#despite being so ia on social media

[ego-meliorem-esse]

I present to you my years long obsession - female America.

This is not a Nyotalia version it's just a concept of "what if everything is the same but Alfred was born a girl". Like i see so much potential! In a world where all the odds are stacked against her, she despite it all gets to where she is today. Making good and bad decisions along the way.

A lil hc/backstory for my main girl:

• Given name (by dad Arthur) is Elizabeth Felicity Kirkland but during the revolution changes her last name to Jones. Her first name change happens in the 1820/1830s when she changes it to Alexandra, also dropping her second name. (I was young when I came across the name and it means "defender/protector of man" and I was /obessed/ so i just stick to it since she is a loser and just thinks it's a cool sounding name)

• She goes by Alex/Al and I think that's neat :)

• My girl is tall. Like 181 cm tall. Sender but with visible muscles. She does want a bigger behind but her Anglo-Saxon genetics say nah.

• As a child she spent more time in England due to her being a girl so I think even if Arthur was absent he didn't allow her to spend much time alone in the colonies. She resents that ofc

• Just like with Alfred, Alex is very fkn close to Matt even if she forgets to call him or check up on him for months at a time. Al: "Hey man I know I just called a while ago but how've you been? Matt: "you called me 5 months ago..."

• Works at NASA as a part time aeronaitical engeneer. Loves physics, hates chemistry (self projection im sorry)

• During the revolution she dressed up as a boy but the people she worked with knew she wasn't one. People went along with it anyway.

• Other than during the American revolution, she dressed in feminine presenting clothes up until the 1930s. After that it was trousers all the way!

• Alex was never a nurse during wartime but definitely did accountaint work in ww1 and later joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) where she stayed until 1943 when she joined her men fighting on the ground ( Conversion to Army status, Women's Army Corps - WAC). That's when she saw actual combat.

• Isn't fond of birds. Canaries are fine. Eagles are unsettling.

• Obsesses over a certan thing/hobby at a time up to a point where she perfects her skill. When she was about 14 (human years) it was the whole freedom and equality of man and all the politics regarding it. In the 1890s her obession was cars and motor vehicles. The 1910s brought a new obsession on womens rights. 1960s was space exploration where she devoted almost all her time researching and working for NASA, disregarding her goverment/state duties as a country. In the 1980s it was the internet. In 1990s she got really interested in the Balkan wars (self insert >:)) for whatever reason. Today her attention is mostly on social media and her attention span ia short af. Still really likes all things tech.

• Hasn't got many properties/real estate. Al does own a penthouse in Seaport, Boston and a late 17th and early 18th century colonial home in Newbury, Boston (that she needs to renovate asap). The only other real state she owns is in California, though modern and recently buit, it's not big nor does she spend much time there.

• Her personality is basicaly Alfred if he grew up as a woman and had to face opression based on sex and inequality that came with it. So still bubbly, extroverted, a social butterfly but also self-serving, idealistic, manipulative sprinkled in with sarcasm, cautiousness and craftiness. Same feckin sense of humour tho.

• In 1783, at the Treaty of Paris in Versailles both her and her father had to sign the document that started her independence (She herself had a human representitive 'cus of her age/sex bla bla but it was mostly formalities). At that signing Arthur gave her a flintlock pistol that he himself used in the 1640s. Not many words were exchanged, he just put it in her hand to keep. She still has it in her attic. Somewhere. She'd find it if she just takes the time to look for it I'm sure.

• In 1889 she straight up did her first war crime/murder of a fellow nation (if you don't count shooting her pops face off at Saratoga in 1777). After an altrication with Antonio that resulted in him insulting and slapping the girl for her audacity and mouthiness, she punched him straight in the jaw. A fight insued where she got ahold of his belt and straight up strangled him. Took her a while to process that and accept it. On the bright side Antonios scilence was heard around the world and while perplexed and insulted, older and influential (mostly male at that point) nations started to feel a glint of respect forming for the young startup.

• Al was given a family pocket watch by her father in the 90s (No more empire for Arthur so he sad :(((((( ) that was suppoaed to go to a firstborn son of a lord as an inheritance symbol. Everyone thought Jack would get it since Matt is techincally not Arthur's son. But even he would be expected to recieve it before Al. Then in an unexpected turn of events, while visiting her grumpy and nostalgeous empire-missing dad, Arthur pulled out the watch while eating stale kebabs in front of the telly and gave it to her casualy without as much as a word (The empire started with her, it shall end with her). She keeps it in her work desk drawer in a wooden box.

• Al and Zee have an interesting relationship. While being different in almost every aspect, there ia a mutual respect for eachother from eachother. While not really being able to see eye to eye, they are sisters in a certain roundabout and very fucked up way. Girls who learned that they are very much judged by their sex despite being daughters of a high ranking British lord. While aware that she will never be Alex/Elizabeth in her fathers eyes, Zee still gets treated as a treasure by her father. Much to Zee's annoyance.

• It's still Matt who's in Alex's shadow. Despite the dificulties she rises above and is the perfect child of an empire. Smart, intelligent, inquisitive, a fast learner and incredibly aware of the political and historical situation at all times. Even despite being a girl and less than a son in the eyes of a 17th/18th century society, she suceeds.

• Arthur wanted a son to come from his colonial endeavours, as all empires/nobility at the time did. And as all other empires at the time had. But ofc karma is a bitch and he's the only empire with an only child being a daughter. Though at first thougrly dissaponted, when he lays his eyes on his daughter for the first time, the only emotion he can feel is /joy/.

• Instead of sowing/knitting Al's education was very much focused on natural sciences, since that is where Arthur quickly realized she exels at. He swapped her Violin and General History of Music lessions with Astrophysics and The History of Astronomy. All in an attempt to stop her from making his ears bleed from the constant prattling about The Four Square Theorem or The Brachistocrone Curve. It only got worse, but his daughter was happy and content.

I have sooooo many more of these jfc i might do more later but for now this is all I can think of.

TLDR: Female America is great and has so much potential as a character hghhhhhhhh

[myork]

girl r u ok

i WILL MEVER NE THE SMAME AGAIN

[loverofpiggies]

Life Update! And Conventions coming back!

Hey guys! So as I sorta said in my last post in the tags, I’ve been taking a lot of time for myself and my mental health, and staying away from social media-esque things. It’s good I have- despite how hard the pandemic has been overall, the last two months have been impossibly hard for me. I won’t go into detail, but it’s like I was getting hit from every direction, and barely avoiding drowning. I’ve been desperately trying to hold it together- just a little longer, just a little more! Even with how horrible it’s been lately.

So, yes, I’m doing loads better. And being away from social media and tumblr and stuff, has definitely taken off a lot of the pressure for me. I want to work on comics when I’m excited about them, and it’s nice to not feel like I have to live up to some crazy standard- that yeah, I partly built for myself.

Not having a private discord or anything like that has been so nice as well. I’m just using it to throw memes at friends and chat.

In some genuinely good news though, I’ve been fully vaccinated for a few weeks now, and now that the pandemic is slowing down in the US, conventions are coming back. I have no clue what the events will look or feel like when they do, but they’re back. All of my conventions which normally spread through the year, are now scrunched up together in summer and fall-- so it’s going to be absolute madness.

Here are my 2021 shows!

June 25-27, Albuquerque Comic Con (New Mexico) July 2-4, Anime Midwest (Chicago, IL) July 9-11, Indypop Con (Indianapolis, IN) July 23-25, Metro Con (Tampa, FL) July 30- Aug 1, Anime Iowa (Coralville, IA) Aug 20-22, Planet Comic Con Kansas City (Missouri) Aug 27-29, Colorado Springs Comic Con (Colorado) Sep 3-6, Saboten (Phoenix, AZ) Sep 10-12, El Paso Comic Con (El Paso, TX) Sep 16-18, Salt Lake Comic Con (Salt Lake City, UT) Oct 30-31, Arctic Comic Con (Anchorage, AK) Nov 5-7, Rhode Island Comic Con (Providence, RI)

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

This schedule is easily going to be my most insane I’ve ever had. Some of those shows, are five shows in a ROW. Absolute insanity. I promised myself I’d never allow that to happen, but now I got no choice. I’ve been keeping my stock of items pretty low through the whole pandemic, sales on etsy has luckily been able to pay my bills but just barely, so my stock reflects that. So I just had to do some HUGE orders on acrylic keychains and stuff, so I’m actually properly stocked for all these events. That means I’ve had to put myself into some serious debt before these conventions, so I could actually have enough stuff to sell and not be sold out immediately. Because of that, finances are real tight until Albuquerque Comic Con, so I’ve been considering opening up commissions to cushion myself between now and then. Also, if you’re interested in checking out my etsy shop, it’s over here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CrayonQueenCreations the sales really do save my butt lately, but never feel like you have to.

(There are technically custom keychain commissions on my etsy too, which people have really seemed to like!)

Anyway, yes I’m just trying to stay afloat and holding off for conventions returning. I’m doing some delivery in my area to help with the bills as well, but it’s not as much cushion as I’d like. So, yeah! Would anyone be interested in me opening up like 5 slots of commissions?

[nxmuzluv]

random kaori headcanons !

(came up with these at 10 pm lol have fun !!)

HUGE myspace & tumblr girl

her page & blog is always so well put together,,, her layouts & gifs are always so immaculate

she might even try to make her own blingees at one point lol

(and you’d see her at 3 am stressing over her first one 💀)

she has SO many myspace friends and tumblr followers

internet icon wbk

her content is so cool too !!

she’d post shibuya 109 hauls-

(that store is a GOLD MINE for her,,,, miss kashi is a gyaru lol what did u expect ????)

-journal entries, dance covers to anything from eurobeat, to vocaloid, to kpop, to akb48,,,,

ugh,,, to be one of kaori’s myspace friends in 2008-2011 🧎🏽‍♀️

(tbh, her tumblr acc is usually just for reblogs lol)

(like,, she has amazing taste in accs)

(however, she just might send out a rlly random text post at like,,, 2 in the morning 4 whatever reason lmao)

(also, her blog is just TEEMING with late night/early morning manga reviews)

(she typically finishes reading one at literally 1 in the morning-)

(kaori manga addict)

kaori is ALWAYS on her phone

she’s typically not that social despite her flashy subculture, but constant social media usage is a huge part of it so,,,,,

she LOVES playing dress up games & wishes project diva had an app

(avid girlsgogames user lol)

(she also plays animal jam idc)

kaori spends SO much of her time scrolling thru fashion blogs, texting her friends from her gyarusa-

(& in slang that no one but her gf can understand 💀)

(extra hc: kaori & junko speak in gyarugo to each other SO OFTEN, & use it to plan things without their classmates knowing lmao)

-responding to countless myspace messages, updating her page with a casual selfie, or watching youtube !

(KAORI’S AN IJUSTINE AND IHASCUPQUAKE STAN IDC)

(avid fan of the minecraft oasis series 😫‼️)

(kaori has a yt channel, but it’s rlly rare for her to actually post sumn lol

but oh, when she does,,,,

we will get to that shortly 😃

(preferably in another post lol)

(,,,,,maybe 🧍🏽‍♀️)

kaori also spends a lot of her time texting her mom or talking with her dad :((

her & her mom’s texts are so cute-

like,,, EVEN HER MOM STARTED USING GYARUGO WITH KAORI

HOW MF CUTE ????/&)$:;¥?!€!!

kaori & her dad’s convos are rlly cute too, but u can always tell how much she misses him being around :(((

every time they end a call, she always teaches her dad a new gyaru word !

n e ways, the takahashis >>>>>

(except her dad’s side !!)

this girl is OBSESSED with para para

eurobeat is one of her fav genres so,,,

if she hears a song in public, she would start discreetly para para-ing

literally MJNMKHKM

she looks so tiny doing it & junko thinks it’s the cutest mf thing

(y’all, when i tell u i love them SM)

kaori rlly, RLLY loves those purikura photo booths

she has whole photo shoots in them,, acts like she’s gonna be gracing vogue’s next issue SJKMKMJGK

also, kaori & junko may or may not have kissed in the photo booths a few times,,,, 🏃🏽‍♀️🏃🏽‍♀️🏃🏽‍♀️

cuties !! :DDD

in purikura booths, u can draw on the photos after they’ve been taken !!

& kaori’s drawings are always so cute !

she’s not an artist for nun lol

when it comes to photos of her & junko, she always draws lil doodles of them in the corner

they write such cute captions too :((

ALSO ALSO ALSO,,,,,,,

kaori & her gloves/arm warmers >>>>

every time she goes to shibuya, she looks high & low 4 sum new gloves or arm warmers

how 2 be kaori 101:

gloves (or arm warmers lol)

(SJSMSJSMSMSKKS)

extra hcs pt 2 !

her fav vocaloids are ia, luka, & rin

she is in love with “luka luka night fever” & has known that entire dance by heart for at least 10 years

(literally as she mf should ‼️)

kaori’s always experimenting with her hair lmao

she’s literally known for changing the colored streaks in her hair on practically a weekly basis DJMHJHK

although it’s not her signature style, kaori LOVES the sujimori hairstyle

she styles her hair like tht pretty often,,, stg her hair is immune to heat damage at this mf point 😀

she loves how bouncy it is

she constantly gets distracted by shakin her head around just to see her big ass hair move lol

avid paris hilton stan tbh

avid avril lavigne stan, too

i mean,,, just look at her SJHKHMGJ

bet, kaori was/is a jenna marbles stan, too

watched almost every video of hers quite literally RELIGIOUSLY

was crushed when she left yt

lowkey cried for a hot min,,, like who tf wouldn’t 🚶🏽‍♀️

gave her mom a gyaru makeover & posted it on myspace one time 💀

(she made her mom into a gyaru mama !! :O)

lowkey, it took her a while to convince her mom, but obviously she broke her AJMGHGJMK

kashi’s parents just be lettin her do ANYTHANG sometimes lmao

loving parents despite being divorced >>>>>>

has successfully convinced mukuro to go shopping with her & junko a couple of times

(she can see the way ur smiling, miss ikusaba 👁👁)

kaori is lowkey SO spoiled

not only is she spoiled by her dad, but ofc, she’s spoiled to death by junko

what ??? is she not supposed to use her phat paycheck to shower her gf in whatever she could possibly want ????

sounds mf absurd, if u ask me ! 🤨✋🏽

kashi the love magnet 🥰

(also, kaori & junko kiss a lot lol)

(junko giving her a kiss after she wins a derby >>>> literally everything else)

n e ways i’m done here !

this was so so fun to write & i hoped u liked reading, babes !! <33

stan takashima, our fav wlw gyarus 😌

& stan kaori she deserves it !!!!

ok bye 🏃🏽‍♀️

[sweethurtss]

here are some gals and nbs that I really liked and am thinking about adding after I clean up my muse list some

tsukiko. satoshi’s ex and bestie. the busy daredevil, tsukiko had never lived a conventional lifestyle to say the least. when she came bursting into the tea shop, she was a breath of fresh air and chizuru was immediately enamored with the woman who would become a sister figure to her. despite being Satoshi’s ex-girlfriend, Tsukiko is so friendly and easy-going that the group dynamic never feels awkward. in fact, it’s usually Tsukiko who is coming to the rescue to save the social atmosphere whenever any of the three awkward boys misspeak. 

seraphina. a siren who abandoned her chorus in order to find and raise her nephew in the ways of the siren. she doesn’t really get human life, but she’s willing to try for her nephew - even if that means she can’t lure unsuspecting men to their watery graves.

teagan. a child actress who lost lost her boyfriend in what everyone calls a tragic accident, but she knows the truth and now she’s going to claw her way up the food chain to get justice for her dearly departed beau.

zora. i’ve talked about her a lot recently :3 she’s ilya’s sister and a free spirit who takes no shit from anyone. despite her ever stoic appearance, she’s treats most people gently, just don’t get on her bad side or try to poke around in her past too much.

barb. a mechanic who hates drama, they suddenly find themselves on a quest to find their deadbeat literal-demon father after his disappearance has many supernatural beings after them, believing barb killed their father in order to usurp his throne.

Karina. the possessed historian, while she didn’t realize she was possessed at first, it’s becoming harder and harder for the woman to identify where she ends and where the demon begins. A part of her fears that what humanity is left will completely dissolve until all that’s left is her demon.

cara-lee. the dragon shifter, yet  she is nowhere near as terrifying and intimidating dragon shifter that the rest of her family is. despite her lack of aggression, she is every bit the hoarder that dragons are renowned for. if it sparkles or makes noise, she is probably dying to get her claws on it. “this sparks joy in me,” she says as she collects jars of glitter and plastic kids watches and the toys that come with candy. – seriously, she loves social media and netflix so much. technology amazes her!

born with poor sight, ia can only see people as colorful blurs that blend in with the blurry background scenery around them. she has an easier time identifying everyone from their voices, but because of this, she had a hard time telling mortal from deities as a child - so she grew into the habit of conversing with spirits and deities just like she would any person who visited the shrine she had been raised in.

as an orphan, the priests there had absolutely no hesitation offering the girl to the gods to become a vessel through which they can tell their fortunes or however else they saw fit. this is also how ia is able to sometimes bless mortals when they come to the shrine - as long as the deities she is borrowing that power from approve of her blessing.

[tenemos-que-hablar]

Bárbara López interview with CARAS México

December 2019

“I want to be an example of a focused woman. I want to do my job well and concentrate on that, not on fame. What I want is to show my naturalness and simplicity to prove that I’m a good actress.” 

Well they say where there’s a will there’s a way, and there’s no better example of this phrase than Bárbara López. If there’s one thing that’s clear to the actress, it’s that everything comes in its own time, and she showed us what it’s like to wait for her moment to shine. 

This year, the Mexican beauty was part of one of the greatest phenomenons seen on national television in Amar A Muerte (2019), “to become Juliana was a personal challenge, but I was surprised at the extent of it. I’m so lucky with how things fell into place.”

Despite not being used to seeing a lesbian couple on open television, Bárbara López and Macarena Achaga managed to handle this subject in the right way. 

“What caught my attention was the sexual orientation of the character; I felt a bit scared because it was something that I had never done and I wasn’t familiar with it. Of course, it involves a challenge, but that’s exactly what this profession is about, looking to do things that are different and difficult,” says the daughter of producer Reynaldo López.

The couple was so well received that the term #juliantina (a combination of the names of the characters) was a trending topic on Twitter for several weeks and hundreds of accounts created by fans of the protagonists emerged on Instagram. 

“I think the most important thing is to not get too involved, you have to utilize social media and not let it use you. I love being able to communicate with people who follow my career through (social media), but I also think it can be very harmful and we are still trying to understand a hundred percent how it works,” she tells us.

The road was not easy for her, she’s lived several rejections from which she’s learned more about herself: “I had to accept that my style as an actress is different, I’ve always felt like a black sheep in that sense. The moment I realized this, I became project-oriented and accepted my acting form, I grew a lot and it was my greatest change,” she confesses.

Her name gets stronger each day in the industry, and next year we will see it in action in different places, such as Desenfrenadas, the new Mexican series on Netflix, where she shares credits with Tessa Ia. 

On the other end, being a woman of challenges, she doesn’t let the seventh art (cinema) scare her and already has two projects on the big screen: the first starring in El Mesero, together with Vadhir Derbez and Emiliano Zurita, and the second in the long-awaited feature film of Juliantina the couple.

“Success is something personal, not what other people tell you it is”, López says, and, even though she’s reached the top this year, she keeps her feet on the ground and her gaze on the sky. 

“I want to be an example of a focused woman. I want to do my job well and concentrate on that, not on fame. What I want is to show my naturalness and simplicity to prove that I’m a good actress. Right now, I’d like to do more shows and in the future, I want to try to build a career in the US. Always improve and move forward with each step,” she says with sincerity to CARAS.

--

“Risky Squad” Foreward:

Natalia, Paulina, Ela and Bárbara are clear examples that in the world of artistry, gender is not what matters, it's histrionic ability. The talent of these four young women speaks more than their beauty (yes, we know it's difficult). They are the lead players of the greatest acting challenges of the moment. Whether in the cinema or on the small screen, they are willing to take risks and leave their comfort zone to achieve their goals. Despite their youth, these women came to change the rules of the game, break paradigms and create characters as bold as themselves.

--

Interview by: Mari Tere Lelo de Larrea

Photos: Carlos Ruizc

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Down the stretch they come! No, it’s not the Kentucky Derby — today, Kentuckians will vote for governor in their party primaries. Incumbent Gov. Matt Bevin will likely win renomination in the Republican contest despite being incredibly unpopular. But Democrats have a competitive three-way race between state House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins, state Attorney General Andy Beshear and former state auditor Adam Edelen. Beshear appears to be in the lead, but it’s unclear how big that lead really is and whether a Democrat can even still win a general election in a state that is now so deeply red.

Until Kentucky’s 2015 gubernatorial race, Democrats held most major statewide offices, and the GOP had won the governorship only once in the past 44 years. But Bevin won handily in 2015, and in 2016 Republicans captured the state house for the first time since the 1920s, giving them full control of state government.1 Thus, state politics now more closely align with Kentucky’s preferences in national races — the GOP presidential nominee has won Kentucky by at least 15 percentage points going back to 2000, and in 2016, President Trump won the state by 30 points.

All the same, Bevin (assuming he wins tonight) may still face a tough re-election fight next November. And that’s because he’s currently the most unpopular governor in the country, based on Morning Consult’s approval data for the first quarter of 2019.2 As you can see in the chart below, Bevin’s disapproval rating has been above 50 percent since the second quarter of 2018, which might have to do with his repeated run-ins with teachers, public sector unions and even his own party.

In April 2018, for example, Bevin vetoed legislation that raised taxes to expand public education spending only to have the Republican-controlled legislature override his veto while teachers rallied outside of the state capitol. He’s also made controversial comments, like when he said school closures allowing teachers to rally at the capitol may have caused children to be “sexually assaulted” or “physically harmed” because they couldn’t attend school.

Bevin’s approval numbers are even worse when you consider just how Republican-leaning Kentucky is. He had the worst approval rating of any governor relative to his state’s partisan lean,3 according to my colleague Nathaniel Rakich’s “Popularity Above Replacement Governor” rankings.

The latest ‘Popularity Above Replacement Governor’ scores

Governors’ net approval ratings for the first three months of 2019 relative to the partisan leans* of their states

Governor State Name Party Net Approval state Partisan Lean PARG KY Matt Bevin R -19 R+23 -42 RI Gina Raimondo D -11 D+26 -37 HI David Ige D +11 D+36 -25 WV Jim Justice R +14 R+30 -16 CT Ned Lamont D -4 D+11 -15 SD Kristi Noem R +18 R+31 -13 NY Andrew Cuomo D +9 D+22 -13 OR Kate Brown D -3 D+9 -12 CA Gavin Newsom D +12 D+24 -12 OK Kevin Stitt R +26 R+34 -8 UT Gary Herbert R +25 R+31 -6 NJ Phil Murphy D +8 D+13 -5 WY Mark Gordon R +43 R+47 -4 AK Mike Dunleavy R +12 R+15 -3 IL JB Pritzker D +11 D+13 -2 NE Pete Ricketts R +22 R+24 -2 IA Kim Reynolds R +6 R+6 0 ID Brad Little R +36 R+35 +1 NM Michelle Lujan Grisham D +8 D+7 +1 ND Doug Burgum R +34 R+33 +1 WA Jay Inslee D +15 D+12 +3 VA Ralph Northam D +5 EVEN +5 MO Mike Parson R +26 R+19 +7 IN Eric Holcomb R +27 R+18 +9 AR Asa Hutchinson R +34 R+24 +10 AZ Doug Ducey R +20 R+9 +11 OH Mike DeWine R +18 R+7 +11 DE John Carney D +26 D+14 +12 TN Bill Lee R +40 R+28 +12 MS Phil Bryant R +27 R+15 +12 GA Brian Kemp R +25 R+12 +13 ME Janet Mills D +20 D+5 +15 AL Kay Ivey R +44 R+27 +17 TX Greg Abbott R +34 R+17 +17 SC Henry McMaster R +34 R+17 +17 CO Jared Polis D +18 D+1 +17 MN Tim Walz D +21 D+2 +19 MI Gretchen Whitmer D +20 D+1 +19 NV Steve Sisolak D +19 R+1 +20 WI Tony Evers D +20 R+1 +21 PA Tom Wolf D +21 R+1 +22 NC Roy Cooper D +22 R+5 +27 FL Ron DeSantis R +34 R+5 +29 LA John Bel Edwards D +15 R+17 +32 NH Chris Sununu R +41 R+2 +39 MT Steve Bullock D +26 R+18 +44 KS Laura Kelly D +24 R+23 +47 VT Phil Scott R +32 D+24 +56 MD Larry Hogan R +57 D+23 +80 MA Charlie Baker R +59 D+29 +88

A Democratic governor with a net approval of +2 in an R+7 state has a PARG of +9 (2+7 = 9). If the same state had a Republican governor with the same approval rating, the PARG would be -5 (2-7= -5).

Shaded rows denote governors whose seats are up in 2019 or 2020, excluding those governors who are not seeking reelection.

* Partisan lean is the average difference between how a state votes and how the country votes overall, with 2016 presidential election results weighted at 50 percent, 2012 presidential election results weighted at 25 percent and results from elections for the state legislature weighted at 25 percent. The partisan leans here were calculated before the 2018 elections; we haven’t calculated FiveThirtyEight partisan leans that incorporate the midterm results yet.

Sources: Morning Consult, media reports

A big part of Bevin’s problem is that he’s struggling with his base. Morning Consult found in that poll that just 50 percent of Republicans approved of him while 37 percent disapproved. Compare that to the 86 percent of Kentucky Republicans who approved of Trump, and it’s understandable that Bevin is now trying to tie himself to the president, hoping to boost his numbers.

One bit of positive news for Bevin is that he avoided a high-profile primary challenge when U.S. Rep. James Comer — who Bevin beat by just 83 votes for the GOP nomination in 2015 — decided not to run. However, Bevin didn’t escape a primary challenger altogether. State Rep. Robert Goforth is running against him and even loaned his campaign $750,000 (as of early May, Bevin had raised a little over $1 million). But Goforth doesn’t seem to pose a serious risk to Bevin, at least not according to the scant polling we have: A survey from earlier in May from the GOP pollster Cygnal found Bevin leading Goforth 56 percent to 18 percent. Still, 32 percent of likely GOP primary voters said they had an unfavorable view of Bevin in that poll, so Goforth’s share of the primary vote on Tuesday could be an indicator of how strong or weak Bevin is among the Republican faithful.

But today’s main event is the Democratic race. The front-runner is Andy Beshear, the first-term attorney general and political scion whose father Steve preceded Bevin as governor. The younger Beshear squeaked out a narrow 0.2-point victory in 2015, with Bevin winning by 9 points at the top of the ballot. Since they took office, the two have been at loggerheads over many issues, including education, health care and pensions. These fights are one of Beshear’s main selling points in the Democratic primary, but Adam Edelen is running to Beshear’s left, hoping his support for abortion rights, decriminalizing marijuana and renewable energy will attract Democratic voters. And on Saturday, the state’s largest newspaper, the Courier-Journal, endorsed Edelen.

Edelen, the former state auditor, has also been on the offensive, attacking Beshear for his connection to a former aide who was convicted of bribery (however, there is no evidence Beshear knew about these activities). Edelen’s upstart campaign has also been aided by an influx of cash from his wealthy running mate, Gill Holland, and Better Future PAC, an outside group backing Edelen (primarily funded by Holland’s mother-in-law).

Meanwhile, state House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins is running to the right of Beshear and Edelen on social issues, claiming that his anti-abortion views and support for coal are more likely to appeal to the rural parts of the state where Democrats have been decimated in recent years.

Beshear currently seems to be ahead, but the only data we have are competing internal polls. Additionally, the two most recent surveys are from mid-April, so it’s hard to know if things have changed substantially in the past month. For what it’s worth, Edelen’s campaign found Beshear in first with 43 percent of the vote, Edelen in second with 23 percent and Adkins in third with 22 percent. Meanwhile, Beshear’s internal poll put him at 44 percent compared to 17 percent for Adkins and 16 percent for Edelen. So Beshear appears to be the polling front-runner, but a win by Edelen or Adkins shouldn’t be ruled out; internal polls are notoriously unreliable, the polling we do have is old and three-way races can be incredibly fluid.

Looking ahead to the general election in November, election handicappers view Kentucky as a toss-up or leaning in the GOP’s direction. Still, it’s possible a Democrat could take back the governor’s mansion. It’s early, but the pollster Mason-Dixon found Beshear up 48 percent to 40 percent in a Bevin-Beshear matchup in December. So if Bevin remains as unpopular as he is now, there could be an opening. Then again, the Bluegrass State’s politics are pretty darn red.

[valeriemperez]

Rewatching the epic SDCC round table where GG said they decided not to do SB. I thought I remember him saying he pushed for WA but on a rewatch he actually said he was pushed. I was shocked. Go watch again he said they pushed him.

I conducted the interview, and I promise you, he said he pushed for Westallen. You know how people stumble over their words and mash them together? That’s what happened. It wouldn’t make any sense for him to say he “was pushed” into WA and then defend why they are an iconic love story everyone should root for. He literally explains why it should happen sooner rather than later for the rest of the answer.

omg in the preview Gracie is sitting up and something crazy is happening. Looks like the predictions she may be a meta may be correct!

Grace being a metahuman would certainly turn things around for Cicada, I bet!

Who cares who Grant is close to? He does a great job playing half of WA. His friendship with DP didn’t make him want SB or encourage it but he stopped it from happening. Cast friendships is irrelevant to their characters and what they love to play on the show

Agreed. I certainly don’t care!

All I want is to see my WA on screen without any backstage bullshit. Thankfully, GG and CP are professionals at that, because sometimes, backstage politics could fuck everything up. It’s happened on many shows.

That’s one of the reasons I don’t mind that our cast doesn’t come out and play publicly the way others do. I’ve seen plenty of offscreen friendships/romances fall apart and furthermore taint the onscreen ones, so I’m happy with what the show gives me.

I think they have always been like this too. IA with you, I took issue with the anon telling that they were forcing it at SDCC BC they are just work friends (like work friends are supposed to be cold/non affectionate, like CP and DP were before the unfollow). I think GG and CP are even stranger on SM. And before anons start no, it has nothing to do with 3 Grand*ce shippers. It comes more from CP. GG doesn’t promote anyone not named SA but she is avoiding only him/WA.

Yeah, I don’t think they’re forcing anything. Interesting thought about her being the one avoiding. I don’t know if I agree with that, but I don’t like to read into SM likes etc. more than necessary.

We don’t know which cast members Grant hangs out with most, how often, or if it’s alone or in a group. Not every hang out is on social media. Grant and Carlos could hang out just the 2 of them all the time and we just don’t know about it because Carlos doesn’t like posting what he’s doing. Grant and La go on double dates in public with DP and her husband but they could hang out in their homes too and we don’t see. DP doesn’t post her husband or house.

Very true. We have no idea what they’re doing when the pictures and video aren’t available.

I kinda disagree with your assessment that GG and DP are all that close. In the past year he’s hung out with her in a couples setting once maybe twice. DP spends more of her free time with L tbh and despite them all living in the same city they dont do double dates that often. If L and DP weren’t close I doubt GG would spend what little time he does with her outside of work.

That’s fine, maybe it is just through La. 

I think he did a double date with DP and her husband only once so far. That baseball game during the hiatus. Besides that the rest of the Times have been larger group settings. Honestly DP seems to be closer friends with GG’s wife then with him this past year.

Very possible.

[jenkinsjenkins77-blog]

How you can Live The Longest In Reigns.

However Vive Virtual Reality at this moment on time is actually the absolute most unsatisfying components I have actually played around with since Kinect. I do not think that performs, but I'm carrying out the very best I can, which I intend is the point the article is aiming to create. I think that is actually disgusting as well as simply highlights all the tiny bits as well as gloss that the original creators invested. Al therefore why the heck doesn't it synch development between iPad and also apple iphone?! Having said that, along with significant firms, like EA, converting mostly all of their major Internet protocols over to F2P, I think a good portion from players (on my own consisted of) are actually paniced that this metric will entirely take over if left out of hand. I want the liberty clicked along with me since i know individuals have a blast along with it. However, despite just how I try I weary if there is no design whatsoever. Many thanks glennlea - truly that is actually one if the best things any individuals stated to me:-RRB- It was actually definitely fantastic that Tasos was actually kind enough to cover BrightRidge given that that started a really good chat listed here and i knew a lot regarding providing a better customer adventure in like someday:-RRB- The version i simply made totally free possessed 30000 downloads yesterday so I hope when the HD model comes out at least some individuals are going to intend to update. The more sensible presumption is actually that he just plain failed to think it would certainly be actually an issue, which is understandable given the very likely near zero exposure his current application has. I presume that would be generally that you didn't know precisely mathematically ways to place this together ... and if you did understand exactly how ... you WOULD manage to. Even if http://buyitdirect-my.com/asami-bahan-bahan-bagaimana-ia-berfungsi-bagaimana-untuk-menggunakan-harga-di-mana-kau-bisa-membelinya/ like me no more possess the time to rest on the chair staring at the TELEVISION with a controller in hand or partake face of a display, keyboard and mouse all evening doesn't create me a subdivision players Neither should mobile phone games be subclassed as a result of its' comforts. . Foolish, and also inaccurate, however reveals that you possess an extreeeeemly slim definition from a pc, as well as one that is juuuust fluid enough that you can easily move it about good as well as very easy when an individual explains the problems in your arguments. Consider what you carried out the other day around 6 pm. Maybe you were actually sitting to supper along with the better half and also kids as usual. While team inspiration might be greatest at the beginning and end from a venture, energy will, essentially, correspond or even expanding throughout. That is actually great, as well as some people have possessed superb results, yet people, if I possessed the capability to perform that I possibly would not be actually seriously counting on video games in hope from finding some means to motivate on my own through a lifetime psychological block. Believe is additionally in talks with circulation partners, featuring automobile sharing companies and also companies that would certainly use battery leasing, as well as this's expecting potential vehicle models, although Canny rejected to explain those programs specifically. So I may mention coming from very first palm experience that the Application Establishment's costs performs draw people in. Of course, the GamePad does not have those capabilities and also ended up being a disappointment, however I think that the Shift carries out something that individuals have had an interest in for a long period of time. Anyone that's ever possessed a workout session companion or even private instructor knows that including another individual in your journey to physical fitness could substantially improve your motivation. Likewise, respect is actually troubling to review the entries in a thread to ensure folks do not must redo on their own just before posting. This is actually one thing I was actually dealing with just recently, about the necessity of open methods and requirements to bring the visibility of the email to enable the whole internet to be a social media". I have actually been participating in video games less and much less on my tablet due to complimentary to play crap (mind you, certainly not all free of charge to play games are junk, despite what people assume) the absence from a great App Store hunt component, and the sparsity from video games I are going to in fact maintain for a lengthy while, rather than playing for simply pair of full weeks, and afterwards erasing that.

[mattlippard]

Action Plan for AlJazeera Redesign - March 11

Siobhan and I have a similar collaboration style which means we always plan out our thoughts and things that we need to do so that we can evenly split the workload and allocate even jobs to each other.

This is an example of one of our messy plans.

TO DO LIST!

-review what we have currently

-what's working, what isn't

-what does the user want from the top-down perspective

-look at other news site examples

-research to aljazeera, what are their goal

-visually

-target market

-who are the stakeholders

Review

Doesn't make use of real estate very well

Features stories - but doesn't show where they are being featured from - thus making it a wall of unorganised information. Despite not being visually overwhelming. Nothing pulls you in.

Lack of personality - it's like someone took a basic template and just said, good enough

Lack of brand identity

Watch their news coverage to see if we can understand a personality, look at their history

In sub-categories, there's no way to actually filter through stories

Do other news websites have a way to filter through stories, is this useful for a news website?

Not clear if there is an archive or how it would function.

How do other news websites archive their stories? Is it easily accessible

tHeRe'S nO wEaThEr

Hard to figure out what the stories are what

No date stamp immediately apparent

Consider who reads Aljazeera

Weekly newsletters sign up hidden away, just placed in a non-descript box - should pop up and be closable - not necessarily over the story, but maybe below the header.

Hidden tag system that is pretty useless

No way to actually find the article

Random tags with articles attached, e.g. "Military, Aviation, Child Rights..."

Develop actual categories for the website  

Use XML document to figure out the categories

Inconsistent, arbitrary breadcrumb system, that doesn't lead anywhere.

Has a comment section that's disabled, instead of just not having a comment section, like every other news website

Most comments on news articles are made in the social media ecosystem, which feeds engagement and tells more people about the story and feeds the bottom-up IA

In most read has a symbol to differentiate opinion but is not obvious that that is what it is.

No feedback from website that it’s live ( another resason why a date/time stamp would fix, breaking news visualisation

There’s nothing they’re following live like bbc - on their arabic site have live video feed, an embedded video streaming on youtube’

The speech marks symbolise opinion, but we are not immediately given the context to interpret that that's what it is. In the most read section, there's no key to understand that that's what it is

Assumption

Facts

When I got to a news website from top down I want to see the main stories and the different categories that I’m interested in

There should be date/time stamps on the front page against articles so that it’s clear how current/out of date the story is, this is especially important for breaking news.

What if...

Aljazeera is someone’s fav news source, they read an article on another website but want to see AJ’s take on it, and what they’ve been saying about it, how would they go about that?

Main they’d do is go to the front page, then search

They have main pages for certain thing but it doesn’t come up as the first result,

Old stories

Main story

Main page

Then top stories/recent stories

Story Card

Picture

Date Time Stamp

Title

Sub-Title

See More Button

Tagging System is ancient, hence why there is no categories for tags. Need to break it down to lesser main tags that cover everything so that the UX/UI can be more efficient.  

Other New Website Examples

----

Categories

We tried pulling the metadata to get an overview of what tags were in use in the system. However, there were thousands, but there were many vague tags, e.g. names of specific people, refugees (what refugees? From where? There are so many issues surround refugees in different political climates), occupied east Jerusalem etc.

Tags range from hyper-specific to incredibly broad to completely gratuitous.

Instead of working with the existing tags, we decided it better to start from scratch with more standardised news categories. We will start with more broad categories filtering to more specific categories with those. It is currently extremely difficult for the user to navigate the site. By updating to more standardised categories, we aim to help navigation flow more intuitively.  

ACTION

How are we going to come up with categories?

Aljazeera existing categories +

5 site, see what their categories are.

Siobhan: BBC & RNZ Categories

Matt: NYTimes & CNN & Al Jazeera Categories

1. Reconvene and workshop

2. Miro to build a basic wireframe, screenshots

3. Decide on basic layout of website using post it + wireframe

4. Put together justification pitch for when we present back in class

---

How to show how current the news is.

Set vs Relational Date/Time Stamp.

Pros and cons for each

Context: Associating it with user feedback, show the user this is a live, current site, showing that it is a reliable up to date news source.

Page Break

Certain tipping point where it needs to go into a date? (Assumption, need to confirm as fact)

Look at outlook for how they label date/time - Learned systems – What other date/time  

Push their livestreams on the front page better. - shows relevance

-----

Format the stories  

----

Site navigation - Is this navigable?

Scroll and interactivity

----

END GOAL:

Site Map

[designjams]

Class work | Analysing Al Jazeera IA

First things first, Matt and I came up with a to-do list for today’s session, going back and forth to discover,

a) how we both like to work/research

b) what we need to look at to get a better understanding of the IA and how we might go about improving it.

Below what what we came up with:

TO DO LIST

-review what we have currently

-what's working, what isn't

-what does the user want from the top-down perspective

-look at other news site examples

-research to aljazeera, what are their goal

-visually

-target market

-who are the stakeholders

----

We went on first tackling what we could extrapolate from the website.

Review

Doesn't make use of real estate very well

Features stories - but doesn't show where they are being featured from - thus making it a wall of unorganised information. Despite not being visually overwhelming. Nothing pulls you in.

Lack of personality - it's like someone took a basic template and just said, good enough

Lack of brand identity

Watch their news coverage to see if we can understand a personality, look at their history

In sub-categories, there's no way to actually filter through stories

Do other news websites have a way to filter through stories, is this useful for a news website?

Not clear if there is an archive or how it would function.

How do other news websites archive their stories? Is it easily accessible?

Hard to figure out what the stories are what

No date stamp immediately apparent

Consider who reads Aljazeera

Weekly newsletters sign up hidden away, just placed in a non-descript box - should pop up and be closable - not necessarily over the story, but maybe below the header.

Hidden tag system that is pretty useless

No way to actually find the article

Random tags with articles attached, e.g. "Military, Aviation, Child Rights..."

Develop actual categories for the website  

Use XML document to figure out the categories

Inconsistent, arbitrary breadcrumb system, that doesn't lead anywhere.

Has a comment section that's disabled, instead of just not having a comment section, like every other news website

Most comments on news articles are made in the social media ecosystem, which feeds engagement and tells more people about the story and feeds the bottom-up IA

In most read has a symbol to differentiate opinion but is not obvious that that is what it is.

No feedback from website that it’s live ( another reason why a date/time stamp would fix, breaking news visualisation

There’s nothing they’re following live like BBC - on their Arabic site have live video feed, an embedded video streaming on youtube

The speech marks symbolise opinion, but we are not immediately given the context to interpret that that's what it is. In the most read section, there's no key to understand that that's what it is

----

ACTION POINTS FROM REVIEW

Develop actual categories for the website   Use XML document to figure out the categories

Tagging System is ancient, hence why there is no categories for tags. Need to break it down to lesser main tags that cover everything so that the UX/UI can be more efficient.  

Categories

We tried pulling the metadata to get an overview of what tags were in use in the system. However, there were thousands, but there were many vague tags, e.g. names of specific people, refugees (what refugees? From where? There are so many issues surround refugees in different political climates), occupied east Jerusalem etc.

Tags range from hyper-specific to incredibly broad to completely gratuitous.

Instead of working with the existing tags, we decided it better to start from scratch with more standardised news categories. We will start with more broad categories filtering to more specific categories with those. It is currently extremely difficult for the user to navigate the site. By updating to more standardised categories, we aim to help navigation flow more intuitively.  

[youdecode]

6 Badass Skills to Learn to Before College | learn a new skill in free time

Girl, if you are thinking that high school was enough in preparing for you college then that is not the case. 

There are several badass skills to learn which remain under the blanket in the school.

Thus, now is the time to tap them in college.

You will not get time in college.

Yes, i repeat that. So you will have to make one.

I will highly encourage these badass skills to learn before college starts. Why?

So you know things other than crafting professional emails! 

 Also Here Are Some Related Massively-Transformative Resources You Will Ever Need.

21 Things to do to be Productive 

17 Best Advice for New College Students

19 Will Power Strategies & Tips to recharge self discipline

The best thing about these badass skills to learn is that you do not know that which one will help when.

Ready to smoothen your college life and make it more fun?

Let’s see how you can enrich college life.

  PS : Don’t forget to grab the freebie at the end of post, specially crafted for you  !

 #1. Badass skill to learn -New language

Girl, this will help you in the long run! And give you a competitive edge.

I know you can not download a new language into your head within a day.

But you can surely try day by day until you are finally there.

If you want to avail of the cognitive benefits then go on and discover a new language.

Improve your memory today and strengthen your career.

If you aim to travel for work to a certain place after graduation then now is time to start planning ahead.

If have absolutely no idea about how to get started in learning a new language then check:

Duolingo – It is a free app that can make learning another language addictive

Babbel – This app incorporates real-life conversation which makes it ideal for beginners.

 #2. Badass Skill to Learn – Go Cooking

 Girl, you will need some cooking skills if you do not want to torture your stomach cells.

Treat your taste birds by learning the essentials of cooking.

Can you live off maggie like forever? No right!

So get a masterclass on cooking so you could go beyond that basic omellete and could replicate a famous dish.

Youtube is a huge sea!

You might get lost in deciding . . . the worst thing is that you might end up wasting the ingredients which is the last thing you want to do is on a tight budget.

Need resources? Check:

Epicurious : great for beginners

Supercook : Ideal if you possess just limited ingredients.

Culinary Fundamentals & How To Cook Everything: These app are great to start with.

SHOW SOME LOVE & PIN THIS FOR LATER ! 

#3. Badass skill to learn -Unleash Creativity

 In college, you can easily get caught up in the overwhelming burden.

Studies can totally crush your creative potential.

(I have personally experienced this as my creativity totally drained in the freshmen year)

No matter what you are majoring in, learn the basic editing skills as this can immensely help you in the long run.

Tapping my tale: I had a computer science major in the freshmen year (yes, I intentionally wrote freshmen, want to know what happened with my degree in the sophomore and beyond? Here.)

Despite being a computer science student initially I possessed illustrator skills.

Get your hands on learning adobe or any other platform.

These are handy for creating social media campaigns, and poster presentation.

Remember that designing is a highly desirable skill that can add a great advantage to your resume.

Need a budget-friendly alternative to adobe suite? Try Sumo Paint OR Pixlr 

#4. Badass skill to learn – Pick up coding

 I have already mentioned above that how I was majoring in computer science.

Well, the girl even if you are not majoring in one then it is highly advisable that you try a mini coding course.

Even as a designer you should know the basics of coding.

My university did not spare any major! Whether you are in social development policy/ designing or electrical engineering, you will have to enroll in programming fundamentals.

Let me tell you exactly why!

Well, because when coding you are not just typing bunch of { ; } these elements here and there!

You are actually strengthening programming solving skills!

And these skills are vital for any major.

Most importantly you will be adding additional DEMANDING skill to your cv.

The competitive advantage you see.

Coding does not have to be boring thus take any Bootcamp or learn from interactive websites like:

Codeacademy OR Code.org : Great for beginners so start learning.

#5. Badass skill to learn – Musical Instrument

“Why is eisha suggesting to learn a musical instrument I wonder!”

Well, because it offers several psychological benefits.

Girl, trust me in college you will feel like hitting your head against the wall!

And that too several times.

In those cramming times playing a musical instrument will help you to a great extent.

So own this life-saving skill which I call.

Surprisingly, I did not know that learning to play a musical instrument has the potential of improving your memory.

Where to learn from:

Justin Guitar Or Simply Piano

Yousician: FreeApp with easy step-by-step tutorials.

 #6. Badass skill to Learn – Find a flair in writing

 No matter which major you are enrolled in. . . you have to own the flair of writing.

I cannot stress enough the importance which writing has on your overall career.

You need to give a great impression when crafting professional emails and your style of writing will speak volumes.

How to pro in writing before the college start? Here is how :

Model the professional style of your favorite writers.

Find your own writing voice through the process of journaling

Read extensively (not everything! But something that will actually help) for expanding vocabulary

Check your writing against Scrivener, iA Writer / Hemmingway App or Grammarly

 Bonus#

One of Best badass skills to learn: Productivity

 Can you rank your productivity level on a scale from 1-10?

It is bound to get even lower in college.

You need to realize that productivity is a lifetime skill.

It will help you in your career immensely.

It is what differentiates a successful person and the one who is not.

Do you know how to actually have more than 24 hours in a day?

Through incredible time management.

I will highly suggest you check this ultimate productivity bundle.

Once the college starts or as the years will pass by . . . your procrastination level will mount high.

Very high. If you want to live the life you want then liberate yourself from the phrase, “I am busy”.

Learn from the experts.

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The post 6 Badass Skills to Learn to Before College | learn a new skill in free time appeared first on You Decode.

[neuraxio]

Clean Machine Learning Training

Applying clean code and SOLID principles to your ML projects is crucial, and is so often overlooked. Successful artificial intelligence projects require good programmers to work in pair with the mathematicians.

Ugly research code simply won’t do it. You need to do Clean Machine Learning at the moment you begin your project.

Despite all the hype being about the deep learning algorithms, we decided at Neuraxio to do a training about Clean Machine Learning, because it is was we feel the industry really needs.

Clean code is excessively hard to achieve in a codebase that is already dirty, action truly must be taken at the beginning of the project. It must not be postponed.

We’re glad to have organized this event at Le Camp in March just before the COVID-19 outbreak. It was a fantastic event.

Thanks to participants from Thales, Shutterstock, Novatize, Artifici, Spress.ai, La Cité, LP, IA groupe financier, LGS - An IBM Company, Ville de Québec, STICKÔBOT INC., and Levio.

And also big thanks to the other event organizers including William Simetin Grenon, Francis B. Lemay, Maxime Bouchard Roy and Alexandre Brillant, as well as the other speakers outside of Neuraxio: Jérôme Bédard from Umaneo, and Vincent Bergeron from ROBIC.

It was fun, thank you all!

Guillaume Chevalier, Founder & Machine Learning Expert @ Neuraxio

You can interact with the present post on social media:

LinkedIn

Facebook

YouTube

Twitter

You can also check out our Machine Learning trainings.

source https://www.neuraxio.com/en/blog/clean-code/2020/06/21/clean-machine-learning-training.html

[jimmriarty]

black mirror episodes ranked from best to worst by yours truly. this is just based on my opinions, black mirror episodes are all really good, it all comes down to what shocked and made you think the most. (i have a lot of hype for the new season sorry).

SPOILER FREE, SO YOU CAN READ IT AND THEN GO WATCH THE SHOW BEFORE THE 29TH.

White Christmas: this episode, man. This episode is a masterpiece. It has one plot twist after the other and you don’t get the full picture until the ending. The plot is really good, the actors are super good as well (in black mirror they always are) and the ending really hit me. To be honest, it didn’t make me think of the future like other episodes did but I loved it and I can rewach it without getting bored.

Nosedive: another super good episode with really good actors. While I loved White Christmas for the plot but it didn’t made me think of our future, I love nosedive because it’s plausible. It’s not real but it could be and this is what really got me. Also, it’s really aesthetically pleasing.

White Bear: This episode is only 3rd because I only watched it once. At the beginning I wasn’t that much into it to be honest, but the final plot twist made EVERYTHING come together. This is one of the episodes that made me think the most. Nosedive was about how much social media and feedback impact and control our lives, about how toxic is the perfection we show on social media, but white bear made me think about something way more... moral? ethical? something that is happening everyday because of human nature rather than technology. i don’t want to spoil anything, just watch it.

San Junipero: The lesbian episode that is all over tumblr!! It’s the most aesthetically pleasing, the music is great, the photography is great. It also shows an interracial f/f couple that is beautifully written and a great love story. The plot and the technology element ae great, the characters are relatable and real and it’s also the only episode that made me cry. It’s different from other episodes, it’s... bittersweet. I wouldn’t call it a happy episode with a happy ending, but it certinaly has a different vibe.

Hated in the nation: Think twice about the shit you post online. It’s 1 hour and 30 minutes long, almost like a movie but the pace is amazing, the plot is really good and it’s also really powerful. I loved it.

Be Right Back: episode with Hayley Atwell and Domhnall Gleeson. a dead person is replaced by an IA first and a “doll” later to help their loved ones deal with the loss. Great plot, amazing acting, really creepy and contemporary. Loved it.

Shut Up and Dance: I think this episode was the most shocking to me. Or if not the most one of the most shocking. Over the course of the episode you know that there is something wrong. You know but you don’t know exactly what and then... the ending. (The use of the trollface was cringy tho)

The National Anthem; The pig episode. It takes guts to start with this story and with such a disgusting scene when the viewers still don’t know anything about the whole show. I appreciate it. The ending is great.

The Entire History Of You: I love the idea behind it and I loved the episode, it’s great, but others are better. Not much to say about it, to be quite honest. 

Playtest: Great horror story, great plot, not predictable finale. But again, not as good as other episodes despite still being amazing. 

15 Million Merits: Loved the world building and the song. Good plot, amazing song. Not much to say other than that.

Men Against Fire: It’s not a bad episode, it was just too predictable. I already figured out where it was going from the start and at that point of the show it wasn’t anything new. It felt like something I had already seen -- maybe a little bit of 1984 references? idk. I feel like it was playing safe with something already explored, not enough for Black Mirror, despite being enjoyable.

The Waldo Moment: Absolutely the worst episode. It was boring, it wasn’t shocking or mindblowing and idk, it didn’t make me feel anything at all. Politics are boring both irl and in fiction lmao. The only episode I didn’t like.

[kerahlekung]

A motion to replace Din come May 18th...

A motion to replace Din come May 18th....

Could one-day parliament be 

enough to replace the PM after all?...

A swift exit of the Perikatan Nasional coup coalition is now on the cards. A vote of no confidence against PM Muhyiddin Yassin has now been officially sought through Warisan president and Sabah chief minister Shafie Apdal. FROM disgruntled UMNO leaders getting vocal over discontentment with his government, to official statements from within his own party, the past week has seen Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s grip on power seeming ever more uncertain. The move to bring his Bersatu party back to the Pakatan Harapan coalition with statements made by deputy president Mukhriz Mahathir and the Armada youth wing, also echoed by leadership of AMANAH.

Then, the icing on the cake, with Pakatan Harapan leader and PKR president Anwar Ibrahim stating the former ruling coalition would welcome back Bersatu, with conditions. That leaves just the other partner in the pack, Sabah’s Warisan led by chief minister Shafie Apdal. Well, another leaked document inked with a sign that corresponds to the Semporna MP’s unique signature has circulated. Shafie’s office do not deny its authenticity when contacted.

The letter, addressed to Mohd Ariff, dated May 1, seeks to table a vote of confidence in that the member of parliament for Langkawi (Dr Mahathir Mohamad) commands the majority support of MPs under article 26 (1) read together with 27 (3) of the Dewan Rakyat rules.

In the letter, Shafie also proposes under Article 43 of the Federal Constitution, that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s powers to appoint a Prime Minister be implemented via a Dewan Rakyat sitting.

Rogue former PKR MPs led by current International Trade and Industry Ministry Azmin Ali and a Bersatu camp aligned to Muhyiddin, staged a political coup via the infamous “Sheraton Move” that resulted in the fall of PH and the formation of the Perikatan Nasional government. The move also saw Muhyiddin announce Bersatu’s departure from the coalition. However, the two months of Perikatan Nasional’s rule has been marred by continuous debacles and controversies, and recently probes by the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) into Covid 19 procurement deals. UMNO deputy president Mohamad Hasan had last week announced that his party held no formal nor official ties with the Perikatan Nasional coalition, stating that the coalition itself was not an officially registered political entity. - talkedabout

This is a significant development even if the Speaker may decide not to accept. At least, if my memory serves me right, it is the first time that an attempt is made by a member of the Dewan Rakyat to put forward such a motion. It is even more interesting that the motion is being proposed to expressed confidence not in the sutting Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Mohd Yassin, but instead in the former Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Of course Shafie Apdal being not on Muhyiddin's side would not propose a motion in his favour.

I may be wrong, but this motion could mean one of two things. Firstly, Dr Mahathir had the support of the majority of the house when he submitted his resignation to the King on the evening of February 23 last or that now he has the same level of support. Dr Mahathir and his supporters had openly claimed that he had more than 114 Dewan Rakyat members behind him on February 29 but was unable to present it to the King.  Let's see how independent and fair the Speaker is in treating this motion by the Semporna MP who is also the Chief Minister of Sabah. - a.kadir jasin

Speaker rejects Shafie's motion...

Usul dikemukan oleh ahli Parlimen Semporna Shafei Afdal bertujuan untuk mengadakan undi tidak percaya terhadap Muhyiddin tidak terima oleh Speaker Mohamad Arif atas alasan ia mencabar kuasa Yang diPertuan Agong. Ada sedikit kekeliruan berhubung usul yang cuba hendak dibawa oleh Ahli Parlimen Semporna Mohd Shafei Afdal dan tentang penolakan usul tersebut oleh Yang diPertua Dewan Rakyat Mohamad Arif Md Yusuf. 1. Shafei telah menghantar surat kepada Speaker itu bertarikh 1 Mei 2020 memohon meminta majlis (parlimen) membuat ketatapan bawaha ahli Yang Berhormat Langkawi (Mahathir Mohamad) mempunyai keyakinan majoriti ahli-ahli YB Dewan Rakyat dibawah Peraturan Mesyuarat (26(1) dan dibaca bersama peraturan mesyuarat 27(3) dalam peraturan-peraturan mesyuarat dewan rakyat. (Maksudnya undi percaya kepada Mahathir?).

2. Bagi Speaker setelah meneliti usul atau surat berkenaan ia didapati tidak selari dengan Perkara 43 Perlembagaan Persekutuan kerana ia mempertikai kuasa Yang di Pertuan Agong dalam urusan melantik Perdana Menteri, maka ia tidak membenar usul ahli Parlimen Semporna ini dibawa dalam Majlis Mesyuarat. Spekaer telah memaklumkan surat balasan itu pada 5 Mei, 2020. Sedikit aneh kenapa surat Shafei itu diviralkan baru hari ini, 7 Mei bukan pada 5 Mei? Penjelasan Speaker mengenai penolakan itu sudah jelas dan ia tidak perlu dipertikaikan lagi. Tidak berbangkit kalau Speaker itu bekas ahli Parti Amanah Negara, atau apa, ternyata beliau dalam kes ini telah bertindak secara betul.  Saya yakin Muhyiddin Yassin telah berunding dengan Speaker dan bertanya apa-apa kemungkinan berlaku dan implikasinya kalau sidang diadakan lebih daripada sehari?  - mso

Speaker tolak usul undi percaya Tan Seri Shafie Afdal, kita nak tunggu usul undi tak percaya Tun M pula, nak kena tolak jugak ke tak,esok keputusannya.

Sidang cuma 1 hari saja. Dah tentulah takdak undi belah bagi,takdak bahas penuh titah Di Raja pasai tak cukup masa. Apatah lagi nak bahas pasai perbekalan tambahan dsbnya... Nampak sangat depa ni penakut. Nampak sangat gomen bekdo ni penipu,tak yakin yang depa tu mempunyai bilangan yang cukup utk jadi sebagai sebuah gomen yang bermaruah.  Orang jahat memang sentiasa hidup dalam ketakutan... - f/bk

Zahid's daughter's RM800 fine 

displays a bad example to rakyat...

The Movement Control Order (MCO) during the coronavirus pandemic does not mean the rakyat, and especially the press, should stop asking questions in their effort to bring the rich and powerful to account. If we are to fight injustice successfully, we must continue to ask searching questions of those with powerful political connections, including the "untouchable elites" in society, who openly flout the laws and go unpunished. We scrutinize not because we want to humiliate or seek attention. We do this so that the ordinary rakyat, especially those without a voice, will stop being abused by the mighty, especially in a society which is oppressive. On May 5, former deputy prime minister Zahid Hamidi's daughter Nurul Hidayah, and her husband Saiful, were both fined RM800 for flouting the strict MCO rules. Photos of Nurul and Saiful meeting deputy environment minister Ahmad Masrizal Muhammad and minister in the prime minister's department Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri, were uploaded on her Instagram account on April 20. Only a proud and arrogant individual would make public the fact that she is able to visit ministers despite the MCO. Perhaps she believes the law does not apply to her. She challenged the public to  lodge a police report if they were displeased with her actions.

As expected, the public reacted with outrage. A few days earlier, they expressed their anger when other Perikatan Nasional (PN) politicians visited areas outside their constituencies in open defiance of the law. They endangered not just their own health but also the health of others whom they mingled with. They made a mockery of the law. Incredibly, senior minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob denied that deputy health minister Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali and Perak state executive councilor Razman Zakaria had breached the MCO and claimed that they had merely breached the standard operating procedure (SOP) governing movements. Sabri also denied double standards in the government's handling of the case. Why should we be content with allowing our politicians and their family members to behave in an arrogant manner and permit them to think the law does not apply to them? Many of us wonder if Nurul and the other politicians who breached the MCO rules would have been investigated if the public had not vented their fury on social media?

Another disturbing fact about Nurul and Saiful's court appearance is that members of the press were barred from the court room, and thus were unable to report on the court proceedings. Why did the magistrate allow this to happen?  This is another failure of the judicial system under Muhyiddin. The politicians and politically well connected people appear to get only a fine and escape a jail sentence, when instead they should be setting an example and therefore should receive the most severe of punishment. Former Umno-Baru minister Adnan Mansor once said RM2 million was like pocket money to him. Zahid, Nurul's father, is on trial for the misappropriation of RM31 million funds belonging to a charity. It was disclosed that he and his wife paid over RM72,000 for road tax per year for a fleet of luxury cars and superbikes. This is more than a lifetime's earnings  for a simple farmer.  Naturally, people are angry that Nurul received a RM800 fine and was spared a jail sentence.

Last week, a single mother was jailed for one month, but on appeal, her sentence was commuted to an RM1,000 fine. She had already spent eight days in jail and had to borrow money to pay her fine. On top of that, she had to make special arrangements for the care of her 6-year-old son. She had only gone to buy a drink for her son.

A student was fined RM1,000, as was a retiree who went out to buy food. They old man was charged for flouting the MCO, and then had to wait seven and a half hours for his case to be heard. By the time the sentence had been passed, the banks were closed, and he had to spend the night in jail. Where is the court's compassion especially as it delayed the hearing and contributed to the man's inability to post bail?

The hypocrisy of the judicial system does not sit well with the rakyat. They see that the rich and mighty who have no reporters at their trial, are fined a small sum of money and as we have seen in most high-profile trials, are not handcuffed or dressed in the orange prison gear.

Another interesting fact is that a two-tier system of investigation exists. The poor are speedily brought to trial, whereas the well connected are only brought to justice after much public outrage and even then the cases are subject to delay and umpteen excuses, such as falling ill on the day of trial. The MCO has exposed the skewed system of justice in Malaysia. Not everyone is able to receive fair and equal justice and the law of the jungle prevails in the nation, where only those with strong political ties escape scot-free or receive just a rap on their knuckles. For a nation to succeed, it needs a strong, independent judiciary, which is not governed by fear or favor. In his first public address to the nation, Muhyiddin Yassin claimed that he wanted to save Malaysia, but the opposite is true. It is apparent that Muhyiddin does not care that under his rule, Malaysia will be known for a justice system that practices double standards and is tainted by taunts of hypocrisy. - Mariam Mokhtar

Story kat sini...

cheers.

Sumber asal: A motion to replace Din come May 18th... Baca selebihnya di A motion to replace Din come May 18th...

[heilpraktiker-hannover]

What Happens to Your Body When You Use the Internet

What Happens to Your Body When You Use the Internet by Dr. Mercola , articles.mercola.com June 14, 2017 See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKaWJ72x1rI The internet has made connecting with new business partners, discovering health information and finding long lost friends, easier and cheaper. However, while digital connections have distinct advantages, digital dependence does not. You’ve likely seen — or have been part of — a family outing where one by one, everyone pulls out their phone to check notifications, text messages or email. It happens in restaurants, on busy streets and commuter trains. The desire to be rewarded by your phone may have even been so great that you endangered your life by attempting to read a text or send one while driving. Toddlers get their own devices to keep them busy and 10-year-old children are carrying their own phones. 1 Where once children talked on the phone, set up face-to-face time and engaged with real people in real situations, they now spend hours keeping a “streak” alive. Dependence on digital communication presents several physical and emotional health challenges. Mitochondrial damage, exposure to electromagnetic radiation and failing social skills are just the tip of an iceberg that may have deeper roots than anticipated. Recent research has now identified immediate physical symptoms that occur when your digital devices are just out of reach. Digital Dependence Affecting More Than Teens Cellphone ownership has reached 95 percent in America, up from 68 percent measured in 2015. Of those owners, 77 percent use a smartphone. 2 The people who own the smartphones are distributed equally across gender, age and ethnicity, with the lowest number of people owning smartphones being over the age of 65. Dependence or addiction to a digital device hooked to the internet affected 6 percent of the world population in 2014. 3 This number may not appear to be significant on the surface, but consider that 6 percent of the world population was over 420 million people. 4 Comparatively speaking, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 3.5 to 7 percent of the world population between 15 and 64 years had used an illicit drug in the past year. 5 The percentage of those addicted to the internet may actually be higher as only 39 percent of the world in 2014 had access to the internet, 6 driving the real percentage of those addicted to 15 percent. Symptoms of addiction are similar to other types of addiction, but are more socially acceptable. The authors of the study found an internet addiction (IA) is: 7 “… [G]enerally regarded as a disorder of concern because the neural abnormalities (e.g., atrophies in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and cognitive dysfunctions (e.g., impaired working memory) associated with IA mimic those related to substance and behavioral addiction. Moreover, IA is often comorbid with mental disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression.” Reach Out Recovery identifies conditions that may trigger internet addiction or compulsions, including anxiety, depression , other addictions, social isolation and stress. 8 Internet activity may stimulate your brain’s reward system, much like drugs and alcohol , providing a constant source of information and entertainment. While each person’s internet use is different, the results may be the same. Long-term effects may include: ✓ Irritation when someone interrupts your interaction online ✓ Difficulty completing tasks ✓ Increasing isolation ✓ Experiencing euphoria while online ✓ Inability to stop despite the consequences ✓ Increasing stress Physical Effects of Internet Withdrawal The physical and mental effects of addiction, coupled with the physical effects of withdrawal, may increase your risks for long-term health conditions. In a recent study involving 144 people between the ages of 18 and 33, researchers discovered both heart rate and blood pressure are affected in those who report spending extended periods of time online. 9 Past research has associated cold turkey withdrawal of the internet from heavy users will produce anxiety type symptoms, similar to those experienced by people addicted to drugs or alcohol. 10 The current study also linked physiological changes, including an average of a 3 to 4 percent increase in blood pressure and heart rate of the participants. 11 Some participants experienced up to an 8 percent increase. This was the first controlled demonstration of physiological changes triggered by internet use. 12 The increases noted during the study were not enough to be immediately life-threatening; however, these types of changes are associated with anxiety and a reduction in the function of the immune system. The changes in anxiety levels may also be a physiological trigger for users to re-engage with their digital devices in order to reduce the physical response and anxiety level. Dr. Lisa Osborne, co-author of the study from Swansea University, commented: 13 “A problem with experiencing physiological changes like increased heart rate is that they can be misinterpreted as something more physically threatening, especially by those with high levels of anxiety, which can lead to more anxiety, and more need to reduce it.” In other words, especially in people who may experience anxiety more frequently, the physical symptoms of internet withdrawal may increase their anxiety and lead to behaviors to reduce it — namely, going back to using the internet. Putting Down Your Phone May Raise Your Anxiety Level Forty percent of the participants in this study admitted they had some level of an internet-related problem and acknowledged they spent too much time online. Participants reportedly spent an average of five hours each day on the internet and 20 percent spent over six hours a day. By far the most common reasons for engaging online were social media and shopping. Previous studies from this same group of researchers have demonstrated study participants would experience short-term increases in anxiety levels when their digital devices were removed. 14 When those devices were removed for longer periods of time, they reported increases in loneliness and depression, with some researchers finding changes to the actual structures in the brain. Research psychologist Larry Rosen, Ph.D., and his colleagues at California State University looked at the effect technology has had on our anxiety levels. They have found the typical person checks their phone every 15 minutes, whether or not they heard a notification from the device. In his words you may be thinking: 15 “Gee, I haven’t [checked] in [on] Facebook in a while. I haven’t checked on this Twitter feed for a while. I wonder if somebody commented on my Instagram post.” These thoughts generate increased secretion of cortisol, which begins to increase your anxiety levels. Eventually, you notice the rising anxiety and seek a way to reduce the experience. Checking in to your social network on your phone may be one of the ways you’ve found to reduce your anxiety. The authors of the study from Swansea University speculate that internet use is driven by more than short-term excitement or the joy of using technology . Instead, it may produce negative physiological and psychological changes, such as anxiety that may drive you back to the device that is causing the problem in the first place. 16 Multiple studies from around the world have demonstrated overuse of the internet and digital devices leads to physical and psychological symptoms of addiction 17 and family dysfunction. 18 Poor health, unhappiness and depression were found in men and women who report overuse of the internet, but depressed girls demonstrate a higher rate of internet addiction than boys. 19 Overall, those with an addiction to the internet have lower impulsivity control. 20 Google Would Like You to Keep On Using It should come as no surprise that companies that make money when more people spend more time and money on the internet are consciously trying to manipulate your behavior. Former Google product manager Tristan Harris revealed how digital giants are engineering smartphone apps and social media feedback to get you checking and double-checking online. 21 However, while internet use is more socially acceptable, digital companies aren’t the only businesses using neurological and psychological strategies to increase their profit margins. 22 Behavior patterns are often etched into neural pathways, 23 and when those behaviors are also linked to hormone secretion and physiological responses, they become even more powerful. In fact, Harris describes the reward process of using a smartphone as “playing the slot machine.” 24 And, Google has discovered a way to embed that reward system as you use the apps on your phone. This process is so important to digital corporations that Apple turned down a new smartphone app for their store that would help people to reduce their use of the internet and their smartphones. The goal of any corporation is to increase your use of their product and the potential you will spend more money with them. In the case of smartphone devices, these companies are contributing to programing your actions, and how you think and feel. This is how companies satisfy their advertisers, who are paying for the privilege of your eyes on their ads. Have You Been ‘Brain Hacked?’ Some programmers call this process “brain hacking,” as they incorporate more information from neuropsychology into the development of digital interfaces that increase your interaction with the program. For instance, getting likes on Facebook and Instagram, the “streaks” on Snapchat or cute emojis on text messaging, are all designed to increase your engagement and desire to return. The continual scroll on Facebook keeps you engaged on the page longer, with a greater chance you’ll click an advertisement on the page. Keeping a “streak” alive on Snapchat keeps you coming back to the app, especially when you have multiple streaks going with multiple people. Harris describes it as a race to the bottom of the brainstem where fear and anxiety live, two of the most powerful motivators known to advertisers. Both advertisers and computer software developers are using these techniques to write code that will engage your attention. 25 More Physical Effects From Your Digital Devices Unfortunately, your engagement is not the only physiological or psychological change these techniques trigger in your brain and your body. This short video highlights several changes you may experience after hours of digital use. However, there are also permanent changes that occur to the structure of your brain after watching a flickering screen for hours. One of the functional changes you may have noticed is a reduced ability to think deeply about one subject. 26 The focus of gathering information online often results in you flitting from one website to another as the topic of your research changes, as portrayed in the video above. Another way of saying this is a constant state of distraction, disruption and interruption from notifications and website engagement. Nicholas Carr, author of the book, “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,” finds in the years after publication, with rising use of digital devices, millennials are experiencing even greater problems with forgetfulness than seniors. 27 This is the “dark side” of neurological plasticity that allows your brain to adapt to changes in your environment. This type of plasticity is one way your brain recovers after a stroke has permanently damaged one area. The truth is, as your brain is plastic , most everything you do and practice will change your brain. 28 Using the internet may damage your ability to remember facts, but it also appears to improve your ability to research information. However, a few positive changes may not outweigh the negative aspects of long-term internet overuse. For instance, brain scans indicate those who use the internet consistently have a reduced amount of gray matter. 29 , 30 A loss of white matter, 31 , 32 reduced cortical thickness 33 , 34 and impaired cognitive functioning 35 are other brain structure and functional changes that have been demonstrated from long-term internet use. It is impossible to ignore that these devices are changing your brain structure, and the experience is also increasing your exposure to microwave radiation and large amounts of blue light at night, thereby impacting your body’s ability to produce melatonin. In 2011, the World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer declared cellphones a Group 2b “possible human carcinogen” 36 related to the microwave radiation emitted from the phone. Even cellphone manufacturers place warnings on their products to keep them at least 1 inch from your body. 37 Yet another challenge to using digital devices is the blue light emitted from the screens, which reduce your melatonin and signal your body to wake up. You may be able to reduce this effect by wearing blue-blocking sunglasses after sundown, and turning off your digital devices at the same time. Meditation May Reduce Your Withdrawal Symptoms Consider setting a goal to reduce your screen time and digital communication. In the video above, Julie Schiffman demonstrates the use of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to reduce stress and anxiety . These are strategies you may easily use in public or private to assist your efforts to reduce your screen time — whether on your phone, computer or on your tablet. Remember, the physiological, structural and psychological changes occur no matter what type of device you’re using. See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWLVZHjSkHE Original Page: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/06/14/digital-dependence.aspx Shared from Pocket