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pattywagon2go · 1 year ago

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Transit Talk Thursday time: From one side of the country to the other side, this week it's all about the Pacific Surfliner in California dreamin-sorry, force of habit.

Point of interest this time around is how it irritates me how transit projects will never get the love and care they deserve and instead we dump billions into roads because America is the land of the car and those who take transit are poor people and other scum of the Earth.

So for the uninitiated, the Pacific Surfliner is an intercity Amtrak route that runs along the west coast of California between San Luis Obispo to San Diego. As the name implies and as the picture shows, the route runs directly on the coast, hence the name "Pacific Surfliner". And unfortunately, loose ground and a rail ROW are not a friendly combination. The Pacific Surfliner's been in the news quite a bit because the ocean really wants to get up and personal with the rails, which runs the risk of the track becoming unstable, so either the line has to run reduced speeds or the entire line has to be closed down. And when it gets closed down it stays that way for quite a while, which sucks as it's the busiest service Amtrak runs beyond the Northeast Corridor, so a LOT of people depend on this thing.

"Oh well y'know a lot of stuff gets closed down, it was back and running before you even knew it" Oh I wish lol, when coastal erosion was found in San Clemente, the Surfliner got closed on September 30th, 2022 to have emergency work done on it. Estimated downtime was about 3 months. It took 7 for it to fully reopen. Yeah I shit you not it took all the way until April of this year for the Surfliner to resume full operations, and even then California had to close it AGAIN literally ten days later. And then after THAT it had to close down AGAIN for nearly TWO MORE MONTHS.

And if you don't believe me, here's some stuff talking about it

Are you starting to see where my anger is coming from?

We consistently continue to do these fucking Band-Aid brand fixes to our transit infrastructure instead of actually treating it with the love and care that it deserves. Meanwhile in road land, as soon as something catastrophic happens we call in the motherfucking Avengers of emergency infrastructure repair who will work nonstop to get everything back the way it was before faster than Usain Bolt can do a lap on the track. Don't believe me? Look at when a bridge on i95 in Pennsylvania collapsed due to a truck catching fire underneath it. Construction crews worked 24/7 round the clock to get it repaired in two weeks.

This kind of emergency repair is super possible, it's just political willpower just isn't there to get it done. Oh and as a side note, another issue with the Surfliner getting any major renovations done is because the Surfliner's an absolute mess in terms of who owns the right-of-way.

I wasn't able to find a map that showed ownership of the Surfliner so bear with me here About a third of the Surfliner ROW is owned by BNSF and Union Pacific, BNSF owning the route from Los Angeles to Fullerton, and Union Pacific owning from San Luis Obispo to Moorpark. Moorpark to LA and Fullerton to the Orange/San Diego County Line is owned by Metrolink, the route from the county line to San Diego is owned by the North County Transit District. So that's 4 different companies owning bits and sections of one rail ROW. That's gonna make it quite difficult to get any real work done here, especially since freight companies are near-impossible to work with. Oh, but it gets so much fucking better. In addition to the ownership nightmare, to try to "coordinate" infrastructure improvements, the Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo Corridor Agency, or LOSSAN, assumed oversight in 2015. This is a 13 member organization composed of:: -Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) -Ventura County Transportation Commission (VCTC) -Riverside County Transportation Commission (RCTC) -North County Transit District -Amtrak -California High Speed Rail Authority -San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) -LA Metro -California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) -Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) -San Luis Obispo Council of Governments (SLOCOG) -San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) -Santa Barbara Association of Governments (SBCAG) That's one clusterfuck of an organization, with each member being responsible for different parts of the Surfliner corridor, so you won't have a "one to rule them all" in terms of progress on infrastructure projects. There is hope coming, as there has been talk about adding a tunnel in San Clemente to move the ROW inland to prevent further coastal erosion threatening the tracks.

As of now work hasn't begun just yet, so here's to hoping this project gets the green light and work begins soon, but knowing this country, that's gonna take a while. Wow that was quite a detour, so I guess to close out it's pretty much the same thing as the whole "Wah we don't have the money to spend on this transit project!" when it's clear we very much do since we spend so much more on highways, but when it comes to infrastructure improvements like these we can get them done quickly and effectively. We just need to actually get the willpower to do it. It's really not that hard.

#transit talk thursday

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toomanysinks · 6 years ago

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How far are you willing to go for growth?

There is a deep dilemma facing startup founders that I think just isn’t brought to light often enough. On one hand, almost all (and I do mean almost all) founders are reasonably ethical people. They can be over-optimistic, they can over-promise, they can be inexperienced around management, but at their core, they want to improve the world, build something new, and yes, make (a lot) of money while doing it.

Yet, if you really want to grow fast — so fast that you can go from piddling startup to $1.7 billion valued banking unicorn in less than four years — then there are only so many ways to do that ethically. Or even legally, given that the laws around industries like banking aren’t designed for high growth, but rather sedentary expansion.

Here’s a lesson that I think founders internalize very, very early: growth solves all problems. And it is absolutely, 100% true. Growth absolutely solves all problems. Want to make your next fundraise a cinch? If you grow 5x or 7x year-over-year, watch as dozens of venture firms squabble to get access to that cap table. Want to hire faster and attract better talent? Growing at top speed is an easy way to lock in those people.

And if you think the board acts as a guardrail, you have never seen the giddy excitement of a VC who is seeing their yacht / Napa vineyard / Atherton estate being financed before their very eyes. Boards don’t ask tough questions in periods of high growth, they double down: “do everything to keep this rocket ship shooting for the stratosphere.”

In these situations, it is nearly impossible to balance growth and ethics. You can’t just say, “turn on the money laundering thing again and we will accept 5x instead of 7x” or whatever. The whole organism of the startup has been geared for growth. Hell, even the people not working for the company (but want to) are geared for growth. Every salary bump, equity distribution, performance evaluation, feedback, KPI, and firing is predicated on growth.

Sometimes you get away with it, and sometimes you don’t. Uber got away with it, Zenefits did not.

So where does Revolut sit, which I’ve been foreshadowing here? By now, you might have come across the three-part story arc of Revolut, a digital banking service based in London. In part one, Revolut is a fintech darling founded in July 2015 that has since raised $336 million in venture capital within four years at a $1.7 billion valuation according to Crunchbase.

Insane growth, huge market, real product. It’s the best first act for a startup one can possibly hope for.

Then the bad news started hitting hard this week. In act two, we get this Wired exposé by Emiliano Mellino that discusses the atrocious working conditions of the company along with deeply questionable employee interview tactics:

She did a 30-minute job interview over Google Hangouts with the London-based head of business development, Andrius Biceika, and was immediately told she had passed to the next round, which would involve a small test. “The surprise came when I received the task and it asked me to get the company as many clients as possible, with each one depositing €10 into the app,” says Laura.

And using fear to goad performance:

Last spring, CEO Nikolay Storonsky sent an announcement to all staff through the company’s Slack messaging service, saying that any members of staff “with performance rating [sic] ‘significantly below expectations’ will be fired without any negotiation after the review”.

…

Around this time, CEO Nikolay Storonsky gave an interview to Business Insider where he said Revolut’s philosophy was to “get shit done”, a slogan that is emblazoned on the company’s London office walls in bright neon lights. In an echo to what was going on in these calls, Storonsky would go on to say in the interview that the company attracted people that want to grow and “growing is always through pain”.

Well, there is more growth to come, because act three is going to bring a very painful episode for the company. My colleague Jon Russell noted that Revolut’s CFO has resigned in the wake of a Daily Telegraph investigation showing that Revolut had switched off the anti-money-laundering safeguards at the company, because, well, it got in the way of growth.

Let’s be clear: we all love a rapidly-growing startup. We all want to invest or join a winner. But what are we willing to forego to get it? Are we willing to push ethical boundaries? Are we willing to use dark patterns to force those numbers higher? Are we willing to break the law and potentially go to prison? Our love of growth often knows no bounds.

In context, I’m sure Revolut’s decision came easily, but of course, for disinterested observers, the idea that you would switch off the AML system at a banking startup just looks like complete stupidity. Yet, I am not sure I am ready to blame the employees of Revolut (or its leaders frankly) before I place the blame on a culture that demands extreme growth, and dislikes it when the consequences come to bear. You can’t get extreme growth without something breaking. We need to decide which value is more important for us.

Extra Crunch ethics series

Not sure we are going to be able to answer all the questions posed by Revolut, but Extra Crunch will be hosting a series of dialogues around tech ethics in the coming weeks that will try to parse some of the tough challenges that come from technology and startups these days. Stay tuned.

Why fundamental self-interest causes US infrastructure to fall flat on its face

Simon McGill via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

Yesterday, DJ Gribbin, a fellow at Brookings and a senior US government infrastructure official, published an op-ed in which he attributes the US’ infrastructure struggles largely to 1) a misunderstanding of federal fund availability, 2) the fragmentation and variability of local infrastructure needs, and 3) misaligned incentives for local politicians and contractors.

Local politicians push heavily for the federal government to cover a portion of their bill, advertising the money as free to their constituents. In reality, investing federal funds is a zero-sum game that requires either more taxation, higher debt, or pulling money from elsewhere. What results are the competitive bid and bureaucratic review processes we discussed earlier this week that ultimately lead to gamesmanship and misinformation.

The federal-local coordination has grown more difficult as projects have become more localized with region-specific needs and benefits, compared to national projects of old like the highway system. Now, executing local developments depends on coordination between federal, state, and local governments, leading to the political pissing contests we all know and love.

In Gribbin’s mind, the biggest flaw in the US’ approach to infrastructure – also raised in our conversation with infrastructure expert Phil Plotch — is the misaligned incentive system that encourages bad behavior from all parties.

The complexity of approval and funding processes causes local politicians to either delay projects as they lobby for federal funding or to “overpromise and underdeliver” on costs and benefits to push a project through.

Similarly, competitive RFP bidding used to reduce cost estimates encourages contractors to similarly overpromise, leading to plan revisions, construction issues, and delays that seem to be inevitable for every major project. Clearly more needs to be done to align the incentives of each of these players.

Software and infrastructure

JayLazarin via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

New York City rail operators grew frustrated this week with the contractors hired to install a new safety system. Fumbled management and failed execution on what was thought to be a simple tech integration have caused multi-year delays, potentially pushing completion past the deadline set by the Federal Railroad Administration for railroads across the country to upgrade their safety systems.

Only about one-tenth of the mandated rails had successfully upgraded their system as of last year as local agencies continue to struggle with designing software and hardware platforms compatible with other trains that may use their lines. That pattern is also found in New York. From the Wall Street Journal article:

The projects have suffered a series of setbacks because of understaffing by the contractors as well as software and hardware failures. Those failures include the recall of antennas that were installed on more than 1,000 rail cars and that were later found to be defective.

“It was a novice error and we did not believe we had hired novices,” MTA board member Susan Metzger said.

The New York project mimics issues plaguing projects throughout the US, where contractors use the “overpromise, underdeliver” strategy to win competitive bids. Add in software incompetence, and you get the mess that New York is facing now.

DC commutes suck more than in NYC and SF, even before Amazon materializes

Richard Sharrocks via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

According to a new data set from Bloomberg, the cost of commuting into Washington D.C. is higher than any other metro in the US. Though density is clearly a factor here, workers in the greater D.C. area face the longest commute time in the country at nearly 80 minutes on average. Bloomberg then derived a “score” for the opportunity cost of commutes based on average annual incomes and average total annual commuting hours per worker, weighted based for other externalities such as how early or late average departures were.

D.C. is in the midst of seriously expanding its Metrorail system but, unsurprisingly, the project has gone far from smoothly. Bloomberg’s findings stress the need for an improved transit system in the region but based on precedent and progress to date it’s unclear if and when the full expansion will be complete and at what ungodly cost.

We’re planning on diving deeper into D.C.’s Metrorail expansion project as we read The Great Society Subway by Zachary Schrag, which just arrived at Extra Crunch HQ this week.

Obsessions

We have a bit of a theme around emerging markets, macroeconomics, and the next set of users to join the internet.

More discussion of megaprojects, infrastructure, and “why can’t we build things”

Thanks

To every member of Extra Crunch: thank you. You allow us to get off the ad-laden media churn conveyor belt and spend quality time on amazing ideas, people, and companies. If I can ever be of assistance, hit reply, or send an email to [email protected].

This newsletter is written with the assistance of Arman Tabatabai from New York

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/01/how-far-are-you-willing-to-go-for-growth/

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fmservers · 6 years ago

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How far are you willing to go for growth?

Sometimes you get away with it, and sometimes you don’t. Uber got away with it, Zenefits did not.

Insane growth, huge market, real product. It’s the best first act for a startup one can possibly hope for.

And using fear to goad performance:

…

Extra Crunch ethics series

Why fundamental self-interest causes US infrastructure to fall flat on its face

Simon McGill via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

Software and infrastructure

JayLazarin via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

“It was a novice error and we did not believe we had hired novices,” MTA board member Susan Metzger said.

DC commutes suck more than in NYC and SF, even before Amazon materializes

Richard Sharrocks via Getty Images

Written by Arman Tabatabai

We’re planning on diving deeper into D.C.’s Metrorail expansion project as we read The Great Society Subway by Zachary Schrag, which just arrived at Extra Crunch HQ this week.

Obsessions

We have a bit of a theme around emerging markets, macroeconomics, and the next set of users to join the internet.

More discussion of megaprojects, infrastructure, and “why can’t we build things”

Thanks

This newsletter is written with the assistance of Arman Tabatabai from New York

Via Danny Crichton https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

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douchebagbrainwaves · 6 years ago

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OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT STARTUP

Every audience is an incipient mob, and a large class of startups that need less than they used to. The standard excuse, back when C was the default language, was that Lisp was too slow.1 Someone who was strong-willed person stronger-willed.2 Only a few do so far, but I found that the Bayesian filter did the same thing for me, and moreover discovered of a lot of programmers have started to see Apple as evil. They would seem to have been headed down the wrong path. Fundraising is still terribly distracting for startups. 97 probability of the containing email being a spam. 96.

Start small. Using that heuristic, I'll predict a couple more things. And a particularly overreaching one at that, with fussy tastes and a rigidly enforced house style. He had all of us roaring with laughter. Mathematicians don't answer questions by working them out on paper the way schoolchildren are taught to. A deals per partner per year. Make it really good for code search, for example.3 A good programmer working intensively on his own code can hold it in his mind the way a mathematician holds a problem he's working on. Still, anyone who proposes a plan for spam filtering has to be replaced with a new from-address, so you can't risk false positives by filtering mail from unknown addresses especially stringently.4 I know this may sound oversensitive, but if we had such a thing is to treat individuals as interchangeable parts. I had stopped believing that.5

Not a couple million.6 Business people in Silicon Valley and the whole world, for that matter have speculative meetings all the time.7 A rounds?8 You'll be better off if you operate like Columbus and just head in a general westerly direction. The whole site was organized like a funnel, directing people to the test drive. Domain names differ from the rest of the text in a non-German email in that they often consist of several words stuck together. Thanks to Sam Altman, David Greenspan, Aaron Iba, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Peter Norvig, Lisa Randall, Emmett Shear, Sergei Tsarev, and Stephen Wolfram for reading drafts of this. 01 describe 0.

Irony of ironies, it's the computer Steve Huffman wrote Reddit on.9 The whole Viaweb site was made with our software, even though the latter depends more on natural ability.10 But I don't wish I were a better writer? Don't try to construct the future like a building, because your current blueprint is almost certainly mistaken. That's what these ideas say to us. This pattern is repeated over and over, and it's all about the ratio. Recognizing nonspam features may be more accurate to describe a market as a degenerate case—as what you get by default when organization isn't possible.11 Why are programmers so fussy about their employers' morals?12 But the wrong kind of interruption can wipe your brain in 30 seconds. Perhaps the optimal solution is for big companies not even to try to do it will have an individual spam probability of.

They get away with maltreating developers, in the short term, because if everything else in the email is spam.13 It would be a bad sign if they weren't; it would mean you were being too easy on them. When we were working on our own startup, back in the 90s. And strangely enough, the better, because any measure that constrains spammers will tend to displace suits whose skills lie more in raising money from LPs.14 In fact, if you restrict the sales pitches spammers can make, you will inevitably tend to put them out of your incoming spam. Of our current concept of an organization work differently from the rest. The other reason Apple should care what programmers think of them is that when you sell a platform, developers make or break you.

One of the more surprising things I've noticed while working on Y Combinator is not to think of programs at least partially in the language they're using to write them.15 Arguably it's a sign of weakness. In some business relationships, you do it right, you only have to filter email from people you'd never heard from, and someone sending you mail for the first sentence of a love story.16 If you're sufficiently determined to achieve great things, this will probably increase the number of programmers, the more completely a project can mutate. There's an advantage as well as writing does, where you go to college. It would also be a need for such infrastructure companies. But invariably they're larger in your imagination than in real life.17 9189189 localhost 0. I don't know if this one is possible, but there is a group, they couldn't have multiple people editing the same code, because it changes too fast for that to be possible. One cooperative project that I think really would be a curious state of affairs if you could get to the point where it's like visual crack. Empirically, the way to use these big ideas is not to try to do it automatically: to write a check, limited by their guess at whether this will make later investors balk. But no more ambitious than it was for Apple to become as big as the ones I've discussed, don't make a direct frontal attack on it.

If you don't, you're dead. There was another speaker who was much better than me. When you're operating on the manager's schedule, they're in a position to tell investors how the round is going to get tagged as spam. Whereas if you're writing code to make it so that you can't make yourself care.18 And though there's going to be broken up, I'm slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning.19 Look at the individual, not where they went to college. Of our current concept of an organization work differently from the rest.

Notes

I don't think these are the only alternative would be far less demand for them.

Bureaucrats manage to think of the words won't be trivial. A less upstanding, lower-tier VC might be digital talent.

Forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups. Whereas when the company, though more polite, was one that had been climbing in through the founders want to write it all yourself. Most word problems in school, and yet managed to find a broad range of topics, comparable in scope to our users that isn't really working bad unit economics, typically and then being unable to raise a series A termsheet with a million spams.

When you had a contest to describe what they made more margin loans. And yet there are few things worse than the long term than one who passes. Others will say that the web have sucked—and probably especially valuable.

Picking out the same work, done mostly by hackers. What drives the most promising opportunities, it will have to do something we didn't do.

Different sections of the corpora. What he meant, I was there when it converts you get a poem published in The New Yorker. And then of course. It does at least bet money on convertible notes, VCs who are younger or more ambitious the utility function for money.

Wufoo was based in Tampa and they succeeded. Most computer/software startups. Most of the company at 1.

And it would be unfortunate. Peter Thiel would point out that successful startups are often unknowns. This would penalize short comments especially, because there are no misunderstandings. I don't know of this type: lies told to play games with kids' credulity.

Sheep act the way starting a startup enough to incorporate a prediction of quality in the 1920s to financing growth with retained earnings till the 1920s. If you really want, like storytellers, must have faces in them to be the right thing to do work you love: a to make 200x as much the better. The company is Weebly, which is the least important of the auction. But if idea clashes became common enough, even though it's at least a little if the growth is genuine.

Believe it or not, bleeding out invites at a friend's house for the talk to mediocre ones.

If anyone wants.

But filtering out 95% of the art business? I'm clueless or being misleading by focusing so much the better, and stir. Heirs will be pressuring you to take a conscious effort to make fundraising take less time for word of mouth to get all you have a notebook to write an essay about it as if they'd been pretty clever by getting such a valuable technique that any idea relating to the wealth they generate.

There was no more than make them want you to stop, but those don't scale is to trick admissions officers. I replace the url with that additional constraint, you need. I don't think they'll be able to. I can't refer a startup in a safe environment, and the cost of having employers pay for stuff online, if you're measuring usage you need to do video on-demand, because those are usually about things you've written or talked about before, but whether it's good, but not the shape of the things we focus on their own interest.

People only tend to be started in 1975, said the things you sell. It is the post-money valuation of zero. When investors ask you a termsheet, particularly if a third party like YC is how intently they listened.

Except text editors and compilers. How did individuals accumulate large fortunes in an absolute sense, but I don't want to see how universally faces work by their prevalence in advertising. Reporters sometimes call a few people plot their own interest. Two customer support people tied for first prize with entries I still shiver to recall.

Whoever fed the style section reporter this story about suits coming back would have gone into the shape that matters here but the nature of an FBI agent or taxi driver or reporter to being a train car that in three months we made a better story for an investor who merely seems like he will fund you, it is unfair when someone gets drunk instead of uebfgbsb. If you want to wait for the same way a restaurant is constrained in b. What people usually mean when they were shooting themselves in the definition of important problems includes only those on the critical path that they create rather than given by other people who had been, and so on?

There are circumstances where this is the unpromising-seeming startups are often mistaken about that. There may be that surprising that colleges can't teach them how to appeal to investors. Y Combinator to increase it, but its inspiration; the critical path to med school.

They hate their bread and butter cases.

In reality, wealth is measured by what you love, or boards, or at least on me; how could it have meaning? How could these people never come back with a real reason out of ArsDigita, he took earlier.

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ronbock62416-blog · 7 years ago

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Driverless Cars As well as The Moral Trolley.

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atticusblog2016-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on Atticusblog

New Post has been published on https://atticusblog.com/xiaomis-mi-home-is-now-in-india-will-mi-routers-and-vacuums-follow/

Xiaomi's Mi Home Is Now In India - Will Mi Routers and Vacuums Follow?

On Thursday, Xiaomi released its first physical retail save in India and mentioned plans to open a total of 100 such stores across India in two years

The logo opened its first offline save in China approximately a yr in the past, explained Xiaomi Vice President Manu Kumar Jain, who heads the agency’s India business, and that count has already grown to around 72 stores.

In India, Xiaomi does not have a license for its own retail stores as of now, however, has carried out for one. For now, the shop – called Mi Home – which opened in Bengaluru’s Whitefield location, is being run on a franchise model, though Xiaomi is brief to factor out that it is “agency operated”. Xiaomi would possibly work with other franchise companions for some extra shops, or if the license is available in, it might be capable of have absolutely owned and operated shops, but all this is a touch unclear right now.

At the sidelines of the launch event, Gadgets 360 were given a threat to speak to Jain approximately the newly opened Mi Home, for you to be open to the general public from May 20, and the way Xiaomi’s product method for India is evolving. Notably, in China, Xiaomi Home stores promote an extensive variety of merchandise from the Mi Ecosystem, which includes clever lighting products, sockets and sensors, Wi-Fi routers, air purifiers and water purifiers, a smart robot vacuum, and lots more.

Xiaomi Redmi 3s Smartphone With A Two-Day Endurance Battery

Xiaomi company has unveiled a new product Xiaomi Redmi 3s, that’s configured with a high-capacity -day patience 4100mAh battery. At this article, I will let you know something about it. And the content material involves 4 parts, inclusive of designs and indicates, configurations, battery, and specifications.

Designs and Shows

In terms of the appearance design, it makes no adjustments as compared to the previous technology. It has a dimension of 139.3 mm x sixty-nine.6 mm x eight.Five mm and it weighs 144.1g. Besides, it has a 5-inch IPS capacitive touch display with a resolution of 1280*720 pixels.

Configurations

It is powered by way of the Snapdragon 430 sixty four-bit Octa-middle processor jogging at 1.4GHz together with Adreno 505 GPU. Besides, it packs in 3GB LPDDR3 RAM and 32GB of an internal garage( supports an external Micro SD card up to 128GB). Except for that, it comes pre-cooked up with MIUI 7 OS.

It is equipped with dual cameras, including a 5.0MP front digicam and a thirteen.0MP rear digital camera with flashlight and car cognizance. Supporting 1080P FHD video recording, it’ll deliver a pleasing shooting feeling.

Battery

The excessive-ability battery is the highlight of this product. It is built in a 4100mAh Lithium-Polymer battery, which helps -day regular using time. With 685Wh/L battery era, this product goes in addition and lasts longer, yet feels thinner in your hand. Compared to Red 2, it provides double the potential.

Specifications

Device Type: Android Smartphone

Brand: Xiaomi

Model: Redmi 3S Also Known as Hongmi 3S, Red Rice 3S.

CPU: Octa-Core ( four x 1.2 GHz Cortex A53 + 4 x 1.5 GHz Cortex A53)

Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 430

Camera: 13 Megapixels Rear Camera With LED 5 Megapixel Front Camera

RAM: 2GB/3GB up to 128 GB (MicroSD Uses Sim 2 Slot)

Display: Screen length five.Zero inches

Dimension & Weight: 139.3 mm x sixty-nine.6 mm x 8.5 mm, a hundred and forty four.1g

Battery: Non-Removable Lithium-Polymer Battery with Quick Charge 2.0

Dual SIM with Hybrid SIM Compatibility

Find Your Router IP Address Easily

Routers act as the mediator among your PC and broadband connection. It selects the first-rate direction to supply your statistics packet to the host, boosting pace notably. They are located at a gateway, the converging point for 2 or extra networks. Broadband and wi-fi routers are the 2 maximum normally used types of routers.

The IP deal with interprets to the Internet Protocol address. Every router has one. It is a string of numbers that acts as an identifying label for the tool participating inside the laptop network. Here’s a list of the default IP addresses consistent with the brand.

· Linksys – 192.168.1.1

· Netgear and D-Link – 192.168.0.1

· Belkin and SMC – 192.168.2.1

It is necessary to know the router’s IP deal with if you need to access the internet primarily based configuration page. While there are websites list the default router IP cope with, yours may have modified because of the following motives. There could have been an infrastructure change at the ISP give up. You would possibly have updated the firmware, ensuring in an alternate within the interface. There could have been an interception, where someone may want to have received get admission to your device and changed the settings for your network. Unknown to you, there is a possibility it was changed all through router setup.

A router works with two IP addresses. The outside one is the numerical label that it uses to communicate across the Internet. On the alternative hand, the private one is the device identity on a neighborhood areas community.

Steps to Find Your Router IP Address

The router should be linked to an internet connection to get the IP address. You can use an Ethernet cable or achieve this wirelessly. This is a primary requirement.

What Are The Advantages Of A Hand-Held Vacuum Cleaner?

We all realize how the vacuum cleaner has made cleaning a whole lot less complicated. But then, we should admit that when it comes to ordinary spills, we do not, in reality, use the cumbersome machine. We tend to depend as a substitute for traditional cleaning up equipment consisting of lukewarm water, cleaning soap and the right old rag. Didn’t it just defeat the purpose of having a vacuum system for convenience?

This is why maximum households, other than shopping for a full sized vacuum cleaner, also invest in a small hand-held one. Some can also view this as a waste of money but many others will examine it as a necessity. Small hand held vacuums, particularly the cordless ones, are so convenient to apply that you may at once smooth up spills earlier than they do more harm for your furniture.

Still now not satisfied?

Well aside from what I even have mentioned inside the paragraph above, a handheld vacuum purifier additionally comes with more blessings and really, you’ll no longer remorse buying one. Here are some of the quality advantages you may have whilst you purchase your very own hand-held vacuum device.

Portability

Just like what I said above, many people select to buy a hand-held vacuum purifier because those are very transportable. They are clean to apply especially for emergency spillage and can be used to clean even the narrower regions of the residence. It might be better in case you invest in a transportable hand-held vacuum system that has a wet-dry function so that you can easily smooth each dry dirt and liquid spills.

These also are very easy to hold because they’re lightweight. Because of this, you can carry them around even upstairs and downstairs without breaking a sweat (until of path the weather is warm). A cordless handheld vacuum purifier is higher because you do not should plug it in; you could paintings with it as long as it’s miles charged. You can even use them within the vehicle.

Because most handheld vacuums do not ought to be plugged into sockets, you can without problems navigate them. You can go ahead and sweep off each dirt particle you spot without annoying of pulling the plug off its socket. Also, you may easily smooth very small areas, even the insides of your drawers and closets.

Powerful features

Some humans suppose buying a hand-held vacuum cleaner isn’t always well worth it due to the fact they’re simply that, vacuum appliances. However, what those humans may not know is that the marketplace for hand-held vacuum cleaners is continuously enhancing and increasingly more functions are added to them. The first one is the wet-dry feature that’s present in nearly all handheld fashions.

Because of this wet-dry function, handheld vacuum appliances are designed with a higher suction energy. They want that form of suction power because liquid spillage is harder to pick up and calls for extra strength and power. They also have a stepped forward filtration system, filtering dirt particles because the vacuum purifier sucks them off the floor or any surface.

Another feature that is blanketed in lots of models of hand-held vacuums is its capacity to pick up danger or puppy hair with their motorized brushes. If they have got enough suction electricity to pick out up liquid, then it is even easier for them to suck pet hair. Handheld vacuum cleaners are also ideal for furniture and almost all kinds of surfaces which include carpeted floors.

Convenient use

It can be difficult to admit however after a while, cleaning the house along with your cumbersome (but sure, efficient) vacuum will become too tedious of a venture. There are vacuum cleaner models which can be designed to be of less complicated use to the proprietor due to the fact it’s miles made lighter but nonetheless, these are no in shape to the benefit presented by the small hand-held vacuums.

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booksummarieswithkatz · 8 years ago

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Everything you should know for R.J. Blain’s Witch and Wolf universe

I’m making this so that I don’t have to piece together important terms for each of these damn books, I plan to do this with series that I cover in the future as well.

A clarification of Witch and Wolf: First off, some confusing nomenclature. The Witch and Wolf series consists currently of three books, with a fourth already announced; they are Inquisitor, Winter Wolf, and Blood Diamond. The as of yet unreleased fourth installment is slated as Silver Bullet. Now, the Witch and Wolf universe contains the Witch and Wolf series of books, but also two more (supposedly) series, several stand alone books, and a set of short stories; they are Pack Justice (Nature of the Beast series), Karma (Balancing the Scales series), Shadowed Flame (Standalone), Beneath the Blood Moon (Standalone), and the Tales of the Winter Wolf (Short stories, currently 6 volumes).

The Inquisition: A shadowy organization managed by normal humans but presides over “allowable” supernatural behavior; these allowed behaviors can be broken down into how they treat each type of supernatural population.

Inquisition on Fenerec: All Fenerec are required to have an alpha and be part of a pack, this alpha must be approved of by the Inquisition. Fenerec that do not wish to be in a pack must seek approval by the Inquisition and agree to either be a part of the Inquisition staff or be aggressively monitored. Any Fenerec that does not abide by these rules will be terminated. Any Fenerec that injures a Normal outside of very specific circumstances will be terminated.

Inquisition on Witches: All witches are required to be registered with the Inquisition; witches that do not register are subject to imprisonment or termination dependent on the breadth of their abilities. Witches are “encouraged” to work for the Inquisition, witches bonded to a Fenerec may not be subject to this encouragement.

Inquisition on Shamans: See above sections on Fenerec and Witches.

Inquisition on Wizards: Wizards cause extreme damage to human infrastructure by their mere presence, they also possess the capacity to “acquire” the abilities of other supernaturals, making them extremely dangerous. They are to be terminated with great prejudice.

Inquisition on Sorcerers: A Sorcerer’s power comes only from harming others, they have no usefulness in any capacity beyond same. Terminate with great prejudice.

Inquisition on Necromancers: Necromancers have no usefulness to the protection of humanity and their powers are very similar to a sorcerer’s, save that they must always kill their victims to gain power. Terminate with great prejudice.

Inquisition on Humans: Humans are to be protected from all forms of the supernatural. Humans who are aware of the supernatural must agree to (a.) be a part of the Inquisition, (b.) sign a non-disclosure and be subject to extreme scrutiny, or (c.) be imprisoned or terminated. Any supernatural found to be “innately harming to humans” is to be terminated, any supernatural that harms a human in any capacity beyond self-defense at risk of death is to be terminated.

Witches: Witches are a type of human with magic abilities aligned to a specific element. They have the highest population of supernatural beings by far, with most having so little power they are indistinguishable from humans or never learn of their true nature. Nevertheless witches in general possess a few important abilities.

Bonding with a Fenerec: Witches are able to form a bond with one or more Fenerec, this bond is possible due to their innate connection with nature. The bond enables the witch to compel a Fenerec to express one of their natures (that of a human or that of a wolf) more strongly and stably. A great deal of why powerful witches are tolerated by the Inquisition is because they are so useful in keeping Fenerec under control. Fire witches are considered the best at this technique.

Sensing: While not all witches possess the talent, every element type of witch has their own form of sensing, this sixth sense can range in power from a subtle feeling to being as persistent and detailed as sight or hearing.

Shaping and Manipulation: A common talent among witches, there are very few who do not possess at least some form of manipulation for their elements. The strength of the ability ranges greatly, from causing a pebble to wiggle in exchange for a headache to causing an earthquake at the slightest provocation.

Witches by element:

Fire: Fire witches tend to have short tempers and strong personalities, they excel in the sensing aspect of witchcraft, and many possess the ability to perceive auras; they make excellent judges of character. Generally, only very powerful fire witches can manipulate flame and heat. Also, many fire witches will not survive the awakening of their powers, which often involve suddenly lighting themselves and everything around them on fire.

Earth: Earth witches tend to be level headed but blunt, they usually have shaping abilities over other types. Earth witches with sensing tend to be able to either have something similar to sonar, but may also be able to find precious metals and gemstones. A less known and approved of aspect is the earth’s connection to death, and some witches possess the ability to interact with the dead in a similar way to a necromancer.

Water: Water witches have water powers, they can also do healing stuff I think? They don’t come up much in the books but they are worth noting.

Air: Air witches have powers of some sort, they come up even less, in that I don’t remember a single time where an air witch actually shows up outside mentioning their existence.

Wizards: Wizards are a type of magical human that is often associated as a myth, because they are rare to the point that many consider them extinct. Their powers revolve around the manipulation of electricity, heat, and cold. They are killed on sight by most in the know because wizards who don’t have absolute control of their abilities will cause power outages, explosions, and other large disruptions of human infrastructure and safety. Wizards also have the unique attribute of not being limited only to their base skill set, that is to say: if another supernatural being can do it, a wizard can too, if others can’t, a wizard can still do it but a price needs to be paid.

Falsified Identities: Something that apparently every important character can get and is somehow still surprising when other characters find out about them.

Sorcerers: A type of magical human that powers their abilities through the suffering of others; while not all serial killers are sorcerers, all sorcerers will become serial killers. Sorcerers are under the category of “kill on sight” for good reason, their powers feed off of suffering and it is extremely pleasurable for them to suck the life out of those around them.

Necromancers: A type of magical human very similar to a Sorcerer, they do not necessarily need to torture their victims for power, as they gain power purely through death. They are associated with reading of entrails, summoning and controlling spirits, and raising undead horrors from beyond the veil. They are killed on sight.

Shamans: A type of magical human that, on the surface, is similar to a Fenerec. Shamans possess an animal spirit that follows and aids them, however, they are not beholden to the spirits demands as a Fenerec, nor are they forced to change shape during the full moon. Some shamans have heightened senses from the spirit animal but many do not. They are virtually indistinguishable from a normal human if one does not witness their transformation, and when in their animal form they are identical to a normal member of their spirit’s kind. The length of a shaman’s transformation is variable per the individual.

Vampires: Totally a myth… for now.

Fenerec: Basically werewolves, Fenerec possess two aspects: human and wolf, that share control of body. For the sake of explaining I will separate this into several sections: normal abilities, weaknesses, types, packs, and pack statuses.

Abilities of a Fenerec: Fenerec have the following abilities, these usually strengthen with age.

Increased strength and speed: She may look like a 5’5 Southern Belle, but she can dead-lift a car if she wants to.

Regeneration and healing: If it doesn’t kill them instantly, it only serves to make them mad. They heal even faster if they shift into their wolf form.

Pseudo-Immortality: Alongside their regeneration, they will not get physically old.

Turning into a wolf: Every full moon a Fenerec is compelled to change into their wolf form. This can be avoided if they have significant willpower or are prevented from doing so by a powerful alpha. While in wolf form they’re heightened abilities increase even further, though often at the expense of losing themselves to their wolf instincts.

Weaknesses of a Fenerec: Fenerec have the following weakness and needs, these may alleviate with age.

Silver: Fenerec are horribly allergic to silver in all forms, the older the silver is, the more it hurts them. Making skin contact will result in a cross between a third-degree burn and tarnishing. The longer a Fenerec is exposed, the weaker they become, being exposed for too long will kill them. Fenerec can resist the effects of silver if they are much older than the silver, but it is not perfect and they are never immune, even if it doesn’t injure them it is still excruciatingly painful.

Wolfsbane: A drug that quiets the wolf spirit’s influence, rendering exposed Fenerec effectively human but without any free will, overdose is fatal.

Mates: Wolves are social creatures, and require a mate. Mates need not be Fenerec, but often are because Fenerec mate for life, and usually kill themselves upon their mate’s demise. Fenerec-Fenerec pairings are rare due to the ratio of Fenerec females to Fenerec males being heavily male-biased(est. between 1:6 and 1:9). Fenerec experience a mating season during the winter that drives them to produce offspring, usually by finding a mate. Fenerec that refuse to find a mate have a much harder time controlling their wolf instincts. Mating also does not require sex, it can be formed by an implicit commitment and intimacy with a partner – but it’s usually centered on sex.

Food: Fenerec eat a lot. And I don’t mean a bit more than usual, I mean something on the order of going from needing 2500 calories a day to 10,000 calories a day. Wolves who do not eat regularly and in large quantities of meat and hardy meals will find it more challenging to manage their wolf instincts.

Pack: Fenerec need a pack. Those that don’t are lying or insane. Fenerec who are not part of an explicit pack with other Fenerec often create an implicit one with a close circle of friends and family. Fenerec need the security of the pack hierarchy and mutual affection and care to effectively manage their wolf side, Fenerec that are separated from their packs or otherwise isolated will very quickly devolve into a husk of their former selves; wild and acting purely on instinct.

Human/Wolf duality: Fenerec are beings with two sides that must be constantly balanced and maintained. Feneric often associate strongly with their human side, seeing their wolf as an added passenger, but this is not the case; the wolf aspect is just as intelligent and innate to the individual as the human aspect, and failure to respect that is a recipe for disaster. Individuals are always handling the world using two distinct viewpoints, and often need to train themselves to manage these competing ideologies. Those that fail to balance their two sides will lose themselves to the pull of the wolf, they run wild, and are both volatile and violent in equal parts. It is often impossible for older Fenerec to live as normal people, they carry the air of an animal with them at all times and even a completely normal human can sense that they aren’t quite right; not only that, but the pull of the wolf grows stronger with time, each full moon can spell disaster for an old wolf not prepared to put out an iron will. Fenerec also need to manage the urge to hunt since in the modern day it is considered bad form to kill a man because he was running and that made you hungry; Fenerec often deal with this problem by becoming filthy rich. They see the competition and cutthroat nature of business as a very satisfying form of the hunt.

Types of Fenerec: There are three ways to become a Fenerec, and each has its own connotations.

Fenerec by choice: A human who has become a Fenerec via a special ritual, they are exceedingly the most common, and usually do not possess any special abilities. The ritual is supposed to only be by choice and is thought to be impossible without consent, however, it is still possible for someone to be forced into becoming one. A forced ritual is almost always fatal.

True born Fenerec (human): The rarest of the three, only one such Fenerec is known to exist. They are a human child born to wolves, few survive; they struggle to handle their wolf aspects.

True born Fenerec (wolf): A wolf cub born to human parents, or a child that is born a Fenerec to Fenerec parents. They tend to be stronger and more dominant than others, they also have trouble maintaining an illusion of humanity when out of wolf shape.

Fenerec in Packs: As mentioned previously, Fenerec have a strong urge to be part of a pack, and it is actively detrimental to avoid this instinct. Fenerec are extremely close to their pack mates, often to the point of have virtually no boundaries between each other. It is very common to see both male and female Fenerec engage in intimate physical contact as a form of mutual assurance. Fenerec are also protective of anyone they consider as “their’s” and are very possessive- this include women, children, the elderly, and anyone even remotely construable as dependent on them in any way shape or form. Coming between a Fenerec and those they consider pack is practically suicide.

Statuses within a Pack: There four different categories into which Fenerec are sorted.

Dominants: Dominant Fenerec carry mainly the urges to protect dependents and control everything around them. They give way only to a Fenerec dominant enough to force them to, anything dominants consider a challenge to their authority is often met with violence, even something as benign as making extended eye-contact.

Submissives: The complete opposite of a dominant Fenerec, a submissive will let most walk all over them to avoid conflict, other Fenerec immediately recognize them as dependents, and the need to safeguard them can seriously bolster a pack’s cohesion and self-control.

Alphas: The alpha is the head of the pack, all wolves below them feel safe beneath them, if that stops being the case then the alpha will shift heaven and earth to set it right. Alphas tend to be old, powerful wolves who can help others to stay human without losing themselves in the process.

Omegas: The rarest of all wolves, the omega has all the protectiveness of an alpha, yet does not carry the need to always assert control, their wolf aspect is extremely stable and calm the wolves of the Fenerec around them. They are heavily treasured by their packs, and can serve to stabilize the pack structure even without the presence of an alpha.

Canada: A magical place that somehow keeps the Inquisition off their turf by being polite yet terribly inconvenient to deal with.

#witch and wolf #rjblain

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