fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Celer, nCent and Ankr ICOs: to watch or pass?
By: Jason Cameron
Tags: Ethereum, ICO, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain

It’s been a great week as far as progress in cryptocurrency is concerned. The markets have not been reflective what so ever yet we’ve had some great news from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE/NYSE) and Northern Trust. One thing is clear; the infrastructure for mainstream adoption of crypto is being built in this slow season.

This week I’ve taken a look at another 3 ICOs, Celer, nCent and Ankr and I wanted to share my thoughts on them with you, whether I’m passing or watching, so here we go:

Celer

The team is solid and has notable VC backers. The project, itself does aim to solve a valid problem, however I don’t see how this will compete with the current competition. It may be more advanced tech but would it have the X factor as RSK or Casper? For me, it won’t and doesn’t.

Not to mention the likes of Raiden not having performed well, even in the last bull run…maybe 4/5x max? Plus, a $30mln hardcap is a bit too heavy for me. It just feels like it will be an uphill battle to get a decent ROI on this, so for me it’s a pass.

nCent

I like what this project wants to do. It’s a simple idea, however I think they have really overcomplicated it in their marketing material. Whether they done this deliberately to emphasis value or they hired the wrong guys, it’s a bit of a hurdle. Nonetheless, the team behind this project is strong. Given the CEO’s experience and longevity in the crypto, it doesn’t look like a money grab at first glance.

The investors look solid, however my biggest concern is the adoption of this…do they have organisations waiting to use this? No whitepaper or token metrics available yet, nor any work to show. So overall there are a lot of questions and a lot of work to do. However, as this projects matures and they get the key elements in place, this could be one to watch. Given the current ICO market, I’ll watch this on exchanges — unless things change.

Ankr

Ankr has gained quite a bit of hype. There has been some very strong backing on this project from some high quality VCs, however for me I kind of feel like….’ok, another distributed/cloud computing project…’ *eye roll*. It does look like an ambitious project but from the looks of things, they are taking on AWS and Microsoft and for me — I don’t think the team overall are strong enough to get that done.

Technically, it looks like there’s some good ideas here but there are too many unknowns for me. No developers, companies publically committing to use the project when completed, a team with little to no track record in blockchain or in business and no plan documented on the roadmap past the testnet in 2018. Other than the strong backing there is no X factor for me in the project, so it’s a pass.
September 2020 monthly Machine Learning Reading List
By: Durgesh Samariya
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Learning, Data Science, Python

September 2020 monthly Machine Learning Reading List

Hello Everyone, welcome to my September monthly reading list. Here are 2 Data Science books that I am going to read this month.

For many researchers, Python is a first-class tool mainly because of its libraries for storing, manipulating, and gaining insight from data. Several resources exist for individual pieces of this data science stack, but only with the Python Data Science Handbook do you get them all — IPython, NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Scikit-Learn, and other related tools.

Working scientists and data crunchers familiar with reading and writing Python code will find this comprehensive desk reference ideal for tackling day-to-day issues: manipulating, transforming, and cleaning data; visualizing different types of data; and using data to build statistical or machine learning models. Quite simply, this is the must-have reference for scientific computing in Python.

With this handbook, you’ll learn how to use:

IPython and Jupyter: provide computational environments for data scientists using Python

NumPy: includes the ndarray for efficient storage and manipulation of dense data arrays in Python

Pandas: features the DataFrame for efficient storage and manipulation of labeled/columnar data in Python

Matplotlib: includes capabilities for a flexible range of data visualizations in Python

Scikit-Learn: for efficient and clean Python implementations of the most important and established machine learning algorithms
AUC Football Rivalry Preview
By: Shakim Muhafiz
Tags: Sports

AUC Football Rivalry Preview

Morehouse and Clark Atlanta face off in last game of the season.

Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University will face off Nov. 9 at B.T. Harvey Stadium in the last game of the season. The (3–6) Maroon Tigers will be looking for another win against the (0–9) Clark Atlanta Panthers.

The two schools first met in 2010 with the Tigers beating the Panthers 17–7. Since then, Morehouse has beaten them four more times. But, the Panthers have the most recent victory with a 30–13 win over Morehouse in 2018. The (2–7) Panthers went into that game and shocked a (7–2) Tigers team.

The Panthers are averaging 17.8 points per game and the Tigers are averaging 22.2 points per game this season. The Tigers look to have the edge in this matchup this Saturday.

Clark Atlanta will be looking to pull off another upset while also getting their first win of the season against their AUC [Atlanta Univeristy Center] rival. On the other side, Morehouse hopes to finish out their season with a win as they lost their last three out of four games.

Kickoff time is 2 p.m.
India’s first cryptocurrency exchange trading app
Tags: Money, Bitbns, Bitcoin, Trading

We have an exciting news for you all. In our quest to improve the experience for users, we have launched a mobile app for Android users. This is India’s first cryptocurrency exchange trading app. We remain committed to building the best digital assets exchange and would constantly innovate to facilitate the easiest and fastest way to trade.

Our crypto trading app will allow users to trade digital currencies like Bitcoin, Ripple, Neo, Neo gas and many other cryptocurrencies in Indian rupee, on the go. A user can store their digital assets securely, using our app. The app is now available for download on Google play store. We will eventually have a version for Apple users, as well.

Key Features

Easy Registration Process : Users just need to upload their KYC documents to register & verification will happen within 5 mins.

: Users just need to upload their KYC documents to register & verification will happen within 5 mins. Real-time Trading : Users can trade the different cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Ripple, NEO, NeoGas using this new app.

: Users can trade the different cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Ripple, NEO, NeoGas using this new app. Monitoring Portfolio : Monitoring the cryptocurrency portfolio is absolutely effortless with this app and can be done by checking the live rate of cryptocurrencies.

: Monitoring the cryptocurrency portfolio is absolutely effortless with this app and can be done by checking the live rate of cryptocurrencies. Wallet : Users can store, deposit and withdraw the cryptocurrency conveniently using this app.

: Users can store, deposit and withdraw the cryptocurrency conveniently using this app. Bank Account : If users link their bank account, the withdrawing and depositing INR can be done easily using UPI apps like Paytm, BHIM, PhonePe and Tez. In addition to this, the app also supports IMPS, NEFT and RTGS for INR deposit. Withdrawal can be done through the linked bank account.

: If users link their bank account, the withdrawing and depositing INR can be done easily using UPI apps like Paytm, BHIM, PhonePe and Tez. In addition to this, the app also supports IMPS, NEFT and RTGS for INR deposit. Withdrawal can be done through the linked bank account. Security: We take users security more seriously. Along with powerful internal security. We have added 2FA, which enable users to control control account security at their level.

Happy Trading!
Quote Prompts
By: Samantha Lazar
Tags: Writing Prompts, Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, Quotes

Quote Prompts

Prepare to inspire and be inspired

Photo by David Kiriakidis on Unsplash

Sometimes you just know it when you see it. The perfect line of poetry. The best song lyric. The most inspiring thought.

I love when I read the perfect quote, and right away I am inspired to write something, create something, take action, take a rest, or just to think for a while.

This is the Quote Prompt Project. On average, every two weeks, I will present writers with some quote that got me moving, changing, thinking, or writing. Then you go ahead a move, change, think, and write. You never know what will inspire others.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

The best part for me is to read the variety of responses to the quotes. You may write on any of the quotes at anytime, but please link the original prompt at the end of your work.

Here are some of my favorites so far:
Nick Lindsey
By: Eureka College Alumni
Tags: Alumni, Eureka College

Nick Lindsey

Class of 2010

I chose Eureka College when I was in high school simply for the fact that I could play football there. I wanted to go somewhere that I could play as an incoming freshman and make an impact. This decision would prove to be a very important and rewarding one throughout the next four years.

To recount single stories, or point to just one time that sticks out in my mind, is very difficult. From being around great teammates everyday, working hard for the chance to celebrate victories with friends and coaches, to simply being able to greet each member of the faculty and supporting staff at EC and having them greet me by name, I can tell you that I truly enjoyed every single day that I was at EC.

What makes Eureka special to me is something I did not realize until after I graduated. The feeling I get when I head back to a football game, or when I see past coaches, professors, etc., is one of a kind. The memories I have when I walk through The Reagan Center or the memories when I see the football field are very dear to me. To this day, I can vividly remember most of Coach Sweitzer’s classes. Some were good, like the examples she gives that make you crack up, laughing; and some were bad, such as when she handed back an Exercise Physiology test, but all were enjoyable for a reason I cannot quite put a finger on. I can also still tell you to never choose letter “C” for an answer in Dr. Logsdon’s Western Civ class.

I can say what most would say and call Eureka a “great” place. However, it’s more than that. Eureka is about personal relationships with staff and friends; it’s about the feeling I get when heading into town. It’s these and all of the things I have mentioned that truly make Eureka College “special.”
Meduim Articles on Flutter
By: Greg Perry
Tags: Flutter App Development, Android App Development, Software Development, Programming Languages, iOS App Development

Landing page for past articles

All ‘MVC’ articles are free to read. The rest are ‘metered’ articles — your first three reads every month are free. Further readings for such articles, require membership to medium.com.

MVC Flutter Framework on YouTube

Comparing MVC to Other Design Patterns
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Friday, Illustration, Art, Humor, Comics

First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.

Follow
What attack will Federated Learning Face?
By: Yuan Ko
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Federated Learning, Privacy, AI

Photo by Duncan Kidd on Unsplash

Federated learning will face the problem form privacy-preserving machine learning (PPML) and secure machine learning(SML).

Reconstruction Attacks

Privacy leakage will not only leak by the data, but also the gradient client update or the support vector machine and k-nearest neighbor which stores the explicit feature value. Reconstruction attacks are to get the privacy information on these possible ways.

Its goal is to extract the training data or feature vectors of the training data during ML model training. In federated learning, gradient update from the client may leak the information of the client. Therefore, we will need secure multi-party computation(MPC) and homomorphic encryption(HE) to defend against this attack. Moreover, ML model store the explicit feature values should be avoided.

Model Inversion Attacks

If the model can be a query for many times, the adversary can reconstruct the clear-text model by equation solving attack. The adversary can learn about the distribution of the training data and a similar model.

Membership-Inference Attacks

The target of the membership inference attacks is to infer if the member is in the training dataset. It builds a shadow model to create a dataset that is familiar to the original dataset. There are three ways used to build the shadow model mentioned in the paper.

Intuitively, we can use the model as a shadow model. If the output has high confidence values, it is similar to the original dataset.

Attribute-Inference Attacks

The adversary trys to de-anonymize or target the record owner. How To Break Anonymity of the Netflix Prize Dataset show that anonymized data can use other data set such as IMDB to de-anonymize the data. In other words, you will be inferred by any other public data set such as your blog or rating website.

It is a quite famous and interesting paper. Here are the FAQs for that paper.

Model Poisoning Attacks

It is known as a back-door attack. As mention in this article:

A backdoor is a type of input that the model’s designer is not aware of, but that the attacker can leverage to get the ML system to do what they want.

In FL, use the wrong label to low the performance of the model is also a poisoning attack.

Want to know more about FL?

Realistic Federated Datasets for Federated Learning

Architecture of three Federated learning

(Summary)Federated Learning: Strategies for Improving Communication Efficiency

Federated Learning Aggregate Method (1)

Reference

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1610.05820.pdf
Weekly Project Report : Week 23–2018
By: Dr. Michael J. Garbade
Tags: Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Bitcoin, Blockchain

Welcome to the Education Ecosystem Weekly Report. Here we will recap some of the things we’ve been working on recently. We will also provide updates on some of the most important upcoming things related to our project.

Product User Interface

We’d like to thank everyone in our community for the feedback they provided after seeing the new UX preview. We’ve taken this feedback into consideration and are creating the final designs for the pages.

Hiring & Recruitment

We’ve hired two Django engineers who will join the engineering team in Kiev, an SEO Manager, a Technical Recruiting Manager and an E-Learning Curriculum Designer who we’ll have an article about soon.

We’re also in the final stages of the hiring process for our Product Manager and LEDU Token PR & Marketing Lead — USA & Europe roles. We’re excited about the vast experience which these new hires will be bringing to the ecosystem.

Events in Asia

Our team in Asia was invited by the Zhongguancun Blockchain Industry Alliance to attend the Blockchain+Fintech Industry Event in Foshan. The event was a great opportunity for them to meet with blockchain projects in China and build partnerships. More details about the event can be found in our LEDU Chinese section here.

Also, this week is GBLS in Hangzhou on June 6th. It is one of the largest and most anticipated blockchain conferences in China with an estimated 20,000 attendees and as we mentioned previously we will have a booth at the event.

Blockchain Union

Aside from attending the recent conference, our team was also invited to join the Zhongguancun Blockchain Industry Union. It is the only blockchain association that currently has a corporate registration certificate in the blockchain industry. Its members include Tsinghua University, Remin University of China, China Internet Information Centre and blockchain companies like LoreChain, Eco-chain and more. More details about the union will be revealed soon.

Get LEDU Token

Get LEDU coins now with ETH or BTC on Livecoin, Mercatox and Exrates. Read more about LEDU coins on our project page and ask any questions you might have in our Telegram group chat.
If being creative is so horrible, why do you do it?
Tags: Creativity, Writing, Personal Development, Humor, Comics

More from rstevens Follow

I make cartoons and t-shirts at www.dieselsweeties.com & @rstevens. Send me coffee beans.
Torne suas personas ótimas novamente em 7 etapas
By: Ariana Machado
Tags: UX Research, Marketing, Ux Translations, UX, Design

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

Check your inbox

Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription.
Hackers (1995) • 23 Years Later
By: Dan Owen
Tags: Movies, Film, Review, Culture, Retrospectives

It’s keen up-and-comer Joey who puts the story into a serious footing, after trying to prove himself by hacking into ‘The Gibson’, a supercomputer used by the Ellingson Mineral Company, protected by suave security officer Eugene “The Plague” Belford (Fisher Stevens). Joey manages to download a fragmented ‘garbage file’ onto a floppy disc, which unwittingly contains proof Eugene was defrauding the company with a ‘worm’ program — that amusingly echoes the villain’s plan in Superman III (1983) by creaming off micropayments from the company’s accounts. In an attempt to cover his own ass, The Plague tries to frame the hackers for a “Da Vinci” virus he’s written and released, which will capsize the company’s fleet of oil tankers, putting them in the crosshairs of the US Secret Service and “hacker enemy number one” Agent Richard Gill (Wendell Pierce, pre-The Wire).

Released on 15 September 1995, Hackers received mixed reviews and only clawed back $7.5M at the US box office, against its $20M budget. It was clearly too ahead of its time, as much of the movie’s content must have appeared extremely fanciful, at best, or outright bewildering at worst. A lot of people didn’t have the internet, certainly didn’t e-mail or “go online” even at work, and there just wasn’t much public awareness of what computers could do. It’s true that director Iain Softley’s attempt to make hacking look cool and cinematic gave it an added element of strangeness, and perhaps ruffled feathers in the real hacking communities of the day (as real hacking isn’t as visual or exciting in that sense), but it’s understandable how you’d have to bend reality to make anything look fun and appealing. So yes, every mainframe is conceptualised as three-dimensional skyscrapers atop a motherboard pulsing with ‘streets’ of data, and when people are furiously hacking in a phone booth they appear to be on a spinning wheel.
Denarii — a better way to send money
By: Denarii Cash
Tags: Marketing, Bitcoin, Success, Goals, Business

When we as the founders of Denarii got together to start this company last year. It was our vision to look for a solution to provide the consumer the cheapest, fastest and best possible way to execute their financial transactions. Be it a money transfer to their friends and beloved ones, paying their bills and split it among their friends, converting credit/debit card into cash or buying digital currency such as bitcoin and ethereum.

With the costs of cryptocurrency transactions have been reduced greatly in the banking environment we focus on solving the financial inclusion problem by applying blockchain technology for cross-border remittances, peer to peer payment and currency exchange using Denarii, without the volatility issues of existing, non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies.

Using Denarii, All transfers of any currency between Denarii wallet users are free, We charge network fees for cryptocurrency transfers that users submit for processing on the relevant cryptocurrency’s blockchain network (on-chain transfers only). On-chain network transaction fees are dynamic. Any fee that shows in Denarii Wallet goes to the third-party business and denarii does not make any profit from that.

Denarii has assembled expert management team with a diverse range of skills. These experts include experts in cryptocurrency, banking operations and compliance, blockchain and peer-to-peer technologies, payment processing, artificial intelligence, internet marketing, economics, politics and public relations.

The management team has already achieved several milestones including having all the infrastructure in place, regulatory approval, disbursement partners and SME’s to accept Denarii Payments. Denarii is in position to offer competitive foreign currency exchange rates, quick and cost effective international bank wires, remittance and peer to peer payments.

We’re looking forward to provide the best way to send and manage your money!

Team Denarii
First 0xcert Meetup Recap
Tags: JavaScript, Blockchain, Decentralized Apps, App Development Framework, Dapps

Does one have to be a blockchain developer to develop a decentralized app on the blockchain?

Actually, no.

That’s what we wanted to show — and hopefully did — at our first 0xcert Meetup for JavaScript developers this Wednesday.

A big shout out to Poligon Creative Center for hosting us and to co-organizers and supporters in our aim, the JavaScript Community Ljubljana, the Slovenian Blockchain Association, and Ethereum Slovenia, for spreading the word about it.

Teaching devs to fish

Instead of bringing an end-customer product to the market, we strive to pave the path to a stronger adoption by providing the tools to boost production and development of dapps.

However powerful the 0xcert Framework for building dapps is, it doesn’t do the job by itself and needs people to make use of it.

And that was the main aim of the event. To teach and instruct the developer community and to start bringing the dapp development to the masses.

From NFTs to dapp UX

Indeed, dapps come in various shapes and forms, but they all need a solid back-end base and an intuitive and effective front-end. And, of course, everything in between.

Our guys brought all four courses of a dapp menu to the event’s table and kept the appetite growing until the end.
Sign It To…..
By: Remington Write
Tags: Short Story, Writer, Fiction, Books, Lies

I can’t believe I’m getting away with this.

Any minute now, one of those smiling faces across the table is going to turn into someone with hand cuffs. But person after gushing person pushes my book across the table to get it signed, to carry on about transformation and redemption and everything happening for a reason. And I keep right on signing those books. I keep right on with the aw shucks smile. Look at Rachel over by the cash register, grinning like a scary clown. Her cut of this would make anyone smile but she should take it easy. Her face is gonna hurt tomorrow.

“Sign it to: Amber Who I Knew Would Make It” The girl standing across from me now is pushy, invasive like everyone in my life now. They plunk down their twenty five ninety five and so are entitled to their almost thirty bucks of my hide.

“To…Amber….Who I……Knew……..Would………Make It” I push the book back to Amber. I thought this would be a lot more fun.

“Hard to believe anyone could survive what you did. Thanks.” She snaps her gum and lets the next eager reader have at me.

“Gosh, you saved my life with this story. I thought I’d lose my mind over the shit that my brothers did to me until I read this.”

“How did you know how I felt?”

“It’s like someone looked in my head and straightened out all the jabbering and made it make sense.”

“God bless you, Alex, you’ve done so much good.”

“Thank you for not keeping this to yourself. You are so brave.”

“I read it six times so far and this copy is for my poor sister in rehab.”

And so on and so forth.

I smile. I sign. My butt itches. I really want a smoke. The line is endless and my hand hurts. The marker goes dry and someone hands me a fresh one. I have to remember about my left hand, keeping it curled around crippled and wounded like poor Alex. Poor, brave Alex who aged out of the foster care system of Louisiana to turn tricks, shoot dope and save the life of an eleven year old prostitute.

Alex is me and Alex isn’t me. Yeah, it’s just a matter of time all right.

© Remington Write 2019. All Rights Reserved
3 Stories on Psychology of Success
By: Rasheed Hooda
Tags: Personal Growth, Life Lessons, Psychology, Relationships, Happiness

There is so much to read these days, or am I just reading more than I have been?

I have also noticed that I see more of the older stories than I used to before. It may be because I have been rejecting a lot of the stories that I saw using the new feature that Medium had introduced.

It makes me wonder, is Medium really showing me what I want, and what I am interested in or just promoting certain writers? The algorithm needs work, that’s for sure.

Anyway, here are three stories about the psychology of success and personal growth that I came across in the last week or so.

Barry Davret has a beautiful story about how to avoid doing stupid things that you will regret later. He calls it a 1 plus 24 method. He shows how instead of acting in a knee jerk manner and regretting later, we can use the 1 plus 24 formula to take control of our actions in a way that will result in more satisfactorily.

I am sure you know that when you look at an iceberg, you’re only seeing about 1% of the total mass because the other 99% is underwater. Sinem Günel says that when you compare your life to what you see on social media about other people’s life like comparing your whole life with their tip of the iceberg because you can’t see the hidden 99%.

Maria Milojković, MA, takes a stab at the so-called medium Gurus, who regurgitate BS about how to be successful but never practices what they supposedly preach.

“Your personal brand is how you behave. It’s how helpful or generous you really are. The rest is baloney that people will eventually see right through,” she writes.
The Temple in the Dark
By: Teresa D Hawkes
Tags: Spirituality, Human Mind, Temple In The Dark, Life

The Temple in the Dark

Our sacred inner life.

Aimea Saul, Heaven’s Boundary

We are a local matter and energy phenomenon arising from

all the cells that work together to permit our experience of Life:

neurons, epithelial cells, nephrons, and goblet cells, among many others.

The result of all this cellular activity is our experience of having a mind that records the events of our lives and tries to make sense of these.

All of us feel our self as the center of our Universe

because we arise from our own mind and body, but no one else’s.

That is why all religions have had people who realized our own spirituality must be cultivated inside us. If we cultivate the sacred inside our own minds and bodies, that sacred place will become a source of strength and resilience throughout our lives. It is the source of the gifts we cultivate to give to ourselves, our families, and our communities.

I call this place the Temple in the Dark.

What does that mean?

It means that inside our skin is the Temple of our life that we cannot see, but only feel. Out of that unseenness, that darkness, we exist and project what becomes ourselves into each moment.

This power, this beauty belongs to each one of us from conception to death.

I invite you to investigate your Temple in the Dark. Become its beauty and wisdom in all you do. Honor this place in others as well, that we may all become sacred Temples of Life here on Earth, blue among the Stars.
How to Create a Node REST Stub with Swagger Codegen
By: Somnath Musib
Tags: Technology, Software Development, Java, Software Engineering, Programming

Generating Swagger Specification document

In this section, we will use a Spring boot application to generate the Swagger specification document which consists of the REST API specification. This document can then be used to share with the API consumers so that a Node JS client can be created using Swagger codegen utility.

To generate the Swagger Specification, we have created a sample Spring boot project. It can be downloaded from this Github link. This project is about book management service and exposes following REST endpoints:

GET v1/books/: List all books

POST v1/books/: Create a new book

GET v1/books/{book_id}: Get a book resource

DELETE v1/books/{book_id}: Remove a book

Download this project and set up in your favorite IDE. To generate the swagger document, we will update the pom.xml file with the springfox-swagger2 and springfox-swagger-ui maven dependencies as shown below:

<dependency>

<groupId>io.springfox</groupId>

<artifactId>springfox-swagger2</artifactId>

<version>2.9.2</version>

</dependency>

<dependency>

<groupId>io.springfox</groupId>

<artifactId>springfox-swagger-ui</artifactId>

<version>2.9.2</version>

</dependency>

Following this, we will add the below Swagger configuration. This configuration let Swagger detect the REST endpoints as well as adds some metadata about the API owner (API Name, email, website and so on)

SwaggerConfiguration

Start the application and head over to the http://localhost:8080/v2/api-docs. This shows the Swagger OpenAPI specification document. Save this JSON file as swagger-book-api.json. Alternatively, we can also view the REST endpoint information at http://localhost:8080/swagger-ui.html.
Present Company
By: Kirsten Steen
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Poetry, Poetry Writing, Death, Death And Dying

Photo by Stefan Stefancik on Unsplash

Sometimes I think I hear your footstep in the garden, my dear

then I’m certain I’ve imagined you

the hue of your long scarlet hair

the breezy sweet chime of your laughter.

I study your self-portrait for meaning

for the silent breath of you again

the light of youth placed in an opening

a gate in time.

My mind drifts but I’m still here

running in place.

Calendars, full seasons have flown

since the day you vanished.

Still grasping the stories, the questions,

what’s true.

Then morning and the sky and the wind

answer.
35,859 Leads in 60 Days
By: Clayton Carroll
Tags: Email Marketing, Marketing, Digital Marketing Tips, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation

This week’s digital marketing success story is about the company DigitalMarketer.

A key digital marketing goal is to obtain email addresses from customers and potential customers — not an easy task. We are all cautious about giving out our email address.

The company DigitalMarketer, a provider of online software, templates and training courses related to digital marketing, offers actionable advice on how to increase the chances of getting email addresses.

What Can We Learn From DigitalMarketer?

A lot, since their DigitalMarketer’s Ultimate Facebook Ad Template Download attracted 35,859 leads in 60 days.

I found this download when a Facebook friend found it useful enough to share on their timeline.

Why Was This Download Effective?

According to DigitalMarketer, their Facebook Ad Template download was effective because it solved a customer’s specific problem, with a specific solution for a specific market segment:

Specific problem solved: Provides templates that make it easier to generate successful Facebook ads.

Provides templates that make it easier to generate successful Facebook ads. Specific solution: Facebook ad template ideas.

Facebook ad template ideas. Specific market segment: Customers interested in Facebook advertising.

DigitalMarketer also provides a list of similar examples including:

Guide/report (like the Facebook Ad Template Download above)

Toolkit/resource list

Software download/free trial

Webinar

The Bigger Picture: Lead Magnets Come in All Shapes and Sizes

A lead magnet generally means a free content download or content updates, like a blog or newsletter signup, that require an email address or other contact information to access.

The lead magnet which has worked the best on me is the blog update / newsletter sign up.
Time.
By: Lisa Martens
Tags: Short Story, Childhood, Growing Up, Fiction, Time

Time.

A short short story.

As a child in my onesie I looked out the window and became scared that a spirit in the darkness was looking at me.

It was over there by the light post. The bulb was more orange than yellow.

The spirit was me, in the end.
What is a Siamese Neural Network?
By: Wanshun Wong
Tags: Contrastive Loss, Embedding, Siamese Neural Network, Triplet Loss

Loss Functions

Both contrastive loss and triplet loss are distance-based loss functions that are mainly used for learning vector representations, and are often used in conjunction with Siamese neural networks.

Contrastive Loss

Assume our dataset consists of different classes of objects. For example, the ImageNet dataset consists of images of cars, images of dogs, etc. Then for every pair of inputs (x₁, x₂),

If x₁ and x₂ belong to the same class, we want their vector representations to be similar. Therefore we want to minimize L = ‖v₁ − v₂‖².

On the other hand if x₁ and x₂ belong to different classes, we want ‖v₁ − v₂‖ to be large. The term we want to minimize is

L = max(0, m − ‖v₁ − v₂‖)², where m is a hyperparameter called margin. The idea of margin is that, when v₁ and v₂ are sufficiently different, L will already be 0 and cannot be further minimized. Hence the model will not waste efforts in further separating v₁ and v₂, and will focus on other input pairs instead.

We can combine these two cases into a single formula:

L = y * ‖v₁ − v₂‖² + (1 - y) * max(0, m − ‖v₁ − v₂‖)²

where y = 1 if x₁ and x₂ belong to the same class, y = 0 otherwise.

Triplet Loss

Triplet loss takes the above idea one step further by considering triplets of inputs (xa, xp, xn). Here xa is an anchor object, xp is a positive object (i.e. xa and xp belong to the same class), and xn is a negative object (i.e. xa and xn belong to different classes). Our goal is to make the vector representation va to be more similar to vp than to vn. The precise formula is given by

L = max(0, m + ‖va − vp‖ - ‖va − vn‖)

where m is the hyperparameter margin. Just like the case for contrastive loss, margin determines when the difference between ‖va − vp‖ and ‖va − vn‖ has become big enough, such that the model will no longer adjust its weights from this triplet.

For both contrastive loss and triplet loss, how we sample the input pairs (x₁, x₂) and the triplets (xa, xp, xn) from different classes of objects has a great impact on the model training process. Ideally we want input pairs and triplets that are not too easy but also not too hard for our model.
8.22 Presidential Social Intelligence Battleground Tracker
By: Adam Meldrum
Tags: Social Listening, Battleground States, Joe Biden, 2020 Presidential Race, Donald Trump

8.22 Presidential Social Intelligence Battleground Tracker

An aggregate weekly pulse of how potential voters in battleground states are discussing the Presidential candidates.

— Please check out the background post on this project if it is your first time reading.

— Our initial dataset from the week of 7.3 was detailed here.

— Data from the week of 7.11 was detailed here

— Data from the week of 7.19 was detailed here.

— Aggregate data to date through 8.14 was detailed here

Battleground States in our Analysis: AZ, CO, FL, IA, ME, MI, MN, NV, NH, NC, PA, TX, WI

Date Source: All data is publicly available and anonymized for our analysis from Twitter, Facebook, Online Blogs, & Message Boards.

Technology Partners: Eyesover & Relative Insight
A tökéletes írószerek
Tags: Stationery, Írószer

I'm noticing as hard as I can, beauty and meaning in life. Here, through writing. Endless.Consulting

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Morehouse’s Faculty Ends Planned Walkout
By: Shakim Muhafiz
Tags: Education

Morehouse’s Faculty Ends Planned Walkout

The staff at Morehouse votes to not walk out and gain benefits back.

Eight days after a mass email was sent out to students explaining how the faculty and staff of Morehouse were going to start taking furlough days because of financial reasons, President David Thomas of Morehouse College sent out his own email Oct. 28. In the letter sent by Dr. Thomas, it explains faculty and staff taking a furlough day has been discontinued and to temporarily discontinue the College’s 403(b) plan, which means the faculty who are close to retirement will not lose out on any money for the moment as it is temporarily.

The faculty planning the walkout affected President Thomas’ decision to stop the furlough days and retirement plan from continuing. Thomas’ plan will start on Nov. 1. The reaction to the plan is positive for faculty as they voted to stop the walkout in conjunction with Morehouse to stop taking benefits away from their employees. Dr. Adria Welcher, a sociology professor at Morehouse, believes in what President Thomas is doing is right for the college.

“I can speak to my own personal response and a few conversations I’ve had with other faculty,” Dr. Welcher sad. “I was very pleased with the email and with the consideration of what faculty had been exercising. I felt heard and I felt included.”

The walkout plan worked for the faculty and in return, they maintain the benefits that were due for them. But on a bigger scale, the Men of Morehouse do not have to suffer by losing their professors. The professors are the people that most students come in contact with daily, not the deans nor President Thomas.

Yes, the plan giving faculty and staff their benefits back is great for Morehouse College, but there is still a problem, other than finances. Communication is that problem. Like before, the email that was sent out to students by Morehouse’s hierarchy did not notify the staff first. Instead, some professors had to find out by students that these problems and solutions were occurring.

“I would appreciate a heads up,” Dr. Welcher said. “I may not be prepared to respond to students.”

Communication is key. Notifying the professors would be the ideal thing to do so they can be prepared to answer any concerns or questions that students may have with the email. Other than that, the overall feeling for Morehouse looks to be in better shape than it was a week ago. President Thomas wants to progress as a college and not have problems with professors.

“A planned walkout would have done irreparable harm to the College,” President Thomas wrote in the email. “At a time when we are gaining positive momentum to place ourselves on an accelerated upward trajectory.”

Morehouse’s money troubles may have not gone away, but their faculty not planning a walkout anymore is a win for the school.
Test-Driven Development: a Blessing or a Burden?
By: Lester Andrew Cano
Tags: Software Development, Tdd, Codeception, Test Driven Development, Unit Testing

The Process

TDD is also known as the “red, green, refactor” cycle method, working in step by step to get the tests to pass.

Below is the list of most followed steps:

Create a unit test

Run and check if it fails

Write implementation code

Run the test

Refactor the implementation code

Repeat the sequence

Test-Driven Development Diagram

The RED is for the initial step in which the developers will write the tests based on the requirements. Since the test has been written before the actual implementation, it is supposed to fail.

In this phase, developers will need to write a test that uses a piece of code as if it were already implemented. This is the stage where developers will design how their code will be used by the client interface or controller.

The GREEN is for the production code writing. When the implementation of the last test is finished, all tests should pass, and if they don’t, it should be fixed and tested again.

In this phase, the developers will need to start writing the production code. Take note it doesn’t mean that developers will write all the algorithms, they just need to write enough code just to pass all the test code that they made. But, Why do they need to write just enough code? Why can’t they just write all the algorithms that come to mind while analyzing and writing the production code? If these questions crossed your mind, then you’re mistaken, the main goal of this phase is just to write straightforward code that they will use to make all the test code pass, and for all the algorithms and logic that comes in mind will be done during the refactor phase.

This phase acts as a to-do list. Developers will need to take note of all the logic & algorithms that they wish to implement, then make it happen in the next phase, which is the refactor phase.

When writing production code, there are several things a developer should consider. The code should be modular and readable. The structure should be composed of separate components that can be linked together, which can easily replace or add any one component (or module) without affecting the rest of the system. The variables and function names should be self-explanatory. When someone reads the code, it must be easy to find what each variable and function does.

And lastly, REFACTOR. It is in the word itself refactoring the code. Once everything is done and has no failed unit tests, developers can now proceed to refactor. In this phase developers are allowed to change the code structure, It means that developers are making the code more appropriate and following the coding standards without adding a new feature that is not included in the present test cases. While refactoring all tests should pass, and if they don’t, it means that the functionality is broken and should be refactored and tested again.
The Persona Zoo
By: Michael Schofield
Tags: UX, Facebook, Jobs To Be Done, Personas, Podcast

In this episode of Metric, we pick up where we left off in 65: Mazes and Monsters and hit the user archetypes known as whales, fish, and barnacles — the persona zoo! We start with a travelogue about visiting creepy Facebook in Menlo Park. Eventually we delve into jobs to be done and critique of personas.

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New episodes of Metric tend to arrive Monday on your favorite podcatchers, like

— and, hey, right here on Medium if that’s your thing.
How To Deepen Your Connection With Your Dreams: 4 practical steps you can take today
By: Kim Mccaul
Tags: Self Improvement, Psychology, Dreams

Image by Jürgen Ziewe

There are many gains in becoming conscious of our dreams. The psychological benefits of exploring and interpreting our dreams were recognised long before Freud, in many ancient cultures. More recently, research into lucid dreaming has shown that we can use the sleep state to train our mind, heal our body and overcome fears and phobias.

And bringing awareness to our sleep may not only give us access to our dreams, but even allow us to experience an altered state of consciousness known as the out-of-body experience, a state where we experience ourselves fully consciously aware with the sense of being separate from our physical body.



Although it is generally agreed among researchers of the out-of-body experience that we can all potentially have such experiences consciously, in practice there is significant variation in people’s success rate. That said, it may be largely a matter of persistence. There are certainly plenty of accounts of people who applied themselves for some months and eventually succeeded to experience the freedom of out-of-body travel.



We can definitely all become conscious of our dreams, and that is itself enriching and a great first step towards expanding our consciousness further. Recalling and reflecting on our dreams can give us access to our subconscious processes, and especially at times of crisis which 2020 is for most of us, our dreams may give us access to anxieties, concerns or hopes we have not allowed to surface in our waking consciousness. Dreams, and the more elusive out-of-body experience, can also be a source of deep joy, and memories of some dreams can bring smiles to our face even days after the event. Especially when we are cooped up at home, experiencing freedom of “movement” in our sleep state can offer great psychological relief.



The following 4 steps will help you to bring more awareness to your night life:
An Intro to Python Assert Statements
By: Raivat Shah
Tags: Development, Debugging, Software Engineering, Programming, Python

What Are Assertions?

Assertions or assert statements are built into Python and are a tool for debugging. An assert statement, as the name may suggest, tries to assert its authority over the rest of the code when checking for a condition specified by the programmer.

For example, you could tell the assert statement to check if the value of the variable speed is greater than or equal to 0 (since velocity can be negative but not speed). If the condition is true, assert doesn’t do anything and the program runs normally. However, if the condition fails, the assert statement asserts its authority and raises an AssertionError , which stops the execution of the program. The code in Python would something like this:

Example of using Python assertions

If an AssertionError is raised (as in the second call of the get_speed function on line 7), it is easy to spot, which makes debugging easy in a large codebase. The error message may be something like this:

Assertion Error

The benefit of the error message is that you as a developer can go to the exact line number, which in this case is at line 3, where the assert statement was written. Thus, by asserting its authority, the assert statement makes life easier for the developer.
What are the most popular TecHnoLoGies among DeveLopERS?
Tags: Data Visualization, Python3, Udacity Nanodegree, Data Science

This is the part where we dig into our answers.

What are the most popular Languages?

Interestingly SQL is the most popular language on which developer worked and want to work in over the next year. JavaScript and python are most in demand language on which developers want to work followed by SQL , c# etc

Most Popular Language

What are the most popular Frameworks?

Angular,Node.js, React and .Net core are the most popular frameworks on which developer worked and want to work in over the next year followed by Angular is most in demand Database on which developers want to work.

Most Popular Frameworks

What are the most popular Databases?

MySQL and SQL SERVER are the most popular Databases on which developer worked and want to work in over the next year. MongoDB is the most in demand Database on which developers want to work followed by **MySQL , PostgreSQL, SQLServer, etc.

Most Popular Databases.

What are the most popular Platforms?

Android is the most popular platform on which developer worked and want to work in over the next year followed by Android is also most in demand platform on which developers want to work followed by AWS, Raspberry pie etc.

Most Popular Platforms

Conclusion

SQL is the most popular language on which developer worked and want to work in over the next year. JavaScript and python are the most in demand languages on which developers want to work followed by SQL , c# etc

on which developer worked and want to work in over the next year. are the most in demand languages on which developers want to work followed by , etc MySQL and SQL SERVER are the most popular Databases on which developer worked and want to work in over the next year. MongoDB is the most in demand Database on which developers want to work followed by MySQL , PostgreSQL, SQLServer, etc.

on which developer worked and want to work in over the next year. is the most in demand Database on which developers want to work followed by MySQL , PostgreSQL, SQLServer, etc. Android is the most popular platform on which developer worked and want to work in over the next year followed by Android is also the most in demand platform on which developers want to work followed by AWS, Raspberry pie etc.

is the most popular platform on which developer worked and want to work in over the next year followed by is also the most in demand platform on which developers want to work followed by etc. Angular,Node.js, React and .Net core are the most popular frameworks on which developer worked and want to work in over the next year followed by Angular is the most in demand Database on which developers want to work.

If you wish to look at the code for the above insights the please refer to the below link of my github repository.