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ear-worthy · 2 years ago

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The Art Of Kindness Podcast: Making The World A Better Place

I was hired recently to listen to and review several right-wing podcasts on SiriusXM and The Daily Wire. These podcasts are not conservative in the traditional sense because they don't espouse the basic tenets of William F. Buckley and his acolytes. What I listened to was two days of denigrating large swaths of the nation's population. Gays, transgender, climate control advocates, progressives, racial equality advocates, women, and supporters of helping the disadvantaged in our society. These groups were either unholy, groomers, pedophiles, traitors, or just bleeding hearts.

Right after that assignment, I stumbled upon The Art Of Kindness podcast. The show beamed shards of light into my psyche after days of grievance-filled darkness.

The Art of Kindness (AOK) bills itself as "A positively star-studded podcast that converses with and celebrates artists from all areas of the entertainment industry (Film, TV, Broadway, etc.) who use their platform to make the world a better place. Join The AOK as we sprinkle positivity around like confetti and get to the bottom of what kindness really means through compassionate conversations."

In every episode, host Robert Peterpaul elicits tales from Broadway people about how they sprinkle kindness throughout their world. Peterpaul always asks each guest, "What does kindness mean to you?" He also asks guests how they react to people praising them.

Robert Peterpaul is one of those rare hosts who can be so engaging that, as a listener, you say, "I could listen to him for the entire episode."

Peterpaul could probably carry a one-man show on Broadway. I'd call it, "Peterpaul on Kindness."

As a host, Peterpaul exudes flamboyant energy, crackling with enthusiasm, passion, and a desire to please. He's like a popcorn machine, always bristling with motion and offering his listeners butter on their podcasts.

As an interviewer, Peterpaul channels a gossipy, chatty vibe that relaxes his guests and delights the listeners. Peterpaul bathes in sincerity, and when you hear his life story, you quickly understand that focus on kindness and giving back

Robert Peterpaul is an award-winning actor, writer and celebrity interviewer with a passion for storytelling and spreading kindness. A New Jersey native, he discovered his love for the arts at a young age, frequently found either: putting on shows in his living room or browsing the aisles at Blockbuster. At age 9, Robert made his Off-Broadway debut at the York Theatre and from there was cast in the Broadway musical SEUSSICAL. He has been working in the TV/Film and theatre space ever since.

Robert Peterpaul has also been a writer for over a decade, writing for major publications and shows such as NBC’s America’s Got Talent, Screen Rant, The Huffington Post, Backstage, Casting Networks, Writer’s Weekly, and HOLA! USA, where he was the Head Weekend Editor for six years. Most importantly, Robert Peterpaul is intent on giving back. It's not just rhetoric for the podcast.

He and his family formed the nonprofit THE THOMAS PETERPAUL FOUNDATION in honor of his late brother Thomas, who passed away from cancer. TPF has helped countless pediatric cancer patients and their families since its inception. Peterpaul notably teamed up with Novartis and spoke before Congress at the US Capitol on behalf of TPF to get the CAR T Cell Therapy approved (read more in the NY Times). In addition, he works for the nonprofit Women In Entertainment, which assists women both working in and aspiring to work in the entertainment industry.

During episodes of the show, Peterpaul has the foresight to offer listeners a brief summary of the guest's career (usually Broadway), and that is helpful for non-Broadway listeners. In a fun episode with stage actor Stephanie Block, his summary before the interview gave me an intimate sense of how much she has accomplished in her career.

One of my favorite episodes is with actor Chris Sarandon, who's probably most famous for his role in The Princess Bride, and his voiceover in Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. In the episode, Sarandon tells this story about his daughter as a child, comparing the careers of their fathers. After several children explained their dad's careers -- such as, my dad is a plumber -- Sarandon's daughter exclaimed, "My dad looks for work!" And that, Sarandon noted, is the non-glamorous, gritty reality of being an actor.

Peterpaul is so adept as a host and interviewer that an episode speaking with actor and activist Oliver Reid took place while Reid was inside his gym. With the sound of grunts and weights clinking on the floor, Peterpaul went on as if they were in a soundproof studio. A true professional!

Finally, as a podcast journalist, I thought I knew all the podcast networks, ranging from medium size to the giants like Spotify.

Was I ever wrong. In researching this podcast, I discovered that The Art Of Kindness is part of the Broadway Podcast Network.

The Broadway Podcast Network explains itself like this: "We're about creating an engaging, immersive, user-friendly experience where theatre stories of all kinds can be easily found, shared, and enjoyed. Part original programming, part hub for the podcasts you know and love, Broadway Podcast Network is building the perfect hub that includes tremendously talented content creators, all-star hosts, producers, writers, industry leaders, and storytellers of all kinds."

The Broadway Podcast Network offers listeners everything from a vast range of theatre, TV, and film-related programming, in addition to original radio plays, audio dramas, and even an original soap opera. Podcasts include As The Curtain Rises (a soap opera), The Musicals of Tomorrow, and The Great Game Broadway Game Show.

There's a lot of hate insome news websites and news networks. I recommend a break from name-calling and put-downs, and listen to The Art Of Kindness podcast. You'll discover two things. One, is that kindness, helping others, and caring have not disappeared. Two, is that host Robert Peterpaul was born to be a performer, and he lights the podcast stage with his effervescent hosting skills.

Even his name -- Robert Peterpaul -- demands attention. After all, who has two first names as a last name? Eat your heart out, Paul Simon. Or is it now Paul SimonPeter?

Got kindness tips or stories? You can email the podcast at: [email protected]

#podcast #broadway #theater #kindness

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years ago

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Guide to a ripoff-free funeral

In the decade-plus that I’ve been reading and watching Caitlin Doughty, I’ve become increasingly aware that even death is no escape from late-stage capitalism — indeed, if you have the misfortune to die unprepared, you will pass out of this world attended by a monopolistic, rapacious, price-gouging monopoly.

https://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/

Indeed, the situation is so grim that I’ve often joked about leaving my body to med-school pranks: corpse at the alumni dinner, arm hanging from a toll-booth, etc. But for the mourners whose grief is turned into cash, this is no laughing matter.

Writing today for Propublica, Carson Kessler delivers an essential piece of service journalism: “How to Avoid Being Overcharged for a Funeral,” whose advice and analysis is exactly the kind of clear guidance needed to carry you through a very difficult moment:

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-negotiate-funeral-costs-qa

The funeral home industry is governed by a set of reasonably good regulations, but you only benefit from this if you know about them. Kessler turns to Joshua Slocum, of the Funeral Consumers Alliance to explain them:

You have the right to get a quote by phone;

You have the right to an itemized, printed price-list;

You have the right to order a la carte; funeral homes can’t force you to buy a bundle of products and services.

When your loved one dies, the first thing to remember is that “death is not an emergency.” Don’t let yourself be hurried (this is harder for people planning Jewish burials, which are scripturally mandated to take place within 24 hours of death).

If your loved one died in hospital, check whether the morgue will keep them for a few days while you check with funeral homes in a 20–30 mile radius. Set a budget. Under no circumstances should you tell a funeral director, “Money is no object, she deserves the best.”

Funeral home pricing can vary wildly — businesses within a few miles of each other will often charge thousands of dollars more or less than one another. Don’t imagine that you have a “family funeral home.” The funeral home you used last time is not part of your family — they’re a business.

As mentioned, funeral homes are actually the best-regulated part of the death industry. Far worse are cemeteries, which have transitioned from being largely nonprofit providers of public goods to for-profit ventures frolicking in an unregulated ocean of easy money.

https://www.propublica.org/article/cemetery-long-island-pinelawn-lockes-pinelawn

Cemeteries don’t have to show you price-lists and they can bundle products and services as a condition of doing business with them. If you buy a third-party tombstone and avoid their price-gouging, they’ll hit you with an “inspection fee” to make up the difference.

Thankfully, the FTC has taken up the long-neglected question of cemetery and funeral home regulation. A new docket seeks public comment on the question; the Funeral Consumers Alliance comments are an excellent template to start with:

https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FTC-2020-0014-0656

They call for an expansion of the rule requiring funeral homes to give you a printed price-list, so those lists would have to be published on funeral homes’ websites. More importantly, they’re calling for the extension of funeral-home rules to cemeteries, forcing them to disclose prices and unbundle services.

Private equity has rolled up funeral homes and cemeteries into massive, national chains of hundreds of businesses, and the giants of the industry, like Service Corporation International, have doubled their earnings between 2019 and 2021:

https://filecache.investorroom.com/mr5ir_scicorp/237/Investor%20Fact%20Sheet%201Q22.pdf

Caskets are also a monopoly. Hillrom is a private-equity backed rollup that has cornered the market on both hospital beds and caskets (talk about “complementary businesses!”), using its market power to jack up prices:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/05/hillrom/#baxter-international

Slocum advises that the best way to avoid funeral ripoffs is to shop around and skip the price-gouging funeral homes. Failing that, you can ask the funeral home to meet their competitors’ prices — even if they’ve already picked up your loved one’s body “as a courtesy.”

It’s not cheap or gauche to want to avoid having your pocket picked when you plant a loved one’s remains. Your mom might have wanted a decent burial, but she didn’t want you to hand over thousands of dollars to a hedge-fund-backed monopolist.

Remember, “everything is optional.” No US state requires embalming. This is an emotional moment, but that’s why it’s become a robber-baron racket.

Image: Eugene Peretz (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/peretzpup/3370664952/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[Image ID: A graveside casket. Dancing atop it is a drawing of Monopoly's Rich Uncle Pennybags, but instead of a cane, he is wielding a scythe. His face has been turned into a skull.]

#pluralistic

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nanowrimo · 3 years ago

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3 Tips for Fast Drafting Your Novel In Record Time

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. Writing Mastery Academy, a 2021 NaNo sponsor, was founded by Jessica Brody, author of the bestselling plotting guide Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. In this post, Jessica shares her tips for getting words down on the page quickly, aka Fast Drafting:

As an author who writes on more than 350,000 words per year, I like to joke that every month is a NaNoWriMo for me. So with the real NaNoWriMo approaching, I thought I’d share my top 3 tips for writing quickly and efficiently, which you can use to easily smash through that 50k mark this November!

1. You Don’t Need an Outline. You Only Need 5 Things.

As the author of Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, I’m used to talking about plot. But as any happy “pantser” will tell you, you don’t have to start a novel with a full plot outline (although you certainly can!).

No matter if you’re a die hard plotter, pantser or somewhere in between, I urge you to, at the very least, sit down and brainstorm 5 things about your main character, your plot, and your world before you begin writing.

In my Novel Fast Drafting course, I call this the “Level 1” groundwork. It’s the bare minimum brainstorming that I believe you need to set yourself up for success when fast drafting your NaNo novel.

And here’s the best news: the 5 things can be anything!

For your main character, it can be physical traits, personality traits, unique characteristics, nervous ticks, habits, pet peeves, pieces of backstory, likes, dislikes, flaws, the sky's the limit!

For your plot, it can be any 5 things that happen in your story at any time. Your opening scene, your final scene, a kissing scene, a fight scene, a discovery scene, a battle scene, a break-up scene. This is a wide-open brainstorm that will get you started thinking about structure and more importantly, give you scenes to write toward.

And for your world (realistic or fantasy!), start your groundwork by brainstorming any 5 high-level details about the setting of your story. Like facts or history of the town, number of oceans or planets, biggest rivals (political, personal, or between schools or towns), rules of magic, etc.

Starting with only 5 things for character, plot, and world will help keep you on track throughout the process and point you in the right direction. Think of it like a rudder on your novel’s boat.

Of course, you can go beyond those 5 things (as many happy plotters will tell you!) and I often find writers who start with these 5 things end up brainstorming much more, but these 5 things are a great starting point.

2. Always Write Forward, Never Backward.

This tip might seem obvious. Of course, I would always write forward! Why would I write backward? But you’d be surprised! Every time you go back and edit something that you’ve already written, you are essentially writing backward. You are erasing progress. I know, I know, it’s called revision. But the whole philosophy behind my Fast Drafting method (and arguably a key step to winning NaNoWriMo) is that you only put new words on the page every day. Which means resisting the urge to edit words you’ve already written.

This is not easy. But here’s what I say to myself as I Fast Draft, whenever I feel the urge to edit:

“Present Jessica is a horrible reviser! Because Present Jessica has no idea what the full story is going to look like. Present Jessica is the least capable person to revise this novel. But you know who is the most capable person to revise this novel? Future Jessica! Future Jessica has seen the whole story from start to finish. She has perspective. She knows what needs to be done and how to do it. Present Jessica would just be wasting time if she started revising now.”

And it’s true! Until you’ve finished the story, you can’t revise it with clarity. And the fastest way to finish the story and get that clarity is to always write forward.

3. Revise Invisibly.

But! But! But what if I have ideas for revising as I write? I don’t want to forget them! Of course, you don’t. And here’s where the most crucial element of my Fast Drafting method comes into play (and what many students in my Novel Fast Drafting course have called a “game changer”).

I call it “Invisible Revising” and here’s how it works:

Invisible revisions are revisions you only make in your mind. Not on the actual page. I know, it sounds like a Jedi mind trick or something. Maybe I should call them Jedi revisions...

When a revision idea comes to you (whether it be something small like a name change or large like the introduction of a new subplot), instead of going back to make the revision when the idea comes to you, you write it down somewhere so you don’t forget. Or maybe you leave a little comment for yourself in the manuscript, like, “Change name,” or “introduce new subplot here.” Then, you keep going. But here’s the catch. You keep going, as if you’ve already made the change.

It’s an invisible revision.

From that point forward, the character has a new name and that new subplot does exist. It doesn’t make for the tidiest first draft (but that’s not what first drafts are for, are they? Otherwise they’d be called final drafts.) But it makes for a very fast and efficient first draft. Because it saves so much time. Instead of writing backward (going back to add in the new subplot), you revise it invisibly and keep writing forward. Then, by the time you reach the end of the first draft, you know exactly what you need to do to revise it.

With just these three tips: brainstorm 5 things, always write forward, and revise invisibly, you can stop stressing, second-guessing and endlessly revising, and rock NaNoWriMo (and every writing month)!

If you want to dive deeper into invisible revisions or any of these tips, you can learn more in my Novel Fast Drafting course, available to stream on-demand in the Writing Mastery Academy.

Here’s to your Fast Drafting success!

Jessica Brody is the author of the #1 bestselling novel-writing guide, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel and the founder of the online writing school, Writing Mastery Academy. She has also written over 20 novels for teen, tweens, and adults. Her books have been translated and published in over 23 countries and several have been optioned for film and television.

Top photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash.

#nanowrimo #writing #amwriting #nanoprep #writing advice #by nano sponsor #writing mastery academy #jessica brody

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bfpnola · 4 years ago

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Welcome to BFP!

[ID: Screenshot of the Better Future Program site homepage. "Better Future Program" is written in white with "Building a better future worldwide" written in white underneath. Various phones can be seen in the background, their screens showing the @bfpnola Instagram page, our 1000+ free social justice, mental health, and academic resources that we offer, a pride flag, and Black women protesting.]

Hey, it's @reaux07! Our website has finally finished updating!

Welcome! Better Future Program (BFP), known on Instagram and Tumblr through our blog @bfpnola, is a Black-, queer-, and woman-owned nonprofit headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana. Our mission is to build a better and brighter global future for marginalized youth through education, awareness, and unity.

Since 2016, our team has been dedicated to educating the masses on various academic subjects, mental health, and most importantly, social injustices that affect today's youth.

Through our outreach, BFP has gained an international community ranging from the U.K. to Brazil and even to Indonesia. We are so proud to call them our family. If you'd like to learn more and join our family, feel free to check out our blog, send us an ask, or contact us!

----------------------------------------------

Important Tags*:

#resources (PDFs, videos, etc. found through Tumblr), #reaux speaks (personal thoughts, surveys, & announcements), and #reaux answers (Q&A)

*Trigger warnings are written as #tw [insert here]

Links:

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zoobus · 5 years ago

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Online Socializing and Distraction Masterpost

You're bored, you're lonely, you’re an extrovert and social distancing sounds like hell on earth, you're not sure you can handle what feels like endless isolation - I get it and I want to help. This list is broken into two sections: Free for your own use and Free if your library offers it. I am not posting anything that requires money to use (excluding the cost of streaming services for those programs), so you will not see any of the endless extended free trials companies have been throwing out - If you're interested in such a list, go here, here, and here. And Comixology. Free to Use: -twoseven.xyz - RIP Rabbit 😢 Now that that’s out of the way, I know some of you gave up on a replacement - Kast sucked, half the replacements were broken, no one filled the gap. However, after several months of tv watching with friends, I can say twoseven is the most expansive and functional tv sharing site I’ve found. Everyone can pause, play, rewind, etc without it getting out of sync (unless your interenet is really bad) All your friends will need to install the app, it gets funky when using Netflix and Hulu, and I’ve occassionally had issues using it with Firefox, but otherwise it works. -Netflix Party - If Netflix is your main, this is your app. Unlike Twoseven, you can set up audio chat, if that’s something you want. HOWEVER, unlike twoseven, you all need a Netflix account. No free riders here :( *At the time of this post, it’s currently having issues with the latest version, with plans to drop a fixed release by Tuesday. -Disboard and Discord.me - You’re probably already aware of Discord, have an account, maybe a couple servers you’re active in. It can be difficult finding a quality server with both good members and subject you’re interested in - these two are better at finding such servers than Discord’s Discovery feature or hoping one of your mutuals reads your desperate telepathic pleas to give an invite. -Discord - Again, you all likely know of Discord as a socializing platform. It’s been gradually improving its video chat and video share features, letting you and your friends talk while you show off your game/movie/hentai/whatever. It’s at the bottom of the list because I found it to be the spottiest of all the media group share software. -Roll20 - Maybe you’ve always been curious about tabletop games, maybe all your interested friends are in different timezones. VERY useful if you have zero interest in keeping track of numbers or doing the math yourself. Recommend playing using with Discord’s voice chat.

-Facetime, Houseparty, Hangouts, Duo, WhatsApp - None of these are linked since there’s various platforms you can download them on, but basically if you want to video chat - especially with multiple people - these are the most popular. I do not like video chatting so I cannot/will not vouch for any. Make on-nomi a thing and have a drinking party. -Exercise Playlist - Gyms are closed and going outside is currently being discouraged. Don’t give up!

Free to Use IF Your Library Holds a Subscription Your library probably offers a lot of online services outside of ebooks. Their list can likely be found on their website or by searching “[your local/county library] eCollection”or “[your local/county library] online resources.” These are a few yours might subscribe to, but if they don’t you can always make a request:

-Libby and Overdrive - Libby is the app for OverDrive. Read ebooks and listen to audiobooks from your library’s OverDrive collection on mobile using Libby. -RBDigital - Primarily provides a wide variety of magazines in a few languages, but offers some ebooks and audiobooks as well. -PressReader - All the newspapers you can read. If you’re constantly frustrated by paywalls, check whether this is available to you. -Kanopy - On-demand streaming video platform for public libraries and universities that offers films and documentaries, plus a kids’ section. Hey, guess which site has Moonlight, Midsommar, and m’big brain stuff showing, that’s right, Kanopy

-Hoopla - Another public library database - movies, music, audiobooks, ebooks, comics, and TV shows. Its selection is smaller than Libby/Overdrive, but there’s no holds and no waiting, just read that book. -Lynda - Yeah yeah, learn a skill. More importantly, play around and find an interest. Maybe you’ll like Unity, maybe you’re curious if any marketing tips could apply to your ao3 fic. -Freegal - Unlimited music streaming, download 5 DRM-free songs per week. -Mango Languages - Online learning program for over 70 languages and growing. Do it if you’re tired of being threatened by the duolingo bird. -Bookflix - Scholastic made their book fair online. For the kids. -Consumer Reports - An American nonprofit organization dedicated to unbiased product testing, investigative journalism, consumer-oriented research, public education, and consumer advocacy. Useful for making big purchases, though not as high profile as it used to be.

And that’s all I’ve got! Hope at least one person finds it useful.

#social distancing #discord #free stuff #reference #long post

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bumblebee-moreno · 4 years ago

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LGBT EDUCATION EVENT

I posted a bit ago to see who might be interested in an event for anyone to ask me any question they want about my LGBT identities, or the LGBT community in general, and there seemed to be quite a bit of interest, so here we are!

Event goes from midnight to midnight March 30 (starts in 5 minutes, lasts for the full 24 hours).

For those of you who don’t know me (you can skip this part if you already know who I am):

My name is Bumblebee, but you can call me Bee. I am white and use he/they pronouns. I am FTM nonbinary, queer, demisexual, and polyamorous. I work part-time at a non-profit targeted towards trans youth. At the non-profit, I moderate our 24/7 chat (I’m not the only moderator, don’t worry, I do sleep), am a facilitator for our middle school support group (When one of our high school facilitators cannot make it, I also step into that group occasionally). I also help create and present workshops (We are currently in the process of creating a presentation for Microsoft). My other job is as a receptionist for a Veterinary Clinic. (For safety reasons, I will not be sharing which nonprofit I work at, or which veterinary clinic I work at. If, for some reason you find out where I work, please keep this information to yourself). I was diagnosed with ADHD in February, and was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder two years ago. I have lived in the USA my whole life, and was raised in a non-religious household. My extended family is mostly Christian, with a few relatives who are Norse Pagan (we are originally from Norway). I am agnostic.

The purpose of this event:

Education. That’s literally it. I’ve noticed a lot of misconceptions about the LGBT community, and want to combat that with a good ol’ fashioned Q&A.

Here are a few rules before we start:

(I do have a TL/DR at the bottom, but if you have the time, I encourage you to read the full thing)

- This is a safe space.

This means a few things: You can ask any question you like and I will not be offended. Nothing is to be taken personally, it will always be assumed that you are trying to learn, unless you’ve clearly proven otherwise. If you’re hurt by something someone (including myself) has said, you’re free and encouraged to say something about it. All identities are welcome. Everything will be tagged with appropriate content warnings (If I don't tag something you need tagged, let me know and I will happily tag it!)

- Who can participate:

Anyone wanting to learn about anything LGBT, including but not limited to:

Cisgender/heterosexual people who want to become better allies, Writers who want to learn how to be more inclusive, People questioning their gender/sexuality, literally anyone prepared to be respectful to anyone else participating

(I do want to note: this event is open to NSFW conversations. If you are uncomfortable with this, please filter the tag “adult conversations”.)

- Any question is okay to ask.

This is a space for everyone to learn, regardless of their prior knowledge. I will never get offended by a question. I will not be offended by the phrasing of a question. If I am not comfortable answering something, I will explain why, but I will not be annoyed. Part of learning is making mistakes, and I want to be courteous to that.

I am super open, so I will answer almost every question, regardless of how personal it is, with a few exceptions (see the “my boundaries” point.

Yes, this means you can ask questions that you’ve been previously told never to ask. I want to clarify though: I will make it clear when a question is inappropriate to ask in normal circumstances. Since I am telling you beforehand that it’s okay to ask personal or private questions, it is acceptable to do so in this context. However, I will always add a note explaining why you shouldn’t ask people this in other circumstances so that it’s still clear which questions I am making exceptions for.

- My boundaries

I’m not going to share identifying information. That includes: My legal name, where I live, where I work, photos of myself, etc.

I’m not going to share my deadname either, though I am willing to have conversations about deadnames themselves.

I’m not going to share what my plans for bottom surgery are. I am fine to talk about bottom surgery itself, I am fine to share where I’m at right now, and have next to no boundaries about top surgery. But I’m not going to share what my plans for whether or not I’m getting bottom surgery are.

I’ve worked as a receptionist and trans advocate for long enough that I take nothing personally. Because of this, I ask that if you need to get upset or aggressive about something related to this event, please come to me directly instead of attacking a participant. I’d rather you send me hate than sending it to someone who is trying to use this safe space as a learning opportunity. This includes if you’re frustrated with a participant. I’m happy to facilitate a healthy conversation about a disagreement, but I will not tolerate anyone attacking others.

- Hate will be blocked.

When you’re talking directly to me, I’m going to assume you’re well-intentioned. HOWEVER. If you’re directly attacking others who are involved in the conversation, you will be blocked. If you have a problem, please come to me and I will work to resolve it. Sending hate to people other than myself is in violation of the safe space.

- My intention is never to speak over anyone

I don’t know everything about every identity. As a white person, I experience white privilege. As someone who passes as male about 80% of the time, I experience male privilege. I am able-bodied. I try my very best to educate myself, but I am still learning (and always will be).

If I speak on an identity that is not my own, I will always add a note to clarify this. I will only be speaking from the stories shared with me by people who have that identity, and from the additional research I have done.

MY WORDS ARE NEVER THE ONLY TRUTH. I cannot say this enough. Don’t take my words over those of someone who uses a specific label. Even if I also use that label. Everyone experiences the world differently. My words are a STARTING POINT. Please be aware that other opinions and experiences exist. I will try my best to have resources paired with every conversation so you can further your learning, but please be aware that I cannot teach you everything.

If I don’t know the answer, I will do research as well as provide you with sources.

- No question will go unanswered

Yes, this includes questions that come across as “disrespectful”. I have said this already, but I will always assume good intentions unless it’s proven that you’re coming from a place of malice. If a question is phrased in a way that comes across as harmful in any way, I will still answer it AND explain why you should ask it differently in the future or not ask it at all going forward.

If I don’t respond within 2 hours, please message me again: I either didn’t receive it or I am still writing my response. I don’t want to miss anyone just because you think I’m ignoring you, I promise I’m not.

The ONLY time I won’t answer a question is if you’ve made it clear that you’re only here to attack the people using this safe space (I will have already asked you to leave).

- If something upsets you, don’t ignore it.

If you’re hurt by something I, or someone else said, please let me know. My intentions are never to hurt or upset anyone.

You can disagree with people, including me, as long as you’re polite about it.

If you need me to talk to someone for you, I’m happy to do so. If you want a private conversation with me, my DMs are open. If you want to stay anonymous but don’t want your questions posted, use this 🌙 emoji (or just say so), and I’ll make a post trying my best to answer your question without sharing the contents of the ask itself.

I don’t expect you to educate me as to why you’re upset by something: that’s not your responsibility, I can educate myself. I do appreciate anyone willing to talk about differing views or why something upset them, but that is not the purpose of the event and you are under no obligation to educate anyone else. I will do my research the moment someone says something bothered them.

- Please don’t weaponise my words.

Please don’t use anything said here as a way to attack people. This event is to educate people. I hope there’s nothing said here that can be manipulated to hurt people, but I didn’t want to leave this unsaid; the point of this isn’t to attack people who are uneducated, it’s to help educate them.

- Most importantly: Please come into this with a desire to learn

This event won’t be helpful if you’re determined to not learn anything. The purpose of this is to ask questions and learn something. I can’t decide for you that you want to learn. I can’t force you to learn. You have to be willing, or this may seem very pointless to you. I’m not trying to change opinions or beliefs, I’m just trying to spread a little education. If you’re unable to take my words and really think about them, this may not be the space for you, but that’s up to you to decide.

Any topic is okay!

This includes (but isn’t limited to):

- Writing LGBT characters (such as how to incorporate same-sex representation without fetishizing gay people, writing for gender-neutral or non-female readers, making content trans-friendly, etc.)

- What to do when someone you care about comes out

- Coming out

- Transition-related questions (HRT, surgery, binding/tucking, deadnames, etc.)

- Defining terms or labels you’re unfamiliar with

- Working out your feelings about something (such as something you saw in media and need to talk to someone about)

- Various laws (questions about laws may take up to 3 hours to answer, as I would have to research your particular area, depending on the question)

- Literally any other question you can think of that has to do with the LGBT community in any way, these are just some ideas off the top of my head to get y’all started.

TL;DR: This space is open to anyone, any topic, any question just please be open-minded and respectful!

(Just like my first post, I’m including tags for the Pedro fandom because I’ve seen a lot of issues within that community, but this is open to anyone that wants to participate, regardless of what interests you have.)

@phoenixhalliwell

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thisnerdsadventures · 4 years ago

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i accepted a job offer!

it’s been like four years coming, but now announcing the next adventure i will embarking on after college: i’m really excited to share that I accepted a full-time software engineering position at Stripe! (a mid-sized company focused on payment platforms, responsible for a large portion of e-commerce, chances are that if you’ve ever bought something on the internet, your money’s probably gone through Stripe) If you thought that this blog would die after I graduated, you were wrong haha you cannot get rid of my shit content

How it happened

The past few months have been a lot of interviewing (read: a lot), a lot of leetcoding, and a lot of managing timelines and emails. I actually haven’t slept through the night since like September because of my anxiety levels (which is really bad!!!!) so I’m really glad that this whole thing is over. My application season started in mid- to late- August: I had a goal of applying to one company every day, and I kept that up for a couple weeks. Going in, I kind of had a plan of what kind of companies I wanted to apply to - I was planning on taking my return offer originally, but I wanted a few more potential offers to have negotiation leverage when the time came, and I also wanted to see what was out there too. A couple places also reached out to me, so I followed up with them. All in all, I ended up pursuing 10 companies across big tech, a couple unicorns, and some finance firms.

Interview Hell

I have this grand idea of writing a really in-depth guide to how to do interviews + how to find internships + how to handle the system because there are a lot of weird tips and tricks that make it a thousand times easier to get a job, but only if you’re in the know (which is really dumb, as the industry is still pretty gate-keepy). But until then, I’ll just talk about what the interview process was like after this. So I heard back from a lot of those companies asking for what we call “online assessments”, which are basically timed coding tests where you have to code a solution to problem(s) in some x number of minutes or hours. These questions range from coding merge sort to coding a recursive dynamic programming solution to some optimization problem. A lot of companies send these out to everyone and then resume screen, and some might resume screen and then send these out. I admittedly didn’t prepare too much for these, I got pretty lucky and knew how to do most of the problems based off of the years of practice I’d had already (turns out coding every day for like 3 years is actually really good practice already).

A couple companies skipped ahead to the first round phone interview stage. After the online assessments, I got a wave of several first round interview requests, which are usually over the phone for an hour. One of them was a Karat interview, which is some third party, unbiased interview company, and all I remember from this was trying gauge how I did from the body language of my interviewer’s tiny Zoom screen, and I could tell absolutely nothing. It was nerve-wracking. One phone interview lasted for 20 minutes out of the hour it was supposed to take, and I thought I had failed on the spot. I did actually leetcode in preparation for these problems, and most of them ended up being easy - medium questions, usually simple applications with tricky twists, like implementing certain data structures from scratch with O(1) runtime methods. Most of these were early-mid September, squeezed into hour-long breaks in my day.

Final Round Hell

After all these, I ended up moving forward in all of those interviews to the final round, which are usually series of 3-4 video interviews, back to back, usually technical in nature. I thought the one hour phone screens were rough, but this was a real test of stamina. This is also where timing got really tricky for me, because I was trying to time my interviews such that any offers I got would align together in as much of an overlapping window as possible, so that I could negotiate offers a lot easier and see all my options at once.

Preparation for this was also hell - it was a lot of Leetcoding, a lot of interview research online, a lot of going over my stories. I vary between three main stories for all the possible behavioral questions people could ask me: the nonprofit project Amplify that my friends and I worked on, my intro CS class final project, and my previous internship project. In the end though, it was a Lot of leetcoding, I learned so much about graphs and searches and backtracking and DP, I cannot even tell you. I haven’t thought about topological sort since 2017. And somehow, some way, it actually came up in one of my interviews, and WOW i knocked that one out of the park.

My Stripe final round was actually one of the first ones I had way back in mid-September. It was four interviews back to back, three technical, and one more behavioral. I remember feeling generally confident, but not 100% afterwards, mostly just exhausted. Most of my on-sites were in early-mid October - I think I had six days of final interviews over 2 weeks, so I was literally about to pass out at all times. I was really looking forward to travelling this semester too for final rounds (I would’ve gone to New York, Chicago, SF/Bay, Detroit ..... sad). I also had several calls with career centers, people from different companies, recruiters, other info sessions, etc. I started out wearing nice clothes, but in the end, it was over for me - I was in sweats and a tshirt. In this two week period, I was lucky enough to grab a few offers - my return offer, but also a few offers from other companies, including Stripe, whom, at this point, I had given up all hope on, since they told me in late September that they wouldn’t know whether they’d have a spot for me. I remember getting the call back while picnicking with my friends, absolutely shocked I was in the position that I was.

Decision Sweat

At the end of the day, from the places I interviewed with, I ended up getting official offers from 5 places (1 of them being my return offer), 1 tentative offer (I think they ghosted me though because my deadline was too soon), 1 ghost (again, my deadline was too soon so I think they gave up on me), and 1 reject (that one was a really rough interview).

Let me be clear - I hate decision making. I am really bad with any sort of decisions. This process was worse than my college application decision. I’ll make a separate post in about a month or so detailing why I made the decision I made to go to Stripe instead of back to Google, but broadly it was because I wanted to try something new and take risks. It was a really hard decision because my last internship was really awesome and I loved the team I worked on, but ultimately the lack of a guarantee of returning to that team and the allure of working at a new place was too much to overcome. I talked about this every day with my friends and family and mentors, I made a whole decision matrix, but at the end of the day, I did end up flipping a coin on Facetime. Stripe was tails, and the coin flipped tails, and then I screamed and went to sleep. so that was that

I really have to thank the people in my life for bearing with me during this period - I think I must’ve been really obnoxious with how much I was talking about it, but I’m glad that they were there to hear me out every time I flipped my decision. And more generally, my friends and family were the reason I got through MIT, and did all the cool things that I talked about in my interviews and pushed me to learn and strive for the best. And most importantly, they��re the ones who celebrate my interests and accomplishments and push me to try new things. [this whole blog post is one sappy rant about how much i love my friends and how they got me to where i am ok end rant end post]

#what should i tag this now that im out of college #SWE

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galaxy-notes · 5 years ago

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may day notes re: organizing

before covid19 and perhaps before these past 2-3 years, if you were to ask me do i subscribe to one political ideology? i’d say no and just be like i’m a leftist / radical / etc. and i def fuck with anarchists, but i don’t think i am with ONE ideology, no... but now i VERY much see anarchism (which is, truth be told, marx’s original picture of ‘ideal’ communist societies) as an absolutely key piece to the type of radical movement building that’s actually gonna get us to the world we need and want.

i think the combination of covid19 + climate change is unraveling so many things for me and exposing the failure of states as a whole. i was watching INCITE’s abolitionist feminism event today, which left me with something that really stood out: one of the speakers (love them) critiqued the way mutual aid efforts could be co-opted and nonprofit-ized to suit neoliberal capitalism, and how we must hold the state responsible esp to our basic needs. and they also said (paraphrasing) we are in a constant battle between organizing against the state and holding the state accountable. i feel that.

and i’m also like, well which is it? if these states don’t serve us especially in times of crisis, then what could we possibly demand from them?

i truly believe that our ideal image of the world (an image free from oppression, centralization and domination) isn’t some far future, but something that we should be practicing now - which is what anarchists are all about - and something that actually many radical, localized movements are already doing (even if they don’t use the label anarchist* - that’s cool, too). if we don’t start now, we’ll never be able to set it into motion whenever that future arrives. but the idea that it’s something in the “far future” is untrue. for some, pieces of that future are already here. some communities are already set up with solidarity or alternative economies, indigenous folks have been practicing self-governance for ages, and movements have adopted diff practices like decentralization, mutual aid (practiced in many rad disabled/queer/trans communities and most def survivor-led, abolitionist transformative justice groups), radical healing, survival skill sharing and consensus decision-making. getting involved in local movement ecosystems shows us that anarchism isn’t something “pie in the sky,” it’s actually a way of being in the truest forms of community with each other - as independent of the state and interdependent with each other as much as possible.

we are at an unprecedented time and a crisis. we are facing existential threats that we’ve never faced before. we need to radically shift our organizing in a way that meets what we’re up against - not just climate change, covid19 and the start of a series of economic collapses, but fascism at its peak, including increased militarization, advanced weaponry and surveillance tech that is most definitely going to used (and strengthened) against the most vulnerable among us. the surveillance state, the carceral state, the billionaires, and corporate conglomerates may have been resourced and preparing for years, but the rest of us... we are, altogether, very unprepared for this.

we cannot return to the world the way it was before. we cannot be waiting on a political savior to come and rescue us. we cannot turn to the government and beg that they give us basic human rights. we cannot be demanding (which is still asking for permission) corporations and negotiate through meetings and achieve wins after campaigning for months or even years. we cannot continue to simply rely on unions or ask for more jobs when that doesn’t get to the core of what is denying us the things we need to survive + thrive as full human beings. we do not have time to wait for policymakers and politicians and legislature to pass proposals because this planet is not waiting for us. we need to let go of old models of organizing and begin prioritizing forms of direct action organizing that gets the goods directly and immediately from the source, and most importantly, does not ask nor wait for permission. we need to see ourselves (evolve) in a new way: as leaders and decision-makers of our own lives and communities. fully autonomous with strong, adaptive networks of support.

we needed to fucking end the carceral state, yesterday. we needed to end poverty, yesterday. we needed to get folks into safe houses and into communities of care and support, yesterday. folks who don’t have houses, folks who are in abusive ones, folks occupied and surveillled daily by law enforcement and the US military, folks in prisons and detention centers represent some of the most vulnerable members in our communities. if we do not abolish the state and all its institutions that make these conditions possible for the *most marginalized,* we will end up with a reform “movement” disguised as a “revolution” led by liberals and well-meaning leftists. and the result? continued state violence. the difference? new institutions that provide “band-aid” solutions, but unfortunately set up to allow the exact same forms of violence again, enacted and shadow-led by white supremacists, war criminals and monsters like jeff b*zos. we need to completely redefine “wealth” so that billionaires don’t even get the slightest chance to emerge victorious, where global capitalism is fully abolished - and that starts with creating alternative ways of living and being with one another.

i am feeling a great sense of urgency to get together, thoroughly learn what is coming for us and what is already here, and engage in deep strategy. this requires us to plan how we create and further alternative systems of living + continue to engage in direct action organizing that supports a diversity of tactics and fundamentally challenges what or who is legal/illegal.

as an immigrant/settler on colonized grounds, i recognize how decolonization will be (and always has been) at the center of this upcoming shift. as someone whose family and ancestors were not forced captive and stolen from their homelands to be exploited on stolen land, i am aware that if indigenous (+black) folks want me off, i am ready to pack my bags and go. (edit: in re-reading this after having learned about indigenous sovereignty and what that looks like, this does not make much sense as the land does not “belong” to people, at least not in the way we currently perceive of land ownership under colonial conditions). if not, indigenous leadership (across borders) must be at the forefront when it comes to how to we restore our relationship to this land, with ourselves and with each other. although not indigenous (in nepali terms) myself, i am prepared to bring in my people’s own ancestral knowledge of the land and community healing to uplift this practice. i am also prepared to bring in my personal reflections, including everything i learned from experiences with my family and my childhood to newfound knowledge and wisdom i have (and am currently) building up through mentor- and community-based relationships where i am.

we are faced with a unique moment we could not have predicted, and this requires us to open our mind to every radical possibility.

there is no going back.

*especially important to note if communities don’t use the term ‘anarchist’ because they have their own definition of how they exist and relate to one another independent of the state

#anarchism #communism #movement building #may day #grassroots organizing #labor movement #liberation #revolution #post #long post

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edogawatranslations · 6 years ago

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Project Announcement - Danganronpa Kirigiri: Volume 3

Danganronpa Kirigiri: Volume 3

Story: Takekuni Kitayama Illustrations: Rui Komatsuzaki

English Translation: Kyu

A new project has begun! I’ll be translating Volume 3 of the Danganronpa Kirigiri light novel series, a canonical spinoff of the Danganronpa murder mystery visual novel series created by Kazutaka Kodaka. This novel series centers on Kyoko Kirigiri’s background as a detective, and is written by Takekuni Kitayama, a mystery novelist who served as a co-writer for Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. Six novels have been published between 2013-2018, and Volume 3 was published on November 28, 2014.

“Wait, wait, wait. Why Volume 3? Don’t Volumes 1 and 2 exist?”

Good question! I have a couple of reasons for jumping straight into Volume 3.

There’s a great translation of Volume 1 out there that’s about 95% complete, which would be the best place to start. At least one person has translated the remaining 5%, so there’s not much left to contribute. (Edit: A full PDF can be found here.)

Summaries for part of Volume 2 are available, though admittedly woefully incomplete. A summary of the first few sections of the novel can be found on the DR Wiki, and summaries of the the last chapter can be found on Tumblr. That still leaves much of the novel unaccounted for. However, at least one person has announced their intent to translate Volume 2, so I figured my efforts would be better directed towards Volume 3. (Edit: A translation project for Volume 2 has begun here as of July 6, 2019.)

I’m more familiar with Volume 3, having read it just a few weeks ago, as opposed to Volume 2 a number of months ago. Volume 3 also sets up the plot/conflict for Volumes 4-5 as well, as opposed to Volume 2, which is more of a standalone mystery novel (though it does have character development and a few major reveals for the series). Personally, I’m more fond of the overarching plot of Volumes 3-5 than I am of Volume 2. Volume 3 does start off a little slow, but I felt I would enjoy translating it more. Volume 2 is also much longer than Volume 3.

For those wishing to read the full novels in order, I won’t push you to read on—I highly recommend reading or familiarizing yourself with Volume 2 before diving into Volume 3, even if that means waiting for another fan translation project. I simply wanted to launch this project for those itching for English translations of additional parts of the Danganronpa canon, especially those who are already familiar with the plot of the novels.

A couple of notes:

1. At the very least, I recommend having played/watched Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, and having read the fan translation for Volume 1 before reading Volume 3. While nothing major is explicitly spoiled, being familiar with the series is a definite plus.

2. This novel does spoil parts of Volume 2. While the intricacies of the case (the murder trick, culprit, etc.) aren’t explicitly touched upon, Volume 3 does name some of the victims from Volume 2, and, more importantly, it spoils the big plot reveal at the end of the novel—the head of the Crime Victims’ Salvation Committee. If you are fine with these spoilers, carry on! If anything from Volume 2 is needed to fully understand a scene, I’ll include pertinent information in footnotes.

3. Some of the terms/names I will be using may differ from those used in the fan translation of Volume 1. Some translation decisions I have made for this project include:

Names will be written in western order (e.g., Kyoko Kirigiri, Yui Samidare).

The organization at the center of the series (犯罪被害者救済委員会) will be referred to as the “Crime Victims’ Salvation Committee,” or simply “the Committee.”

I will not be including honorifics. In the original text, Kyoko refers to Yui as Yui-oneesama, and Yui refers to Kyoko as Kirigiri-chan (or simply as Kirigiri in narration). In my translation, these will be rendered as “Yui” and “Kyoko” respectively in most situations (or simply removed), unless I feel some other term is more appropriate.

Anything else worth noting will be mentioned in footnotes throughout the text.

4. I’ll be tackling this project a bit more loosely than 999: Alterna. While the original meaning of the text will be preserved, I will endeavor to express things more creatively and stylistically for a more enjoyable reading experience.

5. Unlike 999: Alterna, this project will not have a regular release schedule, at least in the beginning. I will aim to post multiple updates every month, but things are subject to change based on my availability. For notifications or announcements, feel free to follow me on Twitter (@TanteiKyu), where I’ll be tweeting in advance of project updates.

6. The novel is divided into five chapters. I will find natural stopping points for each project update, while also trying to keep all updates similar in length. If you prefer shorter/more frequent updates instead of longer/less frequent updates, please let me know!

7. Disclaimer: None of the rights to Danganronpa Kirigiri belong to me. This is a nonprofit fan-based project.

8. Enjoy, share, and follow! Start from Chapter 1, Part 1 or the Table of Contents!

~Kyu

#danganronpa #dr kirigiri #kirigiri #danganronpa kirigiri #translation #light novel #novel

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nyfacurrent · 5 years ago

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Don’t Miss A Deadline | Find and Track Applications

How to find and manage application deadlines to support your creative practice.

For most working artists, the path to completing a project means one thing: submitting applications. It is rare to be able to fund a project through a single source, which means you will probably find yourself applying to a wide variety of resources, including exhibition or publication opportunities, open calls, fellowships, developmental labs, and/or residences, among other grants over the course of your career. That’s a lot of deadlines! While the number of applications may seem daunting, the work becomes more manageable when you break it out over time as part of a consistent routine.

This post will walk you through several strategies to help you find and manage application deadlines—from developing a routine to creating and updating a submissions calendar and database with a free template to download. You’ll need the time saved to write the applications, follow up with fellow artists and/or potential supporters, and most importantly, do what you are meant to do: create.

Develop a routine to work on the business side of your creative practice

What does it mean to work on the business side of your creative practice? This phrase refers to any activity outside of creating work that moves your career forward. Activities may include creating a portfolio website and launching a digital marketing plan, following up with professional contacts you met at an opening or industry event, and for the purposes of this specific post, finding and tracking applications.

The amount of time you spend working on applications will be based on a number of factors and existing responsibilities, including where you are in your creative work as well as any job(s) you hold outside of being an artist and/or caretaking duties, and will most likely fluctuate over time. It’s important to set aside dedicated time in your calendar for the work of building an artistic career so it becomes a routine. Be ambitious but realistic in your goal-setting.

Finding opportunities

You can search for most artist awards and programs online through national resources, such as NYFA Source or NYFA Opportunities & Services; the newly-developed search platform, Rivet; and the Alliance for Artist Communities Residency Directory as well as discipline-specific resources such as Common Field, Poets & Writers, or Theatre Communications Group. In addition to following your local arts council, there are a number of regional nonprofits that compile deadlines and share them with their followers, such as Chicago Artist Coalition, FreshArts in Houston, and the Leeway Foundation in Philadelphia.

Many organizations use the online platform Submittable for grant applications or ongoing submissions. With a free account, you can use Submittable to track your current and previous applications and discover new opportunities based on your previous submissions. We still recommend creating your own submissions databases as explained below. In addition to using online directories, you should always check the funding credits and acknowledgments of projects, books, or performances of artists whom you admire, particularly if their work is similar in style to your own. In addition to signing up for key organizations’ mailing lists and following them on social media, you can set up free Google alerts for grant announcements that you are particularly drawn to.

Application tracking

As you delve into your research, you will quickly find that your list of potential grant applications is not only long, but that the deadlines are spread out throughout the year, and in some cases, the deadlines may be as much as 2-3 years away depending on organizational grant cycles. It is for these reasons that we recommend two tools to aid in your applications: (1) a grants calendar and (2) a submissions database.

Most recurrent grants are offered at approximately the same time each year. If the deadline hasn’t yet been announced and you can’t find information online, reach out to the institution to confirm that the timing hasn’t changed. Once you have a sense of the timing, set a reminder for yourself at least two months before the expected deadline to check the application requirements and begin working on your proposal. If the deadline hasn’t been announced at this point, adjust the reminder to two weeks ahead, and keep changing it as necessary. For applications that require materials or sign-off from other sources, such as letters of recommendation or partner agreements, you’ll need more than two months to work on them.

What should you use to set your application reminders? There are a variety of free task management tools, such as Asana, Todoist, or the iPhone Reminders app, that all enable you to create a task and receive an alert on your phone and/or email at a specific date and time. Alternatively, you can mark both the application deadlines and 1-2 months prior to the deadline either in your paper calendar or your online calendar as events with notifications. If you don’t check a calendar regularly, you can pre-schedule an email to yourself with a reminder about the application.

In addition to a grants calendar, we highly recommend creating and maintaining a submissions database using either Excel or Google Sheets, which is offered for free up to 15 GB. This database will enable you to quickly view the status of all your applications as well as provide an overview of eligibility requirements for upcoming deadlines.

Suggested fields to include in your submissions database are:

Organization Name

Application Deadline: note that rolling applications accept submissions year-round

Contact Information: website is often sufficient, but you may want to include a mailing address or program officer name

Application Type: online app, mail, open submissions, project proposal

Type of Opportunity: grant, residency, publication, or educational program

Amount of Award: cash grant, stipend, and other benefits

Status of Application: submitted, awarded, passed

Eligibility Requirements: location, discipline, or other demographics specific to the grant, such as gender or ethnicity. This is also where you would include key characteristics of the grant’s intended audience and scope, such as grants for social practice, public service components, and/or environmental concerns. You might consider creating separate fields for these categories as your entries grow.

Applications Requirements: resume, portfolio, cover letter, etc. You could include each requirement as a separate field and mark an X as you check off each item or you could note key requirements that require advance planning, such as letters of recommendation.

You can download our submissions database template for free using this link, selecting “File,” and then selecting either “Make a copy” or “Download.”

What’s left? Applying! This step is, of course, what you should spend the bulk of your project planning time working on, and with these simple strategies for finding and tracking applications, we hope you now have more time to do exactly that.

- Maria Villafranca, NYFA Coach and Consultant

You can find more articles on arts career topics by visiting the Business of Art section of NYFA’s website. Looking for more application tips? Check our "The Art of the Application" blog series. Sign up for NYFA News and receive artist resources and upcoming events straight to your inbox.

Image: Kwesi Abbensetts (Fellow in Photography ‘16), A Kind of Masking 2, 2015

#business of art #businessofart #application tips #applicationtips #time management #timemanagement #nyfa coach #nyfacoach #nyfa coaching #nyfacoaching #maria villafranca #mariavillafranca #instagram #announcements

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years ago

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Tech trustbusting's moment has arrived

When it's railroading time, you get railroads.

When the railroads turn into the personal satrapies of rail-barons, you get trustbusters.

A couple decades ago, it was online service time. We had the users, the telcoms systems, the computers, the modems, so we got platforms.

We had that, but we lacked something important: effective antimonopoly enforcement. Lax merger laws allowed companies with access to capital markets to buy out or neutralize all their competitors, so we got monopolies.

Right on schedule, we're getting digital trustbusters.

Now, some people aren't technically sophisticated, but they do understand a lot about competition law. That's how you get meat-and-taters antitrust proposals like Amy Klobuchar's CALERA, which address the structural problems with antitrust law.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/06/calera/#fuck-bork

Klobuchar's bill is hugely important. The reason we have monopolies is that we stopped enforcing anti-monopoly law 40 years ago. Monopoly isn't a tech problem, it's everywhere from sneakers to glass bottles to pro wrestling to candy to aerospace.

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

Klobuchar's CALERA doesn't just seek to apply antitrust law to tech – it also explicitly restores the pre-Reagan basis for fighting monopolies: we fight monopolies because they concentrate power and corrupt our politics. All monopolies are guilty unless proven otherwise.

But though industries all attained their monopolies through similar tactics – predatory acquisitions and mergers, vertical integration – they also each have their own technical characteristics that must inform our demonopolization tactics.

Take emergency care: monopolists love ERs because we don't choose which ER to use, nor when. You can't shop for an ER from the back of an ambulance. You don't know going in whether you're going to spend $1m or $1k. And you'll buy whatever services the ER tells you to buy.

Or power-grids: demand for electricity is both inelastic (you need power when you need power) and price-insensitive, and that inelasticity increases with demand: that is, when it's freezing or boiling out, everyone wants electricity.

Tech, of course, has its own technical characteristics. Chief among these is its flexibility. At a deep, theoretical level our digital tools and networks are capable of interoperating with one another in ways that no physical technologies can match.

Think of the Australian rail-system. In the mid-19th century, would-be rail-barons laid differing gauges in hopes of conquering the nation's logistics and transport. For 150+ years, engineers have tried to solve the "multi-gauge muddle" by designing multi-system railcars.

Hundreds of designs for cars that retract and extrude different wheelbases have been tried, and none ever caught on. Instead, Australia is tearing up and re-laying thousands of kilometers' worth of track. With physical tech, "compatibility" often means starting from scratch.

Not so with digital tech. If you are an OS company whose rival has locked up all office docs in a proprietary format, you don't have to convince all its customers to abandon their documents and start over. You just make a compatible program:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

With digital and physical tech, network effects drive high switching costs, but when it comes to digital, network effects are a double-edged sword.

With interoperability, a walled garden can easily become a feed-lot, where customers for a new service are neatly arrayed for competitors to come and harvest.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/01/twitter-and-interoperability-some-thoughts-peanut-gallery

Good tech policy emphasizes interoperability when it comes to demonopolizing the digital world. Long before the US ACCESS Act and the EU Digital Markets Act, Mike Masnick published his seminal "Protocols, Not Platforms" paper.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/01/twitter-and-interoperability-some-thoughts-peanut-gallery

And Daphne Keller's work on "Magic APIs" presaged the ACCESS Act's idea of forcing tech companies to expose the APIs they use internally so that competitors can plug into their services:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200901/13524045226/if-lawmakers-dont-like-platforms-speech-rules-heres-what-they-can-do-about-it-spoiler-options-arent-great.shtml

(that paper is outstanding, BTW, with clear-eyed assessments of alternatives, like a digital fairness doctrine, "common carriage" rules, an "indecency" standard for content moderation – basically a checklist for "So you've got a plan to fix tech – did you think of ____?")

Masnick's "protocols" are a vision for a decentralized, better internet. Keller's Magic APIs describe a legal path to getting there. My own work on Competitive Compatibility (nee Adversarial Interoperability) describes how we'll STAY there.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Because monopolies are good at subverting regulation, so any Magic API rule would be brittle – dependent on the tech companies not sabotaging those APIs by moving the important data-flows away from the mandatory APIs.

That's why we have to strip monopolists of the power to ask a court to block interoperators: take away the wildly distorted copyright, patent, terms of service and other legal doctrines that Big Tech ignored during its ascent, but now enforces against would-be competitors.

With both interop mandates and a legal right for new entrants to force interoperability through technical means, tech giants will face consequences if they subvert antimonopoly rules.

The choice becomes: either respect the intent of a mandate and preserve interop; or be plunged into a chaotic arms-race with competitors who switch to scraping, bots, and reverse-engineering.

All of this is incredibly wonkish, a highly specialized debate that involves highly technical propositions about how digital technology works today, how it used to work and how it might work – layered atop a similar, highly technical understanding of antitrust law.

The Venn overlap of "deep understanding of digital tech" and "deep understanding of antitrust debates" isn't so much a slice as it is a sphincter, and the debate has been equally narrow, but when it's railbaron time, you get trustbusters.

The tech monopoly/interop debate is going mainstream. Francis Fukuyama and his colleagues at the Stanford Working Group on Platform Scale have proposed an intervention similar to the ACCESS Act, where trusted third parties mediate between monopolists, new entrants and users.

The Stanford proposal calls them "middleware companies," but they're conceptually interchangeable with the idea of a "data fiduciary": companies that act as referees when a new co-op, startup or nonprofit wants to plug into a monopolist's service.

https://pairagraph.com/dialogue/4124f75013da40038c4cbff5ebdaaa51/3

This is clearly an idea whose time has come – it's present in the EU's DMA and the US Access Act, and latent in the UK CMA report:

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/online-platforms-and-digital-advertising-market-study#final-report

Importantly, it's an approach that recognizes the distinctive character of tech – taking account of the power of interop to break open walled gardens and unravel network effects.

What's especially interesting about this work is that it appears to have been developed in parallel to pre-existing work from Masnick and Keller (and me) – it's a case of convergence between the tech-policy world and the broader world of policy.

After all, while Masnick and Keller's work is well known inside of tech policy, that's just our obscure, nerdy corner of the policy world – now they're escaping that corner, becoming self-evident to people from traditional policy backgrounds.

https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2020/article/capitalisn-t-francis-fukuyama-s-proposal-rein-big-tech

My hope is that the trend continues – that we see ideas about Competitive Compatibility/Adversarial Interop join the idea of API mandates, so that we produce durable anti-monopoly systems, not just anti-monopoly rules.

Most important, though, is restoring an appreciation for the importance of interoperability in preventing monopolies and promoting technological self-determination for communities and individuals.

Because such a sensibility can escape the legislative world and be enacted via fast-moving, easier-to-use policy tools. For example, we could (should!) make interop a feature of all government procurement rules.

No school district should buy devices for students without securing the right to sideload the apps they need on them – imagine buying 50,000 Ipads at public expense and then having Apple boot the app you rely on out of the App Store!

Likewise, no district should buy Google Classroom without securing a legally binding guarantee not to block interoperators who want to integrate other ed-tech services into the curriculum, with or without Google's cooperation.

Procurement and interop are as old as the Civil War, when the Union Army demanded firearms and ammo that had multiple manufacturers. As the state-level Net Neutrality rules (which bar governments from using non-neutral ISPs) showed us, procurement can shape markets.

Procurement is just for starters. Right now, tech companies caught breaking the law are handed down fines that are less than the profits their lawbreaking generated – instead, we could demand interop as part of any settlement.

One major barrier to interop is contract law: terms of service, EULAs, noncompetes, arbitration, etc. States wield enormous power over contracting terms: states can declare certain contractual language against public policy and thus unenforceable.

If, say, California were to pass a rule nullifying the mountain of abusive garbage that has become standard in digital "contracts," it would be in a position to export fair usage terms to the country in just the same way it exports robust emissions standards.

Antittrust is primarily a federal manner (that's why 40 years of federal antitrust malpractice has been such a disaster). But every level of government, down to your local school board, can make a meaningful difference in tech antitrust.

Digital technology's inescapable, marvellous, terrifying flexibility can be translated into so many unique, powerful weapons for transforming the industry and empowering communities to control their digital lives and seize the means of computation.

#pluralistic

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princetomas · 6 years ago

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- ̗̀✰ •【 ARMIE HAMMER / CISMALE / 30 】announcing the arrival of his royal highness, ( TOMAS DAIMEN ), the ( CROWN PRINCE ) of ( SPAIN ). I’ve heard that he is ( OVERLY PROTECTIVE ) & ( INSECURE ) but can also be ( PATIENT ) & ( LOVING ). ( TOMAS ) is arranged to marry ( ROCHELLE ROWE ). Rumor has it ( HE SUFFERS FROM PANIC ATTACKS AND IS SCARED HE CANNOT BE THE STABLE LEADER HIS COUNTRY NEEDS ). We hope you enjoy your stay at London!【 OOC: riley, 19, est, she/her 】

wassup everyone its riley w her second muse how did this happen. anyway get ready for a whole lotta protective mama bear here w tommy! as usual a (shorter, but still) long intro under the cut !!! ( tw: anxiety. )

BACKSTORY !

tomás mattéo daimen was the firstborn son of the king and queen of spain. from a young age, he realized what this meant, what responsibility he was meant to bear. he was never particularly excited to rule, but he never shied away from the challenge either.

he was raised as royals did: was tutored until he was old enough to go to boarding school, then oxford to study politics, philosophy and economics, then back to spain to work under his father, following his footsteps.

he had a great relationship with his parents: tommy was ever-curious about the inner workings of politics and social relations, but more importantly, he wanted to learn the ropes so he could feel prepared for when his time would come.

he was always well-liked by his peers and by other royals. he was always polite, very charming, and knew how to strike conversation no matter the country or person. to put it short, his parents and tutored raised him well to become their leader some day.

he absolutely adores his siblings; because his parents were often away for one conference or another, he often had to ‘take care’ of his siblings growing up. he has a great relationship with them, and is always on the lookout for them, always putting them and their interests before himself and his own.

he takes his role as the crown prince seriously, wanting to be both pragmatic but also personable. he often made visits to local communities, partnered with national and international nonprofits, and was always, always smiling. the people of spain adore him, and the question of his future partner has always been a hot topic.

tommy believes that the summit is important, that history has set a precedent for what works and what doesn’t, and most of all, he wants to make his parents and his country proud -- his hesitation comes from the fact that he is scared his siblings will not find true love. as for him, he knows his duties.

as for his secret, he had always kind of repressed the pressure of leading a country until one point, when he was sixteen, he snapped. the emotions that he had chose to ignore had all piled up and overwhelmed him at once. he hasn’t exactly worked on this yet, for he was never brave enough to tell his parents what was feeling -- in fact, in the back of his head, he just kind of assumed it was a normal pressure, and maybe he was just below-average at dealing with these kinds of stressors. he experiences panic attacks f

in addition, although he generally deals with pressure eventually, he has put a lot of pressure on himself: to be a perfect son, a perfect crown prince, a perfect student, a perfect brother, and now a perfect husband. in his idealistic mind, he’d love to meet and fall in love with his betrothed, and he will certainly try to make her -- along with his siblings and their betrothals.

PERSONALITY !

tommy, simply put, has a heart of gold. he wants everyone he meets to succeed, wants everyone to be happy. he sees the best in people, and is probably overly-optimistic about people he meets. that said, because he is used to people being real to him, he may not see through pessimism or sarcasm.

he is incredibly protective of the people he loves. he’ll bring the gloves out. for sure.

he is emotional, sensitive, but can’t really control his emotions sometimes. if he gets too angry or sad, he will probably excuse himself from a room to let out his emotions by like, crying into a pillow or something or taking a long shower.

wasn’t really the clubbing or partying type, but rather the bar-and-conversation type. he frequented bars in university, but never really let himself lose control. he liked to joke around, play pool, but never did he indulge himself in anything harder than a cigarette or a joint. he says it’s because he prefers to be able to actually meet people and talk to them.

TIDBITS !

he wants not only to be a ruler of the people, but to be equal with his betrothed. f me up i just watched him play marty ginsburg for crying out loud. he has seen how his parents have worked so seamlessly together, never missing a beat by keeping each other in the loop of everything, and dreams of having a similar life.

probably wants a lot of kids just because he loves all of his siblings, and wants to see his own children love and protect each other.

he is pretty smart, always doing well in school -- another added pressure he put upon himself. he’s well-read, and loves to learn.

was a rower in high school and in college. he liked it because it was one of the one times he could really clear his head and focus on something other than his political and familial pressures.

is learning how to play the piano: since rowing isn’t exactly super practical or accessible, tommy feels he needs to focus his energy into something creative where he can just let his mind run free for thirty minutes a day. he isn’t the next mozart by any means, but he’s pretty decent.

POTENTIAL PLOTS !

best friends; someone who he’s probably known for a while, maybe one of the only people who knows of his anxiety and his panic attacks. they probably know exactly how to calm him down, how to cheer him up, etc. tommy is extremely protective of them.

childhood friends; people who tommy is also very protective of, bc all royals surely met at some point growing up. they’ve kept in touch over the years and they may be considered ‘extended siblings’ of tommy’s fam :’)

university friends: people who are +/- 3 years of 30 years old who also attended oxford at the same time tommy did. they probably bonded over the fact that they were royals, maybe frequented bars together and did other crazy shenanigans. { bonus: they dated or hooked up dot dot dot }

exes: he’s a romantic, but always knew the eventual duty that he had to his family and his country. i’m sure that there was one point where he tried to fall in love with someone royal, someone who his parents would accept as his spouse, and maybe they did find love. it could likely have been tommy’s anxiety and panic attacks, his fear that he wasn’t good enough for them, that lead to their breakup. they could be on weird terms, good terms, bad terms, literally anything ok. additionally, if they dated for a while / were public, the spanish people probably really rooted for their relationship.

‘bad influence’: in the most wholesome way possible lmao. someone who drags tommy out for an adventure sometimes, to get him to let loose.

ANYTHING LITERALLY certified #plot #ho™ so just hmu on im or discord OR LIKE THIS POST AND I’LL COME TO YOU, i live for angst mkay thanks for coming to my ted talk

#buckingham:intro #intro post.#tw.#tw: anxiety

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wellesleyunderground · 6 years ago

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WU Young Alum Guidebook: Friends pt 2

In our second part in our series on adult friendship, we get some practical advice from alums on how to keep in touch and how to bow out of a friendship with grace

“As far as keeping in touch with my W friends, I must confess I am not the best with this. I do my very best to reach out to people when I can and coordinate dinners/coffee with people who live nearby, but time slips away from me easily. As I realize more and more that I've let these friendships slip, I've made more efforts to reach out lately and reconnect with people. I've made new friends through my grad program, but even they are hard to keep in touch with/see during challenging rotations. I have a GroupMe chat with a few of them, which has been especially helpful since we have dispersed to all corners of the country. I have also joined a volunteer organization which has helped give me a more focused avenue for making friends of similar interests, because I am not excellent at just cold-talking to people and sparking connections. Basically, I've come to recognize that it's not always easy to maintain one set of people who you see regularly, but doing my best to maintain all my connections to those nearby has helped me avoid feeling too at a loss.”

-Anon ‘15, Health Sciences graduate student

“First, acknowledge that it is hard and everyone is awkward. I learned that I easily talk myself out of plans that involve leaving my apartment, so now I just throw watchparties at my place. I'll bake cookies, order pizza, and we'll all watch whatever new Christmas Prince Calendar Tree Son of Santa nonsense Netflix released that year. Pay attention to patterns: what people consistently make you feel good? which do you find yourself censoring around? You don't have to stick with people out of habit, or the fear of being alone.”

-Jessica Sirizzotti ‘10, Content Strategist, Financial Technology

“I think the biggest thing for me in the last few years as my friends have entered in more serious 'adult' relationships, gotten engaged/married, moved away etc. is really coming to terms with the changing nature of my friendships as a 30+ single, childfree person. In my opinion, friendship in our society plays second fiddle to romantic relationships at a certain point which is understandable but also unfortunate for some of us, particularly those without close knit nuclear families. The advice I would give to younger alums is to not take for granted the close proximity you may have with friends now or the amount of time you spend emailing/calling/texting one another and also to anticipate how distance and the different seasons in one's life affect friendship. Be prepared to make use of volunteer or community work for social outlets, if not necessarily close intimate relationships. Most importantly, especially for us perpetually single folx, learn how be your own friend - take yourself out to the movies, travel or dine solo, go to that museum exhibit on your own. When you're able to connect with friends, enjoy it with the understanding that it might not be a regular thing. I think staying busy and finding ways to meet and engage with like-minded individuals are major keys in maybe making friends but at a minimum staving off loneliness and isolation.”

-Anon ‘09, Higher Education Administration

“I have found that some friendships don't become any less real if you don't talk every day. There are friends in different cities that I've seen maybe once in the past year and a half, but when I have seen them it's like no time has passed at all. I think the key to this is being comfortable and secure in those friendships and knowing they'll be there even if you don't communicate super regularly. I also like to send letters to friends; I find this lets them know I'm still thinking about them even if we haven't talked recently, and that lines of communication are still open no matter what.

In terms of making friends outside of Wellesley, I've tried to find groups that align with my interests, like social justice orgs or identity/affinity groups where I can meet people that might have something in common with me. It's definitely not easy and it's taken me more than a year to feel like I've made some truly good friends outside of my W friends, but it does happen!”

-Anon ‘17, Nonprofit/Arts Administration

We received so many wonderful responses on this topic that we are releasing them in two more installments. Check back soon for more W insights!

#Wellesley #underground #WU #Wellesley Underground #adulthood #friendships #guidebook

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mensusaonlinestore1 · 2 years ago

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WHAT EXACTLY YOU NEED TO CHECK IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR BEST LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Before you know what qualities or things that you must look if you are looking for the best leadership program then you need to know the leadership 1st.

Leadership is actually ability of a person who shows the way to others. A leader is not a businessman. A leader is not the people who just produces jobs or give services etc. A leader is always look for the best thing that a society for its employees for the country and so on.

Most importantly a leader innovates. He would work silently behind every innovation. No big changes made by a people but a group of people do work behind a revolution.

New age leadership is the company based in India but working hard to make leaders for the society, country and so on.

Before I say something reader should aware of the following statistics –

- 42% CEO think diversity and inclusion would be different

- The nonprofit and charitable organizations need the leadership the most and leaders are trusted the most their

- 17% people said that empathy is the quality that every leader needs the most while 15% people said humility is the quality that leaders need most. While only 7% people said self awareness is the quality that a leader need the most while 7% need the ability to listen

- 3 out of 4 employees want their leaders to be effective , transparent communication

And so many more.

WHAT EXACTLY NEW AGE LEADERSHIP DO ?

New age leadership do make leaders. But don’t get confused leaders does not made in factories.

We do offer various courses like – executive leadership coaching in order to make the great videos for companies.

We do help normal people to become a leader and a leader in his domain and also train them to have the best qualities out there often to assist with questions like –

ü How do you find the best executive coach?

ü What qualities should have an executive coach?

ü From educational point of view, what should be his qualification?

ü How do you challenge coaches?

ü Things you need to know before you enter in any leadership development coaching program

Now I am going to tell you what things you must keep in mind while you are going to buy or going to learn leadership development coaching classes –

ü How to manage the time and efficiency perfectly for your businesses?

ü How do make your skills so that it grantee and do measurable leadership growth for all and yourself?

ü How to make your business that cost effective ?

Etc and so on..

we at New Age leadership delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth. It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents). It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.

Marshall Goldsmith’s leadership development coaching program is the largest leadership coaching program with over 3000 coaches in 55 countries. We have used this process with leaders in a large variety of companies (across companies, across countries, across cultures, across industries) to deliver measurable leadership growth. In fact, we are so confident that this process works – we often work with our clients on a no-growth no pay basis. What does it mean? If you hire us for your leadership development program, we will deliver measurable leadership growth – not as judged by the coach, or by the leader, but as anonymously rated by the leader’s team members!

Leadership development impacts all kinds of organizations – profit, non-profit, social, or political. It is the best lever available to make a positive impact on organizations and society at large. My hobbies include reading, writing, traveling, and connecting with people from all walks of life.

I help leaders & teams create EXTRAORDINARY & SUSTAINABLE RESULTS. GUARANTEED. I am a leadership and team coach certified by Marshall Goldsmith – World’s number One Leadership Thinker!

If you do have any questions regarding our services or classes you can ask us any questions, we would love to you answer for all of our questions out there.

Or visit our social media channels for best updates.

#coaching #development #leadership #executive #learning #business

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