fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
This Is the Biggest Secret to Getting and Staying Lean
By: Neeramitra Reddy
Tags: Health, Fitness Tips, Fitness, Weight Loss, Fat Loss

When I first started working out, I was a skinny fat teenager with zero knowledge about nutrition, working out, and fitness in general. I just didn’t have any high hopes and just wanted to look “average”.

It has been more than 4 years since then and I have achieved much more than what I could have even imagined in my wildest dreams back then. I have also made quite a few mistakes and learned a lot along the way.

The Plague of Pseudo-Science

One of the biggest problems with fitness is that the fitness industry and the internet is rampant with misinformation and pseudoscience, fondly also called “bro-science”.

It’s easy to fall prey to this misinformation and most beginners do, even I did for the first two years or so which greatly bogged down my progress.

Even when I started learning, I didn’t learn enough and as a result, almost killed myself trying to lose fat. As the saying goes,

“Half knowledge is much more dangerous than complete ignorance.”

Onto True Science

When I finally managed to swim out of the sea of bro-science onto the coast of true science, my progress drastically sped up. Learning has been an integral part of my fitness endeavor since then.

“Tracking calories, hitting my protein goal, working out while prioritizing compound lifts and progressive overload, and sleeping 8+ hours became the norm.”

I learned about calorie deficits, calorie tracking, macros, micros, workout programming, exercise selection, rest, recovery, supplements, etc.

Tracking calories, hitting my protein goal, meal prepping, working out while prioritizing compound lifts and progressive overload, and sleeping 8+ hours became the norm. The traditional stuff and nothing too exciting.

Photo by Vanessa Loring from Pexels

As traditional bodybuilding wisdom advocated, I alternated bulking and cutting to build muscle and lose fat respectively.

Cutting meant dieting which meant stringent restricted eating, meticulously tracking every single calorie, and quite some self-control.

Digging deeper

When I started digging deeper, I started to come across stuff that most were unaware of. This is because fitness-related research is pretty active and most don’t bother keeping up with the latest research.

“But a year or so ago, I happened to stumble upon something extremely interesting and a true game-changer — the concept of G-Flux”

When I stumbled across body recomposition or the process of losing fat and building muscle at the same time, I gave up traditional bulking and cutting. The necessity of the dreadful dieting was gone and the process of staying lean year-round became easier.

But a year or so ago, I happened to stumble upon something extremely interesting and a true game-changer — the concept of G-Flux, used by world-class athletes but very obscure and barely talked about otherwise.
​​Intercontinental Exchange is entering the cryptocurrency market
By: Ico, Crypto News
Tags: Trade, Cryptocurrency, Exchange, Wall Street, Bitcoin

The market is on the rise today, and the week has started with pleasant news — following the Goldman Sachs, the Intercontinental Exchange is entering the cryptocurrency market. The company that owns the New York Stock Exchange announced the development of a platform for trading bitcoins. Unlike Goldman, ICE will not trade bitcoin futures, but swaps will be a purchase transaction, which is accompanied by a counter-transaction for sale after a certain period.

This event tells us that Wall Street is interested in cryptocurrencies, and the platform developed by ICE will provide legal access to bitcoins to large investors and financial organizations.

Join our Telegram channel & subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to read the latest news of blockchain and crypto industries.
Chronic inflammation is the dangerous head of the monster.
By: Dr Mehmet Yildiz
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Health, Writing, Self Improvement, Leadership

Chronic inflammation is the dangerous head of the monster.

This is a personal story reflecting many years of suffering from inflammation and debilitating muscular pain.

I want to share my eye-opening experience with you so that you may learn from the insights gained in my journey. This journey represents my transformation from a suffering human being to a high performing one, both physically and mentally.

By using many experiments and studies of anatomy, I managed to understand the nature of inflammation. It took many years of hard work and struggle, I finally turned inflammation to a harmless beast in my life. Why do I call it a beast or a monster?

I use the metaphor of a double-headed monster when defining inflammation in my publications and education programs. The one head of it could be good for us, and the other head detrimental, causing us grief and suffering. The good head represents acute, and the bad one represents chronic inflammation.

We need to find ways to tame the bad head of this beast.

Inflammation is inevitable in our bodies. It is a natural healing process. It is the good head of the monster.

However, there are times it can be excessive and cause a myriad of problems for our health. We call it chronic inflammation and it is the dangerous head of the monster.

Let me share my poignant story.
El bug de Ethereum que cuesta 300 millones de dólares
By: Nelson David Cardozo
Tags: Bugs, Altcoins, Español, Ethereum

Another massive Ethereum catastrophe

Last year I wrote about the massive DAO failure. Today the Ethereum community witnessed another unfortunate flaw. I…
Through the Desert
By: Warren Justin Banks
Tags: Contentment, Poetry, Love, Desert, Relationships

I am stuck in the desert, in fathomless sand,

buried hip-deep in this broken chariot

of tired words, ill-fitting ideas.

The horse died weeks ago: only skull and skin remain.

But I persist, sustained by withered arrogance,

turned to leather in the heat.

Moved by the wind’s gravity, I sink.

The relentless sun, the cold, black-glass nights,

singe the moisture from skin, and eyes, and brain.

I do nothing to halt this slow decline

into union with the wasteland,

just wait with faint hope for a little rain,

for lions, vultures, a blood-red moon.

Rescue will not come. Nothing comes.

I may endure forever, empty and silent

beneath forgetful dunes.
Machine Learning with Time Series Data
By: Benjamin Cho
Tags: Feature Engineering, Machine Learning, Timeseries, Data Science, Kaggle

As with any data science problem, exploring the data is the most important process before stating a solution. The dataset collected had data on Chicago weather, mosquitoes and mosquito traps. I first cleaned the three data sources for any missing or invalid measurements. The next step was to conduct feature engineering on our weather data. This is probably the most important aspect because theres a high correlation on how the mosquitoes develop the virus depending on the time and weather.

Feature Engineering

Our Chicago weather dataset contains measurements from two different stations. To take account for a more generalized weather, I created a new dataset by taking the average of all the data for each day. Now for the fun part, I engineered some features to better quantify how the weather impacts the mosquito population in Chicago. In order to be figure out what kind of features I needed, some research on the subject matter, such as the life cycle of mosquitoes, was done.

The first feature created is to quantify the number of days since it last rained. Ideally, there should be a positive correlation between the number of days since it rained with the number of mosquitoes. The longer it doesn’t rain the more likely we will see a decrease in the number of mosquitoes present in Chicago.

The second feature was for the total time from sunrise to sunset. I wanted to explore whether a longer day or shorter day would have an effect on the virus because mosquitoes tend to be more active during the day compared to at night. It seemed more important to interpret the total time the sun has been up than just the time the sun came up and down.

My last idea created was to get the weather conditions from previous days and see if there was an effect on the number of mosquitoes and the virus. I believe that this is a very important deciding factor. Generally speaking, a mosquito’s life span goes from three to two weeks during the summer, sometimes longer. Weather conditions such as maximum temperature, or total precipitation from previous days play a huge role in the growth and reproduction of the insect. In this case, I decided to include weather conditions from one, three, seven and fourteen days ago because I wanted to cover the spectrum of their life cycle. From the earliest to the latest a mosquito egg can become an adult mosquito. The code block below demonstrates how the feature was engineered by using some handy Pandas features, such as .shift()
The Paradox of Effort
By: Scott H. Young
Tags: Motivation, Productivity, Learning, Self, Habits

The Paradox of Effort

What’s your core motivator?

Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash

Where does the motivation come from to improve your life? At first glance, this seems like a strange question: why wouldn’t you automatically want things to be better? But the good life is hard work, so we often fail to do the things we know would make our lives better.

Cal Newport told me that, while in grad school, he noticed a lot of people became much better students after they had kids. This is paradoxical because children are time-consuming, and thus, it ought to be much harder to succeed academically.

I noticed something similar in myself, when I decided I wanted to run my own business. There were a lot of spillover benefits to other areas of my life, even though they weren’t related to entrepreneurship. I started reading books, exercising regularly and eating healthier, for instance.

The difficulty of the new challenge forces you to take things seriously. Cal’s observation was that, with fearsome time constraints, procrastinating is out of the question. Taking studying seriously pushes you to do better than you might have, absent those constraints. In my case, becoming my own boss was a difficult enough goal that it forced me to build better habits throughout my life.
This is Why You Should Practice Gratitude in the Workplace
By: Fab Giovanetti
Tags: Work, Business, Productivity, Self Improvement, Habits

No matter how ‘successful’ your work and brand may be, we all have to start from nothing.

Roommates Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia (two co-founders at AirBnB) just wanted to break even by offering an air matress to strangers at first.

Nike Co-Founder, Phil Knight, started by selling sneakers out of his trunk, yet he admits there was nothing else he would have rather been doing back then.

Gratitude is a practice highlighted in a variety of contexts, simply because it works. Yet, when it comes to our workplace, our own company (for the fellow business owners out there), it’s a subject we tend to overlook.

I know what you may be thinking: “please Fab, do not ask me to write down 3 Zoom meetings I am grateful for”. Or maybe “I am grateful for morning coffee, does that count?”

Yet, gratitude is not just good because your meditation app tells you so. It’s a feeling, a mindset that is deeply rooted in our psyche and our overall sense of wellbeing and happiness.

Since our work and ‘life’ boundaries are more blurred than ever, it’s important that work becomes a place that can enrich the rest of our life - may I need to remind you that, on average, we spend 40 hours per week working?

I am reading your mind, dear reader: “easy for you to say, you are a business owner doing what you love”. Yet, no matter the path, you’ll have days when the ‘doing what you love’ mantra does not cut it.

Gratitude in the workplace is a muscle and one that needs to be trained.
Little Screens
By: Ramya, Vinca
Tags: Phones, Poetry, Screens

A car crushed like a fly,

People trapped in, half alive.

Whispered prayers

Collective gasps and clicking tongues

Momentarily united “us”-

The sight is compelling enough

To pull us from our hand-held screens

A wave of gratefulness spreads, as always

Upon witnessing suffering

Sickening humans.

A forgettable blip in the sands of time

Will they see the sun tomorrow?

No care, no worries

We’re back to our little screens

There’s this cat that can speak

As a child’s dead on the beach

Temporary tears

Drones and walls and islam and cows

Yet another thing to outrage upon now

For a second there- we care

Even if through our hand-held screens

But it makes us infantile, as always

Left right centre starts every damn story

Blame games.

Various cloaks for an illusion of goodness

Will the the sun rise tomorrow?

No care, no worries

We’re back to our little screens.

https://vincavani.blogspot.in/
Reintegration Graduates are Challenged to Continue Success
Tags: Education, Ohio, Reintegration, Prison

Since the implementation of the Reintegration Unit at RiCI in 2013, biannual graduations have taken place honoring individuals who have completed Reintegration phase cycles. Nearly a hundred offenders were recognized and received certificates for creating one of the six reintegration phase cycles.

A staple of these graduations are family members and friends attending the ceremony to celebrate with the graduates. Once the graduation concluded, the attendees spent time with the offenders and enjoyed pastries.

Men assigned to the Reintegration unit at RiCI are required to complete specified phases of programming and meaningful activities. Some examples of this include recycling courses, problem solving classes, community service work and an employment readiness program. The employment readiness program is facilitated by Jacquie Walker of Goodwill Industries. The program is a resume writing/interviewing skills based program. The program was developed over five years ago with the objective of providing students with the tools and knowledge needed for future successful employment.

Ms. Walker (Vocational Specialist) was the keynote speaker of this most recent graduation. She informed the honorees that employers have repeatedly told her that they struggle to find and retain dependable employees. Her challenge to the group was (upon release from incarceration) to market and sell their qualifications and skills to employers.

A facet of the employment readiness program includes students participating in “mock” interviews with real employers. Jacquie gave an account of positive feedback from multiple employers who have volunteered to interview RiCI inmates. She also implored the graduates to position themselves to overcome barriers and seek to gain long term meaningful employment.

As Ms. Walker concluded her address, she shared an applicable quote from Henry Ford, “We do not hire experts, neither do we hire men on past experience. Since we do not take a man on his past history, we do not refuse him on past history. I never met a man who was thoroughly bad. There is always some good in him if he gets a chance.”

The commitment towards completing these phases is significant as completing all six phases takes approximately three years. The graduates were awarded certificates for their hard work and dedication.

In addition to the reintegration phase graduation, five additional students received accommodations for becoming the next group of men to successfully pass the Photovoltaic Installer Level 1 exam. These students are now certified by the Electronics Technicians Association (ETA) in photovoltaics (solar energy) for the next four years.

These graduations and the photovoltaic program are coordinated by the RiCI’s Reintegration unit staff.
Stop calling black women ‘intimidating’
By: Shamontiel L. Vaughn
Tags: Workplace, Black Women Writers, Racial Prejudices, Black Women, Racism

Why I quit my last corporate job

When I walked into my boss’ office for my annual employee evaluation, I already knew what was coming. We’d butted heads over deadlines and her habit of procrastination. (She regularly dawdled around, waiting until printer deadlines to edit content regardless of what was going on in my personal life. She once texted me during the three-day bereavement period of my grandfather’s death, simply because she couldn’t find an old magazine article. When I mentioned it a couple of weeks after the funeral, her response was, “We’re all on-call no matter what. My boss calls me from home too.”)

I know my flaws. None of them are as cutthroat as calling someone about magazine articles less than 24 hours after a family member has died in front of her.

I know my flaws. None of them are as cutthroat as calling someone about magazine articles less than 24 hours after a family member has died in front of her. But I am not perfect. I can be pretty antisocial with co-workers I do not enjoy the company of. I sometimes struggle to transition from writing in a news tone to a feature story tone. And I tend to have a work at work, play at home motto. I was prepared for all of this to be on my evaluation.

But I was not prepared for the last critique. At the end of my evaluation, she told me that I “intimidated” a co-worker. She told me this person felt like she had to “walk on eggshells around you like I do.” This wasn’t the first time I’d heard her “walk on eggshells” comment. She used this idiom whenever my eyes would show my annoyance with her habits of procrastination. However, her eyes spoke of a different story: “the look.” Three other women of color had previously asked me about “the look” she’d given them. It was the same look I got during the job interview but ignored.

Does the site of someone different make you feel intimidated? (Photo credit: Create Her Stock)

Nevertheless, I was quite uncomfortable to find out that someone on our team feared me. First, it’s never happened before and I’d worked at a plethora of places for two decades. Second, almost every work reference I have are white women bosses who I have nothing but fond things to say about. Third, why me? I’m 5'3. I enjoy weight training classes and occasional kickboxing. Still nothing about me says “fear me.”

As a 30-something white woman who grew up in Minneapolis, I did not think she understood the weight of telling a black woman she was “scary” and “intimidating” someone. She wouldn’t tell me who said it nor would she tell me the incident in question. She just told me to keep it in the back of my mind so I was “nicer to people on the team.”

That backfired completely.
Introducing Instalments for DeFi Loans
Tags: Finance, Blockchain, Lending, Fintech, Ethereum

Instalments have arrived to the Credit Marketplace! Now borrowers can choose to repay their DeFi Loans in several payments, with predetermined dates and fixed amounts. The number and value of the instalments will be defined by the loan’s total duration, with equal-amount payments being scheduled every two weeks.

Thanks to this system, lenders who fund these DeFi Loans will enjoy earlier principal and interest repayments. For example, a loan with a duration of 90 days will be fully repaid in 6 instalments, with the first one happening only 15 days after funding the loan. Both borrowers and lenders can verify the number, date and amount of these payments in the “Instalments” section of every loan’s Detailed View.

It’s important to bear in mind that these payments must be completed by the borrower before their respective due dates, or a collateral liquidation will be triggered.

How It Works

The repayment of DeFi Loans in instalments is possible thanks to a new Model within the RCN protocol v4.0 “Diaspore”, called “Fixed Instalments Method”. This system — which is also known in traditional finance as the “French Amortization Method” — divides the total debt to be repaid in several equal-amount installments, each one composed by an increasing amount of principal and a decreasing amount of interest.

In the “Fixed Instalments Method” every payment requires the same amount of funds.

In the future, Diaspore’s modular structure will enable the incorporation of new Models based on different amortization systems, such as the Fixed Principal — with a decreasing amount of interest in each payment — and the Bullet — with fixed interest-only payments and a single principal payment at the final Due Date — methods. This will increase the level of customization of the lending and borrowing processes, improving the Credit Marketplace’s user experience.
#13: Holographic Music Videos
By: Shawn Frayne
Tags: Virtual Reality, 360 Video, Hologram, 100days, Volumetric Video

There will be holographic music videos playing in millions of Looking Glasses in living rooms around the world in the next few years. Artists will be right there with you holographically, recorded and occasionally live, and that will be totally normal.

The first of these holographic music videos and musicals are being produced right now.

Earlier this year, Randal Kleiser, director of the iconic 1978 Grease movie and Diego Prilusky, Intel Studios’ GM, filmed a group of 20 dancers recreating one of Grease’s most memorable musical numbers, “You’re the One That I Want,” at Intel Studios in LA. Captured by the studio’s 96 high-definition 5K cameras and reproduced holographically in the Looking Glass, the dancers come alive in an interactive experience that lets viewers get closer to each dancer performing than they ever could before.

The studio at Intel used to capture the volumetric musical number. Credit: Intel

This was followed just weeks later by Runnin’. An Intel Studio Production generated by Reggie Watts and written and directed by Kiira Benzing, it’s hard to classify exactly what it is — some folks have described it as an “MC Escher dance party, a teleportational dance floor of the future”, but I think many folks will look back and see it as the world’s first holographic music video. Runnin’ is developed using Intel Studio’s Point Cloud data and is designed to run cross platform, in both headsets, on 2D screens, and in Looking Glass holographic displays.

You can play Runnin’ in your Looking Glass through the Vimeo holographic video app.

p.s. if you’re seeing this on its publication date of August 1, 2019 and you happen to be in LA, you still have time to see these amazing volumetric videos in a Looking Glass at Siggraph! Some friends at the Intel booth #1217 have a couple Looking Glass Pros running, well, Runnin’ and Summer Lovin’ with Grease 360!

Me and IRL Reggie Watts at Siggraph 2019 next to a holographic Reggie Watts in Runnin’, playing in a Looking Glass Pro at the Intel booth. Unknown if the guy in the background is blown away or lost.

Next up, #14: Holographic Pixar

*this is part of our “100 Days of Holograms” series, where Missy Senteio and Shawn Frayne of Looking Glass Factory post one new wonderful or weird (or both!) use for the Looking Glass holographic display each day.
Supercharge your VSCode with Snippets (JavaScript & React)
By: Jm Santos
Tags: Code Snippet, JavaScript, Code, Vscode, React

On every iteration of our development, part of our goals is to make our code consistent, faster, and efficient. The better we write the code, the better we can create software.

Most of the developers I know especially on web development uses VSCode as their primary editors. And so I thought maybe it would be great if we could create code snippets that will help our friends, teammates, or colleagues write better code. Maybe, we can. Maybe, yes.

The snippets that we’ll be creating are for JavaScript developers that use React. We will try to include some typings for Flow and TypeScript developers as extras so you can pick what’s best for you.

If you aren’t familiar with code snippets on VSCode on what is it and how to create snippets, check this out documentation.

If you are already familiar, great, join me as we create code snippets to help our friends! Let’s get started.

💻 JavaScript snippets

Console log (clog)

Easier logging for variables (create another logging if needed)

Function expression (js#arrow-function)

Either you want to create the function based on the filename or write it on your own. You can also replace the name so that the snippet that creates a function based on the filename is separated from the normal function snippet.

Function declaration (js#function)

There’s already a default snippet on this but we will override it to add support for using the filename as the function name and adding typings. If you don’t like creating a new snippet and just use the default one, feel free to skip it.

⚛️ React snippets

useState (react#useState)

Easier useState declaration

useEffect (react#useEffect)

Easier useEffect declaration

useRef (react#useRef)

Easier useRef declaration

Functional component (react#component)

🚨Test snippets

Describe full block

Create a happy paths and exception paths blocks that allow you to separate normal use cases and edge cases

Describe block

Creates a describe block that contains the basic structure

It block

Creates an it block that contains the test preparation step and the assertion step

🎁 Bonus

Image placeholder

You can use this snippet on HTML or JavaScript snippet
เหรียญ Infinitus แจก Airdrop ทั้งหมด 3,000 INF (~115,000 บาท) เพียงแค่ใช้งานกับ Bitkub.com
Tags: Articles, Infinitustoken, Bitkub, Airdrop, Bitcoin

Shortly after the Bitkub All-star Meetup 2019, Infinitus will be listed for the first time in Thailand and THB/INF trading will open today at 6 pm. Currently, Infinitus price is set at $1.23 USD (Referred from Coingecko.com)

( Time stamp: March 4, 2019, 12 noon GMT +7 )

Infinitus is giving out Airdrop for bitkub’s new and active users. Here’s how:

1. Verify account with Bitkub and get 1 INF token

2. Buy 299 THB worth of INF and get 2 INF tokens

Promo Period : Today — 17 March 2019
What You Really Need to Know About Losing Weight in 2021 Will Shock You
By: Tom Handy
Tags: Life Lessons, Exercise, Fitness, Food, Self Improvement

One common factor needed for any fitness plan to work

No matter what fitness or diet plan you decide to take on, you need to follow one system for the plan to work. No matter what any fitness expert tells you, you need to be committed to the plan you are on.

In addition to eating a well-balanced meal, you need to have an exercise routine to help you burn off calories. You could be on a great diet whether it’s the Atkins diet, Keto plan, or intermittent fasting. You also need to have a good exercise plan to support this.

Sure, you may lose a few pounds initially from the meal plan you are on, but you need to exercise to help maintain the weight you lost. I have exercised for over 30 years, and your diet plays a key part. The two actually go together like a relationship.

Your diet needs a good exercise plan to support each other.

If your goal is to lose weight in 2021, then you need to exercise three to four times a week. Make time to exercise so you can meet your fitness goal.

You have to ignore all of the marketing these fitness gurus are selling you. Yes, the product they are marketing works, but you need to have a good exercise and meal plan.

Then you need to stay committed to the exercise plan. Once you get started, this could be the start of a great relationship between your diet and your exercise routine. Make this habit last.

Stay focused on your goal whether it is to lose 10 pounds or 50 pounds. You need to knock off the pounds week by week. You’ll be able to do this when you have a good exercise plan to help burn off the calories.

The New Year will be here before you know it. Figure out your goal and what you need to do to get there. It could be walking, running, watching an exercise video, buying your own fitness equipment, or heading back to the gym. There are so many options.

Once you are in shape, stay on your routine. This should not be a one or two month change but a life time change. Once you do this, you will enjoy the new you. Make 2021 the year you commit to your goal and make the life change you need.

Do you have a fitness goal for the New Year?
लफ्ज़ और लहज़े: दुष्यंत कुमार
By: Aditya Ojha
Tags: Hindi Kavita, Poetry, Storytelling, Podcast, Hindi

Galiyaara Podcast

Hindi Podcast | Your coolest hotspot for Hindi and Urdu literature | Poetries and Desi Stories |
A Trinidadian Holiday Classic That Will Make Your New Years Soiree Sing
By: Melissa A. Matthews
Tags: Recipe, Cooking, Vegan, Food, Holidays

A Trinidadian Holiday Classic That Will Make Your New Years Soiree Sing

Pastelles are a Trinidadian and South American holiday staple that you don’t want to miss out on.

Vegan Pastelles| Photo by Author (Melissa A. Matthews)

“This is the mistletoe jam, I like to party all night…” my daughter has been singing Luther Vandross’ Mistletoe Jam all weekend long. Although it’s not Parang or Soca Parang — my preferred holiday genre, there is something about it that makes you “want to kiss somebody” almost as much as your family and friends will want to kiss the cook when you make any version of the holiday staple recipe, I’m about to share with you.

When prepared properly, the sweet, savory notes of — raisin, olives, and the “meat” of your choice packed into a perfectly portioned cornmeal shell and wrapped in a fig leaf — a Trini pastelle simply cannot be beat. The aroma of pastelles conjures joyous memories of gobbling them up three and four at a time.

First, as a child, I was always one pastelle away from eviscerating the entire batch made and sent by my aunt. As an adult, me and my partner would find ourselves locked into tense standoffs for the last pastelle — made by his mom. He insisted that pastelles were a delicacy to be savored and saved for just the right moment. Often, he’d wake to find that I’d eaten his share as well as mine — stealing the moment. I’m plant-based now, so “his” pastelles are safe and his mom has since started teaching me how to make my own. I can have them all-year round, but nothing — and, I do mean nothing — summons the sweet, sweet sound of Soca parang like the first bite of a pastelle during the holidays. So, this year, I’m excited to share a couple of new vegan filling options with you. I think it’ll take plant-based pastelles to a new level.

Pastelles are a labor of love so make sure you have an hour or three to spare and a little bit of patience.

Put on your Soca parang and let’s get this party started…
Some Pretty Weird Prototypes Preceded the P90 Submachine Gun
By: War Is Boring
Tags: Guns, Wib Land, Submachine Gun

Some Pretty Weird Prototypes Preceded the P90 Submachine Gun

The Belgians threw away the rule book

by MATTHEW MOSS

In the mid-1980s, Belgian firearms-maker Fabrique Nationale began working on a new personal-defense weapon. In time, it evolved into the iconic P90.

But not before producing several rather bizarre prototypes.

In 1989, NATO issued a specification for two personal-defense weapons — one a pistol and the other a shoulder-fired compact submachine gun. The pistol was to weigh less than one kilogram while the shoulder-fired weapon would weigh less than three kilograms.

Both weapons would fire a cartridge with improved range, accuracy and terminal ballistic performance compared to guns firing the nine-by-19-millimeter round.

NATO planned to equip rear-echelon troops — personnel who couldn’t carry or didn’t need a standard-issue rifle — with these new weapons. NATO believed that, in the event of war, Soviet special forces would attempt to disrupt Western lines of communication and logistics, so it was important to arm support troops with a weapon firing a round that could penetrate Soviet body armor at close range.
5 New Year’s Resolutions For All Marketers
By: Ali Mirza
Tags: Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Goals

To, All social media marketers, consultants, gurus and agencies…

As 2015 comes to a close, people are going to be making their New Year’s resolutions. As social media marketers and practitioners, we have a lot of things on our plate. Most of these are related to our clients and we almost forget about our own goals.

Here are my 5 resolutions for 2016 and I believe all social media marketers can relate to these.

1 — Client education

Some people still think that social media is FREE. It’s not their fault to have that perception. I feel it’s our responsibility to educate them and show them how social media works..

I believe that our clients (especially SMB owners and startups) still need plenty of education, such as:

They don’t know that it’s OK to be on fewer platforms.

They don’t know that social media is a process and not a “get rich quick” scheme.

Yes, they can run Facebook ads and try to convert people from day 1, but if they have no audience, their CPL (cost per lead) is going to be crazy high.

So let’s educate them in addition to charging for our services.

2 — Get the RIGHT clients

We all know that we can’t help everybody.

Some clients are just not a good fit for what we do. So let’s focus on getting the RIGHT type of clients.

Let’s apply the 80/20 rule on new proposals and clients

3 — Build your own brand

I understand we are always busy with client’s projects and our own brand gets neglected. Let’s change it and make time to build our own brand this year.

I believe that everybody has a unique story so start sharing YOUR story with the world. Use that story to build your own brand.

4 — ABT (Always be testing)

We all know that there will be more changes to existing social media platforms.

Facebook’s organic reach may go down (even further)…

The Ads platform will transform and there will be more features…

Let’s commit to testing everything before we tell others to use it.

5 — Have fun

I understand that we make more money by doing “more”

More clients…

More projects…

Bigger teams…

But don’t forget to have fun. Identify what you enjoy the most and do more of that.

We all know ‘Life is short’, so let’s keep it fun by doing what we love.

Now over to you. What would you add to this list?

comments
Dawn
By: Randy Shingler
Tags: Haiku, Poetry, Awareness, Awakening, Golden Dawn

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DNN Roadmap & Crowdsale Release
By: Dnn Media
Tags: ICO, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Crowdsale, News

This week we released our project roadmap, a carefully mapped out timeline of events designed to engage our early adopters as we continue to develop the DNN platform. The roadmap also features our slated crowdsale date: the fourth quarter of this year.

The plan lays out our accomplished milestones, including the release of DNN’s open source Alpha testnet in July, which was the first iteration of the platform. The roadmap extends until the fourth quarter of 2018, the last phase of the project designated for the final build out of key communities — writers, readers, and reviewers — required for the news network to properly run.

“Our biggest milestone to date is of course the release of our alpha,” said Samit Singh, CEO and co-founder of DNN. “We managed to do this after months of research and concrete feedback from the crypto-community, as well as journalists.”

“For the most part, we have solidified how DNN will work for its users, but we’re seeking to more rigorously outline the economics of the system and the viability of the token on the platform,” he added.

We are currently revising the white paper and improving on the initial alpha version. The next milestone on the roadmap will be an update to the Alpha release that will provide a simulated DNN platform for mainstream users who are not familiar with blockchain technology.

The simulated experience, which will be available via the DNN website, will allow the broader community, specifically the journalism community, to test the platform and provide valuable feedback without having to purchase and provide tokens.

“To truly build a great product, you need to be certain that you’re building something that people actually want,” Singh explained. “There isn’t as much trust in conducting a crowdsale without a minimal viable product, since nobody can actually see what they’re backing. Perhaps it would’ve been just as easy for us to attract buzz over the concept without any alpha, but that isn’t the way to show commitment. By doing things this way, we’re demonstrating our intent to fully follow through with this exciting project.”

While development continues, don’t miss out on any updates, sign up. A recent blog post does a deep dive into how Ethereum’s smart contracts power our article review system, read it here.

Join us on Bitcointalk, Telegram, and Slack, or contact us directly here.
NOI FELICITARI PENTRU OMER AHMED KARIM BERZINJI-CEL MAI BUN AMBASADOR IN ROMANIA PENTRU ANUL 2013
By: International Relations
Tags: Turism, Islam, Diplomatie, Relatii Internationale, Universitati

IRICE is dedicated to promote the international relations of Romania and to develop the economic, cultural and diplomatic relations with nations of the world.

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FLASK NƏDİR?
By: Hacimurad Azizov
Tags: Flask, Python, Praqmatik Məsələlər

Flask (web framework)

Flask is a micro web framework written in Python. It is classified as a microframework because it does not require…
About The Project: Creative Writing
By: Ana Luíza Azevedo
Tags: Asterisk Project, Escrita Criativa, Writing Community, ESL, Creative Writing

Learn more and join in!

Puerto Plata, República Dominicana — Photo: Ana Azevedo

We are back by popular demand! After a long break (since June 2019, wow!). We are here, oohoo! Back with some news but the same spirit. Get ready with us for The Asterisk Project: Series 2.

___________________________________________________________________

The Asterisk Project was created out of two passions: writing and the English language. The idea of the project came about in 2017 with Ana, a brazilian English teacher. We had over 60 weeks in our first season of the Asterisk Project. People from all over the world got together to write about the same topic and we had so much fun!

That’s why — after an one-year break — we are so excited about our second season. Welcome to The Asterisk Project!

What is The Asterisk Project?

An online community to practice English. We get together once a month and share a #WritingPrompt.

How does The Asterisk Project works?

If you are a general member you can participate in our monthly prompt challenge, where we all write about the same topic. You also get the chance to have your work published on our website.

Very soon: you’ll be able to be part of the Asterisk Club. Here you get professional correction for your submitted work, English workshops, live meetings and much more! Coming soon.

Join In

It’s easy! Just send en e-mail to asteriskproj@gmail.com stating your interest and we’ll answer all your questions.

The Editors

Ana is the founder of the Asterisk Project. With an International Relations degree she’s taught English in Brazil and in the Caribbean for over 4 years. You can check out more on her instagram .
Medford Business Association’s Oktoberfest comes to Freedom Park
By: Tom Beck
Tags: Beer, Oktoberfest, Events, Music, Fun

Medford Business Association’s Oktoberfest comes to Freedom Park

The event features a business expo, a beer garden and 20 local bands.

On Saturday, Sept. 16, the Medford Business Association will host its annual Oktoberfest celebration, which will feature a business expo, 20 local bands and a beer garden. The event, which will take place in Freedom Park, will commence at 11 a.m. and end at 7 p.m.

“It’s a great day out for the family,” said David Vaughn, the Medford Business Association’s executive director. “We have something for everyone at this event.”

Vaughn describes the Medford Business Association as “a voice for the businesses [of Medford], to the township for planning and zoning and for events and activities to help boost their bottom line.”

The entire event is being sponsored by ShopRite of Medford, while the beer garden will be sponsored by Taunton Forge Liquors.

Mach 22, the Cold Roses and Deal Casino will be the three headlining bands at the festival. Mach 22 and the Cold Roses are both from Philadelphia. Deal Casino hails from Asbury Park. There are 17 other bands on the bill, including Medford’s Jake Gussman and the Broken Branches and Medford Lakes’ The Pitch Pines. Medford band Winchester Treaty, an indie Folk band that just released its latest EP, entitled “Your Mother’s Chair,” will also be on the bill.

The event won’t just be for grown ups, though. There will be a moon bounce along with various arts and crafts activities for children, such as face-painting and hair braiding. The moon bounce will be free.

Vaughn wanted to give a shout out to ShopRite of Medford’s owners, David and Renee Zallie.

“They’re a great organization and company,” he said, noting their grocery store’s support for various events around Medford.

For information about sponsoring the event, registering for the business expo, registering as a food vendor or registering as an entertainment provider, visit medfordbusiness.org.

Additionally, restaurants in Medford and Medford Lakes can participate in the event for free. For more information about this, also visit medfordbusiness.org.

Businesses participating in the Oktoberfest’s expo include:

Absolute Control Dog Training Academy (ACDT LLC)

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church

South Jersey Spine Center & Weight Loss Clinic

Jim’s Jarhead Jerky

LuLaRoe Sarie Scully

K G Bees

Tattered & Torn Boutique

T.C. Irons Insurance Agency

Medford Animal Hospital & Wellness Clinic

Mary Kay

Allegro Pilates & Dance

Advancement Professional Career Services

The Malvern School

TD Bank

Lesha Studios

Countryside Veterinary Hospital

DuBell Lumber Co.

New York Life Insurance Company

Sarkis Euksuzian Orthodontics
Her Story
By: Nalini Gupta
Tags: Writing, Poetry, Fiction, Poetry On Medium, Love

They called out her name

In awe

And mob applauded

At her beauty

Her dress flowed like an angel

Shimmering like diamonds from sky

The train let behind

As she step out of the door

An artistic line on her face

Audience thought she was happy

One familiar past

In the crowd

Could see the scars behind

Hiding in the dress

The fake smile

She put upon

Eyes met for a fraction

And a tinge of relief lit her face

She looked away to the man beside her

And walked her way.
Become a Writer for Sex and Satire
By: Ms. Part Time Wino
Tags: Satire, Writing, Submission Guidelines, Relationships, Sexuality

*updated September 24th, 2020*

Sex and Satire combines two of the world’s greatest gifts: making love and making people laugh.

We’re looking for top-notch writers to join our team (aka me) of sex addicts, masturbators, saddos, and overall funny people. If you think you fit the bill, then Sex and Satire wants to hear from you.

What we’re looking for:

Be funny for fuck’s sake. If your article cannot be tagged with the words satire or humor, then it probably won’t be a good fit for us.

It doesn’t matter how many followers you have or how many “top writer” titles you have earned. We are just looking for quality laughs. And please make sure it somehow relates to sex, dating, love, relationships, boners, queefing, wet dreams, etc. You get the idea.

Interested? Please email msparttimewino@gmail.com with a link to your unpublished draft and your Medium username. While unpublished drafts are preferred, published articles will be considered if they are exceptionally hilarious.

In addition, please make sure your article fits the following guidelines:

Edited for grammar, spelling, and overall nonsensical bullshit

Includes a featured image with a credited source

Is (or will be) distributed as part of Medium’s metered paywall

Does not spread or condone hate, harm, or abuse.

And just for good measure, here are a few other tips you should keep in mind when submitting to our publication:
Yellow Flower Above the River
By: Andy Tillo
Tags: Washington, USA, T13

There weren’t many things growing in the rocks above the Columbia at the i84/highway 97 interchange at Biggs, OR — but these flowers seemed to be growing just fine. Toss in a dramatic background and bam, you got yourself a shot. I’m not usually a flower guy, but I DO like to take shots of landscapes, and this one fit.
A New Motion: Vim Skip
By: Alex R. Young
Tags: Plugins, Scripts, Motions

Motions are a fundamental unit of Vim’s vocabulary, so it’s sometimes surprising to see new ones appear in the form of plugins. Vim Skip (GitHub: jayflo / vim-skip), which was announced on reddit, allows you to skip the cursor to the centre of the line by pressing s . If you press it again you'll move half way from the current position to the end of the line, and so on, in a way that might remind you of Zeno's arrow paradox.

Before you get distracted contemplating the fabric of reality, take a moment to question why this might be useful: sometimes it’s easier to think in terms of positions on a line than to skip between characters with f and t .

Though there are multiple options and modes, Vim-skip does not attempt to provide you many mid-range motions! Rather, it strives to provide a minimal tool set allowing the user to tailor a single, efficient mid-range motion based on their own needs. Don’t get overwhelmed with the modes or options! It is my intention to keep this skipping motion quick and efficient, while still providing enough versatility to fit your working style on many file types.

The discussion on /r/vim is worth checking out as well, some of the recent motion plugins like vim-sneak are discussed and compared.
Litecoin Payments Now Available
By: Mike Olthoff
Tags: Gift Cards, Cryptocurrency, Canada, Cryptocurrency News, Litecoin

And Then There Was Litecoin

At the end of December 2017, Coincards.ca shut down temporarily in order to re-vamp our site and implement much needed improvements. One of the major improvements that we worked toward was the implementation of Litecoin as a direct payment method, which was driven by the high transaction fees and congestion facing the Bitcoin network. Our users rallied in their requests for direct Litecoin integration, and as always we made it a priority to make our user experience as awesome as possible.

We are very happy to announce that after many, many hours of development and testing by BTCpay and our team, Litecoin is now fully enabled on Coincards.ca!

Thank you to everyone for your patience, understanding and support during this process. We hope that you are just as excited about this new development as we are, and that it enables all of our users to enjoy a faster and more cost effective experience with us.

Next on our roadmap of improvements are (1) Integration of a payment processor for altcoins, and (2) Implementation of the Lightning Network, which we feel will really take us to the next level!
5 things you may not know about Chile Peppers
Tags: Natural Farming, Peppers, Chiles, Chile Peppers, Farming

According to Stephanie Walker, an “extension vegetable specialist” at the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University, chiles are tough crop for farmers because they’re sensitive to drought and parasites, and they have to be harvested by hand.

Here are a few of her facts on chilies: