fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Requiem
By: Stephen M. Tomic
Tags: Gardening, Fiction, Short Story, Flash Fiction, Death

A man sits silently in his garden beneath the pale moon. The grass is verdant and cool to the touch. Wind stirs the leaves on trees. Music drives through the lilac night. The cellos play an ostinato, propulsive and unrelenting. The flower bed appears to be empty at first glance, but a closer look reveals the moist soil to be packed with seed. The smell is rich and heavy like good coffee.

The man holds a pair of gardening shears in his gloved hands. Shifting onto his knees as if preparing to pray, he sets down the shears and carefully removes each soil-stained glove. His hands are covered with calluses, scars, and liver spots. He holds them open, palms up, and bows his head. He doesn’t cry. Something in his constitution won’t allow any lacrimal displays of lament.

He offers a voiceless prayer to long dead gods, because you never know who might be listening. Choral voices exude equal parts grace and grief, spilling out of the candlelit church and into the nearby cemetery. The dead stir, but do not wake.

The man takes the gardening shears and uses them to open his wrists wide. His forearms become a faucet of dark blood, which he uses to water the garden below. The soil is greedy and absorbs every last drop of the man’s essence. With his final breath, he falls face forward onto the seeds, which split and sprout and grow with uncanny speed. The bed of blooming roses lift the man up, higher and higher, until his body disappears in the enveloping night sky.
My Heart
By: Bernadette Decarlo
Tags: Poetry, Blue Insights, Love, Unconditional Love, Life Lessons

My Heart

Unconditional Love

Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash

The four-chambers of my heart

Each one a piece of my life,

one chamber my family;

the other my child,

the other ventricle supported my dreams,

and the last one my losses and sorrow

Through all the calamities,

it pumped and fed me with oxygen

It never stopped kept

perfusing through the trials

It birthed ecstatic times

and helped me to consume

the grim moments

When I resisted change,

the arteries would stiffen up,

and it still pumped against a force

What a special heart

that pulses patiently

and is with me

every minuscule of the day

I can be so unaware

of the elegance of its beats

Have I ever said thank you, dear heart?

Not once

I have been searching for unconditional love,

and here it was inside me

where I never thought to look
Code of Ethics for Judges
Tags: Human Rights, Law, Policy

Written by Dr Ayesha Shahid.

For an effective implementation of laws, it is also necessary to develop a comprehensive code of ethics for judges, police and the prosecutor. For this purpose I propose to draft a code in accordance with the following sections taken from the International Bar Association Manual.

Independence: Judicial independence is a pre-requisite to the rule of law and a fundamental guarantee of a fair trial.

An independent and impartial judiciary is fundamental to the rule of law and the protection of human rights. The aim is to set out the minimum standards of judicial conduct that are applicable in every country in the world.

A judge must uphold and exemplify judicial independence in both its individual and institutional aspects. A judge shall be independent in relation to society in general and to the particular parties to a dispute. He or she must be free from inappropriate connections with the other branches of government. (IBA Manual, sections 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5.)

Impartiality: Impartiality is essential to the proper discharge of the judicial office. It applies both to the decision itself and to the process by which the decision is made.

A judge shall perform his or her judicial duties without favour, bias or prejudice. His or her conduct must maintain the confidence of the public, the legal profession and litigants in the impartiality of the judiciary.

A judge shall disqualify him or herself from participating in proceedings in which he might seem to a reasonable observer to be unable to decide the matter impartially. (IBA Manual, section 4.6.)

Integrity: Integrity is essential to the proper discharge of the judicial office.

A judge’s conduct must be above reproach in the view of a reasonable observer and must reaffirm the people’s faith in the integrity of the judiciary.

Propriety: Propriety and the appearance of propriety are essential to the performance of all the activities of a judge.

A judge must avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of his or her activities. He must avoid situations which might reasonably give rise to the appearance of favouritism or partiality.

Equality: Ensuring equality of treatment to all before the courts is essential to the due performance of the judicial office.

A judge must not by words or conduct manifest bias or prejudice towards any person or group on irrelevant grounds, and must require lawyers in proceedings before the court to refrain from manifesting such bias or prejudice.

Competence and Diligence: Competence and diligence are prerequisites to the due performance of judicial office.

The judicial duties of a judge take precedence over all other activities. A judge must also keep himself or herself informed about recent developments in national and international law, including international conventions and other instruments establishing human rights norms.

Dr Ayesha Shahid can be contacted at A.Shahid@hull.ac.uk.
The Shocking Truth Behind Dance: Dealing with Male-Imposed Ideals
By: Molly Mccord
Tags: Gender, Women, Feminism, Dance, Art

The History of Ballet from a Feminist View

If you’ve ever gone to see a live performance of Classical ballet before, you will notice the essence of the work. The female dancers flutter across the stage like butterflies, barely touching the ground because of their pointe shoes.

The look is as if the dancers are floating, like fairies. The color scheme of the pieces are typically white, light colors, like a whimsical child frolicking through a meadow in their white nightgown. Notice how the men look strong, lifting the women to contribute to the flying, effortless effervescent appearance.

Men want to appear strong, and the women are “supposed” to appear light. Like a mystical, unattainable fairy. How cute.

Photo by Kazuo ota on Unsplash

The History of Pole Dancing from a Feminist View

Pole dancing originated over 800 years ago. If you recall in our history books the “Maypole Dance.” It became associated with fertility, and was meant to simulate intercourse. The dance let the men know that a woman was “ready for marriage” and usually ended with a huge feast.

Pole dancing became conjoined with “exoticism” and was a traveling show almost like a circus. It became monetized by white men in the new world by the 1920’s where women would be paid to entice customers into the tents by belly dancing or gyrating in an erotic fashion against a phallic symbol, the pole (which at that time was wooden).

Men became so drawn by the “exotic” movements of these women that they wanted to start the progression of these sideshows to placing them into bars and clubs — hence, the strip club.

Ballet and pole dancing were made to idealize the woman. To see her shape and figure up on a stage or a pole. Placing her up above everyone else. To be viewed, to be an object of the man’s gaze, looking, seeing, witnessed, and awed.

What a Feminist Has to Say About It

As a woman, I am angered. I am angered that dance had originated as a means to somehow obtain a woman. Women were used as a tool to make money off her body, her curves, because everyone wanted to pay money to see them. There are so many other things that women can be angry about. It’s even worse when they have taken over something so enjoyable to women such as dance.

On the other side of the coin, the historian in me says that I’m flattered that men want to admire us for centuries. That men want to witness us in all our beauty. Because we are that fucking beautiful. That when we were in caveman days, the women was a golden ticket to a successful and fruitful life.

It’s hard to break free of centuries of male-imposed ideals. However, there are ways that I personally do daily to really stick it to the man. Here’s how I have combated the stomach-churning thought that dance has been monetized and codified by men.
Write-Ahead Logging (WAL) Disabled to Force Commits in Core Data
By: Antoine Van Der Lee
Tags: Mobile, Swift, Programming, iOS, Core Data

How Does Write-Ahead Logging Work?

You might have always wondered about what those .sqlite-wal and .sqlite-shm files meant when you opened up your app's directory to find your Core Data .sqlite file. Those two files have existed next to your .sqlite file since iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, and they are part of the current default Write-Ahead Logging journaling mode of Core Data.

Write-Ahead Logging (WAL) results in multiple database files.

Journaling modes in Core Data and SQLite prevent data loss by writing new transactions in an in-between journal file. Before WAL was introduced, SQLite was using the traditional rollback journal which works by keeping a copy of the original unchanged database content in the journal file. New changes are written directly into the database file and the journal file is used to roll back changes in the case of a crash. The final commit saving the changes occurs when the rollback journal is deleted.

WAL works in exactly the opposite way. The original content is preserved in the database file and new changes are added into the WAL file. Commits finalizing data changes can actually happen in this WAL file which means that data can be saved while the original database stays untouched. So-called “checkpointing” eventually takes place to transfer all the transactions from the WAL file into the database.

The .sqlite-shm file exists as the shared memory between multiple SQLite database connections and it’s used as an index for the WAL file.

You can read the in-depth explanation regarding WAL mode if you like to learn more.
REQUIEM
By: John Edward Marks, Jem
Tags: Requiem, Sad, Roses, Poetry, Death

But I am a dreamer and I only remember every inch of you,

Just as the water flows in the river.

So my memories flow into these words,

Into the fragrant silence between the royal roses

In the secret garden of your heart.

Where I spy a sailing ship,

Hear the wood creak.

And you a swan,

Who swims through the ages,

Admiring the beauty of her twin,

In a mirror of still glassy reflection.
Launching Bitwise: bits from the ground up!
By: Cédric Bellet
Tags: Bitwise, Programming

TL,DR: this series will cover bits (as in, 01110110101), the base signals that run today’s computers; their behavior and their roles in some of the most common and fundamental computer applications: encoding, hashing, encryption.

It is written by a learning enthusiast with a decent scientific background and no experience writing on such topics (hi! :3), so please feel free to let me know if you find outrageous mistakes in this series!

While this may simply remain a private repo for my learnings, any fellow curious minds that would stumble upon this is warmly welcomed. Happy reading!
Windows Zero-Day Attack Lets Hackers Hide Malicious Code in Fonts
Tags: Adobe, Microsoft, Tech, Security, Windows

Windows Zero-Day Attack Lets Hackers Hide Malicious Code in Fonts ExtremeTech Follow Mar 24 · 2 min read

by Ryan Whitwam

There’s a new Windows exploit popping up around the internet, but that’s just another day for a nearly ubiquitous desktop operating system. However, this particular vulnerability is serious for several reasons, not least of which it is a “zero-day” bug that Microsoft didn’t know about until attackers began using it to infiltrate systems. Even now, there is no patch for the vulnerability, but Microsoft has issued some tips to help you stay safe while it works on that.

The vulnerability exists in the Adobe Type Manager Library, a Windows DLL file that numerous programs use to render fonts. This file is present in all modern versions of Windows including Windows 7, 8.1, 10, and several server editions. There are two remote code execution flaws in this file, allowing an attacker to create malicious fonts in the Adobe Type 1 Postscript format. Opening a document boobytrapped with such a font will run the malware payload.

Traditionally, remote code execution flaws are seen as the most severe type of attack. You can do almost anything to a system if you can run arbitrary code from installing ransomware to secretly monitoring the user’s activities. Microsoft admits it has detected several malicious documents attempting to use this vulnerability, but it doesn’t say if they have successfully deployed dangerous payloads. The built-in Windows security features can sometimes block exploits from working as intended. Microsoft is probably choosing to keep its statements vague until it can develop a patch.

Until there’s a patch, the age-old wisdom of being careful what you download still holds. You shouldn’t download any documents from an untrusted source, and Microsoft says there are some other measures to take as well. For example, you should consider turning off the preview pane in Windows Explorer. That feature triggers the malicious font code in a file. You can also disable the WebClient service or simply rename the flawed file (ATMFD.DLL). Disabling that file will cause files to render with embedded system fonts, which can break formatting in some documents.

Microsoft says the vulnerability has only appeared in “limited targeted attacks,” a term that usually means government-sponsored campaigns against a few individuals. You probably won’t encounter any of these attacks, but it’s only a matter of time until more hackers get the goods. Keep an eye out for a Windows patch in the near future.

Now read:
Wallet app case study: a Snowdog UX Challenge
By: Clara Shen
Tags: Ux Challenge, Wallet App, UX Design, Digital Wallet, Case Study

These days fewer and fewer people carry wallets containing many cards, receipts and other bits and pieces. Our ideal wallet app allows you to “set it and forget it”. It holds the most essential documents for us (ID, bank, credit card) so we can run out the door without worrying. Rather than always trying to get your attention, this app allows you to add the essentials so that they are ready to use whenever you need it. This is a concept app created by the Snowdog Design team as a self-development exercise.

What was the task?

Our task was to create an ideal wallet according to an Uplabs challenge. To challenge ourselves further, we aimed to complete within just a few hours of work every Friday over two weeks.

What did we do?

Interviewed some people who were around 😀

Opened our wallets and our interviewees’ (if they had one) 👛

Did some research about existing wallet and government ID apps like mObywatel 📱

Brainstormed features and sketched solutions ✏️

Created an app concept with high fidelity designs 🖥

Research 📋

We started working on the project by checking the contents of our wallets and conducting several interviews with colleagues from the office. During the research, we found that some people do not carry a wallet, as they have replaced most wallet features with a mobile phone, while others have over-stuffed wallets with unnecessary things. We’ve found that there are two types of stuff in our wallet — important, critical ID and documents, and then extra cards or papers that relate to our daily life — loyalty cards, membership cards, etc.

We decided to focus on a group that doesn’t carry a wallet at all, and we’ve developed several User Scenarios.

Mindmapping 📃

Based on our brief research online and quick interviews, we created a mindmap, helping us narrow the scope of this challenge to a few priorities. We aimed to focus more on wallets as holders of our most crucial information as we go about daily business, rather than the storage area for lots of junk.
Christmas
By: Jo Mccowey
Tags: Christmas, Work, Christmas Gifts, Earn Money Online, Holidays

I have a lot of people now thinking about the Christmas period and starting to organise their Christmas shopping for Presents for family and friends. I have been blogging and raising awareness of my online store so if you would like to take a look for yourself or for presents for other people please do take a look. Also please do share and like this post sharing my website with people you know. The site address is http://jomccowey.flp.com thank you everyone for taking the time to look and order.
DIM team and HYBSE join forces with MINDEX and GMEX Group
By: Morten Madsen
Tags: Investment, Cryptocurrency, Money, Investing, Bitcoin

DIM and HYBSE have today made a joint venture with MINDEX and GMEX to deliver a revolutionary blockchain exchange that is based in Mauritius.

This joint venture brings the opportunity for institutional investors to access an exchange with cryptocurrency ETF’s and other crypto-instruments for the first time. The following asset classes will be available on the exchange:

Cryptonized Shares

Cryptonized Currencies

Commodities

Indices

Forex

ETC’s (Exchange-Traded Commodities)

ETF’s (Exchange-Traded Funds)

CETF’s (Crypto Exchange Traded Funds)

Furthermore, will SME’s be able to use HYBSE to seek capital through IBO.

You can see the official announcement here including a press release from cointelegraph.com:

https://medium.com/welcome-to-dimcoin/joint-venture-announcement-5717dd6b74e5

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and does not provide financial or investment advice.

I’m a paid promoter for DIM. The above is my personal view and not an official communication by DIM.
Bitcoin is for everyone episode two: VIP Barbershop
By: Ramon Oliveira
Tags: Blockchain, Criptobanco, Bitcoin, Bancryp

Bancryp continues with its pioneering and expansion of partnerships in Brazil, showing the reality of those who come to accept Bitcoins.

The Barber Shop VIP in Florianópolis, is part of the largest network of barber shops in Latin America, bringing a unique concept and an environment totally aimed at the public who seeks to have fun and to take care of themselves. It is also the first barber shop to accept Bitcoins as payments in Brazil.

“What impressed me was the usability of the POS of bancryp, with speed and zero complexity. and even better than conventional credit card machines.” — according to Daniel, owner of the Barber Shop VIP.

Check out the second episode of the series “Bitcoin is for everyone”

The VIP Barber Shop is located at the Dr. Antonio Luiz Moura Gonzaga Highway, 3339, in the Rio Tavares, Florianópolis.

Bancryp follows its expansion plan that aims to reach millions of Brazilians and provide the unique and real experience of using Bitcoins in a simple and high-tech way.

“In addition to providing a unique experience for our customers, we also want our partners to stand out in this market and grow with Bancryp,” says Alessandro Gomes, CCO.

Stay tuned to our official channels:

Telegram: https://t.me/bancrypEN

Facebook: https://goo.gl/uSFiLb

Instagram: https://goo.gl/UfKeSr

Twitter: https://goo.gl/8CbCms

Medium: https://goo.gl/tUawqp

YouTube: https://goo.gl/LmkeD2

Suporte Online: http://bancryp.com/
How to Set and Actually Achieve Your New Year Resolutions
By: Neeramitra Reddy
Tags: Resolutions, Goal Setting, New Year Resolution, Personal Development, Self Improvement

Why? Just Why?

If we were to take a step back, take a look at our resolutions, and ask ourselves, “Why?”, most of us would be at a loss.

’Cause Others Do the Same

The true answer we know deep down but refuse to say is because others do the same. Yes, that’s the reason and the primary motivation.

We, humans, have a strong tendency to conform or “fit in” as Solomon Asch showed through his famous experiments — the Asch Conformity Experiments.

“Yes, we are fine with even disbelieving ourselves to conform.”

In one of these experiments, the participants were shown two lines of clearly different lengths, and when asked which was longer, close to one-third of the participants answered wrong just to conform — Yes, we are fine with even disbelieving ourselves to conform.

Two of the new year resolutions I had set last year were to learn how to drive a car and learn how to blow a bubble with chewing gum. The sole reason was that most of the others could do them and I felt like I “had” to.

’Cause It’s “cool”

New year resolutions are “cool” aren’t they? The loftier each one is and the more of them you have, the “cooler” it looks right?

“It’s basically seeking validation and doing things for others, not for ourselves.”

Doing things because they are “cool” is another side of the conformity coin. It’s basically seeking validation and doing things for others, not for ourselves.

A resolution I had set last year was to become able to hold my breath for 5 minutes. The sole reason was, well you guessed it, it was “cool” to do so.

The Power of Purpose

Purpose and meaning are extremely underrated. In fact, the primary driving force of human beings is widely believed to be the Will to Meaning which was pioneered by Austrian Psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl.

“Will power is a limited resource and “compulsion” can only take you so far.”

The problem with a lack of purpose is the necessity of exercising willpower. Will power is a limited resource and “compulsion” can only take you so far.

But a strong sense of purpose can provide unimaginable and almost inexhaustible drive, one that doesn’t rely on will power. As Friedrich Nietzsche says,

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how”— Nietzsche

Before setting a goal or making a resolution, ask yourself, “Why?” and if you can’t find a compulsive answer, it’s not worth pursuing.
JavaScript Promises Cheat Sheet
By: Iain Maitland
Tags: JavaScript, Nodejs, Promises

Think of a Promise like a container for a value that can only be known at some point in the future (like the result of a network call or reading a file from disk). They exist in one of three states:

pending is the initial state before it has succeeded or failed. fulfilled when the promise has succeeded. rejected when the promise has failed.

A Promise has callback functions that are executed when its state changes to handle success or failure. These callbacks can themselves be a Promise allowing for Promise ’s to be chained.

A function that returns a promise that fulfills

Calling resolve changes the promises state from pending to fulfilled causing the callback function in foo().then() to execute.

A function that returns a promise that rejects

Calling reject changes the promises state from pending to rejected causing the callback function in foo().catch() to execute.

Chaining promises

The callback function in a .then() can also be a promise. This means promises can be chained like below

Handling Errors

A second callback can be passed to Promise::then to handle the case when the promise rejects.

Using Promise::catch will handle any promise that rejects and is more useful for chaining promises

In reality things are a bit more nuanced so refer to the MDN docs for more detail.

Throwing Errors from inside a Promise

Either call reject with an instance of Error or throw an Error. They both have the same effect

Running code after promises fulfill or reject with .finally()

Promise::finally can be passed a callback that is called once the Promise either fulfills or rejects and the associated callbacks are executed. Think of it like a try...finally .

Gotchas

Calling resolve() and reject() only change a promise’s state — it doesn’t exit the function

You might be surprised at the console output here. It’s because reject doesn't exit the function. It simply sets the promises state to rejected. Walking through what's happening we see that:

foo() is called which returns a new promise with callbacks to handle the promise fulfilling or rejecting reject('bang') changes the promise's state to rejected but does not exit the function console.log('I am still called') prints its message to stdout Now that the function has finished executing the .catch callback is called and prints an error message to stderr

To fix simply return to short circuit the function

A promise’s state can only be set once
Storiqa gains technological support from Origin Protocol
Tags: Stqbusiness, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Token, Ecommerce

Since achieving $25 million hard cap in their ICO, Storiqa has set about establishing vital collaborative relationships with core industry leaders.

With their early hard cap closure, Storiqa has been prompted to develop their marketplace faster, whilst also realizing their strategic and technological objectives. During token sale, Storiqa consulted with experts from Alibaba and Huawei, however it is now vital to focus on and expand their technological platforms.

Sharing economy pioneer Origin Protocol assists Storiqa in creating a decentralized platform on blockchain. Expertise on transparent features such as smart review allows Storiqa to develop such own feature on the marketplace.

“We are building a JavaScript library that will be able to talk to our smart contract library. Our tools will create a level of abstraction between developers and the Ethereum blockchain”

Coleman Maher, business development officer of Origin Protocol.

The partnership between Storiqa and Origin Protocol was facilitated by Royal Mile Capital.
What to Watch for in 2018
By: International Med. Corps
Tags: Who What Why, First Responder, Humanitarian, Refugees

Yemen

Yemen’s civil war, now in its third year, has brought a steady deterioration of humanitarian conditions, leaving more than 3 million displaced. Hunger and food insecurity are major concerns with a quarter of the country’s 27 million people living on the brink of starvation, while an estimated 3.3 million children and nursing mothers are acutely malnourished.

International Medical Corps has expanded its water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) activities, which are critical factors in preventing the spread of illnesses like cholera and diphtheria.

We are supporting 77 health facilities and 14 mobile health clinics across Yemen by providing them with vital medications and supplies.
The Deluge
By: Anish Ramjee
Tags: Self, Prose, Nature, Thoughts, Life

The Deluge

Prose

Photo by Jack B on Unsplash

The deluge, with its intensity and pressure,

creeps about, hovering around his ears, nose, head,

is silent yet deafeningly loud, threatening to eat him up.

What good is one man in front of such powerful forces?

Man relents, kneels down, and lets it take him to the seas.

He is now free, floating in the sea of powerful currents.

This is now his life.

He will someday swim upstream with nonchalant strokes,

amidst intense waves and catastrophic storms.

One day he will hold the tip of the lightning rod that strikes the ground,

climb to the clouds, burst out as raindrops,

fall on the sea and become one with it.
A Price Worth Paying
By: Jj West
Tags: Haiku, Relationships, Love, Poetry, Life

Or here, try reading something longer too:

Want to be the first to pick up what I’m putting down? Click this link to slip inside my inner circle for updates on new articles, stories, poems, and anything else I’ve got goin’ on.
Is Cryptocurrency The New Hedge Against Economic Turmoil?
By: Darren Lee
Tags: Investment, Finance, Crypto, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

Many cryptocurrency investors believe that Bitcoin and other altcoins will turn out to be a great hedge against hyperinflation.

Indeed, this was one of the original motivations of Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin was formed just after the 2008 financial crash, and Nakamoto believed that a decentralized currency would be the solution to ensure that the economic turmoil that ensued could never happen again.

Inflation is largely caused by the central banks altering currencies through processes such as quantitative easing, which is why Nakamoto limited the supply of Bitcoin and ensured the speed at which they are mined could not be altered.

There has been no serious market crashes since 2008, so Bitcoin’s value as a hedge against hyperinflation has yet to be tested. Below, we explore how it might perform in a poor economy.

How investors act during a market crash

Whenever there are signs of a financial crash, smart investors move their money away from fiat currency and assets that tend mirror the local economy (such as cash, property, and stocks and shares) into assets that are considered a hedge against the economy.

Gold is considered the most reliable hedge against inflation, largely because its supply is limited and barely affected by economic conditions.

Bitcoin has both of these attributes. As its popularity grows, it has been suggested that many investors will pump money into this and other cryptocurrencies, following signs of the next market crash.

The case for turning to Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation

The limitless nature of Bitcoin means there’s no way its value can be affected by inflation. This is the exact reason why so many people turn to precious metals during market crashes, so it makes sense that some people may turn to Bitcoin instead during the next crash instead.

Bitcoin has an advantage over precious metals, as it can be spent on everyday purchases, albeit with a limited amount of retailers at this time.

The case against turning to Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation

Gold is seen as a reliable hedge against inflation because its value has historically always risen during a slow economy. There is not yet any similar evidence that investors will turn to Bitcoin in a similar situation. Any investment in Bitcoin during a crash will therefore largely be based on speculation.

Bitcoin also remains a volatile investment, which typically doesn’t make an effective hedge. Investors are traditionally looking for stability during market crashes, and it’s tough to argue that Bitcoin will provide this in any market conditions. As such, gold may still be a safer bet.

Many people are excited about Bitcoin, but it remains too early in its lifespan to confidently predict its long term value in any market. If you do choose to invest in Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, make sure to do your own research into the pros and cons of doing so beforehand.
Was New Zealand Lucky With Covid?
By: Jon Bell
Tags: Expat Life, Covid, Newzealand

Was New Zealand Lucky With Covid?

Sure, but that’s only part of the story

When Covid first hit, every country charted a course based on the best information they had available. Island nations reacted differently from land-locked ones. Highly dense countries were working with different realities from sparsely populated ones. Locations with limited ICU beds were forced to make decisions that had more robust health care systems.

So one theory about how New Zealand did so well with Covid was that it’s a small country, lightly populated, surrounded by the entire Pacific Ocean. And that’s true. There are only five million people, our density is low, and you can’t just walk into our country from a bordering country. So of course that made a difference. But it wasn’t the only thing.

Any country around the world, island-nation or not, could have decided to ground all non-essential flights. Very few did. This was actually a more bold decision for an island nation to make, not less. If America stopped all flights, people could still travel via road or train. When New Zealand did, it was far more damaging to the economy, but we did it anyway. We don’t have enough ICU beds to pursue a high-risk strategy, so we locked it down early. It worked.

Next, quarantines. Any country around the world could have put together a network of state-sponsored quarantines by working with hotels. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but my sense is that a lot of countries allow you to fly into an airport, climb into an Uber, and go wherever you want, without any kind of quarantining process. For an airborne virus, this is incredible. Look at the countries with quarantines and compare them to the ones without them. It’s clear they help reduce spread, and unclear why some countries don’t require them.

So New Zealand did get lucky, sure. But the much bigger part of the success is that we grounded flights and instituted quarantines. We did it because we bet that you can’t have an economy if you don’t first have public healt. We made a calculated bet to sacrifice the former for the latter (with heavy governmental subsidies), whereas other countries were scared to take those bold steps and disrupt their economy. That was the big difference, and it wasn’t luck. Any country could make the same decisions. Any country still can.
Ryuk Saga: County Government Pays Nearly $400k to Hackers
By: Kimberly Forsythe
Tags: Government, Ryuk, FBI, Cybersecurity, Hacker

Recently, Jackson County, Georgia fell prey to hackers during a ransomware attack. By many accounts, this was one of, if not the most sophisticated attacks to hit the US, and the hackers have achieved their goal with glaring success. The attack completely severed online communications by bringing down the entire computer and internet network.

The only good news coming from this is that the 911 systems remained intact, signaling the attackers may have had a little empathy for the people of Jackson County. Aside from that, though, every government-owned device connected to the internet was disabled. Employees apparently began to notice issues trickling in when computers, websites and email addresses stopped working on March 1st. They had no idea, at the time, what they were actually dealing with.

After several days of IT administrators scrambling to figure out the issue, it became clear that it was not due to an “ID10T” error, but was, in fact, a malicious attack aimed at gaining access to police and county records. It was then that government officials contacted the FBI and cybersecurity experts to get help with the situation. Though they all worked tirelessly to gain the upper-hand over the attackers, the effort was all for not, and they decided last Friday to just pay the ransom.

So, the cybersecurity team negotiated with the hackers and agreed to pay 100 Bitcoins, just about $400,000 at today’s market price. Had they not paid the ransom, all of the affected equipment would have just become expensive bricks, and the county would have needed to start over again. Obviously, the time, money, effort, and chaos involved in starting over would have led to much larger headaches for government officials and taxpayers, alike. The FBI stated they believe the attack was a new strain of ransomware called Ryuk, perhaps named after the Shinigami in the manga series Death Note (my personal favorite). Ryuk also struck the LA Times and it’s affiliate publishers in January.

But, this isn’t the first time that hackers have hit a government office in Georgia. In 2018, Atlanta was smacked in the face with a similar threat, and they refused to pay up. Instead, they opted to replace all of their equipment at an estimated cost of $2.6 million. Almost laughably, though, the final cost ended up being closer to $17 million.

Attacks such as this are not unique, as many of us know. Since 2014, Alaska, Ohio, Washington, Indiana, California, North Carolina, and many others have found themselves under siege. However, what makes this case so unique is that it made others like WannaCry, CryptoLocker, TeslaCrypt, and NotPetya look like the work of amateurs. Several of those attacks were brought down with the help of white-hat hackers, or in the case of TeslaCrypt, by the hackers themselves.
At War
Tags: War, LGBTQ, Poetry, Poem, Veterans

War, twisted horrors

Words, flesh-tearing bullets

Trigger, you pulled it

90s RnB rain

It’s pouring now

You giving up, how?

Under your windowpane

Calling your name

Boom box,

On my shoulder

You know these cats don’t know ya

Don’t know me

Like they want to

War, brainwashed warriors

Guns, death on delivery

Trigger, who pulled them?

Hood on, but I ain’t no hoodlum

Praying, don’t let them wreck me

Speeding down a highway

Racing to my driveway

Six lanes, out-pacing my demons

All around, tell an angel to get me

Banging the sides

Expensive rides

Parts, flying by

Trigger, you tried to cull them

Guns, you went behind backs to sell them

War, very seldom

Are fought for humans
Bruja
By: Tarrant Smith
Tags: Poetry, Magic, Poetry On Medium, Witch, Nature

Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash

Taste the lips of

the Bruja and

follow her

swaying

hips —

drawing you

ever deeper into

the grove where

secrets are

whispered

across

moonlit skin

and flames

dance with

fireflies.

Sample her

magick under

a twilight sky,

and then stay

to watch the

stars arrive

one

by

one

to dance with

her around the

bonfire —

the Bruja and

her many

lovers.
How big is Donald Trump Jr’s bowl of Skittles?
By: Abc News
Tags: Syria, 2016 Election, Terrorism, Refugees, Donald Trump

Donald Trump Junior, who has previously made headlines for posing for trophy shots beside a variety of slain African animals, has again drawn public ire for a tweet in which he compared Syrian refugees to deadly Skittles.

The tweet, which was sent from what has the appearance of an official Trump/Pence account, claims to be an analogy of “our Syrian refugee problem” that “says it all”.

“If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful?” it reads.

The post has unsurprisingly sparked a massive social media backlash.

But it is also worth checking if the analogy holds water.

Given that the post does not specify the size of the bowl of Skittles, it is impossible to say definitively that it is factually incorrect.

Instead, we can work out how large the bowl would need to be, in order to make the Skittles it contains representative of the risk posed to Americans by Syrian refugees.

Conservative think tank the Cato Institute has already done most of the hard work by calculating the statistical risk of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack by a refugee.

Their calculations are based on the number of Americans killed by refugees between 1975 and the end of 2015, and put the risk at one in 3.64 billion per year.

Leaving aside that this does not specify the nationality of the attacker, this puts the number of Skittles that would need to be in Mr Trump Junior’s aforementioned bowl at 10.92 billion, in order for three of those Skittles to be deadly.

A Skittle weighs on average about 1.062 grams.

So for Trump Junior’s analogy to be factually accurate, he would need to be talking about a bowl capable of holding 11,597 tonnes of Skittles — the equivalent of 1,932 African elephants.
Corona-Crisis and how we deal with it
By: Catherine Colombo
Tags: Crisis Communications, Company Culture, Teamwork, Corona

In a crisis situation, like now, foresighted action is extremely important. At Holisticon we created measures protect ourselves as much as possible during the crisis.

This includes that we canceled all workshops, both internally and externally.

Every meeting is organized virtually by us, all Holistikönner*innen work remotely from home. The office in Hamburg is looked after by an emergency staff.

#HomeOfficeChallenge — Share your Workingspace at home with your colleagues

We have created a crisis group that focuses on developments in the world, drawn conclusions and adjusts them for the company. Developments as well as information about world affairs are communicated towards the entire team by the crisis group.

We have confidence in our swarm knowledge. All Holistikönner*innen can turn to the crisis group with ideas and development opportunities. Constructive thoughts and creative ideas can be recognized and new opportunities can be seen.

We keep the flag flying and are connected via digital tools, slide closer together and support each other as much as we can.

We create motivation and promote exchange across given boundaries. Be it the virtual “coffee kitchen”, where colleagues can also just have a chat, or website-links that create a spirit of optimism, Online-Yoga for a relaxed start of the day, or the #RemoteChallenge / #HomeOfficeChallenge, where we share our own challenges and solutions with the world.

Video-RemoteChallenge — Share your current challenges & solutions

We just experienced what it means to be one. We experience a force that binds us together and a great energy that allows us to grow in our personal and company development. We stand by each other in this situation. And we will emerge stronger from this crisis together.

We wish humanity the development that is needed now. We are giving, whatever we can. And we hope for a new, better world.

Stay healthy. Stay home.
Tags: Life

I am a product builder who specializes in programming. Strongly believe in humanist.

Follow
The 7 Most Terrifying Figures of Sardinian Mythology
Tags: Mythology, Sardinia, Culture, Myths, History

The 7 Most Terrifying Figures of Sardinian Mythology Cristinamiceli Follow Dec 9 · 5 min read

From the Ammutadori to the Panas: ghosts, demons, goblins and much more

Francisco de Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son — via Wikimedia Commons

Known abroad for its amazing landscapes, crystal clear sea and beautiful beaches, Sardinia is one of the most popular destinations when travelling to Italy. But only a few know its mythology and the many figures which make up the Sardinian folklore.

Sardinia is situated in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, far from both Italy and France. Because of this, through the centuries people inhabiting this island came up with their own tales and traditions, which are very different from the ones that can be found in Italy. Sardinian folklore is full of dark figures such as goblins, demons and spirits. Here is a list of the most terrifying ones.
Malware Steals Data By Adjusting Screen Brightness
Tags: Technology, Malware, Cybersecurity, Hacking, Data

Malware Steals Data By Adjusting Screen Brightness PCMag Follow Feb 6 · 2 min read

Malware on an air-gapped computer can transmit data like Morse code by changing screen brightness in a way that’s invisible to the naked eye but easily recorded with a camera.

By Matthew Humphries

A security researcher has discovered a novel way to steal data from a PC that isn’t connected to a network (air-gapped) by manipulating the brightness settings of a computer monitor.

As The Hacker News reports, the new technique was discovered/created by academic researcher Dr. Mordechai Guri of the Cyber-Security Research Center located at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. It relies on the air-gapped computer having special malware installed capable of changing the brightness of a display. However, the changes are only very small adjustments to the RGB color components of each pixel and therefore not detectable with the naked eye.

Stealing data from the infected machine is achieved by encoding the information and transmitting it using the screen brightness changes in a sequential pattern, which is very similar to how Morse code works. The only other requirement for this to work is a camera pointed at the display which can either record or stream the pattern being transmitted. Once the pattern is received, it can be converted back into meaningful data.

For this hack to work in the real world would require someone with access to the air-gapped machine installing the malware. The camera used can be anything from a compromised surveillance camera present in the same room, a webcam, or just a smartphone camera left pointed towards the display (and a strong, reliable 4G signal).

Although this technique is unlikely to ever be used as long as easier methods exist, it’s important from a security standpoint to know it’s possible and therefore mitigating action can be taken to ensure it can never work effectively.
To Win You Need To Do The Practice.
By: Do Lectures
Tags: Habits, Experiment, Mindset, Basketball, Do Breakthrough

Australian psychologist Alan Richardson made a little experiment. He took a group of basketball players, divided them into three groups and tested each player’s ability to make free throws.

The first group would practise 20 minutes every day.

The second would only visualise themselves making free throws, but no real practice was allowed.

The third one would not practise or visualise.

The results were astounding.

The group that practised saw a marked improvement. But there was a significant improvement on the group that only visualised; they were almost as good as the guys who actually practised. The third group, as expected, regressed.

So, you know how to win. Do the 20-minute practice and the visualisation too.

Convince Yourself First.

Here’s the thing. People can smell belief a mile off. They can smell the opposite a mile off too. When people listen to a talk, they don’t listen to what is said. But actually, they listen to how it is said. Non-verbal cues, huh. In fact, there is research that says up to 93% of what you are saying has to do with what you are not saying.
An Island of Truth
By: Tds Editors
Tags: The Daily Pick

Photo by Clifford Photography on Unsplash

By Jonas Benner — 16 min read

Cryptocurrencies have been a hot topic for years and for good reason. To some, they are a black box, to others they are the inevitable future of finance. Needless to say, anyone who spends at least some of their time and money investing in stocks and other assets will have thought about investing in this novel asset class in recent years.
This Mint Chocolate Layer Cake Only Requires One Pan
By: Viggy Hampton
Tags: Cake, Dessert, Food, Recipe, Baking

This Mint Chocolate Layer Cake Only Requires One Pan

Making layer cakes has never been so easy (or delicious)!

Image: Author’s own

Have you ever looked at a layer cake and thought, ‘Man, that looks incredible, but it must have been so much work!’ I know I have. Layer cakes generally require at least two pans, plus you have to try to divide your batter evenly among each one. Then there’s the added headache of baking each layer and making sure they are all uniform. In other words: It’s a hassle.

But it doesn’t have to be. What if you could make a gorgeous layer cake with just one pan?

The good news: You can!

This mint chocolate layer cake is made with just a single pan — specifically, an 11" by 14" cookie sheet. I favor this one from PerfectSlice, which has the added benefit of cutting the cake into identical layers a cinch.

Mint and chocolate are a classic pairing. Think Andes mints, Peppermint Patties, even mint chocolate chip ice cream. Fun fact: Mint chocolate chip ice cream was created by student Marilyn Ricketts in 1973 as part of a competition to dream up a dessert for Princess Anne’s wedding.

I can understand the hype around mint and chocolate. The deep, rich flavor of the cocoa combined with the bright, fresh taste of mint is mouthwatering. Aesthetically, the combination of the dark chocolate cake and the green mint frosting makes this dessert quite striking.

So, give yourself and your family the royal treatment this holiday season with this mint chocolate cake that’s just as easy to make as it is delicious to eat.
Maps and What Not, Yo
By: Justin Lyle
Tags: Labs, Maps

Maps and What Not, Yo

One of the interesting themes that this map displays is the specific regions that have increased. Generally speaking, the more northern states were found to have less of a tuition increase over the 10-year period when compared to any other region in the United States. In addition, states specifically in the southwest generally had the highest increase in tuition.

According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), automobile mortality rates occur for at least 40% of all crashes in any particular state. One peculiar trend is that automobile death rates are extremely high in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. According to the CDC, West Virginia has a 100.3% rate of deaths based on a 100,000 person scale. This shows that West Virginia is particularly dangerous when it comes to automobile accidents.