#Keeping a list written or digital that you can show doctors also helps so they know how drugs can interact if your an er frequent flyer

[marsuni]

does your doctors ever just drop something on you much later about your meds or your conditions and it explains a lot

[quintalon]

July Mini-Fest Now Open!

I don't know about you, but I dip my toe in a lot of different fandoms. I may not be as invested in the fanfiction side of it, but I own merch from a ton of different movies, shows, and books, and flail over fanart and fan theories. There is just so much to love out there.

So this month we are doing something a little different. I want to see what other fandoms you enjoy and what would happen if they collided with your favorite HP characters.

The only requirement is to have at least one Harry Potter character interact with at least one character from another fandom. It can be done any way you choose - HP characters find themselves in the other fandom's universe, or vise versa. It can be romantic, platonic, friendly, or hostile. Can’t decide between two fandoms? Include them both. It's up to you!

Maybe Magizoologist Luna finds herself on a hunt with the Winchesters after hearing reports of an unknown creature in the mountains of Colorado.

Or Auror Harry realizes the depth of his feelings for his coworker Theo while working a murder case alongside Sherlock and Watson.

Perhaps Unspeakable Hermione is accidentally sent back in time to 1943 and meets Steve Rogers, the newly minted Captain America and boyishly charming man she can't stop thinking about.

OR, after his defeat at the hands of that boy Potter, Lord Voldemort awakes in the middle of a vast desert with no shade, water, or means of escape in sight. His only companion is Emperor Palpatine, who he spends his days unsuccessfully trying to kill as they argue about who is the most powerful and who committed the vilest deeds.

The possibilities are endless, really.

If you are not sure what fandom to choose, here is a list of ideas to help spark your muse. But please keep in mind, you can choose ANY other fandom. It does not have to be from the list below.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

DC Universe

Doctor Who

Game of Thrones

Ghostbusters

Grishaverse

Howl's Moving Castle

Labyrinth

Let's Play (webcomic)

Lord of the Rings

Lore Olympus (webcomic)

Lucifer

Marvel Universe

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

Sherlock

Star Trek

Star Wars

Stargate

Supernatural

The Mummy

The One with the Crossovers - mini-fest rules:

Pairing: ANY (as long as one Harry Potter character interacts with one character from another fandom - it does not have to be in a pairing)

Rating: ANY

Dates: 6/30 to 7/24, collection will reveal on 7/25 - There is no cutoff date to join. Jump in anytime until the submission deadline of 7/24.Please be sure to include your chosen fandom in the Author's notes.

Set rules for all mini-fests:

MIN/MAX REQUIREMENTS

Authors - 500 words min - no max, written for the mini-fest

Artists - 1 unique piece created for the mini-fest, no max - can be any type of graphic (moodboard, manip, digital art, hand-drawn)

Please note that you are welcome to submit BOTH a story and artwork if you wish! Also, if you are truly inspired and this turns into a longer fic or an art series, go for it! The only requirement is that you meet the minimums listed above by the mini-fest deadline. Afterwards, you can add to your entry on your own schedule.

NO ARCHIVE WARNINGS CAN APPLY.

All trigger warnings should be tagged and noted appropriately. No non-con or pedophilia permitted.

ALL ENTRIES MUST BE POSTED IN THE APPROPRIATE AO3 COLLECTION.

There is one main collection on AO3, with each mini-fest listed as a sub-collection. You are welcome to crosspost after the entries have been revealed. You can find the collection for this mini-fest here.

As a reminder, every mini-fest is open to both authors and artists!

Come join us on Facebook and Discord! Authors, artists, and cheerleaders welcome!

[ask-de-writer]

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 59 of 83 : World of Sea

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to World of Sea

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

Part 59 of 83

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

copyright 2020

written 2007

All rights reserved.

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

//////////////

Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users   of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may   reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information   remains intact.  They may use the characters or original characters in   my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical   compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

///////////////////////

New to the story?  Read from the beginning.  PART 1 is here

///////////////////////

Chapter 22: The Search

Rage, grief and mortification warred in Captain Mord’s heart as he looked at the map-table where he had sent Kurin in such anger.  The worst was that, even if the Grandalor’s sailors were a boarding party, Kurin had been right.  

The law was as clear as his anger was deep.  While it was believed that the Grandalor’s sailors were castaways, the Longin had been required to pick them up, if only to hold them for trial.  At least some of them paid in blood for their treachery!  But they got what they came for.  We may never see her again…  The thought trailed off into unbearable pain.

Bron’s arm was trailing.  He had bruises, one on his back, between the shoulder blades and one on the inside of his elbow.  It was not serious but if his attacker had used a knife instead of that silly, weighted sack of fish-leather, he would have been dead.  

Other crewmen were beginning to tell their tales of the battle and they were slowly realizing the same things.  The assailants had been too few to have any hope of taking a ship like the Longin.  Also, none of their enemies had been armed with anything but a padded leather cosh. It was as if they were trying not to hurt anyone on the ship. Some fools were even trying to tie that Sea Hawk to the attack.  It was just lost in the fog.  

Then they began to hear, Kurin’s gone!  The bastards had kidnaped her! But that made no sense.  They could have simply killed her.  They had already tried to do it once.  It would have been far less risky.

Looking at the map-table clearly, Captain Mord saw what he has missed the first time.  There in the tallow, written in Kurin’s neat handwriting, was a note.

“Captain: The Grandalor’s crew needs justice.  Their rights under the second G. L. have been violated.  I have gone to help them.  Kurin”

First they tried to kill her, now this!  No matter what excuse, they have stolen her!  In anger, partly at himself and partly at Kurin for being so gullible, he wiped out the note before any other should notice it.  Details aren’t important!   Whatever ruse they used, they kidnapped Kurin!  The Grandalor is guilty!

Captain Mord returned forward, where one of the boarders lay propped against the foremast.  The man had been stabbed deeply but still lived. Feebly he extended a hand holding a folded tallow-slate, hinged shut to protect its message.

Weakly he said to the enraged Mord, “Captain, read this. It’s from my Captain.  We were to be your hostages for Kurin’s return…” He slumped lax, dead from his wounds, the tallow-slate falling from his fingers with a small clatter onto the Longin’s deck.

Captain Mord kicked the tallow-slate away unread.  “Toss this Grandalor trash over the side,” he ordered.

His crew looked at him aghast.  Nobody moved.  Mord became angrier and yelled, “Dump him!  That’s an order!”  At last, a few deck-hands took the man’s body and dragged him to the rail.  An Orca began to sing.  They dropped him in fear.  One noticed the tallow-slate and picked it up as he retreated.

Captain Mord realized that nobody would touch the body since the whale had begun to sing and heaved it over the side himself.  The whale’s song went on for another ten minutes.  

When it was done, Captain Mord ordered, “Swab up this blood and straighten up the area.”  His men did do that, though they had begun to whisper among themselves as they worked.

Kurin disentangled herself from the joyous hug that Tanlin was giving her and said, “I need to see your log first, then all of the sickbay documentation.  I want to see all of the Purser’s accounts and look over Master Selked’s shop.  After that, I am going to interview virtually everyone on board.”

Tanlin let her go, becoming brisk, now that there was a task at hand.  “Oi’m glad.  Wen do ye wont t’ begin?”

“If I can eat in here, I’ll begin now,” said Kurin.  “I need to start with the beginning of the indenture trade.  I have to know about that in detail if I am to save your ship from Scattering.”

Tanlin got up and went to the long shelf holding the Logs of the Grandalor. As she was going down the line, absently tapping the spines of the volumes with her left index finger, she said thoughtfully, “T’ere’s somet’in’ t’at ye’ll find wen ye get t’ t’e interviews. Oi didnae mention ‘t before because ‘t wa’nae important in t’e way t’at ye asked about.  ‘T does bear on ‘ow t’is ship wad respond t’ a penalty o’ Scatterin’.  

“Every person on t’is ship’s adopted.  All o’ t’em are now named Grandalor, m’sel’ included.  ‘T happened t’e morning after our flight began.  T’ey knew t’at t’e ship wa’ implicated in murder an’ chose t’is way o’ tellin’ Barad an’ m’sel’ t’at t’ey wad nae abandon us.  

“Oi joined t’em.”  She swallowed past a hard lump in her throat and a tear glistened in the corner of her eye.

“Princamorn wa’ but a name t’ m’ an’ t’e Grandalor’s home.  Oi dinnae wont t’ lose ‘t.”  

Intently, Kurin said, “I see.  That makes a difference — to me at least,” she looked sharply at Tanlin, “if it was a voluntary thing.”

Tanlin was already fishing the necessary volume of the log from its shelf and looked back over her shoulder.  “Twas.  T’ey’d planned t’ do ‘t publicly, in t’e main square o’ t’e Gat’ering, ‘ad reserved ‘t, in fact, wen we ‘ad t’ flee.  T’ey came t’ m’ first.  Twas a total an’ welcome surprise.  T’e only light in some very dark days.”  She found the place that she was looking for in the book and gave it to Kurin.

Kurin settled cross-legged on Tanlin’s bunk with the book in her lap and began turning pages one at a time, glancing at each page and moving on.  Tanlin watched as Kurin leafed through the volume of the log, almost twenty Gatherings old.

There was a scratching noise at the cabin’s window.  Tanlin smiled to herself as it swung inward and Skye’s head poked into the cabin. The Wide Wing looked alertly about and stepped into the room.  The bird turned about on the sill and used her beak to push the window closed and then hop-fluttered to the table in front of Tanlin, who chucked her under the beak and stroked her under a slightly raised wing.

Skye settled on the table and waited quietly.  Kurin looked up with a smile and said, “Who’s trained who, here?”

Tanlin replied lightly but sort of seriously, “T’ey made m’ part o’ t’eir rookery flock an’ welcomed m’ t’ t’eir nest.  Could Oi do less?”

Before there was any answer possible, Tahm returned with food, cups, utensils and trays.  He set out the table, working nonchalantly around the sitting bird.  Kurin put the log aside and came to the table.

“I take it that this happens a lot?” she said with a genuine smile.

It was Tahm who answered, “Every time that the Captain eats in. Sometimes it’s Skye, here.  Sometimes it’s Thunderhead.  I’m told that after the chicks are grown, it’ll be both of ‘em. Better behaved than many of the crew.”

The main course that he laid out was a Strong Skin roast.  The bird looked sideways at Tanlin, who nodded.  The bird promptly dove her beak into the edge of the roast and peeled off a strip.  She began to bite it into bits which she swallowed quickly.

Kurin watched in fascination.  “Better get yers w’ile ye still ‘ave a chance, Skye’s stoking up for ‘er chicks,” said Tanlin.  She reached out, speared the roast with a chopstick and cut off slices with the knife that Kurin remembered from their first meeting.  She piled the slices onto a tray along with a generous serving of red weed bread buns and seaweed salad.  She handed the tray to Kurin and poured water into a cup.

“Sweet, sour or bitter flavor in yer woter?”

“Plain, please.  Flavors for water?  I never heard of any such thing.”

“Tis a Grandalor specialty.  Barad told m’ t’at Kurti showed ‘t to ‘im shortly after she started t’ work as ‘is cabin-girl.”

“Now that puzzles me.  I know what you told me at the Gathering but why would a skilled diver and stores clerk like Kurti stoop to becoming a cabin-girl?” Kurin asked around a mouth full of salad.

Tanlin considered for a moment and fed Skye a few more bits of roast before answering.  “Oi wa’ still in m’ coma then.  According t’ both Barad an’ Doctor Corin, she knew t’at she might die from ‘er lung parasite infection.  Twas gettin’ worse in spite o’ t’e treatments.  Doctor Corin wa’ just about t’ put ‘er on t’e invalid list.  She wa’ in sickbay gettin’ a treatment wen she met Barad.  ‘E’d come by t’ sickbay t’ look in on m’.

“‘E offered ‘er t’e light work job t’at ‘ad just come open, due t’ Chena’s untimely deat’.  Kurti ‘ated bein’ useless.  She jumped at t’e chance t’ avoid t’e invalid list an’ stay useful.  T’ keep t’e seriousness o’ ‘er condition bein’ a matter o’ common gossip, Barad ordered ‘t kept secret.  Barad could be considerate sometimes, even t’en.”

“I think that I see.  The Barad that the fleet saw was something of a fiction?”

Tanlin leaned back nervously in her chair and gripped her right hand with her left.  “Oi truly wish t’at Oi could say t’at but Oi promised ye t’e trut’.  Tis a longish tale.  

“Barad wa’ always a somew’at calculatin’ man.  Once, long ago, Barad an’ Selked were married t’ twins from t’e Muline an’ by all accounts t’ey were ‘appy.  

“An epidemic o’ fire cough swept t’e ship.  Both Teralas, Selked’s wife, an’ Teralat, Barad’s wife, were among t’e nearly forty percent o’ t’e ship’s crew ‘oo died.  Barad almost went mad wit’ grief, an’ dealt wit’ ‘t by calculatin’ almost everything.  T’at’s ‘ow he became t’e Barad t’at you knew.

“Shortly after t’at, t’e Ca’tain died in ‘is sleep.  A Coriolis storm wa’ comin’ an’ t’e crew needed command.  T’ey took Barad’s orders an’ ‘e got t’e Grandalor t’rough safe, even t’ough t’e ship wa’ massively undermanned.

“‘E wa’ elected Ca’tain after t’e storm.  At t’e Gat’ering t’at followed, ‘is election wa’ challenged by yer Ca’tain Mord.  ‘E almost cost Barad both ‘is Ca’taincy an’ ‘is life.  In t’e end, t’e Council up’eld Barad by only two votes.  Even t’ose ‘oo voted in ‘is favor sponsored a resolution t’at t’ey did so only because t’e evidence against ‘im wa’ nae sufficient. T’at wa’ t’e origin o’ t’e grudge t’at ‘e ‘eld against Ca’tain Mord an’ t’e Naral fleet as a ‘ole.

“Barad rebuilt t’e crew by takin’ in t’e scupper sweepin’s o’ t’e fleet.  T’e ones t’at naebody else wanted.  T’e Grandalor became a refuge for t’ose wit’ nae ot’er place t’ go.  Barad took t’em on a case by case basis an’ let t’em swim t’ Iren, if ‘e believed t’at a last chance would nae ‘elp.

TO BE CONTINUED

<==PREVIOUS   NEXT==>

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to World of Sea

[tomy-breyy]

The Smoothie Diet Review: Real Weight Loss Recipes or Cheap System?

The Smoothie Diet Reviews

Smoothie Diet is a weight loss program that shows simple recipes that are Healthy and Delicious. The recipes are made with fresh produce, although users will need to purchase something to learn more about the schedule and recommendations.

What is the Smoothie Diet?

Losing extra weight is often a matter of balance in a person's life. Finding the best option to flush through the extra inches of waistline is a journey, but most people believe that the key is to deprive yourself of the foods they love. Not only will this method of weight loss be unsuccessful, but it will prepare the individual for a powerful return to their old habits.

A good diet is easy to incorporate and maintain over time, but the smoothie diet is a little different. While it offers many of the benefits users expect from a weight loss plan - like more energy and health improvements - the key is not to give up everything. Instead, users are simply invited to try their smoothies in their current diet.

Users only have to give up three weeks to see the difference, according to the company's warranty as stated on the official website. The goal of this program is to improve the health of the user, but it also reduces body fat at a rate that other programs simply cannot mimic. The creator of The Smoothie Diet says the same recipes featured on this plan will be made available to its private customers.

Rather than just providing a recipe book, users need to follow a certain order for the smoothies to take effect. This is described in the instructions. Every single nutrient is perfectly balanced to improve weight loss and only certain meals are swapped for the smoothie instead. Users do not need to exercise, but they must follow the instructions.

Other benefits users discover with this routine include better skin, better exercise, better blood sugar management, and much more. While some of these benefits are due to weight loss, some are due to the specific ingredients used in the smoothies provided.

Purchase the smoothie diet

Although the smoothie diet is typically $ 47 to buy, the developers have taken off $ 10 off the price for a limited time, and it is currently only $ 37. Users get instant access to the materials, including:

A shopping list for every week

A full plan of smoothie replacements for the next three weeks

A great program for the correct consumption of smoothies

Preparation instructions and tips for making all smoothies

All of this content is available as digital material. Purchase has a 60-day return policy for a full refund.

About the 3-day smoothie detox

The 3 Day Smoothie Detox will help the user start their routine on the right foot. This part of the program is a brief introduction to the regimen to show weight loss. However, users can also repeat the detox to reset the user's health after excessive indulgence.

This program also includes a shopping list and well-written recipes.

Information on the quick start guide

The quick start guide is a way to get into the details of the program without reading the entire program before performing the first day of the routine. This is simply a compressed version of the routine that includes a short version of the next three weeks.

Frequently asked questions about the smoothie diet

What if users still want to lose more weight after finishing the smoothie diet?

This diet can be repeated over and over as long as the user continues to want to lose extra pounds. The user doesn't have to start at the end, but the program explains the transitions they need to make.

Will users regain the weight they lost after the three weeks?

Not necessarily. The reason this program is so effective is because it breaks the habits associated with poor diet, such as consuming sweets and junk food. Losing weight is relatively easy with better habits, which is why many people continue the smoothie diet beyond the three weeks.

Is The Smoothie Diet Safe For People With Diabetes?

For the most part, yes. The smoothies are high in fresh fruits and vegetables, which suggests that this could lessen the impact of a bad lifestyle on diabetes. Still, users currently diagnosed with diabetes may want to speak to their doctor before making any significant dietary adjustments.

What if the user doesn't have a lot of time to get into a diet?

This program specifically helps individuals lose weight when they already have many commitments to meet. Everything is incredibly easy to put together and only takes a few minutes to prepare and mix.

If consumers have other concerns, they can email support@healthcoachdrew.com for responses to the creator.

Bottom line

The Smoothie Diet has everything users need to do to lose weight with a blender and fresh ingredients. The recipes are planned on a clear schedule and users don't have to spend hours in the kitchen every day trying to downsize their clothes. The program can be expanded or repeated so that you can easily keep losing weight until the user's goal is achieved. Because all of the content is digital, users can read through the requirements within minutes of purchasing.

https://www.healthylifeandmagazine.com/the-smoothie-diet-review

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 26 Feb 2020

Today’s links

Brave autolinks 404s to the Wayback Machine: The internet’s time-traveling, privacy respecting, ad-busting browser.

Clarence Thomas admits he blew it on Brand X: A very safe mea culpa from the man who helped kill Net Neutrality.

Medicare for All would be the biggest take-home pay increase in a generation: Even if my taxes went up by six figures (!), I’d still save money.

The Smithsonian publishes 2.8m hi-rez images into the public domain: Tired: “It belongs in a museum!” Wired: “It belongs to the world!”

McMansion Hell visits 1971: Before “lawyer foyers” there were “paralegal foyers.”

This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Brave autolinks 404s to the Wayback Machine (permalink)

A new feature in Brave’s excellent, privacy-centric browser: when you visit a dead page, it automagically checks to see if there’s a cached copy in the Internet Archive and directs you to that instead.

The Archive is crushing it. Working with Wikimedia, they’ve linked every book citation in Wikipedia to the relevant passage in a scanned book in their library section.

Brave’s plugin works on 404 (page not found) errors, and also for 408, 410, 451, 500, 502, 503, 504, 509, 520, 521, 523, 524, 525, and 526 errors (451 is “page censored!”).

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/26/21154096/brave-browser-wayback-machine-404-internet-archive-lost-pages

Clarence Thomas admits he blew it on Brand X (permalink)

In 2005, Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion in Brand X, a case that ratified GW Bush’s FCC’s power to interpret both the statutes and jurisprudence of telcoms law however it wants, overriding judges.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-277.ZS.html

That decision meant that GWB’s FCC could arrange telcoms rules to suit the Big Cable donors GWB relied on. It meant that Obama’s FCC could reverse those rules and impose net neutrality. It meant Trump’s FCC could reverse Obama’s FCC and kill net neutrality.

Now, Thomas has written a dissent in Baldwin, a new case published Monday, in which he admits that he blew it in Brand X, by giving political appointees from the administrative branch the power to overrule both Congress and the courts.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-402_o75p.pdf

When the Ajit Pai decision to kill net neutrality was brought before a circuit judge, she called it “unhinged.” Then she upheld it, because Brand X tied her hands.

Unfortunately, Thomas is the sole dissent in Baldwin, whose appeal SCOTUS will not to hear, leaving Brand X unchallenged. Given Thomas’s historic cowardice when it comes to challenging the establishment, this is a nice safe way to mea culpa without risking wrath of plutes.

“Although I authored Brand X, it is never too late to ‘surrende[r] former views to a better considered position.’ Brand X appears to be inconsistent with the Constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and traditional tools of statutory interpretation. Because I would revisit Brand X, I respectfully dissent from the denial of certiorari.” -C. Thomas.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/clarence-thomas-regrets-ruling-that-ajit-pai-used-to-kill-net-neutrality/

Medicare for All would be the biggest take-home pay increase in a generation (permalink)

UC Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman: “Because this is my lot in life, I will note again that Medicare for All would lead to the biggest take-home pay increase in a generation for working families, because it would replace private health insurance premiums (a huge privatized head tax) by taxes based on ability to pay.”

https://twitter.com/gabriel_zucman/status/1232295342185558018

We pay more than $2000/mo for gold-plated healthcare from Cigna through my wife’s blue-chip employer, where she is an exec. When my daughter broke a bone, our ER visit to the preferred hospital (across the street from corporate HQ) cost $2700 in excesses.

The kid didn’t even see a doc. $2700 in out-of-pockets was for a Tylenol, an X-ray, and a one-minute consult with a physician’s assistant, who referred us to an orthopedist. The ortho and ER initially refused to treat my daughter unless I signed a binding arbitration waiver.

Cigna also just declined a pain therapy course recommended by my specialist, head of a prominent university’s pain clinic whose papers on the therapy are the most-cited in the field: “It’s experimental.” It will cost me $52,000 in out of pockets if I want to proceed.

So, keeping track: we’re currently spending $24k/yr on health care, and about the same in out-of-pockets, and our care is being rationed. If I want the care the top specialist in the region recommends, that’s another $52k.

Our inadequate private care, literally the best we can buy, would cost us $100k this year if we got the care our doctors recommended; $50k if we decided to ignore their advice and not get that care.

That is to say: if Medicare For All raised our taxes by ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS, we’d be breaking even. And getting better care. I grew up with Canadian healthcare, then 13 years of NHS UK care. The US system, at the very highest tier, is so much worse than either.

The Smithsonian publishes 2.8m hi-rez images into the public domain (permalink)

The Smithsonian has released 2.8 million hi-rez images into the public domain!

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/smithsonian-releases-28-million-images-public-domain-180974263/

The images include reproductions of both 2D and 3D artifacts in the Smithsonian’s collection, from all 19 Smithsonian museums, hosted on an open access platform:

https://www.si.edu/openaccess

200,000 more images are slated for inclusion in 2020, and the scope of the whole project is to digitize all 155,000,000 images in the Smithsonian’s collections and dedicate them to the public domain for any use, including commercial use. It’s part of a “digital first” strategy that eschews hypothetical licensing revenue from art books and penny-postcards in favor of serving the public mission of a museum.

Here’s a crib from a keynote I gave about this to the first Museums and the Web Europe conference in Florence — museums have both an ethical and practical duty to serve the public rather than relying on plutes and licensing.

https://mwf2014.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/glam-and-the-free-world/

Tldr: the public will support you and demand your preservation when austerity-crazed governments want to de-fund you. Plutes won’t — they’ll just offer to buy your collection for their mansions.

Anyway, this is amazeballs. The possibilities for remix, fine art, new work, and computational historical research are endless. This is the Smithsonian we pay our taxes for. It’s a brave, principled move. Go, Smithsonian go!

McMansion Hell visits 1971 (permalink)

The luckiest people in the world have never heard of McMansion Hell because they get to discover Kate Wagner’s superb dunks on architectural excess, cynicism and ill-founded optimism for the very first time!

Lately, Wagner’s been doing a “Yearbook,” revisiting proto-McMansions from 1971 to trace the primitive ancestors of today’s hulking atrocities. The latest installment is a $1.2m, 5000sqft titan in Morris County, New Jersey.

https://mcmansionhell.com/post/610960530721636352/the-mcmansion-hell-yearbook-1971

This beast predates the modern “lawyer foyer” and instead sports a “paralegal foyer,” which ” lacks the transom window above the door that enables the entryway to be seen from the street.”

I could listen to Wagner riff on bad kitchen design ALL DAY.

The realtor’s just rendered a bunch of virtual furnishings into this empty room! Wagner: “Personally I’d love to have a copy of the software that lets you 3D decorate random real estate listings – it’s like the Sims but for realtors.”

Wagner signs off with a promise of a “Brutalism Post.” Swoon!

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago: Dismantling fear, uncertainty, and doubt, aimed at Wikipedia and other free knowledge resources https://web.archive.org/web/20050301003539/http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/issue_02/fud_based_encyclopedia/

#15yrsago: HOWTO break HP printer cartridge DRM https://constitutionalcode.blogspot.com/2005/02/cartridge-expiration-date-workarounds.html

#15yrsago: @Aaronsw asks why Stanford professors include so few astrologers http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001588

#15yrsago: Why John Gilmore won’t show his ID at airports http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/05058/462446.stm

#5yrsago: World War 3 Illustrated: prescient outrage from the dawn of the Piketty apocalypse https://boingboing.net/2015/02/26/world-war-3-illustrated-presc.html

#1yrago: Youtube ignored repeated reports about explicit suicide instructions spliced into cartoons on Youtube Kids https://pedimom.com/youtube-kids-scare/

#1yrago: New Orleans reduced homelessness by 90% (and saved a fortune) by giving homeless people homes https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/02/19/new-orleans-reducing-homeless-hurricane-katrina

#1yrago: Trump made history: introducing tax cuts made him LESS popular https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/02/trump-choose-unpopular-president.html

#1yrago: How the payday loan industry laundered policy by paying academics to write papers that supported its positions https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/02/25/how-payday-lending-industry-insider-tilted-academic-research-its-favor/?utm_term=.92930478ab59

Colophon (permalink)

Today’s top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/”), Glenn Fleishman (https://twitter.com/glennf).

Hugo nominators! My story “Unauthorized Bread” is eligible in the Novella category and you can read it free on Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Upcoming appearances:

Canada Reads Kelowna: March 5, 6PM, Kelowna Library, 1380 Ellis Street, with CBC’s Sarah Penton https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cbc-radio-presents-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-96154415445

Currently writing: I just finished a short story, “The Canadian Miracle,” for MIT Tech Review. It’s a story set in the world of my next novel, “The Lost Cause,” a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I’m getting geared up to start work on the novel now, though the timing is going to depend on another pending commission (I’ve been solicited by an NGO) to write a short story set in the world’s prehistory.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes’s forthcoming Afterland: it’s Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it’s amazeballs. Last week, I finished Andrea Bernstein’s “American Oligarchs” this week; it’s a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I’m getting really into Anna Weiner’s memoir about tech, “Uncanny Valley.” I just loaded Matt Stoller’s “Goliath” onto my underwater MP3 player and I’m listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Gopher: When Adversarial Interoperability Burrowed Under the Gatekeepers’ Fortresses: https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/02/24/gopher-when-adversarial-interoperability-burrowed-under-the-gatekeepers-fortresses/

Upcoming books: “Poesy the Monster Slayer” (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we’re having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

“Attack Surface”: The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.

“Little Brother/Homeland”: A reissue omnibus edition with a very special, s00per s33kr1t intro.

[alltimebestbooks]

Best Books Help you Change Way to think

1. Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain

The New York Times bestselling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. Then came SuperFreakonomics, a documentary film, an award-winning podcast, and more.

Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—to think, that is, like a Freak.

Levitt and Dubner offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems, whether your interest lies in minor lifehacks or major global reforms. As always, no topic is off-limits. They range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain. Along the way, you’ll learn the secrets of a Japanese hot-dog-eating champion, the reason an Australian doctor swallowed a batch of dangerous bacteria, and why Nigerian e-mail scammers make a point of saying they’re from Nigeria.

Some of the steps toward thinking like a Freak:

First, put away your moral compass—because it’s hard to see a problem clearly if you’ve already decided what to do about it.

Learn to say “I don’t know”—for until you can admit what you don’t yet know, it’s virtually impossible to learn what you need to.

Think like a child—because you’ll come up with better ideas and ask better questions.

Take a master class in incentives—because for better or worse, incentives rule our world.

Learn to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded—because being right is rarely enough to carry the day.

Learn to appreciate the upside of quitting—because you can’t solve tomorrow’s problem if you aren’t willing to abandon today’s dud.

Levitt and Dubner plainly see the world like no one else. Now you can too. Never before have such iconoclastic thinkers been so revealing—and so much fun to read

2. The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest To Understand, Enhance and Empower the Mind

Recording memories, mind reading, videotaping our dreams, mind control, avatars, and telekinesis - no longer are these feats of the mind solely the province of overheated science fiction. As Michio Kaku reveals, not only are they possible, but with the latest advances in brain science and recent astonishing breakthroughs in technology, they already exist. In The Future of the Mind, the New York Times-bestselling author takes us on a stunning, provocative and exhilarating tour of the top laboratories around the world to meet the scientists who are already revolutionising the way we think about the brain - and ourselves.

3. A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

Whether you are a student struggling to fulfill a math or science requirement, or you are embarking on a career change that requires a new skill set, A Mind for Numbersoffers the tools you need to get a better grasp of that intimidating material. Engineering professor Barbara Oakley knows firsthand how it feels to struggle with math. She flunked her way through high school math and science courses, before enlisting in the army immediately after graduation. When she saw how her lack of mathematical and technical savvy severely limited her options—both to rise in the military and to explore other careers—she returned to school with a newfound determination to re-tool her brain to master the very subjects that had given her so much trouble throughout her entire life. In A Mind for Numbers, Dr. Oakley lets us in on the secrets to learning effectively—secrets that even dedicated and successful students wish they’d known earlier. Contrary to popular belief, math requires creative, as well as analytical, thinking. Most people think that there’s only one way to do a problem, when in actuality, there are often a number of different solutions—you just need the creativity to see them. For example, there are more than three hundred different known proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. In short, studying a problem in a laser-focused way until you reach a solution is not an effective way to learn. Rather, it involves taking the time to step away from a problem and allow the more relaxed and creative part of the brain to take over. The learning strategies in this book apply not only to math and science, but to any subject in which we struggle. We all have what it takes to excel in areas that don't seem to come naturally to us at first, and learning them does not have to be as painful as we might think.

4. Train Your Brain

Would you like to sharpen your memory? Would you like to keep your brain agile and focused? Would you like to age-proof your brain so that it stays young, healthy and fit? Then this is the book for you! Train Your Brain is a book of puzzles, exercises, riddles, and brain games that will help boost your brain power and jump start your brain! Whether you are a teenager, young adult, or a senior citizen, this book provides a vigorous mental workout to help increase your memory, sharpen your deductive and mathematical skills, improve your observation, increase your problem-solving skills, and improve the overall health of your brain. • More than 100 fun, brain-enhancing exercises, puzzles, and riddles. • 50 neurobic exercises that you can practice anytime, anywhere. • 66 popular games that will help you polish your cognitive skills.

6. Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long

In Your Brain at Work, David Rock takes readers inside the heads—literally—of a modern two-career couple as they mentally process their workday to reveal how we can better organize, prioritize, remember, and process our daily lives. Rock, the author of Quiet Leadership and Personal Best, shows how it’s possible for this couple, and thus the reader, not only to survive in today’s overwhelming work environment but succeed in it—and still feel energized and accomplished at the end of the day.

7. Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More, and Be More Productive

With over 300,000 copies sold, Unlimited Memory is a Wall Street Journal Best Seller and has been the #1 memory book on Amazon for more than two years. It has been translated into more than a dozen languages including French, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian.

Most people never tap into 10% of their potential for memory.

In this book, you're about to learn:

How the World's Top Memory Experts Concentrate and Remember Any Information at Will, and How You Can Too

Do you ever feel like you're too busy, too stressed or just too distracted to concentrate and get work done?

In Unlimited Memory, you'll learn how the world's best memory masters get themselves to concentrate at will, anytime they want. When you can easily focus and concentrate on the task at hand, and store and recall useful information, you can easily double your productivity and eliminate wasted time, stress and mistakes at work.

In this book, you'll find all the tools, strategies and techniques you need to improve your memory.

Here’s just a taste of the memory methods you'll learn in this book:

The 3 bad habits that keep you from easily remembering important information

How a simple pattern of thinking can stop you from imprinting and remembering key facts, figures and ideas, and how to break this old pattern so you’ll never again be known as someone with a “bad memory”

How to master your attention so you can focus and concentrate longer, even during challenging or stressful situations

How to use your car to remember anything you want (like long lists or information you need to remember for your studies or personal life) without writing anything down

Simple methods that allow you to nail down tough information or complex concepts quickly and easily

How to combine your long-term memory (things you already know and will never forget) and short-term memory (information you want to remember right now) to create instant recall for tests, presentations and important projects

The simple, invisible mental technique for remembering names without social awkwardness or anxiety

How using your imagination to bring boring information to life can help you dramatically improve your attention span and recall

An incredible strategy for remembering numbers (the same system Kevin used to remember Pi to 10,000 digits and beat the world memory record by 14 minutes)

How to use a mental map to lock in and connect hundreds or even thousands of ideas in your long-term memory (this method will allow you to become a leading expert in your field faster than you ever dreamed possible)

8. Calm Your Mind: Break the Cycle of Anxiety, Stress, Unhappiness, Exhaustions, and Find Peace in a Rushed World

Overwhelmed by the demands of a fast-paced world? Want to reduce your stress and anxiety?

Endless worrying is mostly the byproduct of unconscious living.

What makes you anxious: your lifestyle, your prospects for the future, or the shadows of the past?

If you’re desperate to slow down and find inner peace, mindfulness is the solution you’re looking for.

In Calm Your Mind, bestselling author Steven Schuster will help you to find back your way to the present moment following a few simple yet powerful principles. They don’t require more than a few minutes of practice daily. Their impact, however, is monumental with long-term benefits.

Improve your focus and productivity.

The book will not only show you the best practices to find peace of mind but will also help you transform these practices into daily, automatic habits. The wholeness you’re so keen to find is already within you. Practicing mindfulness is the key to channel those parts of your brain.

Learn to exclude the junk from your thoughts.

•Improve your focus and attention during your everyday activities •How to bring awareness to your life and practice conscious living •Become more decisive, disciplined, and calm

Become aware of the person you truly are.

•Learn how can you "calm your mind" •The best tips to manage your energy •The scientifically proven benefits of practicing mindfulness •How to overcome your discouraging and negative thoughts

Stop being the victim of your circumstances. Be aware and thus prepared to overcome them.

Mindfulness helps you experience a deep feeling of happiness and peace. It seeps into everything you do. You can meet the worst that life throws at you with courage, discipline, and determination. Life will make sense because you’ll be in greater control of it.

[ucflibrary]

The summer semester is ending and the prep for fall has started. It’s only a few short weeks until the 2019-2020 academic year begins. We’ll have a full cohort of students back on campus. The lines for coffee will be never ending and a free parking space will be nowhere to be found. Life will definitely get more exciting.

 Libraries staff has pulled together a full list of books that cover a whole range of areas. Some books are for our graduating students wondering what comes next. Some books are to help new incoming students start the year successfully. We even have books that staff read when they were your age (yep, books existed that long ago) that changed how they thought about the world.

 Welcome to the 2019-20 academic year!

 Click on the link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links for the featured Back-so-School titles suggested by UCF Library employees. These 24 books plus many more are also on display on the 2nd (main) floor of the John C. Hitt Library next to the bank of two elevators.

 Bei qi baba shang xue: Going to school with dad on my back directed by Zhou Youchao Shiwa, the son of a poor Chinese farmer, is doing well at school. But when his mother dies and his sister leaves the house, he's the only one left to take care of his disabled father. Suggested by Tim Walker, Information Technology & Digital Initiatives

 Braving the Wilderness: The quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone by Brené Brown Social scientist Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW, has sparked a global conversation about the experiences that bring meaning to our lives—experiences of courage, vulnerability, love, belonging, shame, and empathy. In Braving the Wilderness, Brown redefines what it means to truly belong in an age of increased polarization. Suggested by Kryslynn Collazo, Scholarly Communication

 Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind: thoughts on teacherhood by Phillip Done A twenty-year veteran of the classroom, elementary school teacher Phillip Done takes readers through a lively and hilarious year in the classroom. Starting with the relative calm before the storm of buying school supplies and posting class lists, he shares the distinct personalities of grades K-4, what he learned from two professional trick or treating 8-year-old boys, the art of learning cursive and letter-writing, how kindergartners try to trap leprechauns, and what every child should experience before he or she grows up. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

 Educated: a memoir by Tara Westover Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home. Suggested by Cindy Dancel, Research & Information Services

 Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger The short story, Franny, takes place in an unnamed college town and tells the tale of an undergraduate who is becoming disenchanted with the selfishness and inauthenticity she perceives all around her. The novella, Zooey, is named for Zooey Glass, the second-youngest member of the Glass family. As his younger sister, Franny, suffers a spiritual and existential breakdown in her parents' Manhattan living room -- leaving Bessie, her mother, deeply concerned -- Zooey comes to her aid, offering what he thinks is brotherly love, understanding, and words of sage advice. Suggested by Christina Wray, Teaching & Engagement

 Girl, Stop Apologizing: A shame-free plan for embracing and achieving your goals by Rachel Hollis In Girl, Stop Apologizing, Rachel Hollis sounds a wake-up call. She knows that many women have been taught to define themselves in light of other people—whether as wife, mother, daughter, or employee—instead of learning how to own who they are and what they want. With a challenge to women everywhere to stop talking themselves out of their dreams, Hollis identifies the excuses to let go of, the behaviors to adopt, and the skills to acquire on the path to growth, confidence, and believing in yourself. Suggested by Kryslynn Collazo, Scholarly Communication

 Glimmer of Hope: how tragedy sparked a movement by March for Our Lives (Organization) Glimmer of Hope tells the story of how a group of teenagers raced to channel their rage and sorrow into action, and went on to create one of the largest youth-led movements in global history. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

 Hillbilly Elegy: A memoir of a family in culture in crisis by J. D. Vance Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. Suggested by Katy Miller, Research, Education & Engagement

 How to Become a Straight-A Student: the unconventional strategies real college students use to score high while studying less by Cal Newport Most college students believe that straight A’s can be achieved only through cramming and painful all-nighters at the library. But Cal Newport knows that real straight-A students don’t study harder—they study smarter. A breakthrough approach to acing academic assignments, from quizzes and exams to essays and papers, How to Become a Straight-A Student reveals for the first time the proven study secrets of real straight-A students across the country and weaves them into a simple, practical system that anyone can master. Suggested by Joanie Reynolds, Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Services

 How to Win at College: simple rules for success from star students by Cal Newport What does it take to be a standout student? How can you make the most of your college years—graduate with honors, choose exciting activities, build a head-turning resume, and gain access to the best post-college opportunities? Based on interviews with star students at universities nationwide, from Harvard to the University of Arizona, How to Win at College presents seventy-five simple rules that will rocket you to the top of the class. Suggested by Joanie Reynolds, Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Services

 I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe  As Charlotte encounters the paragons of Dupont's privileged elite, she is seduced by the heady glamour of acceptance, betraying her values and upbringing before she grasps the power of being different and the exotic allure of her innocence. Suggested by Jada Reyes, UCF Libraries Student Ambassador

 I Just Graduated... Now What?: honest answers from those who have been there by Katherine Schwarzenegger Graduation is a time of tough questions whose answers we don’t—and sometimes can’t—know the day we receive our diploma. Determined to power through the uncertainty of post-gradua­tion, bestselling author Katherine Schwarzenegger embarked on a yearlong quest to gather the best guidance possible from more than thirty highly success­ful people working in fields like business, media, fashion, technology, sports, and philanthropy. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 In Defense of Food: an eater's manifesto by Michael Pollan Because in the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion--most of what we’re consuming today is longer the product of nature but of food science. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American Paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we see to become. Pollan’s bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 Mis(h)adra by Iasmin Omar Ata An Arab-American college student struggles to live with epilepsy in this starkly colored and deeply-cutting graphic novel. Isaac wants nothing more than to be a functional college student—but managing his epilepsy is an exhausting battle to survive. He attempts to maintain a balancing act between his seizure triggers and his day-to-day schedule, but he finds that nothing—not even his medication—seems to work. The doctors won’t listen, the schoolwork keeps piling up, his family is in denial about his condition, and his social life falls apart as he feels more and more isolated by his illness. Even with an unexpected new friend by his side, so much is up against him that Isaac is starting to think his epilepsy might be unbeatable. Suggested by Emma Gisclair, Curriculum Materials Center

 Never Eat Alone and Other Secrets to Success by Keith Ferrazzi with Tahl Raz In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps—and inner mindset—he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his contacts list, people he has helped and who have helped him. And in the time since Never Eat Alone was published in 2005, the rise of social media and new, collaborative management styles have only made Ferrazzi’s advice more essential for anyone hoping to get ahead in business. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

 On Beauty by Zadie Smith Howard Belsey is an Englishman abroad, an academic teaching in Wellington, a college town in New England. Married young, thirty years later he is struggling to revive his love for his African American wife Kiki. Meanwhile, his three teenage children - Jerome, Zora and Levi - are each seeking the passions, ideals and commitments that will guide them through their own lives. After Howard has a disastrous affair with a colleague, his sensitive older son, Jerome, escapes to England for the holidays. In London he defies everything the Belseys represent when he goes to work for Trinidadian right-wing academic and pundit, Monty Kipps. Taken in by the Kipps family for the summer, Jerome falls for Monty's beautiful, capricious daughter, Victoria. But this short-lived romance has long-lasting consequences, drawing these very different families into each other's lives. Suggested by Jada Reyes, UCF Libraries Student Ambassador

 Parkland: inside building 12 produced and directed by Charlie Minn Acclaimed director Charlie Minn brings attention to the victims of the infamous massacre that occurred on February 14th, 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. A normal day at school became a true nightmare for Parkland, Florida citizens as they experienced something they had never thought would happen in their small suburb. In just six minutes, seventeen students and staff were fatally shot and seventeen more were wounded, while innumerable lives were changed forever. The true heroes of that day have come together to tell their stories and to bring words to those who are no longer here to offer them. This documentary reveals testimony and the raw emotions of those involved, highlighting the actions taken by individuals to save the lives of others through selfless and brave acts. Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 So What Are You Going to Do With That?: a guide to career-changing by Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius A witty, accessible guide full of concrete advice for anyone contemplating the jump from scholarship to the outside world, So What Are You Going to Do with That? covers topics ranging from career counseling to interview etiquette to translating skills learned in the academy into terms an employer can understand and appreciate. Packed with examples and stories from real people who have successfully made this daunting—but potentially rewarding— transition, and written with a deep understanding of both the joys and difficulties of the academic life, this fully revised and up-to-date edition will be indispensable for any graduate student or professor who has ever glanced at her CV, flipped through the want ads, and wondered, “What if?”

Suggested by Rachel Edford, Teaching & Engagement

Sourdough: or, Lois and her adventures in the underground market by Robin Sloan Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers quickly close up shop. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her―feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it. Lois is no baker, but she could use a roommate, even if it is a needy colony of microorganisms. Soon, not only is she eating her own homemade bread, she’s providing loaves to the General Dexterity cafeteria every day. Then the company chef urges her to take her product to the farmer’s market―and a whole new world opens up.. Suggested by Katy Miller, Research, Education & Engagement

 Teacher Man: A memoir by Frank McCourt In bold and spirited prose featuring his irreverent wit and compelling honesty, McCourt records the trials, triumphs and surprises he faced in the classroom. Teacher Man shows McCourt developing his unparalleled ability to tell a great story as, five days a week, five periods per day, he worked to gain the attention and respect of unruly, hormonally charged or indifferent adolescents. Suggested by Rachel Edford, Teaching & Engagement

 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories can, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, above all, following our dreams. Suggested by Christina Wray, Teaching & Engagement

 The Secret Lives of Teachers by Anonymous Welcome to “East Hudson,” an elite private school in New York where the students are attentive, the colleagues are supportive, and the tuition would make the average person choke on its string of zeroes. You might think a teacher here would have little in common with most other teachers in America, but as this veteran educator—writing anonymously—shows in this refreshingly honest account, all teachers are bound by a common thread. Stripped of most economic obstacles and freed up by anonymity, he is able to tell a deeper story about the universal conditions, anxieties, foibles, generosities, hopes, and complaints that comprise every teacher’s life. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

 We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins It's the first day of school for Penelope Rex, and she can't wait to meet her classmates. But it's hard to make human friends when they're so darn delicious! That is, until Penelope gets a taste of her own medicine and finds she may not be at the top of the food chain after all. . . . Suggested by Emma Gisclair, Curriculum Materials Center

 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values by Robert M. Pirsig Acclaimed as one of the most exciting books in the history of American letters, this modern epic became an instant bestseller upon publication in 1974, transforming a generation and continuing to inspire millions. A narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son, the book becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions of how to live. The narrator's relationship with his son leads to a powerful self-reckoning; the craft of motorcycle maintenance leads to an austerely beautiful process for reconciling science, religion, and humanism. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

[ayearofpike]

The 2010s reprints, all at once

So if Simon & Schuster is going back to the well for Pike’s vampire books, what’s stopping them from bringing back other stories from their one-time best-selling young adult author? Form factor, perhaps. It’s the twenty-first century now, and no self-respecting teen would be caught dead reading a pocket-sized paperback. We need something big and beefy to show that we’re Serious About Literature even as we read about murderous insane girls. Fortunately, he’s written more than a couple continuations that will link together into a handy packaged bind-up. But a lot of these books were originally written twenty years ago or more, when the absence of technology and communications wasn’t something that needed to be addressed to explain why these bastards weren’t better informed. Indeed, new audiences (the ones we in education call “digital natives”) might not even understand the characters’ rationales for action without being able to step back in time and forget what they take for granted.

Is it worth rereading these new editions? How different are they from the originals? Lucky for you, I’ve decided to find out.

Remember Me

Compiles Remember Me, The Return, and The Last Story Simon Pulse, 2010 789 pages ISBN 978-1-4424-0596-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Re 2010 OCLC: 646299604 Released July 6, 2010 (per B&N)

Since this was the magical bestseller that made Pike who he was in the first place, it shouldn’t be too surprising that not much is changed or updated in this edition. Still, the very nature of the YA market having morphed into the vehicle that allows these stories to be reprinted throws a pretty massive wrinkle (like, even worse than the fact she’s publishing under her white name) into Shari’s expectation that her mom will never read Remember Me. Come on, dude — I guarantee she already read about the vampires. 

The only changes I found through all three stories were giving Lenny the Latino gangbanger a CD player rather than a cassette (because 2010), saving the final story on a jump drive rather than a floppy disk (again, 2010), and swapping Shari’s green pants for blue jeans (I guess to match the outfit Jean is wearing when she falls off the balcony?). One thing that hasn’t changed: Third Book Whitewashin’ Shari is still an asshole. You’re lucky I’m so determined to be thorough, otherwise I would have never reread this shit.

To Die For

Compiles Slumber Party and Weekend Point, 2010 408 pages ISBN 978-0-545-26432-1 LOC: not listed OCLC: 679759450 Released September 1, 2010 (per B&N)

Little weirdness here, as this is a Scholastic joint rather than Simon & Schuster, but the covers are all coordinated, down to the typeface. Not sure whether the two houses worked together to try to sell their books (at Pike’s agent’s suggestion?) or whether Point saw an opportunity to mine some back catalog and tried to copy the existing presentation as close as possible.

The oldest viable stories (read: not Cheerleaders) must have some major rewrites pending for a modern audience, you’d think, but it’s not that drastic. The main complication would be these kids being able to reach someone outside the immediate group and report problems, so Pike quickly writes around that with a single line in each story establishing the locale as beyond cell service. They also both turn emergency CB radios into walkie-talkies, which isn’t even close to the same thing. It’s a little hinky at times, especially in accepting that Lara Johnson has packed an alarm clock instead of a phone, but it does the job.

Most of the rest of the changes hinge on contemporary references. Slumber Party loses its Richard-Pryor-lighting-himself-aflame-while-freebasing joke, but keeps the kids watching Dr. Zhivago at the first fateful party. Weekend has to adjust a lot more — party music is no longer on record, David Bowie becomes Bono (replacing a ten-year-old reference in 1985 with a ten-year-old reference in 2010), Angie’s Datsun is now a Camry, and song leaders are finally just cheerleaders. At times, he’s just wiped out a reference altogether: gone are Pat Benatar, Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw, Fonzie, Michael Jackson, and most tragically the Carpenters, which undoes a joke at Sol’s expense and removes any understandable sense from the passage they once were in. Oh well. At least he spelled “gringo” correctly in this edition.

Until the End

Compiles the Final Friends trilogy (The Party, The Dance, and The Graduation) Simon Pulse, 2011 846 pages ISBN 978-1-4424-2252-0 LOC: PZ7.P626 Unt 2011 OCLC: 693810612 Released August 30, 2011 (per B&N)

I’ll be honest: I’m not sure what this compilation is doing here. Did anybody clamor at the bit for Final Friends even back in the day? I mean, there must have been some demand to let our boy write a trilogy, but even as a teenager I saw the problems embedded in this tale. Simple time-shifting adjustments weren’t gonna fix those. And this is the beefiest book of the lot, maybe to appeal to young readers who like the huge format and want to show off how much they can read. (I had it in the waiting room of my kid’s doctor this week and another dad said it was the biggest book he’d ever seen.) It’s a lot to plow through for the sake of completeness. Still, we’re committed, right?

I got like 200 pages in and did not see a single change — not even in the computer lab where Bubba is “hacking” into the district grade data bank — which made me worried I was going to just be rereading the same stories over again. And 650 pages later, GUESS WHAT. Literally the only difference is that Jessica, in bemoaning her travails with Bill, says she was “trying to seduce a gay guy” instead of merely “a gay.” Like, even the part about it taking all day to transfer 40 megabytes via modem and filling up a school computer’s hard drive is still there. This was NOT done for new fans. But reading it so fast and soon and smushed together did help me realize that The Rock does indeed have a given name. (I’ll save you the research time: Theodore Gordon.)

Bound to You

Compiles Spellbound and See You Later Simon Pulse, 2012 490 pages ISBN 978-1-4424-5971-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Bo 2012 OCLC: 777602521 Released August 7, 2012 (per B&N)

Maybe this is the only bind-up where the two stories could have been anything. (The Point book: those were his only two under Scholastic, so it makes sense.) There’s a back catalog of literally two dozen books not otherwise committed that they could compile. So why these two together? OK, sure, we’re four years away from the phrase “sexy lizard teens” entering the lexicon, but for sure Scavenger Hunt is better paired with Spellbound than a story about nuclear war survivors time traveling out of regret. See You Later seems like a really obtuse deep cut to me, but if he was committed to it why not pair it with The Midnight Club, which is similarly about love lost to inevitable death? I don’t really see the connection, and am too lazy to do any rationale research. But I’m not actually mad at the books — they’ve shown as two of my favorites in this reread. 

Spellbound, being the oldest of the S&S catalog, does need a little reworking, particularly in the racist elements of an African shaman going to a podunk Old West high school. Pike didn’t take them all out, of course, because we have to know what a dick the boyfriend is by his connection of the dude to savage cavemen. However, the lack of cell phones is very glaring in the bits where they’re trying to find the brother/potential murder victim, and Cindy has to sit around the hospital waiting to be paged. In 2012 it’s inconceivable that high school kids wouldn’t have SOMETHING. You tried to reach the brother at his house, at his friend’s, at his girlfriend’s ... did you call him directly? Such a simple fix: “He’s not answering his cell.” It probably would have made the unease even stronger.

See You Later, hinging as it does on the main character understanding a video game, has its own needs for updating, and does it better than the Final Friends remake. Still, it’s a little slapdash. Becky works in an electronics store instead of a record store, but do these places even sell physical media computer games anymore? Even six years ago that shit was all download-only. And Ray STILL works in a bookstore ... do those still exist? Mervyn’s definitely doesn’t; they went bankrupt in 2008. As for the game itself, it requires 12 gigs of RAM rather than the paltry megabyte, which is what my newish machine runs six years later. (At the time I had ... two gigs?) Also, in the original Mark asked who won the 2010 World Series, which isn’t the future anymore in 2012 ... but it’s weird that he’s now asking about 2020, just eight years off rather than twenty. Most unsettling, though, is how the tenor of international violence rhetoric still rings true for the setting of this story, even though we’re not worried about Communists anymore. The Cold War is long over, but we’ve swung through tolerance and hope and are right back on fear.

Chain Letter

Compiles Chain Letter and The Ancient Evil Simon Pulse, 2013 456 pages ISBN 978-1-4424-7215-0 LOC: PZ7.P626 Ch 2013 OCLC: 852941511 Released July 23, 2013 (per B&N)

Chain Letter was also not originally published by S&S, so it’s interesting that they’ve gotten the rights to print it in this volume. (Though they were compiled in the UK in 1994, so maybe it wasn’t too hard.) By now, though, it feels like they’re reaching, as the teen fiction world shifts yet again to futuristic dystopias and Pike doesn’t really have anything like that. Thirst was on its way out too; the fifth book appeared just before this, and we’ll note that even though Pike didn’t finish the story the sixth has yet to emerge. Curse you, unpredictable teen girls!

Not too much is different from the original editions here. Obviously Pike was throwing in his timely references that had to be cut for understandability (Nastassja Kinski?), but by Chain Letter 2 he’d learned to rein that in. Also, there’s a moment in the first one where Alison yells “Hate you!” at the attacking Caretaker, which always struck me as awkward. This version changes it to “Screw you!” which makes me think Pike originally wrote it as “Fuck you!” and had to bowdlerize for YA. Of course they have to throw some shade at snail mail, too, since that’s how the letters arrive in the first place. 

But the main differences are cassette recorders and phones. Obviously the kids aren’t going to tote around a whole bunch of old-school tools when we are now six years into the smartphone era. There’s some nice cleaning up in The Ancient Evil, writing around the idea that people need to (or even CAN) look numbers up in the phone book, but in lots of cases it just makes things awkward. Like, why is Joan going after the driving controls to turn the incriminating recording off if it’s on Kipp’s phone in the backseat? Why do Alison and Brenda have to sit around the kitchen waiting for a return call? Why is Kipp waiting until he gets home to check his voicemail? Did he seriously leave his phone in his room while he ran to the store and left a seven-year-old sister alone at the house? It just makes less and less sense.

You might have seen somewhere online a mention of another compilation, collecting Last Act and Master of Murder. This book does not actually exist. The ISBN and OCLC numbers associated with the title both lead to a British printing of the second half of Final Friends, by Hodder Publishing. I emailed the house just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, and they responded that they’ve never printed these two stories together. There’s no record of it anywhere else, certainly not on Simon & Schuster’s Pike page, and reviews I’ve found where people have attempted to buy this collection attest to the fact that they’ve actually received a copy of Final Friends Part 2 But Not Book 2 Even Though the Second Half of Book 2 Is In It.

There also used to be another one named on Wikipedia called Time of Death, which was supposed to compile Bury Me Deep and Chain Letter, but why the hell would they do that when Chain Letter has its own sequel already? There’s not any verifiable record of such a book anywhere online, not even a flawed cross-listing like the first. 

So fuhgeddaboudit. I’m done reading compilations.

[ellcrys]

“We are encouraged to strategize and scheme to find places, times, and roles where we can be effectively put to work,” Harris, the Kids These Days author, writes. “Efficiency is our existential purpose, and we are a generation of finely honed tools, crafted from embryos to be lean, mean production machines.”

Burnout isn’t a place to visit and come back from; it’s our permanent residence.

This is a super long article but so worth the read.

The part that definitely resonated with me the most was the part on self-optimization. I can see this shit reflected in my daily habits and mindset. If I’m not being ‘productive,’ I’ve not had a good day. Every single part of my schedule is dictated by crossing things off my to-do list and what I’ve been able to accomplish. I’ve known this to be unhealthy since day 1 but couldn’t/can’t reverse the mindset. And now I get why.

Some great quotes below.

Topics that hit home for me in order of appearance:

On Branding:

“Branding” is a fitting word for this work[1], as it underlines what the millennial self becomes: a product. And as in childhood, the work of optimizing that brand blurs whatever boundaries remained between work and play. There is no “off the clock” when at all hours you could be documenting your on-brand experiences or tweeting your on-brand observations. The rise of smartphones makes these behaviors frictionless and thus more pervasive, more standardized. In the early days of Facebook, you had to take pictures with your digital camera, upload them to your computer, and post them in albums. Now, your phone is a sophisticated camera, always ready to document every component of your life — in easily manipulated photos, in short video bursts, in constant updates to Instagram Stories — and to facilitate the labor of performing the self for public consumption.

On Self-Optimization[2]:

Even the trends millennials have popularized — like athleisure — speak to our self-optimization. Yoga pants might look sloppy to your mom, but they’re efficient: You can transition seamlessly from an exercise class to a Skype meeting to child pickup. We use Fresh Direct and Amazon because the time they save allows us to do more work.

This is why the fundamental criticism of millennials — that we’re lazy and entitled — is so frustrating: We hustle so hard that we’ve figured out how to avoid wasting time eating meals and are called entitled for asking for fair compensation and benefits like working remotely (so we can live in affordable cities), adequate health care, or 401(k)s (so we can theoretically stop working at some point before the day we die). We’re called whiny for talking frankly about just how much we do work, or how exhausted we are by it. But because overworking for less money isn’t always visible — because job hunting now means trawling LinkedIn, because “overtime” now means replying to emails in bed — the extent of our labor is often ignored, or degraded.

The media that surrounds us — both social and mainstream, from Marie Kondo’s new Netflix show to the lifestyle influencer economy — tells us that our personal spaces should be optimized just as much as one’s self and career. The end result isn’t just fatigue, but enveloping burnout that follows us to home and back. The most common prescription is “self-care.” Give yourself a face mask! Go to yoga! Use your meditation app! But much of self-care isn’t care at all: It’s an $11 billion industry whose end goal isn’t to alleviate the burnout cycle, but to provide further means of self-optimization. At least in its contemporary, commodified iteration, self-care isn’t a solution; it’s exhausting.

On “The Double Shift”:

Millennial burnout often works differently among women, and particularly straight women with families. Part of this has to do with what’s known as “the second shift” — the idea that women who’ve moved into the workplace do the labor of a job and then come home and perform the labor of a housewife[3].

The labor that causes burnout isn’t just putting away the dishes or folding the laundry — tasks that can be readily distributed among the rest of the family. It’s more to do with what French cartoonist Emma calls “the mental load,” or the scenario in which one person in a family — often a woman — takes on a role akin to “household management project leader.” The manager doesn’t just complete chores; they keep the entire household’s schedule in their minds. They remember to get toilet paper because it’ll run out in four days. They’re ultimately responsible for the health of the family, the upkeep of the home and their own bodies, maintaining a sex life, cultivating an emotional bond with their children, overseeing aging parents’ care, making sure bills are paid and neighbors are greeted and someone’s home for a service call and holiday cards get in the mail and vacations are planned six months in advance and airline miles aren’t expiring and the dog’s getting exercised.

On “Adulting”:

“The modern Millennial, for the most part, views adulthood as a series of actions, as opposed to a state of being,” an article in Elite Daily explains. “Adulting therefore becomes a verb.” “To adult” is to complete your to-do list — but everything goes on the list, and the list never ends.

That’s one of the most ineffable and frustrating expressions of burnout: It takes things that should be enjoyable and flattens them into a list of tasks, intermingled with other obligations that should either be easily or dutifully completed. The end result is that everything, from wedding celebrations to registering to vote, becomes tinged with resentment and anxiety and avoidance. Maybe my inability to get the knives sharpened is less about being lazy and more about being too good, for too long, at being a millennial.

On Errand Paralysis:

There are a few ways to look at this original problem of errand paralysis. Many of the tasks millennials find paralyzing are ones that are impossible to optimize for efficiency, either because they remain stubbornly analog (the post office) or because companies have optimized themselves, and their labor, so as to make the experience as arduous as possible for the user (anything to do with insurance, or bills, or filing a complaint). Sometimes, the inefficiencies are part of the point: The harder it is to submit a request for a reimbursement, the less likely you are to do it. The same goes for returns.

Other tasks become difficult because of too many options, and what’s come to be known as “decision fatigue.” I’ve moved around so much because of my career path, and always loathed the process of finding family practitioners and dentists and dermatologists. Finding a doctor — and not just any doctor, but one who will take your insurance, who is accepting new patients — might seem like an easy task in the age of Zocdoc, but the array of options can be paralyzing without the recommendations of friends and family, which are in short supply when you move to a brand-new town.

Other tasks are, well, boring. I’ve done them too many times. The payoff from completing them is too small. Boredom with the monotony of labor is usually associated with physical and/or assembly line jobs, but it’s widespread among “knowledge workers.” As Caroline Beaton, who has written extensively about millennials and labor, points out, the rise of the “knowledge sector” has simply “changed the medium of monotony from heavy machinery to digital technology. … We habituate to the modern workforce’s high intensity but predictable tasks. Because the stimuli don’t change, we cease to be stimulated. The consequence is two-fold. First, like a kind of Chinese water torture, each identical thing becomes increasingly painful. In defense, we become decreasingly engaged.” My refusal to respond to a kind Facebook DM is thus symptomatic of the sheer number of calls for my attention online: calls to read an article, calls to promote my own work, calls to engage wittily or defend myself from trolls or like a relative’s picture of their baby.

To be clear, none of these explanations are, to my mind, exonerating. They don’t seem like great or rational reasons to avoid doing things I know, in the abstract, I want or need to do. But dumb, illogical decisions are a symptom of burnout. We engage in self-destructive behaviors or take refuge in avoidance as a way to get off the treadmill of our to-do list. Which helps explain one of the complaints about millennials’ work habits: They show up late, they miss shifts, they ghost on jobs. Some people who behave this way may, indeed, just not know how to put their heads down and work. But far more likely is that they’re bad at work because of just how much work they do — especially when it’s performed against a backdrop of financial precariousness.

Footnotes:

[1] For many millennials, a social media presence — on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter — has also become an integral part of obtaining and maintaining a job. The “purest” example is the social media influencer, whose entire income source is performing and mediating the self online. But social media is also the means through which many “knowledge workers” — that is, workers who handle, process, or make meaning of information — market and brand themselves. Journalists use Twitter to learn about other stories, but they also use it to develop a personal brand and following that can be leveraged; people use LinkedIn not just for résumés and networking, but to post articles that attest to their personality (their brand!) as a manager or entrepreneur. Millennials aren’t the only ones who do this, but we’re the ones who perfected and thus set the standards for those who do.

[2] One of the ways to think through the mechanics of millennial burnout is by looking closely at the various objects and industries our generation has supposedly “killed.” We’ve “killed�� diamonds because we’re getting married later (or not at all), and if or when we do, it’s rare for one partner to have the financial stability to set aside the traditional two months’ salary for a diamond engagement ring. We’re killing antiques, opting instead for “fast furniture” — not because we hate our grandparents’ old items, but because we’re chasing stable employment across the country, and lugging old furniture and fragile china costs money that we don’t have. We’ve exchanged sit-down casual dining (Applebee’s, TGI Fridays) for fast casual (Chipotle et al.) because if we’re gonna pay for something, it should either be an experience worth waiting in line for (Cronuts! World-famous BBQ! Momofuku!) or efficient as hell.

[3] (A recent study found that mothers in the workplace spend just as much time taking care of their children as stay-at-home mothers did in 1975). One might think that when women work, the domestic labor decreases, or splits between both partners. But sociologist Judy Wajcman found that in heterosexual couples, that simply wasn’t the case: Less domestic labor takes place overall, but that labor still largely falls on the woman.

[optomstudies]

Hello, it’s optomstudies here with a multi-part masterpost with study tips to make you fluent in any language! These will work at any level, whether you’re just starting out or are an advanced learner!

LISTENING SKILLS

There’s also a lot of colloquialisms that are a part of everyday spoken language which is rarely ever encapsulated in a standard textbook. I would suggest finding books which actually collate idioms, proverbs or slang, e.g. “Chinese Idioms and Proverbs”.  

When you’re just starting out, work on listening to vlogs or podcasts first because these often have a simpler entry level of speech. Listen to music as well, but be aware that music is not always a good representation of the way the spoken language is, as there is a loss of emphasis and pauses.   

Listen to talk shows once proficient. Both radio podcasts and news interviews are important because they show how people from a range of educational topics speak. You can watch interviews on financial experts or medical doctors as well as just fun ones by celebrities and everyday witnesses.  

SPEAKING SKILLS

Join a debate club in your target language. If you are looking to study spoken word (because some languages have written vs spoken differences) the level of language used is at a higher level than what would usually be used in everyday language because of the need for technical, logical, and persuasive explanations.  

Like your study journal, you can make a study audio recording by speaking aloud a diary entry which uses those new words. It helps with fluency if you use it on an everyday basis, and you can re-listen to the recordings later on if you’re working on perfecting your accent!  

There’s also the important matter of emphasis! Emphasis within a word can change the meanings of homonyms, words that have the same spelling but different meaning. I know this is common in Japanese. Emphasis within a sentence can change the meaning, like in this sentence here. Try saying different variations aloud, so you know when you come to use an emphasis, it comes out naturally and means what you intend it to mean.  

Reading novels in your language is also good for picking up on slang in the dialogue scenes! Especially witticisms since dialogue is often written to be succinct and intended to be impactful.

Think in your target language! Once you are able to, this vastly improves the quality of your fluency so that getting words out of your mouth is as natural as your native language, and is critical for mastery, much more so than for reading, writing or listening. Those who are stuck translating in their head will never advance to that zenith. This also enables you to experience dreams more frequently in your target language, a sign of mastery. 

Enhancing Your Vocabulary: Part 1 (Link) Reading and Writing Skills: Part 2 (Link)

MY STUDY TIPS AND LANGBLR POSTS

How to Format Language Study Notes

BTS: 봄날 (Spring Day), Outro: Wings, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Not Today, Run

SM Entertainment: Rookie - Red Velvet,  I Got Love - Taeyeon

Requests: 예뻤어 (You Were Beautiful) - Day6, A Lie - B1A4, Don’t Recall - K.A.R.D

Other Artists: Rain - Soyou x Baekhyun, TT - Twice

My study tips directory (web only) for the full list (over 60+ original posts/guides!)

NOVEMBER STUDY TIPS

27/11 How to Be Fluent in Languages Masterpost 2 📰 26/11 Thinking about Stress 1 and 2 23/11 Motivation to Make You Study! 🏃 22/11 How to Be Fluent in Languages Masterpost 1 🙊 20/11 Advice: Art School vs. College 🎨 19/11 Exam Study Tips 💯 15/11 Digital Organisation System 💻 14/11 Library Adventures! 📚 11/11 Budgeting for Students 🏦 10/11 How to Deal with Leeches 🐛 08/11 Extra-Curriculars Tips 🤹 07/11 More Handwriting Tips ✍️ 07/11 APUSH Masterpost 🤠 06/11 Memorising Tips 💭 06/11 How Your ATAR is Calculated Infographic 💯 04/11 Reading a Scientific Journal Article 📜 02/11 Tips: Tackling Assignments while Sick 🤒

UNIVERSITY STUDY TIPS SERIES

Part 0 Choosing a Degree - what’s right for you? popular!!

> Things to Consider Before Switching Degrees!

> Changing Degrees

Part 1 Administration - choosing majors, available services, choosing class times etc.

Part 2 Getting to Class - pros and cons of attending class, when you should choose not to attend, advice about choosing a backpack and other essential equipment.

> Laptop Considerations and Recommendations

Part 3 Studying - differences between high school and uni, basic tips on how to keep on track, class types like lectures, tutorials, etc.

Part 4 Extra-Curriculars - what clubs to join, what to do outside class, and other great things to discover around campus.

Part 5 Exams - everything to know about examiners, how to prepare, what happens during the whole examination process.

Part 6 Social Life - differences between high school and university, some hard learnt lessons, etc.

Part 7 Part Time Work

Part 8 Four Secrets The Uni Tells You

Part 9 Best Study Spots On Campus

Part 10 Saving Money 1 - Food, Transport, Entertainment

Part 10 Saving Money 2 - Textbooks, Tax, Scholarships

Part 11 Adapting to Uni Study - 3 big differences from studying in high school popular!!

Part 12 How to Study From Textbooks in Uni

Dealing with Lazy Group Members - five options for what to do and how to do it! popular!!

OTHER POPULAR POSTS

Weekly Planner Printable with Extra Space for Sat/Sun  popular!!

Overcoming the Planning Fallacy

Study Spaces Masterpost

Studying and your Visual System

Catching Up with Your Studies  popular!!

Sleeping and Waking Up Early  popular!!

My 2017 Planner and Bullet Journal  popular!!

[thesevenseraphs]

Bungie Weekly Update - 5/3/18

This week at Bungie, we’re counting down the minutes till Warmind.

In recent months, a series of updates for Destiny 2 has added some quality-of-life improvements to the game. On May 8, we’ll deliver even more. Tuesday can’t come soon enough.

Season 3 will make all players more powerful and give them new ways to earn some Glory (and Valor).

Expansion II will send you starside in search of new activities, new lore, new challenges, and new loot.

Cheers to Vicarious Visions for their passion and dedication to the craft of creating amazing experiences for players. They’ve been wonderful partners with us on this journey. With Destiny 2 PC and Warmind under our collective belts, we’re excited about the future of this collaboration. Before you see their contribution to the world of Destiny,

Creative Director Brent Gibson has a message from his team:

Brent: The team at Vicarious Visions have been fans of Destiny long before we started working with Bungie on this amazing franchise. While working alongside our counterparts at Bungie, we've met the challenge of expanding the Destiny universe and we are beyond thrilled that the day is nearly here! We are honored to have added to this rich world with passionate fans numbering in the millions. This is the kind of thing that game developers dream about. We are fortunate enough to not only add to the gameplay experience, but the franchise as a whole by bringing the legendary Hunter, Ana Bray, to life! She has carried our banner through this entire journey and we can’t wait for you to meet her on this adventure. See you on Mars on May 8!

On Approach We’ve had a lot of fun hosting “Warmind Week” on the blog. There’s a lot we want you to know before you plot a course for Mars. If you missed a beat, here’s a recap. The Destiny 2 Narrative Preview set the stage with five pieces of weblore written by our team.

On Wednesday, we released the “Warmind” digital comic, written by Mark Waid (Doctor Strange) and David A. Rodriguez (Destiny 2: Warmind), and inked by Kris Anka (Runaways).

We’ve also released two new Developer Insights to give more details on what to expect when Warmind launches. Creative Director Brent Gibson from Vicarious Visions and Design Lead Evan Nikolich from Bungie shed light on the state of Mars, Rasputin, and the enemies you’ll be introduced to. Sandbox Design Lead Josh Hamrick and Senior Crucible Designer Kevin Yanes walk us through the Exotic Masterwork weapon process, with additional information about Crucible Ranks, which will be available to all players when Season 3 begins on May 8.

Season 3: Exotics and Crucible

Warmind

We have one more Developer Insight planned for release on Friday, May 4, featuring commentary from Design Lead Jacob Benton and Design Lead Ben Wommack on the development of Escalation Protocol. Stay tuned to Bungie.net/Warmind for more!

Patch Note Preview

In previous articles, we’ve been diving deep into the details of design goals for some of the larger changes coming in Season 3. There’s quite a bit more to Destiny Update 1.2.0, so here’s a quick overview of feature changes and bug fixes that will also be deployed next week:

As a short-term solution, Vault space has been increased from 200 to 300 items.

Multi-emote is here! You now can configure all four emote options with player-selected emotes.

The entire emote collection is now always available to you for convenient swapping.

Items in the emote collection have been removed from the Vault, as it's no longer needed.

Guided Games will now feature a Leviathan Guide emblem that tracks the number of raid encounters and raids a player has completed as a Guide.

This emblem rewards a unique aura for 14 days after a player completes a raid as a Guide.

Once a week while the aura is active, guiding a raid to completion grants one Bright Engram.

A new inventory category has been created that will contain pursuit tracking items, such as those for Exotic quests.

Items in the Pursuits category are specific to each character and not shared across the account.

In-game audio settings (sliders between 1 and 10) were added or revised:

SFX Volume

Dialogue/Cinematics Volume

Music Volume

Chat Volume

Weekly lockouts for raid and raid lair rewards are now class-based.

Players running multiple characters of the same class will receive rewards only the first time they run the raid or raid lair in a given week.

Fixed an issue with collections where event emblems would not show up unless players owned Curse of Osiris.

Fixed an issue where players would encounter a black screen upon loading into the Tower.

Fixed an issue where Cayde was offering only one treasure map for Mercury.

The full suite of patch notes will be published on May 8 shortly before Warmind becomes available. We’re currently targeting a 10 AM release, but stay tuned to @Bungie for announcements.

Details on Design

The Exotic Sandbox that you’re familiar with is about to change. We’ve had Senior Sandbox Designer Jon Weisnewski on the hot seat to talk us through the upcoming changes on stream and on the blog. You may have seen some demonstrations of new and improved Exotic weaponry this week. Some of the changes have some nuance to them, so here he is again with the exact details on how your arsenal is evolving:

Jon: Due to a lengthy update this week, I’m going to keep my section short. This’ll be the last Exotic tease from me. After this week, you’ll be playing with all of the new changes!

Risk Runner: We gave Arc Conductor increased resistance to incoming Arc damage (50%) and enabled it in the Crucible. Arc Conductor will now activate when the weapon is stowed, but damage resistance will only work when the weapon is in your hands. This was already a strong gun for PvE. We’re hoping these changes give it a place in some interesting Crucible load outs, strategies, and counters.

Sweet Business: If you run this gun, you probably just want to shoot forever. We gave it a capped ammo inventory of 999. It’s not forever, but it’s a lot.

D.A.R.C.I.: This Sniper Rifle now grants 4x damage once locked on a target (exact scaling depends on activity, difficulty, light level delta, etc). It shouldn’t take a master strategist to figure out how this will benefit you in PvE. Any Crucible combat snipers will also want to give this gun a try; it’s got a: 7 round magazine, reduced zoom for closer engagements, and an aim assist stat retuned to be more generous when you haven’t locked a target yet for better results while drag sniping.

Lastly, I want to quickly acknowledge the whole team, which has been working really hard to get Exotic weapons in Update 1.2.0 ready for you over the past few months. I’ve been the one doing the talking, but it has been far from a solo effort. In particular, there’s a group of testers who has come to the table daily to both ensure these changes are bug-free, and also provide us with bone-breaking player feedback. The team has done a tremendous job at helping dial in a sweet spot for many of the guns. A billion thanks to them!

Mixing Things Up a Little

Destiny Updates 1.1.2, 1.1.3, and 1.1.4 have brought quality-of-life changes to Destiny 2. Update 1.2.0 is almost here to bring more community-requested features to the table.

Senior Investment Designer Daniel Auchenpaugh has details on the upcoming Heroic strike modifiers and the new Legendary Nightfall Challenge Card.

Dan: In Season 3, we’ve increased the baseline difficulty of Heroic strikes to make combatants more aggressive and make the experience feel more, well, Heroic. Additionally, at any given time the Heroic strike playlist will have three modifiers on it: one Burn (rotates weekly), one Advantage (rotates daily), and one Disadvantage (rotates daily). Here’s a quick rundown of what you can expect in those categories:

Burns

Arc Singe: +25% Arc damage increase (outgoing and incoming)

Solar Singe: +25% Solar damage increase (outgoing and incoming)

Void Singe: +25% Void damage increase (outgoing and incoming)

Advantages

Brawler: Double melee recharge rate and damage

Grenadier: Double grenade ability recharge rate and damage

Heavyweight: Triple Power ammo drop rate, double Power weapon damage

Disadvantages

Glass: Players Health and Shields are halved, but recharge rates are doubled.

Blackout: Radar is disabled, and enemies do 20x increased melee damage

Iron: Enemies no longer stagger, and health pools are increased by 50%

Grounded: Players take 5x damage while airborne

Legendary Nightfall Challenge Card

Players will now be able to take their Rare Challenge Card to Xûr and upgrade it to Legendary Challenge Card. Doing so adds more customization options to the card; Legendary cards allow you to select one Burn, One Advantage/Disadvantage, and two additional Disadvantages. With the exception of Glass, all other Advantages and Disadvantages listed above from Heroic Strikes can be applied to the new Challenge Card. Additionally, there are a few Disadvantages unique to the Legendary Challenge Card you can select:

Unique Challenge Card Disadvantages

Extinguish: Return the fireteam to orbit on a wipe

Famine: Ammo drops reduced by 50%

Match Game: Players must match their damage type to the enemy shield type

Attrition: Health regen is slowed greatly, and enemies drop health orbs

Momentum: Health regenerates only when the player is moving

Nightfall Par Scores Updated

In Destiny Update 1.1.3, we introduced Nightfall emblem variants. As the new Legendary Nightfall Challenge Card will give players more ways to increase their scores, we’re increasing the par scores required to earn specific rewards. Emblem variants, auras, and token reward bonus par scores have been updated to the following:

30k

60k

110k

200k

As a reminder, when you reach new record par scores for a specific Nightfall, you increase your chances to earn the associated Nightfall Unique Reward! We’ll be watching community scores closely once Update 1.2.0 is released, and we’ll let you know if any adjustments need to be made.

Prismatic Matrix

In the January Development Update, we spoke of shifting the balance of vanity content in favor of activity rewards, rather than purely through Eververse. We first addressed this balance by adding vanity rewards to Crucible, Nightfall, strike, and raid activities. To further improve the overall Eververse experience, a new feature we’re calling the

Prismatic Matrix will debut in Season 3. This feature has been developed with three key goals in mind:

Give players more control over how they earn Eververse items

Offer a more predictable path each week that guarantees access to specific items

Drop fewer duplicate items

At release, the Prismatic Matrix will feature 10 Eververse items from Season 3 each week it is active. Each item within the Prismatic Matrix is on a knockout list, which means every player is guaranteed to receive all featured items for a given week by the tenth activation. Earning items via Bright Engrams, Bright Dust, or previous Matrix activations will also knock rewards off the list. In turn, each activation guarantees players an item that they have never previously acquired.

With your first well-rested level-up each week, you’ll earn a Prismatic Facet, allowing one free use of the Prismatic Matrix. Prismatic Facets stack up to 3, so make sure to have proper inventory space before earning a rank-up on a given week. Players can also purchase more activations for 200 Silver each. Outside of the Prismatic Matrix, players may continue to earn Bright Engrams each time they level up, and they can still purchase these engrams if they want a chance to get everything from the Season 3 catalog. Additionally, we’re increasing the number of items available from Tess each week with Bright Dust, from 14 to 18 items.

We want to continue experimenting and evolving Eververse to improve player experience, and give more paths to earn Eververse rewards. Please give us your feedback once Season 3 begins, as we’re dedicated to improving these systems moving forward.

Run of Show

 With each update,Destiny Player Support is on standby to ensure the package has been delivered to your platform without issue. The following information will guide you to your first steps in Hellas Basin:

Destiny 2 Server Maintenance

Services will be brought offline for maintenance on Tuesday, May 8, 2018. During this time, Destiny 2: Warmind, Update 1.2.0, and Hotfix 1.2.0.1 will become available to players. Please see below for the timeline of the maintenance window.

6 AM PDT (1300 UTC)

Destiny 2 server maintenance is scheduled to begin

Players may no longer sign in to Destiny 2

7 AM PDT (1400 UTC)

Players still in Destiny 2 activities will be returned to the title screen

Destiny 2: Warmind and Update 1.2.0 will be available to download and install

11 AM PDT– (1800 UTC)

Destiny 2 server maintenance is scheduled to conclude

Destiny 2 Hotfix 1.2.0.1 will be available to download and install

Storage Requirements

Destiny 2, including all updates, has the following storage requirements for each platform: Platform | Destiny File Size | Storage Space Needed for Download PlayStation 4 | 53 GB | 71 GB Xbox One | 50 GB | 50 GB PC | 48 GB | 68 GB

Destiny Update 1.2.0 Known IssuesPrior to the release of Update 1.2.0, the following issues have been identified and are currently under investigation:

Anti-Extinction Greaves: The female Titan’s Dead Orbit leg armor piece, Anti-Extinction Greaves, may display a small visual issue.

Exotic Masterworks: Once upgraded to a Masterwork, an Exotic weapon or armor piece will not display as a Masterwork when viewed from an Exotic engram preview.

Strike Playlist: Players are not able to matchmake into strikes from an expansion they do not own. Players will receive a prompt to purchase the needed expansion if they attempt to join a fireteam of players who own an expansion that they do not own themselves.

Warmind:

Some quest items in the Warmind campaign may not show up in the loot stream of all fireteam members. However, the quest item should still be added to the inventories of all fireteam members.

If players have a full engram inventory, they may not be able to accept some vendor quest items until they make space in their inventory.

Exotic Armor Tooltips: We are aware of an issue in which the perk text on Warmind Exotic armor tooltips appears in a different color than on similar gear pieces. This does NOT mean that players need to unlock these perks to be able to access them.

If you encounter any issues when playing Season 3 or Warmind content, please post a report to the #Help forum.

[ask-de-writer]

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 16 of 83 : World of Sea

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to World of Sea

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

Part 16 of 83

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

copyright 2020

written 2007

All rights reserved.

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

//////////////

Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users   of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may   reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information   remains intact.  They may use the characters or original characters in   my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical   compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

///////////////////////

New to the story?  Read from the beginning.  PART 1 is here

///////////////////////

A few days later, Barad laid aside the three ephemerids that Kurti had used to calculate their position.  She sketched their position lightly on the chart.  Barad marked boldly over her mark.  Kurti had done the entire sighting and calculation on her own, with Barad watching closely, and taking his own observations separately.

“That was excellent, Kurti.  I need you to prepare for an entertainment this evening.”

She listened in dread as he explained what he wanted of her.

I must have failed at something. Why else would he do this to me? “Sir,” she asked in a small voice, “I had thought that I was pleasing you.  What did I do wrong?”

He looked at her in genuine puzzlement.  “You have pleased me, Kurti. Nobody has ever pleased me as much.  This is not a punishment.  It is a matter of fairness.  Morgu won a night with Chena fair and square. She died before he could claim his prize.

“I am only giving Morgu and Selked a fair chance at the prize again. You can also be of help to me in two other ways.”  At once, she perked up and listened closely.  “By doing this, I am tying two of my best men tighter to me.  Besides, you can listen to what they have to say for clues to their true feelings and anything else that they may mention that I can profit from.”

“I think that I see.  I was afraid that you were punishing me, I admit. So, this isn’t about anything that I’ve done, is it?”

“No, Kurti, it isn’t.  If I ever seek to punish you, I will be direct and you will know what you are being punished for.  That is my way.”

“So, by doing this, if one of them wins me, I will be serving you.”

“True, now fix up this cabin and get yourself ready for dinner.  You will dine at the officer’s table with me tonight.”

Surprise must have shown on her face because he laughed out loud.  “You should see yourself!  I kept the other cabin girls locked up because it was necessary.  They would have talked without thinking and betrayed my secrets.  Even when there was nowhere to go, they kept trying to escape.  You are so different from them that you deserve better treatment.  Besides, there are a few officers who are getting too full of their place on this ship.  You will be the perfect foil for that as well.”

Now it was her turn to laugh.  “First Officer Timms is probably the only one that won’t be furious at you.  Shall I dress demure or risque?”

“I hadn’t thought of that!”  Barad had the delighted grin of a small boy getting away with a goodie that was not his.  “Let’s not push them too far at once.  Dress just a little on the risque side of good taste.  I leave it to you.”

Dinner aboard the Grandalor was rarely a cause for interest or any but the most vicious of gossip.  Tonight, some had noticed that an extra place had been set at the officer’s table.

“What’s that about?  Any idea?”

“Not even.  I asked the mess-boys about it and they don’t have any clue. Just say it’s Capt’n’s orders.”

“Gonna set up some new officer maybe?”

“Here he comes!  Maybe now we’ll know …”

Captain Barad strode imperiously into the dingily lit mess.  Nobody had seated themselves yet, not being so foolish.

The Captain’s imposingly solid bulk was dressed as though for a formal occasion.  He was wearing snug dark trousers tucked into flared topped ankle boots of dark dyed, pebble-scaled Wing Ray.  A white sash-belt set off and complemented a loose shirt of brown satin with moving black highlights.  He stepped aside from the entryway and Kurti stepped into the room beside him, casually taking his arm.

She was dressed in a snugly fitting blouse of the same satin as Barad’s shirt, also throwing dark highlights.  A narrow belt of white, matching Barad’s, contrasted with her snug dark pants and dark slippers of polished, glittering, small scaled Lesser Dragon hide. They made a striking couple and both knew it.

With inner amusement but a straight face, Captain Barad thought, there’s two officers — — four men and — — five women of the crew that have made an obvious effort to dress up.  Setting an example does appear to be working.  Look at them all stare!  I think that they’re in shock, I really do!  He led Kurti to the chair next to his on the left, pulled it out and seated her as though she were a lady of consequence.  He seated himself, and the rest of the crew finally sat on their benches.

The officers looked on in barely concealed anger and confusion at the cabin-girl who was usurping a place at their privileged table.  Kurti smiled back at them like a Wolf Eel seeing lunch swimming by.  The rest of the crew looked on with varying degrees of amusement and puzzlement.  

Kurti was one of their own but they had written her off.  A cabin-girl was as good as dead.  Everyone knew that.  Barad’s cabin-girls had never lasted long, once chosen.  None were ever seen again before this.  Now there she was at the officer’s table, on the Captain’s left hand, a place of high favor.  What was going on?

Gossip began to rage like a fire in the rigging.  It was well known among the crew that Barad was always quick to criticize poor work, nearly as quick to say a good word for work done well, and to ignore almost entirely work that was merely adequate.  The principal guess was that Kurti was doing — whatever her work was — extremely well.

Dinner itself was unremarkable.  Just the usual fish-cakes, seaweed salad and water.  Kurti smiled inside as she watched it being served by a confused Jaret.  He was a galley worker that she knew.  They had never gotten along.  When the meal was done, she left on the Captain’s arm.

They stopped by the sick-bay to see if Tanlin was any better.  An empty bunk greeted them.  Doctor Corin apologetically proffered a tallow-slate.

“I am sorry, Sir.  She slipped away last night.  I have prepared her particulars and other papers for the Log.  When you have done, I will sign the papers and entries.”

The Captain wrinkled his brow in thought and looked about the small sick-bay, at the eight curtained bunks, arrayed in a row of four, two deep, the Doctor’s desk with it’s tall apothecary cabinet and the examination / operating table, centered in the only clear space in the room.

“Thank you, Doctor Corin,” said Barad quietly.  He took the tallow-slate.

Kurti looked sadly at the bunk where the cousin that she had never got the chance to meet had lingered four and a half Wohans.  She spoke softly, “We appreciate all that you have done, Doctor Corin.  We visited her early last night.  When did she die?”

“I found her gone at the second drum of the third night watch,” he answered her.  Turning to the Captain he added, “I put her body in the corpse locker until you should order her funeral or embalming for transport back to her fleet.”

“Who knows of her death?” asked Barad, suddenly intense, struck by a thought.

“Only we three.”

“For now, keep it that way.  Curtain her bunk and let none see that she is gone,” he ordered.

“Not even my assistant?” queried Doctor Corin.

“Especially not Mikka,” said Barad decisively.  “Give her other work that keeps her out of the sickbay for now.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Barad and Kurti initialed the sick-bay casual visit list and left.  They were sobered by Tanlin’s passing but they had never truly known her.  The two had other and more pressing things to think about.  By the time that they had got to Barad’s cabin door, they were feeling once again the effects of their prank at dinner.

Once in his cabin, she laughed and the Captain chimed in.

“Did you see their faces?” he hooted.

“Which ones?” she replied, delighted by the response that she’d seen. “The officers or the crew?  The ones that I used to know just about fell off their benches!  That was even better than the officers for me.  After you chose me, they wrote me off and wouldn’t even talk to me when they did have the chance.”

Barad looked at her, seeing her anew, yet again.  “You have changed, Kurti.  I was sure that going before the whole crew like that would at least embarrass you.  You show no sign of it.  May I ask why?”

She sobered and considered carefully before answering.  “Truly, Sir, it is survival.  Your cabin-girls have a short life usually, and an unpleasant one, if rumor be true at all.  

“From what I have seen, they did not even try to please you.  That was their job.  You have always had a short way with people who don’t do their jobs.  Most folks have some point where they will say something like, I would rather die than — whatever.  

“I’ve decided to live.  That means doing my job as well as possible.   With what has passed between us, I could not marry to get off the ship now.  You would never feel safe, and rightly so.  One slip of a tongue and we both would be convicted of violating the Marriage Laws. Command me if necessary or just tell me what is needed and give me the chance to do what you want as well as I can.  For however long I live, Sir, I am yours.”

Barad beamed.  “I was right.  You think deeply.  This goes far beyond the present task.  You have clearly told me why I can trust you, in terms of your own self interest.

“Now, I have that game of Three Dragons to play tonight.  You are the stakes.  I leave the whole set-up and refreshments to you.”  He pulled her to him and kissed her.  She responded with the appearance of enthusiasm.  Then he released her and playfully patted her behind. “Get to it.”

As she was about to leave, Barad impulsively handed her a six-inch dagger of Strong Skin fang, honed to a razor edge.  Startled, she was about to refuse it when he spoke.  “Kurti, There are only two people on this ship that I trust enough to allow them to be armed in my presence.  One is Selked, whom I’ve known from childhood, and the other is you.  Carry this to defend yourself, if any of the crew should get ideas.”

TO BE CONTINUED

<==PREVIOUS   NEXT==>

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to World of Sea

[ankrus]

Ankr - Cancer Platform For Education and Cancer Navigation

Ankr is a Cancer Platform to educate and navigate the patients and developed by a team of cancer experts and patients. We have over 50 years of combined cancer care experience and a passion to put patients first in all that we do.

Benefits of Ankr Cancer Platform

Learning Center

Education is key to success when it comes to fighting cancer. Ankr has a powerful learning center that helps you get trusted information anytime, anywhere.

Best Cancer Treatment

Ankr’s revolutionary artificial-intelligence algorithm cuts the clutter and gives you the options relevant for you. Just put your cancer type and stage to get started.

All the Latest Treatments

Our library has over 500 treatments, all written by scientific experts in an easy to understand way. Whether you want to read about the latest and greatest, or the old and trustworthy, we got ’em all.

Your information is safe

We use industry’s highest-level security infrastructure. Also, bank-like encryption and industry-leading security practices to protect your information.

Friends and family sharing

Use Ankr app to make audio recordings of your Doctor’s office visits and share it seamlessly with friends and family, anytime, anywhere.

Customized to you and your Doctor

Ankr works with many health systems around the country to give you customized content, timely updates on clinic changes. Ask your doctor if they are on Ankr platform!

Information

In our national survey, only 4 out of 10 cancer patients and caregivers reported receiving “Appropriate and Adequate” information. What if we told you that decades of research shows that giving patients good quality knowledge at the right time can:

· prevent treatment complications

· decrease need for ER visits and hospital admissions

· improve quality-of-life

· decrease financial toxicity for patients and their health systems

Ankr was created by an internationally-renowned, award-winning team of Doctors, nurses and patients who firmly believe that knowledge is power. Don’t just take our word for it — read this Cancer Care Report on our website from a survey of over 3000 patients like you that came to the exact same conclusion.

Convenience

If your clinic gave you a thick paper binder with important information in your first visit as a cancer patient, that’s a red flag! Will you be able to read it in the middle of the night when you are about to throw up? Or find your Doctor’s number to call with questions? This is 2021, and 88% of patients and caregivers like you expect that their cancer team to use digital tools in the cancer care. Only 34% are and we at Ankr are on the mission to change that. Ankr is designed to work seamlessly with your cancer clinic — no matter how big or small — to make your convenience their priority. To help you in your journey and keep track of all the important information in the palms of your hands. Anytime. Anywhere!

Ask your Doctor if they are in the Ankr Care Network — if not, advocate for change by contacting us.

Support

You don’t have to walk this road alone and your caregivers don’t have to get frustrated by lack of accurate and timely updates. Here are some of the features in the Ankr platform to support you:

· Record your entire clinic visit (in audio) and share with family anywhere. in the world within seconds.

· Create your personal cancer journal by taking written or audio notes.

· Keep a list of all your medications, from any provider you see.

· Learn about side effects and prevent complications.

· Stay updated with your clinic — learn of schedule changes, patient seminars and more.

Ankr is free and available to download now. What are you waiting for?

Ankr is a Free Cancer Platform

Absolutely! We believe that cancer education makes a huge difference. We want Ankr to be accessible and useful for everyone. So, you can use the basic version of Ankr for free, forever!

Data Security

We care deeply about data privacy. As a result, our entire platform uses highest security standards (similar to your bank) and is compliant with government-established security best practices.

We also do not (and will never) show advertisements. Ankr is supported by our wonderful community of patients through their Ankr Pro subscriptions.

[srivrocont]

21 Assets That Will Make You Rich and Wealthy

Hi,

Greeting from Workforce Kolkata...!!!

Building wealth and investing is a kind of thing that everyone must practice. Here we will discuss about Top 21 Assets That Can Make You Rich and Wealthy. These are termed as assets. Assets are termed as any useful or economic resources of the person that provides financial aid to them. There are many ways to generate assets for you to maintain financial stability. So buckle up, we are gonna learn about few assets that can make you rich or are making people rich all over the world.

Here first 10 Assets which definitely as you for money and last 11 Assets which is absolutely free. Usually most of time when we discuss about assets then money definitely required but here we are sharing 11 assets name where money not required.

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a 1997 book written by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter. In this book author describe about Assets & Liabilities a new formula. Author saying that Assets are those who can make money for you instead of increase your expenses. Those peoples who already read the book but unable to understand which assets are absolutely free and where we should invest our money, we'll discuss herewith. below we are starting those common assets where we need to send money. So, lets begin :

1# Business :

if i ask anyone that what is risk in present market then most of people will reply that Business, because here we've develop a new Brand entry is difficult,  but  the same questing if i ask to an Entrepreneur then he'll reply that risk is depending on single earning source, so create your business

7 Advantages to create a Business compare to Jobs

we have already seen that many peoples those are neither Highly Educated nor Smart nor Extra Ordinary but still they are earning huge in staying in home because  they have side incomes. in our present country richest persons are Business Man not a service people. So focus on create Business.

2# Real Estate

This is definitely a favorite thing on the list and probably the easiest way to make money. Imagine having money everyone month in the form of rent without even doing anything, how cool is that? The demand is constantly increasing and the price for the real estate is directly proportional to it.

Earth, we'll are aware that we cant create the land and due to population increment demand of Land & Real Estate will always increase. so value of Land will always increase. hence my suggestion to definitely invest in Real Estate.

3# Paper Assets (Stock, Bond & Mutual Fund) :

When the business or even the government is in need of money, they issue something called bonds. Through these bonds, the interested investors buy it and the business or the government pays them the money every month. If you are looking for a low-risk investment, then you can finally opt for it.

What is Paper Assets and How to invest

Finology.in, one example has shown that if we invest Rs-10,000 just before 30-35years ago then today it'll valued by 600 Crores, if you think that on that time 10K was very huge amount then if you invest 1K then it'll now 60Crores or you invest Rs-100 then today's value in 6Cr. So start investing in Paper Assets.

4# Commodities :

These things have the most fluctuating value in the market. Smart people buy these when the price is low and sell it when it generates higher value in the market. It might be anything like gold, crypto, currency, oil, vintage cars, luxury watches, arts, etc.

we all are aware that Gold & Silver is staying with us from more than 1000 years and after 1000 yeas it'll  also stay with us. and price of these commodities will never fall. so recalculate your balance sheet and start investing in Gold & Silver.

Investment Guide to Gold & Silver

5# Cash :

Yes the foremost thing is very basic, which is cash. This is a priority and having some liquidated value is always good for certain unforeseen circumstances. Also, it can get you higher returns straight from cash deals.

and we'll are aware that Cash sometimes provided a very Good and advantage deal for us, so definitely you should carry 6 Months of your monthly income as Cash or Bank Balance.

6# Equipment & Accessories :

Anything that makes you generate money out of it is an asset or that makes you help make money in your professions. For example, a laptop is an asset for a businessman, a camera is an asset for a photographer, a car is an asset for a car driver. But a car isn’t an asset for someone who purchased it for personal purposes, it is a liability. So, make sure to understand the difference between these before investing.

7# Intellectual Properties :

there are four things in Intellectual Properties :

Copy Right

Patents

Trademarks

Trade secrets

8# Create a Brand & Goodwill :

A brand and its reputation are everything and it generates the goodwill which makes the customer attached to it. It is not easy to make goodwill and this also holds the monetary value which is usually a huge amount. It is an intangible value of a certain company that makes them reputed.

we know that a simple thing when we going to purchase from Local Market its cheaper but the same when purchase from Malls / Online, its amount is much higher because of Brand. the reason is Brand development is not a small thing but when we create it'll provide me life long earning.

9# Network :

When Dhirubhai Ambani was just an beginner stage he went to a 5 start Hotel for a cup of tea, when his friends asked reason he sinply reply that he just wants to know that How the rich peoples Behavior , how they live, how they enjoy their life and moments. Basically he just wants to create Network.

Because our Strong Network is always helps you to go ahead.

10# Create Your Own Content & Website :

It might take you a year or two to write a book but once you are done with it, it will help you generate a good amount of money. Just think about JK Rowling, the writer of the famous Harry Potter series. The same goes for the song or digital content. The concept of creating something once by putting your heart and soul into it will benefit you for a very long time.

by creating a simple website we can sell products, review about the products. its little expensive and time taking but in long tenure Online Business can provide you unlimited source of income. Here we can create a Brand

11# Your Time :

the most important thing in this world, which cannot purchase by anyone which once gone it'll gone forever. if you have the time now so utilize it properly. Now you have wishes you have energy to do something new, something creative so utilize it properly because once you old on that time you have money but you cannot enjoy it then it would be worthless for you.

so its time for best investment invest for yourself. when you have nothing you have time to utilize properly.

12# Friends & Family :

We all are aware that at the time of emergency on true Friends & absolutely our Family will stay behind of us.  They always help you anytime and every-time definitely because good and strong relationship. our Friends and Family is most valuable assets of our life.

So, always communicate with them, conveyance them about your dream and passion and show your efforts and outcome results then they will always support you. So, always keep Good communication with them.

13# Your Skills :

if a person lost everything Money, Home, Bank Balance, Factory everything but still he can establish Himself/Herself on anywhere in this world. if he is a Skillful Person, if he learning a good Skill. So always develop your Skill learn something new Skills.

Every organization hiring new employees on different type position, here you can understand that they always hire Skilled person, So, here you can understand the power of Skill. Most of people saying that Jobs are not available in Market but in present Market showing that Skill full peoples are reason behind the same.

14# Knowledge :

We'll are know that Knowledge is always gives you the opportunities. If you have good knowledge regarding any product or services which saves someones time and definitely you can earn lot. example : a Consultant charges a lot for consultancy fees actually he just using his knowledge contacts to make your jobs easier.

In Data science field all executives are analyzing data compared and prepare reports or presentation to management in simple word he just using his Knowledge  in different way. So, invest your self in good Knowledge development and create your own bright path.

15# Your Mind Set:

Elon Mask Says - "If you give yourself 30 Days to clean your house, it'll take 30 Days But if you give 3 hours it'll take you 3 hours". it's all depends on your mind set. Below 10 Mind set rules for success :

Never Give Up

Really Like What You Do

Don't Listen to the Little Man

Take a Risk

Do Something Important

Focus on Signal Over Noise

Look for Problem Solvers

Attract Great People

Have A Great Product

Work Super Hard

the different between you and a successful entrepreneur that is only your Mindset. So, invest on your Mindset to do something creating.

16# Your Health:

Your Health is Big assets. an example if you earning 1Cr in every month but all money you spends for Doctors and Medicine bills then there are no use of this kind on earning. That's mean our health is big assets of our life.

Most of peoples sacrifice his health for earning of money and later he regret that he lost his good health. They are thinking for future but not enjoying the present and because of present is not good for these his future spoiled.

So, please mind that your Body, Your Health, Your Energy is most important thing for your your can achieve your dreams by your Good Health only.

17# Your Brand:

Here we're saying about Your Personal Brand which you can create easily with without investing any single penny. As Exapmle : Workforce Kolkata is my brand we're trying to improve our services to serving you better and if this Brand will success then we can easily create some other business and develop it.

Think yourself like a Brand, you should be trustworthy, respect yourself, if you add any value some others life you will be respected, you will earn trust and an single contact point for someones helps. So, create yourself as Respective Person, develop your image.

18# Your Channels:

At first we've created Facebook Page to promote our services, now days we can create YouTube Channels, WhatsApp Groups, Instagram Pages, Websites which help us to serve information services with you and provide a good opportunity to income.

So, focus on your channel building.

19# Your Business:

Here our recommendation is Skill based business. Like : Logo Designing, Content Writing, Video Editing all are the are skill with which you can serve Skills for revenue generation. you can Join through Flippa, Click Bank, Digi24 here without investing any single penny anyone can start his own business.

When someone understand that how their skills can helps someones or generate revenue they can start their own business easily.

20# Your Resources:

Everyone thinking about those things which he doesn't have. Like : we cannot start a new business why so, discuss earlier that its risky and need money to start, but earlier mentioned that we can start the same with our Skills.

Resource means what we have right now just utilize the same and start. just think about that what we have and how we utilize the same, like we've simple mobile phone and earphone so we can create Youtube channel. So think about your resources and utilize the same as Assets, it'll gives you huge earning oppertunity.

21# Your Creativity:

Creativity is only the unique thing which makes anyone Super Special from others. Think yourself understand your heartbeat and bring out your creativity, it can be anything like : Cooking, Painting, Motivational Speak, Tattoo, Excel etc.

its totally based on you. if any this article is good for you my request share you Creativity in comment box.

Thank You

[myhealthbeautyconcerns]

Demonstrating E-A-T: Tactics to Use and Avoid in Order to Improve Search Visibility

Amusive Digital’s Lily Ray discusses the prevalent trends among core update losers. As well as the strategies she does help her clients improve their E-A-T.

The rivalry for site traffic, users’ attention, and trust are always increasing, and individuals. Now have more options than ever before for finding the information or items they need. That’s why, as a measure of content relevancy and quality, search engines like Google emphasize expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T).

Demonstrating a high level of E-A-T not only increases your chances of ranking higher for relevant queries. But it also protects your site from losing visibility after a core upgrade and informs people that your material, and by extension. Your brand is a trustworthy source of information.

Lily Ray, the senior director, SEO & head of organic research at Amsive Digital, discussed the tactics that she and her team have identified as being harmful to your E- A-T, as well as ways to bolster it for search engines and users alike, during her session at SMX Advanced titled “Demystifying major algorithm updates in 2021: Where is search headed?”

Practices that can hurt your E-A-T

“One of the overall themes I’ve noticed in my research is the increasing prominence of E-A-T, particularly for Your Money or Your Life [YMYL] websites,” Ray explained. “On the other hand, we have essentially eliminated fake news, pseudoscience, clickbait [and] sites that violate scientific and medical consensus, as Google makes apparent in many of its documents.”

While you may not be writing materials that contradict science. Low E-A-T content can be found across all industries. A handful of the characteristics of such content are listed below.

Omitting attribution and evidence.

Would you trust financial or medical advice from someone who claims to be an expert? But won’t back it up with evidence or reveal their name and credentials? Publishing articles without naming an author or including a byline with their credentials is the internet version of that.

Sites that omit this information, particularly in YMYL categories like finance, civics, news, and health, are “just making a lot of bold claims without necessarily saying where they got that information from,” Ray said, adding that “there’s no proof or evidence of the claims that they’re making on the site.”And in other situations, the content or counsel they’re delivering throughout the content is downright hazardous. Which is something Google is firmly against.”

Thin content, duplicate content, and doorway pages.

“Another issue my team and I observed while doing this type of research and working with our clients is that a lot of sites that have been impacted by core upgrades over the last several years tend to have a lot of thin, duplicate, or doorway pages,” Ray explained.

Users are likely to have a poor experience on these pages. These strategies may be used by businesses to save time by reusing a page template or to alter ranking signals. These landing pages, for whatever reason, fail to offer the material that people clicked through from the search results. Eroding your brand’s credibility and visibility for search.

Generalist content. 

While creating a range of material on many topics may help you appeal to a wider audience. It’s probable that you’re not expressing a high level of experience or authority in any of them.

“Another thing I’ve seen is that these generalist sites that are jack-of-all-trades but master of none. A lot of these types of sites are on the decline,” Ray said. We can notice a reduction in visibility for DIY sites. Which are generally low-stakes themes, in the data above. For businesses looking to improve their E-A-T. If you’re posting YMYL content. It’s ideal to create content that relates to your topic area.

Unmoderated UGC. 

User-generated content (UGC) can be beneficial to your SEO. But it can also harm your E-A-T and ranks if left unchecked.

“One thing we’ve observed on a lot of the badly impacted sites is that they don’t have a good hold on their comments, or on user-generated content throughout the site,” Ray explained. “In some cases, we’ve seen people provide a lot of really sensitive information [in their comments], or perhaps they’re giving really awful medical advice. “So if you’re focusing on E-A-T and people come in and leave personal information or stuff that defies medical consensus or things like that. It can really work against you,” she continued.

Undisclosed affiliate links. 

Affiliate links help certain businesses make cash that supports their content, and they can keep doing so without jeopardizing their E-A-T by declaring the nature of these relationships.

If your affiliate links appear to be internal links to other material, as is often the case with YMYL content, search engines and people may take issue. “If you don’t make it plain that these are affiliate links throughout the material, and if you use instructional. Your Money or Your Life pages really urge the customer to buy things. “With the product reviews upgrade, and even with the core update in June of 2021. It looks to be the case that Google is really ramping up the importance of strong E-A-T and good usability on affiliate sites and product review sites,” Ray added.

Ways to convey more expertise, authority, and trustworthiness

There are several ways to show search engines and viewers that your material is well researched, accurate, and that your brand can be trusted. In addition to avoiding the tactics outlined above.

Update, remove, redirect or consolidate your content. 

Marketers might get so caught up in developing fresh content that they forget that quantity isn’t always better than quality.

Ray described the job her teams do for their clients as “updating, removing, redirecting, or consolidating underperforming content when necessary.”By incorporating these tasks into your workflow. You can limit the danger of duplicate content, remove old information from your site, and save time by giving existing evergreen content a new lease on life.

Improve your site architecture.

Ray told Search Engine Land that “the way a website is architected via its internal linking structure and breadcrumbs can actually aid to convey E-A-T. Use a logical parent/child relationship within your categories, subcategories, articles, and goods to help customers and search engines understand you have a depth of expertise on a certain topic,” says the author.

This method, she added, can also be useful for separating information that isn’t SEO-friendly or could harm your site’s overall quality. Such as user-generated content, adult content, or required website content that should be indexed.

Manage your brand’s reputation.

Your E-A-T may be harmed as a result of a bad brand reputation. The reputation of websites and creators is expressly addressed in Section 2.6 of Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. Which instructs evaluators that “Many websites are eager to tell people how fantastic they are.”Some webmasters have studied the rating standards and have written reviews on numerous review sites. However, you must also search for outside, independent reputation information about the website when ranking Page Quality. Trust reliable external sources when the website claims one thing and reputable external sources say something different.”

Although Google’s search quality raters have no direct influence over the algorithms or rankings. Their feedback is taken into account when the company plans future algorithm updates, and addressing your reputation will increase the likelihood that users will trust your site and its content.

Find ways to increase transparency and trust.

More and more sites are demonstrating their knowledge as E-A-T becomes more of a requirement to rank highly in specific verticals. Because of the increased competition. Ray believes that “the more you can do to show your users why you should be trusted. The more signals you can put to the page, the better your site will perform.”

Diet Doctor clearly shows who the author is, who the piece of content was evaluated by, and when the article was last updated in the example Ray presented (seen above). The site also employs pop-up citations after each claim-containing text.

Expertise isn’t built overnight and neither is E-A-T

Whether you’re trying to recover from a core change or just futureproof your content. Keep in mind that the benefits of your optimizations may take some time to see. “Anyone hoping for shortcuts to this process will be disappointed to learn that there are none. Because this is extremely difficult work,” says the author.“Search engines might take a long time to process these changes,” Ray explained. So you might not see the consequences of your work until the next core update, or even the core update after that.”

However, the rewards of increasing your organic visibility and building more trust with consumers may be well worth the effort. The strategies you put in place to improve your E-A-T can also be utilized to improve your visibility in other areas. “It’s not just Google search; they’re focusing on E-A-T in so many various areas of Google,” Ray explained. “So the same techniques you’re doing to rank in organic search. Think about that for YouTube, think about that for your photos, and so on.”

  The post Demonstrating E-A-T: Tactics to Use and Avoid in Order to Improve Search Visibility appeared first on Soft Trending.

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Demonstrating E-A-T: Tactics to Use and Avoid in Order to Improve Search Visibility

Amusive Digital’s Lily Ray discusses the prevalent trends among core update losers. As well as the strategies she does help her clients improve their E-A-T.

The rivalry for site traffic, users’ attention, and trust are always increasing, and individuals. Now have more options than ever before for finding the information or items they need. That’s why, as a measure of content relevancy and quality, search engines like Google emphasize expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T).

Demonstrating a high level of E-A-T not only increases your chances of ranking higher for relevant queries. But it also protects your site from losing visibility after a core upgrade and informs people that your material, and by extension. Your brand is a trustworthy source of information.

Lily Ray, the senior director, SEO & head of organic research at Amsive Digital, discussed the tactics that she and her team have identified as being harmful to your E- A-T, as well as ways to bolster it for search engines and users alike, during her session at SMX Advanced titled “Demystifying major algorithm updates in 2021: Where is search headed?”

Practices that can hurt your E-A-T

“One of the overall themes I’ve noticed in my research is the increasing prominence of E-A-T, particularly for Your Money or Your Life [YMYL] websites,” Ray explained. “On the other hand, we have essentially eliminated fake news, pseudoscience, clickbait [and] sites that violate scientific and medical consensus, as Google makes apparent in many of its documents.”

While you may not be writing materials that contradict science. Low E-A-T content can be found across all industries. A handful of the characteristics of such content are listed below.

Omitting attribution and evidence.

Would you trust financial or medical advice from someone who claims to be an expert? But won’t back it up with evidence or reveal their name and credentials? Publishing articles without naming an author or including a byline with their credentials is the internet version of that.

Sites that omit this information, particularly in YMYL categories like finance, civics, news, and health, are “just making a lot of bold claims without necessarily saying where they got that information from,” Ray said, adding that “there’s no proof or evidence of the claims that they’re making on the site.”And in other situations, the content or counsel they’re delivering throughout the content is downright hazardous. Which is something Google is firmly against.”

Thin content, duplicate content, and doorway pages.

“Another issue my team and I observed while doing this type of research and working with our clients is that a lot of sites that have been impacted by core upgrades over the last several years tend to have a lot of thin, duplicate, or doorway pages,” Ray explained.

Users are likely to have a poor experience on these pages. These strategies may be used by businesses to save time by reusing a page template or to alter ranking signals. These landing pages, for whatever reason, fail to offer the material that people clicked through from the search results. Eroding your brand’s credibility and visibility for search.

Generalist content. 

While creating a range of material on many topics may help you appeal to a wider audience. It’s probable that you’re not expressing a high level of experience or authority in any of them.

“Another thing I’ve seen is that these generalist sites that are jack-of-all-trades but master of none. A lot of these types of sites are on the decline,” Ray said. We can notice a reduction in visibility for DIY sites. Which are generally low-stakes themes, in the data above. For businesses looking to improve their E-A-T. If you’re posting YMYL content. It’s ideal to create content that relates to your topic area.

Unmoderated UGC. 

User-generated content (UGC) can be beneficial to your SEO. But it can also harm your E-A-T and ranks if left unchecked.

“One thing we’ve observed on a lot of the badly impacted sites is that they don’t have a good hold on their comments, or on user-generated content throughout the site,” Ray explained. “In some cases, we’ve seen people provide a lot of really sensitive information [in their comments], or perhaps they’re giving really awful medical advice. “So if you’re focusing on E-A-T and people come in and leave personal information or stuff that defies medical consensus or things like that. It can really work against you,” she continued.

Undisclosed affiliate links. 

Affiliate links help certain businesses make cash that supports their content, and they can keep doing so without jeopardizing their E-A-T by declaring the nature of these relationships.

If your affiliate links appear to be internal links to other material, as is often the case with YMYL content, search engines and people may take issue. “If you don’t make it plain that these are affiliate links throughout the material, and if you use instructional. Your Money or Your Life pages really urge the customer to buy things. “With the product reviews upgrade, and even with the core update in June of 2021. It looks to be the case that Google is really ramping up the importance of strong E-A-T and good usability on affiliate sites and product review sites,” Ray added.

Ways to convey more expertise, authority, and trustworthiness

There are several ways to show search engines and viewers that your material is well researched, accurate, and that your brand can be trusted. In addition to avoiding the tactics outlined above.

Update, remove, redirect or consolidate your content. 

Marketers might get so caught up in developing fresh content that they forget that quantity isn’t always better than quality.

Ray described the job her teams do for their clients as “updating, removing, redirecting, or consolidating underperforming content when necessary.”By incorporating these tasks into your workflow. You can limit the danger of duplicate content, remove old information from your site, and save time by giving existing evergreen content a new lease on life.

Improve your site architecture.

Ray told Search Engine Land that “the way a website is architected via its internal linking structure and breadcrumbs can actually aid to convey E-A-T. Use a logical parent/child relationship within your categories, subcategories, articles, and goods to help customers and search engines understand you have a depth of expertise on a certain topic,” says the author.

This method, she added, can also be useful for separating information that isn’t SEO-friendly or could harm your site’s overall quality. Such as user-generated content, adult content, or required website content that should be indexed.

Manage your brand’s reputation.

Your E-A-T may be harmed as a result of a bad brand reputation. The reputation of websites and creators is expressly addressed in Section 2.6 of Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. Which instructs evaluators that “Many websites are eager to tell people how fantastic they are.”Some webmasters have studied the rating standards and have written reviews on numerous review sites. However, you must also search for outside, independent reputation information about the website when ranking Page Quality. Trust reliable external sources when the website claims one thing and reputable external sources say something different.”

Although Google’s search quality raters have no direct influence over the algorithms or rankings. Their feedback is taken into account when the company plans future algorithm updates, and addressing your reputation will increase the likelihood that users will trust your site and its content.

Find ways to increase transparency and trust.

More and more sites are demonstrating their knowledge as E-A-T becomes more of a requirement to rank highly in specific verticals. Because of the increased competition. Ray believes that “the more you can do to show your users why you should be trusted. The more signals you can put to the page, the better your site will perform.”

Diet Doctor clearly shows who the author is, who the piece of content was evaluated by, and when the article was last updated in the example Ray presented (seen above). The site also employs pop-up citations after each claim-containing text.

Expertise isn’t built overnight and neither is E-A-T

Whether you’re trying to recover from a core change or just futureproof your content. Keep in mind that the benefits of your optimizations may take some time to see. “Anyone hoping for shortcuts to this process will be disappointed to learn that there are none. Because this is extremely difficult work,” says the author.“Search engines might take a long time to process these changes,” Ray explained. So you might not see the consequences of your work until the next core update, or even the core update after that.”

However, the rewards of increasing your organic visibility and building more trust with consumers may be well worth the effort. The strategies you put in place to improve your E-A-T can also be utilized to improve your visibility in other areas. “It’s not just Google search; they’re focusing on E-A-T in so many various areas of Google,” Ray explained. “So the same techniques you’re doing to rank in organic search. Think about that for YouTube, think about that for your photos, and so on.”

  The post Demonstrating E-A-T: Tactics to Use and Avoid in Order to Improve Search Visibility appeared first on Soft Trending.

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