#Modern Innovations

[hk-1989]

Innovations Driving Modern Healthcare Standards

In the dynamic landscape of healthcare, standards advancements stand as the cornerstone of progress, continually shaping the quality of care provided to patients worldwide. As technology evolves at an unprecedented pace, modern innovations have become the driving force behind these advancements, revolutionizing the way healthcare is delivered and setting new benchmarks for excellence.

One of the most significant impacts of modern innovations is evident in the realm of quality care enhancements. With the advent of cutting-edge medical technologies and digital solutions, healthcare providers can now offer more precise diagnoses, personalized treatment plans, and proactive preventive measures. From AI-powered diagnostics to remote patient monitoring devices, these innovations not only improve patient outcomes but also streamline workflows, reduce errors, and enhance overall efficiency.

Moreover, the integration of technology has led to the emergence of tech-driven standards that prioritize interoperability, data security, and patient privacy. Electronic Health Records (EHRs), telemedicine platforms, and health information exchanges are just a few examples of how technology is reshaping traditional healthcare practices. By standardizing processes and facilitating seamless communication between healthcare professionals, these advancements ensure that patients receive timely, coordinated care regardless of their location or medical history.

At the heart of these transformative changes lies a commitment to healthcare excellence. As healthcare organizations embrace innovation and adopt best practices, they not only meet existing standards but also set new benchmarks for quality and safety. Whether it's through accreditation programs, clinical guidelines, or performance metrics, the pursuit of excellence drives continuous improvement across the entire healthcare ecosystem.

In conclusion, the journey towards modern healthcare standards is propelled by a relentless pursuit of innovation and excellence. Through standards advancements, modern innovations, quality care enhancements, tech-driven standards, and a steadfast commitment to healthcare excellence, we can ensure that patients receive the highest level of care possible, now and in the future.

[upinteriors]

We Rural Country House by Archisbang redefines the essence of rural architecture. Situated within the historic Palazzo Valgorrera in Piedmont, this project transforms a portion of a traditional farmhouse into a modern sanctuary.

Floating wooden structures, wrapped in a translucent polycarbonate skin, merge past and present, creating a space that feels both grounded and ethereal. Exposed brickwork and weathered tiles preserve the charm of the original architecture, while sculptural iron staircases lead to serene guest rooms above.

A design that honors history while embracing innovation—an invitation to live, gather, and connect.

Photography by Aldo Amoretti.

[bumblingbabooshka]

It's impossible to write a TOS x Any other Series crossover [for me] without having to think about whose lens it's going to primarily be from because the vibe of TOS is so distinct and I think quite different from all series that follow it. The way the characters speak and are presented is so theatrical and of course steeped in the past that I find myself considering if this is, say, Janeway meeting Kirk (through a VOY perspective) or if I should write Janeway as she would appear if she stepped through a portal and was in TOS' universe.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

I am by far your superior, but my notorious modesty prevents me from saying so.

- Erik Satie

To his contemporaries and peers Erik Satie was something of an enigma. Just a few of his quirks included claiming he only ate white foods, carrying a hammer wherever he went, founding his own religion, eating 150 oysters in one sitting, and writing a piece with the instruction to repeat 840 times! As a composer, Satie paved the way for the avant-garde in music and became a very influential figure in the classical music of the 20th century whose works still sound fresh today.

Born into a poor and difficult childhood in the Normandy harbour town of Honfleur on 17 May 1866, Satie would always be an outsider. The Paris Conservatoire to which he was enrolled by his stepmother, herself a pianist, became for him “a sort of local penitentiary” during his teens; he left with no qualifications and a reputation for being lazy. He signed up for military service in 1886 and dropped out within the same year. Immersing himself in the bohemian life of Montmartre, he became linked with the popular music scene and eked out a living as an accompanist, playing at the Chat Noir cabaret. Always on the periphery, and forever out of money, he later downgraded from the cramped room in which he lived to the less fashionable Parisian suburb of Arcueil, where he holed up in isolation and squalor – no visitors set foot in the room during the near-30 years he lived there.

Much has been made of the eccentricities of this flâneur, who was always seen in a grey velvet suit, and yet underlying Satie’s music is his serious desire to create something new. You can hear it in his popular piano pieces: the haunting scales and rhythms of the Trois Gnossiennes written under the spell of Romanian folk music, and the meditative world of Gymnopédies, where, as in a cubist painting, motifs are “seen” from all sides. At a time when French composers were looking to escape the shadows of Wagner’s epic Romanticism, the French composer’s stripped-back mechanical sound, inspired by the humble barrel organ, offered a radically simple approach.

Satie preferred originality to the mundane. The composer of the famous Gymnopedies, could never be accused of having an uninteresting personality. For one, his outgoing fashion statements always caused a stir. During his Montmartre years, he had 12 identical velvet corduroy suits hanging in his wardrobe, which earned him the nickname ‘The Velvet Gentleman’, and in his socialist years, he donned a bowler hat and carried an umbrella.

Debussy helped to draw public attention to Satie, orchestrating two of his Gymnopédies, yet Satie had to wait until much later in life to attain celebrity status. While still earning a living writing salon dances and popular cabaret songs, and after suffering a creative crisis, he enrolled himself at the Schola Cantorum in Paris at the age of 39. Rather than finding him validation, his studies seem to have fuelled his hatred of convention - it’s with more than a hint of bitterness that he claims to put “everything I know about Boredom” into the Bach chorale of his masterful Sports et Divertissements piano pieces. But notoriety led to a succès de scandale and when it came it came with a bang in Parade, his surreal, one-act circus ballet for Diaghilev. Into the orchestral score, which featured jazz and cabaret tunes, were thrown typewriters, sirens and a pistol - just the kind of noises a wartime audience would normally pay not to hear. With its rigid cubist costumes by Picasso - which restricted Massine’s choreography - and a promotional push from Cocteau, it was provocative enough to secure Satie’s position at the vanguard of modernism.

Yet Satie was continually frustrated in his attempts to be accepted as an artist in high society France - his failure to establish himself at the prestigious Académie des Beaux-Arts, to which Debussy had won a scholarship, only compounded his resentment. Was this treatment by the cultural elite fair? Certainly his determination to antagonise his audience in his late ballets did little to endear him to the critics, but the fierce criticism he received in Paris was also a sign of things to come. Pierre Boulez would later poke fun at Satie’s lack of craft, while composer Jean Barraqué - another proponent of 12-tone music - would deride Satie as “an accomplished musical illiterate … who found that his friendship with Debussy was an unhoped-for opportunity to loiter in the corridors of history”.

Satie is perhaps, to this day, the most audacious and original composer when it comes to naming his works e.g. Gnossiennes and Gymnopédies. With Satie you will not see symphonies, concertos or opus numbers. Satie possessed a wicked sense of humour and his mockery, both of himself and others, became an inspiration for many of his irony-tinged works. His Sonatine bureaucratique is a spoof of Muzio Clementi’s Sonatina Op. 36 and contained many witticisms in the score. For example, he writes Vivache (vache being French for cow) instead of the original Italian tempo marking Vivace.

Whether in the collage-like miniature piano parodies he wrote during the World War I, his creation of a theatre format that has endured over the years, or in his collaboration with Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso y Sergei Diaghilev, there is a liveliness of imagination and a hunger for innovation that made Erik Satie In the torch bearer of the vanguard in his work. Satie would influence so many so strongly that years later some of his closest friends became radical artists, for example. ManRay, the sculptor Constantin Brâncusi, and Marcel Duchamp, or a much younger group of Paris-based composers like Les Six.

Satie, a known drinker of absinthe, and apparently every other alcohol available, died of cirrhosis at the age of 59 in Arcueil, France in July 1925. But his compositions, especially those deceptively simple-sounding solo piano works, find life today through recitals, concerts, and great movie scores. Although he died in poverty with little success to his name, today Erik Satie is acknowledged as a founder of 20th-century modernism, who changed the face of music.

Personally I do find Satie's music enriching, But I also find that his calculated wackiness is culturally apt. Pieces like ‘3 Pieces in the Shape of a Pear’, ‘Flabby Preludes for a Dog’ and ‘Desiccated Embryos’ rewardingly deflate Wagnerism's excesses in a characteristically French way.

[divinekangaroo]

One thing I adore about PB is Tommy's approach towards modernity. Straddling the non-industrial past and the industrial/modern present; constantly positioning himself on the cutting edge, if not quite bleeding edge, of period/era technology. Cars, manufacturing, shipping, phones, typewriters. Medicine, psychology, and even bringing in incredibly modern concepts into politics in that era. He is constantly grabbing at the future. It's this striking characteristic in him, all the way from S1 when they install the phone in the Garrison - ~if only we knew someone else with a phone, we could call them~ - through to S6's final episode when he even wangles a seat on an airplane to get to Canada without wasting time. So uncommon at the time, but he just went: I need to get there with least time lost, and matched requirement to a borderline experimental non-consumer-available insider technology to do so.

(Sidestep: Such an interesting juxtaposition of all that, with the constant representation of the pre-industrial-era Romani threads in S6, too: Esme, the hills, the horse, the curse, the mythology, the vardo, all that slamming up against an actual cutting edge submachinegun, so ‘contemporary’ it’s actually anachronistic by a few years (if my research was right, it’s a WWII weapon that submachinegun, not to get on the symbolism, but). Arguably, Ruby in hospital having the most contemporary medical treatment available while Tommy goes walkabout to lift a curse is another notable juxtaposition.

There’s also an interesting slant of his modernity balanced against what I call his hoarding habit — the most cutting edge piece of tech or modernity in 1923 he’s still hanging onto in 1933. But yeah, even with that the juxtapositions are interesting because they can only happen if the forward reaching/modernity focus is there)

So, when I see contemporary-modern!AU takes of Tommy that are like, representing him as a relatively humdrum part of the capitalist consumer status quo, or even as a luddite who can't and won't use an Iphone, I scratch my head. I do think he’s *not* much of an innovator, but he is absolutely a considered first-gen adopter and recognises (and takes) opportunity regarding tech innovation with little concern for risk.

I have contemplated would rich modern!AU Tommy with disposable income finance startups if they pitched well: probably yes, because he takes gambles; with a personally vested interest in the innovators in the same way he had that vested interest in Bonnie. Startups as horses or boxers on a diff playing field, win some, lose some, etc.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have a big google doc thing where I keep track of media and stuff (putting everything in loosely ranked categories), which is mostly just for my own reference so I know what tv shows I've already seen before, etc. and I never really look back through it, typically just a quick "okay, watched two movie in the past 8 months, need to quickly slap them somewhere in the lists. okay. done. save document. exit". But today I was actually reading through some of the old notes and there are like... MULTIPLE places where my comment is basically "It would have been good if it were about elves" or "I wish there was a fantasy show made in this same style" or "It's well made, but I just keep thinking about how I would like it more if everyone was an elf or was in old 1700s costumes" or etc like...... lol.... Most biased media ranking system on earth blatantly made by someone with an extremely hyperspecific range of narrow interests. It'd be like if a food reviewer only had 5 foods they actually liked, so they'd just go to a pizza place and be like "eh, the pizza was okay, but I just think it would be better if it was cereal instead. :/ ...2 out of 10"

[toyastales]

The various textures and materials used make this kitchen visually interesting

[narrativelysignificantturtleduck]

i'm not a particular jee fan but as a fan of atla old men i am Adjacent and y'all. i'm so sorry for what they did to your man in natla. first off de-aging him removes the dynamic of zuko being an asshole teen failing to command grown adults (unlike azula who does have the respect & fear of adults) and second making him & the crew members of the 41st makes it seem like his problems with zuko are totally unjustified bc he owes his life to zuko while originally the point is that zuko has this capacity to care about people but is trying to stifle it and embody this cruel tough leader role that doesn't actually fit him. and what is the point of zuko if he is not struggling & failing to live up to his shitty father's idea of leadership and masculinity

[frommybookbook]

#6: The Lady in the Lake (1946)

I’ll be honest, the best part of this movie is Audrey Totter. There’s a reason she was one of the queens of B movies in the 1940s—she’s just incredible. She’s cold and calculating and absolutely gorgeous.

A lot of things about this movie are a little hard to judge because the cinematography is frankly just that distracting. Robert Montgomery invented first-person POV camera work for this movie and it’s a very impressive accomplishment. It also just takes over the whole thing.

The plot kind of follows the book, though it simplified the actual lake plot, which is kind of hilarious, and all of the romance between Marlowe and Adrienne Fromsett is completely made up.

Montgomery is a so-so Marlowe, he’s not the worst one to do it but he’s far from the best either. Again, I think a big part of that is that the cinematography keeps him so disconnected from the audience that you just don’t get to know him well and then his doing double-duty as the director kept him busy. The star of the film is really Totter, which is probably just as well.

Overall movie score: 3.5/5, mostly for Audrey Totter and the innovation in cinematography

Marlowe score: 3/5, Montgomery isn't bad, he just doesn't quite feel present; ironically his focus on the first-person POV made me feel detached from him as a character

Perry Mason score: 3/5, it's only Audrey Totter but she's just so incredible that she's worth 3 points all by herself

For a reminder of why I started this series and how I’m rating these movies, you can check out my master Marlowe post. I’ll be posting my reviews/rankings of the remaining Marlowe movies using the tag #Marlowe movies so if you’re interested, follow along!

[sunnetrolls]

Can’t believe that in the time since commissioning those sprites I have started and subsequently distanced myself from a sea slug copycat craze. Gargex is the ORIGINAL seaslugboy.

[leahthedreamer]

People were bitching about the introduction of the LED boards earlier this year but they look great especially for the gala

[sketchonista]

mood

[poison-raika]

届けましょう !

ＱＲライターポイズン雷花です。 あの方への心❤️をカスタムＱＲ（ＱＲアート）に込めて送ってみては如何でしょう！？ ご依頼をお待ちしています。 This is QR writer Poison_Raika. Why not send your heart ❤️ to that person in a custom QR (QR art) ! ? We look forward to hearing from you. https://www.pixiv.net/users/15571070

[frank-olivier]

Women, Work, and the Future of Japan: A Catalyst for Change

Japan's post-war economic resurgence was once driven by its distinct work culture, but this same culture has now transformed into a double-edged sword, imperiling the nation's future prosperity. Historically, Japan's collectivist ethos, rooted in the pursuit of "Wa" (harmony), fostered stability and cooperation, but in today's context, it often manifests as a rigid hierarchy where excessively long working hours are misconstrued as the pinnacle of loyalty and dedication. This has severe human consequences, including "karoshi" (death from overwork), plummeting birth rates, and a dwindling workforce.

The country's inherent risk aversion, stemming from a deep respect for tradition, hinders innovation, with the fear of disrupting social balance outweighing the benefits of progress. This is evident in Japan's struggles to keep pace with global technological advancements, particularly in software and artificial intelligence, leading to stagnation and erosion of its competitive edge. Furthermore, traditional workplaces prioritize visibility and seniority over merit, resulting in ineffectual leadership, misguided decision-making, and a brain drain as talented individuals seek opportunities abroad.

Recent government initiatives aimed at improving work-life balance and promoting sustainability offer hope, as do forward-thinking companies adopting flexible work arrangements to attract top talent. However, a profound cultural shift is necessary for Japan to reclaim its innovative forefront. This requires blending cherished traditions with the uncertainties of innovation, fostering an environment that encourages risk tolerance, creativity, and merit-based advancement. A gradual shift in societal values, emphasizing individual creativity alongside collectivist principles, is crucial, as are structural reforms in workplaces and educational institutions promoting meritocracy, flexibility, and lifelong learning.

Interwoven with these challenges is the complex situation of Japanese women, who face traditional expectations, societal pressures, and workplace demands that profoundly impact their lives and the country's future. The notion of "ikigai" (finding purpose in life) often narrowly translates to family devotion for women, leading to unfulfilled potential and stagnation. This results in low labor force participation rates, a persistent glass ceiling, and underutilized parental leave policies, placing an undue burden on women and threatening individual well-being and the broader social and economic landscape.

A growing pushback against these traditional expectations, marked by women-led startups, flexible work arrangements, and paternal leave initiatives, signals a tentative shift towards inclusivity. To truly empower Japanese women, however, a profound societal transformation is needed, involving a reckoning with outmoded gender roles. Education and awareness campaigns, alongside the promotion of male allies embodying modern masculinity, can challenge these norms. By celebrating the diverse contributions and aspirations of its female population, Japan can dismantle barriers, realizing the full potential of its women and securing a vibrant future for the nation. The path forward hinges on choosing between the status quo and a new trajectory that values, supports, and empowers Japanese women to thrive, ultimately determining the country's prosperity.

Japanese work culture is unsustainable (pigallisme, April 2024)

Sunday, December 1, 2024

[monards]

the beautiful land of spicazonia. Where all yuri is doomed and all men are just a bit pathetic Praise be

[onlylonelylatino]

Hero Alliance by Stuart Immonen