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pitbullrealities · 10 months

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What is a dog? This question is a rhetorical one, and not referring to the species, or its evolutionary origin. What purpose do dogs serve in our lives? What do they mean to us, and why do we own them? With some exceptions, the vast majority of dogs are pets: we seek them out for companionship, to be part of our homes and families. We take them into the world to enjoy it with us, are used to seeing them out and about, and generally expect the pet dogs we meet to be friendly and reasonably safe to be around.

The American Kennel Club recognizes 190 different dog breeds. Worldwide, this number climbs to 360. After approximately 30,000 years of domestication and deliberate breeding, humans have created affectionate dogs, independent ones, energetic dogs, couch potatoes; dogs with long hair, short hair, big or small; dogs for hunting, for protection, for companionship, for herding; dogs in almost any color conceivable. In recent years, however, the handful of breeds known commonly as “pit bulls” or “bully breeds” have taken off in popularity, due in large part to attempts by fanciers to rehabilitate the breeds' negative image. They have largely had success in proclaiming these perceptions to be a result of myths and misunderstanding. Most of the arguments supporting and defending pit bulls – and, unfortunately, those most easily found when searching online – come from sites limited in credentials and heavy on bias such as “Love-A-Bull,” “Bully Blood,” and “American Bully Lover.” Their claims are commonly either unsourced, or anecdotal. Stories about sweet pit bulls named Bubbles and Cupcake and cute photos of pit bulls in tutus don't change statistics and history any more than the proud boast “I always drive without a seatbelt and I'm fine” does. Stories don't trump statistics.

Rare is the person who hasn't heard one or another of these genre of myths. That pit bulls were nanny dogs; that they're sweethearts unless they're abused, and they're only mean when they're taught to fight; that it's all in how you raise them. While no breed has a monopoly on aggression, and pit bulls are certainly no monolith of cartoonish, foaming-at-the-mouth viciousness, it is shortsighted to pretend they're something they're not.

What is not pictured here is a vile dog fighter hard at work abusing her innocent pit bulls.

Though many sincerely believe the breed was once used as a gentle, affectionate babysitter, as it turns out there is zero evidence for this in any historical text until a 1971 New York Times article, where the phrase “nursemaid dog” was used by the editor of the magazine of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier Club of the United States of America. Hardly an unprejudiced source. The truth is, pit bulls were always bred and intended for fighting. No dog is or was a nanny breed, but if there was one, bullies would be floating somewhere at the bottom of the list.

Perhaps a nanny alligator.

When bull- and bear-baiting faded in popularity in the mid-19th century – the former due to British legislation against animal cruelty, the later to sheer scarcity – those keen on blood sports pivoted to fighting dogs against each other, breeding them for tenacity, agility, and an unwillingness to give up. The American Kennel Club categorizes dogs into seven groups based on breed origin, and pit bull breeds belong to the terrier class. The AKC recognizes the inherent feisty and stubborn nature of terriers, traits that can be managed by a dedicated and knowledgeable owner, and are also somewhat mitigated by the small scale of most terriers. However, when these traits are combined with pitbulls' size and muscularity - and, more importantly, their specifically-bred instinct to fight - this makes for a dangerous combination. We recognize and accept that herding breeds have the instinct to herd, pointers lift one paw and point without having to be taught, breeds cultivated for companionship want to be close to their owners, and retrievers like to – you guessed it – retrieve. How does this common sense logic vanish when it comes to bullies?

These bullies clearly aren't being sold for companionship, home defense, or herding.

Pit bulls are reportedly responsible for 22.5% of bites, and the CDC reported that from 1979 to 1998, pit bulls were involved in the most fatal dogs attacks, the the culprit of 28% of deaths. Dog fighters overwhelmingly and near exclusively used (and continue to use) this breed, rather than golden retrievers or border collies. If any dog is dangerous when mistreated, why don't we regularly see news reports of greyhounds and poodles mauling infants, children, and the elderly? What reason would there be for sensationalizing and smearing one dog breed at random?

It's a common refrain when these attacks happen: “He snapped out of nowhere.” “I don't understand, we've had her since a puppy.” “He just wouldn't let go.” “She's never done anything like this before.” In the overwhelming majority of cases, the owners were not abusive, were not cruelly provoking the dog to violence, and were not trying to start up an illicit dog fighting ring. Their only crime was believing the half-truths and feel-good stories peddled by pit bull defenders or well-intentioned rescue organizations.

A pit bull charging across a parking lot to attack a child unprovoked. Perhaps it only meant to enthusiastically nanny her?

Naturally, those have only known pit bulls to be normal, friendly dogs might become defensive at the breed being labeled dangerous. Perhaps a better word would be risky. Many of us consider dogs to be family, but we mustn't forget that they are still animals, with behaviors and traits that have been selected for and cultivated by breeders for generations. Those actively promoting these risky breeds are ignorant at best, and deliberately disingenuous at worst. Though any dog can bite, it is abundantly clear that those bred for stable temperaments, for companionship, and to work alongside humans are a far lower risk than a dog deliberately created for violence. Dogs should be companions, not ticking time bombs. There is nothing a pit bull has to offer that can't be found in a safer, more manageable breed actually intended for family ownership.

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12108421

https://time.com/2891180/kfc-and-the-pit-bull-attack-of-a-little-girl/

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/dog-attack-statistics-breed/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30579079/

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irkimatsu · 3 years

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Okay, after way too much delay - it's my Eurovision 2021 Final Ranking! This took me a while for a lot of factors - took extra hours at work to make sure I could get time off this week, some recent family events... and most relevantly, the fact that this year is so damn good that no matter what, I knew someone was going to get ripped off by ending up somewhere in the bottom half. Just know that being toward the bottom of the list doesn't necessarily mean I dislike it, especially this year - it just means I like other things more. This year is going to be an absolute bloodbath. I am both excited and terrified.

Try not to take my ranking too seriously, by the way - I'm an American who unironically listens to stuff like Scooch and Dolly Style. I'm not exactly a seasoned music critic. I just know what sort of music makes the happiness center of my brain light up, what the hell is music theory

Ranking made with the sorter at http://esc.gerbear.com/sorter2021.htm, then slightly adjusted when it put some songs concerningly low on the list. Okay, so I cheated a little

Firstly, in the interest in completion - if Belarus didn't get disqualified, they'd be in the big fat 40 rank, with a big bold "Hate" right above. Fuck that song. I've only listened to it once and am so glad I have no obligation to acknowledge it any further. Those fucking lyrics. Mother of Christ. Fuck you guys.

I also offer my condolences to Armenia for their having to bow out this year. I'm sure whatever you guys sent, it couldn't have possibly been worse than "Chains On You".

Now, for the songs that actually matter:

Indifferent:

39 – Spain - “Voy a quedarme” by Blas Cantó: Welp, already I’m gonna get shot. I can’t remember how this song sounds at all. I know it’s tender and genuine and sweet and everything… I just… kinda don’t care. Nothing to say. I liked his entry last year even more, and even that was pretty damn dull. Just not destined to be a Blas Cantó fan, I guess!

38 - North Macedonia – “Here I Stand” by Vasil: I’m with most other rankings I’ve seen; what the hell is this? I at least kinda remember it, which is more than I can say for poor Spain, but oh my god it’s so boring. I really liked “You” last year! What the hell happened, Vasil?

37 – Albania - “Karma” by Anxhela Peristeri: Another “oops” from me, huh. It’s another one I immediately forget about the instant it ends. I at least don’t remember it boring the crap out of me, hence it placing higher than Spain and Macedonia, but I still can’t say anything nice about it – or anything at all, really – so I’ll leave it this low. I acknowledge that I’m in the minority, I won’t protest if it qualifies, but personally, it’s not my pick.

36 – Georgia – “You” by Tornike Kipiani: Give him points for passion, I suppose! At least I’m not laughing at him like I was last year. On the other hand, less ridiculous also means more boring. Points for earnestness, but this is just another song that goes right over my head.

35 – Portugal – “Love Is On My Side” by The Black Mamba: An English song from Portugal? That’s new. Too bad it hasn’t rescued the song from the darkest depths of Boring. I will confess that I spice it up a little by associating it with Homura from Osomatsu-san, thus rescuing it from the deepest pits of my ranking list… but it’s still stuck down here. Portugal and I have never gotten along well Eurovision-wise. I’ve come to accept that.

34 – Slovenia – “Amen” by Ana Soklič: I’m gonna call this a song that I respect more than I like. She’s got a great voice, I can’t deny that… but when I’m ranking this purely based on what I’d go out of my way to listen to, this one falls flat. I warned you at the beginning that I have no taste! I’m not normally into straightforward ballads, the religious connotations are lost on me… this isn’t the song for me.

33 – Austria – “Amen” by Vincent Bueno: Back to back “Amen”s! Tip for getting me to like your Eurovision entry, apparently, is “don’t call your song Amen”. It’s a ballad, earnest and trying but overall not my type of music. I’m running out of ways to say that. Breakup song, a tad bitter, we’ve all heard this sort of song so many times before. It doesn’t stand out, and I think it’d be a waste of a spot in the final.

At least, I thought this was a breakup song when I first wrote this, but apparently it’s about the death of a loved one…? I would say that makes me hate the bitterness, but… given how I’m handling a death in my own family right now… god, I don’t know. I just can’t handle this song, not at any time but especially not now. It doesn’t even provide catharsis like a song later on in the list. It stays this low regardless of its meaning, I just don’t like it, I’m sorry, moving on.

…” 'Cause it all feels like you didn't even try to save us, all this time wasted on a lie”… ugh, my personal problems…

32 – Switzerland – “Tout l'Univers” by Gjon’s Tears: Another one I respect more than I like, and another opinion I’m gonna get my ass beaten for, I’m sure. I respect the artistry, but this is so far removed from anything I’d ever listen to on purpose. It might have landed even lower if I wasn’t afraid of pissing people off. I’ll understand if it wins, but I’ll also be hoping for most anything else.

31 – Russia – “Russian Woman” by Manizha: I don’t get it. Sometimes it’s pleasant enough to listen to, but overall I don’t get it. It’s unique, I’ll give it that! I understand why it won its national final, and why so many people enjoy it! But for me, it doesn’t quite cross that line between “interesting” and “enjoyable”. I'm not Russian - this isn't for me, and it wasn't supposed to be. Though I will confess that there may be some bias at play here. God, I miss Little Big…

Okay:

30 – Estonia – “The Lucky One” by Uku Suviste: The voice is okay, the music is okay, I like how the bitterness is handled here more than in Austria’s… but this is still as high as I can go on this one. It’s serviceable, but this year has so much better to offer.

29 – Sweden – “Voices” by Tusse: Sweden really does like sending the same song over and over again, huh? I don’t hate it, but it does strike me as a lesser “Too Late For Love”, sound wise. Sweden almost never takes risks, and it’s causing me to look over them more and more with every year. I respect it too much to put it in the “Indifferent” category, but given how the rest of my ranking played out, this the best I can do for it. (But again, do not trust the opinions of someone who teethed on cheesy Europop and fondly remembers when Sweden was flooded with the stuff…)

28 – Belgium – “The Wrong Place” by Hooverphonic: Once again, Hooverphonic help Belgium fill the role of Eurovision’s “Most Likely To Appear In A Bond Movie” song. It’s fine. It’s a song! I don’t know what else to say about it! It does its job well enough, it’s just not really a job I care for that much.

27 – Ireland – “Maps” by Lesley Roy: It’s cute enough! A cute little radio tune. It’s no “Story Of My Life”, though. If “22” couldn’t qualify then this probably won’t, either, and I can’t say I’ll miss it all that much. Still pleasant enough when it comes up on the shuffle.

26 – Bulgaria – “Growing Up Is Getting Old” by Victoria: I admit it, this ranks as high as it does because of anime and that’s basically it. If I was still doing plain category sortings this would have landed straight in “Biased”. My favorite anime is about a bunch of 20-somethings learning that growing up sucks and trying as hard as possible to avoid it, and I first heard this song around the same time that I watched that show’s relatively melancholy season finale, so it ended up sticking with me on that note. Don’t have much to say about it musically, just that it makes me picture sextuplets crying and that’s one of my hobbies, so I’ll grant it an “Okay”. (It may also worth noting that if I heard this song before 2019, in the state my life was in before then it would have probably left me too inconsolable to listen to it more than once. Growing up is growing old indeed!

…it’s also worth noting that after I wrote this blurb, a major event happened that really enforced that growing up is getting old, so I listened to this quite a bit for a few days, among some other non-Eurovision songs. I’m probably gonna have an emotional breakdown on Thursday when this one starts. So, um, look out for that, guess. Between this one and Austria’s, I swear to god…)

25 – Italy – “Zitti e buoni” by Måneskin: I’ve been trying to get this one to rank higher, I really have, but its inability to crack the top 20 just says a lot about how damn good this year is. It sounds great, it’s very well done, and I wouldn’t hate to see it win! It’s earned its popularity. Everything holding it back in my own personal ranking is just that, personal – I do lose something when I can’t sing along or understand the lyrics, and there’s another rock song this year that I like way better. Still wishing you guys the best!

24 – Netherlands – “Birth Of A New Age” by Jeangu Macrooy: This song has a great style that I respect a lot. The message, the vibe – even if it’s not a culture I’m a part of, I feel and appreciate the hell out of it, and I really hope it does well. I don’t understand why so many people seem to think it’s not interesting! It may not be the sort of thing I’d go out of my way to listen to, but I’m glad it’s here. Catch me singing out “Yu no man broko mi” on Saturday! It’s been a while since I’ve given a shit about a host country’s entry, so I’m really glad for this one.

23 – Romania - “Amnesia” by Roxen: I’ll admit something else unpopular – I hated “Alcohol You” last year. Didn’t see what the big deal was at all. It sounded okay, I guess, but the lyrics were so pretentious and awful, and I’ve never liked the topic of “I love you even though you have no redeeming qualities whatsoever and you make me feel like shit”. But it seems like in that year, Roxen has discovered that self-love is important, actually, and it’s not worth it spending your time on some shitbag who consistently disappoints you. I appreciate it for that alone. Character growth! Plus, I feel the whole thing of “forgetting how to love yourself because everyone around you sucks”. It’s not the perfect song, not by a long shot, but it has a nice melody, and Roxen has a nice voice. It’s good to hear her using that voice on something I don’t find obnoxious.

22 – Norway – “Fallen Angel” by TIX: Okay, I’ll admit it, this is one where I watched the live video the first time I heard the song, and I was too busy laughing at his outfit to take the song seriously. Jesus Christ, dude, what the hell. Well, that’s Eurovision for you, and the more I listened to it, the more I admitted to myself that I’m a sucker for “I love you but letting you go for your own good, not sure what I ever offered you in the first place” type songs. Knowing the song is inspired by his own disability and self-loathing really twists that knife, to the point where I feel bad that I almost threw this at an anime character. I know I’m usually cold on songs that try to evoke emotions about the singer’s personal problems – Germany 2018, and this year’s Austrian entry – but this one really works for me. Only reason it’s in “Okay” tier is because of its competition – it’d rank way higher in a weaker year.

21 – France – “Voila” by Barbara Pravi: I like a good waltz, I guess! It’s a unique number, and the French language sounds nice, especially with the music. It’s yet another example of how this year is filled with so many interesting entries that I appreciate the hell out of. God bless this diverse year! (Or maybe everything just sounds so good to me because last year’s cancellation left me in withdrawal.) I expect a really nice performance for this one – this song isn’t one you can perform while just standing there, especially not during that speedup toward the end.

20 – Australia – “Technicolour” by Montaigne: That song that sounds like it’s about stripping if you don’t know that she’s saying cloaks. (Guilty as charged.) It’s catchy and fun, and I really love it when it first starts… but unfortunately, it does wear out its welcome toward the end of things. It’s a good party song, just a little repetitive. I still like it just fine, and wouldn’t mind seeing her in the final this year! Hope the performance is colorful and sparkly, it’d suit the song well

Like:

19 – Germany – “I Don’t Feel Hate” by Jendrik: I know stereotyping is bad but I was not remotely surprised to find out that Jendrik is gay. This song is pure gay sass, and god, I love every minute of it. I fully expect it to fall on its ass – this wouldn’t make it to the final if it wasn’t an automatic qualifier – but I’ll have a grand old time watching it! The sarcastic lyrics, the cheerful little ukulele, the middle finger costume… this song is a delight. Only thing that I think really brings it down is that weird spoken bit that interrupts the song. That’s so annoying, brings me right out of it. And I did purposely rank it below songs that aren’t complete shitposts. But thank you for your existence, Jendrik, your contribution to Eurovision is much appreciated.

18 – Israel – “Set Me Free” by Eden Alene: I said it this year and I’ll say it again this year, Eden Alene is a goddess of a woman. Absolutely gorgeous. Appreciation for pretty women aside, it’s a fun party song in a sea of fun party songs! I really do like it, I like her voice, but there’s so much else this year that drowns it out – not much stands out here compared to later entries on the list. Still a good song, though.

…and I do not expect for an instant that this is going to make it to the final. …my personal ranking is based on how the song sounds, okay? Just the song. Just the song. Nothing else. Just the song. Anyway…

17 – United Kingdom – “Embers” by James Newman: What’s this? A UK entry I don’t find bland as off-white paint? That doesn’t happen often! I didn’t like his entry last year, romantic ballad bla bla bla whee, but I’m always down for a good party song. It’s a little generic and radio friendly, sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun as hell to sing along with!

16 – Greece – “Last Dance” by Stefania: I really liked last year’s “Supergirl”, but figured it didn’t have too much of a chance because it struck me as being a little too teen poppy to be taken entirely seriously. It seems like Greece thought so, too, because they’ve ramped it up with this year’s entry. They’re not playing around anymore, sending a grand, powerful song that, like “Embers”, is fun as hell to belt. This is another one I’m really looking forward to the live performance for – the music video is gorgeous, and I hope they capture that same majesty on stage!

15 – Moldova – “Sugar” by Natalia Gordienko: Oh, Moldova, I’m so glad you guys decided to be completely batshit again this year. I’ve missed your nonsense so much. Dancing ice cream cones. Cake men. This video is glorious. And the song goes well with the insanity! A catchy dance tune that can only be improved with downright insane staging. Please let the dancing ice cream cones be on stage, I’m begging you

14 – Latvia – “The Moon Is Rising” by Samanta Tina: A unique electronica number backed with a powerful as hell voice. I can see where all the wubbing would get on people’s nerves, but personally, I love it! I love the voice, I love the attitude, Samanta just oozes confidence, and if she doesn’t make it to the final it’s not gonna be because she didn’t give it her goddamn all.

13 – Poland – “The Ride” by RAFAL: Why is this one so unpopular? You people don’t know how to have fun. Yeah, yeah, last year’s “Empires” was a powerful song… but I like my club nonsense much more, so I’m favoring this one. Yet another song that gets me pumped – this whole Contest is gonna leave me with a smile on my face, there’s so much good party music

12 – Azerbaijan – “Mata Hari” by Efendi: Yeah, they’re basically just sending “Cleopatra” again, but “Cleopatra” was so goddamn good that I can’t even blame them for it. This song needed a chance to compete, and I’m glad it’s getting it again this year. I like it so much that I can even forgive the line about being a “godless”. Oh, Europop, don’t you ever change.

11 – Cyprus – “El Diablo” by Elena Tsagrinou: Huh, I didn’t know Cyprus had perfected their Lady Gaga cloning technology. Neat. More seriously, the early 2010’s club vibe of this song is exactly my jam, enough that I can forgive the “I’m in love with a horrible person” theme. (I think I forgive that theme a lot more from catchy party songs than heartfelt ballads I’m actually supposed to feel for.) Hell, I even like the creepy chanting! Sure, it’s a little cheesy, but cheese is always a good ingredient when used in moderation.

(How many songs are we going to get this year, not just in Eurovision, about wanting to fuck devils? I mean, not that I don’t get it… mmm, Akuma Ichimatsu… um. Anyway.)

10 – Czech Republic – “Omaga” by Benny Cristo: And here we enter the top ten of a strong year, where I’d love to see any of them win! Benny, what is with that title. Why. Ah well, like I said earlier, I do like moderate amounts of cheese, and this song is more than fun enough to have earned itself a ridiculous lyric or two. It’s unique, I’ll give it that! The song is just so bouncy and fun that I manage to ignore how pushy the singer is. Another one I expect big things from the staging for.

9 – Lithuania – “Discoteque” by The Roop: Ignoring the current events that surely inspired the song, I do love the more generic “party song for introverts” read on it – if only you knew how many one-person dance parties I’d had in my own house. This song speaks to me deeply. I can’t even begin to call it a joke song; I think it’s doing exactly what it set out to do, and it’s doing it oh so well. God, those synths. Totally okay with dancing alone!

8 – Iceland – “10 Years” by Daði og Gagnamagnið: I want Daði Freyr to adopt me. I don’t even care that he’s younger than me. He’s just such an earnest, fun guy, and I love his 8-bit aesthetic! And come on, he submitted a song about how much he loves his wife! If I ever stop loving this song it’s because my heart shriveled and died. Love isn’t dead, it’s just in chiptune now. I will throw things if this doesn’t make it into the final, do you all have no souls, this is too damn cute

7 – Serbia – “Loco Loco” by Hurricane: Another group I am so excited to see return, because I adored “Hasta La Vista”. I don’t know if I like this one quite as much, but it’s still catchy as hell! I love trying to sing along with it despite not knowing a word of Serbian.

6 – Croatia – “Tick-Tock” by Albina: Another catchy-ass club song! What more can I say? I love how much of this stuff we got this year. I will absolutely be screaming “Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go!” Oh god that was cheesy… I’ve been working on this ranking for too long. Don’t know what else to say about this one, just that I adore it. Just barely missed the top 5.

Love:

5 – Malta – “Je Me Casse” by Destiny: This girl’s got pipes– not surprised to hear she won the Junior contest before! I get major “Toy” vibes from this song, and you all know just how much I adored that one. Aaa, those horns! Expecting big things from you, Destiny! We may have our winner!

4 – San Marino – “Adrenalina” by Senhit – As much of a soft spot I had for last year’s “Freaky”, I don’t think it was gonna make it into the final, unless Senhit had the blessing of the same angels who were looking out for Serhat in 2019. This one, though? San Marino tasted the final two years ago and they are never giving it up again! This song goes hard! Love the song, love the video’s aesthetic, I even kinda like Flo Rida’s rap, even though I’m still baffled by the idea that I have been regularly listening to a song featuring Flo Rida on purpose. I don’t know what he’s doing here but I’m glad he is. Please, please make it to the final, San Marino! You clearly want the hell out of it this year! Favorite club song in a year of amazing club songs.

3 – Finland – “Dark Side” by Blind Channel: After spending about five seconds disappointed that Finland wouldn’t be sending Pandora this year, I gave this song a shot, and was not expecting what it gave me. I feel like an angsty middle schooler again, and it is bliss. This is everything Hatari wanted to be, but unlike Hatari who just confused me, I absolutely love the hell out of this song. …some of those lyrics, though. “27 Club, headshot, we don’t wanna grow up”? Yikes. But as dark and questionable as it might be, I can’t help but get pumped when I hear it. Definitely my favorite rock song of the year – sorry, Italy!

2 – Denmark – “Øve os på hinanden” by Fyr & Flamme: I love you, 1983. I don’t care how dated it is when my entire soul consists of a disco ball. The song’s so damn cute! This is the one member of my top 5 that I’m most terrified of losing – I know it’s not popular, with everyone calling it dated, but my top 5 always has that dated song that I love the hell out of becauseit sounds so classic. The translated lyrics are adorable, too. Even if you guys flame out in the semi, you’ll live on in the disco in my heart.

Favorite:

1 – Ukraine – “Shum” by Go_A: Holy fucking shit. There’s something about the blending of traditional and electronic that gets me hyped – see KEiiNO – and this one does not disappoint. The last minute of this is the best minute of Eurovision this year, and god, the buildup! I don’t even know Ukrainian but I am trying my damnedest to get the lyrics down, phonetically, at least. You know that “dancing goths” meme video? That’s me whenever this song comes on, especially during that speed up. Love the hell out of it. Could Ukraine be on its way to another victory already? I sure hope so, because this song fucking rules. Definitely checking out the rest of the discography someday, if all of their songs are in this folktronica style then they’ve gotta be a treat to listen to. Go Ukraine!

Ideal Qualifiers (favorite of each semi in bold):

Semi 1

Australia

Azerbaijan

Croatia

Cyprus

Israel

Lithuania

Malta

Norway

Romania

Ukraine Semi 2:

Czech Republic

Denmark

Finland

Greece

Iceland

Latvia

Moldova

Poland

San Marino

Serbia

This is definitely not what's going to happen - there is no universe where Switzerland and Sweden don't make it - but it'll be interesting to compare the reality to my hopes.

Let's go, Eurovision 2021

#irk blubbers about nothing #irk talks eurovision 2021

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shielddrake · 5 years

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Psychonauts: Setup and Payoff Done Well (If Not Perfectly)

So about a year ago I posted a long lecture about how Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3 had major problems in the story department when it came to setup and payoff. I basically said that Final Fantasy XV had lots of scenes with payoff that were not set up very well and Kingdom Hearts 3 had some excellent moments that set up story elements but never followed through on them. And while I think some of those issues have been addressed with some of the DLC released for both games (I reserve my right to be a little salty Episodes Aranea, Luna, and Noctis were canceled) I still stand by my statement that these games have big problems with this.

During the past year, I have received a couple of comments regarding my position on this, ranging from “Can you give a good example of setup and payoff?” to “Well, if you’re so smart, why don’t you come up with a better example?” And I thought, well, what kind of game would be a good example of excellent use of setup and payoff? What game or series would I say does the job so much better than any writer has or does, video game or otherwise?

And then, the middle of a repeat playthrough I always do before a game’s sequel comes out, it came to me:

Now Psychonauts has been out since 2005, so a spoiler warning might seem a little silly here, but I think a lot of gamers have been playing it for the first time since the sequel was announced, so just in case: Major spoilers for the original Psychonauts game under the cut.

Whenever someone tries to argue whether or not video games can be considered art, one of the first games that comes to my mind is Psychonauts, and not just because of its amazing aesthetics. It has some of the best storytelling, script writing, level design, music, voice acting, and art direction I have ever seen. This game is possibly one of the best video games I have every played, despite the flaws that it does have (I’m looking at you, Meat Circus), and it is easily on my list of top ten favorite video games. Is it really any surprise that Psychonauts 2 reached its crowd-funding goal of over $3,000,000 in about a month? And yes, I admit that I am one of those backers, just to put out there any bias I know I have.

But this isn’t meant to be a review of Psychonauts.

I replayed Psychonauts a few months ago with the idea of the first game being fresh in my mind when the sequel comes out, which is supposed to be sometime this year of 2020. I was absolutely inundated with examples of effective setup and payoff as I played, so it seemed like the obvious choice to go over how this story-telling technique can be used not only well, but also to the point where it’s almost like there are far too many examples.

Honestly, I could go on and on and on about setup and payoff in Psychonauts’ story, but for our purposes here most of the focus is going to be on just three big things that are really important to the main storyline: Linda the Lungfish, bunnies and meat, and Raz’s dad.

One thing about setup and payoff is that the setup has to actually happen in a way that the audience, in this case the player, can’t miss it. There are several moments in the game that Linda is mentioned, the first time being in the opening cutscene, where Bobby teases Dogen about the monster at the bottom of the lake. You can’t miss the setup when it is thrown in your face that way.

But that’s not the only time we get references to some sort of lake monster. Before going into Basic Braining, the first official level of the game, if Raz talks to Mikhail, the adorable Russian psychic mentions a “giant, hairless bear” in the woods, asking if Raz has seen it and wanting to wrestle with it. Now, it’s not said for certain if Mikhail is talking about Linda or if he’s just referring to the telekinetic bears you meet later on, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it’s supposed to be the former.

The first time the player heads for the lake, Elton will run up to Raz and mention the “brain-eating fish” that supposedly lives there. Well, now we’ve got both a mention of the lake monster and the fact that it goes after brains. Hmm, sound familiar in retrospect?

Optionally, Raz can also talk to Elton about the fish being spooked by something in the lake.

Although only the first lake interaction with Elton is mandatory (whether it’s when you go to see Milla or before then), both of these moments act as reminders of the setup of the lake monster established in the opening cutscene.

And then there’s the scene in the woods between Raz and Lili on the way to Sasha Nein’s Secret Lab. Raz says that something was watching him, a shadowy being that smelled like pond scum.

I absolutely love Lili’s face in this scene, by the way.

We kind of get distracted by their interactions and Lili basically trolling Raz, but that’s part of what makes good writing. The scene is foreshadowing something without making it overly overt…not that the game is subtle every time, but the point still stands. This game does a great mix of the obvious and the subtle.

The game also has optional dialogue with Coach Oleander and Raz reporting on a UPE (Unidentified Paranormal Entity), which he suspects is aquatic in nature. And Oleander seems oddly insistent that the lake monster does not exist, that it’s just a camp fable.

Finally we get to the Brain Tumbler Experiment. Needless to say, it’s in this level that a lot of the elements come together. We come across a demon in the form of a big, shadowy figure that spits out a diving helmet. Again, does that sound familiar at all?

There is a minor mention of the lake monster in the mental vault below the spooky thorn tower (more on that near the end of this post), but other than that there’s a break in the game where the lake monster isn’t mentioned for a while. We don’t get another explicit scene about it until Raz and Lili meet Linda properly at the edge of Lake Oblongata…where Lili gets kidnapped, we go through the boss sequence under the lake, and enter Linda’s brain of Lungfishopolis. And the final payoff occurs with the Hideous Hulking Lungfish transporting us to Thorney Towers and giving Raz her real name, Linda.

Now would any of that be nearly as rewarding if we had never heard of the Hideous Hulking Lungfish of Lake Oblongata prior to her official appearance? Every single player would just have visible question marks hanging over their heads if Linda just showed up out of nowhere. Deus Ex Lungfish, anyone? But that’s not what the developers did. They spent plenty of time building up to Linda, making her reveal not only make sense but also weaving her into the story so that her reveal is more than satisfying.

There is just one thing I’ve always been curious about, a sort of chicken-and-egg scenario. Did the legend of the lake monster start because genetically-altered Linda showed up and starting attacking campers? Or did the legend already exist and Oleander used it as an excuse to write off any “sightings” of the monster? Any ideas?

Moving on from Linda, we come to the imagery of meat and bunnies.

Without knowing the full ending of the game, most players would think that it’s a bit strange I would stick meat and bunnies together in the same category. Sadly, the connection between these things is a bit on the morose side, and they are actually first introduced at the same time as well.

When I first played Psychonauts, the first time I actively thought about bunnies and meat being related somehow was during the Brain Tumbler Experiment, but that’s actually not the first time the game introduces these. Anyone else notice that Basic Braining has figments of meat cleavers, butcher knives, a pig, a duck, and a fox? I could logic that a meat cleaver and butcher knife fit with the whole army theme, but a pig, duck and fox?

Kind of odd animals would be included in all this, especially animals that are either butchered or hunted. At least that’s what I thought at first.

It is in Oleander’s mind that we first see the “meaty plant” that Lili saves from being squashed by Raz. It’s also here that we see bunnies hopping around the snowfield with the Gatling gun. This early in the game, is this important or just set dressing? I’m ashamed to admit, but I thought it was just weird set dressing when I first played, but it makes more sense as the story goes on.

Turns out it’s important all right, since the next time we see both meat and bunnies is in the Brain Tumbler Experiment. “Mr. Bun” seems like a rather random animal to have in Raz’s brain, but then again bunnies showed up in Basic Braining as well. Is there a connection somehow? Sasha tells Raz that an animal may represent a primal fear or memory.

He’s right on the latter, although a player going through the game for the first time might not know why (and I admit, on my first playthrough, I didn’t). And there’s more meat and meaty plants here. Raz doesn’t directly mention these (at least he didn’t during my most recent playthrough, to my recollection) but they are pretty obvious, to say the least.

So that’s two things connecting the Brain Tumbler Experiment and Basic Braining. Is this a normal occurrence? Maybe these things just show up in brains? Lili does mention she had been dreaming of meat plants, after all, both in Basic Braining and in the cutscene before Raz enters Milla’s mind. Maybe it’s a primal need for meat? Don’t tell the vegans I said that. The Vegan Police would be very unhappy with the final level of this game.

After the Brain Tumbler Experiment is finished, we know that the brain interference was coming from Oleander, but it’s not explained why there are meat and bunny references up until that point. There’s actually no mention of either at all in the subsequent levels until the last. Lungfishopolis, The Milkman Conspiracy, Gloria’s Theater, Waterloo World, and Black Velvetopia are devoid of all meat or bunnies, which possibly leads the player to forget about the whole thing for a while (and when I say “the player,” I really mean me).

In fact, we don’t see any sign of either until the final level of the game, Meat Circus. And, oh boy, Meat Circus.

Yeah, it should come as no surprise that I hate this level. I hated it so much that on my first playthrough of this game in 2005, I rage quit and didn’t look at Psychonauts for several days. I eventually went back to it and beat it, but let’s say I was more than a little relieved that they lowered the difficulty for it in subsequent releases.

But I digress.

We reach Meat Circus, the combined consciousness of Raz and Little Oly, and the payoff of all the meat and bunny stuff we’ve seen thus far. We have Frankenstein-esque meat bunnies, platforms made of steaks, rail grinding on bones, trapeze and trampolines of bones and skin, and of course the dark versions of both Raz’s and Oleander’s fathers, who not only are evil but also become a giant two-headed monster. When Sasha said that problems seem larger in your head than in real life, I should have known it would be taken more literally in this game.

I mean, is it really any shock that Oleander is carrying some trauma after seeing his bunny friend be decapitated by his own father? It’s never said how old Little Oly is, but considering his behavior he is clearly younger than Raz, so this happened when he was in the single digits of age. That’s really not something a little kid should see. That’s just asking for PTSD.

Anyway, back to setup and payoff, which is pretty obvious at this point. We have plenty of mentions of both bunnies and meat throughout the game, leading to the final boss that is both creepy and downright terrifying. Not only does this boss conclude Oleander’s trauma with his father being a butcher and killing his favorite bunny, but it also allows Raz to defeat his inaccurate mental image of his own father. Both of them are able to move forward from that point on. Defeating this monstrosity acts as the ultimate payoff and conclusion for both Raz and Oleander.

Speaking of Raz’s dad…

Raz’s relationship with his father at the start of the game is strained, to say the least. When Raz goes to learn Levitation from Milla, the very mention of his father showing up to take him home from the camp makes him nervous. Not the best sign here, and his other comments regarding his dad don’t make it much better.

Once Raz reaches cadet ranks ten and twenty, we get cutscenes of Raz talking with Cruller in tutorials for Pyrokinesis and Telekinesis. During Pyrokinesis, Raz first mentions that his father, Augustus, hates psychics and trained Raz in acrobatics to the point where Raz worried his dad was trying to kill him. During Telekinesis, Raz reveals his suspicions that his father is psychic as well. The memory vault we see of Raz running away from home only reinforces Raz’s perspective.

We’re led to believe that Raz’s statements are the truth, which is a logical conclusion since he’s the game’s protagonist, but the end of the game shows otherwise. At first I thought this meant Raz was simply an unreliable narrator, but that turns out to not be the whole story. While Raz is an unreliable narrator in that there are a lot of things he just doesn’t know, it’s not malicious in any way. Raz simply doesn’t know that he father really does care about him. That’s the magic of using the third-person limited point of view.

Up to this point, we’re led to believe that Augustus is a neglectful father at best, but it turns out that Augustus does love his son. He’s just apparently really bad at showing it. The very fact that he is the only one able to break into Raz’s “hard to penetrate skull” shows that there is a deeper relationship between them. And Augustus is clearly distraught that his own son sees him as a monster in his mind. Poor Augustus.

I think that a lot of the interactions between father and son in this game was cut out due to both budget and time constraints, because I feel like there is more to be said with these two than what we get in the final product. (I’m thinking we’re going to get more of that in the sequel, but that is up in the air at this time.) This doesn’t bother me too much though, since we do get effective enough setup and payoff that it doesn’t seem like it comes out of nowhere. They do finally talk to each other and express their concerns, mending their relationship…in the middle of a battle with a two-headed father monster.

Clearly these two have communication issues. The morale of this story is that it’s important to talk to one each other.

And this is certainly paid off in the end cutscene of the game. When Sasha says they want Raz to come along to rescue Truman Zanotto, Raz doesn’t just run off with them again. He turns around and gives his father puppy-dog eyes, clearly asking for permission to go this time. And Augustus not only gives it, he gives Raz his blessing and encourages him to “show them all.” Contrast this to the backstory of the game, where Augustus flat out forbids Raz from having anything to do with the Psychonauts and Raz running away in secret.

And if that’s not satisfying use of setup and payoff, I don’t know what is.

That’s not to say that all of the setup and payoff in Psychonauts is perfect. To be fair, there are times when the setup can be missed, and therefore the payoff that comes later can be confusing. The most obvious example of this is the nightmare that attacks you in The Milkman Conspiracy. When I first played the game all those years ago, my first thought was, “What in the world? What is this thing and where did it come from?”

Of course, on subsequent playthroughs, I did find the demon room in Milla’s mind, showing the same nightmares she had caged away. This is the difference between a sane mind and an insane one. Milla has all her demons under control (although notice that they have not gone away) while Boyd’s run amok because he has no way of mentally dealing with them, since his brain is a little bit busy with this, well, milkman conspiracy. The nightmares that attack in Boyd’s brain make more sense after I saw the ones in Milla’s brain. In this case, the payoff wasn’t bad since the nightmare miniboss wasn’t a bad fight, but context in the form of the setup made the payoff better.

Other times the setup can be missed? The other big one is the resolution of all the campers’ storylines. Unless the player spends time going around camp throughout the game and seeing the interactions the other campers have with each other, the little scene you have with each one once they are re-brained won’t make a lot of sense. The love triangle between J.T., Elka and Nils? J.T. and Chops having conflict about J.T. abandoning his best friend for his new girlfriend? Crystal and Clem attempting suicide to become more powerful? Chloe thinking she’s an alien? Maloof basically becoming a mob leader with Mikhail as his right-hand man? Elton and Milka’s blossoming love? …Just to name a few? Yeah, the context of all that is missed if the player doesn’t bother to talk to the other campers throughout the game, but I attribute that more to the player than the game. The developers accounted for this in the story, so it’s more the player didn’t look for the setup rather than Double Fine just not bothering to include it.

That’s just some examples of setup and payoff that I feel are probably the most important to the main storyline of Psychonauts. They are far from the only examples. Really far from it. Oh boy, could I go on about the scenarios of setup and payoff that happen in this game.

Dogen talking to the squirrels, who tell him that the short man is going to kill everyone, only for them to really be talking about Oleander?

Elton saying that Oleander’s recruiting office in Basic Braining resembles a dentist office, only to find out that one of the main antagonists, Dr. Loboto, is in fact a dentist?

Oleander having a mental vault trapped behind some mental cobwebs? Well, he has something to hide, despite him saying he doesn’t when you first play through Basic Braining. Of course, getting angry at Raz for snooping around a room with a curtain doesn’t give off the idea that Oleander has something to hide. Nope. Not suspicious at all.

Agent Crueller having all the different personalities around the camp, hinting as his unstable mental state?

The Hand of Galochio appearing in the lake as a reference to Raz’s family having a curse to die in water, and said curse just so happens to show up not only as a gameplay element but as a story element during Meat Circus?

Raz being able to read Lili’s thoughts when she doesn’t mean for him to, then for him to do it two more times near the end of the game?

How Lili’s cold stops her from sneezing out her own brain?

Sasha’s hatred of tacky lamps having to do with his past working in a tacky lamp factory? Or the shoeboxes indicating his father was a cobbler? Or the bed as the location of where his mother was horribly ill and died?

Raz needing to climb the “creepy thorn tower” in the Brain Tumbler Experiment, only to later need to climb Thorney Towers Home for the Disturbed?

The mention of the town of Shaky Claim on the giant tree stump at the camp entrance referring to the sunken town that is (somewhat) explored during the boss sequence under the lake?

Raz talking about being back in high school in Black Velvetopia despite being ten years old? Not to mention the stories the dogs tell about Lana/Lampita and Dean/Dingo?

Lastly, do I really need to mention the incredibly weird and seemingly out of place mental vault below the creepy thorn tower? A brain chicken hatches out of an egg, meets a fish in water, goes to a circus, gets placed in a teacup, and blasts people to death? Kind of a summation of Raz coming out of the egg in the Brain Tumbler Experiment, meeting Linda at Lake Oblongata, entering the Meat Circus, and getting placed in a brain tank and defeating two people? Was the mental vault a foreshadowing of the main plot of Psychonauts? I don’t know. What do you think?

*Takes a deep breath.* See what I mean when I say I could really go on and on about setup and payoff in Psychonauts? There are so many examples that it’s kind of ridiculous. It could be said that there’s too much of this kind of storytelling in the game, but I fail to see how that is a problem. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, but when it comes to setup and payoff, Psychonauts is not it.

Credits

Screenshots courtesy of the following:

Comic Foil, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN-Y6XDe0oWyhgjcGunJqGw

Global Gaming, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pjsxNSwSSA

StoryGamer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXZ1vDFp_dw&t=139s

ThatNotSoAznKid, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ford0MGvWIc

#psychonauts #psychonauts spoilers #setup and payoff #writing in video games

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dropintomanga · 5 years

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The Potential Dangers of Diagnosing Characters

For as long as I’ve thought about how much anime/manga characters have helped my mental health, I wonder what does it means to talk about said characters in a way that helps someone else’s mental health improve.

With a lot of growing acceptance around mental health in the past few years, there’s something that bothers me a bit and I realize it’s something that we have to be careful of as well.

DC Comics published a limited series from September 2018-May 2019 called Heroes in Crisis, which focused on its universe of heroes dealing with mental health issues (mostly PTSD) in a hospice known as the Sanctuary. A psycholoanalyst was hired to come up with fictional diagnoses for some of the heroes. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman all had various mental disorders listed on their profiles from major depression to adjustment disorder.

Initially, this shook a clinical psychology who uses superheroes as a part of her therapy as she felt that we can’t label someone with a mental health disorder just because they show symptoms of it. Dr. Janina Scarlet, the creator of Superhero Therapy, criticized the diagnoses.

From her post at Psychology Today:

“Perspective taking can actually help foster empathy building and compassion toward others. However, diagnosing characters or people whom therapists have not evaluated in a session can be risky.

Sure, some fictional characters, such as Storm from the X-Men, are known to struggle from certain disorders (e.g., claustrophobia, fear of tight spaces). On the other hand, other characters, such as Batman, who experienced traumatic events (i.e., loss of his parents) do not necessarily meet the criteria for a mental health disorder. Sure, Batman may display and exhibit certain symptoms, which can be found across certain disorders, including PTSD and depression disorders.

However, for someone to be diagnosed with a disorder, they have to meet the required criteria of symptoms over a set amount of time AND these symptoms need to be dysfunctional enough to warrant a mental health diagnosis (i.e., these symptoms get in the way of the individual's functions, such as work, school, social, etc.).

DC Comics recently hired a mental health professional to psychoanalyze popular comic-book characters, such as Batman, Superman, Harley Quinn, and others. Personally and professionally, I believe that providing mental health education using fictional characters can be extremely helpful in assisting people in understanding mental health and recovery.

HOWEVER, such education practices must be handled delicately and appropriately. In diagnosing characters with mental illness without an explanation, without evidence, and in such a blasé format grossly misrepresents mental health and poses a threat to further pathologize mental health for those who actually struggle with these disorders in real life.”

I’m not a mental health professional and here I am, talking about fictional characters with possible trauma and mental health issues. No worries, right? That’s when I remembered something I wrote a long while ago.

8 years ago, I wrote my first post about Yotsuba&! Let’s just say it wasn’t a really great one in hindsight. I hinted that Yotsuba Koiwai had ADHD. The language I wrote in that post suggested she totally had ADHD and Kiyohiko Azuma did this on purpose. I didn’t provide any hard evidence that this was the case. A reader left a comment saying that I had a misinformed opinion about her. They were right. To this day, I felt that what I wrote about Yotsuba at the time was a horrible attempt at playing doctor.

I insulted kids with ADHD issues by comparing them to a fictional child who’s just very hyperactive in general. It was ignorant of me to do so and I’m really sorry about it.

To say a fictional character has mental illness with no solid proof really hurts someone who has mental illness. It gives off the impression that everyone with that mental illness is similar to one another when that’s far from the truth. You only get a part of the story that only serves the person sharing it. There’s always the possibility that there’s more to the story than just mental illness.

All views have to be considered. Giving some sort of unofficial diagnosis doesn’t allow multiple perspectives. I’m sure there are people who watched movies and saw poor representations of mental illness on screen and then go, “Wow, is that what it’s really like? That’s all I need to know right there!” Next thing you know, they say something very insensitive towards a person with mental illness due to media influence.

Around late last year, I went to an Attack on Titan trivia night event. I had a great time as I met some fun people to talk to. So I was talking about what I do on my blog with a person at the event and we were discussing Eren Jeager’s demeanor as of the events that happened in Attack on Titan Volume 27. This person said something that made me irk a bit.

“I know. Eren’s so bipolar!”

I was coming off the heels of taking Mental Health First Aid training and felt that response maybe wasn’t the best thing to be said. Eren’s totally NOT bipolar, but I get why the person said it. It feels a bit too natural to say some things in a cozy way when we have no education about them. Psychology is also a field that’s filled with a lot of pop science and BS. I don’t think shaming those people solves anything.

I wanted to talk about the whole “diagnosing characters” for a while now because there’s various geek psychology outlets that talk about the mindset/trauma behind fictional characters. Even psychologists that aren’t geeks try their hands at diagnosing characters for fun. Yet after a year where I learn more about mental illness vs. mental health and how much pain families of those with serious mental illness are in, am I running around preaching pseudoscience?

I ask this because I’ve spoken to a few readers of my blog who have asked me for help for their inner trauma. I worry that I’ve given off the wrong impression that I’m a licensed professional. It’s unfortunately easy to pass off as an expert thanks to the internet’s ability to allow someone to come up with enough fluff to become popular.

But at the very least, I will admit that I’m not one. I’m also not ashamed to admit that I may be wrong and don’t know everything. I keep learning every moment about what’s out there. Just like I keep my eyes open about all kinds of manga series and their various characters that become a part of our lives in meaningful ways.

Fiction of all kinds (from classic literature to manga) touches many lives. We can’t help but compare characters to ourselves and others. Just don’t generalize your/their situations with everyone else because each and every one of us are unique and complicated. Don’t develop a sense of survivorship bias. Life may or may not be as messy as you might think. Be careful about spreading mental health myths (i.e. chemical imbalance causes depression). Ask yourself if what you hear is valid and whether that information is truthful enough to be worth hearing.

I’m still going to keep talking about manga characters and their life situations not because it’s “fun.” It’s something that helped me realize important things over time. If there’s one thing I learned from reading shonen manga all these years, it’s that you learn and grow in order to potentially help protect a group of people in need one day. To me, that group is a community of individuals who have mild-to-serious mental health issues.

I will be responsible though as fiction isn’t reality. Another shonen principle is to not categorize those who are considered losers, but are just people like us trying to find their way.

After all, in the real world and fictional world, we can strive to never be completely defined by our labels and diagnoses when faced with danger.

#mental health #fandom #manga #anime #mental health representation #diagnosis #psychology of characters #psychology of fiction

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cancerbiophd · 7 years

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Hi do u have any tips for science writing in general? I have to write a paper analysis for a microbio class but since most ppl in the class are in 4th year (I'm only in 2nd) the prof says she's expecting higher quality. I'm worried bc the only science writing ive done is lab reports

hello!

that sounds quite intimidating! let’s see if i can help you out. so these are tips that have worked for me (or i’ve seen work for others based on what i’ve read/edited/etc). for science writing in general:

know your audience. how much prior knowledge of the subject do they know? what is the purpose of them reading this article? who your audience is will dictate how you write your article. in your case, it’s your professor, so they probably know a lot about the subject (or maybe not! maybe you’ll write about some niche topic they haven’t studied yet), they’re reading to grade, so they’ll be paying attention to things on the grading rubric, etc. these are all things to keep in mind when you’re prepping, outlining, drafting, and editing.

structure your essay so it’s a story. just like any other essay, science articles should also have a beginning (intro and statement), a middle (paragraphs to support your statement), and an end (conclusion). usually in science essays the conclusion also serves as a discussion where the writer can finally insert their own opinions on things, and further discuss why the results in the article are important for broader implications.

be concise. science writing is not like some other styles of writing in that it’s best to avoid fluff, unnecessary descriptions, flowery language, etc. keep it short and simple.

if you need to use jargon or abbreviations, be sure to define them (for jagon), and give the full phrasing (for abbreviations) the first time they’re used.

avoid using absolutes unless it really is an absolute. in science, hardly anything is 100% certain. that’s why phrases like these are used a lot: “the data suggest”, “x may be caused by y”, “x has been shown in controlled experiments to be caused by y”, “thus it can been hypothesized”, etc. unless it’s a law (like gravity), then we can never use an absolute to describe it, and biology especially is a lawless land.

related, keep in mind that the word “data” is plural for “datum”. so it’s “the data are” not “the data is”. (i still catch myself making this mistake alskdfj)

like most writing, avoid the passive voice whenever possible, and keep to the same verb tense.

practice summarizing research results into concise sentences for your supporting points. it can be difficult to wade through all that jargon and data in an article, so it definitely takes practice. it’s almost like reading comprehension dialed up to 12. article titles and abstracts help with this a lot, as the authors have already summarized their main findings there. reading good examples can also help (like science news articles from reputable sources–you can see what kind of language they use to summarize key points).

present data in an unbiased way. you may be writing an essay that argues one point over another, but that opinion should not leak into when you present study results. Ex. “60% of animals treated with ABC survived to the study endpoint, versus 10% of animals receiving the control” is unbiased, whereas “ABC had exceptional results in a study where the majority of animals treated survived” sounds pretty darn biased in favor of ABC, and may not be an accurate reporting of the results (maybe the drug actually sucked upon further studies?). Of course, if your essay statement is arguing in favor of ABC, then you can follow up your unbiased presentation of the results with something like “This study showed the efficacy of ABC in a controlled in vivo setting, and thus has promise for further studies”.

however, “laundry-listing” data and results can make for a very boring read, so be unbiased, yes, but state things in a way where there’s a clear direction or train of thought. this part is tough; i have to admit i’m still practicing this “art” (which it definitely is). take my above example about ABC for instance. which one is easier to follow? the one i gave, or this: “Six out of 10 animals treated with ABC survived until day 42. One out of 10 animals treated with control survived until day 42.” you’ll notice this 2nd option is really stilted, boring, dry, and if the entire results section is presented like this, the reader will surely get lost as to what the point of it all is, and possibly fall asleep. so although personal bias should be avoided, there should still be direction and flow. take care to guide the reader.

unless it’s your own opinion, every statement needs a citation. i use the free reference manager mendeley (it has a browser plug-in that adds articles you find online to its citation library, and then you can sync it with word doc and it does the citations for you).

proofread and edit a lot (no one’s first draft is ever perfect), and if possible, send a draft to your professor or TA to look over it and see if you’re on the right track.

phew! that’s all i can think of for now! i’m sure there’s sooo much more that goes into writing for science (and academia, in a more broad sense), but these are just a few main ones from me.

if anyone else has something to add, please do!

and good luck anon! you’re going to do great :)

#Anonymous #advice #sciblr #writing advice

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mlow19ahsgov-blog · 6 years

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Media Assessment of Issue

Article 1 (RedState): Yet Another Leftist Anti-Energy Misdirection: Hiding Behind the Animals [https://www.redstate.com/setonmotley/2018/09/06/yet-another-leftist-anti-energy-misdirection-hiding-behind-animals/]

Subject: The author’s main point is that everything about green energy is either stupid or just a huge lie. According to him, renewable resources are terrible, so therefore everyone advocating for it is really just lying about how great it is in order to “halt any and all productive human activity.” He says people lie so much about advertising green energy, that apparently Earth Day is even fake because it’s on Vladimir Lenin’s birthday. He also accuses those on the Left of using “cute animals” to persuade people to invest in using renewable resources for purposes like global warming or climate change, which he calls “The Greatest Scam on Earth” that supposedly belongs to the Leftist environmentalists. Later in the article, the author addresses the Stand for Salmon ballot measure, an attempt to improve salmon habitat protections, which he says it’s misguided.

Author: Seton Motley is the president of Less Government, a DC-based non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the power of government. He is a writer, television and radio commentator, political and policy strategist, lecturer, debater, and activist. He is extremely conservative and hates Obama.

Context: The article was published online on September 6, 2018. The article is very recent, as it was published only a few days ago. This article represents the small percentage of people who don’t believe in climate change, thinking it is all fake and nonexistent. Everything about the article advocates against renewable resources and protecting the environment, making it only mean much to those who agree with the author.

Audience: The audience are the online community of RedState, who are most likely to be more on the extreme side of conservatism and might not even believe in climate change either. The article would only attract those who share this same opinion of climate change.

Perspective: The article is extremely subjective, as the author uses insulting language throughout the whole article, saying climate change is fake and that those on the Left are only lying to prevent productive human activity. I personally despise this author’s claim because it is downright rude and inaccurate. Sure, people use animals in advocating renewable resources, but it is because animals are a huge reason of why these resources need to be used. The pictures of animals are meant to show people some of the many consequences of using too much fossil fuels and raising the Earth’s temperature, which would cause several species and habitats to be in danger, which has already started to happen. It was amusing to see how one-sided people are about environmental issues, as the whole argument about Earth Day being fake was ridiculous. It’s likely that Motley exaggerated the Stand for Salmon ballot measure in order to invoke even more anger in the readers who believe the article’s content.

Significance: Motley provides plenty of commentary on his topic. Near the beginning of the article, he calls the “ideas for alleged energy – are awful, and awfully dumb. Solar, wind, ethanol and the like – are terrible sources of energy…and are worse for the environment than the real energy sources they purport to replace.” He also constantly accuses liberals of hiding “their anti-energy insanity behind cute animals. That way they don’t have to say “We hate energy, and capitalism, and human activity, and humans” – they can say “We like cute animals.” As Motley still thinks climate change is all a hoax, his opinion on seeing animals and their habitats destroyed because of it is: “So instead we get pictures of Polar Bears and Penguins on ice floes. Oh look – how cute. About which they lie – and say the floes are fleeting due to Climate Change. Oh no – what will become of the cute animals?!?”

Article 2 (HuffPost): Is President Trump the Kick in the Butt We Need to Get Onto a Sustainable Path? [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/is-president-trump-the-kick-in-the-butt-we-need-to_us_58ab1d89e4b0b0e1e0e20e05]

Subject: The author is advocating to go against President Trump’s environmental policies in order to protect mankind from collapsing environmentally, economically, and socially. They explain that burning coal for energy can cause deaths for miners, citizens, and the unborn because of air/water pollution, mining accidents, and the destruction of plant/animal species and their habitats. A list of solutions are proposed like using renewable resources, finding the true health and environmental costs of products, services, and technologies, taxing behaviors that damage human and environmental health and rewarding behaviors that protect it, creating social equality, and strengthening democracies. The article ends off by stating that a crisis like this can empower people to advocate for their climate, health, living beings, and democracy. The author encourages the audience to immediately take action and make changes to society in order to thwart the president’s plan to the nation’s demise.

Author: Ellen Moyer is an environmental consultant with a BA in anthropology, an MS in environmental engineering, and a PhD in civil engineering. She is a registered professional engineer and a US Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional.

Context: This article was published online on February 20, 2017. The article is one year old, and it is not likely President Trump has changed his opinion on the environment or his related policies. Even though the article is a little less than a year old, its arguments are still very much related to the problems circulating today. The only thing that is not as relevant anymore is that people have already started to make changes towards using renewable resources. It is now a matter of funding and spreading its use.

Audience: The audience are the readers of the HuffPost (formerly called the Huffington Post). It is likely that liberals would read this article, as the article clearly opposes President Trump’s environmental policies and encourages people to take charge. The author uses descriptive words to demonstrate her own opinion towards the president, giving a slightly dramatic and harsh spin of what is happening.

Perspective: This article is subjective, as the author‘s message is to defend the nation’s environment by standing up for major changes that need to happen in order to prevent Donald Trump from permanently ruining the nation. I agree with the author’s claim because I believe President Trump barely cares about the environment, and that it is up to us, as the citizens, to do what is best for the country so that the environment, society, and economy don't fall apart. I think enforcing these processes would significantly benefit not just the United States, but the world too by setting a positive example for other nations to follow.

Significance: The author inserts her own opinion throughout the article many times using both statements and rhetorical questions. She starts off with the very first sentence being “For someone with such immense financial wealth—and now power—President Trump displays a baffling ‘can’t do’ attitude and ‘poverty mentality.’” Moyer later asks a clearly slanted question: “Will we continue along Trump’s “road to ruin”—like lemmings running off a cliff? Or will we veer onto a path of safety and prosperity just in time?”. One of the last few sentences of the articles even says “President Trump’s reckless environmental policies have our species heading straight for the rocks even faster than before.” Even the title of the article shows bias, as it is called “Is President Trump the Kick in the Butt We Need to Get Onto a Sustainable Path?”.

Article 3 (The New York Times): A Year After Trump’s Paris Pullout, U.S. Companies Are Driving a Renewables Boom [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/climate/companies-renewable-energy.html]

Subject: The author’s main point is that even though President Trump has made the United States exit the Paris Agreement, many large corporations are continuing to honor the agreement. These corporations have invested billions of dollars in wind and solar energy projects to power their operations, making them a driving force of America’s renewable electricity growth. Many hope that it will be easier by making “green tariffs” (utility-created programs that allow customers to buy renewable energy from specific renewable energy projects) more popular and offered to encourage more people to use green energy, as these green tariffs are limited to the larger companies. As some of these corporations managed to purchased an amount of renewable electricity equivalent to all the power that they use, it doesn’t mean that the company is truly 100% run on renewable energy. The next step for these companies is to figure out ways to completely power everything using zero-carbon energy sources.

Author: Brad Plumer is a reporter covering climate change, energy policy and other environmental issues for The New York Times's climate team.

Context: This article was published in print and online on June 1, 2018. Since this article was written only a few months ago, corporations probably haven’t made much progress yet and are still trying to figure out ways to power their projects 24/7 using renewable resources. They may try to overhaul electricity markets and allow companies to make direct purchases, incorporate additional technologies like battery storage, or even use nuclear power.

Audience: The audience is the readers of The New York Times, and anyone who is interested in what major corporations are doing and encouraging the use of renewable resources. Both liberals and conservatives who are aware of climate change and support the use of renewable resources would likely be interested in reading this article. This article does not aim to please anyone who does not support renewable resources.

Perspective: This article is primarily objective, as the author shows no opinion leaning toward a liberal nor conservative perspective. The article proposes that it would be difficult for smaller companies to run on renewable energy without green tariffs. However, many are hoping for the demand and popularity of green tariffs to rise, while major corporations are trying to find ways to run completely on carbon-free energy.

Significance: Using a lot of money to make long-term purchases for renewable electricity would make the smaller companies have to “create its own energy subsidiary and receive federal approval to trade its excess power, which wouldn’t be practical for [them].” Although green tariffs are often limited to larger companies, Rob Threlkeld, a global manager for renewable energy, says “If we can show utilities that the demand is there, that could convince regulators to expand these programs and allow access for smaller companies.” Seeking ways to completely run on no carbon power is important to many, as Michael Terrell, head of energy market strategy at Google, said that “Reaching 100 percent renewable energy is an important milestone, but it’s just the beginning. We have to keep our eyes on the ultimate prize, which is to enable carbon free power in every hour of every day.”

The 3 articles were not very similar, but more different. One focused on the denial of climate change, another one acknowledged it and encouraged people to do something about it, while the last one showed an economic perspective of how large corporations are trying to switch to renewable sources. The only things that are similar is maybe that 2 of the 3 articles came from reliable sources (HuffPost and The New York Times), while one came from an extremely biased conservative source (RedState). And that they all discuss ways people are persuading each other to use renewable resources. From using pictures of animals, to companies investing money, to public advocation.

I identify with the second article (HuffPost) the most because I agree with most of what is said. As someone who is very against the first article (RedState), the second article is nearly the complete opposite, which is why I identify with it more than the third article (The New York Times). I definitely agreed with the third article, but I didn’t feel as close to it because it was talking more on an economic perspective, versus the second article talking on a social perspective. I extremely disagree with President Trump’s environmental policies and hope that more people will continue to fight for an increased use of renewable sources because I think it’s very necessary in order to protect environments worldwide.

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justsomekpopstuff · 6 years

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11 Questions Tag!

I was tagged by both @jejublr and @lovelycheollie to do this! I’ll answer under the cut and tag all the other stuff here

I Tag: @kpopsinarios , @forever-young-got7 , @jejublr (sorry hun!), @sunnysidewrites (also sorry!), @rosecheol , @bfwooz @softhaos , @jiminyoongs , and @earlymornings-midnightcoffee

My Questions

What is your favorite au that you have read/written?

Add a picture of your favorite meme

What is your current favorite tv show?

If you could ship me with anyone (not in svt) who would it be (there is a reason for this question, just message me if you want to know why)

List the first three songs in your shuffle

If you were famous, who would be in your squad/entourage

Which entertainment agency are you willing to fight

Would you travel to the future or to the past

What would your position be if you were in a kpop group?

What is your all time favorite movie

Post your favorite picture of your bias and your bias wrecker

@jejublr ‘s questions!

The world is in shambles. Society collapsed. You found a book. Read it or burn it?

Oh, read it, for sure. I dont know anyone who would burn a book

Eat the spiciest wing any man has ever tasted or the most sour candy in the world?

Can I just cry instead? Maybe the candy? Either way, im gonna die

Who’s your favorite singer in kpop and why?

Do I have to pick just ONE? Because I love all of them. I love how unique everyone’s voice is and everything.

If I HAD to choose one, it would probably be Seokmin (svt). I don’t know what it is about his voice, but no matter what, it always gives me chills. It’s beautiful. Truly.

Describe yourself with an emoji.

👑 idk

Who do you look up to?

I look up to a lot of people. I guess if I had to choose one, I would pick my Mom. She’s a badass single mom who puts up with my bullshit and she teaches me every single day that I don’t need a man to be happy. I appreciate everything she does for me.

Give me three songs to listen to on a rainy day!

Work Song by Hozier , Habit by Svt , and Stay With Me by Chanyeol (this song has recently become a huge fave of mine)

How many siblings do you have? Tell me something about them! If not, would you like one?

That depends. I have one biological sibling, an older brother who is a string bean of a human (he’s such a noodle). I have three step-siblings, two sisters and one brother. My older step-sister is a theater person, my younger step-brother is an excellent athlete, and my youngest step-sister is a scientist to boot!

Cats or dogs?

DOGS

Pick someone famous as a roommate!

Zendaya. I feel like she would be an awesome person to have around as a roomate

If you were in jail, what would most likely be the cause?

Defending basic human rights at a rally that got a bit too out of hand. I’m not ashamed of it.

How would you want to be remembered by people?

I want to be remembered as someone who was accepting to everyone. I am pretty religious, and I hate that there are people who share the same faith that are so incredibly hateful and close-minded. On top of that, half of my family are incredibly elitist and think that anyone who doesn’t have wealth or a name for themselves is garbage, and I hate it. I want to be remembered as someone who valued human life and lived her life speaking out and defending the basic human rights of other people. We are people. People deserve respect. Easy as that.

@lovelycheollie ‘s questions

How are you going to spend your vacation?

Well, I just spend my spring break filled with anxiety because of all of the stuff that I have due the next few days, so that was that...

But, I have a lot of fun plans for the summer! I have a cool vacation planned with my mom and brother, and then I get to go and see my extended family for a family reunion!

A dish/snack you always seem to crave at stressful times?

Anything sweet. I have a huge sweet tooth, and whenever I feel stressed, anything sweet can help me feel better

Favorite show on TV?

Currently? I have, like, a million. I think the big ones right now are Game of Thrones, Queer Eye, Supernatural, and Brooklyn 99. For dramas, I just finished W-Two Worlds and LOVED it, and I’m going to try watching Goblin (my emotions), and a few others soon.

What do you think is your spirit animal?

A honey badger. Honey badger don’t care. Honey badger doesn’t give a shit yes calling back to old memes. I am small and look cute but I will also destroy you.

Pick a mutual, what do you want to say to him/her?

@sunnysidewrites you have been working so super hard, and i am very proud of you. You always say sorry for taking time off to do stuff, but I’m super proud of you! You never have to apologize for taking time off to do some amazing things. You are awesome, and please please PLEASE take care of yourself.

Are you a morning person or a night owl?

Night owl, for sure. I hate mornings. When I get out of bed I seriously look like i have been through hell and back

Recommend us an app you’re using

I am currently using the app Headspace to help with my anxiety. It has different activities to help with calming yourself down and for getting your breathing on track. It’s been very helpful

What would be the perfect theme of your bias’s overall look?

Soft and sexy combined into one. I mean...can you blame me? Shua has been coming for everyone recently. He is a soft boi but also looks hella fine

Do you have any favorite animated movie?

Inside Out for sure. I love all animated movies, but Inside Out really takes the cake for me. As a psychology major, I am constantly looking for good ways to describe how the human mind works, and Inside Out totally nails it. It is a genuinely heartfelt and excellent movie, and it is also a perfect way to explain to kids how emotions work. Its amazing for both entertainment and psychological purposes, and I am OBSESSED with it.

Show us a picture of your pet (or a dream pet if you don’t have one)

All the dogs. I will adopt all the dogs.That is an honest statement.

Can you give a message to your followers 😊

I love you all so much, you have no idea. I know I don’t write as much as I used to, or as much as I want to, and I apologize. Thank you for putting up with me and my crazy schedule, and for always supporting my work. Please, if you ever want to talk or just gush about your bias or something, feel free to message me. I know I get a little intense but I promise I am always down for some keyboard smashing goodness

#tagged #about me

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freenewstoday · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2020/12/26/15-of-the-most-bizarre-items-reported-stolen-in-canada-in-2020/

15 of the most bizarre items reported stolen in Canada in 2020

TORONTO — As we near the end of the wildest year most of us have ever lived through, it’s good to know that some things have stayed the same.

The sun still shines. Birds still sing. The Toronto Maple Leafs still can’t get past the first round of the playoffs. And some Canadians still steal unexpected objects, often for no clear purpose.

Yes, not even a year spent under various levels of pandemic-induced lockdown could deter thieves from absconding with such puzzling items as ice cream bars, an X-ray machine, or 21 ducks.

We’ve searched through our files to bring you the 15 Canadian capers from 2020 that most made us scratch our heads in bewilderment.

As always, a theft must have occurred this year and been reported to a Canadian police agency in order to qualify for this list.

A GOLD TRUCK, BUT NOT REALLY

One of the most bizarre stories in Calgary this year started on Feb. 1, when police were told that a pickup truck had been stolen from a repair shop.

That’s fairly standard stuff, as auto theft goes, but what made this burgling unique was that the truck had a series of you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it modifications, including a gold paint job and a major lift.

It didn’t take long for police to catch up with the truck, which had fallen down an embankment and was heavily damaged.

The tale took an even stranger turn more than two months later, when police revealed that they believed the owner of the truck had staged the whole thing in order to collect an insurance payment.

A 23-year-old man was charged with fraud, breaking and entering, and mischief. He was not charged with theft, presumably because the truck had been his all along.

THE SLED FROM ‘COOL RUNNINGS’

Another puzzling theft in Calgary made headlines nearly 5,000 kilometres away.

Part of the bobsled from the 1993 John Candy film “Cool Runnings” had been hanging from the roof of a popular restaurant for years. One day in late October, it vanished.

The thief or thieves clearly planned their caper in advance, as they would have needed a ladder just to get at the sled.

Reached by CTV News Calgary, one of the Jamaican Olympic bobsledders whose story served as the basis for “Cool Runnings” said he was disappointed to learn of the theft of the nose cone and urged it to be returned to the restaurant.

STATUES, SCULPTURES AND GARGOYLES

For whatever reason, public art – or at least art that is displayed publicly – seems to be a magnet for thieves, even though it often finds its way back to its original home.

In January, somebody stole one of the three hand-carved wooden bear statues outside an ice cream shop in Chemainus, B.C.

The store’s owner said it was the third time one of the bears had vanished – and, as had happened before, it eventually turned up. One week later, the bear was found on a nearby road along with a note apologizing for its theft.

That wasn’t the only story about a stolen depiction of an animal to have a happy ending this year. A kangaroo sculpture that vanished from a Calgary art studio in May was recovered within days.

A similar casehappened in Nanaimo, B.C. the following week. Petey, a 45-kilogram gargoyle with glowing glass eyes, was stolen from a home thereand returned two days later.

POPPY

The costume belonging to Poppy, the mascot of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Area (BIA), was stolen from a not-so-secure storage locker in April.

A BIA representative told CTV News Vancouver that he had no idea why anyone would take Poppy, because if the thief ever tried to wear it in public, it would be very obvious how they had obtained the bright, smiling, popcorn-shaped costume.

Poppy is a fixture at summertime events in downtown Vancouver, and its notoriety may have helped police crack the case.

Only a few days after the theft, police were able to return Poppy to the BIA – although its gloves and shoes remained at large.

GRAINS

Most Canadians were taught as children that all healthy foods can be divided into four groups, one of which is grain products.

That probably doesn’t explain any of these heists – large-scale thefts are usually more about making money off the product than consuming it – but it does warm the heart a little bit to think that instead of drugs or cigarettes, these thieves were going after something that’s considered part of a well-balanced diet.

Of course, it would take an awful lot of protein and vegetables to balance out 1,450 kilograms of rice. That’s how much was stolen from a business in Burnaby, B.C. in May. A tipster informed police that the stolen rice was being sold online, and that eventually led investigators to a warehouse where they allegedly found it and plenty of other stolen items.

On the Prairies, meanwhile, it’s not unheard of for grain to be stolen straight from farmers’ fields.

Gary Munford was hit in May, discovering the crime as he was preparing his wheat for sale. The McCord, Sask.-area farmer told CTV News Regina that he believes the theft happened over the winter, while he and his wife were on vacation.

CASH, LATER RETURNED WITH INTEREST

A clerk at a variety store in St. Thomas, Ont. received a rude surprise one day in April – and then a happier one the very next day.

Police reported that a “large sum of money” was taken from the clerk’s wallet while they were working.

The following day, though, a man entered the store and returned the cash. He also gave the clerk a letter of apology and an extra $100.

A SPEED CAMERA

When somebody is unhappy with a traffic camera, the usual practice is to grumble about it to friends and family or on social media.

If the camera happened to flag them for travelling too fast or making an improper turn, the driver has the option of fighting the ensuing ticket in court.

We may never know what was going through the head of the person who picked a third option in Toronto in June.

Police in Canada’s largest city reported that a 360-kilogram photo radar speed camera was somehow stolen from its home near a busy intersection.

Under normal circumstances, police said, the camera would only be moved with the aid of a hydraulic lift.

The camera has not been found and no arrests have been made.

PLANTS

The pandemic had many Canadians taking a greater interest in gardening this year, which may help explain why there were so many cases of trees and plants being reported stolen.

“Holy crap, my tree’s missing” was Hugo Huynh’s reaction when his Japanese maple tree was pilfered in May.

Surveillance video from outside Huynh’s house showed a man in a minivan driving up to the property and yanking the maple out of the ground. When he posted it to social media, he received lots of messages telling him garden thefts were rampant in and around Vancouver this year.

One restaurant owner in Surrey, B.C. told CTV News Vancouver that plants had been stolen from her eatery’s patio three times in four months.

But it wasn’t just a B.C. problem. Shirley Horwitz of Windsor, Ont. reported that plants she’d been given for her 89th birthday were uprooted in the middle of the night.

And in Quebec, 500 kilograms of grapes were stolen from a vineyard in Monteregie. The vineyard’s owner said the thief may be surprised to discover that there is no resale market for the grapes.

A PLAYGROUND SLIDE

Suncrest Elementary School in Burnaby, B.C., reopened its doors to students in September – but when it did, part of its playground was cordoned off.

There was a good reason for it: A platform on its play structure that had led to a slide suddenly didn’t lead to anything other than open air.

Somehow, somebody had managed to disconnect and get away with the beloved slide – and according to school officials, it may have taken as long as three weeks for anybody to notice.

SHOES, WITH A POLE

Stealing is bad.

Stealing from a child is arguably worse.

But taking significant time and effort to steal something of little monetary value from a child and a charity at the same time? Is there even a word for that?

The strangest method of theft we came across all year comes from Nanaimo, B.C. – a city that somehow shows up on this list three times.

RCMP reported that surveillance video showed a man spent more than two hours outside a building belonging to an organization that supports children with autism, Down syndrome and other disorders.

He wasn’t trying to get in. What he was trying to do – again, for more than two hours – was retrieve a pair of shoes from inside the building by manoeuvreing what police termed a “long stick” through a hole in the front door.

The shoes belonged to a child who makes use of the organization’s services, police said. The case has not been solved.

A TEENAGER’S DREAM MEAL

Some of these thefts make us shrug our shoulders. Others make us gasp in astonishment. And others may lead to ulcers – not in us, but in the thieves.

That’s the case with this story, in which two men walked into a cash-and-carry store in Halifax and allegedly walked out with a shopping cart full of chocolate bars and energy drinks that they had not paid for.

Police were able to identify and arrest two suspects shortly after the July 19 theft.

Elsewhere on the “container full of stolen food” beat this year, we had four trailers full of frozen crab meat in Moncton, N.B., a Ford Ranger full of meat in Peterborough, Ont., and a wheelbarrow full of watermelons in Chatham-Kent, Ont.

With that kind of haul, we wonder if the thieves were planning to meet up and make use of the 67 barbecues stolen from a Canadian Tire store in Quebec.

BEEF AND HOT TUBS

OK, there’s no evidence suggesting any of those delicious-sounding heists were in any way linked.

But when it comes to the Aug. 30 disappearance of a tractor-trailer hauling $230,000 worth of beef and the Sept. 2 vanishing of a transport truck with seven hot tubs inside, there might actually be a connection. Police think so, at least.

In both cases, RCMP told CTV News Calgary, the trailers were picked up by trucks that were not the ones meant to be grabbing them – but their operators were carrying allegedly forged documents claiming they belonged to a company in Quebec.

Neither trailer has turned up since. Those in the trucking industry say cargo theft is a growing problem, and estimate that it currently leaves manufacturers and distributors out $5 billion per year.

A VINTAGE GAS PUMP

Collectibles are a hot target for a knowing thief.

Everything from comic books to hockey cards is ripe for the picking when a burglar is plugged into the scene well enough to quickly tell the worthless from the priceless.

It must be a much smaller circle of thieves, though, who can assess the value of a vintage gas pump.

But there is a collectibles market for these too, as we learned when one pump was snatched from a backyard in Duncan, B.C. in February.

This particular pump was bright orange, nearly two metres tall, and so old that it possessed an analog dial rather than a digital screen.

A FOOSBALL TABLE

When summertime rolls around, Ahmad Abdulghani is used to seeing people having fun outside his pizzeria.

After all, the restaurant is on a busy street in a popular part of town. And there’s a public square just a few steps away.

This year, though, the vibe was different. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Calgarians were less likely to gather and hang out in the square.

So Abdulghani decided to do something about that. He set up a foosball table in July, and watched with a smiles as passersby realized it was a way to enjoy themselves while maintaining distance.

But the fun came to an abrupt halt in October, when somebody stole the table after the pizzeria closed for the night.

Although there are no known leads for police to work with, foosball has at least returned to the square: an anonymous donor dropped off a replacement table a few days later.

THE SOULAR FUNK WAGON

When police asked the citizens of Nanaimo, B.C. to keep an eye out for a stolen vehicle on April 27, it took only a few hours for them to track it down.

Perhaps that was because the vehicle doesn’t really look like anything else one might encounter on the roads of Nanaimo.

The “Soular Funk Wagon” isn’t really a wagon, more of a cart. It’s partially enclosed, features reclining seats, and contains too many wheels to accurately be called a bicycle.

It belongs to a local community group and is emblazoned with the group’s logo, the vehicle’s name and a pro-climate action message.

All of these features likely help explain why there was such a speedy solution to its theft. No charges were expected to be laid.

Source

#breaking news #canada #canadian #canadian news live #coronavirus canada #covid 19 canada #COVID-19 #ctv news #local news #news #ottawa #politics #weather

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l0oking-glass · 7 years

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Cause and Effect: Part Two

Welcome back to Looking Glass and welcome back to the Cause & Effect series. The purpose of this series is to show you concrete examples of Sherlockian deduction as well as help you over the plateau you hit when this happens: “I know what hand he uses…so that’s cool”. In the previous part we laid out a scene of two individuals having dinner at a restaurant. Then we started making observations, putting you in the scene as if you were observing this dinner for two. In this part you and I are going to take that raw data and extrapolate it.

Why Analyse?

If we’re going to get over this profiling plateau and make deeper, below-the-surface deductions, we have to learn to analyse information. This involves taking the information we observe and putting it through a questioning process. At the end of this we’ll come away with MORE DATA as well as hints to connections not observed in the scene we collected information from. This is a delicate process and we have to remember to wear our safety gear, and by safety gear I mean proper framing. If you aren’t conscientious about how you think you will ruin the data with biases and logical fallacies. You think I’m joking. Don’t ruin the data! Think of the data as your only child that you want to protect and keep pure. Nothing can ruin the data. Biases and logical fallacies will twist and warp the information we so carefully collected. So, for example, if you have a bias against a specific type of food, and you see an individual eating said food, you will likely have some form of a negative association with that person due to the food you dislike. You may come away with the ‘deduction’ that this person is bad or has a particular palate or is mean to puppies based on the food. DO NOT DO THIS. Biases and logical fallacies are natural, normal bits of our existence; however, they will live separate from our logical reasonings. Sorry about that, had to protect my precious data. Now onto the fun analysing.

Seven Questions

There are many ways to analyse information. Who, what, when, where, why, and how. Motive, ability, opportunity. What the old ladies in Eastern Europe saw (which is basically the equivalent to CCTV). I personally use a seven question method. I’ve found that these seven questions fully break apart and examine any and all data that you want to and don’t want to know (if I had to bet money this is how Vsauce plans a video, that’s how far these questions will reach). These questions are:

Divisibility: How is it divided/what are its parts?

Comparability: How is it comparable/what is classified on similar basis?

Connectivity: How is it connected/what else does it connect to?

Disturbability: How is it disturbed/what can it in-turn disturb?

Reorderability: How does it transform/what are the stages of this?

Substitutability: How can it be substituted/what can it substitute?

Satisfiability: How can it be satisfied/what is satisfied by it?

Now before we go right into analysing the observations from last week, let’s test this system and make sure it works. Always test with easily understood albeit broad enough variables. Let’s say we’re analysing a man. Doesn’t matter who, it’s every-man. Apply the seven questions to a man:

Can divisibility be discovered through a man? Yes. A man can be divided into parts like eye, ear, nose, hand, heart, head, leg, fingers, nails, muscles, bones, and the man himself is a part of this universe.

Can comparability be discovered through a man? Yes. A man is comparable to the other men, other living creatures and nonliving things. Certain animals like monkey are more similar to man. What are similar to a man? A man is also different from other creatures and the other fellow men and women. What are different from a man? Man are classified on the basis of comparison as: tall, dwarf, black, white, etc.

Can connectivity be discovered through a man? Yes. The parts of a man are interconnected. The man himself is connected to the other men and women. How the parts of a man are interconnected? How a man is connected to all the others?

Can disturbability be discovered through a man? Yes. There are several factors which affect (disturb) the man. What can disturb man? Man himself disturb the other things in the universe. What can be disturbed by a man?

Can reorderability be discovered through a man? Yes. A man himself transforms through several states. What are the states through which a man transforms himself?

Can substitutability be discovered through a man? Yes. A man can be substituted with another man. Who can substitute a man? A man himself can substitute others. Who can be substituted by the man?

Can satisfiability be discovered through a man? Yes. The man satisfies his needs through his activities. How does a man fulfill his requirements? A man also fulfills other needs through his activities. How does a man fulfill others requirements?

So as you can see this very quickly becomes a full economic system of data connected in all manners (by the way, a basic knowledge in economic will help you substantially in your endeavours to analyse information). So the system works, and it’ll work on anything. Person, place, thing, or concept. Even works on non-nouns. Adjectives and verbs can be broken down. The action of running itself can be disturbed, reordered, and satisfied.

Dinner for Two

We have observations, we have a data processor, now we need to feed carefully. This process is fun, but be warned it can be a bit tedious at times. Here’s a link to Part One if you need to review the observations made (x). Ok, done? So let’s get to it! Remember, we are not making deductions at this point. We’re only analysing data. There will be a few conclusions but that’s part of the connection process. The first thing we’ll do is list the observations in a way that gets rid of any extra fat while separating different pieces of data.

Subject A

Physical Observations

Male.

Work boots; tan, heavy duty, steel toed, dusty albeit clean.

Jeans; clean, untorn, covers top of boots.

Right pocket; outline of wallet, no keys.

T-shirt; grey, v-neck.

Hair; short.

Facial hair; clean shaven, no nicks.

*Hands; rough texture, potentially sweaty, pointer and middle knuckles (both hands) split/partially healed, discolouration on pointer and middle fingers (left hand) as well as around the nails.

Body; muscular/well toned, tanned, 1.8 metres tall (6 feet)

Language Observations

Continuously shifts in seat.

*Continuously wipes palms under table.

Laughs and smiles.

Occasionally rubs nose.

Leans forward with arms on table when involved in deep conversation.

Leg bounces up and down under table.

Ordered a beer; sits on left hand side.

Subject B

Physical Observations

Female

Feet; wearing black flats, well worn albeit good condition.

*Legs; shaven.

Attire; casual floral patterned knee high dress, jean jacket without noticeable rips or tears.

Hair; shoulder length, recently curled.

Nails; well groomed, manicured, painted red.

Hands; ink stains on pinky side.

Eyes; subtle mascara, subtle eyeliner.

**Ears; black stud earring (right ear)

Nose; blemish on bridge of nose.

Body; 1.6 metres tall (5 foot 6 inches)

Language Observations

*Legs; crossed right over left under table.

**Leans back when playing with earring.

Ordered a mixed drink later on and stir with straw between sips meanwhile nodding as Subject A speaks.

Does most of the talking; uses simple hand gestures.

Now all of our data has been stripped of fat. What we should do is put each one of these pieces of data through the seven question processor…but that’s going to take up a lot more post space than we’re comfortable with. Instead we’re going to analyse a few major pieces of information and the rest is homework. You get to analyse all of the data and see what you come up with (it’s actually really fun and it’ll help teach you through experience and hands on learning. Looking Glass lab experiments now available at home!).

Subject A

Work boots; tan, heavy duty, steel toed, dusty albeit clean

Divisibility: Boots are made of various plastics and leathers or leather substitutes, steel in the toe. The dust is made up of small particles of hair, skin, dirt, substitute dirt. Dust is most common and prevalent on construction and other blue-collar work sites as well as border blue-collar field crew infrastructure mappers.

Comparability: Boots are comparable to any kind of shoe, however most comparable to other types of boots. Among these are moccasins, made for exploring wilderness and running. Dust is comparable to dusts composed of differing types of dirt and dirt substitutes such as concrete.

Connectivity: Boots are connected to feet as well as socks. The socks that boots tend to be connected to depend on what the boots are used for. Generally these include tall, thick socks to buffer any pressure from the boots and soak up moisture. Dust is connected to its origins as well as everything it touches.

Disturbability: Boots may disturb what it steps on, which is a potential way to accumulate dust. It can also disturb things by being pushed with lethal force. This connects to satisfiability in what the steel toe could be used for. Dust disturbs things by adding layers to surfaces, making their past known.

Reorderability: Boots can be reordered and reorganised to have new soles, steel toes, laces, colouring, etc. Dust can be reordered by being mixed with other dust.

Substitutability: Boots can be substituted by other shoes and boots. Moccasins are among a common boot substitute. Dust is substituted by other dust as well as things of a similar consistency, such as flour, baking soda, soot.

Satisfiability: Boots can be satisfied by being used on feet as well as used on rough surfaces. Mud and rock are among these rough surfaces that non-boots are not generally manufactured to withstand for extended periods of time. Dust is satisfied by being annoying…ok fine, it’s satisfied by accumulating into large quantities as well as spreading out.

….discolouration on pointer and middle fingers (left hand) as well as around the nails. [redefined: light stains on two fingers and their nails].

Divisibility: Fingers are divisible into bones and joints as well as skin. Skin is easily stained. Stains are divisible into the components of whatever it is.

Comparability: Fingers are comparable to medium to high precision tools and claw like utensils. Stains are comparable to other stains. There are organic stains (such as food), inorganic stains (such as marks from burning plastics), and a mix of organic and inorganic stains (such as stains left from using cigarette’s, which are generally found on the pointer and middle finger of one’s dominant hand).

Connectivity: Fingers are connected to the palm of the hand and to rings and other things the fingers interact with. Stains are connected to it’s components as well as what they stain.

Disturbability: Fingers can be disturbed by being stopped, prevented, or crushed. Stains can be disturbed by being cleaned away or prevented.

Reorderability: Fingers are reordered into spatial and time spectrums. A finger has organisable spatial parts as well as stages through time (e.g., child to adult fingers, smooth to rough fingers, clean to dirty fingers). Stains are organised into stages based on production, varying size, and eventual destruction.

Substitutability: Fingers can be substituted by medium to high precision tools as well as other fingers (such as someone else’s fingers or surgically placed fingers). Stains can be substituted by other stains.

Satisfiability: Fingers are satisfied by being used as tools. Stains are satisfied by the definition of a stain and their longevity.

Subject B

Attire; casual floral patterned knee high dress, jean jacket without noticeable rips or tears.

Divisibility: Dresses are divisible into patterned fabric as well as the floss thread. Jean jackets are divisible into denim and floss thread.

Comparability: Dresses are comparable to other dresses as well as casual outfits in general. They can be compared on the basis of colour, pattern, material, costs, and specific style. Jean jackets can be compared similarly within their respective group of attire.

Connectivity: Dresses are connected to what they go on (such as people or manikins). Jean jackets are connected to similar things as dresses.

Disturbability: Dresses are disturbed by rips or stains. Jean jackets are disturbed by similar things to dresses.

Reorderability: Dresses are organised into stages of production, wear, and recycle or waste. Jean jackets are organised into similar stages.

Substitutability: Dresses can be substituted with other dresses or other outfits completely. Jean jackets can be substituted by other jackets, sweaters, or cardigans.

Satisfiability: Dresses are satisfied by being worn. Jean jackets are satisfied on similar basis.

Leans back when playing with earring.

Divisibility: Leaning is divisible into the energy necessary to perform the action as well as stages it is composed of. Playing with an earring is divisible into the psychological needs to contact an acute tactile surface, the body language provided by such a demonstration, and the earring itself.

Comparability: Leaning is comparable to other body stances. In this case it’s comparable to other forms of sitting. Playing with an earring is comparable to other forms

Connectivity: Leaning is connected to breathing with the diaphragm as well as posture. Playing with an earring is connected to tugging the ear and all physical, language, and psychological observations associated with it.

Disturbability: Leaning is disturbed by physical pain or an outside force stopping said lean (such as movement from other seats), language cues that shift leaning into something else, and psychological needs that guide leaning in various directions and arrest it completely. Playing with an earring is disturbed by similar physical, language, and psychological factors as well as physical factors associated with the earring itself such as a malfunctioning or broken earring.

Reorderability: Leaning is reordered by its various stages, which include the physical, language, and psychological forces that provide a tendency to lean, the process of leaning and the pains and reliefs associated with it, and the eventual arrest of the lean. Playing with an earring is broken into similar stages based on similar factors since it is also an action.

Substitutability: Leaning can be substituted with laying, positing one’s self upright, or leaning in other directions. Playing with an earring can be substituted with other tactile actions, language cues, and psychological need fulfilments as well as differing earrings.

Satisfiability: Leaning is satisfied by itself, the act of leaning. Leaning may satisfy other needs such as cues and pain relief. Playing with an earring is satisfied by itself and may satisfy the earring based on the materials composing it.

Conclusion

A simple observation on dusty boots or a tendency to play with jewelry can yield so much information previously hidden. This new data was not somehow magically pulled out of thin air. It took effort and thought to look below the surface. Now that we have new information, next week we’ll take that per se deep data and make deductions previously unfathomed with the information available. Don’t forget to do your homework! No, we’re not going to punish you if you don’t do it, but doesn’t that make it a little more enticing…a little data processing practice with no repercussions. Have fun analysing! -M.C.

Here at Looking Glass we want you to have as much information for building a potent mental prowess of observation and deduction. It’s important to us that you receive a quality experience. So, if you have questions or concerns, you can send them to us on our blog at the Ask Us Anything page.

Michael Calladus is an online consultant detective and blogger. He specialises in advanced memory palace techniques, psychological profiling, and compound chemistry based deductions. You can read more from him here.

#looking glass #cause and effect #michael calladus #analyse #analyze #data #observation

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praeclarum · 7 years

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"Hotdog or Not" Using Azure Custom Vision, CoreML, and Xamarin

TL;DR I used Microsoft’s Custom Vision service to train a CoreML model and wrote an iOS app in Xamarin to execute it in less than two hours. It has a loose tie-in with a popular television show. Code on GitHub. You can hear James and I discuss this on Merge Conflict.

Machine Learning Is Easy Now?

Microsoft released a webapp called Custom Vision as a part of their Azure Cognitive Services. While Microsoft has been a player in machine learning for awhile now, this new service is special for one reason: it can export CoreML models.

CoreML is a new feature of iOS 11 that enables apps to execute neural networks (and other ML models) locally on the device. While this has always been possible, Apple made execution easy.

All you need is a trained model and all of a sudden your app can do fancy AI tricks - all locally without needing a network connection and without sharing information with third parties.

The only trick is that you need to train a model. While there are certainly pre-trained models online that you can download, chances are they won’t do exactly what you want.

To train a CoreML model, you would follow the Keras tutorials and examples. Keras, while amazingly powerful, is neither easy to learn nor easy to use even after you’ve learned it. Eventually your skills increase and you can use it, but it does take quite some effort. It also takes some money - training deep networks is slow on standard PC hardware. Soon you’ll be buying fast GPUs or paying for virtual machines out in the cloud.

Now with Custom Vision, Microsoft has made training easy. Instead of learning Keras and finding some fast GPUs to run it on, you can just use Microsoft’s web app. They use Azure’s infrastructure to find machines and, most importantly, they don’t require that you learn how to train networks manually. Instead, there is a GUI that holds your hand, lets you experiment, and keeps everything organized for you.

In this version, they made training easy only for a particular kind of model: recognizing the dominant object in an image. This is a classic task for CNN based neural networks to solve because they’re really good at it and it’s a useful capability with numerous real-world applications. It’s a great choice for Microsoft to lead with this type of model.

So that’s the hype. But does it work?

I tried training a new model and writing an app to execute it to find out. Since I wasn’t confident in my success (and perhaps had too many beers while extolling the virtues of ML to friends), I decided to make it an easy problem: hot dog or not. The app would take a picture and decide if the dominant object in the scene is a hotdog. Yes mom and dad, I’m really putting my degree to use.

I wrote my experience below as a tutorial for doing these kinds of trainings yourself. If you follow along, you’ll be able to write an iOS ML app yourself.

Step 1. Gather Training Data

No matter how skilled you are as a data scientist you will always be terrible at one thing - gathering training data.

We need two sets of images to train our model: one set of hotdogs and another of not hotdogs.

Sounds easy right? Well sure it is until you start actually doing it. Quickly you’ll run up against questions and troubling biases:

Is a drawing of a hotdog a hotdog? (Aristotle would be proud.)

Are two hotdogs a hotdog? (What about 3?)

Should I have an equal number of hotdogs with mustard as hotdogs with ketchup? (Should you bias the network towards your a priori view of the world? Are your biases personal or universal?)

Should I have an equal number of images of hotdogs and not hotdogs? (Since nearly all objects in the universe are not hotdogs, just how strong should our bias be?)

Why do people dress up their dogs as hotdogs?

The list goes on and on. You will confront your biases when collecting training data. Those biases will then be passed onto the network you train. You’ve been warned.

Thankfully the nature of this app precludes the need to do much soul searching for biases towards hotdogs. So I made some executive decisions:

No, drawings are not hotdogs

Yes, many hotdogs are a hotdog

Bias towards ketchup because it’s better

Bias towards not hotdogs since people love to try to trick these kinds of apps

Just accept it

Data collection takes a long time too even with Google’s assistance. After an hour of dragging and dropping, I ended up with 75 images of hotdogs and 175 images of not hotdogs. (I could have written a script but we all know how deep that rabbit hole is.)

For anyone who’s trained a CNN before, you know that this is a very small training set. Even more absurdly, Custom Vision only requires 5 images of each type. What’s going on here?

While Microsoft doesn’t explain the details, my guess is that they are fine-tuning a model already trained on images. The idea is that you take a trained model and then re-train only a part of it on new data. The hope is that the majority of the model is general purpose and can be reused. This saves training time and also reduces the required training set size. I’m not sure if this is what they’re doing, but I’m relieved that I don’t have to gather tens of thousands of images.

Of course with all ML, more data is better. But my fingers were getting tired. (Also, Custom Vision is currently capped at 1,000 training images.)

Step 2. Create a Project

You will want a project for each network you train. Projects hold all of your images and your trained models. You will end up training multiple times because it’s good to experiment with different training set sizes and compositions.

Create an account on https://www.customvision.ai. It’s free!

Create a New Project.

I named the project MyHotDogOrNot, gave it a banal description, and then chose the domain General (compact).

Domains are starting points for your trained model. If you are using cognitive services as a web API, then you should choose whichever domain most closely matches your training data.

General (compact) is the only domain that supports CoreML export so we must choose that. Hopefully Microsoft will allow us to use the other domains in the future in order to improve accuracy.

Step 3. Create Tags

When you’re viewing your project, you will see a list of tags. We need to make this list match the types of training images gathered.

Click the + at the top of the Tags list.

Create two tags: hotdog and not-hotdog.

When you’re done, you’ll see a list of your tags. The (0) means there are no images yet associated with the tags.

Step 4. Upload Training Data

You can upload all the images with the same tag using just one command.

Choose Add images from the toolbar and select all of your hotdog images.

Add the tag hotdog.

Click Upload files.

Repeat for the tag not-hotdog.

Step 5. Train the Model

So let’s train this thing already.

Click the big green Train button.

Go to the Performance tab and wait for your “Iteration” to finish.

When training is complete you will see the performance screen with the overall Precision and Recall of the model. In my case, I get slightly better results detecting not-hotdog than hotdog but they’re both great numbers so why fret.

Of course, these numbers don’t mean your network will work in the real world since the performance is measured against images you hand selected (with all your gross human biases). That said, you can use them as rough indicators of the relative performance of one training iteration against another.

Step 6. Export the CoreML Model

Finally, we can retrieve the CoreML file.

Click Export from your iteration’s performance screen.

Choose iOS 11 (CoreML) from the platform selection screen.

Click Export.

Click Download.

You will now have a fancy .mlmodel model file. Rename it to something nice.

If you open it with Xcode you will see its inputs and outputs.

We can see that its input is a 227 x 227 pixel image named data and its output includes a classLabel string that will be the model’s best judgement and also a loss output that will give a closeness measure for each of our tags.

Step 7. Write an App

At this point we have a model file and just need to put a UI on it.

To keep the code to a minimum, I’m going to use the Vision framework to execute the CoreML model. This framework makes resizing images to our required 227x227 dimensions easy and also takes care of numerical and pixel format conversions.

I will also use ARKit to display the camera on the screen. This is most definitely overkill, but it greatly reduces the amount of code we need to write to deal with the camera.

First, create a new Single View app.

Modify ViewController.cs to add an AR view.

// In ViewController readonly ARSCNView cameraView = new ARSCNView (); public override void ViewDidLoad () { base.ViewDidLoad (); cameraView.Frame = View.Bounds; cameraView.AutoresizingMask = UIViewAutoresizing.FlexibleDimensions; View.AddSubview (cameraView); }

Perform the standard management of that view. This is all we need to get a live camera preview.

// In ViewController public override void ViewWillAppear (bool animated) { base.ViewWillAppear (animated); var config = new ARWorldTrackingConfiguration { WorldAlignment = ARWorldAlignment.Gravity, }; cameraView.Session.Run (config, (ARSessionRunOptions)0); } public override void ViewWillDisappear (bool animated) { base.ViewWillDisappear (animated); cameraView.Session.Pause (); }

Add the model to the resources section of your app.

Add code to load the model. Models need to be compiled before they can be loaded. If you have access to Xcode, you can pre-compile your models. Compiling on the device is pretty fast so we won’t bother with that optimization. (I do this loading in the view controller’s ViewDidLoad method but you should architect your app better by doing this work on a background task.)

This also includes code to initialize the Vision request that we will make. Requests can be used for multiple images so we initialize it once. When a request completes, HandleVNRequest will be called.

// In ViewController MLModel model; VNCoreMLRequest classificationRequest; // In ViewController.ViewDidLoad () var modelUrl = NSBundle.MainBundle.GetUrlForResource ( "HotDogOrNot", "mlmodel"); var compiledModelUrl = MLModel.CompileModel (modelUrl, out var error); if (error == null) { model = MLModel.Create (compiledModelUrl, out error); if (error == null) { var nvModel = VNCoreMLModel.FromMLModel (model, out error); if (error == null) { classificationRequest = new VNCoreMLRequest (nvModel, HandleVNRequest); } } }

Add a tap handler that will respond to any taps on the screen (I like simple UIs). When a tap is detected, the Vision framework will be used to perform the model execution.

// In ViewController.ViewDidLoad () cameraView.AddGestureRecognizer (new UITapGestureRecognizer (HandleTapped)); // In ViewController void HandleTapped () { var image = cameraView.Session?.CurrentFrame?.CapturedImage; if (image == null) return; var handler = new VNImageRequestHandler (image, CGImagePropertyOrientation.Up, new VNImageOptions ()); Task.Run (() => { handler.Perform (new[] { classificationRequest }, out var error); }); } void HandleVNRequest (VNRequest request, NSError error) { if (error != null) return; var observations = request.GetResults () .OrderByDescending (x => x.Confidence); ShowObservation (observations.First ()); }

Finally, in ShowObervation we present an alert of the model’s best guess.

// In ViewController void ShowObservation (VNClassificationObservation observation) { var good = observation.Confidence > 0.9; var name = observation.Identifier.Replace ('-', ' '); var title = good ? $"{name}" : $"maybe {name}"; var message = $"I am {Math.Round (observation.Confidence * 100)}% sure."; BeginInvokeOnMainThread (() => { var alert = UIAlertController.Create (title, message, UIAlertControllerStyle.Alert); alert.AddAction (UIAlertAction.Create ("OK", UIAlertActionStyle.Default, _ => { })); PresentViewController (alert, true, null); }); }

And that’s it, we now have an app that can detect hot dogs (or not)!

You can find the complete source code on GitHub.

Conclusion

It’s great to see Microsoft and Apple technologies working together to make adding a powerful feature to apps easier. If you made it this far, you saw how I was able to build the app in less than two hours and I think you can see that it’s pretty easy to make your own ML apps.

If you enjoyed this you will probably enjoy listening to James Montemagno and I discuss it on our podcast Merge Conflict.

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go-redgirl · 5 years

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Why Are Democrats Trying to Foment More Violence? DB Daily Update ^ | David Blackmon

Everyone needs to understand what this is. – We all need to comprehend and digest the full and utter mendacity of what the Democrats and their toadies in the fake news media are trying to use these very convenient mass shootings to achieve right now. They are attempting to brand the President of the United States and anyone who supports him as “white nationalists” as a means of irreparably damaging his re-election campaign.

Two Democrat contenders, Cory Booker and Julian Castro, through his brother and campaign manager Joaquin Castro, gave up that game yesterday. Booker used his New Hampshire campaign chairman to issue a call for President Trump to cancel all future rallies because they are “a breeding ground for racism and bigotry that inspire white nationalist attacks like the one in El Paso on Saturday.”

This cynical, self-serving demand should surprise no one, since the crowds lining up to attend Trump’s rallies continue to attract more and more citizens as time goes on, and serve as the most effective way I’ve ever seen for a candidate to build and maintain enthusiasm. Those rallies are the centerpiece element for Trump’s campaign, and thus the Democrats have no problem heinously slandering half of the American population in order to try to kill them. It’s despicable, it’s disgusting, it’s disgraceful, it’s the Democrats.

(Excerpt) Read more at dbdailyupdate.com .

TOPICS:

Conspiracy; Humor; Politics; Society

KEYWORDS:

fake news; media bias; trump; trump wins again

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

OPINION: Cory Booker is a weak fool. He wish and pray that our great President would give up his campaigning as if that would really happen. The Democrats are thinking all sorts of things because they can’t bet the President on anything. Its just like a Democrat, trying to move the gold post to their advantage. Not happening Cory Booker, not eve a fifth grader would be stupid enough to do that!

Cory Booker, you’ll not only stupid and weak, you are also a foolish and weak human-being. Go find someone-else to play with, because grown-up are running this country. Something you’ll never, ever get an opportunity to do.

_______________________________________________________________

INDIVIDUALS/COMMENTS/POSTS:

To: EyesOfTX Easy - ANY violence perpetuated by leftists (which was both shooters this last weekend) is painted as being caused by not enough government and requires more control.

This is, again, all part of the communist playbook and egregious attempts to overthrow the country.

2 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:06:33 AM by Skywise ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: EyesOfTX It’s all they have left....they have NOTHING else.

3 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:06:58 AM by lgjhn23 (It's easy to be liberal when you're dumber than a box of rocks.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: Skywise You are so correct.

4 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:09:07 AM by riverrunner ( o the public,) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: EyesOfTX The American Left are a Lynch Mob.

5 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:09:55 AM by DivineMomentsOfTruth ("There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." -GW) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: Skywise “This is, again, all part of the communist playbook and egregious attempts to overthrow the country.”

It is, indeed. Recall that many years ago the communist game plan to overthrow the U.S. was made public, and one of the elements called for the communists to infiltrate and take over one of the major American political parties, and that agenda specifically identified the Democrat Party as the best option for that purpose. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

7 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:12:24 AM by ought-six (Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: DivineMomentsOfTruth

The American Left are a Lynch Mob. Antifa MS13 KKK Radical Islam Wonder what they have in their tool box of dirty tricks?

8 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:12:51 AM by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: lgjhn23 I think he left realizes their potential POTUS candidates for ‘20 all suck and are all losers. So they are lashing out.

9 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:13:06 AM by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: EyesOfTX It’s a delusion they have. They actually believe they can get other people to kill us all on their behalf. It may sound incredible but when you have a Brown Shirt Media at your back that can literally transmute metals I wouldn’t bet too heavily against them.

10 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:13:18 AM by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: EyesOfTX

re: “Why Are Democrats Trying to Foment More Violence?”

It is the ‘gut’ instinct of a trapped animal ...

13 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:15:37 AM by _Jim (Save babies) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: mountainlion

You forgot MAD Maxine Waters.........she a racist group all by herself

14 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:18:18 AM by annieokie ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: central_va

After coming out for red flag laws? A government that used the abusive power of the IRS cannot be trusted to blindly enforce equal justice. He just granted the Dems their wildest fantasy, absolute gun control. He made it clear he doesn’t support Constitutional rights. The election won’t matter if he inks this. Frankly speaking, He lost my support forever on this. Obamacare was written long before it’s time... thousands of pages of legislation do not appear that fast. They will pass this so quickly our heads will spin. It will bear the signature of djt.

15 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:24:46 AM by momincombatboots (Do you know anyone who isn’t a socialist after 65? Freedom exchanged cash, a medicare card control.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: ought-six ...one of the elements called for the communists to infiltrate and take over one of the major American political parties, and that agenda specifically identified the Democrat Party as the best option... One hears very little from the American Communist Party these days (if it still exists). Its methods and goals have been fully eclipsed by the Demonrat Party.

16 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:27:39 AM by luvbach1 (I hope Trump runs roughshod over the inevitable obstuctionists, Dems, progs, libs, or RINOs!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: EyesOfTX Because all they have is irrational emotion and no sound logical arguments.

17 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:27:52 AM by tired&retired (Blessings) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: annieokie You forgot MAD Maxine .... George sorros, Epstein, ....

You have to stop some where or you would have a whole list of a political party.

18 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:30:11 AM by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: EyesOfTX because they’re out of argument and nobody is buying their hoaxes anymore either

19 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:32:56 AM by thoughtomator (... this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: tired&retired

It’s because this is what Communists do in order to take over a country. They foment violence, coalesce around a solution that gives government more power, they blame the existing leaders and say it is time for a change, they get their media and useful idiots to help maximize the awareness and finally after they take power, they kill their opponents.

We have only seen this, how many times in the last 100 years? Unfortunately there is a tipping point where this cannot be reversed and we are fast approaching it. As long as Trump stays in office, we will somehow manage. After that, all bets are off.

20 posted on 8/7/2019, 8:37:36 AM by EQAndyBuzz (Trump is President and CEO of America, Inc.)

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To: EyesOfTX The Communist/Democrat Party is on a steroids push to complete the overthrow of our Constitutional Republic.

They were “this” close in 2016...and have now pulled out all stops to complete their evil & treasonous agenda. Massive voter fraud will occur in 2020 - “by any means necessary” - take control.

For those not paying attention, we are in a HOT Civil War for the literal soul of America as evidenced with the continued leftwing violence.

41 posted on 8/7/2019, 9:30:55 AM by newfreep ("INSIDE EVERY PROGRESSIVE IS A TOTALITARIAN SCREAMING TO GET OUT" - DAVID HOROWITZ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: EyesOfTX Because they are dangerous and evil, Mr. Blog Pimp, sir.

42 posted on 8/7/2019, 9:35:47 AM by chris37 (Monday, March 25 2019 is Maga Day!) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: central_va Expect more violence leading up to the election and the media will pin it on the right.

43 posted on 8/7/2019, 9:38:31 AM by JWNM ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Skywise Yes, Dems/RINOs/MSM all seem to be colluding with the PRCs, NK and Iran if you ask me as all of the above want America disarmed!

44 posted on 8/7/2019, 10:02:01 AM by Harpotoo (Being a socialist is a lot easier than having to WORK like the rest of US:-)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: lodi90 Doesn’t seem to be working against average Americans! https://finance.yahoo.com/news/firearms-stocks-rise-mass-shootings-145154194.html

https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2019/08/05/inquiries-into-license-to-carry-classes-up-after-mass-shootings/

45 posted on 8/7/2019, 10:06:48 AM by Harpotoo (Being a socialist is a lot easier than having to WORK like the rest of US:-)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: momincombatboots I would completely agree with you, except the Democrats will over reach because they think they have the President cornered on this issue. Also, more than anything, they can’t allow him to get “a win”. In spite of themselves, they will block it from happening.

46 posted on 8/7/2019, 10:16:25 AM by JWNM ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: EyesOfTX

Booker used his New Hampshire campaign chairman to issue a call for President Trump to cancel all future rallies because they are “a breeding ground for racism and bigotry that inspire white nationalist attacks like the one in El Paso on Saturday.” First we have to challenge their assumptions. Have YOU Eyes OF Texas EVER met a 'white -nationalist' in your REAL off-line life?

One of the tricks democrats use in their war rooms is to write fake letters (similar to fake hate crimes) setting us up to look members of the KKK... Years ago I had a democrat brag to me about how happy they were to have use of the internet to create their fake letters because seeing how flyover Americans phrased things made their letters more convincing.

We have to weight and attack every one of their assumptions. The Jussie Smollett's of the left are many - truth tellers on that side are few and far between.

47 posted on 8/7/2019, 10:31:13 AM by GOPJ (Truth cannot be racist; only evil dishonest reprobates would say otherwise - Mychal Massie) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: EyesOfTX

When the democrats lose this election I wonder what stores the will loot first in the riots gun stores?.

Better lock the crazy ones up now save the country.

48 posted on 8/7/2019, 10:43:24 AM by Vaduz (women and children to be impacIQ of chimpsted the most.)

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somecynicalanimator · 6 years

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Module - Animation Context

During today’s lecture, it was recommended to us that we use TIFFs and PNGs instead of JPEGs, and JPEGs can suffer from compression/artifacting that can ruin the image, making it more pixelated. When reading sources of information, it was recommended to us to recognise biases within the source, e.g. if it neglects other forms of animation in favour of others, favours certain programs over others, whether the source is culturally bias, whether or not it is an advertisement, etc.. When placing sources within an essay, I’ve learned that using “et al” can stand in for “and other authors”, although all the authors should be listed in the bibliography section. Before today’s lesson, I didn’t know about Annotated Bibliographies, and their purpose, dispelling a misconception I had about essay writing and bibliographies. A structure i noticed within articles and essay writing was that they seem to follow a particular pattern of: What? When? Who? Where? Why? How? What if? So what? What next? This should help to provide some structure to my essay and annotation writing. I’ve also been meaning to look at animationstudies2.0, a convenient blog containing trust worthy, informational blogs. I want to get around to reading Animation Survival Kit, which I’ve heard is a very good book describing animation basics and how to animate. I’m beginning to look at sources for my essay, compiling research and annotations on each source.

Anxiety, AWOL Executives and ‘Bloodshed’: How Disney Is Making 21st Century Fox Disappear, McClintock & Bond, 2019

The title of the article is “Anxiety, AWOL Executives and ‘Bloodshed’: How Disney Is Making 21st Century Fox Disappear”, by Pamela McClintock & Paul Bond. This article, by The Hollywood Reporter, discuses the recent developments in Disney’s buy out of 21st Century Fox, and the consequences of their actions. According to the article, the transition could be rough, with potential for major loses. Many people could be laid off (An estimated figure of 4000), with company operations being slowed down or halted (It’s said the studio is expected to release about 5 movies next year, as opposed to about 12 annually). The authors of this article use official references, many given by the companies themselves that are involved. They relay the information from their sources to the audience, while highlighting the problems that could occur in future. This is a current article, being released on the 6th of February 2019, and is relevant given that it covers the same topic as my essay, or at the very least relates to it. As stated above, the article was published in a magazine, which has been in print for 88 years, almost an entire century without stop. The purpose of this article is to inform the audience of Disney’s actions, and the consequences of what is happening to these two companies. I feel that the article may be biased, ever so slightly, in favour of the buyout being negative, given that the article presents mostly negative outcomes for the future of Fox.

Behind the Offers and Counteroffers Culminating in the Landmark Disney-Fox Deal, Cynthia Littleton, 2018

This is an article by Cynthia Littleton, the title being “Behind the Offers and Counteroffers Culminating in the Landmark Disney-Fox Deal”. The article, published by Variety, documents a lot of what has happened with the deal so far. The main findings within this article are the insights into how the companies involved operate, and their motivations for going through with the deals. It also discusses other similar companies that have done similar mergers. The evidence used in this article is based upon official statements released by people involved in the merger, as well as industry and business insiders. It discusses the involvement of figures such as Bob Iger and Rupert Murdoch, the former being the CEO of Disney while the latter owns Fox, along with countless other media sources (Newspapers, news stations, etc.). The article briefly discusses the history and context of Fox, and Rupert Murdoch, providing context for the merger itself. The article was released on the 6th of Dec 2018, making it fairly recent and current. I find that the article is relevant to my topic, considering it covers the same topic as I plan on doing. This magazine, Variety magazine, is considered an accurate and trusted source of information having been in print for 113 years, having began covering vaudeville acts and show business since 1905 (Over a century ago). The purpose of this article is to convey information to its audiences, in essence being a news article. I feel that the article makes a great effort to present the information in an unbiased way, although I couldn’t help but notice the quotes praising Murdoch (Who has been heavily criticised by other people in the past), although most of them were from people close to him such as his son.

#animation context #animation #disney #fox #21st century fox #20th century fox

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coldalbion · 8 years

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Look I get it: Cultural Appropriation & Anthropocentrism

All the posts regarding cultural appropriation from closed cultures make sense - some have proper channels you can go through to get initiated. Others don’t. That’s fine, and people from outside the closed culture must respect that.

But there’s a glib phrase that often gets tacked on - some variation of “People are more important than spirits/non-corporeal entities.” And it is glib, because while the phrase is meant to highlight that structural racism and colonialism has occurred; that it has been and continues to be, damaging to varying cultures across the world, and thus the wishes of one human should not supersede or usurp those of entire cultures? It nonetheless neglects the ontological status of those same spirits and non-corporeal entities. The interactions with those same spirits and landscapes form the root basis of those same cultures.

By glibly saying that people are “more important,” one is privileging humanity over over other entities - whether that be animals, plants (surprise: some non-human spirits are corporeal) landscape spirits or human dead. There’s a word for that: anthropocentrism. And you know what? Anthropocentrism is ingrained; so much so that scientists are now calling the age in which we find ourselves the Anthropocene. They’re doing this because humans have had such an effect on Earth that it’s rivalling major epochal events in Earth’s history - mass extinctions, climate change, geological and atmospheric shifts - you name it. Unless you have been raised in an indigenous society, (and sometimes even then) you’ve swallowed anthropocentrism hook, line, and sinker. It’s as much part of the Invisible Architecture of Bias as structural racism and gender inequality. Humans are the centre of the universe, the chosen species, the ones to whom all other wights and beings are subservient. (Spotting the Abrahamic bias you never noticed, yet? It’s even interesting from a Gnostic perspective - the arrogance of the Demiurge passed down.) Doesn’t that narrative also enable racism? Throughout history colonizers have treated native populations as sub-human or Other-than-human. Even indigenous and historical societies Othered their enemies, often making them out as monsters or bad spirits! Here’s where it gets tricky:

If every single one of us is enmeshed in anthropocentrism, what can we do? I’m a hard polytheist and it’s taken me years to recognise even the potential ontological implications of this. In an animist model, the ontological status of spirits or wights is both incredibly simple and mindbogglingly complex.

It’s simple because it boils down to this: wights (an Old English word which roughly translates as conscious being thus a useful catch-all term which includes gods, spirits and humans) have an ontic status. For those who know your Heidegger, see also Dasein. That’s to say, wights have presence, a Being-There-ness. The properties of a specific wight are distinct from the quality of their Beingness-in-the-world.

Once we acknowledge that presence of that which is other than ourselves, whether that be other humans, or spirits or gods, we must also acknowledge that sense of that presence is felt - that is to say, perceived by ourselves through our embodiment. For example:

I perceive my partner via my eyes and other senses, this perception allows me to acknowledge her presence in the world. I do not know for certain that she is capable of similar cognition or modelling as myself but I extrapolate those qualities from observing her behaviour. However, such observation and extrapolation of her qualities is separate from her presence.

I assume the presence of other entities in the world, even if I cannot directly sense them - readers of this piece, the 44th & 45th Presidents of the United States, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, @wolvensnothere, my cat, etc.

Even though I cannot directly currently perceive the above, I assume their Beingness-in-the-world using the same embodied cognition which feels the presence of my partner. The quality of that feeling, its nature, is irrelevant here. It nonetheless occurs, even if I am not consciously aware of it. It is this occurrence which levels things.

The assumption that all that is the in world has Beingness is now my baseline assumption. It is the root of my life. More than that, it is the root of all things. What does this mean?

This base is my way, my first few steps at an “intersectional” spirituality: if all Others have a root presence in the world, it is as if there is a vitalist commonality. This shared Beingness means that we cannot separate the intersections of landscape, wights and humanity. All are connected by Beingness.

As such, interactions with spirits must be performed on fundamentally equal terms as with humans or animals or other entities. Note that this is not anthropomorphism - rather, it is a fundamental philosophical (and theological) axiom. The properties of each wight or entity must be considered on a case by case basis, as should their intersections with other entities I consider my extended kin-group (friends and family, and connected wights). Over time, the fundamental connection of Beingness provides us a path to recognize further intersections and connections between entities. For example, the genus locii/and/or landwights of a deprived neighbourhood might be investigated or contacted; they might be hostile, and even if not, they might require appeasement, or be willing to come to some arrangement for the benefit of all parties. Meanwhile work with the ancestral spirits of those in the neighbourhood might improve the personal economic situation of individuals who find they can now afford to donate to community causes. This sense of shared community leads to mutual support in times of trouble which means that relations improve, the landscape becomes more well treated, etc.

It is impossible, in this methodology, to separate both the presence and suffering of living communities from their Dead - and even more so in the case of oppressed folks. The memory of the community, the felt-sense of those-once-living held in the hearts of their loved ones, must be maintained, and from that, stretching back. To know one’s history is to find connections; the oppression of today is rooted in the sufferings and actions (good or bad) of the Dead. To bring them forth, to interact with them as part of the world in which we now find ourselves? They are not cast-off husks, having served their purpose in order to engender us. On the contrary, it is they who give us our current vitality. Those slaves who died, those colonizers who took them; those who died in wars, and those who started them; those who loved freely and died of AIDS, and the cops who beat them. All these have Beingness, intersections with the communities in question. This is not about morality, after all.

We are but one node in a net, one arbitrary point made by intersection. There is no centre. To combat anthropocentrism is to engage in a difficult battle, because it requires us to hold several ideas in mind at once: 1. That we, as individuals, are not the centre of the universe.

2. That we as a species are not the centre of the universe; that we are not ‘set apart’; all that makes us ‘human’ is not better or worse than any other behaviours, be they organic or inorganic. It simply is.

3. All our moralities are rooted, at base, in felt sense - even if that felt sense is either empathy or that engendered by recognition of our own mortality.

4. That nothing we do matters.

5. That our actions and felt sense nonetheless create meaning.

6. That we are unaware of the majority of our actions and feelings.

You might note there are some potential contradictions in this list, and that’s rather the point. To be able to hold contradictory ideas in mind and recognize them as such is important. Note also that these ideas are just the starting point I began at.

When idiots try to compare the Holocaust to factory farming? Or American slavery to Roman? Ask yourself why they are idiots. Go beyond the reflexive anthropocentrism; think instead of all those lost, all the connections and interrelations, the sonder of every single being, whether they be Jew, Rromani Black, LGBTQ+ or disabled, or some Other that has been persecuted or enslaved - think on their unique life and story. Think on the way their culture was torn away from them, how their family history was lost. And when that felt sense arises - when you have finished weeping and swearing never again, if you are so inclined - be aware of their presence. Even though they are dead, they are nonetheless in the world, influencing it - as individuals and as a whole. Beingness is outside of time. So here, we return to the notion that interaction with the world as manifold-presences in a particular area is the basis of all culture. These interactions and intersections between wights and a landscape enlivened by Beingness, set in motion the actions and reactions which build a given culture.

Realising this blew my mind; that arguments over ‘existence’ were a blind alley. Cultures form out of particular survival methodologies and customs. That is the first step; ensuring your people stay alive and prosper. Pacts are made theophanies occur; bulwarks against an indifferent yet presence-haunted world.

To say “People are more important...” is to unknowingly benefit from thousands of years of precarious navigation through a living world; to benefit from centuries of habitat destruction and ruthless hunting to extinction; to cast spite into the teeth of ancestors and living indigenous traditions who consider the landscape an ancestor, or fight to protect their land from rapacious corporations seeking to risk poisoning rivers and causing earthquakes purely for profit.

Despite its good intentions, statements such as this isolate us from the living whole, creating illusions of safety and false superiority where there is little to be found - only hard work and clear eyed acceptance of how things are, before we attempt to make them as we wish them to be. Pardon the pun, but the idea of hermetically sealing ourselves off in our own domains, whether they be those of identity politics or living spiritual practice seems counter productive. Instead, we should realize we are merely one of the Many - and act accordingly.

#polytheism #spirit work #kosmic gnosis #animism

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footballmetrics · 8 years

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Football RPF Survey - Demographics

This is the first part of the Football RPF survey report. It’s the part that mainly covers the demographics of the responders. The form had a total of 202 responders, with certain sections getting more or less responses (except for the section start, none of the questions were mandatory).

What is your age?

Of the 202 participants:

105 (52 %) are between the ages of 18 and 24

48 (23,8%) are between the ages of 25 and 34

42 (20,8%) are younger than 17

6 (3%) are between 35 and 44

One person abstained from answering.

More under the cut

What country do you live in?

The majority of responders were from the United States, around 50 of the 197 responders to this question. They’re followed by Germany (17 responders), the United Kingdom (15), France (8), Brazil and Finland (5), Hong Kong and Portugal (4). Ireland, Slovenia, Australia and Austria have 3 participants. Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, Russia and Spain all have 2 responders. Bolivia, China, Croatia, Denmark, Hungary, Indonesia, Lithuania, Mauritius, New Zealand, Peru, Serbia, Slovakia, South Korea, Thailand and Venezuela all had one participant.

What football teams do you support?

The table above shows the top represented football clubs and national teams. Also mentioned: Argentina NT (9), France NT(8), Spain NT (8), New York City FC (7), Chelsea (6), England NT (6), Bayer Leverkusen (4), PSG (4), Brazil NT (4). The other teams mentioned had less than two supporters. Let us know if you want to see the whole list.

Note that many responders said that they support more than one football club and/or national team, and this table represents each time a particular team was listed in their answer.

How long have you been following football?

198 out of 202 survey participants responded with how long they’ve been following the sport (4 non-response). Some responded that they had been following football for “most of my life,” “ever since I can remember,” or “since I was a child” and similar phrases. Without each responder’s exact age, it is difficult to accurately quantify the number of years encompassed by such descriptive phrases. As such, all responders who noted that they have been following football since childhood have been counted together with those who explicitly stated that they had been watching the sport for more than 15 years, due to the common implication that football has figured as a significant portion of their lives.

Also of note is that some responders delineated a casual following for some years before getting deeper into football (for various reasons). For the purposes of this survey, the earliest given date of following the sport is reflected in the chart and the responses below:

Less than one year - 6 (3.0%)

1-3 years - 47 (23.3%)

4-7 years - 46 (22.8%)

8-10 years - 25 (12.4%)

11-15 years - 20 (9.9%)

More than 15 years OR since childhood - 54 (26.7%)

Abstained - 4 (2.0%)

How long have you been in the football fandom?

A majority of responders (144 responses, 71.3%) have been part of football fandom for less than 3 years. This time frame coincides with the last World Cup in 2014, which was cited explicitly by a number of responders as the impetus for seeking out fandom in the last three years.

At least 12 responders (6%) said that they had been either been more active in fandom in the past, have been in fandom on and off for a few years, or lurked for some time before participating. For this question, we are more interested in learning when survey participants first joined fandom rather than gauging an individual’s level of active participation in football fandom. Accordingly, their earliest experience in fandom has been represented, regardless of how active their participation has been.

Less than one year - 26 (12.9%)

1 to 3 years - 118 (58.4%)

4 to 7 years - 43 (21.3%)

8 to 10 years - 7 (3.4%)

More than 10 years - 6 (3.0%)

Abstained - 2 (1.0%)

We were also interested by the relationship between how long individuals had been following football and how long they had been in fandom. Each response was plotted on a graph according to these two answers, where the x-axis is the number of years an individual has followed football and the y-axis is the number of years they have been in fandom.

(The numerical value of 21 years following football has been used to signify individuals who answered that they had been following it since childhood. This was determined from the median age category of fans surveyed (18-24 years), as a way to quantify phrases such as “all my life” without having the individual’s exact age. As such, the scatter plot may be skewed slightly in comparison to the true ages of responders.)

The resulting scatter plot, seen above [1], shows that more people who have been following football in the last three years have also joined football fandom in a comparable time frame. The increased concentration of the points in the lower left of the graph demonstrates that people who are newer to football are joining fandom almost simultaneously to following the sport. It is also interesting to note how much more spread out the points are for responders who have been following football for more than ten years. While it is difficult to determine the cause for this trend, it may reflect the inherent bias of our survey toward active Tumblr users since we circulated and promoted the survey largely on the platform, which celebrated its tenth birthday earlier this year, as well as the increasing importance of Tumblr as a hub for fandom.

[1] The scatter plot has been updated to reflect the correction of minor errors in data entry. For example, in the original graph, two responders said that they did not know when they started following football but had been in the fandom for x years. In this case, the years following football was incorrectly entered as 0. A more accurate representation would be x (or, years in football fandom), with the assumption that the responder had been following football for at least the same length of time they have been in fandom, which this graph represents accordingly. Thank you to KS for bringing this is our attention.

What made you join the football fandom?

Several people mentioned that they joined the fandom because of tumblr, because they saw a meme or a graphic. Quite a few people mentioned joining because of a World Cup or an Euro or because of Copa America. People mentioned that they were looking for a community of like minded people, and that they wanted to be updated all the time and in one place (and this made them join the fandom on tumblr. A few people mentioned they joined for the fanfiction, either by seeing their favorite authors’ tumblrs, or by looking for more.

The consensus seems to be that a big event in football that has a lot of hype surrounding it, also raises the interest of people to join the fandom.

Have you been in or are you part of any other fandoms?

The majority of people have been in other fandoms before entering the football fandom, or are still in other fandoms. Some of the answers we got were of other RPF fandoms like hockey, One Direction, Five Seconds Of Summer, bandom, actors RPF, and others. Some people mentioned anime fandoms, like Yuuri on Ice and One Piece, and TV shows like Shadowhunters, Skam, Sherlock, Doctor Who and Supernatural.

What platforms or websites do you use to engage with fandom?

Following the near consensus of responders who stated they used Tumblr to engage with fandom (198 individuals, 98%), the next most popular platforms were Twitter (115, 56.9%), Instagram (96, 47.5%), Livejournal (64, 31.7%) and Snapchat (44, 21.8%). Fans also reported using other platforms such as Ao3, Fanfiction.net, Pinterest, Facebook, Wattpad, and ask.fm.

How long have you used these platforms to engage in fandom?

When asked how long fans have used the aforementioned platforms to engage with any fandom, nearly half (97 responders, 48.0%) said that they have been using these platforms for less than three years.

Less than one year - 17 (8.4%)

1 to 3 years - 80 (39.6%)

4 to 7 years - 69 (34.2%)

8 to 10 years - 16 (7.9%)

More than 10 years - 20 (9.9%)

Conclusion

The football fandom is very diverse and has members from many different cultural backgrounds and ages. In this way, it reflects the people we watch on the pitch and is a testament to how far this sport can reach. As such, this fandom offers us an opportunity to learn and coexist in an online space with people whose stories we’d otherwise never get to see.

The members of this fandom show their support and participation in different way, either by making graphics or spreading information, or by writing fic, or making memes, liveblogging, or just by reblogging the content.

As this survey was conducted and spread mostly through Tumblr, there’s a bias towards people who use this platform. And while two hundred people is a higher response than we thought, it’s hardly an accurate representation of every football blog on tumblr, because those probably number in the thousands. Still, it offers some interesting insights, especially perhaps to those who participate in the fandom by reading and writing fic, since this is what our survey focused on. We hope you find something new and interesting in our results and the solutions we’ve come up with.

Join us tomorrow on the @footballmetrics blog where we’ll talk about the Reading section of the survey. We’ll be posting sections of the report every day for the rest of this week, culminating in the Solutions section on Sunday. Please feel free to reblog this post with your comments or insight, or contact us through the askbox.

#demographics #report #football fandometrics

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carishio-blog · 7 years

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Let's Talk About Ships in the RWBY Fandom!

I've been involved in the RWBY Fandom now for almost a year. I hopped on after the end of Volume 3, and it admittedly took me a long time to get into the show and give it the fair shake it deserved. When I finally did, I finished the entire show in a day and fell in love with the adventures of Team RWBY as well as the amazing side characters. There are way too many for me to even possibly list, so I won't get into names in specifics. After watching it, I decided I wanted to get involved with others who loved the show like me, and that served as my introduction to the fandom as a whole. I liked Facebook pages and joined groups, as well as even got into the art of role playing which has become a staple in my life. It's lead to me making great friends that will last a lifetime, and I can't thank the show enough for it. However, as I delved deeper into the fandom as a whole, I began learning about something that I didn't realize was so popular: shipping. When I first heard the term, I was very confused about what it meant and what its purpose was, but I quickly learned thanks to a few people. At first, I only shipped Arkos because it was canon for those three beautiful seconds, and I thought that was the criteria for a ship. I soon learned so much more about it and moved away from Arkos in favor of other stuff that piqued my interest, most notably Snowbird thanks to a very special someone in my life. I loved seeing the art of all these different couples and characters together, since some were just adorable beyond belief for me. I had a blast talking about just about any ship with anyone since everyone seemed so relaxed and calm about it. Then I encounter something that I should've been prepared for, yet young, naive me didn't see coming: toxicity. I soon discovered the ongoing war between Bumblebee (I know it's also Bumbleby, but I prefer the former) and Black Sun. This was when I weighed in with my honest opinions on the characters as a whole and discussed what I liked better. I talked about how I didn't like Yang and found her pretty uninteresting, and how I felt Sun was the better option. Those comments led to a lot of people being very unhappy with me, calling me a homophobe for not liking Bumblebee and a hater because I don't like Yang. Hearing hateful comments like that really discouraged me, especially since I believed this fandom was so much different from other ones I heard about. I was proven wrong and since have tried to limit my opinion on Ships (which hasn't proven very helpful... I can flip flop a lot of the time). However, recently I have read a lot of posts about why Bumblebee will be canon, why it's been foreshadowed along with many other ships, and I wanted to discuss my opinion on something important. Disclaimer: This is NOT a Bumblebee hate post or rant. Just because I do not like the ship doesn't mean I will hate someone for liking it. If you can find something you enjoy about it where I can't, more power to you. I love having reasonable discussions about things like this with friends, but I cannot stand when people try to force their opinions on me by throwing their beliefs at me without even wanting to listen to my reasons. So, with that being said let me get to my main point. When we discuss something that we hold near and dear to our hearts, we get biased about it. I know most likely all of you who read this don't follow professional sports, but for those who do they'll get where I'm coming from. When I talk about my favorite baseball team, the New York Yankees, I will get biased about my team and talk about how great they are, even when they are horrible. However, I also understand that my team has flaws, ones that I cannot fix and hope that the people who are in charge of the team will. Ships and sports teams from this standpoint are one in the same. When we talk about our love for Bumblebee, Snowbird, or whatever we want to ship, we will get biased and defend our opinions on why our couple is the best one. There's nothing wrong with liking a ship and wanting to defend it, but at the same time it does become time to face facts and understand that your world does not revolve around it. The show itself does not revolve around it. Even though we all talk about how we want the writers to do something to make our ship happen, most of us understand that that's impossible because it takes away from the show and ruins the vision of the creators. However, the vocal minority doesn't want this. I say Bumblebee is the biggest offender of this only because that's the ship I've seen it the most with. That doesn't mean other ships aren't guilty of this, because we all are. I'm simply going on experiences I've had. I've seen people basically get to the point where they make it out to seem that Blake and Yang's entire lives revolve around each other and their actions are all because of the other person, and that is something I simply cannot stand. Romantic subplots are fine, but they do need to be done right under good circumstances. Let me describe it with one of my favorite pieces of animation: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (Which I will refer to as FMA or Brotherhood from here on out). The love between Ed and Winry is very apparent throughout the entire show, and is even blatantly mentioned by Winry multiple times: once when she's leaving Amestris to go back to Rush Valley and again while at Fort Briggs repairing Ed's automail. The romantic subplot is there clearly, but never does it overshadow the plot. Ed's mission stays the same throughout the show, and only a few minor detours are made because of these feelings. However, never do his motives and character completely change because of his love for Winry. He still wants to get Al his body back and stop the Homonculi after uncovering their schemes. The same can be said for the RWBY Fandom, and it's something we need to understand as shippers. The plot does not and should not revolve around your OTP. We all have different reasons for starting to watch RWBY in the first place, but I think one fact we can all agree on is that the plot is damn good most of the time. The show has an engaging story that is pretty simple to follow (even though there are some plot holes revolving around the science of the world), and the characters mesh into the story nicely. I know I enjoyed Weiss' arc in Volume 4 a great deal because of how much we learned about her as a person as well as her family. We can tell that the rest of the Schnee's will play a major role in the plot for the rest of the series after that, whether it be through Weiss' personal story or even something bigger down the line. We simply do not know yet, and that excites me. I love being left to wonder what people are really up to and trying to understand them by studying their actions. I also very much enjoyed learning more about Salem and her men, as Tyrian, Watts and Hazel all seem like very promising and great additions to the show and their actions. I'm truly excited about learning about Lionheart to see what Watts has planned with him. With that being said, they're the main focus. Team RWBY are the main characters (with Ruby really being protag kun even if she doesn't act like it), and Salem and her team are the antagonistic force. Anything else, including Weiss' family and Adam vs Blake is secondary and side stuff for each of those characters to face. To say that a romantic development between two characters should be front and center or that their actions are all happening because of the other is not fair. Characters have their own goals and aspirations that do not revolve around their "lover". This is a problem that I see a a majority of the time. People make it look like their ship is taking the spotlight of the character, and it should clearly be seen that a romantic relationship is growing because of it. That is not the case at all. That should never be the case, because then you are left with a very weak character with nothing remotely relatable about them or even likable in most cases. Personal feelings aside for Yang and Blake (since I prefer one a lot more than the other), both do have goals that drive them: Yang wants to find her mother and be a good sister for Ruby, while Blake wants to stop Adam and take back the White Fang. These goals are what these characters stand for and want to accomplish, and anything else is really secondary. Love is not in their foreseeable futures in my opinion, just like basically the entire rest of the cast. A show that revolves around romance (unless it is a romance genre theme) is not interesting unless there is good plot behind it. Shows like FMA, Samurai Jack, Hunter X Hunter and Avatar represent this very well. While there are some romantic themes if any at all that show up in it, they never overshadow the plot and character growth, and never does the romance cause a character to change completely and help them grow. That should never be the case in shows like this, since at least for me that's a cop out and a weak excuse for character development. We watch RWBY for great story telling and interesting characters, not romance. A ship is nice, but it shouldn't be your main focus. Your life will not end because your OTP didn't become canon. The show will not be ruined for you either, and if it is I can say you weren't truly a fan of the show. A real fan wouldn't let something so meaningless ruin something so great for them. No matter what you ship, I will respect your opinion and not discourage you from liking it. I want everyone to have an enjoyable and fun experience in the fandom like I have had for almost a year now. However, I also want people to be educated and understand that we cannot let a ship ruin a show for someone or let it dictate how we view characters. We as a whole need to understand that our OTPs aren't what dictate the show. Don't let your personal bias cloud your mind and make you think irrationally. Understand that everyone has different views, and just because you throw up a chart or long passage about why your OTP makes the most sense and while it will be canon no matter what you say, it doesn't mean everyone will agree with you. We as humans do not accept definitive answers, and what I am saying here is not a definitive answer to shipping wars in the fandom. I simply just want people to see that we need to be educated and appreciate the show instead of fighting over a ship or making people see how your way is best. For those that took the time to read this post, thank you. I hope you learned something from this and can move on more knowledgeable than when you started. I love you guys as a fandom and hate seeing people ruining it for others as well as trying to ruin it for me because they want to make their opinion the only right one. I understand this is the internet and nobody can agree on it, but I just wanted to voice my opinion on the matter and make us all view Ships in a different light. They're fun to think about, but don't let it dictate your love for the show. I love you RWBY Fandom, and let's keep moving forward and always strive to improve and help each other out. -Carishio

#rwby #shipping #bumbleby rwby #rwby arkos #snowbird #WhiteRose #fandom

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