fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Largest and possibly most dangerous gathering of Al-Qaeda in Yemen
By: Afeef Nessouli
Tags: Brdi, Barbara Starr, Politics, Yemen, Islam

A new video shows the largest and possibly most dangerous gathering of Al-Qaeda to date. The clip shows Nasir al-Wuhayshi, who may or may not be AQ(Arabian Peninsula)s top figure, just roaming about in Yemen. When I worked for GPS at CNN for the few months I got to, I helped with the interview of Farea al-Muslimi, the Yemeni activist whose testimony on drones in front of the Senate went viral. Farea and I happened to work together at Beyond Reform and Development/Irada in Beirut together, so it was amazing to get him on the show after hearing what he had to say. Ultimately, he told us that the practical long term effect of drone strikes all over Yemen, seemed to him, to be giving Al-Qaeda more legitimacy. “Al-Qaeda compensates families for their houses or their dead loved ones, and ‘America is looking for us, we are very sorry’ and then they pay them” is what Farea told me that day he came in to get interviewed at CNN. Anyways, it looks like he was correct. Now AQAP seems like they are more organized in Yemen than the US really understood. Watch the video and read more at CNN.
#FigmaTip Roundup 9.0
By: Valerie Veteto
Tags: UI, Product, Design, UX, Technology

Welcome to our #FigmaTip Roundup where we pull our favorite Figma mini-lessons from the design community. If you’d like a refresher on past installations, click these links for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Easily arrange multiple frames with these keyboard shortcuts

Put your component down, flip it and reverse it

Customize the size of your spacing with “Nudge Amount”

Duplicate a canvas with ease by unlocking all objects in a frame

See the monotone rainbow by nudging the hex value field up and down

A huge thanks to everyone who has submitted a #FigmaTip! And a special shout-out to Zach Grosser, Josh Dunsterville, Eleojo Emmanuel, Fabrizio Rinaldi and Anton Lapko whose tweets are featured in this #FigmaTip Roundup.
A Pause
By: Dick Millet
Tags: Ageing, Time, Life, Reflections, Freedom

Reflection and acceptance

Photo by Faye Cornish on Unsplash

I stopped for a moment. Over these last couple of days.

Mother’s Day weekend was unexpectedly emotional for me. As it is every year (get a clue, Dick, it happens EVERY. DAMN. YEAR.). The same thing happens on Thanksgiving (this year was the eighth anniversary of Liz’ death).

There are some significant differences this year. I’m not in an intimate relationship at the moment. The latest ended because of the aforementioned anniversary. And the fact that it fell on the day after the woman’s birthday. I was emotionally unavailable, and nothing in my power could change that. It was an ill fated relationship from the start. Sometimes stars cross and magic happens. Other times it’s a supernova and leaves nothing but dust and debris in its wake.

I’m also not in daily contact with any of my kids. This is a first for me. My life has revolved around someone else for thirty years. Even the eighteen months after my wife died were dedicated to trying to surf the waves of grief while keeping a sane and stable home for my family.

I’m in mostly unfamiliar surroundings (although I have been living here for over a year). There’s nothing of my past that retains a grip on me. I’m a little unsure of where I go from here. Or even what I want.

And yet, these are the best days of my life.
Meet Dyson’s “air pollution detectives”
By: Dyson On
Tags: Engineering, Air Pollution, Health, Dyson, Environment

1. RUBBER — Rubber can come from different sources — you might

get rubber from car tyres in the filter, but the presence of rubber doesn’t automatically mean the air purifier was in the city, it’s just as possible that the owner was a keen runner, as trainers can also produce rubber particles like this. 2. COOKING OILS — The presence of oil particles shows that the filter probably comes from a device that was located in a kitchen. The concentrations of oil can indicate whether the user was a fan of a regular fry-up, or only cooked with oil occasionally, while further analysis could probably tell you whether they favoured olive oil or sunflower oil. 3. TAR DEPOSITS — If a house were surrounded by dirt tracks, you’d be less likely to find tar deposits on a filter so this generally indicates an urban environment. Hotter climates can mean more tar is likely to be picked up from the roads outside so you might expect to find a higher concentration of tar on the filter.

This isn’t just professional nosiness. “If we can get a better idea of the sort of pollutants that our customers are exposed to, and can understand the different problems in different environments, we can ensure we’re creating products that best serve the needs of the people using them,” says Gem whose work focuses on the small particles — everything from plastic to pollen — found in HEPA filters.

Before you can begin to identify a particle, you have to be able to see it, and to do that these detectives use Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), an imaging technology many times more powerful than your average magnifying glass.

“We fire electrons at the surface of something and when they bounce off it, we pick up the pattern that the scattered electrons make to create a 3D image of the particle that we’re looking at,” explains Gem.

To analyse an entire filter in this way would take weeks. Instead, the scientists take representative samples from different areas of the filter. Even then the process can still take several days. “I recently spent three days having ‘a quick look’ at a filter,” laughs Gem.

Sometimes it’s apparent just from looking at the particle exactly what it is — a grain of pollen, for example, has a very characteristic shape. But at other times, chemical analysis is needed.

“At first glance, an organic particle and a rubber particle can look similar,” says Gem.

And while some particles might be easier to identify than others, to date, they’ve not stumbled across anything that’s been a total mystery.

“You might need to do more tests, or look into more literature, but you normally figure it out eventually.”
🦠🌬 共匪 橫行，瘟疫 漫天：美股 新聞 劃重點 U.S. stock news to watch 12/7/2020
By: Kyle Chu 微風捕手
Tags: 投資, News, 中文, Stock Market, 美股

Covid-19 deaths could nearly double in U.S. by April despite rollout of vaccines, report warns

The number of people in the U.S. killed by Covid-19 could nearly double in the next several months despite a nationwide…
Gloomy Patches
By: Shreyas Thirumalai
Tags: Poetry, Loneliness, Literature, Age, Poetry Writing

Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

Clenching his fists

Confined to a boundless mist

In the unforsaken heirloom

Was his impending doom

Years of struggle

Writhing in the soaked up bubble

Family, friend, foe and everything in between

Not a soul past his screen

Repelling the insurmountable furore

Unable to steer clear

Help was all but accepted

Infirmities infinitesimally crept

Shiny patches were commonplace

The roots could not be traced

Lack of white colored hair had hit him hard

Multifold with every being’s disregard
Daily SG: 17 Dec 2014
By: The Singapore Daily
Tags: Ahpetc, Ambulance, Artist, Audit, Arrears

Browse through our dailies to read what Singaporean bloggers are saying.
My Friend Is Missing
By: Carina Sitkus
Tags: Ghost Story, Horror, Fiction, Ghosts, Short Story

When Trish woke up Sunday morning, she saw the missed text messages and immediately texted Sam to apologize and ask how the party was. She had gotten more texts from Sam around the time she fell asleep, and then a few selfies of Sam’s outfit, but the texts stopped around 1AM.

Trish went with her family to church around 11. When she checked her phone again around noon, there was still no word from Sam, but she didn’t think anything of it. If anything, she thought Sam was giving her the cool shoulder for falling asleep, making her work a bit to get an update. It wasn’t until evening that Trish became worried enough to call Sam’s home phone.

That’s when she learned from Sam’s mom that Sam was missing.

“Do you know anything, no matter how small, about where she could be, sweetie?”

Trish wanted to help, and she would have spilled her guts about every last detail had Sam’s mom mentioned that she had reported Sam missing to the police, but her mom didn’t. Maybe she assumed Trish would assume she would of course have called the police. But you know what happens when you assume.

And, to be honest, Trish probably should have come to that conclusion. In ordinary circumstances she probably would have — she was a responsible kid after all — but in that moment her head was spinning and the shock of the news clouded her logic.

Again, she would have done anything to help her friend. At that time, she thought that meant covering for Sam’s impromptu overnight at a crush’s house. Sam had too much to drink. Or she hit it off with the guy and they decided to drive to the ocean to watch the sunrise and spend the day at the beach. They lost track of all time, that’s all. There could be any number of reasons why a teenager failed to come home after a night of partying. Embarrassment. Fear. Recklessness.

Deep down Trish knew it didn’t seem right. Disappearing isn’t something she or her friends would do. They wouldn’t want their families to worry. Sneaking out for the occasional party was harmless, but you always woke up in your own bed.

Trish looked back at her text conversation with Sam, scrolling to find the kid’s last name and the address of the party.

She was going to look for, and find, her friend. She had to. God knows Sam was going to need Trish’s help coming up with an alibi to get out of the hot water she’d be in with her mom.

Trish found the address Sam had sent for the party and plugged it into Waze. It looked like it was only 15 minutes away from Trish’s house. Good. She’d go there now, but first she was going to look up this guy, last name Hurd.

Hurd.

The name still gives her chills. She never could have adequately prepared for what she was about to learn.
Living in exponential time
By: Alok Tyagi
Tags: Blogging, Personal, Internet

Nice clip sharing changes happening at macro level. An eye opener for those who have kids.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U]
Christmas Mourning
By: Gaston King
Tags: Loss, Mourning, Grandparents, Otherdoors, Christmas

Where there is so much light in the giving season, remember something somewhere is stripped away.

Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash

Families gather to remember the gifts exchanged with fellow loved ones.

Those too few are remembered for their caliber of gift but the kindness they bestowed with it.

There is a sudden silence that befuddles the room with a momentary sigh.

We recall the years of planning and baking you sacrificed for the sake of family smiles.

Missing your warm Christmas embrace and the mesmerizing smell of coffee and cookies.

We’d entertain the thought of an entity elsewhere delivering joyous spirit upon a sleigh.

When in reality is was you, it was always you.

The singular soul tasked to please, feed, and love two dozen people.

Entrusting your oldest with remedial tasks to offer an opportune role in your master plan.

Win-wins are passed around to the next generation pleasing those who wish to offer aid.

Trying chores are essential to include your claim to fame back scratches and head rubs.

A chance to peer over at your addictive smile again would be something to kill for.

Holidays roll around as fast as the earth spins, perpetually spinning through difficult times

This year proves to be no different, worse off in fact.

Not from the consistent lack of moral composes, corrupt and political diseases,

But that you’re not here to lean on. A valid voice I could call about anything and everything.

I break the silence, “I wish Grandma was here.”

Your cousins smile and nod with emotional acceptance.

Your mother walks out, refusing to display any vulnerability.

Your grandfather remains silent, longing for the day he’ll see her again.
Introducing Australian Dota 2 to the World
Tags: Melbourne, Gaming, Esports, Australia, Dota 2

We would also like to thank the Serranto team who ensured the success of the tournament; without their amazing contributions and constant support the tournament would not be as successful as it was.

Daniel (DareDevilDan) — Caster

Mitchell (Son of Eevil)— Caster

Sam (Fury)— Analyst

David — In game highlights

James — Videographer

Son of Eevil and Fury

Last of all, we want to show our appreciation towards all the viewers for making this all worth it and our sponsors/assistants for aligning with our vision of providing player representation and stability in esports.

Red Bull

The Melbourne University’s Accelerator Program

GG EZ esports Bar

DotaRoo

Smiles all round

We hope everyone enjoyed the event and are excited to prove the Australian Dota 2 community deserves to be recognised!
How I Write an Average of 100,000 Words Per Week
By: Rashida Beal
Tags: Content Writing, Writing, Productivity, Writing Tips, Writing Challenge

How I Write an Average of 100,000 Words Per Week

My tips for a more productive writing routine

Photo courtesy of the author

Every week, Grammarly sends me a nice little update to encourage me to sign up for their premium service. The updates share some interesting analytics about how many words I’ve written, word choice uniqueness, tone, and more.

After seeing these updates week in and week out, I realized something kind of crazy. I am now consistently writing around 100,000 words per week and have nearly hit 3 million since May 2019. Three. Million.

Photo courtesy of the author

Over the last year, I’ve gone from writing a couple of shorter articles per day for a few clients through Content Cucumber to writing full-time with my agency, managing my own blog, contributing to Medium, and writing for individual clients.

Yeah, it’s a lot of writing, and sometimes it gets overwhelming. But, I have deadlines to meet and content to create.

As my workload and demand has increased, I’ve had to adjust to writing a lot more than I ever thought I would. Luckily, I’ve learned some sound strategies for productive writing along the way.
Queerness Has Always Been Beautiful to Me
By: Kristen Pizzo
Tags: Queer, Sexuality, Bisexual, LGBTQ, Identity

Queerness Has Always Been Beautiful to Me

So why is it so hard to accept myself?

Photo by Bryan Kyed

When the battle over marriage equality in California was happening, I had barely eclipsed my first decade of life.

To my child-brain, it was so stupidly simple. I thought everyone should be able to get married. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s quote, “Love is love is love is love” summed up my stance perfectly. I was too innocent and naive to understand the intricacies of hate and homophobia.

I romanticized the forbidden nature of queer love. To me, it was just a spin on the tale of Romeo and Juliet.

When my local paper published a famous photo of a gay soldier kissing his partner upon his homecoming, I cut it out and tacked it to my bulletin board. It was so beautiful to me.

But when I found myself staring at a woman in a certain way, I was disgusted with myself. I forced myself to push the thoughts down. Queerness was lovely until it came to my own personal identity. Suddenly it was not beautiful or romantic anymore — it terrified me.

As a bisexual woman, it was easy to stifle my sexuality. I figured that if I was attracted to cisgender men, all was well. I was safe. I had options. I had the privilege of staying in the heterosexual world without feeling lost.

As a closeted queer person, it is so easy to be an ally to everyone but yourself. I never saw myself on the other side of the fence. I told myself that it “just wasn’t me.”

At my very first Pride parade this past weekend, the joy was palpable. It wasn’t the rave full of twenty-somethings in glittery booty shorts that I expected it to be. There were families, parents offering hugs to those who didn’t have any accepting family, young kids wearing their respective flags like superhero capes, and elderly couples who might have been out longer than I have been alive.

Walking around with a punny bisexual shirt on, it was the first time I had ever publicly marked myself as queer in a way that didn’t involve PDA with my partner. It felt like a school spirit day for me, and that is a privilege. Others wear their queerness every day without making a conscious decision.

I felt like an outsider looking in. The concept of queerness has always been beautiful to me. When it became a part of my reality, it became natural to me, but still, I doubted myself and my own intentions.

As I marveled at the beauty of the community, I found myself wondering, am I just in love with the idea of queerness? Am I just romanticizing the novelty of it?

As I strolled through the park in the sunshine with one pinky finger wrapped around my partner’s, past impossibly gorgeous drag queens and through a sea of rainbows, I thought to myself:

You’re an imposter. A poser. You are only pretending to be gay because you love her so damn much.

And then I thought, wait:

Say that again but slower.
Introducing Plexamp
By: Elan Feingold
Tags: Music

Small, powerful, beautiful (choose any three)

We love music. We love Plex. We thought we might combine those passions.

It all started over a beer — as most great things do — re-envisioning what a tiny and powerful music player might look like in 2017. The most classic and beloved small audio player, Winamp, was first released almost exactly TWENTY years ago. Written in a low-level language, it ran on Windows, and was limited to playing files on the local (or networked) filesystem.

It truly whipped the llama’s ass

Plex, on the other hand, provides a best-in-class client/server model, an extremely metadata rich library, is highly portable, and gives you access to your entire music collection from anywhere in the world; we wanted to pair this with a similarly excellent music player. Literally the only requirement we had was “small”; Plex has plenty of bigger apps already, but nothing that sits unobtrusively on a desktop, beguiling and delighting. We even forced ourselves to limit the design to a single simple window.

We quickly settled on Electron as a platform to build the app. The combination of ES7, Electron, React, and MobX quickly became an incredibly productive (and fun!) set of technologies to use. As for the actual audio player, we wanted to do things which weren’t easy or even possible with Web Audio, so we picked a feature rich, portable, open source audio player called Music Player Daemon (MPD).

It’s either amazing or crazy (probably a bit of both) that the app comprises multiple Electron processes, a player server process (for being remotely controlled), and the MPD player process, while managing to present a semblance of a whole. And ignoring the fact that it’s probably the smallest Plex player (by pixel size), it still has rich functionality!
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Thursday, Art, Drawing, Illustration, Womanism

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

Follow
15 reasons why I use emacs
By: Dominik Tarnowski
Tags: Vim, Programming, Emacs, Software Development, Vscode

1. Org Mode

You’ve probably seen/used Markdown before. Org mode has a similar syntax and is also supported by GitHub READMEs, but unlike Markdown it has one specification and it doesn’t have hundreds of flavors.

Keep reading to see what can actually be done, or skip to the following sections:
I ditched Apple and Android for the PWAs
By: Madhavan Malolan
Tags: Android App Development, Web Development, Apple, Software Development, iOS App Development

I ditched Apple and Android for the PWAs

I’ve been building apps for almost 7 years — I have decided to move on.

My job requires me to ship apps for my clients. I’ve built a robust framework over the last 4 months, have paying customers and many willing to do so — yet I feel native apps is a thing of the past. My startup needs to be ready for the future.

Why did I choose to build native apps in the first place?

They give a native experience

They’re smooth and work just fine. Great performance.

Discovery through app stores

You can install it from the app stores and trust that you won’t be scammed

Have home screen presence

You install an app and it shows up just along side Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Your phone screen is precious real estate.

Novelty of apps

A lot of our clients have never considered the possibility of having their own apps. Selling apps was easy.

What sucked about native apps?

Install through the app stores only

You need to install an app. You install an app only if you intend to use it regularly. Very few people install an app to just check it out.

App reviews

Android and Apple have their walled garden to protect. The app reviews helps keep people safe from scams. The cost of compliance was huge. Our business demands us to ship new apps regularly — for different clients. Going through the review process was a huge cost of compliance.

Payments (!)

Many of our clients sell digital content. Apple takes a 30% cut, Google 20%. That’s huge. That’s so huge it makes business infeasible for smaller creators. Most of our clients are small creators.

Also, payments can be made only with the inbuilt payment mechanism. Users cannot pay using Wallets they use in their daily life. This is especially a concern in India where people use PayTM, BHIM and the like a lot.

I’m now rebuilding my framework on PWAs

Progressive web apps is still an emerging technology and a lot of standardization and features still need to catch up. Especially on iOS. That’s been the primary reason to not have picked PWAs 4 months back.

Nothing dramatic has happened in the last 4 months in terms of PWA progress. But I’ve had my hands burnt.

I don’t want to sit through compliance tests of an Apple or Android. I’m responsible for not shipping crap. I’ll slowly build the credibility.

I don’t want to pay a 30% transaction fees! Netflix and Spotify famously encourage users to make the payment on their website rather than on the app.

I want people to be able to just check out my clients’ apps. They may choose to install it though.

With PWAs, my clients can go from idea to launched in less than 5 minutes.

I think this is the future — permissionless software distribution.

This is like starting a new job. I’m making my bets today. I’ll keep you updated about how it turned out.

Do you think PWAs will be the future?

Let me know in comments, would love to hear what you think!
Release: Proton Version 1.3.4
By: Shane Hampton
Tags: API, Announcements, Atom, Tech, Fintech

We are excited to announce the release of version 1.3.4 of the Proton API, as part of Hydrogen’s Atom offering. Check the details below to find out what’s new!

Version 1.3.4 patches bugs and institutes minor changes, as described below:
Safein marketing team excited to greet our new CMO
By: Lukas Deksnys
Tags: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Identity

Growth is deeply rooted both in our mindset and our strategy. So it’s only natural that we seek to recruit the most driven professionals to deliver our message to the world. Today we are delighted to present you the newest addition to our team: marketing lead Vitalijus Ostapenko. Our new CMO will be responsible for all communication that will go out on all Safein channels.

Getting Vitalijus to join us is important on many levels. We will finally have a dedicated expert who owns this important area of our business. Strategically this will help us to reach broader audiences and discuss the importance of secure virtual identity on more platforms. Also, Vitalijus expertise will definitely enrich our team, and help us take the platform to another level.

“CR, CPA, and ROI are on my mind every waking minute. I am a result-oriented person, and Safein is a result-oriented platform. It’s a perfect match! I am convinced that we are not only working on an important problem here — we are offering the best solution.”, — said Vitalijus.

Vitalijus is a seasoned project manager with more than 13 years of experience in digital, performance and traditional marketing. His projects in e-commerce were awarded during the “Best Internet” conference for two years in a row. He is skilled in digital strategy, advertising, search engine optimization (SEO) and sales.

“It took me just a couple of minutes to get excited about Safein solution. After some extended conversations with the team, I got sincerely hyped by the project. During our final chat, I could already feel the marketing plan forming in my head. I am ready to pull my weight and become a valuable part of the team. I strongly believe by Safein mission and want to channel it to our current and future users”, — continues Vitalijus.

Previously, Vitalijus was a senior project manager at “Inspired UM”, the biggest media agency in the Baltic region. His other experience ranges from digital programmatic, marketing automation, UX, to e-commerce. He has a Bachelor’s degree in business management and administration and studied in KOG Institute for Marketing and Communication science.

Connect with Vitalijus on Linkedin.

Safein 🔑 — make it simple

🌐 Website: https://safein.com

💬 Telegram: https://t.me/safeincom

🕊️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/safeincom

📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/safeIncom

Ⓜ️ Medium: https://medium.com/safeincom

👥 BitcoinTalk (ANN): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2903156.0

🏆 BitcoinTalk (BOUNTY): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3037593.0

💼 LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/safeincom
How to Make Google Sheets Send Personalized Emails for You
By: Jesse Nieman
Tags: Productivity, Programming, Gmail, JavaScript, Google Sheets

How to Make Google Sheets Send Personalized Emails for You

A step-by-step Mail Merge guide

Photo by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash.

Have you ever needed to send an email out to a group of people and wanted to personalize the greeting for each person? Oh, and you didn’t want to have to individually send out the same email over and over?

Yeah, me too. I think a lot of people have found themselves copying the same email over and over and sending it out to a long list of recipients.

Thankfully, there is a solution.

Google has made it undeniably easy for users like you and me to jump into their tools and create custom functionality. One of my favorite tools to build on is Google Sheets.

If you’re familiar at all with Google Sheets (Google’s version of a spreadsheet app), you know that it’s already pretty powerful out of the box. But with a little magic (aka Apps Script), you can take the tool’s inherent functionality even further.
Why You Should Write What You Don’t Know
By: Michelle Richmond
Tags: Writing, Creativity, Writers On Writing, How To Write, Writing Tips

The old adage is, “Write what you know.” But if you’re writing fiction, you also need to be willing to write what you don’t know.

So, how do you go about writing what you don’t know…if, you know, you don’t know it?

In the spirit of discovery, allow one character to work in a field about which you know very little, or allow some element of the plot, or a subplot, to delve into something you find unusual. Then research it. Sure, you could make your main character’s sister a struggling writer, something you presumably know a thing or two about, but why not reach further?

Why not make her a welder instead? Then go online and research welding. Take a welder out for beer. Write five scenes that can be woven through your novel that embrace the lingo and physicality of welding. If you’re writing a short story, five paragraphs that can be wove in will do. Voila–you’ve created something interesting and textural, something that may just take you in an unusual metaphorical direction you never would have imagined if you were sticking to what you knew.

When I was writing my third novel more than a decade ago, I decided that one of my characters was a math prodigy. Math was always my worst subject in school, and even in adult life, my limitations in mathematics have been something of an albatross. But the book required me to stretch myself, and I ended up writing in depth about a real mathematical mystery that has remained unsolved for hundreds of years. I learned a lot not only about that one math problem, but about the world of mathematics and the personalities that populate it. I also came across one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read, A Mathemetician’s Apology, by G. H. Hardy.

If I’d chosen to skim the math part, I would have had an easier time of it, but a much less interesting journey.

In my next novel, my protagonist was a general internist at a Veterans Administration Hospital. To get a feel for her daily life, I shadowed a general internist at the VA Hospital in San Francicso for a day.

In one of my early stories, the protagonist installs satellite dishes (back in the day when satellite dishes were a thing). Learning about the life of a satellite dish installer opened up all sorts of new metaphorical opportunities in the story.

Think of all the novels you’ve read in which a major character’s career figures prominently: Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto; Lisbeth Salander, the hacker heroine in the Stieg Larsson novels; the neurosurgeon protagonist of Ian McEwan’s Saturday. In each case, the character’s career drives the plot, provides subtext, deepens character, and adds dramatic interest.

Try this: think of a subject about which you know almost nothing. Spend five hours reading about it over a period of one to two weeks.

After your five hours of reading, ask yourself: “Is this subject interesting?”

If the answer is yes, ask yourself, “Is there a way to put this in my book? Would it make sense?”

If the answer is yes again, write one scene that somehow touches on that subject. See where it takes you.
Who Stole My Lube?!
By: Danika Bloom
Tags: Sex, Humor, Parenting, Family, Self

Recently, Mr. Bloom and I ran out of our favourite lube. It’s only available in one store in the city, an hour from where we live. It’s made in Germany.

“Everything German is better,” says my man, the son of a German.

I usually roll my eyes but on the question of lube, I have to agree. We’ve tried a dozen kinds and this is the only one that stays slippery through foreplay and intercourse. Some of them gum up. Drugstore lube is quite appalling by comparison.

So, poor planning on my part and that morning I was pulling all manner of items from my bedside table to find one of our reject lubes… a Bowie knife… a bullet vibrator… 3-year-old Valentine’s Day chocolates… I wonder if they’re still good…

I dug out a small blue canister that said ‘Yours’ on it. It was empty. Empty? I kept digging to find the sister container. It’s purple and it’s called, ‘Mine.’

The ‘Yours’ is supposed to be for the guy and the ‘Mine’ is for the woman. That’s what the containers say. I wonder out loud why the woman is given authority over the lube. Mr. Bloom gives me a look, the, Seriously, you want to debate language and labeling with a dick in your hand?

I flipped the cap on the blue canister, tipped it and squeezed. Nothing came out. I grabbed the purple canister and held it to the light.

“Why is the ‘Yours’ lube completely empty when the ‘Mine’ lube is completely full? It makes no sense,” I say.

Now, I sure as heck haven’t used it. My man says he didn’t even know it was at the back of the drawer. I believe him.

“Did it leak?” he sighs, frustration growing.

I feel around the drawer and it’s dry and clean. Oh, well. Not a mystery that needs to be solved while he has a woody.

But a few minutes later, mid-thrust I figured it out.

We have two sons. Sons who in all likelihood have checked out what’s in our bedside tables. I mean… don’t all kids look to see what they’ll find in their parents’ room that will make them think, “Oh my God, I SO wish I hadn’t seen that!”?

“It was one of the boys,” I say.

“What are you talking about?”

“The missing lube. One of the boys probably used it little-by-little, not enough to be noticed until suddenly it was gone. The way I used to sneak booze from my grandma’s liquor cabinet.”

“Seriously? That’s what you’re thinking about?”

“Next time Number One Son calls home I’m going to ask him.”

“You do that.”

I move my hips.

“You’ve gone soft,” I say.

“No shit!”

“I hate this lube. It feels like you have jam on your cock. Your porn name this morning would be Sticky Dick Tacky,” I say.

I get up and go to the kitchen. Fortunately, our Costa Rican coconut oil is German-grade quality. I massage away the sticky lube and get my guy back in shape.

“Tomorrow, when Number Two Son comes over for dinner I’m going to ask if he’s the lube thief.”

The thought of his 17-year-old’s reaction makes me laugh. Fortunately, that triggers my libido to kick into high gear. I don’t speak again until we’re both quite satisfied.
The Rise of the Amateur
By: Melissa Toldy
Tags: Work, Art, Amateur, Creativity, Productivity

The Rise of the Amateur

A prophecy

illustration by author

There’s a person, outside, working. They’re making some thing for the public. No one asked them to do this.

The person sleeps indoors, but they spend their waking hours in the open air, planning and executing their plans. They plan to plan while half-sleeping and half-thinking. Their plans change, and they change with their plans.

To make a thing, the person listens to the vibrations between their hands. They feel the rhythm sync up with their breath. The pulsing gives them feedback, and they adjust; they respond.

People watch the person work, in passing. Sometimes, a passerby will pause and try to figure out what the working person is doing. Are they a dancer? A mime?

The thing is for the public, and so the person works on the thing, in a public space. People watch. People clap, and people ask questions. What are you working on?

If the person had an answer, they would answer. But they are looking for the answer, as they work.

Of course, the person can’t work for nothing. They need energy to feed their energy. People recognize this, and some people offer scraps of food. Energy balls, energy bars.

Sometimes, the working person goes unnoticed. Their vibrating hands look like nothing more than commonplace friction. Each time the person inches further into the public space, they must re-establish their place in it.

Claiming space takes time away from the thing the person is making. The thing languishes. The person changes their plans, changes their clothes, and changes their perspective. When they re-focus on the thing, the thing looks different, but the person is the difference.

The person takes a risk every time they claim new space. The risk is this: People will balk. Balking takes time away from the thing, when it requires a response. When is a response required? This is up to the person, and the person doesn’t have a set plan for balks. Each balk is its own, separate, thing.

Not everyone wants the person to make the thing. Some people try to stop the thing from being made. People throw stones at the person making the thing. Sometimes, the person hides and waits. Other times, the person gets hit, bruised.

What is the person making? Why do they spend their waking hours shaping vibrations between their hands? Who do they think they are?

The person is an amateur. They live to learn and grow. They don’t know what they’re making, but they’re making it, every day.
Trading Journal for 12/24
By: Vinson Chuong
Tags: Day Trading

6:18AM: Today is a short day. SPX futures are at 3686 after Trump vetoed the spending bill. I don’t see any stocks that look good pre-market.
Quantifications
By: Sophie Harrington
Tags: Geology, Poetry, Nature, Travel Writing, Creative Writing

Quantifications

By Mia Hall

500,000 bats with twice as many wings, flying against the shape of time.

500,000 bats out silencing a fractional crowd, bringing the sound of rain to a cloudless desert.

25 million years of sun and heat and air, a fish out of water, a shell stuck in stone.

25 million years of tides that only went out, cacti replace coral, rattles replace fins.

1300 souls keeping secret their mighty faiths, dwelling in the temporal fourth world.

1300 souls digging holes in walls and in floor,

Snaked caves and warning hands. Talking walls encompassing.

1453 miles and the frame starts to crack,

The image keeps expanding and I am so small.
Equilibrium的基本原理
By: Equilibrium Cn
Tags: Eq, Equilibrium, Chinese, Defi, Polkadot

The first decentralized interoperable money market that combines pooled lending with synthetic asset generation and trading. Get access to cross-chain liquidity.

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Haiku: The Weight of Wealth
By: Charles Beuck
Tags: Poetry, Haiku, Life, Money, Poem

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Heavy bills and coins

Bearing down on mind and soul

Our Selves sold for it

……………………………………………………………………………………….

Looking for books of Haiku poetry to enjoy? Check out these recommendations:

The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa: In this collection you will find English translations of many of the greatest poems by three of the greatest masters of this art form: Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa. Classic Haiku: The Greatest Japanese Poetry from Basho, Buson, Issa, Shiki, and Their Followers: Another collection of roughly 200 poems by these masters from as early as 1670. Accompanying the poems are photographs by John Cleare which serve to bring the poetry within these pages even more into life. The Haiku Handbook (25th Anniversary Edition): How to Write, Teach, and Appreciate Haiku: Rather than just exposing you to the poems of the masters, this volume sets out to show you both how you might create your own haiku, and even teach others about this form of artistic expression. Included are lesson plans for both elementary and secondary school use, and even a seasonal word index for you (or your students) to use.

Want to enjoy more haiku poems on Medium? Check out this publication:

This article contains some affiliate links to books that I recommend as to more fully engage with Haiku poetry. If you choose to purchase these books via my affiliate links, you will help support my writing and research at no additional cost to you.
Bootstrap 4 is Getting Odd
By: Carol Skelly
Tags: Bootstrap 4, Flexbox, Bootstrap, Web Development, CSS

Bootstrap 4 is Getting Odd

Make equal width layouts of 5, 7 or 9 columns in Bootstrap 4

Sure we all know about Bootstrap’s 12 column grid system. The reason Bootstrap (and most other frameworks) use a 12-unit grid (instead of 10, 16, etc..) is that 12 evenly divides into 6 (halves), 4 (quarters) and 3 (thirds).

But, what happens when you need to have an odd number of columns, and that number is not a factor of 12? Enter the 5, 7 or 9 column layout.
One Man’s Treasure
By: Cassius Corbin
Tags: Veterans, Nonfiction, Photography, World War II, History

My great-uncle Marvin makes his homestead in Fort Worth, Texas.

A World War II veteran with 10 years of service to the Air Force, Marvin went everywhere: from Iceland to Africa. He built his own home in the 1960s, putting “every nail” into it, Marvin said.

Despite his age, Marvin keeps his wits — and his legs. He goes out every Saturday to dance. He likes a bit of everything, “from the waltz to the Texas two-step,” he said.

A wide array of old, abandoned vehicles litter his rural Texas lot — pickups, a beetle, motorbike, Plymouth and more. My father and I took a visit to his treasure-trove to see about purchasing one of the rotting classics.

Although we left empty-handed, I told Marvin my fascination with the vehicles. My camera never leaves my side and the photo chances made the five-hour drive to visit even more worthwhile.

“All that old junk?” Marvin asked. He laughed.

“It’s really cool old junk,” I said.

A little more dignified, Marvin grinned. He added, still laughing, “And it’s my junk.”
A Bedtime Prayer For Single Women In Their Thirties
By: Cathlyn Melvin
Tags: Women, Poetry, Humor, Quick Reads, Satire

A Bedtime Prayer For Single Women In Their Thirties

Now I lay me down to sleep . . .

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

May the melatonin kick in swiftly.

May the pillow be cool.

May the upstairs neighbor remember to take off her heels when she gets home instead of clomping around like some nightmarish cloven elephant.

May the cat sleep soundly somewhere within petting distance.

May I wake with my first alarm,

May the morning coffee be strong,

And may I feel motivated to exercise before work.

May the underground zit I can feel on my nose never grow to see the light of day.

May my dreams be sweet.

May my slumber be deep.

May my boss appreciate my presentation on Friday.

Like, the kind of “appreciate” that’s spelled R-A-I-S-E.

And also may there be a snow day tomorrow so I can work from home.

But if there can be no snow day and I have to go into the office, may someone bring good snacks to share.

Goodnight, Moon.
What Makes Life is Strange Unique? | Game Mechanic
By: Ryan Velasco
Tags: Game Mechanics, Life Is Strange, Game Link, Gaming, Time Rewind Mechanic

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Prince of Persia uses the consumable sands to rewind time provided he has enough of it stored up. Here it allows you to rewind if you missed and fell to your death or if you made a mistake during a fight and are about to be killed you can rewind a bit to correct it.

Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle allows you rewind back one move without limit up to the start of the level. This method allows you to rewind if you made an accidental move or saw the right move during the wrong move.

Both examples have no effect on the story progression.

The Prince of Persia and Killer Puzzle story’s can never be altered due to time rewind but in the case of Life is Strange it can. This use of time rewind is what is incredible, allowing players to go back in time (to a point) and repeat conversations that they made a mistake in or rewinding to fix a mistake you made which soft blocked the story.

This is similar to what Fire Emblem is known for, permadeath which like the time rewind mechanic has been around for a long, long time but because it was altered for FE it became a unique core mechanic.

Time rewind in Life is Strange is so pivotal and was clearly made to work with the gameplay it is its own unique core mechanic.

People love the story, characters and narrative but in my opinion the time rewind had a lot to do with making that possible.
A Rhinoceros-shaped Idea
By: Kim Vertue
Tags: Surrealism, Art History, Art, Drawing, Rhinoceros

Dürer was always fascinated by the natural world and became renowned for the accuracy in which he depicted it. His Portrait of a Young Hare, the Stag Beetle, and his Great Piece of Turf are just a few examples of his astute observation. However, one of his best known images is considered inaccurate, yet evocative. You see, he didn’t get to see a real rhinoceros at first hand...

King Emmanuel had sent the rhinoceros on to the Pope but, sadly, it died at sea during its second ill-fated voyage from Portugal to Italy. Dürer, therefore, relied on a rough first-hand sketch and the descriptions of others to create his rhinoceros — that and a thousand year old description in Pliny the Elder’s The Natural History, which described the rhinoceros as the mortal enemy of the elephant, about the length of an elephant but with shorter legs, and skin the colour of box-wood. Some of this description is included in vernacular German above Dürer’s image of the rhinoceros.

Why was this event so significant and newsworthy? In Durer’s time, ancient Greek and Roman texts were being rediscovered and re-examined. Their knowledge contributed to the Renaissance, a renewal of arts and science throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which really gathered momentum in northern Europe, ahead of the High Renaissance in Florence.

A rhino had not been seen by Europeans for a thousand years — not since the Roman era, when some were brought over for the sake of spectacle and slaughter in the gladiatorial arenas. Such creatures had become almost mythic, like that other horned creature, the unicorn. So, a real rhinoceros was living proof that the texts of the ancients contained facts and knowledge still relevant and worthy of continued exploration. Dürer’s rhinoceros celebrated this rebirth of knowledge and discovery.

His drawing of the rhinoceros is full of life and fills the page to emphasise its size. Dürer used his knowledge of more familiar creatures like horses and dogs, as well as his knowledge of armour from depicting Knights, to embellish the vague reports he had of the real creature. Yet many details seem astonishingly accurate, the shape of the head and presence of rib-ridges, for example.

The smaller horn on its neck is often dismissed as pure invention but in some rare cases a process know as hyperkeratosis can result in a localised thickening of the hide that may grow to resemble a small horn, in exactly the position shown. Generally, the armour plates do closely resemble the fold pattern of the real life version’s thick hide, as do the warty bumps that stud them.
How to Pass Components as Props in React
By: Reina Mitchell
Tags: Front End Development, Components, Programming, React, JavaScript

How to Pass Components as Props in React

Props can be more than basic data types

Photo by KT on Unsplash

This piece is going to be short and sweet.

On my journey of learning React and all the wonderfulness it has to offer, I was unaware that I could pass down components as props . Up until now, props for me had been a property name and then some value. However, to make my components reusable, I learned that I could pass down a whole component into another component.

To do this, instead of writing out our Header component as a self-closing tag such as above, we write the Header component with an opening and closing tag, as below.

Now I’ll show you what my Header component looks like. I’ll also put in a console.log , so that you can see the object we get back in the console.

As you can see, we get an object back with a key called children .

Inside that object, there’s a key called props with its values being equal to another object with each key/value pair being equal to the props that we passed into our Story component. In order to get access to these props that we want to render, we have to use props.children .

On line 8, we write {props.children} . This will give us access to those props that we passed in from the Story component.

Now we can see the text ‘stock’ and the price ‘$50’. These were props in the Story component.

Even if we do not pass any props to the Story component, this works the same way.
18.
By: Bart Schaneman
Tags: California, American West, Joshua Tree National Park, Travel, 100 Words

18.

The American West. The old myth was of cowboys and horses and range life. Rugged, romantic. A land ravaged by white men who stole it from the natives. Words like freedom, vast expanses, individualism. Now it draws hikers and campers and environmentalists to the national parks. The throughhike takes the place of the cattle drive. But it’s a lot more than that. More diverse voices than mine are needed to account for the history of these lands. The people that give this region its real soul and character are the ones who were here for many years before we came.
Touch
By: Alexandra Ponca Stock
Tags: Poetry, Touch Prompt, Touch, Sensation, Wordplay

Looking at color and writing things down “…on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

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夜明け前が一番暗い。トランプ後のトランプ主義をどう変容させるか：ポスト真実主義、ポスト民主主義、ポストヒューマニティーについて。by OTTO SCHARMER（オットー・シャーマー）
By: Masumi Uchimura
Tags: トランプ大統領, システム思考, オットー シャーマー, リーダーシップ, 組織変革

in Field of the Future Blog