fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Detail list of learning materials of machine learning, Python and math learning
By: Sajjad Hussain
Tags: Machine Learning, Business, Technology, Data Science, Programming

Detail list of learning materials of machine learning, Python and math learning Sajjad Hussain Follow Sep 15 · 3 min read

When learning this technology, it is best to have some quick reference manuals on hand, they list the key points that need to be understood. Robbie Allen has compiled more than 20 quick reference materials related to machine learning, and shared them, and may also help others who learn this technology.

The field of machine learning is undergoing rapid changes, and these materials will one day be out of date, but at least for the time being, they are still very useful. If you don’t want to download these materials one by one, you can download all the materials from here.

Below are some diagrams of machine learning algorithms, very useful.

Neural network architecture: http://www.asimovinstitute.org/neural-network-zoo/

Neural network architecture: http://www.asimovinstitute.org/neural-network-zoo/

Microsoft Azure algorithm chart: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/machine-learning/machine-learning-algorithm-cheat-sheet

Microsoft Azure algorithm chart: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/machine-learning/machine-learning-algorithm-cheat-sheet

SAS algorithm chart:

http://blogs.sas.com/content/subconsciousmusings/2017/04/12/machine-learning-algorithm-use/

Algorithm summary: http://machinelearningmastery.com/a-tour-of-machine-learning-algorithms/

http://thinkbigdata.in/best-known-machine-learning-algorithms-infographic/

Comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of algorithms: https://blog.dataiku.com/machine-learning-explained-algorithms-are-your-friend

http://blogs.sas.com/content/subconsciousmusings/2017/04/12/machine-learning-algorithm-use/

Algorithm summary: http://machinelearningmastery.com/a-tour-of-machine-learning-algorithms/

http://thinkbigdata.in/best-known-machine-learning-algorithms-infographic/

Comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of algorithms: https://blog.dataiku.com/machine-learning-explained-algorithms-are-your-friend

Python

There are many Python-related learning courses on the Internet, and some of the best materials are listed below.

Mathematics

If you want to learn machine learning, you need to understand statistics, linear algebra, and calculus. The following information can help you understand the mathematics behind machine learning.
Our Smart Contracts Are LIVE
By: Your Data Safe
Tags: ICO, Smart Contracts, Tge, Blockchain, Crypto

The Your Data Safe team are pleased to announce our Smart Contracts.

Token Contract: Click Here

The contract allows for the creation of many different tokens. This gives anyone the ability to create and transfer a token. Every token must be issued by an `issuer` account.

Crowdsale Contract: Click Here

For more information on Crowd Sale Contracts: Click Here (Article by CEO of MyWish)

For more information on our TGE please visit:

www.YourDataSafe.io

www.T.Me/YourDataSafe
Connecting Microsoft Power BI to Oracle Autonomous Database
By: Alex Keh
Tags: Autonomous Database, Odpnet, Oracle, Power Bi

Microsoft Power BI is an analytics tool organizations are using Oracle Autonomous Database (ADB) with. I’ve co-published a Power BI and ADB usage tutorial to guide how to install and configure managed ODP.NET with Power BI Desktop to connect to ADB.

The tutorial also guides how to tune performance with large data sets. It walks through increasing the ODP.NET result fetch size to speed data retrieval. Upon completing the tutorial, you will have a deployable ADB-enabled Power BI application.
Cubic Polynomials — Managing the Architecture to Calculate Roots
By: Greg Oliver
Tags: Math, Graph, Mathematics, Mathematics Education, Cubic Polynomial

Cubic Polynomials — Managing the Architecture to Calculate Roots

Rotating cubic roots into managed quadratic segments where the math is easier!

This post presents a novel method for approximating 1st roots of cubic polynomials that avoids the lengthy gradient and height calculation iterations associated with Newton’s and some of my own previously posted methods.

It particularly addresses the task of approximating cubic polynomial roots in ‘difficult to get to’ locations - namely where root gradients are low and close to turning points. Such ‘architecture’ would normally require two or more iterations to solve.

This method exploits the amazing symmetry of cubic polynomials and their ‘component architecture’ by ‘rotating’ roots into segments where the underlying quadratic architecture approximates the cubic curvature.

This means we can use the simpler quadratic math to calculate a root!

This post assumes knowledge of polynomials at the high school level.

Note: In the interests of read time I’ll skip basic calculations where evident.
The Unpredictability of the Stock Market in Cartoon Form
By: Marguerite Siboni
Tags: Stock Market, Cartoon, Data Science, Investing, Comedy

A throwback to my financial comedy days

In my youthful days of fall 2018, I kept a comedic blog about finance. It appears that after forgetting to renew that account, my posts have disappeared from the internet — and this is probably for the best. I do, however, still have some of the images saved locally. This gives me the opportunity to take you through months of chronicling the stock market in a few fun images.

The Premise

The stock market is notoriously impossible to predict, so much so that random predictors can occasionally beat professionals (for example, this cat from 2012 or the longstanding Super Bowl Indicator). I also have had a longstanding joke with a close friend who works in finance that I, myself, am one of the accurate random predictors because I have made a few lucky guesses in the past (***SPOILER*** I am not).

My friend and I came to an agreement at the start of 2018. In order to know whether or not I can randomly predict what the stock market will do, I would need to track a stock portfolio for a year. If it actually did outperform the stock market, we would be in agreement — I had magical powers.

As I began to post my investment —um — “strategy”, I saw a hidden second premise to my blog. Investing a portion of one’s savings in the stock market should not be as intimidating as it can sometimes feel. Adding comedy to the unpredictability of it all can be helpful way to dip your toe in the water of managing investments. I found myself frequently helping friends set up Robinhood accounts so they could play around with trading for free.

My Investments

One of the conditions of testing my predictions in 2018 was that I should not make investments based on financial news. This led me to mostly invest in familiar companies or companies where my friends worked.

I talked about making inferences based on what the “squiggles” had done in the past…

I also didn’t take too seriously my requirement to keep track of exactly what my portfolio included….
Too Much Light
By: Tima Loku
Tags: Poetry, Relationships, Love, Desire, Nature

Photo by Jorge Gardner on Unsplash

I saw a mountain

swallow a full moon

why did it want her so



I saw a mountain

spit out sun rays

why did it let her go
That Purple-Skinned Monster
By: Catherine E Cheok
Tags: Dementia, Mothers, The Friday Fix, 50 Word Stories, Strangers

Sometimes, I wonder what is going in my mother’s mind ridden with frontal lobe dementia.

Has the disease rendered her instinctively at odds with us, where her will of life is to oppose and challenge everything we tell her to do? Or perhaps, she has put away the repressive norms that she had learned while she was still sane, and found the courage to give everyone a piece of her mind finally?

Between the two of us, she had always been the uptight one while I’m the rebellious daughter bent on going against her. The irony of our switch in roles now is something I’m still grappling with.

I think I can come to love a stranger if I try hard enough.
You Fade From Existence
By: Chelsea Marie
Tags: Poetry, Dementia, Loss, Memories, Life

I’m scared, petrified,

but my secret fear will never see the light.

What right do I have to express my fear,

for that which you must face, day and night.
Trump Isn’t Entitled To Freedom Of Speech Anymore
By: Rebecca Stevens A.
Tags: Elections, Leadership, White Supremacy, Politics, USA

I am watching in amazement as Trump and the GOP are staging a coup right under our noses, on television in America. They feel that they are so above the law, so entitled, they aren’t even respecting the first and elementary rule of coups — plan it in secret and surprise everyone.

No, they are staging their coup in broad daylight. Wasn’t that a smirk I saw on Attorney General William Barr's face when he said: a smooth transition to a second Trump Administration?

My word, not only are they doing it, they actually seem amused. They are basically walking a fine line between instigating a brutal civil war and outright treason, and they are laughing about it. Is this some sick joke?
Enabling Encryption and Harden your setting to protect your Privacy
By: Pawan Trivedi
Tags: Encryption, Digital Security, Privacy, Digital Life, Internet

Enabling Encryption and Harden Your Setting to Protect Your Privacy.

Securing your data on device and on transit between the network.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

This is fourth part of the series How to stay/safe secure in digital life.

Before getting started, let’s first understand what is Encryption and why it matters for you privacy and security.

Encryption is a technique in Computer World that is used for making your data ( SMS, Photos, files, etc. ) secure so that your or to whom is given access can only see that. How does this even happen, Let me explain it -> When you encrypted your data ( it can be in any form ) using an encryption algorithm (some kind magic/technique), it converts your data into random character ( in some kind of mysterious form) and it can only reverse/ decrypt by using the Encryption key / Password that you have access.

And you don’t need to worry about all these technical terms, you just have to remember that one key/password using which you perform encryption.

By now you must have understood how encryption happens, but you will be thinking, why you should care about that? And the best example is that ( let’s assume you lost your phone somewhere or a thief stole it from you, if you have enabled encryption on your device thief can access data without the PIN or a password using which you have enabled encryption on your device).

I’ll walk you through how you can enable encryption on Mobile and Computer and what are other tools/techniques you should be considering for hardening ENCRYPTION on your data so that no one can peek in.

Enabling encryption on Mobile ( Android )

Setting -> Security -> Press ‘Encryption’ option

Setting may be vary for phone to phone, you can look in the search in setting search bar and find it out.

Enabling encryption on Computer( Window)

Control Panel -> System and Security -> BitLocker Drive Encryption -> [ select the drive ] -> Turn on BitLocker -> Enter the Password [ Easy to remember(for yourself) but hard to guess ( for other)]

Using Bitlocker you can Encrypt your external storage(HDD).
[Weekly report]
By: Lightning Bitcoin, Lbtc
Tags: Finwise, Lightning, Lbtc Weekly, Blockchain, Bitcoin

[Weekly report]

Listing on FUBT | LBTC giveaway | Finwise Summit | HTTPS |

Milestones

Listing on FUBT exchange

on June 1st, FUBT exchange will open LBTC deposit and withdrawal service on 1 June. Founded by Hong Kong Bixing international CO., LTD., FUBT is a global digital currency exchange and a rapidly growing blockchain asset trading platform. It provides multi-cryptocurrency, multi-language cryptocurrency exchange services to the global blockchain enthusiasts. FUBT Exchange, formerly known as MoneyHing, was set up and open for registration in June 2017. It officially opens for trading on July 10.

FUBT Announcement

LBTC-giveaway on FUBT

FUBT will be running 5-days LBTC giveaway, during these days LBTC transactions will be free of service charge!

Time: 1 June-5 June

Rules:

You can get 1LBTC by buying more than 20 LBTCs on FUBT exchange during the activity (top 20 only). Trading volume ranking, the top three trading volumes will share the 30 LBTC during the activity (top 3 only). Users who invite other users to register on FUBT and purchase more than 10 LBTC trading during the activity will be rewarded 1 LBTC (top 20 only). Community Contribution Award. During the activity, administrators who established Telegram communities which have more than 10,000 community members will be rewarded 10 LBTC after official verification (top 1 only). 1 June preferential award. Users who trade LBTC with more than 100000 dollars on the FUBT exchange on 1 June will be rewarded 10 LBTC (top two only).

Note: the final interpretation of the activity belongs to FUBT.

Activity link
Angular Modules
By: Anji
Tags: JavaScript, Angular

Angular modules help us to organize the application into cohesive blocks of related functionality. Angular modules are much similar to packages in java and namespaces in c#

Roles of an Angular Module

Imports Other Angular Modules

Identify components, pipes, and directives

Export Its features

Can be eagerly or lazily loaded

Types of An Angular Module

Root Module

CORE Module

Shared Module

Feature/Widget Module

Root Module

Every Angular application requires at least one module. Root Module is responsible for loading the root component and other parts of our app and any Angular-specific dependencies.

By convention, the root module is called as AppModule and get created under the ‘./src/app’ folder.

Core Module

Core modules should contain only the services, components and others that can be imported only once per application. Core Module must be only imported in AppModule and must prevent from loading from other modules.

This is especially important if you intend to lazy-load your feature modules. Since lazy-loaded modules are loaded on demand (when you access the route using the lazy-loaded feature), you could end up creating new instances of singleton services if you don’t put them in CoreModule.

Shared Module

Shared Module contains the code that can be used across the project. Shared Modules can be imported into the feature modules on a need basis. Shared Module cannot be imported into AppModule or CORE Module strictly.

These components don’t import and inject services from the core or other features in their constructors.

Feature Module

A featured module consists of a cohesive set of functionality focused on a specific application need such as a user workflow, routing, or forms. The main aim for feature modules is delimiting the functionality that focuses on particular internal business inside a dedicated module, in order to achieve modularity.

The featured module helps us to split the application into multiple modules which interns make the Root module thin so that the initial page loads quickly

Declarations: It is for things that you use your HTML templates/views. It includes components, directives, and pipes

Providers: for services

Imports: for importing external modules that the current module depends on

Exports: exports used to export the components, pipes, directives to use them in other modules within the application.

Frequently Used Modules

Angular Modules and scopes

The confusion starts with components and services not having the same scope/visibility

declarations / components are in local scope (private visibility),

(private visibility), providers/services are (generally) in the global scope (public visibility).

It means the components you declared are only usable in the current module. If you need to use them outside, in other modules, you’ll have to export them.
Bridging the Gap With Params
By: James Ardery
Tags: Internet, Mvc, Params, Sql, World Wide Web

As I continue my dive into the world of software engineering I find myself searching for a balance between the real world I live in and the digital world I am so often lost in. Where is the common ground between the digital world and reality? Where and how do humans interact with computers these days? Well the most common interaction today comes in the form of browsing the world wide web. The world wide web, commonly referred to but not to be confused with, “the internet”, is the gold standard for human computer interaction. The oldest grandparents to the freakiest youth are constantly online, surfing the web for whatever their hearts desire. So what is the difference between the internet and the world wide web? To be very brief the internet is a physical network of cables actually connecting all major land masses on the planet to one another! Or more simply put the hardware side of things.

The Internet 😳

The world wide web on the other hand began in the late 1980’s with the invention of Hypertext by Tim Bernes-Lee. In Bernes-Lee’s own words:

“HyperText is a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will. Potentially, HyperText provides a single user-interface to many large classes of stored information such as reports, notes, data-bases, computer documentation and on-line systems help.”

Simply put hypertext, or what we most commonly refer to as HTML, sits on top of the internet and is the language our computers use to interact with one another via the internet.

The World Wide Web 😳

Nowadays with a few remote exceptions, humans around the globe are able to pull out a mobile device or open a laptop in their home or local cafe and interact with the world wide web. No matter their regional dialect or local language they are able to pull up a web browser and surf the web freely. HTML is a very broad explanation for how the world wide web works, looking closer a more specific tool truly bridges the gap between an individual user and how they are able to interact with the world wide web. Welcome params!

So what are params as they pertain to the world wide web? Technically params is an abbreviation for the parameters method and specifically refers to the parameters being passed to your application router via GET or POST requests. Simply put params is the information being passed to a website’s servers by a user interacting with the website’s URL. When I purchase birds on my favorite e-commerce site (cacklehatchery.com) or search for my favorite college basketball team on duckduckgo.com, I am sending param requests to the servers belonging to duckduckgo.com/cacklehatchery.com. Those websites servers receive the requests and query their database to find matching results, eventually sending them back as a new view in the web browser. Params can be broken down into two categories:
Enable Coveralls to leave comments on PR’s
Tags: Software Development, Github, Coding, Continuous Integration, Programming

Enable Coveralls to leave comments on PR’s remarkablemark Follow Dec 3 · 2 min read

Problem

I noticed that Coveralls bot was not leaving comments on pull requests for my new repository.

I found this issue but it describes how to add the bot to private repos.

Solution

Going to my Coveralls repo settings, I noticed Leave Comments? was disabled:

Once I enabled Leave Comments? and saved changes:

Coveralls bot started adding comments to my GitHub PR’s:
B21 Top FIVE FAQs of the Week — Part 2
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Bitcoin

Our last FAQ blog, took a look at the top questions that we have received in relation to our Airdrop. Here are the top FIVE frequently asked FAQ’s from the B21 Telegram community this week. If you have any questions, which are not in our Whitepaper, or our website, feel free to ask them in our Telegram group.

Each week we will aim to answer the most commonly asked questions and concerns from our community in our FAQ blog series!

This week we have seen a trend in questions about our private sale, public sale and our investment app.

1)What is the minimum contribution for the private sale?

The Minimum contribution is $20,000 for the private sale

2) Why do you need to have a token to settle fees within the app when it says in your Whitepaper that you can use fiat?

B21 is a utility token, the token will be required to access the platform and to pay fees, and the token is also a system of reward and incentive to users.

It’s kind of like the Binance token. With the B21 token, you get access to premium services and reduced fees. Fiat is converted to the B21 token and then collected as fees. Or fees can be paid in B21 tokens.

The fees will be charged to the customers when they invest in cryptoassets, which is transaction fees. These fees will range from 2 to 5% based on the payment method being used.

3) When are you going to launch the B21 app?

Our team is working on the Alpha release at the moment. This is planned to be live in the coming months.

For this to be LIVE, we need license, partnerships and tech development to all come together. This is what we have been working on behind the scenes at the B21 headquarters in Gibraltar.

4) Are you going to add more cryptocurrencies to your platform offering?

Our platform will accept BTC, BCH, ETH and EOS at the start. Due to popular demand and feedback, we are also working on adding more cryptoassets from the beginning.

The cryptocurrencies we add will be chosen by the management and advisory team from the coins that have been voted on by our community. We will undertake an appropriate level of due diligence on all coins on the platform.

5) We would like to contact your marketing department, which email should we use?

Send an email to social@b21.io and our marketing team will look into it and get back to you.

Follow B21 in below Social Media Channels

Twitter(English): https://twitter.com/B21Official

Twitter(Japanese): https://twitter.com/B21Official_jp

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/B21Official/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/b21-limited/

Telegram(English): https://t.me/b21official

Telegram(Korean): https://t.me/b21korea

LINE(Japanese): http://qr-official.line.me/L/rmOuyjpsA8.png

KakaoTalk(Korean): https://open.kakao.com/o/gxDpiHP
How the Sun Met His Moon
By: Tre L. Loadholt
Tags: Poetry, Tribute Poem, Love, Otherdoors, Medium

How the Sun Met His Moon

For Jack Herlocker

Photo by Ernest Brillo via Unsplash

The sky cracked open,

its shy smile hidden from view.

The newness of day

awakened the sun, it blinked,

happy to be motivated by

heaven's kiss.

The moon laid her long legs

on the base of the clouds, swaying

in sync with the wind — the sun

stood at attention.

He would introduce himself.

He would do so cautiously.

And the moon is dazzling,

she knows him without knowing,

builds herself a perfect pier

of love — holding it captive

until the right moment.

She lets her love precede her.

Sun loses his fear and gives

the moon his all, no harm done.

He knows safety when he sees it.

They mingle. They mix.

They create an intense purple

in the sky and as each year

passes, galaxies spill from

their hearts.

Their union, one for millions

to witness, is the story

of steadfastness — tried and true.

We watch in awe of their

beauty, we relish the tale

of their love.

For once, fact isn’t fiction.
A Beginner’s Guide To Object Oriented JavaScript
By: Souvik Paul
Tags: Oop, Programming, Software Development, Web Development, JavaScript

In this article, we’ll discuss the object oriented aspects of JavaScript language. In our daily life, we come across a lot of objects like Television, Cell phone, Car, Animals, Birds etc. and all these objects have their own properties and methods. For example — John is boy. So, he is also an object with properties like eyes, ears, hands, legs etc. and methods like walking, talking, dancing, eating etc.

Object Literal

We can define or create a JavaScript object with an object literal by encapsulating all the methods and properties within the curly braces and it is shown below-

Now, we’ll learn to update the properties of the above object literal john .

So, we can easily update the properties using assignment operator ‘=’.

We can also do the same above operation using the following procedure.

The above process helps us in changing or accessing the properties and methods dynamically. Let’s understand this with an example.

We can also add new properties to the object john which is shown below.

We can also add new methods to the object john which is shown below.

JavaScript Classes

In the previous section, we have created an object john which was a human. Now, what if we want to create 50 other humans with same properties and methods as john but with different names. In such scenario, if we use object literals, then we have to define each and everything again and again which is shown in the example below.

So, to solve this problem, ECMAScript 2015, also known as ES6, introduced JavaScript Classes. JavaScript Classes are templates for JavaScript Objects.

The syntax for the JavaScript class is given below —

class ClassName {

constructor() { ... }

}

We use the keyword class to create a class. We should always add a method named constructor() .

The constructor method is a special method:

It has to have the exact name “constructor”

It is executed automatically when a new object is created

It is used to initialize object properties

It if you do not define a constructor method, JavaScript will add an empty constructor method.

Now, we’ll define a class and will create two objects of this class.

Now, we’ll access the properties and methods of both the objects.

Method chaining

Now, we’ll learn about method chaining. For this, we’ll define another class Airplane as follows —

Now, we’ll create an object of this class and will use method chaining.

In the above example, we could use method chaining because we were returning this (the object itself) in the functions fly and acquire .

Inheritance

Inheritance is the capability of one class to inherit properties and methods from another class.

In the above example, we have inherited properties and methods from the Human class into the Man class.

Now, we’ll create an object and will access the methods and properties.

References
Top Questions to Ask Your Interviewer
By: Double Pointer
Tags: Coding, Technology, Tech, Interview, Interview Questions

“Do you have any questions for me?” is how almost all tech interviews end. It may be hard to come-up with good questions to ask your interviewer and here are some ideas and questions we present that can demonstrate your maturity as a software developer and genuine interest in the position:

Company-specific Questions

What is the one thing that you don’t like about the company?

If you could, what would you like to change about the company’s culture?

What areas of growth do you see for the company in the future?

Who are the primary competitors of the company?

Can you describe the company’s culture and your experience here so far?

Team-specific Questions

What is the roadmap for the team in the next few months?

What are the most difficult challenges the team faces on a daily basis

What is the technology stack you guys use?

Do you have paying customers for the product or are internal teams consumers of the team’s product?

How big is the team?

What is composition of the term in terms of junior vs senior engineers?

What is your management style? Or how do you run the team?

Does the team actively contribute to open-source projects?

Are there any plans to open-source the team’s product?

Role-specific Questions

Does the role offer leadership opportunities even though it is stated to be an individual contributor role?

Do you have a specific project in mind the person filling the position will work on?

Declining Questions Politely
Breakout Startups Memo #18- Linear
By: Ankit Kumar Singh
Tags: Linear App, Issue Tracking, Jira, Agile, Breakout Startups

Product

We are seeing this new stream of companies aiming to replace the traditional software in use right now. We have Airtable competing with Excel, Notion competing with everyone, and now we have a competitor to JIRA.

Even though JIRA is incredibly dominant in the project management software category, this is the first time we are witnessing a real challenger in the space.

Linear, Founded by Karri Saarinen, lets you manage software development and track bugs. Linear’s streamlined design is built for speed and efficiency — helping high performing teams accomplish great things.

In his tweetstorm about Linear, Karri writes,

I’ve always been frustrated with how bad the commonly used tools are in this market. Why are they so slow? Why is everything so complex, yet you still feel it doesn’t help you to actually manage your work? Why does every view have 50 drop downs?

In fact, during his stint at Airbnb, Karri wrote a Chrome extension that redesigned JIRA, It was a CSS overwrite that hid half of the information on views; toned down elements, colors, and borders; removed icons and added margins. More than 100 people in the company used it.

This very much explains how backdated the current tools are and how there is a need for one new tool in the space. And this is where Linear comes in!!!!

One thing which Linear has improved radically on how the process of building software has changed from many years ago and how the current tools haven’t evolved with the changes.

Linear is the modern software management tool that product teams were waiting for 😄
Call Me By My Name, Mom
By: Jett Allen
Tags: Comics, Life, LGBTQ, Art, Family

Illustrator & Writer. I draw comics and visual essays about culture and my life. www.jettallen.com | Insta: @jettdraws

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Remember Me
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Fathers, Poetry, Life, Broken Heart, Longing

Do you want to know me

Do you even care

After all these years

Do you think of me at all

I’ve been searching for my whole life

Maybe you don’t want to be found

Am I just a secret

Your dirty little secret

I know what you did

You don’t have to pretend

You can forget your shame

We all make mistakes

All was long ago forgiven

But you were never forgotten

I see you every day

Staring back from the mirror

Have you ever looked for me

Wondered what I was like

I can sing, just like you

And my eyes are blue like yours

You are the one thing I’ve wanted

Since I can remember

You’re the one that got away

What I’ve wanted, but could never have

Every road I’ve taken

Every path I’ve followed

Has led me to another dead-end

Silence is all I ever find

When all I really want

Is to look in your eyes and say

I love you daddy
Postgrad Life, Alphabetized (Find the Sacred)
By: Emma Jane Laplante
Tags: Poetry, Self, Dogs, Education, Spirituality

Graduate,

Announce your plans and move to California, where you will

briefly live in the hills amid deer and wild turkeys,

climatizing to the weather as you learn how to layer. Establish a

diet of avocados and fresh fruit. Wake up

earlier than you have since high school. Find your

friends, your favorite beach. Shed your old life like jeans you’ve out-

grown. Give up your lifelong distaste for blueberries.

Halfway through August, begin a teaching job you’re wildly

ill-prepared for. Immerse yourself in pedagogy, restorative

justice, curricula. Kiss boys on dance floors and

keep your head high as you learn to be cursed out with grace.

Lesson plan. Lesson plan some more. Adopt a dog whose sole

mark of imperfection is his degenerative brain disease —

name him Gryffindor, for bravery. As he dies, sing to him, his head warm

on your lap; your apartment will grow cold with his ghost, and Kaiser

Permanente won’t cover talk therapy. In the spring,

quit the birth control that’s quietly fucked with you since 2013, and

remember what it feels like to want somebody. Strike for

seven days for the soul of public education.

Teach. Teach.
Why I Bought Two Coffees For Roz
By: Rasheed Hooda
Tags: Humor, Coffee, Birthday, Roz Warren, Appreciation

Do you know Roz Warren?

You should. After all, she is the Medium Sherpa.

She is also a very funny lady.

(I know, that is three one-sentence paragraphs in a row — make that four.)

Sorry about that, Mr Fan, but I digress.

Well, I read a story this morning that Roz published. It was funnier than hell. You didn’t know hell was funny, did you?

You learn something new every day.

Anyhow, she wrote about making money on Medium last month — it is mandatory for every writer, you know. (I better finish mine that I have been putting off forever and a day.)

Do I need to tell you it was funny? If you haven’t seen it, better go check it out. Yes, I will wait.

What did I tell you?

Medium didn’t send her a T-shirt for no reason, you know.

I left a comment saying that I will buy her a coffee because I enjoyed it so much. She replied within minutes saying that if I did that, it would be a birthday present since today is her birthday.

I may be a weirdo, but I am not a cheap weirdo. So I bought her two coffees. One for the funny story, and one for her birthday.

Now that you know that it is her birthday, I think you should swing over to her Kofi page, and buy her a cup of coffee. I mean she does so much for Medium, the least of which is to keep us laughing. God knows we can all use some laughter these days.

And while you’re over there, you might even consider buying me some coffee as well. Actually, I prefer some Chai. No, not chai tea; that would be like saying chai chai, or tea tea.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

As always, thank you for reading and responding.

Here are some of my other stories:

Graphic created by Rasheed Hooda using Canva

Will you buy me some chai?
Teens have been forcibly medicated while in immigration custody.
By: Andrea González-Ramírez
Tags: Politics, Trump Administration, Immigration

Migrant teenagers have been forcibly medicated while in immigration custody, according to Vice. The report is based on an ongoing lawsuit against the federal government for its treatment of migrant children. Teens described being administered up to 20 pills per day, placed in physical restraints, placed in isolation, and receiving injections, among other practices.

The findings are horrifying, though not surprising. Migrant children have long suffered abuse and faced inhumane conditions while in custody, whether they are in detention centers, shelters, or hotels. Attorney Leecia Welch told Vice the government doesn’t track how many minors are being medicated. “They just don’t have the data; I find it horrifying,” she said. “It’s just a black box.”
America, I’m Revoking Your Poetry License
By: David Breeden
Tags: Poetry, Poetry Writing, Unitarian Universalist, Election 2020, Humanism

Photo by Julien Borean on Unsplash

The American poet Wallace Stevens wrote, “We live in the description of a place, not in the place itself.”

Stevens (1879–1955) lived and died long before post-modernism, but as a poet and aesthetic thinker he understood the fictive universe. He loved the fictive universe. He knew it was a place to run barefooted in the metaphorical sand.

Yes, Stevens knew so well, our imagination is the place we actually live. Yes, Key West, Florida and Hartford, Connecticut are different sorts of locals with different sorts of flora and fauna, but the existential snowman in the one and the “sunken coral” in the other find their meanings in our fictive worlds. It’s all about our description of a place, not what is demonstrably there. But here’s the deal: nobody else is supposed to see it the way you do.

For Stevens, the imaginative world was one created through will and the assertion of individual creativity:

She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang.*

As Stevens — and most practiced poets — know, we can’t buy a one-way ticket to paradise. You go/you come back. The fictive worlds now inhabited by too many Americans — so many Americans that we can’t even agree on the results of elections — have gone a bit too far.

Individual fantasy is fun and freeing. Group fantasy, on the other hand, leads to events such as witch trials.

Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash

As a senior poet, I am hereby revoking the poetry license of any American who can’t produce a certifiable copy of their angst-ridden teenage poetry journal.

It’s time to write some non-fiction America, because, as Stevens also wrote,

The future is description without place, The categorical predicate, the arc.

Get your non-fiction on, America. Let’s write a future in which we can agree on some basics.

Here’s to a prosaic future for the United States.

FirstUnitarian.org

Huumanist.org

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BitBox 08.2020 Calanda update
By: Shift Crypto
Tags: Hardware, Security, Wallet, Updates, Bitcoin

1000+ additional coins

We also added explicit support for 1000 additional ERC20 coins. You could already use them before, but the BitBox02 was not able to make sure that the correct smart contract address was used. By naming these tokens explicitly, transacting them just got a whole lot safer. We’ll have a list of all supported coins on our website shortly.

Minor improvements

Recovery words

We want the BitBox02 and the BitBoxApp to be as straightforward as possible. That also means avoiding technical terms and using easy, descriptive language. When creating our premium Backup Card (ageing-resistant plus lamination), we quickly discovered that users new to the space don’t always know what “seed phrases” or “mnemonic words” are. And you shouldn’t need to know that. “Recovery words” states plain and simple what these words are and do. This is why now use the “Recovery words” term everywhere.

Sort unconfirmed transactions by age

Sometimes it’s the little things. A feature request in our BitBox Telegram group was to sort unconfirmed transactions chronologically and is now implemented and released, in less than two weeks™! In hindsight this feature is obvious, but sometimes an outside perspective helps to point out little improvements like that. This is why we love our community and listen closely to your experience with the BitBox02, how you use it and what you’d like us to improve.

Join us on Telegram as well, and hang out with us! 🤓

How can I stay up-to-date?

We encourage you to sign up to the BitBox news to stay up to date with our latest news, including release notes and bug fixes.

As always, please do not hesitate to contact us at support@shiftcrypto.ch if you have any questions.

Thank you for your continued support.

Shift Team
How I Learned That God Wants My Obedience, Not Experience
By: Kimberley Payne
Tags: Obedience, Christianity, Business, Spiritual Growth, Devotional

I’d never led a prayer meeting before — let alone in my bathing suit

However, God does not want my experience but rather He wants my obedience.

At a women’s conference, I learned what this truly meant. The coordinator asked me to lead the morning swim and prayer. Generally, I only use my pool at home to play with the kids. I’d never been an aqua aerobics leader. I’d only ever attended one water aerobics class. I definitely didn’t have the experience.

But God didn’t ask me for experience, He only wanted my obedience.

And when I responded, “Yes, I’ll do it” He honoured my obedience.

That morning, I prayed before the class even started

I felt no anxiety as the Holy Spirit guided me in what to do.

I started with a quiet prayer, “What would You like me to start with Lord?” and He would provide me with an idea. I would share this with the group and we would do it.

Then I’d ask, “What do I do now?” and He would give me another idea. We did this for 45 minutes.

After the swim, I joined the ladies in the locker room and they encouraged me with their comments.

God had given each woman what she needed that morning and He used me to do it.

I had learned a motto at a small business seminar many years ago that I still live by today, Get the deal, then panic.

The instructor referred to business deals. He advised us to say yes to any request clients or customers brought forward and then later worry about the details. I adopted that motto for my business and enjoyed some very interesting experiences because of it.

However, there is one significant difference between, “get the deal, then panic” and “obedience, not experience” — it’s the panic.

I know that when God asks me to do something, He will also equip me to do it.

There’s no need for panic.

God will not ask me to do anything for which I’m not ready. I can move forward and say “yes” trusting that I’ll have the help I need.

In business, I was a sole proprietor. In faith, I’m a partner. And what a Partner I have.

I know that whatever God asks me to do, He will honour my obedience and help me to do it.

Is there anything God is asking you to do that you have said “no” to because you lack experience?
Bandersnatch: The illusion of choice
By: Henry Rolleston
Tags: Bandersnatch, Screens, Film, Black Mirror Season 4, Black Mirror

Before I go on to discuss the thematic elements of the movie, I’ll touch on the actual content of it. The setting and characters in Bandersnatch are a lot of fun. My Spotify playlist has garnered some welcome new additions as a result of the soundtrack, and the 80’s nostalgia pervades (almost) every aspect of the film (you’ll get what I mean). The characters are solidly written, and very well acted, with standout performances from Fionn Whitehead, who delivers Stefan consistently throughout all paths in the story, and Will Poulter, who pulled off the role of Colin to a clever and humorous degree.

The show itself is extremely intelligent. Not only in its writing, but in its execution. The risk of having viewer choice factor into a film’s narrative is the possibility that there will be a decline in satisfaction to that narrative, a direct result of the fact that the ability to make the ‘wrong choice’ is, in some instances, merely one wrong click away. However, the narrative of Bandersnatch revolves around Cartesian themes of reality, and whether the concept of free will has any relevance if multiple realities or ‘parallel universes’ really do exist. As a result, missteps are treated not as failures by the viewer, but as learning experiences for Stefan, Colin, and the other characters in the episode. It is for this reason that I would thoroughly encourage anyone watching the episode to make whichever choice feels right, at any point in the story. After all, you are always welcome to try again.

This provides an interesting commentary on other iterations of the ‘choose your own adventure’ style. Unlike in Bandersnatch, we cannot remake our real-life choices. It is for this reason that, unlike other Black Mirror episodes, Bandersnatch doesn’t have much relevance to anything outside its direct subject matter. It is, however, a phenomenal achievement, and a welcome first entry in what I’m sure will be a long line of Netflix features that utilise the viewer’s choice.

And now, the negative:

R: Out of Range.

Sorry guys, we haven’t programmed that path yet.
[Etheremon Dev Update] 20.12.2018
Tags: Dapp, English, Update, Ethereum, Etheremon

Hi Mon-Seekers,

This story is to keep you updated on what we are doing, new features and ideas to make Etheremon better.

New Battle Arena (Draft version)

1. New Battle Arena

The new battle arena is to give a better game experience and to prepare for “move-system integration”. We are in the last steps reviewing the view. This will be released on the week of Dec 24th.

The move-system is a bit more complicated. We have the move list & design, but we are still thinking of a good way to introduce it in the challenge mode. We will have details & a timeline for move-system and challenge-mode soon.

2. Improve EMONT cash-out flow

There are 3 main sources that you can collect EMONT: quest, EMONT for each win & adventure hosting; you have to make several transactions to cash them out. We are about to introduce 2 types of balance: in-game balance & wallet balance. For all EMONT that you have collected, it will go to in-game balance; then you can cash everything out to your wallet in 1 transaction. This will be updated by Dec 28th.

3. Other things

These things haven’t been finalized. We are still brainstorming more. So if you have any ideas, please do let us know (on any channels below).

3.1 Tutorial view: this is to acquire new users & help them understand the game.

3.2 Control Mon’s inflation & value: we are thinking of burn-Mon-feature; focus on battle stats of each single Mon & special skins for a Mon.

Cheers,

— — — — — —

Follow us:
“Henry Can Answer Your Questions.”
By: Lisa Martens
Tags: Humor, Travel, Fiction, Comedy, Short Story

“Henry Can Answer Your Questions.”

Oh, can he?

Photo by Bahram Bayat on Unsplash

“Welcome to the Pope-Leighey House. This is Henry, our volunteer. He should be able to answer any questions for you. Take it away, Henry. I’ll be in the main office.”

“Thanks, Jack. Looks like a small crowd today. Well, the Pope-Leighey House was designed by — ”

“Sorry, Henry. I do have a question. Where is the bathroom?”

“Public restrooms are in the main office. We can wait here for you. I’ll probably still be talking.”

“I have a question, Henry.”

“Sure.”

“I just quit my job, and I’m trying to decide what to do with my retirement funds. I mean, there are some things I’d like to pay now, but I don’t think it’s fiscally responsible. Should I just suck it up and just roll it into another retirement account? And which one is the best for me?”

“Personally, I wouldn’t cash it out…the tax penalty is not worth it. But I’m sure you’ll figure out what is right for you. Now, if you look at the house, you’ll see all the screws are — ”

“Henry, I’m trying to decide which college to send my daughter to. She’s pretty smart, but not genius-level smart, so she didn’t get any scholarships. I think she would be happy at a state school, but she wants to go to the most prestigious school she got into. How do I explain to her the crippling effects of student loans?”

“Wow, this is a rough group. You are asking me some tough questions.”

“Jack said you’d be able to answer any questions.”

“You may have taken that a bit literally. I know a lot about the Pope-Leighey House. I studied architecture when I was younger, and I know a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright, and so I decided, when I retired, to volunteer here. I’m afraid my knowledge on other matters is…decidedly average.”

“You know a lot about architecture?”

“I would say I’m an enthusiast.”

“I have floor plans of my house. We are trying to open it up, but we can’t decide if this is a load bearing wall or not.”

“Why are you carrying floor plans of your house with you?”

“Just in case.”

“Well, okay…if you know where the joists are…okay, you know what? This is all well and good, but I’m supposed to be giving a tour of this house. Perhaps we can take a look at your floor plans once the tour is through.”

“But Henry, I had a question I was going to ask after the tour.”

“Is it about the house?”

“Uh…yes.”

“What is your question?”

“If…this house were a person, and that person was trying to decide whether or not to do inpatient rehab — ”

“Okay, I’m done. If Jack comes looking for me, tell him I took lunch early.”

“What? But Henry! Henry!”

“…What?”

“Just stay with us and answer our questions. We like you. You’re the only Frank Lloyd Wright tour guide who has talked to us for this long.”

“You do this at every building you visit?”

“Well yeah. Who really wants to hear about an old house for an hour?”

“Then…why visit?”

“We would go abroad, but they don’t let us have passports for some reason.”

“I think I understand why. Fine. So you, with the retirement account…”