fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Fix Your Linux Icons in Chrome OS
By: Ian Williams
Tags: Chromebook, Technology, Programming, Linux, Tech

Creating a Shortcut (installing an AppImage)

For apps like Shotcut, Linux uses an AppImage to “install” the program. Since all the necessary files are baked into the app, it doesn’t come with a shortcut and so we can’t open it from the launcher.

The good news is, we can tell Linux where to launch the program from, and so creating a shortcut becomes a piece of cake.

Get the files in place

To fix that, let’s first go online and find an icon. It can be whatever you want it to be, but I’ll use the official Shotcut icon from Google Images.

Grabbing an icon from Google Images (Screen capture by author)

Some apps download with a long and unintuitive naming convention. If you have the AppImage downloaded, here’s where I recommend we change that. Let’s change it to Shotcut.AppImage to make things easier.

Create a folder named after the app you want to install and place both the icon image and the .AppImage in there.

In my case, I created a Shotcut folder and placed the 2 files in like so:

Logo and AppImage in the Shotcut folder (Screen capture by author)

Now move the entire folder over to Linux files. In your Linux files, create a folder called Documents and put the Shotcut folder in there. If you’ve already got a Documents folder, just place your folder in there instead.

Linux files folder (Screen capture by author)

Now we have to give this AppImage permission to run. Go to the terminal and type in:

cd ~/Documents/Shotcut chmod u+x Shotcut.AppImage

Your terminal would look like this:

Screen capture by author

Our files are all set for us now.

Setting up the Desktop File

Now we’re going to create our very own .desktop file.

These files are just like the typical shortcuts of the windows world. Chrome OS will look for them and add them to the launcher.

We can create it by just going over to the stock .txt app that comes with every Chromebook.

TXT app (Screen capture by author)

A standard .desktop file will look like this:

[Desktop Entry]

Name=Desktop

Comment=Fake Desktop app

Exec=/home/user/Documents/

Icon=/home/user/Documents/

Type=Application

Categories=WhateveryourProgramis

I highly recommend keeping a copy of this text file somewhere, because you can use it to create more desktop files in the future. I have one named Desktop.desktop just for that.
An Invitation To Further Adventures / The Voyage Home Begins
By: Mark Starlin
Tags: Sailing, Historical Fiction, Novel, Adventure, Baron Britpop

An Invitation To Further Adventures

During the wedding feast, Lafayette and Marie once again asked us to join them for lunch the following day. Naturally, we accepted. So the day after the wedding, the three of us made our way to Lafayette’s home.

After a pleasant meal with lively conversation, Lafayette asked Andelbert and me to join him on the porch. There he shared the surprise he had told me about two days earlier.

“Lads, I am off to the American Colonies. Independence is imminent, and I desire to be a part of this just cause of freedom. They intend to create a citizen-run government. No monarchy to dictate decisions and horde riches. Only elected officials who will serve the people.

Their declaration of independence will undoubtedly result in war with the British, of whom I have no love. I will be glad to fight against the empire that caused my father’s death.

I have purchased a ship for the voyage and named her Victorie. I will sail soon for the Americas. I invite you to go with me. I realize it not a good time for you, Andelbert, as you are newly married, but perhaps I can persuade you, Britpop, to join me on this adventure. We will be witnessing history being made, and have an opportunity to be a part of it. What say you?”

“My dear friend and brother, I am honored by your invitation. But I have been on a remarkable adventure of my own for quite some time. I desire nothing more than to return to my home.”

“I am sad to hear it, but I understand. I will miss you both tremendously. It is rare to have such good companions.”

“It is indeed. I shall also miss you greatly,” Andelbert said.

“I think you shall have other things on your mind,” Lafayette said, and we all laughed.

“I have no such distractions, and I will miss you dearly. If your travels ever bring you to Kapri, you always welcome at my estate,” I said.

“I hope I can take you up on that offer someday.”

“As do I.”
Measuring Agreement with Cohen’s Kappa Statistic
By: Blake Samaha
Tags: Machine Learning, Supervised Learning, Data Science, Python, Statistics

Measuring Agreement with Cohen’s Kappa Statistic

This lesser-known metric can help you better evaluate how models perform on imbalanced data

A lot of the most intriguing — to me — use cases for classifications are to identify outliers. The outlier may be a spam message in your inbox, a diagnosis of an extremely rare disease, or an equity portfolio with extraordinary returns. Due to these instances being outliers, it is hard to gather enough data to train a model on how to spot them. Some people dedicate their entire careers to creating strategies to combat imbalanced data. I’ll table those strategies for another blog another day.

Everyone has a strong intuition of what accuracy and error are. This is the same scoring system we used throughout our academic careers. Accuracy is the ratio of correct answers to total questions. Error is the ratio of wrong answers to total questions. These metrics work well for an ideal data set — which doesn’t exist in the real world.

An example of the accuracy paradox is if the there is a 99% chance that a person does not have a particular disease, then a model predicting no one ever has the disease will be 99% accurate.

Calculating Cohen’s kappa statistic by hand

Cohen’s kappa statistic is easy to understand and doesn’t fall victim to the accuracy paradox. Stay with me as I get through the technical jargon. Pₒ is the observed agreement among graders. Pₑ is the hypothetical chance of the graders arriving at the same answer. Grader 1 will be your model’s predictions, and grader 2 may be your y_test data (the answer key).

Cohen’s kappa Statistic Formula

Let’s calculate Cohen’s kappa statistic by hand using a simple example. You scored a 7 out of 10 on an exam with only true and false answers. The teacher has the answer key (the y_test data). To calculate the agreement between your predictions and the answer key we must find Pₒ and Pₑ. First, to find Pₒ we add in the agreement of correct answers.
So Must I
Tags: Poetry, Gospel, Imagery, Reflection

So Must I

: a dust + diamond dichotomy

by Kate Skinner

soaring higher,

stretching wider,

tumbling upward,

momentarily glimpsed in columns of glory magnified.

as the dust dances, so can I.

no atom more or less,

than the besomer orchestrates,

oh see, neither floating nor wandering,

an airy agenda of ascension.

as the dust dances, so may I.

He who is the fire,

is He who dwells in the bush,

He who who awakens specks,

is He who exhales flight,

beckoning to luster.

as the dust dances, so shall I.

devastating beauty,

couples timelessness — today,

divine archaeology emboldened,

by passage not destination.
What I Learned From Completing the MIT xPro Data Science Course
By: Nicole Liu
Tags: Technology, Lifelong Learning, Data Science

What I Learned From Completing the MIT xPro Data Science Course

The personal, professional, and learning platforms

Screenshot by Author

I am so happy I did this.

99/100, in the MIT xPro Data Science and Big Data Analytics online course, after 121 hours of work in the last few weeks.

Some say, it’s good to practice retrieval as part of the human learning process. So let me summarise. What have I learned?

Here is a 3-part article series about it:

The personal insights, on taking up a challenge and a new learning project; The professional insights, on data science and machine learning; and The modern way of learning, on virtual learning platforms, comparing MIT xPro vs popular alternatives like Udemy.

In short, my gut feeling says:

In the new world of technologies and machines, it is just as important, that I keep the dancing, keep the yoga, and take the time to walk away from the screen!

Hope you find the lessons shared here useful for your own learning journey.
“In Creative Fields, You Don’t Find Too Many ‘Cool Kid In School’ Turned Artistic Genius” Words Of Wisdom With Fabriq
By: Authority Magazine
Tags: Art, Celebrity, HERE, Music

What is your “backstory”?

We went to college together! We were both musicians for a while, but our collaborations on Fabriq really felt like something new and exciting was happening.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your music career?

We just had a really fun gig with a line-up of all Puerto Rican artists — Coast City and Alvaro Diaz. We didn’t prepare for the subwoofers being that huge. Our instruments and computer were basically shaken off the stage and stopped working mid set. Needless to say, we’re gonna be buying a lot more velcro from now on.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

We are really happy to say that we’re starting to get back into writing and producing music every day (Davila and Bell recently graduated from USC). We’re going to be playing a couple shows in Amsterdam, and then going on a 2-week writing trip to Puerto Rico. We have a lot of music ready to release and more in the works, and are excited to add to our catalog as new artists.

On top of our own music, we’re really excited to release a collaboration with a young British producer that we love named “Brierley” very soon!

Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?

Daniel: I’m going to let Cooper take this one.

Cooper: Well, I was raised by one of the most famous serial killers in movie history. My dad is actually one of the most gentlemanly people you’ll ever meet… but he did pull a couple stunts on me in high school when he was in the midst of shooting the Saw Franchise. This one time I came home from a high school party in the wee hours of the morning and he heard me come in. When he came into my room to check on me he was wearing a latex mask of his own face that the makeup people on set had gifted to him. It was dark in my room so it took me a second to realize what was going on. It’d be an understatement to say I was terrified. He’s got a great sense of humor.

Which people in history inspire you the most? Why?

David Bowie and Prince. We actually have paintings of them in our studio. We could go on forever about the music that has influenced us, and the people that have influenced them, but there was something about these androgynous legends that made them more than their music, style and presence. In a pop industry, it’s really easy to run away from those ideas in order to fit into a box. Artists like them remind us that originality and weirdness surpass those norms and expectations.
KuCoin Business Development News Update
Tags: Exchange, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Kucoin

Dear KuCoin Users,

KuCoin is very excited to share this announcement that highlights the explosive growth over the last 2 quarters of business. The path of development, what has been done for the users on the People’s Exchange, and the new global layout that has been put into place, as well as a sneak peak into the plans for the future.

Path of Development

In August 2017 KuCoin opened a cryptocurrency exchange with ambitious growth goals. All goals have been surpassed beyond anything imaginable and the 4,000,000+ users are the ones who have made this happen. KuCoin now proudly has 133 tokens listed, with 334 trading pairs in just 6 short months.

Our team has also gone through a lot of growth, from a humble beginning at our first office…

All great things have humble beginnings

Our original team back in August 2017

Our Team At Our Singapore Headquarters

Global Layout, International Growth

Our Users, Our Main Priority

KuCoin would not be what it is without the enduring support of the people that trade. The success of the exchange so far is powered by the people and KuCoin is committed to continue listening to the users. KuCoin remains a neutral servant to the people. KuCoin has never participated in any activity that would bring fake volume to the People’s Exchange.

Global Layout, International Growth

Headquarters has been established in Singapore and applications have been submitted for satellite offices in England, Lithuania, Dubai, Malta, Japan, and S. Korea.

Future Plans

Going forward new locations may be considered for additional offices. If you have a suggestion please contact support. Our goal is to give the users an exchange that works for them.

The support center is receiving an overhaul and is being streamlined. User’s expressed concerns over the amount of time it takes to get a response, and KuCoin has made it a top priority in the 3rd fiscal quarter to address this and the newest goal is to provide the best support in the world to our users.

Thanks for your support!

KuCoin Team
Before and after ‘Pong’: a new book traces the rise of video games
By: John E. Branch Jr.
Tags: Computers, Videogames, Books

In The Comic Book Story of Video Games, due out in a few weeks, the author and the artist present a history of video games that’s knowledgeable and wide-ranging but somewhat eccentric. Initially, Jonathan Hennessey focuses equally on “electronic games and electronic screen displays,” but much of the book covers the highways and byways of computer history, in which he finds that computers, which were “intended only for military, scientific, government, and industry use,” were soon used for games as well: a tennis game, a mouse-in-a-maze game, a billiards game, even a clever text-based game called Colossal Cave Adventure, which used only words on a screen. Much of this will be familiar to anyone who already knows the story of computers, but it’s presented in a rather colorful way. Unfortunately, Hennessey has a strange approach to history: he keeps reminding us that things were different in the past. He frequently points out that early games and game devices lacked color, sound, and music, but he never mentions that early movies also lacked color, sound, and integrated music but nonetheless engaged their audiences. The presentation wanders or jumps about, as if the author is trying to cram things in; the writing as well as the storytelling is often a bit awkward. And Jack McGowan’s illustrations are inventive, often sprinkled with video-game-like characters who watch the proceedings, but they’re sometimes hard to interpret. Still, the book concisely renders a parade of personalities and technical innovations.

The business of video games is big and getting bigger. It apparently generates more revenue than the film business; some people make a living from playing games, and there’s a growing market, called e-sports, for viewing video-game competitions. Yet the field retains something of a cult aspect. General-interest publications often nod to new games and new devices but without nearly as much coverage as TV and films get. You may finish this book and still wonder to some extent what the appeal is. I’ve played a few games myself; the first game to get its own panel in the book, a game of geopolitics called Balance of Power (1985), is one that I played (and may write about someday), and I’ve tried some of the early efforts to bring virtual reality into gaming. Yet even I don’t entirely get the eagerness of players to spend dozens, scores, even hundreds of hours on one game after another. But that’s also true of the time many people devote to playing and/or watching traditional sports. (Surely there are video game widows, though I haven’t heard the term yet, just as there are sports widows.) Hennessey and McGowan’s book pays little attention to the question of why we play what we do, but that’s a subject for other books. What The Comic Book Story of Video Games will give you is a reasonably detailed and insightful survey of how the games themselves reached their present stage of development.

For the record, I read a black-and-white uncorrected proof.
ML.NET is awesome! Here’s why you need to pay attention…
By: Mark Farragher
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Csharp, Net Core

I’ve been playing around with NET Core v3 and the ML.NET machine learning framework.

And let me tell you, this stuff is awesome!

NET Core is really cool all by itself. It’s the multi-platform version of the NET framework: it runs on Windows, OS/X, and Linux. I’m running it directly on my Mac right now without using my Windows 10 virtual machine.

And ML.NET is Microsoft’s new machine learning library. It can run linear regression, logistic classification, clustering, deep learning, and many other machine learning algorithms.

ML.NET is a first-class NET library. There’s no need to use Python, you can easily tap into this library using any NET language, including C#.

Microsoft is pouring all their effort into ML.NET right now. This is going to be their go-to solution for all machine learning in NET going forward.

And it’s super easy to use. Watch this:

I built a simple classifier and trained it on a dataset of botanical data. My code loads a CSV file with the exact dimensions of Iris flower petal sizes, and uses it to train the model to correctly identify the type of each flower.

Here’s the code:
TypeScript: Prefer Interfaces
By: Nicholas Jamieson
Tags: Linter, Typescript

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Recently, I noticed a Twitter thread from Rob Palmer in which he described some performance problems that were caused by the use of type alias declarations in TypeScript.

Specifically, the use of a type alias declaration effected a much larger .d.ts output:

Yesterday I shrank a TypeScript declaration from 700KB to 7KB by changing one line of code 🔥

In the thread, Rob points out that the reason this happens is because type alias declarations can be inlined, whereas interfaces are always referenced by name.

Let’s have a look at some code that demonstrates this inlining behaviour.

Here’s a TypeScript playground snippet in which a type alias is used to declare the callback signature:

The effected .d.ts output — which is shown in the playground’s right-hand-side panel — looks like this:

The ReadCallback type alias is included in the .d.ts output and the read function’s signature refers to it by name.

However, the output will be different if we scope the type alias declaration — by shoving it into an IIFE — like this:

The scoped type alias declaration won’t be included in the output and callback’s signature will be inlined:

IIFEs aren’t the only scenario in which inlining can occur. They’re used here so that inlining can be demonstrated in the TypeScript playground.

Inlining is something that won’t happen with interfaces, as interfaces are always referred to by name. If an interface is scoped in a similar manner, like this:

compilation will fail with an error:

Interfaces aren’t inlined. They are referred to by name and if the name is private, compilation will fail.

In early versions of TypeScript, the behavioural differences between type aliases and interfaces were significant. However, in recent versions there is less of a distinction and that has led to some developers preferring type aliases over interfaces.

The performance problems mentioned in Rob’s thread suggest that perhaps interfaces should be preferred. And Daniel Rosenwasser’s endorsement of interfaces is emphatic:

Honestly, my take is that it should really just be interfaces for anything that they can model. There is no benefit to type aliases when there are so many issues around display/perf. We tried for a long time to paper over the distinction because of people’s personal choices, but ultimately unless we actually simplify the types internally (could happen) they’re not really the same, and interfaces behave better.
[Founder] Emmanuel, of Outsite on their latest coliving opening in… Lisbon!
By: Coworkies - Coworking Communities
Tags: Startup, Digital Nomads, Remote Working, Lisboa, Community

Hey Emmanuel, nice to have you on Coworkies! Could you please tell us a bit more about you?

For sure! I’m from Belgium originally, and I’m the founder of Outsite.

Let’s talk more about Outsite, what is it exactly and how did the idea came to life?

Outsite is a members-based network of coliving spaces around the world! A few years ago, I was just another mid-twenties guy building my career in Silicon Valley. The Belgium travel tech company I was working for wanted to build out their U.S. branch in California. Dreaming of surf and sand, I eagerly prepped my passport for a new life. But there was one problem. Their office was in San Jose! A place that didn’t exactly fit the beach lifestyle I was seeking.

On a weekend road trip I stumbled upon Santa Cruz, and that was the moment that I fell in love with California. I packed my bags and set up a remote office where I could work between meetings and conferences. For the first time, I understood how you could find a balance between personal passions and work.
HueDrive: Sprint 9
By: Vincent Giacalone
Tags: Poetry, Design

For this week, I had planned to develop an anthology post for social media, taking the user through the history of some racing-related entity. My initial thought was that I could take users through the history of a certain track and tie it together visually by incorporating a well-known symbol of said track, but the ideas I tried out didn’t seem to mesh together for one reason or the other. Most of my other effort was concentrated on making sure all the pieces I’d put together previously were ready for the individual critique/presentation I had in my thesis section today.

However this idea does come to fruition, I’ll be presenting it at the show on a mobile device, either my own or one rented from the IMM cage. As I mentioned during the presentation, I think it’s important that everything I’ve put together be allowed to be experienced via its true medium at the showcase in a few weeks.
Recent Activities Update from NPER #38
Tags: Nper, Intellectual Property, Recent Activities, Blockchain, Artinblock

Recent Activities Update from NPER #38

🚀주간 이슈 업데이트 2018.11.24~11.30🚀

NPER team has decided to communicate more actively and share NPER’s vision with supporters and followers. This is what we’ve been up to during last week! (Some details may be repeated. We ask sincerely for your understanding.)

[NPER Development]

- What we’ve completed

Core

- Test WASM-based Smart Contract

- Test WASM-based Smart Contract Art in Block

- Service technical enhancement (Main page & added video platform: Vimeo)

- Updates in Admin Page

- What’s in progress

Core

- WASM-based Smart Contract Error Analysis

- Refactor function and Add test case

- WASM-based Smart Contract Error Analysis - Refactor function and Add test case Art in Block

- Service technical enhancement (Contest Page)

- Ideation on the use of CP

- Build a blockchain-based content registration certificate issuing system

- Plan and apply CBN (Content Blockchain Number)

We are establishing a content registration certificate issuing system on blockchain network linked to the art-in-block, and will launch a beta service in December.

[NPER Biz]

-Ran a recruiting booth at 2018 Blockchain Grand Week

NPER has attended job conference at Blockchain Grand Week hosted by Korea Internet Promotion Agency(KISA) as a recruiting company on Nov. 26 and 27. Many developers and planners, including blockchain industry representatives, at the event, have been very interested in NPER.

- Application for patents based on blockchain technology

With our outstanding technology, NPER continues to R&D patents that are likely to be commercialized in the blockchian field. Based on the result of R&D, multiple patents, which will be the future driving force for NPER to build IP Network using blockchain, are being applied. NPER will build a patent portfolio that is highly likely to be commercialized.

Details regarding the patents will be announced later.

[NPER Community]

- NPER subreddit on reddit

NPER subreddit on reddit is now open! Please subscribe and create posts! https://www.reddit.com/r/NPERproject/

- NPER Information

Find info on NPER market price and volume CoinMarketCap, CoinCodex, Bitgur and Coinlib!!

Go to>CMC , CoinCodex, Bitgur, Coinlib, Feixiaohao

[NPER and more]

Upcoming!
Cry Out to GOD
By: Kabil Khan
Tags: Life, Dreams, Prayer, God, Personal

Photo by Fa Barboza on Unsplash

At three o’clock in the morning, sitting in her room at the place of prayer, the girl was telling her Lord about her pain, the pain which she hid from the whole world. She pretends to be happy all day, but at this time of night, she is the one who crosses the threshold of pretending to be in pain and causes a conversation between Allah and Him. May Allah Almighty see how difficult life is becoming. Dreams are falling apart one by one. May Allah Almighty take care of my dreams. She was crying out to the Lord. It’s like a little child sharing his grief with his mother when he lost his toy. In the same way, she wanted to calm down by telling the Lord. The girl who was talking to the Lord seemed isolated from the world at that time. I cried when my dreams were shattered, Allah Almighty.

But I have collected the fragments of these dreams myself. My hands were bleeding from these splinters, but I was patient. Allah Almighty says that you should give glad tidings to those who are patient. So why is Allah Almighty so long in my share of happiness? I didn’t want to hurt anyone, so why did people hurt me? Where is the rule of the world to consider good people as the dust of the feet. May Allah protect me from breaking more dreams. Don’t make my trial my punishment. I will lose Give me patience like Hazrat Yaqub (as) or see my helplessness! Don’t leave me alone People left me, don’t leave me. Where would I go if You left too? I have no friends but You!

Every night, lightening the burden of her heart before the Lord, she felt as if the Lord was answering her words, telling her not to worry, I will take care of everything. Don’t despair, my time is running out for a miracle. Sometimes her heart would be filled with hope for a miracle and her faith would increase. And sometimes she wonders where miracles happen to we ordinary people. But she had to overcome the frustration. She secretly closed her eyes at the Lord’s comfort. She had to make sure. She had to live her life in a new way where she would listen to everyone’s pain and become their partner in their pain and would express her pain to her Lord at night. Sometimes broken and sometimes rich in faith. But she believed in His call. She kept her Lord with her in every situation. She wanted to be a message to believers in this depressing time.
Tonight’s comic wants to go 𝘖𝘜𝘛 for coffee??
Tags: Solitude, Comics, Pumpkin Spice, Coffee

More from rstevens Follow

I make cartoons and t-shirts at www.dieselsweeties.com & @rstevens. Send me coffee beans.
ITC Progress Update 2018/6/9–2018/6/15
By: Iot Chain
Tags: Blockchain, Iot Chain, Itc, Weekly Updates

IoT Chain

A secure, lite OS for the Internet of Things
Jumping Off
Tags: Self Improvement, Education, Inspiration

At twenty eight, Tio Stib was a dedicated social worker running a day camp for kids. Though his career was fulfilling in its charity, Tio realized that helping others wasn’t allowing him to fully pursue his passion. He decided to depart from social work to jump. He attended architecture school and was finally able to release his creative zeal through his career.

But then came the toughest jump of all.

Three years ago, Tio lost his vision and with it the ability to build the architecture he had learned and grown to love. Now, he builds with words, creating stories with solutions, hoping to entertain, educate, and perhaps inspire others to imagine and build their own dreams.

When to Jump is a collection of people, places, and ideas relating to when to go do what you really want to go do. For more stories like this, sign up for our occasional newsletter here. You can follow When to Jump on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Why visual storytelling is more relevant than ever
By: Next Media Accelerator
Tags: Innovation, Startu, Covid 19, Media, Tech

#startup #media #tech #storytelling #image #photo #journalism

A picture is worth a thousand words. That’s a popular saying that seems even more relevant when we look at the way we, as readers, relate to news and facts shared in the media.

When information can be visualized, it becomes easier to grasp. Especially when reporting on a complex topic (such as the Covid-19 crisis), images, illustrations and graphics can be strong elements to help people understand and engage better with a story.

At NMA, we have a wide range of startups in our portfolio developing tech solutions to innovate the media industry.

Check out some of the companies that can help publishers, agencies, broadcasters (and other companies) to improve the storytelling in a visual way:

Comics for news

If you think comic strips are only suitable for fiction, be aware that they can be a fine resource for publishers to report on topics (such as the ongoing pandemic crisis) in a straightforward, uncomplicated way. Tebeox already allowed several publishers to share news through digital comics — check out the examples and get in touch to work on new ones.

Getting images right

Frameright is an editing tool that allows content creators to make multiple, intelligent crops in images and photos to be used in articles shared online — it is not just a matter or ending headless portraits, but also to be socially responsible when sharing them.

Visual and social

Visual stories are especially important when reporting through social media — and Cutnut story editor allows media houses to edit, publish and preschedule nicely designed stories for Instagram and Google Amp.

Reproduction from cutnut.net

Art meets journalism

Journalists, bloggers and content producers in general can commission illustrations to use in their articles through Minty’s platform. See how we can fight Corona with art.

Minty’s Instagram profile features some of the illustrations: check out @tasteminty

Interacting with data

What better way of dealing with lots of data and numbers than by having them nicely displayed in interactive graphics? 23degrees has already partnered up with publishers and broadcasters to power up their interactive data reporting on the latest developments regarding developments of the Coronavirus pandemic.
How Postman Engineering does microservices
By: Joyce Lin
Tags: Software Development, Engineering, Microservices, Tech, API

How Postman Engineering does microservices

A microservices update about domain-driven squads, CDC testing, and happily ever after

A couple years ago, Postman CTO and co-founder Ankit Sobti shared Postman’s struggle to escape from a microservices dependency hell. If you want to learn more about how and why Postman Engineering ventured into microservices, check out Ankit’s story.

This is an update — here’s how Postman Engineering does microservices today.

Who is Postman Engineering?

Postman Engineering has 100+ engineers working across eight locations around the world. The company just announced a Series C round of funding, so things are bound to evolve as with any growing startup.

the sheer beauty of Postman Engineering

Let’s dive into how these teams are organized. As we’ll soon see, this really impacts the microservices implementation.

With a microservice architecture, how do you organize your teams?

According to Conway’s Law, software starts looking like the organizations that create them. How people communicate, collaborate, and even their tooling has an impact. And the way information flows between related teams influences the output.

Any organization… will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure. — Conway’s law

This is one reason why organizations like Amazon and Netflix work in small, independent teams. It enables API-first design and development. And is represented as the well-known microservices deathstar.

microservices deathstar

You can observe Conway’s Law by comparing products from teams grouped by function, by product, or by workflow.
DreamTeam Token Sale Audit Completed
Tags: Blockchain, Smart Contracts, Investing, Token Sale

June 12, 2018 — DreamTeam, the world’s first infrastructure platform and payment gateway for esports and gaming, has successfully completed its Token Sale Phase #2 Audit.

We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the Token Sale. We were able to attract $10M+ (6 646 ETH, 412 BTC) in investment from thousands of esports enthusiasts and crypto investors.

As for the in-depth Audit, the following results were achieved:

Total Tokens to be issued: 55 191 260

Total Tokens contributed: 33 114 756 (including bonuses)

Bonus Tokens: 5 851 149

Rejected transactions: 86

Number of transactions: 2443

Funds raised: $10 106 035 (6 646 ETH, 412 BTC)

Token Symbol: DREAM

In the coming weeks, Token contributors will be able to boost their profiles and vacancies using DreamTeam Tokens. Additionally, players who have found or created a team will be able to use the highly anticipated practice game feature. DreamTeam’s updates and upcoming features will continue to connect esports making the DreamTeam Token the center of the esports economy.

P.S. The Token Generation Event is happening soon! All the DreamTeam Contributors will be notified on how to get their Tokens.

About DreamTeam:

DreamTeam — infrastructure platform and payment gateway for esports and gaming.

DreamTeam is the ultimate teambuilding and skill-growing platform that solves problems for hundreds of millions of gamers who want to build, grow, manage and monetize their teams. And with the unlocking of blockchain and smart contract technologies, DreamTeam is building a one-of-a-kind payment gateway for players, teams, tournaments and sponsors.

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Playboy
Tags: Pornography, Poetry, Hugh Hefner, Child Abuse, Resistance Poetry

Did you want me

to see them,

or did you simply

not care enough

to protect me

from your smut,

stacked, cover up,

on the bottom shelf,

of the bookcase

behind your lounger,

eye level to a girl

playing on the floor?

And what of your wife?

Was she too cowed

to put them in a closet,

or was she grateful

for the respite lent her by

that stack of sticky gloss?

As you dozed, mouth agape,

while she played hymns

in the bedroom,

I, silently agog,

turned those pages

by the corners.

Years past your death,

and hers,

Mother told me

how you touched her

in your car when

she was not much older.

Was that my answer?
How to Invent Radical Solutions to Huge Problems
By: Singularity University
Tags: Moonshots, Innovation, Singularity University, Inspiration, Abundance

If you force a grasshopper into a jar and fasten the lid, the grasshopper eventually shortens its jump after hitting the lid enough times.

After a while, even if you take the lid off the jar, the grasshopper will stay put — it’s forgotten how high it can jump.

We’re a lot like grasshoppers in this way.

When we’re kids we believe we can be and achieve anything. But then, slowly, our big thinking starts disappearing, and before we know it, we’re playing it safe and setting goals we already know are achievable.

The problem with playing it safe, though, is it never results in a breakthrough.

This is why great leaders and organizations set moonshots — or wildly ambitious goals. These goals are at the heart of moonshot thinking, a unique and powerful approach to big thinking and problem solving.

Moonshot thinking is how we can take the lid off our own ideas, and according to some of our favorite innovators, there’s a blueprint for how to shift your mindset.
Oh my! If turtles could talk, the stories they could tell.
By: Treathyl Fox
Tags: Earth, Claps On Medium

Oh my! If turtles could talk, the stories they could tell. I love the image submitted with the article.

Reading this article made me feel a sort of relief; a sense of calm and happiness. I have often wondered what the earth was like “in the beginning” when it was unspoiled by humans. I feel these environmental changes we are noticing is like a “glimpse” at what a pristine newborn earth looked like. When we return to “normal” will that purity disappear?
ETK Beta Rewards Platform Release!
Tags: Solar Energy, Electric Car, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Energy

We are pleased to announce that the beta version (phase 1) of our rewards platform is finally here!

To begin, we will be testing out a rewards program aimed at incentivising consumers to purchase electric vehicles by rewarding buyers with ETK — the blockchain token they can then use to pay for utility bills or instead save for future investment.

It’s a unique and interesting implementation of blockchain technology: changing consumer behaviour for societal good through the reward of tokens. Upon purchasing an electric vehicle, a consumer can submit their purchase receipt via the hosted website provided by the EnergiToken team and receive monetary rewards in the form of ETK for their prudent purchase.

For now, the site is in beta and is testing the possibilities of such a program with limited ETK rewards as a proof-of-concept. Over the course of time, the reward app and website capabilities will be updated to encompass more functionality and reward a broader range of consumer behaviour. The rewards program can be implemented and integrated into websites and apps hosted by a broad variety of EnergiToken partners, from government agencies to big businesses that want to encourage consumers and employees to reduce waste and conserve energy.

Because of EnergiToken, consumers will be motivated to change their energy-consuming habits for the better, knowing they can be rewarded with ETK. It’s truly a win-win scenario! Be a part of the program by checking out our website at https://energitoken.com/ and submit your electric vehicle purchase receipt for your share of ETK!
scheduled Failure
By: Phil Wall
Tags: Growth Mindset, Diet, Failure, Intermittent Fasting, Personal Development

Photo by the Author — Scheduled day off Keto. Champions squaring off. Urijah giving me the eye.

Why is sticking to a diet so damn difficult?

Many attempt different diets and fail. Start one, fail, start another, fail. Repeat.

The diet isn’t the cause of failure. All diets aren’t equal and health authorities have had a field day with some.

Everyone is on a diet. Some don’t realize it.

Meat, potatoes, pasta, vegetables, spaghetti sauce, donairs, pizza, hamburgers, it’s all food.

If it’s going in the mouth, it doesn’t need a catchy name to make it a diet. It just has to go in.

The question is, is the diet bad, so so or awesome.

For a moment, let’s say you agree with me that everyone is on a diet. Some intentionally, the rest are “normal” people who don’t think they are — they believe diets are for everyone else.

Why are the “normal” people able to stick to a diet they don’t know they are on, while the rest of us that are consciously on a diet, might have difficulty?

If you’re not consciously on a diet, it’s easy. No goals, no accountability, no discipline required, no rules, eat whatever, whenever you want, life is good.

Those of us who are on an intentional diet, sometimes have a harder time sticking to it. Because we are trying to change behaviour and results.

I used to be super rigid and inflexible in my eating, and that was a problem.

I found that being so rigid gave me zero room to fail. I learned later that failure is ok when you have a growth mindset. Failure is part of the process.

I call it “scheduled failure”. It gives me flexibility — but not too much.

Design a plan that incorporates failure. Schedule your failure, but also have an appropriate plan to reengage.

Allow yourself grace. Be patient with yourself as you progress through your plan.

I practice intermittent fasting. 16–20 hours a day for 5 days a week, I fast while consuming a ketogenic diet during my “eating window”.

For those 5 days, I schedule in the possibility that something may come up. I might need to adjust how I eat for a few hours.

I may need to adjust when I eat, or perhaps reduce the length of my fast from 20 hours down to, say 14 hours.

If something comes up on my 5 days, I don’t freak out because I planned for it.

The other two days I schedule more failure. I relax.

On those two days, I don’t eat whatever the heck I want. I’m thoughtful about what I’m going to eat. I treat it like a special occasion.

I take my time and I savour the food.

I don’t call them “cheat days” or say, “It’s okay to be bad”, those phrases create negative feelings.

When you’re cheating, you tend to eat whatever and as much as you want. Sounds like a good deal but it’s not — it’s a slippery slope.

Have grace with yourself as you develop, learn and grow the discipline you need to adopt a new routine, whether it’s health or another area of personal development.

Scheduled failure — it works.
Proof of Work vs Proof of Something else
By: Knut Svanholm
Tags: Evolution, Proof Of Work, Bitcoin, Proof Of Stake, Valuation

Zoom out of time for a while and imagine how the antlers of a magnificent moose buck evolved into being. The main purpose of big antlers is to impress potential mates by the way. They’re somewhat akin to the feathers of a peacock or the shroud of any male bird for that matter. The animal is trying to signal that it can thrive in its environment despite its enormous appendage. These are all evolutionary metaphors of course, the animal itself is probably unaware that it’s signalling anything. For such antlers to come into being, a whole lot of moose specimen will have to die early, or at least not get a chance to reproduce, over thousands of generations. A lot of resources wasted in other words. All of this for the animal to prove its value to potential spouses. Therefore, from the moose’s point of view, those resources were not wasted.

The Proof of Work algorithm in Bitcoin does a similar thing. It “wastes” a lot of electricity, a real world resource, to find a certain number and thereby proving that it had to commit a lot of time and effort to do this. Time, by the way, is the scarcest of all resources. Because of all this, a Bitcoin miner is very reluctant to sell Bitcoin at a net loss. The electricity has already been used when the Bitcoin pops into existence and the miner has no other means of getting his money back than selling the Bitcoin for more than the cost of the electricity it took to produce it. This is assuming that the mining rig itself has already been paid for. Proof of Work is a way of converting computing power into money in a sense. Yes, it consumes a lot of energy but the energy consumed correlates directly to the value of the created token. Any decrease in this would also lead to a decrease in the value of the token which is why mining algorithms can’t be less resource consuming or more energy efficient. “Wasting” energy is the whole point. No “waste”, no proof of commitment.

Because of all this you should probably be very suspicious of alternative mining algorithms. Proof of Stake for instance. In theory, a miner in a Proof of Stake system stakes a portion of his tokens for mining in order to prove his commitment to the network. The problem with this is that it doesn’t connect to a real resource, like electricity or even time, in any significant way. There’s no proof of anything except a proof that you’re part of a pyramid scheme. Proof of Stake has nothing to do with decentralization or sound money. Some altcoins have proposed a gradual shift from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake. This is the crypto-equivalent of quantitative easing which in turn is the central banking equivalent of counterfeiting. Don’t fall for it!

Bitcoin is a rare species of moose with great, big golden antlers which will survive for who knows how many generations. Proof of Stake coin are dead moose head trophies that will deteriorate and wither away with time.
Code for America Partners with Service+Tech
By: Hashim Mteuzi
Tags: Diversity In Tech, Diversity, Civic Tech Network, Inclusion, Public Interest Tech

Code for America is thrilled to announce a new partnership with Service Year Alliance on the Service+Tech initiative. Service+Tech provides free professional development to active service year corps members and alums. The term “service year” refers to a paid opportunity to develop real-world skills through hands-on service. Service year organizations include AmeriCorps, City Year, FoodCorps, Habitat for Humanity, Teach for America, and so many more. To help facilitate this, we’re leveraging the expertise of our network — where we’ve accumulated eight years of experience in navigating the nuances of civic tech — to provide inspiration and leadership. We’re also opening our Brigade doors to the 60k+ active service year corps members, plus alumni. At the time of this writing, we have 77 Brigade locations across the US where service year corps members and alums can get involved and be supported.

Service+Tech is an opportunity for service year corps members and alumni to develop essential technology skills, discover pathways into tech careers, and leverage technology to solve society’s most pressing challenges. The initiative gives participants access to programming — from speaker series to career fairs — that connects them with opportunities to utilize technology-centered approaches to solving America’s most pressing problems. Crucially, it also expands who can see themselves in tech, and recruits groups historically underrepresented in the technology sector. Learn more at ServicePlusTech.org

One way Code for America will be contributing to the Service+Tech initiative is through a new network speaker series. The series kicks off in January with a panel of service year alums currently working at Google, Amazon, and Facebook, who will share stories of working in both service and tech, and provide advice for others interested in following their path. The series will continue on a biweekly basis where we, along with partners such as LinkedIn, will share insights and opportunities to get engaged in the tech community. Participants will be exposed to tech training opportunities in a variety of formats, ranging from technology-focused boot camps to postgraduate-level training.

Additionally, Code for America Brigades are a fantastic place for new and aspiring technologists to gain exposure to civic tech opportunities. Our volunteer chapters are filled with service-minded folks with a wide variety of digital skills who often work in and around local government. Brigade members meet regularly to volunteer their time while meeting people with the skills and connections that allow them to leverage tech skills for good.

We’re excited about this partnership due to the natural synergy with our Talent Initiative, as we continue to work on building and diversifying the talent pool of public interest technologists. Find a Brigade near you and check out our Public Interest Tech Job Board for current opportunities within local government.