#but I also offered to do all this backend work for him if he decides to do it

[devouredreaper]

Currently torturing myself by attempting to classpect the party on the off chance the DM actually goes through with putting us in a Homestuck universe

[lazar-codes]

Codeblr tag game - Realization

Thank you to @code-es for tagging me!

At what point in your life did you decide that the world of computers was the one for you?

This will be a long one, so bear with me.

I tag: @kitkatcodes, @alica-tech, and literally anyone else who wants to do this.

I honestly didn't know, or care to know, how computers worked until I was 21, at my last semester of college. As a kid I had my own computer, but I didn't mess around with it. Then, growing up, it just didn't occur to me that programming was a thing, or even a thing that my brain could comprehend and actually enjoy doing (plus, I'm bad a math, so there's that).

I was finishing up my Associate Degree in Health Sciences where in my genetics class in my 2nd to last semester, my prof starts talking about Bioinformatics and how the field is rising. So I went up to him after class and asked what that field was, and he said "you create apps to help solve biological problems" and I stood there thinking that that was just awesome (although after being in a bioinformatics program at another school, the definition we were taught is "using programming or computer science to answer biological questions", so a little different than what he said). He said my college was planning on opening up a degree in that field and handed me a timetable for the courses that a student would take in that degree. One of the first courses you'd need to take actually required a pre-requisite course, so my last semester in my degree I took that course, and it was a basic intro to computer science.

This course was awful. I didn't really like my prof, and he just presented different topics without explaining how things connected. For example, he explained how sorting algorithms worked, but I don't remember if he covered lists or arrays. He explained stacks and queues (which I learned about in my 2nd year of university, 2 years after learning it in this course), and also went over the different routing/scheduling algorithms like round robin and others I don't remember. And then we covered Visual Basic (i.e. turn this text colour from black to red), and also briefly touched on if statements and loops. Basically, it was a mess of a course.

So, my college doesn't open the program by the time I graduate and I get into another university for the Bioinformatics bachelor program. Because of college, I didn't really have to take bio courses at uni since I'd already done them. So now it was time for computer science. This was really good, since I had the flexibility of either continuing on the bio path and do research once I graduate, or go into the world of programming. And I really liked that flexibility.

The intro to computer science course offered here was actually structured well, but I still didn't know that the key to courses where you program is to learn how to use google...we did all of our assignments in Python and I asked a programming friend of mine for a lot of help. Then as the semesters went on, I would take 1 or 2 CS courses per semester to learn concepts such as data structures and algorithms, database management systems, and computer networks. Meanwhile, the few actual bioinformatics courses that I took all used R and were mostly data analysis, which I didn't like (but still used it for my thesis project). It wasn't until this past semester where I was taking a design course (officially called "human-computer interactions") that I actually had fun with the project. We had to design a library website system from scratch to a functioning prototype, and I had a blast. Given that that was my last semester, it gave me hope that I can enjoy coding, especially if it's something visual. I don't mind doing backend stuff (plus, it makes me feel smart), but I work really well with visuals, and when I can literally see my process and the outcome.

This was long, but here we are. Now I'm 25 and I've graduated, and I'm in the process of building up a portfolio with projects, as well as (re)learning concepts I covered in school to prep for interviews. I honestly don't think I'll get a job immediately, and it might take a few months, but I'm using that time in between to learn and get a solid understanding of concepts. I feel like I started late, and that I should've just gone into a CS or SE degree instead of Bioinformatics, or gotten an internship during my school years, but alas, it is what it is.

[violetmuses]

Grey || Chapter 1

2023

Helmut Zemo

Scheisse!

I’d forgotten that some electronic devices would have spotty reception during this flight to Madripoor, but another part of me cursed once more for attempting to contact someone in particular. Several decades passed since I’d last seen her in and I knew better than to act as if she’d listen to me, especially since my imprisonment.

“Did something in your plan go awry?” James probed, sitting across from me without closing too much space between us both. Meanwhile, Sam perched himself into one chair of the opposite aisle, sitting alone.

“No, James, but I appreciate your concern regarding the mission.” I tucked away the small burner phone, hoping that he would not ask many other questions before we landed. We shared silence, but prompted gratefulness to reach my thoughts.

Only I knew the truth.

______

“Got word from high. You ain’t welcome here.” This bearded guard addressed me minutes after we reached Madripoor. By now, I’d entered the Brass Monkey Saloon with James and Sam, planning to contact Selby then after. This bar also lined with decor that would’ve reminded children of Halloween as skulls perched in all corners.

“I have no business with the Power Broker, but if you insist, either come and talk to me or bring Selby for a chat.” Facing that guard, I motioned my gloved hand between him and James, showing authority I’d held by noting current placement of the Winter Soldier. Meanwhile, Sam, dressed in his red-brown suit, remained silent.

“The Power Broker, really?” James eyed me without much emotion whilst asking his brief question.

“Every kingdom needs its king. Let’s just pray that we stay under his radar.” I remarked, keeping my voice low amid the presence of others.

“Do you know him?” Sam countered, leaning as well.

“Only by reputation. In Madripoor, he’s judge, jury, and executioner.” I continued, acknowledging how influential The Power Broker had been.

“ Зимний солдат, атака.” A different patron of the bar had lurked nearby, but dared to touch my shoulder. In turn, I uttered Russian, signaling the need for James to attack. Voices of shock and surprise had filled the area, adding noise.

“What is going on?” Sam questioned me moments later. Across the room, James then turned the earlier patron’s arm and inflicted more pain to others almost immediately afterwards. Here, we won, earning slight notice in the venue now.

“Didn’t take much for him to fall back into form.” I uttered to Sam , shoving another guest of the bar towards this fray. As long as we kept up notice here, there wouldn’t be problems, no matter how much people recorded with their phones.

“Shit.” Sam mumbled in return moments later, watching as various people aimed their guns or readied other weapons to defend against us. Meanwhile, James had now clutched his brace around someone’s throat, holding him near the bar counter.

“Stay in character before the whole bar turns on us…Молодец, Солдат.” I reminded James and Sam, keeping my warning quick as Sam peered. I then spoke in Russian once more and turned to face James, still encouraging him as The Winter Soldier.

“Selby will see you now.” The Bartender acknowledged what happened and permitted our entrance towards Selby. Meanwhile, that poor and seemingly helpless victim of James slipped off the bar with this large thud, coughing.

“Thank you.” I said, quickly leaving as Sam and James began to trail behind me. At least we could leave this bar alive.

______

“You should know Baron, people don’t just come into my bar and start making demands.” Selby lounged on her favorite sofa once more, resting her arm onto its backend.

“Not a demand, an offer.” I sat down in one of the adjacent armchairs. Both James and Sam cornered themselves to stand in the room, not bothering to act comfortable while staying in character.

“A lot has changed since you were here last. By the way, I thought you were rotting in a German prison. How did you escape?” Selby remarked back, noting my current presence and freedom away from those claustrophobic walls.

“People like us always find a way, don’t we?” I smirked, emitting feigned arrogance to keep us alive just a bit longer. There was no other choice. Once again, I knew much better to give us away, especially now.

“You’re taller than I’d heard, Smiling Tiger. What’s the offer?” Selby bravely purred in the direction of Sam, gesturing her hands to imitate the ferocious cat of his alias-namesake. Yet, her eyes faced me, asking to describe the purpose of our visit.

“Tell us what you know about the super-soldier serum and I will give you him, along with the code words to control him, of course. He will do anything you want” I stood up from the armchair and lurked to James, momentarily baiting Selby here.

“Now, that’s the Zemo I remember. I’m glad I decided not to kill you immediately. Yeah, you were right to come to me. Arrogant, but right. The serum is here in Madripoor. Dr. Wilfred Nagel is the man you or want or thank or condemn, depending on what side of this you’re on. The Power Broker had him working on the Serum, but things didn’t go as planned.” Selby almost plastered her wickedly famous smile whilst I then sat back down in the posh armchair and listened to this extremely significant information. James and Sam were once again quiet.

“Is Nagel still in Madripoor?” I asked, lifting one of my gloved fingers to emphasize the question itself.

“The breadcrumbs you can have for free, but the bakery’s gonna cost you, Baron. And before you get all cute, don’t think you can find Nagel without me.” Selby rose from her sofa and gestured to me. I could only imagine what else had to be done.

Just when I planned to respond, Sam's cell phone buzzed out loud. My thoughts now raced with anger as we all glanced around the room. Selby’s guards had departed the nearby shadows and lifted weapons, planning to attack, of course.

After Selby demanded for the call to go on speaker, we heard Sam’s sister, Sarah. This clueless and innocent woman did not realize our mission in the slightest. As Sam and Sarah bickered to and fro, I froze, eying nothing but the farthest wall.

“Sam, let me call you back.” It was not long before Sarah had acknowledged Sam by name, ruining our cover during this mission immediately. Even James had nearly lost his own composure, for good reason.

“Sam, who’s Sam? Kill them!” Selby glanced around, realizing that we were all imposters now. Just moments later, however, this singular gunshot pierced through the glass of a nearby window, ending Selby’s life without fail. Accurate, perfect.

“They’re gonna pin this on us.” Sam huffed. Between gunshots, guards in the room aimed to put up a fight with us. James and Sam defend themselves as I rose from the armchair and cornered us all, lifting my hands when Sam had addressed me.

“We have a real problem now, so leave your weapons and follow my lead.” I breathed to respond quickly. Outside the bar, cell phones chimed, pinging a bounty message. A reward would be given to anyone who found Selby’s killers.

______

“Deactivate your hustle mode because you sell fake Monet pieces.” Sam wasn’t convinced that Sharon Carter kept such exquisite artwork in this high-rise. James and Sam were moving around, eyeing the property as others would keep sight.

“No, she means real. This gallery is specialized in stolen artwork. Monet, Van Gogh, classics.” I recalled more information, but paused midway through my own acknowledgements… Sharon, James and Sam still conversed, but left me alone.

At that moment, I cornered to take out my burner phone, hoping to see if a call would actually go through. At least I could rid this device if need be, otherwise the digital exchange would be found by others. Blue and white lighting of the room kept me hidden to an extent.

Placing the phone against my ear, I watched as Sam and James kept chatting with one another. Sharon looked uninterested, but annoyed all at once. Meanwhile, I listened as three dialing rings filled my ears. I’d waited too long for this moment.

“Hi, you’ve reached Dionne Charles. I’m sorry for missing your call, but if you leave a message after the tone, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks and have a great day.”

There it was. Somehow, her sweet voice hadn’t aged in the decades that passed since we first met. I shut both eyes, immediately remembering the pretty smile that always hid whenever she sipped from those champagne flutes after the auction.

Before I could dare to clear my throat and leave a message, Sam caught me off guard.

“Are you just gonna stand there all night to use your phone or change into different clothes? Sharon’s got clients visiting soon.” Before I could dare to clear my throat and leave a message, Sam caught me off guard.

“Apologises.” Facing Sam in return, I tucked away my phone once more, heading towards one of the last guest rooms located here to switch my current attire.

Tonight would show a great reprieve until the next hurdle came along.

[d-criss-news]

Ryan Murphy’s (Kinda) True ‘Hollywood’ Story: 1940s Meets Gay Stars, Interracial Romance and (Gasp!) a Female Studio Chief

The prolific TV creator and Netflix unveil a revisionist take on the golden age of movies, showing how much (and how little) has shifted in entertainment and beyond: “'Hollywood’ can change the world.”

On an abnormally cold January evening, on the steps of Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium, history was being rewritten.

Two actors, one playing Rock Hudson, the other Hudson’s African American screenwriter boyfriend, Archie, were tucked inside a teal blue Packard Club Sedan, awaiting their cue. Outside, it was Oscar night, 1948, and despite warnings of grave backlash, the pair was prepared to step out as a couple for the first time.

Archie exited first, his eyes wide with trepidation, then Rock. In matching white tuxedos, they grabbed for each other’s hands and shuffled nervously down the red carpet.

The press box erupted in hisses, then boos.

“Are we doing the right thing?” Archie whispered.

“Absolutely we are,” Rock replied.

The two exchanged smiles, exhaled and made their way into the theater. Then they stopped and did it again. And again.

Ryan Murphy, the scene’s chief architect, was a few miles east, buried in one of his dozen other projects, but his fingerprints could be detected everywhere. The reimagining — part of his new Netflix anthology series, Hollywood — offers a world in which Hudson (played by Jake Picking) walked openly as a gay man, as opposed to the real-life heartthrob who remained closeted until his death from AIDS in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere in Murphy’s revision of history, an African American actress, played by Laura Harrier, is cast as the star of a major studio picture, written by Hudson’s black boyfriend (Jeremy Pope), helmed by a half-Asian director (Darren Criss) and greenlit by a female studio chief (Patti LuPone) and her gay head of production (Joe Mantello).

If Pose was Murphy’s effort to champion the marginalized, Hollywood’s his shot at imagining such marginalization was undone decades ago. The series, his first without his longtime collaborators at 20th Century Fox Television, drops in its entirety May 1, with a sprawling ensemble of real and fictional characters. It was supposed to feel timely, its period backdrop a reminder of how much and how little has changed in 70-plus years; now, landing in a world grappling with a global pandemic, its 1940s setting could be the escape so many are seeking.

“I’ve always been interested in this kind of buried history, and I wanted to create a universe where these icons got the endings that they deserved,” says Murphy, 55, who’s been waiting out the virus at his home in Los Angeles, with his husband and two young sons, who now require homeschooling. “It’s this beautiful fantasy, and in these times, it could be a sort of balm in some way.”

The Netflix executives who shelled out roughly $300 million for Murphy’s services in 2018 can only hope so. Already, they’ve had to cancel influencer screenings, scrap subway ads and punt on potential plans for a premiere benefit for the now hard-hit Motion Picture Television Fund, which houses several stars of the era in its L.A. retirement facility. As for the show itself, it’s certainly not the broad-sweeping, four-quadrant fare that Netflix is widely thought to prefer. The pilot episode alone features six sex scenes — a mix of gay and straight — and nearly all involve some sort of financial transaction. By episode three, which the show’s writers have nicknamed “night of a thousand dicks,” the characters have found their way to one of director George Cukor’s infamous pool parties.

Still, Netflix head of originals Cindy Holland says that Hollywood is exactly the kind of elevated, inclusive and ultimately hopeful programming that the company wants from Murphy, and the seven-episode limited series was fast-tracked as a result. “What I love,” she says, “is that Ryan is creating a world that he wants to will into existence.”

***

Murphy’s first inkling for Hollywood came over a celebratory dinner with Criss following their fruitful awards run for the Versace installment of American Crime Story. With rosé flowing, the two began discussing a next possible collaboration. Murphy wanted to do something young and hopeful; Criss proposed 1940s Hollywood. The 33-year-old actor had been fascinated by the lore surrounding characters like Scotty Bowers, the L.A. hustler who operated out of a gas station on Hollywood Boulevard, along with golden age stars like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, and he was eager to explore the era with Murphy.

“There’s a blinking red light on it that says, ‘Ryan Murphy, Ryan Murphy,’ ” says Criss, “because it’s sexy, it’s fun, it’s glamorous, it’s dangerous and it has resonance now.”

Murphy didn’t disagree. As a student of Hollywood history, he’d already gone down the road with his FX series Feud, which centered its first season on Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. This would simply allow him to dig deeper on figures who’d long captured his attention, from Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star, who was effectively run out of Hollywood, to Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar and not be allowed to sit with her cast in the theater. “I’m always moved by these characters who weren’t fully seen or didn’t get their moment,” says Murphy in an interview on the Paramount lot earlier this year, where he was directing Meryl Streep in The Prom, another Netflix production. At one point, he’d even toyed with the idea of doing a Biography-style anthology series with an episode devoted to each.  

Not long after that dinner, Criss was at a bachelor party when his phone rang. It was Murphy. “He says, 'Do you mind if I just do my thing on this?’ ” says Criss. “And I’m like, 'You’re Ryan fucking Murphy. Do whatever you want!’ ”

So, Murphy picked a collaborator, Ian Brennan, with whom he’d worked on Glee, Scream Queens and The Politician, and the two began quietly tossing around ideas. With the help of a few researchers, they landed on a story that revolved around a Bowers-esque service station, with a staff full of actors and directors looking to be stars. “It was super fun and sexy and salacious,” says Brennan, “but it was also about the #MeToo underbelly of 1940s Hollywood, which felt very, very contemporary.”

The men found it exhilarating to depict sex so explicitly and in every possible combination. “To be able to describe exactly what is happening is really, really cool,” says Brennan. And despite the appetite for such racy content varying dramatically around the globe, Netflix brass was passionate about its inclusion — a marked difference from his and Murphy’s experience on previous shows, where they fought tooth and nail over the mere mention of sexual terms. “I hope this isn’t speaking out of school,” he adds, “but the one thing [Netflix’s vp original series] Brian Wright said to me, was, like, 'Thumbs-up on the sex. If anything, dial that up.’”

From the Pose writers room, producer Janet Mock would see Murphy and Brennan huddled in a nearby room and wonder what the latest “secret Ryan Murphy project” was all about. At one point, Mock found herself pumping intel out of a writers’ assistant, who told her, “It’s a thing called Hollywood, it’s about this gas station.” Having seen the 2017 documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, she figured, “OK, there’s no place for me in that. I’ll continue with Pose.”

But that would soon change, beginning with an eye-opening discussion in the writers room about which of the ensemble’s contract players would be picked to star in the film at the center of Hollywood. The role was that of real-life actress Peg Entwistle, a blonde Brit who jumped to her death from the famed Hollywood sign. “At first, we were like, “Well, it can’t be the black girl [Harrier’s Camille], they wouldn’t have done it. …’ And then it was like, 'Well, wait a second, what if it actually was? What if Peg becomes Meg,’ ” says Brennan. One what-if led to another and then another, and before long they’d decided to go back in and start revising history — this time, with Mock as a credited writer.

Now, rather than use the series to, say, showcase the powerlessness of a studio head’s aging housewife, in this case LuPone’s Avis, they tweaked the story so that suddenly it explores what would happen if Avis gained control of her husband’s studio. It was the same for several others, including Rock Hudson, says Murphy’s co-creator. Instead of telling the tragic tale of a person forced to hide, they allowed themselves to explore what would happen if he refused to do so. “Once we began asking, 'What if?’ it became a different show,” says Brennan, with Mantello adding: “It became a fable of what could have been.”

With Netflix execs eager to get the series up on the service, Murphy began loading the cast with his usual mix of familiar names — from Jim Parsons, as Hudson’s real-life closeted agent Henry Wilson, to Rob Reiner, as the head of the fictional Ace Studios — and newer discoveries, like Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) as Reiner’s daughter, or Picking as Hudson and Pope as his fictional boyfriend. As with other recent ensembles, he listed all of them not in order of importance or seniority but rather alphabetically on the call sheet. The message was clear: “The star of the show is the show,” says Murphy. Still, initial hires Criss and David Corenswet, who’d made his debut on The Politician, were given executive producer credits, along with backend points on the series. (There’s already talk of a season two, which would pick up in the late 1960s, with many of the same actors in entirely new roles.)

At some point in the production process, Murphy found himself scaling back the graphic nature of the series, too — a byproduct of his own personal recalibration, he says, having spent so much of his pre-Netflix life fighting to show so much as a woman’s nipple. “When you’re finally free, you have this tendency to go full tilt boogie, but ultimately I became much more interested in the emotion of the characters, and, frankly, I became protective of them,” he explains, suggesting every episode had an X-rated version, an R-rated version and a PG version, and, to the delight of participants like Corenswet, who plays an actor-cum-sex worker, Murphy would almost always select the R one.

“I think Ryan realized as we were shooting that the best part of the sex was the romance — and that’s always great to hear as an actor, especially when it applies to your five-page sex scene with Patti LuPone,” says the 26-year-old Corenswet. LuPone, for her part, was just thrilled she was still asked to do a sex scene at age 71. “Finally!” she bellows, praising Murphy for having both the vision and the courage to take the risks he does: “Ryan’s fearless,” says the Tony winner, who also popped up in Pose, “and I’m so happy to be in his world." 

***

Long before Murphy was a household name, with a big fat Netflix deal to ostensibly take all the risks he wants, he was a frustrated former journalist fighting to change a system that wasn’t built for him. His own secret had been revealed at just 15, when his mother found a drawer full of love letters from his then-22-year-old boyfriend at their home in Indiana. Horrified, she and Murphy’s father threw their son into counseling, hoping he could be "fixed.”

A decade or two later, after his first career as an entertainment writer, Murphy carved out a place for himself in television, where he could exist comfortably as a gay man — so long as he didn’t try to write anyone like himself into scripts. “There were lots of words that they’d use to discriminate against you,” he says, “too flamboyant, too camp, too theatrical, and they were all code.”

By the mid-1990s, he’d joined forces with 10 or so other out or soon-to-be-out creatives, a group that included Nina Jacobson, Greg Berlanti and A Beautiful Mind’s Bruce Cohen. Giving themselves the name “Out There,” they’d meet in courtyards and living rooms to swap horror stories and try to plot a path forward. “We were young and didn’t have much money, but we had a lot of energy and a need to connect with and support each other as gay people working in a straight environment,” says Jacobson, who’d later collaborate with Murphy on American Crime Story and Pose. “And for a lot of us, it was, for the first time, that feeling of community.”

In time, Murphy, like the others, found a way to “monetize [his] pain.” His first creation, Popular, debuted in 1999, and other opportunities followed. Popular begat Nip/Tuck, Nip/Tuck begat Glee, and before he knew it, Murphy had moved from TV’s fringes to its red-hot center. As The New Yorker once wrote, “He changed; the industry changed; he changed the industry.” In early 2018, he signaled that power by signing a nine-figure deal, among the most lucrative in the medium’s history.

So it is perhaps fitting that Murphy’s first project wholly for and from the service includes a scene that trumpets what he calls “the thesis statement” of his career. It begins with Criss’ character, Raymond, being regaled by the story of Anna May Wong’s awe-inspiring screen test for the lead role in the 1937 adaptation of The Good Earth, a part that ultimately went to a far less deserving Caucasian actress. Suggesting it was one of the saddest stories Raymond had ever heard, a film executive played by Mantello responds:

“What’s so sad about it? The picture was a hit. [They] were right. You can’t open a picture with a Chinese lead or a colored one, a number of theaters won’t run it.”

Raymond: “But you said she deserved the part?”

Exec: “Yes, but the hard fact is, had she gotten it, the picture is not a hit.”

Raymond: “How do you know that? You never made the movie, so how do you know it’s not a hit?”

Criss’ character continues with a monologue that is so perfectly Murphy you can almost close your eyes and picture him saying it.  

“Sometimes I think folks in this town don’t really understand the power they have. Movies don’t just show us how the world is, they show us how the world can be. If we change the way that movies are made — you take a chance and you make a different kind of story, I think you can change the world.”

Criss himself would argue that Murphy already has. “His dial is always in extremes. So, if he’s doing Glee or Scream Queens or this, it’s at an 11, almost as a middle finger to reality,” says the actor. “It’s like he turned the dial over to say, 'This is how I’d like to see the world in my wildest dreams. Ain’t it fun?’ ”

In the past two years, since he moved his creative hub from 20th Century Fox TV, where he still maintains a considerable roster, Murphy been responsible for producing roughly 200 LGBTQ characters, many featured as leads. At least a third of his Hollywood cast is older than 70 (“Seventy is the new 40,” he teases), and nearly every project he launches is fronted by a woman — and that’s just in front of the camera. “If you see it, you can be it,” Murphy says often.

It’s a worldview that appeals to Netflix’s Holland, for whom he’s already prepped two films (Prom, The Boys in the Band), two docuseries (Circus of Books, Secret Love) and five seasons of inclusive television, including a Halston miniseries that, along with his 20th programs Pose, American Horror Story and American Crime Story, shut down care of COVID-19 in March. In the weeks since, when he isn’t toggling between Tiger King and MSNBC, Murphy’s kept busy writing two new decidedly hopeful series, each with the express purpose of providing viewers and himself an escape. “Ryan’s the rare creator who speaks to many audiences,” says Holland. “It’s not just gay people or straight people or older people or younger people, it’s really all people who are interested in the human condition.”

To date, Murphy claims he has yet to hear the word “no” from his Netflix bosses, though he’s definitely been nudged in certain directions. “They don’t want me to do small, niche things,” he says, acknowledging that not too long ago a project like Hollywood would have been deemed just that. “But they know how to market this,” he explains, noting that Netflix will push his latest series on viewers who also like love stories, young adult series and LGBTQ fare.

For those who worried the ultra-competitive producer would chafe in a system that doesn’t provide a public report card (aka ratings), he argues that that’s been liberating. Brennan backs him up, revealing how they received initial numbers for The Politician a week or two after it premiered late last summer and then another trove of data a month or so later; and though the latter could effectively game out how many people would watch the series over time, Brennan says, “We were sort of like, 'I don’t think that’s helpful.’ ”

Murphy takes it a step further, insisting he’s no longer interested in the old metrics, like how many people are watching or how many awards a series has generated. “All the things that people tell you will make you feel successful … I have those things, they don’t,” he says. What matters to him now is being able to tell stories that he wishes he or others could have seen. To that end, he can’t help but wonder what his own life would have been had he witnessed Rock Hudson walking the Oscars red carpet as an openly gay man — and though it’s too late to change his own experience, Murphy would like to be able to improve the experience of others. So, he took a chance and made a different kind of story. “Hollywood,” he says, “can change the world.”

[sahoolatkaroffcial]

10 Tactics: How to become an E-Commerce Giant?

It was the month of July. The date was fifth. And the year was 1994. A person named Jeff Bezos started a Book store from his garage. He was a Books’ lover. So, he started selling them online. It was a modest e-commerce store for only literature lovers. But soon Mr. Bezos realized that potential is there more than his imaginations. Soon, TVs, DVDs, computers, games, costumes, jewelry, and makeup tools were selling from the Amazon platform. What were the reasons behind Amazon’s rapid success? Are you interested to become an E-Commerce giant like Amazon and Alibaba? My today’s blog will help you to learn a few tactics as below;

1. Think of something new

Indeed, this is very important. To think anew. And to think different is essential when you are going to start something unique. Amazon’s idea was not new. People were selling Books for ages. But Mr. Bezos started a new channel; this was online selling. And this was a fresh concept for people. Now people did not need to go to the Book stores. Whatever they were wanting. It was right on their computer screens in their homes.

2. Start Small

Well, taking risks is also necessary. This concept could have been a failure. But Bezos took a risk. People were fond of window shopping. And they were used to going to the shops for buying Books. But Bezos introduced a new way out. He did not bring a plethora of products on the very first day. Initially; these were just Books. Later on, the whole world became to him. So, if you want to become a big online enterprise it is not mandatory for you to highly invest. Take baby steps and see the outcome.

3. Right Decision at Right Time

Internet was relatively a new thing for consumers. People needed new platforms. That was the time when Bezos timely decided to go online. Well, this is very interesting indeed; many of the times, highly anticipated ideas fail due to the time factor. Some ideas arise before their time. And some thoughts become too late. Right thinking and right placement at the right time are very important. Amazon came online at the very right time. So, the time has not been consumed for you either. Do it today.

4. Quality Customer Support

I like a quote by Bezos; he says in a recent interview that I am not a customer-oriented person. I am customer-obsessed. This is the factor that distinguishes him from his counterparts. Once, you work hard for your customers, it returns. Customer is the key across the world. Amazon always tried to facilitate customers. That is why they always remain innovative. And results are in front of you.

5. Chain of Distribution Centers

When you work extensively on your backend support then it always gives you good results. Same-day delivery has enabled Amazon to give splendid services to its clients. How this has become possible. They made their distribution hubs in every city. So, it was always a matter of your phone call. Here you call and confirm the order and on the very same day, you receive the product because that particular commodity exists near you. This is the service. This is where the whole investment lies. Can you do it? Then do it.

6. Open your Arms

If you want to be a successful online portal for consumers. Then be diversified. Open your arms to all the retailers and vendors. Now again I would show you an example; if you go to Amazon and search for rings; you would get thousands of rings in the results. Hundreds and thousands of vendors would be there with their manufactured rings. And you would be able to buy your favorite one. You would also have to open your horizon for all the retailers. This is how you would be able to store and offer a lot of range, even for a single product.

7. After Sales Services

Ensure the maximum guarantees to your customers. People should be secured and protected while shopping from your online portal. They should be comfortable while spending through your website. Give them the security that if there would be any problems or issues with the product; their price would be returned or they would be compensated. This is how people rely on you. Trust is one of the biggest success factors.

8. Wait for the good time

Amazon was not profitable by day one. They kept working. They kept offering services to the customers. It is always important for the investors to invest and then wait. First, you always have to win the trust of the customers. Then you earn from them. Don’t go after money. Win the trust of the online market. Once you become a reliable name then money will not be a problem for you.

9. Keep trying to improve

This was the customer obsession that led Amazon to do something unique. They kept improvising. They kept trying new things. Their profit margins were very low in the beginning. But they were optimistic that one day they will be able to make both ends meet. Eventually, it happened. The company was on track by 2003. Profits started pouring continuously. You can also do this.

10. Eye on Trends

Keep a keen eye on the market. What do people need? What is the season? From where you can earn in a short time? To know about the fashion, needs, and demands is very important for you. Hence, you can add the products and categories according to the likelihood of the people and earn more.

So, it is just a matter of starting. Don’t delay. Start!

Visit our E-commerce site Sahoolat Kar to buy home appliances on installments.

[princessvicky01]

Brother knows best

Part 6 of Happily Ever After- my self indulgent Annabel x Cullen epilogue, because they deserved one! 

This part is SFW with angst and lots of comfort feels as everyone adjusts to the big news revealed, also features cameo by @inner-muse oc Kelandris. You can read it all on AO3 here or on tumblr Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 - hope you enjoy!

-

Brother knows best

“You are allowed to touch my tummy you know,” Annabel cracks one eye open against the growing light to peer at her husband. “It’s not like you’re going to break the baby somehow,” spying the warm wonderment Cullen wears she blinks the remaining sleep away to instead try and focus on the liquid amber of his eyes which dart up from staring at her stomach.

“Yes, right, I know… but still, you’re sure?” Those honey glazed ambers peer up at her from under a mop of wheaten curls that’s fallen limply over his forehead, and she can’t help but feel like the luckiest woman alive. Silly, handsome, man.

“Yes, Cullen, I’m sure,” she nestles her cheek back into the pillow with a serene little smile. The room is filled with the pink hue of breaking dawn which tells her it’s far too early to rise, although it does make her wonder if he’s even slept at all since hearing the news.

The mattress shifts and tender fingers run over the small mound of her tummy, she hisses and jerks from him, and his hand withdraws like he’s touched hot coals.

“Maker’s breath! I- Annabel, are you-“

Her giggle breaks off the panic in his voice, and when she opens her bleary eyes, she finds him caught in some kind of mixed state of concern, confusion and chagrin.

“I’m joking!” she flashes the same beaming smile which has gotten her both into and out of countless mischiefs before. “In what way could you ever possibly hurt either of with a feather-light touch? Scratch that, in what way could you ever hurt us, period." Propping up on her elbow she gives a mildly exasperated shake of her head. 

"How about you save your worrying for the bigger things, ok?” She goes to reach out and brush the dusting of curls from his forehead but promptly discovers only a stump. She still expects it to be there, her hand, and can’t believe just how much she’d taken it for granted. The reminder that she’s now much less than she once was is able to fowl her mood like very few other things could. ”Like how I’m going to cope with one arm to start…” she grumbles with a passing glare at the end of the limb before flopping back down into the sheets.

“You’ll be brilliant,” Cullen’s tone is warm but rough, riddled with sleep and a whole host of loving emotions that she knows he’ll never likely be able to put into words. “You have the gem, and the false hands, you've been doing amazing," the bed dips slightly as he shifts closer, wrapping one leg over hers. "You'll find a way, you always do… Besides, I'm here, I always be here,” now his hand does rest on her stomach, and she sighs heavily.

Reassuring as his words are they don’t quite shake the feeling that she’s not ready, that she’ll never be ready. How was she supposed to change the babe when she couldn’t even do up her own buttons? The prosthetic hand was becoming easier to use, but it still would never match the natural dexterity or strength of the real thing.

“What if I can’t do it?” It’s a whisper, she makes with her eyes closed. Speaking aloud that tiny voice of doubt that has seeped in, that has soiled everything since she lost her limb, since she'd found out about the baby. “If I’m not ready… You know how emotional I get, how angry... What if I can't cope?” Another shift in the mattress and she feels his callous palm brush over her cheek, enticing her eyes open with the soft drag of his thumb.

“You can, I know you can,” Cullen nods, his eyes as earnest and devoted as she’s ever seen them. “I have many concerns; getting you home safely, the birth, making Skyhold infant proof. Then there’s the threat of kidnap, the cold in the mountains, the sicknesses that spread through barracks. And how I should pick it up when it cries? How do I know when it’s hungry? How am I to manage work and nappy changes? The list almost never ends. But one thing that never has, and never will worry me, is how you’ll cope. You’ll be a brilliant mother.”

Tears start to itch the back of her throat, and she nods, letting one spill over and down her cheek, only for him to place a kiss in the wake of its trail. Nuzzling against his jaws they share a kiss, tender and true, and the dark thoughts are chased away by his warm lips against hers, the slow slide of his tongue and the embracing hug of his arm as it hugs around her waist.

“And you’ll be a brilliant father…” she breathes against his lips, nose lifting to nudge against his before letting her eyes flutter closed once more. "Of that, I have no doubt."

“We should arrange to have you seen by the midwife, make sure you’re as well prepared as possible… I’ll look into sourcing a cot, a nanny, and all the things Maker only knows a baby must require…” Bryan is already scribbling out a list, his thoughts spilling too fast and furious to stay in his head. This is amazing news, incredible in fact, but also distinctly terrifying, and his mind has already worked out a dozen ways for things to turn disastrous. His aunt and his uncles had been quite significant in his life, trying to fill in the gaping holes his parents had left, and while he has no doubt that they'll make wonderful parents, he still wants to help any way he can.

“A nanny?” Cullen brows furrow across the table at him, his arms crossing, a tell-tale defensive sign which Bryan notes with a brief glance before continuing his list.

“Yes, a nanny, to help raise the child,” he’s already moved on to thinking about the crib and wondering where best to find the best advice on newborns. “I’ve heard-“

“No,” Cullen cuts across in the kind of stern tone all strong military commanders possess. “We shall not require a nanny, we shall raise the child, ourselves, besides there will be plenty of help at Skyhold.“

The quill in his hand stops what it’s doing, and Bryan takes a moment to gather himself, cracking his neck before he straightens. This child will be his niece or nephew, and Annabel is the closest family he has. To that extent, he knows her well, and while he knows she will be a warm, caring, fantastic mother, he is also not so naïve as to believe she won’t need some support. Support, which he fully intends to give, and he can hardly provide it with hundreds of miles between them.

He knows he can’t keep her here forever, she has moved on with her life, but he can at least help her through those first few days, weeks, or months even. Keep them both safe. Besides only a fool would take a pregnant first-time mother to be on such a long treacherous journey over the waking sea and miles of wild Fereldan countryside. “Yes, but what about when the babe first arrives here and is screaming through the night? What you do in Skyhold is up to you, but I shall not be kept awake all hours by a screaming-“

“Hang on,” Cullen’s palms come to rest firmly against the table with the hefty rustle of steel from his armour as his face twitches with a scowl. “What do you mean ‘when we get to Skyhold’? We are leaving, at once. The baby should be born at home.”

“And is no one going to ask for my opinion?” Annabel quips, one eyebrow and hand raised from her spot beside her husband.

Bryan barely registers her interruption, too focused on the stubborn man opposite and the challenge he represents. “The baby should be born here, Annabel should not have to endure months on the road. Besides this is the child’s ancestral home, countless Trevelyan’s have been born and raised under this roof, including-“

“This baby," snarks Cullen. "Our baby, is a Rutherford.”

Now its Bryans turn to scowl. To honestly think a commoner’s start to life is superior to the likes of what he has to offer here is absurd. “No offence,” he glowers. “But my niece or nephew should at least be born into the comforts of nobility, not on a Fereldan farm in the backend of nowhere.”

“No offence!” Cullen’s sharp tone and snarl slam through the air only to hit a wall of ice from the Lord which nothing, not even a lion’s roar could shake. Solid and steadfast Bryan rises to meet the heat of the commander’s glare with one of icy blue fire. He would not be intimidated and he certainly won’t allow a man he barely knows to make such life-changing decisions for his sister.

“Again, is no one going to ask me?” all playfulness to Annabel's tone is now evidently gone, apparently swallowed by the growing tension in the room which lifts even Kelandris to her feet beside him.

“The plan remains the same,” Annabel’s eyes narrow, her voice firm and authoritative. “As this baby is growing inside me, I’m the one who gets to decide. And I’ve decided our current plans are to remain the same. We’ll cross back to Fereldan, visit Cullen’s family in Honnleath then travel back to Skyhold, just all a bit earlier than we originally planned.”

“What!?” Both men twist to face her with expressions that scream as if she had just announced a most unholy blasphemy.

“I don’t see why things have to change just because I’m pregnant,” folding her arms, she also lifts her chin as any proper noble would. “I’ve been waiting two years to meet your family, my family. I’m not about to miss this chance. Once the baby arrives, we won’t be going aware for ages. So, no, I’m sorry, but that’s final.”

“Being pregnant changes everything, you should be resting,” Cullen steps towards her, hands outstretched in a silent plea.

“Yes, I agree with the commander,” Bryan nods. “You should be resting. Here, with all the comforts you require,” the quip receives an over the shoulder growl from Cullen but no rebuke.

“No,” she steps away from them both, genuine anger appearing to grow from the annoyance in the flicker of embers in her eyes. “It will only take a few weeks more travelling. I’ve spent years travelling, I’m quite accustomed to it. I do not need wrapping up in cotton wool or being waited on hand and foot. I’m the Inquisitor damn it!”

“Which is why you should be at Skyhold,“ Cullen implores with a softness to his tone which is overruled by a growl opposite.

“Which is precisely why she should remain here!” Bryan can’t keep his voice in check any longer, the debate is getting truly ridiculous. He senses Kelandris shift closer as he struggles to hold onto his control.

Had the damn Inquisition not done enough? Taking her from her home, her family, almost taking her life several times over, and not content with that taking a damn limb! All his life he’s protected her, kept her safe, be that from stupid childhood accidents or teenage courtly gossip quickly countered. As far as he can see this Inquisition had done nothing but put her in danger. “Let someone else deal with the title and the stress it entails, your priority will be with the child, not the Inquisition, and the further you are from it the better.”

“You’re unbelievable!” Annabel throws her arms up in open hostility,  but he doesn’t waver, standing rigid with absolute conviction. This is a battle he won't lose.

“If I might be the voice of reason?” A far calmer, but no less assertive voice finally makes itself heard as Kelandris steps to Bryan’s side. “How about we have this discussion with the physician and midwife, have them decide the best course of action? They are the experts after all.”

All three shift, tempers still clearly flared and hackles raised, but none seem to be able to find a reason to openly object.

“Fine,” Annabel huffs. “But I’ll not just wait around here-“

“No!” the slam of a fist thunders through the small room as Bryan’s eyes blaze and his lips curl back to reveal a flash of blunt fangs. He won’t see her come to any harm. He simply won’t.  “Damn it. For once in your life, Annabel, will you just listen to me!”

“What’s your problem!?” Her own iris’s flare with a kindred inferno as she snarls with equal ferocity, ignoring the attempting calming hand Cullen places on her shoulder. “You’ve not even seen me for years. I’ve been fighting giant demons, dragons, dark spawn magisters, and all a thousand miles away, how is this more dangerous? Huh!? How Bryan!?”

The outburst has left him panting lightly, unable to control the emotions the pulse through his veins with every pound of his heart in his chest. Lips curling, he snarls at the hostility, at the fear and hopelessness he can fill rising up from his stomach to clench every muscle in his body. He has to make her see.

“Because…” his voice is stern and he quickly trails off, reining back the ferocity with a shake of his head and an exasperated sigh, hands scrubbing at his hair. “Because I know you could fight those things and win. Even then, I still worried myself to death, first the conclave, then the reports about demons, dragons, the fade, bloody Orelsain royalty! Maker's breath it's as if you were trying to give me a heart attack. Then this with your hand… This Inquisition has put you through the void and back, and dragged me along with you, even though I knew you were capable… Knew you could thrive… I couldn't, can't help wanting to protect you, wanting you safe… And childbirth…” he trails off with a wave of his hand as his true fears finally become evident to him, the words choking in his throat. A heavy weight settles around his heart and drags his eyes down with it.

“… even a woman as strong as mother couldn’t survive that…” His voice is quiet now, speaking aloud words he’d rather have kept inside, words that only bring dark and vicious pain closer to the surface. “Perhaps you have forgotten,” he shakes his head and shuffles some papers uselessly in a vain attempt to distract from the crushing pressure in his chest. “But I have not, cannot,” as Kelandris arm rests on his shoulder and squeezes he gives up on the charade and puts the papers down. Emotions buried deep now ripple close to the surface, burning the back of his throat and clenching his chest like a fist curled around his heart. “How do you erase the sight of your mother’s blood-soaked sheets? Of mops smearing bloodied water across the flagstones by your mother’s bedside? Of her skin, so pale and cold to the touch. Of the way she screamed and clenched her teeth? The fear I saw in her eyes, heard in her voice… the weakness I felt as she tried to hold me, tried to tell me it would be ok… Made me promise, made me swear even, to always look after you, to keep you safe,” he shakes his head, dark hair flopping over his eyes as he does so. He hates this, opening up like this, it’s is so alien, and makes him terrifyingly vulnerable, but he hopes against hope it makes her see sense, see how serious this matter really is.

“Annabel… I can’t risk losing you... I especially can’t have that happen a thousand miles away, have you die without my knowing, without being there. To lose you to such pain in some hovel or on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, to have that after we’ve been through so much… when you mean so much… I can’t…” His voice cracks as tears sting his eyes, but he refuses to cry, refuses even to lift his head and look at her, because he knows that’s all it'll take to open the floodgates.

“Oh, Bryan,” Kelandris’s tone and body are warm as they press against his side, both a small distinct comfort amidst the turmoil, not that he can even meet her gaze to tell her such. He can do nothing but keep his hold himself together with what little control that remained. He had looked after Annabel from the moment their mother died, had ensured she had food, a cosy fire, a shoulder to cry on, all while their father dismissed the staff in a drunken stupor. Everyone had just assumed the children would be taken care of. Two young nobles in a fancy castle… but at five and six with no adults, bar a few sparse guards, what were they to do? Even then he had been stubborn, unwilling to admit they needed help. Even at that age he understood the game and knew having everyone see their father, covered in his own vomit passed out amidst empty bottles would ruin him, ruin them.  So, he’d stepped up, and he doesn’t intend to step down now, nor ever.

The next thing he knows he’s tugged, shaking his head he recoils at the invasion, but it’s Annabel, and he knows resistance against her hugs is futile. A hot tear slips down his cheek as she holds him tight and he clenches his face against it, and hugs back. Soon his chin is being lifted, dragged up to find his sister staring at him, with eyes like his own, only far softer, far warmer.

He can’t believe he’s fallen apart like this. A man in his position could not afford such weaknesses, and yet, he can’t bring himself to detach from that ancient pain, that promise. It seems that the oldest scars ran the deepest, especially when etched in blood.

“You’re not going to lose me like that, ok?” Annabel’s soft but stern message reaches him, and he wishes he could believe her, but he’d learnt the world was a cruel place long ago, back when his mother screams had echoed in his chambers.

“You can’t know that, not for certain,” he murmurs with a shake of his head, blinking more tears away even though it stings his throat to hold them back.

“And you can’t know I’ll have the same complications as mother. Bryan, the team we have at Skyhold, the healers, the mages, are some of the best in Thedas… and you’ve met my personal lion. Cullen will make sure I’m ok. I’m not a little girl you need to rush into defend anymore, remember?”

He can’t deny the man she’d wed seemed capable, protective, loving, all the things he’d wanted for her, but still, he can’t fully hand responsibly over, it’s too much of a momentous task.  Finally, though he nods, wanting the discussion over more than anything else. “I know, but that doesn’t stop me being your big brother or worrying... No matter what happens, whatever decision you make, no matter how stupid, you know I’ll support you. Always have.”

“I know,” she smiles warmly. “I’ll be fine Bryan, and so will the little one,” tears shimmer in her eyes although none have slipped over. “Now don’t get too soppy or I might start crying, and you know how quickly that gets ugly.”

Scoffing a little chuckle as she lets go and pushes her gently from his grasp. “Finally, something we can agree on.” For that, he receives a tap against his arm. Somethings never change.

Cullen isn’t quite sure what to make of it, what to make of this Lord who one moment had been shouting insults in blind fury and the next broken and crumpled the way he’s seen few men do. The way he knows he has in the past when weighed down with burden, pain and regret. It isn’t a pretty sight, and he’d done his best to look away, to afford them some privacy, but the bond between them is so strong he could even feel it hum in the air.

He recalls the night of Haven’s attack when Annabel had stumbled out of the snow, racked by fever she had talked all night, had sought comfort in her delirious state from a ‘Bryan’ and it's now clear they are far closer than he’d realised. It seems that sharing such trauma so young had forged a sibling bond of steel. One he's loathed to come between, but he truly believes Skyhold, being home, is whats best for her.

“I can see your concern, Lord Bryan,” he remarks to fill the silence as Annabel slips back to his side. “But I promise by the Holy Andraste and Maker above; I will devote myself to her, and the child’s care. I will not falter in this task, that I swear.” His tone is serious, solemn, and he hopes to convey the gravity of what he says, of how much he means it, of how nothing has ever mattered more than this. Blinking he straightens a little as Bryan slowly steps around the table towards him, only to be blindsided as the man holds out his hand.

“I know you will,” Bryan nods. “And I’m sorry, for being so harsh, so brash, but she is dear to me, as I can see she is to you. Look after them for me,” with that they share a solid, heartfelt, handshake the kind Cullen had been hoping for all along.

-

Thank you for reading. Likes, reblogs and comments all make my day <3 

[screensirenfic]

The Grandest Of Sins - Chapter 37 - Just Deserts

Emily had decided she hated sand.

It was grainy, and itchy, and got everywhere, and always seemed to remind her of Xerxes.

Unfortunately for her; Rush Valley was damn well full of it! 

The place was a veritable sandbox filled with nothing but sand dunes and automail shops!

If it wasn’t enough that she was being dragged through the sandy backend of nowhere, she was now dressed in a skimpy crop top and skirt combo she’d borrowed that just wouldn’t quit riding up, but luckily she wasn’t the only one suffering.

“What the hell are we supposed to do in a city full of automail engineers?!”

Complained Edward; the young State Alchemist perhaps enjoying this as much as she was, considering the sand would get it the joints of his automail and stop it from working properly.

“We could always get some food…”

Suggested Al, the poor boy trying his hardest to make the best of the situation, but it was easy for him to say; he couldn’t feel all the sand between his nooks and crannies.

“Great idea! You can sit and watch whilst we eat a sand sandwich!”

Exclaimed Edward, sarcasm dripping from every word as he waved his jury-rigged arm around dramatically.

Really; he shouldn’t be the one complaining.

He was the one who got them into this mess by busting his arm, so now they had to come all the way to Junk City, because apparently his girlfriend was the only one who could fix it.

Edward also hated her calling Winry his girlfriend, but Emily had known a blushing blonde who had been equally bumbling back when she was younger.

“How long do you think we’re gonna have to be here..?”

She asked, wrapping the black scarf she was wearing as a hood around her tighter as to shield her face from the sun.

It’s not as if she thought the military were tracking her anymore; the Fuhrer having pretty much given her a pardon for the time being, but she had other enemies to worry about.

“I don’t know! Ask Winry!”

Whined Edward, sounding every inch the petulant child as he stomped through the sand, kicking clouds in the air that were sure to get in their mouths.

“I would, but I don’t think your girlfriend likes me much…”

She replied; noting how the blonde girl’s shoulders went tense whenever she’d see her.

It’s not that she didn’t trust her; she just guessed the girl was suspicious of why she had so much to hide. Still she had to thank her for the clothes, no matter how ill-fitting.

“She’s not my girlfriend!”

Objected Edward, and she couldn’t help but smile at the cute way he’d puff out his cheeks.

“And she has to wait for parts anyway, so until then we’re stuck in this junkyard…”

He informed her with as much joy as a dying man, the surly boy resuming his previous activity of kicking sand into the sky.

“Hey guys…”

Called Alphonse, the boy having managed to wander off despite being a seven foot tall suit of armour.

“I think I might need some help here…”

He said; the kid standing at the mouth of an alley with something in his giant metal arms.

“What now?!”

Complained Edward, storming over with all the rage a fourteen year old could muster.

It was probably a puppy, or an injured cat, or something equally cute and pathetic he’d decided to rescue…

Instead Alphonse turned round, revealing what looked like an unconscious young man passed out in his arms.

———————————————————————————

“Alright, Soldiers; your orders are simple…”

Instructed Captain Mustang; the unmarked truck they’d arrived in having left them on the outskirts of Liore as to not arouse suspicion.

“Lieutenant Hawkeye, Specialist Abrams; you are to investigate the city and see if you can pick up any word on where our men were last seen…”

He dished out his orders, both Riza and Tony offering a salute in confirmation and a “Yes Sir!” for good measure.

“Corporal Marauder; you and I will scout Lieutenant Ambrose and Sergeant Harper’s last known location…”

He told her, and honestly it was a solid plan.

She’d half expected the Captain to march in guns blazing, but she guessed that was her dislike of him talking.

“We will rendezvous at the checkpoint behind the Cathedral by nightfall and share what information we find. Any problems and we can be reached on the radio under call signal Romeo…”

He finished; the man detailing the plan like this was some kind of spy operation, though she guessed the intention to remain covert was the same.

“Yes Sir!”

Both Hawkeye and Abrams barked, before splitting off to their respective objectives, leaving her and the Captain behind.

“Because it’s your first field mission; I’ll ignore your breach in proprietary, but as of now, you are to address me as your superior when I am talking to you…”

He informed her with a low, sincere tone, and for once she chose not to argue with him.

“Yes Sir.”

She saluted without an inch of sarcasm, before following her Captain into the depths of Liore

[brajeshupadhyay]

Mitron App Co-Founders Address Made-in-Pakistan Claims

Was the Mitron app made in Pakistan? Is it just a clone of TikTok, and why was it briefly removed from Google Play? For better or for worse, the app which became famous as a ‘Made in India’ alternative to TikTok, at a time when a huge YouTube versus TikTok fight was brewing and anti-China sentiment in India ran so high that an app called Remove China Apps ended up being one of the most popular free apps in India, has gained a lot of notoriety. This only increased once reports broke that the source code of the app wasn’t developed by the Mitron team but instead, purchased, for just about Rs 2,500, from a software developer based in Pakistan.

Gadgets 360 spoke to the co-founders of the Mitron app, Shivank Agarwal and Anish Khandelwal, to clarify some of these doubts, but at the end of our conversation, more questions remain.

Although Agarwal and Khandelwal have been speaking up now to try and make it clear that their app does not have any connection to Pakistan, their responses have been unclear at best. Speaking to Gadgets 360, as well as other news organisations, Khandelwal said that they purchased the licensed code and a template of the Mitron app from Envato. “Our focus was on the suitability of the initial template we purchased and the origin of the developer was neither displayed nor relevant,” he said.

However, Irfan Sheikh, the CEO and co-founder of Pakistan-based software developer Qboxus had already made the same claim — that Qboxus’ code for the TicTic app was purchased from Envato’s marketplace CodeCanyon, to create the Mitron app. In fact, security researcher Karan Saini did an analysis of the code of the Mitron app, and wrote that “several strings with TicTic have been left as it is.”

From the same article, it was noted: “Further, a ‘change_log’ file present in the decompiled Mitron source code contains the string ‘com.dinosoftlabs.tictic’ – which is the package name of the TicTic application developed and released by Qboxus.”

Despite these questions, however, Khandelwal doubled down on the ‘Made in India’ narrative, telling Gadgets 360 that the app was developed by a “small team based out of Bengaluru.” According to him, the app was made by a team of five people. Khandelwal also said that it was not a TikTok clone, although in its listing on Envato’s marketplace, Qboxus describes the TicTic code as: “Build your unique Tik Tok / Musical.ly / Dubsmash-like Clone Today!”

However, at this point, the Mitron founders are not willing to confirm that the code they purchased was from Qboxus. Asked about it, Khandelwal said, “Our focus was on the suitability of the initial template we purchased and the origin of the developer was neither displayed nor relevant.” In all his replies, Khandelwal completely avoided mentioning Qboxus directly.

However, Sheikh, who initially reached out to multiple publications to let people know about the connection between TicTic and Mitron, has also decided not to speak further on the matter. Asked about it, he told Gadgets 360, “Well actually, I don’t want to comment on this issue anymore. The reason is just business.”

What’s left is a mess of contradictory claims, where Khandelwal both agrees that he purchased the code from Envato and then says that it was fully proprietary, and also says that any claim by any party claiming that it is a repackaged app is “false, malicious and libellous,” despite the references in the codebase of Mitron to TicTic, as noted in the analysis by Saini reported in The Quint.

We have reproduced the entire, unedited conversation between Khandelwal and Gadgets 360 below:

How many members are there in your team? Khandelwal: We are a small team based out of Bangalore but we are quickly expanding the team to rapidly improve the product experience and to continuously improve the backend design to scale.

How did you get the idea to develop the Mitron app? Khandelwal: My co-founder Shivank Agarwal and I spent a lot of time brainstorming on our startup idea before we decided to build Mitron. Our mission is to build a short-form video app that reimagines digital engagement and entertainment, while being sensitive to the users in our market and compliant with our local laws.

Mitron app co-founders Shivank Agarwal (left) and Anish Khandelwal (right) have been speaking up now

  What were the initial challenges in building the Mitron app successful? Khandelwal: We launched an initial version of Mitron just over a month ago, making constant improvements even as we were working our full time jobs. Our plan was to go fully behind Mitron from June, after some initial iterations on the product. MitronTV, to our pleasant surprise, started to take off rapidly during the last 2 weeks. Frankly, we weren’t prepared for such a sharp rise in the adoption of the product. Given the rise of Mitron, the main challenge we faced was to rapidly address several aspects of the business in a very short period of time.

Could you please let me know the exact number of people working behind the scenes apart from you and Shivank? You mentioned that you all were working your full-time jobs initially. So, does this mean that both you and Shivank are now no longer doing your earlier jobs and devoting all your time to the Mitron app? Khandelwal: We are a team of 5 people including the founders. Some of us have transitioned into Mitron TV responsibilities fully and others are in the process, serving their notice period with their current employers.

Why did you try to imitate TikTok for designing the Mitron app? Khandelwal: Frankly, we are not imitating any app. If you think about it, all e-commerce sites have some common elements and it doesn’t mean anyone imitated anyone else. We started with an initial design and we are quickly making changes to it based on the feedback of our users. We have released 4 new versions of the app in the last 2 weeks.

Since some media reports suggest that the initial code was purchased through Envato, could you please clarify on the author of the code as we can see Qboxus as one of the listed authors there as well? Khandelwal: Envato is a marketplace where users can purchase licensed code. We also purchased an initial template from this marketplace and we are the legal owners of the codebase of Mitron. Our focus was on the suitability of the initial template we purchased and the origin of the developer was neither displayed nor relevant.

How are you improving the experience? Khandelwal: We are looking at customer feedback and then prioritizing tasks keeping in mind our product road map. We are and will continue to experiment with design and interaction changes. Our focus is also on improving overall app performance and data consumption.

Are there any plans to bring the app to iOS as well? Khandelwal: We are planning to launch Mitron on iOS in the next two to three months. Our focus initially is to improve and stabilize the design on Android before we launch on iOS

What’s next after the Mitron app? Khandelwal: This is a long journey. We started with a mission when we launched Mitron and we are passionate to build Mitron as one of the most popular apps in India that is built in India, that is sensitive to our local norms for content and that is compliant with our local laws.

On the purchasing of the code part, we certainly know that Envato is a marketplace — just like Apple App Store or Google Play for getting apps. I even used to buy some themes from Envato for my college WordPress sites a few years back. But why aren’t you revealing the name of the developer from whom you bought the code? The Qboxus team is showing Mitron as one of their projects on their site and even on their Envato author page. So, if they don’t have any role in the app, should you not say that explicitly? Khandelwal: Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation around this. Let me explain this in some detail.

Firstly, we live in a world where many packets of technology can be open-sourced or purchased legally for use in your own app. Almost every well-known tech company purchases packets of codebase or open-sources codebase for use in their own applications. When any company purchases or open-sources such code, the focus is on the suitability of the code for the company’s purpose and not the origin of the developer. So, any discussion around the origin of the developer is not relevant to us.

Secondly, as long as someone purchases packets of codebase legally or uses open-source code, it is perfectly legitimate. We legally purchased the initial template of MitronTV from an Australian marketplace EnvatoMarket. We are the legal owners of the codebase of Mitron.

Thirdly, any such code that is purchased or open-sourced is just one little brick in the wall. Do you really think someone can simply purchase a template and get millions of downloads? If it was so good, why didn’t the seller create their consumer facing app instead selling the code for $30? It’s because such templates (and their codebase) are a commodity and they are worth what they are priced at.

We fixed numerous bugs in that codebase and we made significant improvements to both user-side experience and back-end code to make it a scalable platform that can handle this kind of steep jump in traffic. Nearly all the files of the initial code have been changed.

It is unfortunate that when any success story like Mitron happens, there are always others who want to claim their place in the limelight. If Qboxus have used our brand name Mitron on their website, they have done so illegally and we will pursue this matter accordingly.

Your recent interviews in the media have shown that your aim to offer the Mitron app as a “Make in India product.” But as you used the initial code template from Envato — no matter from which developer — how would you justify the app as an Indian solution? Khandelwal: We are an Indian startup that’s based in Bangalore. Mitron is an Indian app which is developed in India and as part of our mission to build a great experience for our users, we will always remain open to using any open-source code or legally purchased codebase that we can build on top of, in our application. And we have used servers in India for data storage and computation.

Just one last question to get some clarity — Could you please confirm if the code you bought from Envato was from Qboxus? Khandelwal: The codebase of Mitron is proprietary and we are the legal owners of the codebase. Any claim by any party claiming that it is a repackaged app is false, malicious and libellous.

We have shared our perspective with you in great detail and I sincerely hope you will represent our responses comprehensively.

In 2020, will WhatsApp get the killer feature that every Indian is waiting for? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.

The post Mitron App Co-Founders Address Made-in-Pakistan Claims appeared first on Sansaar Times.

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[holytheoristtastemaker]

AWS is just too hard to use, and it's not your fault. Today I'm joining to help AWS build for App Developers, and to grow the Amplify Community with people who Learn AWS in Public.

Muck

When AWS officially relaunched in 2006, Jeff Bezos famously pitched it with eight words: "We Build Muck, So You Don’t Have To". And a lot of Muck was built. The 2006 launch included 3 services (S3 for distributed storage, SQS for message queues, EC2 for virtual servers). As of Jan 2020, there were 283. Today, one can get decision fatigue just trying to decide which of the 7 ways to do async message processing in AWS to choose.

The sheer number of AWS services is a punchline, but is also testament to principled customer obsession. With rare exceptions, AWS builds things customers ask for, never deprecates them (even the failures), and only lowers prices. Do this for two decades, and multiply by the growth of the Internet, and it's frankly amazing there aren't more. But the upshot of this is that everyone understands that they can trust AWS never to "move their cheese". Brand AWS is therefore more valuable than any service, because it cannot be copied, it has to be earned. Almost to a fault, AWS prioritizes stability of their Infrastructure as a Service, and in exchange, businesses know that they can give it their most critical workloads.

The tradeoff was beginner friendliness. The AWS Console has improved by leaps and bounds over the years, but it is virtually impossible to make it fit the diverse usecases and experience levels of over one million customers. This was especially true for app developers. AWS was a godsend for backend/IT budgets, taking relative cost of infrastructure from 70% to 30% and solving underutilization by providing virtual servers and elastic capacity. But there was no net reduction in complexity for developers working at the application level. We simply swapped one set of hardware based computing primitives for an on-demand, cheaper (in terms of TCO), unfamiliar, proprietary set of software-defined computing primitives.

In the spectrum of IaaS vs PaaS, App developers just want an opinionated platform with good primitives to build on, rather than having to build their own platform from scratch:

That is where Cloud Distros come in.

Cloud Distros Recap

I've written before about the concept of Cloud Distros, but I'll recap the main points here:

From inception, AWS was conceived as an "Operating System for the Internet" (an analogy echoed by Dave Cutler and Amitabh Srivasta in creating Azure).

Linux operating systems often ship with user friendly customizations, called "distributions" or "distros" for short.

In the same way, there proved to be good (but ultimately not huge) demand for "Platforms as a Service" - with 2007's Heroku as a PaaS for Rails developers, and 2011's Parse and Firebase as a PaaS for Mobile developers atop AWS and Google respectively.

The PaaS idea proved early rather than wrong – the arrival of Kubernetes and AWS Lambda in 2014 presaged the modern crop of cloud startups, from JAMstack CDNs like Netlify and Vercel, to Cloud IDEs like Repl.it and Glitch, to managed clusters like Render and KintoHub, even to moonshot experiments like Darklang. The wild diversity of these approaches to improving App Developer experience, all built atop of AWS/GCP, lead me to christen these "Cloud Distros" rather than the dated PaaS terminology.

Amplify

Amplify is the first truly first-party "Cloud Distro", if you don't count Google-acquired Firebase. This does not make it automatically superior. Far from it! AWS has a lot of non-negotiable requirements to get started (from requiring a credit card upfront to requiring IAM setup for a basic demo). And let's face it, its UI will never win design awards. That just categorically rules it out for many App Devs. In the battle for developer experience, AWS is not the mighty incumbent, it is the underdog.

But Amplify has at least two killer unique attributes that make it compelling to some, and at least worth considering for most:

It scales like AWS scales. All Amplify features are built atop existing AWS services like S3, DynamoDB, and Cognito. If you want to eject to underlying services, you can. The same isn't true of third party Cloud Distros (Begin is a notable exception). This also means you are paying the theoretical low end of costs, since third party Cloud Distros must either charge cost-plus on their users or subsidize with VC money (unsustainable long term). AWS Scale doesn't just mean raw ability to handle throughput, it also means edge cases, security, compliance, monitoring, and advanced functionality have been fully battle tested by others who came before you.

It has a crack team of AWS insiders. I don't know them well yet, but it stands to reason that working on a Cloud Distro from within offers unfair advantages to working on one from without. (It also offers the standard disadvantages of a bigco vs the agility of a startup) If you were to start a company and needed to hire a platform team, you probably couldn't afford this team. If you fit Amplify's target audience, you get this team for free.

Simplification requires opinionation, and on that Amplify makes its biggest bets of all - curating the "best of" other AWS services. Instead of using one of the myriad ways to setup AWS Lambda and configure API Gateway, you can just type amplify add api and the appropriate GraphQL or REST resources are set up for you, with your infrastructure fully described as code. Storage? amplify add storage. Auth? amplify add auth. There's a half dozen more I haven't even got to yet. But all these dedicated services coming together means you don't need to manage servers to do everything you need in an app.

Amplify enables the "fullstack serverless" future. AWS makes the bulk of its money on providing virtual servers today, but from both internal and external metrics, it is clear the future is serverless. A bet on Amplify is a bet on the future of AWS.

Note: there will forever be a place for traditional VPSes and even on-premises data centers - the serverless movement is additive rather than destructive.

For a company famous for having every team operate as separately moving parts, Amplify runs the opposite direction. It normalizes the workflows of its disparate constituents in a single toolchain, from the hosted Amplify Console, to the CLI on your machine, to the Libraries/SDKs that run on your users' devices. And this works the exact same way whether you are working on an iOS, Android, React Native, or JS (React, Vue, Svelte, etc) Web App.

Lastly, it is just abundantly clear that Amplify represents a different kind of AWS than you or I are used to. Unlike most AWS products, Amplify is fully open source. They write integrations for all popular JS frameworks (React, React Native, Angular, Ionic, and Vue) and Swift for iOS and Java/Kotlin for Android. They do support on GitHub and chat on Discord. They even advertise on podcasts you and I listen to, like ShopTalk Show and Ladybug. In short, they're meeting us where we are.

This is, as far as I know, unprecedented in AWS' approach to App Developers. I think it is paying off. Anecdotally, Amplify is growing three times faster than the rest of AWS.

Note: If you'd like to learn more about Amplify, join the free Virtual Amplify Days event from Jun 10-11th to hear customer stories from people who have put every part of Amplify in production. I'll be right there with you taking this all in!

Personal Note

I am joining AWS Mobile today as a Senior Developer Advocate. AWS Mobile houses Amplify, Amplify Console (One stop CI/CD + CDN + DNS), AWS Device Farm (Run tests on real phones), and AppSync (GraphQL Gateway and Realtime/Offline Syncing), and is closely connected to API Gateway (Public API Endpoints) and Amazon Pinpoint (Analytics & Engagement). AppSync is worth a special mention because it is what first put the idea of joining AWS in my head.

A year ago I wrote Optimistic, Offline-first apps using serverless functions and GraphQL sketching out a set of integrated technologies. They would have the net effect of making apps feel a lot faster and more reliable (because optimistic and offline-first), while making it a lot easier to develop this table-stakes experience (because the GraphQL schema lets us establish an eventually consistent client-server contract).

9 months later, the Amplify DataStore was announced at Re:Invent (which addressed most of the things I wanted). I didn't get everything right, but it was clear that I was thinking on the same wavelength as someone at AWS (it turned out to be Richard Threlkeld, but clearly he was supported by others). AWS believed in this wacky idea enough to resource its development over 2 years. I don't think I've ever worked at a place that could do something like that.

I spoke to a variety of companies, large and small, to explore what I wanted to do and figure out my market value. (As an aside: It is TRICKY for developer advocates to put themselves on the market while still employed!) But far and away the smoothest process where I was "on the same page" with everyone was the ~1 month I spent interviewing with AWS. It helped a lot that I'd known my hiring manager, Nader for ~2yrs at this point so there really wasn't a whole lot he didn't already know about me (a huge benefit of Learning in Public btw) nor I him. The final "super day" on-site was challenging and actually had me worried I failed 1-2 of the interviews. But I was pleasantly surprised to hear that I had received unanimous yeses!

Nader is an industry legend and personal inspiration. When I completed my first solo project at my bootcamp, I made a crappy React Native boilerplate that used the best UI Toolkit I could find, React Native Elements. I didn't know it was Nader's. When I applied for my first conference talk, Nader helped review my CFP. When I decided to get better at CSS, Nader encouraged and retweeted me. He is constantly helping out developers, from sharing invaluable advice on being a prosperous consultant, to helping developers find jobs during this crisis, to using his platform to help others get their start. He doesn't just lift others up, he also puts the "heavy lifting" in "undifferentiated heavy lifting"! I am excited he is leading the team, and nervous how our friendship will change now he is my manager.

With this move, I have just gone from bootcamp grad in 2017 to getting hired at a BigCo L6 level in 3 years. My friends say I don't need the validation, but I gotta tell you, it does feel nice.

The coronavirus shutdowns happened almost immediately after I left Netlify, which caused complications in my visa situation (I am not American). I was supposed to start as a US Remote employee in April; instead I'm starting in Singapore today. It's taken a financial toll - I estimate that this coronavirus delay and change in employment situation will cost me about $70k in foregone earnings. This hurts more because I am now the primary earner for my family of 4. I've been writing a book to make up some of that; but all things considered I'm glad to still have a stable job again.

I have never considered myself a "big company" guy. I value autonomy and flexibility, doing the right thing over the done thing. But AWS is not a typical BigCo - it famously runs on "two pizza teams" (not literally true - Amplify is more like 20 pizzas - but still, not huge). I've quoted Bezos since my second ever meetup talk, and have always admired AWS practices from afar, from the 6-pagers right down to the anecdote told in Steve Yegge's Platforms Rant. Time to see this modern colossus from the inside.

[auburnfamilynews]

https://twitter.com/GaQMcK1/status/1194280687710482432

In today’s world, you can never have too many high quality cornerbacks and the Tigers are hoping to keep the backend of their defense well stocked.

Over the next 2 weeks 2-3ish indeterminate number of weeks, we will be taking a position by position look at the top targets on Auburn’s 2021 board. This is a first pass at who might be looking at Auburn the hardest this early in the cycle and whom Auburn might have the most interest in. However, recruiting is fluid and these lists will likely change.

It’s a new era for Auburn’s secondary. Gone are any DBs recruited by Will Muschamp. Stud recruiter Marcus Woodson is also no longer on the Plains meaning that moving forward the backend of Auburn’s defense is the sole property of Wesley McGriff. His DB class from his previous stint as Auburn’s DB coach hasn’t turned out great with Jordyn Peters the only member to see meaningful action to date. But last year’s class was outstanding and McGriff played a big role in Auburn’s ability to land blue chip DBs Chris Thompson and Marco Domio. The Tigers are likely to sign a large class given the departures from last season plus the expected ones to come over the next 2 seasons. Let’s see if Coach Crimedog can get it done in 2021.

5* Ga’Quincy McKinstry | 5’11” | 172 lbs | Pinson, AL

Recruitment

In the modern recruiting era, Auburn has never signed a 5* defensive back. They have come close a few times, specifically Andrew Booth just two cycles ago. But close doesn’t cut it in recruiting. With the proliferation of explosive passing attacks in the SEC, it’s important Auburn figures out a way to start landing some of the top DB talent in the country. The man they call Kool-Aid might be Auburn’s best chance to end that drought.

The Pinson Valley standout’s recruitment started when he was a freshman. He spent two years as Bo Nix’s teammate and last fall there was growing confidence Auburn could land the elite athlete. But as things typically do in recruiting, especially for elite instate DBs, things have begun to trend toward the Tide. A decision doesn’t appear to be coming in the near future which is probably good news for Auburn. Clemson, LSU and Tennessee are programs to keep an eye on as well.

Another interesting angle to this recruitment is McKinstry would like to also play basketball at the next level. Auburn, Florida and Kansas have not only offered him a football scholarship but a basketball one as well. I don’t believe Alabama has done the same so if that becomes an important part of McKinstry’s decision, the Tigers could have the edge there. Still, Alabama is likely the team in the best spot right now but Auburn will be in this until the end.

Scouting Report

The first thing that jumps out when watching McKinstry’s tape is his speed. An extremely fluid athlete in and out of his breaks, McKinstry has the top end speed to get past the defense as a wideout for big plays. On the defensive side, that translates into the ability to stay step for step with explosive wide receivers. He’s also got great ball skills undoubtedly helped by his time on the hardwood. He’s also not afraid of anyone and brings the swagger you want form your top cover corner. He will be day 1 impact player wherever he goes.

4* Nyland Green | 6’2” | 183 lbs | Covington, GA

Recruitment

Early on, Auburn looked to be a top choice for the Newton star but things have trended the wrong direction in recent months. UGA made a strong push but it’s actually Clemson right now that is likely the team to beat. Dabo’s squad has had tremendous success poaching the top DB prospects from the Peach State and are looking to do so again in 2021. The good news for Auburn is it doesn’t look like a decision is expected any time soon so if the good looking Tigers can get him back on campus this fall, they could get back into this race.

Scouting Report

It would not shock me if this kid ended up being the top rated CB of this 2021 class. A long athlete with elite burst, Green is everything you want in a shutdown corner. He’s got fluid hips, great length, outstanding instincts and the size to hang with any wideout. He’s versatile enough that he could play safety at the next level if needed but he strikes me as a future 1st round CB. Big time player.

4* Markevious Brown | 6’0” | 170 lbs | Bradenton, FL

Recruitment

This is a name to track in the coming months. Wesley McGriff is reportedly hard after the IMG standout and it seems the feelings are mutual. He dropped a top 7 a few months ago that did not include the Tigers but apparently that has changed. Auburn, Florida, Miami, Tennessee and Virginia Tech appear to be the top contenders at the moment but his list appears to be pretty fluid. But it’s clear he’s a top priority for the Tigers and they will work hard to get him on campus this fall.

Scouting Report

Brown transferred to IMG last season and didn’t get to see a ton of action so his tape is a bit limited. However, you can see from his sophomore film this kid is a baller. He excels in man coverage showing the ability to mirror the receiver, stay in phase and consistently make a play on the ball. I expect Brown to have a strong senior campaign and is a candidate to see his stock rise considerably this fall.

3* Kamari Lassiter | 5’11” | 165 lbs | Tuscaloosa, AL

Recruitment

Speaking of stock up, Lassiter’s recruitment has exploded this spring with offers coming fast and furious. Auburn, Georgia, LSU and Mississippi State have all offered in recent weeks adding to a list that already included Alabama, Florida, Ole Miss and plenty of others. The Tigers appear to be a major factor in this race but the competition is stiff. It’s not easy to pluck big time players out of Saban’s backyard but Auburn will try. I expect the Tigers to land an official visit when things open back up.

Scouting Report

A productive two way player, Lassiter is a big play waiting to happen. Versatile, Lassiter could get a look at the Nickel at the next level given his combination of speed and physicality. But personally I think his future is on the outside. He spends a lot of time on an island with little help but seems to consistently win those matchups. I fully expect Lassiter to be a 247 Composite 4* before it’s all said and done.

3* Tar’Varish Dawson | 5’10” | 175 lbs | Lehigh Acres, FL

Recruitment

Auburn looks to be a top contender for one of the fastest players in the 2021 class. He dropped a top 6 at the end of April consisting of Auburn, South Carolina, UCF, Miami, Minnesota and Louisville. I think of those six, the three teams to watch are the Tigers, Gamecocks and Canes. He will likely be on campus as soon as possible and the Tigers are reportedly recruiting him to play both WR and DB something he’s very interested in doing.

Scouting Report

You aren’t going to outrun Dawson. Clocking in a 10.58 100 meter last spring, that speed translates to the football field. As a receiver, he’s a threat to take it to the house after the catch. As a DB, he excels playing with outside leverage, eyes on the QB and attacking the ball in the air. Interestingly, 247’s comp for Dawson is Javaris Davis and I could see him playing the same role for the Tigers. Sliding inside sometimes at the Nickel then bouncing back outside at CB. While I know he wants to play some offense at the next level, I think his future is likely on the defensive side.

3* Javon Bullard | 6’0” | 183 lbs | Milledgeville, GA

Recruitment

Auburn was the first SEC program to offer Bullard. Tennessee and Vanderbilt quickly followed while South Carolina could be the next to jump into the race. It’s early so it’s hard to tell where Bullard is on AU’s board but if the Tigers decide they want him, I think chances are good they snag the Peach State’s 60th ranked prospect.

Scouting Report

Bullard plays both ways for Baldwin High School but is likely a defensive back at the next level. A long, lanky athlete with good top end speed, Bullard isn’t afraid to get his nose dirty in the run game. Possessing a high motor, you are gonna get the best out of Bullard most every snap.

3* Kameron Grays | 6’1” | 194 lbs | Eight Mile, AL

Recruitment

When Grays landed an offer at Auburn’s Junior Day earlier this year, it looked like a commit could soon follow. The teammate of Auburn DT commit Lee Hunter, Grays never ended up pulling the trigger. Pretty soon after landing the offer, Marcus Woodson left for Tallahassee, FL and the Noles vaulted to the top of Grays list. Not much though has been reported on his recruitment since early April. If he pops in the near future, that’s likely good news for FSU but it doesn’t appear a decision is imminent.

Scouting Report

Grays is a big kid with nice speed and quickness. He plays both sides of the ball with a lot of his tape featuring his WR highlights. But he’s being recruited to play in the secondary at the next level. His offensive tape though shows a kid with the hip fluidity, ball skills and quickness to play cornerback at a high level in college.

3* Daniel Edwards | 5’11” | 155 lbs | Winter Park, FL

Recruitment

There was buzz a commit could be coming in early April. If so, it would likely had been good news for the Tigers but no announcement came. Still, Auburn is sitting pretty in this recruitment for the time being though I think there are questions over whether the man they call Snook is a take just yet. The DB board is hard to pin down at the moment but Edwards is definitely a prospect to keep an eye on in the coming months.

Scouting Report

One of the quicker players in this class, Edwards is Nickel or a corner at the next level. He will need to get bigger to play in the SEC but the frame is there to add muscle without losing his explosiveness. I think Edwards is someone that would have really benefited from the camp circuit in terms of his recruitment and evaluation. Don’t be surprised if his offer list blows up some later this fall.

War Eagle!

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2020/5/8/21244938/2021-class-preview-cornerback-gaquincy-mckinstry-nyland-green-markevious-brown-kamari-lassiter

[junker-town]

Everything you need to know about the NFL’s rookie wage scale

Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images

How rich do rookies get off their first NFL contract? Not very.

Gone are the days when rookie contracts are heavily negotiated, limiting some players’ need to hire an agent and giving teams more flexibility in making their choices. The league now operates using a rookie wage scale for incoming NFL players, reducing what had become a series of outrageously expensive deals for players who didn’t always pan out.

With the elimination of a huge payday right out of college, the importance of spending wisely has been a growing trend. There’s more education for young players on how best to make their money last, in a league where job security doesn’t really exist.

Before the 2020 NFL Draft, Dolphins cornerback Byron Jones offered such advice to the new rookie class:

My advice to 2020 rookies: DO NOT SPEND YOUR MONEY. That number you see on your contract is fake. You will pay roughly 40% to 50% in taxes, agent fees, union dues, 401k account + necessary insurance. Also, a large portion of your contract is NOT GUARANTEED. (1/5)

— Byron Jones (@Byron31Jump) April 23, 2020

Do not live a lavish lifestyle. Although your mom may deserve it, she does not need a $100,000 car. She does not need a $1,000,000 house. It is not the time yet. If you protect your money early, you can live a comfortable life forever and provide for your family. (2/5)

— Byron Jones (@Byron31Jump) April 23, 2020

That echoes what his teammate, linebacker Jerome Baker, heard when he entered the NFL in 2018. At Ohio State’s pro day that year, Baker — a third-round pick for the Dolphins — spoke at length about the advice he’s gotten throughout the draft process, most notably regarding making smart financial decisions.

“Not every football player is a millionaire. Just throwing it out there,” Baker said. “We’re not rich, we’re not. Once you throw in the taxes and the things you have to pay for, you’re not that rich.”

Now that there’s a cap on rookie deals, there’s even less time for players to make their mark on the league and more importance on signing an unrestricted second contract.

What is the rookie wage scale?

The wage scale boils down to the top draft pick getting the biggest deal, and a scaled back dollar amount for each pick thereafter. The further players slide down draft boards, the less salary they’ll see and get less in guarantees.

Each drafted player gets a four-year deal, and first-round picks have a fifth-year option built in for teams that must be exercised between the players third and fourth years. Undrafted free agents are also subject to the rookie wage scale, but are only eligible for three-year contracts.

What is the wage scale for 2020?

Teams had money allocated against the salary cap before the draft, based on the rookie pool and the league’s salary cap, which in 2020 is $198.2 million. Each team’s rookie pool will look a little different based on their salary cap situation, but a safe calculation is $610,000 (the first-year minimum) times the number of draft picks.

How much are this year’s rookies getting paid?

Last year, No. 1 pick Kyler Murray signed a four-year, $35.2 million with the Arizona Cardinals. His base salary was $495,000, but with a large signing bonus, his total cash earnings was more than $24 million in 2019.

The final pick in the draft, Caleb Wilson, was also drafted by the Cardinals. He signed a four-year, $2.59 million deal, but he didn’t earn that much because he was waived before the season started and later signed to the practice squad.

In 2020, the Bengals will most likely take quarterback Joe Burrow with the first pick. His deal is expected to be worth around $37 million:

#1 Overall Contracts ’20: TBD, $37M(ish) ’19: Murray, $35M ’18: Mayfield, $32.6M ’17: Garrett, $30M ’16: Goff, $28M ’15: Winston, $25.3M ’14: Clowney, $22.2M ’13: Fisher, $22.2M ’12: Luck, $22.1M ’11: Newton, $22M -------------------- ’10: Bradford, $78M

— Spotrac (@spotrac) April 23, 2020

Using Spotrac’s projections, here’s the average salary in total value for players drafted in each round:

First round: $18.4 million Second round: $6.9 million Third round: $4.4 million Fourth round: $3.3 million Fifth round: $2.95 million Sixth round: $2.8 million Seventh round: $2.7 million

When and why was it enacted?

An agreement was made between the league and the NFLPA during the lockout in 2011, applying a rookie wage scale for draft picks as part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Heading into negotiations, teams were upset that they were having to empty their wallets for first-round picks — which were nearing franchise QB numbers — and veterans were mad that rookies were outearning them.

In March 2020, the NFL and NFLPA negotiated a new CBA, which included higher increases for rookie minimums and the subsequent years of their contracts.

Can players re-negotiate their rookie contracts after Year 1?

No. Players aren’t able to negotiate salary until their fourth year, which has been an issue for players who excel after having fallen to a later round of their draft. Seahawks QB Russell Wilson was a third-round pick in 2012, and despite leading his team to the Super Bowl in 2013 and 2014, didn’t see over $1 million a year base salary until his second contract in 2016.

This new reality has led to some new advice being handed down to incoming players. Baker noted at his pro day that former NFL safety Mike Doss told him, “your first contract, just save everything.”

This echoed the advice he got from 2016 draft pick Joshua Perry, who told the Baker, “Second contract might be different, but the first contract, you’re not rich.”

Whether it be to injury, a deep roster or a host of other hurdles, rookies have an uphill battle to become a roster lock in the league. Until they do so, it’s imperative they make wise financial decisions to ensure the money from their rookie contract lasts.

Do rookies still need to hire an agent?

As the rookie deals and how team’s utilize them evolves, so do the questions that incoming NFL players have to ask themselves, including whether to hire an agent.

For someone like Joey Bosa in 2016, having an agent to act on his behalf was beneficial. The 2016 No. 3 overall pick ended up missing the first four games of his rookie season due to a hold out in training camp over contract terms. While salaries aren’t up for negotiation, signing bonuses and offset language are — Bosa ended up getting four years guaranteed and the largest signing bonus ($17 million) in Chargers’ history. (He went on to win Defensive Rookie of the Year, so it worked out for both parties.)

Those types of negotiations don’t happen often, though, and players like Ravens first-round pick Lamar Jackson decided to forgo hiring an agent altogether. Instead, the quarterback has a manager (his mom) and a lawyer to help with all the backend stuff. There was a big stink made from various outlets about Jackson’s decision, but he spoke about his choice to represent himself back at the NFL Scouting Combine.

“I know coming in as a rookie, agents don’t really negotiate anything really,” Jackson said in March 2018. “You’re going to get the salary you’re going to get, or whatever, and I decided I don’t need him. He’s going to be taking a big cut of my paycheck anyway, and I feel I deserve it right now.”

Baker Mayfield, the No. 1 pick in 2018, also hedged on the possibility of going without an agent through the draft process, but ultimately decided to add one to his arsenal. There are pros and cons for each player as they decide whether to hire an agent, and despite a long list of pros, losing out on a big chunk of money right out of college can’t be ignored either.

[lunapaper]

Album Review: ‘Changes’ - Justin Bieber

This is the redemption arc we’ve waited five years for?

After several years of well-publicised turmoil - including drugs, alcohol, underage drag racing, a bitter breakup, a Lyme Disease diagnosis and even illegally importing a monkey - Justin Bieber has settled down and found God courtesy of evangelical Hillsong Church, which is based on prosperity gospel, spiritual purity and ‘positive thinking.’ It’s also notoriously homophobic, has been under investigation in the past for child sex abuse, and is the religion my Prime Minister is hellbent on forcing on the rest of us through Australia’s grossly-bigoted Religious Discrimination bill…

Basically, it’s a trendy, youth-based cult. 

And boy, does the Canadian singer wanna tell us all about it on his fifth album, Changes, presenting a set of needy, simpering ballads dedicated to wife Hailey Bieber (née Baldwin) and outdated trap pop beats. 

‘Take It Out On Me’ has Bieber offer himself as a sexual punching bag (‘I see the weight weighin' on your shoulders/It's so heavy/Let me be the meaning of your composure’). The godawful first single ‘Yummy’ is a cynical grab for TikTok infamy, a rather obnoxious ode to Mrs Bieber’s sweet, sweet goods. He later gives Mr and Mrs Baldwin a shoutout for conceiving Hailey on ‘Intentions,’ proclaiming: ‘Heart full of equity, you're an asset.’ On ‘All Around Me,’ Bieber generously offers ‘Room for you in my coupe, let me open up the door/Open up my eyes to a feelin' I can't ignore,’ almost as bad as the time Liam Payne threatened to ‘do your ass in the car’ on his lacklustre debut. He clings even harder on the bass-heavy ‘Forever,’ with Post Malone managing to sound more impassioned and soulful than Bieber himself, even with auto-tune.

It’s all laughably corny stuff until you hear comedy rapper Lil Dicky’s verse on the jittery ‘Running Over,’ where he confesses to waiting until his object of infatuation is no longer jailbait before he starts hitting her up on IG, kisses her breasts all ‘tenderly’ and ‘post-intercourse’ salivates over that barely legal arse with ‘more buns than a Shop Rite.’ 

I wanna disinfect so badly, but the hand sanitiser has been ransacked from the fucking shelves… Also, Lil Dicky says he told his mum all about her? What did he say: ‘Hey Ma, I found this girl on IG, she’s almost 18, I think she’s the one!’ What mother wouldn’t love that? 

Bieber mostly leaves his newfound devotion to God to the backend of the record, delivering four acoustic ballads in a row. Yet even when he does address his personal demons and ongoing salvation, it’s with frustrating clichés and syrupy platitudes.

Changes is painfully average. While 2015’s Purpose – his true magnum opus - marked a colourful transition for the singer and produced surefire hits in the form of ‘What Do You Mean,’ ‘Sorry’ and ‘Love Yourself,’ Bieber’s latest effort sees him completely stall.

Most of the lyrics are just downright banal. For example: On ‘Running Over,’ a lovesick Bieber notes: ‘You make me laugh with personality.’ How the fuck does that work? It feels like something spat out by a robot. All the tracks on Changes lack variation, just a bunch of hazy beat loops that, although fluttery and atmospheric at times, go nowhere. Everything just feels so repetitive and tiresome. Bieber seems way more preoccupied with doing vocal runs than actually perfecting the songs themselves. 

Changes, overall, is a lot like Hillsong: a vapid, self-indulgent, mass-marketing exercise that’s completely and utterly soulless. Whenever Bieber decides to release his next album, it’s going to need a desperate change of direction…

- Bianca B.

[sad-trash-writing]

Who’s The Hero Of Your Story?, Ch. 14

AO3 Link 

“Daisy, he’s changed direction to northwest.”
 “Meaning?”

Jemma rolled her eyes. “Take a left. He’s following the road, which means watch out for civilians.”

“Coulson’s nearly got all the civilians evacuated,” Fitz informed Jemma from the station to her left. Fitz joined up about a week after Jemma officially accepted SHIELD’s offer. Despite him drooling over the equipment SHIELD had, he was a bit wary of signing up for another mysterious organization, though they won him over pretty quickly. “Daisy just needs to head him off before he hits our perimeter.”

“Working on it,” Daisy grumbled, through the comms. The whoosh of air accompanying her words told Jemma that Daisy was flying through the air, hopping from rooftop to rooftop. Of course, the GPS beacon pulsing on the screen in front of her could also tell her that. “This guy’s moving pretty fast.”

Jemma rubbed the base of her neck. It was still a bit sore from the procedure, but the doctors at SHIELD said she was healed enough. The scar left behind was still raised and tender, but it had only been a few weeks. “You’re only two blocks away from him Daisy.”

“Alright, I’m heading down. Any update on what this guy can do?”

Jemma tapped the keyboard to pull up the display of all the scanners they had pointed at this new powered person. Even the mobile equipment on the Zephyr was years ahead of anything Jemma had worked with before. Thankfully, she had a few weeks of practice on it before SHIELD sent her out to run backend on Daisy’s missions. 

The scanners popped up, but were all blank still. 

“Sorry, Daisy. We can’t get a solid read on him just yet. Be careful,” Jemma replied. 

“Okay, let’s hope it involves something cute and harmless.”

Jemma watched as the little dot on the screen that represented Daisy drifted off the rooftops and towards the dot representing their target. The target didn’t seem aggressive so far. He appeared to be someone who just discovered their powers and panicked. Jemma suspected he was a new Inhuman, but they wouldn’t be able to tell until they brought him in for testing. 

Jemma listened as Daisy introduced herself to the man and tried to explain SHIELD, while she waited for the scanners to lock onto the man. It seemed to be going well for awhile. 

Then, an earsplitting sound ripped through the comms. Everyone on the Zephyr cursed and covered their ears and Jemma frantically tried to turn the volume down. 

On the other end, Jemma could hear a metallic crash and Daisy cursing. “So, that’s what he does,” Daisy grumbled. 

“Daisy? Are you alright?” Jemma called. 

“I can’t hear a damn thing right now. I’m going back in.”

“Daisy, what’s happening? What is his power?”

Jemma watched the dot of their target go flying backwards nearly a block. It paused for a moment, before darting back towards Daisy. The earsplitting noise rang through the comms again. 

“Jesus. Okay, he…have some kind of superson…breath or something, I don’t know,” Daisy replied, after a pause. “Every…he opens his mouth, things go flying. Sort of…I do, but it’s only in his mouth and I…way cooler.”

“I think, your comms are broken, Daisy,” Jemma replied. “You should come back to the Zephyr and we can work out a plan.”

“Can’t….ear you. And…getting close…perimeter….don’t have time,” Was the broken reply. 

The noise tore through the Zephyr again. Jemma slammed the button to turn it off, to everyone’s relief. Daisy’s hearing was going to be destroyed if she kept going after this guy. 

Jemma mirrored all her displays over to Fitz’s monitor. “I’m going in.”

“Wait, what?”

“Comms are down, and Daisy has no way of stopping this man’s powers, other than to counter them with her own, and the combination of them is just going to lead to more destruction,” Jemma replied, shrugging off her SHIELD jacket. Luckily she was already suited up underneath it. 

She ran into the cockpit and grabbed the two sets of aviation headsets and darted back towards the hatch. 

“Do you really think you should be going out so soon after your procedure?” Fitz cautioned. 

“Bobbi said I was fine to go into the field. That means into the actual field, not just the plane,” Jemma replied, strapping on a parachute.

“She said technically you were fine, but she wouldn’t advise it.”

“She probably wouldn’t 'advise' a lot of the bad girl shenanigans I’ve gotten into over the past year, so one more can’t hurt.”

Fitz rolled his eyes, knowing he wouldn’t win this argument. Daisy needed help, so Jemma was going to jump out of a plane to help her. 

Jemma lowered the hatch on the plane and jumped. 

She hit the ground a few blocks from where she judged the battle to be and jogged towards the last place she had seen Daisy’s GPS dot. 

She didn’t have to wait long to find Daisy. A deafening roar shrieked through the air and a black-clad body flew across the alley Jemma was in and slammed into something. Jemma winced. 

Shortly after Daisy, the target strode across the alley in the direction he had just thrown Daisy. 

Jemma slipped on one of the pairs of aviator headsets and crept out of the alley. At least she had the element of surprise on her side. 

She ran up behind the man before he reached Daisy and her vines snapped into action. 

They tangled around his arms, his legs, and his neck. She made sure one wound around his jaw, holding his mouth shut. The man struggled violently as Jemma tried to tighten the vines and made her feel like she was tied to an angry bull. 

Eventually, the man managed to get ahold the vines on his neck and flipped Jemma over his shoulder, sending her flying into a pile of garbage bags. 

Which turned out to be the same place Daisy had been thrown. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” Daisy groaned underneath Jemma. 

The man turned and darted down an alleyway. 

Jemma glanced over Daisy (well, as much as she could see of her, since Jemma had landed on top of her). She was bruised and battered, but no more than normal after a fight. Since she was making jokes, Jemma guessed she didn’t have any serious injuries. 

“I don’t think 'fancy' is the word I would use in this situation.” Jemma pulled a clump of slimy noodles out of Daisy’s hair and then rolled off the garbage pile. 

“Any situation is fancy when your former-supervillain girlfriend jumps out of a plane to help you save the city,” Daisy smirked. “I’m glad you decided to keep the vines.”

“So am I,” Jemma replied with a smile. Once Bobbi Morse and the other SHIELD biologists figured out exactly how Jemma’s vines were growing into her back, they figured out a way to keep them attached, but remove the more dangerous parts from Jemma’s spine. If the base of it kept growing at the rate it had before, Jemma would probably only have had a few months before the spikes jabbed into her spine and completely paralyzed or killed her. Now, she could jump into the field and help Daisy when she needed to and not have to worry if a wrong move would cripple her. 

“I’m also here to save your hearing.” Jemma handed Daisy the other headset. 

“Aw, you brought me a present. How romantic,” Daisy replied. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Jemma said, with a grin. 

“I know.” Daisy winked and slipped on the headset. “We should probably go find that guy,” She shouted, now that her hearing was dampened. 

As Daisy headed in the direction the target had disappeared, Jemma wrapped a vine around her wrist and pulled her in for a kiss.

As soon as their lips met, Daisy melted against Jemma’s body. Jemma pulled her even closer and wound her arms around Daisy’s neck to deepen the kiss. Jemma’s vines coiled around Daisy’s waist, just as unwilling to let Daisy go as Jemma was. She noticed they liked to do that a lot. 

When they were both out of breath, they broke apart. Neither wanted to be the first to let go, but the distant police sirens pulled them back to the present. 

Jemma smiled. Through the strangest turn of events, she was the happiest she had ever been. She was able to fight for good from both the field and the lab and she had an amazing woman by her side to do it with. 

She unwound all her vines from Daisy and grabbed her hand. 

“Let’s go save the world.”

~The End~

[mentalmars]

Past, Present, and Future of the ECHOcast - Borderlands 3 Interview

Who are you and what do you do? Hey there, my name is Scott Velasquez and I’m a programmer by trade. Most recently I was a lead programmer on Borderlands 2, Battleborn and then the Online and Social Product Owner for Borderlands 3. I will have been at Gearbox 19 years this August! How did you get started in the industry? Just after graduating with a Bachelor of Science from UAT in 2000, I landed a job at Cinematix Studios in Tempe, AZ. It was here where I finally earned the right to call myself a professional game developer working on two PS2 titles (Hirelings and Renegade Zero). I was responsible for the audio and input systems as well as the 3rd person camera systems. I was so excited working on the camera systems I had to call my college Calculus teacher and tell him I was applying the things he taught us, ha! Previously, I was big into modding Half-life, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D as well as working on my own personal projects. A friend and I wrote a Java 3D engine named Loco3D the moment 3D was added to Java. Our test data consisted of 3D models like Tie Fighters, buildings and etc. that we hand-built in a text file! Another friend and I wrote a C++ multiplayer checkers game which where we learned a lot about OpenGL and network programming at the Winsock level. In my spare time while at Cinematix I built a C++ game engine whose biggest feature at the time was being able to switch between Direct3D and OpenGL at run-time (something quite common to attempt at the time). I made my way to Gearbox after Cinematix failed to land a publisher for either PS2 game and had to close up shop. It’s been a great ride so far! I saw that you are the social product owner of Borderlands 3, what does that mean? Product Owner is a term typically associated with Agile development in a typical software company. I believe this is the first time we’ve used this role at Gearbox, but the intent was to capture the role of a person who could design and direct a group of developers to build new online and social features for BL3. I’m a generalist and customer-focused at heart so this ended up being a great fit in my mind. On any given day I could switch between the following roles: Programmer Designer Project Manager Business Strategy Customer Advocate Consumer of the Coffee Beans We drove the implementation of a number of features you are probably familiar with such as: Photo Mode Player Pinging Vault Hunter Profile on Roster UI Ask for Help Rare spawn sharing Dueling Lost loot Mail system Takedowns Twitch ECHOcast What was the inspiration for making the twitch extension? For years I was bothered watching Twitch hoping the streamer would open their scoreboard so I could see their stats in the competitive title they were streaming. Twitch visited us during Battleborn/early BL3 development and I urged them to consider building a product that allowed us to build interactions into the game to improve the quality of life for viewers and streamers. They must have heard this from other developers too as they officially announced extensions in 2017. Nobody outside of Gearbox/2K knows this, but I had actually created my Twitch developer account in 2013. We had a vision for Battleborn that included many things had the game taken off. One of which was integrated Twitch streaming and an extension. My Twitch developer account and grand ideas laid dormant until I got the nod from our Creative Director of BL3 to move forward. I asked around both the Frisco and Quebec studios to see if anybody had Twitch experience and got hooked up with my main man Michael Dube! As people joined the ECHOcast team they all offered ideas and feedback to help shape it was it is today. The objectives for the extension were to: Improve quality of life for streamers and viewers No more asking the streamer to show you their “gear/build/stats” Provide ways for streamer to foster their community and viewers a way to interact with their favorite streamer Raise the bar for video games streamed on Twitch Deliver new innovative and integrated experiences Partner with Twitch and streamers early Amplify BL3 milestones and reach new customers Earn loot before the game ships On-stream pre-order/purchase and continued updates alongside DLC and patches How does the extension “basically” work, how much planning and programming goes into it, does the game get shaped around these features or do you need to work within the parameters of the game itself? Great question. On the surface, it seems really straightforward, right? It is, but it isn’t! The extension is essentially a web app running on top of the Twitch video player. The game communicates with Twitch and our backend service running in the cloud to send data and events to the extension. The extension communicates with Twitch and our backend service when taking part in an event or linking your SHiFT account. You’re talking about three distinct areas of work consisting of three different languages (C++, Go, Javascript/HTML/CSS) and product deployments! All the while keeping into account that the game needs to run as if no extra work was added, the backend service has to handle Twitch scale and do so cost-effectively and the extension has to work on a variety of browsers and resolutions. Oh by the way, did you know that the ECHOcast extension actually runs on a Tesla? How freakin cool is that?! A lot of planning and programming went into developing the ECHOcast. We were really blazing trails for us at Gearbox and learned quite a lot along the way! We partnered with Twitch and a handful of streamers early so we could really good grasp on the technical challenges and what streamers thought about our designs. The ECHOcast was a huge team effort! For the initial release, no the game didn’t get shaped around ECHOcast. One reason was that it was unproven, but more importantly, it’s because we wanted the work put into ECHOcast to be able to happen anywhere in your Borderlands 3 adventure. In other words, we didn’t want a feature to only become available in a certain location otherwise the chances of us making an impact would have dropped tremendously. After the game launched and ECHOcast was out in the wild, people around the studio really started to take notice and they started stopping by talking to us about upcoming things where ECHOcast could be integrated. We have more big updates planned!  I heard that my friend, lowlines, is helping out with the twitch extension. How did the team get established? He sure is helping! He was actually the first person I reached out to when I got the go-ahead to develop ECHOcast. We met through his Borderlands and Battleborn projects where he developed all kinds of cool stuff for the community. I’d like to think we’re pretty good friends at this point! Version 1 of the twitch extension was launched at the Borderlands 3 reveal event, how exciting was that and what did you learn from the process? First of all, it was great to finally meet you in person at the event! But man, as if revealing the game wasn’t enough we were like “let’s ship version 1 of ECHOcast and allow up to 200 streamers to stream it live AND earn rare chest loot!” That’s my kind of ambition! haha It was very exciting and very humbling to the team who almost all made it out to Los Angeles to witness first hand. The game and ECHOcast were received very well and our first trial run at scale was successful. We gathered a lot of feedback and telemetry from the reveal that allowed us to optimize the rare chest event and apply the lessons forward to the game’s release which included pinata and the badass event. Since the launch of the extension, you guys kept working on it. Version 2 added mobile compatible. What can we expect in the near future? (V3) There are some really cool and fun updates coming along and we’ll be talking about those very soon! Tune in to the next Borderlands Show on February 11 to learn more! You work with Rick, the owner of DIM, an item management tool for Destiny. Now that Borderlands 3’s inventory space has increased significantly, do think it’s possible to see an online item management tool? That’s right, Rick brought his expertise to help ECHOcast development as well. I would love to leverage more of Rick’s experience, but nothing to officially comment on at the moment. I think it is safe to say that we would like to continue pushing forward though! Like Lowlines, I think we all made a new friend in Rick as well. Thanks for the recommendation, Lowlines! I personally had a few ideas for the twitch extension: While ‘fight for your life’ mode is probably too short to interact with the community. But what if a streamer goes down a bunch of times and the community can help him/her get through it by providing a buff, like extended FFYL, health boosters, or shield boosters. I think this could also give the viewer a sense of accomplishment as they helped their favorite streamer achieving a tough goal. Ha, great minds think alike! It’s funny you should mention this was actually in our initial prototype by Mick aka Michael Dube, one of the badass game programmers helping with ECHOcast in our Quebec City studio. The ECHOcast team is world-wide!  I wish I could tell you more but you’ll just have to wait and find out 😊 Would a Community Slaughter Fest work? When the streamer enters a dome, the viewers can decide which type of enemies each wave has. Streamer VS Viewers. Another great idea, we’re all on the same wavelength I think! We pitched this and I definitely think this could work. Given the schedule the game teams are working under it wasn’t something we could add in time and make sure not to break across the game. Definitely something I think we should keep in our back pocket for the future! Is there anything my readers should know that I haven’t asked you? Let’s see…well they probably already know how badass you are, so I don’t think that needs to be said  I would just like to say thank you to everybody who purchased Borderlands 3 and checked out ECHOcast. We’re always open to feedback on anything we had a hand in so please feel free to tweet at me or whatever. Twitch just added a way for streamers to provide feedback about an extension so please consider using that for feedback too! PS. Send tacos, all the tacos! Do you have any advice for the folks that wanna get into the games industry? You bet! The very first step, before buying books, paying for an online course or signing up for college… Make sure you understand the high level of what it takes to make a video game. Specifically, what roles are responsible for what in the game and what skills are involved. Then think about what you’re passionate about when you take into consideration the roles learned above. Also, think about where you naturally excel…good with math? Art? etc. Once you narrow down the role you can begin to learn and practice. Build up a portfolio and record notes on what you learned and are most proud of with each personal project. Hack and build mods on existing games that offer SDKs or user-generated content. When you get to the point of interviewing, be yourself and allow your passion, experience, and ability to learn and work with others show. Don’t forget to ask your potential employer lots of questions too, you should be interviewing them as well! Good luck, I’ll be playing your games before you know it!

Continue reading on https://mentalmars.com/game-news/past-present-and-future-of-the-echocast-borderlands-3-interview/

[kneebeetle9-blog]

Meet the sustainable siblings behind this British womenswear brand

London-based womenswear brand Hide The Label was launched last year when brother and sister duo, Ryan and Shereen Barrett, set out to make a truly sustainable fashion brand; one that considered its social and environmental footprint at every stage of its supply chain.

The brand’s philosophy centres around creating effortless, well-fitting and long-lasting silhouettes that at the same time help tackle one of the fashion industry’s most prominent and longstanding issues: sustainability. Direct to fabric digital printing, recycled fabrics, biodegradable packaging, and season-transcending styles. Those are just a few ways the British brand is going about the task.

The ‘slow-fashion’ brand currently operates an online store, with dresses and tops from its debut collection ranging between 69 and 129 pounds (90 to 165 USD).

FashionUnited spoke with Shereen about the company’s progress since its launch last year, the challenge of balancing sustainability with high quality design, and what it means to be a truly sustainable brand.

Ryan and Shereen Barrett, founders of Hide The Label

What’s the story behind the name, Hide The Label?

Both of us previously worked in the fashion and textile industry. Through working with both high end and low end brands we felt there was a need for slower sustainable fashion.

When Ryan was once on set modelling, a stylist asked him to hide the label from something he was wearing. He thought it would be a good name for the brand and it stuck. We both decided it represented our ethos - that fashion should be more about the garment itself and how it makes you feel, rather than about “who are you are wearing.”

Does creating a business with family, more specifically a sibling, pose any problems, or has it largely been smooth sailing?

Being brother and sister, we naturally have our disagreements. But there is no beating around the bush. We are both very direct and frank with each other but we feel that that’s really helped us work through problems quickly. Of course, having that trust and honesty means we fully support and trust each other’s decisions.

What role do you each play at the company?

We always try to consult one another on pretty much everything, however we both have particular strengths. We are both very creative people, so we bounce ideas off each other frequently. Ryan tends to be more technical and business minded, taking lead on imagery and a lot of the backend things, while I - having worked in the fashion industry for many years - handle design, production, social media and the PR side of things.

Could you give a few examples of sustainable methods you are implementing across your supply chain?

Currently 80 percent of our collection is made from either 100 percent recycled polyester or Viscose, which is biodegradable. We plan for this to be 100 percent in our next collection. Our brand tags are also made from recycled card and attached with unbleached cotton cord.

Our goods are also transported to the UK by rail instead of Air or Shipping which helps to reduce our carbon footprint. Our delivery boxes and tissue papers are made from recycled paper and our mail out bag is compostable.

We also never dye cloth. The water consumption for dyeing is extremely high, not to mention the chemicals that enter the water systems from it. Instead, we opt for a water friendly alternative - direct to fabric digital printing that uses gas to add ink to the fabric, meaning minimal water is used.

How do you avoid excessive waste?

We carefully design and fit our styles in-house to make sure the fit is exactly how we want it. That way we prevent overseas factories having to create multiple wasteful prototype samples. We also only produce each style in small quantities to make sure that we avoid deadstock. We would rather run out than have left over.

What happens to the part of the collection that doesn’t get sold?

We produce our styles in very small quantities so we try not to have deadstock, however if this does happen, we either donate the clothes to charity or recycle them.

Where do you source from and where are your clothes produced? Will this change as you grow?

We work with one supplier and have done from the beginning, they supply our printed fabric and do our garment production.

They are a small scale factory based in China. We plan to continue visiting and working with the same supplier as we are a big believer in building good working relationships and knowing the employees on a personal level. We are currently working on providing more transparency of our supply chain to our customers.

What has been your biggest challenge so far, either as a sustainable brand or as a brand in general?

Our biggest challenge has been learning to overcome problems quickly. By doing everything ourselves we have had to learn new skills in order to progress, for example web design, packaging design and even dealing with shipping which neither of us had prior experience with.

Also, wanting to build a sustainable brand on a small scale has required lots of negotiation with suppliers due to the restrictions on material quantities and costs. We are hoping that as we grow this will become easier.

Do you have any examples of other brands who you think are doing really well in terms of sustainability?

We love the transparency of Everlane and how they really care about their customers' values. Also Reformation for using deadstock fabrics and monitoring their carbon emissions.

Where do you find inspiration for collections? Would you say it’s typically English design?

All of our inspiration so far comes from nature. We both love being surrounded by flora and fauna and get inspired by our travels - so tropical surroundings, as well as the English Countryside where we both grew up. I wouldn’t say that the design was typically English, although the shapes are more suited to a British climate. We have both lived and worked in different countries around the world which have naturally had an influence on what and how we design.

Do sustainability and design ever clash? Do you ever see yourself making compromises?

A little. I think as suppliers continue to develop more and more options that are sustainable, the design element becomes more flexible. When I started out in the industry the only affordable options for recycled fabrics were polar fleece. There are now many more options to choose from which helps making more feminine, wearable pieces a possibility.

We have had to make some compromises, due to sustainable options for fabrics and trims being subject to high cost and quantities. This is reflected in our retail price. As a new start-up, this has caused some restrictions on what we can do but hopefully this will also become easier as we grow.

You say you are aiming to improve season on season. Do you have an example of how your next season (or later ones) will be better?

We are aiming for 100 percent of our fabrics to be made with either a biodegradable or renewable source for our next collection. We are now at 80 percent. We are currently sourcing Corozo buttons which are 100 percent natural for any future styles that require buttons.

We also have plans in the near future to offer customers an area on our site to re-sell/swap their Hide The Label purchases to help with a reduction in landfill. We think this will be great when there is demand for limited edition and small run items in the collection.

What’s your biggest accomplishment so far?

The fact that we have launched a brand on our own with no external help or funding. We have built it from the ground up and have had total control from the beginning.

What are your future plans? Are you thinking of expanding or is it too early to say?

It’s still very early days. We would love to be stocked globally and maybe have a store one day, but who knows.

Photos courtesy of the brand

Source: https://fashionunited.com/news/fashion/meet-the-sustainable-siblings-behind-this-british-womenswear-brand/2019061428315

[tatooedlaura-blog]

Comfortable

I think this might fall under @leiascully‘s Rest challenge ... yeah ... I’m gonna slap it under that category and call it a day :)

Also, it’s a post-ep for ‘Millennium’ ... 

Enjoy 8^)

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Mulder hadn’t seen her this weary in a long time … months since she had shadows that dark under her eyes, skin as pale as winter sunshine, lips faded to a hint of the rose they should be. Walking towards him, he stood immediately, taking in her exhaustion with a blinking glance, “hey there.”

She didn’t really answer, more like nodded her head with the illusion of giving a shit that she was upright and mobile. Dropping her bag on the floor by the coat rack and her shoes beside it, she brandished a file folder, tossed it to his lap, missed, didn’t care, ignored the sheaf of paper fanned across the hardwood and crawled, wobbled, swayed, landed face first across his couch.

He didn’t argue, taking in her rapidly encompassing coma state as a sign to keep his mouth shut of any and all sarcastic comments regarding the commandeering of his furniture for her hedonistic napping session. Not caring to move much himself, given his wrapped shoulder and still pulling scabs on his neck, he eventually picked up the folder, glancing through the final report on zombies or reanimated human-like entities before tossing it back to the floor.

He really didn’t give a rat’s fuzzy butt about the case, preferring not to remember it as his apartment fell to the early winter darkness. He wasn’t a fan of fire; he wasn’t a fan of cold; he wasn’t a fan of conspiring assholes and now he knew he definitely wasn’t a fan of reani- … zombies … whatever the hell they were. He mostly just wanted to forget them and enjoy some TV and a nap.

But Scully was in his TV watching spot, face squished into the cushion where he usually sat, the compressed foam perfectly indented to his rear after countless years and which was now cradling his soon-to-be drooling partner, her arm hanging to the floor, hand bent at the wrist, fingerprints pressed to woven striped rug.

And she was fairly cute doing it.

Settling back in the office chair he currently occupied and would occupy for the foreseeable future, he shifted his good arm up, resting his head against his hand, deciding that since he didn’t have a decent angle for the TV now, he’d just watch her.

Turned out to be the best entertainment of the night.

“Mul … ler?”

That startled him a little. She’d been snoring not half a second earlier and he never expected her to say anything.

“Yeah?”

“Muller?”

“Yes, Scully?”

Still not answering, she broke into a grin, her face shifting enough so he could just make out her mouth in full, “Muller.”

By now, his chuckle had emerged, head tilting further to the side to see her better, “Scully.”

Pulling her arm up, she languidly twisted onto her side, back against the back, knees sliding over each other until she settled again, left arm draped over belly, breasts pushed together in tantalizing, nearly spilling out cleavage.

He could see her knees as well.

Shit.

He had a thing for her knees. He’d been watching them peak out from underneath skirts for what felt like decades now and he had been fantasizing about his hand on one of them for just as long. Oddly, he had pictured her on her knees doing … things … to him for nearly as long but those fantasies were nowhere near as frequent as the ones where he simply sat beside her, warm palm cupped over her rounded knee, the beautiful 90-degree joint that carried her beside him everywhere and anywhere without fault and without fail.

He was utterly beguiled and bewildered at the sight of her knees. He’d shake his head to bring himself back to a sense of manly reality but, really, why.

Granted, the cleavage did fight for his attention, don’t get him wrong but tonight, he took his voyeuristic time, enjoying his blue-glowing Scully in all her napping glory, knees out for the world to see.

He chuckled again at the realizing that he was so far under her spell, it was shocking he could still function at all in society.

Then again, his society for the time being, consisted of Scully and zombies.

He gave himself five more minutes before forcing himself to stand, go to the kitchen, silently find some dinner, forget his partner on the couch in order to take a deep breath, sort his head back to the here and now.

“Muller?”

Like a snapping rubber band, he was back at her side before he knew his feet were moving, “Scully?”

This time, though, her eyes were open, staring up at him, confused and squinty, “am I hungry?”

“I … I don’t know.” Giving her a soft smile, “I was just making myself some food. You got here about an hour ago so you probably are hungry. It’s after 7.”

Time stamp sinking in, “hey, we’re missing ‘Wheel of Fortune’.”

God, he really should just propose now and get it over with, “want to find the channel and I’ll heat up whatever the hell isn’t nasty in my fridge?”

Hand already digging in the cushions for the remote, “deal.”

Sooner than later, they were buried deep in the couch, Mulder’s feet on the coffee table, Scully’s tucked underneath her, knee touching his thigh and blanket haphazardly thrown over them, empty plates near his toes. As they waited for the final ‘Jeopardy’ clue, Mulder debated whether it was time.

Scully chose action over debate.

Reaching towards him, she quietly gripped his pinkie finger and slowly dragged his hand from his leg to hers, stopping once her knee rounded out his palm.

In answer, he slid a little further down in the cushions, elbow resting on her upper thigh and fingers curved more securely around the sacred bones.

Mulder left it there through the last question, through two episodes of something he didn’t have the capacity to pay attention to because Scully was real and beside him, only one layer of blanket between skin on skin. Then, around nine, he gathered boldness from points unknown and deftly moved from above blanket to below, back to knee, heat on heat, watching her out the corner of his eye and relaxing when he saw the smallest of smiles curve her lip.

He was golden tonight.

And he sure as hell wasn’t going to push it.

Soon, cliched date night situations aside, her head landed on his shoulder, the credit music of ‘West Wing’ filling the room as she quietly asked, “would you mind if I stayed here tonight?”

“Of course not. Tired?”

“Yeah … but …” he could hear the hesitation beating the space between them, “mostly I … I’m comfortable and don’t want to go home right now.”

Squeezing her leg, he moved to stand, “let me go find you something to sleep in.”

She let him stand, missing him instantly and watched him trek away, sling band across his back, gait stilting slightly because a jostling walk sent pains through his unhealed bones. Following seconds later, she stood in his bedroom doorway, blanket over her shoulders, “anything is fine.”

Turning, “why’d you get up? You said you were comfortable on the couch?”

“No, I said I was comfortable.” Stepping closer, her eyes twinkled and sparked, “I’m comfortable with you and with your hand on me and being in this apartment and I don’t want to go home. There’s a difference between that and not wanting to get up from the couch to follow you.”

After keeping his grin to mere epic proportions, he gathered a t-shirt and some sweatpants, handing them to her after he moved to stand in front, “here you go and does that mean you’re not ready to go to sleep yet? Should we go see what else we can find to watch?”

Nodding, “go start looking while I change.” Quick like bunny, she came back into the living room and Mulder lost his powers of speech. Looking from her bare knees and the bottom of the shirt he gave her, which fell an inch above the aforementioned knees, to her face, she laughed as she settled back beside him, blanket once again over them, his hand moving under the blanket and back to its spot with little hesitation, “I’ll put the pants on before I go to sleep.”

&&&&&&&&&&

The next morning, with the blinds closed and the sunlight non-existent behind layers of gray cloud, she didn’t wake up until after eight and that was only because an especially exuberant burble from the fish tank invading her senses. Ignoring the clock, she puttered around the place while she made tea and found a box of semi-expired PopTarts, settling on the couch once again to have her breakfast before she decided to give any kind of thought to work. Mulder ventured forth halfway through her second cup, hair askew and shirt twisted under his immobilizer. Attempting and failing to straighten himself out, he dropped beside her, “when did you wake up and do you know you’re late for work?”

Doing her best not to spew forth a torrent of crumbs when she answered him, “woke up 20 minutes ago and not too sure I care about work today. How are you?”

Taking the bite of PopTart she offered him, he chewed thoughtfully, “better because you’re here.”

“I meant your shoulder but thank you.”

“You make everything better, shoulder included.”

Moving the blanket to cover his legs as well, mirroring the night before, she watched him put his hand back under the blanket, his eyebrows raising when he ran into skin instead of flannel, “still no pants, young lady?”

“Nope.”

“You should play hooky with me and not wear any pants at all.”

Pretending to debate, she tucked the blanket in closer under her legs and wiggled against him, “you should find me some cartoons. Flintstones if possible … or Scooby-Doo.”

With a non-chalant and non-presumptuous kiss to the top of her head, “I love you and your cartoony, pantsless ways.”

“I love you and your expired PopTart owning ways.”

Finding the Flintstones on some backend cable channel, “today is going to be a good day.”

Already planning a nap, probably in Mulder’s bed and probably not alone, “a very good day.”