fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Why You Should Think Twice Before Installing an npm Package or Module
By: Mahdhi Rezvi
Tags: JavaScript, NPM, Cybersecurity, Nodejs, Programming

What's Wrong With npm Packages?

Malicious modules

In npm, anyone with an email address can contribute. while anyone with an npm client can consume a module. A module can become malicious due to:

Upon requiring it, the module could gather information from your system or network and send it out to a third party that can cause you several issues

Upon installing it, the module could have an install phase, where it’ll run destructive commands, for example rm -rf /

You might now wonder, why would anyone install a malicious module knowing about the security risks they pose? There are several reasons why.

You’re too lazy

Yes, this is how lazy people are. Modules are very much capable of containing security vulnerabilities.

You might say you’re not stupid enough to install modules like this. But, to be honest, you might’ve installed a genuine package that has added a malicious package as a dependency. At the end of the day, either you or the module developer was lazy, and it might cost you as a user.

Typosquatting

This is a form of attack where malicious packages are named similar to the real modules and can be installed by an accidental typo by the user. This problem is commonly found even in the PyPi Python registry as well. npm has added new naming rules to fix this.

Malicious contributors

In another scenario, the owner of the package might’ve been genuine with their intention, but a malicious contributor of the package can send a PR with a backdoor — or even add a project dependency that contains vulnerabilities.

You might not notice this, even during code review, and then you end up with a malicious package that can infect millions of users.

Compromised contributors

A member of the Node Core Technical Committee was able to gain publish permissions for popular repositories such as:

Debug

Express

React

React Native

Mongoose

Electron

MySQL

And the list goes on.

How did they manage to get permissions for these packages? Poor passwords.
Did you ask a good question today?
By: Lichfield Vocations
Tags: Life, Vocation, Life Lessons

Isodor Rabi, the American Nobel laureate in physics, famously credited his mother with his success. When he came home from school she would always ask him, ‘Izzy, did you ask a good question today?’

We are inexorably moving towards the busiest time for BAP conferences and their three interviews, based, as all ordination candidates know, on the nine criteria. It can feel a little bit like mugging up the answers for an exam; working out which topics will come up in this year’s exam papers.

‘What questions are they going to ask?’

‘What answers will they expect me to give?’

‘I don’t know enough’

Candidates often worry that they will be expected to have all the answers. Questions are dangerous, answers are reassuring: if I’ve got the answers I will be OK. In any situation it takes a lot of nerve to say, ‘I don’t know. I’m still working on it’, because between the question and the answer is the time of uncertainty that the poet John Keats called ‘Negative Capability’, that being in a state of ‘uncertainties, mysteries, doubts’.

At its best Christianity welcomes both questions and answers. The bible has a golden thread of questions running through it. A question even became the name of God’s life-giving food when the Israelites were starving in the desert: ‘What is it?’

Easy certainties make us feel secure, but the visionary leaders of the future whom we want to nurture and support today are those who look beyond what is safe to what is still to be discovered. Not grabbing the superficial answer like a life-jacket but thinking, ‘what does it mean for me?’, ‘how do I understand this?’ Cultivating the the mind-set that can question the tabloid headline, the current sound-bite, the presidential tweet.

For them a question mark is not a burden it is a liberation and every answer is a platform that enables us to reach the next question.

In ‘Benedictus’, his book of blessings, John O’Donohue gives a A Blessing for a Leader, with the words,

May you have a mind that loves frontiers

So that you can evoke the bright fields

That lie beyond the view of the regular eye.

How sad it would be if we thought there were no frontiers left to discover.

DS
How to Heal With Gentle Childlike Wonder
By: Bingz Huang
Tags: Self Improvement, Gentleness, Energy, This Happened To Me, Inspiration

How a typical session might look like

I have taken multiple workshops of various levels throughout the years to gain mastery in The Wonder Method™. My journey of learning, practicing, and experiencing this profound yet practical modality on myself, my loved ones, and my clients over the years since then have led me to rediscover the magical ingredient of gentleness.

A typical private energy healing session would look like this:

I would meet my client online, usually a Whatsapp voice call or a Zoom meeting for an hour. My clients are typically women, and mostly working moms. She would describe to me a life challenge or a goal she wants to move towards, and I would tune in energetically to the challenge or goal and it would feel like some sort of energetic tension or emotional resistance.

As I connect to this energy and feel it unfold, it would usually feel like a release of tension, such as the soothing hiss of gas leaving a bottle of soda that has its cap opened, or a crowded room that becomes emptier as more people exit the room. Sometimes images and messages appear in my mind, and I would share them with my client. If my client is naturally intuitive and sensitive, she might be feeling the release in her way and share it with me too.

Usually, the intense drama that she felt at the start of a session would feel much less intense, and she might even get new insights on how to deal with the problem, or the situation might not seem as critical anymore. This can be:

physical health issues such as pounding heartbeats, a persistent earache

emotional conflicts with a friend or another loved one

prolonged tiredness and overwhelm without a clear root cause

or a life goal that seemed impossible to achieve

Sharon, a client from Singapore, shared that the session helped her to process her emotions in a non-judgemental way and connected her to her inner wisdom and body. She received inner clarity to make the changes she wanted to make, without me ever telling her what to do.

For the past year, I have experimented with tuning in and realigning specific aspects of my client’s Human Design chart, and I love how the combination of The Wonder Method™ and Human Design provides both great insights and realignment of my clients’ natural ‘energetic wiring’. I call this a Human Design Realignment session.

To me, it feels like using these two modalities help to restore my clients back to their rightful thrones, where their physical realities become magical the way they want them to be again.

Jan, a client from Scotland, had felt more peace, space, and patience after a Human Design Realignment session. She awoke the next day feeling much lighter and more refreshed than she had felt for a very long time and she attributes this beautiful shift to our session together.
RandomCrypto’s new BTC mining modeler visualizes the unprofitability of major ASICs
Tags: Technology, Modeling, Mining, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

Lowering Mining’s Barriers of Entry

Even as the mining ecosystem has professionalized with the rise of industrial-scale hardware deployments, crypto tools and services have barely changed — they remain clunky and simplistic, often grossly overpromising returns, as with the GMO B2.

“Calculating long-term mining ROI isn’t a straightforward extrapolation of a constant daily reward, which is unfortunately how almost all current calculators work. Mining difficulty continuously varies based on network hashrate, which is emergent from complex economics and network dynamics,” says CTO Ethan Bian.

Independently verifying manufacturer claims is also challenging, since existing calculators are often sponsored by manufacturers and hosting services themselves, who may have little incentive to make more truthful projections. As networks have matured and the amount of resources poured into mining has continued to increase, this is increasingly becoming a problem, as Bian explains:

“Mining has become a high-stakes game involving billions of dollars (USD) of value, and the more difficulty rises, the harder it is for smaller-scale miners to compete; not a good sign for a healthy, decentralized system. The misleading data from most calculators has perpetuated this environment — while large-scale operators can rely on internal resources to model ROI accurately, this is an expensive and slow process which disincentives small-scale miners from participating. Our modeling tool is a crucial step in the direction of information parity, allowing small-scale miners to make decisions the same way bigger players do.”

RandomCrypto’s Commitment to Cryptocurrency Network Health

Cryptocurrencies rely on distributed verification to maintain trust, and unequal access to resources can exacerbate unbalanced network ownership. RandomCrypto believes the development of professional, public, and verifiable tools is essential for keeping mining democratic and maintaining network health.

Calc is the first of many tools RandomCrypto plans to launch to bring clarity and trust to cryptocurrency. It can be used for free today at calc.randomcrypto.org.
Digital Marketing News: The Perfect Sales Page, YouTube Changes & Instagram Polls
Tags: YouTube, Instagram, Digital Marketing

Source: Online Marketing Blog — TopRank®

How to Write a Persuasive Sales Page (Even If You Hate Selling) [Infographic]



Selling doesn’t have to be ‘sleazy’ — it can be helpful, timely and informative. This infographic shows exactly how to perfect your website’s sales page to be informative, helpful, and not at all creepy to your intended buyers. MarketingProfs

YouTube Changes Rules Regarding Videos With External Links



YouTube is restricting which accounts are able to add external links at the end of videos. The new requirements are that the user is a member of the YouTube Partner Program and your channel must have 10,000 total public views (or more). Search Engine Journal

Instagram Adds Polls in Stories, New Creative Tools



Instagram is adding a new way for users to conduct polls using a sticker option that allows users to ask a question within their Instagram Stories and see results from followers as they engage with the polls. Social Media Today

Google releases a variety of Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP) updates



This week, Google announced several AMP technical updates. Updates include scrolling animations, responsive sidebar, native…

Click here to read more
In Floripa, surfing the quantified baby wave
By: Raphael Djazz
Tags: IFTTT, User Experience, IoT, Mobile, Parenting

In Floripa, surfing the quantified baby wave

I monitor my son’s activities and this improves his health

In 2003 I had the privilege of working for Alure, one of the first companies dedicated to user experience design in Brazil. Founded by Claudia Obata, a pioneer in the Brazilian UX community, Alure was a watershed in my professional career as a user interface designer. When I was at school of marketing and advertising, I dreamed of working for an agency, but at the Power Macintosh (G5) time, an agency wouldn’t have taught me the principles of Human Centered Design. I remember that Alure’s tagline was “rich human experience” and there it was taken seriously. The opportunity to work with advertising happened some time later and it was also essential for me to learn the basis of visual design.

Learning the UX subject so early enabled my creative process to always have the user’s journey as the main focus.

Service design must be based first on the user’s journey analysis.

Source: Instagram @soenxen

Earlier this year, during a Good Friday here at Nesta, we decided — after a friend’s baby shower — to create a service to manage a baby’s diaper stock. The recruitment of newborn and infant parents exceeded the number of doctors. This led us to study the environment and context of this audience.

Mariloo

In August this year my son was born and I truly felt the toughness of parenting a newborn. As a preterm baby, Lucas has been demanding special care. For example, in the first month the doctor recommended breastfeeding every two hours even in the middle of the night. My wife was exhausted and lost track of breastfeeding intervals. I looked for a simple app to control the breastfeeding, but I couldn’t find anything helpful. Searching for baby feeding in Apple Store and Play Store, the solutions I found led me to think that the following questions were not answered in the creative meetings:

Who is the user?

2. Where is the user?

3. What is the user doing?

4. How to help the user?

This is the basic questionnaire to confirm whether your idea really matters.

Since I couldn’t find a good app, I decided to schedule Do Button by IFTTT. In every breastfeeding, my wife could register it with 2 taps and 1 swipe. In every registration, a new line was added to a spreadsheet at Google Drive with day, time and location data. When in doubt, she could check the last breastfeeding time in the spreadsheet.
Fuel taxes and the 2018 midterm elections
By: Madison Hall
Tags: Elections, Taxes, Politics, Fuel Economy, Gas

What’s the problem?

Fuel taxes have become an increasingly large topic of debate as many states around the nation have looked to them as an additional stream of revenue to rebuild state infrastructure.

Fuel taxes, also known as gas taxes, are a form of an “excise tax,” or a tax attached to a product or service with the intention of discouraging the usage of it. Other examples include taxes on indoor tanning beds, alcohol and tobacco.

In 2018 alone there were seven states which raised fuel taxes. In fact, 27 states have raised fuel taxes since 2013 in an effort to increase tax revenue.

Currently there are three states with gas taxes higher than 40 cents. A notable state is California which boasts a combined federal and state gas tax of more than 73 cents.

In 2017, the governor of California signed a piece of legislature to increase the state’s fuel tax by 12 cents. After Californians grew angry at the tax increase, legislation was drafted, creating Proposition 6 which repeals the 2017 increase. This, among other vehicle and diesel tax increases, was expected to bring in $5.4 billion per year for road repair projects.

Although the additional tax brings in revenue for each state, it does not bring in as much as it used to, according to Bloomberg Opinion columnist Justin Fox. The federal gas taxes have remained near-constant for more than three decades at around 18.4 cents per gallon. The federal tax is instituted by the cent, not a percentage making its revenue decline as inflation rises.

With many states in need of an infrastructure overhaul, such as Rhode Island and New Hampshire, this decline in adjusted tax revenue limits the state’s ability to fix the roads.

In addition to the federal gas tax revenue decreasing in effectiveness, consumers have been buying more electric and fuel efficient cars. This in turn leads to purchasing less gas and to a decreased revenue.

In Florida, the impact of the increasingly efficient vehicles brings more than $3.3 billion in missed fuel taxes through fiscal year 2024/2025 according to the Florida Transportation Commission.

The impact caused by more fuel efficient vehicles entering the market is more than $3.3 billion in unrealized state fuel tax collections through FY 24/25. The average age of road infrastructure in the United States is 28.4 years old, according to the New York Times. Relative to the economy in the 1950s, the country is spending half as much on infrastructure than in the mid-century.

A February 2018 report by President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, it states basing the funding of road infrastructure through gas taxes “is becoming increasingly unsustainable.” As this continues, more states are looking for alternative ways to fund infrastructure repair.

Until then, prepare for potholes.

All graphs in this piece were found using Grafiti’s chart search engine.
‘In the Heights’ might be the next ‘Hamilton’
By: Robin Dakota
Tags: Musicals, Film, Film Reviews, Movie Review, Movies

It’s no secret that 2020 has not been kind to the film industry. Feature film production has halted, social distancing measures have been implemented, and movie theaters have closed down — virtually recorded content and at-home streaming has become the new norm.

In response to these changes, release of the major motion picture In the Heights, directed by Crazy Rich Asians mastermind Jon M. Chu, has been pushed back an entire year, from June 2020 to June 2021. With a production budget of $15 million USD, the financial hit of an at home release would be disastrous. The musical, based on the book by Quiara Alegría Hudes with music by Hamilton’s own Lin-Manuel Miranda, was first performed live in 2005. Set in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, this musical new rendition is sure to be worth the wait.

Get ready to see familiar faces.

In the lead role of Usnavi, you’ll recognize actor Anthony Ramos from his parts as John Laurens and Philip Hamilton in Hamilton. In addition to his role as producer, you’ll also recognize Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton himself, as Mr. Piragüero. The star-studded cast also includes Stephanie Beatriz from Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Dasha Polancho from Orange is the New Black. If their past work is any indication of their upcoming release, then In the Heights is sure to impress.

Get ready to face social justice issues.

In the Heights explores challenges specific to residents of the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, Washington Heights, on the most Northern end of Manhattan. According to Data USA, 64.4% of residents are native Spanish speakers, and 47.4% of residents were born outside of the United States.

Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York City

Issues such as gentrification and systemic poverty are main plot points, and the movie will surely bring awareness to plights that are specific to marginalized minority communities. Audiences will hopefully walk away from the film with a better understanding of how privilege works in the United States.

Get ready to experience a musical like no other.

The success of Hamilton creates high hopes for In the Heights. While this might add to the pressures the production team is under, Lin-Manuel Miranda has proved his professionalism and talent, and his new passion project is sure to impress. In charge of the music and lyrics, he is likely to provide another fantastic experience that pulls viewers away from their reality and into his world for a 2 full hours.

One thing is for sure, In the Heights will provide a warm welcome back into theaters next summer, and certainly has the potential to pass Hamilton up.
A Silence That Conversed
By: Rajesh Ramachander
Tags: Poetry, Yoga, Solitude, Soul, Meditation

Photo by Keegan Houser on Unsplash

A man wearied by the commotion everywhere,

sought a quiet place to be found nowhere,

silence eluded him,

amidst thoughts that drowned him,

implored the Gods to liberate him.

A mentor then arose,

inviting him to seal the uproarious,

believing he avered assuredly,

wishing for an incredible abiding calm,

he heard the seas when there was none in sight.

The waters calmed opening to a rhythmic pace,

a white blaze of light then arrived,

one that matched an unlimited pillar,

small chimes playing unceasingly,

staring at him as if it was only the beginning.
Reflected Lies
By: C Mcclung
Tags: Poetry, One Line, Chalkboard, Time, Aging Well

I write about growth, kindness and taking a stand for the only home any of us will ever know. I believe we are all perfect in our imperfection.

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“Anxiety lives in the future.”
By: Jason B. Hobbs Lcsw
Tags: Trauma, Mindfulness, Mental Illness, Anxiety, Therapy

“What if this happens?” “What if that happens?” Imagined possibilities of terrible events, events that are not currently happening, but might.

Anxiety is a common topic in therapy. Even when anxiety is not the primary diagnosis, there are elements of anxiety that hide in depression, in disorders of attention and focus, and most certainly in trauma.

So where does anxiety live? “Anxiety lives in the future.”

This is something that I find myself saying often in my office. But what does this phrase mean, that anxiety “lives in the future”?

Let’s go back for a minute to our sophisticated brains and this “freeze/fight/flight” system. This system is present for survival. If there is a deadly threat running at us, then you want to freeze for a brief moment to assess the situation. After this initial response, then you are presented with two choices: get ready to fight or to run away as fast as you can (flight).

You want two choices, not twenty. If you did have twenty choices to cycle through, by the time you evaluate them all, this deadly threat has eaten you. You want fight or flight, either/or, all/nothing.

Then once you evade the threat or fight it off, at that point this system begins to calm.

Now, our brains are sophisticated. But, this system is not sophisticated enough to tell the difference between a future-oriented, imagined threat and a present one.

So what happens is that we imagine the deadly threat or the possible child abduction or the bankruptcy or the murderer lurking in the bushes and this system goes into gear . . . not because of an actual threat, but because of an imagined one.

The threat is not happening in the present, but our bodies and brains are reacting as if it is.

Is what we imagine a possible future? Sure it is. I would not advocate that we never plan for a possible negative event, but then there is a limit too.

Anxiety pushes us past these limits, imagining all sorts of horrible, future-oriented outcomes. Then we physically feel as if these things are happening in the present moment.

Remember that anxiety is a body event, which means that our heart rate increases; muscles tighten; we get a shot of stress hormones; our vision narrows; we think in either/or dichotomies; our breathing becomes shallow and tight so that we can be ready to fight or run.
How to rank competing blockchain projects’ technologies
By: Arlyn Culwick
Tags: Stellar, Blockchain, Tendermint, Hyperledger, Ethereum

Take the following attributes and put them along a decision tree in succession. Each decision has a “winning” branch.

a) open/closed validator set

b) trustless/trust-laden network actors

c) slow/fast finality of transaction state Play a game where to win is either to:

a) reach the ultimate level without “cheating” by avoiding having to first win at levels 1 and 2

b) perhaps additionally inventing a new level of a kind that can become level 1, making all the current levels move up by one.



If you accomplish 2a, your blockchain is state of the art currently.

If you accomplish 2b, you advance the entire field and make your competitors look like dinosaurs. Start on level 1:

a) closed validator set: traditional Byzantine fault tolerance (henceforth “BFT”); private or permissioned chains (e.g. Hyperledger)

b) open validator set: move to the next level Level 2:

a) trust-laden validator set: DPoS coins like Cosmos, EOS (Tendermint), and Federated BFT in the Ripple-Stellar family

b) trustless validator set: move to the next level Level 3:

a) slow finality: Bitcoin, Ethereum, PoS coins

b) fast finality: move to next level Top level: you win!

This includes DAG projects like Team Rocket’s Avalanche and perhaps Swirlds Hashgraph (the latter’s status is unprovable because it’s closed source) Get disrupted when someone invents a new level 1, like the following:

a) undecideable contract outcomes: Ethereum, Bitcoin, and everything else mentioned above

b) decideable contract outcomes (that is, provable security prior to contract execution): Tau chain (repo is here).

Weaknesses of this ranking system

This is very much a flatus vocis (so much so that I had to think twice before publishing it here); expect it to be a ladder one kicks away after climbing it. Murkiness includes the following:

It’s far from obvious to me what kind of attribute would qualify, in general, as an invention that can function at level 1 and make every other attribute go up a level.

It’s far from obvious to me whether some inventions could insert themselves at an intermediate level, pushing only some other ones up a level

I’m not really sure why my current set of attributes are at the levels I put them at. It makes sense, but what’s the underlying logic? I don’t know. Will a tree of merely binary branches cover all future developments? I don’t know. How could a decision tree necessarily represent something real about the technology? Merely obliquely, that’s how. Treat with caution.

The purpose of this ranking system

This is probably just a loose didactic image, useful only insofar as it facilitates further, better, thinking. It’s a practical tool only — like one of those gimmicky multitools that do 15 things dubiously well and do nothing with provable reliability. I’ll earmark this to see whether it changes over time, and if it must be adapted to handle future advancements, and/or if future advancements in blockchain tech can shed light on the (undiscovered) underlying relations between levels. It may yet be redeemable.
JavaScript Algorithm: How to Find the Town Judge
By: Gulgina Arkin
Tags: Leetcode, Algorithms, Web Development, Javascrip, Programming

Solution

The inputs are N as an integer and trust as a 2–D array.

To better understand the relationship between town judge and everybody, we can draw out the example:

Example 1:

1 has one-way connection to 2, and 2 doesn’t have connection with others. 2 doesn’t trust anyone, and everybody else trusts 2, so 2 is the town judge. It is a directed graph.

Input: N = 2, trust = [[1,2]]

Output: 2

Example 2:

1 and 2 both have one-way connection to 3, and 3 doesn’t have outgoing pointer connected to others. Which makes 3 the town judge.

Input: N = 3, trust = [[1,3],[2,3]]

Output: 3

Example 3:

2 has one-way connection with 3, but 1 and 3 have two-way connection. There is no element that doesn’t trust no one, so we return -1.

Input: N = 3, trust = [[1,3],[2,3],[3,1]]

Output: -1

So to make things easy to understand, we can say we are trying to find the element, who doesn’t like anybody, but is being liked by N-1 persons in the town. How can we keep track of the number of times an element likes and being liked? We use hash.

To calculate two different numbers of likes and being liked, we set the keys of hashes from 1 to N, so we wouldn’t miss any number. And we loop through the trust array to increment the count of likes and being liked according to the element order of the subarray. The code looks like the following.

The overall time complexity is O(n), and space complexity is O(n).

I hope this gives you some ideas of how to solve the similar problem.
New analytics 📈📊 features!
By: Johannes Beil
Tags: Analytics, Knowledge Management, Research, Data Science, Data Visualization

Amie is being used more and mode for analytics, so we have expanded our analytics features.

Color plots 🎨 . You can now plot against a third parameter. Finding trends and understanding complex data is often fastest with a plot. To give you more opportunities, we have added an optional third dimension to your plots. It is now also easier to find parameter names, just type and it will search and autocomplete.

Filtering by variable and keywords 🧐. Find all data that is connected to the same variable name, and filter it further down by keywords. Often times, you want to find files that connect to a specific leaf or parameter but don't really know where they are upstream. If there is a doubling of filenames and captions, normal search becomes cumbersome. Now you can just search files upstream from a leaf, by clicking on a parameter and narrow down the results with keywords. In the gif, you can see us pulling up all scanning electron micrographs (SEM) related to a specific device.

Plot cross-correlations 🤞. Plotting now walks up the graph and finds parameters that are in parents, children or references, so you can also plot them against each other. The graph is more than just a visualization of your workflow. Parameters are causally connected, so now plotting also allows you to visually explore those correlations.

Hide leaves 👻. That’s not really analytics, but for those of you who’s garden is getting too full, you can just toggle the hiding button and the tree will not be shown anymore.

This is just the first burst of new features we are rolling out this spring, stay tuned! If you haven't yet, sign up on https://amie.ai to get the latest updates and start using amie for free!
APIS token crowd sale 참여 수량 확인 가이드
By: Jay Jung
Tags: Kor, ICO, Crowdsale, Blockchain, Notice

Cryptoinvestor, Official Community Manager for APIS Platform project. To learn more about APIS, please visit apisplatform.io

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Nil in Go
By: Aaron Zhuo
Tags: Mídium, Golang

What Is nil in Go

nil in Go has several meanings:

It represents “null” in Go. This means two things: 1. It does not have a type. 2. Its value is “null”.

It is a predeclared identifier in Go, which means you can use it without declaring it.

It represents zero values (and default values) of some types in Go, including interface types, pointer types, slice types, map types, channel types, function types.

Using nil as Zero Values

nil represents zero values (and default values) of some types in Go.

Example:

Using nil in Comparison

Two nil Values of Two Different Types Are Not Comparable

Example:

This code will fail to compile as they are trying to compare nil values of two different types.

Two nil Values of The Same Type May Not Be Comparable

Example:

Take var sb = (map[string]bool)(nil) == (map[string]bool)(nil) as an example, the reason why two nil values of the same type ( map[string]bool ) are not comparable is because Go does not support comparison in slice, map, and function types. You can see that we are comparing two values of a non-comparable type in this case, thus causing the failure.

But the following code works and the results are true:

Take var sb = (map[string]bool)(nil) == nil as an example, (map[string]bool)(nil) declares a temporary variable map[string]bool which value is nil and (map[string]bool)(nil) == nil detects whether the variable's value is nil and then assigns the results to sb . You can see that we are comparing the value of a non-comparable type with its zero value ( nil ) in this case. That's why it works.

Two nil Values of The Same Type Can Be Comparable Only When This Type Supports Comparision

Example:

Be Careful in nil Comparison When Interface Values Are Involved

The following code will not cause any compiler failure but the result is false other than true .

Explanation:

An interface value consists of a dynamic type and a dynamic value. interface{}(nil) declares an interface value with {type: nil, value: nil} .

declares an interface value with . The non-interface value is converted to the type of the interface value before making the comparison with an interface value. In this example, (*int)(nil) is converted to an interface value with {type: *int, value: nil} .

is converted to an interface value with . Two nil interface values are equivalent only when they carry the same type. In this case, the converted interface value {type: *int, value: nil} has a concrete dynamic type but the other interface value has not. That is why the comparison result is false .

A more interesting example:

Explanation:

An interface value equals to nil only when its type and value are both `nil`. In this example, w is an io.Writer interface value with {type: *bytes.Buffer, value: nil} after the w=b assignment. Therefore, w==nil is false as it carries *byte.Buffer other than nil as its concrete dynamic type.

Summary
Once I Was A Cowboy
By: Mark Starlin
Tags: Cowboy, Other Stories, Life, Fiction, Short Story

Once I was a cowboy.

Then I wasn’t.

So I rode.

I didn’t know why. I just rode.

Before long I was covered in dust, and tired. But I kept riding.

I discovered why some cowboys carry guitars or harmonicas and play sad songs.

And I rode.

Sometimes the trail was clear and easy.

Sometimes I had a hard time finding my way.

Sometimes I found a refreshing stream or shady tree or a cool breeze.

Sometimes it rained.

Still, I rode.

Sometimes I arrived at a town.

Often I enjoyed my stay, but never for long.

Mostly I slept in the desert.

Sometimes a stranger offered me kindness.

Those were good days.

Sometimes I was robbed.

I survived.

And I rode.

Once I found a gold coin buried in the dirt and I experienced hope.

Then I rode.

One day I rode by a man on a wagon.

I said, “Howdy stranger. How’s the trail treating you?”

He said, “It has its moments. Are you hungry?”

I was in need of some human company so I said yes.

We made camp.

While we ate around the campfire he told me a story about good things that waited at the end of the trail.

It was a heartening story, told with such conviction I reckoned it was true.

I rode with him for a long time after that.

Then his journey ended.

I continued down the trail again.

Once I was a cowboy.

Then I wasn’t.

So I rode.
Vague Marketing FTW
By: Robert Merrill
Tags: Funny, Communication, Ftw

I’m amazed at how we can sometimes use a lot of words to say absolutely nothing.
B21 Invest — Weekly Update. What have we been busy with this week
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Blockchain, Bitcoin

What have we been busy with this week

At B21, our team is dedicated to provide regular updates and product improvements even in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. The entire team is working from home — providing the best of the product updates and features. While taking care of family is the most important task at hand, we are focused and resolved to make B21, the best investment app.

The first set of users including our friends and family have already onboarded and started investing. Our marketing team is also working on an omni channel marketing campaign to bring more users into the B21 family.

A glimpse of how our daily calls look like with our Indian team

Based on the feedback of our current users, we are constantly bringing updates on the B21 app giving a seamless experience. This week we improved the User experience by updating certain aspects in the onboarding process. We also added a new feature — You can now add funds directly to your cash balance in the B21 app so you can maintain a cash balance and invest instantly when you desire.

What’s next ?

Integration of the B21 Token — Very soon we will introduce the B21 token in our mobile application, which is used as a utility token and allows users to receive discounts when paying for their fees and to earn VIP levels in B21.

— Very soon we will introduce the B21 token in our mobile application, which is used as a utility token and allows users to receive discounts when paying for their fees and to earn VIP levels in B21. Exchange listings - We are in talks with the top exchanges to get the B21 token listed thereby increasing the external trades of the B21 token and giving additional benefits to B21 users. While timing is important, we do have agreements in place with exchanges to conduct the listing and are preparing for the listing launch..

- We are in talks with the top exchanges to get the B21 token listed thereby increasing the external trades of the B21 token and giving additional benefits to B21 users. While timing is important, we do have agreements in place with exchanges to conduct the listing and are preparing for the listing launch.. ACH — We are now working on enabling instant deposits with ACH for our U.S. customers, this feature will enable users to fund their account directly from their U.S. bank instantly. This is one of the most requested features on B21 and we are making it happen..

Check the links below to download and start investing

Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.b21.invest&hl=en

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/b21-invest/id1499042083
Weyerhaeuser hosts 4th annual tech internship info session for Green River College students
By: Andy Orr
Tags: Student Success, Community College, Applied Baccalaureate, Career Advice

Last night, Weyerhaeuser held its 4th annual tech internship information session for applied baccalaureate students at Green River College.

Employees from the timber, land, and forest products company delivered an informative virtual presentation over Microsoft Teams on internship opportunities for the upcoming winter session, and also fielded questions from students on how best to prepare for the internship interviewing process.

The presentation also featured guest-speaking appearances from three Green River College applied baccalaureate alumni, Stephen King, Brooks Eshe, and Jake Suhoversnik.
Announcing Polyledger Connect
By: Matthew Rosendin
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Alternative Investments, Bitcoin

I am excited to announce Polyledger Connect, a crypto-asset portfolio management product that connects to 1,400 assets and major exchanges including Coinbase, Bittrex, Gemini, Binance, and more. Tired of tracking your portfolio in a spreadsheet? Unsure of your net gain/loss? Polyledger Connect shows your portfolio’s key performance metrics and change in value over time.

Best of all, it’s completely free.

Sign up today at polyledger.com for early access*.

How it works

Getting started is extremely easy and only requires one step. After signing up, you simply connect your wallet addresses or exchanges by entering read-only API keys. Our system will crunch numbers and effectively show the aggregated portfolio in real time.
Video Tutorials in PPC Bee
By: Ppc Bee
Tags: PPC Marketing, Ecommerce, Tips, Digital Marketing, Marketing Automation

This article has been moved to the official blog of PPC Bee. You will get to the article by clicking on this link.
Employees, Customers and Shareholders — who comes first?
By: Alok Tyagi
Tags: Personal, Enterpreneurship

Key stakeholders of a company are its shareholders, customers and its employees. Businesses are organized for the benefit of its shareholders. Nevertheless, the question of corporate priorities and which one should come first, second, or last — is a never ending debate.

From a company board and business order of priority perspective the answer would be shareholder because a company exist on its ability to attract shareholders to invest in their business. So shareholders should come first.

Another point of view remains that at the end of the day it is about customers. A customer is the one who pays both employees and shareholders. And a business that can lead to happy and loyal customers due to its focus on customers — drive the growth of the business. A growing business — lead to happy employees and happy shareholders. So you could say Customers come first.

Another point of view remains that a company need employees first who are motivated to use their skill and knowledge in creating happy (and repeat) customer experience that earn value on behalf of the shareholder. In that context — taking care of employees is more important that lead to happy customers and increase in shareholder value.

Bottom line all 3 stakeholders in a company are interrelated. And in a healthy business these should be aligned. Taking care of employees and having a good people strategy is key to the success of customers; having happy and loyal customers is key for a growing business; and having a growing business is a key for shareholders to seek return they expect on their investment; and having a company that attract investment is key in having financially strong company that can provide safe future to its employees.

What do you say?
Pluralsight LIVE: Power to the platform
Tags: Pluralsight, Education, Pluralsight Live

Pluralsight: the technology behind Pluralsight IQ and what it means to your organization

Last year at Pluralsight LIVE we unveiled Iris and Pluralsight IQ — a new way to measure and evolve technology skills. It’s a powerful tool that can help your organization uncover unknown skills, and develop the skills needed for future projects. Want to find out more about Iris? Check out these sessions.

• Learn how to quantify skills with Pluralsight IQ

Pluralsight IQ helps you navigate the skills you need to excel in a particular role. As a learner, it can help you understand your skills and take the guesswork out of growth with a personalized learning plan. As a leader, it helps quantify the proficiencies that exist within specific job functions and enables faster proficiency for your team members. This session will help you learn how to make Pluralsight IQ work for you and your organization.

• Iris: the science behind Pluralsight

Created using modern test theories based on over 50 years of research, combined with machine learning, Iris powers Pluralsight IQ––the new standard for measuring tech skills. Iris fuels our assessment and recommendation engine, and helps you quantify and develop skills across technologies. In this session you’ll learn more about how Iris works to provide a smarter, more personalized skill development journey.

• Channels: a custom learning experience

Align your team’s learning with key business objectives using channels. Channels are an intuitive way to organize and share Pluralsight content so you can reach your learning goals and business objectives more effectively. In this session, you’ll learn how to use channels to curate content for your own learning, for team development or to share learning journeys with the world.

• Skills analytics: objectivity meets actionable insights

In the rapidly changing environment of technology, how do you know if your team is able to keep up? This session takes a deeper look at how Pluralsight’s skills analytics offer an unprecedented view into the proficiencies of technologists within your organization. View analytics on usage, subjects, skills and more to gain objective insight into your team’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, use that information to find opportunities for growth, discover hidden talent and align the right people to the right projects.
Suze Orman? This Is Cardinal Dolan.
By: Nicole Cliffe
Tags: Religion, Less Money More Problems, Catholic Church

The Economist has published an impressively thorough investigation into the books of the Catholic Church in the United States, and it doesn’t stop at the $3.3 billion in sex abuse settlements, the staggeringly large annual lobbying fees to keep statutes of limitations laws in their favor, or the declining contributions of parishioners:

In the church, retirement is still largely in the gift of the bishop. Retirement plans for priests are typically set up as diocesan trusts rather than proper pension funds with structured benefits. They do not fall under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, the law that establishes standards for plan trustees and remedies for beneficiaries, including access to federal courts. Priests thus have no recourse to law if they are hard done by. Nor, as a matter of course, can they take their pensions with them if they leave for another diocese.

Richard Vega, who recently stepped down as president of the National Federation of Priests’ Councils, estimates that 75–80% of clergy pension schemes in America are underfunded. He says that only a small minority of priests will have set aside enough of their net average salary of $25,000 a year to cover themselves. Others will be less fortunate.
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Humor, Architecture, Comics, Monday, Cartoon

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

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Sates No More
By: Mahesh Cr
Tags: Poetry, Yoga, Poetry On Medium, Poetry Writing, Sri Aurobindo

Sates me no more, works of this age,

The frantic middling concerns so puny

Forever panicking with baggage of worry,

The sole fevered poise it can envisage.

Such dull coinage are now minted

Smelting ore from bowels of mediocrity

Cast into moulds of mind’s eccentricity

The plodding shapes all convoluted.

To a better age Thou must transport me,

One which keeps me by Thee ideally!
Catching Up With a Friend.
By: Keith R. Higgons
Tags: Short Story, Murder, Fiction, Very Short Story, 100 Naked Words

She appeared at my table: “Steven. I need your help.”

“Katherine,” and nodded to the empty seat, “Not sure what I can do.”

She sat: “I know what you do.”

“What’s that?”

“The AirStream, the travel …”

“I live alone, government stipend …”

I knew her.

She looked tired: “Brian hits me.”

I nodded & listened.

“Can you help?”

Shrugging: “Probably not.”

Sighing, she left.

We had different definitions of “help.”

War kills everything in you.

Except love.

She shivered when I walked into the funeral home. I walked over and whispered in her ear: “What did you expect, Katherine?”
What’s in a name
By: George Heimel
Tags: Life, Grief, Grief And Loss

These words

Make me who I am

A tapestry

Woven from pieces of my soul

A gaping hole where one word should be

The replacements just don’t fit

Ugly patches that don’t hold

’Son of’ can never be

’Son’
Sixty Seven Spins
By: Mike Essig
Tags: Poetry, Aging, Death, Autumn, Wonder

Autumn’s border not quite crossed,

but a chill spins in.

Implacable goose captains lead

honking squadrons to bomb Mexico.

Leaves begin to waltz elegantly with death.

Brown supplants green as the color of hooray.

Breezes expel chilly breaths.

Ants have gone underground and plan

attacks to be launched next year.

The season of death approaches.

Another birthday waits in ambush a week off.

The garden retreats beneath the earth,

content to sleep and dream and wait.

Soon will come wood fire and rising smoke.

The world swirls and wizens as I fall,

wondering if there might be

another rotation awaiting me.
Qualities of Silence
By: Jean Carfantan
Tags: Sacred Feminine, Prompt, Newsletter, Waves, Cosmic Moment

Sometimes you feel this silence quality shifting

In the air envelop before declaring love to someone.

Sometimes when you pray or meditate, you feel

An energy change, you shiver, feeling cold or hot.

This is when energy frequency change,

When entities come,

When during a session you heal ancient emotions.
Daily Bit #150: Calling All Capital
By: Daily Bit
Tags: Crypto, Fintech, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Word On The Street

Calling All Capital

(1) Blocktower’s Ari Paul was one of several investors that contributed to a $100 million fundraising round for Hedera Hashgraph, a project that uses an alternative type of distributed ledger technology dubbed hashgraph consensus.

An additional $20 million is being sought via a private placement for accredited investors to enhance the speed, security, and scalability of the platform, which could be handy for IoT transactions.

(2) Decentralized trading platform Radar Relay completed a $10 million series A round that was spearheaded by Blockchain Capital, with investments also coming from Collaborative Fund and Distributed Global.

Other VCs participated — the listed funds double dipping after having pledged their allegiance during RR’s seed round speaks volumes about the project’s team, strategy, and market opportunity.

(3) SBI Holdings set their eye on US-based digital marketplace developer Clear Water, purchasing a 12% stake at an estimated value of $9 million. The Japanese firm will develop crypto derivative products in anticipation of institutional interest spurred on by refined custodial solutions.

SBI is firing on all cylinders. Their capital injection comes on the heels of their crypto exchange VCTRADE’s launch and a $15 million strategic partnership with AI startup Antworks, which will scout out Asian market ventures to join the ranks of the 20+ crypto stakes that SBI planted over the past year.

(4) In the world of Harry Potter, Square’s (+3.42%) second quarter results received an ‘E’ for ‘Exceeds Expectations’, outpacing Wall Street’s earnings estimates of 12 cents/share by one penny.

Bitcoin trading revenues weren’t as fortunate, landing a ‘D’ (Dreadful) due to a meager $37 million when compared to Square’s transaction-based revenues of $625 million that rose 30% in the past year.