fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Peace and Scots Pines
Tags: Travel, Nature, Storytelling

However they get their perpetual youth, the views along these roads are some of the best in Lancashire. It’s a shame that so many people forget about the Forest of Bowland and head straight to the barren drama of the Yorkshire Dales. The Inn at Whitewell sits at what feels like the centre of the world, especially in the sunshine. If you crane your neck on the way past, you can steal a look at the amazingly lush valley the wedding parties inside are being treated to. I do it every time.

So, travel a bit further than that famous gastropub and you’ll reach a two mile stretch of excellent winding road flanked by rowan, bracken and pheasants.

The road meets Marshaw Wyre, a peat-stained brook that cuts through a small natural woodland of Scots pine and runs alongside for just long enough to create the feeling of being transported to somewhere else entirely.

We pulled over for a minute and sat by the side of the road.
Abstract Life
By: Francisco M. Gómez
Tags: Life, Change, World, Team Human, Abstract

Abstract Life

Aren’t we all heroes anyway?

Image by Tumisu and Arek Socha (combined and modified) from Pixabay

I stopped writing about today’s sorrows a few weeks ago. The constant and persistent attack from everything around us persuaded me to change the way I express my emotions. I felt that we all are getting tired of these measures, tired of living in this artificial way.

Have you noticed? The weather is no longer the ice breaker, but we can feel the new normal in the air, and that’s why we can’t call it normal, no matter how hard we try. Today we are slaved to live awkwardly, and while we walk in the streets, the minimalist of actions is a struggle. You see another being coming your way, and as you try to distance yourself away from them, one wonders what goes through their mind. I hope they think that I’m trying to help them, that I want them to feel safe, but do they think I’m stupid?

The worst part comes when you try your best every day, and every day your best isn’t good enough. You regret the consequence of your actions, often split-second reactions, to unwelcome news, and you also regret the ways you express your desires. These misgivings are known faults that you have trained for years to diffuse or keep at bay, but they surface so easily in these unprecedented times. At a mature age, if you haven’t learnt about these little horrors of your character, you haven’t lived. Is that harsh? I’m just being me, and that’s how blunt naked-me sounds. These traits, that you have tried so hard to keep in check, hurt more when you know you could have behaved differently, and when you realise that the opportunity for absolution is no longer there. It’s lost. Some might believe that this was how you felt at the time and that any excuse now is just an attempt to disguise what you meant. Not true. Only you know how much you hate this part of your being that both exist and make you who you are.

Instead of drowning in our sorrows, perhaps we could visualise life from a different angle, and stop thinking that a train is passing by and we are not worthy of it. From where I’m sitting, each one of us is a fundamental mechanical part of that machine. We do little, yes, but without us, the machine will not run safely, thus we all are heroes against the invisible enemy, the one without a neck for us to put our hands around.

Even when despair is setting in and the perception of our burdensome actions seems to achieve nothing, we should crush the anguish and become a player of team ‘Humans’. Especially then.
Ubuntu on Lenovo Thinkpad T450s
By: C Barrington-Leigh
Tags: Hardware, Product Review, Ubuntu

Lenovo’s T450s is another piece of high-production-volume hardware from a vendor with a fairly good reputation for Linux support … but a host of serious problems under Ubuntu’s flagship “Long-term-support” operating system. I’d love to be in touch with others running this machine, to know whether these are all common symptoms for you:

Hardware-ish Problems as of June 2016:

This has varied in its details with updates since I first installed, but currently my laptop cannot shut down at all. When I shut it down with software, it just hangs on the moving-dots screen. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1573597

Undocking the laptop from Lenovo’s superdock (to which I have a Wacom tablet attached) makes unity-settings-daemon crash, which leads to various secondary failures until I’ve rebooted twice. Not infrequently, the machine locks up. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-settings-daemon/+bug/1439427 [Update: fix released to xenial-proposed]

After booting, RAM use steadily climbs to fill nearly all of the 20GB I have, even though nothing is using it https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1585598

Fingerprint scanner keeps flashing after use, requiring second/useless scan https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fprintd/+bug/1588815

Disabling of the touchpad while typing, a standard feature to avoid the mouse pointer jumping around randomly, does not work. This old(!) bug report contains a work-around; the -t option of syndaemon is not working, so should not be used: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1581491

Beyond that, there are various software problems with Ubuntu 16.04. I have filed bugs about apt-mark hold, banshee, biber [update: fix released], etc. But these are not particular to my hardware.

Also, for some bizarre reason, although I more or less maxed out the specs on this machine, the keyboard backlight does not work, which apparently means I bought one without! Careful not to do that.
How to Stay Relevant in Tech?
By: Amr Ali
Tags: Software Development, Cloud Computing, Azure, Software Engineering, AWS

I had the opportunity recently to be part of the speakers' team in Job Stack 2020 which is a tech that attracts many software engineers in the field.

My talk was mainly around how to stay relevant in tech, this was mainly inspired by many requests I received from people, especially those who already in the field for a few years as a software engineer and wondering how to catch up with all that is going on in Tech, also quiet few requests came from people in their early career as well. You can find the presentation in this link, below are some highlights:

First and foremost, as someone working in the IT field, you might need to revisit your perspective on certain things, these are listed on the slide below:

Now, let’s get to the list (Full list is in the presentation itself)

These are the quick highlights, have a look at the presentation in full and let me know your comments.
March 22—figuring out kickstarter goal
By: Ruth Grace Wong
Tags: Hardware, Startup

Peter helpfully connected me to Clarissa from Kickstarter, and she sent me a Google Form to fill out before we had a chat. Of course, one of the required questions is what my fundraising goal is, and I have no clue!

I sent out some messages to my friends and fellow Noisebridge members Scotty and Mitch, to see what advice they have about where to get started on costing the manufacture of my project. Scotty told me that usually you talk to one contract manufacturer, and they help you with everything except fulfillment, and outsource whatever they can’t do in house. Mitch said he’d introduce me to Mike, a contract manufacturer he’s worked with in the past.

I also emailed Jacob from Platform88, but he replied to say that he’s not free til next week. There’s so much I don’t know about manufacturing procedures, packaging, and fulfillment! It’s a little intimidating.

My USB adaptors arrived!

I had bought a 100-pack of these on Aliexpress.

I tested one at random with a USB fan, and it worked great.

People regularly sell these for $4 apiece locally, but I got them for less than $1 each online. Maybe if my project fails I can lay down a towel on Mission Street and sell my power adaptors to make back some of my losses.
Film Stories #001
By: A G N U U S H
Tags: Photojournalism, Homepage, Blog, Photography, Thoughts

I never give significance to technical aspects of photography. /unless it’s the genre that requires one, of course./ Every camera is given in its own shape and size, and we as photographers.. Our duty is just.. to see and feel. Capture the witnessed, felt.

That’s it.

But lately I noticed a huge trend going on around film, then as usual thought to myself: “Naah, I’ll just stick to what I do.”

Ever since it took me exact 2 months to buy a darn film camera in Bangkok and receive my first ever roll developed later in Vietnam. Was so against yet fell for it the most. It gave me whole deeper reason to love photography — “The moments learned from decisions..”

First film rolls

Personal Archive

A G N U U S H
What Does Being A Woman Look Like
By: Pierre Trudel
Tags: Love Yourself, Theequest, Womens Health, Women In Business, Womens Rights

Thee Quest-Moment in time

What Does Being A Woman Look Like

We often try to fit a specific look-even one we are not

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Thee Quest-Daily Food For Thought

Thee Quest is all about people's stories. I am Trans and being a woman inside a man’s body demands that I look more and more like a woman.

What image do I want to project is often not at all what my feelings of being a woman are in reality.

The following is a story I read this day from a good friend on my mind. Does it remind me of how often we try and project something that only others want to see?

Thank you Bridget Webber for this “Food For Thought Moment”.
📘 Bury Me In
By: Rolli, Https, Ko-Fi.Com Rolliwrites
Tags: Poetry, Life, Poem, Books, Coronavirus

POEM

📘 Bury Me In

A poem for book lovers

Illustration: E. Skrzat / Giphy

Bury me in

some loved volume

a dog-

eared page drape

over

me

and close

Author’s Note №1

Due both to my curation ban and the recent, devastating algorithm change, this post will earn no money. It would mean the world to me if you’d consider buying me a coffee.

Author’s Note №2

From now on, friends, I’m letting you decide how often I post new material. When this poem receives 1000 claps, I’ll post a new one.

Author’s Note №3

My most recent book is The Sea-Wave. Adopt a copy here.

Author’s Note №4

Did you know that a Medium drug lord is threatening my life?

Author’s Note №5

You might like this poem, too:

This post contains affiliate links.
The Happy Baby Pose
By: Tooth Truth Roopa Vikesh
Tags: Fitness, Stretching, Flexibility, Health, Hapiness

The Happy Baby Pose

A smile on the fitness journey

Trail in New Jersey, USA shared by a friend. Photo used with permission.

I switch between different workout videos to keep up variety and motivation. Most have familiar moves, which are old hat for the weary.

This move, however, had me laughing as I did it. Jessica Smith calls it the Happy Baby Pose. It comes at the end of Boost Metabolim+Muscle, a favourite of mine.

Here’s a screenshot, and be sure to try it AFTER a leg workout, when your muscles are warm. It made me think of my babies, and kindled warm and fuzzy feelings. Try it this season!

The Happy Baby Pose. Go for your toes or hold behind your thighs. Screenshot from Boost Metabolism+Muscle from the Jessica Smith Digital Library.
The Kind Of Poem That Knows A Great Deal More Than It Will Say
By: Dale Biron
Tags: Poetry, Self, Truth, Climate Change, Environment

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.” ― Aldo Leopold

That the rivers are masters of choice.

And that every river is an ancient Yes,

with its own priceless canyon.

That sunlight leaps out real from here,

and that around every earthly corner,

there is wet and shinning goodness.

That switchgrass along the river bank lies

flat in the wind for each authentic God we’ve

ignored for another, who knows nothing of us.

That we humans use hope as fuel,

building the great machines of life,

which were never machines at all.

That with our lonely eyes we clothe this world,

with news that contains so little freedom. To admit

being lost, may be the only chance we’ll ever have.

And that humans are able to make such

beautiful songs out of this leaving, and that

aching alone may be the thing that saves us.
Things You Should Definitely Know as an iOS Developer (Part 1)
By: Jai Chaudhry
Tags: iOS, Programming, Ios Basics, iOS App Development

Retain cycle

Retain cycle or strong reference cycle is a term commonly used in iOS to describe a situation where all the objects participating in the cycle keep each other alive and have a strong reference to each other. This situation is also known as a memory leak (Tip: Use leaks instrument provided by XCode to detect such cycles).

In the image above, you can see Object A has a reference to Object C, Object C has a reference to Object B and Object B has a reference to Object A. Assuming all of the references are strong reference, even if all the references to these objects are destroyed this cycle won’t be broken and would be considered as a memory leak. In order to break this cycle one of the references above needs to be a weak reference, this will make sure if all the references to the weak object are gone, then it would automatically be turned to nil.
The story of a stroke, strong
By: Helge Tennø
Tags: Psychology, Presentation

Jill Bolte Taylor tells the story of her stroke insight (as a brain scientist). This is strong.

Her description of her feeling of “Nirvana”, as the part of the brain which remembers context shuts off during th stroke, reminds me a lot of the situations described in the youtube video In my language, by autist Amanda Baggs.
Sun And Flowers
By: Sujani Hansanali
Tags: Poetry, Nature, Sun, Happiness, Earth

Sun And Flowers

A poem 🌷

The little flower buds are still sleeping

they are swinging in the morning breeze

Colorful buds, you are pretty shy to bloom

you look so calm and quite

in the backyard in a busy city

Are you still waiting for the soft touches

from the golden sun rays?

spread your sweet fragrance

before the sun peeps over the high mountain

Pretty flower bud, you will bloom

with the clusters of morning beams

In evening when the sun disappears

Suddenly, you fade

Again, you bloom with your vibrant petals

displaying the exquisite beauty

It’s another walk with nature

And everything seems alive and delicious
Australian hypocrisy
By: Emma Briggs
Tags: Separation, Nauru, Family, Manus, Refugees

The hypocrisy of the general Australian response to the separation of families at the U.S. border blows my mind. Yes, the policy of locking children in cages away from their parents is appalling, but the difference is that public outrage in the States became so overwhelming that even the Orange one ended up bowing to pressure and announcing the end of this horrendous strategy.

Why hasn’t that happened here?

Even if we put aside all the other atrocities and say that separating families is the line we can’t cross, refugees trying to reach Australia face treatment equally as inhumane or worse as those trying to reach the USA.

Even if we ignore the barbarity of a dying cancer patient being refused proper palliative care and the death rites of his religion, suicidal children being left to their fates, women in our care being subjected to sexual violence, if we ignore all of that, we are still deliberately separating families in an attempt to deter people from seeking asylum in our country.

Some pregnant women on Nauru have been brought to Australia to give birth while their husbands are still trapped on the island, up to five years later, wondering if they will ever have a chance to meet their children.

Others have been brought to Australia for medical treatment, after prolonged illnesses, sexual assault or the psychological scars of years of trauma. Their families have been left on the island as a cruel assurance that the patients will leave Australia after treatment and return to the torture of offshore detention.

Some families are split apart because they asked for refuge on either side of an arbitrary date, July 19, 2013, when our government brought in the heinous law that people arriving by boat could never be settled in Australia.

It seems particularly callous to take children from their parents, which has definitely happened here in too many cases over the past five years since the law has been brought into effect, but this doesn’t make the suffering of husbands separated from their wives any less, or sisters from brothers, or any of the loved ones torn apart because our government has lost its heart.

If the Americans could locate a faint pulse even in their cold-blooded administration, and end the practice of at least one example of blatant cruelty, we can do it too. While the abominations happening in Manus and Nauru are allowed to continue, all Australians are culpable. It’s time to make it stop.

Bring them here!

P.S. Right after publishing this I found out that the cancer patient has been brought to Australia! Maybe there is a little blood flowing in the vessels of Canberra after all. I hope so.
New from Hallmark: Santa & Fiddler Share The Roof
By: Sarah Groustra
Tags: Fiddler On The Roof, Satire, Hallmark, Humor, Holidays

Image Copyright: IMDb and Wikimedia Commons

Matchmaker, matchmaker, make us a match! This latest holiday love story from Hallmark is sure to knock your interfaith socks off.

Paul, a robust young goy, is meeting his girlfriend Rachel’s family during a trip to New York to celebrate Hannukkah. He wants terribly to impress her parents because as that eighth crazy night comes to a close, he’d like to ask for their daughter’s hand in marriage — and he wants to earn their permission first. However, Rachel’s parents have made it pretty clear that they’d like their daughter to wed an NJB, and they think — despite his clear blue eyes, wavy blond hair, and lactose tolerance — that Paul is, in fact, a member of the tribe.

But don’t worry — our hero has a secret weapon. He played Tevya in eighth grade, and thus understands everything he needs to know about Judaism.

Yes, there are some close shaves — he can’t yeeble daible deeble daible doy his way out of everything. But he’ll swallow his pride and his babka for the sake of the woman he loves.

Audiences will be enraptured by key moments such as Paul’s raucous rendition of “Sabbath Prayer — Off Broadway Revival Version” when asked to bless the candles, his insistence on referring to the West Village as “your family’s village,” and his surprise employment of a whole team of bottle dancers to perform in Rachel’s living room to spruce up night seven.

I know what you’re thinking — will everyone be happy in the end? This story may be Jewish, but it still is Hallmark. Even though Rachel’s parents saw through Paul’s schtick, well, almost immediately, they appreciate his chutzpah and commitment to the bit. In the final scene, the marriage of Paul and Rachel is approved, and the bottle dancers return for one last hurrah. Everyone collectively wonders if bottle dancers are actually a Jewish thing or if Fiddler on the Roof created them, and after a passive-aggressive family debate on the subject, they live happily ever after. L’chayim!
How to Make a Simple Notes Viewer App with Vanilla JavaScript
By: Valeriy Baranov
Tags: JavaScript, Learn To Code, Programming, Web Development, Learning To Code

This article will allow you to make a simple useful application with vanilla JavaScript. No handlebars , no jquery , no lodash . I argue that you don’t need those libraries if you are just starting out — learn vanilla JavaScript first.

You can play with the resulting notes app in the sandbox (link in the end). Or you can checkout this GitHub repo.

HTML file

First, let's make the simplest possible html file.

When browser loads this file, it requests stylesheet from src/styles.css and requests and executes JavaScript from src/script.js file.

Script file

Our script file is placed just before the end of the body tag in HTML. When it runs body already has input element and div with id notes .

We will render notes in a div with id notes . To do this, we need to get notes element with const notesEl = document.querySelector('#notes'); . No jquery needed. Now we have a reference to notes element. We can replace what is inside of it with builtin method notesEl.innerHtml .

To render notes we use render function. It is very simple. We map over notes , for each we return html string and join them together. No lodash needed to map over an array, we use builtin map method.

We used function Note in the code above. It gets a note and returns an html string. It is the very simple template function. No handlebars needed.

To fetch notes, we use native fetch api. It is a simple app, so we only fetch notes once — when script is loaded. fetch api returns a promise, and we get json from it and assign to notes variable.

To add filtering, we get reference to filter input with the const filterEl = document.querySelector('#filter'); . And we listen for keyup events on this element. For each event, we execute render function filterEl.addEventListener('keyup', render); .

Now we modify render function to use text from filter input . If filter input is empty, we show all notes. If it has some text, we show only notes where title or text includes filter text.

Now when you type in filter input field, you will see real-time updates.

Styles file
Bitfinex Obtains a Banking Partnership with HSBC and Binance Announces it will Donate Listing Fees to Charity
By: Berminal - The Crypto News Platform
Tags: News, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain

The Cryptocurrency market appears to be warming up after a very slow weekend. Today Bitcoin moved above the $6,600 resistance and at the moment BTC is attempting to overtake $6,700. Most cryptocurrencies have gained roughly 2 to 5 percent and Ethereum managed to break above the $225 resistance to briefly re-test $235.

In other news, TRON (TRX) leapt 12% as Justin Sun announced the Virtual Machine launch and the Emirate of Dubai has partnered with PundiX to further facilitate cryptocurrency payments.

1) Larry Cermak, head analyst at The Block, recently reported that Bitfinex obtained a banking partnership with HSBC. According to Cermak, “Bitfinex is now banking with HSBC through a private account of Global Trading Solutions.” Cermak also mentioned that “All EUR, JPY and GBP deposits are paused but Bitfinex expects the situation to normalize within a week.” The announcement of the partnership is well timed and to the benefit of Bitfinex as recent news of Noble Bank filing for bankruptcy called Bitfinex’s solvency into question. Furthermore, an HSBC partnership would be the first ‘proper’ banking partner that Bitfinex has had since breaking ties with Wells Fargo in 2017. (Read More)

2) In an official blog post, Binance has announced that it will donate the listing fees of new projects to charity. Additionally, the projects that want to be featured in the trading platform will now set their price to appear on the trading platform. To ensure transparency, Binance plans to disclose the project’s listing fees to the Binance Charity Foundation. However, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, warns that “A large donation does not guarantee or in any way influence the outcome of our listing review process.” (Read More)

3) IBM Food Trust, a blockchain network for supply chain tracking, is now commercially available for companies to use. The network spent the last 18 months in various pilot phases as a number of retailers and suppliers trialed the system. Carrefour will be the first major retailer to utilize IBM Food Trust across 12,000 stores in 33 countries. Initially, the system will be used to track Carrefour’s private label products. Walmart also recently announced that it will use IBM Food Trust to capture traceability data from its fruit and vegetable suppliers. (Read More)
This Golden Strategy is the Key to Growth on Medium
By: Gillian Sisley
Tags: Creativity, Medium, Writing, Writing Tips, Community

I’ve been active on Medium for five months.

I’m still a newbie, but I also run a social media strategy company as my main source of income.

Troubleshooting different tactics for growth and success is my full-time job, and I’ve been having a field day on this platform, testing out all of its nooks and crannies.

Medium is a really interesting landscape, because it’s built of a community of writer’s supporting other writers.

When the writing industry is so cut-throat and competitive, this is a safe haven for writers who are passionate about writing, and are interested in exploring the work of others.

I’m seeing just how far I can get on Medium, and to actively pursue that goal, I need to consistently be growing.

This is the data I’ve picked up from testing several different strategies.
Editing Your Work With Clarity and Purpose
By: Cathy Clarke
Tags: Life Lessons, Education, Editing, Productivity, Writing

Step #1: Mindful Planning

Yes, that’s right. We start our lesson with a focus on planning. The questions include:

How will you organize your time so there is an opportunity for editing and feedback?

Who is your feedback partner and how can that partner give you a perspective that will take your work to the next level?

What conditions need to exist for you to focus in and edit your work with an eye for detail?

I am a firm believer of embedding time management lessons into my teaching content. Working backwards from the deadline, students schedule out their time into manageable “smaller chunks” to focus on each part of the writing process.

I am also a firm believer that one needs time to process and incorporate feedback. Working up against a deadline with multiple corrections isn’t good for anyone’s wellness.

Step #2: Balancing Big Picture Messaging with Writer’s Choice

The next step is to look at the piece of writing holistically with a series of guiding questions. This activity is geared towards building confidence in one’s writer’s voice by focusing on celebrating the work.

The guiding questions are as follows:

What are you most proud of in this piece of writing?

What is your message to the audience?

How did a specific piece of feedback help you tailor your message towards your audience? What was that piece of feedback and what alterations did you make after receiving that piece of feedback?

After receiving the feedback, which elements of your piece did you keep? Which elements did you adapt? Which elements did you alter?

What are your next steps towards polishing your writing piece?

These big picture questions revolve around processing the feedback. I try to instil in my students that, as the writer, they need to make choices regarding which feedback points they incorporate into their work. This series of questions helps the writer maintain an open minded approach to the feedback where they control which aspects to include in the piece.

Step 3: The Final Check

The last stage in the editing process is the final check. I encourage my students to do full read throughs of the work, focusing on one element for each read through. Topics include editing for:

mechanical details

double checking the assignment’s criteria

reviewing the writer’s message

After completing these read throughs, I ask the students to do one more full read, aloud, through that celebrates the work.

This process draws from my theatrical rehearsal practice. Having a dedicated focus for our rehearsal always helps to deepen the work. It’s the same practice with editing. Plus, hearing your work aloud can help catch anything outstanding.
How To Provision Infrastructure on GCP With Terraform
By: Bhargav Bachina
Tags: Software Development, Google Cloud Platform, Cloud Computing, Programming, Terraform

How To Provision Infrastructure on GCP With Terraform

A Beginner’s Guide with an example project

Terraform is an infrastructure as a code tool that makes it easy to provision infrastructure on any cloud or on-premise. Terraform is a tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently. Terraform can manage existing and popular service providers as well as custom in-house solutions.

Configuration files describe to Terraform the components needed to run a single application or your entire datacenter. Terraform generates an execution plan describing what it will do to reach the desired state, and then executes it to build the described infrastructure.

In this post, we will see how to provision infrastructure on the Google Cloud Platform.

Get Started With Terraform

Prerequisites

Example Project

What is Backend

Configuring Backend

Provisioning Infrastructure

Inputs and Outputs

Destroying Infrastructure

Summary

Conclusion

Get Started With Terraform

The first thing we need to do is to get familiar with Terraform. If you are new to Terraform, Check the below article on how to get started. It has all the details on how t install, Terraform Workflow, Example Projects, etc.
Why and How to Create Your Own Luck
By: Neeramitra Reddy
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Hacking, Luck, Personal Development, Success

Take Risks

Risk is one thing that we squirm away from. We like to play it safe. Risks are only for the reckless or foolhardy right?

Wrong. Diving into a deep pool of water without knowing how to swim is reckless, doing the same when you are an experienced diver is not.

You are still taking a risk in the latter, but it's “calculated” and based on prior experience and knowledge.

It’s all about the probability

The very definition of risk is a lack of certainty. But you can always roughly calculate and maximize the probability of success or how likely you are to succeed.

In the diving example, can you drown and die in both cases? Of course yes but you are much more likely to drown in the former case than the latter.

Safety is an illusion

We like to think we are safe but we never are. You can get hit by a car even when “safely” walking on the pavement. A meteor can strike the earth in the exact spot your house is in. The bank you have a savings account in might go bankrupt.

Can you say for certain that these things cannot happen? No, you can’t. It’s just that the probability of these things happening is so low that it’s negligible.

“Anything can go away. There’s no such thing as safety and security. You can do things that give you the illusion of safety but there’s really no such thing.” — Will Smith

Our life is filled with risks. We are never truly safe and that’s okay. The point I want to drive home is that we are always taking risks and that’s exactly why you shouldn’t shy away from taking risks.

The risk-reward ratio

When we take risks, we expect a reward. Greater the risk, the greater the probable reward or outcome in most cases. The risk-reward ratio isn’t a thing limited to just financial markets, it applies to everything in life.

When would you want to take a risk? — Only when the expected reward is lucrative enough to make the risk worth taking or when the risk-reward ratio is low.

“Not every risk you take will work in your favor but most will and that’s enough.”

Risking losing $1000 dollars for a return of a meager $50–100 dollars is plain foolishness while for an expected return of $2000 or above would be an excellent decision.

The takeaway

Risks are hidden lockers of luck, some bad, some good. When you take reckless risks, you tend to open more bad lockers than good but with calculated risks, you will open more good lockers than bad.

Take risks but before taking them, carefully calculate or estimate the probable outcome based on prior experience or knowledge.

Not every risk you take will work in your favor but most will and that’s enough.
Female Friday: ‘The Whisper of the Sea’ by 1/2 Southern North
By: Joseph R. Price
Tags: Greece, Music, Feminism, Heavy Metal, Black Metal

I don’t know much about 1/2 Southern North. Aside from it being a one-woman band from Greece, I can’t find much info.

What I do know is that the woman behind it all is known as IDVex and she specializes in a wide range of sound. Some of it, like today’s song “Whisper of the Sea” from her 2014 two-track single Lothron, is a throwback to the sounds of Ronnie James Dio in his artistic prime. Other songs take a more ambient turn, creating dark soundscapes around her vocals.

Her stuff is worth a listen, so check it out.
Dangerous People
By: Jonas Ellison
Tags: Poetry, Life, Science, Love, Religion

A dangerous person

is a scientist in a church.

Or a theologian

looking through a telescope.

No, no.

We must keep them apart.

Can you imagine the damage

one might do if they

switched spaces with the other

or had lunch together

every so often?
Crypto Digest #21: Chinese provider joins RippleNet, ECB is not into crypto regulations, Forbes crypto list
By: Divers Collective
Tags: Ripple, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Bitcoin

Vitalik Buterin is featured in Forbes “Richest People In Cryptocurrency”, Chinese payment provider joins RippleNet and ECB doesn’t see crypto very high on its to-do list. These are your today’s most important crypto news, presented to you by the Divers Collective.

Chinese payment provider joins RippleNet
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to Our World Traveler’s Blog Community
By: Cody James Howell Phd, Raiden
Tags: Travel, Holidays, Writing, Community, Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to Our World Traveler’s Blog Community

We hope you‘re happy and safe for the holidays!

Dear writers and followers of World Traveler’s Blog,

Our community has come a long way in these past few weeks, and it’s all because of our writers and readers who so love the written word!

Photo by S&B Vonlanthen on Unsplash

Some of us are still traveling. Others are remembering their travels or experiencing new travels through our writers. Whatever you get from this travel writing community is wonderful. I hope it eases these difficult times and you feel as I do that sharing our experiences with others brings us all together!

Wherever you are in the world, we hope you are safe and happy. Maybe you are sharing the holidays with your family and friends, or you will be on the ski slopes. Or perhaps it’s Christmas on the beach this year (that’s where I will be).

Wherever it is, we would love to hear about your travels! Send us a story, or simply comment below on what you will be/have been doing over the winter holidays!

We would really love to hear from all of you, even if only some well wishes.

All the best from your friends and colleagues here at World Traveler’s Blog!

By the way, writers, you should hit the follow button on our publication! This will help boost your stories higher in the search! Follow each other while you’re at it and boost our whole community!

Darrin Atkins R. Rangan PhD Patrick Duane Jairam R Prabhu Rosa Diaz Katharina Daun Malky McEwan Josh Balerite Acol Sean Suskind Muhammad Nasrullah Khan Gina Pacelli Hello Katie Kodes Mil H. Liv Mello Maria Barros Elan Cassandra Olivia Wilkinson Galit Birk, PhD L. Wachi Taylor Ashley Danielle Gibson Karen DeGroot Carter Richa Khare Ahmad Abdullah Jax Hudur Sam Dixon Brown M Sakahawat John Levin Eunice X. Aimée Gramblin ◦•●✿ Christina M. Ward ✿●•◦ Joe Love Vespera Lucia Nick Keehler Leah Brodsky Orit Rindner Ajita Amanda Yuk Katie Sheps Panos Grigorakakis Alison Marshall Kristina Jancar Barbara Radisavljevic LucyWolf Sanduni Samarakoon Fatimah Alayafi Charlotte Brown Cristinamiceli Zaineb Nawaz Aigner Loren Wilson Cody James Howell PhD (Raiden) Anne Bonfert Gaby Spadaro Sutong Cathy Clarke Kaitlyn Holmgren Sumera Rizwan Indubala Kachhawa Emma Comeaux Quy Ma Sh*t Happens — Lost Girl Travel Nanda Jurela W.Y. Chan Marcus Franke Lisa Hanson Jhemmylrut Teng Stephanie Tolk Nicole Cooper Misbah Ul Haq Syed Debra Howell "Chilly Bin" Millennial in Crisis Glad Doggett Mary DeVries Vivek Naskar Alyssa Chua Mathias Lukas Alexander M. Combstrong Myriam Ben Salem Antonija Osojnik Melissa Shapiro Haider Jamal Abbasi

Stay safe, travel well, and keep writing!

-Cody and Marcus

You just read another post from World Traveler’s Blog

A collaborative project from a diverse group of adventurers and digital nomads sharing the world through inspiring stories.

The more you know, the better you travel!
Trained to Snap
By: Maitreya Thakur
Tags: Writing, Fiction

Trained to Snap

Flash fiction

Photo by Andrei Panfiloiu on Unsplash

The cup of hot tea steamed before me. I was sitting in the shade outside and the cafe inside was bustling with tourists. The city looked small and still from this hill, like a model you find in the offices of architects. Earlier in the morning I had decided that I would refrain from taking any pictures that day. It had become the most stubborn of all my habits to get rid of.

The urge to snap away the moment anything vaguely interesting appeared before me was irresistible. Was it really vital that I captured so much of what I saw? It was as if they would be snatched away from me if I didn’t store them. Can you really be robbed of your memories? Or was I scared of losing them, of forgetting the moments which brought me joy? By keeping them safe perhaps they could one day serve as a reminder of that joy?

It was a hot afternoon with little or no breeze to cool it down, as though the wind was on holiday as well with only the sun left on duty. Why had I ordered a hot drink? It was a strange choice but I knew why. It wasn’t the tea I was after, it was more the image I was chasing. I wanted to take a close-up of the steam rising from the cup set against the backdrop of the city. My endless, compulsive snapping had trained my mind to view reality through the prism of pictures. It was now hard to see the world without wondering how it would look in a picture.
Poetry | Learning to walk
By: Ja. Magazine
Tags: Alizwa Mnyatheli, Poetry, Jawriting, Yasthiel Devraj, Ja Magazine

Poetry | Learning to walk

Words by Yasthiel Devraj and illustration by Alizwa Mnyatheli

I move to stride

And find that I stumble

Blindly through a silken night.

Stars scoring third degree scars

Along the please-cut-here

Ridges of my psyche,

Their heat, like branding irons

Sunk into the ice water vacuum of space

Sizzling against my skin,

Small reminders of existence

Sentencing psychosis

To a momentary silence.

I move to stride

And find that the floor

Has unfolded beneath me

And I tumble through

Trapdoors of treacle,

Melting

into molasses webs

Of my own moulding,

Choking on stale, too-sweet air,

Surrendering to stagnant suffocation,

Shackled

To my sofa.

I move to stride

And find myself hidden

In hallways drenched in Dettol

Gnawing

At my left ventricle,

Too impatient to wait out

Its imminent collapse.

I move to stride

And find, in barbed wire display cases,

Galaxies of would-be dreams -

Museums of passions

Briefly ignited

In oil spills of frenzied obsession

— The kind that make you run as if

Your lungs brewed cyanide

Dreams now dormant, decaying,

Dissolved

In the merciless metabolism

Of growing up.

And though for now I cannot see

Beyond the thick walls of molasses,

Nor hear above the nails that claw

Their screams across my chalkboard skin

My lungs still crave

Those swells of cyanide

And I lust to surf

Through those spills of oil

Once more

So still, I move to stride.
Snippets, your gateway to deep neural network architectures
By: Reynaldo Boulogne
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Neural Networks, Developer

The snippets can be found in the Modeling view on the Peltarion Platform, under the section Blocks > Snippets. Using snippets allows you to save a lot of time by removing the need of having to build these models yourself and consequently, the need to double-check that you haven’t missed a block or connection during your building process. Instead, you can spend more time exploring and experimenting with the different architectures for your specific application.

The currently available snippets on the platform include popular implementations of ResNetv2, DenseNet, Inception, VGG, Tiramisu, U-Net.

Choosing the right snippet

With so many different network architectures out there, it can be confusing to figure out which one to use for your problem at hand. To start pointing you in the right direction, we’ve put together this handy table for you:

Table showing which snippet to use for the different problem at hand

This is a good start, but how do you choose between the different network alternatives? The best way to do this is by trying all of them and see which one performs the best for your specific problem.

Want to find out more about which snippet is best suitable for your problem type and input data? Head to our Knowledge Center to find out more about all the different snippets!
Wrong things and the write thing. Everybody wants to be loved but not…
By: Shakti Shetty
Tags: India, Philosophy, Observation, God, Religion

Last night, I noticed how Ranga sometimes doesn’t blink for a long, long time. His vision stays fixated on the floor, with his head slightly bowed, and there is a wide range of sorrow in his lack of gait. There are many things I admire about him and there are some I despise. To start with the positives, he is his own dog. For all that we know, he hasn’t accepted his south Indian name yet. We didn’t bother to train him to sit, shake hands, fetch, etc. He is too old for that nonsense anyway. If you ask him, he might even say that he is our equal. He does what he likes to, not what we expect him to. And that’s the most admirable bit of all. As far as the vices go, he pees on the rug sometimes — which later becomes my headache as labour division is damn neat in our apartment. Being a street survivor, he understands what’s good for him so we give him leeway when it comes to his weekend excursions (read: street walk without a leash). After all, he has every right to live the best of both worlds. But the most annoying part about him has more to do with our balcony: he tries to kill pigeons who visit to drink water from the bowl. I’ve never caught him in the act but I’ve seen the poor corpses. Whenever this happens, I wonder what happened to the concerned pigeon family; they must be helplessly waiting for him/her to come back home. Anyway.

Coming back to our rascal of a dog, here’s something I scribbled for him impromptu:

I am tired of this body.

I am tired of this soul.

I am tired of this world.

I am tired of this role.

I am tired of this sky.

I am tired of how and why.

I am tired of what I unsee.

I am tired of what I see.

I am tired of you.

I am tired of me.
Unapologetically Happy
By: Léonie Salawa
Tags: Self Love, Happiness, Poetry, Poem, Growth

Thank you for taking the time to read me. I appreciate it.

May we all find the Happiness within because

Life is Magic simply waiting to be found.

Unconditionally, Léonie.
LXXXVII
By: S.C. November
Tags: Depression, Creative Writing, Poetry, Writing, Soul

Thank you for giving my words your attention.

Here are some of the other things I’ve written:
Meet the company who are solving the housing problem in the developing world
By: Hip Property
Tags: Developing Countries, Housing, 3D Printing, Building Projects, Property Market

When shelter is one of our most basic needs, why is it that 1.2 billion people in the world are without proper housing?

While HiP addresses the problem of individuals and families being priced out of the property market, an organisation called ICON, are looking at ways in which to solve the housing problems facing the developing world.

The Austin-based startup has unveiled their solution at SXSW — ultra-economic, concrete, 3D printed houses that cost a fraction of a normal new build.

These houses take anything from 12 to 24 hours to ‘print’, and one of the first projects ICON has its eyes set on building one of its first set of buildings in El Salvador in 2019.

Teaming together with New Story, a charity which seeks to solve international housing problems, the plan is to build 100 homes for the community next year.

The model unveiled at SXSW is what will be planned for the El Salvador project. Co-founder Jason Ballard is using this building as an office to test its practical uses.

Currently, the printing costs come out at $10,000 for a house that is 800ft2, but ICON are looking to bring these costs down to $4,000. Each house will come with a living room, bedroom, bathroom and porch.

Once any problems are overcome, the printer will be shipped to El Salvador, along with the operatives, who will begin construction.

Infrastructure, skills, logistics and money are all factors given to explain the shortage of housing for people with inadequate shelter. ICON have solved these age-old problems to create a sustainable, easy and cheap way of creating long lasting houses for entire communities.

And while there are other start-ups who have come up with new ways of 3D printed houses, ICON are the first ones to use concrete, which means it carries none of the problems of plastic.

If the El Salvador project runs to plan, it opens up a wealth of possibilities for poorer communities all over the world. Alexandria Lafci, co-founder of New Story told press, “(ICON) believes, as do I, that 3D printing is going to be a method for all kinds of housing,” she says.

Interestingly, ICON has an eye on space. They have suggested that their product could provide the perfect solution to any space programme looking to build communities on other planets outside of Earth.
Argentinian Malambo Dance
By: Marisol Consuegra
Tags: Dance Video, Dance, Art, Culture, Dance History

Malambo is an Argentinian dance that combines a dancer’s step skills (zapateo) with usually a drum( bombo) and a guitar. The dance consists of three elements:

cepillada- slide the sole of the foot on the floor

repique- strike the floor with the heel

floreos- creative movements chosen by the dancer

Malambo used to be a competition between gauchos (south american cowboy). One dancer would start by showcasing a routine and end with a salute. Then the other dancer had to repeat the same routine, add new moves, and end with a salute. Little by little, each dancer had to copy each other and add new movements until one dancer couldn’t repeat the other’s movements. The winner would then be thought of as the better dancer.

TWO MORE THINGS BEFORE YOU SEE THE DANCE!

1. Boleadoras

Sometimes dancers choose to use boleadoras in their routine. A boleadora is a string with a ball at the end. Sometimes, the ball is made out of stone or wood. Boleadoras used to be weapons to hunt animals. Now they are used to show more creativity and skill in performances.

2. Cuchillo

Dancers may also choose to use cuchillos (knifes) during their performances.

AND HERE IT IS!

Photo Credit: Diane Smithers; DanceTabs

For more information check out these sources:

http://worldartswest.org/main/location.asp?i=6

http://www.hobbsschools.net/UserFiles/Servers/Server_6/File/History-of-Tango-Gaucho-Salsa.pdf

http://www.aquifolklore.com.ar/English/emalambo.htm
A Bucketful Of Trash — The Morning Story
By: Ruchi Thalwal
Tags: Short Story, Life Lessons, Life, Fiction, Love

Once a man named Andrew bought a new home in a new locality. It was a big beautiful home with a big parking lot, backyard garden, and an orchard of exceptional varieties of apples in front of his house.

The man, along with his family, shifted in the new home.

Photo by sedat bicakci on Unsplash

The family started enjoying living in the new home — green and clean.

Andrew also got beautiful neighbors in society. However, one of them, George, was notorious for all the wrong reasons and especially picking up fights with others.

One fine morning, Andrew woke up early and decided to take a stroll in the garden.

Photo by Elevate on Unsplash

While he was walking among the trees, George hurled a bucket full of trash in his orchard.

It was a well thought out plan by George, the notorious neighbor.

George heard a knock on his door after some time and opened the door.

“Hello, neighbor. What a beautiful morning! Isn’t it?” said George, getting ready for the action.

Andrew replied with a smile, “Yes, it indeed is a beautiful day. I think this is your bucket. I am here to return it.” and left.

George was a little disappointed. He expected some action, something that would have made the morning interesting.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

George looked in the bucket. What! It was not empty. It was full of the apples along with a note.

The note read, “One can offer what he has in abundance. Have a good day!”

George’s face turned red in embarrassment. He felt ashamed.

So what are you offering to the world today?