fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
We’ve updated our submission guidelines
By: Kern Carter
Tags: Newsletter, Writing

We know the new year is coming up, but we didn’t want to wait to make changes. We’ve made some updates to our submission guidelines that will be important for all of our contributors. Here are the highlights:

Subject matter

Previously, all content needed to be consistent in either inspiring or educating our audience within the writing or general creative industry. We have broadened this scope to include stories of emotional tales or situations that you have experienced. It doesn’t have to be specifically about creativity, but it must be personal in describing your emotional condition.

How to submit

If you are new to CRY and not already one of our writers, we ask that you email your draft to kern@wecrydeep.com. Please make sure it is a draft within Medium and not already published.

To send a draft, simply click on the three dots beside “publish” on the top right corner of your story. You will then have the option to copy and paste the link which you can then email to the above address.

If you’re already a writer for CRY, simply submit your story in draft form. If you have not heard back from us within three days, it means we will not be publishing your piece.

No more writing prompts

We’ve made a name for ourselves with our regular writing prompts, but we’re giving that a bit of a rest, at least for this upcoming year. Instead, submissions will be open all year round. Feel free to submit whatever you like as long as it fits with what we’ve described in the subject matter heading.
Work for Yourself
By: Larry G. Maguire
Tags: Work, Freelancers, Self, Psychology, Working

Work for Yourself

The prospect of leaving stable employment and doing your own thing might be scary. But there is no greater tool in the growth of self.

After you work for yourself for a while, you won’t go back. If you are of a certain ilk, that is. You’re not born that way, working for yourself makes you that.

You might go back in body for a brief period, but it’s impossible to go back in mind.

Once you know, you know.

The cat’s out of the bag, the can of worms is open, the horse has bolted, and there’s no putting them back.

Krishnamurti said governments want technicians. Corporations do too. They might present all the right optics, say that they want free thinking, creative people in their organisation.

But they don’t.

Work for yourself.

At first it will be exciting. Then it will be hard. After that, both combine.

If you stick it out you’ll be a happier, more fulfilled, more contented human being.

Anything less than that and you forgo your right to liberty.
What To Do When You Miss A Writing Or Publishing Deadline
By: Writer S Relief
Tags: Writing, Writing Life, Writing Tips, Time Management, Publishing

There are two kinds of deadlines in a writer’s life: those you set for yourself, and those literary agents or editors set for you.

If you ignore your own self-imposed deadlines in favor of sleeping in a few extra minutes every day, you only have yourself to answer to.

But if you miss a writing or publishing deadline set by an agent or editor, it could derail your writing career. So what should you do when you suddenly glance at your watch, gasp, and realize you’re late?

7 Tips For Handling A Missed Deadline With Grace And Professionalism

Take the blame. You might be tempted to point to your editor’s unreasonable expectations or unexpected occurrences in your life, but editors and literary agents will appreciate it when you take responsibility.

Offer an explanation. Do you have a good reason for missing your deadline? Literary agents and editors want to be supportive of your writing: grant them the chance by giving them a legitimate explanation. Without passing blame or making excuses, briefly state the reason for missing your deadline.

Ask for a specific extension. Editors and agents have printers, coworkers, and bosses to answer to, so give them hard facts they can pass along. Let your editor and/or agent know exactly how much more time you need to meet your writing obligations.

Demonstrate understanding of the larger issues in play. Your deadline lapse may have a ripple effect and make other people’s jobs more difficult. So you may want to apologize for making your agent or editor’s life unnecessarily complicated.

Make the call. While your go-to means of communicating about your manuscript may be email — in this case, a phone call may be required to smooth ruffled feathers.

Be willing to take unconventional steps. Let your editor or agent know you are open to suggestions about how you might ameliorate any damage caused by you bungling the deadline. Perhaps your editor would be willing to start on the first half of your manuscript while you keep working on the second half.

Say thank you. Offer a sincere expression of gratitude to both your editor and agent for understanding.

The Best Way To Handle Deadline Drama…Is To Avoid It Entirely

If you take on a deadline, be sure you have realistic expectations of your own writing goals. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Calculate how many words you’ll need to write or revise every day to arrive at a rough estimate for a feasible timeline. Then, give yourself 15% padding — to allow for unforeseeable complications. If your projected numbers don’t match your editor’s deadline expectations, negotiate your due date ASAP — before it’s too late.
Sepia Memories
By: Priyanka Srivastava
Tags: Childhood, India, Memories, Writing, Tradition

Sepia Memories

A reflection about traditions

Photo by Amit Srivastava on Unsplash

Yesterday was Sharad Purnima or maybe day before yesterday.

I know because in the family what’s app group pictures of kheer/ indian rice pudding were floating around. I was reminded by mother in law to light a diya near Tulsi plant for a month because this month I won’t be travelling anywhere. I remember my grandmother doing the same. She would get the diya from the market and prepare cotton wicks for the whole month and for diwali too. I believe traditions make us hopeful about life. I am not religious like my mother but I do believe in following these simple traditions. They take me back to those memories which are slowly fading. I don’t have any memory of Halloween the new craze in India and I don’t have any inclination to celebrate it so yesterday while people dressed up in black and flooded social media with halloween pics, I lit that diya and placed it near Tulsi plant.

That October breeze caressed me quietly and for a minute I thought I am in my home. The memories of those old days again littered my mind.
How To Get Past Writing That First Chapter
By: Lana Graham
Tags: Perfectionism, Plot, Writing, Writer, Writing Tips

How To Get Past Writing That First Chapter

Hint: Stop rewriting!

Photo by Hannah Skelly on Unsplash

If you’re like me and have multiple draft manuscripts in your writing folder that never get past that first chapter, here are a few helpful hints I’ve picked up along the way to get you to that final chapter.

Plot Your Storyline

I’m fairly organised with my writing schedule, but I consider myself to be a plantser in regards to my writing style. That’s smack-bang in between a plotter and a pantser. If you’d like to read more about plotters and pantsers, here’s an article I wrote about it:

Having a plot outline is easy if you’re a plotter. It comes naturally. But if you’re a pantser or a plantser, like me, then sometimes going with the flow means nothing gets done.

Creating a plot outline gives you the confidence to know where you’re writing towards so you don’t keep rewriting that first chapter because your storyline keeps changing every second.

It doesn’t have to be as intricate as Joseph Heller’s plot outline for Catch-22.

Joseph Heller’s detailed plot outline

A plot outline can be as simple as filling in the blanks. Here’s a simple plot outline that I created:

Fill-in-the-blanks simple plot outline template

Having a plot outline of where your manuscript is headed is one way to ensure you get past writing (or rewriting) that first chapter.

Put Perfectionism In Its Place

I don’t know about you but perfectionism plays a big part in my struggle to get past that first chapter. Just when you think you’ve written the ‘perfect’ chapter, you re-read it and find major flaws. The structure just isn’t working. Or you realise you’ve written the word ‘that’ 128 times. You do a quick edit and let the manuscript ‘rest’. You come back a week later (because you’re too impatient to leave it on the shelf any longer) and realise there are more things that need fixing. You change the perspective to first-person, but that doesn’t work, so you change it back to third-person again. After another edit, you realise the entire first chapter is probably ‘back story,’ and you need to start all over again…

If any of this sounds familiar, then you too may be suffering from perfectionism. It’s not all bad news though. Perfectionists get a lot done. But we are also in constant fear of not getting a lot done. We procrastinate because we haven’t got around to doing everything on our list. We’re anxious. Fearful of criticism. The list goes on. If you want to read more about perfection, here’s my take on it:

Just Keep Writing

It’s a simple tip but can be the most difficult to follow. Having the guts to keep going even when you think you’re failing (or you have failed) is a hallmark of success. When you don’t have enough hours in the day to write, then do it tomorrow. Just don’t stop writing. Don’t beat yourself up about not keeping to a strict writing schedule, because life is unpredictable and we are only human, after all. The important lesson to take away is to keep at it. Just keep writing and you will succeed.
The Top 6 JavaScript Features From ES2020
By: Joan Saum
Tags: Nodejs, React, Programming, JavaScript, Angular

1. Dynamic import()

Dynamic import in JavaScript enables you to import JS files only when you need it. It is known as code splitting.

Previously, this was possible using Webpack with your project. But with this new version of ES2020, the feature will be handled natively.
Why I’ve Made a Writing Schedule
By: Michelle Lee-Ann
Tags: Writing Life, Writers On Writing, Writing, Write, Writing Tips

Why I’ve Made a Writing Schedule

And, why you should, too.

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

Every morning, I make a cup of coffee, take a minute or 30 for myself, then I sit down in front of my computer and write. On the weekends, that minute for myself gets longer and longer, but I still sit down and write. I write different things, fun projeects, things just for myself, things that don’t have deadlines.

For the longest time I never held a writing schedule; instead, I wrote only when I felt like it, only when the inspiration struck. Which meant that I was writing maybe 1,000 words a week.

Then, I started a blog and had to write twice a week. Then, I started writing on Medium and had to write 4–5 times a week, combined with my blog. Which may not be a lot for some writers here in Medium who churn out work daily, but for me, it’s the perfect amount.

Is it making me rich? No. Maybe, eventually, I’ll make better money off of my writing, but for now it’s all I need.

While writing when you feel inspired and excited about something is the best time to write, the words just flow and everything feels perfect, it’s not going to get you very far if that’s the only way you write. Sure, you may finish that book in 30 years and you may publish a really great article or two, but you won’t be consistent and consistency is key with everything, especially writing.

I now started to write even when I don’t want to. I’ve made myself this little schedule and I carved out time to get my writing down in the morning hours. I chose the morning because that’s when I work the best. I’m a morning person and love to get up and start the day and start banging away on any project I have in front of me. In the evenings I’m a lazy slob who doesn’t want to move from the couch even to get more snacks.

Sure, I deviate from the schedule every so often, and have some weeks where I barely write, at all. But, I’ve learned that by keeping to an actual schedule, I’m treating my passion more like actual work, and allowing myself to take it a little more seriously. It helps keep me focused on the tasks at hand, at my immediate goals, and those so far off in the future they’re shaking hangs with Chewbacca.

I may not be writing the best stuff every day (that’s what editing is for), but I’m writing. I’m getting what I need to be doing done and continuing on with my life. It helps keep me focused on my writing and lets me relax the rest of the day. Because once it’s time to leave for my short shift at work, I’m done writing for the day. If the mood strikes at 8:00pm, I’ll sit down and write, or if I’m on a deadline, I’ll sit down and write, but I won’t feel guilty about not writing in the evening because I’ve already done what was needed to be done.

Find a time that works for you.

Stick to it, no matter what. Obviously illness and emergencies and long-lost friends showing up at your door don’t count.

Keep doing it until it becomes a routine. Eventually, you’ll start seeing results, even if it has nothing to do with monetary gain.
By: ตง, วรพล ร ตนพ นธ
Tags: New Ways Of Working, Management, Productivity

ในหนังสือ High Output Management หนังสือ management ระดับตำนานโดย Andy Grove ได้สรุปเรื่อง output ไว้อย่างกระชับได้ใจความว่า…

A manager’s output = the output of his organization + the output of the neighboring organizations under his influence.
How I Became a Top Writer in 3 Topics in One Month
By: Tenzin Ozaki
Tags: Writer, Self, Life Lessons, Productivity, Self Improvement

Develop Your Routine

No one will give you the magic writing routine that will let you shit out masterpieces. You can learn from other writers and test out their methods. But ultimately, your routine will be of your creation.

I read a ton of articles about the tools and routines of other writers, trying to emulate their strategies. It increased my productivity, to an extent. However, creating my own strategy increased my output by at least 5x.

When you’re focusing on other writer’s routines, you put yourself in a do-not-have mindset. You think there’s some tip or trick out there that is waiting to take you to the next level. If you let that feeling fester, it will come back to haunt you when you’re vulnerable.

In my case, on days when I was feeling uninspired, I would read “How to Become a Better Writer on Medium” articles instead of focusing on writing. This desire to copy another writer’s routine made me look at what I don’t have.

There is a successful routine inside of you. You just need to find it.

Here’s what I do, in case you’re wondering. When I sit down for a dedicated writing period, I make sure to have all my essentials within reach. My essentials include my laptop and charger, a water bottle, a blank sheet of paper and a pen to jot down notes, a pair of socks in case my feet get cold, and a bowl of healthy snacks.

Once my essentials are covered, I turn my phone on silent and stash it in my desk. I turn on some chill music; I type ‘Chillhop study playlist’ into Youtube. I blacklist sites like YouTube or Instagram on my laptop. Then I sit my ass down and don’t get up until I’ve worked through my writing period.

I may have taken bits and pieces of other people’s processes. But I didn’t inherit my method from a Medium article or YouTube video explaining how to become a better writer. I discovered a process that worked for me, and I made it my own.

Find what works for you.
Filtering Fruits in JavaScript and React
By: Chandler Hanson
Tags: React, Javascript Tips, Codingbootcamp, Coding, JavaScript

Photo by Brenda Godinez on Unsplash

The filter() method in JavaScript is a useful method that loops through an array and grabs all elements that are true based on the condition provided. filter() does not mutate the original array on which it is called. A new array will be created and will be filled with the contents of the original array that are true based on the callback function. I will go through examples on how to filter information in JavaScript and React.

Writing a filter function vs using filter() method

We can filter an array without using the filter() method but we would have to write much more code. We have this array of fruits:

let fruits = ['strawberry', 'banana', 'apple', 'blueberry', 'orange', 'grape']

We want all the fruits that are longer than five letters and put them into a new array. Without using the filter() method, we can create a function that takes in an array. This function will iterate through each element of the array using a for-loop and see if that element is longer than five letters. If the element is longer than five letters, it will be put into a new array.

This function returned: ['strawberry', 'banana', 'blueberry', 'orange']

The filter() method can shrink all that code into a single line. This code much cleaner and easier to read.

let filteredFruits = fruits.filter(fruit => fruit.length > 5)

Using filter() in a React app

The filter() method is a programmers best friend to render or grab specific data. We will use filter() to grab an object and delete from one array and add it to another. We have the fruits from above and When you click on a fruit in the fruits section, you have successfully eaten the fruit. We want the fruit clicked on to be deleted from the fruits array and be added to the fruits eaten array.

Initial state

apple was clicked on in the Fruits section. It is deleted from the Fruits array and moved into the Fruits Eaten array.

To see how each component communicates with each other, you can find this project’s GitHub repository here. The fruits array is iterated over with a map() method and creates a Fruit component for each fruit. When the fruit is clicked, that fruit is deleted from fruits array and added to the fruits eaten array. When we click on the fruit, it will grab that fruit object and trigger the handleClick function.
US Reaches 200,000 Covid Deaths
By: Liza Donnelly
Tags: Covid 19, Politics, Death, Trump, Coronavirus

More from Liza Donnelly Follow

Visual journalist/writer for New Yorker, New York Times, CBS News, CNN. TED, SXSW speaker. Looking to change world w humor. lizadonnelly.com
The worst way to get the first row from a table
By: Andrew Davis
Tags: Database Development, Typescript, Knexjs, Web Development

The worst way to get the first row from a table Andrew Davis Follow Apr 1 · 2 min read

There are a lot of ways to retrieve a specific row from a table in a database. During an incident I recently discovered one of the worst.

Take a look at this Typescript and Knex-esque code. Lets say each row has two unique identifiers. The caller can supply either of them.

async function getSingleRow(id?: number, otherId?: number) {

const query = getTable()

if (id) {

query.where('id', id)

}

if (otherId) {

query.where('otherid', otherId)

}

return await query.select().first()

}

But what happens if you supply neither parameter? What happens if due to a bug you supply a falsey value for both parameters?

The compiler doesn’t complain as that satisfies the types you have specified.

The code even runs without error and a row is returned as expected.

It appears all is well however you have just run a select statement with no where condition then grabbed the first row in the table. Probably not what you want and possibly something you may not even notice unless you are really paying attention.

A Simple Fix

Doubtless there are multiple ways to avoid this subtly broken behaviour. Below is a simple way to make this implicit error condition very explicit. This greatly increases the chances that this will be caught during local development or by automated tests.
Announcing Okio 2: Our fast + simple I/O library, Okio, has a new release that supports Kotlin.
By: Jesse Wilson
Tags: Android, Engineering, Open Source, Coding, Kotlin

Heads up, we’ve moved! If you’d like to continue keeping up with the latest technical content from Square please visit us at our new home https://developer.squareup.com/blog

At Square, we’re excited about Kotlin. It’s a capable language to build Java libraries and applications with. We love to write code that is both compact and efficient.

We’re also eager to adopt Kotlin’s powerful new features. Kotlin/Native will allow us to share code between iOS and Android. Coroutines make concurrent programs easier to create and maintain.

Today we’re releasing Okio 2.0. In this release we’ve converted the project’s source code from .java to .kt . The conversion lets us use Kotlin in the library and offer APIs that feel right when the calling code is in Kotlin. It also gives us the opportunity to support multiplatform and coroutines in the future.

Compatibility

The new release is binary-compatible with Okio 1.15.0. You can replace the old .jar file with the new one and your applications and libraries should just work.

The update is also Java source-compatible. When you configure your pom.xml or build.gradle to use the new version you won’t have to change any .java code to get a clean build. (Our changelog notes one minor exception to this, unrelated to the Kotlin transition.)

But the update is not Kotlin source-compatible; it adopts Kotlin idioms where they apply. For example, if you’re using ByteString.decodeHex("f00d") you’ll now need "f00d".decodeHex() . We’re using Kotlin’s @Deprecated annotation for a smooth upgrade process.

IntelliJ makes fixing deprecations easy

Dependencies

Okio is core to many of Square’s open source projects. We use it for fast I/O in OkHttp, Retrofit, Moshi, and Wire. When these projects upgrade to Okio 2 they will gain a transitive dependency on Kotlin’s standard library.

Kotlin is the best language for Android application development. We expect many Android teams to already be using Kotlin. For their projects Kotlin is already among the applications’ dependencies. Those that don’t can use R8 or ProGuard to shrink the Kotlin library dependency. When we measured, the net increase was negligible: just 7 KiB.

For server applications we expect the dependency size to be inconsequential. But we worry about potential diamond-dependency versioning problems. To minimize the chance of such problems we will avoid experimental and deprecated APIs.

For libraries and SDKs that use Okio or its sibling libraries we assume the ultimate deployment target will be to Android or a server. In either case we believe the dependency is acceptable.

Good Stuff

Kotlin is a beautiful language with broad applications. We hope Okio 2 helps to further extend Kotlin’s capabilities.

Get the new Okio with Gradle:

compile ‘com.squareup.okio:okio:2.0.0’

Or Maven:

<dependency>

<groupId>com.squareup.okio</groupId>

<artifactId>okio</artifactId>

<version>2.0.0</version>

</dependency>

Full release details are in the changelog. The readme has an API guide.
Exploring ways to export clean .svg icons with Sketch…the correct way
By: Sean Kesterson
Tags: Design, Sketch, UX

Let me walk you through this particular example that was both confusing and eye opening.

Recently, I had to make an icon set for our new product at Lucidworks. The workflow was pretty straight forward, but once I started to export these bad boys everything went downhill. Once you open the .svg file into Sublime Text you see all of the clutter that was generated from Sketch. Most is pretty useless and starts to mess with the way the .svg acts if you want to manipulate them in code. In our case, we wanted that full control.

To speed up the workflow on my end, I needed to export cleaner code for the team so they can continue on the project, rather than go into each .svg file and delete all of the clutter themselves.

When you export in Sketch, it generates a lot of messy code. In this example, I designed a simple right arrow icon. This was the outcome:

Most of this code is worthless and we don’t need. In fact all we really want is the <viewbox> and <path d>. The rest of the junk can get tossed b/c we can control all of this in css globally to the whole set, rather than individual icons. The real headache was the <rect id>, <transform> & <translate>. No matter what I did, Sketch would export these attributes. This was a real problem b/c once you open the .svg in html, the icon was all messed up. Especially if you want to manipulate the icon like we need to.
“The Penis Is Too Jarring And Ugly to Be Seen With No Warning.”
By: Jada Mikel
Tags: Social Media, Beauty, Science, Sexuality, Sex

“The Penis Is Too Jarring And Ugly to Be Seen With No Warning.”

Ozzy Etomi, a supposed feminist once said. And this is the message she tried to pass

Photo by Dainis Graveris on Unsplash

Friday, 27th of November at precisely 04:38 GMT, a supposed feminist and founding member of a Nigerian feminist organization called Feminist Coalition(@feminist.co), Ozzy Etomi tweeted, “The penis is too jarring and ugly to be seen with no warning.”

Photo from Twitter

The message administered rather very wrongly turned out to be seen by many due to Twitter’s accurate algorithms. Her tweet went viral in a short period of 3 hours. The main reason being the huge amounts of comments the tweet received — most were from men.

The statement, “The penis is too jarring and ugly,” is the only line a lot of people saw. As a matter of fact, the rest of the tweet was entirely disregarded by nothing less than 90% of men in the comment section. Such a tweet went viral but no message was passed — all because of a wrongly administered word.

Although most women got the message and correlated with it, the message was particularly meant for men.

These are some of the replies the tweet received:

Photo from Twitter

Photo from Twitter

Photo from Twitter

Photo from Twitter

A lot of men went out of their way to shame the vagina thereby speaking very badly of how it looks — forgetting the message of the tweet.

Ozzy’s tweet per se had one very specific message to men.

Don’t send nude photos of your penis to people without notifying the one you aim to send them to. Why? Because it could be a turn-off. Men have failed to understand that the penis is not the only part of the body which is attractive, there are other parts women would love to see — not just the penis. We’ve been seeing it for years in our dms.

So, no. Your penis is not ugly. It’s just better when it’s not in pictures, and no one wants to kill the excitement of seeing the penis live and being able to touch, except men. Understand that before you send a dick photo, it is important to forewarn your partner or whoever is in question. It’s respectful and attractive.

More from the author:
The Difference Between Living in New York and San Francisco
By: Sarah Cooper
Tags: Humor, San Francisco, New York

This originally appeared on TheCooperReview.com.

After living in New York for 5 years, I recently moved to San Francisco. Neither city is clearly superior, but there are some distinct differences…

Read more funnies at TheCooperReview.com.
Šest hrvatskih inovatora osvojilo je 11 odličja na Britanskom sajmu inovacija
Tags: Startup, Poslodavac

in In Fitness And In Health
Shopify & Dynamic Remarketing
By: Alexandra Poulopoulou
Tags: Shopify, Dynamic Remarketing, Marketing, Google Ads, Digital Marketing

Shopify & Dynamic Remarketing

The “what, why & how” guide to winning back your non-converting customers

iStock Photo by Getty Images

The holiday season is here and due to the special circumstances we live in (COVID-19), merchants should think about investing more in digital marketing strategies. The most common pain point of online merchants around the world is non-converting customers: people who visit your e-store, search around a bit, and then leave without purchasing.

Well, not for long — dynamic remarketing ads are the answer to all your problems.

By setting up dynamic remarketing campaigns, you will be able to personalize the ads displayed to your customers and stop guessing what they would be interested in. Trust me on this: the results in sales are outstanding.

Unfortunately, this is not always an easy task to complete, especially when we talk about Shopify stores. The implementation is often complicated and the results are not always to be trusted.

What you will need:
The Importance of Feeling to Heal
By: Tina S
Tags: Mental Health, Self, Feelings, Healing, Self Improvement

The Importance of Feeling to Heal

Is there a shortcut to healing?

Photo by Luis Galvez on Unsplash

I couldn’t heal because I kept pretending I wasn’t hurt.

I came upon this quote today and it got me thinking.

When things hurt, we try to pretend they don't. We convince ourselves that we are fine but we are well aware the thoughts are as loud as ever.

And we beat ourselves up about it. Why can’t I just get over it? I’m much stronger than this. This is not even that important, why am I upset? What is wrong with me?

We keep on flooding our minds with self-deprecating thoughts till we reach a point where the problem is no longer what happened to us. Now, the problem is within us. The problem seems to be us.

Well, actually it’s our minds. And it’s not really a problem, at least it doesn't intend to be. We are human, and humans have different responses to different stimuli. One very important physiological reaction to stressful or frightening events is to fight or flee. This is our fight or flight response.

When you sense danger, you might choose to fight it, or, as many of us do, you chose to run away from it. And running away can come in all forms. Some focus on their work and forget about their well-being, others insist that nothing is wrong, and others simply don't let themselves think about it.

We try to run away from the truth of things. We run away from the truth of us. From the truth of our hearts and minds.

Why? This comes from the fear of facing reality, because reality might hurt.

If you refuse to acknowledge the damage your experience is causing you, it will find ways to acknowledge its self. You might start getting mad easily. You might cry. You might withdraw from society. You might get physically sick.

If something hurts, you should not ignore it. For the pain to heal, you must first accept the fact that the pain exists.

You must feel it. It is there and it hurts. But guess what, it’s nothing you can’t handle. Because if you start to feel, you start to heal.

And healing does not mean no pain

But healing pain is different than non-healing pain. Healing pain will help you grow in the long run.

Keep in mind that healing is different for each person. It is crucial to see how you could efficiently heal.

Going to therapy, turning to religion, working out, finding what makes them happy are all ways people use to heal. It’s not one thing or another, it could be a combination.

With this people are now in their fight response. They are fighting against their negativity. They are growing stronger even though it hurts temporarily.

If you keep pretending you're not hurting and refuse to get help if it is needed, you're delaying your healing process.
How to Migrate Your Local MongoDB Database Between Computers
By: Tek Loon
Tags: Database, Mongodb, Software Engineering, Mongo, Programming

Restore MongoDB Data

At this stage, you already have your dump-files directory in your new machine. Next, we can proceed to restore the MongoDB data.

Let’s assume I saved my dump directory at this path ~/Downloads/mongo-migration .

Now we can use the default root role we have in our MongoDB to restore the database. Refer to the command below.

We can use this single command to restore all of the database, and you’d have the exact same database as previously.

Restore multiple DBs

However, there could be a scenario where you only want to restore a few DBs, excluding a few DBs from the dump directory.

For example, I want to restore the audit and client tables during this round. We can do this by using --nsInclude with the nsExclude option in mongorestore .

Example of using --nsInclude

We can use --nsInclude to select only the database and collections that we want to restore. In the command below, we restore all the collections in the audit database using audit.* and all collections in the client database using client.* .

The wildcard after the dot notation means all collections in the database. If you want to include or exclude multiple databases, you’d need to specify it as nsInclude or nsExclude . Refer to the example below.

Example of using --nsExclude

We can use nsExclude to exclude the database and collections we don’t want to restore. In the command below, we exclude the partner , promotions , transaction , and utilities databases.

Restore a single DB

Lastly, this is the command to restore a single DB. There are a few things to take note of here:

-d options: Specify the database name to be restored. This is a required option.

options: Specify the database name to be restored. This is a required option. Specify the correct dump directory. For example, if I’m restoring the utilities database, I must specify the utilities database dump directory.

Refer to the command below.
Build a Skeleton Component in React for Better UX
Tags: React, Nodejs, Reactjs, Programming, JavaScript

1. Structure the Skeleton UI

The step is, obviously, to make the empty skeleton components:

The skeleton should look the same as the content as much as possible

When you make the skeleton component, there’s one thing you should be careful about. The purpose of the skeleton UI is to reduce a boring wait for the data, so they shouldn’t look too different from the real UI components. If they’re too different, users may feel like the skeleton is another independent UI component.

2. CSS animation

The second step is to choose the animation that will go through the skeleton. Some people use pure CSS animation and some people use an image. I personally prefer to use an image, especially when the animation contains some gradient background colors.

Original source of the image is npm

You see the white gradient that goes through the skeleton from the left to the right? To paint that every 16.6ms is an unnecessary amount of work for the CPU — it has to calculate every gradient color value on each spot and work with GPU to represent it on the screen. For this reason, I prefer to use an image.

However, in this example, I’m going to use pure CSS to show you how to do it. It may not always be possible to use an image.

I made a gradient background like so to the element that wraps the whole contents. But, this looks weird — you can see the whole gradient pillar. We only want it to show in the gray area.

To achieve this we add the pseudo-class to every gray element.

Remember that the element the gradient background belongs to should have the styles like this:
How Wendy’s Revolutionized Corporate Social Media Accounts
By: Justin Thorne
Tags: Marketing, Advertising, Wendys, Twitter, Social Media

How Wendy’s Revolutionized Corporate Social Media Accounts

From Twitter to Twitch

Source: author’s screenshot from Twitter

In 2017, one of the biggest memes on the internet was Wendy’s Twitter account. One of the most unexpected things for a fast food joint to do in order to get an edge on their competitors, Wendy’s started roasting other Twitter users and brands in order to gain popularity.

Source: author’s screenshot from Twitter

Wendy’s Twitter account quickly became one of the best places on the internet if you wanted to search for roasts or memes. This quickly made Wendy’s popularity increase both on Twitter and in house. In 2017 Wendy’s Twitter account went from 2.1 to 2.4 million followers in just six months, and their account currently has 3.7 million followers.

Source: author’s screenshot from Twitter

Financially this also proved to be an ingenious marketing move by Wendy’s as their net income increased from $129.6 million to $194 million. For those of you that don’t want to do the math, that is a 49.7% growth in one year. For any brand, that kind of growth would be wildly impressive but it is even more impressive from an established brand that many people might assume has already reached most of their consumer base.
Fashion History: Hermès Birkin
By: Jen Eve
Tags: Fashion, History, Art, Creativity, Style

In the early 1980s, Jean-Louis Dumas was the chief executive officer of Hermès. He was on a flight from Paris to London. On the flight, he was seated next to a popular English actress and singer named, Jane Birkin.

Apparently, Birkin put her bag in the overhead compartment when all of a sudden, her bag dropped and everything inside of it fell out. (via Wikipedia)

According to Hermès, Birkin told Dumas that she had a hard time finding a bag that was suitable for her because she was a young mother. However, Wikipedia claimed that Jane Birkin said that she could not find the right weekend bag. On the other hand, there were a few sites like Freeman’s who claimed that Dumas suggested Birkin to find a bag with pockets inside of them.

Although the topic of the conversation was unclear, it sparked something inside of Dumas to create a leather bag called “The Birkin.”

Quickly, this bag became a symbol of wealth and luxury. At some point, it was known as a rare bag because not everybody could purchase it. A Birkin can typically range between $8500 to $500,000.

According to Town & Country, it takes 48 hours to make one Birkin and Hermès only allows a certain amount of orders per year. These reasons also contributes to why the Birkin is rare too.

Today, if someone wanted to purchase a Birkin, they would be put on a waitlist. Many people have claimed that they cannot go to an Hermès store and/or their website to purchase a bag and bring it home immediately. There are specific ways for you to purchase the bag and to enter the waitlist.

Update: There’s a number of websites that claim that Hermès does not do a waitlist anymore. However, I see other websites that claim that a waitlist is still implemented at the store. I’m assuming it depends on the store and their regulations. It’s encouraged that buyers go in-person to purchase a bag or purchase the bags from a second-hand store.
Building a historical price engine using InfluxDB
By: Saurabh Goyal
Tags: Big Data, Influxdb, Cryptocurrency

We wanted to build a service which can store price data for multiple financial products (like BTC future quoted in USD) and can answer time based price aggregation queries within milliseconds.

Choosing InfluxDB

We evaluated a bunch of time series databases and decided to finally go ahead with InfluxDB.

Pros

SQL like query language Supports auto rollups using Continuous Query Comes with clustering support (Enterprise version) Easy StatsD integration

Since InfluxDB was going to do most of the major heavy lifting, we decided to go ahead with an express server. Nodejs was also an obvious choice to ingest trades data from our Kafka cluster.

Setup

Our trading engine publishes all trades on a Kafka topic. We have a service written in Nodejs which reads data from Kafka topic and writes it to InfluxDB. We define Continuous Queries (CQ) in InfluxDB to create aggregates for certain pre-defined resolutions. So for example, we create a CQ which runs every 5 mins and calculates price aggregates for the last 5 minutes. We choose the following resolutions — 1m, 5m, 15m, 1hr, 6hr, 1day.

Nodejs Service — Kafka to InfluxDB

Service to ingest messages from Kafka and insert into InfluxDB

Influx Schema

OHLC data in computed periodically for different resolutions (1m, 5m, 15m …)

For a detailed understanding on how to setup InfluxDB, we suggest the reader to go through official InfluxDB docs.
decision
By: Joan Evans
Tags: Depression, Poetry, Relationships, Self, Psychology

The river below looked as drab and grey

as the still, forbidding sky above. The day

was a perfect underscore for my mood.

No. More than mood. The life

I’ve prepared to abandon for months.

The dreariness of living has laid a

road ahead far too bleak to consider.

I am through, as the cold wraps

itself around my thin coat, my

weak, frail body. I am numb to caring.

As the wind picks up, I feel icy frost catch in

my hair on my bare head. My face, too,

is by now bitten by frost. It must be painful.

I feel nothing. Just weary from standing,

looking down, bracing myself against the wind.
The Meaning Of Wealth
By: Megan Minutillo
Tags: Poetry, Self-awareness, Mindset, Personal Growth, Wealth

The Meaning Of Wealth

A poem.

Photo by Budka Damdinsuren on Unsplash

When you think of wealth, what

are the thoughts and pictures that

come to mind?

Perhaps it’s a hot tub filled with

money and diamonds and pearls,

and a house so big you could

get lost within its rooms and halls.

And a private jet to take you

wherever you’d like to run away.

Or maybe it’s a house that you

can call your own, with a table

big enough to hold your friends

and family and the ones that

know your heart.

Or perhaps wealth isn’t something

that you can hold — but the freedom

to do what you want, when you want.

To go as freely as you stay. To give to

your heart's content. To love as much

as you’d like — without another soul

telling you what to do.

Maybe that’s what wealth is really

about — the ability to give, to do,

and be what you want.

Perhaps, at the heart of it,

wealth is about having freedom.

The freedom to love.

The freedom to breathe.

The freedom to dream.

The freedom to think.

The freedom to give.

The freedom to build.

The freedom to be.
The Cycle
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Poetry, Lov, Self-awareness, Broken, Self Love

One day at a time you fight

You step in and out of the light

Breathe in and hold it tight

What’s wrong can feel so right

When the day turns into night

When the frog becomes a knight

His kiss makes your heart take flight

Then he’s gone and out of sight

The fight is gone and replaced with numbness

The light disappears and fades into darkness

Release your breath into nothingness

What was right is now just emptiness

The night swallows you into its vastness

The knight vanishes into the wilderness

His kiss is gone, leaving you breathless

You’re alone again and filled with sadness

One day at a time, you’re stronger

The darkness starts to fade, the sky becomes lighter

Your breath once more light as a feather

Wrong and right are entangled together

Day and night spin around and under

The knight, you were, always the fighter

From the past, now asunder

Never alone, happiness now and forever
What My Daily Walk Consists of
By: Tracy Nguyen
Tags: Life, Nature, Humanity, Self-awareness

Human interaction:

Humans are social beings, we don’t cope well in isolation as we have seen with many mental health experts telling us that social distancing will cause great damage to our mental health. As a homebody, I’m coping with this new way of life of staying indoors to flatten the curve as we all should be following what our governments say. Although, I don’t like that I don’t have the option to go outside. I liked knowing before that I could go outside without any worry about getting fined.

I wouldn’t go out to say it’s an amazing human interaction with people that walk past you when they do the curt smile and nod or a small greeting. It’s not much of an interaction but an acknowledgment of people not from your own home makes the difference. It’s a sight to see people at the park doing their exercise of jogging, walking the dog, walking with family and riding bikes. It’s the livelier aspect of people doing what they can to get through the day knowing it’s going to repeat itself.

Glimpses of happiness and hope:

I walked past a house the other week where I saw a bunch of pictures drawn was put on the window for walkers to see and the chalk pictures drawn on the path. Similar to the pictures would be the bears being put on windowsills, as I walked past an Elmo doll thinking of the article written where kids have been putting teddy’s on windowsills for walkers to see.

It’s these small things that give you a positive outlook with the situation that we’re all facing putting a smile on our faces, it’s the humanity in all of us.

Random notable moments:

Dogs (small dogs) can be scary.

There was one time where my sister and I walked past a house with the garage open with a chihuahua standing guard without a leash. Given that we were only walking past, we got chased off because we happened to be in the proximity of danger.

I also wave to cats that I see inside windows of houses doing their lookout of the street. It’s honestly so stupid but it’s one of the things I will never fail to do whenever I see a cat. I guarantee that I’m 100% being judged but I love seeing cats.
An Invincible Summer
By: Leah Spence
Tags: Resistance Poetry, Poetry, Life, Mental Health, Community

~philosophical poetry

My dear

In the midst of strife, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.

In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.

In the midst of chaos, I found there was within me, an invincible calm.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me, there lay, an invincible summer. And, that makes me happy.

For it says, that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger…

~ Albert Camus

🕊

Stepping out from chaos into the light

to know, understand, to find meaning in the abstruse, the absurd

which helps to minimize strife, internal and external

with a patient, conscious, mindful heart

actively reflecting, engaging, a soul-sourced voice.

🕊

Bring a desire to exceed the mundane, outside of fear, of chaos

to grow exponentially, creatively

an equanimous entwining, a knowing.

🕊

Tears wane, with this stronger voice, which is founded in idealism

with right intentions, speaking, writing about alternative ways

with the Great Mother and the Old Wise Man of our collective consciousness,

with the honouring of creative potentials

of individual offerings, of less restricted potential.

🕊

Cleansing the heart against the disease of winter,

the archetypal Trickster, of absurdity, chaos, dark, profane shadows

even stints in the desert, where the air suffocates and stifles —

drying the voice, the heart and the soul — we persevere.

🕊

The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning.

This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not only this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it.~ Albert Camus

🕊

Toward fertile ground, the light, the order where there was chaos

toward summer awakenings, a playful practical pragmatism

on the black earth, in lush forests,

the expansive ocean of flexible yet durable transformations.

🕊

An interplay of resisting, of letting go

with turquoise seas of what could be

and some revolution before what is going to be/

to take a stand, with awareness,

with love, calm, we can stand up

with a stronger pushing back, bravely, for even more.



~ namasté, Leah J. 🕊

© Leah J. Spence 2019, All Rights Reserved
Standardization is Crushing UX (and other UX links this week)
By: Fabricio Teixeira
Tags: Design, UX, UX Design

What’s hot in UX this week:

“Let’s not reinvent the wheel.”

If you’ve ever worked at a software company you’ve heard somebody say this during a design session.

As liberated and brash as we may seem these days, we are — more than ever — fighting a creative culture of fear. There are alternative views, of course, but this is something that designers and developers are dealing with on a regular basis.

We in the software industry often find ourselves struggling to break free of “conventions” and “standards” in the realms of UX design and front-end development. Interfaces are now crawling with informal standards that have quickly made their way from inventive to inevitable: hamburgers, swipes, likes, scrolls, and much, much more.

Read full story →

via Fabricio Teixeira