#and the key is overestimating and then coming in under budget

[haganenoyuki]

the below situation has me considering actually ironing out a system for commissions for that sort of thing. there's a lot of people who are way better and faster than me at character art but I think my workflow and intuition with flyers and posters and other graphic stuff is good enough that I can justify asking for rates that I would find worthwhile to work for

[wow-factors]

The Need For Change Leadership (Vs Change Management)

Management makes a system work. It helps you do what you know how to do. Leadership builds systems or transforms old ones.

Many organizations still rely on the old school model of managing change, without the understanding of bringing change leadership into the equation. In the past century, thousands of large organizations were created, with a problem being that there were not enough good managers to keep the bureaucracies functioning. So many companies and universities developed management programs, and hundreds and thousands of people were encouraged to learn management on the job. Very few people were taught leadership. Management was the main item on the 20th Century agenda because that was what was needed. To explain the difference between the two:

MANAGEMENT

Planning and Budgeting

Organizing and staffing

Controlling and problem solving

This style produces a degree of predictability and order and has the potential to consistently produce the short-term results expected by various stakeholders.

LEADERSHIP

Establishing direction

Aligning people

Motivating and inspiring

This style produces change, often to a dramatic degree, and has the potential to produce extremely useful change.

Managing change is important.  Without competent management, the transformation process can get out of control.  But for most organizations, the much bigger challenge is leading change.

Most common mistakes when it comes to change initiatives

 Allowing too much complacencyOne of the biggest mistakes made in change efforts is organizations plunge ahead without establishing a high enough sense of urgency in fellow managers and employees. There are many reasons why sufficient urgency is created – People overestimate how much they can force big changes on an organization, they underestimate how hard it is to drive people out of their comfort zones, they don’t recognize how their own actions can reinforce the status quo, they lack patience, they confuse urgency with anxiety.

Failing to create a sufficiently powerful change leadership groupIn the most successful change initiatives, the leadership group is always powerful – in terms of formal titles, information and expertise, reputations and relationships, and the capacity for leadership.  Failure here is usually associated with underestimating the difficulties in producing change and thus the importance of a strong leadership team.

Underestimating the power of a strong visionVision plays a key role in producing useful change by helping to direct, align, and inspire actions on the part of a large number of people. Without an appropriate vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve into a list of confusing, incompatible, and time consuming projects that go in the wrong direction, or nowhere at all.

Under communication of the visionBig change in organizations is usually impossible unless most employees are willing to help, often to the point of making short term sacrifices. People will not make sacrifices unless they think the potential benefits of change are attractive and unless they really believe that a change is possible. Without credible communication, and a lot of it, employee’s hearts and minds are never captured.

Permitting obstacles to block the new visionNew change initiatives fail far too often when employees, even though they embrace a new vision, feel dis-empowered by huge obstacles in their path. Eg, Organizational structures, narrow job categories, compensation or performance-appraisal systems which can force employees to choose between the new vision and their own self-interests, or supervisors who refuse to adapt to new circumstances and who make demands which are inconsistent with the new change efforts.

Failing to create short term winsReal change in business takes time. There is a real risk that momentum will be lost if there are no short term goals to meet and celebrate. Most people will not go on the long march unless they see compelling evidence within six to eighteen months that the journey is producing expected results.

Declaring victory too soonWhile celebrating a win is fine, any suggestion that the job is mostly done is generally a terrible mistake. Until changes sink down deeply into a culture, which for the entire company can take years, new approaches are fragile and subject to regression.

Neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the corporate cultureChanges stick only when it becomes “the way we do things around here”, when it seeps into the very bloodstream of the business. Until new behaviours are rooted in social norms and shared values, they are always subject to degradation as soon as the pressures associated with a change effort are removed.

[hallgolf4]

Feeling Overwhelmed? Recommendations That Will Make Home Purchasing Enjoyable

Considering the variety of transferring manuals and financial loan calculators out there, a single may believe that getting a residence is effortless. Well, it's effortless from the feeling that you could pay too much or obtain bad property not understanding. Read through this report for some of the best real estate property-acquiring tips around. Technique property by way of details. Thinking of employing a real estate agent to assist you regardless if you are selling or buying. Going it by yourself when buying or selling a residence is possible, but challenging. An effective agent will assist you to find the appropriate home or maybe the right customer. Substances will also deal with the overwhelming paperwork that accompanies real estate property dealings. To discover the perfect residence, you ought to set up a listing of functions that you will be looking for. This will add the sizing, the amount of bedrooms or maybe the place. Understanding what you would like ought to enable you to go through a huge number of adverts quickly and select the houses that correspond to your preferences. To have the residence you need, you must respond rapidly. When you have visited a location you consider purchasing, usually do not acquire greater than a couple of days to take into account your selection. You must consider the pros and cons but keep in mind that somebody else may well purchase it before you take a decision. For those who have children and are looking at investing in a home, make an effort to incorporate your youngsters through the lookup approach. So much of their lifestyle will likely be changing together with the shift and also which include them from the look for you are going to make the changeover a little bit less difficult. They will feel like they could have some type of feedback in the alter. Thoroughly look at your area around your prospective residence if you are going to acquire real estate property. It is important to determine what the offense rates are, and is particularly very good to find out if you will find any sexual intercourse offenders in the community, simply because this can drastically reduced the cost you will be spending money on the property. When thinking about regardless if you are prepared to invest in a house, keep the invisible fees under consideration. While you might be able to afford to pay for a home loan, as being a home owner you will have extra charges. You may be your own property owner so the responsibility for maintenance in your house will fall for your needs. Ensure your spending budget can protect improvements simply because they may come up. Once you buy a property using the purpose of earning improvements or carrying out a key remodelling, usually overestimate the cost of the fixes. This makes certain that you can expect to spending budget ample money for that real cost, in addition to leave you with an allowance ought to anything go wrong during the repairs. Never be a target of costly or substandard residence. The tips you merely study inside the write-up over will allow you to prevent falling in the identical snare which has snagged a great number of the nation's homebuyers. If this can be used information, it is possible to turn out ahead on any real-estate bargain. read this

[health--tech--news-blog1]

10 Tips For Successful Legacy Data Migration

Data migration refers to the transfer of data from one location to the other. However, data migration is certainly not an easy task. Here is a list of few tips to ensure a successful migration of data.

Opt for data migration as a separate project

Migration of data is recognized to be a complicated process. Hence, it is essential to opt for it as a separate project following a separate budget, plan, and team. 

The total plan and scope should be created at the start of the project so that there are no surprises. In, the data migration process, you need to ensure at the start whether the data will be uploaded in a single go or whether you will be uploading the data in small batches each week. 

You need to adopt an approach for data migration that should be communicated to all the technical stakeholders and businesses.

Go for a realistic estimation

You should not underestimate the hurdles that come with the migration of data. There are a bunch of time-consuming tasks which are required during the process which may not be visible during the starting of the process. 

The basic parameter for estimation is known to be the total count of fields that need to be transferred to the target system from the source. 

Investing a little time is sufficient in various phases of the project for various fields which are inclusive of building or configuration of the transformation, mapping the source into the target, measurement of the quality of data in the field, performance of tests. 

With the use of a variety of clever tools, it is possible to bring a reduction in the time, primarily in the build phase. It is not possible for tools to understand the source data during the migration. You need to opt for the services of analysts for the purpose.

Checking the quality of data

It is not a good idea to overestimate the quality of the data, present in the source. There can be errors in the historical data or records which have not been touched for a longer period. 

They are chances that they might get activated during transfer to the new system. The quality of data has an impact on the effort, you put, during the migration of data. Hence, it is essential to figure out the amount of data, you are looking forward to moving into the new system.

Engaging business people

Only the business people have a prerequisite understanding of the data and thus they have adequate knowledge of which data records are to be kept and which ones to be removed. 

Hence, it is recommended to hire an individual from the team who has ample experience in data mapping. For future backtracking, it is beneficial to record specific decisions for data mapping. 

Even after the reviewing of the data migration, there are high chances that the data may have appeared in the UI of the system. Failing to engage in specific subject matter experts is the real cause of why the new system becomes live.

Go for Automated Migration Solution

Data migration refers to a one-time activity. A wide array of developers tries to opt for a specific solution, which is filled with manual actions. As the migration is split into different waves, similar actions should be repeated several times. There are typically three types of migration run for each wave. 

The dry run is conducted for testing the functionality and performance of the data migration. However, a full data validation load is useful in testing the complete data set as well as performing the production load and business tests. 

The count of runs enhances with the poor quality of data. Improvements in the data quality happen to be an iterative procedure. Hence, different iterations are required for reaching the specific success ratio.

Preparations for lengthy roads

Performance is considered to be the biggest tradeoff while relocating to a cloud solution from the on-premise solution. The on-premise systems enable the direct loading of data in the underlying database. With better hardware, it is possible to reach hundreds and thousands of records, each hour. 

Performance degradation may occur owing to the high volume of data. It may be caused due to the indexes in the RDBMS to check the unique fields, foreign keys, and the evaluation of the duplication rules. 

For the datasets of medium size, it is a prerequisite to split the data into different waves of smaller migration. This affects the complete process of deployment and enhances migration complexity.

Respecting the migration requirements in the application development

Application components like triggers and validations should be capable of handling different data migration processes. 

The disabling of the validation during migration load is not considered to be an option in case the system is online. Instead of that, you require implementing various logic during the validation to ensure changes. 

You should not compare the date fields to the original system date as it will be disabling the loading of the specific historical data. Mandatory fields, which are not populated with the historical data, should be implemented as the non-mandatory. 

However, it should be validation sensitive to the specific user and let the empty value coming from the specific data migration.

Take care of Salesforce Specific Features

Salesforce is known to have a bunch of tricky parts which should be taken care to avoid any unpleasant surprise during the migration of data. You should be well versed with the system and gain a prerequisite understanding of what it can accomplish and what not.

Avoid salesforce as the data migration platform

It is tempting to make use of Salesforce as a platform to develop a specific data migration solution. Salesforce happens to be an amazing SaaS application which boasts of several features like rich customization and advanced collaboration. However, it is not an ideal choice to process massive data.

Oversight the salesforce metadata

At the start of the project, it is recommended to grab the list of the salesforce fields and begin the mapping exercise. During the project, the application development team adds new fields in the Salesforce. 

To be on the safe side, you require having changes in the data model under strict supervision. If you’re making any drastic changes or improvements at your product or software, doesn’t it make sense to go with a company like Indium Software - Leading QA Solution Provider.

[professionalhomerenovation]

Professional home Renovation

Divide and Conquer

As mentioned earlier effective planning is the key to effective renovation. If you are renovating yourself then you need to focus on both the bigger picture and the smaller parts. You might have heard the phrase “whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, you can apply the same strategy to your home renovation project and devise a renovation plan for each area in your house. If you hire an architect for renovation, he will assess your requirements and then renovate accordingly. In this case since you’re in charge, you will brainstorm your requirements, write your end goal for each space in the house and decide the overall goal, and then move on to:

Budgeting

Since you want to renovate your house economically it is important for you to decide the total expenditure requirements/limit. It is important to remember in budgeting that you cannot overestimate your budget, keep your budget underestimated and then move on to researching for things you need.

Research

You will be surprised at the number of options you have once you start your research. The beautiful lamp that you liked at a high end store can be purchased at a lower price from elsewhere as well. So, when renovating your house on budget please remember that if you research to find the furniture you like, paint you want or the decorations you would like in your house, you are likely to find most of the supplies at an inexpensive price. Take advantage of online shopping, thrift stores and second hand furniture shops and see how far you will go. For step by step instructions on how you can decorate your house beautifully yet economically please read below:

Doors Create the First Impression

The first impression of your house is your door. If you are unable to change the door completely and if your existing door is in a good condition then you should repaint your door. Your doors could also affect the lighting of your room, and you could benefit from this great technique interior designed Amy Lau uses, “When dealing with a dark room, whatever color is used on the walls, I paint the ceiling, trim, and doors the same color but 50 percent lighter. Too much of one shade can overpower a space.” So, when renovating on a budget if you are repainting your door try to use different shades according to the concentration of light in your house to optimize the lighting of your house the way you want to.

Paint Affects Lighting

As mentioned earlier painting affects lighting and when renovating your house you might opt for a new paint. In that case if you are already on a budget purchasing different colored pallets might seem counter intuitive. If you are on a tight budget then opt for a black and white palette, it will give your house a modern sophisticated look and you will have the guarantee that you can never go wrong with white or black.

Small Rooms don’t have to Look Small

If you are renovating to make a small house look bigger than an inexpensive and beautiful way of achieving that goal is to use mirrors. It’s an inexpensive technique but it’s used by one of the most famous architects of his time, Sir John Soane, who used mirrors in the breakfast room of his London house.

Kitchens and Storage

If you are decorating/renovating your house then you are probably trying to de-clutter and maximize your storage as well. Utilizing your kitchen to its maximum capacity can help you minimize your storage problems. In order to do this on a low budget you can either DIY kitchen cabinets or storages from recycled material at your house, or take advantage of thrift shops in your area.

No one knows your kitchen space better than you do and your storage needs building DIY storage kitchen cabinets will not only help you save money and reuse old materials at your house but it will also ensure that you’re building exactly what you need. If you already have cabinets which are enough for storage then you don’t need to replace them you can just repaint them to make your kitchen look as good as new.

Light Comes through the Windows

According to Marc Appleton, “half the experience of living indoors is seeing the outdoors” So when remodeling your house install large windows. However, you might not have the budget to change your windows in that case play around with paint and paint your windows a shade lighter than the rest of the room to maximize the light coming through the windows.

Bathroom Renovation

You would be surprised at the number of inexpensive yet quality products you can purchase to renovate your bathroom. If you are looking to install new toilet fixture you can check our Toto Toilet, and if you are not planning to install any new items, you can fix up your existing toilet by changing the paint, changing cabinet paints and by fixing the pressure of shower etc.

Floor Renovation

If you are on a budget then floor renovation might seem expensive, and if you cannot find a flooring installation under your budget then you should invest in renovating everything else according to your floor design.

The key to renovating or redecorating your house beautifully yet inexpensively is to devise a goal for yourself, and paint an entire picture of what you want and then step by step renovate each part of your house like mentioned above.

[bfranchiseaus]

5 Mistakes to Avoid when Buying a Franchise in Australia

Like any other business opportunity, buying a franchise in Australia comes with both advantages and pitfalls. While enjoying the benefits of a low-risk business, one can steer clear of the downsides by being cautious. For better clarity, we will acquaint you with five common mistakes to avoid when buying a franchise business for sale through this write-up.

1. Lack of Market Research  

It’s the most lethal mistake to commit when shopping for a franchise, and surprisingly many aspiring franchisees go through the wringer because of the same. Extensive research is the key to finding the right brand and service to invest in to expect a substantial ROI. If your research lacks substance and information, you might end up missing an important detail or shortcoming of the brand and suffer the consequences later.

2. Exaggerating/Overestimating the Finances

What is your financial standing? How much can you arrange through loans and personal savings to invest in a franchise for sale in Brisbane, Australia? Exaggerating your financial situation or overestimating it will get you nowhere. On the contrary, if you assess the finances accurately, getting a lucrative franchise opportunity within your budget becomes easier with guaranteed returns.

3. Not Getting Legal Counsel

Signing a franchise deal with an enterprise entails significant legal formalities and compliances with the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission). Not getting proper legal counsel when buying a franchise for sale in Perth, Australia, from an experienced professional increases the risk of errors, leading to operational difficulties later on. Besides that, support from a legal professional helps one understand the clauses set in the agreement, which otherwise can be difficult to register for an amateur.

4. Missing Out Important Clauses in the Franchise Agreement

The ACCC mandates every franchisor to provide the potential franchisee with a franchising model disclosure agreement. It is an extensive document which details various fundamental aspects of franchise business and policies, including the business model, terms and conditions, initial investment and other fees, marketing plan, etc. The document is not to be perused casually; in doing so, you might miss out on an important detail. You need to run it by your legal aid and read through it yourself so that there is no confusion when buying a franchise for sale in Adelaide/Perth/Melbourne/Sydney, Australia.

5. Not Taking the Operational Costs under Consideration

Whether you are buying a cleaning franchise in Australia or registering as a caregiver under an aged care franchise, you must assess all costs involved, starting from initial investment to operational costs. People tend to miss out on the latter and then end up in a financial pickle. It is recommended that the franchisee evaluates every aspect, creating a robust budget plan before venturing into the market for franchise shopping. 

Ups and downs are a constant when you are running a business. Nevertheless, some problems can be easily dodged by following the tips mentioned above. For more such intriguing and informational content on best franchises to buy in Australia and other news and updates, don’t forget to subscribe at https://www.businessfranchiseaustralia.com.au/. 

[saverspender]

Please note, Groceries is in the negative because I overestimated the previous months’ grocery spending and my partner surprised me at coming in way under ($100/month each or $200 total..) So I’ve reconciled the numbers in this month to reflect accurate grocery spending. I have already spent a bundle for December, so .... 👀... but I’m still low-key trying to stay under $30K for the year now. Or at least, hovering around there. For more info, including favourite/hated etc purchases, swipe up in my stories or click on the link in my bio and this image. https://www.savespendsplurge.com/november-2020-expenses-budget-roundup/ #savespendsplurgemoney #ilooklikeaninvestor #personalfinancetips #personalfinance #personalfinancecoach #personalfinancegoals #financialliteracy #financialgrowth #financialgoals #financialfreedom #financialindependence #debtfreejourney #debtfreecommunity #debtfreeliving #debtfreedom #debtfreecommunitycanada #wealthgoals #wealthcreation #buildingwealth #makeyourmoneyworkforyou #investingwomen #millennialinvestor #moneygoals #womenwithmoney #businessowner #entrepreneur #entrepreneurial #streamsofincome #sideincomehustles #businesstips https://www.instagram.com/p/CIl6cF0H8UA/?igshid=ot5yijlfz50x

[mitigatedchaos]

@ libfas like & pals

[right-wing migration post]

@yesbloodyhell

There would be no Syrian/Muslim migration if there were no USA/EU airstrikes or USA/EU funding of terrorists for their imperialist warmongering So suck it up and happy Christmas 

me

Bees are great.  Bees do all sorts of useful things.

You shouldn’t go around smacking beehives with baseball bats.  In general you should leave beehives the fuck alone.

But if you do smack a beehive with a baseball bat, then surely you shouldn’t compound your stupidity by bringing the hive full of angry bees into your house?

The best course of action was of course not to get into this situation, but that’s now in the past.

Additionally, how did Western politicians justify this warmongering?

Could it be that a combination of the same Multiculturalism-as-Ideology with Democracy-as-Ideology lead to refusing to forcibly enact the (painful!) reforms that would be necessary for stable, flourishing (or at least okay-ish) states to emerge after knocking the previous dictatorships down?

@yesbloodyhell

The EU is controled by businessmen who want to employ migrants for low wages. So they WANT the bees A stable third world is against American economic interests so they WANT to destabilize those regions Multiculturalism is propaganda to appeal to hippie liberals and has nothing to do with policy

(Before I start, I’d like to make it clear that the “fucks” and similar words are directed at the rulers, not you.)

You know what would be in the interests of the American ruling class?

Not having the database of just about every American security clearance application get hacked by Russia or China.  (Probably China.)

But they couldn’t even manage that much.  They couldn’t even manage a single fucking software project, nor have the guts to keep it airwalled if they couldn’t be arsed to secure it properly.  They cut the budget and the IT admin was effectively outsourced to, if I remember correctly, some guy in Brazil.  

This doesn’t make sense - clearly they are not averse to wasting hundreds of billions of dollars, as demonstrated by their regular activity.  And China potentially knowing who many of your spies are gets in the way of coup d’etat bullshit you might want to pull, in addition to infiltrating their own agents better.

From what I understand, prior to the Iraq War, there may have been an idea within the American military establishment or among the NeoCons that you have to throw a tinpot country against the wall every ten years or so to “prove you mean business,” and from there came some institutional support for the Iraq War.

Now, when your military is perhaps the most expensive in terms of equipment that it has ever been, or at least highly leveraged on equipment and technology over manpower relative to previous eras, what kind of dumbass thinks this is a good idea?

I’ll tell you who.  Someone overconfident that actually believes their own ideological bullshit.

It’s entirely consistent with someone who has massively overestimated the odds that their ideological plans will work out, and the amount of power that they can project.

Wasting such an enormous amount of money may have allowed some groups to capture some of it, but it seriously cut the ability of the United States of America to credibly threaten people - when, under that reasoning, being able to effectively threaten people is the major point of doing it in the first place!

Now, on to the economics.

Under Imperialistic forms of Capitalism, it can make sense to initiate coups in other countries in order to keep them as part of the Capitalist system.  In other words, to keep them from nationalizing resources that you would like to acquire cheaply as material inputs.  (This can also take place under non-Platonic Ideal Communism.)

However, this is very different from general instability.

General instability is terrible for factories, including sweatshops, and for general economic development.  After all, someone you don’t like could come to power in the instability and nationalize all the factories you just built, or bomb them over a fight with a rival ethnic group.  You can keep them fighting rival ethnic groups instead of fighting you, but because that fucks up the infrastructure, it still limits the amount that you can extract.

Businesses can manage burdens which are predictable, but it’s much tougher for them to overcome the unpredictable.  Truly amazing returns on investment are required to justify this.

Your ideal for exploitation is much closer to a friendly dictator than it is to a civil war.

And the economics of the migration in Europe?

Well for one, there’s a question of whether they really are getting the productivity they expected, especially after the surveillance state measures and so on are taken into account.  Yes, concrete blocks to stop truck attacks are cheap, but the hits taken by economies after terrorist attacks are significant.

Not all the countries in the area have such low birthrates.  If they were so competent, they could take more action to ameliorate their own shortfalls before bringing imports.

So again, what does it resemble?  Some guy who thinks he’s Mr. Bigshot Rule-The-World but who actually sucks at it, and who also believes in key ideological elements.

But that misses the biggest question of all.

Why would a country with a GDP per capita of $40,000 need to do much of anything to attract immigrants from countries with per-capita GDPs of $4,000?

They could have roughly the same number of people coming in for the low, low price of $0, filtered by actual desire to emigrate.  

Why destabilize those areas with expensive and scarce war machinery for billions more in cash that could be issued as tax cuts?

If the reason is that they need to manage the popular expectations, then whether the population believes in multiculturalism-as-ideology and democracy-as-ideology actually matters, and by challenging it, the ability of elites to act in this manner can be undermined or even destroyed.

[sinister-bob]

How To Be Poor, Written By Someone Who Has Never Been Anything But.

1. Overestimate what is demanded of you. 2. Pride and shame are commodities are for the rich.  You can't afford them. 3. If it is offered strings free, take it. 4. Take samples.  If it's only a bite, it's a bite more than you had before. 5. Dumpster dive.  Great for finding clothes and food.  As stated above, shame is for those that can afford it. 6. Pick bottles.  Even if cans and bottles are worth pennies, that's pennies more than you had before. 7. Pick up spare change you find on the ground. 8. Keep your eyes open for things that can be useful.  Pony-o's, bobby pins, lighters, ETC. 9. Check candy wrappers, bottles, ETC, on the ground, sometimes they're sealed and full. 10. Ask for discounts. 11. No matter how old your kid is, they are always slightly younger than the cut-off age on the discount menu, or bus fare. 12. The library is your friend. 13. Going out is expensive; unless it's free, you're not going. 14. Budget. 15. Figure out when the sales are, then go shopping, even if that means going to eight different stores.  You may only end up saving ten cents, but that's more than you had. 16. Find out when your store is having sample days, senior appreciation day, ETC.  This goes for banks, store openings, whatever. 17. Go to the food bank.  You have to ask if they have any baby formula, pet food, ETC.  They are not mind-readers, they need to know your specific needs.  You also have to ask for peanut butter because some people have allergies. 18. When going to the food bank see if they have seasonal hampers. 19. See if nearby places of worship givie out hampers. 20. Go through alleys, keep your eyes open for things that you can use or sell in a yard sale or pawn shop. 21. When you go to the blood bank, whether you donate blood or your turned away, you're still allowed to have a drink and a doughnut/muffin.  Sometimes they'll let you take one for the road. 22. When getting free soft furniture, Lysol it.  You need to kill the bacteria and bugs in it if there are any. 23. Find out what local weeds you can eat.  Dandilions and knot-weed are both edible, but be careful because people spray them.  Every part of dandilions are edible.  You can make a coffee substitute with the root. 24. Ask people if you can pick fruit from their trees, promise to be gentle with the trees.  The same with rhubarb. 25. Give up smoking, coffee, sweets the most part, instant meals. 26. Learn to cook. 27. See if you can make it.  Generally it's cheaper if you can make it yourself. 28. $3.25 for a loaf of bread, and $6 for ten K of flour, $4.70 for a jar of yeast.  That will make about twenty loaves and you'll have enough yeast for the some of the next month. 29. Use old fashioned rolled oats.  They're healthier than quick oats and taste better. 30. If you're friendly with neighbours, when you're making your yummy homemade bread, see if you can sell them a loaf for, say, fifty cents.  It will help you recoup your losses. 31. Sometimes expiration dates mean precisely jack.  Be willing to risk getting a little sick to figure out how far past the date you can go.  *Note* If the meat is greenish, the eggs smell funny, ETC, don't eat it, you will die.   Unless the milk is actually mouldy, just use it in cooking. 32. Even if it's discounted, don't buy bloated or rusty cans.  You will die. 33. All stores, especially convience stores, throw away perfectly good food, I.E., jars of Cheez Whiz.  DON'T CLIMB IN TRASH COMPACTORS. 34. Waste is a sin.  Supper before last is still supper unless it went bad.  You have a frying pan for a reason. 35. Just because there is a bad spot on a piece of fruit or whatever, it does not mean that it, itself is bad.  You have knives for a reason. 36. Find one pot meals, because you don't have many dishes.  Cast iron frying pans are pricy, but they last generations.  You can fry bacon or bake a cake in it. 37. Find out the difference between an investment and a splurge. 38. In winter  you'll find a lot of winter and clothes.  Check for bugs before claiming it, wash in hot water. 39. When you can, store up some stuff before having a yard sale.  Check bylaws where you live. 40. Just after Christmas, Channuka, there's a lot of ornaments, clothing, plastic trees in good repair, thrown away. 41. If you are harrassed while picking garbage, you are, in most places, legally allowed to do that as long as if it is not on their property.  If they say that they're going to call the cops, tell them the phone number.  If you're worried about being harrassed by the cops, it generally takes about seventeen minutes or longer for them to show up.  *Note* In nicer neighbourhoods, the reaction time is quicker, conversely, the worse the neighbourhood, the reaction time is lower. 42. There are three modes of transport; bus, bike, foot.  Taxi's are for emergencies only. 43. Offer services that you are capable of doing.  Shovelling snow, baking bread, ETC. 44. Sometimes offering to help can be very rewarding; you maybe fed, you might be able to claim the bottles after a dance, or take left-overs home. 45. Eat other people's leftovers if you're not squimish. (Don't eat where their mouthes have been, eat around that spot.)  *Note* If you're caught doing this in a restaurant, you will be booted. 46. When you move into a new place, do check spaces for forgotten goods.  Same when getting second-hand clothes. 47. Wear your clothes until they disintergrate. 48. Learn to sew. 49. When picking bottles, avoid at all cost bottles with foil balls shoved in the necks.  These are homemade bombs and they will at best severely disfigure you. 50. Go to swap meets.  Start a swap meet. 51. Every place you live will most likely be a slum, and the landlord will screw you seven ways to Sunday, as well as the rentalsman.  You are poor, you don't matter.  Keep fighting though, because sometimes you actually win, and every conquest helps not only you, but others. 52. When checking out a place to move into, take pictures with time stamps if able, and as many witnesses as you can manage, same when you move out.  If you can get the landlord to sign something that state they know what's wrong with the place, all the better. 53. If you have a social worker, Because it's one of your needs and it usually falls within their guidelines, arrange a home visit after you have moved in/out and cleaned the place, but not handed in your keys, get them to come in and walk them through the place, making sure that they note the condition that it is in, because they're going to be your most powerful witness. 54. Know the laws that effect you. 55. If you're a woman, see if there's something like the Elisabeth Fry Association in your area, because if you get arrested, they'll get a lawyer for you as well as assist you to the best of their abilities. 56. The police are not your friends.  They are more likely to screw you over than the prostitute on the corner. 57. Find out what foods/meals are healthy and cheap. 58. Find out who your friends are, and don't always be asking them for a free pass.  They won't be your friends for long if you're a sponge. 59. Coupons are your friends, use them.  Call companies, tell them about the products you like or don't like, and they'll usually send you coupons.  If it doesn't sound like they're going to offer any, ask.  Print them off, even if it means copying the coupon to word and pasting it several times.  Twelve coupons are worth more than one. 60. Always check your till receipt and change, sometimes mistakes are made and you get charged for the wrong thing.  Sometimes you'll get reimbursed for the trouble. 61. Bargain.  Don't be afraid to ask for things. 62. Junk food is not always cheaper than healthy food.  Shop around. 63. Find out what you can live without, and then cut it out of your life. 64. Being a vegetarian is generally cheaper than not, because meat is expensive.  But to save money should not come at expense to your health. 65. You're kids do not need the latest toys.  You can make toys.  Yes, they're cheap and they look it, but sometime a wrapping paper tube is as much fun as a lightsaber.  Bonus points for colouring like one. 66. Try different foods, sometimes peanut butter, molasses, banana sandwiches are cheaper than mac and cheese. 67. Spices are your friends, buy them in large pouches and use them in every meal.  Keep out of humidity. 68. Bulk is somtimes cheaper, not always.  Price check and compare. 69. Lists are going to be a common theme, make lists to be aware of what's best for everything. 70. Can labels, paper from bills, ETC, maybe good to have on hand if you need to make lists or you have bored kids. 71. Skimp on how much electricity you use as well as water. 72. If you have sweaters, use them rather than turning on the heat. 73. If you have a large family or a lot of friends, communal living is optional. 74. Marriage is not always the cheaper option; it is a myth that two peopl eat as cheaply as for one. 75. Children are expensive, so are pets.  But if you do have children, you have to always put them first, even if that means you go a little hungry.  You brought them into this world and decided to keep them, so you have to do what is best. 76. In winter, cover the windows and sometimes the doors to keep cold out.  If it is very cold and there are gaps around the doors/windows, twist plastic bags up and shove them in the gaps, using a chopstick or pencil.  Flat-headed screwdrivers work fairly nice as long as you are careful to not wreck the bag.  Careful to not stab yourself; Band-Aids are expensive. 77. If you need a tool, but you don't have it, get it from the store, be careful to not damage the package too much or the tool, then return it to the store with the receipt.  *Note* Be sure of the store's return policy beforehand. 78. If you're buying clothes, always state that they are for someone under thirteen, there's only half the tax. 79. Clothes for kids and men are almost always cheaper than women's clothes.  If you are petite, always go for the kids clothes because it is usually under twenty.  *Note* Men's jeans hug your butt better. 80. If you are heavier, go for mens clothing; they're generally better quality and there is less stretch to them. 81. Be careful when buying second-hand things because they are often in bad repair and most places don't do refunds. 82. The Salvation Army is extremely expensive, they don't help people, and they are bigots.  They also take the best items for themselves without paying. 83. To test to see if things are in good repair; 1.) The Tooth Test: Take the thinnest overlap of fabric between your front teeth and give a small tug, don't yank.  If it tears easily, the fabric is rotten.  2.) The Finger Test: If you find a small hole, stick the tip of your finger in it and push.  If the fabric breaks apart easily, the fabric is rotten.  3.) The Pull: If you grab the article with both hands, gently pull, if it comes apart easily, it is rotten.  4.) The Seam Check: Put your hands on either side of the seam and grip it firmly.  Pulling in opposite directions, listen carefully for the seams to make a popping sound.  If the popping comes rapidly, it is rotten.  You also shouldn't be able to see the seams very well. 84. When buying new things, check to see the value of it first.  It is not cheaper if you have to buy five things to last the life of the name brand thing.  When buying clothes, pull at the seams.  If you can see them easily, it is too cheap.  When buying shoes, not only do you wear them around the store for about half an hour, pry at the sole to see how easily it separates from the body of it.  Pull on the laces if it starts rippin through the shoe.  Also, if you can touch the toe of the shoe to the heel, it's cheap and it will not last.  *Note* If you are in a wheelchair, buy whatever is the cheapest, most comfortable shoe. 85. Ugly does not mean bad, and this can be applied to most aspects of life: Fruit, clothes, vehicles, housing, animals, dates... 86. If you're eating at a restaurant and you're made to wait for a very long time or the food sucks, complain to the manager; you may be able to have a discount or a free meal. 87. Carbohydrates are not the enemy, if you do not have near two thousand calories a day, you will be constantly exhausted, sick, irritable, ETC.  Eat food that has a high calorie index, and you will feel better.  *Note* Junk food generally has high calorie count, but you will get sick if you try to live off of potato chips.  A bag of potatoes is a better deal than a bag of chips. 88. At some point, you will have nothing but condiments in your fridge.  There is no shame in a ketchup sandwich, or a mayo sandwich. 89. Mayo is more expensive than Miracle Whip, but it tastes better and is better for you.  You can make your own mayo that costs about fifty cents. 90. Cheez Whiz is expensive, and is not worth it. 91. Store brand is not always the best option. 92. Dry beans last forever and is very healthy.  They are cheap. 93. Dry your food.  Freezer burnt food has no food value, but most of the time, drying the food concentrates the nutrients.  When drying food, moisture and air are your enemies.  If you have a food processor, powder the food and then you can use it to suppliment your meals. 94. Buy food when it's cheap. 95. The cheapest pet food is mostly filler and will make your pet sick, and they will eat more of it because they're not getting the food they need.  Middle of the road is not the best, but it's better than the least. 96. Teflon is poisonous; if you're pans are flaking, don't use them. 97. Tin has lead in it, don't use tin pot and pans. 98. Soup is the food of peasants.  Suppliment it with bread. 99. Drink tap water.  Filter it if you need to, but don't buy bottled water.  The refund you get on the bottles doesn't make up for the amount you paid for it. 100. If you buy soft drink, get the cans.  In the long run it's cheaper.  You generally get about half a liter more.  It's also better for you and the environment. 101. If you've got fluffy animals, brush them out and collect the hair.  Spin it into yarn and make things out of it.  You do enough for your pet, make them do something for you. 102. Alcohol and drugs might seem like a good way to get your mind off your troubles, but it is too expensive not only right now, but later on. 103. Put things in your bread; pumpkin puree, mashed beans, oatmeal, tomato paste, dry fruit and nuts, ETC.  It's a great way to suppliment your diet. 104. If you're finding your place is dry in the winter, put a can or a pot on the stove full of water.  Have the burner on low.  Change the water out once in awhile, and change out the can because it will get gross.  TURN OFF THE BURNER WHEN YOU LEAVE OR GO TO BED.  *Note* If you put spices, favourite smelling liquid soap in the water, it will scent the place too. 105. Brown bag your lunches. 106. If you can afford a Christmas tree, look at plastic trees (an investment), or if that's too expensive still, little trees, you can usually get them at the dollar store.  If that's still too expensive, get some cardboard, cut out the tree and hang it on the wall. 107. You don't need a microwave; most things can be reheated on the stovetop or in the oven.  *Note* If it's for, say, one slice of pizza, eat it cold.  Don't run that mother for just one small thing. 108. Utilize things to their fullest capacity. 109. You don't need to buy Ice Melt and other expensive products.  Go to the dollar store, get some salt and use that. 110. Vinegar and baking soda cleans things, and kills bugs and weeds. 111. Don't buy ice.  That's just stupid. 112. Grow what you can; herbs, tomatoes, carrots, weed, ETC.  Look at websites (using library computer), and they'll tell you how to do cutting, splicing, hydroponics, ETC. 113. Corvids are your spirit animals; scavenge. 114. Look at doomsday prepper websites, they know how to make everything from soap to smokehouses to temporary shelters. 115. Be prepared to be homeless at some point in your life. 116. A lot of landlords won't let you have anything other than curtain to hang over your windows, so either jury-rig plain sheets to be curtains, or go to the dollar store for shower curtains. 117. Look at stir-fry recipes and ramen recipes, you can take inspiration from them. 118. If you see something old and neglected in someone yard and it looks like something you can use, be polite and ask if they are using it, or if you can have.  You might get it for free, or for a few bucks. 119. No matter how horrible life is going for you, try to be polite; people are more likely to help you if they remember you as nice. 120. In cooking, use everything; if you have blood, throw it in soup, gravy, pot roast, ETC.  Use organ meat in spreads, gravy, ETC.  If you cook bacon or other greasy foods, save the grease and spread it on toast.  Use the liquid from canned food in soups. 121. Mosquitos are repelled by citrus and attracted by sweet.  If you eat an orange (navels are usually the cheapest), break the skin up and rub the oil on your skin.  It will cause your skin to tan slightly. 122. Vitamins are bull for the most part.  Spend that money on real food. 123. If you give gifts for birthdays or holidays, find small things on discount throughout the year or make gifts.  (Some families, buying presents on the cheap or for free is a point of pride.) 124. Set a budget for the holidays and birthdays so that only a certain amount is spent. 125. Don't use fabric softener, it ruins your clothes.  If you must soften your clothes, throw in wool balls.  This will also make things less static-y. 126. If you need an animal companion, either find a stray or go to the ASPCA.  *Note* All animals need to see the vet occasionally, so keep this in mind.  If you can barely afford care for you, you can't afford a pet.  Also, some vets have a pay program so you can pay a set amount monthly. 127. Don't buy a vehicle on payments. 128. Don't take out loans, not even with family members. 129. Don't use money marts. 130. Get rainchecks on sold out items that are on sale. 131. You can make your own booze with yeast, sugar, and water.  If you want it to taste better, use juice instead of water.  You don't need a still. 132. If you're capable of walking, park a few block away from where there are meters and walks the rest of the way to your destination.  This may require a bit of mental arithmatic to see if you're not actually walking more or at least halfway. 133. Transit passes are generally cheaper than tokens. 134. Some transit offices if you prove where you lay on the poverty line, you will get a discount. 135. Your child does not need to go to ballet, gymnastics, karate, hockey, ETC.  But they do need to go to the park and have interactions with not only you, but other kids. 136. See what free programs there are for kids. 137. Field trips cost money, so if you hear one is coming up, see how it impacts the child's education.  Sometimes they don't need to go, sometimes their grade is depending on participation. 138. Five buck can be cheap for somethings, and it can be too much for others, figure out what that means to you. 139. Au Natural is the best and cheapest look you can go for. 140. Home-methods for certain things don't work, so be sure to figure out what does and doesn't exist before you try anything.  I.E., certain homemade make up, hair bleach, ETC. 141. If you're making something for the first time, do it in a small batch to see if you like it or if it even works. 142. Just because it's not photo worthy, doesn't mean it isn't servicable. 143. If you throw away perfectly good food because it wasn't to your taste, you're not hungry enough. 144. Make cookie dough ahead of time and freeze it for when you want something nice.  It keeps for about six months. 145. If you insist on waxing, look up sugar wax recipes.  Omit the lemon juice that most of them call for and just use sugar and water.  If it gets overcooked, cool it down and add more water before reheating it.  It won't smell good, but it will still work. 146. You can make things ahead of time, so do what you can. 147. If you have vacation time, save your money.  Aruba is not worth going broke for, and if you did travel, you would just be helping destroy their societal infrastructure.  (Aruba puts more money towards tourism than schools, because most of the money they get is from tourism.) 148. You can make simple candies with vinegar and sugar, and if you don't have vinegar, you can make it with water, sugar, and a little bit of flavour, like cinnamon. 149. If you've got kids, or you're hungry and got nothing, make toast, put butter on it and a sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon. 150. If you've made pie and you've got left over crust, cut it into pieces and sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on it before cooking it. 151. You can make furniture out of carboard. 152. You can make furniture out of discarded pallets. 153. It's illegal to take milk crates, but if you find any, they can be invaluable.  If you have eight of them and a plank of wood, you have a table.

[jeffreyxrmh665-blog]

Ho To (Do) Personal Loans Without Leaving Your Office(House).

So you've picked out the ideal car for the lot. It's got the plush interior as well as the powerful motor under the hood. There’s just one problem the price point is very a little greater than what you might have available.

Fortunately, a lot of lenders and lenders are able to make their services offered to help you finance the vehicle of your dreams. It is vital however to know your stuff prior to deciding to step into a cubicle at the automobile dealership or even the loan officer’s area.

You intend to make time and energy to find out as much as you are able to about the different auto loans available when selecting an automobile. Auto loans is as varied because the lenders themselves. Although a instinct might be to rush to the first loan that will handle you buy, you ought to resist the impulse to operate out of the lot with keys available and look around a little first. An car loans is one area you may be dealing with for a few years, so you'll want to make sure it fits you.

Have a peek at the options open to you, from short-term automobile financing to long-term ones. Sometimes the credit with higher monthly premiums happens to be better bargain given it allows you to definitely pay down the loan before the auto depreciates. The interest rate is a with the most essential things to watch out for on any car loans. Be sure to avoid those who use a low interest to start but then experience a steep climb.

Do not feel locked in to only using the automobile loans offered by the dealership you're coping with! This is a common mistake of rookie borrowers and one that has caused more than its share of frustration. While the seller will probably already have automobile financing prepared for you, these is probably not the best which you can find. If you find that the seller’s loan will not meet your requirements, try looking at used car providers and independent banks for alternative auto loans. There are also web-based companies that will show your loan to a few different lenders, and allow them to invest in taking your service. This is a great way to look as you're virtually guaranteed to get the top rate available.

Budgeting is critical when you're looking at getting an auto loan. For instance, you should understand how much it is possible to afford to spend from month to month before you commit to a loan. Do not overestimate your allowance, or you'll end up which has a payment that you simply cannot meet. At the same time, don’t sign up for an car loan which has a super low payment structure once you could manage a loan with higher monthly premiums. The sooner you're able to pay off your automobile loans, better. I think you'll agree!

Keep an eye out for any penalties that may apply to your loan. In some cases, these penalties will not likely spring out at you if you first read the information. However, nearly all car loans will have at the very least some kind of penalty built in to the loan agreement, so you'll want to find out what those are if it is possible to avoid them. If you are nervous about signing for the loan, you can get advice coming from a professional who focuses on automobile loans.

Used cars present unique challenges, as auto loans are harder to find for cars which may have passed their peak. Once again, the internet shines through. Borrowers seeking leads online in many cases are prepared to give a loan for virtually any kind of car purchase, whether it's used or new, beater or looker.

Before you begin trying to negotiate using a loan officer or lender, you have to somewhat about your credit standing. If you have low credit score, getting any type of loan is going to be more difficult, at a minimum, it will probably be more expensive. Car loans are not any exception to this particular rule. Those with a good credit rating will almost always get yourself a better rate of interest on their auto loans and will below the knob on trouble convincing the lender that they can repay a hefty loan.

[betsynagler]

New Tricks Are Hard

As many of you who come here even occasionally know by now, part of what’s going on in my ongoing midlife crisis is that I’ve been trying to make some sort of transition career wise. Just to recap the long story for those of you who need it: went to grad school in film to become a writer/director, started doing sound to pay the bills, been doing it for going on 25 years now while continuing to try and write stuff and make films and…er, that’s it, not such a long story after all I guess. Since the actual filmmaking and writing isn’t paying my bills, I’ve been trying to figure out what else I can do other than sound to earn a living.

Now, before those of you with whom I work stop calling me, IT’S NOT HAPPENING YET, I AM NOT OUT OF THE BUSINESS. Because there's this thing that happens in production when you even dip your toe into something other than your regular production day job. One person hears that you’re teaching a class, or that you're making a documentary, and all of a sudden everybody's saying, “I hear she's out of the business.” It isn't necessarily done out of malice, although there are always people who are super competitive and will take any available opportunity to find a way to knock you out of contention for whatever jobs they might also want, especially if you work in commercials like I do, which is a pretty small pool. That type of sniping happens a lot more among sound mixers, who spread rumors like a bunch of nearly-all-male fishwives when they think it’s to their advantage. I think the fast pace of rumor-spreading among people who work in production really has more to do with the fact that we have so much downtime on every job, and not always that much to talk about other than work, especially when you’re literally at work all the time and therefore have no outside life to speak of. You’ve gotta talk about something sometimes and the latest scuttlebutt that you’ve heard but not necessarily verified about your co-workers is going to be the best something to keep your colleagues interested — and everyone wants to feel interesting.

Now that I've gotten the “I’M NOT OUT OF THE BUSINESS” disclaimer out of the way, what I will say is that, in the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a couple of jobs as a video editor. They’re not my first, but I wasn’t really making an effort before to try that out as a possible new day job, for a few reasons which now seem to be diminishing in importance. One, I also like teaching, so I’ve been pursuing that. Getting a full-time faculty job, however, at a time when most colleges just want to chew up adjuncts and and spit them out with no health insurance is getting really frustrating (for public schools that are being starved by their states who are in turn being starved by the federal government, it’s economic necessity, but for many other universities it’s really not, it’s just greed, and part of the whole growing trend in this country toward two completely divided Americas, rich and poor…but whatevs). Two, I was worried for some time that the bulk of the editing work out there was reality TV, and you all know how I feel about that. It does seem now, though, that with so many entities getting some sort of presence on the web and wanting video for their sites, there’s a lot more content being created out there that doesn’t make me want to vomit, so hooray for that. Three, I've always had reservations about spending all my time alone in a little room with a computer. And yet I’m finding that that prospect has actually gotten more appealing to me as I’ve aged into introversion and discovered how pleasant the company of machines who don’t expect you to make conversation can be. Not to mention that I just can't spend all day on my feet any more, holding a pole with a mic on it over my head for long periods of time or working knees/back to move heavy cases and plug and unplug cables the way I have to when I work on set. Every year, a new part of my body cries out in pain and says “Are we really still doing this?” Plus, for me, editing is more intellectually stimulating than location sound. I enjoy the problem-solving and trouble-shooting of location work, particularly when I can anticipate and shoot the problems before they really become trouble, which is generally how you have to do it in our department, and which naturally implies that the problems aren't intractable, like certain DPs’ lighting, or the now-nearly-ubiquitous wide and tight framing when you have 2+ cameras. Problem-solving with a problem that can’t be solved is just probleming, which is basically gnashing your teeth and muttering to yourself that everyone on set can just go fuck themselves. You can’t possibly overestimate how much time as a location sound person is spent doing exactly that. I also still find it interesting to read the script pages when I arrive on set and picture how they'll translate, as well as watching actors and directors work — and not just the good ones, because it's always interesting to see someone make the wrong choice and consider what a better one might have been. I still do learn new things that way, but after so many years, there's not that much I haven't seen in terms of technique, and I’ve probably stored about as much as I can for future use considering that many of the futures in which I’d use such knowledge may well never happen.

The thing that's tough about taking on editing as a new occupation, however, is that, while I've edited a number of projects, I certainly haven't done it in the mass quantities in which I've done sound work. As an editor, there's quite a bit I still haven't seen — in terms of technique, individual work styles, and what directors want and expect. One way to learn that would be to apprentice in a lower-level position. Coming up in a two- or three-person sound department, I got to see a lot of other people mix and boom, which was incredibly helpful. I never would have started wearing gloves to get more reach and range if I hadn't worked with a couple of boom ops who I watched do that and discussed with them why they did. I couldn’t have acquired the plethora of wiring techniques that I now know if I hadn’t been able to watch so many mixers try so many combinations of moleskin and snot tape and Topstick and Transpore and HushLavs and all of the other bizarre shit people have developed over the years to make lavs sound good on other people. In the same way, there are tips and tricks that experienced editors have that I’ve only heard about or caught glimpses of, or tried to understand in online tutorials, which may be the godsend of modern life, but can’t reveal everything. Working as an assistant editor used to be the traditional point of entry to the editing ladder, but now that digital editing makes it so easy and fast to organize a project (no more searching for teeny tiny bits of celluloid that fell under your Steenbeck), and editing programs are pretty cheap, most anyone can teach themselves to edit and jump right into being the sole editor on their first or second bupkis-paying project. The fleet of lowly assistant editors who work the overnight shift digitizing, importing, synching and conforming just to catch glimpses of the master in action now mainly survives in L.A., where the bulk of narrative studio work, including most TV and film editing, is done. And that’s a terrible job, even when you’re 25.

One key thing I realized immediately that I didn’t know how to do was judge how long an edit is going to take. Most of my cutting hasn’t been on a deadline, or it’s been on a deadline which was given to me and I simply had to make, so I never needed to answer the question, “How long do you think you’ll need to complete this?” As a result, when I was asked that on my first editing job of the past few weeks, then had to decide if I could do it in 2/3 that time since that was all they had budgeted for, I said, “Suurremmmaybe?” And when I realized that even my first estimate was optimistic, I had to suck it up and eat those extra days on the budget I'd agreed to — which was at a low rate in addition to having too few hours, because that’s what you have to do when you’re starting out. The last job I had to work for the hourly rate I ended up with was probably one of those independent films that male directors somehow got funded in the 90s to play out all of their fantasy sexual conquests (I’m looking at you, Eric Schaeffer, but not just you, unfortunately). Something I also didn’t really know how to do before? Edit while someone else is watching. Pretty much all of the editing work I've done has entailed having a discussion with the director/producer, then going home and creating cuts on my own, getting feedback on those cuts from the powers that be, and then going back and making changes based on that, also on my own. On my second editing job these past couple of weeks, I had to sit with the director and work together nearly every day, which meant she was kind of just watching the gears in my head turn — a process that nobody should have to witness, ever. And it was bad enough having to try and come up with clever ideas about how to move the story along or improve the flow while she waited, since there’s nothing that makes you feel more stupid than having to be smart under duress. It was also trying to remember “Oh fuck, now how do I do that again?” fairly often, because all the nitpicky mechanical shit of how to do things quickly in an editing program is not yet ingrained, along with the occasional, “Oh fuck, what did I do that caused that to happen?” that comes from hitting a button by mistake when I don’t know Premiere well enough (”Command-Z” is also in competition for the godsend of modern life). This situation of not knowing what I was doing all the time in front of someone else was made doubly hard by knowing I shouldn’t be making it totally obvious just how much I didn't know. Everyone who’s had a job probably went through the process of working their way up by taking on new challenges — aka stuff they have to learn how to do as they go — and any employer who hires below the going rate should be aware that the person they’re hiring is probably doing that and that’s why they’re willing to work for less. Nevertheless, there’s always this charade where the employee pretends that they’re just giving the employer an awesome deal because they really like the project, and the employer pretends that the person they’ve hired is the super-experienced professional they couldn’t afford to hire who knows everything. And all of that stupid and pointless pretending? I’m not very good at that either – like most women, who tend to be more comfortable learning by asking questions about what we don’t know than faking our way through it, which sure seems more logical if you ask me, but whatevs. Anyway, thank goodness it didn’t really matter on this job, as the director I was working with was female, nice, and knows less about technology than I do, and so is just as big a fan of the “Should we Google how we do that?” technique as I am.

Basically, the hardest thing for me as an editor is that I'm kind of a newbie again, and that's rough when you're nearly 50 (okay I’m 48, but I have so many friends turning 49 or 50 this year that I figure I should just go ahead and try to get into the headspace now to try to diminish the trauma later on). Whereas I’m at the point with booming that I can often do it in my sleep — and sometimes I do — as an editor, I need to be not just awake but fully on. This is, like I said, partly why I wanted to switch careers: editing uses so much more of my brain, in addition to a whole lot less of my body. But these past couple of weeks have made me wonder once or twice, “Huh, do I really want to have a job that forces me to think that hard all day long?” I've tried to find some way that I can creatively employ myself in my downtime on set — like by tweeting, which I need to do more of and get better at (being pithy? Also hard), or other little tasks like creating new material for our bots — but it's hard to focus in the short bursts of downtime that I tend to have on TV, and on commercials I have to work less but appear like I'm working more, to make sure people know I’m working, which is also work. Plus, I find that most of my potential for focused, productive thought is ruined by having to get up at five. But then again, if I can’t use my creative energy at my job, then I don’t use all of it up there either — and I think this has always been the conundrum. We want to be fulfilled by what we do for money, but if that side job becomes too engaging, will we lose our drive to do and be something more? And on the flip side, how do you hold on to that drive for 2.5 decades and still feel like the goal is worth it when your everyday is unsatisfying?

I know the particulars will get easier if editing becomes my full-time job. I just didn't ever think I'd be starting again, even partly, at this age, and having to face these types of questions. That might be the biggest reason why I put off trying out editing as a job for so long, and of course now that I have waited this long, it’s harder. You know how science has shown how our brain activity wears in neural pathways that make habits normal and easy for us? These days, when I try to do something new, it’s like I can feel those pathways being scraped in with that tool my dental hygienist uses. And yet, smushing together those tiny pieces of what were once celluloid and are now zeros and ones that somehow appear as little purple rectangles to powerfully tell a story or convey a point is fulfilling for me in a way that hitting all my cues during a dialogue scene will never be. In one way they’re quite similar: a feat of strength and dexterity that only a handful of people will ever witness and probably never remember, because the point of doing sound right is that nobody notices, vs. making it possible for someone else to tell their story seamlessly in a style that will most likely only be attributed to them. They’re both ultimately just tiny names somewhere in the credits that you have to search for, and accepting that as my future might be the real growing up I have to do.

[ardas-group]

Development costs growth on a post MVP phase of a SaaS product

SaaS companies and investors love it because the economics of SaaS is far more compelling than selling software licenses. SaaS revenue usually comes in regularly and is easily predictable, making it much easier to predict cash flows in SaaS companies, which allows you to use this in planning and even here and now sell future cash flows to investors and, accordingly, fund current growth quite generously. For this reason, SaaS companies are considered one of the fastest-growing software companies in history.

Many entrepreneurs do not understand at what stage of development their company is and often overestimate its scale, guided by thoughts of the fastest possible growth.

This can backfire, with a report published by Startup Genome showing that 70% of startups fail because of the rapid scaling of their business model. If you act as if your company is bigger than it really is, and don't measure the most relevant metrics for your stage of development, this approach will ultimately be a disaster for you.

Over the past 10 years, we have helped launch over 40 startups and two of them are our own. Naturally, during this time we have made quite a few mistakes and gained invaluable experience. Therefore, today we decided to show you several cases of what happens to the SaaS after you launch the first version, what the costs may be, and what needs to be done to keep the project afloat.

What kind of costs growth in saas project to expect?

Despite the fact that modern companies have access to vast amounts of analytical data, most of them still do not understand what exactly they need to focus on.

A classic and typical mistake of novice startups is to think that after the release of MVP:

Development costs can be greatly reduced;

The main thing is to find the money for the MVP and when sales start, there is no need to invest own money again;

The income will come immediately after MVP is launched.

Why do most people think so?

People confuse IT business with a more classic offline business when you can invest and then not invest for a long time - they are used to a different dynamics of costs;

Are not used to and underestimate the difficulty of competing in the global market;

The factor of the novelty of the IT industry is underestimated - there are more research and risks associated with product implementation.

How does the reality of post MVP saas development cost look like?

So, what really needs to be done after the launch of the profit center in order not to lose the business. To begin with, let's correctly formulate what these three letters MVP mean.

MVP (minimum viable product, sometimes mistakenly stands for a minimum valuable product or minimal valuable product) is a minimum viable product that allows you to get meaningful feedback from users, to understand what they need and not create something that they are not interested in and for which they are not willing to pay.

Within the concept, your startup idea is a hypothesis. To check it, you need to do the following:

Formulate a hypothesis clearly.

Determine the criteria by which its viability will be determined.

Make a minimum viable product to confirm the hypothesis and launch it.

Measure performance indicators.

Draw conclusions and test the following hypothesis, if necessary.

MVP for startups is by no means a raw product made in a hurry. It just takes a minimum of time to develop it, and it contains only key functions, the relevance of which for real users should be checked. Studies show that 60% of features are not used at all, which means they are not in demand among users. The MVP concept allows you to shorten the project launch time by creating only the necessary functions and start getting real feedback on your product.

The product must be attractive to the user. And so a new concept appears - the minimum lovable product (MLP). A minimum lovable product not only solves customer problems but also delights them. Jiaong "JZ" Zhang, VP of Product at Webflow and formerly at Airbnb, WeWork, and Dropbox, commented on the evolution of MVP: “The MVP was appealing because it brought the product to market quickly and cheaply. But increasingly fierce competition makes it harder to release an MVP. If a startup really wants to stand out, it needs to create a minimum lovable product.”

The cost of SaaS stabilization

One of the most important points at the stage of transition from MVP to MLP is project stabilization. This is the case when, from a technical point of view, you make this product as working as possible. It often turns out in the middle of development that fixing all the technical mistakes and making the user-friendly interface costs much more than originally planned. In fact, this is the responsibility of the developers.

Our team can help minimize project stabilization through high-quality business analysis, planning the development of the backend and front-end according to the terms of reference, and not on a whim. Also, all designs are tested on prototypes. All these actions taken together reduce the time and money spent on stabilization.

How do pivots increase the cost of SaaS development?

To get to the MLP stage, you need to take care of one more important point. The ideal product, in terms of your vision and the perception of users, can differ significantly in substance. As much as you would not like, but to reach MLP you will have to admit the reality and significantly adjust your product. Pivots are most likely inevitable, and therefore money will be needed to implement them.

A finding from The Startup Genome report reveals that “Startups that pivot once or twice raise 2.5x more money, have 3.6x better user growth, and are 52% less likely to scale prematurely than startups that pivot more than 2 times or not at all.”

For example, we experienced it in 2017. We worked on a binary options trading platform. In the same year, such platforms were simply banned in Europe and Israel. That is, our customer risked being left with 100% losses. But with the help of a different pivot, we found a way to redesign the platform for different trading, which is legally allowed. That is, sometimes you cannot predict when and why you will need additional development or radical changes to your product, but you must be ready for them in order to stay afloat.

This saved the project, but the cost of the issue is +5 months of teamwork, which is a lot! If this money is not invested, then the project could be closed with 100% losses.

SaaS technical support cost or how to save the team

It is important to understand that the development and improvement of the project do not end at the MLP stage. One of the critical points at this stage is the preservation of the team, otherwise, this leads to a slowdown in the pace of development and, accordingly, the loss of money.

In this case, outsourcing of employees is the best solution, since you can gather and disband the same team several times. In our company, we have repeatedly faced a situation when work on certain projects was suspended and after a while, we got together again to make the product even better.

The result - it turned out to be very difficult, the client had to wait, it is not always possible to return the same developers - a waste of time on entering new ones. This is all bad for the project and kills the cost savings from stopping development.

Conclusion - it is advisable not to stop the development and not even greatly reduce, but to continue, but competently build a marketing and business plan so that it is well intertwined with the development.

What will it take to get to the growth stage?

If your project has not died after 3-6 months of the post MVP stage, then you reach a new level of this business relay - the growth stage. On the contrary, at this stage, the project requires new changes and financial investments. Code refactoring code will be one of the main consumers of the budget.

Do not be under the illusion that costs will not rise, they will rise at this stage. Here is a list of unpredictable things that cannot be avoided:

Code refactoring

Its purpose is to make it easier to understand how the program works. So what does it mean to make it easier to understand how a program works? The specific goals of the refactoring might be:

Improving the project of the existing code;

Finding errors;

Making the code more understandable for other team members;

Making the code less annoying;

Making it easier to add new code.

Also, refactoring helps to implement software products faster. The quality increases - and, accordingly, the speed of development. Refactoring is definitely necessary if a new person comes to your team, and the code in the form in which it exists is not clear to him. This suggests that the quality of the code is unsatisfactory.

For refactoring, first, write good tests: unit, functional, or integration. Second, change the code in small iterations. Run tests at each step.

Depending on the topic of your SaaS, there is often a need to combat fraud.

Fight against fraud

Almost every project we worked with during the growth stage was attacked by scammers. So for example, our own project Stripo, which is far from the topic of fintech, was also attacked, we were banned and caused damage to the project. Therefore, we had to devote developer time to solutions to combat fraud.

So for example, our own project Stripo, which is far from the topic of fintech, was also attacked, we were banned and caused damage to the project. Therefore, we had to devote developer time to solutions to combat fraud. Accordingly, this point implies another development point that requires financial investments - security.

Invest in security

This is usually the stage of a project that most developers go through at a fairly basic level. But as soon as the project becomes more visible, it comes to the attention of hackers, who naturally will not miss trying to hack your system. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a security audit at the beginning of the growth phase.

A network security audit is a technical assessment of an organization’s IT infrastructure—their operating systems, applications, and more. But before we dig into the varying types of audits, let’s first discuss who can conduct an audit in the first place.

Internal Auditors;

External Auditors;

Now that we know who can conduct an audit and for what purpose, let’s look at the two main types of audits:

Manual Audits: A manual audit can be performed by an internal or external auditor. During this type of audit, the auditor will interview your employees, conduct security and vulnerability scans, evaluate physical access to systems, and analyze your application and operating system access controls.

Automated Audits: An automated audit is a computer-assisted audit technique, also known as a CAAT. These audits are run by robust software and produce comprehensive, customizable audit reports suitable for internal executives and external auditors. Advanced auditing software will even provide an extra layer of security, continuously monitoring the IT infrastructure and alerting IT technicians when suspicious activity occurs and when predetermined security thresholds have been crossed.

Enterprise saas support cost for new developments

This is perhaps the most important item of financial investments at the growth stage. This is due to the fact that the industry is developing very quickly and competitors are also not sitting idle, new features and technologies appear.

For example, earlier our project Stripo positioned itself as a simple HTML editor. Then Google proposed a new email markup language called AMP. In this regard, our team was approved to implement support for AMP, which is essentially a pivot.

As a result, it took another 3 months and 2 additional developers for the first version, and now we support AMP that requires additional time.

Now we would like to visualize all of the above. The example we talked about above is three and a half of our work. Everything that is said in this article is the experience gained in this project as well. We assure you that this will surely happen with your SaaS project too. Therefore, you have the opportunity to observe from the experience of other people how the costs of the project grew over the course of three years.

Final Thoughts

The philosophy behind MVPs is simple: the longer companies wait for a product to be released - and the more money they spend on creating it - the more risks it entails.

An MVP released at the right time, when enough money has been spent on it, reduces the risk of low ROI and helps with the formation of stable cash flow in the future.

In this regard, if you still wonder how much should you spend on saas support and how to spend your budget wisely, our main recommendation is as follows - plan marketing and sales not after the launch of the profit center, but from the first day of the project in order to start receiving feedback and enter the market as early as possible. Reduce the profit center as much as possible in order to:

Reduce risks in case of failure;

Launch it as early as possible and while the developers continue to do further start selling it.

The Ardas team is ready to help you with the implementation of your SaaS development so that your budget is distributed as smart as possible and without unnecessary losses. And we will also help to make an adequate realistic assessment and not the one that developers do without experience in promoting and developing Saas, it is usually 2-3 times less.

Originally taken from https://ardas-it.com/development-costs-growth-on-a-post-mvp-phase-of-a-saas-product

[davidrivkin]

Election Mirage: Why Claims of Russian Meddling Should Be Questioned

By David B. Rivkin, Jr., and George Beebe

28 February 2020 in The National Interest

What does one do when the country’s intelligence leadership is acting, well, not very intelligently? That is the inescapable question prompted by last week’s reports that a senior representative of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in an official briefing that Russia is interfering in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and hopes to see President Donald Trump re-elected.

According to the New York Times account, Trump learned of this briefing only after the fact. And if press reports are accurate, the briefer cited no direct evidence of meddling on Trump’s behalf or of Russia’s broader intentions regarding U.S. presidential elections. Rather, the case was apparently based on inferences from such inherently ambiguous evidence as Russian hacking of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, supposedly done to help Trump dig up dirt on Hunter Biden. Such inferences were evidently reinforced by an assessment, lacking in analytical merit but redolent with politics, that the Kremlin would somehow naturally favor Trump over other 2020 presidential candidates.

Republican HPSCI members reportedly erupted in response. They disputed the plausibility of an assessment that Russia would prefer a president who has built up the U.S. military, proved willing to use force in the Middle East, greatly stiffened sanctions on Moscow, fought Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, and toughened other policies affecting Russia. Why would Russians not favor Democrats who would cut the U.S. defense budget, balk at using military force, and impose a ban on fracking that would drive up global oil and gas prices and benefit Russia’s energy export earnings? Trump, in turn, called the allegation of Russian support a “hoax.”

Should Intelligence Assessments Be Taken with a Grain of Salt?

Should intelligence overseers in Congress, the White House, and media subject the judgments of professional analysts to tough scrutiny? History says yes. Formulating intelligence assessments is an inherently uncertain and difficult business. Even establishing basic facts is a challenge when dealing with adversaries, who attempt to shroud their capabilities in secrecy. Intelligence assessments of the Soviet nuclear forces buildup, for example, were plagued by both over- and under-estimations, leading first to erroneous American concerns about a “missile gap” under Khrushchev, and later to surprise when the Soviets tried to put missiles in Cuba and then pushed well past nuclear parity in the 1970s.

In fact, one of the key reasons for the consistent underestimations of the Soviet nuclear force posture circa 1970s–1980s, was not a failure of the U.S. technical collection capabilities, but the CIA’s failure to accept that Moscow’s key strategic goal was to be able to fight and win a nuclear war. Ironically, Moscow was not trying to hide its thinking on this issue, as numerous Soviet military officials laid out their nuclear war-fighting ethos in published books and articles. However, U.S. intelligence analysts discounted this evidence, believing that Moscow, whatever it might have been publicly saying and doing, somehow subscribed to a mutually assured destruction theory as the best way to both maximize deterrence and minimize the risks of nuclear war.

By contrast, in earlier years, the CIA greatly overestimated the then-existing Soviet nuclear capabilities. By the late 1950s, the Soviet Union was locked in a strategic arms competition with the United States, and it was losing badly. America enjoyed a considerable and growing advantage in both long- and intermediate-range nuclear forces. Yet, having embarked on an ambitious foreign policy designed to test American resolve, and possibly drive U.S. forces out of Berlin, Khrushchev was not prepared to curtail his aspirations.

To enhance his military capabilities vis-à-vis the United States, he could have deployed a number of costly, inaccurate and vulnerable first-generation ICBMs. Alternatively, he could have chosen to invest the USSR's large, but not unlimited, resources in the development of more advanced land-based missiles (with deployment many years in the future) and other, more reliable, strategic delivery systems that might tip the nuclear balance in his favor.

Sensibly enough, he chose the latter course. However, to maintain the highest quality deterrence against the West and, even more to the point, to support the enhanced Soviet prestige necessary for an ambitious foreign policy, Khrushchev also engaged in an elaborate deception designed to make the West believe that Moscow had already fielded strategically meaningful numbers of advanced ICBMs. The Soviet leader's public statements were supported by a carefully tailored intelligence disinformation campaign that not only tried to hide Moscow’s actual capabilities but also masked Soviet insecurities by suggesting Khrushchev wanted to challenge directly the United States in building up nuclear forces.

From Khrushchev's perspective, the plan worked like a charm, at least temporarily. The alleged "missile gap" between the United States and the USSR was seized upon by a young Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, to discredit the Eisenhower Administration and to defeat then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 presidential election. Not only did the Soviet Union avoid wasting billions of rubles, but Khrushchev concluded that he could outmaneuver the inexperienced Kennedy.

To be sure, Moscow’s gambit ultimately failed, as the U.S. eventually discovered that Moscow was not “cranking out missiles like sausages,” in Khrushchev��s oft-used expression, and blocked the Soviets from installing medium and intermediate-range missiles in Cuba. This did not, however, negate the fact that for a considerable period of time U.S. intelligence estimates about Soviet capabilities were profoundly wrong.

Divining Intentions Is Extra Hard

Discerning adversary capabilities is difficult enough, particularly when dealing with closed societies with strict government controls on information. But divining an adversary’s intentions is an even more challenging task. In part, this is because capabilities, even when ascertained with the utmost precision, often lend themselves to multiple explanations of intent. Americans accurately recognized that Japan would have enormous disadvantages in an extended war with the United States, but they did not imagine that Tokyo might nonetheless attempt a knock-out blow of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Israelis correctly understood that Egypt could not hope to defeat their forces on the battlefield, but they failed to consider that Sadat might still see some advantage in launching a surprise offensive in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Moreover, decisions made by heads of state can often surprise even their closest aides. Intelligence reporting can accurately convey information from highly-placed foreign officials, yet still miss the mark when it comes to portraying foreign intentions. This problem can arise either because the officials just do not know enough about the intentions of their superiors, or because their superiors changed their minds, or simply because their superiors chose to lie to them. Saddam Hussein, for example, deceived his own generals in leading them to believe that, despite the international sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, Iraq retained operational weapons of mass destruction

The difficulty in grasping intentions is particularly acute when it comes to foreign influence operations. Often, media operations are aimed at little more than reinforcing a state’s diplomatic messaging. The BBC and Voice of America have long broadcast content into countries dominated by state-controlled media, hoping to provide audiences with alternative perspectives on events. But sometimes media campaigns are not intended to persuade, but to deceive and even subvert—to tear the social and political fabric of their target audiences and undermine government authority.

The objectives of such subversion, however, can be agonizingly difficult to ascertain with much confidence. Sometimes the goal of subversion can be to topple a foreign authority—to so damage the operations of a regime so that it can no longer function effectively and crumbles from within. In other instances, the aim is less ambitious and more pragmatic—to force the target leadership to do things it would rather not do, such as refrain from behavior perceived as threatening. And when creating controversial online content also happens to be the most effective way to attract views, generate clicks, and bolster advertising revenues, separating subversive intent from other more mundane motivations in digital media campaigns becomes even more challenging.

More generally, given the past record of intelligence failures—particularly when it came to the analysis of intentions of various hostile powers, and the fact that there are still ongoing debates about such key Cold War episodes as the real Soviet motivations that drove a series of Berlin crises, and the Cuban Missile Crisis—the notion that the judgments of the Intelligence Community about Russian intentions virtually delivered in real-time today should be accepted without skepticism is nothing short of risible.

What Does Moscow Want?

In view of such inherent challenges, what can we say about the renewed controversy over Russian electoral meddling? There is no doubt that Russians are continuing to post digital news and social media content aimed at American audiences. It is also clear that Russian hackers have targeted American electoral databases and vote-counting systems in the past. What is less clear are the motivations that lie behind this activity.

That it is aimed at securing the victory or defeat of any particular candidate or party is an unproven hypothesis at best. The Kremlin cannot fail to realize that any significant pro-Trump meddling would be exposed and would hurt rather than help his electoral prospects. This being the case, one might plausibly argue that the real reason Moscow might unveil some footprint of a pro-Trump campaign is because it would expect this to be discovered and actually harm Trump. In fact, such a scenario illustrates perfectly how difficult it is to ascertain Putin’s intentions, even if one had perfect evidence of what Moscow was actually doing in U.S. elections.

Source: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/election-mirage-why-claims-russian-meddling-should-be-questioned-127992

[mrstevenbushus]

Beginner’s guide to extensions

The best way to approach any home improvement project is to establish how your house could better meet your needs – and creating a list of requirements is a great starting point.

“Think about your current space and what it’s missing,” says Charlie Mills from Oakwrights. “Sketching out floor plans is an exciting task that can inspire you. Look at the new addition as a blank canvas and ignore what is already there, as it may obstruct great ideas.”

In terms of what’s possible, home extensions come in all shapes and sizes – the right style for you will be defined by the property and your budget.

A single-storey addition is the most appealing option for many homeowners as it often has minimal impact on the existing house, at the same time as allowing you to greatly increase your interiors.

You can build out to the side, front or rear, but the most suitable location and size for your project will depend on how much external space is available.

If you have enough room and a suitable budget, then a double-height addition could be a value-for-money route to maximising space.

Adding living area over two storeys invites you to redefine the internal layout; so for it to be successful, you’ll need to consider how the floor plan upstairs can be rejigged to suit the extra zones.

“Think about how you can fit a new bedroom in without reducing the size of another room, and how you could accommodate a corridor space,” says Lui Rocca from Welsh Oak Frame.

Designing your extension

After you’ve selected the best area of your house to build out from, you can get started on a design brief.

Your new space will impact significantly on the external appearance of your home, so getting the look right is critical.

When it comes to planning the addition, you can take on the job yourself, but many homeowners choose to employ an architect, designer or specialist company to work with them to turn initial ideas into illustrations and formal plans – more on working with a professional in the box opposite.

Do you want your extension to complement or contrast your current home? Incorporating an opposing material, such as oak, makes for a wow-factor finish, as this Oakwrights project proves [Credit: Lydia Harper]

Here are the key considerations to have in mind that will allow you to come up with the most suitable proposal:

Budget

The amount of money you’ve got available to complete the project is an important factor, so make sure you know your limits.

Letting your design team know a realistic budget will help to ensure you get a scheme you can genuinely achieve – but remember that quality and value go hand-in-hand.

“You get what you pay for; it’s tempting to opt for the lowest prices, but this rarely gets you want you want,” says James Upton from Westbury Garden Rooms. “Don’t forget to incorporate groundwork costs into your budget.”

Size

How big do you want your extension to be? Many people overestimate their needs.

“The addition should be in character with your existing house, so it’s important to avoid overdevelopment,” explains Ben Lee from Vita Architecture.

In order to work out how much you should extend by, consider how the space will be used as well as how it will interact with the main building and garden.

“Measure the largest room in your house to give yourself a realistic idea of the size you require,” says Lui Rocca.

Layout

Whichever extension style you’re planning, it’s important to consider how you want your space to flow.

Will it link with your current home in an open-plan kitchen-diner, for instance, or are you after a more segmented arrangement with rooms designated for different uses? And how will the new space relate to the existing house?

Light

Doors, windows and rooflights play a vital role in the flow of natural light. Glazed internal partitions can increase brightness and allow you to borrow space from adjoining rooms, while solid doors aid privacy and create boundaries.

“Extensively glazed extensions afford homeowners the opportunity to add ceiling height, incorporate feature windows and open up spaces,” says James Upton.

A low budget to extend this Edwardian mid terrace in London didn’t mean the homeowners had to skimp on style. Nimtim Architects used inexpensive materials to extend and radically alter the ground floor for a more family-friendly layout [Credit: Megan Taylor]

Future-proofing

Consider how your household might use your home in the future – what might work now may not in five years’ time.

“Architects can propose a design to meet current and prospective needs, balancing the conflicting desires of a family,” explains Nimi Attanayake from Nimtim Architects.

Planning & permitted development

With any alterations to an existing residence, it’s important to understand if you need formal permission from your council’s planning department.

Your extension may fall under permitted development (PD) rights, meaning a planning application is not required – but there are circumstances where these might not apply, so always check with your local authority before going ahead with work.

If you’re able to utilise full permitted development rights, then you’ll generally be able to:

Build on up to 50% of your home’s existing land (within the confines of other PD limits).

Extend up to the highest part of the roof.

Build out by 4m or 3m on an detached/attached dwelling (currently 8m or 6m retrospectively in England).

Create a side extension on a single-storey with a height of 4m and a width up to half that of the original house.

Put windows on upper floors of side elevations as long as they’re obscure-glazed and non-opening.

Changes to permitted development rights after May 2019

The established permitted development rights were reviewed in 2012 and relaxed to further encourage the development of existing properties (and to lessen the burden on local planning authorities in determining planning applications).

Following a further revision in 2015, and a new Order in 2016, these rights were put in place until May 2019.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO PD RIGHTS?

Protected buildings & locations

Permitted development rights don’t apply to listed buildings or designated regions, such as areas of outstanding natural beauty.

It’s against the law to amend such properties without the appropriate consents. Any improvement schemes will probably need to be sympathetic to the original building and require careful planning and well-considered materials.

Multi-storey extensions

It is possible to build a two-storey addition under permitted development rules; however, chances are you’ll need formal planning permission.

To be allowed under PD, the eaves and ridge height of the addition must be no taller than that of the existing building. The roof pitch should also match.

If you’re extending to the side, remember that the addition will be partly visible from the road, so your design should be sensitive.

Party Wall Act

If you’re planning to work on walls that you share with neighbouring properties, or building close to an adjacent boundary, you’ll need to make sure you comply with the Party Wall Act. This legislation aims to prevent and resolve disputes.

This means letting your neighbours know of your intention to extend, and how the work will be done. A party wall surveyor may need to resolve any disagreements and set parameters to protect neighbours’ property.

Building Regulations

Even if planning consent is not needed, the work must still comply with Building Regulations.

You can either send your local council a full plan submission (best for high-value schemes), which the authority will then check against the current guidelines, or a building notice of your intent to start. The work will be inspected at key stages.

Constructing your extension

Before work starts, you’ll need to find a suitable contractor. Put your plans out to tender by contacting several firms for quotes ahead of selecting the right team for the job:

Contracts

Agree pricing in advance and draw up a contract so that everyone knows what is expected of them and when – this is your security blanket should disagreements arise.

Your contractor should also provide you with details of what is covered within your defects liability period, along with a timescale for snagging (post-completion fixes).

Access

Logistics can be complicated when you’re dealing with an existing building – especially if you’re extending to the rear of a terraced house.

Consider how windows and doors will play a role in your extension. Yellow Cloud Studio used extensive glazing in this project to fill the property with natural illumination and allow for clear views out to the garden

Your contractors will need to get to and from the building zone, as well as park vehicles and machinery near your house. You may need to provide parking on your land, especially if there is only limited off-street parking nearby – or this zone may need to be dedicated to materials deliveries.

If you’re working upstairs, materials will be carried through your home, so talk to your contractor about minimising mess by sealing off rooms, using protective sheets and providing welfare facilities.

Project management

Someone will be required to oversee the works. This role of project manager involves organising who’s coming onto site and when, keeping on top of what’s being spent, when materials deliveries are scheduled, ensuring work is progressing to the quality that you’re expecting, plus keeping an eye on health and safety on site.

There’s a lot to stay on top of, so if you don’t have enough experience or time to commit to the job, it’s worth considering bringing in a professional or using a general contractor.

Who can design your extension?

If you’re planning to work with a professional, seek recommendations from neighbours and friends and browse completed projects online to find the designer that best suits your style.

Take into account finishing materials as this may impact on whether you need to work with a specialist.

For instance, if you want an oak frame structure, then you’re best to choose a firm that’s experienced with this construction method.

find architects and specialist companies for your extension project

Architects & designers

Deciding to come up with your own extension plans without help from a professional might seem like a good cost-cutting exercise, but don’t underestimate the skills and knowledge a designer can offer.

There’s flexibility in terms of how much you want to involve them – for instance, they can just draw up the plans or apply to planning on your behalf, or source contractors and project manage, if that’s something they offer.

“Create a brief your designer can work with, so they can efficiently balance your requirements,” says Nimi Attanayake. “Collaborate with your architect and contribute your ideas.” Visit the Royal Institute of British Architect’s (RIBA) website for a list of chartered professionals in your area.

Specialist companies

Design and build firms can offer a hassle-free route to an extension. They can provide design, project management and builders, so as much or as little as you like is taken care of.

“One advantage of such firms is that costs are provided in advance, so you never make decisions without knowing a price tag,” explains Lui Rocca.

Insuring your extension

When you undertake a big home improvement scheme, you should always inform your insurance provider of your intentions.

Your current policy may already cover any possible damage caused during extension works, but if not, you may need to buy a separate package to protect your house and possessions for the duration of the build. Providers include Protek and Self-Build Zone.

The post Beginner’s guide to extensions appeared first on Build It.

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Real Estate - 15 Things To Consider Before Closing A Real Estate Transaction

Real Estate - 15 Things To Consider Before Closing A Real Estate Transaction

Real Estate - 15 Things To Consider Before Closing A Real Estate Transaction

By Forbes Real Estate Council Real Estate - Low inventory and an abundance of buyers looking to secure the home of their dreams are creating a real estate market buzz that hasn’t been seen in a while, with homes selling for well over asking price. But, what does this mean for real estate investors? With 89% of investors putting their money into real estate, according to a report by Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, being at the mercy of this year’s high market prices can affect an investor’s ability to recoup on a property investment. While paying too much for a property can be damaging to an investment, it is only one of the issues that can arise if careful measures are not taken when closing on the latest addition to your real estate portfolio. Fifteen members of Forbes Real Estate Council share some of the things real estate investors commonly overlook before closing on a property that can mean bad news down the road. Here’s what you can do differently: 1. Financial Statements For newer investors evaluating deals, always request to see the properties' financial statements. Pour over the expenses of a property until you thoroughly understand what you are looking at. If the home was professionally managed, financial statements should be readily available. Self-managing landlords will likely not have thorough statements, in which case you will need to estimate. - Timothy VandenToorn, United Properties of West Michigan 2. Taxes Where will taxes stabilize after a purchase? No one can give you a definitive answer of what taxes will be three, five or 10 years down the road, but always engage a real estate tax professional to best prepare for what will likely happen to property taxes in the years to come, especially since this is most likely the largest line item in your operating expense. - Lee Kiser, Kiser Group 3. Appeal To Renters Investors tend to focus on title, repair estimates and getting financing lined up. Long term, though, returns will be driven by the stickiness of the tenant. It always helps to do due diligence on the property like the tenant and focus on school district, access to public transportation and local amenities. Keeping the tenant in place will drive higher returns and keep turnover costs down. - Beth O'Brien, CoreVest Finance 4. Maintenance Costs Investors often look at real estate in the same way they would a financial asset. However, a building is a physical asset with a roof, walls and equipment that needs to be maintained. Maintenance costs are often unrepresented in the selling package. Before every purchase, an owner needs to do a thorough physical inspection of each building and include costs to replace potential items when they are forecasting returns. - Michael Episcope, Origin Investments 5. Ongoing Carrying Costs  Most investors only calculate purchase and repair costs while overlooking the additional carrying and closing costs. These additional costs can often accumulate to approximately 10-20% of the entire budget, which will decrease the profit margins. Ensure your financial audit of the property includes these. - Joshua Fraser, Data Nerds 6. Underwriting Tenants Adequately While many investors underwrite the value of the property correctly, it is very common to do an inadequate job underwriting the tenant if one is already in place. The investor should scrutinize the current tenant with as much diligence as the property itself. Properly accessing payment history, credit score, maintenance requests, etc. can give a true valuation of what an investment property is worth. - Mike Tamulevich, Marketplace Homes 7. Paid Inspection And Appraisal Reports Paying a few hundred dollars for both an appraisal and an inspection report will save you money down the road. An inspection report can be submitted to a Home Warranty Company and any items in the home that were functioning during the time of the report may be covered under the home warranty plan. An appraisal report will give you an accurate square footage and appraised value that you can use when you go to sell the property after you have finished your rehab. - Angela Yaun, Day Realty Group 8. Condition Of The Property Many investors are too lazy to get eyes on site when they see a great deal via the various online auction platforms. It is extremely important to hire a professional to conduct a brief walkthrough to see if any major items from a structural standpoint need attention. - Engelo Rumora, List'n Sell Realty 9. HOA Covenants, Conditions And Restrictions If an investor is looking to remodel a property, homeowner association (HOA) board approvals could be required before work can take place, causing delays in construction and additional carrying costs. Covenants, conditions and restrictions may restrict tenants or have requirements on lease terms, limiting the investor's pool of tenant prospects. - Brion Crum, Caliber:The Wealth Development Company 10. Variance In Redemption Laws One thing that can derail an investor's best laid plans is investing in a foreclosed property without advance research of state laws regarding rights of redemption. While some states have no redemption period at all, other states have redemption periods that can extend up to 12 months. Research state law in advance if foreclosure properties are potential additions to the portfolio in order to prevent potentially costly surprises. - Amy Niesen, Land Title Company of Alabama 11. The Rent Roll For rental investment properties, investors need to be diligent when evaluating a rent roll. In many cities across the U.S., increased construction over the past five years has resulted in a glut in housing stock, leading to buildings offering concessions in the form of free rent. Understanding how much renters are actually paying — net vs. gross rent — is crucial in evaluating the actual underlying opportunity. - Anthemos Georgiades, Zumper 12. Strength Of Partnerships We all know we need great due diligence on prospective investment properties. However the hidden, most dangerous and often overlooked pitfalls are partnerships. How well do you know your partners in the deal? Do they think like you? What do they bring to the table to make the deal profitable? Have clear cut operating agreements and guidelines. - Thomas Black, Napali Capital 13. Master Land Use Plan While investors typically confirm property zoning, they rarely obtain the Master Land Use plan for the area. Meeting with the City Planner and building department is an important step toward fully understanding the potential future value for any given property. Consider the factors that could negatively/positively impact future value, e.g., over-saturation (-) or even new developments (+). - Diane Batayeh, Village Green 14. Emotional Due Diligence Many people don't look at the market and its psyche enough. Of course everyone must do physical due diligence, but competition and potential market changes can dramatically affect an asset. Neighborhood trends are integral in your plans to market and position an asset, especially if you are doing improvements to reposition. Talk to the local chamber of commerce and any neighborhood groups for key details. - Eddie Lorin, Impact Housing REIT and Strategic Realty Holdings 15. Estimate Accordingly Under/overestimating is a huge problem for investors, especially newer investors. Often, investors underestimate repair costs, holding costs, closing costs, etc. They will also overestimate after repair, resale or rent value. Location, function, amenities and market conditions are all variables that affect ROI. Having a clear understanding of these variables is key to better profits. - Long Doan, REALTY GROUP, INC. Read more https://global.goreds.today/real-estate-161/   Read the full article