fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Leading by Design in Enterprise SaaS
By: Rob Simon
Tags: Tech, Startup, Design, Enterprise, UX

2. The myth of a “design-first” culture

Last night at Disney, Jared Spool said “Design is the rendering of intent.” I love that — kind of want to paint it on the wall — let’s break it down, as Jared would say.

If we’re saying that as Designers want to work in an “intent-first” culture, then we might actually be right where we need to be without having to stir a giant rebellion. All start-ups are intent-focused. That intent is represented by varying goals from adoption & revenue generation to market penetration & other service-oriented goals.

I’ve yet to find an actual company whose sole intent was to exist for the sake of creating good Design. That’s like saying we as humans exist to breath. It’s a functional requirement, not an end goal.

The important key is that leadership understands the impact of good Design. That alone creates the necessary space for designing with intent.

In a rocketship environment, our job is to design with purpose and intent so that we use what’s on the screen to help with problems off the screen. Many times the pixels are the easy part.

3. Doing it right vs. Doing it fast

This trade-off is at the core of every product team. We’ve learned that although it’s not always one other, more often not the key to avoiding failure is to identify the definitions of success from the start of a project.

Many smaller tasks are simply required dependencies that enable a larger objective; they may only need to follow basic usability standards in order to be effective. The art is in the recognition of these moments: the time saved* here can be applied to opportunities that deserve iteration and will have a significant impact.

In short, sometimes in a production environment doing it right is doing it fast. It might not result as a standalone portfolio piece, but it may be an integral element that allows your fellow team members to move a larger initiative forward.

*One caveat is that having an amazing DesignOps team and Design System significantly helps reduce the time it takes to execute a meaningful solution at a higher level of quality — even under the duress of tight time constraints.
Shawnee Jazz Festival
Tags: Schools, Entertainment, Jazz Festival, Headlines, Shawnee High School

Shawnee High School will host their annual Jazz Festival on April 8. Jazz bands from ten area high schools are scheduled to compete. The program includes many popular jazz standards and features some very accomplished young musicians, including several talented members of the All South Jersey and All State Honor Bands. In addition, there will be a guest performance by local favorite, M-Town Jazz.

“This is not only a showcase for the tremendous musical talent we have in our South Jersey schools, but also a really entertaining evening for the community. We urge everyone to come out and enjoy a great night of music,” said Lisa Bakanas, event coordinator and member of the Shawnee Band Parents Association who organizes the Jazz Fest.

Music department faculty members from area colleges and universities will serve as judges for the event. Between the sets performed by local high school jazz ensembles, Medford’s M-town Jazz Jam will perform. M-Town Jazz Jamincludes several professional musicians and music educators who rehearse and perform with the students. They are part of the South Jersey Music Education Partnership, a local non-profit that is dedicated to the development of student musicians through scholarships for private instruction, performance opportunities, and mentorships. More information on SJMEP events will be available the night of the jazz festival.

The jazz festival runs from 5 to 10 p.m. Tickets, available at the door. They will be $8 for general admission and $5 for students and seniors. Seniors with a Lenape regional school district golden pass are admitted free. The Shawnee Band Parents Association will be selling hot food and homemade baked good in the cafeteria all evening. The competition will be held in the Shawnee High School auditorium located at 600 Tabernacle Road in Medford.
👀Huobi x CoinMarketCal👀A Coin To Keep An Eye On — IOTA!
By: Huobi Global
Tags: Iota, Huobi, Buy Iota, Chrysalis

🔹What is IOTA?

IOTA is an open-source distributed ledger and cryptocurrency designed for the Internet of things (IoT). It uses a directed acyclic graph to store transactions on its ledger, motivated by potentially higher scalability over blockchain-based distributed ledgers. IOTA does not use miners to validate transactions, instead, users that issue a new transaction must approve two previous transactions and perform a small amount of proof of work. Transactions can therefore be issued without fees, facilitating microtransactions.

📅 Recent Event via coinmarketcal.com!

The Chrysalis (IOTA 1.5) Public Testnet is live! As we progress towards 2.0, we welcome everyone to test and provide feedback on all the key components available, including the new CLI wallet, faucet, our new js library, and more.

IOTA | USDT — Dec.14th , 5:19 EST , 1 Day Chart!

📈 Analysis

The first half of December retraced most of IOTA’s November gains — but are bulls accumulating for the next move upward?

Last Friday, the price bounced from a significant weekly level near $0.2658 as it swept stops below the low near $0.275. This move could be setting the stage for the first crack at resistance just under the December monthly open near $0.3215.

If this move occurs, bulls will likely find entries at probable support near $0.2834 — confluent with a significant monthly level. If this level breaks instead, bulls can anticipate support near the consolidation range’s midpoint around $0.2571.

A break of the monthly open makes the relatively equal highs near $0.3661 a likely target. Continuation from this level could lead to the next resistance near $0.3845 and on to the monthly high at $0.426.

🔹Trade $100 IOTA or more — Win up to $1000.

👀Follow Us On Twitter @HuobiGlobal + @CoinMarketCal

👀www.huobi.com; coinmarketcal.com

Risk Reminder:

1. Trading in digital assets comes with high risks due to huge price fluctuations. Users should be fully aware of the risks associated with digital asset trading and make prudent trading decisions.

2. Huobi Global’s announcements and information do not constitute investment advice, and Huobi will not bear responsibility or provide compensation for direct or indirect losses arising from trading decisions whilst relying on this information.
An open letter to a future Borlaug-Ruan Intern
By: Stefany Naranjo
Tags: Borlaug Ruan Intern, World Food Prize, Internships

Dear future Borlaug-Ruan Intern,

You are in for the adventure of a lifetime. This summer will be fulfilled with some of the craziest explorations that you have ever been on! As my days as an intern wind down, I sit back to reflect on the time I have spent here in Lima at the International Potato Center and have a few words of advice for you.

1 Say yes. Yes to at least trying all of the unique foods of your country. While you may not enjoy the taste of all of it, I can assure you that you will come out with a greater experience from having had a taste of the local cuisine. When someone share’s their favorite home-cooked dish with you and you end up really enjoying it is unforgettable. That exchange of wanting to share a piece of themselves with you is priceless.

2Go on an exploration. Don’t be afraid to go out and see the wonderful, unique, and historic landscapes of your country. Each culture is so rich and unparalleled to any other experience that you will have had before this time. So grab a colleague [aka new friends :)] and take to local markets or in my case the ocean! Learn a new skill, whether it be a new dance style or a new recipe because these are things that you will cherish and bring home with you.

3 Come up for air. Often times, interns have early mornings and long nights and let's just say the days fly by very quickly. You do so much each week and it can lead to a very jumbled mind. So, find something that grounds you and gives you time to reflect on this incredible experience. I personally have found that journaling all of my thoughts or my experiences helps me regroup at the end of the week.

4 Be ready to learn. I can guarantee you that everyone at your institution or research center will welcome you with open arms. Make sure to make the most of this experience and connect with these new people. They have so much to offer you and you will learn a lot from each one of them. I am grateful to have learned not only about science and how to tackle food insecurity but to have also have learned life lessons that have changed my outlook.
Procast i n a t i o n
By: Jonathan Greene
Tags: Productivity, Self, Time, Procrastination, Poetry

Procast i n a t i o n

A Poem

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Time, as a construct,

is wholly unappealing

especially when expectant

as if it’s always waiting for me

to accomplish one more directive

so that I can move on to another task

but really all I want to do is bathe deeply

in procrast i n a t i o n, like a lavender bath

lulling me to sleep in direct avoidance of to-do

I love procrast i n a t i o n because it’s avoidant

a sidestep to the hustle and bustle of life

a gentle nod that I can be unproductive

and still achieve something greater

like an extra hour of deep sleep

or two shows, back-to-back,

or a long, firm massage

or ignoring my inbox

until time stops
Data Points for Feb 8th — 15th: 6 Great Articles in the Field of Digital Marketing and Data Analytics
By: Zach Diamond
Tags: Small Business, Data Science, Industry Analysis, SEO, Digital Marketing

Data Points for Feb 8th — 15th: 6 Great Articles in the Field of Digital Marketing and Data Analytics Zach Diamond Follow Feb 15, 2017 · 3 min read

The internet is a cool place. Not only is it enormous but it puts an entire world of information at our fingertips.

Now, when I say “information” I don’t just mean facts and numbers. There is also a whole group of people that write about their thoughts and insights.

They write some great stuff that is useful but since the internet is so unbelievably enormous those articles can sometimes be pretty hard to find.

Never fear, at Humanlytics we’re problem solvers and we’ve solved this problem.

Every week we’re going to scour the interwebs so you don’t have to in order to give you the best of what’s out there.

Let’s dig in to what we have for this week.

That’s all for this week. We’ve packed a lot of great insights into this article so be sure to take your time looking through them. Or you could just skim, that works too.

Until next week.
The gospel of Elektra Abundance
By: Jonathan Poletti
Tags: Transgender, Religion, LGBTQ, Life, TV Series

The gospel of Elektra Abundance

Transgender actress Dominique Jackson of “Pose” was always a believer.

“My grandmother’s proud of me, my family’s proud because here I am, I’m closer to God now.” In a 2015 interview, she thinks back on the Anglican altar boy in Trinidad, and being raped by the priest. I’m catching up with Dominique Jackson, the star of FX’s Pose, struck by how the imperious Elektra Abundance is, in reality, a spiritual seeker.

She started out life in hell.

“We live in this realm,” she sighs, “where things exist but we pretend they don’t exist, so that makes them, you know, nonexistent.”

It led to a long investigation into what ‘exists’ . . . finding God, and herself.

As in the Protestant Reformation, she had to figure out what a priest meant to her. Did he handle “God” for you?

That remained true for her family and community, even after they learned of the abuse, so she was left without a spiritual narrative, except dying. “I felt that it would be better for me to save my family’s name by dying than to come forward as myself or live as myself and bring them shame and disrespect.”

She laughs. “And then I woke the hell up.”
Milk and Honey written by Rupi Kaur
Tags: Books, Mental Health, Love, Writing, Poetry

media.tumblr.com

Milk and Honey written by Rupi Kaur

A review on her very first debut collection.

It was November 2014 when Rupi Kaur self-published her first collection titled ‘Milk and Honey’, a collection of poems and prose about struggles and life. The collection is divided into four chapters: the hurting, the loving, the breaking, and the healing which individually denotes the author’s experience in love, loss, pain, and recovery.

NOTABLE PASSAGES:

I honestly prefer every poem and prose written on this book as notable because they really are. Every single line denotes Kaur’s deep emotions. It almost as if the poem was meant for me, as if I was struggling the same or as if I’ve experienced the same.

WHAT I LOVED ABOUT THIS BOOK:

I loved the fact that this book is self-published. Before, I thought self-published books couldn’t make it to the market. I thought people only turn their attention to books from well-known publishers and that if your book doesn’t belong there, people might just ditch them. I don’t want that to happen. I want my future book to be read by people. Rupi Kaur has enlightened me, given me courage to just keep on doing what I love, expect less and simply, see the outcome.

I don’t know why Kaur didn’t prefer to have a publisher or maybe like me, she doesn’t have the courage to try sending her manuscript. Her reasons may vary and it’s okay. Consequently, when Milk and Honey became a success, it leads her to Andrew McMeel publishing releasing it under their name on October 2015.

Overall, just like what I’ve mentioned on my preferred notable passages, I loved every single thing in this book: the illustrations which are personally illustrated by her, the lines, its structure and the plain black cover of this book.

credits to the owner.

DO I WANT TO SEE THIS ON BIG-SCREEN?

The idea of violence, loss, heartbreak, how an individual survives all of those pains is definitely a good concept for people to watch. I don’t know how they are going to create an adaptation of this, maybe a theatre musical or a theatre acts will do since it’s a collection of prose and poems. Yes, I’d love to see it on big-screen.

WILL I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ALL AGES?

No. The concept is too mature for very young readers. I think they could just tell what this book is all about in a simple and nice way, in that way, they will understand the book.

RATINGS: 5 stars for the concept/idea, 4 stars for the plain black cover with honey bees, 5 stars on the contents, various prose and poems.

Know more about Rupi Kaur here: https://www.rupikaur.com/
Communication is a two way street
By: Ed Pike
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Communication

Bite sized leadership advice

Communication is a two-way street.

Listen hard to your team, *really* listen to understand. Ask open questions.

This applies more than ever in a virtual world where you are missing many of the reference points you have.

Take a moment to check in and understand how the other person is or thinks before you start.

Humans can’t help speaking or being influenced by what is front of their mind, which is typically someting which is stressing them out, a problem to be solved.

Do not be afraid of pauses or silences, try six seconds to promote the other person to speak.

Adapt your message based on what you learn, rather than leaping in.

Once you have communicated, measure the effectiveness of what you have communicated. Not just the message, which can be repeated easily. Take a moment to ask questions which demonstrate understanding.

Look for the person you are communicating with to translate the message into their own language and actions.

One to watch out for, a trap we can often fall into; whoever speaks the most in a two way interaction believes that they have the better relationship with the other person.

A good balance is 50/50, depending on the purpose of the conversation. If you are at 80/20 with you projecting 80% of the time, take a moment. Is this appropriate.

If you are looking for advice on how to lead through a crisis, then this long form Medium article (10 mins read) has all the good stuff that will make the difference to you and your leadership.

This is part of our Leadership Wizdom series, bite sized leadership advice for leaders who wish to improve their leadership, but don’t have much time. For more indepth articles check out The Change Wizard
The Current State of Science
By: Michael Barnes
Tags: Science Communication, Science Education, Science

Much of science has lost its curiosity. As a result, the scientific community has created an exclusive club where your entry into it is publication and to stay in it, you must continue to do so at the expense of integrity, new and exciting knowledge, and trust from the public. This exclusivity has created a rift. By being overly technical, esoteric, and pedantic, the scientific community has made it virtually impossible for the layperson to understand the information being presented to them resulting in animosity and divisiveness that has lead us to this current anti-science movement. We look down on and condescend those who don’t understand the process and then act surprised when people reject the knowledge gained from hard, credible science. For example, the current environment of climate change denial is one of the larger issues of our time.

A change needs to be made. It’s not enough to throw complicated jargon at the public. There needs to be better and more meaningful communication. We’ve come to the apex of an “us vs. them” dichotomy where it doesn’t matter what is said. “We” are right and “they” are wrong and that’s final. Communication needs to be more open and transparent. Both for the sake of those conducting research and those it’s being communicated to, i.e. the public. I believe this image encapsulates this lack of communication fairly well:

I found this image on a poster in the biology lab of a community college. What is even going on in this picture? I like to think that I have a pretty firm grasp of the scientific method, but this seems to intentionally complicate it. What student in an intro biology course is going to understand this? Probably very few. The website that this came from is has many more images that are just as confusing. And it’s advertised to grade school teachers to educate their students with!
Auralia JS vs. Angular
By: Chameera Dulanga
Tags: Angular, JavaScript, Front End Development, Nodejs, Programming

Aurelia vs. Angular Comparison

This part contains the essence of this article. Let’s see which is better, Aurelia or Angular.

Standards compliance

Aurelia complies entirely with established web standards as well as those that are currently evolving. In this case, Angular is still behind and tends to diverge from the standards. Aurelia libraries mainly consist of vanilla JS and TS classes.

One of the most noticeable aspects where Agular’s lack of compliance has consequences for programmers is case sensitivity. Aurelia is case-insensitive as standard HTML is case-insensitive. Angular syntax is case-sensitive, such that web browsers can’t use HTML parsers. Aurelia enables all templates to be conveniently wrapped in a single tag. This function is hard to execute in Angular and may not be feasible at all.

Binding

Aurelia simply supports both one-way and two-way binding, which is complicated in Angular and can lead to developer confusion. By default, Aurelia has one-way binding. For applications like binding an input widget to a specific view model, two-way binding is more appropriate. Aurelia’s syntax to bind variables within a class is also comparable to how it is done by JS. The binding type that they are using can be defined in self-documentation by developers.

Auralia simple data binding:

Auralia two-way data binding:

Language support

Developers are allowed to write JS code in TypeScript only in Angular. TypeScript can also be used in Aurelia but also other programming languages offering a lot more flexibility for developers, such as ECMAScript (ES) and all its variants. Although developers can use ES since most of Aurelia’s documentation and resources are in Typescript, they are strongly urged to use TypeScript.

Routing

The routing configuration is done in a similar way by both frameworks, although the concept of such routes is substantially different. In Aurelia, parent routes are defined in one place and bring the configuration into the child components for subroutes. The components are completely encapsulated by this strategy, covering their internal complexities.

Inside a central configuration file, a module’s routes should be defined in Angular, namely paths, routable components, and subroutes. This approach makes Angular’s route description even more challenging. A basic routing example using Auralia is shown below (Source: Auralia documentation).

Interoperability

Aurelia fits well with other frameworks and has better interoperability than Angular.
You and I and Stars
By: Zach J. Payne
Tags: Relationships, Love, Poetry, Sonnet, Life

after Ronni Davis’s

When the Stars Lead To You

I cannot say that heaven will persist

the years to come; nor can our love endure

these machinations: we cannot resist

the forces of the universe, so pure

and unforgiving; we are only dust

inconsequential, hands in empty space

that grasp impossibilities, love, lust,

and every manner of misery, and grace.

It seems impossible to leave a mark;

creation rarely yielding to our touch,

these hearts that beat so futile in our chests

until this darkness sets. This life so stark

that passes in an avalanche, so much

until it isn’t. Silence finally rests.
7 Excellent Progressive Web App Examples
Tags: Web App Development, Mobile App Development, Pwa, Progressive Web App, Web Development

7 Excellent Progressive Web App Examples

7 Apps That Prove PWAs Are Ready For Mainstream Consumer Adoption

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are becoming increasingly more capable, and every day new impressive PWAs are added to Appscope.

PWAs have existed in different forms ever since the launch of the first smartphone, which finally enabled a rich web browsing experience for mobile. For a long time, they lagged behind their native counterparts in both usage and usability but lately, they have shown themselves to be very real alternatives. Here are eight examples of great Progressive Web Apps that prove that PWAs are poised to enter a mass adoption phase in 2018.

Rapidly expanding into new markets, Uber was in need of an application that could be used by anyone regardless of device and network speed. Its solution was to develop a Progressive Web App that mimicked its native applications in functionality, but came at a significantly lighter weight. Using tiny libraries and SVGs instead of images where possible, the m.uber.com core app is only 50 kB gzipped and loads in less than three seconds — on 2G networks!

Learn more about Uber’s PWA at https://eng.uber.com/m-uber/
What If Famous Film Directors Made Porn
By: David Caracciolo
Tags: Film, Humor, Love, Sex, Movies

Corpse Ride

It was the night before Christmas and Jack’s ex returns from the grave for makeup sex.

Director: Tim Burton
Go言語での決済システムとマイクロサービス化について
By: Eureka
Tags: Tech, Golang, Go

Learn more about how Eureka technology and engineering

Follow
Part 11 — Blood: Time to Go
By: Keith R. Higgons
Tags: Fiction Series, 100 Naked Words, Crime Fiction, Very Short Story, Crime Series

Mark asked: “What does that mean?”

“Nothing. We really need to think of how we’re gonna … shhh.” Tyler listened closely, and pointed to the Russian on the floor: “Steph check that guy’s pulse.”

She put her finger on his neck: “How the fuck is this guy still alive?”

Mark handed Steph the 9mm: “Here ya go.”

Steph shot him once more in the head: “These guys are like terminators,” and handed the gun back to Mark.

“OK, now. One of these corpses has got a set of keys to a car. We’ll check him and then make our way.”
Neglected
By: Anitha Sankaran
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Surrealism, Pain, loose screws, Poetry

Neglected

A Poem

Image by natura_photos from Pixabay

One loose screw never

take down a colossal structure

Bottom of the boulder —

an unseen part

No necessity to roll it

only to see the scars

it had endured you say

It is your theory, my friend

Demons say the good

and slay the good

I recite the formed thoughts

into real words in a slow

and steady rhythm

I’ve got my screws loose

Fix a fix

For my mind

Into my mind

Whatever…

Whatever you said

In my point, I ask,

Is this the least you

managed to save

your lost tyranny?

I wish you should

see the other side of the stars

another side of the moon

the rear of the sun

of course the backside

of your mind

Because all the while

I hoped I could show

you the parts that you

have neglected

hurts the most

©Anitha Sankaran 2020

In response to the Poetry Prompt: loose screws by J.D. Harms —
Exclusive Guide of Mixin Network Developer Competition Judge — Jeffrey Wernick
By: Mixin Evangelist
Tags: Mixinnetwork, Investors, Hackathon, Competition, Developer

Jeffrey Wernick, famous investor with early holdings of Uber and Airbnb, early investor, avid believer and evangelist of Bitcoin, angel investor focuses mostly on sharing economy, the blockchain and biomedical startups, graduate and postgraduate from University of Chicago, majoring in economics and finance, and studied under various Nobel laureates, successful entrepreneur and seasoned private investor in various asset classes, advisor to a number of selected blockchain projects. Now, Jeffrey acts as an advisor for Qtum, a blockchain application platform.

Jeffrey Wernick began trading options and future while a student at the University of Chicago before moving on Salomon Brothers and the National Bank of Detroit, where he was its youngest senior officer. He then founded a technology-focused venture capital firm and hedge fund to help distressed and bankrupt companies. Jeffrey founded, then sold the risk management firm AVI Portfolio Service Company, Inc. before focusing on his private investment portfolio. In 2009, he tapped Bitcoin and had made an investment. Ever since, he has been successful in betting in favor of startups and cryptocurrencies, and is highly experienced with investing in distressed and bankrupt companies, as well as in other domestic and international investment opportunities, including seed capital, angel investing, venture capital, real estate, currencies, commodities, mining, all forms of derivatives and structured financial products, sharing economy, leading platforms, Bitcoin, blockchain, biomedical, human genome project and payment systems.

Since Oct. 2017, Jeffrey Wernick has served on the advisory board of Qtum, a global project that aims to the bridge between the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities, the real world and blockchain world. He has been a member of the board of DataWallet, a digital wallet for online data that allows users take their data from platforms such as Facebook, Amazon, Uber, Spotify and unify it in one place, since June 2018.

Jeffry is one of the most successful investors of Bitcoin, and he insists on the ability to solve the biggest problems with fiat money.
Email Marketing Mistakes — The Monthly Newsletter
By: John W Hayes
Tags: Email Marketing, Sales, Marketing

Photo by Web Hosting on Unsplash

If you are one of those email marketers whose sole output is a monthly email newsletter, it’s very likely that you are not seeing optimum results from your efforts.

Too many marketers rely exclusively on the monthly newsletter approach to email marketing. This means they publish a newsletter at a fixed date every month, regardless of whether they have anything to say. This approach forces them to compile content to suit the deadline and not the subscribers.

Five Problems with Monthly Newsletters

Too Much Content: Email marketing works at its best when it is kept short and to the point. Subscribers are highly unlikely to scroll through multiple articles and links in the hope of finding something useful. When pushed out as part of a lengthy communication, great content has the potential of being lost and returning little value. Not Enough Quality Content: A lack of focus on quality content creation can force desperate marketers to publish irrelevant, un-newsworthy material that will not only fail to engage your subscribers but may also damage your reputation and have a negative impact on your future campaigns. Bad Timing: Holding content back for your monthly newsletter could mean you are missing opportunities to convert. This is especially relevant if you work in a competitive marketplace or have time-sensitive offers. No Captive Audience: No matter how good you think your monthly newsletter is, it is highly unlikely that your subscribers are sitting at home, waiting with bated breath for your monthly missive. Only One Chance to Convert: With a single monthly newsletter hitting your subscribers, you have just one chance to convert. If you are lucky and attract sales from your newsletter, these will be clustered around the time of publication, meaning that orders or requests for information will need to be fulfilled or handled right around the time of publishing — which may cause logistical or customer support problems.

The monthly newsletter is not a strategy — it is an afterthought. If you have nothing to say, don’t say it. Conversely, when you do have something to say, don’t sit on it. Get your message out there and start seeing a return straight away. If you do publish a monthly newsletter, make sure you complement it with more regular, targeted campaigns throughout the month.

This post first appeared on the iContact Email Marketing Blog.
Resistance Poetry 2020.08
Tags: Politics, Resistance Poetry, Collection, Poetry, Commentary

Resistance Poetry 2020.08

3000 Poems

Sometime in August, the Medium odometer for the tag “Resistance Poetry” rolled over to 3000. I can’t say that all poems so tagged were published in RP or which one tipped the counter. But, that’s a lot of verse as commentary out there, and I want to thank all the poets who are using their voices to comment on culture and world events.

When I was growing up, musicians and songwriters were the people penning resistance poetry, their views seeping into my split-level suburbia through the radio, opening my mind to a larger reality.

Given the state of the world, I’ve been disappointed in the general lack of push back-from today’s lyricists, especially headliners.

And then this:

NEW POETS

Laith Alobaidi

Afiyah The Poet

Jessica Lee McMillan (8/20)

Radha Kapadia

Arundhati

RETURNING POETS

Efe Nakpodia

Ryan J. Petteway

Will Schmit

Anna Sharudenko

Steven Rouach

Keith

Mallory J. Dominic

Jeffrey Field

Jonathan Greene

Roger Blonder

Michele Merritt, Ph.D.

Kensho Keith

Jane Vogel

Sylvia Wohlfarth

Christyl Rivers, Phd.

Dale Biron

Paul Mullinger

Edis Rune

AK (Aaska Aejaz)

Jane Woodman

Virginia Roces

Muthita Kanwerayothin

Harper Thorpe

David Spero Rn

Emma Briggs

Jack Burt

Matthew Broyles

Larenz Brown

Racheli Miller, Ph.D.

Saurabh

Rob Cullen

James G Brennan

Imad

John Gillen

Samuel Cracia
This Virtual Reality Startup Just Purchased The Pioneers of Music Streaming For $70 Million
By: Zachary Minott
Tags: Music, Tech, Virtual Reality, Startup, Technology

A Revolutionary New Way To Stream Music

This acquisition is vastly important as it marks the beginning of the first time we’ll ever see the combination of completely immersive visual content and music streaming.

Will this be the new frontier of music streaming?

Well as far as the effect of the way this dynamic duo will affect the way we listen to music, all that I can really do is just speculate.

Virtual reality is not quite the day-to-day reality we see yet. We have not yet reached the point where Virtual Reality has become widely adopted or appreciated despite the extraordinary and successful advancement in that technology, at least in comparison to the world we observe in Ready Player One.

Even so, you cannot deny the excitement of where it could potentially take us and the amazing experiences that could be provided to us. MelodyVR’s CEO Anthony Matchett actually said in a statement that, “Our purchase of Napster, one of the music industry’s original disruptors, is born out of our wish to deliver the world’s foremost music experience, available seamlessly across audio and visual media and in turn presenting a truly next-generation music service.”

The fact that they are even working towards this goal is absolutely mind-blowing to me and with the way COVID-19 has impacted the way we move about in the current state of the world may just be the thing to catalyze the growth of many people using VR as a way to experience live and immersive music. That sole factor may inspire the speedy growth to deliver such types of experiences on a much larger scale at a quicker pace. So if you were to ask me, I would say that this could very likely move us into a new frontier of the way we listen to and experience music on a daily basis.

Especially with the acquisition of Napster who paved the path to online music sharing provides MelodyVR with a rather unique edge, as Napster is the exact platform that inspired the creation of music-streaming giants such as Spotify, Soundcloud, and Apple Music. MelodyVR will have direct access to the infrastructure and the platform that made these companies what they are today, which, if anything, provides with enough advantage to succeed over their competitors and propel the streaming of music into the next generation.
Optimize Your Data Model for Your Frontend Applications With BFF
By: Oğuz Kılıç
Tags: GraphQL, JavaScript, Front End Development, Bff, Microservices

Aggregation Layer

In the microservice world, you can have numerous services where you manage many areas belonging to your product. In this case, it is inevitable to make many requests to collect the information of a product. With the services called Aggregator, it is possible to collect information of a product from foundation layers and to return with a single response.

Aggregate is a pattern in Domain-Driven Design. A DDD aggregate is a cluster of domain objects that can be treated as a single unit. An example may be an order and its line-items, these will be separate objects, but it’s useful to treat the order (together with its line items) as a single aggregate. — Martin Fowler

However, aggregation layer can also undertake different tasks. For example, on this layer, it can make the decisions that are required to complete an order and have this process performed by microservice, which has only the task of completing the order. It is a suitable layer for keeping such logical operations i.e. business cases.

Foundation Layer

Foundation refers to the layer with the microservices that return the data that aggregators need. We can qualify them as real microservices. We can call them as bottom-level services that communicate directly with DB and do what they are told to do.

What makes aggregation layer advantageous is that you can rewrite your microservices in the bottom-layer without touching the business logic or you can change the DB model behind it.

However, this pattern may not be necessary in every case. It is necessary to design these layers in accordance with the need.

Here, you can ask the following question: Where exactly should the BFF layer be positioned?

The BFF layer should be positioned just before the Aggregation layer.

The BFF layer should take over the data that Aggregators collect from Foundation layer and return in a single response and make them suitable for frontend. However, BFFs do not have to communicate with the aggregation layer all the time.

Sometimes, you can directly communicate with the bottom-layer microservices. At this point, we can say that it should be generally in front of aggregation but can be positioned anywhere according to the need.

Why should I create the third layer? You may ask this question here. Cannot Aggregation perform this task?

At first glance, the aggregation layer may seem to replace BFF, but the situation is different in the real world. BFF can be positioned as the third layer for some reasons such as maintenance cost.

Of course, each layer that the data visits while reaching the client means some latency. Some solutions definitely come with a price.
Lightning Strikes, Congress Talks Crypto, Google Bans Ads, and More — This Week In Crypto (Ep. 5)
By: Joseph Harris
Tags: Events, Bitcoin, News, Investing, Cryptocurrency

Disclaimer:

Any statements I make in these videos are just my opinion, and should not be taken as investment advice.

Please do your own research in addition to watching these videos, ensure you are fully confident in any investment decisions you make, and never invest money you cannot afford to lose.
Why I’m believing forward and so should you!
By: Mary Ann Lopez
Tags: Life Lessons, Emotional Intelligence, Personal Development, Self Improvement, Life

I want a do-over.

Not a full do-over, just partial where I can exit stage right and then maybe make a U-turn and go in a completely opposite direction. I’ve had weeks of time to read, write, and reflect. Now, I really want to start something new. What? I’m not exactly sure.

When I was younger, I would just pivot and do something different. Often I was running from myself and from difficulty. I learned you cannot get away from yourself. Running is never the answer.

The only thing to do is to change, to let go of bad habits and let go of pain, fear, and sorrow.

I am ready.

I also know that making rash decisions without much thought has been my modus operandi. I am older and maybe a bit wiser. I want THE adventure. I want THE joy. I want to lean into something fresh and new. I am not sure what that may look like. But, I know I want it!

There was a time when I gave up on god. I didn’t believe in God and I felt I was abandoned. Then, I mended my relationship, we came to a better understanding, but I still didn’t get it.

I’m not a religious person. I am spiritual. I am a person who sees god in everything from the birds to my car Pearl. Over the years, I’ve created my own relationship with God and for a long time, I felt I was fighting my battles alone — mostly because I was alone. Prior to this outbreak, I began to believe differently.

I am not alone and I don’t have to fight. I can relax with things and trust that God is with me.

So, when I woke up this morning feeling yucky, I saw it as another opportunity to spend time believing forward. I have to prepare. But, not for a challenge. I think I’m done with those. Instead, I’m looking forward to all the good stuff ahead. If I trust in God, and in myself, I know adventure is on the way. Soon anything will be possible.
5 Sorting Algorithms every Programmer must know
By: Adwiteeya Reyna
Tags: Data Structures, Programming, Learning To Code, Algorithms, Data

3. Bubble Sort

Bubble Sort is the sorting algorithm that works by repeatedly swapping the adjacent elements if they are in the wrong order. After each iteration or pass, the largest element reaches the end (in case of ascending order) or the smallest element reaches the end (in case of descending order). The pass through the list is repeated until the list is sorted. This algorithm is not suitable for large data sets as its average and worst-case complexity are of Ο(n^2) where n is the number of items

Example:

64 34 25 12 22 11 90 Iteration 1:

(64 34 25 12 22 11 90) -> (34 64 25 12 22 11 90), Here, algorithm compares the first two elements, and swaps since 64 > 34.

(34 64 25 12 22 11 90) -> (34 25 64 12 22 11 90), Swap since 64 > 25

(34 25 64 12 22 11 90) -> (34 25 12 64 22 11 90), Swap since 64 > 12

(34 25 12 64 22 11 90) -> (34 25 12 22 64 11 90), Swap since 64 > 22

(34 25 12 22 64 11 90) -> (34 25 12 22 11 64 90), Swap since 64 > 11

(34 25 12 22 11 64 90) -> (34 25 12 22 11 64 90), Now, since these elements are already in order (90 > 64), algorithm does not swap them. Iteration 2:

(34 25 12 22 11 64 90) -> (25 34 12 22 11 64 90), Swap since 34 > 25

(25 34 12 22 11 64 90) -> (25 12 34 22 11 64 90), Swap since 34 > 12

(25 12 34 22 11 64 90) -> (25 12 22 34 11 64 90), Swap since 34 > 22

(25 12 22 34 11 64 90) -> (25 12 22 11 34 64 90), Swap since 34 > 11

(25 12 22 11 34 64 90) -> (25 12 22 11 34 64 90), Now, since these elements are already in order (64 > 34), algorithm does not swap them. Iteration 3:

(25 12 22 11 34 64 90) -> (12 25 22 11 34 64 90), Swap since 25 > 12

(12 25 22 11 34 64 90) -> (12 22 25 11 34 64 90), Swap since 25 > 22

(12 22 25 11 34 64 90) -> (12 22 11 25 34 64 90), Swap since 25 > 11

(12 22 11 25 34 64 90) -> (12 22 11 25 34 64 90), Now, since these elements are already in order (34 > 25), algorithm does not swap them. Iteration 4:

(12 22 11 25 34 64 90) -> (12 22 11 25 34 64 90)

(12 22 11 25 34 64 90) -> (12 11 22 25 34 64 90), Swap since 22 > 11

(12 11 22 25 34 64 90) -> (12 11 22 25 34 64 90) Iteration 5:

(12 11 22 25 34 64 90) -> (11 12 22 25 34 64 90), Swap since 12 > 11

(11 12 22 25 34 64 90) -> (11 12 22 25 34 64 90) Iteration 6:

(11 12 22 25 34 64 90) -> (11 12 22 25 34 64 90) Now, the array is already sorted, but our algorithm does not know if it is completed. The algorithm needs one whole pass without any swap to know it is sorted.

Iteration 7:

(11 12 22 25 34 64 90) -> (11 12 22 25 34 64 90)

(11 12 22 25 34 64 90) -> (11 12 22 25 34 64 90)

(11 12 22 25 34 64 90) -> (11 12 22 25 34 64 90)

(11 12 22 25 34 64 90) -> (11 12 22 25 34 64 90)

(11 12 22 25 34 64 90) -> (11 12 22 25 34 64 90)

(11 12 22 25 34 64 90) -> (11 12 22 25 34 64 90)

Bubble Sort
Operational Update: 06 December 17
By: Matt Dibb
Tags: Blockchain, ICO, Bitcoin, Ethereum

We wish to keep our token holders (both current and prospective) informed about some of the operational developments that are occurring within Astronaut over the next 30 days.

1. Portfolio Tracker

The Astronaut Portfolio tracker is being prepared and tested for launch on the iOS app store as well as a base web version. Once final UI enhancements are made, the team will seek to lodge it for public distribution.

The development of the portfolio tools will continue to be an ongoing effort.

The upcoming roadmap in the short term includes:
Updates to Oracle Analytics Cloud, Oracle BIEE 12c and Oracle DV Desktop
By: Mark Rittman
Tags: Big Data, Oracle, Oac, Analytics

Late last year I covered one of the first releases of Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC) on this blog covering the v3 release of OAC; since then the product has had a major UI refresh with OAC v4 and so I thought it’d be worth covering this new release along with updates to OBIEE12c and DV Desktop in a follow-up to last year’s post.

Read more at the MJR Analytics blog.
How did Trump manage to get almost 12 million more votes during reelection than in 2016?
By: Aj Krow
Tags: Lockdown, Politics, Election 2020, Stimulus Check, Trump

How did Trump manage to get almost 12 million more votes during reelection than in 2016? In 2020, he received 74,221,939 votes, whereas in 2016, he received 62,984,825 votes. In the Rio Grande Valley, one of the poorest regions in Texas and the U.S., Trump managed to obtain almost 13% more votes in each county. Trump’s tactic was twofold. First, he sent out stimulus checks attached with a letter saying the check was from him, which leaned some of the lower class voters in his favor. Second, he fought against lockdown measures. While people in the Rio Grande Valley care a lot about healthcare costs, putting food on the table comes first. His anti-lockdown message sat well with people of the RGV. Even though hospital capacity is at dangerous levels, people can’t afford to shut down their businesses.

Photo by visuals on Unsplash
4 Ways Digital Blue Foam will help you master you workflow this Summer
By: Sayjel Vijay Patel
Tags: Generative Design, Urban Planning, Construction, Augmented Intelligence, Architecture

About Digital Blue Foam

Digital Blue Foam is a Singapore-based company that develops tools to help designers and non-designers hunt and gather web-based information, generate design options, and automate BIM production directly in the browser.

Digital Blue Foam is founded by Camiel Weijenberg, a Dutch architect, designer and scholar of London’s Architectural Association, and Sayjel Vijay Patel, a Canadian architect, software developer, and founding Assistant Professor at the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation with a Master of Architecture from the MIT School of Architecture and Planning.
Generalization in multitask deep neural classifiers: a statistical physics approach — Read a paper
By: Vigneswaran C
Tags: Multitask, Deep Learning

Training multitask deep learning models, has become an increased interest to the scientific community, as it ensures, that the deep learning models shall be extended to more generalized and intuitive systems. The most prevalent method of training multitask model is to add an auxiliary task to the primary task, such that the model should able to collect the optimal features to solve both the objectives simultaneously. However, there has been no study, clearly stating how should the main primary task should be “related” to other auxiliary tasks to gain improved multitasking benefit. In this work, the authors gives a succinct explanation on quantifying the “relatedness” with valid empirical and experimental underpinnings.

Student-Teacher Networks

During training, the teacher gives out noisy vector outputs (by adding noise to the network weights). Whereas training and testing in the student network is tested against the noise-free labels. In multitask setup, the student network is stacked with shared hidden layers followed by task specialized branches. The loss function is set as weighted sum of two tasks (primary and auxiliary task) loss_overall = Wa * loss_a + Wb * loss_b (Wa and Wb are weights for loss_a and loss_b respectively).

Multitask Dynamics

In [Ref1], the authors proposed the task-relatedness in multitask learning as the function of angles between the singular vectors of the implicit learned mapping by the network. (Note: you can refer this link to know about Singular Value Decomposition and singular vector). Picking up the main task as “A” and auxiliary task as “B”, whose main aim is to improve the performance on task “A”, the relatedness between them shall be written as,

and W_A an W_B are weight matrices of teacher network for task A and B respectively, and their SVDs are,

Multitask Benefit

Increase in relatedness and Signal to Noise ratio (SNR) directly improves the multitask benefit Similarly, unrelated and and less SNR deteriorates the learning Before the multitask learning, a base performance with main task shall help to improve the multitask benefit

SNR is increased with increase in singular values for teacher A (from 0.1 to 10), and multitask benefit is directly correlated with task relatedness and SNR for related task. Similarly, multitask benefit is also contingent upon the training points.

With increase in amount of auxiliary task data points and relatedness along with high SNR main task, gives maximum multitask benefit. Also, increasing the non-linear student network depth also affects the same.