#i also don’t know how to search the text of a youtube transcript

[dukebee]

Yeosang said earlier this year in a pop live that he’s not religious. I think it was between Feb 9 - Apr 11?

iirc he told a story about his dad taking him to a temple when he was a toddler and a monk was like “red is his color” which is why Yeosang likes red. The chat was like “wait, thought you weren’t religious” and the jist is he’s not but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t go to a temple or that it makes this story any less special to him

Not that it matters too much but I'm doing a little updated version on the post I made about the boys religions/beliefs because I can edit the og post but it won't edit the reblogs so people won't even see it.

Yunho is Catholic and I'm pretty sure is the only one we know who has a religion.

Some comments said Mingi has said he isn't religious so if you know where he may have said that let me know!

Wooyoung recently said on a Live that he's an atheist.

Even though San sang in his church choir he has said that he has no religion/is an atheist.

Seonghwa, Yeosang and Jongho I don't think have ever stated their beliefs.

According to a comment I saw on Twitter Hongjoong said in 2022 that him and his family are not religious, though I don't know where he may have said this.

[apricitystudies]

this post has been highly requested! it turned out more focused on loneliness and the emotional side of things, so i might do a part two to explore what culture shock is and go through its stages in more detail later on. as always, further questions and requests are always welcome in my askbox :)

transcript below:

(this is such a text-heavy masterpost and i didn’t save the original so i have to types out everything again bc i am the stupid. let’s go)

(title slide) culture shock and loneliness: studying abroad, adjusting to a new country, and overcoming isolation. a guide by apricitystudies

1. do some research. before you leave, read up on the basics of your new country’s culture. what are its customs and traditions? what holidays do they celebrate? is the pace of life hectic or laid back? are the people friendly or reserved? is society egalitarian or hierarchical? the easiest way to do this is to search ‘[country] culture’ or ‘what is life like in [country]?’ try google, youtube, and online forums. you can even make friends from your new country through online penpalling or language-learning apps like HiNative to get a native’s perspective.

2. bring some pieces of home with you. while writing out your packing list, leave some space in your suitcase for items that will remind you of home. they can be pictures of you and your friends and family, gifts from your loved ones, a stuffed animal, or anything else that will make your new place feel more comfortable. for example, when i left home, i brought with me letters and cards from my friends, a throw pillow, some small trinkets i kept on my desk, and my favourite mug.

3. carve out some alone time. the first few weeks after you’ve moved to a new country will likely be extremely hectic and difficult, so it’s important to reserve time to be alone and reflect.

4. keep yourself occupied. that being said, don’t just sit around with your thoughts all day. there is nothing worse than coming home from a long day of running errands trying to get settled in your new place, and then just sitting in your empty apartment by yourself and thinking about how quiet it is and how lonely you are. it’s important to keep your down time from growing into a daily pity party; trust me, i’ve been there.

5. keep up with your interests. see if there are sports or interest clubs at your new school that you can join. if you play an instrument but couldn’t bring it with you, like me (rip drummers), ask if your school has a music studio you can book to practise. pack your favourite art supplies or books. maintaining a common link with your life back home will help you to adjust quicker to your new life.

6. stay connected with loved ones. and make this contact regular! i called my dad every weekend, skyped my sister every other week, spoke to my friends every month, etc. slightly unrelated, but if you’re already seeing a therapist, ask about scheduling online appointments. this is a delicate balancing act. it’s okay to text your loved ones little blurbs every say; i texted my dad every night to let him know i was safe, but we only had actual conversations once or twice a week at most. if you’re having daily hour-long calls with family or friends, you’ll constantly be thinking about how much you miss home and make yourself miserable.

7. make new connections. one of the best ways to adjust to your new country is to get to know the locals. not only can they teach you the in and outs of your new home, but establishing social roots in the local community can also help you feel more like a new community member instead of just a temporary resident. having local friends exposes you to your new country’s culture in a more personal way and helps to ground you in that culture much more effectively than if you were to mix only with other international students.

8. be patient with yourself. you might have had high expectations for your new life and be disappointed that you don’t feel as happy as you thought you would feel. you might look at other international students having the time of the lives and be frustrated with yourself for feeling lonely and homesick and having less fun than them. or, if you’re like me, your overseas experience may have been cut short by a global pandemic. everyone adapts to new situations in different ways, and there is no ‘right way’ to feel. you might have immense amounts of fun or you might feel like absolute rubbish. either way, know that your emotions are valid. you will figure it out at your own pace.

9. ask for help. check what support services are available at your new school if you have a legal-administrative issue, see if your school has advisors for international students. for academic help, reach out to your professors to let them know you need extra guidance adjusting to the new school system. if you’re suffering mentally/emotionally, check if your school offers free counselling. join an international student club or a club for people from your home country. if you have a mentor, they can help you too. it can be difficult to admit you’re struggling if you don’t want to seem weak or worry your loved ones back home. but it’s okay to be lost or overwhelmed, and there is no shame in asking for help. most people will be understanding and more than willing to give you the support you need.

(final slide) the adjustment curve is difficult, but you can get through it! i believe in you. thanks for reading! from apricitystudies

[blindbeta]

Your Content and Accessibility For the Blind

Hello everyone! I was thinking about accessibility and wanted to make a post to help creators. This is going to cover general accessibility for blind people interacting with your content. Some of it may be obvious to some and this is by no means comprehensive, so feel free to add anything you think of that is helpful. Also, I wanted to include some ideas for DeafBlind people, but I am not DeafBlind or D/deaf, so I simply listed some general accessibility ideas. If anyone has any other tips or things to consider, please add them in a comment or message and I’ll include it here.

Remember, blindness exists on a spectrum. This post will focus on making things accessible for totally blind people, although these tips can also be beneficial for people with residual vision who use screen readers to reduce eye strain, for small text, for clarity, etc. D/deafness and DeafBlindness are also on spectrums. Some DeafBlind people have some hearing, some vision, a little of both, or none of either. If someone asks you for better or different accessibility services for your content, listen and try to accommodate them as best you can. I have provided some links and resources here to attempt to explain accessibility for blind people, which will include blind people who are DeafBlind. The point is accessibility issues can come from both sides whether it be the audio or visual sides.

Some general helpful links:

AFB’s Advice for image descriptions here

Screen-readers here

Improving Accessibility for the DeafBlind community here

How DeafBlind People Use Technology and The Importance of Braille and Transcripts: Understanding Assistive Technology

Online Content:

GIFs, Pictures, Fan-art, PSA and info posts, Memes, Screenshots of Text Posts or Screenshots of Twitter Threads- Provide an image description on your original post! This is the best option, as you probably know your content best and what you wish to draw attention to. More importantly, every reblog will include an image description, which means the blind person doesn’t need to hunt for an image description in the reblogs! If you know more than one language, include image descriptions in those languages.

Note: Always include descriptions when you post images with or about blind people or characters. Particularly fan-art you made of blind characters. If you don’t, consider why and think about how it would feel to be shut out of something about yourself.

What should you include?

Write Image Description in brackets and include End of Image Description at the end for clarification. As for what you should describe, it depends on what the picture is. Include where it is from. For example, “a screenshot of a Twitter thread by BlindBetaIsAwesome”. Include the text and describe any GIFs or images it includes. Write everything out as they appear. Describe emojis as well. When writing out screen names or hashtags, capitalize the first letter of each word. Otherwise screen-readers read it oddly. For example instead of #accessibilityfortheblind try #AccessibilityForTheBlind. If you think someone will want to search a name, include a link.

You should describe what is important in the image, especially for conveying information or humor. General ideas include: image origin, who is in the image, what they’re doing, any relevant colors or clothing, objects they’re holding, their facial expression, any emojis, and any text in the image. Blind people do like to know about color. For NSFW stuff, include ‘NSFW’ at the start, but other than that, yes, blind people also generally like NSFW things described.

Fanfiction:

Generally, fanfic is very accessible to screen-readers and Braille Displays. However, there are a few ways you can make it more accessible.

Pictures: Include alt-text for any images you post such as artwork or character social media posts. Describe it like you would any other image. Alt-text is different from an image description because instead of a screen-reader saying “image” when it finds an image, it will describe the image. An image description is the text included beneath the picture that everyone can see. Including some kind of description, especially for plot-relevant images, can allow all blind readers to experience the fic.

Chat conversations: Again, for hashtags and screen names, capitalize the first letter of each word for the ease of screen-readers. For characters who don’t use capitalization much, you can add a hyphen between each word to make it easier to read like this: blind-beta-likes-fanfic-too.

Emojis: Screen readers can’t fully read emojis like this one that uses keyboard slashes and symbols to create an image ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (image description: emoji of a person shrugging with both palms lifted upwards. End description.) However, they can read emojis that come on a phone such as 🧁which screen readers read as “cupcake”.

Podfics are also good for hearing people with no vision or reduced vision. Having a podfic with good quality (maybe one that can describe images found in the story) will reduce some of the issues listed here and give blind people another, fun way to interact with content. However, I would try to keep in mind the things I mentioned above for the sake of screen-readers and Braille Displays, which are particularly important for some DeafBlind people who may want to read your fanfic and may not be able to hear well enough to use a screen-reader.

Lastly, keep in mind that any kind of comic may be inaccessible to some blind people. Write with them in mind. Include a message at the start of the story, maybe that it contains material from the comic, graphic novel, or print cartoon. If you know of a comic dub, link to it. If there is none, include details in the story so that a non-manga or non-comic reader would be able to understand.

Web-Comics/Web-Graphic-Novels:

First, I did research and found a comic book store for the blind called Comics Empower. Unfortunately, when I click the link provided on Twitter and the articles I read, the site seems to be down.

However, this is about you all and sharing your comics with blind readers. You have a few options:

Alt-text. This is descriptions directly ‘inside’ the image, which is not visible to everyone. You can read about alt-text for comics specially here and you can read general info for alt-text for screen-readers and Braille Displays here.

Image descriptions. These are descriptions of each comic page (hopefully with a paragraph for each panel) that can be visible to anyone. You can describe your comic, who is in it, what they’re doing, and what they’re saying, probably beneath the image.

Comic Audio Performances. These are accessible to both blind and sighted audiences. These are videos using actors for the dialogue, sound effects, and moving comic panels. Pros for this style include increased viewership, increased accessibility for the blind, and perhaps more revenue if you have a way to monetize the content. Cons include that it is more work, could potentially cost money when hiring actors initially, may not be accessible to anyone with hearing loss, and may still require a bit of audio description for some panels that are hard to follow with only sound effects.

What can you do?

A few ideas I had were to use a combination of image descriptions and audio performances to make the comics accessible to a number of people who may be blind, or DeafBlind. Having options is helpful. For ther issue of some panels needing extra description in order to make sense, I thought of including time-stamps and descriptions in the description section, labeling it as image descriptions for the blind. Include dialogue for reference. Or an audio description could be added such as:

Audio narration: “Bee sits on a couch writing.”

Sound Effect of a purring cat.

Audio narration: “Blind Beta picks up an orange cat and puts him on the couch next to them.”

Dialogue: “I’m so glad I have a cat to cuddle with!”

I will touch on this in the video section, but while it is sadly not possible to add audio descriptions onto YouTube as of 2021, you can add them manually through websites you like YouDescribe. For your comics, I suggest, reading about YouDescribe, downloading the app, creating a narration transcript for your web comic performance, and posting the described audio performance onto YouDescribe. Post both versions as close to the same time as you can, and include a link to the described version in the YouTube description. A glance at YouDescribe will tell you not all videos are available with descriptions and not all blind people are aware of this service. Not all videos are searchable in their library either. However, it is an option I wanted to include.

You could also simply include the audio narration in your main YouTube video if you would like. Or any combination of my suggestions you feel comfortable with.

YouTube Videos/Video Clips:

I wanted to cover YouTube videos and video clips shared on websites like tumblr. For small clips, image descriptions and transcripts could probably be listed together. I have seen this done and it seems to help people.

Again, the original poster should post the description with the video. This is because they know the most important parts and because all reblogs of the post will include the description, so no one will have to hunt down a description that may not exist.

For the clip or clip compilation, mention where the clips come from, who is in them, and what they are doing. You could probably have a separate paragraph for each clip and include times-stamps if possible.

For videos you post on YouTube, descriptions can be very helpful! Unfortunately, YouTube does not support adding an audio description track at this time. Ideally, YouTube would have a description track one could turn on and off such as with subtitles. Until then, if you want to add a description, you should add one yourself when you post the video onto YouTube or any other website.

Before I get into how, let’s go over something else.

What videos need descriptions?

-Recipe videos - especially ones with only text. Ingredients, steps, measures, methods, any flourishes or special scenery (such as when shopping for ingredients) should be described. Blind people don’t just want you to read the recipe to them. They want to know what is happening in the video and how it is being done.

-Tutorials - These often contain a voice-over and accompanying images to demonstrate. A creator can opt to simply include more visual description along with the other information in the voice-over or add extra narration later (see the “How?” section below). For these videos, make sure to avoid or expand on any visually dependent parts such as “click here” or “fold here” or “when you finish, it should look like this”. Videos that contain only text and demonstration, however, will need a more traditional audio description the same as any other video.

-Silent aesthetic videos - Sometimes containing music or focusing on natural noise, these videos are usually vlogs with soothing activities or daily routines. They often show scenery, pretty things, or tours. Because these videos are silent, sometimes containing only text, they are not accessible. However, they can be easy to describe, perhaps in a soothing or educational fashion.

-Music videos - Because these videos are by nature visual, they may not be accessible. They may also have inconsistent, poor, or changing lighting for aesthetic purposes or set changes. This means audio descriptions would be helpful.

-Text-based videos - Obviously these are not accessible or may be difficult to read depending on font size, style, or background. For these, putting the text in the description may suffice. Label it so that blind people are aware they are getting the same material. If the text includes pictures or short clips, you could also simply include your own narration on the video itself or see the “How?” section below for another alternative.

-Game Play-Throughs - Games can sometimes be completely inaccessible pe very difficult depending on the person’s level of site. A lot of video games a not accessible or difficult to play, with quick-moving graphics, perhaps small text, or other difficulties. Because of this, blind people may enjoy game plays on YouTube for video games and mobile games.

-Skits or other performances - Think of these as Netflix shows with audio description tracks. Blind people may miss out on some visual humor, plot elements, or other fun visual aspects like costumes.

-Original Films, Animation, Clips From Shows - Again, think of it as any TV show that needs to description to cover visual aspects of what is happening. Scenery, characters, what they’re doing, any text, facial expressions, etc.

Pet videos- Because pets are cute and they should be described! Especially because these videos are sometimes hard to follow, such as a pet doing a trick.

How? How Do We Provide This?

There is always the option to add your own audio descriptions. However, that way confuse already-existing narration or may not be possible for already-published videos. You may also have trouble speaking and wish for someone else to provide audio descriptions. The video may be a music video or one you want to remain silent for the aesthetic. You may want to add a description to a video you enjoy that is not one you uploaded personally.

A free website and mobile app called YouDescribe can help with that. It allows people to add audio descriptions to videos on YouTube. You can even describe videos on a wishlist. Find out more here.

If you describe your video or have it described, be sure to link to the YouDescribe video in the description of your YouTube version so that people can find it easily, or note that it is available on YouDescribe.

Here is a link to the website

And a link to the app.

This site may be a bit too niche, but I figure if it helps one person, I’ll be happy. My entire blog is niche, when you think about it- targeting writers who specifically want to write and read about blind characters. It’ll be fine.

Keep in mind that audio descriptions may not be accessible to all DeafBlind people. An inclusive option could be to include a description under your video so people with Braille Displays can read it.

Print Books, Audiobooks, Large Print Books, or Braille Books?

Let’s get into something you writers might be interested in. Books! Let’s say you wrote a book with a blind character. How do you make sure it can be accessed by blind readers? You want to have a few options.

Print books - These are accessible to people with reduced vision. It is also possible to scan print books to read with voiceover, but I can’t imagine many people buying books simply to scan unless they borrowed/found it. So it could be an option, I suppose. Scanning books also takes time because you need to do each individual page.

Audiobooks - Audiobooks are great. They are accessible to blind people who can hear. They are cheaper to produce than Braille books, take up less space, and are better for the environment. They can be expensive when you buy them. Libraries have extensive collections now, however, because libraries don’t usually have any Braille books and very few large print books, not all blind people use them, even for digital access. However,many blind people love audiobooks so it a good way to make sure your content is accessible.

As of now, my library app is accessible with a screenreader, so reading audiobooks is possible. E-books are not currently accessible with a screen-reader on this particular app.

Make sure to release your print books and audiobooks at the same time or as soon as possible. It isn’t fair for blind people to have to wait, although there are cases where not having an audiobook is understandable. Keep in mind that the less options you have, the less accessible your content will be.

Large Print Books - I used to get large print books myself. I would say it is less likely publishers will want to publish large print books because they are, of course, larger and take up more space. (Not as much as Braille books, but we’ll get into that.) As you may assume, they are also less popular with readers. Publishers make exceptions for textbooks, so if you are making a textbook or an educational book, particularly one with drawings, publishers might allow it. They also might consider making large print editions of children’s books. Large print books can sometimes be found at libraries, although they are usually crammed into their own limited section. That shows how rare it is for large print books to be printed compared to regular-sized books. I have an extra note about this in the children’s book section, but for the most part, I think you can get away with not having a large print edition of your book.

Braille Books - I should you one doesn’t just make a Braille book. Feelings toward them are generally complicated. They can wear down over time, cost a lot, and take up a lot of space. One volume of a book is several volumes of Braille books. Libraries don’t generally have them- you have to request them from various places like The National Library Service for the Blind (NLS). For more information about obtaining or borrowing Braille books, look here.

Braille Books have largely been replaced by refreshable Braille displays and audiobooks. However, they are still important. They can also help DeafBlind people, if a book cannot be read on a Braille display (see the section on e-books below). My suggestion would be to skip Braille books unless you are writing for children (see the Children’s Books section) or your book contains many diagrams that need to be embossed.

Children’s Books -

I wanted to briefly discuss children’s books. With children’s books, you will, of course, want to have a print book and an audiobook available, perhaps even someone reading the book on YouTube. If the book has pictures, descriptions of the pictures would be nice. This is also where I think large print and Braille books may be not only possible or more likely, but important. Children are just learning to read and will continue to explore a love for reading. Therefore, a lack of reading material can be challenging.

If possible, you may want to consider asking your publisher if large print or Braille versions are possible. While websites are available so that children can get books, you may want to ask for your book to be published in these formats if your story has a blind MC.

Braille literacy is declining in the blind community, with children (and frankly many others) choosing to use VoiceOver and audiobooks to read rather than Braille. Being able to read helps reinforce spelling, grammar, meaning in ways that are not possible with having things read to you. That said, children should also be encouraged to learn technology and use audiobooks when they feel comfortable.

If you are publishing a children’s book, particularly with a blind MC, consider what your options are for increasing accessibility.

E-Books:

This is one of the more accessible options, as it can be read with a screen-reader or Braille display. E-books are also common enough that they are released at the same time as print books. The text can usually be adjusted and readers usually have a Search feature. However, accessibility is still a problem with e-books. While authors cannot fix this, they should be aware of it. You can read about accessibility issues here.

-

I hope all this helped somewhat. I provide sensitivity reading for blind characters for anyone who is interested.

[nordic-language-love]

Hei! I feel like you've been asked this a lot XC, sorry. How long did it take for you to reach this level of fluency in Norwegian? What would you recommend a complete beginner to do (something free, if possible. I can't order anything online and the current situation means I can't go out shopping either (and stores in my country won't have anything I'm looking for) )? PS: I've just finished the first checkpoint on Duolingo! Your posts motivate me everytime I feel down.

Hi there! No worries, I always like talking about learning Norwegian ^^

It depends on what you count as time spent studying Norwegian, because I’ve taken breaks from it and I basically didn’t know what I was doing during the first year or so lol. I usually say about 4-4.5 years. It’s possible to reach that level a lot more quickly though (I was reading a post on Norsklærer Karense’s facebook group and some people were like “yeah I went from zero to B2 in 3 months” lol rip) but for some people it takes longer. It all depends on the time you put in, how much exposure you have, how many opportunities you have to practise and how naturally you pick up languages.

As for free resources for complete beginners:

NTNU has a free course

Memrise is a good website/app with several Norwegian courses (I recommend starting with Norwegian 1, but there are loads of vocab lists on there)

Other apps include Drops and uTalk. I’m not big on Drops, but I quite like uTalk, even if the amount of coins you earn seems to be completely random (don’t be fooled into thinking you have to buy coins to progress!)

Lingohut has loads of lessons suitable for beginners

CALST is pretty great, focusing more on spoken Norwegian, and gives you the option to learn dialects (I recommend just learning Oslo dialect if you’re a total beginner, unless you’re moving to a specific area of Norway)

God i Norsk is a course in Norwegian for adult Norwegian-learners with lots of listening, reading, grammar and vocabulary exercises

Bildetema is also good for learning vocab and is available in both bokmål and nynorsk

Lesnorsk has lots of texts of different levels (I’ve linked you to the beginner level texts)

Norskpodden is a Norwegian podcast for beginners that comes with transcripts and games to test your understanding

Norwegian Teacher Karin on youtube has lessons suitable for beginners (check out her beginners playlists)

Norsklærer Karense is a qualified Norwegian teacher - her videos are entirely in Norwegian so you’ll need some basics first, but they’re a fantastic free resource (here you can find her videos specifically aimed at beginners)

Learn Norwegian Naturally is another good youtube channel

Here’s an English-Norwegian / Norwegian-English dictionary

Some other things I recommend:

Stick the radio on in the background while you’re doing housework/scrolling tumblr etc. You won’t understand anything at first, but that’s not the point - the point is to get you used to the rhythm of the language. I recommend NRK P2 as it has more talk and less shitty English music

Keep a journal. By that, I don’t mean write about your day in detail - obviously that’s not going to happen when you’re a beginner - start by writing things like “today is Wednesday. I wake up at 8am. I eat breakfast.” The purpose of your journal is to practise using the language, not to write coherent, connected prose with perfect or even good/correct grammar (my Finnish journal entries, for example, consist of 2-3 short sentences, using the only two tenses I know). You can share it if you want, but I keep most of my journal entries to myself.

Listen to Norwegian music. Search “norsk (your favourite genre)” on spotify for playlists.

If you haven’t already, create a langblr. Use it to reblog resources, vocab lists, posts about grammar etc. Write short posts and ask for feedback if you feel brave enough (it’s scary at first, but I find getting corrections is the most effective way for me to learn). Ask other langblrs questions about grammar and vocab (even if they don’t know the answer, there are usually a lot of native speakers lurking that are always willing to help!)

Sorry this got a bit long - I hope that helps you! Also, thank you so much for your kind words, and congrats on reaching the first checkpoint on Duo! I hope you enjoy your Norwegian journey.

[ladyfl4me]

Hi! I've caught the trending page of Tumblr and heard that there's now an ace character, and I want to start listening to the podcast! I don't really know much about how d&d works, but is there a certain podcast that starts the campaign with the ace character? If so, do you know what podcast that starts in? Sorry if that sounds weird, but everyone's been talking about how accurate the ace rep. it is and I want to check it out! :)

Yeah, no problem! Sorry that this got a little long. Any of the thoughts I have on this are mine and mine alone, and are not blanket statements about the character’s asexuality; other people have different readings and rationales of what’s happened so far, and that is okay!

So I’m assuming the character you’ve heard about is Fitzroy Maplecourt. He is one of the player characters of The Adventure Zone: Graduation, the most recent season of the podcast The Adventure Zone. Griffin McElroy, the guy who plays Fitzroy, said in this recent behind-the-scenes special episode (TTAZZ 2020) that he always intended to play Fitzroy as an asexual character. I got so hype while listening that I wrote a transcript of his answer, which you can find here. It can be crosschecked against the official transcript, which will eventually be uploaded here. Very minor spoilers for one element of Fitzroy’s background, but nothing too revealing. 

Basically, Griffin put a hell of a lot of care and attention into his answer, which is really unexpected for a cishet white dude. He’s done his research. He acknowledged asexuality as a spectrum and as something that’s different from aromanticism. He also explained wanting to avoid aphobic stereotypes while making Fitzroy, such as the “too busy with the Real World to think about sex” stereotype or the “being asexual means there MUST be something wrong with you” stereotype (not direct quotes, that’s me paraphrasing). That’s mostly what people are excited about, and for good reason, because that’s a lot more compassion and nuance than we usually get in media.

However, to answer your question about accurate representation, the word “asexual” or a scene in the text confirming Fitzroy as asexual has not happened yet. I think Griffin plays him as an asexual character who’s just minding his own business, though, which I personally think it’s great. Like. That’s me. I’m minding my own business, living my ace life. It’s not something that’s right on one’s sleeve at all times. Starting off knowing that Fitzroy is ace, though, is a great context to have if you’re starting from TAZ Grad episode 1. Fitzroy being ace from the get-go makes a lot of the ace-projecting readings I had of lines - like a line somewhere about “missing the vibe between us” - feel like a more canonical acknowledgement. 

If you’re the kind of person who would prefer a textual acknowledgement of asexuality you can point a finger at, though - like, a “ctrl-f” search for "asexual” in the transcript sort of thing - there aren’t many options. There is subtext, like I said, but nothing direct beyond the offscreen TTAZZ. Fitzroy’s type of asexuality is a little fuzzier, too, and hasn’t been confirmed. As you can see in the transcript, Griffin obviously wrote and played him as asexual, and Travis secondhand-quoted Griffin saying, “Y’know, I don’t think… I don’t think Fitzroy really feels that,” during planning for a recent character-driven episode. This quote could go a couple ways:

Option one: this could be just a blanket acknowledgement of Fitzroy being asexual, with the “that” being sexual attraction. Not feeling sexual attraction is the textbook definition of being ace. This leaves him open to be anywhere on the ace spectrum, from sex-repulsed to sex-indifferent to sex-favorable. 

Option two: “that” could be read as the desire to have sex, which is completely different and points at a more sex-repulsed asexual reading. A lot of people have taken that, too, claiming he’s “not interested” in sex or stuff along those lines. A valid but by no means exclusive reading, re option one and the actual words that Griffin said in reference to Fitzroy.

Until we get more details, maybe in a canon text portrayal, I think it’s kind of up in the air. TAZ tends to be good about getting in-text confirmation, though; in another TTAZZ commentary episode for TAZ Amnesty, the player character Aubrey Little was confirmed as bisexual and Puerto Rican, and we got a scene in the actual podcast that confirmed her as bisexual. (She literally said “I’m bisexual” to another character. In one of the funniest exchanges in that entire arc of Amnesty. They can do it. Still waiting on the Puerto Rican part, though.) So we may get an actual scene in the future where Fitzroy’s asexuality is stated. 

That being said, I know that sexuality and personal preferences are not things that all people discuss openly, so including that scene may not be possible or natural - especially with Fitzroy’s motives/expression/characterization, which you’ll find about if you listen. Writing a realistic scene that gives explicit confirmation is tough, especially in an improv environment like D&D. I personally really, really hope that they give it a shot, though. The McElroys have made characters explicitly gay, bisexual, trans and nonbinary in past seasons of TAZ, and Travis has a whole armada of LGBTQ+ characters in the TAZ Grad universe. It’s possible. They can do it. Griffin’s dialogue/other roleplaying choices, though, do portray him in an asexual-coded way, and that may be all we get.

All I can really say is that things are looking up for ace representation, and the way that Griffin McElroy is coming at this character is really heartwarming to see. If you decide to listen to TAZ: Graduation, I really hope you enjoy it, and maybe consider listening to the other two seasons too! I wouldn’t be too worried about d&d going into this - the most basic explanation is, you got dice with numbers on them, sometimes players roll them, and a high roll means something good will usually happen to their character while a low one means something bad will happen. TAZ can be found on any podcast-streaming website like Spotify, Stitcher or Apple Podcasts, as well as on YouTube and the Maximum Fun Network website.

[learnenglishwithkatie]

How to improve your writing

How to improve your writing

1. Why?!

Don’t ignore this skill. A lot of students enjoy speaking, practise reading and listening, and maybe study grammar and vocabulary but neglect writing. Maybe you need to be able to write for an exam or for work so the need to practise is obvious, but even if you don’t have such a clear need, it will still help you. One reason for this is that writing gives you time to think about how to express yourself, to find the right words and grammar. When you speak, you don’t have as much time to think. Also, writing can show you where you have gaps in your knowledge and what mistakes you often make.

2. Don’t just translate

Try not to just translate from your language but think more in English. There are many phrases which cannot be translated directly. A lot of mistakes I see are because students try to translate word for word and it doesn’t always work. Also, of course, don’t just put your sentences into Google Translate! This app is getting better all the time but it doesn’t always translate correctly, especially if your language is very different from English. If you don’t believe me, find a text in English and translate it into your language and you will see what happens! Even if Google Translate is accurate, it won’t help you learn if you use it too much. It’s much better to work out how to say what you want to say by yourself.

3. Don’t be afraid

If you can say it, you can write it. Some students think that writing has to be a different style from speaking but this isn’t always true. Informal writing, like emails to friends or messages on social media are very similar to spoken English. So don’t be afraid of writing - just write what you would say. You can learn about how to make your writing more formal later.

4. Free writing

One thing you could try is “free writing”. This means you just pick a topic (e.g.your weekend, how you are feeling, a film you just watched) and write what comes into your head. You don’t have to plan or worry about the end result but just try to express yourself in English. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling mistakes either. This writing is just for you and nobody else has to read it so it doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect. This is just to develop your fluency and confidence. You can always go through it again at the end to check for mistakes.

5. Plan

If you need to write a work email, an essay or some homework for your teacher, then it is important to make a plan before you start. Your writing should be organised into paragraphs and each paragraph should contain one topic so think about what you want to put in each paragraph before you start. For example, an essay for a exam typically has an introduction, two or three paragraphs which explain your ideas, one idea per paragraph, and then a conclusion.

6. Check

Always, always, always check your work for mistakes. When you have finished, read through your work and check your spelling and grammar. Some examples of things to check for are tenses, verb endings, prepositions and articles. Did you remember to use the past tense in your story? Did you remember -s, -ed and -ing? Did you use the right prepositions? Did you use “the” and “a” correctly? If you can, leave your work until the next day and check it again. You might see silly mistakes that you can’t believe you missed the first time!

7. Clarity vs complexity

You have to find the right balance between clarity and complexity. If you write in very simple sentences, you won’t make so many mistakes but your work might sound childish and you won’t get good marks for language ability. If you try to use too many complex sentences, you might be able to show what you know about the language but you might make more mistakes. Too many mistakes make your writing difficult to read and understand. You have to get the right balance and this will depend on your level and why you are writing. For example, if you are writing for an exam, you have to show what you know so try to use some more complex grammar structures that you are comfortable with. If your English is a low level, just start with simple sentences.

8. Dictation

Try a dictation. Find a short text to listen to and try to write it down. If you search for “English dictation” on YouTube, you can find some exercises for your level. Also search for “learn English” and you’ll find something you can listen to and write down. You don’t have to do the whole video if it’s long. It’s best to find something with a transcript or subtitles so you can check your writing afterwards. Alternatively, you could listen to a song and write down the lyrics. Dictation helps you with your writing because you get model sentences and you have to think about your spelling. It can help you with your grammar too. As well as listening, you should think about your knowledge of the language as you write.

9. Learn from your mistakes

Don’t be afraid of mistakes. Mistakes can help you to learn. If you do some writing for a teacher, make sure you look at the corrections that the teacher makes and maybe you won’t make the same mistakes next time.

10. Getting feedback

If you don’t have a teacher or a friend to check your writing for you, there are websites where you can post your work and get feedback from native speakers. Two of these are italki.com and lang-8.com.

[outvrbanks]

CHAPTER TWO :   prelude to the end of lois lane.

text transcript between adam griffin, don bailey, henri rousseau, roman keating, thalia pham. june twenty-fourth.

adam griffin: hey so about that house on that map

adam griffin: how are we gonna get in

roman keating: break in? duh

don bailey: maybe we knock for once

thalia pham: we're not

thalia pham: she's gonna kill us first

henri rousseau: breaking in sounds like a ✨ crime ✨but i'm really not above that tbh

roman keating: i guess henri and i are the only ones with a sense of adventure

adam griffin: if you're against crime please leave the gc so the grownups can talk

don bailey: i mean it rly depends on the crime

don bailey: we're really talking about breaking into a creepy old lady's house huh

thalia pham: i'm not against a little crime but if we get busted i will kill all of u

roman keating: either way we're dying so why not

adam griffin: we're not gonna get busted

don bailey: okay how do we plan to not be seen going in, first of all

adam griffin: old people go to bed early

adam griffin: wait til tonight and we'll just be quiet

don bailey: who's gonna watch youtube tutorials on how to quietly break into a house

don bailey: i cant have that type of search in my history

henri rousseau: bold of you to assume i haven't done that before when i've been bored

thalia pham: pls share with the class henri

don bailey: maybe lets leave the knowledge to only henri so we can deny it later in court

thalia pham: i mean where do we think it is inside the house?

roman keating: hopefully under her bed

don bailey: ????? what does this even mean

henri rousseau: uhhh

thalia pham: i'm surprised he didn't say in her bed

don bailey: do u WANT to have to distract an old lady while we steal the treasure under her bed, i'm ????

roman keating: you guys are no fun

roman keating: sadly she's a little too old for me to want to be in her bed

adam griffin: we did it guys

adam griffin: we found someone rome won't fuck

thalia pham: it's a miracle 🤯

roman keating: now that you've said that....

don bailey: we got our distraction then

thalia pham: ok what's the actual plan

thalia pham: cue adam with the 'let's split up gang'

don bailey: the fred jones of our generation

adam griffin: ok but is splitting up a bad idea

don bailey: yes

roman keating: no

thalia pham: only dangerous if u pair me off with alina

henri rousseau: a lifetime's worth of horror movies that have scarred me also say yes 😔

adam griffin: alina's not allowed in the house her cast will be too loud

thalia pham: good

don bailey: good news at last 😌

adam griffin: that's 3 to 2 sorry cousins we'll be splitting up

thalia pham: okay what time are we meeting up

don bailey: when do old people go to sleep

adam griffin: idk you act like one

adam griffin: when do you go to sleep?

don bailey: omg incredible joke, u ever thought about stand up comedy?

adam griffin: no but now that i know i have your support i'll consider it ❤️

thalia pham: how about 10

thalia pham: since no one is being helpful 😡

adam griffin: i'll pick everyone up

don bailey: yo google says they go to sleep at 11 so

adam griffin: 11 it is

thalia pham: do w need to bring anything

thalia pham: like a crowbar or shovel or something

don bailey: a CROWBAR

don bailey: who you planning on assaulting

thalia pham: shhhh don it's for breaking in

thalia pham: but i wouldn't be surprised if we needed to defend ourselvse

roman keating: i have one i can bring but we can only use it for assault

henri rousseau: ... can we please try our best to avoid assaulting an old lady? i know this one sounds scary but :/ old ladies like me and i don't wanna jeopardise that image they have :/

thalia pham: henri has a point

adam griffin: ok but it won't hurt to have it just in case

adam griffin: and what about those hair pins people use to pick locks??? thalia you got any of those?

roman keating: or we could just use a regular lock pick

adam griffin: do you have one?

roman keating: who are you talking to adam 🙄

don bailey: why am i friends w a bunch of aspiring criminals

roman keating: aspiring? i'm hurt don

adam griffin: idk you’re a masochist?

adam griffin: but perfect bring that adam

thalia pham: did u just ask me if i have any hair pins bc im a girl

thalia pham: is this tokenism

adam griffin: yes i did

adam griffin: thank you for filling our diversity quota, girl

thalia pham: i'm gonna bury u alive adam

[tonyglowheart]

so since I can’t stop obsessing over 无羁 (Wuji) I decided to pop open Microsoft Word and through the power of a random youtube commenter who transcribed it, a working knowledge of heritage Mandarin, and many translation sites, I can now absolutely lose my mind even more over the significance of the lyrics and who sings them.

more under the cut, a lot of it is unorganized emotion-fueled yelling

tumblr is kind of rough for long-form stuff, but I guess I’m just going to braindump:

Note: btw do I finally wised up to the fact that the uhh actual lyrics appear in some Tencent videos (and actually a lot of the verses show up with lyrics in the end themes) and also realized that the transcription I got - which was from a Youtube comment - was... wrong in places. And I ALSO realized “Yunshen” was probably referring to Cloud Recesses lol. And so yeah, I’ve edited it to update it.

first off: LAN ZHAN SINGING ABOUT HOW THE RIGHTS AND WRONGS ARE IN THE PAST, HOW CAN WE PRETEND IT’S A DREAM UPON WAKING? Like this is so sad and filled with like...honestly, righteous bitterness towards the world? but also so practical? This is of particular note because Wei Ying’s corresponding line in the second part/repeat. Just you wait

Wei Ying having the line about how can the [praises, blames, gains & losses] of the mortal world be measured is :( bc like. yeah... it’s so in character it makes me sad as heck. Because like. he’s done So Much for the world, and the world continues to denigrate and belittle and revile him, and it hurts him but ultimately he takes it with like.. a sad resignation. D8 babey,,,

*poetic stuff, poetic stuff, blah blah* (although I will add that the added layer of poetic imagery is the “feng liang” means something like cuttingly cold. “feng” refers to the sharp/cutting edge of a knife/sword, and then “liang” is cold. So it’s the imagery of someone getting cut or stabbed by a cold sword and their hot blood rustling down it (the first part is onomatopoeia)

okay the ZITHER LINE. I guess “wen” could be anything, BUT we know there’s a guqin spell Inquiry, so I’m! going to interpret it as more along that lines! I think the Tencent translation actually has it as “also” but it could be “again” I think? Implying that even when they’re far away from each other and Wei Ying is playing his flute all alone and melancholy, there’s an answering zither sound inquiring on him? (i’m going to take it as his well-being :’) )

Edit: so it turns out the “wen” was incorrectly transcribed in the first version of the lyrics I saw; it’s actually the same “wen” as the flute line, so more of it can also be heard, like the Tencent translation. ...but I Want to Believe....

edit: ALSO HOLD ON A MINUTE. I DIDN’T NOTICE, BUT I SAW A SCREENSHOT THAT SAID SOMETHING ABOUT HIM PLAYING INQUIRY LOOKING FOR WEI YING ONLY TO BE MET BY HOLLOW SILENCE? IS THAT FROM THE NOVEL? IS THAT MISTRANSLATED? OR DID I JUST NOT NOTICE. Guess I’ll have to find out

the last line/duet line: I can...kind of see where the “unrequited love” comes from? This is one of those lines where I wonder if it’s classical Chinese and therefore has layers of meaning that don’t convey through translation engines. I might need to actually search it and see but I’m scared to :’) my last brain cell is on Wuji I can’t deal with a wall of Chinese text right now :”)

so just going by the pinyin and what the translation engines tell me individual parts mean, the first part is something about a petition left open, which I can see as meaning unrequited (or more gently, “the story is not over” lol), but not sure what business Google has coming out of left field with a flat-out UNREQUITED LOVE for 8V bls my heart can only take so much

the last part of that line, NO clue at all, must be some kind of poetic thing... so I just gotta go with their translation and no other layers of understanding

Edit: ChenQing, interestingly, is the name of Wei Wuxian’s flute, and is also in the Chinese title of the series. so I think that first line is open to interpretation, it’s one of the lines I’d love to discuss with someone who knows Chinese and hear what they think.

the second part is mostly poetic imagery. it’s saying like low-laying silvergrass in the moonlight looks like frost (silvergrass being a common grass in parts of Asia. It’s that one with the fluffy fronds). When I googled the Chinese, it returned this specific species: Miscanthus sacchariflorus 

wOw the part about preparing a pot (metaphoric) of all of life & death’s ups and downs to memorialize/offer a sacrifice for a young man? hits me right in the heart and the feels and im going to sob over Wei Ying again

the other line that absolutely makes me lose my mind - and like the one above, it’s one that Wei Ying has a direct counterpart in part two - is Lan Zhan’s line here. Tackling the second part before I lose my mind over the first part, I sort of have an impression that second part is kind of a “go with the flow” (of life?) sort of deal, since to my understanding, it means something like... [traverse through time/through time/over history?][wind and waves]

okay but the part that makes me lose my mind is the “xiaoxiaosasa” part, which is a counterpart to the line sung by Wei later, “tantandangdang.” xiaoxiaosasa means like... in a natural/unrestrained/carefree manner. And at first I was like..Lan Zhan?? xiaosa?? but actually I kind of see it as like.... not a serious suggestion, but an impossible wish? Like this other post I think I where someone talked about them watching Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen wandering off, free of duties and clans, to hunt monsters etc. and I think that’s something that might be an impossible wish in Lan Zhan’s heart of hearts that he wouldn’t ever materialize because his sense of duty is so important to him. But maybe in a world where the two of them - or Lan Wangji especially - isn’t/aren’t bound by clans and sects and sundry, maybe they’re able to take a more carefree approach to life.

and then sharing the melodious song together at the ends of the earth is another one that has all of my ;A; ‘s

aaand here we are on the repeat, where Lan Zhan sings a line first, and Wei Ying has some sweet sweet counterpart lines that extra hit me straight in the heart:

okay so first off, first line. Unless that’s some Classical Chinese idiom, or honestly just flat-out idiom, I’m not sure where “I became lost after facing a dead end” comes from. Anyway.

HERE IT IS. HERE IT IS. okay so remember. the first verse, Wei Ying’s line is about a lonely and melancholy flute, and then Lan Zhan’s line is kind of tinged with a sort of world-weary bitterness but also resignation. But here!! Wei Ying’s line! is like sO magnanimous and accepting. Whatever the turmoils and rights and wrongs of the past, he’s already let it go. Granted I’m seeing this from a “the world wronged him” perspective so I’m like “D8 my generous-hearted boy... oH No my feelings...” Lan Zhan may move on but I think he can’t quite forgive the world for how it treated Wei Ying, but Wei Ying, like he said in the show, is ready to forgive and forget, it’s all in the past, and also I get the vibe of “yeah I’m used to it.” anyway gOD the contrast, and also I’m sad

[the rest of the intervening lines are the same, until]

okay the line is mostly the same, but one translation also gave me “fickle” instead of unpredictable or impermanent, and I feel that mood. It’s saying like “laughing over how fickle worldly matters can be”

aaand then here it is. Wei Ying’s counterpart to Lan Zhan’s carefree/unrestrained. why not go through life with a magnanimous heart. Which! is so in character for Wei Ying and honestly exactly what I think he does, like it HURTS him when ppl make shit So Personal about him which might have mitigating factors, or like... aren’t even his fault. But to some extent, he’s willing to bear it, for the sake of the world. Some of I think is out of misplaced sense of guilt trained into him (like when Madame Yu blamed him for bringing calamity to the Jiang Clan and he just accepts that :’) ) but I do think he’s also got a martyr’s heart.

Anyway, all of this taken together, and with the beautiful melody and the two singers switching lines and also dueting together, a b s o l u t e ly makes me go, as the kids say, feral

thanks for coming to my TED Talk

[dhruvdhingra02]

9 Highest Paying Freelance Jobs In 2020

Today I will tell the highest paying freelance jobs in the world.

Do you want to earn some extra money by doing any past time business online?

Making money through a business nowadays has become very challenging than it was in the 20th century.

So, in this situation, many entrepreneurs are hiring freelancers in order to help them out.

And because of this reason, why freelancing has become the second main source of income. It has become one of the quickest ways to make money online.

Freelancing is a place where clients can hire you to work on different jobs for a small period of time instead of hiring you as a permanent employer.

Many freelancers are earning a good amount of money through freelancing.

Basically, a freelancer makes money depending upon the number of hours he is investing. Freelancers are paid per hour depending upon the work they are doing.

There are some freelancing websites where you can work as a freelancer such as Upwork, Fiverr, and many more.

There are over 70 million freelancers all over the world but over 50% of them are not making a sufficient amount of money.

The reason is that they might not be having any particular skill or they don’t work seriously.

In this article, I’ll walk you through with some of the best paying freelance jobs you can do in 2020.

9 Highest Paying Freelance Jobs

So, below you’ll see a list of 9 highest paying freelance jobs which you can choose according to your skills and passion.

1. Content Writing

Content writing is one of the highest paying freelancing jobs of all time and it is growing rapidly day by day. As you all know content is the king therefore freelance writing is the best business for those who have the capability to create high-quality content.

There is a huge demand for content writers in any field whether you write a blog, book, newsletter, sponsored post, magazine or any other article.

So, in order to become a content writer, all you need to do is to polish your writing skills, improve your grammar and learn to write high-quality content.

There are different types of freelance writing such as content writing, SEO writing, copywriting, B2B writing, etc. which are in demand.

According to a money perspective, you can charge between $50-$500 per hour depending upon the length of your content, skills, and experience you have and also the site at which you are working as a freelancer.

It is a good source to make money for those who know how to play around the words.

Average monthly income – $5000

2. Graphic Design

Graphic design is another most popular skill which will be in huge demand in the upcoming years. Many digital marketing companies, bloggers, newspaper and magazine publishers want to create beautiful graphics in a short period of time. So, in this case, they hire a freelance graphic designer.

There are various free software companies providing these services where you can easily start making designs on platforms like Canva, Piktochart, Inkscape, and many more.

So, even if you are not a graphic designer you’ll still be able to create beautiful graphics and make a bunch of money

Make sure that when you are a beginner, you must offer a little amount of money because you won’t be having any rating and reviews on it.

Setting at a low price will really help you to attract more clients; more offers, and thus you’ll to make a living from freelancing.

You can charge up to $50-$100 per hour depending upon your skills and experience in it.

3. Social Media Manager

Every business owner wants to interact with their potential customers to promote their products and services online but due to lack of time, they need to hire a social media manager.

As a social media manager, your job is to help business owners to promote their products and services on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and a lot more.

In simple words, the job of a freelance social media manager is to manage social media partnerships with other brands, execute and analyze the campaigns, promote products by sharing it on social media in order to increase the number of sales, leads and brand awareness.

The best part is that you don’t need any expertise skill as long as you are good at building good relationships with people.

If you are a newbie, you will able to make around $20-$40 per hour.

But on average, a social media manager makes around $100-$150 per hour.

You can use Hootsuite tool that will help you to manage social media in a short period of time.

Average monthly salary – $4000-$6000

4. Web and Software Developer

Software and mobile app developers are the highest paying freelancing jobs.

There are many big organizations and associations looking for the best developers to handle the backend process for their website.

You need to have good technical skills in order to make money as a web developer freelancer.

If you are good at any programming language such as c++, Java, Python, HTML, etc. then you can easily charge up to $200 per hour.

You can learn these languages through various online educational platforms such as Codecademy, Codewars, Coursera, etc.

Toptal is the best freelancing website for those who are professional and experienced web developers. Toptal hires only 3% of talented people and most of them are expert programmers. Once you got selected in Toptal, you will easily make up to $250 per hour.

5. Translator

It is another one of the best freelancing jobs. Translating jobs are the ones where people have the ability to translate audios, documents into various languages.

You need to have a comprehensive and deep understanding of any language; you have to be able to show that you use that language almost at a native level.

Many companies hire freelance translators to work for them as they want to connect with people from other countries where they may require written translations.

It is one of the high paying jobs for freelancers.

On average, a translator can make up to $20-$25 per hour. An experienced freelance translator can also make more than $100 per hour.

If you want to make more money as a translator, you should learn at least 1-2 languages that are in demand such as Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, etc.

You can learn these languages from online websites like FluentU, Rype, Babbel, etc.

6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialist

Every website needs traffic to grow business and make money online. A freelance SEO specialist helps companies, bloggers to rank their websites higher on various search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. which are the major source to generate traffic.

It is one of the best freelancing jobs in the world.

The job of a freelance SEO specialist is to work on both on-page and off-page SEO.

On-page SEO involves technical work such as setting up HTML codes, meta tags, meta descriptions, reducing on-page time, etc.

Off-page SEO is the work that is done behind the website such as building backlinks, getting traffic, etc.

To work as an SEO specialist, you need to have analytical skills, mathematical skills, and also some basic knowledge of HTML. This will help to gain more visitors to your client’s website.

On average, you can earn up to $50-$60 per hour as a freelance SEO specialist.

You can start learning SEO for free on websites like SEO 101, Moz, Webmaster World, etc. There are also some YouTube channels that are providing complete free tutorials to learn SEO.

It is one of the best freelance jobs from home.

7. Virtual Assistant

A virtual assistant is someone who helps to manage the everyday task of an online business. It is similar to a personal assistant or secretary.

Many company owners hire a virtual assistant because they don’t have enough time to handle work on emails, social media, blogs, podcasts, etc.

Almost every business needs a virtual assistant, therefore, it will always be in huge demand.

It is one of the best freelancing jobs to start your career as a freelancer where you don’t require any strong skills to make money. Also, it is a high-paying job.

On average, a freelance virtual assistant can make up to $20-$30 per hour.

To become a virtual assistant, you need to have a basic knowledge of computer and communication skills.

You can offer various services as a virtual assistant such as Pinterest manager, Facebook ads manager, YouTube editing and management, etc.

8. Copywriter

It is a way of convincing someone to take action by writing words. It is in the form of advertising or promoting a product or services that make people buy instantly.

Copywriters basically motivate people to take some type of action on it.

Copywriters are different from content writers. They don’t have to write articles, blogs, newsletters, ebooks, etc. instead they need to text on emails, catalogs, billboards, etc.

Many business owners and publishing companies hire freelance copywriters to work with them.

An average freelance copywriter can charge up to $40-$50 per hour. An experienced freelance copywriter can also reach up to $250 per hour.

To make a plethora of money as a copywriter, you need to work on your writing skills, listening skills, and research skills.

Before working as a copywriter you must be having some knowledge of sales and marketing otherwise it will get hard for you to grow your career as a freelance copywriter.

9. Transcriptionist

Transcription is the process of converting speech into text format. A transcriptionist is basically a typist who needs to listen to the recordings or audio and type what they have heard into a document.

You need to type the text as accurately as possible.

Transcription is a freelance job which you can do while sitting at your home and make money online.

A transcriptionist can earn up to $0.40-$0.80 per audio minute transcribed.

It usually takes 1 hour of transcription time for 15-minute long audio.

The pay is low as compared to other jobs because you don’t require any tough skill to work as a freelance transcriptionist; you just need a headphone, a computer with an internet connection and good listening skills.

The most common mistakes that a transcriptionist makes during transcription are spelling and grammatical mistakes. So, make sure you work on this.

Conclusion

So, in this article, we have discussed 9 highest paying freelance jobs that you can try working at home.

You can easily make an account on the best freelancing websites and start making money online as a freelancer.

Although you will find it difficult to attract clients at the beginning of your freelancing career but with time, you will be able to find and work with clients that may convert into your customers.

Make sure you work consistently and build relationships with the clients. There are many people who are making a ton of money from freelancing by just working for a few hours a day.

Freelancing has now become a full-time job for most of them and if you have these types of skills, you must look after it.

I will upload more articles related to this, and in the meantime if you find something good in our article, you can share your opinions with us in the comment section.

Also, tell which of the technique you find best in our article.

[beihonglin]

[about subbing.]

alright y’all sit tight and buckle up, i’ve held this in for three months now but today i saw a youtube comment demanding to know why it took so long for eng subs for a certain show to come out and i think some things should be made clear. 

fan subbers are not obligated to do the subbing we do. we are people with our own lives who are busy with work and school and life. the time spent subbing takes away from our study time, our down time, or time better spent doing more productive things. 

“but wait, surely it doesn’t take that long to sub a show? i see gifs on tumblr / translated transcriptions on twitter, so i know people are capable of translating things but nobody will sub the whole episode / it takes so long for eng subs to come out.”

it takes. so. much. time. in case you’re not familiar with the process (i know i wasn’t, before joining a subbing team), i’ll walk you through it with personal examples. 

(1) obtaining the raw video: 

content is often hosted on iqiyi, youku, tencent. unlike youtube, these platforms have little to no ‘fast’ ways to download the videos. for example, iqiyi uploads their episodes as .qsv files, which, due to their non-standard format, cannot be opened in any normal multimedia player and require the use of iqiyi's proprietary software. in order to decode the file and make it usable, downloaders have to find ccodes and ckeys, which takes time. to make it worse, these ccodes and ckeys change every few weeks, which means downloaders have to go on a hunt for them all over again. 

even if you could find an online downloader for videos, video parsers such as this one often give you very little control over the quality of the video - most of the downloads end up looking like someone chewed it up and spit it out. 

this means that whoever obtains the raw video has to use methods like coding or terminal just to get the hd file, which takes time and effort. 

from here, the raw video goes to two people: the transcriber and the timer. 

(2a) transcribing the video:

this is a step i skip when i am subbing alone or when i’m subbing in a team that are all chinese-speakers, but when i’m working in a team that has typesetters who don’t speak chinese, we have to provide a transcription along with our translation so that they can match the words on screen with the translations they put in. in some teams, there are members who only transcribe, but in smaller teams, translators have to do it ourselves.

transcribing takes time - it can take anywhere from half an hour to two hours for a five minute segment, depending on how used you are to typing in that language.

(2b) timing the video:

for me, this is The Most Time Consuming part of subbing - it’s the part i dread when subbing alone. it involves making sure your subs appear at the same time as the corresponding characters on screen, and often, if your subs appear even a couple of frames off, the entire sequence will look strange to the viewer. timing involves small adjustments made over and over again just so your subs look at least presentable. 

it requires precision, which takes time. and it requires practice and being comfortable with the timing software - if you’re starting out with new software, you might take more than two hours to time a five minute segment. 

even worse is when a video comes without chinese subtitles (rip all of us who ever had to sub these) - we don’t have a frame of reference and have to decide how to time by ourselves. we have to take into account sentence length and how fast viewers can read per second, how long a clause can be before viewers forget what was in the previous clause, and we have to make these decisions in tandem with how fast the people on screen are speaking. which takes time.  

(3) translating the video:

i think this step is often what people reduce subbing to and is what most people are familiar with seeing, but i cannot stress this enough - it also takes time.

personally, i take an hour to clear five minutes worth of dialogue on a good day. and then i take additional time for the sfx captions. and then additional time to proof-read and make sure i didn’t mishear, misinterpret or mistranslate things. most of the time, interviews love using internet slang or gaming terms and for those of us who don’t game or spend most of our lives on weibo, it’s an extra step for us to search for the term, understand its meaning and the context in which it’s being used. which takes time.

when a video comes without chinese subtitles and the members on screen happen to Love Screaming Over Each Other... replaying the segment over and over again to try and hear what they’re saying takes time. and patience. and eardrum abilities. 

in a team, it also involves proof-reading each other’s work. our translations team always proof-reads each other’s segments in case we catch something the others missed out on or mistranslated, or in case semantics are awkward and we have to restructure a sentence. i’m very, very lucky in that the subbing team i’m in have different strengths - one of us is better at chinese and explaining complex phrases, one of us is good at pragmatics and catching nuances and suggesting rephrases and one of us is good at semantics and making sure things are grammatically accurate. but sometimes teams are unbalanced and it takes extra effort to make sure things still turn out in the best quality possible. 

in some cases, we can discuss one (1) word choice for a full ten minutes because there simply isn’t a phrase for it in english and we have to t/n it, or because multiple english words map to the same chinese word and choosing the wrong one will provide a wrong connotation. in other cases, we know that some scenes will be talked a lot about or giffed a lot by international fans, and we have to make sure that the translations have to be as accurate and as nuanced as possible so that nothing gets twisted. and in the worse case scenario, a wrong word choice can change a fan’s whole impression of a member. 

(4) typesetting the video: 

for dialogue subtitles, this involves finding a font that is readable by everyone and a style that will be visible against all backgrounds. it involves making sure they stay in the same place and are of the same style (all aligned left, a certain number of pixels from the bottom etc). 

for sfx captions, this involves matching your english font to the chinese font used so the scene style isn’t incongruous and matching styles like outlines and shadows so that the colour scheme remains the same. in some cases, there is no space for the sfx translation, and typesetters have to blank out the original to make the translations visible. in many cases, they move, so typesetters have to animate the text, which takes extra effort. 

for multiple-episode shows, typesetters have to make sure that the styling remains consistent and visible in all settings, which make the thought given to these choices all the more important.

in some teams, typesetters don’t speak chinese, and have to refer to transcriptions and corresponding translations to typeset correctly. this takes time. in the cases where the original video comes without chinese subtitles, typesetters have to decide in which order the noise and mayhem should appear on screen. this takes time. 

and in the first place, this assumes that you have the software to do hard-subs - something not all of us have. 

(5) encoding and posting the video:

this step takes the least effort but it still needs So Much Time - converting the aegisubs or premiere pro file into an .mp4 requires a media encoder, and adobe media encoder more or less takes three hours to encode a three hour episode. sometimes, it exports as an .mov and you have to handbrake it to get it to an .mp4 file, which takes extra time. 

uploading it on youtube also takes time - it takes an hour to get a two-hour video uploaded, and it takes another few hours for it to process so that you can publish it in 1080p. 

some of our laptops don’t have enough processing power to go through a three hour video - even encoding a half-hour episode can slow down our laptops so much they’re pretty much useless until it’s done. some of us even don’t have a media encoder on our laptops and have to run to computer labs to get it encoded. and if the closest one is on campus twenty minutes away and it’s snowing outside? good luck. 

people who gif casually or translate in blocks of text on twitter don’t have to deal with steps (2), (4) and (5), and that’s where the difference lies - even if they’re capable of translating things, the sheer amount of effort and time it takes can deter people from trying. 

in addition, most of the time, the content we sub is copyrighted so we can’t even monetise the eng subs - we get nothing out of subbing. 

the reason why we do it anyway is because we love the show or the people on the show and want to share that with an international audience. we’re fans and for some of us, that’s justification enough to put in the time and effort needed to get more love and attention for our faves. 

and that’s why we appreciate it when people ask us, “hi, would you be interested in subbing this show?” most of these requests are polite and include an “only if you want to” add-on (which frees us from the obligation to agree), and it lets us know that you’re following our faves and lets us know what kind of content you’re interested in. most of the time, most of us don’t even need a ‘thank you’ in the comments (although they are very much appreciated), because if we see comments laughing over a certain member’s actions, it means someone else is loving our faves too and to me, it makes the effort worth it. 

i understand people asking, “why does it take so long to sub?” out of curiosity, because before i joined my subbing teams, i knew nothing about the process. but going, “why is it taking so long to sub?” is different, and demanding that a show be subbed when it takes us ten hours of work to let you enjoy a twenty minute video? that’s not fair. 

tl;dr: don’t underestimate the amount of effort it takes to sub a show. subbers have their own lives and are not obligated to work on your schedule. 

if you’re still thinking about demanding subs faster, consider joining the subs team. otherwise, shut up and enjoy the fact that fans are putting in time and effort for your entertainment for free. 

[education30and40blog]

Learn English through stories with subtitles & audio #learnenglish #esol

See on Scoop.it - Education 2.0 & 3.0

loadYouTubePlayer('yt_video_2Z9BImJ9Svk_T3YA25HfrIoJLCs4');

English Stories on YouTube to learn English 00:00 Channels for learning English- Introduction 00:31 Learn English through story 01:52 Let's learn English 03:03 Easy English 06:01 English for free 06:49 Working with books and transcript- tips 11:25 Learn English through story 11:59 Thanks for watching The links to the 5 channels I recommend Learn English Through Story https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoIdrULeenCQ_d1_-ayFuTA/videos Let's Learn English https://www.youtube.com/c/LetsLearnEnglishHere/videos Easy English https://www.youtube.com/c/EasyEnglishAbra%C3%A3o/videos Learn English Through Story for free https://www.youtube.com/c/PolandNews/videos Learn English Through Story https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzJ1i9YrtTa7VA0bOigIEZA/videos If you are an English teacher or a student and looking for stories in English which include the written text and the audio then this video is for you. Russell will present 5 YouTube channels which are great for learning English. Stories in English with subtitles so you can hear and read at the same time. Packed with loads of content in different language levels to improve the language skills. Full of tips how you can use these channels for learning English. Straight to the point video which starts with an example of a story with written text on the screen and Russell will show you some tricks on what you can do with the audio. The stories may be short or in a form of a chapter or sometimes you can get the entire book with the audio. Plenty of choice where you can also search for stories with reach vocabulary so you can work on the words that you don't know. You can also adjust the speed levels to make it easier for you to understand the text as well as use the transcript to manage how you play the story and to pick some vocabulary that you might want to translate and save for further practicing. In this video Russell will give you some great tips about how to use the books and what you can do with the transcripts. You will also learn how you can organise your stories into Playlists so you can keep a record of everything you have been studying or you want to study in the future. The Playlists are selection of videos which can be organised, for example by the language levels, by the content, website name etc.. A great idea for the teacher which makes it easy to share the content with their students, simply by sharing the link of the Playlist. Finally, Russell will show you how you can can link Google Translate when working with your YouTube stories. 5 YouTube Channels with English stories to help the students to improve their language skills and to demonstrate to the teachers a few ideas they can use with their students. Full of great tips on how to use the stories when studying English, what you can do with the audio, transcripts and how you can organise the material you are going through.

[poherbabasdu]

Google voice desktop app windows 7

Google voice desktop app windows 7 install#

Google voice desktop app windows 7 windows 10#

Google voice desktop app windows 7 for android#

Google voice desktop app windows 7 Pc#

Google voice desktop app windows 7 free#

Everyone knows how unreliable a built-in microphone can be.

Google voice desktop app windows 7 Pc#

The next step is to buy a dedicated headset with an inbuilt microphone if you wish to make regular calls using your PC and safeguard your privacy. This enables you to answer your incoming calls using the most convenient device. If you have several phone numbers, this single Google Voice number will ring all of them at the same time. Using your Google account, go to the Google Voice homepage and sign up. Google Voice allows you to select a single phone number that friends, colleagues, or family members can contact you on. We’ll assume you already have a Gmail account, which means that the first thing you will need is a Google Voice account.

Google voice desktop app windows 7 install#

Stability and performance improvements REQUIREMENTS TO INSTALL GOOGLE VOICE.

All access number based calls use the standard minutes from your cell phone plan and may incur costs (e.g.

Google voice desktop app windows 7 for android#

Calls made using Google Voice for Android can be placed through a Google Voice access number.

Check with your administrator for access. Google Voice for G Suite users is available in select countries.

Google Voice is currently only available in the US.

Make international calls at competitive rates without paying extra for international minutes with your mobile carrier. Google Voice provides advanced voicemail transcriptions that you can read in the app and/or have sent to your email. Send and receive individual and group SMS messages from all your devices. Manage your time with personalized settings for forwarding calls, text messages, and voicemail.Ĭalls, text messages, and voicemails are stored and backed up to make it easy for you to search your history. Get spam filtered automatically and block numbers you don’t want to hear from. Text messaging is not supported in all markets. NOTE: Google Voice only works for personal Google Accounts in the US and G Suite accounts in select markets. It works on smartphones and computers, and syncs across your devices so you can use the app in the office, at home, or on the go. Google Voice gives you a phone number for calling, text messaging, and voicemail. Google Voice App for Windows 10, 8, 7 Latest Version It might seem a little weird at first to talk to your computer, but once you get used to it, you’ll probably learn to love it. This is by no means a new feature-Google added it to Chrome back in 2011-but it’s very easy to overlook. In fact, you can even say things like, “I need directions to the nearest Starbucks,” and Google will do the best it can (considering that your PC lacks GPS). I won’t say this is quite as cool as the app version, as it doesn’t seem to transcribe your words as you’re saying them, but the end result is pretty much the same: Say what you want, and Google quickly and accurately recognizes it.

Google voice desktop app windows 7 free#

Aside form video and voice calls, this program features conference calling, voicemail, free text messaging, voice transcription, call history, call blocking and many more.The feature is also available in Google Maps, though it doesn’t extend to other Google properties like Calendar, Gmail, and YouTube. with this application, you can make PC to phone calls, PC to PC video and voice calling and more. It is styled to Gmail and is available for all Gmail users. So there aren’t that many third-party options.Google Voice App For PCis a web based communication application that you can use right in your desktop computer. It’s often relegated to being an accessibility feature.

Google voice desktop app windows 7 windows 10#

It’s nice that Windows 10 comes with a built-in speech recognition app to control Windows 10 with your voice, but is there a better alternative? The truth is that desktop speech control is a rather niche area. That being said, if you’re getting a lot of missed or misheard commands, take a few minutes to train up your voice recognition system. The more voice samples WIndows has, the better the system will work. You’ll find the training application under the speech recognition setting you first used to set up voice recognition. You may however want to train Windows more so that voice recognition becomes more accurate. With the basic setup done, you’re pretty much ready to control your computer using just your voice. Refer to the official reference card for more commands. The Start Menu should pop up immediately. As a test, just say Start Menu with the “listening” indicator on. Activate speech recognition using your chosen activation method, though Windows Key + Ctrl will work as a toggle regardless.

[soyioblog]

6 Great Online Resources for Linguistics Students

In college, every major comes with a unique set of circumstances. If you’re studying linguistics, you’re going to encounter a handful of obstacles or assignments that need special resources. For the organized amateur linguist, I have made a list of resources that I found helpful for my linguistics classes:

Type IPA phonetic symbols for all languages

Often, there will be times in linguistics when a standard keyboard won’t be enough, specifically, if you’re taking any course related to the phonetics or phonology of any language. There are plenty of languages with sounds that don’t even exist in English. That’s where this handy dandy keyboard comes in. Sensibly organized, this keyboard is a collection of every special character and diacritic in the IPA and has the bonus of allowing you to combine symbols for narrow transcriptions. Simply type what you need in the text box and copy and paste it into your paper.

The Ling Space Youtube Channel

The Ling Space is dedicated to linguistic education. I was introduced to their YouTube channel in my Phonetics and Phonology class. I loved their visuals and the examples they used to explain their topics. They also do interviews and have their videos organized into playlists by discipline, so feel free to have a binge session learning about Language Acquisition.

All Things Linguistic

If you’re a fan of following blogs, All Things Linguistic is one of my favorite linguistics blogs. The blog shares insight into studying linguistics, working in the field, and other handy resources. Regularly, I follow their series Linguistics jobs. ATL interviews professionals who all have linguistics degrees, learning if and how they apply linguistics to their current jobs. There are professionals in and outside of academia and in realms of work you might not expect.

phpSyntaxTree - drawing syntax trees made easy

From the first day you start learning syntax, it’s obvious just how messy it can become when sentences are complicated. If you’re not a fan of handwriting trees, this website has come to the rescue. Simply write your syntax in bracket notation in the text box, and the site will transform it into a syntax tree image file that you can download or copy and paste into your papers. Sometimes, you might lose track of when the brackets are coming and going and end up with a wonky tree. When that happens, you can hit the back button and shift things around.

Google Scholar

For those of you unaware, Google Scholar is google search scholarly resources. Google Scholar wasn’t made specifically for linguistics, and you might have used it in high school. Nevertheless, it’s a convenient resource that some people still don’t know about. When conducting academic research in any subject, you must make sure the sources that you cite are reliable or at least peer-reviewed. Your college may have its own resources accessible through its library, and Google Scholar is a great supplement.

Praat: doing phonetics by computer

Praat is another useful resource for studying Phonetics. When I studied Phonetics and Phonology, it was required that we downloaded it. Praat is a free program rife with features including speech analysis, synthesis, and manipulation. In class, we employed this software to learn how to analyze spectrograms. Throughout your education, you may use it in other ways.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, June 28 2020

Welcome to my latest summary of recent ecommerce news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & Etsy! This covers articles, podcasts, videos and infographics I came across since the late May report, although some may be older than that.

I am currently working on Etsy search testing and a few new blog posts and pages for my website, so it may be a few more weeks before I get a new report out. In the meantime, if you have an questions, comments or suggestions, please contact me here or on my website.  

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Ecommerce sales are way up, but so are many costs, and delays in shipping are part of the problem. “...many of our merchants start preparing mid-year for peak-season volume, holidays. We’ve seen many merchants hitting and even exceeding their normal Black Friday and Cyber Monday volumes consistently through April, forcing them to adapt quickly for greater capacity.” UPS is charging high-volume customers a surcharge based on how much more they are shipping compared to normal times, and also for an increase in oversized packages. 

Mail delivery is still slow in many countries. Canada Post hit an all-time delivery record with 2.1 million parcels on May 19, but may finally be getting caught up. [article in French] Shipping between countries can also be substantially delayed, in part due to the lack of air traffic right now. USPS is using sea transport for packages to some European countries. And USPS rates are going up for international shipping in July, due to the new Universal Postal Union deal. "Anyone who is a bulk shipper, your rates are going up".

A reminder that the US economy isn't suddenly going to stabilize in the fall; it’s likely to crash. The US is now officially in a recession. Many people are not going to have money for a lot of discretionary spending. Furthermore, some categories of items will likely drop in price due to company closures, supply chain issues and bankruptcies. That will increase competition at the same time there are fewer buyers for many types of items. Ecommerce sales in the US are projected to rise 18% this year, but it won’t be enough to make up for the loss of brick & mortar retail sales. “The apparel and accessories category is typically the second-largest in e-commerce, for example, but will only grow 8.6% as consumers shift spending away from discretionary, non-essential purchases.”  Retail in the US is expected to be down more than 10% in 2020.

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy has released an addition to the iOS app that will allow shoppers to use augmented reality to see wall art on their home’s walls. The Verge was critical of how long it took for Etsy to catch up with the competition, and the fact that it is not available for Android yet. TechCrunch went into more detail. 

As mentioned last time, you can now add short, no-audio videos to your listings. Etsy is so big on this, they are offering listing credits and ad credits to sellers who upload 5 or more videos by July 6. As always, make sure you read the legal policies before you participate in this offer. 

The Etsy Design Awards are back, with submissions due by July 15th. Note that they are only open to 38 countries, for some reason. There is a forum discussion thread with tips, and a podcast [audio & transcript] with previous winners.

If you sell any items for kids, you will find this trending items article from Etsy useful. Searches including “kid,” “child,” or “baby” didn’t go up as much in April as one might have expected, given the pandemic shopping bump, but puzzles were popular. They include some search terms: for example, there was a “250% YoY increase in searches on Etsy containing “jump rope” in April. Also, “while school may look different this fall, we’re already seeing an increase for school-related searches compared to the same time last year.”

Face mask seller ZhenLinen was interviewed on NPR [text and audio] about mask selling, and was even asked about the offsite ads fees near the end. They sold 31,000 masks while their event-supply business was in pandemic limbo; most of those sales were through Etsy. The good news articles about mask sales, & suggesting Etsy as a source of masks, are continuing, although some do mention slow delivery times and even undelivered orders. By the way, if any mask sellers are looking for new places to sell, Facebook finally caught up and is now allowing mask sales, ads and other promotions. 

According to analysis of Etsy’s API data, May 2020 was Etsy’s best month ever. Remember that the API data misses things like sales of multiples, so it is not the most accurate source, but I don’t have any reason to doubt the statement is true. 

Etsy stock went over $100 for the first time, before dropping as the rest of the market went down. 

You have probably already seen Etsy’s statement on race issues after the recent murder in the US. “That’s why today we are announcing donations of $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative and $500,000 to Borealis Philanthropy’s Black-Led Movement Fund, as well as matching employee donations. We encourage our community to join us in supporting these important organizations.  Etsy is built on a belief that communities have the power to change the status quo. Change is hard-fought, and we are committed to this fight.“

If you have your real name on your Etsy account, don’t attract any attention from the police. 

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

If you don’t really understand what algorithms are and how they work for search engines, you will want to get caught up here. Key to understanding: “An algorithm is not a formula.”

This is a bit advanced, but it’s a good explanation of how to figure out searcher intent in Google results, and then fulfill it with new content. [video, transcript, and downloadable form]

Linking from one page on your website to another can be an important part of SEO. It can also help you get more page views, if you link to new pages from your most popular pages. Creating internal site links on the same page through a table of contents [advanced, coding info] can even get you more links in Google search results. 

Speed on mobile devices is also a big part of SEO as well as conversions. “a 0.1 second improvement in site speed resulted in Retail conversions increases of 8.4% and average order value increases of 9.2%.”

Bing made changes to its backlink tool, including the ability to see your competition’s backlinks. The option is part of Bing’s Webmaster tools, & allows you to analyze “similar sites”. Their Webmaster Tools now can also analyze your site for SEO errors. 

A former Google employee is starting a new search engine, called Neeva. 

Some SEOs recommend removing “low-quality” pages from your site to improve your overall rankings, but low-quality doesn’t necessarily mean pages that few people visit [text & video]. And short posts are not necessarily “low-quality”. If your page is mostly duplicate content, it is like low quality, but just repeating a few lines on each page is not duplicate content. 

Google missed a few episodes of its Google search news YouTube post during the pandemic, but they were back on May 26 with an update. They’ve also finally released their webspam report for 2019. “we observed that more than 25 Billion pages we discover each day are spammy.”

Advanced content [video with multi-language subtitles, & text summary in English]: Google, JavaScript, & links. 

Shopify sites have built-in blogs,and those blogs can help you get sales through SEO. And while we are on Shopify SEO, here is some advice on fixing technical SEO issues on Shopify sites. [the second is advanced content unless you know some coding]

While having an author page isn’t a requirement on any news/blog site, it might be a good idea anyway [text and video]. Content that is useful for readers is ultimately good for your site’s SEO. 

Here is a history of Google’s PageRank, and what it still does for ranking. 

Did the Google May core update really mess up organic search relevance? Some people think so. [I had noticed the Wikipedia drop but thought it was just for a particular search.] There may be more ranking updates underway right now. 

Google plans on introducing user experience as part of the ranking algorithm, although it won’t happen before next year, and we will get 6 months warning. Search Engine Land lists the following elements: “whether the page loads quickly, if it’s mobile-friendly, runs on HTTPS, the presence of intrusive ads and if content jumps around as the page loads.” They add a bunch of technical advice, and the tools to follow up on it. 

Do you find SEO confusing? Don’t worry - even the pros working for big companies make huge errors. 

(CONTENT) MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails) 

Updated infographic with the common social media image sizes used today. (Several of these get published yearly, because there are always changes.)

Is blogging still relevant? [TL;DR - yes] And if you want to write more interactive posts, here are some tools for that. 

Video app TikTok made a lot of money in April, but is seeing competition from a new short video app called Zynn, which allows users to make money by watching videos and bringing in new users. However, Zynn has already been removed from Google Play store amid accusations of content theft. Instagram has a challenger called “Reels”, and even YouTube wants some of that TikTok traffic, so they are introducing 15 second videos. Meanwhile, TikTok is coming under closer scrutiny for its invasive tracking. 

Every social network apparently needs to have their own version of Stories these days, so Pinterest has introduced a new version of Story Pins in the US. “Unlike Stories on other platforms, which are often self-focused snippets from someone’s life, Pinterest Stories Pins are designed as clickable content focused on sharing ideas. For example, Story Pins could offer a step-by-step guide to cooking a recipe or creating a craft project. A Story Pin could also offer ideas around how to reorganize your home office, keeping the kids entertained, beauty tutorials and more.”

Google appears to be imitating Pinterest with their new release, called “Keen”. You add items yourself but Google then attempts to find more things you are interested in, using AI. 

If you are looking for some new tools to help with Instagram, Social Media Today compiled a list of 5 recent ones. They include image processing, templates, and analytics. 

Twitter is beta-testing the ability to tweet sound files directly from the platform, instead of embedding links to other sites. The article notes that these may be more difficult to moderate than text tweets would be. 

Two of the three parts of this article cover local businesses, but the middle part has some promotional ideas that mostly involve content marketing & social media. Nothing groundbreaking, but a decent list if you are looking for new free ways to advertise.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS) 

Semi-advanced - how to improve your Google Ads optimization score. 

GCLID is short for “Google Click Identifier” to help track ads and conversions. You can learn more here. [Understanding this is useful for both your own ad campaigns and understanding other ads, such as the Etsy Offsite Ads program.)

Money coming in from social media video ads has increased from the lows in April. Facebook ads have improved the most. 

New advertisers on Instagram will not necessarily have to link their accounts to Facebook any more. It may be linked to a campaign to “stop hate for profit” that calls for people to stop buying Facebook & Instagram ads during July, and which has attracted several big players such as Unilever and Verizon. Some companies are leaving all social media ads, or are extending the Facebook boycott until the end of the year. But as the first article points out, Zuckerberg’s complete control of voting means he can’t be turfed by a board just to protect profit, so a short boycott may not be the best way to get change. 

Facebook published a new explanation of how ads work on the platform. 

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING 

For people who are new to Google Analytics: here are some things you should be tracking, as well as these, and some tips on finding source info for SEO work. If you want to improve your customers’ experience with the site, check out these tips. [There is some crossover between the 4 articles, but I think that those of you trying to learn more detailed examples of how GA works will find everything useful.]

What is a “session” in Google Analytics? This article includes screenshots & tips on changing their length. 

You can get great keyword data from the Google Search Console - here’s how. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS 

Online shopping has received a huge boost from the pandemic lockdowns, and big online marketplaces are now competing for new small businesses to fill the growing demand. Walmart outsold eBay in May, for the first time ever. Things are slowing down a bit, though: “buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) had begun to “plateau.” BOPIS growth in May was 195% year over year, which was down from its April peak of more than 200%.”

Amazon is being criticized for allowing many prohibited items to be sold on the site, even through “fulfilled by Amazon”, so the items are stored in its warehouses. “Graham did not respond directly to many of our specific questions, including how many of the banned items that The Markup found had been sold, why the company had not noticed some of them for months, why some were listed as Amazon’s Choice, and why many were stored in Amazon’s warehouses for shipment. He did not respond at all to questions about why Amazon itself had offered banned items for sale. Most of the banned listings we reported to Amazon have been removed, although at least three have popped back up.” [emphasis added]

Amazon is now offering multi-channel fulfillment in the US; you don’t even need to use Fulfillment by Amazon to sign up. They’ve also introduced lines of credit for sellers, through a partnership with Goldman Sachs. 

eBay is rallying sellers to object to a proposed Louisiana law that would force marketplace sites to verify the identities of higher-volume sellers in the state. The law was passed anyway, and takes effect July 1. Here are the highlights of the new law.

Now-fired eBay employees harassed and stalked the EcommerceBytes owner and her husband for months after eBay’s CEO at the time said eBay needed to “take down” the site & its owner.

Walmart now has ThredUp as one of its third-party sellers on the Walmart website. They sell second-hand clothing and accessories for women & kids, often famous labels. Sales are all online but buyers will be able to return things to Walmart stores. 

Walmart has also partnered with Shopify, allowing small businesses to list directly on Walmart’s website through Shopify. This appears to be a limited initiative, as they only plan on including 1200 Shopify sellers by the end of 2020. Most analysts think this is a plan to compete with Amazon more directly. 

In addition to its existing website, Target is now offering items on Instagram Checkout. 

Shopify has been getting great media coverage lately, including this article suggesting them as an alternative to Amazon third-party selling, once the new “Shop” app gets some traction. 

BigCommerce has introduced drag-and-drop design tools for its website builder. 

Square has begun using rolling reserves to reduce its risk with some sellers. “In one instance, Legal Knock, a company that builds websites for law firms, told the Times that it never had a customer demand a refund for their work and yet Square kept $4,000 in reserve in May. Sean Weber, the owner, said he had trouble contacting the company and wasn't satisfied with its explanation. He even said Square blocked him on Twitter.”

Upcoming PayPal changes for US users include seller protection for some digital items, and not necessarily requiring buyers to return items to win a significantly not as described case. Remember that many PayPal changes start with the US and then expand to other countries; Canadian changes are here. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

When thinking about customer returns, remember that a lower-than-average return rate is not necessarily your top goal. “You may ask, “why would a merchant want to increase returns?” It’s because they’re using returns as a growth driver. They’ve figured out, for their respective businesses, that a higher rate of returns actually nets out to an increase in sales and repeat purchasing. So much so, that the overall uptick in business far outweighs the increased costs of more frequent returns.”

Consumers are reading reviews more than ever, but half of this study’s respondents said that “‘too many companies’ are creating fake reviews online.”

Many people are tired of the “things are different” ads that have predominated, & want to see more ads showing people getting back to normal. “The U.S., U.K. and the Netherlands are primed for a jump in fashion purchases, with significant percentages of consumers in those countries planning clothing purchases in the next 30 days. The finding suggests that fashion marketers may increase their marketing efforts to reach consumers who are ready to buy apparel as lockdowns are lifted.”

We don’t know what the holiday shopping season will look like this year, so ecommerce businesses should be planning for many different scenarios. 

Here’s an interesting overview of how some searches changed in the first few months of the pandemic. [infographic] And some of the shopping changes people made, especially Gen Z, may be permanent. “...younger consumers are shifting their habits faster than their older counterparts.” That report also states that “33% of these consumers have increased their online spending, for a net increase of 6%, versus 23% of consumers in older generations, or a net increase of 1%.”

Here’s more on the second-hand clothing trend that is hitting its boom years. “According to the report, secondhand goods are expected to make up 17% of a person’s share of closet space by 2029, up from just 3% in 2009.” Gen Z is a big user of Depop, which has a lot of altered and enhanced vintage clothing available. 

MISCELLANEOUS 

This article has inspired me to completely redo my website’s About page. Not yet, of course, but some day soon…

Speaking of websites, here’s a good list of dos & don’ts for a contact form.

eBay may be probing your computer when you visit, and that is not always legal. 

Free Zoom accounts can’t set up encrypted calls/meetings, because “the firm wants to keep this feature away from free users to work with law enforcement in case of the app’s misuse.”

Finally in privacy news, Google is being sued for still tracking you in various ways when you use Chrome’s incognito mode. 

[nummero123]

YouTube SEO: How to Optimize Videos for Search on YouTube

Inbound marketing was a novel concept just a decade ago. 

Marketers discovered that they couldn't simply publish a large amount of material.

It had to be of excellent quality and optimized in ways that made it as discoverable as possible via search engines.

Previously, that content was primarily limited to the written word. 

That is no longer the case.

A comprehensive content strategy nowadays comprises textual content such as blogs and e-books.

As well as media such as podcasts, visual assets, and videos.

That last aspect, video, is still growing in popularity. According to the 2018 State of Inbound study.

45 percent of marketers plan to invest more on YouTube this year.

More than any other marketing channel accessible to them.

But how exactly does YouTube SEO work? 

What actions must you take to improve your YouTube channel for search? 

We've listed some of the most important advice and tools below.

1. Rename your video file using a target keyword.

YouTube SEO Tips

You'll utilize an SEO tool to first pick keywords you'd like your video to focus on, just as you would when optimizing written material.

When you've identified a keyword, the first place you should put it is in your video file.

Before you even upload it to YouTube. 

Why? 

YouTube cannot "see" your video to determine its relevance to your target keyword.

And, as you'll see in the tips below,

there are only so many places you can safely enter this keyword on your video's watching page once it's uploaded.

However, YouTube can read the file name of your film as well as all of the coding that comes with it.

With that in mind, replace the "business ad 003FINAL.mov" file name with your chosen keyword (don't be embarrassed.

We've all been there during post-production). 

If your keyword is "house painting tips,".

For example, the file name of your video should be "house-painting-tips" 

Followed by the video file format you like (MOV, MP4, and WMV are some of the most common that are compatible with YouTube).

2. Insert your keyword naturally in the video title.

When we look for videos, one of the first things that catch our attention is the title. 

Because the title is frequently what determines whether or not a visitor will click to watch your video.

It should not only be engaging but also clear and simple.

Although your keyword is important in your video title.

It also helps if the title is closely related to what the viewer is looking for. 

According to Back-linko research, videos with an exact keyword match in the title have only a marginal advantage over those that don't.

As a result, while "adding your target keyword in your title may help you rank for that term,"

Report author Brian Dean writes, 

"the association between keyword-rich video titles and rankings" isn't always significant. 

Nonetheless, optimizing your title for this keyword is a good idea as long as it fits naturally within a title that tells people exactly what they're about to see.

3. Optimize your video description.

First and foremost:

The official character restriction for YouTube video descriptions is 1,000 characters, according to Google. 

While it is acceptable to use all of that space, keep in mind that your audience came here to watch a video, not to read an essay.

If you prefer to create a longer description.

Keep in mind that YouTube only displays the top two or three lines of text.

Which amounts to approximately 100 characters. 

Following that, visitors must click "see more" to see the complete description. 

As a result, we recommend starting the description with the most important information, such as CTAs or important links.

In terms of video optimization, it doesn't harm to provide a transcript of the video.

Especially for people who have to watch it without sound. 

However, Backlinko's research discovered no correlation between optimized descriptions for a specific keyword and rankings for that term.

4. Tag your video with popular keywords that relate to your topic.

The official Creator Academy on YouTube recommends utilizing tags to let people know what your video is about.

 But you're not only informing your audience; you're also informing YouTube. 

Dean explains that tags are used by the platform to "understand the content and context of your video."

As a result, YouTube can figure out how to correlate your video with similar videos, thus broadening the exposure of your material. 

However, choose your tags cautiously.

Use an irrelevant tag if you believe it would increase your views.

Google may penalize you for doing so. 

Similar to your description, begin with the most significant keywords.

Containing a healthy mix of common and long-tail keywords.

5. Categorize your video.

After you've uploaded a video, you can categorize it in "Advanced settings." 

Choosing a category is another approach to categorize your video.

With similar content on YouTube so that it ends up in different playlists and reaches more people who identify with your target audience.

It may not be as simple as it appears. Indeed, YouTube's Creator Academy.

Recommends that marketers go through a thorough procedure to decide which category their video fits in. 

According to the book, it's useful to "think about what works well for each category" you're considering by answering questions like:

Who are the most successful creators in the category? What are they well-known for, and what do they excel at?

Are there any similarities in the audiences of similar channels within a specific category?

Do the videos in a related category have characteristics such as production value, length, or format?

6. Upload a custom thumbnail image for your video's result link.

When visitors scroll through a list of video results, they will see your video thumbnail as the primary picture. 

That thumbnail, along with the video's title, conveys a signal to the viewer about the video's content.

Thus it can influence the number of clicks and views your video obtains.

While you can always use one of YouTube's pre-generated thumbnails.

We strongly advise you to post a personalized thumbnail. 

According to the Creator Academy, "90 percent of the highest performing videos on YouTube have personalized thumbnails,"

and they recommend using pictures that are 1280x720 pixels (indicating a 16:9 ratio) and saved as 2MB or smaller.jpg,.gif,.bmp, or.png files.

 If you adhere to those guidelines.

You may assist to ensure that your thumbnail displays in the same excellent quality across multiple viewing platforms.

It's vital to know that to upload a custom thumbnail image, your YouTube account must confirm.

To do so, go to youtube.com/verify and follow the instructions there.

7. Use an SRT File to add subtitles & closed captions.

Subtitles and closed captions, like most of the other content we've addressed here.

Can help with YouTube search optimization by emphasizing essential keywords.

You must upload a valid text transcript or timed subtitles file to add subtitles or closed captions to your video. 

You can also directly insert the text for a video such that it auto-syncs with the video for the former.

Subtitles added similarly; however, you can limit the amount of text displayed. 

To access either, go to your video manager and select "Videos" from the "Video Manager" menu.

 Locate the video to which you wish to add subtitles or closed captioning, and then click the drop-down arrow next to the edit button. 

Then select "Subtitles/CC." You may then choose whether to add subtitles or closed captioning.

8. Add Cards and End Screens to increase your YouTube channel's viewership.

Cards

Have you ever seen a small white.

Circular icon with an I in the centre appear in the corner of a video, or a translucent bar of text inviting you to subscribe? 

Cards are "preformatted notifications that appear on the desktop.

And mobile that you can set up to promote your brand and other videos on your channel,"

According to Creator Academy.

A single video can have up to five cards, and there are six different types:

Channel cards that link viewers to a different channel.

Donation cards to stimulate fundraising for charitable groups in the United States.

You can use fan funding to encourage your viewers to contribute to the creation of your video content.

Link cards, which connect readers to an external site, an authorized crowd-funding website, or an authorized item sale platform.

Poll cards, which ask viewers a question and allow them to vote on a response.

Video or playlist cards that lead to more similar YouTube content.\

End Screens

End screens provide comparable information as cards, but as you might expect.

They don't appear until a film has finished and are a bit more graphically detailed.

There are a variety of thorough instructions for adding end screens based on the sort of platform you want to design them for.

As well as the varied forms of content permitted by YouTube.

It's worth noting that YouTube is always testing end screens to improve the viewing experience,

 so "your end screen, as specified by you, may not show" at times. 

Take these considerations into mind when deciding whether to use cards or end screens.

These criteria may appear intricate and time-consuming.

But keep in mind that the number of time individuals spend watching YouTube on their television has more than doubled year over year. 

There is an audience to discovered there, and optimizing for YouTube increases your chances of being discovered.

Now, the majority of the SEO strategies above rely on you successfully picking a keyword and advertising your video.

 And not all of those suggestions can implemented solely through YouTube. 

Consider using any of the tools listed below to optimize your video for search to get the most bang for your budget.

YouTube SEO Tools

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer

Ahrefs is a complete SEO software that allows you to track a website's position.

Estimate organic traffic from each phrase, and analyze keywords for which you might wish to develop new content.

Keywords Explorer is a famous Ahrefs function.

That allows you to check up multiple details about a keyword you're interested in. 

And, as shown in the screenshot above, you may narrow down your term results by the search engine, including YouTube.

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer displays the monthly search volume for a term.

The number of clicks obtained by videos ranking for that phrase, related keywords, and more.

Canva

You may be familiar with Canva as a design template for producing various types of cards, images, logos, and more. 

It just so happens that this well-known product includes a Thumbnail Creator designed just for YouTube videos.

As mentioned in the preceding guidelines, 

thumbnail graphics are essential for marketing your content in YouTube search results and attracting visitors to click on your video. 

Using Canva's Thumbnail Creator, you can generate the ideal preview image for your video in the 1280 x 720-pixel dimensions required by YouTube.

vidIQ Vision

This is a Chrome extension that you can get from Chrome's web store by clicking the link above.

It will help you examine how and why specific YouTube videos do so well.

This includes the tags a video has optimized for, its average view time, and even the rate at which that video is getting traffic.

The vidIQ tool then generates an SEO "score" 

that you can use to develop content that matches (or outperforms) the results you now see on YouTube.

TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy is a video platform that manages the creation, development, and advertising of your YouTube material. 

It has an automatic language translator (which helps you rank for non-English keywords).

A keyword explorer, tag suggestions, a rank tracker for your published videos, and other features.

Conclusion

A great YouTube channel begins with strong material, regardless of the SEO advice or tool you use. 

When your viewers find you, make sure they have something high-quality and relevant to watch.

You can also contact Nummero, the best website development company in Bangalore.

[dailyaudiobible]

07/06/2021 DAB Transcript

1 Chronicles 2:18-4:4, Acts 24:1-27, Psalm 4:1-8, Proverbs 18:16-18

Today is the 6th day of July, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian. It is awesome to be with you today around the Global Campfire as we just get situated and comfortable for our next step forward together in the Scriptures, and that will take us back into the Book of 1 Chronicles and just by way of reminder we began 1 Chronicles yesterday, we talked about that, we talked about this first part of 1 Chronicles being the famous genealogy section of the Bible and we’re reading through those names and were reading through them and giving them honor, understanding that this is the story of how we got here and these are the names of the people, each of them having their own life, their own laughter, their own tears, their own experience of life. Some of these names we can recognize because we’ve met these people and traveled through their stories. Some of them we don't know much about but their part of, parts of families that are trying to be remembered and not forgotten because we’re reading well, Chronicles, we’re reading, reading a document from the time when people have been carried into exile and our writing things down to not forget. And so today 1 Chronicles chapter 2 verse 18 through 4 verse 4.

Commentary:

Okay so, in the book of Acts, we’re kinda moving at warp speed, day by day. So, as we’re reading through the story yesterday, we read of 40, more than 40 people, conspiring not to eat until they assassinate Paul in Jerusalem. And maybe we should even back up further. Paul on his way to Jerusalem was warned by everybody in his life, basically, not to go to Jerusalem, and Paul knew that he had a hardship in chains in front of them. And I remember that scene where he says you're breaking my heart, all this crying, you're breaking my heart, I have to obey God. And remember that scene where he’s talking to the leadership of the Ephesian church and he’s like “I know you will never see me again.” We went through all that, getting to Jerusalem, then Paul gets to Jerusalem and its mayhem. Right, so there’s a mob in the temple, he's carried out by the Roman military, he’s questioned, he's brought before the Hebrew High Council of the movers and shakers of administering the law and interpreting the law and shaping the culture. So, he comes before them and he as a Pharisee, he kind of knows the lay of the land here and so they become a divided counsel over Paul because he’s like I’m a Pharisee and I’m on trial because of because I believe in the resurrection of the dead which made all the other Pharisees go yup, we believe that to. There's nothing wrong with this, Paul. And so, its Pharisee versus Sadducee kind of conflict and all of this is going on and then as for this group of 40 people get together to assassinate Paul and they have a plan to get Paul back before the Council and they’re going to kill them before he can ever get there. This is uncovered, it is reported, Paul is hastened out of Jerusalem under very heavy military guard, he is first taken to Antipatris which the ruins of Antipatris still exist today like there's Roman roads going into the ruins of that city that still have chariot grooves in them. It’s a fascinating place to have walked on some of those streets and thought yup, Paul under arrest, avoiding assassination, came through here on his way to Caesarea Maritima which would have been the Roman capital of the region, very, very posh upscale Roman playground that also governed the region right on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. So, Paul gets there and it's Felix, the Roman governor that questions Paul and there's all these accusations coming against Paul and Paul's defending himself and Felix understands this is a religious problem and so he's kind of stalling a bit here and let's just understand who we’re talking about Felix, the Roman governor held the same authority that Pontius Pilate, like he held the same position that Pontius Pilate held during Jesus’ lifetime and ministry. Felix was married to a Jewish woman. Her name is Drusilla and she was the daughter of King Herod Agrippa. This is some power we’re talking about here. According to the Book of Acts, Paul visited with him often sharing the good news of the gospel. So, Paul is sharing the gospel of Jesus, the story of Jesus with the Roman governor, the daughter of King Herod Agrippa, the Jewish high Council again and he's doing this all under Roman, like nobody can do anything to him. I mean, obviously, somebody like Felix could thumbs down him and that would be the end of his life, but none of the Jewish people can get at Paul, the Romans are protecting him because he is a Roman citizen and he is able now to share in a peaceable way where you can’t be harmed, the good news of the gospel with all of the Jewish high Council and high-ranking Roman authorities. Like I said, when we started moving into this territory were Paul’s going back to Jerusalem, his influence only increases. All of the sudden he is speaking to people that he wouldn't have had access to really under any circumstances he would have had a pretty hard time, like sending a letter to Felix and Caesarea Maritima saying hey, I’d love to, could we have coffee someday, I have some news to share with you. Like, but under these circumstances, Paul is able to share at length over multiple meetings, the story and we’ll continue to watch this happen as we move to the time of Paul's incarceration.

Prayer:

So Father, we thank You for Your word and its many facets and the many ways that we can approach it and the many ways that Your Spirit uses it to guide and direct our steps, whether that be us understanding context, whether that be You speaking directly into our hearts words from the Scriptures that were written thousands of years ago that are so immediate in speaking so directly to us and so, we are grateful for Your work in our lives, Your kindness, Your patience with us, Your loving kindness, so we worship You with all of our hearts, we give ourselves to You and to Your service this day. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyauidobible.com is the website, its home base. It is indeed the way to find out what’s going on around here and I mean what we’ve been talking for the last week and 1/2 or so is, well couple weeks, is what's coming up tomorrow on the 7th of July. It's our own little Daily Audio Bible holiday we call the Long Walk and it's a day that we will, all over the world's all of us who can, will go somewhere beautiful backyard down the street to a park drive far away to a place that you find beautiful whatever you choose, go out and be in nature place where you don't feel compelled to check your texts every other 30 seconds or social media every minute where you just go and allow nature to start speaking and healing. And it's amazing to be out in it and just realize how much life there is that's happening all around us that we’re rarely paying attention to, and go for a Long Walk with God, here as we move through the center of the year, recalibrate, re-group. Take the time to say everything that's in our hearts that we just don't have time to say and actually give space for quiet, listening to God, being with God. When you're really in love with somebody yeah there's plenty of things to talk about but you still communicating when you're not talking, you're still together and the peace of silence, just being contented with one another. All of this is part of the of the Long Walk each year. And it is a beautiful thing and so if you haven’t made plans, make plans for tomorrow. And obviously this is very solitary thing to go be alone with God, it’s a very solitary thing, but it’s something that we’re doing together at the same time all around the world also. So, we will put a post about the Long Walk on the Daily Audio Bible Facebook page tomorrow and wherever you go wherever it is, take a picture a little video or something and compose that with in the post for the for the Long Walk and all of a sudden you get to see windows into each other's lives and the beauty of God's creation all over the world and I love that. And so, that is tomorrow and I've also been mentioning a resource that is really perfect, perfect for the Long Walk and it is called Heart: A Contemplative Journey and it's, it's kind of a guided prayer and contemplative musical journey that just begins the conversation. It just opens our hearts to the different emotions that we feel and that we go through and that often we don't invite God into we just kind of muscle it out or work through whatever but to just open ourselves to these things, inviting God into what we feel, and the emotions of our hearts is one way that we open ourselves to Him and surrender before Him and worship as we invite Him into our life. So, that resource can be found wherever you get your music so like the iTunes store, YouTube music, or wherever you get your music. Just search for my name Brian Hardin or search for Heart: A Contemplative Journey and you’ll find it and you can purchase it and download it and take it along with you on your Long Walk and it's a wonderful way to start things so check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible if this mission that we have together to day by day step-by-step. Take the next step forward through the Scriptures and build community around the rhythm of daily coming together on this Global Campfire if that is meaningful if that makes some kind of difference in the flow of your weeks and your life. Thank you for your partnership, especially in the summertime. So, there's a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address if you prefer is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can hit the Hotline button in the app which is the little red button at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today I’m Brian, I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Prayers and Encouragement:

Hi guys it’s Sparky. I just wanted to take a minute; I've never done it. Listening to the DAB for two years now and I’ve never done but I'd like to say thank you to Brian and the Hardin Family, how they've completely changed my perspective on the outlook of life and the way Brian preaches. We love your brother. As I told my wife at the end of every reading, he says I love you and I'll see you tomorrow. I tell myself I love you too brother and I just wanted to thank him for making platform to where we can stop being so self-centered and see things through the other eyes of other people. The struggles that this life has and Brian you’re an amazing man and you’ve definitely changed mine and my family's life and I just want to give you kudos for that and my family are on the DAB. Ya’ll are our family. Listening to Blind Tony and I don't have Facebook and I don't have the community on that but I hear ya’ll and I know you. And that's due to Christ leading through Brian and you and Jill and your family I love you guys. Hope you have an awesome Fourth of July weekend and be blessed and go with God.

Little Sharie in Canada, this is your brother in Baltimore, Maryland. I heard your experience at church from the July 2nd podcast and I just wanna kind of lift you up in prayer because of the awkwardness, the awkward silences and it was kind of pulling away and I heard the anguish and hurt in your voice and I just pray that Lord Jesus that you’d give Sharie Your peace and Your kindness and Lord give her Your strength and Your love. Let her know that Your love is unconditional for her oh God according to Your will and purposes. God cause the people to be more sensitive to Your Holy Spirit as to being a loving community. Administer Your grace and Holy Spirit oh God and let the people know that You know all things and Your love for all things Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus we commit this and these things in Your hands in the name of Jesus. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Love you lil sis and we’ll keep you in prayer. Bye now.

Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Tanis I’m calling in from Cleveland Ohio. I’m requesting prayer for myself and my family. On June 11th we lost one of my sisters and it’s been very hard. I just saw her on June 10th we were having a great conversation and then I get the call on June 11th that she had been in a tragic car accident and she’s gone on to be with, to glory. And with my mom, we lost my mom last year April 14th so here we are again at this side of grief and it’s just weird, to say the least. I feel like me feelings are a bit; I don’t know which feelings to grab first you know because it’s just feels as though there are just so many things going on. I think grabbing a feeling means that I have to now face a reality again that I’ve lost someone significant in my life. So, I guess I’m in denial right at the moment actually, I know that I’m in denial because I’m stuck, I’m still stuck on our conversation on Thursday and then I’m also you know, concerned about my dad he lost his wife of 58 years and now a daughter. I’m asking you guys for prayer and comfort for my family. My sister had three beautiful children and five beautiful grandchildren. And they’re all adult children but you know I want them to know Jesus like I know Him or better than I know Him or however you can phrase that. So, please pray for our family and my other siblings, call them by name Pam, Guy, Jennifer, my name again is Tanis. Call our names and I thank you guys so much for all that you do. In Jesus name thank you. Amen. Bye bye.

Good morning DAB family it’s J from the Everglades. I think I need to change out my moniker and I may change every single time I call right now because things are changing and life is moving forward. Today I’m a rot a Rut Rocker, I rocked myself right out of a rut. No, the Holy Spirit helped guide me out of my rut. But that rut came from rubbing elbows with and being influenced by other people. And it was so amazing that the day that I was influenced from very professional people through an interview process, Brian read in June 28th 2 Kings chapter 13 verses 20 and 21, when a dead body was thrown on Elisha's tomb and touched Elisha’s bones the man came to life and stood up on his feet and it is crazy and I thank You Lord Jesus that I was encouraged to go be rubbing elbows with people who influenced me for the best to stand up. I now have found new appreciation for my job I found new appreciation for the people I work with and I have new motivation to do a better job at what I’m already doing. I had to cast my net in order to get to that space. And then today I listened to Ben from PA ask for prayers for his wife who’s a stay-at-home mom with three kids and it just reminded me that sometimes we have to cast that net in order to know that we’re exactly where we are, need to be. Lord, thank You for that. I pray for Ben’s wife. In Jesus name. Amen.

Hi everybody, Susan from Canada, God’s Yellow Flower calling and I just wanted to give you an update on what’s going on in our life here. In exactly one week we’re leaving for Belville, a 1500-mile move. Things are going smoothly, God is putting things together, praise His holy name. Even the doctor from, that Keith will be seeing there has called us and wants to talk to us even before we move. So, my daughter and her husband have everything prepared and ready for our arrival, goodness, gracious, me. What a time this has been, busy, busy. But now things are done and its goodbye time for all my friends and family here in Winnipeg. It’s a tearful time for this week. And then next Saturday we’ll be flying out of Winnipeg and landing in Toronto and then a two-hour drive to Bellville. So, keep up in your prayers. I love you all. God Bless you, Bye.