it have to be any more complicated than that?

Sometimes, we just need a little indulgence in our lives. An affordable plate of yummy waffles was what worked for me. I paired it with coffee, snagged a table at an arguably pretentious table island (note to management: tables labeled as “for couples only” are offensive to singles everywhere who might want to sit at a regular table rather than perching precariously on a stool in a shared space), and enjoyed the waffles.

I didn’t feel guilty for the indulgence. I didn’t worry about carbs or calories or my weight. I didn’t run my budget through my head to see if I could afford this little treat. I didn’t try to take them to-go, to rush the pleasure by trying to fit it in while doing a million other things. I just enjoyed them.

Every. Single. Bite.

Maybe there never was a question. Maybe I just needed to say that sometimes we deserve to really treat ourselves, to enjoy something for the sake of enjoyment alone. I deserve it. So do you.

So, treat yourself to bacon maple waffles. Or whatever makes your heart happy. Just do it.
Rindu dengan Eloquent Laravel? Di Javascript Juga Ada!
By: Haidar Afif Maulana
Tags: Nodejs, JavaScript, Orm, Database, Programming

Manual | Sequelize | The node.js ORM for PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite and MSSQL

Sequelize will setup a connection pool on initialization so you should ideally only ever create one instance per…
LGO token listed on Bibox and IDEX
By: Hugo Renaudin
Tags: Ethereum, ICO, Cryptocurrency, Lgomarkets, Bitcoin

A centralized and a decentralized exchange, two currency pairs and two first markets for the LGO token.

We are very proud to announce that just 2 weeks after the official release, LGO tokens are now tradable on two different exchanges: BiBox and IDEX !

We chose to be traded both on a centralized and a decentralized in order to accommodate the needs of all LGO buyers — until LGO goes live ;)

You can start trading LGOBTC and LGOETH on Bibox, and LGOETH on IDEX

A few words on Bibox and IDEX
The Incredible Shrinking Universe of Public Stocks
By: Marc Patterson
Tags: Alternative Investments, Venture Capital, Investing, IPO, Private Equity

I do a lot of investing in the private markets (PE, VC, Early-stage companies). I am often asked why I spend so much of my time in this part of the market, because it does take a lot of effort and patience.

Credit Suisse recently wrote an article that I think helps to showcase why private markets are so important today. It is a long article, so please do not feel the need to read it in its entirety.

The key take-away is the following:

In 1996, there were over 7,300 companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges. By 2016, that number had dropped to around 3,600. In twenty years, roughly 50% of investable stock market companies disappeared. There are now fewer publicly-traded companies in the U.S. than there were in 1976, even though U.S. GDP is now three times larger. Those companies did not go away — they are now being held privately.

I have been in the markets for more than twenty years, and even I was astounded by this statistic. As an investor of capital for my own family, and an allocator of capital for clients — this data has serious implications.

To name just a few:

Investors relying primarily on the stock and bond markets (S&P 500, ETF’s, etc.) are missing out on the majority of investing opportunities. Most growth opportunities are in private markets — not publicly-traded markets.

Hedge funds, ETF’s, and mutual funds are ‘crowded’ into fewer and fewer available stocks. These offerings have become less ‘diversified’ over time.

ETF’s, high-frequency trading, and algorithmic trading all have changed the very nature of stock market investing within the last decade — and not necessarily in a good way.

More than ever, managing a diversified portfolio in the stock market has become commoditized. The higher value-add in the investing world is access to private market opportunities.

The most important implication: As an investor, if you are not intentionally allocating to investments in the private markets — you are missing the vast majority of investing opportunities today.

As you know, investing in private markets can be difficult — you can overpay for a private company, just like you can overpay for a stock — valuations matter. However, as an investor, the private markets continue to be an extremely important component of portfolio return.

© Marc Patterson 2020, All Rights Reserved (bennupartners.com)

The Incredible Shrinking Universe of Public Stocks — Credit Suisse — June 2017

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How to Get and Stay Inspired Every Day on Your Terms
By: Zita Fontaine
Tags: Creativity, Blogging, Advice, Porductivity, Writing

None of us, writers have the luxury to work only on days when we are inspired. Nothing would ever get written, there would be no finished books, no blogs, no articles. Writing consists of more than just being inspired. It is about discipline and hard work, and grit to get through the rough days.

So where to get inspiration from?

I imagine inspiration as a nice place that keeps changing location. It’s not always where I expect it to be, and it’s not always easy to find either. Sometimes it comes to me, others it meets me halfway, other times I need to go all the way searching to finally bump into it.

The good thing about it is that I know approximately where I should look for.

There are several places that I can try to find it, and sometimes I need to keep going from one possible place to another — as it depends on my current mood and mindset what serves as inspiration. It’s quite fickle too, so once you find it, you better act quick!

Check out your muses

There are a lot of writers I adore and admire. Some I love for how they think, how structured they are. Some I love for the words they use and the mesmerising images they depict. Some I love because they choose amazing aspects to already boring subjects. Some I love because they can speak about ordinary things in a fantastic way.

The good thing about your muses that you can be polyamorous and love all of them for different reasons. I have quite a few bookmarked stories that I go back to and read — sometimes reading it out loud — tasting the words in my mouth, letting the feelings evoked by their words wash over me.
Farewell Alarms Submission Guidelines
By: Supreme Ruler Of Farewell Alarms
Tags: Submission Guidelines, Publication, Médium, Travel, Writing

What Kind of writers are we looking for?

Anyone who has stepped foot outside of their front door. Unless you’re an agoraphobic swinger and your home is a travel destination for orgy-enthusiasts.

Requirements:

Your article has to do with traveling or about a particular destination where people might travel. Your article is not Xenophobic or Racist towards any culture.

Image

Please mind that we don’t accept submissions without a featured image. Make sure to attach a clear royalty-free picture to your article that would reflect its theme best.

If you don’t know how to use stock images or where to find them, we suggest you read this article:

How and Why to Cite Stock Photos in Your Medium Stories

Formatting

Make sure that your story is well-formatted, structured and edited before submitting it. You can use medium’s editing features such as drop caps, headers, and subheaders or quotes to make your article more interesting and concise.

Title

Write a descriptive title and subtitle that describes the main idea of your article. Please avoid using all-caps when unnecessary, as well as unjustified clickbait.

Editing

We recommend running your draft through the editing software (Grammarly or Hemingway App) to avoid any typos, repetition or grammar mistakes.

This is not a stand-in for editing and rewriting. Please take the time to review your work as well. Articles with too many mistakes will be rejected.

How to send us your work:

If you are already a writer and have a well-edited and cleanly formatted draft, click on those three dots in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and select “Add to Publication” then “Travelisticle.”

If you are not a writer and would like to become one, email a link to your draft and your medium handle to: onepineditor@gmail.com
The “First-Hour” Rule will help you tackle tough projects
By: David Kadavy
Tags: Art, Writing, Motivation

You can listen to an audio version of this article here.

We all have tough projects we’d like to tackle, but we just can’t. It seems so big, we don’t know where to start. We’re full of fear even when we think about starting.

Making things is one big battle with the Pressfieldian Resistance. However, with a little Motivational Judo, you can lay The Resistance flat on its back. I call this move the First-Hour Rule.
Without this Leader…
By: Trisha Kaundinya
Tags: Pride, Warm Hearts, Family, Medicine, Pandemic

Photo by Duy Pham on Unsplash

The first physician in our family

A neurosurgical resident

Continuing to go into the hospital to serve her patients during Covid-19

Operating in the middle of the night with a smile

Loving her job, even when it gets tough

Artistic, creative, and kind

The embodiment of empathy and service

Not all heroes wear capes,

but some wear scrubs.
Face Detection with Haar Cascade — Part II
By: Girija Shankar Behera
Tags: Face Detection, Haar Cascades

Load the Face Model

Okay, we imported the image files. Now we bring in the Haar models for the detection part. The Haar Cascade will be read through the OpenCV library from the GitHub repository. Looking at the repository once, it has a number of models available. It includes models for face detector, upper and lower body detector, eye detector, license place detectors etc. We, in this article, will use the models for face and eye both.

The models are simple XML files with all the data stored in them. OpenCV provides a CascadeClassifier method which imports the model from its GitHub repository. Then we write a method which will accept an image, and uses the model to detect the faces in the image. The method first converts the image to GrayScale format, as ML models generally work on GrayScale data as they consist of a single layer.

Then we use the GrayScale data with the model imported. It produces a list of coordinates for all the faces found in the photo. We iterate on each of the entries in the coordinate list, it contains the x and the y coordinates and the width and the height. Then we create a rectangle with these values and fill in with a random color. We then display the image with the face coordinates in the colored rectangles.

Let’s not see the images now, and wait for the eye model to get done with its detection also.
Winter Is Magic
By: Bassey Elimian
Tags: Self Improvement, Poetry, Self, Inspiration, Winter

Winter brings:

warm hearts

indoor comfort food

neighbors and strangers sharing greetings

timely conversation — listening, speaking, and helping

empathy and compassion for oneself and others

reflecting on nature’s handiwork — snowfalls.

Winter is a time for you to clear away a lot of noise and create your magic. You are not missing out if you’re still breathing, thinking, or reading this poem. Figure out a power within you and help yourself in any way you can.
Hollywood Makes 45 Year Age Minimum to Play Teenagers
By: Ryan Fan
Tags: Satire, Movies, Film, Culture, Humor

SATIRE

Hollywood Makes 45 Year Age Minimum to Play Teenagers

One director expresses tremendous confidence Morgan Freeman can pass as 14

Photo by dylan nolte on Unsplash

Facing criticism that “teenagers” in movies look like they’re too old to be teenagers, Hollywood has doubled down. Instead of having 19-year-olds or actors in their early 20s playing teenagers in high school, Hollywood has set a 45 year age minimum to play teenagers in movies with a high school backdrop.

“Haven’t you heard of child labor?” one director said. “Well, in my mind, 25 year olds are still children — it should be illegal to have completely incompetent actors ‘act’”

Not only that, but Hollywood actors above their early 20s don’t have the curse that harms the marketability of every teenage actor: acne. By setting an age limit above 45-years-old, Hollywood directors plan on saving a ton of money on makeup artists. Sure, it’s not realistic to not have a single teenager in a movie have acne, but another director says that having teenagers was a major liability — they still had to go to school and couldn’t work as long. But having actors like John Travolta in Grease in their late 20s and early 30s was also a major liability — actors at that age had too much drama.

“When an actor is 45, it’s more likely they have kids and are happily married,” that director said. “You don’t have to worry about them missing a film shoot because they’ve been at the club all day.”

Critics of the new 45-year-old rule for high schoolers attested that 45-year-olds don’t look realistic as high schoolers. Everyone can spot out an older actor by their bald spots and gray hairs. Bradley Cooper, a 45-year-old actor, was selected to play the next teenage protagonist in a Hollywood movie, and another film critic said casting Bradley Cooper as a high schooler is absolutely ridiculous.

“You tell me this guy looks like he’s 17,” the critic said. “This was a guy who, 10 years ago, played a character who wrecked havoc all over Bangkok, and now he’s supposed to be in high school?”

From Raph_PH on Wikipedia Commons

Other actors slated to play high schoolers include Alec Baldwin, George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Jennifer Aniston, and Jennifer Lopez.

Directors went even further to defend the decision using 45-year-old actors. Older actors had more consistency in their appearance and the stability of their personal lives. Younger actors were worse at an essential part of every scandalous Hollywood movie: the sex. Actors older than 45-years-old were apparently “skilled professionals” at sex scenes, while younger actors took a lot of time and training to not take the scenes too far or be comfortable having their bare asses shown on camera.

One director went as far as to cast Morgan Freeman as a teenager. With technology and makeup these days, she expressed tremendous confidence that Freeman can pass as 14.
The Internet Redesigned
By: Wael Itani
Tags: Technology, Economics, Internet, Business, Blockchain

The blockchain is implicitly aware of the links.

We have assumed that each node is aware of its destinations and sub-destinations … This does not need to be the case. The blockchain is implicitly aware of the links. Prescribing what connections the nodes are aware of is up to the platform, and the sovereignty, however.

In academia, you would want to be open-source. The scientific experiment has to be reproducible. This means that each node is open-source as well as its source nodes. It is preferable that you keep all your source nodes open if you are open-source. Ideally, this also automates literature reviews as graph analysis.

However, your paper might be written on a certain word processor, which is a commercial closed-source product. While a chunk of your returns would go to the word processor company, the reproducibility of the process is not affected.

For commercial use, you might want to keep your sources secret. However, if an open-source node yields a closed-source node, you might be required to declare utilizing this open-source node, as is the case now with adapting open-source software for closed-source commercial ones.

Talking about commercial use here might seem confusing. Aren’t we paying royalties on all our commercial use inside this system? You can always waive those rights if you wish, of course.

There will arise situations where you would need to track your sources or destinations. For one, this might be required in holding companies accountable for getting involved in what the public considers unethical, as Google have been forced to discontinue it military AI contract, as the MIT Technology Review reports. For security or other reasons, sovereignties might require the government, and even constituents, to track their sources, as the US cracked down on Huawei.

New Socioeconomic Paradigm

Our physical and digital operating systems converge.

Instead of leaving technology to shape our socioeconomic realities, we have presented a strategy guide meant to couple the development of both. Our physical and digital operating systems converge, as depicted in the feature image, where hardware and urbanscapes seem to stem from the same art. The network-aware computing paradigm introduced allows for reshaping a more tolerant Internet sovereignty, as professed possible by Hartley in his article.

This is the workhorse of the “Need” economy I have developed over my previous articles. It closes the economic cycle, so that wealth can be circulated rather accumulated at Internet poles. The idea, nevertheless, laments further discussion of a global valuation strategy.
Sometimes, Time is Worth The Wait
By: Darshak Rana
Tags: Life Lessons, Motivation, Poetry, Time, Success

POETRY

Sometimes, Time is Worth The Wait

To succeed

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

As the snow melted

Because of the sun’s heat

A song of tunes danced

Through the concrete streets

Making its way

across the creeks and stones,

I stand there in delight

and ecstasy,

as I learn a life-lesson.

Wait for the right time

Wait for the turn

To carve your niche

and make a mark.
Coronavirus quarantine — Qatari style
By: Brian Whitaker
Tags: Covid 19, Qatar, Quarantine, Coronavirus

From now until mid-September, Qatari citizens wishing to return home from abroad must first get permission from the government and then spend two weeks in quarantine when they arrive. It’s a kind of luxurious imprisonment — at their own expense.

Before boarding their flight they must book a fortnight’s stay at one of three government-approved hotels in Qatar and pay for it in advance. The cost ranges from $1,311 to $2,876 per person, depending on choice of hotel, and includes full board. Qatar Airways calls it a “ Welcome Home Package”.

On arrival in Doha, returning Qataris will welcomed with a “compulsory one way transfer” from airport to hotel and then shut in a bedroom for the next couple of weeks.

Cheapest option: quarantine in the TIME Rako Hotel for $1,311

Medium option: quarantine in the Dusit Doha Hotel for $2,167

Upmarket option: quarantine in the Westin Doha Hotel for $2,876

Nice as the rooms might look, guests are not allowed to leave them for any reason — not to take a stroll, visit the pool or gym, or even the prayer room. Breakfast, lunch and evening meals will be left outside the door.

Deliveries of additional food or goods from outside the hotel are not allowed.

To monitor for possible coronavirus infection, quarantined guests have to check their temperature twice a day and record it on a form. Hotel staff, contractors and suppliers are required to do the same.

As far as cleaning of rooms is concerned, there’s a detailed checklist of 43 “frequently touched” items to be disinfected by housekeeping staff.

Hotels in Qatar have also been issued with 32 pages of instructions for safeguarding guests and employees against Covid-19 infection. These will clearly generate a lot of extra work and add to running costs.

Further information:

Covid-19 in Qatar

Previous Middle East updates

Covid-19 statistics for Middle East
JavaScript: Inserting a Node at the Tail of a Linked List
By: Bahay Gulle Bilgi
Tags: Technology, JavaScript, Data Structures, Linked Lists, Programming

We were asked to append a new node after the last node of the given linked list and return the head of the updated linked list. The function takes two arguments; a reference to the head of a list and an integer to insert at the tail. First, we check if the head exists or not. If the list is empty, we point the head of the linked list to the new node and return it. If the head exists, we first have to traverse the list till the end in order to find the last node in the linked list. Note that we only have access to the head and we do not know what the last node in the linked list is, we just know that the last node is the node whose next node equals to null . We use a temporary variable called current to hold the last node. When we find the last node, we make the necessary links in it and then easily put the new node into the next of the last node.

Since we traverse the given list from head to end, the time complexity of this solution is O(n) where n is the number of nodes in the linked list.

Thank you for reading, I hope you found this post helpful! Here is a link to my previous article about inserting a node at the head of a linked list:
Building A Backlink Checker In Java
By: Sylvain Saurel
Tags: Software Development, Java8, Java, Programming, SEO

Creating The Web Crawler

Before you can count the number of Backlinks of a given web resource, you must have browsed the web from URLs to URLs. The program in charge of carrying out this work is called a Web Crawler.

Our first job is to create a Web Crawler.

To do this, I create a MyCrawler class within which I define the following properties:

A String for the root domain from which the Web Crawler will start its work.

A Boolean indicating whether the Web Crawler should only be limited to the path of URLs in the same domain as the root.

An integer indicating the maximum depth to which the search should go.

A multi-valued map that will store all discovered links in memory. Thus, if site A makes an HTML link to site B with an anchor “Site A”, the map will store these 3 informations.

In order to store the outgoing link from site A to site B with the anchor “Site A”, I create an Out object:

I then have to create a crawl method that takes as input a URL and the current depth level associated with the URL being processed.

To start, I display the URL during the visit and then I retrieve the domain associated with this URL. This is necessary if you want to limit the work of the Web Crawler to the domain associated to the root of the exploring.

If the domain can be visited and the maximum exploring depth has not been reached, the URL passed as a parameter will then be processed. To do this, I connect to the URL using the static connect method of the Jsoup object by passing the URL as an input. Then, I call the get method to get the Document instance representing the content of this URL.

The Document object got offers a select method that allows you to pass selection requests on the content of the HTML page it represents. In this specific case, the following request is therefore entered: “a[href]”.

Then we increment the search depth and iterate on all the Element objects obtained thanks to this query.

For each link, I retrieve the anchor by calling the text method of the Element object instance and the content of the href attribute. I store the association between the URL being processed and this destination URL associated with the anchor pointing to it.

Finally, all that remains is to recursively call the crawl method for visiting this destination URL, which in turn will become the processing URL.

All this gives us the following code for the Web Crawler:
Cirque du Soleil’s CRYSTAL delights — and mystifies — Everett
By: Chris Burlingame
Tags: Crystal, Reviews, Everett, Cirque Du Soleil

CRYSTAL, the touring show from the Canadian company Cirque du Soleil wrapped up a long weekend of shows (Wednesday through Sunday, with three shows on Saturday) at the Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett.

I took a backstage tour of the show a few hours before Wednesday night’s opening, so it was a fascinating contrast of the mundane nature of the backstage environment with the excitement that happens on stage, or on ice, in this case. This is Cirque’s forty-second production, and the first to be performed on ice.

Crystal’s story surrounds a young girl named Crystal and, to borrow a sentence from Wikipedia, “It is described as a woman shattering reality to discover herself in the world of possibility.” The part of me that loves all things Alice in Wonderland was hooked on this story line, but when I go to see Cirque shows (this is my fourth: Iris, Amaluna, Volta, and now Crystal), I’m less drawn to the plot and more in the audience to watch the acrobatics coalesce around a story, any story. Or at least that’s usually the case, but Nobahar Dadui makes such a compelling Crystal, with incredible grace and athleticism. She has the skill of a figure skater (which she is) and presence of a movie star.

Overall, Crystal is much slower-paced than, say, Volta, but there are moments of pure amazement, and when you get drawn into the story, there are some genuinely romantic parts of the story that were impossible for me not to be drawn into.

I’ve seen the balancing chair act performed a handful of times, including during Absinthe, my favorite Vegas show (it’s like Cirque du Soleil for dirtbags: it’s amazing), but here, there was a (literal) twist I hadn’t seen before, which is the performer rotating the stack of chairs 90 degrees (give or take) with his hips. It was dazzling to watch, even though I saw it twice: once during rehearsal and as part of the show a few hours later. The athleticism is undeniable, but the stakes-raising makes it unique and makes you unwilling to look elsewhere.

The music, while great overall, was slightly discomfiting when I heard a cover of Beyonce’s “Halo.” It wasn’t out of place, and fit with the scene it accentuated, but dropping Beyonce songs in 2019 appears, to me at least, to signify a level of coolness that is often unnecessary.

Still, this is a bold and exciting production from a company that you have come to expect a high level of quality. If you hold athleticism, acrobatics, gravity-defying, and storytelling sacred, the way I do, you can scarcely find better ways to spend an evening.
Binary Search Trees #1
Tags: Binary Search Tree, Bst, Data Structures, Algorithms, Python

Now we will want to first construct our Insert Operation. This insert method will take a self variable, and an insert value integer. This operation can be done recursively, but you can speed up your method by doing it in an infinite While loop. So we will create an infinite while loop, and will check in an if statement if the current node, which starts as the root node, is less than or greater than or equal to the value that we want to insert. If the value is less than the current node, we want to then check if the current node’s left child is null, if it is not null we will set the current node as the left child node of the current node and we will then loop through the while statement again. If it is null, then we have found our insertion spot, and we will insert a BST node instance containing the insert value. After that, we will break out of our infinite while loop and will return the self instance. If the value is greater than or equal to the current node’s value, then we will do the same thing as we did above, but checking opposite child values. Specifically, we will check if the right child is null, and if it is not then we will set the current node to the right child node and will loop through the while loop again. If it is null, we will insert our value as a BST node instance and will break out of the for loop and return our self instance.

The code for the Insert Operation can be seen below:
Let Yourself Be Vulnerably Seen
By: Marianna Saver
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Psychology, Life, Inspiration

Let Yourself Be Vulnerably Seen

On greatness and giving up control

Photo by Frank Busch on Unsplash

Eminem is one of the most controversial, best-selling artists of the twenty-first century and one of the most influential rappers of all time.

His early life resembles one of those you see only in a movie, or read about in a book. One where the protagonist is a half-orphan white kid living in a working-class black neighborhood in Detroit. He gets bullied at school and abused at home, “beat up in the bathroom, beat up in the hallways, shoved into lockers”.

A life as tumultuous as his success. Saying that he had a turbulent childhood would be an euphemism, an insult even.

Marshall Bruce Mathers III, known as Eminem, had to deal with mental illness, abuse, toxic relationships, and drug addiction since his early years. He was never particularly brilliant at school and dropped out at the age of seventeen but he always had a deep affinity for language, a love so profound for the letters that made him want to study the dictionary. Being so damn good with words and so honest with them is what made him one of the greatest artists of our time.

In his songs, he talks openly about his life, his experience with addiction, and his battle with mental health. He let his vulnerability flow through the melody of his voice. Fans buy his records not because he makes good music but because his lyrics resonate with them. They don’t go to his concerts to be entertained. They go to his concerts to see a friend on stage.
What secret is powering these AI and Blockchain startups?
By: Craig E Ryder
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Startup, Disruption, Blockchain, Tech

Blockchain for Product Provenance

Now the blockchain evangelism of 5–10 years ago has cooled down, cases of real-world problem-solving form the world’s most misunderstood ledger are starting to come to fruition.

Rob Squire, who is the CTO of new “centralised” blockchain startup, Ld8a, explains that blockchain’s future isn’t with digital currencies, but with Enterprise Systems of Record (ESOR). For him, blockchain’s immutable ledger is perfect for records that need to keep in sync with real-world changes.

Take, for example, product provenance.

London and Dublin-based startup, Circulor, is an industrial supply chain technology that harnesses the blockchain so brands can demonstrate to their stakeholders that they are ethical and sustainable.

Discussing a problem industry like mobile phones, which has a long, torrid relationship with “conflict minerals” such as coltan and cobalt, co-founder, Veera Johnson, explains that the Circulor system can track cobalt as it is recycled through the supply chain, and logs what is added to it, by whom and, when, all on the incorruptible record of the blockchain.

Blockchain startup, Circulor, are making suppliers rethink the provenance of problem products like smartphones. Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash

The technology is so compelling it motivated the former Asian businesswomen, Johnson, out of retirement.

She said, “We don’t stop the process [of bad supply chains] but we shine a light on it and that will, in turn, help improve supply chains. This year we’ll be moving into the aviation sector and the provenance of 3D printing materials.”

Similarly, a new Germany-based startup, retraced, is looking to redesign the fabric of the fashion industry. Following disasters such as the Randa Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, which inadvertently unearthed poor working conditions from many, familiar high street brands, consumers, especially young people, are demanding brands act more ethically. retraced allows fashion brands such as Cano — who produce handmade shoes from Mexico — to do that by telling their customers the stories they care about.

In both of these blockchain applications, the startups could not function without high-value computational power.
Tutellus update: week 24
By: Nacho Hontoria
Tags: ICO, Nem, China, Blockchain, Edtech

This week has been a very special week for Tutellus. Here are some of the main news that we have generated!

1.- NEM Foundation co-founder Erik Van Himbergen joins Tutellus as advisor

Erik Van Himbergen will help us in the long term to build the best Educational project ever and his role as advisor is adding a technical vision of infrastructure and services for the long term. The post, here.

2.- New #TutellusRoadShow in China & Singapore

We are about to embark on a new Asian tour that will take us to the cities of Shenzhei (23/6), Guangzhou (25/6), Shanghai (26/6) and Beijing (28/6), after being in Coinagenda Singapore event.

If you are in any of these cities in those days and you want to see us just have to write for a social network and we’ll manage the meeting.

3.- We bet strong for Asia

Currently we are in several important media in China and, in the coming days, we will continue to appear in them. The Asian community is fundamental to us and we will soon be engaging in communication activities in Japan and Korea as well.

Interested in becoming an Ambassador? apply here.

Local groups on Telegram: Tutellus China & Tutellus Japan.

← Chinese group on WeChat.

4.- We’re hype on Telegram!

tools.icodrops.com

Thanks to our great Community, this week we have been among the first positions of activity of ICOs in Telegram. We keep growing! Join us on Telegram.

5.- We’ve been interviewed by LatiNEM

Alexis Trujillo (LatiNEM) interviewed us for all the latin community (spanish). Thank you guys for the local support!
[NEWS] An Award For TEMCO
Tags: Temco, News, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Awards

So, let’s take a look at our CEO Scott Yoon’s Interview from Hankook Ilbo:

The innovation of supply chain data management platform through Blockchain:

TEMCO (CEO Scott Yoon, TEMCO) is a company that develops blockchain based supply chain data management system and e-commerce platform, planning to lead the revolution in the industry. TEMCO, through the specialized technical skills and business model, secured funding from Korea Investment Partners, and have made partnerships within Korea and globally.

Currently, TEMCO is in the process of developing an open market platform for luxury items called “GUHADA”.

“GUHADA” differentiates itself from other existing platforms by providing an independent method for the consumers so that they can trust the luxury goods’ authenticity that they purchase on the platform. To protect consumers from mishaps and troubles, the GUHADA platform uploads all the data such as product certifications, distribution records, and more information and shares them transparently, as well as provide insurance for in case of purchasing of counterfeit items. Other than performing as a third-party open market platform, “GUHADA” provides community service that sellers and buyers can actively share product information, authenticity evaluation, and sharing information about luxury items in general, and both buyers and sellers can receive rewards.

Through the successful operation of “GUHADA”, TEMCO team is developing and operating integrated system business that applies blockchain technology to the supply chain data management service and provide business intelligence tool for SMEs to continue its innovation.

TEMCO’s CEO Scott Yoon mentioned that

“TEMCO is working on becoming a professional platform developer company through the independent and integrated supply chain data management system and Business Intelligence tool.”

TEMCO is continuously developing GUHADA, and through the successful start of the GUHADA platform, TEMCO will be able to set up a stepping stone for the operation of integrated system business of the supply chain data management service. Also, by providing the Data analysis tool suitable for companies, continuing the innovation.
A Story-Teller’s Game
By: Nicole Maharaj
Tags: Film, Fiction, Books And Authors, Adaptation, Netflix

A Story-Teller’s Game

Crafting fiction for Movies

Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash

The world of film is ever-changing. Change is needed, as people change in the world so does the world of film. To keep up with these ever-changing times filmmakers have shown that they do take account of what the audience might want to see.

In the world that we live in, stories are all around us, for filmmakers want to show those stories more and more. Especially the ones that have been crafted by authors and have already had a huge fan base.

One of the first books that were ever adapted for film, was Alice in Wonderland in 1903. Since then there have been many more adaptations of this one film. Some novels or stories have the ability to stand the test of time.

With great stories like Alice in Wonderland, the characters and the many wondrous things that happen to them are things that make people want to watch over and over again. Specifically, if they are redone in different ways.

The most well known of Alice in Wonderland was made in 1851 by none other than Walt Disney himself. I myself have watched this version many times over the years. My new favorite version however is Tim Burton’s masterpiece Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016). Which further cements my theory that there are always ways to improve amazing stories.

Even on TV, Alice in Wonderland was given its own adaptation. In the TV series Once, an American drama that shows a world of Fairy Tale characters like Snow White, Prince Charming, Red Riding Hood, and a slew of others that have been trapped in the real world by Snow White’s Evil Queen. I cannot even begin to describe how very amazing that show was, but out of that show, a spin-off series was created called Once Upon a Time In Wonderland.

This series was exclusively set in the world of Wonderland and had all the characters you would expect to see in Wonderland and a few others that you definitely wouldn’t expect like Jafar and a genie who is the love interest for Alice herself.

If you have a chance to see it, I would suggest you take it. The story was my favorite, as was the fact that they solved the whole problem within nine episodes.