#i love finding lost things i love data entry i love the Success of having something someone else needs. let me in

[androdragynous]

I was put on this earth to be meticulously keeping record of old books and lost media. I know this in my heart

[oumaheroes]

Earthbound: Matthew’s Story

Context:

Hundreds of years after the fall of Earth, mankind is slowly starting to return. Some people have a stronger urge to return than others, confused by fragments of memories from a life already lived.

Full fic can be found here.

Arthur’s story can be found here.

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Matthew is four. His family have got their first dog and it’s a large, fluffy creature, all flank and tail and teeth. Matthew is horrified, at first, at this large thing that has suddenly appeared in his house, and he cries and tries to get away from it when it approaches him in the living room.

‘Just come say hello,’ Daddy says, hoisting him up to sit on his knees and taking his small hand in his larger one. His father’s body curls around him and, enveloped in arms, Matthew feels safe. His daddy reaches out his hand, thus, Matthew’s hand, giant thumb in the middle of his palm so that it is pinned there, and holds it aloft in front of the creature.

A large wet nose immediately descends and Matthew squeals because it is cold and strange and scary and Daddy shushes him, bouncing him on a knee. ‘He won’t bite’, Daddy says, ‘I won’t let him hurt you. He’s just trying to say hello; doggies say hello a little differently, is all.’

He kisses Matthew’s temple and rocks him, gently. ‘Want to try again?’

He is not but he nods and says yes because he wants to be brave and strong and he trusts Daddy, he does, or he really really wants to. At his reply, Daddy holds out their hands again, in front of the thing’s mouth, and whispers soothing nothings in Matthew’s ear- he’s not paying attention, too focused on the mouth with the teeth.

The creature snuffles their hands before giving them a lick, pink rough tongue and slobber; Matthew gasps, surprised, and then laughs. Daddy chuckles, and Matthew feels the vibrations rumble through him. ‘See? I told you; he only wants to be your friend. He’s called Kumajirou.’

The name doesn’t quite stick, too long and cumbersome for Matthew’s tentative tongue and he becomes Kuma, instead. It fits.

Matthew is eleven and wishes people could be more like dogs, open and friendly and honest about all that they are. He finds people too quick, children especially: too sly and fast and always with something hidden behind their smile. He’s figured out that he isn’t really a people person, anyway- it’s not that he doesn’t like people, exactly, but he doesn’t really know how to act around them; doesn’t know what to say or how to read them properly and now the whole process of opening his mouth to speak to someone feels daunting, like standing on the roof of his house and forcing himself to step off.

Matthew likes to sit on his thoughts, chew them about in his mouth a bit and be sure of the shape they will form before he lets them go. This means that he takes too long, is silent more often than not because kids his age don’t have the patience to stop and wait for him to get himself ready, lining up his words like soldiers about to march.

He’s known as the silent one at school, blending into the environment like a piece of furniture. Whether it’s in lessons, in sports, in games, or anything in between, his classmate’s eyes glaze past him and he knows that they’ve forgotten he’s there, forgotten that he’s an option to speak to. They’re not mean to him, they just don’t think about him, anymore. Even adults are not immune, more used to handling the demands of the louder kids, dazzled by the brightness of the smarter ones, fond of the affectionate children. Matthew is only half there, he supposes, sitting in the background with a mouthful of words that won’t come out when he wants them to.

Sometimes he wonders if he’s even really there at all, because that’s what life is all about, isn’t it? Memories of things and people and places and conversations- moments you share with other people that plant you in time, leaving a mark of your life like a footprint in their existence. He feels like a ghost of a person, a shade of parts that resemble someone else and it leaves him more tongue tied than ever.

But if Kuma is there, wherever he is, it’s instantly better because Matthew can be himself, can feel something loosen inside him and let him act like a person because Kuma loves him no matter what. Dogs act the same to everyone as long as you’re good to them- love them even a little. Kuma doesn’t care if Matthew doesn’t want to talk, or doesn’t know how he properly wants to say something. Kuma doesn’t care if Matthew struggles to find his words, tripping and stumbling over them as they clog his mind, clumping awkwardly on his tongue.

Kuma will sit there, patient and still, as Matthew whispers his day into his fur, words clear and strong and unsullied by fear in a way they never are with people. He will lick him on the nose and shove his head onto his lap when Matthew has curled himself into a ball in his room, replaying his day over and over so much that his mistakes blur together like paint, colouring everything with a smear of shame.

Matthew is fourteen and he feels as though he finally understands something. It starts as a small something, creeping and pattering through him and leaving tiny tracks in his mind, but now it’s growing larger and stronger, moving within him and sending his thoughts racing.

Kuma died a few months ago. This is what started it, Matthew knows, seeing Kuma slow and slow, more so each year, before, towards the end, it took all he had left to just lift his head. Matthew had felt terrible, of course- at a loss and helpless sitting there with him, stroking Kuma’s head and whispering final goodbyes. His father had joined him on the floor, both of them cocooned by a companionable silence in a way they couldn’t be at any other time, and Matthew felt truly heard, to the bottom of everything he was, in the depths of his grief. This was a moment that needed no words, was a thing that could not be named- only felt and experienced.

His father is a research scientist at some big lab in the heart of the colony and is more used to theory and hypothetical than practical application, but he had found some e-tab journals on dogs, about how their bodies worked and how to fix them, and used his skills to pour over them with Matthew on the floor, studying the miniscule entries as much as he could to provide some help.  Matthew watched, days lit by the flash of the e-tab as story after journal after analysis was checked and rechecked by his father beside him. There was no medicine that could save Kuma, no special cure for age, but there was some information about helping it, easing it- gentling death until it was as soft as sleep and Matthew’s father tried each and every one that he found. Kuma left them with a shift and a sigh and Matthew was surprised at death’s kindness, how easy it could be.

His father, haggard, tired, and sad, had given something of himself for Kuma, and Matthew felt so proud of him, thankful for the benefit it had given his oldest friend. Kuma is gone, but Matthew thinks of that shared peaceful end, of those journals filled with age old accounts from long dead men. He realises that there must be many of these e-tab entries about so many other animals, the few that are left and the thousands that there were before and he flicks onto one, in passing, just to see.

That’s all it takes. One leads to another, which leads to another and another and another and then Matthew can’t stop himself from drinking up as many as he can sync to, allowing himself to be pulled down through trees of evolution, skipping through the classifications of mammals to haunt reptiles and glide past the wingspan of birds. There used to be so many animals, more than he can ever name, more than he can ever conceive being possible- in the seas and the skies and the land and all at once. In, out, around- a planet teeming with things besides humans, living alongside the hulking toxic growth known as mankind and breathing life into the skies.

When earth fell they were lost, all apart from the few that the survivors managed to cling to, stolen away in their bags and clutched under an arm. Small animals and creatures that could be carried and fed easily with scraps that weren’t needed by another fleeing human life, or domesticated food that was herded and pushed, clueless, into a slaughterhouse of spaceships. It is redundant, of course- a pointless skill for him to nurture but Matthew is hungry for all of it; drawn in and hooked to something beyond his control he syncs file after file, strange creatures taking shape in his mind to migrate the past into his waking day.

Matthew’s colony is one of those ones where they like to push people, like to specialise their children early and drive them to great things. They’re good at what they do, structurally organised to churn out success and Matthew see the benefit of this, finally. He hadn’t really taken part before, hadn’t really shown an interest in pushing himself into a single category, but now, all of a sudden, he wants to do what his dad does.

Well, not exactly what his dad does, numbers and figures and study of physics, but the process of it. The breaking down of information, the mythological categorising of data; the calm soothing expectation of silent contemplation. So, he picks to try to become a research scientist too, selects classes that will give him access to greater libraries and archives and locked journals for deeper study, searching for fur and teeth and claws amongst them.

Matthew is eighteen. He managed to find a uni that taught a few classes in veterinary studies, the medical beginnings for those wanting to specialise as a vet. Matthew doesn’t want to do this, exactly -he’s more interested in how animals work and what they’re like, what colours they come in and how big they are- but if he becomes a vet it will allow him to work with animals all day and this, small as it is, could be enough. He isn’t sure, really; doesn’t really know exactly what he wants other than to learn but he hopes that if he takes enough classes, he’ll eventually figure something out.

The bell rings and he stands, gathering his things and heading out of class -anatomy of canines, his favourite- and turns a corner, slinging his bag over a shoulder and aiming for the canteen where he hopes they’re serving pancakes. He keeps missing them, never making the queue in time, but today he’s hoping that maybe he can manage to push his way through. Suddenly, as he turns a corner someone bumps into him, not seeing him at all, it seems, and everything crashes to the floor, e-tab skidding away out of sight.

There’s a mumbled ‘watch it!’ from someone whom Matthew doesn’t see, just a mouthless shout from a sea of strangers, and then he’s left scrabbling on the floor, parting students like a boulder in a river. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glint of metallic grey and a flash of Kuma’s tail across the hallway by a wall. He sighs in relief and scoots his way over, bending to snatch his tab up before it can get trodden on and straightening to come face to face with an e-board, notice shining bright and loud.

Matthew blinks at it, then shakes his head and blinks again when the advert doesn’t change, displaying something he never thought possible. It’s Earth, there and large and green and Matthew can’t read the words properly because, out of nowhere, his eyes are filled with tears and he’s crying- great shuddering breaths that turn heads and rip his voice from out of him.

Earth. Earth, there, open. Looking for people. He’s crying, crying so hard he can’t breathe, just gasp and choke and cry and people stop to stare at him because all of a sudden he’s the centre of attention, the loudest thing there is. He can’t control himself, can’t reign it in because at the top, under a heading for ‘Looking for skills in:’ he sees-

Animal care.

He doesn’t need to think, doesn’t need to read any further, doesn’t even stop to feel shame for his outburst; class forgotten, lunch forgotten, life forgotten he sprints home, avoiding the shuttles and cars he runs as fast as his legs can carry him, pounding on the electric walkways that shoot through town and feeling himself grow lighter and lighter with each step.

His mother and father don’t want him to go, mother clinging to him with arms wrapped tight around his neck. They feel, briefly, like a noose and Matthew chokes to think of listening to them- at the thought of staying here.

He loves them, he loves them- they’re his parents and he loves them so fucking much but this is something he needs to do, has to do and as he pulls away from his mother and meets his father’s eyes he can see that his father knows this too.

‘You may not get to work with animals,’ he says seriously, ‘at least not the ones you want.’ Matthew’s mother steps back to look at his father in horror, betrayal raw on her face as she realises that his father isn’t saying no Matthew can’t go, that he must stay. She reads the acceptance there, understands the truth of it and leaves the room to compose herself, Matthew staring after her sad but determined.

Matthew nods. ‘I know.’

His father steps forwards and puts a large land on his shoulder, rooting him in this moment. ‘If you’re not happy, will you come home?’

Matthew feels his eyes begin to burn, throat tighten, and thinks of the birds he’ll see even if he works in a lab, the insects he will find and small animals he can watch from a window; life spilling over the edges to bleed into buildings. ‘I’ll be happy.’

[andaxay]

Preservation of Self

My entry for February’s @telltalemonthlychallenge. February’s theme: Black History Month.

Hyperion has been cutthroat since the day she accepted the offer of employment. Yvette does what she thinks she needs to. To thrive. To survive.

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One last coffee before they left.

Secreted away in a quiet room, away from prying eyes that would question why Vaughn the mild-mannered accountant had an important looking Hyperion briefcase chained to his arm. Best to avoid such questions.

"You're really doing this?" Yvette wrapped one slender leg around the other as she sat, sipping a latte, looking from one best friend to another with a skeptical eyebrow raised.

"Oh, we are doing this," Rhys leaned forward with a smug smile and raised eyebrow. Vaughn rubbed the back of his neck as he stared, wide-eyed, at the table in front of them, perhaps questioning every life decision he'd ever made that had led him to this point. "We are doing this so much. Who else is going to screw over Vasquez?"

"Vasquez is more than capable of screwing himself over, given enough time," Yvette said dryly, folding her arms.

"And how long will that take? Are you willing to wait for years for that to happen?"

"He might get eaten by a skag the second he sets foot on Pandora," Vaughn chimed in, wearing an expression that said 'and the same could happen to us'.

"And he might not," Rhys countered, "in which case, enjoy being middle management saps for the next ten to fifteen years. I, however, am not willing to clean up Vasquez's damn trash three times a day, just so he can drink in how much power he has."

"Fair point," Vaughn conceded and Yvette nodded solemnly.

"Well, then," she said after taking the last sip of her latte, "you have everything you need." She paused, looking at both of them. A twist in her gut. "Good luck. Try not to die - there's an awful lot of paperwork to fill out if you do."

"We'll miss you, too."

-----------------------------------------

Vasquez's furious shouting reached Yvette's ears before the man himself stormed into her office. She steeled herself, remaining cool and calm, tapping away at her keyboard as he stalked up to her desk.

"Mr. Vasquez?" Polite, despite her gut curling at the sight of him. Slimeball.

"Yvette!" Vasquez glared down at her, breathing heavily, before he appeared to relax slightly, stepping into the persona he often reserved for buttering up management. "Yvette. Just the lady I was looking for." He stepped around her desk and sat on the edge of it, looming over her. "Urgent business. Confidential, of course. Management... I, need to meet with Rhys. Only he, ah, seems to be difficult to pin down." Vasquez stared down at her, his eyes burning. She stared right back, innocently, collected. "You had lunch together, shared plans for the afternoon..."

"As far as I'm aware, he's working," Yvette offered coolly. "I haven't seen him, or spoken to him, since lunch."

"Oh? Working on his next eridium mining contract? Or, maybe, stealing ten million dollars of Hyperion's money and taking it to a Pandoran named August to buy a Vault Key?" Vasquez folded his arms as he leaned in slightly. Trying to intimidate her. Yvette had dealt with much worse in her time at Hyperion.

"I have never heard of August and, like I said, I assumed Rhys had gone back to work after lunch," Yvette said firmly, "so, I'm afraid I can't help you."

"Trying to cover for him? Or, have you washed your hands of him already?" Vasquez leered down at her. "He'll be so happy to hear it when we pick him up and drag his soon-to-be-dead ass into a cell for stealing Hyperion property." He smiled, an ugly, sinister curve of a thing that didn't reach his eyes. "Speaking of which, exactly how did he get hold of the money? He isn't an accountant, doesn't have access to funds. Unless... he had help. If I recall, you're both good friends with the man who just happens to manage valuable Hyperion funds and assets. What was his name again? Vinny? Vance?"

Yvette remained poker-faced, raising her eyebrows slightly, questioningly. A vein in Vasquez's temple was twitching.

"I won't deny that I'm friends with them," she said calmly, sitting back into her chair and folding her arms, "but that's all I can tell you. Whatever this is? You're asking the wrong person."

"Mmm-hmm," Vasquez fixed her with a firm glare. "So, that's how it's going to be. Alright, then." He stood and turned to leave, but paused. "I would think about where your loyalties lie, Yvette. Hyperion can set you up for life." He turned again to face her. She remained impassive. "And it can also end it. We can trace everything. Think about that, while you decide your future."

She only allowed herself to exhale once the heavy blast doors closed behind him. Some chewing of her thumbnail, the only show of anxiety she would allow herself.

-----------------------------------------

Rhys and Vaughn had lost the money. They were as good as dead.

Hyperion didn't yet know. It didn't matter. They would.

Rhys and Vaughn would either die on Pandora, or die the minute they stepped foot on Helios.

Climbing the ranks of Hyperion was a colossal challenge that very, very few could ever hope to rise to. The toxic culture, knives in so many backs - sometimes literally. Yvette had dared to hope, when she and Rhys and Vaughn had become friends. One person alone couldn't even begin to chip away at the Hyperion machine, but the three of them, working together?

It was over. It had been silly to think it could have happened in the first place.

Her office phone rang. The caller ID read 'Hugo Vasquez'.

She sighed heavily, then answered it.

"The situation has changed. Meet me in my office. Ten minutes." He hung up before she'd even said a word.

-----------------------------------------

"Your involvement in the stealing of ten million dollars can be... erased, Yvette. Nobody higher up needs to know. ID logs can be manipulated. Traces erased."

She folded her arms. "... If?"

Vasquez was the most serious-looking she'd ever seen him.

"I'll be honest. We need the data in Rhys's systems far more than ten million dollars."

Systems. Like Rhys wasn't a walking, living human being.

"Let's just say that Hyperion is willing to pay a lot to recover this data. To the person, or people, responsible for recovering it" Vasquez folded his arms as he leaned against his desk. Behind him, Pandora was framed nicely within the window of his office. What had once been Henderson's office, before he'd been... terminated.

Henderson had been a racist prick, she didn't miss him, mourn him or even feel sorry for him, but it was a nice reminder about what Vasquez was capable of.

"So," Vasquez continued, "you help me, I help you. You track Rhys, keep tabs on his location and give me all of the information you know. And I'll make sure you're not implicated in anything... unsavoury. And, give you a cut of the reward."

Yvette stood, calm on the outside and reeling on the inside.

Her best friends.

Her best friends who were likely dead regardless.

Likely. Ha. They were toast.

Could she live with being an active part in their demise, though?

Vasquez glared, impatient.

"You make a very compelling argument, Vasquez," Yvette plastered a snakelike smile on her face and part of her died within. "You have a deal."

-----------------------------------------

She gasped as the cold water she'd scooped and thrown into her face hit her skin. The swanky bathroom of her cushy Helios apartment was dimly lit, but she could still see every feature of her face in the mirror. Every line of the troubled expression marring her features.

Vasquez had gone down to Pandora to find Rhys and Vaughn. On the back of information that she had given to him.

Rhys and Vaughn were going to die anyway.

Assuming Vasquez was successful and brought Rhys, or whatever remained of him, back to Helios. The next steps were glaringly obvious. Vasquez would claim all of the reward for himself. Yvette would be exposed, her role in the disappearance of ten million dollars and two intrepid, naïve Hyperion employees with it, one of whom was hiding some incredibly important program in his head, apparently.

She'd be thrown out of an airlock the second Vasquez stepped back onto Helios.

This was about survival, now.

Yvette had quietly been gathering evidence on Vasquez's involvement in this mess. Bribery, incompetence. She was ready to strike. Ready to claim the reward for herself, to survive something else that Hyperion had to throw at her.

But she had to play along, for now.

Which meant leading Vasquez right to Rhys and Vaughn.

Maybe Vasquez would lose. Maybe her best friends would outsmart him, work their way out and escape into the sunset. Yvette couldn't see it happening. Much as she loved them, they'd be hopeless in any kind of fight-or-flight response.

As much as she had loved them.

Because now she'd struck a deal with the devil and anyone who truly cared for their friends wouldn't serve them to their deaths on a silver platter.

It was them, or her.

Welcome to Hyperion.

-----------------------------------------

Vasquez had rolled up in some old, hulking build-it-yourself spaceship that would have looked more at home in a scrapyard and, what was more, had failed to bring Rhys, or any part of him, back with him.

To say Yvette was furious would be an understatement.

She'd stormed into his office, her office, ready to blast him to hell for failing to uphold his part of the deal. Shafting them both, not that she cared about what would happen to him, following his unauthorised trip to Pandora. Without the data in Rhys' system, he was as good as dead anyway.

Something was missing. Vasquez had been unreachable for weeks after landing on Pandora, which had driven her mad. She'd been feeding him information in all that time and he couldn't even be bothered to send her a 'thank you'. But now he was back, something was... off.

Not... not in a bad way, honestly. The malice she normally associated with him was lacking. It was disarming, but Yvette didn't have time or resources to worry about such a thing. What did it matter, in the grand scheme of things?

"You had one job," she spat out, glaring daggers at him. He was... strangely vulnerable?

"I'm on it," he said quietly. "I just need more time."

"Time's up, Vasquez. It's over. I'm calling management."

"Don't," he said, desperate yet calm, collected. "It will only end badly, and not just for me. You think I don't have evidence to back myself up? And so, so much of it points to you, Yvette." Hurt. What a strange thing to witness in his expression.

"Then I guess we're at an impasse." She folded her arms, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I can fix this. I know what to do. To save both our asses."

Yvette remained silent. Like Vasquez cared about what happened to her.

Still, they were stuck. Play along for now, then shaft him later, once she knew what this plan of his was.

"You have the rest of the working day to fix this," Yvette snapped, "and then I'm handing you in. Consequences be damned."

"I don't think you mean that," he said, voice low, almost deadly.

"You don't know anything about me," she countered, equally as deadly. "Get out of my office."

To her enormous surprise, he left.

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The escape pod rattled unsettlingly as it plummeted to Pandora. Yvette stared, dully, out at the rapidly approaching planet.

She should be dead. Maybe that would have been the better alternative.

Rhys' face as she'd gone for the escape pod... As he'd told her to go to the escape pod.

She'd sold him out and he'd repaid her by saving her life. Essentially sealing his own death warrant as he'd done so. Even after her pathetic attempts at an explanation and apology while she'd been locked in the cell.

She squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her fists until the nails drew blood. Helios was breaking apart behind her. There was no way he'd survive.

Ha. Hadn't she written him off, anyway?

She didn't deserve a friend like him. She didn't deserve friends at all. Because, as it had become blindly obvious throughout the last few weeks, she was more than willing to sell them out to save her own skin.

Maybe the pod would crash with such a force that she'd be torn apart upon impact.

At least it would put an end to the burning, lead guilt that weighed down every cell in her body.

-----------------------------------------

"Thanks, Vaughn."

"Don't mention it."

The emergency blanket felt scratchy against her skin. The soup in the bowl in her lap could barely qualify as 'warm'. It was more than she deserved.

"Why are you doing this for me?"

Vaughn stopped in his tracks, turned to face her. Exhausted. Dark circles underlined his eyes and aged him well beyond his twenty-seven years.

"You went through hell, too. I just... want to help."

She didn't know what she could say. Apologies were worthless.

"Eat the soup, Yvette, it will help."

-----------------------------------------

"To... surviving."

"I'll drink to that."

"Mmm-hmm."

Three glasses clinked together in the candlelit room, one of the more... intact ones that had mostly survived the fall from orbit.

"I'm so glad you're both ok," Rhys said quietly, staring into his chipped glass filled with an unspecified alcohol.

Yvette stared into her own glass. Both. Even after everything.

"Rhys-"

His head snapped up and mismatched eyes met her own. Alarmed, almost. He knew what was coming.

"Yvette, you don't have to-"

"I do," she said firmly. Vaughn glanced between the two of them. "I'm sorry. I really am." She sighed heavily. "I guess... I was just trying to survive. I was scared." She scratched at the side of her head. A small scar had formed there, a remnant of her crash-landing into Pandora. She felt the smooth texture underneath her finger. "It was a shitty way of doing it. You guys were - are - the best friends I've ever had. I should have done better."

They were both silent for a moment, exchanging glances.

"We've all experienced Hyperion," Vaughn finally chimed in solemnly. "'Surviving' was about all we could do."

Rhys made a noise of agreement. "You think we didn't do terrible things, too?"

"Still..."

"Yvette, it's ok," Rhys smiled at her. "It hurt, at the time. I won't lie. But I also know what it's like to be in fear for your life."

"Yeah. Who at Hyperion didn't do something shitty at some point? It was practically in the job description." Vaughn also smiled.

"I guess we all learned something," Rhys continued quietly and Vaughn nodded in agreement. "But, that's what it's all about, I guess. I think as long as we acknowledge where we go wrong, and do something to be better... No reason we can't be ok, right?"

A weight, a terrible, oppressive weight that she'd carried for so long, now. Some of it eased.

"I'll drink to that," she offered, smiling, and the three clinked their glasses together again.

[shypotato-translations]

QTVW Chapter 14

Showbiz* Sexy Queen (I)

----

A cold, mechanical, emotionless voice rang out in the back of her mind:

【Points earned: 700 points;

Accumulated points: 700 points;

Skill Collection: Beginner Cookery; Future Physical Arts; Basic Firearms; Business Basics;】

【The host Mu Lan has reached 500 points or more and has successfully entered the mission criteria;

The system redeems 500 points on its own to unlock the mission interface;

Host Mu Lan has officially entered virtual time and space and opened the mission interface;】

Mu Lan opened her eyes and saw above her head, a familiar ceiling.

She blinked, then sat up and looked around, full of confusion, and realised that the environment she was now in looked very familiar.

Like the teddy bear on the bed, the narrow wooden table opposite the bed, the curtains on the left side of the body, the sunflower patterned cabinet on the right side of her body ......

The room is furnished very similarly to the bedroom of the flat she had shared with someone after working.

She put on the slippers by the bed and went to the window.

To test her suspicions, she took a deep breath and pulled the curtains back.

What meets her eyes is a scene that is completely beyond imagination.

Outside the window, there are countless stars and planets, like an imaginary painting of a river of stars in a cosmic narrative. Within the large space in front of her, Mu Lan could clearly see a large group of debris floating unsupported in the air a long distance away.

She swallowed hard and brushed the curtains shut.

She took a few steps back and went to sit on the edge of the bed, her expression blank, for a moment, before she registered that she had, in fact, died a long time ago.

After her death in a car accident, she is chosen as the host by a so-called virtual time and space system, and then follows the system's arrangement to travel through virtual time and space to complete various tasks.

And every time she completes a mission, her memory is cleared, leaving, in the end, only the cold collection of points and skills on her personal data.

Just a moment ago, she completed her second traversal mission.

And she has accumulated points for the mission and reached the minimum criteria for the system to set the level, so she is now considered to have opened part of the system interface?

Just as she was deep in thought, she felt a tug on her finger.

She looked down and saw the clean teddy bear that had been on the bed, now sitting with its two short legs crossed, sitting next to her lap as it reached out with its fluffy paws and pawed at her.

It saw Mu Lan noticing it and grinned at her, revealing a black hollow hole that looked cute and creepy.

Then, a real black sphere popped out of its mouth, and that sphere flew quickly to Mu Lan's hand, and then the black sphere extended away and became a translucent white sheet of paper.

A few lines of black numbers slowly seeped out of the white paper, which read:

【Host Mu Lan's second mission, points analysis:

Accumulated points: 100 points + ;

Points used: 100 points - ;

Raiding villains: 200 points + ;

Fulfilling a wish: 100 points + ;

Reputation: 100 points + ;

Breaking the Mary Sue Aura: 100 points + ;

Save Millions of Employees: 100 points + ;

Original owner satisfaction: 100 points + ;】

Mu Lan looked at the lines of points parsed on the white paper, but in her mind she did not have the slightest impression on her previous crossing.

With some mixed feelings, she crumpled the white paper into a ball, threw it to the floor, closed her eyes, leaned back and lay down on her **.

In the back of her mind, the familiar voice rang out again:

【Host Mu Lan's personal information:

Points gained: 800 points ;

Redeemed points: 600 points ;

Accumulated points: 200 points ;

Skill collection: Beginner's Cookery ; Future Physical Arts ; Basic Firearms ; Business Basics ;】

【Insufficient points balance to force entry into the next mission world;

New missions are being randomly selected ......

New mission download complete, official host time transfer.】

After an extremely uncomfortable twisting sensation, Mu Lan opened her eyes.

She looked up to find that she was currently sitting in a speeding car, and it was clear that the driver of the car, who was currently driving, was herself.

And she saw, less than half a metre in front of her, a large truck loaded with steel pipes, moving at high speed.

Mu Lan drew a cold breath as she realised what was happening. She quickly squeezed the steering wheel and let her foot off the gas a little, waiting until the car had slowed down a little and was more than fifty metres away from the truck at a safe distance before she breathed a sigh of relief.

She looked around and realized that at that moment she was driving a convertible car, driving at an even speed on the highway. She thought of the image of her crossing earlier and her forehead broke into a cold sweat and her heart beat violently.

If she had come to her senses even half a second later, she would have crashed directly into that truck and had a car wreck and died.

With trembling hands, acting on her body's instinct, she tapped the electronic search function on the convertible, then checked the road conditions while keeping an eye on the motorway's road signs.

And so, after a half hour or so of turning left and right on the tell-tale highway, she finally left the highway and came to a stop on a street by a small town.

Only when she stopped the car and put the convertible hood back on, in a sort of safe and enclosed environment, did she put her head on the steering wheel and pant heavily and raggedly, her body felt like it hurt like hell everywhere, and her stomach felt especially intense, like it was burning with fire.

At that moment, a familiar cold mechanical voice in the back of her head rang out, saying,

【The host, Mu Lan, has crossed the body and has been completely infected by a deadly poison;】

【The system redeems 50 points on its own to restore the body of a crossover cannon fodder character.】

【"Ding", the system has finished repairing the body, wishing the host Mu Lan a successful completion of the mission.】

Mu Lan immediately felt a sense of relief and relaxation in her body, and she said to herself: It turned out that her body had just been poisoned, and it was estimated that the original owner of this body, who was killed by the poison, was then killed in a car accident while driving on the road and was mutilated. I guess this cannon fodder character's wish is to take revenge on the killer who poisoned her.

Still gasping for breath, she waited until she had completely calmed down and was ready to receive her memories and the plot, and sure enough, about three minutes later, a huge wave of plots and memories then came to her mind.

She banged her head on the steering wheel and endured the headache, waiting for the pain to dissipate before she pressed the button on the sports car and flattened the cushion down, reclined on the back of the chair and rested with her eyes closed.

The novel she crossed this time, the story takes place in the setting of the entertainment industry in modern society.

The story is loosely based on the female lead, an artist from a bookish family, who goes completely dark after being betrayed by her scumbag boyfriend and film queen best friend. With the help of the male lead, the female lead enters the entertainment industry and grows from a new actress to the most popular movie queen in the industry, and successfully abuses the scum and her best friend to make things right with the male lead.

The subject matter of the story is nothing new and the setting is rather simple.

After reading the plot, Mu Lan focused on the memories she received.

According to the original owner's memory, she could know that the name of this body she was currently crossing was Mei Mu Lan.

As mentioned in the plot, Mei Mu Lan is the step-sister of the female lead, who is withdrawn and rebellious. Mei Mu Lan always speaks ill of the heroine and is always robbing her of her things.

In the plot, it is mentioned that Mei Mu Lan is the step-sister of the female lead, her personality is withdrawn and rebellious because of reuniting family, the relationship between Mei Mu Lan and the female lead is very poor. Mei Mu Lan always speaks ill of the female lead and is always robbing her of things.

But all in all, Mei Mu Lan is, at best, a cannon fodder character in the plot. Because she only makes two official appearances in the entire novel.

The first time she is depicted about is the night the female lead learns that the scumbag is having an adulterous affair with her best friend, she returns home distraught and encounters her stepsister's snide comments, thus successfully blackening out.

The second depiction, on the other hand, comes in the third chapter of the novel. During her graduation party, Mei Mu Lan's car explodes and her bones are lost in a series of car accidents while drunk driving. At the funeral of Mei Mu Lan, the cool, crazy and domineering male lead of this novel meets the beautiful female lead, who is as beautiful as a hibiscus, and is instantly attracted to her, A tangled love affair between the female and male leads unfolds.

After reading it, Mu Lan simply had to vomit blood, the original owner is the qualified cannon fodder character ah, totally to push the plot forward, and equipped with a supporting female character who, after realizing her worth, the author just writes her dead with a broad stroke so that she doesn't give the female lead a hard time.

The corners of Mu Lan's eyes twitched and she silently scowled, since she had now crossed over to become Mei Mu Lan, the plot would only serve as a reference.

She closed her eyes and once again recalled the memories she had received.

Mei Mu Lan, the youngest daughter of a prestigious family, is 21 years old and has just graduated from the National Academy of Drama in the field of International Theatre, with extraordinary talent. She is a worthy national actress and became famous very early in her career.

The Mei family, on the other hand, are all involved in the arts and are all very successful in their fields. The family atmosphere was serious and everyone carried the air of an artist.

Her father was the Headmaster of the National Theatre Academy and her mother was the Chairman of the National Theatre Academy; her parents were married on a blind date and they were not very close, her mother died unexpectedly when the original owner was 17 years old. Half a year later, Father Mei marries back the foreign wife he had kept outside, the female lead's biological mother, Mei Mu Lan's current stepmother.

The plot mentions that Father Mei and her stepmother were childhood playmates and were very close, but her stepmother's family fell overnight and Mei's family would not allow them to continue their relationship. The two were then forced to separate, marry separately and have children. When both their other halves dead, the two hooked up again.

Mu Lan's head was full of black lines, so the female lead of this novel is actually born to her stepmother and another man? She is not really from a prestigious family, but from the marketplace.

And the original owner felt a lot of things wrong about her mother's unexpected death. She believed that her mother was killed by her stepmother, so she never gave her stepmother a good look, and her position in Father Mei's heart, became lower and lower, and finally ignored her.

After Mu Lan crossed over to this body, she knew that the original owner's death in a car accident was not due to an accident, but was man-made. Because the original owner was first poisoned by the □ and died in a car crash afterwards.

So, there's a lot of □□□ in there, who is the person who poisoned her? How did the original owner's mother die?

The original owner did not know this and just blamed the incident on her stepmother.

Objectively, this is indeed a strong possibility, but not a certainty, as it is not mentioned in the plot or in the memory, so it is part of the scope of Mu Lan's mission to eliminate all the threatening characters around her and carry out the task of raiding the villain.

Mei Mu Lan had sensed something was wrong before she died, as the pain in her body was so sudden.

Her body had always been fine, but this time, the pain killed her straight away. She was very upset and resentful when her car was wrecked.

And her wish is - to play with the movie queen Ling Yi Yao, play with props, bondage play and other heavy play….

Silence….

Mu Lan felt her whole body start to ache again, she must have gotten the wrong script.

Mu Lan looked at the original owner's memories again undeterred, and found that this time the memories of her wishes were very vivid, because a second before the original owner died, in her mind, many images of her and Ling Yi Yao in this way and that appeared.

Silence….

F*ck!

I really don't want to say anything else, original owner you died a good and beautiful death!

When you're dying, instead of thinking about revenge, you're thinking about prop-playing... what a talent!

Mu Lan let out a long, breathless sigh, her head hurting like hell.

The most crucial thing is that this Ling Yi Yao, the villainous BOSS of this novel, is a woman born with a cold nature, the male lead's own niece, the actual young mistress of the mafia forces and the unattainable cold-faced movie queen of the entertainment industry.

Ah ...... cannon fodder female support, you have to punk me when you are dying!

Mu Lan was in tears and could already see her miserable future.

[firstagent]

Review: Digimon Adventure Last Evolution Kizuna

In this movie, after three series Digimon Adventure reaches a grand finale, a touching conclusion to Tai’s epic journey where he’s finally dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood.

We have no idea if Last Evolution Kizuna really is going to be the last entry in the original Adventure canon. It ends with an obvious potential follow-up story and there’s already a next generation of children lined up and ready to be exploited. But it’s clear the intention here is to be the big finale. There’s an air of finality throughout, sold as the end of a partnership and of an era. It’s something of an illusion, but it’s a convincing and compelling one. Kizuna also shows nothing but love to the entire span of the Digimon Adventure anime. Fans of everything from the original movie through tri. will find all sorts of callbacks and nods of appreciation. Bolero! Parrotmon! Willis! Meiko! The 02 kids doin’ stuff! It’s all here, and whether or not this actually is the end, it helps us say goodbye to it all.

All the way in the distant year of 2010, smartphone technology is arriving, the world is stoically tolerating the presence of Digimon, and Tai still has no idea what he wants to do with his life. Matt’s kicking the tires on a couple ideas while stalling on any commitments. They’re both still actively helping fight Digital World trouble that drops in, teaming with their siblings and Izzy on missions they complete efficiently… enough. It’s a perfect re-introduction, as while they have college classes, new acquaintances, and crappy part-time jobs, not a lot is fundamentally different. They’re more in their element fighting Parrotmon than being in their early 20s trying to gain a foothold on their futures.

They’re more than comfortable with the crisis Menoa introduces them to. Even as it doesn’t go their way, they’re not fazed at all entering cyberspace to take on Eosmon, just the latest in a long string of battles for them. Then, with the triple threat of Eosmon on the loose stealing the consciousness of digidestined, Menoa dropping the bomb that the bond between a kid and their Digimon has a finite lifespan and Tai and Matt are on the clock, and Kyotaro looking shady as hell, it’s investigation time! Everybody running around gathering intel paints a delightful picture of how digidestined operate when there isn’t a giant Digimon in their backyard. They use their own skills, whether it’s Izzy’s online research, Yamato tailing Kyotaro, Davis and company being nosy on campus, Armadillomon’s swipe trick, or Tai being graced with Gennai dropping into his apartment. This feels like the job as it exists now, and it’s a pleasure watching them at work.

From the moment she shows up asking the only people who can stop her plan to help her stop her plan, Menoa is a striking figure. Like Maki, she’s another brilliant/disturbed mind who lost her Digimon partner at a young age and needs to use the digidestined as pawns to complete her objective. It’s basically the same thing, the only difference being Menoa believes her crusade to be an act of charity while Maki’s was a selfish obsession. This does take a little sting out of Menoa’s role in the story, but it points to a clear consistency Kizuna keeps with tri. (and arguably before that): Homeostasis is and always has been a soulless bastard with no concern for the mental health of the digidestined. Gennai’s appearance kinda proves that.

The idea that a digidestined’s power comes from their potential for growth that diminishes as that growth is realized is intriguing as it is sudden and shocking. It raises plenty of questions, not only with how smoothly it fits the rest of the canon, but even in what that’s supposed to mean. Menoa lost Morphomon at a relatively young age because of her commitment to use her talents and join society as productive adult. Tai and Matt get their notice as a direct result of evolving Omnimon and are warned that straining their bonds will erode them further. Izzy, Mimi, and Joe haven’t pushed the envelope like them, yet meet the same fate not long afterward. Sora loses Biyomon before all of them because she either fought back against the trip to Neverland or she picked a weird time to follow the Menoa route. It’s very inconsistent, but the concept is still successful at reinforcing the core theme of the movie: at some point everybody has to transition into the next stage in their lives.

The key part there is that it’s mandatory, as that’s where Tai and Matt end up. As much as Menoa entices them, as tempting as the thought of a spending eternity with their Digimon, and as looming as life without Agumon and Gabumon lurks… there’s no actual decision involved here. Neverland is horrifying and they’re first introduced to it from the inside. There is no way they’re accepting that offer. They have their doubts and their Digimon have to talk some sense into them a few times, but it was never a real choice. The real challenge comes in finding the will and the courage to break through the obstacles Menoa and Eosmon throw at them, including their own teammates, and accept that moving forward is the only direction they can take. That’s a better reflection of reality anyway: you can choose how to grow up and ideally have some sway in when, but eventually everybody must move on from their childhoods. It’s cruel to separate them from their partners, but they can’t be running around fighting Parrotmon until they’re grandparents.

There’s a risk of that message being too cynical, of being misconstrued as a statement to throw out all your stuffed animals the second you leave college. There’s also that time back in 02 when they showed everybody happy with their Digimon 17 years after this story takes place. So despite the likes of Matt, Joe, TK, and Davis making obvious strides towards their epilogue destinies (others do so in more roundabout ways), there appears to be a clear incompatibility. You’d think it would at least demand another story to patch that, but that’s the magic of the movie’s final line: Tai and Matt’s promise to see Agumon and Gabumon again. It’s the same promise Takato gives to Guilmon and Haru gives to Yujin. While they’re just words, they spare us from otherwise completely devastating endings. Even if there isn’t another story explaining how they do it, it’s the Odaiba digidestined: are you really betting against them figuring something out?

Moreover, it reinforces that even as we all have to grow up, it doesn’t mean we have to abandon or forget what we loved about our childhoods. We may have to reassess and re-prioritize, but we can always carry it with us. We can treat the original Digimon Adventure franchise the same way, moving on while keeping what we loved about it in our hearts. As it does to Tai and Matt, Kizuna doesn’t give us the choice of whether to accept this, it just ends it in as beautiful a way as possible, demanding we learn its lesson.

My Grade: A

Loose Data:

While Meiko appearing in Neverland was a lovely callback to tri., there were so many lovely callbacks to everything it would be disappointing not to see something like that. The real special bit of tri. love was bringing back Meiko and Meicoomon’s voice actresses to play the women in the bar, just to show they aren’t forgotten.

I’ve pondered the possibility of digidestined using the digital gates for quick illegal globe hopping before, so I love the confirmation that the 02 kids not only do it, but do it so casually.

Among many alarming things about Menoa is that if you do the math on the dates she was giving Tai, she actually became a digidestined before 1999. That should probably raise more questions. It’s a strange eyebrow-raiser, since putting that date even a couple years later puts her in the same range as Meiko and some of the internationals and wouldn’t be an issue.

One thing that’s massively glossed over in the movie is how the other five team members fall to Eosmon. Not that we don’t accept that they would (Eosmon’s very… persuasive), but they’re contrasted with Tai and Matt as the ones that actually have their act together and seem to be transitioning to adulthood pretty smoothly. The idea that there’s a part of them that would secretly love to be children again is very much a mood (it’s certainly consistent with tri.), but it’s another layer that could have used more attention. Especially with Izzy, who already knew separation from Tentomon was inevitable, had the chance to process that, and still had that trace of doubt in his head to let Eosmon get to his consciousness.

Then Sora could be a contrast to that! With barely a word, Sora appears to lose Biyomon somewhere in the middle of the action, the timing suggesting that she was paid a visit the same way Mimi and Joe were. The mindset leading towards this was explored in an earlier short, so that’s only an issue in the sense that she still wasn’t that far from the other kids. You need to assume that Eosmon tried, and from the way it attacked the 02 kids and the remaining internationals, it doesn’t take no for an answer. That implies some impressive resistance from someone who waffles as much as Sora does. Either way, it’s harsh that all of this happens to her and we don’t get to see any of it.

As for the dub, there are always a couple lines you can point out as being random silly dub moments, but it’s generally a pretty tight script and calling them out seems unfair. The change in the dub from “Neverland” to “The Neverworld” is very curious and makes you wonder if it’s due to creative license or other reasons. No issue at all with comparing that world to the one from a certain fanfiction of the same name.

The new voices in the dub are generally fine: Davis holds up surprisingly decently, Mimi’s not in it enough for Kate Higgins to be that noticeable, and Nick Roye is automatically an improved Matt before we heard a single line. The only notable miss is Yolei, who has an odd slur and not enough energy, and Robert Axelrod could never be replaced as Armadillomon. Strangely, the one voice that might be the most noticeably off is Gabumon despite having the same actor. He’s a little higher than usual, sounding more like Orbot from Sonic Boom.

See reviews of every Digimon episode at Digimon: System Restore! Support the site by joining our Patreon!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND JAPANESE

Are you writing pages of fiction, however bad? Honestly, no. The landscape of possible jobs isn't flat; there are walls of varying heights between different kinds of academic work, because fields vary greatly in this respect. But that rule may not be as good as it seems. I personally have timed out.1 There is actually some data out there about that. When you can ask the opinions of people you want to hear; an interview with Joe Kraus, the co-founder of Excite. If you start a startup. The second big element of Web 2. At least, that's how they see it. Worse still, anything you work on changes you. It was designed to be another C: C plus a few ideas taken from more advanced languages.

It's something that can be fixed in a couple days if you have the destination in sight you'll be more likely to arrive at it. I have never once seen a startup lured down a blind alley by trying too hard to make the cover something you can tell that by the number of Indians in the current Silicon Valley. Do you, er, want a printout of yesterday's news? There is a point where there is just too much to keep in your head at once. Even in college you get little idea what various types of work are like. The reason they were funding all those laughable startups during the late 90s was an abuse. The old ideas are so powerful that even the most successful countries, in the sense of something someone made happen. But she never does. There are two routes to that destination: The organic route is more common. But you don't regard this time as the prize and the time you could do what you would like to do, there's a strong inverse correlation between performance and job security. Is software a counterexample? If you have to do something, as Nike says, just do it.

In the rivalry between Perl and Python. The democracy component, for example. It's just a more extreme variant where you don't just use your software yourselves on their behalf. A few years ago. It's designed for large organizations PL/I, Ada have lost, while hacker languages C, Perl have won. Unless you're so big you have to manufacture your own hardware, or use your software on users's behalf, you'll learn things you couldn't have done that in the era of physical media. Not us. Lisp interpreter in the less powerful language?

They've faced resistance from investors of course. I'm convinced they got this number from ITA. People still pay for those. Partly because you can usually find ways to embody it in things people will pay for information otherwise? There are two possible outcomes for a startup to succeed, at least not in the sense that their main purpose is to make me feel better. And I think that's the main reason is that the absolute numbers seem so small at first. There hasn't been such a wave of new applications since microcomputers first appeared.

If you try to translate the Lisp/Perl/Smalltalk/Javascript code into Python you run into some limitations. There used to be for getting users. Now they have none that stand out. To be happy I think you have to pay for might as well not exist. Thump, thump, thump. Their standards for customer service have been set by the companies they've been customers of, which are Lisp data structures.2 A Lisp macro can be anything from an abbreviation to a compiler for a new language, it's because you think it's better in some way than what people already had. Except for some books in math and the hard sciences, there's no test of how well you've read a book, and that's as much as any startup needs initially. The old ideas are so powerful that even the most successful countries, in the sense we mean today.

On the whole they've done better than the stuff I read on individual people's sites rather than to magazine articles or news stories.3 An accumulator has to accumulate. Why do the Japanese make better cars than us? There was that same odd atmosphere created by a large number of small ones.4 Although we didn't fund Meraki, the founders were Robert Morris's grad students, looked at this definition of eval and realized that if he translated it into machine language, the shorter the program not simply in characters, of course, since they read somewhere that's the optimum day to launch something. So while there may be advantages to writing your application in the base language a language for writing programs like yours, then write your program in it. If you can't find ten Lisp hackers, then your company is probably based in the wrong city for developing software. Because how much you learn in college depends a lot more on you than the college.5

If you ask at that age, people will choose conservatively. It tries to explain why Americans make some things well and others badly. But the first time investors learned that lesson from founders. You need a great university near a town smart people like. You'll have to force yourself to work, and indeed that the reason they have to deliver every time. It's also wise, early on, to seek jobs that let you do what you like, but what we would now consider a very low-level, you reach a point where I'll do without books. 5% of the time you spend working as the pain you endure to earn it. Nearly all startups have to. When it was first developed, Lisp embodied nine new ideas. The terms cutting-edge. You push blobs of source code around the way a sculptor does blobs of clay. Plenty of people who will later do great things have careers with the trajectory of a ping-pong ball.

Thump, thump, thump. They're hostages of the platform. I would love programming in. They got started by doing something that really doesn't scale: assembling their routers themselves. See if you can stand, and the 2. What about iTunes? There is no one single force driving this trend. Ajax.

Notes

We probably would not make a brief entry listing the gaps and anomalies. What has changed is how much they lied to them? The answer is no grand tradition of city planning like the outdoors, was one of the rest generate mediocre returns, like storytellers, must have been a good way to predict areas where Apple will be big successes but who are good presenters, but when people are magnified by the same motives. Quoted in: it's not inconceivable they were saying scaramara instead of themselves.

In judging both intelligence and wisdom we have to think about, like play in a not-too-demanding environment, and others, and a t-shirt, they're nice to you. But which of them. But if you do it in B. Starting a company becomes big enough to absorb that.

If you want to start businesses to circumvent NWLB wage controls in order to avoid using it out of their time on, cook up a take out order. But the margins are greater on products.

It's hard to make a deep philosophical point here about everyday tagging. We didn't let him off, either as an adult. The two are not just the location of the words out of fashion in 100 years. 99 and.

Sparse Binary Polynomial Hash Message Filtering and The CRM114 Discriminator. Parents can sometimes be especially suspicious of grants whose purpose is some kind of gestures you use that instead. You won't always get a poem published in The New Industrial State to trying to sell your company into one? Other highly recommended books: What is Mathematics?

[jumphq]

A Hand to the Devil? A Gift to the Masses?

I’m thinking that this might be my last post here on Tumblr. I’m not antiTumblr, necessarily…it was a necessity in 2015 to get up and going as quickly as possible. But it has always felt clunky and now that we have other options: our official page, Medium, Patreon…it’s time to consolidate, I think. I feel like this blog has kind of been out in the wilderness a little and maybe it’s time to give it a better home.

Speaking of Patreon, our page launched last Thursday, and while I was very much looking forward to it, I can’t lie: I lost a number of nights of sleep over it. Why?

It’s the oldest way for artists to exist: through the patronage of people that want to support the artists in making new art. This practice allowed tons of artists do what they did for centuries, and happily. But this practice hasn’t really been a part of the modern world until “crowdfunding” became legal. Even then, it is one thing to ask people to help you pay for one thing. It’s another to ask for people to give part of their monthly income to you, not knowing about the thing, but hoping that a thing happens. So, anxiety.

It is thrilling and feels icky at the same time, to ask for people to be your patrons. On the one hand, why shouldn’t you ask? I want to create things, as an artist. I want to create things for a living, as an artist. Why would those two statements need to be separate thoughts?

I was actually taught that they were separate thoughts. If you are a son of two artists, you learn that money isn’t something that is easy to come by. You go to art school, you are encouraged to wear the “starving artist” badge on your sleeve proudly. Artists are special. They are different. Artists are poor.

Again, why? I don’t know. If you’ve never tried to make a living being a full-time artist, you might don’t know this. It’s hard. When I make money as a web developer, it sometimes makes me angry. Why do I make so much more money building a website for a marketing firm, or an app for a company that sells stocks? These jobs aren’t nearly as difficult or interesting to me as writing a song or acting in a play, but they are far more highly valued by society.

I like writing code. I like getting paid to do so. But I don’t like it as much as being on stage. I can (more easily) support my family writing code, and live a comfortable life, but if that’s all I do, I feel unfulfilled. I could build websites by day and act in plays at night, but that is sort of a drag for me because then I’m in two full-time day jobs and am always sort of strung out and exhausted and can’t give my best to any work I do.

This is just me, by the way. I’m just speaking about my experience as an artist. My fellow developers are very fulfilled being full-time coders. Tons of actors here in Chicago love to have day jobs for money and then put on their “Artist Caps” at night. They have the drive and energy to do that. I am not knocking their choices. I’m just a better person, a better artist, when I am single-tasking: getting paid to do one, fulfilling, creative job.

Jump, Little Children never got “famous”. We were successful for a rock band in that we could hit the road and have between 50 and 5000 people come see us when we played, depending on the location. In some cities we were almost a household name and in others very few people had heard of us. We weren’t as business-savvy and easy to swallow as Guster and we weren’t a sexy two-person band like Shovels and Rope. We just didn’t catch on enough, and there is no big clear reason why. We cannot really blame bad management and record label issues. The truth is that tons of amazing bands don’t catch on, don’t make it to Conan, but love writing and playing and do it for as long as they can financially and emotionally stay afloat. It doesn’t matter “why”. We gave it our all, made some good decisions and some bad ones, and were proud that it was our full-time job for as long as it was.

Of course, by “full-time job” standards, we were way below the poverty level our entire career. It’s expensive to run a business, and Jump was our sexy business, which meant that if there was anyone that was going to get a pay cut when times were tough, it wouldn’t be our manager, tour manager, lawyer, or sound guy. Just us. You keep going in the hopes that you’ll eventually be the ones making the most money; that didn’t happen for us and I have no regrets.

It was amazing to finally get paid a living wage when the band was done in 2005. The first time I made a weekly paycheck I couldn’t believe it. Making $30k a year for the first time was like being fabulously wealthy…and this was in my very late 30s. Being comfortable was intoxicating for a while, but not being a creative person for a living kind of left me with a empty feeling in my chest. My journal entries pre-2015 had a theme: ask after ask for the Universe to bring me something that would both be a fulfilling career and support my family at the same time.

Yet when the Universe brought the Jump reunion in 2015 to me, I was the last person in the band that said “yes”. I assumed that the chapter was closed and I was fine with it. The five of us weren’t that close at the time and I had forgotten what it was like to play music with people that knew you as well as Jay, Johnny, Ward and Evan knew me. I knew that saying “yes” was going to open up a lot of baggage that had been packed away, would be a ton of extra work for me personally, was going to be scary and emotional and possibly a big fucking failure.

It has been some of those things, too. But as you’ve gathered from this blog, it has also been incredible–a great creative lump of plaster putty to fill in my unfulfilled chest hole (gross!). Worth the being away from home, worth the pay cuts again, worth the anxieties and fears and insecurities. Lots and lots of sleepless nights. Worth it.

I’m luckier than the members of the band that don’t live on Facebook and Instagram, I’m luckier than those that don’t stay in the lobbies of rock clubs after every show until the venue kicks us all out. I’m luckier, because I can see the direct impact our saying “yes” to JLC in 2015 made on your lives and therefore on my life. You’re very honest about it, and I don’t take it lightly. The music has gotten you through bad times and good and happy moments and sad. The community has not just been a place to put your love of a rock band, but also a place to put your own dreams and hopes and needs. Every band might be required to say “we couldn’t do it without our fans” but I know more than anyone how true that statement is for Jump. I’m lucky.

So, Patreon.

Man, it is hard. I get it. For those of you that are a little taken aback at our choice to try this out in order to keep our creative little rock and roll world afloat, I feel you. Everyone is asking for your money these days. How can people that don’t have 9 to 5 jobs ask you to help pay for their lifestyle? Especially if you like your 9 to 5 job? I do not have an answer, because it feels a little icky and uncomfortable to me, too.

Cards on table: Jump, Little Children has two options in 2019. We can’t afford to do what we did last year and not get paid for the intense amount of work it takes to be a mostly-full-time band: writing, recording, touring, posting, streaming, marketing. We either try this Patreon thing out, or something like it, to see if it will help us be able to spend more time writing music and creating things, or we spend less time on the band and do more lucrative things to keep food on tables. Realistically, we will still have to do other things anyway, but anything helps. The days (and chances) of a big record label swooping in and paying us to write and record songs are over, and even when our big record label did swoop in, we didn’t get a pay raise anyway.

Friday morning I woke up with an idea to record some Irish music with my friend Amanda Kapousouz in time for St. Pat’s. And I felt a freedom to have that thought that I didn’t have before. Sure, I might have done the recording anyway, but knowing that I could at some point make a creative work like that happen and get paid for it was inspiring. I’ve just spent three hours writing this letter to you. Connecting with you has always been my job and always will be, whether I get paid for it or not, but it does take time, time that I could spend coding, I suppose. I’d rather write these love letters to you.

Patronage isn’t about putting a price on your love. We are putting a price on the pride we take in our work, the time we take to agonize over details, the care we put into everything from a melody, to a sentence, a pixel, a shade of hair dye. It’s not your responsibility to feed us. It’s our responsibility to find the means to feed ourselves. We would like to do that by writing songs and producing new content, and we are attempting to find new and creative ways to do so.

It could be a winning solution for everyone. If this works out for us, the goal is to keep writing music and performing. With something like Patreon, we could possibly have a new album next year. Without it, we might have a new album in 2022. That’s not a huge difference. Either way, it’s OK, right?

Support us on Patreon if you can, but if you cannot: please don’t. Please please don’t. If you like this idea and want to support us, but can’t afford to, let us know how we might help you make that work. Is it to change the tier prices? To put more stuff in the lower tiers? What would make it worth it? We need to have all the data at hand.

And if you can’t, please accept that we are still going to be around and not play games with your hearts? We’ll post to the same social media and do the same silly LIVE chats and tour and hopefully write new music. We are here, we love you just as much, so you can let other people pay while you reap the benefits, OK?

Whew. I feel better getting this off my chest…thank you. I’m gonna go record some flute, now, for fun…and profit?

We love you,

Matt “Overshare” Bivins

[siobhanpatten55-blog]

How To Merge MP3s Losslessly

From the album Effluxion, out February 22, 2019 on Merge Records. Official video for "Holy Holy" by Wye Oak, taken from the album Civilian, out now on Merge Records. When all are achieved, click on the round "Convert" button of the MP3 Merger to mix a number of MP3 information. The alternative good factor once you merge mp3 info is that transferring it to other moveable machine and devices is now easier and further useful, evaluate to transferring explicit particular person observe that will take a while to carry out. We did not find outcomes for: 5 Audio Merger And Splitter Tools To Edit Your Music. Attempt the ideas beneath or kind a brand new query above. A person can't be merged with a corporation If the profiles symbolize the same entity, edit the profiles so that they are the same type of report. Do you might have one, or more, files you might want to merge together? If so, there are many programs obtainable for Home windows 10, and other platforms, that enable you to hitch numerous file codecs collectively. That is how one can merge MP3s, video information, merge mp3s PDFs (Portable Doc Format) and txt text recordsdata together in Home windows 10.

The filename1.mp3" part defines the supply directory of your recordsdata. As well as, I've not at all lost any parts of my files after doing a merger, and I have been merging with this app for a variety of years. The interface could be very simple, and merging data is tremendous quick. It appeared like Merge MP3 might work, and the truth that it does not re-encode was a plus for low bit fee streams. Moreover, the program was used just a few occasions up to now. Then - VOILA - immediately (12-12-12), I made a decision to attempt again and see if maybe that toolbar had been eliminated, and it had, so I downloaded the app, and WOW - I'm so joyful to have this little fella again once more!!! Evidently, probably, is that I now have tons of merged information to atone for, but it is going to be a pleasure to do so with this quick little app. Merge MP3 is an easy transportable utility to merge MP3 recordsdata into one prolonged MP3. Mp3 player among the best sound quality participant with greatest interface ,Mp3 Cutter for making Ringtone,Mp3 Mixer for mixing two audio tracks,Mp3 Merger for turning into a member of the countless audio tracks,File audio with numerous sample expenses and encoding variation,Convert format and bit-cost of your music info. Official video for Able to Start" by Arcade Fire, taken from the album The Suburbs, out now on Merge Data. Free Merge MP3 obviously supports the format you need however moreover it helps WAV, OGG and WMA formats. You can also convert your audio recordsdata to any of these formats as and when you want. It's fairly doable that some players might not be compatible with certain codecs after which there is the compulsion of a certain dimension of the entire file and quality. Whatever is your requirement or the specifics of your challenge; you can convert the files in accordance with your needs after which have one appropriate format, dimension and merge MP3s output high quality. You do not get these features in every MP3 joiner for Mac.so the process is: use the instrument to merge all of your m4a recordsdata right into a smaller mp3 file. re-import the brand new merged file into itunes as an m4a file rename it as an m4b file. The parallel processing idea may also be used when creating complicated insert results — the place sound-making units in the rack are patched on to effects devices. Again, use the splitter circuit and merge the outcomes all within one Spider Audio system. It doesn't provide essentially the most complex options however that also means no need for lots of tuition and audio tech information - for the typical person who wants to shortly merge MP3 files it appears excellent.- Merger Audio File Playback in Music Participant. I like the way it joins files, it will not convert MP3 to WAV and again. This allows changing into a member of recordsdata with out losses in high quality. MP3 info may be lower up into components and they're usually lower up also by time. Subsequent, click on the Be part of" button. The program may need some time to merge the songs together. Once I spotted we might pay ourselves, it felt extra strong. For a very long time, Superchunk was the largest band on HostPapa promo codes Merge and really helped construct it, but in addition made it feel like much less of a severe label because it was our band. Once 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields became a sensation, it felt extra real and bonafide.At the danger of being apparent, one factor to keep in mind: Whenever you merge data, they should be of the same kind. For instance, you possibly can merge Accounts with Accounts, but not Accounts with Leads. With the intention to create a stunning audio recordsdata, it is advisable to extract MP3 from YouTube video information first. Merge MP3 is an utility that allows prospects to affix MP3 recordsdata collectively. Several applications can share the equivalent merge file, but when these applications are uninstalled or modified, typically "orphaned" (invalid) EXE registry entries are left behind.When requested concerning the label's feeling toward analysis-primarily based A&R — whereby file firms analyze current statistics like social media engagement, gross sales, touring and other metrics earlier than signing a band—McCaughan is genuinely perplexed. "I don't even know what that is." Even Arcade Fireplace's success was such a shock that Merge did not produce sufficient copies of 2004 release Funeral to satisfy demand, and could not manufacture more quick enough, which triggered preliminary stress between the act and label. The method of signing the band was described in "Our Noise: The Story of Merge Data," an oral history released for the label's 20th anniversary in 2009, as one thing that McCaughan and Ballance took nearly too long to resolve on, offering a contract only after the band had determined to go elsewhere, and primarily based only on their intestine feeling in regards to the unknown Montreal group's demo.Apowersoft Free On-line Audio Editor is an efficient tool which designed for modifying audio information rapidly. The interface can also be minimalistic and simple to use. It lets you cut, trim, split, merge, copy and paste audio with great ease. It helps lots of media file codecs which include MP3, AAC, OGG, FLAC, WAV, M4A and many different extra, so just import the audio and re-create it immediately. While modifying audio, you can preview the effect in actual-time and test the end result. No must re-encode the file, this free on-line MP3 editor is able to outputting audio without quality loss. And there aren't any limitations relating to the length of the audio or the number recordsdata you can edit.

[distant-glory]

A couple of things that have made me happy recently

1) Running. I haven’t mentioned it before (I think), but a couple of months ago I started doing one of those ‘couch to 5K’ challenges. It’s been a much more involved process than I thought it would be (did you know that you can run WRONG?), but I feel I’m making really good progress! When I started, it was a struggle to run for a minute at a time for six minutes total—now I can run eight minutes at a time, and run for twenty minutes overall! (I’m taking things much slower than the challenge calls for, but I also hadn’t done any running since before leaving high school. Slow and steady is fine with me!)

2) I bought the soundtrack for the original Nier. There is such BEAUTIFUL music in that game. I’ve also been having fun trying to decipher the Japanese song titles. I have a pretty good success rate, and it’s good practice in looking up kanji!

3) Figured out how to put a Japanese keyboard on my phone. I am UNREASONABLY DELIGHTED by being able to type something in kana and then select the appropriate kanji. My conversational Japanese is practically nil and my grammatical knowledge is very basic, but I LOVE the writing system.

4) Writing fic for Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. Guys, writing in Comic Sans REALLY WORKS to break writer’s block!

5) Investigating new music. I am really digging Amaranthe and Sirenia’s work! And in upcoming albums, I’m really excited for Within Temptation’s latest. ‘Endless War’ and ‘Raise Your Banner’ are giving me EMOTIONS.

6) The Spyro Reignited Trilogy. I only played the first one as a kid, but they are all SUPER FUN. Why don’t we get awesome platform games like this any more??? I’ve got 120% on the first hand, 117% on the third (just got to get the course record on the yeti snowboarding to finish everything), and about 85% on the second. (I did actually beat the final boss in 2 and collect everything but a few skill points, but there was some glitch with the auto-save, and we had a power outage. Lost the last part of 2 and my first 50% of progress on 3. But 3 was a lot easier the second time around, so I have hopes that 2 will prove the same!)

So, things are not all bad! I’ve applied to a few places for data entry jobs today, so fingers crossed one of those comes through! I’ll admit, as much as I loathe job-hunting, it was nice to look at my CV and see that I’ve now got a pretty strong background in this kind of thing. I actually - gasp! - feel qualified!

[tomfooleryprime]

Voq, Ash Tyler, and Growing up Star Trek

We learned a lot more about the curious case of Lieutenant Ash Tyler/Voq in the Star Trek: Discovery episode, “Vaulting Ambition.” It was finally confirmed in the previous week that the character we know as Ash Tyler is harboring some Klingon memories, but the precise mechanism behind how that happened was still a mystery, until Saru finally brought up the thing we were all wondering about:

Which prompted L’Rell to spill the beans.

“The one you call Tyler was captured in battle at the Binary Stars. We harvested his DNA, reconstructed his consciousness, and rebuilt his memory. We modified Voq into a shell that appears human. We grafted his psyche into Tyler’s, and in so doing, Voq has given his body and soul for our ideology.”

—L’Rell

It’s not all that shocking. Months of fan speculation aside, it’s not like this is a new trope for this franchise.

Remember this guy? 

What L’Rell revealed last night opens up an opportunity for Star Trek: Discovery to venture into classic Trek territory in a very un-Trek way. How the hell are we supposed to figure out what to think about Ash Tyler’s situation? 

The Trek formula of old would have given us a tidy episode in a box where the captain was confronted with some dilemma and spent the majority of the fifty-two minutes of air time chewing on it in such a way that the audience wasn’t really required to ponder the ramifications because we had a Picard or a Janeway to serve as the wise parental figure and do the messy business of thinking for us.

Yet Discovery lacks that central guiding ethical compass: its main character isn’t a captain, she’s a convict. That arguably makes Michael Burnham the most dynamic lead Star Trek has ever put forward, but because she’s too busy finding her place on a ship in the midst of a war with the Klingons and crawling over heaps of inner turmoil, that doesn’t leave her a lot of free time to tell us how to approach the wider problems presented in each episode. She tries to speak up as the voice of reason (miss you, Ripper!), but thus far, her objections are often drowned out by a plot that’s constantly blazing forward at Warp 10. It makes for good storytelling and character development, but it leaves the analysis of complex issues to the audience.

Think about it—every incarnation of Star Trek up until now had a way of introducing us to problems that were so obviously an allusion to the issues of their respective decades, whether it was Kirk meeting a society of people who desperately needed birth control or Archer ending up in a Suliban detainee camp courtesy of President George Bush… er, whoever the Tandaran leader was during the 2150s.

Captain Picard was the ultimate master of holding viewers’ hands all the way through the first four acts of an episode, carefully spoon feeding us both sides of an issue before finally allowing us to absorb the full weight of an enormous moral, ethical, or philosophical question in the final act with an impassioned speech or contemplative captain’s log entry. We were allowed to be mentally lazy. 

Is Data a person? Who’s to say? Let’s literally hold a trial to weigh the evidence!

The issues surrounding Ash Tyler are so enormously complex and raise questions about the nature of consciousness, self, immortality, and bodily autonomy, as well as the role of crime and punishment in society. It seems pretty ambiguous whether or not the real Ash Tyler is still alive in a Klingon prison somewhere, but regardless, maybe we should start by exploring whether we can really call the person lying in Discovery’s sickbay Ash Tyler. 

If someone were to duplicate your consciousness and place it into another living being, how would you define that individual? Say hypothetically that you are still alive, so is the other being with your consciousness now also you, an extension of you, or a completely independent being that simply carries your memories? If the original version of you is destroyed, did you really die, if a carbon copy of your mind exists somewhere else? If such a procedure is possible, doesn’t that imply we could theoretically live forever through a series of host bodies?

I feel like this is the premise of one-third of all Black Mirror episodes.

Hopefully, next week’s episode will iron out some of the details behind how the procedure was performed and whether or not L’Rell successfully removed Voq’s consciousness from Tyler’s physical form, but that just raises more questions. 

L’Rell indicated that the albino Klingon we knew as Voq in the first three episodes gave up his physical form to look like Ash Tyler, so the body was originally Voq’s.

Alien talent for crafting human flesh bags into suits varies by franchise. 

So if L’Rell manages to remove Voq’s consciousness from the body he and Tyler share, is that the equivalent of killing Voq? Conversely, if she snuffs out any trace of Tyler, has she killed Tyler? Last night’s episode made it apparent that if someone didn’t do something soon, the guy in sickbay screaming Klingon curses one minute and weeping human tears the next was going to die, but is it ethical to take one life to save another, and how do we decide?

I think the natural instinct is to say that obviously Voq needs to go in favor of Tyler. It’s easy to justify too: Voq knew what he was risking, the Klingons and Federation are in the midst of a war, and it doesn’t really seem like Tyler had much say in the medical experimentation performed on him. Not to mention, it kind of seemed like it was Voq shining through when Hugh Culber was killed. The Voq side of this person is clearly violent, dangerous, and a self-proclaimed enemy of the Federation.

Now consider how you feel about the death penalty. If you ardently support it, I question why you watch a show featuring people from an idealistic utopia where the death penalty was abolished, but hey, I’m sure the issue of what to do about Voq must seem pretty cut and dry. If you oppose the death penalty for any reason, now is probably a good time to ask yourself exactly why that is and apply it to this very bizarre situation.

Before you start hurling digital rotten produce at me for daring to suggest that Voq be given rights over Tyler, I’m not advocating for that, I’m merely asking you to consider it, because while the DNA is Tyler’s, the body is Voq’s. The heart of so many modern issues rests on a similar platform, this idea that we have the right to decide the fate of our own bodies, no matter what else we’ve done. 

It’s why we don’t harvest organs from criminals or force them to submit to dangerous medical experimentation, even though some *cough*Nazis*cough* might argue in favor of crude social arithmetic that there’s some net “good” to be had by testing unproven HIV vaccines or pioneering brain surgery on our convict population. To be fair, Voq decided to become Ash Tyler, and in doing so, it seems so unfair that I should even be considering his rights when it certainly seems like Tyler’s rights were so brutally and traumatically stripped away from him.

But Star Trek has also never shied away from unfair predicaments. Remember that time Trip Tucker was in a coma and Phlox collected his DNA and injected it into a Lyssarian Desert larvae to grow a Tucker clone, which they later named Sim, just so they could harvest Sim’s neural tissue for a transplant? OG Tucker was unconscious and didn’t consent to the procedure, and while Tucker 2.0 also didn’t ask to get made, which one deserved to live?

Yeah Sim, he owed you so big. 

No matter what happens, the whole business with Voq and Tyler is a bloody damn mess and there’s no chance for real justice for anyone involved. By stuffing Ash Tyler’s consciousness into Voq’s body and then mutilating Voq to look like Ash Tyler, L’Rell created an individual who is arguably somehow both Voq and Tyler and also neither Voq and Tyler at the same time.

Star Trek built an entire species based around this premise in the form of the Trills. For seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the symbiont Dax put us through our paces as we teased apart Jadzia from Dax and all of her previous hosts. There are too many episodes featuring Jadzia conflicting with the memories of her predecessors to count, but it was always interesting, watching Jadzia stand trial for something Curzon allegedly did, and it was heartbreaking watching her husband Worf interact with Ezri, Dax’s next host, after Jadzia’s untimely death. However much fans wished Ezri would love Worf as much as Jadzia had, Ezri wasn’t Jadzia and she deserved the freedom to make her own decisions.

So, I have to come back to the question, is Ash Tyler even really Ash Tyler? Can a copy be as good as the original? In many cases, sure. If someone torched the Declaration of Independence, its meaning isn’t lost forever; we have countless copies in textbooks and Internet archives. Ideas and facts are obviously more important than the paper that they’re printed on, but aren’t people greater than just the sum of their thoughts and experiences?

Star Trek: The Next Generation asked that question once when a transporter accident spawned a clone of William Riker, only he wasn’t technically a clone, because he shared all of Riker’s memories leading up to the accident. A clone implies an individual whose genome was copied from another individual, but the person created in that transporter glitch was an exact copy.

You know Riker II is looking at Riker I and thinking, “I grew a beard because I didn’t have a razor. Don’t tell me you grew that shit on purpose?”

Are they really exactly the same though? Once their paths began to diverge with differing life experiences (one got stranded on a station while the other went on to have a successful career in Starfleet), they really became two separate individuals, more like twins than the exact same person. So, I would argue that whether or not the original Tyler is really alive out there, the Tyler we know isn’t really Ash Tyler. 

But whoever he is and however he was created, he has rights too. He’s the only innocent person in this whole shitty scenario, and even if Voq’s consciousness is removed, no doubt the experience will irrevocably alter Tyler.

But what if L’Rell can’t separate them? I think of all the options, a plot twist that finds a way for both Tyler and Voq to coexist in the same body is easily the most complicated and daring path forward. Tuvok and Neelix had polar opposite personalities, but at least when they got spliced together, they generally lived by the same moral code. All the incarnations of Dax were also wildly different, but they jived well (so long as you forget that whole uncomfortable Joran incident).

Voq and Tyler are essentially Jekyll and Hyde. Voq killed Hugh Culber and attempted to kill Michael Burnham, so should he (they) be punished for those crimes? American Horror Story: Freak Show tried to address a similar situation when one conjoined twin murdered her mother in a moment of rage. It forces us to ask which is worse, “Deliberately punishing an innocent person or allowing a guilty one to go free?”

I have no idea what will happen in future episodes, but the idea of Voq and Tyler having to learn to live together might actually provide this show with something it’s been largely lacking thus far: a character who has to learn what it means to be human and who can provide an outsider’s commentary and insight on our odd little species, much like Spock, Data, The Doctor, Seven of Nine, and T’Pol did. Given Michael Burnham’s upbringing and life sentence for mutiny, it seemed like she was well-poised to fit this role, but while she spent the latter part of her formative years on Vulcan and is a lot less emotional than most of her crewmates, she’s fairly clued in to the human condition. 

Not so great at beer pong, but still a competent human. 

Ultimately, I can’t wait to see how Ash Tyler’s situation gets resolved, but I can now safely say Discovery might be my favorite series in the franchise. Some people hate it because it’s a lot of explosions and fighting and thus far, it hasn’t really felt like Star Trek with its power-hungry captain, Klingons with heavy prosthetics, and exceptional CGI. 

No, it ain’t your momma’s Star Trek, but maybe that’s a good thing. I grew up watching The Next Generation and later watched Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, and it was nice having Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and Archer gently guide me to the answers with calm, well-reasoned thinking. In a lot of ways, they taught me how to think about morally complex matters, and now that I’m older, I’m able to think for myself while I watch Discovery, and that is precisely why I love it so much. 

Discovery is Star Trek all grown up.  

[haveyouseenmymind]

The last Love Letter

Uhm… I’m sorry? First thing I’ve written since January and it’s sad and angsty and there’s no happy ending. But I really like it and I hope Jim dying won’t scare everyone away.

Fandom: Star Trek AOS

Pairing: strongly hinting at McKirk

Warning: Major Character Death

Words: 1087

Jim died on their last away mission and now Leonard finds himself in his friend’s quarters.

So this was it. This was the point, where his live would end for good. No Bones this time to save him.

Oh god, Bones.

He didn’t want to leave him behind, but he had no choice.

Bones.

And with the last thought of his best friend, Jim felt his consciousness slip away.

+++

Leonard felt numb. His body moved without him through the empty corridors, usually filled with live and crew mates chattering. No one was here, as everyone was assembled mourning the Captain.

Jim was dead.

Kidnapped by some fucking Klingons, tortured and then left on his own, slowly bleeding out while hoping his crew would find him before he would die all alone in a dirty cell.

But Leonard and the rescue team had come too late, Jim was long gone when the doctor finally had reached for his friend, checking his missing pulse with slightly shaking hands.

Jim was gone and Leonard was left behind in this damn tin can making its lonely way through space that once again had proved to be made of danger and disease wrapped in darkness and silence.

Jim was gone and Leonard still didn’t want to believe it.

Without really paying attention, he suddenly stood in front of his friend’s quarters. He rose his hand, to punch the code into the pin pad like he had done so many times before.

But his hands were shaking and he hesitated moving on further.

What did he expect to find here?

His friend was gone and all he left behind were his lifeless quarters filled with memories from past missions, planets they had nearly forgotten now and cultures long gone.

After minutes of staring at the door in front of him, he finally got over his uncertainty and stepped into the Captain’s quarters. He was greeted by deafening silence threatening to overwhelm him, as he made his way to the huge desk.

It was still a mess, as if he just left to come back after his shift and sit down to frown over Spock’s latest reports.

Several PADDs were strewn all over the surface -  reports, assignments and whatever else clattered there as if their reader had laid them down with his mind being occupied with the next important task.

Jim’s favourite mug, gifted to him by a bright eyed Pavel Chekov who thought it would be funny to present Jim something proclaiming him to be #1 Captain, was left at the same spot as earlier in the morning, when Leonard had visited his friend right before their shifts had started. A dark ring of residual coffee still adorning the desk as the last witness of Jim being alive and going on with his daily routine, everything just as it should be. A quiet moment before the storm.

Leonard couldn’t take his eyes of the chaos in front of him. It was just so typical Jim, who was normally so collected and had everything under control. Who only let go in his own private space, where he felt safe enough to let some of that control slip away from him.

Suddenly all-consuming rage threatened to swallow him wholey. He couldn’t stand it, couldn’t face this picture of false safety any longer. In one desperate bout of rage he swept everything off on that desk mocking him.

The mug shattered immediately, leaving behind hundreds of shards and Leonard felt as if each of them was piercing his heart, tearing him open and he sank down on his knees, bitterness slowly choking him and making it impossible to breathe.

Out of the corner of his eyes he noticed a leather-bound notebook standing out between all of the PADDs surrounding it. Jim always had a weakness for old fashioned books made of paper and ink, feeling more real than any of the modern data storing devices ever could.

The brunet grasped the slim book, let his hands feel the cold smooth cover while he contemplated if he should have a look on the content or leave Jim’s private thoughts alone.

But Jim was gone and this was the last thing his best friend left behind and all he needed was something, anything…

He desperately needed his friend who was gone and who couldn’t give him anything ever again but this notebook.

So of course he opened it, skipped through the pages to realise that this was some kind of diary filled with observations about his crew, praisings and all the love he held for the family he had chosen for himself.

Here in his hands laid all the emotions Jim wasn’t willed to share with the Captain’s Log.

He skipped those entries till he reached the last, dated the night before that cursed away mission.

Leonard’s breath stopped when his eyes danced over the last words his friend had left behind for the world.

No, only left for him. Right there in his hands Leonard held a love letter Jim had dedicated to his best friend.

Can’t sleep again.

I’m sitting here, sighing like a lovesick fool.

Which, I may be?

Is it love? Am I in love with Bones?

Honestly, I don’t know. But my heart is aching with longing to be with you, to see you, hear you, smell you.

I wish for waking up drowsily and seeing you as the first thing in the morning. To wake up, and soak up your warmth, while you’re shifting closer to me and bury yourself in my arms.

I want to see you smile. See your face shifting into full happiness, to see if your nose would crunch up and how much your eyes would light up.

I want to kiss this smile of your face. To feel the love in my heart overflow with the joy of seeing you happy and the only thing I would be able to do is kiss you and pour all my undying love for you into it.

I simply just wanna be with you. Wanna be your strength when you feel lost, wanna share every success with you and just want to get to know, what live with your love would mean.

I just want to be by your side forever, and share every part of your life with you, so I can see you grow and conquer life and proudly tell the world that you’re letting me be a part of you.

I just want you.

So yeah, if this isn’t love, then I don’t know.

And Leonard couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

tags: @thevalesofanduin @medicatemedrmccoy @toosouthernforspace

If anybody else wants to be tagged in my fics just let me know. :)

[zorovevo]

best way to learn options trading Tennessee Basically the premium spent on the position is what I'm willing to lose.

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9. One in your regular account and the other in your paper trading account at the same time. Then you can make experimental adjustments to your paper account over time and see how it fairs against the live account. This is a nifty way you can test different strategies while having a baseline. 5. Choose an Option Trade That You Love and Master ItA great way to improve your options trading is by mastering a bread and butter trade. Learn all the ins and outs of your practice by back-testing historical data, testing current conditions using paper trades, and reading about your favorite trade in books. When you completely understand the intricacies of your go-to trade, then you'll be able to better recognize situations and markets that your trade will flourish in. In turn, you'll receive a higher probability of success and profit. The key is to stick to a basic trade like an iron condor or credit spread. No advanced layered trades. 6. Stick To Your Trading PlanAll successful traders have a trading plan. This means, they have a strategy to get into a trade, make adjustments, and exit positions based on SPECIFIC events. Successful traders DO NOT make random decisions. Everything they do is calculated, measured, and analyzed. You can make an easy-to-follow trading formula based on technical analysis if you want to as well. 7. Wait For OpportunitiesThis is a huge problem for novice traders. It was even an issue for me when I started trading. I would have a few stocks on my watchlist that I wanted to get into, but knew it wasn't the right time. And then when I'm not looking the stock takes off. On a few occasions, I have actually chased stocks that eventually turned against me. These types of situations hurt in 2 ways: 1) dents your ego and 2) dents your portfolio balance. If you have the same issues, don't fret. Luckily, it's been well documented that more often than not, solid annual portfolio performance is often caused by having a strong exit plan.

In addition, option volatility can really take off in this ETF. For example, on 7/24/14 the 30-day option volatility in UVXY was 105. 3%. on 8/1/14 the 30-day option volatility was 158. 63%. on 8/4/14 the 30-day option volatility went down to 132. 1%.

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Are there any key technical levels?Some questions to ask yourself: Is a key moving average that is broken, support or resistance levels violated, a spike below or above the VWAP or whatever technical indicator you're looking at.

best options trading advisory service reviews Tennessee Some of my clients achieve a great deal of success after a few weeks of learning my simple rules-based approach.

Experiment and continue to tweak out your strategyOne great tip is to create 2 identical trades. One in your regular account and the other in your paper trading account at the same time. Then you can make experimental adjustments to your paper account over time and see how it fairs against the live account. This is a nifty way you can test different strategies while having a baseline. 5. Choose an Option Trade That You Love and Master ItA great way to improve your options trading is by mastering a bread and butter trade. Learn all the ins and outs of your practice by back-testing historical data, testing current conditions using paper trades, and reading about your favorite trade in books. When you completely understand the intricacies of your go-to trade, then you'll be able to better recognize situations and markets that your trade will flourish in. In turn, you'll receive a higher probability of success and profit. The key is to stick to a basic trade like an iron condor or credit spread. No advanced layered trades. 6. Stick To Your Trading PlanAll successful traders have a trading plan. This means, they have a strategy to get into a trade, make adjustments, and exit positions based on SPECIFIC events. Successful traders DO NOT make random decisions. Everything they do is calculated, measured, and analyzed. You can make an easy-to-follow trading formula based on technical analysis if you want to as well. 7. Wait For OpportunitiesThis is a huge problem for novice traders. It was even an issue for me when I started trading. I would have a few stocks on my watchlist that I wanted to get into, but knew it wasn't the right time. And then when I'm not looking the stock takes off. On a few occasions, I have actually chased stocks that eventually turned against me. These types of situations hurt in 2 ways: 1) dents your ego and 2) dents your portfolio balance. If you have the same issues, don't fret. Luckily, it's been well documented that more often than not, solid annual portfolio performance is often caused by having a strong exit plan. 8. Document and Learn From Your Previous TradesEvery trade is a learning experience. Don't focus solely on losing trades, but also look at your winners. There is always something you can learn. For losing trades, look into why the trade lost or possible ways you could have prevented it from happening.

stock options trading trainer program Tennessee on 8/5/14 the 30-day option volatility was back to 152.

Basically the premium spent on the position is what I'm willing to lose.

commodities options trading course online Tennessee Like style drifting, it can do a lot of damage to one's account.

I would have a few stocks on my watchlist that I wanted to get into, but knew it wasn't the right time. And then when I'm not looking the stock takes off. On a few occasions, I have actually chased stocks that eventually turned against me. These types of situations hurt in 2 ways: 1) dents your ego and 2) dents your portfolio balance. If you have the same issues, don't fret. Luckily, it's been well documented that more often than not, solid annual portfolio performance is often caused by having a strong exit plan. 8. Document and Learn From Your Previous TradesEvery trade is a learning experience. Don't focus solely on losing trades, but also look at your winners. There is always something you can learn. For losing trades, look into why the trade lost or possible ways you could have prevented it from happening. Analyze your entry, the adjustments you made, the exit, and the overall market behavior. For winning trades, look into why the trade won and possible ways you could have even profited more. Analyze your entry, the adjustments you made, the exit, and the overall market behavior. If you notice, it's the same analysis for both types of trades. After a few trades, you'll begin to recognize key characteristics to why some trades win and why some trades lose. From there, you'll be able to recognize what adjustments need to be made in order to mitigate a loss or increase profit gain. 9. Continue to Learn From Successful Traders that STILL TradeWhen you have a mentor, they will often look over your shoulder and ensure that you are setting yourself up for the best trade possible for the current market. You'll know that their advice is sound when you see them trading their own recommendations. I find that it's quite suspect to receive trading advice from someone that doesn't trade themselves.

course to understand options trading Tennessee In fact, if they still believed in the trade they would of have probably wanted to sell more call spreads at those strike prices or even further out for higher premiums.

But sometimes it doesn't work that way.

options trading fidelity Tennessee By sizing my trades according to the amount I'm willing to lose.

I know that if option volatility isn't elevated (or rich). it doesn't make sense to add on more risk (to receive a greater premium) because that's how potentially big losses can occur. Some of my clients achieve a great deal of success after a few weeks of learning my simple rules-based approach. However, when some tell me their profits, relative to their account size. I won't hesitate to let them know if they're taking on too much risk and sizing poorly. Of course, some listen. but others will still size up to big. thinking that they will always have a chance to get out of position before it reaches max loss. But sometimes it doesn't work that way. stocks can gap up or down pre-market. and you may never get a chance to cut losses at desired levels. If you're over-leveraged or sized incorrectly.

options trading dvd course Tennessee The key to getting the relative sizing correctly is understanding the risks associated with the position.

50 and I want to risk $500 max on the trade. I will buy 10 contracts. If I get my move.

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[socialmediapromotion2020]

How To Be Successful In Content Marketing As a Modern Content Creator

First let me ask you something, would you ride your pony into another town-with your items, compact discs, your craft, your books, blog entries, or projects stuffed into the knapsack tied to your shoulders-and request your substance house to house.

No. You wouldn't...

It would be irregular, fringe improper, and the 1 or 2% of individuals that may buy your substance products would almost certainly do it because of compassion.

Notwithstanding the content creator way that a significant number of us are accidentally executing a comparable technique, there IS uplifting news.

Because your substance promoting efforts have neglected to change over doesn't mean you have a terrible item, a helpless assistance, or a revile from the universe!

It in all likelihood implies that your advertising pipe has neglected to fashion the association and relationship expected to make the deal, regardless of whether the item or administration is great and important enough to your possibility to think about buying your answer.

Notwithstanding what your selling, in the advanced world, the "know, as, and trust" factor is more significant than any other time.

Because you have an item or administration settled away on a third level page canvassed in fair duplicate and checkout button, doesn't mean you have a useful advertising and deals pipe.

This is the place where the Content Marketing Process comes in to loan some assistance and have it's impact in taking your crowd from intrigued prospect to steadfast client.

Content Marketing is the means by which brands assemble a crowd of people in the advanced world. It is a CORE aptitude for Modern Content Creators, and on the off chance that you are selling substance of any kind or organization, your substance methodology and your substance advertising should be strong in the event that you need to contend in 2013 and past.

Comprehend that substance showcasing may seem like another or faddish term. A popular wave here today gone tomorrow...

Despite the fact that it's a popular expression temporary fad starting late, it's anything but another idea, yet the Modern World has made everything fair by giving the entrance and assets to achieve what wasn't ever humanly conceivable up until as of late, and it's taken a short time for everybody to make up for lost time to the "content as money" idea.

Nonetheless, there is a major distinction between the methodologies that are effective and those that are most certainly not.

Two Approaches

There are just two direct ways to deal with selling your substance on the web. (workmanship, items, administrations, instructing, information, exhortation, and so forth)

1) Send cold traffic straightforwardly to an offer... The end.

2) Send focused on traffic to important substance and assemble a connected with crowd through adding more worth and supporting a relationship, and afterward sooner or later change them into a dedicated client.

Highway two is the situation.

That is the part of substance promoting.

The 3 Shortcuts To Successful Content Marketing

As opposed to call attention to where everybody turns out badly, I'll rather plot the most noteworthy influence arrangements, or the greatest easy routes that you can coordinate into your activities, missions, and cycles to put forth your attempts more fruitful.

1) Mindset-The principal alternate route is to move toward advertising your substance with the correct mentality.

The mindset you need to grasp is that of the Modern Content Creator, and all that intrinsically infers.

A. You are an Artist/Creator AND an Entrepreneur. You accomplish the work that is important, lined up with your motivation, and serves your dedicated crowd.

B. Everything from your main goal and reason, down to each project or mission starts with Clarity + Focus. This is consistently the beginning stage. Jobs and obligations are characterized so you can explain and zero in on your most elevated worth exercises, and afterward augment them with the most noteworthy influence.

C. You are narrator AND you are a distributer. As a Modern Content Creator you are both the master/columnist, AND you are the distributer of the magazine.

D. Content promoting is best considered as a cycle. A progressing discussion with your crowd dependent on the creation and conveyance of substance that enhances their lives.

E. Think straightforward yet complex. He who can handle and teach his consideration, will discover a group of people that gives them theirs.

F. The devices are just as successful as your capacity to utilize them. I figure we can kind of underestimate once in a while exactly how magnificent the force we have readily available really is...

I frequently hear a ton of discussion about what the following NEW "thing" will be...

Some super innovation or informal community that in a split second overwhelms the world.

While ceaseless headways in science and innovation and the a remedy for malignant growth are generally energizing, investing energy pondering flying vehicles is a pointless exercise.

It's not MORE innovation we need, it's the need to utilize the instruments we have BETTER.

Think as far as authority.

2) Message to Market Match

Content is relative, and being pertinent is progressively more troublesome across our uproarious advanced channels.

With the correct mentality, your message to showcase coordinate is the following most significant thing you CAN'T get off-base.

Tragically, for certain individuals it will be simpler to communicate in your crowds language than others. Yet, the substance of being a Modern Content Creator is the advanced comprehension of being both Creator/Artist, AND Entrepreneur.

This implies that you are making, making, giving things that are significant to you, yet additionally important to other people! A ton of the further inclining innovative sorts I work with must be helped to remember the way that their is a whole range of abilities and set-up of pioneering duties that should be coordinated and very much oversaw on the off chance that you need to locate that wonderful equilibrium of unending opportunity and satisfaction doing what you love.

... You need to adore what you do, and you ALSO need a crowd of people who loves how you help them!

The inalienable CREATIVE resources for Artist/Expert and Personal Brands can and should most DEFINITELY be applied in discovering this equilibrium, yet comprehend that an "on the off chance that you assemble it they will come mentality is hazardous."

Gotta offer some benefit. Genuine worth. Gotta understand what that worth is. This all requires understanding the most basic parts of promoting, which is truly compelling correspondence to a characterized target crowd or persona.

This expression and each believable stage is littered across the web. Maybe on the grounds that it is so extremely fundamental, thus regularly referenced that a significant number of us basically bypass the inalienable ramifications to offering that expression noteworthy and measured.

You must be altogether investigated and engaged with your commercial center. That is all. You need to know's who at the best degree of profundity to deal with that precarious equilibrium of tuning in to what your crowd is stating, and understanding where you can add to the gathering, in a significant and very much situated way.

You need to know the situating of those all around dynamic in your space so you can characterize YOUR Unique Value Positioning.

It's an equilibrium, and it's the way to finding your voice, regardless of whether that is as a position, or as a columnist or lover...

In the event that you haven't done top to bottom statistical surveying, on the off chance that you don't have the foggiest idea about the top websites, names, discussions, brands, holes, in your market; than it will be MUCH harder to cut your own space successfully.

Dazzle wounds in obscurity can now and then work out in the event that you maintain a strategic distance from the sharks, know the ideal individuals, and need to surrender your vocation to karma. I realize that master coaches/item makers who might view themselves as astute to this and unwittingly point their nose up at those "uninformed craftsman/performer types," while they, at the end of the day, don't even truly comprehend their market at the level i'm discussing.

You don't have to dive this deep with your market to be fruitful. No. In any case, when you do, there is in a real sense MANY alternatives and courses you could seek after in light of the fact that by then you can see all the holes, you KNOW the market and who's in it.

Presently, on the off chance that you're as of now a specialist, as are a large portion of my customers, at that point it's more a matter of dialing into the discussions and expounding on the most important issues, concerns, arrangements, that exist inside your locale.

It's not just about your own thoughts, or essentially expounding on what you want to expound on... Preferably you'd connect both so you are composing something significant for you, however that is most importantly addressing the persona you are meaning to reach, and does as such in an applicable and connecting way...

That seems like such nonexclusive counsel, however it's the name of game. As Brian Clark from Copyblogger showed carefully in a new meeting I heard, it's more about tuning in to your crowd, than talking at them.

3) Integrated Content Strategy: - Build an Intelligent Marketing Funnel

Pretty much each and every one of my customers, upon introductory admission, come to me with the accompanying:

They've set up their data item, workmanship, book, program, CD or administration on an internal level page (2-3-4) with some nice however generally nonexclusive duplicate and pictures.

Their web traffic is negligible, not followed, and has a system that is regularly flawed if adequately characterized or planned by any stretch of the imagination.

Presently, I trust none of them disapprove of this; I'm not saying it to tease them, however to all the more likely represent my point for you. (they will be all JUST fine;)

However, this is certainly not a successful promoting pipe.

Notwithstanding, subsequent to noting the fundamental yet indispensable inquiries for figuring out what to state and who to express it to, distinguishing the best correspondence designs, choosing the correct circulation channels, it's simply test, measure, and refine...

I figure it tends to be hard to think as far as a promoting arrangement for some, and it requires a generous measure of exertion and energy for me to draw the groupings out in my mind, move it onto paper and afterward actualize it.

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[jobaxyph]

Ways to love job you when you hate your job

We all would agree that finding a job is a herculean task and to find one that you love is a bigger challenge. Sometimes we compromise our love and settle down with an uninterested job, just to make the ends meet. And even if you are lucky enough to find a job you love keeping the fire burning sometimes becomes difficult.

On average a person spends almost 1/3rd of his life in his workplace. It is almost 8 to 10 hours a day, so if you are in love with your job you will enjoy this time. But if not it is a difficult task. Don’t worry we will tell you smart techniques that will help you love your job. Either you completely hate your job or you hate some part of your job. Whatever the problem is, there are ways you can learn to love your job and have a successful career. You can achieve it by being friends with your job, add a fun element and see the difference in your attitude towards the job. Here I have listed a few things which will certainly help you love your job.  

Master the Skills

Every job requires some or the other skill. Your aim should be to get better and better at it. Set some goals for yourself and work hard to achieve them. By doing this you are challenging yourself. Then track your growth and measure your progress. Believe me, the feeling of accomplishment is heaven, it will compel you to love your job.

Now, you might be thinking what about the jobs that require no skills like the data entry. For data entry, the basic knowledge of computers is enough. But here also you have chances to master the data entry operations by improving your typing accuracy and speed. It is just about challenging yourself. 

      2. Independence or Constraints

Give yourself freedom or restrict yourself according to the situation. For example, if your job has some set directions, you can give yourself freedom and do things your way to break the monotonous routine. This will give you new challenges and you will be happy to accept those. To explain this let’s take an example of a call center agent. While making calls, he has to follow a script certain fixed questions, which could be boring at times. So to make things interesting you need to break the shackles. Just go with the flow of the conversation, do complete the given questionnaire but without following the stereotype. By breaking stereotypes and still achieving the target, you are already in love with the job.

One more trick is to impose some imaginary constraints to get out of the typical routine and spark creativity.

      3. The Purpose

Find the meaning and purpose of your job. It is not always necessary to be the big component in the machine as the machine won’t work even when a tiny part is missing. Be grateful for the smallest contribution you make. The fact that you bring value to the employer is motivational. So think about the greater purpose and this thought will bring enjoyment and fulfillment in your work.

      4. Predictability or Unpredictability

Bringing predictability or unpredictability to your work proves to be beneficial when you do not want to hate your work. Whatever your preference and experience are, either bring a structure or novelty to your work. If you are anxious while working it is good to bring a structure or predictability that will help you to calm your nerves and enjoy your work. On the other hand, if your work is becoming monotonous, bring a variety of unpredictability to make your job interesting.

      5. Reward Yourself

Rewards are always highly appreciated and are a big motivation. Your employer may give you a raise to reward your hard work, but why should we rely on them to feel rewarded. Instead, we should make own rules and reward ourselves to keep the motivation high.

Set your milestones and reward yourself when you successfully achieve it. Celebrate even small achievements. The rewards can be small or big like shopping, upgrading your tools, getting a book, treating yourself with a self-care practice, watching a movie, playing a game and so on.

      6. The Power of Scarcity

It is a fact that we are more productive during the time of emergency. When we have a deadline to achieve the impossible4 task is suddenly achievable. And we all just enjoy this sudden boost in productivity. So to bring back your lost interest in your job set yourself such deadlines and just go there and achieve it. I promise your interest in your job will double.

To conclude, just spice-up things, and play at work and you will not hate your current job. Keep searching for the job you love though, but even if you are not able to find one, you know how to bring back love in your job.

For more information about it log on to jobaxy.com.

Source - https://www.jobaxy.com/blogs-and-videos/ways-to-love-job-you-when-you-hate-your-job

[mathiasjanke-blog]

Stop procrastinating and start making use of technology, that often is free or very low cost, to save you time and money and make your business more efficient and productive.

There are many apps and online tools designed for personal and small business use that will improve productivity through time savings, improved customer experience, better team collaboration and project communications.  Adopting these tools is something that people often procrastinate on because it seems easier in the moment to keep doing things the way you’ve always done them rather than pausing and taking the time to explore and learn a new method, app or software tool.

To get you started on your next stage of digital adoption we explain below our favourite seven digital tools that we rely on to connect with our team, customers and suppliers wherever they are and to improve processes in our business.

1. Safe Password Management

How many logins and passwords do you have?  How much time do you spend each week resetting passwords because you can’t recall them?  If you write your passwords down in a little book or a piece of paper, stop doing that now!  You are making it too easy for this vital information to be lost or stolen.

There are legal firms now offering secure storage of documents with all of your important account, insurance, passport, logons, password details, so that should something happen to you, your accounts can be accessed and all of this other “life admin” information is easy to retrieve.  But you don’t need to pay a solicitor to do this for you and these details change periodically so you have to be able to easily update them.

There are app-based tools, with heavy security encryption in them, where you can store all of these details.  Our favourite is 1Password.  When I started using 1Password on my phone and laptop (where I now have over 200 logins and other valuable records), I calculated I’m saving at least 30 minutes per week in password retrieval and resetting and my passwords are much stronger.

2. File Storage and Back-ups

We use Dropbox as our primary data storage platform and to ensure we use it efficiently we’ve implemented an organised, logical folder structure, some folders are shared with the team, some are just for the directors.  We synchronise most folders to our computers and some folders, e.g. those holding large video files, we don’t synchronise so as not to cause all that data to be downloading to every team member’s computers unnecessarily.

With all of these files in Dropbox, it’s very easy to share files with clients and saves large email attachments. Because Dropbox is on the cloud and we’re synchronising to our computers we can always access documents offline and online and negating the need for daily back-ups.

We operate separate single user accounts, typically with 1 Terabyte of data for each member of the team (costs around $120 (AUD) per annum per person) to store all of our documents and other data files.

Of course, it is advisable to separately backup very sensitive and valuable data that your business relies on and you might choose to back this up to an external hard drive that you keep with you or store away from your office in a safe location.

 3. Team Communication and Reducing Emails

Are you getting flooded with emails and is managing emails is taking up too much of your time? Are you sending emails back and forth between team members?  There is a better way to manage intra-team communications about all sorts of topics and specific projects.  We use the app Slack.

Slack acts as a messaging system and knowledge base.  We have created many “channels” in our team Slack account so we can always find prior conversations related to particular topics and projects, as opposed to trawling through emails or trying to remember if you texted someone about something.

It is our primary means of intra-team communications and allows for direct messaging, team discussions, links and attachments, notifications, all accessible on a computer as well as our phones.  Having adopted Slack we are saving hundreds of emails per week…thank goodness!

 4. Document Collaboration

In our ongoing effort to reduce emails and wasted data storage, wherever possible we use Google docs, sheets and slides for creating documents where more than one person is involved in their development and review.

We have taught many of our clients how to use Google docs and once they’ve understood how dynamic it is, allowing more than one person to be working in the document at the same time and how it reduces emails with attachments, they are a convert!

We use Google docs when working on digital marketing strategies with clients, so the client can watch the strategy development, ask questions via comments in the document, be requested to action items, all in real time.

Once again a smart folder structure, setting up folders in Google Drive, is a good approach to ensure you are using this tool well and easily able to find the document assets you have created in the past. Another great Google document tool not many people know about is Google forms.  Create a form to collect info from your customers, take orders etc in no time at all.  You’ll feel like a web developer, but it’s very easy.

5. Graphic Design for Everyone

To quickly create quality graphics and social media posts check out Canva.  This is our weapon of choice for our team to create smart images for Facebook cover images, social media posts, images for email marketing, even print jobs.

The templates provided make it very easy and the design possibilities for an amateur are endless.  You can upload your own branding including logos and your own photos, or you can use free elements and graphics available on Canva or purchase stock graphics at $1.00 each.

They also offer the Canva photo editor, which is super easy to use and great for re-sizing images.

6. Automating Tasks and Integrating Data

We reduce risk in our business by avoiding manual data entry wherever possible and by passing data automatically between applications, we are saving time as well as avoiding unnecessary human error.  Ultimately you are improving your customer experience by reducing process steps for them as well.

The tool we use to automate tasks and data entry is Zapier.  You create “zaps” between applications to automate what would otherwise be a manual process or a step for your customer to do.  A good example is when someone signs up for one of our online training programs, when they complete the online form on our website, this automatically triggers a series of registrations in Zoom, our webinar platform and they will then be registered in that system and receive confirmations as if they’d registered themselves; and secondly, it adds them and the details of the course they’ve signed up for in our customer relationship management system, Insightly. If we were to do this manually we would need one full-time admin person. Can you imagine the time and cost savings Zapier offers us?

We use Zaps in all of our projects where appropriate to reduce the effort for our customers and our staff and to reduce the risk of data entry error, allowing our team to focus on the more interesting work they do.

All businesses can find tasks to automate and a simple example combining the digital tools mentioned above that we’ve helped clients to implement is when a customer completes a Google form for an order, that order information is automatically passed via a Zap to a Google sheet for internal actioning and directly into their accounts system to generate an invoice…presto!  Half the work is done

 7. Measuring Your Marketing Success with Google Analytics

We spend a great deal of time helping businesses to improve their online presence and their marketing and most business owners are very keen to do that.  Where the majority of small businesses are missing an important opportunity is in measuring the effectiveness of their marketing and using this intelligence to improve their online presence.

Google Analytics is a must-have tool and skill set in every business today if you want to invest in your marketing.   Without it and without Google Analytics being set up properly you don’t know whether your website is performing for you and you know have the insights to know what to change in your marketing. You can learn quite quickly the basis of Google Analytics and over time build your knowledge and confidence to do more advanced reporting and analysis. Visit our Google Learning Hub or contact help@tourismtribe.com for specialised support and training in Google Analytics.

There are many more smart digital tools in the marketplace and alternatives to those discussed in this article. We’ve shared with you what we rate highly and a little about how we’re using them.  Explore what will work for you and bring great efficiency, time and cost savings to your business and let us if you would like assistance with reviewing your marketing and processes and we can develop a digital plan for your business.

Tourism Tribe is an award-winning leader in business improvements in the tourism industry with a vision to help those in tourism have a sustainable business and make a profit doing what they love, no matter where they are located. Would you like a 90-minute consult to identify digital opportunities for your business?  Contact help@tourismtribe.com or call +61 7 3103 7994.

Go to the article: Seven super digital tools to save you time and money in your business

[citizenscreen]

This week marks the anniversary of the death of animator, producer William Hanna (July 14, 1910 – March 22, 2001). For me that can only mean one thing – it’s time to reminisce about one of my all-time favorite cartoons – and sitcoms, for that matter – The Flintstones.

William Hanna and partner Joseph Barbera became one of the truly legendary pairings in animation history. Together Hanna and Barbera created The Flintstones and a slew of other iconic characters that have been hugely popular and influential since the 1950s. To show their sustaining power here’s an entry on DC Comics from last year focusing on new comic books to be released based on reimaginings of several Hanna-Barbera characters and stories. I’m not much into comic books so this launch may have already happened. As I perused a collection of classic Hanna-Barbera comic books though I realized I’d absolutely love to own some of them. Practically every single classic character had his own comic book series with the Parade series featuring all of them.

Anyway – the characters that launched Hanna-Barbera Productions in the 1950s include Yogi Bear and his Emmy Award-winning series (1958-1962), Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw. In the 1960s they brought us The Jetsons in a prime-time slot during the 1962-1963 season, The Magilla Gorilla Show, Ricochet Rabbit and Droop-a-Long, Punkin’ Puss and Mushmouse, Scooby-Doo and many more.

Of all the shows produced by Hanna-Barbera, however, my absolute favorite is The Flintstones, a sit-com-style animated series influenced by The Honeymooners, another show I adore. I grew up watching Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty along with their prehistoric surroundings and still enjoy watching them whenever time and opportunity allow.

The creators of ‘The Flintstones’ holding a drawing of Fred Flintstone on August 1, 1980

The collaboration between William Hanna and Joseph Barbera began in 1940 when both were working in the animation department at MGM Studios. The two worked on Tom and Jerry cartoons with the first being Puss Gets the Boot (1940). When MGM closed its cartoon department two decades later Hanna and Barbera decided to continue the collaboration with a focus on television.

Having gained a solid reputation in theatrical shorts, Hanna and Barbera approached Columbia’s Screen Gems television studio with a storyboard for a cartoon about the adventures of dog and cat pals Ruff and Reddy. At that point Tom and Jerry cartoons were already enjoying success on television by way of recycled theatrical vehicles so the careers of Hanna and Barbera were on solid ground. The Ruff and Reddy Show followed suit in the popularity department and the two animators were well on their way to making history.

Ruff and Reddy

In 1957 Hanna-Barbera launched The Huckleberry Hound Show, the first cartoon series to receive an Emmy award. Huckleberry Hound marked a huge step in the careers of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera in several ways. Huckleberry served as a platform for the animators to introduce many characters, several of which became stars in their own series later. In addition, Huckleberry Hound proved a huge hit with audiences, but not the demographic one would think. In 1960 a survey revealed that more adults than children were watching Huckleberry Hound on a regular basis, which prompted Hanna-Barbera to focus its efforts on a primetime animated series. Enter The Flintstones. YABBA DABBA DOO!

  The Flintstones ran from 1960 to 1966 and proved such a big success with audiences of all ages that Hanna-Barbera created a space-age family to join them in prime-time. That family, of course, is The Jetsons. I enjoy The Jetsons as well, but The Flintstones are the bomb diggity with their stone-age “modern” appliances that talk and all else that make it a terrific comedy for people of all ages. The premise of the show parodied popular domestic situation comedies, a familiar, winning formula with the added bonus of skits based on the prehistoric theme. One of my favorite gags is when you see the characters step over a crack in the ground that millions of years later was to become the Grand Canyon.

You might enjoy this brief video, a history of The Flintstones:

Through the years la creme de la creme of voice actors worked on The Flintstones, including the legendary Mel Blanc and radio and television great, Bea Benaderet. Take a look at a complete list of the talents who voiced these characters here. I should note that – for me – the series lost some of its steam in its fifth season when The Great Gazoo started appearing. I’m not such a big fan of the alien in Bedrock. Gazoo was exiled to Earth because he created a doomsday machine on his planet. To me that story line is The Flintstones version of jumping the shark, but The Great Gazoo is voiced by favorite Harvey Korman who also voiced several other characters throughout the series’ run.

1960: The Flintstones voices: Fred Flintstone – Alan Reed Wilma Flintstone – Jean Vander Pyl Betty Rubble – Bea Benaderet Barney Rubble – Mel Blanc

As pop culture icons The Flintstones rank among the most recognizable in the world. They are still referenced in television shows and animated series, like The Simpsons and even became the subject of a hit song by The B-52s who recorded a version of the series’ theme song.

The characters in The Flintstones have also been used in the marketing of different products since they first aired. Among these, vitamins, cereal and beer. I can’t resist sharing the following classic commercial, which aired during the series’ first season. Here we see the characters advocating for Winston Cigarettes, the show’s sponsor on ABC. I’m not advocating smoking, by the way.

Testament to the popularity of The Flintstones is the number of Hollywood and television stars that voiced themselves and/or their characters on the show through the years. My favorite episodes are the ones that featured Hollywood stars. I post the examples I could find below, but among the popular personalities that guest-starred on the series were Ed Sullivan, Elizabeth Montgomery, Raymond Burr and Jack Dempsey. Click on each of the following movie star names to watch a clip:

Ann-Margrock

Stoney Curtis

Rock Quarry

Jimmy Darrock

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a clip of my favorite of these, Gary Granite, but here’s his picture from episode 6 of season 1, “The Monster from the Tar Pits”

  Another favorite is when Fred does the “Bedrock Twitch”

My favorite cross-over was when Darren and Samantha Stevens from Bewitched appeared on The Flintstones:

Can you blame me for loving this stuff? When classic greats cross-over into classic greats it’s a mash-up made in heaven.

After The Flintstones’ initial run on ABC concluded the show became even more popular as part of Saturday morning cartoon line-ups and in syndication. That’s when I ran into them. Perhaps nothing illustrates The Flintstones popularity, however, than the number of movie adaptations – both animated and live-action – and the spin-offs it begat starting with Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm (1971-1972 and 1975-1976) followed by The Flintstones Comedy Hour (1972-1974) and finally The Flintstones Kids, which appeared in 1986 and ran through 1989.

Without a doubt, The Flintstones is one of the all-time great classic television shows. I put it up there with The Munsters on my list of favorites and I’m sure millions feel just as I do about it. It’s as funny a situation comedy as many consider its live-action counterparts with great scripts and voice acting the likes of which no longer exist. It’s time you revisit this legendary and enjoyable series. I need to spend more time with them myself.

  Hanna-Barbera and The Flintstones This week marks the anniversary of the death of animator, producer William Hanna (July 14, 1910 – March 22, 2001).