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moontaeilll · 6 years ago

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ALL ABOUT SM GLOBAL PACKAGE & NEO CITY: SEOUL EXPERIENCE

by twitter user @sugnsook // @yudotaeil

Hello~ so i am not that good at explaining/vlogging or writing stuffs but in this thread? or blogpost or wherever u guys reading this, i will try to describe my experience as much as I can. Also for now, I am dividing this post, FAQ-style according to several topics, and I will put a separate detailed post on my own Neo City: SEOUL experience. I hope this will help for u guys deciding to splurge a bit on concert/global package!

Disclaimer: In the past, I got a few ccs complaining about my fangirl related-expensive expenses, I just want to note earlier here that as the whole prior to the actual concert, I was a part time student & working 30+ hours a week, working every chances I get. It was also my last semester of undergrad studies & I have been wanting to attend NCT’s first ever concert since 2017 and been really saved up since then, so I consider the large expenses is pretty much a treat for myself.

Tl;dr: if you worked hard enough and really wanted to attend your faves event, just go for it, as it was really worth it.

— General

What is included in Global Package?

Concert ticket (depending on days u wanna go), a good quality hotel for your stay, return transportation to & from the concert venue - hotel, preorder access to official merchandises, NCT 127 theme global package-special merchandises, NCT 127 theme snack boxes (after the concert), One themed lunch, a half day tour with tour guide before the concert, special event (varies according to what concert) - for NCT127’s we got a photoshoot session with NCT127’s life-size standee in SM’s infamous practice room itself.

How much does Global Package cost?

All i can say first thing first is….it IS costly. The ones I am paying is $949USD for Superior Single (Course C) as shown below:

The difference between the prices & packages are it depends on which hotel they will locate you & your seating in the concert. They also have Course A, Course B & Course C which depends on the concert days you are attending. Because I am flying out to Seoul just for the purpose of concert so why not just buy the two days ticket? And yeah that is why I chose Course C.

When does the ticketing open?

Usually the global package ticketing will only open at least one month prior to the actual concert, just like the concert announcement itself. Basically right after SM announce the concert, just be prepared as the ticketing will be shortly after it, right before the general ticketing starts. My advice is just, save up save up and save up as it is really well-known super costly.

How competitive the tickets are?

It is less competitive than general ticketing for sure, but pretty competitive in between ifans itself. When I bought mine, I initially planned for just economy ones but the ticket sold out WHEN i clicked “payment”. So, be quick or you might need to wait a bit more. I’m the type to be anxious if I dont have my ticket yet so I really want my ticketing matters to be settled up as soon as possible so-- when I figured out the economy package got sold out I quickly clicked on superior option - impulsively hehs.

During that ticketing, SM allows you to hold your payment up to 2 hours, as for twin package buyers can split payment. So if the tickets sold out, you might be able to get it after 2 hours. NOTE THAT: SM changed the policy from 2 hours to 30 mins now.

Eventually SM will release more packages and you CANNOT change your options once you have buy it. The packages will be available up until a week/or two before the concert, but the type of packages is really depends. I would say, Course C - Economy package sold out pretty quickly because that is what most people aiming for.

*also, keep refreshing the page if you are buying at the exact ticketing open time! The ticketing for mine opened 3 mins before the actual time so yeah….

How is the payment made?

Paypal only. Just be sure you have signed up to smtown travel account, and link you cards or have paypal balance to get your payment completed smoothly. Your package will only be confirmed once you get the payment confirmation so, having a working payment method is important. SM’s cancellation policy is ridiculous so I recommend everyone who is interested to join GP to do a thorough research beforehand.

Can international fans join general ticketing?

Yes, but not really feasible, as Yes24 sites require verification, unless you have connections with korean verifications or buy from 3rd party. The downside of 3rd party is you might get even more expensive ticket collectively compared to what Global Package has offered.

How good the seats are?

It depends on your luck as you will only draw your ticket basically the day before the concert. The more you paid for the package, the better the seats. For standing you might get a better queue number and in korea concerts you strictly go in by queue number. I chose seating, so for luckily one of my seat was right next to extended stage, and another seat was on the other side but center view. Also i luckily got both sides of seating so I can enjoy the concert with both views.

It is possible to trade your ticket between other global package holders tho - bcs i saw people did this at my hotel lol but you cannot ask sm to change your ticket. The concert ticket will be written as “해외팬투어” (intl fans tour), instead of your name.

My seat on the first day

My seat on the second day, center view

My seat on the second day, side view

Is there a customer service page i can rely to?

Yes. If there is one thing i would applaud SMtown travel for, it is for their customer service. I used a lot of their “Q&A” page and they typically will reply you within one business day. If you ask on weekend, they will respond to you as quick as on Monday. So if you have any like literally, ANY question about your package, just send a question to them and they will reply personally as soon as they can. And it is in english.

— Logistics

After you have bought your package, SM will update the logistics & schedule 2 WEEKS before the concert. So don’t worry if they ghosted you out before that 2 weeks lol.

Technically, they will divide the hotels according to the package type (dlx/superior/econ), then they will divide you into bus numbers, according whether you are seating/standing. Also your schedule will depends on the bus number you get. And this is non-exchangeable, as they prepared everything according to the list that they grouped you out.

How is the hotel?

For me, i got located at Ibis Styles Ambassador Hotel in Gangnam. Because I got single package, i got the whole hotel room for myself, lol what a new experience, as for my solo travels i only go for budget hostels 🤣. The hotel location is only 15~20mins subway away from the venue, and it is walking distance from COEX. There are a bunch cafes & convenience store nearby so it is pretty easy to get something. The only thing is SM’s booth opens at 8pm, so because I arrived early, I just roamed around until the booth opens. At SM’s booth, it is where you pick up your preordered merchs, sm’s merchs and most importantly draw your tickets. Also I took the chance when gathering with fellow global package goers to trade anything i needed to exchange while everyone is there.

I dont know where to put this under, but for GP, We were given a greeting card from the boys, bunch of stickers, a letter set (with colour pencil), L-holders, bunch of posters and nct127’s moodlight. For the letter set, you can decorate and write fanletter to the members and hand it to your tour guide at the time they ask you. I bought some masking tape and stickers beforehand to decorate my letter, u can prepare it ahead too and transfer it to the letter they give as the time frame is really short.

Can I go to the concert by my own?

Yes you can~ Be sure to tell your tour guide so that they dont waste time waiting. You also have to tell them whether u want to go back to hotel with them or not, as that is when they will hand you the snack boxes. If you are not certain of travelling alone in Seoul, i recommend to travel by the bus they provide, because the tour guide will bring you right until the concert entrance. For me, I wanted to join fan-events and roam around the venue more, so I decided to go on my own. (Best thing about it was when you’re in a train with fellow NCTzens they just airdrop you a lot of nct related stuffs — including the selfies they airdropped at the venue!).

— Itinerary

How tight the schedules are?

It kinda not as tight as I thought? Except for pretty early schedule on the first day, also Maybe because I got a seating ticket so I dont go to venue after the tours right away (standing fans had to queue right away after the tour)

And for me, this was my schedule —

25th 8pm: pick up merchs, ticket etc from SM booth 26th 10am - gather at hotel lobby 10:30am - depart for lunch (at Bulgogi Brothers), it was NCT127-theme and they play nct’s songs! 11:50am - depart to COEX artium - u get 1 hr to roam around there, I chose to roam around smtown museum 1pm - depart to SM C&C building in cheongdam, for special event Around 2~ish - depart back to hotel

U get free time in between and gather back at 4:30pm to depart to concert venue as concert starts at 6. As concert ends around 8:30pm, they give you about 45mins~ to get back to the bus if you wanna go back with them. 27th Bus departs at around 2 pm if i recall, as concert starts at 4pm. I went out at 10am lols (also tell your tour guide!) and bus departs around 7:30pm after the concert. 28th - check out around 12pm.

Detailed itinerary will be updated in my experience post.

The best thing about the concert period was they give you discount on some SM-related stuffs. For example, they give 30% off (?) for beverages at sm cafe for ticket/GP holders, and also discounted smtown museum admission. There were also new merchs got released that time, and some other promotions going on.

Snack box after the concert!

Merchs I collected from kfans giveaways at the venue

The best part was NCTZens spreading out the fanproject - sing Paradise during Encore; using Airdrop. NEO indeed 😎

The amount of memes & stuffs being airdropped - lol

— Budgeting

General budgeting for my trip:

Flight - around 1.6K MYR return trip with 20kg luggage & meal (AirAsia)

Hotel - i only went during my GP stay period so it was all inclusive (hotel + concert ticket) with that $949 USD

Other expenses (tmoney, food, additional merchs) - about $250 usd is enough for me for 4 days, considering I spent on buying cosmetics & merchs a lot. My own preordered merchs was separate amt too, it depends on what u do/willing to spend around that period.

— For Muslim Fans

Do they provide halal meals?

They dont provide halal meat, but you can request for vegetarian option or seafood. During lunch, I got vegetarian bibimbap set. And for the snack boxes, too bad SM provided ham/bacon in the sandwiches, which I am not confident in removing it so I decided to not eat, just eat the cookies. Also they offer late-night meals after the concert (separate pay), but I didnt opt for that one and only went to eat at nearby places.

Can I pray before the concert?

Yes~ as I mentioned earlier, there are a few hours gap before you depart to concert so you can pray at your hotel beforehand. Or if you dont mind, like I did as I went to venue early on the 2nd day, I went to pray at Olympic Park area itself, there are a lot of benches or u can walk a bit further to isolated places to pray. I just sat down at some bench and pray while sitting down.

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These are what I can think of, and as I said earlier I do have another separate post regarding my own NEO CITY: Seoul experience, and I will update under a thread. If you have any questions feel free to contact me via twitter (@sugnsook/@yudotaeil) or curiouscat.me/6sungjae. Also for neo city fancams/random pics about my trip, it will be updated eventually under the main thread where this entry is posted :) Hope it helps!

#neo city seoul #sm global package #h:blog #concert

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stonehunter774 · 3 years ago

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Macintosh Links Shortwave Radio Pirate Radio Spy Numbers Stations Science and Electronics Ham Radio Software

I’ve been working on developing OSX/Mac and Windows versions of SdrDx. At this time, SdrDx for OS X and Windows supports Ethernet-connected version of AFEDRI SDRs, the USB-connected Airspy (AirSpy HF+ under OS X only, via this OS X server), Ethernet-based Andrus MK1.5, USB FunCube Pro, USB FunCube Pro Plus, Peaberry, Ethernet based RFSPACE SDrs, USB RTL sticks (RTL supported under OS X only, via this OS X server) and Softrock SDR receivers. Both the Peaberry and Softrock SDRs require a lot of expertise to get working. The others are pretty much plug-and-play.

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In addition, SdrDx can be made to support any SDR with a sound card interface, including I/Q input via your native or auxiliary sound card, with a little scripting work; the Peaberry and Softrock support use this mechanism via Python.

SdrDx (running on the Mac) is shown to the right. SdrDx is a closed-source, free application.

SdrDx, in combination with your SDR, is an extremely powerful receiver. Reception, recording, playback, analysis, processing — it’s all there, and it’s all been made as easy to use as possible. Extensive documentation covers every aspect of operating the software, as well as providing numerous examples and images to help you along. If you’re an expert radio user, you’re sure to settle right in. If you’re still learning, you can look forward to software that lets your capabilities grow with your knowledge.

Youtube converter to mp4 mac. While many want to download YouTube videos, the only way to do so responsibly is on iOS and Android, by paying the $11.99 for YouTube Premium. Otherwise, you're violating YouTube's terms of.

You can have real knobs and buttons

AirSpy HF+, RTL, SDR-IQ and SDR-14 users: You can download the executable application(s) appropriate to your OS (OS X or Windows) and the networking server for your OS (if you have an AirSpy HF+, SDR-IQ or SDR-14 and don’t already have a server) below. Remember, you must have a network server application installed to support these USB-based SDRs. Server applications for both OS X and Windows platforms for the SDR-IQ and SDR-14 are available in the list of downloads below; so far, the only available servers for the AirSpy HF+ and RTL sticks run under OS X. Other supported SDR types do not require a server application.

Buying an SDR?

Please consider the following makers of SDRs ahead of any others. These manufacturers have gone the extra mile to see that SDR software developers such as myself are provided with working SDR samples, technical support and interfacing data:

• AFEDRI (822, 822x) • AirSpy (HF+) • Andrus (MK 1.5) • Funcube (pro, pro plus)

The main application zip file will un-compress to a folder, inside which you will find the SdrDx application, and some other files. Please read

the documentation carefully. Take advantage of the extensive index. If you can’t find something in the index, please let me know. I try to keep the documentation up to date. It’s no trouble at all to add index entries, and generally speaking, I’m willing to expand the main manual itself if you find something I have not covered yet. Recent changes to the documentation may only be found in the beta documentation until a version update of the entire package is made; this is where to look if you ask me to add something, it’ll appear there first.

Note to Windows OS users: Only run SdrDx and SwDb out of the folders I supply them in. Don’t stick the executables somewhere else. That way lies madness. MaDnEsS!

Current Version and related downloads

Related Videos:

For Developers (and those who would encourage developers)

In order that SdrDx is able to support additional USB-based SDRs, a protocol-compatible server must be written by the SDR vendor or a third party. You can use this fully functional RTL USB-to-network server as a starting point — it does everything you need to do to talk to SdrDx. SdrDx will work with any SDR or SDR network server that acts like the sample server software; if you need to extend the network methods, for instance to control features unique to your SDR, let me know and I will do my best to support those extensions. However, note that I require that the actual SDR be provided to me for development and testing of those extensions.

Likewise, if you’re considering a new SDR design where you plan to have an Ethernet connection as one of, or the only, method of communication to the host computer, ideally it will be compliant with those protocols. If it is, it will “just work.” If it isn’t — it won’t, and software support for your design will be considerably more limited. Examples of such well-designed SDRs include the Andrus MK 1.5 and the AFEDRI, as well as the SDR-IQ via its network server applications. And of course all the RFSPACE networked SDRs.

If you’re looking for something to do, many USB-based receivers are desperately in need of precisely such a server. No, I don’t write these servers. I spend what time I have adding radio features to SdrDx. However, here is GPL’d source code for an SdrDx-compatible USB-to-Network server for the RTL 'stick' SDRs that can be refactored to support other USB devices. All you need to do with regard to SdrDx is tell me what device name you will use with the server (it currently reports in as 'RTLSVR', you need to pick a name for the device you’re supporting, and tell me what it is.)

For Everyone:

Is my SDR already supported? The answer is here: Check this list.

Wideband RF Recordings — these are useful if you’d like to try out SdrDx but you don’t have an SDR yet. You can start SdrDx, press '>play (click that link, then look for the green button) and then enjoy receiving the described band, event, etc. You can tune within the bandwidth of the recording. So for instance, if you play the 6100 kHz recording, which is 200 kHz wide, you can tune from 6000 kHz to 6200 kHz — most of the 49 meter band! Just download and install SdrDx, then the file of interest, start SdrDx, press > and select the file (if it’s zipped, you have to unzip it first.)

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Short (35Mb download) wideband recording:20m Pileup. 190 khz wide recording, fixed 14260.0 center, tune to 14207.0 and nearby USB, grid spacing 19, 0-3khz demod

Short (13.5Mb download) wideband recording:Lovely 5 khz wide USB signal with canary. 190 khz wide recording, fixed 14245.0 center, tune to 14178.0 USB, grid spacing 15, 0-5 khz wide demod. Adjust CWO for perfect man’s voice at end. After I recorded this, I played it back over the air, and the ham told me his bird acted super interested in what it was hearing!

Mac (Stable Version) for OS X 10.6.8 through 10.15

SwDb 0.1m for the Mac (feedback! I need feedback!)

Highly recommended:DX Toolbox

for USB SDRs:

USB Driver (you probably don’t need this):

Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) and up USB-to-network server for the SDR-14 and SDR-IQ

Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) and up USB-to-network server for the RTL stick SDRs

OS X RTL Stick Server (10.6 and later)

OS X AirSpy HF+ Server (10.6 and later, at Black Cat Systems)

OS X Beta

64-bitOS X Beta 2.20o ZIP archive Please Note: The OS X Beta changes at odd intervals, sometimes quite often. You can see when the beta build you have has been superseded by a new one by examining the SdrDx title bar at startup. Your SdrDx build time, and the latest SdrDx build time, are both displayed there. When there is a difference, there is a more recent Beta, and you can come right here and download it. Significant changes are indicated on the page below:

Windows

SdrDx 2.19n Beta for Windows (feedback! I need feedback!)

SwDb 0.1m for Windows (feedback! I need feedback!)

Highly recommended:DX Toolbox

For USB SDRs:

Windows USB-to-network server (SDRxx for the SDR-IQ only)

Help for AFEDRI (preliminary)

People have been having problems getting the AFEDRI to work with SdrDx; I’m not sure why, but here is some information on what I did to get mine going.

Before you start, make sure you’ve set the audio output within SdrDx using to the correct device. If this is not set correctly, SdrDx cannot run.

Now as to the AFEDRI itself: First of all, I could not make the AFEDRI’s DHCP settings work at all. I contacted Alex, the designer, and after quite a few emails back and forth, he suggested a static IP configuration. I set that up, got it working on my normal network, and then connected it to my 2nd ethernet port on the Mac (this is under OS X 10.6.8) under a second network of 192.168.10.1; this involved some fairly annoying screwing around with the OS X configuration files. I never did get the DHCP to work, though some SdrDx users have. So I strongly suggest you set the AFEDRI up using a static IP; I think there may be some fairly severe bugs in the AFEDRI’s DHCP handling, or at least, ways it can be set up that simply don’t work. Other SDRs, such as the Andrus MK 1.5, configure using DHCP no problem, so it’s definitely something unique to the AFEDRI.

Having said that, it could very well be something I did in the configuration utility of the AFEDRI; the version I had only provided a Windows-only program, and I only fired up the laptop to work with it until I got it to work in general, and never looked back. Running windows give me hives. Still, I know for sure you can get the AFEDRI working with OS X — the AFEDRI is the SDR I’ve been using for quite a few months now; it’s a great SDR. I would expect results to be similar for Windows, that is, static IP will definitely work, and DHCP might not.

Support for Andrus MK1.5 SDR

Connect Andrus MK1.5 to your LAN Ethernet

Start SdrDx 2.12p (or later)

Open NET dialog and use auto-find to locate Andrus

Close NET dialog

Open SDR dialog and set bandwidth as desired

Close SDR dialog

Press RUN

Support for Peaberry and (possibly) Softrock

Unzip and copy .py file from within the .zip to your home directory

Download and install PyUSB library

Start SdrDx 2.12p (or later)

Open a shell at your home directory and type ./tcp-to-peaberry.py

In SdrDx, left-click SND button, select “Peaberry Radio” as input sound card, OK

In SdrDx, right-click FCD button, check ON and AUDIO IQ, set OSX rate to 50000, or Windows rate to 48000, OK

In SdrDx, left-click SDR button, set sample rate to 50000, OK

In SdrDx, left-click FCD button — Peaberry should be running now

Acknowledgements and Notices

Changes

Please refer to this page for the release version documentation.

Please refer to this page for the beta version documentation. Adobe photoshop cs5 download windows.

System Requirements

SdrDx and SwDb for the Mac require an Intel CPU, running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or later.

So far, I have numerous third-party reports of SdrDx working under 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10, 10.11 10.12, and 10.13.

Users of 10.11 through 10.13 report mixed results, under these OS X versions, USB server based SDR users are facing driver installation and activation problems, and tooltips and drop-down menus are blank; Apple’s gone and broken perfectly stable APIs again. Steps required to compensate for Apple’s idiot USB shenanigans are in the docs under new installs. No fix in known for the tooltips issue at this time.

There are two tricks required as of 10.9 and later:

First, you need to turn the “App Nap” feature off or when SdrDx is not the front window, OS X will put it to sleep, which will break it. Right click on the SdrDx app icon, select “info”, turn off App Nap, and close the info window. If you’ve got an SDR-IQ where the server runs under 10.9, you’ll need to do the same thing to the server application. Note: I suggest the very first thing you do with any application you install is turn off App Nap — it’s one of Apple’s worst ideas ever. That’s all there is to that.

Second, under 10.9 and later, for users of the SDR-IQ, Apple thoroughly broke the USB driver that is required for the SDR-IQ and SDR-14 (and possibly the CloudIQ — anyone have a CloudIQ running?) So in order to use the USB driver in the SDR-IQ/SDR-14 server application instead (so the USB to Net server will work), you need to enter the following in a shell right after you boot your machine…

sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.AppleUSBFTDI

Rtl-sdr For Mac

…it��s not sticky, so you’ll have to do this every time you reboot your Mac.

And of course SdrDx requires an SDR as well if you want to receive live, although it can play back pre-recorded files without an SDR; in the specific cases of the AirSpy HF+, RTL SDR, SDR-IQ and SDR-14, you’ll need to use one of the server applications that puts these SDRs on the network. SdrDx’s support of RFSPACE SDRs and compatibles, and near-compatibles, is only via network connections, SdrDx does not directly interface with the USB connection of the SDR-IQ.

For the Mac, I am presently designing and testing and compiling under an OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) virtual machine (VMWARE) running under OS X / MacOS 10.12.6.

Rtl Sdr For Mac Computers

—

Rtl-sdr Macports

SdrDx and SwDb for the PC require an Intel CPU, running Windows XP or (possibly) a later version of the OS. SdrDx requires an RFSPACE, AFEDRI, Andrus MK1.5, FUNcube Dongle SDR, or a Soundcard-based SDR, or pre-recorded RF files (see above for some of these) in order to do anything useful; in the specific cases of the SDR-IQ and SDR-14, you’ll also need a server application that puts the SDR-IQ on the network. SdrDx handles the RFSPACE SDRs and compatibles (and near-compatibles) via the network, it does not directly interface with them via USB. You must run these applications out of the folders they are supplied in, as they depend on files in those folders.

Rtl Sdr For Mac Os

For Windows, I am presently cross-compiling under Windows XP (in a VMWARE VM under OS X / MacOS 10.12.6.)

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 1 Review: Aftermath

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This Star Wars: The Bad Batch review contains spoilers.

The Bad Batch Episode 1

During the opening scene of The Bad Batch, the new animated series set during the rise of the Empire, the The Clone Wars logo burns away. At once blatant marketing and a promise of something new, the logo neatly explains what The Bad Batch is.

As Jennifer Corbett (producer and head writer) and Brad Rau (producer) said during a press junket ahead of the May 4 premiere, this show is a spiritual successor and also a direct sequel to The Clone Wars. The beginning of the new show draws from the epic scale of The Clone Wars‘ series finale (and the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy which it parallels). But while the action and heart are all there on paper, stock characters and a too-straightforward plot drag down the 70-minute premiere.

The five characters of the Bad Batch, lead by elite clone Hunter, never quite fit in. Like many other aspects of technology in Star Wars, cloning isn’t an exact science, and Clone Force 99 are “deviant” or “defective” depending on who’s talking, but they’re very good at their jobs of fighting on behalf of the Republic. But when the Republic transitions to the Empire, they’re immediately asked to start doing messier jobs, such as hunting down human rebels, whereas they’d usually fight droids. As you’d expect, the clones swap sides and, of course, end up having to fight their way out of their home base. A young girl clone named Omega helps them out, and the stage is set for the rest of the season, which will have at least 14 episodes.

Star Wars guru Dave Filoni is joined by Star Wars Resistance writer Jennifer Corbett on the creative side. Her pedigree in delivering stories for the Sequel-era animated show, and her experience in the U.S. Navy, make her an ideal guide for this war story. As military science fiction, The Bad Batch is serviceable, with the creative action and silly one-liners typical of The Clone Wars. The franchise’s approach to animation is always improving, which in this first long episode manifests mostly in impressive snow and a fun depth of field effect. The sharp corners of armor contrast nicely against soft, blurred lights in the out-of-focus backgrounds.

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As far as plot goes, it’s pretty simple, leaving me to want to dig into some of the more weighty sections but not sure whether they’re actually statements. The Bad Batch see the other clones turn on the Jedi during Order 66, but for the same reason their other “defects” make them stronger, the inhibitor chips that should brainwash them according to the Emperor’s wishes don’t work. They choose to let the Jedi in their vicinity live. Future-Grand Moff Tarkin sees their rebelliousness as a good chance to prove the Clone Army is no longer effective. After all, conscripts would apparently be cheaper. But after the Batch uncover Tarkin’s true colors, they defect for good.

It’s cool to see this transition happening. What do clones become after the war? It’s a question hardcore Star Wars fans might leap to answer (they don’t all become stormtroopers, and not all stormtroopers are clones) but we haven’t seen it so directly on screen before. It’ll be nice if The Bad Batch addresses some of the practical questions around that.

Meanwhile, Tarkin’s clearly willing to shed civilian blood in a way the Jedi generals weren’t, replacing the clones bred for war with human volunteers. Like many other Star Wars stories set during the Prequel era, the Batch’s choice presents a moral decision with no right answers. The “good” choice here would be to maintain a status quo in which tens of thousands of people are born solely to fight wars with droids, which, while technically enemy soldiers, are also sapient. And while I can generally get lost in the military camaraderie fantasy here, the fact that other clones don’t like them makes what exactly the Bad Batch is fighting for even more muddled. Maybe this is about giving this squad a new cause they believe in outside of the definitely-bad Empire.

Or maybe the fact that it’s hard to tell the Republic’s policies from the Empire’s is the point. This is how the Republic fell after all: gradually.

The strongest character beats involve the characters learning to trust each other in new ways. Team leader Hunter’s superpowers are “enhanced senses,” although that isn’t really on display much. He begins to distrust team sniper Crosshair when Crosshair becomes over-eager to follow their grim mission by the book. Their arguments were most compelling before the inhibitor chip was introduced: while I know it fits with the lore, it defangs the story a little to have the main antagonist’s motivation be “he was brainwashed,” and I was a little unsure of how much the show was willing to either pin blame on him or absolve him of it. Either way, we haven’t seen the last of Crosshair.

The Bad Batch can’t even trust the Kaminoans, their creators and stewards of their beloved home. The one who shows this the best is team heavy Wrecker. His tendency to scream about blowing stuff up I generally find more annoying than funny, but toward the middle of the extended episode he adds pathos without getting away from this broad characterization. Wrecker isn’t programmed, he insists. He likes what he likes. His determination to hold on to a sense of himself as a person with free will feels like the real stakes of the show. It’s a section of the episode that quickly jumps back into goofy, fun action, but for a moment gets at something more serious and scary. Wrecker’s determination to hold on to his individuality shows exactly what Tarkin hates most about the clones. Ironically, in Tarkin’s estimation, he needs stormtroopers that can be even more tractable.

Unfortunately, the moments most important to this theme are undercut by repeating information the audience already knows. If you’ve watched The Clone Wars, you probably know about Fives’ discovery of the inhibitor chips and how Ahsoka helped Rex remove his. But moments like the one above sell the fact that the clones would be shocked to learn the truth about their new Empire.

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The brand new member of the group is Omega, a young teenage clone introduced as both audience surrogate and mystery. (She’s also a particularly noticeable example of how the Empire is whitewashing the clones — those further from the Jango Fett template have lighter skin.) She’s a big fan of the Bad Batch because, like them, she’s an altered clone. It’s implied that she’s never really been able to make friends with other humans before, so it makes sense she’d latch on to the other unique clones in her orbit. Her fondness for them sometimes reads like a script for how much the audience is supposed to be fawning over the headliners, but the show never quite really shows the world from her perspective. Nevertheless, I think it’s overall a less jarring introduction than Ahsoka’s, who became a great character as she got more involved with the rest of the saga. It’s a “wait and see” with Omega as well.

I am a bit wary the series might be hurrying to repeat the sleight-of-hand pulled with Rey, presenting a character as both a point of view and a mystery at the same time. The first two episodes provided for review hint something bigger is going on with Omega, and how grounded that thing might be might determine whether it works. It’s become a bit tiring to use “who is this character?” as a jumping-off point rather than providing an answer in the first place and building from there.

As far as connecting to other Star Wars characters we do have answers for, The Bad Batch instantly announces that this will be a cameo-heavy episode, and…that’s okay? Now that they’re not being as coy about it as Rebels was, it’s a lot of fun to see Saw Gerrera and a young Kanan Jarrus. (Even if the latter cameo does instantly contradict the Kanan backstory comic released by Marvel a few years ago.)

When the Bad Batch were introduced in The Clone Wars I found them boring, their action figure-ready powers not any more compelling than the clones and Jedi we already had. They still seem a strange choice for headliners when characters like Ahsoka are operating at the same time. More so than The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch feels like a deep cut, a completionist tale that may struggle to hold fans. While comparisons between the avuncular Batch and Omega’s relationships with Din Djarin and Grogu are inevitable, this is no The Mandalorian in terms of either content or accessibility.

The post Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 1 Review: Aftermath appeared first on Den of Geek.

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baoanhwin · 4 years ago

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If You’re in a Glasshouse …..

During Corbyn’s leadership, Labour was relentlessly attacked by the Tories, their supporters and cheerleaders in the press for the many failings which, they said, made Labour unfit to run the country. Worth dwelling on the accusations for what they tell us about today’s Tories.

A sympathiser with IRA terrorism: well-worn, repeated on every possible occasion and, combined with his associations with various dubious Palestinian groups and past statements about the causes of Islamist terrorism, the Tories happily painted a picture of a man who seemed, well, ambivalent about the use of terror against civilians, if it was in support of a cause he supported. A man who, a week after the Brighton bombing, invited the convicted IRA volunteers, Linda Quigley and Gerry MacLochlainn, to the Commons, to the disgust of many in his own party – let alone the Tories. 35 years later Johnson was still berating Corbyn about it.

Anti–semitism: little more to be said on this, at least until the EHRC report comes out. The damage was caused at least as much by who Corbyn had associated with (those Holocaust deniers would keep on popping up at events where Corbyn was present) as by his own actions. The Tories enthusiastically adopted the maxim that you can judge a man by the company he keeps.

An unwillingness to stand up to Russia: Corbyn’s response to the Salisbury poisonings was used to show a man who did not take the Russian threat seriously, whether because of ideological sympathy by him or his advisors (Seamus Milne being particularly helpful in this regard) or simple naivety about Russia’s intentions.

An automatic anti-Western bias: all too easy to present Corbyn’s approach to foreign policy as little more than “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. Any country or cause which criticised the West, no matter how awful themselves, found favour: Iran, the Serbs during Yugoslavia’s bloody civil war, Venezuela. It sometimes seemed that concern for human rights was less about those deprived of them and more about how to use the concept to beat up whoever Corbyn disliked most.

An obsession with identity politics: as if all politics is not at some level about “identity” (the Brexit campaign waves hello). Still, the accusation went, Labour was unwilling to speak up for white working-class girls in its heartlands for fear of confronting other client groups and/or being accused of racism. It betrayed those suffering from child abuse on the altar of political correctness. Tom Watson’s parti pris accusations against senior Tories must have infuriated those thinking child abuse too vile a crime to be used for political advantage.

Nepotism and cronyism: Corbyn’s son working for McDonnell, Andrew Murray’s daughter appointed to a plum Labour Party role, McCluskey’s old squeeze to another. All very cosy and incestuous.

So you’d think, wouldn’t you, that the Tories would not fall into the same traps, that they would take care about who they associate with, who they promote, who they praise and elevate? Apparently not, if those nominated by the government to be peers is anything to go by. Deemed suitable to be a member of our legislature are:-

A woman who has consistently denied the war crimes carried out by the Bosnian Serbs against Bosnian Muslims, who – as publisher (of Living Marxism) – was found by a court to have libelled two ITV journalists who reported the facts about what was happening, who dismissed the court’s decision, after the verdict likening the two journalists to David Irving because they had both brought litigation – ignoring the critical difference between them. (Perhaps the differences between telling the truth and inventing facts might be a worthy topic for a future Moral Maze programme.) Certainly, disregard for facts and dismissal of court rulings is now very a la mode. Ms Fox was simply ahead of her time. If you want an example of the intellectually dishonest reasoning of the founder of The Academy of Ideas on this topic, read here. The inability to understand the difference between the denial of established facts and shutting down unpopular opinions would disgrace an averagely bright A-level student. As Deborah Lipstadt, a woman who knows a thing or two about genocide denial, has put it: everyone is free to have their own opinions; they are not free to invent their own facts.

Ms Fox did not have much regard then for freedom of speech though, strangely, when it came to child abuse and jihadist videos, her concern was all for freedom of speech including, apparently, the freedom to disseminate films of criminal offences, though she apparently knows (how?) that most child abuse videos are “simulated”. Nor – more grotesquely – has she ever resiled from or apologised for her pro-IRA views and their campaign of violence before 1998, a campaign which killed and injured, not just thousands of innocents in Ireland and Britain, but 3 Tory MPs, their wives and tried to assassinate a PM.

What a forgiving party the current Tory party now is! Poor Jeremy must be wondering why no forgiveness was extended to him. Perhaps it might have been, had he been pro-Brexit. After all, that’s why she has been elevated, isn’t it, pro-Brexit views being the British equivalent of medieval Catholic indulgences wiping away all other sins? But if the quota for pro-Brexit media loudmouths simply had to be filled, couldn’t Daniel Hannan be prevailed upon? Or Ann Widdecombe, in extremis?

A former editor of the Evening Standard (previously deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph, when Johnson was a columnist there) who strongly supported the PM in his first election for London Mayor 12 years ago. A 2018 CBE for services to the arts since did not suffice apparently.

The current owner of the Evening Standard, who together with his father, a former KGB agent until 1992, has made oodles of money which he has used to buy his way into the higher echelons of London society, much as described in the ISC’s recent report on Russia (pp.15-17). Look who’s being naïve now.

The PM’s brother, an MP for 9 years, a junior Minister for 3, mainly known for having resigned twice as a Minister, the second time from his brother’s government, over Brexit. He then chose not to stand again as an MP. However worthy, it’s not exactly a lifetime of public service.

Ambivalence towards violence, naivety about Britain’s enemies, associating with undesirables, cronyism, nepotism, revolting views. We have them all. Johnson has not just adopted Labour’s public spending but their less desirable “values” as well. And added some Grade A hypocrisy into the mix, so that we can enjoy the spectacle of those railing against unelected European bureaucrats appointing unelected legislators that the people can never get rid of or hold accountable.

What have we missed in the meanwhile? Well, the setting up of a panel to come up with curbs on judicial review, led by a QC and former Minister, who in February wrote that the government should limit the courts’ power (impartial tribunals are so passé). Edward Faulks’ other claim to fame was being advisor to Chris Grayling when he was Lord Chancellor and enacted reforms to Legal Aid which have pretty much destroyed it and, in consequence, the ability of anyone other than the wealthy to access justice.

The panel’s terms of reference are here, clause 4(b) being the important one, seeking to remove or limit the “duty of candour” by the government to the court and other parties. In short, if the government does not have to be honest in its explanations (and remember, this was a government which could find no-one willing to swear on oath what the reasons for proroguing Parliament last year were), how can it be effectively scrutinised or challenged? Why should the people know? They exist just to be venerated when it suits the government politically, not to be treated as adults and trusted with information so that they can hold the government properly accountable. Once again, the government gives the impression that its attitude to law is as described by Anarchasis: “Written laws are like spiders’ webs; they catch the weak and poor but are torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.”

There is one thing to be grateful for. We need never again be troubled by Tories railing about Labour’s attitude to terrorist violence or child abuse or fondness for unelected elites or being too pro-Russian or having dodgy friends or being run by cronies. We know now – if we did not before – that such concern is so much cant, useful only as a political weapon. And if they try, we can point at Johnson’s very own “Lavender List”, perfumed with the stink of hypocrisy, nepotism and cronyism, and laugh. Small mercies, these days.

Cyclefree

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denisehil0 · 5 years ago

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Fed’s program for loaning to Main Street off to slow start

WASHINGTON — Michael Haith, owner and CEO of a Denver-based restaurant chain called Teriyaki Madness, is in an unusual position for people like him: He’s making money through food delivery and pickup and wants to borrow funds so he can expand.

Yet so far, a Federal Reserve lending program set up specifically for small and medium-sized businesses like his hasn’t been much help. He can’t find a bank that’s participating in the program, and he isn’t clear on a lot of the details about how it works. For example, he isn’t sure how much he could borrow.

“We are trying to figure it out, and trying to find a bank that is working with the government on this,” Haith said. “The guidance is pretty convoluted, and the banks seem a little wary.”

Haith’s experience underscores banks’ surprising lack of interest in the Fed’s Main Street Lending program, as well as the challenges potential buyers are having accessing the program. Fed officials say more than 200 banks have signed up to participate since the program began two weeks ago, but that’s a small slice of the nation’s roughly 5,000 lenders. None have made any loans yet.

The sluggish start is in sharp contrast to the reaction that greeted the Treasury Department’s small business lending efforts, known as the Paycheck Protection Program. That facility, launched in early April, set off a frenzied response from millions of desperate small companies seeking a loan. The first $350 billion in PPP funding ran out in just two weeks before being replenished. Congress agreed to forgive the loans if they were mostly spent paying workers.

The Fed has come under criticism from a congressional watchdog for quickly taking steps to ease the flow of credit for large corporations but doing little for smaller companies. The Fed this month began its first-ever purchases of corporate bonds issued by companies such as AT&T, Microsoft and Pfizer.

The delay in Main Street funding may arise during a Tuesday hearing before a House committee in which Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are scheduled to testify.

Powell said in prepared remarks released Monday that the PPP has apparently met the immediate credit needs of many small businesses.

“In the months ahead, Main Street loans may prove a valuable resource for firms that were in sound financial condition prior to the pandemic,” Powell said.

The Fed’s Main Street Lending program is the central bank’s first attempt since the Great Depression to go beyond its typical financing for large banks and Wall Street firms and instead provide loans to businesses. Its goal is to help companies survive the pandemic by providing low-cost, five-year loans with no interest payments for the first year or principal payments for the first two years. Banks will make the loans, and the Fed will purchase 95% of the value, freeing up banks to do more lending.

Lauren Anderson, senior vice-president at the Bank Policy Institute, a lobbying group for large banks such as Bank of America and JPMorgan, said some of the group’s members have signed on, mostly as preparation in case the economy worsens later his year and more troubled companies need help. So far, business aren’t clamouring for the loans.

“There’s not huge borrower demand,” she said. “I don’t think we’re going to see a mass run to the banks and a huge amount of loans being written at this point.”

Eric Rosengren, president of the Boston Fed, said in an interview that the PPP attracted more interest because it essentially provided cash, not loans.

“So it’s not surprising that a grant program is more popular than a lending program,” he said. “Everybody wants a grant.”

The Main Street program is also more complicated than the PPP, Rosengren said, “because bank loans are complicated financial instruments” that are tailored to a specific company’s needs.

Companies with up to 15,000 employees or $5 billion in revenue are eligible for Main Street. The loans can range from a minimum of $250,000 to a maximum of $300 million. The Fed has said it will purchase up to $600 billion in Main Street loans from banks. Treasury has provided $75 billion in taxpayer funds to absorb any losses.

Rosengren said that the program aims to help companies that were successful before the pandemic and that can be successful again as the economy recovers. A deeply troubled borrower with no cash and no likelihood of rebounding won’t qualify for a loan, he said.

The program may be targeting too narrow a group, analysts say. Many companies with a clear path to survival will likely be able to successfully borrow from banks anyway.

Two former Fed economists, Nellie Liang and William English, suggested in a paper for the Brookings Institution that to attract more interest, the Fed should lengthen the term of the loan beyond five years, offer a lower interest rate for more credit-worthy companies, and pay higher fees to banks as an incentive for them to offer the loans. Main Street loans currently have a rate slightly above 3%.

Liang said in an interview that many struggling small companies probably don’t want more debt. By extending the terms of the loans to seven or 10 years, and offering some borrowers a lower rate, the loans would take on more of the features of a grant or equity investment, Liang said.

Still, that may not be enough. “Even with the recommended changes, the program may have limited demand, since many businesses need equity, not more credit,” English and Liang wrote.

Haith, meanwhile, said the interest rate on a Main Street loan is much lower than he would typically expect to pay, even in a healthy economy.

But the loan would also work for him because his business is healthy and he is actually trying to expand. He’s finding landlords a lot more accommodating and a lot of empty restaurant properties available. But there probably aren’t many others in the same boat, he acknowledged.

“I don’t know a lot of companies playing offence at this point,” he said.

Christopher Rugaber, The Associated Press

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gamerszone2019-blog · 5 years ago

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Why You Might Want To Play Borderlands 3 More Than Once

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/why-you-might-want-to-play-borderlands-3-more-than-once/

Why You Might Want To Play Borderlands 3 More Than Once

All four playable Vault Hunters in Borderlands 3 bring their own distinct flavor to the game, and not just in terms of their unique skill trees. In comparison to the Vault Hunters in previous games, Borderlands 3’s Zane, Moze, Amara, and FL4K talk a lot, constantly speaking their minds and responding to NPCs during conversations. Your choice of Vault Hunter won’t impact the final outcome of the main story at all, but it will influence how you perceive certain events and understand the relationships of specific characters–encouraging you to play through Borderlands 3’s campaign more than once.

“We wanted to make sure that if people said, ‘I want to play through this game all over again with a different character,’ that they would then feel rewarded,” co-lead writer Sam Winkler said in an interview with GameSpot. “Not just in terms of different mechanics but also a slightly different interpretation of some of the stories.” The emphasis on Sirens in Borderlands 3’s plot means Amara has a vested interest in the story’s events, for instance, and FL4K–a nonbinary AI–explores their growing sexual attraction to Ellie by flirting with her every chance they have.

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Borderlands 3 – Breaking Down FL4K’s Skill Tree

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Having played as all four of the Vault Hunters now, I love how much each one changes how many of the interactions go. Previous Vault Hunters have rarely felt like carbon copies of each other–their unique abilities mean each one handles in a distinct way. But within their respective stories, each one typically reacts to every event in a similar way to their teammates. There’s no new insight playing as Brick instead of Mordecai or Maya instead of Zer0. So it’s a nice change of pace in Borderlands 3, and I’m already eager to see how each Vault Hunter uniquely responds to the streamer-like banter and violent habits of the Calypso Twins–especially Tyreen, a Siren whose curse-like Phase Leech ability and horrifying backstory (if true) write her as somewhat of a tragic figure.

To also encourage replayability, several side quests in Borderlands 3 contain choices, allowing you to impact the game in different ways. Don’t expect world-changing events but, for example, you can influence how certain characters will appear depending on what you do. In Borderlands 3’s prologue, for instance, Claptrap loses his antenna, and–for the rest of the game–he’ll just wear whatever you decide to give him as a replacement. “Maybe it’s a tin foil hat, or a human arm, or something else,” Winkler said.

Aside from the more vocal protagonists and additional agency in how certain side quests conclude, the story of Borderlands 3 is fundamentally the same character-driven tale of crass humor, murderous mayhem, and silly puns that defined Borderlands, Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and Tales from the Borderlands. Almost every major character from the previous four games returns in this newest installment, though many have changed in the seven in-game years since the events of Borderlands 2. Because there’s been so much history in the franchise, Gearbox wanted to avoid making any of the previously established characters–such as Tiny Tina, Sir Hammerlock, or Ellie–into playable Vault Hunters. It was important that players were forced to use characters who had never interacted with Pandora and its inhabitants before so the story would then have to reintroduce the franchise’s lore, helping out series newcomers.

“There’s that wonderful cadence of Borderlands where the previous rounds of Vault Hunters become characters in the world, and that allows you the opportunity to learn more about them and where they’re from,” co-lead writer Danny Homan said. “But as a result, with Borderlands 3, you need a new generation of Vault Hunters because you need to see an old world through a new perspective. It’s so useful when you have a new cast who have just made their way to Pandora and they’re asking all the [expositional] questions that the players may be asking, like, ‘What the heck is a Vault? What am I doing here? Who is Lilith? Why is this robot trying to insult me and also give me stuff?'”

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“We never want Borderlands 3 to feel like you have to know everything about the franchise in order to understand why a character is important,” Winkler added. “We want it to be accessible to both new and old players.” Not every bit of information in regards to past events could be fit into Borderlands 3’s early chapters though. As a result, Borderlands 2–which hasn’t seen a story expansion since 2013’s Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep–got new DLC earlier this summer, just ahead of Borderlands 3’s release.

“Our biggest goal with [Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary DLC] was to canonize some stuff from [Tales from the Borderlands],” Winkler said. “A lot more people played Borderlands 2 than Tales, and so we didn’t want people to ask, ‘Where’s Helios?’ when they picked up Borderlands 3.”

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The First 20 Mins of Borderlands 2 DLC: Commander Lilith & The Fight For Sanctuary

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Tales from the Borderlands is an outlier in the franchise, the only game in the series that doesn’t star Vault Hunters as the main characters and also isn’t a first-person shooter. However, it took Borderlands’ ludicrous humor to new heights, and it’s this level of ridiculousness that Borderlands 3 strives for.

“A lot of people would say ‘Don’t do an extended five-minute gunfight without any guns,'” Winkler said. “And yet Tales did it and I still see that [finger gun fight] all the time on the internet. That’s the energy we want to bring to Borderlands 3. Have people say, ‘Did you play that one thing? It’s insane.'” In this, Borderlands 3 certainly seems to fit the bill. On Eden-6 (one of the new planets you’ll visit in the game), you meet an Ice-T-voiced AI that’s been trapped in a teddy bear by its angry ex-girlfriend. The jokes that follow in that particular chapter go to places that are as shocking and unsettling as they are morbidly amusing. Borderlands 3’s story is definitely closer to the creative weirdness and pretty-much-anything-goes tone of Tales, as opposed to the unhinged attitude of the previous mainline games.

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If nothing else, the story told in Borderlands 3 seems to be somewhat of an apotheosis for the franchise up to this point–rewarding fans with the answers to many of the series’ most long-standing questions. You shouldn’t expect to have everything laid bare though, as Borderlands 3 expands upon the franchise’s lore with brand-new concepts as well. “There are definitely events from previous Borderlands games that kind of reach an interesting culmination in certain ways,” Homan said. “The focus on Lilith from Borderlands 1 to Borderlands 3–there are some interesting stories that we’re telling there. People love the Borderlands universe and there are always more stories out there, and so when we’re trying to wrap up a story, we’re always trying to see new stories.” Winkler added, “Whatever Borderlands ends up looking like after Borderlands 3, I think that people will be able to look back and see one, two, and three as maybe a trilogy. But not necessarily with walls on either side of it.”

Borderlands 3 is scheduled to release for Xbox One, PS4, and PC on September 13. On PC, Borderlands 3 has a limited-time exclusivity deal with the Epic Games Store that lasts until 2020. Borderlands 3 will also be a day one title on Google Stadia, a cloud-based game streaming service scheduled to launch in November 2019.

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cannabisbusinessexecutive · 5 years ago

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Hemp CBD Across State Lines: What You Need to Know FDA, HEMP/CBD, STATES JULY 5TH, 2020 Daniel Shortt by Daniel Shortt hemp cbd interstate sales The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill) legalized hemp by removing the crop and its derivatives from the definition of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and by providing a detailed framework for the cultivation of hemp. The 2018 Farm Bill gives the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulatory authority over hemp cultivation at the federal level. In turn, states have the option to maintain primary regulatory authority over the crop cultivated within their borders by submitting a plan to the USDA. This federal and state interplay has resulted in many legislative and regulatory changes at the state level. Indeed, most states have introduced (and adopted) bills that would authorize the commercial production of hemp within their borders. A smaller but growing number of states also regulate the sale of products derived from hemp. Our attorneys track these developments in real-time on behalf of multiple clients, and we provide a 50-state matrix showing how states regulate hemp and hemp products. Over the last year, we have written about hemp and hemp-derived cannabidiol (Hemp CBD) policies in all 50 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and on Tribal land. Links to each of these posts are available below. Obviously, nothing happens in a vacuum so, at this point, some of our posts are out of date as of this writing. These things change fast. Now that we’ve covered the 50+ jurisdictions, we want to wrap up this series with some things we have learned throughout this series. States are (mostly) consistent when it comes to hemp production Both the 2014 Farm Bill and 2018 Farm Bill focused on the actual growing of hemp, not processing or handling hemp. As a result, there is not a ton of room for states to differ when it comes to the rules and regulations on growing hemp. This extends to testing hemp as well. Under the 2018 Farm Bill, states are required to develop plans pursuant to the law itself and the USDA’s interim hemp rules. However, a contingency of states are deciding to opt out of the 2018 Farm Bill, sticking with programs developed under the 2014 Farm Bill. The 2014 Farm Bill’s hemp provisions expire on October 31, 2020, meaning that several states will no longer have the regulatory authority over hemp production. For more on this, check out the letter the North Carolina Department of Agriculture sent the USDA. States Differ on Processing/Handling Rules There is some consistency in how states regulate growing hemp. The same is not true when it comes to “secondary” activities such as processing or handling hemp. Remember that the 2018 and 2014 Farm Bills focus on growing hemp, not turning that raw hemp into commodities, such as fiber, hempcrete, or oil. Some states, like Oregon, issue licenses or permits for these activities. Others, like Washington, do not. In states that do not issue handling or processing permits, these activities come with some risk. That’s because although hemp is not a controlled substance (like it’s very close cousin marijuana) it is heavily regulated. Possessing commercial quantities of hemp without any type of license can draw unwanted attention. Hemp looks and smells like marijuana after all. A government-issued license can come in handy. On the other hand, there are many hemp processors in states that do not issue processor or handler licenses who are doing fine without a permit. It’s not as if hemp processing is necessarily unlawful in these states. One thing is true for processors in all states: keeping records is key! You want strong and substantial evidence if Johnny Law starts inquiring about that funky-smelling crop. There are Various Schools of Thought on How to Regulate Finished Products, Including Hemp CBD Once hemp has been harvested and processed into a finished product it’s time to go to the market. For industrial products, like hemp textiles and hempcrete, this is pretty straightforward. That’s because these products are not absorbed into the human body. Anything containing hemp that is ingested, smoked, or placed on the skin has a more complicated path to market because there is no real federal oversight of these products and there is no uniform state model for regulating them either. The FDA regulates consumer products. It has determined that hemp-seed ingredients are generally safe for use in foods and approved Epidiolex, a CBD isolate used for the treatment of epilepsy. The FDA has also consistently said that other hemp derivates and Hemp CBD cannot be sold as drugs, foods, or dietary supplements. At the same time, FDA enforcement has been very limited, mainly consisting of sending warning letters to Hemp CBD distributors making medical or health claims about their products. This resistant tolerance of Hemp CBD at the federal level has left the states to decide how to treat Hemp CBD. The states have not adopted a unified approach to regulate Hemp CBD. Some states align with the FDA’s position, banning Hemp CBD in food and dietary supplements. California is the most prominent example of this school of thought. Several other states have gone in the opposite direction, tightly regulating the manufacture and sale of Hemp CBD. Utah and Texas are good examples of this model as both states impose manufacturing and labeling requirements. Some states even require that retail stores obtain a license to sell Hemp CBD products. Another complicating factor is the treatment of smokable hemp or Hemp CBD e-liquid (i.e., the liquid used in vape products). This is a hot button issue in many states. When it comes to smokable hemp, many politicians and law enforcement agencies are troubled by the fact that hemp is so close to marijuana. Some states, like Kentucky, ban the manufacture of hemp products that are akin to traditional tobacco products, like cigarettes. Most states do not explicitly address the legality of smokable hemp, making the sale of smokable hemp risky due to the lack of clarity. Very few states explicitly allow the sale of smokable hemp. Hemp CBD e-liquid is also complicated because of the dangers associated with vapor products generally. This area of the law is still developing, with very few states explicitly tackling the issue of Hemp CBD e-liquid. That’s because so much of the focus has been on the tobacco vapor products or marijuana vapor products. Washington is one of the few states that has addressed the issue by banning the sale of e-liquid that contains cannabinoids unless sold within the state’s regulated marijuana marketplace. Wrapping Up and Looking Ahead This is the last installment in our “Hemp CBD Across State Lines” series but it certainly will not be the last time we write about Hemp CBD. Hemp is here to stay and so too is CBD (along with CBG, CBN and other “new cannabinoids“). Eventually, the FDA is going to provide some guidance to the industry and we think that the agency will model its policies on states with robust regulations already in place. Once that happens, we expect state law and policy become more unified, making interstate transport easier. We hope that you have found this series informative and helpful. On behalf of the Canna Law Blog, thank you for reading and sharing these articles over the last year!

By Daniel Shortt, Attorney at Harris Bricken

The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill) legalized hemp by removing the crop and its derivatives from the definition of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and by providing a detailed framework for the cultivation of hemp. The 2018 Farm Bill gives the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulatory authority over hemp…

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#FDA #Hemp-CBD #States

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evelynmfoye · 5 years ago

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In Need Of A Volkswagen? Look At This

Most people need to shop for a Volkswagen every so often. The cost of a Volkswagen is high, making the process more daunting. Continue reading to figure out everything you can do to make these transactions go well and so the deal you make is more simple.

You should be ready with financing before going to look for a car. You can accomplish this with a trip to your bank or nearby credit union. This will help obtain an interest rate you can agree with and a better understanding of your actual budget.

Secure your financing online prior to setting foot in a dealership. A big reason why the process of buying a Volkswagen takes a long time is because they have to run your credit and find a lender. When you have financing in place, the whole situation will wrap up rapidly.

A mechanic of your choosing should always inspect a used vehicle prior to purchase. If the dealer does not cooperate, go to another dealer. A mechanic will be able to give you an impartial opinion and alert you to any warning signs such as evidence of a wreck or being flooded.

Check online to find the best deals. Searching the Internet for low prices is one of the best things you can do. Look for the ideal vehicle and contact different dealerships to find out whether or not they have this vehicle available. Going in person, however, is the cheapest route.

If buying from a private individual, make sure your mechanic checks out the vehicle before cash trades hands. If the dealership does not let you to bring your own mechanic, you should go somewhere else. There might be issues with the car that could be problematic and expensive to fix, all of which affects market value. Never buy a car without having it checked out first.

Take the time to research the dealer before you make any offer on a Volkswagen. If you are familiar with their financing choices and trade-in policy in advance, you will negotiate from a stronger position. You can also learn which dealers to avoid completely through reviews by former customers.

You do not need to pay the full sticker price for your next car. The dealer isn’t expecting to get the asking price. Bring a friend that is a good negotiator if that is not your strong point. It is smart to know what an appropriate price for the specific car is in advance so that you can decide how much you want to pay.

Monthly Price

Speak with your loved ones to see if they’ve heard anything good. Are they impressed with the cars that they have? Would they purchase the same vehicle again? Do they know anything about the latest cars to hit the market? When you are looking for a new vehicle, keeping your ear to the ground is a great way to do some starting research in your hunt.

When negotiating, overall price should be more important than monthly price. It is possible for a dealer to offer you a monthly price tag of any amount, but lower monthly payments may extend the life of the loan to the point where the final price of the vehicle will be ridiculously high. Get the best deal you can on the total cost of the Volkswagen. Then you can determine what the monthly payment will be.

If you already have a pretty expensive car, do not drive that to the car dealership to make a purchase. This will end up costing you a lot of money in the long run.

If you’re buying a Volkswagen in Lynchburg VA from someone, make sure you get your mechanic to look at it prior to buying it. Think twice about buying a Volkswagen in Lynchburg VA from someone who refuses to let you do so. The Volkswagen may have costly issues that make it worth far less than the asking price. You do not want to purchase anything without looking into it.

Look at cars online. You can find all sorts of cars online. Learn all you are able to about the makes and models available that you think you might like before you ever go to an actual physical car lot. Everything can be found online: MPR, size, specs, and even ratings.

Don’t ever pay full price. No sane dealer believes he or she will get full sticker price. When you need help with negotiating, ask a loved one to come along. You need to know what a good price is for the desired Volkswagen in Lynchburg VA beforehand so that you can figure out what you’ll be willing to pay.

You can test out a few different vehicles by renting them. Thinking of it as a longer test drive is good when renting a car to get a feel for the purchase. Take a trip with your loved ones, and spend some time operating the vehicle. You can get more acquainted with your vehicle of choice before purchasing.

When shopping for a Volkswagen, consider how the vehicles fuel economy will affect your budget. For example, a V-8 that can tow may seem smart at first. But you should consider how often you will be using the towing feature and how often you will need the extra horsepower a V-8 offers.

Look at your budget before you start shopping. You need to know what you can, and what you can’t, buy. Determine how much you’ll be able to spend on a monthly car payment. You need to secure a loan before shopping for cars.

Test Drive

Even before you go to a dealership, have a certain number in your mind. This number should reflect the amount you want to spend and the value of whatever car you want to buy.

Always take a test drive. Even if you see exactly what you want at the dealership, test drive it for a few minutes. This will give you a real life feel of the Volkswagen. During the test drive you may find that you either love or hate the car.

Don’t just scribble down your signature, read the fine print. Before you blindly start signing contracts on the dotted line, read the entire contract start to finish. Once you sign, you are legally bound by the entire document. Take as much time as you need when analyzing the contract. If they won’t let you, ask for a copy of the terms or the purchase agreement.

Try to plan your Volkswagen in Lynchburg VA shopping trip for the end of the month. Usually, salesmen have quotas to meet at the end of the month. Toward the month’s end, salespeople may be behind in their quotas, and this could be a great time for you to get a good deal.

Research properly when you want to buy a car that is used. It is not hard to find out what the model you want is worth. The Blue Book or other sources can be useful for determining a car’s value. If a place is trying to sell the vehicle for more than it’s actually worth, then it’s in your best interest to go somewhere else.

Going to an automobile show can sometimes help you determine what type of Volkswagen in Lynchburg VA is right for you. They have all different makes and models together in one building. Also, you can speak with people who know their stuff. It should be possible for you to leave an auto show knowing which cars you want to investigate further.

If you feel pressured or intimidated, leave the premises. Even if they attempt to change your mind, exit anyway. Say something came up if you must. Do not let salespeople push you around! Many more options await you, so staying there isn’t going to do you any good.

Ask the dealer to let you have the vehicle inspected by the mechanic you have. Find your own reputable mechanic, and don’t settle for one the dealership offers. Don’t use their suggested mechanic. He should tell you both if it’s a good deal and whether it is ready to be driven.

Give it some time before you buy a newly released model of a car. The sooner you try to purchase a vehicle after it is released, the more you can expect to pay. Take your time and then check it out down the road.

Whenever you have discovered a Volkswagen in Lynchburg VA that interests you, ensure that you thoroughly inspect it. Look over the outside of the car to make sure you don’t miss any major scratches or dents. Find any stains or tears on the carpet and the upholstery. Keep in mind that after you make the deal, the Volkswagen belongs to you. Any dents or stains found later will be your responsibility.

Wait until the month’s end to shop for your car if you can. Salesmen have monthly quotas that they need to fill. One more sale could be enough for them to fulfill this quota. Give yourself some time to negotiate so that near the month’s end you can score a great deal.

It is important to remember that salespeople are paid commission. It seems to go without saying, but it is easy to forget with a charismatic salesman. Be mindful of the extra costs and additions that can be attached to a deal. The most simple car can quickly rack up thousands more in extras.

Be sure you understand all the available incentives before you begin negotiations. Know about rebates, loan rates, incentive programs, trade-in values and warranties. Before you go into the dealership, you will be in a better position to haggle if you are armed with information.

Getting a new vehicle certainly has upsides, but it can be really stressful too. A little research ahead of time goes a long way towards making the whole process more fun. This article should have helped you see how fun it can be buying a new car.

Before you buy anything, have a conversation with an insurance agent. They can give you an estimated cost for coverage. A car may seem perfect until you find out how much it will change your insurance premiums. Look for a vehicle that will balance price with low insurance rates.

It is necessary to understand all there is to know on Volkswagen for sale in Lynchburg VA. For real success, you need real knowledge. Use this helpful information and you can find success with Volkswagen for sale in Lynchburg VA.

from https://terryvolkswagenshowroom.com/in-need-of-a-volkswagen-look-at-this/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-need-of-a-volkswagen-look-at-this

from Terry Volkswagen Showroom - Blog https://terryvolkswagenshowroom.weebly.com/blog/in-need-of-a-volkswagen-look-at-this

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holytheoristtastemaker · 5 years ago

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I've known for a while that API Gateway can integrate directly with other AWS services without needing Lambda to play traffic cop. But how does that work and can we leverage this to build small stack applications? Let's find out!

tl;dr

Just want to see how I did it? Okay, here's my repo.

Table of Contents

AWS CDK

DynamoDB

Table of Kittens

API Gateway

IAM

AWS Service Integration

Methods

Security

Next Steps

AWS CDK

I wrote a fair amount about how to set this up and have a nice linting and testing experience in this post. No need to repeat myself. I'm loosely basing this project on this sample project. This one is a good primer on using API Gateway and Lambda together with CDK. My goal was to more or less build the same application, but without Lambda.

DynamoDB

I couldn't possibly do DynamoDB justice in this post and in fact am a bit of a novice. There are lots of great resources out there. I'm just going to create a simple table that will allow CRUD operations. Readers who haven't experienced DynamoDB yet but know either RDBMS or something like MongoDB will not too lost, however the really special thing about DynamoDB is that it is a fully managed service in every sense. With a more traditional cloud-hosted database, I might be able to provision the database using a tool or some variety of infrastructure-as-code, but then I would need to manage credentials, users, connection strings, schemas, etc. With DynamoDB, I don't need to do any of that. I will use IAM Roles to connect to my table and only need to provide a few basic parameters about it to get started.

Table of Kittens

The first thing we'll do is create a table. The example code we're working from named the table Items, which is not just generic and boring, but is also a little confusing since a "row" in a DynamoDB table is called an item. If you prefer Puppies or AardvarkCubs, feel free to make the substitution.

import { AwsIntegration, Cors, RestApi } from '@aws-cdk/aws-apigateway'; import { AttributeType, Table, BillingMode } from '@aws-cdk/aws-dynamodb'; import { Effect, Policy, PolicyStatement, Role, ServicePrincipal } from '@aws-cdk/aws-iam'; import { Construct, RemovalPolicy, Stack, StackProps } from '@aws-cdk/core'; export class ApigCrudStack extends Stack { constructor(scope: Construct, id: string, props?: StackProps) { super(scope, id, props); const modelName = 'Kitten'; const dynamoTable = new Table(this, modelName, { billingMode: BillingMode.PAY_PER_REQUEST, partitionKey: { name: `${modelName}Id`, type: AttributeType.STRING, }, removalPolicy: RemovalPolicy.DESTROY, tableName: modelName, }); } }

Here we've imported the constructs we'll need (spoiler - not using them all yet). We're creating a new DynamoDB table. When we describe our table, we only need to give a partition key. A real use case would probably include a sort key and possibly additional indices (again, this article is not your one-stop tutorial for DynamoDB). If we run this, we'll get a table we can immediately start using via AWS CLI.

$ aws dynamodb put-item --table-name Kitten --item \ "{\"KittenId\":{\"S\":\"abc-123\"},\"Name\":{\"S\":\"Fluffy\"},\"Color\":{\"S\":\"white\"}}"

When we run that, it creates a new Kitten item. We can read our table by executing

$ aws dynamodb scan --table-name Kitten { "Items": [ { "KittenId": { "S": "abc-123" }, "Name": { "S": "Fluffy" }, "Color": { "S": "white" } } ], "Count": 1, "ScannedCount": 1, "ConsumedCapacity": null }

We can do all of our normal table operations this way. Want Fluffy to turn blue? Want her to express musical taste? No problem.

$ aws dynamodb put-item --table-name Kitten --item \ "{\"KittenId\":{\"S\":\"abc-123\"},\"Name\":{\"S\":\"Fluffy\"},\"Color\":{\"S\":\"blue\"},\"FavoriteBand\":{\"S\":\"Bad Brains\"}}" $ aws dynamodb scan --table-name Kitten { "Items": [ { "Color": { "S": "blue" }, "FavoriteBand": { "S": "Bad Brains" }, "KittenId": { "S": "abc-123" }, "Name": { "S": "Fluffy" } } ], "Count": 1, "ScannedCount": 1, "ConsumedCapacity": null }

We'll also want to give delete-item, get-item and query a look when exploring the aws cli for dynamodb. If you don't mind escaping your JSON and doing everything at the command line, you are now done and your app has shipped. Congrats, knock off early today!

API Gateway

API Gateway will let us create our own public endpoint that will allow http traffic to our service. A lot of the time we think about using API Gateway to invoke Lambda functions, but as we shall see, there are plenty of other things we can do. We've already installed the required component libraries, @aws-cdk/aws-apigateway and @aws-cdk/aws-iam. We'll start by creating a basic RestApi. API Gateway supports HTTP protocols in two main flavors: RestApi and HttpApi. HttpApi is a stripped down, leaner specification that offers substantial cost savings for many use cases, but unfortunately not ours. HttpApi doesn't support AWS Service Integrations, so we won't be using it.

const api = new RestApi(this, `${modelName}Api`, { defaultCorsPreflightOptions: { allowOrigins: Cors.ALL_ORIGINS, }, restApiName: `${modelName} Service`, });

I'm naming my API "Kitten Service". Yours might be "AardvarkPup Service" or even "Pizza Service" if you like to keep those as pets. The CORS bit there is very cool and shows some real CDK value. This will automatically set up OPTIONS responses (using the MOCK type - meaning nothing else gets called) for all your endpoints. Of course you can specify your own domain or anything else that is legal for CORS. This is a fairly recent feature of CDK and in fact in the example I'm working from, they had to do it the long way. The next thing we'll do is add a couple of resources. This is super easy to do!

const allResources = api.root.addResource(modelName.toLocaleLowerCase()); const oneResource = allResources.addResource('{id}');

Unfortunately this doesn't actually do very much by itself. In order for these resources to have any meaning, we will need to attach methods (HTTP verbs), integrations and responses to the resources. However, we can understand the resource creation mechanism here. We will add a route named kitten which will refer to the entire collection and optionally allow an id to specify a specific kitten that we want to take some action on.

IAM

IAM is the AWS service that establishes a roles and permissions framework for all the other AWS offerings. Services communicate via publicly-available APIs but by default most actions are not allowed - we cannot query our DynamoDB table without credentials and a role that allows us to take that action. In order for our API Gateway to call into DynamoDB, we will need to give it roles that allow it to do that. In fact, each individual integration can have its own role. That would mean our POST HTTP verb might only be able to invoke put-item while our GET HTTP verb can scan, query or get-item. This is known as the principle of least privilege. To me, it's debatable whether it's really necessary for each endpoint to have its own role vs. one shared (and slightly more permissive) role for all the endpoints pointing to my table, but this is an experiment in the possible so we will exercise the tightest possible permissions by creating several roles. Roles by themselves do nothing. They must have policies attached that specify actions the role allows and the resources they may be exercised by.

const getPolicy = new Policy(this, 'getPolicy', { statements: [ new PolicyStatement({ actions: ['dynamodb:GetItem'], effect: Effect.ALLOW, resources: [dynamoTable.tableArn], }), ], });

This policy allows the GetItem action to be taken against the table we just created. We could get lazy and write actions: ['dynamodb:*'] and resources: ['*'], but we might get dinged in a security review or worse, provide a hacker an onramp to our resources. Notice that our policy can be made up of multiple policy statements and each statement can comprise multiple actions and resources. Like I said, the rules can get pretty fine-grained here. Let's create the role that will use this policy.

const getRole = new Role(this, 'getRole', { assumedBy: new ServicePrincipal('apigateway.amazonaws.com'), }); getRole.attachInlinePolicy(getPolicy);

The role specifies a ServicePrincipal, which means that the role will be used by an AWS service, not a human user or a specific application. A "principal" is a human or machine that wants to take some action. We attach the policy as an inline policy, meaning a policy we just defined as opposed to a policy that already exists in our AWS account. This makes sense as the policy only applies to resources we're defining here and has no reason to exist outside of this stack. We can go ahead and define additional roles to provide the other CRUD operations for our API.

AWS Service Integration

To create integrations to AWS services we will use the AwsIntegration construct. This construct requires that we define request templates (what will we send to our service) and integration responses (how we handle various HTTP responses). I defined a couple of error responses and a standard response like this:

const errorResponses = [ { selectionPattern: '400', statusCode: '400', responseTemplates: { 'application/json': `{ "error": "Bad input!" }`, }, }, { selectionPattern: '5\\d{2}', statusCode: '500', responseTemplates: { 'application/json': `{ "error": "Internal Service Error!" }`, }, }, ]; const integrationResponses = [ { statusCode: '200', }, ...errorResponses, ];

We'd probably want to add some additional responses and maybe some more information for a production application. The selectionPattern property is a regular expression on the HTTP status code the service returns. In order to understand how the AwsIntegration works, let's go back to our CLI commands. To fetch the record for Fluffy we created earlier, we can use aws dynamodb query --table-name Kitten --key-condition-expression "KittenId = :1" --expression-attribute-values "{\":1\":{\"S\":\"abc-123\"}}". We know that we're going to provide the service name (dynamodb), an action (query) and then give a payload (the name of the table and the key for our item). From that, AwsIntegration will be able to perform the get-item operation on the named table.

const getIntegration = new AwsIntegration({ action: 'GetItem', options: { credentialsRole: getRole, integrationResponses, requestTemplates: { 'application/json': `{ "Key": { "${modelName}Id": { "S": "$method.request.path.id" } }, "TableName": "${modelName}" }`, }, }, service: 'dynamodb', });

We're referencing the standard integration responses object we previously defined. Then we're defining a requestTemplate inline. This template uses The Apache Velocity Engine and Velocity Template Language (VTL), a java-based open source project that will let us introduce some logical and templating capabilities to API Gateway. There's obviously a fair amount of complexity we could get into with VTL and at a certain point it's probably just a lot better to write a Lambda function than try to handle extremely complex transformations or decision trees in VTL. Here it's not too bad. In case it's not obvious, our request templates are written using template literals. The ${modelName} substitutions happen when my CloudFormation template is created by CDK (when I build), while $method.request.path.id is provided during the request at runtime. Many of the common property mappings can be found in the API Gateway documentation. My template will grab the id from the request path and pass it to DynamoDB. We can also pull properties from the request body. Let's look at the integration for creating a new Kitten.

const createIntegration = new AwsIntegration({ action: 'PutItem', options: { credentialsRole: putRole, integrationResponses: [ { statusCode: '200', responseTemplates: { 'application/json': `{ "requestId": "$context.requestId" }`, }, }, ...errorResponses, ], requestTemplates: { 'application/json': `{ "Item": { "${modelName}Id": { "S": "$context.requestId" }, "Name": { "S": "$input.path('$.name')" }, "Color": { "S": "$input.path('$.color')" } }, "TableName": "${modelName}" }`, }, }, service: 'dynamodb', });

The request body is mapped to $ and can be accessed via $input.path and dot-property access. We're also taking the requestId and using that as a unique identifier in my table. Depending on our use case, that might be a worthwhile thing to do or maybe it would be better to just key off the kitten's name. We have mapped a custom response template into this integration so that we return the requestId - which is now the partition key for the item we just created. We don't want to have to scan our table to get that, so it's convenient to return it in the same request. The rest of our integrations follow the same pattern and use the same techniques. Rather than repeat myself here, you can just go and check it out in my repo. I wrote some tests as well.

Methods

Ready to go? Not quite. We still have to tie an integration to a resource with an HTTP verb. This is quite easy and our code could look like this:

I think that is pretty intuitive if you know much about REST or HTTP. We've mapped several HTTP verbs to our resources If we wanted to return a 404 response on the other ones, we'd need to do a little bit of extra work. By default any request that can't be handled by RestApi returns a 403 with the message "Missing Authentication Token". This is probably to keep malicious users from snooping endpoints and while it may seem confusing to us the first time we see that error, it's probably fine, especially for a demo project. We've got all the pieces in place at last! How does it work? Just fine.

$ curl -i -X POST \ -H "Content-Type:application/json" \ -d \ '{"name": "Claws", "color": "black"}' \ 'https://my-url.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/prod/kitten' { "requestId": "e10c6c16-7c84-4035-9d6b-8663c37f62a7" }

$ curl -i -X GET \ 'https://my-url.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/prod/kitten/0a9b49c8-b8d2-4c42-9500-571a5b4a79ae' {"Item":{"KittenId":{"S":"0a9b49c8-b8d2-4c42-9500-571a5b4a79ae"},"Name":{"S":"Claws"},"Color":{"S":"black"}}}

Security

Most of the APIs we build will require some kind of security, so how do protect this one? Out of the box we can support Cognito User Pools or IAM roles. We can also provide a custom Lambda authorizer.

Next Steps

So now that we know we can do this, the question is is it a good idea? My CDK code doesn't look too different from the Lambda code in the AWS example. I think as long as the code is simple enough, this is a viable option. If things get more complicated, we'll probably want a Lambda function to handle our request. This approach gives us the option of switching any of our AWS Integrations to Lambda Integrations if we hit that complexity threshold. Another consideration will often be cost. To understand the price difference, we need to do some math. If we built our API using HttpApi and Lambda and got 100 million requests per month, the cost for API Gateway would be $100 and the cost for Lambda (assuming 100ms requests and 256MB memory) would be $429.80. The AWS Integration + RestApi approach would do 100 million requests for $350, a savings of $179.80 monthly. If our Lambda functions could operate at 128MB, then that method would only cost $321.47 and now the AWS Integration is slightly more expensive. If the Lambda functions were significantly slower or required more memory, then we might start seeing real savings. I probably wouldn't do this just for cost, but we also have to consider the effort of writing, maintaining and updating our Lambda functions. Yes, they are small, but every code footprint costs something and it's nice to have the option to just skip simple boilerplate. Lastly, now that we can do this with DynamoDB, what about other services? Does your Lambda function do nothing but pass a message to SNS? Does it just drop a file on S3? It might be better to consider a Service Integration. Keep this pattern in mind for Step Functions as well. You can basically do the same thing.

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heatherrdavis1 · 5 years ago

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Bitcoin Rallies Back To $6800 | Why Crypto Is Still My Top Pick For 2020

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

What’s going on everyone. My name is Nicholas Merten here a data dash and today’s March 24th of 20 20. Well folks I hope you all are having a fantastic day wherever you are and in today’s video. We’re not only gonna be talking about the really strong sense of confidence we’re seeing in cryptocurrency markets as we basically met up for all the losses from the sharpest selloff in Bitcoin’s history for the last few years but along with that as well. I want to spend some time talking about the current developments with the cove and 19 ignoring a lot of the short term noise and really just talking about what we need to watch for in the long term and why I believe even though we may be able to start getting back to work in the next couple of months and maybe start going back to a sense of normality that this is going to certainly set us into a great depression of some sort much more larger and drawn out than a normal recession. All right. So a lot of things to talk about. Let’s go ahead and dive right into it. No it’s not a really positive topic case but again it’s something that I think we need to reflect on in this case and really just talk about what really matters at the end of the day. Right. Just trying to observe from what we can understand in the world now. Take a look here across the one of the market here very few plays here beating out Bitcoin here leading up the market of 9 percent. Now most crypto currencies are obviously following in that path to the upside. But we do have a few clear winners that are leading the market here engine as well. Wren we also two of our other top plays energy and chain link with other crypto currencies like nano as well really killing it right now doing well. Vast majority of the market right now up in the green with very few players down in the red. We could see here as well if we take a look here at the fear and greed index there’s something that’s very important to take in mind and that is that even though markets have resurged a lot of the losses here from the sell off we had at around 8000 going all the way down in about a 24 hour period plus pushing it 24 48 hours if you really wanna extend it that far. It really was it was pretty much an all day. We could see here that went all the way down to thirty six hundred. We have now recovered over three thousand dollars of value per bitcoin from the absolute low. And generally speaking from the kind of close range you’re on forty five hundred are good about a price or about two thousand one hundred dollars. So it’s good to see right. Bitcoin is definitely regained a lot of these losses and I think it proves to a few key things here with first off as always guys the thing I was enforces is during those peak times of fear when people are at the verge of believing Oh my God Bitcoin is over. That’s the same kind of kind of I guess not only ironically enough the same price action that we saw back during December of 2018 when we started depressed rates three K we were 80 percent down from the highs at 20 k people were just reaping over the idea like oh my god Bitcoin is done for right. When people start talking like that and there’s not much of a fundamental reason as to why prices down risk can be assured usually that this is a time of irrational fear and that markets will soon therefore correct themselves afterwards and buyers will come in for the discount opportunity at least the smart money well right. And you could be a part of that smart money if you want. Right. I’m not saying that every dip is going to be worth buying right. But when you have significant corrections when you have some those stark corrections you’ve ever seen. That’s usually the time to get a little bit more bullish than you might have been beforehand if you were willing to buy bitcoin at ten thousand boy are you going to love it when it’s down at thirty six or thirty eight hundred. Right. I mean your risk reward profile is so much more favorable if you still have that target range of. 50 to a hundred thousand as a possibility even if it’s just a fraction of a possibility right. So anyways that’s that’s just kind of logical investing and trading one to one. But another thing that’s important to notice while here when we take a look at this is I’m looking at the scalp X index which is a really cool Web site that aggregates a lot of indexes but one I want to look at is the fear and greed index. And interestingly enough the fear and greed index which is probably one of the more interesting kind of aggregate indicators here. Similar in some ways to the fear and greed index that I think CNN Money had put together back a while ago for traditional equities. Interestingly enough is showcasing this here that the market isn’t showing any signs of greed or being overbought. In fact right now we’re at some of our lowest levels we’ve seen on record. We haven’t been back here. I mean for example just to give you some perspective. Both of the last few Decembers were always good buy points right. December of 2019 Fiorina index was only down here to about 21. And a lot of that as well back here when we were in peak fear after the sell off in November to December. Right. You’re telling around here at a point and range that’s even higher than where we are right now. All right. So again you’ve got absolute fear throughout the market right now for the most part may people aren’t bullish on crypto currencies and it tends to be that usually the contrarians went out in this case the smart money tends to win out. Who knows if that’s really where we are right now. Who knows maybe we might have another pullback but I got to tell you all. For most kind of large scale buyers. You’re right you’re at sixty six hundred right you know over the last few days. If you had the opportunity to buy bitcoin anywhere from four to five thousand you are buying it more than a 50 percent discount from those relative highs just back here in February. Right. You see Bitcoin performing this well afterwards showcases me that people are looking for a non correlated asset to hedge against inflation and quite frankly maybe Bitcoin isn’t the store of value asset that many people want or doesn’t have. They have a lack of volatility that people would want. But you’re going to see in a store of value or in a hedging asset that there’s going to be a lot of volatility during this time period because there’s probably gonna be a lot of people wanting to buy it and in some cases after very strong rallies you’re going to have people who are cashing out and going on to cash and all kinds of different things going on. Guys these are volatile times. Take a look at. You don’t believe me right. You think volatility is lacking. Yes guess I would say it for a store value believe there cannot be volatility. Take a look at one of those time tested. You know store value assets here. Gold going all the way from 17 under an ounce down to fourteen fifty nine and then going right back up to 16 under. Does that remove the value of gold as a store value. No because in the daily timeframe as much as this is volatile and you know get as is just about as significant as Bitcoin’s move we’re just focused on a very small market on the monthly chart. Gold’s still way up. Gold just like bitcoin has generally set higher lows and higher highs on a longer term timeframe. And that’s what we care about that is what defines a store value a store value is an asset that I know I can purchase and two and I can know at some kind of later date that it is most likely that I’m either going to be able to get my money back or make a profit. Those are the only two things that a store value needs generally higher lows and higher highs. And a hedge generally against things like inflation or other real world types of assets that are correlated to world economies. Things of that sort. Some suddenly some way where you can preserve your purchasing power. Go to bitcoin. Do that. And again I know we got a lot of silver bugs as well. I’m not trying to rob the city guys it sucks. I own a little bit of physical silver and gold. All right. This has been a bad week for assets across the board. All right if you want to take a look again we can always hop over here. Take a look at equities and how you pull that up or just go ahead and pull up as P 500. Right. This is my general target range here 50 percent but even just dragging it out to here in two months the entire U.S. equity market down about 35 percent. You think that’s normal. It’s not. This has been one of the most dramatic sell offs we’ve ever seen as the biggest rushes for cash that we’ve seen in history and no one is safe in this environment when it comes to financial assets. But now it seems like the worst of that kind of cash run has come out in this case. Not saying that we can’t see equities sell off worse as we’ve been looking for about a 50 percent decline in total. But along with that as well. Gold silver might still get a bit a hindrance here same with Bitcoin. But I think generally speaking now we can see people rebuilding their positions. Gold and Silver building up Bitcoin building up. These are the assets that should be performing well in a market where people are rushing in this case they’ve gotten to their cash positions right. They’re looking for something that’s going to hedge against what’s to come. And the thing that’s on a lot of people’s minds is inflation inflation. I mean we have been hearing about central bank monetary policy that’s going to be injecting massive amounts of cash in the economy. We’re hearing about mass bailouts. The government is going to be using taxpayer money or money that’s coming. From the Treasury insurance and Treasuries in this case in order to finance new debt and credit the system. And it is going to increase the monetary supply by a very very large margin. This case is going to be huge. Right. We don’t know exactly that headline figure is it. Be silly for us to say we knew what it was because quite frankly in the last week alone those numbers have been increasing quite steadily. You know people like Anthony popular auto for example who believe it’s going to be up to five trillion. You have some people who are naming anywhere from seven to 10 trillion. It’s crazy. And the biggest factor that’s going to determine all this is what’s going to happen in the sense of our response to cope at 19. This is going to become just to some simple few months that we have to deal with this or is this going to be a year year and a half issue and that’s we start to get this big spreads and the figures of what we’re going to have to supplement to the economy. All in all though. All right those questions really can’t be answered too much. And we will talk about it in just a moment from what we do know. Long story short though we’re hanging around the stock flow model guys. We’ve made a good recovery here over the last few days from the gap that have been spot after the gap not really so much a gap down but after a large sell off that we had in bitcoin one of the biggest selloffs we’ve had in past seven years of price action. We’ve finally gotten closer back to the main line here on the stock flow. So this is what we want to look for you guys. Want to get back up here at eight thousand right then after that provide Bitcoin some time to reflect through its market price the shock to the supply within the supply and demand ratio in this case. Right. And that comes with the having of it in May which the stock flows accounting for here. So we’re still on pace. Guys don’t lose sight. There’s so much noise in the world but I can tell you this just to provide some perspective I always bring up that point about how having really can’t be priced in until it happens because most people don’t understand having of it. Just think right now. Guys. Like the sheer amount of discussion around something like Kovac 19 versus the having of it if you know about having a very if you know about the bitcoin having you know the having event at any regard or even just bitcoin you are in a small minority of investors. Just imagine when people hear that bitcoin this new asset is starting to rally yet again and eventually at one point. I don’t know when this is going to be probably sometime in late 2020 we’ll be getting above its all time highs. Right. Like 20 20 early 20 21 or back above 20 k. It’s the only asset that’s up net for 2020. If Bitcoin sticks to the stock flow model that’s what it’s telling us it’s going to do. Right. So if it does get to there what do you think it’s going to go through the minds of investors. It’s the same thing that went through a lot of investors minds like myself. When I was starting to look at buying my first position in Bitcoin or I’d known about bitcoin for years. I got interested when it broke its all time highs again. Right. When we got back up here in January I was very very excited here in this case. That’s when I really started reading up building my positions in this case. I had been keeping up with the market in 2016 as it was getting closer and closer. But this is where I got really excited. And that’s what finally made me pull the trigger and actually get involved in crypto currencies more actively. The same thing will happen here for institutions. That sparked the retail wave. Now it’s time for the institutional wave and there’ll be a lot of retail investors as well. But it’s going to be the institutional capital that brings us up to a trillion dollar market cap. Multitrillion dollar market cap. So very very excited about that guys coming out here though. Wanted to talk a little bit so actually I want to go to this today I was just reading that personally what they wanted to talk about though. Is taking a look here at futures right now. Verizon take a look at CNN businesses investing dot.com some reason wasn’t pulling up the data but for right now it’s looking like futures markets are up about 4 percent and this is supposedly coming from confidence of Congress and the Senate and eventually the president passing a bill to provide relief. This is not only going to be the system that deploys paychecks for a lot of average Americans but along with that a lot of bailouts for companies a lot of short term credit lines for a lot of companies. It’s a lot of different things. And the issue right now as much as the futures are reflecting this up 4 percent which makes me curious makes me curious if someone knows something I don’t. At the end of the day nothing’s gotten past so far and we’re having the same kind of latency that we had back in 2008. Because you’ve got a few key issues here right guys. First off. What’s optimal to put in a bailout right now you put for example you and I in a room right you you the viewer myself. Well we can probably agree on a lot of things. We can also probably disagree on a few things or maybe want to prioritize certain things over one another. Right. And the good news is with a bailout. Right. You know a government can run up US and rack up as much debt as it wants right. It eventually becomes an issue. But really there’s no limit on this bailout. The issue is is that people probably don’t want a lot of funny money going out to things like it did in the last bailout. And the big issue here is that we don’t have single issue bills. Right. So we don’t have a bill that focuses on one specific thing like put giving a bailout to a specific company. Right. So you could vote for example I want to support maybe the general things you and I would support like maybe subsidizing some health care costs or for example providing relief to the CDC or maybe providing for example lines of credit to certain companies I’d be in favor a lot of those things. But you know then there’s certain starts to be things where you start giving favorable money to certain companies that don’t really need it. Corporate welfare in some shape or form and also as while there’s a lot of policies that are getting shoved in now that just seem very partisan in this case and it’s basically leading to this almost near endless negotiation during a time where a weak can mean everything for people’s pockets the global economy you know what we’re really seeing Congress and the Senate goof around here and not be able to come to a conclusion on just simply passing a bill that makes sense. But then again that’s how Congress and the Senate and the general federal body for the United States has been working for the last four years. So it comes at no surprise but long story short. Right. We have nothing past year. And at first you know again unless there’s something I don’t know. This seems like a very hopeful response here in this case of hoping to basically receive some kind of funding and the next next couple of days. But I want to go ahead here and talk a little bit about the case data here for Cove 19 and I think one of the best places we can look at right now is really ground zero in this case for Kobe 19 and that’s Italy right. Going ahead here take a look at it only on the map here. All the deaths penalty here to this dot here. Sorry not just deaths these are active cases. My apologies. So total confirmed cases. Sixty three and was pushing to sixty four thousand total of six thousand deaths which is really tragic. Luckily good news. Majority are recovering now and existing right now we have over fifty thousand four hundred eighteen cases. Now if we for example just focus simply on the confirmed cases here against the deaths here the scary thing is we’re pushing you know near 9 to 10 percent death rate here right now. Again this number will dwindle as time progresses as you have a large or dramatic case is confirmed that probably tested right in this case again we’re triple still trying to ramp up testing across the world and then I’ll give us more testing cases for people who might have it right now who may not know may not need to be hospitalized. So that’s the good news right. It means that on average not up to nine or 10 percent of people are dying. All right. Sad news here is that this is still a lot of people. And right now you know there’s some good news here in the sense that Italy over the last five days has set another consecutive low here in the sense of new cases which is really really exciting stuff. But there’s something important to take into mind here is that Italy in many countries right now already pushed to the brink. They’re not ready for the next kind of exponential jump here and the sense of cases they have that they have to hospitals it’s a little as twenty five percent that have to be hospitalized. And the thing that I want to emphasize here is that even though on the chart we’ve actually seen a little bit of a downturn now thanks to Italy taking Stark measures to quarantine individuals or just basically keep people indoors. Right. They’re basically self lockdown in this case across the entire country. They’ve been funny enough they had mayors going around just like literally shouting at people and saying like stay inside like you know. But the major thing I want to emphasize here is this chart right. We can see here that right now over the last few days I apologize to my mike a little bit. We can see the cases are declining right now which is really positive news. But this isn’t again a signal of absolute confidence here because we’ve had drops before and it became it can because of a few different things. One lack of lack of testing equipment be it could simply be in this case that we aren’t conducting as much tests as people are now quarantining for the most part or self isolating throughout their homes. And a lot of that as well it’s just simply a flaw within the chart game this case we need to see that there is a systematic sense of control across the board before we really get too eager or too confident and the major thing that I want to emphasize again is that point that Italy right now right. Is already being pushed to the brink. Other countries are going to be where Italy is in just a couple of weeks it’s going to be about a week week and a half when we really start to see I mean we’re already seeing right now in the United States for example I know this nurses are working 24 hour shifts. I know people my area close friends and family and stuff who either themselves or through their friends work as doctors and nurses and they’re working around the clock right now 24 hour shifts. This is not a laughing matter guys this is serious. And the really sad thing and the scary element of this is that if those nurses and those doctors and medical professionals. Catch Cove and 19 were working in the environment it is only going to further apply pressure on our medical systems in the United States. Bear in mind Cove at 19 is not the only thing that is hospitalized. If someone’s a cancer patient if someone. Is in a severe positions whether they have some other form of disease or disability there’s already enough demand in the system that’s been difficult for people to keep up with. You can talk to anyone in those industries and now they’ve got this. On top of it. And many of them are lacking the necessary respirators in this case the necessary gloves masks medical equipment that they need to do or basically need in order to do the proper job. So at the end of the day what really matters. It’s the logarithmic chart. The logarithmic chart for cases is picking up exponentially like it was in China. And the scary thing is is if we get anywhere near the growth factor we had back here. This is going to be extremely deadly. It’s not going to be deadly but it’s going to set us up in a position where we better start praying for some form of vaccine. We better start praying that there’s going to be some kind of solution that’s going to actually be able to save us from this because it doesn’t seem people right now are taking the proper precautions. Just to give you a little bit a sense here of how fast this is growing guys. We’re not even in April. This is back here in late January. What does the rest of 2020 unfold here. Is they’re going to be any other issues outside of Kogan at. We have to deal with. I think markets are still too confident about this. I still think people generally you know you see kind of just in the sense of the arrogance that some of us have that I don’t care about I’m going to go out and go do the same things I did in my day to day basis and no one thinks about you know who is really at stake here. It’s not just elderly people folks. People my age are at risk. Anyone in their in their 40s 30s 20s. You guys are at risk too. That’s a that’s a new revelation. I wouldn’t make that very very clear over the last couple of weeks it’s become very clear especially at Italy. There is a good number of cases that are young everyday people. Even if you make it right you don’t die from it. The pneumonia that people are getting. The struggle to breathe as you’re gasping for air. Without proper respiration technology it’s just. It’s it terrifies me personally guys. I’ve really over the last few years guys worked at being much better at just being able to spot when there’s just kind of noise and also and people are underestimating things. This is still being underestimated. By world governments by. Organizations and companies and everyday people. And anyone who’s thinking in the short term I hope feels the ramifications of not taking action earlier. By playing Eragon by kicking the can down the road. I know many of you out there who are watching this are doing your part. I’m not I’m not trying to ramble on about you guys and stuff I know you guys are definitely in tune with this. You watch these videos. There’s a lot of people who aren’t. A lot of people just don’t get it because it hasn’t hit someone they know. And until it does. They’re not going to probably care about it. But by that time when it’s hit someone we all personally know. It’s likely that not only many others have gotten it it’s a good chance you could get it. And that’s the thing it has to get to that point for people really realize it. This needs to be something that’s taught in school. We need to learn about how to deal with pandemics. I’m highly impressed by what’s happened in Japan and South Korea and Singapore. That is what it is like to flatten the curve. We’ve got to respond to these things quicker guys. Anyways I rambled on enough. I know that this has been a pretty dark theme here guys but one thing that I do want to emphasize here going back to crypto markets is really just focusing in here. On trying to again plant ourselves here to position ourselves right. The next thing not going to be really focusing on the sense of my positions is I will be building some precious metal positions. I will be looking to possibly possibly buy some equity positions as equities continue to go lower. But right now my and my number one priority still is crypto currencies and one of the things that I wanted to talk about today is our sponsor Cleo building a strategy that emulates to some degree our squeeze momentum indicator. Now Cleo in this case again is a relatively new platform the grand scheme of the overall space they’ve been around for a good I think is about a year now. I think that a year year and a half they talked with Kevin that they’ve been working on this it could be off on those dates but I wanted to spend some time to talk about a little bit of a strategy that I built. It’s actually quite successful in fact it beat out just normally hotly Bitcoin. And it’s one that emulates two different indicators here that are close to the basically the estimates indicate we’ve built it just takes into factor two indicators the momentum indicator which is a little bit different than the Lazy Bear squeezed momentum indicated that we use on Trading View and allowed as well the stochastic RSI use of the stochastic fast here in this case. Now basically what we built here for the rule is when momentum is up by 20 percent the last day and the stochastic fast is below 20 in this case so we’re coming from the lower band here the stochastic outside meeting we probably went through a sell off or pullback recently in this case we’re gonna buy Bitcoin with our full position and we’re now going to take full profit into order because that’s our long term target or Hoddle target. And then along with that as well to close the position if the RSI is down by five points in the last day and momentum is down by five and in the past. And again bear in mind this is not 100 percent aligned with this group’s measured indicator but the philosophy is still the same. We’re going off of a daily time frame versus a weekly which is what we tend to use for that as well. We’ve cut out in this case using the active. We’re just using the momentum in this to cast it fast in this case. Now I want to go ahead here and take a look real quick if we go ahead and actually take a look at the performance here back testing results you can see that this is actually performed quite nicely up two hundred seventy six percent over the back testing period. If you go back to the same time period stuff we’ve actually beaten now just hotline Bitcoin in this case. So really interesting indicator here good about trades here as well it’s not just you know again Holling it good about a trades going on here on the actual trading strategy but again I went through a few iterations in this case but coming out with a sixty three point three percent return it’s pretty cool. I think this was a pretty well performing strategy. And again. You see a chart with trade history here how the profits are looking here most of them are profitable trades right. It’s a very interesting strategy. And one thing as well again you could go here and you can type out the same exact thing guys and modify to your liking you might want to set a stop of some sort. I’ll sort of just a closed condition might even want to do different variations. One thing I was thinking about doing is where we used to have. We generally still kind of have the state of where the majority of indicators in this case we have three to five points. Basically a majority in this case a two to three majority originally from the base original indicator that I made we could have different combinations where maybe you do one where when momentum is up by 20 percent and the Mac deal is a curling curving up above maybe like the bottom baseline of the Mac D or like sorry but maybe it’s curving up against the other line things of that sort. Maybe it’s up by certain amount of points you could do that as well. So we could really fledge this out and again make it as complex as we want that looks for all the different kind of edge scenarios that can happen between the different indicator combinations. So you can really let your mind run wild with this guys. But again I recommend again test out clear if you guys want if you’re interested in doing things like algorithmic trading this is how you do it without having to learn R or Python or these different you know data science based languages it streamlines the whole process. Right. And they give you a lot of data and flexibility to work with you. You can pull from so many different data sources some that you don’t normally have access to on Trading View. Right. So again really recommend you guys check it out. It’s free to test it out. And if you guys want to try one of the pay plans you can look at what it entails and stuff during through other pricing plans. But anyways that’s it for the video guys. Thank you all so much for watching. Hope you enjoy this one if you did drop a like and I hope you all are staying safe wherever you are. Above all guys I really am thinking about you at this time. I hope you and your loved ones are doing OK. I know these are definitely dark times. Generally speaking I think we have to be frank about it. The best thing we could do is come prepared to stick through this together and make the best of what we have right now. If you’re again. Staying with family in this case. Make the best of it. Enjoy your time with them and joyous time to reflect and get away from working 24/7. Just stay safe above all guys. All right. So have a great day wherever you are and I’ll see you all in the next one. Stay tuned.

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jeffrmayhugh · 5 years ago

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Bitcoin Rallies Back To $6,800 | Why Crypto Is Still My Top Pick For 2020

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scottmapess · 5 years ago

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Bitcoin Rallies Back To $6,800 | Why Crypto Is Still My Top Pick For 2020

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cryptosharks1 · 5 years ago

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Bitcoin Rallies Back To $6,800 | Why Crypto Is Still My Top Pick For 2020

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You Might Want To Replay Borderlands 3 With Different Vault Hunters

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You Might Want To Replay Borderlands 3 With Different Vault Hunters

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Borderlands 3 – Breaking Down FL4K’s Skill Tree

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sempiternalsandpitturtle · 5 years ago

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What is guest blogging? A modern guide

The cameo is one of the most beloved pop culture references.

Whether it’s a celebrity dropping by SNL during the cold opening, a TV character making a cross-show appearance or a band bringing out a hometown rocker for an encore, the cameo is a guaranteed hit with audiences.

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Providing thought leadership by using quotes from SMEs (subject matter experts).

Link-building by publishing on highly relevant industry sites.

Guest blogs are valuable marketing tools, but they must be well-thought-out to be successful. For all the spur-of-the-moment feeling a cameo has, most are well-planned affairs. In the same way, your marketing strategy needs to be detailed and comprehensive to maximise the value of posting guest content. A number of items must be addressed, including:

Site sourcing.

Blogging opportunities.

Performance metrics.

Networking relationships.

Linking rules of engagement.

Here’s a modern guide to guest blogging that will help marketers craft better goals and campaigns.

Guest blogging 101

For a more complete understanding of how guest blogging can complement your content marketing strategy, let’s examine a few important details:

What is guest blogging?

Guest blogging is a tactic that draws visitors to a brand blog or company site. A guest post is written by an outside contributor, often on a topic that has relevance to the featured writer and the website that eventually publishes the content.

Who writes guest blogs?

There’s no real limit to who can write a guest blog, but some of the most common sources include:

Business partners.

Social media influencers.

Subject matter experts.

Thought leaders.

Brand evangelists.

Industry executives.

High-profile names (think politicians, activists, philanthropists, entertainers).

Business and life coaches.

Knowledgeable freelancers.

Academics and researchers.

What’s the point of a guest blog?

Guest blogging is a content marketing means to different end, which makes it valuable and versatile. The tactic can be applied across a number of blog objectives, such as:

Improving organic keyword rankings.

Building a stronger reputation.

Becoming an industry authority.

Increasing brand awareness.

Advancing varying interests and causes.

Gaining referral traffic from external links.

Generating new social followers.

Increasing, over time, Domain Authority.

What does the guest blogging process look like?

When they’re incorporated into a larger marketing strategy, guest blogs can have a big impact in supporting the aforementioned goals. But a lot of work behind the scenes goes on before hitting publish.

The process usually looks like:

Prospective guest bloggers pitching an idea (or being recruited).

Topic ideation occurring pretty much simultaneously with the pitch.

Collaborating on a series of drafts.

Editing for a perfect product.

Publishing!

But that’s not the end yet: Bloggers and publishers then need to promote the piece through different outlets and networks.

Who reads guest posts?

A key goal in guest posting is bringing in diverse or first-time (READ: new) readers. While you might have a core group of followers, guest contributors can bring their audiences into the picture. The guest blog is a great platform from which to broadcast a broader signal across social networks, trade groups or industry circles.

Why even use guests?

An objection that might be raised is why even venture externally for blog posts if you have enough resources in-house? The argument for guest articles at that point is they can leverage knowledge, skills, reach or expertise that your site might not possess on its own. Guest blogging doesn’t have to be the dominant forum for posting but rather a complement to the main theme. Thinking outside of the proverbial box is a lot easier with guest blogging, and it may unlock hidden value for content marketing.

Success depends on a defined guest blogging strategy

Now that we’ve attended to the basics of guest blogging, the real fun begins. It’s time to get down to business and hammer out a strategy for guest blogging that enables content marketing success. The trick to guest blogging is while it may seem effortless, the planning going into it needs to be detailed and goal-oriented. These are five essential planks of a strategy to solidify before even seeing an article draft.

1. Purpose

The key to capitalising on guest posting is treating it like any other piece of your larger blogging strategy. That means, before anything else, a purpose must be established to direct all the other blog components that fall into place: topic, author, keywords, goals, metrics, etc.

For example, a blog that espouses thought leadership will be created and measured in different ways than a guest post that highlights a partnership or product.

2. Target audience

As much thought that goes into planning the blog should go into defining your audience. Without a target audience, an otherwise well-developed post could be lost on people who would want to read that blog, but didn’t know about it. Having an audience in view enables brands to get readers’ attention ahead of time and land the blog with a bang, not a whimper.

3. Shape

Guest blogs can be used for various intents, and thus can take different forms to fit the mission. One approach outlined in Hubspot by a guest blog — of course — is the staircase strategy. This technique is suitable for brands that are trying to establish credibility and entails devouring the low-hanging fruit of topics and keywords before scaling up the quality of topics, authors and featured outlets.

4. Promotion

Distribution and promotion of the blog are fundamental to a sound strategy. Social media is of great use here, being an easy way to share blogs and extend your reach with a boost from the guest poster. Using hashtags and sponsored posts can take the initiative further. Conveying the blog through other channels is also a good idea, and can be done through steps like highlighting the blog in an email roundup or sending to inbound site leads.

5. Outcomes

There’s vital importance in having set goals for the campaign, regardless of which metrics are used to gauge success. Having that end in sight can shepherd the project along the desired path. Consulting with guest blog stakeholders, including the writer, will help elucidate the core goals.

Standards help manage submissions and assure quality

In the end, the deciding factor will be the blog itself. While a strategy helps develop an ideal post, that’s just a framework or action plan. The actual writing can be another deal entirely, especially when working with outside parties.

Snags in the production process can be a big problem, however, and may result in scrapped titles, delayed editorial schedules or a rushed blog that doesn’t reflect the best possible effort. Creating submission standards that govern the process is the best way to eliminate production problems.

The primary objective of these guest blogging guidelines is ensuring quality and fit for your brand, your blog and your audience. You don’t want to go through the process of accepting a guest post only to have a wide editorial disconnect emerge through the drafting process. It’s best to get ahead of that situation by cutting off any submissions that don’t fit your guidelines before they get too far down the line.

Editorial standards also have the added effect of streamlining production workflows by eliminating unnecessary stages that would have otherwise been part of a less clearly defined process.

Some submissions points you want to be upfront with guest bloggers about include:

Your favoured blog types.

Your preferred tone and voice.

Your house style.

Your accepted forms for submission (word docs, for example).

Your linking policy.

Your promotion responsibilities.

This roadmap for working together helps keep the project concentrated by removing all the noise outside the creative process.

Conduct your own guest blogging

Guest blogging is inherently a two-way street: both parties reap the benefits of a well-crafted and well-executed strategy. In the same vein, content marketers aren’t beholden to just accepting guest blogs; they can pitch their own ideas and get the brand’s voice or message published in other forums.

Here are some of the finer points about the other side of guest blogging you need to know about before jumping in:

Research is critical: Coming up with a winning article means researching what your audience is reading, what the current coverage says and which publisher can best support your effort. Doing the legwork is all-important to coming up with a pitch that isn’t a dud.

When you know what your audience (existing or desired) is reading about, you can serve them a topic that will pique their interest. Understanding the commentary surrounding that topic allows you to be current, which builds credibility and authority. Becoming familiar with your potential partners means not wasting a great pitch on the wrong site, or rehashing a topic that’s been written to death.

Pitches need to be refined: The pitch is the guest blogger’s foot in the door, and it has to be perfected to come off right. You’ll get a sense for what your best pitch looks like over time, but some ideal components are a topic synthesis, an angle, a purpose and lots of information for how to get in contact. It’s a bit of a balancing act, having to sell yourself and the blog in what should be a short amount of words, but hitting on the specifics is a good way to start.

Outreach continues after rejection: The reality is not every pitch will end up on the page; so don’t be disheartened if one attempt falls flat. The pitch process — regardless of industry — can be a numbers game of throwing ideas like darts and seeing what sticks, and something always does. Remembering this fact can help you manage better relationships between blogging partners. Keeping an active and open dialogue means shopping topics back and forth, all of which might not become fully formed. There’s still value in having working relationships and a network of blogging peers to tap for future projects.

Mistakes to avoid in guest blogging

There are so many moving pieces involved in guest blogging that it can be hard to keep track of everything, which may lead to things falling through the cracks.

Small issues can become bigger problems, and you don’t get many do-overs in guest blogging. And we’re not talking misspellings here, which can be corrected. A lack of strategy is one thing, but an oversight like a lack of inbound links can tank a project otherwise destined for success. No links means no traffic being driven back to the guest blogger’s site, which is a giant waste of an opportunity.

Keeping the process tight and rolling means being aware of the most common pitfalls to guest blogging and avoiding them.

Underselling or distorting backlinks: Guest blogs are the perfect location for backlinks, but many authors could be hesitant to even include a link for fear they might be punished by search engines. Exaggerated links as a practice did lead to some algorithm changes, but backlinks remain integral. Bloggers have to be judicious and considerate in how they feature links in content: like what anchor text they use. Search Engine Journal has some great insight into how guest bloggers can have more natural-looking backlinks.

Forgetting to share on social: So let’s say you’ve got a great blog and are feeling confident about its quality — but nobody reads it, or not enough people do. A likely culprit is a lack of social shares. Don’t be afraid to advertise your content across all networks: Social discovery is a key way for blogs to gain new audiences. If you don’t have an account for one platform (like Pinterest), create one so you can share through the network and catch some fresh eyes.

Not tracking metrics: How well your guest blog post performs depends on what criteria you’re judging it by; and every strategy worth its salt needs to identify, define and track key metrics that are related to the overarching goals. If you want to push the blogs to rank higher for keywords, KPIs like Domain Authority and organic position are suitable metrics. If your goals are a little more intangible, like cultivating a new, broader audience, unique page views and pageviews per session could clue you into how engaged readers are with the content.

Remember the basics, but also innovate

Guest blogging is a formidable tool for content marketers to leverage in their campaigns. Used to accomplish diverse objectives, it’s an all-around means to growing an audience, improving SERP rankings and developing an authoritative and credible voice in the industry.

It’s also a team effort, meaning you and your collaborators have to be on the same page and aligned in goals. So long as you take your pointers from above, marketing success is well within reach.

from http://bit.ly/2NXzyaa

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