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eazy-group · 1 year ago

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Lydia lost 75 pounds

New Post has been published on https://eazydiet.net/lydia-lost-75-pounds/

Lydia lost 75 pounds

Transformation of the Day: Lydia lost 75 pounds by changing her lifestyle and embracing healthy habits. While traveling overseas to teach, she learned to create more of a work/life balance. She also discovered the mix of nutrition and outdoor fitness that works for her.

Social Media: Instagram and Threads: @live_love_lydia TikTok: @72sunflower

What was your motivation? What inspired you to keep going, even when you wanted to give up? My reason was solidified once I left the US to teach overseas in 2017. It is something crazy when you are traveling in other countries and see that you are usually the biggest one in the crowd. I started looking at people from different cultures and the work/life balance they created for themselves when I moved to Qatar in 2019.

My school is huge on well-being. I was like, “How can you teach this to kids if you aren’t practicing it yourself?” What keeps me going is that my primary focus is improving my overall quality of life, not weight loss. So in everything I do, I’m focused on how this will improve my quality of life (mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually).

How did you change your eating habits? In January 2021, I had Covid. While in quarantine, I started listening to audiobooks. I went down a nutrition rabbit hole, and it finally all made sense. I stopped eating out a lot when I left Kuwait (2017-2019) and started cooking my meals. I don’t believe in eliminating items unless there is a medical reason.

I started focusing on whole foods. I don’t care for meat like that, so if I have something, it’s seafood (maybe chicken here or there). I did cut out dairy due to inflammation in my body.

I was in chronic pain due to an injury to my left foot during the fall of 2018. I started physiotherapy in 2020, and medication I didn’t want to take forever for inflammation. I noticed an immediate improvement when I stopped dairy and was able to stop taking the anti-inflammatory meds. (2022 was physiotherapy and shockwave therapy from the end of January until I finally had surgery on 12.19.2022 …9 days after my 50th birthday)

What is your workout routine? I’m not a fan of gyms. Qatar is all about physical activity. Sports Day is a national holiday. They encourage everyone to be active. So I bought a bike. I cycle, do stairs at the amphitheater, walk, and now jog (since fully recovering from surgery. I also jump rope. In June, I started doing Muay Thai training (martial arts), which includes HIIT circuit training during the last half of the class.

How often did you work out? I’m an everyday person as I believe in being active. However, my intensity is never the same day after day. Active rest days are brisk walks or easy bike rides just to be and unwind from my work day.

What is your height? 5’3″ and a strong half

When did you start your journey? How long did your transformation take? In 2010, I reached my highest weight: 304 pounds. In August 2019, when arriving in Qatar to teach, I weighed 270 pounds. This is when I started truly focusing on myself and my health. It was slow due to physical challenges. Then, throw in Covid. So, from August 2019 to July 2023- I’ve released 70–75 pounds.

Is weight loss surgery part of your journey? No surgery here other than the one that was on my foot that gave me a new lease on life.

What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned so far? In all things regarding your health and well-being, be intentional. This lifestyle does not happen by accident.

What advice do you have for women who want to lose weight?

1) Learn to set aside time for you daily for your physical/mental well-being. Start with 30 uninterrupted minutes. We give so much of ourselves to our families, jobs, cats, and dogs …but we seem to go last. Stop that! It doesn’t mean going hard for 30 mins. It may be a 15 min walk and 15 mins meditation.

2) be intentional about what you need to do. Work on discipline. Motivation is a fleeting emotion. Discipline gets it done. If we are disciplined enough to show up for work when we don’t feel like it, we can be disciplined enough to show up for ourselves.

3) Take time to find food and activities that you enjoy. There are no quick fixes. Think sustainability. You aren’t going to continue anything you do not enjoy.

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angelubasco · 4 years ago

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"YOUR MIND AND BODY MATTERS"

-October 28, 2020

Have you ever check upon yourself? Especially your mind and body? And if so, when is the last time you did it? As of now that the worlds facing a pandemic it is important to monitor our mind and body not just on the month of celebration about mental health. Many news are coming out about their physical and mental health to their family and personal problems in life especially those students who are having difficulties on their online classes. There are lots of sayings that this is not good for them as you browse on different social links that is based from their experience and it is sad to say that most students felt depression and anxiety that they killed themselves because their minds are full of pressure about simultaneously deadlines/activities and felt sick beacuse of having a lack of sleep. This is one of the examples I have cited that I wanted to encourage my fellow students to ask themeselves right now this kind of questions, "How healthy is my mind and body?" & "Am I truly happy and enjoying what I am doing?". Because we can't deny somehow we feel lost and empty. That's why it is important to assess if we are still okay about our physical and mental health because both are interconnected as our thoughts affects our physical body.

According to Newport Academy (2019), "The mind and the body are not two separate entities—although they are often treated that way. Physical health and emotional health are intimately intertwined in what’s known as the mind-body connection.

Our chemistry and biology impact our mood and emotions, as well as thoughts and beliefs. With all of these factors combined, they play a major role in influencing our stress and physical health. If you’ve ever felt your stomach tighten up when you were anxious, you’ve experienced the mind-body connection."

If you are one of this kind of students who doesn't have healthy mind and body or who wanted to know how to maintain your mind and body strong and healthy, here are Eight Habits for you according to Valentine (2017).

1. Exercise using something you love

Physical exercise has been shown in countless studies to help reduce stress, increase energy, improve mood, and even help make us more creative.

Great right? However, advice on how to make exercise a habit is a bit lacking. That’s because exercise can be a really difficult habit to stick to. But if there’s one thing I’ve found really helps stick to physical exercise and make it a long-term habit it’s this:

Exercise in a way that allows you to enjoy something you love.

You have to really look forward to working out. Whatever it is that you do, whether it’s running, lifting weights, doing cardio, martial arts, Yoga, or something else, you need to pick an exercise method you really enjoy.

For example, I love martial arts. I’m a lot more likely to stick to my work out while doing that than running or lifting weights. On the flip side, if there’s no particular exercise-like activity you enjoy, maybe you really love music. Play all your favorite music during your workout and you’ll notice yourself far more likely to get up to exercise. Another option is listening to podcasts about your craft while running.

Either way, exercise is a big one, so find a way to make it work for you.

2. Meditation

Meditation is another huge one. However, meditation isn’t really what most people think it is.

If you don’t like the traditional idea of meditation, you can meditate while doing virtually anything if you use the right method (i.e. mindfulness meditation). Also, studies have shown that as little as five to ten minutes of meditation offers great benefits, so don’t think you need to sit for a half hour every day. You really don’t.

Similar to physical exercise, there are several different methods and forms of meditation, so do a little adventuring and experimentation to find a method and form that works for you. Everyone is different and different methods of meditation tend to work better for different people.

3. Mindful walking

This is easily one of my favorite activities on this entire list, but it’s also the most obscure. Mindful walking, also known as walking meditation, is meditation in motion. It can be done formally as a dedicated practice and informally by paying attention to your steps and what is going on around you as you move.

This is great for many of the reasons formal meditation is (albeit less concentrated), however, there’s another big reason to do mindful walking: it helps you tune in to the body.

Sometimes, things occur in the body that we don’t notice. Oftentimes, chronic issues and illness begin to creep up in ways often unseen. However, by learning to tune in to the body with mindful walking, we can notice these things arise before they become more of an issue.

It’s a hard thing to explain, but it’s been infinitely useful to me. In many ways, this one exercise gives us a way to check in with both the mind and body on a regular basis and in an incredibly convenient way while going about our daily activities, so its place on this list is well-earned.

4. Rise early

Rising early is something I took years to develop. However, it was so worth it.

There are positives to staying up late, particularly if you find that you’re more productive or creative during late night hours. However, in general, I’ve found that the majority of people are most productive in the early morning hours.

In addition, though, waking up early and adopting a morning routine that prepares you for the day helps you start each day off with the optimal state of mind to tackle problems and make decisions, something incredibly useful for everyone no matter what your profession.

So, if you’re not already, see what waking up a little earlier does for you.

5. Adopt a nighttime routine

On the flip side of that, adopting an effective night time routine that puts your mind in the right state before bed and helps maximize the quality of your sleep is also incredibly beneficial.

Unfortunately, most of us in the West just don’t value sleep enough. We tend to place work above well-being and prefer to leave sleep for when we die. However, two decades of scientific research now says this isn’t just a bad idea health-wise – it’s unproductive.

Take some time to craft a simple but effective nighttime routine and I promise – you won’t regret it.

6. Remove sugar, add water, get your food from the source

This is the basic recipe I follow when it comes to nutrition advice.

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot and tried so many different things with regards to nutrition. At this point, my ideology on nutrition is pretty relaxed. And it’s never worked out better.

There’s a ton of advice out there and, rightfully, it can be pretty confusing. So, I’ve chosen to follow a pretty simple mantra that offers me roughly eighty percent of the benefit of any particular diet while doing about twenty percent of the work to get that benefit. It’s this:

Remove sugar: Sugar is bad. Really bad. Occasional sugar is just fine, even daily, as long as you try to keep it under 50g at an absolute a maximum (30g even better).

Add water: Buy a dedicated flask just for water and you’ll have a one thousand times higher likelihood of sticking to the habit of drinking water daily. About eight to ten cups is fine, but you should look into what your specific amount is based on your body weight.

Get your food from the source: Do you have a farm where you live? Or a farmer’s market? Awesome. Section of your grocery store with local farm foods? Pretty good too. Also, this refers to what food you eat as well. Put a little more whole foods into your diet or get a juicer.

Keep it simple and use this method to get most of the benefit of altering your diet while saving you time to focus on what’s most important to you.

7. Find friends who identify with your challenges

We’re social creatures. No matter what you do, you can’t escape this.

And so, by virtue of this, the more social we are, the healthier we tend to be.

However, there’s something very specific about relationships that helps us more than anything else: having people around us who identify and sympathize with our challenges and who we communicate with often about those challenges. The lack thereof is often the reason for suicide in those who suffer from depression or bullying.

When we have people around us who listen and understand what we’re going through, something magical happens: we get through it (what it is for you). It’s a very simple thing that we often overlook but is so critical to our mental and even physical health.

8. Find a passion project or creative outlet

If you’ve been pursuing something you love for some time now, I don’t have to tell you how great it makes you feel.

The energy we get while pursuing our passions is limitless and gives us a sense of vitality that is hard (if impossible) to acquire any other way.

Using our brain regularly keeps our mind strong and moving helps keep us physically healthy, so if you haven’t yet taken the time to find what you’re passionate about and to start pursuing that with every fiber of your being, start now (before it’s too late).

There's no harm in trying, our mind and physical gives us energy. A person who can change his/her mind can change his/her lives. Always remember health is our wealth. Keep on checking and doing the things you love.

Sources:

Newport Academy, (2019). Understang the Mind-Body Connection. https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/mental-health/understanding-the-mind-body-connection/

Valentine, M., (2017). 8 Habits You Need to Lock Down for a Strong, Healthy Mind and Body. https://www.goalcast.com/2017/12/14/8-habits-healthy-mind-and-body/

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years ago

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Pluralistic: 13 Mar 2020 (The third Little Brother book, Where I write, stream global news, AT&T's CEO gets millions for his failures, Chelsea Manning freed, Katie Porter vs CDC, Trump's scientific nihilism, Covid-malware co-evolution, Siennese solidarity)

Today's links

Announcing the third Little Brother book, Attack Surface: And a new Little Brother/Homeland reissue, with an intro by Ed Snowden!

Where I Write: A column for the CBC that's really about how I write.

Stream 200+ global news channels: Each hand-picked, no registration required.

AT&T's CEO fired 23,000 workers and gave himself a 10% raise: Life on the easiest setting.

Chelsea Manning is free: But she's been fined $256K for refusing to testify to the Grand Jury.

Rep Katie Porter forces CDC boss to commit to free testing: Literally the most effective questioner in Congress.

Trump's unfitness in a plague: It's not because he's an ignoramus, it's because he's a nihilist.

Malware that hides behind a realtime Covid-19 map: Peter Watts' prophecy comes true.

Locked-down Siennese sing their city's hymn: A cause for hope in the dark.

This day in history: 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Announcing the third Little Brother book, Attack Surface (permalink)

Attack Surface is the third Little Brother book, coming out next October.

It's told from the point of view of Masha, the young woman who is Marcus Yallow's frenemy who works first for the DHS and then for a private spook outfit. It's a book about how good people talk themselves into doing bad things, and how they redeem themselves. It ranges from Iraq to the color revolutions of the former USSR, to Oakland and the Movement for Black Lives.

The story turns on cutting-edge surveillance and counter-surveillance: self-driving cars, over-the-air baseband radio malware, IMSI catchers, CV dazzle and adversarial examples, binary transparency and warrant canaries.

This week, I did a wide-ranging and deep interview with Andrew Liptak for Polygon about the book, the Little Brother series, the techlash, the tech workers' uprising (and #TechWontBuildIt), and the future of technological self-determination.

We also revealed the cover for Attack Surface, which was designed by the incomparable Will Staehle (who is eligible for a Best Artist Hugo – nominations close today!).

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

Not only that, but Staehle has also designed a cover for a new omnibus edition of Little Brother and Homeland that comes out this July, and as you can see from that cover, the book has an all-new introduction by none other than Ed Snowden!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

(In 2017, Staehle also designed all-new covers for my adult backlist)

https://www.tor.com/2017/10/18/cory-doctorow-will-staehle-covers/

The Little Brother books are neither optimistic nor pessimistic about technology: instead, they are hopeful. Hope is the belief that you can materially improve your life if you take action. A belief in human agency and the power of self-determination.

The message of Little Brother is neither "Things will all be fine" nor "We are all doomed."

It's: "This will be so great…if we don't screw it up."

Where I Write (permalink)

I learned to be a writer while my life was in total chaos. Decades later, I have a beautiful office to work in, but I still do my best writing typing hurriedly on subway trains, in taxi-cabs, and airport lounges.

https://www.cbc.ca/arts/finding-comfort-in-the-chaos-how-cory-doctorow-learned-to-write-from-literally-anywhere-1.5489363

My CBC column on where I write is really a primer on how I write: what it takes to be able to write when you're sad, or anxious, or wracked with self-doubt.

Unquestionably the most important skill I've acquired as a writer.

"Even though there were days when the writing felt unbearably awful, and some when it felt like I was mainlining some kind of powdered genius and sweating it out through my fingertips, there was no relation between the way I felt about the words I was writing and their objective quality, assessed in the cold light of day at a safe distance from the day I wrote them. The biggest predictor of how I felt about my writing was how I felt about me. If I was stressed, underslept, insecure, sad, hungry or hungover, my writing felt terrible. If I was brimming over with joy, the writing felt brilliant."

Stream 200+ global news channels (permalink)

TV News is an Android app that pulls like Youtube streams from 200+ global news channels in 50 languages, each manually selected by the app's creator, Steven Clift, whose work I've previously admired.

http://tvnewsapp.com/

You can filter the feeds by country and language and watch them as floating windows that let you continue to use your device while you watch. No registration required, either.

They're shooting for 1000+ channels soon.

AT&T's CEO fired 23,000 workers and gave himself a 10% raise (permalink)

Randall Stephenson is CEO of AT&T. Ajit Pai killed Net Neutrality so that Stephenson could legally slow down the services we requested to extort bribes from us. Then, Trump gave his company a $20B tax cut.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nepxeg/atandt-preps-for-new-layoffs-despite-billions-in-tax-breaks-and-regulatory-favors

Stephenson used that money to raise exec pay, buy back his company's stock to juice its price and to pay off debts from earlier, disastrous mergers. He cut 23,000 jobs and slashed capital spending (America has the worst broadband of any rich country).

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/att-promised-7000-new-jobs-to-get-tax-break-it-cut-23000-jobs-instead/

After all that, Stephenson congratulated himself on a job well done by giving himself a 10% raise in 2019, bringing his total compensation up to 32 million dollars.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/att-ceo-pay-rose-to-32-million-in-2019-while-he-cut-20000-jobs/

I mean the guy earned it. He blew billions of dollars buying Warner and Directv, and then lost billions more on the failed aftermath. If that doesn't warrant a raise, what does?

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/att-loses-another-1-3-million-tv-customers-as-directv-freefall-continues/

Chelsea Manning is free (permalink)

A judge has ordered that Chelsea Manning be released from jail, a day after her latest suicide attempt. She was jailed last March for refusing to testify before a grand jury, held in solitary for two months, then jailed again a few days later, in May, She's been inside ever since.

The judge ordered her release because the Grand Jury had finished its work.

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.412520/gov.uscourts.vaed.412520.41.0.pdf

It's fantastic to that Manning got her freedom back, but she has been fined $256,000 for her noncompliance. I just donated to her fund:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-chelsea-pay-her-court-fines

(Image: Tim Travers Hawkins, CC BY-SA)

Rep Katie Porter forces CDC boss to commit to free testing (permalink)

I am a huge fan of Rep Katie Porter. Her outstanding questioning techniques and unwillingness to countenance bullshit from the people she questions are such a delight to watch.

Here she is demolishing billionaire finance criminal Jamie Dimon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WLuuCM6Ej0

Oh, Ben Carson, you never stood a chance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVWy3q2kmNM

Steve Mnuchin always looks like a colossal asshole, but rarely this comprehensively:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78zpa0hQ1aw

I almost feel sorry for this Trumpkin from the Consumer Finance Protection Board as she faces Porter's withering fire.

Almost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBaCc5VUHS8

Porter – an Elizabeth Warren protege – doesn't do this to grandstand. Like AOC, she uses her spectacular skills to elicit admissions and get them on the record, and to hold Congressional witnesses to account.

Today, Porter attained a new peak in a short, illustrious career. That's because today was the day she questioned CDC assistant secretary for preparedness and response Robert Kadlec, asking him to clarify Trump's televised lie last night that insurers would pay for Covid-19 testing.

https://twitter.com/RepKatiePorter/status/1238147835859779584

Porter doggedly held Kadlec to account, forcing him to acknowledge that the cost of a Covid-19 test – $1,331 – was so high that many would forego it, and then to admit that these Americans could go on to transmit the disease to others, making it a matter of public concern.

Then she forced CDC Director Robert Redfield to admit – as she had informed him in writing the week before – that the CDC had the authority to simply pay those fees, universally, for any American seeking testing, under 42 CFR 71.30:

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2019-title42-vol1/xml/CFR-2019-title42-vol1-part71.xml#seqnum71.30

Having laid this factual record, Porter insisted that Redfield commit to using that authority. Not to consider it, study it, or consult on it. To use it to help save the country. Whenever Redfield waffled, she reclaimed her time and forced him back on point.

KP: Dr. Redfield, will you commit to the CDC, right now, using that existing authority to pay for diagnostic testing, free to every American, regardless of insurance?

RR: Well, I can say that we're going to do everything to make sure everybody can get the care they need –"

KP: Nope, not good enough. Yes or no?

RR: What I'm going to say is, I'm going to review it in detail with CDC and the department —

KP: No, reclaiming my time [repeats the question]

RR: What I was trying to say is that CDC is working with HHS now to see how we operationalize that

KP: Dr. Redfield, I hope that that answer weighs heavily on you, because it is going to weigh very heavily on me and on every American family

RR: Our intent is to make sure that every American family gets the care and treatment they need at this time in this major epidemic and I am currently working with HHS to see how to best operationalize it.

KP: Excellent! Everybody in America hear that — you are eligible to go get tested for coronavirus and have that covered, regardless of insurance

[Curtain]

Trump's unfitness in a plague (permalink)

In this editorial, Science editor-in-chief H Holden Thorp makes a compelling case that Trump is not capable of leading the American response to Covid-19.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6483/1169

Trump has spent years denigrating and ignoring science before taking office, and it's only gotten worse, since.

As Thorp writes, "You can't insult science when you don't like it and then suddenly insist on something that science can't give on demand."

His policy track-record is even worse: "deep cuts to science, including cuts to funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the NIH…nearly 4 years of harming and ignoring science."

This reminds me of an argument I often have with digital rights activists who attribute bad technology policy to the inability of clueless lawmakers to understand the technical nuance. I think that's wrong. The fact that we're not all dead of cholera, even though there are no microbiologists in Congress proves that you don't need to be a domain expert to make good policy.

Good policy comes from truth-seeking exercises in which experts with different views present their best evidence to neutral adjudicators who make determinations in public, showing their work in explicit, written, public reasoning. These processes are made legitimate – and hence robust and reliable – by procedural rules. The adjudicators – regulators, staffers, etc – are not allowed to have conflicts of interest. Their conclusions are subject to the rule of law, with mandatory transparency and a process for appeal.

It has to be this way: there's no way that – say – a president could be an expert on all the different issues that might arise during their tenure.

This, then, is the problem with inequality and market concentration: it merges the referees with the players. When an industry only has a handful of players, they all end up with common lobbying positions – a common position on what is truth. That's because the C-suites of these five companies are filled with people who've worked at two, three or four of the competitors, and are married to others who've worked at the remainder. They're godparents to one anothers' kids, executors of each others' wills.

There's no way for there NOT to be collusion in these circumstances.

And when an industry is that concentrated, the only people who understand it well enough are those same execs, so inevitably the regulators are drawn from the industry.

That's why Obama's "good" FCC Chair, Tom Wheeler, was a former Comcast lobbyist, and why Ajit Pai, Trump's "bad" FCC chair, is a former Verizon lawyer. Apart from Susan Crawford, there's not really anyone who's not from the top ranks of Big Telco qualified to regulate them.

So many of us saw the photo of Trump meeting with all the tech leaders and were dismayed that they were throwing their lot in with him.

But we should also be aghast that all the leaders of the industry fit around one modest board-room table.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/donald-trump-meets-with-tech-leaders/

The problem with Trump's Covid-19 response is that he does not believe in a legitimate process with neutral referees. The refereeship, in trumpland, is an open-field auction, a transactional process that works best when it enriches Trump and his party.

The problem of Trump taking charge of the epidemiological crisis of Covid-19 isn't that he doesn't understand science: it's that he doesn't believe in evidence-based policy.

He is part of the cult of "Public Choice Theory," the belief that there is no one who can serve as referee without eventually colluding with the players for their mutual enrichment, a cynical, nihilistic philosophy that holds that there's no point in seeking to govern well. These people project their own moral vacuum onto all of humanity, a kind of cartoon Homo Economicus who is incapable of anything except maximizing personal utility.

For these people, the existence of bridges that don't fall down and water that doesn't give you cholera are lucky accidents, not results of sound policy and careful truth-seeking. They reason that since they would take bribes to poison the water of Flint, so would everyone.

Trump isn't just a non-expert, he's an ignoranamus, but that's not the problem. The problem is that he is a nihilist, someone who doesn't believe that truth-seeking is even possible.

Malware that hides behind a realtime Covid-19 map (permalink)

Hackers have developed a malware-as-a-service that packages up realtime Covid-19 maps with malware droppers that infect people who load them.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/03/live-coronavirus-map-used-to-spread-malware/

This reminds me intensely of Peter Watts's 2002 novel Maelstrom, in which Watts uses his background as an evolutionary biologist to posit an eerily plausible and devilishly clever way that a digital and a human virus could co-evolve.

https://rifters.com/real/MAELSTROM.htm

This has stuck with me! In May 2018, I wrote about it in Locus Magazine:

http://locusmag.com/2018/05/cory-doctorow-the-engagement-maximization-presidency/

Maelstrom is concerned with a pandemic that is started by its protagonist, Lenie Clark, who returns from a deep ocean rift bearing an ancient, devastating pathogen that burns its way through the human race, felling people by the millions.

As Clark walks across the world on a mission of her own, her presence in a message or news story becomes a signal of the utmost urgency. The filters are firewalls that give priority to some packets and suppress others as potentially malicious are programmed to give highest priority to any news that might pertain to Lenie Clark, as the authorities try to stop her from bringing death wherever she goes.

Here's where Watt's evolutionary biology shines: he posits a piece of self-modifying malicious software – something that really exists in the world today – that automatically generates variations on its tactics to find computers to run on and reproduce itself. The more computers it colonizes, the more strategies it can try and the more computational power it can devote to analyzing these experiments and directing its randomwalk through the space of all possible messages to find the strategies that penetrate more firewalls and give it more computational power to devote to its task.

Through the kind of blind evolution that produces predator-fooling false eyes on the tails of tropical fish, the virus begins to pretend that it is Lenie Clark, sending messages of increasing convincingness as it learns to impersonate patient zero. The better it gets at this, the more welcoming it finds the firewalls and the more computers it infects.

At the same time, the actual pathogen that Lenie Clark brought up from the deeps is finding more and more hospitable hosts to reproduce in: thanks to the computer virus, which is directing public health authorities to take countermeasures in all the wrong places. The more effective the computer virus is at neutralizing public health authorities, the more the biological virus spreads. The more the biological virus spreads, the more anxious the public health authorities become for news of its progress, and the more computers there are trying to suck in any intelligence that seems to emanate from Lenie Clark, supercharging the computer virus.

Together, this computer virus and biological virus co-evolve, symbiotes who cooperate without ever intending to, like the predator that kills the prey that feeds the scavenging pathogen that weakens other prey to make it easier for predators to catch them.

Locked-down Siennese sing their city's hymn (permalink)

In times of crisis, we typically pull together, but elite panic's pervasive mythology holds that these moments are when the poors reveal their inner beast and attack their social betters. That libel on humanity is disproved regularly by our everyday experience. As common as these incidents of solidarity are, they still warrant our notice.

The Song of the Verbena is the hymn of the Italian city of Sienna, currently on lockdown.

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canto_della_Verbena

This video of Siennese people singing their hymn from the windows of their houses, into their empty street, is one of the most beautiful, hopeful things I've seen this week.

Truly, it is a tonic.

https://twitter.com/valemercurii/status/1238234518508777473

This day in history (permalink)

#5yrsago NYPD caught wikiwashing Wikipedia entries on police brutality https://web.archive.org/web/20150313150951/http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/03/8563947/edits-wikipedia-pages-bell-garner-diallo-traced-1-police-plaza

#1yrago Gimlet staff announce unionization plan following Spotify acquisition https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18263957/gimlet-media-union-spotify-recognition-podcasts

#1yrago With days to go until the #CopyrightDirective vote, #Article13's father admits it requires filters and says he's OK with killing Youtube https://www.golem.de/news/uploadfilter-voss-stellt-existenz-von-youtube-infrage-1903-139992.html

#1yrago Spotify's antitrust complaint against Apple is a neat parable about Big Tech's monopoly https://www.wired.com/story/spotify-apple-complaint-warren-antitrust-issue/

#1yrago A critical flaw in Switzerland's e-voting system is a microcosm of everything wrong with e-voting, security practice, and auditing firms https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmakk3/researchers-find-critical-backdoor-in-swiss-online-voting-system

#1yrago McMansion Hell tours the homes of the "meritocratic" one-percenters who allegedly bought their thickwitted kids' way into top universities in the college admissions scandal https://mcmansionhell.com/post/183417051691/in-honor-of-the-college-admissions-scandal

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Empty Wheel (https://www.emptywheel.net/), CNN (https://cnn.com), Memex 1.1 (https://memex.naughtons.org/), Slashdot (https://slashdot.org).

Hugo nominators! My story "Unauthorized Bread" is eligible in the Novella category and you can read it free on Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Currently writing: I've just finished rewrites on a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I've also just completed "Baby Twitter," a piece of design fiction also set in The Lost Cause's prehistory, for a British think-tank. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel next.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: A Lever Without a Fulcrum Is Just a Stick https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_330/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_330_-_A_Lever_Without_a_Fulcrum_Is_Just_a_Stick.mp3

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

#pluralistic

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carnation-damnation · 5 years ago

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So, 2019, huh? On a scale from 2016-2019, 2019 was worse than ‘18, but not as bad as 2017. Still sucked ass, though. However! I can say that throughout the decade, I was never stabbed!!! Which is definitely a plus.

Hit the read-more for the reasons why I chose what I chose for each month, and 2019 in art!

I wanted to dedicate this year of my art towards making finished, fully-coloured pieces. It’s been something that I’ve been struggling with for the past few years, and something I still think I can improve on!!!

January -

My first, really, quality finished piece, an art trade with @vaaloirr of her character, Alex. I especially wanted to showcase THIS piece as the first, because, honestly? Valerie has really done alot for me in 2018-19, even if she doesn’t know it!!! So, mini letter to you, Vaal!!!

Valerie, I first discovered you because of the Gasterblaster!AU when I saw 1nky promote your werewolf!frisk blog. Werewolves have ALWAYS been something that I really loved, especially as a kid, but I lost touch with it because I thought it was embarassing of me to like. (When it’s like??? Totally not)

YOUR au is what really got me back into werewolves, and loving undertale even more. I fucking adore how much Frisk has gone through and grown over the years, and you’ve been such an inspiration for me to start RoF, especially!!!! Crazy right?! Which is my whole fucking pride and joy!!! I feel like I’ve known these characters my entire life!! You, along with my boyfriend @meat-junkie have so far been my most engaging audience, and have really driven me to evolve my characters and story throughout the year. Like, fuck. (I’m crying a little writing this)

You’ve also been such a huge inspiration to me in coping with the fact that I’m autistic, because it’s something I was struggling with, too! Valerie you’re literally like the older sister I’ve always wanted, you’re so good ;w; Love you, sis.

February -

This month was kinda rocky for me. I don’t want to go too too into it, but it was the same month I had a breakup with someone of 3 years, and it kinda fucked me up emotionally during that time. This was probably when I really started coping with Nathanael, lmao. Just a good fucking boy!!! Look at him

March -

A redraw of a verrrry old Renaicus picture (not that old...it’s from a year prior oajasojaso)

Renaicus himself has been the character that I believe has evolved the MOST throughout RoF, not just in design. Hell, he used to be the antagonist of RoF!!! Like fuck!! it’s nuts!!! Renaicus used to be mean, jealous, skinny as all hell, and.,,,white. It’s hard to imagine that he used to be white, god. Looking at old art of him, I can hardly call them the same character!! They’re too different. old renaicus is like one of those sims that’s a complete duplication of your own aojsaosa

Renaicus is good, boy, I love him.

April -

One of my absolute favourite pieces of the year, actually!!! This was really when I started to get into doing linework, and I really just fucking love the result. Luci looks excellent, I love that enby lesbian

May -

Oh boy, religious trauma and homophobia!!!

2019 was really the year I started to really,,,get attatched, to Nath, in particular. Everyone says that their oc’s have a little bit of themselves in them, but, for nath and i??? Like,,,I put 2/3′s of myself in him this year. This was another piece I’m super proud of, and also another redraw! I really struggled with religion this past decade especially, and it was good to use Nath as my punching bag (asjosajoaoj terrible)

June -

,,,Listen

Honestly??? This whole fucking piece was kind of an omage to my boyfriend, who is, as they say, a DILF connoiseur and someone who I think has (somewhat) excellent taste in fictional men. George? One of those men. I REALLLLLLLY love how my boyfriend draws, ok? The fuckem,,, colours. Those neons. I go fucking APEHSIT. GOD. This was REALLY the time I started experimenting with colour and shading and different types of clothes and all that jazz. I couldn’t think of anyone better to showcase for June than everyone’s favourite plague doctor demon dilf. (aa)

July - (My birth month!!)

Hoo!! Not gonna lie, mid-summer is really where I get kinda laggy with art. I was struggling with some,,,other stuff that I don’t really wanna get into for personal reasons, and so it was just a kinda bum month. BUt FUCK if I’m not gonna draw GAY MEN being GAY and PLEASANT

August -

PLAGUE DOCTOR CLUB PLAGUE DOCTOR CLUB!!!

This was the month plague doctor club started >:3!!!

I’d like to say that this point in the year was really when I started getting closer to my Tumblr gang ( @artnerd1123 @anonymousfandomtrash @deviltufts and Vaal!!!) Like, this whole year was when we got close, but FUCK, aUGUST WAS NUTS

I’d live for plague doctor club... *mickey mouse voice) I’d live fow it...

September -

AH FUCK UNDERTALE YOU’RE IN FOR A LONG FUCKING TREAT WITH THIS ONE FOLKS

god, what do I say about this gotdamnn game??? shit!!! A fucking insane game with fucking amazing canonical queer rep with a fucking amazing story, AAAA

GOD, THE STORY

Undertale?? full of fucking trauma that I could relate the shit out of, like, a

(Hey toby? Can chara and asriel just be happy? thanks)

Damn it, Undertale’s the game of the fucking decade. Fight me. Undertale had such a cultural impact and changed so many lives, I’ll never be able to let it go. Can’t wait for what Deltarune brings!!!

October -

S p o o k y time

October!!! Heck!!

October was about the peak of when I tried to do a plot thing with RoF... (which i scrapped the majority of aojasosajosa, it was weird, uneeded,)

This was around the time I reaLLLY saw how much i was projecting onto Nath, and how it came to the point where it got super unhealthy for me. (Ever dissociate? Wish I never fucking did, thanks OJSOASJO)

The end of 2019 was really where I started to cope with some OOOOLLLLD trauma that I had repressed into my mind (until it decided to come the fuck back up AJOASJOSA)

The end of october was really when I started to change things around in RoF’s story and make it way better than it’s ever been! This is also one of the better fully-shaded and lineworked pieces!!! Linework is icky :(

November -

AAAAAAAAA IT’S MY FAVOURITE PIEEECE AAAA

Fucking. Shit. Colours. I love shading with red. and neons. god. I’m . I’m sorryI really don’t have much to say I just love this one so much

December -

I’d like to think that this piece is the kind of, goodbye, as it were, to my projecting of Nath. I really related to him (still do!) but it was time for me to fix things with his backstory and make him less of a punching bag and more of,,,a character I didn’t feel so bad about. But, religious trauma is religious trauma, and DAMN IT if I’m not gonna end the year with some catholic imagery (I wasnt even catholic, lmao)

SO, UH, YEAH???

this happened

this was a year

Sorry I don’t know how to format (No wonder I always got bad grades on MLA-styled essays)

This year??? Shit for life, but fuck, was it great for art.

Thanks for the whole year, Tumblr. It’s been,,,somethin.

How do I end posts like these? Well, I guess I just did

Happy new year

here’s to a new decade!!! Can’t wait to drink alcohol in a few years wOOOOOO

#2019 summary of art #long post #im. so sorry for mobile users. really. a #im probably missing some sappy stuff but!!!#there u go!

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starrbirrd · 5 years ago

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My best friend and I met in 2012 in sixth grade, and we hit it off right away. We were both interested in Warrior Cats, Naruto, Drawing, Writing- all that. So of course we made stories despite being wee babes, and I decided to draw my friend a “book cover” for hers! Well, it became a tradition of sorts to redraw it every few years, and I figured I would show the art over the years to show how much progress has been made, and to hopefully encourage others to keep drawing no matter how bad they think their art is now! There’s more than one picture, so I placed everything under the cut to keep things from getting too long!

No idea why tumblr decided to flip them around, but this is the first one I drew! Probably around 2012/2013 or so. Look at that hair! Those eyes! I was super proud of this back then, and honestly, I think that was what kept me drawing all these years- I was never ashamed or embarrassed of my art when I was younger even if it was horrible, not like I am now. I was confident and happy with it just because I could actually draw things, and my family never discouraged me from it or told me the pictures were ugly.

Circa 2015, I think? The eyes got better! But the hair...Absolutely did not, and would you look at that face? The body looks like a rectangle- and yet again, I was still so proud of this and happy that I could make things for my friend! I remember spending hours on these drawings because I had to make sure they were good enough, so I guess that much hasn’t changed!

This one is around late 2016, maybe m ore in 2017. Everything improved so much! Plus I really enjoyed the idea of it being split, but I obviously didn’t know how to really do it back then. I look at this picture now and think, “That split is horrible. Those eyes are huge. What’s up with those shoulders???” but I still remember loving how far I’d come from before.

And finally, this one, drawn 2019, an hour from 2020. Look at how different it is from how I started out! The eyes, the hair, the addition of more than just an upper body, the fact that it’s digital. I’ve come such a long way in what feels like such a short amount of time. If you showed this picture to my twelve year old self, she would think it was absolutely amazing. Of course, I still see every little thing wrong with it, even if it was a quick sketch. I know I still can’t do hands, I know I still need to work on clothes, and angles are the death of me. But still... I’m proud. If you showed me art from years ago and I didn’t know it was mine, or if I had drawn something like that today, I would think it was ugly or call it a failure. But look at those ‘failures’ and look at where I’ve gotten today. Look how much better things are, and how I’ve become 12 year old me’s greatest dream.

Be proud of your failures, guys. And keep your old art. Don’t give up drawing, either. You’ve got a long way to go, but you’ll get there, but keep at it! If I can go from up there to this, you can do even better.

Happy New Years! Let’s see where I am come 2021!

#art #sketch #naruto #naruto oc #10 year challenge #ten year challenge #drawing #oc #my art #long post #2020 #2019 #keep trying guys #i know you can get it

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quimotion · 5 years ago

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Athos: Cut 4

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This is the advances in week 6 (approx.) and I am pretty happy about it. First of all, I finished my roughs and this massive task helped me realize all the huge work ahead.

Things I price about myself so far? been able to work almost every single day in this piece. For me is huge merit to commit to this project and I hope all this effort pays off at the end. Second, the story feels there, it’s a matter of making some adjustments in the timing but eventually, it will all make sense. Third, the character movement seems good on the keyframes. I will polish them and then do the inbetweens.

Things to improve? the design of the character at the end needs tons of adjustments, it doesn’t reflect the same feeling that the initial character communicates. Also, the particles at the 1:59 minute are yet to be done. That would be a whole week of work because I need to get a computer with a plug-in called Particular.

As a matter of news, I was looking for a 2D artist to help me with the animation, but instead, I will hire a background artist to help me polish my initial designs. So I contacted a couple of friends that I have worked in the past.

Here was a project I worked for called: Mi Genial y Fantastico Sasquatch. A Colombian series of 2 young explorers looking for a Sasquatch that would share the cultural myths from different parts of the world:

Pic. 2 Mi Genial y Fantastico Sasquatch trailer:

youtube

Juan Ortíz the producer gave me the name of the talented artist Laura Blandon, I contacted her and she was immediately on board and as she shared her art with me I knew she was the right input for the project. This was a hard decision to make because I wanted to do every part of my project, but, as the weeks go on, I have seen that is almost impossible for me to get to the deadline without assistance. So as a director, you have to make choices, either you get there half way or you look for help to complete your piece. Clearly, I don’t want to drown in a glass of water, thus I seek for help.

Pic. 3 Here is Lauras’s outstanding art:

Laura has a clear line, great sense of depth and excellent colour handling. This will add greatly to the artwork of Athos. I will give her some directions on the backgrounds that are already advanced but needed to be polished/upgraded to take them to the next level.

Pic 4. Here are my instructions:

I hope this inspires Laura to achieve greatness. I have great expectations because I found her talent really uplifting. I will make sure to lead her in every step of the way as necessary, but not overwhelm her with directions. Just be clear, concise and let her do her own thing.

I will now focus on the clean-up and doing the whole 2D animation by myself.

References:

Navarro, S. and Ortiz, J. (2017). Mi genial y fantástico Sasquatch. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq6I6WlwWsA [Accessed 3 Jul. 2019].

Blandon, L. (2018). Background - Nature. [online] Art Station. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nKgX6 [Accessed 3 Jul. 2019].

#Athos #Report #2d animation #art #animation

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naijastudio · 3 years ago

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Kanye West Biography, Age And Net Worth

Kanye West is a Grammy Award-winning rapper, record producer, and fashion designer who is known for his outspokenness. Kanye West: Who Is He? Kanye West first rose to prominence in the music industry as a producer for well-known acts. With his 2004 debut, College Dropout, he demonstrated his rap ability, and albums like Late Registration (2005), My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010), Yeezus (2013), and Yeezus (2014) confirmed his spot atop the hip hop world (2018). West is a Grammy Award winner who is also noted for his awards show antics, excursions into fashion, and his marriage to Kim Kardashian. Kanye West Life Style And Birth Kanye Omari West was born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia. Ray, his father, was a photojournalist for the Atlanta Journal and a member of the Black Panther Party; he eventually became a Christian counselor. Donda West, West's mother, was a teacher who went on to become a professor of English at Chicago State University and then her son's manager before dying in 2007 at the age of 58 from heart illness following cosmetic surgery. Her death would have a huge impact on West's musical career as well as his personal life. When West was three, Ray and Donda split amicably. Following that, he was reared by his mother in Chicago's middle-class South Shore neighborhood and spent summers with his father. West traveled to China with Donda when he was ten years old, where she taught as part of a university exchange program; he was the only foreigner in his class. West was lured to the South Side's hip-hop scene after returning to Chicago, and he befriended DJ and producer No I.D., who became his mentor. West received a scholarship to study at Chicago's American Academy of Art after graduating from Polaris High School, but he dropped out to pursue music full-time, a move that would later inspire the title of his first solo album. Kanye West Net Worth Net Worth: $6.6 Billion Date of Birth: Jun 8, 1977 (44 years old) Gender: Male Height: 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) Profession: Record producer, Songwriter, Singer, Actor, Film Producer, Rapper, Businessperson, Screenwriter, Fashion designer, Music Video Director Nationality: United States of America Kanye West Music Career West created a trademark sound known as "chipmunk soul," which features sped-up soul samples, after spending time producing for local musicians. Following that, in 2001, he relocated to New York. He got his big break here, working on the production for Jay-song Z's "This Can't Be Life," which debuted on the album Dynasty: Roc La Familia in 2000. He reinforced his rising fame the following year by producing four songs on Jay Z's The Blueprint, widely regarded as one of the best rap albums of all time. West went on to create for other notable artists including as Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Ludacris, as well as singers Alicia Keys and Beyoncé. West, on the other hand, was not content to be a sidekick. He aspired to be the main attraction, but found it difficult to be taken seriously as a rapper at first. He begged Roc-A-Fella Records to let him rap, but as co-founder Jay-Z told Time magazine later, "We were all raised as street kids who had to do whatever it took to get by. Then there's Kanye West, who, as far as I'm aware, has never worked a day in his life. I couldn't see how it could possibly work." Other labels reacted in a similar way to West. He said, "I'd leave meetings crying all the time." Damon Dash reluctantly signed West to Roc-A-Fella in 2002, but he did so only to keep him as a producer. West was injured in a head-on vehicle incident while driving home from a recording session in a California studio in October of that year, leaving him with a cracked jaw. With his jaw still wired shut after reconstructive surgery, he wrote and recorded "Through the Wire," a song about the experience.While recuperating in L.A., he wrote the most of the rest of his debut album. However, once the album was finished, it was leaked on the internet. West chose to improve it by revising and rewriting songs and fine-tuning the production, which included the addition of heavier drums, gospel choirs, and strings (he paid for orchestras out of his own pocket). Dropout from College The album was finally published in February 2004 and quickly became a hit, selling 2.6 million copies and propelling West to stardom. The College Dropout defied the gangsta-rap mold, including topics like as consumerism (of which he was critical at the time), racism, higher education, and his religious convictions. "They say you can rap about anything but Jesus," he rapped on the tune "Jesus Walks," "That means weapons, sex, lies, videotapes/But if I talk about God, my album won't get played." The College Dropout reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 200 chart, and West garnered ten Grammy nominations, winning three of them, including Best Rap Song and Best Rap Album for "Jesus Walks." West formed his record label, GOOD music — an acronym for Getting Out Our Dreams — with Sony BMG shortly after the album's release. He'd release songs by John Legend, Big Sean, Common, Pusha-T, and others. Registration after the deadline West spent a year and $2 million on his sophomore album, enlisting the help of an orchestra and composer Jon Brion, who had never worked with a rapper before. According to the New York Times, West, the restless bourgeois-creative, wanted to "see how far he might expand" hip hop. The results were outstanding, with Best Rap Album winning again, as well as Best Rap Song for "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" and Best Rap Solo Performance for "Gold Digger," and Best Rap Song for "Diamonds from Sierra Leone." Late Registration premiered at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 200, a feat West would replicate with each solo album release after that. In Rolling Stone's five-star review of the album, Rob Sheffield stated, "On Late Registration, the Louis Vuitton Don doesn't just want to create pop music — he wants to be pop music." "As a result, he improves his lyrical game, displays his epic production skills, reaches higher, pushes harder, and declares the entire world of music to be hip hop turf." West appeared on an NBC program in September 2005, a month after the release of Late Registration, to collect donations for Hurricane Katrina victims. When he declared live on air that "George Bush doesn't care about Black people," echoing widespread criticism of the president for not visiting the damaged city of New Orleans straight away, he ignited a national media storm - his first, but by no means his last. West's remark enraged Bush, who subsequently described it as a "disgusting moment." Graduation West was motivated to create hip hop more anthemic, to be performed in stadiums and arenas, after traveling with U2 in 2005-2006. He began to incorporate elements of both rock & roll (the Stones, Led Zeppelin, and the Killers) into his music (which originated in his hometown of Chicago). Graduation, his third album, was released on September 11, 2007. It was released on the same day as 50 Cent's album Curtis, in a struggle for hip-soul hop's between the educated showman and the bullet-scarred street thug. But there could only be one winner with Graduation's breakthrough (for hip-hop) palette of layered electronic synthesizers and sloganeering wordplay — "I'm like the fly Malcolm X/Buy any jeans necessary," he sneered on "Good Morning" — West's album went straight to No. 1 after selling 957,000 copies in its first six days. With the music industry wringing its hands over the internet's impact on profit margins, West simply embraced the change with his video for the single "Can't Tell Me Nothing," in which he hired comedian Zach Galifianakis to lip-sync along to the lyrics on an alternate version, resulting in a YouTube viral sensation. The Death of Kanye West Mother West was on top of the world, acclaimed as the musician who had put gangster rap on the verge of extinction. Then catastrophe happened in November 2007. Donda, his adored mother, died of a heart attack after cosmetic surgery. He dedicated a performance of "Hey Mama" to her on his first show after the funeral. West split up with his fiancée, Alexis Phifer, a few months later. 808s & Heartbreak, his next album, was released 12 months after his mother died and was laced with grief, agony, and isolation. West even gave up rapping in favor of singing through an Auto-Tune vocal processor, which gave his voice a robotic tone – a technique that is now commonplace in hip hop. "Hip hop is done for me," he declared after describing the new album as "pop art" (not to be confused with the visual art movement). (It wasn't; he won Grammys for guest raps on Estelle's "American Boy" and TI's "Swagga Like Us" that year.) Kanye West Earnings By Year Follow Money Year Earnings 2007 $17,000,000 2008 $30,000,000 2009 $25,000,000 2010 $12,000,000 2011 $16,000,000 2012 $35,000,000 2013 $20,000,000 2014 $30,000,000 2015 $22,000,000 2016 $18,000,000 2017 $22,000,000 2018 $90,000,000 2019 $100,000,000 2020 $200,000,000 Total: $437,000,000 Taylor Swift's VMA Feud and Diss The fragility of West's mental health was brought into question the following year at the MTV Video Music Awards. He stormed the stage during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for the Best Female Video award (for "You Belong to Me") at Radio City Music Hall in New York to argue that Beyoncé should have won instead. The reverberations from that moment are still being felt. West apologized, then retracted his apology in a New York Times interview in 2013. By 2015 they had become friends and were even spotted at dinner together. Then in 2016 Kanye rapped on his song "Famous": "I feel like me and Taylor might still have s*x/Why? I made that b**** famous." Swift responded from the stage at the 2016 Grammy Awards, this time unapologetically, with the words: "To all the young women out there, I want to say something: There will be people who try to undermine your success or take credit for your successes along the way... Don't let those folks get in the way." Fashion West took a break from music after the Swift fiasco to focus on fashion. Since 2006, he'd been collaborating with limited-edition sneakers with brands including A Bathing Ape and Nike. To obtain experience, he reportedly interned at Gap in 2009 and later Fendi. In 2011, he debuted his first collection in Paris, however it was critically lambasted. Long Nguyen, style director of Flaunt magazine, sniffed, "You can't just dump some fox fur on a runway and call it luxury." At the show's after-party, West delivered a wounded-sounding address. "Please take it easy," he said. "Please give me the opportunity to mature." After a lackluster response to his second collection a year later, West stated that he would no longer be presenting in Paris. In 2013, he collaborated on a capsule collection with the French label APC, and in October 2015, he struck a $10 million agreement with Adidas, launching his first sportswear collection, Yeezy Season 1, with the brand. The label has received mixed reviews, while Anna Wintour praised his Season 5 collection in February 2017. She told the New York Post, "I really liked it." "A little more attention than we've seen from him before." My Dark Twisted Fantasy West returned to music in November 2010 with his fifth album, a bombastic and towering monument to self-aggrandizement that sounded "like an instant greatest hits," according to Pitchfork. It was a bombastic and towering monument to self-aggrandizement with paranoid celebrity and rampant consumption as the dominant themes: it was a bombastic and towering monument to self-aggrandizement that sounded "like an instant greatest hits" according to Pitchfork It was Kanye West's best and worst all bundled into one: a magnum work that bordered on the insane. It spawned four songs, including "Monster," on which West, Jay Z, and Rick Ross were famously beaten into second place by Nicki Minaj's furious guest verse. In 2011, West and his old sparring partner Jay Z released Watch the Throne, a joint album that delivered seven songs, including "Otis" and "Niggas in Paris," as well as three additional Grammy awards for West and Jay Z. Relationship In 2012, West released Cruel Summer, a compilation album including artists from his GOOD Music label. However, his romance with reality-TV star Kim Kardashian, which began in April, dominated the headlines that year. They married on May 24, 2014, in the medieval Fort di Belvedere in Italy, after West proposed at the AT&T baseball stadium in San Francisco on October 21, 2013. As Kardashian came down the aisle, Andrea Bocelli performed, The designer Rachel Roy, tennis champion Serena Williams, film director Steve McQueen, and music performers Legend, Q-Tip, Rick Rubin, Tyga, and Lana Del Rey were among the visitors. North (born June 15, 2013), Saint (born December 5, 2015), and another daughter are the couple's three children (born via surrogate January 15, 2018). Psalm, the couple's fourth child, was born via surrogate in May 2019. Yeezus West's sixth studio album, Yeezus, was released in June 2013 and had little evidence that the rapper was living a happy life. West had engaged producer Rick Rubin to make sweeping alterations just days before the album's release, thus the sound was aggressive, raw, and almost entirely melody-free. On "I Am a God," which featured the iconic phrase "Hurry up with my stupid croissants," West sounded neurotic and egocentric to the point of bathos. With the exception of the excellent glam-rock-inspired hit "Black Skinhead," West stated the album was a "attack against the commercial," and it certainly included nothing that was radio-friendly (the first of only two singles from the album). Yeezus is the only album by Kanye West to have sold less than one million copies in the United States. Nonetheless, it was highly welcomed by critics, including rock veteran Lou Reed, who told Rolling Stone that "It's as if you're crafting a movie with each tune... The guy is incredibly gifted." Beef on Jimmy Kimmel In September, West and Jimmy Kimmel had a Twitter dispute after the talk-show host ridiculed an interview West had given to the BBC in the United Kingdom. On his show, Jimmy Kimmel hired young actors to recite some of West's more bombastic remarks. West, on the other hand, was not amused. One of a series of outraged tweets said, "Jimmy Kimmel is out of line to try to mimic in any manner the first piece of honest media in years." During his next episode, Kimmel happily read out West's tweets, eliciting more ire from the rapper, who shared a link to a Slate piece headed "Kanye was right." West returned on Jimmy Kimmel Live the following month, and the conversation lasted the most of the broadcast, with multiple free-flowing Kanye monologues covering everything from his career to his thoughts on the paparazzi, Steve Jobs, and Jesus. "I don't know whether you're aware of this, but a lot of people believe you're a jerk," Kimmel said, before complimenting West's portrayal. West had been hurt by Kimmel's characterization of him, as it turned out, because the two had known each other before to the disagreement. "When I'm cooking up a comedic routine," Kimmel said, "regarding a celebrity's feelings is not something that comes to mind." They had cleared the air by the end of the show. More Public Outbursts, Collaboration with Paul McCartney, and Rihanna West made history as the first rapper to collaborate with Paul McCartney, releasing the tune "Four Five Seconds" alongside the Beatles icon and Rihanna at the start of 2015. But a month later, there was yet another award-show snarl, this time at the Grammys, when West protested to Beck winning Best Album. After the ceremony, West remarked, "Beck needs to respect artistry, and he should have presented his trophy to Beyoncé." In an interview with The Sunday Times newspaper in England a few months later, he withdrew his comments. "My image of a gentleman who plays 14 instruments not respecting craftsmanship was incorrect," he admitted. West, along with other artists such as Beyoncé, Jay Z, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, and Nicki Minaj, was introduced as a co-owner of the music-streaming service Tidal in March. Despite a petition with 135,000 signatures requesting for him to be removed from the lineup, he headlined the Glastonbury festival in the United Kingdom in June. The Life of Pablo Picasso In the lead-up to his seventh album, The Life of Pablo, there was even more controversy. West made headlines before the film's release on February 14, 2016, for a series of inflammatory tweets, including one declaring Bill Cosby, who is on trial for drugging and raping women, to be innocent. He began a feud with Wiz Khalifa, a musician he mistookly believed had ridiculed his wife, Kim Kardashian ("I am your OG and I will be respected as such," West tweeted.). He also expressed regret for appearing to disparage Michael Jordan in his lyrics. West then oddly advised his fans to lobby Facebook founder Mark Zuckerber the day after his album was released. He also expressed regret for appearing to disparage Michael Jordan in his lyrics. West then oddly pushed his fans to lobby Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to spend $1 billion in West's "ideas" the day after his album was released. He also claimed to be in debt for $53 million. Thealbum was yet another departure from the norm, as well as a triumph. It has a considerably broader sound than Yeezus, integrating a wide range of sounds, styles, and inspirations, ranging from trap to gospel to Auto-Tune crooning, avant-pop, vintage soul, and dancehall. Frank Ocean, Chance the Rapper, Rihanna, Desiigner, and Kid Cudi were among the guest vocalists. It was West's sixth solo album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 list in a row. Cancellation of the Tour and Return to the Spotlight West paused a show in Sacramento on November 20, 2016, while on his Saint Pablo Tour, to go on a rambling diatribe about radio playlists, MTV, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Beyoncé, and Jay Z ( "Call me, Jay Z... I know you've got killers. Please don't shoot them at me "(Imaginative+ paraphrase). He had ranted onstage and proclaimed support for Trump for the second time in a week, and this time it seemed like a public breakdown – he did not finish the act. He canceled the remaining 21 concerts of his tour the next day, citing tiredness, and spent the next eight days in the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. Pusha T, the president of GOOD music, revealed in an interview in February 2017 that West was working on a new album. Rumors about the album's progress persisted, with some stories claiming that the Grammy winner had sought creative inspiration in the Rockies of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. With the announcement that he was authoring a philosophy-themed book, Break the Simulation, in April 2018, West re-entered the news cycle. Days later, he verified the rumors of new material in a rapid-fire sequence of tweets, announcing that he will release two albums in June, the second of which would feature longtime collaborator Kid Cudi. The artist then caused a sensation when his tweets turned to his admiration for President Donald Trump, referring to him as "my brother" and claiming that they shared "dragon energy," even sharing a selfie wearing Trump's "Make America Great Again" cap. West later clarified the situation by adding that he adored Hillary Clinton as well and that he didn't agree with everything the president stated. "I don't agree with anyone except myself 100 percent," he wrote. Read the full article

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pretishaarts · 4 years ago

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CONSENT IS SEXY

In the UK, 1 out of 5 women will experience sexual assault during their life time. Sucks, right.

In 2017, the Crime Survey UK, reported that 20% of women have experience sexual assault since the age of 16, which is equivalent to 3.4 million women. Approximately, 85,000 women from the ages of 16-59 have experienced rape, attempted rape or sexual assault, meanwhile only 15% of those who experience sexual abuse report to the police. These statistics clearly shows that women of all ages have been taught to feel frightened to stand up towards sexual abuse of men they do not want to engage with, as a result this has led women to post-traumatic stress disorder and emotional responses such as depression, anxiety, guilt, anger etc.

When I first considered writing a manifesto based on sexual consent, a friend of mine asked me who would the target audience be and what level of understanding do I want them to gain after reading this? I answered “everyone.” However, my manifesto is for women, reason why I say women is due to the way society views us. Being a woman myself, I observe the way men degrade us on a daily basis for things that were gifted with, from our knowledge to our sexuality. Therefore, it’s my responsibility to stand up for women and by doing this, I will be discussing about cultural change that we need to help tackle sexual abuse. My aim is to help girls/women become aware of sexual violence that occurs all over the world, meanwhile providing ways to prevent it from happening.

There’s a large number of individuals who are unaware of the meaning consent that have experienced sexual assault in their lifetime. Majority of these victims, blame themselves for the wrongful incident thinking that it’s their fault which isn’t the case at all. I believe that majority of us are told the definition of sexual assault quite briefly rather than in detail, for instance “If you say no but they continue without your consent, then its rape”. However, they’re numerous ways that a person could be assaulted and what bothers me are the number of victims who aren’t aware of this, which leads to predators getting away with it.

Historically, rape culture was entirely normalised in the western world during slavery. Slavers experienced sexual violence on a daily basis, however they didn’t consider their abuse as rape under the logic that their oppressors couldn’t rape someone who consistently wanted to have sex which is totally false. In many cases, rape was only rape if only the victim was a white woman. If black men were accused of sexually assaulting white women, they would face harsh consequences such as lynching or imprisonment. On the other hand, white men wouldn’t face any legal punishment for the same crimes against black women. Black women sexuality has made them unrapeable and unworthy of protection, slavers didn’t have the authority to stand up for themselves without being threatened, abused or murdered by slave masters.

If we compare rape culture during slavery and today, many changes have occurred culturally and politically. According to legal systems in 19th century rape was non-existent amongst slave but currently sexual abuse is recognised and illegal in many countries no matter what race you are. Beliefs have also changed as more people understand that sexual violence is wrong and whoever commits this unjustified act deserves to be sentenced. Although we’ve seen many improvements, culturally, legally and politically, we still have a long way to go in order to see a huge difference especially in third world countries. India is known to be the most dangerous country for women, having the highest rates of sexual abuse experts say that ‘a woman is raped in India every 16 minutes.’ Women are often seen as possessions or objects rather than human beings, which suggests that cultural change doesn’t occur in India quite often. Legally, the system continuously fails women in India by giving little legal assistance to victims. Moreover, there's hardly any support shown towards rape victims, leading them to fight a lonely battle against their abuser where justice isn’t delivered timely.

The economic, social and cultural contribution of creative industries are key factors of many societies and their policies. There’s various confirmation that precarity, competition and the lack of regulation within these industries is aggravating inequalities with respect to gender, race and class. These cultural patterns create and reproduce the way we think towards sexual abuse, whether it's worth fighting over and what should be accepted as the norm. In order to prevent sexual abuse, this will require action at the individual, educational and governmental levels, starting with public discussions to inform society that sexual abuse is never okay. Organisations can inform others about inequality in different aspects that will help influence culture. Many prevention will help create cultural patterns and reproduce how we think and feel about sexual abuse. Social media has a large impact towards cultural change i.e. Twitter and the prevention of sexual abuse. It’s very accessible for finding information and keeping updated with the latest news, therefore, individuals standing up online for what they believe in, spreading awareness and creating petitions allows us to understand that there’s a shift in cultural change within society as many people become aware of what's right and wrong. This helps create a culture of respect politically and legally by ensuring that the law enforcement takes sexual abuse a lot more seriously.

One big mover and shaker who has a major influence towards spreading awareness of sexual abuse would be Tarana Burke who’s a well-known activist and the founder of #MeToo movement. MeToo is a movement against sexual harassment and abuse in today’s society, which started in 2006 to help raise awareness. The movement is globally recognised and has successfully made an impact to cultural change throughout societies and adjudicative systems, meanwhile uplifting survivors of sexual abuse by letting them know that they’re not alone. Tolerance, silence, acceptance and victim blaming take hold and become the norm. With the MeToo movement, it helps challenge the cultural ground rule that women have no say in who is in their intimate life. The MeToo movement has definitely been the start of cultural change within the creative industries and working environments by determining professional standards. The movement has made organisations reconsiders their policies and guidance by stating what is unacceptable and the consequences you’ll face if you violate these rules stated. This allows women to feel confident enough to speak up on unethical, unprofessional and discriminatory behaviour that we are exposed to. Even though this strategy is very encouraging, there's still a lot of development that needs to happen. However, the movement has made a massive impact in attitudes, behaviours and the contrast in culture especially in creative industries. MeToo movement managed to investigate an abuse of power that has empowered wider discussions about inequalities as many are now confident enough to speak out when we see inappropriate behaviour.

Another method that can be used to spread awareness and condemn sexual abuse within the creative industries would be art. Using art is a very effective way to speak on issues that happens across the globe, this can be expressed through music, shows, poetry, drawing and etc. An American neo-conceptual artist, Jenny Holzer reclaimed the concept of ‘Lustmord’ to discuss rape. Holzer addressed the sexual abuse against women during the Bosnian War in the 1990’s by creating texts from the perspectives of a victim. Holzer writes each line of the poems on women skin and photographs them individually, ‘I want to suck on her to make her respond’ reads one. She ensured that the poems were never read in full to complicate the identities of the victim, observer and the offender, making it difficult for her audience to detect which perspective each line came from.

It’s my duty that through this and other attempts, the next generation of women maintain the power that they own in order to have access to complete freedom by owning their sexuality, fighting for their equality and speaking out without being back lashed. I will be applying this to myself by creating a platform where myself and other women can speak on the harsh reality that we face as rape victim as this allows us to deal with trauma in a healthy way. In conclusion, I strongly believe that sexual abuse is an important issue that we should be well informed on as millions of people have been in this predicament globally. For sexual assault to stop it all begins with what you understand, your morals and what you could do to prevent it from occurring.

LINK TO VIDEO: https://vimeo.com/450350632

References:

https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/about-sexual-violence/statistics-sexual-violence/

https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2019/discussion-paper-what-will-it-take-promoting-cultural-change-to-end-sexual-harassment-en.pdf?la=en&vs=1714

file:///C:/Users/preti/Downloads/Hennekam_et_al-2017-Gender_Work__Organization.pdf

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

https://www.dw.com/en/what-is-behind-indias-rape-problem/a-51739350

https://exhibitionfem.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/lustmord/

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akokosblog-blog · 5 years ago

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We need your views on "5 Top Trending Technology for 2019 and the Jobs They’ll Create" on Akoko. Pls Comment below, Like and Share.

5 Top Trending Technology for 2019 and the Jobs They’ll Create

Technology is now evolving at such a rapid pace that annual predictions of trends can seem out-of-date before they even go live as a published blog post or article. As technology evolves, it enables even faster change and progress, causing the acceleration of the rate of change, until eventually, it will become exponential.

Technology-based careers don’t change at that same speed, but they do evolve, and the savvy IT professional recognizes that his or her role will not stay the same. The IT worker of the 21st century will constantly be learning, out of necessity if not desire.

What does this mean for you? It means staying current with technology trends. And it means keeping your eyes on the future, to know which skills you’ll need to know and what types of jobs you want to be qualified to do.

Here are eight technology trends you should watch for in 2019, and some of the jobs that will be created by these trends. Because the time to train yourself for one of these emerging jobs is now.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has already received a lot of buzz in recent years, but it continues to be a trend to watch because its effects on how we live, work and play are only in the early stages. In addition, other branches of AI have developed, including Machine Learning, which we will go into below. AI refers to computers systems built to mimic human intelligence and perform tasks such as recognition of images, speech or patterns, and decision making. AI can do these tasks faster and more accurately than humans. AI has been around since 1956 is already widely used. In fact, five out of six Americans use AI services in one form or another every day, including navigation apps, streaming services, smartphone personal assistants, ride-sharing apps, home personal assistants, and smart home devices. In addition to consumer use, AI is used to schedule trains, assess business risk, predict maintenance, and improve energy efficiency, among many other money-saving tasks. AI is one part of what we refer to broadly as automation, and automation is a hot topic because of potential job loss. Experts say automation will eliminate 73 million more jobs by 2030. However, automation is creating jobs as well as eliminating them, especially in the field of AI: Pundits predict that jobs in AI will number 23 million by 2020. Jobs will be created in development, programming, testing, support, and maintenance, to name a few. Artificial Intelligence architect is one such job. Some say it will soon rival data scientist in need for skilled professionals. To learn more about potential jobs in AI, read about building a career in AI or why you should earn an AI certification.

Machine LearningMachine Learning is a subset of AI. With Machine Learning, computers are programmed to learn to do something they are not programmed to do: They literally learn by discovering patterns and insights from data. In general, we have two types of learning, supervised and unsupervised. While Machine Learning is a subset of AI, we also have subsets within the domain of Machine Learning, including neural networks, natural language processing (NLP), and deep learning. Each of these subsets offers an opportunity for specializing in a career field that will only grow. Machine Learning is rapidly being deployed in all kinds of industries, creating a huge demand for skilled professionals. The Machine Learning market is expected to grow to $8.81 billion by 2022. Machine Learning applications are used for data analytics, data mining and pattern recognition. On the consumer end, Machine Learning powers web search results, real-time ads, and network intrusion detection, to name only a few of the many tasks it can do. In addition to completing countless tasks on our behalf, it is generating jobs. Machine Learning jobs rank among the top emerging jobs on LinkedIn, with almost 2,000 job listings posted. And these jobs pay well: In 2017, the median salary for a machine learning engineer was $106,225. Machine Learning jobs include engineers, developers, researchers, and data scientists.

Robotic Process Automation or RPALike AI and Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation, or RPA, is another technology that is automating jobs. RPA is the use of software to automate business processes such as interpreting applications, processing transactions, dealing with data, and even replying to emails. RPA automates repetitive tasks that people used to do. These are not just the menial tasks of a low-paid worker: up to 45 percent of the activities we do can be automated, including the work of financial managers, doctors, and CEOs. Although Forrester Research estimates RPA automation will threaten the livelihood of 230 million or more knowledge workers or approximately 9 percent of the global workforce, RPA is also creating new jobs while altering existing jobs. McKinsey finds that less than 5 percent of occupations can be totally automated, but about 60 percent can be partially automated. For you as the IT professional looking to the future and trying to understand technology trends, RPA offers plenty of career opportunities, including developer, project manager, business analyst, solution architect, and consultant. And these jobs pay well. SimplyHired.com says the average RPA salary is $73,861, but that is the average compiled from salaries for junior-level developers up to senior solution architects, with the top 10 percent earning over $141,000 annually. If you’re interested in pursuing a career in RPA, the Introduction to Robotic Process Automation (RPA) course is the place to start.

BlockchainAlthough most people think of blockchain technology in relation to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, blockchain offers security that is useful in many other ways. In the simplest of terms, blockchain can be described as data you can only add to, not take away from or change. Hence the term “chain” because you’re making a chain of data. Not being able to change the previous blocks is what makes it so secure. In addition, blockchains are consensus-driven, as explained in this Forbes article, so no one entity can take control of the data. With blockchain, you don’t need a trusted third-party to oversee or validate transactions. This heightened security is why blockchain is used for cryptocurrency, and why it can play a significant role in protecting information such as personal medical data. Blockchain could be used to drastically improve the global supply chain, as described here, as well as protect assets such as art and real estate. And as the use of blockchain technology increases, so too does the demand for skilled professionals. In that regard, we are already behind. According to Techcrunch, blockchain-related jobs are the second-fastest growing category of jobs, with 14 job openings for every one blockchain developer. A blockchain developer specializes in developing and implementing architecture and solutions using blockchain technology. The average yearly salary of a blockchain developer is $130,000. The job of a developer is not the only one available in the blockchain space, however. Employers are also looking for software engineers, consultants and project managers. Jobs are available at financial institutions, but also in retail and healthcare, and soon probably manufacturing as well.

Edge Computing

Formerly a technology trend to watch, cloud computing has become mainstream, with major players AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud dominating the market. The adoption of cloud computing is still growing, as more and more businesses migrate to a cloud solution. But it’s no longer the emerging technology. Edge is. Move over, cloud computing, and make way for the edge.

As the quantity of data we’re dealing with continues to increase, we’ve realized the shortcomings of cloud computing in some situations. Edge computing is designed to help solve some of those problems as a way to bypass the latency caused by cloud computing and getting data to a data center for processing. It can exist “on the edge,” if you will, closer to where computing needs to happen. For this reason, edge computing can be used to process time-sensitive data in remote locations with limited or no connectivity to a centralized location. In those situations, edge computing can act like mini datacenters. Edge computing will increase as use the Internet of Things (IoT) devices increases. By 2022, the global edge computing market is expected to reach $6.72 billion.

#AI #jobs #Technology #Featured #Gadgets #News #Tech

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simplemlmsponsoring · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on http://simplemlmsponsoring.com/attraction-marketing-formula/internet-marketing/wordstream-employee-spotlight-taylor-chan/

WordStream Employee Spotlight: Taylor Chan

WordStream has some impressive employees in its ranks: from industry influencers to marathon runners, from analysts to authors. The Employee Spotlight series aims to highlight the talented individuals who work here. Each month, we’ll be featuring an interview here on the blog and on our social accounts.

For this month’s Employee Spotlight, we spoke with Taylor Chan. As a product manager here at WordStream, Taylor works closely with our engineering and design teams to design and build new product features. Specifically, she oversees basic connections between our flagship software, WordStream Advisor, and ad platforms like Google Ads and Bing Ads. She also works on the 20-Minute Work Week (helping you make all your weekly optimizations in 20 minutes!) and a new, exciting feature called Strategies, which we’ll dive into imminently.

Originally from the Philadelphia area, Taylor graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Biological Engineering. She joined WordStream about a year ago, bringing with her no shortage of product development expertise, a passion for shrimp-filled spheres, and an irrefutable mastery of board games.

How long have you worked at WordStream?

I’ve worked here for just over a year— I started December 2017. I came from a company that was much bigger, and everyone was super specialized in their roles. There were four or five flavors of product managers and you had to pick just one. I was really looking to join a smaller team—something that would help me learn a wider range of skills and continue to become more well-rounded. It’s been really great. I’m a lot closer to the strategy aspect of the business than I was previously, which is huge.

How did you hear about WordStream? Why did you want to work here?

I worked in consulting for a little bit—manufacturing consulting. I have done a lot of strange things actually! At that time I was working in a water bottle factory and an almond factory on the ground floor trying to make their lines more efficient. I can’t say I joined WordStream for the marketing aspect, per se, but it’s been very cool learning it. I really didn’t know anything about it beforehand; it’s been crazy to learn what an integral part of our lives it is. But as far as what attracted me to the company, it was more about the people I’d get to work with and the size.

I found WordStream via a random job posting, but once I came in I really gelled with the people on the product team that I interviewed with. They seemed really thoughtful about their choices and what they were doing, which was something I wanted. The conversations felt natural with them.

Can you talk specifics about what your role involves?

I was originally hired specifically for the 20-Minute Work Week. The whole idea of that instantly appealed to me. I’m a person who loves to-do lists, and I’m huge on optimization and efficiency. So the job is really about bringing all those things to our customers at scale. It was really exciting for me. The 20-Minute Work Week is essentially where our customers want to go for quick hits; quick optimizations they can execute on in just a couple of minutes. And then you have the strategy piece where you’re looking for that next big, meaty thing to take your advertising to the next level. That’s the new project I’m spearheading.

Can you talk a little more about that Strategies feature?

Sure. When we say “Strategies” we’re talking about some of the more advanced things our customers can do—things that our customer success team consults them on now. They tend to be pretty complex, and often need to be done over the course of many different sittings. These are things like getting remarketing fired up or creating competitor campaigns or optimizing for mobile. At the moment, these kinds of strategies aren’t really accessible to people who aren’t super familiar with the native platforms. So what we’re trying to do is bring the things our customer success reps are preaching into the software.

That’s really cool. What kind of work goes into that? Is there a timeline for completion?

So it’s not out yet. But the way it works is we have a huge amount of data about all of our different customers, and we’re going to use all that data to identify the top strategies that are right for each customer. So we might find that a particular strategy like RLSAs works well for SaaS (Software as a Service) customers. The software would then automatically recommend that strategy for the customer and prompt them through a nice multi-step flow, a flow that would be both understandable and also faster than manual implementation.

As far as a timeline goes, we’re hoping to come out with the first iteration of the feature in February 2019. There’s a lot of basic work that needs to be done to get the first strategy out the door, but then they should come more rapidly. Ultimately, we’re hoping to have 10+ strategies that span Google, Facebook, and Bing. It’s incredibly challenging, because it involves taking the art that’s in our reps’ heads and getting it down on paper. For instance, how do you actually correctly set up a competitor campaign? And how can we bring that into the software? There are a lot of people here that are bigger marketing experts than I am, so it’s going to require a complete cross-functional effort to actually hash the whole thing out.

Has any other project here been particularly challenging?

Last year, I was working on improving the Add Negatives algorithm. That’s the most used 20-Minute Work Week alert. We are always trying to improve our algorithms so that the suggestions customers get are as relevant as possible. This one was really challenging for a few reasons. First, it’s extremely difficult to nail down a one-size-fits-all algorithm. For example, locations might be really good negatives for one customer, but they might not be great for another. And because a lot of our customers are small business owners, there’s not always an abundance of data to go off of.

So that project was very difficult. Right now, our engineering team is working on totally redoing the UI of that alert so that it uses the new algorithm, then also incorporates knowledge that only the customer knows. We’ll walk them through a process that helps them decide: do we really want a negative, or do we actually want a new keyword? Or do we actually want a new ad group? Whereas before you could only accept or reject what was suggested, now you can really analyze your search queries to select the best option—even if it’s not what our algorithm came up with.

Very cool. Switching gears a bit—has any one thing you’ve learned here particularly stuck with you?

I think I’ve learned to have more empathy for other departments here. For example, I learned Python here when one of the engineers taught a class about it. So, now I can read some of the code the engineers write, and I see just how much effort goes into my “easy” feature idea. I also have gotten the opportunity to shadow a bunch of Sales and Customer Success consulting calls, which helped me build empathy for all the work they do.

What’s your workspace aesthetic like? Minimalist? Homey? Neat?

It’s very neat. Like usually if the cleaning people move something just a little bit I can tell. Especially if they have the monitors out of the line…Everything has a place [laughs]! But yeah, I like to have some plants or some homey touches. I had this little eco ball, like a water sphere that had little shrimp in it. I killed them, though, so I don’t have anything right now. But in the future I hope to get them again.

You killed them accidentally or on purpose??

Accidentally! They were in the wrong sunshine when they died. It’s called an ecosphere, and it’s this entirely closed system that has like plants and shrimp. You can’t open it so it’s supposed to be self-sustaining…but obviously it was not.

You need to put your head down and get some work done asap. Do you have a go-to song?

When I’m at work and I want to focus, I like quieter acoustic music. But it has to have words; I can’t do classical music that would make me even more tired. I listen to this one playlist on Spotify over and over. It’s called “Calm Down.” I don’t even know what you would call the genre, but it definitely helps me decompress.

If WordStream announced a last-minute day off for tomorrow, what would you do with your suddenly free day?

OK—so I play Pokemon Go. You remember that? From like 2017? Well, I still play it. I have played it every day since it came out. I’m really into that. My husband plays it, too. It’s a game that involves a lot of walking around to different places so if I had the whole day off, it would be great to just walk around and do that.

What are the best spots to catch Pokemon around the city?

Probably the best spot is Castle Island, but Castle Island and Boston Common are both really great. The first week the game came out there were just like hundreds of people at Castle Island, and there was a Blastoise. I took a video on my phone—I was running in a crowd of a thousand people trying to get this thing.

If you didn’t work in marketing, what would you do?

I’m very into board games so I think I would do that. Maybe I could be like a board game designer or a board game tester. Or I have this idea where I would open a board game café. I also have this idea where I could go into schools and teach board games. Because it really develops a lot of different skills—problem solving, cooperation, etc. Two of my favorite games are Eldritch Horror and 7 Wonders. I’ve joined various meetup groups over the years. I also play board games with a group of WordStream people that meets every other week.

Anything else you do in your spare time?

I play volleyball, pretty poorly, in the Social Boston Sports leagues.

I also volunteer for the Crisis Text Line, which is basically a suicide crisis line but over text. I used to do it over the phone when I was in college, but I like it over text better. A lot of people in that kind of crisis feel more comfortable over text. It’s a lot of younger teenagers who don’t really know what other resources they have available.

How long have you been doing that?

For two years. It can be pretty intense. Sometimes I’ll take a break for a month or so. Especially over text, it can sometimes feel like you’re talking to the same person over and over again and they’re not getting better. But it definitely feels good when you can help someone. Like sometimes the texter will tell me it’s the first time they’ve told anyone about this. It’s rewarding to know you are helping in that way.

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vigrxwarning · 4 years ago

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itechaja · 4 years ago

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Every year would bring a growing plethora of new games, the awesome, the bad, and the terrible. Although many titles have received the recognition and admiration they earned, many may have faded into the background. So without much delay, here is our list of games that might have managed to slip under your sights.

It’s not that the titles below are gems or completely shrouded in secrecy. Some games are major successes, but we can’t tolerate but throw them on the list due to the fact that they ‘re deemed by many to be one of the best single player pc games of the decade.

This collection is not in any specific order, although we will keep improving over time as more fantastic games are released on next-generation platforms.

What Remains of Edith Finch (April 2017)

What Remains of Edith Finch is the game of the developer Giant Sparrow, the group behind The Unfinished Swan. Pretty much across the board, the game story revolves on Edith Finch as she starts to visit a gigantic house operated by her father.

When she discovers more of her family background, she starts to explore what occurred to every participant on their last day of existence.

Greedfall (September 2019)

Greedfall has been related to the Dragon Age series since its first official statement and game-play discovery. Others also go to the extent of naming it the Dragon Age of 2019. This bias, combined with an unenthusiastic review from critics, may have affected many gamers to dismiss Focus Home Interactive ‘s efforts to measure up throughout the RPG genre.

Oxenfree (January 2016)

If you love epic journey games with a classic horror twist, then try Oxenfree. The game places players in a role called Alex, a young woman who’s heading to a secluded island for a weekend getaway.

The game provides a set of dialog options, and based on what you pick; it will have implications that will eventually decide what the end players can receive.

Observation (2001)

Created by minimal-scale Scottish developer No Code and released by Devolver Digital, Observation were among the most exciting titles of the year. Touted as an expedition-puzzle game, “Observation” gamers step into the role of SAM, the AI in charge of controlling a multinational corporation crewed spacecraft far above the planet.

Through SAM’s security cameras and minimal control of the station, players are challenged to discover the mystery behind the sudden disappearance of the fleet.

Infamous First Light (2014)

Infamous First Light received a huge launch throughout PlayStation 3 in 2009, with the new update being Notorious: First Sun. This version was published in 2014, and it was a couple of years before the introduction of PlayStation 4.

This is a stand-alone DLC that rolled out after the Infamous: Second Son, although set up before the developments of the Infamous: Second Son. Plays take on the part of a young conductor and deliver a bit more background if you’ve already experienced the Infamous: Second Son.

Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark (April 2019)

Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark might well easily be mistaken for an inexpensively crafted strategy game with hardly any new to deliver, thanks to its paper-doll persona art and its simplicity-looking levels. This will be a misjudgment, as the true strong points of the game lay concealed beneath this ragged surface.

As an indie strategy RPG from the new 6 Eyes Studio, Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark broadens and enhances the method of the traditional Final Fantasy Tactics. It provides a broader class system, excellently-designed stages with a multitude of strategic moves, and an unexpectedly entertaining narrative.

Takeaway

It is also difficult to measure what makes a secret gem. The lower the advertisement expenditure of a game, the more the popularity relies on word of mouth, the impact of which may differ significantly from person to individual.

Not all of the games on this list would be totally unheard of, but the finding of only all amazing games that were overlooked in the year is an accomplishment in itself.

via NiSu

#IFTTT #NiSu

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recentanimenews · 5 years ago

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Staff Picks: Our Favorite Manga of 2019

Welcome to the first post in our annual “Staff Picks” series, in which the Ani-Gamers team selects some of our favorite anime, manga, and video games of the past year. As is the custom, we begin with manga.

2019 was a year of transition for the manga industry. The breadth of manga available in North America is larger than ever thanks to an array of seemingly thriving publishers. Japan-backed veterans Viz Media and Kodansha Comics continue to pump out great books, Seven Seas is more active than ever, and Square Enix has now thrown their hat into the ring with a new US-based subsidiary. But the biggest news of the year is the rise of digital manga services. In late 2018 Viz launched their revamped digital Shonen Jump experience (simulpubs and the full back catalog for some of the most popular manga in the world for the absurdly low price of $1.99 a month), followed shortly thereafter by Shueisha’s Manga Plus, a competing free manga service offering major titles from Viz’s Japanese parent company (go figure). Meanwhile, third-party services like MangaMo are starting to explore the digital subscription space. 2020 may just be the year that manga has its Crunchyroll moment.

That’s all the business side, though! Now it’s time to talk about the comics themselves. This year we’ve got three staff members participating, showcasing stellar manga stories across the genre spectrum, from whimsical fantasy to gothic horror to understated romance. Enjoy, and feel free to chime in with your own 2019 picks in the comments.

David Estrella

#3: At the Mountains of Madness

Quick disclaimer: H.P. Lovecraft was a big-time racist and I’m very aware of the contemporary re-evaluation of his works in the context of the man’s politics. That said, Gou Tanabe’s adaptation of Lovecraft’s novella is still an incredible work that should be taken with the illustrator’s own merits in mind. It’s Tanabe’s own talents that really elevate an old story that has been mined for parts and made relatively obsolete by other creators. As an artist, Tanabe’s visuals paint a perfect picture of alien desolation and dread, and his approach to pacing has few parallels among his peers. It’s a manga that doesn’t read like a typical manga and as far as graphic novels go, Tanabe is comfortable pulling from as many Western influences as needed without losing sight of his own identity and ideas. It’s simply a good comic from an artist that’s probably better than Lovecraft deserves.

#2: Bakemonogatari

Having rewatched the TV series innumerable times before reading the novel, I was convinced there wasn’t much new ground to break with Bakemonogatari. Oh!Great proved me wrong. The manga artist’s career-defining works had their moment before I was aware of them so I came into this unprepared for what I would find. Not content to simply rely on Nisioisin’s prose to carry the familiar story of a boy, a girl, and the crab spirit that stole her physical weight, Oh!Great pushes the imagery to extremes that not many artists would dare attempt. It’s almost overwhelming to see the ambition in every page that features some wild shifts in angles and perspective and yet remains totally comprehensible. The kinetic energy of the manga does override some of the finer, subtler points of the source but I can respect it as its own creation separate from the original.

#1: Nicola Traveling Around the Demon’s World

Nicola Traveling Around The Demon’s World is the best manga that I’ve read in 2019, rising above even my Monogatari bias on the virtue of being a completely new and fresh title, drawn with an infectious sense of joy and wonder that you can’t find in much of anything these days. I tend to fly through manga as quickly as I can read it, to the dismay of any hard-working comic artists reading this, but Nicola is worth the time to slow down and properly take in all the details inked onto the pages. It’s not Asaya Miyanaga’s desire to show off their skills when the panels are brimming with character, but instead it’s their love for their creation. Nicola might have run in a magazine explicitly marketed at adult readers but it would be unfair to place it in a box that would discourage young manga fans from reading this.

Ink

#3: Kino’s Journey – The Beautiful World

As someone who remains 100% in love with the 2003 anime adaptation of some of Keiichi Sigsawa’s Kino’s Journey novels and someone who found the 2017 anime adaption reboot largely soulless and hugely disappointing, I am fully prepared to defend my claim that this manga not only carries the very essence of the 2003 adaption but successfully builds on it in a few ways. First off, the stories, which include new and established chapters, are by Keiichi Sigsawa, so everything’s right from the source (via translator) there. Secondly, illustration by way of Iruka Shiomiya offers everything one could ask for in a title with such disparate situations as Kino’s Journey. Gone is the bishi Kino of 2017, and the more androgynous design returns. Heavy detail is placed into Kino’s motorad, Hermes, as well as weaponry and other machinery, but more detail is also placed on gore … which is a lot more prevalent and, as one might expect, not illustrated in detail to evoke a feeling of pleasure. Each volume also begins with a lovingly drawn, two-page spread overlain with a translation from Sigsawa’s original novels. This manga is only #3 on my list, because it’s another, albeit fantastic, iteration of something I already love, and that puts it at an unfair advantage over the other two in my list.

#2: Girls’ Last Tour

When the anime adaptation of Tsukumizu’s Girls’ Last Tour manga aired, the series of successive vignettes seemed the spiritual successor to the 2003 adaptation of Kino’s Journey. The episodes, like the source material, focus on moe blobs Chito and Yuuri exploring a stratified, post apocalyptic landscape via kettenkrad in search of, well, anything. While the episodes sometimes feel like a platformer video game with regard to how characters get from point A to point B, the human elements of observation and imagination are ultimately what make the series so enthralling in portraying the means necessary for maintaining sanity in the face of desolation. The anime, however, does not adapt all of the manga; the last two volumes are (as of yet) not adapted, and they are worth reading to the very end. The manga sports a style that melds the industrial with the abstract/absurd to simultaneously isolate humanity and show the ways in which it thrives. The chapters are often pensive think pieces which exploit innocence as a lens to both denounce the destruction of an inherited world and praise that which is found therein. The art, despite being hyper-mechanically and -pasturally focused, is admirably minimalist; a few lines often define landscapes, and the resulting emptiness is of the utmost importance for atmosphere and tone. Panel progression and related mastery of visual metaphor are so very important to the interpretation that I question whether dialog is necessary at all. That said, the charming, often (but not constantly) comical relationship between the odd couple MCs does help move moments along in the more stagnant bits while providing enough chuckles to press on.

#1: Happiness

Despite being a huge fan of Shuzo “Your Mental Discomfort is My Middle Name” Oshimi, this manga is about vampires, and I am very much burnt out on vampires and werewolves and zombies and the like. To be fair, however, Happiness is just as much about vampires as most vampire movies are about vampires. That is to say they are about (a) hunger. More to the point, and more to Oshimi’s forte, this 10-volume deep-dive into a youth mentally dealing with his newly awakened, biological need to feed is a visual feast from which Oshimi wants readers to catch the warm coppery waft of life. I fell in love with this title with Volume 2. The initial concept in the visual depiction of hunger - a swirling and distortion of character POV that increases in magnitude with the length of abstinence - feeds right into Oshimi’s Francophilia; post-impressionist landscapes and portraits are definite influences, and other European styles are invoked as well for jaw-dropping art used mainly in chapter breaks. Oshimi’s visual style has improved by leaps and bounds since Flowers of Evil, and that’s saying something given how much I love the visuals in the latter volumes of that title.

Evan Minto

#3: Bloom Into You

It’s been a pretty quiet year for Bloom Into You, with only a single book (volume 6) released in the US. However, 2019 was the year I discovered this wonderful manga, so here it is on my list. Bloom Into You is a yuri manga with an unlikely premise: its main character, Yuu, has never had feelings for anyone, boy or girl. Even when Touko, the seemingly perfect student council president, confesses to her, Yuu feels nothing, but as she spends more time with her she finds a hint of something growing in her heart. Bloom Into You is all about the slow burn, the uncertainty and furtive glances of young love. But what especially sticks out to me is the way it captures — intentionally or not — the experience of asexuality. Where most manga romances follow characters seeking love from others or obliviously stumbling into it while the audience cheers them on, Bloom Into You is about the process of introspection and overthinking, as Yuu tries to figure out if she is even capable of love. Nio Nakatani’s character designs and realistically stylish costumes are a delight, and come to life beautifully in her flowing, evocative art style. I can’t wait to see how this series wraps up next year.

#2: Witch Hat Atelier

It’s rare that I find a manga that I want to read for the artwork alone. Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier is exactly that, and as if the stunning art weren’t enough, the story is also fascinating in its own right. Coco is a village girl who dreams of magic, but rarely gets the chance to interact with the mysterious witches of her country. When a grave mistake causes Coco to unleash a dangerous spell on her village, she gets taken in as a witch’s apprentice and discovers her country’s long-held secret: magical power isn’t innate, but is called forth by drawing magical signs with special ink. Anyone can draw, and thus, anyone can make magic. That direct metaphor for art would be pretty inspiring if Shirahama’s illustration style weren’t so intimidatingly beautiful. Everything from characters to backgrounds is painstakingly rendered in a style that’s halfway between a woodblock print and the textured drawings of Kaoru Mori (A Bride’s Story). The world of Witch Hat Atelier feels tangible, weighty, lived-in, yet simultaneously light and whimsical. I’ve only just started on Coco’s journey, but with art like this I will read just about anything Shirahama puts out.

#1: Chainsaw Man

Viz launched their Shonen Jump app in late 2018, offering easy access to dozens of currently running and retro manga series from Shueisha’s flagship boys magazine. As for me, I jumped into the app and skipped right past One Piece and its ilk to find the most dangerous Shonen Jump manga of all: Chainsaw Man. Denji is a horny 16-year-old boy who makes money by selling off his organs and hunting monsters called “devils.” When he dies (spoilers), his pet chainsaw-dog devil merges with his body, turning him into “Chainsaw Man,” which is basically just “Denji but with chainsaws growing out of his arms and head.” Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga is an unhinged, action-packed spectacle of blood, guts, and bone-headed idiocy, fueled by the antics of Denji (number one goal: “touch some boobs”) and his unstable devil-hunting partner Power (a devil possessing the body of a dead girl). The series is heavy on the comedy, bouncing a cast of morons and psychopaths off of each other in increasingly destructive ways, but it also takes turns into heavy drama and even romance, all of which Fujimoto handles with a surprising amount of sensitivity. The art is scratchy and high-contrast, but full of unforgettable action set pieces including a giant fox demon taking a bite out of a building and a high-speed car chase with a devil who can turn anything she touches into a bomb. Chainsaw Man is the closest thing we’ve got to reading a Hiroyuki Imaishi (Promare) doujin manga in English, so naturally it’s my manga of the year.

Staff Picks: Our Favorite Manga of 2019 originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on January 6, 2020 at 6:53 PM.

By: David Estrella

#Anime #News #Ani-Gamers

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mortgagebrokerplanotx · 5 years ago

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CoreLogic’s Partner InfoNet revenue sharing grew 66% in 2014

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CoreLogic (CLGX) announced that the revenue sharing payments from its Partner InfoNet program increased by 66% in 2014, growing to more than $1 million.

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CoreLogic (CLGX) announced that the revenue sharing payments from its Partner InfoNet program increased by 66% in 2014, growing to more than $1 million. “In turn, revenue sharing payments continue.

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naijastudio · 3 years ago

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Kanye West Biography, Age And Net Worth

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