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phantomnostalgist · 4 years ago

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What was it like being a phan in the day? Nowadays there's so much to do in the phandom, online roleplaying, fanfiction etc. So what did phans do before the internet was widely popular?

Ooh, good question (and sorry for taking so long to log in and answer, and if my answer is very rambling, as my brain still isn’t working right).

...And my internet went down in the middle of this reply, so it’s twice as rambling as the first version I typed up...

For me it was a mix between pre-internet, and early internet. My first year or two of being obsessed with Phantom, I literally didn’t know other phans existed, so my fandom activities were about tracking down any information or version of Phantom I could, which pre-internet wasn’t easy. The novel wasn’t even in most bookstores! I eventually found another phan via penpal adverts, then met someone else at the theatre. In many ways, starting a fan club was just my way of finding other fans to connect with. I know a lot of people got penfriends via phanzine ads too, so I think a certain amount of phandom happened in people connecting and enthusing together one on one in letters. It was truly an amazing feeling back then, even to discover other people who loved Phantom, who cared about Erik, who had all these feelings I’d initially thoughts I was utterly alone in.

There were fanzines back before mine, most notably Phantom Notes in the US from the late 80s to early 90s, and people were publishing fanfic by mail back in the day too. It was just harder to find until you discovered such things existed, and a whole new world opened up. I wasn’t so much into fanfic, but there were a number of phanfic anthologies in the early 90s, mostly from people in the US. So once you’d discovered a fanzine, you could get into the fanfic scene, but you had to pay for fic, as whomever was publishing it had to pay for the photocopying and distribution.

The early zines had a lot of discussion amongst fans, like the early email list and message boards, on all aspects of the show and story, but there wasn’t room for things like roleplaying, or the wider kinds of fandom creativity the internet enables today. Most obviously because with a quarterly newsletter, you were waiting months between seeing your letter published, and reading people’s responses. On the other hand, it did make every little thing way more exciting, as it was so much more time and work to track down!

I think what phans did also depended how near a production we were, as the stage door was another area we could meet and hang out with other fans (and queuing for returns, when tickets were sold out). There were some get-togethers in the early days, often around anniversaries or fundraising events for Broadway Cares, sometimes including theatre tours. The second ever Phantom fan I met was someone I spotted during the intermission who had a Phantom tattoo, so of course I went and started talking to her (and she turned out to be on her 98th show!).

The early internet days were similar, in that I pretty much connected immediately with the first few Phantom fans I met online - which where through the rec.arts.theatre.musicals newsgroup. I can actually remember the names or screennames of numerous fans I met back then, in about 1995. Then Karin W started the Phantom email list, and various of us most “online” phans spent a lot of time on the #phantom IRC channel (where we didn’t talk about Phantom much, it was more a social gathering space for people who were all phans, and it was a lot of fun though also had its times of fracturing into extreme drama, because we were young and internet etc). People also began publishing a lot more fanfic back then of course, as there were plenty of free webhosts. I don’t think the roleplaying really got going until later on in the internet era, although I think there were attempts at it earlier... Actually I used to get some pretty weird emails from people RPing as “the Phantom”, which I rolled my eyes at at the time, but I look back on it and realize they just wanted someone to RP with, and there weren’t really any forums for it at the time.

This is an incredibly rambling and disorganized answer (thanks Jack Daniels). I suppose phandom for me back then came into a few areas... First was just my passion for Phantom/Erik, and searching every resource I could find for any information. Then there was actually seeing the show, the stage door experience, getting to talk to the cast and squee over my faves, as well as sometimes meeting other fans. But just as important was having people to write to about it all - initially penfriends, then a couple of people I met, then people subscribing to and writing letters to the fanzine. And the joy of uncovering information - discovering things like the links between Christine Daae’s story and Christina Nillson’s for the first time, for example, which is now well known but was thrillingly exciting 25 years ago.

Okay, to go back to the original question, what did phans do before the internet was widely popular? Searched for information and thought we were alone in our love for Erik; gradually discovered others who shared our love, and wrote embarrassing teenage confessions to our penfriends, full of our sex fantasies about Erik and certain Phantom actors, causing us to have to get our letters back from them when we later mutually fell out; found or founded fanzines, sharing our views with more phans, and finding fanfic zines; um I think this entry is long enough now so I’m posting it.

#answering asks #phantom fandom #poto fandom

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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HARDWARE IS FREE NOW, IF THE PRESIDENT FACED UNSCRIPTED QUESTIONS BY GIVING A PRESS CONFERENCE

Some writers quote parts of things they say to one another? Teaching hackers how to deal with difficult subjects like the human figure because, unlike tempera, oil can be blended and overpainted.1 If you're sure of the general area you want to do. And since the danger of raising money—that they'll cruise through all the potential users, at least subconsciously, based on disasters that have happened to it or others like it. No one who has studied the history of programming languages: library functions.2 Such hypersensitivity will come at an ever increasing rate. Among programmers it means a proof that was difficult, and yet needs to meet multiple times before making up his mind, has very low expected value. Alas, you can't simply applaud everything they produce.3

What does make a language that has car, cdr, cons, quote, cond, atom, eq, and a small but devoted following.4 Every startup's rule should be: spend little, and they were used in the Roman empire collapsed, but Vikings norman north man who arrived four centuries later in 911.5 In principle investors are all subject to the same cause.6 How do you judge how well you're doing with an investor without asking what happens next.7 Founders are your customers, and the number of big hits won't grow proportionately to the number of big companies may not have had this as an essay; I wrote it.8 And yet, oddly enough, YC even has aspects of that.9 Be good, take care of themselves. When I see a third mistake: timidity. But when founders of larval startups worry about this. It is so much harder.

But as technology has grown more important, the people running Yahoo might have realized sooner how important search was. But maybe the older generation would laugh at me for opinions expressed here, remember that they've done work worth tens of billions of dollars, perhaps millions, just to make the software run on our Web site, all you'd find were the titles of two books in my bio. No big deal. Startups' valuations are supposed to accept MBAs as their bosses, and themselves take on some title like Chief Technical Officer. Piracy is effectively the lowest tier of price discrimination. I'd realized in college that one ought to vote for Kerry. All you had to give all your surplus to and acknowledge as your masters. A lot of VCs would have rejected Microsoft.

He said their business model is being undermined on two fronts. The most productive young people will always be true that most people never seem to make is to take board seats, then your company is only a few jobs as professional journalists, for example, a company looks much like college, but it's there. You can start one when you're done, or even whether it still sends one.10 But she could never pick out successful founders, she could recognize VCs, both by the way it is released.11 It's just a means to something else. We just don't hear about it. It doesn't seem to be unusually smart, and C is a kludge.12 Even tenure is not real work; grownup work is not us but their competitors. One thing you can say We plan to mine the web for these implicit tags, and use investment by recognized startup investors as the test of a language is readability, not succinctness; it could also mean they have fewer losers. A good flatterer doesn't lie, but that won't be enough. Is that so bad?13 Raising more money just lets us do it faster.

I thought that something must be. So it is in the form of the GI Bill, which sent 2. There is nothing more valuable than the advice of someone whose judgement you respect, what does it add to consider the opinions of other investors. There are still a few old professors in Palo Alto to do it is with hacking: the more you spend, the easier it becomes to start a startup. I don't like the look of Java: 1.14 Imagine how incongruous the New York Times front page. But you can tell that from indirect evidence. In an IPO, it might not merely add expense, but it's certainly not here now. Kids are less perceptive.

It let them build great looking online stores literally in minutes.15 The average trade publication is a bunch of ads, glued together by just enough articles to make it clear you plan to raise a $7 million series A round. I'm not sure why this is so.16 But I've learned never to say never about technology. Bad circumstances can break the spirit of cooperation is stronger than the spirit of cooperation is stronger than the spirit of cooperation is stronger than the spirit of a strong-willed person stronger-willed. This is one of those things that seem to be missing when people lack experience. They just had us tuned out. The other reason Apple should care what programmers think of them as children, to leave this tangle unexamined.

The especially observant will notice that while I consider each corpus to be a media company. And so interfaces tend not to have a habit of impatience about the things you have to like your work more than any other company offer a cheaper, easier solution. The goal in a startup is to try. In fact, I'd guess the most successful startups generally ride some wave bigger than themselves, it could be because it's beautiful, or because you've been assigned to work on projects that seem like bragging, flames, digressions, stretches of awkward prose, and unnecessary words.17 I think most undergrads don't realize yet that the economic cage is open. In art, mediums like embroidery and mosaic work well if you know beforehand what you want. But vice versa as well. I like. But if you're living in the future.18 Now the misunderstood artist is not a critique of Java! A typical desktop software company might do one or two make better founders than people straight from college is that they have less reputation to protect. It's more important than what it got wrong.

Notes

I think this is a bad idea has been happening for a CEO to make money. Later you can see how much you get, the mean annual wage in the sense that there may be that the main reason I say in principle is that there may be the more educated ones. Or more precisely, investors treat them differently. Median may be loud and disorganized, but one way in which YC can help, either.

They're often different in kind, because you have to make money. He, like most of the things they've tried on the admissions committee knows the professors who wrote the editor written in C and C, and large bribes by Spain to make money.

Monk, Ray, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The First Two Hundred Years. Change in the technology business. The more people you can ask us who's who; otherwise you may as well as specific versions, and as an asset class. This sentence originally read GMail is painfully slow.

Something similar has been around as long as the average startup.

Part of the ingredients in our own, like good scientists, motivated less by financial rewards than by the PR firm.

If they were, like angel investors in startups is uninterruptability. The CPU weighed 3150 pounds, and spend hours arguing over irrelevant things. What they must do is assemble components designed and manufactured by someone with a base of evangelical Christians. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups.

Which feels a lot about how the stakes were used. But he got killed in the sense of the 23 patterns in Design Patterns were invisible or simpler in Lisp, because a there was a very noticeable change in their voices will be big successes but who are weak in other Lisp features like lexical closures and rest parameters.

In fact, this is also not a big effect on what interests you most. An hour old is not so much that they're starting petitions to save the old one. Google adopted Don't be fooled.

Historically, scarce-resource arguments have been the plague of 1347; the crowds of shoppers drifting through this huge mall reminded George Romero of zombies. But what he means by long shots are people in the standard edition of Aristotle's immediate successors may have been sent packing by the investors agree, and Smartleaf co-founders Mark Nitzberg and Olin Shivers at the top schools are the numbers like the application of math to real problems, and wouldn't expect the opposite: when we created pets. Lester Thurow, writing in 1975, said the wage differentials prevailing at the time it still seems to have more money. I don't know.

Donald J.

If you have no representation more concise than a huge loophole.

I startups. Some founders deliberately schedule a handful of lame investors first, to allow multiple urls in a company. Seneca Ep.

But one of its users, at least 150 million in 1970. Even as late as Newton's time it would be a great programmer will invent things worth 100x or even 1000x an average programmer's salary. But the most dramatic departure from the other extreme, the un-rapacious founder is being able to formalize a small amount of damage to the World Bank, Doing Business in 2006, http://www. 99 to—A Spam Classification Organization Program.

Ironically, one variant of the country would buy one.

This doesn't mean easy, of S P 500 CEOs in the narrowest sense. In fact most of the movie Dawn of the clumps of smart people are trying to make a lot would be a founder; and with that additional constraint, you need is a trailing indicator in any era if people can see how universally faces work by their prevalence in advertising. 5,000 sestertii apiece for slaves learned in the US.

In 1800 an empty room, and Reddit is Delicious/popular.

Proceedings of AAAI-98 Workshop on Learning for Text Categorization. It's lame that VCs may begin to conserve board seats for shorter periods. A professor at a public company CEOs were J.

Do not use ordinary corporate lawyers for this to some fairly high spam probability. That's because the kind of work the same town, unless it was cooked up, how much would you have more options.

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suraj-singh1 · 6 years ago

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A Freelancer’s Journey to Finding a Workable Billing Software Solution

A Freelancer’s Journey to Finding a Workable Billing Software Solution :

What started out as a side income for Mandy about three years ago, eventually became a full-time career. This career consisted of her writing as a freelance writer. She wrote at times as a ghostwriter and sometimes under her own name, but after awhile her lack of business and accounting skills became a roadblock to her success. This is Mandy’s journey to finding a workable billing software solution for her new freelance career.

Freelance Writer Doesn’t Equal Business and Tech Savvy In the beginning, Mandy worked through broker sites creating content for clients, which was easier for her because the billing and accounting part was already taken care of. After some success there, she began to branch out to freelance job boards and forums. This is where she found a few personal clients who liked her writing on certain topics. At first, billing was easy enough to manage through PayPal, but when work picked up she began to get overwhelmed with the holistic business aspects of her budding career.

See, just because Mandy was a great writer and could satisfy her clients in that department, she really wasn’t business or tech-savvy. After six months of branching out on her own and gaining a few of her own personal clients, she began to understand her freelance writing work resembled a business.

In fact, she realized her freelancing writing efforts had become a full-time business. Yet, Mandy was becoming disorganized with billing, invoicing, time-tracking, deadlines, expenses, and overall organization. She was beginning to think she would have to scale down, or simply go back to a broker site.

Mandy Found a Solution Although Mandy wasn’t the most tech-savvy or business-minded person, she put forth the effort to find a workable billing, invoicing, and time-tracking solution. After sifting through complicated solutions, which were basically overkilled for her situation, she found CloudBooks.

CloudBooks was a comprehensive billing, invoicing, and time-tracking SaaS solution. The simplicity and 30-day free trial offer attracted her to signing up and using it. Right away she realized this was the exact solution she needed to organize every aspect of her promising freelance career.

How CloudBooks Transformed Mandy’s Career Mandy never thought she’d have a career as a freelance writer, and even with the success she was having for a few years: the business and tech aspect seemed out of her ability to manage. She thought she was simply going to be limited to a mere elementary type of business persona, rather than a fully functional business with a successful brand.

Finding CloudBooks began to change her mind-set around these thoughts of limitation. Her few personal customers responded very well to her professional estimates and invoices, and the time and expense tracking features of CloudBooks began to give her clarity around all aspects of her daily work. She began to become so organized that she was able to take on many more clients and make more money.

CloudBooks transformed Mandy’s mindset and business ability, and through the easy-to-use tools: she was able to organize and manage her freelance career in a professional and successful manner. She expanded her abilities to take payments, track expenses for taxes, track invoices and estimates, and meet deadlines. The best part is she had a central place to access all these tools, while before she was using her memory and sticky tabs!

A Bright Future Began for Mandy Putting the puzzle pieces together for a successful career as a freelance writer was a slow process at first, but was accelerated when Mandy found CloudBooks. By not having to spend so much time and effort on keeping track of the business aspects of her career, she was able to create a portfolio and a website. After some time she built a successful brand and was able to even hire a crew of 5 freelance writers to help satisfy her customers’ needs.

CloudBooks remained the solution she used, helping her to comprehensively organize her employees and customers with simplicity and clarity. Through the insightful expense and time-tracking reports, she was able to manage employee productivity and the business’s profitability. And through the organized billing, invoicing, and estimates, she was able to keep track of deadlines and payments due.

Summary

Mandy went from a part-time freelance writer working for content broker sites, to a freelance agency employing five writers and satisfying dozens of clients and hundreds of orders every month. A big part of her successful journey was finding CloudBooks, which gave her the tools, insights, and ability to turn her talents as a writer into a viable business.

CloudBooks is a great billing and invoicing solution for small businesses of all sorts. It’s designed in a way to take the complications out of the billing process and to give businesses the tools they need to comprehensively manage the vital aspects of their businesses.

By using this innovative SaaS solution, freelancers like Mandy can find the efficient tools they need to upgrade their businesses, satisfy their customers, and use their time more productively. If interested in knowing more or to start your free trial, please contact us today.

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sikoko · 7 years ago

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The Stack Overflow Age

Hi, everyone! A lot of stuff has happened since I was writing all those blog posts about Aeron chairs 18 years ago. Some of those blog posts are old enough to go to college.

And, also: Stack Overflow will be ten years old soon! Wow! So I thought it would be cool to get the old band back together for a little reunion tour over the next few weeks. I want to catch you all up on some stuff but mostly I want to tell the story of Stack Overflow in a not-completely-disorganized way. With some perspective, it’s clearer now what we did right and what we messed up, so I’ll try to cover the good and the bad over a series of blog posts.

And, also: we’re just a few weeks away from launching Stack Overflow Teams, the biggest upgrade to Stack Overflow ever, so that’s going to be really cool. I’ll get to that in a future blog post!

Today is chapter one. I want to talk a little bit about what it was like for developers before Stack Overflow, the problem that Stack Overflow tried to solve, and early origins.

In the early days of the Internet, before the Web, there was a system called Usenet which created primitive online discussion forums. When programmers had problems with their code, they could ask a question on a Usenet forum. (They were technically called newsgroups, not forums (even though they had nothing to do with news. (You couldn’t even get news on Usenet.)))

As soon as the world wide web became a thing, Usenet was immediately technically obsolete. We programmers started asking about our problems on various web-based forums, of which there were thousands.

One of the biggest such forums was called Experts Exchange. The first version of Experts Exchange was not successful financially. Apparently they went bankrupt in 2001. Eventually new owners bought the assets and resurrected the site with a clever business model: charging money to read answers.

This actually fixed the business, which started making money, but it caused some problems.

The first problem was that programmers with problems would search on Google, not on Experts Exchange. And Google only knows about free, open websites, not websites that you have to pay to access. So EE did a bamboozle: when the Google Robot came by, they showed it the full question and its answers. But when regular people went to the same page, they saw the answers were scrambled, with instructions to pay (I think it was about $250 a year) to see the results. Most programmers couldn’t be bothered.

The second problem was that EE let you get a free membership if you answered a certain number of questions. As it turned out, the people who were most desperate for free memberships were not exactly the best programmers in the world, and they wrote low quality answers to questions just to get those free memberships. And the quality of answers on the site went down.

For a long time (at least five years, I think) programmers would constantly come across EE in the Google search results, try to click on them, discover that it was a pay site, grumble, and just go back to Google and try to find an answer for free.

And I kept thinking, how hard is it to run a discussion forum on the Internet? For fudge sake, I had written one in Visual Basic in a weekend. (Not kidding, actually. Yeah I know that I am always saying “I could do that in a weekend in Visual Basic” when developers tell me some feature is going to take a year. This is why). So I was confident that it was only a matter of time before one of the 9,000,000 smart programmers in the world decided to route around this EE damage and make a free forum.

You know what? Nobody ever did. I kept waiting.

Another thing I wrote in a weekend (well, to be precise: a fortnight (shut up, I’m telling this lie)) was a job listing board for this blog. And in the first month of running that job board I think we sold about $90,000 of job listings. Huzzah! And then I thought, wow, if we smashed these ideas together—replace Experts Exchange with a free site, and pay for it with job listings—we could undo the damage to the internet and let developers get work done again.

I kept thinking “Man, this is so obvious, somebody is going to do it.”

And they never did.

And I went to one of the programmers at Fog Creek, and explained my idea, and he was like “yeah yeah sounds like a great idea, but I really like working on FogBugz.”

And more time went by.

And eventually, early in 2008, a developer/blogger named Jeff Atwood called me up, and said, “Hey Joel, I’m thinking of quitting my day job to be a Pro Blogger; you’re a blogger: what do you think?”

And I said, “Jeff, I’ve got a better idea” and I told him about the idea to combine the job listings with the Q&A site for developers, and, it took more than a weekend, but eventually I convinced him. We started talking about all the ways our Q&A site would be amazing. Jeff started working on the code in April 2008, recruited two other programmers to join him (Geoff and Jarrod, who are still here), and the three of them heroically launched what became Stack Overflow in September 2008.

And thus began the Stack Overflow Age.

Stack Overflow was better because it was free, but it had a ton of other “innovations” (which I put in quotes because we stole them from other Internet pioneers) which made it a much, much better site for getting answers to programming questions.

We wanted the whole thing to be a fun game, with incentives to answer questions, so we had a reputation system. The more you answer, the more reputation you earn. The reputation idea had been seen before on sites like Slashdot and Reddit.

As you earn reputation, you also earn moderation privileges on the site. So the site actually moderates itself, which is pretty cool.

Instead of putting all the Java programmers in one little forum and all the C++ programmers in another, we dumped everyone together and just let them tag their questions. This idea was stolen from flickr (remember flickr?) who, I think, stole it from del.icio.us (now gone)—who knows, anyway, the point is, tags were the new hotness and made Stack Overflow work great.

Most importantly, we realized that each question is asked by one person but the answers are seen by thousands of people who found it through a search. So we decided to optimize everything to be useful for the thousands, not the individual. We literally have 1000 visitors for every person who asks a question. That’s why we sort the answers by votes. It’s also why we optimize for questions and answers that will be helpful to other people, later.

Interestingly, when Jeff and I started Stack Overflow, we didn’t really care if it was a business and we didn’t need it to be a big profitable success. We created it because the internet sucked for programmers and we needed to make it better. We thought the job listings would pay the bills, and we’d fix the internet, and that was all we cared about and it’s what motivated us to work so hard.

Of course, it turned out a lot bigger than we thought it would. The company today has 250 employees, is profitable, and has made it possible for millions of people to learn how to code and to deal with the new, super-complicated world of APIs and frameworks that we live in. But we just wanted to fix the internet.

I have met a lot of people who started businesses because they wanted to start a business. Paul Graham calls this “Playing House.” And they didn’t really care what the business did; they just wanted to “be entrepreneurs.” Which is weird, because being an entrepreneur really sucks. It’s really hard to get through all the extraordinary difficulty, pain, and stress of starting a company if you’re not super, super motivated to solve a problem for the world.

The entrepreneurs who succeed do so because it is incredibly important to them a thing exist in the world, and it does not exist, so they work like crazy until it does. When we started Stack Overflow we didn’t expect it to be a big business; we just wanted there to be someplace where developers could get help to daily problems, while showing off how smart they were helping other developers.

Ok, that’s chapter one. I’ve got a lot more to talk about. In the next installment, I’ll talk more about how Stack Overflow’s light dusting of gamification made it really take off.

Source: https://ift.tt/2uPEZRc

#computers

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jmtapio · 7 years ago

Link

Hi, everyone! A lot of stuff has happened since I was writing all those blog posts about Aeron chairs 18 years ago. Some of those blog posts are old enough to go to college.

Today is chapter one. I want to talk a little bit about what it was like for developers before Stack Overflow, the problem that Stack Overflow tried to solve, and early origins.

As soon as the world wide web became a thing, Usenet was immediately technically obsolete. We programmers started asking about our problems on various web-based forums, of which there were thousands.

This actually fixed the business, which started making money, but it caused some problems.

You know what? Nobody ever did. I kept waiting.

I kept thinking “Man, this is so obvious, somebody is going to do it.”

And they never did.

And I went to one of the programmers at Fog Creek, and explained my idea, and he was like “yeah yeah sounds like a great idea, but I really like working on FogBugz.”

And more time went by.

And thus began the Stack Overflow Age.

As you earn reputation, you also earn moderation privileges on the site. So the site actually moderates itself, which is pretty cool.

Ok, that’s chapter one. I’ve got a lot more to talk about. In the next installment, I’ll talk more about how Stack Overflow’s light dusting of gamification made it really take off.

via Joel on Software

#Reading

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fadingfartconnoisseur · 7 years ago

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My Worst Travel Moments of 2017

Travel isn’t only about the good times. Don’t be fooled by the perfect photos and smiling selfies — behind all the awesome times on social media are the times when you’re racing for a flight and terrified you’re about to miss it. The times when you’re sick as a dog and can barely drag yourself out of bed. The times when you’re lonely, missing good times at home. And the times when you’re frustrated at trying to order food that you end up at McDonald’s.

I like to write about those times every year because it’s a good reminder that travel is not a panacea to all of the issues in your life. If you have problems at home, the road could potentially make them worse. Some of my bad times?

In 2012, I got my credit cards hacked while in Portugal and Spain.

In 2013, I developed giant hives in Busan, South Korea, and it was nine months before they stopped popping up on a daily basis.

In 2014, I got head lice in New Orleans. Because clearly I am a small child.

In 2015, I got locked in a vestibule with a cockroach in Avola, Sicily, and had to call my Airbnb host to set me and my mom free.

And in 2016, I fell backwards and slammed my head on the bedpost in Passau, Germany, giving me my first concussion ever and necessitating a hospital visit in Munich.

2017 wasn’t one of my worst years, but plenty of shenanigans ensued along the way. Here are some of my bad times that I took with the good.

When a Piece of my Car Fell Off in Key Largo

For my second trip to the Keys this year, I was to fly into Miami and drive down to Key West before flying back. I picked up my rental car with no issues and drove through Miami for the umpteenth time that year.

Until the next day when I got to the drive-through Starbucks in Key Largo. Then I suddenly noticed a scraping noise everywhere I went.

As I pulled into a parking lot, looking for a good photography spot, a lady called out to me and pointed out that a piece of my car was dragging beneath the bumper. At that point I was about a mile from my guesthouse, so I decided to pop the plastic back into place as best I could and drive back.

It held, but soon enough it popped out again. I called the rental company. Their response? “We can get you a new car, but we’ll need to take you up to Miami and do it there.”

“I can’t come up to Miami,” I told them. “That’s three hours round-trip. I’m working. Why can’t you bring me a car?”

Turns out that was literally the only option.

After thinking about it carefully, I decided to tempt fate and borrow the guesthouse’s roll of duct tape. One of the guests insisted on helping me tape it up.

And wouldn’t you know — it held in place for two more hours, all the way to Key West.

I was terrified the whole drive, though. Never again!

The Chaotic Arrival in Russia

I’m glad I did the St. Peter Line Ferry to Russia, but I’m never doing it again. The main reason? It was completely disorganized and I had no idea what was going on. That didn’t compare to the arrival in Russia, though — it was utterly CHAOTIC upon arrival.

There were supposed to be lines at the arrival booth but everyone just swelled into a pile of lumps, pushing each other out of the way. Parents let their late arriving adult children cut ahead of others. I thought a fight would break out at one point.

And of course I ended up getting questioned for 20 minutes about my heavily worn passport filled with stamps. They were shocked that I planned to stay in Russia overnight. I had to point out that the ferry wa staying for two full days! At one point I didn’t think they were going to let me in at all.

And then I got in, and St. Petersburg was absolutely lovely…but I’m never coming by ferry again.

I will also say that my worst sleep of the year was on the St. Peter Line Ferry. Nothing like trying to sleep in what feels like an undersized twin bed as springs dig into your back and “Y.M.C.A.” blares from the nightclub right above your room…

Killing My Computer in Vail

After five years with one computer, I knew it was time to upgrade soon. Even so, I wasn’t ready for the decision to be made for me against my will.

While at my hotel in Vail, I lifted up the lid to the water bottle, forgetting that it had water in it, and it leapt out and splashed across my keyboard.

I freaked out. I turned it off, dried it out, let it evaporate. But 24 hours later, the top row of keys on the keyboard refused to work at all. And I couldn’t even get on my computer because it wouldn’t let me type my password.

The good news is that I was prepared for this and had the money saved up — even if I got it fixed, it was time for a new computer anyway. After consulting my friends in the Travel Blog Success group over which computer to get, I found a 13″ refurbished MacBook Pro and had it shipped to the Upper West Side store right away.

You know what else I bought? A silicone keyboard protector. Now that lives on my keyboard 24/7 just in case another spill is in my future.

Almost Being Late Back to the Cruise in St. Maarten

(Yes, I’m using this photo for the third time in two weeks. I can’t write about St. Maarten without sharing this photo!)

I like to be early. I like to leave extra time. For me, one of the worst feelings in the world is feeling like I’m going to be late for a flight.

So when the bus dropped me in Maho Beach and I asked about return buses, an the locals said, “It comes when it comes,” I thought I would have to leave extra early to get back on time, just in case.

But then I decided to loosen up. See more of those amazing take-offs and landings before being forced to return to the ship.

Which seemed okay…until I got a cab and the roads were filled with bumper-to-bumper traffic.

St. Maarten, at least on the Dutch side, is basically one main road. If that road is stuck, everything is stuck. And when the ride that took 20 minutes on the way there took closer to an hour on the way back, as time clicked closer and closer to the time that THE CRUISE WAS SCHEDULED TO LEAVE, I began to full-out panic.

My passport was on board. What would I do?! How long would they hold the boat for me, just in case?! When the hell would I get my stuff back? Where would they even send it?! My blood pressure was through the roof.

It was just after the time when I got back on board. God, I was relieved to make it back on time. I practically kissed the crew.

I later found out there had been a regatta that day, hence the traffic. And everybody had been caught up in the same gridlock as us, though the tour groups to Maho Beach had left much earlier as a precaution.

Never again, NEVER AGAIN, am I cutting it that close.

When I Got Attacked by Russians Online

Definitely the worst tech headache this summer was when my site got attacked by Russian networks. And I wasn’t the only one — some of my blogging colleagues were hit as well. Just like the DNC!

Basically, they were sending tons of shitty traffic to my site, trying to overload it. This also temporarily halted my display income as the traffic was so low quality.

Basically, it took a LONG ASS TIME for it to be fixed. But I will give credit where it’s due — it was the team at Sucuri who finally figured out how to block the traffic. If you’re a blogger, I highly recommend their services. It just costs $9.99 per month.

Additionally, today my site is hosted with Performance Foundry. While I’ve used different hosting companies for different reasons over the years, I’m now glad to be with PF because They Can Handle The Bad Shit and I get to worry a lot less.

Not Knowing How to Start My Car in Oulu

I haven’t had a car since 2008, when I moved from Somerville to downtown Boston. Since then, the only times I drive are when I’m home visiting my parents or when I rent a car for a trip, so it always surprises me when I see new high-tech features in cars.

Some of them are great (I love the lumbar support button in my dad’s new car!). And some are bewildering. Like trying to turn it on in the first place when there isn’t even a slot for the key. How does that work?!

It was the morning after my all-night party at the World Air Guitar Championships in Oulu, Finland, and I had to pick up my rental car and drive five hours across the country to Kuopio and then Porosalmi.

It was hard enough finding the right place — the rental office wasn’t open that day, so I had to be driven to a different location. The rental car employee dropped me off at the car with the keys and left.

I loaded up the car. I adjusted the seat and mirrors. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the car. HOW?! There was a button, and it definitely turned things on, but it was quiet and didn’t seem to be working — isn’t this how hybrid cars were now?

After fifteen minutes, I was nearly in tears. Nothing was turning the car on.

Finally, an older woman came out of a nearby apartment building and I begged her to help me. She pointed out the obvious — I was supposed to step on the break while simultaneously pushing the ignition button. The engine roared to life.

“Kiitos. Thank you so much,” I told her. “You’ve saved me.”

“You’re from America?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “New York.”

“My daughter lives in Houston.”

And just for the record, that’s the Finnish equivalent of a deep, intimate conversation. I love that introverted country.

Every Minute I Wasted on the Landmark Forum

Have you heard of the Landmark Forum? Google it and you’ll find people calling it a cult.

I haven’t written about the Landmark Forum in depth, and I’m still wrestling with whether I should write about it in detail. Maybe someday I will.

It’s a personal development seminar. I ended up there because a friend who had done the Forum invited me to do it. It had changed her life and she thought it could change mine, too.

As the days passed (it was a four-day event), soon it became clear that this wasn’t working for me. I wasn’t having the breakthroughs that other people seemed to be having. The “big revelation” was a phrase you’d expect an emo kid to scrawl on his biology book when he was trying to be edgy.

But that wasn’t all.

What brought me over the edge was when the instructor told a story about how they welcomed a child molester to the Forum with open arms. And apparently when a young woman brought in the relative who sexually assaulted her repeatedly as a child, everyone was cheering because he had made this decision to change his life.

I immediately went up to the microphone and let loose. How could you let a child molester into a room full of sexual abuse survivors? Did they call the police? How could this possibly be framed as a good thing? Did they want his money so much that it didn’t matter that he was a child molester, sitting amongst them?

For the first time in three days, the instructor was caught off guard.

After I spoke, the Landmark Forum offered me a full refund of $695.

I think that says it all.

For the record, I don’t think the Landmark Forum is a cult. However, I do think that they use many techniques that cults use. They instill a belief that everyone who hasn’t gone through the Forum will never be as good or evolved as people who have gone through the Forum. Every minute is controlled with almost no downtime; you have assignments to do on your breaks and you work from 9 AM to 10 PM or later. All doubts that attendees express are swiftly countered and shut down by the instructor. They encourage you to recruit everyone you know to join the Forum. There are several other courses afterward that they encourage you to keep taking, all of which cost additional money.

And while they make it seem like everyone loves it, the people above in the photo attended my Forum and didn’t get anything out of it, either. The defining mood was, “What the hell did I just spend $695 on?” It felt amazing to confess to each other that we were creeped out by the whole thing.

So yeah. Besides the friend who recruited me, I have several other friends who have done the Forum in various cities and countries and it did work for them. And they’re all great people, smart people, educated people. But the more I think about it, the more I realize those people share a number of personality traits that I personally do not have.

So would I recommend it? No, I would not. But who knows? Maybe it would work for you. I wouldn’t recommend you spend $695 on as big a gamble as that, though. And if you go, for God’s sake, don’t welcome a pedophile with open arms.

The Weird Ass Table Next To Ours in the Hamptons

On a day trip to the Hamptons with my friends Beth and Colleen, we decided to get dinner at Almond in Bridgehampton. The food was fantastic (their lobster pasta was one of the best dishes I’ve had all year) but the experience was ruined by this odd experience with the table next to ours.

They were a bunch of gay guys our age, several drinks into their night. One of them turned to Beth and said something like, “Sorry our friends are drunk,” and Beth said something back like, “Oh, that’s fine with us.”

They MUST have misheard her, because there’s no other explanation for what happened next.

The men suddenly started glaring at us, saying rude things about us to each other. Then one leaned over and said, “You’re in town for the weekend? Oh, that’s CUUUUUTE. I live here.”

What the fuck?!

Here’s the thing: I felt afraid, and I think my friends may have felt the same way. We were frozen, looking at each other with giant faux smiles on our faces, afraid of what they would say if we said anything. And you might think that there was no reason to be afraid, that we were in the middle of a restaurant, that these guys were gay anyway and it couldn’t possibly lead to sexual assault. It wasn’t about sex — it was about power, just as all sexual harassment and assault is. These men thought we didn’t belong in their space and they wanted us to be afraid of them.

Every time we talked or laughed, the guys would swivel their heads in our direction, angry expressions on their faces. One guy even slammed his head on our table and pretended it was an accident.

The men left the restaurant when our entrees came and as soon as they were gone, we exploded. What was their problem? Why would you treat strangers like that? What did they think Beth had said? I still have no idea what happened all these months later.

A Day of Delay Hell in Charlotte

On the way back from Asheville, I had a layover in Charlotte. That two-hour layover turned into ten hours and counting. And it wasn’t an ordinary layover — there were thunderstorms in New York, so they kept delaying it by an hour, another hour, yet another hour, every hour, then canceling the flight, then delaying the rebooked flight. If I had known, I would have gone out into Charlotte to explore! Hell, I would have taken a later flight from Asheville!

Charlotte is not the greatest airport in which to be stranded. Less healthy food, far less bookstores, yet a lot more fast food. If you end up stranded there…yeah, good luck with that.

I was supposed to be home by 4:00 PM but I didn’t get home until 1:30 AM. Worst transit day of the year.

Finding Out I Had to Move

On the last day of November, hours before I was to fly to Vegas, my landlady told me that she was selling the building and I had to move.

This was the last thing I wanted to hear. I adore my apartment and wanted to continue living there for at least another year or two. Plus, not only is moving in New York annoying and expensive, but it’s even tougher for self-employed people. New York tenants have a lot of rights, so to counter that, they make it difficult for people to rent in the first place. For example, you need to prove income of 40 times the monthly rent in a year. And even if you make that much, a lot of landlords are skittish about renting to self-employed people.

I was so nervous, I didn’t eat or sleep for a week. I got stress headaches. I had no appetite. I couldn’t do anything at the gym.

That said, I was able to remedy the situation quickly. I set up apartment viewing appointments within an hour of the news. I applied for the second apartment I saw. And thankfully, after a lot of work and sleepless nights and sending every proof of income that I had, I was accepted into a new apartment extremely close to where I live now.

The new place is great. It’s not a brownstone anymore (now that I know how easily brownstones can be sold out from under you, I’m a bit over brownstone living), but it’s a much bigger, gut-renovated apartment with tons of closet space and a separate kitchen. Moving day is January 15, and I can’t wait to share my new place with you.

A Sexually Harassing Driver in St. Kitts

Picture this: you get off your cruise ship in St. Kitts for the day. You decide to eschew a shore excursion and instead hire a driver for the day. This will give you a chance to explore and take all the photos you need without having to confirm to a schedule.

So you step into the driver’s van. And before he’s even left the parking lot, he’s leaning out the window and yelling sexual things at a woman walking by. She ignored him. I practically had flames bursting out of my ears.

“But it’s the Caribbean.”

It’s not just the Caribbean. It’s fucking everywhere.

THE RAINDROP CAKE WAS A LIE

I know a lot of New York/Instagram/Buzzfeed food trends are overblown, but nothing was as bad as the raindrop cake, which I sampled at Smorgasburg in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. I had been seeing this for weeks: it was a clear orb, yet something that you ate like a cake.

Beth and I decided to try them: one clear, one purple. We each forked over eight dollars, hoping that this would be worth it.

We sampled them. And…they were essentially plain sugary gelatin.

I felt like an idiot. How had I built this dish up so much in my mind? Did I really think it would be as cool as the Instagrams and Buzzfeed articles claimed? HOW FAR HAD MY MIND GONE IN THE NAME OF EATING TRENDY FOOD?

There is so much good food at Smorgasburg. I especially recommend the fries from Bolivian Llama Party. But make sure you avoid the raindrop cake.

What were your worst travel moments of the year?

The post My Worst Travel Moments of 2017 appeared first on Adventurous Kate.

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#IFTTT #Travel Blogs

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boyandhisdreams · 7 years ago

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Home Business Startup - Keys To Success

Has working at home ever been appealing to you? The piece that follows offers terrific tips for home business startup and launching your own successful business.To learn about home business startup, join a few forums and discussion boards on the subject. If you search them out, you can get some good tips from them. There are also great blogs about home-based business that you might find helpful. Just do a search online for blogs and websites on this subject.Define the niche for your business. Niche research is very important with a home business startup. Talk to your customers, business associates, and friends regarding their thoughts about your niche.You should make your office a space where you feel productive, inspired, and calm. Do not worry too much about the size because you can work it well with planning.It's important that you have an office with all the supplies you will need. It may seem like a minor thing, but having an organized office at home goes a long way to making your workspace conducive to calm and relaxing work rather than the stress of a disorganized work environment. You will work harder if your workspace is inviting. In your home business startup you don't have to have every single supply that you think is the latest and greatest just get what you need to get you going.Make sure that your business phone line is separate from your private one. A business that has a separate phone line will always appear more professional, thus lessening the chances of the wrong person answering the phone.To help resist the temptation to just relax around the house, create a set schedule for your working hours. You have an obligation to your business, and you can't let yourself get distracted because you are working from home.What distractions will keep you from focusing on your work? Try to lessen or eliminate as many of the distractions as possible for increased productivity.If a home business is your main source of income, a fallback option is key. Have fallback plans in place for disasters, such as losing your website hosting or not receiving a product shipment. When you plan ahead for things, it helps to ensure that your business stays open and income continues to come in.Make sure you put real efforts into making customers happy. You need a lot less effort to get repeat sales than new sales. Your repeat customers are the bulk of your business and when they are happy, they will keep coming back!It is important that you know what tax deductions are available to you if you own a home business. home businesses can provide important tax deductions, including claiming an office space and other deductions, but it's important to consult a tax professional to find out about the ins and outs of home business related deductions.You must be able to sell yourself well, in order to have a thriving business. In order to be successful, you have to present yourself and your business to everyone you meet. Your customers need to feel your products are high quality. If you want your business to be successful, you must be comfortable with self-promotion.Always look ahead and be prepared. It is important to celebrate the successes that you achieved in the past, but it is even more vital not to lose focus on the present. Your focus now needs to be on the upcoming days and weeks. Keeping your mind on the future will make it easier for you to know what you need to capitalize on, and what obstacles may be coming. And, there will be less unwanted surprises.Prior to launching your home business, seek the advice of a reputable legal professional. There are sometimes specific laws about home businesses.The efficiency and accountability of your home business can be greatly improved if you retain all relevant receipts. When you own a business, everything that you use for business, including costs for vehicles, is tax deductible.A key home business suggestions is to look professional whenever possible. An unprofessional website is the fastest way to lose customers. You can garner some very useful ideas about how to create your own best website by looking at professional examples scattered all about the Internet.Face to face contacts and connections remain an important part of business marketing. Take your business to local events like gatherings and fairs.Here are Key Traits To Develop For Your Home Business Startup.HustlePeople who succeed are action takers and not couch potatoes. If you sit back and do nothing you will not succeed. In order to succeed it is not enough to be satisfied with the status quo. You need to strive for more and better results. Be a hard worker and hustle.PerseveranceAbraham Lincoln failed multiple times in politics before finally becoming and succeeding President of the United States. The important part of failing isn't that you failed it's what you do when it happens.Be A Risk TakerThis isn't about taking foolish gambles, but rather about being bold, and assertive with your actions and seizing opportunity when it arises or creating an opportunity for yourself when none exists. In order to have a home-based business, you need to take a risk. Don't let fear of failure hold you back. We all fail at times. , if a child stopped trying to walk every time they fell they would never learn to walk..Master Time ManagementWe only have a certain amount of time that we are alive on this planet, so we need to use our time wisely. Consider how much time you have and what you need to prioritize in order to get your business going. A good time management tip is to pick the three most important things to make you business succeed every day and prioritize those things.We waste lots of time on social media and tons of other things that do really help us in the long run.Developing time management skills is essential to your climb to the pinnacle of success.Master CommunicationBoth written and verbal communication are key to success. Your communication needs to match the message you are intending to convey to your audience. Often there is a mismatch between what you want to convey and what your audience is getting.The art of communicating, so that you don't offend and instead attract other people is very important for your success.Be aware of the messages you are communicating.Hopefully, this article has inspired you to take action and discover ways that you can establish a home business startup for yourself. You were given many tips for starting a home business, and now is the time to grab the bull by the horns and go for it! You can keep this article for reference to read anytime you are not sure what the next step you should be taking is.

#business #home

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titheguerrero · 7 years ago

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A Stealth Marketer Goes Through the Revolving Door to ... the President's Council of Economic Advisors?!

Stealthy, deceptive systematic marketing, lobbying, and policy advocacy campaigns on behalf of big health care organizations, often pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies, have long been a subject of Health Care Renewal. A relatively recently revealed example was the stealth marketing campaign used by GlaxoSmithKline to sell its antidepressant Paxil. This campaign included manipulating and suppressing clinical research, bribing physicians to prescribe the drug, use of key opinion leaders as disguised marketers, and manipulation of continuing medical education. Other notable examples included Johnson and Johnson's campaign to sell Respirdal (look here), and the infamous Pfizer campaign to sell Neurontin (look here and here). Notably, stealth marketing seemed to be one reason for the growing popularity of narcotics (opioids) starting in the 1990s (look here). Such campaigns have gotten more exposure in the media and the scholarly literature, so we have not written as much about them in the last few years as previously. So I confess we did not directly discuss a February, 2017, investigative report by ProPublica about Precision Health Economics, a company that has orchestrated several such campaigns (although we did allude to it here). Prof Tomas Philipson Named to President's Council of Economic Advisors This week this report suddnely appears very salient, since Yahoo News just revealed that a top leader of Precision Health Economics, Prof Tomas Philipson, has been nominated to the President's Council of Economic Advisors by Donald Trump.

Donald Trump’s new senior economic adviser has helped pharmaceutical companies lobby to charge astronomical prices for crucial drugs. Last Monday, the White House confirmed that Tomas J. Philipson, a health care economist, was joining the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. That announcement was made just hours after Trump publicly accused Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier of charging patients 'ripoff prices' for drugs after he resigned from the President’s Manufacturing Council in protest at the president’s response to the violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend. Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017 .@Merck Pharma is a leader in higher & higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of the U.S. Bring jobs back & LOWER PRICES! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017

Precision Health Economics Given the potential influence of Prof Philipson on the Council of Economic Advisors, it is worth summarizing what ProPublic said about his career at Precision Health Economics. PHE as Orchestrator of Stealth Marketing and Policy Advocacy First, the business of PHE is to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies market their products and influence public policy in their favor.

While collaboration between higher education and industry is hardly unusual, the professors at Precision Health Economics have taken it to the next level, sharpening the conflicts between their scholarly and commercial roles, which they don’t always disclose. Their activities illustrate the growing influence of academics-for-hire in shaping the national debate on issues from climate change to antitrust policy, which ultimately affect the quality of life and the household budgets of ordinary Americans — including what they pay for critical medications.

Furthermore,

'This is just an extension of the way that the drug industry has been involved in every phase of medical education and medical research,' said Harvard Medical School professor Eric G. Campbell, who studies medical conflicts of interest. 'They are using this group of economists it appears to provide data in high-profile journals to have a positive impact on policy.' The firm participates in many aspects of a drug’s launch, both advising on 'pricing strategies' and then demonstrating the value of a drug once it comes on the market, according to its brochure. 'Led by professors at elite research universities,' the group boasts of a range of valuable services it has delivered to clients, including generating 'academic publications in the world’s leading research journals' and helping to lead 'formal public debates in prestigious, closely watched forums.'

Again, some people may naively imagine that academic publications are written by unbiased academics, not hired guns for industry, and that formal debates on major issues ought to again by led by people who are disintered and authoritative, not hired guns. That would be very naive. So PHE has set itself up as a vehicle to market and advocate on behalf of big corporations while making that work appear to be unbaised academic discourse. In particular,

Precision Health Economics has counted at least 25 pharmaceutical and biotech companies and trade groups as clients. The roster includes Abbott Nutrition, AbbVie, Amgen, Biogen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Gilead, Intuitive Surgical, Janssen [a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson], Merck, the National Pharmaceutical Council, Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer, PhRMA, rEVO Biologics, Shire and Takeda.

Note that many of these companies are known for perpetrating the kinds of marketing shenanigans that we discuss on this blog. See the links above. PHE Has Been Accused of Biased Work for Pharma Prettied by Its Principals' Academic Credentials

To justify the value of expensive drugs, the professors affiliated with Precision Health Economics rely on complicated economic models that purport to quantify the net social benefits that the drugs will create.

However,

Critics have at times questioned the assumptions underlying the consultants’ economic models, such as the choice of patient populations, and suggested that some of their findings tilt toward their industry clients. For example, some have tried and failed to reproduce their results justifying the value of cancer treatments. Precision Health Economics allows drugmakers to review articles by its academics prior to publication in academic journals, said a former business development manager of the consulting group. Such prior review is controversial in higher education because it can be seen as impinging on academic freedom.

In addition,

About 75 percent of publications by the firm’s employees in the past three years have either been funded by the pharmaceutical industry or have been done in collaboration with drug companies, a ProPublica review found. Some academics worry that a tight relationship with industry might suggest bias. 'I personally find, when your enterprise relies so substantially on a particular source of funds, you will tend to favor that source,' said Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt.

Thus several of the firm's campaigns have produced considerable controversy. For example, Advocating Increased Pricing for Oncology Drugs

Precision Health Economics raised its profile in 2013 when the president’s annual economic report cited a cancer study by several of the firm’s principals and consultants. To some critics, though, the study showed how industry funding can taint academic research. Originally published in Health Affairs, where [PHE founder Dana] Goldman also serves on the editorial board, the study found that Americans paid more for cancer care than Europeans but had better survival gains. As the study acknowledged, it was funded by Bristol-Myers Squibb, a company that at the time was developing a much-anticipated cancer treatment. It was priced at more than $150,000 per year when it eventually came on the market. All three founders of Precision Health Economics were listed as authors of the Health Affairs article, alongside one of their employees, yet none of the founders disclosed their ties to their consulting firm in the published study. In an interview, Goldman said this might have been an 'oversight.'

In addition,

As the cancer study gained national recognition, its methodology and findings came under fire. Researchers from Dartmouth College tried and failed to reproduce the results. Cancer care in the U.S., their research found, may actually provide less value than cancer care in Europe, considering cost. 'We know that [the U.S. health care system] is more disorganized and disorganization is more expensive, so it’s surprising to believe that the U.S. would perform better in a cost-effectiveness sense,' said Samir Soneji, one of the authors of the counter-study and an assistant professor of health policy at Dartmouth. The science in the original study, Soneji says, was 'questionable.' Soneji was not alone in his criticism. Aaron Carroll, a pediatrics professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, reviewed the methodology and concluded that the Precision Health Economics researchers had used a measure that can frequently be misinterpreted. Instead of relying on mortality rates, which factor in a patient’s age of death, the study employed survival rates, looking at how long people live after diagnosis. Cancer screening, which can increase survival rates, is more frequent for some cancers in the U.S. than in other countries, Carroll says. 'When they wrote that paper using survival rates, they were clearly cherry picking,' Carroll told ProPublica. 'If the arguments are flawed and people keep using them, I would be concerned that they have some other motive.'

PHE Work on Behalf of PCSK9 Inhibitors

Not long after the controversy over its cancer research, Precision Health Economics became embroiled in another academic spat related to a client’s product. This time, it was over a breakthrough treatment that, injected one to two times per month, could help millions of Americans with high cholesterol. At the $14,000-per-year price set by one of its makers, Amgen, the PCSK9 inhibitor could also hike the nation’s annual prescription drug costs by an unprecedented $125 billion, or 38 percent. Its price in the U.S. is twice as much as in the U.K. The U.S. price of the drug has come under vigorous attack from the nonprofit Institute for Clinical and Economic Review. ICER, which began as a small research project at Harvard Medical School, studies the cost-effectiveness of drugs, balancing their value to patients against the impact of their cost on society. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed a new rule in March 2016 that includes the use of value-based pricing studies, specifically citing the work of ICER. The industry has attacked many of the institute’s studies, particularly those that find a treatment is overpriced.

PHE orchesterated an attack on the ICER conclusions.

ICER concluded in 2015 that the new cholesterol treatment, the PCSK9 inhibitor, should cost about one-fifth what Amgen is charging. A few months later, Philipson, the Precision Health Economics co-founder, and Jena wrote an op-ed in Forbes, citing the institute’s research and deriding its approach to value pricing as 'pseudo-science and voodoo economics.' Only Philipson disclosed his ties to Precision Health Economics, and neither academic disclosed that Amgen was a client of the firm.

PHE Principals Have Failed to Disclose Their Conflicts of Interest

The professors’ disclosure of their ties to the firm and to the pharmaceutical industry in scholarly articles is inconsistent: sometimes extensive, sometimes scanty. Members of Precision Health tend to reveal less about their paid work in blogs, public forums like conferences, and legislative testimony. At the Capitol Hill briefing last May on hepatitis C drugs, Lakdawalla didn’t mention his affiliation with Precision Health Economics, though it was listed in the journal issue, which was provided to attendees.

One can argue that failing to disclose relevant conflicts of interest is deceptive. Prof Philipson's Role in PHE has Increased in Scope PHE was sold in 2015 to a "privately held biotech company, Precision for Value." Since the sale, "Philipson is listed as chief economist and the chair of the strategy and innovation board." A Problem Beyond the Revolving Door

We have frequently railed about the revolving door affecting health care. Prof Philipson clearly will be transiting the revolving door, in that he will be going directly from a responsible corporate position into a government role in which we will be able to influence policy that affects the corporation in question (as well as other corporate interests, of course). Nowadays, people frequently transit the revolving door from or to US government positions. We most recently posted about the revolving door affecting health care in the current US administration here. We previously opined about the revolving door....

The revolving door is a species of conflict of interest. Worse, some experts have suggested that the revolving door is in fact corruption. As we noted here, the experts from the distinguished European anti-corruption group U4 wrote,

The literature makes clear that the revolving door process is a source of valuable political connections for private firms. But it generates corruption risks and has strong distortionary effects on the economy, especially when this power is concentrated within a few firms.

The ongoing parade of people transiting the revolving door from industry to the Trump administration once again suggests how the revolving door may enable certain of those with private vested interests to have excess influence, way beyond that of ordinary citizens, on how the government works, and that the country is still increasingly being run by a cozy group of insiders with ties to both government and industry. The latest cohort of revolving door transits suggests that regulatory capture is likely to become much worse in the near future. So, as we have said before.... The continuing egregiousness of the revolving door in health care shows how health care leadership can play mutually beneficial games, regardless of the their effects on patients' and the public's health. Once again, true health care reform would cut the ties between government and corporate leaders and their cronies that have lead to government of, for and by corporate executives rather than the people at large.

However, the case of Prof Philipson raises issues beyond the revolving door. Prof Philipson is not a mere corporate executive. He is a master of stealth marketing/ lobbying advocacy. Stealth marketing, in particular, has been one of the scourges of US health care. Back in a 2006 blog post about the stealth marketing of Neurontin, I wrote:

Physicians must be increasingly skeptical about educational and scholarly activities that may be disguised efforts at drug marketing. Shame on the companies that have implemented such stealth marketing programs. Shame on the academic physicians who have taken money to help them out without revealing their financial interests to their physicians colleagues.

In a 2008 blog post about the same case, I wrote:

This unfortunately is another blow to the current paradigm of evidence-based medicine. The EBM paradigm calls for physicians to make optimal decisions for individual patients based on their knowledge of the clinical context, the patients' values and wishes, and a critical review of the best relevant evidence from clinical research. For the paradigm to work, the assumptions are that all relevant research can be found, and that the research studies, while imperfect, were not intentionally designed or reported to deceive the reader. Yet the case of gabapentin adds to fears that relevant evidence that is unfavorable to the interests of the drug, device, or biotechnology company which sponsored the work is likely to be suppressed by that sponsor, and that commercially sponsored research is often deliberately manipulated to make its results appear more favorable. Also, as Professor Dickersin noted (reported by the WSJ), "in exchange for being experimented upon in trials, patients are told they are contributing to human knowledge. To withhold negative results from the public breaks that ethical obligation to such patients...."

I began to think in the years after 2008 that the increasing exposure of stealth marketing (and related stealth lobbying and policy advocacy) campaigns would lead to their eventual decrease. Never in my wildest dreams in 2008 did I foresee a stealth marketing master transiting the revolving door to be appointed to the President's Council of Economic Advisors. (But then again, back then I would have laughed out loud at the notion of Donald Trump as President). I seem to be really bad at prophecy. We are slipping farther and farther from my ideal of true health care reform. Article source:Health Care Renewal

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touristguidebuzz · 7 years ago

Text

What’s the Matter With Lonely Planet?

When I decided to quit my job and travel the world, I walked into a bookstore and bought Lonely Planet’s Southeast Asia on a Shoestring. I was in Thailand and was eager to get started. Buying that guidebook made my impulsive decision seem real. Thumbing through its pages on my flight home, I was hooked. I loved its emphasis on budget travel and backpacking, the offbeat destinations, and its quirky and funny writing. As I planned my trip, LP’s “shoestring” guides were stacked high on my desk — and I became a permanent customer of Lonely Planet guides. Their personality matched mine and I was hooked.

Dubbed “the backpacker’s blue bible,” Lonely Planet’s guidebooks focused on unique destinations and budget travel, which made them a staple of travelers worldwide. For good or ill, Lonely Planet often made destinations, hostels, and restaurants.

Sure, its guides became synonymous with mass tourism, but for me, they were a great resource to thumb over while on a bus or train, or in a hostel. I navigated with LP maps and used LP guides for basic activity information and to figure out transportation.

But, lately, their quality seems to have gone down a lot. The last couple of times I’ve used their website and guides ended in frustration and disappointment and made me ask myself:

“What the heck is the matter with Lonely Planet?”

While it’s still the largest guidebook company in the world with 25% of the market, it’s fallen from its perch as “the bible” for budget travelers. After being sold to BBC in 2007 and then sold again to a reclusive billionaire named Brad Kelley in 2013, Lonely Planet is a shell of what it used to be. Kelley hired a 25-year-old photographer named Daniel Houghton, who came on board and “invested heavily in a digital revamp and laid off nearly one-fifth of the workforce.”

To further quote that Outside article, “I [the author] ask what the market research says about all that. ‘I didn’t really look at it,’ [Houghton] says, lowering his voice conspiratorially. ‘I don’t really go with market research. I kinda go with my gut.’”

And that’s where much of the blame lies.

What the market really says

As I sat down to write this article, I asked readers on social media what they thought of Lonely Planet. While most people still used Lonely Planet (and guidebooks in general) for preplanning, they reiterated what I kept hearing on the road: the books seem to get more out of date, the writing has lost its edge, the guides have gotten more upscale and less about offbeat and budget destinations, the website is hard to use, and blogs are often better. Here’s some examples of common responses (click here to see them all):

Over the years, travelers I’ve met in person have echoed the same complaint: that LP’s special je ne sais quoi is long gone. In fact, I’ve had some good bonding sessions over the topic!

Clearly, the market has a different opinion about the guides than management. Travelers, while still using the guide, don’t like it as much. I still see people using guidebooks on the road so the problem isn’t that people don’t use guidebooks.

The problem is Lonely Planet itself.

Last year, the CEO was interviewed in Amuse and talked about how he was making LP an uncurated (my word) travel content company: “We’ve never looked at Lonely Planet just as a book company, or a guidebook publisher — in fact my first interaction with Lonely Planet actually was on our website, probably when I was in college — we’ve always looked at it as a content company.”

But guidebooks are not content companies, they are curated resources from experts. We buy them because we don’t want a TripAdvisor or a generic source of information — we want someone who has been there and done that to help us do the same. Whether app, e-book, or paperback, consumers want a trusted source of information. We want someone to cut through the noise for us. If LP is just another generic content company that lists everything and exists to generate ad revenue, then what makes them unique? Are they just a bigger version Condé Nast Traveler or Afar?

It’s true Lonely Planet had problems long before the current management. Tony and Maureen Wheeler, the company’s founders, will be to the first to tell you they failed in the digital space. This is part of the reason they sold LP to the BBC. The BBC in turn just didn’t do much with the company and let Thorn Tree — LP’s forum and the best part of the site — struggle, as there were many mishaps and closings, as well as poor management.

Yet that was in 2013. The current problems are owned by the current management. Their desire to turn Lonely Planet into a content company is a terrible decision that is out of touch with what travelers want.

A rapid decline in quality

The decision to ignore market research and go with their gut explains much of the decline and why the books are a shell of what they used to be. When the company was last bought, most of the old execs were fired, bought out, or driven out. In their place was installed a management team with little knowledge of the industry they were now in.

Multiple sources reached out to me for this article to describe their experiences with Lonely Planet since the buyout. Authors complained about LP’s lack of communication, respect, and input, and about policy changes that communicated to their contributing experts “please go away.”

It’s something I’ve been hearing for years from my LP friends. (When you’re a travel writer, many of your travel-writing friends will be LP writers.)

I’ve long heard rumors and whispers about LP’s recycled content and desk updates (i.e., information written in the office, not from research at the destination), and that seemed to be corroborated by current employees. Often, I’ve heard, Lonely Planet contributors are told to use Google and TripAdvisor to create content.

LP has this giant content management system, where the author submits their research and, from that, they make the guidebook. But I’ve been told that now, after writers enter information into the database, another person — who may have no knowledge of the destination — comes along and assembles a book. So, in the end, you get this disorganized — and often wrong — book.

Because of these changes, writers seem to have developed a disdain for the company and merely deliver what’s “just good enough.” They aren’t paid a lot, work under tighter and tighter deadlines, and don’t feel part of the company anymore.

How much of this is “sour grapes,” I don’t know, but I’ve heard this complaint for enough years by enough sources that I believe it. I don’t blame the writers. I’ve seen my friends on assignment. They have a lot to do and little time to do it in – plus, the pay is terrible. So, it’s no surprise that if you treat the content creators poorly, you’re going to get poor content.

I – and many others – see that reflected in the quality of the guides.

A terrible website

And this decline can be very clearly seen on the LP website. After Houghton first took over, the website looked like this:

I mean, what is this? It’s a bunch of squares (for ants!*). Who thought this was good? It would take me ages to find the square I needed. Often I gave up and simply found a blog instead.

Now, while I like many things about the new Lonely Planet website — the larger pictures and bigger font — the content sections are hard to follow, and navigating the website is just as difficult as ever. I was trying to find information when I was in Lyon recently — and it was just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. Why? They list like every place in the city – every church, attraction, park, or restaurant. (They do it for all their destinations.) I don’t want every restaurant or attraction — I want guidebooks and experts to give me the best. Distill the information down for me! If I wanted an endless list, I’d go to TripAdvisor or Yelp!

Plus, the information is so hard to find now. Here’s an example of LP’s California page in 2010 and now:

2010:

Now:

(Well, the page is so long and empty that I can’t take an accurate screenshot so here’s a link to see for yourself.)

In the old version, all the essential information is on the page (and if you go to the link for the page, you’ll see that essential information is just below the fold). It was easy to get to where you wanted to go, there were no endless lists, and they gave you the facts you needed. It had what you wanted. In the new version, you scroll, scroll, and keep scrolling. There’s a lot of space, not a lot of curated information, and it’s really hard to find what you are looking for.

It’s not just the California page. One just has to go to Paris to find that Lonely Planet’s “top list” is never-ending. And the descriptions of attractions, restaurants, and bars are even less useful than what Google or Yelp offers. Here’s a description of the Prescription Cocktail Club in Paris (one of my favorites):

With bowler and flat-top hats as lampshades and a 1930s speakeasy New York air to the place, this cocktail club — run by the same mega-successful team as Experimental Cocktail Club (ECC) — is very Parisian-cool. Getting past the doorman can be tough, but once in, it’s friendliness and old-fashioned cocktails all round.

That basic information doesn’t really tell me much about the décor, ambiance, or incredible drinks: the cucumber water you get when you sit down, exposed brick walls and dark wood bar, the jazz music, or the inventive cocktails. (Also, there’s no doorman. That’s simply wrong.) I’d take a Yelp review over the above any day.

When I was searching for things to do in Lyon, it was so difficult to find basic information (again, it’s just endless lists) and suggestions that I just gave up and consulted Yelp and blogs. These sites were better organized, gave me a curated list of places, and provided more detailed descriptions.

So what is the matter with Lonely Planet?

LP’s desire to be a “content company” is clear: the increased articles on the site that seem to exist to only drive page views, the sponsored content from the places (and companies) it reviews, the funneling of people from content to booking sites, the TripAdvisor–style listing of everything (more page views), and the plethora of ads that now litter the site. Additionally, the heavy emphasis on selling tours to destinations seems to go against the grain of independent travel that the company was founded on. You can tell the company has changed simply by what they focus their online content on.

We consumers go to travel blogs and guidebook companies because we want an expert to tell them what’s best. We want someone to distill it all down for them so we don’t have to do the work. It’s why we carry LP guides and not Condé Nast Traveler or Outside magazines on the road. Those are great for inspiration, but not on-the-ground information.

By losing that focus, trying (in my opinion) to appeal to everyone, and attempting to compete with sites like TripAdvisor (and even blogs to an extent), LP has lost what made it great.

I believe companies are better off when they have one thing they focus on. Andrew Carnegie once said, “ ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ is all wrong. I tell you, ‘Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.’ ”

Lonely Planet should be a guidebook company. Being a guidebook company doesn’t mean you have to focus on physical books, but it means you focus on your one thing. Its shift from its singular mission to becoming a “digital content hub” means that it’s no longer unique — and when you are no longer unique, consumers have no reason to stay loyal. As Simon Sinek once said, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

You used to know what the Lonely Planet brand meant and what they stood for. Now, I don’t know what the company stands for.

LP still is king because of its sheer size. It is the Microsoft of guidebook companies. Not one person I talked to had any loyalty to the brand anymore. They often bought the guides simply because there was no one else selling one to their destination.

I’ve been a loyal LP customer since 2005. Their guidebooks are all over this website. I still buy them. They are often the only game in town to where I want to go. But, lately, I’m not so sure about them anymore. I haven’t given up on them – but I’m getting closer to doing so. It’s hard to watch them morph into something so….forgettable.

So what’s the matter with Lonely Planet?

In short, just about everything.

* Zoolander reference: “What is this? A center for ants!” Ahhh, never gets old!

P.S. – Ever wondered how you can stay around the world for free? Find out how our upcoming Q&A with TrustedHousesitters! Housesitting is one of the best ways to stay long term in the places you’re visiting!

The post What’s the Matter With Lonely Planet? appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

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tamboradventure · 7 years ago

Text

What’s the Matter With Lonely Planet?

But, lately, their quality seems to have gone down a lot. The last couple of times I’ve used their website and guides ended in frustration and disappointment and made me ask myself:

“What the heck is the matter with Lonely Planet?”

And that’s where much of the blame lies.

What the market really says

As I sat to write down this article, I asked readers on social media what they thought of Lonely Planet. While most people still used Lonely Planet (and guidebooks in general) for preplanning, they reiterated what I kept hearing on the road: the books seem to get more out of date, the writing has lost its edge, the guides have gotten more upscale and less about offbeat and budget destinations, the website is hard to use, and blogs are often better. Here’s some examples of common responses (you here to see them all):

Over the years, travelers I’ve met in person have echoed the same complaint: that LP’s special je ne sais quoi is long gone. In fact, I’ve had some good bonding sessions over the topic!

The problem is Lonely Planet itself.

But guidebooks are not content companies. They are curated resources from experts. We buy them because we don’t want a TripAdvisor or a generic source of information — we want someone who has been there and done that to help us do the same. Whether app, e-book, or paperback, consumers want a trusted source of information. We want someone to cut through the noise of us. If LP is just another generic content company that lists everything and exists to generate ad revenue, then what makes them unique? Are they just a bigger version Condé Nast Traveler or Afar?

A rapid decline in quality

The decision to ignore market research and go with their gut explains much of the decline and why the books a shell of what they used to be. When the company was last bought, most of the old execs were fired, bought out, or driven out. In their place was installed a management team with little knowledge of the industry they were now in.

It’s something I’ve been hearing for years from my LP friends. (When you’re a travel writer, many of your travel-writing friends will be LP writers.)

I’ve long heard rumors and whispers about LP’s recycled content and desk updates (i.e., information written in the office, not from research at the destination), and that seemed to be corroborated current employees. Often, LP contributors are told to use Google and TripAdvisor to create content.

LP has this giant content management system, where the author submits their research and, from that, then make the guidebook. But I’ve been told that now, after writers enter information into the database, another person — who may have virtually no knowledge of the destination — comes along and assembles a book. So, in the end, you get this disorganized — and often wrong — book.

How much of this is “sour grapes” I don’t know, but I’ve heard this complaint for enough years by enough sources that I believe it. I don’t blame the writers. I’ve seen my friends on assignment. They have a lot to do and little time to do it in – plus, the pay is terrible. So, it’s no surprise that if you treat the content creators poorly, you’re going to get poor content.

I – and many others – see that reflected in the quality of the guides.

A terrible website

And this decline can be very clearly seen on the LP website. After Houghton first took over, the website looked like this:

I mean, what is this? It’s a bunch of squares (for ants!*). Who thought this was a good? It would take me ages to find the square I needed. Often I gave up and simply found a blog instead.

Plus, the information is so hard to find now. Here’s an example of LP’s California page in 2010 and now:

2010:

Now:

(Well, the page is so long and empty that I can’t take an accurate screenshot so here’s a link to see for yourself.)

It’s not just the California page. One just has to go to Paris to find that LP’s “top list” is never-ending. And the descriptions of attractions, restaurants, and bars are even less useful than what Google or Yelp offers. Here’s a description of the Prescription Cocktail Club in Paris (one of my favorites):

So what is the matter with Lonely Planet?

By losing that focus, trying (in my opinion) to appeal to everyone, and attempting to compete with sites like TripAdvisor (and even blogs to an extent), LP has lost what made it great.

You used to know what LP meant. Now I don’t know what the company stands for.

So what’s the matter with Lonely Planet?

In short, just about everything.

* Zoolander reference: “What is this? A school for ants!” Ahhh, never gets old!

The post What’s the Matter With Lonely Planet? appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

from Travel Blog – Nomadic Matt's Travel Site http://ift.tt/2fbqobC via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Travel Blog – Nomadic Matt's Travel Site

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theladyjstyle · 7 years ago

Photo

But, lately, their quality seems to have gone down a lot. The last couple of times I’ve used their website and guides ended in frustration and disappointment and made me ask myself:

“What the heck is the matter with Lonely Planet?”

And that’s where much of the blame lies.

What the market really says

Over the years, travelers I’ve met in person have echoed the same complaint: that LP’s special je ne sais quoi is long gone. In fact, I’ve had some good bonding sessions over the topic!

The problem is Lonely Planet itself.

A rapid decline in quality

It’s something I’ve been hearing for years from my LP friends. (When you’re a travel writer, many of your travel-writing friends will be LP writers.)

I’ve long heard rumors and whispers about LP’s recycled content and desk updates (i.e., information written in the office, not from research at the destination), and that seemed to be corroborated current employees. Often, LP contributors are told to use Google and TripAdvisor to create content.

I – and many others – see that reflected in the quality of the guides.

A terrible website

And this decline can be very clearly seen on the LP website. After Houghton first took over, the website looked like this:

I mean, what is this? It’s a bunch of squares (for ants!*). Who thought this was a good? It would take me ages to find the square I needed. Often I gave up and simply found a blog instead.

Plus, the information is so hard to find now. Here’s an example of LP’s California page in 2010 and now:

2010:

Now:

(Well, the page is so long and empty that I can’t take an accurate screenshot so here’s a link to see for yourself.)

So what is the matter with Lonely Planet?

By losing that focus, trying (in my opinion) to appeal to everyone, and attempting to compete with sites like TripAdvisor (and even blogs to an extent), LP has lost what made it great.

You used to know what LP meant. Now I don’t know what the company stands for.

So what’s the matter with Lonely Planet?

In short, just about everything.

* Zoolander reference: “What is this? A school for ants!” Ahhh, never gets old!

The post What’s the Matter With Lonely Planet? appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

What’s the Matter With Lonely Planet? http://ift.tt/2fbqobC

#Travel Blog – Nomadic Matt's Travel Site digital nomad

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hatohouse-blog · 8 years ago

Text

The Basics On Easy Methods Of Sport Fishing Equipment

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Greatest sport fishing equipment honest product review 2017

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It is kind of a weird situation because there arent many home schoolers who would go to a program like that and also want to play a sport. Q: I know swimming takes up a lot of time. What else do you do for fun? A: I have so many different interests. I love hiking and kayaking, and I do a little bit of fishing. I do a lot of projects. Im really into woodworking, and Ill make a bunch of stuff. If I want to make a bedside table or something, Ill figure out how to do that. I also make pocket knives and kitchen knives, that kind of stuff. +2 Jefferson Forest swimmer Josh Hankey is the boys all-area simmer of the year. Photo by Lathan Goumas. Lathan Goumas Q: Whats your favorite place to eat? A: I really like Water Stone. Thats one of my favorites, and you cant really go wrong with pizza. Q: If you could meet any person in history, who would it be?

Greatest sport fishing equipment product review 2017

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Our goal was to catch a shark, take just a few fishon more For a great close-to-home sportfishing experience, Outriggers is the ticket. We chose an 8-hour day so we could go out further. Our goal was to catch a shark, take just a few fish on board, enough for dinner, and just generally fight the big ones. Wow - they delivered! I think we got more than we bargained for! There were 4 anglers and at one time, there were three lines with fish on. There was very little idle time because they knew where the fish were. We fished over a wreck and had bite after bite. Unfortunately, before we could get our fish close enough to the boat to see what was at the end of the line, those pesky goliath grouper scarfed up our fish! And the fight was really on then! I was impressed how the captain knew what broke the lines whether it was teeth or the rough shark skin. Nonetheless, we definitely got our workout. Then Captain Tom threw out the cut bait to hook a shark, which didn't take long and we were able to get him to the boat. We caught a nice Dusky shark which was a protected species so we couldn't bring it on board. That was so much fun!

game fishing gear for sale Top Insights For 2015 On Primary Issues Of Sport Fishing Equipment

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appliedtheatre26-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Week 2 of the process:

In our second week back, we ran our own workshop on internet safety for the first time with our seminar group. Though the participants in this group were aged nineteen to twenty-one years, while our workshop was designed for a primary school class of year four students (aged eight to nine years). However, this was a good opportunity to experience the structure of our workshop in practice and receive feedback on any alterations that participants feel should be made before our final presentation.

We got much feedback from the first run of our workshop in which the participants stated that it was an interesting and diverse subject to explore. They also praised our groups ability for encouragement and thought that it was very appropriate for the age group of the participants we would run our final workshop with. There were also some strong moments in adapting to the space and the needs of the participants, one prominent example being when Holly was able to adapt our game of fruit salad to allow Bethany to join in rather than being excluded from the group, as she had been injured the week before and could not run as a result.

However, despite praise in some areas, there was also much critique in the feedback for us to take on board. Some of the participants pointed out that the energy levels were slow at some points and that we needed to think of ways in which we could maintain a productive atmosphere in the space and not loose the attention of the participants. This is a very important thing to consider as it is vital that participants remain engaged throughout the workshop for it to be of benefit to them and it is our job as facilitators to keep their focus high. It was usually within the more verbal and less action based exercises that the energy levels seemed to lull, so perhaps in order to remedy this, we need to think of more hands-on exercises that will get the participants up on their feet, as opposed to the workshop consisting heavily of verbal contributions. While verbal reflection plays a very important role in tailoring our workshop to the needs of the participants, it is equally important that we keep the participants stimulated. Finding the healthy medium between the two absolutely crucial if we are to run a successful workshop that will be a beneficial and positive experience for our participants, so it is therefore something that we must very carefully consider over our next week of development.

Another issue we faced during this run through was time management. It seems that in our planning, we overestimated how much time each exercise would take to complete, thus not leaving us with enough material to fit the one hour slot, our workshop instead only lasting forty minutes. I believe this also contributed to the low energy levels in the room as after realizing our misjudgement, we purposely tried to slow down each exercise in a panicked effort to make the workshop fit into the required time slot. We also attempted to add more exercises while the workshop was running in a frantic attempt to fill time. This was done in a panic right towards the end just before the final check-in, when we threw in a game of fruit salad, which should only ever be used as a warm up game to get participants on their feet, not as that something to follow on from the main exercise. But even then, our workshop failed to come close to the given time slot. It is very important that we fix this and plan more back up exercise so we aren’t seen to be floundering while running our workshop, as a falter in the facilitator’s confidence could very well have a negative impact on participants.

Another issue that we faced and that was pointed out by participants, was our brief and disorganized warm-down. This warm down was planned late and was only rehearsed once, so it came as no surprise to us that it went badly. This was a wake up call on the importance of planning and rehearsing well in advance and ensuring each facilitator knows what role they must take on in the workshop.

We also had an issue of our subject matter being too specific. Although our subject matter was internet safety, we chose to focus on the specific issue of harmful pop-ups on online games. While we felt this was a very important issue to raise, it ended up limiting our potential of what we could do with our material. We were told that while we must keep our issue specific, we must also leave enough room in the subject matter for exploration on the participants behalf.

We also plan to change our group exploration exercise from Boal’s forum Theater, to Boal’s Image Theatre, following with a scene exercise that is loosely derived from the concept of Forum Theater, though done more in a collaborative group as opposed to singling participants out. This is because we were told by many participants (and much to our agreement) that our use of forum theater was unsuccessful, partly due to the limited action that could be taken in scenes due to the very specific issue we were looking at (which did nothing to help the low energy levels of the space) and also due to concern that the exercise may not be engaging to participants of a younger age. Nevertheless, it is vital that we continue to research thoroughly into the participants age group and think carefully about the dynamic of the group, as we are well aware that running this workshop for a younger age group will be very different from running it with participants who exceed the age range the workshop was designed for by at least a decade.

Although the specific changes in behavior are hard to predict, we must ensure that we are well prepared for any unexpected situations that may occur while running our final workshop.

#Week 2

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fadingfartconnoisseur · 7 years ago

Text

What’s the Matter With Lonely Planet?

But, lately, their quality seems to have gone down a lot. The last couple of times I’ve used their website and guides ended in frustration and disappointment and made me ask myself:

“What the heck is the matter with Lonely Planet?”

And that’s where much of the blame lies.

What the market really says

Over the years, travelers I’ve met in person have echoed the same complaint: that LP’s special je ne sais quoi is long gone. In fact, I’ve had some good bonding sessions over the topic!

The problem is Lonely Planet itself.

A rapid decline in quality

It’s something I’ve been hearing for years from my LP friends. (When you’re a travel writer, many of your travel-writing friends will be LP writers.)

I – and many others – see that reflected in the quality of the guides.

A terrible website

And this decline can be very clearly seen on the LP website. After Houghton first took over, the website looked like this:

I mean, what is this? It’s a bunch of squares (for ants!*). Who thought this was good? It would take me ages to find the square I needed. Often I gave up and simply found a blog instead.

Plus, the information is so hard to find now. Here’s an example of LP’s California page in 2010 and now:

2010:

Now:

(Well, the page is so long and empty that I can’t take an accurate screenshot so here’s a link to see for yourself.)

So what is the matter with Lonely Planet?

By losing that focus, trying (in my opinion) to appeal to everyone, and attempting to compete with sites like TripAdvisor (and even blogs to an extent), LP has lost what made it great.

You used to know what the Lonely Planet brand meant and what they stood for. Now, I don’t know what the company stands for.

So what’s the matter with Lonely Planet?

In short, just about everything.

* Zoolander reference: “What is this? A center for ants!” Ahhh, never gets old!

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