fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Hexagram 49: Revolution. A Short Story
By: Will Buckingham
Tags: China, Writing, Fiction, Short Story, Philosophy

I dreamed that night. After a journey along roads fringed by tall maize and sorghum, after I climbed the steps of the old temple and made obeisance in the incense-fragrant hall occupied only by myself and a few sparrows, after I looked him in the eye and he stared back at me from the shadowed wall, I dreamed of old Fu Xi. He was hairy, wild-eyed, a man of the soil, dressed in leaves and animal skins, his toes sturdy, his big hands capable, grasping at everything.

It was a dream. What can I say? Without the logic of brute things, my mind constructed a slapdash simulacrum of the world. I dreamed of Fu Xi, but he was also my boss from work. His tie, now I think of it, was made of leaves. The Freudians will say that he was also my father; and perhaps they are right. But there is more than one story in the world.

So there he was, leaf-clad Fu Xi, and he was restless and everywhere. He fashioned a bow and arrow, and with it felled a deer; with the pelt of the deer he made a coat; with the meat of the deer he made dinner. And the dinner was good. But afterwards, he did not sleep. Instead he leapt up to invent writing and music and the arts of divination.

The people — timid people with soft skins that bruised easily — peered from their leaf-shelters, small, nervous creatures on the brink of a world in which everything would soon be different. ‘Teach us,’ they said. ‘Teach us.’

Fu Xi looked at me. This is the part of the dream that I am sure I am remembering with precision. He looked at me, as he had in the temple the day before, but with real, not painted, eyes. Then he was off again. He invented a robot rabbit that played the drums, and he invented a battery to ensure the rabbit could continue playing for eternity without cease, and he invented a pill to make erections last, and he invented a novel way of curing bacon, and he invented a bomb capable of destroying the entire world.

At this point I formed a clear intention. Freudians, say what you will. I am playing into your hands. I formed the intention to kill him. No bomb, no cured bacon, no erection pills, no robot rabbits, no divination or music or writing.

But just then I must have cried out, because my wife shook my shoulder. ‘What?’ she was saying.

‘What?’ I replied, my eyes now open, the shadow of the dream still upon me.

‘You were raving about rabbits,’ she murmured.

‘I was?’

‘You said something about erections.’

‘Did I?’

‘Hmm…’ Then I heard her sigh, and her breathing slowed. The following day she would not remember this. I fell asleep just in time to see Fu Xi — hairy, wild-eyed old Fu Xi — disappearing away over the hill. His back was turned, his vast shoulders hunched in sadness, his large hands empty.
What Surveillance Misses
By: Matt Klein
Tags: Marketing, Technology, Tech, Digital Marketing, Advertising

What Surveillance Misses

Why jumping to conclusions is risky

In Mark Bartholomew’s book, Adcreep: The Case Against Modern Marketing, Neil Richards’ idea of “intellectual privacy” is highlighted, which should change how marketers approach their data and targeting.

“Richard makes a normative claim that processes of thinking and making up one’s mind about a subject fare best when performed free from outside exposure. To be truly valuable thoughts need time to incubate in private before they are able to be expressed publicly. When other entities can see the books we read, music we listen to, and the websites we consult, this intellectual refuge evaporates.”

For the larger part of ad targeting and data gathering, the entities in which collect our information blindly skip over the “But”, significantly altering what makes each of us and our decisions unique.

You bought a business book on Amazon, BUT _____ .

The answer to “But”, completely changes what this bit of data means to Amazon, your credit card, and potential marketers.

Just because you bought a business book on Amazon via Prime, doesn’t make you a eager, savvy-business student. There are countless contexts and variables which are not considered when attempting to understand You.

For example, you bought a business book on Amazon, BUT the shipping address was not your home’s. (The book was a gift for someone else.)

Or, you bought a business book on Amazon, BUT you absolutely despised it. (You’re actually not interested in business literature.)

When we consider the culmination of all of our online activity and consumer behaviors, many of our actions lack the invaluable description and motivation which accurately paint who we are, and why we’re doing what we’re doing.

As Neil Richard points out, we need time to incubate reliable opinions and tastes free from onlookers. A Like, Save, Forward, Buy, Watch or Listen do not reveal the full picture of who we are, and if anything paints an unreliable and questionable one… One in which neglects to answer the most valuable piece of data: But, what?
For Once
Tags: Poetry, Humanity First, Freedom, Environment, Racism

For Once

A poem about Freedom and Men

Photo by Edmund Lou on Unsplash

While humanity shivers in fear

Locked up in homes

The leaves quiver without hesitation

The roses bloom and no one plucks them

Finally, the animals have a retreat

from the long-lasting fear and busy schedules

of running and hiding from human

For once, the earth took a deep breath

Closed her eyes and slept well.

While humanity looks on in horror

The gifts of nature, such as air

Free to all men, yet choked from some

The children frightened and confused

We are not promised tomorrow

But hope remains the little fairy tale

To help us sleep through the night

Looting gold and looting rights

I could excuse them

in the name of the evil plight

But to take away

that which are only abstracts

such as hope and love —

I cannot see an acceptable argument

For once let him breath

For once let the children play.
Next Tech will be at the 2020 ASU GSV Summit!
By: Saul Costa
Tags: San Diego, Startup, Education Technology

I am thrilled to announce that Next Tech has been selected as one of the “Elite 200” companies that will present at the 2020 ASU GSV Summit in the GSV Cup competition! ASU GSV is widely regarded as one of the top education conferences in the world, so we are looking forward to attending this event and being a first-time participant in the competition.

Over the past year, Next Tech has experienced a massive surge of growth from all levels of the technology education industry. Industry leaders are realizing that mastering computer programming, web development, and data science requires a hands-on approach.

The future is, without question, brighter for anyone learning in-demand 21st century skills due to this industry-wide mindset shift. As a longtime proponent for teaching technology skills using hands-on learning, I am encouraged by the current progress and very excited for what the future holds.

If you are in town March 30th to April 1st, come see what Next Tech has accomplished to date and see what the future holds for us and the technology education industry as a whole!

About Next Tech

Next Tech is the provider of the leading platform for teaching and learning computer programming, web development, data science, and other technology skills. It pairs instructional material with interactive browser-based coding environments, where students can master new skills through hands-on learning.

About ASU GSV

The ASU GSV Summit gathers leaders in government, education, and the workforce advancing social and economic mobility by bending the arc of human potential through innovation in education. The GSV Cup itself is a unique cross-sector competition spanning “pre-K to gray” sectors, including technologies in corporate learning and talent management, workforce analytics, early childhood, K-12, HireED and postsecondary education.

About the Summit

The 2020 ASU GSV Summit will be held from March 30 to April 1 in San Diego, CA. The 2019 Summit drew 5,000 attendees from over 45 countries, including more than 300 investors representing $7+ trillion of capital.
Noble Silence
By: Ann Litts
Tags: Self-awareness, Joy, Spirituality, Life, Meditation

Photo by Jen Loong on Unsplash

I retreated this weekend into myself.

I meditated and practiced yoga.

I lit the candles and listened to The Universe.

I rested.

I spoke out loud to as few people as possible, and when I did, I used as few words as necessary.

I thought about the story I tell myself regarding my life and for this weekend — I suspended it. Whenever I found myself thinking about it — I would pull myself back to the present moment.

For Nirvana is not necessarily a reward you spend your whole life striving for — to be attained only at the very end. Nirvana can be reached moment to moment — a piece of joy dropped into your life in the now — but only if you’re willing to let go of it as the moment passes. Hand and heart open — allowing what needs to go — to go, and thus being open for the next moment of joy to enter your life. Letting what needs to come — to come.

Each Noble Silence carries with it the promise of a moment of Nirvana — if we can quiet our lives and our minds to the ‘noise’ of our worlds. If we can listen to the stillness — we can feel The Divine reach out to us and gift us with joy. Not everlasting joy — but joy in the moment. Every moment — has that postential. Over and over and over again in our lives.

Everlasting joy might be religion’s biggest fake news story of all. But moments of joy are attainable. Right here. Right now. In every single moment of our lives.

And a moment becomes a day becomes a week becomes a life — when you live your life in the now, letting go of the stories, listening for the Noble Silence.

Namaste.
What‘re We Escaping When We Read?
By: Xi Chen
Tags: Essay, Books, Reading, Literally Literary, Culture

What‘re We Escaping When We Read?

What Chabon’s magnum opus teaches us.

“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.” From BookRhapsody.

When I left Canada for college in America, I felt like Harry Potter arriving at Hogwarts. There’s something otherworldly about the act of escaping, especially when you’ve known the thing you’re escaping from for decades.

It’s not the same as going on vacation. When you’re a tourist, you’re using the escape as a mental reprieve, a psychic refill that prepares you to continue your existence at home.

The kind of escape I’m talking about involves a few self-realizations. First, that the reality you’re used to is in some way oppressive. There’s no opportunities for work, you feel like you’re not “where it’s at,” there’s something about yourself that you hate — maybe you’re just bored.

Second, you have this weird need to adapt to something new. People like novelty, learning new rules and integrating different cultures into a unique identity. We like comfort but we also like to fight for survival. War, both physical and internal, gives people purpose.

Third, you want connection. We’re protean creatures, constantly reassessing and regretting and resolving, as we get older. It feels like the people at home are always going to stay the same. Yet there’s a sea of different worlds of others waiting for you to meet them. You have a craving for empathy, to put yourself in the shoes of the moody New Yorkers, or phlegmatic Californians. You want to live multiple lives.

Let me ask you this: what I’ve been talking about is escape in the physical sense, but couldn’t the same be said of the reader of fiction?
How to get published on Coinmonks Publication?
By: Gaurav Agrawal
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Writing, Medium, Publishing, Bitcoin

Process of publishing a story on Coinmonks

Send me your draft/story at gaurav@coincodecap.com

We will add you as a writer on the publication

Once added, you can submit your draft/story using the following steps.

Go to your story Bottom right on your story there will be 3 dots. Click on them. You will see “Add to publication” Select Coinmonks and submit

You can also reach out to me on our Telegram group.

Explore Coinmonks Medium publication + RSS Feed

Motivation behind Coinmonks

We started the Coinmonks publication in Feb 2018. The purpose of the publication is to create a knowledge repository for decentralized technologies and its new economy.

Coinmonks is a non-profit publication that thrives on its writers and readers. if you ❤️ reading Coinmonks you can donate to us.

Coinmonks is read by more than half a million crypto-fans every month.

What we publish?

In one short line, we only publish crypto-related educational content.

Tech Tutorials, development stories (Related to decentralized tech only)

Ideas, Insights and futuristic view on Decentralized technologies

Crypto/Token economics

Project insights and analysis (Educational content only)

Crypto trading strategies (Educational content only)

Opinion pieces related to above

❌ No news and flashy articles❌

✔️ Original content (Written by you) ✔️

Wrote something useful around crypto? mail us, do not hesitate.
The Comeback
By: Dayle Fogarty
Tags: Writing, Creative, Fiction, Creative Writing, Short Story

The Comeback

A fictional short story.

Photo by Ryan Wilson on Unsplash

‘Shoaff! Come out and face me like a real man!’

Lori Linden, AKA the Duchess of Death, waits for me to enter the scene, spitting insult after insult, twirling her dagger with expert precision, slicing the air with more than is necessary gusto. I wonder how much she practiced, leading up to this day.

By this point I’m sweating bullets. It’s the running and the ducking, the weaving between ferry bench seats, dodging her throwing knives that has me worked up. That’ll do it.

Not only are my foe and I fighting one another, we’re fighting the violent up and down dipping and rising of the ferry on uneven waters.

‘Thought you were Jimmy The Wolf? Or is your bark bigger than your bite?’ she asks.

I call out. ‘It’s James Shoaff to you! Only my friends get to call me The Wolf.’

The lights switch off on queue. Enough darkness to risk a quick glance below deck.

Lori spins around, anticipating an attack. ‘You think you can even the score after our date in Shanghai?’ she mocks with a sneer. ‘Tell me James, how is your wife?’

Three… two… one.

I hurdle the second floor ferry railing, landing on all fours, keeping my head down with a spray of water splashing across my front, the fan blows my golden dyed locks away from my face. I raise my head slowly, hoping to sprinkle about a dash of that typical Shoaff bravado. And to be honest, I’m hoping nobody can see me for real — the middle-aged man in a bit of pain.

The old knees don’t bend like they used to.

It’s your time for a comeback they said, early retirement doesn’t suit you they argued, the President insisted you give the USA the fairytale ending we all deserved.

Lori burst forward, dagger ready for a jab. I jump up, blocking her advance, stamping my left foot down onto the wooden deck. Except…

‘Holy mother of hell! You got my actual foot you idiot!’

‘Sorry.’ I apologised profusely, but I don’t think this up-and-coming starlet will accept it.

‘CUT!’ The Director, Billy, announces from across the deck with his megaphone in one hand, and what looks like a ham sandwich in the other. ‘Walk it off Sadie! Let’s take five everyone. Brian!’ he points at me with the sandwich. ‘Get over here, we need to talk about a stunt double.’
A Guide to using Prometheus and Grafana for logging API metrics in Django
Tags: Prometheus, Docker Compose, Python, Django, Grafana

Configuring the Prometheus server

This is done via a .yml file that you’ll need to create. Our Docker-compose file will load it into the Prometheus server when it starts.

The targets (line 27) and alias (line 29) are references to our Django app which will be running under the Docker network. Line 24 tells Prometheus what to poll to get the metrics.

Configuring Docker-Compose

Once your app has been configured and the .yml file created, we can spin up our Django app, Prometheus and Grafana containers from the Docker-compose file.

Start the services by running:

docker-compose up

If everything started ok then you should be able to navigate to:

http://localhost:9090 for Prometheus

and http://localhost:3000 for Grafana

Note: Both Prometheus and Grafana will only display custom metrics once they’ve been hit. So searching for my_counter in the Prometheus server won’t return anything unless something has happened in the app to generate it.

A quick note on Error handling:

Make sure you get the correct indentation and be careful of tabs in the .yml files, otherwise you may see:

err="error loading config from \"/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml\": couldn't load configuration (--config.file=\"/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml\"): parsing YAML file /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml: yaml: line 19: did not find expected key"

If you see the following error message, it means Prometheus can’t find the .yml file and the path is wrong in the docker-compose file:

unknown: Are you trying to mount a directory onto a file (or vice-versa)?

Configuring Grafana

At this point we’ve got a running app with the Prometheus server configured to poll our metrics endpoint. The next step is to get Grafana to poll the Prometheus server.

There should be an option to add a Prometheus data source.

Add the following configuration to your Grafana instance:

Hitting save should test the connection and return successful.

And that's it… all that's left is to play around in Grafana to get the metrics looking how you want them.

Conclusion

So there, hopefully now you’ll be able to create a set of bedazzling charts fit to adorn any project management slide deck. Let me know how you get on.
How to Practice Self-Discipline with Self-Love
By: Yiqing Zhao
Tags: Self-awareness, Self Improvement, Self Love, Self Discipline

They should always go hand in hand

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Growing up I’ve always been regarded as one of the most disciplined people in my cohort. I got lots of cards from friends saying how inspiring I was. And I just assumed self-discipline was probably the easiest thing for me in the world.

Until, one day I started to feel resistant. Reluctant. Unsure. And I started to question myself: Where did the willpower go? Just went down the drain with a blink of an eye?

So I talked myself into being more disciplined. I made a set of rules: 30 minutes of yoga, 10 minutes of meditation, then 30 minutes of writing every morning before breakfast.

And you know what happened: After yoga and meditation I started to get hungry, so I had to eat. That “30 minutes of writing before breakfast” thing rarely happened.
I Mistakenly Published 3 Articles Within 24 hours By Accident And This Is What It Taught Me
By: Christie Li
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Writing, Education, Life

Panicking will not help

Getting an article accepted into a publication is good. Getting multiple articles accepted into multiple publications is even great. Yet, getting them all accepted at the same time is the worst that can ever happen (Well, maybe not the worst, but it's bad).

That is what exactly happened to me:

I woke up in the morning with 3 emails notifying me that 3 of my articles have been accepted into 3 different publications. I panicked when seeing a later email and realizing that all 3 of them were scheduled to be published the next day.

Well… Ok, I’m fucked. What should I do now???

FYI, I have a degree of compulsion when it comes to the regularity, frequency, or constancy of publishing articles.

It wasn’t exactly the best start for the day with a problem like this foisted upon you early in the morning. What seemed a small matter now felt like the world was collapsing at that instant. My mood shifted to the extreme; the next thing I know, I was sitting there stressing and panicking.

For a while, I had not had a single solution because I was in such a panic. I had to have my boyfriend to remind me of the simplest thing that I can at least do — to contact the publications and ask if the scheduled time can be changed.

I was only reassured after I did something about it. Still, I wasn’t feeling particularly good because of all the chaos and panic. The rest of my day wasn’t productive either because of my mood swings.

Stop, take a deep breath, clear the mind

It’s hard to come up with rational solutions for a mistake when you’re in a panic state. It’s even harder when this happens at 7 am and it is the first thing you see on your phone when you wake up.

Panic is the last thing I need when it comes to problem-solving if only I had realized this earlier on.

If I had only stopped at that instant to take a breath, distance myself from the problem and clear my mind, my morning wouldn’t be so chaotic. The rest of the day would certainly be less moody as well.
JS Module Swapping for Better Development and Testing
By: Denny Scott
Tags: Webpack, JavaScript, Software Development, Programming, React

Normal Module Replacement

NormalModuleReplacementPlugin does precisely what its name says — it will make even more sense when you look at the code below. Regardless, let's take a look at its online description.

The NormalModuleReplacementPlugin allows you to replace resources that match resourceRegExp with newResource. If newResource is relative, it is resolved relative to the previous resource. If newResource is a function, it is expected to overwrite the request attribute of the supplied resource.

We tell it a module to keep an eye for, say Child.js, and if it notices something using it, a module it should swap it for, say Toddler.js.

Let’s take a closer look at this and talk about our eventual goal. First, the code looked something like this:

loadLangauge.js

As you can see above, any language could be passed in. So when we statically analyze this code laster with Webpack, any of the 200 languages could be imported. Webpack will automatically go to that folder and collect all files that have the potential to be imported, and the system will automatically chunk every file it finds.

Our goal is to limit the number of languages that the dynamic import could load while we are in development mode; that way, Webpack will know it can only load a limited number of files.

Simple, that brings us back to our module replacement plugin. The plugin allows us to select a module (like the one above), and tell Webpack to load a different module in its place. Let’s create a module that only loads javascript.

loadLanguage.dev.js

Now in our webpack.config.js, we can add the NormalModuleReplacementPlugin to the plugins section. I've added an isDev variable to indicate that this plugin should only execute in dev mode. Note that this will need to be handled accordingly in your codebase (perhaps using the NODE_ENV ).

webpack.config.js

Note that we don’t have to target where the file exists, just some regex if the filename appears. The second call is the replacement module. Now when we build our development environment, only the Javascript is part of our build!

Jest Module Swapping

Another excellent use case of module replacement is Jest. Jest still has several issues with ESM and therefore often needs to fallback to CJS still. It’s usually recommended you use the ESM files in your development/production builds, and then module swap to CJS during your tests.

At the time of writing, one library that uses this swap for testing is React-dnd. They’re a great example because they need to swap any or all of the modules you could use by them. We’re going to do all of them, but it might not be necessary for your case. To swap files in your jest testing environment, open up your jest.config.js. In module.exports add:

jest.config.js
The Title Is ‘Story’
By: Suntonu Bhadra
Tags: Poetry, This Happened To Me, Storytelling, Poem, Writer

Stories are everywhere

a personal journey

a significant memory lane reminiscence

a variance to the daily chores

a part of livelihood, perhaps

flashlights turn on when depicting the pieces

connecting dots

words merge

emotions converge into structured pillage

stories are striking

words put a context to it

a personal one, the writer wants us to convey.

Suntonu Bhadra ▪ December, 2020

Alternative words to explore:
The Declining Middle Tier of ICO Fundraising
By: Galen Moore
Tags: Startup, ICO, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin

The median fundraise in initial coin offerings (ICOs) has been on a steady march downward since its peak in the heady days of the second quarter. In the fourth quarter, even the high-profile Science Blockchain (12.2 million USD) failed to come near its hard cap. Chatter at cryptocurrency conferences points to a more cautious investor base. But the truth is, crypto is starting to resemble the world wage economy: tokens that can command large fundraises are rolling in on bigger and bigger waves of money, while the bottom tier bounces along and the middle tier gets squeezed.

We took the list of ICOs that opened in each quarter, established fundraise amounts for the ones that had closed, and ranked them into three tiers by the amount raised. In Q4 so far, the gap has only gotten wider between top projects by fundraise, like Polkadot (USD 142.4 million) and Liquid (USD 105 million, and projects in the middle, like Dragonchain (USD 13.7 million) and AirSwap (USD 12.6 million).

Meanwhile, the number of projects calling it quits is ballooning. We’re now seeing new projects list at a rate of about five to seven per day. Most of those make it to ICO open, but a growing number of them are shutting down websites and social media, without a successful close. At the end of Q3, we counted 15 canceled out of 241 ICOs opened in the quarter. Since then, 35 more have canceled and 15 of those opened so far in Q4 are already canceled.

Of course, it’s not wise to measure projects’ success by the amount they raise. And in Q4, we’ve already seen a few high-profile projects, like Simple Token (21.6 million USD), come to market with modest fundraising goals. That hasn’t slowed the overall pace: So far this quarter, 133 projects have raised 1.38 billion USD, by our preliminary mid-quarter count, on pace to easily surpass the 1.74 billion USD raised by 133 projects in all of Q3.
Teaching Poetry Through Imitation
By: Samantha Lazar
Tags: Poetry, Nonfiction, Teaching And Learning, Education, Teaching

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Mimicry Poetry can be a lot of fun and can teach your students rhythm, rhyme scheme, and theme.

In a poetry lesson, I had my class try to rewrite Lewis Carrol’s Jabberwocky- about something they might fear and conquer. They had to try to keep the rhyme scheme and meter the same. So I tried mine:

’Twas early in the days gone by

did float and wander in the trees

All imagined if my eyes did lie

And thoughts myself did tease.

“Beware the clock, my daughter!

The hours that bite, the times that catch!

Beware the older ones and shun

The memory will unhatch!”

I took my pad and pen in hand:

Long time the ticking foe I sought

So rested me by the willow tree

And slept awhile in thought.

And as in awakened dreams I stood

The years passed without a flame

Came racing only as time could

And whispered out my name!

One, two, three, four! And more and more

I’d written my life on the page!

I went ahead, no fear or dread

embraced my growing age.

And, did I beat the growling clock?

It is after all a small toy!

Cherish this day! We have today

For gladness and spread joy.

’Twas early in the days gone by

did float and wander in the trees

All imagined if my eyes did lie

And thoughts myself did tease.
Three misconceptions about Serverless, and why Serverless is often misunderstood?
By: Craig Godden-Payne
Tags: Event Driven Architecture, Serverless, Software Development, AWS, DevOps

Serverless technologies come in many guises.

Cloud platforms such as AWS offer many different kinds of ‘Serverless’ tech, such as Fargate, Lambda, Aurora, ApiGateway etc.

Misconception One — You will be vendor locked in.

Part of the power of serverless is that it can easily access additional cloud services from within the same platform.

Because of this, there is a tendency to use multiple services from within the same cloud provider.

It is undoubtedly possible for say a function in AWS lambda to call out to a service in Azure or GCP, but you then have to start looking at things like security boundaries, authentication etc.

The reason people misconceive that you have to go with one cloud provider is that it is just so much simpler to do so.

Using multiple cloud vendors also reduces the cost-effective nature of serverless.

The cost of developing a small piece of the puzzle, and the cost of running is so tiny in comparison to a full-blown application; it simply does not make sense cost-wise to then call another cloud service provider.

Cloud providers tend to use plug-and-play style hooks and make integration of services very straightforward, so if you want to avoid vendor lock-in, it is very much so possible, it just might cost you a bit more in time to do so.

Misconception two: Serverless == Functions as a Service

There is a common misconception that serverless is just a Function as a Service (FaaS), such as AWS Lambda or Azure Functions.

It is entirely false.

Although FaaS can make up the compute part of serverless, there are different ways to do this, and many other services out there which provide additional functionality than compute, such as database or gateways.
Convert Web Pages Into PDFs With Puppeteer and Node.js
By: Juan Cruz Martinez
Tags: Programming, Nodejs, Web Development, JavaScript, Typescript

Convert Web Pages to PDF

Now we get to the exciting part of the tutorial. With Puppeteer, we only need a few lines of code to convert web pages into PDF.

First, create a browser instance using Puppeteer’s launch function:

const browser = await puppeteer.launch();

Then, we create a new page instance and visit the given page URL using Puppeteer:

const webPage = await browser.newPage(); const url = "https://livecodestream.dev/post"; await webPage.goto(url, {

waitUntil: "networkidle0"

});

We have set the waitUntil option to networkidle0 . When we use the networkidle0 option, Puppeteer waits until there are no new network connections within the last 500 ms. It is a way to determine whether the site has finished loading. It’s not exact and Puppeteer offers other options, but it is reliable for most cases.

Finally, we create the PDF from the crawled page content and save it to our device:

The print to PDF function is quite complicated and allows for a lot of customization, which is fantastic. Here are some of the options we used:

printBackground : When this option is set to true , Puppeteer prints any background colors or images you have used on the web page to the PDF.

: When this option is set to , Puppeteer prints any background colors or images you have used on the web page to the PDF. path : This specifies where to save the generated PDF file. You can also store it into a memory stream to avoid writing to disk.

: This specifies where to save the generated PDF file. You can also store it into a memory stream to avoid writing to disk. format : You can set the PDF format to one of the given options: Letter , A4 , A3 , A2 , etc.

: You can set the PDF format to one of the given options: , , , , etc. margin : You can specify a margin for the generated PDF with this option.
Eidoo wallet to become hypersmart thanks to ORS A.I. algorithms
By: Amelia Tomasicchio
Tags: Token, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin

Eidoo, the app that helps cryptocurrency go mainstream with multi-currency wallet, and ORS SA, the Swiss company of leading A.I. software group ORS GROUP, are announcing today the closing of a sales agreement for integrating the ORS Crypto Robo Advisor “Hypersmart Contract” with the Eidoo wallet.

Eidoo also plans to launch a hybrid exchange, a decentralized marketplace, and a debit card in the near future.

Eidoo users will be able to automatically use Artificial Intelligence algorithms in trading and investing crypto assets on the basis of their own preferences and risk profiles.

With over 200,000 downloads worldwide, Eidoo is set to become a leader in offering advanced blockchain-related functionalities.

With a portfolio of over 1,000 algorithms and hundreds of software solutions, ORS intelligent connector (the Hypersmart Contracts) of A.I. & Blockchain is set to dramatically enhance blockchain and cryptocurrency projects.

About Eidoo

Eidoo is a fast, easy multicurrency wallet and hybrid exchange for blockchain assets, and the first human-to-blockchain interface for all cryptocurrency needs. Eidoo is available to download for free from the iOS app store or the Google Play Store for Android. Learn about Eidoo from the official business paper and stay up to date on Twitter @eidoo_io.

About ORS

The ORS Group is a software company of more than 100 IT developers and scientists. It boasts over 20 years of experience in delivering sophisticated A.I.-based optimization software solutions to a large international client base (www.ors.ai).



Their new product, the Hypersmart Contracts (“HSC”), aims to provide access to more than 1,000 proprietary algorithms and hundreds of software solutions to the Crypto Community and to established businesses (www.orsgroup.io). At ORS, we envision a global network of entrepreneurs and independent companies empowered by our ABC technology building blocks: Algorithms, Blockchain, cryptocurrencies.
Why You Should Work a 9–5 Before Doing Anything Else
By: Tim Rettig
Tags: Self Improvement, Work, Entrepreneurship, Careers, Career Advice

Let me start by saying that I am all in favor of doing your own thing. I completely get it. You have a dream and you want to pursue it. Chances are, you want to get going ASAP.

Having worked on my projects ever since I was 21 or so, I know exactly how it feels. But looking back, I believe that any post-grad should start their career by working a normal 9–5 instead of getting straight into freelancing or starting a business.

Here‘s why:

Right now, you’re just not good enough.

If you start freelancing now or try to start your own business, the competition will crush you. That’s just a simple fact. No matter what business you are getting into, you’re just not good enough.
New Features in Python 3.9 Beta. Learn what’s coming to Python
By: Megha Modi
Tags: Python Programming, Python3, Python, Data Science, Programming

New Modules

Two new modules have been added in the latest version:

zoneinfo

from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

# IANA time zone support >>> dt = datetime(2020, 12, 31, 12, tzinfo=ZoneInfo(“Asia/Kolkata”))

>>> dt.tzname()

‘IST’

graphlib

graphlib provides functionality to topologically sort a graph of hashable nodes.

Topological sorting refers to the given digraph G=(V, E), find a linear ordering of vertices such that for all edges (v, w) in E, v-> w from vertex v to vertex w, vertex v comes before vertex w in the ordering.

I’ve tried to explain how topological sorting can be done in the illustration below:

Graph

Topological Sort

>>> import graphlib

>>> from graphlib import TopologicalSorter

>>> graph = {'E': {'C', 'F'}, 'D': {'B', 'C'}, 'B': {'A'}, 'A': {'F'}}

>>> ts = TopologicalSorter(graph)

>>> tuple(ts.static_order())

('C', 'F', 'E', 'A', 'B', 'D')

You can read more about this function here.
M1 Macs: as Responsive as the iPad Pro but with macOS
By: Charles Tumiotto Jackson
Tags: Gadgets, Apple, M1, Mac, Tech

M1 Macs: as Responsive as the iPad Pro but with macOS

There is no more need to compromise. The perfect Macs are finally here.

Photo by Joey Banks on Unsplash

Aren’t you tired of reading and hearing about the new M1 Macs? Well, maybe there’s a good reason people can’t stop talking about them.

For the past two years, I started using my 2018 iPad Pro more because I found it more reactive and, overall, more pleasant to use than my 2016 MacBook Pro.

Doing complex tasks on an iPad is extremely annoying and frustrating, for sure. But as long as you don’t multitask, do anything too web intensive, or have to manage files all day, the iPad is overall a way snappier and responsive device than any MacBook.

Until now.

Lots of people have been like me: using their iPad Pro almost as their primary computing device. Some of them chose mobility. Others were happy to use a responsive, powerful, and fun device.

But these people have been spoiled recently with the release of these new Macs.

The M1 Macs are the best of both worlds. They are as responsive and snappy to use as the iPad Pro, but they are more capable and feature a more complex OS, macOS Big Sur.

These Macs are so capable, have such good battery life, and are reasonably price, it gets confusing to recommend anything else. Even the $4,000 16-inch MacBook Pro doesn’t seem to outperform the new M1 MacBook Air by this much. And on the other end, I don’t see how relevant it can be to recommend the purchase of an iPad Pro while the sub-thousand dollars MacBook Air can do much more (unless you are an artist or a designer, of course, in which case you may enjoy using the Apple Pencil.)

I decided to purchase the M1 MacMini, and I have been using it every day for two weeks. I decided to keep my iPad Pro that I will use as my mobile device. I keep being impressed by how powerful the Mac is. I go through 4K footage in Final Cut as if the clips were 480p. I import, generate previews, and edit in Lightroom faster than I have ever experienced or seen. Managing files, web browsing, and other miscellaneous tasks are instant or very quick to launch.

The global experience so far has been pleasant. Going back to my Intel MacBook Pro, the difference is massive. Having to wait these few seconds every time I open a document or launch an app feels unnecessary and illogical.

When it comes to compatibility, I haven’t come to the point where an app couldn’t run. I’m sure they exist, and I would recommend you check out every app you are using in your current workflow for compatibility before you decide to upgrade.

But if you have been a fan of using an iOS device, specifically an iPad Pro, you will love upgrading to the M1. If the idea of switching your workflow to an iPad Pro terrified, now is the best time for you: you can benefit from the responsiveness of the iOS device while not compromising with the OS.
Web Scraping News with 4 lines using Python
By: Fahmi Nurfikri
Tags: Scraping, Python, News

In this article, I will show you how to collect and scrap news from various sources. Therefore, instead of spend a long time to write scraping code for each website, we will use newspaper3k to automatically extract structured information. If you prefer not to read this article, you can see my full code on github.

Let’s get started, the first step is to install the package that will be used, namely newspaper3k using pip. Open your terminal (Linux / macOS) or command prompt (windows) and type:

$ pip install newspaper3k

After installation completed, open your code editor and import the package with the following code

>>> from newspaper import Article

In this post, I will scrape the news from The New York Times entitled ‘A Lifetime of Running with Ahmaud Arbery Ends With a Text: ‘We Lost Maud’.

Next, enter the link to be scraped

>>> article = Article('https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/us/ahmaud-arbery-georgia.html’)

You have the choice to determine the language used. Even so, the newspaper can detect and extract language quite well. If no specific language is given, the newspaper will detect the language automatically.

But, if you want to use a specific language, change the code to be like.

Then parse the article with the following code

>>> article.download() >>> article.parse()

Now everything is set. We can start using several methods to extract information, starting with the article authors.

>>> article.authors ['Richard Fausset']

Next we will get the date that the article was published.

>>> article.publish_date datetime.datetime(2020, 5, 10, 0, 0)

Get full text from the article.

>>> article.text ‘Mr. Baker was with Mr. Arbery’s family at his grave site . . .’

You can also get image links from articles.

>>> article.top_image 'https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/05/10/us/10georgia-arbery-1/10georgia-arbery-1-facebookJumbo-v2.jpg'

In addition, the newspaper3k also provides methods for simple text processing, such as to get keywords and summarization. First, initialize using .nlp() method.

>>> article.nlp()

Get the keywords.

>>> article.keywords ['running',

'world',

'needed',

'arbery',

'lifetime',

'site',

'baker',

'text',

'wished',

'maud',

'arberys',

'lost',

'pandemic',

'upended',

'ends',

'ahmaud',

'unsure',

'mr']

And next is to summarize the news, but this feature is limited to only a few languages as explained in the documentation.
Blue Macaws Are The Gardeners Of The Forest
By: 𝐆𝐫𝐫𝐥𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭, Scientist
Tags: Palm Trees, Evolution, Ecology, Ornithology, Science

Additionally, dispersal distances varied between the five main palm species, too, and curiously, these distances were unrelated to fruit size.

Anodorhynchus macaws and palms evolved together

The dependence of the Anodorhynchus macaws on the seeds of palms as well as their role as dispersers of their seeds suggests this led to an evolutionary arms race between the parrots and the palms. Specifically, the palms evolved an extremely hard coat around its fruits to avoid seed predation by the macaws. The macaws evolved ever-larger and more powerful beaks to crack the palms’ strong nut coats so they could consume the seeds contained within. The result of this arms race may have been exploited by the palms to exclude all seed predators except the Anodorhynchus macaws, thereby ensuring that some of their seeds were dispersed over long distances by these strong and highly mobile flyers.

A pair of Lear’s macaws (Anodorhynchus leari) in flight. (Credit: Joao Quental / CC BY 2.0)

The evolutionary relationship between the Anodorhynchus macaws and their palms is apparently an ancient one. Multiple molecular studies have identified when parrots first originated and have found many of their lineages began speciating rapidly around 66 million years ago (i.e., ref). This coincides with an important time in palm evolution, too, where there was extensive speciation and changes in the traits of their fruits, both of which could have resulted from coevolution with parrots. In contrast, extinct mammalian megafauna arose much later than both the parrots and the palms whose seeds they presumably dispersed.

This study argues that the Anodorhynchus macaws perform an important long-distance air-delivery service that large-fruited palms rely upon to maintain gene flow between isolated groups and to regenerate palm stands. In view of the severe range contractions and extinctions that the Anodorhynchus macaw species suffered, their mutually beneficial interactions with a variety of palm species have surely disappeared from large portions of their former ranges. This recent history could be the cause of currently observed spatial and genetic arrangements of palm seedlings versus adult plants (ref).

Local and global extinctions of the Anodorhynchus macaws could provide important test cases for gaining a better understanding of the effects of disruption of seed dispersal on palms. Currently, there is one reintroduction project for Lear’s macaw (ref), and this could be used for assessing the effects of recovery of ecological functions.

Anodorhynchus macaws are globally threatened species

Both of the Anodorhynchus macaws have suffered dramatic population decreases in recent decades as well as reductions in their geographic ranges and thus, are classified as threatened by the IUCN Red List. The hyacinth macaw has a total estimated population of just 6500 individuals, distributed between three regions of the Pantanal, Cerrado, and Amazonia (Figure 1), probably with no genetic flow between them (ref).
Why do people fall in love with Python?
Tags: Java, PHP, Programming, Scala, Pyhton

Most of the people think the word “python” is a snake but it is the most popular programming language. Everyone will fall in love with life and some people may face an END in love, but those who fall in love with python there is no END (i.e “;”) with it because python programming has no Semicolon. So, people fall in love with Python programming.

Less coding:

Compared to other languages python has fewer syntaxes to write code. The syntax written in python is very simple and easy which makes it more user-friendly. Some logic with require 7 lines of code in another language but can be done only using 3 lines of code in python which makes it more efficient.

It is Free:

Python is an open source language, using the python language it doesn’t require any custom built platform or subscription. Thus any desktop and laptop are compatible with Python. In python modules and libraries are absolutely free for coding.

It Is One Of The Most Trending Languages:

There are a number of programming languages like C, c++, Java, PHP. Python is the most trending programming language in software marketing. We can use python language for businesses for developing and it has more impact on programming.

Improved Programmer’s Productivity:

The Python programming language has extensive support libraries and object-oriented design that increases the number of the fold of programmer’s productivity while using languages like Java, Perl,c, c++.

Integration Feature:

It has the enterprise application integration that makes it easy to develop web services. It has powerful control capabilities as it calls directly through c, c++, java. Python also processes XML and different markup languages as it can run on all modern operating systems through the same code.
These 5 Famous Writers Didn’t Quit and Neither Should You
By: Elad Simchayoff
Tags: Inspiration, Rejection, Books, Positive Thinking, Authors

Writing is tough. Getting rejected is even harder.

You sit in front of a computer, you let the words slice you open and spill your guts and heart onto a blank document. You have no clue whether it is good or not, whether someone else would find it interesting, but you give your best and let the story unfold.

Eventually, a stranger reads it or glances at it. They then send you a short, courteous private note: “Thanks, we will pass”. Sometimes, most of the time, you won't even get that.

This is brutal and has the potential to make you give up on your dream. You feel like throwing the computer out of the window, and finally, make your mother proud by becoming a lawyer.

So, a minute before you do that, bear in mind that you're not alone. Actually, you are in a really, really, good company. You shouldn’t give up just yet.
Giants
By: Veronica Georgieva
Tags: Poetry, Anxiety, Poem, Mental Health, Fear

We are giants,

living in a world that's all too small

with no guidance,

walking on thin ice, hoping not to fall.

We are magicians,

left with only a couple of tricks

and they have conditions,

cruel, but hidden in old scripts.

We are ancient gods

forgotten even by the last believer,

we never beat the odds,

still wishing we were freer.