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royalbangtanclan · 6 years ago

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I have been waiting for an article like this. What a relief it was to read it. As much as I appreciate the hype and attention the group is getting in whatever capacity so that their dreams are achieved, watching interviews where interviewers clearly have not researched the group is honestly painful and disrespectful. They undermine the intelligence and artistry of the group and their fanbase. They ask them the usual fan fodder questions: unflattering and intrusive questions about their fans, their love/sex life -- the typical things one would ask a manufactured boyband as if the boys have no creative licence or insightful explorations to offer. It makes me cringe.

As attractive as the group is, that is not what brought me and many others here. During my very first watch of 'Idol', despite the flashy visuals, I initially read the lyrics. I was so intrigued; it did not read like a typical pop song at all. A rudimentary Google search led me to discover just how much of their own work they write and produce. My heart was actually pounding when I read over lyrics before hearing the songs as if they were poetry; and it really is poetry. I then found the song that accompanied the words, listened, and read again. What was being said in the songs genuinely resonated with me. Bapsae and First Love were especially powerful for me to read and hear on a personal level. It was a little frightening and almost cathartic to read some of my innermost submerged thoughts brought to the surface by someone else like that. The beautiful visuals and attention to detail were an added bonus.

When I got my first copy of their Love Yourself: Answer album I immediately flipped to the credits. I have been studying music and pop culture for decades now and I am still astounded by the level of work and thought they personally put into the creation of their music. The writing, the performing, the recording, the actual composition of original music. It is seldom done so authentically, especially for a group with their level of stardom power. And most impressive of all, they have always done it this way, even when they were just starting out. They were authentic artists from scratch; it's what got RM through the doors of BitHit in the first place. He was composing music by the time he was 14. That's especially rare in this day and age that they would hold out in the name of authenticity. Compounded with their good looks, it would have been so easy for them to simply let someone else speak for them, take the money and fame and run. But that's not what this group is about. They held out and worked tirelessly to tell their own stories in the name of honesty and integrity.

So many of the groups and singers I adore from the 50's, 60's, 70's -- even in writing and creating their own music, a significant portion of them did not attempt or thoroughly delve into the art of self-production. It's so rare. These Korean musicians are artists who are writing about things unique to our generation; things people don't want to publicly talk about, things that desperately need to be said that aren't being said by other artists. It embarrasses me when all of their hard work and efforts are reduced to their physical appearance or popularity.

As she mentions in the article, this is not an unheard of theme. It is something that frequently happens in art predominantly consumed by women; look at how our society perceives fan fiction, or romantic comedies and novels; look at how demonized Disco was as it lent power and a voice to female and lgbt artists and audiences. There is a tendency to attempt to discredit art and artists who create work that just so happens to speak and give power to a largely female audience and that isn't a coincidence.

This writer completely encapsulates the artistic direction, political standpoints, and socio-cultural relevance of what BTS are doing without discrediting their artistic integrity on the basis of their visuals, appeal to women, or fluency in English. Like many artists before them who wield such power over their audience, their message threatens the norm and status quo by encouraging others to think individually, have self respect, self discovery, self love. That we need not conform to predetermined expectations and guidelines and instead find our own path. That is a powerful truth to offer the world. It is disappointing that many individuals writing on them in the media are missing that due to lack of research or a lack of effort to overcome the language barrier as well as boyband stereotypes and misconceptions. It is such a profoundly sad missed opportunity.

They did it to Little Richard in the 1950's: They publicly insulted and shamed him, questioning his credibility and worth as both a man and an artist who composed some of the most iconic rock songs in music due to the fact that he wore makeup and embraced aspects of femininity. Sound familiar?

They did it to The Beatles in the early sixties; the press hardly talked about them as viable, serious musicians until they made the decision to step back from touring in 1966 and exclusively dedicate their time and focus to studio work. If you look at interviews with the Beatles during the height of Beatlemania you will see a pattern; that same embarrassing line of questioning that focuses entirely on their physical appearances, "crazy" fanbase, attention from women, love lives -- with so little interest and research done about their work and original compositions. Again, sound familiar?

During the height of Queen in the seventies the incredible, ground-breaking work they were bringing to the world stage was often left to the wayside in interviews with interviewers asking rude and pervasive questions about the nature of Freddie Mercury's sex life. Again, sound familiar?

When artists challenge the status quo publicly, those who wish to maintain it (the silver spoons) seek out ways to discredit the artistic integrity of those who do in an effort to dampen their credibility; because if you paint a person with power in an unflattering light, you may convince others that what they have to say doesn't matter.

Mark my words; as the members of BTS get older their production levels and creative licence will inevitably mature and grow with them. BTS has what a lot of other famous artists in their position do not have: experience in the field of composition and production. Even if many individuals are not ready to take them seriously as artists now, believe me when I say that as long as BTS stick to their guns and continue to push boundaries and create authentically, there will eventually be no other choice but to hear them out and acknowledge them for their artistic integrity and socio-political influence.

I know I just wrote a novel here, but I hope that everyone understands how rare and important BTS are as artists; that what is being done to them has also been done to some of the most well-respected and revered artists of our time. I'm not comparing their work, I'm comparing their experiences based on levels of fame. Not many people achieve the level of fame that BTS has, but there is a history of invalidation aimed at artists who do reach it, especially those who write the hard conversations into their music and maintain artistic integrity.

With that said, what BTS is doing right now has also never been done before. I know the ARMY has been there for them long before they were famous and I also know that they will be there for them as they continue to grow and mature as people and artists. Don't let yourself get discouraged by the attitudes of those who are not yet ready to accept them as viable musicians and artists; they have the advantage of speaking for themselves. Those who seek to discredit them will end up on the wrong side of history as they always do, and BTS has already broken enough ground and set records that will secure them on the right side of it.

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holytheoristtastemaker · 5 years ago

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Taking your first steps in programming is like picking up a foreign language. At first, the syntax makes no sense, the vocabulary is unfamiliar, and everything looks and sounds unintelligible. If you’re anything like me when I started, fluency feels impossible.

I promise it isn’t. When I began coding, the learning curve hit me — hard. I spent ten months teaching myself the basics while trying to stave off feelings of self-doubt that I now recognize as imposter syndrome. It wasn’t until I started going to beginner-friendly meetups that I realized how coding collaboratively opens up amazing possibilities. You just need the right community of people to practice with.

For me, that community was Founders and Coders, the free JavaScript bootcamp that helped me to switch my career from copywriting to coding. Even now, less than a year after completing the course, I can hardly believe I’m being paid to develop software.

Collaborative coding is all about tackling problems and discovering solutions together. It encompasses techniques like pair programming, which several tech companies take seriously enough to screen for during their interview processes. It also cultivates useful skills that are tough to learn if all you’re doing is coding alone at home.

Whether you’re just starting out in the tech industry or you have several years of experience under your belt, collaborative coding never stops being useful. In this article, we’ll look at how these evergreen skills equip you for a long and successful career in software development.

Perfect Pairing

My first experience of pair programming was at a meetup for beginners called Coding For Everyone. Here’s how it works: people pair up, often with people they’ve never met, to solve JavaScript challenges together at the same laptop. One person assumes the role of the ‘navigator’ and proposes the code they think should be written. The other person, the ‘driver’, types out their suggestions on the laptop and asks questions whenever something isn’t clear. You continue doing this, swapping roles frequently, until the end of the two-hour session.

In theory, it was simple. In practice, not so much.

I found it quite distracting to have someone I didn’t know watching my screen while I typed, and I was reluctant to hand over control when it was time to swap roles. I found navigating even trickier. When an idea cannot go from your head into the computer without first going through your partner’s hands, every word that you say matters. It demanded a degree of communication from us both that we simply weren’t used to, and I felt sure we’d both learn more if we split up to work separately.

Fortunately, we stuck with it; I went again to the meetup the following week. I’ve since spent hundreds of hours pairing with dozens of developers, and I’ve learned more than I initially thought possible.

Pair programming is an incredibly fast way to learn. The magic of the method — once you get over the initial awkwardness — is that it yields immediate results. Some feedback loops, like bubbles in the stock market, can take hours, days, or even months to produce a correction. Pair programming takes minutes, if not seconds. When you misplace a semicolon, two pairs of eyes can spot the mistake faster than one. Need to search StackOverflow for clues about a rogue error message? You and your partner can each read different threads, halving the time it takes to find an answer.

The pair programming feedback loop (Large preview)

For even trickier problems, mob programming can be a further step up. This method requires a cross-functional section of a team to gather around the same computer screen and brainstorm solutions in realtime while one person types.

“All the brilliant minds working on the same thing, at the same time, in the same space, on the same computer.” — Woody Zuill, Agile Coach and Mob Programming Trainer

While it might seem like an inefficient way to work, mob programming advocates such as Woody Zuill say it can actually save time by eliminating the need for individual code reviews because everyone reviews the code in realtime as it’s being written. Productivity aside, I think mobbing is a fantastic way to learn not just about the code, but about how other people approach problems. If pair programming doubles the number of perspectives you’re exposed to, mob programming yields even more insights.

Sometimes, ten heads are better than two. (Large preview)

That’s not to say that pairing — or indeed mobbing — is plain sailing. Something I struggled with initially was putting my ego to one side to ask questions that I thought might sound stupid. In these situations, it’s good to remember that your partner might be having the same thoughts, especially if you’re both just starting out.

If you find yourself pairing with someone more senior, perhaps at work, don’t be afraid to pick their brains and impress them with your inquisitiveness. Even someone who is only a bit further ahead than you might think of things that wouldn’t occur to someone more senior. Some of my favorite pair programmers only have a few months more experience than me, yet they always seem to know exactly which mistakes I’m about to make and how to steer me in the right direction. When these developers say there’s no such thing as a silly question, they really mean it. The best pair programmers speak freely, without the need to appear fantastic or the fear of looking foolish.

Pair programming takes practice, but it’s worth perfecting. Studies show that programmers who pair to solve problems tend to be more confident, productive, and engaged with their work. Whether you’re looking for your next job or you’re onboarding new hires, pairing is caring.

Resources And Further Reading

“Pair Programming Roles,” Jordan Poulton, GitHub

“The Friendship That Made Google Huge,” James Somers, The New Yorker

“Mob Programming: A Whole Team Approach,” Woody Zuill, YouTube

Engineering Empathy

When I started teaching myself JavaScript, my code looked a lot like my bedroom floor: I’d let it get messier and messier until I had no choice but to tidy it. As long as my web browser could understand it, I didn’t care how it looked.

It wasn’t until I started reviewing other people’s code that I realized I needed to show a lot more empathy for the people reviewing mine.

Empathy might be the most underrated tool in any developer’s arsenal. It’s the reason why IDEO puts user research at the center of their design process, and why Etsy asks their designers and product managers to do an engineering rotation. Empathy emerges when we have the opportunity to see how our work impacts other people. No wonder collaborative coding is such a great way to build it.

Peer code review — the act of checking each other’s code for mistakes — calls on us to exercise empathy. As the reviewer, it’s important to recognize that someone has gone to considerable effort to write the code that you are about to critique. As such, try to avoid using phrases that might imply judgment or trivialize their work. When you refer to their code, you want to show them the specific functions and lines that you have questions about, and suggest how they might refactor it. Sharing learning resources can also be more helpful than spoon-feeding a solution. Some of the most useful feedback I’ve received from code reviews has come in the form of educational articles, videos, and even podcast recommendations.

Writing good documentation for your code also goes a long way. An act as simple as creating a readme with clear installation instructions shows empathy for anyone who needs to work with your code. GitHub founder Tom Preston-Werner advocates a readme-first approach to development.

“A perfect implementation of the wrong specification is worthless. By the same principle, a beautifully crafted library with no documentation is also damn near worthless. If your software solves the wrong problem or nobody can figure out how to use it, there’s something very bad going on.” — Tom Preston-Werner, GitHub Founder

I’ve also spoken with tech founders who treat documentation as an essential part of successful onboarding. One CTO said that if a junior developer struggles to reach a level of productivity within six months of joining his team, it points towards the codebase not being well documented enough. It only takes a few seconds to add an explanatory comment to a complex function you’ve written, but it could save the next person who joins your team hours of effort.

Resources And Further Reading

“On Empathy & Pull Requests,” Slack Engineering, Medium

“Readme Driven Development,” Tom Preston-Werner, GitHub

“What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team,” Charles Duhigg, The New York Times Magazine

Agile Achievement

From the millions of man-hours that go into making CGI movies to the intense development crunches leading up to big-budget video game releases, towering technical achievements take a mind-boggling amount of effort. The first time I saw my current employer’s codebase, I was floored by the enormity of it all. How on earth did anybody build this?

The answer is that everybody can build a lot more than anybody, given the right collaborative framework. In companies that encourage collaborative coding, the software doesn’t emerge from the efforts of a lone genius. Instead, there are ways of working together that help great teams to do amazing work. Developers at Founders and Coders practice a popular software development methodology known as ‘Agile’, and in my experience, it puts the ‘functional’ in cross-functional development teams.

Entire books have been written about Agile, but here is a summary of the core concepts:

A product development team breaks down large pieces of work into small units called ‘user stories’, prioritizes them, and delivers them in two-week cycles called ‘sprints’.

For as long as the project continues, the cycles repeat, and new product requirements get fed into a backlog of tasks for future sprints.

The team holds daily standup meetings to discuss their progress and address any blockers.

The process is both incremental and iterative: the software is built and delivered in pieces and refined in successive sprints.

A typical Agile workflow (Large preview)

As a chronic tinkerer whose solo hobby projects often succumb to ‘feature creep’, I know how easy it is to waste time building the things that no one ever uses. I love the way that Agile forces you to prioritize user stories so that the entire team can focus on delivering features that your users actually care about. It’s motivating to know that you’re all united around the common goal of building a product or service that will continue to have a life after you finish working on it.

Splitting tasks into small user stories also happens to be a great way to timebox pair programming sessions. No matter how deep in the zone you find yourselves, finishing up work on a key feature is always a nice reminder to step away from your desks and take a break. Agile lends structure to collaborative coding where it could otherwise be lacking.

Meanwhile, daily standups give you the freedom to talk about anything that is holding you back, and sprint retrospectives provide space to share key wins and pinpoint where the team could improve. These ceremonies foster a sense of collaboration and accountability, and help us to learn more together than we could by ourselves.

Putting all of these Agile principles into practice can be challenging, especially when no one in a team is used to this way of working. At Founders and Coders, it takes most students a while to get into the habit of doing daily standups. However, after 18 weeks of project-based practice, you find that your processes and communication skills improve immensely. By the time you take on your first client work, you’ve formed a much clearer mental model of how to approach building a full-stack web app in a team.

The best way to learn Agile is to build interesting projects with other people. Attending hackathons is an excellent way to connect with potential collaborators. Many open-source projects make their kanban project boards public, so you can see which GitHub issues different contributors are working on. Several welcome contributions from beginners, and you can often assign yourself to open issues and begin raising pull requests.

Since most tech companies subscribe to some form of Agile, it’s not uncommon for employers to ask about it in interviews. Any experience you have can set you apart from other applicants who may never have coded collaboratively, let alone with Agile in mind.

Resources And Further Reading

“What Is Agile?,” Steve Denning, Forbes

“Embracing Agile,” Darrell K. Rigby, Jeff Sutherland, Hirotaka Takeuchi, Harvard Business Review

“Awesome First Pull Request Opportunities,” Shmavon Gazanchyan, Deloitte Digital

Remote Collaborative Coding Tool Recommendations

In the last several years, remote working tools have advanced to the point that prominent companies like Gatsby and Zapier are now “remote first”. While it remains to be seen whether this will turn into a trend, it’s safe to say that remote development teams are here to stay.

In that spirit, here are some tools that can help you and your team code collaboratively from afar:

Markdown Editors HackMD The killer feature is that you can turn markdown documents into slideshow presentations with next to no effort. Borrows from the popular reveal.js library. StackEdit A collaborative online editor with a clean UI and lots of file export options. Code Editors CodeSandbox A fantastic collaborative cloud-based code editor that you run in your browser, with no installation needed. Live Share A neat extension for the popular Microsoft Visual Studio Code editor that supports real time editing and debugging of files inside the same workspace. Video Conferencing Solutions Google Hangouts Superb Google Calendar integration makes it a cinch to schedule video calls. Microsoft Teams Video conferencing software that offers really good call quality (1080p video), and supports up to 250 simultaneous participants.

If you take one thing away from reading this article, I want it to be that team players trump individual contributors. In a field where there seems to be a hot new framework to master every other week, our technical skills age in a way that our soft skills don’t. The upshot is that developers who can work well with other people will always find their abilities are in demand. Collaborative coding isn’t just an effective way to learn; it’s a sought after skill set that anyone can develop with enough practice and patience.

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blyanten · 8 years ago

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THE DUCK AVENGER PK2: #2 JUST A LITTLE FEAR

These new covers are ugly.

Donald is heading down to his old refuge, thinking that it’s the latest strange thing in a long line of strange things.

To his surprise, One is waiting in the basement.

Between this and the later “dream”, I think the Avenger just might be having trouble dealing with One not being there.

He needs to tell Donald something very important, but an alarm goes off, and Donald must turn it off before he can hear what One has to say.

The scene changes to reality, revealing it all to a dream. Donald’s nephews walk in to make sure their uncle is up in time for work and to turn off the alarm so they can go back to sleep. Donald bemoans the hour and the terrible, rainy weather, before he presumably gets going.

Somewhere else someone is waking up, having a bit of trouble seeing. A blurry blonde guy introduces himself as Hobey saying he lives "here". Here are the sewers, and when asked for a name, mystery person looks at a pipe saying "Profu-", covering the rest of the word with their hand.

Donald arrives at work, only to meet Tempest, who informs him that all shifts are doubled. There’s been a series of robberies, and the security needs to be increased since current levels have failed to deal with it. It’s hit the electronic department hardest, but since some of that, like TVs, are stuff that’s hard to walk out the front door with, they have no idea where the thieves are coming from.

At this point, they’ve arrived at the electronics department, where staff is busy getting ready for the day. This includes turning on the TVs and exposing everyone to Angus. First thing in the morning too, and Donald claims to right to complain about this, since he knows Angus personally.

The big news of the day is Ducklair Enterprises being back on the economics scene. Which would normally be great for the news, but Everett has been impossible to reach and no one working for him is talking to journalists, leaving them with basically no information.

Angus is annoyed.

Business as usual, in other words.

Lyla...

...makes a bit fun of him, but Angus is annoyed enough that he’s going to take the elevator upstairs and get some answers.

Upstairs, the offices are still being built, but there is a secretary in place. She tells Angus that he needs to talk to their press office. She is then really sorry to inform him that the press office doesn’t exist yet.

Fluency in sarcasm is a requirement when working for Ducklair Enterprises.

Before Angus can have a rage stroke, Birgit Q walks in, and makes a heroic effort at kicking Angus out. Angus whips out a camera, expecting the opportunity to get some violence on tape or Birgit backing down. Neither happens, as Anymore Boring walks by, and Birgit, excusing herself from dealing with "a reporter so skilled and demanding" as Angus immediately hand it over to Anymore.

Thus two more important players have been introduced.

“Well, first we must define clearly every single word coming out of your mouth.”

After Anymore has nitpicked Angus into submission, Angus is back at the new with nothing but insinuations about Ducklair Enterprises being up to something. Maybe. Moving onto Everett himself Angus asks the questions that probably a lot of other people have been asking. Where has he been? Why is he back? What kind of threat has he brought with him?

Okay, the last one is probably only Angus (unless you’re a competitor of Ducklair Enterprises, I guess), but in the sewers, mystery person agrees. Only that they change it from "what threats" to "who".

Hobey returns, and we get a better look at where they are. There’s a bunch of TVs up against the wall, explaining the mystery thefts and the place is soaked.

Which is why Hobey has brought "Profunda" a raincoat.

With this lovely little fashion item on we finally get a look at Profunda.

… it looks like it might be a woman.

She isn’t happy to be there, and Hobey agrees. Street level is better, he says, but Profunda disagrees. Somehow the situation becomes a little ominous, but we cut back to Donald, wo is struggling with the after effects of waking up early.

In other words, he’s tired as hell. Rather than take a nap, he decides to go for a walk to wake up, impressing his nephews.

What is really going on is that the car comedy subplot is back.

The Duckmobile has been transformed into a truck, as Donald tries to find a place to put it.

First attempt: Make it look like a bus and park it among old, no longer in use busses!

Unfortunately, a bus is needed to transport a bunch of kids, and no one wants to risk a new bus on that, so the Duckmobile is not safe there.

Second attempt: Turn the car into a giant sign and hang it on a building.

That almost results in a 2000 dollar fine for hanging signs without permits.

All good things are three however, and The Avenger suddenly remember an old factory on the outskirts of town. A place called Century.

Clearly another attempt meant to fail. No way could this lovingly drawn palace of a factory be important.

There is a minor problem of car thieves running a chop shop there. Well, normally it would be a minor problem, but Donald isn’t dressed for this, so he can’t leave the Duckmobile. And then he manages to literally back himself into a corner with a bigger car about run over the Duckmobile.

Then a man appears and douses the bigger cars windows with something, causing it to veer of course and crash, saving the Avenger.

Nor this mystery man.

The car thief declares that this isn’t over, just wait until he gets some bigger weap- and then falls on his ass after the Avenger dumps oil in front of him. The thieves are defeated, and the mystery helper is gone.

The Avenger dumps the thieves at the police station, and heads for work. Still driving the Duckmobile, yes.

In the Duckmall locker room, Donald has brought snacks to work, which is remarked upon despite seeming like the sensible thing to me. Who goes a whole work day without eating, even if it’s a night shift?

He’s also brought the Avenger outfit in the thermos, thinking his superhero alter ego will be useful in catching the thieves. While he’s probably not wrong, this causes some problems.

I’m with the supervisor. The cameras are there for your safety too.

After spending the night changing back and forth between the two uniforms, the Avenger is about to call it a night, when finally, something happens. He asks security camera guy to check the hardware department, but everything looks normal there. If course, this means that when the Avenger gets there, the camera is hacked and the place is being robbed.

Homeless in Duckburg = hippies.

By Hobey and his friends. They think they’re saving Duckburg from… lots of things really. The Great Uniformator, who will force everyone to wear suits and ties, The Definite Winter that will freeze everything. Exactly how stealing screwdrivers and chainsaws are going to help with that is an open question, but Profunda will help them.

The Avenger takes down two of them easily, leaving Hobey to explain that they have to stop the Canceller, before it devours their memories.

The Avenger notes that they’re all terrified, but their fears make no sense, even less so because they’re all scared of different things. It’s almost as if they’re semi-coolflamed, but the Evronians are gone.

The Avenger lets them go, even more confused by the fact that none of them even suspects he’s going to follow them. Unfortunately, he loses them in the maze of the sewers.

As a side note, that seems like terrible security, to have a door with no alarms or anything just leading down to the really big sewers. How did this go unnoticed?

Fortunately, he then walks into a door with the text "Profunda Pipes" on it.

Behind the door, Profunda is upset that Hobey and friends revealed all the terrible things that might happen to a stranger. They defend themselves by telling her that the Avenger is the city’s protector and therefore on their side. The Avenger takes this as his cue, and enters.

Which is when things get weird.

Nope, not unless Everett is also a shapeshifter, because Profunda just lost like a meter in height here. You know, aside from the other obvious reason.

"Everett" orders Hobey and gang to attack the Avenger, and they reveal themselves to be droids. The Avenger backs off, telling them to do the same, when he walks into something.

My friend, your issues are about to become books.

One is looking somewhat zombie-fied and "Everett" says he needed an ally, so he reprogrammed it. One suggests the Avenger surrender so they can reprogram him too, at which point the Avenger bolts.

There’s only so much a guy can take, okay?

The Avenger finds a tunnel leading straight up, and into his basement. The Avenger says he thought that entrance was closed, but «Everett» notes that it obviously wasn’t. The Avenger appears to panic, but instead wakes up in Duckmall’s boiler room.

Still caught up in the illusion, he realizes that if he led "Everett” and the other to his basement lair, then he led them to his home, where Huey, Louie and Dewey are.

Keeping your priorities straight for once.

On his way out, he runs into Bloom, but claims to be too distraught to give a report and runs off.

Meanwhile, Angus is having a bad day. It turns out that Ducklair Enterprises won’t put up with his crap, and has banned Angus from coming to their press conference. The can send anyone else though.

Editor Dan has sides with Ducklair Enterprises, because this is unsurprising and Ducklair is their landlord. Lyla is going instead. She tells Angus to calm down, these things are pretty standard after all. Nothing surprising will happen.

Then she gets a phone call from someone asking for a favor.

Upstairs, Everett appears to have hired Dragonball Z fans to stand guard so that only people who were invited can get in.

I like how the other people here looks like they’re taking notes and laughing.

Lyla has brought her invitation, but unfortunately, she can only bring one camera man. This leads to poor Camera 9 being confiscated, AKA forced to wait outside.

The other cameraman turns out to be the Avenger. Lyla takes the camera from him, and puts it to record automatically. Not as good as a real cameraman, but better than nothing. Not that it matters, Lyla says, basically repeating her earlier statement about press conferences being standard affairs.

The Avenger tells her to wait before she says that.

Everett decides to take this moment to begin, introducing Birgit Q and Anymore Boring, who’ll help him transform the city-

-into a smoldering pile of ruins, finishes the Avenger.

I keep cracking up at the “why?”, I can just hear the exasperated tone so clearly in my head.

Everett threatens to have him kicked out, but the Avenger laughs at this, the way someone who thinks they have all the power, but no humor does. It gets worse if you note the tiny star-shaped lines floating around his head.

The DBZ security respectfully, and slightly terrified, points out that a) the Avenger is a hero, and more importantly, b) if the Avenger doesn’t want to go they can’t make him.

If I were Everett, I’d keep these guys around. Like, observant, smart enough to know when they’re out of their depth and capable of making that clear? As far as security in comics go, these guys are elite.

Everett figured, so he brings in the droids.

Normally, they don’t need to be.

Except that the Avenger knows all their weaknesses, despite never having seen them before. He also makes one fall out through the window. Hopefully the sidewalk is empty, but at this point people are probably very careful when walking part the tower. Weird shit happens there.

Everett says that someone has taught the Avenger his robots weak points, and the Avenger says "maybe". And maybe that person suggested the Avenger didn’t drop by empty handed. The Avenger brings out a device that Everett recognizes and immediately goes from sort of smug to serious, asking who gave the Avenger that.

Logic bomb in three, two...

Profunda did. The Avenger has a minor moment upon saying this, and it now becomes impossible to ignore that he’s acting weird.

Everett tries reasoning with him, and at this point I am really wondering what their in-universe audience is thinking, because this sounds kinda personal. Reasoning fails however, and the Avenger activates the device.

Logic bomb FAIL. Everett is no Captain Kirk.

Everett tries to grab it, calling it a panic resonator and people around the freak the fuck out. Lyla shouts out a warning about trampling, but thankfully everyone collapses before they can rush the door.

The Avenger, having snapped out of the trance, asks what is going on. Everett explains that the devices causes people to panic, then feeds of that panic, using it as fuel, and then makes the panic stronger, feeding off that, and on and on. The Avenger has to destroy it.

Someone’s gonna go blind at this rate.

The Avenger fails, and the intensity of the panic waves has started affecting the tower itself. It’s going to collapse.

The Avenger freaks out, and Everett can’t even manage to let go of the device as it’s started to mess with his nervous system. That said for people who supposedly can’t do anything to destroy this thing they sure manage to do a lot of talking. Like, a ridiculous amount of talking.

While they’re busy talking themselves to death, Lyla steps in.

Hey, Everett, do you think maybe having an AI that controls the entire building and various robots around might have been useful here? Just wondering~.

Droids 1 - Biologicals 0. Sure took your time though! How big is this room?

Lyla helps the Avenger up, while Everett, still on the ground, but now angry, activates more robots. The Avenger leaves, not in any shape to deal with that.

Everett tells Lyla that out of gratitude, he won’t ask any questions. For now.

Later, Angus is in heaven. Turns out that the camera Lyla set on automatic recorded everything. Camera 9 gets all the credit, and it’s nice to see that he’s still an ally since we won’t get much, if anything, of him in this series.

This means that Angus’s biggest problem is who to blame? The Avenger, as usual? Or Everett, since he’s already laid some groundwork for that?

Lyla isn’t pleased, as the situation could have ended badly. Which, yeah, when the only reason the place is still standing is a droid from the future who technically shouldn’t even be around anymore… that’s luck.

Back home, Donald has made sure that the basement entrance is now sealed for good. He’s not sure he imagined absolutely everything, and he can’t put aside the suspicion that Everett really is Profunda.

And in Ducklair Tower, Everett is once again checking on his daughter. This time, however, something that might have slipped the audience’s mind last time is made very clear.

Some small hints about Profunda’s identity here.

There are two capsules.

And one of them is empty.

Well, that certainly explains why the alarm went off in the PKN series finale. So yeah, issue #2, best summarized as more mysteries, heavy hinting and Lyla is back.

#PKNA #duck avenger #PK2 #comic review #sort of #for fun

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riichardwilson · 5 years ago

Text

Why Collaborative Coding Is The Ultimate Career Hack

About The Author

Bobby is a software developer at Flourish and a fan of data-driven storytelling. He loves no-code tools that help people tap into the web’s creative potential. … More about Bobby …

Whatever stage you’re at in your career, coding collaboratively is one of the best uses of your time. With remote working on the rise, there’s never been a better time to practice pair programming and embrace Agile development.

Perfect Pairing

In theory, it was simple. In practice, not so much.

The pair programming feedback loop (Large preview)

“All the brilliant minds working on the same thing, at the same time, in the same space, on the same computer.”

— Woody Zuill, Agile Coach and Mob Programming Trainer

Sometimes, ten heads are better than two. (Large preview)

Resources And Further Reading

Engineering Empathy

It wasn’t until I started reviewing other people’s code that I realized I needed to show a lot more empathy for the people reviewing mine.

— Tom Preston-Werner, GitHub Founder

Resources And Further Reading

Agile Achievement

Entire books have been written about Agile, but here is a summary of the core concepts:

A product development team breaks down large pieces of work into small units called ‘user stories’, prioritizes them, and delivers them in two-week cycles called ‘sprints’.

For as long as the project continues, the cycles repeat, and new product requirements get fed into a backlog of tasks for future sprints.

The team holds daily standup meetings to discuss their progress and address any blockers.

The process is both incremental and iterative: the software is built and delivered in pieces and refined in successive sprints.

A typical Agile workflow (Large preview)

Resources And Further Reading

Remote Collaborative Coding Tool Recommendations

In that spirit, here are some tools that can help you and your team code collaboratively from afar:

(fb, ra, yk, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/why-collaborative-coding-is-the-ultimate-career-hack/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/616321323350851584

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laurelkrugerr · 5 years ago

Text

Why Collaborative Coding Is The Ultimate Career Hack

About The Author

Bobby is a software developer at Flourish and a fan of data-driven storytelling. He loves no-code tools that help people tap into the web’s creative potential. … More about Bobby …

Perfect Pairing

In theory, it was simple. In practice, not so much.

The pair programming feedback loop (Large preview)

“All the brilliant minds working on the same thing, at the same time, in the same space, on the same computer.”

— Woody Zuill, Agile Coach and Mob Programming Trainer

Sometimes, ten heads are better than two. (Large preview)

Resources And Further Reading

Engineering Empathy

It wasn’t until I started reviewing other people’s code that I realized I needed to show a lot more empathy for the people reviewing mine.

— Tom Preston-Werner, GitHub Founder

Resources And Further Reading

Agile Achievement

Entire books have been written about Agile, but here is a summary of the core concepts:

A product development team breaks down large pieces of work into small units called ‘user stories’, prioritizes them, and delivers them in two-week cycles called ‘sprints’.

For as long as the project continues, the cycles repeat, and new product requirements get fed into a backlog of tasks for future sprints.

The team holds daily standup meetings to discuss their progress and address any blockers.

The process is both incremental and iterative: the software is built and delivered in pieces and refined in successive sprints.

A typical Agile workflow (Large preview)

Resources And Further Reading

Remote Collaborative Coding Tool Recommendations

In that spirit, here are some tools that can help you and your team code collaboratively from afar:

Markdown EditorsHackMD The killer feature is that you can turn markdown documents into slideshow presentations with next to no effort. Borrows from the popular reveal.js library.StackEdit A collaborative online editor with a clean UI and lots of file export options.Code EditorsCodeSandbox A fantastic collaborative cloud-based code editor that you run in your browser, with no installation needed.Live Share A neat extension for the popular Microsoft Visual Studio Code editor that supports real time editing and debugging of files inside the same workspace.Video Conferencing SolutionsGoogle Hangouts Superb Google Calendar integration makes it a cinch to schedule video calls.Microsoft Teams Video conferencing software that offers really good call quality (1080p video), and supports up to 250 simultaneous participants.

(fb, ra, yk, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/why-collaborative-coding-is-the-ultimate-career-hack/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-collaborative-coding-is-ultimate.html

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scpie · 5 years ago

Text

Why Collaborative Coding Is The Ultimate Career Hack

About The Author

Bobby is a software developer at Flourish and a fan of data-driven storytelling. He loves no-code tools that help people tap into the web’s creative potential. … More about Bobby …

Perfect Pairing

In theory, it was simple. In practice, not so much.

The pair programming feedback loop (Large preview)

“All the brilliant minds working on the same thing, at the same time, in the same space, on the same computer.”

— Woody Zuill, Agile Coach and Mob Programming Trainer

Sometimes, ten heads are better than two. (Large preview)

Resources And Further Reading

Engineering Empathy

It wasn’t until I started reviewing other people’s code that I realized I needed to show a lot more empathy for the people reviewing mine.

— Tom Preston-Werner, GitHub Founder

Resources And Further Reading

Agile Achievement

Entire books have been written about Agile, but here is a summary of the core concepts:

A product development team breaks down large pieces of work into small units called ‘user stories’, prioritizes them, and delivers them in two-week cycles called ‘sprints’.

For as long as the project continues, the cycles repeat, and new product requirements get fed into a backlog of tasks for future sprints.

The team holds daily standup meetings to discuss their progress and address any blockers.

The process is both incremental and iterative: the software is built and delivered in pieces and refined in successive sprints.

A typical Agile workflow (Large preview)

Resources And Further Reading

Remote Collaborative Coding Tool Recommendations

In that spirit, here are some tools that can help you and your team code collaboratively from afar:

(fb, ra, yk, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/why-collaborative-coding-is-the-ultimate-career-hack/

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contrastbalance · 8 years ago

Text

i’ll make a mix for u

We didn’t have a PC in or around the house until I think 2003, this coincided with me starting to make friends, who skated constantly and when I was starting to appreciate the music my dad would play, his eclectic (deep-rooted claptrap in all areas) mix would quickly form my own pointy ears into arrows. The early favourites that stuck around were OutKast, the Hives and of course Busted, whose Glasgow stop would afford me the confounding opportunity to see my first memorable nipple.

My introduction to music led me to act in the same way I do now, forcing people to listen to whatever new thing I find and sort-of like while staring at their unabating reaction with a clipboard. The local skatepark was kind of a daycare young delinquency deterrent that didn’t always work – when weather wouldn’t permit us to travel there the indoors would host some of the fascinating acts we’d grown from startled by to adoring in Toy Machine’s Jump Off a Building. It was an early glimpse at future Jackass and Glacier Mafia ragdoll Bam Margera, who’s definitely one of those people you look back upon to say “I used to think he was admirable and innovative, but he’s really just a yapping penis that landed in a tea cosy, lurging sideways like some kind of undead crab inside a car being illegally exported that’s falling into the sea.” That’s the view I currently channel, but at the time it was great to watch him punch his friend in the Scarface suit on the bed and drive through roadsigns. Also the tracklist was an eclectic marvel of the American Pie era, ranging from Gorguts to DJ Krush to Janis Joplin.

If you were to look at lists of skate video titles alongside a list of modern streetwear brand names and mission statements you would see an undeniably morose link. The corner of Melrose and North Fairfax is prime ground for prominent streetwear in the Western world and also the approximate origin of Illegal Civilisation. Now 20, Mikey Alfred started IC as “strictly just a skate crew, it was like me and a bunch of my friends from North Hollywood”, he says in an interview with Ride Channel. His creation transformed into involving more youth from around Southern California and extended to now renowned Nakel Smith, a close confidante of Odd Future whose leader Tyler, The Creator he introduced Mikey to. In 2013 he was given the opportunity to be a reserve videographer for tour vlogs, which led to travelling with the collective’s offset dark horse Frank Ocean, starting just two days after the film-makers high school graduation. Then last March Alfred filmed his first high quality release, a short film with Fader – his stab at Larry Clark/slasher/political territory.

I’m absolutely not saying the skate videos aren’t high quality in their own way. Illegal Civilisation 2 is an hour and fourteen minute compact look at the challenges of skaters even in serene Californian backdrops – including interaction with law enforcement and less than tolerant members of the public, possibly life changing injuries, confrontations with other skaters and seemingly inside jokes that are still hilarious on the surface. All of the youthful indulgence is captured with graininess and features an impossibly eclectic tracklist – Gary Wilson, Patrice Rushen, Lil Herb, The Sylvers, Suicidal Tendencies.

In another collaboration with Fader this time an Everything You Need To Know interview, he declares his love for gangster films and states that he’s seen the Sopranos “maybe 5 times, the entire 6 seasons through. I think I like it so much, because it’s sort of like skating – it’s like this group of friends – they all believe in the same thing. It’s all about respect, the clothes, the music, the aesthetic of it…”

The comparison is due, judging by some of the situations and acts performed do seem to overlap. One guy that’s present throughout a lot of the skate installments and the short film was Escobar Rich. He’s the pro skater, model and incarcerated Blood member that you probably wouldn’t expect someone like Mikey – dressed somehow accordingly as a retirement home golf instructor, placing emphasis on always wearing dress shoes and his propensity to keep his house intricately tidy, accentuating domesticity with jazz – to keep company with. But heavy contrast in all matters including walks of life is something that someone who is a skater and artist in technicolour circumstances thrives off.

He’s spent business time around Kanye and Lil Wayne, also contributed to Frank’s Blonde – contacts, incline and possibly inspiration come from his self professed idol Tyler, The Creator who himself has shown high levels of eclecticism in being a musical and increasingly media revelation. He achieved a ridiculuous amount of attention and scrutiny for his debut Bastard released on Christmas Day on his last year in high school. The lyrics’ explicit nature and the resurgent paradigm of angst religious in California every 20 years drew attention until around 2012, when Okonma’s focus started to aim more at visual output, claiming disillusionment with rapping, the perfect time for he and Alfred to cross paths. Throughout all the turmoil, spectators both in listener and journalist form would make assumptive claims about the young man’s mental health, often making reference to bipolar disorder.

To date his only non-lyrical statement about his, or lack thereof mental health was in an interview on his Golf Media app with Andrew “Noz” Nosnitsky about his late 2014 mental breakdown due to his dismay about his rising star and sometimes loneliness.

Bipolar disorder could probably be diagnosed partly using the sequence of music someone plays. Psychologists have debated since the dawn of ears how sounds have been able to induce such strong feelings in listeners, pre-drink playlists or on the way to work included. Of the cases that are diagnosed, more than half are before the age of 25 impacting last parts of education, entry to the heated pitch rabbithole of employment and character building social circumstances. I’ve had quiet after the storm moments of parental scorn partitioned with the reminiscences “I was the same” and “but now it’s more like” to shine spotlights on raised awareness finding itself into Twitter bios, more importantly becoming far less taboo in casual conversation. The alternate (former) dad quote shows that much of consumption is the same, and there’s hand me down styles and exact same bands that do nothing but fuel your mental car of driving past a dead animal then reversing over it.

With growing awareness, the other age-old link between creating and loss of mental wellbeing is being increasingly pulled open, psychologists from different parts of the world having extremely different opinions and quoting extremely different statistics, but many leaders in their field see consistent results after researching particularly bipolar disorder.

Renowned American clinical psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison has been making contributions to understanding of recurring depression but more heavily of bipolar disorder, which she had diagnosed at 17. She believes there is a clear link between backgrounds of creatives and the likelihood of difficulties in controlling their disposition. In an opinion article for CNN she writes; “Mood, temperament, behavioral and cognitive factors associated with bipolar illness can, in some people, make them more creative by increasing the fluency and the originality of their thinking, as well as by increasing risk-taking, ambition, energy, exuberance and a desire to create meaning from suffering and chaos.”

Also: “In the past five years alone (now seven) there have been four large studies – one that reported on 20,000 individuals and three others, each of which studied more than 700,000 individuals – that found that those with bipolar illness were disproportionately likely to be overrepresented in creative occupations; so too were their first degree relatives.” She states she found the same for those with relatives diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Even Skins indirectly acted as a pre-injunction of the psychological dangers of living like your favourite musician, detrimentally replacing or altering all of the fundamental human needs with variations of awareness, and awareness only hurts in the short-term. Tumblr fave Pete Wentz wants to open up conversation about mental health, he told HuffPost; “I think that the idea there’s a ‘one-size-fits-all’ is one of those myths. Everybody figures themselves out in a different way. And I think there’s no shame in talking about that kind of stuff. It’s not something you should feel scared talking about.”

Sweden is a country that has long placed importance on putting effort to owning a healthy mind, with one in three of the country’s living inhabitants having suffered from mental illness at some point.

Simon Kyaga is a Swedish psychiatrist and researcher whose mind is made up on the matter. In his report (Kyaga S, et al., Mental illness, suicide and creativity: 40-year prospective total population study, Journal of Psychiatric Research – 2012) he concludes; “This Swedish total population study suggests, except for an increase in bipolar disorder, are not more likely than control to suffer from psychiatric disorders in general. Further, the results indicate a familial association with overall creative professions for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anorexia nervosa and possibly autism.” A country like this knows all too well about suicide and how much less romantic that makes instability, and how offensive it is so people that carry these disorders as artists – it ignores greatly varied imagination, technical skill and bravery.

Music therapy ranges from between past-time to something you can get a degree in and win awards for. Of all the institutions using music where prescription drugs can’t quite reach or help at all, none are more influential than Nordoff-Robbins. American composer Paul Nordoff met British special needs educator Clive Robbins at Sunfield Children’s Home in 1954. Both had previously studied and involved themselves in Steiner’s thinking and practice of Anthropology – quickly after meeting they would be instructed by Dr Herbert Geuter to play some music to one of the worst affected patients and observe what happened, both were amazed at the new alternative method of treatment.

The pair would keep in touch after Nordoff left the home, and when he returned in 1959 they had enough field research in place to ingrain the practice they had thought up into the home’s treatment schedule. It required a team effort from a trained musician and likewise therapist to construct formulaic rhythms and sounds to relax the patients with the goal of improving their all-round awareness and discipline. Part of the new method’s possibility was how intricately the pair recorded the results.

This would contribute to the decision of Nordoff to leave the facility the next year, prompting Robbins to tour the world with him for 17 years to showcase the leaders in the therapy field right up until the former passed away in 1977. To this day Nordoff-Robbins is by far the biggest music therapy charity in the UK and debatably the world, even everyone’s most sought after scrotum-to-face surgery donee Andrew Lloyd-Webber set up a foundation with the charity on the grounds of the BRIT School in 2009, placing music therapy in close quarters with the highest ranks in the music industry and bolstering availability.

There is an increasingly different array of expectation of musicians. There’s more attention than ever given to the creators when they step out of the studio or off the stage and sometimes it’s slap bang into an interview. Having done a smidge of musician/industry component interviews myself you start to evaluate yourself personally. I’m a sickening guy really, I love stomach churning moments and sadly I’ve not had any in journalistic correspondence but I have my hopes. Part of the motivation is being a really big fan of someone in some way and trying to be the guy to extract some relatively groundbreaking material – any advice forum you could read say ‘don’t expose yourself as some incoherently blubbering farming fuck of a fan.’

Part of the self evaluation is trying to figure ways of bobbing and weaving past people you couldn’t possibly compose yourself in front of. If someone told me I’d be interviewing Zoe Kravitz I would start speaking in tongues immediately, and when the interview would take place and as she walked in all of my clothes would somehow fall off, I would cry petrol then throw a box of matches at her as hard as I could. Not yet. On a more integrative note, a hero I would’ve preferred to leave unburdened by my presence would’ve been Lou Reed.

There’s cases requiring considerations to make before interacting with an artist, other than them being a short guy from the Lower East Side of New York. Their short-term mental state could be affected by busy touring schedules with lack of downtime and taking them away from personal affairs, but may also provide the opportunity to have the meeting in the first place. Bad moods happen, so do long term mental illnesses.

Brian Wilson is a notoriously difficult interviewee for other reasons. He’s maybe the least confident person to achieve what he has, due largely to the relationship with his father, who would pay for great studios for him and the band, but would maintain overbearing dance mum duties as a form of control freakishness – the only accounts of him being in any way a pleasant domestic presence were with a musical backdrop. Brian’s first documented misplaced foot on the tightrope of stardom would be cutting down touring duties in 1964 following a panic attack, a direct result of the workload his new found success afforded him. After the legendary Pet Sounds, which Wilson almost exclusively composed, arranged and recorded he began noting auditory hallucinations, also after he had maintained a steady relationship with psychedelic drugs.

A daily struggle contending with the derogatory voices in his head would remain untethered until he started to receive treatment 15 years late, when he was finally diagnosed with bipolar schizoaffective disorder. With erratic musical releases for his whole career, the style and content of his public appearances in the form of interviews and private life cohorts are the only way to get a look at his progress in a linear fashion.

The largest clump of interviews take place in the mid-seventies, after his band-mates and team had supposedly helped him curb the right-to-the point pulls of coke and heroin – but much of that hope splattered on passers by, due to Wilson ending many of these interviews with trying to extract narcotics from any of the journalists and officials in the room. His seemingly rising desperation was made all the more ribcage-collapsingly clear by the fact the Beach Boys hadn’t reached the same peak of group of household hits from the previous decade by a long way. If the band were a decade long project then, the 1980s would be the expected time for him to enter into the realm of Real Husbands of Huntington Beach. His public appearances were shadowed by the soon-to-be disgraced Eugene Landy. He was living up to the retirement expectations of indulging in the material gold-ish years, embodied in his rumoured plastic surgery and paying his supposed friend, “master” Landy $35,000 a month. In 1989 he had his therapist license revoked and it was told to the public that he had weaseled his way into being Wilson’s co-writer, producer, manager, business partner and financial beneficiary of all business he was involved in. After Wilson’s 1979 divorce, he would spend 16 years drifting as an unmarried housebound. He married Melinda 9 years after initially meeting, at that time Landy had previously put an end to the casual encounter.

With recent releases taking on varied forms of quality and campaign method, the real miracle is that Wilson is still in a kind of position to make music again, which he resumed in 2002 – after 35 years in a self inflicted wilderness that many took full advantage of and made life threatening.

He is one of many age old examples of boxing (sometimes physically) artists in. You’d find it difficult to find that any prominent modern artist that hasn’t been constantly compared to some mid-to-late twentieth century counterpart. Achieving artistic self-realization then commercial success can also take on political responsibilities when they represent marginalised groups and become viewing fodder based on varying guilt. I feel very lucky to not know what’s next, and advances in understanding mental health like bipolar disorder and anxiety can give space to people to mix things up.

I didn’t take or make any of the pictures. The header image is by Orchid Tapes.

#contrastbalance #eclecticism #mental health #creativity #bipolar disorder #music therapy #skate videos #illegal civilization #mikey alfred #tyler the creator #kay redfield jamison #pete wentz #simon kyaga #nordoff-robbins #brian wilson #music

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