fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
1 Billion KAVA Buying Bonanza — Buy KAVA, Earn 10% Bonus.
By: Minaz Vastani
Tags: Kavacoin, Stellar, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Bitcoin

Overview: Earn 10% KAVA by buying Kava Coins daily.

Description: Buy Kava Coins daily on an exchange where we are listed. You will earn a 10% KAVA bonus on the net amount bought at the end of each day.

Reward: 10% KAVA Bonus.

Starting: October 10, 2018.

Deadline: January 15, 2019.

How to participate:

In order to qualify, you must complete the below 2 steps:

Step 1- Get a KAVA Wallet & Buy KAVA. Step 2- Register @ https://kava.world/kavacoin

How to get a KAVA Wallet & Buy KAVA :

We recommend buying KAVA on either StellarX (PC/Mac) or Lobstr (Mobile). You automatically get a KAVA Wallet once you buy KAVA.

PC/Mac — How to buy KAVA Coins on StellarX Exchange: https://medium.com/kavacoin/how-to-get-a-kava-wallet-and-buy-kava-coins-on-stellarx-5ae41a23622c Mobile — How to buy KAVA Coins on Lobstr Exchange: https://medium.com/kavacoin/how-to-trade-kava-on-lobstr-631c77c23cd

Bonus — Overview:

10% KAVA Bonus — 1 Billion KAVA given away or January 15, 2019 whichever comes first.

Bonus — Detailed:

10% KAVA Bonus — You will earn a 10% daily bonus based on the amount bought on an exchange. There is a pool of 1B KAVA Coins and this ends once all 1B KAVA Coins have been claimed or by January 15, 2019 whichever comes first.

Example 1: Each day, during the 10% bonus period, if you buy 1,000 KAVA, you will receive a 10% bonus, earning you an additional 100 KAVA. Example 2: Each day, during the 10% bonus period, if you buy 5,000 KAVA and sell 1,000 KAVA, you will have a balance of 4,000 KAVA. A 10% bonus will be applied to your balance, earning you an additional 400 KAVA.

Buying Bonus Calculation:

We will take a snapshot daily, and compare how much was bought from the previous day. Based on the net amount at the end of each day (total amount of KAVA bought minus total amount of KAVA sold) the bonus KAVA will be deposited in your wallet within 3 days.

Additional Ways to Earn KAVA:

Play our CasinoLife Poker game to earn KAVA - available on Apple App Store, Google Play, and PC/Mac.

Stay tuned:

Follow us on Twitter — Join our Telegram — Like us on Facebook
Private Inclination*
By: J.D. Harms
Tags: Image, Musing, Poetry, Poem, Art

Private Inclination*

A Poem

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

Sloped deafened inert poem

dark lit but sometimes humourous

sometimes totally fucking arbitrary

I want it funny sometimes

I want to twist and wriggle in the sheets

like you do to make

the blanket sculpture

News blasts more deaths and then

a few more

Plaguing not grown old yet

I’d like to know why you invited me here

and then

when you’re done with the wine

maybe go to sleep with no candles burning

Some figures in the tattling

now fully committed to the snow drive

and wilted into the same structure

over and over again

Never passing the beginning

that was supposed to end

Never indifferent to the outside desires

pinioned into orphan territory

to the club of insomniacs that meets

at night

So the attempt to fly is destined for a crash
One Subtle Sign You Were Meant to Be a Writer
By: Dhruv Sharma
Tags: Passion, Short Read, Writing Tips, Writing Lessons

One Subtle Sign You Were Meant to Be a Writer

Spoiler: You write like no one’s reading.

Photo by Kazuo ota on Unsplash

At the age of seven, Gillian Lynne was struggling through school. Her school even told her mother that she had a learning disorder. But when her concerned mother took her to a doctor, everything changed.

The doctor flicked his radio on before leaving his office to have a word with Gillian’s mother. Minutes later, when the two returned to the office, they found Gillian grooving to the music on the radio. Despite having no prior dance lessons, she caught every beat.

Time stood still, while Gillian moved. She danced like no one was watching.

“There is nothing wrong with your child — she is a dancer,” said the doctor.

Gillian Lynne passed away in 2018, but her story still inspires many. She later became a phenomenal ballerina, dancer, choreographer, actress, and theatre-television director.
One Hundred Years Too Soon
By: D Abboh
Tags: James Baldwin, Humanity, Relationships, Poetry, Liberty

Committed to nothingness —

my liberty became your muse,

shifting the goal posts

you watched me chase and adore you,

if I ever fall like that again —

it will be one hundred years too soon.
Inslee announces restart of all medical services in Washington
By: Wa Governor S Office
Tags: Covid 19

Aside from being determined by the COVID-19 activity in different regions of the state, the reopening of health care services are based on three standards of care. Readiness will be determined by the availability of PPE, hospital capacity and more. As the graph above shows, we feel good about the number of ICU beds available statewide as well as the number of ventilators in Washington.

Under this plan, each health care or dental provider must meet certain criteria to be able to begin performing elective procedures. Each provider evaluates their readiness to begin and must maintain standards to continue to see patients.

One of the most important requirements for any provider is that they must have appropriate personal protective equipment for their workers and patients. If they aren’t able to procure enough PPE, they cannot open.

Additional protocols, such as limited numbers of people in waiting areas, physical distancing, temperature checks, frequent handwashing and hygiene, and more, are important to protecting patients and health care workers.
What Is RESTful API? How to Create and Use RESTful APIs?
Tags: Rest, API, Mongodb, Restful Api, Database

What is RESTful Routing?

You all are already familiar with routing. It’s working under the hood every time you surf on the internet. The url is changing every time you click some link. We are sending requests to that url every time we want to access a website and it responses us with data or action.

If you don’t like theoretical definitions, here is an example for you:

Let’s say we have a database full of dogs and we can use the following url to request data about all the dogs:

localhost:3000/dogs

When we want to be more specific, say we need to get only golden retrievers, we should be able to specify it in request url.

localhost:3000/dogs/golden-retrievers

This concept is known as routing. Your APIs should adapt this protocol in order to be RESTful API.

How to do that? With chainable routes. Route chaining is like method chaining. Syntax looks like this:

route chaining

You can make the url dynamic for the client and pass the input as express parameter to the get, post and delete functions.

Express Parameter:

app.route("/dogs/:dogsBreed")

In the above line dogsBreed is a dynamic value. If client types beagle in there, dogsBreed will become beagle. If client types labrador , it will become labrador. You got the point!

is a dynamic value. If client types in there, dogsBreed will become beagle. If client types , it will become labrador. You got the point! We can reach it like this: req.params.dogsBreed

Now we can use that dynamic value to get what we want.

An example case:

app.route("/dogs/:dogsBreed") .get(function(req, res){

Dog.find({breed: req.params.dogsBreed}, function(err, foundList)){

if (foundList) {

res.send(foundList);

}

}

});

…

We could also call .put:

app.route("/dogs/:dogsBreed") .put(function(req, res){

Dog.update(

{name: "Rex"},

{name: "Rufus"},

{overwrite: true},

function(err){

if (!err) {

res.send("successfully updated the article");

}

}

);

});

First parameter: the document that will be updated

- (the documents that has a name “Rex”)

the document that will be updated - (the documents that has a name “Rex”) Second parameter: what we want to update.

- the name field will be changed to “Rufus” from “Rex”

what we want to update. - the name field will be changed to “Rufus” from “Rex” Note: remember when you use put, you are updating the document by sending new one. So, all of the undeclared field will be removed. There will be only one field of the document which is name.

If you don’t want to change the entire document use .patch instead.

app.route("/dogs/:dogsBreed") .patch(function(req, res){

Dog.update(

{name: "Rex"},

{$set: {name: "Rufus"}},

function(err){

if (!err) {

res.send("successfully updated the article");

}

}

);

});

In this case we only updated the name field and the rest will be still same.

What if we want to keep it dynamic as well? What if we want to update as many fields as client requests to?

{$set: req.body}
There is a sadness in my soul, the nations remain un-whole.
By: Don Feazelle
Tags: Unity, Hope, War, Love, Poetry

There is a sadness in my soul,

the nations remain un-whole.

People who were long vested,

friendships are continually tested.

Many friendships have failed,

Friends no longer connected.

Arguments ensue over world affairs,

friends estranged, walls erected.

If the truth be told, we have been fooled,

by the mighty and their distractions.

We bicker and fight, while in course of the night,

they brew their devious concoctions.

The mighty who fill their coffers with gold,

mock us with lies that are eons old.

We fall for their persuasions

they use to keep us distracted.

When will we learn,

that it is not our neighbor we spurn,

but the lies created to divert us.

The message is simple.

It is only Love that will unite us.

Only Love will heal the nations.

Dedicated to the visionaries and mystics who see beyond the veil of flesh.
Recap of Reddit AMA with Morpheus Labs CEO Chuang Pei-Han
By: Morpheus Labs Team
Tags: Crypto, Cryptocurrency, Ama, Blockchain, ICO

Thanks for all your questions during our Reddit AMA this week. We hope we were able to fully answer all your questions and are looking forward to your next Reddit AMA. Here’s a summary of the most insightful Q&A’s:

Q: When will we know when the token burn will take place and how much will be burned?

A: There will be only 45% of the total MITx supply (360m = 800 millions MITx tokens x 45 %) remaining after burning. This will happen in stages after we have set up the ecosystem (successfully listed MITx on desired exchanges, secured partnerships etc.).

The exact time of burning tokens will be determined soon after the commercial version of our platform is launched. Currently, the market is still uncertain and we are waiting for exchanges and other ecosystem-stakeholders to show signs of maturity before we execute our plan.
Package-lock.json in Node (NPM)Based Applications
By: Anji
Tags: Angular, NPM, JavaScript

This blog post will help us to understand the package-lock.json file in detail.

NPM introduced package-lock.json in the 5.X.X version. The package-lock.json will automatically generate when you install the node packages.

The main goal of package-lock.json keeps the exact version of each package you mentioned in the package.json in your application.

This helps us to generate the exact same dependency tree for npm packages in all the environments like developer machines, development, test, and, production environments.

The package-lock.json contains each and every dependency you mentioned in the package.json file. It contains the exact version of the package dependency, the location of the package, a hash that verifies the integrity of the package, list of packages it requires, and, a list of dependencies.

You must commit package-lock.json to the source control and should not add to .gitignore file.

When you run the npm install, packages will get installed from package-lock.json if it already exists otherwise it will create a new package-lock.json file with the dependencies those are installed.

Below is the sample package-lock.json file.

Happy Coding :)
How to Stand Out as a Programmer Without a Degree
By: Szymon Adamiak
Tags: Programming, Learning, Education, Software Development, Learning To Code

The Secret is Communication

Programming is a team sport. You’re are not working in a vacuum. You’re working in a space full of people — other developers, managers, clients. It’s a massive advantage if you can communicate efficiently, clearly, and politely. If you’ve acquired that skill earlier in your career or education, it may prove a huge advantage.

Working alongside developers

You may believe communication with fellow developers is easiest. After all, you use similar jargon, may share attitudes, priorities, and interests. But it’s trickier than you may imagine.

I once worked with a senior developer who frequently seemed to ignore my questions and remarks. He just kept on coding as if I wasn’t even there. I would stand there disoriented, unsure if I should repeat the question, wait, or just leave him be. After a minute or two (or five), he would respond, always on the subject, and provide useful guidance.

It turned out that he heard me but answered after he finished the task at hand. He wasn’t unfriendly or unhelpful, just needed to take his time to respond. I could get angry waiting, but fortunately, I realized how to work with him.

Soft skills are also crucial when you’re receiving or giving feedback. It doesn’t matter on which side you are now — you have to treat feedback as a learning opportunity. Being polite and considerate is a must. You’ll have more friends if you don’t take feedback too personally and are able to also give it — with empathy.

Devote some time to get to know people you work with, their habits, and their communication styles. You’ll work a lot faster if you know who to ask for help and how to do it.

Communication with managers and clients

If you can’t get along with managers and clients, you won’t be a great developer. Programmers have their language and so do the business people. You have to remember that not everyone has your expertise, and often you need to explain complex topics in simple terms.

Developers who can connect those business and programming departments are crucial for the product’s success. By acting as a bridge you can not only make more friends but also accelerate your team’s work.

Countless potentially significant projects failed due to miscommunication. Don’t let that happen to yours — experience in another business may be critical in developing your company and your programming career.
On legislating the ‘new oil’: article 20’s data commoditising effects
By: Dragos Tomescu
Tags: Study, European Union, Privacy, Regulation, Gdpr

As of today, GDPR’s article 20 grants individuals the right to request (and transfer) their personal data, held by the various organisations possessing it, in a ‘commonly used’ electronic format. This is about to transform personal data into a commodity individuals can trade. How might it be regulated?

A few months ago I wrote my first article for The Outlier, arguing that the regulation of data-driven organisations is much like regulating financial institutions. Later that day, I attended a data-related event in Amsterdam which aimed at illustrating a world where ‘citizens can control and use their data’ to improve their cities and therefore their livelihoods. In a nutshell, and in anticipation of the upcoming GDPR, the cities of Amsterdam and Barcelona were making the case that cities could be made better places if individuals were to share their personal data, which are otherwise unscrupulously abused by big-tech companies. Smaller private organisations have also started offering individuals additional personalised services in exchange for their data. Some organisations, for example Datacoup, are even offering to help people monetise their personal information.

Data portability could have tremendous benefits to society. Services big-techs offer could easily be matched by smaller rivals, thus intensifying competition. Having access to the additional data could help organisations understand previously undetected patterns, thus allowing them to better cater to their subjects. Consequently, individuals would stand to benefit from better services, from financial and healthcare to social media and entertainment. Many other unforeseen benefits could arise. Notwithstanding, there are some challenges on the horizon.
Try Not To Sound Like a Racist When You Race-Bait
By: Cody Libolt
Tags: Social Justice, Theology, Christianity, Racism, Politics

Kyle James Howard says pastors should be troubled if young white men in their churches are looking to Shapiro, Walsh, and Peterson as being the intellectuals of their age.

I’m not sure what Shapiro, Walsh, and Peterson said to offend this man. Here he doesn’t explain.

Why would these three men be a concern? They are indeed notable intellectuals of our age, and they stand head and shoulders above any intellectual in mainstream media — on the topics which they cover.

These men also stand head and shoulders above our good theologians — in regard to certain political issues.

Mr. Howard didn’t say why he thinks these men are wrong. He said he’s specifically concerned about young white men taking these voices seriously.

What do these voices have in common that would offend a man like Howard?

They all reject identity politics. That’s the essence.

Mr. Howard seems to consider it a danger that young white men would approve of the message of these three bastions of reason in the age of identity politics.

For two reasons, that makes Kyle James Howard sound like a racist.

1) He has attributed a certain proclivity to sin to a group based on skin color.

2) We may infer that he supports racial identity politics.

I don’t use the word racist casually. Mr. Howard inferred that a group of people of a certain skin color are being misled into bigotry. It was a false accusation. And it even sounded like a racist one.

What’s the big deal? Why even bring up this kind of dispute?

You may not be very interested in the growing ideological deception of cultural marxism and identity politics.

But this ideological deception is interested in you.

Speak up while you have the chance.

Use right reason to cast down their faulty reason.

And where they don’t use reason at all, but only intimidation (which is most of the time) use ridicule.

Use it now.

Early is the right time to confront would-be tyrants and demagogues.
UBC got listed on LATOKEN exchange
By: Ubcoin. Cryptocurrency Reimagined
Tags: Ubc News, Ubcoin, Ethereum, Ubc, Bitcoin

🔥 UBC got listed on LATOKEN exchange!

LATOKEN entered CoinmarketCap’s Top-60 and keeps improving the result. https://latoken.com

❤️ https://wallet.latoken.com/market/Crypto/ETH/UBC-ETH — the link to UBC/ETH pair.

👍 This is the second exchange for UBC. Previously this week UBC started trading on COSS exchange.

💎 More exchanges and the product public release are coming!
ESTO 3
By: Stephen C. Rose
Tags: Esto, Autobiography, Philosophy, Poetry

A Spiritual Autobiography

Definitions

In the first place

Reality

I use the term as fundamental

But now I think

It is clearer to speak of Substance

+

Substance is what is universal and applies to all that exists

The substance is physical

But you can put your hand through it

It registers

It is all creation

It is the Source of all creation

Perception depends on density

+

This means there is no longer a distinction between dual and nondual

It’s no longer how things are

Already-thereness is more and more tangible

That is to say

Conscious

+

I am already there

We are already there

All are already there

That is what has been going through my mind

All day

+

Yet I am the densest person you can imagine

But that is just where my substance happens to be

+

We are all already there

+

I am flooded with redefinitions

But I have devised this book

Keyed to who I am

I have the power to stop and continue

Just like the quanta of reality

Which is the substance of all
Bitcoin vs The Banks with Sunny Ray
By: Shannon Grinnell
Tags: Crypto, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Reserve Bank Of India, Bitcoin

Sunny Ray on the Speaking of Crypto podcast

Sunny Ray’s company Unocoin, along with the Internet + Mobile Association of India, is in a legal battle with the Reserve Bank of India. The RBI is India’s national central bank. Almost a year ago, the RBI banned all banks in the country from working with crypto or with crypto companies.

What does this lawsuit mean for India? What does it mean for the banks andthe crypto companies? And, what does it mean for crypto around the world?

This case will set a precedent.

Sunny shares a few details on how the law suit’s going and that their expecting a decision in the next few days.

Sunny is a veteran in this space, having been in Bitcoin for around 6 years, and I asked him what it’s like to run a company that based on Bitcoin in a volatile market where the value of Bticoin itself has changed so dramatically. His response was that not only do the highs and lows come in cycles, he also believes that they’re highly predictable. He explains the predictability and his thoughts around where the value of Bticoin is headed in our conversation.

Bitcoin changed his life and he shares what hit him right from the beginning.

“I chose Bitcoin. It wasn’t chosen me, right, I consciously understood the white paper and said, Oh, my God, this is going to change the world. Changing the world, I never thought it was going to be easy. And I also knew that there was a very high chance of failure. Right? But I also knew that if I didn’t try, I would regret it when I my grandmother’s age.”

This is the second time I’ve chatted with Sunny for Speaking of Crypto, so for more background, here’s our first podcast together from June 2018, Episode #8.

https://speakingofcrypto.com/sunnyray/

We also talk about remittances and the fact that India is the largest inbound remitter in the world. There’s around $100 billion that flows into the country through remittances, but we discuss the ridiculously high percentages in fees that traditional banks take on those remittances.

Does that have anything to do with why the RBI is banning banks from working with crypto or crypto companies?

We also touch on double taxation and why Sunny decided to move Unocoin’s headquarters and where.

And we briefly talk about Quadriga and what regulation in Canada might look like going forward as a result of the unfortunate circumstances around this exchange.

Sunny mention’s Nishith Desai’s article on potential framework for crypto regulation in India.

http://www.nishithdesai.com/fileadmin/user_upload/pdfs/Research_Papers/Building-a-Successful-Blockchain-Ecosystem-for-India.pdf

IAMAI

https://www.iamai.in

Unocoin

https://www.unocoin.com

Sunny Ray
Understanding and Calculating the number of Parameters in Convolution Neural Networks (CNNs)
By: Rakshith Vasudev
Tags: Machine Learning, Convolutional Network, Andrew Ng, Deep Learning, Convolution Neural Net

FYI: The above image does not represent correct number of parameters. Please refer to the section titled “CORRECTION”. You may skip to that section if you just want the numbers.

If you’ve been playing with CNN’s it is common to encounter a summary of parameters as seen in the above image. We all know it is easy to calculate the activation size, considering it’s merely the product of width, height and the number of channels in that layer.

For example, as shown in the above image from coursera, the input layer’s shape is (32, 32, 3), the activation size of that layer is 32 * 32 * 3 = 3072. The same holds good if you want to calculate the activation shape of any other layer. Say, we want to calculate the activation size for CONV2. All we have to do is just multiply (10,10,16) , i.e 10*10*16 = 1600, and you’re done calculating the activation size.

However, what sometimes may get tricky, is the approach to calculate the number of parameters in a given layer. With that said, here are some simple ideas to keep in my mind to do the same.

Some context (Skip this if you know the meaning of the term “parameter” in our context):

Let me ask you this question : How does a CNN learn?

This goes back to the idea of understanding what we are doing with a convolution neural net, which is basically trying to learn the values of filter(s) using backprop. In other words, if a layer has weight matrices, that is a “learnable” layer.

Basically, the number of parameters in a given layer is the count of “learnable” (assuming such a word exists) elements for a filter aka parameters for the filter for that layer.

Parameters in general are weights that are learnt during training. They are weight matrices that contribute to model’s predictive power, changed during back-propagation process. Who governs the change? Well, the training algorithm you choose, particularly the optimization strategy makes them change their values.

Now that you know what “parameters” are, let’s dive into calculating the number of parameters in the sample image we saw above. But, I’d want to include that image again here to avoid your scrolling effort and time.
Why Southeast Asia is Still Keeping COVID-19 Under Control
By: U-Ming Lee
Tags: World, Policy, News, Southeast Asia, Healthcare

Why Southeast Asia is Still Keeping COVID-19 Under Control

A look beyond “culture” and prior pandemic experience to understand SE Asia’s successes and failures at beating the pandemic

Southeast Asia was the first region outside China to be affected by COVID-19, thanks to the tens of millions of Chinese tourists who travel to the region each year. The WHO’s China Country Office received information about an outbreak of “pneumonia of unknown cause” on New Year’s Eve, 2019. It took fewer than two weeks for the first COVID-19 case to be detected — in a Chinese tourist from Wuhan — in Thailand.

By the end of January 2020, initial cases were reported in Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Vietnam, underscoring the contagiousness of the novel coronavirus, and providing the rest of the world with an inkling that we were on the verge of a pandemic.

The Southeast Asian nations — which I will henceforth refer to as the ASEAN nations — are not a monolithic entity. The availability and the sophistication of the public healthcare systems differ considerably between these countries. Interestingly, the poorest and the least well-resourced countries in this group are not the ones who have had the most severe COVID-19 outbreaks.

Instead, I argue that it is governance that has determined the severity and the extent of the outbreak in these respective countries. Some of the ASEAN countries have fared better than others in handling the outbreak, making the region a microcosm of how governance can influence the outcome. A clearer understanding of how the ASEAN countries have managed to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic despite their resource and technological constraints might provide some useful insights for other developing countries.

I contend that the two factors that most significantly impact the public health system’s ability to control the outbreak in these developing countries are:

The degree of central government control over public healthcare.

Migration — both internal and international — complicates the ability of the government to control COVID-19.

Let’s start with a brief background to the ASEAN countries before we further examine these factors.
Top 3 Cryptocurrency Forecast (12–36 months)
By: Daniel Mark Harrison
Tags: Cryptocurrency Investment, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Economics

Top 3 Cryptocurrency Forecast (12–36 months)

A Quick Pit Stop To Look At The Top 3 Cryptocurrencies

XRP — $7.9 trillion — 1st place

XRP is destined to become the world number one crypto by an enormous margin. With a projected $100 — $200 price inside 24–36 months, XRP’s $4-$8 trillion market cap will equal at a minimum roughly the total of Japan’s annual gross domestic product. The reason? Simply because most XRP is premined and pre-controlled with respect to supply release, and because Ripple, the currency’s issuer, has no product as of yet to weight its currency and/or its network down in excess utility. Qualitatively, the currency’s mystique movements throughout its history (and earlier this year especially so) more closely resembles Bitcoin’s early stage gains than does any other cryptocurrency. It is hard not to conclude that early major Bitcoin holders are moving substantial amounts of their crypto fortunes into Ripple’s visions for the future of banking — however vague and mirage-like they may seem in the present. This is evidenced in hard numbers by the lack of overall dependency of XRP on either BTC or ETH (just 14%).

ETH — $3.2 trillion — 2nd place

The world’s first unit of smart Blockchain fuel is poised for a massive increase in the next 12–24 months (36 months tops). Ether was just 50 cents in 2014, before rising to over $1,000 in 2017. That is a 2,000 times gain. So big rises in this crypto should be of no surprise, and the coming 8,000% gain mean a return to aggressive crypto buying. Primarily, the big gains are coming as a result of other competing blockchains with smart functionality which will reduce the implied unit inflation that happens with ETH every time an ERC token is created.

BTC — $425 billion — 3rd place

Bitcoin is due for an increase of around 4.2 times, to $25,000. This is the point at which BTC reaches its 25-year average, so it’s highly likely the crypto will remain stable at around this point. BTC’s steady hold — which could last over 10 years or more — will end up bringing about a certain price and perceived market stability thereafter. Thus, while acceding top spot as world Number 1 crypto, BTC will remain the underpinning reason that new capital is encouraged if not so much to come and settle in the market, then to stay.
Loss
By: Patsy Starke
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Loss, LGBTQ, Poetry, Transgender

She was distraught.

Alone,

Isolation,

with no consolation.

Longing,

for feelings once familiar.

Crying in her hands

Touching her own face,

as someone touched her.

In the emptiness,

she remembered him.

Now a blur through her tears.

Laughter, love, and romance,

taken for granted.

Then he was gone.

As if waking from a dream.

Life became reality.

Pain without comfort.

Snow falling outside.

A world so small,

Too much to grasp.

Under warm blankets,

shelter from the cold.

She would go on…

Patsy Starke, 12/16/2020
Sleeping Isn’t a Crime
By: The Nib
Tags: Class, Poverty, Homeless, US Politics, Homelessness

Sign up for Taking Stock of COVID: New comics from The Nib

By The Nib

New comics from Matt Lubchansky, Keith Knight, and Niccolo Pizarro. Plus How Seniors Are Living With COVID-19. Take a look
by Martino Pietropoli
By: Martino Pietropoli
Tags: Sunday, Space, Drawing, Sky, Illustration

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

Follow
Prize
By: Rebeca Ansar
Tags: Women, Feminism, Culture, Poetry, Poem

eleven thousand

three hundred

and fifteen days

spent pacing

the cell of a mind

a tedious

expenditure of time

before

the light dawned

the dragon

a caged animal

kindred

the knight an illusion

women are not a purpose

solely for midnight waiting

in a lonely bedroom

while you have your

great adventure.
Natural Order vs Predictive Power
By: Yusuf Saber
Tags: Machine Learning, Data Science, Analytics

Transformations of the feature space typically come with a natural ordering of the transformed features. For instance, the commonly used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) produces transformed features (or principal components) that are sorted according to how much of the original dataset’s variance is captured by a principal component. Accordingly, the first principal component captures more of the original dataset’s variance than the second component and so on.

Feature selection is a staple of the machine learning process and aims to increase model performance and reduce model complexity by eliminating features that do not provide much value to the model. Intuitively, feature selection eliminates features that are either irrelevant to the predictive task at hand or features that are redundant. The natural ordering of transformed features serves as a good heuristic for eliminating features. For instance, a common practice is to include principal components that explain the bulk majority of the variance in the original dataset (say 98%) and discard the rest. Nice and simple, right? or is it?

As it turns out, there is no guarantee that the natural ordering of principal components (for instance according to the amount of variance they explain) will match the ordering of principal components according to their predictive power (how much do they make the model better at predicting the target variable). It could very well be the case that a higher principal component PCj has more predictive power than a lower principal component PCi (where i < j) even though PCi explains more of the data’s variance than PCj.

The key intuition behind this observation is that PCA (and other statistical feature transformation techniques) are unsupervised statistical learning procedures where no particular target feature is being optimized for, rather the model is optimizing for a better representation of the underlying statistical structure of the data (according to some metric). In short, the target variable of the overarching prediction process is irrelevant to the feature transformation procedure.

In their brilliant book “Applied Predictive Modeling”, Max Kuhn and Kjell Johnson give a simple example of a binary classification task where, on a particular (real) dataset, the second principal component PC2 (in this case accounting for only about 8% of the variance in the data) separates the two possible outcome classes in a much better manner than the first principal component PC1 (which in this case accounts for 92% of the variance in the data). The difference in predictive power can be seen clearly from the box plots below: PC2 exhibits a lot less overlap between the two classes than PC1 and consequently PC2 has more predictive power than PC1. Find the book here and read more about this particular case on the authors’ blog here.
Silent World
By: Bill Adler
Tags: Language, Fiction, Short Story, Centina, Dystopia

Silent World

How the world became wordless

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

“Writing is safe because the filters delete them,” Louisa typed into the wall display in response to Billy’s scribbled question, the inevitable question first graders ask on the first day of school. “Write anything, but don’t talk. Not ever.”

Louisa surveyed her students to make sure that everyone’s duct tape was secure over their mouths. In time, when they understood the impossibility of speech without profanity, the tape would come off.

Louisa glanced at the soldier standing against the classroom’s back wall. His hand rested on his holster.

And in time she’d explain the punishment for uttering a swear word.
Groundswell
By: Jonathan Greene
Tags: Self, Feelings, Nature, Poetry, Earth

A groundswell is commonly defined as

a buildup of opinion or feeling

in a large section of the population,

but how is that possible right now

with all the media manipulation

and clandestine cross-contamination

that leaves us wary at the simple sight

of another opinion metric to peruse?

That’s not what a groundswell is to me

and it’s also not the kind from the sea

It’s the kind I feel when my feet touch grass

and nature tickles my toes to say hello

and breathes itself up into my body

giving me new life every time

I allow myself this simple pleasure

A groundswell of optimism, a feeling

inside of this body, from this world

that nature isn’t going anywhere

even when we collectively try to execute it

so we can build more things

and scale out more advancements

for a society that just needs more forests

A groundswell, as in, watch the ground swell

with its love for me and my lumber

leaning pounds and mass down upon it

an adult paperweight becoming weightless

as the ground swells back to meet me

as I’ve always been, expectant
4 Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Life to the Fullest
By: Itxy Lopez
Tags: Quotes, Self Improvement, Personal Development, Self, Happiness

Why You Need to Find What Sets Your Soul on Fire

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose, and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away. “ — Stephen Hawking

Humans don’t have a sole purpose. We’re not here for one reason nor were we meant to live one kind of life. But we can’t live without purpose anyway.

If you don’t think your life has any meaning, then you’re not going to do everything in your power to live it to the fullest. There’s no point in getting up from bed if you don’t think you were put on Earth to do something with your time.

You need to find your thing. It might change in five years, and it might change again in twenty. But that doesn’t matter.

You need to find one thing that you enjoy and then fall in love with it right now. Become obsessed with it. Believe you’re going to change the whole damn world with it.

Or don’t. At least be happy with what you choose. Whatever dream you’re chasing, always believe you’ll make it to the top. Don’t worry about what the top looks like for you or how long it’ll take to reach it. Aim for it anyway.

We do unbelievable things when we think we’ll reach unbelievable heights. Like they said in All Together Now — don’t be okay, or good, or even great. Be spectacular. Whatever that means for you.

Keep your head in the stars. Don’t look down and don’t believe in a reality that society wants you to believe because there isn’t just one. Everyone has their own realities.

Create the one you want to see for your life.
Editorial: No Excuses Left for ROTC Ban
Tags: Transgender, LGBTQ

by Quinn Slack

Over at the print edition, we’ve posted our editorial on why everyone should support returning ROTC to campus. We argue on moral and economic grounds that the ROTC boycott is counterproductive. Read the full editorial!

The full editorial, No Excuses Left for ROTC Ban, follows:

“As the rest of campus warms to the idea of ROTC returning, a few loud anti-military activists are grasping for whatever arguments they can find. They now say that ROTC must wait until the military treats transgender individuals equally. We agree that banning transgender people from the military, or treating them differently from anyone else, is stupid and wrong. Preventing skilled Americans from serving our country makes no sense. Yet the right thing to do for campus, for ROTC cadets, and for transgender individuals themselves is to let ROTC return to Stanford.

Does anybody really think that banning ROTC hastened the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? To us, it’s clear that we owe its repeal to social change in the military itself and in the outside world. Anti-military activists are opposing this crucial liberalizing force by preventing bright, open-minded college students from entering the military and ostracizing those few who do. In doing so, these activists are extinguishing the hopes of proud transgender individuals who wish someday to serve their country. If they really wanted to free transgender individuals from military discrimination, they’d want as many Stanford student leaders in the military as possible. Of course, their actual goal is just to denigrate the military, since they can’t comprehend why anybody would want to serve.

Some people may think they’re upholding the principle of equal rights by boycotting the military. If this were a private corporation, they’d be exactly right. If Facebook or Goldman Sachs discriminated against transgender individuals, a campus boycott would make them pay dearly for their bigotry, in reputation and access to qualified candidates. But government is different. As a government-granted monopoly, our military isn’t subject to the competitive pressures that make boycotts effective. The military can’t go out of business. An ROTC ban just means our military gets fewer good leaders at a higher cost to taxpayers, and we all suffer.

The inanity of boycotting ROTC extends to moral grounds. We have a government of the people and by the people; it’s our duty to fix government when it errs. Congress is bigoted — think the Defense of Marriage Act — yet we praise those who go into politics in the hopes they will improve things. Certainly, nobody proposes we ban the political science department because some old political leaders hold repugnant views. But this is precisely what proponents of the ROTC ban advocate for our military.

The few vocal opponents of ROTC need to admit that they’re motivated purely by anti-military views, not by whatever false concern they feign next. Like most of campus, we think it’s time for ROTC to return.”
9 Lessons That Will Change The You Think from As a Man Thinketh.
By: Sahaj Mutha
Tags: Self Improvement, Illumination, Self, Wisdom, Thoughts

As the plant springs from, and could not be without the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called “spontaneous” and “unpremeditated” as to those, which are deliberately executed.

Every action has a hidden thought. The circumstances we have today are because of the seed we planted ahead. Based on the actions we take, we get our results. Knowingly or unknowingly, the root cause of the results is our action is our thought.

Sometimes people say some of the actions are spontaneous, but on the subconscious level, there has to be a thought for the action to be driven. You may experience this that for no reason you are sad, but this does not mean that there is no reason. On the contrary, you feel happy for no reason. The reason is somewhere a thought is planted in the subconsciousness that has affected this emotion. There are many actions which we do without conscious thoughts, but sub-subconscious thoughts govern those actions. The simplest example could be how you wear your clothes, you do not have any conscious thought about it, but it depends upon the conditioning of your mind. These subconscious thoughts are based on our daily practices. So, it is clear that every action is the result of thoughts. To cure some results, we have to focus on the root cause that is thought.

As you sow, so shall you reap — Proverb

By planting a mango seed, it will reap a mango plant. How can we expect apples if we have planted mango seeds? With the same analogy, how can we expect positive results with negative thoughts being planted? So how do we approach this change? Can you uproot the seeds? No. But instead, you can sow new positive seeds. The results will need time, but now you are making sure that no new negative information is fed but positive thoughts are being fed.
Writers: A Challenge
By: Tre L. Loadholt
Tags: Writing Prompts, Community, Haibun, Challenge, A Cornered Gurl

•Request to be added as a writer by emailing me at acorneredgurl@gmail.com with “Please Add Me” as the subject line and please include the link to your Medium profile. Don’t want to be a writer in A Cornered Gurl? Simply comment with your response in this challenge post, or create your own post to your profile or in another publication, however, please use the tags, “Challenge” and “Haibun.”

Since this is a challenge call, all submissions received by 6:00 pm, US ET Thursday, October 29, 2020, will be published by 7:00 pm, US ET Friday, October 30, 2020. Any other submissions received by 6:00 pm on Sunday, November 01, 2020, will be published by 7:00 pm on Monday, November 2, 2020, US ET. CHALLENGE SUBMISSION BEGINS NOW.

Show me what you can do with this challenge and “Haibun a Heart,” lovely folks!

*Finally, this is a read-for-all community. There will be no metered paywall or locked pieces in A Cornered Gurl. If you do not know how to unlock your submissions, please learn how to here. The Weekly Knob gives an excellent breakdown on deselecting the option to curate/distribute for paywall prior to submitting to a publication.
Have You Missed the Crypto Boat?
By: Sara A. Mohammed
Tags: Bitcoin

At this point in time, you might have heard all about cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications. You have heard about how blockchain will be a game-changer for most industries. You may even be one of the following: (a) an early cryptocurrency adopter and enthusiast or (b) a person wondering if it is too late to invest and you are living in constant FOMO (fear of missing out).

We all dream of winning the lottery and becoming rich without putting in any effort, money or time. We have all fantasized about how more money can make life easier for us and solve all our worldly problems. So now, how do you catch up to those who invested early?

There’s still hope. Given the estimate that there are approx. 10 million people using Bitcoin right now is correct. That’s still not even 1% of the world population, it’s barely even 0.1%! That leaves a lot of room on the crypto boat. A question we need to tackle is why aren’t more people taking action? Most people can’t see the future and they tend to live in the here and now and because the possibility of losing money in a bad investment is a risk they are not willing to take.

Moreover, as the market is in flux now, $6,000 or $9,000 or $30,000 doesn’t begin to reflect the value of Bitcoin, for example. No matter how much you have to spare for investing in cryptocurrencies, whether you have $300 or $5000, the same rules apply. We can hypothesize where Bitcoin and the like will be in the next 2–3 years or so. But can we honestly know what the situation will be like 20 or 30 years in the future?

You need to be patient, you need to ask the question “why do I want to invest in this?” Like all investments, you need a short, medium or long term strategy. Am I here to make a quick return or do I have a real interest in the technology market? You really need to answer those questions especially when entering the crypto/blockchain space, because if it is because of the often bandied term “FOMO”, a short to medium term investment strategy might not be the best option.