fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Google tweaks algorithm, world ends: The one thing brand owners actually need to know
By: Angela Obias-Tuban
Tags: UX Research, Search Engine Marketing, Google Analytics, Web Design, Digital Strategy

How You Could Have Prevented This

I worked for an online publisher from 2011–2014 and our analytics results showed us the exponential growth of mobile visits to our sites month-to-month.

Time: Half a billion Facebook users only visit on mobile (http://time.com/3686677/facebook-mobile/)

I worked for a digital agency last year and the social media comments and the site analytics of the brands we managed, pointed to how many users and readers were using mobile devices to get to our sites.

My point is — if you had studied your digital performance all this time, you wouldn’t need to be in a panic. You would have known you needed a mobile-ready site over a year ago.

Google has done nothing with this update, but penalize the website owners who haven’t responded to the current digital norms and behavior.

If you’re only thinking of the importance of mobile now, then you haven’t been listening to your data or understanding your consumers for the past two years.

What You Can Do To “Survive”

So here’s my comforting thought — You haven’t cared enough about your potential visitors ‘till now (e.g. the mobile-only market makes up a large proportion of emerging market digital users), what’s a few more months?

Meaning don’t just do the knee-jerk reaction of calling a digital agency to suddenly create a mobile version of your site. That’s what these marketers want you to do. (Or, you know what, do that. It’s good business for agencies.)

Take a moment to learn from how you got to this place. To this position where Google has to punish you for not following recommendations they’ve been saying for a few years.
Five Bullet Friday: Week 38
By: Ben O'Hanlon
Tags: Komodo, Newsletter, Bitcoin, Fintech, Blockchain

Five Bullet Friday: Week 38

If this is the first time you’re reading our newsletter you can subscribe here and guarantee you don’t miss out on important news.

#1 AMA Monday, 24th September. Komodo’s first ecosystem spotlight with Verus Coin. Verus Coin is one of the most fascinating projects to have leveraged Komodo’s technology. Verus contributes its open-source technologies back to Komodo and other projects in the Komodo ecosystem. Innovations such as a brand-new hashing algorithm that’s CPU friendly and ASIC resistant and a combination consensus mechanism (50% PoW / 50% PoS). Add the AMA to your calendar or check out the AMA Reddit post for a lot more information and a list of resources.

#2 The second edition of Mylo’s Tech Tuesday notes! From the keyboard of one of our favourite devs. This week Mylo turned his attention to smart contract & custom consensus testing services and Bitcoin oracle price feed dapps (not only for btc prices). Read the article here.

#3 Index №5 of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Rankings. Yes, it’s that time of the month where we get a lot of angry tweets about how these rankings are worked out. This month we’ve posted the rankings and linked to the official FAQ so that everyone can find out how they’re compiled. Read our Medium post which contains all the rankings we’ve reported on.

#4 Komodo Takes Three More Giant Steps Towards Mass Adoption. 2018 continues to be the year of mass adoption. In this article, Daniel Pigeon outlines three more giant steps we’re taking towards mass adoption. Read the blog post here.

#5 HUSH is officially adopting delayed proof of work! dPoW will secure the $HUSH network from consensus (51%) attacks through $KMD notarization. Retweet their announcement.

Thank you for being a part of our community. Want to get these Five Bullet Fridays in your inbox? Subscribe here.
Ocean of Love. a haiku
By: Rajesh Vairapandian
Tags: Poetry, Literature, Fiction, Art, Haiku

Sign up for American Haiku Steamship To Writing History

By American Haiku

Writing takes practice. American Haiku is a great way to put your words from your fingers to your piece of paper. Don't quit, you can do it. Take a look
Doctors Who LOWER Your Bills? THAT’S Business Change!
By: Jeff Yablon
Tags: Insurance Companies, Doug Lefton, Hmos, Business Process, Doctors

When a business change that helps you is started by someone that has no direct interest in your well being, it’s a surprise. When that money-grubbing, heartless medical doctor to whom you entrust your health and even your life is that business change agent . . . oh, wait . . .

Most of us make far less money than our physicians, and in a world where the practicalities of our doctors’ businesses include needing to see more patients than they really have time for just to make ends meet it can feel as though those doctors just don’t care about us.

This isn’t always the case, of course, and one doctor has done something about it. And you can benefit from this medical business change even if he isn’t your doctor. Doctor Doug Lefton of Fairlawn Ohio has helped create a way for people who need lab tests to get them done way less expensively than by submitting them though standard medical laboratories.

I could stop here, hold Doctor Lefton up as one of those good guys who does amazing things straight from the heart, call it a real business change (it is!), and move on. But I’d like to say more.

One of the things we do at Answer Guy Central is Medical Practice Management. I point this out both because . . . well, because . . . and also as a reference to the reality that doctors need to enact business change, both for their patients’ benefit and their own.

I wrote about the business change mistakes doctors and other medical practitioners make managing their practices once before, and actually praised the practice of doctors refusing to take medical insurance. But that business change was purely about making more money. Dr. Doug Lefton has created a business change that helps his patients and is either neutral to him (he makes nether more nor less money) or a win, but not financially.

Dr. Lefton’s patients are simply healthier. And so they come to him for annual physicals, stay alive longer, recommend other patients . . . hey . . . Doctor Lefton can make more money from this business change!

NOW I’ll stop. But first I’ll ask you: what business change can you bring about that increases your business, helps your clients, and costs you nothing? Contact the Answer Guy if you want help finding that business change.
The Price We Pay for a Purposeful Life
By: Desiree Driesenaar
Tags: Shame, Poetry, Consumerism, Self, Tanka

This poem is inspired by this story. Would love to hear your thoughts…

If you want to connect, you can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or my website. Or somewhere in nature learning how to align economy and ecology…

Further reading
This Easy Meditation Helps Heal Life Trauma
By: Michael A. Tennant
Tags: Meditation, Positive Thinking, Trauma, Visualization, Mental Health

A Huge Step, Labeling My Feelings

I would later come to understand that this recurring feeling was a part of my anxiety. Which was a huge step! Labeling my feelings.

At the time, I didn’t do much about it. That awareness might even make the situation worse.

My anxiety would intensify from focusing on both the physical and emotional discomfort.

Through therapy, meditation, yoga, literature, I learned to listen to this discomfort. Through trying various practices, I began to understand the link between emotional pain and physical pain.

Perhaps, you’ve heard of Reiki, Kundalini, or Tapping? These all relate to learning how to locate, investigate, and release blockages in the body.

Finding A State of Focus

The exercise begins with finding a state of focus. This might be during meditation, while driving alone, or even during a walk. It is important that your audiosensory space be free of jarring or unexpected sounds.

Next, focus on the breath. It helps to have practice at focusing on mindful breathing.

Start by taking deep belly-filling breaths. Pay attention all the way from the start of the inhale, to the last drop of the exhale. Three big full breath cycles should get you going.

When focused, find the source of noticeable pain or discomfort in the body.

As you breathe, imagine that you are sending the breath from your nose or mouth, right into that part of the body.

Feel the breath cycle back through that spot as it leaves the body.
How to exchange funds between blockchains without third-party risks?
Tags: Atomic Swap, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain

Atomic Swaps is a new technology that makes it possible to exchange cryptocurrencies directly and without third parties. For example — you can exchange BTC to LTC with the fixed and small fee for any amount without centralization exchanges. The commission does not depend on the amount.

What is Atomic Swap?

In Greek language “atomos” means “indivisible”. “Swap” means trade and finance exchange operation in the form of exchange of different assets. Atomic Swap is the operation, which either implemented entirely or cannot be implemented at all.

It has essential meaning for the future of crypto: unlimited cross-blockchain exchange will open up a brand-new world of possibilities for the market.

Implementation

Atomic Swap has two sides — Initiator and Participant. For example look at BTC-LTC Atomic Swap:

Initiator creates something like “deposit box” which contain funds in the process of Atomic Swap.

This is like “transparent” box: recipient can check what’s inside, but cannot take the funds out without the initiator’s key.

When recipient checked that everything is fine, he makes the same box with the same lock, but with his own assets. Initiator checks this box, open it and leaves the key in the lock. Then the recipient takes the key and opens the initiator’s box.

The key is called the “Secret” and box it is the Contract. In other words, initiator sends to recipient hash of his Secret and now recipient can make a similar box, which will be opened by the same secret.

And although initiator owns the lock and the key, he can’t open his box and take his coins back, because the assets blocked for 24 hours by Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLC) protection. It’s designed to prevent each side from frauds and cheating (when initiator already received participant’s coins, but didn’t sent his own).

In picture above you can see a full Atomic Swap process, it looks complicated isn’t it? But not for Atomic Wallet user:

All of this proceeds automatically and there is no need for any actions by users in the process. You just have to make few clicks and waiting for your funds.

You already can try this technology at AtomicWallet.io

Stay tuned and follow us on:

Medium: https://medium.com/@atomicwallet

Facebook — https://facebook.com/atomicwallet

Twitter — https://twitter.com/atomicwallet

Join our Telegram chat: https://t.me/atomicwalletchat
Syllabus
By: J.D. Harms
Tags: Image, Misery, Poetry, Confusion, Heartbreak

Syllabus

A Poem

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

And today we’re learning to eat with our fingers

the rings of dirt subtle invitations to tetanus

but none of the enthusiasm is rusted

the car that slides into the space you used to occupy

where you curled your hair before my coming

crushed legs and back that stretched

to try to deal well with taking you in

goes up and on and on till the bleeding is inseparable

from the moments that carry on without you
Devotionally Yours
By: Ravyne Hawke
Tags: Love Letters, Spirituality, Poetry, Devotion, Spiritual Saturdays

Dear Divinely Beloved,

These lips have offered up prayers to you

in so many guises, reflections and truths

and yet it seems to matter not to you

so long as my words are filled with love

Today, you are the All Encompassing Oneness

Yesterday, you were Great Father or Great Mother

the Force, the Universe, even my Higher Self

Why do I always seek to label you, box you in?

You know all, see all, feel all — You are ALL

so yes, I will lift up my voice to praise you

but I know you will also recognize my needs

by a tear, or a smile, a deep sigh, or a plead

Signed, Devotionally yours

© 2020 Lori Carlson. All Rights Reserved.
Can bacteria save the planet?
By: Zafer Atik
Tags: Biotech, Bacteria, Biotechnology, Climate Change, Environment

Problem: Plastic pollution

As of 2018, about 380 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide each year. Numbers are not exact, but it is estimated that 1.1 to 8.8 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the ocean from coastal communities each year. That’s equivalent to 16 shopping bags full of plastic for every meter of coastline.

Modern life depends too much on plastic. Reducing plastic consumption may help the environment, but it’s not enough. We need another solution to this problem.

Solution: Feasible and ecological plastic recycling

It is estimated that only 9% of plastic is recycled. The rest is either burned or landfilled. The plastic cup we used the other day most probably end up in those landfills and be around after we ourselves decompose!

That is because plastics are complex polymers consisting of long, repeating, strong chains of molecules that don’t dissolve in water. That is why it takes a very long time to decompose naturally. If they could be broken down into their smaller, soluble chemical units, then these building blocks could be harvested and recycled to form new plastics.

Superhero to call: Ideonella sakaiensis

In 2016, scientists from Japan identified our first hero Ideonella sakaiensis. This bacteria has an appetite for plastic!

Our friend Ideonella sakaiensis have that strong appetite to digest the PET type of plastic. (The type we use to make our one-time use bottles)

Ideonella sakaiensis secrets an enzyme called PETase which splits certain chemical bonds (esters) in PET, leaving smaller molecules that the bacteria can absorb, using the carbon in them as a food source.

Our hero doesn’t stop there, it then breaks molecules down further using MHETase, another enzyme that further reacts with water to break down the plastics into terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol. Raw materials to make plastic!

Ideonella sakaiensis: “Umm yummy” Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

Technology is still at an early stage. There are efficiency problems to solve until we see Ideonella sakaiensis eating up our landfills. But now, we know much more about how PETase works. In the past 12 months, groups from Korea, China, and the UK, US and Brazil have all published work showing the structure of the enzyme at high resolution and analyzing its mechanisms.

If efficiency problems solved, plastic landfills quickly turn into gold mines, and we can hopefully see this type of gold rush.
Gray Will Come Soon Enough
By: Louise Foerster
Tags: Poetry, Dancing, Aging, Music, Joy

The best dancers I’ve ever known were the old ones.

They were supposed to sit quietly at the side, sipping iced tea or sparkling water, head moving to the music with they remembered-the-time-that and can-you-believe-we’re-this-old?

Not these people.

They were the ones who asked for the song they wanted, gave themselves up the music and danced their hearts out.

Everyone else joined in — even the ones who said they were tired or too old or too something else not to merge with music in the moment and dance.
Have you ever considered the short and perilous life of a sperm?
By: James Knight
Tags: Satire, Sperm, Fertility, Humor, Reproduction

Have you ever considered the short and perilous life of a sperm?

The “average man” ejaculates between 40 million to a billion sperm in a single ejaculation. Sperm retained in the female reproductive tract (lots drip out) must: 1) traverse the cervix, 2) be transported through the uterus to the oviduct (Fallopian tubes), 3) undergo the process of capacitation to be fertile, 4) bind to the ovum ovulated by the female, 5) undergo the acrosome reaction to attain fertilizing capability, and 6) penetrate the outer layer of the ovum (zona pellucida) and fuse with the oocyte plasma membrane.

The fertilizing spermatozoon enters the oocyte cytoplasm, and its nucleus decondenses. The male pronucleus is formed. It fuses with the female pronucleus in the oocyte, and fertilization is now successful.

It’s not easy being a sperm! Please check out this tale of Sammy Sperm and Suzie Sperm.
Dear Moon
By: John Ross
Tags: Poetry, Nature, Inspiration, This Happened To Me, Hope

The moon it felt so big at night

A tiny ball reflecting fire and light

Just enough so I could see

And walk beneath the stars and trees

To ponder of my time that day

To wonder if things would stay the same

To hope for there to be another way

And so I got down on my knees to pray

I prayed the sun would rise again

My life, my hopes could breathe again

And soon my life would be born again

If only the sun would rise again

Another day, another chance

To live without fear and begin to dance

To take my fears and laugh them away

Oh moon and stars, bring me a new day
Taraxa Weekly Update: Week 52.
By: Olya Green
Tags: Taraxa Weekly Tech Update

Taraxa Weekly Update: Week 52.

Working through the Christmas festivities!

Our team doesn’t stop even in the merriest of times, with more optimizations and refactorings on Taraxa public network.

Consensus and PBFT.

Reviewed the code on the RPC call thread pool and refactored the logging.

Implemented a test for retrieving data from DB.

Fixed the unit test for VDF computing time cost.

EVM transaction layer.

Added an additional storage overhead (optional) to speed up the transactions by enabling the execution engine to read and write trie values from/to separate plain key/value tables.

Check out our updated Ledger Roadmap and follow GitHub to be in the loop of our latest!
How To Always Find Something to Write About
By: Shannon Ashley
Tags: Creativity, Marketing, Blogging, Life, Writing

How To Always Find Something to Write About

Start thinking like an artist

Photo by Jasper Graetsch on Unsplash

I used to think that being a writer was a lot like being an entrepreneur or inventor. As if you needed one really good and unique idea just to get started. Now that I've developed a solid writing habit, I’m happy to report that I was wrong.

There are many different ways to look at writing, but when people complain about having writer's block, I think the issue is often that they've approached their writing as an idea problem. Like any good entrepreneur or inventor, many writers think a truly unique idea solves some sort of problem for their readers.

When they can't seem to come up with anything, they feel like a failure and diagnose themselves with writer's block.

But perhaps the problem isn't what you think. And maybe you don't need another new idea. Or even a problem to solve. Maybe what you need is some inspiration.

The good news?

Inspiration is everywhere.
Five Years Ago Our Family Lived in Social Isolation
By: Dave Smurthwaite
Tags: Europe, Travel, Family, Covid 19, Wellness

Life In a Post COVID-19 World

Five Years Ago Our Family Lived in Social Isolation

What we gained makes us scared to come back to “normal life”

Photo by Evgeni Tcherkasski on Unsplash

Five years ago, our family of seven experienced social isolation for the first time.

We just didn’t know it until now.

We left everything in our hectic and fast-paced American life, crossed the Atlantic, and landed in a remote French village (population 753).

Overnight, I went from working all day in the office to working exclusively from home. Our four boys went from being “away” at school or practices or playdates to always being underfoot.

There were no breaks from one another, no date nights with friends and everyone we knew was only reachable through technology.

The first month was a serious adjustment. Working remotely with a young family proved challenging. Entertaining our four boys without the help of family or babysitters was exhausting.

What’s more, we found ourselves in a region where everything was closed for the month (it was August in France, after all) and a home with no air conditioning.

My wife and I would lay awake at night with the sheets stripped away, sweating like hot dogs in a 7–11 countertop oven, wondering if we would ever sleep peacefully again.

From normalization to near perfection

Within two months, we had grown accustomed to always being together. This didn’t mean we were always happy (I did mention we have four rambunctious boys, didn’t I) but as the weeks progressed we saw more clearly just how crazy our life before had been.

Instead of scrambling to collect everyone for a meal or two each day, we were now eating three sit-down meals together.

Instead of coming home late and kissing my sleeping boys goodnight, we were hosting snuggle parties every night.

We also had time and energy for new family traditions, like Sunday-night crepes and pizza-van Thursdays (the one night in the week that pizza came to our village).

We walked to the local boulangerie most mornings to buy our fresh baguette, stopped by the local market for a new type of cheese, and made sure to test every version of pastry offered in our village bakery.

Stripped from the overload of obligations of our former life, we suddenly found an overabundance of time for each other.

And we couldn’t get enough.
Womanhood & High School
By: Energy Convertors
Tags: Student Voice, Student Agency, Feminism, Equity, Black Feminism

By: Jamiana Akinjo

Today, I walked down the hallway with one of my male buddies. I had a pass and he just so happened not to, but who got stopped? I, the female specimen, got stopped in the hallway with a pass! I got questioned on my whereabouts, asked if the pass was really legit. My friend got skipped by and told to have a nice day.

I go to a predominantly black school where females are constantly put down. Authorities catch a boy and a girl flirting, well, “the girl shouldn’t flirt with boys.” Authorities catch a girl in a tank top, “you shouldn’t wear that because boys don’t have self control.” I was told I am not allowed to wear ripped jeans without having leggings under them, but an undershirt is excused. I am told that I can’t show my shoulder because boys are going through changes and that might affect them.

I am tired of shaping my life around a male’s hormones, or behavior. I too am going through changes and yet I’m told to bottle it up and “act like a lady.” Why can’t I be a lady while showing my shoulder? Why am I being taught to cater to “my man” and make sure I keep him? My great aunt told me to get in the kitchen and learn to cook so that I find a man. I’m told to not try to go away for college because I have to stay close to home and help. I’m a young woman who sees these things happening in my everyday life. I’m sick of it and I’m pretty sure other young women are as well. 2017 is coming to a closing and trust me, we women are coming to change the nature of society.
Happy Halloween! Our Spooky Influencer Roundup
Tags: Influencer Marketing, Social Media, Digital Marketing, Halloween, Influencers

It’s Halloween! We’re hours away from drinking cider, watching Hocus Pocus, and eating way too much candy (but who are we kidding? We’ve had candy in the office for a week!). Since Tuesday we’ve been counting down with our favorite influencers we found on the Julius platform who truly embrace the Halloween spirit. This blog is our roundup with their latest videos so you can get some last-minute Halloween ideas before tonight!

These examples show how creative and relatable influencers can be. They know when their followers want an easy, no SFX makeup look that still slays, or a simple SFX tutorial to test the waters. They know when their followers want creative DIY “hacks” for the spooky holiday or fun dog treats to step away from the usual snacks for their pets. They aren’t selling out-of-this-world, impossible ideas, but still create compelling and creative content.

Need an easy but spooky makeup look? YouTuber Alex Faction’s Freddy Krueger makeup is super scary but not too difficult to put together. On his YouTube channel he has tons of makeup tutorials that you can easily pull off for your Halloween party.

Total Reach: 525K

Most Popular Platform: Instagram

Average Engagement on Instagram: 6.3K

For those who want to try out SFX and need a good idea for a full costume, Youtuber Kayleigh Noelle KILLED IT with this Poison Ivy look (sorry, Uma Thurman!). Her step-by-step tutorial show you how she put together her wig, costume, and bloody and gorgeous makeup.

Total Reach: 870K

Most Popular Platform: YouTube

Average Engagement on YouTube: 3.7K

Just looking for some simple DIY inspiration for party decor, accessories, and Halloween desserts? YouTuber xoJahtna is an everyday DIY pro, and shared seven super easy ideas for the holiday including an awesome glowing skull light and punch with a special effect.

Total Reach: 455K

Most Popular Platform: YouTube

Average Engagement on YouTube: 15.5K

We all know the typical spooky treats and party foods by now, so why not shake things up and share the Halloween love with your dogs? YouTube channel Gone to the Snow Dogs features a pet owner who vlogs about her Siberian Huskies, along with treat ideas and helpful Q&A’s and tips for dog owners. One of her latest videos features Halloween treats for dogs with pumpkin and peanut butter. You may have to watch twice, just to pay attention to those beautiful puppers.

Total Reach: 4M

Most Popular Platform: Facebook

Average Engagement on Facebook: 3.3K

Do you feel the Halloween spirit like we do? Who are your fave influencers to follow for the holidays?
Updates Galore
By: Josh Belkin
Tags: Live Streaming, Streamers, Streaming, Broadcasting, Twitch

Cards

Last week we added 5 new cards. You can now add cards to track your:

Channel Views in a stream, week, month, and year

Gifted subs in a stream

New Cards

Nav Bar

The nav bar can now be hidden. You can do so from the settings icon on the top right of your dashboard.

We are doing some initial testing on this feature. This will not persist through sessions meaning if you refresh you will need to re-hide your nav.

Pending the results of our tests, this may be something we change in the future.

Dashboard Management

Early last week we rolled out an update that fully reworked how you control your dashboard. This week we added some polish and wanted to officially discuss the features.

New Dashboard Management

On the left side of your dashboard we have added tabs so you can quick swap between your dashboards. Alongside this we added a feature for people with moderator access to more easily swap between the broadcasters they support.

The right side now contains all of the editing & control features you could ever need including the ability to fully invert your dashboards, hide your nav bar, & much more.

Not sure where a feature is? There is a help icon at the top right to give you some guidance.

Twitch Pulse

Alongside Twitch, we have also said goodbye to this feature. You can check this post out for more info: https://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/2936769-removing-channel-feed-and-pulse

Notes

Fixed a bug preventing users from swapping between their different notes.

Mobile

We have rolled out some quality of life & feature changes to mobile. We’re hoping this will make the site more accessible for you on both your phone and tablet.

Performance

Our CTO Thom has been hard at work optimizing the site. In the last week we rolled out feature optimizations that reduced over half of our resource usage!

StreamTip

StreamTip will be removed as an integration here in the next few days. We‘re sad to see it go and we wish it’s dev team the best of luck on future endeavors.

Privacy Policy

Yes, ours has been updated too! 🎉
データ・サイエンス始めました
By: Keita Miyaki
Tags: Flatiron School, Data Science, Python

Keita just started learning data science with little knowledge about programing in June 2019. You will see how it goes.

Follow
I Lied And Said I was a Writer.
By: Duke Of Chaos
Tags: Writing, Writing Tips

What the hell is this WRITER you speak of?

Can I admit something to you? The other day when I was in the Doctor’s office, on the form where they ask -Occupation?- I might have lied. I answered “Writer” instead of Accountant.

We’ll start with feeling like I’m under the gun, to produce, to get it written.

To post, and generate content.

I might have lied. I answered “Writer” instead of “Accountant”.

I successfully completed the post a day for May thing, and that was good, it got me back in the chair, but at what cost? I’ll admit to having actually written about 25% of the things I posted sometime in the past, the poems were off the cuff, as were the opinion pieces, but some of the stories were pulled from my desk where they’ve sat for a while now.

How much is the right amount of productivity for a writer? How much should we be able to put up and own? I know some of you are amazingly prolific. You have the time to dedicate to this craft, and the drive to make it work for you. Other’s, less so, lives filled with other pursuits (mine usually involves chasing kids, literally), have a few moments to a precious hour or two to work through a plot point or a blog post that you are considering, so two or three posts a week is possible, but daily quality content is not a thing you can do (I can generate fiction daily, five hundred words in 20–30 min, but to have it be quality?).

Shaunta Grimes suggested a simple 10 minutes a day, just to get some words down, and that’s cool, the threads are there, but I can’t find it in myself to update and follow that FB thread, as it’s just not in my nature.

Ultimately, it comes back to who you are as a writer, as an artist, and what you’re choices are. I choose to work on this, often in preference to the real paying work that I have lined up, which is not a smart financial choice, but there you have it. There is no one answer to what can work for everyone who want’s to be writer. You just do what you can do.

Do you call yourself a writer if you only do private journal entries and share poetry online?

Do you call yourself a writer if you plot massive tomes and then start narrating character backstory, knowing full well that your beginning is still months off?

Do you call yourself a writer when you have nothing more than 2000 word short stories to your name and none of them have been published.

Why should you call yourself anything but a writer? You write, you’re a writer.

In today’s world, published by the big 5 (it is still 5 isn’t it?) means less than it used to, Content is King, and Quality is Queen. So, to write, means you are a writer. If you want to be read, then Medium is here to help, or Wordpress, or even just publish it to e-book format and upload to Amazon, Smashwords, whatever. Making money from writing is a completely different beastie, but I’ll leave that for another post, just remember,

You write, you’re a writer.

So keep writing, it’s what you do.

DFTBA and all that Jazz
Prevention
By: J.D. Harms
Tags: Image, Poetry, Madness, Worry, Fear

Prevention

A Poem

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

Stiletto in garbage

blood on the handle

but not on the blade

the prevention of bad

news by slicing a throat

ready to run to the next

town over, the next wall

the next isolated occasion

when hatred reveals

all the lights you shine

to make us look

the other way

and when you’re not

in mourning

and you’re wearing

the blue clothes again

and solitude isn’t so

bad, again

but the timer drops

its seconds, lets you think

you’re behind

but you’re only behind

in clarity

because you couldn’t

prevent

what you didn’t know

would happen
How a Second Trump Term Unmakes America
By: Sheldon Clay
Tags: Democracy, America, Leadership, Donald Trump, Election 2020

How a Second Trump Term Unmakes America

A thought experiment suggests we should be more worried about chaos than authoritarianism.

Photo by Gautam Krishnan on Unsplash (modification by the author).

The nightmare scenario you often hear for a second term of the Trump presidency is there will be no remaining checks on his authoritarian impulses. Our shining city on the hill will end up feeling more like Italy under the grim thumb of Benito Mussolini.

I’m not going to say that can’t happen. As of this writing we’ve hit week 200 of the weekly list activist Amy Siskind compiles of things subtly sliding us towards authoritarianism. It’s now 282 items long.

But I have a different scenario keeping me up at night. I’ve always been intrigued by thought experiments. You begin with a fact you know, then assemble a train of logic to learn about things you don’t know. So I tried a thought experiment about where a second Trump term takes us.

The central fact of the Trump presidency isn’t power, authoritarian or otherwise. It’s chaos.

He is by most measures an extraordinarily weak president. Even with full control of Congress following the 2016 election he failed to deliver on his big campaign promises. Obamacare remains unrepealed. The border wall is largely unbuilt. He’s traded the bully pulpit of the U.S. Presidency for the more fragile modus operandi of the bully. His dreadful lack of rhetorical skills leaves him unconvincing to any audience not already held in the thrall of the right wing echo chamber.

Where there is no governing philosophy or competence, Trump fills the void with chaos. There is method behind the madness. We’re never given a chance to understand one failure or outrage before a new one comes to replace it. If you follow the headlines you know the drill. As I write this the president is staging a press conference to contradict his own Director of The Centers for Disease Control on the effectiveness of face masks and the reasonable timetable for a vaccination, further undermining our efforts to survive the pandemic. Tomorrow he’ll send us all spinning off in a new direction.
The Smooth-Talking Persuader
Tags: Politics, Diplomacy, Humor, Cartoon, Comics

Written by

Almost famous cartoonist who laughs at her own jokes and hopes you will, too.
Ode to the Guy on the Snack Machine Down the Hall From My Office
By: Matthew Broyles
Tags: Late Stage Capitalism, Boredom, Snacks, Workplace, Mundane

image captured by the author

You’re there every day.

When I walk up to the snack machine down the hall from my office, your open mouth and lazy smile gape at me, as if to convey…something.

I’m not sure what winding road of decisions led you to exist here in this hallway at a moderately-sized community college. None of the other snack machines around campus have any pictures on them. I don’t know why a frame was placed on this one, but clearly it bothered someone to have it sitting there empty.

Was it the guy who fills the machine? Or the regional manager, doing a walkthrough, looking for something to criticize? That seems plausible.

“And what’s that? Just an empty frame on that machine. It looks unprofessional. Put something there.”

The poor schlub, he’s just trying to make sure people have chips and chocolate between classes or meetings. He wasn’t trained for this.

“Uhh…what kind of thing would go there?”

“Be inventive. Inspire the customer. Show them that snacks can be fun and hip.”

Did the guy go onto Shutterstock? What did he type in? ‘Snacks?’ Or did he talk to the marketing girl, the one he can’t tell if she likes him or not? How much research did he put into finding this specific image? When he saw you, did he know right away that you were the one?

Where was this photo taken? Had the photographer read an article about how pictures of people eating were selling well? Did the ping from Shutterstock in his bank account when someone licensed this image trigger a flood of relief? Thank god, the rent’s getting paid this month. That article was right.

You don’t even know you’re here, do you? Gazing out onto students, faculty, and staff, showing them how happy they could be if they only bought a pack of chips. Maybe you died in a car accident last year, and this picture is a ghostly evocation of the life you would be living if it hadn’t been so tragically and prematurely ended.

I’m not sure why I care. Or how long you’ve even been there. But like that distant drip from the bathroom sink, now that I’ve noticed you, I can’t help but be unnerved by your presence. Someone put you there to tell me something. Or just to fill a hole.

Which, of course, is half of why I’m at this snack machine. I’m not even particularly hungry. I’ve just been sitting at my desk for hours now, with hardly anything to do but wait for phones to ring and inboxes to populate. In some ways, I’m just like you. Occupying space, collecting money, watching the minutes tick by.

Are you reminding me that there’s life outside these walls? Or telling me that if I only had these chips in my face, life inside these walls could bring a smile, if I let it? Are you, like me, being used by forces beyond your control, for an agenda you don’t fully understand or agree with? Do you even like chips? Or are you just a good actor?

I tell ya, snack guy, I dunno why either of us is here. But I’m glad we had this talk. I hope that wherever you are, that lazy smile persists. Carry on, sir. Carry on.
UX Success Story: Turning journeys into experiences - The Fuzzy Fish
By: The Fuzzy Fish - Digital Works
Tags: UX Research, UX, Tff En, UX Design, Ux Strategy

Oxala is an argentinian travel agency, who hired us because their website didn’t meet the user’s expectations. We carried out an environmental analysis process and developed a strategy to focus on their competitive advantages.

Let’s dive into this UX success story !

The challenge

They wanted their customers to enjoy the trip since the moment they started browsing.

What people told us

We found out what the user was looking for:

to be addressed in a different way

to be able to express themselves

a less business-like advice, but a friendly-wise advice instead

We identified and followed the route of the users who plan their trips, step by step; before choosing a destination they had to embrace their “travelling spirit”.

What we built

Our research was based on the insights obtained, after that we decided to generate a totally different experience from what is currently offered in the market. Oxala had to gain competitive advantage through its strengths. And we discovered how.

Our objective for the new Oxala site was that the trip starts with the first click. Our analysis generated a transformation with continuous improvement.

Lo-Fi prototypes — The Fuzzy Fish

The spirit

We developed a system of filters involving the user in a gamelike and interactive way. Now people can tailor-make their experience, according to their “travelling spirit”.
MS Excel — Cool Conditional Formatting Tips!
By: Don Tomoff
Tags: Excel Training, Productivity, Visualization, How To, Excel

Conditional formatting is one of my favorite Excel visualization techniques. But it can confusing!

I’ve rounded up four techniques below that I have learned recently. I hope you find them useful!
The Place
By: Paul Mulliner
Tags: Poetry, Relationships, Life, Self, Love

Something in your eyes

takes us to the love that dances

in the sky of our dreams

and the running brook of our heart,

to the unspoken language

we share,

the unheard voice

that doesn’t need words,

yet nothing’s left unsaid,

nothing’s left unknown.

To the silent song

of the Universe inside us,

and the experiencing sky

gazing through us.

The place we know.
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Art, Friday, Illustration, Drawing

First thing in the morning: a glass of water and a cartoon by The Fluxus.

Follow
What to do when you feel like giving up
By: Yann Girard
Tags: Life Lessons, Poetry, Life, Entrepreneurship, Writing

This might be the worst book I ever wrote.

And I feel like giving up every single day.

Even today I felt like giving up.

I procrastinated the whole day tying to find excuses so I could stop writing that book.

So I finally started writing at 8pm.

Even though I could already have started at 9am. 11.am. 2pm. And pretty much every other hour of the day.

But I started at 8pm.

And I was still thinking about how it would be a great idea to just give up.

To just stop the whole thing.

And that’s exactly how I felt when I wrote all my other books.

Every single day.

That’s exactly how I feel every single day when I sit down, take a look at that blank page and try to fill it with my thoughts.

I’m always close to the edge of giving up.

I don’t know if it’s just me.

But if I look around and read about all of this productivity, live your dream and follow your passion self help porn out there I feel like I’m the only one who isn’t crushing it. Who isn’t killing it.

The truth is I don’t feel like I’m killing it. Ever.

Some days I feel like I’m doing ok. And other days I feel like I could do a lot more than this. That I could do a lot better. That I should have put more time, thoughts and energy into this or that.

But the truth is that sometimes you’re going to have a bad day. Or a bad week. Or a bad month. Heck, maybe you’re even going to have a bad year. Or maybe even a bad decade.

And there’s nothing in the world we can do about it. There’s nothing we can do to fight those bad days. Weeks. Months or maybe even years.

All we can really do is to not close our eyes.

Because what’s going to happen when you close your eyes is that you’re not going to see the light at the end of the tunnel ver again.

Will there ever be a light at the end of your tunnel?

I don’t know.

I really don’t know.

And telling you that it’s going to get better, that one day you’ll be killing it, that one day you’ll be crushing it is like spitting in your face while you’re already down in the gutter.

So what can you do when it feels like the sun is never going to shine ever again?

I don’t know.

I really don’t know.

But I think the first step is to realize that no one is really killing it. That no one is really crushing it.

We all wear as many masks and layers of makeup as possible to hide our scars.

To hide our ugly and painful truths, experiences, fears and doubts.

But the truth is that nothing that really matters is ever going to be easy.

And the more something matters to you, the harder it’ll get.

The more your scars and your truths are going to shine through.

And it’ll get harder and harder every single day.

It’ll get harder and harder the longer you do it.

It’ll get harder and harder the closer you get to the finish line.

Just like someone a lot smarter than me once said…

Today will be difficult.

Tomorrow will be even more difficult.

But the day after tomorrow will be beautiful.

Most people give up tomorrow….

P.S. This was part of my new book. You can pre-order it here.
40% Off Sale on Micro-Chop Substack Subscriptions
By: Gino Sorcinelli
Tags: Music Journalism, Hip Hop, Newsletter, Substack, Music Production

Hello,

As you may already know, I started a Micro-Chop Substack newsletter in July. So far I have close to 800 free and paid subscribers. I’m trying to boost that number to over 1,000.

If you really love my writing and want to offer some financial support, I’m running a 40% off sale on subscriptions. For $3/month or $26/year you get brand new Micro-Chop articles sent directly to your inbox on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week. If you sign up for a paid subscription you also get access to all archived Substack articles. Read a sample article here.

If you enjoy my writing but you’d rather not pay for it, try out a free subscription. Free subscribers receive one new article every Monday. Read another sample article here.

All subscriptions free and paid are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. If you like my writing and want to support it, a free or paid subscription is the best way to do it.

Thank you for your time, have a great day.

— Gino
8 Strategies To Tackle Your Greatest Weakness as a Writer
By: Shanna Loga
Tags: Writing Tips, Self, Personal Development, Writing, Novice

8 Strategies To Tackle Your Greatest Weakness as a Writer

#2. Analyze feedback from peers and editors

Photo by John Torcasio on Unsplash

My text: Despite the squeaking caulk, watching them was soothing and soporific and by the time he got to deviations, I was hazy and unfocused.

Editor’s comment: I have no idea what you’re actually trying to say here.

Ouch.

If you’ve written for long enough, you start to see common themes in the feedback you receive. Maybe you’ve been told you tend toward wordiness, struggle with transitions, or include too much fluff. Maybe you struggle with description and dialogue. From my high school English teachers to editors of my most recent articles, I’ve heard these three words: lack of clarity. I recognize it now as my biggest weakness as a writer. It’s an ongoing challenge.

Here are the eight strategies I’ve learned so far about confronting my biggest weakness as a writer.
Başarının Tanımlanması
By: Hüseyin Güzel
Tags: Tanımlama, Türkçe, Başarı, Dan Pedersen, Başarılı Olmak

Get this newsletter By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don’t already have one. Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices.

Check your inbox

Medium sent you an email at to complete your subscription.
Poinsettia Dreams
Tags: Heartbreak, Poetry, Dreams, Seasons, Writing

The apocalyptic darkness outside aligns with

My blackened soul.

The chilly air brutally cuts through

My breath, and the desiccated earth

Just lies there —

Lamenting burnt foliage. The lake is restless,

Ready to submerge the remnants of

Anything beautiful.

I often dream of that lake, now frozen,

And also of misty hills at the bend of

The freeway,

Twinkling colors on snow,

Trees — some barren, but in others

Leaves braided with light strings

Glowing barks.

Air that smells of vanilla and peppermint

Red Poinsettia warming up

The frosty evening for festivities.

At the end of my dreams, the lake creates

two little pools. Those overflow

as I open my eyes.
Dunder Data Challenge #4 — Finding the Date of the Largest Percentage Stock Price Drop
By: Ted Petrou
Tags: Machine Learning, Pandas, Data Science, Python

In this challenge, you are given a table of closing stock prices for 10 different stocks with data going back as far as 1999. For each stock, find the date where it had its largest one-day percentage loss.

Begin working this challenge now in a Jupyter Notebook with Binder

Begin working this challenge now in a Jupyter Notebook thanks to Binder (mybinder.org). The data is found in the stocks10.csv file with the ticker symbol as a column name.

Challenge

Can you return a Series that has the ticker symbols in the index and the date where the largest percentage price drop happened as the values? There is a nice, fast solution that uses just a minimal amount of code without any loops.

Extra challenge

Can you return a DataFrame with the ticker symbol as the columns with a row for the date and another row for the percentage price drop?

Begin Mastering Data Science Now for Free!

Take my free Intro to Pandas course to begin your journey mastering data analysis with Python.

Master Python, Data Science and Machine Learning

Immerse yourself in my comprehensive path for mastering data science and machine learning with Python. Purchase the All Access Pass to get lifetime access to all current and future courses. Some of the courses it contains:

Exercise Python — A comprehensive introduction to Python (200+ pages, 100+ exercises)

— A comprehensive introduction to Python (200+ pages, 100+ exercises) Master Data Analysis with Python — The most comprehensive course available to learn pandas. (800+ pages and 350+ exercises)

— The most comprehensive course available to learn pandas. (800+ pages and 350+ exercises) Master Machine Learning with Python — A deep dive into doing machine learning with scikit-learn constantly updated to showcase the latest and greatest tools. (300+ pages)

Get the All Access Pass now!
運用 jQuery Mockjax 進行前端 AJAX 模擬
Tags: Js, F2e, Web, Jquery, Ajax

jQuery Mockjax（以下簡稱 Mockjax）是一個以 jQuery 為基礎的 AJAX 請求 / 回應模擬工具。根據官方的說明：

M ockjax gives front end developers the ability to define ajax requests that should be mocked out, as well as how those requests should be responded to. These mocks can be extremely simple or quite complex, representing the entire request-response workflow.