fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
The Fascinating Story of the World’s Deadliest Sword
By: Mythili The Dreamer
Tags: World, Travel, History, Feminism, Culture

The story of the urumi

The urumi is believed to have originated from the southern states of India namely Tamil Nadu and Kerala but it might have also existed even during the times of the Mauryan dynasty between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC.

Called by different names, the urumi in Malayalam, the Surul Pattai in Tamil, and the Aara in Hindi, in its simplest form the sword is basically a long strip of metal attached to a handle with a thumb guard and a knuckle-guard.

It is still used in the Indian states of Kerala, Rajasthan, and Punjab, and is one of the weapons mastered by practitioners of the martial arts of Kalaripayattu, Varma Kalai, Kuttu Varisai, and Sikh martial arts Gatka. It is also called Chuttuval in Malayalam with ‘Chuttu’ meaning coil and ‘Vaal’ meaning sword aptly describing the lethality of the weapon.

There are multiple variations to the sword. While a normal urumi blade can be between 1.2–1.7 meters (3.94–5.58 ft.) long but longer lengths up to 3–5 meters are not unheard of depending on the person wielding it. The width of the blade is about 2.5 cm (0.98 inches) thick.

The thinness of the blade allows the weapon to be used as a whip. In addition to the length, the number of blades on this weapon may be added. For example, experienced urumi swordsmen in ancient times had as much as 32 blades attached to its handle increasing the weapon’s deadliness.

And the basic principle of urumi fighting is slashing and creating a ‘defensive’ bubble around yourself. While conventional swords may also be used for slashing, the urumi works somewhat differently. An urumi fighter generates a continuous slashing motion by swinging the weapon over and around her shoulder in arcs.

This arcing motion creates a defensive bubble around the user and any opponent foolish enough to come inside the arc gets wounded fatally. In addition, the urumi can also curve itself around the opponent shields either injuring the enemy or rendering the armor ineffective. That is why the urumi is most useful when the user is alone and surrounded by multiple opponents.

Agility and skill are the main prerequisites to master the urumi with the training going up to 12 years to reach the expert level. More than the strength and aggression, the key to mastering this difficult weapon lies in mastering the twirling and controlling of the urumi to prevent any self-injuries. It is therefore only taught to the best pupils of Kalaripayattu and Gatka. Incorrect use can seriously injure the wielder and incapacitate her lethally for life.

Therefore, great concentration, agility, and presence of mind are required during use, even by experts.
Nodes vs Elements in the DOM
By: Issa Sangare
Tags: Elements, Node

In my early JavaScript learning process, I came across two objects: ‘nodes’ and ‘elements’ which triggered some confusion in my mind. I thought both objects were the same, when in fact, it turns out they are not technically the same because there is a clear distinct difference between both. Let’s sort out that difference between nodes and elements.

What’s a node? it is the name of any type of object in the DOM tree. It could be one of the built-in DOM elements such as the document itself, document.head or document.body. A node could be an HTML tag specified in the HTML such as <input>, <div>,<h2>, <p> or it could be a comment node, text node… In fact, a node is any DOM object and every node has a parent, every node is allowed to have one or more children or even zero children.

What’s an element? An element is a specific type of node, one that can be directly specified in the HTML with an HTML tag and can have properties like an id or a class. can have children, etc.

Nodes vs Elements: Nodes are all the different components that a webpage is made up of and elements are one type of node.

Let’s have a look on some types of node, their value and description

The following html element has two children: head (line 3) and body (line 10) and these are two ‘nodes’. The head and body are element nodes. Inside the body (line 12) there is a comment (navbar), it’s one children of the body and it’s a comment node

Since every node has properties, therefore let’s find out in the console the ones for element node ‘body’.

.nodeName property has a return value “Body” .nodeType property returns a value of 1 which means that body is ELEMENT_NODE. .parentNode shows this element node “Body” has parentNode which is the html element. .children property returns HTML collection, .COMMENT_NODE has a return value of 8, which states that we have comment node as of the children of the body.

That’s all for this topic and thank you for reading this blog.

resources:
The End of the University As We Know It?
By: Flannery Wilson
Tags: Pandemic, Higher Education, Student Life, Online Learning, University

Image from ft.com

As colleges and universities prepare themselves for the fall semester, everyone is holding their breath.

We are currently at the height of the pandemic with no end in sight.

What will happen when students return to campus? Should professors have to risk their lives and health in order to teach? Will online learning prove more effective than it did in the spring?

It seems likely that a train wreck is on the horizon.

This month we asked our writers to share their opinions on the current state of affairs — and on the fate of universities overall. All of our articles are written by professors and scholars who are at the forefront of these changes.

Stay tuned throughout the month of August.
The Shape of the Vessel
By: Andrea Juillerat-Olvera
Tags: Pain, Poetry, Consciousness, Scuzzbucket, Poem

Image by author

Clutching at his words

wily little gems

scattered at once

by the falling blade.

An indifferent chrome scalpel

a mid-line slice

severing the hemispheres

lobotomizing my first pulse of life

at the inception.

It cut that tiny sun

into a black ribbon

and introduced itself

as a permanent fixture in my mind—

a monolith of doubt

a wall of pain.

Opaque and cruel,

I could not sense its edges

or remember what I had been

on the other side.

My weeping ghost

clutching fragments of memory

struggling to recall

the shape of the vessel

which had once held my

feral

fractured

consciousness.

Andrea Juillerat-Olvera 2020
The journey of metadata at PayPal
By: Deepak Chandramouli
Tags: Metadata, Metadata Management, Data, Data Governance, Data Catalog

With 2020 ending and many of us looking forward to 2021, it’s a good time to reflect on the last three-and-a-half years of PayPal’s journey with metadata.

Metadata is not new to PayPal. Attempts to create a comprehensive metadata system predates PayPal’s Unified Data Catalog (UDC), which today is the Enterprise Data Catalog at PayPal.

As an introduction, this picture shows where we are today with UDC.
Let Us Reconcile
By: Precious Moments
Tags: Christ, Reconcile, Family, Precious Moments, Youth

Let Us Reconcile

27th DECEMBER 2020

Christ for Youth International

“Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath,” [Ephesians‬ ‭4:26‬ ‭NKJV‬‬]

Life is full of relationships. Throughout life’s journey, the people we interact with at home, our workplaces, at church or school are bound to offend us just as we are likely to offend them. Getting offended sometimes is inevitable since we are all imperfect people.

Have you been offended by someone close to you this year? Has it caused a rift in your relationship? If so, one way to end the year well is to forgive those who have hurt or offended you during the year. The Bible says the sun should not go down on your anger. As the year ends, we must do well to let go of every hurt or bitterness. Bitterness robs us of God’s best in life.

Pray about that hurt and ask God to help you forgive. If it’s possible, try to reconnect with any person who hurt you and let them know

you are not holding anything against them. Even if you’re to face some resistance in the process of reconciliation, go ahead and offer your forgiveness.

Don’t let the journey ahead of you next year become burdensome by carrying pain, hurt, bitterness or offences into the year. The year ahead is so full of promise and hope to carry ‘baggage’ that will set you back.

Don’t let the sun go down on your anger. Don’t let the year end while you still hold onto a hurt or pain caused by someone. Embrace the peace of God by letting go of any hurt you’re holding on to.

Dear Lord, thank you for forgiving my every sin. I pray for strength and courage to let go of any pain, bitterness and hurt as I enter a new year.

Further Reading: Romans 12:19–21

Prophetic Declaration: Psalm 91
Assessments 101
By: Kriti Khare
Tags: Education, Feedback, Reflections, Assessment, Teaching And Learning

Assessments 101

Learning the boarder intention of classroom practices as a preservice teacher

When I look back at my schooling, what I remember the most are the exams and tests. I remember during the lectures, teachers did circulate around the classroom and looked at student work but I do not recall their comments. That’s all summative assessment.

I started to get more attention from my instructors in university and the statistics class during my Computing Science undergrad is what comes to mind. We had been given an equation to prove, some relationship about distributions, and I had worked thorough it almost to the end. The instructor was walking in our cramped classroom and he happened to notice my work and said he liked it. That is my first concrete memory of formative assessment.

My first memory of instructional assessment was in Grade 8: my class wasn’t the best one when it came to discipline in the Math block and the teacher decided to ask for feedback. He wanted to work it out with us and he asked the class if anyone could speak for them and present their problems with his instruction to him. I was chosen and I told him that he spoke quietly and the students in the back could not hear. Also, his handwriting was small and was ineligible to the students at the back. I don’t remember any further problems for the rest of the year: after he did this exercise, I think we got along with him better.
Mute: A new way to control your Medium experience
By: Medium Staff
Tags: Medium

There are millions of stories told on Medium; thousands are published every day. Whenever you visit our homepage, launch our apps, or open an email digest, our system pores over these stories and recommends the best ones for you to read. Most of our recommendations are personalized, taking into account your reading history and over a hundred other attributes including the writers, publications, and topics you follow. But no algorithm is perfect, and sometimes we surface content you aren’t interested in.

Today, we’re giving you more agency over content you see on Medium with Mute. Akin to how you can follow a writer or publication to get content from them, you can now “mute” them to stop seeing their stories recommended to you across Medium. Muting a writer or publication means their stories will no longer be visible in your home feed on the Web and in the app, or in Medium’s email digests.

To mute an author or publication from a story preview on iOS, Android, or Web, tap the overflow (…) icon and then mute this writer or mute this publication in the context menu.

On iOS and Android, you can mute any author or publication from your home feed via overflow menu.

On Web, you can mute from the Medium homepage by tapping the overflow menu.

You can mute from any story page, too.

Authors and publications won’t know you’ve muted them, and you can unmute them anytime from your account settings.

Unmute publications and/or authors any time from your account settings

Over the next week, we’ll roll out Mute to everyone. Stay tuned for even more ways to help make your Medium experience your own!
How Recommendation Systems work?
By: Liston Tellis
Tags: Movie Recommendation, Machine Learning, Recommendation System, Cosine Similarity, Data Science

Image Source : Piccolo

Recommendation Systems

Everyday we get a lot of recommendations in almost all digital platforms. Whether it is for music, movies or shopping, we get a lot of recommendations from these websites. Mostly these recommendations are based on the type of products that we browse or buy. Have you ever wondered how these websites send such customised recommendations to each customer every time? This blog explains the basic working of this incredible world of Recommender Systems.

A large variety of techniques can be used while building a Recommendation model. One of the most popular technique is called Cosine Similarity.

Cosine Similarity

Cosine similarity measures the similarity between two vectors by finding the cosine of the angle between two vectors projected into multidimensional space.

Let us consider two points A & B and let the angle between these two points be teta. Then the similarity between these two points is given by cos teta. Cosine similarity always ranges between -1 to + 1. Suppose the angle between the two points is 90, then similarity between these two points is zero. Similarly if the angle between the two points is zero, then similarity between these two points is 1, which indicates that these two points are very similar.

Movie Recommendations

Suppose we have three movies: Iron Man, Spider Man and Ice Age. We know that Iron Man and Spider Man belong to Action-Fiction genre whereas Ice Age belongs to Animated Comedy genre. Since Iron Man And Spider Man are same genre movies, angle between these two movies will be minimum (zero in the above graph), Hence the similarity score will be maximum(Since cos0 =1) whereas Ice Age belongs to completely different genre hence the angle between Ice Age and other two movies will be high (90 in the above graph), hence the similarity score will be less. (Since Cos90 = 0). Therefore If i have watched Iron Man, then based on the similarity score there is high probability of getting recommendation to watch Spider Man when compared to Ice Age. Similarly if I have watched Ice Age, I will get recommendations to watch similar movies.

Real life Recommendation Systems will be multi-dimensional systems. In case of Movie Recommender systems, factors such as cast, director, year of release, demography will also be considered while recommending a movie to an user.

Conclusion

Majority of Tech companies are using recommendation systems to increase their user interaction and to maximise their ROI based on the information they gather from each customer’s preferences and purchases. Recommendation systems have been expanding rapidly across many aspects of eCommerce and other Tech companies over the last few years this trend will only increase in future.

Please do clap and share if you like this article! Happy reading!
รีวิวกล้องสมาร์ทโฟน Huawei P20 Pro
By: Tor Chanon
Tags: P20 Pro, กล้อง, รีวิว, มือถือ, Huawei

in In Fitness And In Health
World Premiere of Zilliqa (ZIL) on January 25
By: Huobi Global
Tags: Announcements, Bitcoin, Blockchain

Dear users,

Zilliqa (ZIL) will be launched on Huobi Pro on January 25 (GMT+8). Deposits will be available from 14:30, January 25 (GMT+8). ZIL/BTC and ZIL/ETH trading will be available at New Zone from 15:00, January 26 (GMT+8). Withdrawals will be available from 14:30, January 31 (GMT+8).

What is Zilliqa (ZIL)? Click here: https://www.huobipro.com/zh-cn/assetintro/#zil

Risk Reminder:

Investing in digital assets comes with high risks due to huge price fluctuations. Before investing, please have a full understanding of all the risks of investing in digital assets and be prudent of your own investment decisions.

Huobi.pro-Official(Telegram Group): https://t.me/huobiproofficial

Enjoy your trading on Huobi Pro!

Huobi Pro

January 25, 2018
Following Shadow
By: Vaghawan Ojha
Tags: Loneliness, Poetry, Art, Poetry On Medium, Life

Hanging memories in their face,

They pass by me,

Passerbys,

Almost a smile for a “Hello”,

I change the shape of my chin,

Inside the mask,

The dusk is slowly calling the night,

As my shadow increases its depth,

Should there be someone to talk with,

Shall this road has been shorter,

Should there be someone to walk with,

Shall this heavy heart has been lighter,

Should there be someone beside,

Shall my stiff shoulders have been loose and easier,

Out of my own forlornness,

I watch everybody’s face,

Pale, green, blue, orange,

And red,

Expecting someone to recognize me,

As a bare human as they’re,

Hundreds walk by,

And I never weave my hands to a single,

Neither anybody,

The night slowly falls,

I remember the small kid, that I smiled after,

I remember the young girl, that I smiled after,

I remember the old man, that I smiled after,

I remember an old aunt, that I smiled after,

I remember a bunch of footballers, that I smiled after,

I remember a bunch of memories that I smiled after,

I remember all of them slowly fading in the foggy city,

And let myself get lost into the alleys of Kathmandu,

Not even knowing that

My shadow in its full depth,

Smiling after me;
Учебный курс «QPT. Оптимизация запросов» — видеозапись
By: Postgres Professional
Tags: Postgresql, Education, Technology, Postgrespro, Postgres

in In Fitness And In Health
Mathematics of Gradient Descent.
By: Ravindra Sah
Tags: Gradient Descent, Gradient Descent Python, Differentiation, Derivatives, Linear Regression Python

Note: This is the third part of the linear regression tutorial. Check out all the parts given in the contents below to follow along with the tutorial.

Contents: Introduction to linear regression and cost function, How the Gradient Descent Algorithm works, Mathematics of Gradient Descent.

Part 3: Mathematics of Gradient Descent Algorithm

I suppose you don’t know how to differentiate the above cost function. At the end of this tutorial, you will be able to differentiate this complex looking equation with ease. Here we are not just going to learn how to differentiate the function but also understand the concept behind doing differentiation, so be patient and stick to the tutorial till the end.

You know how to calculate the slope of a straight line, right?

What is the gradient? let me ask you in another way what do you understand by the slope of a straight line is 0.5? If you are walking on a straight line whose slope is 0.5 that means you are moving only 2 units in the y-direction for 4 units in the x-direction. Gradients or slope is simply the rate of change in the y-direction with respect to the rate of change in the x-direction. Gradients also give a sense of steepness. A line with a slope with 0 is a horizontal line whereas a line with a slope greater or less than 0 is an inclined line. The steepness quality of the gradient helps the gradient descent algorithm to find a path of steepest descent in order to minimize the cost function.

Introduction to the derivative

The concept of the derivative has been explained clearly in the video given above or click here to read at mathisfun.com. Our end goal is to be able to calculate partial derivative but before that, we are going to learn how to use the power rule and chain rule to calculate the derivative of a function.

Power rule:

Chain rule:

Partial derivative:

When we have two or more variables in the function we differentiate the function with one variable at a time and supposing other variables as a constant term, this method is called partial derivative. It is denoted by curly ∂. Let’s say Z is the function of X and Y. if we differentiate Z with respect to X then Y is supposed to be a constant term and vice versa. See the example below.

The derivative of Cost function:

Here, the cost function is a function of two variables θ0 and θ1. X(i) is an ith training example and Y(i) is a target value for ith training example.

Gradient Descent intuition

Conclusion:

The gradient is a slope of a tangent line that tells us whether a function at a particular point is increasing or decreasing. Resultant of Gradients helps us to know about the steepest path to follow in order to reach the minimum of a function. The number of Gradients is equal to the number of parameters or variables a function has.
Catch the Wave
By: Jean Carfantan
Tags: Sacred Feminine, Poetry, Newsletter, The Wave, Prompt

Don’t forget the kicker with The wave: prompt. To do so, just create a first line before your title and begin to write, at last choose the little T in the menu when you select a word in it.

Remember, we don’t mind the time, even if you submit it later than one week, it will be valid.

Don’t forget the tags The Wave, Sacred Feminine, Prompt, and Poetry or Essay or Stories plus your own tag. Here prompts are not different from other texts, they are just weekly stings to write again and play together.

Have good time to tell, enjoy to write, we will have great pleasure to read you. Have a wonderful week-end!

Love, — you know what ? I am happy to be among you.

Jean
Let the Right One In
By: Leigh Vandebogart
Tags: Monsters, Loneliness, Poetry, Lit Up, Mistakes

Loneliness rolls you over,

belly up,

waiting in the dark.

Monsters loom outside

the bedroom window,

snuffle under the dust ruffle,

curl their claws

round your feet.

You see,

the mistake

has been made —

you answered the door

when you heard their knock.

Hoping for a visitor,

well —

you got what you wanted.

Now, look

where you are:

exposed,

waiting

in the pitch black.

“Where did all the daylight go?”

You gasp with your last

hitched breath,

bleeding out,

behind

the opened door.
Five Blockchain Games You Should Try
By: Jordan Spence
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Blockchain, Gaming, Bitcoin

Five Blockchain Games You Should Try

A taste of what blockchain can offer to the gaming industry

Blockchain has important implications for the future of finance. However, it also has implications for the future of entertainment.

At the dinner table during the holidays, you might be able to sell some of the attendees on blockchain with the promise of border-less, decentralized money, but there are plenty of audiences, young and old, that don’t find those concepts enticing enough to be sucked in.

This is where blockchain games come into the mix.

Games are a great way to hook someone on a new technology. Just look at virtual reality. That shit is gettin’ cray.

If you’re in blockchain, you can’t ignore the potential of blockchain games. Here are five of my favorites:

1. Dark Forest (xDai // Ethereum)

As a universe-exploring, planet-capturing, real-time-strategy game, some call Dark Forest the Eve Online of blockchain. What’s your playstyle? Casual explorer, or aggressive space pirate?

Dark Forest isn’t focused on next-gen graphics, and has quite the opposite, but the right attitude and a decent imagination allow for some of the most exciting PVP experiences that a blockchain game has ever afforded.

A mix of unique blockchain mechanics is folded in, including the use of zkSnark technology to create a fog-of-war mechanic, and CPU mining to incrementally lift that fog for each player.

Dark Forest| Telegram | Twitter
CommunityBridge-Codeuino mentorship: Updating stuff(Week 6)
By: Aayush Gupta
Tags: Software Development, The Linux Foundation, Open Source, Codeuino

I successfully passed in my second evaluations. This past six weeks had been a long enjoyable learning spree with a bunch of new lessons; excited to see what all is packed in.

What did I work on this week?

After getting initial reviews on the UI basics and overall look of the Spansberry platform; I went ahead, did some brain-scratching and improved the User Interface of the homepage. Also added more stuff to the view layer essential to the user.

Further, added the functionality to allow First-Admin of the organization to update/edit organization details after its creation.

Also, added an edit option to the Category section which enables category details to be edited afterwards either by the category creator or the moderator/admin on the platform.

Along with this, improved few other stuff on the platform. Firstly made every update request to follow a get request simultaneously to instantly showcase any changes without the requirement of refreshing the complete webpage.

I also went ahead and improved the auto-login flow. Initially it was depending just on the token stored in the browser’s storage which can be easily faked or set manually. I changed the reducer to now make an additional backend request, verify the token and get any more details of the user required.

Next week, I will be adding the functionality to allow user to update his details along with bringing searchable tags functionality to make it easier searching among categories and topics.

Till then, Sayōnara!
How To Merge Two Binary Trees In JavaScript🌳
By: Gulgina Arkin
Tags: JavaScript, Leetcode, Merge Two Trees, Depth First Search, Trees

Depth first search Solution

First we need to make sure the input, the given arguments for our function, that is two binary trees. And the output is a merged tree. According to the example, when at the same level, both of the trees have nodes, we need to sum nodes values to make a new node, if one of them has node, the other one node is null, we need to keep the not null node. To transform a merged tree, require us to traverse both trees.

Before we think about the solution, we need to consider edge cases. There is no constraint, one or both of them might be null. When one of the given tree is null, we can return the other tree, whether it’s null or not, right away. To transform one tree, we can merge the other one onto it, when both of trees are not null, we sum the node values. And traverse left and right paths of both trees. And at the end, return the merged tree.

The final solution would be like this:

The time complexity for DFS is O(n). We get this complexity considering the fact that we are visiting each node only once.

I hope this solution will give you insight about how to solve the similar problem.
Inertia
By: Anna Rozwadowska
Tags: Change, Inertia, Poetry

In curvature of the skin,

meeting delicately ever with sun and the elements.

Shone through the impeded atmosphere,

delicately dancing around portions of oak trees and rolling towers,

uttering sentences which coalesce in human form,

starting from founding our weariness,

to understanding the human space for inertia.
The Brave Words of a 17-Year-Old Partisan Before Being Executed
By: Andrei Tapalaga
Tags: Life Lessons, History, Culture, Heroes, World War II

The Brave Words of a 17-Year-Old Partisan Before Being Executed

Scaring the enemy by having no fear of death

Lepa Svetozara Radić being escorted by German Soldiers to be executed (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

It is difficult to make the irrational choice of murdering an enemy when you know that after this action the consequence will be paid with the same bullet. Even if they have murdered your whole family in front of your very eyes, our instinct is to do anything possible to survive. History has shown us that some would die for their country so they can honor it.

However, one brave soul made the decision of taking justice into her own hands as she had the right to and condemn those that had wronged her with death. Lepa Svetozara Radić was a Bosnian Serb member of the Yugoslav Partisans in World War II. She joined the partisans because she wanted to avenge the death of her parents and protect those that didn’t have the courage to fight against the German invasion.

Sadly, one party of Yugoslav Partisans had fallen in the hands of the German troops and they were all executed for killing German soldiers. It was Lepa that did not go out without a fight. In February of 1943, she was up for execution for shooting at German troops. What is more surprising and the reason as to why I have said ‘a girl’ is because this happened when she was only 17 years of age.

Lepa Svetozara Radić having a noose tied around her neck in 1943 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

As her execution was prepared, a German commander wanted to offer her a way out of her sentence in exchange for revealing the location and identities of her leaders. Her response shocked not only the soldiers but the entire world.

She responded by saying that she wasn’t a traitor and that her comrades from the Yugoslavian Partisan party would reveal their location as well as identities themselves when they came to avenge her death. It is incredible the courage that this teenager, or better yet, hero showed, even when faced with death.

However, those were not her last words. As the German troops were waiting for the order to push the chair she was standing on she has shouted these last words:

“Long live the Communist Party, and partisans! Fight, people, for your freedom! Do not surrender to the evildoers! I will be killed, but there are those who will avenge me!”

These words would have just shown the braveness of not only such a teenager but the partisans as a whole. Even with how outgunned they were, that did not matter to them as they knew that the Reich would fall and crumble someday. This can be seen in Lepa’s last words. No matter if she did make the ultimate sacrifice, her death would be avenged which would bring her soul a step closer to victory.

It is imperative to realize that unlike others that died throughout World War II, she had a choice and she chose to die with her dignity and honor.
Gamification and the Dual Loop Famework in 2 Minutes
Tags: Gamification, UX, User Research, User Experience Design, UX Design

Let’s begin with a quote by Jane McGonigal, American Designer and author.

She said, “Games give us unnecessary obstacles that we volunteer to tackle.”

We are inclined to do this, maybe because it is fun.

But it makes us think.

Despite being efficient and usable, we are creating very serious user interfaces. Maybe we’ve to dial down a bit. Maybe.

Well, That is when we started looking into games; to absorb the fun elements. In other words, we started sneaking in gameplay elements into our user interfaces to liven it up.

Gamification

Gamification is the insertion of gameplay elements in non-gaming settings to enhance user engagement with a product or service.

It is a loop consisting of 4 elements, and it goes by

Goals,

Rules,

Feedback or Rewards, and

Motivation.

Motivation is a critical factor that drives you to get that user engagement.

So, let’s look at a simple loop.

We have a goal, we have a reward for that, and we make an investment and go again, and there is some motivation to go again at that next task.

In this loop, we have action to kill or fight the monster, and we get a reward from it by killing the beast, and we level up and make the investment to build a better character and go again for the next shot. And, the investment is critical.

The Problem

But the problem is that this simple loop can get tedious and lackluster in the long run because as we move along, these tasks and goals can obtain more significant or more challenging, and we might put more investment into that and can tire users a bit.

The Dual Loop Framework

This is when a dual loop framework comes in. It helps because we explode this simple loop into inner and outer circles, wherein the inner loops we have minor tasks or minor actions to do, and we’ll get little rewards for that.

In the outer loop, there are significant actions and significant rewards for it. It is not disappointing because you are encouraged to go on the front foot in either case and do the task.

Google Maps

Now let’s take a look at one company that has invested in dual-loop frameworks.

Even Waze can be considered. The other being Google Maps. Both are map oriented products.

For a better perspective, let’s look into what Google Maps is doing. Here, the inner loop is a basic rating system, perhaps where you rate service, and the more significant task can be that you can write a review about a service or maybe take a photograph.

All these things add up to reward you with points and the accumulation of those points, in fact, give you more important things like a freebie that Google cares to give away.

Who knows. Apart from all this, Google’s driving factor is looking forward to the critical elements of motivation is building a better Google Map community.
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like…. The Last Week Of Sales Activity Before The New Year!
By: Scott D. Clary
Tags: Newsletter, Strategy, Sales, Business, Mareting

ROI Overload

It's beginning to look a lot like the last week of sales activity before the new year! YIKES. Who's hustling through…
Why So Many Coding Students Struggle Getting a Job After Coding Bootcamps
By: Zulie Rane
Tags: Personal Development, Coding, Data Science, Work, Programming

Why So Many Coding Students Struggle Getting a Job After Coding Bootcamps

It’s the difference between learning to code and learning computer science

Photo by Emile Perron on Unsplash.

Imagine, like so many folks, that you decide what you want to study when you’re just 18. You go to college, finish a four-year degree in Mechanical Engineering, and then realize what you actually want to do is get a job in coding. There are tons of benefits — pay, flexibility, personal satisfaction. It’s a no-brainer.

There’s just one problem: The last thing you want to do is go back to school for another two or four very expensive years. After reading a bit online, you see that a possible route for you is getting a job after a coding bootcamp. It seems like a sweet deal — you pay a fraction of typical college tuition and then are on your way to getting a coding job with no experience or degree.

There’s just one more problem: The path after graduating from a coding bootcamp leaves you really underprepared for the programming job market. “We see more and more students coming to Qvault because people are having a hard time landing jobs after taking a bootcamp or doing some web development courses,” says Lane Wagner, engineer and founder of Qvault, an online computer science education platform. That’s why so many bootcamp graduates leave their 15-week course thinking they’ll glide into a job offer, only to find the process of getting a job after a coding bootcamp is painful, arduous, and seemingly never-ending.

It’s frustrating because it can feel like you’ve done everything right: You’ve realized getting a programming job can be beneficial to your career and happiness, you’ve picked a language, found a course, and completed it… only to struggle getting a job after the bootcamp.

Coding bootcamps don’t give a great understanding of the fundamentals underpinning how programming really works. Bootcamps are great for a lot of different reasons: They’re cheaper than a degree and up to date on modern languages, but they tend to focus on practical skills over understanding theory, which means even after finishing one, you might still not really understand the mathematical and statistical theory that underlies that code you’re doing.

If you’ve graduated from a coding bootcamp and are tearing your hair out in frustration because you can’t seem to get a job, stop applying to 20 places a day. Try to identify what’s causing you to get stuck at this last hurdle and then work on a plan to overcome it.
The Orchestra
By: Natasha Byrne
Tags: Poetry, Infidelity, Relationships, Jealousy, Orchestra

Credit: visualhunt.com

A tear, a sigh, a palpitation in the chest;

A forbidden thought lingering in the mass

Triggered by images of her undressed,

And you strumming your organ in caress.

You playing a melody of her seduction,

Dominating me by your deduction.

Confounding me with your scripted lyric;

A mask to consume the naïveté you mimic.

Is a joyous aria supposed to give me hope;

A momentary pleasure to falsify my doubt?

Lay out a prose outlining the truth I scope:

Over a rhythm, I prefer your raw shout.

And why the hell do pictures of her remain,

When I’m the one you’d rather attain?
4 CSS and JavaScript Tricks to Breathe Life Into Your Website
By: Tommaso De Ponti
Tags: JavaScript, CSS, UX, HTML, Programming

1. 3D Animation in JS

The first trick is a wonderful three-dimensional effect in JS.

As you can see, when the mouse goes over this “card,” the elements inside the card become 3D.

How to do this

First, we create an HTML div :

Here, we have a main class ( card ) and two other classes inside the card class ( header and info ). Header will be the class containing the image (in our example, the Medium logo), while info will contain the text in the card. Now, let’s add some CSS in order to give the card a better appearance:

Here, I declared the height, width, border, padding, and shadow. Reload the page and you’ll see the results. The last step is to achieve the 3D effect when the mouse goes over the card. To do this, I used JS:

Declare variables. Create two event listeners for card . On mouseenter , translate Z by 3px for the title , header , and description . You can also decide whether to rotate these elements or not ( rotateZ ). On mouseleave , take everything back to normal.

There you go: You have this nice three-dimensional animation. Of course, this is now really raw. You can add CSS everywhere to change the width, colors, etc.
Serenity partnership program
By: Serenity Financial
Tags: Ethereum Blockchain, Forex Trading, Ethereum, Blockchain

Dear friends!

We’re pleased to announce that Serenity, a project aimed at the creation of transparent Forex trading conditions, now offers a partnership program.

Our partnership program is available to both brokers (IB) and individual representatives with access to a wide audience through their blog, website, social media community, Instagram page.

Focus areas of our partnership program:

— Attracting individual users: IB or WEB partners with a vast reach (minimum number of attracted clients to be eligible for a payout: 30);

— Attracting brokerage companies: all platforms that provide access to online trading in the financial markets (IB);

— SUB IB: attracting both brokers and WEB-platforms with sufficient reach.

What we offer:

— Two reward options: one-time or monthly payment;

— 50,000 SRNT for the first 5 attracted brokers (one-time reward);

— Up to 30% of deposit fees paid by the attracted clients, not including any other potential profits;

— 10% of a partner’s reward for attracting a broker or a web platform;

— Attracted brokers can become partners themselves and receive up to 30% of the fees paid by their clients to Serenity as a reward.

Contact us to learn the details: mail@serenity-financial.io
Bitcoin: Value versus Speculation
By: Simone Brunozzi
Tags: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency

(If you like my writings, you might subscribe to “Fabrica”)

In the last several hours, the entire cryptocurrency market has lost about 20% of its value. Some are calling this the pop of a bubble. Below you can see several cryptocurrencies and their recent drop in price (source: CoinMarketCap, which is a weighted average of various crypto exchanges around the world).

Is this the pop of a bubble, then? No, it’s not. Or, to be precise: this recent drop has NOTHING to do with whether we are in a crypto bubble or not.

The only thing that has happened is simply a wild speculation.

Crypto market of the last several hours (source: CoinMarketCap). A lot of red.

Let me show you.

Take a look at this chart below: it shows the daily price of BTC in orange, and the monthly price in blue.

Bitcoin to USD price, DAILY (orange) and MONTHLY (blue), from January 1st 2017 to January 15th 2018

As you can clearly see, the daily price can fluctuate wildly; while the steady growth of Bitcoin price keeps going.

In fact, it’s easier to believe me by simply looking at the monthly price alone (1st day of every month), again in blue:

Bitcoin to USD price MONTHLY, from January 1st 2017 to January 15th 2018

If you just look at this graph, what do you see? A very healthy growth.

For me, this is indicative of the perceived VALUE of Bitcoin. The orange line in the previous graph instead shows the PRICE of Bitcoin, which is heavily affected by speculation, and not properly correlated to VALUE.

In other words: besides wild speculation, Bitcoin is steadily growing. Will it keep growing? Hard for me to say. But what happened in the last hours is NO indication of it.

However, I am still personally very bullish on Bitcoin’s growth.

Why this note? To bring some sanity back into the discussion. Much needed, I guess.

Did you like this article? Clap and share. Thanks!

(disclaimer: I own cryptocurrencies).

(If you like my writings, you might subscribe to “Fabrica”)
Dangerous Efforts to Deny and Distort Holocaust History
By: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Tags: Genocide, Conversations, Anti Semitism, Holocaust

This sign is from a protest in Iran in 2006 by hardline Islamists protesting a Danish newspaper cartoon they perceived as an insult to the Prophet Mohammed. It is part of a pattern of denial, distortion, and other antisemitic activity around the world. —Mohammad Kheirkhah/UPI/Newscom

As the Museum’s hundreds of millions of archival documents attest, the Holocaust is the best documented case of genocide: The US military and allies collected firsthand evidence. Survivors and other eyewitnesses testified about their personal experiences. And the Nazis kept meticulous records.

Yet people always have attempted to distort the history or flat-out deny it, for a variety of reasons. Countries minimize or ignore the part played by local collaborators in order to rehabilitate their images. Deniers quickly spread misinformation through the power of social media. And as the history recedes in time, new generations are susceptible to the dangers of manipulation.

In this digital program, Dr. Robert Williams, deputy director of international affairs at the Museum, discusses these trends with Dr. Edna Friedberg, a Museum historian. Gideon Taylor, president of the Claims Conference (Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany), offers expert commentary.
Amazon may build a noise-cancelling headphone that knows which sound to let in
By: Selene Kyle
Tags: Tech, Headphones, Technews

If you’re annoyed with the din of airplanes and trains, or the sound of your busy city bothers you, noise-cancelling headphone must be a boon for you. You can be submerged into a perfect sonic bubble, away from the noisy world. However, walking around a busy road with only four senses in use is a stupid idea. You may miss a friend or coworker desperately trying to get your attention, or even end up in a hospital if you don’t listen to a car honking when you’re in the middle of the road.

Amazon thinks there are certain noises that need to be heard. The company has recently been awarded for a noise-cancellingheadphone that is smart enough to know when to turn off or on the noise-cancelling option. By recognizing certain sound patterns, frequencies, and keywords like names, it will automatically shut the tune. It will help the wearer to immediately understand what’s happening in their surroundings and get off the traffic.

“Aspects of the disclosure provide suspension of noise cancellation at a noise-cancelling device using keyword spotting. In one aspect, a predetermined word or phrase can be spotted within an utterance received at the noise-cancelling device, and in response, noise cancellation can be suspended or otherwise terminated,” the patent reads.

Amazon filed that patent application on July 25, 2014. The diagram on that patent shows an array of microphones attached to the ear pads, which may help to listen to the ambient sound. The microphones can be trained to listen for a two-part audio command, such as “hey Nick,” the description says.

As most patented technologies don’t always turn into real products, so it’s not certain if this headphone will ever hit the shelf. However, the way the noise-cancelling headphones are continuing to flood the streets, this product from Amazon has become a vital requirement.
Bitcoin Whales Just Split Up $5.5B Into Smaller Wallets
By: Rochelle Guillou
Tags: Btc, Insights, Bitcoin

View all Bitcoin transactions live

Clearly the recent increase in the price of Bitcoin caused accounts with a lot of BTC to do something. But on a chain built with privacy in mind, it’s never easy to deduce users’ intentions.

What’s interesting is that whales are not sending their BTC to exchanges to liquidate. Instead, they are sending their BTC to smaller wallets.

Whales in this case are defined as addresses that control over 1,000 BTC. In other words, users who hold over 13 million USD.

Since the price of BTC started to increase, whales have sent a total of 423,914 BTC to other addresses on the blockchain. That’s equal to 5.5 billion dollars divided up in “smaller wallets” which hold under 1,000 BTC.

This is what you see happen in the bubbles above — the large transactions from whales (light blue) to smaller wallets (in green) — and what we can see in the bar graph below as well. This is clearly an anomaly compared to regular whale activity.

While we have no way to prove one or the other, here are a few potential explanations.

Tax Evasion?

The travel rule of international banking stipulated that to exchange crypto to cash, only transactions over $10,000 have to be reported.

That means that if you were trying to get your Bitcoin into some other asset tax free, it would be wise to split up your total balance into smaller amounts, before transacting those on centralized exchanges.

It would make sense, with the price of Bitcoin rising, that whales are preparing in this way to liquidate. The smaller transactions are the easiest way to avoid attracting attention from regulatory bodies.

Private Sale?

Bitcoin whales could also be selling BTC to new investors entering the market. In a recent interview with Laura Shin, Willy Woo explained that he saw a massive influx of new investors, CEOs and boards of directors, scooping up Bitcoin to put them in corporate and personal wallets. Perhaps new institutional investors are looking to purchase BTC directly from the OG’s and sidestep exchanges all together.

The announcement last Thursday of payment giant Paypal allowing its 346 million users to buy and spend Bitcoin is also likely contributing to the increase in new users entering the Bitcoin market. Currently, only 23.4 million people hold Bitcoin in their wallets, and if you count exchanges, that’s 101 million active unique accounts total. Paypal is almost 5x that.

Obfuscating Transactions?

Large holders of Bitcoin could also be trying to exchange their BTC without revealing the source or nature of the transaction. One technique to do so is called “layering,” or splitting up a haul into smaller and smaller amounts before settling it, so as to cover your tracks — similar to what crypto-natives call “fanning out,” Similarly to the travel rule incentive, the smaller transactions attract less attention.