Whether you’re a reader or a writer on Medium, it is important to be able to sift through the overwhelming amount of content available on the platform.

Especially in the new layout, as a reader, you want to be following the right people and the right publications, so your homepage shows just the content you want to read.

As a writer, new or old, you want to have a set of publications that are your go-to based on the topics you write about and to maximize your reach to readers.

So based on my six months of fairly prolific writing and reading on Medium, I’ve put together a current list of publications that are still active, and a great place for both readers and writers to focus their energies on. …

Robert William Pickton, aka “Willy” was a quiet Canadian man who grew up in a family of pig farmers. His family had been in the business of pig farming for three generations but by the time Pickton and his siblings inherited the pig farm, they’d only raise a few pigs on the farm and sell them to friends and neighbors.

They, in fact, sold parts of the inherited land for large sums of money, not having much intention of continuing the family business.

However, it wasn’t pig farming that made Willy rather infamous in Canada and the rest of the world. He is known to have murdered as many as 49 women, having been arrested due to his admitted “sloppiness” in trying to make his tally an “even 50” or the “big five-O.” …

One of the biggest bank robberies of all time was pulled off in 2005. It was the central bank of Brazil — Banco Central that was the target and a total amount of R$160mn or US$71mn based on the exchange rate at the time was stolen from the Fortaleza branch.

The case remains only partially solved to date and only a fraction of the total money has been since recovered.

However, what makes the case most interesting is the events that followed. Many of the men believed to be involved in the robbery became victims of kidnappings.

The Bank Heist

What needs to be understood is this was a physical burglary and not a cybertheft where money was moved from one server to another. …

Have you ever had that seemingly strange experience when you search for a random product on a device you think you’re not logged into with any of your personal logins, and then minutes later, see advertisements of similar products on your personal phone or laptop?

Or have you randomly Googled this destination because you saw your friend’s pictures on Instagram, and had a barrage of travel deals show up right after?

Or worse still, try looking up a couple of baby products, and have articles and ads of first-time-parenting lessons constantly bother you on all your online accounts.

This, unfortunately, is the reality of the internet-centric world we live in. The internet and all the major players — Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and the likes know more about our lives and our preferences than our family and friends do. …

My wife and I are both the youngest among our siblings — my wife is the youngest of three sisters, and I have an elder sister as well. So when we got married in early 2017, our sisters all had toddlers. And like many couples with no kids, we were quick to judge them when we saw our 3-yr old nephew frantically swiping to Fruit Ninja on an iPad or our 4-yr old niece watching Barbie videos on Youtube.

However, once you become a parent you realize that parenting is far from easy — much less when you’re spending all your time at home, still trying to get “work” done, and you have a two-year-old son, all in a small-ish Hong Kong home. …

Not many people around me know this, but I’ve had the privilege to grow up in a household where my maternal grandfather and one of my uncles (my mother’s eldest brother) have been the recipients of the President’s awards for academic contribution to the fields of Astrology and Sanskrit.

My late grandfather, Acharya Diwakar Dutt Sharma, was a renowned astrologer and a principal of a Sanskrit college, and also had the privilege of naming his home state — Himachal Pradesh, one of the 28 states in India.

After retiring from his job in education, he practiced astrology as a hobby, where people from across India would come to his home, and seek his advice. He didn’t have a “fee” but allowed people to pay honorariums if they so desired, or take his services for free. …

Retirement savings is the golden goal we all work towards in terms of wealth creation. It’s so we have enough of a corpus built to retire at a certain age and still maintain a comfortable, desired lifestyle. Some of us save more, and others save less — it is not just a personal preference but also often a cultural thing. For example, Indians, in general, have a saving mindset.

At the same time, Americans are known for a more spending mindset or “living in the moment.” This is why we’ve got the forced savings that employers do for us voluntarily or on the guidance of national governments — the provident fund schemes or the 401K contribution that your employer makes for you. …

Imagine committing the perfect crime — a murder so cleverly done, that the police are unable to solve it for three years.

Wouldn’t you want to boast about it?

Wouldn’t you want to tell the world you managed to do a live version of “How to Get Away With Murder?”

Well, I’d say if you commit a murder and get away with it, it’s probably best you take that secret to the grave. Unless of course, you’re lured into the temptation of writing a book about it and telling the world how you managed to do this impossible feat.

No one in their right mind, of course, would commit a murder and then write it out into a novel, or would they? Well, that is exactly what the Polish writer, photographer, and eventually convicted murderer, Krystian Bala did. …