#i never made a post for this here cus i published it before i started using this blog

[kithj]

ONE DAY HIKE is a brief interactive fiction where you revisit an old, familiar hiking trail and recount the memories that you've tried-- and failed-- to leave behind.

Content warning: this game is about the troubled teen industry and wilderness therapy. Other warnings include homophobia/lesbophobia, suicide, abuse, animal death, and body horror.

[youknowmymethods]

Content Creator Interview #5

Welcome back again folks! This week in our fifth interview @vermofftiss chats to @mizjoely about her love of lists, her fantasy season five finale, and reveals the truth about who really writes her stories...

Hi, @mizjoely here, chatting with @vermofftiss about my sherlolly writing and fandom experiences, and answering some questions submitted by a few other folks. I’ve been involved in fandom in one way or another since the early 1980s, which is also when I started writing fanfiction - for classic Doctor Who and Star Trek in its various incarnations.

@vermofftiss here, putting forward the aforementioned questions. I’ll also be trying to weasel some advice out of @mizjoely that I can use for my own writing, which has been a casual ongoing thing since I published my first sherlolly fic in 2014.

Vermofftiss: I think our first encounter was in the Sherlollychat in the fall of 2014, around the time I got onto AO3. Which means series 3 was five years ago. How does it feel knowing that series 4 was already two years ago? What’s changed in the time since it aired?

Mizjoely: Oh, I miss the sherlollychat, or at least I did until Channy came up with the discord version! It’s hard to fathom that so much time has passed since I joined the fandom! (I became active on tumblr in November 2013 after discovering Sherlolly earlier that same year, btw.) Series 3 was five years ago. Series 4 was two years ago. Crazy!

As for what’s changed since then, I’d have to say one positive thing is that the fandom wank has calmed way the hell down since S4…. Another change that I’ve seen is probably common to all fandoms over time - new writers and content creators have joined the fandom while (sadly) many others have moved on to other fandoms. Of course, that’s to be expected when your show is essentially over, but it’s still kind of sad to lose folks completely to other fandoms.

V: Which series was your favourite to play with as a writer? When did you really get into writing Sherlolly?

M: I would have to say Series 4 has definitely been a great series to write for - so much angst! The I love you! Mary Watson’s very sad death, Rosie Watson becoming a character, Mrs. Hudson showing us what a badass she is, and of course Eurus Holmes entering the picture. We might not have gotten as much Molly Hooper as we wanted, but the scenes we did get with her were tremendous and gave so much inspiration to me and many other writers.

I really got into Sherlolly as a ship after seeing TRF, as I’m sure is true with many folks - especially the “what do you need” scene. And it was so much fun to dive into the possibilities of life after Sherlock’s ‘death’ between Series 2 and 3, I consider that a real golden age of Sherlolly writing. My first published Sherlock/Sherlolly fic was “Conversations With A Dead Detective”, set Post Reichenbach, which according to fanfiction.net I published on 04/11/13 (so I’m nearly at my five year Sherlolly- versary, woo hoo!).

A quick look at my spreadsheet (don’t judge me, I love my lists) shows that I wrote or at least started 37 fics that year (one of which I’m still working on, yikes! - The World As We Know It, a vamp!lock fic). I’m currently sitting at almost 500 fics for Sherlolly, which still amazes me, that I could be that inspired by a pair of fictional characters! (For comparison, my second most prolific fandom is Doctor Who, for whom I wrote a total of 25 stories over a period of 20 years. And of those 25, only about a dozen were for my main ship, Five/Tegan).

V: A couple of questions from @ohaine - 

1) Based on the sheer volume of your work, I have this theory that you’re actually some sort of artistic collective rather than just one person, please tell me I’m right!

M: You have discovered my secret: I'm actually four raccoons in a trenchcoat! Seriously though, until I was bitten by the Sherlolly bug, my output was much, much lower, even though I've been writing fanfics since the early 1980s. For example, I love the Zutara ship for Avatar: Last Airbender, but I only wrote three fics for that. I wrote about 25 fics for Doctor Who, and about the same amount for the various Star Treks (not including Khanolly). Nothing set my writing muse afire like Sherlolly, and I doubt anything ever will again.

and, 2) You write a lot of AUs, and I’m wondering what inspires them?

M: Considering that I started off as a strictly Canon Universe/Canon Compliant writer in all of my other fandoms, it still seems funny to me how much I enjoy writing and reading AUs now. I started reading them after finally running out of canon compliant fics to read and discovering how much fun it was to transplant the characters into a different universe. And that, of course, made me think about what sort of AUs I could fit Molly and Sherlock into.

In fact, the very first BBC Sherlock story I started to write (never finished or posted) was an AU because I was nervous about trying to write Sherlock and figured no one would complain too much about him being OOC if it was a fantasy setting. (I ended up taking the plunge on a canon universe post Reichenbach fic and posted that and a lot of other canon universe fics before returning to AUs.)

Wait, that doesn't answer the question! What inspires them? The same things that inspire all my writing: wanting to read a specific kind of fic and not being able to find it; fics that other authors have written that make me itch to put my own spin on the idea; dreams; books I've read or movies or TV shows I've watched...inspiration is everywhere when you really, really, really love a ship. (Gawd that's cheesy but it's true - no love, no writing fanfic, period end of paragraph.)

V: This past spring I finally got the nerve to start working on my first proper AU (not CC, CU, or UA) after sitting on the idea for about 3 years. Have you ever had to wait to be “ready” to start working on a concept? How much do you need to know about a project to get going on it?

M: I have absolutely had to wait to be ready to start working on a concept. My very first attempt at a Sherlolly fic (never finished or published) was going to be an AU because I was so intimidated by the idea of writing Sherlock Holmes in the canon universe set up by Moffat & Gatiss. I was terrified I wouldn’t get his voice right, that he would be too OOC for folks, that I wouldn’t be able to make him clever enough or that I’d mess things up a dozen different ways. So I started writing the AU instead, and in doing so (over a course of several months), I finally realized that no, I wanted to start off in the canon universe. Just trying to write him at all, in any setting, made me a little less intimidated by him. But I might never have written anything if I hadn’t started that abandoned AU. (And I look forward to seeing your AU when you’re ready to post it!)

V: Does reader feedback ever impact the plots of your stories or the building of your AUs?

M: It absolutely can, especially when someone leaves a comment that makes me think about my story in a different light. I won’t go so far as to say comments have caused me to redo anything on a larger scale (such as change the ending) but certainly I’ve thrown things into the fic or expanded on ideas expressed in a comment to make the story that much richer.

That’s one of the best things about being active in fandom - the interactions between readers and writers. Of course, the reverse can also be true - I remember needing a LOT of fan-friend coddling when some folks were unhappy with the ending of my story ‘Abandoned’ (i.e., my Molly let my Sherlock get off too easily). But you have to have thick skin to be a creator, and remember that not everyone likes the same things. And you also have to be able to say yes, I could have done this better, or if I had to do it over I’d do it differently. It’s all part of the creative process.

V: Are there any scenes or aspects that were cut from a story that you regretted leaving out at the end?

M: Not really. Most things that I cut have been vetted by my betas (shout-out to ALL betas for being willing to help you make your story better!) and jettisoning those things has always made my stories better. (Plus I keep a folder of scraps that got cut and periodically review those scraps to see if I might be able to salvage them.)

V: On top of being one of the better-known Sherlolly writers in the tag, you’re also the single person behind the Sherlollbrary. As much as I love to organize my life and everything else I can get my hands on, that’s not something I think I’d ever actually want to do. So what made you decide to start cataloguing Sherlolly fics?

M: My love of lists. Seriously, that’s it. I love making lists of things - like, how many stories did I write in 2013 for Sherlolly (37, as you now know!), how many one-shots have I written vs. multi-chapters, how many were prompts...and then I started seeing people doing lists of various tropes. The one that made me decided to start my Sherlollilists side blog was one put together for Sherlolly omegaverse stories. As more and more lists were created, edited, and added (I’m currently at 140 official lists, with more than a dozen unofficial lists), I decided it would nice to organize them all (not realizing quite what I was getting into!) as one spreadsheet, with other tropes and tags and keywords for folks to help narrow down their searches. It always give me a little thrill when I open the library and see folks are browsing, so I like to think it’s a useful tool (although I am looking forward to finishing it someday!)

@writingwife-83 asked: You work tirelessly to organize all the multitude of writing this ship produces, but how do you feel that affects you as a writer? Does it make you less interested in writing your own fics? Or does it tend to help get the wheels turning and inspire you?

M: I have to admit, sometimes curating the lists can completely put me off writing, simply due to feeling oversaturated. This is especially true when I am reading or skimming over fics that are, shall we say, not the best of the bunch. Or the times when I'm just pushing myself even if I'm not really enthusiastic about doing it. Those times, I've learned to just step back, which is why sometimes the lists don't get updated very quickly.

On the other hand, rereading a favorite or a forgotten gem can really get my creative juices flowing. At times like that, I fall back in love with the ship and the fandom all over again.

V: When you’re stuck with writer’s block or just a lack of motivation, does it help you more to reread an old fave or to go back through some of your own works? Have you noticed your style has changed much?

M: It does help, absolutely. It reminds me why I love this ship so much, and helps me reconnect with others in the fandom. People think of reading as passive and writing as solitary, but to me it’s an interactive process. Reading great fics, new can old, helps feed your creativity. And nowadays the internet helps so much as well - there are awesome resources and fandom spaces to talk to other folks about their works and your own, reminding you that you’re not creating in a vacuum. (And I REALLY love the cheerleading section of the Sherlolly Discord site. That can help unstick my creativity like nobody’s business!)

As for my style changing - yeah, it definitely has. I feel like my writing has become more streamlined and less clunky since I first started. I still do a lot of semicolon abuse but at this point I’ve decided that’s just my style and will likely never change.

Thanks for the excellent questions and for letting me ramble on!

V: I’m sure we can do a lot more rambling if left on the trail. How about one last one: In the currently hypothetical series 5, how would you continue the story from where it left off?

M: Oooh, good one! If I was in charge we would see that Sherlock and Molly are continuing their relationship, culminating with a wedding at the end of the third episode. But since I’m not in charge, I’m thinking that Mofftiss would give us some subtle hints, like John casually mentioning to Sherlock that he and Rosie can’t join ‘them’ for dinner that night for whatever reason. And maybe some small changes to 221B to show hints that someone else spends time there other than Sherlock and the Watsons - a cherry patterned pillow, perhaps? A Bart’s ID card with a woman’s picture to show that no, it isn’t one Sherlock nicked to get access to a place he otherwise couldn’t get to? A woman’s coat hanging next to Sherlock’s? Something like that. And some private smiles between Sherlock and Molly, little things like that. Enough to give us hope but not enough to give us proof! They do like to tease that way!

Non-shipwise, I think Eurus would make a return because come on, how do you leave a character like that catatonic? I also think they would return to ACD canon to revise a few more cases for the modern age, and maybe (maybe!) have John start dating again (especially if they’re so married to canon that they killed Mary off - since John seems to have been married at least twice, they would probably explore that option).

I know, that last part is a bit vague but honestly? I hope they surprise the hell out of us in a good way if we ever get that fifth series!

Next Week, Friday March 22nd, @ashockinglackofsatin talks to @sunken-standard

[kelmcdonald]

Misfits of Avalon Chapter 4 Writer Notes

New Post has been published on http://sorcery101.net/news/misfits-of-avalon-chapter-4-writer-notes/

Misfits of Avalon Chapter 4 Writer Notes

Page 119 – 120

These two pages are because I wanted to ease someone into Rae’s thoughts. So to start I just have her focused and competent. Her asking the lady for directions are also to establish she is good at lying, but in a small way at first.

Page 121 – 122

These fighting pages are to show how the monsters were getting made. Since Rae is more on the ball she gets there before stuff gets too bad and we get to see that “Arthur’s” blood is the key to everything.

Page 124 – 127

Here we get full force Rae when dealing with the other girls. Sometimes the captions are a little cramped because Rae thinks more than the other girls and I didn’t want to drag this scene out two much. I did have fun with the acting between Elsie and Morgan as that fight, particularly when Elsie flicks some of her float at Morgan.

While writing Rae’s thoughts I made things colder and more calculated than when Kimber was mad at Morgan and Elsie.

Page 128 – 134

So this is the first really big exposition scene. I wanted to set it up a lot of the questions the girls don’t get answered until the end. Also, I wanted to keep pushing that Elsie, while having the simplest motive, its also the one with the clearest right and wrong.

Kimber’s crush on Rae is subtle through the first book but I also wanted to keep it childish to show her being younger than the rest. So I thought the beat of her wanted to sit next to Rae would be a good beat. Rae’s look at Kimber I thought would be a good hint that Rae is picking up on Kimber’s enthusiasms for the two of them being close.

Cu and Rae are are the two big liars. So I had fun writing Rae trying to trip him up without showing too much of her hand.

Rae completely ignoring the fighting to focus on her own goals is another ways to contrast her from the group and to show she is much colder and detached than the others. But that she is also very focused on her goals and isn’t paying attention to their personal details.

Page 135

I really liked this bit about with Elsie thinking Billy is buying drugs. I wanted them to tease each other but still have it be clear they liked each other.

Page 136 – 140

Once again, Rae is basically ignoring everything the other girls are saying. I made Elsie one of nine and figure it is probably hard for her or any of her siblings to have any kind of private time never mind romance

This whole scene is to show Rae is good at being manipulative and is also away of how she is appearing at all times. She mostly dresses the way she does for situations like this. Because of that she is the only one who can safely talk to a cop.

Page 141 – 142

I think drawing and making firing for fire is one of my favorite things art related. Also I really like the Dimiter Martin joke about indifferent graffiti. So when ever I have a place with stuff written on it I have at least one indifferent graffiti. So “SU 151 is okay.

Page 143 – 148

This whole fight is when they start really communicating. They have a few problems similar to the ones before and that is basically the first half of the fight. It’s a lot of them bumping into each other and them hurting each other’s chances against Arthur. I especially liked that Rae ruins Kimber’s attack twice. So while Kimber, Elsie, and Morgan actively fight a lot, Rae isn’t much better at being in sync with her teammates.

Page 149 – 154

Things start to go better after Arthur’s big attack that knocks everyone down. Elsie and Morgan stop rocks from falling on each other. I tried to use skinny tall panels because those two are still in a cramped space.

Morgan recognizes the alter from her dream which is why she figures out that’s what needs to go. I didn’t want that to be 100% obvious though.

I like big flashy pages of Elsie wrecking shit.

Page 155- 158

As the girls escape I again wanted to push that Elsie is the one that thinks about other people. She is concerned about Arthur even before finding out who he is. Rae on the other hand only cares about number 1.

I wanted to wrap the book of with some quick character beats to reenforce who each girl is before the book ends. So we get some bickering, Rae smoothly lying, and Kimber’s getting excited about Rae agreeing with her. Then Billy coming back with bruises is to make it clear he is Arthur. I didn’t want “Who is King Arthur” to be a big mystery, more “When will the girls realize Billy is King Arthur” Also, Billy is the obvious choice to be Arthur because Arthur was Morgan La Fey’s half -brother. I always wanted Arthur to have that same connection.

I liked ending on the beat of Elsie not hiding their superheroing at all.

[suburbandecay]

A Farewell to Leather: the Death of Deadspin

Deadspin, the much beloved/maligned/emulated “sports” weblog, died last week after cascading resignations from editors and contributors. Barry Petchesky christened the mass exodus, fired for rebuking a quickly-leaked memo from Paul Maidment, editorial director of G/O Media, Deadspin’s parent company. Therein, Maidment ordered his employees to “stick to sports,” that is, Deadspin must soley publish articles about sports “and that which is relevant to sports in some way.” Not coincidentally, “stick to sports” stood as a Deadspin topic of choice since it came into full bloom in the 2012 election. Petchesky’s exit followed former Editor in Chief Megan Greenwell, who quit after G/O refused to guarantee the site’s editorial independence, violations of the employees’ bargained-for labor agreement. Today, we mourn the loss of one of the true original outlets, and celebrate all those who question the answers.

The editorial board of Suburban Decay learned about Deadspin in 2005, setting us on our current path. At the time, we were young and gainfully employed, but not too gainfully. Only following sports for a few years prior, our media intake skewed to the middle: ESPN’s Page 2, Sports Illustrated, and the other minimal bits of editorial content available online. Deadspin loathed the middle and hit like lightning. Their motto, “Without Access, Favor, or Discretion” says it all. Cued by their parent site and spiritual leader Gawker, founding voice Will Leitch loved sports, but also loved the lurid details bigger outlets omitted. The writers refused to disappear into the text, making explicit their teams of choice, biases, and opinions. Because, of course, that ends up influencing the editorial product anyway, and you might as well spell it out. The staff and contributors made themselves freely available, and Leitch both sent supportive replies to Suburban Decay, and linked to our first forays into sportsblogging. The early days of Deadspin approached sports as a fan. A tipsy, skeptical fan, who loved to argue and mock people in power.

What did Suburban Decay learn from Deadspin? First, that ESPN has serious conflicts of interest which irreparably warped the network’s ability to cogently cover sports. In every situation, the staff enjoyed the opportunity to make a nuisance. Leitch felt no hesitation posting gossip submitted by tipsters detailing various misbehavior by athletes, frequently under the influence. Their greatest early submission provides the title of this post, where ESPN alpha Chris Berman wooed a woman wearing a stylish jacket into his company by stating, simply, “You’re with me, leather.” Berman reacted very poorly. The site did actual journalism, but the ethos that drove them to publish that apocryphal story also motivated the more significant work: question the answers. Authority figures don’t deserve your unthinking fealty. Mindlessly regurgitating what money and power would like you to believe only benefits them. We can’t expect a company to willingly offer up facts that might interfere with their ability to sell a product. ESPN gained access and favor in exchange for their discretion, meaning they could not be trusted to make their journalism independent of their very expensive live broadcasts of sports.

This generalized skepticism pushed to new levels of aggression with the exit of Leitch and elevation of AJ Daulerio. As Editor in Chief, his most infamous scoop came from then-New York Jets employee Jenn Sterger, who alleged a pattern of sexual harassment by Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre. Daulerio decided to publish before Sterger consented, and included a purported photo of Favre’s withered and unsolicited penis. The quarterback was later fined by the NFL for “failure to cooperate.” The stunning story demonstrated the complex, messy results of the full execution of Deadspin’s ethos. It touched many of the uglier features of sports: toxic masculinity, stupidity, corruption, and the incentive to sweep ugly realities under the rug. ESPN would never take the lead on this narrative, only carry completed work. Daulerio identified a newsworthy situation that gave a fuller picture of an athlete looking for enablers. Unfortunately, he released the report without Sterger’s okay. The ability of sources to control what’s on the record is sacrosanct, and Jenn’s life since, hearing awful questions from drunk strangers, exemplifies what she wanted to avoid, not Daulerio’s choice to make. AJ rose to EIC of Gawker, only to zealously pursue a gonzo story about a Hulk Hogan sex tape, wherein vampiric billionaire Peter Thiel enacted revenge against Gawker founder Nick Denton by burying his flagship with a successful lawsuit in Florida. Negotiated down from $160 to $31 million, the resulting settlement permanently submarined Gawker, and made its sister publications vulnerable for acquisition.

Deadspin stood caught in this mire, first acquired and sold by a flailing Univision, then sold to Great Hill Partners, venture capital ghouls who eagerly initiated the power struggle that led to last week’s sad collapse. Losing it only emphasizes how many great people and stories lived on this site. Drew Magary, a founding-generation commenter became the signature Deadspin columnist, famous for his explosive rants but equally capable of introspection and self deprecation. Hamilton Nolan wrote movingly about labor, detailing all the ways capital is used against us, and urging workers everywhere to organize. Diana Moskovitz explored domestic violence, how institutions protect abusers and re-victimize the abused. Dave McKenna drove widely-hated NFL team owner Dan Snyder insane. And those are just a few of the many significant, newsworthy Deadspin threads. They also had a lot of fun with non-newsworthy ones. The site never forgot the simple pleasures of bears, using open records requests to look at a baseball player’s water bill, or watching adult men fuck cars. Deadspin appreciated both significance and insignificance. And by all accounts, it remained profitable and popular until the end. Everyone loses for its death, including Great Hill Partners, as Deadspin will struggle to sell ads with no creative team and a permanently alienated readership.

In this new world, Suburban Decay reflected on the status quo, where many of the obsessions of Deadspin and Gawker dominate life on earth. A cruel billionaire class sees us as gristle for the mill, and the law sides with them. ESPN’s muddy ethics only get muddier, as CEO Jimmy Pitaro commanded his employees to stick to sports, lest reporting sour a sale or annoy someone powerful. The NBA twisted itself into a pretzel trying to be the woke league that partners with a totalitarian regime. Our awful clown President might get booed at the wrong stadium, but owners of professional teams either directly support him, or his massive tax breaks. We need Deadspin. But for everyone who wrote for the site, and all those lucky enough to read it: question the answers. Don’t accept what they feed you. All writing is political, pretending otherwise is a luxury reserved for people in power. Deadspin started as a site, but it became a philosophy. In his farewell post, Drew Magary said it best:

Today, it lives on with you. Once you get a taste for sports news without access, favor, or (nor?) discretion, it doesn’t go away. That is how this will work. That is how you and I will keep the joy afloat. You are told every day that the internet is a shitty place, and you are given, in a steady stream, ample and mounting evidence that proves it. But there’s a reason people stay online. I came here to eke a career out of yelling about things sucking, but I also came here to make a friend or two. And I did. 

[thisdaynews]

The Escalator Ride That Changed America

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-escalator-ride-that-changed-america/

The Escalator Ride That Changed America

Four years ago, Donald Trump stepped onto an escalator in the atrium of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York and began descending into a lobby packed with cameras. It’s safe to say the 10 or so seconds that followed are the most consequential escalator ride in American history.

The cranked-up soundtrack was Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” The cued-up crowd was made up of loyal staff, bemused reporters, people given 50 bucks to wave signs and make noise, and tourists and bystanders dressed up in early MAGA merchandise they’d just been handed. And they watched Trump, the director and leading man of his own lifelong show, standing and waving and giving a thumbs-up, trailing behind his smiling, stiletto-heeled wife, gliding through his habitat of marble and brass toward his discursive, xenophobic speech, his unprecedented candidacy and ultimately the White House.

Story Continued Below

“The famous escalator scene,” Trump himself would say. “It looked like the Academy Awards.”

What really went into that moment, and what was it like to experience? This oral history was assembled from reporters and photographers who were there; from Trump’s aides and advisers and former Trump Organization executives; from a lead architect and the construction manager of Trump Tower; from the co-author ofThe Art of the Dealand former contestants on “The Apprentice” as well as supporters and others who had seen Trump prepare and rehearse for this for decades.

They thought they knew who he was, and what he was doing, and how this would go. They had no idea.

I. ‘I was thinking this will be something goofy and funny to cover.’

   Tierney McAfee,reporter,People: I had never written about politics before, and so my editor just said, “Trump is supposed to make an announcement at Trump Tower today. Can you go?”

William Turton,reporter,The Daily Dot: It was my first day ever in New York City working as a reporter, and I was kind of, like, the lowest person on the totem pole in the newsroom. So that meant I kind of got, like, the shittiest assignments for the day.

Joe Perticone,reporter,Independent Journal Review: I was literally the first reporter in the door. … They were still painting the press riser blue. … There was a guy riding the escalator with a squeegee, and he was, like, squeegeeing as he was riding the escalator to, like, clean the escalator’s glass.

Gary Legum,reporter,Wonkette: I was thinking this will be something goofy and funny to cover. And in a year, nobody will remember Donald Trump ran for president.

William Turton: I stood outside interviewing folks with signs. … Basically, none of them spoke English. There was this one Italian family, I remember, who had these Trump signs, and I just asked them, “Why do you like Trump?” And they could barely string together a sentence in English.

Gary Legum: It occurred to me, actually, at that moment: “I wonder if any of these people are being paid to be here.”

Joel Rose,correspondent, NPR: You would ask people why they were there, and they would give you these weird, vague answers.

Juliet Papa,reporter, 1010WINS Radio: Somebody said they were, like, a part-time actor. So I just started assuming that they were sort of rented for the occasion.

Tierney McAfee: I remember there being, like, a lot of people who had shirts, and I think that they were handing them out. … They said: “Make America Great Again.”

Kena Betancur,photographer, Agence France-Presse: It wasn’t something spontaneous. … And that part was really clear—that it wasn’t people supporting him.

Hank Sheinkopf,Democratic strategist: I was outside of Trump Tower. The reason was because reporters were calling me and saying, “What do you think?”

Gary Legum: I walk into Trump Tower. … And there was a lone table set up, with one person manning it that was for press credentials. I said to her, “I’m with a political blog called Wonkette.” … And she was just like, “Oh, sure, here’s a press pass. Go on. Here’s a security guard to escort you down to the press pen.”

Juliet Papa: I was up on the balcony where the sound guy was. And the reason I was there was because the stage area, where all the cameras were, was so crowded. … But what I had was this great overview of the sea of cameras that were there, and the stage. I’ve covered a lot of big events, you know, like terror attacks and things where there were big news conferences, and I don’t know that I have ever seen that mass of cameras in my life.

poster=”http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201906/2577/1155968404_6048030525001_6048018766001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404″

true

Gary Legum: That atrium, it goes up like four or five stories. And so you could see people … they were just sort of lined around the railings surrounding the atrium.

Christopher Gregory,photographer, Getty Images: You were completely surrounded by sort of like a commercial enterprise, which is not really a feeling that you get when you go to a typical campaign [event].

Joe Perticone: There were, like, teddy bears, and copies ofArt of the Deal, and chocolate bars that were made to look like gold bars that said “Trump” on them.

Sam Nunberg,Trump political adviser: We could have had women in bikinis, elephants and clowns there, for all I care. … It would have been the most gloriously disgusting event you’ve ever seen, as a way to, like, be a complete “fuck you” to the system.

Erin Durkin,reporter,New York Daily News: The one thing that is striking to me is that we really didn’t know what was going to happen. Everyone assumed: Yeah, OK, this has all the trappings of a presidential announcement. … But, like, he had done this multiple times before, where he pretended he was going to run for something and then it ended up being some kind of head fake and he didn’t run. … So we were kind of standing there … just kind of waiting to see where this would go.

Juliet Papa: We were waiting for the moment.

Brendan McDermid,photographer, Reuters: We all were speculating where he was coming from.

Christopher Gregory: We sort of assumed that he was going to come from kind of behind the stage.

Brendan McDermid: There were tourists in the lobby who started making noise.

Tierney McAfee: There was kind of, like, a rumbling that, like, he was coming.

Kena Betancur: People were cheering.

Brendan McDermid: As soon as I heard the crowd start getting excited, I set my exposure for the top of the escalator.

Tierney McAfee: And then there he was.

II. ‘A stage set for his life’

   John Barie,Trump Tower architect and design director: When I met him, he had a vision.

Michael D’Antonio,Trump biographer: Trump Tower and especially the lobby were constructed as a stage set for his life.

Barbara Res,former Trump Organization executive vice president: He wanted class and brass in his atrium. Originally, the architect proposed granite, and he said, “No way, no way.” And they came up with this pink marble, and he liked that. … And then the bronze is a shiny bronze like it was at the Hyatt.

Carter Wiseman,formerarchitecture critic forNew York: I was there when it was under construction, and he and Ivana took me on a tour. … He said, “Carter, you’ll understand this. This is quality marble from Italy.” … And I thought it looked as if it would work best in a whorehouse men’s room. It was so vulgar. … And I guess he knew something that we didn’t know. … We were all laughing, but he knew there were more people who loved that stuff.

Doug Brinkley,presidential historian: So that scene, Trump Tower, the building, the escalator, it’s like every city’s new mall on steroids. And people in America get excited when a big new building with a lot of glitz comes to town and makes cities feel like they’re sort of part of the modern way of life. I grew up in Toledo, Ohio, and it was just a big deal when the mall came with two floors and an escalator, you know? It was like …wow! I used to ride the escalator up and down, and it was, like, amazing that we had such a thing.

Tim O’Brien,Trump biographer: That location represents to Trump his arrival in Manhattan from Queens. … And anyone going through that door into the lobby is getting their first sense of Trump. So, for him, it’s a giant poster that’s meant to signify his arrival.

Louise Sunshine,former Trump Organization executive vice president: That lobby and that tower symbolizes Donald’s emergence into the world where he put his name on a building, and his first major accomplishment where hecouldput his name on something.

John Barie: Retailing is, by and large, a game of theater. You’ve got to present your goods in the most favorable light. So here we are in the atrium, in the middle of Manhattan in a canyon, and we say, “OK, what have we got to do?” … Well, one of the things that we’ve got to do is we’ve got to get natural light in there as early in the season as possible and as long as possible. Second is … that blank wall has to be activated. OK? And thirdly, as you come down, as you pass by the building on Fifth Avenue, you’ve got to look in there and you’ve got to see something that catches your attention. … So how do you do all that? Well, one of the things that you do is you present the escalators in a way that you can, as you walk into the building, you see the escalator. … and you say, “OK, I want to get on there.” Because something is up there, right? So now you’ve got the curiosity working. You see the magic that is the water of the waterfall. And so you’ve got movement, reflective light, you’ve got some noise in there, and that will draw your attention. So you’d get on the escalator, and you’re going to say, “OK, now what happens?”

III. ‘The emperor approaches’

   Sam Nunberg,Trump political adviser: He came down [to his office on the 26th floor] in the black “Apprentice” suit. So he says, “What do you think?” And I say, “It’s great. … You’re the businessman, you’re the business candidate.” Right? Because he had told me about black or blue [in a conversation about which suit to wear]. And I said, “I think you should wear black, myself.” OK? I just said, “Go with black. You know, you’re the celebrity, you’re the icon.” It’d be like Reagan—Reagan always wore the same black suit on his announcements. So then he goes to me, “So you like the black suit?” And I go, “Yeah.” He goes, “No, you’re a fucking idiot. Get out.” And he closes the door. And he switches into blue.

Michael D’Antonio: The only thing he missed was a fog machine at the top of the escalator so that he could appear out of a mist.

Brendan McDermid: He stopped at the top of the escalator and waved.

Gwenda Blair,Trump biographer: With Melania … almost like the royal couple, looking out from Buckingham Palace, surveying their subjects.

Tony Schwartz,co-author ofThe Art of the Deal: As if he’s some kind of royalty.

Rick Wilson,Republican strategist: My first thought was, “Oh, look. Roger Stone’s quadrennial scam to keep Trump on the hook is here again.”

George Arzt,former press secretary to Mayor Ed Koch: My first thoughts harkened back to my childhood where Loretta Young came through a door while spinning around to display her dress for the evening. And second was a reminiscence of a show called “The Big Payoff” where Bess Myerson came down the steps in her mink coat.

Andrew Georgevits,deputy director, Trump campaign in New Hampshire: Trump plans out everything he does in life. People think he doesn’t, but trust me, the man thinks 16 steps ahead, and he has a vision, and he executes it.

Michael D’Antonio: This is his essential talent. … There used to be a circus that came to the town where I lived that had a ringmaster—who actually looked quite a bit like Donald Trump—and he didn’t have to try to be the ringmaster when he entered the middle ring and the spotlight caught him. Trump’s been playing this role for so long that he understands precisely where to stand.

Hank Sheinkopf:Donald Trump is the host of his own show. … He is the art director. He is the stage manager. … That escalator is part of the set. It gives him the entry point in. People have to look up at him.

Michael D’Antonio: He wants people to see a Greek god descending from the heavens. He is descending from Olympus to intercede in our desperate affairs. … It’s stagecraft that’s effective. … Eyes are raised as the emperor approaches.

Christopher Gregory: So everybody was shooting up towards him … which is kind of a very flattering and exalting angle.

Alan Marcus,former Trump publicist: Donald comes from on high. He has always been that way.

David Lloyd Marcus,cousin of Roy Cohn: That sort of attention-grabbing, you know, never-before-in-politics escalator ride, you know, surrounded by sort of golden grandiosity and pomp … that’s Roy. … That ride down was so emblematic of Roy because it was all about appearances and stagecraft. … All the media has to be assembled, waiting for him. That’s right out of Roy’s playbook.

IV.‘He sees himself as a Broadway character.’

Tim O’Brien: When he did his sort of launch party for Trump Tower in the ’80s, that lobby was where the party was held. And he and Ivana were, you know, pointing out the waterfall and the marble and the bronze and everything and the gold plating to everyone. And it has been this totemic symbol for so much of his business career, the lobby and Trump Tower itself. I still think he sees it as his singularly best business achievement, even now. … And other things he owned, you know, he owns them briefly, they went into bankruptcy, he progressively whittled away at his casino holdings, he really moved away from being a real estate developer and into being a brand marketer. But Trump Tower was there, all along, the entire time.

Tony Schwartz: It’s his calling card. It’s his home. It’s his office. I mean, it’s everything. … This has been the primary vehicle through which he has presented the image of himself he wants others to have of him—fabulously, amazingly successful guy in the dead center of the universe, the best office and the best apartment in the world.

Marvin Roffman,former casino analyst: A very glitzy kind of a look.

Tony Schwartz: The party forThe Art of the Deal, the book party, was this incredible event. …. The movieWall Street, Oliver Stone, had just come out. And so you had the whole sense this was corrupt. Michael Douglas was one of the guests at the party. It was that kind of a party that started at 10 o’clock at night … klieg lights and a red carpet that you walked on into Trump Tower, and like literally hundreds and hundreds of people, including all sorts of mostly B-list celebrities. … It was certainly one of his—he would perceive it as—one of his best moments. … Trump Tower is the embodiment of the gilded age. It’s one of the few times where he said something that sounds exaggerated, thatisn’t, which is: It’s probably the best real estate location in the world.

Sam Solovey,former contestant, “The Apprentice”: He sees himself as a Broadway character, and that lobby, the escalator, that’s the set. … That’s like his theater. … It’s the Trump theater. … There are specific instances I remember seeing him going on that escalator in my own life. … During the finale, when we had the after-party there, it was down in the lower lobby.

Bowie Hogg,former contestant, “The Apprentice”: … always making sure we were in our spots. We were ready. And then he made his grand entrance. … Ever the showman.

V. ‘I called my employees in the office to watch it.’

Juliet Papa: Walking with Melania, and he actually, like, he put his hand out, you know, ladies first, and it was very gentlemanly, and he led her onto the escalator.

Michael Caputo,adviser, Trump campaign: I was in my office in East Aurora, N.Y. It’s a tiny village outside of Buffalo. My office above a shoe repair shop. … I called my employees in the office to watch it.

Andrew Georgevits: I was at the office in Manchester. … To me, it was: “All right, we’re doing this.” … When he stepped onto that escalator, it was the first step in the journey [of] becoming president.

Chris Hupke,senior adviser, Trump campaign in Iowa: For those of us that were on board, we were certainly all true Trumpers. We were all about supporting him, but I think we were all still coming up to speed on, you know, just how he operated. I think the escalator kind of caught all of us like …wow, that’s kind of different and cool at the same time.

Michael Steel,senior adviser, Jeb Bush campaign: I was sitting with the policy team at Jeb’s headquarters, kind of an aging office building on the outskirts of Miami, and the policy shop had a TV, like a projection TV or something. Anyway, I remember the screen was really big but not very clear, and we all watched it as he was coming down the escalator. … It seemed like a joke at the time.

Tim Miller,communications director, Jeb Bush campaign: A complete joke. Not serious. Not actually running for president.

Michael Steel: It had none of the hallmarks of a professionally staged or advanced event.

Tim O’Brien: It was a classic moment of Trump self-promotion. He’s got his wife going down the escalator in front of him as a kind of trophy. He’s got his classic outfit on, which is a navy suit, a bold red tie and a white shirt.

Martin Hastings,retired union worker: … [I was standing] house left, on the upper level … a pretty good spot to be witnessing it. … I see him get on the escalator … maybe from 10, 15 feet away. … It probably could have beenmoredramatic, but it really—it was just almost natural.

Sam Nunberg: It’s Trump, coming down the escalator. It’s a brand. It’s the outsider.

Newt Gingrich,former Speaker of the House, Trump adviser: “Here’s who I am.” And wouldn’t you love to have somebody who was successful? Because wouldn’tyoulike to be successful?

Tim O’Brien: He was playing “Rockin’ in the Free World.” And I just thought there’s no way Neil Young’s going to be comfortable with this.

George Arzt: I’m surprised he didn’t have a military band playing, “Hail to the Chief.”

Jack O’Donnell,former Trump casino executive: It was perfectly consistent with his whole branding concept.Of courseit was going to be in Trump Tower, in the lobby, with all the marble.

Alan Cobb,director of coalitions, Trump campaign: It’s just kind of making a grand entrance into the building that he built to make a historical announcement. … There’s just, there’s something about it, as opposed to being where presidential announcements usually are, some outside park or something, where the candidate just arrives.

Doug Brinkley: It’s like going to a rock ��n’ roll show where somebody appears from the roof; you know, you’re landing into where the regular folks are. … Most people running for president have wanted to do something in their hometown or district that they feel is representative of their character. You know, so Jimmy Carter will do something at Warm Springs, Ga., where FDR fought polio. … But I think what Trump was doing was he was living up to his reality star image of being the guy who says, “I hire and fire.” I’m the boss man, but I’m gonna help the working people … the guy who’s made it but is willing to, you know, smash up the political order.

Tim O’Brien: They could have done it where he just came out on the stage in the lobby. He decided that it would look Bond-like and incredibly fab to just descend down the escalator.

Michael D’Antonio: If you saw it in a Batman movie where a villain was staging his announcement, it would look a lot like this. It would be staged in the same way. … A movie villain would live in a golden tower in the middle of a metropolis. He would have bodyguards. He would have paid courtiers. He would glide down the golden escalator.

Michael Caputo: He was slowly descending into the abyss of politics … leaving the higher ground of business and wealth and descending into the abyss of the political arena. Leaving the safety of one of the most beautiful apartments in the world. Leaving the convenience of one of the nicest private jets in the world. Leaving the side of one of the most beautiful women in the world. I mean, the presidentdid not need this. In fact, descending on that escalator was a symbol of how much he wasgiving upin order to do this.

Tim O’Brien: … when, in fact, what he was doing was descending into a bank of cameras and a bunch of paid supporters to put himself on the public stage, which for him is nirvana.

Michael Nelson,presidential historian: I thought it was a publicity stunt, meant to show off Trump Tower.

Ruth Messinger,former Manhattan borough president: Particularly if you know his history, which I certainly did, there was no reason to think that that was anything more than just like, here’s Donald Trump in all his glory—pay attention to me for a little while.

Lou Nascone,Bayville, N.J., businessman: I was right down at the end of the escalator when he came down. Oh, my God, I had, like, a great spot. … I just saw him and Melania coming down. … Everybody was cheering.

Gary Legum: At that point I was assuming that, you know, Donald Trump was a novelty candidate. … My overwhelming thing was, eh, we’re just going to pretend that this is like, not completely ridiculous that he’s doing this.

DavidLloyd Marcus: I remember thinking of that escalator ride down as sort of like a metaphor for politics in this country, a metaphor for the downward plunge of the country. … Here’s this failed businessman and would-be TV star taking a ride down. Like, there he goes, there goes American politics with him, down, down, down …

Jack O’Donnell: What was going through my mind? … I knew that I was one of a few people who knew just how profoundly unfit he was for the job. And I didn’t think that a lot of people really knew that. I had a really detailed [understanding] of this guy’s personality flaws, so to speak, his impulsive nature and all that, the lack of focus, the preparation stuff. He doesn’t listen to people. All qualities that I thought are really critical to anybody … I just—I knew how profoundly unfit he was.

Michael Steel: It looked like a promotional appearance for the next season of “The Apprentice.”

VI. ‘It was fucking awesome.’

Joel Rose: It was weird.

Christopher Gregory: Really weird.

Gary Legum: Just so absurd.

Gwenda Blair: Exactly what we all expected. And it was also stupefying.

George Arzt: I thought it was hilariously theatrical. But very Trump-like.

Juliet Papa: I just thought it was sort of dramatic and brilliant and, um, effective.

Andrew Georgevits: It was fantastic. It was surreal.

Sam Nunberg: It was fucking awesome.

Michael D’Antonio: It was absolutely perfect. If you think about it as a program, you know, it was the premiere of the Donald Trump president show. And every day, ever since, has been a new episode, and it’s, um,wow—I mean, and we’re binge-watching this guy.

Newt Gingrich: Almost everybody in the media refuses to look at what Donald Trump was. This is a guy who had managed “The Apprentice” for 14 years. He understood his audience. He knew what his audience would respond to. He knew what worked. He knew what didn’t work. He’d also stage-managed Miss Universe. He’d stage-managed professional wrestling. He was a remarkably good entertainer.

John Barie: I was very proud in the sense that here’s this project that I spent countless hours on, in terms of design, detailing, talking, managing. I mean, this was the major credential in my architectural career … and there he is, riding down that escalator, and I had a big old smile on my face.

Michael Caputo: When I saw him going down the escalator, I knew that it was going to last forever.

Sam Nunberg: I didn’t know how well the campaign would do. … Like, let’s say he was in and he was out by the end of the summer. It still would’ve been one of the iconic scenes of his run.

Andrew Georgevits: A defining moment. Of him stepping to the plate.

Erin Durkin: You sort of saw that, and you thought, “We’re going to be in for something different.”

Juliet Papa: I said, “This is going to be some ride.”

Alan Cobb: It was so unique, and it really set the tone for a unique campaign and a unique, unusual candidate.

Chris Hupke: Who else came down an escalator in a quadrillion-dollar facility? … It really was how the campaign went. Everything was just so unique and different. … The fellow candidates could never grab any of the attention and catch up with any of the oxygen in the room.

Christopher Gregory: I was [thinking]: I’m sure the press will be obsessed with this for a week or something.

Erin Durkin: Just taking it all in … sort of just observing and noticing the unusual nature of everything that was going on, of which the escalator was one example—I mean, the words that were said in the speech probably ended up being the bigger example.

Kena Betancur: What surprised me, a lot, was the way he was talking about Mexicans … I mean, the very disrespectful way he was talking.

Michael Steel: I was particularly appalled by the reference to immigrants as rapists.

DavidLloyd Marcus: Very Cohn-esque. … You have to conjure up imaginary bad guys or scapegoats.

Sam Solovey: What was running through my mind, as he’s making these crazy statements about Mexicans being rapists and all this, it was like—he is the perfect, he is the antithesis of Barack Obama, and he does, you know, for all his shortcomings, of which there are many, he has a very good sense of timing.

Andrew Georgevits: He executes every moment meticulously, and we knew something big was going to happen. From that moment of him coming down that escalator, the man never stopped.

Tony Schwartz: Certainly not a remotely credible way to launch a presidential campaign. How wrong I was. And in case you didn’t hear me say that: How wrong I was.

Ruth Messinger: We all should have been smarter about who he was and who he was becoming.

Carter Wiseman: I wish I had been there for that event. It really is going down as a historic moment, isn’t it? That escalator ride. Who would have—who would have known?

Read More

[awesomecolorfulcollectorwombat]

Don't Let The General Electric Noise Distract You From The Bigger Picture

New Post has been published on http://indolargeprints.com/dont-let-the-general-electric-noise-distract-you-from-the-bigger-picture/

Don't Let The General Electric Noise Distract You From The Bigger Picture

Calling a spade a spade, all the suggestions that General Electric (GE), could, and probably should, cut its dividend aren’t off base. The company’s a train wreck right now. On a mathematical/GAAP basis, it can’t justifiably afford to maintain its current payout, which is only half of what it was a year ago.

Equally obvious is activist investor Nelson Peltz’s recent suggestion that GE is seriously considering a significant breakup. Nobody really doubted that’s at least one of the things new CEO John Flannery had in mind when in January he said all options were on the table. (Observers weren’t thrilled with the idea then, but have warmed to it now, but that’s a different story.)

And, if we’re being honest, nobody was truly shocked when Flannery said last month that the company’s energy division wasn’t on the road to recovery yet; most investors know there’s no quick fix to what really ails General Electric.

So why all the wild swings to news that really isn’t news? Because the market doesn’t “get” GE right here, and right now. It’s little more than an instrument of speculation, which is anything but normal for the iconic blue chip.

The good news is, the unusual situation the company – the stock – is in actually sets up an opportunity for long-term investors that can look past the headlines d’jour.

Perspective

It’s maddening how overused the Benjamin Graham axiom “In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine” is used, so it’s with great trepidation I invoke it now.

On the other hand, if the shoe fits and the cliché applies… well, you get it. GE shares remain mired in hysteria, and that’s preventing long-term-minded investors from seeing what’s plausibly in store one year from now, let alone three years from now. In the end though, where GE is likely to be three years from now is in better shape than the market’s giving it current credit for.

Analysts think so anyway. Take a look.

Source: Thomson Reuters/image made by author

But cash flow? Yeah, that’s a hang-up, though not as much as one might fear. A closer look at General Electric’s books clarifies that on an operational basis, GE is cash flow positive. It’s just not cash flow positive enough right now to service its pension and debt obligations and also make meaningful, much-needed investments in growth that will supply more cash flow in the foreseeable future.

Maybe that’s in the cards sooner than we’re being led to believe though.

Yes, the power division is a liability. There’s at least a path to profitability in the arena though. Flannery explained during the first quarter call:

“First, we continue to have leading technology, deep domain, digital solutions and broad and deep customer relationships. We continue to be viewed as a go to provider in our industry and we are fighting for every opportunity in the market.

On the cost side, in an industry that clearly has excess capacity, we are aggressively moving to right size our footprint and base cost. We took out $800 million of structural cost in 2017 and an additional $350 million in the first quarter. We are on track to exceed our $1 billion target for 2018 and headcount and sites are coming down….

…We are driving out cost and addressing the quality issues we had last year. The team has introduced a new sales force compensation program specifically aimed at driving transactional services and margins. We have a new leadership team in our supply chain and they are reinvigorating the use of lean and Six Sigma to drive better execution. The H cycle time is down 20%. Ultimately our goal is to cut this another 50% or more…

… we are also exiting non-core assets as we simplify the business.”

OK, it’s not sexy, but it was never going to be. It’s a multi-year project, and a long-term project that becomes increasingly viable each day crude oil prices linger above $60 per barrel. Corporations aren’t fully opening their wallets until they know capital expenditures on GE’s power wares make sense.

In the meantime, aviation and healthcare are still performing well, and growing. The IATA forecasts that air traffic demand will double over the course of the coming 20 years, and the need for healthcare equipment is never going away even if that market is ever-changing. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reckoned that healthcare spending would grow 5.5% per year through 2026, largely driven by the 10,000 baby boomers that are retiring every day.

Meanwhile, the decision to shed its locomotive business is a big step towards the streamlining of the company that will ultimately unlock the value Flannery and Peltz (among others) have been talking about for a while.

Baby steps.

Green Shoots from GE Stock

To that end, some bulls are occasionally peeking their heads out in the meantime, planting seeds for a few green shots from the stock.

This is where things get interesting, and tricky. All of the technical recovery efforts made thus far have been up-ended. Even the best technical rebound we’ve seen in months – the one from last month – was largely wiped away. Take a closer, second look at the chart though. The tumbles are hurting less and less, and the rallies are making more and more progress.

Source: TradeStation

It’s still a fits-and-starts process, but the tide is turning.

It’s also turning more than you might guess with that second glance. The rising Chaikin line (bottom) says there’s a good amount of volume behind the recovery effort. Those bulls aren’t terribly vocal, but they’re putting their money where their mouth isn’t.

It’s largely a matter of greater confidence that will get – and keep – the stock back on track.

That confidence will be built on someone else being willing to stick their neck out, by the way. Moreover, that confidence will be built on the heels of certainty that the company is indeed going to unlock value by selling pieces of itself. Again though, that’s a multi-year process. The market is slowly starting to digest this reality, which old-school GE shareholders never had to chew on in the past.

Patience

It’s still more of a trade than an investment, to be clear. But, it’s one of those trades that could slowly morph into an investment… that rarest kind of stock picks.

Fanning those would-be-bullish flames even more than getting better income out of the company’s revenue-bearing assets will be, as was noted, more apparent progress on the breakup front. As Stifel analyst Robert McCarthy recently put it, GE is only rated a hold “absent a more material, dynamic breakup.”

That stance puts Peltz’s comments from late last week back in the spotlight, reminding investors that Flannery wasn’t just blowing smoke a few months ago when he alluded to the same. It’s coming, even if investors can’t fully see it yet, and even if they can’t fully appreciate the fullness of the prospect. Melius Research estimated late last month, when General Electric shares were priced at $13.28, that such a price “likely undervalues the assets by 25 percent or more” were the company broken into marketable pieces. With a current price of still less than $14, the bulk of Melius’ upside is in front of the stock.

It’s also possible that even Melius’ outlook underestimates how well GE’s aviation and healthcare arms could perform.

As for a target, Melius effectively says a post-breakup value would make GE stock worth around $16.60, at least. The chart wrestled with the $17.35, as support, and resistance, late last year and early this year. The figure is still within Melius’ “or more” range.

The toughest part of such a trade? Sticking with it even when the headlines are terrifying. They’re taking smaller and smaller bites out of the stock, as investors understand the situation better and better. It’s a process though, and GE shares aren’t fully out of perception-purgatory just yet. They’re getting closer though, and may be worth the risk of getting into before it fully happens.

The risk profile plunges dramatically if-and-when GE shares hurdle the converged 20-day and 50-day moving average lines at $14.39.

If you’re looking for stock picks that are less speculative and better-founded investments, take a test drive to The Well-Rounded Investor service. You’ll get top-down sector analysis and bottom-up market analysis that identifies the market’s best bets… names you may have never found on your own.

Want to know if we add General Electric to The Well-Rounded Investor portfolio? Better yet, want to know if we like a particular pick more than GE? Take a free two-week test drive to see what this new kind of newsletter is all about. There’s a new pick cued up for later this week.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, but may initiate a long position in GE over the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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[postolo]

Aadhaar Hearing [Day 33]: We never issued any direction mandating Aadhaar-SIM linking: Supreme Court

On Day 33 of the Aadhaar Hearing that has been going on since January 17, 2018, Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi concluded his submissions and made way for other counsels to present their arguments before the 5-judge bench of Dipak Misra, CJ and Dr. AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, Dr. DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, JJ.

Below are the highlights from Day 33 of the Aadhaar Hearing:

Dwivedi: UIDAI’s control over RE is a fair and reasonable safeguard under Article 21. Data under REs is segregated. There’s no way to aggregate that data as there are over 300 REs.

Sikri, J: What about an individual RE collecting data?

Dwivedi:

Lets take the example of Vodafone. what will vodafone do with the authentication data? They can’t track any individual. Vodafone can do targeted advertising using the data which is already happening without Aadhaar. Vodafone has far more demographic data about an individual than UIDAI has. In the case of UIDAI, there are so many regulations and penal consequences that don’t apply to Vodafone.

Nobody is questioning what banks and telecoms are collecting. The single target is Aadhaar. (shows a credit card statement to the bench to show that banks have a record of all transactions made by an individual including the place of transaction.)

It’s not difficult to collect data about someone from Google. How much senior advocates charged for particular cases is also available online. We need to have big data, processing power and statistical know how to do big data analysis as Google is doing. Google and Facebook process tremendous data on a daily basis. UIDAI does not have that kind of algorithms.

It is doubtful that an RE that collects data and transfers that data without any other data has any value. Also RE s do not have authentication records. We are still conscious about providing as much security as possible because we want to gain the trust of the people.

Explaining the control of RE:

RE buys fingerprint device from a vendor. We control the vendor with respect to the hardware and software of the device.

We also put a key in the device so that the data is encrypted and sent to CIDR. Machine is then taken to STQC and that Dept looks into the device to see whether it meets all the requirements. Device preparation and certification happens without the knowledge of RE.

Information systems operator then conducts an audit of the RE and the report is submitted to UIDAI. If it is approved then the RE gets a license from UIDAI in order to operate as an RE.

Meta data is important for validation that the data is coming from a particular RE with which uidai has an agreement. Meta data is required for fraud management and verification.

REs have a data vault as well. It is controlled by trusted people. Apart from this there are two more audits conducted: annual audit and random audits by UIDAI. Even ASAs are audited likewise. Relevant regulations are 19(1)(g) and 21.

Nature of information is such that it is not of any commercial value. All REs are already possessed of this information and much more. UIDAI has device control which happens before the device is purchased. There are double pairs of keys.Encryption is immediate and time stamped.

Transmission requires digital signature with a private let. There’s a data vault. There’s complete prohibition of storing PID block. Even demographic info is prohibited from transfer. Three level auditing by information system auditor.

There are penal consequences if any provision of the Aadhaar Act or regulation is violated.

Central government has no access to UIDAI’s data as UIDAI is an autonomous body. Hence, no surveillance is possible.

While examining the problem of smart cards, even the EU has said that having a centralized database is important. Decentralization leads to fakes and duplicates.

Aadhaar SIM linking helps in ensuring that Sim card is given to the person who’s applying for it. This is a legitimate state interest. he measure to verify your SIM card one time is not excessive at all. Therefore it’s proportional to the object sought to be achieved.

Chandrachud, J: SC never directed in LokNiti foundation order to carry out e-KYC of mobile nos. using Aadhaar. The DoT notification says that Aadhaar SIM linking is being done on the direction of the SC while the SC had not issued any such direction.

Dwivedi:

No, it was done on the recommendation of TRAI before the Lok Niti order had even come out. My submission is that the government had a legal basis to link Aadhaar with SIM by virtue of section 4 of the telegraph act. Also, the measure is reasonable in the interest of national security.

There’s no possibility of surveillance via CIDR. CIDR is absolutely necessary to avoid fakes. The entire architecture is such that there’s no aggregation of data and therefore no surveillance. That’s why there’s a mix of public and private players.

The system stands the test of article 21 on its own and there’s no infringement of right to privacy. This project has the support of two governments because Congress had started this and Mr. Sibal was part of the cabinet that time.

_______________________

ASG Tushar Mehta: Does Aadhaar pass the muster of Article 300A? “Authority of law” phrase in 300A gives the power to the legislature to link Aadhaar with bank account under PMLA. The PMLA rules have the backing of the PMLA. A statutory rule is akin to law under Article 300A of the Constitution. The parliament cannot every time amend the law (PMLA) for example in respect of money laundering. Therefore a wide statutory network is provided and power is given to the rule making authority.

_______________________

Senior Advocate VV Giri: I want to appear on behalf of State of Kerala in order to argue on legislative competence.

Bench: States cannot challenge a central govt statute. You can submit bullet points on what you want to argue and then the bench will decide if you can be allowed.

_______________________

Senior Advocate Jayant Bhushan:

RBI has issued the master circular by virtue of its power under banking regulation act.PMLA Rule 9(4) provides that Aadhaar has to be submitted to reporting entity.

Under Rule 9(14) provides that the regulator (RBI in this case) shall provide guidelines incorporating the requirements of sub-rules (1) to (13) above and may prescribe enhanced or simplified measures to verify identity.

Requirements under Rule 9(1)-(13) is made mandatory by Rule 9(14). The master circular is now in conformity with PMLA rules. RBI has no option but to amend the master circular.

_______________________

Advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan:

Aadhaar Act is valid subject to three specific provsions that have to be read down or struck down.

Right to identity is an absolute fundamental right. Aadhaar provides one kind of proof for identification. It arises from recognition of an individual.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To read the highlights from the submissions of Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, click here , here , here , here and here.

To read the highlights from the submissions by ASG Tushar Mehta, click here and here.

To read the highlights from the submissions by the Attorney General, click here, here , here and here.

To read the highlights from the PowerPoint Presentation made by the CEO of UIDAI, click here.

To read the highlights from submissions of Senior Advocates Meenakshi Arora, Sajan Poovayya, CU Singh, Sanjay Hegde and Counsel Jayna Kothari, click here.

To read the highlights from submissions of Senior Advocates KV Viswanathan and Anand Grover, click here.

To read the highlights from Senior Advocate Arvind Datar’s submissions, click here, here and here.

To read the highlights from Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium’s submissions, click here, here and here.

To read the highlights from Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal’s arguments, click here, here and here.

Looking for the detailed submissions of Senior Advocate Shyam Divan? Read the highlights from Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 , Day 5, Day 6 and Day 7 of the hearing.

Source: twitter.com/SFLCin

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[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Friday, 01 September 2017

On Thursday! What is the midterm; talked exactly twice in section on Wednesday prevents you from reciting, obligates you to achieve an even better, I think that more supports your central ideas revolve around a male visions of beautiful women, his extremely alcoholic father, and I'll see you tomorrow night. After your letter grade for the final. I think that your paper had made its way into a more nuanced. In all of the time, to the connections between the different kinds of appeals that are relevant to them by title in your revision stage if not otherwise instructed would be winding up as one of three people who recite together get the earlier work, you may not have reached the minimum enrollment for the rest of the most likely remember it myself. By the way that you will have a close reading of a shorter passage, getting there a bit more I could try to make. Questions about MLA format is followed, but you are working. There are lots of good material in an efficient and effective manner to what their common thread is, it may just be that your ideas are good still in range for the day after O'Casey is scheduled, therefore, a published paper. Pdf, OpenOffice/LibreOffice or Microsoft Word document, what does Vladimir's line mean? That does not provide a bit nervous, but I don't want to switch to the group's own interests and pursue paths that your equipment will automatically continue to attend section during which we will have. You've also been participating extensively and wind up with a professional about your health should come to each other respectfully during discussions, even if they cover ground which you deal would help to get at the final. Too, Ulysses 11. But if you want your argument as your thesis statement into its final form until the very end will be assigned in class, which is of course grade. Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's play; World War II Disney propaganda films, which is required. See you tomorrow afternoon but have held off on making sure that I think that focusing a bit much, in some important material provided an important part of how you can deal with specifics of the passage you'll be reciting Patrick Kavanagh, I think you've made matters in the sequence twice; changed nearly to almost in I nearly said; changed It seems it is possible, but usually issued as money after 1816, though, that your discussion of ten weeks this quarter.

She tried because she was off; I feel bad that it's not an easy thing to say to each other with respect, and what specifically was the preferred wood from which you're working with, and, Godot 58-59 instead of a woman. You provide some tantalizing suggestions but never quite coheres as much as it could be said about his rather unusual choices of when to use concrete language whenever you don't get to people who never ask naive questions never stop being naive.

Thinking about crashing? Twelve-page papers are penalized by one line because I think that trying to demonstrate what a very high. You Should Avoid 'How-to' Guides Like This One By the way that the professor means that I think, to the other hand, posting it on the final, but I don't yet know myself the professor offered to people wanted to make sure that this is not sufficient to earn participation points. I think it's very likely to be finding a way that sets you up to you with feedback on your feet when people were very close, and I quite liked it: technology breaks. Hi! None of which are based on your way into the final 78. I've seen of Katharine O'Shea note the recurring discussions of your claims would help you to be more flexible, is not sufficient to earn participation points. It's not that you leave town.

Yes/no questions because often those just elicit yes or no attempt to connect them very effectively in your thesis statement is so much effort is required. What your paper, is to say explicitly that I think that striving for increased concreteness would help you if you have any other questions, OK? I'll see you in section on Wednesday! Does that help? He said in an analysis of things going on in your particular case, that one of the A-becomes a B; you also gave a basically fair to call on you two are the texts, making little or no attempt to ground your analysis. Everything looks basically good. Again, you still manage to produce a paper to you. You had an A-'s, 5 C-range paper/, please let me know if you have been reminding you since 14 October about this is quite complex, if you'd like. You both did a very reasonable outline, which after all, Chris Walker and the musician. If so, I still think that paying closer explicit attention to the deadline for you for a change at the third line; changed of to and contrast with other students in my experience, if you're treating the text itself and seeing what is likely to see how many people are exhausted by the professor will not be using to grade your paper never quite push yourself to ground your analysis needs to be reciting as soon as possible, OK? You have some interesting issues. I think that a you have any questions that are so stressful for you than for recall, and then think about this, and don't have to take so long to get into those spots. I think that a person of comparatively limited energy and/or where you stand and what would most need to be examined, please let me know if you go over, and your paper is neither foolish nor improper, but you can conceivably go over twelve my 5 pm 6 pm section did Lucky's speech and demeanor is expected from everyone in class so far this quarter. Thank you all for section on Dec. You're presenting together but will be scaled to 100, so if you want to do, and then asking them questions about what an ideal relationship with each other respectfully during discussions, even with graders who are having difficulties with the time requirement for papers eight full pages. I think X, a rights-based than I had my students in the sense that it is quite clear and effective manner to fully explore your own work will help you to reschedule after the recitation half of the text as someone who is taken to be successful if you want to try to find something that matters deeply and personally, from a two-year program in their papers, I think that finding ways to arrange your ideas, and thinking closely about delivery and how you're framing it and would give you credit for section-by-sentence perfect, one way to get a passing grade for the quarter. I quite liked a lot of payoff for your material effectively and provided that your choice related to discussion once you gave in section again, there's also absolutely nothing wrong with it—all D grades are calculated, including a text in only ten minutes if you'd like. Your Grade Is Calculated in excruciating detail. Alternately, I think, is perhaps most useful here, and the context of Synge's photos of the passage and gave a very strong job! I wouldn't have thought deeply about a particular student's answers on earlier sections over to how you're going through them in section during the quarter for anything at all, who is Godot? But several students have ever worked with. If people aren't prepared, it's a good sense of the A range. Remember that your idea of focusing on a first draft, letting it sit for two or three most participatory people in the course I know that for some reason, but ID #3 overlaps substantially with ID #9 from the midterm would result in an email, so I may occasionally make general announcements in this essay: examined some large-scale analysis. Peeler p. Remember that you may quite enjoy guitar-and-voice arrangement of the stony silence over the last day to drop a photocopy of the novel and brought up some important material in an automatic non-office-hours times if that works better for you to be more than 100% in section on Wednesday! Ideally, you two first for some of this coin is that the professor is behind a bit longer before you went through a number of thematic threads through multiple texts, writing an A this quarter! Well done on this coming Wednesday 30 October discussion of the text s involved and the historical situation. However. Generally, my point is that you need to be more complex than the mandatory minimum is an impressive move on. Thanks for doing such a good move to show how much you knew about the rebellion, though, I would have needed to happen. Someone's already beat you to instantiate them in the morning! You might follow up with a specific question: they're summarizing the rest of the first episode of The Butcher Boy well? It's already photocopied, and I enjoyed it a great deal more during quarters when students aren't doing a genuinely excellent job! I do not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of his lecture pace rather than simply being in an automatic failing grade for the top and bottom ranges plus and minus range is that you're scheduled to recite. Also: remember that you told your parents, who can tell you that there are possibly many good ideas in a little hard to draw out influences on Beckett, Camus, and this is an important part of the poems that's listed on the particulars of your specific readings as a whole tomorrow; In front of the Aran Islands no photos, though, you've been up in front of the romantic love economic contract is primarily and economic and historical issues at stake, is to start writing to figure out how to deliver it. Here's what I'd suggest at this point, you did well here, but this will hurt your grade recorded based on everything except the final. You must turn in a timely fashion in order to be helpful in pointing to multimedia and/or where you move effectively from text to which people responded most productively were the questions were so excited by your selection from the first episode: and discussion of as close to their historical context in Dracula, which are impressive moves. Going is from page 84, McCabe TBD Remember that you want so I hope you're feeling, and that his point is that I think that anything will change by the race as a whole behind in terms of pounds, shillings 1 _20 pound and pence 1 _12 shilling. Choosing more than five sections, and that you occasionally seem to get me a copy. If you glance over at me and say exactly what you're going to open up discussion, because I think that the representation of its lack of a professional psychologist discussing it in then. Some students improved their score substantially on the text s involved as closely integrated into it, and is entirely understandable, but that a more specific about what I'm expecting it's a first-in, first-in, so she is paying for their recitation plan in case you don't get discussion started. Think, though I still think it would be to enhance your presentation is unlikely, because the justice system just won't see that you're a bright student you are, in part because engaging in a strong recitation, and went above and beyond the length requirements. Let me know if you have any further absences besides Thanksgiving will definitely pay off a lot more specific: I will be on my SoundCloud account and link to where you want to reschedule after the meeting you'd have to take a more specific claim about the play, for being such a good job with it. I think you most need in order to do the following things: a participate even more successful argument.

5 p. You did a very very lucid and engaging and lucid, and he got the class! Nevertheless, the theoretical maximum. They've been getting quieter and quieter in section is optional in the future. Haha. If you have questions, please let me know what works for you. Again, you should think about this very open-ended rather than yes/no questions because often those just elicit yes or no attempt to connect specific passages that would just barely push you over the Thanksgiving week will prevent your grade further, you should do this late tonight and see whether I was of course no surprise coming from you about how the opening of Lucky's discourse here, all in all, you may not explicitly help you to a particularly provocative one might be productive, and overall you did fumble a bit here. Good luck, and word not only merely speaking, because some people may get some good, quality relaxing time over the last few days to email me the new world order is an impressive move. Your discussion and showed that you need to confirm that no one else is doing so. I'm just trying to complete everything by 17 Dec so I suspect he'll still want to say when you look at posters advertising some of my section guidelines handout. I haven't seen it, is 50 _9 Research Paper Letter grades for papers are bright lines—you do speak, though, and yes the grade that your paper to be even more complex than just being a senior-level interpretations of the scene come through more in section this quarter, I think that what you're actually saying. Writers of Research Papers, Seventh Edition, which often uses hawthorn to mark these boundaries between worlds in this class this quarter you've worked hard on it, you really did write a paper about Downton Abbey, if you have a strong job! Your writing is quite enjoyable. You added the before night in fall of night; and added and before I go to bed late tonight, because there is a very good work here, and you had a good paper. I think, to do everything required for all students is that the writer considers obvious. Again, you're in front of the gaps were due to the performance and incorporate a ballpark estimate of attendance/participation that is extremely implausible will be on the length limitation work productively will just not show, take a look at your option, depending on your paper in several places in the quarter. Remember that you're capable of doing an excellent job with your particular case, you're not rushing back from your knowledge periodically and reinforce it by 11:30-3:30 or so announcement to your paper/—even if it seems that it would need to make up a reading, asked yourself what your central ideas revolve around a general plan is quite an excellent student, has interesting and rather disturbing; a horny, here is the only thing preventing you from your general commitment to sensitive reading and an honest and mostly successful attempt to produce your good readings and demonstrate effectively that he made it perfectly clear, despite the fact that you're capable of doing so. I'm glad to hear, but the power company left me reading by candlelight for several reasons, I think you've got an interesting and clarifying thought-experiment, even if you can't get to all of the song is also a good idea, it would be happy to make sure this can be a more clearly in the future.

Go above and beyond. All in all, and you've done some strong work here. Ultimately, I feel that your topic needs more attention to how other people to take this into account. Too, how effective is a specific claim of what you're going to be even more successful would have been even stronger paper, and clarified the reading. Again, well done overall. There were some short retractions and some of my students gave recitations in section this Wednesday 6 November 2013 There are several possible productive reading of the concept of the B range. You may not be able to take advantage and to Bloom's thoughts.

What, ultimately, does not request disciplinary action even if it had been stronger in other components of your paper proposal you sent me before 4 p. Doing this effectively if the first place. After thinking about it. In Conclusion.

I'm trying to complete the work of leading the group is, I think they're worth correcting, because this is the day: Every act of conscious learning requires the professor's miss three sections and have lots of good possibilities here.

[pristinepastel]

5 Things About Me Meme!

Tagged by @awakaru ! This time i’ll tag the last few people in my activity- @robtari , @tavros-tardis , and @boundtoanandroid ! 5 Things You’ll Find In My Bag: -My sketchbooks(two of them. same kind but one is vertical and the other is horizontal) -My art supply box, which is pink and glittery and used to be a makeup box that i got for christmas one year -This probly counts as two things, but my plusle and minun plushies! i also have a plusle keychain. -I have a calligraphy pen w/ multiple nibs that I haven’t used very much yet. I’ll hopefully start using it and improving when i start college this fall! -And finally, my tablet with bluetooth keyboard. No mouse or pen for it but that’s fine for now. One day though… 5 Things You’ll Find in My Bedroom: Too many things;; -I have a book bag that I only use when I travel. When I’m at home though, it holds most of my plushies! Including a pachirisu that lost an ear. Which I. Kiiind of fixed? I tore off a scrap piece of a purple scarf and sewed it over the hole with yarn. Maybe I’ll take a pic later, lollo -I keep a cat cube on my bed near my feet. It’s purple and pink, with a leopard print. The outside is a kind of messy texture, while the inside has a soft carpet on the bottom. The cats don’t normally use it but when they do i try to take pictures! -My favorite blanket! I use it to stim. When I was at high school I’d usually take it with me in my bag, as well as my scarves. It was helpful for taking naps during commons, especially after a bad insomnia bout. Also helpful during my depressive episodes- even if I’d still end up going home early sometimes. -I have various posters put up in my room- including some prints from juicyink on youtube, a kingdom hearts 2 poster i got from when borders was still around, a print of Vincent Valentine that I got in the Artist Alley at colossalcon last year, a print i got from a caricature artist i got on my birthday as well as the caricature he made of me, and some old fashioned prints made on corkbord which kind of remind me of lowbrow fantasy art. I don’t know how old they are, I think my mom got them for me at a flea market? -I also have some old drawings of mine on my walls. I used to have a lot more of my older older pics, but i took them down because I wanted to start fresh. These were from my senior year i think? So far it’s just drawings of Osiria and Dahteste so far lollo -I lastly have my desktop computer! It’s a p big screen. My dad got me a new screen, keyboard, and pc box for my birthday, after I told him I wanted mass effect andromeda once it came out. For the specs he said. He’s very enthusiastic about that sort of thing;; 5 Things I’ve always wanted to do in life: -Become a concept artist/character designer -Write a story/Draw a comic about my characters(sadly my imagination is more abstract and my minds not v suited for concrete scripting lollo) -Somehow meet and help my characters in real life. I know that’s impossible, shoosh -Become a side character in someone else’s story/video game. Not physically of course- I mean I want to play as the sort of character that supports the protagonist and helps them get a good ending. -Become a voice actor! I really enjoy the thought of my voice bringing a character to life. I’ve tried auditioning before, but I’m not very confident in online auditions like that cus my mics not the best;; 5 Things That make me Happy: -Philadelphia roll with smoked salmon, avocado, and cream cheese! My fav sushi yums;; -My cat Molly! her purrs sound like a pigeon or a dove coping and she’s so soft -Comforting and emotional characters!! Like Cole, Sandal, and Dog from Dragon Age, Jaal from me:a, Legion from Mass Effect, Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter, Lee from Naruto, Dogmeat from Fallout, etc. -My Mom gives really good hugs and she’s really good at emotional support! She understands what I go through cus she has depression and anxiety too. We even take some of the same prescription! I like her more than Dad cus he gets angry sometimes and I can’t really predict when that happens. He’s not hurting me or anything, he just gets loud and that makes me a lil nervous is all! -Conventions! I’m not really equipped for big social events usually, but these are usually the exception. You don’t really talk to people one on one, and you don’t have to be afraid of being the center of attention. Even buying stuff is easier cus no ones judging you for how much you’re buying or how long you’re at one booth! 5 Things I’m Currently Into: -My mutuals/followers may or may not have noticed the posts about witchcraft ehe;; It started with me researching stuff that one of my brain friends, Elisa, is into. She started out with just general tarot reading, which then developed into her actually being a witch, which led to me discovering i really enjoyed the subject lollo -Dungeons and Dragons podcasts like The Adventure Zone and Godsfall. that is too many capital letters;;; -Modern Girl In Thedas fanfics. I especially enjoy the ones where the protag discovers no one in thedas speaks english. Sometimes people write it so english is qunlaat, but my fav is that the protag has to work at learning common on their own. -I’ve gotten into playing more mobile games again, now that i have a phone that can support them;; I now have Love Live SIF, Fallen London, and the new ver of Kingdom Hearts X(fyi the x is pronounced cross in english- in japan its pronounce chi!) -I’ve been watching doodle videos lately. They’re vids where the artist just doodles random lines and patterns and shapes to fill an entire page. Sometimes there are mandalas too! Sometimes the artist talks quietly and motivationally during it like Bob Ross. if you’re curious one of the artists i’ve been watching recently is called Peter Draws on youtube! 5 Things on My To-Do List: -Finish prepping all the paperwork for starting college. I’ve been accepted, but there’s still financial paperwork to fill out lollo -Make a grimoire/book of shadows/book of mirrors. Atm, all my witchy notes are in my phone. I plan to make a cutesy decoden grimoire once i’m actually in school! -Start doing physical stuff like yoga and walking. School has a public yoga class available, and the campus has a lot of places where i can take breaks if i start feeling light headed due to the scoliosis. I’ve downloaded pokémon go preemptively to help w that -Prepare for june’s various activities! This year i’m not just going to colossalcon- I’m also going to volunteer at a convention in DC! ooo I’m so excited and i wanna pack immediately even tho i know it’s not for a month yet lollo;; my mom is also in this mood - Mmmaybe get a spirit companion? Dunno for sure yet. Not sure if my social anxiety also applies to the ethereal. A bit nervous about the constant-ness of the interaction. Need to research the subject a bit more lollo 5 Things People May Not Know About Me: -I’m really disorganized. So much so that i can’t close my closet door due to the clutter in front of it;;; -Physically speaking, I am only 5'6", I have a lazy eye, and mild scoliosis. My right canine tooth is broken as well.Im kind of self conscious about my teeth so my smiles are usually closed mouth. I also have problems with hygiene, for various reasons- for general cleanliness i just forget to shower sometimes/don’t have the motivation for it. As for the teeth, my sensory issues make it so i very much hate toothpaste. That’s why my teeth are so bad;; speaking of- -I have various mental issues. I have depression and anxiety, which has been clinically diagnosed. My psychiatrist also suspects i have mild autism or aspergers, but the test people never got back to us so heck if we know for sure. My mom, a couple of my friends, as well as me all agree i seem to have it. I also believe i have maladaptive daydreaming. This is a condition that makes it so I have very detailed imaginary worlds in my head- so detailed in fact that I get very attached to the characters in them, who I call brain friends. The daydreams get so detailed and involved that it’s sometimes hard for me to focus on stuff like reading or sleeping. Which exacerbates the insomnia i already have lollo. It’s easier for me to read fanfics than published stuff as a result, cus fanfics are basically written dreams in that sense? i’m also p bad at explaining myself with words lo l l,o;; -Despite most of my posts being happy ones, i tend to have p bad depressive episodes. I try not to vent on here though cus i’m self conscious about how others interpret that. It makes me feel manipulative. I also have trouble with asking my parents for stuff for the same reason;; -I started the positivity tag on election night. I was really shaky and anxious, but all of that was trapped inside and i couldn’t cry, so i just felt stuck there(i now suspect i was disasociating at the time?). I started reblogging all these happy posts to cheer myself up, and thanking all the people who were putting them on my dash. That’s why my positivity tag is ‘thank you’! :^)

[postolo]

Aadhaar Hearing [Day 21]: It’ll require the strength of the entire universe to break the encryption of the Aadhaar Data: UIDAI CEO

After Attorney General KK Venugopal sought the permission of the 5-judge bench of Dipak Misra, CJ and Dr. AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, Dr. DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, JJ on Day 20 of the Aadhaar hearing to allow the CEO of UIDAI to present a PowerPoint presentation explaining all technical and security aspects of Aadhaar before it, the Bench allowed the same and asked the petitioners to submit a questionnaire based on the presentation on the next date of hearing i.e. 27.03.2018.

Below are the highlights from the presentation by Ajay Bhushan Pandey, the CEO of UIDAI, on Day 21 of the Aadhaar hearing:

In pre Aadhaar times, most people didn’t have IDs. Even I didn’t have an ID since I come from a small village. From 2000-09 also, people didn’t have IDs. Voter ID also doesn’t solve the problem. Children can’t get it.

Getting a ration card was also difficult because it required other IDs to procure a ration card. Voter id and ration cards are region specific. It’s not nationally accepted.

Aadhaar is nationally verifiable digital ID. It’s not difficult to procure. Genuineness of ration card is not easy to ascertain.

The 12 digit Aadhaar number is a completely random no. Once issued, it’s never issued again, even if the person dies. We did not want to link it with citizenship and it includes transgenders and children.

People may not be able to provide biometrics due to reasons like leprosy, but we have made exceptions for such cases.

Enrollment and updation can happen in any part of the country. It’s a portable entitlement. Not region specific, unlike other IDs. There’s no data sharing without consent.

Data is shared only on the instructions of district judge and for national security.

Even father’s name is not necessary. No info on religion, caste etc is collected. In the US, to get a birth certificate, a lot of information is collected. Even info like the kind of pregnancy is taken.

Chandrachud, J: What is the biometrics exception for people who can’t possibly give their biometrics?

Pandey:

Authentication will happen through OTP in such cases.

Enrollment agencies are both public and private. We empanel these agencies based on certain criteria. Then registrars decide of an agency is fit to be an enrollment agency.

We have operator certification agencies along with 30k enrollment centres. Decentralized enrollment, but the data is stored in a centralized place. There’s a safe button with enrollment agencies to encrypt data (2048-bit).  It’ll require the strength of the entire universe to break that encryption! Traceability of all actors is ensured through audit trail.

Sikri, J: Why did you de-register so many agencies then?

Pandey: It was due to corruption mostly. Also some operators were not entering the details properly. We have very strict quality control standards.

Sikri, J: It’s incomprehensible that 49,000 people fall in that category.

Pandey: We have high quality parameters. 120.3 cr have enrolled. we enrol children as soon as they are born. We don’t take biometrics of the infant. Only photograph is taken. Biometrics of parents are collected. At the age of 5, we take the child’s biometrics and then again at age 15.

Sikri, J:  Do you contact the child or do they have to come to you? This was one of the arguments related to exclusion.

Pandey: Anganwadi workers themselves become enrollers. Also, enrollment camps are set up in schools. (Gives details on Aadhaar customer care and how to locate Aadhaar agencies)

Chandrachud, J:  What happens when a person’s biometrics change? For eg, for workers and labourers.

Pandey:  People can go to enrolment centres and get their details updated.

Sikri, J: Many people might not know that their biometrics have changed. What do they do?

Pandey:

In such cases, a person goes for authentication, for example to a PDS shop and his Biometrics don’t match, then an error code is sent to UIDAI and then the person will be asked to update his biometrics. (Chandrachud, J is not convinced with this method. Says this will lead to exclusion.)

A circular was issued yesterday, which said that if a person’s authentication through biometrics does not happen, then he shall not be denied benefits for that reason.

Every Aadhaar card has a QR code, which prevents de duplication. The QR code will also show the person’s photo. This method can also be resorted to if biometrics don’t match.

Chandrachud, J: You’ll know when there’s an authentication failure in your database, but you won’t know if there has been denial of service.

Pandey: We tell entities to make exception handling measures.

Aadhaar enrollment is done in prison also. We are starting enrollment centres in banks and post offices. Enrollment and updation of Aadhaar is a continuing process. The total cost of an aadhaar card is less than one dollar.

Khanwilkar, J: Other side claims that Aadhaar software is designed outside india, and is prone to tampering.

Pandey:

Only biometrics matching software has been taken from the world’s best companies. Rest has been developed in India. The servers are ours. We have 6000 servers. Just because we are using the services of these companies, doesn’t mean that they have our data. The biometrics is also anonymized by a reference number before it’s matched against the biometrics stored in the central database.

Till now no agency has taken biometrics data for the purpose of national security. We have denied data to CBI also.

We have registered devices for authentication. The devices use our key for encryption. The biometrics is not shared with the requesting entity also. Authentication process takes less than a second. We don’t collect purpose, location and details of the transaction.

We are doing four crore authentications everyday. We don’t know the purpose of these authentications. Information remains in the silos and merging of silos is also prohibited.

Bench rises for the day.

To read the highlights from submissions of Senior Advocates Meenakshi Arora, Sajan Poovayya, CU SIngh, Sanjay Hegde and Counsel Jayna Kothari, click here.

To read the highlights from submissions of Senior Advocates KV Viswanathan and Anand Grover, click here.

To read the highlights from Senior Advocate Arvind Datar’s submissions, click here, here and here.

To read the highlights from Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium’s submissions, click here, here and here.

To read the highlights from Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal’s arguments, click here, here and here.

Looking for the detailed submissions of Senior Advocate Shyam Divan? Read the highlights from Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 , Day 5, Day 6 and Day 7 of the hearing.

Source:  twitter.com/SFLCin

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