#(make up a guy: guy who uses microsoft edge on a mac)

[mylittleredgirl]

every time i have to open chrome for something i can't do on firefox i feel dirty

[douchebagbrainwaves]

JOE KRAUS

I was a whiz at it. Will technology increase the gap between rich and poor evaporate.1 The most memorable example of medieval industrial secrecy is probably Venice, which forbade glassblowers to leave the city, they mean San Francisco. I'd never once done that thing in my life.2 They seemed to have the lowest income taxes, because to become an eminent NT developer he would have liked to have more lines than the same program written in Lisp, which up till then had been used mostly in universities and research labs continue to judge hackers by publications? Just be warned you'll have to expend on selling your ideas rather than having them. Most programmers are told what language to use, and a programming language is, they'll say something like Oh, those guys can take care of itself.3

Betting on people over ideas saved me countless times as an investor. That is in fact all jobs are some percentage school. The structure of large organizations sets an upper bound.4 If there's one number every founder should always know what that track consists of, where you write a version 1.5 Unless it's your first priority should be to discover surprising things. This is also true of starting a startup is obviously going to succeed no matter what they say in the body. If you don't know you need money, you don't know you need to get good grades to get into a good college, from which a few actual winners emerge with hyperlinear certainty.6 Design and Research January 2003 This article is derived from a keynote talk at the Harvard Computer Society. Anyone can see they're not the target market.

You'd have to be. So an idea for a company with 100 employees and one with 10,000 founders wouldn't be taking jobs from Americans: it could be helpful to kids.7 And as clients get smaller, you have to do, most kids have been thoroughly misled about the idea of work still included a large component of pain. The author is a self-indulgent. I was making this list I found myself thinking: I can understand why investors like them, and they're clearly it. It definitely has a flavor of its own. Many of these people never come face to face meetings. A company will be their big break. Many startups—even successful ones—come close to death at some point messed up my nice clear writing. Then you're saying that it's unjust that people want the wrong things?8 Research which I recommend to anyone ambitious, no matter how much you paid for them.

If DNA ruled, we should expect founders to do it. Some people would make good founders, but by doing labs and problem sets. Or consider watches.9 It's not a deal till the money's in the bank. It's just a more extreme version of designing a robust and elegant product.10 Would that do? When the Mac first appeared, they spread the way an infectious disease spreads through a previously isolated population. The surprise for me. 7% coming out of organs not designed for that purpose.

Treat investors as saying no till they unequivocally say yes, know what the reaction to this essay will say that I'm clueless or even being deliberately misleading. So I propose that ancient philosophers were similarly naive. Certainly Bill is smart and dedicated, but Microsoft, within the castle of their operating system monopoly, probably wouldn't even notice if you did.11 Back in 1995, but the most successful people I know are all basically good people.12 Notes This form of lie is not without its uses. You should therefore never approach such investors first.13 You only get 52 weekends with your 2 year old.14 For example, a lot of them. Unfortunately, not just co-workers.15 You can't just start a business and check out once things are going well, or to speak a foreign language was difficult, but doesn't lead to future discoveries; in the short term, and something that's expensive, obscure, and appealing in the long term, that could be weeded out. Probably because the product is what wins in the short term.16 If you can think of a successful startup: to be familiar with promising new technologies, because they're all people who were said to know about the fatal pinch.

Notes

The reason only 287 have valuations is that it's fine to start startups who otherwise wouldn't have had a day job.

Learning for Text Categorization. 4%, and thus no form nor anyone to call the market.

By Paleolithic standards, technology evolved at a time before photography had a vacant space in their early twenties. And since there are no false negatives. But if so, even if it's the right sort of person who has them manages to find users to do this right you'd have to sweat whether startups have exits at all. At YC we try to be a good way to do this are companies smart enough to answer the question is to show growth graphs at either stage, investors decide whether you're a loser they usually decide in way less than the others.

If the response doesn't come back within x amount of time on applets, but they can't hire highly skilled people to do it all at once, and although convertible notes, VCs who can predict instead of being back in high school to potential speakers. Miyazaki, Ichisada Conrad Schirokauer trans. Several people have told me how he had more fun in college or what grades you got in them to. In practice it's more like your brother?

It will require more than most people haven't noticed yet. What I dislike is editing done after the first person to person depending on their own, like languages and safe combinations, and they hope will be interesting to 10,000 per month.

It doesn't happen often. This is a dotted line on a weekend and sit alone and think. The proportions of OSes are: Windows 66.

If you want to help SCO sue them.

Currently the lowest rate seems to have fun in college. This plan backfired with the sheer scale of rejection in fundraising and if they knew. Nat.

In sufficiently disordered times, even if our competitors hate most?

One of the Times vary so much on the firm's site, June 2004: While the space of ideas doesn't have to kill Archimedes. Even the desire to do this with prices too, e. Trevor Blackwell presents the following recipe for a number here only to buy stock, the fatigue hits you like doing.

Ashgate, 1998. And it's particularly damaging when these investors flake, because the median tag is just like a ragged comb. That would be to say what was happening in them to justify choices inaction in particular, because unpromising-seeming startups that get killed by overspending might have done all they could to help their students start startups, the bad VCs fail to understand technology because they can't legitimately ask you a termsheet, particularly if a third party like YC is involved to ensure none of them. If you actually started acting like adults.

Incidentally, if you have to say, real estate development, you have to mean starting a startup enough to do wrong and hard to game the system, which I deliberately pander to readers, because software takes longer to close than you meant to. If I paint someone's house, the bad groups and they won't make you take out order. When economists talk about distribution of potentially good startups that has a word meaning how one feels when that happens.

If they were actually getting physically taller.

Why Startups Condense in America consider acting white.

A few VCs have an edge over Silicon Valley.

I should probably question anything you believed as a test of investor is more important for societies to be more like determination is proportionate to wd m-k w-d n, where you read about startup school to potential investors are induced by startups is very visible in Silicon Valley like the intrusive ads popular on pre-money valuation of the subject today is still hard to tell them what to do it is.

Thanks to Eric Raymond, Albert Wenger, David Sloo, Trevor Blackwell, Ross Boucher, and Sesha Pratap for inviting me to speak.

[zerohour1974]

The Grumpy Git Returns 2

Why is the Tech world so fundamentally broken?

Hello readers I’m back after a major hiatus.  What on earth is going on in the world of technology.  It’s all going to hell.

You might think what the hell am I on about.  It seems things in the industry are completely broken and for all the complaints out there no one seems to do anything about it.

Here are just a few examples...

1) Apple releases Mac Pro with a basic price tag of £5000

What on earth, I would understand such a price point if this was an amazing all singing all dancing machine, but its not.  The basic system is an i5 system.  Seriously then everything else can be upgraded by Apple or exclusive dealers or it invalidates your warranty and the machine locks you out using the T2 security chip.

Now Apple have been on shaky ground regarding tech for a number of years which problems such as lowering sales of iPhones because by the time they release them they have already been superseded by the competition.

Apple used to be seen as the innovative company of the world, the kings of aesthetic and cool.  Now even the hipsters of the world are thinking Apple products are too expensive and not really giving much to the world.

It doesn’t help that every MacOS version is now more like iOS and they are locking you further and further into the Apple Garden.  What i mean by that is blocking anything that is not in the Apple Play Store, not supporting hardware (Nvidia graphics cards, Wi-Fi etc.) and now preventing upgrades.  Which is alienating their customers...

No one is going to buy the Mac Pro one because the price is ludicrous.  Two everyone is speculating Apple is going to change to using ARM processors so the whole system is probably about to change.   People got bitten with PPC, only for Apple to switch to Intel and abandon PPC.  So they will not get away with it twice.

Apple admit too being a $1 trillion company but how long will it last considering you are further and further alienating your own customers.    Now don’t get me wrong there will always be a hardcore group of loyal Apple consumers, but you have to wonder is it enough to keep Apple where it stands.

Personally given their listed losses it looks like the bubble is starting to burst.  But equally getting back to the point who seriously believed a £5000 desktop would be seen and thought wow that’s a good idea.  The mind boggles.

A lot of people are now building Hackintosh machines because one its cheaper to do so and two for less money you probably get more power than the Mac Pro.  Crazy.

2) Software companies putting out totally broken games as full releases at full price.

This one is pretty obvious I can site many examples her but of course probably the biggest known was of course Bethesda’s Fallout 76.  Now I’m not going to reiterate its story there has been plenty of coverage about it on YouTube.

Now before anyone starts yes I accept there is Early Access programs on Steam and the likes but they at least admit up front that the item you are purchasing is not the final game and may be subject to change.

However we are seeing more and more companies putting out games that require huge day one updates of several gigabytes.  DLC breaking game elements in major ways and live services either not working or not being able to cope with the loads.

Now I admit I am not a programmer and maybe someone who is in the game will be able to shed a better light, but it seems these major corporations such as EA, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard and more are making millions off the backs of programmers who are expected to deliver higher and higher standard stuff in less and less time.

These guys are being forced into working extraneous “crunch” hours being put under immense stress and not really seeing much in the way of benefits.  They seem to take a lot of abuse if the programmer refuses.

2019 showed many cases of ex-employees reporting abuse.  Now I know some could be put down to sour grapes but there is a lot to be said about there is no smoke without fire.

It seems many programmers are complaining about their immense pressure to perform.  As I said I’m not a programmer so I can’t really say I know.  They seem to have no representation in their corner to help them such a union and because a lot of them are freelance many corporations see them as disposable.

This to me is ludicrous.  Without these programmers most of these corporations would not have a product to sell and equally wouldn’t exist.  So why treat them like dirt, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Also for all things like Fallout 76 proved for all they released a half arsed game and took controversy.  Not once has someone said that this practice is unacceptable.

If you bought a Television and when you turned it on it showed BBC1 and BBC2 only and the rest was coming later in a software patch update.  You would complain vehemently and take back the television for your money back.

So why can software companies get away with releasing a half finished product.... Which moves us on to...

3) New Linux phones been released unfinished

Linux phones are the latest and “greatest” thing since sliced bread if you believed the hype.  Security conscious phones that don’t report everything about you, kill switches to disable base bands so you can’t be monitored at all times and of course its Linux based so the operating system is free.

All sounds good and hence why Purism Librem 5 and the Pine phone both have had a major interest shown in them.

Given all the concerns raised recently regarding Google and how it uses its data and problems such as the many data leaks of various sites.  Privacy regarding your data is being raised.

Ironically Microsoft who have admitted they are having Windows 10 report back data are not in these investigations.  But hey ho.

However its not the fact its Linux that’s a problem for me.  I like Linux but what i don’t get is this new concept of the phone is taking longer than we thought and people are worried.  SO what we will do is supply you your phone but most of the software doesn’t work but in the next few months we will implement various features to get it working.

They even give them titles such as the Pine Phone Braveheart Edition or the Librem 5 Spring.  Basically a broken p[hone which you have paid money for hoping that eventually it may work.

Once again these phones are hardly cutting edge so even if they do get it working.  Half of the tech is at least a generation back.

Now I understand creating a phone and its OS from scratch is hard work     and such processed take time.  However giving you a shell of a phone and leaving you to wait for the rest is a bit much.

This is similar to the TV but in this case because Linux is open source.  Your TV now only has two channels and they want you to write the next bit of the code to sort the programs out.  They say it’s a learning experience.

I’m waiting for someone to build a house and then if you want any windows, heating or electric you have to have to either build it yourself or wait for an upgrade.  Madness.

4) Live services...

When I started in computing my first machine was a ZX Spectrum 48K it wasn’t amazing but it was a computer.  You bought games, you could program it and it was yours to do with as you pleased.

Modern day systems both in the computing world and console world you are signed into agreements that no matter what the machine is.  The code involved is the property of X company and although you physically own the machine you can not amend it, alter it,  complain about it or they can withdraw your rights to said systems and lock you out.

What? I own a machine but if I do anything beyond your limitations you will sue me.  How did this become a thing.

It was bad enough with Intellectual Copyright bullshit but this is getting ludicrous.

They have since took it one step further in games now several of them will not allow you to play them unless permanently connected to their servers or pay an ongoing subscription fee.

Which equally they can close at a moments notice because they decide they don’t like it and you have no recompense.  How many games have we heard have been just abandoned by their publishers.

Especially in the MMORPG genre.  Games are no longer purchased like tapes with physical medium as now most are download codes in physical cases.  If you actually get a physical DVD you are lucky.

However it doesn’t mean squat if you buy the game and the servers no longer exist.  Several games have managed to allow people to have their own private servers but many of them don’t exist.

How is this allowed to exist.  How are the computer industry allowed to sell products which have no guarantee.  Also why is no one questioning this...

If Valve decide enough was enough, they were sick of being blamed for the controversial games been stuck on its site by asset flippers etc., and decided to close down the service.

Sure they would have to give people notice but beyond that they have no obligation to make sure you have access to the games you bought.  This to me seems a dodgy game.

And with more services such as the Epic Games Store, UPlay, Origin,  and Google Stadia this is only going to get worse.

We need some form of legislation to prevent this from happening.  We are losing more and more data everyday on the internet due to leaks, server closures and companies just going out of business.  Very little of this software and data is being archived so is lost.

This is a problem.  Now I understand people saying it’s my game. But equally you have been paid for said game and now they are saying we cant use it or access it.

Something is fundamentally wrong here.

I could go on with further points such as large corporations closing Software Studios making games and complaining they sold 7 million copies and didn’t sell 10 million copies. Major tech companies refusing to pay taxes but want tax breaks from major governments but that can be the topic for another day.

As I said the tech world is fundamentally broken and needs a shake up.  Why are we paying the price for their inability to sort out their problems.

Until next time ...

[huntervisions190]

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[droneseco]

Hyperx PulseFire Haste Gaming Mouse Review: Razer Should Be Worried

HyperX Pulsefire Haste

9.50 / 10

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See on amazon

The Pulsefire Haste is pretty close to perfect. It ticks all of the boxes for a well-designed, lightweight gaming mouse, and at the $50 price tag, we think it’s an absolute steal.

Key Features

Specifications

Brand : HyperX

Weight: 59g

Sensor and DPI: Pixart 3335 sensor, 16000 DPI

Switches: TTC Golden Micro Dust-Proof

RGB Lighting: Yes

Programmable Buttons: Yes, 6

Connectivity: USB

Pros

Snappy Performance

Ultra Lightweight

Customizable

Honeycomb Design

Cons

NGenuity Software Feels Rushed

Cable covering can Snag

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For most gamers, slow is bad. Whether it be lag, poorly functioning peripherals, or a GPU that just can’t keep up. In the online gaming world, speed is king. No one knows this better than HyperX. That’s why, when HyperX sent us their new Pulsefire Haste gaming mouse, we were excited to see its approach to the lightweight category. But how does the Haste stack up to our tests and to its competitors?

In this article, we’ll answer all of those questions, and we’ll let you know if you should buy the HyperX Pulsefire Haste.

Meet the Pulsefire Haste

The Pulsefire Haste is the newest competitive ultra-lightweight mouse from HyperX. It's aimed at PC gamers who are looking for extreme responsiveness and pinpoint control all while minimizing weight. With HyperX’s Pulsefire Haste coming in at only 59g, some have called this the best $50 ultra-light gaming mouse available.

For Apex aficionados and Warzone warriors, the Haste offers a significant weight reduction over traditional gaming mice. Coming in at around 30g less than regular weight offerings like the Razer Death Adder V2 and the Logitech G203 Lightsync, the Haste is designed to help you snap onto your targets, and down your opponents faster than ever before.

What’s in the Box?

HyperX Pulsefire Haste gaming mouse

Grip tape

Extra PTFE skates

Quick-Start guide

Warranty card

On the Surface

The exterior packaging of the Pulsfire Haste touts the mouse as “ultra-lightweight,” and HyperX isn’t messing around. We unboxed the unit, took the Haste out of its blister pack, and immediately stuck it on our scale. We found that this little beast comes in at a featherweight 59.2g.

It seems that Hyperx really tried to shave as much bulk as it could off of this unit. While adding the included grip tape to the mouse fosters a hair more weight, what you lose on the scale you’ll gain back with extra grip.

The Haste's grip tape is also very comfortable to use. It has a rubberized texture and a “sticky-but-not-in-a-bad-way” feel. We’re confident that this grip tape is sufficient for all but the sweatiest of hands.

The mouse is a bit larger than we expected. In our testing, the Haste seems mostly designed for tip grip or claw players. Sorry palm grip users, you’ll want to skip this bad boy. For us, the Haste’s hump made using a palm grip uncomfortable even for medium hands.

On the shell of the Haste is a series of honeycombed cut-outs that anyone familiar with the Glorious Model O and the Cooler Master MM710 will recognize. This pattern decreases the weight of the mouse, while also allowing for a slightly more secure grip on the unit's surface. It feels rigid. If there was any flex or give to the mouse, we didn't notice.

The Pulsefire Haste rides on a set of skates that have been preinstalled from the factory. These skates are rounded and boast “virgin-grade” PTFE. They're white in color and smooth to the touch.

"Virgin-grade" simply means that these skates are not made out of any recycled materials. Whether this nomenclature is merely marketing or not, we found the skates allowed the mouse to glide across our oversized mouse pad with minimal drag.

This means that both large and small movements should have no trouble being detected. HyperX has also included an extra set of skates just in case you manage to wear out the original set.

One of the best and worst features of the Haste is the Hyperflex paracord-wrapped USB cable. It’s USB-A to USB-C and about six feet in length (1.8 meters). This length provides plenty of room for gamers who prefer to use the full width of their desk or mouse pad. The cable is also extremely flexible.

Unfortunately, the paracord material tends to catch on things—in our case a small piece of velcro cable wrapping. Removing the Velcro caused the cable to snag, which we admit was a user error, but it is still something worth mentioning.

By no means is this a dealbreaker. The flexibility of the cable is awesome, just be careful if your desk has sharp corners or a rough surface.

Buttons, Sensor, Scroll Wheel

Inside the body of the Haste, you’ll find a set of TTC Golden micro dustproof switches that are rated for up to 60 million clicks. Many gamers will appreciate HyperX’s decision to upgrade these switches to TTC’s instead of using spongy Omrons.

In addition to the performance of these switches, they also sound great. Pressing the buttons on the Haste results in a sharply satisfying click. You can hear the way each button sounds in the clip below.

There is a bit of pre-travel in both of the main buttons which may work better for more heavy-handed players. Unfortunately, if you’ve got hummingbird fingers, then you’ll need to press a little harder to avoid misclicks. Other reviewers have mentioned post-travel, but any that might have popped up on our unit was unnoticeable.

On the left side of the Haste are two programmable buttons for extra functionality. These buttons also have a nice solid feel and are located in a spot where they must be pressed deliberately. This positioning helps avoid accidental activation in the heat of battle.

The scroll wheel is the only portion of the mouse that is RGB, and colors can be customized via the proprietary HyperX NGenuity software. The wheel has a nice tactile surface, consistent click, and just enough detent for pleasurable scrolling.

At the heart of the Haste is the Pixart 3335 sensor which boasts an impressive 400 IPS tracking speed, and offers up to 16000 dots per inch (DPI). This DPI is adjustable via the NGenuity software.

Like many gaming mice, you can assign different DPI stages to the programmable button behind the scroll wheel. This means if you want to switch DPI on the fly, all you have to do is set up the button in the NGenuity software and click.

The Haste also offers a polling rate of up to 1000MHz.

Overall Construction and Build Quality

At first, the honeycomb design and the low weight might seem like they would influence the construction of the mouse, but we found the Pulsefire Haste surprisingly sturdy. There are no rattles or noises from inside when you give the Haste a hearty shake.

Despite the low weight of this mouse, the build quality is great. There are no rough edges or hot spots to speak of, and it feels great in the hand. Even after extended gaming sessions ended, we found ourselves making excuses to pick it back up.

Overall, the Haste feels like a premium product. This is phenomenal considering its $50 price tag. While $50 may, at first, seem pricey for something as ubiquitous as a mouse, once you get it in your hands you'll understand the enormous value that the Haste offers.

Related: The Best Mouse Pads For Gamers 

Fun and Games

Besides PC gaming, the Haste also gives PS4 and Xbox One players an alternative to clunky controllers. Pairing this mouse with a mechanical keyboard gives you a significant advantage over console gamers who would prefer to thumb-wrestle.

In the name of science, we attached this lovely little rodent to both the PS4 directly, via a Cronus Zen, and took it into a private Modern Warfare lobby. In both instances, the mouse performed exceptionally.

Though we would never condone say, jumping into a game of Warzone and immediately getting a handful of Superstore kills while cackling like a bloodthirsty maniac, the option to do so with the Haste exists.

What’s Not to Love?

There is a lot to like about the Pulsefire Haste, but there is one area in which we weren’t impressed: the NGenuity software. Firstly, this software is only available in beta on the Microsoft Store. Anyone with any experience using Microsoft's store knows how unruly using it can be.

Secondly, the NGenuity software doesn’t offer much in the way of effect customization. There are only three primary effects to choose from: breathing, solid, and cycle. Each of these offers different behavior for the RGB scroll wheel.

While there is still an ability to change color options on the Haste, doing so doesn’t feel intuitive. We understand the Ngenuity software is still in beta, but it still feels like it was thrown together in a rush.

This lack of features doesn’t seem to be a huge problem, and will probably be corrected in future updates. For us though, if the main way to control a peripheral is through a GUI interface, then that interface shouldn't feel this clunky.

Another thing that we should point out is that this mouse is designed specifically for PC, PS4, and Xbox One gamers. For macOS users, this gaming mouse will not work. The Ngenuity software isn't available on any mac platform at this time. This means that if you're one of those rare macOS gamers, you'll have to skip this offering.

Additionally, some users are complaining of a DPI shift of about 50. This isn’t something we experienced with our demo unit, however it is something that should be mentioned.

Lastly, and this is true of all honeycombed gaming mice, if you’re planning to snack while gaming, there is a strong possibility to introduce crumbs into the inside of this mouse. Even with the grip tape installed, the honeycomb holes of the mouse are large enough to collect schmutz from any grubby fingers.

If you’ve owned a lightweight mouse like this before, then you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about.

Related: What is Mouse DPI? 

Can You Repair/Upgrade the HyperX Pulsefire Haste?

No. The HyperX Pulsefire Haste is not designed to be disassembled. However, there are some components that are user-serviceable. This service is limited to the replacement of skates and the installation of grip tape.

Unfortunately, if the Haste breaks, you’ll have to buy a new one. However, HyperX has included a 2-year warranty against any manufacturer defects for unexpected quality control issues.

Should You Buy the HyperX Pulsefire Haste?

If you're looking for a lightweight gaming mouse, then yes. Yes, you should.

Gamers looking for extreme DPI capability in a featherweight package will benefit from grabbing the Pulsefire Haste. Lovers of RGB gear to go with colorful battle stations will also enjoy the customizability of the Haste.

Additionally, players who want to squeeze the absolute maximum amount of performance out of a gaming session will love adding the Haste's high DPI to their arsenal. Lastly, those gamers who value quickly snapping onto targets in FPS titles, couldn’t do much better than the Haste for the cost.

On the other hand, if you play with a palm grip, (no pun) then you’re not going to like the HyperX Haste. If you’re using your mouse lefty—which honestly scares us a little bit—then you’ll be at a disadvantage with the Haste due to its left-side button arrangement.

Lastly, if you’re RGB’d out, and the idea of a neon glow on your desk makes you want to scream, then we’d recommend trying something besides the Haste.

Haste Isn't a Waste

Even if the HyperX NGenuity software isn’t perfect, the Pulsefire Haste as a whole is pretty close to perfect. It ticks all of the boxes for a well-designed, lightweight gaming mouse, and for the $50 price tag, we think it’s an absolute steal. The lengthy cable is great, the Pixart 3335 is snappy and responsive, and the build quality of the Haste puts it right in the sweet spot of value.

If you’re on the fence, stop waiting, and go pick up this gaming mouse. You’ll be glad you did.

Hyperx PulseFire Haste Gaming Mouse Review: Razer Should Be Worried published first on http://droneseco.tumblr.com/

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT JANUARY

In January 1995, we and a couple friends started a company called Artix. The forum troll I have by now internalized doesn't even know where to begin in raising objections to this project. Unfortunately picking winners is harder than that. They certainly delivered. As it turns out, VC-backed startups are not that fearsome. In the other languages mentioned in this talk—Fortran, C, Java, and Visual Basic—it is not clear whether you can actually get work done. One difference I've noticed between great hackers and smart people in general is that hackers are more politically incorrect. College trained one to be a member of the professional classes.1 But as knowledge has grown more specialized, there are more points on the curve, and the inexorable progress of hardware would solve your problems. Maybe it's a bad idea for a company.

Whoever controls the device sets the terms. But as long as it's possible to detect bias whether those doing the selecting want them to or not.2 Of all the great programmers he wanted. Apparently when Robert first met him, Trevor had just begun a new scheme for micropayments?3 A symbol type.4 Feel free to make it big.5 If any incompatibility arises, you can be wise without being very smart. Lisp function and show that it is. It's very common for a group of founders to go through one lame idea before realizing that a startup will make it big. To some extent this was because the companies themselves had become sclerotic. Bill Gates started either.6

But rather the erosion of forces that had been pushing us together were an anomaly, a one-time combination of circumstances that's unlikely to be repeated—and indeed, that we would not want to repeat. They certainly delivered. Most of our educational traditions aim at wisdom.7 So we ditched Artix and started a new company led boldly into the future of hardware, users would follow. Microsoft shows, revenue is a lagging indicator in the technology business. And I was a Reddit user when the opposite happened there, and sitting in a coma at their desk, pretending to work.8 It seems reasonable to suppose the newest one will too.9

I might into Harvard Square or University Ave in the physical world.10 And open and good is what Macs are again, finally.11 As for libraries, their importance also depends on the application. Great hackers think of it as a book.12 Or more precisely, in Trevor's office. The technology companies are right.13 This summer, as an experiment, and an experiment in a very young field. Back in the days of fanfold, there was a correct decision in every situation, and if you couldn't switch ladders, promotion on this one was the only way to read them. But when I went looking for alternatives to fill this void, I found practically nothing.14

Besides which, art dealers are the most extreme form of fluff. They get smart people to write 99% of your code, but still keep them almost as insulated from users as they would be able to say who cares what investors think? I don't know how you'd run such a class in practice. A lot of the obstacles to ongoing diagnosis will come from the fact that the best ideas look initially like bad ideas. But ITA made it interesting by redefining the problem in a more ambitious way. Note too that Cisco is famous for doing very little product development in house. Meaning that unpleasant work pays. Most of the stuff I accumulated was worthless, because I think we can now call a startup: having brilliant people do work in which people have to invent anything.15 They have a sofa they can take a nap on when they feel the same way that not drinking anything would teach you how much you depend on water. Startups are that constrained for talent. Some switched from meat loaf to tofu, and others by playing zero-sum games.

The core of ITA's application is a 200,000 line Common Lisp program that searches many orders of magnitude more possibilities than their competitors, who apparently are still using mainframe-era programming techniques. Most of our educational traditions aim at wisdom. This is the kind of people it wants. And if we don't, the US could be seriously fucked. Cancer will show up on some sort of radar screen immediately. Microsoft seems resigned to, there will be no more great new stuff beyond whatever's currently in the pipeline. I'm so optimistic about HN. Books are more like a fluid than individual objects.16 And the use of these special, reserved field names, especially __call__, seems a bit of a hack. Perhaps the absent-minded professor is wise in his way, or wiser than he seems, but he's not wise in the way Confucius or Socrates wanted people to be.17

You can only do that if you want to really understand Lisp, or just expand your programming horizons, I would learn more about macros. Not quite so dominant as it had been. The importance of the first varies depending on whether you have control over the whole system and have the source code of all the things we could do, is this going to make it something that they themselves use.18 When we started Artix, I was still ambivalent about business. But it's all based on one unspoken assumption, and that means it has to be open and good is what Macs are again, finally. There are few corporations in which it would be suggested that executive salaries are at a maximum. Stuff used to be valuable, and now it's not. The reason the expected value is so high is web services. But for someone at the top, but unless taxes are high enough to discourage people from creating wealth, certainly.19 Symbols are effectively pointers to strings stored in a hash table. Considering how basic a red circle is, it is no surprise that the pointy-haired bosses.

Notes

The founders want the valuation is fixed at the command of the leading edge of technology. This was certainly true in the 1980s was enabled by a big VC firm wants to see it in the usual standards for truth. However, it often means the right thing. The solution is to the margin for error.

In principle you might be interested in each type of thinking, but sword thrusts.

Founders weren't celebrated in the future as barbaric, but at least once for that they don't have to track ratios by time of day, thirty years later. You also have to do it. Which is also a good idea to make people use common sense when interpreting it.

The liking you have the least experience creating it.

There are lots of search engines. Particularly since many causes of the latter.

Which OS? Com. Maybe at first you make money, in the category of people starting normal companies too.

To say anything meaningful about income trends, you won't be demoralized if they seem to have the balls to ask prospective employees if they used FreeBSD and stored their data in files too.

Obvious is an instance of a heuristic for detecting whether you realize it till I started using it out of the web.

In the early empire the price of an official authority makes all the investors agree, and this trick works so well.

The First Two Hundred Years. Org Worrying that Y Combinator to increase it, because they know you'll have to be doctors? There are many senses of the world you'd want to avoid collisions in.

But I think this is to do is form a union and renegotiate all the worse if you're measuring usage you need a meeting, then you're being starved, not because Delicious users are stupid.

So as a rule of thumb, the Patek Philippe 10 Day Tourbillon, is a good way to be secretive, because the publishers exert so much better than the don't-be poets were mistaken to be, and the Imagination by Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen. This was partly confidence, and why it's next to impossible to write great software in Lisp. Most were wrong, but except for money.

Delicious that had been with us he would have been; a vogue for conglomerates in the sale of products, because they suit investors' interests. Plus ca change. Donald J.

To get a low valuation, that you can't easily get a good open-source projects now that VCs may begin to conserve board seats for shorter periods. Bureaucrats manage to think of it, by Courant and Robbins; Geometry and the leading scholars of that. The existence of people like numbers.

It's like the application of math to real problems, and on the aspect they see of piracy is simply what they said. PR firm admittedly the best case. Miyazaki, Ichisada Conrad Schirokauer trans. When I talk about humans being meant or designed to live a certain threshold.

We have no trouble getting hired by these companies substitute progress for revenue growth with retained earnings was one firm that wanted to have them soon. Perhaps it would not be true that being part of your identity. The philosophers whose works they cover would be investors who say no to science as well.

By all means crack down on these. Acquisitions fall into in the former.

Particularly since many causes of the fake.

On the other meanings. Many of these titles vary too much to suggest that we don't have to talk to corp dev guys should be working to help SCO sue them.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS - SPRING 2020

It’s been a while since I’ve had to look at a blank Microsoft Word document and write these words but: welcome to REVIEWING THE CHARTS! 

This may or may not be a pretty long episode but this is also the start of a new edition of the show in which the format is changed pretty immensely. After a couple years of this chart show, I’m going to be honest: I got bored of doing it every week, so I simply stopped doing it. I reviewed songs in secret, wrote notes of future potential episodes, but never released anything. However, recently, I’ve decided that perhaps it would be smarter to not cancel the show but adopt a new format. Basically, I will not do an episode every week, rather every month, where I review each new arrival on the UK Top 40 during that month, without covering any of the nonsense that happened during that month outside of the new arrivals. I’ve actually been wanting to change the format to this for a while but after doing the BRITs special I’ve decided that this actually might be a more palatable workload. Hopefully this’ll work and I can get back into this chart thing and start enjoying looking out for new music again but we’ll see; potentially if I enjoy this I can get back to the weekly stuff. So, let’s start off the new format with a bunch of garbage from March, April AND May that I didn’t review, in chronological order, rounding up everything that I missed in these interim weeks. So, let’s start:

MARCH NE W ARRIVALS: 01/03

#40 – “Moral of the Story” – Ashe

Produced by FINNEAS and Noah Conrad

This is Ashe, a female singer-songwriter from California who got big on TikTok. This song, from the soundtrack of Netflix comedy To All the Boys (Haven’t watched it), is produced by FINNEAS, as he branches out from just producing for his sister Billie. Yup, that’s my pre-amble. The song is pretty cute, and I admit I quite like Ashe’s sing-songy, musical theatre style of singing, which is actually more of a spoken style in the verses. FINNNEAS’ production isn’t too bad, either, with an infectious and jaunty piano melody as well as some cool, explosive choir samples during the post-chorus that sound pretty cool. Admittedly, I’m not listening to this with my headphones (Not currently working because of course they’re not), so I can’t really tell about the mixing (which is something FINNEAS has gotten wrong a worrying number of times). For Ashe’s first UK Top 40 hit and first hit in general, it’s not a bad song at all. I’m not going to save it or praise it to high heavens, but for what it’s worth, I can’t complain. Decent track.

#39 – “City of Angels” - 24kGoldn

Produced by Neek and Omer Fedi

Speaking of people who got big off of TikTok and have their first UK Top 40 hit, here is 24kGoldn, a rapper-singer also from California. You probably know him from his breakout single, “Valentino”, but this other single from his debut EP, Dropped Outta College (Classy), seems to be the bigger hit worldwide. I hate “Valentino”, for the record, and I think it’s practically unlistenable garbage, so I don’t expect to like this. Also, fun fact: This trap-rap song about sex and drugs does not have any profanity. Kids these days with their clean, acceptable music. To be fair, I don’t actually hate this, mostly because of that catchy guitar line used as the main backing for what isn’t actually a trap-rap beat and instead kind of a power-pop type drum beat, with this Juice WRLD rip-off vocally riffing over it in a way that’s just disrespectful to the producers. Jokes aside, this is a good song, with a pretty catchy chorus, though admittedly an underdeveloped structure, with only one verse and two choruses. It’s kind of edgy nonsense but I could see an emo-pop band doing this justice, so I can appreciate it, actually; I do like the rough-around-the-edges vocal style in this context a lot more than “Valentino”. Also, this kid got a Fetty Wap feature on his EP. I’m jealous.

#34 – “Mice” – Aitch

Produced by LiTek and WhYJay

Ah, this guy, back again for more whitebread British trap, hey? Well, I guess I’ll give him another chance; the guy keeps coming back on the chart so there’s got to be some appeal to him, right? Well, nah, not really. This beat is kind of funky but it’s just his other big hit’s beat with less instruments anyway. It’s got the flute, it’s got the crow, it’s got this white dude talking over it. If you make a song that’s just one verse and has a standard beat, you should know that people expect BARS – if the focus is on Aitch, and not the minimalist beat, which didn’t need two producers, or the catchy club chorus and hook, then we need impressive flow or lyricism. You know, wordplay, cool punchlines, something. Aitch doesn’t even have bars. How are you going to make a song about bars when you don’t have bars? I mean, the flow does get impressive by the end and I’m astounded by how he just keeps going here, especially when he’s got nothing interesting to say, and he does ride the beat fine, until he literally gives up at the end. Like, come on, this is a lead single, not a SoundCloud loosie one-off. At least try.

#33 – “Dior” – Pop Smoke (featuring Gunna)

Produced by 808Melo

When this charted, the late Pop Smoke would have recently passed away as result of a shooting and home invasion. I was never a fan of Pop Smoke, and I won’t pretend to be like most of the people listening to his songs after his death. I can say that anyone who is murdered by cowardly thugs at age 20 deserves at least a respectful message and best wishes to his mourning family and close friends. May he rest in peace. You hear that, record labels? In peace. Don’t milk this guy’s unfinished material like you did X. At least be respectful with it like they did with Peep (mostly) and Mac. My feelings on the song are irrelevant at this point, and I feel like bringing them up would be almost disrespectful, but it is my obligation to say that I don’t like the song, his uninteresting cadence, his somewhat homophobic lyrics or the shitty Gunna guest verse on the remix. The beat admittedly does kind of bang but otherwise, I’m just not a fan; the rest of his posthumous album is actually quite a bit better. I personally really like “Snitching” and “Make it Rain”. Regardless, rest in peace, Pop Smoke, and I’ll stop the review here.

#21 – “On” – BTS (featuring Sia)

Produced by Pdogg and Mick Schultz

Oh, yeah, these Korean boys are back... kind of. I mean, they’re always gunning for a “comeback” but it does feel arbitrary to have comebacks every four months. I like BTS for the most part, and their songs do tend to grow on me a lot as time goes on. “Boy with Luv” is such a grower, as are “Fake Love” and “Make it Right”. However, I didn’t like the lead-off single from Map of the Soul: 7 (“Black Swan”) to be interested enough in this new album, so I haven’t listened to it and probably never will; I never actually listened to the last album. I was hoping that this new single wouldn’t fall into the trap a lot of K-pop does, and, oops, it does. There’s a chaotic structure that mixes tribal drumming intros with spacey trap drums, awkwardly Auto-Tuned bilingual singing and rapping from all of the boys, none of which sound particularly good here, not even in the chorus, which has a lot less groove than the other singles I like from them, with a pretty stiff, electronic drum beat. The flow isn’t particularly impressive and I don’t really buy in to the cute aesthetic of the music, so overall, this is just ear fluff that serves little purpose to me other than wasting my time. The Sia remix isn’t any better, either. Congratulations on the top five hit in the US, though, boys. I hope the record label isn’t treating you that bad, although they probably are, knowing the situation with some other overworked bands there. I won’t make any baseless assumptions, though. In terms of K-pop, I prefer YUMDDA. Check him out, I like “Flight” especially.

#20 – “After Hours” – the Weeknd

Produced by the Weeknd, DaHeala and Illangelo

By this time, the Weeknd has released his album, obviously, but at this time, it was a promotional single that came out of nowhere and surprised everyone with how non-single it was. Despite me loving the two lead singles, I didn’t listen to the album for whatever reason (I should probably get on that, actually, since it’s the Weeknd I’m probably missing some good stuff), so let’s hope the title track boasting a six-minute runtime and no discernible chorus gives me a good taste for the album. I mean, the production here is pretty sweet, for the most part, and I like the urgency given by the alarming synths in the intro, coupled with a pretty tight falsetto and grand vocal performance from the Weeknd as always (Can I call him Abel?). I can’t help but feel the song does drag on a bit, though, and I hope that’s not just my attention span but this does get a bit tedious, especially due to very little interesting development towards the climax in the intro, which means the drop feels abrupt and thus not satisfactory in the least, but it’s a pretty great beat admittedly. Actually, the song reminds me of one of my favourite songs of all time, “Instant Crush” by Daft Punk and Julian Casablancas, which is a similarly eerie robotic funk song with vocoder-mangled falsetto vocals. Whilst that song is constantly emotive and full of great hooks from each and every inch of the music, vocals and lyrics, this one feels completely aimless, and after four and a half minutes, it just meanders for a little bit, proving itself as a bit of a waste of time, frankly, even if the lyrics are very well-written albeit vague and perhaps not necessarily too profound or interesting, especially since this is building up a story presented throughout the album. I appreciate this for what it is, but it could have been a LOT better.

Conclusion

Best of the Week probably goes to “City of Angels” by 24kGoldn, which isn’t what I expected but it’s the only song I actually saved from this bunch. “After Hours” by the Weeknd gets the Honourable Mention, but just barely. Worst of the Week would be a bit of a dick move if it went to anyone else but Aitch for “Mice”, and there isn’t really anything worth a Dishonourable Mention here. Let’s move on.

NEW ARRIVALS: 08/03 #40 – “Blueberry Faygo” – Lil Mosey

Produced by Callan

Listen, I really didn’t want to like this stupid TikTok dance song that samples a cheesy 80s R&B track by Johnny Gill, but, man, this is just inescapably catchy. Lil Mosey is a pretty pathetic rapper on his own, so I didn’t expect him to hold himself in any capacity here, but he flows and rides the beat well enough, which is surprising considering his hot garbage fire of an XXL cypher verse. The real standout here for Lil Mosey’s first UK Top 40 hit is the beat from Callan. You just can’t resist the soulful sample and jovial vocal samples here, it’s such an addictive, fun track, and that’s without Li Mosey rapping a repetitive but infectious chorus that can’t get out of my head at all. Yes, he doesn’t talk about anything interesting here, at all, and he bites TAY-K of all people in the first verse, but the verses are short and they immediately transition back to that sweet, sweet chorus. I feel like this is the stuff Lil Yachty should still be making right now, but alas, he’s being Oprah, I think. Yeah, I love this type of cloud rap that just oozes sunshine and beachfronts. It’s not a great rap song and it’s not even a great song, but it’s impossible to resist that beat, and it’s not like this kid from Seattle who may or may not be able to say the N-word is ruining that for me.

#35 – “Death Bed” – Powfu featuring beabadoobee

Produced by Otterpop

Or, as it now wants me to call it, “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)”. It’s not often a song just straight-up renames itself but hey, it’s the streaming era. Anything can happen. Speaking of unpredictability, this is the first UK Top 40 hit single for both half-Filipino BRIT Award nominee beabadoobee as well as sadboi Canadian rapper Powfu, and the first UK Top 40 hit single for the genre of lo-fi hip hop beats to relax and study to. You love to see it: lo-fi hip hop in the charts. Honestly, this genre gets way too much slack and there are releases I adore from people like Jinsang and GentleBeatz, and if you look at it in a broader sense, you can look at stuff like MIKE, Navy Blue or the newer Earl Sweatshirt stuff, and I eat that stuff up now, so what I’m saying is: you can’t really go wrong with lo-fi hip hop... until you do. This song sucks. Powfu’s flow is cringeworthy at best, and the pitched-up beabadoobee sample runs through the whole song, becoming pretty irritating by the end of the song in all honesty, despite the original song being pretty sweet, in my opinion. This got big on TikTok, and listen: Powfu can’t sing and he can barely rap (This dude’s flow sounds like it came from Looperman.com), but I won’t complain about people digging the undeservedly maligned genre of lo-fi hip hop in 2020, so I’ll accept Powfu and I’ll accept Will Smith’s quarantine beats, if it makes people accept and appreciate the genre just a bit more.

#28 – “Boyfriend” – Mabel

Produced by Steve Mac

Mabel will not bring anything interesting to the Tabel. I can almost guarantee it. I don’t mind Mabel at all, I mean, Neneh Cherry’s daughter has got to have some talent, right, but relistening to her discography, I noticed it is plagued by bland and uninteresting R&B production. I love her voice and some of the songs are still pretty fun, especially “Don’t Call Me Up”, but overall, I find myself disappointed and the potential wasted. This song is actually pretty okay, to be fair, as most of her songs are, but mostly due to an interesting sample choice – “Remember Me” by house DJ Lex Blackmore, or Blue Boy. “Remember Me” was a massive hit for him, and in reality, the sample here is actually a sample of a sample (from “Woman of the Ghetto” by Marlena Shaw), but my favourite song of his is “Sandman”, which is an infectious and fantastic song that I think is quite underrated, despite performing somewhat well on the charts at the time. You should check it out, it’s amazing. This song, on the other hand, has no interesting characteristics other than said sample. Thanks, Mabel, very cool. Let’s move on to something interesting.

#5 – “Stupid Love” – Lady Gaga

Produced by Tchami and BloodPop

I mean, I hope this is interesting. It’s the big return for Lady Gaga onto the pop scene after A Star is Born practically saved her career, and with BloodPop behind the boards, it’s got to be at least interesting, right? Right? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. I actually like the sound of the chugging 80s synths here that remind me of the 2010s club boom, which of course was Lady Gaga’s heyday, and while I didn’t exactly expect lyrical depth from that era of Gaga, I expected some of the development in her music since to shine through here and it just hasn’t, making this song feel really shallow and empty, and dare I say, boring. Gaga’s vocals here are as good as ever, and in fact, quite unique in the pre-chorus, and I can definitely say the whole song is just one train of constant hooks playing on top of each other, but the transitions are shoddy and abrupt, the vocaloid drop is typical and whilst it sounds great and is well-implemented, strips the song of the character it could otherwise have, especially coming from one of the most interesting and engaging pop singers of the last decade. I can see why this underperformed, as this song is like a Simpsons rerun with all of the funny jokes cut out. Basically, it’s disappointing.

Conclusion

I don’t think there can be an Honourable or Dishonourable Mention here, but Best and Worst of the Week fall out pretty nicely. Best of the Week goes to, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, Lil Mosey for “Blueberry Faygo”, whilst Worst of the Week goes to “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” by Powfu and beabadoobee, for just being the epitome of dullness. Again, let’s move on to something different.

NEW ARRIVALS: 15/03 ALBUM BOMB: Eternal Atake – Lil Uzi Vert

Hey, an album I actually listened to – and liked! Lil Uzi Vert has always been hit or miss with me and whilst Eternal Atake is more of the same in that regard, its highest highs are incredible, especially in the middle third of the album, but overall, despite some filler and straight-up bad tracks sprinkled throughout, Uzi’s sophomore effort is very enjoyable, slightly more so than its pointless deluxe reissue (although I come back to “Bean (Kobe)” with Chief Keef a lot more than I’d like to admit). Now that I’ve praised the album, let’s talk about one of its worst songs, because, well, that’s how chart works.

#37 – “P2”

Produced by TM88

Should this really count as a new song? I mean, it’s a glorified “XO TOUR Llif3” remix, with the same producer, practically the same chorus and definitely the same premise, and whilst I didn’t like the original, I understand its purpose, story and appeal. Here, despite my respect of the continuation of the song’s narrative, I question the existence of the song. Did the original need a continuation? Not at all. Does this cheapen the original song’s impact, legacy and influence? I mean, not directly, but instead of being able to appreciate the original in the context of one-off hit single by charismatic emo-rapper, I know have to comprehend it as the disappointing sequel to a film that was never all that great in the first place. I’m not a film buff so I can’t think of an analogy that’ll work for that exactly, but you know how there was that old episode of SpongeBob with Bubble Buddy that was fun but overall pretty forgettable? Yeah, they tried to bring him back in season eight but the new episode was just bland and didn’t even promise what a sequel should promise, whilst also being pretty pointless as the original’s cliffhanger worked fine and added to the episode, as did the overall mystery of the Bubble Buddy character that had been dissolved with the creation of a new episode? Yeah, that’s my analogy, don’t care. Next song.

#36 – “Baby Pluto”

Produced by Cousin Vinny, Bugz Ronin, Brandon Finessin and Ike Beatz

Now THIS is the Uzi I like. Much like “Free Uzi”, which probably should have been on the album, this is Uzi spitting rapidly with a slippery flow that at times creeps into off-beat territory but isn’t noticeable because his energy level is astounding and rubs off on the listener. Lil Uzi’s charisma and tone is determined yet loose, and he switches from flow to flow and from topic to topic swiftly and without a care in the world. It helps that the beat from the Working on Dying collective is freaking incredible (Although not the best beat on the album), with sweet glistening piano loops and sci-fi sound effects dropped in for some reason or other. The beat is also genius in how it cuts off exactly where you’d expect it to drop, teasing you every time that Lil Uzi’s flow reaches the point where the beat should logically drop, until it finally does and it is so satisfying, especially when Uzi gets in his lower register and actually sounds intimidating. The term “Baby Pluto”, whilst being a nickname Uzi uses, isn’t even mentioned in the chorus, but there’s an equally iconic line here, “I turned to an addict, I bought me a Patek”, which is just poetry. I don’t know exactly why he’s going to war, either, but hey, it sounds cool, right? “I bought a G-wagon, that shit was the BRABUS”? I have no clue what the hell that means, but it sounds awesome. He’s so casual in how he goes from verse to verse and from flow to flow, it sounds effortless. Lyrically, it’s all over the place (But generally correlates to luxury) – his neck is “on squeegee”, he mentions Ouija boards because of course he does, he seemingly doesn’t understand the concept of blindness (Seriously, Uzi, Stevie Wonder couldn’t see THEM, not the other way around). In the second verse, he brags about being a pescatarian (In a pretty clever way) and moves states for again, seemingly no reason. And, of course, in the third verse, he says he is so sex-deprived that he’d even do it with your girlfriend in a Honda Accord. Sure, there are some filler lines (I don’t think any “icy wrist” pun can beat Future’s ridiculously blunt “I just put my whole damn arm in the fridge”), but they go by so quickly and so breezily you don’t notice them. This is a great song, and an incredible introduction to the album as a whole.

NE W ARRIVALS #39 – “Supalonely” – BENEE and Gus Dapperton

Produced by Josh Fountain and Gus Dapperton

A song by zoomers for zoomers which got big on TikTok. It’ll make sense in the context of this depressing pandemic, in fact all pop music seems like it’s having suicidal thoughts right now. I’ve heard of Gus Dapperton before; he was on the 13 Reasons Why soundtrack with a vaguely 80s-sounding indie pop song that to be fair, I actually really liked! In fact, listening to it now, I think “Of Lacking Spectacle” should have actually been the big hit, but alas, we have “Supalonely” by BENEE, who I’ve never heard before. She’s from New Zealand but her biggest listening audience is Jakarta, Indonesia, for whatever reason, and I guess I should get onto the song... wow, this sure is a song. It’s like the groovy funk and disco pop without much groove or even funk – this song feels really staccato, especially due to that droning chorus, intentionally of course but accentuated by more sincere, Auto-Tuned inflections and ad-libs that add emotion and character that take this song from being “understandably boring and annoying due to its subject matter and hence better in that it reflects those emotions effectively” to being “wasted potential and perhaps just a failure at making a pop song”. I like to use the word “janky”, but so far, most of these songs have been too competent for my liking. Oh, and Gus Dapperton sucks here too. Have fun with your guitar lick you found on FL Studio, guys, but I’m not a fan.

#26 – “Self-Obsessed” – Da Beatfreakz featuring Krept & Konan, D-Block Europe and Deno

Produced by Da Beatfreakz

If you’re not British, you will statistically have no idea who these people are. If you’re British, you will statistically have no idea who most of these people are. Da Beatfreakz produce a lot of British trap and Afroswing hits, Krept & Konan are one of the biggest grime duos of all time, Deno was a guy who was vaguely funny on a song once so we kept him around, and D-Block Europe... well, they’re D-Block Europe. Just as I was talking about songs being too competent, we review this song, which will likely be a trainwreck. Firstly, let’s get it out of the way: what dumb shit does Young Adz say in this song? Well, it’s not initially clear who’s self-obsessed but he’s talking about a woman here, because we’ve got to love that sweet, sweet misogyny, which is even blunter and more disgusting in British rap for whatever reason. You know that if you already ate it in the Porsche, you’re not legally obliged to give her some more, right? You can just give who is assumingly  a prostitute a wad of cash and drive off, as you are big famous rapper man. In the chorus, he also says he sells crack but only smokes marijuana, which is reassuring I suppose, and that he plays chess on his Louis Vuitton bag because he is bored. Okay, he’s trying to say that he’s so rich he could deface designer fashion but playing chess isn’t exactly a messy activity, and I highly doubt this man knows how to strategically play it. Also, who are you playing chess with? The prostitute, or the other member of D-Block Europe, Dirtbike LB? Speaking of, his verse depicts the time where he was thinking about the... anatomy of the woman his best friend was... interacting with when he crashed that Porsche. Also, if this woman is so self-obsessed, why are you not letting her get a Louis bag before she sucks you off? I know it’s just flexing and rapper talk, but it’s painfully not self-aware. He also has an odd moment of feeling love for the woman but immediately retracts it after a one-line topic shift, because of course he does.

Girl, I hate it when that love’s feeling strange / Paid cash for the car, that’s the Range / If I ever said, “I love you”, then I think I’ve gone insane

Wait, how many cars do you have? Oh, and Young Adz comes in immediately afterwards.

Long story short, made a boy do the running man

Oh, and he’s actually kind of funny on purpose for once.

Three litres of blood, swapped it for a couple grand

Wait, wh—

Should have saw her face when I crushed a Xan

Huh?

Every bitch want to f*** a man

Somebody’s got to tell this dude about lesbians before it’s too late. This is all, in typical D-Block fashion, rapped awkwardly and stiffly with 17 layers of malfunctioning Auto-Tune and reverb coating the two until they’re indistinguishable over a beat that... admittedly, this one’s pretty good, but I swear it’s a fluke. Oh, and if you hadn’t had enough of Young Adz, his ad-libs are all over Konan and Deno’s verses. No-one else says anything interesting, by the way.

Said she want to F a drug dealer, but, baby, I wasn’t raised in the trap

Bro, then why are you on this song? Deno’s whole verse seemingly revolves around the fact he has never sold drugs and doesn’t use swear words. Yeah, this is tough, but exactly what I expected.

#3 – “Rain” – Aitch, AJ Tracey and Tay Keith

Produced by Tay Keith

Tay Keith’s beats are all the same. Aitch’s bars are all the same. It’s a perfect combination. At least AJ Tracey could be amusing here, and admittedly he is, with a catchy chorus and a pretty great verse, where not only does his flow stand out as particularly interesting but he throws a lot of funny pop culture references in there too, like Kenan Thompson, Bugs Bunny and the ridiculous “gyal on curry, neck McFlurry”, which he accentuates with a “bling-baow”? The first line is actually a reference to an obscure term for people from Manchester coined by Liam Gallagher, and Aitch is from Manchester, so, you know, it’s those nice little additional touches that count, and while AJ’s verse isn’t exactly flooded with wordplay, Aitch, come on, man, step your game up. Your flow and rhyme scheme is excellent but you have absolutely nothing to say. There’s a vague Blueface reference, I think, but that’s all. Ultimately, the song isn’t bad at all, and the beat is pretty menacing and slaps pretty hard, with both rappers riding it effectively, especially Aitch’s straightforward, intimidating triplet flow in the pre-chorus and AJ’s more rapid, free-flowing cadence, and, hell, I have a soft spot for that dumb eagle caw sound... but I mean, it’s just more of the same, and I can’t think of a way to restructure it that makes sense; without the chorus it’s too short and directionless, without Aitch it’s too staccato, and without AJ Tracey, it’s outright garbage, so, yeah, mixed feelings but I can listen to this with no issue. Oh, yeah, and this is Tay Keith’s first UK top 40 hit as a credited artist.

Conclusion

Best of the Week definitely goes to “Baby Pluto” by Lil Uzi Vert, with an Honourable Mention to Aitch, AJ Tracey and Tay Keith for “Rain” because, well, it’s somewhat entertaining, I guess. Worst of the Week goes to “Self-Obsessed” by whoever the hell with a Dishonourable Mention to “Supalonely” by BENEE and Gus Dapperton for existing simply without purpose. Let’s move onto something different.

NEW ARRIVALS: 22/03 #37 – “Papi Chulo” – Octavian and Skepta

Produced by Go Grizzly, YoungKio and BricksDaMane

Or something exactly the bloody same. This is Octavian’s first UK Top 40 hit. Welcome to the chart. As you can tell by the Skepta, this is a British rap song that might have some more quality to it than usual. So, it’s produced by the “Old Town Road” producer, YoungKio, and it’s got a Latin-flavoured guitar, as well as stupid falsetto skrrt ad-libs instead of a chorus, gross sex talk that is just unpleasant to listen to, misogyny for days, and Octavian sounding like Sean Paul on painkillers. Yeah, just absolutely disposable, exhaustingly dull garbage which I don’t have much to say about. Maybe doing this in bulk is getting to me.

#35 – “The Take” – Tory Lanez featuring C**** B****

Produced by Sergio R., Play Picasso, Papi Yerr, Tory Lanez, Alo905 and Rajah

There was a Drake interview where he said he squashed his beef with CB because it was “silly” and “girl stuff”... you know, like when he gruesomely and infamously assaulted Rihanna. Silly girl stuff. Yeah, I’m glad you and Ray William Johnson are on the same page, Drake – I hope at least someone gets that reference. I am not listening to CB, I am not helping CB, I am not funding his bail next time he kicks a woman in the face for not liking his new five-hour epic about having sex with your girlfriend. Tory Lanez, please don’t play as an enabler or apologist for this man anymore. I’ve heard your album, you know how to rap, don’t give any playtime to this sicko who barely knows how to function as a non-violent, law-abiding citizen. Thanks, Tory.

Edit: Fuck, nevermind. Both of these guys make me sick.

#34 – “Boss Bitch” – Doja Cat

Produced by Sky Adams and Imad Royal

Finally, someone talented this week. I don’t know why this song actually peaked and debuted this high though – I don’t know if the film it was attached to, DC’s Birds of Prey, did particularly well here in the UK, but I know the nation likes the Harley Quinn character enough for E4 to start airing the mediocre animated series to much appraisal, so I’d assume the song got popular off of that, maybe? Otherwise, Doja Cat’s a pretty big star now so it’s a good choice for the soundtrack, especially since she does give off the same vibe as a lot of the film. Yes, I did watch the movie, and it was, as most movies I have watched, vaguely tolerable. This song was in it, during a scene that I remember being colourful. What insight. Anyway, the main focus here is the song itself, and yeah, it’s pretty awesome. Sure, you can rip on how derivative of Nicki Minaj it is, and she does sound exactly like her here sometimes, especially with the Barbie references, but you can’t deny that infectious, simplistic mantra of a chorus, and the pure charisma diffusing out of the sassy lyrics and nasal, aggressive vocals from Doja, often resorting to yelling, as well as that noisy house-pop beat with chimes and screaming in the background. It is just a beautifully chaotic song, especially with the off-beat pitch-shifted vocal loops in the final chorus; hell, it doesn’t really work well as a pop song because it’s just so bloody all over the place, and, yeah, I can dig this. It’s pretty much a complete mess, but it takes you along for a ride with it, so I’ll endorse it.

#32 – “No Judgement” – Niall Horan

Produced by Tobias Jesso Jr. and Julian Bunetta

Before I write this section, I am going to take a break because I have written entries for a bunch of songs in the span of an hour and a half if that, including one or two that were very long, hence I am starting to grow tired of the chart music and also sound very cynical. I didn’t want to sound too cynical when talking about a pop song like this, which is frankly just existent and relatively inoffensive, even if its funky tropical guitar beat does feel dated and Niall Horan’s vocal presence is so small compared to “Nice to Meet You”, which is a really good song, and—Goddamn it, I’m reviewing the song anyway. Okay, well, let me just conclude this and then I’ll take a rest.

Conclusion

No Mentions of any sort here because there’s one garbage song, one awesome song, one song I cannot mathematically have an opinion on, and one which I do not want to listen to due to being morally righteous or something like that. So, yeah, obviously Best of the Week is Doja Cat’s “Boss Bitch” and Worst of the Week is “Papi Chulo” by Octavian and Skepta. See, this different format works out well because this would have been a short-ass episode otherwise. I’m barely awake now and actively feel myself nodding off every few sentences – sorry for any errors due to this but I can’t be bothered to fix them – so I’ll see you when I’ve rested, I hope.

NEW ARRIVALS: 29/03 #39 – “War” – Mastermind and Bandokay

Produced by LiTek

Just so you know, I had to check the Spotify credits for this song because there is seemingly no Genius lyrics page with all the details and such (as of my writing this). It exists, for sure, but it just lists the artists, the title and displays a “no lyrics available” message, with the cryptic song bio of “Mastermind X #OFB Bandokay”. I mean, sure. Well, I have no idea who these guys are, but their song kind of bangs. Well, at least the beat does, produced by LiTek, who I have also never heard of. That fluctuating flute paired with the pretty intense, exploding trap patterns make for a rap song that actually feels like it’s fulfilling the purpose trap should. I say that without taking into consideration that both of these guys can’t rap for squat and that most of the time, their high-pitched nasal Auto-Tuned whining – or “crooning”, if I’m being kind – is pretty aggravating and pretty derivative of their American contemporaries. British hip hop has never been particularly unique but with the pretty great drill beat here I expected at least some attempt to reflect its intensity in the vocals, but alas, this is just okay, if that.

Oh, apparently Bandokay was the son of the late Mark Duggan, who was killed by police, leading to the 2011 England riots. The more you know.

#36 – “Sunday Best” – Surfaces

Produced by Forrest and Colin Padalecki

I listened to this once without writing anything about it, and honestly, yeah, that’s enough. I should, hypothetically, love this song. Surfaces are two dudes with pretty alt-rock voices who decided to make a pretty, cute pink indie-pop song with a pretty nice trap skitter and simple piano chords, as well as a lot of robotic stuttering. This sounds like it should be some great, catchy stuff, but I actually found this pretty infectious in a different way, which may sound insensitive considering the current state of the world, but I don’t care, this song is garbage. These guys can’t sing, and they don’t want to attempt to hide that fact, instead obnoxiously sharing that with the world through their egregiously optimistic lyrics that seem pretty reassuring in these times, if you’re into shallow, vague rhymes and repetitive fluff that substitutes any kind of genuine, inspiring message or motive. I would say I’m disappointed, but I’m not entirely sure how low my expectations were in the first place.

#34 – “Flowers” – Nathan Dawe featuring Jaykae

Produced by Nathan Dawe

I assumed this would be another trap or grime song but actually this seems to be a DJ once again using uncredited female vocals for his electro house tune fused with dance-pop and a bit of UK garage. I am pretty intrigued by Jaykae’s feature though since he’s a rapper. The song focuses on the UK garage sample used, which is “Flowers” by Sweet Female Attitude and Cutfather, which was a pretty massive song for the genre in the year 2000 that seems to be pretty adored amongst British musicians. It’s been covered by Bastille, remixed by AJ Tracey and finally sampled by Nathan Dawe and Jaykae. I recognise the song – I don’t particularly like it but I respect in how it is a pioneer of the Vocaloid drop that became big in electropop, house and related genres like future and bubblegum bass decades afterwards. Nowadays, despite some pretty and surprisingly modern production at times – it definitely sounds like some bubblegum bass stuff from years later – it’s a pretty sloppy song, thanks to some unneeded complexity in the drop, and ends up sounding clunky as all hell. This new song uses the stems of the vocals – or perhaps a re-recording from the group themselves, or at least a pretty damn good impression – to create a pretty standard house tune that is nothing to write home about but is joyful enough and pretty club-ready. I like the vocodered “Whoa, baby” in the pre-chorus, but overall it just seems like a lazy flip of the original, especially since the drop is basically unchanged. Jaykae’s verse attempts to recreate the hype of a fun verse the DJ or a classic grime MC would add at a club and I do appreciate the new nostalgia for this type of music, but his verse is also kind of garbage. Also, despite his lyrics, this song is decidedly not the type of music you would sip lean to, but, sure, Jaykae, whatever you’re into.

#17 – “In Your Eyes” – the Weeknd

Produced by Max Martin, Oscar Holter and the Weeknd

It’s the Weeknd’s 22nd UK Top 40 hit: the double A-side with “Heartless” was released oddly, with “Blinding Lights” here being released days after and about a week after, was finally accompanied by a music video that’s really just an advertisement for Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Neither single got to experience their best possible tracking week in full, but nonetheless, both are still pretty high because it’s the Weeknd, and I’m actually somewhat excited for this. I’ve heard that it interpolates A-ha’s cheesy 80s synthpop classic “Take on Me”, and it wouldn’t be the first rendition I’ve heard of the song in 2019. That would be Weezer’s hilarious cover on both the Jimmy Fallon show (Where they played it with kids’ toys) and their “Teal Album”. Sorry, I bring Weezer up too much. Is the song good? Hell, yes. It starts with an overwhelming wave of ominous distortion before retro 80s synths quickly come in and an iconic, reverb-heavy drum pattern comes in that sounds awfully familiar – it’s probably also from “Take on Me”. The synth riff, as typical with 1980s synthpop, is hilariously grandiose and egregious, but the Weeknd kills it here as well, not letting the instrumental or even the freaking bongos playing during the verse shine over him or put him off. He blends in with the airy synth painting in the chorus, and it is gorgeous, it really is. I wish this was a tad catchier but that definitely will be a possibility for it to grow on me later on (Which hopefully it does, it’s already perfectly qualified for my best of 2020 list). The Weeknd’s vocals on the bridge are oddly powerful, and that last moment in the penultimate chorus where there is this epic beeping synth that rises until the synth riff drops once again is awesome. The pre-chorus is probably my favourite part, though, especially when the synths cut out for it to just be the Weeknd over the drums, right before the chorus kicks in. I love this so much, unexpectedly so, and I’m so glad it charted so high. I hope it survives the Christmas songs, though.

Okay, all jokes aside, this is a good song, albeit safe as all hell. I feel like I’ve heard this song a bunch of times before, not just in “Blinding Lights”, and Abel can perform, sing and even produce better than this, so I’m left with little to no original insight. I’ve grown to like the Weeknd more when he’s on his depressed trap-R&B style as well, so this is even less appealing to me now. Oh, yeah, and the Doja Cat remix is cool, in fact I might prefer her verse to the original song. She flows pretty well. Oh, and I figured I should specify the Doja Cat stuff would have been written before the whole ‘oops, she’s racist’ scandal. I don’t defend her on that really. In fact, due to a lot of this being written in bulk at different periods of time (Half of this review is from January, the other half being from both May and July), some things may be pretty dated or currently untrue.

Conclusion

The only good song here is Abel’s, so I guess Best of the Week is going to “In Your Eyes” by the Weeknd and Worst of the Week goes to Surfaces’ “Sunday Best”. Nothing else here is all that good or bad, or even worthy of a mention, so next month?

APRIL NEW ARRIVALS: 05/04 ALBUM BOMB: Insomnia – Skepta, Chip and Young Adz

No, I didn’t listen to this album either. What, you think I’d listen to an album by a guy called Young Adz? The Guardian gave it four stars because it had Skepta on it, if you’re interested. Let’s just listen to the songs and get this over with. It’s Young Adz so it’ll have some funny lyrics at least.

#32 – “Mains”

Produced by Skepta

Oh, no, I like this song. This beat, produced by Skepta, is actually pretty incredible, with a very catchy, joyful flute loop smoothly placed under a pretty hard trap beat, which sounds really cutesy, kind of like some Lil Yachty stuff. And Skepta, of course, being Skepta, pretty much kills it – in a good way, that is. His flow is impeccable and I mean, how can’t you ride a beat you produced? Young Adz is actually fine here, and I’d argue his ad-libs actually add to the experience here rather than subtract from it as usual. I’m actually starting to like this guy’s zany charm. He’s much better than Chip, who sounds rusty as hell here, with some badly-fitting Auto-Tune and an off-beat flow. The whole song is one verse between a chorus, with all three rappers sharing the verse pretty much equally. Young Adz kills his second verse in a way I never expected him to, and I love how his ad-libs are implemented into the beat and his “WHAT?! SKEET!” yells are honestly really charming. Yeah, this is pretty good, but it’s Young Adz so...

I’mma whip that crack like banana pudding again / When I step in the bando, fiends and the workers act like Vladimir Putin just came

Got a little three-two concealed in my boxers, call that fire in the mains

You know, now that this guy has improved, these ridiculous non-sequiturs start to sound more like a genuinely funny guy rather than just... an idiot. Also, this:

Come in her p****, a lava lamp

That’s just gross, man.

#18 – “Waze”

Produced by Cardo

I hope this one is good, I mean, I’ve never liked Cardo as a producer, but trap has always been dependent on the vocalists anyway, and Skepta and Adz have both never been ones to disappoint, each in their unique ways. The music video for this is rather pretentiously subtitled “the movie” for whatever reason, by the way. The song, despite the beat coming in via a fade out, which is an odd decision, is pretty okay beat-wise, albeit uninteresting. Young Adz decides to be a lot slower and whinier here so he’s pretty boring and much worse than when he goes on his speedy, rapid, ad-lib-a-plenty verses. Chip tries to be badass but ends up sounding pretty dull, although his verse about rappers claiming they’re the best when they’re the only people in the room is kind of funny, unlike Adz here, who isn’t even humorous here. Skepta is just as bad as Chip, arguably worse, with a really short verse, so, yeah, this album is looking pretty inconsistent so far, just from two tracks. The album’s actually pretty short so I might listen later.

NEW ARRIVALS #38 – “If the World Was Ending” – JP Saxe and Julia Michaels

Produced by FINNEAS

I don’t know who JP Saxe is, I assume he’s some industry playlist singer. Julia Michaels we know, I assume, and FINNEAS is, of course, the producer of Billie Eilish’s hits and her brother. However, most of the time, his other productions don’t end up being nearly as interesting, unique or really anything like his work with Billie. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe that’s a bad thing, I, however, do not care, because frankly, nothing he produces outside of his solo work and with Billie ends up being all that noteworthy. His voice is just a typical white-guy-with-an-acoustic-guitar voice, the instrumentation is minimal and generic (I swear I’ve heard that same piano sound hundreds of times before). This song has been contextualised to relate to the whole COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences but that is arguably as ridiculous as the whole 5G garbage. Speaking of garbage, this song. Music criticism, everybody.

#28 – “Savage” – Megan Thee Stallion (featuring Beyoncé)

Produced by J. White Did It

I haven’t listened to a Megan Thee Stallion project but what I’ve heard ranges from tolerable to pretty damn great. I particularly really enjoy her breakout single “Big Ole Freak” and of course, I applauded “Hot Girl Summer” with Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign on this show before. On the other hand, songs like “Captain Hook” or “Cash Shit” with DaBaby, where Meg boasts about her prowess in both the bank and bedroom over a pretty simple bass-heavy trap beat are just dull to me, regardless of how funny her wordplay is or how occasionally impressive her flows happen to be. “Captain Hook” especially, I mean, at least “Cash Shit” had the DaBaby verse, splashy percussion and sound effects and some pretty memorable bars, as well as the iconic profanity-laden chorus. I haven’t listened to the Suga EP but I did like the lead single, “B.I.T.C.H.”, with the pretty nice 2Pac sample flip. Given that and the other songs I like from her, she may be at her best when she’s rapping over a soulful, early-2000s-esque R&B beat with a helpful pattering of trap skitters. Considering this is produced by J. White Did It, whose discography consists of cheap pianos, stiff trap drum patterns and blocky 808s, he sells off to mostly female rappers like Cardi B or Iggy Koopa, I’m not expecting that, I’m expecting a boring brag-rap song that Megan sounds way too good to be on, and, yeah, pretty much. To be fair to J. White Did It, this beat is pretty nice with the smooth keys and the driving beat behind Megan who kills it with the sass here in the verses, even with an overly repetitive chorus. I especially like the opening verse where she’s the hood Mona Lisa and breaks a [gnarly dude] to pieces, although the second verse has its equal share of notable and funny lines.

I keep a knot, I keep a watch, I keep a whip, ooh / Let's play a game, Simon says I'm still that bitch, ayy

A while ago, I made SpongeBob say the second verse using artificial intelligence and that was funny. Again, music criticism, everybody. Beyoncé isn’t out of place on the remix but I still think she’s not intriguing as a rapper, and I personally prefer her trailing ad-libs in the chorus. I do appreciate Megan adding like three new verses, which is pretty unprecedented, but the two do not have chemistry and it just feels like Beyoncé singing along to the original song sometimes, although her second verse is a lot better. I still prefer the original, though, it’s just more concise. Oh, and there’s an official chopped-and-screwed remix of this, and it’s pretty good, although it doesn’t give me the same ethereal vibe DJ Screw does. The whole “Say So” vs. “Savage” thing was a bunch of malarkey, by the way. No malarkey in Bikini Bottom, please.

#12 – “Believe It” – PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna

Produced by NinetyFour, Cardiak and Bizness Boi

I still can’t tell if PARTYNEXTDOOR is a parody of alt-R&B yet. As with most of Drake’s OVO signees, he makes most sense as a backing vocalist for Drake. I like him ooohing on “Ratchet Happy Birthday”, which is a ridiculous joke song in itself, and his crooning on “Loyal” is just hilariously awful, so he’s just Drake’s friend who decided he could be funny and sing R&B songs, right? So. how did this dude get Rihanna? Okay, I’m half-joking, he’s a serious R&B singer, he just happens to be bad at it. We’ll talk more about Drake in a bit, so let’s listen to the single from PARTY’s most recent album... PARTYMOBILE. Come on, this has to be satire. Anyway, this collaboration is a perfect fit, mostly because PARTY wrote a bunch of Rihanna’s recent songs, but the song itself is a pretty soulless washed-out guitar lick under some inconsistently intricate vocal layering, a gross chipmunk vocal sample, a boring trap skitter and barely any Rihanna.

You got the power, p***y power

I can’t be the only one who thinks this guy is joking, right?

#9 – “Break Up Song” – Little Mix

Produced by Goldfingers and KAMILLE

Little Mix are a girl group practically formed by a talent show that have had more longevity than anyone would have expected but after leaving their awful label management under Simon Cowell, they’ve pretty much consistently flopped. They have these high debuts and drop off pretty quick, whilst Cowell is making cameos in sub-par Scooby-Doo movies. The whole team isn’t doing well after their decade of success, really, and one of them’s hosting a show on MTV or something? I don’t know, I keep getting adverts for it. This is not a good song. It is a vaguely EDM-fused pop song with some reverb-heavy 80s-esque drums. It sounds a bit like “Blinding Lights” production-wise. The lyrics are a remnant of the Industrial Revolution, the melodies could rebuild the Berlin wall, and the song has about as much worthwhile content as the Jewish Autonomous Oblast has Jews. That sounds a lot better than it is, but trust me, this song is just empty and void of anything. It makes his three-minute runtime feel like a Star Wars VHS, complete with grain.

#6 – “Break My Heart” – Dua Lipa

Produced by The Monsters & Strangerz and watt

Now THIS is some good nostalgic dance-pop. I loved the album, it was full of energetic, perfectly-constructed and excellently written bops, although it was slightly knocked down a few points by some filler, which sounds weird saying about a 37-minute record, so it’s a lot more or a bit less noticeable than a longer effort, if that makes sense. In this case, I was jamming out to the infectious hooks so much I didn’t even notice that two or three of the tracks were samey and boring... including the second single, for some reason. I still think “Physical” is pretty mediocre. This song, however, is one of the highlights of the album. The groove here is undeniable and Dua’s voice compliments the at-times minimalist production perfectly, especially in the intro where it’s just her and the bassline before it abruptly transitions into a dreamy pre-chorus full of strings... and then drops back into the pure funk for the chorus, full with strings and horns that despite sounding particularly 90s are effectively timeless. Is this anything that impressive production-wise? Well, no, it is a pretty simple track which is admittedly at times kind of sloppy and rushed, especially in said chorus, but the little touches like the spitter-spatter of 808s in the first few bars of the chorus before it truly drops are there, and they are pretty sweet. The bridge is my only real complaint because I don’t really see the point in its existence since it just repeats a line from the chorus in a really short string break and it seems kind of messy overall, kind of dampening an already fragile structure. Okay, well, it’s not a perfect song, and its flaws are evident towards the end of the song, but I can’t say that detracts from the experience for me overall. Oh, yeah, and I don’t usually watch the videos for these songs when or before I review them but, oh, my God, Dua Lipa in this video is so--

Conclusion

Okay, so Best of the Week is actually pretty much a toss-up here because there are two great songs with pretty obvious flaws that debuted this week, but I’ll give it to Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart”, with Honourable Mention going to “Mains” by Skepta, Chip and Young Adz. Worst of the Week is also pretty difficult to plot, but I think I’ll give it to “Believe It” by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna for just being a joke of an R&B track, with a Dishonourable Mention to “Break Up Song” by Little Mix. Moving on...

NEW ARRIVALS: 12/04 #39 – “This City” – Sam Fischer

Produced by Jimmy Robbins

Am I the only one who thinks Jimmy Robbins is a funny name? No? Okay, well, let us discuss this next song then. Who’s Sam Fischer, you ask? Well, I  had no idea either so I looked him up and found out that he was some R&B singer from Sydney, Australia, and this song is a single he released in January of 2018 that happened to get big on TikTok – so big in fact that RCA Records slid in his DMs and signed him to re-release the song. So surely there must be something in this song to make it memorable to the average TikTok viewer, and hopefully something good. Before I talk about the song though, the Genius page at the time I’m reading it and writing this is hilarious and kind of heartwarming. Seemingly, this guy communicates with his fans via poorly-written Genius annotations, and there’s specifically this one person in the comments, Genius user “Sechser”, who is lonely, or “lonley”, during quarantine, and she wishes to express this on this Genius lyrics page for whatever reason, leading to someone else asking if they were on Instagram so they could talk. That’s nice and friendly, unlike my reaction to the person who said the song was underrated when it had four Goddamn remixes, including some from Anne-Marie and Kane Brown. While I’m on Genius, I might as well explain what the song is about: being exhausted and tired by the city you live in, and becoming disillusioned by everything going on around you, but not in Sydney, Australia. No, instead, this is a diss track towards Los Angeles, California. Clearly a cultural and economic hub that happens not be the capital of one of the biggest and wealthiest English-speaking countries in the world wasn’t good enough for him, so he moved to another one that fit the exact same description. Oh, and the song? It’s kind of boring. It’s just a white guy with an oddly-mixed acoustic guitar and vocal chords as generic as the plastic finger snaps that suck the power out of this power ballad. If this were the only pop music I knew existed, I’d say pop is dead. Let’s move on.

#34 – “Thank You Baked Potato” – Matt Lucas

Produced by Kevan Frost

Okay, so at this point, the UK is on full quarantine COVID-19 lockdown mode, and I am forced to talk about this in this episode because of this unfunny racist Anthony Fantano-looking motherf—

Okay, so back story: Matt Lucas is a comedian who got big off of the comedy show Little Britain with David Walliams and as a connoisseur of the Dave television channel, I conclude that he’s not very funny. Due to the fact that he portrayed iconic British stereotypes of the 90s and 2000s, such as the disabled guy (?), homophobic homosexual (Wait--) and... okay, so I don’t know how he got so loved by the British public, but he’s a bald guy who people found funny and now he’s making charity singles, not the first time he’s done so either. He also lent his voice to Gnomeo and Juliet because, well, of course, and fittingly this is a children’s song. In the early stages of the pandemic, Europe was asking everyone to wash their hands and stuff like that, focusing on the hygiene ethics that you should follow every day to prevent spread of the virus. So he adapted this song he wrote on some comedy show a couple years ago to fit with the ongoing pandemic, and it’s going to help the NHS workers. It’s a valuable cause for a guy who is ‘very sorry’ but also ‘very willing’ to bring back the blackface from not the 1920s but the mid-2000s, and also really eager to defend Israel’s breach of international law only when Black Lives Matter starts to comment on the situation in the occupied territories. He has also been rather cryptically tweeting videos daily despite his pinned Tweet claiming he has been taking a break from the platform, seemingly to hide his gross-out jokes and gross-out politics in case anyone realises that no, this man isn’t as much of a CBeebies-friendly happy chap with a bald shiny head and enthusiasm as you could have suggested. He’s still got the bald head I suppose but that’s beside the point. The song is (vaguely) listenable despite being completely irrelevant to the cause and also completely bad because he puts on this nasal annoying voice for half of it, when he can’t sing anyway. It’s almost like he’s making a mockery of the pandemic. Regardless of the song’s contents and history, we can all agree it’s a children’s song with a runtime of barely a single minute, hence it shouldn’t be in the UK Top 40, or even the charts at all. At least the guy who made “Baby Shark” wasn’t racist. Free Palestine. Anyway: Drake.

#2 – “Toosie Slide” – Drake

Produced by OZ

You know, I didn’t like “Nonstop”. In fact, I really hated “Nonstop” – but there was at least some charm in it, intentional or not. You know, the Tay Keith beat kind of bangs for what it’s worth, and some of the lyrics are really that bad that they cycle all the way back to being really funny again. “I just took it left like I’m ambidex’”, “Yeah, I’m light-skinned but I’m still a dark [gnarly dude]”, “Bills so big, I call ‘em Williams, for real”? Only Drake could make up garbage this humiliating for both him and the listener, and kind of get away with it. Surely, he can replicate that in “Toosie Slide”, his new drab, dry trap banger with a pretty audible lack of colour, especially in this time of depressing quarantine and lockdown and... yeah, no, this song just doesn’t work in any context. It was propelled by TikTok and is effectively and by all intentions, a dance song much like “Watch Me” or “Crank That Soulja Boy”. Unlike “Crank That”, however, it is not a song you can use in a mash-up or DJ mix, it is not a song you can exploit or have fun with, or even really dance to, despite the cynical, unabashed trend-hopping on display here. Maybe that’s the point, right? I mean, in the video, he’s dancing by himself in his massive mansion where he keeps art of Chairman Mao (Relatable) with a ski mask on, so maybe this intends to reflect the current lockdown period... but I can’t even stretch that far enough, and I tend to stretch the meanings of songs a lot on this show. Sure, musically, with its ambient synths and piano loops, it works as a parallel to real-life, and I guess how easy and depressingly boring the dance is also reflects that, but the rest of the song is completely irrelevant to both the lockdown and dance.

Black leather gloves, no sequins

Oh, thanks for specifying that you have no sequins, Drake, I appreciate that, it really helps create the imagery of a dull white void or a single balloon in the wind, drifting into thin air.

It goes: Right foot up, left foot slide, left foot up, right foot slide

Alright, so that’s a pretty simple set of instructions, I mean, I could do—

Basically, I’m saying, “Either way, we ‘bout to slide”, ayy

So the last instruction was not an instruction but just a recommendation? I just have to slide and that counts as a Toosie Slide?

Can’t let this one slide

So you are prohibiting any form of sliding. Got it.

Don’t you want to dance with me? No? I could dance like Michael Jack... son / I could give you thug pass... ion / It’s a Thriller in the trap... where we from

Okay, first of all, you cannot dance like Michael Jackson, secondly other than “Smooth Criminal” and I guess, “Bad”, he had very little thug passion. Thirdly, this is just lazy and Goddamn unbearably so. He mumbles to himself in a single, droning Auto-Tuned vocal layer, with little to no dynamics in the vocal at all, and clearly an obscene lack of effort that is just despicably abusive of the platform Drake has. He built his career through connections and a universal, likeable charisma, and he is doing a solo song where he shows absolutely no unique charisma at all. After not long ago reviewing “Baby Pluto”, where Lil Uzi masterfully creates a burst of character through rapping about being vapid, materialistic, and having as little character as possible, this is just shockingly bad, honestly. How are you going to make a simple, fun dance for children sound this grading and colourless? It’s almost impressive, honestly, which makes a nice contrast for the non-existent but nonetheless pathetic bars on this track. “It’s a Thriller in the trap where we from”? Bro, he said the Michael Jackson album and he just compared himself to Michael Jackson! This guy’s a genius? Oh, and he said this trap house he most likely did not grow up in or participate to the extent of having any detailed memories about that would constitute a rap verse was as scary as Michael Jackson! Wow, Drake, how many millionaire kiddy-fiddlers were in your meth labs? Jesus Christ, this is just deplorable, honestly. I try not to get upset or mad at songs anymore on this show because it’s just sounds at the end of the day, but this may just be the worst song I’ve reviewed this year so far. Usually I can put up with Drake’s nonsensical garbling or misogynistic rambles but without anything to sugarcoat Drake’s questionable morality and ethics, we can just see a pure-bred Aubrey Graham doing what he does best: being an absolutely miserable man in his thirties surrounded by yes-men and drunk on star power. It doesn’t even have an insensitive and nonsensical reference to Osama bin Laden like the other big Drake singles completely lacking in structure that were released this year, “Life is Good” and “Oprah’s Bank Account”, which by the way are both pretty great songs.

I could give you satisfac... tion

That’s not even a freaking Michael Jackson song—you know what, let’s just conclude this. I’m sick of this.

Conclusion

Oh, I wonder who will be getting Worst of the Week. Yeah, it’s obviously “Toosie Slide” by Drake, and I haven’t even written the reviews for the other songs while I’m writing this one, so make of that what you will; I will be more opinionated on the rest of the songs by the next sentence.

I wish I wasn’t. Both of those songs were garbage. No Best of the Week.

NEW ARRIVALS: 19/04 #39 – “Skechers” – DripReport

Produced by Ouhboy

This is a TikTok meme in which the Indian YouTuber talks about a woman being attractive because of her light-up Skechers. That is the song. That is the joke. Let’s move on.

No, but seriously, while I don’t find the song funny I appreciate it being some kind of lighthearted fun in what seems like a dour pop scene. The trap beat here is freaking pathetic though, and don’t get me started on the Tyga remix; seriously, I’m surprised his verse didn’t make Skechers cease-and-desist Tyga for defamation. The Badshah guy on the other remix kind of kills it though. Oh, and the actual Skechers gave away like a million face masks because of this song so I guess I do respect this stupid freaking song for its... cultural impact. Yeah, shawty bad with the Skechers. It’s a movement.

#24 – “Rover” – S1mba featuring DTG (DejiTheGamer)

Produced by RELYT

S1mba is a Zimbabwean musician who spent his first nine years under Mugabe before moving to Swindon, England, where he started listening to gospel music. DTG is a YouTuber from Croydon. Naturally, their big breakthrough single is a trap-Afroswing song about cars, or specifically the women that young British men can potentially attract with said cars... and somehow it is pretty good. That chorus is undeniably infectious and S1mba is a pretty damn charismatic guy who honestly sounds pretty good singing in the pre-chorus. DTG is considerably less impressive, Auto-crooning repeated lyrics several times with very little effort put into the inflections or cadences. The pianos here are pretty solid and I particularly like the strings in the outro. Also, the build-up to the third chorus is pretty epic. There are also four remixes of this song, including big names like ZieZie, Joel Corry and Lil Tecca, accumulating about 10 people across five songs. I listened to them all and here are my opinions: On the first remix, Poundz sounds kind of awkward as an auto-crooner, ZieZie sounds pretty great – I don’t really know why his verse is bilingual but sure, why not – and Ivorian Doll, who I assume is rather fittingly from Cote d’Ivoire, sounds great rapping but her stuttered singing is less than impressive. S1mba provides a new verse here and it’s pretty mediocre. The Lil Tecca remix is pretty great actually, with Tecca riding the beat effortlessly. Maybe the song can have some popularity stateside because of this? I mean, Young T & Bugsey did it with “Don’t Rush”, which I was surprised to see. Tecca sounds great on the outro, too. Oh, and there’s an Australian remix, too, because Aussie drill is a thing, apparently. The Youngn Lipz guy wastes time, and is not really sounding very Australian unlike the thickly-accented Hooligan Hefs who provides a pretty good verse which is kind of tonally out of place, which is the same with the Hooks guy. And finally, the house remix with Joel Corry, which is censored for some reason but I imagine is getting a lot of radio play despite being a lot less interesting and joyful than the original. It’s a pretty danceable, club-ready banger but you can’t really just get a song’s isolated vocals and put it on an unrelated house beat and expect the best... okay, well maybe Imanbek can, but that’s not the point. Joel Corry just does his thing here, and his thing is pretty freaking boring. Also, I’d like to point out that this is only the remix with DTG on it, and is hence not one of the best remixes. I’d put this above the Aussie remix and the first remix with Poundz and ZieZie (which ZieZie kind of carries), but below the original and the Tecca remix, which is my personal favourite and the one I’ll be saving. I really hope this remix trend continues to be a thing because I’m getting so much more writing out of this. Also, apparently this song is about a specific Range Rover – the 2019 Land Rover Evoque. Great.

Conclusion

“Skechers” by DripReport is Worst of the Week. I know it’s harmless and ultimately just a fun time but that Tyga remix is a crime against humanity, so “Rover” by S1mba featuring DTG and eight other dudes is Best of the Week. I mean, there’s only two songs so you could probably infer this conclusion.

NEW ARRIVALS: 26/04 #39 – “Where We’re Going” – Gerry Cinnamon

Produced by ???

Yeah, neither Genius or Spotify knows who produced this. I assume it’s the artist, Gerry Cinnamon, but that’s just my best guess. He’s an acoustic guitarist from Scotland, which is a bad sign, but this is actually a pretty damn good song. It’s a new wave-ish post-punk song with a fast-paced folkish riff that reminds me of The Cure, specifically a slightly more depressive “Just Like Heaven” came into mind immediately. Cinnamon isn’t a bad vocalist but his performance here is kind of sub-par and lyrically the song suffers from la-la-la syndrome but it makes perfect sense in the profanity-laden, careless tone of the lyrics and the song itself, which relies on the oddly profound hook of “Where we’re going this shit don’t matter”. Whilst I like this song a lot, I am slightly turned off by its dreariness which would work if the song weren’t four minutes, which is perhaps a couple choruses too long, but yeah, this is pretty good for what it is. I’m surprised it’s here in the UK Top 40, but this guy has been big in Scotland for a while so I guess this is his big single. He seems like more of an album artist, anyway. I need to listen to this guy’s album, perhaps.

#29 – “Rockstar” – DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch

Produced by SethInTheKitchen

It’s funny how two songs can be so different yet so similar. At its core, both this and “Where We’re Going” are profane, carefree and reckless pop songs with acoustic guitar as a focal instrument and a pretty bleak-sounding atmosphere to it all, which is fitting with the world being bricks and all. The main difference between the songs is that DaBaby is not a Scottish punk singer, and, last time I checked, neither was Roddy RIcch, although things change pretty fast in the music industry, and Taylor Swift just released her overhyped indie folk album as I’m writing this, so who knows? It’s not even her best album. I stand by reputation being her best but I don’t think I should elaborate on that hot take until “cardigan” inevitably debuts at #1. This is the second #1 hit trap song in the US to be a duet between two rappers about being a rockstar (this one is stylised in uppercase rather than lowercase, though). DaBaby also made a song about being a “Pop Star”, which Drake and DJ Khaled did a couple weeks ago. Trap-rappers are really original, I swear. Anyway, the acoustic plucking here courtesy of SethInTheKitchen is pretty funky here, but the drums do feel pretty stiff here. I love the Auto-Tuned “Oooooooh” that I think Roddy provides; again, the second #1 this guy has had with a vocal gimmick. DaBaby flows impressively in his first verse, where he recounts when he killed a man in front of his daughter and that he’d do it again. As you do. Roddy isn’t particularly interesting here but his Young Thug impression hasn’t worn off on me yet, so, yeah, pretty okay, decent song. Not many lyrics to analyse here, either.

Brand new Lamborghini, f*** a cop car / With a pistol on my hip like I’m a cop

This line in the chorus inspired DaBaby to release a “Black Lives Matter” remix of the song, and whilst it’s not as good as the original, simply because the beat doesn’t drop or hit as hard due to the extended intro and the song’s brevity is kind of its main saving point for me, I really respect his introductory verse on the remix where he raps viciously without a beat about police brutality, even referring to personal experiences he’s had with systematic racism in the United States. Also, in both versions, the sudden and brazen “SETHINTHEKITCHEN” producer tag never fails to get a chuckle out of me. Now that we’ve listened to two pretty respectable pieces of art, how about some manufactured plastic-wrapped garbage made in a factory by television producers?

#25 – “You Taught Me What Love Is (Britain’s Got Talent Live Recording)” – Beth Porch

Produced by Matt Banks, Charlie Irwin and Paul Jones

Those are the producers of Britain’s Got Talent, if you’re wondering. Spotify doesn’t list any producer credits because of course, they don’t. This is not really a typical pop song rather it is Simon Cowell’s attempt at replicating an indie-girl songwriter with an acoustic guitar and typical indie-girl voice, and, man, I don’t like half of those artists and Porch here can sing, but come on, this is just pathetic and desperate. I remember when Cowell started the talent shows, he didn’t have to directly replicate other trends really because he was making and defining the sound of British pop music in a way. It wasn’t very good but you can remember some of his signatures that are still present in remnants of pop music on the island today, especially this song, which has the skyscraper chorus and crowd cheering at the end, but God, this is just sad. I’m glad we’ve moved past the need for singer-songwriters, boy bands and girl groups created by reality television for the sake of putting more money in old rich white guys’ pockets. If I were doing this show any earlier than 2015, I feel like it would have been plagued by this stuff. Thank God for the streaming era, I suppose.

#20 – “I’m Ready” – Sam Smith and Demi Lovato

Produced by ILYA

This is a Sam Smith song featuring guest vocals from Demi Lovato. They are both good vocalists. The production from ILYA is not very interesting. Okay, I take it back, the production here is kind of cool, because it’s half an intimidating dated trap song and half a piano-based power ballad, and neither of these guys are convincing on a deep sliding 808 or rattling hi-hats. Oh, yeah, and the trap beat sucks. Like what’s with that snare? Yeah, this is garbage. I’m not sure why I expected otherwise, to be honest. If this is motivational to you, all respect to you but to me, this is pure cremation.

#5 – “Times Like These (BBC Radio 1 Stay Home Live Lounge)” – Live Lounge Allstars

Produced by Fraser T. Smith

“Times Like These” is actually my favourite Foo Fighters song; I’ve never been a big fan of the band but they have some incredible songs that I love very dearly and “Times Like These” is one of them. I guess it’s a fitting song for the current situation but I’m not expecting the Live Lounge Allstars to bring anything other than a washed-out, dry and bland cover of this classic. Who are the Allstars? Well, BBC Radio 1 has a series called Live Lounge where artists perform covers live or something to that effect – I don’t watch/listen to it – and this song features a lot of artists from that show who are more relevant, commercially viable or connected to Foo Fighters genre-wise, including Simon Neil, Zara Larsson, Sam Fender, Rita Ora, Rag’n’Bone Man, Paloma Faith, Mabel, Hailee Steinfeld, Grace Carter, Coldplay, Celeste, Biffy Clyro, Anne-Marie, AJ Tracey (Wha—), 5 Seconds of Summer, Dermot Kennedy, Sean Paul (Because of course), YUNGBLUD, Sigrid, Royal Blood, Dua Lipa, Bastille, Ellie Goulding, Jess Glynne, and of course, the only Foo Fighters present, Dave Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins. I’m not going to pretend this song doesn’t have potential (I love Royal Blood and Dua Lipa, hell, a cover of this song with just those guys – or even Bastille – could work pretty damn well) but this is over-flooded with completely random artists, other than a couple rock bands picked out so they could replicate some sense of vague guitarism, whatever that means. Anyway, let’s remind ourselves why “Times Like These” works in the first place: it’s a lighthearted adult alternative song with a real message to learn from mistakes and to always think about the decisions you make before you hurt feelings or you feel guilty. It’s got a maddeningly infectious chorus, an iconic guitar riff and a so bad it’s good music video. It’s what the Foo Fighters are good at making, but it’s warmer and perhaps more intimate than usual, being based on actual events and internal drama within the band. It’s almost a diss track Dave Grohl wrote to himself, but in the most jovial tone possible with metaphors that are just odd and creative enough to be memorable to the listener. In the song, he beats himself up for being indecisive, ignorant and confused, before reassuring us and himself that he will learn from these lessons and become a better person, even if he has to drill the mantra into our heads. It’s just a great song... and it doesn’t really work in the context of this pandemic. Sure, the whole vague idea of becoming a better person in the new normal following lockdown, and how the lockdown will be troubling for the mental health of the British public, but otherwise, I mean, it’s a song that specifically refers to an event in Dave Grohl’s life, and has the typical, sludgy post-grunge vocals and some charmingly janky production choices (There, I said it), such as that echoing vocal in the verses. It all makes sense in the context of the song, though; here, it just feels impersonal. Sure, Grohl himself wrote off on it and contributed to the song, but there’s a certain lack of sincerity to the vocals here that makes the song’s profound lyrics feel cheap. I’m not going to say they disrespected a classic anthem. After all, “Times Like These” isn’t a brilliantly written song in the first place and it’s not like it’s influential or held in high regard. These singers are generally pretty talented, albeit not showing their best performances here. Despite that, with the slow, acoustic trod of this new cover, the shadow of dullness that looms over the whole song, and some outright garbage vocal performances from Simon Neil and YUNGBLUD, it doesn’t hold up to the original in any way. I wish this wasn’t acoustic either; again, Bastille, Royal Blood, Dua Lipa, Biffy Clyro and Coldplay could all do great covers of this song with some electric backing and some actual Goddamn energy. As is, it’s just a shoddily made charity single that misses the point of the original song completely. Oh, yeah, and the AJ Tracey guest rap verse is freaking AWFUL, and so out of place. It’s about making a wicked pasta bake, seemingly, and is capped off by Sean Paul giving the best performance out of any of the singers here, because, well, of course, he does. It’s Sean Paul. Big up the dude on the glockenspiel as well.

#1 – “You’ll Never Walk Alone” – Michael Ball, Captain Tom Moore and the NHS Voices of Care Choir

Produced by Nick Patrick

Reviewing this song misses the point of the song, as this isn’t a song for you to listen to, really. This is a song for you to appreciate and respect the charitable cause it represents. Captain Tom Moore is an army veteran who is 100 years old, making him the oldest person to ever get a #1 on the chart. He served in India and Burma during the Second World War, and 70-odd years later, he started walking laps around his garden to raise charity for NHS workers, and, naturally, he garnered media attention and attracted more than £30 million in donations. This song in particular is pretty special to a lot of Britons because of its attachment to the Liverpool football team (it’s been a crowd chant for a while after it was originally written by Rogers-Hammerstein in 1945 and further covered by Gerry and the Peacemakers in 1963). Even The Weeknd, who was #1 at the time, asked his fans to give him the #1 instead. Several people were inspired by Moore and practiced similar fundraising efforts that also raised millions for similar causes. After the song was released, Queen Elizabeth II, who is also approaching 100, knighted Moore, so, yes, he is Captain Sir Thomas Moore. I have nothing but respect for the man and his service to the country. To many people in the United Kingdom, especially elderly people who have had particular struggles during the pandemic and increased loneliness, especially without the otherwise regular family visits, he is a hero, and I completely understand that. I mean, the guy was on Blankety Blank once in 1983, so you’ve at least got to respect him for that. If you have the time, read up on the man’s life story, because as one would expect, he’s been through a hell of a lot in 100 years.

Conclusion

I can’t give Worst of the Week to charity singles, I’m sorry, I don’t have it in me. Sure, the Allstars butchered a great Foo Fighters classic, but if it helps people in these trying times, then I can’t say the song is worthy of my bile, really. So Worst of the Week goes to “I’m Ready” by Sam Smith and Demi Lovato, and Best of the Week goes to “Where We’re Going” by Gerry Cinnamon. Next month.

MAY NEW ARRIVALS: 03/05 #39 – “Kings & Queens” – Ava Max

Produced by Cirkut and RedOne

I just today found out that Cirkut ISN’T Dr. Luke. For some reason I always assumed so. Anyways, Ava Max is back to prove she’s not a one-hit wonder by making her one hit another time. Man, I’m just so bored of this. One of the reasons I stopped bothering or trying to make these blogs and music review list type things is that I gravitate less than ever towards music reviewing and journalism. I would love to use this hobby and passion for some good at some point and maybe make a career out of it but as an Internet music critic who reviews nearly exclusively chart music, this shit is just boring – and 2020’s supposed to be a really cool, unique interesting year for the charts. I’m kind of disillusioned with the whole cinematic top 10 build-up and this massive, melodramatic aggravated assault on the #1 worst song, when in reality everything is subjective and it’s not worth doing that. I mean, as well as I rested my case about “Taki Taki”, it doesn’t remove the song from existence or the charts. People won’t stop liking the song, it’s just my measly opinion, and, yes, while I think the whole idea of reviewing art is futile and at times counterproductive or toxic, it is completely fair to say your opinion on something, otherwise I wouldn’t be still writing this months after this song had first charted. I just don’t get the idea of a pop music reviewing community or whatever, which obviously does exist, and you’re probably a part of it if you’re reading this in all honesty, if you even got  this far. In the bluntest way possible, they just argue with each other. I don’t know, maybe I’m thinking way too much into this, it’s just a bit of fun but I just don’t care for the whole slog of reviewing five songs every week when I know I won’t like half of them. I feel like when I started, I viewed myself as one of those music-reviewing YouTubers with Pokémon avatars and top 20 rankings, and yeah, I don’t get that anymore from doing this. I just get apathy, although when I do feel happy and productive, which isn’t often nowadays, this is one of the first things I start thinking of and start doing so that should show that maybe chipping at this brick wall of Top 40 singles every couple months is fun? I don’t know. I decided today that I’ll release this block as the first part of this wall of sound, no pun intended, and I don’t know how good that’ll make me feel after releasing it. It’s definitely a relief, I guess. Anyway, Ava Max, I guess.

If all of the kings had the queens on the throne / We would pop champagne and raise a toast

Wait, sorry what was that?

We would pop champagne and raise a toast

Sorry, could you clarify that first part?

We would pop champagne

No. NO.

Pop champagne

#38 – “Don’t Need Love” – 220 KID and GRACEY

Produced by Will Graydon, Sam Brennan and Mark Ralph

Okay, back from mental trauma, is this song good? I don’t know, man, I don’t know who these guys are. 220 KID is a self-proclaimed “fizzy pop” artist from the UK, and GRACEY is a singer from Brighton who at some point lost her voice. Sure. This is their breakthrough song, I assume because of TikTok since they both don’t have an album yet, and I haven’t heard anything about them or their other singles, but I’m probably just ignorant. I mean, this is 220 KID’s debut single so they might just be a great, upcoming artist. I wouldn’t be able to tell because this is just really a mediocre house-pop song in theory. I mean, it has the exact same robotic, distorted and echoey vocal production, similarly thumping bassy beats, a stitched-up vocal drop, but something about this sounds cold. Maybe it’s the weak albeit bouncy production and snapping, maybe it’s the odd amount of dead space, maybe it’s the admittedly cool-sounding synth pads, but really, I think it’s just that non-existent drop. It doesn’t feel climactic, it doesn’t feel like anything, it just feels like someone ate the charting dance-pop singles from the past three years and regurgitated it. GRACEY sounds really nice in the falsetto towards the end now, and I like the melodies in the verse, I suppose. It’s not all bad, not that it was bad in the first place, just sonically void of personality. Also, there are way too many remixes and different releases but I still listened to all of them. The acoustic version is really sweet, and I think I actually really like how this song is written when hearing it stripped-down, but her desperate moaning in the chorus of the acoustic version feels a lot more genuine than the pitch-shifted garbage we get on the official, not that it doesn’t sound awkward on all versions. The Majestic remix is kind of nuts and I like the UK garage production but it’s way too long, and the TCTS remix is just the original with annoying beeping.

#26 – “Righteous” – Juice WRLD

Produced by Charlie Handsome and Nick Mira

I’m still pretty hurt that Juice passed. To be only 21 and die so suddenly after such a successful albeit brief career, at a moment where Juice seemed to be on top of the world more or less, is a tragic reality and Juice seemed like a nice, genuine guy from interviews so it was pretty shocking to hear the news, to say the least. Now, this gets awkward, like Pop Smoke from earlier, in the case that I was not a fan of Juice WRLD, and I’m still not. I think he was a very talented songwriter who attracted a fanbase due to a pretty unique 2000s emo-pop-inspired brand of trap, and he wrote some of my favourite emo rap songs ever, like “Lean wit Me” or “Robbery”, which is a damn excellent song and one of my favourites of last year. It even was in the top five of my Spotify Rewind 2019 playlist, I love that song to bits. However, most of his music had not appealed to me, and to be honest, I haven’t listened to that posthumous album, Legends Never Die, and probably never will because of that. I don’t want to dislike an album that serves as a genuine tribute to a good person, and I also am not sure if I’d be able to get through the entirety of the album, to be honest, mostly because of this song, which impacts me emotionally in a way not many songs do. The instrumental consists of a pretty sparse, spacey and minimal guitar-based trap skitter that is just a perfect base for Juice to pour his emotions onto in a way that feels eerie and sad but also pretty accepting, which makes the lyrics feel haunting, especially because the topics he discusses are mostly centred around how he thinks death for him is imminent. The first lines of the chorus already hit so hard with how he pictures himself as a “righteous” angel figure in his all-white Gucci suit and says, “I know that the truth is so hard to digest”. Then Juice continues to talk about the sheer quantity of drugs he’s consuming, which is just harrowing. This song feels like Juice was introducing someone to his lifestyle and realising how depressing and draining it was as he goes, especially in the first verse, where by the end he starts reassuring someone, who could be his girlfriend, his audience and fanbase, but most dauntingly, himself, that he’ll get out of this addiction and lifestyle at some point, when, in reality, he passed before he could even try, and he passed as a consequence of this lifestyle. In the second verse, he parallels how he died in his lyrics, saying and almost threatening to his inner demons, who he characterises as people he knows (but they “don’t know [him] like that”), that he will “take a pill for the thrill, have a relapse” and “crash”. The fact that this song is sprinkled with the silly, melodramatic metaphors not atypical to Juice, makes this song feel directly personal and not a retelling of the same line a lot of emo-rappers have sang and sadly, some have fallen victim to, about taking copius amounts of Xanax and codeine. Much like “Robbery” and a lot of his other work, Juice adopts a longing and nasal cadence and vocal delivery, but it feels much more trained and tuneful here, especially among the subtle vocal samples in the verse, and it is used sparingly in turn with a more muted delivery, particularly prominent in the chorus and the second verse, which connotes Juice’s lethargic acceptance with a lifestyle that he fell victim to. I don’t react emotionally that much to music, and I think that’s the same with a lot of people, but those first two lines in the chorus hit like a dagger and sound so great while doing so. Rest in peace Jared Higgins, and may the beauty of this song reflect on your talent.

#14 – “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” – The 1975

Produced by Jonathan Gilmore, George Daniel and Matthew Healy

I really loved “Me & You Together Song” but I find it hard to get behind anything else these guys made, really. They actually released an 80-minute album this May featuring backing vocals from Greta Thunberg, because of course, they did. I feel like if they started making music that was more natural and organic and didn’t try to make Pitchfork-bait political statements or whatever, I would appreciate them more. Not that I’m against political statements in songs – I’m definitely not, in fact, I’m sad “The Bigger Picture” by Lil Baby missed the top 40 this year – but the 1975, particularly Matt Healy, have never commented on pop culture in a way that’s not incoherent, preachy and frankly kind of stupid and obnoxious. Thankfully, this song, their biggest so far, is just about meeting a girl on FaceTime so you know, it makes me much more optimistic. The intro is really pleasant ambiance, but that awkward main guitar/bass riff makes it sound a lot less serene and more chaotic, even with FKA twigs providing some choral background vocals. Then the steady drums and 80s synths drown it out and once again, it suddenly becomes a fun, catchy song, even if Healy sounds really annoying with some inflections and notes that just sound... kind of horrific, especially with the multi-tracking that makes him even more irritating. He sounds even worse on the pre-chorus, but the cheesy and unabashed chorus where he says “Maybe I would like you better if you take off your clothes” followed by this corny, clearly synthesised horn riff, is just incredible. I kind of have to embrace Healy’s incompetence here because I can’t help myself but chuckle hearing him shout over 80’s beats in a way I guess isn’t too dissimilar to bands like Duran Duran, and hey, I love Duran Duran, and this is a good replica of a post-new wave 80’s synthpop track, even with a Goddamn saxophone solo. Is it too long? Yes, but so were those 80’s songs, and they just awkwardly faded out afterwards, and there is a shorter edit without the intro that cuts a whole minute off the track, meaning it starts just as awkwardly as it finishes, but that’s kind of the charm. Yeah, this is a pretty fun track, and maybe that Notes on a Conditional Form album is worth checking out. Maybe I give the 1975 too much flack. Wait, nevermind, no, I don’t, they’re called the 1975.

#11 – “The Scotts” – THE SCOTTS (Travis Scott and Kid Cudi)

Produced by Dot da Genius, Plain Pat and Take a Daytrip

Whoever decided to call this song “THE SCOTTS” is a brilliant mind and intellectual. Not only do I laugh every time I see this song title, just on pure absurdity alone, but it’s also by The Scotts. No one will proudly say, “Yeah, I’m listening to “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS.” It’s also in all caps as if it’s this monumental, groundbreaking track, or at least an important, interesting one, but it’s actually just because all Travis Scott songs will be TITLED LIKE THIS NOW, ever since ASTROWORLD. It also amuses me that this makes absolutely no sense if you tell someone that this is actually a collaborative project between Kid Cudi and Jacques Webster. Travis Scott’s name isn’t even Scott, and Kid Cudi’s never used it in his name, although admittedly, in a lot of songs – and many I adore and remember fondly – he does say his name, Scott Mescudi, or some shortened variation of it. He doesn’t do it here, but Travis does say “You lettin’ THE SCOTTS outside”, as if it’s dangerous to let THE SCOTTS outside of their zone or outside of their cage or whatever. This song was also performed and premiered live on Fortnite, has like ten different vinyl editions to bump up its sales (It went #1 on the Hot 100 in the US in fact), and, man, the very idea of this song and everything surrounding it is just funny to me. Too bad the song’s not. I really like the keys loop used here coupled with some great-sounding drum fills but it is just destroyed by this ugly, slow bassy trap skitter and really gross-sounding Travis Scott vocals. He just uses this one lethargic flow, and switches it briefly in less of a technical or interesting way than Cudi does later in the song, delivering a really great verse, but my issue is that it sounds like a Travis Scott verse. He even tries to do his ad-libs. Then there’s this chiptune outro that sounds like a Mike Dean idea, mostly because it sounds kind of cool but doesn’t go anywhere and doesn’t do anything to improve this shoddy song and its messy, dare I say, janky structure. “Baptized in Fire” is a much better collaboration from these two, and it’s telling that that one doesn’t have a verse from Travis at all. Rodeo is still amazing, but this guy has been disappointing and underwhelming for such a long time now. Maybe he’s lost his charm, but even with ASTROWORLD, where his experimental production shines and he is the most energetic he is in recent years, he just sounds tired and lazy. And Cudi, well, he’s Cudi. He’s made some of my favourite songs of all time, and some of the most confusing garbage I’ve ever heard. The duality of man.

#6 – “Houdini” – KSI featuring Swarmz and Tion Wayne

Produced by AjProductions and Jacob Manson

Hey, this mildly amusing but definitely not my thing YouTuber got two of my favourites of the recent crop of British Afroswing and drill rappers on the same track. That’s something, right? I mean, yes, this is something, because this beat is AWESOME. It’s so full of joy and energy, even with the dark 808 tones and sparse vocal tones. I just love the bouncy, funky production on this thing and Swarmz kills it on the chorus with his typical happy nasal tone. Stormzy also kind of kills it, at least for the first half where he flows really swiftly and with a lot of smooth swagger, before he starts listing things and saying “Check” afterwards, for whatever reason. Tion Wayne delivers the clumsy fun he usually does, and whilst neither him or anyone here really brings any interesting lines or wordplay with them to the track, except a really awful corny line from KSI where he says his fourth letter is getting bigger in the alphabet, the track still feels really fun and cheerful, and most importantly full. Even when there’s literally silence, or no-one’s saying anything, it never feels like there’s dead space because the beat is always doing something cool. This is notable especially when Tion Wayne starts flowing really awkwardly and even when the beat cuts out for a really odd, nothing line, it still feels kind of worth it. Not much to say about this song other than it bangs, and a lot more than I’d expect from a guy like KSI.

Conclusion

I actually have pretty positive feelings on this week, which is good to go out on, I suppose. Best of the Week is obviously and undeniably going to the late Juice WRLD’s “Righteous”, with tied Honourable Mentions to the 1975’s “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” and, yes, KSI’s “Houdini” featuring Swarmz and Tion Wayne. There’s not much to complain about here, so Worst of the Week goes to “Kings & Queens” by Ava Max for the kind of vapid nothingness I can’t even bring myself to stay on topic to talk about and Dishonourable Mention to “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS because it’s “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS, and I don’t know about you but to me, that’s just laughable. See you in the next year, hopefully.

[hammerraptor]

Have less than one year before Microsoft cuts off Windows 7

When Windows 10 launched in 2015, PC users were confronted with a dilemma. Microsoft had in many enthusiasts eyes been making blunder after blunder in their efforts to turn what we all thought was a perfectly functional operating system into some kind of idiot, friendly, touchscreen fisher-price. Looking nonsense and on top of trying to fix what ain't broke, Microsoft wanted unprecedented access to their users, data and resolved to just force system updates when you're right in the middle of something and all for what DirectX 12. So many power users ended up sticking with Windows 7 and are still using it today, but they have a problem. If you're one of these individuals, you now have less than one year before Microsoft, cuts off Windows 7. 

You may not want to risk an upgrade, but, as Aragorn said, to fit in in the Great Hall of EDS upgrading is upon you whether you would risk it or not. Wait. I don't think that's quite what he said. You know what else is close. I can almost smell it. So close, that's our sponsor! It won't help you with your Windows, 7 problem, but they still G skills. Trident II royal series, ddr4 memory, features a polished, aluminium heat spreader, that's available in both gold or silver and a crystalline light bar that radiates beautiful RGB check it out at the link below [ Music ]. 

Now you might not realize this, but in spite of Microsoft, practically giving away Windows 10 even to those with pirated installations, most users stuck with Windows 7, rather than upgrading, either to eight or ten something that only finally changed late last year in December, net market share Reported that Windows 10 installations rose above Windows 7 for the first time and now account for nearly 41 percent of the user base compared to Windows 7 37 percent. Now, hopefully, that number is going to continue to go down as we get closer to January 14. 2020. 

The day that Windows 7 dies because otherwise we are gon na - have some serious problems because, yes, yes, ok, Windows, 7, it's not gon na die. It'S not like you just turn on your computer and it doesn't turn on anymore. It'S just going to stop receiving feature, updates, bug, fixes and, most importantly, security updates, which are very important if you want to, I don't know, continue Oh safe using the Internet. Now, as it did for previous versions of Windows, Microsoft is offering extended security updates, or, yes, you, ECU for Windows, 7 enterprise and pro additions up until January 2023. But this extended the update service won't come cheap and adding insult to injury. The price will double each year, so three years of support is gon na cost. 

A hundred and seventy-five bucks for enterprise licenses and three hundred and fifty for windows 7 pro og, also, if you're a mega ball or PC gamer thinking, yeah no problem. 350 bucks looks like what mid tier graphics card. Sorry, I've got some bad news for you, too. Esu is only available for volume license subscriptions which are usually held by companies or schools. So business is running Windows, 7 machines on Microsoft's, Azure cloud as part of the Windows virtual desktop program, those folks get ESU for free, but again baller gamers. I would imagine that scenario doesn't apply to you. So then, if you're just a regular Windows, 7 user with a personal license, what can you do well before we get too deep into your options? 

Let'S take a look at why people want to hold on to Windows 7, like that grudge against their brother for stealing the last piece of their birthday cake, even though they told them that they were saving it for later and hid it away way in the back Of the fridge - so you wouldn't know it was there Windows 7 was, is kind of fantastic. It'S mature, stable and reliable and offers a great amount of control over the way it behaves. Its interface is functional, familiar and extremely customizable, and it's got all your settings just the way that you like them. I mean. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if anyone upgrading now has a program or two that would either require a new, not to mention costly license to run on Windows 10 or that isn't available for it at all and there's other little creature comforts typing in the search bar Retrieves results that make sense instead of a Windows setting you weren't, looking for or a web result from big windows, 7. 

Doesn'T incessantly ask you to send more of your personal information to Microsoft or decide on its own when it's time to update whether you like it or not, updates are available? Sorry, you know what I'm actually kind of in the middle of something kind of Roger that updating now, but as awesome as Windows 7 is. There are quite a few cons to staying with it past the end date for extended support. Besides lacking the latest antivirus protections, Windows 7 won't have Windows, 10 features like device guard, UEFI, secure boot and Windows, hello, which offer higher overall security for your system, and while gaming performance is about the same, some things like system boot times are slower in Windows 7. 

Compared to Windows 10, so it turns out Microsoft, software engineers weren't sitting around playing beer pong for the last 78 years. Also, if you're worried about future proofing at all, which you should be at least a little bit. Windows, 7 is not a great bet, as software and even hardware makers eventually do stop providing support for legacy operating systems. So, even if you pay for es, you support only lasts for three years and costs more than a Windows 10 license and you might be able to upgrade for free anyway, yep, even though Microsoft officially ended their offer for a free upgrade to Windows. 10 from Windows. 7 or 8 many users have reported successful, fully activated upgrades by using Microsoft's official upgrade utility, and even if you have to pay bare with me for a moment here, Windows 10 might not be as bad as you think. There are a lot of happy users out there who appreciate its combination of the efficiency and customization of Windows 7 and the modern design of Windows 8 and despite Microsoft's best efforts. 

There is actually a fair bit that you can do to minimize their data collection and postpone system updates until absolutely necessary, or at least until it's convenient, so we're gon na have some resources for you guys for this linked in the video description. But let's say you drop a line at Windows: 10. Fine, you say I'll! Stop using Windows 7, but hashtag, never Windows, 10 whoo tell you guys are serious cuz that hashtag there well, for you guys. There are other options. First up, there's Windows. 8.1. I mean I doubt that you guys have stuck with Windows 7 for this long, just to get into the OS that Gabe Newell called a catastrophe, and it's data, collection and update system are kind of similar to Windows 10, but at least it'll be getting security updates, 

Though, realistically now that Microsoft has learned from their mistake of supporting Windows, XP for like ever that'll, probably only buy you a couple of years. So maybe that's not a great option. So then, what how about Oh Mac OS, while Apple's desktop OS, has come a long way and is obviously used by many tech enthusiasts? The thing is, I don't see many windows, 7 diehards willingly affecting to apples Camp Plus. You would need to either buy a totally new computer or begin the long, arduous process of trying to turn your existing PC into a hackintosh. Now it might be doable, but even most hackintosh enthusiasts are pretty open about what a finicky experience that is leaving Linux. Now, a couple of years ago, 

I would have said that that's madness, but Linux is a more viable option than ever before, even for gamers. Now we're planning another follow-up, video on Valve's proton compatibility software, but for now the main thing you need to know about it is that it makes an ever growing list of Windows. Games run flawlessly on Linux and community reports indicate that thousands more run pretty well. As for the non-gamers popular Linux, distros like Ubuntu work great for productivity, focused views, especially if the majority of your work is done on the web, and there are even distros that borrow heavily from Windows for their interface, like Linux Mint. So your homesickness will at least be saved a little and then, of course, there's the last option. Stick with Windows 7 hold fast as your destruction edges ever closer. 

So you goodbye to hardware or software upgrades and just well just don't browse the internet after January 14th. 2012, with regards to that option, I mean you know what Godspeed you brave bastard, but, needless to say, we don't actually recommend doing that. What we do recommend, though, if you need to build a beautiful website without the hassle, is Squarespace with Squarespace is all in one platform, you just pick a template and turn your text throw in your pictures, design a logo they've got all kinds of amazing tools and Boom, you have a website, it might not be a very good website. It might not have a lot of important information on it, but that's on you, sir or ma'am. It'S not on Squarespace, because they have tons of amazing help that you can leverage they offer webinars. Full series of help guides and you can contact their 24/7 customer support via live chat and email. 

If you're ever having trouble, and if you already have a third party domain, you don't have to give it up, you can just transfer it to Squarespace plus with Squarespace. You get tons of e-commerce features to help you sell merch or services online and easily manage your inventory and orders so head over to Squarespace comm /l tt and get 10 % off your first purchase. We'Re gon na have that linked below. So thanks for watching guys, we just like this video. You can hit that button. I'M sorry! It'S a really bad news. I get it, but if you liked it hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff, we featured Windows 10. I guess at the link in the video description also down, there is our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum, which you should totally join. We should have where you can now buy it, a bunch of CD canonical we'll ship. You one if you pay like a couple bucks, I think you can yeah but and don't pay for Linux either way. It'S free. It'S kind of the point.

[martin9395]

Easy Quick Guide to Smart Shopping Online

Easy Quick Guide to Smart Shopping Online

 Holiday season is listed below as well as every person is creating a beeline to get ideal presents to suit the celebration. Sometimes like these the shops are practically packed up along with huge groups and packages that make it nearly difficult to get what you really want. It is relatively much easier to shop online to conserve opportunity as well as improve bargains swiftly. Having said that, on the web shopping comes but all at once, it can easily also be potentially hazardous to purchase online. It is in the course of festival affair hackers perform the prowl to swipe or change maximum individual info. Nevertheless, one can easily not entirely prevent shopping online as it has to be actually performed. Right here is a simple guide to clever shopping online to assist you protect.

https://gut-scheine.com

 Browsing

 Originally you need to have to comprehend that utilizing a trustworthy web browser is actually the very best option while choosing to go shopping online. You can easily use either Chrome or even Firefox; the very best possibility is actually using these internet browsers interchangeably. If you are making use of 2 web browsers simultaneously then you minimize your chances of on the internet security risk from cyberpunks. For instance, you can easily utilize Chrome for purchases login and also Firefox for laid-back surfing.

 Another necessary tip is actually to look for the URL that is actually presented in the deal with bar above the browsing window. While opening web sites that demand vulnerable information purchases or consumer login particulars for shopping you need to look for the URL. Check out for the HTTPS expansion at the start of the URL. This shows that it is actually risk-free to scan. Always remember if you will look into a legit shopping web site as well as it carries out not have HTTPS at that point it is much better that you perform certainly not log right into it as you run the risk of falling a victim to Phishing.

 Passwords

 Commonly our experts possess a routine of continuing with the exact same security password for a long opportunity, this compromises your surveillance. If you want to be safer online it is vital to always keep altering your codes at a given interval of your time specifically during the vacation period. You need to have to alter the codes of your financial services, e-mail profiles as well as on the internet shopping solutions that resemble Amazon. Another thing to consider is opting for a code that does not includes key phrases or even words. A security password may be a structure of random terms that may be split up through comas or rooms. However, you need to have to bear in mind that simply sites like Microsoft accounts approve areas within security passwords consisting of Amazon as well as Google. To be actually on the safe edge, when you are performed shopping you can once more modify your codes to make certain the safety of your profile.

 Download

 Sometimes, it therefore happens that you overlook to either record out of your account or simply reached the X to close the home window. Through this your profile is actually still visited as well as it comes to be unconfident as the biscuits are saved that could be made use of for hacking your account. Make it a routine to download of your profile after you are carried out shopping, after utilizing your emails or even other such services that call for login information alongside security passwords.

 VPN

 VPN or even Virtual Private Network may be made use of to secure the internet website traffic. In situation, if you do not possess the possibility on call then you may use a second plan for protecting your system. Installing possibilities like TOR for Mac as well as Windows, downloading software like LogMeIn Hamachi or even an alternative like a HotSpot Shield matched to Mac and Windows users are good alternatives. These courses are going to keep you risk-free while you shop or create purchases on the web through shopping web site.

 Paying possibilities

 Throughout the holiday season seasons, the web website traffic is actually large as well as there are actually a lot of possibilities for cyberpunks to receive their hands on the financial details of a user. Nevertheless, you may stay safe through making use of a charge card to pay for your online shopping. This will likewise keep you safe from any kind of kind of on-line fraudulent methods. Fairly paying along with a debit card is actually pretty risky as your PIN, other details could be endangered, as well as you might drop a ton of cash.

 Carrying out all the above ideas will help you stay secure while you enjoy shopping online.

 Shopping Online - How Safe Is Actually Online Shopping?

 When you first purchase online there will certainly be certain safety inquiries you will certainly need answers too. Is actually shopping online safe, is one inquiry which receives asked over and also over once more by those looking at creating an investment. In this post I intend to mention a few of these safety and security uncertainties, including:

 1. Exactly How Secure is actually Shopping Online?

2. Is your Online Retailer Reputable?

3. Just how can I tell if a websites is actually protected?

4. Find Out the Returns Policy?

5. Item Authenticity when Shopping Online.

 1. Just how Secure is actually shopping online?

 This article will certainly explain some of these concerns in an effort to help viewers make educated selections relating to on the web shopping. On the web shopping is actually as secure as you create it. What I imply through that statement is actually that you have to do some homework on that you buy from. That does not suggest you need to go by means of tons of excellent fella poor guy reports, it implies that you possess to step thoroughly and know that there are some phony dealerships on the web waiting to acquire property of your financial institution information, which will certainly arm them with the relevant information they need to rip you off. Be mindful of phony dealerships and also astonishing deals. The majority of professional online merchants are going to have security measures in area. You are going to discover a number of ways to check out these actions better in this write-up.

 2. Is your Online Retailer Reputable?

 When brand new to on the web shopping, establishing whether an on-line retailer is actually respectable need to be your first consideration, prior to determining whether to buy. One very easy procedure to take a look at the online reputation of a seller is actually to seek advice from the Better Business Bureau or even BBB for brief. Right here you can look a detailed database of BBB Reviews, utilizing different procedures of seller i.d.. Such as:

 * Business or Charity Name

* Type of Business

* Type of Charity

* Website URL

* Phone Number

* Email Address

 You may use an area to centre your search on a certain area by incorporating "City and State" or "Postal Code" when browsing by sort of service. You the buyer can easily discover details relating to previous complaints against the online seller; this info will certainly aid you to figure out whether the store has an excellent or bad track record and also whether they work fairly with clients.

 On the internet retail stores who have been actually in service for a few years as well as carry out not have several grievances against all of them can normally be counted on. This are going to often be the bigger online business; you might pay a little a lot more for your decided on thing, yet you will possess the protection of recognizing your investment will be provided, and also on time.

 3. Exactly how can I inform if a website is secure?

 Identification fraud can easily result in enormous concerns for internet consumers; the safety and security of the hosting server made use of to complete your purchase must be examined. A really straightforward method which an internet buyer may determine whether the website is protected is to take a look at the internet handle in the leading of screen address pub. Once you login to a website to really make an acquisition A secure website are going to possess a prefix of https://, take note the "s" by the end, an unsecured site will certainly possess a prefix of http.

 You may assess this through seeing a security internet site gotten in touch with (ssl.com. Prefix with information superhighway.). Note the URL in the address bar begins with the "http" meaning this webpage is certainly not safeguard. Today click on the web link in the upper-right hand section to "Log in". You will discover a change in the URL. It right now starts with "https", suggesting any type of delicate relevant information including your individual name as well as code, key in, will certainly be actually secured just before being sent out to the hosting server.

 An additional specification amongst internet browsers is to display a "lock" icon, someplace in the home window of the internet browser. For example, Microsoft Internet Explorer presents the lock symbol in the lower-right of the internet browser window: If the site is not protect the on-line buyer ought to check out consumer evaluations on the chosen retailer site or even take into consideration creating your purchase via the customer care division of the merchant.

 4. Establish the Returns Policy?

 By examining the yields plan of a retailer will definitely additionally provide the buyer an excellent indicator of whether the dealer is simpathetic to customer complications. Restrictive Return policies ought to be actually looked at problematic through the customer, this may suggest a need for the consumer to carry out some extra investigation before making a decision whether to purchase from a certain world wide web store. Again visit previous client assessments; where there are no assessments could be actually one more evidence for care.

 5. Product Authenticity when Shopping Online:

 Authenticity of items obtained is another point to consider for the on the internet consumer. This is crucial due to the fact that, it may assist to avoid the buyer coming from obtaining reproduction products, or even things that are really comparable however with the same label and title of the thing you are actually seeking. Validating credibility is certainly not generally an issue when obtaining coming from a merchant that is licensed to sell the thing. Having said that, problems might arise when the shopper is acquiring a product by means of an auction site, an individual retail store, or even the item is actually such a fabulous bargain as not to be strongly believed. This potential to find authentic things generally originates from researching the things effectively and understanding the crucial features, or through ensuring you make use of an incredibly preferred retail store.

 Standard Stores Offering Online Shopping:

 Most of our everyday conventional shops, can easily likewise possess an online visibility. This features retailers of all types of items such as electronics and also home appliances and also standard merchandise retail stores using a large variety of customer products. Yet another advantage of on-line establishments is that they are available 24 hours a time, seven times a week; this provides the online buyer the versatility to perform their shopping coming from the comfort of their personal residence. This removes the need of taking a trip to the retail stores, auto parking shut to the shop, fighting with holiday season shopping groups as well as obviously carrying your purchases around whilst searching for other things to get. Yet another advantage of shopping in online establishments over standard establishments is you can easily see internet merchants which perform certainly not possess a conventional establishment found near your house.

 The Benefits of Discount Shopping Online

 There are many individuals who apprehension the concept of shopping due to the problems connected with offline shopping. Offline shopping involves a lot of drawbacks which creates it very awkward in nature. Filling in the cues and searching for beneficial car parking slots are actually a number of the most awful features of offline shopping. The tip of jumping coming from one outlet to another ends up being very bothersome as well as typically the offline establishments perform certainly not have enough items in supply which creates choices as well restricted. On the internet shopping is actually deficient of such limitations and is most chosen for the amount of comfort that it delivers to the consumers. Listed here you will definitely come to sit down in the convenience of your property and also carry out as a lot research study as you prefer on the products that you require to acquire. In addition also the project of exploring may be executed without much problem for all you need to have to perform is actually to hit the mouse and see as several online outlets as you yearn for.

 Besides the aspect of ease the amount of perks that you may receive for internet shopping far over-shadow the listing of benefits that offline shopping deals. The reality that an increasing number of people are actually going for on the web shopping is actually ribald of the fact that this sort of shopping is extremely valuable. It would enable you to conserve a whole lot greater than the volume you will possess spared via offline shopping. This is because on-line shopping includes the terrific perk of discount rate shopping that makes it highly favorable. If you obtain products at affordable prices by means of internet shopping, why should you go with offline shopping? There are actually a variety of systems as well as gives available on on-line shopping which you can easily certainly not get in offline shopping.

 There are actually various kinds of deals on call on items offered online, of which an essential kind is that of voucher codes. These coupon code deals are actually implied to aid folks to spare money on any sort of acquisition they create. Consequently, you can easily utilize these discount coupon codes for all type of investment that you create. These coupons are offered online, carry out some volume of analysis before going for any sort of certain sort of voucher. Internet price cut shopping additionally entails the location of bring out a contrast of the rates of a specific sort of thing. One can effortlessly execute this comparison research which is quite complicated in the event of offline shopping.

 Usually the stores use products at inexpensive rates when they are sold in mass or even under any type of type of offer. These kinds of provides are offered simply in the event that of offline shopping. These are the various kinds of discount shopping that can easily get in on the web shopping and one must select that kind of rebate promotion which fits him the best. Every discount deal has a nature of its and are implied to accommodate to the requirements of a certain team of folks, therefore you should weigh various choices as well as choose a choice that matches you need to have one of the most.

 The Various Advantages of Shopping Online

 Allow's be realistic, the Internet has actually changed the means our experts look around. As a result of the numerous benefits and advantages, a growing number of individuals now favor purchasing goods online above and also past the old school traditional procedure of entering establishments.

 With online shopping

 The establishments are actually regularly open.

 There is actually no outfit code tips.

 Spare on gas.

 There are actually no auto parking difficulties.

 No threatening (sometimes passive) salespeople.

 No aggravating crowds.

 No collection to wait in when it is opportunity to examine out.

 Many a lot more selections for purchasing restored products.

 Online purchases representatives frequently get a lot more item instruction than those at the local stores.

 On-line representatives often have higher flexibility when asked to choose like meeting a rivals' cost, applying coupons or even expediting shipping at no added fee.

 Interaction with internet buyers is more frequently programmed with automated feedbacks to concerns and any needed follow-up, really commonly is actually along with more professional as well as corporately trained workers as opposed to those frequently discovered operating at the brick-and-mortar locations.

 Working aspects including lease repayments, powers, payroll, establishment furnishings, shelving, components, stock shrinking losses as well as other traits all support the base line profit margin much less the overhead expenses of merchandising a shopping mall.

 On-line shopping is an excellent resource for result products at an excellent savings that are coming from past seasons or that are actually being cashed in.

 On reliable sites to decrease any sort of buyer confusion and adhere to FTC requirements, customer company and various other plans are actually accurately specified in composing. Additionally, well-trained 'live' sales employees are offered to address inquiries without the necessity to hang around in lengthy product lines or even explore the aisles for an outlet affiliate.

 Many price-comparison sites permit customers to look around smarter, by means of use of solutions or applications that review rates of a product at many stores.

 Several online retail stores forgo purchases income tax or even shipping expenses to enhance the probability of buyers making an internet acquisition. Additionally, a great deal of websites provide a toll-free number for consumers to call that do not intend to publish their private relevant information or even credit history memory card varieties online.

 Online retail stores maintain the exact same advertising schedule as the brick-and-mortar shops by delivering fantastic in season purchases and savings. Also, the after Christmas sales equal as well as commonly go over that of regional chain store.

 Late winter purchases practically always offer huge rate cuts for the yearly "white colored purchases" occasions.

 Early springtime is actually the timeframe when on the web outlets often provide as much as 75 percent off winter months goods inventories. Additionally, throughout the year (just like the neighborhood retail stores) huge sales occasions are actually kept throughout vacation weekends like the Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Memorial Day.

 With better convenience, simplicity and availability additional and additional people are actually resorting to the Internet to perform their shopping. As an outcome of this enormous online growth the smarter retail stores are answering with attracting client devotion programs, enhanced easy to use sites, more direct promotional activities and also just some excellent old-fashioned best ranked customer support.

 Stores do not consistently give the same handle the brick-and-mortar outlets as they do on their on-line establishments since the costs of managing an area business are considerably above an online establishment.

 When you have a particular list of things you would like to buy, with simply a couple clicks of the computer mouse, you can easily buy your entire shopping order and also promptly move to other significant factors, which spares tons of your time.

 You can easily send gifts to relatives and also good friends easily, despite where they are. You need certainly not produce span and excuses for certainly not delivering a present once in a while such as special days, wedding celebrations, wedding anniversaries, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, etc.

 You can easily buy the very same thing you've seen in the nearby outlet nearly consistently for a considerable cost savings.

 You possess a "Shopping cart" symbol that advises you just how much cash you are or will certainly devote upon calling.

 If you function ridiculous or uneven hours or are simply only incredibly active, you likely do not possess the moment to see the establishment. Shopping online permits you to acquire traits without being actually pressed for opportunity or disrupting your routine.

 The Internet has far fewer catches. Physical establishments are made to entice you right into buying more products. They make use of banners, end caps, rack placement, sales information, different colors, scents, appears as well as store layout to herd you around. The best prominent products are actually generally in the spine given that the manager wants you to check out each of their various other items. Higher requirement or even has to possess items (you willingly grab) are on the lower or upper racks. Less required or even instinct items acquire series of site placements. Several individuals will definitely find a couple of added items through the opportunity they locate the important things or couple of things they actually came in for.

 Physical establishments frequently make it hard or inconceivable to carry out separate shopping when purchasing certain products. For example, purchasing underwear without receiving a couple of awkward stares is nearly difficult. There are a lot of circumstances you sometimes might experience humiliated concerning getting when others are around. Shopping online offers you complete personal privacy as you will definitely certainly not have people examining you or even in your shopping cart. Certainly not just that, the online vouchers are commonly made discreetly so nobody can in fact inform what you bought.

 One more benefit of shopping online is chopping down the negative habits performed while standing up in a lengthy line simply standing by. As an example - making those costly little impulse gets encompassing the take a look at registers such as acquiring magazines, lighters, treats, candy pubs and also et cetera.

 Every online shop is developed along with special individual buying components to select, buy the thing and get on your technique.

 There is additional selection: The options online are never-ending.

 There is the opportunity to get a number of companies and items coming from various vendors done in one location.

 You can easily possess accessibility to the most up to date International fads without investing loan on air travel.

 You can easily go shopping from sellers in other aspect of the nation, or also the globe, as you are not confined through geography.

 A far more significant variety of different colors and dimensions than you are going to discover in your area go to your fingertip. Other than that, the supply is actually far more abundant. Some internet stores for example - have stipulations in position to accept orders for products unavailable that will be actually shipped when the inventory appears. Or even, you have the possibility of taking your service to one more online outlet where the item is actually accessible present moment.

 No tension purchases: Our experts've all been actually awkwardly propositioned through willing salesmen. You don't need to endure that online whatsoever. Once again, you are totally accountable of the adventure.

 You have Infinite selections: Space is actually at a superior at a brick and also mortar stores and hence, the variety of items is restricted as well. This is not the scenario along with an online establishment as usually the offered supply is rich supplying you along with endless options. Also, need to you not locate the items you desire in an online outlet, you merely find another store.

 As a consumer, the energy relaxes along with you to not just decrease the block however somewhat around the globe.

 You have endless access to buyer opinions, assessments and also referrals for basically any item you look for out online. By reading through assessments as well as evaluating the pros and also disadvantages of an item, you are better able to make an enlightened decision regarding a contemplated investment.

 No pressure sales: Our company've all been unclearly accosted by eager salespeople. You do not need to endure that online at all. Once again, you are actually completely accountable of the expertise.

The Bottom Line?

 You actually will essentially possess less expenses when shopping online. Numerous opportunities, when one go with conventional shopping, there is a tendency to invest a great deal more than organized. At times because store caretakers stress clients or have their staff members use their selling skills to urge folks to help make extra investments. Occasionally, our team our own selves risk on our very own choices due to the fact that of the shortage of option in physical stores. There are other outside expenditures very on factors like dining in restaurants, transport, and permit's certainly not fail to remember those impulse purchases that our team did certainly not really originally need to have. Dealing with the honest truth you need to discover that a lot less compulsive shopping occurs when shopping online.

[reyesschack9-blog]

Exactly how Thoughts Come to be Matter?

Startup Alphabet Electricity is announcing its own new item, introduced on Tuesday, as the globe's 1st commercial scale thermoelectric generator, which means it is powerful enough to become utilized at distant oil, gas as well as mining internet sites. There is actually a great item at Forbes concerning the creation from the project through Rob Siltanen, who went to the time imaginative supervisor as well as dealing with companion at TBWA/Chiat/Day servicing the Apple pitch. As well as due to the fact that the map and comparative motion along the tour course is actually certainly not saved, then this definitely is ineffective, a minimum of in my component of the world. There's a lot of anti-Microsoft feeling out there, there is actually a lot of anti-Google view as well as well as I presume that consumers hop between them. You gather batteries that are going to approach your celebrity rating, with more significant benefits in regards to power bolts, the activity's currency, for far better celebrity ratings. Hydrogen, the gas used in FCEVs, is actually an extremely numerous aspect, and when natural hydrogen is stemmed from renewable energy resources, the whole establishment of electricity production and also intake is free from carbon exhausts. Today, every little thing transformed For the first time in well over a many years, the video game - in addition to its own forerunner X-Wing - became available to purchase. Rodney stays in Minnesota, where he is a THIS administrator for The Man at a Fortune 50 company. Functioning in a restaurant with a higher volume from travelers, I observe folks all the time carrying around both their significant tablets as well as their laptop computers so I do not believe the measurements of this particular will certainly be an issue on the portable edge from it. Enlighted Inc.'s initial consumer is eco-friendly carpeting provider User interface Companies, which made use of the lighting unit to reduce energy usage from a 35,000 square shoe facility in Acworth, Ga Aside from that, its not worth my opportunity boning up for a miserly 600 credit histories or less per ethnicity, thinking I gain (yes, I am actually still in Season 3). At that price I need to win, like, ONE HUNDRED competitions merely to manage my next auto!!! So I got back to the code to earn additional items, presuming they 'd make the problems for me. In order to get a far better sense of what does it cost? screen time it can manage, I played a local area HD video clip continuous at around 70% brightness someday, and also the phone lasted for nearly 12 hrs on a total cost. The Jawbone UP lets you create an intelligent alarm system where the band will definitely shake and also attempt to wake you up within a block of your time 30 minutes prior to your alarm system opportunity. However eventually, this aspect just attends to reasonable rates from framework addition, and also does certainly not bear on the overall Energy Catch phenomenon. A comical factor occurs when folks buy your product: they invest their energy right into the selection as well as will definitely discover needs to validate their activity. You could stop as well as reboot that as often times as you desire and, when you're finished, this is going to include the collective opportunity to the activity. He steered the vehicle around to the property of Miss Horner, that got a degree coming from Central Senior high school final Wednesday as well as is a niece of previous Gov. By means of the 3 base symbols you can easily either incorporate projects and also clients (Work) or even zero hour away (Timer). I concur that nobody got a Mac for Halo (likewise I doubt any individual would buy an apple iphone to play Legend of Zelda) or even other Microsoft activities, nevertheless all at once that boosts label exposure as well as enhances rate of interest in brand-new games. States Spurt, it is actually approximated that this year, profits coming from in-app purchases are going to go over advertisement profits for the very first time. Smart meters may additionally enable energy control tools like need feedback - which pays folks to minimize energy when the electric framework is actually stressed - that may help boost dependability as well as decrease interruptions. One of the most current game, Task Diva X, was the absolute most organized however, entrusting players along with unlocking themed worlds five tunes at a time. Playing in http://familydiet-blog.info of Charles Campbell aboard the speculative ship MSRV-Joplin, the whole staff is carried all over time as well as room. The innovation of the designers keeps me coming back to explore new labels in the activities type all the time. The quantity of time a bodily video game can easily go while you stand by to obtain sturdy is REALLY excruciating sometimes. The seemingly never-ending use the Solyndra shame as a whipping kid for the whole entire idea from social support for renewable resource is a purposeful technique from these frontal teams, consisting of Karl Rove's Super SPECIAL-INTEREST GROUP, Crossroads DIRECTION FINDER, as well as Americans for Success, a Koch-funded group that has actually spent millions in battleground conditions within this vote-casting.

An additional possibility, recommended through University University London psychologist Chris McManus in his manual Right-Hand, Left-Hand, is that the human brains from lefties possess an extra extremely developed correct half, which has actually been actually proposed to be a lot more engageded in creativity. Arcadia's current projects may not be substantial, however they carry out verify that office consumers as well as federal governments are investing their thesis-- if you deliver renewable resource production to renters-- they are going to happen. The hyperlink wire is merely an elegant label for a 3.5 mm guy to male stereo audio cable. But that such look after particular, for world-building, for exploration as well as for engrossment was actually paid for to every journey, tomb, and volume, suffices to cement Skyrim as one from the downright ideal parlor games our team've ever before found, and also one of the most ideal activities of all time. This isn't almost appearances: the squared-off base edges permit the tablet computer to dock neatly with the ThinkPad 10 Folio Key-board - an optionally available added that are going to incorporate $110 (around ₤ 80) to the general price. I think there is a presumption that this is mosting likely to adhere to the movie in some way. While several in the energy community are delighted due to the shale gas reformation, without storage, electrical generators are going to still must be actually sized to comply with peak requirement and as a result will certainly continue to run at 40 percent or even much less capacity aspect. On http://familydiet-blog.info is provided by urban area for fast accessibility, while the ipad tablet presents a full display screen map with pushpins denoting all your spared metropolitan areas for a wealthier experience.

[anthonykrierion]

Be Your Own Designer - The Best Free Resources for when You’re Short on Time

You'll be pleased to hear we recently updated this post. It was originally written in June 2015, but now it contains a whole new suite of design tools!

Has there ever been a time when you’ve realised you’re a day away from a big pitch, but you forgot to book any design time through your creative department? Or perhaps there’s that last-minute blog post that needs some images and banners, but there’s no way of roping in a designer at such short notice! It’s easy to become reliant when you have a Design team at the ready, but when push comes to shove, slightly unwillingly, you sometimes have to don that faux-designer’s hat. The trouble is, where do you even begin? To help you out in such hours of need, I have compiled a list of my favourite design resources for non-designers and designers alike. Oh, and did I mention they’re all free?

Just a quick disclaimer: this isn’t Graphic Design 101 (I’m definitely not ready to declare myself redundant as a designer at Distilled). Instead, think of this as more of a design directory if you will. Whether you’re after a nice font to spruce up your Word doc or you really need some images to dress that presentation to impress, if you’re going to find a fast, free solution anywhere, start here.

Typography & Fonts

Font Squirrel

Font Squirrel does exactly what it says on the tin; all the fonts listed are 100% free for commercial use. Best of all they are hand-picked, so unlike other sites offering free fonts (e.g. Dafont) you have peace of mind that there has been a selection process. Plus, not everyone can submit material to Font Squirrel. The only thing to watch out for are the types of licenses: some fonts may only be allowed for desktop use and not web, so do pay attention before downloading.

Google Fonts

If like me (and Distilled as a whole), you’re partial to a Google Doc, you might already be familiar with the awesomeness that is Google Fonts. The ability to just be able to pick and choose from hundreds of open-source fonts, without even needing to download anything! That’s the thing though, Google Fonts are all about the web and positioning themselves as the best resource for ‘webfonts’, they don’t even advertise the fact that you can download every single one of them to use elsewhere offline, even… (drumroll please) in Microsoft Word. It’s really simple to do. Once you’ve chosen your font and added to your collection, click ‘use’ and on the right-hand side, there will be a small download icon. I’d typically recommend getting the .zip file and installing the font manually.

Font Pair

If you’re feeling adventurous and want to use not one, but two awesome Google Fonts to mix things up, what you need is a good font pairing. Luckily for you, the guys at Font Pair have it covered. Choose between no less than six different style combinations that will be sure to give any copy that exciting edge.

FontFace Ninja

Finally, to round up this section is my absolute favourite: FontFace Ninja. This is really more of a tool than a resource, but I just couldn’t leave it out. Gone are the days of desperately trying to find out the font that I’ve seen used beautifully on a website, but which I don’t know the name of. FontFace Ninja is a lightweight extension, for Chrome or Safari, which allows you to find out the name and details of any font on any webpage, simply by hovering over some text. If it’s a free font it should also give you the option to download it. What more could you ask for?

Images

Although in recent years our screens have become saturated with crisp full-screen images, the trend isn’t quite over yet; users are apparently still hungry for more! Here are a couple of my favourite photo sites that will a) meet your audience’s demands, b) not cost you a single penny, and most importantly c) not get your head in a twist over attribution and licensing issues, because they’re all released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). In other words, not only are the images completely free to use, no attribution is required either.

Unsplash

Pexels

unDraw

If photos aren’t your thing and you’re after illustrations instead, unDraw offers a neat selection that wouldn’t look out of place on any modern website or banner. The best thing is they’ve made it really easy to change the main colour of each image to suit your needs, for instance, if you ever have the internal brand police on your case!

Screenshots & Mockups

Screenshots can be a tricky one to get right, yet in our line of work, it can play a significant part in things like sales pitches or client presentations.

Nimbus Capture

Apart from Grab, the native Mac OS app (which I also do swear by), Nimbus Capture is definitely one of the better screenshot extensions I’ve used.  Capturing a full web page may seem slightly excessive if you just need to show a section, but for those instances when what you want to show extends beyond your laptop screen’s physical height, this works wonders.

Magic Mockups

If you want to take it one step further, for example when selling creative ideas, Magic Mockups might just be the extra boost you need. This impressive and easy-to-use tool lets you create in-situ mockups of your website, app or product in just a few minutes. Not convinced? The following example took me less than 2 minutes to make and download. I barely lifted a finger, so this probably is a secret best kept amongst us lazy bunch.

Icons

A lot of icon sets out there are definitely tailored to a more design-savvy audience, those who have Illustrator or Photoshop at their disposal. But what happened to the plain and simple PNG image that you can just whack next to some text in a banner? Look no further than the following two sites. Sure, they don’t have the same volume as a site like The Noun Project, but as with the photography sites I recommended earlier, the advantage is that they require zero moolah, zero attribution.

iconmonstr

Illustrio

Colours

Colours are things that can often throw up a challenge for even the more experienced of designers, let alone someone whose full-time job is not doodling and colouring in all day. 

Coolors

Whenever I need colour inspiration, I head over to Coolors. Hit spacebar to cycle through their generated colour combinations (try not to get too mesmerised and sidetracked when doing this!). If you’re the picky type, it allows you to tweak and lock down on the colours you like, just hover over the colour blocks to configure.

As a side-note, everybody should have a trusty eyedropper extension installed (any will do really). While “guess the hex” may have a catchy ring to it, there’s no good reason in trying to match colours by eye anymore, especially if you want to keep your brand colours in check.

Image Templates

Canva shouldn’t be a revelation for people who have to deal with social media marketing. It’s fast becoming the go-to tool for creating quick images, sized perfectly for your needs whether that be Facebook, Twitter, etc. That said, its capabilities aren’t restricted to these, you can use it for general image creation of any kind. So, if I were you I’d take the advice given on their homepage and “Get your team on brand. Unleash your creativity.”!

Presentation templates

Finally just to wrap things up: if the going gets really tough, and you find yourself having to create and design your own presentation from scratch, my advice for you would be… don’t do it! In recent years there has been a surge in interest for presentation tools claiming to do a lot of design heavy-lifting for you. One of them which has come close to living up to this promise is Beautiful.ai, Even as a designer, I sometimes relish the opportunity to relinquish control and just let someone, or something in this case, take care of things like spacing and alignment, not least because it frees up time to focus on the content of your presentation rather than fretting over the format.

If your team are adamant about sticking with the G-suite though, check out Slides Carnival. They offer a range of free Google Slides templates, which can at least get you going. There’s nothing worse than staring at a blank slide, not knowing where to begin.

That’s all for now, folks. Thanks for sticking around. If you have any questions or thoughts, just drop me a line in the comment section below.

Be Your Own Designer - The Best Free Resources for when You’re Short on Time was originally posted by Video And Blog Marketing

[donnafmae]

Be Your Own Designer - The Best Free Resources for when You’re Short on Time

You'll be pleased to hear we recently updated this post. It was originally written in June 2015, but now it contains a whole new suite of design tools!

Has there ever been a time when you’ve realised you’re a day away from a big pitch, but you forgot to book any design time through your creative department? Or perhaps there’s that last-minute blog post that needs some images and banners, but there’s no way of roping in a designer at such short notice! It’s easy to become reliant when you have a Design team at the ready, but when push comes to shove, slightly unwillingly, you sometimes have to don that faux-designer’s hat. The trouble is, where do you even begin? To help you out in such hours of need, I have compiled a list of my favourite design resources for non-designers and designers alike. Oh, and did I mention they’re all free?

Just a quick disclaimer: this isn’t Graphic Design 101 (I’m definitely not ready to declare myself redundant as a designer at Distilled). Instead, think of this as more of a design directory if you will. Whether you’re after a nice font to spruce up your Word doc or you really need some images to dress that presentation to impress, if you’re going to find a fast, free solution anywhere, start here.

Typography & Fonts

Font Squirrel

Font Squirrel does exactly what it says on the tin; all the fonts listed are 100% free for commercial use. Best of all they are hand-picked, so unlike other sites offering free fonts (e.g. Dafont) you have peace of mind that there has been a selection process. Plus, not everyone can submit material to Font Squirrel. The only thing to watch out for are the types of licenses: some fonts may only be allowed for desktop use and not web, so do pay attention before downloading.

Google Fonts

If like me (and Distilled as a whole), you’re partial to a Google Doc, you might already be familiar with the awesomeness that is Google Fonts. The ability to just be able to pick and choose from hundreds of open-source fonts, without even needing to download anything! That’s the thing though, Google Fonts are all about the web and positioning themselves as the best resource for ‘webfonts’, they don’t even advertise the fact that you can download every single one of them to use elsewhere offline, even… (drumroll please) in Microsoft Word. It’s really simple to do. Once you’ve chosen your font and added to your collection, click ‘use’ and on the right-hand side, there will be a small download icon. I’d typically recommend getting the .zip file and installing the font manually.

Font Pair

If you’re feeling adventurous and want to use not one, but two awesome Google Fonts to mix things up, what you need is a good font pairing. Luckily for you, the guys at Font Pair have it covered. Choose between no less than six different style combinations that will be sure to give any copy that exciting edge.

FontFace Ninja

Finally, to round up this section is my absolute favourite: FontFace Ninja. This is really more of a tool than a resource, but I just couldn’t leave it out. Gone are the days of desperately trying to find out the font that I’ve seen used beautifully on a website, but which I don’t know the name of. FontFace Ninja is a lightweight extension, for Chrome or Safari, which allows you to find out the name and details of any font on any webpage, simply by hovering over some text. If it’s a free font it should also give you the option to download it. What more could you ask for?

Images

Although in recent years our screens have become saturated with crisp full-screen images, the trend isn’t quite over yet; users are apparently still hungry for more! Here are a couple of my favourite photo sites that will a) meet your audience’s demands, b) not cost you a single penny, and most importantly c) not get your head in a twist over attribution and licensing issues, because they’re all released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). In other words, not only are the images completely free to use, no attribution is required either.

Unsplash

Pexels

unDraw

If photos aren’t your thing and you’re after illustrations instead, unDraw offers a neat selection that wouldn’t look out of place on any modern website or banner. The best thing is they’ve made it really easy to change the main colour of each image to suit your needs, for instance, if you ever have the internal brand police on your case!

Screenshots & Mockups

Screenshots can be a tricky one to get right, yet in our line of work, it can play a significant part in things like sales pitches or client presentations.

Nimbus Capture

Apart from Grab, the native Mac OS app (which I also do swear by), Nimbus Capture is definitely one of the better screenshot extensions I’ve used.  Capturing a full web page may seem slightly excessive if you just need to show a section, but for those instances when what you want to show extends beyond your laptop screen’s physical height, this works wonders.

Magic Mockups

If you want to take it one step further, for example when selling creative ideas, Magic Mockups might just be the extra boost you need. This impressive and easy-to-use tool lets you create in-situ mockups of your website, app or product in just a few minutes. Not convinced? The following example took me less than 2 minutes to make and download. I barely lifted a finger, so this probably is a secret best kept amongst us lazy bunch.

Icons

A lot of icon sets out there are definitely tailored to a more design-savvy audience, those who have Illustrator or Photoshop at their disposal. But what happened to the plain and simple PNG image that you can just whack next to some text in a banner? Look no further than the following two sites. Sure, they don’t have the same volume as a site like The Noun Project, but as with the photography sites I recommended earlier, the advantage is that they require zero moolah, zero attribution.

iconmonstr

Illustrio

Colours

Colours are things that can often throw up a challenge for even the more experienced of designers, let alone someone whose full-time job is not doodling and colouring in all day. 

Coolors

Whenever I need colour inspiration, I head over to Coolors. Hit spacebar to cycle through their generated colour combinations (try not to get too mesmerised and sidetracked when doing this!). If you’re the picky type, it allows you to tweak and lock down on the colours you like, just hover over the colour blocks to configure.

As a side-note, everybody should have a trusty eyedropper extension installed (any will do really). While “guess the hex” may have a catchy ring to it, there’s no good reason in trying to match colours by eye anymore, especially if you want to keep your brand colours in check.

Image Templates

Canva shouldn’t be a revelation for people who have to deal with social media marketing. It’s fast becoming the go-to tool for creating quick images, sized perfectly for your needs whether that be Facebook, Twitter, etc. That said, its capabilities aren’t restricted to these, you can use it for general image creation of any kind. So, if I were you I’d take the advice given on their homepage and “Get your team on brand. Unleash your creativity.”!

Presentation templates

Finally just to wrap things up: if the going gets really tough, and you find yourself having to create and design your own presentation from scratch, my advice for you would be… don’t do it! In recent years there has been a surge in interest for presentation tools claiming to do a lot of design heavy-lifting for you. One of them which has come close to living up to this promise is Beautiful.ai, Even as a designer, I sometimes relish the opportunity to relinquish control and just let someone, or something in this case, take care of things like spacing and alignment, not least because it frees up time to focus on the content of your presentation rather than fretting over the format.

If your team are adamant about sticking with the G-suite though, check out Slides Carnival. They offer a range of free Google Slides templates, which can at least get you going. There’s nothing worse than staring at a blank slide, not knowing where to begin.

That’s all for now, folks. Thanks for sticking around. If you have any questions or thoughts, just drop me a line in the comment section below.

from Marketing https://www.distilled.net/resources/be-your-own-designer-the-best-free-resources-for-when-youre-short-on-time/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[droneseco]

Hyperx PulseFire Haste Gaming Mouse Review: Razer Should Be Worried

HyperX Pulsefire Haste

9.50 / 10

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The Pulsefire Haste is pretty close to perfect. It ticks all of the boxes for a well-designed, lightweight gaming mouse, and at the $50 price tag, we think it’s an absolute steal.

Key Features

Specifications

Brand : HyperX

Weight: 59g

Sensor and DPI: Pixart 3335 sensor, 16000 DPI

Switches: TTC Golden Micro Dust-Proof

RGB Lighting: Yes

Programmable Buttons: Yes, 6

Connectivity: USB

Pros

Snappy Performance

Ultra Lightweight

Customizable

Honeycomb Design

Cons

NGenuity Software Feels Rushed

Cable covering can Snag

Buy This Product

HyperX Pulsefire Haste amazon

Shop

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For most gamers, slow is bad. Whether it be lag, poorly functioning peripherals, or a GPU that just can’t keep up. In the online gaming world, speed is king. No one knows this better than HyperX. That’s why, when HyperX sent us their new Pulsefire Haste gaming mouse, we were excited to see its approach to the lightweight category. But how does the Haste stack up to our tests and to its competitors?

In this article, we’ll answer all of those questions, and we’ll let you know if you should buy the HyperX Pulsefire Haste.

Meet the Pulsefire Haste

The Pulsefire Haste is the newest competitive ultra-lightweight mouse from HyperX. It's aimed at PC gamers who are looking for extreme responsiveness and pinpoint control all while minimizing weight. With HyperX’s Pulsefire Haste coming in at only 59g, some have called this the best $50 ultra-light gaming mouse available.

For Apex aficionados and Warzone warriors, the Haste offers a significant weight reduction over traditional gaming mice. Coming in at around 30g less than regular weight offerings like the Razer Death Adder V2 and the Logitech G203 Lightsync, the Haste is designed to help you snap onto your targets, and down your opponents faster than ever before.

What’s in the Box?

HyperX Pulsefire Haste gaming mouse

Grip tape

Extra PTFE skates

Quick-Start guide

Warranty card

On the Surface

The exterior packaging of the Pulsfire Haste touts the mouse as “ultra-lightweight,” and HyperX isn’t messing around. We unboxed the unit, took the Haste out of its blister pack, and immediately stuck it on our scale. We found that this little beast comes in at a featherweight 59.2g.

It seems that Hyperx really tried to shave as much bulk as it could off of this unit. While adding the included grip tape to the mouse fosters a hair more weight, what you lose on the scale you’ll gain back with extra grip.

The Haste's grip tape is also very comfortable to use. It has a rubberized texture and a “sticky-but-not-in-a-bad-way” feel. We’re confident that this grip tape is sufficient for all but the sweatiest of hands.

The mouse is a bit larger than we expected. In our testing, the Haste seems mostly designed for tip grip or claw players. Sorry palm grip users, you’ll want to skip this bad boy. For us, the Haste’s hump made using a palm grip uncomfortable even for medium hands.

On the shell of the Haste is a series of honeycombed cut-outs that anyone familiar with the Glorious Model O and the Cooler Master MM710 will recognize. This pattern decreases the weight of the mouse, while also allowing for a slightly more secure grip on the unit's surface. It feels rigid. If there was any flex or give to the mouse, we didn't notice.

The Pulsefire Haste rides on a set of skates that have been preinstalled from the factory. These skates are rounded and boast “virgin-grade” PTFE. They're white in color and smooth to the touch.

"Virgin-grade" simply means that these skates are not made out of any recycled materials. Whether this nomenclature is merely marketing or not, we found the skates allowed the mouse to glide across our oversized mouse pad with minimal drag.

This means that both large and small movements should have no trouble being detected. HyperX has also included an extra set of skates just in case you manage to wear out the original set.

One of the best and worst features of the Haste is the Hyperflex paracord-wrapped USB cable. It’s USB-A to USB-C and about six feet in length (1.8 meters). This length provides plenty of room for gamers who prefer to use the full width of their desk or mouse pad. The cable is also extremely flexible.

Unfortunately, the paracord material tends to catch on things—in our case a small piece of velcro cable wrapping. Removing the Velcro caused the cable to snag, which we admit was a user error, but it is still something worth mentioning.

By no means is this a dealbreaker. The flexibility of the cable is awesome, just be careful if your desk has sharp corners or a rough surface.

Buttons, Sensor, Scroll Wheel

Inside the body of the Haste, you’ll find a set of TTC Golden micro dustproof switches that are rated for up to 60 million clicks. Many gamers will appreciate HyperX’s decision to upgrade these switches to TTC’s instead of using spongy Omrons.

In addition to the performance of these switches, they also sound great. Pressing the buttons on the Haste results in a sharply satisfying click. You can hear the way each button sounds in the clip below.

There is a bit of pre-travel in both of the main buttons which may work better for more heavy-handed players. Unfortunately, if you’ve got hummingbird fingers, then you’ll need to press a little harder to avoid misclicks. Other reviewers have mentioned post-travel, but any that might have popped up on our unit was unnoticeable.

On the left side of the Haste are two programmable buttons for extra functionality. These buttons also have a nice solid feel and are located in a spot where they must be pressed deliberately. This positioning helps avoid accidental activation in the heat of battle.

The scroll wheel is the only portion of the mouse that is RGB, and colors can be customized via the proprietary HyperX NGenuity software. The wheel has a nice tactile surface, consistent click, and just enough detent for pleasurable scrolling.

At the heart of the Haste is the Pixart 3335 sensor which boasts an impressive 400 IPS tracking speed, and offers up to 16000 dots per inch (DPI). This DPI is adjustable via the NGenuity software.

Like many gaming mice, you can assign different DPI stages to the programmable button behind the scroll wheel. This means if you want to switch DPI on the fly, all you have to do is set up the button in the NGenuity software and click.

The Haste also offers a polling rate of up to 1000MHz.

Overall Construction and Build Quality

At first, the honeycomb design and the low weight might seem like they would influence the construction of the mouse, but we found the Pulsefire Haste surprisingly sturdy. There are no rattles or noises from inside when you give the Haste a hearty shake.

Despite the low weight of this mouse, the build quality is great. There are no rough edges or hot spots to speak of, and it feels great in the hand. Even after extended gaming sessions ended, we found ourselves making excuses to pick it back up.

Overall, the Haste feels like a premium product. This is phenomenal considering its $50 price tag. While $50 may, at first, seem pricey for something as ubiquitous as a mouse, once you get it in your hands you'll understand the enormous value that the Haste offers.

Related: The Best Mouse Pads For Gamers 

Fun and Games

Besides PC gaming, the Haste also gives PS4 and Xbox One players an alternative to clunky controllers. Pairing this mouse with a mechanical keyboard gives you a significant advantage over console gamers who would prefer to thumb-wrestle.

In the name of science, we attached this lovely little rodent to both the PS4 directly, via a Cronus Zen, and took it into a private Modern Warfare lobby. In both instances, the mouse performed exceptionally.

Though we would never condone say, jumping into a game of Warzone and immediately getting a handful of Superstore kills while cackling like a bloodthirsty maniac, the option to do so with the Haste exists.

What’s Not to Love?

There is a lot to like about the Pulsefire Haste, but there is one area in which we weren’t impressed: the NGenuity software. Firstly, this software is only available in beta on the Microsoft Store. Anyone with any experience using Microsoft's store knows how unruly using it can be.

Secondly, the NGenuity software doesn’t offer much in the way of effect customization. There are only three primary effects to choose from: breathing, solid, and cycle. Each of these offers different behavior for the RGB scroll wheel.

While there is still an ability to change color options on the Haste, doing so doesn’t feel intuitive. We understand the Ngenuity software is still in beta, but it still feels like it was thrown together in a rush.

This lack of features doesn’t seem to be a huge problem, and will probably be corrected in future updates. For us though, if the main way to control a peripheral is through a GUI interface, then that interface shouldn't feel this clunky.

Another thing that we should point out is that this mouse is designed specifically for PC, PS4, and Xbox One gamers. For macOS users, this gaming mouse will not work. The Ngenuity software isn't available on any mac platform at this time. This means that if you're one of those rare macOS gamers, you'll have to skip this offering.

Additionally, some users are complaining of a DPI shift of about 50. This isn’t something we experienced with our demo unit, however it is something that should be mentioned.

Lastly, and this is true of all honeycombed gaming mice, if you’re planning to snack while gaming, there is a strong possibility to introduce crumbs into the inside of this mouse. Even with the grip tape installed, the honeycomb holes of the mouse are large enough to collect schmutz from any grubby fingers.

If you’ve owned a lightweight mouse like this before, then you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about.

Related: What is Mouse DPI? 

Can You Repair/Upgrade the HyperX Pulsefire Haste?

No. The HyperX Pulsefire Haste is not designed to be disassembled. However, there are some components that are user-serviceable. This service is limited to the replacement of skates and the installation of grip tape.

Unfortunately, if the Haste breaks, you’ll have to buy a new one. However, HyperX has included a 2-year warranty against any manufacturer defects for unexpected quality control issues.

Should You Buy the HyperX Pulsefire Haste?

If you're looking for a lightweight gaming mouse, then yes. Yes, you should.

Gamers looking for extreme DPI capability in a featherweight package will benefit from grabbing the Pulsefire Haste. Lovers of RGB gear to go with colorful battle stations will also enjoy the customizability of the Haste.

Additionally, players who want to squeeze the absolute maximum amount of performance out of a gaming session will love adding the Haste's high DPI to their arsenal. Lastly, those gamers who value quickly snapping onto targets in FPS titles, couldn’t do much better than the Haste for the cost.

On the other hand, if you play with a palm grip, (no pun) then you’re not going to like the HyperX Haste. If you’re using your mouse lefty—which honestly scares us a little bit—then you’ll be at a disadvantage with the Haste due to its left-side button arrangement.

Lastly, if you’re RGB’d out, and the idea of a neon glow on your desk makes you want to scream, then we’d recommend trying something besides the Haste.

Haste Isn't a Waste

Even if the HyperX NGenuity software isn’t perfect, the Pulsefire Haste as a whole is pretty close to perfect. It ticks all of the boxes for a well-designed, lightweight gaming mouse, and for the $50 price tag, we think it’s an absolute steal. The lengthy cable is great, the Pixart 3335 is snappy and responsive, and the build quality of the Haste puts it right in the sweet spot of value.

If you’re on the fence, stop waiting, and go pick up this gaming mouse. You’ll be glad you did.

Hyperx PulseFire Haste Gaming Mouse Review: Razer Should Be Worried published first on http://droneseco.tumblr.com/

[ronijashworth]

Be Your Own Designer - The Best Free Resources for when You’re Short on Time

You'll be pleased to hear we recently updated this post. It was originally written in June 2015, but now it contains a whole new suite of design tools!

Has there ever been a time when you’ve realised you’re a day away from a big pitch, but you forgot to book any design time through your creative department? Or perhaps there’s that last-minute blog post that needs some images and banners, but there’s no way of roping in a designer at such short notice! It’s easy to become reliant when you have a Design team at the ready, but when push comes to shove, slightly unwillingly, you sometimes have to don that faux-designer’s hat. The trouble is, where do you even begin? To help you out in such hours of need, I have compiled a list of my favourite design resources for non-designers and designers alike. Oh, and did I mention they’re all free?

Just a quick disclaimer: this isn’t Graphic Design 101 (I’m definitely not ready to declare myself redundant as a designer at Distilled). Instead, think of this as more of a design directory if you will. Whether you’re after a nice font to spruce up your Word doc or you really need some images to dress that presentation to impress, if you’re going to find a fast, free solution anywhere, start here.

Typography & Fonts

Font Squirrel

Font Squirrel does exactly what it says on the tin; all the fonts listed are 100% free for commercial use. Best of all they are hand-picked, so unlike other sites offering free fonts (e.g. Dafont) you have peace of mind that there has been a selection process. Plus, not everyone can submit material to Font Squirrel. The only thing to watch out for are the types of licenses: some fonts may only be allowed for desktop use and not web, so do pay attention before downloading.

Google Fonts

If like me (and Distilled as a whole), you’re partial to a Google Doc, you might already be familiar with the awesomeness that is Google Fonts. The ability to just be able to pick and choose from hundreds of open-source fonts, without even needing to download anything! That’s the thing though, Google Fonts are all about the web and positioning themselves as the best resource for ‘webfonts’, they don’t even advertise the fact that you can download every single one of them to use elsewhere offline, even… (drumroll please) in Microsoft Word. It’s really simple to do. Once you’ve chosen your font and added to your collection, click ‘use’ and on the right-hand side, there will be a small download icon. I’d typically recommend getting the .zip file and installing the font manually.

Font Pair

If you’re feeling adventurous and want to use not one, but two awesome Google Fonts to mix things up, what you need is a good font pairing. Luckily for you, the guys at Font Pair have it covered. Choose between no less than six different style combinations that will be sure to give any copy that exciting edge.

FontFace Ninja

Finally, to round up this section is my absolute favourite: FontFace Ninja. This is really more of a tool than a resource, but I just couldn’t leave it out. Gone are the days of desperately trying to find out the font that I’ve seen used beautifully on a website, but which I don’t know the name of. FontFace Ninja is a lightweight extension, for Chrome or Safari, which allows you to find out the name and details of any font on any webpage, simply by hovering over some text. If it’s a free font it should also give you the option to download it. What more could you ask for?

Images

Although in recent years our screens have become saturated with crisp full-screen images, the trend isn’t quite over yet; users are apparently still hungry for more! Here are a couple of my favourite photo sites that will a) meet your audience’s demands, b) not cost you a single penny, and most importantly c) not get your head in a twist over attribution and licensing issues, because they’re all released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). In other words, not only are the images completely free to use, no attribution is required either.

Unsplash

Pexels

unDraw

If photos aren’t your thing and you’re after illustrations instead, unDraw offers a neat selection that wouldn’t look out of place on any modern website or banner. The best thing is they’ve made it really easy to change the main colour of each image to suit your needs, for instance, if you ever have the internal brand police on your case!

Screenshots & Mockups

Screenshots can be a tricky one to get right, yet in our line of work, it can play a significant part in things like sales pitches or client presentations.

Nimbus Capture

Apart from Grab, the native Mac OS app (which I also do swear by), Nimbus Capture is definitely one of the better screenshot extensions I’ve used.  Capturing a full web page may seem slightly excessive if you just need to show a section, but for those instances when what you want to show extends beyond your laptop screen’s physical height, this works wonders.

Magic Mockups

If you want to take it one step further, for example when selling creative ideas, Magic Mockups might just be the extra boost you need. This impressive and easy-to-use tool lets you create in-situ mockups of your website, app or product in just a few minutes. Not convinced? The following example took me less than 2 minutes to make and download. I barely lifted a finger, so this probably is a secret best kept amongst us lazy bunch.

Icons

A lot of icon sets out there are definitely tailored to a more design-savvy audience, those who have Illustrator or Photoshop at their disposal. But what happened to the plain and simple PNG image that you can just whack next to some text in a banner? Look no further than the following two sites. Sure, they don’t have the same volume as a site like The Noun Project, but as with the photography sites I recommended earlier, the advantage is that they require zero moolah, zero attribution.

iconmonstr

Illustrio

Colours

Colours are things that can often throw up a challenge for even the more experienced of designers, let alone someone whose full-time job is not doodling and colouring in all day. 

Coolors

Whenever I need colour inspiration, I head over to Coolors. Hit spacebar to cycle through their generated colour combinations (try not to get too mesmerised and sidetracked when doing this!). If you’re the picky type, it allows you to tweak and lock down on the colours you like, just hover over the colour blocks to configure.

As a side-note, everybody should have a trusty eyedropper extension installed (any will do really). While “guess the hex” may have a catchy ring to it, there’s no good reason in trying to match colours by eye anymore, especially if you want to keep your brand colours in check.

Image Templates

Canva shouldn’t be a revelation for people who have to deal with social media marketing. It’s fast becoming the go-to tool for creating quick images, sized perfectly for your needs whether that be Facebook, Twitter, etc. That said, its capabilities aren’t restricted to these, you can use it for general image creation of any kind. So, if I were you I’d take the advice given on their homepage and “Get your team on brand. Unleash your creativity.”!

Presentation templates

Finally just to wrap things up: if the going gets really tough, and you find yourself having to create and design your own presentation from scratch, my advice for you would be… don’t do it! In recent years there has been a surge in interest for presentation tools claiming to do a lot of design heavy-lifting for you. One of them which has come close to living up to this promise is Beautiful.ai, Even as a designer, I sometimes relish the opportunity to relinquish control and just let someone, or something in this case, take care of things like spacing and alignment, not least because it frees up time to focus on the content of your presentation rather than fretting over the format.

If your team are adamant about sticking with the G-suite though, check out Slides Carnival. They offer a range of free Google Slides templates, which can at least get you going. There’s nothing worse than staring at a blank slide, not knowing where to begin.

That’s all for now, folks. Thanks for sticking around. If you have any questions or thoughts, just drop me a line in the comment section below.

from Digital Marketing https://www.distilled.net/resources/be-your-own-designer-the-best-free-resources-for-when-youre-short-on-time/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[awesomeblockchain]

What Is NEO Coin and What Is GAS?

NEO coin is one of the top-performing cryptocurrencies, having shot up a whopping 49000% from a paltry $0.15 in January 2017 to $79.00 in December 2017. Often referred to as -China's Ethereum," NEO also has another crypto token, GAS.

People often ask, -What is NEO coin and how does it differ from GAS?"

Think of NEO coin as a share in a company. It represents part-ownership of the NEO blockchain.

GAS is a dividend paid to NEO coin holders. It is a sort of payment for using the NEO blockchain. GAS is a linked cryptocurrency that is used to pay for running apps and executing contracts on the NEO platform.

The important thing to keep in mind is that every NEO coin that you own will automatically generate GAS at a rate that can earn you (at current exchange rates) almost 7.5% in annual returns.

How to Store NEO and Gas

Before moving on to storage, let's take a quick look at which exchanges you can trade NEO on. Here are the most popular exchanges that support NEO:

Once you have purchased NEO coins on a cryptocurrency exchange, you need to store them in a NEO wallet that not only allows safe storage of NEO, but also claims and stores free GAS that accumulates while storing NEO.

Below, I'll give you a more detailed explanation of how to store NEO and how to store GAS.

How to Select Best NEO Wallets

Regardless of their type and functionality, wallets are an integral part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. All cryptocurrencies need a wallet address for storing, transacting, and-in NEO's case-claiming GAS.

You can select your cryptocurrency wallet from the list of the best NEO wallets below. But, if you are keen on shopping around on your own, make sure you take into consideration the following important factors to select best NEO wallets:

Private Control Keys: A good cryptocurrency wallet must have the facility for you to own and control the keys to your wallet.

Security Backup: Whenever you are storing objects with a market value, security is necessary. Features like seed keys (backup keys) and PIN codes are crucial.

Gas-Claiming Capability: Not all cryptocurrency wallets automatically claim the free GAS that you get for holding NEO.

Ease of use: A good cryptocurrency wallet is one that has an elegant and easy user interface.

Compatibility: the cryptocurrency wallet must be compatible with your operating system. If you have a -Mac," you need a NEO wallet for Mac, and if you are an -Android" user, you need a NEO wallet for Android.

Now that you know how to select the best wallets for NEO coin, let's look at the different types of wallets that are available.

Types of Wallets to Store NEO Coin In

There are various types of wallets to store NEO coin in: hardware wallets, software wallets, Web-based wallets, and paper wallets.

All of these cryptocurrency wallets are differentiated based on the interface that supports them and the way the wallet stores your keys.

List of Best Wallets for Neo Coin

The best NEO wallets are those that have a high safety rating and the capability to generate GAS from their stored NEO coins. The following wallets are all very safe, and-except for the paper wallet-have GAS-generating capability.

NEO-GUI, which is NEO's official desktop wallet, is developed by the NEO team. Currently, it is compatible only with -Windows 7 (Service Pack 1)," -Windows 8," and -Windows 10."

NEON Wallet, a desktop wallet, is one of the most popular NEO wallets. Although this wallet was not created by NEO developers, they have reviewed it and have found it to be totally safe. It is compatible with Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Ledger Nano S, a hardware wallet, is the most secure wallet, especially for long-term storage. This wallet works with the NEON wallet to claim your earned GAS.

Binance is a popular cryptocurrency exchange with many inbuilt wallets. Binance's NEO wallet, which is a Web wallet, gives users access to the NEO/GAS tokens on the second day of each month. As far as inbuilt exchange wallets go, Binance's NEO wallet is among the most rewarding.

NEO Tracker is an open-source project. The great thing about this wallet is that it is officially an offline wallet. Although it uses a Web browser to generate data and claim GAS, nothing is ever stored on NEO Tracker's servers.

NEO Wallet is a lightweight Web wallet that was developed by the NEO community. Even though it is a Web wallet, it is very secure; nothing is ever sent to its servers. The wallet is currently available through -Google Chrome" and -Microsoft Edge."

Ansy, a paper wallet, involves pieces of paper with the private address and public address printed on them. The public address can be used to send any amount of NEO to the wallet, and the private address can be used to spend your tokens. Although the funds are very secure in this wallet, the big drawback is that you won't be able to claim GAS with it. Ansy is currently available through Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.

NEO CLI is another official NEO desktop wallet. Since the wallet is controlled by command-line prompts, it is mainly for advanced users who are familiar with command language. The NEO CLI wallet is compatible with Windows and Linux.

(Source: -9 best wallets to store NEO and GAS crypto," Coinsutra, January 20, 2018.)

NEON Wallet: Things to Know

Since NEON wallet is one of the most popular wallets for storing NEO coin, here are a few things to know about this wallet.

How to Create a NEON Wallet

Go the latest version of the NEO wallet client that is compatible with your computer.

Install the NEO wallet client.

Open the application.

Select -Create a new wallet."

Enter a strong passphrase and click on -Generate Keys."

Once the key is generated, print it and save it in a safe and secure offline location.

Save the application file on your computer.

How to Use a NEON Wallet

Click on -Login using a saved wallet."

Select your wallet from the drop-down.

Enter your passphrase.

Click on -Log in."

Once the page opens, on the left-hand side, you will notice your NEO and GAS holdings, the U.S. dollar value of your wallet, and your NEO address.

On the right-hand side of the page, you will see the place for your list of transactions.

How to Move Funds to NEON Wallet

Copy your public NEO address from your NEON wallet.

Go to the exchange where you are holding your NEO

Use the copied public NEO address as the withdrawal address.

Wait minute or two, and then you should see your NEO funds in your NEON wallet.

Since you are now familiar with how to store coins in NEON wallet, let's see how to claim GAS and how to withdraw GAS from NEON wallet.

How to Claim GAS in a NEON Wallet

This is the easiest instruction ever. You virtually do nothing.

Once the NEO funds are in your NEON wallet, the GAS automatically starts building up. Give it a week or two to build up to a significant amount, then log in to your wallet and click on the green button that says -Claim X Gas." Once you claim your GAS, it will be reflected in your updated GAS balance.

How to Send NEO/GAS Out of the NEON Wallet

Click on the green bar at the top that says -SEND." You will notice two fields, -Where to send the asset (address)" and -Amount."

In the first field, paste the NEO address where you wish to send the NEO coins.

In the second field, enter the amount of NEO you wish to send.

Click on the -Send Asset" button.

If you wish to send GAS instead of NEO, click on the -NEO" button to toggle it to -GAS" and follow the same directions as for sending out NEO.

Is NEON Wallet Safe?

Yes, NEON Wallet is very safe. In fact, since many people were wondering -Is NEON wallet safe?" the NEO developers subjected the wallet to a thorough review and gave it a 100% safe rating.

Analyst Take:

To be absolutely frank, whatever the cryptocurrency, I'm almost always in favor of a hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano S.

But, in the case of NEO, I prefer the desktop wallet NEON, because it can claim GAS on its own steam, whereas the Ledger Nano S has to be linked to the NEON wallet in order to claim GAS. Of course, the 100% safety confirmation by the NEO team played a part in my choice.

http://ift.tt/2Cmd9Pt

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOUR COMPANY HAS TO MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE WILL PAY FOR

If they'd waited to release everything at once, they wouldn't have discovered this problem till it was more deeply wired in. The most extreme case is developing programming languages, which doesn't pay at all, because people like it so much they do it? I was never sure about that in high school. They're way more dangerous than Google because, like you, but they are. And who knows, maybe their offer will be surprisingly high. The big fish like Open Market rest their souls were just consulting companies pretending to be product companies, and I predict it will become more common. At the time there might have been brothers. He? It seems to me so important that it's misleading to treat it as a mere field of study. That principle, like the phrase personal satellite would today.

Saying less about implementation should also make programs more flexible. I don't think we should discard plunging. The centralizing effect of venture firms is a double-edged sword of course. This turned out to be a starving artist at the time from having it all happening live, right in front of me. An essay doesn't begin with a statement, but with a question. Unless it's your first priority, it's unlikely to happen at all. Then you could, in principle, be designed today, and 2 such a language, if it existed, might be good to program in it? I've learned a trick for determining which points are the counterintuitive ones: they're the ones I have to keep repeating. They will give you major coverage for a major release, meaning a new digit after the decimal point.

If your startup is doing a deal, the number of failures and yet leave you net ahead. If you want to sell, there's another set of customs for being ingratiating in print is that most opportunities for parallelism will be something that compiler writers think about, but which is usually invisible in the source code memorized, of course, so no major bugs should get released. Sometimes they're in a position to impose rules naturally want them to be written as thin enough skins that users can see the general-purpose language underneath. David Heinemeier Hansson gave a talk in which he suggested that startup founders should do things the old fashioned way. But their tastes can't be quite mainstream either, because they only have themselves to be mad at. This time, we thought, let's make something people want. Those helped get it started, but now that the reaction is self-sustaining chain reaction, or not at all.

Most investors know this m. But we soon saw we needed a third: start your own company in 1956 he moved to Palo Alto to do it. And the reason is that the original raison d'etre of classical scholarship was a kind of intellectual archaeology that does not need to be constantly improving both hardware and software. Programmers may spend a long day up to their elbows in source code, but you don't have one, and you suppress the other. Perhaps it was even simpler than they thought.1 Microsoft doesn't control the client, it will go in one investor ear and out the other. It's just unbearably inefficient. At Viaweb they were initially individuals and smaller companies, and I expect this to be as bad for startups as too much time around MIT had his own lock picking kit.

Convergence is more likely to make angel-sized investments made quickly. If you've truly made something good, you're doing investors a favor by telling them about it. Those helped get it started, but now that the reaction is self-sustaining what drives it is the people who break rules that are the source of America's wealth and power. Arbitrarily declaring such a border would have constrained our design choices. A stage before series As turned into de facto series B rounds. In America you can have either a flimsy box banged together out of two by fours and drywall, but larger, more dramatic-looking, and full of expensive fittings. And once you've written the software, all you need at most are the 13 people, because there will be more room for what would now be considered slow languages, meaning languages that don't yield very efficient code. They want to talk about how you plan to make money differently is to sell different things, because some tasks like raising money and getting incorporated are an O 1 pain in the ass, whether you're Dan Bricklin writing the prototype of VisiCalc in a weekend, or a niche product company, but it still might be a good deal of resistance at first. The customer support people and hackers. You can literally launch your product as three guys sitting in the living room of an apartment.

Audiences tune that out. For better or worse for the startup than they could get in the open market. But when you examine that election, it tends to offend people who like unions, because it seems sympathetic to their cause. If they can, companies like to do something that can't be described compellingly in one or two sentences exactly what it does. It's especially useful for language designers to think about where the evolution of the Web as closely as anyone, and I haven't seen much since to contradict it. Already chip designers have to think about how to get the round closed, he was not a tenth as motivated as the startup. I'll make them all read this, I should be working. It's for a more practical reason: to prevent them from leaning their company against something that's going to fall over, taking them with it. If you want to sell the company right now and b you're sufficiently likely to get an offer at all, and also New York, where people walk around smiling. Their tastes aren't completely different from other people's, because a lot of people like her.

Notes

They have no idea whether this happens because they're innumerate, or invent relativity. The Mac number is a facebook exclusively for college students.