fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
The Good People
Tags: Creativity, This Happened To Me, Art, Photography, New York

One particular incident comes to mind, just to show you how untrue it is when people say that no one in NYC cares about others.

I had a photo shoot early in the morning. I was taking the subway to Broadway and Canal but in the middle of my commute I suddenly felt sick to my bones. Out of nowhere, something came rushing over and I felt like everything inside of me was going to come out one way or another.

The train was jam-packed and the only thing I could think to do was to get off at the next station.

Once I was out, the only thing my leftover strength allowed me was to walk a few feet so I was out of the way from the commuters and the train tracks.

I found a pillar, and flopped down on the dirty cement floor, with my camera bags and laptop case all around me.

A woman stopped by soon after and asked me if I was alright. She could tell how difficult it was for me to speak, so she kept it short.

“Do you need a doctor?”

“No.”

“Where are you going?”

“Q to Canal…”

“OK, I’ll help you. The Q is here, can you stand? Don’t worry about those…” — she said as she picked up my camera bags and laptop case in both her shoulders. If I’m not wrong, I had four different cameras with me that day.

We got on the train, jam-packed as expected, but she asked a young man to make room for me because I was sick.

I doubt I thanked her enough when we got off at Canal. I was pretty out of it and remember just grabbing my things and making my way out of the underground station.

If by some crazy coincidence you’re reading this, kind lady in the subway, words won’t be enough to express my gratitude for your help that day!
Digital Collectible Sneak Peek: tokidoki!
Tags: Nft, Ecomi Updates, Collectibles, Digital Collectibles, Ecomi

As expected, 2019 has been an absolutely huge year for ECOMI, and the development of our premium licensed digital collectibles platform is taking us ever closer to launch. Now, with beta testing so close you can almost taste it, we can finally give you a glimpse of what to expect, so you can get your hands on these very limited, trial edition, digital collectibles.

Licensing and Branding: The Key to Adoption

Just in case you’ve missed our earlier articles, we wanted to touch on one of the key strengths of the ECOMI ecosystem before we dive into some images; licensing. With a powerhouse team that has been in the licensing industry for many years, ECOMI has acquired the rights to some of the world's biggest brands to turn/transition their intellectual property into premium digital collectibles.

Aside from utilising established brands, which brings with them their own audiences and fans, licensing also enables creates access to an entirely new audience for content creators. One such license and the first announced by ECOMI is with the loud and vibrant world of tokidoki.

This international lifestyle and apparel brand has a huge range of physical collectible items and accessories and also features a wide variety of characters and iconography, that translate perfectly onto the new digital medium. With a number of global collaborations under their belt, including Barbie, Hello Kitty, and Marvel, tokidoki is constantly attracting new fans and expanding their reach across the globe.

For a deeper dive, check out our brand showcase series below:

tokidoki: Ready to Be Collected!

The bright and colourful world of tokidoki is being reimagined for the digital age, taking their myriad of available characters and series and turning them into world-class digital collectibles.

After more than a year of working with co-founder and artist Simone Legno, ECOMI is set to release a total of 9 limited edition, trial release tokidoki collectibles when our beta testing opens to the wider public.

Of course, these high-resolution 3D renders are still just a glimpse of what to expect when the platform launches (and we can’t share them all at once!) but these have been handpicked by Simone as some of his favorites, and we couldn’t be happier to share them with the world.
帶著科技思維跨入都市規劃領域，Google面臨到甚麼挑戰
Tags: 都市規劃, Storytelling, Sidewalk Labs, 數位治理, 智慧城市

Sidewalk Labs在幹嘛

Sidewalk Labs(後文簡稱SWL)是2015年Google母公司Alphabet創立的新創公司，宗旨為透過科技改善都市基礎建設，由紐約前副市長 Daniel L. Doctoroff擔任執行長。SWL在2017年與加拿大政府成立的半官方開發機構Waterfront Toronto(後文簡稱WT)簽訂合作協議，以多倫多水岸地區Quayside約12公畝作為試驗開發地區，公私合夥方式打造智慧城市。

在去年(2019)6月，SWL釋出約1500頁的主要開發計劃(Master Innovation and Development Plan, MIDP)文件，開頭是這樣寫的:

When we ask Torontonians what they dream about for their future neighbourhoods, we don’t hear about dreams of jetpacks and flying cars. We don’t hear about 21st-century modern high-rises and flashy finishes. What we hear are dreams that are far more basic, more human, more fundamental.

A place with safer streets. More breathable air. More walkable sidewalks. A place where people are more engaged with their world than with their phones…

Sidewalk Lab’s Proposal: Master Innovation and Development Plan — Overview
If you could get a mind wipe, would you?
Tags: Philosophy, Self Improvement, Comics, Robots

More from rstevens Follow

I make cartoons and t-shirts at www.dieselsweeties.com & @rstevens. Send me coffee beans.
Docker Container Overview
By: Ashish Patel
Tags: Docker Image, Containers, Docker, Containerization, Docker Container

What is Docker Container?

Docker is an open-source technology used mostly for developing, shipping, and running applications. Docker provides the ability to package and run an application in a loosely isolated environment called a container. Containerized app will always run same, regardless of the infrastructure.

Docker is a containerization platform that packages your application and all its dependencies together in the form of a docker container to ensure that your application works seamlessly in any environment.

Docker container image is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of software that has everything you need to run an application — code, runtime, system tools, system libraries, and settings. The isolation and security allow you to run many containers simultaneously on a given host without interference.

Containers are lightweight because they don’t need extra load of a hypervisor, but run directly within the host machine’s kernel. This means you can run more containers on a given hardware combination than if you were using virtual machines. You can also run Docker containers within host machines that are actually virtual machines.
Is your underwear undermining you?
By: Rachel Drane
Tags: Sex, Fashion, Empowerment, Feminism, Women

I’m gonna say something I never really imagined myself saying: I’ve been thinking about women’s underwear a lot recently.

Okay, so, not in the way that I suspect most people spend a lot of time thinking about women’s undergarments. Instead, through a more… philosophical? lens.

I’m not entirely sure what prompted this (obviously) deep soul searching. I’m sure a seed was sown during one of those discussions you have with friends about the words that just make your skin crawl.

Lugubrious… Secrete… Curd. And of course, the queen of them all: moist.

Whenever people around me list these off, I find myself feeling practically nothing. Occasionally, I’ll feign disgust at certain words, such as moist, in order to fit in or as an attempt to get a laugh (the need to be liked is strong in this one). But these common “icky words” have never produced a genuinely visceral reaction in my body.

But. I do notice a gut-wrenching reaction every so often in normal, everyday conversations. Ones not centered around these curiously unsettling words. I’ve found that there is one particular term that when I hear it, I feel compelled to cringe. This cringe factor grows exponentially if this particular term is used in a sexual context. Have you guessed it yet? Yup. It’s —

“Panties.”

It just sounds inherently dirty to me. But not like the sexy dirty when you like don’t wear underwear to surprise your partner. Or like sexting (or whatever people do with Snapchat these days) dirty. But more like a coal miner going through your clean laundry and sniffing your knickers dirty.

Y, tho?! What about this, seemingly innocuous word, elicits such disgust and unsettledness in my deep down parts?

Is it the sounds that make up the word? I’m fine with “pant”. I’m fine with “tease”. It doesn’t have a ‘u’ in it, which apparently ups the possibility of being a gross word (sorry, U). So that can’t be it…

Is it the thing itself? Nope. It’s not like an image of crusty underwear flashes to mind every time I hear the word.

So what is it?! And where to start looking for this answer?

It wasn’t until I was organizing my underwear drawer did I find my answer. It was then when I started to notice an unsettling pattern.

Every piece of underwear I possessed — bras, underpants — had these tiny little bows on them. I had never really paid them much mind before, and maybe you haven’t either. They’re really quite small and placed near more… distracting parts. (They’re sinister that way.) But they find themselves attached to almost all underwear sold to women.

At first I had my reflexive, “Cool Girl” response — where I tend to reject any and all things “girly”. But even after that initial repulsion passed (now that I’m slowly deprogramming myself), I felt weird owning and wearing these pieces of clothing — clothing that was supposed to hide/guard my most intimate (and societally valuable) parts — Clothing that had these tiny, little bows on them.

Because, I mean, I’m not sure about you, but I tend to associate bows with…
Old-School Korean Puns for Beginners
Tags: Korean, Language Learning

Puns were a very popular and were commonly used back in the day. Today, puns may have lost a bit of edge but they are still used today. Today, puns are referred to as ‘ajae gag’, (‘ajae’ / 아재, meaning old man) since they aren’t as common with today’s youth. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ignore their meanings 🙂

Korean puns are based on two different definitions of a word (double meaning), and can be a great learning tool when you are practicing your Korean vocabulary. Below are 2 examples of Korean puns for beginners.

Who is the Poorest King in the World?

Q: 세상에서 가장 가난한 왕은? [Sae-sang-eh-suh ka-jang ka-nan-han wang-un?]

Who is the poorest king in the world?

A: 최저임금 [Chae-juh im-kum]

Minimum wage

Im-kum has two meanings: King and wage.

Chae-juh-im-kum can mean both ‘the lowest (최저 [Chae-juh]) king’, or ‘lowest/minimum wage’.

What is the Most Expensive Bird?

Q: 세상에서 가장 비싼 새는? [Sae-sang-eh-suh ga-jang bi-ssan sae-nun?]

What is the most expensive bird?

A: 백조 [Baek-jo]

A swan

Baek-jo can mean two different things: it can mean ‘swan’, but it can also mean ‘one hundred trillion’. Baek means ‘a hundred’, and Jo means ‘a trillion’.

Korean Puns and More on LingQ

Do you feel like you have mastered the art of Korean puns, and have become a true ajae? Just kidding!

The examples I’ve shown you are relatively easy but are great to give your Korean comedic skills a kick start.

Speaking of easy, LingQ has a ton of easy-to-follow Korean content to help you study. There are hundreds of hours of guided courses that fall under a variety of topics.

Practice your reading and listening skills by going through each course. The benefit of using LingQ is that every new word you come across, you can pull up its meaning and save it right then and there without having to open another window. This keeps your rhythm in tact and is less distracting which is beneficial if you want a good study session.

Import your favorite Korean content into LingQ

Can’t seem to find what you’re looking for in LingQ’s lesson library? No problem, import the content your interested in!

As long as you have the transcript (audio is a big bonus too), you can create interactive LingQ lessons from your favorite blogs, YouTube channels and much more.

In fact, check out LingQ’s article and learn how to import K-Pop music into LingQ and improve your language skills.

As you can see below, here’s a LingQ lesson using a recent BTS song. The lyrics, audio, and video are all there ready to go.

Good luck!

Learn Korean on LingQ
Zack Greinke Traded to The The Angels Angels of Anaheim, Orange County, California
By: The Brewer Nation
Tags: Players, Brewers, Angels, Ariel Pena, Trades

Sometimes, it’s just fine when things go the other way.

According to multiple reports (but first reported by Fox Sports’ Ken Rosental and Jon Morosi), the Milwaukee Brewers have traded starting pitcher Zack Greinke to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for a package of prospects centering around young shortstop Jean Segura. The deal also includes a pair of Double-A level pitchers coming to the Brewers organization.

Segura is a fine centerpiece for a deal for Greinke and it’ll be interesting to see exactly who else is coming along for the ride. Jean Carlos Enrique Segura is a 22-year-old shortstop from San Juan, Dominican Republic. He bats right-handed and stands 5'10", weighing 165 pounds.

Segura is highly-touted, played in the MLB Futures Game during All-Star Weekend this year and made his Major League debut just four days ago on July 24th.

To begin his career in the Brewers’ system, he (and the two pitchers) have been assigned to the Double-A affiliate Huntsville Stars.

His career minor league slash line over parts of six seasons is .310/.364/.438 along with 26 HR and 135 SB. He is still maturing physically and has been said to have 20 HR potential down the line.

The final report from Texas’ beat writer TR Sullivan is that the Brewers asked for 3B prospect Mike Olt as the centerpiece of a deal but Texas balked at the idea.

Likely what happened was that the larger idea became too complicated with Milwaukee definitely not wanting to move Corey Hart at this time and the Rangers becoming unsure of Profar’s readiness. So, the talks pared down into a smaller framework but the two sides still couldn’t match up in the end.

We’re still waiting word on the identities of the pitchers coming to Milwaukee, and this space will be updated with their information when we learn it.

For now though, thanks to Zack Greinke for the memories of a spectacular 2011 and always being able to count on his performance at Miller Park.

— -

UPDATE (7:23 pm): The minor league pitchers included in the deal to Milwaukee are Ariel Pena and Johnny Hellweg.

Gathering information on them now and will update again in a short bit.

— -

UPDATE (7:32 pm): While gathering info on the pitchers, the news broke on Twitter that the necessary 40-man roster moves to accommodate these acquisitions are that OF Brock Kjeldgaard and SS Edwin Maysonet have been Designated For Assignment.
Subsidio en masa
By: La Trinchera Editor
Tags: Ordenamiento Monetario, Tarifas Electricidad, Socialismo, Socialismo Cubano, Cuba

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How To Draw Beautifully Animated Graphs in SwiftUI — Part 3
By: Mattia Righetti
Tags: iOS, Apple, Swift, Programming, Swiftui

How To Draw Beautifully Animated Graphs in SwiftUI — Part 3

Adding the background and composing the final View

For the final part of our project, we need to add some data to control the colors of each background and each CapsuleBar .

Add these two arrays that contain the colors of each dataset:

private var dataBackgroundColor: [String: ColorRGB] = [

"Data1": ColorRGB(red: 44 / 255, green: 54 / 255, blue: 79 / 255),

"Data2": ColorRGB(red: 76 / 255, green: 61 / 255, blue: 89 / 255),

"Data3": ColorRGB(red: 56 / 255, green: 24 / 255, blue: 47 / 255)

] private var dataBarColor: [String: ColorRGB] = [

"Data1": ColorRGB(red: 222 / 255, green: 44 / 255, blue: 41 / 255),

"Data2": ColorRGB(red: 42 / 255, green: 74 / 255, blue: 150 / 255),

"Data3": ColorRGB(red: 47 / 255, green: 57 / 255, blue: 77 / 255)

]

Now that we have our colors, we need to add a background to our main view.

Encapsulate our previous views in a ZStack in the body variable of the ContentView , so that we can put our color in the background:

var body: some View {

ZStack {

Color(.sRGB,

red: self.dataBackgroundColor[dataPicker]!.red,

green: self.dataBackgroundColor[dataPicker]!.green,

blue: self.dataBackgroundColor[dataPicker]!.blue

).edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all)

.animation(.default) VStack {

Text("Let's Graph!")

.foregroundColor(.white)

.font(.largeTitle)

.fontWeight(.bold)

.padding() Picker("", selection: $dataPicker) {

Text("Data1").tag("Data1")

Text("Data2").tag("Data2")

Text("Data3").tag("Data3")

}.pickerStyle(SegmentedPickerStyle())

.padding()

}

}

}

We’re just missing the graph now, which we’ll create by adding the CapsuleGraphView to our ContentView VStack :

VStack {

Text("Let's Graph!")

.foregroundColor(.white)

.font(.largeTitle)

.fontWeight(.bold)

.padding()



Picker("", selection: $dataPicker) {

Text("Data1").tag("Data1")

Text("Data2").tag("Data2")

Text("Data3").tag("Data3")

}.pickerStyle(SegmentedPickerStyle())

.padding() CapsuleGraphView(data: data[dataPicker]!, maxValueInData: data[dataPicker]!.max()!, spacing: 24, capsuleColor: dataBarColor[dataPicker]!) }

As you can see, we’re passing our data to the CapsuleGraphView that will display them.

You can try out our graph right now! Press play on the Live Preview and enjoy.
Higher Learning
Tags: Poetry, Autodidacticism, Truth, Writing, Political

Poetry Not Propaganda

Higher Learning

A poem to end the miseducation of the misled masses

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

By

All

Means, then—

Let us be

Autodidactic

No matter

How lost

The cause

Purging our minds of indoctrination

It

Will

Never

Matter how

Much shouting, marching

And rioting we carry on

It

Shall

Be in

Vain, merely

Impotent gestures

Unless we end our miseducation.

©2015 MDSHall
Love Bad News
By: Daniel Morales
Tags: Daily Challenge, Bookcademy, Entrepreneurship, Book Summary, The Mom Test

Love Bad News

The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

Solve challenge here: https://www.bookcademy.com/home/show_daily_challenges/love-bad-news-6544475d-32b1-4d13-a78e-b6b6a70976ee

One of the reasons we avoid important question is because asking them is scary. It can bring us the upsetting realisation that our favourite idea is fundamentally flawed. Or that the major client is never going to buy. Although it seems unfortunate, this we need to learn to love bad news. It’s solid learning and is getting us closer to the truth.

If you’ve only got one shot, then bad news is bad news. If your bungee jump doesn’t work, that’s bad. If you’ve sunk your retirement savings into opening a cafe and it doesn’t work, that’s bad. If you hustle together $50k to start your business and spend all $50k on your first idea only to see it fail, that’s bad.

On the other hand, if you have $50k and spend $5k to learn you’re running down a dead end, that’s awesome. You can use the rest to find a viable path to your goal.

Similarly, if you have an exciting idea for a new product and go talk to a couple customers who don’t actually care about it, then that’s a great result. You just saved yourself however much time and money it would have cost to try building and selling it.

We go through the futile process of asking for opinions and fish for compliments because we crave approval. We want to believe that the support and sign-off of someone we respect means our venture will succeed. But really, that person’s opinion doesn’t matter. They have no idea if the business is going to work. Only the market knows.

Today’s Challenge

Why do we avoid asking important questions?

Solve challenge here: https://www.bookcademy.com/home/show_daily_challenges/love-bad-news-6544475d-32b1-4d13-a78e-b6b6a70976ee

Solve challenge here: https://www.bookcademy.com/home/show_daily_challenges/love-bad-news-6544475d-32b1-4d13-a78e-b6b6a70976ee
Using Poop and Artificial Intelligence to Save Lives
By: Eshan Samaranayake
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Biotechnology, Science, Health

Passionate about the synergy between science and technology to provide better care. Check out my newsletter: scienceforreal.substack.com 📰

Follow
With all the recent changes on Medium, like many other writers, I have been looking for a new…
By: Karen Madej
Tags: Sisters, Motivation, Self, Family, Happiness

With all the recent changes on Medium, like many other writers, I have been looking for a new place to write. Encouraged by Alison Tennent’s experience of Vocal, and not put off by the inability to edit a piece after publishing, I’ve taken the plunge.

Why Am I Not Grateful?

After I posted it on Facebook, my first piece created a visceral reaction from my sister. I’m lucky she is still speaking to me. Actually, I think it might have brought us closer together. Following years of little communication between us, we are now messaging daily. You can read the story here.

Gentle Souls Shed Your Burdens

My sister sobbed out her emotions towards our mother to me on a phone call, which resulted in me waking up on two consecutive mornings, each with the words for this story.

Photo by Daniel Brubaker on Unsplash

Thanks for reading.
Ben Stiller & David Benioff Show Love To Indie Short
By: Maria Antoniette Norris
Tags: Short Film, Dance, Film, Indie, Meetcute On Danceworld

Meetcute on Danceworld takes place in a universe in which no one speaks verbally but instead expresses themselves through dance.

“I wanted the dance language to be cohesive; there were certain words repeated, so it followed that certain movements would be repeated.” Laura Teeter told me. She was one of the two professional dancers working on set, holding a degree in dancing from Boston Conservatory at Berklee. She’s been dancing professionally for over sixteen years, specializing in ballet and modern dance, and currently dances for the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company, also serving as the Assistant to the Artistic Director.

Laura was the choreographer for the short and also starred as the main character, Baby. I reached out to her to find out more about the process of developing the choreography during preproduction for this unique no-dialogue short.

“The first thing the other dancers learned on set were the rudiments of this dance language. ‘Fabrizio’ was a head-swipe-leg-kick; ‘no’ or ‘don’t’ was a sharp-shoulder-roll-head; ‘sex’ was a leg-push-face-caress and so on. So ‘learning your lines’ meant something a little different in this film!”

Meetcute on Danceworld also stars novelist and professional dancer Jamal Story, as Fabrizio. Story has showcased his dancing talents on Broadway, and has also gone on tour with Cher and Maddona. Along with fiction writing, he also has experience in choreography, educating, and producing.

“Micah had met Jamal at a previous film event and was really excited he would be playing the love interest, Fabrizio,” said Laura. “I met him at our one and only rehearsal, a few weeks prior to filming. He’s lovely to work with, very professional and easy-going, but also disciplined and hard-working. I felt perfectly at ease with him, which calmed my ‘first time playing a lead in a movie’ butterflies. I knew a lot of the people working on the set on a more personal level — some of them had been at my wedding — so it gave the set a comfortable, familial feeling that I think everyone on set could sense.”
My Escape {2}
By: Willow T. Lovelace
Tags: Life Lessons, Creative Writing, Poetry, Prose, A Cornered Gurl

And,

Her BRAIN whispered, “You know, trust has to be earned eventually. Respect needs to be restored again.”

However,

Her HEART confronted, “There is always the other side of the story.”

If not,

Still, no big deal for her

Although {untold script}.

Then, what?

Escape from the campus is all SHE wants!

THY Tamest, where is her divine dragon?

Then, what again?

Trees of complete trust

Soiled with suspicious pruning —

Break branches of bond.

As a result,

SHE found her heart was bleeding with Haiku.

Yet,

One particular night, the SKY slaughtered

One of the brightest and

The most elegant STARS forever.

Oh Well,

No big deal —

STARS can be bought anyway.
Americans: Finally Safe To Go Back To Wawa
By: Noah Levy
Tags: Politics, Satire, Fiction, Humor, Map

SATIRE

Americans: Finally Safe To Go Back To Wawa

7–Eleven panders to Trump supporters in response.

Photo by Christian Lambert on Unsplash

PHILADELPHIA, PA — In the city of brotherly love, chaos was felt throughout the streets.

“We were very worried that something bad was going to happen, like a violent riot or what not,” said Local Man #54,321. “But now that the election is over, I can finally go to Wawa in peace.”

The Pennsylvania-based convenience store is a pastime for residents of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, DC, and Florida — the latter being New Jersey, but worse.

“Our stores in all four regions experienced less sales than normal on Reese’s peanut butter cups during election week,” stated Chris Gheysens, Wawa’s CEO. “Sales of Reese’s are our key performance indicator. If Reese’s aren’t selling, is anyone actually going to Wawa?”

In a response to direct competition, 7–Eleven’s across the East Coast have placed a sign that says “Nostalgic Trump Supporters Welcome.”

Image created by the author.

“At 7–Eleven, it’s our mission to be a safe space for anyone of any color to come and buy our products, only if they’re white and male of course,” mentioned 7–Eleven’s spokesman when reached for comment.

“Wawa can take all the liberals they can get. We don’t care, we don’t want progressive customers anyway. Progressives don’t drink big gulps and eat cheeseburger big bites.”
Woke up in a Very Bad Mood? 5 Antidotes to Save Your Day
By: Auriane Alix
Tags: Mood, Life, Self, Wellbeing, Happiness

Woke up in a Very Bad Mood? 5 Antidotes to Save Your Day

I applied these this very morning.

Photo by Gemma Chua-Tran on Unsplash

There was no valid reason. There are hardly ever any. Sometimes you just wake up in a bad mood and you know it right away. That’s what happened to me this morning.

It took me 2.5 hours to start feeling better, thanks to these 5 antidotes.

It could have started well. I woke up with my girlfriend at 7:30 and got out of bed for breakfast and coffee, but something was already wrong. I was a bit stressed. I did everything as if I was in a hurry. But I wasn’t. I work from home, I’m my own boss. So I’m not expected anywhere.

To begin with, I had no inspiration to write. It was annoying since my daily story is my most important task of the day. I decided to put it aside for later and do another task instead. I had some work to do for a client, but I realized that they hadn’t sent me the information I needed. The project is falling behind schedule, and this is stressing me because it means that sooner or later I’m going to have to finish it in a hurry.

It’s all futile. But that’s the way things are. You don’t always need good reasons to be in a bad mood.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one in this situation. We are human beings, after all. We can’t be at our best every day, every time. There would be no ups without some downs.

Here are my 5 antidotes to save your day.
Motionless
By: Lita Tiara
Tags: Poetry, Relationships, Life, This Happened To Me, Love

— a poem of potpourris.

Motionless

Amongst all the havocs, chaos, and riots, we need this. For now, I’ll savor every minute.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

We rest our heads beneath

the starry canvas of the night.

In-between the betweens,

and the ever-restless shores.

We ease our minds with

the infatuating solace imbued

with an irreplaceable warmth;

by holding each other tight.

We close our eyes and

our troubled soul

whilst we make way for home;

where our arms would entwine.

And when tomorrow sets us apart,

I send my love for your way.
German Internet Agency Ranking — Mindbox Climbs to Rank 44
By: Mindbox Gmbh
Tags: Internet, Rankings, Digital Transformation, Digital Marketing, Digital Marketing Agency

A place among the top 50 and a plan for the future

Even though the Internet lately has made us doubtful (Thank you Bibi), it is still our profession and passion, our favorite playground, old hat and still Neuland. Here we reinvent ourselves or give traditions a face. It is the stage on which we help brands to present themselves.

Our heart clings to our daily work. This is why we are also enthusiastic about the BVDW’s recently published internet agency ranking.

Clear Direction: Upwards

The industry barometer, which is published every year, shows the honorary growth of German full-service digital agencies. Sounds fancy — it is!

In 2016, the top 50 ranked agencies generated gross income of € 1.359 billion.

Since 2011 the Mindbox has been represented in the ranking annually and climbed a few places every year. In 2017 we were able to get among the top 50 for the first time and ranked to position 44.

We are especially proud of the places we reached in the subrankings. In the fields “Marketing & Branding” and “Mobile” we climbed to to the top 20 with rank 19 and 17.

What’s next?

We will see! In any case, the successful ranking and the fun that we have with our customers and projects fuel us with enough motivation to continue giving our best in 2017.

See you in the top 30!

Click here for the complete ranking: Internet agency ranking >>

Read the German version here: Beitrag auf Deutsch >>
A Holiday Message to OFT Members: The Year Behind Us and the Year in Front of Us.
By: Melissa Cropper
Tags: Ohio, Teachers, Education, Union

As 2019 draws to a close, I want to wish you holiday greetings and also reflect on the year that is behind us and the year that is in front of us.

In 2019, OFT members demonstrated our collective power in our schools, on the picket line, at school board meetings, and at the ballot box.

We initiated and won the first charter school strike in Ohio leading to improvements, like better staffing and safer buildings, that have a direct impact on our students.

We passed school levies to keep our schools strong and we elected one of our own members to Toledo’s city council.

We made our voice heard on school funding and other education issues and will continue to do so until we have a fair and equitable school funding formula.

And, often in challenging environments, our members negotiated strong contracts that strengthen our union voice, protect healthcare and other benefits, and move us forward on wages. Congratulations to all our locals who settled new contracts this year: Beachwood (Teachers and Support Staff), Berea, Blanchard Valley, Brookfield, Clear Fork, Cleveland, Cleveland ACTS (contracts at Accel Schools and Summit Academy), Cleveland Heights, Georgetown, Grand Valley, Jackson-Milton, Liberty-Benton, Mineral Ridge, New Lexington, Oregon, Triad, Vanlue, Terra State Community College, and Central Ohio Technical College.

We also added three new staff positions — a State Affiliate Political Organizer, Community Learning Center Organizer, and an additional Field Coordinator — which will help us organize and represent our members in new ways.

2020 will be another busy year. We still need to fix Ohio’s broken, unconstitutional school funding system. We need to fight back against union-busting organizations that are targeting us, like the Buckeye Institute and the Freedom Foundation. We need to continue growing our union by organizing internally for 100% membership in every local and by organizing externally, especially in charter schools and higher education where low union density has led to weaker standards. And we need to elect candidates who will protect public education and workers rights.

I couldn’t be prouder to stand alongside you in these fights for education justice. I hope your holiday break is joyous and restful.

From our family to yours, Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy New Year!
For the Hopeless Writer: 20 Things to Write About
By: Itxy Lopez
Tags: Creativity, Motivation, Advice, Writing, Writing Tips

Stop saying you have nothing to write about

It doesn’t matter that you’ve never jumped off a plane or had a top-selling Etsy shop. You have stories, words, and inspirational lessons to share anyway.

And if you don’t believe my words, look at me.

I’m twenty-one so that alone would throw people off. What do you have to say about life? one might think. (A lot, apparently.)

I didn’t go to college, I had a blog that failed after two years, and I’ve never been on a plane. I spend most of my days working and writing, probably when I should be taking advantage of my youth and having adventures.

My life isn’t amazing and filled with stories that leave you on the edge of your seat, but I still find things to write about.

Most of my experiences aren’t Instagram story-worthy, but they still matter. They may not be out of this world, but they’re stories that deserve to be shared nevertheless.

You’ve already gone through some of the ups and downs of life. No matter how “mundane,” they mean something.

You have an entire galaxy within you. You need to uncover and open the door to it, and let your stars shine.
seeds from your palm
By: C. Valentino
Tags: Poetry, Writing, Poem

Photo by Alex wong on Unsplash

always familiar the crash like shushing the cat scattering

limbs and lies thrown to velveteen skyscapes

climb steely girders of your nightmares always

a sure step along the spine of calamity where

i champion kisses that find your face like tears out

here beyond the city seas of vinegar street sheen

drawn like a hotel bed with grease crooked fingers

this bitter delicacy garnished with glass crags

of never again of your bedroom window inviting me

to bleed and between toes you carve into me once

again as i scamper from perch to port side of your sleep breathing

language like a tuneless piano striking true once more before silence

© Chris Puppione 2020
You Might Not Want to Be Your Own Boss — But Now You Have To
By: Patrick Krukenfellner
Tags: Freelancing, Productivity, Work, Work Life Balance, Time Management

A wrong perspective

“When do you get up, I mean you can start work whenever you want, right?” “You don’t even have to dress for work, how cool is that!” “I wish I could work the same hours”

Things you hear day in and day out as a freelancer. From a perspective of someone with a usual job, being your own boss looks extremely comfortable. Nobody breathing in your neck all day long, you can get up whenever you want, start working whenever you want and dress however you like.

And sometimes this is true, being the master of your time schedule can be very beneficial. But it can also be a curse.

Let me tell you this: Every weekday I get up at 5:30, shower, drink my morning coffee, dress up, and then open my laptop.

You might I’m crazy right now. It seems unnecessary at first, but there’s a reason for why I’m doing all this.

Imagine having no work schedule. There’s nobody around that will tell you when to come to work, what exactly you should do, when you can leave and when you can take days off.

Having the discipline to get out of bed early in the morning, when there’s nobody there to punish you if you don’t do it, is hard. Managing your schedule to meet every deadline is even harder.

At work, there’s not much more to do than just work. At home, there are countless distractions. There’s no one around to tell you that you should stop playing with your smartphone and to get back to work.

I usually turn my notifications off and put the phone somewhere far away, so it can’t distract me from work, yet I sometimes catch myself “taking a quick look” at it and certainly half an hour passed without me even noticing it.

Many of you experience all those problems right now. Due to the quarantine, a lot of people have to work from home and it turns out — it’s harder than it looks.
Smart Speaker Sales Soar as Owners Buy Multiple Devices
Tags: Technology, Smart Speaker, Smart Home, Gadgets, Privacy

More people are buying smart speakers — and one of the reasons the numbers have risen so high recently is that many owners have purchased more than one device.

By Jason Cohen

Business is booming for smart speaker manufacturers. After initial concerns among consumers about devices listening to our every word, sales have rocketed from $900 million in 2016 to $12 billion in 2019. And the industry is projected to be worth $27 billion by 2022.

One major reason behind this incredible rise is our buying habits and how they have changed. The big jump came in 2018, when the percentage of US households with a smart speaker jumped from 12.5 percent to 28 percent. That number increased to 35 percent in 2019 and is estimated to reach 75 percent by 2025.

Now it’s been reported that 60 million Americans aged 18 and older owned at least one smart speaker by the end of 2019. While that’s just a small percentage of the total population, what’s most interesting is the total amount of smart speakers said to have been sold in the past year.

According to a report from NPR and Edison Research, there are 157 million smart speakers in US housholds today. Taken into consideration with the much smaller number of total smart speaker owners, you can conclude that a large swath of buyers are living with more than one device.

The report estimates that most US households contain 2.6 smart speakers, on average, showing that many people have made the tradeoff between privacy and convenience.
The Black Cat That You Don’t Understand
By: Arun Rafi
Tags: People, Superstition, Culture, Belief, Thoughts

The purpose behind the black cat.

A Morning Walk with My Dogs

The road is empty. The weather, good. An alarm is ringing, somewhere. It’s dark but not dark. The street lights are yet to give way to the first rays of the light.

The road starts to glean with the lights of an oncoming passenger bus, filled with early risers.

Some are yawning, some sleeping, some alive, some dead yet alive. Some looking forward to the day. Some to the evening and some to their dreams ahead. In the bus. The driver is looking at the road.

Kischhhhhshshhhshchhchchsh..

The brakes slam.

Kischhhhhshshhh..

A vehicle behind the bus, slams it’s brakes, too.

The car driver is clearly not happy. Early morning, empty, one-way roads, were the last place he expected a bus to slam brakes.

He gets out of his car and slams his door shut and walks up to the bus.

The bus driver extends his arm, to mean he was sorry.

‘A black cat just crossed the road’— he said.

‘So?’, asks the fuming guy, who had taken a resolution to smile all day.

The bus driver said ‘Well, don’t you know? It’s bad luck to cross the road after a black cat crosses.’

‘Bullshit! That’s the problem with being illiterate’, said the car driver. He had also taken a resolution to treat people nicely today.

‘Sir! You might be well educated. Why don’t you go?’

‘Of course! I will go. I don’t have time to waste on things like this and arguing with people like you.’ — said the, you know who. He had taken a resolution to slow down and live with gratitude today.

‘Sure sir! I know it’s my mistake. What to do? You see, I can’t risk the lives of forty people and also my job.’

‘I will pray that nothing happens to you’, added the driver, as the car guy, zoomed in disbelief.
데이터 분석의 종류 Revisited
By: Sidney
Tags: Data Visualization, 데이터, Eda, 탐험분

Exploratory Analytics (탐험적 분석):

“‘Exploratory data analysis’ is an attitude, a state of flexibility, a willingness to look for those things that we believe are not there, as well as those we believe to be there.” by John W. Tukey
Viceroy’s “This Is How We Do It” Remix
By: Edith Zimmerman
Tags: Montell Jordan, Music

It’s not an improvement on the original, because the original is transcendent and unimprovable-upon, but San Francisco producer Viceroy updates the Montell Jordan classic for summertime, which is right around the next four or five thousand corners. We last saw Viceroy doing the same for Mark Morrison (and a bunch more). The song is available as an MP3 in exchange for a Facebook “like.”

[via]
Caring For Others
By: Pierre Trudel
Tags: BlackLivesMatter, American Haiku, Love, LGBTQ, Womens Rights

Sign up for American Haiku Steamship To Writing History

By American Haiku

Writing takes practice. American Haiku is a great way to put your words from your fingers to your piece of paper. Don't quit, you can do it. Take a look
Ignoring Methane Pollution Won’t Make It Go Away
Tags: Defiant Science, Climate Change, Environment

Ignoring Methane Pollution Won’t Make It Go Away

Donald Trump’s EPA is in denial

by ANSJE MILLER/CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

It turns out that the old adage about ostriches burying their heads in the sand isn’t based in fact — but the adage does fit the Trump administration.

On March 2, 2017, Pres. Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency announced it would no longer collect important data on pollution from the oil and natural gas industry.

If we can’t see it, it doesn’t exist — right?

In November 2016, the EPA requested information from the oil and natural gas industry intended to “help the agency determine how to best reduce methane and other harmful emissions.”

Scientists have determined that methane is a significant cause of climate change and, especially in the short-term, poses a threat to climate stability.

Methane releases from the industry are common. Center for Environmental Health is working with the community near a southern California gas facility in Aliso Canyon — the site of the largest methane release in U.S. history — where residents are suffering ongoing health problems related to the company’s polluting operations.

Methane is more than 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It’s also highly explosive and has leaked into residential water wells, threatening to families living in those homes, especially near roads that are experiencing significant traffic from trucks carrying equipment and materials to oil and gas extraction sites. The EPA doesn’t currently limit methane in water wells.

In a thoughtful process to consider how to address this problem, Pres. Barack Obama’s EPA asked the oil and gas companies to submit data — so that agency scientists could fully understand the extent of these emissions, where they come from and how best to control them.

But the Trump EPA reversed course on this science-based policy, telling the companies, “Nah, never mind.” The agency’s webpage with the heading “Controlling Air Pollution from the Oil and Natural Gas Industry” now tells industry, “You don’t need to give us this data.” Apparently the Trump EPA’s idea of controlling pollution … is to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Alarmingly, this appears to be the just a first step in Trump’s plans to roll back science-based pollution controls that have protected all Americans from deadly chemicals in our air and water, for decades.

As any child who reads National Geographic knows, ostriches don’t actually bury their heads when they’re scared. Because even dumb ostriches know that sticking their heads in the sand won’t save them from a real danger.

Originally published at Center for Environmental Health. Follow DEFIANT on Facebook and Twitter.
How to Publish Your Own Roku Channel.
By: Phil Autelitano
Tags: Roku, Entrepreneurship, App Development, Web Development, Coding

The Fastest, Easiest Way to Publish and Profit from Your Own Roku TV Channel!

By Phil Autelitano

Founder/CEO, Mediarazzi

Discover the secrets to building, monetizing, publishing and profiting from your own custom Roku TV channel straight from one of the world’s leading experts in Roku publishing and monetization.

Mediarazzi Founder/CEO Phil Autelitano

Mediarazzi founder/CEO Phil Autelitano has published hundreds of successful Roku channels for clients small and large — from homegrown content creators to major brands, TV and film studios and celebrities.

In this one-of-a-kind program, Phil takes you step-by-step through the process of creating and publishing a professional-quality Roku channel — in as little as 7 days, with zero to little out-of-pocket! You’ll learn the same process he uses to create Roku Channels he charges clients thousands of dollars for.

Created specifically with the non-technical in mind, the Publish Your Own Roku Channel program is self-paced and requires no prior coding knowledge or experience.
Migration
By: Omar Elgabry
Tags: Software Development, Migration, Database, Software Engineering, Kafka

As we aim to move away from old systems, we stumble upon a one-time task to copy over all the data to the new datastore and cutover to the new system without causing any corruption, data loss, or downtime.

We then quickly examine different approaches, squeezing our heads trying to land on an ideal method.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we can have the most common migration strategies laid down, briefly explained, with some diagrams, and used as a starting point?.

The migration approaches explained below start with the most simple, moving towards more involved but more robust in a logical order.

The classic approach
“Leave no trace.”
By: M.G. Siegler
Tags: Utah, SciFi, Monolith, Weird, Science Fiction

..and like that, the mysterious monolith story ends. Not with a bang but with a — well, perhaps with a bang actually, given how it was removed (though apparently it was not some alien metal but rather plywood inside).

Appropriately, much like it was internet sleuths using Google Earth to find the thing, the evidence of how it vanished appeared on Instagram. As Serge F. Kovaleski, Deborah Solomon and Zoe Rosenberg report:

It was left to an adventure photographer, Ross Bernards, to disclose evidence on Instagram. Mr. Bernards, 34, of Edwards, Colo., was visiting the monolith on Friday night when, he said, four men arrived as if out of nowhere to dismantle the sculpture. Mr. Bernards had driven six hours for the chance to ogle the sculpture and to take dramatic photographs of it. Using upscale Lume Cube lights attached to a drone, he produced a series of glowy, moonlit pictures in which the monolith glistens against the red cliffs and the deep blue of the night sky. Suddenly, around 8:40 p.m., he said, the men arrived, their voices echoing in the canyon. Working in twosomes, with an unmistakable sense of purpose, they gave the monolith hard shoves, and it started to tilt toward the ground. Then they pushed it in the opposite direction, trying to uproot it.

While the mystery ends with a bit of a whimper, it’s still entirely unclear who these men were that removed it or why they did so, other than the comments overheard that “this is why you don’t leave trash in the desert.” That would seem to suggest that they were not the ones who put it there to begin with.

And with that, my monolith beat ends.