fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Use a staffing company? You’re probably overpaying.
Tags: Staffing, Benefits, Aquentworkforce, Workforce, Business

Do you employ your contingent talent through staffing agencies? If so, you’re likely being charged for costs that don’t actually apply to your talent.

You’re paying based on maximum, not actual costs.

The majority of staffing companies charge clients a markup on pay rates that assumes maximum costs on the benefits they provide talent, like health insurance and paid sick leave. This is the case even though enrollment and usage are almost always less and can vary significantly from client to client. That’s like paying health insurance premiums for 100% of your own employees when some employees actually decline coverage because they’re already insured another way — it just wouldn’t be workable.

Here’s an analogy. Every month, you pay your electric bill. On that bill, you see just how much electricity you used and how much you owe based on that usage. But imagine that your electric bill instead reflected the most electricity that all the homes in your neighborhood might use in a month, not how much your household actually used. Would you pay that bill? Probably not.

Another example where you’re probably paying more than you should is when it comes to your staffing companies’ employer taxes. In the spring of this year, Congress passed a bill related to the pandemic called the CARES Act. This legislation allows employers to defer their FICA taxes from March 27, 2020, through the end of the year. Your staffing agencies have probably been deferring these taxes on your talent, which equals 6.2% of their pay up to the taxable maximum of $137,700, and they will not owe these taxes until the end of 2021 and 2022.

But chances are that you’ve been paying for FICA taxes in your bill rates throughout the pandemic, at a time of great economic uncertainty no less.

That’s why we believe the industry pricing model needs to evolve.

Pay for what you use, nothing more, nothing less.

As a client, you should only pay for the actual costs to employ your talent as they are incurred. We call it metered benefits, but it’s essentially the pay-as-you-go model.

Here’s how this works. For each client, we would track their specific talent population’s enrollment and usage of benefits like health and dental insurance, sick days and paid time off, and 401(k) matching contributions. Many benefits, like sick days, already have established maximums for usage and costs. For health insurance, we also cap client costs with stop-loss insurance, so clients have the opportunity to save through our self-insurance model without the risk. Your actual costs would then be billed as they are incurred. The same concept goes for employer taxes like FICA — you should only have to pay these costs when we do.
Git Better! Learn Aliases, Settings, Tools, Background
By: Nicolai Parlog
Tags: Newsletter, Git, Java, Github, Web Development

Customize Git to Your Needs

First off, every Git post is mandated by Linus himself to list a couple of awesome aliases the author thinks will enlighten their readers. Here are mine (straight from ~.gitconfig ):

[alias]

st = status --branch --short

wat = log --graph --decorate --oneline -15

cd = checkout

patch = add --patch

unstage = reset HEAD --

unstage-patch = reset HEAD --patch

com = commit -m

amend = commit --amend --no-edit

follow = log --follow -p

I use git st to get a less cluttered version of the status and git wat to see a colorful, tree-like, and diff-free log output that helps me remember where I was before taking the break. In fact, I use them so often that I have a bash alias g that goes git st; echo ''; git wat -5 .

Next up is git cd , which I created because I change branches quite often. Once I’m done making changes I try to convince the world I knew what I was doing, so I go through the files change by change with git patch and create separate commits. If something gets staged that shouldn’t have been, I use git unstage and particularly git unstage-patch to unstage – either all at once or, again, change by change.

Typing git commit -m became too long, so I shortened it to git com and because I often forget new files ( git patch doesn’t list them) I created git amend to amend the last commit with the newest changes.

Last on the list is git follow , which shows you all changes pertaining to a particular file. Unfortunately I didn’t find a way to just see the commits without the damn diffs because often times I don’t care about them.

Of course I am not the only one with aliases to use and tips to give. Here are a few others:
Blooming plant
By: Alice Floris
Tags: Micropoetry, Poetry, Age Of Empathy, Growth, Kindness

Thank you for reading my poem! This is a small reminder of not being too hard on yourself.

Life is a process that takes time and patience, there is no need to rush it.

If you enjoyed this, I wrote another poem that you might also like:
How To Run a React App as a Container on Azure VM
By: Bhargav Bachina
Tags: JavaScript, Software Development, Cloud Computing, Azure, Programming

How To Run a React App as a Container on Azure VM

A step by step guide with an example Project

There is a number of ways you can run your applications nowadays. It’s very common to containerize your application and run it on Docker runtime. You have several options in Microsoft Azure such as App Service, AKS, etc. But, you have limited control over the underlying architecture when you use these options. If you want complete control over the underlying architecture you can install Docker on Azure VM and run your application on it.

In this post, we will see how we can install Docker on Azure VM and run a React application as a container on it.

Prerequisites

Example Project

Set up a VM and Install Docker

Run the Container

Access From the Browser

Summary

Conclusion

Prerequisites

There are some prerequisites for this article. You need to have nodejs installed on your laptop and how http works. If you want to practice and run this on your laptop you need to have these on your laptop.

Azure Prerequisites

You should have a Microsoft Azure Account. You can get a free account for one year. You should see the below screen after you login.

Azure Home Screen

You need to create a subscription for your account. The most common is Pay As You Go subscription.

Subscription Offers

Pay-As-You-Go Subscription

You need a subscription to be associated with your tenant so that all the cost is billed to this subscription.

Install Azure CLI and Configure

Once you have the Azure Account you can install Azure CLI. You can go to the below documentation and install Azure CLI based on your operation system. You can configure Azure CLI with your subscription.

az login

Let’s list the subscription with the following command
The different ways to define a function in JavaScript
By: Samer Buna
Tags: Technology, JavaScript, Programming, Beginner

So you want to create a function in JavaScript?

You. Have. Options:

1 — Declaration Function

function sum(a, b) { return a + b; }

2 — Expression Function

// Can be named:

(function sum(a, b) { return a + b; }); // Or anonymous (AVOID):

(function(a, b) { return a + b; }); // Or assigned to a variable

const sum = function sum(a, b) { return a + b; })

3 — Arrow Function

// Single argument, one line return:

name => name.split(' ') // Multi arguments, one line return:

(a, b) => a + b // Single argument, full body:

name => { return name.split(' '); } // Regular:

(a, b) => { return a + b };

4— Generator Function

function *sum(a, b) { yield a + b; }

5— Async Function

async function sum(a, b) { return await a + b; }

6— Constructor Function (AVOID)

new Function(‘a’, ‘b’, ‘return a + b;’);

7— Exported Function

// Default exports

export default function(a, b) { return a + b; }; // Named exports

export function sum(a, b) { return a + b; };

8— Object Property Function

// Regular:

const object = {

sum: function(a, b) { return a + b; },

}; // Shorthand:

const object = {

sum(a, b) { return a + b; },

};

9— Object Dynamic Property Function

const functionName = "sum"; const object = {

[functionName]: function(a, b) { return a + b; },

};

10 — Object Property Getter/Setter Function

// Regular:

const object = {

get answer { return 42; },

set answer(value) { /* do something with value */ },

};



// With defineProperty

const obj = {};

Object.defineProperty(obj, "answer", {

get() { return 42; },

set(value) { /* do something with value */ },

});

11 — Object Dynamic Property Getter/Setter Function

const functionName = "answer"; const object = {

get [functionName]() { return 42; },

set [functionName](value) { /* do something with value */ },

};

12 — Class Method Function

class Compute {

// Regular:

sum(a, b) { return a + b; }

} class Compute {

// Static:

static sum(a, b) { return a + b; };

}

13 — Class Property Function

class Compute {

// Regular:

sum = function (a, b) { return a + b; };

} class Compute {

// Static:

static sum = function(a, b) { return a + b; };

}

14 — Class Private Function

class Compute {

// Regular:

#sum(a, b) {

return a + b;

} // Static:

static #sum(a, b) {

return a + b;

}

}

I tried to keep the list to only the uniquely different ways to create a function. If you start thinking about combining some of these ways there would be a lot more options.

Did I miss anything? Let me know.
VIDEO: Young, Black and on the Front Lines of the Climate Movement
By: I, Climate Voices
Tags: Black History Month, Gen Z, Climate Justice, Youth Activism, Environmental Justice

As the fight for climate justice continues, young people are shaping what equitable climate action looks like: centering Black and Brown voices and the intersections of climate change. Shanita Hubbard, chair of Freelance Task Force at the National Association of Black Journalists, spoke with two climate leaders: Dillon Bernard, Communications Director at Future Coalition & Andrea Manning, student at the University of Georgia and core organizer with Zero Hour. They shared their stories of activism, how race impacts their work, and what more the media can do to support diverse youth activists.

Climate change is no longer an issue of the future, but is happening all around us. If you add weather impacts like more intense heat waves and flooding, to long-standing policies that contaminated the quality of air and water in African American communities, it’s clear how Black communities are particularly vulnerable to the climate crisis. However, they’ve also always been resilient.

Historically, environmental justice has been seen as a basic right for many civil rights movements led by African American people as early as the 1950s. African American people have always been a part of the climate and environmental movement, but they aren’t always seen.
สอนวิธีใช้ HTML5 Video
By: Suranart Niamcome
Tags: Highlight, Video, Html5, HTML, Coding

SiamHTML

The collection of articles for front-end developers
101 For Making ML Servers. Learn to write robust APIs
By: Pratik Bhavsar
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Programming, Python

CPU deployment 🚀

Now we will look at how to write APIs for doing a CPU deployment as they are very common in practise when the load is not high.

We will cover

Task Queues

Caching concepts

Worker concepts

Framework combo → Fastapi + uvicorn + huey + redis

→ Task Queues

Why queue?

Servers like flask and uvicorn do not maintain a queue of API calls and things are concurrent by default. This is great because it can help you with better utilisation of the server. But if you have delete and update APIs, you might be changing the state of the server.

This can cause havoc when concurrent calls are trying to access the same objects in memory which are getting altered and accessed at the same time.

Hence you need a queuing mechanism when concurrency is a problem.

The preferred method to deal with this is to create tasks and send them to a queue maintained by a worker which executes them sequentially.

The caveat is it can make our response slower if the queue gets long. You can consider making task async and return fixed response if the response to the call is a fixed one like “update of x will happen”.

General Queing Theory

Producers — The code that pushes tasks to the queue.

Exchangers — Decides which queue a message should be pushed into.

Direct (Send a message to the queue with respective table)

Topic (Send a message to the queue that matches a specific routing pattern)

Fan out (Send a message to all queues)

Queues — Queues are what we have been discussing so far. It has a list of tasks for the workers/consumers.

Consumers — Consumers (Worker), also called as workers, are responsible for the actual execution of tasks. At any point of time, workers can be configured to work on a specific queue. (RabbitMQ/Redis does not have it’s own worker, hence it depends on task workers like Celery.)
Announcement on Nervos CKB Cross-chain Development Program by Bitpie Wallet
By: Bitpie Wallet
Tags: Crosschain, Bitpie, Wallet, Stable Coin, Nervos

Program in Detail:

1. Supports mapping of ERC20 stablecoins like USDT on Ethereum to Nervos CKB at any time in Bitpie Wallet APP;

2. Supports withdrawing the original assets on Ethereum from the mapped assets back to Nervos CKB network at 1: 1 ratio any time (A small fee will occur while transferring cross-chain assets to the original chain assets) in Bitpie Wallet APP;

3. The above-mentioned mapping assets can be transferred for free of transaction fees (miner fees) in Bitpie Wallet. The required network transaction fees will be paid on-chain by Bitpie, so that users can more conveniently use the mapped assets for payments on Nervos CKB network (This function only supports users who use Bitpie wallets for on-chain operations. The upper limit of on-chain payment subsidies is tentatively set at 1 million transactions per day.);

4. Provide certificates of locked and mapped assets on Ethereum and Nervos CKB in time, and make the asset address transparent;

5. Provide other services related to assets based on actual needs.

Planned development progress:

(1) Cross-chain asset transfer function completed in the Q2 of 2020

(2) Asset audit and transparent addresses announced in the Q3 of 2020

The corresponding development work has already STARTED！

Bitpie reserves the right to change the project operation plan in the future. If any operation plan changes are involved in the future, we will inform the community and users in advance and ensure the security of cross-chain assets.

Thank you for your support!

Bitpie Team
The 5 Freshest Books on Ethics that Technologists Must Read 📚
By: James Lynden
Tags: Technology, Product, Tech Ethics, Philosophy, Design

With great power comes great responsibility, right? I want to help technologists have more informed and fruitful discussions about that responsibility; namely, through getting more involved in technology ethics.

I used a recent vacation to do a deep-dive into the freshest literature on technology ethics. I’ll share my reading list with you in this post, along with an introduction to each book and some food for thought on the shared themes to finish off.

Here’s the reading list:

Future Ethics, Cennyd Bowels Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life, Adam Greenfield Technology and the Virtues, Shannon Valor The Ethics of Invention, Sheila Jasanoff Moralizing Technology, Peter-Paul Verbeek

If you read this list, you should come away with solid foundation in the current thinking in technology ethics, as well as some concepts and methods which you can put to work in day jobs as designers and makers of tech products and services.

The books are complementary, yet offering wide-ranging perspectives. They are also technology-orientated and contemporary rather than moral philosophy classics or generalist introductions to ethics.

Here we go, an introduction to each of the books.
Rooh Afza Recipes
By: Islamic History Notes
Tags: Lemonade, Ramadan, Recipes, Rooh Afza

Iftar is not complete until you have your dates and a glass of Rooh Afza. According to Hamdard Laboratories Rooh Afza is a blend of pure crystalline sugar, distilled natural extracts of citrus flowers, aquas of fruits, vegetables and cooling herbal ingredients, Rooh Afza’s cooling effect is long lasting for it not only instantly quenches the thirst but also rapidly cools the entire system and gives back the body the vigor, vitality and freshness depleted by excessive heat.

It is extremely popular in Pakistan. Most people mix Rooh Afza in either water or milk. I prefer a Rooh Afza milkshake over a Rooh Afza sherbet. I recently came across a wide variety of Rooh Afza recipes. Some are sweet while others have a refreshing tangy flavor. Here are a few:

1. Sunset Island

Pineapple juice 1.5 oz

Grape juice 1 oz

7-up 1.5 oz

Rooh Afza 1 tsp

Sugar syrup 1 tsp

Combine in shaker over a few ice cubes. Shake thoroughly. Pour into glass.

2. Rooh Afza Colada

Pineapple juice — 1/2 cup

Coconut milk — 1/4 cup

Rooh Afza — 2 tbsp

Coconut — 2 tsp (fresh and finely grated)

Ice cubes — 4–5 nos

For Garnishing:-

Pineapple — 1 piece

Ice cubes — 2–3 nos (crushed)

Step 1: Blend the pineapple juice, coconut milk, Rooh Afza and the ice-cubes in the blender till well blended.

Step 2: Place crushed ice at the bottom of a cocktail glass and pour the blended mixture.

Step 3: Sprinkle some shredded coconut and place the pineapple slice on the rim of the glass.

3. Rooh Afza Banana Milkshake

Bananas 2

Milk 2 cups

Rooh Afza 2 tsp

Sugar syrup 1 tsp

Mix all the ingredients in blender and serve with ice cubes.

4. Rooh Afza Smoothie

Sliced strawberries 1 cup

Chopped mint leaves 2 teaspoons

Rooh Afza 4 teaspoons

Vanilla ice cream 4 teaspoons

Milk 5 cups

Lemon juice 1 cup

Step 1: Blend strawberry, mint leaves and Roof Afza in blender to make a smooth paste

Step 2: Pour milk and ice cream in it and blend it again. Divide the mixture in 2 glasses

Step 3: Pour lime drink on it and serve after garnishing it with mint leaves

5) Rooh Afza Mint Lemonade

Water 2 glasses

Rooh Afza 4 teaspoons

Lemon juice 1 tablespoon

Chopped mint leaves 2 teaspoons

Lemons for garnishing

Step 1: Mix 2 glasses of water, 4 spoons of Rooh Afza, 1 spoon of lemon juice and 2 spoons of mint leaves all together in a jug.

Step 2: Add crushed ice.

Step 3: Garnish it with lemon slices and serve chill.
Accessibility: Beyond the Buzzword
By: Neil Shankar
Tags: Accessibility, UX, Tech, Activism, Design

At Google, our mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” The world needs more than good color contrast.

❧

Neil Shankar is a designer on Creative Engineering at Google, embedded through Left Field Labs. Visit tallneil.io.
In Someone Else’s Shoes
By: Sherry Kappel
Tags: One Line, Courage, Empathy, Poetry, Chalkboard

Inspired by Dewi’s One-Line “Courage” Prompt

It takes courage to face a gun, fall in love, and oftentimes just to disagree;

And yet for some others it is tough enough to simply be.
Blame It on the Boogie: Michael Jackson’s Early Creative Process
By: Steve Knopper
Tags: The Bookshelf, Music Business, Music, Disco, Michael Jackson

What Colomby noticed most at the Destiny sessions was the blossoming leadership of Michael Jackson. It was hard to miss. Rick Marotta, a session drummer called in to play on “Push Me Away,” remembers listening to playback while the Jacksons discussed what they thought of the early mix. Michael was still in the vocal booth in another part of the studio. Finally, one of the brothers hollered, “Wait, wait, wait — ‘Hey, Mike, can you dance to it?’”

“Yeah!” Michael shouted from the distance. “It feels really good!”

“If Michael can dance to it, it’s good,” the brother said.

In the middle of recording “Blame It on the Boogie,” Michael abruptly flung off his headphones and rushed out of the studio. Colomby feared a blast of volume had come through his phones. When he found him in the hallway, Michael was dancing frenetically. “I have to get this out of my system,” he said. “I can’t hold still and sing.”

For the distinctive “Sunshine! Moonlight!” bits in the “Boogie” chorus, Colomby decided to try a vocal technique he’d learned from Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker — instead of asking the musicians to sing their parts individually, more than once if necessary to “stack” the vocals onto the track, he set the boys up to sing them as a choir. They’d do one syllable at a time — Sun! Shine! Moon! Light! — to create a thick, layered effect that sounded energetic and bright on the record. One of the brothers, possibly Marlon or Tito, according to Colomby’s memory, didn’t sign on: “That’s not the way we’ve done it.” But Michael won. “Guys, let’s just try it,” he said. “What’s your problem?”

Randy Waldman, who played synthesizer during the Bad sessions, summed up MJ’s creative method: “He would hum different melodies, and I’d plunk around on the piano and he’d go, ‘Yeah, that’s what I want to do.’” | Courtesy of Randy Waldman/Scribner

One day, Colomby showed up at the studio to find Michael directing keyboardist Greg Phillinganes and drummer Ed Green on the same repetitive funky groove, with no variations, for twenty minutes. This wasn’t how Colomby did things. It didn’t sound like a song, just a groove, over and over. (“It was a very strong, memorable melody,” recalls Phillinganes, who had come up with the original beat while dabbling on drums. “It wasn’t just a groove that rambled on and didn’t have anything to connect with.”) But Colomby went with it.

After the musicians had cut the track, the producer called in Tom Washington, a well-known horn arranger who went by Tom Tom 84, and asked him to create a horn part for a staccato, Earth, Wind, & Fire-type contemporary-soul feel. Over that, Michael sang the first line. Colomby considered it okay. Then he sang the second one — a tense, dissonant, subtle countermelody that fit perfectly. Colomby thought that was genius. The song because an eight-minute jam called “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground),” a shorter remix of which turned into a huge hit.

“I would have said, ‘It’s too long,’” Colomby recalls, “but they were building something.”
Medium is my new blog platform?
By: Pito Salas
Tags: Blogging, Medium

Like many people, I am considering using Medium as my new blog platform. Here are my reasons, so far:

The in browser editor is fantastic. It’s super responsive, and creates beautiful output.

Supposedly my stuff will get a built-in audience, if it’s any good. Compared to my current blog, www.salas.com which I’ve been less active on of late.

I am getting the feeling that personal blog servers are becoming passé. I know for me, I am getting tired of paying Squarespace.com $10 per month for a server that I don’t think I use much. (It’s their business model I suppose :)

Truth is that I’ve ported my old blog content across several services over the last 12 or so years. Each time it’s a hassle.

People worry that their content will be ‘locked’ into a proprietary server. They want to ‘own’ their writing. I used to worry about that. Now I think it’s a bit precious. Really, you want to save your writing for posterity?

If I standardize on Medium, I will not be trying to move my old content here. I won’t even look into whether it’s easy or even possible.

What I will have to think about is how to move old content from Squarespace to something free so I don’t have to pay every month as I see it all drift into useless obscurity.

Let’s see how it goes!
Acceptance
By: Gaston King
Tags: Depression, Poetry, Acceptance, Inner Peace, Moving On

Acceptance

Understanding how we deserve such a wondrous love, a reason has yet to appear

Photo by Fernando @cferdo on Unsplash

Your beauty illuminates the darkest depths of reality. No, you defy reality.

It’s something unheard of and undiscovered.

It’s cursing how much you give and take from my soul. I’m never alone.

Your warmth continues with me as I fall asleep.

I feel your eyes shield death’s cold grasp.

One glance over reminds me of how undeserving my being truly is to inhabit such a life of unrelenting love.

Home is nor person, nor place, nor thing. It is an unconditional, undying, purpose of safety.

An idea of leadership to inspire the many who find that safe haven.

To endure and fight the battle that attempts to rid me of that dream.

I can’t do this, this very action of typing insufficient,

Selfish writing without the thought of your overpowering love I was once blessed with.

A fair conclusion is a brief reminder of the moments of discovering one another.

Oceanic candles, sweet sounds, fingertips grazing over the entire surfaces of our being.

Foreign travels of intimacy prove to be more powerful than the history of argumentative responses.

After floating higher and higher, deep air-filled sighs of doubt and fear pull us down to earth where our eyes first met.

Expecting there is always a level up, always a terminology of reality that is unrealistic.

Never could I have imagined I would’ve sunk lower than from where we began.

Historical sights become unimportant in the face of our past story.

They only appear as photo ops in comparison to where we took the largest leaps.

I can’t remember the last leap we took together, other than when we departed.

Replacements appear from the shadows as the thought of my departure leaves you fearful and alone.

The depravity is too powerful to bear alone.

Apologies shall remain powerless, words go unheard with messages undelivered.

Walls surround you and the arms of your new love.

I shall remain unsuitable

I lay here darkened in times of comparison and defeated from leaving love.

© Gaston King, all rights reserved.
Greater Things Have Yet To Come
By: Jack Heimbigner
Tags: Christianity, Spirituality, Life, Faith, Religion

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”— John 14:12 (NIV)

Do you think you can do the works of Jesus?

During his ministry, Jesus healed people, fed people, preached the message of the Kingdom of God coming to earth, cast out demons, brought someone back to life, and brought people into a relationship with God.

When we believe, Jesus declares over your life that you can do the works he did. You have the ability to healed the sick. You can bring the prophecy to the world around you. You can calm the storms of life. You too can invite people into God’s Kingdom.

Jesus did many supernatural things.

And we have been enabled and tasked to do them too. Jesus calls us to heal the sick through the power of the Holy Spirit. With prayer and trust, we can see our circumstances and the situations others find themselves in change. With conversations, we can see people come to know Jesus too.

For many believers today, this would seem impossible. But God is the God of doing the impossible.

Calling Us into Greater Works

He wants us to step into the divide between where we are and what we want to see happen. God wants us to close the gap of life on earth and life in God’s Kingdom. And one of the ways we can do that is to step into this calling of “greater things.”

When we are discouraged we can come to God and ask for help. Praying life back into the death around us. Praying abundance into famine. And praying health into the sick.

When we believe in Jesus, we will have the ability to do the great works that he did when he was on earth. And he calls this out in us so we can show his kingdom to people. Now, this may seem like an odd reality, however, the works of Jesus are still happening today and are happening all over the world.

And you have been invited and called into doing these works too.

Are you ready to join in the power of God’s Kingdom of bringing life to death, healing to sickness, and still the storms of our lives and the lives of others? Jesus has called us into this and you can start seeing this reality around you today.

Takeaways

Today, before you start your day today, spend some time praying. Ask God to show you the greater works he has for your life. Write down what he shows you. And start acting on them.

You will not regret getting into the works God has for your life.

And I will almost bet, you can think back over your life to find ways where God as already used you for great works. And it will be in those works that God will have brought you into deeper faith.
Three Different Things: April 1, 2020
By: Sean O'Brien
Tags: FCC, Spam, Google, Internet, Data Science

Three Different Things: April 1, 2020

Healthcare Capacities, Who’s Growing During the Coronavirus Crisis?, and STIR/SHAKEN

(FTA)

Even if 10% of all hospital beds were available, the U.S capacity would be met in under two months based on three days’ doubling rate of hospitalisations. Just over three days’ doubling rate is about what the U.S. data is currently on, just by the way — as of March 24. Some areas like NYC is showing two days’ doubling rates. As you can see from the graph — a tenfold increase in capacity would only buy a matter of days (notice the graph being in log scale to display exponential increases).

I had been thinking that efficiency in our healthcare system, the flip side of which is lack of surplus capacity, was a bigger piece of this. It’s important, but clearly public measures needed to be taken to try to control the outbreak.

2. How Google Ruined the Internet

Today, information is free, plentiful and fast moving; somewhat by design, Google has become a card catalog that is constantly being reordered by an angry, misinformed mob.

What happened to the search competitors that were focused on correct answers? Part of the problem is that there’s no incentive to be correct.

3. FCC MANDATES THAT PHONE COMPANIES IMPLEMENT CALLER ID AUTHENTICATION TO COMBAT SPOOFED ROBOCALLS

Today’s Order requires all originating and terminating voice service providers to implement STIR/SHAKEN in the Internet Protocol (IP) portions of their networks by June 30, 2021, a deadline that is consistent with Congress’s direction in the recently-enacted TRACED Act. The FCC laid the groundwork for these new rules when it formally proposed and sought public comment on mandating STIR/SHAKEN implementation in June 2019.

This has been expected for some time now — look for increased spam attempts through other communication channels. TikTok, I’m looking at you.
nests
By: Sean Zhai
Tags: Poetry, Nature, Birds, Inspiration, Programming

Haiku is a form of poetry usually inspired by nature, which embraces simplicity. We invite all poetry lovers to have a go at composing Haiku. Be warned. You could become addicted.

Follow
How I Motivate My Kids to Exercise
By: Anthony Fireman
Tags: Exercise, Healthy Lifestyle, Parenting, Youth Development, Children

Photo by Kevin Gent on Unsplash

When the pandemic began in March, my wife and I felt we had to do something as a way to establish some semblance of daily structure and normalcy. Therefore, in the morning before virtual school, the whole family walked the dog a distance of just shy of a mile.

And when screen time became an issue, we instituted a new rule: if they wanted the goods, they needed to step it up. Less screen time and more sweat equity. I told my son he needed to walk 15,000 steps and my daughter 10,000, and, thereafter, they could have access to screens, at which point their mother and I would, for the most part, leave them alone.

It’s been three months and they own it. They track their progress with Garmin watches that act like a fit-bit. The watch coincides with an app that syncs so my wife and I can track their progress too.

Granted, that sounds like a lot of steps, but it’s not. Kids are supposed to be active. If you ask a pediatrician about it, they’ll recommend kids should get at least an hour of vigorous activity each day, and wiggling your thumbs ain’t it.

If they want to game out later in the day or evening, we’re fine with that. The point is to keep it balanced. Except on rainy days, we’re definitely not balanced.

And we don’t care how they get their steps. Sure, they can walk, play basketball, or run in place for all we care. The key is that they move, not spend hours on end with screens while molding the sofa’s memory foam.

Also, notice I didn’t say that after the exercise goal is met they could play video games all day. What they’ve earned is access. That’s different.

Photo by Nikita Kachanovsky on Unsplash

The difference is without steps, they cannot play at all. With the requirement met, however, they can play, but only for an hour or so, and then it’s back outside or do something else for a time. If they want to game out later in the day or evening, we’re fine with that. The point is to keep it balanced. Except on rainy days, we’re definitely not balanced.

We don’t get much pushback either. The truth is they know right from wrong even if I did catch my daughter with a Swiss Army knife in one hand and her pet fish in the other. It’s a process, right?

Look, they may not appreciate doing their exercise everyday. That’s fine. What counts for us is the children now have a reason, and a goal, to get more exercise and enjoy screen time that much more.
Troubled Thoughts
Tags: Rape, Marriage, Poetry, Sexual Assault, Introspection

Having just married, on our first date,

all of a sudden, why do I hesitate?

Share the pain, I endured so long?

Or bury the past, trying to move on?

I guess I’ll just find my smile again

This could be my way out of pain.

But nothing can be forever hidden

My gosh! he looks love-smitten

It’s high time, I need to tell him

before all these lights go dim

Where do I start and where to end?

Is this the time to finally mend?

Will he try to share my scars?

And wipe a years’ worth of tears?

These chills my traumas carry

shouldn’t last even after I marry.

Toxic remnants from those brutes

Apparently, stuff that never elutes

Shuddering as it all starts coming back

Once left to die, on that forsaken track

My will to live, sinking with every breath

dissociated from my body, awaiting death

Paralysed in a shock, the wait was tough

crippled from having suffered long enough

Agonizing hours of brutal ravaging

twice, thrice, until I was haemorrhaging

Helpless cries that reached no one

didn’t stop until they were all done

I know now that a miracle happened

with broken ribs and spirits dampened.

But, here’s the man that loves me,

an excited soul that’s too happy.

With tears welled up, I’m just lost,

fighting alone, can I ever get past?

Deep into my scars, while he stares,

does it mean he ignores or he cares?

Amidst all this flooding my head,

He pulled me closer and said,

“Baby, it’s time we move ahead”

as he gently kissed my forehead.

I cried, this time with a huge relief

Now ready to turn over a new leaf.

~Revised rework of this Medium post by Vaishnavi Sai
Objects in Space are Closer Than They Appear
Tags: Poetry, Wisdom, Haiku, House Of Haiku, Poems On Medium

Haiku is a form of poetry usually inspired by nature, which embraces simplicity. We invite all poetry lovers to have a go at composing Haiku. Be warned. You could become addicted.

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BOOST (BST2) Listed on Binance DEX
Tags: Social Media

BOOST is excited to announce that BST2/BNB pair is now available to trade on Binance DEX as of Aug 30th, 12.00PM, 2019. Happy Trading!

https://www.binance.org/en/trade/BST2-2F2_BNB

Many projects spend much time and money on market making trying to stabilize or profit from their coins. However, we at BOOSTO, took an entirely different approach. We are product-eccentric, and we are long term. We bury our heads on building a robust, scalable, and profitable product. At the end of day, without a product everyone loves and uses, where in the end can a token go?

So to our dearest investors and supporters, thank you for being part of BOOSTO. Thank you for your support and love. Together we make great things happen.

You can go to https://www.binance.org to trade on DEX.

For existing BST token owners, if you would like to trade on Binance DEX, you can follow the instructions here to convert your ERC BST to BST2:

Please be aware that the withdrawal is not realtime and might take 24–48 hours before it shows up in your wallet.
Scraping By
By: J.D. Harms
Tags: Image, Poetry, Madness, Musing, Loneliness

Scraping By

A Poem

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

My friends commented

on how I was scraping by

as if I had the skin of a knife

They said it was nice

how the rubble stayed on

the sidewalk, and didn’t

ruin my floor

I tried to protest my

banking information

show them that they really

had got it all wrong

But turning back around

towards them

I saw I was alone

with a overcooked piece of pasta

posing as a receipt
How A Writer Finds Their Voice — Kelli McNeil [FULL INTERVIEW]
Tags: Authors, Creative Writing, Writer, Writing, Writing Tips

Film Courage: Kelli what was going on in your life when you decided to live in California (you left was it Texas)?

Kelli McNeil, Writer, Actress and Voice Over Artist: I grew up in the panhandle of Texas. I had just turned 18, had graduated from high school and USC had accepted me in their theater program. I was this young girl with big hair and big ideas moving out here from West Texas to go to the big city. I had grown up doing speech in theater in high school. I knew in some capacity I wanted to be in the entertainment industry. When USC started to recruit me my sophomore year of high school (about 15), I saw that as my opportunity…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
New Engineers: Start With Web Development
By: Brett Fazio
Tags: iOS, Software Development, Android, Programming, Web Development

Plethora of Opportunities

I acknowledged in my article talking about the merits of mobile development that there are many more listings and opportunities for web developers compared to mobile jobs. Being the heart of modern web development, JavaScript is routinely one of the most in-demand programming languages every year. Given that fact, there’s a constant need for more developers every year as more and more countries continue to grow their internet user base.

This is reflected on LinkedIn right now. The query “web developer” yields over 11,000 results, while the query “mobile developer” yields only over 4,000. This doesn't take into account the fact that mobile development jobs are split between iOS and Android, so if you were to specialize in one of those two areas, then your number of opportunities is probably cut in half. So with web development, there are potentially 11,000 jobs out there right now. This is at most five times higher than the number of jobs an Android developer could hope to apply for. With most job applications being a numbers game, the numbers sure seem to favor web developers.

In addition to this, web development gives many different areas for you to specialize in: back-end, middleware, front-end, and full-stack. This allows you to play to your strengths. Really good at designing and laying out webpages? Then front-end is a perfect field to showcase that. Really good but not great at all levels of the stack? Then full-stack will allow you to show your breadth of knowledge.

Let’s contrast this to mobile programming. If you decide to go the route of either Android or iOS, you will be expected to have an in-depth knowledge of all levels of mobile development. There’s not as much room to specialize. So if there’s one thing you’re just not getting, then it may come back to haunt you in the job search when you’re expected to know it.
night time/light time
By: Vinícius Asevedo
Tags: Poetry On Medium, Poetry, Medium Brasil, Poem, Poesia

the glowing christmasweb spider in tartu by doodlewithgluegun

it’s night time

loneliness steams

seems me like

bright

through the breach

i touch the crack

the biggest lack

underneath

each of my dreams

a leech

which i might

fight for body

ending up on mind

finally find

that inner dark

tremendous spark

red as the hate

ate up by the fear

then i hear some noise

moist like the dawn

shown by the reveal

an armor pure steel

that weapon i build up

year after year

it’s made of ghastly

black iron me

and i catch fire

lastly

melting it down

now it’s light time

the sun screams

his serene melody

growing up everything

in and out of me

Vini Asevedo
Ethereum: The Anti-Fragile Hydra. The Mythical Hydra
By: Anthony Bertolino
Tags: Technology, Startup, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin

EtherDelta Shuts Down but DEX Protocols Flourish

Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) are a promise of censorship resistant trading while never having to place your precious money in the hands of a centralized operator which oftentimes have questionable track records. Vitalik has even gone as far as saying “I hope centralized exchanges burn in hell as much as possible.”

The first prominent DEX with meaningful use came through EtherDelta. During the 2017 mania, EtherDelta serviced everyone from raging retail speculators to VCs dumping their ICO coins. There were many coins that you could not get access to anywhere other than EtherDelta due to it having an open listing policy, which brought it to prominence.

Unfortunately in 2018, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) forced the founder Zachary Coburn to shut down the exchange and charged him with violating US securities laws. This vicious blow decapitated the head of the most prominent DEX and left investors scurrying to find a replacement. Hydra Ethereum did not even flinch as just a few months after the shut down Uniswap was announced by Hayden Adams. Uniswap is the first fully decentralized exchange and is immune to the issues faced by EtherDelta since even Hayden himself can’t take down the protocol. Uniswap allows anyone in the world to not only trade in a decentralized, censorship resistant and transparent manner but also submit liquidity to the pool in order to generate fees.

In addition to Uniswap, there are more than 20 other DEXs built on Ethereum, including entire protocols like Kyber Network and 0x Protocol. The DEX ecosystem will continue to grow and mature until it circumvents many centralized exchanges.
Awareness 2020
By: Reuben Salsa
Tags: Social Media, Poetry, Awareness, Spoken Word, Resistance Poetry

Spoken Word Poetry

Photo by Blair Fraser on Unsplash

Awareness led government clampdown / Individual rights gets a smackdown / Name of terror / the usual profiled suspect nominee /Awareness closed more borders / Awareness closed more minds / Awareness is failing / failure to open / the world lacks / smacks / hacks your sense / the sense of misery / Awareness leading us further / Deep down / the depression lurker / Global obesity / Cancerous infamy / the planet warming / theory and practice / the bitter dichotomy / Awareness led people to lock doors / For communities to break down / For people to become glued / stuck / thumb-tacked to their phones / Awareness now leading / to an automated future / where we become dumber / and hide deeper / into the virtual world / the virtual fog / the sunken miasma of our rotting mind.

Is this where the Awareness leads? / To where we can no longer tell / or IDENT-TI-FY / the good guy / from the bad bad baddie? / Back then terrorists only hijacked planes / instead of blowing them apart / Back then men got away with sexual harassment / instead of a class suit action / Back then the bad guys had dodgy accents / instead of educated intention / Back then hacking was for nerds / kids roam the streets / children played in mud / and the world was a wonder to be explored.

Is it too much information? / Are we more aware? / Or is it selective memory?
React Native — Make Your Imports Easy To Write
By: Huda Prasetyo
Tags: JavaScript, Programming, Reactjs, Mobile, React Native

Let’s Implement That Beautiful Import In Your React Native

First, Big thanks to Babel Plugin Module Resolver!

I assume you installing React Native and initialize the project, it’s doesn’t matter if you using Expo or CLI.

To make beautiful imports like the second approach up there, you must install a package called babel-plugin-module-resolver.

Go to your React Native project folder and install it with your NPM or Yarn.

// Using NPM

npm install --save-dev babel-plugin-module-resolver // Using Yarn

yarn add --dev babel-plugin-module-resolver

2. Writing A .babelrc File

After you install that package in your project, go to your root of the project folder, and make a file called .babelrc. and paste this code below.

.babelrc to define your aliases for imports.

After that, run your React Native app and start doing this approach!

// Components

import YourComponent from '@components/YourComponent'

Note: If you already run the React Native before, you must close that current running React Native and re-run. And also, if you creating a new alias when the React Native is running, you must re-run the React Native too.

You can see the full usage of this package in the docs. Here’s the link to it.
Tenderness
By: Sean Zhai
Tags: Poetry On Medium, People, Self Love, Psychology, Relationships

Haiku is a form of poetry usually inspired by nature, which embraces simplicity. We invite all poetry lovers to have a go at composing Haiku. Be warned. You could become addicted.

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When our Adult Self is Fused with our Inner Child
By: Gillian May
Tags: Life Lessons, Education, Self, Self-awareness, Mental Health

If we never have an understanding of our inner children, they often become blended and fused into our adult selves. Most times, whenever we see an adult “misbehaving,” it’s likely because their inner children are terrified and have been given too much power and influence over their lives.

How do we get to know the qualities of our inner child?

This is slightly complicated because we each have different experiences that create the defenses and triggers we developed as kids. The qualities of our inner children depend on how we grew up and how our unique personality tends to negotiate things.

For instance, my inner child learned that to be loved, heard, and protected, I must be as sweet and vulnerable as possible. She tends to crumble under certain circumstances but also has a horrible temper if she’s really poorly treated.

On the other hand, my good friend has an inner child that developed under physically abusive conditions. She couldn’t afford to be vulnerable at all, so she created a tough armor, quick reactivity, high vigilance, and lightening speed reflexes towards fight or flight.

The skills and defenses we developed as kids helped us when we were young. However, as we get older, they become dysfunctional because they’re still immature. So even though our inner children may be different from each other, they all have immaturity as their tell-tale sign.

Getting to know our inner children means we need to become aware of the areas of our personality that seem immature, ego-driven, and over-reactive. Why? Because ego, immaturity, and reactivity are classic qualities of all young children.

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

How do we know which is our inner child, and which is our adult self?

Our adult self rarely governs our lives through immature decisions and reactions. They think calmly and with purpose, and they use higher thinking to understand situations. They don’t descend into fear or reactivity when they’re uncertain. Instead, they exercise patience and a balanced approach to challenging situations.

Unfortunately, most of us have our adult selves completely fused with our inner children. We all have experiences we regret because we over-reacted, didn’t think clearly, or made immature and dysfunctional decisions. That’s not because we were terrible people, it’s because a childish part of ourselves had too much control.

Kids just can’t deal with decisions, challenges, and uncertainty. So we can’t expect our inner children to have the proper tools to deal with life.