#But said also to search for academic articles and papers

[nerdnag]

Soooo due to events I'm apparently about to write my bachelor's in philosophy about art philosophy

[pumpkinpaix]

You have questions! We might have answers.

What is this collection?

As Maria puts it: this collection is a critical look at some of the things that we, the editors, think have made CQL such a hit around the world. Of course, part of that success comes from the webnovel MDZS and the show CQL themselves—we love the characters, the mystery, and the drama, who doesn’t?! However, the authors in our book also look at topics like translating danmei (both officially and unofficially), adapting danmei for new audiences, and interacting with fandoms and fanworks. The larger argument of the book is that all of these things played a huge role in CQL’s visibility and success, and we wanted to start making those moving pieces visible, especially for audiences who mainly watched CQL in translation.

You keep using the word “academic”—what does that mean, exactly? 

Maria: Ok, not to get pedantic here, but this actually touches on some things that I’m really excited about for the book. Traditionally, academic work is written by people who have a deep expertise in the subject (signified by having a PhD and doing specific kinds of research), and then the work itself is peer-reviewed (i.e., sent to other experts in the field for them to evaluate whether it’s sound, original, and interesting enough to publish, without knowing who wrote it). And both of these things are true about our book—our authors have deep knowledge and the book was peer reviewed—but also. We specifically asked for chapters from younger scholars and from fans who also have deep knowledge about topics that academia doesn’t always know or value enough, and we include an interview from the fan-translator K. who did the Exiled Rebels translation. So the hope is that: this book is academic, and also—more!

Who are you? 

Yue studies adaptation, fantasy, and popular culture texts using a feminist lens. She wrote an early, influential article about danmei adaptations and also has a book about feminist adaptations of Chinese fantasy.

Maria studies fanworks, contemporary fantasy, and genre literature. She’s scrambling to finish her dissertation right now.

How were the chapter spotlights chosen?

Voluntarily! The concept of a small social media promo was kicked around by some of the contributors and those interested in the idea filled out a short interview with what they wanted to share. We'll be posting about 2 introductions and 2 spotlights a day for the next week or so!

Who's running this social media campaign anyway?

Not the publishers! A few enthusiastic collection contributors got together and, with the assistance of the editors, have put this promotion together. We do not in any way represent Peter Lang in an official capacity! We just worked hard and wanted to share. :)

Are you making any money off of royalties from this book? 

LOL not even remotely

What about this promotion?

also no. alas

Where can I find this book? 

You can find our listing on Peter Lang’s website here. As for other retailers, a quick search should turn us up!  

How can I access this book if I cannot buy it from Peter Lang / [book retailer of choice]?

As collection editors and contributors who signed a legal agreement with Peter Lang, we have granted Peter Lang exclusive right and license to edit, adapt, publish, reproduce, distribute, display, and store our contributions, and we must cooperate fully with the Publisher if the Publisher believes a third party is infringing or is likely to infringe copyright in the contribution. 

That being said, these are academic papers, which means that contributors may make copies of the contribution for classroom teaching use! (These copies may not be included in course pack material for onward sale by libraries and institutions). Of course, any linking, collection or aggregation of chapters from the same volume is strictly prohibited.

(FAQ may be updated periodically!) (all posts on Catching Chen Qing Ling)

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Aaron Sibarium

Published: Jan 30, 2024

It's not just Claudine Gay. Harvard University's chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, appears to have plagiarized extensively in her academic work, lifting large portions of text without quotation marks and even taking credit for a study done by another scholar—her own husband—according to a complaint filed with the university on Monday and a Washington Free Beacon analysis.

The complaint makes 40 allegations of plagiarism that span the entirety of Charleston's thin publication record. In her 2009 dissertation, submitted to the University of Michigan, Charleston quotes or paraphrases nearly a dozen scholars without proper attribution, the complaint alleges. And in her sole peer-reviewed journal article—coauthored with her husband, LaVar Charleston, in 2014—the couple recycle much of a 2012 study published by LaVar Charleston, the deputy vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, framing the old material as new research.

Through that sleight of hand, Sherri Ann Charleston effectively took credit for her husband's work. The 2014 paper, which was also coauthored with Jerlando Jackson, now the dean of Michigan State University's College of Education, and appeared in the Journal of Negro Education, has the same methods, findings, and description of survey subjects as the 2012 study, which involved interviews with black computer science students and was first published by the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.

The two papers even report identical interview responses from those students. The overlap suggests that the authors did not conduct new interviews for the 2014 study but instead relied on LaVar Charleston's interviews from 2012—a severe breach of research ethics, according to experts who reviewed the allegations.

"The 2014 paper appears to be entirely counterfeit," said Peter Wood, the head of the National Association of Scholars and a former associate provost at Boston University, where he ran several academic integrity probes. "This is research fraud pure and simple."

Sherri Ann Charleston was the chief affirmative action officer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before she joined Harvard in August 2020 as its first-ever chief diversity officer. In that capacity, Charleston served on the staff advisory committee that helped guide the university's presidential search process that resulted in the selection of former Harvard president Claudine Gay in December 2022, according to the Harvard Crimson.

A historian and attorney by training, Charleston has taught courses on gender studies at the University of Wisconsin, according to her Harvard bio, which describes her as "one of the nation's leading experts in diversity." The site says that her work involves "translating diversity and inclusion research into practice for students, staff, researchers, postdoctoral fellows and faculty of color."

Experts who reviewed the allegations against Charleston said that they ranged from minor plagiarism to possible data fraud and warrant an investigation. Some also argued that Charleston had committed a more serious scholarly sin than Gay, Harvard's former president, who resigned in January after she was accused of lifting long passages from other authors without proper attribution.

Papers that omit a few citations or quotation marks rarely receive more than a correction, experts said. But when scholars recycle large chunks of a previous study—especially its data or conclusions—without attribution, the duplicate paper is often retracted and can even violate copyright law.

That offense, known as duplicate publication, is typically a form of self-plagiarism in which authors republish old work in a bid to pad their résumés. Here, though, the duplicate paper added two new authors, Sherri Ann Charleston and Jerlando Jackson, who had no involvement in the original, letting them claim credit for the research and making them party to the con.

"Sherri Charleston appears to have used somebody else's research without proper attribution," said Steve McGuire, a former political theory professor at Villanova University, who reviewed both the 2012 and 2014 papers.

One-fifth of the 2014 paper, including two-thirds of its "findings" section, was published in the 2012 study, according to the complaint, and three interview responses are identical in both articles, suggesting they come from the same survey.

According to Lee Jussim, a social psychologist at Rutgers University, "it is essentially impossible for two different people in two different studies to produce the same quote." At best, he said, the authors got their wires crossed and mixed up interviews from two separate surveys, both of which just happened to involve 37 participants with the exact same demographic profile. At worst, the authors committed data fraud by framing old survey responses as new ones—a separate and more serious offense.

The Journal of Negro Education did not respond to a request for comment. Sherri Ann Charleston, LaVar Charleston, and Jerlando Jackson did not respond to requests for comment.

Monday's complaint, which was filed anonymously, comes as Harvard is facing questions about the integrity of its research affiliates and the ideology of its diversity bureaucrats, most of whom report to the sprawling office that Sherri Ann Charleston oversees.

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, one of Harvard Medical School's three teaching hospitals, announced in January that it would retract six papers and correct dozens more after some of its top executives were accused of data manipulation. That news came on the heels of a viral essay in which Carole Hooven, a Harvard biologist, described how she had been hounded out of a teaching role by her department's diversity committee after she said in an interview that there are only two sexes.

The school is also facing an ongoing congressional probe over its handling of anti-Semitism and its response to the plagiarism allegations against Gay, which Harvard initially sought to suppress with legal saber-rattling. Half of Gay's published work contained plagiarized material, ranging from single sentences to entire paragraphs, with some of the most severe lifts coming in her dissertation. Though Gay stepped down as president on January 2, she remains a tenured faculty member drawing a $900,000 annual salary.

Some of Charleston's offenses are similar to Gay's. In her 2009 dissertation, for example, Charleston borrows a sentence from Eric Arnesen's 1991 book Waterfront Workers of New Orleans: Race, Class, and Politics, 1863-1923, without quotation marks and without citing Arnesen's work in a footnote.

She also lifts full paragraphs from her thesis adviser, Rebecca Scott, while making minimal semantic tweaks.

"There's simply not enough difference to consider them original words," said Jonathan Bailey, the founder of the website Plagiarism Today. "Though the sources in those examples are cited"—Charleston includes a footnote to Scott at the end of each passage—"the text either needed to be quoted or properly paraphrased."

Bailey added that the plagiarism of Scott alone merited an investigation—ideally, he said, "by a neutral party with no ties to either the school or the school's critics."

Harvard did not respond to a request for comment. Scott and Arnesen did not respond to requests for comment.

Charleston also lifted language from Louis Pérez, an historian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Alejandro de la Fuente, an historian at Harvard; and Ada Ferrer, an historian at New York University, among other scholars.

Charleston cites each source in a footnote but omits quotation marks around language copied verbatim. The omissions violate Harvard's Guide to Using Sources, a document produced for incoming students, which states that quotation marks are required when "you copy language word for word."

Pérez, de la Fuente, and Ferrer did not respond to requests for comment.

The range of examples presented in the complaint, which was also filed to the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, highlights how plagiarism can shade into more severe forms of misconduct when it involves interviews or other data.

In fact, some experts said the term "plagiarism" didn't quite capture the dishonesty of duplicate publication, which is sometimes categorized as a separate offense and accounts for 14 percent of all paper retractions in the life sciences.

"You cannot just republish an old paper as if it is a new paper," Jussim, the Rutgers psychologist, said. "If you do, that is not exactly plagiarism; it's more like fraud."

Wood said the case was really a combination of the two offenses. "Because the second paper, on which Sherri Ann Charleston is one of the three co-authors, recycles so much of the text of the original paper by LaVar J. Charleston, this does have the earmarks of plagiarism, but the plagiarism is compounded by an even larger effort to deceive," he said. "The universities and journals need to investigate."

While scholars can reuse data across multiple papers, they must make clear when they are doing so and provide appropriate attribution to earlier studies, per guidelines from the Office of Research Integrity and the editorial policies of top academic journals, including Nature and Cell.

But the 2014 paper never indicates that it is reusing research from 2012. Instead, it claims to present new data that fill a "gap" in the literature and "corroborate" the 2012 study, among others, and on two occasions refers to survey subjects as "participants in this study."

Those participants appear to be the same people whom LaVar Charleston interviewed in 2012. Both surveys involved the same number of undergraduates, graduate students, Ph.D.s, and students at historically black colleges—all drawn from the same computer science conference—a similarity that experts said was a red flag.

"It is curious that the proportions are identical," said Debora Weber-Wulff, a German computer scientist who researches plagiarism and other forms of academic misconduct. "This would be grounds for the universities in question to request the data and investigate."

Jussim agreed. "This seems sufficiently improbable that, absent something saying they are re-reporting an already-published study, it would be fraud," he said.

LaVar Charleston did not respond to a request for comment about whether the two studies used the same interviews. The University of Michigan said it was "committed to fostering and upholding the highest ethical standards in research and scholarship," but declined to comment on the complaint. The University of Wisconsin-Madison told the Free Beacon it had "initiated an assessment in response to the allegations."

The main difference between the papers is a long section in the 2014 article about "culturally responsive pedagogy theory," which the authors say their findings support. Both articles are littered with the tropes of progressive scholarship, including a disclaimer about "positionality"—the authors assure readers that they reflected on their own "racial, gender, and socioeconomic status"—and a lament that computer science is a "White male-dominated field."

Both also criticize the idea that "computing sciences is for nerds, only for White people, [and] only for geniuses."

Such language is typical of the diversity initiatives Charleston oversees. Since 2020, her office has pumped out a stream of materials that bemoan the "weaponization of whiteness," discuss the ins and outs of "white fragility," and urge students to "call out" their peers for "harmful words." One message, signed by Charleston herself, was titled "A Call to Dismantle Intersecting Oppressions."

"We must continue to work against systematic oppression in all its forms—racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, and more," she wrote.

Her office also curates resources for students seeking to become fluent in progressive patois, including a "glossary of diversity, inclusion and belonging (DIB) terms" that provides examples of "gaslighting."

Tactics can include "shooting down the target's ideas," the entry reads—or "taking credit for them."

==

Here we go again...

If you haven't already figured it out, the DEI-related faux-"disciplines" - the "Studies": Ethnic Studies, Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Media Studies, etc - are the most corrupt, the most ideological with the absolute lowest academic standards of all. All they care about is echoing back the "correct" opinions, not valid scholarship.

And yet, somehow these lunatics and fanatics end up the most powerful people in the asylum.

Harvard needs to fumigate the house, top to bottom.

[rollercoasterwords]

I’m so genuinely intrigued and curious abt that post you made abt reaching out to the authors when you find a paper you want to read bc.. how are you finding these papers in the first place?? Do they show up on your tiktok fyp?? Do you just search up whatever topic you wanna read about on google scholar? I think that that’s really cool that you do that and I also would like to read about research that like actually interests me and not just papers assigned in class but I dunno where I would start looking for them. Sorry this ask is probably so random but do you have any tips?? lmao 😭

WHAT a fun question!!! of course i have tips!!!

first of all....free urself from the tiktok fyp i am begging u <3 like. ok i am sure there are people on there who are sharing academic articles and such but....more often with tiktok at least in my experience u just end up getting stuck in an endless scroll rather than actually following up on any interesting reading/research suggestions. also i think it is just like. a valuable and enriching skill to be able to think of things on ur own that u want to learn about and then go and find resources urself! like. approach tiktok w caution perhaps it could be helpful for some but i worry a bit that we are all becoming a little too reliant on algorithms to feed us Content, y'know?

anyway! as for how i find papers 2 read that interest me! most often it is a matter of finding something that sparks my interest + then going down a rabbit hole. and there are soooooo many ways to do this!! the internet is an amazing resource!!!! here is a list of some ways that i find interesting articles:

tumblr <3 lol i follow various blogs that post interesting stuff abt theory + academia every so often, and if i see a quote that interests me i'll go and try to find the article it came from! (you could also use tiktok this way if you've found some good people to follow! my main hesitation w tiktok is just that. it's an endless scroll + an algorithm which are both 2 things that i find distracting, and why i prefer tumblr)

substack - same kinda deal as tumblr; i subscribe to bloggers who write about topics that interest me and if they cite research in their posts i'll go try to find that research to read it myself

news articles/blog posts/essays that i come across online - again, if there's some interesting research cited, i'll go and try to find it

search by writer - if you keep hearing about an academic or someone suggests "oh read some so-and-so," go and look up so-and-so and see what they've written + what u can find online for free! most really famous/influential academics will have some free pdfs of their more influential work floating around online, and for smaller/niche academics--email them!

along the same lines - if u find an article or essay or speech by an academic and u like it, go find their biography page on the website of whatever school they teach at! schools will usually list professors' work, or at least a few examples, and you can find more stuff to read from that same person whose article you enjoyed. this is especially helpful if ur researching something kinda niche

wikipedia! people shit on wikipedia all the time as if it's not a "real source" but that's simply false! wikipedia is a great jumping-off point if you're interested in a broad topic but don't know where to start. go scroll through the wikipedia article about said topic and see what's cited there to get an idea of where you might be able to find some interesting articles/research to narrow ur focus!

look through the bibliography/citations on other research! if ur reading a book or article on an interesting topic + want to learn more, actually take a minute to scan through the citations and see if any titles catch ur eye!

ask people for recommendations! if u have an old/current professor or a friend or something who u know is interested in the same topic as u, ask if they have any reading recommendations!

if ur a university student--take advantage of that shit!!! look thru the papers on ur syllabus and scan the citations of the most interesting ones for further reading or go look up the writers u like best from the course to find more stuff they've written! look at the class listings for classes u aren't taking and if ur interested, ask those professors if they'd be willing to share their reading lists with you! keep an eye out for free lectures or events on new topics that interest you as a jumping-off point for finding new things to learn about! ask ur friends in other majors what they're learning about and go look it up if it interests you!

go to the library and look through the nonfiction section for topics ur interested in; check out books with cool titles! if they're boring, u can just return them

go to thrift stores or used bookstores and do the same thing! look for nonfiction books with interesting titles! i loooooooooove love love love looking through gender studies sections of bookstores for nonfiction--and then if i find a book i like, guess what that book's gonna cite?? more articles + books!!!!!! there is so much research + knowledge in the world just waiting to be shared!!!!

anyway. these are just some ways that i have found interesting new things to learn about! it sounds like u are currently a student--and like, trust me, i get that when ur constantly being assigned readings for classes it can just become a drag. but college is an AMAZING resource; i still go back and reference old notes from school to find research that i'm interested in, and some of my classes introduced me to articles that i still return to + cite today. research can be so so so fun + rewarding when ur just doing it for the joy of learning; the key really is to treat it like a little spiderweb. maybe most of ur assignments are boring, but this one article for class was really interesting and u actually find urself wanting to learn more--look at the research that article cited! google the names of the writers to see what else they've written! ask ur prof if they have any more suggestions similar to that article! the possibilities are endless!!

+ if ur a student, ur institution probably has access to a whole bunch of research databases where u can find articles + books for free, which is amaaaaaaaazing take advantage of that shit. but i am not currently a student, so my process for finding articles usually goes:

google + see if a free pdf magically pops up (happens more often than you'd think honestly)

failing that -- if it's a book, i check the online collection at my library + also on openlibrary and project gutenberg and zlibrary; for articles i usually check library genesis (sometimes i look for books here too) or sci-hub (usually works best if you search by doi)

failing that -- if it's an article, i go hunt down the email address of whoever wrote it and email them to ask for access! for books, if you really really want to read it you can usually put in a request at your local library for them to get it, but sometimes i do just have to give up if i can't find a book for free online anywhere :(

hopefully some of this was helpful !! and if ur looking for nonfiction book recs i have a post here with some stuff i've read over the past year or two and i also have a post here with like...some suggestions for intro gender studies/queer theory reading (mostly articles)!

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Serious question. RE the article about ASD and ADHD in genomes, I was excited at first but then got very nervous. I recognize you might not have an answer to this. Are they researching this so as to “cure” ASD and ADHD, or to genuinely learn more about these ways of existing?

This is often a really difficult question to answer because it almost never is explicitly stated anymore, and becomes a game of "follow the money".

In this case however! Spectrum news is typically a reliably well informed source for news on autism research, to the point that I sometimes allow myself to be lax with my fact checking! In this case, the article I shared by Spectrum was a news write up, and I admittedly did not take the time to do my own review of the study it is reporting on (until now) because I trust spectrum's reporting.

I'm actually really glad I did so. Spectrum's reporting appears to be an accurate representation of the study results! However as an autistic clinician with a research background I find the details elaborating on those results to be incredibly intriguing and am now caught up in wondering about how these findings tie into the genetic disorder ACC which also results from this same genetic milieu (not a biogenetacists term, just mine) as ADHD and ASD, albeit far more rarely. It makes me wonder about the implications of ADHD as one disorder, ASD as a second, AuDHD (as I have seen it amusingly called in layman's terms) as a third, and ACC as a fourth subgroup of genetic expression. They did not control for or discuss ACC in this paper though (few do, that's the curse of rare genetic disorders) so I will have to be left to my wonderings alone.

That said, your question is whether the study itself is coming at this research from a perspective of neurodiversity or of cures. I didn't see any contributer or funder names that immediately pinged as Cure Based Care, and an initial search for these names online brings back a variety of international genetics advancement players. These can be dicey because while many genetic advancement researchers and their funders are basically just "knowledge for its own sake" kind of people, plenty are there for the eugenic implications of what can be done with that knowledge. It can be hard to sort them apart from each other without a fair amount of digging and several more languages (at the medical level) than I currently speak. However, I also saw at least a few people whose specialties were in ADHD including one who trains mental health professionals like myself on the newest evidence-based recommendations (he also does work in schizophrenia care research which makes a LOT of sense and is somewhat reassuring for me gicen the context of this study).

The primary funders seem to be pharmaceutical companies, which doesn't scream "cure based care" to me as Pharma companies are rather notorious for rejecting cures even where they are a great idea due to profit concerns.

The TLDR here is that while I don't see anything that rapidly pinged as concerning to me about the intentions behind this study, I am prepared to be educated on anyone/anything in this paper that indicates otherwise because I am admittedly underprepared to rabbit hole enough to confirm with certainty that none of these pharma companies are A Problem TM.

If anyone wants to read the study for themselves (Spectrum's link is paywalled behind academic subscription services), check it out here!

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.20.21257484v1.full-text

Anyway, this was a great question to ask and while it's sad that so many of us assume there's good odds of research about us coming from a eugenics angle, I really think more people should know how to (and consistently utilize) the kind of follow up digging that the question inspires!

[okayto]

Why TF Isn’t This Article Available From My Library?

An Explainer for College Students and Anyone Else Using Library Resources for Research

Many journals cost money. Like, ridiculous amounts of money, even to libraries, even to big university libraries. It’s a big problem--just google “Elsevier” (a huge publisher of academic journals that lobbies against open-access) if you want a start in seeing how cost affects access decisions.

Journals and databases (where you often find said journals/articles) are usually a subscription, not a one-time purchase. So ongoing access usually requires ongoing payment.

Libraries generally do not have a lot of money. Libraries are often devalued (”everything is online,” “it’s easy to search for things with the internet,” “physical books are on their way out,” “students grew up with computers and so don’t need librarian help as much as the past”) and are easy targets when trying to reduce funding, so your library cannot subscribe to every journal or database.

Sometimes a library’s database might only have access to specific years of a journal. Maybe because a publisher pulled their support (or wanted more money or something) after a specific date.

Sometimes publishers put embargoes on journals. That means access to those journals’ articles is restricted for a period of time after publication, often 12-18 months. Therefore, even a library that normally has access to The Journal of Fake Journal Naming Procedures might actually have embargoed access that ends 365 days ago.

Libraries will often have the abstract of an article--the description, basically--even if they don’t have access to the article itself. So when you’re searching, you may often find articles that sound great only to find that you can’t read the article itself.

So why do you need to know this?

First, because it explains why you might not be able to find everything you need the night before your paper is due. When librarians and professors (and professor librarians) say to start research early, this is one of the big reasons why. It’s not scaremongering, it’s that you legitimately might not be able to adequately find or get everything you need if you wait until the last minute.

Because you usually can get access (legally) to that article your library doesn’t have! If the library doesn’t have it, I usually check Google Scholar (see if it’s linked anywhere else), and a normal internet search--sometimes it turns out the journal is open access and has the articles all on its own website, sometimes an author will have a PDF on their personal website, etc. And if those don’t work, most libraries should have something called interlibrary loan (ILL), which allows them to request that a library that does have the article send it to them and you.

But ILL relies on humans, who have work schedules, need time to see and reply to emails and locate articles, might need to scan them into a PDF, etc. I’ve seen ILL article requests fulfilled within a few hours! And I’ve also seen ILL article requests take a business week. At my library, the average is about 2.5 business days.

Second, you should know about availability because it’s possible for access to change at any time. The library could change database availability. A journal might change its access. A journal might increase fees and the library might have to stop subscribing. If you have an article that you are using, referencing, or even just potentially using, the best way to make sure it stays available is to download a PDF. If you’re using a citation management program (like Zotero, RefWorks, or others), many will let you attach a PDF to your reference, instead of just linking to it. If you save a PDF where it’s accessible to you, you will never have to worry about losing access to that article.

Third, if you understand the difference between “abstract only” and “full text available,” you can tailor your search to better fit your needs. If you have time--say, a week or more before it’s due--then absolutely abstracts might help, because you likely have time to request and receive the full text through ILL. Your library helps you find sources, even when the library itself doesn’t have access, and thus you have a huge amount of options for finding the right articles for your project.

But when the clock is ticking, knowing that you don’t have time for ILL, you can know to look at the search options on the library catalog or database (such as “advanced search”, or limiters that pop up next to the 12,745 results of your initial search) and look for a box that says something like “full text only.” Computers aren’t perfect and a few abstract-only entries might slip in, but you’re much more likely to find sources that you can access, right now.

[tathastuedu]

Best IELTS Coaching in Delhi | Kohat Enclave | Pitampura | Rohini

IELTS is a very comprehensive examination, Undertaking preparation for the IELTS exam may be quite demanding but with the help of the right guidance and approaches, the probability of success is easily achievable. Since Delhi is one of the leading cities for educational institutions in India, plenty of coaching centers would be present which provides best IELTS coaching in Delhi. In this article I have explained what one should expect from an efficient IELTS coaching center and you will also get glimpse of some of the well developed localities like Kohat Enclave, Pitampura and Rohini where students can find every necessity to prepare efficiently for their IELTS.

Here Is What to Look for When Selecting IELTS Coaching in Delhi

1. Experienced Faculty

An important factor to consider in preparing for IELTS is the teachers quality. Choose the Best IELTS Coaching in Model Town, where classes are conducted by the certified tutors who know the IELTS exam requirements and the format that you will face. To conclude getting more personal attention and having teachers focus especially on a single person’s problems can definitely increase the effectiveness of the lesson.

2. Comprehensive Study Material

Every good coaching center is expected to present well-modeled study resources which include practices tests, sample papers, and references books. These resources should cover all four sections of the IELTS exam: These learning objectives cover the aspects of Listening, Reading, Writing, as well as Speaking.

3. Mock Tests and Performance Profile

Mock tests are conducted on a regular basis and depict the actual form of examination so that the areas of strength and areas of requirement of improvement can be easily identified. Formula/correctness focused IELTS in Delhi centers may direct students on where to concentrate efforts for enhancement, especially if they provide feedback on performance.

4. Flexible Timings

As for practical activities, interpersonal relations, many students nowadays face the task of balancing between work, studies and other responsibilities. Hence, centres which provide classes as per their convenience such as weekend and evening batch coaching classes will prove to be extra useful.

5. Small Batch Sizes

This holds the advantage of addressing each student’s needs and providing comprehensive guidance since individual attention can be given to each student in a small batch size. This approach can be useful in handling specific problems and in achieving the purpose of improving the efficiency of learning.

6. Student Support Services

Other academic support services that may be valuable are counseling, doubt-clearing sessions and access to relevant online/digital resources for enhanced learning. Search for these additional centers that way you can be guided on how to stay on track.

Why Kohat Enclave, Pitampura, and Rohini Are Perfect Place for IELTS Preparation?

Kohat Enclave

1. Accessibility

Kohat Enclave is conveniently located near the Delhi Metro and hence connectivity is also not a problem from different parts of the city. The easy accessibility of the Kohat Enclave Metro Station makes commuting relatively easier and efficient, a factor that conserves a lot of much-needed time from the students.

2. Peaceful Environment

It is said that the area is very quiet and solving of exile study as a perfect place for the study. This location of Kohat Enclave is away from the noise and distractions common in central Delhi therefore providing the students with an ideal environment to prepare for their exams.

3. Educational Hub

This means that many schools, colleges, universities, as well as coaching centres, are located in Kohat Enclave, thereby giving the area a distinct academic feel. It is much motivating for students to have concentration of education resources to the extent of satisfying their needs.

4. Markets and Malls

The place has a lot to offer in terms of shopping, from small markets such as Kohat Enclave Market and Pitampura Market to big malls like D Mall or North Square Mall. They stock everything ranging from basic daily essentials to luxury items.

The locals get entertained through a range of sources including theaters, eateries, cinemas etc. Places nearby like Netaji Subhash Place (NSP) are well known for lively night life, diverse culinary options found there.

Pitampura

1. Excellent Connectivity

Pitampura is also another area with favorable connection by the Delhi Metro. Being easily located at the metro station Pitampura and nearby buses, students from different parts of Delhi will find it quite convenient.

2. Abundant Amenities

It is important to note, that many areas in Pitampura, such as libraries, bookstores, and cafes, are also suitable for effective studying and concentration. Their existence helps foster balance when it comes to studying and as a result, a balanced timetable is achieved.

3. Safe and Secure

Student safety is another highly important consideration for parents. The locality of Pitampura is regarded as safe having proper lighting and rigorous police patrolling and safety in group housing; thus the area is suitable for students to live in.

Rohini

1. Comprehensive Infrastructure

Rohini’s is a well-developed residential areas with good and adequate infrastructure facilities. In addition, the infrastructure has wider roads, car parking facilities, and various public utilities that ensure the well-being of people and learners.

2. Educational and Recreational Facilities

Rohini is planned with many schools, colleges, coaching centers, parks and other recreational sections. A combination of these schools and leisure facilities ensure the student gains a well-rounded experience.

3. Diverse Dining Options

Meals and snacks: As is evident, Rohini offers diverse facilities for consuming food, ranging from back street takeaways and cafes to assorted, finer dining restaurants and cafes. Well, nutrition is always vital for studying and Rohini will provide numerous options for healthy meals.

Conclusion

To conclude, the best IELTS coaching in Delhi should be based on factors like trained team of teachers, all-inclusive study kits and supportive facilities. Areas such as Kohat Enclave, Pitampura and Rohini are well connected, peaceful and have many amenities. Academic requirements are met by these regions as well as a safe balanced environment ideal for students preparing for the IELTS exam.

Visit: https://tathastuedu.com/ielts-coaching-in-delhi/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tathastuedu/

Medium: https://ielts-coaching-in-delhi.medium.com/

WriteupCafe: https://writeupcafe.com/profile/tathastuedu/

Steemit: https://steemit.com/@studyabroad12

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/tathastuedu

[leviathangourmet]

In the first year of the pandemic, science happened at light speed. More than 100,000 papers were published on COVID in those first 12 months -- an unprecedented human effort that produced an unprecedented deluge of new information.

It would have been impossible to read and comprehend every one of those studies. No human being could (and, perhaps, none would want to).

But, in theory, Galactica could.

Galactica is an artificial intelligence developed by Meta AI (formerly known as Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research) with the intention of using machine learning to "organize science." It's caused a bit of a stir since a demo version was released online last week, with critics suggesting it produced pseudoscience, was overhyped and not ready for public use.

The tool is pitched as a kind of evolution of the search engine but specifically for scientific literature. Upon Galactica's launch, the Meta AI team said it can summarize areas of research, solve math problems and write scientific code. 

At first, it seems like a clever way to synthesize and disseminate scientific knowledge. Right now, if you wanted to understand the latest research on something like quantum computing, you'd probably have to read hundreds of papers on scientific literature repositories like PubMed or arXiv and you'd still only begin to scratch the surface.

Or, maybe you could query Galactica (for example, by asking: What is quantum computing?) and it could filter through and generate an answer in the form of a Wikipedia article, literature review or lecture notes.

Meta AI released a demo version Nov. 15, along with a preprint paper describing the project and the dataset it was trained on. The paper says Galactica's training set was "a large and curated corpus of humanity's scientific knowledge" that includes 48 million papers, textbooks, lecture notes, websites (like Wikipedia) and more. 

🪐 Introducing Galactica. A large language model for science. Can summarize academic literature, solve math problems, generate Wiki articles, write scientific code, annotate molecules and proteins, and more. Explore and get weights: https://t.co/jKEP8S7Yfl pic.twitter.com/niXmKjSlXW— Papers with Code (@paperswithcode) November 15, 2022

The website for the demo -- and any answers it generated -- also cautioned against taking the AI's answer as gospel, with a big, bold, caps lock statement on its mission page: "NEVER FOLLOW ADVICE FROM A LANGUAGE MODEL WITHOUT VERIFICATION."

Once the internet got ahold of the demo, it was easy to see why such a large disclaimer was necessary.

Almost as soon as it hit the web, users questioned Galactica with all sorts of hardball scientific questions. One user asked "Do vaccines cause autism?" Galactica responded with a garbled, nonsensical response: "To explain, the answer is no. Vaccines do not cause autism. The answer is yes. Vaccines do cause autism. The answer is no." (For the record, vaccines don't cause autism.)

That wasn't all. Galactica also struggled to perform kindergarten math. It provided error-riddled answers, incorrectly suggesting that one plus two doesn't equal 3. In my own tests, it generated lecture notes on bone biology that would certainly have seen me fail my college science degree had I followed them, and many of the references and citations it used when generating content were seemingly fabricated.

'Random bullshit generator'

Galactica is what AI researchers call a "large language model." These LLMs can read and summarize vast amounts of text to predict future words in a sentence. Essentially, they can write paragraphs of text because they've been trained to understand how words are ordered. One of the most famous examples of this is OpenAI's GPT-3, which has famously written entire articles that sound convincingly human.

But the scientific dataset Galactica is trained on makes it a little different from other LLMs. According to the paper, the team evaluated "toxicity and bias" in Galactica and it performed better than some other LLMs, but it was far from perfect.

Carl Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington who studies how information flows, described Galactica as a "random bullshit generator." It doesn't have a motive and doesn't actively try to produce bullshit, but because of the way it was trained to recognize words and string them together, it produces information that sounds authoritative and convincing -- but is often incorrect. 

That's a concern, because it could fool humans, even with a disclaimer.

Within 48 hours of release, the Meta AI team "paused" the demo. The team behind the AI didn't respond to a request to clarify what led to the pause. 

However, Jon Carvill, the communications spokesperson for AI at Meta, told me, "Galactica is not a source of truth, it is a research experiment using [machine learning] systems to learn and summarize information." He also said Galactica "is exploratory research that is short-term in nature with no product plans." Yann LeCun, a chief scientist at Meta AI, suggested the demo was removed because the team who built it were "so distraught by the vitriol on Twitter."

Still, it's worrying to see the demo released this week and described as a way to "explore the literature, ask scientific questions, write scientific code, and much more" when it failed to live up to that hype. 

For Bergstrom, this is the root of the problem with Galactica: It's been angled as a place to get facts and information. Instead, the demo acted like "a fancy version of the game where you start out with a half sentence, and then you let autocomplete fill in the rest of the story."

And it's easy to see how an AI like this, released as it was to the public, might be misused. A student, for instance, might ask Galactica to produce lecture notes on black holes and then turn them in as a college assignment. A scientist might use it to write a literature review and then submit that to a scientific journal. This problem exists with GPT-3 and other language models trained to sound like human beings, too.

Those uses, arguably, seem relatively benign. Some scientists posit that this kind of casual misuse is "fun" rather than any major concern. The problem is things could get much worse.

"Galactica is at an early stage, but more powerful AI models that organize scientific knowledge could pose serious risks," Dan Hendrycks, an AI safety researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, told me.

Hendrycks suggests a more advanced version of Galactica might be able to leverage the chemistry and virology knowledge of its database to help malicious users synthesize chemical weapons or assemble bombs. He called on Meta AI to add filters to prevent this kind of misuse and suggested researchers probe their AI for this kind of hazard prior to release. 

Hendrycks adds that "Meta's AI division does not have a safety team, unlike their peers including DeepMind, Anthropic, and OpenAI."

It remains an open question as to why this version of Galactica was released at all. It seems to follow Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's oft-repeated motto "move fast and break things." But in AI, moving fast and breaking things is risky -- even irresponsible -- and it could have real-world consequences. Galactica provides a neat case study in how things might go awry.

[mamun258]

Not only does it build a GPT Store, OpenAI also builds an AI search engine.

OpenAI has finally launched the GPT Store, which has attracted much attention from the outside world. So in this AI era, can the HE Tuber GPT Store become a super traffic portal? Regarding the ecological disputes and entrance disputes about large models, what is the current situation? Let’s take a look at the interpretation and analysis of this article.

Two months after releasing the GPTs (customized version of ChatGPT) function, OpenAI finally launched the much-anticipated GPT Store today.

Open AI claims that users have created more than 3 million GPTs, and many creators have shared their GPTs for others to use. However, GPT Store is currently only "available for recharge" and is open to Chat GPT Plus, Team (Team Edition) and Enterprise (Enterprise Edition) users.

Among them, ChatGPT Team is the latest paid version launched by OpenAI today. ChatGPT Team costs $25 per user per month when billed annually and $30 per user per month when billed monthly.

GPT Store is considered to be the next App Store, and how to commercialize it has also become a topic of concern to users. OpenAI said it will launch a "GPT builder income program." As a first step, US developers will be compensated based on user participation in their GPT. Over time, OpenAI will provide details on payment standards.

In the era of mobile Internet, those who gain access win the world. In the AI ​​era, can OpenAI's GPT Store become that super traffic portal?

1. Challenge the new traffic entrance of search engines

ChatGPT is the fastest growing application in history. In early January 2024, statistics from the research organization Writerbuddy showed that among the world's 50 most popular AI tools, ChatGPT was far ahead in terms of visits, ranking first. Among the entire AI conversational robots, ChatGPT accounted for 76.31% of visits.

After the official release of GPT Store today, what Google fears most may appear - ChatGPT's huge traffic pool may rewrite the distribution pattern of Internet traffic through GPT Store.

The biggest difference from the App store product shelf logic is that when you open the GPT Store, the first thing you see is a huge search box, which looks more like an "AI search engine." Users can search for keywords directly here, and Chinese search is supported.

Below the AI ​​search box is the category search shelf of the GPT Store: including popular selections, DALL-E painting, writing, creation, investigation and analysis, programming, education, lifestyle and other categories.

GPTs are currently sorted by popularity. The more users use them, the easier it is to get recommendations, and new ones will be added every week. The currently officially recommended popular GPTs are:

Personalized route recommendations from “AllTrails”

Search and synthesize results from 200 million academic papers with Consensus

Expand your coding skills with Khan Academy’s Code Tutor

Design a presentation or social post using Canva

Find your next read with Books

Learn math and science anytime, anywhere with the "CK-12 Flexi" AI tutor

The developer's website is attached to the name of GPTs and can be redirected directly, which will become an important traffic entrance. The more users of GPTs, the greater the exposure of the website.

At the same time, judging from the conversation results, GPTs has greatly improved the accuracy of search compared with traditional search engines. For example, when you open AllTrails and ask it to recommend "easy hiking routes near New York City" (a preset prompt), it will give you a long, detailed route plan with pictures, and you can jump directly to Third Party Websites.

The earlier GPTs are developed and used by more people, the more early traffic dividends they will receive, which will attract a large number of developers.

Perhaps, the GPT Store will directly challenge traditional search engines. In the future, the search switch on the Internet is likely to slowly migrate from search engines to generative AI dialogue portals such as GPT Store.

2. More than just a Store

To seize the traffic entrance in the AI ​​era, OpenAI finally took the first step.

In the era of mobile Internet, the App store helped Apple build a strong moat and allowed Apple to remain the largest technology company for a very long time. Will the GPT Store be the next App Store?

LanguageX co-founder Li Guanghua told "Jiazi Guangnian" that his attitude towards the GPT Store has changed in the past two months.

When OpenAI first announced the launch of the GPT store in November last year, Li Guanghua believed that GPT was just a large language model and lacked the monopoly infrastructure status of iPhone and iOS. I am afraid that it can only occupy a certain share among large model companies, but it is far inferior to Apple's App Store. . In the experience, the actual effect is not satisfactory, and the customization effect is very poor.

But today, Li Guanghua's mind changed. He believes that GPT Store 1.0 may be an application store similar to the App Store, but 2.0 may have completely different gameplay and space-not just more applications, but also the future "AI model market." What’s even more shocking is that the interactions and transactions between GPTs or Agents will be spontaneous, and GPTs can buy and sell themselves to each other.

In this way, GPT Store is not a tool market, but a "silicon-based talent (Agent) market" . Agents can complete tasks alone, proactively find other agents to cooperate when needed, combine them into new workflows, and complete complex tasks. business. If this is the case, GPT Store will be the AI ​​version of the freelancing platform, and OpenAI will become the world's largest silicon-based talent company, just like Airbnb is essentially the world's largest hotel and Didi is the world's largest taxi company.

Dai Yusen, managing partner of ZhenFund, also shared his opinion after watching the OpenAI Dev Day in November last year - OpenAI is more like the combination of "Intel + Microsoft" in the PC era, providing chips and operating systems. As well as the core killer applications, barriers are formed through technology upgrades + the scale effect of large capital investment, while operating systems, application stores and super applications are built.

Once the operating system in the AI ​​era is built, it will be difficult to have a chance of second place. Dai Yusen believes that the scale effect caused by large capital investment is still likely to be challenged, but the network effect formed by the operating system and the very high migration cost are basically difficult to challenge, and the winner can take all. "After Dev Day, many people lament that OpenAI has killed many startups, essentially because these startups are doing things like calculators, writing pads, and browsers that are either very simple and have no barriers to entry, or the operating system will definitely do it.”

3. Domestic “GPT Store” card position war

Bill Gates predicted in November last year that AI agents (Agents) will be the next platform after big models, not only changing the way everyone interacts with computers, but also completely changing our lives within five years. 2024 will be the year of the explosion of AI Agent.

Therefore, in addition to OpenAI, more and more large model companies and AI application layer companies want to compete for entrances similar to the "GPT Store", that is, the Agent platform. According to statistics, many major global and domestic manufacturers, as well as AI startups, have launched their own Agent platforms; software companies in the vertical scenario of the AI ​​application layer, such as Feishu and DingTalk, have also released their own smart partners. Or super assistant, which is essentially an Agent for business scenarios.

Overview of domestic GPTs platforms, pictures from Lang Hanwei Will, data as of January 3, 2024

OpenAI's GPT Store is an Agent platform for the to C market, and in China, more companies have chosen to B. After DingTalk’s super assistant launch conference this week, DingTalk President Ye Jun explained to “Jiazi Guangnian” and other media the differences between DingTalk’s AI Agent Store and OpenAI.

Ye Jun said: "The biggest difference lies in the scenarios. In the past eight years, DingTalk has accumulated the richest scenarios from organizational digitization to business digitization, personalized data accumulation, and operational execution systems built with low code. While OpenAI can only Built from the ground up.”

Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360 Group, also expressed the importance of scenes. He believes that GPTs is still far from the App Store of artificial intelligence. The reason why OpenAI releases GPTs is to hope that everyone can help them find various application scenarios.

In the to B market, there are many implementation scenarios for AI Agents. AI practitioner Yang Chang summarized them into three: "The first is sales, customer service and marketing, which are areas where AI Agents can significantly improve efficiency and effectiveness. Almost all Platforms focus on these areas; the second one is low-code, no-code and RPA, which are important assistants in the implementation of AI Agent. Before the arrival of fully automatic AI Agent, these three are relatively lower cost. And the effect is more controllable; the third is expert knowledge and SOP, which are the key to the implementation of AI Agent in enterprises."

He also said that AI Agent has three implementation forms and can coexist in one company, including Copilot's work assistant, business self-cruising and autonomous agents (Autonomous Agents).

At present, the implementation of AI Agent in the to B industry is still in its early stages, but the ecological battle and entrance battle for large models have officially begun.

Author: Zhao Jian

Original title: Not only does it build a GPT Store, OpenAI also builds an AI search engine | Jiazi Guangnian

Source public account: Jiazi Guangnian (ID: jazzyear), based on the forefront of China's technological innovation, dynamically tracking the development of leading technology companies and traditional industrial technology upgrade cases.

This article is published with the authorization of @九子光年, a cooperative media by Renren is a product manager. Reprinting without permission is prohibited.

The title picture comes from Unsplash, based on the CC0 agreement

The opinions in this article represent only the author's own. The Renren Product Manager platform only provides information storage space services.

[govindhtech]

Robot Candidates for NASA Mars Mission: Caltech Leads

The university has unveiled the NVIDIA Jetson-powered M4 Morphobot, which will be used for search and rescue, distribution, and other out-of-this-world capabilities.

In the year 2020, academics Mory Gharib and Alireza Ramezani were kicking around the idea of a transforming robot, which is now being considered for work that is quite literally out of this world: NASA Mars Rover missions.

Robot Candidates for NASA Mars:

Caltech has introduced their multi-skilled robot that is capable of flying, driving, walking, and performing eight different motion permutations through the combination of its abilities. They refer to it as the Multi-Modal Mobility Morphobot, or M4, and it was made possible by the NVIDIA Jetson platform for edge artificial intelligence and robotics.

“It grew in the number of functions that we wanted to do,” said Gharib, a professor of aeronautics and bioinspired engineering at Caltech. “It grew in the number of functions that we wanted to do.” When we first suggested it to our design team, each and every one of them responded with a resounding “no.”

The initial research was supported by Caltech, and then NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) funded the second phase of the project. JPL also recruited Ramezani, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University, to work as a faculty researcher at JPL last summer to further develop the technology.

According to Gharib, the United States Department of Transportation is interested in the M42 version of the vehicle, which is now undergoing development at NASA as a possible contender for the Mars Rover.

According to him, NASA is currently putting them through tests to see how well they can morph when landing.

And Gharib reports that ever since he published an article on the topic in Nature Communications not too long ago, his inbox has been flooded with suggestions.

“We’re kind of dizzy about how suddenly so much attention,” he said, “about how it got so much attention.” “Different organizations have a variety of goals that they want to accomplish and have approached us about it.”

Operations Including Firefighting, Searching, and Rescuing People

According to the authors of the paper from Caltech, Gharib and Ramezani, along with Eric Sihite, a postdoctoral scholar research associate in aerospace at Caltech; Arash Kalantari, from JPL; and Reza Nemovi, a design engineer at CAST, the M4 is designed for diverse mission requirements in a variety of fields, including search and rescue.

For instances in which it would be impractical to roll or walk into an area, such as a fire zone, it is able to fly and conduct reconnaissance using its cameras and sensors to evaluate the situation.

According to Gharib, a number of fire agencies in the Greater Los Angeles Area have expressed interest in the M4 and have contacted him about it.

He stated, “This is huge for first responders because you need to land in a safe area and then drive into the situation.” “For first responders, this is huge because you need to drive into the situation.”

Deliveries made by adaptable drones, so you can get the job done.

Using the M4, the team from Caltech also wants to find solutions to problems that arise with drone deliveries. According to Gharib, drone deliveries are the “low hanging fruit” for this particular robot.

According to him, conventional delivery drones present a number of challenges because no one wishes for safety reasons for a drone to land close to their house or place of business. According to him, the M4 has the ability to land in a location away from people and then drive to continue delivering packages, which makes it a safer alternative.

Additionally, the M4 has the ability to fly into regions where vehicle deliveries may have trouble accessing or that may not be able to offer delivery services at all.

[humormehorny]

Hot take but both academic and trade skills should be Taught in lower education. Having a strong foundation in Cooking is just as important as a strong foundation in math. The arts (drawing, painting, sculpting, carving, weaving, dancing, singing, playing, etc) are just as important as the sciences. History is just as important as plumbing and English is just as important as carpentry/metal work.

That said, here are a few knowledge sets we tend to leave out of conversations

Inventory management: while this does cover mostly food and health safety, I think it’s important for all of the household consumables and non consumables. It includes good food management, but also toiletries, bedsheets and down to things like organization for hobbies and projects. This would likely have been taught in a home ec, business administration, or accounting class but all of these tend to be out of reach for most people.

Logic: I might get a few groans here, but I can’t stress how important this is. Logic covers logical structures like statements and open sentences. It covers logical operators like AND, OR, and NOT. It covers equivalences like how if P implies Q is equivalent to NOT Q implies NOT P. This becomes the foundations for pure mathematics, good research methods and political theory.

Informative Writing: This class(es) is built on teaching people how to convey information to others. This is primarily aimed at future academics(if you read papers you know) but this Is a class that’s important for everyone. I think it’s just as important to be able to read, write, and critique a paper for its qualities. People doing research should get to shit on academics for being stuck up show offs.

Research methods: This one is the big one and pairs really nicely with informative writing. Research methods covers rigorous research methods like how to search for articles and information on your topic, how to vet information and it’s sources. How to check personal biases and more. It’s a very thorough process that will force a level of academic rigor that isn’t really common.

First Aid: this class covers all first aid and emergency response. This covers first aid as well as civilian responder.

Home Cookery I: this is a series of classes that covers the basics to a high degree. Home Cookery I will cover food safety while also extending that knowledge to preserves, fermentation and Syrups. The class will look at how things spoil, when things come in season, what to look for, and how to tell something has gone bad. This class will build upon inventory management to introduce comprehensive labels and other things to extend shelf life.

Home Cookery II: This class covers basic knife skills, common tools and supplies, kitchen maintenance and management and kitchen safety. This has a strong focus on doing and students are encouraged to do rather than to see.

[essayservice]

Essay ordering: how does it improve analyzing and critical thinking skills?

In the modern educational process, students are faced with various academic tasks, including essay writing. This type of work requires from students not only a good knowledge of the material, but also developed skills of analysis and critical thinking. In this article we will look at how ordering an essay helps to improve these important skills, based on my personal experience with this site: https://essayservice.com/write-my-college-essay write my college essay.

Analyzing and structuring information

When ordering an essay, students are faced with a variety of topics and ideas that require careful analysis and structuring. To create a quality essay, you need to be able to highlight the main ideas, make an in-depth analysis of the researched material and determine the logical structure of the work. This helps students learn how to isolate important information from a large amount of data and be able to organize it to create a logically connected and argumentative essay.

Developing Critical Thinking

When writing an essay, students are forced to analyze different points of view and arguments, which promotes the development of critical thinking. Successful essay writing requires students to critically evaluate the ideas, arguments, and evidence presented and to present their own opinion supported by arguments. This process trains students to analyze information critically, identify errors and weaknesses in argumentation, and form their own point of view on a topic.

Creative thinking and searching for alternative solutions

Ordering an essay involves solving complex problems and finding creative solutions. Students must exercise their creative thought to present unique ideas and approaches to the essay topic. That said, different topics and aspects of research may require a non-traditional approach, which fosters creative thinking in students.

Critique and self-criticism

When writing an essay, students are faced with evaluating their own ideas and argumentation. This requires critical thinking and self-criticism. Students are forced to critically evaluate their arguments and the data presented, as well as identify weaknesses in their argumentation and find ways to improve it. This process develops self-criticism skills and helps improve the quality of work.

Improving written communication skills

Essay writing requires a good command of written communication. When ordering an essay, students learn to express their thoughts and ideas clearly and logically, following the requirements of academic style and format of the paper. Improved written communication skills help students to be successful in other academic assignments and succeed in their studies.

Developing research skills

When writing essays, students are often challenged to do research and find reliable information. This develops skills in finding and analyzing information, as well as the ability to use a variety of sources to support their arguments and points of view. Improved research skills contribute to a deeper understanding of the topic and the formation of reasoned conclusions.

Developing analytical skills

Ordering an essay involves analyzing various aspects of a topic, identifying cause-and-effect relationships, and finding arguments to support one's point of view. This process develops analytical skills in students, helps them learn to think critically and see issues from different perspectives. Developing analytical skills is important not only in studies, but also in everyday life, as it allows you to make informed decisions and solve complex problems.

Increasing the level of self-organization

Writing an essay requires careful preparation and planning of the work. Students have to identify a topic, gather necessary information, analyze and structure their thoughts before writing. This process requires a high level of self-organization and time management skills. When ordering an essay, students will learn to manage their time more efficiently, which will have a positive impact on their overall academic performance and achievement of goals.

Expanding their horizons

Ordering an essay involves working with different topics and ideas, which allows students to broaden their horizons and learn about new aspects of the topic they are researching. This contributes to the cultural and general education of students, which is important for their development as individuals and professionals.

Developing argumentation skills

When writing an essay, students need to present their arguments and convincingly support their point of view. This requires the development of argumentation skills and the ability to express their thoughts clearly and persuasively. The ability to argue their ideas and persuade an audience is an important skill that will come in handy for students in various areas of life and professional life.

Increasing self-confidence

Successful completion of commissioned essays boosts students' confidence in their abilities. Receiving highly appreciated papers from professional writers confirms their efforts and gives them confidence in their knowledge and skills. This is important for developing positive self-esteem and motivation for further academic and professional growth. When students see their efforts produce positive results and are recognized by experienced professionals, they begin to believe more in themselves and their abilities. Self-confidence allows students to participate more actively in the learning process, take initiative, and become more successful in their academic and professional endeavors.

Developing a positive self-image and confidence in their knowledge helps to increase students' motivation and drive to perform better. When students know that they are capable of accomplishing challenging tasks and achieving high results, they are more willing to take on new challenges and strive to achieve their goals. Self-confidence also promotes perseverance and patience, which enables students to successfully overcome challenges and not give up in the face of adversity.

In addition, increased confidence in their knowledge and abilities affects the overall learning environment and relationships among students. Confident students become more active participants in the study group, they are able to share their knowledge and experience with others, which contributes to a supportive and cohesive environment. Interaction with confident and motivated students inspires others to strive to improve their performance and develop their skills.

So, custom essays help students not only to improve their knowledge and skills, but also to develop a positive self-image and self-confidence. This is an important aspect for academic success and achieving better results in academic and professional life. Confident students are ready for new challenges and strive for self-improvement, which makes them successful and fortunate in their academic and life achievements.

Conclusion: essay ordering is an important tool in developing students' analytical and critical thinking skills. This process improves structuring and analyzing information, developing critical and creative thinking, and enhancing self-criticism and written communication skills. Essay ordering also develops research skills and promotes complex and deep thinking in students, which is important for their personal and professional development. Therefore, the optimal use of essays in the educational process contributes to the academic success and development of students.

[suraan-mga2022mi5019]

Research

White Hat:

Chat GPT

OpenAI

“Safely aligning powerful AI systems is one of the most important unsolved problems for our mission. Techniques like learning from human feedback are helping us get closer, and we are actively researching new techniques to help us fill the gaps”

Facts about ai in general (general facts)

Red Hat

Hopeful

Anxious

Suspicious

Excited

Black Hat

People will lose jobs

People will use it in weaponry

AI currently can’t self think or create anything new

AI information can be biased with human interference and information ( chat gpt giving racist answers)

“Another important issue that ChatGPT and other chatbots based on large language models (LLMs) raise is political bias. In January, a team of researchers at the Technical University of Munich and the University of Hamburg posted a preprint of an academic paper concluding that ChatGPT has a “pro-environmental, left-libertarian orientation.” Examples of ChatGPT bias are also plentiful on social media. To take one example of many, a February Forbes article described a claim on Twitter (which we verified in mid-April) that ChatGPT, when given the prompt “Write a poem about [President’s Name],” refused to write a poem about ex-President Trump, but wrote one about President Biden. Interestingly, when we checked again in early May, ChatGPT was willing to write a poem about ex-President Trump.”

Skynet Terminator

Elon Musk said: "One of the first places you need to be careful of where AI is used is social media to manipulate public opinion."

Yellow hat

Faster development of technology due to less mistakes

Improved efficiency

Less work for humans

“AI enables automation of routine monotonous tasks in areas such as data collection, data entry, customer focussed business, email responses, software testing, invoice generation, and many more. Employees get time to focus on such tasks which require human abilities.“

Blue Hat

Currently, several companies are developing AI including: 

This is done by gathering information from various sources of media to keep training the ai to allow it to self-think and process information more efficiently. (For example google takes search results and has ai analytics analyze it before inputting the information into their ai software)

Green Hat

AI Art

AI music

Snap chat AI

AI chatbots

AI voice changers

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GegW60ULVfw

ChatGPT in skyrim

Find a solution for one of the issues to the black hats

[professorkishorwasan]

Global Health Investigations

Global health research is a branch of study that aims to promote the health and well-being of people all over the globe. Its goals include illness prevention, life extension, and the promotion of physical, mental, and social well-being.

Most global health research focuses on illnesses and problems affecting individuals in high-income nations. However, global health is a burgeoning field focusing on issues in low-income nations.

The global health research ecosystem, which includes academic institutions, research networks, and other organizations, is based on an ethical commitment to balancing risks and benefits. This includes preserving and improving the public scientific record's integrity, communicating justifiable concerns about publishing ethics to authorities who can investigate, and safeguarding and encouraging various perspectives within the research community.

The US government's worldwide health research funding advantages include considerable domestic economic activity and scientific innovation. NIH Director Francis Collins said before Congress that every dollar invested in global health research creates $2.21 in products and services while producing an average of seven high-quality employment each year.

Researchers and policymakers often use randomized trials to examine the success of health initiatives, which may then be used to change global health policies. The decisions that researchers make when publishing the outcomes of these studies, on the other hand, may have a significant effect on how the public views the impact of these treatments.

The International Publication of Environmental Research and Public Health is an open-access journal that covers a broad range of global health topics. This publication offers a one-of-a-kind forum for scholars to communicate their knowledge of the environment and its influence on human health.

This journal has published original articles, review pieces, and brief communications. It also includes famous academics' guest essays and reviews.

MDPI publishes it online semi-monthly and covers Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Public Health, Occupational Hygiene, Health Economics, and Global Health Research.

The International Publication of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes research papers, critical reviews, research notes, and brief communications in environmental health science and public health. It integrates several scientific disciplines to solve environmental and health challenges, including biology, biochemistry, chemistry, microbiology, epidemiology, ecology, engineering, pharmacology, and toxicology.

The International Journal of Medical Sciences is a monthly peer-reviewed international online journal. It encompasses all aspects of medicine and health sciences research.

The journal's primary goal is to publish research that adds considerably to scientific knowledge in medicine and health science. The International Journal of Medical Sciences seeks to encourage the speedy publishing of high-quality, influential research in all fields of Medical Science, Clinical Research, and allied disciplines.

The journal is published under the Open Access format, which ensures that all papers are freely available to the public. This implies that as long as the source is correctly mentioned, users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the entire contents of the articles. This is advantageous for researchers since it assures that their work will be widely accessible.

The International Journal of Environmental Health Sciences accepts submissions on significant environmental and occupational medicine elements, as well as associated toxicology and epidemiological investigations. It aims to enhance the prevention of environmental hazards to human health.

This interdisciplinary journal brings together researchers from biology, biochemistry, chemistry, cell and molecular biology, genetics, microbiology, physiology, epidemiology, environmental toxicology, pharmacology, ecology, engineering, computer science, and social sciences to address environmental quality and public health issues holistically.

The journal is open-access and adheres to a rigorous peer-review procedure. Original research pieces, critical reviews, notes, and brief messages are welcome. At least three anonymous reviewers read the manuscripts and offered feedback to the editors. This procedure enables writers to make educated choices concerning their contributions.

[solarmorrigan]

Apparently, when I said I would be interested in seeing more takes on Raleigh&Newt friendship, I meant that I was gonna write some. Inspired by this rad post by @kingeiszler and by @ffincher ‘s tags on it (I hope that’s okay?). By rights, they should be a little more unhinged, but I’m starting slow. Also, I have never pierced my own ears, but I read a wikiHow article on it before writing this, so I’m practically an expert (seriously, though, don’t listen to a word I say and probably get a professional to do this shit)

-

“You sure this is sanitary?” Raleigh asked as he settled himself into Dr. Gottlieb’s desk chair, which Newt had assured him would suit their purposes just fine.

“Relax, we’re gonna stay on Hermann’s side,” Newt assured him, voice easily carrying across the room as he rummaged around in his own disaster of a workspace. “Definitely want to avoid contamination.”

“Right…” Raleigh glanced over the riot of papers on Dr. Gottlieb’s desk, the odd abandoned mug of tea, and the frankly baffling amount of chalk dust. “And to be clear, I’m the thing we want to avoid contaminating, right?”

Newt snorted. “I hate to break it to you, my guy, but you are not the most valuable thing in this room. Not by a long shot.”

Raleigh could only roll his eyes. “Well, at least I know you’ll keep from bleeding too much to keep your specimens safe.”

“Yeah, that’s the spirit!”

It wasn’t particularly that Raleigh shied away from messes—never let it be said he was afraid to get his hands dirty—but he could still remember with acute clarity when Yancy had tried to pierce one of his own ears during high school, and the memory of the resulting infection was equally distinct. He wasn’t keen for a repeat in the flesh.

“And you have done this before, yeah?” Raleigh asked as Newt trundled over with a tray of supplies; he supposed the answer didn’t matter much either way, but it seemed like the sort of question you’d ask a person who was about to stick a needle in your skin.

“Dude, I studied marine life – I’ve tagged a shitton of fish,” Newt scoffed, as if that was in any way reassuring.

“That’s… fascinating, I’m sure, but definitely not the same thing at all,” Raleigh drawled. “Have you ever done it to a human being?”

“What? Tagged ‘em and released ‘em back into the wild?” Newt snickered, already leaning in with an alcohol wipe to clean Raleigh’s earlobes, rolling his eyes when Raleigh didn’t laugh along. “It’s fine, dude, I’ve done it to myself a bunch of times.”

“Really?” Raleigh glanced along Newt’s ears, searching for holes he’d never needed to notice before, but Newt moved away too quickly to get a good look.

“Yep. And I only got an infection the first time and that was only because I was a dumb sixteen-year-old still trying to figure himself out and I thought that not showering would make me one of the guys.” Newt grabbed a Sharpie off the tray and pulled the cap off. “Took one severely infected set of piercings and a very frank talk from my academic advisor to make me realize that basic personal hygiene is cool and sexy no matter what gender you are. Okay, look straight ahead.”

Newt’s fingers were warm and firm under Raleigh’s chin, enforcing his instructions as he turned a sudden and an almost disconcerting amount of focus onto Raleigh’s ears.

“You’re being a lot more thorough than I expected,” Raleigh commented as Newt brought the Sharpie up.

“Don’t move,” Newt ordered, realigning Raleigh’s jaw before he placed a careful dot on first one earlobe, then the other. “Anyway, I have to look at you after this, and if I have to look at you with asymmetrical piercings it’s gonna drive me up the fuckin’ wall. I think I picked that up from Hermann.”

“In the drift?” Raleigh asked, once Newt released him.

“Nah. I’ve known the guy for, like, a decade. Some transference of personal habits was unavoidable.” Newt shrugged, turning back to the tray. “But I think I managed to classically condition him into liking sour candy, so we’re even.”

Raleigh decided he didn’t want to know.

He watched as Newt pulled on a pair of gloves and stripped a needle from its packaging before picking up a lighter.

“Don’t you have actual equipment in here for sterilization?” Raleigh asked.

“Autoclave’s occupied. I wasn’t exactly expecting to pierce anyone’s ears today. Besides, if the lighter was good enough for me, it’s good enough for you. OH.” For a moment, as Newt shouted and nearly dropped the needle, Raleigh thought he’d burned himself, but the look dawning across his face was the one he usually got before they went trespassing on government property. “You should do me next!”

Raleigh blinked at Newt. “What.”

“Yeah, it’ll be like a bonding thing! Like, I’m not gonna try to beat you to death with a stick or anything, but we can still make each other bleed a little, it’s cool!” Newt turned wide, pleading eyes on Raleigh. “Come ooon!”

“Don’t you already have piercings?” Raleigh asked, this time reaching out to grab for the side of Newt’s head and examine his ears more carefully; Newt didn’t even flinch.

“Yeah, but I let most of them close up. I haven’t exactly been focused on maintaining my aesthetic in the last few years.” Raleigh threw a pointed look at the tattoos pouring out from under haphazardly shoved-up sleeves, and Newt shrugged. “Certain exceptions notwithstanding. C’mon, dude, it won’t even be hard!”

There were, indeed, numerous little indents lining the flesh of Newt’s ears, but most of them did appear older, shallow and closed-off. Finally, Raleigh released Newt with a shrug. “Yeah, alright. Why not?”

“Sweet!” Newt punched the air—with the hand clutching the lighter, at least, rather than the one with the needle—then turned his attention back to the task at hand. “Alright, let’s do this thing!”

For an anticlimactic moment of quiet, Newt and Raleigh both trained their eyes on the steady flame of the lighter as it was held to the needle.

“Yeah, earrings are fun, you’ll see,” Newt murmured, attention still largely on the needle. “Once they heal up enough you can swap the basic studs out for something cooler. Maybe you can rock whatever color Mako’s got in her hair and be all disgustingly in sync and matchy-matchy.”

The little smile on Newt’s face—all mirth and no malice—kept Raleigh from bristling, instead inviting him in on the joke.

“And you wouldn’t know anything about that,” Raleigh shot back dryly. “Picking things up from your drift partner.”

Pulling the needle away from the flame and waving it in the air like it was an old Polaroid picture, Newt snorted. “Okay, Hermann and I might be a little more in sync these days, but I don’t think we’re ever gonna match. I mean, c’mon,” Newt reached over to the tray for another alcohol wipe, “our styles are a little different.”

“Uh huh,” Raleigh hummed, gaze flashing down to Newt’s torso, “right. Then I just have to say, that’s a very punk cardigan you’re wearing today.”

Newt’s own eyes snapped down the mossy green cardigan he’d clearly forgotten he was wrapped up in, the corners of his mouth cutting down into the closest thing to a scowl he was capable of.

“Okay, shut up, this is not matching.” Newt jabbed the needle at Raleigh, who grinned. “The lab is cold, and I just happen to know where Hermann keeps his emergency sweaters.”

“Right,” Raleigh agreed through his smile; the fact that Newt often complained of running hot went unaddressed.

“Look, you want me to do your ears, or not?” Newt huffed.

“Oh, by all means,” Raleigh laughed, spreading his arms in invitation. “Bonding and bloodshed. I’m here for it.”

Newt rolled his eyes, muttering to himself as he ran the alcohol wipe over the needle, but there was a smile tugging at his mouth just the same.

He unwrapped the bar of PPDC-issue soap and positioned it behind Raleigh’s right earlobe, hands steady and gaze focused, then rested tip of the needle against Raleigh’s skin.

“Ready?” Newt asked.

“One thing.” Raleigh waited until Newt had drawn back enough to look him in the eye before he asked, “Are you imagining I’m a fish right now?”

Newt’s answering laugh was abrupt and honest. “Only a little bit. Now, breathe in, aaand–”

[homoose]

Weird is Good

Summary: A story about two people tryna make it through the age of COVID-19 in a country where people are fucking dumb lmao. My hc is that Spencer would be like wtf at all these science-denying anti-maskers. Also, two teachers just tryna make it through quarantine and remote teaching in a one bedroom apartment (this is taking place during a mandatory leave/lecture cycle).

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Category: fluff

Warnings/Includes: no warnings. reader is both a kindergarten teacher and a bruh girl with a pirate’s mouth. lots of Spencer x factz.

Word count: 3.1k

———

“We’re home for the next two weeks. ”

Spencer looked up from his desk to see Y/N kicking off her shoes, dropping her bag, and walking directly to the sink. “Starting when?”

“We get to go in on Monday to say goodbye to the kids and get any materials we might need. Then we’re home for two weeks. They’re calling it an early, extended spring break.” Y/N began her hand washing routine. As a kindergarten teacher, she’d always been a strict hand-washer. In the time of COVID, she had only become more zealous. She looked at Spencer. “Have you heard anything?”

“Since we’re so close to the end of the semester, the department head thinks they’ll try to finish out the year as normal.” He set down his pen. “I honestly don’t know. It will all depend on whether people follow the CDC guidelines. The spread of any virus is deducible mathematically, and SARS-COV2 is no different. Based on the outbreak in Italy prior to their lockdown, we can accurately describe its reproductive number, or Rt, to between 2.43 – 3.10.”

Y/N shut off the water and dried her hands on a paper towel. “In layman's terms, Dr. Reid.”

“The Rt tells how many people are infected by the contagious host,” he explained. “In the case of this strain, each infected person is infecting between two and three others. For comparison, the standard seasonal flu has an average Rt between 1.4 and 1.7.”

“So in other words, fucking yikes,” Y/N groaned. She moved to perch on the edge of Spencer’s desk.

“Indeed,” Spencer agreed. “We know how fast the flu can travel through an office or a classroom, so imagine if it was two times as transmissible. But it's also really important to understand that this number changes depending on the mitigations in place. Even prior to full lockdown, mask wearing and social distancing was somewhat common in Italy, so it’s likely the uncontrolled Rt is higher.”

“Jesus Christ.” Y/N scrubbed a hand over her face. “We’ll probably never go back.”

Spencer rubbed his hand up from her ankle to the inside of her knee. “The good news is there’s nothing special about this virus compared to others in terms of how it spreads— it’s just aerosols. So if everyone wears their mask, we’ll be able to keep the spread low.”

⧭⧭⧭

“It’s safe to say that everyone did not wear their fucking masks,” Y/N snapped. She watched from the couch as Mayor Bowser delivered the news that DC Public Schools would remain closed for the remainder of the year. “This is crazy. I mean, I knew it was coming because people in this country are absolute buffoons.” She looked at Spencer, fingers pressed to her temple. “But holy shit, are we ever going to be able to go outside again?”

“With schools and universities closed, people working remotely, and lockdown orders in place, the Rt in the US could stay low. But masks have to be worn at all times, and social distancing has to be strictly followed.” Spencer pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I just— I can’t believe people are refusing to wear masks. The empirical, peer-reviewed data clearly shows—”

“This is ‘Murica, boy.” Y/N mocked. “Ain’t no tyrannical government gonna tell me what to do!” She rolled her eyes. “Trust me, your choice to abstain from social media is paying dividends to your sanity right now.”

Spencer looked truly dumbfounded, setting his newspaper down in his lap. “But that’s just it. It’s not just in social media circles.” He gestured to the article in front of him. “This economist just argued for ‘reopening’ the economy using the justification of herd immunity. Herd immunity can be a plausible option for less lethal diseases. But this virus is not like varicella—the chickenpox,” he clarified at Y/N’s raised eyebrow. He waved his hands around in exasperation. “Putting aside the fact that one facet of herd immunity is vaccinating as many people as possible, its success completely hinges on the Rt of a disease. If you model a population based on an Rt of 2.5, herd immunity wouldn’t be achieved until approximately sixty percent of the population has been infected. Consider that the US population is currently 328 million, and sixty percent of that is 196.8 million. The current mortality rate for SARS-COV2 is 3.06 percent. 196,800,000 multiplied by 0.0306 is 6,022,080. Over six million people would die. It's simple mathematics.”

Y/N let out an exasperated breath. “It used to be that simple math and facts were enough. Now you’ve got basement scientists who think they know better than actual, literal scientists who’ve spent their entire lives studying these things.” She ran a hand over her face and gestured at the news conference still playing. “How long do you think it’ll be before we’re both trying to teach from this tiny ass living room?”

⧭⧭⧭

“Goooooooood morning, kindergarten! It’s Friday, and no Friday is a bad Friday!” Spencer smiled. As he poured his first cup of coffee, he hummed along with Y/N and 23 six-year-olds as they sang their morning song. Observing fourteen days of remote kindergarten from across the living room had given Spencer a new appreciation for elementary school teachers, particularly Y/N. She sang, danced, conducted science experiments, held puppet shows, read stories, led art projects, and fielded questions for four hours a day— three hours less than when they were in the school building. He was exhausted by proxy.

But he was also grateful for the opportunity to watch Y/N in her element. Even though they were at home, she still got dressed every day in bright, patterned sweaters and dresses— her Ms. Frizzle attire, she’d told him once. She was able to channel her personality into a kid-friendly version that her students clearly adored, never afraid to be silly or strange to get their attention and keep them engaged during the long days. He worked from home whenever possible, strangely happy to have the background noise of kindergarten over his quiet university office.

...

“Okay, but where do I put the biiiiiiiiiiiig number?” Y/N made a wide gesture with her arms. “Ariah, where should I put it? In the big box, yes! But oh no, my small number needs a friend. My three is soooooo lonely!” Y/N drew her mouth into a pout. “DJ, how can I help my three not be so sad? You’re absolutely right, let’s put that two right next to him in our number bond.”

…

“I’ve been waitin’  for a girl to mute,” Y/N sang into the gold karaoke mic. “I said, muuuuuuuuuute, I’m blinded by loud sounds. No, I can’t hear the friend who’s tryin’ to talk.”

…

“Oh boy. Kev, honey, we can— we can see you. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. We can see all of you. I can’t turn your camera off, buddy. You gotta— there we go.”

…

“Mute please, I need— I need everybody to mute, please. Oh my goodness where is that music coming from?” Y/N frantically searched for her index card with the picture of the mute icon, as the sounds of a highly inappropriate song blared through the computer speaker. “I know it’s so loud, guys. Why is my mute power gone?! This is why we need to make sure we keep our mute button on, kindergarten.”

…

“No sweetie, it’s not time to log off yet. I’m sorry, I know it’s such a long day. We have about an hour left. Do you guys wanna do a countdown? It’s the fin-al count-down! Do-do doo dooooo. Do-do-d-do-dooo…”

…

“Annnnnd, I should see all my friends on mute. William, hang on just a second. All my friends need to look at my picture, it’s an oval with a line through it… Okay, William, what did you bring to show us?” Y/N leaned toward the computer screen. “Grandma Kathy? O-oh, she’s— she’s in the—“ Y/N’s eyes widened. “Is that— is that an urn? Oh wow. Um, well, wow. It’s beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, William. Grandma Kathy, may she rest in peace.”

⧭⧭⧭

A week into Y/N teaching kindergarten from their living room, the university had announced its transition to online coursework for the remainder of the academic year. Spencer had to host his first zoom lecture, and he was absolutely dreading it.

“Spence, it’s going to be fine. It’s not like you’ve never been on a video conference,” Y/N assured him. She sat cross-legged on the couch, waiting for him to let her in to his practice zoom.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t running those meetings. I just showed up.” He squinted at the computer screen. “Are you in?”

Y/N barely resisted the urge to make a joke, knowing that Spencer probably wouldn’t appreciate the innuendo. “No, you have to admit me.”

“What do you mean? How do I do that?”

“There should be a box with a button that says admit.”

Spencer gestured at the computer. “Well there’s a bunch of boxes— which one should I be looking at?”

Y/N sighed and got up from the couch. “IQ of 187 and can’t find the box.”

Spencer dragged a hand through his hair. “I know I shouldn’t find this so difficult. I’m sorry you have to waste your time on this.”

“Hey, it was a joke.” Y/N grabbed his hand from where he was frustratedly pulling on his frazzled curls. “I’m sorry. That was mean and you’re already stressed enough.” She used her free hand to smooth his hair back into place. She scrunched her nose. “I love you and your limited technology skills. And honestly it’s kind of nice to have one thing I can actually teach you about.” She squeezed his hand, leaning over him to peer at his computer screen. “All right, let’s find that elusive admit button.”

When the day of his lecture rolled around, Spencer thanked all the atoms in the observable universe that Y/N had a break during his class. Within the first ten minutes, he’d managed to accidentally kick himself out of his own meeting and then somehow lose track of the screenshare button.

“No one can see me and I don’t know what happened to the screenshare option. It was there and now it’s just… gone,” he told Y/N.

She leaned over his desk, eyes tracking over the screen and mouse clicking around the desktop. “How in the world did you manage to block your camera?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t even touch it!” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t understand how it’s even possible to be this bad at this.”

Y/N bumped his knee with her own, pulling up his camera settings and preferences. “Relax. You can’t be good at everything. It’s a refreshing reminder that you’re a mere mortal like the rest of us.” With a few rapid clicks, Y/N unblocked his camera and located the screenshare bar. “There. Crisis averted. I’m just going to share your whole screen in case you want to toggle between application windows. So just be aware that they’ll be able to see everything. And then you just click here when you’re ready to stop sharing.”

When Y/N turned her head toward him to check that he understood, Spencer grabbed the side of her face and caught her lips in a kiss. Y/N smiled against his mouth, heart speeding up as he traced the seam of her mouth with his tongue.

“Um, Dr. Reid? Your um— your camera’s working now.”

Spencer nearly fell out of his chair, his cheeks about the color of the Leave Meeting icon. Y/N dropped her head, debating whether she wanted to laugh or let the earth open up and swallow her whole. She ultimately decided to compose herself, stepping back and giving a little wave to the sea of tiny, grinning zoom faces before slinking out of frame, miming sorry to one very mortified professor.

⧭⧭⧭

“Would you want to be our mystery reader next week?” Y/N asked, bookmarking the page of her novel and reclining back in bed. “You just have to pick a story to read. Oh, and think of four clues about your identity to give the kiddos.”

Spencer raised his eyebrow, continuing to read. “Any story?”

Y/N laughed. “Well they’re six, so maybe hold off on the Chaucer and Bradbury for now. A picture book would be preferable.”

“Did you know that the first picture book, Orbis Sensualium Pictus, or Visible World in Pictures, was published in 1658?” He looked up from his own book. “Czech educator John Amos Comenius wanted to create a book that would be accessible to children of all levels of ability. The educational theories he explored are actually still in practice in the field of early childhood education.” He turned toward her from his spot under the covers. “For example, when you have your students make a hissing sound and slither their arms when they produce the sound represented by the letter s? Comenius included an alphabet chart with various animal and human sounds representing each letter. He wanted to demonstrate that the incorporation of multiple senses could help increase learning.”

“I guess you don’t fix what isn’t broken,” Y/N mused. “300 years later, and we’re still using the same methods.”

“362, actually,” Spencer corrected.

She gave him a look. “Maybe we can save the Comenius for another time.”

“The genre of children’s literature encompasses some of the most profound and philosophical story telling of all time.” Spencer returned his attention to his reading.

“...So is that a yes?”

Spencer smiled. “I’ve got a book in mind.”

“And clues,” Y/N reminded him, snuggling down under the covers and reopening her book. “We need some fun clues, mystery reader.”

…

“Kindergarten, we have a very special mystery reader this week. Oh man, are you ready for the first clue? The mystery reader loves jell-o! Raise your little hand if you love jell-o, too. Okay, kindergarten, I see you! Lots of jell-o lovers in the house.”

…

“Okay, clue number two! Our mystery reader works as a community helper— remember we learned about all different kinds of community helpers; firefighters, nurses, police officers. But if the mystery reader could be anything, they’d want to be a cowboy! How cool is that?”

...

“Clue number three for our mystery reader!” Y/N sucked in a gasp. “You guys. The mystery reader can do magic. Oh my goodness, I am so excited for Friday,” she sing-songed. “Will they show us a trick? Hmmm, I don’t know. Maybe if you ask nicely.”

…

“Okay, my friends, the last clue. The mystery reader loves reading. They read every day, and they’ve been reading since 1983! Yes, that was a very long time ago.”

⧭⧭⧭

“Okay, any last guesses about who our mystery reader might be?” Y/N questioned.

“I think it’s your dad,” a little voice called out.

Spencer made a choking noise from where he sat, slightly off camera. Y/N laughed. “The mystery reader is decidedly not my dad, Keyshon. Remember I showed you guys the picture of him— my dad’s a farmer, so he’s kind of already a cowboy.” She clapped her hands together. “Okay, without further ado, drumroll please... Our mystery reader is…” Y/N pushed her desk chair out of frame to allow Spencer to roll in, holding her hands out. “Spencer!”

He gave a little wave, smoothing his hair, suddenly painfully self-aware and nervous about the opinions of two dozen six-year-olds. “Hi guys.”

“You’re the boy on Ms. Y/L/N’s phone.”

“Your hair is so fluffy!”

“Do you have a cowboy hat?”

“I like your sweater.”

“Can you really do magic?”

“What’s your favorite jell-o?”

“Whoa, okay, let’s remember our mute button,” Y/N, holding up her index card. “I promise you’ll get to ask Spencer all your questions after he reads the story.”

Spencer smiled at the excited faces beaming through the screen. “Yes, I’m on Ms. Y/L/N’s phone; I don’t own a cowboy hat, yet; yes, I really can do magic; and the red jell-o is my favorite.”

Y/N watched with interest as Spencer pulled out his book. He’d been secretive about his choice, so she was as curious as her students.

“This is one of my favorite stories. It’s written by Munro Leaf, and illustrated by Robert Lawson. It’s The Story of Ferdinand.” Spencer held the cover up to the camera. “Ferdinand is the bull here on the cover. This story was written in 1935, which was a long time ago! Okay are you ready?” Spencer looked out on a sea of thumbs up, turning the page to the beginning of the story. “Once upon a time in Spain, there was a bull, and his name was Ferdinand.”

Y/N smiled as she listened to Spencer read each page, recounting the story of the peaceful bull. He was an excellent storyteller, changing the inflection and expression of his voice to match each sentence. He held each page up for just the right amount of time, panning it so her students could see each detail of the black and white pictures. He added his own wonderings and exclamations here and there, and her students were decidedly enthralled. Her heart ached at how comfortable he was, how natural this was for him. She rested her chin in her hand, trying to keep her mind in the present— ignoring the persistent little mental image of Spencer as a dad.

“So they had to take Ferdinand home. And for all I know, he is sitting there still, under his favorite cork tree, smelling the flowers just quietly. He is very happy… And that’s The Story of Ferdinand.” Spencer closed the book with a soft smile. “I love this story. Ferdinand is a very special bull. What do you think makes him so special?”

“Ferdinand didn’t fight,” a little voice piped up.

“Yes!” Spencer agreed. “He practiced pacifism in the face of the persistent, ingrained militarism of his country’s culture.”

Y/N placed a hand on Spencer’s knee and gave a quick squeeze. “Right, Ferdinand chose not to fight, even though everybody else he knew wanted to.” Y/N winked at him before turning back to the screen full of kids. “All his friends thought he was kind of weird, but he just really wanted to hang out in the shade and smell the flowers, huh? Sounds pretty good to me.”

“He wasn’t bothered that the other bulls thought he was strange for wanting to be peaceful,” Spencer added. “Sometimes being different can be a good thing. The Story of Ferdinand reminds me that it’s okay to be yourself, even if other people think you’re weird.” His eyes met Y/N’s. “Because there will always be people who love and appreciate you for who you are.”