fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
COVID-19 News for State, Local, and Tribal Leaders, 10/01/20
By: Harvard Ash Center
Tags: Covid 19, Tribal Government, Local Government, State Government, Coronavirus

S.R. 95, Fort Mojave Indian Reservation, Arizona. Photograph by Ken Lund, 2010

Welcome to our weekly roundup of articles and resources for state, local, and tribal leaders creating policy to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic as well as steering the social and economic recovery for their communities. Postings below do not convey endorsement of any particular organization or opinion contained in links.

When COVID-19 forced Buffalo to shut down, the University at Buffalo helped the city’s essential 311 call center transition to remote work within 48 hours.

Abigail Echo-Hawk is working around the clock to close discriminatory data gaps.

Telehealth offers significant opportunities to raise community resilience to health threats, to address disparities in healthcare quality and access — and to boost overall health and happiness.

The federal loans were meant to help hospitals survive the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet they’re coming due now — at a time when many rural hospitals are still desperate for help.

Industry is also calling for another $32bn in emergency funding to keep going.

A nonpartisan online competition from October 23rd to 25th for students to write proposals for policy-based solutions to today’s most pressing challenges. Over the course of the policython, teams of one to four members will hear from partners, receive guidance from leading academics whilst writing proposals, and submit their policy memos to policymakers.

A new study has found minimal evidence that the novel coronavirus is transferring inside K-12 school buildings despite reports of students and faculty across the country contracting the disease.

Making climate progress is still within our grasp, but the critical first step is to recognize the perks of collaboration, and then to reach across the aisle.

As coronavirus wreaks havoc on existing structures, we take a look at some visions for cities of the future — and how they hold up.

Draw a map of Chicago and shade the areas with more poverty, pollution and coronavirus. It will start to look like being Black is a pre-existing condition.
I Blocked My Husband On Medium
By: Divina Grey
Tags: Writing, Life, Life Lessons, Relationships, Self Improvement

I Blocked My Husband On Medium

Better late than never

Photo by Jose Fontano on Unsplash

June 25, 2019

I haven’t done it yet.

But I am strongly considering it.

I don’t want to do it out of anger. Or, maybe I do. I’m just afraid.

I’m fearful of what my husband’s reaction will be. We aren’t in the healthiest place right now.

Medium is my healthy place.

My husband is having a hard time with that. A hard time, like, he’s a writer too all of a sudden.

Doesn’t he see how creepy that is?

I guess not.

I want, no — I need to write.

I’m holding myself back because I know he is all over it as soon as I make a move on here.

It’s bullshit now that I think about it.

It’s confusing as hell that he recently proposed the idea of being polyamorous to me, yet, can’t go a single day without being in my shit. Or let me have independent thoughts and write about them on Medium without feeling the urge to stalk me daily.

Am I missing something here?

Would he be able to handle (and fully consent to) his wife being mind-blowingly intimate and intertwined with another man or woman, completely separate from him?

Huh. That’s definitely another story for another day.

Not today, Medium. Not today.

It took me ten years to find a space where I can be me, not a mom, not a wife, just me.

He’s trampled all over that, not only by making an account (after he found out I had one) but continually checking up on me and covertly one-upping me by publishing articles for his readers.

Those articles seem more like personal rebuttals to me, his wife, now that I think about it.

Is that really necessary?

How could I be the unhealthy one for blocking my husband and having my own space to vent about motherhood and matrimony when he repeatedly disrespects my boundaries?

It’s not about secrecy for me. There is not a single word on here that he hasn’t heard from my mouth first. It is about where the only place I can go right now for refuge.

Medium is the only place where I own my identity.

It feels like he wants to take that away from me.

I can’t let him.

It’s the only scrap of autonomy I have left.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t want to read his stuff. It has too big of an impact on me right now. It’s confusing to be in the middle of my thoughts and have him insert his.

I didn’t join Medium to figure out his shit or for him to read my articles and fix me.

I’m on here to figure it out for myself.

It seems as though neither of us is in a healthy state at the moment. We both need a peaceful place to work on ourselves before expecting our marriage to be a safe space.

I don’t want to block him. I could, but it doesn’t feel right.

Writing feels good.

I need to keep writing.

If I’ve figured out anything from this post, it’s that: I have to keep communicating unapologetically no matter what I do.

I can figure the rest out as I go along.
E-learning platform for kids on Scratch 3.0
By: Alina Dementsevich
Tags: React, Javascript Development, Web Development, Case Study, Redux

Kids are awesome. So we were happy when one of our clients reached us with the task to create the working prototype of an e-learning product for them.

What Humansee Labs development team build: a working prototype of a new web application designed to help children aged 7–9 learn to code.

Scratch 3.0 (open-source, JavaScript-based web coding environment, code available from GitHub)

The e-learning platform based on Scratch block coding environment. It contains a proprietary floating video player which allows the user to watch the video while coding along with the lesson.

Approach

The Website we build for the client includes a “lesson select” page. We customized Scratch dashboard and visual environment.

Main page with the playlist of all lessons

The user chooses the lesson and arrives at the screen with an incorporated the floating video player and Scratch interface. On top of the page are placed a logo of the company. The user can move and resize the video player. It’s very comfortable when you learn something and repeat it at the same time.

Page with Scratch environment and video lesson

The playlist has the option to include a quiz with few variants of answers. When the user finishes to watch the video lesson starts the test. Each user gets points for his answers in these tests. All points are collected in user’s account.

Personal statistics and My achievements

Key Feature: customized video plugin

Our client decided to use Youtube API instead of using standard built in Scratch video plugin. Our dev team customized this API and made video player which allows:

the user to choose clips from a carousel of options within the chosen lesson;

the player to be moved around the screen and resized;

the user to return to a “lesson select” screen.

the moderator to host a playlist of videos

Result

A working prototype of a new web application for children aged 7–9 which are learning to code.
Part 1: Building a Flask Web Application
By: Elliott Saslow
Tags: Flask, Web Development, Python, Developer, Servers

Elliott Saslow

We will be building a flask server that we can use to post the work that we create in this class. Check out more about flask here

Lets build a website!!

Goals:

Website with home page and about page Flask server to handle calls AWS EC2 set up so that you can access the website remotely Smart Contract?

Part 1. Building the website:

To begin, we are going to be uing the command line to build out a folder system.

Create a new folder called flask_website: mkdir flask_website Create new folders within flask_website mkdir static mkdir templates Make a server file: touch server.py

Open flask_website folder in your favorite code editor

The Static folder will contain all of our javascript and css files.

The templates will contain all of our html pages
Why Photos of Ourselves Are Sometimes Disappointing
By: Jon Hawkins
Tags: Advice, Life Lessons, Life, Self, Psychology

Familiarity Works Against Us

If you’re anything like me, you can’t stand photos of yourself in a certain light. The wrong angle, the wrong lighting, or the wrong hair day. All are enough to ruin the photo.

We assume we look abnormal, or different to how we usually do; because the photo we are looking at doesn’t match our pre-existing schema of ourselves.

But maybe it’s not that you’re having a bad hair day, or are standing in an unflattering light. What if you actually look like that? It could be that you’ve just become accustomed to seeing yourself a certain way, and you find any other perception weird.

The mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968,) states that the more we encounter a stimulus, the more we like it. Therefore, we find attractive what we are familiar with.

And we’re familiar with a certain self-perception. For years, we’ve told ourselves we look identical to the person we see in the mirror. When we see a version of ourselves that doesn’t match that, it throws us off as weird and unusual.

That’s not to say that we don’t look like the person in the photo, or that this version of ourselves is ugly. All it means is we’re not used to seeing ourselves in that light.

Mirror, Mirror (On the Wall)

We prefer objects, people, and thoughts that we are familiar with. And the self-image we know best is the one we see in the mirror. Our mirrored self is the version of ourselves we know best.

But when we look in the mirror, our image is reversed. It depicts an inaccurate and distorted reflection of your body.

The truth is, you’re not familiar with your face. All you’ve ever seen is a reverse of it. Yet photos present your face as it appears for real/not reversed, and that’s why you look different in them.

That’s not to say you look worse or less attractive than the person you see in the mirror. In fact, others often think our mirrored self is less attractive. As highlighted by research undergone by Mita et al (1977), found that, while most of us prefer our mirror image, others prefer photos of that individual that show your “true image.”

On this account, it’s not that you look worse in a photo. You just look different.
Importing GSON into Eclipse.
Tags: User Library, Eclipse Ide, Tutorial, Java, Gson

This is a supplementary guide for the simple blockchain from scratch Java tutorial series.

What is GSON.

Gson is Java library created by google that enables you to get a JSON representation of a Java Object. Read more about it here.

Downloading GSON.

You will need to download Gson Jar ( “gson-2.6.2.jar” ) from the maven repo. Make sure to keep a note of where you saved it.

Creating a User Library for Gson.

Open Windows >preferences in the Eclipse menu, and navigate to the Java >Build path > User Libraries tab. Click new and enter a new User Library name: like “gson_lib” and hit ok. With “gson_lib” selected press Add External JARs and find the gson-2.6.2.jar you downloaded. Apply and Close.

Adding the User Library to a package.

Right click your package in package explorer > Build path > Add Libraries. Select User libraries and then press next, now just tick “gson_lib” and click finish.

Import it with import com.google.gson.*;
Hellion
By: Scott Leonardi
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Writing, Abstract, Poetry, Creative Writing

Image from Pixabay

Spellbound hellion

Nuisance of the hen house

Hellhound yelling on

Good news since the Zen drought

What is it boy? What do you want?

Sniffing at traces, your face looking gaunt

What is it girl? What do you see?

I’m shushing the bushes,

you’re showing your teeth

I should take note

from the fur and the fangs

Stop dwelling on death,

the birth of Big Bangs

It’s riddled with mystery

Armed to the eyes

I muster the lust to combust in my mind

But

I haven’t the time

Instinct and innocence

Pull it into the pulpit

Suffocated by raving droolers

Drowning in conspiracy spit

Another sacrifice for the Lord of the Horde

It’s hit or miss

Some make it out with a bite and a scratch

Others, unlucky

Forever detached

It’s warm in the swarm

but it comes with a catch

No longer natural

primal and free

When you vacate your headspace

for hellion seeds

Overgrown tangles

your feet in the weeds

How you’ll ever shake loose

A mystery to me
4 Important Reasons to Answer Others’ Programming Questions Online
By: Elvina Sh
Tags: Programming, Startup, Learning, Technology, Education

3. A Good Reputation Can Help You With Marketing

Of course, when you are a startup, you want to make money and promote your product. Helping others in areas in which you are very well versed and perhaps one of the best in the world will clearly push you forward. Becoming an expert on different platforms, helping others with your answers, and showing the depth of your knowledge can obviously improve your chances of getting new clients.

Photo by Merakist on Unsplash.

The CEOs of most tech startups are also people who are tech-savvy and often visit such platforms — or at least their head developers might share some solutions with them from such platforms. If they notice that you understand these issues much better than them, they can turn to your startup for help and become your client. As such, this path is also very important and can be useful.
10 UI/UX Trends in 2020
By: Design Studio
Tags: UI, Design, Trends, 2020, UX

It’s the new year, and time for another list of design trends! Tbh, design trends hardly see a drastic change with the onset of a new calendar year. It’s more like a smooth gradient; trends change gradually over the years. Drop a few years in the timeline, and then take a look at design styles. It is now that you will notice a stark difference.

With the onset of 2020 the internet is already flooded with articles on new design trends in UI/UX. While most of them brood on aesthetics and animation styles, I would like to tread on a slightly different path.

I feel that aesthetics and animation ideas cannot and should not bend the knee to trends. These are the outcomes of a creative mind, and creativity should not be restricted by opinions. I had once read on an advertising board:

Teach your child how to think Not what to think.

Well, while others guide you on what to design, let me talk about how to design.
The Service Reactor
By: Michael Schofield
Tags: Design, Service Design, User Experience, Podcast, UX

The service reactor is this work-in-progress model to demonstrate how a virtuous user research cycle and a commitment to discovery-validated delivery will generate enough proven insights to power a small city.

That’s a lot of made-up vocabulary designed to just consolidate this shit to a single sentence, so let’s break this down.

A “virtuous user research cycle” describes a system where your effort to make sense of some data results in the design of the next test to perform, the results of which return to the system.

“Discovery-validated delivery” is a requirement that end-user facing features of a product or service won’t be pursued until their demonstrable need and solution can be proven by existing user research.

A chain reaction beginning by cataloging raw data — survey answers, interview transcripts, a/b results, and so on — creates tactical and strategic insights, some aspects of which require more validation thus foreshadowing the next round of tests. Like a nuclear reactor, discovery-validated delivery creates pressure to perform those tests, which continues the chain reaction.

The chief product of the service reactor are insights that we use to validate our business decisions. At small scales, examples of these insights are:

evidence we need to rethink our menu structure because it’s confusing users,

indication that users need a way to opt-in to plain-text emails,

validation that this call-to-action works better than that one.

But as the catalog grows over time, new patterns emerge among unrelated sets of data, and that compounding value directly correlates to the scale of new insights. These are demonstrable proof that there is need among the userbase for entirely new services, let alone features. What’s more, because the service reactor creates insights as the byproduct of a process rather than insights that are specifically sought-out, the resulting service ideas may be orthogonal to your existing service provisions.

This is the drill maker getting into the business of designing entertainment units*. A service reactor powers the “innovation mill.”

The most important ethic I’m trying to convey with the service reactor is that while it is a vision to motivate an organization’s investment in ResearchOps, it is fundamentally user centric. Over time, there is no part of a service or product that is not derived from user research. The reactor ionizes the air with user centricity. You can’t help but breathe.
Edie’s Three
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Body Image, Self Love, Bees, Writing, Top 3

Edie’s Three

Top 3 for Sunday, October 27th

(Photo by Author)

Write What You Think, Not What Others Want

By: Sergey Faldin

Before coming to Medium, I never used to write non-fiction. I’ve since discovered that although it isn’t my first love, I’ve got a pretty good knack for it; but I have been struggling with content topics. Always wondering what I should be writing about, what do people want to read, what will they like, what won’t they like?

I love writing personal essays, but I’ve tried to stay away from them as much as possible (with the exception of a handful), simply because I didn’t think they would be well-received. Reading this piece today was like getting one of Oprah’s infamous ‘aha moments’. “Write what you think, not what others want” — and the audience you need will come to you.

What you think, what you want, is what you know best. It’s what comes easiest and most naturally to you. That will be reflected in your writing. You’ll be more believable, more ‘readable’. Just be you.

What About the Bees?

By: Sylvia Clare MSc. Psychol

So, I kind of have this thing for bees. I think they’re sweet little creatures that keep the world alive and get next to no credit for it. They’re feared, killed, hated, and people seem to have no clue that without them, we wouldn’t be around either.

I love Sylvia’s article, and it has inspired me to look into different types of plants for next summer so that I can attract a more diverse group of little buzzers! If you want to do your part for our little winged friends, have a read!

No More Shame: A Journey of Body Acceptance

By: Tiffany Amoakohene

We live in an age where body positivity and body acceptance is “trending” right now, but at the root of it, fat-shaming is still very much alive and thriving.

I’ve struggled with weight my whole life, and it took me decades to come to the realization that in order to get healthy, I need to love myself the way I am first. I know that I need to lose weight, but for me, it’s a lot less about physical appearance, and more about whole health. My mother is a diabetic, needing to inject herself daily. She has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and her heart isn’t in fantastic shape. My family also has a strong history of various cancers.

I know I need to find a healthy weight so I can set myself up for the best possible ‘golden years’.

I’ve stopped fat-shaming myself when I started to love myself. But I see it and hear it all the time. People not only fat-shame others — their friends, colleagues, perfect strangers, children — but they do it to themselves as well! This has to stop. There has to be a massive mind-shift change, and the focus has to be put on the causes and solutions versus pointing out the visual.

I love this article for the fact that it ends with acceptance and love.
Stop Selling Me Empty Writing Promises
By: Erica Ball
Tags: Writers On Writing, Humor, Rant, Writing, Writing Tips

Obviously, one of the appeals of platforms like Medium is the chance, however small, to make money writing. Yet many must, like me, quickly realize that isn’t the real value here for us. What I have found here are people to read what I write, and, once in a while, encourage me to keep going. I don’t anticipate that someone like me will get many followers, or make more than a few cents (which is why I no longer put posts behind the paywall).

People reading what I write is huge for me. I’ve never been able to share my writing like this before.

The thing is, when I first came here, I read a few of those “how to make money writing” posts. Who wouldn’t want to make some change doing something they love? But, at a certain point I tried to stop. I had noticed some of these posts are truly empty of quality and insight. I unfollowed several publications that seemed dominated by such posts.

You know, the ones that promise to teach you how to write 10 million words a day, or whatever nonsense, “market” myself, game the system, make a ton of money by selling this or that thing tangentially related to writing.

There are absolutely posts that offer real help and tips to people trying to start or maintain writing as a career. Some of these posts are absolutely amazing, and contain valuable insights.

But it’s clear to me that some of these people are just out to make money, here or elsewhere, off of writers, by writing about how to make money writing.

I’d be interested to see how many top earners on these platforms are those claiming to be helping beginning writers. Because, in this case, the more they dominate publications and are promoted, the less there is for the beginner writers themselves.

Also, you may have noticed: Some of these are super manipulative!

I don’t know who exactly needs to hear this. You probably know who you are, (if you ever read this, which I doubt):

Stop using the marketing tricks you are pretending to teach me, on me. Stop exploiting that side of me as though you are actually interested in “solving my problem”. You are hustling. You are manipulating. You know it, because you brag about it in these posts.

I am just here to write and read. If you are here to offer sincere help, that’s great. If you are here to manipulate those of us who love to write, or are eager to improve, I’ll say this:
Storiqa Presented Multicurrency Payment Solution at RISE 2018 HK
Tags: Event, Startup, Storiqa, Stqbusiness, Crypto

More than 16,000 visitors, 700 journalists, 760 start-ups from 120 countries attended the most powerful tech conference RISE, bringing together some of the most brilliant minds in tech from around the globe. Storiqa COO Andrian Galkin gave a presentation on Growth Summit stage, which is dedicated to the companies of the future: startups were given an opportunity to present their ideas and share their experiences. Andrian Galkin presented the company, highlighting our multicurrency solution Storiqa Wallet.

“RISE conference is a perfect place to present your company and meet other technological startups and giants. Storiqa is pleased to be able to share and exchange our developments as a blockchain marketplace and e wallet, we had a great time sharing our successful token sale and product development as a platform” says Senior Vice President, Alan Wong.

Also, we met reporters, anchors, and bloggers from the most influential international media.

Anastasia Taved (Storiqa PR director) and Steven Ten (cryptoticker.io)

Anastasia Taved gave an interview for cryptoticker.io. You will find the articles using links:

For all German speaking members:

Forbes Contributor Sam Ameen interviewed Andrian Galkin:

Moreover, Michelle Chang, TED Talks moderator, has invited Storiqa to lead next technology section of TED Talks in HK in January.

RISE 2018 — a great event for the world’s biggest companies and most exciting startups. The audience is very modern and is not confused challenging and bold ideas. IoT, AI, AR, blockchain were discussed at the conference most actively (what a surprise). “The optimism at the RISE technology conference here in Hong Kong is palpable” says BBC and we absolutely agree. We are sure that the number of supporters of cryptoshopping with STQ will increase! 🚀
How to Scrape a Static Website
By: Robert Chen
Tags: JavaScript, React, Frontend, Data, Web Scraping

A really quick tutorial

Prerequisites: Knowledge of React.js will be required for this tutorial.

Let’s say you want to pull data from the frontend of a website because there’s no API available. You inspect the page and see that the data is available in the HTML, so how do you gather that information to be used in your app? It’s rather simple, we’re going to install two libraries and write less than 50 lines of code to demonstrate the scraping of a website. To keep this tutorial simple, we’ll use https://pokedex.org/ as our example.

In terminal:

create-react-app scraping-demo

cd scraping-demo

npm i request-promise

npm i cheerio

2. We’re going to start by using request-promise to get the HTML from https://pokedex.org/ into a console log.

In App.js:

3. Sometimes you may come across a CORS error blocking you from fetching. For demonstration purposes, try fetching pokemon.com

rp("https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokedex/")

You should see an error like this in the console:

4. You can get around CORS by using https://cors-anywhere.herokuapp.com. Simply add that URL before your desired fetch URL like so:

rp("https://cors-anywhere.herokuapp.com/https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokedex/")

Now you should be able to see the HTML from pokemon.com show in your console.

5. But we won’t have to use cors-anywhere for rp("https://pokedex.org/") , so let’s proceed

6. Now that we have the HTML, let’s use the cheerio library to help us grab the exact data that we want from desired element tags. In this example, we’ll grab all the names of the pokemon then display them in a list.

In App.js:

7. You should see a list of all the pokemon names display onto your screen:

It’s that simple! You scraped those names from the HTML without having to directly access any backend. Now try scraping the examples on http://toscrape.com/ for practice. Enjoy your new abilities!
Marketing in Crypto: Crash & Burn or Build & Prosper?
By: Katoshi
Tags: Bitcoin, Marketing, Cryptocurrency, Marketing In Crypto, Marketing Strategies

1) Identity

All is simple: let’s think of crypto community members and newcomers as a customers first. Then open CoinMarketCap and count the number of projects: 1586 cryptocurrencies are competing for your existing and potential customers. It has been 10 years since Bitcoin was born and cryptocurrencies now become a more common definition in our lives. If we consider cryptocurrency as a product, brand management should take a place in a marketing story.

Identity can be a magic spell. Color palette, typography, imagery, tone of voice, even icons set and online elements are able to communicate beyond the words. Build your project a “face” to deliver a message.

Take seriously external materials, such as brand book, press-kit, one pager and different media templates. Creative materials guidelines are necessary to keep the holistic image persistence. Do the same for internal documents. Why? Your employees are internal customers and potential brand advocates. Have you seen team members standing up for honor of a project? The goal is to make it happen and keep it constant.

One day a newcomer brand will be able to sell an image and trust itself to ensure customers they hold a right cryptocurrency in their hands (and they are in right hands themselves).

Think about forming the first impression, scientific approach and even brand archetypes. Prepare necessary project documentation and marketing materials.
Review: DRN — Dilated Residual Networks (Image Classification & Semantic Segmentation)
By: Sik-Ho Tsang
Tags: Image Classification, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Semantic Segmentation, Machine Learning

Review: DRN — Dilated Residual Networks (Image Classification & Semantic Segmentation)

Using Dilated Convolution, Improved ResNet, for Image Classification, Image Localization & Semantic Segmentation

In this story, DRN (Dilated Residual Networks), from Princeton University and Intel Labs, is reviewed. After publishing DilatedNet in 2016 ICML for semantic segmentation, authors invented the DRN which can improve not only semantic segmentation, but also image classification, without increasing the model’s depth or complexity. It is published in 2017 CVPR with over 100 citations. (Sik-Ho Tsang @ Medium)
Web Scraping with Selenium IDE
By: Jeremy Opacich
Tags: Web Scraping, Selenium, Python, Beautifulsoup, Selenium Ide

What is Selenium?

Although Selenium is incredibly helpful with web scraping, this is not its explicit purpose; it’s actually a framework for testing web applications. It accomplishes this through two components, WebDriver and Selenium IDE.

The WebDriver accepts commands via programming code (in a variety of languages) and launches this code in your default web browser. Once the browser is launched, WebDriver will automate the commands, based on the scripted code, and simulate all possible user interactions with the page, including scrolling, clicking, and typing.

The Selenium IDE (integrated development environment) is a browser extension for Firefox and Chrome that allows you to record your interactions with a web page and edit those interactions to further customize your test. Via Selenium’s API, you can actually export the underlying code to a Python script, which can later be used in your Jupyter Notebook or text editor of choice.

How Selenium Helps with Web Scraping

As websites get more complex, simple scraping techniques and libraries (such as Beautiful Soup) might run into the following obstacles:

Java Script or CSS that obscure or transform the elements.

that obscure or transform the elements. Username and password authentication requirements that hide data on a web page fulfilled.

This is where the Selenium IDE shines. As it mimics a user and interacts with the front facing elements of a web page, it can easily identify the necessary Java Script or CSS code and provide the proper path to get you what you need. If a login pop-up box arrives, Selenium IDE can type in your credentials and move the process along.

The IDE can even assist you on your easier scraping tasks, by providing you the tags to any location you click on a page. Notice how tags is plural there? The IDE will give you a list of all possible tags for that link, providing you with multiple angles to attack your web scraping task.

Getting Started with the IDE

Coders of any skill level can get Selenium up and running, by simply starting with the IDE!

To use the IDE, you will need the extension with either Chrome or Firefox.

Selenium IDE on the Chrome Web Store

Selenium IDE on Firefox

Once you have the extension, open the IDE and select “Record a new test in a new project.”

Select a base URL for your project, in the next pop-up, and click “start recording.” This will open a new web browser and the IDE, which will track all of your actions. Click, scroll, type, and interact with the webpage in the manner that you choose. Note: it is beneficial that you click on the elements you want to scrape. We will cover this in depth later. When finished, click on the stop button in the IDE, in the upper right hand corner, and you are done.

Selenium IDE Features

When you are finished your output should look something like this:
Changes That’ll Make a Big Difference With Your Learning Programming For Kids : Any Kid Can Code
By: Laxman Singh
Tags: Kids Programming, Python, Kids, Technology, Kids And Tech

Here, we are going to use library named turtle and how:

import turtle

Then, type magical keywords and give suitable name to your turtle, I choose “jumper”.

jumper = turtle.pen() or see in case you have to use turtle.Pen() [CAPITAL P]

And suddenly we have the new window open or so called our own techie playground

Our Play area to make innovative figures

We have our own turtle

Most of you want to see turtle, lets give this arrow shape of turtle. Refer above image.

jumper.shape(“turtle”) or turtle.shape(“turtle”)

Now you are ready to move with turtle. Where you will move there will be line drawn. Thus you can create different images.

For basic understanding of the screen, we should know the X,Y axis. X axis is horizontal line and Y axis is vertical line. Coordinates (0,0) where X is 0 and Y is 0, is the position where our turtle is now. Try to Grasp it. If not, don’t worry we have commands to move turtle in playground.

2 dimensioal chart

Basic commands to play with Turtle

forward: to move forward in the direction of its mouth

left: to change the direction. Bit tricky, you have to have knowledge of angles.

up: When you move, it wont make any line, till you bring it down.

down: To bring it down, otherwise your turtle is flying turtle

shape, width, goto, color are the other commands to play with.

If you want to go more deeper, please go to the below link and take a lead:

https://docs.python.org/3.1/library/turtle.html

Lets make use of the above commands and make quadrilateral (square or rectangle)

I ran below commands in sequence and here we go, we have our first magic figure ready:

jumper.forward(100)

jumper.left(90)

jumper.forward(100)

jumper.left(90)

jumper.forward(100)

jumper.left(90)

jumper.forward(100)

our first creation: Square

jumper.left(90), will change the direction of your turtle in left upto 90 degrees. And, if you want to be creative, change this from 90 to some other number and see the magic. You will have magical figures turning up.

Just one important thing to mention, when you type command, try to use up arrow key. It will bring the previous commands and you need not to type and give pain to your fingers.

Magic to master this is to practice and practice. So, try to make 5–10 different figures. And, challenge yourself by putting the color inside those figures. It is pretty simple. I will be coming up with next blogs to that where we will learn new things in programming like conditions, loop and their types, variables and their usage etc.

Name your turtle and move as you want. Code and don’t forget to have fun! Included Links below for further Learnings!
Addiction
By: Jessica Zeek Krebsbach
Tags: Addiction, Partying, Mental Health, Family, Poetry

Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash

Addiction

A poem

I see the monster with big pink lips and seven black eyes all lined with ink. I press my finger into his soft round skull, tap gently on his sharp white teeth. Wet your hands in his spittle. Let him leap at your face and rip into your arms. Let him tear the red flesh from your bones. He is here for your Budweiser. He has come for your weed. He bites your cans and pierces their guts, then sucks out their juices and foam. He stands on your bones and spits into rubber. He chews on your tight, sticky buds, then washes his mouth with your vodka and wine. Hide your pills. Tuck them neatly. Place them high on the shelf. Cover your arms, drape your shoulders, this monster has come for your Budweiser and weed, your children, your husband, your family, your wife.
Revised Guidelines For Brave&Inspired (11/2/19)
By: Gretchen Lee Bourquin, Pom-Poet
Tags: Brave, Inspired, Guidelines, Writing

With all the new changes in Medium, it seems that a good game face is more important than ever. Each story needs to be readable and professional, whether it is a longer piece or a short poem. I now have tabs included on the top of the page, so to have your story go into the correct tab, they should be properly tagged.

Poetry — should be tagged poetry, and should have some theme of being inspired or behaving in a way that feels brave to you.

True Courage — is the tab for stories that happened to you. Please use This Happened to Me as one of your tags

Inspired — If your story is based on how someone else’s bravery inspired you, use “Inspiration” as your tag.

Stories may sometimes appear in more than one tab, that’s okay.

Self Promotion and Embeds

I am all for self-promotion and embeds, but your story should be mostly about what you are writing now. Excessive extras look messy and detract from your piece. Keep them reasonable.

Aside from that, all the standard stuff applies. Watch your grammar. I have Grammarly on my laptop, and if it catches something glaring, like a spelling error, I may fix that, but not much else. (I don’t “fix” UK spelling, even if Grammarly tells me to). Use a credited image with proper permission. Etc.

If you aren’t a writer on Brave&Inspired and feel you have the right kinds of stories to tell. Reply below to be added as a writer. Thanks!
Computing PI in Only 3 Lines
By: Blake Sanie
Tags: Calculus, Pi, Taylor Series, Python, Precision

Computing PI in Only 3 Lines

3.1415… the rest is calculus with a keyboard

Photo by sheri silver on Unsplash

I’ve always been amazed by how precisely computers can approximate Pi: the famous irrational constant 3.141592… plus infinitely more digits. Today, over 50 trillion digits have been found.

Though the value of Pi is essential to nature, Pi does not come naturally to computers. A number of algorithms are commonly used to approximate Pi, including the Gauss–Legendre, Borwein’s, and Salamin–Brent algorithms. These methods are extraordinarily efficient, but somewhat complex.

A More Straightforward Approach

There is one method — one that I discovered on my own in high school — that isn’t as fast, but is most elegant in its simple mathematic groundwork.

In calculus class, you probably studied the Taylor Series: an infinitely long summation that can model any function by matching all derivatives up to the nth degree. Our goal is to find the right Taylor Series such that the infinite summation converges to Pi itself.

Let’s start with a basic trig expression involving Pi.

1 = tan(π / 4)

Rearranging this equation allows us to solve directly for Pi.

π = 4 * arctan(1)

Though I won’t walk through the formal derivation, the Taylor Series for 4 * arctan(1) is

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which can be written in summation notation as

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As you can see, this definition of Pi finds its beauty in its simplicity.

Translating to Code (Python)

The formal summation we found falls hand-in-hand with modern programming methods, as the sigma is really a for-loop in disguise.

Amazingly, the summation itself only requires 3 lines of code! A variable pi holds the current sum, as new terms of the series are added on loop.

Though the above program is functional, the exponentiation runtime grows proportionally with i . An easy fix is using modulus to determine the next term’s sign.

Convergence and Algorithm Efficiency
Top 10 Features in Azure Synapse Analytics Workspace
By: Dayo Bamikole
Tags: Spark, Big Data, Azure, Azure Synapse Analytics, Data Warehouse

You also have the ability to Copy Data from multiple format:

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3. Data Flow

This is probably my favorite feature in Azure Synapse because it brings down the barrier in cleansing data. I’m a big proponent of making it easier to get things done (I think everyone should be :D). Data Flow brings SQL right to your doorsteps with the ability to perform common task like JOINS, UNIONS, Lookups, SELECT, Filter, Sort, Alter and much more. All with little to no code.

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It also gives you a good visual of your data cleansing process. Take a look an example below.

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4. Pipeline

Once you’ve created a Copy Job or Data Flow. You can run it through a pipeline. This gives you the chance to automate the process by Scheduling a Job by adding a trigger.

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or

adding other activities to your pipeline like a Spark Job, Azure Function, Store Procedure, Machine Learning, or Conditionals (If, then, ForEach etc).

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5. Write SQL Scripts

Under SQL Script you can write your familiar SQL Statements. It has the flexibility to connect to External Data Source outside of your Synapse Workspace e.g. Hadoop, Azure Data Lake Store or Azure Blog Storage. You can also connect to Public Datasets. Check out an examples below

Visualize your SQL Output

In the results window of a SQL Query, you have the option to visualize your results by changing your view menu from Table to Chart. This gives you the option to customize your results, for example the query I ran below gives me the option to view my result as a Line Chart, I can also edit the legends as I please and give it a Label. Once I’m done I can save the Chart as an image for further use outside of Azure Synapse.
Swapping with the Monster
By: Lola Sense
Tags: Self-awareness, Self Improvement, Self Love, Self, Poetry

POETRY

Swapping with the Monster

A poem on understanding why I’m an asshole sometimes

You come and go as you please. You love the surprise

and the grimace on my face when I realize

I’m being mean and cruel for no reason.

I don’t always recognize you — you’re subversive and sly.

Disguised as a simple annoyance, a whim, a mood,

you make yourself at home and wait for a chance to strike:

when I’m with a loved one or at my happiest.

Let’s switch, beast. I’ll be the fiend that feeds the fear

you constantly carry in the back of your mind.

Maybe I’ll take up residence in a nook you haven’t decluttered in a while.

But don’t worry, I’ll pay rent for it — I’ll feed you

apathy, pride, envy, and regret.

I’ll then package it all in poetry; you’ll think you’re deep and shit

while I remorselessly fuel your pain-body.

But I’m not like you. The Light in me, the Presence, would try

to understand you, where you come from, and the suffering

you conceal. Serenely,

I’d ambush you with care and understanding.

I’d let you untangle your want for attention and revenge,

your need to act out when things don’t go your way,

when you don’t receive what you’re entitled to.

I’d humbly dilute your heartache with tenderness.

Does that sound good? Let’s swap.

Lola Sense © All Rights Reserved.
How to Hash in Python
By: David Mezzetti
Tags: Encryption, Programming, Cybersecurity, Python, Duplicate Detection

3. Secure Hashing

Secure hashes and message digests have evolved over the years. From MD5 to SHA1 to SHA256 to SHA512.

Each method grows in size, improving security and reducing the risk of hash collisions. A collision is when two different arrays of data resolve to the same hash.

Hashing can take a large amount of arbitrary data and build a digest of the content. Open-source software builds digests of their packages to help users know that they can trust that files haven’t been tampered with. Small changes to the file will result in a much different hash.

Look at how different two MD5 hashes are after changing one character.

>>> import hashlib

>>> hashlib.md5(b"test1").hexdigest()

'5a105e8b9d40e1329780d62ea2265d8a'

>>> hashlib.md5(b"test2").hexdigest()

'ad0234829205b9033196ba818f7a872b'

Let’s look at some common secure hash algorithms.

MD5– 16 bytes/128 bit

MD5 hashes are 16 bytes or 128 bits long. See the example below, note that a hex digest is representing each byte as a hex string (i.e. the leading 09 is one byte). MD5 hashes are no longer commonly used.

>>> import hashlib

>>> hashlib.md5(b"test").hexdigest()

'098f6bcd4621d373cade4e832627b4f6'

>>> len(hashlib.md5(b"test").digest())

16

SHA1–20 bytes/160 bit

SHA1 hashes are 20 bytes or 160 bits long. SHA1 hashes are also no longer commonly used.

>>> import hashlib

>>> hashlib.sha1(b"test").hexdigest()

'a94a8fe5ccb19ba61c4c0873d391e987982fbbd3'

>>> len(hashlib.sha1(b"test").digest())

20

SHA256–32 bytes/256 bit

SHA256 hashes are 32 bytes or 256 bits long. SHA256 hashes are commonly used.

>>> import hashlib

>>> hashlib.sha256(b"test").hexdigest()

'9f86d081884c7d659a2feaa0c55ad015a3bf4f1b2b0b822cd15d6c15b0f00a08'

>>> len(hashlib.sha256(b"test").digest())

32

SHA512–64 bytes/512 bit

SHA512 hashes are 64 bytes or 512 bits long. SHA512 hashes are commonly used.
How I turned coffee into Bitcoin
By: Eric Friedman
Tags: Bitcoin, Life Lessons, Productivity, Coffee, Finance

I few months ago I had to lower my coffee consumption and was struggling to find the best way to “force” myself to do so. Nothing major prompted the change, but wanted a catalyst to really stop.

I have been following Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency for awhile, and thought I would use this as a way to get more.

In looking at all my options I figured out a way to turn coffee into Bitcoin…sort of.

The Digital Alchemist at Work

To really motivate myself I figured I would lower my costs by stopping purchasing coffee every day (easy!) but then divert funds into purchasing Bitcoin dollar cost averaging into the currency (hard!).

This prompted me to start looking for a recurring purchase into a cryptocurrency that was liquid and growing and quickly settled on BTC.

They say that using Bitcoin is key to its success and by purchase more and forcing a use case, I can help the overall ecosystem better. Having more will create usage, which will create value in the network, which will drive more use and hopefully the ecosystem as a whole.

Enter Coinbase (they have a referral program!) which is a great solution for setting up a reoccurring payment buy in platform. Below is what I set up:

The trick to dollar cost averaging into more Bitcoin was setting up a simple reoccurring transaction every week. This would prevent me from making a few coffee purchases (let’s be honest — this will get you just 1 cup in some NYC spots) and built my BTC balance.

While not the most economical approach as Coinbase has their fee structure, it really worked. I have been doing this for the past 6–9 months and it has worked well. Inadvertently I have lowered my spending habits too, being in less stores and coffee shops which evens out the fees a bit.

The question of course is where to store things, and I may wait for another post for that. In the interim BTC/USD has been trending in the right direction — although technically I shouldn’t care as I am now better equipped to weather a downturn.

While I am not quite there yet, I was partly inspired by my friend Steve

I think it is entirely possible that the value generated from purchases will yield a result, I think it’s far more likely that I will spend it first thus helping the ecosystem as a whole.

I have always been a tinkerer, and to really understand something you need to use it — this project has given me a great solution to coffee consumption and a BTC balance to spend on things.