#find the error quiz based on new pattern

[stygiantarot]

Modern Divination Methods

(originally taught in The Alexandria Archives on 4/9/2020) 

Divination is most certainly one of the oldest practices of witchcraft. Reading omens, trancing for prophecy/scrying, and using tools to read symbols or patterns have all been used in some form for practically as long as society has existed. Many people are familiar with the mainstream ones: Tarot, runes, tea leaves, scrying, etc. Last time I went over some more unusual methods. Today, in light of the current global situation having many person’s stuck in limited spaces with limited supplies, I thought we could touch on some modern methods. Most require nothing more than what you already have at your fingertips!

We will explore in some detail:

Shufflemancy: divination using randomized songs

Stichomancy: divination using passages in a volume of writing

Traffic omens: Modernizing weather style omen reading using things like cars, stoplights, types of buildings passed, etc.

We’ll also touch on a couple other ideas you might try expanding on:

Online Randomizer: Think like the old web extension Stumble upon or even those websites that give you random quotes, images, names, etc.

Social Media Image Scrying: using a collection of images online to select a particular one for interpretation.

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Shufflemancy

Many of you have probably heard of this method, likely even tried it! Shufflemancy is the method of divination that uses a platform or application to randomize a selection/playlist of songs for interpretation. You can either just hit the shuffle button once and go with that initial song or you can incorporate a more personalized experience by having the querent choose a number of skips to hit. It can also be tailored by using specific playlists you’ve compiled or certain genre options on applications like Spotify or Pandora.

You can expand on this with applications like Youtube to include videos. It’s my fantasy that platforms like Netflix or Hulu will come up with a “randomizer” or shuffle type option someday. It would be such a blast to play a random video and then use that for divination!

It’s important to take into account both the lyrics and the melody/mood of the music when your selection is being interpreted. If you aren’t sure if you’d be comfortable with that initially, I recommend building a “beginner’s” sort of playlist that is filled with songs you know very well and have personal feelings about. It makes the interpretation that much easier. Much like using a Tarot or Oracle deck that has art styles or characters you’re familiar with. You may also incorporate the visuals of a music video if there is one for the song. Shufflemancy usually works better for more expansive readings rather than just yes/no questions. Although you can sometimes get that sort of immediately “positive” or “negative” impression from many songs, assuming it doesn’t have both! 


This method is a therapeutic way to delve into some modern divination. The emotional and cathartic aspect can be soothing for both the reader and the querent. Not to mention the connection it builds as you share music between you. A feel good way to practice some divination with no physical tools beyond some technology access.

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Stichomancy

This method of divination, sometimes called bibliomancy, uses a book or similar volume of writing to select passages from to interpret. Most people use the page number as the way to select, telling the querent to select a number between the first and last page (and what the highest number possible is). But there are intuitive methods as well. Using the physical shuffling of pages until it feels right to stop rather than a selected number. I find the latter method more useful when reading for myself and the former method more cooperative when I’m reading for others.

Like with shufflemancy, stichomancy is much affected by your personalizing of the tool. Use books you love! Use books that have specific genres for specific queries (a romance book for a relationship reading?). Use anthologies (short story or poetry collections) to get a variety of styles and language to work with. 
 


You can also use books that are more visual, like my headstone symbolism book pictured above. It makes the reading more akin to Tarot, but you can use captions to help expand on the interpretation. Practice trial and error with multiple books until you feel comfortable and confident that the results are accurate enough. The books I have in the photo I shared are the five I’m comfortable using in regular readings. I play with others for myself or specific queries for friends or family but often I’m not comfortable adding them to my regular repertoire. I have a series of dimestore style paperback mysteries that love to give readings for a dear friend but are useless in accuracy for anyone else. Books have personalities- if you didn’t already know that this method will teach you that fact quickly. You can also create your own specific stichomancy book using a notebook with numbered short passages and poems of that have significance to you. It can be an enriching process to collect all the passages to add to your own book and you can give them more specific and more easily remembered associations when compiling them yourself. Do remember to give proper credit/sourcing to all your collected passages though!


You don’t need the largest book possible to be effective with this method of divination. “Desperation” and “Chilling Ghost Short Stories” are my thickest books, but honestly I’ve gotten more insightful readings from my two slim fairy tale volumes. It’s truly a method you make your own. I have friends who prefer to exclusively use books of poetry rather than fictional prose. That is good too!

A note: don’t feel like you need to have a physical book- I’ve had some success with ebooks! It can be trickier to do the flip-through for sure, but not impossible.



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Traffic Omens

I was probably about 8 years old when I first played the “If, Then” game. “If this next light turns green before we reach it, then I’ll get McDonalds for lunch.” A simple and almost childish game of course. But essentially, traffic omens. I expanded on it as I got older to include seeing certain makes and colors of cars during my commute. Or a certain number of common buildings like churches or banks. A type of architecture or statues featuring certain things. It can be as common or uncommon as your needs require.

This is a method that’s a little trickier to lay out for others in step-by-step ways because it is omen based and therefore requires you to select what works for your specific area/region, what type of commute based omens you feel comfortable noticing, what meanings they have for you, etc. And since this is omen-based, it isn’t exactly ideal for actively standard divination reading. It’s more ideal for a passive style, or personal predictions in your own life.

You can build a system that works for you and could predict luck in a career, prosperity in the home, or a new friend. I recommend starting a journal of the sort of “omens” you notice on your commute. Follow up with a short blurb about how your day went and how you felt. Then you can refer back to it and create the personal system from there. You can vary the more common with uncommon omens- just remember to ascribe the appropriate association. Seeing a certain number of bank buildings can be good for meaning an increase in general finances but you’d likely want something more uncommon like an usual make and model of a single car for snagging a dream job. You can also create variations for when you’re walking during your day instead of commuting!



A bit more involved but something interesting to experiment with in our modern society. And keep a bit of that childlike wonder!

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Online Randomizer

Did you ever play with the web extension “Stumble Upon” back when it existed? The idea was that you installed it in whatever web browser you happened to be using and then clicked it to get directed to an entirely random website. Though it’s intention was obviously to curb boredom, it is definitely something interesting to try as a divination tool. Stumble Upon no longer exists (as far as I know), however there are similar extensions or webpages that let you do the same thing (this one comes to mind: https://theuselessweb.com). There is also options like Wikipedia’s “random article” ability that works along the same lines. This method is similar to stichomancy in that you’ll likely be working with text a lot of the time. But be aware of the medium you’re working with- a webpage is more than just a page in a book. What is its purpose? How well is it designed? What sort of visuals does it use? What emotional impressions do you get from it? It can start simple, but you can see the options are there for expanding an interpretation pretty elaborately. And again, a number of clicks can be incorporated if you like.

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Multi-Image Scrying (Social Media Image Scrying)
 


It’s hard for me to come up with a concise name for this. But it’s possible you’ve come across persons doing this on various platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, etc. There is a selection of images in a format similar to a moldboard to view. The reader has a querent select an image that stands out to them and builds a reading based on the selection. Similar to a random draw from a Tarot or Oracle card with symbolism and art imagery lending itself to the interpretation. This can be great to try if you are into color symbolism or can easily see how certain artwork evokes certain emotions. Similar to what websites like Buzzfeed or the astro.com color chart quiz is! Almost like an alternative horoscope based on visual selections you are drawn to.

Be sure to ethically collect images for something like this if you plan on offering it to others. There are many websites that have royalty free images you can use for projects like this. Or you can even use ones you have yourself! These don’t have to be high art photographs, simple ones on your phone can absolutely work. The biggest goal is to make sure they are varied so a large amount of interpretation is possible.

There is a version of this using face down Tarot (or oracle) cards as well. You take a photo (or have video) of them face down and then have your querent select one at random without either of you knowing what it is. Then once you flip it over you can giving a reading based on that. It’s not especially different from a standard long distance Tarot reading except it can be used on a mass scale. For example, I’ve done this for my business Facebook or Instagram where I have a grid of numbered face down cards. Then I put the meanings of each card in the comments so someone can select the card before reading the comments and get a low-tech daily reading without an app.

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Even though many of these methods evoke playful games of childhood, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have potential as a valid form of divination. Many forms of divination in the past started as games or ways to pass time before they were built into the forms of divination we know today. A modern technique may seem “sillier” to traditionalists but just like younger generations are proving the further reaching use of modern technology to previous generations; it is time to prove the modern forms of divination as valid to the traditionalists!

[antiracistkaren]

The Email I never sent.

From June 24th, 2020

Hi. 

If you are getting this email, it’s because I feel the need to share this information with you. I don’t expect you to answer me, and frankly, I’m sending this to a pretty wide ranging group of folks, so if you don’t respond ever, I’m unlikely to remember or hold it against you. I’m telling you this up front so that when you open this email, you’re not on edge. I care about how you feel as you’re reading these words. I hope that you can hear my tone, a voice that you know well: one that cares a lot about you. This email isn’t carrying any anger at all, only information which, as you know I love. 

You know what’s going on with my husband, and how turbulent things are right now. Well, imagine that, in the midst of that, not being able to function. Literally. Imagine breaking down in total tears in panic while on the phone with your husband’s brother (who you’re not at all sure likes you) because you’re so terrified of your own husband that you cannot speak through it, and trying to explain why you’re suddenly overcome. Then imagine trying to explain yourself, over and over, to people who keep asking, “I thought you were fine, and loving quarantine?” 

Imagine discovering, the middle of your husband’s mental breakdown, that you seem to be having one of your own. How horrifying. When you’re in your room, you’re fine. In fact, it’s nice in here…

I can put on headphones and slowly organize my own room. In here, I’m safe. I can fold clothes. I can make my bed. I can bring order to the chaos inside of my room, but I cannot seem to bring order to the chaos of voices inside of my head. Usually I know exactly what my day will look like: I have it planned out from 8 AM until 8 PM. And then I get a structured hour of free time and after that I should really go to bed. (I don’t. I can’t fall asleep lately before midnight because my thoughts are clamoring in my head, and then a baby wakes up… you get it.) 

Unfortunately, I cannot stay in my room. People need me outside--my husband can’t seem to handle the children on his own after he comes home from the mental institution. Mental Institution. I say those words a lot and giggle a little bit after those words every time, especially when I am alone. I never thought I would be saying those words out loud, much less out loud in a house that we somehow live in with kids I’ve somehow had with my own body and a husband who is in a mental institution.  

But anyway, as I was saying--I do that, going off on little thought tangents all the time--my partner can’t seem to handle the kids without me. That’s odd to me because I’m not special, and I’ve somehow done it before and have lost that skill somewhere, but he needs me, so I put myself together (in the wrong order) and wear my Happy Mommy mask until bedtime, when I collapse into a gigantic ball of emotion.

I’m confused, my husband is confused, and all of the kids are scared. I can see how scared we all are, the whites around our eyes showing. Anthony is cut by me, my anger, my emotion, my white-hot truth-telling tongue seems to be cutting him all over. And then I see my kids cut him, and seeing Anthony get harmed by me, by my kids, it spirals me down all over again. I can’t even mention my partner, who seems to handle me like I’m just made up of sharp edges. I feel like a … butterfly knife or something. Something sharp and dangerous and very deadly in the hands of someone skilled with it. 

Looking back, this Autism pattern fits neatly over my whole life. It’s so strange though… because...

Ah, here’s the best example: become aware that you’re breathing. 

Please. Just do it. Think about the fact that you’re breathing. You do it all the time. You don’t think about it, right? Unless I tell you to. 

What if I told you that I had to think about breathing in order to breathe? That my whole life, I thought everyone had to think about breathing. That we were all just together in a room, y’all breathing without thinking about it, and me--watching you breathe and imitating the breathing motion, thinking that I am required to operate that way in order to stay alive. No one told me that breathing is automatic, so why would I mention to other people how I’m breathing? 

It has come to my attention that I am unique, which is weird, so here’s what it’s like:

Every single day I am aware of every word, facial expression, vocal tone, and hand gesture. I have spent my life carefully curating a personality based on imitating those around me that  I love. That radio voice I use on the mic? Classic Ron--finding my lower register and leaning into the mic. The way I read Geeks rules? That’s Josh, who showed me that being quirky and having a big personality can be leveraged on stage in order to BE on stage. My mom taught me quick-witted insults to hurl back at kids who were mean to me. I built a personality based on other people that I thought would serve me best, and I think I’ve done fairly well considering I’m still alive and fairly happy. Or I was, until the quarantine. 

You see, every single day, deep in the recesses of my mind, always running like a little motor in the background is the program “Fear of Being a Bad Person”. Every move I make is processed through this motor and filter in the back. Everything I say or text, emojis I use, all of this, is processed through a “I’m trying to be a Good Girl” filter. 

When I was young, I didn’t think I was a Bad Person. 

When I was in preschool, I was lauded. I had friends. I remember my friends Jason and Summer to this day. I remember feeling safe and cozy in my elementary school in Wetumpka, Alabama. I remember my mother ensuring that I was put into an advanced class in kindergarten. Teachers could tell that there was something different about me, but also, they couldn’t handle my fidgeting, my impatience with kids not being fast as I was to know the answer. I would roll my eyes, make faces at the other kids, get up--because I knew all this stuff anyway--and go away from circle time. That was Bad. 

And then suddenly I spent most of my day with older kids. I got to do Tangrams, write plays, dress up and hang out with kids who seemed to accept that I was a bit smarter, a bit different. My mom fought for that for me, every time.

But then my mom got remarried. Moving mid-year in 2nd grade was difficult. I didn’t understand the new kids, the nuance at the school. I didn’t know who could be my friend. I didn’t understand the wealth gap. By the time middle school came around, I was regularly teased for the clothes I wore. I would cry to my mother about the teasing and she would throw up her hands, confused and furious because I had picked these clothes out. I would alternate between starving myself and eating furiously and crying when I got home from school. I would wear baggy clothes because boys would pop my bra strap, and make unwanted comments about my body. Suddenly my outspokenness made me a target. Boys started to touch me without me wanting them to, and I didn’t understand why. I also couldn’t seem to make it stop, no matter how baggy my clothes were. 

Once I told my mother about a boy grabbing me on the bus, and I am talking about hand between my legs and squeezing at my vagina as I walked off the bus to my house, and she told the principal. I was forced to confront the boy and his mother in a locked room… his mother, who sat across from me and called me a slut and a liar. I have a very hard time being called a liar. 

I don’t lie. I really don’t want to. If I am being forced to lie, it is because I believe social nuance demands it. I don’t really like your new haircut, but I’m required to lie about it because telling the truth is rude, in that situation. I’ve learned these boundaries by repeatedly being punished (through embarrassment in public and repetition). 

So you can see how it might be tough for me to hold a job when I make off-the-cuff comments in meetings like “If we care about diversity so much, how come we don’t have any students of color or low-income students in our most expensive residence hall?” 

And, “Are you kidding?! Tornadoes just ravaged Tuscaloosa. If I had extra money to give, and I don’t, I’m not going to give money to the this scholarship fund.” (This was after the deadly tornadoes ripped through my home town--because Tuscaloosa was my home, and I couldn’t believe that I was being asked to donate to the scholarships of rich, mostly white, kids when the Black community in Tuscaloosa was in literal rubble.) 

Is it any wonder that I couldn’t seem to stop making mistakes in detail work, which I’m not interested in? Doesn’t it make sense that you’ve seen me not be able to sit when I’m playing board games that I’m excited about? That I get so nervous if there’s a scoring error during quiz, I drop my papers? That although I love public speaking, my hands shake uncontrollably? 

A repeated phrase through my life has been “I know you’re a smart girl, why can’t you get this?” 

If I am a Smart Girl… why can’t I seem to understand people? I guess I can’t really be a Smart Girl. So I guess I should stay home with my kids since I can’t seem to hack it out in the “real world.” 

Imagine my relief when my psychiatrist spotted me immediately. I think my brain is completely broken. I am telling everyone I run into that my brain is broken because I don’t know who can help me. I can’t get it together because the person I’ve hyper focused on for the past 7 years isn’t around--and even though he is home now, he is different and I am different and together we aren’t the same. 

Imagine my relief when my psychiatrist lets me in on a secret that other people are just breathing naturally, that it’s not my fault that I have to work so hard. Imagine figuring out that all of those times that I was touched without consent, made to feel stupid, made to feel less than, screamed at, rejected, and put on performance plans and forced to fight for your right to have a job and speak the truth… that it wasn’t because I was deficient… it’s just because I am different. 

I had piled on mountains of guilt for hurting people’s feelings. Those moments of embarrassment and shame in my life are vivid memories, and they read in my brain like well-worn books. I take them out and remember them, literally read about them, (I write a lot about these moments in my journals) so that I can make sense out of them. I’ve gotten smarter over the years because I’ve allowed myself to learn how to type as fast as I think. And then I can pour out all of these thoughts on paper, edit them and use them to communicate. 

I used to spend hours as a kid in my room, writing, coping with how difficult my life was by getting outside of myself and drawing conclusions, writing poetry, acting, performing music. I’ve lost all the time to do any of those things, and that is why I am completely breaking down.

I am Autistic. I’ve always been autistic. If you have met me in the past 4 years, this is a shock. You’ve only known me as a surprising stay at home mom in your life. Yeah, I’m a little weird, but I’m Fun! Right? That’s on-brand for a stay at home mom, I’ve learned. 

So if you’re getting this and you’ve met me since 2016, I have to say you don’t know me very well. The people who have made it the long haul, the folks I’ve known since Alabama, they’re seeing a return to the norm for me. This is normal ol’ weird Sam and, yeah, she’s intense but we love her. I’ve told many of my Alabama people first, and you know what they say? “Oh yeah, I can see that… but I mean, you’re still YOU. You’ve always been this way!” 

It seems like it’s, well, my newer whiter wealthier friends who are struggling with this. I think it is because Autism has been presented to us [human beings] as a deficiency, and sure, yes, I am deficient in some ways. But to me, it’s like being free. I am free to be honest about not understanding, and you are free to believe me. You’re free to not be scared to say, “Sam, you’re going on about this social justice thing…” because I understand now that I monologue. 

I am certain this is me. I am finally seen and understood, and I can see and understand. I’m sharing this with you because I want you to see and understand me. If I have hurt you in the past, I promise you, it was blindly and unintentional. I feel love very intensely, and if I’ve sent this to you, it is because I love you and I consider you safe. 

Through all of my life, my faith has been an underpinning of my making sense of this world too, and it will continue to do that for me. I was wonderfully and fearfully made, and I am loved by my creator, and I am an autistic woman. I hope that you can accept that diagnosis with me.

[smartkeeda-blog]

IBPS today is changing its exam pattern with each shift and it has really become difficult for students to score high if they are not aware of changing pattern of questions. Here’s one quiz of Spotting Errors that has been designed keeping the new pattern of IBPS exams in mind. Practise 10 questions of spotting errors based on new pattern now.

[patriotsnet]

How Many Registered Republicans In Pa

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-registered-republicans-in-pa/

How Many Registered Republicans In Pa

The Numbers Bear Out The Dominance Of The Democrats

Republicans Gain Statewide And Locally In Voter Registration

According to gallup.com about 42% of voters claim to be independents. Nationally, the democratic advantage in the party registration states approaches 12 million. Many other republicans, as noted, lean in either the conservative or highly religious direction. Overall, targetsmart found that 42.6 percent of the new voters registered this year lean democratic, and only 29 percent lean republican . There are about twice as many registered democrats living in passaic county than republicans. The counties with the 10 highest percentages of democratic party, republican party, and no party preference registered voters are: the percentage of voters registered with the republican party decreased from 27.1% to 24.0%. 4,600 fewer republicans after the riot. In the week from jan. Currently, republicans have 51 seats, and democrats have 47 with two races still undecided. The biggest spikes in republicans leaving the party came in the days after jan. Their partisan affiliation was roughly split between three groups: Gallup.com says 31% of voters are democrats.

How The Gop Could Win Pennsylvania

Hello, party leaders, potential candidates, lifelong donors, and long-suffering base voters. Its me, the guy who constantly asks about Pennsylvania. The guy who drives people to muting me on Twitter because I wont stop talking about Pennsylvania. Who is already showing flashcards of Collar Counties to his seven-week-old son.

Recently, I received an email from a follower of the Decision Desk, the gist of which was asking me, yes or no, do I really believe the Keystone State is winnable.

Well, heres my answer: Yes.

Yes, this state, which hasnt gone for a Republican president since H.W. Bush in 1988, is absolutely winnable. But not for the reasons often cited . In fact, the thing has driven me along in my obsessive quest for the great beast east of Ohio is an article Nate Cohn, now with The New York Times, but then with The New Republic, wrote on the eve of the 2012 election: Romney has a problem in Pennsylvania: Math. This passage, in particular, has stuck with me for three years:

Its easy to understand why Romney would invest in Pennsylvania.;Like Missouri or North Carolina for Democrats, Pennsylvania is what I call a spreadsheet state. When you start plugging in favorable numbers for the traditionally disadvantaged party, its too easy to get up to 48 percent of the vote, or even more. But those final hundred thousand votes are incredibly difficult and require something extraordinary.

Illinois: Error Registered A Possible 545 Noncitizen Voters

CHICAGO An error in Illinois new automatic voter registration system led to a possible 545 non-U.S. citizens being registered to vote, 15 of whom cast ballots, state officials publicly acknowledged this week.

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse Whites office, which oversees drivers licenses, said the data of 574 people who self-identified as non-citizens was erroneously forwarded to elections officials to be registered to vote. Election officials confirmed Tuesday that 545 of them were ultimately registered.

It was a computer error, White spokesman Dave Druker said Tuesday. We moved to correct it and contacted people involved.

As Illinois Republicans called for an immediate hearing over a serious breach of voter protections, election officials worked to determine how many of the registrations were indeed invalid. Over 150 registrations had been canceled, said State Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich.

Dietrich said it was possible some people indicated that they werent citizens by mistake. When Illinois residents get standard drivers licenses, they have to confirm they meet the criteria to vote, certifying they are 18 and a U.S. citizen. Only those who meet the criteria are supposed to be sent to election officials for registration.

The 15 people cast 19 ballots in elections in 2018 and 2019.

It was not immediately unclear what would happen to the individuals.

Follow Sophia Tareen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiatareen.

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The Secret Is Unregistered Voters

So is there a path to winning the Keystone? As I said before, yes. The secret lies not with the current number of registered voters, where Democrats dwarf Republicans by a cool million, but in the number of citizens of voting age not registered. Finding them and goading them into registering wont be easy, but they arent a rare breed: per current registration figures provided by the Department of State, and the Census estimate of current voting-age population, there are more than 1.6 million such untapped voters residing here. Heck, some of them may have already registered once before, but it lapsed.

Attesting to the sheer power of that Democratic voter drive that started a decade ago, only 14 percent of them reside in Philadelphia or Allegheny County. A clear majority, 62 percent to 38 percent, of this untapped mass resides in counties that went to Romney. I broke down the numbers and converted it into a simple diagram, where the counties have been re-sized according to how big a share of the untapped vote they account for:

As A Successful Republican New Mexico Governor 2016 Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson Pronounced That He Had Slashed Taxes More Than A Dozen Times Balanced The There Are Many On The Left Who Support The Libertarian Partys Proposals To Legalize The Liberal Use Of Marijuana

39.66 percent of voters are registered with that party. The most recent poll at the time of writing gives a d+11 advantage. Even if youd rather not commit to any particular party, you may find yourself wishing to support a specific democrat candidate when primaries come around. Once you know which party you belong to, it will be easier to decide which candidates to vote for during elections. This quiz will ask you questions about your political beliefs. However, registered republicans outnumber democrats in six of the states 21 counties, and there several other counties that are pretty evenly split. Over 60% of black voters are registered democrats compared to just 3% that are registered in surveys, more than half of seattle voters identified as democrat or leaning democratic. The answer may surprise you. Are you a democrat or a republican? Are there more democrats or republicans who top that list? The election of 2010 gave republicans the majority beginning in january, 2011. These are broadly generalized opinions; There are still way more registered democrats;

The election of 2010 gave republicans the majority beginning in january, 2011. Hello and thank you for registering. It was a more natural association. related: Are there more democrats or republicans who top that list? The republican party has waxed and waned in popularity and membership over the years, never quite having as many registered partisans as the democrats.

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Republicans Had Been Making Voter Registration Gains On Democrats In Pennsylvania For Years Stats Show 2020 May Have Changed That

PENNSYLVANIA Fraught with turmoil, judicial anxieties, violence, and uncertainties which shook democracy to its core, the 2020 election season in Pennsylvania was unlike any other in history.

And the fallout from the events of the past few months is only just beginning to unfold, with repercussions likely to be felt for years to come.

While it’s too early to tell exactly what will happen to the Republican Party after President Donald Trump’s loss, a glimpse at shifting voter registration patterns provides a glimpse at how the electorate is responding to recent events.

Democrats Have Been Getting Out There

Committed partisans are the most reliable participants in elections, and often vote more than 90 percent of the time with their stated party. Independents, on the other hand, are mostly lying , and when truly independent, are incredibly unreliable as a bloc from cycle to cycle. If they are the true pox on both houses types, and that terribly undecided, they may not even bother to vote. To win a major election, greater emphasis must be placed on finding, registering, contacting, and turning out new voters.

This is exactly what Democrats did throughout the country after 2004, and they certainly gave Pennsylvania a good one-over. From 2000 to 2014, Democratic and third-party efforts tipped the scales of registration even further to the Left, expanding the blue teams edge over Republicans by almost 650,000 voters. President Obama received more votes in 2012 than Sen. John Kerry did eight years prior, even with a drop-off from his 2008 high, a testament to his teams incredible turnout operation.

Despite that sizable shift, the actual impact on elections from 2000 to 2012 was miniscule: the presidents margin in the Keystone in 2012 was only about 105,000 votes wider than Gores had been. How does his performance over Gores stack up with other states he carried?

In Virginia, the margin swung by over 379,000 from 2000. In Colorado, 283,000. Wisconsin, 218,000. Iowa, 88,000. Nevada, 89,000.

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It’s Always Blue In Philadelphia And It’s Getting Bluer

There’s been a saying for decades that you can’t win Pennsylvania without winning the Philadelphia suburbs. Trump proved that untrue, at least for one year, when he won in 2016 without winning Philadelphia and its suburbs.

But the old adage became;true again in 2018, when a five-county region in southeastern Pennsylvania sent a record number of women to U.S. Congress and state offices.;

In 2019, history was made again. Democrats were elected to all five seats on the Delaware County Council, which had been held by a majority of Republicans since the Civil War. That same year, Democrats won the Board of Commissioners in Bucks County for the first time since 1983.;

This year could yield a record Democratic turnout in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties. As of Monday, the five-county region had added 75,574 more registered Democrats than in 2016. The biggest increase was an addition of 20,214 Democrats in Montgomery County since the last presidential election.;

In the same time period, the region has shed 31,384 Republicans from its voting rolls. The biggest loss was in Delaware County, where there are 16,981 fewer Republicans than in 2016.;

Past Jumps In Party Affiliations

Republicans In Pennsylvania Changing Party Registration Following Deadly Insurrection At US Capitol

The bump in Democratic affiliation following Bidens inauguration mirrors that of former President Barack Obamas first term, Jones said.

That was really the high point that weve seen; kind of the 2006-2009 period, when really the majority of Americans either identified as Democrats outright or were independents but they leaned toward the party, he said.;Our data on this only goes back to the 90s, but its pretty much the only time we consistently had one party with the majority of Americans on their side.

Republican advantages, though rarer and more short-lived, followed the Gulf War in 1991 when George H.W. Bush was in office and the 9/11 terrorist attacks during President George W. Bushs term, according to Gallup. More people also reported GOP affiliation after the 1994, 2010 and 2014 midterm elections.

Whether the Republican Party can regain advantage during the 2022 midterm elections may rely on the successes of the Biden administration, according to Jones.

A lot of it is going to depend on how things go over the course of the year. If things get better with the coronavirus and the economy bounces back and a lot of people expect Biden can keep relatively strong approval ratings, then that will be better for the Democrats, Jones said.;But if things start to get worse unemployment goes up or coronavirus gets worse; then his approval is going to go down. Its going to make things a lot better for the Republican Party for the midterm next year.

Also Check: What Is Difference Between Democrats And Republicans

Are You Surrounded By Democrats Or Republicans How Jersey Breaks Red And Blue In All 21 Counties

Here is a county-by-county breakdown of which political party rules in each of New Jerseys 21 counties and how much each party gained since this time last year.

New Jersey is a Democratic-leaning state, and its getting bluer by the month.

Democrats have registered voters at a faster pace than Republicans in the Garden State. But the GOP still maintains pockets of control in some counties.

Republicans are outnumbered by registered Democrats by nearly 1 million people , according to the latest statistics from the states Division of Elections. As of the end of September, New Jersey had 2,307,937 registered Democrats and 1,331,102 Republicans.

Over the past year, Democrats added more than double the number of registered voters compared to the GOP , according to the data.

However, registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in six of the states 21 counties, and there are a few other counties that are pretty evenly split. Also, Republicans out registered the number of new Democrats in six counties from this time last year, including in three counties where the number of Ds outweigh the Rs.

The largest number of New Jersey voters 2,378,040 to be exact have not formally claimed any party affiliation.

Twelve years ago, Democrats had a 290,000 vote plurality over registered Republicans statewide, said Ben Dworkin, director of Rowan Universitys Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship.

There Are 644835 Inactive Voters In Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania could rock;the vote a little harder.

There are 644,835 inactive voters in the state, including 418,777 inactive Democrats and 226,058 inactive Republicans, according to voter registration records.

The state defines an inactive voter as someone who has not voted in five years or has moved and not registered to vote in their new Pennsylvania county.

Think of a Penn State football game. Imagine a sellout crowd at Beaver Stadium. Multiply it by 6. Add 5,403 more people. That’s how many registered voters in Pennsylvania;are not actually voting.;

That includes 80,862 voters in southcentral Pennsylvania throughout Adams, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lancaster, Lebanon and York Counties.;

A closer look:;

Lancaster County: 20,040 inactive voters

Cumberland County: 18,662 inactive voters

York County: 16,926 inactive voters

Dauphin County: 12,508 inactive voters

Franklin County: 5,282 inactive voters

Adams County: 3,943 inactive voters

Lebanon County: 3,501 inactive voters

While those numbers pale in comparison to the more than 6.6 million active voters in Pennsylvania, every vote matters; especially in a battleground state. The 644,835 inactive voters here could easily decide the election.;

Remember, in 2016, it was 44,000 votes that decided the winner.;

The USA Today Network is working to register every voter, make it easy for voters to check their registration and find their polling place. You can find all of that here.;

Don’t Miss: What Percent Of Republicans Approve Of Trump

We Dont Know How Many Mail Ballots Wont Count

Under state law, counties can only accept mail ballots that arrive by 8 p.m. on Election Day. But last fall, anticipating unprecedented voting by mail and U.S. Postal Service delays, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled officials could count ballots that arrived up to three days after the election.

That grace period is gone, and ballots had to arrive at county election offices by 8 p.m. Tuesday to count. Its too soon to say how many ballots will come in after that deadline, but in last years general election about 10,000 ballots arrived during that three-day period.

Most Counties Finished Counting Mail Ballots Tuesday Night

The states universal mail voting law gave Pennsylvanians a new way to cast a ballot in 2020, but it also put increased pressure on county election offices. Local officials repeatedly pleaded with lawmakers to pass a bill giving them time before Election Day to begin processing, or pre-canvassing, these ballots.

But in the end, no such change was made, and it took some counties days to get through millions of ballots, giving former President Donald Trump a window to falsely claim the election was stolen from him.

County election departments once again couldnt start processing mail ballots until 7 a.m. Tuesday, but many were able to count most or all of their mail ballots by the time polls closed, thanks to low turnout.

Some counties, including Beaver and Monroe, chose not to begin counting mail ballots until Wednesday, with election officials saying they wanted their staff to focus on running the in-person election.

Mercer County Election Director Thad Hall said his staff will count the countys approximately 4,000 ballots Wednesday and conduct an audit by hand with the two major political parties on Friday.

Also Check: Are There More Democrats Or Republicans In Us

Poring Over Party Registration

This is not the best of times for the Democratic Party. No White House; no Senate; no House of Representatives; and a clear minority of governorships and state legislatures in their possession. Yet the Democrats approach this falls midterm elections with an advantage in one key aspect of the political process their strength in states where voters register by party.

Altogether, there are 31 states with party registration; in the others, such as Virginia, voters register without reference to party. Among the party registration states are some of the nations most populous: California, New York, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arizona, and Massachusetts.

The basic facts: In 19 states and the District, there are more registered Democrats than Republicans. In 12 states, there are more registered Republicans than Democrats. In aggregate, 40% of all voters in party registration states are Democrats, 29% are Republicans, and 28% are independents. Nationally, the Democratic advantage in the party registration states approaches 12 million.

Still, Republican Donald Trump found a route to victory in 2016 that went through the party registration states. He scored a near sweep of those where there were more Republicans than Democrats, winning 11 of the 12, while also taking six of the 19 states where there were more Democrats than Republicans a group that included the pivotal battleground states of Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

At Least 60 Afghans And 13 Us Service Members Killed By Suicide Bombers And Gunmen Outside Kabul Airport: Us Officials

Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabuls airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. At least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops were killed, Afghan and U.S. officials said.

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[t-baba]

Is Deno the next big thing?

#472 — January 24, 2020

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The 10 Most Important JavaScript Frameworks of The Past Decade? — It’s a bit of a listicle by definition, but covers frontend, backend, and native and broadly matches up with our experiences. Where’s Ember though?

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Ava 3.0 Released: The Popular Test Runner — A popular test runner for Node with a concise API, detailed error output, etc. 3.0 drops built-in Babel support due to advancements in Node’s native modern JavaScript support and this has some implications for how you’ll write your tests so take care with this upgrade and read this post first.

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[ellymackay]

3 Reasons Why You’re Still Tired After 7-9 Hours of Sleep

3 Reasons Why You’re Still Tired After 7-9 Hours of Sleep was initially published on https://www.ellymackay.com/

This week we’re going to be diving into a question I get nearly daily, and one you may be asking yourself: why am I still tired after a full night of sleep?

Chances are you’ve heard the standard advice: get seven to eight hours of sleep per night for optimal health. It’s bad enough that for some of us that’s hard to achieve. First of all, most of us don’t know where to start–something as simple as a sleep calculator and taking my chronotype quiz can be helpful.

But something that’s frustrating? Making every effort to get those seven to eight hours of sleep and still waking up exhausted and relying on caffeine to combat daytime sleepiness.

I’ll explain why the seven to eight hours of sleep guidelines doesn’t work for everyone; the reasons behind why you’re always tired, and some natural sleep remedies to boost your energy.

Where Do Sleep Guidelines Come From?

The first thing we need to tackle is the 7-9 hours of sleep. Chances are someone’s recommended this to you, whether it’s your primary care physician, a friend, or just advice you’ve come across after battling daytime fatigue.

The guidelines were established by the National Sleep Council, which routinely revisits sleep recommendation guidelines for everyone from babies to teenagers and adults.  The latest guidelines came out in 2015.

But it’s more complex than that: while these are guidelines, sleep experts such as myself have continued to see, time and time again, that those recommendations don’t fit everyone.

Why 7-9 Hours of Sleep Doesn’t Work For Everyone

Sometimes I wish one set of guidelines, one sleep aid, or a single tip could help all clients fight insomnia, wake up refreshed, and enjoy optimal health. That isn’t the case: for some, a drug free cooling band like my favorite from EBB is helpful for calming racing thoughts at night. Others might benefit from this Remzy weighted blanket for comfort and relaxation

68 percent of us have sleep issues at least once a week, according to a 2016 Consumer Reports survey of 4,000 Americans. So it makes sense that, while seven to nine hours of sleep may work for the average adult, it doesn’t work for everyone.

A narrative review of sleep guidelines published in The Nature of Science and Sleep found that observational and self reporting biases made it difficult to truly know how long people were sleeping. The 2018 recommendation was that more in depth, controlled and longitudinal studies will be needed to better understand how much sleep is associated with the most health benefits.

Finally, individuals are…individuals. We all have different sleep patterns, based on an internal biological clock, or what I call a chronotype. Our chronotypes affect the time of day we perform our best work, get our best workout in, and sleep. Because of this, a standard seven to nine hours doesn’t ensure waking up feeling rested.

Why More Sleep Isn’t Always the Answer

Of course, while you may find that you can get by with one less hour of sleep, or need one more, most adults will need within an hour of those professional sleep guidelines. So when a client asks why they’re still tired after 12 hours of sleep, I start becoming concerned, sleeping too much can have its own serious side effects.

The truth is, while up to 35 percent of Americans are considered chronically sleep deprived (less than seven hours of sleep per night),that isn’t the only problem. Many of us are getting seven to nine hours of sleep, and even more, but especially for those suffering from a true sleep disorder, your risk for depression and other life issues is still high.

3 Common Reasons Why You’re Always Tired (And What To Do)

If seven to nine hours of sleep isn’t working (and then some) here are the most common reasons why you’re still feeling tired:

Problem: You’re Not Sleeping as Much as You Think.

This is a common problem, not unlike going on a diet: unless you’re tracking your sleep, it can be easy to lose track of just how many hours you’re getting.

You can have the best intentions and end up staying up late looking at emails instead of going to bed when you planned (if you do look at electronics at night, I recommend using blue light blocking glasses so you won’t disrupt your body’s production of melatonin).

Another reason you may not be getting as much quality sleep as you think is ambient light. Consider using an eye mask so that all light is blocked, especially if you have a bed partner who uses a light in bed or if your work requires sleeping during daylight hours. This is the eye mask I use and recommend for my patients. I also love the Dep Slep sleep hoodie with a built in eye mask.

Solution: Track Your Sleep

You don’t have to be a sleep expert like me to track your sleep. While sleep centers can monitor your sleep, you can also opt for the lower cost solution of a sleep tracker (my go to is the SleepScore Max ).

For many people I recommend a sleep tracking device because you’ll get information not only how many hours you sleep, but how much of that is deep sleep. Research has shown that lack of deep sleep is tied to everything from obesity and diabetes to disorders, heart problems, and impedes sleep’s benefits for brain health.

Problem: You Have Sleep Apnea

This sleep issue is directly related to not being aware of how much sleep you’re getting, and why a sleep tracker can be helpful. If you or your partner snores, there’s a high probability that you may be suffering from sleep apnea.

I’ve written extensively on sleep apnea and its negative impact on your health, and that’s because it’s so prevalent: more than 18 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea, a disorder characterized by obstructed breathing at night.

If you do have undiagnosed sleep apnea, one of the most common symptoms is daytime sleepiness, no matter how many hours you’re logging. That’s because sleep apnea regularly disrupts deep sleep, which is vital for tissue growth and repair.

Solution: Seek Sleep Apnea Treatment

Suspect you might have sleep apnea? Take my Snore Score Quiz to get started. If you snore at all, it’s worth getting checked because undiagnosed sleep apnea can not only cause you to always feel tired, but also lead to serious cardiovascular conditions, like high blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythm, and even heart attacks.

The good news is that sleep apnea is treatable. The most effective treatment is a CPAP machine. For some, oral mouthpieces can be used to open up airways at night.  Lifestyle changes such as losing weight and reducing alcohol consumption; and, in rare cases, surgery can also be helpful.

Always consult a medical professional and avoid self diagnosing.

Problem: You’re Fighting Your Chronotype

The third reason why you’re always tired after a full night’s sleep deserves a whole article, but for now I’ll leave it to this: you’re fighting your chronotype.

There are many things we do throughout our days–from when we get up to what we eat and our stress levels–that drain our energy even after a night of restorative sleep. While we all have days where we struggle to stay awake, sleep deprivation causes chronic lack of concentration and harms both our physical and mental health.

From drinking caffeine at the wrong time to eating dinner too early (or too late), little habits that fight our biological clock make it harder to fall asleep, stay asleep, and power through our day.

Solution: Adjust Your Routine For Your Unique Needs

This is in some ways the hardest solution to follow, because it takes time, patience, and trial and error.

Your first step to optimizing your energy is to find out when exactly your body thrives when it comes to eating, sleeping, and even exercising and socializing. To do that, take my Chronotype Quiz.

From there, you can learn ways to reorient your day. By doing so, you’re making the very most out of those seven to nine hours of sleep and you’ll start feeling more energized as your body adjusts.

As a send off, I’ll leave you with this: feeling tired all the time is something we seem to have accepted as a society, but it shouldn’t be. You deserve to live your best life possible. And you don’t need to succumb to the dangers of relying on energy drinks to get through your day.

Until next week, sweet dreams.

The post 3 Reasons Why You’re Still Tired After 7-9 Hours of Sleep appeared first on Your Guide to Better Sleep.

from Your Guide to Better Sleep https://thesleepdoctor.com/2020/07/25/3-reasons-why-youre-still-tired-after-7-9-hours-of-sleep/

from Elly Mackay - Feed https://www.ellymackay.com/2020/07/25/3-reasons-why-youre-still-tired-after-7-9-hours-of-sleep/

[sandovalenst1000]

Midterm Submission

Blog Entry 1/27

The environmental studies program at Fordham is not only interdisciplinary, but allows students to have a concentration in one of various fields of study, from sustainable business to food security and organic farming. The major and minor programs’ course selections are built from the pressing changes to our earth and the need to address the Earth’s environmental problems that society has caused. The environmental studies program allows students to understand the causes and effects of current and developing environmental problems through studying the humanities and physical & social sciences, in addition to exploring solutions for societal and physical impacts on the Earth through various disciplines. While scientists have been trying to make society more aware of our environmental impacts, it has not proved to be enough to motivate most people, creating a need for an interdisciplinary environmental studies program to educate the current generation and aligning with the current surge for environmental activism.

Without scientific fields of study such as biology and chemistry, we would not even begin to understand the environment, allowing environmental science to be the foundation for environmental studies. Environmental science is the study of “how the earth works…, how humans interact with the environment, and how we can live more sustainably” (Miller, 2018, p. 5), allowing individuals to answer the call to understand environmental problems. The physical science aspect of environmental studies provides the background to understand sustainability, “the capacity of the earth’s natural systems...to survive or adapt to changing environmental conditions” (Miller, 2018, p. 4). The six main principles of sustainability applying to the environment, which allow humans to understand and attempt to create a more sustainable future, include the following: dependence on solar energy, biodiversity, nutrient cycling, full cost pricing, win-win solutions, and responsibility to future generations.

All energy comes from the sun and provides continuous energy to cycle nutrients throughout an ecosystem. The sun additionally provides the energy for biodiversity, which is “the variety of genes, species, ecosystems, and ecosystem processes” (Miller, 2018, p. 5). Full-cost pricing, rooted in economic principles, is encouraged by environmentally-conscious economists, who propose to include the health and environmental costs of production and usage of products in the market pricing of services and goods rather than companies taking advantage of the environment for larger profit margins. Win-win solutions, rooted in political science, incorporate compromise and collaboration to find the greatest benefit for both the environment and people. Lastly, the responsibility to future generations to preserve the environment incorporates ethics to provide morality towards what humans do to affect the Earth. A comprehensive assessment on the environmental cost of animal source foods by the Ecological Society of America notes unbalanced regulation when comparing marine and terrestrial sources and suggests policy action to avoid high-impact farming, aquaculture, and fisheries (Banobi, 2018), exhibiting the interdisciplinary suggestions necessary to help the environment and limit society’s impacts.

With various facets of the environment suffering due to exploitation of nature, such as ozone depletion and toxic coastal soil from farming, scientists continue to reach out to society to strike the feeling of responsibility to future generations and the Earth, using the ethical approach. In the 1992 Warning to Humanity letter by the Union of Concerned Scientists, it cites irreversible damage to the Earth as of almost three decades ago, which is considerably worse in 2020 with little change to policy. The letter recommends collaboration, policy change for better management of resources, and population stabilization to help halt the degradation of resources and the overall health of the Earth. Collaboration between nations, while being one of the most difficult parts of global politics, is the most efficient way to globally address environmental issues, starting with government agreements to address human actions towards the environment. Most recently in the 2017 Warning of Climate Emergency from the Alliance of World Scientists, scientists still use the ethical and moral approach to try and motivate others to help save the Earth. Both the 1992 and 2017 letters from scientists have similar messages, with each urging people to contribute to helping the environment. The Alliance of World Scientists urges leaders to adapt approaches to governing and policy making in relation to environmental management, and the materials used to manufacture products. Both letters identify developed nations, such as the United States, as the largest contributors to environmental decline and also as the most influential in saving the environment.

With many calls from the United Nations to help motivate nations to contribute to saving the environment, one of the most comprehensive calls is the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, collecting data from 2001 to 2005 to analyze the consequences of ecosystem changes on the Earth and on human beings and focuses on various ecosystem services. Ecosystem services include provisioning, regulating, habitat and support, and cultural services that benefit human beings and maintain the environment to a certain extent. Provisioning services include “material outputs from ecosystems” (2005), such as food and water, raw materials, and medicinal benefits. Regulating services regulate the quality of air and soil, in addition to providing flood and disease control in ecosystems. Habitat and supporting services include providing habitats for species and maintaining genetic diversity among breeds of organisms. Lastly, cultural services include the non-material benefits humans receive from nature, such as tourism and recreational experiences. With about 60% of the ecosystem services that were studied being degraded or used unsustainably, usage shifts the consequences further into the future for future generations (2005). While usage of ecosystem services benefit humans now, in the future they will not as shifts in regional climates continue, affecting not only production of goods but humans as well due to loss of assets. While developed countries continue to impact the environment the most, degradation of ecosystem services affect impoverished populations the most (2005), due to large centralized impoverished populations being in third-world countries. The Ecosystem Assessment highlights that changes require influential policy changes and without it, impacts will become permanent and compounded, such as projected future species loss to increase ten-fold to approximately 80 to 110 extinctions per 1000 species (2005).

Reflecting on the larger impacts of society on the environment, I took the Ecological Footprint quiz to see what my individual environmental impact is, considering that I live in dorm housing on campus in New York City. Unsurprisingly, the largest consumption result is my housing, considering that I live in a dorm with approximately 800 other students, with mobility coming in second, which I based off of my driving habits at home. Despite some of my less environmentally friendly habits, I still have about half of the ecological footprint of the average American. Overall solutions proposed by the Ecological Footprint results include green urban planning, considering 70-80% of the world’s population is projected to live in cities by 2050, renewable energy sources, reduced food waste, controlled population size, and actively protecting ecosystems. Solutions proposed by almost all materials read, specifically the Ecosystem Assessments and Warning letters, include interdisciplinary approaches to responding to environmental disarray, stemming from environmental science and environmental studies.

Word Count: 1167 words

Question: Considering the cutthroat business market, are there any successful full-cost pricing models used by companies today? If so, how do those companies differentiate their product from cheaper models in the same market?

Bib

“1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity.” July 16, 1992. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/1992-world-scientists-warning-humanity.

“Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis.” Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005.

“Environmental Studies.” Fordham University. Accessed January 27, 2020. https://www.fordham.edu/es.

Hilborn, Ray, Jeannette Banobi, Stephen J Hall, Teresa Pucylowski, and Timothy E Walsworth. “The Environmental Cost of Animal Source Foods.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, June 12, 2018. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1822.

Ripple, William J, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M Newsome, Phoebe Barnard, and William R Moomaw. “World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency.” Alliance of World Scientists, November 5, 2019. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/1/8/5610806.

Blog Entry ⅔

With our Earth’s ecosystems teetering on the verge of depreciation due to the strain the human race put on its resources, it is important to learn the role of human beings on Earth and understand the other species that we coexist and share our resources with. Using science, we try to understand how nature works and use the knowledge to assume the future of the Earth, due to likely cause and effect patterns. Through experimentation and reliable science, expert scientists in their respective fields understand various aspects of nature, from the geological makeup to how the human race’s presence affects the Earth. While scientists can determine that there is a very high probability that certain hypotheses are correct, experiments can consist of statistical error and human error, in addition to natural variables.

For the basic understanding of how our Earth is made, scientists have discovered everything from the smallest unit of matter, the atom, to the biosphere, which is made up of the atmosphere, troposphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere. In addition to understanding the makeup of the earth, scientists have established the following necessary scientific theories: the Law of Conservation of Matter, the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The Law of Conservation of Matter is that no atoms are created or destroyed during physical or chemical changes. Similarly, the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, or the Law of Conservation of Energy, states that no energy is created or destroyed when energy is converted between physical to chemical forms or vice versa. Lastly, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that, when energy is converted from one form to another in a physical or chemical change, the result is lower quality energy than previously. Energy quality is determined by the capacity to do useful work, with high-quality energy having the ability to do useful work and low-quality energy having little ability to do useful work. Energy is present in the Earth’s natural system, flowing through the system through a feedback loop, which “occurs when an output of matter, energy, or information is fed back into the system as an input and changes the system” (Miller, 2018, p. 43). The importance is high-quality energy is emphasized through all the wasted energy humans use, which is approximately 84% of the energy used in the United States (Miller, 2018, p. 42).

The flow of high-quality energy in a system from the sun is just as important as nutrient cycling through the biosphere, which are two of the three factors that sustain life, in addition to gravity keeping the atmosphere together and enabling nutrient cycling. Due to the flow of energy and nutrients, autotrophs, producers that make their own nutrients from sunlight, and heterotrophs, organisms that consume other organisms, can thrive in an ecosystem and result in a food web (Miller, 2018, p. 52-53). With the existence of heterotrophs and autotrophs, predator-prey relationships emerge in ecosystems, eventually evolving into intraspecific and interspecific competition with and between species. Due to predator-prey relationships, both the predator and prey species evolve, called coevolution, where both species benefit from natural selection (Miller, 2018, p. 104). In addition to species adaptations, ecosystems adjust to changes as well through ecological succession, a gradual change in a given terrestrial or aquatic area (Miller, 2018, p. 106), which includes facilitation, inhibition, and tolerance as factors for the rate of ecological succession. Facilitation is the process where one set of species makes a habitat suitable for certain species with niche and specific environment requirements. Inhibition is the process where some species inhibit the growth of other species. Lastly, tolerance is when plants in late stages of succession in the ecosystem succeed due to lack of direct competition with other plants for nutrients. In real life application, limitations on an ecosystem apply to the strain on resources for the growing human population, which is pushing the carrying capacity for the Earth, or the “maximum population of a given species that a particular habitat can sustain indefinitely” (Miller, 2018, p. 111).

An important factor determining the carrying capacity for species on Earth is the weather, with atmospheric temperature and precipitation being the most important factors within the topic of weather. A climate is “the general pattern of atmospheric conditions in a given area over time” (Miller, 2018, p, 145), which varies due to global jet streams and ocean currents that distribute heat and precipitation. In addition to jet streams and ocean currents regulating global temperature, greenhouse gases absorb some solar energy and release it as heat for the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s surface, called the greenhouse effect (Miller, 2018, p. 147-148). While climates divide the surface, biomes are further characterizations of climate and plant life for terrestrial regions. Biomes are broken up into deserts, grasslands, chaparrals, and forests, which each have various subdivisions within the biomes with specific characteristics for climate and plant life in the subdivision.

Human population growth has slowed since 1965 to 1.2% (Miller, 2018, p. 121), but population growth is still present and the most growth is in less-developed countries due to lack of economic development, education for women, and family planning resources for those populations, as proposed by the textbook (Miller, 2018, p. 130-131). Birth rates are lower in more-developed countries due to a decreased importance for children as part of the labor force, a higher cost of raising and educating children, access to birth control, a higher average age for marriage, and a higher availability in pension systems (Miller, 2018, p. 126). Additionally, with infant mortality at a lower level than in the past, families can have less children and children have higher life expectancies (Miller, 2018, p. 127). The human population reproduces less compared to other species, due to an older age for reproductive maturity from longer life spans and larger offspring that develop inside of mothers. While the human population is significant in the present day, human beings have only existed on Earth for a very small and insignificant portion of time relative to the 4.5 billion year lifetime of the Earth.

Individual species are necessary to sustain proper order in ecosystems, as shown by the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park. Following the reintroduction of the species, the ecosystem found equilibrium and revived much of the flora and fauna, in addition to other species that had a minimal presence in the system relative to the overwhelming initial presence of the deer. The case study on the reintroduction of species leads to the impact of differential variation and population growth for minimal presence populations, including the stabilization of the ecosystem, such as the decrease erosion of the river banks.

Word count: 1107/1100

Question: What is the most effective method of sustaining individual species when endangered?

Bibliography

How Wolves Change Rivers. Sustainable Human, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ysa5OBhXz-Q.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

The Evolution of Life on Earth. AsapSCIENCE, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2_6cqa2cP4.

Blog entry 2/10

Throughout human existence, the population’s actions have created a need for environmentalism to address the missteps of the population, resulting in negative consequences for the environment such as smog from rapid industrialization and increasing usage of natural resources.  Environmentalism is a political and philosophical movement, which focuses on industrial production and the resulting patterns of human consumption that has created increasing ecological instability (Stoll, 2007, p. 2). Specifically, environmentalism asserts that natural landscapes in the world inherently have value from basic existence, industrialism and nature do not coexist, and humans have the right to a clean and healthy Earth, which they should care for and help sustain the life of.

Within North American and the United States, many policy changes have been made to help counteract the consequences of industrial development and human greed from approximately the past 500 years. Beginning from the Age of Discovery and European colonization in North America, the rapid change from Native Americans’ traditional method of hunter-gatherers to mass industrialization and usage of natural resources has negatively impacted the environment from the transition from a low-impact culture to a high-impact culture. Following European colonization, the Frontier Era in the United States provides some of the best examples for taking the Earth’s wonders for granted, such as settlers moving west clearing forests for crops and land for settlements and the United States government transferring public land to private interests (Cengage, 2007, p. 1). For example, prior to western expansion in the United States, American bison were a comfortable population size, despite being hunted by Native Americans. Native Americans, known for their low-impact hunter-gatherer lifestyle, only killed the amount of bison necessary and used almost all the parts of the slaughtered animal, leaving no waste. Following westward expansion, Native American tribes were displaced from their homelands and settlers drastically decreased the American bison population from overhunting, killed for various unjustified reasons (Cengage, 2007, p. 2). While the American bison population has bounced back from the Frontier Era due to federal protection, the initial lack of government regulation has greatly contributed to early settlers’ negative impacts on the natural resources of North America.

Within the past century, the United States government has actively taken a role in caring for our environment that it should have started when new settlements contributed to the expansion of the country. With the term of President Theodore Roosevelt from 1901 to 1909, conservationist and preservationist views of the environment came to the forefront of American policy, with Roosevelt being a major proponent of the conservationist school, containing the idea that public lands should be cared for and managed to provide necessary resources (Cengage, 2007, p. 4). During Theodore Roosevelt’s term as president, federal refuges were established and government regulation agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service, were created to begin to care for the environment. Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency led the government-initiative to begin to care for the environmental issues that human beings had created within the United States, which fortunately carried on through later presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.

Settlers moving into the western United States for the first time maintained a “frontier environmental world-view” (Cengage, 2007, p.1), which was the idea that the Earth and its natural resources were to be conquered and managed for human use. Human beings, even today, contain a narrow-minded view that the Earth was created for human use and exploitation, leading to a large number of people not “believing” in climate change or global warming, despite scientific evidence and research. Within the timeline of the Earth’s existence, human beings are an extremely small portion of that, but we as a whole have made significant impacts on the health of our Earth. Outside of our history as humankind, there is Big History, the examination of history of the Earth from the big bang to present day. Similar to human history, Big History focuses on patterns and trends over long periods of times, and, through multidisciplinary research, analyzes the role of human existence. Themes of Big History include: large time scales of history, cosmic evolution, energy flow, complexity, and thresholds of the environment. A key component of Big History includes the Goldilocks Principle, the idea that circumstances must be correct for any type of complexity to exist or form, which is governed by the optimum usage of energy (Spier, 2008). The Earth has existed for approximately 4.6 billion years, with homo sapiens only emerging for approximately 150,000 years out of 4.6 billion. However within an even smaller period of time than homo sapiens’ existence, the Earth’s population has increased about 8 times its amount in 1850 A.D. (1 billion humans) to 7.7 billion people as of February 2020, over the course of only 170 years (U.S. Census Bureau 2020), which leads me to wonder: how long until society collapses from overpopulation?

In Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, the author explores the historical instances of societal failures or decrease in complexity for large periods of time and connects them to five main factors contributing to collapse: climate change, hostile neighbors, collapse of trade partners, environmental problems, and the societal response to the previous factors (Diamond, 2005, p. 18). Through research, Diamond highlights many environmental problems that align with past and future societal collapses, such as environmental toxins and overpopulation. Not only does Diamond do the research to pinpoint where societies have gone wrong, but proposes ways to begin to fix the future collapse of societies: long-term planning and the reconsideration of core values, such as production. In addition to Diamond’s book, the geological timescale of the Anthropocene also highlights indications of human change and how it has affected nature within its time frame, such as animals turning nocturnal to avoid human contact and stratigraphy changes on Earth. The Anthropocene time frame additionally highlights the increasing lack of biodiversity developing within the Earth’s ecosystems, leading to increasing extinction rates and diminished ecosystems. The most widely known human impact from the Industrial Revolution has been global warming, occurring from excess greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, trapping solar energy in the atmosphere, increasing the atmospheric temperature of the Earth, and thus causing additional problems due to temperature-sensitive ecosystems.

Without the historical disciplines of the Earth, human beings would not know where to begin to try and solve the problems we caused. Studying geological epochs, such as the Anthropocene, or larger historical views, such as Big History, has increased understanding of various themes throughout the creation of and existence of the Earth that benefits personal action and policy creation to counteract actions of our ancestors throughout history

Word count: 1111/1100

Question: What is distinct about the geological epoch of the Anthropocene that distinguishes it from conventional history?

Anthropocene: difference, genus homo is not considered primary agent of change, which is where conventional history starts

Bibliography

“Anthropocene.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, February 6, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene.

“Big History.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, December 20, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History#cite_note-tws2M41-20.

“Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, January 19, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed#cite_ref-2.

Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Toronto: Penguin Books, 2005.

Living in the Environment. Cengage Learning, Inc., 2007.

Spier, Fred. “Big History: The Emergence of an Interdisciplinary Science?” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 33, no. 2 (2008). https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/6.3/spier.html.

Stoll, Steven. U.S. Environmentalism since 1945. New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.

“U.S. and World Population Clock.” Population Clock. United States Census Bureau. Accessed February 10, 2020. https://www.census.gov/popclock/.

Blog entry 2/18

With the development and wealth divides between countries and individuals in the global community, the understanding of various environmental worldviews is more important than ever considering today’s environmental issues. The understanding of various environmental worldviews should be highlighted in education to sustain a comprehensive understanding of others’ ethical worldview and to provide a more collaborative approach to environmental policy. An environmental worldview is the beliefs and assumptions that an individual has about how the natural world functions and how an individual thinks humans should interact with the environment (Miller, 2018, p. 683). An individual's environmental worldview stems from one’s environmental ethics, an individual's beliefs of what is right and wrong concerning human behavior and interactions with the environment (Miller, 2018, p. 683), which vary between anthropocentric, life-centered, and earth-centered.

Anthropocentric, or human-centered, worldviews encompass what most human beings believe in our relationship to the environment, which focuses on the desires and necessities of human beings. Overall, the anthropocentric worldview is encompassed in the planetary management worldview, in which humans should manage the earth for their benefit. Additionally, the value of other species and natural resources is based on how useful they are to human beings, stemming from the idea that human beings are the most important and dominant species on earth. Within the planetary worldview, the following schools of thought are believed in: the no-problem school, the free-market school, the spaceship-earth school, and the stewardship school. The no-problem school focuses on the idea that any problem can be solved with more economic and technological growth & development and better management, which disregards limited economic growth, natural resources, and human wisdom. The free-market school highlights the idea that the plant should be managed through a free-market global economy with minimal government interference and mostly private property regulated through the global marketplace, which is based on unlimited economic growth and unlimited natural resources. The spaceship-earth school of thought is the idea that the earth is essentially a machine that can be managed without overwhelming natural systems, which does not consider overpopulation and overconsumption. Lastly, the stewardship school is the idea that humans have an ethical responsibility to be stewards of the earth and should encourage environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth and development (Miller, 2018, p. 683). Additionally, the anthropocentric worldviews brings into question the idea of the collapse of human civilizations if humans are the dominant species, which Miller highlights two early signs of the collapse of civilizations: gridlock and the substitution of beliefs for empirical evidence. Gridlock is when civilizations are unable to resolve complex problems, which eventually lead to their downfall (Miller, 2018, p. 683). The substitution of beliefs for empirical evidence is when human beings rely on unknown factors, such as future technology, to avoid addressing threats of collapse.

In contrast, the life-centered worldview is the idea that humans have an ethical responsibility to preserve other species that would become extinct through careless human activity. The earth-centered worldview is the idea that humans have an ethical responsibility to preserve biodiversity, life-support systems, and ecosystem services (Miller, 2018, p. 685), which is highlighted in the environmental wisdom worldview, in which humans should learn how to live sustainably and how to coexist with nature. The earth-centered worldview aligns with environmental citizenship, which is the idea that human beings are an “integral part of a larger ecosystem” (Hargrove, p. 323) and should act responsibly & positively towards the environment. The belief of environmental citizenship is religiously neutral and can apply to all human beings. Similar ideas to environmental citizenship include environmental stewardship, which is more religiously centered, and ecological citizenship, which focuses on the responsibilities of citizens in developed nations.

Due to the various worldviews and schools of thought among human beings, educators have tried to integrate environmentalism concepts into education to specifically highlight understanding of sustainability, natural capital, exponential growth, carrying capacity, food webs, nutrient cycling, biodiversity, and ecological succession. Within environmental education, another argument in favor of its integration is the development of nature-deficit disorder, a range of problems, such as attention deficit disorders and obesity, that can result from or be intensified by a lack of nature. Nature-deficit disorder reveals “the necessity of contact with nature for healthy child and adult development” (Louv). Stemming from the development of research into nature-deficit disorder, the No Child Left Behind movement has followed suit, which encourages and provides funding for environmental education, specifically environmental literacy and to develop understanding of environmental problems. On the global scale, Nigeria is one of the developing world countries to integrate environmental education in school’s curriculums to highlight the country’s degradation, but most developed countries have somewhat integrated environmental education into science programs at schools. Further, many institutions, such as not-for-profits and museums, have integrated environmental education exhibits that are available to the public. The No Child Left Behind movement originated from the hypothesis of biophilia, which is the ‘‘innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms’’ (Wilson, 1993, p. 31).

Biophilia stems from the historical role of human beings as hunter-gatherers and their root genetic heritage as animals. Human beings contain a genetic heritage rooted in response to natural stimuli, which have been historically reinforced by contact with nature despite culturally adapting to advanced practices beyond our origins as hunter-gatherers. Historically, human practices have reinforced natural reasoning and information-gathering through “ancestral habitat responses” (Heerwagen, p. 110), such as discerning between toxic and edible foods and avoiding predators. Through various studies, humans respond very positively to natural stimulus, whether it is true or simulated. Human beings display a strong affinity towards water, which correlates with historical pressures and difficulties to find fresh water, shown through individuals responding “very positively to sparkle, reflections, and surface movements of water” (Heerwagen, p. 110). In addition to positive physical responses to nature, studies indicate increase in cognitive function, emotions, natural problem solving, social tendencies, and psychological benefits with exposure to nature. However for human beings to reap the non-material benefits of the environment, environmental justice is necessary for the preservation of the earth.

The Environmental Justice Movement is interdisciplinary, specifically combining social justice and environmentalism, and highlights the environment as, not only nature, but a “set of socially and politically conditioned relationships” (Figueroa, p. 341) and incorporates primarily distributive justice. Distributive fairness and justice focus on the disproportionate burden of negative environmental impacts on non-whites, the working class, and the poor (Figueroa, p. 342), which is in response to saturated impacts against people of color and the poor within specific distribution that is isolated in zip codes. Additionally, the ideas of intergenerational justice, the “set of obligations the members of one generation may owe to people of other generations” (Wolf, p. 518), and intragenerational justice, the “obligations that members of one generation owe to one another” (Wolf, p. 518), provide theories of justice to add to human morality and ethics towards the earth, allowing human beings to relate to one another. Within the relationship between developed and developing nations, developed nations are the most active in pro-environmental measures, which hinder industrial development in developing nations due to concerns for climate change, natural resource preservation, and biodiversity. However, developed nations only currently have pro-environmental responses as a result of their past industrial development, overconsumption, and overall contributions to environmental issues. Due to increasing environmental education initiatives and various worldviews, human beings must learn to collaborate to explore policy change to initiate action to help the earth combat our own past actions.

Word Count: 1240/1100

Question: How does retributive justice tie into overall intergenerational justice?

Bibliography

Figueroa, Robert Melchior. “Environmental Justice.” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, n.d., 341–48.

Hargrove, Eugene C. “Environmental Citizenship.” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy , n.d., 323–25.

Heerwagen, Judith. “Biophilia.” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, n.d., 109–13.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia and the Conservation Ethic. Edited by Stephen R Kellert. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993.

Wolf, Clark. “Intergenerational Justice.” Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, n.d., 518–25.

Blog entry 2/24

With the necessity for green energy being recognized by many, most notably Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has recognized the need to develop green technology to help promote sustainability. Bezos, the richest man in the world, has set aside approximately 10% of his net worth, $10 billion USD, into the “Bezos Earth Fund” (Forbes, 2020), to help promote innovation for green technology. In addition to Amazon Inc. also committing to contribute net zero carbon emissions by 2040, many countries and businesses have also decided to make big steps towards sustainability through legislation and economic development. In the S&P stock market, the Global Clean Energy Index has massively surpassed the Global Natural Resources Index within the past year (Forbes, 2020), indicating a larger trend in economics toward renewable energy and sustainability. From countries, China is the largest investor in the global green technology sector, with “approximately $127 billion invested in 2017” (Investopedia, 2019), contributing to socially responsible investing that has been shown in recent years by not only large global powers, but also powerful individuals such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Many businesses currently seek out to create sustainable business initiatives within their missions, with Amazon Inc. being one of many, with past corporate pioneers such as Ford Motor Company, Subaru, and Nature’s Path. Corporate sustainability strategies include innovation, collaboration, continuous improvement, sustainability research & reporting, and sustainably acquiring resources. Characteristics of sustainable business include biomimicry-based, biodegradable or recyclable products, green energy usage, locally owned and managed organizations, options for continuous improvement, and being financially, socially, and environmentally beneficial, also known as the triple bottom line.  While Amazon Inc. is a multibillion dollar and globally influential corporation, its newfound commitment to “The Climate Pledge” shows the possibility of all larger corporations switching over to more environmentally friendly and sustainable methods of production and more to continue to sustain the Earth’s lifetime and resources.

Economics, a “social science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services to satisfy people’s needs and wants” (Miller, 2018, p. 631) is separated into varying types from centrally planned, which is run by a national government, to a truly free market economy, which in practice is governed by economic interactions, and most modern economies fall somewhere between centrally planned and a free market, ending up being a mixed economy. Government intervention is necessary for market failures, which is the lack of public services offered to due to private goods and services offered, such as the inability to prevent the degradation of open-access resources, which is then spearheaded by government intervention. Most modern economies aim for a high-throughput economy, which “[increases] the flow of matter and energy resources through the economic system to produce more goods and services” (Miller, 2018, p. 632), but also tends to be environmentally unsustainable due to increased waste and pollution absorbed into natural resources from high production rates and resource use, which in turn degrades the quality of natural resources. However, environmentally sustainable economic development is the “use of political and economic systems to encourage environmentally beneficial and more sustainable forms of economic improvement” (Miller, 2018, pp. 632-633), which allows solutions for the environment that benefit both the environment and society.

Varying views of the economy influence the perceived role of the environment in the economy. In Neoclassical economics, natural capital is part of the economy, but is assumed to have the potential to be substituted when depleted, and that economic growth is unlimited. In opposition, ecological economists are that there are no substitutes for natural resources or ecosystem services, which are necessary for an economy to function and can cause unsustainable economic growth. The ideal sustainable approach to ecological economics is the steady-state economy, where “all resources are recycled or reused continually… [with] no wastes or inputs of new resources” (Miller, 2018, p. 634), but this hypothetical model limits the accumulation of wealth by an individual entity and is rejected by capitalist-driven economic entities. To combat the rapid usage of natural capital, economists propose valuing natural resources at their benefit, but also their nonuse value, such as existence and aesthetic values, and implementing full-cost pricing , which has been proven to be increasingly difficult from varying estimates of resource value. Full-cost pricing is a model where “external costs [are included] in the market prices of goods” (Miller, 2018, p. 637), with external costs being “harm to the environment and human health” (Miller, 2018, p. 637). To promote environmentally sustainable economic practices, environmental indicators, such as the genuine progress indicator (GPI), help to measure actual economic growth post-environmental factors, with processes such as green taxes, product eco-labeling & certification, and environmental regulation implemented to encourage an environmentally friendly economy.

Within the implementation of environmentally friendly economic practices, environmental policy is typically involved, which are the “environmental laws, regulations, and programs that are designed, implemented, funded, and enforced by [various] government agencies” (Miller, 2018, p. 657), which requires problem recognition and policy formation, with subsequent evaluation and adjustment after it is implemented. Before implementing environmental policy, long-term solutions must be analyzed to avoid potentially environmentally harmful action, in addition to exploring ways to “stimulate the development of innovative ways to reduce and prevent pollution and wastes” (Miller, 2018, p. 659). Through integration, a hypothetical triple bottom line is theorized, in which economic, environmental, and social needs are balanced in policy decisions. From a legal standpoint, environmental law is a “body of laws and treaties that broadly define what acceptable environmental behavior is for individuals, groups, businesses, and nations” (Miller, 2018, p. 664), but has limited effect due to the drawn out nature of lawsuits and the use of lawsuits as an intimidation tactic from corporation against activists. Environmental laws include requiring environmental evaluation impact studies, setting pollution standards, protecting certain resources, requiring environmental screening for new products, and encouraging resource conservation (Miller, 2018, pp. 665-667). To shift to a more environmentally friendly society, researched suggestions include preventing or minimizing environmental problems before reaching crisis levels, using marketplace solutions to reduce environmental impacts, finding win-win solutions or tradeoffs to problems, and objectivity when evaluating problems and solutions (Miller, 2018, p. 675).

While humans tend to underestimate the contributions of the Earth’s natural capital, they integrate themselves within everyday life, such as regulating global temperature or regulating the concentration of the air humans breathe. Without valuing natural capital and resources, humans will continue to use resources at the same rate as in the past, which is unsustainable. Resources should be at least temporarily valued until a stable number can be agreed upon by researchers to discourage rapid resource depletion.

Word count: 1094/1100

Question: How do businesses take into account current natural capital valuations?

Bibliography

Amazon. “Amazon Co-Founds The Climate Pledge, Setting Goal to Meet the Paris Agreement 10 Years Early.” Sustainability. Amazon, February 6, 2020. https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/sustainable-operations/amazon-co-founds-the-climate-pledge-setting-goal-to-meet-the-paris-agreement-10-years-early?tag=theverge02-20.

Costanza, Robert, Ralph d'Arge, Rudolf de Groot, Stephen Farber, Monica Grasso, Bruce Hannon, Karin Limburg, et al. “The Value of the World's Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital.” Nature 387 (May 15, 1997): 253–60.

Kenton, Will. “Green Tech.” Investopedia. Investopedia, February 5, 2020. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/green_tech.asp.

Klebnikov, Sergei. “Bezos Pledges $10 Billion—Nearly 10% Of Net Worth—Toward Solving Climate Change.” Forbes. Forbes Media LLC, February 17, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/02/17/jeff-bezos-pledges-to-fight-climate-change-with-10-billion-earth-fund/#1c8e718c523b.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

Blog entry 3/2

With the population in the World growing by approximately 80 million people every year, the rapid growth of the human population and the population’s impact on the earth’s natural capital has become an increasingly pressing issue, especially dealing with sustainability. In today’s current population trends, the growth rate has decreased overall since to 1965 to 1.2% (Miller, 2018, p. 121), following the generation of what is known in the United States as the post-World War II baby boom (1946-1964) or the Baby Boomer Generation. Most notable within modern-day population growth is the uneven distribution of growth between developed and less developed countries, with 98% of born humans in less developed countries in 2015 (Miller, 2018, p. 121). Additionally, increasing numbers of people are moving to urban areas, which include cities and their surrounding suburbs, from rural areas, with a majority of urban residents in less-developed countries with limited infrastructure and resources to promote or sustain increasing urbanization. As a result of the increasing population growth, we as human beings need to become more responsible for our increasing ecological footprint and require estimating earth’s cultural carrying capacity, and addressing ways to contain our population relative to the capacity. The earth’s cultural carrying capacity is the maximum number of people who can live with freedom, comfort, and the ability of production of new generations of human beings (Miller, 2018, p. 123). Factors influencing the cultural carrying capacity include overconsumption, disproportionate birth rates between developed and less developed countries, and future technological sustainability.

In response to overdevelopment and overconsumption, ecological economics proposes the degrowth movement, which advocates for contracting economies and maximizing human well-being through non-consumption based means (2020, “Degrowth”). The degrowth movement and various other economic approaches propose solutions to human beings pushing the earth’s carrying capacity and to correct our ecological footprint, but the average citizen would most likely be unwilling to make drastic changes.

Population change in a specific area, such as a country, takes into account births, deaths, and migration, and determines the amount of people leaving a population (deaths and emigration) and subtracts it from people entering a population (births and immigration) (Miller, 2018, p. 123). Births in a population, otherwise known as the fertility rate, are tracked in two types: replacement-level fertility rate and total fertility rate. Replacement-level fertility rate is the “average number of children that couples in a population must bear to replace themselves” (Miller, 2018, p. 123), which slightly higher than two children born per couple at 2.1 children, due to infant fatalities, which are higher in less developed countries. High infant mortality rates in a population can indicate malnutrition, high rates of infectious disease, and usually causes an increase in a population’s total fertility rate.

Total fertility rate is the “average number of children born to the women of childbearing age in a population” (Miller, 2018, p. 123), which is affected by the age structure in a population, which gives the percentages of males to females in pre-reproductive (infant to 14), reproductive (25 to 44), and post-reproductive age (45+) groups in a population. Additional factors affecting the average birth rate and total fertility rate in a population include the importance of children in the labor force, the cost of raising and educating children, the availability of pension system and ability to support relatives of older age, urbanization, access to family planning and clinical services, education, opportunities for women, the societal average age for marriage or a first childbirth, access to reliable birth control methods, and personal and societal structures, such as religious beliefs, traditions, and cultural norms (Miller, 2018, p. 126). In the United States, the total fertility rate has recently decreased 15% since 2007 and has recently reflected women putting off childbearing until their later years, with groups of women in late 30s and early 40s increasing in childbirths in 2018 and moving away from traditional age-fertility patterns from United States history (Tavernise, 2019). Declines in U.S. total fertility raises overall concerns for present problems, such as increasing debt or economic instability, and future implications, such as potential workforce and the federal social security program. Within the industrial and post-industrial eras of demographic transition, population growth slows, levels off, and eventually has a slight decline following the improvement in food, production, health, and education.

With more than 50% of the world’s population living in urban areas and increasing urban growth, more than two-thirds of the earth’s population is projected to be living in urban areas by the next generation (Kirabo Kacyira). Urbanization is the “creation and growth of urban and suburban areas” (Miller, 2018, p. 605), which is increasingly indicated by urban growth, which is the rate of increase of urban populations” (Miller, 2018, p. 605). Trends in modern population growth include sharp increases of urban populations, increasing sizes and numbers of urban areas, and urbanized poverty. Between 1850 and 2015, the world’s urban population has increased from 2% to 53%, with more than 1 billion people globally estimated to be living in poverty in major cities, which is projected to triple by 2050 (Miller, 2018, pp. 605-606). Urban city development has resulted in urban sprawl, “the growth of low-density development of the edges of cities and towns” (Miller, 2018, p. 608), leading to the development of suburbs and exurbs, which eliminates wild lands that can have cultural value.

In central cities, urban residents have better access to medical care, education, social services, and family planning relative to rural residents, in addition to cities being centers for development, such as technological advancement and employment opportunities (Miller, 2018, p. 609). However, central cities have large ecological footprints, with urban populations consuming about 75% of the earth’s resources and produce about 75% of the earth’s pollution (Miller, 2018, p. 610), in addition to contributing heavily to excessive noise, local climate effects from pollution, light pollution, and poverty. In comparison to central cities, suburbs and exurbs offer lower-density living spaces, typically larger lots with single-family homes, and usually newer education facilities and lower crime rates (Miller, 2018, p. 608). However, urban sprawl has additionally caused loss of cropland, fragmentation of forests and other natural habitats, increased pollution, lack of high-efficiency energy, and more unemployment in central cities (Miller, 2018, p. 609). To address more sustainable options for urban development or existing central cities, approaches include reduction of personal automobile use and movement towards transport systems or ride-sharing, land-use planning, emphasis on energy efficiency, and zoning diversity between residential and commercial use.  

Word Count: 1079/1100

Question: How can other megacities implement plans similar to PlaNYC? Where will other cities get the funding to implement the same solutions in their own cities?

Bibliography

“Current World Population.” Worldometer. Accessed March 2, 2020.

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#table-historical.

“Degrowth.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, February 17, 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth.

Kirabo Kacyira, Aisa. “Addressing the Sustainable Urbanization Challenge.” United Nations.

United Nations. Accessed March 2, 2020. https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/addressing-sustainable-urbanization-challenge.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

“PlaNYC.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, November 1, 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlaNYC.

Tavernise, Sabrina. “Fertility Rate in U.S. Hit a Record Low in 2018.” The New York Times.

The New York Times, November 27, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/27/us/us-birth-fertility-rate.html.

Wong, Alia. “The Misplaced Fears About the United States' Declining Fertility Rate.” The \

Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, May 17, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/05/real-lessons-americas-declining-fertility-rate/589651/.

Blog entry 3/9

With recent species extinctions starting to come to mass media to increase public awareness, little is still being done due to lack of public concern for decreasing biodiversity. Recently, populations, such as the Northern White Rhinoceros and the Pyrenean Ibex, have gone completely extinct due to actions of our ancestors due to lack of care for sustaining animal populations, specifically through over-hunting and habitat loss primarily for the economic and personal benefit of humans. Biological extinction is defined as “when [a species] cannot adapt and successfully reproduce under new environmental conditions or a catastrophic environmental event may wipe out its members” (Miller, 2018, p. 193) and is a natural process. However, currently human actions contribute to most of recent extinction of species. Naturally, most extinct species have low reproductive rates, a specialized niche in the environment, a small population, few prey options, fixed migratory patterns, are commercially valuable, and require large territories for their habitat (Miller, 2018, p. 195). Within these specific parameters, many small populations with very specific survival necessities are highly affected by human actions, such as deforestation and pollution, leading to rapidly increasing annual extinction rates. Humans accelerate species extinction by initiating and contributing to habitat destruction, degradation, and fragmentation, introducing invasive species directly or indirectly, population growth, increasing usage of resources, pollution, climate change, and overexploitation of resources (Miller, 2018, p. 198), which all make individual species increasingly vulnerable. For example, introducing invasive species, directly by humans purposefully bringing them into a non-native habitat or indirectly by species traveling through commercial cargo, gives more resource competition and can outcompete a native species, can disrupt environmental services, introduce new disease, and additionally can lead to economic losses. In the United States alone, there are more than 7,100 invasive species (Miller, 2018, p. 200), with 42% of endangered species in the United States primarily threatened from non-native species (Miller, 2018, p. 200).

In the United States, one of the most famous cases of an invasive species includes the Zebra Mussel, originally native to eastern Europe/western Asia and invading primarily the Midwest’s Great Lakes region and other freshwater inland bodies of water. Zebra mussels cost the economy approximately $1 billion USD annually by clogging water intake, decreasing property values, and causing harm to human beings during recreational use of water (Minnesota Sea Grant). Since zebra mussels are filter feeders in their native ecosystem, each adult zebra mussel filters about 1 liter of water per day (Minnesota Sea Grant), currently benefiting freshwater by increasing its clarity and increasing aquatic biodiversity in shallower waters, but consume smaller prey that are required for the survival of smaller fish and aquatic life and creates pseudofeces, creating unhealthy environments (Minnesota Sea Grant). A substantial part of sustaining biodiversity, not only in the United States but the entire Earth, includes the careful study of invasive species, their effects on native species, and what humans can do to decrease as much impact as possible on native species and their habitats. Most states have invasive species laws and guidelines for citizens to follow to avoid transporting non-native species through commercial and recreational activities.

Collaboration between nations is a step towards sustaining our environment and starting to preserve our earth’s biodiversity, with agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Agreements such as these commit governments to taking action to help protect our environment. Within the United States, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 has improved the conditions of approximately more than half of the original endangered species through recovery programs and land sanctuaries on a small budget (Miller, 2018, p. 211), which is beneficial in keeping the program running without any federal budget cuts.

Ecosystem services of forests include supporting energy flow and chemical cycling, purifying water and air, reducing soil erosion, absorbing and releasing water, influencing local and regional climates, storing atmospheric carbon, and providing many wildlife habitats (Miller, 2018, p. 223), in addition to providing crucial economic services to human beings such as for biofuel and industrial uses. For the purposes of sustaining our earth’s biodiversity, old growth forests remain uncut and have been for over 200 years (Miller, 2018, p. 223). Second growth forests are forests that develop following tree removal for human activities, which are limited in cutting down. To protect both old growth and second growth forests, commercial forests have developed, which are managed to contain only one or two species of a tree that are all the same age and are periodically harvested when they are economically viable (Miller, 2018, p. 224). In addition to tree farms, harvesting practices such as selective strip cutting are used to harvest trees on a sustainable basis than clear cutting, which clears out whole plots of forests for lumber and is the least sustainable way to harvest wood. To sustain healthy forests, fires occur naturally, but pose a threat to human settlements. As an alternative, occasional and controlled surface fires clear away flammable material, initiate decomposition, release seeds in conifer trees, and control the longevity and destructiveness of naturally occurring fires (Miller, 2018, p. 233).

Since July of 2019, the Australian bushfire season has taken the mass media by storm, ranging from reports on stories of firefighters in the line of duty to human beings trying to feed koalas. With fires between July 2019 and February 2020, at least 28 people have died and almost 3,000 homes destroyed (Guy, 2020), with the peak of the fires creating thick black smoke in New South Wales in December 2019 and January 2020. In addition to the death of humans, more than 1 billion animals have died in Australia’s recent bushfire season, with Australia already having one of the highest species extinction rates in the world and brings into question decreasing biodiversity, specifically what humans can do to preserve the earth’s biodiversity. With human settlements nearby koala habitats, humans dislocate koalas from their native forests and decrease their chances of survival during bushfire season. In one case, a family has converted their home into a koala rehabilitation center, providing care for the injured animals and nursing them back to health. However, due to lack of information surrounding the rehabilitation of koalas in the media, many tourists and locals feed water directly to koalas in water bottles, which led to pneumonia in many cases and occasionally death of the koala. While the effort of humans is appreciated in trying to preserve biodiversity, especially in hotspots such as Australia, we are not educated in how to help maintain our environment properly in some cases, leading to miscare of some plants and animals.

Word count: 1109/1100

Question: How can humans contribute to preserving their local diversity on a grassroots scale?

Bibliography

Albeck-ripka, Livia. “Saving the Fire Victims Who Cannot Flee: Australia's Koalas.” The New York Times. The New York Times, November 14, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/world/australia/australia-koalas-fire.html.

Gorman, Mollie, and ABC Riverina. “Busting the Myths: How to Help Wildlife in Bushfire and Drought-Affected Areas.” ABC News, January 17, 2020. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-17/social-media-myths-on-caring-for-fire-affected-koalas-and-bees/11874058.

Guy, Jack. “After More than 240 Days, Australia's New South Wales Is Finally Free from Bushfires.” CNN. Cable News Network, March 3, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/03/australia/new-south-wales-fires-extinguished-scli-intl/index.html.

Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2018.

“Zebra Mussels Threaten Inland Waters: Minnesota Sea Grant.” Zebra Mussels Threaten Inland Waters | Minnesota Sea Grant. University of Minnesota. Accessed March 10, 2020. http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/ais/zebramussels_threaten.

Practicum Update

Due to in-season athletics, I am unable to find large enough portions of my weekly schedule to dedicate to an individual club or internship for the practicum assignment, specifically due to traveling most weekends and practice/workout blocks. As an alternative, I have been attempting to reduce my ecological footprint where I can, especially in my diet and any wasteful usage in my dorm. My goal is to decrease my ecological footprint, which originally was recorded as 2.5 earths to approximately 2, which is attainable and still below the average of 5 earths for the average American. I plan on reducing my footprint through consciously using energy only when needed, decreasing excess transportation, water usage when necessary, and avoiding meat as a protein source when possible. 

Evaluation

In class, I would evaluate myself as a lower end B grade, due to limited participation in class. While I take notes on presentations, I feel that I do not generate any good and worthwhile questions on the presentation or subject matter, leading to my decreased participation in the class. However, I feel that my blog posts are thorough and cover adequate material with valid analysis and connection to current events. One thing I should add relative to the requirements is media, such as pictures, to my blog posts. I have learned a great deal, specifically about biodiversity, which I feel is covered in some form or another in most of the viewpoints. 

[mathematicianadda]

Crowdsourced Studying Materials - Gauging Interest on Community Idea

NOTE: I mention a handful of tools in this post that you may or may not be familiar with. To keep the main content shorter, I will avoid explaining in the core of the post what these tools are, but at the bottom I will include more information on the tools and why I believe they are useful.

What is this?

Anki is not typically used to study mathematics. However, when studying through a course or a textbook with a lot of material, creating an Anki deck is a powerful way to help keep important definitions and theorems right at the forefront of your memory-- but this is a time-consuming process and often a large undertaking for a single person to do properly for a textbook. However, an Anki add-on called CrowdAnki allows for the integration of Git version control with Anki decks. I believe this could prove to be a useful tool for the mathematics community.

Consider a scenario where a group of redditors on this subreddit get together to self-study through Munkres' Topology, where a few of these redditors are familiar with these tools. They create a deck "Munkres' Topology" on AnkiWeb, giving all members of the group access to the repository where the cards are stored. As they progress through Chapter 2 of the textbook (say, the section on the Order, Product, and Subspace Topologies), each redditor opens their local copy of their Anki deck and add a few cards each. One adds the definition of the order topology and one related theorem, another does the same for the product topology, and so on, tagging cards with tags such as: munkres_ch_2, definition, order_topology.

Once they do this, they merge their local version of the deck with the community one on the cloud, allowing everyone access to the cards written by others. Then, when reviewing the topics they have been reading about, they can pull up their deck in Anki and quiz themselves on the definitions and theorems in a section-- without necessarily having to spend an hour LaTeXing all of the cards (more on the writing process later). But this can be more useful than just a way to review notes. A few weeks later, a redditor is reading on Hausdorff spaces and reads that any simply ordered set is a Hausdorff space in the order topology. Faint in his memory, he creates a custom study session in Anki limiting the tags of the deck to "munkres_ch_2 order_topology", allowing him to review the theorems and definitions related to the order topology in the section. Or in a semester, when he is studying through Algebraic Topology, he may want to review -all- theorems and definitions in Munkres' Topology related to the basis. Then simply using the tag "basis" allows him to study all the important facts from ALL chapters of the textbook.

Anki is particularly useful due to its accessibility-- while writing notes is easiest on a computer, it can be edited and reviewed using the application on a computer, through AnkiDroid, AnkiMobile, or even AnkiWeb, which makes it a great tool for commuting. This actually turns out to be handy in more ways than you might expect. Next week, our redditor is discussing topology with his math buddies at dinner. When talking about the K-topology, a disagreement arises about a small fact relating to the topology. Of course, nobody has their notes on them, and searching through math.stackexchange can be tedious for something this specific (please suspend your disbelief). However, pulling up AnkiDroid, they can use the search tool to find the note and settle the dispute right then and there.

This deck is of course public, and so anyone can make editions at any time-- fixing typos in previous cards, or adding in relevant information. If accessible to the /r/math subreddit, anyone can download the deck, and if they notice an error in a statement, they can edit the card right there on their phone or laptop, and later make a pull request so the public version no longer has the error. By alleviating the burden and human error that arises from a single person making all the notes for every theorem and definition as they go, we can achieve an impressive standard of quality with minimal effort from the community.

Some people debate the usefulness of flashcards with mathematics-- I personally believe they can be a helpful supplement. But this is a broader tool-- having decks like these is an incredible tool for any student, as it essentially offers an indexed reference to the topic you're studying that is accessible from your smartphone or laptop. Once created and shared, any student can download the deck and use it to supplement their studying in their course, or to brush up on topics to prepare for another course.

Thoughts?

All that being said, it's only as useful a resource as the community makes it. If nobody is interested in making or using flashcards, or if the decks aren't well-known or accessible to the /r/math community, then they become a weaker resource. That's why I am making this post-- I want to gauge the community's interest in such a resource. *Would you use it? Would you contribute? How would you improve the system, or what flaws do you notice? *

Of course, getting the ball rolling on something like this can be difficult. Luckily, you don't have to! I have been creating flashcards through Anki for my Linear Algebra, Measure Theory, Real Analysis, and Topology courses, and have a solid start on flashcards through these courses. If there is interest, I would be happy to implement CrowdAnki with my decks, and people can test out the idea with the decks I have-- seeing what the cards could look like, adding or editing cards in the deck, etc. They are currently in the need of some minor changes and updates-- for example, I initially typed up the cards using Anki's LaTeX functionality, but I am transitioning to MathJax for a handful of reasons.

Why?

Studying mathematics is a multi-step process. When learning a new topic in a math course, often the progression of learning goes something like this:

Initial interaction with new material. Through either lecture or reading through a textbook, a student encounters a new theorem, definition, or other note-worthy idea. Often involves playing around with the concepts to begin familiarization

Applying new concepts. The student then does exercises utilizing the new information, giving insight to the scope of the new concept and allowing patterns in application to arise, incorporating the concept into their intuition.

Full recollection of the concept-- for a theorem, knowing the complete statement, or knowing all of the required axioms and their implications. Oftentimes, this step is tied into the previous, where by repeated application, a student ends up memorizing the important theorems and definitions.

While this process usually works as-is, occasionally there is a need for a stronger familiarization of the concepts than one might gain from exercises-- or perhaps the time you would have to spend doing exercises to absorb the axioms for all the content you need simply would be too much to keep up with. I personally turn to Anki to approach this issue when it arises in my classes.

On paper, this system can work very well. However, this process involves a lot of steps-- pre-reading lecture material, attending the lecture and taking notes, creating flashcards for the notes taken, and then doing exercises. Each of these steps can easily be an hour or two, if not more. This adds up very quickly when taking multiple math courses, and can become unsustainable for a single person. The usefulness of having a group to work with cannot be understated-- this is commonly done for problem sets, but this should be incorporated in other steps of the process as well. Spreading the workload helps everyone involved save time and learn more effectively.

Now, a few disclaimers for points that I know will come up. This is NOT a replacement for traditional studying. You cannot just download a deck, study the cards, and say you know topology. Attending lectures and reading the textbook is important, as they include key details or connections that theorems and definitions cannot convey on their own. Perhaps more important is that it does NOT replace doing exercises. Doing practice problems and working with the concepts at hand is still key to familiarizing yourself with the theorems and definitions-- this simply helps you retain everything far better. Flashcards are a supplement to the math learning experience, not a primary method. You could argue that memorizing theorems and definitions isn't important in mathematics, but they sure are important in exams-- and if you're flipping to a textbook every time you're discussing content in a course, you'll be slogged down pretty quickly.

Tools

Anki

Flashcards? In my theoretical mathematics classroom? It's more likely than you think.

Anki is a digital flashcard program that utilized Spaced Repetition to help you review flashcards in an efficient manner. New material can be learned and retained so much more effectively using Spaced Repetition-- for more information on how that works, check out this interactive comic.

While Anki is typically used for rote memorization, say in biology courses, it can still be effective for mathematics. People far more experienced than I am have covered this in great detail, and it is worth a read. For a quick idea of how it can work, check out this reddit post. If you want more along those lines, check out this blog post that takes a different approach to formulating cards. More than just for studying a textbook, though, Anki can be used in mathematics on a broader level-- check out this and this post by Michael Nielson for more information on that.

However, on a more direct level, the actual creation of the cards can be complex. While LaTeX can be used, MathJax has better implementation with Anki that allows for smoother compatibility.

MathJax

MathJax is a browser-based typesetting system similar to LaTeX. Equations are coded almost exactly like LaTeX, but formatting is done through an HTML style. The Anki documentation covers pretty concisely what it is and how it is used in Anki-- for the most part, you can simply replace any $ $ delimiters in LaTeX code with ( and ) to render the equation.

There are multiple reasons why MathJax is more effective than LaTeX in Anki. The simplest being that MathJax is Javascript, and Anki is written in PyQt, which mesh nicer than LaTeX. Anki implements LaTeX basically by rendering a pdf of the code given, cropping a screenshot of the pdf, and then displaying the image when using the flashcard. Editing cards like this can become a real headache, and if the images aren't synced properly (and if the code is changed, it must be re-rendered), then it can quickly become a mess. MathJax directly renders within Anki, and so it plays nicer with Anki's font scaling and other formatting.

CrowdAnki

CrowdAnki is an add-on for Anki that allows for easy integration with GitHub. The add-on allows for the following workflow, as described by the developer:

The current workflow could be described as following:

The user creates or imports an Anki deck.

He makes some modification to it (i.e. to notes, deck settings, deck structure or note models).

Then the user can export the deck in JSON format (accompanied by media directory with media files used in that deck) and share it with other users. For example by creating GitHub repository with it.

Other people then can either modify JSON directly or import the deck to their instance of Anki and then make some modifications to it.

Original JSON then can be updated the with the changes, these people made (merging several changes together if necessary).

After that original user (and other people) can import updated deck to integrate these new changes into their collection.

GitHub is a fantastic tool to collaborate on large-scale documents, which is very useful for this purpose. It allows for people to contribute separately to documents and merge changes in a smart manner. The integration of version control with Anki is practically essential to this concept.

Final words

While I originally wrote this post with the broader goal of creating resources that the whole community could benefit from, this also serves as a PSA for anyone self-studying a topic with a group. The next time you organize a reading group on /r/math, consider adding this option to your plan. Having something more tangible to contribute to makes it easier for a group to stay on track.

There is nuance to the details of implementing these cards. For example, I have only used it thus far to keep track of theorems and definitions. However, it may be worth breaking a proof into pieces and studying the proofs as well. Some people include exercises in their decks. I currently use Cloze cards, but perhaps a different format is better. If this is implemented, a standard on formatting to some degree must be agreed upon-- I am still not sure what is really the most effective, but if you use this with your group, or if you want to use this in our community, it is worth giving the topic some thought.

If all else fails-- I am still running this with my classes, as I mentioned above! If you're working through Axler's Linear Algebra or Munkres' Topology, feel free to PM me if you are interested in trying it out (my other courses use lecture notes, and this is still experimental, so I won't do this whole process with Measure Theory and Real Analysis just yet).

Happy Mathing!

submitted by /u/BlizzardEternal [link] [comments] from math https://ift.tt/36sKmEL from Blogger https://ift.tt/2C6zUot

[millionquizbabe]

Top shop knows my color?

So today I am actually picking out an outfit that fits my personalty and then the quiz gods are going to know and tell me my favourite color. Sounds hard to believe? Yeah same here. Nonetheless I love clothes and it's basically free shopping. So sign me up.

First question was the toughest. I wanted to chose between three things. The 'first', 'fifth', or 'sixth'. I love short sleeves and I loved both of the 'first' and 'sixth' graphic designs. I picked the 'fifth' because of the long sleeves and the plain aspect of it. It's a long sleeve demin shirt and I don't believe I've owned a demin shirt in a long time.

Now pants have always been straight foward with me. I need long pants. Period. Now going off of my "shirt" I decided the 'third' choice was best. Long black pants with some holes. I haven't had a pair of jeans with holes in them in a VERY long time. I wanted to chose the 'fourth' pair. I loved the camo like pattern. But I didn't think they'd go well with the demin shirt.

Now I didn't think this would be a question and I'm regretting my first answer. I don't think if I have a long sleeve shirt I'll need a jacket. And none of these choices really matched my shirt nor pants. I decided if I had the long sleeve demin shirt I would pick the biggest coat that way it would be easy to get on. So the 'first' jacket seemed most likely to be in my closet.

Now shoes. Because I'm semi tall I've never actually picked heels. But the 'first' pair of shoes were just too cute to turn down. I recently have been really into the boots or bootie type shoes. I don't even know the proper name for them. Either way the grey looked and seemed a perfect choice.

Now my go to accessory is a necklace. So the 'third' option seemed most fitting for my personalty. I love stones and necklaces. Perfect pair for a perfect outfit.

Last but not least make-up. I myself don't wear make-up. It's rare that you see me in make-up. So I was actually going to click the 'sixth' option. But I decided as a top shop quiz I was gonna pick something from the other options. So not taking the actual makeup options I decided the 'fourth' was best for myself. Maybe not best for my outfit but I did use to love putting rhinestones onto my face and ect.

I was extremely surprised to get this answer. I don't know how this quiz actually got my favourite color but it did. And I was surprised. I love the color green. It's my go to color. And so thinking back on my questions I didn't pick ANYTHING with the color green in it. Wether it was because of my plain look or the fact that I choose such "normal" like clothes I'm not sure how they got my favourite color. Either way that's exciting!

So because I'm extremely curious on my "outfit". I decided to go to top shop and look at my picked out items. I've never actually been to the top shop site so this was exciting.

The first item was my shirt. I wasn't sure what to expect about prices but let me tell you. Seeing the price prepared me for the next pieces of clothing. My shirt is 48 dollars. Now that's not TOO expensive but I don't think I've ever spent that much on a shirt. They also don't seem to have "big" sizes. They go up to a size 14. And when I clicked to go to the sizing chart it was unavailable but I'm pretty sure I cannot fit a size 14.

Perhaps the pants have better luck. So my black pants with holes weren't easy to find. There are like ten pairs of black pants and they all have holes. Eventually I did find MY pants because of the models distinct pose and shoes. Now these sizes were completely new to me. I had zero clue what size was appropriate for me. 'W36W34' was the biggest size and they were low in stock. They were was 90 dollars which. Wow. I've never owned a full outfit for 90 dollars let alone just a pair of pants.

Next is the coat which was hard to find but that was mostly due to human error. I was looking under trench coat because to my un-fashioned eyes that's what it seemed. But once looking under the section labeled 'jackets' I found it pretty quickly. And let me say this was the most expensive item in the entire order. 125 dollars. That's freaking expensive. Perhaps it was because of the "faux fur". Also this jacket comes in pretty much the same sizes as this shirts. However this particular jacket was sold out of alot of the bigger sizes. They only had sizes "0,6, and 8" available.

Next is the shoes. Now the sizes were extremely interesting to me. They come in sizes of ".5" so they didn't just have size "5" it was sizes "5.5" or ect. Surprising they did have my size or something close to it. I love shoes and tend to buy them alot so I am aware of my shoe size. And so seeing them have my size was very surprising. Now the price however was extremely over any shoes I've bought. Coming in at 90 dollars these booties were well over my recently bought shoes. I paid 10 dollars for my shoes. So big difference.

Next is the necklace. Now I have tons of necklaces. Looking on the website they had tons of these necklaces with the stones. So if you didn't want an "amethyst" they had 2 other kinds from what I saw. But I think they have one in every popular stone. Now this price wasn't bad. 18 dollars is kinda expensive from what IM use to. But still I loved the stone necklaces and it should fit as long as the chain isn't mega short. 17 cm dosen't seem bad.

Now is the eye "Embellishment" now let me tell you. Finding this was hard. I wasn't sure what to type in. It isn't make-up but it's not jewelry. I tried looking for a separate section but I was clueless. I did end up finding them a few scrolls down in the main makeup section. This price wasn't bad either. 10 dollars isn't cheap but it's not expensive. Once you know what they all these thingys it's easy to type them in and fine all types of cute stickers.

So adding everything to a cart I scrolled to my subtotal and based on my color I would spend a grand total of...............including delivery: $351.00

Which is MEGA expensive. The only green I see is the dollar bills flying out of my wallet. Nonetheless I was extremely surprised with this quiz being able to pick my color and let me explore top shop. It was super fun to look at the options and pick and outfit.

Thank you so much for reading this. Make sure to like or reblog if you liked this quiz. And make sure to check it out yourself and share your answers with me or to your cousin!

Quiz ya later!

[keneerike]

“It IS You, Not Me.”: 4 Love Truisms You Won’t Find on a Hallmark Card

On the eve of Valentine's Day, four romantic proverbs to keep you sane:

1) Guard Your Heart.

Proverbs 4:23:

"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

Life isn't a Disney movie, where following your heart always leads to a great musical number.  

"Guard your heart"---letting wisdom and reason take the helm in times of uncertainty---is a best practice for life in general. When you walk into situations with eyes wide open and emotions in check, you are less susceptible to bad actors and foolish decisions.

You need not suffer through a toxic relationship yourself to appreciate this advice. The world is littered with people who've been damaged by matches they thought were made in heaven. History is replete with tales of misfortune that arose from carelessness. The bible itself has a few prominent examples (see: Samson, a seemingly-unstoppable force literally blinded by love.).

There's nothing wrong with a desire for true romance; that's natural. It's reliance on visions of love---to the exclusion of everything else---that brings trouble.

It starts when your newest dating prospect hits the scene: You like what you see and begin imagining what the future might look like. Along with visions of creating your very own magazine-perfect coupling, you can start quieting those very-real questions of "When-are-you-going-to-get-married?". In a bid to hold on to that dream, you silence the voice inside of you screaming that something is not quite right. Friends and family who disprove of your new beau? They're just jealous and judgmental; they don't know him like you do.

"Billy works hard all week. It's fine if he drinks a beer---or ten---to take the edge off."

Without the right safeguards, you become prematurely emotionally-involved and reason falls by the wayside.  

90 Day Fiancé: A series dedicated to those who did not guard their hearts.

We want to make choices by design, not roll with the tide because it's the path of least resistance. Objective decision-making is a tall order when you've already tossed the keys to your heart to someone---or something---else.

Decide what you must have from a potential partner (Religion? Level of education?) and what you will not tolerate (Is "social smoker" a real designation or just a euphemism to keep critics at bay?) before you even consider courtship.

Note that this is not a suggestion to create your own 100-point "Must Have" dating list. In lasting relationships, It doesn't matter what color your spouse's hair is or whether you like the same music.

But that's another discussion for another time.

"Guard your heart" doesn't pertain solely to affairs of the heart; It's solid advice in all matters of daily living.

The best type of learning is education by proxy, absorbing knowledge from the experiences of others. You soak up the benefits without having to endure the pain of experimentation or sport the scars of error.  

We'll see more of that below:

2) “It IS You. Not me.”

"It's not you, it's me."

Sometimes, that's true. Most of the time, it's not.

When someone doesn't want to see you any more, it probably is you.

I tackled that one here. A few other common mistakes, too.

People like you for what you can give them: Companionship, pride of accomplishment, financial comfort etc. Your romantic appeal is a direct function of what you have to offer.

The sooner you realize that it just might be you, the faster you can get to becoming someone more people want to hitch their wagons to.

3) Leave Your Pen at Home.

Hallmark has cards for every occasion, so I'm sharing expressions that hit multiple bases.

This is a phrase from one of my favorite websites, LivingStingy. Run by a former patent attorney. you'll find a range of topics there that touch all corners of life.

"Leave your pen at home" is simple, yet profound: 

You can't lose, if you don't play.

This is not an ode to fear or a suggestion to run from opportunities because you cannot stomach risk. It's a warning to avoid situations where you're likely to get less than you bargained for. You can't be snookered into signing on the dotted line if you don't bring your pen to the table.

Before your heart (and wallet) get involved in important decisions, your brain needs to perform due diligence. Triage ruthlessly. Choices need to be made with sound mind before the magic of marketing takes hold.

You will not mortgage your future if you shut the door on opportunities to do so.

Whether it's co-signing a loan, buying a [car/house/big-ticket item], or signing a marriage certificate; you protect your present and future by thinking ahead and keeping the end goal in mind.

Let's walk through an example: buying a car:

95% of the legwork should be done before you even consider going to see a prospective purchase. Price range? Clean title? Carfax? The specific model/class/year you've settled on? All done before that new car euphoria sweeps you into trouble.

If all checks out, go see the car. If the seller isn't shady, the paperwork is in order, and you can hammer out a good price, great.

But you're not done there.

Before you agree to buy the car, have an independent, trustworthy mechanic examine the car.There may be hidden defects below the surface. You should be able to get a work-up of the car for $100 or so.

If an extra $100 is too big a hit to your budget, you probably can't afford the car.

If you're following the advice to get your homework done before the quiz is given, you shouldn't be inspecting a dozen cars.

Even so, there are ways to mitigate your costs here. As much as you want to buy the car, the seller wants to offload it. Put a contingency in the deal stipulating that, if you agree to buy the car, the inspection fee will be folded into the purchase price.

Is the seller going to balk at $100 off the price if it leads to a sale? Probably not.

Life is a negotiation.

All of this seem like too much work? 

You can always skip steps and hope for the best. Worst comes to worst, you can rant on the internet about the shyster who took advantage of you.

There are forums for that.

Again,a lot of times when things go awry, it is you. Take accountability and stop blaming others for preventable mistakes.

4) Stop Trying to Get Something for Nothing.

This is a corollary to #2 and a continuation of the "removing barriers to good decision-making" theme.

Good things come to those who deliver value.

The world is not a fixed pie: More [insert value you care about] for me doesn't necessarily mean less [insert value you care about] for you. Get what you want by giving others what they want.

On the romantic front, you get the partner you're looking for by becoming the partner they are looking for. You want a man who's 6'3" with an athletic build and makes six figures a year. Are you the type of woman he'd go for? If not, what are you doing to get yourself there? Are you quick with excuses to justify complacency?

"It's who I am on the inside that counts."

We resent people who want something for nothing. Everyone wants value.

Ever play a game of basketball or soccer with someone who only wants to shoot the ball? They never get back on defense and asking them to pass the ball is akin to insulting their mother? It's infuriating, right?

The business world is full of these metaphorical ball hogs.

Multi-level Marketing (MLM) companies are habitual offenders. Low barriers to entry, business education, promises of an easy-to-follow program: it's an attractive business model to the masses hunting for financial flexibility.

They skirt the government's definition of a Ponzi scheme---and the jail time that comes with it---by offering a product of some value. And, to their credit, there actually are MLM companies that do have quality products.

Alas, their biggest money-maker remains recruiting and recruitment-related education. The more membership ranks swell, the more money there is to be had by the people calling the shots in the organization.

Before our buddy Chris Hansen was showing us what a "predator" looked like, he was asking hard-hitting questions to businessmen who purported to know the road to financial freedom:

"That's a year at Harvard."

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5xu6bIFSeE

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc4-34V75SQ

Eons ago, I actually spent a few months in a well-known MLM company. The recruiting process; countless diagrams that don't quite explain how the business works; pressure to get all your friends in on the "good deal": I've seen it all.

Every now and then, I run into someone who attempts to sell me on some MLM program. I spot the tells---patterns in their behavior, well-worn phrases designed to stoke curiosity---that let me know what I’m dealing with. Sometimes, I'll even humor them by discussing their business and what they can offer me.

Maybe even show them a better way to get people listening.

Most of the time, when you point out flaws in something someone is deeply-invested in, it falls on deaf ears. Those true believers will shout you down and resent you for it.

"It's not a pyramid. It's a diamond."  

The leader is good! The leader is great!

Bottom line: Sustainable businesses deliver real value. 

If you cannot describe what a business is in less than ten seconds, it's probably not a real business.

Yes, you can build a business that rewards you with growing autonomy over time. 

No, you cannot do it without putting a ton of (the right) work in.

Passive income is a pipe dream, a siren song that lures many well-meaning folks to ruin. Real business is not a game of Monopoly, where you can kick up your heels on Boardwalk and watch the dough roll in. Customers don't care about your "4-Hour workweek".

I'll have some passive income. And a side of fries.

There are all sorts of obstacles to contend with in the market and even those who have a vested interest in helping you succeed need to be monitored.

I’ve been there.

Life isn't a game of Three-Card Monte, where the only way to get ahead is to cheat the mark in front of you. If that's your mentality, you're going to squander a lot of opportunities. Play it straight and you get the added benefit of being able to sleep at night, free of fear of reprisals.

Create value and you'll be taken care of. Stop shoving your hands into everyone else's pockets.  

Enjoy your day. And send me your comments.

[jeremiahandrewsphotography]

New Post has been published on Jeremiah Andrews Photography

New Post has been published on https://jap.goodgallery.com/blog/top-10-off-the-beaten-path-but-right-on-the-money-must-try-restaurants-in-siem-reap-cambodia/

Top 10 Off the Beaten Path (but Right on the Money) 'Must-Try' Restaurants in Siem Reap, Cambodia

Our top ten pick of favorite restaurants in Siem Reap Cambodia off the beaten path

There are probably several hundred restaurants woven into back alleys, pouring out from driveways, and lining the main thoroughfares in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Some no more than a rusting push cart; others, proud, smooth buildings bursting with glitz and glamour … All of them vying for your tourists’ dollar.

“Where to Eat?” becomes a dizzying decision in an already potentially overstimulating environment. You could spend years attempting to sample every dining option in Siem Reap, but (truthfully) even locals get lulled into a routine of familiarity and fail to tap into the exciting and ever-changing canvas of food options merely a short scooter ride away. The unsuspecting traveler’s foodie experience is further stymied by the neon canopy of common franchises, tour provided buffets, and endless sea of identical, red, beer-touting restaurant placards.

So, for all of those times you really just have a craving for a particular spice, need a new budget-friendly Khmer go-to spot, would kill for good pasta, or must satisfy your hunger for quiche before you crack, here are our top ten picks to start the new year (based on overall value, quality, and variety).

PRICE POINT REFERENCE (USD$ per person) ($: 1-2;   $$: 3-5;   $$$: 6-8;   $$$$: 9+)

AtMOsphere

PRICE: $$ – $$$

The moment we walked up to Mo’s I knew we’d hit something special. Friendly strangers graciously shared their table with us for a while (as the restaurant was already filled to the seams with lively chatter). Whether you choose Western tables and chairs over ground mats and cushions you are served a feast fit for a king. I was pleased by the wide variety of Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean dishes, fair prices and sharable dish sizes. We all left full and happy after capping the meal with a variety of spectacularly decadent desserts and herbal tea. At some time during your visit take a moment to chat with the owner, ‘Mo’. He is a colorful gentleman with an easy smile and quick laugh; you will quickly learn why this is already a happening place to be. As I write this, Atmosphere is celebrating its grand re-opening in a larger location. Great job guys!

Belmiro’s Pizza & Subs

PRICE: $$ – $$$

You are just a stone’s throw from famed ‘Pub Street’ when you belly-up to the well-stocked, mirrored ebony bar and burgundy walls of Belmiro’s. The pub’s great location as an exterior corner with patio perimeter is trimmed in hanging flags from the world over giving it a welcoming glow. But … if you are craving a little bit of a States-style urban pub feel, this is your place. The portions aren’t stingy, and daily drink specials are easy on the pocketbook. Boston-style pizzas are Belmiro’s specialty, although I do find myself craving their cheesy, meatball sub-sandwich regularly. Stuffed crust and deep-dish pizzas (for the carb-craver in the group) aren’t the only indulgent options. Weekly rotating chicken wing flavors on ‘Wing Wednesdays’ is always a family favorite. If you are a true Ranch dressing-loving American, get excited … This is one of a very select group of eateries in the entire city which carry the staple dipping sauce at all!

Chanty Grill Beef

PRICE: $ – $$

The ‘South End’ of Siem Reap is a fabulous business collective of Khmer and foreign trailblazers looking to foster the growth of this budding artisan community, empower the local workforce, and grow art appreciation in this already culturally rich hive. Needless to say, we are smitten with the vibe of the South End and are eager to unearth all of the lovely foodie gems within. Fortunately, we happened upon Chanty early in our search (and quite by mistake). We went looking for Khmer fusion and found the best value for chicken and beef kebob BBQ we know of in town. Shoulder to shoulder with its neighbor, this bare bones shop isn’t fussy and gets right down to the job of making outstanding food at a price even backpackers can afford. Chanty offers more than generous serving sizes (we ate so much we had to take home half of our order) and the staff is super friendly. Grab a plastic chair and belly up to the folding table, Chanty’s got the grill fired up and aims to please.

Curry Walla (both locations)

PRICE: $$$ – $$$$

Curry Walla owns two comparable restaurants on opposite ends of Sivutha Blvd. Being that Sivutha is like the spine of the most heavily traveled network of roads in the entire Siem Reap downtown area it could be easy to pass right by either storefront without a second glance. These no-frills dining halls aren’t heavy on ambiance, but don’t let their uninspired facade lead you astray. What Namaskar and Khmer Chef lack in tactile luster they make up for several times over in a savory curry flavor palate, the rich aroma of stewed Indian meats, and beautiful vegetarian dishes that restore my faith in humanity. We never choose individual dishes at this feast; If ‘sharing is caring’, then this is the meal of my family’s love language. A treat of a meal ,well-worth the incremental increase in cost per person.

Ivy Guest House & Bar

PRICE: $$ – $$$

We happened upon this tucked away gem on a quest for the camaraderie and mental stimulation of a good pub quiz. What we ended up with, was a fabulous all-ages evening out and a new favorite haunt. The ice-cream drenched, chocolate banana bread made everyone sit up and take notice right off. Upon further exploration of Ivy’s culinary vision we discovered many engaging flavor pairings not often seen in a town full of repetitive menus: a delightful Italian chicken cheesesteak sandwich, rich, spinach and feta ravioli in a complimentary al fresco sauce, and an extraordinary homemade chocolate mousse … to name a few. Imagine an Italian inspired kitchen hidden in the heart of a palm-thatched, traditional wooden Khmer village home, and dress the whole thing up as a Western-minded ‘chill pad’ (complete with free billiards and Cambodian memorabilia wall). If you get comfortable enough you can always get a room in the attached guesthouse and enjoy the Ivy’s cooking all day long.

Jungle Burger Sports Bar & Bistro

PRICE: $$ – $$$

Clayton and his happy little crew work hard to make sure you enjoy your experience at JB. From the pool table to the funky bike yard art, the vibe here is laid-back and playful. Cool beats play while the bar does it’s job putting on a sports-pub fare feast. Spot-on, gooey homemade mac & cheese are a strong stand-alone meal or a great side to share. Jungle Burger is unrivaled in my opinion for their burger and sandwich menu; no bad options here. The crown jewel of which is the ‘Burg Khalif burger’, easily a full meal for two people. You will find a surprisingly well-rounded salad selection, and all-around ample portion sizes for sharing. If you want to add a little (or a lot, if you ask nice) spice to your meal, order up a signature chili & mango margarita … it burns so good!

Mom New River (I & II)

PRICE: $ – $$

We have been eating at the Mom New River location in the alley at one end of Pub Street for five years now. We come back week after week, year after year, because the value and consistent quality this family-owned business offers just cannot be denied. This is another very modest and traditional Khmer restaurant on our list, and why not? After all, it represents a remarkable culture offering a myriad of signature dishes and almost as many family-specific tweaks to each one. Like the generational patterns woven into the precious, golden Khmer silk, recipes like: amok, lok-lak, prahok, and num ngov soup all have been honed to unique perfection by their Cambodian chefs. Laughably, Mom New River’s weighty menu resembles a homemade telephone directory riddled with inconsistent pagination and rife with fun English spelling errors, but the up-side is that you are bound to find something for everyone’s taste at a really great price. Again, you may be tempted to pass by in search of a more striking or familiar setting, but don’t. Pull out a seat, order any kind of lovely fresh fruit shake you can imagine, and just know that whatever you order will be made with pride, taste great, and give you a glimpse into the wonderful flavors Khmer food brings to the table.

Paris Bakery

PRICE: $$ – $$$

All the refined sweetness and splendid pomp of a fine Parisian bakery … a continent away from France. Plump breads and crunchy baguettes baked daily lure you into the boulangerie via a seductive olfactory trance. Delicate pastries and tarts crowned in sugary filagree dazzle the eyes like proudly displayed fine jewels. The unexpectedly keen selection of European deli meats compliments the bread offerings nicely, and a pleasant coffee/tea offering rounds out this quality experience. Don’t forget the quiche, glorious quiche! Admittedly, my unprecedented favorite guilty pleasures are their almond paste filled croissants. Ah, bliss! Not an everyday budge-friendly option, but a magnificent treat without breaking the bank. The bustling ‘street corner bistro’ vibe in a pedestrian-friendly metro area also lends itself nicely to a quick stop-in for take-away dining.

Peace Cafe

PRICE: $$ – $$$

A surprising number of vegan and vegetarian restaurants are popping up all over town, but this one effortlessly spans the gap from crepes to paninis. In between, it hits the mark on a wide array of lovely, body-nourishing, taste bud-tickling fresh juice concoctions. You are drawn into the spacious garden and the easy rattan lounge dining room for a respite from the surrounding city activity. Thankfully, these grounds are spared the worst of the periodically excessive Siem Reap heat. Sit a spell, catch up with yourself (or a friend) over a large pot of herbal tea; take a yoga class; peruse the artsy/craftsy trinkets made by local artisans for sale in Peace Cafe’s gift shop … it’s all good! Focused on civic and spiritual enrichment, Peace Cafe partners with several NGO’s to empower local Khmer people through education, vocational training, and employment. The fare doesn’t lend itself to over-indulgence by nature, but you will leave satisfied and feeling nourished.

Safari Sushi Bar

PRICE: $$$ – $$$$

Seen as how Siem Reap is nowhere near an ocean, I had been remiss to try sushi in my adopted town. However, on the occasion we get to put on our fancy Chacos and dine in style celebrating of a good friend, I must face my doubts about the quality of sushi available this far inland. I am here to say, happily, that Safari Sushi hit on all the marks: value, presentation, ambiance, quality, and service. The lush entrance draws you into a private garden oasis. Guests are greeted by the koi pond’s tranquil gurgling and encouraged to lounge on the patio before dining. Once inside the restaurant, the finishes are tasteful and guests are not crowded together. The space allows you to linger comfortably in conversation and the staff is helpful without hovering. We ordered an assortment of nigiri, sashimi, and even an impressive sampler roll to share around the table … no one left hungry. The fish was firm and fresh and the selection fair. Our little party enjoyed a decadent meal of sushi and sake (topped of with hot jasmine tea) at a fraction of the cost of the more flashy sushi restaurants in Siem Reap. Um, yes please! I know I will be voting for sushi on my next ‘date night’.

FYI, the restaurants listed here are in alphabetical order for the sake of satisfying my left-brain tendencies, by no means is the order in which they appear a ranking. Each place is uniquely wonderful, and there are, inevitably, countless similarly worthy eateries in Siem Reap … we just haven’t found them yet. If you have a favorite spot to grab a bite in Angkor-town, let us know! We are always up for a new foodie adventure and welcome your comments.

[ashleydpalmerusa]

Mastering Data Analytics Can Make You a More Valuable Accountant

What can you do to make yourself more valuable to your organization?

If you’re an accountant or if you work on a corporate finance team, becoming a master in data analysis is a big step forward.

But why? And what does data analytics have to do with accounting?

Accountants use data analytics to help businesses uncover valuable insights within their financials, identify process improvements that can increase efficiency, and better manage risk.

“Accountants will be increasingly expected to add value to the business decision-making within their organizations and for their clients,” says Associate Professor Wendell Gilland, who teaches “Data Analytics for Accountants” at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. “A strong facility with data analytics gives them the toolset to help strengthen their partnership with business leaders.”

Here are a few examples:

Auditors, both those working internally and externally, can shift from a sample-based model to employ continuous monitoring where much larger data sets are analyzed and verified. The result: less margin of error, resulting in more precise recommendations.

Tax accountants use data science to quickly analyze complex taxation questions related to investment scenarios. In turn, investment decisions can be expedited, which allows companies to respond faster to opportunities to beat their competition—and the market—to the punch.

Accountants who assist, or act as, investment advisors use big data to find behavioral patterns in consumers and the market. These patterns can help businesses build analytic models that, in turn, help them identify investment opportunities and generate higher profit margins.

Four types of data analytics

To get a better handle on big data, it’s important to understand four key types of data analytics:

1. Descriptive analytics = “What is happening?” This is used most often and includes the categorization and classification of information. Accountants report on the flow of money through their organizations: revenue and expenses, inventory counts, sales tax collected. Accurate reporting is a hallmark of solid accounting practices. Compiling and verifying large amounts of data is important to this accurate reporting.

2. Diagnostic analytics = “Why did it happen?” Diagnostics are used to monitor changes in data. Accountants regularly analyze variances and calculate historical performance. Because historical precedent is often an excellent indicator of future performance, these calculations are critical to build reasonable forecasts.

3. Predictive analytics = “What’s going to happen?” Here, data is used to assess the likelihood of future outcomes. Accountants are instrumental in building forecasts and identifying patterns that shape those forecasts. When accountants act as trusted advisors and build forecasts, business leaders grow increasingly confident in following them.

4. Prescriptive analytics = “What should happen?” Tangible actions—and critical business decisions—arise from prescriptive analytics. Accountants use the forecasts they create to make recommendations for future growth opportunities or, in some cases, raise an alert on poor choices. This insight is an example of the significant impact that accountants make in the business world.

Three reasons why accountants make excellent data scientists

1. Accountants have outstanding technical skills. Gilland notes, “Accountants are used to aggregating information to create a picture of an organization that summarizes the details contained in each transaction. Working with descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics comes more easily to people who already possess excellent quantitative skills.”

2. Accountants are natural-born problem solvers. The jump from descriptive and diagnostic analytics to predictive and prescriptive analytics requires that one shift from an organizational mindset to an inquisitive mindset; a shift from stacking and sorting information to figuring out how to use that information to make key business decisions. Accountants are experts at making this jump.

3. Accountants see the larger context and business implications. The true value of data analysis comes not at the point when the data is compiled, but rather when decisions are made using insights derived from the data. To uncover these insights, a data scientist must first understand the business context. Not only do accountants understand this context, they live it.

David Byers, VP controller for Coca-Cola North America, discusses the importance of “getting out there and asking questions” and how accountants can help drive business results.

How can you become more data savvy?

Build your skills. Strong graduate-level accounting programs, for example, will expand your knowledge of data analytics, often through specific courses that cover the topic. In other cases, data analytics is infused into the overall curriculum so that students can acquire this critical training in context with many other key topics.

Interested in data analytics? Here are a couple things to try

Complete the “What would the accountant say?” worksheet, attempting to solve a common business problem through the lens of an accounting data scientist.

Take the Business IQ quiz, a self-evaluation tool that measures numerous aspects of your business savvy, including, of course, your penchant for data and your analytics mindset.

Want to add skills in data analysis to your toolkit? Consider the #1-ranked online Master of Accounting degree from the University of North Carolina. With flexible schedules, evening courses delivered by world-class faculty, and a career services team dedicated to the needs of working professionals, the program can give your career the boost it needs.

The post Mastering Data Analytics Can Make You a More Valuable Accountant appeared first on Going Concern.

from Accounting News https://goingconcern.com/data-analytics-accountants-sponcon/

[lisarprahl]

Mastering Data Analytics Can Make You a More Valuable Accountant

What can you do to make yourself more valuable to your organization?

If you’re an accountant or if you work on a corporate finance team, becoming a master in data analysis is a big step forward.

But why? And what does data analytics have to do with accounting?

Accountants use data analytics to help businesses uncover valuable insights within their financials, identify process improvements that can increase efficiency, and better manage risk.

“Accountants will be increasingly expected to add value to the business decision-making within their organizations and for their clients,” says Associate Professor Wendell Gilland, who teaches “Data Analytics for Accountants” at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. “A strong facility with data analytics gives them the toolset to help strengthen their partnership with business leaders.”

Here are a few examples:

Auditors, both those working internally and externally, can shift from a sample-based model to employ continuous monitoring where much larger data sets are analyzed and verified. The result: less margin of error, resulting in more precise recommendations.

Tax accountants use data science to quickly analyze complex taxation questions related to investment scenarios. In turn, investment decisions can be expedited, which allows companies to respond faster to opportunities to beat their competition—and the market—to the punch.

Accountants who assist, or act as, investment advisors use big data to find behavioral patterns in consumers and the market. These patterns can help businesses build analytic models that, in turn, help them identify investment opportunities and generate higher profit margins.

Four types of data analytics

To get a better handle on big data, it’s important to understand four key types of data analytics:

1. Descriptive analytics = “What is happening?” This is used most often and includes the categorization and classification of information. Accountants report on the flow of money through their organizations: revenue and expenses, inventory counts, sales tax collected. Accurate reporting is a hallmark of solid accounting practices. Compiling and verifying large amounts of data is important to this accurate reporting.

2. Diagnostic analytics = “Why did it happen?” Diagnostics are used to monitor changes in data. Accountants regularly analyze variances and calculate historical performance. Because historical precedent is often an excellent indicator of future performance, these calculations are critical to build reasonable forecasts.

3. Predictive analytics = “What’s going to happen?” Here, data is used to assess the likelihood of future outcomes. Accountants are instrumental in building forecasts and identifying patterns that shape those forecasts. When accountants act as trusted advisors and build forecasts, business leaders grow increasingly confident in following them.

4. Prescriptive analytics = “What should happen?” Tangible actions—and critical business decisions—arise from prescriptive analytics. Accountants use the forecasts they create to make recommendations for future growth opportunities or, in some cases, raise an alert on poor choices. This insight is an example of the significant impact that accountants make in the business world.

Three reasons why accountants make excellent data scientists

1. Accountants have outstanding technical skills. Gilland notes, “Accountants are used to aggregating information to create a picture of an organization that summarizes the details contained in each transaction. Working with descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics comes more easily to people who already possess excellent quantitative skills.”

2. Accountants are natural-born problem solvers. The jump from descriptive and diagnostic analytics to predictive and prescriptive analytics requires that one shift from an organizational mindset to an inquisitive mindset; a shift from stacking and sorting information to figuring out how to use that information to make key business decisions. Accountants are experts at making this jump.

3. Accountants see the larger context and business implications. The true value of data analysis comes not at the point when the data is compiled, but rather when decisions are made using insights derived from the data. To uncover these insights, a data scientist must first understand the business context. Not only do accountants understand this context, they live it.

David Byers, VP controller for Coca-Cola North America, discusses the importance of “getting out there and asking questions” and how accountants can help drive business results.

How can you become more data savvy?

Build your skills. Strong graduate-level accounting programs, for example, will expand your knowledge of data analytics, often through specific courses that cover the topic. In other cases, data analytics is infused into the overall curriculum so that students can acquire this critical training in context with many other key topics.

Interested in data analytics? Here are a couple things to try

Complete the “What would the accountant say?” worksheet, attempting to solve a common business problem through the lens of an accounting data scientist.

Take the Business IQ quiz, a self-evaluation tool that measures numerous aspects of your business savvy, including, of course, your penchant for data and your analytics mindset.

Want to add skills in data analysis to your toolkit? Consider the #1-ranked online Master of Accounting degree from the University of North Carolina. With flexible schedules, evening courses delivered by world-class faculty, and a career services team dedicated to the needs of working professionals, the program can give your career the boost it needs.

The post Mastering Data Analytics Can Make You a More Valuable Accountant appeared first on Going Concern.

from Accounting News https://goingconcern.com/data-analytics-accountants-sponcon/

[ashleydpalmerusa]

Why Does (and Why Should!) Data Analytics Matter to Accountants?

Successful accountants and business leaders who have mastered data analytics can provide unique insights, making them bigger assets to their organizations.

“What do the numbers tell us?”

“Let’s dig into the data!”

“Can we analyze this in real-time?”

It’s very likely that you’ve heard these expressions around the office. Big data. Data analytics. Data science. This is important stuff.

But why is this important? And what does data analytics have to do with accounting?

Accountants use data analytics to help businesses uncover valuable insights within their financials, identify process improvements that can increase efficiency, and better manage risk. “Accountants will be increasingly expected to add value to the business decision making within their organizations and for their clients,” comments Associate Professor Wendell Gilland, who teaches Data Analytics for Accountants at the University of North Carolina’s online Kenan-Flagler Business School. “A strong facility with data analytics gives them the toolset to help strengthen their partnership with business leaders.”

Here are a few examples:

Auditors, both those working internally and externally, can shift from a sample-based model to employ continuous monitoring where much larger data sets are analyzed and verified. The result: less margin of error resulting in more precise recommendations.

Tax accountants use data science to quickly analyze complex taxation questions related to investment scenarios. In turn, investment decisions can be expedited, which allows companies to respond faster to opportunities to beat their competition — and the market — to the punch.

Accountants who assist, or act as, investment advisors use big data to find behavioral patterns in consumers and the market. These patterns can help businesses build analytic models that, in turn, help them identify investment opportunities and generate higher profit margins.

Four types of data analytics

To get a better handle on big data, it’s important to understand four key types of data analytics

1. Descriptive analytics = “What is happening?”

This is used most often and includes the categorization and classification of information. Accountants report on the flow of money through their organizations: revenue and expenses, inventory counts, sales tax collected. Accurate reporting is a hallmark of solid accounting practices. Compiling and verifying large amounts of data is important to this accurate reporting.

2. Diagnostic analytics = “Why did it happen?”

Diagnostics are used to monitor changes in data. Accountants regularly analyze variances and calculate historical performance. Because historical precedent is often an excellent indicator of future performance, these calculations are critical to build reasonable forecasts.

3. Predictive analytics = “What’s going to happen?”

Here, data is used to assess the likelihood of future outcomes. Accountants are instrumental in building forecasts and identifying patterns that shape those forecasts. When accountants act as trusted advisors and build forecasts, business leaders grow increasingly confident in following them.

4. Prescriptive analytics = “What should happen?”

Tangible actions — and critical business decisions — arise from prescriptive analytics. Accountants use the forecasts they create to make recommendations for future growth opportunities or, in some cases, raise an alert on poor choices. This insight is an example of the significant impact that accountants make in the business world.

Why accountants make excellent data scientists

Accountants have outstanding technical skills. Gilland notes, “Accountants are used to aggregating information to create a picture of an organization that summarizes the details contained in each transaction. Working with descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics comes more easily to people who already possess excellent quantitative skills.”

Accountants are natural-born problem solvers. The jump from descriptive and diagnostic analytics to predictive and prescriptive analytics requires that one shift from an organizational mindset to an inquisitive mindset; a shift from stacking and sorting information to figuring out how to use that information to make key business decisions. Accountants are experts at making this jump.

Accountants see the larger context and business implications. The true value of data analysis comes not at the point when the data is compiled, but rather when decisions are made using insights derived from the data. To uncover these insights, a data scientist must first understand the business context. Not only do accountants understand this context, they live it.

Jeff Burgess, National Manager Partner of Audit Services for Grant Thornton, discusses the relationship between the practice of accounting and broader business issues.

How can you become more data savvy?

Build your skills. Strong graduate-level accounting programs, for example, will expand your knowledge of data analytics, often through specific courses that cover the topic. In other cases, data analytics is infused into the overall curriculum so that students can acquire this critical training in context with many other key topics.

Interested in data analytics? Here are a few things to try:

Complete the “What would the accountant say?” worksheet, attempting to solve a common business problem through the lens of an accounting data scientist.

Take the Business IQ quiz, a self-evaluation tool that measures numerous aspects of your business savvy, including, of course, your penchant for data and your analytics mindset.

What’s your next career move?  Consider the #1-ranked online Master of Accounting degree from the University of North Carolina. With flexible schedules, evening courses delivered by world-class faculty, and a career services team dedicated to the needs of working professionals, the program can give your career the boost it needs.

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from Accounting News http://goingconcern.com/why-data-analytics-matter-accountants/