#and once i get through some of the major east asian things on my list? probably southeast asia and the middle east and such.

[virtual-idoll]

i think im gonna watch some videos about like. imperial chinese harems tonight because i deserve it.

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

Insinuation 2.2 Live Reactions

(This is me, writing reactions as I read, because why the fuck not. They're not complete, mature thoughts taken after I sit back and evaluate what I've read. Consider them as such)

While I wouldn't say any of the word count is wasted, per se, I do think that for all that 1.6 million words is impressive... did it really need to be 1.6 million words? 2.1 felt like 75% space filler tbh.

The go-to place for news and discussion on capes was Parahumans Online.  The front page had constant updates on recent, international news featuring capes.  From there, I could go to the wiki, where there was information on individual capes, groups and events, or to the message boards, which broke down into nearly a hundred sub-boards, for specific cities and capes.  I opened the wiki in one tab, then found and opened the message board for Brockton Bay in another.

There are many advantages to letting your characters properly use the internet.

I had the sense that either Tattletale or Grue were the leader of the group I had run into.

Tattletale, really, seems like.

“This article is a stub.  Be a hero and help us expand it.” 

*snort* Jesus christ, that feels too real.

The only new information for me was that her costume was lavender.  A search of the message boards turned up absolutely nothing.  There wasn’t even a hint as to what her power was

And yet sometimes even the internet fails in the face of people just not being worth noticing yet.

 Rachel Lindt had never made any real attempt to hide her identity.  She had apparently been homeless through most of her criminal career, just living on the streets and moving on whenever police or a cape came after her. 

I am somehow both shocked and not at all surprised she's managed to pull this off.

Monsters the size of a car, all muscle, bone, fang and claw. 

Half the time fanfics seem to almost imply the end up with Scales and shit too?

At the very bottom of the page was a list of links that were related to her:  two fansites 

Bitch has Fansites? Why am I actually surprised?

He was estimated to have forty or fifty thugs working for him across Brockton Bay,

I feel like this is an issue of Wildbow not having enough sense of the scale. The Bay has three main gangs, E88, ABB and the Merchants, and 40-50 seems way too small to be a player.

but Lung had made it a mission to conquer and absorb every gang with Asian members and many without.  Once he had the manpower he needed, the non-Asian gangs were cannibalized for assets, their members discarded.  Even though there were no more major gangs in the east end of town to absorb, he was still recruiting zealously.

And yet... he still only has 40-50?

He could teleport, but when he did so, he didn’t disappear.  As he teleported, his original self, for lack of a better term, would stay where it was and remain active for five to ten seconds before disintegrating into a cloud of carbon ash.  Essentially, he could create another version of himself anywhere nearby, while the old version could stick around long enough to distract or attack you.

One thing I love about Worm is that even when someone has a 'normal' power, like teleporting, they can't actually have a normal power. it's always some extra level of bullshit. :rofl:

 By all rights, I should have been angry that Armsmaster took the credit for the fight that could have cost me my life.

I mean, you did tell him he could. And really, it's more complicated than that.

Buuut, on the other hand... yeah, I get it. She's still just 15, and 15 y/os are allowed to bounce their perspectives around.

I was given pause by one post that asked whether Bakuda could or would use a large scale bomb and the threat of potentially thousands or hundreds of thousands dead, to ransom Lung back.

That, I think, is called Foreshadowing

If it happened, it would be the responsibility of heroes better and more experienced than I.

Who are you and what have you done with Taylor "I'll take over the city and run it RIGHT" Herbert? :P :rofl:

It was meaningful, though.  I couldn’t interpret it any other way; Tattletale had found a way to get in contact with me.

Probably because her power suggested it was likely you'd check PHO

[zephycluster]

Precolonial HWS SEA Rant Post, feel free to ignore

If you're still reading, then you're probably looking for evidence or some juicy tidbits to throw back at me or to try and find dirt to cancel me, like typical Tumblr/Twitter. Go ahead, I don't really care.

First off, let me just say that If you like Precolonial South-East Asia AUs, feel free to keep enjoying them. I will respectfully support your passions from afar. This post is just to explain why I don't like it, especially the way they keep insisting/portraying PH in it.

Still here? Then let me begin.

Since the recent confirmation that the ASEAN Six Majors (Can't really say ASEAN 10 atm since it's still missing some people) Were completed and the Ma-Phil-Indo Trio was included, there has been a large surge in 'Precolonial' fanarts and portrayals of South East Asians, those three especially.

Even long, long before, circa 2010's ish, a rather well-known fan universe known as 'Maaf' dealt with their story and how their Author thought their intertwined histories went. Written by (my best guesstimate) an Indonesian writer who wants to explore the old, SEA bond.

When I first stumbled across Maaf (I was in Highschool at the time, around age 16-ish), I took a casual interest in it and tried to read it through. But, I will wholeheartedly admit that at the time, Pre-Colonial cultures of South-East Asia in general, let alone Philippine, did not really interest me that much. The focus (I think) was mostly on Indonesia, a country I didn't really know back then, and the liberal use of 'ancient' names and artwork just made it feel like an entirely Original Work (that needed a degree in History to really appreciate) and not something from Hetalia. I also completely disagreed with what I could gather was the story's portrayal of PH but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Do I hate 'Maaf'? No, I don't hate it. Do I wish I never came across it or that it didn't exist? Of course not. Just because I didn't enjoy it or appreciate it that well doesn't mean I wish any ill toward it, its fans, or its creator.

Fast forward to April 2021, the long awaited inclusion of South East Asia to the canon Hetalia verse. I was happy, the other fans were happy, all was good.

Then started the questionable fanarts, fan theories and fan pairings.

Especially the expansion of Precolonial! PH.

Let's go back to Maaf for one moment. From what I understood of Maaf, PH there was a character who once was like all the other South East Asian cultures, trading with them, all around being a nice family.

But all that changed when the Spaniards attacked, so cry the precolonial buffs. They destroyed everything, ransacked and marginalized the tribes, erased everything that PH was!

Did that happen? ABSOLUTELY. The Spaniards had this vision in mind that they must spread Christianity to all of the 'savage, unchristian heathens' of their realm. :V /s

But back up a second, back to PH's portrayal in Maaf. The way she (yeah, she) was portrayed there was that she was slowly losing her memories of being a 'true' South East Asian and grew more and more westernized in the process, like some sort of Culture-specific Alzheimer's or something.

Firstly, that is seriously depressing, and secondly, I just really don't see that happening.

Here's why.

Point 1: Even before Colonial Masters, Filipinos as a people cannot agree on anything.

I'll just begin this segment with a Philippine proverb that outlines what Filipinos call 'Crab Mentality' or 'Crab Bucket Mentality'.

"You don't need a lid for a container when you're keeping multiple crabs. If you keep at least two crabs together, they will just pull each other down instead of helping each other up."

I don't know how it goes with Indonesian or Malaysian history class, but what I know of my homeland, both pre- and post-colonial history, we were never really 'united' or 'together' in the sense that Indonesia and Malaysia were (from what I assume).

Let me pull up a somewhat related question on r/AskHistorians.

The reason I brought this up as it shows the reasons why, in my opinion, a single entity that is 'Precolonial Philippines-tan' is an impossibility.

The answers are long and would extend this already long post to stupid proportions, so I'll just quote relevant sentences. The link is here for those that wanna deep-dive into the answer.

"All this to say that there wasn't a name used for the entire Philippine islands before the Philippines that people now would agree to. An interesting comparison would be the Holy Roman Empire, which might also be characterized as disparate politico-geographic groups of relatively small size that had a history of relations between each other, but one thing they had that the Philippines did not was a common language, or at least a family of mostly mutually intelligible languages, so that the name Deutschland or Germany isn't terribly offensive to anyone. If you called the Philippines the 'Lupang-Tagalog' or even 'Lupang-Tao' the other ethnic groups would protest."

For those in need of translation, 'Lupang Tagalog' means 'Land of the Tagalogs' and 'Lupang Tao' means 'Land of People', specifically. The first one is already exclusive and offensive, as the Tagalog peoples are but one of many ethnicities here.

And for the 'Lupang Tagalog' suggestion specifically, it's even more offensive as they are the majority ethnicity (not by much, just around 28%) From this chart from Geography Now! It would basically be alienating everyone else in the 72% remainder that isn't 'Tagalog'.

And even 'Lupang Tao', the most generic name in a local language you can think of, would be met with contempt because the name itself is in the Tagalog language.

Just travelling between two individual island groups today would sometimes require a translator because the words can change very rapidly and very drastically. Here's a sample of some differences coming from a friend living in Visayas (in Red) vs. the words I know living in Luzon (In blue).

Ate vs. Manang = Older Sister

Ibon vs. Pispis = Bird

Tumawa vs. Kadlaw = To laugh

Takot vs. Hadlok = Fear

Kain vs. Kaon = To eat

Ngayon vs. Subong = Now, at this point in time

Iyak vs. Hibi/Gibi = to cry

Talampakan vs. Tiil = Foot (in Tagalog, the word retains its 'body part AND unit of measurement' meaning)

Tulog vs. Tuyo = to sleep (Tuyo in Tagalog is either a dried salted fish or 'to dry')

The kicker is that just like Tagalog is just one of many languages here, so too is the language my friend speaks. Ask an entirely new person, like someone from Mindanao, they'll probably have an entirely new set of words.

It's not just Luzon vs. Visayas vs. Mindanao, either. Here's a map listing some of the ethnic groups here.

Even the way they're written differs from location to location.

While we're on the subject of Island divisions, a casual skim across Twitter and Tumblr has shown that their Precolonial PH has been one of the following ancient civilizations: Tondo, Butuan, Sugbu, Namayan. There may have been others but that was what I have found.

Notice how even today, the posters of Precolonial PH can't seem to agree on what he's supposed to be? With Indonesia it's either Majapahit or Srivijaya and Malaysia it's usually Malacca iirc.

What is the big deal? Well, let's go back to the Ask Historians post. "Why didn't the Philippines ever change its name to remove the colonial mark that being named after a Spanish King has?" The answer: "If you suggested something dating to precolonial times, the other ethnic groups would protest."

Since we're on a roll with maps, let me bring this up.

As you can see, the precolonial PH posts have a reason to not be able to agree on one thing, as there is a LOT of options. Do you also see how THAT list is also split up?

It's split up into those aligned with China (Sinified), aligned with India (Indianized), aligned with the Middle East (Islamicized), and no alignment (Animist). Now, let's go back to the main suggestions for which Kingdom/Polity/Civilization/whatever Modern Philippines used to be.

If the Filipino peoples' couldn't agree on something as simple as WHAT TO CALL THE LAND THEY'RE LIVING ON, what more a living, breathing, walking, talking entity that is supposed to be a beacon of all of their 'unified' culture? ESPECIALLY if that entity used to be a currently existing Kingdom/Polity/Rajahnate/Sultanate/whatever.

Tondo? "Of course, always the damn Tagalogs. Tagalog this, Tagalog that. First the capital city, then the language,* THE REST OF US EXIST, YOU KNOW! What about us in Visayas? Mindanao?"

*The national language known as 'Filipino' is just standardized Tagalog*

Butuan? "Wait, you want Butuan to represent us? They're they only Indian-aligned city in the Islam-majority Mindanao! They're not even that many of them! I'm not gonna change my religion!"

Sugbu, the other name for the Rajahnate of Cebu on the map? Lemme bring back my Visayan friend again. According to her, she hails from the Hiligaynon part of Visayas.

"Sure :v and the other islands are what?

Chopped liver?

Not to mention the language and writing barrier helloooo"

And Namayan? Well. I'll let this pic speak for itself.

To summarize, no matter who you pick as Modern PH's previous identity, it will not end well nor be accepted by the other Kingdoms at the time.

"So where does that leave Modern PH, he had to have been ONE of them, right?"

Well, not really. He doesn't HAVE to be one of the Ancient Kingdoms that lasted till the modern day. I mean, predecessor representatives exist in Hetalia canon, after all. Like Modern Greece is a different character from Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt and Modern Egypt, heck even England and his brothers have a canon mother that was the rep before them.

Or you could even use the same logic that Germany does, in that each specific region has/had its own representative and that Modern!PH is just the 'mediator' between them (cause gawd does PH need one). There could be a Tondo, a Namayan, a Butuan, and a Sugbu, all arguing and this Proto-PH is just trying to make headway in making them all satisfied.

But, even after all this, there is another reason why I personally don't subscribe to the 'Precolonial PH' idea, and by tangential extension, the Indo x Phil pairing.

Point 2: Even without intending to, Precolonial Indo x Phil just comes off as patronizing

This second point is just ENTIRELY personal preference and barely has any facts to back it up.

Again, if you like the pairing and disagree with me, You do you. I will respectfully support you and your passions from a distance.

But for me, Indo being Phil's seme/bae/boyfriend and consistently bringing up precolonial times just comes off as patronizing.

Just one more time, I'd like to point out that I am NOT bashing Indonesia, its people or the subscribers of Indo x Phil. This is just how the pairing feels to ME specifically.

The way I see it, Indo x Phil as a pairing, especially if it extends back into precolonial times, reads the same way as a long-since married couple where the husband/wife CONSTANTLY brings up that ONE outing you had together, or that ONE prom night where you kissed while dancing, even it happened like 30 some-odd years ago and so much more happened since then.

Even in a platonic sense, It reads like two besties where one ALWAYS mentions stuff like 'Yeah but you looked so much cooler back in High School' or 'Back in Grade School you would've known that', or 'Remember back in Pre-school we did X? How could you forget that?'

How does one respond to the notion that no matter what you do now, it will never compare to a past you've already forgotten or barely remember? That the best version of 'you' is already long gone?

"That's because the westerners made you forget your culture! You gotta take it back!"

While it is true, yes, as a collective we barely remember the Kingdom that commissioned the Laguna Copperplate, or created the Banaue Rice Terraces, or created the millennia old bonds that we still share with Indonesia and Malaysia.

But to keep pushing the precolonial identity would be to neglect and cast aside the one REAL binding belief and culture that spans the entirety of these islands we call the Philippines.

We take on all the bad stuff that happens to us, conquer it, and make it our own. Be it natural disasters, foreign powers, or negative stereotypical mentalities.

Yes, we've forgotten the ancient kingdoms of old and are just now digging through the closet for those remnants of the past. Yes, the colonizers imposed that on us, and made us forget. But in the process we've also taken everything that they left behind, everything that they threw at us, and created something that can only come from us.

The lanterns that the Spaniards used to light the way to the morning masses they made us attend became our globally known symbol of Christmas. The junked vehicles that the Americans left behind in World War 2 are now rolling works of art that announce themselves loud and proud on the streets (for better or for worse). The iced dessert recipe that the Japanese forced us to learn while they were occupying the country is now so distinct and famous it is synonymous with us, and is so delicious even Italy has taken notice.

Even after all this? Even after all the 425-ish years total we have been under a foreign power, with all the progress we've made as a country, a people, and a nation, you would still imply our fragmented, jigsaw puzzle state of being in the past was better just because it was pure 'South East Asian' like everyone else?

We might not be as well put-together as Indonesia or Malaysia, but we made this melting pot of angry, leg-pulling, dogpiling, Native, Mestizo, Chinoy, and Fil-Am crabs OURS, damnit!

It's now 4:30 AM and I have work in 5 or so hours. I'll be going to sleep now.

[contre-qui]

Book 24 of 2020: Stiff

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

**TRIGGER WARNING: This book is about cadavers. My review will mention cadavers (dead human bodies, specifically those donated to science) and their uses/disposal.**

Once again (because 'tis the season for these types of reviews), this was a book I read for class. In this case, I read this one for my cadaver dissection class because we had to have something to do after we went online for the last two weeks of the semester, and cadaver dissection is... not something we can do at home.

It's the reason we say "pork" and "beef" instead of "pig" and "cow." Dissection and surgical instruction, like meat-eating, require a carefully maintained set of illusions and denial.

I've heard a lot of positive responses to Stiff, and I won't say I didn't enjoy it, but I definitely had some major concerns about the book that I'll get into momentarily. Stiff is a nonfiction book by journalist Mary Roach that discusses the various uses and after-lives of donated to bodies. Essentially, she attempts to answer questions about what happens when you 'donate your body to science.' Science is a big world, and donated cadavers are used for so many things. In addition to modern cadaver uses, Roach goes into some of the twisted history of cadaver usage. I don't want to mention the things Roach discusses just because learning those uses is half the fun of reading the book. Overall, it was an interesting and informative book.

I know some people in my class were turned off by the tone, however, which I do understand. Roach takes a very humorous approach to these discussions and uses a lighthearted, humorous tone. For some people, this tone felt disrespectful and rubbed them the wrong way. At first, the humor did make me somewhat uncomfortable. I think, however, that the tone is sort of designed to make you uncomfortable because the book is challenging the Western discomfort with death and the dead. Though I adjusted to the tone, there were a few moments when I felt Roach pushed the humor too far. There were some places when it felt inappropriate and disrespectful to me, as well.

My other concern was a huge instance of blatant racism. I know people are going to argue with me because this book was published in 2003, but that just isn't an excuse. Full stop. There was a particular section which discussed a news story circulating around the time Roach wrote the book that concerned an alleged case of a crematorium worker in China cutting of pieces of bodies to be used in his brother's restaurant next door. The story itself, while strange, is not the issue because yes, it was published and circulated widely. This would have been a great place to talk about accusations like this throughout history and how the historical consumption of human body parts for medicinal purposes in China and other East Asian countries has been misunderstood and blown out of proportion. But no. Instead, Roach chose to travel to China to confront the crematorium owner with this story and ask her (through a translator) if the story of her employee was true. The crematorium owner was so offended that the translator Roach was using would not translate her response beyond telling Roach that the story was untrue and she was extremely offended by the accusation. Roach wasn't even chagrined by this, and in fact laughed hysterically about offending this woman once she returned to her car. Not only was the entire story extremely disrespectful and frankly ridiculous, but Roach treated the entire section about medicinal human consumption in China with an air of superiority and blatant racism. I was truly disgusted by the way she handled that story and and that section of the book, and it left a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of the book. I wouldn't feel right writing a review without disclosing that instance because I think it ruined the book for me.

I really enjoyed learning so many new things, and I thought the way she approached the book was interesting. Roach included both cadaver uses, the history of cadaver usage, and some new (at the time) technology emerging on the market for body handling after death. The history was interesting, and I liked that she seemed to do research and talk to a lot of people in the field. I think my other big issue, however, was that Roach has no actual skin in the game - for lack of a better term. She doesn't work with cadavers. I would have preferred to read a book like this written by someone who actually works with cadavers and has the respect for them and their work that Roach seemed to lack. While the humor was intentional, I just felt she didn't balance the humor and respect that most of her interviewees did. Roach even mentioned that some of the people she talked to and visited were uncomfortable with her presence. And Roach still wrote about their work and included these interactions. It just just feels like bad journalism. Interesting content; partially good execution; but ruined with superiority, disrespect, and racism.

Trigger warnings for descriptions of dead bodies/death, graphic descriptions of body decomposition, descriptions of surgery, major racism, generally graphic descriptions of cadavers and cadaver usage, descriptions of car crashes, descriptions of crucifixion, etc. I would say that if dead bodies or death or medical scenes are a 'no' for you, then maybe just avoid this one altogether. Because the whole book is about cadavers, I don't think I could provide a comprehensive list of triggers, so read at your own risk.

My final opinion: Interesting content, but ruined with racism and disrespect.

[tenchiforum]

For the first time ever, the Toonami versions of OVA1/2, Universe, and Tokyo are available online! On their respective archive.org pages you can access each episode easily.

Watch now: OVA1/2, Tenchi Universe, Tenchi in Tokyo.

For users who keep up with contemporary anime communities, we also have an upload for the entire run available on Nyaa.

It’s been quite a journey in getting these episodes from analog to digital. If you’re interested in reading about the process of how these almost lost-to-time edits came into our hands and how we’ve gone about preserving them before the tapes rot, then sit back and enjoy the story below!

Part 1: Toonami – A Love Story.

Tenchi Muyo! and Toonami are tied together like the red thread of fate often times referenced in many East Asian myths. For those who aren’t aware, Toonami was a programming block on the Cartoon Network channel. Starting in 1997, it did one thing for anime that no other channel in the English-speaking world had ever done: showcased anime during “PrimeTime” (In North America at least, this was 4pm to 7pm Eastern Standard time). Before the internet, having this block of time meant having the most eyes on your product, meaning exposure was huge. Oftentimes whoever got on this block, regardless of the channel, was “made.”

However, it wouldn’t be until mid 1999, with a soft-rebranding, a new host, and an almost entirely anime-focused block, that Toonami would take over the world.

And on July 3rd, 2000, an entire generation was introduced to Tenchi Muyo! for the first time.

- The now legendary two minute Toonami promo.

Thanks to the efforts of Jason DeMarco, Sean Akins, Gill Austin, Sean Polinski, and the rest of the Toonami crew, the “Toonami generation,” still to this day, is the largest block of Tenchi Muyo! fans. Whether it was Toonami US, UK, or Australia. Tenchiforum is a testament to this fact. I personally would not be here were it not for Toonami, so to say that fans of Tenchi Muyo! hold Toonami in a high regard is an understatement.

I had always wanted to somehow, some way, get the Toonami version of Tenchi up for everyone to see again, but my old Toonami VHS recordings were long gone, and I figured trying to piece together the Toonami version from other people’s tapes would just be too hard with how many episodes were broadcast, that was until… 2012

In mid-to-late 2012, I found out that Pioneer actually released a home video version of what was shown on Toonami. It was simply released as “Tenchi Muyo!” in those big, white, clam shell VHS cases (that most people probably remember for old Disney movies). I felt as though I had struck gold! I was able to get a hold of the first two OVA, and was able to rip them to my computer.

- Vol. 1 & Vol. 5 of “Tenchi Muyo!” – No distinction was made that they were separate series.

Though I was high on my endorphin-induced nostalgia, I ran into a couple of unforeseen problems.

First and foremost, the equipment I was using was not great. I used an old StarTech composite to USB dongle and the software that came with it. While this isn’t necessarily bad at first glance (it doesn’t support Windows 10), I had no experience whatsoever in the field of digital transfer. While I think my rips were okay for the time, I knew even then that they were too low of bit-rate and the quality of the rips suffered for it.

Because I also had no VCR at the time that had S-Video output, I was only able to output from composite, which meant the whopping 240p equivalent VHS tapes look fuzzier than they probably should. (I realize that VHS is technically an analog format, meaning that a 1:1 equivalent digital representation is hard to pin down or that someone might argue that it did technically output 480i over composite, but basically it was 240p.)

Another problem was the software itself, I had no idea about Virtualdub, AmaRecTV, or other helpful capture software, so I only recorded at a lower bit-rate, again producing an inferior quality rip.

I also ran into the problem of showcasing the videos. Funimation (who now owns the vast majority of the Tenchi Muyo! franchise in North America) had finally started really cracking down on people uploading videos to Youtube. Even though my videos were not completely the same, the algorithm immediately flagged and blocked them. This led me to uploading the videos to Facebook. I had to cut them in half because of Facebook’s restriction to roughly only 12 minutes of video. Somehow in the process, some of the videos had audio drop out for a minute or two, and for some the audio dropped out completely.

Arguably the biggest blow though, was when I learned that this set of Toonami tapes was incomplete. Pioneer stopped producing the Toonami version for home video after they finished releasing Universe. Meaning, the only way to get the Toonami version of Tenchi in Tokyo, was hope that someone, somewhere,  had taped it 11 years earlier.

While Tenchi in Tokyo has been getting more appreciation from fans as of late – thanks in part to most newer entries in the Tenchi OVA sucking harder than a vacuum – in the year 2000, it was the black sheep of the Tenchi Muyo! franchise. So expecting fans to have recorded any of it, let alone the entire series, was the long shot of all long shots. But even still, I made a post on the forum in 2013 asking if anyone knew anyone that might have anything.

Naturally, no one had any leads, and all of these previous problems meant that this project would, frustratingly, have to be shelved indefinitely.

Or at least, that’s what I thought.

Part 2: Deferred Dreams Don’t Die.

On April 5th, 2019, a person by the name of Talos dropped into our Discord server, and posted an introduction. Like so many, they had gotten into Tenchi through Toonami, but what would change everything, was this.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading, someone actually had it!

Instinctively, I reached out to Talos via PM to ascertain how to go about acquiring these tapes, and admittedly, to see how legit this claim actually was. Because the fact of the matter is, when you’ve been around Tenchi fandom as long as I have, you’ll quickly realize the best bullshitters in the world come from this fandom.

But Talos was more than the genuine article! They sent over pictures and an incredibly detailed analysis of the quality of their tapes, watching through them all again to prove to me that their claim was valid.

It can’t be said enough that this all would not be possible without Talos, their willingness to work with me and send me their own personal tapes that they’ve kept for almost two decades just goes to show how awesome they are and how much they care about the fandom.

So the deal was struck, and the dream that laid deferred for almost six years lived again.

- A time capsule from another era.

But with dreams from the past, come the demons that plagued them way back when. I still only had the setup I once had, and at this time I was really trying to be tight with my finances for a number of different reasons, but this opportunity was too good to pass up, I wasn’t going to let this dream go, even if it wasn’t perfect.

Talos’ tapes showed up, and I rolled up my sleeves.

So I put in the first tape, the first seven episodes of Tokyo, into the old VCR I used to originally rip the Pioneer tapes, a JVC HR-VP650U….

And static…

Or rather, a tape that would play for 3 seconds, then immediately drop to static.

This wouldn’t work.

I then tried my other VCR, a Sony SLV-N50 from the mid-to-late 90’s that I was able to “fix” by removing the old Android Kikaider tape that got stuck in there many years prior.

It worked!…..but…..not all that well.

While it did actually play the tape relatively smoothly, the colors were completely washed out in comparison to the JVC, and it had this weird color flickering that was particularly noticeable when black backgrounds were on screen. (This was not unique to this tape, it did it with everything I put in there.)

As much as it pained me, there was no way I was going to rip it with this setup.

So the hunt began for not just a replacement VCR, but one that was high quality and recommended among enthusiasts for digital transfer. Which meant research and long winding rabbit holes of non-answers and vagueness, and unfortunately, money.

Without a doubt, the de facto list of best VCRs for transferring comes from digitalFAQ.com. This list is not only informative but gives you a broad range of ones to look for in the event you can’t find an “elite” one. However, this list has also become the de facto list used by people who are hawking their sets on eBay to try and get every penny from enthusiasts and new-comers as possible.

After three frustrating weeks of losing bid wars on eBay, someone finally put up one of the good sets, the JVC SR-V10U. I quickly sent them what I thought was a reasonable but not bank-breaking offer….

And they accepted! The beast was finally mine.

Immediately upon unwrapping and testing it, the quality difference between what I had then and what I was looking at now was staggering. The SR-V10U had beautiful color, while having the incredible ability to stabilize the old tapes with its TBC (Time Base Corrector), as well as onboard Video Stabilization option. Combined with the ability to output video via the superior S-Video cable, I now had something that, despite its age and typical old VHS wear, was way better than I could have imagined.

Part 3: No Need for Nostalgia.

You’re probably thinking to yourself “Dagon, why go through the trouble? The OVA has a beautiful Blu-ray release, and Universe and Tokyo have pretty decent DVD releases. Why would you ever want to rip old VHS tapes of an inferior quality release that was in some cases censored?”

- The now famous Toonami “bikinis”.

Because this version of Tenchi Muyo! is a piece of history. Not only is it a piece of Tenchi history, but a piece of Toonami history as well. Being able to preserve this in the best quality possible is being able to point to future generations and say “This is why I’m here.”

For a lot of us it’s about taking us back to a simpler time, grade school, high school, university. Taking us back to a time before the internet was what it is today.

So now we can, after almost 20 years, re-watch the version of Tenchi Muyo! that brought so many of us joy and wonder.

[aridara]

Soo, apparently there’s a new asshole in Tumbrtown. dev2c4u has been sending me a lot of hateful messages through the chat in the last couple of days. They reached the point where they openly advocate in favor of shooting me.

Fun times.

Here’s the complete transcript. TW for transphobia, misogyny, homophobia, racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and pretty much every form of bigotry.

DEV2C4U: You stupid cunt!  Thats rich that you say "Nazis" make things up!   That must mean the "progressive left" are the new Nazis!   You grotesque imbeciles tell more lies in a day than a "Nazi" will in 10 years!

  Are you a fat cunt too?  That's more blood you filthy pigs will have on your hands trying to say "fat is ok"  it definitely fucking isnt ok!  You can add this blood to the blood already on the lefts hands from promoting :

Transsexual/Transgenderism

Filthy faggotry

Letting subhuman "immigrants" in so they can kill more Americans and leech off of them! Abortion:  learn to keep your legs closed you filthy twats!  If you want to murder babies that is on you---but as a taxpayer i will not pay for your irresponsibility

And  slutty ways!  God you lot are a bunch of filthy diseased (I would say animals but you are beneath animals) so I will call you turds!

  Promoting pedophilia----I hope you empty headed cunts burn in hell for this fucking sickos (it almost makes me wish i believed in heaven/hell)

  In short, the "progressive" left in the nations of the West are a lower than the hemorrhoids on Hillary Clintons asshole!

  I hope you all die of something like lung or pancreatic cancer ---IOW ---I hope you dirty subanimals die in horrible pain and regret-'-fuck you all!

ARIDARA: That's funny. I, instead, hope that you live.

Because living as a hateful, violent bigot like you is punishment enough.

DEV2C4U: Say what you will you whore!   But I'm not a bigot in the least!  I just wish each race would deny political power to their dumbest losers and then the world would know peace---on this list --faggots, niggers and those who enable them ---like why the fuck hasnt disgusting queer nigger, Jussie Smollett admitted to his horrible racist hate crime of bearing false witness been made to apologize for his story which anyone with an IQ above 80 could tell was a lie from the start??!! Islamic cunts like ilhan Omar

Pedophilic cunts like most gay democrats and Roman Polanski

Feminazi whores like Cameltoe Harris

----I could go on and on and on---sadly!

Every now and then there is a bright spot like Gov Northsm hanging on to his seat in Va ----Haha Haha and the other Va democratic polisluts--suck it dems!

And there was a delightful "rainbow" in the news today with some WVa pol. Calling LGBTQ people "terrorists" like the KKK----which is true beyond a shadow of a doubt

I wouldn't expect a filthy commie fatass dyke like you to understand---after all a whore is a whore and a lady is a lady forever! But I do want people to know how much you silly twats on the left are hated! BTW ---great job with your phoney Indian Veteran ---that piece of shit needs to face charges as much as Jussie. Fuck You and have a shitty life!

ARIDARA: "I'm not a bigot" (uses a ton of slurs, falsely claims that LGBT+ people are pedophiles).

In case you haven't noticed, I'm not your father, and you aren't impressing me.

DEV2C4U: How come every two-bit faggot, dyke, transcum, nigger, cameljockey, beaner and white trash liberal feels that it is their business to get in everyone else's business?

Fuck each and every one of you freaks in your self-righteous assholes!   Except for fags of course, since youd enjoy it too much!

  This nation not only needs to be disinfected--it needs a fucking exorcism! Where are our modern Torquemadas and Savonarolas?!

ARIDARA: ...Says the one who thinks that it's their business to get into the business of leftists, fat people, LGBT+ people, migrants, pro-choicers, women, people of color, Muslims, Latino people, and allies to any of the above.

In fact, you think that it's SO MUCH your business, that you openly advocate in favor of GENOCIDE.

Here's a question for you: if leftists, fat people, LGBT+ people, migrants, pro-choicers, women, people of color, Muslims, and Latino people are genociding your precious nation just by existing...

...doesn't that mean that your nation is incredibly weak?

I mean, WE live with leftists, fat people etc., and we survive just fine. Maybe it's YOUR people who has some evolutionary problems.

DEV2C4U: Ooooooohhh Score one for Mega-Twat! I admit I come on strong But i dont get why this dyke----this cunt----Ellen Page. Whoever the fuck she is---- has any fucking right to question Chris Pratts (whoever the fuck he is) where he goes to church?  Where she gets that I have no idea---

I would much rather NOT be around any shitstabbers, carpetmunchers, Alabama porch monkeys, spics, or tranny cunts

Because i think most of you are filthy diseased trash

But as much as I dislike some of you ---I would never get in any of your faces and say lose some weight and stop carpet carpetmunching or stop fucking camels---or get some of dat goddamn melanin out of your skin. Or stop smoking poles

You know why fat cunt? Because Momma raised a gentleman!

And i wont get in any of your worthless, trashy faces as long as you stay out of mine!

But you fucking hypocrites better stay the fuck out of my very happy, proud, white life!

Fuck you again Ellen Page ---Whoever or more appropriately whatever you are!?

Keep your warped baby murdering opinions to yourselves!

ARIDARA: Man, your mum will be SO HAPPY to know how much you hate marginalized people. Or how you think that your own mum should have less rights than a corpse.

DEV2C4U: Anyone who feels "marginalized" in the USA is a fucking loser!  I'd like to see any of you pigs try to pull this shit in a non-white majority/ non Western country!

Especially fucking trannies, faggots and dykes!  Go to Saudi or Zimbabwe (at least Robert Mugabe was right when he said gay people are lower than dogs and pigs!)  For any other people of different races---if you don't fucking like it here--then dont be such losers---put your goddamn cards on the table and go to a black or brown majority nation where you will not be a minority anymore---of course I know that most if these nations are disgusting shitholes---but that just means you belong there even more!!

To baby murdering sluts---I do think you should be able to get an abortion---with a goddamn clothes hanger you fucking whores!

You are just as bad as the faggots in the 1980s blaming Reagan for AIDS---it wasn't Reagan forcing you to put your schlongs in each others assholes!

IOW---try to take some personal responsibility for once in your silly fucked up lives!

I bet some faggots would be hard pressed to thank any of the STRAIGHT, WHITE, MALE researchers who saved their worthless lives by finding anti hiv drugs??   Well fuck you then!

This world would be no more than a fucking garbage dump without white people (and Asians)! Nigras and spics---ask yourselves why other pocs/ethnicities such as East Indians, Asians and conservative Persians (people who fled the Khomeini regime) can come to this nation and be enormously successful ?? You dont hear these people bitch and bawl 24/7/365 about how put upon they are!  They just get to work, stay out if trouble and become great citizens!

If all this horse shit about "white privilege" and racism were true why are many of these other ethnicities more successful than many whites?

One last thing ---I so wish with all my might that the police could open fire on any traitors that say things like "No borders, no walls, no USA at all"

ARIDARA: Yyyep, we've got threats of violence alright.

Thanks for violating Tumblr's Terms of Service. You'll hear from the staff shortly.

[tauers-go-dutch]

Africa Part I: Victoria Falls

While I had known for years that swimming with Great Whites was top of Ryan’s bucket list, little ol’ me always thought that really was just a dream for another lifetime. However, following an absolute whirlwind of adventure the past two years, we thought-- why the hell not now?

In an Uber to the airport in Krabi, we took the plunge and bought tickets to Johannesburg from my iPhone. After that, we didn’t do a lot of follow-up planning for a few months, and even considered canceling or changing our destination following the serious drought in Cape Town. Fortunately, someone blessed the rains down in Africa, so off we went!

While we’d bought the tickets on a whim to and from Johannesburg, we ultimately decided to spend the first few days in Zimbabwe, seeing Victoria Falls. We grabbed an airport hotel in Jo-burg in order to immediately hop on another flight to Victoria Falls.

When we arrived in the tiny town that is Victoria Falls, we took a stroll through to the Victoria Falls Hotel. The hotel, built by the British colonizers in 1904, sits on the gorge above the Zambezi River downstream from the falls. That said, of course they have afternoon tea! Fortunately we made it just before they stopped serving tea for the day, and we were able to experience one of my very favorite things in an absolutely incredible location. We enjoyed our tea with the view of a lifetime, including several warthogs grazing on the lawn just next to the hotel patio. When we were through we spent a good amount of time touring the hotel and learning about the history of the area. After tea we walked back into town and hopped into a brewpub/pizza spot for some food and drink before grabbing a cab back to our hotel.

Mist from the falls

Unfortunately, Timon was nowhere to be found...

They have to bend over like that to get to the grass

The following day we went canoeing on the Zambezi. The Zambezi is the river on which Victoria Falls falls, and it also separates Zimbabwe from Zambia. Our tour was very small, with one Brazilian woman as well as an American man from….somewhere back east. Both were in town for the Victorian Falls Marathon, which we had only learned of the previous day. Maybe a good thing, because otherwise we might have been tempted to sign up for it! (The half, anyways…)

While the main point of the tour was to experience the river itself, we hoped to also see some wildlife. Most of what we saw was actually during the drive to the drop-in point. No matter where you are in Africa, keep your eyes peeled. We saw our first giraffe, our first hippo (out of the water!) and some cool birds before hitting the water. As we canoed, we saw a few crocodiles as well as more hippos. Oddly they were all on land -- the guide said it was likely because the temperatures were dropping and they didn’t feel the need to cool off in the water. Whatever the reason, I prefer my crocodiles and hippos a nice distance from my boat, so land it is!

A baobab tree, the ‘tree of life’ 

Spot the croc!

This guy was just a babe

When we reached our pull-off point, our guides had a nice lunch ready for us, where I was ‘lucky’ enough to try some crocodile kebab. ...It’s only meh. Ryan, the carnivore, agrees. We ate near a tree full of monkeys, so I spent the majority of lunch watching them play. Afterward, our guide admitted to us that we were supposed to have sandwiches rather than the hodgepodge of food we ended up eating (I wouldn’t have known any different…) except the monkeys had stolen the loaf of bread as soon as he arrived! He even showed us the plastic bag stuck in the tree as proof!

Crocodile kebab

Monkey watching

Upon our return to town, we decided to check out the local artisans market, where we bought a few handmade souvenirs for ourselves as well as some friends and family, before hitting up the town’s brewery, the River Brewing Co. The world cup was still going on, so we watched France beat Argentina (sorry, Messi!) while sipping on some local brews. It took a bit of effort to find a dinner spot that evening, as people from all over the world were in town looking to carbo-load before their marathon the next morning. We settled on a small tourist-trap looking place, had a quick bite, and cabbed it back to our hotel. (You don’t dare walk at night, due to aforementioned random giraffes, hippos, monkeys… and their predators… just off the roads.)

While others were running, we were sleeping in. Eventually we got up to walk into town, cheering on the runners nearing the finish line along the way. Today was the day we were finally going to see the falls! On our walk there, however, we were stopped by two guards telling us we  should wait, as there were elephants on the path and it wasn’t safe. We hemmed and hawed, before noticing that there were several other people walking around and we’d likely be just fine. We proceeded with caution and were rewarded with an incredibly up-close experience with the largest land animal in the world! We stood in awe for a few minutes, watching them graze in the bushes (there were 4 or 5 of varying distance from us) before grabbing a couple s-Elphies and moving on.

There is a nice restaurant on the edge of the canyon called the Lookout Cafe, where we grabbed a bite to eat with the best view in the house. Finally we made it to the falls themselves. I don’t know what exactly I had been expecting. You can see the billowing mist from them anywhere you stand in town, and you can hear them from a mile away, so I’m not sure why their enormity amazed me as much as it did once I finally stood next to them. I would use our cliche ‘let the pictures speak for themselves’ here, but it’s impossible to take a photo of Victoria Falls that might do it justice. The two nicknames ‘The Smoke that Thunders’ and ‘The Place of the Rainbow’ given to it by the indigenous people of the area, gives more insight into the grandiosity and splendor of the waterfall. There are several viewing points within the Victoria Falls National Park, so we spent as much time taking it all in while doing our best to avoid getting too soaking wet. (Ponchos are for chumps.)

Shameless pull straight from Wikipedia: 

While it is neither the highest nor the widest waterfall in the world, Victoria Falls is classified as the largest, based on its combined width of 1,708 metres (5,604 ft) and height of 108 metres (354 ft), resulting in the world's largest sheet of falling water. Victoria Falls is roughly twice the height of North America's Niagara Falls and well over twice the width of its Horseshoe Falls. In height and width Victoria Falls is rivalled only by Argentina and Brazil's Iguazu Falls.

A wee bit misty...

After experiencing Victoria Falls, we made the trip across the river into Zambia. We had purchased a double Visa that would allow us in for a daytrip, which was all we had time for anyways. Unfortunately we did not get to experience the waterfall from the national park on the Zambia side, as it was a separate (expensive) entrance fee, and we had entered the country with the intention of visiting the Royal Livingstone Hotel. Because of course I wanted to have afternoon tea in both Victoria Falls and Livingstone!

We went through customs on both sides of the bridge before making the decently long walk out to find the hotel. It was immediately evident that this wasn’t a pedestrian-friendly walk, as there were zero sidewalks and we were the only ones who didn’t hop in a cab upon entering the country. Oh well, it’s only 2 kilometers and still plenty of daylight!

The Zambezi from the bridge

Walking up to the Victoria Falls Hotel two days prior, we were greeted by warthogs grazing on the lawn. As if that wasn’t cool enough, on this side of the river we ran into zebras! As soon as we entered the gate to the hotel grounds, we came across several. This time we stopped for a Z-elfie. Ok, I’ll stop. We were seated for tea just inside, where we still had a view of the lawn and the Zambezi River but could grab some respite from the sun and heat. The tea and cakes were great, with Ryan and I agreeing that the Victoria Falls Hotel had better scones while the tea itself was more enjoyable at the Royal Livingstone. Once we finished up we spent some time exploring the grounds, coming across another herd of zebras and watching the sunset over the river. Before it got too low, however, we made the trek back to the border crossing in order to get back into Zimbabwe before the customs offices closed. We made it through just as it really got dark and had a quick dinner at an Asian restaurant before heading to bed.

I can imagine not much has changed since Livingstone himself sat here. Kidding... Unlike it’s counterpart in Victoria Falls, this hotel was built in 2001.

My happy place! Yum!

One more glimpse of the river as we cross back over the bridge

First thing in the morning, we had a flight back to South Africa, to spend a week in Cape Town! Africa Part II coming soon! 

Tot ziens!

[phgq]

A ‘vaccine’ for illiteracy: Fighting an invisible epidemic

#PHnews: A ‘vaccine’ for illiteracy: Fighting an invisible epidemic

MANILA – Ryan V. Uy is a wanderer, public speaking coach, illiteracy terminator. His advocacy to put an end to illiteracy in the country is an inspiring story in these challenging times.

Ryan left his hometown in South Cotabato when he was a teenager. Back then, he was already a DJ at a local FM station and worked part-time as a professional emcee and a trainer in public speaking.

He roamed several cities in the country, taking up different jobs and confronted different challenges, but ended up in Manila in search of a better life, only to be mugged the moment he arrived.

Since then, Ryan’s life in the big city has been extremely difficult. He was jobless and lived on the streets with other people with the same plight, facing constant hunger and grappling with hopelessness.

“I witnessed with my own eyes how some of my good friends on the streets started losing their sanity,” he said.

Ryan somehow survived.

Spending what little amount he earned for food, Ryan, who was fond of reading, once saw a book sale and stumbled upon Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist.

“I was never the same after I finished reading that book,” he said.

Encountering the Filipino literacy problem

With his resilience, Ryan, who has a bachelor’s degree in political science and English that he earned from the Notre Dame of Marbel University in Koronadal City in 2006, was able to build his life back up and continue working as a professional speaker.

Based on his life experiences, he became a speaker in seminars that covered a wide range of topics, among them personal development, program implementation efficiency, language and communication skills, and career development.

He was also behind the establishment of several public speaking and debate clubs of many schools in Cavite province. This led to the first Cavite-Wide Asian Parliamentary Debate Championships.

Eventually, Ryan was able to establish his brand of reading and communication skills development to Filipinos nationwide, through his organization called New Horizoom Academy.

While working in New Horizoom Academy, Ryan was shocked when he encountered Grades 3 and 4 students in a private school in one of the cities in Cavite who still had difficulty reading.

When he asked the teachers to bring in their “worst cases” and apply all the programs, methods, and interventions, they were all unsuccessful.

Ryan visited numerous schools and found out that the country’s education system needs a generally prescribed, comprehensive, and sustainable reading program.

The illiteracy terminator, Ryan V. Uy teaches day care teachers how to teach basic reading in Bongabon, Nueva Ecija on Oct. 15, 2020. (Contributed photo)

While teachers are passionate about what they do, they suffer from their excessive workload and need more support. And without the right tools, Ryan said teachers would not get their desired results, no matter how hard they tried.

“Hiring consultants who have diplomas from schools in America won’t help solve the reading problem in the Philippines. Learning institutions, including the Department of Education, must hire curriculum developers who have worked widely and closely with real students who are considered as worst cases. Proposed solutions must be (a) reflection of the real situations on the ground,” he said.

When it comes to solving problems and making real change happen, Ryan said one must first identify the problems and come up with solutions, through trial and error.

“So, I decided to take the bull by the horns. We tossed the usual reading books aside and decided to build our reading program from scratch,” he said.

The illiteracy terminator

And so, Ryan set out to work on his program.

Instead of helping out the usual “average students”, he went out of his comfort zone to focus on struggling students and worked with them for hours.

“I decided to create one that can deal with worst cases of non-readers. I figured that if the program we were creating back then could help learners who were classified as ‘worst cases’, teaching the rest of the learners will be a much easier feat. As it turned out, we were 100-percent correct,” he said.

Ryan was able to see one of the major problems behind the failure of the old and existing programs.

Many of the current reading strategies, he noted, do not effectively pave the way for language development, including the use of the Dolch word list.

It is good that the Dolch list uses sight words, but because it was based on American teaching styles and language phonetics, it does not come naturally to Filipino kids. Most of these words and sounds have no practical connection to a Filipino child’s understanding of their world, so it becomes mere memorization of words and sounds.

Because of this teaching style, even when the students are able to read and write, they would still struggle in comprehension and expression.

Without real understanding of the words and syllables, there is no retention, and it is thus not sustainable.

A reading session with a 16-year-old differently-abled second-grader at 7-11 in Barangay Sungay East, Tagaytay City. (Contributed photo)

Based on these insights and observations, Ryan developed his reading program.

Initially, it was a success but as he encountered more students with different problems and needs, he also tweaked his program based on his experiences with them.

Luckily, Ryan was also able to receive significant help from one of the Department of Education (DepEd) coordinators, who knew the situation on the ground.

She shared her observations and recommended a unique approach to solving the monstrous illiteracy problem.

With her help, Ryan refined his program, aka the “Illiteracy Terminator”, as he incorporated all her suggestions.

“The thing that came out after we stirred all our insights together was nothing short of magic. We knew back then that we’ve discovered something of great significance. It wasn’t a walk in the park. We had to go beyond the extra mile. We had to burn the midnight oil. But, as they say, the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory,” he said.

Eventually, it got to the point where the success rate of the program during trials was already exceeding expectations.

The Illiteracy Terminator is ready and it is about to terminate the invisible epidemic that is illiteracy.

While other programs produce results that would take several months, or in some cases, even years, Ryan’s Illiteracy Terminator unbelievably produced significant results in just a few days!

The main difference between the Illiteracy Terminator and other programs is that it helps Filipino students crack the literacy code within days. In a few weeks, they become independent readers.

It is a full-circle literacy program that deals with the practical difficulties in reading, and it numerically and objectively quantifies each student’s progress.

This way, both teacher and student could easily keep track of their obstacles and successes, having more control and insight in their learning experience.

Light of literacy

Ryan never stopped modifying and fortifying his program.

Instead of sitting in an air-conditioned room and strategizing how to improve his program, he spent countless hours working with countless students considered as the “worst cases” or the “hopeless” ones.

“In spite of the extraordinary results we’ve had, we look at the program still as a work in progress. For us, our program is a masterpiece in the making – not just another job requirement with a deadline,” he said.

Using this ingenious program, Ryan and his team started in public schools in the cities of Cavite.

One of their most memorable experiences happened in Alfonso, Cavite in September 2019.

One of the school district supervisors in the province asked all school heads in their municipality to bring their non-readers to the district office.

When they got there, Ryan and his team taught the teachers how to operate the Illiteracy Terminator. This was to ensure that they apply the process correctly.

However, before the session, Ryan asked details about the students the teachers decided to bring in. They had one thing in common – for various reasons, they were all regarded as irremediable and the worst.

“As if it just happened yesterday, I could still remember a kid who was too scared that she was shaking pitifully. While waiting for the impending results, the apprehensions were so strong that we could almost touch them,” he said.

Despite the uncertainty and tension, the anxious little girl and the other students quietly went through the entire process, as the teachers patiently applied Ryan’s prescribed steps.

Suddenly, the onlookers went into joyous applause when the anxious little girl began to read her first set of words.

Ryan V. Uy, founder of Horizoom Learning Solutions and author of JOYRIDE TAYO SA PAG-BASA and SPEARS (Speech & Pronunciation Enhanced Accelerated Reading System), pose with Mayor Corie Poblete of Silang, Cavite, district supervisors, and reading coordinators after the turnover of reading materials for 6,000 struggling readers and non-readers at the Silang Central Elementary School on Sept. 15, 2020. (Contributed photo)

Her teacher teared up in joy as she embraced her. She went up to Ryan in gratitude and said, “Sir, I thought she was hopeless.”

“The spark in their eyes and the smiles on their fragile faces never fail to make my eyes well with tears. At first, on our part, it was really a nerve-racking experience. But the experience of seeing those kids step into the light of literacy for the first time is just surreal,” he recalled.

Ryan said this was just one of the countless beautiful stories of children experiencing the light of literacy for the first time.

From the dark to the world out there and beyond

With this discovery, Ryan was able to help countless children see the light of literacy and communication.

“Illiteracy is a dream killer. It dooms people into a life of poverty and crime. Education, employment, and business opportunities around the globe are language-intensive,” he said.

Today, he said, the English language is the formal and professional language used in most institutions in the country and worldwide.

But many Filipinos struggle to read, write, comprehend, and express themselves using this language.

With Ryan’s reading program, which highlights the practical language value of words, students and young learners will start developing their proficiency in English early.

He explained how the decoding process in reading is the most important step for a child to develop good comprehension and expression skills later on.

“Now, if we want learners to develop better comprehension, they have to get out of the decoding stage as soon as possible – the earlier, the better. Efficiency in comprehension can be compared to efficiency in boxing. The earlier you get into something, the better you become at it,” he said.

As many students from private schools also struggle in these areas when entering college, Ryan has set the groundwork for the illiteracy termination in the country, hoping that many would rally his cause as a true service to Filipinos.

“Illiteracy doesn't stand even the slightest chance against our program. With God's help, we can get rid of this invisible epidemic within a few years,” he said.

Ryan said his group is now in talks with several local government and education officials who similarly value early childhood reading as an important part of educating students, particularly young learners.

“If we want our country’s future to be bright, we have to start leveling the playing field. We have to start early and give everybody equal opportunities to succeed in life. Acquiring literacy is the first best step towards a better Philippines,” he said. (PNA)

(NOTE: The writer, Louis P. Morente, is a psychology graduate and former vice president and president of the student council of Kalayaan College in Quezon City. He has worked with the Philippine News Agency for several months as a correspondent before entering college.)

  ***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "A ‘vaccine’ for illiteracy: Fighting an invisible epidemic." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1133390 (accessed March 14, 2021 at 04:45PM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "A ‘vaccine’ for illiteracy: Fighting an invisible epidemic." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1133390 (archived).

[perfectirishgifts]

Celebrity Hairstylist Clariss Rubenstein Talks Beauty Business And Shares Tips On Creating A Look For Gemma Chan

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/celebrity-hairstylist-clariss-rubenstein-talks-beauty-business-and-shares-tips-on-creating-a-look-for-gemma-chan/

Celebrity Hairstylist Clariss Rubenstein Talks Beauty Business And Shares Tips On Creating A Look For Gemma Chan

Clariss Rubenstein

One of celebrity hairstylist Clariss Rubenstein’s favorite things about her job is helping women feel like their best self. The Los Angeles-based stylist trained at the Vidal Sassoon Academy and honed her craft working at the Chris McMillan Salon. She launched Gloss, a boutique studio in Beverly Hills and amassed a client list including Gemma Chan, Jennifer Garner, Dakota Fanning, Mindy Kaling, Kaley Cuoco, Sofia Vergara, and Leighton Meester. Her work can also be seen in campaigns for various brands and companies including Jimmy Choo, James Perse, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Tommy Hilfiger.

Who were you trained by and how did that experience help shape your career?

I received my formal training at Vidal Sassoon Academy in Los Angeles. I have tremendous respect for their cutting theory. When I began my career, prior to entering the world of salons, I wanted a strong technical foundation. I have been grateful for this decision every day of my career. The intense focus on precision cutting and attention to the architecture of each haircut, although grueling to learn, makes cutting feel like second nature. While my aesthetic has a much softer feel than many of the Sassoon looks which are known for their hard lines, all of my haircuts incorporate a clean shape that allows for a cut to last and grow out beautifully. 

Something you don’t learn at VS is round brushing, curling, and styling. After the Academy, I returned home to Washington DC, where the salon owner I began working for wanted me to skip assisting and immediately start taking clients. Totally inexperienced in that setting, I combined my training with a self-taught round brushing technique and notes from watching seasoned stylists.  Within weeks of beginning work, my boss told me that I would be doing First Lady, Laura Bush’s hair the following morning. 21-years-old and green I was armed with an arsenal of brushes, my government ID, and a knot in my stomach, I arrived at the East Wing of the White House ready to style. I rode the elevator with security and the First Dog and was escorted to the salon to set up my tools. The First Lady was wonderful, welcoming, bright, and kind. I told her my dad was from Texas and we talked about that which was a perfect distraction from the inner freak out I was trying to hide. I finished. She ran her fingers through her hair and she said happily, ‘This looks great! Just some spray and I’ll see you tomorrow morning.’ I had survived and she loved her hair.

I didn’t let this small victory go to my head as I knew I had tons more to learn. Being thrown directly into working on clients and skipping the assisting phase, I craved to learn from everyone around me. I worked in a bustling salon in DC with a diverse clientele and never passed up a chance to watch stylists and colorists work. I rotated between people when I wasn’t with my own client. I didn’t sit down, I didn’t take breaks, I asked a million questions. All I wanted to do was absorb. 

I left a strong business with a full clientele to go to Los Angeles to work at the Chris Mcmillan Salon. I have so much respect for him as a stylist and I absolutely love his aesthetic. When I arrived, I was told they were on a hiring freeze but I didn’t let that deter me. I went back, met Chris, who was so warm and friendly and I ended up getting an assistant job with top colorist  Johnny Ramirez who I worked with for six months. The experience of working under and learning from a color legend has been invaluable. 

After leaving the Chris Mcmillan Salon, I started working in a small studio and a blow dry bar taking clients and building my clientele. Through this, I met an agent at The Wall Group who represented hairstylists and makeup artists. Since I had no portfolio and had only worked in salons, they asked me if I was willing to assist, take jobs with low to no budget in order to build a portfolio before moving up. I have always been confident enough to take on work, in order to prove myself. I worked hard and said yes to every job and as a result, my portfolio grew. The Wall Group was a great place for me and allowed me to establish myself as a celebrity hairstylist. I have since signed with my current agent, Noelle, who has started A-Frame Agency with a few other powerhouse women. 

As I developed my freelance career, I simultaneously opened a salon in Beverly Hills with my sister-in-law and my best friend. I’m not at the salon as often as the other girls, but I wanted it to be a place where I could remain connected with my clients. Helping women feel like their best self is one of my favorite aspects of what I do.

At moments it still feels unreal to me that me, a girl from DC – lover of beauty and a college dropout – is someone trusted by Sofia Vergara, Kaley Cuoco, Jen Garner, and so many more incredible women. They trust me to help them look and feel their best when they leave their homes and step into the public eye. I do not take this responsibility for granted, not for a moment.

Who inspires you?

In the world of hair and business, Jen Atkin. She is humble, an insanely hard worker, brilliant (as a hairstylist, and more) and is always paying attention. She has her finger on the pulse and capitalizes on things like social media, allowing her to directly interact with people for important things whether about hair products people would actually want, or shining light on important social and political issues. 

Erica Chidi, Doula, author, chief executive officer, and co-founder of Loom. Reproductive education and support is something this country is lacking in a major way. Erica’s commitment to changing this through the launch and growth of Loom is something our whole culture can benefit from. She’s a brilliant leader and educator. I had the fortunate experience of having Erica guide me through my first pregnancy. An experience I will forever be grateful for.

Jane Fonda. She does what she loves for work while being passionate and unapologetically invested in social change and progression. All while not compromising her good hair or sense of humor. A girl after my own heart. In short – women who use their heart, brain, voice and grit. 

Can you tell us about your business and future plans? 

I would love to get into the product space. I’m a lover of a great product and great branding. The beauty industry is very saturated and most things have been done multiple times, ranging from incredible to not so great. I’m working on my own specific way to enter the market. 

I also love the mom space as far as products go. There is a newfound vulnerability and confidence I’ve uncovered since becoming a mother. This affects every part of life, especially work and business. In the best way. Stay tuned!

Rubinstein has shared a hairstyle that she created for Gemma Chan for the Oscars.

Gemma Chan

A look I really love was the one I did on Gemma Chan for the Oscars a couple of years ago. Crazy Rich Asians had come out and we glammed her up for everything! I absolutely love this woman, but also love her taste and style. For me, the hair is not about me having my moment as a hairstylist, but about contributing to the collective look. The dress was loud and pink so the hair should be soft and feminine. I see Gemma as a kind of modern-day Audrey Hepburn so I wanted her to look youthful and classic. The look seems simple but has to be just right. The perfectly positioned part to enhance the eye, the exact right amount of texture so it looks airy and effortless, but not product heavy. I worked with Frederic Fekkai products on this look, which was great because they have so many amazing dry texture options. 

Start on dry hair, parting it first. Use a one-inch barrel curling iron to add waves to the whole head, including roots while leaving out the ends 

Then use a smaller ¾ inch barrel iron to scatter in some smaller waves and make the texture a bit uneven. Add a few sprays of Frederic Fekkai texture spray, raking the hair out with your fingers 

Section off the sides and crown of the hair and clip them out of the way. 

Secure the back into a ponytail which will act as a base and anchor for the rest of the look 

In your hands, use a bit of ‘all in one dry shampoo texturizing paste’ and rub it into the crown at the root to add lift and an airy feel 

Tease the root just a bit, then using your fingers, add that section to the base. Do the same with each side section, careful not to sink the volume or texture when pulling it to meet the base ponytail 

Once it’s all collected, look at the hair from the front and sides and visually determine what pieces need to be looser or tighter

Then tease the ponytail, create a loose knot and secure it with French hairpins

Finish the look with hairspray.

More from Style & Beauty in Perfectirishgifts

[sapphirescales]

AN IMPORTANT BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT  :  after going back and forth on this decision for years now, i’ve finally decided to make the change! raven is now officially mixed-race southeast asian woman of colour. she doesn’t know her real heritage i.e. whether she’s south east asian or east asian let alone which countries she’s from, because she ran away from home after years of neglect and abuse, but in reality, her biological father is german and her biological mother is vietnamese. some potential FAQs are listed below:

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOUR BLOG?

     what this means now is that my primary faceclaim is maggie, not jl//aw, rebe//cca romi//jn or mi//lla jov//ovich. raven ages really, really slowly, and without the ridiculous casting difference between the alt trilogy and the original trilogy, i can stick with using one primary faceclaim throughout all my verses. i’ve made several posts in the past as to why i see raven as southeast asian in my head, and i’ve been using maggie as a faceclaim for years now. this post is just formally making the change that’s been in my head, that has informed my portrayal, since i started writing raven in 2012. 

HOW DOES THIS WORK?

     raven has, and will always be, a mixed-race southeast asian woman of colour. she chose to shift into a white woman in order to belong with charles ( by looking like him and the rest of his family and the people he knew ) and she chose to shift into a white woman for the sake of her survival. the ‘guise’ she wears, initially for herself and then later, for charles’ benefit --  deemed socially acceptable and up to society’s standards of desirability and feminity ( i.e. white, blonde, blue-eyed with a soft figure ) -- are a huge part of her identity issues and the disconnect she feels between herself and the rest of society as highlighted in xm//fc; that she’s only acceptable if she passes as normal. in order to look normal -- to assimilate -- she wears the guise of a white woman and, throughout xm//fc, becomes less and less comfortable and satisfied with having to pretend that she’s anything and anyone but who she really is: a woman of colour with a physical mutation.

BUT WHY DON’T YOU KEEP HER WHITE?

     because i don’t need to and i don’t want to.

BUT WHY DON’T YOU MAKE HER [ETHNIC GROUP OF CHOICE] INSTEAD?

     again, because i don’t want to. i’ve written several times about the topic on this blog, and why i feel that the raven i’m writing makes most sense to me as a southeast asian woman. i’m aware of the popular racebends for raven but this is something i personally believe in and something i can personally write about.

YOU’RE ONLY MAKING HER SOUTHEAST ASIAN BECAUSE YOU’RE SOUTHEAST ASIAN.

     so what?

BUT I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD-- / BUT WHY DO YOU SEE HER AS -- / ISN’T IT REV//ERSE RACI//SM IF--

     respect my decision that i made on my blog. get yourself educated about what counts as ‘racism’ and what doesn’t. making raven half-vietnamese takes nothing away from her storyline and it takes nothing away from the 600 other white superheroes and supervillains you have to identify with. if you’re still unhappy with the fact that raven is a woman of colour, then this blog isn’t for you, and you can move onto the many, many other blogs out there.

YOU’RE ONLY CHANGING HER BECAUSE YOU WANT BROWNIE POINTS AND --

     blocked.

BUT ISN’T IT [PHOBIC/IST] BECAUSE --

     feel free to discuss this with me in my inbox, as long as you’re open to discussion. i’ve tried my best to think through all the aspects of this change since 2014 but if you’ve picked up on something i’ve missed, i think it’s important for me to know and think about. once again, i reiterate that i’m open for discussion -- i’m a mixed race south asian and SEA woman myself but as i’m not vietnamese, there are things i might have overlooked.

YOU’RE WHITEWAS//HING HER BY KEEPING HER PREVIOUS WHITE FACECLAIMS--

     she’s a shapeshifter. i grew up in western culture, and my parents did not -- i grew up with the diasporic experience, and the experience of people of colour living in majority-white countries. the way i treat raven, and her want to assimilate into the culture and society she’s in, is directly drawn from my own experiences -- and as much as her choosing to be “blue” and accept herself as someone with a physical mutation is important, i also find a storyline where she can accept herself as a woman of colour in spite of the ways that society teaches us to hate ourselves, in spite of the way that we may have wanted to assimilate before, is just as important and more significant for her storyline and character arc. feel free to disagree with me, but raven’s storyline is an important one for me. if my justification still isn’t good enough for you, feel free to unfollow me.

I HAVE A GENUINE QUESTION.

     i’ll be fielding these as they come in to see if they are covered by the previous categories, but please feel free to contact me via the inbox, or any of my messengers if you have them, if you do have any further questions!

[cryptswahili]

BEST TECH STORIES of 2019 (so far)

Hello Curious Hacker,

The internet has so many best of 2018 articles right now… At Hacker Noon, we’re forward thinking. Below are the best 27 stories of the year 2019 (so far).

But first, three short updates from around the Hacker Noon HQ:

Our equity crowdfund campaign is up to $986k from 893 people. The Reg CF maximum raise is $1.07M. Invest before it’s too over.

We’ll be media partner at Blockchain Connect Conference: Academic 2019 @ San Francisco Marriott tomorrow (Jan 11th), with Trent Lapinski recording podcasts and Derek Bernard recording video. A few tickets are still available, come meet the team.

Longtime Hacker Noon contributor Febin John James published a new book: “Ripple Quick Start Guide: Get started with XRP and development applications on Ripple’s blockchain” via another long timer Hacker Noon contributor Packt_Pub, and it included this really kind acknowledgement. Thanks Febin! We bought your book too :-)

And now onto the good stuff: THE 27 BEST TECH STORIES OF 2019 (so far):

CRYPTO WINTER

Surviving Crypto Winter — Part One: Mattereum and the Internet of Agreements by Daniel Jeffries and Carly E. Howard, JD, LLM. Time to build. From the ashes of competition, rises the phoenix. As winter hits, good projects buckle down and get to work building real technology that works in the real world. And that’s what this new series of articles is all about: Who will survive the crypto winter? I’m going to dig deep and profile companies with the best shot at surviving the bust and building something we can’t imagine living without in the coming years.

Surviving Crypto Winter — Part Two: Blockstack and the Great Pendulum of History by Daniel Jeffries. AI went through two wintersand it took 50 years for anyone to reap rewards like self-driving cars. The Internet looked like a joke for the first twenty years. 3D printing is still in a winter, after early hopes of a printer in every house failed to materialize without the reason to have one yet. And of course, the crypto market suffered a spectacular crash in 2018, as the markets lost 80% or more of their value over a long slow slide to despair. The winds of crypto winter are blowing furiously and the storm is taking many victims already. In this series, I cover who stands the best chance of rising from the freezing cold and thriving when spring comes again.

2019 Developments

Best Coding Languages to Learn in 2019 by Rafi Zikavashvili. In an ideal world, your choice of programming language shouldn’t matter. Most of the popular languages share the same basic concepts, to the untrained eye most of them look the same, and let you achieve more or less the same outcome. From a developer’s perspective, a programming language is a tool and choosing the right one will influence one’s career, economic prospects, and future happiness. This article looks at five of the most popular programming languages, examines their individual and relative merits, and recommends which ones you should learn in 2019.

Major Programming Trends to Prepare for in 2019 by Constantin. Trend #1: Could Python Catch up to Java? If you look at the chart above, you’ll see that Python is already the third most popular programming language in the world. According to Stack Overflow, it surpassed C# in popularity in 2018 and PHP in 2017. But Python only recently achieved this status.

Useful Vim tricks for 2019 by Cláudio Ribeiro. Vim has a steep learning curve, let’s not try to cover it. But once you start getting the nuances of it you start discovering that Vim is full of time-saving tricks. That’s what we’re going to cover in this article. I’ve scoured the internet for Vim tricks. Some of them come from different websites, twitter posts and some of them are my own. Either way, some of these might be useful to improve your workflow in 2019.

What if

… we could verify npm packages? by Steve Konves. An npm package is just tarball of files. The fact is that all package managers (Npm, Nuget, Maven, etc) just distribute tarballs or zip files or some other bundle of content. Any responsible developer is going to keep their code in source control; however, this code may or may not be the only thing in the package. For compiled languages like Java or .Net, packages contain build artifacts, not source code. Especially if the build output is obfuscated, it is difficult if not impossible to casually discover security flaws in the package contents. Javascript is a bit different in that many simple packages are simply tarballs of unmodified source code. However, Typescript requires a transpilation step any many other non-Typescrpt codebases include some form of bundling or minification process before an npm package is created. Security concerns are exacerbated but the fact that minified code is hard to read.

Making Career Moves

How I Got Multiple Software Engineer Job Offers When Switching from Another Industry by Weihe Wang. Failure is the mother of success. I failed onsite interviews 4 times before getting my first offer. Sometimes you solved all problems brilliantly but failed the interview; while sometimes you struggled in one or two rounds but succeed in the end. There is an uncontrollable factor called luck that might be pivotal. It is frustrated to be rejected after an onsite interview, but don’t lose confidence and keep applying to other companies.

PODCASTS

Cowen, Andreessen, and Horowitz: Annotated by Arnold Kling. The view from 1995: Marc Andreessen and bhorowitz first collaborated in 1995, when Horowitz left an established, successful company, Lotus Notes, to work with Andreessen at a high-flying startup, Netscape. Andreessen points out that the big issue dividing the tech world was whether or not the Internet was going to actually solve the problem of connecting the world’s computers. As late as 1995, there were still many major companies that were working on technology that would be valuable if and only if the Internet did not work. That was a bad bet.

Hacking The Self with Nick Seneca Jankel & Trent Lapinski. “What is purpose? Well, purpose is like love in action. It is that love and kindness that comes out into I’m going to take on this community issue, I’m going to take on a bigger social problem then I was before. Until we can access purpose within, and keep it stable within us, that control and protect mode of a monkey will keep going ‘forget the purpose, lets make another million, that would be really cool, then we’ll be loved’.” Listen on iTunes or Google Play

Traction

24 Experts Weigh In: How Do You Get Traffic Without Budget? by Kirill Shilov. In my own personal experience, the best way to come up with new solutions is to find experts who have already achieved success in the same field as you and simply improve or repeat what they did. So I went ahead and asked experts from different fields about what they would do if they could start from scratch in 2019. And they answered!

Venture Capital

The Warning Label That Should Come With Venture Capital by Founder Collective.

The 200 Black Women in Tech to Follow On Twitter List by Jay Jay Ghatt. Why Black Women? Since the first list was published three years ago, I’ve been asked why I only featured women on this list when the tech ecosystem is not inclusive of black men as well. My answer: the list of 200 Black Women in Tech to Follow on Twitter was created out of a need to fill a specific and articulated void after I learned that Black Women were less than 1% of StartUp Founders receiving VC Capital (less than .02%), and in essence were located at the bottom of the totem pole and represented the least, much less than black men, white women, Asian American women and other marginalized groups. Not only did this group not receive funding, it was the least represented on the staffs of tech companies and virtually absent on other “who to follow” lists in tech. Out of exclusion comes a solution. I wanted all to know that we’re here too and to make it easier to “find us”, offer a list of the group least represented to draw from so that could not longer be an excuse as to why we were not included.

Hmm… the internet actually works for…

Who’s Really Behind the World’s Most Popular Free VPNs? by William Chalk. Over half (59%) of the apps studied ultimately have Chinese ownership or are based in China, despite its strict ban on VPNs and its notorious internet surveillance regime. This raises questions about why these companies — which have such large international user bases — have been allowed to continue operating. The Chinese-owned VPNs have been downloaded by users in the US, UK, Latin America, Middle East, and Canada. Three of the apps — TurboVPN, ProxyMaster and SnapVPN — were found to have linked ownership. In their privacy policy, they note: “Our business may require us to transfer your personal data to countries outside of the European Economic Area (“EEA”), including to countries such as the People’s Republic of China or Singapore.”

More Government Imagery

See people’s faces from miles away in the 195 gigapixel photo of Shanghai. by Ben Longstaff. As an engineer this is amazing, as a citizen the privacy implications are terrifying. Your average smartphone camera is around 12 megapixels. This image of Shanghai is 195 gigapixels. One megapixel equals one million pixels, a gigapixel equals one billion pixels. Put another way, this image is 16,250 times larger than the image you can take with your smart phone. Let’s see what that feels like through the BigPixel viewer looking at the roof top of a building a few miles away.

How to Download Live Images From Government Weather Satellites by Alex Wulff. Using nothing but your computer, some software, and a $20 radio dongle you can receive transmissions from NOAA weather satellites in the sky overhead. This is an incredibly exciting project that’s easy to do but produces great images. Think about it — you can receive images from a satellite almost 1000KM straight above you!

Listing Infinity

Infinite Data Structures In JavaScript by Francis Stokes. In the real world we deal with “infinite” ideas all the time. All the positive numbers is an example of an infinite concept we wouldn’t bat an eye at. But typically when we are programming we have to think of these infiniteconcepts in a finite way. You can’t have an Array of all the positive numbers (at least not in JavaScript!). What I want to introduce in this article is the idea of an Infinite List data structure, which can represent some never ending sequence, and let’s us use common operations like map and filter to modify and create new sequences.

You Know the Value of Patterns

Complicated patterns aren’t always that complicated. Usually it’s the “simple” ones that bite you. by Patrick Lee Scott. Staring at the maze of interconnected passageways of the microservice system, I immediately recognized the problems. I was sitting with a new client doing a review of their system. This was the first time they were showing me the code which was described as “very interesting” and “definitely one of the most complex I’ve worked on!” with excitement. I shuttered a bit. I thought about my ironically misquoted t-shirt with a picture of Albert Einstein.“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex… It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” — E. F. Schumacher.

Necessary Comparison of Bitcoin to the Weather

Bitcoin: The Gathering Storm. How Thunderstorm Dynamics Are Similar To Bitcoin Market Cycles by Charlie Shrem. On a typical summer day in Florida, the sun rises and begins to heat the ground. This solar heating is transferred into the lowest part of the atmosphere near the surface, essentially the air near the ground begins to gain energy and buoyancy. This can be compared to how Bitcoin adoption increases, such as when thousands of Bitcoin ATMs are deployed and stores begin to accept Bitcoin, which pumps energy into the Bitcoin system.

Necessary Comparison of Bitcoin to Light Itself

The Bitcoin Light Bulb Moment by Beautyon. This is the central problem with the state interfering with technology; no one can predict the future. Now that the law is in force, we are in a situation where capital has been wasted and misdirected, resources wasted and misdirected and depending on the state of the decommissioning of the incandescent bulb lines, no cost less way back to the manufacturing of incandescent light bulbs. The state, by its nature, is incompetent. They cannot predict the future and they are not omniscient. In order to be able to legislate effectively, especially where technology is concerned, they would need to be omniscient, with perfect knowledge of every piece and field of ongoing research and technology, and the potential of each piece and field of research and technology.

About Your Health

Eat Fat, Get Thin? A Physician’s Approach to Reinventing Your Health in 21 Days by Jordan “J” Gross. I tested the strategies presented in Dr. Mark Hyman’s New York Times best-selling book, and here is how it went… My friends have called me the human guinea pig. I am a test mouse in a lab full of endless possibilities. I have gone seven days with only eating Chipotle, I have done a full year with no McDonald’s, I have talked to a new person every day for the last few years, and I have even gone a full month without going to the gym (that one was the hardest for me)… the self-experimental journey I embarked upon recently was actually not so much out of curiosity and adventure, but rather, it was out of necessity.

About Those Other Coins

“When Altseason?” — How to Time the Most Profitable Period in the Cryptocurrency Market. by Rekt Capital. Altseason, a shorthand for Altcoin Season, is the time of the year when the majority of the people in the cryptocurrency market develop a very positive sentiment about Altcoins. This translates into exponential gains across Altcoins (i.e. Alternative coins to Bitcoin). In the past, Altcoins have enjoyed immense gains during Altseasons. Most notably in December 2017 which saw most (if not all) Altcoins gained their initial market valuation many times over during a period of a few weeks of constant, almost uninterrupted uptrends.

About Those Other Tokens…

STO Market Outlook 2019 by Tatiana Koffman. 2018 will be remembered as having paved the way for a new generation of security tokens. Issuers and investors continue to remain curious about the benefits of tokenization such as increased liquidity, fractional ownership, decreased issuance costs, innovative structures and greater pricing efficiency. After conducting an independent study of 130+ STOs currently on the market, the following are some trends forming for 2019.

ETHEREUM

2.0 — The Road To Constantinople And Beyond by Vince Tabora. The next system wide upgrade for the Ethereum network called Constantinople will be implemented in 2019 (originally set for 2018). It is also called as “Ethereum 2.0” or the “New Ethereum”, software version 3.5, part of the release called Metropolis. There is a lot on the line with the success of the Ethereum project, and these are the upgrades to scale the network. The Constantinople upgrade is scheduled for block #7080000. There will actually be three forks in the beginning of 2019 and this includes Constantinople. The two other forks are “hard forks”, meaning they will create a new cryptocurrency. These are Classic Vision and Ethereum Nowa. ETH holders should get an equivalent of those coins in their digital wallet after the fork, if supported by the wallet or digital exchange.

DATA, DATA, DATA

Interview with Data Scientist at kaggle: Dr. Rachael Tatman by Sanyam Bhutani (check out his whole series on machine learning heroes). Dr. Rachael Tatman: As for technical speaking, the best two pieces of advice I can give you are, first, to practice as much as possible. Ask if you can give talks at local events or to relevant clubs. The more talks you give the less nerve-wracking they are and the more you learn what is effective for you. Practice is doubly important when you’re prepping a talk. I usually try to run through the talk at least twice a day in the week leading up to it, making little adjustments when I come across awkward places. Of course, I don’t do that with live streams. I pretty much treat livestreams like technical interviews; it doesn’t matter if I make mistakes so long as I’m telling you what I’m thinking so you can follow my thought processes. My second piece of advice is to be as specific as possible. One of my personal pet peeves are talks that are about how “data science is revolutionizing something” but that is super vague. I want information I can actually apply! If you built a model that does X, talk about why X is important, how you built the model, what makes your model different from other models and how it performed in various situations. Tell me about what specifically you did that didn’t work so I know not to try it. Think about what you wanted to know about whatever you’re talking about a year ago and then tell me those things.

A Last Thought About Diversification

Why Should Everyone Invest In 2019 (Attention, Engineers) by Rafael Belchior, who also wrote the definitive productivity post of the modern era: Top 1,337 Productivity Tips For 2019, Or Any Other Year. As we have just started 2019, 🎉 we have another perfect opportunity to review our lives, opportunities, values, and expectations.

Source: https://dilbert.com/strip/2018-12-31

Despite being a tech addict (DevOps, Blockchain), my path presented me several ways of approaching life and the knowledge I have gained. At some point, I noticed that there is something that professors at my university are not teaching that would turn us into more independent persons. Money. In particular, I became very interested in the investments world, as it allows you to generate money using the money. If you don’t invest your money, it will never increase. You will likely spend, give it away or save it (and possibly spend it in a short-term wish). Now, you could be asking yourself: Why should we care about investments and money? What are the opportunities? Shouldn’t we just save money? How to start well? How to avoid being scammed by false gurus? What is the big picture that we should be aware? Shouldn’t we limit ourselves to the observation of the secret mysteries of this beautiful universe? 🌌

Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted.

Kind Regards,

David Smooke

P.S. We built 13 new collections this week to make easier to find great stories about: BioHacking, Bitcoin ETF, Blockchain Development, Coding, Cryptoeconomics, EOS, Learning to Code, Hacks, Ripple (XRP), Security Tokens, Tech Economics, & Women in Tech.

P.P.S. Our equity crowdfund campaign is up to $986k from 893 people. The Reg CF maximum raise is $1.07M. Invest before it’s too late.

BEST TECH STORIES of 2019 (so far) was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

[gardinerhouse-blog]

Senior Series: Alex Pt. 1

Alex Miller uses she/her pronouns. She was born in Midland, TX, but has lived in the Houston, TX area, Moscow, Russia, and Cambridge, England, so who knows where she’s from.

What is your major and how did you pick it?

My major is East Asian Studies, and I knew that I wanted to major in it even before coming to Smith—that’s actually one of the reasons I picked Smith, is that this major was available. I started studying Japanese my freshman year of high school, and I knew I wanted to continue with that, but I also wanted to take history classes more than literature classes so I knew that an East Asian Languages & Literatures major was not for me. One of my favorite things about the EAS major is that it’s multi-disciplinary, so there are a lot of cross-listed courses. You can take art history classes, history classes, anthropology classes, government classes, and they can all count towards the major.

Where did you study abroad, and what was that like? 

I studied abroad in Kyoto, Japan with the Associated Kyoto Program for my junior year. It was pretty amazing and I had a lot of incredible experiences, thanks to my wonderful host family. The first month was really tough, though, I’m not going to lie! I thought I knew what I was getting myself into, but it turned out I had no clue—my host family was a lot bigger, more lively, and initially overwhelming, than I had been led to expect from the paper from my program telling me who I was going to be living with.

But by the time I got to the end of that first month, I was like “well, if I could handle all that, I can definitely handle the rest of the year.” And I ended up having a really great time. I went to a bunch of rock concerts with my host family and with my friends, and I traveled a lot with my host family, and also with friends. My host mom bought flowers every couple of weeks so we could arrange them together, and we watched music programs on TV together. My friends and I hung out in Kyoto a lot, did a lot of karaoke, and frequented this giant coffee shop with literally hundreds of different parfaits available.

 AKP actually provides a significant amount of financial support, from paying for our monthly transportation passes to and from school, to giving us a lunch stipend, to the monthly “cultural activities grant.” All of that allowed me to do more than I probably would have if all that was available to me was my own money. The program also had field trips and events that ensured we got to visit some cool and important places, and try out new things.

Honestly, though, the reason I had such an amazing time studying abroad was my host family. They were all amazing and kind and welcoming, and my host mom and I still message each other. She sends me pictures of her grand-kids every time we talk, and likes to check that I’m not too stressed and am taking time to enjoy myself in college.

I sort of intermittently kept a blog while I was abroad. You can see it here: http://jyakyoto1516.tumblr.com/ and you can also ask me questions through there if you want to!

Have you been involved in any extracurriculars or campus jobs at Smith? Which have been most rewarding to you, and why?

Fall semester of first year, I signed up for a bunch of clubs I never went to, but then in the spring semester I started doing a radio show with my friend Suwei because two of our other friends, Meghan and Siobhan, were having so much fun with their radio show. Sophomore year, I had radio shows both semesters, and I was also an SAA (Student Academic Advisor) for Gardiner, and a liaison for the East Asian Studies department. Junior year I was abroad, and then this year I’ve had a radio show both semesters, I’m the head of the HSECs (House Social Events Coordinators) in Gardiner, I’m a student editor for Global Impressions magazine, and for the spring semester I’ve also been our Social Media Chair.

As for which of these has been most rewarding, I would say all my positions with Gardiner House, and then also being a WOZQ DJ.

Being an SAA my sophomore year I was able to help out incoming first years with figuring out life at Smith, and Bae and I planned some fun events to help build house community—like big-little bonding with silly camp games, including a mummy-making contest, and Floor Wars, complete with a banana-eating contest and crab soccer.

As an HSEC, I’ve continued to create events to try to facilitate the creation of house community and encourage bonds across class years in the house. I’ve worked with five really wonderful firsties to make sure events like Fetish (our fall semester party that usually happens around Halloween), Yule Ball, and March Masquerade have gone smoothly and been special and fun for our housemates. I’ve also organized some smaller events, like the Gardiner Olympics (Floor Wars, but re-branded), a karaoke night, and some movie nights and stuff.

As Social Media Chair I’ve been most focused on starting this blog and creating content for it, and that’s been really fun. I get to learn a lot about my housemates as I interview them for the podcast, or put their interview answers together for a text-post. Making the videos and podcasts takes a lot of time, but I’m also learning some cool skills as I do.

And then lastly, doing radio shows. This is honestly just so much fun. I’ve co-DJed with friends and also DJ-ed alone, and either way, it’s great. WOZQ the organization itself is pretty disorganized and this is what best sums up my reaction to them: -__- But! Every week, I make a two-hour playlist of music I like, and then I get to go down to the booth and play my music over the airwaves to whoever’s listening while I blast it through very nice speakers for myself. A+.

Is there a Smith event, either in the house particularly or on the campus as a whole, that you think is really special and wish more people knew about?

Every spring, Smith has its own Sci-fi/Fantasy convention called ConBust. My first couple years here I kind of just assumed it would be pathetic and not worth the money to go, so I ignored it. And then senior year I saw one of their posts on Facebook and so I followed the link to their schedule of events and I was like “…why…why did I not look at this before?”

It is a small con, but that means you really get to talk to the panelists, and they bring in really cool people. There were two freelance manga translators there this year who did a lot to help put me in touch with people in the industry with the power to hire me if I was interested in pursuing a career as an manga editor. There were a bunch of authors and editors, an animator from Cartoon Network, cartoonists, the guy who created the Dothraki language for Game of Thrones, and more. There are weapons demonstrations, there’s food, an artist alley, people in cosplay (and not). If you love sci-fi/fantasy, this is an amazing event. I went to some really interesting talks, like the one on Creepypasta, and some fascinating panels that dealt a lot with how we create sci-fi/fantasy worlds, so there was one on making magic systems, another on interstellar governments. And then there were also panels that were about examining how we consume and interact with things, like the panel on fandom and criticism, and another on videogames as literature.

Also, if you’re at all interested in writing sci-fi/fantasy, OMG GO. I got so much advice and learned a lot, not just about world-building and editing, but also how the publishing industry works and what different routes are available to get your work out there, and what the pros and cons of each are.

I went with a couple friends and I honestly spent pretty much my entire weekend at ConBust. I got way more out of it than the $15 I spent for my weekend pass.

What have been your favorite courses at Smith and why?

ENG 296: Advanced Fiction Writing: I’ve taken this class twice, once with Emily Barton in the spring of my sophomore year, and this spring with Ruth Ozeki. And both times it has been wonderful. Ruth Ozeki is amazing. (I also really enjoyed ENG 206: Intermediate Fiction Writing with David Maine). I love creative writing, so it’s great to have classes that force me to prioritize my writing and work on it throughout the busy school year. I can really see my progress as a writer when I look back through stories that I’ve written and revisions I’ve done for these classes, which makes me proud. These are workshop-style classes, and so you get lots of feedback on your work, both from the professor (always a published author), and from your classmates. I also definitely learned how to give more constructive feedback and criticism, and how to take it. A+, 10/10, would take again, and in fact, did.

HST 217: WWII in East Asia: History and Memory: I took this class second semester first year with my major advisor, Professor Marnie Anderson. Every class I’ve taken with her has been amazing, because she’s a great professor—really knowledgeable and understanding, and also organized. She gets the necessary information across in her lectures, which are usually pretty engaging, and she’s really good at facilitating and supporting discussion in class.

For this particular class, we focused on certain big events from WWII in East Asia, like the issue of the comfort women, the atomic bombings of Japan, war propaganda in the US and Japan, and the Nanjing Massacre. We examined these issues from multiple perspectives, and it was truly fascinating to see not only how different countries remember things very differently, but also how historical memory changes over time within the same country. It was a really fascinating, thought-provoking class, and I highly recommend it to everyone.

Digital Media Literacy 2017: This was actually a J-term class I took this year and it was one of the best classes I’ve ever taken at Smith, no joke. It’s a fairly intense class, and we all learned so much. I had zero digital media experience going in, and I came out knowing the basics of Photoshop, how to use a DSLR camera, how to scout a location for audio and video recording, how to set up light-kits and microphones for a video shoot, how to capture audio and video, and then how to edit my footage in Premiere Pro. We learned about copyright, too, and how to do some basic things in Motion5 to make animations. Am I perfect, now? No. But I can do things I had literally no clue how to do before I took this class, and I’m building on those skills as Social Media Chair for Gardiner.

You can see some more stuff about the course, including examples of the work we did, here: https://spark.adobe.com/page/Uw4HSPPAYTV1d/

Also, here’s a video I made for the class! I had no clue how to do things like this before I took DML, and by the end of the 2 weeks, I was able to produce this, so that’s pretty impressive! (Thank you to Siobhan for letting me interview you all the time lol)

EAS 210: Culture and Diplomacy in Asia: I took this class with Professor Dennis Yasutomo and it was amazing. First of all, Professor Yasutomo is one of the best professors I have encountered during my college career. He really understands what it’s like to be a student—for this class we didn’t have to buy a single book, he gave us printouts and links to articles on Moodle, because he said he had always hated it when professors made him buy tone of books to read one or two chapters out of, so he wasn’t going to do that to us.

For this class, we examined different ideas about different countries’ negotiating styles and the various theories behind why they negotiate like that. His lectures were always informative, and discussions were always lively and interesting. And then at the end of class he would be like, “so, to sum up, what I’m hearing from you is that you think XYZ.” And we’d all be like “wait, now that you say it like that, no, hang on. Let me think about this some more.”

[yujachachacha]

another ask meme thing

Tagged by @hazardtomyhealth, @symphonyalpha, and @jerrykongg, wow! Hopefully, I’m not missing anyone; also, I’m so sorry about how late this is... OTL

Rules: Tag 20 people you’d like to get to know better I don’t even know if I’ve talked to 20 people on Tumblr, lol.

Anyways, let’s see how many of these I can avoid answering directly by inserting stuff I’ve previously posted on my blog :3c

Name/Nickname: Oh look, it’s the first question on my About page.

Gender: Wow, my About page sure is helpful~

Star Sign: Libra, just barely! That’s why I share my sign with Eli, even though she’s born in October and I was born in September, haha.

Height: Shorter than Nico_(:3 」∠)_ (1) (2)

Hogwarts House: I feel like I’ve mentioned this on my blog, but I can’t remember when, so...I’m a Hufflepuff by ~choice~. I was actually Hatstalled on Pottermore! That means that the Hat couldn’t choose between two Houses for me, and literally gave me the option to choose. The other House I could’ve chosen was actually Slytherin, lol. I have no idea how I got Hatstalled between those two, though it makes for an amusing story.

Favorite Color: Can’t remember if I said this on Tumblr or Discord, but it’s actually red. Chuunibyou me used to call it “blood-red” or “crimson-red”. But in terms of clothing, I tend to pick black, gray, or dark blue! (because they’re easier to wash than white clothes :3c)

Favorite Animal: If it has fur and eyes, I’ll probably think it’s cute by default. Furless animals like reptiles and birds are fine as well! But as for my favorite...it’s actually the snow monkey! The sole reason is the fact that they look like cute mini-grandpas when they’re chilling in hot springs:

Average hours of sleep: I have the ability to sleep like 18 hours thanks to the wacky sleep schedule I cultivated during university. But now that I think about it, it’s more like 6-8 hours on average. Huh. Surprisingly normal.

Cat or dog person: Please refer to the screenshot in the next question~ I’m a dog in the Chinese zodiac (y’all probably can figure out my DOB from the stuff I’m writing in this post, though it’s honestly not a secret since I’ve said things like “I’m Suwawa’s age” like a bajillion times lol), and my dream is to own a dog once I get my own place! I love cats as well though - I spent a lot of time petting cats in Korea and the Netherlands.

Favorite Fictional Characters: Everyone in µ’s and Aqours is precious!!! But it’s kinda obvious who my favorites are from my blog description, haha. Here’s what I’ve said before:

Nagato Yuki was actually my all-time favorite character when I was in high school. I pretty much died when I saw her alternate universe version in the movie, even though I knew what was coming since I read the light novels. :’)))

Number of blankets I sleep with: Usually one, but sometimes I use two in the winter (comforter + thin blanket). I dislike having cold feet/hands - the major plus to being smol is having warm hands, actually! It’s from sleeves being always too long for me, resulting in me being able to keep my hands insulated as a result.

Favorite Singer/Band: I don’t really have any particular favorite artist - I usually just happen to like whatever genre I’m into at the time - jazz, rock, classical, pop, slow ballads, and so on. Aside from LL music, I guess I mostly listen to random Korean and Japanese songs. Soundtracks from movies, games, and shows in general are pretty great!

Dream Trip: Airbnb in Europe! I’ve been to the Netherlands and Belgium, but I didn’t have too much time to explore since I was only there briefly (I literally spent a single day in Belgium) for a study abroad program. I’d really like to visit London in particular so I can geek out over Harry Potter stuff.

Dream Job: Defense attorney. Been a childhood dream of mine since 6th grade-ish?

When was this blog created: May 13, 2016! I stalked a bunch of LL blogs anonymously months before that though. :3c

Looking back...my first post (reblog) was so self-centered, omg. My first (original) post is pretty lame too, haha.

I actually joined Tumblr in 2012, but I only used my account for a year to reblog assorted memes and anime gifs. There wasn’t really any theme to it (unlike my current blog, which is firmly in the LL fandom), which is probably why I quickly lost interest. I wonder if I even remember the password to my old account...not that I really want to log on, since reading my old tags and reblogs is embarrassing (even the URL is just...OTL).

But now that I think about it, I don’t think much has changed:

2016 first “yujachat” post

2012 first ever Tumblr post

*cringes and prays that no one ever finds my first blog*

Current number of followers: Uh...*checks*...497?!?!?! When did this happen??? How many of you are bots? Even so, omg this is a lot. Holy shit. Uh. Wow. I might hit 500 soon...I should probably work harder on my TL projects in light of this. ;w;

When did your blog reach its peak?: I suspect it was that “Is there anything that You CAN’T do???” post I made towards the beginning of the LLS anime that started getting my blog attention. I do know that out of my top five posts, at least three of them are shitposts (specifically, from my Love Live SINshine series)...possibly four lmao, I haven’t looked too closely. I did get some attention for my analyses and translations, but not as much. TBH, I’m not surprised that memes rather than rambling won people over! :3c

What made you decide to make a Tumblr?: Yeah, about that...

Birthday: The day that LLS Episode 13 aired.

Relationship status: Single, and will probably stay that way until I rectify the fact that I’ve literally fallen asleep at a nightclub, and then ditched my friends there to go eat dumplings at 2am, because for me, apparently hunger > “thirst”.

Siblings: one younger brother (who probably thinks I’m a loser for still reading manga and stuff)

Wake up time: Generally, I’ll wake up naturally sometime between 9 and 10am. If I’m feeling lazy, or if I stayed up really late the night before, I’ll sleep in until like 1 or 2pm. In college, I’ve woken up at like 7pm before because my sleep schedule during university was, well...

In Korea, I’ve been waking up at about 7 or 8am though, so that I can eat breakfast with my relatives before they go to work!

Lemonade or sweet tea: Does yujacha count as sweet tea? :’D If not, then lemonade.

Day or night: I’m a night owl. I also prefer sunsets and the night sky over sunrise.

Coke or pepsi: I actually dislike pretty much all carbonated beverages now that I’m not the sugar fiend I used to be when I was little, but younger me preferred Coke.

Calls or texts: I call family members if it’s been a while since I’ve talked to them, and I also use phone calls when I have to explain something that I’m either (1) too lazy to do through texts since the explanation is long, or (2) lowkey unable to do since I’m much better at speaking than writing in Korean. Otherwise, I pretty much communicate through messages/texts.

Ever met a celebrity?: Do judges and international officials from the UN count? I got to meet a few when I was studying abroad in the Netherlands. I also met with Hannah Song (President and CEO of Liberty in North Korea) when I was a summer intern for a leadership program in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

Ah, but to actually answer the question in terms of pop culture people, the majority of the celebs I’ve met in recent memory are from university events/performances/shows, and include:

David So, a YouTube comedian. He gives pretty good hugs btw~

Dumbfoundead, Korean-American rapper.

Jay Pharoah, SNL comedian.

Judah Friedlander, actor who’s probably best known for 30 Rock; I took like five pictures with him in various poses lol.

JuNCurryAhn, an amazing YouTube violinist. He’s adorable in person.

Mike Song, founding member of Kinjaz and former member of Kaba Modern (the dance crew that stole my heart on ABDC).

Shin Lim, a world-champion magician. Seriously, check out his Penn and Teller episode he’s legit a wizard; also watching him live was fucking insane!!!

There are a few more celebs (mostly Asian-American artists lol, since I was hugely involved in the Asian culture clubs in university), but I can’t remember them all, since “meeting” them mostly consisted of taking pictures and small talk. Though for a few of the people on this list (especially the ones close to college age), I hung out with them during the post-event party and stuff. Pretty entertaining to see a magician renowned for slight-of-hand play beer pong. :3c

Also, I just realized that everyone on this list is male, lmao...I did meet several Asian female rappers/singers from college events, but for the life of me I can’t remember their names. :’)))

Ah, to rectify that - when I was in junior high, I saw Jennette McCurdy at the Anaheim East West Ice Palace. My brother and I spent a solid five minutes elbowing each other and muttering “Isn’t that Sam from iCarly?” / “No way!” / “Isn’t she supposed to be an ice skating pro?” / “Why would she come here?” / “Dude, she lives in the SoCal area and this place is home to the legendary Michelle Kwan, why wouldn’t she come here?” / “Wait, I don’t even like iCarly, so why are we talking about this?”. Then the poor girl started getting swarmed by a crowd of preteens asking for her autograph, so my brother and I decided to just let her be and skated off peacefully.

As a final note to this long list, when I was in elementary school, I think I might have seen Tim Allen in an Apple Store? I wasn’t sure because the guy was wearing shades, so I just walked past him without doing anything.

Smiles or eyes: EYE SMILES. tbh one of the reasons I love Shukashuu is her great eye smiles!!!

Country or city?: City. I’ve spent time in both while in Korea, and hands-down I’ve gotta pick city for (1) internet, (2) heating/air conditioning, (3) well-connected public transit, and (4) showering instead of having to go the old-fashioned route of drawing the bath.

Last song I listened to: Does the preview for Aqours’ “Thrilling One Way” count?

Tag some users you want to get to know better: I guess I’ll tag some of my followers? I really only know like a handful of people on Tumblr (and am still amazed that they talk to me omg), so don’t feel shy about saying hi! IDK if y’all have already done this thing, so feel free to ignore this if that’s the case, or if you just don’t wanna do it. @lmlm7 @lalalacies @mystwatch @xswordeyesx @queen-of-hearts92

Also, anyone who reads this who hasn’t done it yet, feel free to try it out! Tag me in your post so that I can get to know you as well~

[zwischenstadt]

“ BUT DON'T LIVE ANIMALS IN THE MARKETS SPREAD DISEASE? (YES).This is the more nuanced argument, and it isn't completely wrong. Markets that keep large quantities of live animals in cages are definitely vectors for diseases. However, these markets aren't always what you think. For example, last time I mentioned Bird and Flower markets, where many animals are sold as pets, and sanitation standards are lower. These pose a major health risk, and seem to have played a major role in the 2003 SARS outbreak. The exotic pet trade is absolutely bad, but it isn't unique to China. For example, Florida. Just watch Tiger King..However, you don't see very many live birds and mammals in food markets in China. This is partly practical. While many Chinese people don't mind slaughtering and butchering a fish in their sink, killing and butchering a pig, or a porcupine, or a cow, or a bat, is a lot harder to do at home, especially if you live in an apartment. Trust me, I've tried. This is why most people buy their meat from butchers, not live. Farmers in the countryside will buy live animals, just like farmers do everywhere, but you wouldn't see any of those in the middle of a big city like Wuhan. .The other reason for this is legal. Both keeping and selling live animals is tightly regulated in China, and while there is a limited ability to enforce laws in the countryside, in major cities, police would definitely notice. This means that most meat markets have no live animals at all, while "Wet Markets" may have various live animals that can be kept in buckets of water, but not many cages. You will see some animals in various wet markets that you wouldn't see in an American grocery store, but they are almost always dead, meaning they aren't spreading SARS-CoV-2. You also might be surprised to find out how few of these animals are actually wild..

BUT SERIOUSLY, DO CHINESE PEOPLE EAT BATS? (MAYBE).This is a question I often hear phrased as "Why don't the Chinese just stop eating bats?" or "Chinese people need to stop eating bats!" both of which already presume that the fact Chinese people eat bats is beyond dispute. But if you ask a Chinese person "Why don't you stop eating bats?" Ten times out of ten, their answer will be "I don't eat bats. That's fucked up.".But things aren't quite that simple. I've traveled all over China for over a decade, and seen hundreds of markets, and talked to thousands of Chinese people about food and the environment. I've never met a Chinese person who ate a bat. Not even one. But on the other hand, most Chinese people I've talked to believe that some other people in China definitely do eat bats and other strange animals..Clearly, eating bats isn't common. If it were, I would have been able to find at least one person. I've never met a Chinese person whose favorite dish was bat. I've never met a Chinese person whose grandmother has a great bat recipe. I've never been in a market with a Chinese person who said "Wait, where's the bat?" Eating bats in China is just as unusual as it would be in America, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, just that it's not common. And even more interesting, it's also a deeply held belief, not just among westerners, but among the Chinese themselves, that people in China do eat exotic wildlife. .For an anthropologist, this is a giant flag suggesting that there is important work to be done understanding the cultural contexts that drive this seeming contradiction. So the real goal of this post is to explore the actual wildlife trade, in both words and deeds, to figure out what is going on..In my own research, about half the people I've talked to are adamantly opposed to eating wild animals. About a quarter of the people I've talked to claim to have eaten some kind of wild animal at least once in their life. And I've only found about one in a hundred who actually have eaten anything endangered or illegal. Quantitative academic studies have largely mirrored those numbers, with the exception that they find about 4 to 5% of respondents claim to have eaten endangered animals, which makes sense, because my research tends to be among people who wouldn't have the economic means to do so. .But that data can be misleading. If I'm simply asking Chinese people if they've eaten wild or endangered animals, the answers I'll get might not be accurate because my understanding of the terms might not correspond to their own understanding. So the best solution is to be more specific..

SOME ANIMALS AREN'T AS WILD AS YOU THINK.It's worth noting that these numbers on wildlife eating are actually lower than what I've anecdotally found in the US, though that may be skewed based on the people I hang out with. A lot of Americans eat wild meat, and not just hunters, but families and neighbors of hunters, and even customers of local artisan butchers and farm to table restaurants. But our meals aren't always as wild as we think..When Chinese people say they've eaten something wild, they aren't usually in a position to know for sure. What they really mean is that they have eaten an animal that they perceive to be wild. Tuna, for example, are wild animals that almost all of us have eaten, but we don't think of that as "wildlife" in no small part because we seldom think of bodies of water as wildernesses. .On the other hand, most people, in China and America, think of deer as "wild" and thus presume that eating venison means they are eating wild animals. However, the fact of the matter is that most deer in China are farm raised..In a Chinese market you will find many things that are unusual by American standards, and honestly, even by Chinese standards. A lot of the time, when I've talked with American tourists in China, they conflate "weird" with "wild." They start by talking about Chinese markets and restaurants being full of wild food. But when I ask for details, they normally name things that aren't in fact wild. For example, duck's tongues, sheep's lungs, and pig's feet aren't unusual in different regional cuisines of China, but they aren't wild. They're just variety cuts of meat from domesticated animals. China is a country with severe famine in living memory, so while most Chinese people my age grew up with much more mundane meals, their parents who lived through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution often scold us that it is horrible to waste any part of an animal..Other times, there are seemingly exotic animals that people don't know enough to identify. For example, turtle soup is fairly common in China and you will see soft shell turtles in most wet market. Many species of softshell turtles in Asia are endangered. For example, the Yangtze River Giant Softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) is critically endangered, but only three living individuals are known to exist, so you are most certainly not eating this turtle. The Asian Giant Softshell Turtle (Pelochelys cantorii) is endangered, and I've seen them in the wildlife trade, but never in a market or a restaurant. Getting such a turtle on the black market would cost thousands of dollars, which is way out of the league of any vendor in a wet market. If you aren't paying thousands of dollars on the black market, the turtle you are eating is probably the Chinese Softshell Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis) which is the most common farmed turtle in China, and not part of the wildlife trade..I saw one article where a journalist claimed to have seen a beaver for sale in a "wet" market, giving evidence that Chinese markets were full of wild, or at least, "weird" foods. Now, the Eurasian Beaver (Castor fiber) is not endangered, but still on the IUCN red list. However, the subspecies of Castor fiber found in East Asia, the Asiatic Beaver (Castor fiber birulai), is extraordinarily rare, with a population of just a few hundred, and those are only in the basin of the Ulungur River on the border between Xinjiang and Mongolia. .However, if you see a beaver in China and you aren't on a biological expedition to the remote grasslands, then you are probably looking at a Canadian Beaver (Castor canadensis). These beavers are trapped widely in North America, for fur, meat, and castoreum, which is used in artificial vanilla flavoring that you've probably eaten. These beavers are also imported or smuggled into China, but, like many aspects of the wildlife trade, we are actually the source of this trade, and China is a relatively minor consumer. Beavers have also been regularly eaten in Canada and the American west, and were eaten with such enthusiasm in Europe they were almost driven to extinction in the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church deemed them "fish" and therefore appropriate to eat on Fridays and during Lent..Another example of animals that aren't wild, and aren't Chinese, is alligator meat. Most Chinese people don't eat alligator. It is definitely considered "weird" in China. But some people like to try weird stuff. That's true everywhere. Yangtze Alligators (Alligator sinensis) in China's rivers were once common, but they are now critically endangered. There are only about 32 adults left in the wild, and it may be less than that since I last checked. So when I saw a pile of a dozen dead alligators in a market once, it wasn't hard to deduce that this one market wasn't selling half the species in one go. .I'm not an expert on reptiles, so I asked, and the merchant proudly told me his alligators were American, just like me, and that he had imported them from a farm in Florida. He explained that in addition to not being illegal or endangered, American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) were preferable because, like most Americans, they were bigger, fatter, and produced better leather. So seeing alligators in a market may seem like proof of wildlife trade, but it isn't what it seems. Alligators are farmed in America, and you can find alligator meat in the adventurous section of many grocery store freezer aisles..

HOW FREQUENTLY DO CHINESE PEOPLE EAT WILD ANIMALS?.Not frequently. Of course, it is impossible to generalize about a vast country with more than a billion people. Most Chinese people eat a very narrow spectrum of animals. Many eat only pork and carp. Chicken, lamb, and beef are also common, but there are many people who won't even eat those for one reason or another. Duck, goose, and rabbit will round out any general menu. Turtle, squab and frog, all farm raised, are about as exotic as you'll find on a regular excursion to the market. .The people who eat the most wild meat are going to be in the countryside, especially subsistence farmers and hunters in remote communities. I spent time doing research with Hmong hunters in Guizhou province, and hunting is an important part of their culture. But game isn't plentiful. Most of what they hunt are squirrels, feral pigs, and feral chickens. Hunting for bushmeat does hurt endangered species in many places, especially in Southeast Asia, but this isn't what you see in the markets, it is hunted and consumed on the spot. Most importantly, it isn't part of the normal Chinese diet, or Chinese culinary culture. In general, relying on wild animals for food is seen as a hardship, and while many Chinese people know what it is like to eat anything to survive, most Chinese people would take more pride in a dish of braised pork belly than squirrels or sparrows. .Many Chinese people over the age of forty may well have grown up eating wild animals during the famines, but others have eaten wild animals on rare occasions, out of curiosity, or on a dare. The most common of these is a stunt to demonstrate manliness that I've seen performed throughout Asia, where the heart of a snake is dropped into a glass of liquor and you are challenged to drink it. I've even heard of something like this being used in hazings for the Thai special forces. Once again, many of these snakes are actually farm raised, and mostly for leather, but it's not unusual to find a Chinese guy who will confess to having done this on a dare - often times more sheepishly than proud. These kind of people will tell you they have consumed wild animals (to the best of their knowledge) but they couldn't be considered to be regularly eating them, any more than we consider the things eaten on Fear Factor part of the American diet.”

[luhkevin]

Analog

I’m trying to get back into film photography this year but like many other things it doesn’t feel as fresh as the first time. I don’t feel as excited when I’m out and about taking photos, but maybe it’s just that I don’t feel settled yet in nyc. What remains, though, is the excitement of receiving the developed photos. Somehow the anticipation -- opening the email link, downloading a huge zip file, seeing all my pictures from weeks, months ago -- still gets me.  I’ve been trying to find a cheaper film stock to use for more frequent photography, maybe even for a larger project. Portra is pretty expensive, and more than that, I feel bad wasting it on random street photography. It’s like taking really nice drawing paper and idk scribbling on it with some crayon. If I had easy access to a lot of lomo I would definitely use that for everyday shooting. It seems to have a more saturated look than portra, but I still like the colors. Ultramax and Superia 400 look the most “vintage” to me, and they’re also midtier price and quality-wise, so I think I’ll go with one of those. Plus, I like that “vintage” look. For black and white, I’ve only tried Acros and Ilford. Acros has this super creamy look, I absolutely love it, it’s beautiful. But it’s not available anymore, I could only find it in Japan, and I hear Fuji is discontinuing it and releasing a newer version. Ilford looks so legit, the grain is large and exquisite. I should try out Tmax and Tri-x, those are the professional ones.  There’s this scene in Claire’s Camera where one of the characters talks about changing things through the power of looking at a picture, looking at a picture for a long time and really focusing on what’s in it. I think that’s what this entire process of analog photography has forced me into doing. After importing my latest pictures I’ll sit and stare at some of the other pictures in my library. I’ll reminisce on those outings or vacations where I took them, and maybe I’ll even remember exactly when I took a given picture.  Tonight I was looking through some pictures I took when I was in Japan, April 2019. The first half of 2019 I was waiting for a lot of things, and compared to 2018 I stopped living life as fully. I was planning a move from sf to nyc which I tell people is because I got tired of sf and I wanted to be around more film culture, and that is true, but the catalyst was probably getting my heart kinda broken in taiwan and just wanting to start over somewhere. For a lot of reasons, a combination of taiwan, moving, job stuff slowing down, my friends in SF becoming more settled in their lives, I felt like my life was at a standstill in the first half of 2019, so I didn’t have the same lust for life as I did in 2018. I just did things to go through the motions. 

I wasn’t super excited for Japan, I decided to go because it was the last major East Asian country that was on my mental list, and some close friends had gone the year before. Plus, I was going to Shanghai to visit relatives anyway, and I was going to leave the West Coast soon, so any future flights to East Asian countries would take much longer. I think what I’m getting at is that my reasons were more logical than emotional, which feels strange. I remember almost going to Berlin instead, which I had also almost done in 2016 as well, but that year I also went to Shanghai to visit relatives instead. Even though I got sick towards the end of my Japan trip, it still felt very relaxing. Again I think this is partly due to my purgatorial mood in early 2019. Everything felt very idle and I was in no hurry to do anything, I was just waiting for July to come, which is when I would move, and the six months until then were more or less throwaway. I didn’t make an effort to date, I was very blasé with any new people I met in San Francisco. I think all of my emotional energy went into some work stuff and into thinking about all of my friends that I would miss.  I keep thinking about mid 2017 through the end of 2018 and I keep thinking about that quote apocryphally attributed to Lenin -- “There are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen” -- and along with this I think about the first couple months of 2019 where sfmoma had a Jia retrospective. This period of a year + change were incredibly spiritual for me in a lot of different ways, and maybe that’s just rare, like really rare. It kind of all happened by accident too, I don’t think I consciously did anything to kickstart it all. I’m not really interested in tracing the cause-effect chain anyway...but I will say that momentum in life is a real thing. My 2018 was only so busy because once it got rolling I felt the need to keep it rolling.  Here are some moments and periods of my life that I am comfortable sharing that have made me happy when I think about them... Protesting at SFO in early 2017 Coming home after long nights of drinking with smb Visiting my nyc friends, which I am now also a part of Christmas at home Shooting Two Apart Taiwan 2017 and 2018 The first day I arrived in Milan and saw my family and we went to the grocery store bought all this food and ate it Evenings @ Eureka, and I’d go home at approx 11 PM, then go to the bodega and get half a ham sandwich and a mac salad, then adorn the mac salad with freshly cracked black pepper and rock salt and eat it while watching TV  The Jia retrospective, where I saw Platform on 35mm, spoke to Jia w/o addressing him in the honorific, got him to sign my book of his essays, saw a bunch more movies with two of my closest friends and cried during some of them too, and we would go out for hotpot or drypot after almost each screening The first couple times I went to sf photoworks after shooting film The month or so when k was living with us at nob hill and the three of us were hanging out more in general, and we would get wine, cheese and bread on Friday or Saturday, and I would eat the leftover cheese and bread and drink the leftover wine, which was cooled @ the perfect temperature of San Francisco Room Temperature.  When I got my new camera and did some street photography at night with it and then met up with k and v at some cocktail place and we ended the night at dimple The first time we went to DNM Waking up every morning next to a huge bay window, facing south, rolling up the window and feeling the sun shine in. The 6 - 7 months when k started living with w and I would sit in the huge living in 1235 pine with just my clamp light on and I would be watching something by tsai or continuing west of the tracks, and I got really into slow cinema which colored how I perceived life in general

k’s pageant, specifically before and after it; before -- where I was watching a confucian confusion on my phone the entire time, and after -- where me and k and v went out for donuts at bob’s donuts after she had won miss social media, and she looked so happy and he looked so happy for her and I was very happy for her too   boardgames in sunnyvale, especially that one time when I started making kimchi early in the morning and finished late at night after I got home, and in general I completely forgot all sense of time and reality whenever I was at boardgames Going to All Star Cafe early in the morning, where around 8 AM the sun would shine directly into the cafe and flood it with light, like almost half of the entire restaurant. 

It takes time for a new home to feel like home because those feelings only come after distance and reflection. When I was living at AVA I felt really nostalgic for pine street, but I had the sense that I would feel nostalgic for AVA when I eventually moved out, and now I do. And when I move out of 12F I’ll probably be nostalgic for it too. And all of the routines that I’m currently constructing will fall into the above list too...  

[businessliveme]

No One Asks the Top CEOs Where They Went to College

The No. 1 company in last year’s Fortune 500 was Walmart Inc., with $500 billion in revenue. That would make its chief executive, Douglas McMillon, a pretty important and powerful executive, don’t you think? Can you guess where he went to college? The University of Arkansas. He has an MBA, too. From the University of Tulsa.

Second on the list was Exxon Mobil Corp. Its CEO, Darren Woods, went to Texas A&M. Third was Berkshire Hathaway Inc., run by the man many consider the greatest investor who ever lived: Warren Buffett. He spent three years at the Wharton School before transferring to the University of Nebraska, from which he graduated. He was then rejected by Harvard Business School. (He got his MBA from Columbia Business School, where he famously learned from the great value investor Ben Graham.)

Fourth was Apple Inc., whose chief executive, Tim Cook, is arguably the most important executive in all of tech. He went to a university better known for football than academics: Auburn.

Are you sensing a pattern here? General Electric Co.’s Lawrence Culp went to Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. Cardinal Health Inc.’s Michael Kaufmann went to Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio. AT&T Inc.’s Randall Stephenson went to the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Oklahoma. General Motors Co.’s Mary Barra went to Kettering University in Flint, Michigan. (Kettering used to be the General Motors Institute before it was spun off from GM in the early 1980s.)

Of the CEOs of the top 20 companies in last year’s Fortune 500, exactly one — Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos — went to an Ivy League school (Princeton). And that’s not all. We tend to think of the founders of technology companies as having all gone to Stanford University (or dropping out of Harvard University). And yes, many of them did. But Michael Dell went to the University of Texas. Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Marc Andreessen went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. So did Larry Ellison, though he never graduated.

When I see something like the college admissions scandal that broke on Tuesday — with dozens of parents arrested for resorting to bribery to get their kids into a prestigious school like Yale or Georgetown — I shake my head in dismay. Not because of the criminality; I mean, bribing a women’s soccer coach to pretend your kid is an athlete is more comedy than tragedy. And not because of the sheer stupidity, either. Didn’t anybody tell these rich parents that with their wealth all they had to do was make a sizable donation to get their kid into a “good school,” no matter how poor their grades? (Exhibit A: Jared Kushner, who got into Harvard after his father pledged to make a $2.5 million donation.)

No, what dismays me is that these parents and their children — just like millions of elite parents and their children up and down the East and West coasts — seem to view getting in a top-ranked school, preferably an Ivy League university, as an absolute key to a successful life. Yes, there are powerful reasons, starting with status anxiety, that underlie the obsession with name-brand schools. And yes, as several high-brow commentators have noted, getting your kid into an elite school is a way for the so-called meritocracy to replicate itself into the next generation.

But the elites can’t say that out loud. So the way they justify their obsession is by saying that an education from a top school — not just the Ivies, but the Dukes, the Berkeleys, the Stanfords, the Amhersts — gives their graduates a leg up on life. And perhaps, in a status-obsessed profession like finance, it does. But for the vast majority of us, it won’t. And it doesn’t. If you don’t believe me, just look at that list of CEOs again.

Maybe a Harvard diploma will give a graduate an easier shot at landing a first job out of school. Maybe. But that’s really the only advantage, and it doesn’t last long. Once you’ve landed the job, you have to perform. If you don’t, your Harvard degree isn’t going to be worth the parchment it’s printed on. And if you do perform, nobody is going to much care that you went to the University of Central Oklahoma.

As the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Zweig put it on Twitter:

I wish I could tell every person under under the age of 18 three things: 1, Someday you will have lots of co-workers. 2, You will neither know nor care where most of them went to college. 3, If you do happen to find out where they went, it’ll usually be because they’re jerks. https://t.co/VLLUSDvU0M

— Jason Zweig (@jasonzweigwsj) March 13, 2019

I had this same thought, about the pointlessness of all the anxiety around college admissions, when the lawsuit against Harvard claiming it discriminated against Asian applicants went to trial last fall. I don’t want Harvard to discriminate either, but those who were complaining about Harvard’s practices had very high test scores. Status aside, why should they care if they didn’t get into Harvard? And why should we? They no doubt went to some other top school and did just as well as if they had gone to Harvard. Maybe better. (The plaintiff, a group called Students for Fair Admissions, didn’t put any Asian on the stand who had been turned down by Harvard, so it is impossible to know where they ultimately went to college.)

It’s the hoariest of cliches, but it’s true: what you get out of your education is what you put into it. That is especially true when you enter a university because you are usually on your own for the first time. You can make your own decisions about whether to attend that early morning class or sleep through it. Every school has excellent teachers; if you’re motivated, you’ll find them. The qualities you exhibit in college — ambition or laziness; attention to detail or sloppiness; success-oriented or content with mediocrity — will likely be the qualities you bring to your life after college. They will matter a lot more than where you went to school when you were 18.

In his book “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be,” the columnist Frank Bruni describes the obsession with getting into Ivy League schools as “madness.” He’s right. “A sort of mania has taken hold, and its grip seems to grow tighter and tighter,” he adds.

“There is no single juncture, no one crossroads, on which everything hinges,” Bruni concludes. I’m sure that in their own lives, those who were arrested Tuesday had enough life experience to understand that. Had they only been able to see that the same would hold true for their children, they would have saved themselves an awful lot of trouble.

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