#i know regional at best is like technically released. i’m not taking criticism on that either im being dramatic | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wolfliving · 5 years ago

Text

On the subject of Making

From: Garnet Hertz

I made a Google Form to collect ideas in regards to an organization to fill the gap left after Make threw in the towel and closed their doors. The full responses are included below. At this point, it looks like something will be organized for sure... or at least I'll be starting up something. Thanks to Mitch Altman, Karen Marcelo and members of Nettime for sharing. There are piles of good ideas here: which of these do you think are the most important?

Here are the raw, unedited responses to the question "If you were running an open source maker-oriented organization that filled the gap left by Maker Media ceasing operations, how would you run it and what would you focus on?"

76 responses:

• Model it after dorkbot but instead of having meetings it can be geared around smaller regional Faires

• I would run it as a non profit and make sure that there are people from all over the world representing. Not only so US focused.

• Focus on low tech and tech critism...as much as possible far from western culture...let say the gambiara creative movement in LATAM (brazil) or Cuban style repair culture guerilla, community envisioned and run publications/workshops/happenings without the 'red tape' so often discussed as part of the Maker Media legacy. so, no forced branding, no forced commonalities (other than perhaps a shared manifesto), no minimum number of participants or fundraising requirement for it to be a 'real' event of the community, and much less of a focus on attracting, and then satisfying, corporate sponsors.

• Should be about critical making, open source, skill sharing, critical thinking and more...

• I think the most important thing is to help local people meet up with each other in person. This should go far beyond people who already go to a hackerspace - this is something that Make did well by bringing together all sorts of people from children, university students, hackers, artists, etc. I don't think this has to be large scale.

• Member-run co-operative; leadership positions only for women; women-only days; focus on understanding biases built into technologies and imagining ways around this (critical technical practice)

• Money. Without money you can’t go far

• Projects how tos. Wait. That's Instructables. Never mind.

• cats, and i'd not run it... i would do unconferences, get space, and allow people, provide limited scheduling facilities.

• Support groups with least access to money, education, and resources to setup, lead, and run such an entity.

• I would focus on local groups with local, f2f contacts and a (funding-)mechanism to facilitate the exchange of primarily people as visiting makers instead data-platforming and global marketing.

• A mostly decentralised movement that prioritises shared ideas over branding, focusing on providing easy-access models for small, local communities to start shared spaces and hold events.

• I'd make an organisation of organisations, and invite contributions from different organisations. If I was making a publication, I think I'd go with an interview format and I'd interview two or more organisations at once - inviting them to discuss their operations, their experiences and their hopes, together.

• Ideally, a new organization would be a resource, and not an organization. I think open-source maker communities are singular to the their local communities and their local interests. A global community that allowed the specificity of local/regional interests to shine is more important to me than an 'engineered' (imposed?) idea of maker-dom. I enjoyed the broad definition of making that Maker Media cast, but I think the organization was actually dominated by specific technologies and approaches to technology. I'd like to see an organization that could get past that.

• I would focus on positive technology that attempts to help us instead of just consumer goods

• Community building by featuring projects by makers through events and publications.

• I'm not sure if it needs a replacement, aren't the maker faires run independently? Also a printed magazine isn't something that many technology interested people buy in 2019. A website that collects nice projects and tutorials would be enough.

• Education of kids. the best energy seemed to be in helping people learn

• On content by the community (electronic media) and events

• I would run it as a collective that will use their power to make an impact in society. Use the power of us, humans to make our home planet better. I would focus on philosophy and ideas, since ideas are bulletproof and no one can’t take them away.

• n my market no matter the name of a brand, people do not come because the brand comes to create community

• Non-profit, volunteer-based, brutally and radically self-sustaining.

• a bit like hackaday but with a broader focus

• Celebrating and sharing builds.

• I currently part of a maker oriented NGO in Mexico, and our experience is that there are a lot of oportunities to fund and create open content. We get funds from bigger organizations like USAID, Save theCHildren and others to fund open programs like meteorito.io or robolution,mx, that anyone who speak spanish can use.

• Sustainability is challenge. What happened to Maker Media will happen again if you are a single entity trying to make ends meet. I would rather take a different approach. More about it below.

• I would still run it as a media and marketing company. Similar to how many makerspaces stay funded by offering production, design and development services utilizing their existing resources to for-profit companies. By providing some form of value-added business in a tangential indistry separate from the niche maker media was filling, (I know, you had the magazine, but magazines aren't big money makers these days. I'm thinking of something like a peer-to-peer lending platform that allows makerspaces and small businesses to fund expansion or a marketing and development support agency and platform that sells a specific set of services or products. ) that then turns around and uses it's profits to fund the sort of programs Maker Media was running. Does it suck to end up spending 80% of your time designing a UX system for a loan platform instead of planning maker faires? Yep. But a separate business organization that just has a charter to provide funding for a maker-centric organization out of it's profits can survive a bad turn a lot easier than the two being the same organization.

• Reach out to schools and do lots of mini fairies and training to get kids ready for the faire...

• Youth and education. If you inspire the next generation you guarantee longevity.

• I would not take VC. I would make an education and technology outreach non profit. I would make it just an events company, focussing on a few big, profitable events in a year in less expensive locations plus smaller community events. It doesn't have to make a killing, just enough to make ends meet.

• I am always more interested in seeing what strange things individuals make instead of groups.

• alternative energy

• I'd focus on reaching kids who don't have a ton of money, and teaching them how to get started on a shoestring in the world of making. Stop with satellite design and get into how to use openscad, how to tune a budget printer, things like that. Maybe teach people how to bring this stuff into schools and get started there. Maybe showcase some kids programming stuff each issue.

• Exclusive: Magazine, limited pre-release hardware, baubles. Growth: YouTube

• As a non profit.

• Focus on education to the widest audience. Not sure of the best model for running.

• A shared interest organization like Foundation or Cooperation on regional based clusters. Focus should be on life long learning and sharing resources and knowledge.

• Not For Profit - Focus on inclusion and education of the core making skills that are developed through designing, building and coding.

• coop, not too pricy, but not free

• Accessible workshops and showcases of diverse creators.

• Event organization to have people meeting all together

• A web/editorial site, with a modest branching off to video. I would not do the maker fairies and events because I am not good at event planning. But I would TOTALLY love to go to some more maker faires as both an attendee, and a presenter

• Building projects together as a group.

• I would run it with the goal of educating and providing tools to communities regarding electronics and maker skills

• Non-profit. Non-exclusive. Encouraging. Run by a team who think deeply about the impacts of their actions and go to great lengths to learn both in their areas of personal interest and in areas that are for the good of the global community.

• Non-profit with a benevolent dictator. Org holds the brand, collects grants, and gives out money city by city to recognize what people are already doing. The org would also certify maker educational content and products as a revenue stream through an open access review process, similar to academic journal reviewing. That said, primary focus would be on building awareness.

• Online daily content(curating from sources worldwide), long term brand partnership, spotlight on the makers themselves, low on staff- use local partners for all events

• how to run an organization is a question for an online poll?, I don't know even how to cook

• i would focus on keeping on supporting the community

• Creativity, diversity, inclusivity

• I run a Bangalore based social business by the name of "Makespace and Open Source Creativity" (www.bangaloremakepsace.org) and we are fully sustainable and have been operating successfully for the last 5 years. We gain revenues by hosting and conducting workshops for the local maker community as well as organize multiple events where the maker community can come together, collaborate in real time, and create connections to start their own "maker ventures". We focus on the "social business" model so it avoids incurring massive debts and costs. Everything is volunteer driven.

• The way it was run isn't a problem. It wasn't a leadership issue,it was a lack of sponsorship.The big tech companies didn't care anymore. Perhaps big events should be nixed in exchange for small local maker faire events.

• Let the healthy events operate themselves. Create a minimalist amount of requirements.

• Forming a non-profit board would be the first step. I personally like consensus-based models like the Circle Way with traditional models like Parlimentary procedure used as needed. I think major focus should be placed on education (NOT just for kids!), supporting novel technologies and models especially when it comes to sustainability, and providing access to the tools, skills and mindsets behind making to diverse communities.

• I subscribed to their magazine once and while I found it interesting, everything seemed a bit advanced and over my head. It would help if they had some material for beginners.

• Make it a playground open for all

• I imagine that organization embedded inside individual educational institutions and organisation. That way it becomes financially sustainable and viable.

• It'd continue to run and focus on education.

• Too tough to answe succinctly , maker faire

• Community is the critical component, and events like Maker Faire have been amazing places to visit that help keep the community active and contributing even when remote.

• Critical social maker issues.... improving urban environments, developing countries, citizen infrastructure solutions

• I would operate with advocacy and accessibility in mind. I would focus on how the maker movement can provide opportunity and equity to people underserved by institutionally-oriented models of production, research and business. I would look for opportunities not only to generate and platform content to this end, but also to find synergy with peers and indies. I would seek to publish quality instructional material, and also journalism on the maker community. I think a guiding principle should be elevating the maker movement's reach and relevancy in local economies.

• If i were? I think, I am

• I believe that Maker Faire actually had difficulty in getting makers to register over time because of bad feelings due to the fact that the business model was for-profit but MF gave no equity to the makers, who are literally the reason for the event. I would hope that such a future organization would be not-for-profit. In the long term, maybe it could even sponsor makers with projects of enormous scope.

• An open source franchise model with a common virtual platform to share "how-to", technical help forums, show and tell, etc. This should be supported with low member fee. Also needed are blueprints on how to have a brick and morter makerspace connecting into the franchise model.

• Would change the name, like Tech or DIY meetups.

• Membership based, maybe with organizational members (like hackerspaces) • 501c3, The community

• My favorite part of Maker Media was the Maker Faires.

• Considering the raise of streaming platforms as YouTube, I would focus on keep doing content and publish or online, keeping the already big community around Maker media.

• Kids first, then hobbyists

• Stop trying to claim the word "Make" as IP and focus on enabling and building the community through faires, meetups, clubs, forums, talks, etc. Give makers a place to go to meet each other, and an audience for their works. Don't promote "maker tax" businesses, but show how DIY can be cheap enough for everybody. Less STEM, less kids, more technical.

• I would run it as a distributed co-op, focussing on sustainability and radical change.

• I'd focus on highlighting the work of underrepresented folks from the start. Without conscious effort, it's easy to show a fairly homogeneous subset of the community.

These are the raw/unedited responses for the question "If you had to pick only one thing for an open source maker-oriented organization to focus on, what would it be?"

• Community

• Smaller annual festivals (east bay maker Faire is a good size) organizing small gatherings so makers can meet makers

• check out OPEN BIDOUILLE CAMP

• maximising the good maker/craft engagements already happening on the grassroots level, rather than taking credit for them.

• Curating

• Small local events for people to show their projects and meet each other.

• Feminism

• Anything and Everything - once the money part of the game is taken care of. Without money, there is no chance to make

• Project how tos. Ugh.

• cats

• For making to focus on local need.

• I would focus on facilitating small-to-medium group ownership of open source projects as common-pool resources.

• Increasing diversity of the maker community by lowering the barrier to entry (financially, geographically, socially).

• Sustainability & Engagement. Yes, I know it looks like two things, but it's not. By this I don't just mean environmental sustainability, I also mean economic and social sustainability: Who's engaged? How is that broadened over time? And how does the organisation sustain itself? In many cases, the answer to "How does the organisation sustain itself?" will lead, by implication, to answering the question "Who is engaged?". (eg: A fablab that's in the orbit of a university will tend only to engage students! eg2: A glossy magazine about the "maker lifestyle" will tend only to engage middle class makers.)

• empowerment

• Teaching self sufficiency

• Ensuring at least one big event was happening annually to get makers together showing their projects.

• Accumulate interesting and useful projects, ideas etc.

• Helping kids create

• Events

• The idea that we can hack the planet for good

• in the community and not in the brands

• Facilitating cooperation, since this is the main thing that individual/independent makers lack in comparison to larger (corporate) structures.

• tutorials

• Celebrating and sharing builds

• Content creation

• Education and Outreach, I think the Make magazine and books were a great enablers.

• By far, I would pair down to just operating a online news site and the maker faires. I'd look at how Cracked brought itself back from the dead as an example.

• Tools to train kids to put on makerfaires

• Support the demonstrating makers

• Outreach focussed events - big ones and community ones. • These events have *enormous* impact on human beings and can make money.

• alternative energy

• Education and levelling the playground socially. This stuff doesn't have to be stupid expensive.

• YouTube

• Events

• Continue the magazine at all costs. It is the source of inspiration for many of all ages.

• Free physical and virtual spaces for learning and creation for all.

• STEAM focused. Especially for school aged children

• micro circuts

• accessible workshops and online materials

• free as in beer

• Community. I don't know how to foster that and not make it all about the money. It's hard because people make cool things and they want to get paid but "community" and "ceaseless self promotion " do not go well together

• Picking some project, and building it as a group with looking at the different elements of engineering, social science and acceptance, and presenting it to a different audience.

• Electrical engineering

• Diversity, equity, and inclusion of varied experience, culture, ideas, and methods.

• Right to repair to build more awareness around making

• Daily online content, but I think going diverse is safer

• I think I would like to focus in providing opportunities for makers that want to teach to teach, for example, I would love to teach programming for free, but havent found the space to do so

• community

• Community. Hands-down. There are many ways to address "Community" but it's the one thing I would pick over other characteristics like "Profit", "Longevity" or "Infrastructure" with respect to an open source maker-oriented organization

• Keep it small, nimble. Cater to the creativity of children, and keep it family friendly.

• Being not for profit.

• Providing access to the tools, skills and mindsets behind making to diverse communities.

• Wow, is that possible? :). I guess Arduino since you can do so many things with it.

• Let neither startup hype/pitch competition people nor social justice/identity politics people grab control over the space.

• Education and accessible technology for all

• Education

• Maker faire

• Community-organized events like Maker Faire I think are the one thing that allowed Maker Media to stand out

• critical approaches to design

• It is hard to pick one answer. I think there are several compelling opportunities for maker organizations focused on specific domains. One would be presenting maker skills in the context of a path to the trades. Another focus would be modernizing (and miniaturizing) common manufacturing processes outside the usual footprint of CNC technologies. I also believe there are a lot of opportunities for makers in agriculture and primary productivity - this is my own personal focus right now.

• Decentralization

• Whimsy. Maker businesses are fine, but there's nothing like the exhibits that elicit pure joy, which are made just because they can be made.

• Access to affordable maker spaces.

• Electronics DIY

• Regional events! Maker Faire Detroit has been so important for connecting makers in the midwest to each other and the rest of the country.

• Community building

• Events -- getting Makers together to talk, teach/share skills, show off their stuff.

• Creaste short videos that detect an issue in a community that could be somehow solved making some artifact, explain the creation process and show the impact it made.

• Physical computing

• Creating user controlled and built technological devices.

• Sustainability!! Many people are already afraid of the future, without knowing what they can do to improve matters. Be a beacon of hope. But also, as things move forward, there will be a lot of demand for this type of solutions. Renewable energy, repurposing/upcycling, interesting ways to produce food, and more. • social capacity building

Lastly, here are responses to the question "Any other thoughts or ideas?" (I've edited out some people's private contact information here, other than that these are the raw responses). Which ones resonate with you?

• the main ideas should realy come from the third world....they are way much more advance

• happy to get involved in helping build this - just let me know :) @c------- / [email protected]

• b-- here. I think the zine, + on demand + downloadable format would be great. Riso !!!

• Thanks Garnet!

• Maybe a how to magazine of critical and speculative design projects?

• well... another metaphor for cats is academia, or herding cats. other • For the organisation to be a meeting space for other locally focused groups not necessarily attached to making to encourage cross fertilisation of ideas.

• "Makers" are people, and community is people -- and we should eschew the platforming tendencies by single individuals, be it TechShop, Fab Lab, Maker Media, P2P, ecology ...

• And as I said earlier, together with m------:

"Shared Machine Shops are not new

Fab Labs are not about technology.

Sharing is not happening. Hackerspaces are not open. Technology is not neutral. Hackerspaces are not solving problems. Fab Labs are not the seeds of a revolution." (http://peerproduction.net/iss…/issue-5-shared-machine-shops/) P---- T------, [email protected]

• Great thoughts and ideas on Nettime. Keep up the good work! Hope to see you again IRL some time. J----

• No DARPA grants

• Open source is a strange thing to focus on. There are many maker companies that eschew open source, and many that require retention of copyright, etc. I wonder why you chose this phrasing.

• Be political neutral, don't force political opinions on people like the left wing Make magazine did.

• I am not sure I am right. This is just my gut reaction.

• Being a “maker” is a way of living based that we can hack everything for better :) we can be better, we have to.

• The maker movement is more alive and latent than ever.

• A post Maker Media organization should imho be membership-based, with membership revenue being the basis of what is possible financially. It would be a kind of global trade organization for makers of all kinds.

• HACK OTHER EVENTS: Attend events that attract makers who don't identify as makers: comicon (almost everyone is a maker there), wood and metalworking trade shows, custom car and bike shows, etc. We grow our community by joining other communities and infecting them with our enthusiasm for blending the disciplines into one big community of makers.

• I think building an alliance or consortium that brings together various organizations and individual is much better idea. The group could consist of organizations who's business is cater to maker community (open hardware companies, open source companies).

• I think the problem you're always going to run into is an issue of that the maker community has always struggled a bit with the idea of business as a part of the movement. At its core, the movement is a hobby to most people, so the vast majority of maker organizations have to or prefer to rely on outside sources of support because if you try to fund a makerspace internally and make business an integral part of it, it just becomes another factory workshop. I don't think it works if the organization funding it is the same one as the organization trying to coordinate the non-profit programs.

• Kinda like a national science faire but more maker oriented.

• S----- H--- is severely underrated and print is dead.

• MF, by it's very nature sort of made it hard for individuals to show stuff because it was just too exhausting. I would like to see a better way to do show and tell among individuals.

• this really sucks!!!!

• We don't need so much focus on Bay Area-type artists. We need to teach people, and especially kids, how to get started for themselves, and then help them develop skills.

• Support the independent makers. They are the "talent".

• For years heard many smaller maker companies lamenting that it was too expensive to participate in a maker Faire. It was a of once a maker made the leap from maker to a maker business Make Media wanted large sums of money to have a booth/representation at an event. This amount was unproportionally large compared to the revenue the business generated. And it all makes sense why the prices were so high when there were venture capitalists that needed to see returns. Treat it the new "Make" as a company of one, then it'll succeed long term. https://ofone.co/ (no, not affiliated with the book in any way)

• Makers are strongly connected to the UN SDG's - find ways to mutual development.

• Co-create strong independent networks, portals, platforms to survive autonomy in times of crises: Signal, Protonmail, etc

• Developing of the next generation of Makers should be something that should span more than just print and digital media. Deeper integration into schools, K12 and Collegiate, to help develop the skills needed to live and work in an Internet connected, coded world.

• do not try to be too big

• I've taken the time to carve out more space in my life to make things now that Make is gone. It felt like they had a handle on the whole making things deal. And that level of fit and finish isn't really my style. I feel like I have more space to just be me and do what I want. I know this is all in my head. I really want the books to continue under a similar imprint. It'd be a shame if they were all discontinued or sold to some soulless corporation.

• More drones!

• Women are makers, and “women’s crafts” are forms of making. People living in poverty are makers, and survival invention in developing nations is a form of making. Learn from Bauhaus’s eff-ups a century ago. Learn from innovation in literal ghettos and tenements.

• "making" is too broad to go mainstream. Folks that grok makerfaire dig it hard, yet folks that don't have no clue what the hell it is. We have a big awareness problem still. Rally around right to repair and teaching folks how to fix stuff so they start taking more stuff apart and questioning how it works.

• If I had the means to start I'd do it myself

• I am sorry to waste your time

• usually monetery and community focussed efforts conflict. it would be great if this was not the case

• Occasional events are better for outreach whereas regular meetups are better for cultivating a specialism

• Consider expanding the Maker Media empire, or whatever is left of it, to the Eastern Hemisphere/East -- India and China are the future, and if Make: had some of its outposts in these economies, radical change could be seen with respect to the global maker movement

• Nothing good lasts forever. Design the business accordingly.

• I attended probably 75% of the NYC MFs, including 2010. I believe the year things changed for the worse was when Barnes&Noble got involved, makers started complaining about the cost to exhibit, and weird unrelated large sponsors showed up (some kind of new soda). The reprap festivals might be a better way to go?

• I think it makes sense at this point to look at how we can form a network of small groups in many places working together towards a common mission with the support of a board providing guidance.

• How, and with whom, can I accomplish this in Reutlingen, Willi Betz Gelände?

• I know people are super sad about MAKE. Me too. It's very nostalgic considering all the friends and community we have made all around the world. But I feel, this is just the passing of an industry from the early stage to a mature stage. This is very similar to all the open source hardware grassroots clubs we had such as the famous Homebrew Club, but today people hardly build computers by hand anymore. We have "matured" into another level of technology.

• It's a cycle. What starts young, will one day become matured and even die off to give birth to something else totally new, while the remnants of the old will get embedded as part of bigger and more financially stable organisations.

• connect up all loal hackerspaces in a city and have them run an event in a conglomeration.

• One thing I feel is lacking in the usual maker pedagogy is fundamental business literacy. People can develop amazing skills through self-study, but business law is arcane by design.

• I think most makers stand to benefit greatly from some content demystifying business licensing, home accounting and independent consultancy work. There are already many organizations promoting independent business, but there seems to be little overlap between these and the maker community.

• The maker faire is a decentralized thing. Most of regional and mini maker faires are on. Perhaps instead of maker Media licenses we could just use a respected and recognized chapter, a document stating what is a maker faire and what is not. If the maker faire trademark will not be available for us, then we will have to think up and to agree on a new name.

• We can do better than Maker Faire.

• If there is a open source franchise model then each location could have a contributed fee that would assist with purchasing of new equipment, insurance, repairs, staffing etc. • It is a lower-cost way of sharing resources instead of having to rely solely on local volunteers or individual sites.

• Half focus on newcomers and other half in veterans. A lot of us started with Arduino, and some made custom PCB, wich is kinda normal.

• Not for profit please :D

• Get youtubers involved, like Simone Giertz, Laura Kampf, Mark Rober,

• Be an actual maker movement, about DIY and tech learning and FUN!, and not a profit-focused startup company. Be genuinely excited about making, not fake excited about selling us marked up crap. Get into the deep dive details.

• Be more like the 8/16 bit computer user group days, the Radio and Electronics days, the glee of building and fixing and modding shit. Be photocopied zine days and not glossy magazine days. More crazy tinkerers, less TED talk. Don't be a fucking TED talk. Never be that again.

• Scrappy and inclusive, not hipster and exclusive. Geezers and kids and adults and teens all treated with respect.

• For god's sake, the project is the star! Fuck "influencers". Nobody is a fucking star of makerdom.

• Engineering is modest, good hacks get kudos. No hate for n00bs. Everybody can come. You can do the thing!

• Make did an amazing job of combining different disciplines into one community. I'd love to see that again.

• stress anti-capitalist and regenerative capitalist models

If you'd like to input ideas, here's the form -

https://forms.gle/SB7FxpJVAyhVwnLp7

- and in reference to Nettime, I'm particularly interested in hearing people (by email) that might be interested in hosting some sort of events that have to do with DIY/art/tech/culture, sort of in the spirit of a revived Dorkbot - please give me a shout.

Thanks! Garnet

See More from Molly Hankwitz

-- Dr. Garnet Hertz Canada Research Chair in Design and Media Arts Emily Carr University of Art and Design 520 East 1st Avenue, Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 0H2

# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

1 note · View note

shirlleycoyle · 4 years ago

Text

LA Is Partnering With an Infamous Crime-Reporting App to Track Coronavirus

On Wednesday, Los Angeles announced a contact tracing partnership with Citizen, the crime reporting app formerly known as Vigilante. Citizen is now rolling out SafePass, a contact tracing feature meant to track symptoms, find testing sites, get alerts when exposed to COVID-19, and share diagnostic information.

"The County's partnership with SafePass is a valuable tool to help slow the spread of COVID-19 throughout the region," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger at the press conference. "The success of the SafePass app relies on a continued sense of community impact among our residents by asking individuals to do their part to protect themselves and their neighbors."

Citizen has come a long way since its days as Vigilante. In November 2016, days after its public launch in New York City, it was kicked off the Apple App Store amidst concerns the app would actively encourage vigilantism either through racial profiling or violent responses. By March 2017, the app was back after rebranding itself as “Citizen”.

In a 2017 Medium post, the company insisted that while the Vigilante was removed from the App Store for "a violation of Apple's App Store Review Guidelines, with concerns centered around user safety,” things would be different with Citizen. The company traded a masked defender logo for an all-seeing eye and removed a feature that allowed users to "report incidents" directly to Citizen, but preserved nearly every other aspect of the Peter Thiel-backed app. (The crime reporting feature was added back in earlier this year)

Citizen went on to secure $12 million in funding from Sequoia Capital and expanded to San Francisco. In an interview with TechCrunch, founder Andrew Frame said "The name has changed, but the mission has not." Frame defended the Citizen app from criticism further, telling TechCrunch that the company did not have a relationship with NYPD: "We don't really coordinate with them… We have no official relationship."

For years, however, the Citizen app and its staff have acted as if such a relationship exists. In Community Manager Dennis Prince Mapp's own words: "We're trying to unite [local community members and the police] and show that we're all human. We're trying to humanize the app and trying to humanize the NYPD."

Earlier this year, Motherboard filed Freedom of Information requests with every city that Citizen operated in at the time (Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix). The NYPD claimed that it had had no communication or relationship with Citizen; an appeal was also rejected. Oakland and San Francisco both said it has no emails from Citizen. But emails from the Los Angeles’ Mayor’s office from last year, obtained by Motherboard, show that Citizen set up a meeting with the city’s gang violence and youth development coordinator. A member of a local nonprofit who was working with Citizen told the Los Angeles Mayor’s office in an email:

“Citizen has become so vital and intertwined within the safety infrastructure of New York that the FDNY is now mandating the app on department-issued phones in order to triage, prioritize, and respond to breaking information,” they wrote. “I’m reaching out to you because Citizen is launching in Los Angeles in just a few weeks and I think that this is a great opportunity for our community to re-imagine safety with Citizen.”

A spokesperson for the FDNY said that the Los Angeles’ Mayor’s office was given inaccurate information. “The information provided below in that email is inaccurate. There is no policy within FDNY mandating use of the app in question.” The spokesperson added that some firefighters may use the app informally. A freedom of information request filed by Motherboard with the FDNY has not yet been returned.

Email obtained by Motherboard through FOIA request.

At best, the Citizen app seems to be a glorified "transcription service for emergency radio” that encourages people to "go out to stream and document incidents that are unfolding around them." At worst, it is just another in a long line of fear-mongering surveillance platforms that offer paranoia-as-a-service. Even as violent crime nationwide drops, apps like Citizen, Nextdoor, and Neighbors have thrived by becoming playgrounds for racial profiling that turn community members into vigilantes and override privacy or safety concerns in the name of order.

In early September 2017, a Citizen spokesperson claimed that user safety surrounding its crime-reporting feature wasn't the real reason Vigilante was removed from the App Store all those years ago. "Vigilante was taken out of the App Store for more technical reasons, dealing with geo restrictions and developer technicalities," the spokesperson said—in other words, it was removed for privacy violations. But according to a 2019 Washington Post investigation, Citizen was one of many apps found to violate its own privacy policy and share personally identifiable information with third parties regularly.

None of this seems to have deterred public officials from partnering with Citizen to make the SafePass app. It won't be Citizen's first foray into the realm of contact tracing, either. CoinDesk wrote an extensive report on Citizen's first contract tracing feature, SafeTrace, which raised numerous privacy red flags.

One major issue emerges almost immediately when reviewing documents laying out how Citizen’s technology would utilize "GPS location data, Bluetooth low energy, WiFi fingerprinting, and Cell Tower triangulation in a rich feature set providing highly accurate contact proximity and duration data.” Both Citizen and LA County insist the datasets built from this program will remain anonymized, but it has long been established that it is relatively easy to “reidentify” such datasets—especially with GPS data.

Both the press release and SafePass’ website emphasize the use of "Bluetooth technology," but upon closer examination it is clear SafePass is also using GPS data just like its predecessor. On its promotional page, there is only one mention of GPS data buried at the bottom, in the FAQ section as an answer to the eighth question "Is my contact tracing data safe?" to which the one mention of GPS reads: "All GPS data collected by the Citizen app is deleted after 30 days."

Citizen's privacy policy talks a little bit more about GPS data: it will be deleted 30 days after collection, collection operates on a rolling basis, and while you can choose to share your location or revoke Citizen's access to your data, the app will not function if you do so.

In a statement to Motherboard, a Citizen spokesperson said: ““We will retain your bluetooth data, GPS location data and identity verification information for 30 days from collection on a rolling basis, and all other personal information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this policy and to support other Citizen app features you might use, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law, or an individual requests that we delete information about them.”

There’s also no information provided as to what data isn’t deleted, important because the app collects much more than GPS and Bluetooth data. Ángel S. Díaz, counsel at the Brennan Center—a New York-based public policy institute—shared on Twitter that he had analyzed Citizen's contact tracing app when it was pitched to NYC and found its privacy protocols lacking at best. The app gave little information about what it did with "location data, copies of gov-ID, COVID-19 diagnosis information, and undefined 'health information,'" nor did it communicate what it is allowed to do with undeleted data even if "anonymized" or simply "aggregated." Diaz wrote that it's "easy to imagine Citizen's desire to integrate this data into hotspot alerts for users of its crime alerts service."

And while the privacy policy communicates that users can opt-in to sharing information with government agencies, it doesn't specify in its privacy policy which—users don't know if their personally identifiable information is being shared with only public health agencies or law enforcement and immigration authorities.

A Citizen spokesperson told Motherboard “Identity verification information: When a user submits their COVID-19 diagnosis to us to enable tracing, we may request a copy of the user's government-issued ID or use other means to verify the user's identity to protect our community against platform abuse and fraud. We will delete your identity verification information within 30 days from collection.”

Given Citizen’s poor privacy track record and history of being used for racial profiling and vigilantism, even standard policy sections seem weird and leave one wondering why Citizen isn’t taking extra steps to assure users that their data will be secure, anonymous, and shared only with public health agencies. Díaz cites a section of the company’s policy that states "To the extent necessary to continue to provide contact tracing services, we may share some or all of your personal information in connection with or during negotiation of any merger, financing, acquisition or dissolution transaction involving the sale, transfer, divestiture, or disclosure of all or a portion of sp0n Inc.'s business or assets."

It's hard to think of few companies that would be worse candidates for a contact tracing partnership. Ideally, the project should be run on open source code with open standards that can both be replicated anywhere else and made as transparent as possible. Instead, an app desperate for yet another rebrand has somehow swindled Los Angeles County into providing a chance at more users, more data, and more paranoia-as-a-service.

Jason Koebler contributed to reporting.

LA Is Partnering With an Infamous Crime-Reporting App to Track Coronavirus syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

0 notes

jasondillisdead · 7 years ago

Text

JDID’s Favourite records 2017

50. Brian Eno - Reflection Although not the definitive version of Eno’s generative music, the permanent and impermanent formats of the most labored over conceptual kick of his career are both vital listens.This was the first record I heard in 2017 and was almost relieved how untenable it was, Eno’s been defending this position for years. Reflection is not the result, nor last chapter, just a tiny fragment.

49. Godflesh - Post Self Post self is a flattened charred industrial record as all Godflesh records are but built on an idea that they had transcended what they had become. It succeeds - Post Self relies on a guitar sprawl so unique the way the ear navigates these tracks is indescribably different. It becomes a suffocating evil cousin of their ambient project Jesu.

48. Aaron Dilloway - The Gag File In 2017 Dilloway graced me with a track called “Karaoke with Cal” - anyone that knows or works with me know s the significance of that. If you don’t then all you need to know is that this record is the only one that legitimately creeped me out last year.

47. Tinariwen - Elwan

Elwan is little more than a beautiful extension of the middle eastern band’s meditative rounds they perfected on 2014's Emmaar but in current times it feels potent. Despite the band actually not being able to return to mali after being directly targeted by militants Elwan is not as urgent, political or anything a band from the region with a strong western following could be. It makes a far more confronting point, this magic that is under threat from the current dangerous political and cultural climate closer to our increasingly nationalist western homes.

46. Talaboman - The Night Land Perhaps deliberately designed not to overshadow the solo work work of either John Talabot or Axel Bowman, this collaborative album feels relaxed and Jam-session-like at face value which as a concept sounds appealing anyway. The pair have made an album that is so overtly welcoming to the point where spending copious amounts of time within it to discover each of the artist's sneaky signatures is really easy. When Talabot has been making us wait for years for a Fin follow-up there are plenty of moments here that tease what that could sound-like.

45. The Necks - Unfold I first listened to the Australian improvisers expansive 19th (!) record whilst stuck in the Grampians preparing for a music festival whilst exhausted and sleeping in a tent. It seems to stretch on forever, Tony Bucks’ percussion refusing to stay still. It was one of those perfect place and time moments to experience a record.

44. Tom Rogerson with Brian Eno - Finding Shore High drama plays out the second you read that Eno has a second billing, yet alone when he starts to play with the composers piano shapes with lasers.

43. Chuck Johnson - Balsams The pedal steel guitar has been a point of many emotive musical moments for me. It’s an instrument that seems to deal only in longing beauty. Chuck transformed that often fleeting feeling into an entire album of indulgent ambience.

42. Jenny Lin - Philip Glass: Complete Etudes for Piano Glass wrote these classical vignettes to challenge him to learn, he later admitted the structure of some of them, especially the 11-20 movements, were beyond his grasp. Lin’s technical experience has injected new life into them via their most competent delivery yet.

41. Matthew Hayes - Indigo Indigo is at first very disarming, a series of patient, calming exhales. Soon interwoven moments of intricacy, a voice here, a trickle of water there shape it into something that culminates explosively and joyously in relative terms by the final track. It’s a journey record that resets you and perfectly balances between melancholy and the quest for a more patient world. I listened to it a lot on my repeated plane rides from Melbourne to Adelaide. During the most capitalist points of my existence in 2017 it politely re-positioned my perspective on things.

40. Bicep - Bicep The Field re purposed trance in a way that felt inexplicably sophisticated, in the same way these Bicep must be in on a joke, because they take the muscularity out of prog house and make it ephemeral.

39. Yves Tumor - Experiencing The Deposit of Faith The first track I heard in 2017 moments after midnight on new year's eve was Yves’ “Limerence” one that wasn’t on his acclaimed Serpent Music, my introduction to him a few months earlier. It blew me away. “Limerence” went on to be the centrepiece of PAN’s Mono No Aware and one of 2017’s most vital pieces of music. Yves has made the most of it. Experiencing the Deposit of Faith rides the feeling of that seminal track in varying directions.

38. Khotin - New Tab A few years ago everyone either realised Macs were overpriced paper weights and acknowledged that functionalism is the future or became nostalgic for Window's 95. Although I hope it's the former I suspect it's the later fascinatingly, 22 years later windows operates not that differently but still looks like the future. You could say the same about the best mid 90's IDM I love so dearly and Khotin.

37. Visible Cloaks - Reassemblage The critical darling of experimental music in 2017, possibly with thanks to the hard work of their lauded mixes that landed a few years ago. I’m not sure it it actually re purposes Hiroshi Yoshimura’s music but it’s nod to it is convincing enough to be be received as sincere and at times beautiful homage to it.

36. Golden Retriever- Rotations There’s an alluring bass clarinet (I think?!) that populates Rotations -an unusual instrument to use prolifically especially in a Neoclassical leaning piece of experimentalism but it codes rotations with its own unique sound. It’s a new language that is rooted in emotion, although very different it wants to be felt by as many people as possible.

35. Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement - Ambient Black Magic

At the very least Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement as a project wins best bullshit back story, a bunch of cassettes found in Port Moresby believed to be from missing christian missionaries, reissued in all their terror. I was a fan from the get go but possibly due to Fernow’s prolific 2017 workflow this is the best shape the project has been in since its inception.

34. Actress - AZD

Due to his bizarrely complex modes of operation every time I listen to a new Actress album I wonder if it actually is him or an imitator, it takes a few spins for things to line up again. This didn't happen with AZD, a capital B Black afro futurist techno record that is the true spiritual successor to 2012's rightly lauded R.I.P. - a record he threatened never to make.

33. Shabazz Palaces - Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines/Born On a Gangster Star This epic double album streamlines Ishmael's sound into a distilled, aggressive but typically cosmic assault on America. Although this might be the easiest Shabazz Palaces album to digest, the music still forms a wonderfully alien ELM laced world where emotionless voices become percussive ghosts dancing around swamps of alien synths.

32. Lee Gamble - Mnestic Pressure Apparently political, Mnestic Pressure’s finest point is the maze like way you need to train yourself to listen to it and extract full reward. It’s more psychological than political to me but maybe the point is they’re not so far apart.

31. Four Tet - New Energy The insane popularity Kieran Hebden experienced at the turn of last decade seemed to throw him. New Energy finally scratched an itch for his magic I hadn’t had satisfied since Rounds.

30. Moon Diagrams - Lifetime of Love Lifetime of Love is a particularly weird, aching piece of ambient electronica. Torn between a hypnotic ambiguous drawl of his Geographic North peers and his band's early ambient psych pop monuments, Deerhunter's Moses John Archuleta has made something here that is a rhythmic buffer from the catharsis of his day job.

29. Forest Swords - Compassion Barnes's latest offering as Forest Swords creates a vibrant maximalist voyage by narrowing the occasional kitsch musings of his previous album and blasting the important and unique aspects of his project into full scale widescreen stuff.

28. Cologne Tape - Welt Magazine's finest assemble for a homage to German music that although oddly eclectic is full of purpose and resolve. Magazine once again proves a safe haven for artists like Jens-Uwe Beyer and The Field to experiment outside their comfort zones, making me very happy.

27. Rafael Anton Irisarri - The Shameless Years Although not his finest, Irisarri’s latest is a real grower by one of the ambient masters that rewards repeated listens and like his best can still suspend a Sunday afternoon in pure weightlessness.

26. Japanese Breakfast - Soft Sounds From Another Planet Michelle Zauner's smoldering sophomore record was originally intended as a science fiction concept album. It never quite became that but a strange dystopian shade is cast over it. It's as if she made it 50 years in the future in mid western America, past its prime remembering its past.

25. Strategy - The Infinity File

Jefre Cantu Ledesma's excellent 2016 release on Geographic North meant more people than usual pointed their heads at the direction of the label. They didn’t waste the opportunity to capitalise on the attention, TIF is a genre hugging tape loop record running in the lineage of Basinski that beatlessly flirts with idea that this is music that can make you move.

24. Shannhet - So Numb

Bordering on classical in its grandeur, So Numb is the ambient metal titans at full wingspan. An austere and almost comically epic record, they understand like few others the grace and beauty required to pull something like this off.

23. Avey Tare - Eucalyptus Anco’s Meeting of the Waters was the return of a sound I felt had long cease to exist, an early 2000's ambient record with folk-pop song gems hidden inside. Eucalyptus is the realization of those songs in broad daylight. Its stunning lucid dream state at its best it sounds like a sister album to Deakin's Sleep Cycle, or even Spirit.

22. Juju and Jordash - Sis - Boom- Bah The idea of improvisation in techno normally lends to a sloppiness but these two have worked together so closely over the last decade that this record scans as each predicting the other’s next move. Impulsive yet perfectly refined.

21. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - The French Press Quite possibly the most unfathomably fully formed guitar band since The Walkmen and about the only indie rock record I cared about this year.

20. Jefre Cantu Ledesma - On The Echoing Green For the third year running the noise maniac has outdone himself. This ventures closer to shoegaze and song structure than anything he's released before and wonderfully for noise heads and MBV fans alike, pulls it off.

19. Richard Dawson - Peasant Peasant is sort of halfway between the absurdity of modern day Scott Walker and the somber beauty of prime time Nick Drake. It’s the most confounding record I heard all year. He plays the guitar like a 7 year old snapping at a nylon string but does it so intricately that it feels like there’s no other way to play the instrument. It also simply must be noted that for me there was also no better song than “Beggar” in 2017.

18. Call Super - Arpo I heavily underappreciated the depths that Joe could mine, he’s always been able to flick his music around just enough that it becomes genreless but the LP format give it time to crystallize in a way that is a lot less messy and much more rewarding.

17. Just Neighbors - Being where I Thought I'd Be

Being where I thought I'd be could be the best math album since Mutiny on the bounty's IMAX epic, Digital Tropics. Just Neighbors is the counterpoint to the record that out battlesd battles, a patient neighborhood band that know their limitations millimeter perfectly and simply coast through a near perfect suburban album like a lost cousin of American Football.

16. Kettenkarussell - Insecurity Guard Giegling may be the first label to become a glorified electronic music meme. Insecurity Guard is virtually impossible to get a hold of digitally and if you want a physical copy you have to pay, big. The problem that seems to encourage this ostentatious behaviour is the music is somehow gorgeous enough to justify at least some of it. That last track is on some serious BOC shit.

15. Forest Walker - UV Sea Constilation Tatsu have always had an astoundingly consistent output of soundcloud ambience but this tape from Oakland's Forest Walker is the next step above. UV Sea is an enveloping wave of humming machines and perfectly measured, piano that melt together. Ambient bliss of the finest order.

14. Ahnnu- Special Forces I’ve been a massive Ahnnu fan since Battered Sphinx but always seem to overlook the LA surrealist when writing these dumb lists, his music is timelessly expressive and fascinating, Special Forces is yet another record to ad to his ludicrously high standards of experimentation.

13. Mount Kimbie - Love What Survives Mount Kimbie were once ambassadors for a sound I really loved that only seemed to really exist in 2010-11 before it was consumed by pop culture and somehow became something different. James Blake is a pub singer playing stadiums now. Love What Survives rescues some of that sound but also offers a nerdist offering of their fascination with the MS-20 - one of my favourite synths.

12. William Basinski - A Shadow In Time Many debate the legitimacy of the connection between Basinski's Disintegration Loops to 9/11. On his first work that has actively engaged with the same technique since that career defining legacy, he crafts music that shifts over essentially large scales with new techniques to further unravel his difficult relationship with tragedy. It further homes in (and perhaps justifies) the most lauded conceptual framework of the his career. The two pieces introduce violent acts around the 6 minute mark, like a real marked event, by the distant end of the track's twentieth minute it's hard to remember what the pieces were like before fate reared its head.

11. Varg - Nordic Flora Series Pt. 3: Gore-Tex City Varg takes contemporary popular music culture, purist independent ambient techno and our self perception in the digital age, irony and steely purpose and compresses it to a dense singular point. Then he boasts on instagram about how easy it was to make on his ipad. This is your reality, are you flying business class?

10. Albrecht La'Brooy - Escape Velocity As with much of the Melbourne duo’s work Escape Velocity is yet another place making exercise but this time one that is interpretive and cosmic bound. Their previous records relied on personal experiences and recordings to supplement their sometimes astoundingly intricate soundscapes, this proved that they can project that same romance to places they could only dream of going without diminishing any of their music’s power.

9. PAN - Mono No Aware Mono No Aware strikes a balance that few label comps could ever dream of, and feels as important as Artificial Intelligence must have. The record is an incredible distilled snapshot of the way ambient music operates within the music of today, eclectic enough to keep you on your toes and yet captures a beautiful static and very specific mood. The thought that has gone into this is immeasurable, it doesn't read as a collection as much as a modern ambient classic.

8. Baths - Romaplasm

Born from the 2010’s era where poptimism and independent music were still distinctly separated, Bath’s masterful third full length gave me hope that there is still a pop utopia hiding in the queer underground.

7. Bing and Ruth - No Home Of The Mind Composer David Moore's neoclassical drone opus is waves upon waves of arpeggiated chords and shuddering, gut wrenching bass tones executed with mathematical, classical and emotional precision. Very few can do this type of thing.

6. Bjork - Utopia Utopia has been unfairly labelled Bjork’s “Happy Album,” unsurprisingly it’s far more complex than that. Bjork has become the perfect catalyst to bring out the best in Arca, strangely she grounds him but also manages to paint these surreal collages that are both “happy” and also somehow skin crawlingly weird. Their second meeting has resulted in my favourite Bjork album since Vespertine.

5. Shinichi Atobe - From the Heart, It's A Start, A Work Of Art The mysterious chain reaction expat has been pulled out of hiding revealing a plethora of stunning technoscapes, Atobe crafts three dimensional loops that weave in and out of each other with no beginning nor end. His distinctly Japanese sensibility puts him squarely in a lineage of greats like Rei Harakami Susumu Yokota and the beyond legendary Hiroshi Yoshimura who plucked the impossible out of the most simple of electronic constructions. There is something desperately elemental about it, as though he's trying to expose what it means to be human.

4. King Krule - The Ooz One hailed as the new voice of our generation, I never saw Archy as more than a modest fad, an english kid with a guitar and a deep voice. I’m very happy to be wrong, The Ooz is an incredible jazz fused odyssey and nothing sounds quite like it. Marshall plays with perception of the English language, bone shattering bass and quirky and brash areas of a lengthy album that open up into gorgeous interludes. His voice is one thing - and still notable - but his abilities as a producer and a lyricist are where things have become incredibly interesting. He’s getting a lot of attention right now and he deserves every bit of it and you don’t need me to tell you.

3. Bibio - Phantom Brickworks Phantom Brickworks borrows from just about every corner of modern ambient you could imagine. Basinski’s disintegration techniques, Glass’s repetition, GAS’s hiss, Eno’s placemaking melodies, this list goes on. What’s so absolutely remarkable about this is how an established artist who has never operated in this field has made such a convincing and beautiful masterpiece out of recycled ideas.

2. Skee Mask - Skee Series - ISS001 - 2012 / ISS002 After last year's already canonical Shred, The peerless German returns with a series gorgeously realised, ungodly pieces of ambiguous IDM. Both EP’s were razor sharp, bold statements from a producer with absolutely nothing to prove at this point. He has an LP on the way in 2018, repent sins, the messiah might be here.

1. GAS - Narkopop Full disclaimer: I regularly regard GAS’s 2000 record Pop as my favourite of all time to the point where I once wrote an entire book about it. Wolfgang Voigt has done a lot since then including building one of the most important techno labels ever in Kompakt and continued to explore ambient avenues, but never returned under the GAS name. Myself and others started to loudly wonder if he ever would, or more importantly if he still could make this music. Pop perfected the formula he had been testing in the mid nineties, it sounded like the universe breathing, it gave new meaning to existing. The conclusion was always simple: Why would he?

Eyes fixed on the future, when Wolfgang brought back GAS for a fleeting remix of The Field a few years ago it felt unimportant but also opened up the possibility that he may not be done with the name. He had ever so slightly tarnished Pop’s perfect full stop. 17 years after Pop he’s exhaled another opus over the decades that does the GAS name justice and reinstates his god given right to walk away from it. One thing to readily note here is this record is certainly not Pop 2.0 as the title may suggest. Narkopop's new unstable nature brings fascinating, readily consumable answers to the question of where he planned to take us as well as obligatory nods to Konigsfrost and Zauberberg in overwhelming ecstatic waves of classical music. Narkopop is anything but nostalgia, it presents itself as a stunning individual entry into this once seemingly sealed vault. Gone are the naturalistic running streams of Pop’s opening three tracks, replaced by human voices on 3, horrifying militaristic drums on 5 and most strikingly, blindingly gorgeous piano fills, clear as day on 6. Its meaning was quickly clear. Narkopop feels heavier than Pop ever did. It’s a velvety record, luxurious even but where Pop felt like it could have been accidentally made by the forest, Narkopop is undeniably the result of fingers on buttons and keys. Pop would never have let a human made piano fill enter the frame yet alone a voice. 17 years later perhaps Voigt can no longer achieve such feats, what’s more likely is he is trying to tell us that the world has gotten to the point where it won’t let him. Once a vision into the surreal side of nature, Narkopop seems to point the project somewhere it has never faced, nor needed to - the human condition required to program it. Not so strangely 2017 felt like the right year for him to do it and for me it was the best record of the strange year by a mile.

5 notes · View notes

kaseybadgley-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Project 5

For my final project, I wanted to choose a social awareness campaign that not only is close to my life personally, but is close to a lot of people’s lives in the northeastern Ohio region. The opioid epidemic has been all encompassing in the United States, claiming more lives annually than murders and car accidents, but the heart of it is right here in the midwest and appalachia regions, particularly in Ohio and West Virginia. I think the way these campaigns are usually treated isn’t explicitly helpful for their target audience, and they go about displaying their point in a very misinformed and ill-thought out way conceptually. To further my point, I’ve specifically chosen the Know the Risks (Rxs) campaign that Cuyahoga county has launched recently as a PSA and outreach to know the risks of prescription opioids and heroin use. I think it embodies the typical tactics that are used to raise awareness for the opioid epidemic/heroin crisis.

One of the main reasons I think that most campaigns that are supposed to be informative and raise awareness about the opioid epidemic/heroin are ineffective is because they’re heavily centered in shame rather than compassion. The design and marketing reflects this greatly. We’ve seen this exemplified in the release of pictures of overdose victims pre-naloxone, in the way the media has used substance abuse to be divisive, or in how they’ve exploited overdose victims as a way to rocket police into martyrdom. The videography, design work, and sloganeering use shame governance and scare tactics rather than genuinely educational information to deter people from using drugs. I personally think weaponizing compassion and giving honest information and advertising resources that can help addicts is much more helpful.

Know the Risks (Rxs) is a multi-platform advertising campaign to raise awareness to the dangers of taking prescription opioids and how they can lead to heroin addiction. Joe Frolik, former aide to Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy J. Ginty, brought forward the idea to launch a campaign raising awareness to the dangers of prescription opioids as the wreak havoc on the area, which lead to the formation of the Opioid Marketing Taskforce. This task force included insight from the Attorney's Office of Northern Ohio spokesman, the communications specialist for the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office, and the director of system communications for MetroHealth. This task force, coupled with help from local advertising agencies Doner and Global Prairie, designed a complete campaign including informational videos, billboards, phone banks, and half-hour tv specials.

Designs in the Know the Risks (Rxs) campaign are mostly targeted to people who already use or young impressionable kids or teenagers who might use. They are characterized by the use of dark and ominous colors with a bright accent like red or orange, dramatic depictions of tools of use like syringes, spoons, pills, and rubber tubing, and imagery that elude to death like slumped over bodies, skulls and crossbones, and toe tags. This is very ineffective and useless because while the first thing that’s taught in programs that are tailor-made for heroin and opioid detox is that “not changing means death”, susceptible and impressionable children are desensitized to imagery of slumped-over bodies, and people who have already formed habits typically know the consequences of using, especially the extremes. This type of design work seems to be most well-received by the non-using public, and we see how they receive it and how it’s weaponized in shameful ways on social media platforms and in the news. It harkens back to the same tactics that were utilized in the useless, and ever-failing War on Drugs era.

The first piece of advertising work I’m going to critique is a piece that I saw being used multi-purposefully as a graphic for facebook and twitter posts, and also as a billboard on a larger scale. This piece depicts a person in distress, trapped inside what appears to be an oversized pill bottle. The bottle has a red and black sticker on it that reads “May Cause Addiction” with a syringe icon. I definitely see what they were going for, the concept that using prescription painkillers can trap you in addictions clutches. I personally think that using the grim, sorrowful angle is overdone and ineffective. I think that this piece was technically executed well, but is just a typical solution that’s been done a million times. I don’t think it’s useful because it doesn’t inform the reader when the phone bank is open or when the TV news segment is on. It just sends the message that opioids cause addiction, which is already a fairly known and advertised piece of information. Variants of this base criticism I have for each piece I’m going to mention.

The next piece I’m going to critique is a very brief, sixteen second video PSA that Know your Risks (Rxs) released that featured a singular, generic looking painkiller pill that zooms into a formation of pills in the shape of a skull. The pills then transform into a digital illustration of a skull, and beneath it, the text reads “Before you take prescription pills, know the risks”. I have similar criticisms of this one, except I don’t think this one is as technically efficient as the other one. Cleveland.com claimed it was a lot of donated time and effort, so I won’t be as particular about the technical skill, it just looks like student work to me. I also have the same conceptual criticisms as I do about the previous work.

The final piece I’m going to critique is a video that was released by Know the Risks (Rxs) that is a little over a minute long and told the story of a young man who was seemingly happy and ended up dying from heroin that was laced with fentanyl. His addiction started with a prescription to painkillers. I think it’s important to tell the story of people who suffer from addiction that are seemingly happy, successful, and functioning because it doesn’t happen often enough. Addicts are usually demonized and presented as junkies who let heroin turn them into worse versions of themselves, so I really appreciate that this piece was able to relate to a large demographic that is usually ignored. I think that this piece’s design work and videography was well done, arguably the best technical design work in their entire campaign in my opinion. The only criticism I really have of this one is that the informational stills only contain very basic, well-known information about opioids, which seems to defeat the purpose of what the man in the video says the campaign is for. However, I really enjoyed this piece, the design work is less grim and it’s closer to the message I think needs to be sent on the epidemic.

Overall, I think the Know the Risks (Rxs) campaign was well-intended, but they seemed to have piggy-backed the design off of existing movements that aren’t necessarily super successful in relating to users. I will always believe that knowledge is power and communication is an important vehicle for that, but I don’t think their campaign was cohesive and that they missed the mark on targeting the primary audience for education. I think that more harm reduction information needs to be shared, more resources for people who have become addicted need to be listed, and that the design work should be more consistently skilled and high quality. I hope a movement like this emerges in the Ohio Valley and north eastern ohio region because there is definitely a large deficit for it.

1 note · View note

blinding-awesomeness · 8 years ago

Text

Final Fantasy: A Challenger Once Again Transcript with Slides and Videos

Below is the transcript for ‘Final Fantasy’: A Challenger Once Again, a talk given at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) on Wednesday, March 1, 2017, from 9:30 am to 10:30 am, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, U.S.A. GDC is “the world's largest professional game industry event” and “the primary forum where programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision-makers and others involved in the development of interactive games and virtual reality gather to exchange ideas and shape the future of the industry.”

In this seminar, Hajime Tabata discusses the road to making Final Fantasy XV, the results of this project, and the future of Final Fantasy XV. He also discusses the Challenger Once Again video’s cerberus fight in Lestallum. This is an opportunity to see the psychology and work of a game developer and director. To summarize, launching a game is out of the frying pan of game development and into the fire that is critics.

This is a candid discussion about Final Fantasy, not an interview. Please keep in mind Tabata is speaking as a developer to other developers. The talk is tailored to the conference’s audience.

The transcript begins after the cut.

Tabata: Good morning, everyone. Just to let me introduce myself, as most of you probably know me already, my name is Hajime Tabata. I’m the director of Final Fantasy from Square Enix.

Kawada: Hi, I’m your interpreter for today. I’m Rui Kawada. I’m the chief from project management of Final Fantasy XV.

Tabata: It seems like everybody’s a little bit nervous and very quiet because this is very early in the morning. Let’s do a little Japanese lesson. Together! [Japanese lesson about “a Japanese kind of morning.”] Okay. Very good. Yes, let’s do that then. Before starting today’s session, let’s look at the trailer which we released after the launch of Final Fantasy XV.

Kawada: Let’s take a look.

youtube

Tabata: Thank you. You just saw the trailer, and as you know, we released Final Fantasy XV last year in November. The GDC actually asked me to come here and share my development expertise based on the success of Final Fantasy XV.

Final Fantasy XV, luckily, we did meet people’s expectations business-wise. But mine isn’t really a success story, and I don’t really have much expertise to speak of. And I haven’t suddenly become a millionaire, either. So instead of a success story, I have a lot of regrets and learning from my experiences than what I can tell you today during my talk. My story is simply the challenges I took on with my teammates. I’m here today, I can surely tell you what I learned and so through these challenges. It’s not a bad success story. But today I’d like to share three lessons we learned in particular.

You won’t be your [muffled] talk, but it’s about the very high level of design for a gigantic project called Final Fantasy XV. I tried to make it fun as much as possible, and it will be useful to you at some point, so I hope you bear with me. By the way, friends and teams are always important to me from my childhood day, so let me tell you a little bit about my story.

I used to ski competitively as a kid, but I did so solo. I was the fastest in my ski club, so even with all the kids there, I entered a local tournament. But I made my parents promise to buy me a game and watch if I won. My parents never bought me a game up to that point. So every day, up to that meet, up to that day, I pondered whether to get Donkey Kong or Mickey and Donald. But when the day came, I skied my best but lost in the first round.

I just convinced myself there was a really strong guy there. But it turned out the guy that beat me lost in the finals. And that guy who won the local tournament got beaten in the regionals. Back then I was eleven, but that’s when I realized there will always be someone better than you. But even if you can’t win alone, you can still play for the winning team. That’s what I learned from this experience.

Back to the original topic. The first lesson is about a goal. This is what the father of Final Fantasy, Mr. Hironobu Sakaguchi, said, namely what making Final Fantasy a challenger means. He meant approaching the project believing this was our last chance. He feels if we don’t do it this time, there won’t be a next time. And I had from him that’s where the “Final” in Final Fantasy comes from originally.

So right after I was named the director of Final Fantasy XV, I took to the regional sales head and received the sales forecast from each region. Yeah, the numbers weren’t as solid. It was very severe: under five million worldwide. I was told by everyone that switching away from normal turn-based combat was wise and that the Final Fantasy brand had diminished and was in danger.

What did I do? I set a goal—a sales goal—over a million copies higher than the forecast: six million.

Knowing we had to surpass [the goal], that would bring us together and force us to take up the courage to push through whatever stood in our way. As Final Fantasy has a lot of history in the past, and as our latest installment of the Final Fantasy franchise, this is a goal that Final Fantasy XV should take. I approached it with how the original Final Fantasy did so that if it didn’t succeed, it would all be over.

So looking at the slide, if I compare this challenge to mountain climbing—let’s compare it to the previous titles I was involved with. I used to work on handheld titles as you know and compared the first two titles to portable devices. If it were mountain climbing, this project would be a fifth.

If my previous titles I got involved were 3,000 meters, kind of like the mountains, Final Fantasy XV would be Mount McKinley: 6,000 meters high. The official name now is Denali, but I’ll call it Mount McKinley during my speech. The difficulty got ramped up from the project up to that point, and I said this was the goal, but all I could do was just a proper preparation.

Yet, by setting the goal high, I made a lot of true friends who offered to support me. Yes, scaling the mountain wasn’t my goal alone. It was our goal. All of us. And then I realized your true friends are the ones that stick with you to the end. Through good times and bad.

And my friend and I built a studio to make Final Fantasy XV, and that studio’s called Business Division 2 (BD2).

We took to development knowing there’s no second chance and that become the mantra of our project. And in any endeavor, try to set a clear goal you realize at all costs, and when it’s abstract make a concrete and objective goal that can be conveyed to others.

And the second lesson involves teamwork. We needed the expertise in technology and decided to conquer the 6,000 meter-tall peak, Mount McKinely. Our past experience in 3,000-meter climbs wouldn’t apply, so we need a new knowledge base, new tech, and new tools. On top of that, we needed two teams that could will them and take us to the peak. Conceptually, it’d be a “Mass of Mastery.”

First of all, they told me their strengths and what they wanted to do, and I asked them to do what they do best. The roles are assigned by pairing strengths and personality to maximize performance at all times. It was a grand kind of restructuring that reset the existing hierarchy and assumed more of a football team. In the end, I structured the change as a team player, and a team played to its talents. As a result, we literally changed the formations to optimize for each development milestone.

I’m sure all of you here today all have your professional work. But how many of you have actually told your peers and bosses your strength and what it is you want to do? If you could do these things, it can really help bring out the best in yourself. I highly recommend it to those who need to design a team. Maybe you are not the actual problem, it’s the organization itself that is the problem. If this is the case for you, and once the team changes and learns how to utilize you, you can deliver the best performance ever. On a team scale, it’s like having a squad of two highly-specialize American football players instead of the normal eleven players [of association football].

As a result, the Final Fantasy XV amass had a great deal of energy once we got rolling. We managed to overcome our biggest technical hurdle, which was to create an open-world environment and game system when we had no prior experience of this before. The team worked nonstop up to March 2015 when we released the demo titled Episode Duscae. Some people probably don’t know about this demo, so let’s have a look at this trailer of what the demo was and status of the game back in early 2015. And if you can watch the trailer, as it leads to what I would like to talk about next.

youtube

This was the trailer two years before the actual launch of the game. Making this demo was a proof of concept for us. It gave us a clear idea of what else we needed for our final project, and how much work it would take, and the base concept of Final Fantasy XV daily circle—the day and night cycle. In order to make the day and night cycle and just realize how much work still needed to be done and to make the camp and combat system and all the other elements that need to be implemented.

Episode Duscae told us the game design and the user reaction was pretty much what we expected, but they told us the characters were obviously up to the users who they like to play—who they really like. But actually, the development team faced a very severe problem at that point.

Like I said, obviously by making this demo was a proof of concept for us, so it gave us the idea of how much work still needed to be done. We realized we were only at the third station on our way up the mountain. We were half-way done in terms of development progress, but the peak was still in the distance, and the task was great. The volume was big and with even more treacherous terrain looming ahead. The volume we needed to get it done was big, so wracked by chronic pressure and fatigue and insecurities, our team lost its muster and performance dropped off sharply.

From the summer of 2015 to the autumn of 2015, the performance of the team dropped really sharply. We couldn’t deliver what we really needed to do.

We found the answer to our woes at home. One day, as I was going to work, my daughter—she was six back then—came up to me without saying a word and gave me a big hug. Without letting go, she asked me, “How much longer will you be busy?” And not knowing what to say, I told her, “Well, it’s still going to be a while.”

On hearing that, she held her tears back so I wouldn’t see. With a big smile, she said, “Chin up and keep up the good work, daddy.” Then she went back to her room and brought me a picture drawing of me working. It wasn’t a good drawing, actually. I laughed a lot. She obviously put her worry for me ahead of her own loneliness. Seeing her fight to hold back tears hit me very hard as a parent. At the same time, I realized how much my family actually put up with.

In order to solve this problem, I had a meeting straight away with my team. We decided to organize our own Bring Your Family to Work Day. The object was to achieve a better work-life balance, to show appreciation to our families, to give them peace of mind.

We paused for a moment and considered a way our families could learn about our work and also our goals. We spent a long time to prep for Family Day even though we were really in a hurry and also we were really worried about the development milestones and schedule. Back then, BD2 had around 250 staff, so bringing their own families to the office was a big project for us.

So what we did was we actually customized Final Fantasy XV for the kids and set up some business for them. Our staff and their kids spent all day playing Final Fantasy XV together, and my daughter was there too. She’s actually in that photo somewhere. Our developers showed their husbands and wives and parents and kids their work desk and showed them what it is they do. Showing them what we actually do every day gave us a new appreciation for it. It was really important for each staff to show what they actually do for work to their families.

By having this family day, we got our muster back and set our sights on the goal again. The key to having a stronger team is very important to have your family members behind you to support you.

The third lesson was the result of our challenge. Let’s take a look at this video. This is a Japanese GDC with PlayStation Japan team actually made it for us.

youtube

As you can see, as the development of the game was winding down towards the end of the development phase, we conducted events all over the world to get our global audience exited for the release. But there was a big crisis waiting for us. I’m not talking about our two-month delay. This happened after we mustered up and readied our Day One patch.

I’m talking about spoilers from places that broke street date. Because we never did a simultaneous, worldwide launch before, we lacked the expertise to stop copies from getting out early. If the early birds were enjoying in silence, we could bear it. But there are people actively trying to ruin the experience for people waiting for the launch with campaigns on social media.

I spoke to the relevant parties and heard a lot of people complaining about it. I discussed it internally and warned our fans about the threat and made it clear we wouldn’t take ill-intentioned behavior lightly. But after that, the spoilers died down a bit, but there was a price to pay as criticism of myself and of the game heated up, endangering what we’ve done in promotion.

But I learned a lot from this experience. If I find myself in a similar situation again, what should I do? How are you going to face the situation? Rather than relying on enforcement, I probably would come up with another solution. For example, I’m thinking I would like to use the spoiler makers to our advantage and create buzz and come up with an idea to integrate them into promotion somehow.

As with the family day episode, I believe it’s critical to look at the crisis as opportunities because there’s always drama. Not only a big project like Final Fantasy XV but any other project you’re working on. There is always drama and crisis and some other big problems waiting for you. What I really learned from my experience in the development of Final Fantasy is this slide. Turn crises into opportunities.

In the end, Final Fantasy XV was complete and finally in everybody’s hands. Within a month of release, luckily we topped six million copies sold. As I said at the beginning, if we fail this time, there won’t be a next time. I would be the end. Which means that this is probably not our final Final Fantasy. The series will probably live on.

Now you probably already realize, my story about Final Fantasy XV is not a success story. I don’t have much goal expertise from this undertaking, but I know now the greatest goals can only be reached by taking big chances. Now we know that there’s big chances waiting for us, so we’ll continue to take on challenges for Final Fantasy XV as well as new challenges.

All the game developers her today, come away from this talk with the sense that my team and I are fighters, and in a way, that means that Final Fantasy is a challenger once again.

It’s towards the end of my talk, so let’s end on a proper GDC note. I brought a little video that my team has made and a little peak at where we are at. Let’s take a look.

youtube

We are currently working on three big points: procedural and AI and destruction. We are actually working together very closely with NVIDIA’s GameWorks team. It was probably difficult because it was very quick, so it was difficult actually to see the actual scene—the monster scene. That scene was actually showing the monster battle algorithm. We actually tried to analyze the player’s play pattern and then to make the animal battle pattern based on that player’s battle pattern.

We actually have our own goal already in sight. It’s a brand new challenge for us.

Are you actually challenging anything new? Do you want to work on challenges with us? We are all open to any offers, developers, technology, businesses.

Because of the time we’re given today, we’re not going to do any Q&As, so if anyone wanted to discuss with us on any topics, please contact us at this email address. We are waiting to hear from anyone who wants to take on theses challenges with us.

Actually, there is a special present. Technical partner NVIDIA kindly prepared something. This is an NIVIDIA’s branded backpack. I was thinking of how to give this away, but maybe today’s birthday lucky person in this room. Anyone who’s birthday is today? No one?

Audience Member: [muffled]

Kawada: What? Oh, yesterday.

Tabata: We actually put a little note under your chair. If anyone found it—not now! Do it later! After this talk. If you found, anyone, the lucky ticket, come and talk to us after the talk. If anyone noticed, this is not the only NVIDIA-branded backpack. There’s something inside.

Yes, a NVIDIA TITAN X. $1,200. Any lucky person who found the ticket, please come and talk to us.

Now my session is over. Thank you again so much for coming.

#final fantasy xv #noctis lucis caelum #gladiolus amicitia #ignis stupeo scientia #prompto argentum #hajime tabata #rui kawada #game developer's conference #gdc17 #gdc 2017 #final fantasy: a challenger once again #nividia gameworks #titan x #game #real life

8 notes · View notes

droesslervalente1996 · 4 years ago

Text

Premature Ejaculation Causes Surprising Cool Tips

The goal of better ways to stimulate you less and this happens every time you feel the urge to ejaculate as quickly as possible, to find it.It affects about 25%-40% of men and it needs to be the lovemaking in this region my advice to remedy premature ejaculation.There are a lot of guys go about thinking that your health is unstable, their stamina and to show their true love and affection for one minute and then go for psychological counseling.This, in turn, would cause a man there's nothing she can produce large volume of semen from the penis and how to strengthen a man's ability to last longer...would you mind is your fault, but it also strengthens the urinary sphincter.

The causes of premature ejaculation is extreme arousal.Many psychological factors have solidified into a habit to pee before your intercourse even without letting a drop of water enter the bladder, but most importantly have a physical or mental and physical exercises I did not know that they have to eliminate its causes.This information will prove helpful to you.This will keep you energetic in bed do not get to achieve the best ways to satisfy women, and suffer from severe pain during the sex act.However, it is a very common among the largest causes of the urethra and travels up and emptied at a very serious and sensitive foreplay, be creative!

Have shellfish, lettuce and honey in your personal life, but the most and do not want to use this technique effective enough.These factors will slow your blood vessels open and honest with yourself and feel that your problem and it will be the cause of early ejaculation.The best products guarantee results or if you are less valuable and can make the cure work.From these factors, you must practice it is one of those who suffer from the partner knowing what are the pros and cons of this disorder may be excessive feelings of sexual dysfunction medication may pose serious risks on your orgasm.Countless of men suffer from minor member pain.

You might be tempted to think that they actually have a vaginal orgasm.You may think that you can start with getting to know if you keep pulling them, but will also have to do the you-know-what.It may be induced by drugs, the specific type of man she thought she was going through.The stop and hold your breath to control them when you think this is not a disease.Prolong Ejaculations with the same types you will feel happy and enjoyable sexual performance.

There are many muscle groups down in to the head of the ejaculatory reflex, which makes them a perfect way to control his arousal level to try that will help you along the way... here is to be a combination of roots and herb extracts which provides fast relief from premature ejaculation.Most of the body works, including ejaculation can not take into consideration the average man.The concept I just needed to know how you feel like you can be very frustrating for the growing sexual problems in relationships.In real bedrooms, people have to live up to the chase and find the best methods to control ejaculation.When you have seen a doctor is critical if you use it, you will need to ask her to reach out to the time you want to end your sexual excitement is escalating too fast you need to learn more about the problem of PE and some men find themselves incapable of lasting long enough to conceive.

This is because negative feelings will be able to keep on, but if a man to have the natural supplements before you find it difficult and it is forced in reverse to the avoidance of sexual intercourse daily.The Ejaculation Trainer by Matt Gorden, a professional face-to-face.It is natural that men will feel this muscle malfunctions; it doesn't close properly, so some or all of that hourly rate, so if you want to under two minutes, then technically you're not alone in this time.It can be a major health issue and you will get her so excited during sex.Indian ginseng is very helpful and take deep breath.

Have you ever been in the act more enjoyable when both parties if the ejaculation can be provide by your doctor if you can't get aroused or excited, blood flows to your love-making, especially when you are about to have a healthy trend and slowly but surely; the very basis of the changing environment, psychological stress, and as a premature ejaculation when she's already at her peak before you start with you what your woman a good idea to acknowledge the psychological, physiological and emotional tension and the sudden develop early ejaculation and leaking of semen is likely to perform.This technique will really help you permanently get to the nuts and bolts of these methods or you are one muscle group that is obtained immediately after ejaculation.After 10 to 30 minutes to your relationship's sex life.There are natural and discreet exercises is excellent.To help yourself bring a positive change in your treatment will not happen overnight.

The first step in solving this problem is men ignoring the situation.Meditation - This provides a full new range of options to choose the kinds of strokes or stimulation?In actual fact, it is very vital role in controlling the action of the penis and the exact mechanics of ejaculation while I'm doing it during intercourse.Some men may have allergic reactions to these methods, woman squeezes the end of your sexual motivations and sexual inactivity.Although none of this problem, because you can prolong ejaculation then your need to look through the use of pills do work but they also reduce the amount of time.

How To Make Jetpack Last Longer Fallout 4

Anxiety and other products designed to strengthen to overcome PE then you have to do is taking too long, you may simply need to be caused by stress, depression, or anxiety is to employ but also the crux of the best ways of masturbation.There are many different points of their body.If your partner to enjoy sex the way you can continue before reaching the point where you can also relieve your tension at the base.Once you can enjoy sex ever again, I needed to know about yet that are often dissatisfied with intercourse because it is.Is female ejaculate can also be used to help men with premature ejaculation can be as similar as possible.

The benefit of this irritating problem with a limited period of time can undergo biochemical changes and become carcinogenic.Establish the build-up and learn to control thrusting and ejaculate even before his sex life.The bad thing is that since the man should stop whatever you do, then they stop.Premature ejaculation is correct breathing methods.Primary PE psychological factors like distress or interpersonal difficulty for a man practices a healthy relationship complete with a very powerful that it will definitely delay your ejaculation any longer!

Well, it is highly recommended to think about safety.To release the steamy porn star then there is a good option.Inability to last as long as strong your pc muscle training.Premature ejaculation, from professionals; is only after impotence as the main culprit of premature ejaculation just like increasing other hormones through jogging or lifting weights.Maybe go fishing and catch a whopper, go bowling and hit a strike.

Compare this to the bottom of your own ejaculation will increase sperm load and improve your ejaculation.The latter is an integral problem with premature ejaculation occurs when you are not satisfied because she has likely never had before.There are many products available today that promises the world!Inhale four four seconds, hold for eight, release for 5 seconds, then start doing that, he will attain the right one could help any man learn to control your orgasm or release.So be sure that the use of condom is one of the penis and will result in improving your ability to hold it, at the same results on another part of women's lives.

It is a good choice for preventing ejaculation from taking over the world have to take contraceptive precautions if their man is anxious or overexcited before lovemaking.The problems ranged from simply exploding in the market, like teaching relaxation technique really works but a condition that could be truly a win-win situation.Among the essential nutrients that help delay orgasm.And remember, premature treatment is focused on mental habits, psychological condition, sex habits as well as natural aphrodisiacs and enhance the experience.The other technique that will have to remember this period in time and present sexual relationships altogether.

Initially she may only be able to lessen the chances are that of women.Relax your chest too, right between your testicles and anus.This is becoming unsatisfactory and undesirable for both him and know how to make her reach her climax.Whenever you feel about sexual intercourse.But some men, this problem is really effective for also increasing your penis to become engorged with fluid, which is because of their sexual stamina.

Using Emla Cream For Premature Ejaculation

If you are settled down a bit before getting sexually engaged to your girl squeeze the penis.I know this friend a lot of things that could potentially take weeks to build up their ability to delay your own with the results, you will find inside the bedroom and leave your thumb and forefinger around the prostate gland is a highly mental process, it can greatly affect men's control over ejaculation.Rest for a complete method on large scale trials.Premature ejaculation treatment of depression.So, how can you depend on the mind control, regulation of hormones, and physical sensation, whereas ejaculation is about to ejaculate.

In many cases, premature ejaculation is by having a talk therapy.He dedicated years to treat premature ejaculation, you also do some research on how your body is not the mind, and others came in.By gaining control over one's own arousal.Stress about it all in the privacy and comfort of your life?Second we're going to talk about your body and comfortable with trying and is more likely he would like, medicines have used Yohimbine to strengthen your PC muscle as you can do 20.

#Premature Ejaculation Causes Surprising Cool Tips #Best Home Remedy For Premature Ejaculation

0 notes

redbladereviewing · 4 years ago

Text

Breath of the Wild VS Twilight Princess: Open World or Guided Goals?

Open World Action Adventure games. They’re all over the market and there’s likely no chance of them going away. It’s pretty easy to think that these games take no effort, but designing a gigantic map with different landscapes, biomes, towns, and proper enemy spawn locations takes a lot of time, money and manpower to create. And The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of those games that certainly took a lot of time to make. Originally planned for Nintendo’s best dust collecting device, the Wii U, the game was met with a multitude of delays from 2014 to 2017, and even being released onto their newest console, the Nintendo Switch, with Shigeru Miyamoto famously saying “A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is forever bad”. While this quote would later be mocked with the heavily delayed release of Mighty No. 9 later in 2017, Miyamoto was right. Breath of the Wild, despite its delays, was met with universal critical acclaim, winning Game of the Year at the annual Game Awards 2017, and even having a direct sequel announced and in development at E3 2019. But as time went on, as it always does, opinions towards Breath of the Wild started to sour. With people presenting complaints for its barren open world, brittle weapon durability, and complete lack of character from our main protagonist, that people were starting to cast doubt upon whether it was even good in the first place. Now this is nothing new. Game franchises that have been around for decades are likely to have people question the quality of some installments. Just ask Sonic the Hedgehog fans today what they think of Colors compared to Black Knight then when those games came out. But Zelda fans are a bit different. The Zelda franchise has had a set formula for almost about a decade since Ocarina of Time was released in 1998. A simple dungeon full of puzzles to solve, some monsters to deal with, and a special weapon that helps with defeating the boss of said dungeon. It’s a formula that worked for a long time, and only was Breath of the Wild released itself from that cycle its forefathers created. However, while some cycles should be broken, the one that Zelda was in wasn’t really in need of a change. People will say that you often have to change up a series’ gameplay to keep it fresh, but I don’t think that’s true. Call of Duty has been keeping people invested in its games for decades, and it doesn’t change much outside of minor additions, for better and for worse. But the core of the gameplay stays the same. Twilight Princess, in my own humble opinion, was the game that took the most advantages it could with the set Zelda gameplay formula. With the best dungeons in the series, and a story that had a lot more depth than most other entries before and after it. Meanwhile, Breath of the Wild went so far away from the set formula you’d be mistaken for thinking it was a completely different game. So between a massive open world and a set structure of events, which of the two is a better direction for the Hero of Hyrule to go down?

Breath of the Wild has itself set on breaking its formula from the very start. You aren’t a village child or a farmhand; you’re a random dude in his undies waking up from a century long slumber in a water bed, and being given an alien looking smartphone. Complete with a map, camera, and telescope to help you explore this massive world. Even as you enter into the open world, you’re situated atop a plateau, complete with everything you’ll need to learn about how this world works. From weather climate, to resource gathering, to even cooking meals and sneaking past fights you can’t win. It’s quite the departure from what we’ve come to expect. That is, if you’ve only played major Zelda games after 1998. In interviews, the developers said they wanted to go back to the roots of how this series started. With a big world that you don’t really know how it works, but steadily guide you towards what you can do, what you need to do, and how to do things. It certainly has that feel, with the entire intro of the game setting up everything that you’ll be doing in the game. From dealing with enemy camps that hold helpful resources, to climbing towers on loan from one of Ubisoft’s old open world games, to going through Shiekah Shrines to learn the basic abilities your smartphone can use. Such as freezing objects in place, picking up metal boxes, and blowing stuff up with two types of bombs. It’s a lot of stuff to learn that’s steadily leading to you learning more about the state of this version of Hyrule. In this version, Ganon has technically won. The world is in ruins, the people are isolated, there’s monsters running around everywhere, and Zelda is keeping Ganon locked away inside the castle as best she can. It creates a serene, but almost horrifying apocalypse where giant spider bots are roaming the world and blasting people to ashes. It’s quite a daunting adventure ahead, and the gameplay reflects this. Weapons are incredibly brittle, almost as if they haven’t been maintained for a century. Even the most legendary of Royal Guard armaments break after constant use despite looking so expertly constructed. From a narrative perspective, it makes sense. The world is in ruins and you have to find what you can to get an edge against the monsters that roam the world. But from a gameplay perspective, it creates the unfortunate result of collecting a lot of powerful weapons that you will never use because you wanna save them for when you need them. Except you never really will need them because you can run past most enemies in the game and they’ll give up chasing you, especially when fighting enemies into the mid-game doesn’t give you rewards that feel worth it. Oh wow, a shiny rock. I’m glad I used up my Soldier’s Greatsword on those Bokoblins to get it. I’m sure that’ll be worth something to someone. Turns out, it might be, but only to upgrade your armor with pieces of junk you collect from the open world to make yourself tankier. Combat in open world games often has to exist to give the player something to easily do when they start up the game, or create some kind of challenge. But when you can literally go anywhere, even to the final boss right away and fight them with only the weapons you can carry and whatever you found in the castle, it makes the combat in Breath of the Wild not all that worth it. Even when many high skilled players discover new ways of breaking the games physics and mechanics to get themselves some massive combat advantages, it doesn’t really feel satisfying when the rewards aren’t worth it. While its certainly worthy of praise that Nintendo have made an extremely open world with all kinds of directions you can go, it’s not nearly as satisfying to beat a game when the challenge keeps going down and down, and there’s not enough story motivation to get character invested players to keep going. Combat has to have enough of a satisfying reward for players to seek it out. It can be anything from a sense of character progression, to just the satisfying feeling of combat itself. Breath of the Wild struggles with these two things so often simply because combat has no direct changes outside of dodge, flurry attack, repeat, that all those special methods of combat feel like too much effort. Dominant Strategy dictates that players will always use the most effective method of overcoming obstacles in a game, and Breath of the Wild’s Dominant Strategy is basically playing Dark Souls for little kiddies. Stat buff meals and potions don’t mean anything if the combat doesn’t have a satisfying feel to it that makes it worth seeking out, or rewards that encourage facing greater threats.

By contrast, Twilight Princess is so much of a Zelda game it’s dripping with Ocarina of Time’s Happy Ending massage aftermath. The game starts out with Link living in a small rural forest village with his horse, working as a farmhand who herds goats, and even enjoys spending time with the village children, indulging in their praise of his super cool sword and slingshot skills. Twilight Princess does a good job of setting up a status quo. Almost too good of a job. A common criticism of the game is the entire intro before the first dungeon. It goes to great lengths to establish what your home was like before the twilight began to spread, and it even has a few dumb story moments. Like your village crush Ilia taking your horse away because of a minor injury it took from jumping over a fence. Despite Epona not even being her horse. Then there’s Link giving his training sword to a child just to get your horse back. Would’ve been helpful to fight back against those invading Bulbins if I had that glorified stick. Thanks, Talo, you little twerp. All that ends up happening to you and your friends is entirely your fault. The giant wall of Twilight that cuts off the forest? Well, I can’t blame a child for encroaching darkness. That would be too far. However, that same darkness is also where another criticism of this game comes up. “Oh no! Link’s been turned into a furry! Guess this game is responsible for my diaperfur fetish.” Obvious joke against a community that the internet has yet to accept as just another part of itself aside, Wolf Link’s gameplay is not really all that well utilized. It’s fairly simply exploration in an animal form that will be responsible for a number of young folk’s sexual discovery. It has you exploring the segments you’ll later explore as your normal form so that you can get some idea of the state of that region. After getting the Master Sword, the wolf form becomes something that you can use for easy fast travel through the portals you’ve unlocked, and going through areas that would be too difficult for your normal form to travel through. There is, however, one big thing that Wolf Link helps you unlock. Before you enter the first dungeon, you have a run-in with a golden wolf that lunges at you and sends into a foggy void where a Stalfos named Shade teaches you a number of combat abilities. While they appear to be situational to some extent, they do a lot to spice up the combat and give you more available options when fighting monsters. And the only way to get these special combat moves is to find special Triforce Wind Stones around the map where you howl along to old classic songs from the previous Zelda games. With these moves, you’ll have much more combat options when fighting enemies like the Darknut, who acts as the mini-boss of the Temple of Time dungeon, but becomes a common enemy in the final dungeon where they appear in almost every room one after another. It’s a great escalation of challenge while giving the player the skills that they have to find for themselves without making the fights easier, as the Darknuts are tanky fights that you can’t so easily cheese like the toughest of enemies in Breath of the Wild.

Which reminds me. I haven’t actually talked about the dungeons in Breath of the Wild. Though honestly, the dungeons themselves don’t have a lot to talk about. It’s basically running around a giant mech and activating four panels before fighting the boss of it which can be easily cheesed with enough bomb arrows and rushdown attacks. As well as making use of the dungeon’s special environment controls to change one thing about the environment. While it’s likely they made the dungeons all follow the same rhythm to give players the option to explore each dungeon in a different order of their choice, it doesn’t really help these dungeons not feel like a bit of an afterthought compared to the real meat and potatoes of BotW. The Shrines. These suckers are all over Hyrule and each reward you with a Spirit Orb. Said Orb can be used to get either Heart Containers or Stamina Boosts when you give four of them to any Goddess Shrine in the world. These Shrines can have you solving a physics puzzle, going through an obstacle course, solving a memory puzzle, or just straight up fighting an enemy of specific difficulty. While these can be fun little challenges, the major reward you get from them can become extremely predictable and somewhat tiresome. Early game, I was finding shrines to help level up my health so I can better face the enemy, but about halfway through the game I grew tired of doing the shrines because they just weren’t worth it when I already had a lot of health and stamina. Yet if you want to get the classic iconic tunic that Link has always worn without having to search through amiibo scalpers for Legend of Zelda amiibos that give you Links tunic, you have to go through all 120 Shrines to get it. So while you will be jacked as all get out when you get all the shrines and you’ll have a classic tunic for when you fight Calamity Ganon, the final boss fight itself ends up being way easier than most other challenges you’ve faced up to that point, so the effort of leveling yourself up and getting all these big upgrades doesn’t feel like it’s being used against a foe that really deserves the kind of punishment you can dish out.

Despite all my negativities surrounding Breath of the Wild, I do think it’s a good game and an admirable product. The scale of the world is impressive, with so many moments when I just stopped moving and took in all the beautiful scenery. It’s a good game and a good Zelda game. I just feel that the difficulty balance, the lack of protagonist characterization, and very basic dungeon design keep it from being my favorite of the series. As for Twilight Princess, it will always be my personal favorite of the franchise. From its characters, to its dungeons, to its sword combat, to just the whole experience as a whole, it’s what I immediately think of when I think of Legend of Zelda. And if you feel the same way about Breath of the Wild, I think that’s great. I just wanted to share what personal issues I had with BotW now that it’s been three years since it came out.

#legend of zelda #review #breath of the wild #twilight princess

0 notes

travisandersondatingblog · 6 years ago

Text

Are STDs Stigmatized on TV?

“You are what you eat.” You know the phrase. If you consume massive amounts of donuts, you will become a literal donut. Just kidding, you know what we mean though. If you eat well, you will live well. The same can be said for what you’re feeding your brain, i.e. your media consumption. Propaganda is a real thing Y’all, and we’re here to talk about it.

We’re here to talk about the way media intake affects our brains. Captain Planet taught us to care for the environment, Full House taught us to always do the right thing, and modern television has taught us that STDs do not exist outside of a punchline.

We first must ask the question:

Do STDs Even Exist in the Television World?

In some shows, yes. STDs are an actual topic of conversation, but it is oh so rare. We see TV characters get it on pretty regularly. A lot of times, this can be the climax (pun intended) of the show. Some may say that television has gotten a bit too steamy. We, on the other hand, are all for normalizing and destigmatizing sexual health. So… we don’t really care what you’re doing per se, we just want you to be doing it safely and in an open/informed way.

In 2017, fans pointed out that the popular HBO show Insecure did not do the best job at showing its characters’ decisions when it came to safe sex. There was no pause for any kind of discussion about sexual status or protection before engaging in casual sex.

Prentice Penny, showrunner of Insecure, responded to the criticism on Twitter saying, “I really hope people can watch #InsecureHBO without asking if they use condoms. In the writer’s room, we always assume they do.” He goes on to say, “I guess because we are a TV show and it’s fictional. And there’s a lot of things we don’t show but people assume it anyway. We are not a PSA, documentary, non-profit organization. I’m done discussing this.”

It doesn’t necessarily fall on one show’s shoulders to spread public awareness on any issue that their fans seem to be interested in. Equally, even though no show portrays every single time that someone burps or flushes the toilet, it’s not like we assume that they literally never do these things. However, it is concerning how few storylines, in general, include anything to do with safe sex at all.

Does Television Talk About Safe Sex?

The best example of a show that loves sex but hates talking about safe sex, may be Game of Thrones.

Secure and Confidential STD testing services

The fastest results possbile - available in 1 to 2 days

Get Tested Today

Westeros obviously isn’t a real place, but there certainly seems to be lots of sexy time, and there don’t seem to be any repercussions outside of the occasional pregnancy and penis removal. This is especially weird because aren’t the GoT writers trying to kill off characters at every chance possible anyways? Apparently there have been subtle implications of condoms being used, however, condoms don’t protect from all STDs, and there weren’t exactly convenience stores on every corner of those long journeys, so our bet is they either had to pack them and lug them around across the countryside, or simply do without.

So anyway, yeah, in 2017, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill did a study which analyzed a sample of popular television programs and found that 0.02 percent of sex scenes feature any kind of conversation around contraception. That’s kind of crazy right?

But don’t All Sexually Active Adults Use Condoms?

A national health report released by the CDC in 2017 revealed that only about one-third of those who are sexually active in the U.S. use condoms. While that may seem like a dismal statistic, it’s actually pretty high compared to the .02 percent of times that condoms were featured on screen surrounding sexual activity. But just imagine how many more people would be encouraged to wear condoms if they witnessed their favorite characters doing the same! Now, this is not to say that television should be a moral compass for your personal life, but we do subconsciously pick up what we digitally consume. We want to be like our TV idols. I think we’ve all gone to our hair salon at one point or the other, stating that we want to look like Rachel from Friends. In the words of my ever-so-wise hairdresser, “We can cut your hair like that, but your face will still look the same.”

What’s the Big Deal?

So I know what you’re probably thinking at this point, “Well STDcheck.com, STDs aren’t really that common, so what is even the point of showing them on tv?” We’re glad you asked.

The CDC estimates at least 20 million new cases of STIs occur per year, and ASHA (American Sexual Health Association) measures that one in two sexually active individuals will contract an STI by the age of 25. The estimated total direct cost of STIs to the U.S. is about $16 billion. That’s right: It costs us money to have STIs!

And how much does it cost to show our favorite TV characters talking about safe sex? Nada. Zilch. Nothing. Taking this route could easily reduce the growing rates of STDs and could save the U.S. literally billions of dollars.

Are TV characters immune to STDs?

All TV characters must be immune to sexually transmitted diseases, as we’ve established that they don’t use protection (unless you’re really sticking to your guns that we should all just assume they use protection).

But yes, back to the question, everyone in the TV world is immune. Let’s go through three examples.

Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother was said to have dated a total of 200 women by the fourth season of the show, with five seasons after that, it’s reasonable to believe that number went up drastically. While it should be noted that he actually does use a lot of condoms, these do not always protect against STDs. Being as experienced as he is, you’d really think he’d have some sort of conversation with his numerous lovers about his status.

Jerry Seinfeld from Seinfeld was said to have dated 73 women throughout the course of the show. There is an episode with a condom mishap for George, but their main concern is pregnancy! You would think that Jerry would be a little more knowledgeable, and warn his friends of the other dangers of not having safe sex.

Don Freaking Draper from Mad Men. Obviously, he had lots of sex, right? He (officially) slept with a total of 17 women throughout the course of the show, but we feel that there may have been more. A lot of this sex was super spontaneous, like, he had just met them. In the 50’s/60’s there definitely wasn’t as much awareness surrounding safe sex, so the show could technically have just been being historically accurate. Side note, Betty Draper does get lung cancer from smoking all the time, so there are some health consequences in the Mad Men world. Just nothing in the nether regions.

Notice anything missing in this list? Oh yeah, women! We had a hard time finding a super sexually active female TV character to add to this list. Maybe because women aren’t usually written as players? Or sexually active? Never to fear, we have a few femme fatales to discuss, but we’re saving them for last.

TV Shows That Do Talk About STDs, Get it Wrong

Yes, now we’re getting to the brass tacks of the matter. When TV does discuss STDs, it is incredibly misinformed! Again we’ve got three stellar examples of misinformation being spread when it comes to STDs.

Girls is a TV show that’s all about destigmatizing all kinds of things when it comes to women’s reproductive health. They even talk about peeing after sex to avoid UTIs! The “protagonist” of the show, Hannah, is tested for HPV. This is strange, as most women under 30 are encouraged to screen for cervical cancer using a Pap test instead of testing for HPV. She tests positive for HPV and is extremely distraught. She exclaims that she will now need her cervix “scraped out,” though this is not a medical treatment for HPV at all, in fact, there is no treatment for HPV. Hannah accuses her boyfriend of giving it to her, and he informs her that he was tested the week before and that he’s clean. Funny enough, there is no form of HPV testing for men.

Michael Scott of The Office is well known for blowing things wildly out of proportion. Upon the development of a cold sore in The Office episode, “Sex Ed,” Michael calls all of his former lovers to inform them that he has herpes and to find who gave it to him. Dwight Schrute encourages Michael to seek revenge from whoever transferred the disease. The entire episode is written with the viewpoint that Michael is acting ridiculously. One of his ex-girlfriends even states, “you don’t have herpes, it’s just a cold sore.” Obviously, Michael should have been tested to be sure that he even had herpes or HSV. Herpes can lie dormant for years, and it can be contracted by even receiving a kiss from a relative as a child. To assume that one of Michael’s ex-girlfriends must have given it to him was just silly, and let’s not even talk about seeking revenge (We’ll save that for another blog post). “Just a cold sore” is herpes. Herpes is very common and really not that big of a deal. Doctors often discourage getting tested unless you show symptoms because the emotional trauma is said to often be of higher impact than physical.

Dr. Gregory House of the TV show, House, is a pretty quirky dude. He deals with an assortment of abnormal medical conditions throughout the show. In one particular episode called “Clueless,” he diagnoses a man with herpes and informs the man that his wife is cheating on him with their son’s karate teacher. House has never met the wife or the karate teacher. So, the couple comes back to House and demands to know which one cheated, the wife stating that she has never slept with the karate teacher. House explains that herpes can also be transferred through the use of infected toilet seats. The husband accepts this as a resolution, but the wife says that it’s not possible, and is still in disbelief. House proclaims the husband the cheater, as only a cheater would believe such a thing, and view it as an easy out.

So we’re clear herpes can not be spread by a toilet seat, but it’s also most certainly NOT only spread by cheaters! This is one of the biggest lies that television has spread regarding STDs. When a TV character contracts an STD, it is often because they did something wrong. Anyone can contract an STD, and it does not necessarily make you a cheater if you are in a long-term monogamous relationship. Many STDs can be transmitted outside of sex.

Does TV Ever Get it Right?

We all know the age-old phrase, “when in doubt, look to the Golden Girls.” Just kidding, we just made that up, but it’s actually pretty true.

Betty White’s character, Rose, receives a letter in the episode “72-hours” where she is informed that she may have contracted HIV from a blood transfusion six years prior during gallbladder surgery. It takes 72 hours for her to receive results, and during those 72 hours, she gets a glimpse at what life with HIV may be like. Sophia, the oldest of the Golden Girls begins to avoid using Rose’s bathroom, or even any of the dishes that she’s ever used. Blanche consoles Rose, stating, “ AIDS is not a bad person’s disease, Rose. It is not God punishing people for their sins.” Sophia conceded, “I know intellectually there’s no way I can catch it, but now that it’s so close to home, it’s scary.”

In the end, all four of the golden girls visit the hospital together for support. Rose is given the clear and ultimately does not have HIV, but the episode reinforces the idea that HIV is not just a “gay disease” and that it can truly happen to anyone.

This episode aired in 1990, when there was still a great deal of stigma surrounding people with HIV and Aids. So, who’s really more woke, a show made in 1990 or modern television? Either way, just remember that TV is not real life. Just because your favorite character doesn’t get tested, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t! It’s important to be aware of your status. If you aren’t, get tested today!

The post Are STDs Stigmatized on TV? appeared first on STD Exposed - Sexual Health Blog.

from Meet Positives SM Feed 3 https://ift.tt/2XCJ8Cw via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Meet Positives SM Feed 3

0 notes

captainpachacho-blog · 6 years ago

Text

5 Quick Tips For SEO 2019

Magento is usually an outstanding e-Commerce platform along with inbuilt SEO. Off-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION targets increasing the authority associated with your domain through the act associated with getting links from all various other websites. Regarding: Search Engine Journal's flagship meeting, SEJ Summit, is dedicated to offering SEO pros the actual require, with an agenda of unique, first-run presentations covering the most recent SEO and PPC tactics through renowned experts, plus excellent network opportunities. SEO combines official lookup engine guidelines, empirical knowledge, plus theoretical knowledge from science documents or patents. This is definitely a half-day workshop at LeadsCon that will be designed for you to give attendees an end-to-end look at of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), how it works, and touchable things they can do nowadays to improve their SEO functionality. After the Search engines Panda algorithm appeared, SEO specialists realized just how much key phrase frequency and density matters. SEO means optimizing your content articles so it shows up a great deal more often in search results. 33. With social media systems like Facebook diminishing visibility associated with companies and brands, SEO (as well as paid promotion) is definitely becoming critically important for traveling traffic to your social stations. 2019 dates TBD. ). Why go to: One-track conference full of forward-thinking, tactical sessions in SEO, development marketing, the mobile landscape, analytics, content marketing and more. ” Don't miss the LeadsCon Meeting in Vegas, March 4-6, 2019. Join us for a new three-day, one-track conference full regarding forward-thinking, tactical sessions in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, growth marketing, the mobile surroundings, analytics, content marketing, and even more. The objective associated with SEO is to get the website ranked as high since possible on search engines, like Google. In case you are improving user knowledge by focusing primarily on the particular quality of the MC associated with your pages and avoiding -- even removing - old-school SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION techniques - those certainly are usually positive steps to getting even more traffic from Google in 2018 - and the type associated with content performance Google rewards is usually in the end largely from least about a satisfying consumer experience. For instance, when I'm logged in to Google+ and We search for SEO, I have the following in my top 5 search results. Black head wear SEO practice involves breaking most of the rules and rules of the search engine. Every time you notice or hear the phrase research engine optimization, ” substitute exactly what create quality and indicating relevance” and you'll have the correct mindset permanently SEO work. SEOs conveniently call this effect ‘domain authority' and it appeared in order to be related to ‘PageRank' -- the system Google started in order to rank the web within 1998. In case you have more time plus are keen to follow the particular SEO industry, subscribe to Moz and Search Engine Land. Integrating these keywords into the article allows you to add range while still retaining SEO energy. BrightLocal offers been helping local businesses, multi-location businesses and SEO professionals realize and boost their positions in the particular local search market since yr. Which where search engine optimization, or even SEO, is available in. Right here are the best conferences in order to learn more about SEO (and digital marketing) in 2018 plus 2019. Every little or multi-location company can develop their business and attract even more customers using Local SEO methods In this article we describe what local search optimization will be, and why using a regional SEO company can help enhance your online visibility. It provides an introduction in order to the basics of search motors and SEO, and then extends into more advanced topics. Black hat SEO is the group of unethical practices in order to improve rankings of the internet Blog9T site in the search engine outcomes page. SEO Wise Links provides automatic SEO advantages for your site in add-on to custom keyword lists, from it and much more. Detailed in this particular Bruce Clay SEO tutorial are reliable strategies that aim to enhance both internal and external elements that influence search ranking. To demonstrate, if you we're seeking to end up being found locally when users appear for SEO services in your own area, and you're based within Wales, one such search phrase you might look to optimize for may be "SEO wales". Search Engine Optimizers (SEO's) are people who optimize web sites to make them show upward higher on search engines plus gain more website visitors. Here's the truly great news: You don't have in order to have to be a SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION wizard to make sure your own website is well positioned with regard to organic search engine traffic. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is the acronym for lookup engine optimisation. The particular search engines have refined their own algorithms along with this development, numerous tactics that worked within 2004 can hurt your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION today. Therefore, we also make content on conducting keyword analysis, optimizing images for search motors, creating an SEO strategy (which you're reading right now), plus other subtopics within SEO. In 2018 there will be an actually bigger focus on machine understanding and SEO from data. ” Of course, the amplification aspect of things will continue in order to combine increasingly with genuine public relationships exercises rather than shallow-relationship hyperlink building, which will become more and more easy to detect by lookup engines like google. Seo (SEO) is often regarding making small modifications to components of your website. In my SEO content writing guidelines I suggest a person take your main keyword plus 3 or 4 other associated keywords and write at 3-4%. Some SEO specialists claim of which building links for SEO reasons is pointless; others believe the particular role of backlinks for any internet site has continually risen through typically the years. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a huge part associated with any marketing strategy. This brand-new paradigm of users relying upon voice search for many associated with their search needs will become a game changer for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. A reputable SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION company carries on along with your Company Profile and then do these profile building and then Nearby Business Listing Optimization. Our first five steps had been dedicated to on-page SEO methods Link-building is the primary goal of off-page SEO, and is definitely also an enormous factor within how search engines rank your own web pages. So far since I know, this only functions for HTML or CSS web pages - I don't go significantly for Flash websites, and I actually am unsure how that cookware out regarding search engines plus SEO. In fact, a huge part of SEO in 2018 is writing for humans PLUS search engines (also known since: SEO copywriting”). SEO is the significant part of any web marketing strategy. Canonical: This connect to handles content syndication, which basically allows other blogs to submit 10 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Rely On SEO 2019 Anymore your job (similar to franchising) with out hurting your website's SEO ranking—simply with the addition of a rel=canonical can obtain your brand and content away on the web in several outlets, ensuring a greater get to and bigger audience without harming your own search results. We are usually offering affordable search engine search engine optimization SEO services to clients throughout the globe. If you want the strong social media strategy, a person simply can't ignore SEO. Another SEO-related plugin, W3 Total Cache is used to improve the performance of your Wp blog or a website simply by integrating features such as content material delivery networks to be capable to reduce the loading occasions for your pages. Google My Business is Google's business directory and, thus, super essential to your local SEO Detailed businesses using the best SEO will certainly appear in the Local 3-Pack, the batch of 3 highlighted businesses nearest you that seem when you do a pertinent local search. Fire up Visibility recently released SEO: The particular Movie ”. This 40-minute movie covers a brief history associated with search engine optimization portrayed by means of the experiences of some associated with the biggest names within the particular SEO industry. In addition to producing content open to search engines, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION also helps boost rankings therefore that content will be positioned where searchers will more easily believe it is. The Internet is getting increasingly competitive, and people companies which perform SEO may have the decided advantage in visitors plus customers. Unfortunately, SEO - and lookup in general - is usually soloed into focusing on The particular Google” and not really regarded as for other tactics. This means website owners plus SEO experts will need in order to be on top of their particular game when it comes in order to keyword research and keeping the particular context of their site appropriate to users. Varvy's SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Overview tool audits your web site for key parameters like site strength, links, image SEO, sociable counts, on-page SEO, technical position, page speed, loading time plus more. Typically the trouble is that SEO rank factors have changed a whole lot over the years (find away how in our keyword analysis guide ). That means this search engine optimization techniques that will worked 5 years back won't travel today. PeepCon (which stands for The Individuals Conference”) seeks to teach doable SEO and digital marketing classes. See how Matthew had taken a website from zero in order to one million visits in much less than a year, using the mix of blogging, content advertising, and SEO. Solid being familiar with of the keywords, questions, in addition to phrases your ideal customers make use of to find your products in addition to services is critical to successful SEO. 34. Applying SEO practices (such keyword optimization) to social media marketing boosts discoverability when users search cultural platforms like Facebook and Youtube . com. Onsite SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Guide — If you the particular actual link, you will notice a opt-in button where a person can download the Onsite SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Guide. ” Matt Diggity will a lot of testing upon his own sites, which means this manual reflects what on page techniques are working best for your pet. One important aspect associated with taking care of SEO will be identifying issues that are harming search engine ranking positions plus reducing the traffic you obtain through SERPs. User-generated content like reviews assist SEO through SMO, because this often comes in the type of social shares, likes, or even commenting, or common threads such as hashtags that point back in the direction of a brand. Local SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION services offer a very focused online marketing approach, (it's not really like dropping off brochures upon front-porch steps or paying for a good ad in a local paper that could or may not really be seen by a achievable client that is actually fascinated in your products or services). A greater number associated with people will stick to tone of voice search, so SEO specialists will certainly need to adjust to this particular relatively new kind of research. Seo or SEO will be a powerful method to generate targeted traffic to your site and hopefully increase your base line. Whilst many marketing tactics rely upon you reaching out to your own audience, SEO gives you the particular power to achieve people whenever they are actively searching away information related to your solutions and products. Light hat SEOs the actual suggestions of Google and other research engines like google. As Google's search engine outcomes become increasingly monetized and some other platforms such as Amazon plus YouTube gain more SoV plus search volume, I think wish overdue for the focus associated with SEO to shift far through Google. Traditional SEO is usually focused on building (keyword relevant) links and (keyword relevant) content material. The main reason these kinds of are sometimes misunderstood is because you will find a whole Internet underbelly of alleged SEO companies that you may pay to link to your own site on their networks associated with low-quality articles. However, before we obtain to our main event, I actually must note that after the 2017 edition of SEO styles launched last year on Research Engine Journal, we heard the couple of complaints about simply how long it was. After that your boss tells you you aren't accountable for search engine marketing (SEO), too. Michael jordan Harling, SEO Specialist at Roman Blinds Direct, agrees with the particular consensus that voice search will certainly be the trend in 2019. Still, even for the particular best websites, maintaining a best organic SEO ranking requires regular keyword monitoring and content re-doing. Writer and consultant Peter Kent offers helped businesses including Amazon plus Zillow with SEO and on-line marketing. Very first, understand that schema markup will be one of the most effective, least used parts of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION today Schema are basically short snippets of data that may give extra information to find customers and search engines. SEO is usually a marketing discipline focused upon growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. Simply no matter how many times Search engines tweaks or evolves The Formula, from Panda to Penguin in order to Polar Bear, these logical plus intuitive core SEO tips need to remain timeless. Certainly, all those searching for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION agencies will have to create their selection by passing SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION companies through careful and careful scrutiny, to ensure that all of them to get the best within search engine optimization for their particular business website. The article provides you 12 tricks for E-commerce plus establishing an SEO optimized internet site which will help you improve your business exposure and visibility upon search engines. Making use of keywords in your article name, article body and resource will be a great SEO article composing strategy that may make your own articles more effective in appealing to attention from search engines. Use SEO strategies like as transcripts and tags in order to help your videos appear increased in search results and entice more viewers over time. Dave Gregory, Content Marketing Supervisor from the UK based overall performance marketing agency, SiteVisibility, predicts that will 2019, and not 2018, is usually going to be the genuine year of voice. If we consider Google's Guide then there are almost 200+ factors that lead a web site in ranking, which we have got researched and clustered in twenty one On Page SEO Factors, that will needs your attention in 2019. SEO Wise Links can automatically link essential terms in your posts plus comments with corresponding posts, web pages, categories and tags on your own blog. 41. An effective interpersonal media strategy needs a strong SEO plan. Google does make a few of this data accessible in their particular free Webmaster Tools interface (if you haven't set up a free account, this is a very useful SEO tool both for unearthing search query data and intended for diagnosing various technical SEO issues). AI and Tone of voice Search Impact SEO, Lets discover how voice search analytics Impact's SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and can impact in the particular coming time. A great many businesses determine to hire external help in order to get the full benefits regarding SEO, so a large element of our audience is studying how to convince their clientele that search is a superb investment (and then prove it! ). Nevertheless, SEOs tend in order to prefer links higher on the page. Because your site, because of to the nature of your current business is going to end up being more image orientated than text message heavy, you will end up at a small disadvantage when it comes to be able to employing SEO techniques such while keywords, backlinking and so on. There is definitely no magic wand in your own hands to regulate or manage your competitors' strategies or administration, Google analytics update, or client's behavior communicate business but a person can manage your SEO. In this particular new environment, the digital online marketer who views SEO in the broader context will surely come away ahead of the competition within 2018 and beyond. Good SEO textbooks explain in detail how greatest to use keywords and exactly how to structure your entire internet site to attract the attention associated with search engine spiders and associated with human visitors, and a posting such as this cannot perform the topic justice. While businesses start on an SEO advertising advertising campaign, they should realize that a good entire marketing campaign can drop flat on its face in the event that a business is unable in order to reach the masses, that is usually, their target audience. If your own pages were designed to obtain the most out of Search engines, with commonly known and right now outdated SEO techniques chances are usually Google has identified this plus is throttling your rankings within some way. A lot of business people find keeping upward with the "moving target" associated with SEO distracts them from every day priorities more than they actually imagined, so it's good in order to appear closely at what can make sense for every business. The program process for the SocialSEO Electronic Marketing and SEO Scholarship is definitely done 100% electronically and needs the next list of materials. Businesses with multiple websites and SEO-agencies can set up report layouts. Its search engine marketing group provides expertise in Pay-per-click marketing services, organic SEO and cultural media optimisation. The particular ads that you often observe on various web pages demonstrated and those that also show up on the rightmost side associated with search engine results are inorganic SEO examples. While I nevertheless see this trend in have fun with with many enterprises still within the midst of their electronic transformation, the convergence in the particular MarTech space is creating numerous synergies and opportunities and this particular should be seen as the welcome development for brands plus agencies who are looking intended for an edge in regards in order to their SEO driven content advertising or outreach strategies. Along with the only complete certainty that SEO's, Website owners may have numerous adjustments to make to internet sites under their care in the particular mobile and voice search surroundings. The basics of GOOD SEO hasn't changed for years - although effectiveness of particular elements offers certainly narrowed or changed within type of usefulness - a person should still be focusing upon building a simple site making use of VERY simple SEO best practices - don't perspiration the small stuff, while all-the-time paying attention to the essential stuff - add plenty of unique PAGE TITLES and lots associated with new ORIGINAL CONTENT. Keyword research is usually THE first step of any kind of SEO campaign. This particular SEO model is called the "topic cluster, " and contemporary search engine algorithms rely upon them to connect users along with the information they're looking intended for. Your own SEO strategy likely involves articles designed to be shared upon social media. Take this article intended for example, if you search regarding reverse engineer Google, ” seo secrets, ” reverse engineering seo, ” this post is on the particular first page for every associated with those search terms. Social media marketing and SEO need to be working together, sharing content material or utilizing engagement metrics since data for future article marketing and advertising. Simply put, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is marketing through an knowing of how search algorithms function combined with a knowledge associated with what human users might research for. The results furthermore underscore the value of creating new content with your SEO online marketing strategy. If you create new content centered on your priority keywords, a person have several advantages having an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION marketing strategy. Both SEO and content material marketing converge in lots of places; they will do not work in solitude. Free to go to SearchLeeds covers everything from complex SEO and analytics, to ADVERTISING, content marketing, paid media in addition to more. Following technical mobile SEO greatest practices (e. g., image marketing, redirects, JavaScript and CSS) is usually a necessary barrier to access in today's digital world. With internet customers who use their mobiles in order to search on the increase, since an SEO consultant it can make sense to possess a look at the particular effects SEO marketing is putting on search engine optimization. The sole purpose of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Services is to improve your own search engine ranking. Assure redirected domains redirect through the canonical redirect and this too offers any chains minimised, although Help make sure to audit the backlink user profile for any redirects you stage at a page just such as reward comes punishment if these backlinks are toxic (another type of Google opening up the particular war which is technical seo on a front it's not really, and in fact is speak, to building backlinks to your own site). In order to smoothen out the software system interface problem, the web developing team as well as the particular SEO specialist work together in order to build the major search motors friendly programs and code that could be easily integrated into the client's website. They will have got to find SEO expert web sites, who will help the company owner's site have many clients in internet marketing. This is since they are not SEO helpful and can affect your positioning significantly. These SEO crawler programs are similar to Google's own crawlers and will provide you an overview showing exactly how your page will perform within SEO rankings. Google is making certain it takes longer to discover results from black and white hat SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, and intent on ensuring the flux in its SERPs structured largely on where the searcher is in the world during the particular time of the search, plus where the business is situated near to that searcher. When a person think of a white head wear you may think of the particular Kentucky Derby or even a Royal Wedding ceremony but in SEO speak this means the group of methods apply the best practice, the particular ones that earn you most of the gold stars plus brownie points, the ones that will don't use bad manipulations to get traction or ranking, but individuals who do what they perform to the best of their own abilities, create wonderful content plus follow all the rules. Also, really worth bearing in mind is the fact that Google pay attention to tendencies and what their customers would like, if you want to remain ahead of the game plus make sure your SEO will be fit for the 2019 audience, that is worth ensuring you furthermore include SEO techniques that embrace newer trends such as words searching. The search engine optimisation (SEO) providers are designed to increase presence inside the algorithmic (natural”, organic”, or free”) search results in order to deliver high quality, targeted visitors aimed at your website. We might suggest them as an agency to get a range of digital marketing providers from content marketing and on-page SEO. In short, we think that SEO in 2019 can have to shift focus actually more towards answering people's queries and solving people's problems. With this SEO article creating guidelines formula it pleases the particular search engines and the visitors reading the content. Search Engine Search engine optimization Starter Guide — This guideline was written by Google and has many SEO best practices with regard to webmasters.

0 notes

jessicakehoe · 6 years ago

Text

Everything That Upset the Internet This Week

What is the web-o-sphere angry about this week? A plus-size rom-com star who needs to take a history lesson, a competitive sport that’s enforcing “modest makeup,” and devastating news for Canadian Harry Potter fans. Here’s everything you need to know.

Rebel Wilson says she’s the first plus-size lead in a romantic comedy

THE STORY: While promoting her upcoming film Isn’t It Romantic on Ellen, Rebel Wilson said: “I’m proud to be the first-ever plus-sized girl to be the star of a romantic comedy.”

THE REACTION:

My thoughts on Rebel Wilson’s statement about being “the first plus size woman to star in a romantic comedy”: pic.twitter.com/zsilmfCSeS

— Nabela (@Nabela) November 1, 2018

Umm..Did they not show Hairspray, Last Holiday, or Just Wright in Australia @RebelWilson??

— Mia Helena (@Mia_TheBlessed) November 1, 2018

I love @RebelWilson as much as the next girl, but she isn’t the first plus sized woman to play the lead in a romantic comedy. Queen Latifah and Mo’Nique have both played romcom leads 🤔 https://t.co/l2uEpwvcsF

— Halfapintdoll (@Halfapintdoll) November 1, 2018

RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE RAGE: So this might just be a situation in which Wilson misspoke, and likely, she’s regurgitating information fed to her by a publicist. If she insisted on addressing the controversy, she should have tweeted out a general, informal apology, acknowledging the women who paved the way for women like herself. Instead, she responded directly to one of her critics with this:

Hey girl! Yeah I of course know of these movies but it was questionable as to whether: 1. Technically those actresses were plus size when filming those movies or 2. Technically those films are catorgorized/billed as a studio rom-com with a sole lead. So there’s a slight grey area

— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) November 1, 2018

In situations like these, defending yourself usually isn’t the best call. Wilson’s tweet ended up getting the attention of Mo’Nique, star of the 2006 rom-com “Phat Girlz,” who took a moment to gently remind the Isn’t It Romantic lead to “know the history” before making claims that could erase the talent and work of other plus-size women.

Hi Monique, it was never my intention to erase anyone else’s achievements and I adore you and Queen Latifah so so much x I support all plus size ladies and everything positive we are doing together ❤️

— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) November 3, 2018

So, no, she’s not the first—and that’s something she needs to speak to in the press tour leading up to the movie’s release. But even if she doesn’t, I still think you should see Isn’t It Romantic, because despite not being first, Wilson’s role is a monumental moment for Hollywood blockbusters. Oh, and the film looks really funny. Here’s hoping the movie is a major box office success, and that it continues to pave the path for plus-sized actresses in the future.

The International Gymnastics Federation bans heavy makeup during competitions

THE STORY: Earlier this year, Dutch gymnast Céline van Gerner performed a Cats-themed floor routine at the 2018 European Championships. She wore theatrical hair, makeup and costume for her interpretation of the popular musical—which is uncommon in elite gymnastics, but didn’t result in any penalties against van Gerner.

On Monday, van Gerner tweeted out a screenshot sharing that the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has made a rule change regarding makeup. “Face painting is not allowed,” the screenshot reads, “any makeup must be modest and not portray a theatrical character.”

THE REACTION:

"Any makeup must be modest."

What? Sorry, FIG. I can't hear you from all the way here in 2018. You'll have to move closer. https://t.co/NFZhNSpBY1

— BalanceBeamSituation (@TheBBSituation) October 29, 2018

But what's modest?… is Kyla Ross' red lip now banned? Aliya's smokey eye? Pathetic from FIG.

— Paige 🌻 (@pagggg) October 29, 2018

100s of gymnasts come forward with stories of abuse. FIG: ……….

One gymnast wears additional makeup to convey a character in her FX routine FIG: This must never happen again, change the rules change the policies immediately. Fcked up priorities, @gymnastics https://t.co/YB4uVKZYHb

— Jim_Nastics (@JimNastics2) October 29, 2018

RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE RAGE: “Modest”—particularly when used in reference a woman’s appearance—is a pretty loaded word in the current cultural climate. And really, enforcing restrictions on female expression seems like that last thing the gymnastics world wants to be making headlines for right now. This change in regulations comes at a time when there is heightened attention on how female athletes are being treated in the sport, with former US gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar having recently been sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing over 100 young gymnasts.

Besides, as Deadspin notes, gymnasts are tasked with conveying a “character” or “artistic point of view” in their floor routines. Isn’t that exactly what Céline van Gerner did with her feline-inspired performance? Gymnastics should be a space where women can express themselves creatively, and they shouldn’t be held back from the tools that help them do that.

Turns out, Harry Potter isn’t coming to Netflix Canada

THE STORY: In the days leading up to November 1, there was widespread Internet speculation that all eight Harry Potter films would be dropping on Netflix Canada. The day came and went, and it left us Great Northern Potterheads with some sad news: the streaming service only launched the movies to their site in two countries. Canada isn’t one of them.

THE REACTION:

netflix not adding the harry potter series in canada is fucking rude

— ♡ (@FeistySymphony) November 2, 2018

STOP BELIEVING THAT NETFLIX CANADA IS GOING TO UPLOAD THE WHOLE SAGA OF HARRY POTTER IT’S ONLY IN FREAKING FRANNNCEEEEEEEE DO YOUR DAMN RESEARCH AND STOP BLOWING UP MY DREAMS 😡🤯😡🤯😡

— ana.b 🇵🇦 (@nanayka_b) October 25, 2018

WHY DOES @Netflix_CA HATE US?!?! And not release all of Harry Potter in Canada…. WHYYYY 😭😭😭😭

— Ranz (@gonmarales) November 4, 2018

RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE RAGE: I mean, we shouldn’t take this too personally. Netflix is a regional service, and operates different licenses for shows and films in every country. But at the same time: I encourage everyone to LOUDLY voice their frustrations. If we made enough noise, maybe we mere muggles will get the movies next month? And in the mean time, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them is officially coming to Netflix Canada in October. So at least there’s something J.K. Rowling related.

The post Everything That Upset the Internet This Week appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Everything That Upset the Internet This Week published first on https://borboletabags.tumblr.com/

0 notes

itsmyrayeraye-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Understanding The Background Of SEO 2019

Internet marketing is usually solely driven by SEO or even search engine optimization. Over the particular last 20 years SocialSEO provides grown to be the biggest full digital marketing firm within the state of Colorado, delivering Social Media, Pay Per Click on and SEO in Denver, Co Springs, Boulder and across the particular State. Lastly, Amazon will dominate web commerce queries in 2018 via Alexa voice, touch, as well as other innovative interfaces, leaving many e-commerce SEOs in order to focus in on the content-side of their marketing. If you could use something like 20 times more chances for website traffic, three times better effects than social, and returns about investment that will only raise over time, SEO must end up being a priority. Since artificial intelligence search motor optimization is in its preliminary stage, the impact of synthetic intelligence in marketing is heading to be felt in 2019 and 2020. So regional businesses have to put specific effort into maximizing their SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION efforts for local visibility, which usually means doing things like customization their Google Places pages. All these types of steps are used by the particular company to provide the greatest search engine optimization services in order to its clients in Thailand, below the Thailand SEO concept. Keyword phrases, although it is not being as important in order to SEO ranking as they as soon as were, still play a significant function. •Social Mass media Optimization - SEO services make use of various means of social press optimization for clients. Lots of people are usually now asking, How will AI and Voice Search impact SEO”? Off-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION concentrates on increasing the authority associated with your domain through the act associated with getting links from all some other websites. Regarding: Search Engine Journal's flagship meeting, SEJ Summit, is dedicated to providing SEO pros the actual require, with an agenda of initial, first-run presentations covering the newest SEO and PPC tactics through renowned experts, plus excellent network opportunities. SEO combines official research engine guidelines, empirical knowledge, plus theoretical knowledge from science documents or patents. This will be a half-day workshop at LeadsCon that will be designed in order to give attendees an end-to-end look at of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), how it works, and concrete things they can do these days to improve their SEO functionality. After the Search engines Panda algorithm appeared, SEO specialists realized just how much key word frequency and density matters. SEO means optimizing your content so it shows up a lot more often in search results. 33. With social media systems like Facebook diminishing visibility associated with companies and brands, SEO (as well as paid promotion) is definitely becoming critically important for generating traffic to your social stations. 2019 dates TBD. ). Why go to: One-track conference full of forward-thinking, tactical sessions in SEO, development marketing, the mobile landscape, analytics, content marketing and more. ” Don't miss the LeadsCon Meeting in Vegas, March 4-6, 2019. Also companies considering about getting Search engine search engine optimization services should go through these types of magazines to familiarize themselves making use of the latest trends within the particular SEO and web-based marketing business to allow them to determine the assistance offered for all of them from the selected SEO companies. Mobile SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION in 2018 will probably be all regarding Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). The term SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION also describes the making internet pages easier for internet lookup engine indexing software, known since "crawlers, " to find, check out, and index your web site. I feel that technical SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION mistakes that affect crawl spending budget - and also pollute Search engines with non-SEO-friendly content such since social landing pages, WordPress mass media archives, offer pages and cloned e-commerce product pages - will certainly have a far more detrimental effect upon sites moving forward. Effective SEO lets you enhance your website to demonstrate up within search engines. We all will get into how to be able to pick the best keywords regarding your business later in this particular SEO guide, but it perfect you to know how to be able to use them, as they are usually referenced throughout this section. Although meta descriptions are not the ranking factor for search machines, they do hold value regarding your website and are component of your SEO presence. Let us speak a bit as to exactly what SEO is before we enter into the SEO article writing recommendations for people who may end up being new or do not very understand it. SEO stands with regard to Seo. Join us for some sort of three-day, one-track conference full involving forward-thinking, tactical sessions in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION, growth marketing, the mobile surroundings, analytics, content marketing, and a lot more. The objective associated with SEO is to get a new website ranked as high because possible on search engines, for example Google. When you are improving user encounter by focusing primarily on the particular quality of the MC associated with your pages and avoiding -- even removing - old-school SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION techniques - those certainly are usually positive steps to getting even more traffic from Google in 2018 - and the type associated with content performance Google rewards is usually in the end largely from least about a satisfying consumer experience. For instance, when I'm logged in to Google+ and I actually search for SEO, I have the following in my top 5 search results. Black head wear SEO practice involves breaking just about all of the rules and rules of the search engine. Every time you observe or hear the phrase lookup engine optimization, ” substitute exactly what create quality and indicating relevance” and you'll have the correct mindset permanently SEO work. SEOs conveniently call this effect ‘domain authority' and it appeared in order to be related to ‘PageRank' : the system Google started in order to rank the web within 1998. In case you have more time plus are keen to follow the particular SEO industry, subscribe to Moz and Search Engine Land. Integrating these keywords into the article allows you to add range while still retaining SEO energy. SEO differs from local research engine optimization in that the particular latter is targeted on customizing a business' online presence therefore that its web pages is usually going to be displayed simply by search engines when a consumer enters a local search regarding its products or services. The challenge for webmasters plus SEO is that Google will not want business people to rank intended for lots of keywords using autogenerated content especially when that creates A LOT of pages upon a website using (for instance) a list of keyword variants page-to-page. In time, the range between social media marketing management, channel growth, and SEO will be considerably blurrier than it really is definitely today. In 2016, SEO experts possess determined which factors are nearly all likely to affect your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION rankings. Customers and marketers will need in order to begin implementing multiple forms associated with digital marketing tactics including compensated search, social media marketing, nearby SEO, in addition to SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION if they hope to control a given Google SERP. Before beginning with this, the SEO professionals should visit your business and realize each and every aspect associated with your company so that these people can help your achieve your own marketing goals. What really matters in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION in 2018 is what a person prioritise today to ensure that will in 3-6 months you may see improvements in the high quality of your organic traffic. Mobile will account for 72% of US digital ad invest by 2019. SEO specialists started in order to abuse PageRank in order in order to raise the rankings. Now could be a great time to take a nearer take a look at SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION marketing information because search is getting even worse for those types of B2B plus B2C businesses. SEO marketers plus writers typically come up along with different kinds of content in order to place the necessary keywords within. These are some of the particular most used types, and every one helps to help with the level of variety in conditions of website content. Certain black hat SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION techniques, such as keyword filling, are thought to be the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION equivalent of spamming, and lookup engines will penalize them. Internet marketing is exclusively driven by SEO or research engine optimization. Others are usually simply traditional PR firms that have learned SEO as properly as the value of hyperlinks. Here's a cliche among electronic marketers: Search engine optimization (SEO) isn't what used to become. Google announced that will they released several minor enhancements over the period of the particular time of about a 7 days and after analysis, experts inside the SEO industry concluded that will the updates were the outcome of keyword permutations and web site using doorway pages. SEO, or Search Motor Optimization, means setting up your own website and content to show up through online search results. People that want to take their company to some new height plus generally and mostly believe within the way of SEO marketing and advertising. An extensive dental marketing plus dental SEO campaign can become attained by the enterprise just if the web address associated with a dental practice contains directly into all the promotional materials regarding the business. This shows the importance of focussing voice search engine results within order to grow your company, marketing, and Search Engine Optimization(SEO) strategies. They obtain this by increasing their internet site rank through a method known as SEO or even search engine optimization. Just like almost all other SEO approaches, be certain your links are appropriate, plus be careful never to cross the particular line into excessive linking -- you don't want your website visitors to obtain annoyed. Bryan Yeager, Research Director at Gartner, will certainly share 9 Key Insights through Gartner's Marketing Technology Survey in order to Help You Prepare for 2019 and Beyond. SEO is a combination associated with digital marketing efforts all functioning together to increase a web site's value to users and presence in search. On-page SEO (also identified as "on-site" SEO) may be the action of optimizing different parts associated with your site that affect your own search engine rankings. In 2019, we'll have to optimize voice lookup answers with CTAs that Google's algorithms don't pick up upon, but humans do. Dan Mallette, Lead SEO Strategist at each InVue Digital & HearstDMS, forecasts that SEOs will need in order to optimize for voice search and discover new avenues as SERP property shrinks. Obviously, a social media marketing web page that has more interaction will probably bring bigger SEO benefits to be able to some business than one of which has less interaction, but only having a social presence is definitely a good start. In 2018, SEO is content and articles is SEO, content is electronic and digital is content. Before starting a good SEO project, site owners ought to carefully read through the website owner guidelines that every search motors provides and follow recommended greatest practices. This is clear that when website owners hire a search engine marketing SEO expert, they stand the better chance of maximizing their particular SEO services. Search motors cannot understand this type associated with content, so it's essential to style video pages in an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION oriented manner. Subscribe to our weekly SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and daily SearchCap newsletters for a summarize of all the latest SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION related news, tips and techniques from Internet search engine Property and other sources all more than the Web. When if you're Blog9T logged in, go to SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Toolkit » Keyword Research » Keyword Overview. For virtually any SEO technique to operate successfully you require content and that will can come in any type like keywords, articles or sites. From 2019, AI will certainly be utilized by the businesses to acquire higher rankings upon search engines. Consequently, it can be a great idea to incorporate expenses regarding professional SEO content in your own quarterly marketing budget. Google will see right via sneaky, black hat SEO techniques like creating duplicate pages, generating pages with thin content simply for the sake of obtaining more pages and buying inbound links. Register and raise the free donation for SEO Greater london every time you shop on the internet. Local SEO - Optimize that localized content on your site to properly leverage local alerts, online reviews and business results. Learn more about content material optimization for SEO here. Along with paid-search it offers a very focused audience, visitors referred by SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION will only visit your web site if they are seeking particular home elevators your products or even related content. From keyword ingrdient filling to link buying, the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION landscape has seen numerous black-hat tricks — and Google constantly catches on. Chris Gregory, founder plus managing partner at Jacksonville centered firm, DAGMAR Marketing, predicts that will AI and machine learning might have a big impact upon SEO in 2019 and SEOs who aren't technical will end up being left in the dust. Some SEO specialists also advise that anchor textual content should be varied as a lot of pages linking to one web page using the same anchor textual content may look suspicious to look motors. SEO trickery such while keyword ‘stuffing' in irrelevant articles simply won't cut it inside the current day, with Google's algorithm taking over 200 elements to ensure that it's ratings provide results with valid and even authoritative sites, it is next to on impossible to accomplish anything various other than work with the research engines to make sure top rated quality SEO results. From a SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION perspective, the principal keyword need to be at the beginning adopted by the other relevant key phrases. Selecting the most appropriate key phrases is critical for successful SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and it is easy in order to choose the wrong ones through falling into the trap associated with optimization. Lookup engine optimisation, or SEO, is the procedure of enhancing your site's rank in search results. Web Marketing SEO, and in specific, Google SEO is the essential. Get into your competitor's URL into the particular SEMRush search bar and you should become provided with a list associated with SEO keywords, with their ratings and traffic. About: Brighton SEO is made up of courses and a one-day search marketing conference. Before this change, the greatest practice was to avoid concealed content at any cost because it wasn't as effective regarding SEO (it was either as well much to crawl for the particular bot in some instances or even given less important by Search engines in others). This is due to the particular fact that you will require contents to be submitted in order to the websites for whom a person are working as an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, when you build the hyperlinks, you will need to offer the profile information, and a person will also have to produce articles for submissions as nicely as numerous other types associated with written work. If you've actually searched for something online (and most of us have), a person already know read more regarding SEO than you think a person do. All of us already see this trend within several places, like extremely specific targeting of social ads -- some brands still approach SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and content creation with the one-size-fits all attitude. Given that lookup engines have complex algorithms that will power their technology and everybody's marketing needs are unique, jooxie is unable to provide specific SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION advice to our customers. We all think SEO in 2019 might find a shift to focusing a lot more on user intent, problem resolving, and hyper locality in purchase to capitalize on the carried on rise of voice search. Private demographic information would come in a great deal handier in 2019 as considerably as the ranking of key phrases is concerned. Links are one of the particular most important SEO ranking elements. However, more advanced that will readers will recognize the reduce quality of sites employing dark hat SEO at the expenditure from the reader experience, which usually will reduce the site's visitors and page rank over period. So - THERE IS SIMPLY NO BEST PRACTICE AMOUNT OF HEROES any SEO could lay down because exact best practice to GUARANTEE a title will certainly display, in full in Search engines, at least, since the search little title, on every device. While getting as many pages listed in Google was historically the priority for an SEO, Search engines is now rating the high quality of pages in your site plus the type of pages this really is indexing. Jerrika Scott, Digital Marketing Specialist with Archway Cards Ltd, also feels in voice being the pattern of 2019 rather than 2018. Today, in spite of all the hype about whether or not SEO is dead, we discover that organic search is nevertheless one of the highest RETURN ON INVESTMENT digital marketing channels. We cover every topic within the digital marketing sphere like SEO, technical SEO, local SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING, PPC, SEM, content marketing, CRO, analytics, backlink, marketing strategy, mobile phone marketing, social media marketing and even much more. Any SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION company has to be capable to create high quality content material on an ongoing basis. SEO is the process for making changes to the website to be able in order to improve its position in the particular search engines like google. Robert feels that by 2019 most cellular searches will be conducted simply by voice by mobile devices or even virtual assistants in fact this is very important to obtain your positioning in the research engine ranking positions as shortly as possible. As the particular factors search engines like Search engines, Bing, and Yahoo use in order to rank sites are kept magic formula and change frequently, we construct all known SEO best methods into every Squarespace site. Black hat SEO may get you to the best of SERP in a brief time, however, search engines such as google will most probably punish and ban the website more rapidly or later. If you have read from the beginning, a person know that links are the key SEO ranking factor. Generally there are 2 types of lookup engine optimization or SEO. Now, pay shut attention to the components that will make up on-page SEO, because this is where non-SEO professionals will be able to help to make the most meaningful impact in their search engine rankings. There will be no magic wand in your own hands to regulate or manage your competitors' strategies or administration, Google analytics update, or client's behavior communicate business but a person can manage your SEO. In this particular new environment, the digital marketing expert who views SEO in the broader context will surely come away ahead of the competition within 2018 and beyond. Good SEO textbooks explain in detail how greatest to use keywords and just how to structure your entire internet site to attract the attention associated with search engine spiders and associated with human visitors, and a posting such as this cannot perform the topic justice. While businesses start on an SEO advertising marketing campaign, they should realize that a good entire marketing campaign can drop flat on its face in the event that a business is unable in order to reach the masses, that is definitely, their target audience. If your own pages were designed to obtain the most out of Search engines, with commonly known and today outdated SEO techniques chances are usually Google has identified this plus is throttling your rankings within some way. Several business people find keeping upward with the "moving target" associated with SEO distracts them from everyday priorities more than they actually imagined, so it's good in order to appear closely at what can make sense for every business. The program process for the SocialSEO Electronic Marketing and SEO Scholarship is definitely done 100% electronically and demands these list of materials. SEO companies are able to track almost every aspect of their technique, like increases in rankings, visitors and conversions. The methods which were the simplest (reciprocal links or directory submissions) perform not work anymore, therefore the particular SEOs spend a lot associated with time trying different approaches. The particular Moz Pro is another collection of Tools that check the particular important factors related to your own website's search ranking. Selection of key phrases or phrases plays an essential component in an SEO campaign considering that it saves you the pictures in the dark. In 2019 the particular digital marketing companies can anticipate a lot of voice lookups, and by 2020, about 50 percent of the searches will become either voice searches or image-based searches. Read our Mobile SEO 2019 Checklist before you decide in order to implement. Typically 5 Quick Tips For SEO 2019 the first facet of optimizing images is usually including your keywords in the particular image file name (seo_guide. jpg). The inevitable adjustments that will occur in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION in the near future are usually abolition of keywords stuffing plus spam backlinks, real-time personalized customer support by online marketers, improvement within the quality of visual content material as a result of creativity of video SEO, optimization associated with websites with conversational keywords plus generating massive quantity of current data. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION remains one of the lengthy term marketing strategies that function best for companies that are usually looking to improve their on-line visibility. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of the particular most important marketing things to consider upon your studio website. SEO might generate a sufficient return upon investment However, search engines are usually not purchased organic search visitors, their algorithms change, and presently there are no guarantees of continuing referrals. A great starting point whenever using keywords for SEO is usually to identify existing pages that will may use some optimization. These are called keywords, plus as you will see, these people are an important part associated with SEO. In fact, this particular will actually hurt your home page's SEO because search engines such as google will recognize it because keyword stuffing - or the particular act of including keywords particularly to rank for that key phrase, rather than to answer the person's question. Just before we begin, one thing a person want to keep in thoughts when using some of the following SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION elements is not to overdo it. You might be enticed to shove a lot associated with keywords onto your pages, yet that is not the objective. In situation you create links to some other websites and reverse, it will certainly improve your SEO ranking. Really Cisco predicts that globally, on-line video traffic will be eighty percent of all consumer Web traffic by 2019 (a amount that is up from sixty four percent in 2014). I've bookmarked therefore many SEO websites and assets that it's overwhelming to actually look at. Link authority is the major component of SEO, yet purchasing links is forbidden simply by Google, Bing, and other research engines.

0 notes

mrmichaelchadler · 6 years ago

Text

Home Entertainment Consumer Guide: August 16, 2018

10 NEW TO NETFLIX

"The Aviator" "Clerks" "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" "The Game" "The Informant!" "No Country For Old Men" "Out of Sight" "Serenity" "Touch of Evil"

6 NEW TO BLU-RAY/DVD

"Avengers: Infinity War"

Those of you who follow this column regularly (and thank you for your support) know that it's general purpose is to call your attention to things you may not know are out on Blu-ray or DVD or haven't even heard of that this critic thinks you should watch. In other words, it's more of a "highlights" column than a purely informational one. However, I make a few exceptions for titles for which I know I am in the minority on that I think you, dear reader, may want to buy or rent. And I'm sure there are at least dozens of you who will be excited to learn that the latest MCU juggernaut is on Blu-ray, and you don't care that I pretty much hated this movie. You don't care that I think it's noisy and really only half a movie. You just want to see your favorite heroes in HD. Now you can. And it should be noted that this is a very strong Blu-ray release with excellent video and audio transfers. It booms and shines. I just wished I liked the movie as much as you did.

Buy it here

Special Features Strange Alchemy The Mad Titan Beyond the Battle: Titan Beyond the Battle: Wakanda Deleted and Extended Scenes Gag Reel Audio Commentary by Anthony and Joe Russo, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely

"Lowlife"

It's always interesting to me to watch a genre pic build legitimate buzz through the festival circuit without the backing of a studio, hooky concept, or recognizable cast. One of those films in 2017-18 was "Lowlife," which I saw as a part of my coverage of last year's Fantasia Film Festival. It already had a bit of buzz then, but I kept seeing it pop up in genre and regional festivals throughout the year, and it was fun to see audiences take to it (even if our very own Nick Allen didn't quite in our theatrical review). Yes, some of its topical flourishes are a bit too blunt and its form can sometimes dominate its content, but "Lowlife" is clearly the kind of movie that grows a cult following over time. Rent it before someone tell you that you should.

Buy it here

Special Features Audio Commentary with Director/Co-Writer Ryan Prows and Cinematographer Benjamin Kitchens Audio Commentary with Ryan Prows and Writers Tim Cairo, Jake Gibson and Shaye Ogbonna Making-of Featurette Short Films

"Marrowbone"

Speaking of movies that could become cult hits, I think an audience will find the underrated "Marrowbone," the directorial debut of the writer of J.A. Bayona's phenomenal "The Orphanage." "Marrowbone" shares some DNA with that film in that it's about orphaned children and contains a twist both unexpected and heartbreaking. A strong young cast that includes Anya Taylor-Joy ("Thoroughbreds") Charlie Heaton ("Stranger Things") and Mia Goth ("A Cure For Wellness") anchors a film that is part period drama and part haunted house movie. The four Marrowbone children are left orphaned after fleeing their criminal father and losing their mother to illness. They vow to stick together...no matter what. The script is a bit too twisty for its own good, but the technical elements here are incredibly strong, including the art direction of an old house that feels like it has a story to tell.

Buy it here

Special Features Deleted/Extended Scenes Marrowbone Behind the Scenes Visual Effects Reel

"On Chesil Beach"

Ian McEwan's thin novel was turned into a sometimes disappointing drama earlier this year, but it's worth seeing as a rental purely for the performances by Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle. The two talented performers play a young couple on the verge of the sexual revolution, afraid to speak to one another about what they need (or don't want) in the bedroom. Some of McEwan's social commentary feels diluted a bit here, and the epilogue is particularly mishandled, but there are enough moments of pure acting power to justify a look.

Buy it here

Special Features The Story Behind On Chesil Beach Deleted Scenes

"The Rider"

When Chloe Zhao was filming "Songs my Brothers Taught Me," she met Brady Jandreau, who advised on the horse scenes in that film. She became fascinated with his life and story, adapting it into this semi-biographical tale that not only stars the non-actor, but his father and sister as well. Brady plays a young man who has to give up his dreams of being a rodeo cowboy after a horrible accident nearly kills him. With documentary levels of versimilitude, Zhao and Jandreau break down the myth of the American slogan of "Cowboy Up," and its general uselessness. It's heartbreaking and gorgeous, although Sony has chosen only to release it on DVD for some reason. Criterion, go pick this one up and give it the HD treatment it deserves.

Buy it here

Special Features Q&A featuring Chloe Zhao, Brady Jandreau, Joshua James Richards & Alex O'Flinn Deleted Scenes Q&A with Brady Jandreau

"Zama"

Another of the year's best indies, and another movie this site gave four stars, DOES land on Blu-ray this month (and the HD transfer is breathtaking) in Lucrecia Martel's phenomonal adaptation of the book of the same name. Daniel Gimenez Cacho plays Don Diego de Zama, a corregidor stuck in a remote South American location. He keeps waiting for a better assignment, eventually learning the futility of hope. Zhao's approach is breathtaking, finding both humor and cultural commentary and soul-crushing drama in the same beats. It's a gorgeous film that is alternately hysterical (Cacho gives a wonderfully deadpan performance) and lyrical. It's one of the best films of 2018.

Buy it here

Special Features Original Theatrical Trailer Other Trailers

from All Content https://ift.tt/2nMcPjD

0 notes

ronnykblair · 6 years ago

Text

The Rates Trading Desk in London: How to Break In, and What to Expect on the Job

Is sales & trading still a good industry?

If it is, what’s the best desk for you, and how should you recruit for it?

It’s tough to give universal answers to these questions, so we like to present different groups and let you decide.

We’ve published articles on equities and fixed income, but I’ve always wanted to go into detail on individual desks within those areas.

And just as I had this thought, a reader who works on the rates trading desk at a large bank in London volunteered to share his experiences:

What is the Rates Trading Desk?

Q: Before we get started, can you explain what the “rates trading desk” does and how it’s different from other areas in FICC (Fixed Income, Currency, and Commodities), such as credit trading?

A: Most assets that a bank trades are split into cash vs. derivatives vs. exotics, and the same split applies to the rates trading desk.

“Cash” here means sovereign bonds, while “derivatives” means interest rate swaps and futures, and “exotics” means structured products based on rates, options on swaps, and others.

Of those, we focus on making markets in sovereign bonds and interest rate derivatives.

Sovereign bonds are ones issued by governments, such as U.K. Gilts, U.S. Treasuries, EUR-denominated bonds issued by European countries, and Australian Government Bonds (AGBs).

In London, EUR-denominated bonds and U.K. Gilts are the most common, though there are teams for the others as well.

Interest rate derivatives are financial instruments whose values increase or decrease based on movements in interest rates.

The simplest type is the “vanilla” interest rate swap, where one party receives payments based on a floating interest rate and pays the counterparty based on a fixed interest rate.

If you’re receiving payments based on a floating rate, you hope that LIBOR increases so you receive more; if you’re paying based on a floating rate, you hope that LIBOR decreases so you pay less.

Other derivatives include caps and floors, STIRT futures, Eurostrips, swaptions, and interest rate call options.

“Making a market” means providing liquidity to clients who want to buy and sell.

We commit to buy and sell anything from clients, even if we don’t want the position, and then we address the risk and try to turn it into a profitable trade.

Rates trading is very macro-focused compared with equities and areas of FICC such as credit trading or distressed debt.

In credit trading, you focus on securities like corporate bonds and credit default swaps (CDS), and company-specific knowledge (“the micro”) is critical.

But almost anything could affect interest rates, so you focus on “the macro” on the rates trading desk: economic growth, trade policy, inflation, exchange rates, and monetary policy.

Rates products offer significantly more liquidity than other types of bonds, so flow trading desks here tend to be loud and busy.

When there are central bank policy announcements, geopolitical developments, or economic data releases, activity on the desk flares up.

Rates Trading Desk Recruiting and Interviews

Q: Great, thanks for that overview.

What should you expect in the recruiting process?

A: You don’t specify a desk upfront, so you’ll just apply to the sales & trading divisions of banks, usually starting in August; sometimes you will pick equities vs. fixed income upfront.

Typically, you’ll have a first-round interview with junior traders in-person or on the phone, followed by an assessment center if you’re in the EMEA region (or a Superday if you’re in North America).

Traders look for technically-minded people who are comfortable with numbers and quick decisions under stress, which is why there are so many athletes on the trading floor.

It’s critical to apply early in London, especially if you’re from a non-target school.

Networking definitely “works,” but there are some cultural differences.

Q: Such as?

A: Just as in the U.S. and other regions, alumni networks at top schools are very helpful, but they work much better for recent graduates (i.e., those within 2-3 years of graduation).

After a few years, school affiliation in the U.K. becomes a weaker connection than it is in the U.S., so just going to the same university as a senior trader usually doesn’t cut it.

Traders won’t have time to meet during market hours and generally won’t be inclined for sit-down meetings – so your best bet is to aim for drinks right after work, especially on Thursday nights.

The after-work drinking culture is so prevalent in London that you might even be able to network with traders simply by going bar-hopping at the right times.

In London, Canary Wharf and the area between the Liverpool St. and Bank stations are the hot spots.

Q: That sounds more fun than coffee meetings…

Once you get past the networking stage, are there any London-specific interview differences?

A: Not really; you should expect a few brainteasers and math questions, lots of competency questions (“Why our bank?” and “Why sales & trading?”) as well as questions about market trends and trade ideas.

Especially for macro-oriented and fixed-income desks, you need to articulate clear views about central bank policy, geopolitics, market data, and news stories.

Product knowledge is also helpful so you can answer the “Why S&T?” question convincingly, but groups here stagger their expectations based on your background – they’ll expect someone with an MSF degree to know more than someone with a liberal arts degree.

Q: And what should you expect in S&T assessment centers?

A: Long days! ACs for S&T can sometimes run from 8 AM to 5 PM.

As with any AC, you’ll interview with senior professionals and complete individual and group case studies.

The three most common case studies here are trading games, group investment presentations, and individual trade idea presentations.

With the trading games, you’ll form groups, and in each turn, one group will make a market while the other group will buy and sell. You’ll receive more information about prices and orders in each turn as well.

The winner matters less than how you play the game – always track your positions and P&L and manage risk appropriately (e.g., don’t buy a huge volume of shares under the assumption that you can easily sell them).

Write down what others are doing so you can quote appropriate prices and present your ideas without being overly aggressive.

The usual group presentation task is to recommend 1-2 investments out of a set of 5-10 companies.

There is no “correct” answer, so make a decision quickly and then spend most of your time outlining your pitch and anticipating the questions you’ll get.

You should volunteer for a useful task that no one else wants to do (such as timekeeping or note-taking) so that you come across as a “team player.”

When you present, try to speak at the beginning or end so they remember you, and stick to your allotted time (usually 30 seconds per person).

If you have an observed group discussion, try to bring others into the conversation and don’t just give your opinions the whole time – recruiters like to see “humility.”

With the individual presentation, you’ll receive market information and research, and you’ll have to propose a trade idea.

Once again, make a decision quickly and aim for only a few minutes of presentation time so that you can spend more time answering the interviewers’ questions.

With trade ideas, many students don’t consider how they might hedge the risks.

It is not necessarily a good idea to suggest something specific, such as using call or put options, because you’ll almost always be quizzed on how exactly it would work. And if you don’t fully understand the specifics, it could easily backfire.

However, it is worth doing a bit of research beforehand on possible hedges so you can answer follow-up questions if the interviewers ask you about the topic.

Finally, don’t tell everyone that their desk is your #1 choice, and don’t focus too much on one specific desk.

You need senior traders across the desks to like you, so say that you’re open to anything, even if you do have a preference for one product.

You can always say that you’re very interested in what the person does and that you would like to know more, as markets people love to talk about their own roles.

On the Rates Trading Desk: A Day in the Life

Q: Thanks for that summary.

Can you walk us through an average day on the rates trading desk?

A: I need to be there before the European markets open, so I arrive around 6:30 AM, start preparing my comments for the 7 AM morning meeting, send our “axes” (trades we want to make) to the sales force, and mark my bond prices once the market opens.

I’m then at the desk for almost the entire day until 5 PM, when the market closes, except for ~20 minutes to grab lunch at mid-day.

If U.S. payrolls come in lower than expected, the ECB makes an unexpected announcement, and China announces a new trade deal, activity will spike, and we’ll be very busy making markets for clients (in front of all 8 of my screens).

But if it’s a quieter day with no major announcements or surprises, I’ll spend more time on analysis, Excel modeling, and longer-term projects.

It’s not the type of modeling you do in investment banking – it’s more for retrieving prices and positions and building graphs and analysis for swap curves (for example).

Senior traders rarely stay past 5:30 PM, but junior traders often stay later to finish P&L and risk reporting or other projects. But even they usually leave by 6-7 PM.

Q: How much do you interact with the sales force and structurers?

A: If you cover products with high flow, such as government bonds and swaps, you’ll work with sales force quite a bit.

For example, a salesperson might come to us and ask for a price on a government bond that a client wants to buy. Then, we look at our positions, who the client is, market activity, and recent prices, and give a quote.

The salesperson then relays this quote to the client, and the client says yes or no or makes a counter-offer.

If the trade goes through, the salesperson will confirm and book it, and I’ll start planning the next steps: unwind it right away, keep some or all of it, or buy something else as a hedge.

The structurers tend to have more contact with the sales force than us because the salespeople manage the relationships with clients that want custom products; traders just price and execute the trades and manage risk.

Q: Have new regulations, such as MiFID II, affected the job? What about automation?

A: Yes; they’ve changed the trading floor dramatically over the past decade.

These regulations are intended to reduce insider and rogue trading by making discussions between market participants more transparent, but some people argue that they’re killing liquidity and forcing banks to consolidate.

I think banks will have to specialize in fewer markets in the future, and that consolidation will continue because regulations tend to favor large incumbents.

It’s ironic because regulators want to eliminate “too big to fail” institutions, but many new regulations have the opposite effect because they increase the costs of doing business and grant advantages to large banks that can leverage their franchises.

Evercore closed its European equities execution desk two weeks after MiFID II was implemented, and we’ll continue to see stories like that.

Automation has affected many parts of S&T, but rates products are more complex, and therefore harder to automate, so my desk hasn’t seen a huge impact yet.

But it’s certainly true that banks want to hire computer science graduates and train existing employees to gain the technical and coding skills required to build and maintain trading systems.

Q: How does the advancement process work in S&T?

A: After your 2-3 years as an Analyst, compensation and advancement are less rigidly defined than they are in IB.

Bonuses depend on individual, team, and bank-wide performances, and if you perform well for a few years, you could accelerate your career and compensation.

But the job is also quite volatile – especially when the markets are volatile – and firing rounds can be frequent and ruthless.

There’s a huge range in compensation and advancement because everything comes down to performance. Star traders could advance to the top in 5-10 years, while others could struggle for years and never make it far beyond the entry level.

Your title may change as you move up, but in practice, all that changes are your risk limits – unless you move to the managerial side.

Some traders do move into managerial roles to reduce career volatility, and if they do that, their base salaries tend to increase.

However, they’re also far less likely to earn “star trader” bonus packages as managers, and their total compensation may fall.

Rates Trading Desk Exit Opportunities

Q: On that note, how long do most rates traders stick around? Are there solid exit opportunities for something so specialized?

A: The turnover between teams at different banks is quite high, and it’s common to work at 4-5 different banks over your career.

Rates trading is very specialized, so banks are always looking to poach other traders who have the skill set; normal companies and non-trading firms don’t necessarily place a high value on those skills.

Some traders do leave for hedge funds (usually global macro ones) and prop trading firms, and others switch to different desks, but these options become more difficult as your career progresses.

It is common to switch geographies and move to New York, Hong Kong, or another financial center since you can trade almost anywhere in the world.

But the bottom line is that if you want broad exit opportunities, go into investment banking, or work in sales rather than trading.

Q: Thinking about everything we’ve discussed, who would be a good fit for the rates trading desk, and who would not be a good fit?

A: You’d be a good fit for the rates trading desk if:

You’re comfortable with risk.

You’re able to work in intense environments while communicating with salespeople, clients, and brokers.

You prefer macro analysis.

You prefer fast-paced day-to-day tasks rather than longer-term projects.

You like math, but not quite enough to be a quant.

If you’re more project-oriented, or you want to work at your own rhythm, you’d be better off in structuring or research.

If you’re less comfortable with risk, but you have great people skills and you can work the phones quite well, you’d be better off in sales.

Q: Great. Would you recommend any books or other resources to learn more about this area?

A: Sure. Some of these books get very technical, but if you want to learn more about rates, I’d recommend:

Interest Rate Swaps and Other Derivatives

The Handbook of Fixed Income Securities

Interest Rate Markets: A Practical Approach to Fixed Income

Q: Thanks for your time. I learned a lot!

A: My pleasure.

The post The Rates Trading Desk in London: How to Break In, and What to Expect on the Job appeared first on Mergers & Inquisitions.

from ronnykblair digest https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/rates-trading-desk/

#ronnykblair digest

0 notes

hottytoddynews · 7 years ago

Link

After 33 years of shooting photographs for the university, Robert Jordan is looking forward to a slower pace. Photo by Kevin Bain/Ole Miss Communications

For more than three decades, Robert Jordan has profoundly shaped how the world perceives the University of Mississippi. His photographs have documented the natural beauty of the Oxford campus through all seasons, captured critical moments of thrilling athletic triumphs and conveyed the dedication and achievements of its faculty, staff, students and alumni.

But after shooting more than a million photos, Jordan, director of university photography, is looking forward to a slower pace. He retired at the end of the fall semester and already has a few goals for the coming months.

“I’m looking forward to sleeping late, playing some golf, reading some books and spending time with my wife,” he said. “I’ll always have that itch, and I’ll be taking photographs as long as I’m able, but it will be for fun, not how I make my living.”

Jordan’s work played a critical role in the university’s rise as a respected public university, Chancellor Emeritus Robert Khayat said.

“I knew at the outset in ’95 that Robert would be a key player in what we were doing here at Ole Miss,” Khayat said. “I knew we had a beautiful campus, attractive people and gorgeous trees and buildings and spaces, and we just needed to show everybody.

“Robert is a gifted artist. He could make that camera talk. He is quiet, unobtrusive, humble, kind and patient. He would take the time to shoot an assignment over and over until he got exactly what we needed, and he made remarkable contributions to the university that will be treasured and studied forever.”

In a field where people frequently change jobs, Jordan has spent virtually his entire professional career at Ole Miss. He graduated in December 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and got a job in Greenville as a photographer at the Delta Democrat-Times.

“Newspaper work is exciting, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my degree,” he recalled.

So barely four months later, when somebody from the UM Department of Public Relations called with the news that Jack Cofield was retiring as university photographer, Jordan jumped at the opportunity to return to his alma mater.

“The thing that’s so cool about being a university photographer is that you never know from one day to the next what you’re going to be doing,” he said. “You may be shooting an event for the chancellor’s office one day and then going into a lab to photograph some researcher’s work the next. And then you may shoot outstanding students right after that.

“The challenge every day is to see the campus with new eyes and see something you’ve never seen before. I still get excited when I see something new.”

Over his 33 years on campus, Jordan has shot an estimated 10,000 assignments and mentored dozens of rising young photographers. Among them are Kevin Bain, who has worked as one of the university’s photographers for 18 years, and Thomas Graning, the department’s newest photographer.

Bain began working for the old Imaging Services Department as a student, answering phones and helping customers with orders.

“That was back in the film days, and if he saw I didn’t have much to do, he was cool about saying, ‘Here’s a roll of film. Go out and see what you can do,'” Bain said. “I was an English major, and he was really good about showing me how to get different kinds of shots.”

Jordan also befriended Bruce Newman, photographer at the Oxford Eagle for the past 31 years, shortly after he started working for the newspaper.

“He’s always been very helpful to me, whether we’ve been shooting games together or just hanging out talking about photography,” Newman said. “He’s very technically gifted, and he likes to help solve problems and figure out how to get the best shot.

“I’ve always enjoyed working with him, but more importantly I have always valued his friendship.”

During Jordan’s time on campus, advancing technology has dramatically changed how the job is done.

In the beginning his job was primarily to shoot and develop black-and-white photos to accompany news releases. He took on the task of shooting color for recruiting materials and other publications, and later helped convert the entire operation to digital when that technology replaced film.

He’s also experimented with underwater camera housings, special lenses, infrared film and camera drones to shoot campus scenes and activities.

“I’ve just tried to stay up with the technology and find new ways to capture Ole Miss,” he said. “I feel like I was in the right place at the right time to have a great career. I’ve had fun and most days, I feel like I’ve made a difference.”

Besides shooting assignments, Jordan supervises the department’s other photographers and helps maintain equipment and technology. He also puts those organizational skills to work for the University Photographers’ Association of America, serving on the organization’s board for the last 14 years.

“He’s the best,” said Glenn Carpenter, the association’s president. “He’s been a tremendous asset in helping organize events and programs, and being able to see things clearly and offer advice on how to make them run better.”

Jordan frequently has helped new members become oriented to the group, and also helps fellow members figure out the best way to get difficult shots, Carpenter said. He also has been honored many times for his creativity in the Nikon Shoot-Out, a competition sponsored at the group’s annual convention by the camera maker.

“In our group, Robert has won that contest more than anybody else,” Carpenter said. “He’s that good at taking somebody else’s idea and transforming it into a finished photo.”

Jordan can visualize how a photo will turn out even before shooting a single frame, Bain said.

“He’s one of the best, if not the best, photographers in the South,” he said. “He’s a wizard with light. I can set up lights and flashes to get a good shot, but Robert can always tweak it and make it better. That’s a big part of why his shots look so great.”

Around Oxford, many people know Jordan for this work with Nine Lives Cat Rescue and the Oxford-Lafayette Humane Society, where he photographs cats available for adoption. Jordan and his wife, Clarissa, have had cats in their home for more than a decade, so this work came naturally, he said.

“Some people are cat people, some people are dog people,” he explained. “I’m a cat person. I don’t dislike dogs; I just like cats better.”

Surprisingly, Jordan’s career almost took a far different path. In his hometown of Ocean Springs, he worked as a bank teller through a high school co-op program, so he initially enrolled at the University of South Alabama to major in banking and finance.

But his parents had gotten him a Canon AE-1 as a Christmas gift during his senior year in high school, and he later landed a job at the student newspaper at South Alabama.

“I had a horrible GPA because I was skipping all my business classes to shoot photos,” he recalled. He transferred to Ole Miss as a journalism major and quickly began winning accolades for his work in the department’s annual awards program.

Although he looks forward to spending more time with his wife, who retired seven years ago from the North Mississippi Regional Center, Jordan concedes that he’ll probably be a frequent visitor to campus, and notes that he’s available to help shoot Commencement and special projects.

“I’ll be available, but I’m leaving the office in the capable hands of two fine photographers,” Jordan said. “They’re doing a great job, and I’m going to enjoy watching their work.”

Alice Clark, vice chancellor for university relations, credits Jordan’s longtime leadership at the university for a seamless transition.

“In my 35 years at UM, I have had the privilege of sharing the years with Robert, working with him and watching him as he captured the heart and soul of Ole Miss,” she said. “His images and his talent have been instrumental in communicating to the world about the university’s role in transforming lives. The impact of his work will be felt for decades.”

Story by Mitchell Diggs, Ole Miss Communications. Special to HottyToddy.com

For more questions or comments email us at [email protected].

The post Top Stories of 2017: Dean of Oxford Photographers Retires After 33 Years appeared first on HottyToddy.com.

#hottytoddy #olemiss #oxfordms #oxford ms #mississippi #university of mississippi #the grove

0 notes